BusinessMirror April 13, 2020

7K more PHL seafarers sailing for home

By Recto L. Mercene

C

RUISE ships from Australia, Italy, the Caribbean and the United States are steaming toward Philippine waters to bring home more than 7,000 Filipino seamen, in addition to the nearly 12,000 earlier brought home by the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of Labor.

It is estimated that the ships will arrive in Manila by the last week of April or mid-month of May 2020.

Major cruise operators Royal Caribbean, P&O Australia Carnival Cruise Line, Costa lines and Holland America Lines, unable to find for-hire airplanes, have decided to use their own ships to take back to the country an estimated 7,000 overseas Filipino workers.

This was announced by the

A BARANGAY volunteer sits next to a lockdown sign listing curfew hours on Batasan-San Mateo Road, which connects Quezon City and San Mateo, Rizal. BERNARD TESTA

ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS

2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year

respective cruise operators in social media, as they conceded difficulty in finding chartered airplanes due to the continuing suspension of flights amid the coronavirus pandemic. Chartering several big-body aircraft large enough to accommodate the thousands of repatriates is also hard, according to recruitment consultant Manny Geslani.

As of April 11, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) reported that it has welcomed more than 11,000 overseas Filipino workers—mostly seafarers—at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

This was carried out with cooperation from government sectors and the manning agencies who shouldered the airplane tickets for those who boarded commercial flights, or contributed to the cost of charter flights, according to Geslani.

100k seafarers in limbo

HE said the repatriated seafarers are only one-tenth of the estimated 100,000 Filipino seamen on board 150 cruise ships all over the world that were forced to cut short their operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“There are more than 90,000 seamen on board cruise ships sailing off the coast of the US, Europe, Australia and Asia. These are unable to dock due to health reasons cited by countries [where] they want to drop anchor, fearing shipborne coronavirus would infect their population,” Geslani added.

When countries across the world announced a complete lockdown of airports, seaports and highways in midMarch due to the pandemic, hundreds of cruise ships sailing in the high seas were told by their mother companies to dock at

the nearest port.

However, many of these ships were denied berthing rights. Some sought refuge in friendly ports and were able to unload their passengers and crews with expired contracts, non-essential crew or those who want to get off their ships to return home.

Those that could not find safe haven had no recourse but to resume sailing with thousands of crews still on board, the travel consultant said.

“Some cruise liners in Asia are sailing to Manila with 5,000 Filipino crews on board and will disembark most of them in Manila by third and fourth week of April 2020. Some of the crew members will get off in Cebu or Davao from Carnival ships, which are now on their way to the Philippines.”

Continued on A2

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018)

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

DATA CHAMPION

EXPERTS WEIGH IMPACT OF ZERO GDP GROWTH www.businessmirror.com.ph

n

Monday, April 13, 2020 Vol. 15 No. 182

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 16 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

BANKS EXTENDING RELIEF TO CLIENTS DURING LOCKDOWN

BANNERS with illustrations of frontliners are seen at the Eastwood Excelsior condominium in Eastwood City, Bagumbayan, Quezon City. Tenants and workers sang and clapped from their windows as their way of showing appreciation and support for those risking the most in the fight against the virus. NONIE REYES

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

B

THE Luzon-wide lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak has left many churches empty, including the National Shrine and Parish of Saint Padre Pio at San Pedro in Santo Tomas, Batangas, where priests decided instead to hold Masses online. People around the world are celebrating Easter from the safety of their homes in an effort to help arrest the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. ROY DOMINGO

T

By Cai U. Ordinario

HE latest government estimates of posting a zero GDP growth this year due to the coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) will lead to lower incomes and cost at least a year’s worth of efforts to reduce poverty.

The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and local economists believe that zero growth will be a setback to the country’s efforts to reduce poverty to 11 percent by 2022.

Last week, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez said in a televised briefing that GDP would contract by 1 percent or post zero growth this year.

“That’s Neda’s forecast, as-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.7010

suming [there is] no Covid-19 letup until yearend. Zero growth means real GDP standstill—same pie for more people, many of whom without work and income,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia told the BusinessMirror over the weekend.

“[Per capita income will be] lower generally. But of course, we have to forestall zero or negative growth with the right stimulus,” he added.

University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) Professor Toby Melissa C. Monsod explained that zero growth simply means the sum of goods and services produced last year will be the same this year.

While this may look harmless

at the outset, Monsod said given the population growth, this will ultimately mean lower per capita incomes for all Filipinos.

The Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) earlier estimated that the Philippine population is expected to post a 1.38-percent increase this year compared to 2019. This, in absolute terms, means an addition of 1.48 million Filipinos this year.

The World Bank estimated that based on 2018 data, the country’s GDP per capita was at $3,102.7.

This means, if the country’s real GDP was divided according to the population, each Filipino will have a GDP per capita of this much.

ANKS indicated their commitment to continue offering services during the extended enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period, waiving remittance fees and extending payment deadlines anew to ease the burden of customers.

In a recent statement, the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) said that it was doing its part in helping the government during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

“We will endeavor to operate in the same manner as we did these past three weeks of the enhanced community quarantine and trust the industry’s resiliency and the cooperation of all sectors to overcome this health crisis,” BAP said.

Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) said that all car and home loan maturities will be provided 60-day extension, while payments due from March 16 to May 15 will be deferred. Regular amortization payments, meanwhile, will resume on May 16.

Metrobank is also waiving fund transfer fees via InstaPay and PESONet until April 30.

“With the extension of the [ECQ], we want to help ease your worries about finances during these difficult times,” the bank added.

Philippine National Bank (PNB) is waiving remittance fees for cash transfers credited to PNB deposit accounts until May 8.

The waiver covers over-the-counter transactions done in overseas branches including Los Angeles, Guam, Singapore, Japan, Global Hong Kong, Canada (through PNB-Remittance Company Canada) and Europe.

Continued on A2

Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4662 n UK 62.5752 n HK 6.5403 n CHINA 7.1973 n SINGAPORE 35.6147 n AUSTRALIA 31.2622 n EU 55.2235 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.4879

Source: BSP (April 8, 2020)

News BusinessMirror

A2 Monday, April 13, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

EXPERTS WEIGH PHL ’20 pork output IMPACT OF ZERO seen at six-year low GDP GROWTH Continued from A1

“For the Philippines, this means losing some of the hardearned gains the economy has achieved in recent years,” University of Asia and the Pacific School of Economics Dean Cid Terosa told this newspaper over the weekend.

“Since growth rates are compounded over time, a zero growth rate means missed opportunities to raise production further, boost income higher, and create more and better jobs. It’s a harrowing economic event not only for developing countries but also for developed countries,” he added.

Unionbank Chief Economist Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion told the BusinessMirror the most dangerous part about having zero growth is the fact that the economy has been “frozen” and unable to generate sufficient jobs for Filipinos.

This is the same risk that the government took when it imposed a community-based quarantine.

The freezing of the economy, Asuncion said, entails fewer jobs being created and a number losing their current jobs.

With no or lesser incomes, Ateneo de Manila University Policy Brief, Ateneo Center for Economic Research and Development Direc-

tor Alvin P. Ang said the government’s poverty reduction efforts could be set back by at least a year.

Ang said, however, more data is needed to determine how much damage Covid-19 inflicted on poverty reduction efforts.

Reducing poverty means helping more Filipinos get out of poverty primarily through higher incomes.

Currently, the country’s poverty rate is at 16.6 percent, using 2018 data obtained through the Family Income and Expenditure Survey.

Sparkplugs

ECONOMISTS said efforts to boost the economy start with the government’s spending for various infrastructure projects, which is expected to cost around P7 trillion in the medium term.

The government’s infrastructure initiative includes 100 flagship or “game-changing” projects as well as over 4,000 projects included in the medium-term Public Investment Program (PIP).

Asuncion said the Build, Build, Build program of the government as well as other construction activities should continue or begin as soon as the situation allows it.

“Traditional consumption, as we know it, may take time to resume, but online retail and food should continue to rise. Interna-

tional travel may also take time but local tourism should immediately catch on,” Asuncion said.

“Car buying may increase as people may deem it safer than public transport, but I think, it would be the motorcycle or e-bike sector [that] may flourish instantly,” he added.

Monsod, meanwhile, said the “sparkplugs” that would re-ignite the economy’s engines would include food supply chain-related goods and services as well as agriculture production.

She added that back-end industries that support agriculture production, related manufacturing and processing would also provide the economy some boost post-Covid-19.

Further, Monsod said, industries that were involved in strengthening the production or delivery of health and medical services will also contribute to running the economy. “[We] can probably eliminate industries that rely on foreign demand [travel, tourism related], and consumption demand [retail] unless for necessary goods and services,” Monsod said. “Construction of course [would help] but more to augment/improve facilities needed to improve supply chains [as well as] transportation and telecommunications.”

T

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

HE devastation caused by the fatal African Swine Fever (ASF) on the local hog sector may pull down the country’s pork output this year to a six-year low of 1.45 million metric tons (MMT), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.

In its latest market projection report, the USDA estimated that the country’s pork output in 2020 could decline 8.5 percent from last year’s 1.585 MMT. Likewise, the USDA revised downward its 2020 pork output forecast for the Philippines to 1.45 MMT from the 1.475-MMT estimate in January to reflect the hog industry’s losses due to ASF. The USDA also lowered its global pork production forecast as a result of losses incurred by hog

industries in various countries struck by ASF.

The USDA projects global pork output in 2020 to fall to a 13-year low of 94.327 MMT. “The global pork production forecast is lowered by 2 percent to 94.3 million tons on lowered expectations for China where the industry struggles to recover from ASF,” it said in its report.

“Global production is forecast 7 percent lower year-overyear, largely due to reduced out-

put in China, Vietnam and the Philippines, all countries affected

by ASF,” it added.

Philippine pork consumption this year could fall by 4.26 percent to 1.729 MMT, the lowest in five years, while imports are expected to rise by 26 percent to 280,000 MT to plug the shortfall in domestic production, USDA data showed.

The Philippines has culled over 250,000 pigs to control the spread of the dreaded ASF, which has managed to find its way to provinces in Northern Luzon and Southern Luzon.

In its eighth follow-up report to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) last month, the Philippines said it culled 41,953 hogs in 69 additional confirmed outbreaks from January to February in Luzon.

This now brings the country’s total cull count to 250,877 pigs, about 2 percent of the estimated 12 million local hog population.

The number of hogs that were susceptible to ASF, as reported by the Philippines to the OIE as of March 26, has risen to 246,918 heads.

DRILON BACKS GOVT ASSET SALE TO FIGHT COVID, FILL BUDGET GAP

T

HE Duterte government was prodded Sunday to frontload a presidential proposal to sell marketable State assets in order to promptly raise additional funds needed to contain the deadly Covid virus and cut a ballooning budget deficit.

Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon suggested over the weekend that President Duterte’s economic managers mount a “speedy review of State assets that could be sold off immediately to generate funds for Covid-19 crisis and counter the growing budget deficit due to the pandemic.”

In a statement, Drilon recalled that just last week the President himself indicated readiness to sell government properties, citing as exampled the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Philippine International Convention Center—in a worst-case scenario where the government would need to raise billions more in funds to support sectors impacted by the pandemic and the lockdown.

“The President last week said he is ready to sell government properties as a last resort to get more funding for the people affected by the pandemic,” the senator said.“Let us turn this

DRILON: “There are ‘low-hanging fruits’ the government can immediately tap to provide the muchneeded resources for our country to survive this pandemic.”

Covid-19 crisis into an opportunity to better utilize government assets. Better utilization of these state assets is long overdue as a national policy.”

Drilon added: “As I said before, the government does not have to look far to raise additional revenues. There are ‘low-hanging fruits’ the government can immediately tap to provide the muchneeded resources for our country to survive this pandemic.”

He likewise listed the privatization of the gaming industry as an option. He recalled that during a Senate Committee on Finance hearing on the budget of the Department of Finance (DOF) last year, Secretary Carlos Dominguez III admitted that privatizing the gaming industry will yield around P300 billion in additional revenues yearly.

“We have an untapped ‘goldmine’ that can generate up to P300 billion in fresh revenues

yearly,” said Drilon. “I hope our economic managers will move faster on this this time, because the effects of Covid-19 pandemic will go beyond 2020.”

Warning that a widening budget deficit is expected as an aftermath of the pandemic, the minority leader cited concerns that the deficit, if not arrested early on, would adversely affect vital government programs, “including much-needed social and health packages that will suffer in the long run.”

Drilon recalled Dominguez himself saying the budget deficit is expected to increase anywhere between 3.2 percent and 5.3 percent, exceeding the government’s original target of 3 percent.

Citing the GOCC Governance Act that he authored, the senator noted that the law “allows the President to amend the charter of state-owned corporations, including Pagcor and PCSO, without going to Congress.”

Apart from privatizing the gaming industry, Drilon said “disposing of Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame can also help finance the budget deficit and generate funding for the Covid-19 response.” Butch Fernandez

7K more PHL seafarers sailing for home Continued from A1

Costa Mediterranea will sail from Italy to Asia starting on April 10, and will pick up other Filipino and Indonesian crews from Costa sister ships in Europe to deliver them to the Philippines by mid-May.

Geslani said that Costa Mediterranea, after disembarking crews in Indonesia and Manila, will proceed to Shanghai and arrive there by the end of May, “where it

will be stationed for the meantime with sister ship Costa Atlantica.”

Both ships have been acquired by China State Shipbuilding in a joint venture with Carnival Corp., the owner of Costa Lines.

Holland America Line will utilize the cruise ship MS Eurodam, to return the Indonesian and Filipino crew members back to their respective countries.

Before setting sail on this long journey, MS Eurodam will pick up the crew members from the cruise ships MS Maasdam and MS Westerdam. “All three ships are lucky they have no positive cases of Covid-19 among their passengers and crews,” he said.

MS Eurodam will leave Los Angeles on April 16 to sail to the Philippines and Indonesia, with their Filipino and Indonesian crews.

Banks extending relief to clients during lockdown Continued from A1

Remittance fees are also removed for transactions via Web Remit and Phone Remit channels for PNB Europe.

Mall-in remittance in New York and Japan is also under the waiver order.

PNB President and CEO Wick

Veloso said the bank’s recent move was necessary to help the economy coping on the impact of the Covid-19 impact.

“Waiving the remittance fees is a big help to our kababayans who send cash to their loved ones in our country…. So starting April 9, Araw ng Kagitingan, until May 8,

we would like to do our own simple part in helping them. They are our selfless heroes,” he added.

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) said it would also be extending free InstaPay and PESONet transfer offering via RCBC online banking platform until April 30.

The Nation BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Don’t export monkeys for research—activist

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

A

LEADING animal-rights activist and expert on veterinary medicine has appealed to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to reject applications for a special permit to harvest native monkeys from the wild.

Nedim C. Buyukmihci, speaking on behalf of the group Action for Primates, also asked the DENR to scrap the plan of allowing the export of monkeys for research and development purposes.

Buyukmihci wrote a letter addressed to DENR Assistant Secretary Ricardo L. Calderon after reading the BusinessMirror story titled “DENR official sees revival of native monkey farming amid global virus contagion.” In the story published on April 2, Calderon, the concurrent director of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), bared the plan to allow the capture of longtailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis spp. Philippensis) and allow its export for scientific research.

Instead, he said steps should be taken to prohibit people from activities that aggravate the situation.

Furthermore, he said removing animals, though it may result in a short-term reduction in animal numbers, is cruel and it fails to address the issue over a longer period of time.

“It has been shown to be largely ineffectual in reducing damage to human property and crops or in reducing the number of individuals long term,” Buyukmihci explained. “For example, despite the trapping and export for research of 10,000 vervet monkeys over a 14-year period in Barbados, this did not have the desired effect of reducing crop raiding, as the population of monkeys, remained stable due to the species’ high breeding rate.”

Considerable misinformation

IN the report, Calderon said the DENR-BMB plans to allow harvesting of the species after confirming reports of the spike in the population of the native monkeys in the island Municipality of Banton, Romblon.

Native monkeys are aggressive and potential carriers of deadly viruses like Ebola, the DENR said.

In Banton, there are already reports that monkey packs are starting to raid farms in desperate search for food. However, there are is still no report of an unprovoked attack on humans.

Calderon is eyeing a revival of monkey farms in the Philippines, especially because of an expected demand for live specimens by research institutions outside the country to develop cures to deadly virus and diseases in the face of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

ACCORDING to Buyukmihci, there is considerable misinformation about what diseases monkeys carry and which might be transmissible to human beings. He added there is very little likelihood that free-living monkeys could transmit any disease to human beings.

“It is more likely that they would become ill from contact with human beings rather than the reverse,” he said.

“The capture and removal of wild primates from their native habitats and social and family groups is, by its very nature, extremely cruel and inflicts great suffering and distress on the animals, as well as resulting in injuries and even death. The substantial negative impact caused by trapping and removal of wild primates from their natural social groups is universally recognized by relevant organizations and official bodies,” Buyukmihci added.

Moreover, citing the most recent entry on the IUCN Red List Category, Buyukmihci said that the Macaca fascicularis spp. Philippensis is listed as a “near threatened” species, with a decreasing population, and not a species of “Least concern” as earlier reported.

Unsound argument

Management plan

Potential carriers

AN Emeritus Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of California-Davis, Buyukmihci said in his letter that the DENR’s major justification that “there are too many monkeys creating conflict with people and that they spread disease” is not a sound argument.

“Conflicts arise primarily due to human population growth and an ever-increasing expansion into and destruction of wildlife habitat,” he said. “However, people add to the problem by feeding the monkeys thus reducing the monkeys’ innate fear of people.”

Buyukmihci added that it is not fair to blame the monkeys for a problem created by humans.

BUYUKMIHCI urged the DENR “to adopt an effective management plan that will deal with any human-macaque conflict in the community in a humane way as well as addressing some of the issues that are causing conflict, such as deforestation and inappropriate disposal of food waste.”

He said many countries, including India, Thailand, and Bangladesh, have taken a strong stance over the years in protecting their indigenous population of monkeys and refuse to allow their export for food and research purposes.

“Several of these and other countries have implemented successful methods of managing populations of wild macaques,” Buyukmihci said.

DBM has fully released ₧30.824-B fund to LGUs

By Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM

T

HE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said it has already released in full about P30.824 billion to local government units (LGUs) to help them better respond to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

According to the Local Budget Circular 125 released by DBM and dated April 7, the total share of municipalities from the so-called Bayanihan Grant to Cities and Municipalities amounts to P18.39 billion while cities should receive funds totaling P12.44 billion.

The release of the funds was confirmed to the BusinessMirror by Budget Secretary Wendel B. Avisado in a text message.

Avisado explained that the grant was released through Special Allotment Release Orders and Notices of Cash Allocation on April 8. This is equivalent to the onemonth Fiscal Year 2020 Internal Revenue Allotment share of cities

A

and municipalities.

To fund this grant, President Duterte approved the discontinuance of P30.824-billion worth of infrastructure projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Exclusive use

THE DBM said the grant should be exclusively used by cities and municipalities for specific Covid-19 related programs, projects and activities as well as related expenses.

These include the following: procurement of personal protec t ive equ ipment; Cov id-19 equipment, reagents and kits; medicines and vitamins; hospital equipment and supplies; and, disinfectants, sprayers, disinfection tents and disinfecting supplies and misting equipment.

The grant can also be used for the following: to cover food transportation, accommodation expenses of medical personnel and other local government unit personnel directly involved in the implementation of

Covid-19 related activities and expenses; food assistance and the relief goods for affected households; and, expenses for the construction, repair, lease and rental of space or building to accommodate Covid-19 patients and persons under monitoring or investigation.

Also covered are the following: expenses for the operation of standalone or mobile testing laboratory; purchase or rental of tents or spaces for temporary shelters of the homeless; and, training of personnel in the conduct of Covid-19 testing and other related training.

However, the DBM said the grant shall not be used for the following: any form of financial/ cash assistance; personnel services expenditures, such as salaries, wages, overtime, pay and other personnel benefits; administrative expenses; travelling expenses; registration or participation fees in trainings, seminars; purchase of administrative office, furniture, fixtures, equipment or appliances; purchase, maintenance or repair

‘Huge improvements’ in air quality noted as motor vehicle use lessened

A

IR quality in Metro Manila continues to improve amid the ongoing implementation of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon, which limited the movement of motor vehicles since March 17, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) noted.

Based on the DENR’s latest Air Quality Monitoring Data released, the air breathed in the National Capital Region (NCR) is much safer today than a month ago, or before the entire country was ordered placed under a State of Public Health Emergency due the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

This was attributed by the DENR-NCR air quality monitoring to the fact that public transportation was suspended immediately, while the movement of private vehicles was also drastically cut down.

Much of the air pollution in urban areas is carbon monoxide or half-burned smoke emitted by motor vehicles, which is being monitored by quality monitoring stations put up in strategic areas in the NCR. The Marikina City Hall Air Quality Monitoring Station noted that air pollution in the city decreased in daily particulate matter, or PM-10 concentration from 13 percent to 72 percent, with an average of 43 percent from March 15 to April 10.

In Parañaque City, Don Bosco Barangay Hall Air Quality Monitoring Station reported the decrease in daily PM-10 concentration ranges from 4 percent to 54 percent or an average of 22.6 percent.

The significant drop in air pollution in

Natl ID system tops must-do list post-Covid, lawmaker says LEADER of the House of Representatives has identified measures to be put on the priority under the post-coronavirus “new normal” scenario.

Deputy Speaker for Finance Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte said a must-do list includes the speedy and full implementation of the Philippine Identification System ID (PhilSys) project of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the National Broadband Program (NBP) of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

The lawmaker said the approval by the Congress of the “Bangko sa Barrio” bill is needed to widen the access to financial services of unbanked Filipinos, most especially those in remote villages without any branches of private or state-run banks.

According to Villafuerte, these measures will fast-track subsidies to poor and will avoid the repeat of the initial delay in the release of P200-billion worth of cash aid to 18 million poor families under the emergency subsidy program.

“We need to harness digital technology to bring people closer to their government, more so in the ‘new normal’ scenario after this Co-

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Monday, April 13, 2020 A3

vid-19 crisis where variations of modified quarantine and social distancing might become the way of life and the government will probably need to extend subsidies to preselected groups of families and certain business sectors whenever necessary,” he said.

Villafuerte, the lead author of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) could have easily distributed the cash aid if the PSA’s National ID project was already in place, as this identification system would have profiled the target households, including their respective home addresses.

He said Congress also needs to pass the “Bangko sa Barrio” bill so the government could deliver the cash to each and every family not only through traditional institutions but also through the bill-proposed authorized cash agents these institutions may use for the banking needs of people in areas where there are no bank branches.

The World Bank has estimated that 60 percent of Filipinos remain unbanked while the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that only 28 percent of Filipino adults own bank accounts, Villafuerte said. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Metro Manila was observed as early as a week after the quarantine was implemented.

The acceptable threshold standard level of PM-10 is 60 mass per unit volume (expressed as ug/Ncm).

Based on DENR Administrative Order 2013-13, the acceptable limit for PM-2.5 is 50 ug/Ncm for the short term 24-hour average level, and 35 µg/Ncm for the long term oneyear average level.

“We can see the drastic drop in numbers of PM-2.5 in Muntinlupa and Parañaque, and the drop in numbers of PM-10 in Las Piñas and Marikina. This explains why our sky now is clear and looks clean,” DENR Undersecretary Benjamin D. Antiporda said.

“The sudden stop of activities in many countries allows the Earth to heal from environmental degradation,” Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu said underscoring the upside of the lockdown. “The major cause of climate change, [which is] air pollution due mainly by mass transport energy emissions, is being abated.

The number 2.5 in PM-2.5 refers to the diameter in micrometers or micron of the fine mixture of minute solid particles and liquid droplets present in the atmosphere.

When inhaled, these can affect the heart and lungs.

PM-2.5 particles come from emissions of motor vehicles, fossil fuel power plants, and wood burnings, among others. PM-10 is typically from emissions of crushing and grinding machines and dust from cemented and dirt roads. Jonathan L. Mayuga

of motor vehicles; and, other programs, projects or activities not related to addressing Covid-19.

Biggest share

THE city with the biggest share from the grant is Quezon City, with P479.12 million, followed

by Davao (P462.05 million), Manila (P292.60 million), Caloocan (P265.36 million) and Zamboanga (P263.82 million).

On the other hand, the municipality with the biggest share is Rodriguez, Rizal, with P62.43 million followed by Cainta, Rizal (P52.96 million), Taytay, Rizal (P52.68 million), Silang, Cavite (P44.4 million), and Santa Maria, Bulacan (P43.86 million).

Cities and municipalities can use the funds for the duration of the State of Calamity declared by the President last March.

Funds that remain unutilized after the lifting of the State of Calamity shall be reverted to the National Treasury by the recipient cities and municipalities, the DBM explained.

Military shares promise of hope in Easter Sunday

D

EFENSE and military officials expressed hope the country will survive and recover from the coronavirus pandemic as they encouraged Filipinos to help each other in their Easter Sunday messages.

“We join our Catholic faithful in remembering Christ’s triumph over death. His resurrection and ascension to glory reminds us of the dawning of a new day brimming with hope, especially amid the suffering and challenges brought on by the pandemic we are now facing,” Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana said. “Indeed, this time is as good a time as any to deepen our faith and become bearers of light for our fellowmen.”

Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Felimon T. Santos Jr. said the message of Easter Sunday reminds Filipinos that they could conquer “whatever crisis and troubles that befall them,” and this includes the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are in a difficult battle. But what the resurrection and our faith tell us is that nothing is impossible. Now is the time to renew our strengths and share it with the afflicted and the uncertain, for we are all in this together and we will heal as one,” Santos said.

He said the military will continue to stand side by side with the country’s medical personnel in the battle against the disease, noting that more than 16,000 troops have been deployed to support the task force in the enforcement of community quarantine measures.

Some 250 military doctors, nurses and medical have also been deployed to quarantine facilities.

“As we are again reminded of our collective sacrifices, we continue to ask for the public’s cooperation, support, and patience in our fight and triumph against this pandemic. If the risen Christ be for us, then who or what can be against us? We are assured by His promise and we will prevail,” Santos said.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Navy (PN) through its Civil Military Operations Group assisted in the hauling, repacking and distribution of relief goods that have been donated through the Philippine Army. Rene Acosta

‘We Heal as One’ centers in Clark ready to accept Covid-19 patients

SHOWN here is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Convention Center in Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, which is among the six “We Heal as One” centers that are expected to provide treatment for admitted patients. These centers will start accepting Covid-19 positive patients with mild or no symptoms by April 13.

PHOTO COURTESY BASES CONVERSION AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (BCDA)

By Ashley Manabat | Correspondent

C

LARK FREEPORT—The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) announced its “We Heal as One” centers here

will start accepting coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) positive patients with mild or no symptoms by next week.

These include the Asean Convention Center in Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, which has 150 beds, and the National Government Administrative Center in New Clark City, Tarlac, which initially has 400 beds but will be expanded up to 1,000.

“That’s the kind of scale we are building to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the communities and decongest our hospitals so we can treat all patients in the best and most effective way possible,” Presidential Adviser for Flagship Programs and Projects and BCDA President and CEO Vivencio B. Dizon said.

All the facilities have air-conditioned cubicles with plug-in outlets, free food for patients and the medical staff, free Internet connection and round-the-clock medical assistance, according to Dizon.

“Frontline health-care workers assigned in these centers will be well-protected by providing them with the necessary equipment and supplies,” he added. “They will also be given proper accommodation in close proximity to the facilities.”

Other centers, which were completed in just one week or less, are the Ninoy Aquino Stadium and Rizal Memorial Stadium at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, the Philippine International Convention Center Forum Halls and the World Trade Center.

Next to be converted into quarantine facilities include the Philippine Arena in Bulacan, PhilSports Arena and Filinvest Tent.

A4 Monday, April 13, 2020 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Economy BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

‘Covid-19 pandemic threatens food security’

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

T

HE coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic is threatening food security as experts from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said lockdowns and restrictions on public transport are hampering food production.

In an Asian Development Blog, ADB Principal Natural Resources and Agriculture Specialist Hans Woldring and Principal Knowledge Sharing and Services Specialist

Susann Roth said the pandemic could cut food output in the next three to six months.

Woldring and Roth said the spread of Covid-19 has caused farm labor shortages since workers could not travel to farms, are sick, or busy taking care of family members who are ill.

“This will affect the timeliness of farm operations, and the ability to complete various farm operations. Fertilizer shortages are being reported as supply chains in the production and transport phases

are disrupted, and this will translate to a reduction in crop yields,” they said.

Supporting farmers and helping ADB�������������������������� ’s Developing Member Countries (DMC) achieve food security is crucial at this point given that protectionist policies have not been abandoned at this time.

Woldring and Roth said there are countries that are considering the implementation of rice export bans, similar to that in 2011. The authors said these export bans were responsible for the price

hikes that year.

They said these are just some of the risks that the region’s food and nutrition security will face. Woldring and Roth said “additional tensions” are expected to ensue in the coming months and years.

“While the focus of most governments is presently on health, financial and economic impacts, planning is required today to avoid higher food prices, impact on populations’ nutrition status and reduced food security,” they said.

To prevent price spikes and food

shortages, the experts are urging governments to focus on ensuring the supply of staple food products as well as fruit and vegetables.

Woldring and Roth also recommended the opening of countries’ borders and the regular revision of lockdown policies to ensure that transport links remain open, particularly for food processors.

To help farmers, the ADB experts said the government can extend bonus payments per ton delivered or have a matching grant programs for rapid adoption of proven and simple

farm drying and storage technologies to reduce losses.

The authors also said governments must prioritize policies and investments that would boost food production value chains to prevent any price hikes.

“Reducing shocks in the food supply chain will help contain food price rises and will be a lower cost solution than managing food shortages, higher prices and the risk of social instability.

The time to act is now, not later,” they said.

Lawmaker bats for ₧45-B wage subsidy for workers Group to Meralco: Waive

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie

T

HE chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means has proposed to President Duterte the implementation of a P45-billion wage subsidy scheme for 5.98 million workers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), sole entrepreneurs, and freelancers affected by the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

In a letter to the President, Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda said the Payroll Support for Workers, Entrepreneurs, and Self-employed (PSWES) Program will help small enterprises, and freelancers who will likely face financial difficulties in the weeks after.

Citing Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) data, the lawmaker said micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) employ around 4.1 million formal economy workers, saying some 380,000 entrepreneurs are sole enterprises.

Also, he said the 2018 Global Freelancer Insights Report showed that about 1.5 million Filipinos are freelancers, “together, these sectors have a combined work force of 5.98 million workers.”

“I wrote to President Duterte to recommend to him that we begin calibrating a wage subsidy program for small and medium enterprises,

as well as for those in the gig economy. We will need these enterprises to operate, so it’s essential for the economy and for job preservation that we lend them a helping hand,” he said.

According to Salceda, a payroll support program will likely be necessary to support MSMEs that will face liquidity issues in the wake of the ECQ, as well as their workers, who are at risk of being terminated if these MSMEs are unable to pay their wages and maintain operations.”

“Apart from supporting business, the program will also be able to provide relief to formal economy workers, entrepreneurs, and selfemployed individuals, who typically belong to the middle class.

Income support will also likely be necessary for freelancers and those in the gig economy who were unable to earn income due to the ECQ,” he said.

Salceda is proposing that the wage subsidy be distributed for three months.

“The average monthly minimum wage is around P9,500 per month.

We proposed a wage subsidy that covers around a quarter to a third of this amount. The cost of supporting their income, at P2,500 to P3,000 per month for two months, is P44.85 billion to P53.82 billion,” he said.

Under the proposal, the lawmaker said the subsidy will be

distributed via the Social Security System (SSS), assisted by the BIR and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for formal economy workers.

For freelancers, he proposed an open-application window similar to the Covid Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) of DOLE. “I’m also proposing that we couple the open-application process for freelancers with cost-free BIR and SSS registration. That way, they are able to see the full benefits of being accredited with the state, while also being able to contribute in future years when they are in better conditions. We will need to expand the tax base when this situation normalizes.

I think this will be a big part of that effort,” he said.

For her part, Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera underscored the importance of providing much-needed support to the country’s MSMEs amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, saying it would help preserve millions of local jobs.

“We should make sure that MSMEs are given whatever support they need not only to keep their businesses afloat, but more importantly, to prevent people from losing their jobs as we face an unprecedented public health crisis,” said Herrera.

Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Herrera

said that 99.52 percent, or 998,342 of the 1,003,111 business enterprises operating across the country in 2018 are MSMEs. The remaining 4,769, or 0.48 percent, represents the large enterprises, she added.

Of the total MSME establishments, Herrera said micro enterprises constitute 88.45 percent (887,272), followed by small enterprises at 10.58 percent (106,175) and medium enterprises at 0.49 percent (4,895).

Herrera said it was ”unfortunate that the Covid-19 pandemic leaves many small business owners and workers uncertain about their future.”

She also said it’s “a good thing the government is working proactively to help small businesses cope with the impact of the ECQ.” Herrera cited the P1-billion loan facility set up by the Small Business Corp., the financing arm of the Department of Trade and Industry, for MSMEs, which will be implemented once the ECQ is lifted.

The lawmaker has proposed a number of measures to support MSMEs amid the uncertainties brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. These include tax breaks, six-month moratorium on creditcard payments and bank loans, and a revamp of capital markets to allow smaller businesses easy access to capital.

Average price of live broiler still below production cost–Ubra

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

T

HE average farm-gate price of broiler is still lower than production cost even as retail prices in Metro Manila has remained elevated nearly a month after Luzon was placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

The latest price monitoring report by the United Broiler Raisers Association (Ubra) showed that the

farm-gate price of regular-sized broiler as of April 10 ranged from P43 per kilogram to P50 per kg. These figures were at least 30 percent lower than the cost of producing broiler pegged at P70 to P75 per kg.

Off-sized broilers were bought at P38 per kg to P40 per kg while prime-sized ones were sold at an average of P47.33 per kg, Ubra data showed.

The average farm-gate price of broiler fell after Luzon was placed under ECQ as stringent checkpoint protocols on the ground, particularly at the municipal

and barangay levels, hampered the trade of goods.

This was exacerbated by the drop in demand after food establishments and restaurants shuttered their operations.

The cut in demand for poultry meat came at a worse time as raisers are facing another year of glut caused by higher local production and inventory of imported chicken.

Despite the drastic decline in the farm-gate price of broiler, the average retail price of dressed chicken nationwide as of the second week of April remained unchanged—from P135 per kg to P180 per kg, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

In the National Capital Region, the average price of dressed chicken was triple the price of live broiler at P150 per kg, PSA data showed. The government, particularly the Department of Agriculture (DA), has intensified efforts to crack down on retailers that sell way beyond the suggested retail price of agricultural commodities amid the ECQ. Last week the DA has directed its regional offices to closely work with the Local Price Coordinating Councils (LPCCs) in monitoring supply and prices of basic food items and strictly enforce the SRP and “price freeze” policies in their respective localities.

Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar instructed the DA Regional Executive Directors to analyze the causes of price adjustments and to suggest steps to correct unwarranted price spikes and supply disruptions.

electric bills during ECQ

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

C

ONSUMER advocate Power for People Coalition (P4P) wants the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to waive electricity bills in contrast to the utility firm’s announcement of a power rate hike for April.

“Meralco should waive the bills of all households in its franchise area for the entire period of the quarantine and not just defer it. We must understand what will happen to middle- and working-class families after the quarantine under the current setup—they will be saddled with debt as they work to pay for rent and their utilities even as their jobs may no longer exist due to the recession sure to happen from the Covid-19 pandemic,” said P4P Convenor Gerry Arances.

Last Thursday, Meralco announced a P0.1050 per kilowatt hour (kWh) rate hike to P8.9951 per kWh this month from last month’s P8.8901 per kWh. This is equivalent to a P21 upward movement in the total bill of residential customers consuming 200 kWh. The power rate hike adjustment, Meralco said, was due to the normalization of the Universal Charge (UC) rate.

P4P urged the government to intervene and unilaterally waive all utility bills and rentals for all households for the period of the enhanced community quarantine.

“The whole nation should come together during this difficult time, and I don’t understand why some can make a profit while the rest continues to sacrifice. The effects of the quarantine seems to disproportionately burden frontliners who are battling the virus and trying to keep us fed, the working-class who suffer from the lack of work, and the middleclass who are denied relief while at the same time will absorb most of the cost through their taxes.

This doesn’t have to be the case when large resources remain frozen in large companies, resources which can be used to alleviate everyone’s suffering in this trying time,” said Arances.

He also pointed out that consumers should not shoulder the cost of mistakes made by energy companies, particularly in their reliance on imported fossil fuels, such as coal.

“Energy companies decided to use imported coal and policy-makers let them, despite its cost and destructive effects to health and the environment. Why then must consumers support Meralco when the company

itself has overcharged consumers several times and has yet to return billions of pesos in consumer money?” he said.

Meralco, for its part, explained that the slight adjustment this month is not due to an increase in the cost of producing and delivering electricity, but mainly due to the Universal Charge returning to its normal level following a one-time refund of P0.1453 per kWh in UCNPC Stranded Contract Costs (SCC).

Meralco’s invocation of the force majeure provision, however, helped temper the UC increase, reducing fixed charges for generation capacity that was not consumed.

The increase in UC resulted from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) directing Meralco last month to implement a P0.1453 per kWh rate reversal in UC-SCC representing collections in excess of the amount due to Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM).

With the one-time refund completed, UC normalized this April, with an increase of the same amount implemented this month as an effect.

The existing UC remitted to the government is used for electrification in off-grid areas, NPC’s financial obligations in excess of privatization proceeds, and watershed rehabilitation and management.

The increase in UC was tempered by the P0.0495 per kWh decrease in the Feed-In-Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) for April, as the ERC ordered a one-month deferral of the FIT-All in consideration of the current Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ).

Universal charges cover Missionary Electrification (UC-ME), NPC Stranded Debt (UC-SD), and Environmental Charges (UC-EC) and are remitted to state-owned PSALM. UC-ME funds the electrification of remote and unviable areas that are not connected to the transmission system, while UC-SD covers NPC’s financial obligations that are not covered by privatization proceeds.

UC-EC are used for watershed rehabilitation and management.

Meralco’s distribution, supply, and metering charges, meanwhile, have remained unchanged for 57 months, after these registered reductions in July 2015.

The company reiterated that it does not earn from the passthrough charges, such as the generation and transmission charges.

Payment for the generation charge goes to the power suppliers, while payment for the transmission charge goes to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

Solon backs grant of one-time ‘Bayanihan’ financial aid to local governments

S

EN. Christopher Lawrence Go echoed the sentiments of several provincial governors over the need to provide a one-time ‘Bayanihan’ financial assistance to provincial local government units (PLGUs).

Go has recommended to the Executive Branch that a one-time grant equivalent to half of the province’s one-month Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) can help further capaci-

tate PLGUs to respond effectively to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) situation in the country.

Go emphasized that PLGUs can ensure the readiness of provincial hospitals to handle the Covid-19 health emergency since they are in charge of funding, sustaining and enhancing the operations of these local health facilities.

But aside from ensuring that pro-

vincial hospitals are well-equipped to treat Covid-19 related cases, Go noted that PLGUs have additional roles to play in the fight against the pandemic which warrant additional government support.

“PLGUs play a crucial role in implementing the measures imposed by the national government to control the spread of the virus. It would be beneficial to the people if PLGUs

are also given additional funding to better respond to the needs of their constituents,” he said.

Go, together with various PLGUs, noted that provinces also ensure the successful implementation of the government’s enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) measure.

Among those who have expressed their sentiments in letters and messages addressed to the senator

were Camarines Sur Gov. Miguel Luis Villafuerte, Oriental Mindoro Gov. Humerlito Dolor, and Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba, among others.

In a letter from Villafuerte, the Camarines Sur governor mentioned that PLGUs provide food assistance covering all municipalities and component cities within their jurisdiction and on top of that, they also

provide financial support, shelter or quarantine quarters for stranded nonresidents as well.

Likewise, Dolor stated that provincial governments also take care of border protection to control the spread of the virus, provide food and maintenance for people in quarantine sites, and provide transportation and temporary dormitories for medical frontliners.

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Monday, April 13, 2020

A5

US becomes world’s deadliest hot spot as fatalities top 20,000

C

Pope Francis presides over a solemn Easter vigil ceremony in St. Peter‘s Basilica empty of the faithful following Italy’s ban on gatherings to contain coronavirus contagion, at the Vatican on Saturday, April 11, 2020. Remo Casilli/Pool Photo via AP

Pope: Easter gives hope despite fear

V

ATICAN CITY—Easter offers a message of hope in people‘s “darkest hour,” Pope Francis said, as he celebrated a latenight vigil Mass on Saturday in St. Peter’s Basilica, with the public barred because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pontiff in his homily likened the fears of current times to those experienced by Jesus' followers the day after his crucifixion.

“They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly,” Francis said.

"They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts. Pain was mixed with fear” about their own lives. “Then, too, there was fear about the future and all that would need to be rebuilt.”

Francis added: “For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour.”

Easter vigil Mass in the basilica is among the Vatican’s more evocative ceremonies. Celebrants enter in darkness, except for candlelight. The pontiff holds a tall Easter candle, which is lit for him. Then the basilica’s lights are turned on, in a sign of joy. But this night, when the basilica was illuminated, all its emptiness was painfully visible, and the footsteps of the pope and his small entourage on the marble floor could clearly be heard as they walked in slow procession toward the altar.

Francis encouraged faithful to sow “seeds of hope, with small gestures of care, affection of prayer.”

“Tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope,” Francis said.

Still, he acknowledged the difficulty of obtaining optimism, saying “as the days go by and fears grow, even the boldest hope can dissipate.” Describing the Easter message as a “message of hope,” Francis urged Christians to be “messengers of life in a time of death.”

During Easter vigil Mass, adults converting to Catholicism are baptized by the pope, but the pandemic containment measures forced elimination of that tradition during the ceremony.

Earlier on Holy Saturday, the Turin Shroud, a burial cloth some believe covered Jesus, and which was associated with a 16thcentury plague, was put on special view in a chapel in that northern city, through video streaming to inspire hope during the coronavirus outbreak.

Francis hailed the initiative by the Turin archbishop, saying making it visible meets the requests of the faithful who are suffering through the Covid-19 outbreak.

The linen, kept behind bulletproof glass in a Turin chapel, is shown to the public only on very special occasions.

In the 16th century, Milan's archbishop, the future St. Charles Borromeo, intensely desired to pray before the shroud while that city was ravaged by plague. The Duke of Savoy, in 1578, decided to bring the burial cloth of Christ from Chambéry, in France, to Turin, according to a Vatican account of that period.

Charles made the pilgrimage to Turin on foot, praying and fasting during the journey.

Skeptics say the linen bearing the figure of a crucified man is a medieval forgery. Believers regard it as one of Christianity's most awe-inspiring reminders of Jesus‘ crucifixion.

The cloth belongs to the Vatican, which has allowed its scientific testing. AP

HICAGO—The US death toll from the coronavirus eclipsed Italy’s for the highest in the world on Saturday, surpassing 20,000, as Chicago and other cities across the Midwest braced for a potential surge in victims and moved to snuff out smoldering hot spots of contagion before they erupt.

With the New York area still deep in crisis, fear mounted over the spread of the scourge into the nation’s heartland.

Twenty-four residents of an Indiana nursing home hit by Covid-19 have died, while a nursing home in Iowa saw 14 deaths. Chicago's Cook County has set up a temporary morgue that can take more than 2,000 bodies. And Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been going around telling groups of people to “break it up.”

Worldwide, confirmed infections rose to about 1.8 million, with over 108,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 400,000 people have recovered.

In Europe, countries used roadblocks, drones, helicopters, mounted patrols and the threat of fines to keep people from traveling over Easter weekend. With infections and deaths slowing in Italy, Spain and other places on the Continent, governments took tentative steps toward loosening the weeks-long shutdowns. Glorious weather across Europe posed an extra test of people’s discipline.

“Don’t do silly things,” said Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s special commissioner for the virus emergency. "Don't go out, continue to behave responsibly as you have done until today, use your head and your sense of responsibility.“ The outbreak’s center of gravity has long since shifted from China to Europe and the United States, which now has by far the largest number of confirmed cases—over a half-million—and a death toll higher than Italy's count of nearly 19,500, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The death rate—the number of dead

relative to the population—is still far higher in Italy than in the United States, which has more than five times as many people. And worldwide, the true numbers of dead and infected are believed to be much higher because of testing shortages, different counting practices and concealment by some governments.

About half the deaths in the US are in the New York metropolitan area, where hospitalizations are nevertheless slowing and other indicators suggest lockdowns and social distancing are “flattening the curve” of infections and staving off the doomsday scenarios of just a week or two ago.

New York state on Saturday reported 783 more deaths, for a total of over 8,600.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the daily number of deaths is stabilizing, “but stabilizing at a horrific rate.”

“What do we do now? We stay the course,” said Cuomo, who like other leaders has warned that relaxing restrictions too soon could enable the virus to come back with a vengeance.

With authorities warning that the crisis in New York is far from over, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city’s 1.1 millionstudent school system will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. But Cuomo said the decision is up to him, and no such determination has been made. In the Midwest, pockets of contagion have alarmed state and city leaders and led to stricter enforcement.

Nearly 300 inmates at the Cook County Jail have tested positive for the virus, and two have died. In Wisconsin, health officials expect to see an increase in cases

Sandy Brown touches the forehead of her late husband, Freddie Lee Brown Jr., after she cries over her late son, Freddie Lee Brown III (right) on Friday, April 10, 2020 at the Dodds-Dumanois Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Flint, Mich. Sandy Brown of Grand Blanc lost her 59-year-old husband, Freddie Lee Brown Jr., and her 20-year-old son, Freddie Lee Brown III, to the new coronavirus within days of each other. Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP after thousands of people went to the polls on Tuesday for the state’s presidential primary.

Michigan’s governor extended a stay-at-home order with new provisions: People with multiple homes may no longer travel between them.

In Kansas, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a dispute on Saturday between Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican lawmakers who overturned her executive order banning religious services and funerals with more than 10 people. New Mexico’s governor expanded a ban on mass gatherings to include churches and other houses of worship.

An AP tally from media reports and state health departments indicates at least 2,500 deaths have been linked to coronavirus in nursing homes and long-term care facilities across the United States, though the federal government has not been releasing a count of its own.

The Internal Revenue Service said the first economic support payments from a $2.2 trillion rescue package have been deposited in taxpayers’

bank accounts, but it didn’t say how many people received them or how much money has been disbursed so far.

Elsewhere around the world, Italian authorities set up roadblocks around Milan to discourage people from going on Easter weekend trips.

British police kept a close watch on gatherings in parks and at the seaside on one of the hottest days of the year. And France deployed some 160,000 police, including officers on horseback who patrolled beaches and parks.

With religious leaders around the globe urging people to observe Easter safely at home, the archbishop of Turin, Italy, allowed a video streaming display of the Shroud of Turin, believed by the faithful to be the burial cloth of Jesus, so that they can pray in front of it during the epidemic.

Pope Francis celebrated an Easter vigil Mass in an empty St. Peter‘s Basilica, where the footsteps of the pontiff and his small entourage on the marble floor could be heard clearly as they walked in slow procession toward the altar. Francis likened

coronavirus fears to anxiety felt by Jesus’ followers after his crucifixion.

“For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour,” he said, encouraging people to “sow seeds of hope, with small gestures of care.“ Austria aims to reopen small shops on Tuesday. Spain, with more than 16,600 dead, plans to allow workers in some nonessential industries to return to factories and construction sites on Monday. Spanish authorities said they will distribute 10 million face masks at major train and subway stations.

Italy continued to include all nonessential manufacturing in an extension of its national lockdown until May 3. But Premier Giuseppe Conte held out hope that some industry could re-open earlier if conditions permit.

Arcuri said that the exit from the lockdown will include increased virus testing, the deployment of a voluntary contact-tracing app and mandatory blood tests as Italy seeks to set up a system of “immunity passports.”

India extended its lockdown of the nation of 1.3 billion people by two more weeks. But Iran, the site of the worst outbreak in the Middle East, reopened government offices and businesses outside Tehran.

In Indonesia, inmates set fire to a prison on Sulawesi island during a riot, apparently angry over restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus. There were no reports of riot-related deaths.

Britain on Saturday reported 917 more deaths from the coronavirus, down from the peak of 980 recorded a day earlier. The country's overall death toll neared 10,000. At the same time, data suggest that the number of hospital admissions in Britain is leveling off.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the first major world leader confirmed to have Covid-19, continued to recover at a London hospital, where he was able to take short walks, according to his office. AP

U.S. asks Saudis to seal oil Make-or-break moment in virus deal as Mexico resists cuts battle could happen this week

T

he US stepped up pressure on Saudi Arabia to seal a historic deal to cut oil production as negotiations that President Donald Trump himself has brokered dragged on for a third day.

Talks aimed at ending a price war that’s savaging the US oil industry and threatening petrostates’ budgets continued on Saturday as Mexico and Saudi Arabia refused to budge. In an attempt to move negotiations along, a group of Republican senators from oil-drilling states such as Texas spoke to the Saudi oil minister by conference call.

“The Saudis spent over a month waging war on American oil producers, all while our troops protected theirs. That’s not how friends treat friends,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. “Saudi Arabia’s next steps will determine whether our strategic partnership is salvageable.”

Some Republican senators have raised the prospect of cutting off aid to Saudi Arabia if the kingdom doesn’t pare its output, and end the price war it started last month even as the coronavirus pandemic had already crushed demand for oil.

An unprecedented reduction of about 10 percent in worldwide crude output had looked all but certain, and Russia said it considered the deal done.

But Mexico balked at the terms, and talks with Saudi Arabia have since failed. Trump announced a potential compromise on Friday, but his diplomatic solution still hasn’t been accepted by all sides.

With Trump now personally involved, the stakes appear too high for the deal to fail. But even the US president acknowledged on Friday that he wasn’t sure if an agreement could be reached. “We are trying to get Mexico, as the expression goes, over the barrel,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Opec+ has made a commitment to cut a record 10 million barrels a day conditional on Mexico’s agreement. Most Opec+ countries back the Trump compromise, according to delegates, but Saudi Arabia and Mexico continue to negotiate bilaterally.

The survival of thousands of oil producers, millions of jobs and the economies of oil-dependent

nations are hanging in the balance as the global pandemic wipes out demand in a world awash with crude. Several US shale producers are on the brink of bankruptcy, Russia risks having no place to store its crude, and for all their low-cost production, the Saudis need higher prices to fund their budget.

Oil prices continued to plunge despite talks of a global accord. West Texas Intermediate crude slid more than 9 percent on Thursday, settling below $23 a barrel, on speculation that a deal to cut production would fail to keep the glut of crude in global markets from swelling as the pandemic paralyzes travel.

The Opec+ alliance initially met on Thursday via videoconference, followed on Friday by a virtual gathering of energy ministers of the Group of 20— while markets were closed. The talks on Saturday are largely bilateral between Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

Saudi Arabia insists that Mexico cut its production as much as everyone else, while Mexico has refused. Trump offered a compromise whereby cuts made in the US would count toward Mexico’s quota—but Riyadh objects.

Trump’s role

After its meeting on Friday, the G-20 said it would take “all the necessary measures” to maintain a balance between oil producers and consumers, but it made no commitment toward specific steps on production cuts. The communiqué was watered down from earlier drafts after diplomatic wrangling, notably removing language that said the group would do “whatever it takes” to ensure that the energy sector is contributing to the global recovery from the pandemic.

The Opec+ coalition, comprised of members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers including Russia, had been voluntarily curbing output since 2017. The alliance began to crumble last month when Saudi Arabia and Russia couldn’t agree on deeper production curbs in response to the virus crisis, triggering an oil-price war between Riyadh and Moscow. Bloomberg News

T

he world’s ability to check the coronavirus contagion and fully recover from the worst peacetime recession since the Great Depression may depend on what international economic policy-makers decide this week.

With emerging markets and developing nations facing health emergencies, collapsing demand and cash crunches, the guardians of the global economy are under the gun to ease the strains at this week’s video-conferenced meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

“It’s a make-or-break moment,” said former IMF chief economist Maury Obstfeld.

“This may be the greatest global crisis we’ve faced in the postwar period.”

Having all taken steps to support their individual economies, failure by the leading Group of 20 countries to now act together could consign the world to “reservoirs of disease” and trigger outward migration from poor countries on “a biblical scale,” said Obstfeld, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

A lack of forceful action could set the stage for damaging debt defaults and throw a roadblock in the way of any sort of robust recovery of the world economy. The dollar’s surge has been particularly painful for countries that ran up borrowing in greenbacks and which will now struggle to cover the loans, especially as their exports tumble.

If the emerging markets lag behind, “it means more of a U-shaped or an L-shaped kind of recovery for the US and global economies,” said Nathan Sheets, a former US Treasury official who’s now chief economist for PGIM Fixed Income.

While the US, Europe and Japan have opened up the monetary and budgetary

spigots to fight Covid-19 and its economic after-effects, many emerging economies lack the scope to do so.

Morgan Stanley economists predict that emerging markets, excluding China, will shrink 4.1 percent in the current quarter, a deeper dive than the 3.1 percent of the first quarter of 2009 when the world was last in crisis, though shallower than what’s expected in richer economies. They also estimated in an April 3 report that the peak rate of growth during the recovery for those economies will be 6 percent in the second quarter of 2021 versus 7.7 percent in the same period of 2010.

The problem is even more acute in the poorest nations, where many people can’t easily practice the social distancing and regular hand washing that has become derigueur in rich countries.

Such an environment leaves the IMF reckoning that emerging market and developing countries will need trillions of dollars in external financing to fight the virus, only part of which they can cover on their own, leaving gaps of hundreds of billions of dollars. Half of the international lending organization’s 189 members are already looking to it for aid.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is trying to rally the world into a unified display of support at the Fund’s semiannual meeting, which starts on Tuesday as a virtual gathering after the typical spring gathering in Washington was re-imagined.

“Today we are confronted with a crisis like no other,” Georgieva said in an April 9 speech.

“The actions we take now will determine the speed and strength of our recovery.”

There are questions, though, about whether the Fund has enough to counter

the crisis, especially if it proves protracted.

While the IMF says it has a $1 trillion war chest, Ted Truman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics calculates that the maximum amount available for new lending is $787 billion, after taking into account existing commitments and other factors. “The IMF will need more” from the US and the rest of the G-20, he said.

And it’s not just the amount of resources that are at issue. It’s what kind they are.

The crisis has exposed a gaping hole at the center of the global economy. There’s no ultimate lender of last resort who can provide the liquidity that’s demanded in a financial emergency.

Funds pulled

Some $62 billion was yanked out of emerging markets in the first quarter in a global dash for cash by investors, twice the size of outflows at the peak of the world financial crisis, according to the Institute of International Finance.

While there are signs that pressure is easing —Indonesia, for example, sold $4.3 billion of dollar bonds last week to help finance virus relief measures—there are risks the outflows could resume as the hit to emerging market growth becomes more evident, IIF analysts said.

The Federal Reserve has moved to partly fill the void, including opening up dollar liquidity swap lines with Brazil, South Korea and Mexico. Sheets said it should do the same with India, Indonesia and Chile.

The IMF also has to step up and be willing to set aside its traditional playbook for dealing with countries in trouble, in which it demands economic reforms in return for financial assistance. Bloomberg News

A6

Monday, April 13, 2020 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

Liberty and safety

I

N the past decades, a letter by American Benjamin Franklin has been quoted often: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

In the past few years, that quote has been analyzed in the context of the letter as written, Franklin’s position as a member of a state legislature and in terms of the context of the situation he was talking about. Those on the “Progressive”/left interpret it one way—that the legislatures must make difficult but necessary decisions even if the public objects to any infringement of its rights. Those considered “Conservative”/right say that Franklin was issuing some sort of “call to arms” against government damaging basic citizen liberties.

It really does not matter what was in Franklin’s mind when he wrote those words because the words themselves speak volumes, regardless of the context and “meaning.”

Since the beginning of humans assembling in tribes of unrelated families, there has always been a battle between the “collective good” and “individual freedom,” both defined in the broadest sense. Does a man have the right to urinate near the community water supply when nature calls? Does the government have the right to stop that same man from digging his own water well and urinate near it?

So we argue about the question of collective/individual safety as balanced with the collective/individual liberty.

We accept, even grudgingly, that it is in the best interest of both the community and the individual to have traffic laws that limit individual freedom. But it is almost always considered on a case-to-case basis. Should the state limit the sale of alcoholic beverages only to people above a certain age? The overwhelming majority of citizens would say yes. But should the state require that people of a certain age attend school under penalty of law?

We often label the ideas of individual freedom under the broad banner of “human rights.” Unfortunately, these rights and the balance of liberty and safety are like pornography, the definition of which is in the “eye of the beholder.”

The Covid-19 pandemic unfortunately has shattered what we thought was a clear separation of collective safety and individual freedom.

In the United States, you can drive your car to a McDonald’s drivethrough to get burgers and fries. But it is a crime to sit in your car in a church parking lot and enjoy your freedom of religion to worship.

Poland’s government developed an app where users are forced to upload selfie photos to prove that they are inside and not violating the lockdown. It is required for people returning to Poland from abroad to self-quarantine for 14 days. When the app requests a photo, users have 20 minutes to upload a picture from inside their home, or the police will come to the house.

In South Africa, police broke up a wedding that took place last weekend despite a nationwide ban on public gatherings in the South African state of KwaZulu-Natal. All 50 guests, plus the minister and the bride and groom, were arrested and hauled off to jail.

You might say that all of these measures are necessary in the time of Covid-19. But there’s no denying that basic freedoms—assembly, worship, speech, privacy, and more—are partially gone all over the world in the name of safety.

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

The age of online economy

P

It is obvious that we need to change the way we work to keep the economy running. We have to deal with the new challenges squarely and prepare adequately for the “post-corona” era, if we want to avoid sinking. The question now is this: “What can each organization and individual do to prepare for the economic challenges staring us in the face?”

As schools remain closed, online workshops, tutorials and classes are being offered to parents and students. Even artists have taken to the Internet to be able to hold intimate online concerts and performances.

People who never tried online conferencing before are now trying to learn how to conduct meetings via Zoom. It is obvious that while Covid-19 has definitely crippled our economy, the online business sector seems to be thriving and new

regimen at home, it’s healthier to stay home because we get to avoid outdoor risks and pollutants. The time that we used to spend preparing for work and commuting to and from work can now be spent resting or sleeping.

On the other hand, the pandemic has severely damaged the travel sector (airline, hotels, cruises), the stock market, restaurants and small businesses, and to a great extent, the transportation sector, of course.

Every single worker in any of these sectors is scrambling to make up for the losses and trying to think ahead to be able to strategize and plan for what’s to come.

It is obvious that we need to change the way we work to keep

Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

eople in the midst of community lockdowns and quarantines know this fact: one of the things keeping the economy alive is online selling via virtual stores and restaurants. Today we are having everything delivered, from fresh seafood and fruits to breads and medicines. We send packages and documents to family members and coworkers via courier/delivery services and logistics companies. People who stopped going to work are now finding earning opportunities from the comforts of their homes—some are baking cookies and breads, others are cooking dishes for sale. opportunities are opening up for everybody.

Let’s look at the bright side.

As we work from home, we get to spend more time for ourselves (for self improvement, hobbies, health) and our loved ones (playing with our kids, helping out with chores).

We get to save on food (restaurant outings), transportation (car booking expense, gas costs), and entertainment expenses (concerts and mall outings, shopping, etc.). And as long as we keep to our daily workout

The invisible war

I

How does one go about fighting an invisible enemy?

First, there are no rule books to begin with. All the things that we were told, the accepted protocols, are now being challenged. Therefore, we need to be ready to listen and assess our situation. In our case, take stock of our limited resources and build on what we have.

But it is in accepting that indeed we are blindsided in this new war that we can have the chance of surviving and getting out of this. I remember a movie where the Chinese martial arts hero has been temporarily blinded and has to adapt to the situation and to trust his instincts—not to win, but to survive. This is where we are in right now, and this should be the prevailing attitude that we should have—as individuals, as communities, and more important as a nation.

In doing so, we will have a better chance to see this through.

How does one go about fighting an invisible enemy?

First—there are no rule books to begin with. All the things that we

international “authorities”—the late declaration of global pandemic, the non-necessity of wearing masks, the delayed pronouncements on effective medicines, on the surface might be just what they are.

And therefore, thirdly, we need to be more discerning. We need to think twice about such pronouncements and see first and foremost whether it benefits us or not. We, Filipinos, have as much right to protect ourselves as the rest of the world. Let us discern deeper every time we are told or being given findings by international organizations. How can it be possibly acceptable that the way to fight this virus is just social distancing and washing of hands? That we do not need to protect ourselves with masks?

Fourth—we need to assess ourselves as Filipinos and accept that

✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Founder Publisher Editor in Chief Associate Editor News Editor

Jennifer A. Ng Vittorio V. Vitug Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Dennis D. Estopace Angel R. Calso

Online Editor

Ruben M. Cruz Jr.

Chairman of the Board & Ombudsman President VP-Finance VP Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Manager Group Circulation Manager

Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes Judge Pedro T. Santiago (Ret.) Benjamin V. Ramos Adebelo D. Gasmin Marvin Nisperos Estigoy Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Rolando M. Manangan

BusinessMirror is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines.

Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725. Fax line: 813-7025.

(Advertising Sales) 893-2019; 817-1351, 817-2807.

(Circulation) 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. E-mail: news@businessmirror.com.ph.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Printed by brown madonna Press, Inc.–Sun Valley Drive KM-15, South Superhighway, Parañaque, Metro Manila MEMBER OF

STREET TALK

Lourdes M. Fernandez

Senior Editors

Creative Director Chief Photographer

Thomas M. Orbos

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

’m spending the new normal on Easter Sunday morning, reflecting on what’s happening to all of us while listening to Julia Fordham’s “Invisible War.” The lyrics resonate: “It seems we are waging an invisible war…every day I seem to lose you more.” True enough, what we have here is indeed an invisible war with a common enemy we can’t even see and feel, and which takes us down days after we get hit, much like a stray bullet. were told, the accepted protocols, are now being challenged. Therefore, we need to be ready to listen and assess our situation. In our case, take stock of our limited resources and build on what we have.

Second—we need to understand that even if we hear—and the rhetoric is uplifting—that we belong to a community of nations, no government or international organization will think of our situation before their own. And we should not gripe about this. Definitely, everyone’s situation is getting tighter, resources are getting scarcer, and other countries need to protect their own people before others. In real terms, look at what we’ve been fed by the

the economy running. We have to deal with the new challenges squarely and prepare adequately for the “post-corona” era, if we want to avoid sinking. The question now is this: “What can each organization and individual do to prepare for the economic challenges staring us in the face?”

Businesses, no matter in which industry they belong, must learn to use online tools so they can switch to remote work, even if it’s only partial. If anything, this pandemic has shown us that this is possible, in many cases or fields. Who would have thought that online medical consultations would become a generally accepted thing? But even that is happening now (e.g., Covid Ask Force).

Some organizations are even enjoying better turnout for their digital events, compared to actual, onground activities. There is less cost to mount these events, and so they can offer it at lower costs. As a result, more people are able to attend. Take the case of one online event meant to gather people to discuss drug addiction. The organizer said, “We were expecting 50 participants at the actual event but the online event was watched by some 300,000 viewers —a 6,000-fold increase.”

for us to get out of here, our resiliency as a people living on our own resources must kick in. It doesn’t matter if we are only doing it now, and let’s not gripe about the past years wasted. It’s important that we begin doing it. Case in point, food security must be prioritized now —on a national scale. We need to wean ourselves away from imports, especially with prime commodities.

Rice for one, livestock, aqua and plant produce as well. Resources that we need to import, we need to tighten usage, and find local alternative sources even if it is more tedious and more expensive in the beginning.

Lastly—we need to trust ourselves, trust each other as Filipinos, more than others and more than ever. This is for the basic reason that it is only us who will take care of our mother ship, the Philippines.

We need to put that basic belief that, yes, we can, as Filipinos—because we have no other choice. In this war against an invisible enemy, the only way to win is to visibly see ourselves, Filipinos, as one.

Thomas Tim Orbos was former DOTr undersecretary for roads and general manager of the MMDA. He is currently undertaking further studies at the McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University. He can be reached via e-mail at thomas_orbos@sloan.mit.edu

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Managing business risks 2020: Ctrl+Alt+Delete in times of high volatility Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

Filbert Tsai

DEBIT CREDIT Part Three

N

O person or company is ever fully ready to face a crisis and contagion such as the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a phenomenon that businesses have limited experience (considering the last major contagion-related crisis was the SARS in 2003) in navigating. Ensuring timely, concise and transparent business communications to all stakeholders will be important in these volatile times.

Companies will need to be prepared to communicate all known risks to all its employees and ensure that any infection event triggers the right organizational response to minimize further contamination in the workplace. Throughout the quarantine period, companies will need to exercise due care and diligence in communicating the next steps to all employees.

Together with managing internal stakeholders, managing public stakeholders through clear communication plays an important role to minimize the negative publicity for the infection event of the business.

Ensuring that external stakeholders such as investors and customers are onboard with the actions being taken by the management establishes the necessary trust needed by the business.

With a purview of the negative financial impact of Covid-19 on businesses, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has taken an active step to avoid mass employment losses in the country resulting from retrenchments and redundancies that companies normally take during periods of financial distress.

On March 4, 2020, DOLE issued Labor Advisory No. 9 providing the implementation guidelines to urge companies to adopt a flexible working arrangement in lieu of termination of employment through retrenchments and/or redundancies. The last similar issuance by the DOLE was way back in 2009 during the global financial crisis of 2008.

Under the said Labor Advisory, DOLE is encouraging businesses to adopt work reduction schemes to minimize labor costs while still retaining the employees such as: n Reduction of working hours or working days—this effectively reduces the employee’s working hours from the standard 40 hours a week, subject to an agreed pay cut for the reduction of working hours or days. n Rotation of workers—normally adopted together with reduction of working days, which normally is implemented such that a group of employee works on Monday to Wednesday and another group works from Thursday to Saturday. n Forced leave—this allows employees to go on weeks or months of unpaid leave, after fully consuming their holiday credits.

Do note that flexible working arrangement being discussed pertains to DOLE’s definition of flexible

working arrangement (i.e., working hours reduction, forced leave, etc.) rather than the common use of the term for businesses (e.g., telecommuting, work from home, etc.).

Whatever scheme the company may decide to adopt, this will need to be agreed first with the employees and filed together with the necessary report to the DOLE. To minimize the contagion risks of the disease in the workplace, companies recently with confirmed cases of Covid-19 employees have taken an initiative to allow employees to work from home or telecommute.

Many start-ups and businesses have already adopted this scheme as part of their business-as-usual but the dynamics of working from home can be different when adopting such schemes on a prolonged basis.

Preparing for a prolonged telecommuting scheme will require development of written policies to document how office-based policies can be adopted to workfrom-home arrangements such as time-in and attendance. More than a written policy though, a critical success factor for a working prolonged or permanent telecommuting scheme is the provision of the necessary tools for the employees to continue working without going to the office.

Necessary tools will depend on the employees’ nature of work and how work can be done effectively and normally includes hardware, software and Internet connection components. Hardware components such as laptop (especially for businesses that rely on desktop computers), input (e.g., keyboard and mouse) and output (e.g., printer and second screen) devices and headset will normally be necessary together with software components (e.g., collaboration tools and productivity tools) and Internet connectivity will normally need to be provided to the employees.

Considering these factors, businesses need to make sure that budgets are ready to enable employees to work from home with minimal friction to lessen operational disruption on the business.

(To be continued) Filbert Tsai is a Certified Public Accountant and is the chief strategist at UpSmart Strategy Consulting Inc. This column accepts contributions from accountants, especially articles that are of interest to the accountancy profession, in particular, and to the business community, in general. These can be e-mailed to boa.secretariat.@gmail.com.

First of three parts

Control

A

S a keyboard shortcut, CTRL+ALT+DEL can simply trigger a system reset. Programmers back then, and computer users now, have made use of this command whenever a program encounters a coding glitch, or when the entire operating system becomes unresponsive.

Applying CTRL+ALT+DEL in our current reality, it appears that this pandemic is like a computer glitch, which has caused our operating system to “hang.” My friend Kay Abella called this glitch the “Great Interruption” that brought disturbing yet lifechanging impact on our lives. This glitch, Kay said, has been teaching us to appreciate the true worth of the things we possess. Fancy cars are not all that impressive with nowhere to go. The “Outfit Of The Day” is pretty much useless with nobody to appreciate it. Money, which supposedly makes the world go round, seems to be insignificant compared to the virus-free air we breathe.

As the global community is on suspended animation, Kay said “it is as if someone pressed a giant pause button on all of us.” My cousin Jing in Camarines Sur said this Great Interruption “has weakened the very fiber of human existence.” Paraphrasing Pope Francis’ message in “Urbi et Orbi”, Jing said that because of mankind’s penchant for hurried and harried life, fundamental things have been forgotten. The “sick” picture of mankind “forever trying to

create a meaningful existence in the world charmed by the glitter of material things and captivated by the power of position where people get entangled in the vicious web of greed and apathy” has caused our systems to crash. But, through it all, Pope Francis said that we have a Savior that holds the rudder that can steer our ship out of the stormy sea. Given the opportunity to make a “do over” of our lives, we should consider inviting Him back into our lives, by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL to reassert Control, look for the Alternative, and Delete the unnecessary.

Control (CTRL) is part of human nature since birth. Infants cry to control the response of their parents; toddlers throw a tantrum to get what they want. In response, parents can either relent or resist, depending on their propensity to control or be controlled. Still, there will be some friction between parents and children.

In the same vein, most governments worldwide have imposed lockdowns to control the movement of people.

But, regardless of regulations and sanctions, there will be people who cannot and will not stay at home—

Bloomberg Opinion

H

ong Kong led the world in adopting helicopter money.

Now the city’s long-term wage subsidies have again put it at the forefront of global efforts to blunt the impact of the coronavirus. Other economies should pay attention.

The government said this week that it will fund 50 percent of affected workers’ salaries for six months, capped at the equivalent of $1,160 a month. With the exception

of Australia, most countries have offered shorter-term relief. Hong Kong’s spending package reflects recognition that the economy will need support for longer than initially thought.

In February, Hong Kong announced a one-time payment equal to $1,290 to every adult permanent resident. That now looks hopelessly insufficient. The cash drop (not technically helicopter money since it isn’t financed by central-bank money printing) was always problematic, as my colleague Andy Mukherjee noted.

some by necessity, others by willful disobedience. Control is both a desire and a necessity in our lives.

In relation to our invitation to God to come into our lives, CTRL in CTRL+ALT+DEL, to me, is about surrender. Let go and let God, as my Auntie Naomi would always tell me.

To me, CTRL means that we seek God’s will and align ourselves with His word. Filipinos, particularly those in government, must make wise decisions by “imploring the aid of Almighty God” as found in our Constitution. To me, CTRL means lots of prayers, as the country’s current leadership has been calling all Filipinos to do. Our omniscient God knows everything about everyone, from eternity past to eternity future and in every part of His dominion.

As the future is full of uncertainties, professionally and personally, we may find comfort in His word found in Jeremiah 29:10: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” On top of this promise, we are blessed with the gift of free will.

Once we invite God into our lives, we still have choices to make, similar to the options we see when we press CTRL+ALT+DEL on the keyboard.

With much reflection time spent during this lockdown, I am confident that most of us will definitely align our plans and actions with His word as much as possible. Just as Jesus taught the disciples to think and act, we, too, can develop plans based on our understanding of Biblical principles. On a larger scale, I noticed that a multitude of suggested plans have come out as to how governments can manage the lockdown and the economic problems arising therefrom.

Seeing the various options, I realized all the more that God is in control of the future. All of us can and should

A7

plan for the future, but remember, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans” (Proverbs 16:3).

As this quarantine will end, hopefully sooner, our New Normal (Part 2 of this 3-part column), will give us a choice. We can choose Lock, Task Manager, Switch User, Restart, Cancel or Shut Down, the drop down menu in most CTRL+ALT+DEL commands. As Kay said, “let our new-found vision guide us in discerning what is truly valuable in the relationships we keep, activities we engage in, and the information we feed ourselves and share with others.” Kay added, “in the quietness of our isolation, let this time of the Great Interruption do such a work in us that will change us all for the better, in this life and the next.”

CTRL+ALT+DEL is a simple function we see on our computers, which literally helps us to restart, switch user, shut down, or change. Since our personal systems kinda “crashed” by reason of this Covid-19; why not press CTRL+ALT+DEL to improve the quality of our relationships, our level of happiness, our personal needs, and professional goals?

As Kay reminded me to always “rely on God’s unfailing and unchanging love all throughout this very temporary situation,” I recall one of my more recent Bible readings in Psalms 30:5, which says that “… weeping may last for the night but his joy comes in the morning.”

When morning comes, let’s be ready to face the New Normal, the ALT in the CTRL+ALT+DEL so to speak.

(Next week: ALT) For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.

Strategic dimensions of social assistance in response to Covid-19

By Noel P. de Guzman

T

he one thing on the mind of Filipinos nowadays is how long will the Covid-19 crisis last. The government must realize that it is playing some sort of game with its citizens, a game involving both coercion and cooperation. The strategy of the government, a mixture of forced lockdown and appeals for voluntary social distancing, is meant to lessen the rate of contagion of Covid-19. This is understandable given that according to the well-known Kermack-McKendrick mathematical theory of disease epidemics, the rate of spread of an infectious disease is equal to the ratio of the infection rate to the recovery rate of those already infected.

Meanwhile, the strategy of the citizenry is whether to cooperate or not with the government directives given their own personal objectives and constraints. In the early phase of the epidemic and the initial shock, securing cooperation from the citizenry seems to be working, save for a few miscreants. But as the crisis lingers on one can’t help but speculate about a possible tipping point wherein the citizenry suddenly switches to the noncooperative strategy, the possibility of wide-scale social unrest.

The possibility of social unrest is not only driven by economic considerations. It is also a matter of social psychology. A case in point is the phenomenon of rational fatalism.

This is a type of behavioral response to unusually stressful situations wherein people rationally take more risks when they feel that everything

around them is beyond their control.

In other words, it can be likened to a weakly dominant strategy. In choosing the risky action, there is nothing left to lose but there is a potential gain. The prolonged duration of the pandemic can potentially trigger this kind of behavioral response, and this is the very danger that the government faces.

Of course, as many quarters of our society has already correctly suggested, the answer to this problem is immediate social protection for the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society. The most visible of these social protection initiatives is the delivery of food rations to the poorest households to ensure social distancing. However, for this strategy to prevent rational fatalism and social unrest, the branch of economics called game theory reminds us

Hong Kong’s the canary in the coronavirus economy

By Nisha Gopalan

Monday, April 13, 2020

Besides being too small, it will also arrive too late—perhaps not until the third quarter or later. And there’s nothing to stop people from saving it, which would defeat the object of trying to stimulate the economy.

Hence the new bazooka wheeled out by the government on Wednesday. This one is targeted at employers, with the wage subsidies aimed at dissuading them from mass layoffs that would cause the economy to tank even further. The government seems to be more efficient at doling out cash to companies than

to individuals: The subsidies will be distributed in two batches, with the first starting in June.

Hong Kong’s relief package isn’t the biggest around by any means.

Its total fiscal stimulus amounts to around 10 percent of GDP, compared with 12 percent for Singapore’s plan and 20 percent for Japan. On its own, the $10.3 billion job security package amounts to 2.8 percent of the city’s GDP, according to Bloomberg China economist Ashley Qian.

The duration is what makes it stand out. Singapore is doling out

that establishing credibility through commitment devices is crucial. Only if the government can assure the public that such initiatives will be sustained for the entire duration of the health crisis will the rational equilibrium response of the citizens coincide with the socially optimal outcome hoped for by the government. In other words, it must be a Nash equilibrium for the citizens to cooperate. A firm commitment by the government to sustain social protection until the end is needed to prevent the game from unraveling backwards. If people expect that social assistance will eventually stop even before the end of the crisis, then they will consider this game of “social assistance in exchange for your cooperation” as a finitely repeated game.

The outcome of such a situation is the withholding of cooperation from the side of the citizenry. However, if the commitment of the government is perceived as credible, then there is a very high chance that cooperation will be sustained. Government credibility is a much-valued resource in this uncertain time, which means that those who hold political power in our society must demonstrate large personal sacrifices to convince an increasingly skeptical public.

At this point, the total value of social assistance needed for the entire duration of the crisis is a big question mark. However, for purposes

of comparison, in the publication of the World Bank entitled “Making Growth Work for the Poor: A Poverty Assessment for the Philippines” published in 2018, it distinguishes asset loss from well-being loss arising from natural disasters. Citing the case of a “once in 25 years disaster” (like Typhoon Ondoy), the estimated asset loss of the poorest quintile in Metro Manila is P2,700 per capita while the corresponding figure for the wealthiest quintile is P16,600. While the asset loss is expectedly lower for the poor than the rich because the poor have substantially less assets, this study also mentions that the wellbeing loss for the poor is significantly higher compared to the rich. The figure for well-being loss is P10,200 per capita for the poor, which is almost four times the value of its asset loss, while the corresponding figure for the rich is P4,600, which is only about one-third of its asset loss.

With the unprecedented ferocity of Covid-19 and its still uncertain conclusion, one would imagine that its differential economic impact on the rich versus the poor will be so much bigger and the needed social assistance package will most definitely require more innovative ways of securing funds.

75 percent of salaries capped at the equivalent of $3,231 for the month of April. The UK is covering 80 percent of wages for three months with a ceiling of $3,107, starting at the end of April. The US, meanwhile, is giving out enhanced unemployment benefits and a one-time check of $1,200 as part of its $2 trillion stimulus bill.

It isn’t aiming directly to keep people in work. Australia is one exception: The government there will pay wage subsidies of about $948 every two weeks per employee for six months.

The contrast is instructive. As a

low-tax financial center and trade entrepot, Hong Kong has a history of minimal state intervention in the economy. The city has prided itself on topping the Heritage Foundation’s list of the world’s freest economies (though it has now been displaced

by Singapore). Wealth disparities are extreme.

Granted, there may be political factors at play. The Hong Kong government and its leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, are deeply unpopular, and there are legislative elections slated for September.

Noel P. de Guzman is a faculty member of the Economics Department at the Ateneo de Manila University.

A8 Monday, April 13, 2020

Virus trace: Govt may now bare identities T

HE government may now publicly disclose the identities of people subject to its contacttracing efforts in its campaign against the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said the Inter-Agenc y Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) adopted Resolution No. 22 allowing the “mandatory public disclosure of personal information relating to positive Covid-19 cases to enhance the contract-tracing efforts of the government.”

Prior to the new IATF issuance, the government did not release such information due to the data privacy law.

The government is now eyeing to ramp up its contact-tracing efforts through more intensified testing and isolation measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.

In preparation for this initiative, Nograles said the IATF transferred the lead responsibility for contact tracing from the Department of Health’s (DOH) Bureau of Quarantine to the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).

“The Office of Civil Defense or OCD in coordination with other agencies and Local Government Units as may be appropriate, shall hereafter lead the contact-tracing efforts of the government,” Nograles said.

“For this purpose, the DOH and the OCD are directed to enter into a data sharing agreement in accordance with Republic Act Number 10173 or the Data Privacy Act,” he added.

Data gathering

The government plans to lift the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon on April 30, 2020.

To help with its “anticipatory forward planning” in the aftermath of the ECQ, it has launched it data gathering initiatives, which includes exempting the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) from the mandatory home quarantine in Luzon.

“Provided that such exemption shall be without prejudice to the requirement of strict social distancing measure in all its operations and data gathering services and activities,” Nograles said.

Among the assigned tasks of PSA would be “to conduct data gathering and survey activities related to Covid-19, including those related to the registration and implementation of the National Identification (ID) System.”

Nograles said the IATF also approved the recommendation of the National Security Council for the Food Security subgroup under the Technical Group of Resource and Logistics Management of the National Task Force, headed by the Department of Agriculture, to come out with regular updates on the figures for food production and manufacturing. ] He said the measure aims to ensure that communities affected by ECQ will have sufficient supply of food and water, shelter and energy until the end of the month. Samuel P. Medenilla

Health-care workers’ deployment ban up for review amid protests

T

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM & Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

HE inclusion of health workers with already existing contracts in the controversial deployment ban issued last week by authorities should be seriously reconsidered, according to the chairman of the Senate Labor committee, as the Cabinet was expected to tackle the issue on Monday.

Otherwise, if the State pushes through with such a “sweeping” ban, the Departments of Health and of Labor should be prepared to absorb them and find them good jobs with “commensurate” packages, to avoid adding them to the increasing numbers of displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), said Sen. Joel Villanueva.

“While we believe that under the circumstances [the Covid-19 crisis], the State can suspend deployment of medical personnel, and the right to travel is not absolute, the government should also carefully study its impact on health-care workers with existing contracts and who have only temporarily went home for their annual vacation,” Villanueva asserted on Sunday, in reply to a query from the BusinessMirror.

The senator’s reaction was sought as a public outcry—from labor groups and from Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., greeted the move of the Bureau of Immigration last week to bar from boarding their flights those OFWs with existing contracts in hospitals and medical facilities in the United Kingdom (UK), most

of whom had been caught in the Philippines by the lockdown while on vacation.

Locsin, however, came to the defense of the immigration bureau, saying Commissioner Jaime Morente’s hands were tied by the “unconstitutional” resolution imposed on him by higher-ups.

Locsin promised to help resolve the issue at the Cabinet level amid protests that the ban—even on those with existing contracts—violated their constitutional right to travel and their right against forced labor.

He said he will raise the issue before the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) on Monday.

This was confirmed by POEA administrator Bernard Olalia, who said they will be ready to justify the legality of their resolution.

Labor Secretary and the POEA Governing Board’s head Silvestre H. Bello III, however, said they will comply with whatever the IATF will decide on the matter.

Displaced OFWs

There was concern also that

forcing this category of health workers (those with existing contracts) to stay in the country would further swell the number of OFWs displaced from dozens of countries by the pandemic.

As of Saturday (April 11), the DFA reported it had repatriated nearly 12,000 displaced OFWs just from the seafaring sector alone, as Covid-19 paralyzed the operations of cruise ships across the globe.

Private think tanks earlier estimated that as many as 200,000 to 300,000 OFWs could be displaced in dozens of countries, both from the pandemic and the plunging oil prices that impact Middle East economies hosting Filipino workers.

Villanueva said on Sunday that, “If our government presses forward with the sweeping ban on the exit of Filipino healthcare workers, even if they have live contracts, our labor department, in coordination with the Department of Health, should be prepared to take them into our health-care system at the very least.”

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) “must track them and make plans for their integration into our health-care system while the state of emergency prevails, and ensure they are compensated in a commensurate manner,” the senator added.

He also appealed to the DFA “to provide assistance to our overseas health-care workers to contact their respective employers abroad to sort out the issue and ensure that they will still have jobs to return to once the deployment ban is lifted.”

Locsin’s intervention had been sought by UK Ambassador to Manila Daniel Pruce, who expressed concern over the barring of the Filipino health workers with already existing contracts in UK.

Filipino health workers have been singled out for praise for their professionalism in helping that country deal with the pandemic, as many of them work with the UK government’s National Health Service (NHS).

Villanueva warned that, “if there is no proactive and parallel effort to track them down and encourage them to work in our healthcare system, the government should rethink its policy, and instead allow the exit of those health-care workers with existing contracts, and the ban should only cover new contracts.”

Few jobs, small aid

Also on Sunday, a labor coalition said only a handful of job opportunities and a small cash aid from the government await Filipino medical workers who will be affected by the temporary ban imposed by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) during the Covid-19 crisis.

Nagkaisa issued the statement on Sunday as it demanded the lifting of the deployment ban.

POEA issued on April 2, 2020 its Governing Board (GB) resolution 9 imposing the ban for 14 medical categories, supposedly to help ensue the government will have a sufficient pool of healthcare workers for the Covid-19 measures.

Lack of vacancies

Nagkaisa, however, said POEA failed to justify such shortage by citing the Department of Health (DOH) web site, which showed there were only 15 vacancies for healthcare workers available. Of which, three are for a part-time position.

Nagk aisa Chair man Sonny Matula noted that while POEA

through the DOLE has the power to “restrict and regulate overseas recruitment and placement” as ruled by the Supreme Court in the case of PASEI vs Drilon, it should be backed by a compelling cause.

“In this case, there were no calls to military or civil service [for the overseas bound medical workers].

Without notice, they were asked to be offloaded from their flights on the pretext that there is a ban,” Matula told BusinessMirror in a SMS. Nagkaisa insists the government should finally stop bandaid measures to address the labor shortage in the country’s healthcare system by hiring more medical workers.

“It is for this reason that Nagkaisa! insists that the government hire health workers in the civil service and not rely on volunteers —or resort to a sweeping ban on deployment of all health workers including those who are already employed abroad,” Nagkaisa said in its statement, In a television interview, Olalia said they are now coordinating with DOH to provide more employment opportunities for the OFWs affected by the deployment ban.

Last week, at least 20 Filipino nurses returning to jobs in the UK were not allowed to leave the country at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) because of the POEA ban.

Olalia said there could be more affected OFWs since the ban also covers new hires, direct hires, and those under government-to-government arrangements.

He said they may avail themselves of the P10,000 cash aid from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration’s (OWWA) Abot Kamay ang Pagtulong (AKAP) program.

Q1 investments in IT sector suffer double-digit dip on various crises

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

T

HE information technology (IT) industry, one of the country’s chief dollar earners, has suffered a double-digit decline in first-quarter investments, as it failed to shield itself from the series of calamities that struck the Philippines.Data obtained by the BusinessMirror showed investments in the IT industry in the first quarter slumped by 42.02 percent to P2.32 billion, from P4.01 billion during the same period last year.

The IT industry is heavily relied on by the government to deliver employment and dollars, as it is one of the largest contributors to the country’s services sector.First quarter capital flowed into the IT industry translated into 30 projects, a quarter down from the 40 projects put up last year.

In spite of the slide in both investments and number of projects, exports

by IT firms amounted to $1.14 billion as of January, up by over 15 percent from $0.99 billion during the same month last year.Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) Director General Charito B. Plaza

AS people work from home during lockdown, essential workers such as these fiber-optics cable men toil in the sun to make sure communications infrastructure remains viable. NONOY LACZA

told the BusinessMirror she plans to require economic zone firms, especially IT and business-process outsourcing (BPO) firms, to build sleeping quarters within their sites.

This will allow them to continue operating in times of calamity like under this pandemic. Plaza argued it is important to keep the IT industry running, as it is the largest job provider among all sectors in economic zones.

“IT-BPOs are the biggest job providers of Peza employing 1 million out of the 1.6 million directly employed by our zones and companies,” Plaza explained.

“With these quarantine measures required like provision of housing/sleeping quarters, which is not available in the premises of zones and factories and scarce outside —and the primary reason why some companies suspended their operations as they find it costly and scarce in the localities—Peza will now require these facilities be built part of each plant and economic zone premises,” she added.As of last week, only 78 percent of economic zone firms in Luzon are operating under the islandwide lockdown that has been extended up to April 30.

PHL posts biggest single-day deaths at 50; virus cases, 4,648 T

HE number of Covid-19 cases in the country soared to 4,648 as the death toll also rose to 297, with the highest number of deaths so far in a day—50—reported.

In a virtual presser, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that as of 4p.m.

Sunday (April 12), the Department of Health (DOH) reported 220 new cases (PH4,429-PH4,648).

There are 40 new recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 197. Vergeire said that there was a“backlog”in the compiling of the number, which resulted in the increased number of Covid-19 cases.

Asked to explain the increased number of deaths in a day, she clarified, however, “We do not have backlogs in our deaths reported, though

we are dependent upon reports from LGUs (local government units) thru our RESUs (Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit), but we eventually get the numbers.”

Vergeire said: “What we mentioned in our presser was our backlog with encoding our cases thru the CIFs (case investigation form), where we hired additional manpower para makahabol [to catch up]. One of the reasons also why we stopped our tracker for this Holy Week,” she said, adding that they will resume 6 p.m. of Sunday.

Cadavers

Meanwhile, Vergeire said mass burial is still not being considered following reports of bodies piling

up in one state hospital morgue.

The DOH official said the Department of Interior and Local Government was tasked to assign a focal person to manage the fatalities.

The government will deploy a mobile freezer if the hospitals exceed their capacity in storing dead bodies.

Earlier, the Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III inspected East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC) in Quezon City and and met officials amid reports of cadavers piling up in the hospital morgue.

The EAMC Management Team reported that on Saturday morning, it had met with various government agencies to address the concern.

Arrangements were made with LGUs, the

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and other stakeholders for the speedy transport and cremation/burial of cadavers, to contain any risk these may pose.

The Quezon City Council was tasked to manage unclaimed bodies and shoulder the cost of cremation if funding from next of kin is unavailable.

EAMC said it has long been looking for a mobile freezer to accommodate the bodies to be claimed, whether Covid-19 cases or not.

Duque said the mobile freezer’s delivery is seen to resolve the limited space in its mortuary.

Additional body bags were received by EAMC Hospital Director Dr. Alfonso Nuñez on Sunday

morning.

Appreciating frontliners“On behalf of the Department, we are grateful for the unparalleled service and your continued support to the Filipino people in these troubling times.

We salute your heroism,” said Duque, who joined the Field Implementation and Coordination Team emergency meeting with NCR Medical Center Chiefs in a video conference meeting on Sunday morning.

He acknowledged the challenges faced by health facilities at the frontlines of the Covid-19 response and the creative ways they have addressed these, reassuring Medical Center Chiefs of the DOH Central Office’s continued support.

He said he was inspired by the sense of community in health facilities whose members, caring deeply about the safety and well-being of their colleagues, contribute fiercely to efforts such as providing more PPEs and supplies, looking for needed suppliers and service providers, and reaching out to authorities to relay their concerns.

Medical Center Chiefs were reminded to maintain open lines of communication regularly and clearly inform their teams on actions taken to address operational issues, to proactively seek concerns and grievances from their staff that they may be immediately addressed, and to immediately report such concerns through the appropriate channels. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, April 13, 2020

B1

Business group urges govt to lift ban on public transport

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

T

@alyasjah

he countr y’s largest business group has asked the government to expand the list of essential sectors allowed to operate under the Luzonwide lockdown and include public transport to help businesses recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement on Sunday, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) said the government should eliminate barriers to logistics and the movement of labor in crucial sectors under

the extended community quarantine. It said the restriction on the movement of people and goods resulted in delays and cancellations of orders.

As such, there are some areas in the country that are lacking supply of essential commodities and services, the PCCI claimed.

“For companies that were allowed to continue their operations amid the ECQ [enhanced community quarantine], restrictions on public transportation have disrupted the mobility of workers and posed additional costs to employers.

Many business-process outsourcing companies, for example, are giving remaining on-site staff tem-

porary accommodations,” it added.

“In the event that the definition of essential industries is expanded, one of the sectors that must be included is the public transport sector,” the PCCI told the government.

The business group said the government is sure to partially lift the lockdown on Luzon soon, so it is recommending that it be started by the lifting of the ban on public transport. This way, the country can begin its return to economic normalcy all the while enforcing social distancing measures.

In support of social distancing, the PCCI said the government can look into imitating Japan, Singapore and other developed countries in

their mass transport policies.

“Along this line, PCCI proposes the implementation of a unified cueing and dispatching scheme. Similar to the system in Japan, Singapore and other developed countries, buses must follow a regular trip schedule and have designated stops to allow easier enforcement and monitoring of physical distancing as passengers can be more evenly distributed,” it added.

Under the community quarantine imposed on Luzon, which was last week extended by the President to up to April 30, all forms of public transport are prohibited from operating in a radical move to keep individuals at home.

Megawide vows to help govt meet infra goals

M

egawide Construction Corp. said it will continue with the implementation of P20 billion worth of contracts it bagged, including the completion of the new passenger terminal in Clark International Airport in Pampanga.

“We’re supporting the government’s plan to

provide targeted and direct programs to guarantee that benefits will go to Filipino workers and other affected sectors,” said Megawide Chairman and CEO Edgar Saavedra.

“We’re also 100 percent behind the government’s continuation of the flagship ‘Build, Build, Build’ pro-

gram that might have stopped at the moment, but will be the lynchpin of the economy’s recovery when the coronavirus crisis ends,” he added.

Aside from the Clark airport project, Megawide said it is eyeing a combination of office buildings and public infrastructure throughout the country, includ-

ing railways and road projects.

The company, together with its Indian partner GMR Infrastructure Ltd. is ahead of schedule in constructing the Clark International Airport’s new passenger terminal building prior to the imposition of the community quarantine in Luzon, Saavedra said. VG Cabuag

Sy-Coson: Govt should look into gradual increase of employment

By VG Cabuag @villygc

B

IG business is backing the government’s move to extend to April 30 the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to fight the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), but an industry leader said the government should look at gradually increasing the number of employed people once restrictions are lifted, while adopting strict precautions for everyone.

Teresita Sy-Coson, vice chairman of the SM Group, one of the country’s largest employers, made the suggestion at the weekend.

“With all the precautions in place, if DOLE [Department of Labor and Employment] can look into gradually [increasing] employment with the gradual increase of businesses,” it might ease the pressure in the jobs market, where thousands of migrant workers displaced by the pandemic in their host countries have been added, she said. “If all the industries can start operating 50 percent, including the transport with all the medical precautions like making test kits more available and disinfecting measures and sanitation safeguards, then we can gradually increase the employment, including the returning OFWs [overseas Filipino workers] who are adding to our number of unemployment,” Sy-Coson added.

The SM group, which owns the country's biggest lender (BDO) and chain of shopping malls in the Philippines and China, is one of the country’s largest employers from the private sector with over 86,000 employees.

Although the banks remained opened during the lockdown period, which the government extended to end-April, most of its businesses including its hotels and shopping malls remained shut with the exception of the grocery stores. “Besides the Pantawid, loans and other assistance given by government, the private sector can

assist by increasing employment [while] maintaining the other safeguards like social distancing and disinfectant availability,” Sy-Coson said, referring to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the government that support the country’s poorest of the poor.

“Employment is also the key to the health of their family by having enough food for their own immunity and the key to the health of our economy,” she said.

Ayala group

Another conglomerate, the Ayala Corp., also issued a statement on the extension of the ECQ to April 30, 2020: “We are fully supportive of the latest pronouncement by President Duterte on extending the enhanced community quarantine to April 30. This is consistent with the research data on past pandemics, evaluation of initiatives in other countries and various statistical analyses that we have been studying to help break the Covid-19 pandemic,” said the statement, issued by Ayala Chairman and CEO Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala.

“While we await for new guidelines from the national government, the Ayala group will continue to take care of its employees as a priority and extend support as much as we could to our partners and communities through collaborative efforts,” Ayala added.

The SM and Ayala groups, like most of the Philippine conglomerates, had early on led initiatives to use their resources to help fight the pandemic by, among others, donating vital personal protective equipment (PPEs), test kits, and other medical supplies to hospitals; providing meals and lodging for medical frontliners; and using their supply networks and production facilities to source other vital needs of the institutions at the forefront. They also rolled out relief measures for tenants and other stakeholders, and advanced economic packages for employees.

B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, April 13, 2020

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

April 8, 2020

Net Foreign Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Stocks Buy (Sell) FINANCIALs

ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PBCOM PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE COL FINANCIAL FERRONOUX HLDG IREMIT MEDCO HLDG NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH SUN LIFE VANTAGE

46 98.4 57.05 20.2 7.6 36.3 8.65 16.02 19.84 43.45 17.1 105 53.7 0.6 15.24 2.52 0.87 0.27 0.66 169.3 1600 0.96

47.5 98.5 57.65 20.4 7.8 36.8 9.79 17.88 19.86 43.5 17.5 106 53.9 0.67 15.3 2.59 0.94 0.31 0.68 169.5 1620 1.08

47 101.6 61.85 20.75 7.88 37.2 8.71 16 19.98 43.5 17.6 107 53.85 0.6 15.3 2.68 0.94 0.3 0.63 169.5 1620 0.96

47 101.8 61.85 20.75 7.88 37.4 8.71 16 20.15 43.5 17.6 111 53.9 0.6 15.3 2.68 0.94 0.31 0.68 169.5 1620 1.08

47 97.5 57 20.15 7.6 36.3 8.65 16 19.6 43.45 17 105 52.85 0.6 15.24 2.5 0.94 0.29 0.63 169 1620 0.96

47 98.5 57.05 20.4 7.6 36.3 8.65 16 19.86 43.45 17 105 53.8 0.6 15.3 2.59 0.94 0.29 0.68 169.3 1620 1.08

10000 5557460 6531170 38100 345600 4917900 4000 200 1460900 800 34900 479440 9890 2000 43600 18000 1000 180000 49000 430 5 2000

470000 548979329 380909892.5 776090 2647102 181057910 34631 3200 28942460 34780 598150 50940381 532130 1200 666942 46250 940 53400 30920 72816 8100 2040

INDUSTRIAL

AC ENERGY ALSONS CONS ABOITIZ POWER BASIC ENERGY FIRST GEN FIRST PHIL HLDG MERALCO MANILA WATER PETRON PETROENERGY PHX PETROLEUM PILIPINAS SHELL SPC POWER VIVANT AGRINURTURE AXELUM BOGO MEDELLIN CNTRL AZUCARERA CENTURY FOOD DEL MONTE DNL INDUS EMPERADOR SMC FOODANDBEV ALLIANCE SELECT FRUITAS HLDG GINEBRA JOLLIBEE MAXS GROUP PEPSI COLA SHAKEYS PIZZA ROXAS AND CO RFM CORP ROXAS HLDG SWIFT FOODS UNIV ROBINA VITARICH VICTORIAS CEMEX HLDG EAGLE CEMENT EEI CORP MEGAWIDE PHINMA VULCAN INDL CROWN ASIA EUROMED MABUHAY VINYL GREENERGY INTEGRATED MICR IONICS PANASONIC SFA SEMICON CIRTEK HLDG

2.01 0.92 27.25 0.166 17.06 52.2 260 10.56 2.57 2.41 9.5 18.06 7.77 13 6.9 2.57 73.4 12.62 14.1 3.3 5.03 7.97 54 0.5 1.33 31.1 120 4.59 1.79 5.11 1.38 4.35 1.09 0.105 121.6 0.77 2.32 1.02 7.51 5.4 6.29 8.5 0.58 1.84 1.87 3.15 0.76 4.48 0.95 3.51 0.78 5.96

2.02 1.12 27.4 0.172 17.3 52.25 266.2 10.58 2.58 2.42 10 18.08 7.85 15.1 6.99 2.58 87 13.4 14.3 3.6 5.05 7.98 54.45 0.53 1.34 32 120.5 4.6 1.8 5.12 1.44 4.52 1.49 0.11 122 0.78 2.49 1.03 7.55 5.48 6.3 8.95 0.61 1.9 1.88 3.28 0.77 4.59 0.96 4.94 0.79 5.97

2.06 1 28 0.179 17.88 51.5 253 10.62 2.6 2.4 10 18.22 7.92 15.1 6.49 2.53 87 13.2 14.3 3.55 5.08 7.97 55.5 0.53 1.34 31.7 111 4.61 1.8 5.18 1.44 4.52 1.42 0.109 121.8 0.8 2.21 1.05 7.78 5.5 6.37 8.95 0.58 1.85 1.85 3.15 0.79 4.59 0.96 4.94 0.76 6.2

2.06 1 28.2 0.179 17.88 52.85 268 10.68 2.6 2.45 10.18 18.22 7.92 15.1 7 2.63 87 13.2 14.3 3.6 5.2 7.99 55.5 0.53 1.35 32 120 4.9 1.8 5.18 1.45 4.52 1.42 0.109 122 0.8 2.52 1.06 7.78 5.5 6.37 8.95 0.61 1.9 1.92 3.19 0.79 4.59 0.96 4.94 0.8 6.27

2 1 27 0.169 16.82 51.45 253 10.44 2.5 2.4 10 18.02 7.77 15.1 6.49 2.49 86 13.2 14.04 3.55 5.02 7.92 53.8 0.5 1.29 31.1 108.1 4.58 1.76 5.01 1.32 4.35 1.36 0.109 116 0.75 2.21 1.02 7.5 5.2 6.15 8.95 0.56 1.85 1.85 3.15 0.74 4.45 0.95 4.94 0.74 5.94

2.02 1 27.25 0.172 17.3 52.25 266.2 10.56 2.57 2.42 10.18 18.06 7.77 15.1 6.99 2.58 86 13.2 14.3 3.6 5.05 7.98 54 0.5 1.33 32 120 4.6 1.8 5.12 1.45 4.52 1.36 0.109 122 0.77 2.49 1.03 7.55 5.4 6.3 8.95 0.6 1.9 1.87 3.19 0.77 4.46 0.96 4.94 0.79 5.97

1152000 49000 2476700 220000 974800 2450 330920 2461400 6040000 39000 24100 488100 180400 100 380000 1591000 590 2000 453600 10000 2535800 5007900 278750 293000 7972000 36600 2922350 2086000 578000 5585300 1922000 102000 20000 90000 1678140 2873000 32000 2709000 480800 1306800 862100 100 1709000 10000 943000 11000 562000 7000 7000 1000 696000 6045500

235000 -323059729 -210615053.5 -176690 -2326957 -111025005 -23106446 -12658134 -10742 -601290 3380 -

2323690 49000 67708260 37680 16661800 127236 86251898 25,882,762( 15465410 94540 241856 8825170 1405427 1510 2585452 4091080 51310 26400 6407558 35810 12824661 40007754 15113406.5 148250 10485070 1152855 337149716 9723040 1026980 28570713 2703140 444040 27630 9810 200659488 2211990 78490 2806740 3650367 7009803 5376684 895 992090 18750 1781100 34890 426750 31330 6710 4940 543450 36803845

56250 -39746280 -7737806 -23514 -493434 6,450,675.9999) -13455570 -8007976 -1510 -1091507 -1197670 -251760 -7160 -1294165 -37943788 4980488.5 204320 101852202 -4242620 264030 -13888298 69090 435000 -59173169 -1583670 -28133 -2684303 1545028 39480 -15750 13230 -230670 -42952

HOLDING & FRIMS ABACORE CAPITAL 0.51 0.52 0.51 0.52 0.5 0.52 1380000 713770 ASIABEST GROUP 5.61 5.81 5.55 5.82 5.55 5.61 3500 20148 492.8 498 494.8 498 483 498 515540 253310122 AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY 41.95 42.15 44 44 41.2 41.95 3078300 129646535 6.64 6.73 6.91 6.92 6.62 6.64 3985200 26693531 ALLIANCE GLOBAL 1.49 1.5 1.57 1.57 1.5 1.5 2932000 4422520 AYALA LAND LOG ANSCOR 5.94 6.04 6.04 6.04 5.9 5.9 300 1784 0.52 0.54 0.51 0.54 0.51 0.53 310000 161150 ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A 0.445 0.455 0.425 0.455 0.415 0.455 11570000 5118900 0.46 0.5 0.485 0.485 0.485 0.485 110000 53350 ATN HLDG B 4.8 4.84 5 5 4.69 4.84 2862400 13735908 COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG 3.99 4 4.2 4.2 3.99 4 8974000 36142160 8.5 9.6 8.5 8.5 8.5 8.5 8600 73100 FILINVEST DEV GT CAPITAL 399 400 404 404 399 399 211890 84790682 HOUSE OF INV 3.61 3.8 3.8 3.8 3.8 3.8 11000 41800 54.25 54.5 55.15 56 53.75 54.5 3639630 198046094 JG SUMMIT KEPPEL HLDG A 4.5 5.98 5 5 5 5 1000 5000 6 6.5 6 6 6 6 57400 344400 KEPPEL HLDG B LODESTAR 0.425 0.435 0.425 0.43 0.425 0.43 300000 128000 LOPEZ HLDG 2.82 2.88 3 3 2.81 2.87 1107000 3117470 7.24 7.45 7.35 7.45 7.17 7.45 1371900 9911599 LT GROUP MABUHAY HLDG 0.46 0.49 0.455 0.49 0.455 0.49 50000 23450 2.48 2.49 2.53 2.56 2.48 2.49 51616000 128767940 METRO PAC INV PACIFICA HLDG 2.7 3.29 2.71 2.8 2.71 2.8 8000 21770 SOLID GROUP 0.83 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95 1000 950 174.5 175 180 180 174.5 174.5 4060 712775 SYNERGY GRID SM INVESTMENTS 864.5 870 865 878 851 870 450970 389984755 94.45 94.5 95.2 95.5 94.05 94.5 145060 13732374.5 SAN MIGUEL CORP 0.62 0.68 0.62 0.68 0.62 0.68 117000 73470 SOC RESOURCES TOP FRONTIER 149 159.8 155 156 149 156 390 60130 0.191 0.209 0.209 0.209 0.208 0.208 20000 4170 WELLEX INDUS ZEUS HLDG 0.129 0.132 0.132 0.132 0.132 0.132 420000 55440

6760 -17361736 -9557160 -19081736 375000 -48500 -3624534 -6011250 -12622218 -38000 -72961811 -344400 -2824310 -6954221 -63928810 5400 -124143610 -156152 -

PROPERTY

ARTHALAND CORP ANCHOR LAND AYALA LAND ARANETA PROP BELLE CORP A BROWN CITYLAND DEVT CEBU HLDG CEB LANDMASTERS CENTURY PROP CYBER BAY DOUBLEDRAGON DM WENCESLAO FILINVEST LAND GLOBAL ESTATE 8990 HLDG PHIL INFRADEV CITY AND LAND MEGAWORLD MRC ALLIED PRIMEX CORP ROBINSONS LAND PHIL REALTY ROCKWELL SHANG PROP STA LUCIA LAND SM PRIME HLDG VISTAMALLS SUNTRUST HOME VISTA LAND

0.57 6.81 32 1.02 1.33 0.54 0.72 5.6 3.77 0.37 0.25 16.04 6.9 0.91 0.75 11.54 0.72 0.72 2.72 0.143 1.6 13.74 0.242 1.5 2.76 1.85 29.2 3.5 1.16 3.93

0.58 8.99 32.1 1.1 1.35 0.55 0.73 6.04 3.8 0.375 0.28 16.16 7 0.92 0.76 11.7 0.73 0.74 2.73 0.144 1.74 13.88 0.26 1.52 2.77 1.9 29.5 3.54 1.19 3.94

0.58 6.41 32.4 1.03 1.35 0.56 0.71 6.04 3.8 0.375 0.26 16.16 6.9 0.94 0.77 11.8 0.72 0.72 2.69 0.14 1.73 14.2 0.275 1.5 2.92 1.85 30.5 3.58 1.15 4.11

0.58 6.41 32.65 1.11 1.35 0.56 0.74 6.04 3.8 0.38 0.26 16.18 7 0.96 0.77 11.8 0.73 0.72 2.72 0.146 1.74 14.2 0.275 1.52 2.92 1.86 31 3.58 1.2 4.11

0.56 6.41 31.8 1.01 1.35 0.53 0.71 6.04 3.77 0.375 0.26 15.8 6.9 0.9 0.75 11.54 0.72 0.72 2.6 0.14 1.73 13.38 0.275 1.5 2.75 1.85 29.15 3.5 1.15 3.91

0.57 6.41 32 1.1 1.35 0.55 0.74 6.04 3.8 0.375 0.26 16.16 6.9 0.91 0.75 11.6 0.73 0.72 2.72 0.145 1.74 13.74 0.275 1.52 2.77 1.85 29.2 3.5 1.18 3.93

1422000 200 11319200 117000 2000 423000 13000 2400 1099000 2420000 20000 513800 2600 20252000 485000 213400 442000 3000 42946000 3150000 10000 3427800 10000 178000 163000 596000 18388700 7000 752000 2714000

800730 1282 362925095 124810 2700 228960 9260 14496 4173310 917950 5200 8247924 18020 18469020 364680 2494808 320870 2160 114165920 453280 17310 47114632 2750 269820 452930 1103150 543295560 24830 880570 10752120

-29943620 49010 -15200 -3861526 -14119950 30483410 -16121538 45100 111290 -259175405 -6966780

SERVICES ABS CBN 16.84 16.92 17.2 17.3 16.58 16.84 67800 1138326 GMA NETWORK 4.98 5.09 5 5.1 4.97 5.09 281700 1417765 0.355 0.375 0.35 0.375 0.35 0.375 190000 70250 MANILA BULLETIN MLA BRDCASTING 10.4 11.9 12 12.44 11.9 11.9 800 9642 2138 2160 2186 2186 2104 2160 80825 174438370 GLOBE TELECOM 1100 1109 1128 1128 1081 1100 223495 247263965 PLDT APOLLO GLOBAL 0.038 0.039 0.038 0.039 0.038 0.038 3300000 126600 2.67 3.29 3.29 3.29 3.29 3.29 2000 6580 DFNN INC DITO CME HLDG 1.69 1.7 1.67 1.7 1.63 1.7 17710000 29697930 0.075 0.08 0.083 0.084 0.08 0.08 660000 54530 ISLAND INFO NOW CORP 1.59 1.6 1.6 1.66 1.57 1.6 1387000 2228130 TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.158 0.164 0.158 0.158 0.158 0.158 830000 131140 1.96 1.97 1.75 2.22 1.7 1.96 12681000 25594000 PHILWEB 2GO GROUP 5.89 5.93 5.95 5.95 5.87 5.87 19000 112547 CHELSEA 2.6 2.61 2.59 2.63 2.5 2.61 604000 1553080 48.05 48.5 50.95 51.95 48 48.05 503390 24830697 CEBU AIR INTL CONTAINER 73.75 73.9 74.9 75.95 72.85 73.75 1343500 99338981.5 11.02 12.18 12.18 12.18 12.18 12.18 100 1218 LBC EXPRESS MACROASIA 4.2 4.21 4.27 4.38 4.15 4.2 1892000 7997510 METROALLIANCE A 1.39 1.44 1.47 1.48 1.37 1.44 741000 1065860 1.41 1.55 1.6 1.6 1.41 1.59 16000 24140 METROALLIANCE B PAL HLDG 6.5 6.7 6.75 6.75 6.7 6.7 9200 61950 0.74 0.76 0.76 0.77 0.71 0.74 582000 428050 HARBOR STAR BOULEVARD HLDG 0.027 0.028 0.03 0.032 0.028 0.028 12700000 366900 WATERFRONT 0.415 0.43 0.415 0.415 0.415 0.415 290000 120350 0.38 0.385 0.395 0.395 0.38 0.385 2590000 1006450 STI HLDG BERJAYA 2.23 2.26 2.11 2.29 2.1 2.26 203000 450420 5.68 5.71 5.98 5.98 5.65 5.68 2147800 12275618 BLOOMBERRY 1.7 1.75 1.79 1.79 1.75 1.75 2000 3540 PACIFIC ONLINE LEISURE AND RES 1.35 1.39 1.38 1.49 1.36 1.39 550000 769120 3.41 3.99 3.6 3.99 3.6 3.99 5000 18780 PH RESORTS GRP PREMIUM LEISURE 0.3 0.305 0.3 0.305 0.295 0.3 6540000 1967550 4.68 4.7 4.62 4.74 4.62 4.7 876000 4098310 ALLHOME 1.46 1.47 1.57 1.57 1.42 1.46 3088000 4461060 METRO RETAIL PUREGOLD 41.15 41.4 40.2 41.5 39.6 41.4 4580000 188025275 60 61.5 61.95 61.95 58.5 61.5 1486810 88749873.5 ROBINSONS RTL PHIL SEVEN CORP 131 134 132 133 132 132 43000 5676100 1.21 1.23 1.23 1.27 1.21 1.21 970000 1189980 SSI GROUP 12.58 12.6 12.64 12.94 12.5 12.58 3534200 44481878 WILCON DEPOT APC GROUP 0.285 0.29 0.28 0.29 0.28 0.285 440000 126200 5 5.19 5.24 5.24 5 5.19 41000 205630 EASYCALL PRMIERE HORIZON 0.198 0.2 0.2 0.205 0.2 0.2 520000 104370 SBS PHIL CORP 5.18 5.98 5.75 5.8 5.75 5.75 9300 53500

-24547720 -123786850 3290 1527940 -12880 127930.0001 -88765 203400 -13070045 -4144550.5 -1199180 -935550 -329.9999 -8269438 4080 -231000 1481500 -548300 28304750 -2267242.5 -4015540 -321130 593526 -

MINING & OIL ATOK 9.8 10.86 10.86 10.86 10.78 10.86 7000 75904 0.74 0.75 0.76 0.76 0.72 0.75 158000 116590 2280 APEX MINING ABRA MINING 0.001 0.0011 0.001 0.0011 0.001 0.0011 24000000 24100 1.71 1.89 1.71 1.71 1.7 1.7 90000 153350 ATLAS MINING CENTURY PEAK 2.55 2.63 2.61 2.62 2.61 2.62 200000 523000 DIZON MINES 6.17 6.22 6.22 6.22 6.16 6.17 12800 79363 0.66 0.67 0.66 0.68 0.64 0.66 5301000 3499770 -728150 FERRONICKEL GEOGRACE 0.189 0.2 0.187 0.2 0.187 0.189 230000 43380 0.072 0.077 0.071 0.077 0.071 0.077 3420000 259820 LEPANTO A MANILA MINING A 0.0064 0.0066 0.0065 0.0066 0.0065 0.0066 32000000 208100 MANILA MINING B 0.0064 0.007 0.007 0.007 0.0064 0.0064 2000000 13400 0.53 0.59 0.56 0.6 0.53 0.53 279000 158760 MARCVENTURES NIHAO 0.91 0.93 0.91 0.93 0.9 0.91 159000 144700 NICKEL ASIA 1.61 1.62 1.6 1.67 1.57 1.62 6528000 10529020 -3268090 0.35 0.4 0.355 0.355 0.355 0.355 140000 49700 OMICO CORP ORNTL PENINSULA 0.45 0.46 0.475 0.475 0.45 0.45 490000 222700 2.04 2.05 2 2.07 2 2.04 256000 525350 -125340 PX MINING SEMIRARA MINING 11.58 11.6 12 12 11.5 11.6 1075400 12541600 -2054890 UNITED PARAGON 0.0041 0.0045 0.0045 0.0045 0.0045 0.0045 5000000 22500 5.02 5.19 5.31 5.34 5 5.19 136100 702453 2076 ACE ENEXOR ORNTL PETROL A 0.0083 0.0088 0.0084 0.0084 0.0084 0.0084 10000000 84000 3.84 3.85 3.9 3.9 3.8 3.84 1465000 5595240 236500 PXP ENERGY

PREFFERED HOUSE PREF A 93.7 95 95 95 95 95 3300 313500 497 506 497 497 497 497 2000 994000 AC PREF B1 AC PREF B2R 480.2 490 490 490 490 490 150 73500 96.3 99.5 99.5 99.5 99.5 99.5 2510 249745 199995 CPG PREF A 97.3 97.5 97.5 97.5 97.5 97.5 18860 1838850 487500 DD PREF GLO PREF P 495 499.8 499.8 499.8 499.8 499.8 30 14994 980 990 989 990 988 990 1200 1186800 GTCAP PREF B MWIDE PREF 98.5 99.4 99.45 99.45 99.45 99.45 100 9945 102 102.5 102.5 102.5 102.5 102.5 600 61500 PNX PREF 3B PNX PREF 4 995 998 996.5 999 995 995 1300 1297350 PCOR PREF 3B 1006 1022 1006 1006 1006 1006 7000 7042000 76.05 76.25 76.3 76.3 76 76.3 1840 140020 SMC PREF 2C SMC PREF 2D 73.8 75 74.9 74.9 74.9 74.9 5000 374500 SMC PREF 2F 74.6 75 75 75 75 75 76300 5722500 74.1 75 75.05 75.05 75.05 75.05 150 11257.5 11257.5 SMC PREF 2G SMC PREF 2H 74.5 74.95 74.95 75 74.95 75 77000 5774947.5 73.5 74.85 74.85 74.85 74.85 74.85 390 29191.5 SMC PREF 2I

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR 15.3 16.88 15.5 15.5 15.3 15.3 38000 585900 -585900 4.8 4.89 4.9 4.9 4.8 4.89 36000 174180 -4900 GMA HLDG PDR

WARRANTS LR WARRANT 0.86 0.88 0.8 1 0.8 0.88 117000 104370

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ITALPINAS 1.6 1.61 1.8 1.87 1.61 1.61 3161000 5229060 193970 5.7 5.99 5.9 6 5.7 5.7 46200 268371 KEPWEALTH XURPAS 0.55 0.56 0.5 0.55 0.5 0.55 8390000 4433250 -6200

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS

FIRST METRO ETF 84.5 85 86.25 86.25 84.5 84.5 36070 3084263 204300

www.businessmirror.com.ph

FDC retires $300-M bonds using extra cash, new loans

F

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

ilinvest Development Corp.

(FDC), the conglomerate led by the Gotianun family, said it has retired its debt worth $300 million using the company’s excess cash and new loans.

The company said it has fully paid its fixed-rate seven-year bonds using excess cash and new local currency term-loan financing from local banks.

The US dollar-denominated fixed-rate seven-year bonds, issued on April 2, 2013, had an original issuance amount of $300 million with an interest rate of 4.25 percent a year.

“Our continued adherence to our financial commitments is aligned with the Filinvest group’s 60-year unblemished credit track record,”

said FDC President and CEO L. Josephine G. Yap. From the time of the bond issuance and throughout its entire tenor, the full amount of the bonds was fully hedged against foreign currency exchange risks, the company said.

In 2013, FDC redeemed $13.5 million of the $300-million fixed rate bonds at a discount, reducing the principal amount to $286.5 million.

Prior to the government’s declaration of enhanced community

Seaoil donates fuel for DOTr free ride scheme

he Department of Transportation (DOTr) has added another partner to its list of fuel companies that provide subsidies to bus units participating in the government’s free ride for health workers program.

Seaoil Philippines has pledged to provide P405,000 worth of fuel for buses ferrying medical workers. Fifteen bus units will benefit from the subsidies, which is capped at 50 liters of

T

STOCK-MARKET OUTLOOK Last week

Share prices ended higher for the third consecutive week as the local market tracked overseas markets which posted gains as government measures to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic calmed investors.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gained 163.86 points to close at 5,510.83 points during the three-day trading week.

“Last week's close strengthens the case that it had found a bottom when it hovered around 4,000 a few weeks ago. After hitting an eight-year low of 4,049.15 back in the middle of March, the PSEi has rallied more than 36 percent as prices stabilize after weeks of heavy volatility,” said Christopher Mangun, research head at AAA Securities Inc. “Local investors took advantage of incredibly low valuations despite heavy foreign outflows,” he added.

The market started the week strong, gaining 4 percent on Monday and then extending it on Tuesday before succumbing to profit-taking on Wednesday, before the Holy Week break.

Foreign investors were again net sellers at P2.5 billion as volume of trade thinned out, averaging at only P5.28 billion.

All other subindices ended on the green, with the exception of the Financials index which shed 26.41 points to close at 1,157.37 points.

The broader All Shares index gained 72.78 to 3,332.44, the Industrial index surged 639.19 to 7,073.16, the Holding Firms index rose 245.27 to 5,510.79, the Property index added 14.24 to 2,838.40, the Services index was up 33.34 to 1,222.24, and the Mining and Oil index climbed 59.09 to 4,320.96.

For the week, gainers led losers 126 to 91 while 22 shares were unchanged.

Top gainers were DFNN Inc., Liberty Flour Mills Inc., Keppel Philippines Holdings Inc. A, F and J Prince Holdings Corp. A, Philweb Corp. and United Paragon Mining Corp.

Top losers were Anchor Land Holdings Inc., Benguet Corp. A and B shares, Philippine Trust Co., Manila Mining Corp. B, MJC Investments Corp. and Italpinas Development Corp.

This week

Prices may fall this week, partly as a result of profit-taking, as volatility may return to the market after the Lenten break.

“We see a downward bias as worries over the economy continue to linger. With the extension of the mainland Luzon enhanced community quarantine, investors are now expecting more downward pressure on the economy. Our fiscal capacity will also be of concern.

With the duration of the pandemic still uncertain, we can’t determine yet until when and how much more of the emergency support from the government will be needed,” said Japhet Louis O. Tantiangco, senior research analyst at Philstocks Financials Inc. “The economy is in turbulent times and this is expected to weigh on the market,” Tantiangco added.

Trading range for the main index this week is seen from 5,300 to 5,700 points, he said.

Meanwhile, Luis Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital Development Corp. said market movements will still depend on the developments related to the spread of Covid-19.

“Sentiment will track whether the situation is improving or not,” he said.

Stock picks

Broker Regina Capital advised to trade the range on the stock of Jollibee Foods Corp. after its rally during the past few trading days.

“Indicators appear to be on the buy side. Momentum is falling, buying pressure is on the rise, and volatility is falling. Jollibee appears to have established P105.50 as its new support and if this trend continues, then sideways consolidation within its P105.50 and P120.25 range will likely follow,” it said.

Jollibee shares closed Wednesday at P120 apiece.

The broker also said Megaworld Corp. may be at the end of its two-week rally, opening at a gap up of P2.75 on Tuesday.

“Trading between its P2.62 and P2.70 range, Megaworld may find enough volume to break past its P2.70 support. If this trend continues, a pullback would be likely as investors take profits,” it said.

Megaworld shares closed last week at P2.72 apiece. VG Cabuag

quarantine over Luzon, FDC had previously submitted its registration papers for the public offering of peso-denominated fixed-rate bonds of up to P8 billion.

The amount to be raised was supposed to be used in part to finance the said maturing US dollar-denominated debt.

In light of the significantly elevated economic uncertainty and heightened market risks brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), FDC together with its underwriters and bookrunners, just before the start of the bonds’ offering period, unanimously decided to defer the bond offering to a later date, the company said.

Yap also said the company is revisiting its plans in light of the potential economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We intend to take a more cautious direction and anticipate that relaxation of the quarantine may come in stages. As such, we would like to adopt a more flexible short-

term planning process while still mindful of our medium-term strategy,” said Yap. “The Filinvest group and its Filinvest City Foundation and Andrew Gotianun Foundation are fully committed to fighting this pandemic hand in hand with the national and local governments,” she added.

FDC has identified areas with "higher impact" for its donations.

This included a P100-million donation to provide medical equipment, including complete personal protective equipment, to frontliners, of which 30,000 have been distributed to date, and the distribution of ventilators and PCR-based testing machines.

The Filinvest group opened their doors for the use of The Filinvest Tent in Alabang as a temporary quarantine center. The Palms Country Club has also offered the use of its premises for the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine frontliners with Filinvest shouldering the food and operating expenses.

free fuel per day.

“This is a big help not just for us or for the buses, but also for the medical frontline workers helping fight the Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic,” Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade said.

Aside from Seaoil, other fuel companies that have partnered with the agency are Phoenix Petroleum, Petron Corp., CleanFuel, and Total Philip-

pines. Phoenix Petroleum will provide 50 liters of fuel daily to 60 private bus units participating in the free ride program. The same goes for Petron.

CleanFuel will also provide 40 liters of fuel for 20 bus units for free, while Total has allocated free fuel subsidies to 30 participating bus units at P1,000 per unit, or vehicles driven by medical frontline workers at P300 per unit until April 17. Lorenz S. Marasigan

mutual funds

April 8, 2020

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 186.21 -29.22% -10.87% -8.49% -26.07% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 0.9017 -44.92% -14.31% -9.94% -34.75% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 2.4977 -39.06% -15.76% -10.99% -32.09% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.6245 -33.49% n.a. n.a. -30.39% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.6269 -27.28% n.a. n.a. -26.19% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 4.0436 -26.14% -8.23% -7.54% -24.11% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,6 0.6318 -27.69% -12.02% n.a.

-25.98% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a 69.69 -45.28% n.a. n.a. -32.56% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 37.3247 -28.06% -9.42% n.a. -27.22% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 397.7 -26.61% -9.03% -7.71% -25.35% Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d,8 0.8323 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-19.2% Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 0.9543 -26.98% -8.86% -6.88% -25.85% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 27.9814 -27.56% -8.23% -6.79% -26.16% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,1 0.7364 -28.7% n.a. n.a.

-27.67% Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 3.7993 -27.66% -8.92% -6.62% -27.27% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a

635.01 -27.56% -8.88% -6.84% -27.18% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 0.5747 -38.04% -13.1% -10.91% -32.5% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 2.9561 -31.26% -9.97% -7.98% -29.77% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.73 -27.58% -9% n.a. -27.06% United Fund, Inc. -a 2.6755 -27.58% -7.2% -5.83% -26.76% Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 85.1567 -27.39% -8.39% -6.01% -27.19% ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b

$0.8585 -17.59% -2.87% -3.55% -16.52% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.1214 -12.49% 0.61% n.a. -18.66% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.4445 -15.94% -6.16% -6% -7.57% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 1.9142 -17.25% -6.12% -4.31% -12.24% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.2929 -13.06% -3.14% -4.96% -12.87% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,5 0.1788 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-21.75% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a 1.7671 -7.68% -1.78% -2.32% -9.98% PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.23 -11.95% -4.12% -4.16% -14.76% Philam Fund, Inc. -a 14.4939 -12.52% -4.15% -4.17% -14.54% Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 1.8247 -14.76% -4.7% -14.16% -3.46% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.113 -18.93% -5.4% -4.89% -19.43% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d,2 0.8734 -12.31% n.a. n.a. -14.01% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d,2 0.778 -21.85% n.a. n.a. -21.92% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d,2 0.7602 -23.47% n.a. n.a. -23.46% Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.7526 -23.06% -7.19% -7.03% -22.79% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a $0.03758 4.27% 1.99% 1.33% -1.7% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -a $0.8825 -11.86% -2.17% -2.6% -14.97% 0.42% 0.15% -15.12% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $3.3196 -10.14% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,7 $1.0045 -7.11% -0.45% n.a.

-11.01% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 360.72 3.85% 2.86% 2.3% 0.82% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a

1.9197 2.04% 0.88% -0.43% 0.93% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.1522 4.69% 5.12% 5.09% 1.15% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.238 3.75% 2.27% 1.83% 0.58% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.3683 4.84% 2.37% 1.25% 0.39% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.3695 8.58% 2.5% 1.52% -0.08% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.8032 5.25% 3.04% 1.51% 0.4% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 0.9703 5.57% 1.65% 0.3% 0.62% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.0725 6.62% 4.12% 2.45% -0.11% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a 1.703 6.42% 3.68% 2.04% 0.11% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $466.59 2.86% 2.27% 2.36% -0.35% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a Є213.8 -1.01% 0.52% 0.54% -2.7% ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.1623 -0.25% 1.36% 1.45% -3.72% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0256 1.59% 0.93% 0.88% -0.78% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -a $1.0436 -1.72% -0.84% -1.15% -4.71% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.3503 4.27% 2.23% 1.88% -2.23% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0591892 1.98% 1.31% 1.3% -1.87% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.1091 4.61% 1.8% 1.83% -2.08% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 126.87 3.75% 3% 2.27% 0.87% First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a,3 1.0347 2.77% n.a. n.a.

0.82% Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a 1.2572 5.23% 3.09% 1.65% 0.04% Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.2748 3.45% 2.98% 2.49% 0.81% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.04 1.71% n.a. n.a.

0.27% Feeder Fund Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,4 $0.88 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-11.11% a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day. b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago. c - Listed in the PSE. d - in Net Asset Value per Unit (NAVPU).

1 - Launch date is January 3, 2019. 2 - Launch date is January 28, 2019. 3 - Launch date is February 1, 2019. 4 - Launch date is November 15, 2019.

5 - Launch date is September 28, 2019. 6 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last October 12, 2018 (formerly, One Wealthy Nation Fund, Inc.).

7 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019.

8 - Launch date is December 09, 2019.

"While we endeavor to keep the information accurate, the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) and its members make no warranties as to the correctness of the newspaper’s publication and assume no liability or responsibility for any error or omissions. You may visit http://www. pifa. com.ph to see the latest NAVPS/NAVPU."

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Banking&Finance

Credit registry keeps inquiry fee affordable

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad @Tyronepiad

T

he country’s credit registry announced it is keeping inquiry fee affordable amid the pandemic to allow more financial institutions accessing its database.

State-run Credit Information Corp. (CIC) said in a statement that it would be maintaining its introductory price per credit report inquiry at P10—from P55 earlier—until end-December this year. The lesser fee secured backing by the Securities of Exchange and Commission last month.

CIC President and CEO Jaime Casto Jose P. Garchitorena said lowering the inquiry fee could boost the appreciation on shared credit database for major banks, credit-card companies and nonbank and smaller financial institutions.

“Large financial institutions that were previously hesitant to access CIC Credit Reports—as the newest source of basic credit data—are now actively completing their technical and legal requirements to become an accessing entity,” Garchitorena was quoted in the statement as saying. “One potential accessing entity even declared that it is budgeting to access 1 million CIC Credit Reports this year alone.”

He said he observed an increase in the number of financial institutions applying as accessing entities, thanks to the firm’s growing

database supported by reports from Social Security System and Government Service Insurance System, among others.

The CIC said that database could be helpful to financial institutions in navigating the borrowing and lending landscape, especially now that more challenges are seen to come amid the pandemic.

With cheaper access, Garchitorena said that users will be given more data to review loan applications.

Among CIC’s accessing entities as of March are rural banks, financing and lending corporations, loan associations, cooperatives and thrift banks. The credit registry has 73 million contract data coming from 483 financial institutions and 11 million unique individuals and 83,000 proprietors in its database.

“The CIC database is a new and unique government resource to assist lenders and borrowers to manage their credit risks. We encourage all our submitting financial institutions to get onboard as an accessing entity and take advantage of its benefits,” Garchitorena added.

The CIC earlier alerted the public of collection scam and individuals falsely claiming to be credit registry employees with the intent of harassing borrowers to pay their account despite the lockdown.

The corporation said it was already working with law enforcement and other government agencies in addressing the matter.

Perspectives

Do the right thing, even when no one is looking

R

egulators are focused on the efforts of financial services companies to identify and prevent misconduct at its root.

Conduct-risk frameworks will be expected to include enhanced monitoring and surveillance, inclusive of advanced technologies and data analytics, as well as ongoing metrics, reporting and governance. In addition, the framework will be expected to be integrated throughout the operations of the company as part of a culture of ethics and compliance, including demonstrated support by senior management and the board and clear consequences for misconduct.

Key areas of concern will include customer data privacy, sales/trading practices and fair treatment in addition to conflicts of interest, market conduct, incentive compensation plans and third-party oversight.

Technology transformation n Financial services companies are investing in tools and capabilities to identify patterns and trends that can proactively detect and prevent incidents of ethical misconduct, including market manipulation and financial crime; regulators and stakeholders are increasingly expecting investigations of ethical misconduct to help prevent misconduct through diagnosis of systemic weaknesses in control and risk trends. n Automation can enable data validation and aggregation, provide a more formalized reporting loop, and offer an integrated view of potential misconduct; technologies capable of culling data from supporting documents (e.g., pdfs, Word documents) can support investigations and inform multidimensional metrics, enhancing predictive qualities. n The expanding use of artificial intelligence is raising ethical conduct issues related to transparency and machine bias, customer data privacy and digital rights, and third-party data usage.

Customer interaction n Conduct-risk management frameworks should be applied enterprise-wide to capture and assess relevant information on incentive compensation plans, customer sales practices, trading activities, and market integrity in order to

demonstrate proactive monitoring and prevention of misconduct and related customer harm. n Qualitative data, such as information gleaned from customer surveys, focus group outreach, complaints portals, and social-media commentary, should augment quantitative/hard data statistics regarding ethical conduct and corporate culture.

Payments modernization n Across bank and nonbank participants and the scope of payment channels and delivered services, regulatory concerns and industry standards focus on fair treatment/access and customer protections, including data privacy, funds availability, fee disclosures, fraud prevention, error resolution, and technology controls. n Innovative and evolving technologies facilitate faster transaction screening to keep pace with payments modernization, but can also introduce new regulatory and customer protection risks and increase expectations for supplier and third-party procurement and risk management.

Market expansion n Conduct and culture issues might be exposed during efforts to expand market presence, such as cultural integration challenges when engaged in M&A activities; employee incentive/reward programs that promote integrity related risks; and the presence of subcultures that do not align with the values, ethics, and risk culture of the company. n Continuing talent acquisition challenges will hinder firms’ abilities to define and operationalize their conduct risk frameworks.

Cost efficiencies n Leveraging technologies to efficiently define relevant taxonomies at sufficient levels of granularity that aids in uncovering trends, patterns, and correlations in order to generate insight and identify root causes of misconduct.

The excerpt was taken from KPMG article, “Ten key regulatory challenges of 2020.” © 2020 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member-firm of the KPMG network of independent member-firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity. All rights reserved. Printed in the Philippines.

For more information on KPMG in the Philippines, you may visit www.kpmg.com.ph.

BusinessMirror

Monday, April 13, 2020 B3

DBM: Govt may use confidential, intelligence funds vs pandemic

T

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

he Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said the government may also use the confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) under the 2020 national budget for government’s response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado said the DBM would have to determine the amount of CIFs that can be realigned should they are given the greenlight to do so.

Avisado told the BusinessMirror they are looking at all “possible sources of funds” that can be used by government as it grapples with the economic costs of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What’s important is government is doing everything possible, he added in Filipino.

BusinessMirror sought Avisado’s response to the proposal by House Assistant Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France L. Castro’s for President

Duterte to realign some P9.6 billion in confidential and intelligence funds. Castro described these funds as “questionable.”

Castro also said the amount also includes the President’s P4.5 billion confidential and intelligence fund that, according to her, is “subject to a near-negligible audit only.”

“This will surely be a better use of the taxpayer’s funds,” the lawmaker said in a statement.

Based on the DBM’s latest list of Special Allotment Release Orders and Notices of Cash Allocation, the agency has so far released this year 24 Saros and NCAs for Intelligence Fund requirements of different agencies collectively amounting to P2.558

billion while one Saro and NCA worth P100 million was released by DBM to cover the confidential expenses of the National Security Council for this fiscal year.

Broken down, the DBM for this month alone released six Saros amounting to a total of P1.69 billion to cover the requirements for Intelligence Fund of Presidential Security Group (P12 million), Philippine Marine Corps (P7.43 million), Philippine Navy (P32.316 million), Philippine Air Force (P17 million), Philippine Army (P444 million) and Department of National Defense (P1.178 billion).

In March, the DBM released 18 Saros collectively amounting to P867.929 million to the Philippine National Police for its central office as well as its different regional offices specifically to cover their funding requirements for Fiscal Year 2020 Intelligence Fund.

At the same time, the Department of Finance (DOF) also shut down calls for a government debt service moratorium with international lenders.

Several lawmakers, including Castro and House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate as well as Bayan Muna Chairman Neri J. Colmenares asked the government to consider a debt service moratorium with key international and

multilateral lending institutions “to free at least a trillion of funds to help micro, small and medium enterprises, as well as rehabilitate the country from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

But Finance Undersecretary Mark Dennis Y.C. Joven, who heads DOF’s International Finance Group, told the BusinessMirror they are not currently considering this proposal.

“This is off the table since government finances are quite sufficient now,” Joven said in a text message.

Asked if he thinks this proposal would damage the country’s credit rating, Joven replied: “I think standing by our obligations will improve our credit ratings if other [countries] don’t stand by theirs.”

Last month, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank issued a joint statement calling on official bilateral creditors to suspend debt payments from IDA (International Development Association) countries that request forbearance to help them tackle the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Based on the World Bank’s web site, the IDA is the largest source of concessional finance for the world’s 76 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. The IDA has been historically funded largely by contributions from governments of its memberscountries.

PNOC Group remits ₧7B to support NG efforts vs Covid-19

T

HE Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) Group has remitted P7 billion to the national government to support efforts to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid) pandemic.

The Department of Energy (DOE), whose secretary sits as ex officio Chairman of the Boards of PNOC and its subsidiaries, said Sunday afternoon that the PNOC group heeded government’s call and remitted a total of P7 billion to the National Treasury to help fund the program

of the national government under Republic Act 11469.

The parent company’s Board of Directors approved the recommendation of the management to remit P5 billion of its accumulated retained earnings during a Special Board Meeting it held last week.

The share of its exploration subsidiary, PNOC-Exploration Corp.

(PNOC-EC), stood at P2 billion.

“We commend and thank the PNOC Group Management and directors for this significant

contribution to our fight against Covid-19,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said. “The energy family is united not only in ensuring unhampered energy services during this period, but also in seeking all possible ways to support the government, our frontliners, and our people.”

Moreover, the PNOC Board also pledged to donate a portion of their per diems to the procurement of much-needed protective gear and supplies for healthcare front-liners.

PNOC is a government-owned and -controlled corporation with two subsidiaries: PNOC-EC and PNOC Renewables Corp. (PNOC RC).

PNOC-EC, which is 99 percentowned by PNOC, holds 10 percent working interest in Service Contract 38, also known as the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power Project.

PNOC RC, on the other hand, is the subsidiary charged with development of solar, hydro, waste-toenergy and other renewable energy projects. Lenie Lectura

US lenders struggle to deliver virus relief to small businesses

L

enders face continued difficulties in issuing financing under the $349-billion small business relief effort the Trump administration launched a week ago in response to the coronavirus outbreak, leaving momand-pop firms at growing risk of failure.

Banks have been intermittently shut out of the government’s loan-processing system, including again Thursday.

They’re manually filling out forms–and are forced to start over if the network freezes. Lenders are especially galled over unclear guidance and confusing paperwork: after questioning the use of a sample loan form dating from 2002, they were told they could use their own documents instead.

“We’re all for the program–everything about it in theory is right,” said Heidi Brown, executive vice president of Citizens State Bank in Iowa. “But it’s like being sent out to build a house with only three tools in the tool box.”Customers are coming in or calling constantly because they have either been forced to close or dramatically reduce hours, Brown said, and they’re concerned.

“They’re desperate to get in line for the help. Unfortunately we can’t answer all their questions.”

Difficulties

Time is short to rescue small businesses.

Filings for US jobless claims reached a three-week total of almost 17 million on Thursday. Lenders, who’ve been flooded with applications, reported difficulties executing the program from the start, meaning funds are only trickling to firms a week after the initiative launched.

The Paycheck Protection Program, run by the US Small Business Administration (SBA), is a signature part of the $2.2 trillion stimulus enacted in March

applications from borrowers who didn’t have an existing lending account. Wells Fargo & Co., historically one of the largest lenders for small businesses, had to stop taking applications for a time because of a regulatory cap, which was eased on Wednesday. Some lenders were also wary about their ability to resell the loans for needed liquidity. The Federal Reserve helped address those concerns Tuesday when it announced a program to provide financing against the loans.

Near future

Chairs are stacked on tables at an unidentified alfresco restaurant. Small businesses in the US are finding it difficult to access the relief package during the coronavirus outbreak. Bloomberg News to contain the economic damage from the pandemic. It offers loans of as much as $10 million that become grants if the money is used for payroll and certain other expenses in the next two months.

The SBA said that more than 661,000 loan applications, totaling more than $168 billion, have been approved as of Friday afternoon, but there are no data on how much has actually reached business owners desperate to stay afloat.

Many banks are saying they have a “decent amount” of loans approved, but have yet to actually distribute it, said Julie Huston, chairwoman of the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, who leads an SBAapproved lender called Immito Llc.

Glitches

The initiative, which was created and

launched in a matter of days, is more than 10 times what the SBA’s flagship loan program oversaw last year. Advocates said the agency is trying to get it running smoothly and there were bound to be glitches. “SBA, working closely with Treasury, launched an unprecedented $350 billion assistance program in just one week,” spokesman Jim Billimoria said in a statement. “This is a historic achievement in an incredibly short amount of time. During this time, issues identified by lenders and borrowers have been quickly resolved.”

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks weren’t ready to lend money initially after the Trump administration didn’t provide guidance on processing loans for the program until hours before it started on April 3. Many didn’t take

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin assured borrowers during a White House briefing April 2: “You get the money.

You’ll get it the same day. You use this to pay your workers. Please bring your workers back to work if you’ve let them go. You have eight weeks plus overhead.

This is a very important program.”

President Donald Trump defended the program on Thursday, saying billions of dollars’ worth of loans are being processed and bankers will be paying out the money “in the very near future.”

“I’m hearing it’s a very, very successful rollout,” Trump said. “They did want changes in applications, they want changes in loan requirements, etcetera,” he said of lenders.

Bankers warned the Trump administration it had failed to provide sufficient guidance on how lenders should draft critical documents. They wanted the fine print on rules that business owners must follow to get their loans forgiven, and banks held off completing financing because of uncertainty about loan documents, called promissory notes.

Guidance from Treasury finally came on Wednesday that they could use their own form or an SBA one. Bloomberg News

B4

Show BusinessMirror

Monday, April 13, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

When pets help us cope CLOCKWISE: Nonie Buencamino, Joyce Ann Burton-Titular, Calvin Chua and Ivy Mendoza with their pets

Today’s Horoscope

By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Allison Williams, 32; Lorenzo Cain, 34; Rick Schroder, 50; Al Green, 74.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Getting upset over something you cannot change will hold you back. Be secretive regarding your plans until you have everything in place.

Fill out forms that will help you receive assistance in reaching your goal. Go through the proper channels, and you will build a solid foundation to house your longterm plans. Personal improvements will lead to financial gains. Your lucky numbers are 3, 9, 20, 27, 31, 34, 42.

ALL ACCESS RICKY GALLARDO

rickygallardoTFI@gmail.com

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Don’t let emotions stop you from reaching your goal. Concentrate on getting things done, and you will ease stress and feel good about your accomplishments. Refuse to let what others do lead you astray. ★★

M

ANY of us, especially the kids, missed many Easter activities because of the current health crisis that confronts us and continues to baffle the world. No colorful eggs, no bunnies, none of those sweet treats we have been used to savoring. Most of us are inside our homes, getting used to this period of peace, quiet, prayer, meditation, and a lot of time with whoever we are locked down with.

I spoke to some friends who have shared that they are lucky to have their pets with them. “The kids have our dogs to play with, and I’m happy that they are not just focused on what to eat, what to watch and what to play. They even learn about being responsible—they walk the dogs, they help tidy them, and even assist in bathing them,� shared a single mother friend of mine.

Another colleague told me that he has included his pet dog as part of his exercise routine. “I walk Bettina, a Cocker Spaniel, every morning inside our village.

We both catch the morning sun, something which Bettina and I do not get to do during normal work days when I have to leave home early to avoid the morning rush traffic going to the office.�

Some of our celebrities and friends in the industry have also discovered the joys of being with their pets during this quarantine period which has been extended to almost three more weeks. Many have realized that their pets are helping them cope with their day to day lives during this crisis.

Award-winning actor and family man Nonie Buencamino loves dogs. In his home in Bulacan, the thespian and his family have Amelie, a Bichon Frise, and two Belgian Malinois, Trina and her son Bakal.

Buencamino is particularly fond of Bakal, who is also an award-winning dog. “I have been part of Bakal’s training since he was a pup. During this period, I get to spend a lot of time with Bakal and continue to hone him to be a champion dog. He is truly special.� Another pet lover and animal advocate is beauty queen turned host turned actress Joyce Ann Burton-Titular. She and her husband Ron have a lot of dogs—some huge standard poodles, an aspin, an epileptic mixed breed and a chihuahua. “We get to spend a lot more time with them now that everything is at a halt. And we love it! They keep us amused and sane and happy!�

Another animal advocate is model-actress Marina Benipayo, who is known among her peers as a good-

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): A hasty move will be shortsighted and likely lead to a mistake or loss. Use your intelligence, not your brawn, to reach your objective. You have what it takes to deliver the goods, so don’t fold under pressure. ★★★★★

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Someone will let you down. Take care of things, and you won’t be disappointed. Make plans based on what you know and what you have to offer. A learning experience is apparent. Focus on personal growth. ★★★

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Stick to people who share your sentiments. Create a friendly atmosphere, and suggest common goals that will encourage better relationships with supportive people. Change only what’s necessary, and get involved with people and activities that are beneficial. ★★★

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Give your all to receive the highest return. There is no room for error, and arguments and mistakes will lead to regret. Don’t leave anything incomplete or to chance. Do your job with precision, and strive to get ahead. Romance is featured. ★★★

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Take a moment to praise someone or to offer a friendly gesture. A change will spark your imagination.

New beginnings will spice up your life and put a smile on your face. Sharing your emotional and personal thoughts will change your life. ★★★★★

hearted cat woman. For many years now, Benipayo has been drawn to abandoned cats. She saves them, brings them to the vet and finds new homes for these stray cats and kittens. Benipayo and her longtime companion Richard Cepeda continue to feed and care for so many cats especially during this lockdown period. Concert producer Calvin Chua is also a dog lover. He has eight—two Alaskan Malamutes and 6 Pomeranians. In between quietly helping the frontliners, Chua spends a lot of time with his dogs. “They definitely help reduce the stress levels and anxiety that we are experiencing right now. They lift

our moods and continue to spark joy in our homes.�

Perhaps one popular dog on social media is Ollie, an Old English Sheepdog owned by media colleague and friend Ivy Mendoza. Ollie recently turned nine and he has been a loyal companion of Mendoza for many years now. Recently, Mendoza shared photos of how Ollie is such a behaved pet during bathing time. “I think he relishes my extra attention these days.�

Our pets provide more than just companionship during these extraordinary times. They remind us that love and loyalty can be consistent, and oftentimes just being there is enough. â–

was their way of assuring students things were going to return to normal eventually. “Having a makeshift classroom is a way of telling children that the school is still here, that their teacher is still there and she even has lipstick on,� said then Education Bro. Armin Luistro. So, yes, the lipstick effect is one of the things I’d like to see happen to the beauty industry and the country’s economy in general.

Now, back to nails and the need for a mani-pedi. For now, many girls have been

desperate to remove their gel manicures.

Thankfully, Allure magazine (@allure on Instagram) did a series of Stories featuring Mar y Sol Inzerillo (@nailsbymarysoul on Instagram) on how to remove them. It’s a multistep process that requires effort and time, something we have a lot of.

The first step is to apply lotion all over your hands. Then, gently file over the gel manicure using the side that says 100.

Massage cuticle oil all around the nail beds.

After that, you can soak pre-cut cotton in alcohol and place it on your nail. Them, you can wrap your nail in pre-cut aluminum foil

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Commit time and effort to yourself, and get busy accomplishing what you set out to do.

Refuse to let the past hold you back or allow demanding people to deplete your energy. Make changes that benefit you. Spend what’s necessary. ★★★★

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Look at the facts and figures before you sign up for something unfamiliar to you. Take into consideration where the information you are getting originated. A change at home will be conducive to expanding an idea that interests you. ★★★

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Soak up what’s going on around you. Listen to what others have to say, but don’t reveal how you feel. Don’t discuss a change you want to make until you have everything in place. ★★★

Tips on how to remove your gel manicure CONTINUED FROM B5

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Proceed with caution. Don’t take on too much or make promises you can’t keep. Put more time and energy into personal growth and satisfaction. Follow your heart, explore possibilities and get rid of the dead weight in your life. Update your image. ★★

with your finger pointed downward to avoid spilling. Bend the foil backward toward the back of your hand. Inzerillo said you can speed up the process by wearing gloves.

The next step is to “nudge� any residual polish off your nail using an orange stick in an upward motion toward your cuticle. Then, you apply a gentle cuticle remover. Inzerillo recommends Sally Hansen Problem Cuticle Remover.

Another thing I’m going to share is that I have probably found the best pimple patch in the world. I may be exaggerating but Happy Skin’s Invisible Pimple Patch is a

miracle worker that gets rid of big pimples practically overnight. Some pimples may need another night but in general, they’re gone after one night. It’s slightly expensive but worth it. Normally, I am used to pimple patches just serving as plasters to protect the pimple from becoming infected but Invisible Pimple Patch is more than that. It contains centella asiatica extract.

One of these days, I’m going to write about the beauty products that helped keep me sane during this time but for now, let me look for a place that sells the vitamins that we need.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Don’t share your thoughts prematurely. Flesh out exactly how you want to set things up before you take action. Intelligence and brute force will help you initiate what you want to happen all by yourself. ★★★

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Someone from your past will connect you to the help you need to get ahead. Optimism, coupled with a good idea, will lead to an opportunity that far exceeds your dream. Use your experience to avoid making an unfortunate mistake. ★★★★ BIRTHDAY BABY: You are intense, diplomatic and ambitious.

You are persistent and sensitive.

‘country codes’ BY PAUL COULTER The Universal Crossword/Edited by David Steinberg

ACROSS 1 “The final frontier�

6 French article within “Arles�

9 Heavy on low notes 14 Times New ___ 15 Calligraphy, e.g.

16 Nebraska city 17 Alternate name for the Olympic team from Sao Paulo’s nation?

19 Harder to find 20 It may get into a jamb 21 Giblets ingredient 23 ___ Spu-mante 26 Fire sign after Aries 28 Not belonging to anybody 29 Nickname for an ocean squad on the team from Helsinki’s nation?

32 Bowie’s weapon 33 ___ Lingus 34 Time-out talk?

38 Opposite of WSW 39 Check blood samples for the team from Dhaka’s nation?

43 A couple 44 Part of CD 46 Southeast Asian language

47 Choose to participate 49 Grappling squad on the team from Yerevan’s nation?

53 Soft shoe?

56 Biol. or chem.

57 Misses nothing on 58 Suddenly powerful sort 60 Certain ABA member 62 Stick-on 63 Jumping member of the team from Bridgetown’s nation?

68 Holy cup 69 Bummed out 70 Tractor surname 71 Before the due date 72 ___ de deux 73 Available, like a beer DOWN 1 12th graders: Abbr.

2 Kesha genre 3 “Yo te ___�

4 Capital of Wales 5 Inner: Prefix 6 ___ Tar Pits 7 Be incorrect 8 Alone at a party

9 10 11 12 13 18 22 23 24 25 27 30 31 35 36 37 40 41 42 45 48 50 51 52 53 54

Russian wolfhound Warrior women of myth See-through wrap brand Sex researcher Hite They’re longer than feet Alone in a cockpit Prefix for “structure�

Set, as a price Branch of Islam Attempts Figures of speech?

Get in a pool?

Senator Fischer Where you might store heirlooms Pigs Karaoke choices Adversary of Bugs Visualized “Ready or ___...�

Plant with furry spikes Toddler’s enclosure “Are you kidding me?�

Online greetings Jedi foe Move slightly Bizet work

55 59 61 64 65

Renee Zellweger won one for Judy Cookbook abbr.

Words on a task list Org. with a lockout service You may make an Instagram account for one 66 Stretch of history 67 Public image, briefly Solution to Wednesday’s puzzle:

Style

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

CHARINA SARTE for the Manila Protective Gear Sewing Club

ADRIAN PE does PPEs

Monday, April 13, 2020

FROM the Fashion Designers Association of Zamboanga

Saving lives, serving glamour T

HE coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is ravaging the fashion industry in terms of lives and revenue. The loss of beloved international designer Ito Curata, 60, who famously dressed up sex goddess Sharon Stone when he was based in Hollywood, leaves a void.

Sergio Rossi, 84, the Italian shoe designer, also succumbed to the disease. Here’s praying that Miss Earth 2011 Olga Alava of Ecuador, who tested positive for the virus, will be well.

HIGH FASHION FOR HEALTH WORKERS FOR his Spring 2008 Ready-to-Wear collection for Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs collaborated with the artist Richard Prince to create the handbag line. To better brandish the bags, they dressed supermodels that carried them in stark white, inspired by the pristine uniforms of nurses. Wearing a cap each with a letter spelling the brand and a sheer black face mask were Stephanie Seymour, Eva Herzigova, Rianne Ten Haken, Anne Vyalitsyna, Carmen Kass, Natalia Vodianova, Angela Lindvall, Isabeli Fontana, Karolina Kurkova, Lara Stone, Nadja Auermann and Naomi Campbell.

It might’ve been the most fashionable time health workers were showcased on the runway. But the fashion industry, especially in the couture houses, has always looked to the medical profession in the way the tailors and seamstresses dress inside their workrooms. They also wear white lab coats. This was epitomized by the aristocratic French couturier Hubert de Givenchy, who always wore a white lab coat as his atelier uniform.

With the Covid-19 crisis, medicine and fashion are once again converging. Saving lives, serving glamour.

Health workers are appealing for face masks and hospital gowns, and the fashion folk are responding.

In Japan, which was one of the first countries to be hit by the virus outside of China, retail brand Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing, will be donating 10 million masks (from China) to hospitals across their country, as well as sending a million masks each to the US and Italy. It will also donate its HeatTeach and AIRism clothing to medical staff across Asia.

In the United Kingdom, Burberry will use its Yorkshire factory, which usually produces its trademark trench coats, to make a hundred thousand face masks for the beleaguered National Health Services. The British fashion house will also fund the University of Oxford’s vaccine research.

In France, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton

TOTA PULCHRA MISS CHARLIZE

@misscharlize

head Bernard Arnault instructed its perfumes and cosmetics brands (Parfums Christian Dior, Guerlain, and Parfums Givenchy) to pivot its productions to hydroalcoholic gel to be donated to French health authorities. Luxury group Kering (Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron) is buying 3 million masks from China to also be donated to French health services. Chanel is awaiting approval for its prototypes for masks. Chanel president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky said in a statement: “We are mobilizing our partner manufacturers and teams, including close to 150 sewing specialists from the Haute Couture, Ready-to-Wear and Maisons d’Art workshops, to produce protective face masks and gowns.”

In Italy, Prada is producing 80,000 medical overalls and 110,000 face masks. It has also reportedly gifted Italian health authorities with two complete intensive care and resuscitation units. Giorgio Armani has switched its production facilities to manufacture single-use medical overalls. “I would like to dedicate a special thought to those involved in the production of disposable medical overalls, with their skills and dedication they will make a concrete contribution to confronting the greatest emergency of these years,” said the Italian master.

In Spain, Inditex, the owner of the biggest retail brand in the world, Zara, is turning over its supply chains to produce medical supplies. It expects to donate 300,000 face masks for medical workers and patients, and will start to make medical gowns once they procure medical-grade materials and fabrics.

In the US, indie designers Christian Siriano and Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss were the first to offer their services to make face masks in New York, the epicenter of the current epicenter of the crisis.

Ralph Lauren is donating $10 million to relief efforts, which includes the manufacture of 250,000 masks

and 25,000 isolation gowns. Of his philanthropy, Lauren told Town & Country in 2018: “I’m not a doctor; I just wanted to do what I could to help. For me, everything is personal. I realize that over the course of 50 years, you could blow it or you could stand for something.”

PPEs WITH PINOY PANACHE EVEN with threadbare resources, Filipino fashion designers are in the frontline of helping prevent the spread of Covid-19. They are heeding the desperate calls of health workers for protective coverings.

■ MICH DULCE AND THE MANILA PROTECTIVE GEAR SEWING CLUB. One of the biggest initiatives is the Manila Protective Gear Sewing Club, a group of “volunteers producing PPE [personal protective equipment] using a medically reviewed open source suit design to be distributed accordingly by the Office of the Vice President Leni Robredo.

The group will be distributing the PPEs to more than a hundred medical institutions from Mountain Province to Mandaluyong to Mindoro to Misamis Occidental. Volunteer designers include big names such as Job Dacon, Mark Bumgarner, Patrice Diaz, RJ Santos, Joey Sacco and Charina Sarte.

They are asking for fabric donations including water-repellant fabrics such as umbrella/raincoat material, poly microfiber and taffeta; nonwoven materials 50 gsm up, plus zippers, garters, velcro, twill tape and manila paper for pattern replication.

Mich Dulce, the London-educated designer and milliner, is the go-to person for this remarkable undertaking. In a statement, she offered some clarifications and guidance: “I’ve been saying from the start and it says in our techpack that these are nonmedical grade suits.

No designer can ever make a medical grade suit in their factory. This assumption is so dangerous and irresponsible.... Our patterns are medically reviewed to be the best version of a DIY suit, [but] it will never be medical grade. To be medical grade, they need to be made in a sterile environment and have to pass so many tests.... We are making suits as a layer of protection for health-care workers, as some of them are now reduced to using raincoats and garbage bags. These suits are a more durable alternative to that, but not medical grade, and as I’ve been saying from the beginning, they should be distributed accordingly. Let’s be responsible with our language and what we circulate please. Otherwise, we do more harm than good.”

■ FASHION DESIGNERS ASSOCIATION OF ZAMBOANGA (FDAZ). The members of the FDAZ (Angking Francisco, Federico Navarro, Neri Jaruda, Dr. Benjason Caranay, Atty. Breithner Amelda, Rachel Castillo, Ann Loong, Monching Fernandez, Leo Alfaro, Kuku Jimeno and Iven Sescon) have generously volunteered their time and talent to making PPEs for the health workers in the ZamBaSulTa area (Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi) and Zambo Sibugay.

“We have produced 250 pieces so far and will be producing 2,500 more for the Zamboanga City Medical Center, Zamboanga City Health Office, and other government hospitals,” said Francisco.

“Our problem for now is the sourcing out of materials. But, hopefully, some Zamboangueños in Manila will be able to send some through the military C-130 plane.”

■ ADRIAN PE AND THE TELETUBBIES NURSES. Pe is the person behind the cheerful, campy PPEs putting a smile on the health workers who wear them, somewhat easing the dangers they are facing while doing their job. A designer and a registered cardiovascular operating room nurse, Pe has produced PPEs with themes, such as the Teletubbies, Ninja Turtles and Star Wars, and soon Power Rangers and Ghostbusters.

“Within this hospital are the bravest and kindest people you will ever meet,” Pe said of The Medical City Iloilo, where he works. His coworkers, whom he endearingly calls Teletubbies Nurses, also help him make the PPEs, using nonwoven fabric like the ones being used for eco-bags because it’s longer-lasting and fluid-resistant. They also donate to the Rep. Pedro Trono Hospital, Don Jose Monfort Medical Center Extension Hospital, Western Visayas Sanitarium, Iloilo Provincial Hospital, Federico Roman Tirador Sr. Memorial District Hospital, and Ramon Tabiana Memorial District Hospital.

As to why he does this noble endeavor, Pe wittily misquotes Catriona Gray’s winning Miss Universe reply: “I work a lot in the hospital and the work there is exhausting. And I have always taught myself to look for the beauty in it, to look in the beauty in the faces of the patients, and to be grateful. And I will bring this aspect as a nurse, to see situations with a #silverlining. And to assess where I could give something, where I could provide something as a spokesperson. And if I can teach people to be grateful, we can have an amazing world where #Covid-19 cannot grow and prosper, and children will have smiles on their faces.” ■

Tips on how to remove your gel manicure AND THEN SOME DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com

IT is very fortunate that I had my hair root retouch done days before the enhanced community quarantine. Now, I am not so troubled by regrowth or any white hair showing. Many of my colleagues and friends, who are quarantined all over the world, are missing their salons and colorists. This is not to make light of what is happening, which has killed so many people and caused businesses to go bankrupt, with many people losing their jobs. This is not about being

vain. I have combed my hair only twice since March 12 (the day I was quarantined). It got so bad that a large tangle formed at the back of my head and I had to pull at my hair, losing several precious strands.

As a member of the beauty community, I feel bad that many of the people who work for brands, salons and spas are without a source of income right now.

I realize that after this, there are so many things we will never take for granted again. These include salon visits and the freedom to go to any store and buy a lipstick. If anything, I have become more aware that the industry I love is run and operated by vulnerable human beings.

More than my own mani-pedi needs, I now think of the lovely ladies at Dashing Diva, who always find a way to accommodate me and my daughter even at the very last minute. Most of them have families and I worry if they have money to buy food and necessities. I know one of them has daughters. I hope they are all okay. I think of Jules, who did my color at Bianca Festejo Beauty Hub, and wonder how he is

doing. It was my first time to go to this salon and I loved it. Jules is an expert cutter and colorist, and he was very attentive without being overwhelming.

I think of my friend who got stuck in Indonesia because she couldn’t go back to her country of residence. She works for a personal care and beauty multinational, and we both wonder what will happen to the global economy after this.

I think of Avon Ladies, who can’t leave the house to show their brochures to potential customers, and I worry. Will their livelihood go back to “normal”? Will they pick up where they left off?

I think of local beauty brands that have sent me PR samples all these years because their physical stores are closed and online stores can’t make deliveries until after the

quarantine is lifted. I worry whether their employees are OK. I think of the foreign brands that I’ve worked with and I also worry about their employees, like the Brow Artists of Benefit Cosmetics because they’ve done my brows for years.

I hope they are healthy and eating well. I hope that when the Covid-19 pandemic is over, the “lipstick effect”, a term coined by former Estee Lauder Chairman Leonard Lauder, will happen.

Essentially, the “lipstick effect” is when women buy more lipstick when the going gets tough.

After Yolanda devastated several parts of the Philippines in 2013, public school teachers asked for donations of lipstick because the act of wearing lipstick

CONTINUED ON B4

B5

B6 Monday, April 13, 2020

Veterans Bank still serving customers amid health crisis

E

VEN with the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) being implemented in Luzon and in many parts of the country to combat the spread of COVID19, Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) has remained committed to serve its customers while keeping the balance of providing needed banking services and ensuring the health & safety of its customers and its own employees.

To begin with, Veterans Bank branches nationwide remain operational although on a reduced work week schedule. Most branches are operating 3 or 4 days a week on a rotating schedule on shortened their banking hours to support the cash needs of government, private and individual clients. Likewise, the Bank continues to service clients for their cash delivery and deposit pick-ups (DPUs).

PVB branch schedules are updated regularly at the official Veterans Bank Facebook page at www.facebook.com/VeteransBank.

The Bank’s ATM network nationwide

remains online for payroll clients and veteran pensioners of the AFP and Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO). On nonoperating days, Veterans Bank branches and ATMs are disinfected thoroughly for everyone’s safety and peace of mind.

Due to the prevailing ECQ, the Bank’s door-to-door pension delivery service is temporarily suspended.

However, Veterans Bank is now allowing AFP & PVAO pensioners or their representatives to get their monthly pension by allowing over-the-counter withdrawals at any open Veterans Bank branch. Given that almost all pensioners are senior citizens and are not allowed to travel, they can send their authorized representatives to any PVB branch to withdraw their pensions or reactivate their ATM for the duration of the ECQ. To do so, the representative must present his/her own valid IDs, the pensioner’s IDs, the ATM card/ passbook and a Letter of Authority signed by the pensioner. For Pensioners who can

travel, they simply have to visit the nearest Veterans Bank branch and bring their valid IDs and passbook or ATM card.

On the lending side, loan clients of Veterans Bank who are currently affected by the ECQ were also given a respite. With Republic Act 11469, Veterans Bank is implementing a 30-day grace period for loan payments falling due on March 17 to April 12, 2020 for its loan clients who have corporate/LGU loans, housing loans, and salary loans. For AFP/PVAO pension loan clients, their amortization for April 2020 will not be deducted, allowing them to receive their monthly pensions without any PVB loan deductions.

In these challenging times where the Bank is operating under extraordinary circumstances, Philippine Veterans Bank is thankful for the commitment and dedication of its employees, especially its branch officers and staff. They are the Bank’s frontliners who ensure that business continues and the services to clients are delivered at the utmost notwithstanding the danger posed by the current pandemic. The Bank also gives its thanks to the men and women who work behind the scenes to make sure the Bank’s systems and ATM network, as well as its branches remain open, running and operational.

To know more about how Veterans Bank is serving its customers amidst the COVID19 crisis and to find out the operating schedules of our branches, please regularly visit our official Veterans Bank Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ VeteransBank .

Aboitiz, Lalamove team up to deliver medical supplies in Metro Manila

T

HE Aboitiz Group, via its corporate social responsibility arm Aboitiz Foundation, and on-demand logistics company Lalamove are working together to quickly and safely deliver medical supplies to different areas around Metro Manila as the country continues to battle the threat of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

“In handling our COVID-19 response, the Aboitiz Foundation team recognized the need for efficient logistics and timely movement of medical supplies to the hospitals and partner agencies that need them the most. With the enhanced community quarantine and with most teams working on a skeletal crew, this was a challenge,” said Aboitiz Foundation’s President and Chief Operating Officer Maribeth L. Marasigan.

The donations include nitrile gloves, goggles, personal protective equipment gowns, 70% alcohol, and surgical masks.

These are among the much-needed supplies by medical frontliners who continue to face the threat of COVID-19.

Over 2,000 cases have been registered all over the Philippines, with the highest percentage of confirmed cases located in Metro Manila. ”Lalamove’s partnership with the Aboitiz Foundation to deliver medical

Other than Metro Manila, the Aboitiz Foundation is conducting COVID-19 response efforts all over the Philippines. In the photo is Hedcor, Inc.’s relief distribution in Davao City. Hedcor is an AboitizPower subsidiary focused on generating power from renewable energy in run-of-river hydropower systems.

supplies to various hospitals will help protect our healthcare and security frontliners who are our heroes in battling COVID-19. We are proud of our team members and partner drivers for helping support the movement of essential goods during this challenging time,” said Dannah Majarocon, Managing Director of Lalamove Philippines.

“Despite the challenge, we are grateful to Lalamove for being one of our partners.

We look forward to serving more hospitals and areas around Metro Manila through this partnership,” added Marasigan.

As of March 31, the Aboitiz Group

has allotted more than PhP 24.8 million in donations for its COVID-19 assistance to different hospitals and communities nationwide. This is on top of the PhP 100 million donation for the benefit of urban poor communities in Greater Manila through Project Ugnayan led by the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation. Through its different Business Units nationwide, the Aboitiz Group has distributed more than 300,000 medical supplies and over 107,000 food packs to benefit more than 300,000 individuals nationwide.

Zuellig organizations respond to COVID-19 pandemic

T

(counterclockwise) ZFF Chair Ernesto Garilao, ZFF Chair Emeritus Roberto R. Romulo (seated), ZFF Executive Director Austere Panadero and Zuellig Pharma Corporation Chairman Raymund Azurin

HE Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) has allocated P100 million to help address the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Foundation will purchase P40 million worth of ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) for public hospitals in priority partner-provinces.

This aid is on top of ZFF’s ongoing efforts in helping its partner local governments improve their strategies in the containment, management, and treatment of COVID-19.

Another P60 million will be donated to the Philippine Disaster for Resilience Foundation (PDRF) for its Kaagapay: Protect our Healthcare Heroes project, an initiative supported by leading drug distribution firms Zuellig Pharma Corp. (ZPC) and Metro Drug Inc., as well as Go Negosyo, and ABS-CBN. It aims to bring immediate aid to healthcare professionals and hospitals that are front and center of the fight against

the spread of the virus by providing much-needed PPE for hospitals and specially ventilators for COVID-19 referral hospitals.

The ZPC is the designated procurer of the ventilators by ZFF and the PDRF, the country’s major private sector coordinator for disaster risk reduction and management.

ZFF’s mission is to be a catalyst in helping local government leaders fix their health systems so access to and quality of health services improve.

Between 2008 and 2019, ZFF trained mayors from 774 municipalities and 25 cities, and governors from 27 provinces on health leadership and governance. This improved their maternal health, reproductive health, and nutrition services. It also helped improve health outcomes in a number of LGUs. In 2019 alone, ZFF trained 255 local government leaders and officials, public health officers, and health front liners.

We will pay ‘full cost of treatment’ for Covid-19 patients – PhilHealth

I

N the midst of growing public concern over the financial costs of getting treatment for the Coronavirus Disease 2019, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) once again assured the public that it will “shoulder the full cost of treatment of CoViD-19 cases until April 14, 2020.”

In its Advisory No. 2020-022 addressed to all accredited hospitals and health facilities in the country, PhilHealth clarified that “after the (said) date, we shall continue to provide financial coverage to CoViD cases thru a recomputed case rate.”, citing that “the reason for this accommodation window is due to the novelty and the wide range of severity of the disease in the country for which no existing case rate or package based on accepted protocols has yet been established.”

The state agency said that it “is confident that by (April 14, 2020), more about the behavior of the disease in the Philippines can be learned, a final protocol established, and an appropriate case rate can be developed that will provide adequacy and sustainability to the anti-CoViD-19 campaign.”

PhilHealth is scheduled to release a new set of guidelines for CoViD-19 cases, which will include the appropriate case rate based on accepted protocols in dealing with the disease.

Meanwhile, under R. A. 11469 also known as the Bayanihan We Heal As One Act, all health workers will be covered even beyond the April 14 2020 cut-off date for all work and CoViD-19 related health services. This will also include all other personnel necessary for the operation of a health facility

LBC moving to ‘Flatten The Curve’: P50M for mask program

L

BC heeds the government’s call to move for the nation, during this time of COVID-19, and commits Php 50 million worth of supply of (washable/reusable) 2-ply masks, to support Filipino communities and mitigate the virus’ spread in at-risk areas. This affirmative action is part of LBC’s response, and in coordination with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the temporary shortage of masks and distribution of these in densely populated areas of the country will be addressed. “The current situation calls for people to do their ‘part’: be it by staying at home or having to risk their own safety by going to work, to treat the sick. For us at LBC, our ‘part’ is to move-together with our courageous frontliners, and

join the fight,” said Executive Director of the LBC Foundation, Nena L. Wuthrich.

“LBC is starting this mask program with hopes of being one with all Filipinos--to ‘flatten the curve.’ This initiative is also set to assist in educating the public more, on the vital function of masks to protect not just themselves, but also others around them. We believe that masks can and will save lives,” Wuthrich adds. This initiative concurs with the recent announcement of The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, mandating the public to wear any type of mask before leaving their place of residence, to minimize or if not totally to prevent the transmission of the Covid-19 virus from one person to another.

Lenovo Legion Next-gen Gaming PCs to Feature NVIDIA and Intel’s Latest Technologies

New Lenovo Legion 5i laptop to unveil this year

U

P to the Latest NVIDIA GeForce® RTX 2080 SUPER™ GPUs with Max-Q Design and 10th Gen Intel Core™ H-Series Mobile Processors Lenovo Legion™ is set to deliver gaming enthusiasts with more immersive experiences.

Its upcoming PC line-up will feature the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GPU with Max-Q Design and up to new 10th Gen Intel Core H-Series mobile processors.

Powered by the new GeForce RTX SUPER GPUs with Max-Q Design on the new Lenovo Legion 7i laptop, gamers will enjoy higher clock speeds and new levels of realism in today’s AAA games. Its sibling, the new Lenovo Legion 5i laptop, will offer up to RTX 2060 GPU. Lenovo Legion’s new gaming PCs will also support NVIDIA G-SYNC™ technology for smoother, tear-free gameplay. Both new Lenovo Legion laptops will offer up to the latest 10th Gen Intel Core H-Series mobile processors too.

What’s more, the new Lenovo Legion PCs, including the Lenovo Legion 7i and Lenovo Legion 5i, will also be the first to feature the

New Lenovo Legion 7i laptop to unveil this year

new NVIDIA Advanced Optimus technology for improved battery efficiency.1 Developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, Advanced Optimus dynamically detects GPU workloads and automatically connects either the NVIDIA GPU (for demanding workloads) or the IGP (for light workloads) to the display. This helps to preserve battery life when light workload applications are running and delivers maximum performance and framerates when games are being played.

The Lenovo Legion 5i and the Lenovo Legion Y540 laptops with the RTX 2060 GPU option will be available starting at US$999.

Lenovo Legion 7i and Lenovo Legion Y740 laptops with the RTX 2070 GPU will be available starting at US$1199. Availability will vary by region.

Stay tuned on Lenovo StoryHub for more details on the upcoming new Lenovo Legion 7i and 5i laptops, as well as additional new gaming offerings inspired by customer insights. For more information on our partners’ latest news, see Intel’s announcement here, and NVDIA’s announcement here.

Marketing BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Monday, April 13, 2020 B7

CSR in the time of Covid-19 T

PR Matters

By Abigail L. Ho-Torres

O say these are extraordinary times is an understatement.

All of us have had to adjust to this “new normal” almost overnight, following the imposition of community quarantine schemes all over the country.

Our health-care workers are overworked and in dire need of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Day-wage earners suddenly find themselves at home, with no means to earn. Employees of companies deemed essential soldier on, amid uncertainties and absence of public transport services. It is during these times when companies really need to walk the talk when it comes to corporate social responsibility (CSR).

And walk the talk they did.

Without prompting from the government, the country’s biggest conglomerates set in motion a web of aid, which benefited not just our health-care frontliners, but also their employees and the general public.

Much-needed PPE and virus specimen collection kits were donated to hospitals. Relief goods were distributed to those who cannot fend for themselves—mostly day-wage earners, residents of blighted communities, and senior citizens without pension. Media companies and industry associations initiated their own donation drives so they can help provide the needs of the less fortunate.

Smaller companies and brands pitched in as well: restaurants gave hot meals to medical frontliners, with some even opening their space to the homeless; some made doit-yourself face shields for health workers; others produced alcohol and disinfectants—deemed rare commodities now—for donation to health-care facilities and local government units.

Utility companies also suspended billing for a month, to provide some reprieve to the public, as we all battle this global pandemic. The list goes on and on.

Charity begins at home

The very same companies that quickly gave aid and continue to offer help—most of them providing essential goods and services themselves—have shown that they know how to take care of their employees as well. Many of them advanced the payout of the 13th-month pay and midyear bonuses, and allowed workfrom-home arrangements even before the imposition of the enhanced community quarantine.

In Maynilad, the company that I work for, shuttle services are provided for mission-critical employ-

n Design: Team Manila honors Health and Service Frontliner Heroes with Donation drive through Creative Support

Manila, Philippines—“We’ve always known it: We are a land of heroes. During this time a new breed has emerged: Our health and service frontliners who are dedicating their lives to save our country.” reads a post from Team Manila’s facebook page showcasing their latest design by Team Manila Graphic Design Studio.

In support of the frontliners in the Philippines, Team Manila’s latest design is a symbol of hope, a boost of moral, and an effort to increase donations to the country’s frontline heroes. “The idea came about when I Saw Design did an Online Kamustahan with fellow creatives during the ECQ. One of the discussion points was on how creatives can support the frontliners, after that we updated the Team Manila logo.” explains Team Manila Founder Jowee Alviar.

Employees of two Maynilad business areas donate 19 bicycles to members of their skeleton work force.

The NCR Civil Military Operations Unit received bottled water from Maynilad

It’s business as usual for this Maynilad employee

Maynilad supports Valenzuela City by providing bottled water for personnel assigned at checkpoints.

ees who have to report to the office and who have no personal vehicles. Company physicians do their rounds in the different facilities to check up on employees, and ensure their health and well-being. Vitamins and PPE are also provided.

This care and concern spills over to employees of third-party service providers, which include janitorial, fleet, maintenance, and security services—all considered essential to the company’s day-to-day operations. Although not direct hires of the company, Maynilad makes sure that their needs are also well taken care of. There is now a donation drive in the company for the benefit of these service providers. Employees can participate simply by submitting a salary deduction form over e-mail.

The company’s care for its em-

“We have been actively promoting donation drives to the frontliners and through the preorder of the TM Shirt, the community shows solidarity to the people fighting for our safety.” adds Jowee. The tee itself will be produced after the enhanced community quarantine is lifted while preordering a Frontliner t-shirt now will send proceeds to support health and service frontliners through the TOWNS Foundation, a women’s organization that undertakes initiatives to celebrate and support Filipino women.

n Design: A Look Into The Process, Team Manila on the new Brand Identity for the Design Advisory Council of the Philippines

Manila, Philippines—The Design Advisory Council of the Philippines (DAC) together with Team Manila Graphic Design Studio (TMGDS), launches their updated brand identity to portray the role as the guiding compass or north star of every Filipino designs.

The DAC brief to TMGDS was to create a design that would be an inspiration to everyone. Visually communicating the goal to send a message that, “ideas and mind

should meet in designing,” as “ideas won’t be seen if the minds are not open to it.”

To achieve this, TMGDS began their creation with arrows, a representations of ideas. For the mind, the studio depicted it by meeting the sides to form a triangle which also signifies the DAC being the lens that magnifies horizons and possibilities.

This would also symbolize the strategic direction of the design industry in the country through the Philippines’s National Design Policy.

“The arrows also symbolize the council’s initials in a very subtle way,” TMGDS added, while the “D” for design is highlighted because it is DAC’s covered field. In conclusion, the new logo, brand, and design innovation here, is to have “everyone unleash their authenticity, creativity with a precise mind.”

n Campaign Spotlight: ‘Courage is Beautiful,’ Dove celebrates Faces on the Frontline, donates to Direct Relief

Dove‘s latest ads show the world that “Courage is Beautiful” by releasing a campaign led by Ogilvy

ployees—all in keeping with its holistic approach to CSR—has rubbed off on the employees themselves.

A group of employees conducted a fund-raising drive to buy grocery items for some outsourced janitors and drivers, to help them cope with the current crisis. Personnel from two business areas also raised funds among themselves to buy bicycles for 19 of their teammates.

The show must go on

Being a provider of a basic service, many of our employees still need to report to work: to ensure smooth and incident-free plant operations, to manage inventory of materials needed in water treatment and production, to take water samples and analyze them in the lab, to make sure that our customers get safe and affordable water in their homes.

that puts the face of the frontline in focus. The short, initially released in Canada, addresses the pandemic in a way that hits the heart of consumers. Sending a strong message of gratitude for health-care workers who are tirelessly heeding the call to the frontlines against Covid-19. The ads are elegantly minimal, honest portraits of doctors and nurses whose faces are marked by the masks they wear during their long shifts treating patients.

Dove launched a microsite: Dove.com/BeSafe that explains how we can all take care of our communities. They remind us that, “Taking care of ourselves and each other and taking steps to be safe are important messages we all need to reinforce. That’s why you’ll see the Dove bird flying to its temporary nest and staying there for as long as it needs to.”

Dove has also made a $2.5-million donation to Direct Relief to go toward personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and medicines for health-care workers on the frontline in the US. Dove is also donating care products to hospitals and health-care centers.

Unilever, Dove’s parent company has pledged to contribute over $108 million in supplies and

Work with our community livelihood partners also continues. Our community in Tondo produces alcohol and disinfectants, which they either sell or donate to hospitals and other end-users. Maynilad will be purchasing some of their output, and will donate these to selected government frontliners and blighted communities. Another community in Quezon City is making reusable face masks that can be used in nonmedical settings.

As one Maynilad top executive put it: “We are essential workers.

Our people are fearful for themselves and for their families. However, their sense of duty is stronger than their fear.”

And this is the case not just for Maynilad employees, but also for other utility personnel who do not have the luxury of performing their jobs from the safety of their homes. The same goes for the men and women manning grocery aisles and cashier booths, the tireless delivery personnel and food service crews, our uniformed men and women manning the checkpoints and maintaining peace and order

money against the Covid-19 pandemic through donations of soap, sanitizer, bleach and food.

n Brand & Business: All Ears On China, AUDITOIRE Asia partners with TBWA’s 65dB, a social listening Agency Shanghai, China—AUDITOIRE Asia launches partnership with social listening agency 65dB combining the best in live experience and live conversation.

As a leader in the experiential marketing industry, where social relevance is key from creative to execution, the announcement

by AUDITOIRE marks a major strategic step given 65dB’s area of expertise. A name derived from the sound level of conversation, 65dB, the social listening agency of the TBWA group, enables any brand seeking an edge, and also marketing and creative agencies, to gain a customer-centric competitive advantage by listening to the pulse of modern Chinese society on social media.

“Working together with 65dB allows us to implement their findings directly into our creative process and thereby offer brands experiences firmly in line with the expectations of their communi-

nationwide—and many others like them who enable us to stay safely confined in our homes while waiting for the curve to flatten. They are, like our health workers, frontliners in this fight against Covid-19.

This is a battle we are all fighting. Cliché as it may sound, but we are all in this together. CSR shines during times of crisis. It is also during these times when the Filipinos’ bayanihan spirit really comes alive.

PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world.

Abigail L. Ho-Torres is AVP and head of Advocacy and Marketing of Maynilad Water Services Inc. She spent more than a decade as a business journalist before making the leap to the corporate world.

We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations.

Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.

ties.” said Antoine Gouin, CEO of AUDITOIRE Asia.

At the heart of 65dB is its commitment to a human-focused approach. Its team of brand and digital strategy experts use innovative proprietary methods to analyze the massive amount of data generated by online conversations and produce insightful recommendations. By understanding the curiosity, concerns, passions and creativity expressed on Chinese social media, 65dB identifies positive areas of expression in which brands can position themselves to create meaningful ways to engage with their customers.

“After expanding our coverage in Europe, America, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia, the opening of the 65dB China office in Shanghai will enable our global clients to appeal more directly to their Chinese consumers’ passion points.” said François Vogel, 65dB’s founder.

The new offering in China, headed up by Matthieu Mellul, has already begun delivery on Asia-specific projects with L’Oréal and Essilor, and has an impressive international client base in multiple sectors, among them Puma, Lancôme, Yves Saint Laurent.

Sports BusinessMirror

B8 Monday, April 13, 2020

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph / Editor: Jun Lomibao

METRO AIR SAFER, BUT THINK AGAIN...

T

By Jun Lomibao

HE Philippine Sports Commission’s (PSC) specific and strict instruction to all national athletes at the onset of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon last March 16 was to stay at home—like everybody else.

It turned out the PSC hit the nail right on its head by keeping the athletes at home—train or stay fit at home and never stray outdoors except during essential circumstances.

“The PSC directive was in consonance with the government’s order—that is now a law,” Marc Velasco, the PSC’s Medical Scientific Athlete Services (MSAS) unit head, told BusinessMirror on Sunday. “But it turned out training outdoors offers many risks of contamination with the new coronavirus.”

According to Velasco, who worked with the Hong Kong Sports Institute as a high-level trainer before his stint at PSC, staying a meter away from the next individual whether walking, running or cycling is no guarantee for non-contamination.

“Researches and experiment in The Netherlands and Belgium show that a meter or two of social or physical distancing while training or doing exercises are not enough,” said Velasco, citing a research by scientists and civil engineers at the Eindhoven University in The Netherlands.

If one has to walk casually in a single file with other individuals, Velasco explained, the ideal distance based on the experiment should be 15 feet or 3 meters.

“That’s because when one walks casually, and more so when doing brisk walks, the person inhales and exhales much more, thus releasing more droplets of saliva into the air,” he said.

The safe distance should be more in running and cycling, where exertion and breathing are heavier.

The experiment at the Dutch university proved that one must maintain a safe distance of 33 feet—11 meters—on a slow run or bike.

And for a fast-paced run or jog or cycling, the recommendation is 65 feet (20 meters).

“In running or cycling, we have the slipstream, that vacuum that develops behind a runner or a cyclist that during competition, is normally taken advantage of by the runner or cyclist behind the leader,” he said. “In this Covid-19 situation, the risk of absorbing droplets exhaled from the guy in front of you is very high.”

“Running or cycling parallel to each other is not risk-free, even if you maintain 4 feet to 5 feet distances,” Velasco said. “That’s because the droplets do not only spread behind, but also sideways.”

Humidity, Velasco added, also contributes to the possible spread of the virus.

“It rained a few days ago and the air we breathe contains more moisture, thus there is less evaporation in the air,” he said.

Golf is not exempted from posing high risk of contamination although swimming, according to Velasco, could be a case-to-case basis.

“When you have a private pool all to yourself, then there could be zero contamination.

But swimming in a public pool or those in condominium units is another story,” said Velasco, who added that a conclusive study has yet to be made on the Covid-19 risk in swimming.

MARC VELASCO: Training or exercising outdoors offers many risks of contamination with the new Covid-19.

The PSC’s order for national athletes to stay and train at home should augur well for fitness buffs and those who simply love staying outdoors.

Taguig City, for one, warned residents of Bonifacio Global City (BGC) and visitors who insist on doing outdoor fitness and leisure activities that they would be apprehended for violating the city’s guidelines during the ECQ. The warning came after Mayor Lino Cayetano received videos, photos and reports of individuals jogging and doing leisure activities outside their homes.

“When you evade the rules of the ECQ, you not only endanger yourselves but others also,” Cayetano said. “You also take time and valuable resources from areas where frontliners are most needed.”

Cayetano said city hall will not hesitate to arrest violators the next time around.

The Philippine National Police officers in Taguig have arrested and charged at least 15 ECQ violators in BGC, including foreigners. Throughout the city, authorities have apprehended more than 500 violators as of Friday.

With Metro Manila and the entire country experiencing perhaps the cleanest air it had in decades, the lure of the outdoors have become stronger—not to mention that boredom have already stricken Metro dwellers in the past 27 days of ECQ with close to three weeks more to complete the lockdown.

With only a handful vehicles burning fossil fuel on the streets during the ECQ, the latest Air Quality Monitoring Data from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) showed that the air in the National Capital Region (NCR) is much safer today than before March 16 (see related story on page A3).

The significant drop in air pollution in Metro Manila, DENR’s data showed, was observed as early as a week after the ECQ was implemented.

“The air in Metro Manila is obviously safer now, gone are the traffic jams when thousands of vehiches emit bad smoke [carbon monoxide] into the air,” Velasco said. “But the better air doesn’t mean it is safe to go out and exercise while the pandemic remains.”

Bleachers’ Brew Rick Olivares bleachersbrew@gmail.com

Dissecting ’90s Chicago Bulls

BY April 20, The Last Dance, the 10-episode documentary of the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 season will be on Netflix for all to watch.

During this lockdown, I took the time to watch all seven documentaries of the Chicago Bulls (the six championships and the 1988 video, Higher Ground) and all 35 games they played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals of the 1990s. That took me a little over three days to finish. After that, my brain was mush.

It did, however, refresh my memory, validate some notions, and dispelled others.

Let me share a few of them.

Who needs rivals when the NBA was littered with stars and legends?

It was said that the Bulls had no true rival in the way the 1980s Boston Celtics were defined by their Los Angeles Lakers counterparts and vice versa. I beg to disagree. The Eastern Conference was the best in the NBA at that time.

PANDEMIC ART

A woman wearing a P100 respirator walks past an artwork of the National Hockey League Chicago Blackhawks team’s Native American chief logo also wearing a respirator in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, on Friday. AP

Researches and experiment in The Netherlands and Belgium show that a meter or two of social or physical distancing while training or doing exercises are not enough. If one has to walk casually in a single file with other individuals, the ideal distance based on the experiment should be 15 feet or 3 meters.

NorthPort’s Anthony: King of Defense

S

BATANG PIER Sean Anthony is feted by sports scribes.

EAN ANTHONY—the do-it-all NorthPort forward—gets another major award from the Philippine Basketball Association Press Corps (PBAPC) this time as Defensive Player of the Year.

The award comes off the heels of Anthony earning a first-ever Mythical First team selection and a place in the All-Defensive team during the

awards to be handed out during the affair, now on its 26th year.

The honor roll includes Terrence Romeo (Quality Minutes), CJ Perez (Scoring champion), June Mar Fajardo (Order of Merit) and Game of the Season (NorthPort vs. NLEX).

The others are the All-Rookie team (Perez, Robert Bolick, Javee Mocon, Bobby Ray Parks and Abu Tratter), All Interview Team (Kiefer Ravena, Christian Standhardinger, Beau Belga, Vic Manuel, Arwind Santos and Coach Yeng Guiao) and the D-League Finals MVP (Thirdy Ravena, Aspirants Cup, and Hesed Gabo, Foundation Cup).

Still to be named are the recipients of the President’s Award, Danny Floro Executive of the Year trophy and the Virgilio “Baby” Dalupan Coach of the Year.

recent PBA Leo Awards.

Anthony, 34, will receive the honor during the 2019 PBA Press Corps Awards Night which will be determined after the government lifts the enhanced community quarantine. The event was supposed to be held last March 16 at the Novotel Manila at Araneta Center and to be aired over Cignal TV. This marks the first time Anthony will be receiving the award, which was given to Chris Ross, June Mar Fajardo, Marc Pingris, Chris Jackson, Freddie Abuda, Gabe Norwood, among others, in the past. Poy Erram was the last to receive the award in 2018.

The Defensive Player of the Year is one of 11

ATENEO-LA SALLE VS. CORONAVIRUS

T

HE De La Salle Brothers Inc. and Jesuits of the Philippine province raised more than P10 million to feed around 500 homeless individuals staying in safe shelters and more than 6,000 urban poor families in Metro Manila.

“A little conversation between myself and Fr. Jun [Viray, SJ, Provincial of the Philippine Jesuits] created a spark that is more explosive than UAAP that allowed us to say, maybe this is the time to work together rather than

It wasn’t until the new millennium that we saw the balance of power shift to the West.

From 1947-1998, the East won 32 times while the West took home the Larry O’Brien trophy 21 times.

Since the new millennium, its reversed. The West has won 13 while the East bagged the trophy seven times.

The Bulls’ nemesis included the Cleveland Cavaliers (helped by Magic Johnson anointing them as the “team of the future” in the 1990s), the Detroit Pistons, the New York Knicks, and the Miami Heat.

When the Lakers won five NBA titles in the 80s, they defeated Boston twice, Philadelphia twice, and Detroit once.

The Bulls went through some very good teams beating the Lakers in 1991, the Portland Trailblazers in 1992, and the Phoenix Suns in 1993. They took two years off before taking down the Seattle Supersonics in 1996 and the Utah Jazz twice from 1997-98. Five opponents. They defeated all challengers that had Hall of Famers and Dream Team members.

The Lakers had Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Vlade Divac. Portland had Clyde Drexler while the Suns had Charles Barkley. Seattle had Gary Payton while the Utah Jazz had the duo of John Stockton and Karl Malone.

Of the coaches they faced in the Finals, Utah’s Jerry Sloan made it to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach (not as a player for the Bulls). If you want to include the play-offs during Chicago’s 90s dominance, you can add Detroit’s Chuck Daly, Cleveland’s Lenny Wilkens, New York’s and Miami’s Pat Riley as Hall of Fame coaches.

The Bulls got huge contributions from draft day picks and trades.

IN the 1980s, the acquisition of the Boston Celtics of former Los Angeles Clipper and Portland great Bill Walton propelled them to the 1986 title. The

compete. And that’s the story of our love life with the Jesuits in the time of Covid-19,” said Br. Armin Luistro FSC, Brother Visitor of the Lasallian East Asia District.

De La Salle University was one of the first schools to provide safe shelter for the homeless around Manila who were left out in the streets after the St. Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center was ordered closed at the onset of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

“I appreciated the shelters, so the first thing that crossed my mind was to help. The Ateneo alumni, those in business, said they like to help,” Viray said. “I told them ‘let’s raise money together with our friends—which means also LaSalle friends.”

“I’m very proud of our alumni who can transcend the rivalry and come together. If this were music, we’re not really rivals, we’re counterpoint to each other. When counterpoints

next year, the Lakers countered by grabbing Portland star Mychal Thompson who was an integral part of back to back titles from 1987-88. When Detroit won it in 1988-89, they tabbed the Dallas Mavericks’ Mark Aguirre.

The Bulls built the first three-peat team with draft picks and draft day trades.

Their draft picks included Michael Jordan, Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong, Stacey King, Will Perdue, and Scott Williams. Scottie Pippen arrived on a draft day trade.

The second three-peat wave saw draft picks Toni Kukoc, Jason Caffey, Dickie Simpkins, and Jack Haley join Jordan and Pippen as players acquired through the draft. Of course, the second wave saw key free agents like Dennis Rodman, Luc Longley, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr, Randy Brown, and Jud Buechler come in.

In contrast, the Lakers’ draftees included Johnson, Worthy, Norm Nixon, Michael Cooper, and AC Green. Byron Scott arrived on a draft day trade. Nixon was there for the first two titles before he was traded.

Boston’s draftees included Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Cedric Maxwell, Danny Ainge, Greg Kite, and Sam Vincent.

The 2017-2018 NBA champions Golden State Warriors had only two players come up via the draft in Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.

This is, of course, not to put down trades or free agent acquisitions that are vital to any ball club’s success. But knowing whom to select through the draft pays off without initially having to pay big bucks. The Warriors’ trio of Curry, Thompson, and Green have been huge selections for G-State that has seen them massively successful in recent years.

Rodman should have been the 1996 NBA Finals MVP. I thought Dennis Rodman should have been the 1996 NBA Finals Most

come together in harmony, you create music,” Luistro added.

The fund generated by the alumni of both schools is being managed by the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) through the Bayanihan Musikahan (BM) platform which, to date, has raised more than P40 million and reached over 16,000 urban poor families in Metro Manila.

Grocery packs are assembled by the homeless staying at De La Salle University as a way of giving back, while receiving a small allowance to help restore their dignity.

Valuable Player.

Preposterous? Not really. The Finals MVP has no particular criteria. It depends on the votes of 11 designated members of the NBA media.

We all know Jordan was awarded the trophy. In my opinion, Rodman should have at the very least been given co-MVP awardee. The least, okay? He could have been named so.

Here’s why.

Player

Points

Rebounds Assists

FG%

Steals

Jordan

27.3

5.3

4.2

.415#

1.7

Rodman

7.5

14.7

2.5

.486%

0.8

Of the Bulls’ four wins, here is how we break it down.

Player

Game 1

Jordan

28 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block

Rodman

Game 2

Game 3

Game 6

36 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals 10 points & 20 rebounds

9 points, 19 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 1 block

Rodman won two games for the Bulls and his contributions were significant especially during crunch time. The Supersonics themselves from Head Coach George Karl to Hersey Hawkins and David Wingate pointed out to media that Rodman was the MVP of the series.

So that is why at the very least, Rodman should have been co-MVP.