BusinessMirror April 14, 2015

BusinessMirror

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

U.N. MEDIA AWARD 2008

A broader look at today’s business TfridayNovember 18,2015 2014Vol. Vol.1010No. No.187 40 Tuesday, April 14,

www.businessmirror.com.ph

‘Things are looking good for PHL’

FAMILY’S PREFAB CONTEMPORARY HOUSE IS AT HOME IN THE WOODS The liberation of the Israelites

EAR Lord, knowing the struggle for the liberation of the Israelites from their enslavement in Egypt was about to reach its climatic and decisive moment with the Tenth Plague.

God Himself instructed the people on how to protect themselves from “the Destroyer.” The sparing of the Israelite first-borns during that dreadful Tenth Plague that struck dead all the Egyptian first-borns was to be remembered for ever through the immolation and the eating of the Passover lamb in all families. Amen.

EXPLORING GOD’S WORD, FR. SAL PUTZU, SDB AND LOUIE M. LACSON

Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Life

‘FURIOUS 7’ STILL IN DRIVER’S SEAT; ‘LONGEST RIDE’ COMES IN THIRD »D3

BusinessMirror

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

B R T | The Seattle Times

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THE Amy Staupe-Chris Roy home is made up of two offset prefabricated modules, dark-gray metal and cedar, from Method Homes.

They were joined on-site.

The garage was built on location.

The house is 1,800 square feet with 1,600 sq ft of decking.

PHOTOS: BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER/ SEATTLE TIMES/TNS

THE hallway (this is ➜ upstairs) is the “working core

for a bathtub and larger closet.

The main living space is open with a sense of Scandinavian calm. (Says Staupe, “We watched a lot of HGTV. They said the words ‘open concept’ so much we thought it’d make a great drinking game.”) Walls are mostly windows, color accents by Maisie; in toys and dolls. The contemporary prefab stands proudly alone in this neighborhood of homes and hangars (and a shared grass airstrip). “We get interesting reactions,” Roy says.

“When the pizza guys come up here they’re like, ‘Oh, is this a house? You live here?’” ■

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HEN Amy Staupe and Chris Roy lived in Los Angeles, in a neighborhood heavily patrolled by police helicopters and shrouded in filmy gray skies, they took a trip to New Zealand.

And they had an epiphany. This one: “Man, there’s another way to live.”

Then they took another trip, a Valentine’s Day getaway to Vashon Island, Washington. It was all fresh air, country living and green acres up here. And it was all they could stand.

Staupe and Roy went home, packed up and got themselves an exploratory apartment in Ballard, Washington. “I fell in love with Seattle,” Staupe says. “I didn’t want to leave.”

The couple considered their options. Stay in Ballard and remodel? Build custom? Buy a condo? Keep renting?

“We considered e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g,” Roy says. “But e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g was so expensive.”

Well, not quite everything. Their solution, in fact, drove right past Roy one day on the freeway. “I saw these big trucks coming down I-5 with the Method logo on them, and I thought, I should look at those guys.”

Prefab. The answer was a home made of prefabricated modules built in a factory and trucked to its final destination. The box that whizzed past Roy was headed south out of Method Homes’s plant in Ferndale, Whatcom County.

“Just because it’s prefab, that just means it’s built in a factory,” Roy says. “Our home was built in a controlled environment where everything was warm and dry — no mold. And we didn’t have a bunch of guys who had to drive a long way to work on it every day.”

Indeed. We’re nowhere near Ballard today. We. Are. Out. There. Took a ferry. Drove through woods. And ended up deep among the gnarled and moss-coated maples on the family’s wooded acreage near Port Orchard. Property that Roy, a pilot, previously bought fooling around online at aviationacres.com. (Motto: “Matching pilots to properties.”)

“We went from helicopters over our house at night to Ballard to the country,” Staupe says.

“We wanted to start a family,” Roy adds. “We wanted clean air.” After deciding on Method, the rest of their new life fell into place.

“We birthed the house and the baby within a couple of weeks of each other,” Roy says. Daughter Maisie arrived May 15, 2013. Gestation for the house was quicker: three months at the factory, two-and-a-half months under construction on the property, almost 4 acres. The Staupe-Roy home, two modules offset to create a long, wrapping porch, is based on a Ryan Stephenson design, an option offered by Method.

Stephenson’s Elemental Series skews modern, efficient.

Finishes, interiors and sustainability upgrades come preselected, or, like here, homeowners can go their own way. “Everything is custom,” Roy says. “We called out everything.” At the factory they placed outlets, cable and light switches. Later, they chose floors (bamboo/radiant heat), the island (Caesarstone), lighting (Insteon), cabinets (apply ply/bamboo ply), and “the least baby-safe steps in the world, but we love them,” floating concrete.

The couple added so many windows (Andersen Eagle, aluminum) “the house wouldn’t hold them, so we had to take some out.” They also extended the upstairs module

THE master bedroom features a large window that frames mosscovered maples on the couple’s property.

of the house,” Chris Roy says.

The barn-door slider hides the washer and dryer. On the main floor it holds a powder room and pantry. The master bedroom is at the end of the hall.

➜

THE floating concrete steps lead to the sleeping and bathing modules. The screened wall between the stairs and front door holds a bookcase and frames a sort of mudroom under the stairs. Floors are bamboo with radiant heat.

Jardine helps push construction industry toward the forefront of economic growth SUPPORTING the growth of the construction industry as the country transitions to the Asean Integration of 2015, Jardine Distribution Inc. (www. jardinedistribution.com) recently jardinedistribution.com participated in the Philippine World Building and Construction Exposition (Worldbex), the year’s biggest building and construction expo.

Acknowledging the industry’s potential to be at the forefront of economic growth, Worldbex, which was held recently at the World Trade Center, gathered top companies, including Jardine Distribution, to showcase the most trusted and reliable products and

services in the industry today.

Jardine’s participation in Worldbex this year created awareness among homeowners and other construction companies of the latest innovations in the field of home protection and preservation.

“It has always been a practice for the company to join expos like this in order to sustain a significant presence in the industry,” said Jardine DIY Channel Supervisor Claire Ribo, who likewise pointed out that expositions like Worldbex “are good venues for introducing—and promoting—our home protection and preservation products.”

Ribo affirmed the need for Jardine to know the needs and demands of the consumers to allow them to address these and, at the same time, enable them to determine and assess the company’s future plans.

During the expo, the company highlighted its line of home pest solutions, which include Klerat Single Feed Rodenticide, Optigard Roach and Ant Bait and ZAP aerosol insecticide, which comes in multiinsect, cockroach, and mosquito killer variants. Jardine also brought its waterproofing and wood preservation products to show some improvements and additions to the line.

JARDINE highlighted its new line of home pests’ solutions during WorldBex at the World Trade Center recently.

LIFE

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CHINA, U.S. TO BOOST MEASURES TO REPATRIATE CRIMINALS, FUGITIVES The World BusinessMirror

B3-2 Tuesday, April 14, 2015

China, US to boost measures to repatriate criminals, fugitives

IN this November 5, 2007, file photo, Jiang Jiemin, chairman of PetroChina is mobbed by journalists after attending an IPO ceremony for PetroChina at the Shanghai Stock Exchange in Shanghai. Jiemin, who led China’s biggest petroleum company and later was assigned to oversee state-owned companies, went on trial on April 13 on charges of corruption and abuse of power. AP PHOTO/FILE

China tries former state oil boss on corruption charges

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EIJING—A top official who led China’s biggest petroleum company and later was assigned to oversee state-owned companies went on trial on Monday on charges of corruption and abuse of power. Defendant Jiang Jiemin is a former chairman of the state-run China National Petroleum Corp.

(CNPC), which has been the target of a sweeping graft investigation amid a larger anticorruption campaign that has netted top officials and others.

Jiang is charged with taking bribes, possessing a large number of assets from unidentified sources and abusing his position at a stateowned enterprise, Hanjiang Intermediate People’s Court in Hubei province said on its microblog.

It said prosecutors had presented evidence, including witness statements, confessions and confiscated items, without giving details, and posted a photo of a palefaced Jiang in the dock flanked by two police officers.

Jiang was chairman of CNPC,

U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus (from left), US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei attend a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Monday March 30. Lew said he pressed Chinese leaders over proposed curbs on the use of foreign security products by banks and other restrictions on access to China’s technology market. AP PHOTO/PARKER SONG, POOL

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EIJING—China and the US are boosting cooperation in sending home crime suspects amid a Chinese drive to ferret out corrupt officials and fugitives who have fled abroad.

The Department of Homeland Security said the sides agreed to streamline the process for identifying and returning fugitives, along with those who have overstayed their visas or entered the US illegally.

The agreement came during Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson’s visit to Beijing last week, during which a range of law-enforcement issues were discussed, including counterterrorism and cybersecurity. A department news release Sunday said the sides would share more information on repatriation and fugitive

cases and provide regular updates.

China also agreed to expedite the return of the more than 39,000 Chinese citizens currently in the US who are at some stage in the process of being deported.

“The two participants further acknowledged that neither country should serve as a safe haven for fugitives,” the news release said. China and the US have no extradition treaty, although wanted persons can be prosecuted in the country to which they fled or be expelled for immigration violations.

Their assets can also be seized if determined to have been illegally

acquired, leaving them little option but to return home.

While China has expressed interest in a treaty, the US said that’s being blocked by Beijing’s failure to agree to extradite Chinese citizens accused of crimes in the US. China said almost 700 fugitives suspected of economic crimes have been returned home from abroad under transnational operations codenamed “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net,” some in return for lighter punishments or through other inducements. The operations are part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s overall war on corruption that has seen thousands of officials investigated and brought down numerous serving or former bigwigs.

Beijing has estimated that since the mid-1990s, 16,000 to 18,000 corrupt officials and employees of state-owned enterprises have fled China or gone into hiding with pilfered assets totaling more than 800 billion yuan ($135 billion).

Some of them have fled to the US,

and Beijing last year provided Washington with the names of more than 100 wanted fugitives. However, US officials said little information was offered about their identities, alleged offenses or possible whereabouts in the US, making it difficult to act on the requests.

On the issue of counterterrorism, the Department of Homeland Security said Johnson and Chinese Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun agreed to share more information about the cross-border movements of foreign terrorist fighters.

Johnson and Guo also intend to hold discussions between the bodies they head to “achieve concrete cooperation and set a path to reestablishing a full government to government cyber dialogue,” the department said.

China suspended a cybersecurity dialogue with the US almost two years ago in retaliation for Washington’s indictment of five Chinese military officers for allegedly stealing trade secrets online. AP

the parent company of PetroChina Ltd., Asia’s biggest oil producer, before being appointed in 2013 to the Cabinet body that oversees China’s biggest state-owned companies. He was fired from that post in September 2013 after he came under investigation.

A series of senior figures from the state-owned oil industry have been detained in the crackdown, led by President Xi Jinping, that appears to be aimed at tightening central control over PetroChina and other powerful state companies.

The energy industry was a power base for Zhou Yongkang, the ruling Communist Party’s former security chief who was arrested in December on charges including bribery and leaking state secrets.

Control over state companies can provide political figures with jobs to reward supporters and money to promote their own careers. Jiang was believed to have links to Zhou, although prosecutors have not cited any link between the two cases. AP

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IN this April 12 photo, mainland Chinese tourists queue up outside a luxury brand boutique at a shopping district in Hong Kong. Chinese authorities brought in curbs on travel to Hong Kong on Monday to cool tensions over the growing influx of mainland shoppers that’s angering residents of the Asian financial hub. AP/VINCENT YU

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ONG KONG—Chinese authorities brought in curbs on travel to Hong Kong on Monday to cool tensions over the growing influx of mainland shoppers that’s angering residents of the Asian financial hub.

The public security bureau in neighboring Shenzhen will stop issuing multiple visit passes to people who live in the border city and instead issue only once-a-week travel passes, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The move comes as anger simmers over

the rising numbers of cross-border mainland Chinese travelers, who’ve been blamed for voracious buying of smartphones, cosmetics, medicine and luxury goods that distorts the local economy.

Chinese especially favor imported baby formula bought in Hong Kong over domestic brands after repeated food-safety scares and because of the city’s reputation for authentic goods. Hong Kong activists held several protests earlier this year that erupted into chaos when protesters scuffled with the tourists.

pressure on mainland and Hong Kong immigration ports, there’s growing contradiction between visitor numbers to Hong Kong and Hong Kong tourism’s capability,” the Xinhua report said.

Many cross-border shoppers often work for shadowy networks that organize the resale of the goods back in mainland China for a profit, in what’s known as parallel trading. Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, said the policy is “directed against professional goods smugglers” and vowed further measures to target such traders based in Hong Kong.

Leung said 4.6 million mainland Chinese visited Hong Kong more than once a week last year, with Shenzhen residents with multiple-visit passes accounting for 30 percent. That’s a 10th of the 47.3 million mainlanders who visited in 2014, up 16 percent from the year before.

They are estimated to be responsible for a third of retail sales in Hong Kong, a city of 7.1 million that’s been a especially administered Chinese region since 1997. AP

IN this March 19, 2015, file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (right) reacts as Jay Jacobs gives her a sweatshirt with Camp David printed on it after she addressed around 3,000 summer camp and out of school time professionals at a conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Sunday, April 12, Clinton announced her campaign for president. AP PHOTO/MEL EVA V NS, FILE VA

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ASHINGTON—Hillary Rodham Clinton is hitting the road as she starts her 2016 presidential campaign— quite literally. The former secretary of state announced her candidacy last Sunday and left on a roughly 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) trip from her New York home to Iowa, host of the nation’s first presidential caucuses. Her first campaign event is on Tuesday.

The road trip was Clinton’s idea, aides said.

“When Hillary first told us that she was ready to hit the road for Iowa, we literally looked at her and said, ‘Seriously?’ And she said, ‘Seriously,’” said longtime aide Huma Abedin in a

conference call with Clinton alumni.

“This was her idea, and she’s been really excited about it since she came up with it.”

Abedin said Clinton’s van stopped at a gas station in Pennsylvania, where the former first lady met a family from Michigan. “I think it’s safe to say she surprised quite a few people who had just happened to stop for gas at the same time she did,” she said.

A Clinton aide said the van is nicknamed “Scooby” after the van in the 1970s animated television show, The Scooby Doo Show.

The aide said Clinton was a passenger and the van was driven by the Secret Service. AP

WORLD

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JORDAN RULES Sports BusinessMirror

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| TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

MASTERS FOR THE AGES

JORDAN RULES B D F

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JORDAN SPIETH takes his place among the best in the game, becoming the second-youngest champion to wear a green jacket. AP

Not since Tiger Woods in 1997 has a 21-year-old faced so little stress while making a mockery of par in a major.

Not since Raymond Floyd in 1976 has anyone withstood the pressure of leading for all four rounds at Augusta National. Only one other Masters champion—Craig Wood in 1941— has never let anyone closer to him than three shots the entire way.

The Associated Press

UGUSTA, Georgia—Jordan Spieth tapped in his final putt to cap off a record performance and bent over in relief. He just as easily could have been taking a bow.

This was a Masters for the ages.

Not since Tiger Woods in 1997 has a 21-year-old faced so little stress while making a mockery of par in a major. Not since Raymond Floyd in 1976 has anyone withstood the pressure of leading for all four rounds at Augusta National.

Only one other Masters champion—Craig Wood in 1941—has never let anyone closer to him than three shots the entire way.

Spieth took his place among the best in the game last Sunday when he closed with a two-under 70 for a four-shot victory over Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose, becoming the second-youngest champion behind Woods to wear a green jacket.

“This was arguably the greatest day of my life,” Spieth said. “To join Masters history and put my name on that trophy and to have this jacket forever, it’s something that I can’t fathom right now.”

He left everyone else dazed, too.

Spieth missed a 5-foot par putt on the final hole that only kept him from breaking another record this week at the Masters. He tied the 72-hole scoring mark that Woods set at 18-under 270.

It was still enough to beat Mickelson (69) and Rose (70) by four shots.

“Playing with Jordan, he’s going to sort of fly the flag for golf for quite a while,” Rose said. “People were getting excited about that out there. You could tell.”

There were standing ovations all the way around to celebrate the latest star ingolf, the next addition to a new generation just as Woods and Mickelson are approaching the back nines of their careers.

Rory McIlroy is still No. 1 in the world by a reasonable margin. Spieth is now No. 2. It’s the first time players 25 or younger have been Nos. 1 and 2 in the world.

“He’s got four majors. That’s something I can still only dream about,” Spieth said. “I don’t know, as far as a rivalry right now.”

For all the hype about the Grand Slam bid by McIlroy and the return of Woods, this week was about the arrival of another star.

“It’s awfully impressive,” McIlroy said after closing with a 66 to finish fourth. “It’s nice to get your major tally up and running at an early stage in your career.

It’s great to see, great for the game, and I’m sure there will be many more.”

Woods jarred his right wrist when he struck wood under the pine straw on the ninth hole. He didn’t hit a

fairway on the front nine and never was in the game, closing with a 73 to finish 13 shots behind.

Mickelson tried to make a run. So did Rose.

Lefty holed a bunker shot for eagle on the par-five 15th, but he couldn’t make a birdie the rest of the way. Rose got to within three shots of Spieth on three occasions on the front nine, and Spieth kept his nerve. He picked up two shots on Rose on Nos. 8 and 9—the same spot where the Masters got away from Spieth last year.

“I thought today might be easier having played with the lead on Saturday. It wasn’t,” Spieth said.

“It’s the most incredible week of my life. This is as great as it gets in our sport.... I’m still kind of shocked a little bit.”

And he will keep the editors of the Masters record book busy. Among the marks he established this week: n The 36-hole record at 14-under 130. n The 54-hole record at 16-under 200. n The most birdies for the tournament at 28. n The lowest opening round by a champion at 64.

“He has no weaknesses,” Mickelson said. “He doesn’t overpower the golf course, but he plays the course strategically well. He plays all the shots properly. And he has that ability to focus and see things clear when the pressure is on and perform at his best when the pressure is on.

“That’s something that you really can’t teach,” he said. “Some players are able to do it, some players aren’t. And he is.”

Spieth was reminded of how far he has come, and how quickly, when he stood on the first tee with a four-shot lead and history in his hands. His caddie, Michael Greller, reminded him that the Texas golf team was playing a match in California. This would be Spieth’s senior year.

“He said, ‘Face it: Aren’t you glad you’re here instead of there?’” Spieth said with a smile.

It was a light moment in an arena of high pressure. Rose promptly knocked in a 10-foot birdie putt, and Spieth followed him with a birdie. It was like that all week.

Spieth rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 10 for a six-shot lead. It was his 26th birdie of the Masters, breaking the tournament record that Mickelson set in 2001. The next target was the 72-hole scoring record that Woods set in 1997, and he almost got there except for that bogey at the end.

He twice went for the green on par 5s on the back nine, barely clearing the creek at No. 13 and going just over the back on No. 15, both times making birdie.

The birdie on the 15th made him the only player in Masters history to reach 19-under par at any point.

None of that mattered. Spieth had the green jacket.

“This was the ultimate goal in my golf life,” he said.

And he might just be getting started.

SPECIAL WIN FOR SPECIAL PLAYER B T D The Association Press

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UGUSTA, Georgia—About the only thing missing was a new scoring record. Not to worry, because odds are Jordan Spieth will set a bunch of them by the time he is done.

The odds are equally good that the green jacket he put on Sunday night outside the Augusta National clubhouse won’t be his last.

The Masters was the tournament he dreamed about growing up beating balls on the range in Texas. The people who run the Masters could only dream of having a new champion who could stare down an all-star field of challengers, then remember to thank everyone from the kitchen staff to the chairman for giving him the chance to do just that.

He’s a special talent who yells at his ball and plays with a steely intensity. He’s also a special person, the son of athletic parents who still dates his high-school sweetheart and is a loving brother to a younger sister with neurological difficulties that place her on the autism spectrum.

On an overcast day at Augusta National, Spieth finished off a wire-towire win that was so utterly dominant it never seemed really in doubt. That he bogeyed the last hole to miss setting a scoring record set by another 21-year-old named Tiger Woods in 1997 did nothing to make the day any less sweet.

His family and friends gathered behind the 18th green hugging each other even before

Spieth dropped the short bogey putt to finish off his day. Everyone important in his life was there, except the one person who may be most important.

His sister, who is seven years younger, doesn’t come to many tournaments. Ellie Spieth likes to yell her brother’s name and cheer at what should be quiet times, and the Masters would not be the place for that.

But Spieth would be calling, and they would talk about him winning his first major championship.

“When I speak to her she’s going to probably tell me to just bring something home, bring a present home to her,” Spieth said. “I’m sure she was watching and was excited when she saw how happy I was there with my family at the end. Probably a little jealous at that point.”

If so, she’s not the only one. Who wouldn’t be jealous of a player who refused to yield an inch all week, yet was so gracious he gave playing partner Justin Rose a thumbs up after he made a remarkable recovery shot on the seventh hole?

Who wouldn’t be jealous of a player who kept the same four-shot lead he teed off with under the intense pressure of a final round at the Masters?

And who wouldn’t be jealous of a young man who, after hugging his caddie, parents and girlfriend, applauded the fans who came to watch as he took a victory lap around the 18th green?

“I don’t know what could make you more proud,” his father, Shawn, said. “But God-given gift to be able to play the game like that, we’re just probably more proud of him for the kind of person he is and the way he handles himself and treats everybody....

He makes us really, really proud.”

Spieth almost became the

youngest Masters champion ever last year in his first go around at Augusta National, only to lose the two-shot lead he held after seven holes of the final round to Bubba Watson. He was determined to come back and win the green jacket, and he seized control of the Masters with a first round 64 and never looked back.

“He wanted badly to get back after last year,” his father said.

He’d be a college senior if he stayed at the University of Texas, where he played for a year before taking a chance and playing his way onto the Professional Golfers’ Association Tour. But he looked like a seasoned veteran as he played his way around Augusta National, sealing the deal with an 8-footer for par on the 16th hole even as Justin Rose and Phil Mickelson made late moves.

“He’s just fiery,” said caddie Michael Greller, who was a sixth grade teacher before hooking up with Spieth. “He’s got that kliller instinct. You have to have tunnel vision when you’re out there, but you have to really appreciate the roars.”

Spieth has a lot to appreciate, even if he admitted he wasn’t sure just what winning the Masters would mean. Spieth hasn’t had that much experience winning in his short career, though he won once and finished second twice in his last three tournaments.

The last one was in Houston last week, where after every round he would go home and Ellie would say, “Jordan, did you win? Did you win?”

“I said, ‘Not yet, not yet, no,’” Spieth said, laughing. “I can tell her I won now.”

Maybe he can bring home a present, too. A nice green jacket will do.

SPORTS

In the latest East Asia and the Pacific report, the World Bank maintained its growth forecast for the Philippine economy at 6.5 percent in 2015 and 2016, and 6.3 percent in 2017.

While these are below the 7-percent growth target of the government, the World Bank said this still places the Philippines in the ranks of high-growth economies in the region.

“Unlike many other countries in the region, [it] has this demographic structure which is much

better than the others. A lot of other countries [in the region] are facing aging populations, the Philippines is facing a young work force, which finds itself in [a] highly advantageous region. So it’s one of those elements why we are saying things are looking good for the Philippines going forward,” World Bank lead economist Rogier van den Brink said in a briefing on Monday.

Data obtained from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that the 2010 Census of Population C  A

HEALTH IS WEALTH, STUDY SAYS IT’S ALSO VICE VERSA

New candidate Clinton heads to Iowa in a van called Scooby

Australian China curbs some travel to Hong Kong to cool tensions treasurer rules The central government in Beijing has adjusted the travel policy out raising taxes because, “alongside the unceasing growth of mainland residents travin May budget eling to Hong Kong and growing ANBERRA, Australia—Australia’s treasurer said on Monday that the low iron ore price was shaving billions of dollars off government revenue forecasts, but he would not increase taxes to make up the shortfall.

Treasurer Joe Hockey estimates that every $10 fall in the price of a metric ton of iron ore—Australia’s most lucrative export—cuts $2.5 billion in tax revenue a year for the government.

The price has fallen from about $100 when Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservative government was elected in September 2013 to less than $48 last week due to weakening Chinese industrial demand and increased production.

Hockey signaled that plans to return the national budget to surplus would be delayed when he announces his economic blueprint on May 12 for the fiscal year beginning July 1. “There’s no doubt it has an impact on our budget because iron ore has been our biggest export,” Hockey told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television. AP

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HE World Bank said on Monday the Philippines’s young population is one of the reasons the Washington-based lender is optimistic about the country’s economic growth in the next three years.

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Family’s prefab contemporary house is at home in the woods

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

WORLD BANK CITES YOUNG WORK FORCE, LOW OIL PRICES, ELECTION SPENDING AS PLUS FACTORS

INSIDE

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O matter how much you earn, people who earn more than you are likelier to be healthier and will live longer.

That’s the takeaway from a new report by researchers at the Urban Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University examining the complex links between health, wealth and income.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that poverty is often associated with poor health.

Less obvious: Health and income improve together all the way up the economic pyramid. The wealthiest have fewer illnesses than the upper-middle class, who are in better shape than the lower-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 44.5150

middle class, and so on.

The Urban report analyzed a dozen health problems for which the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recorded prevalence by family income. In every case, the rich are better off. With just a few exceptions, there’s a steady improvement in health as you climb the income scale: Life expectancy and self-reported overall health also decline with income.

And while minorities in the US have poorer health, much of the difference is accounted for by disparities in income among racial and ethnic groups.

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CONFLUENCE IN TOURISM PUSH Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez Jr. recounts the making of the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” campaign during the opening ceremonies of the Media Specialists Association of the Philippines Congress held in Pasay City. Several speakers talked about their expertise and specializations in connection with this year’s theme “Confluence.” ALYSA SALEN

Auto industry posted record sales in Q1

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UTOMOTIVE sales in the country already breached the 60,000-unit mark in the first quarter alone, the first time for the local industry.

Chamber of Automobile Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) reported on Monday that auto sales in the first quarter went up by 21.6 percent to 62,882 units from the January-toMarch period in 2015.

Sales in all vehicle segments, except Asian utility vehicle (AUV), grew by double digits in the first three months of the year.

Sales for the month of March alone, which increased by 22.6 percent to 23,557 units, also pushed the figures to breach the 60,000 mark in the first quarter.

GUTIERREZ: “As projected during the industry-planning session conducted for 2015, demand from the business process outsourcing market has boosted the sale of the sub-compact segment.”

Commercial vehicles led the number of sales for the period, selling 37,831 units, up by 12.6 percent from the year ago’s 33,595 units.

Passenger cars recorded sales of 25,051 units in the first quarter, up 38.2 percent.

“As projected during the industry-planning session conducted for 2015, demand from the business-

process outsourcing market has boosted the sale of the subcompact segment. Industry continues to respond with the right product mix and very attractive financing package to meet this demand,” lawyer Rommel Gutierrez, Campi president, said.

Light commercial vehicle (LCV) sales for the same period was at 24,915 units, higher by 15.4 percent in 2014 at 21,586 units.

AUV sales, on the other hand, grew slightly by 4.3 percent to 11,088 units. Sales of trucks also saw a robust growth in the January-toMarch period.

Light truck sales increased by 16.8 percent to 1,122, while the trucks and buses category IV grew by 53.8 percent to 466 units. The Category C  A

■ JAPAN 0.3703 ■ UK 65.1477 ■ HK 5.7443 ■ CHINA 7.1706 ■ SINGAPORE 32.5426 ■ AUSTRALIA 34.1871 ■ EU 47.1814 ■ SAUDI ARABIA 11.8691 Source: BSP (13 April 2015)

News

BusinessMirror

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

A2

news@businessmirror.com.ph

‘Things are looking good for PHL’ Yolanda and we saw the artificially high rice price, while international rice prices were going down, the country was restricting its imports which drove rice prices up. And you know rice is a good that everybody has to eat,” Van den Brink said.

To sustain the country’s economic gains, the World Bank reiterated its recommendations in January on improving the taxes and broadening the base of taxpayers.

The World Bank supported the view of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan, who urged the government to increase excise taxes, especially at this time when oil prices are very low.

Van den Brink also said lowering income and corporate taxes could help broaden the tax base, as well as revising the real property tax to aid the government’s revenue collection efforts.

Meanwhile, developing economies of East Asia are projected to grow by an average of 6.7 percent in

on account of low pump prices.

The Washington-based lender further said efforts of the Aquino administration to curb graft and corruption resulted in the decline in government spending at the start of the term of the President.

But Van den Brink said this increased the efficiency in the use of financial resources, which contributed to higher social spending that improved the lives of the poor. This resulted in more inclusive growth.

Van den Brink said before 2012, every percentage increase in GDP only translated to around 0.24-percent reduction in poverty. However, after 2012, every percent increase in GDP translated to a 0.9-percent decline in poverty incidence.

“The first round in 2013 actually put this number at 2 [percent]; so that was very high. Every increase in GDP by 1 percent reduced poverty by 2 percent. That was fantastic. But then we saw 2014, when we saw the impact of [Supertyphoon]

Continued from A1

and Housing pegged the median age of Filipinos at 23.4 years old. This means that half of the population is aged below 23.4 year old and half is aged above 23.4 years old.

The PSA also said in 2010, a total of 38.5 million Filipinos belonged to the school-age population, or those aged 5 to 24. This represents 41.8 percent of the 92.1 million estimated number of Filipinos in 2010.

Aside from its young population, the World Bank said low oil prices and the expected 2.6 percentage-point increase in consumption demand in the first half of 2016, due to the May 2016 presidential polls, will support and boost economic growth.

The World Bank estimated that the Philippines may see a 1.1-percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP) growth and 1.3-percent growth in trade balance due to low oil prices in 2015. This is one of the highest growth increases for both GDP and trade balance in the region

2015 and 2016, slightly down from 6.9 percent in 2014.

China’s growth, however, is expected to moderate to around 7 percent in the next two years compared with 7.4 percent in 2014. Growth in the rest of developing East Asia is expected to rise by half-a-percentage point, to 5.1 percent this year, largely driven by domestic demand.

Robust domestic demand will be supported by upbeat consumer sentiment and falling oil prices, particularly in the large Southeast Asian economies.

The Washington-based lender said low global oil prices will benefit most developing countries in East Asia, especially Cambodia, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as Pacific island countries.

But the region’s net fuel exporters, including Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, will see slower growth and lower government revenues. In Indonesia the net impact on growth will depend on the decline in its coal and gas exports.

Health is wealth, study says it’s also vice versa health conditions—diabetes, heart disease, lung disease—and the magnitude of health disparities becomes clear.

How health and money are related is complex. For both rich and poor, the two attributes likely reinforce one another. “Health and income affect each other in both directions: not only does higher income facilitate better health, but poor health and disabilities can make it harder for someone to suc-

Continued from A1

Here’s another way to think about it: 6.4 million people in the US have suffered strokes, a prevalence rate of 2.7 percent of noninstitutionalized adults. Among those who earn six figures, the rate is 1.6 percent.

If everyone had strokes at the same rate that the richest Americans do, we’d have 2.6 million fewer stroke patients in the country. Multiply such differences across a range of

ceed in school or to secure and retain a high-paying job,” the Urban authors write.

Living in poverty often means less access to nutritious food or neighborhoods safe for outdoor exercise. Lowincome people are more likely to smoke or be obese. White-collar jobs are less physically demanding, and people who have them can afford to take a day off for a doctors’ visit or to get a gym membership. They’re also probably not working the night

shift, which is linked to cancer and other health problems.

The entanglement between health and income means that stagnant real wages and increasing inequality affect the country’s physical and mental health, as well. From the Urban report: “It is important to remember that economic and social policies are health policies in that they affect life expectancy, disease rates and health-care costs for all Americans.” Bloomberg News

APR 15 3-DAY WEDNESDAY EXTENDED FORECAST

APRIL 14, 2015 | TUESTDAY

TODAY’S WEATHER

EASTERLIES AFFECTING THE EASTERN SECTION OF LUZON AND VISAYAS (AS OF APRIL 13, 5:00 PM)

Easterlies are winds coming from the East passing over the Pacific Ocean. These are warm and moist in nature; causing hot weather and generating thunderstorms.

METRO MANILA

24 – 33°C

24 – 34°C

TUGUEGARAO

24 – 33°C

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LAOAG

LAOAG CITY 23 – 32°C

SBMA/CLARK 24 – 33°C METRO MANILA 23 – 33°C

TAGAYTAY CITY 22 – 30°C

24 – 33°C

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Continued from A1

V trucks surged by 106.9 percent to 240 units.

“With this performance, the industry is confident that it will reach its 310,000 sales-volume target for the entire year as sales is expected to peak up in the coming months,” the industry stressed.

China. . .

‘Dismal’ performance

In US dollar terms, exports fell 15 percent from a year earlier while imports slipped 12.7 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $3.08 billion in March. Shipments to the US, European Union and Japan all declined.

The “dismal” March export performance comes despite a higher number of working days and a low base and will spur fears that foreign demand is being undermined by a stronger yuan, Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist at Credit Agricole SA in Hong Kong, wrote in a note after the release.

The yuan may weaken and onshore rates will be lowered, he

Continued from A8

the independent power producers (IPPs) and power supply agreements (PSAs) increased. Rates of the IPPs went up by P0.17 per kWh. Meanwhile, rates from PSAs went up by P 0.31 per kWh. Meralco warned that generation

APR 17 FRIDAY

25 – 33°C

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TACLOBAN

24 – 32°C

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CAGAYAN DE ORO

23 – 32°C

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ZAMBOANGA

PHILIPPINE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (PAR)

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY 25 – 32°C

ILOILO/ BACOLOD 24 – 31°C METRO CEBU 25 – 32°C

TACLOBAN CITY 24 – 32°C

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 23 – 31°C

ZAMBOANGA CITY 24 – 34°C

PUERTO PRINCESA

ILOILO/ BACOLOD

24 – 33°C

SUNSET

MOONSET

MOONRISE

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HALF MOON NEW MOON

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2:57 AM

CELEBES SEA

1:00 AM

-0.04 METER

Partly cloudy to at times cloudy with rainshowers and/or thunderstorms Partly cloudy skies

24 – 32 °C

25 – 32°C

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Cloudy skies with rainshowers and/or thunderstorms

Weekday hourly updates: 6:00 AM on Balitaan, 7:00 AM & 8:00 AM on Good Morning Boss!, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 1:00 PM on News@1, 3:00 PM, 4:30 PM, and 6:00 PM on News@6

www.panahon.tv

SABAH

LOW TIDEMANILA HIGH TIDE SOUTH HARBOR

11:44 AM

Watch PANAHON.TV everyday at 5:00 AM on PTV (Channel 4).

METRO DAVAO 25 – 34°C

SUNRISE 22 – 30°C

LEGAZPI CITY 25 – 32°C 24 – 32°C

APR 17 FRIDAY

25 – 32°C

SBMA/ CLARK

25 – 32°C

APR 16 THURSDAY

24 – 33°C

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LEGAZPI

charge for next month could also go up. It said that due to the longer impact of the Malampaya maintenance schedule (from March 26 to April 13) for the April supply month and the expected higher temperature in the coming days, electricity consumers may also expect an increase in their bills.

METRO CEBU

16 – 23°C

22 – 31°C

Bloomberg News

APR 15 3-DAY WEDNESDAY EXTENDED FORECAST

15 – 23°C

22 – 31°C

wrote. “Odds are also rising for more government stimulus.” Developing East Asian economies will grow slightly slower this year, the World Bank said in a report, citing China’s moderating expansion.

China’s trade data needs to be handled with care, Bloomberg economists Tom Orlik and Fielding Chen wrote, noting the surprisingly high February export performance. “Seeing past the ups and downs, year-to-date growth is in the mid-single digits,” they wrote in a note. “That’s not stellar, but it’s in line with growth in global imports and we believe it’s sustainable.”

Malampaya maintenance work successful–Shell exec

BAGUIO

TAGAYTAY

Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. recorded a 44.2-percent market share in the first quarter, followed by Mitsubishi Motors Philippines, 18.8 percent; Ford Group Philippines, 8.4 percent; Isuzu Philippines Corp., 7.9 percent; and Honda Cars Philippines 6.3 percent. PNA

Continued from A8

METRO DAVAO

TUGUEGARAO CITY 23 – 33°C

BAGUIO CITY 15 – 22°C

APR 16 THURSDAY

Auto industry posted record sales in Q1. . .

@PanahonTV

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BusinessMirror Special Feature

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 A3

Economy

A4 Tuesday, April 14, 2015 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

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BCI rejects move to shut down operations of Benguet mine sites

A

Benguet Corp. Inc. (BCI) official on Monday rejected a proposal raised by Itogon, Benguet, Mayor Victorio Palangdan to halt the mining firm’s operations while rehabilitation work on its tailings dam is under way.

BCI Administration Head Froilan Lawilao pointed out that a shutdown of operations of Acupan and Antamok mine sites will displace some 3,000 contract miners, aside from the 700 regular employees of the firm.

“The overall economic growth of the mineral-rich town could be affected, further adding to the predicaments of unemployment and lack of livelihood opportunities for residents of Itogon,” Lawilao added.

He was reacting to Palangdan’s proposal to cease operations while BCI’s tailings storage facility 2 and 2A are being retrofitted with a higher dam elevation.

The company is working to raise the dam height from 168 meters to 175 meters in order to forestall possibilities of spillage of its contents to downstream communities and villages, Lawilao said.

But Palangdan said the work is not covered by a certification from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), which, he pointed out, is needed because the work is within the domain of an indigenous community.

Aside from this, Palangdan said the work poses danger to the same communities and villages BCI seeks to protect by raising the dam height.

Lawilao, a lawyer, said the NCIP itself said that there is no need for a free and prior informed consent certification for the work because the dam was already in existence prior to the passage of the Indigenous

briefs d.o.t. urges participation in intramuros pasyal on sunday

The Department of Tourism (DOT) has urged patriots and fans of everything Filipino to join Intramuros Pasyal on Sunday, an event set to revive the livability and creativity of Old Manila neighborhoods.

With the theme “(Re)cover the City,” Pasyal Sunday draws urban citizens and provides the platform wherein they can interact and enjoy being together from 3 to 9 p.m.

The event is a public, pedestrianonly/car-free event that features local artisans, performers and neighborhood businesses free for the public, organized by nonprofit organization, Viva Manila.

During the event, visitors can explore the historic Walled City and, at the same time, enjoy the streetfair atmosphere along General Luna Street between Plazuela de Santa Isabel and San Agustin Church.

Last year the event was held on March 16, April 27 and May 25.

Pasyal Sunday is supported by the Intramuros Administration, an attached agency of the DOT. PNA

vp binay allegedly tried to extort p200m from lee in 2010 Detained businessman Delfin Lee on Monday accused Vice President Jejomar C. Binay of allegedly attempting to extort P200 million from him shortly after the vice president assumed office in 2010.

Lee, in his statement read over at the Senate committee hearing presided by Senators Aquilino Pimentel III and Antonio Trillanes IV, disclosed that Binay, through Gerry Limlingan, allegedly demanded the huge amount of money from him in

Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997.

Aside from this, Lawilao said that the scope of work is covered

by BCI’s approved Environmental Compliance Certificate issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

He explained that the series of negotiations conducted by the company with the affected residents of Batuang, Lower Dalicno and Maligaya as per the advice of Mayor Palangdan resulted in the signing of the final agreement on January 31 when residents themselves allowed the refurbishing work to be pursued.

“We beg to take exceptions to the assertions of the municipal mayor that the BCI has failed to provide relocation site for the affected communities and the lack of contingency, rehabilitation and restoration plans,” Lawilao said.

Under the agreement, two relocation areas have been identified.

“Even granting without admitting that the identified relocation areas will not be feasible in the event that it is needed under certain conditions, there is no question that BCI is still obligated by law and by the contract to assist the affected residents in their relocation to a suitable area,” Lawilao said.

Despite these explanations, the BCI official still called on all stakeholders to judiciously consider the position of the mining company by the communities and villages of Itogon and the local government units of the town. PNA two separate meetings in Makati City sometime in 2010. He added that he would have been spared of serious charges in connection with the P6.6billion housing scam had he given the money to Limlingan. Joey Pavia

5 EX MARINES NAMED IN P36.7-M CLOTHING SCAM

Five former officers of the Philippine Marine Corps are now facing charges in connection with the P36.7-million clothing-allowance scam.

Ombudsman Conchita CarpioMorales said facing malversation charges and violation of Republic Act 3019, or Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, are the Philippine Marine Corps former officers Col. Renato Miranda, Lt. Col. Jeson Cabatbat, Maj. Adelo Jandayan, Capt. Felicisimo Millado and Capt. Edmundo Yurong in connection with the anomalous utilization of the Combat Clothing Allowance, and Individual Equipment Allowance totaling P36.7 million intended for the benefit of Marineenlisted personnel in 1999.

The Ombudsman said investigation showed that based on disbursement vouchers signed by Miranda, 19 checks all dated in April 2000 were issued in favor of Millado as Marines commanding officer and the checks were encashed and the proceeds were turned over to Jandayan.

She added that, in turn, Cabatbat and Yurong certified and submitted falsified payrolls of the enlisted personnel, saying that upon verification and random sampling, 145 enlisted personnel stationed in various provinces denied receiving any allowance and signing in the payroll.

“Considering the amount involved, the military officials should have exercised due diligence and prudence in entering into transactions involving funds and that failure to do so signifies [their] active participation in the anomalous transaction which resulted to the defraudation of the government,” Morales added.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Swim toys Assorted rubber floats for swimming are sold at a Manila sidewalk stall at affordable prices. There’s one caveat, however. Parents should know that in buying these items for their kids, safety considerations during swimming excursions this summer should be of paramount consideration. Roy Domingo

$100-M loss from Chinese reclamation at WPS seen

By Michaela del Callar Philippines News Agency

T

he Philippines on Monday said China’s massive reclamation activities in disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea ([WPS] South China Sea are causing “irreversible and widespread damage” to the resource-rich waters’ biodiversity and ecological balance.

“We cannot accept China’s claim that its activities have not caused damage to the ecological environment of the South China Sea,” Foreign Affairs Spokesman Charles Jose said in a statement, as he warned that coastal states like the Philippines face $100 million worth of economic losses because of the reclamation.

A United Nations Environment Program study, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs, revealed that around 300 acres of coral reef sys-

tems were damaged as a result of the reclamation activities and that nations that depend on the sea’s resources are estimated to suffer losses valued at $100 million a year.

Jose accused China of “disregarding peoples in the surrounding states who have depended on the sea for their livelihood for generations” by pursuing said activities unilaterally.

Manila also pointed out China’s damaging fishing practices in the Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc near Zambales province.

China, Jose said, “tolerated environmentally harmful fishing practices by its nationals” at the shoal, which, in effect, “breaches its obligations under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.”

The Philippines, Jose said, is especially

concerned by a recent Chinese Foreign Ministry statement that once their reclamation work on seven areas are completed, these would provide “comprehensive services to meet civilian demands and satisfy the need of necessary military defense.”

“Such statements by China only serve to raise the specter of increasing militarization and threaten peace and stability in the region,” Jose said, adding that Beijing seeks to distract the world from its massive and illegal expansion in the area.

China insists all its activities in the resourcerich South China Sea are within its legal and territorial jurisdiction as it dismissed protests from other claimants like the Philippines and Vietnam. Other claimants are Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Taiwan.

Beijing maintains “indisputable” and “historical” sovereignty over nearly the entire

waters through it’s so-called nine-dash line, an assertion that Manila calls “excessive” and “illegitimate.”

“We call on China to stop the reclamation activities and to be mindful of its responsibilities as a claimant-state and an important member of the international community,” Jose said.

China, he said, must respect the letter and spirit of a nonbinding and nonaggression pact it signed with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the South China Sea in 2002.

Manila also called on China to cooperate in discussing constructive long-term solutions to the peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with international law.

The Philippines brought its case against China to an arbitration tribunal in 2013, but Beijing rejected Manila’s complaint, saying it has no legal basis.

Road Board abolition sought amid COA disclosure of P1.66-billion fund irregularity

A

recent Commission on Audit (COA) report that uncovered irregularities in the use of more than P1.66 billion in Road Board funds should be enough reason for its abolition, Valenzuela City Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian said on Monday.

The Road Board is an agency created by law to spend the billions of pesos in motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) or the so-called road user’s tax collected by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) from vehicle owners.

In its 2013 audit of the Road Board, the COA found that the board spent P319 million in various infrastructure projects nationwide which violated provisions of Republic Act 9184, otherwise known as the Government

Amy de la Cruz-Sison, 83 Amy de la Cruz-Sison, widow of the late Press Secretary and former Movie Television Regulatory and Classification Board (MTRCB) chief Jess Sison, who served under the Ramos administration, passed away on April 13. She was born on June 24, 1932. Sison graduated at the University of Santo Tomas in 1955 with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Education.

Sison hailed from Lingayen, Pangasinan, and was crowned Miss Lingayen in 1952. She lived most of her life in Quezon City, where she lovingly raised four beautiful and successful children, namely, Milen S. de Quiros, Dr. Jesus C. Sison Jr., Amyliza S. Bueza and Jera Sison.

Her body lies at the Loyola Chapels Commonwealth. Mass will be held every 7 p.m. during the four-day wake. Interment will be on April 16, Thursday.

Procurement Reform Act. Gatchalian earlier filed House Bill 3434, which seeks to scrap the Road Board and to transfer its task of managing the road user’s tax to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

“Since it is the DPWH and the DOTC that handle the funds generated by the MVUC, it should be appropriate and practical to delegate the function of the law to the two departments,” Gatchalian said.

The veteran lawmaker who is a member of House Committee on Local Government said removing the Road Board and assigning its functions to the DPWH and DOTC would prevent corrupt practices that may take place.

“HB 3434 would prevent the wastage on time and resources which our country is frantic to save so that every Filipino, especially those in far-flung barangays, may feel the trickle-down effect of our growing economy,” he pointed out.

The MVUC or road user’s tax is the government’s third-biggest source of tax revenues, mandated through Republic Act 8794, which allocates special road funds to be spent exclusively for road maintenance is currently being handled by the Road Board.

Once enacted, his bill would direct the DPWH and DOTC secretaries to come up with new implementing rules and regulations for the collection and disbursement of the road user’s tax. It would also prohibit the two department heads from creating another secretariat to oversee the funds’ use.

Gatchalian noted that the COA, for several years now, continue to uncover irregularities in the Road Board, particularly the agency’s noncompliance with the provisions of RA 9184 and its IRR when it comes to the procurement of infrastructure projects and equipment.

Among the suspicious transactions that the COA uncovered in 2013 was the payment of the performance security bond of a private contractor for a P62-million project in the National Capital Region even before the

Signboard art

A boy patiently waits for customers who may be interested to buy his parents’ merchandise of public-utility vehicle signboards, keeping a watchful eye on jeepney and bus drivers who may be interested to close a deal for a signboard or two. Kevin dela Cruz

firm was given a notice of award.

Four other infrastructure projects of the Board in Metro Manila totaling P104 million did not include the value-added tax computation in their bids required by law.

The Road Board’s technical working group and bidding and awards committe accepted the bids “from lowest to highest without taking into account the VAT component,” a news report quoted the COA as saying.

Also, disbursements of several officials of the DPWH worth P276 million were not covered by appropriate documents to “establish propriety, validity and legality of the transactions.” PNA

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Malaya repair works face monthlong delay–PSALM

By Lenie Lectura

T

here is a delay in the completion of overhaul works on the 300megawatt (MW) unit of the Malaya thermal power plant, the top official of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) said on Monday.

From end-April, the Malaya rehabilitation will be moved to end-May, according to PSALM President Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. “The contractor, STX Marine Service Co. Ltd., has sent parts to Korea first week of April for repair. In view of that, the target completion date might be moved to endMay,” the PSALM official said in a text message.

Under the terms of reference, work must have been originally completed on March 3, or 90 days from issuance of the notice to proceed to STX Marine of Korea, which started overhauling the unit in December last year.

STX Marine bagged the contract with an P80.63-million bid offer.

The Malaya power facility consists of a 300-MW unit with a once-through type boiler and a 350-MW unit fitted with a conventional boiler. It was rehabilitated in 1995 by the Korea Electric Power Corp. under a 15-year rehabilitate-operatemanage-maintain agreement.

Once Malaya1 is rehabilitated, the entire Malaya facility can run at its full capacity of 650 MW. STX is engaged in the design, construction, supervision and repair of system or equipment related to energy. The company is also a provider of maritime solutions, and among its services are ship management, marine transportation and brokerage, and ship design, construction, leasing and repair.

STX Marine also recently won a one-year contract to operate and maintain the two units of the Malaya thermal power plant.

The government was earlier hoping that rehabilitation of the Malaya Unit 1 could be finished before summer to make it available in time for the Malampaya shutdown.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 A5

Consortium sets turnover of P16.42-B school-infrastructure projects on Friday

T

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

he private partner for the construction of P16.42 billion worth of classrooms under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program will turnover the said infrastructure to the government this coming Friday.

The consortium formed by Megawide Construction Corp. and Citicore Holdings Investment Inc. as well as the BF Corp.-Riverbanks Development Corp., according to a notice sent via e-mail, “will be turning over the PPP School Infrastructure Program (PSIP) Phase 1 classrooms for Region 3 and 4A to President Aquino in a turnover ceremony to be held on Friday.”

The project involves the construction of 9,301 classrooms in Regions 1, 3 and 4. For the Ilocos region, the beneficiaries involve 666 schools, covering 2,157 classrooms; in Central Luzon, 592 schools, 2,885 classrooms; and in Southern Tagalog, 946 schools, and 4,259 classrooms.

It was awarded to the consortium in 2012. The project is expected to benefit the roughly 420,000 schoolchildren in the said regions.

Aside from the said project, the government has so far awarded eight other deals under the key infrastruc-

ture program, namely:

the P1.96-billion Daang HariSouth Luzon Expressway project bagged by Ayala Corp. in 2011;

the P15.68-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport expressway, awarded to San Miguel Corp. unit Vertex Tollways Development Inc. in 2013; and

the P3.86-billion PSIP Phase II contract, partially awarded in 2013 to Megawide and the BSP & Co. Inc.-Vicente T. Lao Construction consortium;

the P5.69-billion Modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center project that went to the Megawide-World Citi Inc. consortium also in 2013.

the P1.72-billion Automatic Fare Collection System contract awarded to the AF Consortium of Ayala and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. in 2014;

the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport New Passenger Terminal project bagged in 2014 by

‘SPICE GIRL’ IN ACTION

While on a farm tour, a comely Hotel and Restaurant Management senior coed tries her hand in classifying garlic bulbs according to sizes at a stockroom in the allium-growing village of Manamtam, Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya. Home of the Nueva Vizcaya Agricultural Terminal, the town is also known for its large-scale production of premium quality onions. LEONARDO PERANTE II

Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructures Ltd.;

the P64.9-billion Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite Extension deal, awarded in 2014 to Light Rail Manila Consortium of Ayala and MPIC; and

PAL one of the world’s ‘most reliable’ carriers

By Recto Mercene

F

lag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) had made it to the list as one of the world’s most reliable airlines, placing 21st out of 22.

Travel web site WanderBat said PAL’s international flights are delayed 47 percent of the time.

The study also showed that the average age of its 51-plane fleet is about 4.2 years.

PAL flies to more than 40 international and domestic destinations. It would soon fly to Jinjiang, China, end of April this year and Port Moresby in June.

The study considered three factors: how often flight are on time, delayed and canceled; the number of bag that can be checked for free and the cost of checking additional bags; and average fleet age.

The last item said newer fleets tend to be more comfortable, clean and quiet.

Qatar Airlines bagged the No. 1 slot. The airline is based in the small, wealthy Middle Eastern country of Doha, Qatar. It flies to more than 144 destinations Other airlines, which rounded up the most

briefs shell and phoenix to cut gas prices by 20 centavos/l on tuesday

Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. (PSPC) and Phoenix Petroleum Philippines will cut pump prices of gasoline by 20 centavos per liter on Tuesday. Shell will decrease gas prices on April 14 at 12:01 a.m., while Phoenix will lower prices at 6 a.m.

Phoenix stressed that the price reduction was due to the minimal appreciation of the peso.

As of April 7, the Department of Energy’s oil monitor noted that gasoline prices for Metro Manila was playing between P38.40 to P52.05 per liter.

It has a common price of P41.95 per liter.

Other oil companies are expected to announce rollbacks within the day. PNA

mmda pushes for stronger public health, healthy living programs in ncr

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Monday convened the city health officers of the 17 local government units (LGUs) of Metro Manila to lay out the groundwork for the agency’s vision and role in strengthening public health and enjoin active participation in promoting a healthy living environment in Metro Manila.

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino said the discussion was focused on bridging the gaps in the promotion of urban health in Metro Manila.

“We need to establish constant and dynamic communication between MMDA and the city health officers in order to strengthen their role in the development of plans, projects and programs that will have an impact on the environment,” Tolentino said.

dependable airlines, include: Emirates, China Eastern Airlines, Singapore Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Air China, British Airways, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Chilean Airline, Tam Airlines, Japan Airlines, Egypt Air, Etihad Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Qantas, Aeroflot, China Airlines and Air Berlin.

PAL recently inaugurated a reopened flight from Manila to New York after an 18-year hiatus.

PAL President and COO Jaime Bautista said that Andreas Lubitz, the psychologically challenged co-pilot of Germanwings, who shut out of the cockpit the pilot-in-command and crashed the plane to the ground, would never pass the airline’s stringent medical examination.

“We will never have the like of Lubitz employed with PAL because of our severe medical examination starting with student pilots,” Bautista said at a briefing with members of the media.

He said that PAL employs third-party medical experts and doctors who subject their student pilots and current pilots to strict medical and psychological examinations.

The first to be conducted by the MMDA in recent years, participants to the meeting also include the Department of Health-National Capital Region and representatives from the Association of Health Officers of Metro Manila.

“This meeting comes at a time when, according to the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health, environment-related health-risk factors such as air and water pollution, poor sanitation and nutrition, and unhealthy lifestyle, influence 80 percent of communicable and noncommunicable diseases,” Tolentino said.

The MMDA, with the involvement of the LGUs, can significantly turn Metro Manila into a hub of healthy living through various initiatives and programs that will protect its people from hazards and threats,” the MMDA chief added. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

Tesda gets iso 9001:2008 certification

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) recently received a nationwide ISO 9001:2008 Certification as a seal of international excellence in technical-vocational (tech-voc) education and training.

The certification covers Tesda’s major regulatory mandate of program registration and assessment and certification for all its 17 regional offices and all 81 provincial offices, including the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and its central office’s process of standards development.

“This is an important milestone in Tesda’s continuous work to invest in quality skills development of the Filipinos through tech-voc,” Tesda Director General Joel Villanueva said.

Tesda obtained the coveted ISO Certification from the Germanaffiliated company TUV-SUD PSB Philippines Inc., an external and independent quality management agency, and the agency’s third-party certification body. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

the P2.5-billion Integrated Transport System Southwest Terminal, won by Megawide and partner Walter Mart Property Management Inc. of billionaire and retail magnate Henry Sy in January.

The state intends to plug the gap in the country’s transportation facility in the next decade by rolling out massive infrastructure projects that are seen to spur economic growth.

A6 Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

The capital flow chess game

T

o understand the way money moves around the world, think of a massive three-dimensional chessboard where there are dozens of countries/ players competing at the same time. Not all players are equal. Some have many Queen pieces, while others do not have queens but instead have many weak pawns.

The object of the game is still the same; to protect your home area while capturing the others’ pieces and its territory.

Sometimes it is good to let the competitors’ pieces into your area so that you can take them. At other times, you want to keep your opponents’ pieces far away. In charge of moving the pieces around the global board are the central banks. The central banks can work together for a while to serve their mutual interests against other nations. But, as in any game, there are going to be winners and there are going to losers.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is fully aware of how the game works and how it is played successfully. The way money moves in and out of countries can determine interest rates, economic growth and domestic prices.

A nation might allow more opponents’, even friendly opponents, money to come into their territory, but then they have to worry that money might have a long-term adverse domestic effect. That is one of the reasons, for example, that nations like the Philippines and Thailand limit the foreign ownership of land and certain types of developed property and businesses.

Then again, you want some foreign money to own businesses that may require more capital than the local economy can produce, like in mining, or the expertise that comes in with the foreign money to build particular businesses like call centers.

The countries with all the Queens are better able to handle large movements of capital both in and out. However, as in any game, it is how you play the resources that you have available. The Philippines is doing better, in part because our central bank has been moving the pieces more competently than the central banks of other countries.

The property sector is a key indicator of the health of the Philippine economy and banking sector. The BSP has much control over this industry through the level it sets on lending rates, overall bank regulation and specific rules on real-estate loans.

The coming Asean integration is going to open up our property sector to more investments, as capital from regional partners will look for opportunities here in PHL. One area in this sector that we lack and have fallen behind is hotels and resorts. Even as we encourage more international tourism, we just do not have the rooms and facilities available for all the visitors we want.

We need to let that money come in and should have the confidence that the BSP will properly guard our gates.

Taking the Philippines to the global stage Manny B. Villar

THE Entrepreneur Conclusion

A

fter tracing the flow of rivers of development spawned by the real-estate boom, the inevitable question arises: How long will it last? The question presumes that a bust always follows a boom, thus the term boom-and-bust cycle.

As a real-estate developer for more than three decades who has seen the highs and lows of the property industry in the Philippines, I find it difficult to say, in terms of specific number of years, how long the current boom will last.

The boom may not last, but I don’t expect a bust, such as what happened after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The worst that can happen is a softening and readjustment, so the strong growth we are now enjoying will continue, maybe at a slower pace.

On the other hand, there’s an equal chance that the boom will continue because of the low interest rates, the booming economy and the strong fundamentals, including remittances, the business-process outsourcing (BPO) industry and tourism, among others.

There is “no end in sight for strong BPO demand” for office space, according to property consultant CBRE Philippines, adding that even the retail segment would benefit from the robust

economic growth.

In a separate study, the KMC MAG Group research cited a recent report from Urban Land Institute on emerging trends in real estate, which ranked Manila as the fourth most-preferred city for real-estate investors in Asia Pacific in 2014, outperforming traditional safehaven markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney.

The firm said the major players in the real-estate industry were expected to spend more than P300 billion this year to build township projects in Metro Manila and in other areas. Metro Manila has been considered as an attractive investment destination as it consistently meets the needs of growing foreign interests.

Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show that foreign direct investments (FDI) posted a record high of $6.2 billion in 2014, reflecting a 65.9-percent surge from $3.7 billion net inflows in 2013. The BSP attributed the increase to strong investors’ confidence in the

country’s solid macroeconomic fundamentals. Strong demand for office space, hotel rooms, retail space and residential units continue to outpace supply. KMC MAG Group expects the BPO industry to drive the annual take-up of office space to 400,000 square meters in the coming years. However, only 320,000 square meters of new office space were introduced last year.

In the residential segment alone, the backlog has been estimated at 4.6 million to 5.5 million. With the growing population, coupled with the consumers’ increasing purchasing power, I believe there is also no end in sight to the housing boom.

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who account for a major share of the housing market, sent home a total of $24.3 billion in 2014, up 5.8 percent from 2013. In January 2015 cash remittances from OFWs coursed through banks amounted to $1.8 billion, slightly higher from the same month in 2014.

Developers are also pursuing large hotel projects, and are bringing in more international brands to cope with the increasing number of tourists. The government is targeting international arrivals of 10 million by next year. Tourism, as I have discussed several times in the past, could be our third leg of dollar sources.

The first two, remittances and the BPO industry (revenues estimated at $18 billion in 2014) are already proving a steady stream of foreign exchange. On the other hand, the 4.83 million international visitors generated only $4.84 billion in tourism receipts.

Hopefully, the building of more hotels, the improvement of our airports

PHL is better than you think John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

T

he Philippine economy—and to a lesser extent, the Philippines—is the least understood phenomenon on the planet. A “phenomenon” is something that you know is there and exists but you really cannot explain.

When the Philippine economy takes criticism, we tend to nod our heads and agree without closely examining that criticism. At best, we might say something like, “But the beaches are nice and people are really friendly.”

A recent published comment about the economy was from someone who should know better to simplify the situation as this person is in a high position.

The comment was that “At the moment, we are a two-shop economy—businessprocess outsourcing and remittances.”

That was not completely a criticism but was given as a fact with a bit of irritation that we should be doing something else and doing better.

I suppose we could make a similar comment about the Thai economy: “All it has is girlie-bar tourism and car manufacturing.” Since some European countries are counting the illegal-drug business in their economic numbers, you could say “Mexico: A little bit of oil and

a whole lot of drug smuggling.” China’s economy is nothing more than “Suicidal factory workers making Apple products and other factory workers making fake designer clothes.”

The Philippines is much more than remittances and call enters. In fact, France takes in almost as much remittances from overseas citizens as the Philippines does. The Philippines gets about $25 billion, while France takes in $23 billion.

Certainly the Philippines is the callcenter capital of the world in the same way we used to be the Christmas decoration and sport shoe capitals of the world until China took that business away. So what.

But the fact is, if anyone bothered to look, considering the broad economic/ business sectors of agricultural, service and industry, the Philippines has the highest percentage of “industry” as a contribution to economic activity in the region.

According to data from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, industry accounts for 55 percent of the Philippine economy while agri is 15 percent and services just 30 percent. Malaysia is 47 percent industry and 9 percent and 44 percent for agri and services, respectively. Thailand is 12 Agri, 43 services and 45 industry.

Indonesia is 15, 48 and 37 for agri, services and industry.

But why let the actual data get in the way of a strongly held opinion: “PHL is all call centers and OFW money.” Yes, overseas Filipino workers remittances contribute a lot to the economy just like in India ($70 billion), China ($60 billion) and Mexico ($23 billion).

A house is not only how well it is designed and nice to look at, but also the building materials used in it and the quality of its construction. The Philippine economic house maybe a little ugly at times but when you take a closer look, it is better than many of the others. We have been improving on the “building materials” of call centers and remittances for a long time. But the real quality is in the “construction” that is being noticed by the world.

When the headline reads “Philippine Economy is the Strongest in the World—Findings of Washington USA Think Tank,” you do not need to drop your head and mumble when talking about the country.

The assessment of Center for Global Development (CGD), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., is that the

and other tourist facilities will continue to boost tourism and increase revenues from the industry.

With these three dollar legs, we will have solid economic growth.

If we are to sustain the growth and the real-estate boom, however, we must continue to work for it. The government, whose sluggish spending was blamed for the low growth in 2014, should now keep pace with the vibrant private sector and pursue infrastructure projects with the same intensity.

We have seen the benefits from road infrastructure: the opening of the TarlacPangasinan-La Union Expressway has shortened travel time between Manila and Baguio, which I believe will lead to the revival of the summer capital not just as a vacation destination but also as a weekend getaway.

We also need to improve our telecommunications infrastructure, which is very important for investors and tourists. An infographic posted online

by Asean DNA showed Internet speed in the Philippines as the slowest in the Asean. According to the report, the average Internet speed in the Asean is 12.4 megabytes per second (Mbps), about four times the 3.6 Mbps in the Philippines.

In conclusion, the hard work continues, but now we have a very good chance to fulfill what international observers have predicted, that the Philippines could be one of the world’s best-performing economies.

It’s time to take our place on the global economic stage!

For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@gmail.com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.

Philippines is the strongest because of its ability to “withstand external shocks” and to “rapidly implement policies that counteract the effects of such shocks.”

Here is another headline you might like: “The Philippines: An Emerging Market Flying Under The Radar.” Why this positive appraisal? For one, the Philippine economy does not rely on the export of commodities or manufactured goods for growth. Further, the government has a mostly balanced budget and a low debtto-gross domestic product ratio.

This is the bottom line. Once you acknowledge and accept that things might be better than a shallow examination reveals, then you can start addressing and tackling the deeper problems. If the “house” is strong and sturdy, then you can fix the bad plumbing and replace the wiring, as well as add more and better rooms for your growing family.

All the problems and deficiencies this economy faces—more inclusive growth, too much extreme poverty and its wide income disparity—can be solved with the resources that we have.

As every poker player knows, the cards you are dealt are important, but it is the way you play them that is more important. Every hand can be a winner, and so can the Philippines.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com.

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

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Moment of truth Sun and silicone: The future of tourism for the Nobel Peace Prize

By Fredrik S. Heffermehl & Tomas Magnusson Inter Press Service

O

SLO—The Nobel Peace Prize is about to bow out to critics. As of January 1, the Oslo-based Norwegian Nobel Committee that selects the winners has a new secretary, Olav Njølstad, who announced that “changes loom” in a recent interview.

However, Njølstad added, the changes “will not be dramatic”, making it unlikely that they will satisfy the full makeover demanded by The Nobel Peace Prize Watch, a newly formed advocacy group wishing to reverse and undo international militarism.

In a letter sent in February to the Nobel Prize awarders, the group pointed to the purpose Alfred Nobel actually had in mind and presented a selection of candidates among the 276 nominated for the 2015 prize who are actually qualified to win. The Nobel Prize awarders have promised to respond to the letter, which, along with the valid candidates, is posted on the group’s web site.

The group has chosen to ignore the wishes of the Nobel Committee that has a policy of strict secrecy around candidates and the selection process.

By publishing, for the first time, the full nominations of the 25 “valid candidates”, the group has made it possible for everyone to see what types of peace work Nobel actually intended the prize to promote and its “imperative urgency” in the current period.

For over one hundred years, the secrecy rule has shielded the awarders from being held responsible for its neglect of the true Nobel “champions of peace” and they have been able to get away with assertions that the winners Nobel had in mind no longer exist.

According to the group this is untrue. It says that the committee ignores the simple, indisputable—and never disputed—evidence showing that when he designated his prize to the “champions of peace,” Nobel “meant the movement and the persons who work for a demilitarized world, for law to replace power in international politics, and for all nations to commit to cooperating on the elimination of all weapons instead of competing for military superiority.”

To make the prize comply with its actual purpose will require a dramatic change of the award policy. The Nobel Peace Prize Watch, therefore, doubts that the impending changes, described as “undramatic”, will be sufficient to satisfy the legislation on wills and foundations and the decisions of two public agencies in Sweden tasked with overseeing that foundations spend their funds in accordance with the law.

Even if the nominations are secret, The Nobel Peace Prize Watch was able to identify 24 names properly nominated for the 2015 prize. The list of valid candidates for 2015 is dominated

by Americans and by people involved is

nuclear disarmament, with nominees like Japanese hibakusha (nuclear survivors) Samiteru Taniguchi and Setsuko Thurlow; US lawyer Peter Weiss and the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms, David Krieger and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Further candidates are David Swanson, the US activist for full disarmament; whistle-blowers Kathryn Bolkovac, Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, all from the US; veteran organizers of a law-based world order, such as lawyers Benjamin Ferencz and Richard Falk, also from the US; and the Womens’ International League for Peace and Freedom, formed during the First World War. It seems as if Norwegian politicians, imbued in Western militarism and loyalty to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, are unable to understand Nobel’s idea of peace: to liberate the nations of the world from weapons, warriors and war. The idea to be supported by his will was that all nations must cooperate on disarmament.

Laureates like US President Barack Obama in 2009 and the European Union in 2012 both believe in military means and clearly are not the type of winners to whom Nobel dedicated his award.

If the world succeeded in realizing the Nobel peace plan, this would release enormous funds to cater to human needs. It would cost only a tiny fraction of the world’s military expenditure to secure everyone access to food, clean water, housing, education, health care. It would become possible to secure decent circumstances for all people, all over the globe, poor and rich, East and West, North and South—and make them more secure in the bargain.

To a realist it must be obvious that a world filled with weapons and warriors, even nuclear weapons, is inherently an unsafe world.

In the letter requesting changes, The Nobel Peace Prize Watch refers to basic rules of law regarding wills and foundations and furthermore invokes decisions passed by two Swedish public agencies during the last few years.

The authorities expect the purpose of the Nobel testament to be respected and also that the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm will keep its Norwegian subcommittee for the peace prize under strict and effective supervision and also refrain from paying the prize amount to a winner outside the purpose Nobel actually had in mind.

Can Hillary really change?

Margaret Carlson

BLOOMBERG VIEW

B

y e-mail, video and on Twitter, Hillary Clinton made it official on Sunday afternoon: She is a candidate for president.

Barring something completely unforeseen, that means the country is in for a minimum of 20 months of the Hillary and Bill Clinton show. And that could be followed by a four- to eight-year booking in the White House.

If you’re like me, this prospect arouses mixed emotions. Not to be jaded about presidential politics, but we’ve seen this movie before. And I fear the next installment in this franchise—“She’s Back: This Time It’s Personal”—may just be more of the same.

Sure, the hair, the flare of the pantsuits, the net worth and girth of Bill (he complained about being called “frail” in the New York Times last week) have changed since I first met the Clintons in 1991, but none of the fundamentals really are different.

I first spent time with Bill Clinton when I traveled around Arkansas on a four-seat plane as the governor dropped in on high-school graduations and cut a

ribbon at the opening of a health-care center. He was then as he would be later: a big-brained smoothie who could reel off the crops grown in his state or how much Medicaid paid for prenatal care.

He was a little bit undisciplined, a little bit too chummy with his security detail, which, as we would find out later, aided and abetted his indiscretions. As we hit a thunderstorm, Clinton leaned forward to pat my arm. “I’ve been in much worse,” he said. “We landed in a rice field one time.”

Then there was the other Clinton, about whom everyone repeated the mantra “buy one, get one free.” Hillary was the smart Yale Law grad who could work in any New York firm but instead

Edgardo J. Angara

P

atients Beyond Borders, a US-based industry resource, estimates that the global market for medical tourism is expanding by 25 percent per year. In 2013 revenues reached $55 billion, accounting for 11 million patients from all parts of the world.

Medical tourism started in the 1980s, when Latin American countries Costa Rica and Brazil offered cheap dental, cosmetic and other medical services to North American and European patients. This slowly developed into the multibillion-dollar industry it is today, as developing world health systems improved, global aviation links spread and the Internet broadened patients’ options.

Today several developing nations

in Asia promote medical services 80-percent cheaper compared to developed nations, packaging trips that combine medical procedures and a little beach time.

With the intention of turning the Philippines into a medical tourism hub, President Marcos established medical centers of excellence, namely, the Philippine Heart Center, the National Lung Center, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute

and the Philippine Children’s Medical Center.

Three decades later, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) revealed that even with hospitals in place and medical services outpricing its Asian competitors, the country continues to get a miniscule share of the market.

In 2007 the Department of Health (DOH) recorded a mere P2.91 billion in total revenues of 17 hospitals from medical tourists, while nations like Malaysia earned an average of $200 million a year.

In a 2010 study, the Philippines only ranked 11th in the top-15 destinations of medical tourists in the world, with Thailand and Singapore in the top 2 slots. In that same study, we placed fifth among East and South Asian nations.

According to the 2013 PIDS study, one of the problems the Philippines faces is the lack of information such as medical tourist arrivals, expenditures and services. Another

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observation was that unlike Malaysia, Philippine accreditation focuses more on the tourism aspect of the facilities rather than improving patient and safety care.

The government should jumpstart its efforts to get its rightful share of the global medical tourism market.

The PIDS suggests that the Department of Trade and Industry, DOH and Department of Tourism should do more research and analytical work and consider promotion of the industry through visa facilitation, trade fairs organization and participation by consular offices abroad.

It should encourage the upgrading of medical facilities through fiscal incentives. The government should also address infrastructure bottlenecks, especially airports, roads and transport that facilitate access to tourist destinations.

E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com.

Is peaceful resolution of PHL-China dispute possible?

China and Vietnam’s decision to settle their territorial dispute amicably came after a meeting in Beijing between China President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

A joint communique following the meeting said that both countries had a “candid” exchange of views on their maritime quarrel, and to push ties between them in the spirit of “good neighbors, good friends, good comrades and good partners” under the motto of “friendly neighbors, comprehensive cooperation, long-term stability and future vision.”

The two countries agreed to “use well the Sino-Vietnam government border negotiation mechanism, uphold friendly consultations and negotiations to look for a basic and lasting resolution both countries can accept,” the statement said.

China and Vietnam should also “proactively look for transitional

resolution methods which do not affect either side’s position, including looking at and discussing joint development.”

Neither country should do anything to “complicate or expand” the dispute in order to ensure peace and stability in the sea, the statement added. The two sides underscored the need to strictly implement the “Agreement on Basic Principles Guiding the Settlement of Sea Disputes between Vietnam and China,” uphold the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea” and work toward a “Code of Conduct in the East Sea.” China and Vietnam, likewise, agreed to step up operations of a working group on cooperation for mutual development at sea and reinforce links in less sensitive fields.

T he mut u a l ag reement to settle the territorial dispute in a peaceful way is not surprising considering that both countries consider themselves as socialist, although they differ in approaches

in achieving socialist goals.

Both countries, however, have gone all-out in encouraging the growth of capitalism, but in their own particular fashion. In the case of China, it is pursuing socialism with “Chinese characteristics,” and in the case of Vietnam, the policy of “doi moi” (renovation) initiated in 1986 marked the beginning of economic reforms with the goal of creating a socialist-oriented market economy.

While bilateral trade between China and Vietnam has reached $50 billion annually, Vietnam has been wary of Beijing’s increasingly assertive claims to almost the entire South China Sea. Anti-China violence flared in Vietnam last year after a $1-billion deepwater rig owned by China’s state-run China National Offshore Oil Corp. oil company was installed 240 kilometers off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea. Since then, however, China has sought to make amends with Vietnam by sending senior officials to Hanoi. China claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, justifying its reach on official maps with a so-called nine-dash line that, it says, has solid historical basis. But Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has proven using old maps that the nine-dash line is a mere figment of Beijing’s imagination.

Nevertheless, we could probably draw lessons from what China and Vietnam are doing to resolve their maritime dispute through negotiation and dialogue even as we build up

became a star as the co-governor. You could see the seeds of the temperament that would hobble her again and again in her response to then-former Gov. Jerry Brown’s suggestion that Bill Clinton had funneled state business to Hillary’s Rose Law Firm.

Hillary’s retort was one schoolchildren could recite: “Well I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas,” managing to alienate any number of constituencies in one fell swoop.

Despite the gaffe, after Gennifer Flowers came forward to claim a long-standing alliance with the governor, Hillary upped her campaign appearances. A missed campaign stop or a cold shoulder to her husband would have looked like she wasn’t standing by her man.

But her common touch left something to be desired. For example, arriving at a stop in Manchester, New Hampshire, where people were chatting amiably about the cost of groceries (and making fun of the incumbent president, George H.W. Bush, for not knowing the cost of milk), Hillary killed the light buzz with a treatise on infant mortality. Her introductions of the candidate were as long as the candidate’s speeches.

She seemed to hate every minute of it and probably did.

For the beginning and even today, misogyny is a prime motivation for some

of the obsessive focus on Hillary, but so is sheer (and sometimes morbid) curiosity. Watching her is like watching a fuse you know will blow from time to time. It wasn’t a surprise when she blamed a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Or when she claimed the couple was “dead broke” upon leaving the White House, this the woman who had taken a charitable deduction for Bill’s used underwear. Or when she asserted more recently, as the private e-mail story broke, that the separate server was a lucky break for the public, allowing an “unprecedented” look at her correspondence.

And this is the old routine that makes part of me dread the prospect of another round of Clinton-mania: Hillary’s tendency to try to deflect first, resist second, rarely admit anything’s wrong, grudgingly stand for questions (remember the news conference in pink about Whitewater), and then say something unsatisfying.

The way she handled the revelations about her e-mail was of a piece with the way she handled the travel office, the land deal, the Rose Law Firm billing records, which mysteriously turned up years later, and removing furniture from the White House on the way out the door.

She may be the only person to blow the soft questions of a book tour. Her default

position is, move on please, there’s nothing to see here, except what I want you to see. She neither asks for permission nor begs for forgiveness. How will that play in Clinton, the sequel?

But maybe, just maybe, we’ll get something a little different. Back then as now, friends insist that behind the helmet-haired, concede-nothing public persona, there is a funny, warm and loyal woman.

I saw flashes of that side of her when I got to ride from one event to another with her during the 1992 campaign. She explained how she endured campaign food by pulling out a bottle of Tabasco.

She wolfed down popcorn while calling about Chelsea’s booster shots and joked about being a bad athlete. “I should have learned profession-enhancing games like tennis and golf, rather than volleyball.” Her friend, the television writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, says Hillary was always the one to inject spirit into an evening, to “try the hippopotamus stew, or order the blue drink.”

As a candidate, or president, can she show more of that? Or will she continue to be the rare politician to forsake natural charm and authenticity in private in favor of being cold and suspicious in public? Al Gore’s friends insisted, also correctly, that in private he was ever so loose, dry-witted and fun to be around.

Ernesto M. Hilario

ABOUT TOWN

I

f China and Vietnam have pledged to look for a peaceful resolution to their dispute in the South China Sea via negotiations, is it possible that Manila and Beijing could also arrive at a modus vivendi and put an end to the escalating tension in their territorial dispute over the Kalayaan Group of Islands?

a credible defense posture to defend our territorial integrity.

MVP Group is top corporate taxpayer

The MVP Group is the biggest payer of corporate income tax for the year 2013. It paid about P24 billion ($540 million), which is 13 percent of total corporate income taxes paid by the country’s top 500 corporations.

Total taxes paid—corporate income tax, withholding taxes on corporations, value-added tax, etc. but excluding a number of other corporations like Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and various hospitals—have totalled so far to about P88 billion. If everything else is included, the total will be well over $2 billion.

If, say, the MVP Group pays a total of P120 billion in taxes, then it pays for about a week of the government’s operational expenses.

Smart is once again the top corporate taxpayer for 2013. Aside from Smart, several MVP Group companies are also in the list: Meralco, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Manila North Tollways Corp., Philex Mines, Digitel, SBI, Medical Doctors Inc., DMPI, Asian Hospital, Colinas Verdes Hospital Managers and Davao Doctors Hospital.

All in all, the MVP Group paid a total of P23.3 billion in taxes to the government out of the total P178.55 billion, or 13.09 percent, paid by the top 500 corporate taxpayers in 2013.

This is 1 percent higher than the 12 percent reported for 2012.

But in politics, if you can’t take it public, you don’t have it.

That may be impossible to change, but there is one change that she will have to account for: Back in the day, the Clintons could claim to want to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Now, they are the comfortable. While Hillary talks about income inequality, so do the Republicans, and neither side has a coherent plan for doing something about it. Accepting hundreds of thousands dollars to give bland speeches isn’t going to help make the case.

In a speech in Silicon Valley in February, for example, she said nothing that would upset a tech billionaire. “I’d like to bring people from right, left, red, blue, get them into a nice warm purple space where everybody is talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems.”

Next, she’ll be promising to make the appropriately hued Barney the dinosaur her running mate.

Even Hillary’s most fervent supporters say this campaign has to be different from her last one. But when you listen to them talk, you realize that they know it’s not just the campaign that has to change, but the candidate, too. It’s hard for any of us to change and maybe a little harder for her. Not having the pressure of a strong primary challenge may make it harder still.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A8 Tuesday, April 14, 2015

imf: Regional linkages bane to banking system

By Bianca Cuaresma

T

he strengthening of regional linkages among banks, particularly in Asia, could, in some ways, prove detrimental to the lending system, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In its most recent financial stability report released just this month, the IMF said the continuously expanding interrelation among the lenders heighten their collective exposure to shocks coming from outside or even within the region.

This growing relatedness may mean that shocks originating outside the region could travel and propagate faster within the region.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is one with the region in promoting the advancement of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Banking Integration Framework (Abif).

One of the most recent and telling developments prior to achieving the goals of the Abif was the liberalization of the entry of foreign banks that broke down the barriers and lifted the restrictions.

As a result, the BSP received a barrage of applications from Asian banks seeking to operate in the Philippines. Among those banks given permission was the Japan-based

Malampaya maintenance work successful–Shell exec

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Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

While the regionalization of banking services in Asia may be inevitable, the IMF said this development calls for a strengthening of regional safety nets to address potential shocks in the system.

The IMF recommended the strengthening of the soundness of parent banks as part of a menu of financial reforms preventing such shocks down the line.

This, according to the central bank, can help limit the transmission of negative foreign shocks to affiliated foreign banks operating in different jurisdictions in the region.

The IMF also said that increased cooperation among national regulators and supervisors is key to reconciling banking globalization with any measure of financial stability.

The IMF said regional banking cooperation should not only be isolated in cross-border resolution but also on the the implementation of Basel-approved accounting standards among banks.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

By Lenie Lectura

HE Malampaya facility is expected to resume supplying natural gas today (Tuesday), according to a top official of Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. (Spex), the upstream company of Shell in the Philippines in charge of operating the Malampaya Deepwater Gasto-Power Project.

The facility went offline on March 15. Spex had to shutdown the facility for 30 days to give way for the platform installation aimed at maintaining the fuel supply to three power plants with a total capacity of 2,700 megawatts (MW), providing about half of Luzon’s power needs.

These power plants are the 1,000-MW Santa Rita, 50-MW San Lorenzo and 1,200-MW Ilijan.

In an interview, Spex Managing Director Sebastian Quiniones said the 30-day maintenance

Quiniones said the 30-day maintenance work was successful. “We will be back at 12 midnight later.

That’s as of April 14,” he said on Monday morning.

“Everything went as planned.”

work was successful. “We will be back at 12 midnight later. That’s as of April 14,” he said on Mon-

day morning. “Everything went as planned.”

Quiniones stressed the importance of the scheduled shutdown, saying the tie-in of the second offshore platform will help sustain the 2,700-MW production level of the three power plants.

This, he said, will address the natural decrease in pressure of the reservoir and help ensure long-term supply security for the country. The tie-in of the second platform was conducted together with regulatory inspection of pressure vessels and execution of maintenance activities.

The Spex official also said the scheduled maintenance is no ordinary shutdown as a 13,000-ton platform was transported 383 kilometers across the West Philippine Sea. The tie-in of the second platform worth $765 million was installed to an existing platform.

Spex said for more than 13 years now, the Malampaya gas project has produced safe and reliable energy for the country. The project is operated with specifically and carefully scheduled maintenance programs to ensure the continued integrity of the facility.

Dur ing t he shutdow n, t he Malampaya facility was not able to fuel the three power plants.

But the three power facilities were still able to produce power, as they shifted to liquid fuel from natural gas. Thus, power rates went up this month by P0.27 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

According to the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the upward adjustment was mainly brought about by a P 0.20-per-kWh adjustment in the generation charge, which moved from P5.21 per kWh to P5.41 per kWh. The generation charge is the portion of the bill that goes to the power plants that produce electricity.

The utility firm said the shutdown of the Malampaya facility forced power plants to use more expensive liquid fuel to continue operations.

In particular, the Santa Rita and San Lorenzo plants shifted to condensate, while Ilijan used biodiesel.

These types of alternative fuel are more expensive than the natural gas from Malampaya, which the plants normally use.

As a result of the shift to liquid fuel by the three plants, rates of Continued on A2

MARIKINA SHOES The Israeli delegation in the country joins Marikina officials and residents in the celebration of the city’s 385th founding anniversary. Photo shows Mayor Del R. De Guzman (right) presenting Marikina-made shoes to Israeli Ambassador Ephraim Ben Matityau (center) and Deputy Chief of Mission Adame Levene during ceremonies at the Marikina City Hall Quadrangle. NONOY LACZA

CHINA EXPORT ENGINE LOSES STEAM

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hina’s exports unexpectedly slumped last month, eroding the outlook for one of the economy’s better-performing areas in recent months.

Overseas shipments fell 14.6 percent in March from a year earlier in yuan value, the customs administration said in Beijing on Monday.

That compared with the median estimate for an 8.2-percent rise in a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.

Imports slid 12.3 percent, leaving a trade surplus of 18.16 billion yuan ($3 billion).

The export declines come as Chi-

na grapples with overcapacity and a property slump. The country’s central bank has relaxed rules on home purchasing, cut interest rates twice and reduced the ratio of reserves banks are required to set aside in the past six months, with economists forecasting further stimulus.

“Consumption is weak, investment is decelerating, and now exports have come in as weakerthan-expected,” said Liu Xuezhi, an economist with Bank of Communications Co. in Shanghai.“Downward pressure on economic growth is increasing, making it more urgent

for the government to start rolling out more pro-growth policies.”

The Australian dollar, seen as a proxy for China’s economy due to Australia’s shipments of raw materials, fell after the release.

Gross domestic product data scheduled for Wednesday will probably show the economy expanded 7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of 38 economists in a Bloomberg survey as of April 10.

That would be the slowest pace since the first quarter of 2009.

See “China,” A2

Erratum

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HE Embassy of Pakistan in Manila sent a statement to the BusinessMirror saying: “This refers to a interview titled ‘Pakistan exporters want NFA to honor 2013 rice agreement’ published in the BusinessMirror on Monday, April 13, 2015. Certain statements in the interview seems to have been misquoted, the facts are as follows: ■ The memorandum of agreement (MoA) mentioned in the interview was

signed between the governments of Pakistan and the Philippines, not between National Food Authority (NFA) and Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP).

■ Pakistan and the Philippines signed the MoA with respect to the request for Waiver on Special Treatment for Rice on January 30, 2014.

Under the MoA, Pakistan can export 50,000 metric tons per year of rice to the Philippines till 2017.

■ During the meeting of REAP delegation with NFA on April 10, 2015, the NFA authorities confirmed that their internal procedures regarding implementation of aforementioned will be completed in one to two months, thereafter, exports of rice from Pakistan to the Philippines will resume.

■ The statement attributed to Rafique Suleman to the effect that NFA practically begged to be sold rice from Pakistan is factually incorrect.