BusinessMirror April 15, 2020

Virus hastens bid to bridge digital divide I

NEQUALITIES have existed in different facets of life through the ages. Humans, in fact, are divided into different economic groups: The poor, the middle class and the rich, and all the other subgroups in the spectrum.

But one thing is certain, at least for the United Nations—the Internet is the greatest equalizer in the world today.

Between free access to data and various paid services, the Internet allows anyone to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds instantaneously and inexpensively across national borders.”

The Internet allows anyone—be he a poor man without a proper shelter or a wealthy socialite who goes dancing every night—to gain almost equal access to almost everything.

However, despite the Internet’s

A DISABLED man who roams the streets of Manila gets fruit juice from a security guard. People who do not have a permanent address and try to survive on the streets are one of the most affected by the enhanced community quarantine forced by the Covid-19 pandemic. NONIE REYES

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power of inclusion, there exists a socalled digital divide that has become more pronounced than ever, as the world turns to the Internet to find solace, social interaction and productivity amid the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) outbreak.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) explained in a report that the pandemic is “exposing the digital gap between countries and societies,” especially between and within least developed countries.

Inequalities, the report said, are magnified by the fact that the need for Internet access, deemed a basic human right, is more pronounced than ever. This need becomes more stark because much work is now done through digital means and human interaction has become more

digital than ever. Moreover, entertainment through video streaming apps and social sites is now becoming more popular.

Emerging economies such as the Philippines are a good example of a country with a digital chasm at the heart of the nation. In far-flung areas, for instance, Internet access is very limited to almost zero.

In the Philippines, Internet access, according to data from We Are Social Inc., is only limited to “one-third” of the population. These leaves two-thirds of the population bereft of the benefits of the Internet, especially in three key areas: education, information and communications, and finance.

Silver lining

THERE is a silver lining in this, though.

The government and the private sector are working toward bridging this gap by

spending billions of dollars to provide quality access to the Internet.

Undersecretary Eliseo M. Rio Jr. of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said his group is deploying various technologies to unserved areas to provide access to the people who live there.

“The DICT has taken great strides in bridging the digital divide. This is shown in rolling out this year 6,000 very small aperture terminals or VSATs in underserved and unserved areas of the Philippines, connecting our people there to the Internet through the Free Wi-Fi Program. This is the biggest rollout of VSATs in our history,” he said.

Likewise, the government has made it easier for investors to come into the market, thereby allowing more players to compete.

Continued on A2

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BIZ CREDIT GUARANTEE POST-ECQ OPTIONS OF FIRMS: SHUTTLE, SHIFTING FOR LABOR

CUSTOMERS sit on chairs spaced apart to observe physical distancing required by the virus-induced community quarantine as they wait for their turn to enter a grocery store in Metro Manila. ROY DOMINGO

By Cai U. Ordinario

T MARIKINA City Mayor Marcy Teodoro inspects the newly built Covid-19 test center in Bayan-Bayanan, Concepcion Uno, Marikina City. The new facility can handle 400 tests a day. Teodoro said they will open it to the public even without the DOH-RITM license, invoking Section 15 of the Local Government Code which he said vests in LGUs the mandate to handle a crisis during a pandemic. BERNARD TESTA

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By Bernadette D. Nicolas

HE government is looking to implement a P120-billion credit guarantee program for affected small businesses as well as an enhanced net operating loss carryover of five years to help businesses cope with losses from the Covid-19 pandemic—moves that will cost the state around P140 billion.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.6160

At the same time, the Department of Finance (DOF) said it will be implementing a P51-billion wage subsidy program for some 3.4 million employees in small businesses affected by the Luzon-wide lockdown.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III told lawmakers in a virtual presentation to the House Economic Stimulus Response Package Cluster on Tuesday these efforts will be part of the P583.8 billion worth of emergency support for vulnerable groups to cushion the socio-

economic impact of the pandemic.

“This [small business wage subsidy] will complement the Social Amelioration Program in the Bayanihan Law by providing support to the formal sector employees who comprised the middle class,” Dominguez said.

“These efforts will be complemented by other relief programs for small businesses such as credit guarantee for small business loans and an enhanced net operating loss carryover for five years,” he added.

See “DOF,” A2

HE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) will recommend to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) the gradual return to work of Luzon-based employees after the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) is lifted.

Neda Undersecretary for Policy and Planning Rosemarie G. Edillon told the BusinessMirror that this would require companies to implement shifting in their staff as well as the continued provision of shuttle service for their workers.

Edillon said this will help maintain physical distancing both in the office and in mass transport systems, and prevent any secondwave transmission of the coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19).

“This may require some percent [of their employees] working from home [and/or] having two workshifts. We are hoping, also, that firms would be able to provide shuttle services to their employees,” Edillon said.

Edillon said, however, that the work policies to be implemented in the post-ECQ scenario, which could mean the return to work of employees in May, will still depend on the companies.

She said companies need to assess if they can commit to observe physical distancing, have proper sanitation, and disinfection of public spaces after the ECQ.

This also means ensuring that firms are able to conduct health surveillance of their employees to provide them with adequate protection post-ECQ. See “Post-ECQ,” A2

n JAPAN 0.4699 n UK 63.3409 n HK 6.5295 n CHINA 7.1765 n SINGAPORE 35.7609 n AUSTRALIA 32.2981 n EU 55.2170 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.4653

Source: BSP (April 14, 2020)

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A2 Wednesday, April 15, 2020

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NPLs seen to rise as PHL economy faces recession amid virus spread

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

T

HE local banking system may have to deal with a potential increase in nonperforming loans (NPL) as the Philippine economy stands on the edge of a recession amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

According to RCBC chief economist Michael L. Ricafort, the possibility of recession could heighten market volatility, taking a toll on the borrowers’ ability to pay loans.

“Risk of recession could lead to some increase in market volatility as well as some possible increase in NPLs,” he said.

Analysts have been worrying that the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon—which was recently extended up to April 30— will continue to constrict activities and induce financial stress into the economy, affecting its growth.

The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said its initial estimates for the country’s economic growth this year range from -0.6 percent to 4.3 percent, but this is still subject to change depending on the developments over the pandemic. Before, the target band for 2020 was set at 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), meanwhile, noted that gross NPL of the local bank indus-

try stood at P239.08 billion in February, higher than P234.99 billion a month earlier.

Financial challenge

ING Bank Manila economist Nicholas Mapa said that cash-strapped firms with debt are currently facing financial challenges amid the pandemic, forcing them to downsize operations, sell assets and even default on loans.

“If borrowers are unable to repay, this puts banks’ cash flows under stress and they too may need to write off loans and may eventually need to seek help from the BSP,” Mapa added.

Moody’s Investor Service recently reported that the global speculative-grade default rate registered at 3.5 percent last month, higher from 3.2 percent in February and 2.1 percent a year ago for the same period.

Aiding the economy

AXIORY Global Ltd. Director of Research and Education Tomasz Wisniewski said that the banking sec-

PARENTS of public-school students receive food coupons on Tuesday in Pasig City. Each student is eligible to receive P400 worth of coupons which can be used to buy food at the Pasig mega market, mobile market and barangay markets. NONOY LACZA

tor should try to keep it together in the face of a recession as financial institutions filing for bankruptcy would create a spillover to other industries as well.

Wisniewski added that banks should make money accessibility easy to support liquidity, cash for operations, credit and spending, among others.

To help the country in the economic slump, UnionBank chief economist Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion said the banks should just remain operational to serve the needs of their customers.

“Optics matter. Maximize their digital advantage to help people to continue their banking activities online,” he said.

Mapa said the banks could also

extend terms of the existing loans to help borrowers as they cope with cash-flow problems. The government could also establish a loan program to support the liquidity of firms and corporations, he added.

“If they [banks] force borrowers to pay on time, they may risk the entire system crashing with the downturn becoming more severe,” Mapa added.

Further cut

RICAFORT said the Central Bank could still cut the policy rates and reserve requirement ratio (RRR) to boost lending and stimulate business and economic activities.

BSP had eased policy rates earlier—the right move, said Asun-

cion, given that further support was needed by the financial system during the pandemic.

“Liquidity is key during these unusual times. People need to have access to their money and that money should freely flow with various transactions,” he added.

The Central Bank slashed RRR on reservable liabilities of universal and commercial banks by 200 basis points (bp) to 12 percent. This is anticipated to release around P180 billion worth of liquidity into the banking system.

The Monetary Board has also reduced BSP’s overnight reverse repurchase facility by a total of 75 bp to 3.25 percent. Another monetary policy meeting is set on May 21.

DOF…

Continued from A1

To date, Dominguez also said the fourpillar socioeconomic strategy of the Duterte administration against Covid-19 now has a combined value of P1.45 trillion or 7.8 percent of the country’s GDP.

Under the DOF’s Small Business Wage Subsidy Program, each beneficiary will receive a subsidy with a range from P5,000 to P8,000 depending on the regional minimum wage.

The subsidy will be for two months and will cost a total of P50.8 billion.

Of the total, the DOF said in its presentation that P38.1 billion will go to some 2.6 million workers whose employers are compliant with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Social Security System (SSS) regulations, while P12.5 billion will go to some 0.8 million workers whose employers are “less compliant.”

Small businesses are defined as those who did not belong to the list of the BIR’s Large Taxpayer Service.

Workers who belong to the low- to medium-middle class are employed in some 1.6 million small businesses in the formal sector affected by the lockdown.

The online system for business owners to submit their list of employees via SSS website is currently being pilot-tested and is scheduled to go live this week.

The DOF said the wage subsidy distribution will be better targeted because those who are registered with SSS and BIR are easily identifiable and eligibility under the program is determined quickly.

Incentivize compliance

FINANCE Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua said during a televised meeting presided by President Duterte late Monday night that the program also aims to incentivize better compliance in registering with the BIR and SSS “because these workers are the ones who would be first covered by the subsidy.”

Despite this, the DOF still vowed to also support under the program the 800,000 workers whose employers are not fully compliant with SSS or BIR as the government understands that the noncompliance may have been caused by inadvertent mistakes on the employer’s part.

To avoid duplication, the DOF said the beneficiaries who already got their P5,000 from the Department of Labor and Employment’s Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program will only be given one month of wage subsidy under the Small Business Wage Subsidy Program.

Post-ECQ… BTr opens tap facility for 2nd day to raise funds Continued from A1

Food consumption

BASED on the initial results of the online consumption survey conducted by Neda, Edillon said there is already evidence that Filipino households are scrimping on food.

Edillon said this is part of the many coping mechanisms adopted by Filipinos during the ECQ. She said Neda just hopes that the nutritional requirements of Filipinos will not be compromised at this time.

“We learned that majority of our kababayans reduced food consumption, even those who continued to receive salaries. We hope, though, that nutritional value has not been compromised,” Edillon said.

Reduced food intake is one of the challenges in preventing wasting and stunting, especially among children. When children are undernourished and stunted, they become compromised for life.

The health impact does not stop with their light weight or short heights but also their ability to excel in school and potential to earn a decent living in the future.

Last year, former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cielito Habito said stunting is one of the Philippines’s major development challenges.

Habito said this may make these children “mediocre” when they grow up or be workers that have “low productivity.”

While the Philippine population remains young, reaping the full benefits of the demographic dividend from now until 2050 requires having a strong and capable labor force.

Habito said that if the working population is disadvantaged from a young age, the country’s demographic dividend could become a demographic time bomb instead.

Unicef estimated that the Philippines must invest $1 billion in the next 10 years to avoid the triple burden of malnutrition—stunting and wasting; micronutrient deficiency; and obesity.

This translates to an additional investment of $100 million annually or around P5 billion every year. The level of this investment is not that high considering the alternative of underinvestment or worse, business as usual.

If the government continues on this path, the Unicef said the Philippines stands to lose 3 percent of its GDP annually. This equates to $4.5 billion or P220 billion annually.

Clearly, Unicef Philippines Nutrition Specialist Rene Gerard C. Galera Jr. said, investing $100 million annually is cheaper, especially given that a third of Filipino children are already stunted.

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

T

HE government successfully raised P30 billion on Tuesday’s auction marked with overwhelming response from investors for the Bureau of the Treasury’s one-year reissued Treasury bonds (T-bonds) offering.

The bonds fetched an average yield of 3.675 percent as the auction was oversubscribed with tenders reaching P66.685 billion, more than twice the P30-billion offering.

“Full award today; twice bid cover ratio [and] rate within secondary level,” National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told reporters through Viber on Tuesday.

De Leon added that liquidity remains to be strong due to signals from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) of another cut in the reserve requirement ratio as well as in policy rate.

The reissued bonds auctioned on Tuesday had a remaining life of 11 months and eight days. The one-year T-bonds with a coupon rate of 3.5 percent will mature on

March 20, 2021.

De Leon said they decided to open the tap facility window due to the strong demand for one-year T-bonds for an additional P10-billion offering.

It was the second day that the facility was opened as government scrambles to fund a massive social amelioration program on the fifth week of a Covid-19-induced lockdown that’s hurting what little momentum the Philippine economy had at the start of the year.

On Monday, the Treasury raised

P5.855 billion out of its additional P10 billion offering of 182-day and 364-day Treasury bills (T-bills) sold through its tap facility window.

The Treasury accepted all bids for the 182-day T-bills, which amounted to only P855 million out of the P5-billion offering.

It also fully awarded bids for its P5billion offering for 364-day T-bills. Tenders also reached P6.190 billion.

The offerings through tap facility window were open to all 11 government securities-market makers.

Virus hastens bid to bridge digital divide Continued from A1

“We have attracted common tower providers and passive telecommunication infrastructure providers that will roll out cell sites and fiber-optic cables to areas not reached by our commercial telcos, and lease these to them,” he said.

So far, over a dozen common tower providers are working together to set up about 50,000 towers in the next five years.

The DICT is also leading other initiatives such as the construction Luzon Bypass Infrastructure; the use of the dark fiber backbone from National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and National Transmission Corp. (Transco); the implementation of the National Broadband Network; and the Third Telco Initiative.

Covid-19 crisis predated

THE private sector is spending almost P200 billion this year to beef up their networks, which includes extending access to other parts of the country.

“Our initiatives to bridge the digital divide of course predated the Covid-19 crisis. Their impact just became more manifest during this health emergency. Our most significant initiative has been our continuing efforts to increase the capacity of our fixed and mobile networks and bring their reach to more and more parts of the country,” PLDT Inc. spokesperson Ramon R. Isberto said, citing the group’s expanded network capacity of home broadband, 4G base stations, as well as its extensive fiber-optic cable network.

He added that Smart’s services now “reach more people in more areas of the country.”

“We’ve noted that as we expanded the reach of our mobile data networks, more and more customers have upgraded their mobile devices and the majority of them are now using smartphones with a growing number shifting to LTE devices. Over the next few years, we expect that shift to continue so that mobile

data services will be almost universally available to Filipinos,” Isberto said.

For her part, Globe Telecom Inc. spokesperson Yolanda C. Crisanto said her group’s contribution to bridging the digital chasm is marked by Globe’s huge capital investments in the network’s capacity and capability.

“Foremost are the multibillion-peso investments being done by Globe every year to expand its network and provide the connectivity requirements that its customers need,” she said.

Crisanto said her group has also made the price of Globe’s services more affordable. She cited as well their partnering with the Department of Education to “provide Internet connectivity, content, and promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education specifically in public schools.”

Digital services

AS the Covid-19 pandemic forces the Philippines to restrict people’s movements, data usage in both telcos spiked in recent weeks. Aside from entertainment and productivity, people are using the Internet to bring them closer to the services they urgently need.

For instance, online marketplaces Lazada and Shopee, as well as Facebook Marketplace, have become the new grocery shopping venue for many people. Paying for these is also done digitally through financial technology providers GCash, PayMaya, and other digital banks.

Curb-side and food deliveries are also a hit among those afraid to go out and contract the virus.

And some are even using online video conferencing apps to “visit” their detained family members.

“There is no turning back. The Covid-19 pandemic pushed the digital transformation of countries, like the Philippines, at a pace and scale that nobody had ever imagined. We have seen how, when

the physical world is no longer the default, the digital is not only an alternative but can create the new norm,” Better Broadband Alliance convenor Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos asserted.

Online-first policy

SANTOS noted that the Internet allowed governments, businesses, schools and homes to operate and function. But without further hastening the implementation of initiatives to boost access would only hurt those who have already been denied of the benefits of the Web.

“To continue to ignore the need to provide digital connectivity to the most vulnerable sectors of the population after the pandemic would be to deny them not only of a resource but of a lifeline,” she said.

She urged the government to adopt an “online-first policy” to normalize the use of the Internet for basic and critical services.

“Moving forward, the Better Broadband Alliance hopes to have the same digital solutions available to all Filipinos. The Better Broadband Alliance seeks to advocate the need to proactively push for an “online first” policy in government, where digitally enabled transactions would be the default and face-to-face engagements would be the exemption,” she said.

Aside from transparency, this renders the services more efficient and affordable.

“But more important, this entails a robust digital infrastructure that will serve not only the profitable urban areas, but those long considered to be the periphery. In order to achieve this, we need to allow a more diverse set of service providers, alternative Internet technologies, and different business models to thrive,” she said.

Wealth of solutions

SANTOS’S group—with nongovernment organizations and chambers of commerce—has

offered the government some solutions to further democratize access to the Internet amid the global health crisis.

To recall, the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development recently adopted an agenda that outlines key policies and strategies to promote “faster and better recovery” through the Internet.

It identified the “three pillars of resilient connectivity, affordable access, and safe use of online services for informed and educated societies, to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and ease the immediate adverse impacts for economies and societies.”

With this, the Better Broadband Alliance advised the Interagency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases and the ICT department to request all telcos to lift the data cap on mobile plans and encourage upstream service providers to create temporary bandwidth increase packages.

The alliance also sought unhampered facilitation of maintenance, repair and after-sales services, as network reliability is critical for digital services.

It suggested the deployment of creative solutions to boost the coverage of networks such as cell sites on wheels, especially within critical facilities such as hospitals, isolation areas, and local government offices.

Aside from this, the government, according to the group, should fast-track the deployment of free Wi-Fi in essential institutions; create a database and network map for contingencies; beef up cybersecurity initiatives; and relax rules and processes.

“For the longer term, we believe that a widespread and robust digital infrastructure is the key to our economic recovery and future security, which can only be achieved if we start creating that digital framework today,” Santos said.

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Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Wednesday, April 15, 2020 A3

Duterte to Asean: We must remain open for trade

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

P

RESIDENT Duterte is pushing for a continuous trade of medicine, medical equipment and supplies, as well as food items within the Asean amid the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crisis.

In his speech during the Special Asean Summit on Covid-19, which was held on Tuesday through teleconferencing, the President said Asean member-states could more effectively respond against the pandemic disease united rather than individually.

He noted that while the initial response of each Asean state, including Philippines, is to close their respective borders to limit the chances of entry of more Covid-19 cases, he said the measure may not sustainable in the long run.

“Asean must remain open for trade. Crisis or no crisis, as no country can stand alone. Let us, therefore ensure the supply chain connectivity and the smooth flow of goods within the region,” Duterte said.

Intra-Asean trade

HE said this holds especially true for medicines and medical equipment,

which he lamented is now in short supply internationally due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which already infected 1.7 million people worldwide.

“We need to boost production and facilitate intra-Asean trade of these life-saving necessities,” President Duterte said.

Of similar importance, he pointed out, is the trade of food, particularly rice, since it could affect “socioeconomic and political stability” of a country.

The Philippines remains heavily reliant on imports for its supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) due to its lack of sufficient

manufacturer of the said items.

The country also regularly imports rice, usually from its neighboring countries, to augment its supply of the staple food. Recently, it has imported 400,000 metric ton of rice from Vietnam, which is expected to arrive this month, to ensure it will have sufficient stockpile for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis.

United front

ASIDE from trade, President Duterte also called on Asean countries for efforts to combat the spread of Covid-19 through the development of vaccine for it.

He urged Asean members to support research initiatives related to the development of the said vaccine.

“For its part, the Philippines is ready to join solidarity with clinical trials for Covid-19 treatment,” the President said.

The Department of Health (DOH) earlier said the World Health Organization (WHO) has invited the Philippines to join the said international initiative.

President Duterte also expressed his support for Thailand’s proposal to establish a Covid-19 Asean response fund to be used in financing such research, as well as the purchase

of medical equipment and supplies.

To minimize the impact of future pandemics in Asean, President Duterte also proposed the creation of an “early warning system for diseases in the region.

“Covid-19 will not be the last pandemic the world will face. We have to be ready for future outbreaks. We therefore have to improve and expand existing Asean’s mechanisms to cover public emergencies,” he said.

During the summit, the President also thanked Brunei Darussalam and Singapore for their timely aid to the country’s Covid-19 response.

Task force, DOH mark 15K virus carriers, half of them in Metro Health dept, stakeholders launch virus tracker app

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM & Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

T

HE Department of Health (DOH), through the National Task Force on Covid-19, is in the process of tracing at least 15,000 people dubbed as potential carriers of the novel coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) as government began contact tracing and continued its rapid testing for the disease in “targeted areas” that include Metro Manila.

Retired General Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of the National Task Force on Covid-19, said the number was provided by the DOH although he did not say where these potential carriers of the virus are specifically located.

Galvez, also the presidential adviser on the peace process, said the figure was estimated based on the DOH’s number of people who died from the virus and those who are currently positive and are

still being treated in various hospitals.

‘Newbies’

SEN. Francis Tolentino, meanwhile, lauded the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) for granting special authorization to some 1,500 “newbie” doctors to beef up the ranks of medical staff fielded in public hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients.

Tolentino issued the statement after IATF spokesman Karlo Nograles confirmed that IATF officials finally adopted interim guidelines granting a “Special Authorization for the Limited Practice of Medical Graduates” as presented by the DOH. The senator recalled that in the past several weeks, he had been prodding DOH to deploy graduates of medical schools to boost the ranks of doctors containing the spread of Covid-19 but with specific authority “for a limited practice of medicine, without having them finish

Amid ECQ, Angat Dam’s dwindling reserve, Metro consumers reminded to conserve water

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

A

@jonlmayuga

S water at the Angat Dam continues to fall below its normal operating level, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) appealed to water consumers in the National Capital Region (NCR) and nearby towns in Rizal and Cavite provinces to conserve water throughout the dry season.

The Angat Dam, which is part of the Angat-Ipo-La Mesa water system, supplies about 97 percent of raw water for some 19 million water consumers in the NCR and other water consumers in the Greater Manila Area.

In a news statement issued on Tuesday, the CCC reiterated the implementation of Administrative Order 24 issued by the President mandating all government agencies, government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs), and state universities and colleges (SUCs) to strictly implement water conservation measures.

As of 8 a.m. of April 14, 2020, the water level in the Angat Dam is at 192.95 meters, which is 17 meters lower than its normal operating level of 210 meters. This may eventually compel the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) to cut water supply application in Metro Manila.

To prevent this, the CCC encourages the public to avoid unnecessary and excessive use of water, especially now that there is a greater household demand due to the imposed enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The CCC explained that the inadequate and intermittent water supply in Metro Manila and in other parts of the country could have massive impacts on different sectors, especially in agriculture and health. While the country is still grappling with a pandemic, the CCC said that we must be prudent and wise in consuming our limited water resources.

The CCC mentioned that water security is among the seven thematic priorities of the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP). Access to safe water and proper sanitation are necessary to achieve climate resilience and sustainable development.

Among the measures that individuals could do to observe responsible water utilization and conservation in their homes are the following:

Check water pipelines and report leaks and illegal connections regularly;

Recycle water by using a basin while rinsing dishes, fruits, vegetables, and other food products and using the water to flush toilets;

Cut down your shower time by a minute or two;

Turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth and washing your hands; and

Install rainwater catchment.

their licensure examination, pursuant to Section 12 of Republic Act 2382, the Medical Act of 1959.

Tolentino noted that the existing law provides that “certificates of registration shall not be required of medical students who have completed the first four years of medical course, graduates of medicine and registered nurses who may be given limited and special authorization by the Secretary of Health to render medical services during epidemics, or national emergencies.”

The senator added that in the Physician Licensure Examination (PLE) scheduled on March this year, the 1,524 new medicine graduates were only able to take the exam on March 8 and 9 but not on March 15 and 16 due to the pandemic.

Backlog

“WE are still looking for 15,000,” Galvez told radio station DZMM on Tuesday, adding that they are considering this large group as

backlog in the possible number of Covid-19 carriers in the country. Half of the individual carriers, he said, are in Metro Manila.

Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, commander of the Joint Task Force Corona Virus Shield (JTF CV Shield), the law-enforcement arm of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), said the Philippine National Police has been helping in the contact tracing.

At the same time, Eleazar said social distancing is being strictly enforced by the police and was being reiterated to all deployed units following reports that the regulation is being violated by Filipinos in some areas, especially when they are out of their homes buying essential goods.

Last week, the rapid testing for the Covid-19 in targeted areas in Quezon City and Valenzuela has commenced, with Manila also set to undertake the same testing, which Galvez said was a “game changer” in the battle against the pandemic.

Fassster than Covid-19: The science used to forecast pandemic in PHL

N

OW it can be told.

The basis of the government’s announcement to extend the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) until April 30 to address the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease pandemic was hinged on evidence-based forecasts of possible cases and scenarios on Covid-19’s spread in the country.

The technology used was the Web-based Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance using Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler (Fassster), a disease surveillance platform that uses deterministic compartmental modeling. “[The] data generated from Fassster were used by the Inter-Agency Task Force [IATF] in their recommendations and the government’s decision to extend the [ECQ] until April 30,” a news statement from the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD) disclosed.

The data were culled from “health capacity and economic models” developed by volunteers from Asian Institute of Management and the Philippine Institute of Development Studies, the DOST-PCHRD news release added.

“Data generated from this technology allows policy-makers to understand the pandemic at the national, regional and local levels; assess the effects of the preventive measures in place; and use best practices in specific communities,” the same news statement read.

Fassster was developed by Ateneo Center for Computing Competency and Research of Ateneo de Manila University, in collaboration with the University of the Philippines ManilaNational Telehealth Center and the Department of HealthEpidemiology Bureau. It was funded by the DOST-PCHRD.

Forecast of cases

WHEN increasing infections of Covid-19 hit the country, Fassster determined appropriate model parameters that can be used to forecast future numbers of infections, confirmed positive cases, deaths and recoveries.

Its dashboard generates disease models that enable users to project the effect of interventions—such as community quarantine, social distancing and optimal testing—on the total number of confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries over time, the news release said.

Another feature of Fassster to address Covid-19 is the “TanodCovid,” a self-reporting application. It enables constituents to report Covid-19 related symptoms to their local health authorities.

The data will then fed into the Fassster local government unit (LGU) dashboard, which serves as a tracker for confirmed cases upon validation of Provincial/City/Municipality Epidemiology Surveillance Units. This will be useful in contact tracing and monitoring identified contacts to ensure that they are appropriately quarantined and managed, the DOST-PCHRD said.

Covid-19 scenarios

CONSIDERING the initial interventions and precautionary

measures implemented against Covid-19, Fassster estimates the number of confirmed positive cases in the National Capital Region.

“Data gathered enabled the Fassster team to generate models to predict the peak number of cases and peak dates in four scenarios,” the news release said.

“The tool showed that the peak will reach around 2 million confirmed Covid-19 cases on May 30 if no ECQ was implemented,” the news statement read.

If, however, ECQ is lifted on April 14, with health capacity at 25 percent, cases will be slightly reduced to 1.5 million on July 31.

If the health capacity is increased to 50 percent, at the same lift date, a huge decline in confirmed cases is predicted, which is will reach 15,000 on May 4.

The last scenario showed that cases will drop to 6,800 on May 21 if the ECQ is lifted on April 30, provided that the health system capacity reaches 75 percent.

Health system capacity can be explained by two factors: a) testing capacity, or the availability of test kits, testing centers with quantitative polymerase chain reaction machines, trained health workers to perform testing, and turnaround time of test results; and b) health management capacity, or the availability of health facilities, medical devices and health workers to manage the confirmed positive cases so that they are isolated and given proper medical care.

Peak date is the day with the highest number of cases.

The projected maximum number of active confirmed positive cases for the duration of the outbreak is referred to as the “peak of active confirmed cases.”

Peak date is an important factor for epidemiologists in assessing the spread of the virus since an epidemic starts to decline after the peak date.

The goal of the government is to “flatten the curve,” or to take the necessary preventive measures, before hospitals and other health-care facilities are overburdened with positive cases.

Besides these data, Fassster is also able to project the number of people who will be: exposed, symptomatic and asymptomatic infectious, confirmed positive cases, recovered, deaths, and projected mild, severe and critical cases, the news statement read.

“With these projections, the extension of the enhanced community quarantine was approved by President Duterte to provide ample time for the different agencies to strengthen the capacity of the health system against the pandemic,” it added.

The initial forecast shows the level of the country’s health systems capacity in containing and managing the infection.

It also highlighted the need to increase the number of quarantine facilities, implement stronger health-care programs and regular assessment of health capacities, which are now being implemented by IATF and some local government units.

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco | Correspondent

T

HE public can now view data on the laboratory testing capacities of the Department of Health (DOH), including the total number of tests and unique individuals tested, following the launch of its new Covid-19 Tracker in line with its commitment to promote transparency and accountability.

The new tracker features additional information on the epidemiology of Covid-19 in the country, Covid-19 testing, health facilities, and availability of personal protective equipment (PPEs).

Likewise, the public can now have a snapshot of our health system’s capacity in responding to the pandemic based on data collected from the DOH DataCollect application.

The DataCollect app gathers daily data from hospitals and stakeholders, such as essential resources and supplies, availability of hospital beds, isolation rooms, intensive care unit beds and mechanical ventilators, and human resource needs.

The application will also be able to accurately calculate the projected need for PPEs linked to logistics offices for delivery of supplies, facilitating easier and faster tracking of reports between DOH offices.

Under the “Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act,” or R A 11332, all partner hospitals are mandated to implement the system of data collection.

“The new Covid-19 Tracker is not perfect and we hope to add more information in the succeeding days but it is our fervent hope that this responds to the information needs and the call for transparency from our citizens,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.

“Right now, health facility data is only limited to around 550 reporting hospitals and infirmaries so we call on our hospitals to submit information through our DataCollect App to help us protect our health-care workers in beating Covid-19,” he added.

The DOH was assisted by epidemiologist Mr. Nel Jason Haw and data science consulting firm Thinking Machines in the creation of its new Covid-19 Tracker.

Nel Jason Haw is a faculty of the Health Sciences and Development Studies Programs of the Ateneo de Manila University. He holds a Masters of Science degree in Global Health from Georgetown University, USA and is an incoming PhD student in Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA. “I volunteered because good quality health data literally saves lives in the middle of an outbreak,” said Jason, who has been assisting the DOH for the last two months in improving its reporting systems for Covid-19 cases.

Thinking Machines Data Science Inc. is working closely with DOH and the Department of Science and Technology in delivering quality insights to government agencies and the public to best respond to the pandemic. Filinvest City Foundation powers Thinking Machines, the leading data science company in the country.

“We believe data plays an increasingly important role in both the public and private sectors in the fight against Covid-19. We hope to contribute to our country’s fight against Covid-19 by making sure that our country’s key decision-makers have access to accurate and timely data.” L. Josephine Gotianun Yap, president of Filinvest City Foundation said.

Meanwhile, Thinking Machines Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Sy said that they believe in the effectiveness of data, “and we are humbled to be working with the public, civic and private sector in the months ahead to ensure access to timely and comprehensive analytical insights.”

For his part, Duque thanked their partners for helping the DOH improve their information systems —“proof that public-private partnerships can beat Covid-19.”

A4 Wednesday, April 15, 2020 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Economy BusinessMirror

DBM disburses one-time P6-billion Bayanihan grant to provincial LGUs

By Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM

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HE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has heeded calls to give a one-time Bayanihan grant to provincial governments, releasing P6 billion to the Bureau of the Treasury on Tuesday.

Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado told the BusinessMirror that he already signed the Special Allotment Release Orders (SAROs) for the fund release which will be sourced from “pooled savings.”

The budget chief said the Treasury will be the one to transfer the funds to their respective Modified Disbursement System accounts.

“Napirmahan ko na po ang SARO and NCA [notice of cash allocation] for the P6 billion as well as the corresponding Local Budget Circular for

the Provinces kahapon po,” Avisado said in a text message.

The P6-billion Bayanihan Grant to Provinces is separate from P30.824-billion Bayanihan Grant to Cities and Municipalities earlier released by DBM on April 8.

“Kasi sabi ng mga governors may mga pangangailangan din sila at kumikilos din sila sa kani-kanilang probinsya,” Avisado added.

Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go earlier backed governors’ appeal to also grant funds to provinces to respond to the Covid-19 crisis.

Go earlier said the grant could be equivalent to half of a province’s Internal Revenue Allotment for one month.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) remitted an additional P6 billion

to the Office of the President (OP) as financial help to the government in battling the Covid-19 pandemic.

The additional P6 billion remittance of Pagcor on April 13 is on top of its earlier P20.5 billion remittance to government coffers in response to the pandemic.

Pagcor Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Andrea Domingo said the remittance to OP is in line with their mandate to finance infrastructure and socio-civic projects.

“Despite experiencing losses due to the suspension of operations of our owned and licensed gaming facilities for almost a month now, we are doing our best to provide much-needed help to the government during this time of crisis,” Domingo said.

Pagcor earlier said they expected to lose P5 billion to P6 billion from

the suspension of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations, casinos and gaming stations due to the Luzon-wide lockdown.

On March 24, Pagcor a lso turned over P6 billion to OP. This is in addition to P2 billion and P500 million remittances that were released on March 11 and March 1, respectively.

Pagcor also released P12 billion in cash dividends to the National Treasury on March 23.

For its part, the Bureau of Internal Revenue also extended last week the deadline to avail of the tax amnesty on delinquencies from May 23 to June 8.

It also extended the statutory deadlines for submission and/or filing of certain documents and/or returns, as well as the payment of certain taxes.

ECQs’ unforeseen benefit: Control in spread of ASF

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

T

HE Department of Agriculture (DA) said the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has helped to control the spread of African swine fever (ASF) as checkpoints barred unscrupulous traders from trading sick hogs.

“This ECQ helped [in controlling ASF] because a lot of traders cannot go to provinces and cities, hence, they cannot buy and sell sick pigs. So, it’s not spreading anymore but the disease is still there,” Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said in a virtual news conference on Monday.

Industry sources told the BusinessMirror that indeed ECQ, which has been in placed for a month now, has hindered unscrupulous

traders from selling sick pigs, hence, averting further spread of ASF. ASF, a fatal disease to hogs but not harmful to humans, caused the death and culling of over 250,000 hogs nationwide, about 2 percent of the country’s total 12 million pig herd.

Dar appealed to industry stakeholders to continue helping the government in containing and controlling ASF, which changed the global pork market as millions of pigs were culled around the world.

“In this fight [against the] Covid-19, we must continue to be on guard in eliminating ASF in affected areas,” he said.

The DA, through the Bureau of Animal Industry, has not reported recent ASF outbreaks with last recorded incidents in March based on the Philippines’s report to the

World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

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

In its latest market projection report, the USDA estimated that the country’s pork output in 2020 could decline 8.5 percent from last year’s 1.585 MMT. Likewise, the USDA revised downward its 2020 pork output forecast for the Philippines to 1.45 MMT from the 1.475 MMT estimate in January to reflect the hog industry’s losses due to ASF. Philippine pork consumption this year could fall by 4.26 percent to 1.729 MMT, the lowest in five years,

while imports are expected to rise by 26 percent to 280,000 MT to plug the shortfall in domestic production, USDA data showed.

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

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

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

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

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Group urges govt to freeze ₧8-billion rice import plan

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HE Action for Economic Reforms (AER) is urging the government to suspend its plan to import 300,000 metric tons (MT) of rice and use the P8-billion allocated fund to support local farmers and boost domestic food production instead.

In a news statement, AER said it “strongly opposed” the government’s 300,000-MT rice importation via government-to-government (G2G) as it could affect the farm-gate price of palay as harvesting is still ongoing.

“It is improper for government to spend billions of pesos to import rice. Let the private sector do the importation to fill in the inventory if needed. It will do a better job than a government-government arrangement which is prone to waste and corruption,” AER President Jessica Reyes-Cantos said on Tuesday.

“That’s the whole point of shifting the protection of the rice sector from quotas to tariffs via the rice tariffication law. It will be foolhardy to go back to having government do the importation,” Reyes-Cantos added.

Reyes-Cantos said the P8-billion fund allocated for the G2G importation would “ be better spent toward increasing our farmers’ productivity and safeguarding their welfare given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.”

“The money, for example, can be used to directly purchase our farmers’ produce. We were informed that our farmers in Sorsogon have lots of fruits and vegetables harvested, which are just given away as there are no wholesale buyers because of the distance from Metro Manila,” she said.

“DA [Department of Agriculture] may partner with local groups to broaden its reach and not be concentrated in high production areas where traders are active. Let’s help our poor hardworking farmers and their families,” she added.

ThePhilippinesispushingthrough with its P8-billion 300,000-metric ton rice importation via G2G trans-

action to ensure the country has sufficient stockpile amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said the budget for the importation has been approved and will be handled by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC).

The idea for the G2G rice importation came from the DA and the National Food Authority (NFA), Dar added.

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said the budget for the rice importation is P8 billion, while details of the G2G transaction are still being finalized.

Dar said the DA and the NFA are providing technical advice to the PITC regarding the G2G importation since the NFA has been involved with rice importation, especially G2G, prior to deregulation of the rice industry.

“The budget for the importation has been approved and has been given to DTI-PITC. They will lead the G2G arrangement. We had a meeting last week, PITC [is] now leading the G2G discussions,” Dar said in a virtual press conference on Monday.

According to Dar, there are various available rice suppliers in the world market today despite the reported export suspension by certain exporters like Vietnam.

“There’s a lot of supply. We have a lot of suppliers. Even India is offering a G2G of 300,000 metric tons.

Myanmar is still wide open,” he said.

Since the start of the year, about 600,000 MT of rice has been imported by the private sector, while 1.3 million MT could still enter the country with all the existing sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances (SPS-IC) issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry to eligible importers, Dar added.

Dar disclosed that about 400,000 MT of rice from Vietnam will arrive in the country this month following Hanoi’s assurance that it will honor existing supply contracts with Philippine importers. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

‘Seafood Kadiwa Ni Ani at Kita on Wheels’ visits CSF barangays DTI issues free

standard licenses for PPEs and other health products

By Ashley Manabat | Correspondent

C

ITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Barangay residents in this capital city have benefited when the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources’ (BFAR) “Seafood Kadiwa Ni Ani at Kita on Wheels” paid them a visit this week.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar crafted the strategy to market agri-fishery products from the provinces to Metro Manila residents.

“But due to the enhanced community quarantine [ECQ], we were advised to explore other options like Kadiwa on Wheels and Kadiwa online,” BFAR Regional Director Wilfredo Cruz said.

“The objective is to bring agri-fishery products to communities deprived of movement due to ECQ,” Cruz added.

“We initially initiated the sale of bangus and tilapia but eventually the fish-farmers and fisherfolk will sell their products as long as they are compliant to ECQ guidelines and with proper coordination with local officials. And since the products are produced by our fisher-farmers, these are definitely cheaper,” Cruz stated.

The Kadiwa on Wheels and Kadiwa online made a stop on Monday in Barangays Malino and Panipuan.

On Tuesday, it will be in Barangay Pulung Bulo from 8 a.m. to 12 noon and the PNP Housing-Maimpis from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Other barangays that will be visited include Sto. Nino and del Carmen on April 15 and Saguin and Malpitic on April 16.

T

HE government has issued free standard licenses for personal protective equipment (PPE) and health products crucial in the fight against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The Department of Trade and Industry’s Bureau of Philippine Standards (DTIBPS) has informed its stakeholders that all medical PPEs, or emergency responses related to Philippine National Standards, shall be provided for free to any interested entity or importer.

According to the DTI-BPS, this is the agency’s contribution in the national government’s efforts in dealing with the public health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

PNS for protective clothing, medical gloves, face masks, respiratory protective device, eye protection, security and resilience risk management, anaesthetic and respiratory equipment, biological evaluation of medical devices, quality management of medical devices, biotechnology and medical electrical equipment are available at the DTI-BPS standards data center. Elijah Felice E. Rosales

BUREAU of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources brings its Seafood Kadiwa Ni Ani at Kita on Wheels in the barangays in the City of San Fernando.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BFAR REGION 3

Bacoor fishermen, mussel farmers hit ‘inadequate’ support during lockdown

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

S

MALL fishermen and mussel farmers on Tuesday held a fluvial parade in Manila Bay to demand adequate support from the government following President Duterte’s decision to extend the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon.

Extended until April 30, 2020, the ECQ limits the movement of people, including ambulant fish and mussel, or tahong vendors, who are sometimes barred from bringing their catch to other areas affected by the lockdown.

At least five small fishing bancas sailed along the Manila Bay covering the municipal waters of Bacoor City as part of the symbolic protest

action, during which the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and allied groups in Cavite province also called on the government to “extensively address” the public health crisis and its impact to the socioeconomic rights of the poor sectors, including fisherfolk.

In a news statement, Pamalakaya said that the “lockdown does not only

interrupt the actual fishing activities of small fishers, but also the postharvest production, including the marketing and distribution of fish due to strict quarantine restrictions.”

“In one month, we only received relief from the local government twice. It is not sustained and insufficient,” said Myrna Candinato, spokesman of Pamalakaya-Cavite, referring to the relief goods being

distributed by the Bacoor-LGU to the so-called poorest of the poor families.

Pamalakaya said that the relief packs being distributed by the Bacoor local government unit (LGU) only contain 1 and half kilos of rice, 1 canned sardine, and 1 instant noodles each.

In response, the fisherfolk group initiated relief operations drive together with various organizations

and individuals to temporarily provide basic needs to the fisherfolk and coastal families who have yet to receive substantial relief aid from the government.

During the fluvial protest, Pamalakaya also called for a free mass testing, accessible medical services, and the immediate and unconditional distribution of P8,000 direct cash assistance to poor families.

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Goldman sees advanced economies shrinking 35 percent amid pandemic

A

dvanced economies will shrink about 35 percent t his quar ter f rom t he prior three months, four times as much as the previous record set in 2008 during the financial crisis, according to annualized figures from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. How fast economies will rebound is an open question because nobody knows how quickly people can get back to work, New Yorkbased economist Jan Hatzius wrote in a note to clients dated April 13.

The number of new virus cases appears to be peaking globally, but the bad news is that “the improvement is probably a direct consequence of social distancing and the plunge in economic activity, and could reverse quickly if

people just went back to work,” Hatzius wrote.

Overall, global-policy makers have mounted an impressive response to try to replace people’s incomes and keep credit flowing so that households and businesses can stay afloat, but Europe should do more and wealthy countries will need to help developing economies, he wrote.

“The response in Europe needs to be scaled up, via greater [and ideally centrally funded] fiscal easing and a more unconditional ‘whatever it takes’ commitment to the integrity of the euro area,” Hatzius wrote. “Emerging economies will need a lot more help from the rich world” to get through the crisis. Bloomberg News

Oil advances as market weighs production cuts against demand

O

il resumed gains to $23 a barrel as investors weigh whether a deal by the world’s biggest producers to cut output will be enough to offset the demand destruction caused by the coronavirus.

Futures added as much as 3 percent in New York, on track for its first advance in three sessions.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister told reporters on Monday that the kingdom is ready to trim supply further if needed when the Opec+ alliance meets again in June. US President Donald J. Trump tweeted that the cuts agreed by the coalition would be closer to 20 million barrels per day, without getting into specifics, amid doubts that the reduction is not deep enough.

T h e O p e c+ a g r e e m e nt t o slash production by 9.7 million barrels a day starting in May amounts to the largest coordinated cut in histor y, but is still dwarfed by the much greater decline in oil consumption as a result of the pandemic.

Oil has been in freefall since the middle of Februar y after nations across the world went into lockdown to tr y to stop the virus from spreading, curbing consumption of ever ything from jet fuel to gasoline. As global demand vanishes, Saudi Arabia is seeking to keep its barrels competitive by reducing

prices for all its grades to Asia and the Mediterranean region.

“I can’t see a return to previous consumption levels for oil until 2021 and a lot of the good news is already built in,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda. “Even after the tentative reopening of economies, it is still going to be quite challenging for Opec to match their supply to the actual demand for oil.”

West Texas Intermediate for May delivery rose 35 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $22.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 10:03 a.m. Singapore time after falling 1.5 percent on Monday.

The May-June time spread moved deeper into contango, signaling an expanding physical glut even with the output cuts.

Brent for June delivery gained 45 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $32.19 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract rose 0.8 percent on Monday.

There are concerns that the Opec+ deal won’t be enough to steady a market where demand losses may amount to 35 million barrels a day and storage space is rapidly running out. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. called the agreement “ historic yet insufficient,” estimating that daily consumption losses may average 19 million barrels in April and May. Bloomberg News

Apple, Google virus contact tracing to require verification

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p p l e Inc. and Google addressed questions about their upcoming Covid-19 smartphone contact-tracing solution on Monday, providing details about a partnership that has raised concerns among some privacy and cybersecurity experts.

The companies said the tool will require users to verify positive diagnoses before putting that information into the system. Test results will be checked by public health agencies that are building mobile apps that will work with the contact-tracing technology, Apple and Google added. They also defended the privacy of the system, reiterating that users’ names and locations would not be shared or stored.

The partnership was announced on Friday.

The technology is designed to curb the spread of the virus by telling users they should quarantine or isolate themselves after contact with an infected individual. Since then, some experts have said the system may be vulnerable to spoofing, with people entering false test results.

On Monday, the companies also said that the system could record contact between people when smartphone users are within a couple of feet of each other for up to 10 minutes. The companies noted that Bluetooth

wireless technology can sense devices from up to 15 feet away.

Apple and Google are building the technology into their iOS and Android operating systems in two steps. In midMay, they plan to add the ability for iPhones and Android phones to wirelessly exchange anonymous information via apps run by public health authorities. In coming months, they will integrate the technology directly into their operating systems to reach more people.

A Google representative said on Monday that the tools would be added to Android via a download in the Google Play store. Apple will offer it via an iOS software update. Apple said the goal is to make it compatible with as many iPhones as possible, including older models.

The functionality will only be available to public health apps, the companies said.

This means other developers won’t be able to make a mobile game using the data, for instance. It also means that users will have to download an official app to input test results.

Still, phase two of the project will send alerts to potentially billions of iOS and Android users without the need for an app.

Bloomberg News

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

A5

Global virus infections hover around 2 million W

ASHINGTON—New York’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 and the worldwide number of confirmed cases hovered around 2 million on Monday, even as the lack of fresh hot spots globally yielded a ray of optimism and fueled discussions about how some places might begin to reopen.

The brunt of the disease has been felt most heavily in New York, Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, but grim projections of a virus that would spread with equal ferocity to other corners of America and the world have not yet materialized after more than a month of measures meant to blunt its impact.

An online dashboard that tracks the global number of confirmed coronavirus cases, maintained by Johns Hopkins University, late Monday night showed the number of cases in the US approaching 683,000, with more than 2 million worldwide. The site was later adjusted to reflect nearly 582,000 cases in the US and 1.9 million cases worldwide. It was not immediately clear why the numbers changed.

The death toll in populous states such as Florida and Pennsylvania was on par with some individual counties outside New York City.

Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and a hub for immigrant communities and business travelers in the energy industry, has been largely spared compared to other parts of the US. As Colorado deaths surpassed 300 on Monday, Gov. Jared Polis compared that figure to New York’s thousands and called it “a tragic indication of our success in Colorado.”

Officials around the world worried that halting quarantine and social-distancing measures could easily undo the hard-earned progress that those steps have achieved in slowing the spread.

Still, there were signs countries were looking in that direction. Spain permitted some

workers to return to their jobs, while a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions. Governors on both coasts of the US announced that they would join forces to come up with a coordinated reopening at some point, setting the stage for a potentia l conf lict w ith President Donald Trump, who asserted that he is the ultimate decision-maker for determining how and when to reopen.

Trump continued those assertions during an afternoon White House briefing on Monday, pushing back against reporters’ questions about whether the president or governors have the authority to ease the restrictions. He said his administration has “a very good relationship” with the governors, but “the federal government has absolute power” in that decision-making process if it chooses to exercise it.

The Trump administration also sought to delay deadlines for the 2020 census because of the outbreak, a move that would push back timetables for releasing data used to draw congressional and legislative districts.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at Monday’s briefing that he expects more than 80 million Americans will have tax rebates directly deposited into their bank accounts by Wednesday. The rebates are aimed at boosting the economy as the country responds to the virus.

New York saw a few positive signs on Monday even as it reached another bleak milestone. It marked the first time in a week that the daily toll dipped below 700. Almost

2,000 people were newly hospitalized with the virus on Sunday, though once discharges and deaths are accounted for, the number of people hospitalized has flattened to just under 19,000.

“This virus is very good at what it does. It is a killer,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.

In the US, about half of the more than 22,000 deaths reported are in the New York metropolitan area. Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins’ tracking maps showed a dense patchwork of coronavirus cases along the Northeast corridor, as well as significant outbreaks corresponding to other major metropolitan areas—though nothing on the scale of what New York has endured.

Houston’s 18 total deaths since the start of the outbreak make up a tiny fraction of the one-day toll in New York City, prompting Mayor Sylvester Turner to say the city was achieving its goal of slowing “the progression of this virus so that our health care delivery system would not be overwhelmed.”

Dr. Sebastian Johnston, a professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said it appeared that Covid-19 had peaked in much of Europe, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the U.K. He was worried the virus might now start to take off in countries across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. There’s also concern about Russia.

South Korea on Tuesday reported its 13th day in a row with fewer than 100 confirmed cases of the virus, as infections continued to wane in the worst hit city of Daegu and nearby towns. In early March, the country was reporting about 500 new cases per day.

Hot spots may yet emerge as states lift stay-at-home orders, said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington institute that created widely cited projections of virus-related deaths.

He pointed to states where the number of Covid-19 cases is still climbing: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida.

To date, some US infections

have taken off like sparks starting fires, while others have sputtered out. Trevor Bedford, whose lab at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has been tracking the pandemic using the virus’s genetic code, acknowledges it’s a “dice roll” that makes it hard to predict hot spots.

And when restrictions are eased, people will not immediately dive back into their social connections, at least not without precautions, Bedford said.

A study released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, relying on data from mobile devices in New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, suggested that socialdistancing policies prompted more people to stay at home in March and might have curbed spread of the virus.

The report “provides some very early indications that these measures might help slow the spread of Covid-19,” the authors said.

The infection rate remains relatively low in areas of the developing world that have poor or nonexistent health care infrastructure. The rapid spread of the coronavirus beyond cities to more rural areas often depends on travel and social connections, said Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief.

But he noted that rural areas often have less sophisticated health surveillance systems to pick up potential disease clusters, prompting the question, “Is it that it’s not there or is it that we’re not detecting the disease when it is there?”

In some European countries, officials pointed to positive signs as they began prepping for the reopening of largely shuttered economies and industries.

Italian authorities announced on Monday that there were 3,153 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, approximately a 1.9-percent increase. That brings the country’s overall toll of known cases to nearly 160,000. The dayto-day death toll, 566, however, was up, from the 431 new deaths registered on Sunday. AP

Southeast Asia leaders meet by video to plot virus strategy

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ANOI, Vietnam—Forced apart by the coronavirus pandemic, Southeast Asian leaders linked up by video on Tuesday to plot a strategy to overcome a crisis that has threatened their economies and kept millions of people in their homes under lockdowns.

The heads of state of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were to hold fur ther talks later Tuesday, also through video conferencing, with their counterpar ts from China, Japan and South Korea who are expected to express their suppor t in helping Asean fight the co ro n av i r u s. Vi e t n a m , A s e a n’s l e a d e r this year, has postponed an in-person gathering tentatively to June.

“It is in these grim hours that the solidarity of the Asean community shines like a beacon in the dark,” Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said in an opening speech.

Containment efforts have placed the pandemic “actually under control,” he said, warning against complacency, with a number of member countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines, fearing spikes in infections after large-scale testing is conducted.

Founded in 1967 in the Cold War era, Asean—a diverse bloc representing more than 640 million people—has held annual summits of its leaders and top diplomats with ceremonies steeped in tradition, protocol and photo-ops. Derided as a talk shop by critics, the bloc is known largely for photographs of its leaders locking arms at annual meetings in a show of unity despite often-thorny differences.

Diplomats say that unity is now crucial

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, (center), addresses Asean leaders during the Special Asean summit on Covid-19 in Hanoi, Vietnam on Tuesday, April 14. Asean leaders and their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea hold the summit online to discuss actions coping with the Covid-19 pandemic. AP/Hau Dinh

as the region battles the Covid-19. All o f A s e a n’s m e m b e r - s t ate s h ave b e e n hit by infections, with the total number of confirmed cases reaching more than 20,400, including over 840 deaths, despite massive lockdowns, travel restrictions and home quarantines.

“The Covid-19 crisis is a crisis like no other in the past, not just in its potential calamitous scale but in the hope to contain and stop it by unstinting cooperation and fullest trust between all countries,” said the Philippines’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

“If any of us fails, the rest will follow.”

The World Health Organization called on Southeast Asian countries last month to aggressively ramp up efforts to combat the

viral outbreak as infections spread. Several visiting par ticipants of a large religious gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in late Februar y repor tedly tested positive for the virus after attending the event.

But Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said Asean had responded to the outbreak quickly, with his countr y, as the bloc’s current leader, calling for the need for region-wide action in mid-Februar y, followed by a series of ministerial meetings and consultations with China, the United States and the WHO. “Co u nt r i e s i n o u r re g i o n h ave a l l suffered severe consequences from Covid-19,” he said. “We have made ever y effor t to combat this pandemic.”

Tu e s d a y ’s s u m m i t w a s t o i n c l u d e discussions on a regional stockpile of medical equipment for emergencies and establishing a regional fund for combating the pandemic.

With travel restrictions and lockdowns across the region, many industries have been hit hard, including the tourism and retail sectors, and growth targets have b e e n re v i s e d d o w n w a rd. Th e o ve r a l l economic impact of the pandemic on the region will “likely be broad and deep,” according to an Asean assessment.

Hard-hit China, where the virus was first detected in December, is one of the largest trading par tners and sources of tourists for Southeast Asia.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was expected to join the video summit along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae -in.

Asean holds about 1,500 meetings a year, but around 230 have been postponed to later this year due to the pandemic, including lower-level meetings with China on a proposed nonaggression pact in the disputed South China Sea. The territorial disputes, which involve China and five other claimant states, including Asean members Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei Darussalam, are not part of the formal summit agenda. But the disputes have cast a shadow on the summit after a Vietnamese fishing boat with eight men on board was hit by a Chinese coast guard ship and sank near the Paracel islands.

All the fishermen were rescued.

The other Asean members are Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. AP

A6 Wednesday, April 15, 2020 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

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editorial

Helping people grow their own vegetables

N

ature has long been warning us about the devastating impact of disruptions to food supply. A decade after El Niño dried up rice lands in the Philippines, the country had to grapple with a crisis again in 2008. Restrictions, such as export bans, imposed by the country’s sources of imports due to drought and abnormal cold weather caused spikes in prices and made rice more expensive.

Five years after the rice price crisis, the province of Leyte was crippled by a supertyphoon that killed thousands of people in Tacloban City—Supertyphoon Yolanda’s “ground zero.” Food became a major concern not just in Tacloban City but also in the entire province as the monster typhoon also destroyed crops. Hundreds of residents waited for days before getting food aid as the devastation caused by Yolanda limited mobility in the province.

Now the country is facing another crisis—one that was not created by strong typhoons or earthquakes, but by a deadly virus. The speed with which Covid-19 could infect humans is now beginning to overwhelm not only the health-care systems of countries, but also their food supplies. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a blog that Covid-19 could reduce food production due to the lockdowns and restrictions on mobility (See, “Covid-19 pandemic threatens food security,” in the BusinessMirror, April 13, 2020).

The pandemic, which has limited the mobility of millions of people around the world, has rendered food supply chains vulnerable. The ban on public transportation to stop the spread of Covid-19, and producers falling ill or are afraid of contracting the disease, made it more difficult to bring food to urban areas. The enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has made urban areas, particularly the National Capital Region, even more difficult to reach for producers who are raring to dispose of their perishable products.

Urban areas in the Philippines are reliant on farmlands in the countryside for food and raw materials for factories. Despite the increasing frequency of natural disasters that devastate farmlands, there has been no major change in how goods are traded within the country. This coronavirus pandemic is reminding policy-makers and citizens that this must change if urban areas are to survive crippling outbreaks of infectious diseases.

After this pandemic, policy-makers must take the lead in promoting urban gardening by planting vegetables in idle government lands. The transformation of an idle camp land into a farm is a good first step and should inspire other agencies to do the same (See, “Soldiers transform idle camp land to farm lots for crop cultivation,” in the BusinessMirror, April 14, 2020). The national government must also partner with local governments to promote urban gardening.

Officials should institutionalize urban gardening and provide the necessary funds to entice many others to take up the cause. If possible, households must be encouraged to plant vegetables, such as tomatoes, by giving them free seeds and pots. This won’t necessarily wipe out hunger in Philippine cities, but in a crisis situation, such as the current pandemic, these crops could augment a household’s food supply.

The initiative would also allow the people to pay homage to farmers who played a critical role in ensuring stable food supply during this pandemic, and instill respect for workers in the agriculture sector. Young kids will learn the basics of growing their own food and even develop desirable character traits, such as patience. More important, urban gardening will focus the spotlight on the agriculture sector and might entice the youth to take up farming someday.

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Reintroducing the SSS Bank Enrollment Module Aurora C. Ignacio

All About Social Security

T

he past weeks have been very challenging not only for us in the Philippines, but for other countries as well, as the whole world is battling the onslaught of the Covid-19. Sadly, the ongoing pandemic has resulted to sudden closure of businesses with hundreds of thousands of workers temporarily losing income.

Scenes of people panic buying and those queuing for hours to receive food packs and monetary assistance either from the government or private institutions have become quite normal nowadays.

It is during these trying times that the role of the Social Security System (SSS) as a social security institution gets amplified. To help our members cope with the current medical situation in the country, SSS provides cash assistance to displaced workers through the unemployment benefit, wherein workers who were involuntarily separated (in this case, due to abrupt business closure) are entitled to cash benefit depending on their monthly salary credit or MSC. The SSS likewise implements a moratorium program for members with existing short-term loans, and soon, the pension fund shall be rolling out the guidelines of the online

Calamity Loan Assistance Program (CLAP) to qualified member-borrowers. Both programs aim to help member-borrowers augment their budget for daily “essentials” such as food and medicine.

To ensure that these benefits reach the rightful beneficiaries fast and safe, the SSS reintroduces an alternative process for members to conveniently receive their benefit payments and loan proceeds, most especially now that the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine has been extended until April 30.

Dubbed “SSS Bank Enrollment Module,” this method allows the direct crediting of benefit payments

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Another good thing about this module is that members may enroll more than one bank account and should any of their bank accounts be left dormant or inactive, it can be deactivated via the My.SSS anytime. As of this writing, the SSS has tapped a total of 60 accredited universal, commercial, thrift and rural banks nationwide to participate in this program. In addition to this, around 50 banks are already Philippine Electronic Fund Transfer System and Operations Network (PESONet) compliant. This will expedite crediting of SSS benefits to the accounts of SSS members, pensioners as well as their beneficiaries in compliance with the Ease of Doing Business law.

Currently, there are around 1.2 million bank accounts of individual members that are enrolled in My.SSS. Just like any other institutions, the SSS is maximizing the use of the digital platform as this enables the public to carry out needed transactions safely amid this health crisis.

We sincerely hope everyone stays at home for us to quickly heal as one nation.

Aurora C. Ignacio is SSS president and chief executive officer.

We welcome your questions and insights on the topics that we discuss. E-mail mediaaffairs@sss. gov.ph for topics that you might want us to discuss.

Coronavirus chaos is the IMF’s biggest test ever

✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Publisher

and loan proceeds to the member’s preferred bank account. Particularly for the upcoming CLAP as well as for the common online transactions of sickness and maternity benefit reimbursements, members may directly receive the entire benefit or loan amount by simply enrolling their bank account through the My.SSS service portal, which is currently accessible via the SSS web site (www.sss.gov.ph) and the SSS mobile app only.

All covered employees and individual members just need to follow these five simple steps: 1) Log in to your My.SSS account 2) Click “Bank Enrollment” under the E-Services tab 3) Select your preferred bank from the dropdown list then accurately enter your bank account number twice 4) Tick the box to agree to the Data Collection and Usage Clause then click Enroll Bank Account, then press OK when a pop-up message appears 5) Check your SSS-registered email for a Bank Confirmation Notice.

When you receive the notification from SSS, you are assured that your bank account has been successfully enrolled real-time and may now be used to credit your benefit payments and loan proceeds.

The next step for you is to simply withdraw the cash whenever you need it—no more checks and long encashment queues.

F

inance ministers and central bank governors logging in for this week’s virtual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank will say the right thing, promising to work together to confront the economic fallout of the coronavirus. The question is whether they will do the right thing and take concrete steps to allow the necessary cooperation and coordination.

Many countries have responded poorly to the pandemic and its economic consequences. The international response has been worse— not just hesitant and ill planned, but almost invisible. One area of neglect is especially important, and goes to the core of the IMF’s purpose: The world lacks an effective lender of last resort.

When a bank that’s fundamentally sound faces a run on deposits, the country’s central bank provides cash to meet the demand until confidence returns. The central bank’s capacity to do this is unlimited, since it controls the supply of money. But suppose the currency that’s needed to stop the run is foreign, not domestic. That complicates things.

Many low- and middle-income

countries borrow in dollars or other foreign currencies. As the pandemic worsens and losses mount, capital will flee. The outflow in the past two months stands at $100 billion, more than three times bigger than in the corresponding period of the financial crisis. This is like a run on bank deposits—except that the central banks concerned can’t provide the needed liquidity. The local damage could multiply and spread, as the effects are transmitted to foreign investors and trading partners.

All this has long been understood, and preventing crises like this is one of the IMF’s main jobs. But its tools aren’t good enough. Although crossborder flows of capital have surged in recent decades, the resources and arrangements that the IMF uses to

handle the consequences haven’t kept pace.

Nowadays the global system relies heavily on non-IMF forms of support. There are three. First, central banks set up bilateral swap-line arrangements—under which the US Federal Reserve, say, lends dollars to other central banks in exchange for their currency. (The partner central bank then lends the dollars to borrowers in need of dollar liquidity; in due course the Fed and its partners swap their currencies back.) Another approach is to set up a regional financing arrangement to act as a kind of mini-IMF (sometimes in collaboration with the actual IMF); the European Stability Mechanism is one such arrangement. And another is for individual governments to selfinsure against a squeeze on liquidity by building up their foreign-currency reserves.

Though better than nothing, these elements of the so-called Global Financial Safety Net fall short.

Swap lines among the big central banks—the ones that issue reserve currencies like the dollar and the euro—are now routine, but arrangements for emerging economies are ad hoc and unreliable. Regional arrangements haven’t worked well even for their members (think of the ESM’s difficulties with Greece) and leave non-members unprotected. The distribution of reserves is

patchy, with some countries having more than they need and others not enough. Self-insuring that way is also expensive and can contribute to global instability by promoting excessive current-account surpluses and savings gluts; and, when push comes to shove, countries are often reluctant to draw on their putative insurance and run down their reserves, because it signals they’re in trouble.

With the global outlook deteriorating at a stunning rate, the big central banks have taken steps to protect themselves and each other—but this isn’t helping smaller and poorer economies. The US, Europe and Japan won’t be immune to a crash in the rest of the world. There’s a compelling common interest in trying to cushion the blow.

Most of the IMF’s $1 trillion lending capacity is untapped. That’s unlikely to be sufficient, but it’s a start.

In the first instance the focus should be on maximum speed and flexibility in delivering available support to the countries that need it. This week governments should confirm that they’ll provide any additional capacity that might be required. A new allocation of Special Drawing Rights, the IMF’s proprietary currency, would help. And some governments will need outright debt relief, because they’re not just illiquid but insolvent.

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Seafarers don’t deserve the Covid-19 stigma

By Dennis R. Gorecho

P

ublic health emergencies like the Covid-19 create stressful times for people and communities. However, the pandemic has brought about an unwelcome development even among hospitable people like Filipinos—social stigma and discrimination against certain sectors, including seafarers.

Seafarers are also on the frontline of the response to the pandemic and their protection is vital to ensure that significant services will continue.

Shipping is the lifeblood of the global economy. Ships transport almost 90 percent of the world’s trade, which include food, medicine, energy and raw materials, as well as manufactured goods and components.

Seafarers are not only responsible for the operations of such ships but are also responsible for the safe and smooth delivery of the cargo.

Currently, there’s one Filipino out of every four or five seafarers on board a ship (whether cargo or cruise), which means that the largest population of crew members comes from the Philippines.

There are over 375,000 deployed Filipino seafarers that contribute about $6.14 billion in remittances in 2018.

However, port restrictions and canceled flights are straining the ability of shipping firms to replace seafarers, further weakening global supply chains.

Ports in some parts of the world have refused to allow some ships to enter because they had previously docked in areas affected by Covid-19, preventing vessels from obtaining essential supplies.

“Seafarers are just as worthy as everyone else and should be treated with dignity and respect to ensure that they can continue to provide their vital services to the world,” the Special Tripartite Committee of the Maritime Labor Convention said in a statement.

There are reports that some suppliers have been prevented from boarding ships to give masks, overalls and other personal protective equipment to crews.

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder has asked governments “to ensure that, in these challenging times, seafarers are adequately protected from the Covid-19 pandemic, have access to medical care, and can travel to and from their ships, as necessary, in order to continue to play their crucial role.”

He added that seafarers should be treated as “key workers” and be exempted from travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Restrictions will cripple not only seafarers but also countries that rely on overseas supplies.

In the case of cruise ships, thousands of passengers and crew members remained on board worldwide, with workers representing dozens of countries and nationalities, due to port and border closures as well

Stigma stings everyone by creating fear or anger toward other people. Some of the manifestations of stigma include social avoidance or rejection, physical violence and denials of health care, education, housing or employment. as flight restrictions.

There were 537 Filipino seafarers on board Diamond Princess that was placed under two weeks quarantine after it docked in Yokohama Bay in February. At least 25 other cruise ships have been later confirmed with Covid-19 cases.

Cruise ships are often settings for outbreaks of infectious diseases because of their closed environment, contact between travellers from many countries, and crew transfers between ships. Cruise ships bring diverse populations into proximity for many days, facilitating transmission of respiratory illness.

Due to halted operations of cruise ships, thousands of seafarers were displaced and began arriving home via charter flights.They boarded onto buses and were placed in hotels by the government under a 14-day preventative quarantine. Thereafter, some have gone back to their families while some are staying in Manila due to the lockdown.

Sadly, some residents have recently rejected the idea of converting hotels into quarantine facilities or temporary shelters for repatriated Filipino seafarers.

Fear and anxiety about a disease can lead to social stigma toward the seafarers. Stigma and discrimination occur because people associate a disease, such as Covid-19, with a specific sector like the seafarers.

Stigma stings everyone by creating fear or anger toward other people. Some of the manifestations of stigma include social avoidance or rejection, physical violence and denials of health care, education, housing or employment.

Discrimination causes further damage by spawning more apprehension or anger—feelings toward people instead of toward the problem.

Filipinos should not give in to fear or panic that lessen our humanity and respect—our seafarers are also our frontliners in our battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho heads the seafarers’ division of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan law offices. For comments, e-mail info@sapalovelez. com, or call 09175025808 or 09088665786.

Time for Healthcare Keynesianism

By Luis Dumlao

K

eynesianism, named after John Maynard Keynes, refers to the government policy of increasing spending and by natural consequence increasing income. The increase in income especially by the private sector enables it to spend more and enables others to receive income. The cycle of spending, income, and back and forth multiplies the economic activity, which then accelerates economic growth.

Early in the 1930s, Germany was in stagnation. Germans understandably did not have confidence in their economy and expected worse economic conditions ahead. As people held spending, businesses did not generate income; lack of income resulted in the lack of confidence, and that self-fulfilled the prophesy of the people of the worsening economic conditions. Starting in 1933, Hitler began to reign in Germany and massively expanded military spending.

This consequently increased income, and the virtuous cycle of spending, income, and back began.

This is not to say that Hitler did it for the economy, nor he did it because he knew Keynesianism. In fact, Keynes only wrote of Keynesianism in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936; to that, Joan Robinson allegedly once said that Hitler already implemented Keynesianism as Keynes wrote of it. Whether Hitler’s Keynesianism worked is debatable, but nonetheless coincided with the softening of economic struggles. It was implemented by way of spending on military buildup, and hence it was Military Keynesianism.

On the other side of the north Atlantic Ocean is the United States of America, which in the 1930s was

Bloomberg Opinion

I

F you’re like me, you’ve been watching the daily data on the coronavirus pandemic, seeking glimmers of hope in the trajectories: the infected, the hospitalized, the intubated, and the dead.

If only there were more understanding to be had. The more I look at the numbers, the more I see their flaws. Here are my top 10.

1. The number of infected is close to meaningless. Only people who get tested can be counted, and there still aren’t enough tests — not even close, and not in any country save perhaps Iceland. The best we can do is estimate how many people are sick by guessing what percentage of the infected can obtain a test. In the US, for example, anecdotal evidence suggests that people need to be ill enough to be hospitalized. About 10 percent of cases merit hospitalization, so the

actual number of infected might be about 10 times larger than what’s reported.

2. The tests aren’t accurate and the inaccuracies aren’t symmetric. In particular, they produce many more false negatives than false positives — meaning they tend to indicate that people are OK when they’re actually sick. Some research suggests that the false negative rate could exceed 30 poercent. This means that estimates of the true number of infections should be once again inflated.

3. The number of tests doesn’t equal the number of people tested.

Because the tests are so inaccurate, some people get tested twice to be more sure of the results. This means that the share of the population tested compared to the number of people found to be infected paints a rosier picture than reality, offering yet another reason to believe that the actual number of infected is higher.

4. The numbers aren’t in sync.

in the midst of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), with his traditional balanced budget strategy, realized that more than 20-percent unemployment rate was worsening. Yielding to Keynesianism, he essentially tackled unemployment by transferring cash to the unemployed. The goal was for the unemployed to spend to generate income, income to generate confidence, confidence to generate spending, spending to generate employment, and so on.

The fact that policy started with transferring money for the welfare of the unemployed made it Welfare Keynesianism. It is debatable that Welfare Keynesianism got the US out of poverty, although it reduced the economic suffering from the Great Depression.

But with the advent of World War II, when US’s survival was at stake, the first and foremost mission became self-preservation. The heck with balanced budget. FDR borrowed and spent on military, and hired millions to build the world’s biggest military armament and personnel.

The massive spending led to massive hiring and massive income to private households. With confidence in income (and by winning the war), all was well who spent well, and all

Keynesianism is not new to the Philippines. As the Philippines charged through the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration spent more to arrest the slowing economic activity albeit the spending was spread to the general economy making it a Generic Keynesianism. was well who received income. The fact that it all started with military spending, it must be the most successful Military Keynesianism of the 20th century.

Keynesianism is not new to the Philippines. As the Philippines charged through the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration spent more to arrest the slowing economic activity albeit the spending was spread to the general economy making it a Generic Keynesianism. The “pantawid pamilyang Pilipino program” or 4Ps is perhaps a proof that policy continuity is possible in the Philippines within three presidents not allied to each other: MacapagalArroyo, Aquino and Duterte. To the extent that the basis of the spending is conditional, thus “conditional cash transfer,” I propose to call it CCT Keynesianism.

With build-build-build, which is a form of Infrastructure Keynesianism, the economy was pacing at a growth of just over 6 percent.

Then Covid-19 attacks the Philippines and the rest of the world.

With President Duterte enforcing enhanced community quarantine in Luzon, the World Bank projected

the economic growth to decelerate to 3 percent at best, and Secretary Ernesto Pernia of the National Economic and Development Authority not ruling out a recession.

With lessons learned from history, it is time for Keynesianism. But with a different kind of “enemy”, it is time for a new kind of Keynesianism.

One of the most successful approach thus far in the fight against Covid-19 is that of Korea, which can be summed up to testing, testing and testing. In relation to that, the University of the Philippines, the Philippine Genome Center and the Department of Science and Technology was able to develop a SARSCoV-2 PCR Detection Kit. Marrying Keynesianism, the success of testing in Korea and our ability to produce testing kits, it is time to spend and create jobs on producing tens of millions of such.

With our frontliners short of personal protective equipment and with the presence of local manufacturers that can produce them, it is time to spend and create jobs by producing tens of millions of PPEs. With growing evidence that wearing face masks whether feeling ill or otherwise is more effective in controlling the infection to the population, it is time to spend and create jobs by producing hundreds of millions of face masks for Filipinos and for export.

These are just examples and there are more goods to be produced to fight Covid-19. The macroeconomic policy is to implement Healthcare Keynesianism.

Luis Dumlao, PhD, is the Dean of the John Gokongwei School of Management, Ateneo de Manila University.

The EU’s big pandemic failure isn’t about money

By Lionel Laurent Bloomberg Opinion

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“great day for European solidarity” is how Germany’s finance minister described last week’s $590 billion euro-area virus rescue package, clinched even as Europe’s North and South haggle over the cost of cleaning up the economic wreckage left by Covid-19. The package would allow countries to borrow from the euro region’s rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, for health-care spending without policy constraints, up to a certain amount.

The focus on money is understandable, given the looming recession that’s expected to be deeper than the crisis of 2008. But it obscures a glaring failure of the European Union that may have made both the human and financial cost of the pandemic worse: A lack of coordination and collaboration in health-care policy.

Despite a common market, a (mostly) common external border, and a common health-care challenge in the shape of an aging population, the EU’s 27 member states have scattered like mice when fighting the coronavirus. At the beginning of the crisis, Italy, the first and worst hit in Europe, begged its partners for

10 reasons to doubt the Covid-19 data

By Cathy O’Neil

Wednesday, April 15, 2020 A7

People sometimes die weeks after being hospitalized, and they get hospitalized a week or more after testing positive for the virus. So we shouldn’t expect the “number of deaths” curve to flatten until pretty long after the “number of cases” curve does. The bright side of this lag is that, since it takes longer to recover than to die, the death rate will go down over time.

5. The meaning of hospitalization is changing. Officials have recently presented flattening hospital admissions as a positive sign. But it takes a lot more to get somebody to the hospital these days. Hotlines are jammed, ambulances are scarce, standards for who gets hospitalized have drastically changed, and people are avoiding overwhelmed emergency rooms. So fewer hospitalizations doesn’t necessarily mean that the situation is getting better.

6. Deaths aren’t reported immediately or consistently. Various

masks and equipment — not money. The response was a string of border closures and the hoarding of medical supplies for domestic consumption. By the time France, Spain and Germany instituted their own lockdowns, it was clear there would be 27 different responses to the coronavirus, not one “European” one.

Normally, it’s the lecturing tone of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, that would set the line for countries to follow. But health-care policy is jealously guarded by national governments, which have never given Brussels technocrats full powers to dictate how hospitals or drug supplies are managed. The lesson of Covid-19, supposedly, is that Leviathan’s nation-state knows best.

Yet the uneven death toll as it now stands suggests Leviathan isn’t always well-equipped against epidemics. Countries that reacted early relative to their Covid-19 outbreaks — Austria, Denmark, Greece — appear to be doing better than those that reacted relatively late, such as Italy or Spain. A thrifty yet decentralized country like Germany, combining high intensive-care capacity with specialist industrial health-care firms, seems to be coping better than France’s well-funded but centralized system

that’s ferrying patients by high-speed train to less-hit regions in order to ease the burden. Some countries have better access to masks and tests than others.

There are complex factors that seem to make one country more Covid-resistant than another. They go beyond a North-South divide, or health-care spending as a percentage of GDP. Some factors, like population density, can’t be helped. But the EU should have been ideally equipped to fight a lot of these disparities. Properly funded information-sharing and coordinated disease surveillance between countries would have made swift responses possible. A pooling of medical supplies would have better allocated existing resources for things like test kits, masks and ventilators, while combined purchasing power could have bought more for less.

It’s not just about hindsight, but foresight: The EU should also be a contender in the all-important global race for a vaccine, given it could pool national budgets to fund at least $30 billion in estimated research and manufacturing costs to get there. (It’s also home to several drugmakers already working toward that goal, such as France’s Sanofi or Germany’s CureVac AG). The bloc’s resources are often tied

up in red tape and bureaucratic silos, though, as the furious departure letter by top EU science official Mauro Ferrari indicated last week. His reported push to redirect 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) of annual “bottom-up” longterm research funding toward Covid-19 understandably ruffled feathers and resulted in a unanimous request for his resignation from the European Research Council, but it’s clear that redirecting the flow of money in a crisis isn’t the EU’s strong point.

“More Europe” is an understandably hard sell right now, and few member states will be in a rush to transfer more powers to Brussels. But existing tools can and should be beefed up. Nine EU countries including France, Italy and Spain explicitly called last month for the Commission to do more on establishing common guidelines and the sharing of data and information. They could start with the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which has a paltry budget of around 60 million euros, a long way off the US equivalent’s budget of $11 billion. Medical equipment and testing capacity should be funded across the bloc as lockdowns start to be lifted. That may well require a lift to the EU’s budget.

operational issues, such as paper filing and notifying next of kin, determine when a death actually gets registered. This might help explain why the most deaths tend to get reported on Tuesdays. So don’t get too excited about good news on a weekend — you might be disappointed by the beginning of the week.

7. Deaths outside hospitals aren’t being reported. When people die at home or in nursing facilities, veteran homes, or prisons, they’re not always counted. This is a biggie: When France started reporting fatalities in nursing homes, their death count increased by 40 percent. Belgium reports nursing home deaths pretty well, and they’re finding 40 percent of deaths occur there.

8. The policy for attributing deaths isn’t consistent. Once somebody is gone, why waste a valuable test? So doctors might not mention Covid-19 as a contributing cause. It’s a judgment call,

especially when someone was sick already. This might have a very large effect on the data in certain environments like rehab facilities and nursing homes.

9. Officials may have incentives to hide coronavirus cases. China, Indonesia and Iran have all come under scrutiny for their statistics. “Juking the stats” is not unknown in other contexts in the US, either. So don’t assume that officials are above outright manipulation.

10. What happens in one place, or on average, might not be applicable everywhere. Some small studies suggest that the Covid-19 mortality rate is about 1 percent of the infected population. But that doesn’t mean it will be the same in the US, or in New York City. Specific areas could see much worse death rates, simply because their health care systems are not as comprehensive or their populations have more chronic diseases. The US has plenty

of polluted areas that seem to make people more vulnerable to infection and sicker once they get sick.

As we’ve seen in recent days, such disparities are disproportionately affecting people of color.

Appealing as it may be to keep count, the true numbers might not be knowable until much later. Testing needs to be done systematically, even on asymptomatic people. For deaths, precise numbers might never emerge. It’s possible to estimate using the number of unexpected deaths compared to a year earlier.

But even that’s not ideal, because lockdowns might suppress other kinds of deaths—traffic accidents, for example—by forcing people to stay at home.

Don’t get me wrong: Watching the official data is not a complete waste of time and attention. The numbers can give some sense of what’s happening—as long as we recognize their flaws.

A8 Wednesday, April 15, 2020

₧350-B loans eyed for business to keep workers amid pandemic T

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

@joveemarie

HE House Economic Stimulus Response Package Cluster on Tuesday proposed measures to flatten the recession curve and restore the country’s growth as the Philippines is expected to lose P1.08 trillion due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The cochairman of the House Economic Stimulus Response Package Cluster, Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, proposed structural adjustment plans, which include a Negative Interest Loans (NIL) plan, a P350-billion loan package to provide loans at negative interest in exchange for worker retention.

Under the proposal, the maximum loanable amount shall be 50 percent of the company’s direct labor costs and the loan shall be payable for three to five years, with the corresponding interest rates as follows: three years, -9 percent, four years, -7 percent, and five years at -5 percent.

“The negative interest rate benefit will be reduced by 3 percent if the company violates the worker

retention condition, 6 percent if those terminated comprise 1 percent to 5 percent of the firm workforce, 9 percent if at more than 5 percent to 10 percent of work force, and 12 percent if more than 10 percent of work force is terminated,” said Salceda, also the House Ways and Means Committee chairman.

“To ensure that eligible micro, small, and medium enterprises [MSMEs] will have access to negative interest loans, LandBank and DBP shall open an SME Safeguard Facility dedicated exclusively to these enterprises,” he added.

Salceda said the economic cluster also proposes a Credit Refinancing and Mediation Service (CRMS) to ensure that MSMEs can fulfill

obligations under more favorable terms of credit.

With CRMS, he said the Small Business Corp. can provide an MSME Credit Mediation and Restructuring Service to help it negotiate more favorable credit terms with banks, lending institutions and financial intermediaries; provide technical advice and assistance with credit mediation; and offer loan guarantees and direct loans with favorable terms for refinancing the obligations of MSMEs. Salceda also included in the structural measures the creation of a National Emergency Investment Corp. (NEIC), similar to the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM Corp.) and the Central Bank-Board of Liquidators (CB-BOL) to act as a consolidator of private-sector debts, to service these debts in exchange for equity, and yield returns for the government.

“The NEIC will minimize permanent damage to the economy by bailing out firms who would go bankrupt because of current Covid-19-driven difficulties, but which would otherwise be profitable under different conditions,” Salceda said.

The NEIC will have these functions: ■ Consolidate troubled businesses and decide simultaneously how these would be resolved in a common procedure; ■ Offer loans in exchange for equity of the same value in corporations that would otherwise have continued operations but are at risk of bankruptcy due to the impact of Covid-19; ■ Assume, in exchange for equity of the same value, the financial obligations of corporations that would otherwise have continued operations but are at risk of bankruptcy from the pandemic’s impact; ■ Evaluate the performance and ensure good corporate governance in the corporations it is invested in; ■ Perform due diligence activities inherent in its nature as a capital allocation firm of the government; and ■ Perform such other functions as may be inherent or necessary to dispense of its role as a capital allocation firm from which reasonable returns are expected.

As Salceda’s proposals are loanbased, most of them are recoverable, and the net f wiscal cost will only be around 30 billion (for the negative interest benefit).

“This is the fiscally sustainable way to go,” said the House’s tax chairman. “In fact, we may also get revenue because of NEIC.”

Stimulus package NORTHEASTERLY SURFACE WINDFLOW AFFECTING NORTHERN AND CENTRAL LUZON TAIL-END OF A COLD FRONT AFFECTING EASTERN SECTION OF SOUTHERN LUZON as of 4:00 am - April 14, 2020

Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo estimated the potential loss of the Philippines in GDP due to Covid-19 is P1.08 trillion.

“Going from target 6+ percent growth to close to zero-percent growth—the loss is P1.08 trillion.

So if the government spends P1 on infrastructure, this P1 will spur activity in related sectors like construction materials and trucking.

So, in the end, the P1 spending of government will result in a P1.53 increase in GDP,” said Quimbo.

“With a multiplier of 1.53, dividing 1.1 trillion by 1.53 yields a

required spending of about P700 billion,” she added.

Quimbo, an economist, said the government is already set to spend P330 billion for the implementation of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act. “[Of the P700 billion], P370 billion is [the] amount for fiscal stimulus package geared [toward]labor retention via business continuity,” she said.

Quimbo said her recently filed bill provides for subsidies, grants, loans, and other forms of aid to businesses totaling P370 billion, broken down as: ■ P110 billion for private businesses whose operations were temporarily disrupted during the ECQ but continued to shoulder payroll costs; ■ P1 billion for employees who contracted Covid-19, to ensure that sick leaves are fully paid; ■ P100 billion for government financial institutions so they can increase their ability to assist the private sector in managing their loans; ■ P50 billion for the estimated 1 million MSME establishments; ■ P43 billion for all sectors constituting the tourism industry; and ■ P66 billion for exporters or importers, particularly, in manufacturing.

For her part, House Committee on Economic Affairs chief Sharon Garin said over 1 million businesses need government help so they can help 30 million families.

“Business ow ners, waiters, managers, janitors, drivers, accountants, lawyers and all Filipino employees whether white or blue collar, in Metro Manila or in the provinces, salaried or daily-wage earners, need government intervention in order to help them out of this predicament. During ECQ we need to safeguard Filipino lives, but after ECQ we need to safeguard their livelihood,” she said.

Garin said there are 30 million daily-wage or informal workers—the most vulnerable should economic activity slow down postECQ.

Financial stocks up 3.79% on rate cut talk

By Tyrone C. Piad @Tyronepiad

T

HE financial stocks were among the biggest winners on Tuesday as investors anticipate another interest rate cut from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) ahead of the monetary policy meeting.

The financials counter settled in the green, surging by 3.79 percent or 44.05 points to close at 1,206.04.

Industrial and services sectors both increased by more than 4 percent. Mining and oil rose by 3.69 percent; holding firms hiked 2.37 percent; and property climbed 2.13 percent.

RCBC chief economist said the gains may be attributed to “recent signals from BSP Governor [Benjamin] Diokno about a possible further cut in local policy rates to even below 3 percent with any cut could happen even before the...monetary policy-setting meeting.”

Diokno earlier said interest rates had to be further reduced to cushion the ill effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic on the local economy.

The Monetary Board has trimmed BSP’s overnight reverse repurchase facility by a total of 75 basis points (bp) year-to-date to 3.25 percent, bringing the lending and deposit rates to 3.75 percent and 2.75 percent, respectively.

A monetary policy meeting is set on May 2.

BDO Unibank Inc., Metropolitan Bank &Trust Co. (Metrobank), Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and Security Bank Corp. were among the most actively traded shares with turnover value of P576.59 million, P308.59 million, P173.36 million and P170.91 million, respectively.

Philippine National Bank booked the highest gains at 8.81 percent, followed

by BPI at 5.17 percent.

BDO rose 4.06 percent; East West Banking Corp., 1.71 percent; Metrobank, 5 percent; Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., 1.16 percent; Union Bank of the Philippines, 3.36 percent.

Security Bank slid 0.88 percent while China Banking Corp. ended flat.

Meanwhile, the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index jumped by 3.03 percent or 169.90 points to finish at 5,780.88 while the wider All Shares added 2.61 percent or 88.32 points to end at 3,468.95 on Tuesday.

“We saw strong buying across the board for most of the day allowing it to close at its high. The lack of selling encouraged buyers to come in at current prices,” AAA Equities Head of Research Christopher Mangun said.

Covid-19 spread in Metro Manila outskirts may be next ‘time bomb’

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

@caiordinario

HE spread of coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) cases in the Greater Manila Area (GMA) could be the next “time bomb” in the country’s fight against the pandemic, according to a policy paper released by the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU).

In the paper titled “Covid-19 and Greater Manila’s health system: The Next Frontline?” AdMU Department of Economics Lecturer Jericho Cruz said the GMA area does not have enough capacity to treat Covid-19 patients.

Cruz said as many as eight hospitals in Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, and Rizal have already reported full bed capacity as early as the start of April. This, he said, will significantly affect the area’s ability to treat patients, moving forward.

“Metro Manila’s outskirts could be the next time bomb in the country’s fight against coronavirus: hyper-urbanized, at NCR’s doorstep and thus extremely vulnerable to contagion—yet lacking the systems needed to confront the outbreak,”

Cruz said.

Cruz cited estimates done by AdMU PhD graduate Ricardo Dizon that more than 4,500 new episodes of Covid-19 could require hospitalization at the curve’s apex in early May. This includes 750 new patients who need to be placed in intensive care units (ICUs).

He said that while Dizon’s estimate does not include the GMA area, it would be safe to say that given its proximity to Metro Manila, population density in these provinces, and level of development, it is likely that the Covid-19 cases in the GMA area could be on the same path as the National Capital Region (NCR).

Cruz said, however, only 415 ICU beds in the GMA area and around 672 mechanical ventilators are available for coronavirus patients across the country, based on latest Department of Health (DOH) estimates.

“Hospitals’ capacity for severe cases is extremely limited—especially in Greater Manila provinces.

Despite the fragmented state of the Philippines health information systems, what the available data suggests gives cause for concern about

the Greater Manila health system’s ability to accommodate critical coronavirus cases,” Cruz said.

In order to address this, Cruz recommended more conversion of nonmedical facilities into temporary ICUs or Covid Cabanas similar to those built in the United States.

The government could also expand the supply of mechanical ventilators, including low-cost, locally produced alternatives such as ReliefVent, created at the University of the Philippines Manila, he said.

Cruz also recommended the implementation of random testing in the GMA area. The government can take advantage of the recent increase in the availability of local testing kits.

Through random testing and localized mass testing, Cruz said the government can identify specific areas where Covid-19 cases are increasing and allow it to respond accordingly. Cruz also recommended that the manufacture of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators be included in the country’s industrial development strategy moving forward.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Companies BusinessMirror

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

B1

Telcos told to present business continuity plan

T

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

@lorenzmarasigan

he National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has required all public telecommunication entities and Internet service providers to submit their business continuity plan that will ensure unhampered delivery of critical services especially since the Philippines is in a tough battle against a pandemic.

In a statement, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said its attached agency issued the order to “boost efforts at maintaining the operation of vital ICT services and supporting infostructure as the administration extends the enhanced community quarantine until the end of April 2020 to manage the Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] threat."

The business continuity plans should detail measures taken to ensure uninterrupted service and to address the increased demand for ICT services. These should be submitted to the NTC on or before April 17.

Telco services, under Republic Act 11469, otherwise known as the

“Bayanihan to Heal as One Act,” are considered critical services for the duration of the enhanced community quarantine.

The ICT department underscored the “key role” that the telco industry plays today, as people are turning to the Internet to continue productivity. Since the start of the lockdown, companies have been implementing work-from-home arrangements, and people are consuming more data from their homes.

As a result, local telcos have seen “spikes” in terms of data consumption in their networks, while some entertainment and productivity apps have noted huge surges—some as a high as 300 percent—in terms of us-

Bloomberry to broaden investment portfolio

By VG Cabuag @villygc

E

nrique R a z on J r .’ s Bloomberry Resorts Corp. on Tuesday said it is broadening its investment portfolio beyond the operation of huge gambling sites, such as Solaire integrated resort and casino in Entertainment City in Parañaque and in South Korea.

In its disclosure, Bloomberry said its plan to broaden its future investments is in view of “enhancing shareholder value.”

More firms donate funds for Project Ugnayan

P

ort operator International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI), owned by billionaire Enrique Razon Jr., said it gave P100 million to the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF), as part of the business community-led Project Ugnayan.

“Aside from being a health crisis, the pandemic is causing a toll on the economic and social condition of most everyone. Through our individual and collaborative efforts, we hope to somehow alleviate the plight of our countrymen,” said Razon, ICTSI chairman and president.

ICTSI and its foundation also donated sacks of rice and thermal scanners to the immediate communities of the Manila International Container Terminal.

ICTSI Foundation has provided financial assistance to project partners including ecopatrols and day-care workers within the same communities. Foundation scholars continue to receive financial aid despite the closure of schools. The ICTSI Foundation also reached out to two other needy sectors, the elderly and the indigenous people. Around P1 million donation was given to the Coalition of Services for the Elderly Inc. (COSE) to augment the meager supplies of more than 10,000 senior citizens in Metro Manila.

Another P1 million was given to Project Liwanag to assist 2,000 Aeta families in the mountains of Capas, Tarlac.

To enable the unimpeded flow of cargo, ICTSI terminals in the Philippines and around the world remain fully operational. Each terminal has been given the funds to implement and comply with stringent safety and precautionary protocols for their respective employees and stakeholders.

ICTSI said it continues to provide salaries and benefits to employees who report onsite to run the terminal and those who work from home.

Meanwhile, the SM Group also contributed P100 million to the Project Ugnayan. This is on top of its donation of P170 million worth of medical supplies to over 50 hospitals in the country. Project Ugnayan aims to bring muchneeded support to over 1.5 million families or about 7.6 million persons affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. VG Cabuag

“Bloomberry’s future investments will be considered within a broader universe of possible opportunities which include gaming, hospitality, and other non-gaming assets. The company will consider various opportunities in light of their potential to create additional value for shareholders,” it said.

“At this time, the company does not have any particular investments or acquisitions that are under imminent consideration and therefore will not make any investment-related announcements in the near-term,” it added.

Aside from Solaire in Entertainment City, the company is constructing Solaire North which will be its second Integrated Resort in the Philippines. Solaire North is located in the densely-populated area in Quezon City.

In its flagship property, Solaire Resort and Casino, the gaming floor has been closed since March 16 per the government's instruction and in compliance with the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.

Meanwhile, Bloomberry and its foundation will donate around P500 million for the relief efforts to help

the government combat the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019.

It will donate some P200 million worth of personal protective equipment (PPE), P230 million worth of testing kits, P10 million worth of PCR machines used in laboratories, P30 million worth of ventilators, P35 million to retrofit Philippine General Hospital and Rizal Memorial Coliseum to become Covid-19 centers and also some P100 million in relief packs.

Most of the PPEs and testing kits are still on the way, but between 30 to 40 percent has arrived so far, it said.

LT Group continues aid to fight Covid-19

L

T Group, Inc., the holding firm of taipan Lucio C. Tan, continues to respond to the nationwide efforts to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

The conglomerate’s collective efforts cover different facets of the Covid-19 battle—from providing supplies to medical health workers, to beefing up hospitals, to providing food and water for military personnel who man the different borders.

It h a s don ate d a tot a l of 472,064 liters of ethyl alcohol under a disaster-relief program called “Help Flows.” This includes 20,000 liters it delivered to the Department of Health—for distribution to various government medical facilities.

To strengthen the capacity of hospitals to respond to Covid-19, the Group donated 40 ventilators, five PCR (polymerase chain reaction) machines, two ambulances and one x-ray machine to different public hospitals all over the country.

It also provided 59,583 pieces of personal protective equipment, 101 thermal thermometers and four thermal scanners.

The Group also partnered with local Filipino fast-food chain Binalot to cater meals and provide comfort and sustenance to the doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers struggling to keep all of us safe and well amidst this pandemic.

For the militar y personnel manning the different borders during this time of the Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine and to other frontliners, the Group provided 135,860 liters of beverages including water, 157,197 meal packs, snacks and coffee.

The Group also donated 47,601 pieces of canned goods.

All of these support and donations are vital to reduce the infection risk of the country's frontline health-care workers and

age. With the increased demand for connectivity, telcos have provided some forms of relief for people to cope with the effects of the Covid-19 outbreak. They have provided payment deferments and increased data allocations for their customers since the start of the lockdown period.

The role of telcos during this crisis was highlighted recently in the United Nations. To recall, the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development adopted an agenda that outlines key policies and strategies to promote “faster and better recovery” through the Internet.

The Broadband Commission has

identified the “three pillars of resilient connectivity, affordable access, and safe use of online services for informed and educated societies, to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and ease the immediate adverse impacts for economies and societies.”

DICT Undersecretary Eliseo M. Rio Jr. has said the government and the private sector are now working toward several projects to support the global Internet agenda.

Local telcos, for their part, said they are following the guidelines set by the Broadband Commission, especially since there is a huge demand for Internet connectivity during these trying times.

Pass-through govt cash aid boosts RCBC mobile ATM disbursement in Q1

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad @TyronePiad

R

izal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) said its mobile automated teller machine (ATM) service disbursed more than P1 billion in the first quarter, showing a 170-percent growth from the same period a year ago.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Yuchengco-led bank said its mobile ATM registered more transactions for the period due to conditional cash transfer payouts for government beneficiaries under the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino” program and distribution of social amelioration emergency cash subsidy.

Nearly 400,000 household-beneficiaries were given service by the said digital facility. Going by RCBC’s figures, the average withdrawal per household-beneficiary would have been P834 a month.

ATM Go allows BancNet cardholders to make basic banking transactions like withdrawals, inquiry and fund transfers through any partner rural bank, drug stores, microfinance firms and even sari-sari stores.

“We believe that in crises such as this, the Filipinos’ resiliency to challenges will once again be tested,” said RCBC Executive Vice President Angelito M. Villanueva. “Everyone is united to bring about the best in each of us, including delivering the digital banking service each one deserves through collaboration.”

The payouts of the cash assistance are being simultaneously held in over 70 provinces via over 1,250 mobile ATM Terminals, RCBC said.

Among these are Masbate, Palawan, Tacloban, Marinduque, Bulacan, Isabela, Tarlac, Pampanga, Laguna, Leyte, Northern Samar. Sultan Kudarat, Zamboanga del Norte, Sorsogon, Bukidnon, Camarines Sur, Lanao del Norte, Negros Occidental, Bataan, South Cotabato, Davao Oriental, Cebu, Agusan del Norte, North Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay.

Meanwhile, additional 2,000 point-of-sale devices will be used by members of the Rural Bank Association of the Philippines and National Confederation of Cooperatives, Bayad Center and a confederation of cooperatives in Mindanao in relation to the government’s P200-billion social amelioration program.

RCBC, last week, listed its P7.05billion fixed rate bonds on the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp.

Each bond has a tenor of two years and carries a coupon rate of 4.848 percent per annum.

The listed bank said proceeds of the offering are allocated to finance asset growth, maturing obligations and other general corporate matters.

RCBC shares rose 20 centavos or 1.16 percent to finish at P17.50 apiece amid the 3.03-percent spike for the main index.

San Miguel builds quarantine facility for military personnel

S

uniformed police and military personnel implementing the enhanced community quarantine measures.

LT Group President Michael G. Tan said the company would continuously pool resources to further assist government in the Covid-19 crisis and ensure that the different facets of the war are fully covered and constantly supported.

“Help Flows” is supported by LT Group member firms Asia Brewery, Inc. Eton Properties Philippines, Inc. PMFTC Inc.'s Embrace CSR program, Tanduay Distillers Inc., Philippine Na-

tional Bank and sister company Philippine Airlines.

The Group is among the first to respond to the Covid-19 crisis.

Through the combined team from Asia Brewery Inc. and Tanduay Distillers, it was able to conceptualize and produce the initial batch of ethyl alcohol in just four days, early on during the quarantine.

A s early as Febr uar y, the Group has also been proactively coordinating with authorities to provide emergency support and to assist in providing critical medical and health supplies in its preparation and battle against Covid-19.

an Miguel Corp. on Tuesday said it is building 10 emergency quarantine facilities near military hospitals to house the personnel who have tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) but have mild or no symptoms.

The company said the move is also aimed at easing pressure on health facilities flooded by patients needing intensive medical treatment.

“We are thankful to the Armed Forces of the Philippines for giving us the opportunity to collaborate with them on this initiative. This is one way we can help our hospitals efficiently attend to Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms as well those suffering from other lifethreatening conditions,” said company President and COO Ramon S. Ang. Ang said the company is looking for more areas where prototype hospital facilities can be built as existing emergency rooms of hospitals brace for a surge of patients.

“We are one with the country in finding ways to accommodate more patients as hospitals reach their full capacity.

These emergency Covid facilities we are helping build will serve not just our military frontliners but also other PUIs [patients under investigation] in surrounding communities,” he said.

The 10 facilities will have 15 beds each and will be located beside the following military health facilities: Joint Task Force NCR in its general headquarters, NOLCOM Hospital in Tarlac, SOLCOM Hospital in Lucena City, Eastmincom Hospital in Davao City, CENTCOM Hospital in Cebu City, Westmincom Hospital in Zamboanga City, Veterans Memorial Center, CJVAB Hospital in Pasay City, Naval Air Group in Cavite City and WESCOM Hospital in Palawan. On top of this, San Miguel has also earmarked P500 million to purchase personal equipment and augment supply for medical health workers. Initially, the company has committed to buy the first 10,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) from a local manufacturer through efforts initiated by the Department of Trade and Industry.

The company said it is also expecting delivery of more PPEs from its suppliers in the coming days. VG Cabuag

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Companies BusinessMirror

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

April 14, 2020

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

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

47.8 102 60.7 19.9 7.75 38.85 8.5 16.02 22.85 42.05 100 17.5 101.1 55 0.6 15.28 0.36 0.92 0.28 0.62 162.1 1620

48 102.5 61 19.92 7.81 39 8.65 18 22.9 43 103 17.76 104.2 55.65 0.69 15.3 0.57 0.97 0.29 0.68 169 1725

47.8 100 58.7 19.9 7.92 37.5 8.65 16.02 21.1 43 102.9 17.7 103 53.7 0.6 16.02 0.57 0.95 0.3 0.63 170 1650

48 102.5 61 20 7.92 39.15 8.65 16.02 23.3 43 102.9 17.98 107 56.75 0.6 16.02 0.57 0.95 0.3 0.66 170 1650

47.7 97.85 58.45 19.8 7.64 37.25 8.65 16 21.1 42.95 102.9 17.5 101.1 53.7 0.6 15.22 0.57 0.95 0.28 0.61 160 1650

48 102.5 61 19.9 7.75 38.85 8.65 16 22.85 43 102.9 17.5 101.1 55.65 0.6 15.3 0.57 0.95 0.28 0.61 162.1 1650

6200 5707600 2879820 358800 838500 7986700 24100 5000 699400 1600 80 20100 1641050 4010 10000 39600 2000 10000 460000 20000 1320 10

296560 576585845 173361807.5 7,120,836( 6491477 308591515 208465 80020 15838310 68780 8232 354966 170909590 219103.5 6000 609510 1140 9500 129300 12550 213995 16500

291760 -118381846.5 -36597416.5 1,901,713.9997) -5289731 -124447650 -3335615 -5155397 -305580 8109.9999 -

INDUSTRIAL AC ENERGY 2.09 2.11 2.02 2.12 1.98 2.09 42012000 85951620 0.95 0.97 0.94 0.98 0.93 0.97 138000 132370 ALSONS CONS 27.7 27.75 28 28.05 27.5 27.7 1923300 53299410 ABOITIZ POWER BASIC ENERGY 0.167 0.187 0.166 0.189 0.166 0.188 1180000 201970 18.46 18.5 17.9 18.5 17.6 18.5 1275100 23425252 FIRST GEN 53.1 53.45 52.5 53.55 52.2 53.1 11580 612881.5 FIRST PHIL HLDG 268 270 267 277 260.8 268 361770 97698324 MERALCO 11.6 11.64 10.88 11.7 10.88 11.6 6196600 71243582 MANILA WATER PETRON 3 3.03 2.86 3.1 2.86 3 5710000 17206370 PETROENERGY 2.41 2.5 2.4 2.5 2.4 2.5 36000 89620 10.3 10.4 10.18 10.4 9.55 10.4 44600 458453 PHX PETROLEUM 18.26 18.34 18.08 18.54 18.04 18.26 1339300 24574968 PILIPINAS SHELL SPC POWER 8.03 8.05 7.95 8.05 7.95 8.05 87500 701689 13.16 15.08 13.1 15.08 13.1 15.08 300 4130 VIVANT 6.85 6.86 6.93 6.99 6.8 6.86 515100 3550840 AGRINURTURE 2.5 2.51 2.51 2.57 2.5 2.5 1189000 3008220 AXELUM 73.75 85 84.95 84.95 84.95 84.95 200 16990 BOGO MEDELLIN CNTRL AZUCARERA 12.62 13.2 13.2 13.2 13.2 13.2 600 7920 14.54 14.6 14.2 14.78 14.2 14.6 180600 2637648 CENTURY FOOD 3.64 3.65 3.8 3.8 3.5 3.65 46000 164550 DEL MONTE 5.88 5.94 5.6 6.23 5.6 5.88 3025000 18113503 DNL INDUS 7.96 7.97 7.98 7.98 7.9 7.97 5649600 45079026 EMPERADOR SMC FOODANDBEV 57.1 57.6 55.5 58.2 55.5 57.1 338420 19391177 ALLIANCE SELECT 0.53 0.54 0.51 0.55 0.51 0.53 1415000 748730 1.41 1.42 1.4 1.42 1.4 1.41 10119000 14279600 FRUITAS HLDG 32 32.1 31.05 32 31.05 32 20400 651990 GINEBRA JOLLIBEE 146.5 147.1 139.9 148 139.8 146.5 3519200 512847946 LIBERTY FLOUR 36.05 42 35 35 35 35 100 3500 5.5 6.18 5.75 5.75 5.32 5.5 2300 12340 MACAY HLDG 6.25 6.3 5.49 6.4 5.33 6.25 7866500 47074140 MAXS GROUP 1.8 1.81 1.8 1.8 1.76 1.8 407000 731760 PEPSI COLA SHAKEYS PIZZA 5.58 5.65 5.46 5.79 5.4 5.58 11906000 66871283 ROXAS AND CO 1.43 1.46 1.39 1.49 1.37 1.46 2060000 2989500 4.45 4.51 4.5 4.54 4.4 4.51 38000 168840 RFM CORP 1.08 1.5 1.49 1.55 1.49 1.5 24000 37040 ROXAS HLDG 0.105 0.109 0.109 0.109 0.103 0.109 290000 31210 SWIFT FOODS UNIV ROBINA 132 132.1 126 132 125.8 132 907100 117866768 VITARICH 0.8 0.81 0.8 0.81 0.78 0.81 6796000 5441780 2.35 2.5 2.65 2.65 2.33 2.35 45000 106620 VICTORIAS 48.15 59 50 52 50 50 2000 100400 CONCRETE A 1.12 1.13 1.06 1.14 1.06 1.13 8598000 9472500 CEMEX HLDG DAVINCI CAPITAL 2.8 4 4 4 4 4 4000 16000 7.7 7.8 7.6 7.8 7.45 7.7 75100 578142 EAGLE CEMENT 5.54 5.55 5.4 5.63 5.4 5.55 1537200 8535729 EEI CORP 11.76 12 12.18 12.2 11.7 12 595300 7117500 HOLCIM MEGAWIDE 7.3 7.45 6.81 7.51 6.81 7.3 2318600 16748281 PHINMA 8.26 8.95 8.7 8.95 8.7 8.95 2100 18670 TKC METALS 0.69 0.72 0.67 0.73 0.66 0.69 140000 94120 0.65 0.67 0.6 0.72 0.6 0.67 2191000 1462830 VULCAN INDL 1.85 1.89 1.9 1.9 1.83 1.89 28000 51730 CROWN ASIA EUROMED 2.29 2.3 2.18 2.33 2.15 2.29 5533000 12417690 LMG CHEMICALS 4.6 4.89 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 8000 36800 3.13 3.31 3.12 3.31 3.12 3.31 4000 12670 MABUHAY VINYL 4.4 4.6 4.77 4.77 4.6 4.6 3000 14070 PRYCE CORP 25.15 28.5 28.85 28.85 28.5 28.5 1300 37260 CONCEPCION GREENERGY 0.93 0.94 0.8 0.94 0.8 0.94 4193000 3633320 INTEGRATED MICR 4.6 4.65 4.6 4.69 4.55 4.6 268000 1233920 0.96 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.95 0.99 378000 368110 IONICS 0.91 0.92 0.82 0.92 0.82 0.91 1005000 902590 SFA SEMICON CIRTEK HLDG 6.08 6.09 5.87 6.09 5.81 6.08 975900 5861313

864099.9998 7440 4533980 4411075.9997 -85425 8927656 -37186092 -1443470 -4026416 -373181 163070 124812 542905 -43888404 4912777 -53000 662729.9997 51534352 -12198091 656260 -37392571 56850 19155952 133880 -379210 -46757 -299907 -3847558 4635284 894.9999 166260 -249700 469200 79690 142442

HOLDING & FRIMS ABACORE CAPITAL 0.58 0.59 0.53 0.6 0.53 0.59 18656000 10552180 6.78 6.79 5.98 7 5.65 6.78 57000 362823 ASIABEST GROUP 550 552 521.5 550 513.5 550 915550 486632205 AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY 44.1 44.9 43 44.9 42.85 44.9 941800 41328530 ALLIANCE GLOBAL 6.98 7.01 6.94 7.05 6.82 6.98 3668400 25587243 1.52 1.53 1.57 1.57 1.52 1.52 3510000 5397470 AYALA LAND LOG 6.1 6.19 6.1 6.1 6 6.1 15000 90750 ANSCOR 0.53 0.54 0.54 0.55 0.52 0.54 297000 158620 ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A 0.45 0.455 0.44 0.45 0.43 0.45 2340000 1028100 5 5.1 4.9 5.3 4.9 5 4036000 20405360 COSCO CAPITAL 4.24 4.29 4.18 4.35 4.18 4.29 7324000 31372800 DMCI HLDG 8.2 8.9 9 9 8.4 8.9 16000 137546 FILINVEST DEV FJ PRINCE A 2.92 3.89 4 4 3.89 3.89 5000 19790 430 435 405.2 438.8 405.2 430 274670 117530206 GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV 3.8 3.9 3.61 3.9 3.61 3.82 154000 588290 54.95 55 54.65 55.9 53.5 55 2530130 139020512 JG SUMMIT 4.51 6.29 6.29 6.29 6.29 6.29 100 629 JOLLIVILLE HLDG LODESTAR 0.465 0.485 0.455 0.52 0.455 0.465 70000 33850 2.85 2.88 2.83 2.87 2.81 2.85 1188000 3368300 LOPEZ HLDG 7.55 7.61 7.4 7.61 7.36 7.55 7205300 54031928 LT GROUP 0.455 0.49 0.46 0.49 0.455 0.49 80000 37000 MABUHAY HLDG 2.6 2.61 2.52 2.63 2.52 2.61 72361000 187629980 METRO PAC INV PRIME MEDIA 0.75 0.77 0.72 0.79 0.72 0.77 35000 25880 0.9 0.94 0.9 0.94 0.9 0.94 11000 10220 SOLID GROUP 170 175.5 161 170 161 170 5310 879880 SYNERGY GRID 862 868 877.5 884 851.5 868 253750 220512810 SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP 95 97 96 100 94.9 95 1015430 97580385.5 SOC RESOURCES 0.63 0.67 0.68 0.69 0.63 0.68 71000 47400 148.8 150.3 149.5 150.3 147.7 150.3 8380 1248205 TOP FRONTIER 0.18 0.206 0.2 0.206 0.2 0.206 350000 70060 WELLEX INDUS 0.126 0.132 0.125 0.133 0.123 0.126 690000 86600 ZEUS HLDG

27660 60503220 -24132395 -9052329 60250 -3651780 -5101540 890 5361860 -488800 -51986589 -2647320 2654825 -31318910 -62256625 22987561 -898636 8610

PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.56 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.55 0.56 1406000 784320 9 9.2 9.2 9.2 8 9 2100 17940 ANCHOR LAND 33.3 33.75 33.55 33.75 32.7 33.75 12660700 423334595 AYALA LAND ARANETA PROP 1.1 1.11 1.1 1.13 1.05 1.1 69000 76120 BELLE CORP 1.39 1.4 1.37 1.41 1.37 1.41 110000 151770 0.56 0.58 0.54 0.6 0.54 0.58 2921000 1690550 A BROWN 0.71 0.73 0.74 0.74 0.73 0.73 14000 10230 CITYLAND DEVT 0.121 0.13 0.12 0.132 0.12 0.13 150000 19120 CROWN EQUITIES CEBU HLDG 6.02 6.04 6.04 6.04 6.04 6.04 9700 58588 CEB LANDMASTERS 3.74 3.79 3.8 3.8 3.71 3.79 590000 2216080 0.375 0.38 0.365 0.38 0.365 0.375 7230000 2731050 CENTURY PROP 0.27 0.28 0.27 0.27 0.27 0.27 200000 54000 CYBER BAY DOUBLEDRAGON 16.08 16.16 16 16.16 15.96 16.08 230800 3709390 DM WENCESLAO 7 7.24 7 7.3 7 7.24 75600 538708 EMPIRE EAST 0.285 0.31 0.31 0.31 0.31 0.31 60000 18600 0.95 0.96 0.91 0.97 0.91 0.95 22607000 21442370 FILINVEST LAND 0.84 0.87 0.82 0.87 0.82 0.84 1332000 1120860 GLOBAL ESTATE 8990 HLDG 11.58 11.6 11.6 11.66 11.54 11.6 85500 990876 PHIL INFRADEV 0.79 0.8 0.76 0.79 0.72 0.79 1703000 1323980 0.67 0.74 0.74 0.74 0.74 0.74 1000 740 CITY AND LAND 2.86 2.89 2.8 2.89 2.78 2.89 39312000 112161060 MEGAWORLD 0.142 0.144 0.147 0.147 0.141 0.142 3870000 554920 MRC ALLIED PHIL ESTATES 0.325 0.37 0.315 0.32 0.315 0.32 280000 89300 1.62 1.75 1.74 1.75 1.74 1.75 20000 34900 PRIMEX CORP 14.92 14.94 13.86 15 13.84 14.92 3198200 46412144 ROBINSONS LAND 0.25 0.26 0.245 0.26 0.232 0.26 320000 79840 PHIL REALTY ROCKWELL 1.54 1.57 1.53 1.54 1.52 1.54 17000 25990 2.65 2.67 2.74 2.74 2.67 2.67 144000 385850 SHANG PROP STA LUCIA LAND 1.9 1.93 1.94 1.95 1.89 1.93 81000 155210 30.5 30.9 30.1 30.9 29.65 30.9 7110900 216878950 SM PRIME HLDG 3.45 3.56 3.5 3.5 3.45 3.5 87000 304250 VISTAMALLS SUNTRUST HOME 1.16 1.17 1.17 1.27 1.16 1.17 2100000 2501010 4.04 4.12 3.95 4.13 3.95 4.04 2536000 10275920 VISTA LAND

17360 -43902120 11200 38400 35780 730 46508 1122200 1287488 95019 -2297270 608860 780 740 -29268260 -3500 -7999122 4900 133960 -7600 -26077845 -4017450

SERVICES ABS CBN 17.56 17.6 17.12 18.12 17.12 17.6 319100 5667248 4.99 5 4.99 5.1 4.98 5 338000 1689930 GMA NETWORK 0.36 0.375 0.375 0.375 0.35 0.36 790000 281150 MANILA BULLETIN GLOBE TELECOM 2220 2230 2220 2258 2200 2230 117540 262024360 PLDT 1160 1170 1130 1170 1129 1170 117650 136640010 0.04 0.041 0.038 0.041 0.038 0.041 11100000 448800 APOLLO GLOBAL 2.76 3.25 3.26 3.26 3.26 3.26 1000 3260 DFNN INC 1.97 1.98 1.88 2.01 1.87 1.97 87311000 170199380 DITO CME HLDG ISLAND INFO 0.082 0.087 0.086 0.088 0.082 0.082 2160000 184860 1.7 1.73 1.67 1.78 1.66 1.72 4329000 7441380 NOW CORP 0.17 0.172 0.163 0.17 0.155 0.17 4490000 736890 TRANSPACIFIC BR 2.52 2.53 2.4 2.57 2.4 2.52 6544000 16278520 PHILWEB 2GO GROUP 6.05 6.06 6.14 6.14 6 6.06 55100 334680 ASIAN TERMINALS 16.3 16.98 16.98 16.98 16.98 16.98 500 8490 CHELSEA 2.84 2.85 2.78 2.85 2.75 2.84 1729000 4869850 50.6 50.85 50 51.5 50 50.6 463700 23489290 CEBU AIR 80.9 81.2 75.2 84 75.2 80.9 2157080 174166567.5 INTL CONTAINER LBC EXPRESS 11.02 12.18 12.18 12.18 10.8 10.8 4100 45178 0.7 0.89 0.68 0.68 0.68 0.68 10000 6800 LORENZO SHIPPNG 5.15 5.18 4.55 5.4 4.55 5.18 12395000 63453220 MACROASIA 1.48 1.5 1.46 1.53 1.36 1.48 2175000 3185290 METROALLIANCE A 1.45 1.57 1.57 1.57 1.57 1.57 5000 7850 METROALLIANCE B PAL HLDG 7 7.1 7 7.1 6.9 7 24300 169830 HARBOR STAR 0.78 0.79 0.77 0.78 0.74 0.78 790000 608520 0.028 0.029 0.029 0.03 0.029 0.029 8200000 240100 BOULEVARD HLDG 1.44 1.84 1.84 1.84 1.84 1.84 1000 1840 DISCOVERY WORLD WATERFRONT 0.4 0.425 0.4 0.42 0.4 0.42 100000 41000 6.5 6.74 6.74 6.74 6.74 6.74 200 1348 CENTRO ESCOLAR 589 830 830 830 830 830 30 24900 FAR EASTERN U 0.37 0.375 0.38 0.38 0.365 0.375 16070000 6018050 STI HLDG 2.26 2.35 2.4 2.45 2.25 2.35 129000 300980 BERJAYA BLOOMBERRY 5.97 6 5.84 6.2 5.84 6 8801400 53264746 PACIFIC ONLINE 1.72 1.79 1.75 1.79 1.72 1.72 121000 210950 1.4 1.42 1.39 1.44 1.36 1.42 327000 460540 LEISURE AND RES 1.8 2 2 2 2 2 91000 182000 MANILA JOCKEY 3.25 3.63 3.75 3.75 3.25 3.63 179000 604840 PH RESORTS GRP PREMIUM LEISURE 0.305 0.31 0.3 0.315 0.295 0.31 14740000 4518800 ALLHOME 5.54 5.55 5.05 5.74 5.05 5.54 6587000 35348970 1.52 1.53 1.55 1.56 1.49 1.52 4373000 6662530 METRO RETAIL 46.5 46.95 44.1 46.95 44.1 46.95 6223500 286666890 PUREGOLD 63.95 64 61.5 64.1 59.8 64 327200 20697895.5 ROBINSONS RTL PHIL SEVEN CORP 129.8 130.5 135 135 129.5 130.5 50190 6518580 SSI GROUP 1.39 1.4 1.22 1.39 1.21 1.39 4490000 5941630 12.98 13 12.6 13.14 12.6 13 14122500 181622724 WILCON DEPOT 0.3 0.315 0.29 0.35 0.29 0.3 1440000 459500 APC GROUP EASYCALL 5.1 5.29 4.85 5.3 4.85 5.29 15000 77610 335 336 360 360 304 336 710 237500 GOLDEN BRIA 2.06 2.25 2.04 2.08 2.04 2.08 36000 73700 PAXYS 0.21 0.212 0.212 0.215 0.202 0.21 3000000 620960 PRMIERE HORIZON

-148796430 13205240 11967670 618610 34230 481340 -168170 8490 -138000 -2732500 -2760457 -21436590 91000 -5528550 7745283 -22000 310000 7110080 -1816000 33697485 -4485867.5 -420035 -1481670 -70053966 -51000 -

MINING & OIL ATOK 10 10.86 10.86 10.86 10.86 10.86 4600 49956 0.94 0.95 0.86 0.99 0.85 0.94 3779000 3571210 91860 APEX MINING ABRA MINING 0.001 0.0011 0.001 0.0011 0.001 0.001 140000000 140600 60000 ATLAS MINING 1.75 1.96 1.9 1.9 1.9 1.9 11000 20900 1 1.14 1.1 1.17 1 1.14 61000 68440 BENGUET A 0.211 0.219 0.22 0.22 0.21 0.219 500000 107200 COAL ASIA HLDG 2.63 2.7 2.6 2.7 2.6 2.7 759000 2008870 529650 CENTURY PEAK DIZON MINES 6.5 6.79 6.5 6.9 6.35 6.5 13500 88935 0.74 0.75 0.74 0.76 0.69 0.74 11144000 8158820 -1852850 FERRONICKEL 0.191 0.2 0.19 0.192 0.19 0.192 20000 3820 GEOGRACE 0.077 0.078 0.076 0.08 0.076 0.078 8580000 674100 LEPANTO A LEPANTO B 0.081 0.087 0.081 0.089 0.081 0.088 150000 13090 0.0065 0.0066 0.0065 0.0066 0.0065 0.0066 70000000 455600 MANILA MINING A 0.57 0.58 0.56 0.58 0.53 0.57 335000 185350 MARCVENTURES 0.94 0.96 0.95 0.97 0.92 0.94 94000 89170 NIHAO 1.7 1.71 1.69 1.73 1.67 1.7 12943000 22041690 -11830760 NICKEL ASIA OMICO CORP 0.35 0.4 0.355 0.355 0.355 0.355 10000 3550 0.46 0.47 0.46 0.47 0.455 0.465 180000 83900 ORNTL PENINSULA 2.18 2.2 2.12 2.25 2.12 2.2 770000 1691460 -915800 PX MINING 12.4 12.5 12.38 12.8 12.36 12.4 2300400 28709664 3701202 SEMIRARA MINING 5.3 5.43 5.24 5.43 5.14 5.42 103100 554403 ACE ENEXOR ORNTL PETROL A 0.0084 0.0087 0.0087 0.0087 0.0084 0.0084 6000000 51900 0.0087 0.0088 0.0086 0.0089 0.0086 0.0088 14000000 121700 PHILODRILL 4.3 4.35 3.92 4.3 3.92 4.3 3807000 15758310 -210560 PXP ENERGY

PREFFERED HOUSE PREF A 93.85 98.8 95 98.8 95 98.8 590 56392 500 502 500 500 500 500 1000 500000 AC PREF B1 ALCO PREF C 94.05 101 92.85 92.85 91.6 91.6 500 45977.5 97 97.5 97.7 98 97 97.5 47760 4654050 DD PREF 105.5 108 107 108 107 108 1000 107896 FGEN PREF G 500 505 495 500 495 500 6980 3488872 GLO PREF P 950 990 985 990 985 990 1570 1549950 GTCAP PREF B MWIDE PREF 99 99.9 99.35 99.5 99.35 99.5 1880 186868.5 99 99.5 98.85 99 98.85 99 830 82092 PNX PREF 3A 995 998 995 998 993.5 998 1460 1453945 PNX PREF 4 997 1029 995 995 995 995 265 263675 PCOR PREF 2B SMC PREF 2C 76.2 76.4 76.4 76.5 76.2 76.4 14760 1127779 75 75.5 75 75 75 75 145210 10890750 SMC PREF 2F 74.25 75 74.95 75 74.95 75 26700 2002451.5 SMC PREF 2H 73.8 74.75 74.75 74.75 74.75 74.75 200 14950 SMC PREF 2I

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR 16.2 17.9 16 16.2 15.68 16.2 128200 2063244 4.83 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.9 56000 274400 -274400 GMA HLDG PDR

WARRANTS LR WARRANT 0.87 0.93 0.93 0.94 0.93 0.94 24000 22430

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ITALPINAS 1.58 1.59 1.53 1.63 1.45 1.59 10432000 16406130 176400 6 6.14 5.7 6.2 5.7 6.14 80300 481355 KEPWEALTH XURPAS 0.54 0.55 0.54 0.55 0.52 0.54 2552000 1367990 55000

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS

FIRST METRO ETF 87.9 88 86 88.5 86 87.9 30200 2641479 623415

www.businessmirror.com.ph

SEC issues more stringent rules on corporate asset sale

By VG Cabuag

T

@villygc

he Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has required shareholder approval for the sale of a corporation’s assets that will breach 51 percent, a move that seeks to deter the misuse of corporate assets and to safeguard minority investors’ interests.

The said rule was approved during the en banc meeting held on April 7 through video conferencing.

Under the rules issued through SEC Memorandum Circular 12, Series of 2020, shareholder approval is

required whether the properties and assets sold accrued to 51 percent of the corporation’s total assets in a single transaction or in several transactions taking place within one year from the date of the first transaction.

“The newly issued rules reinforce the protection afforded to minority investors by enabling them to better participate in the decision-making and promoting transparency to reduce the risk of abuse,” said SEC Chairman Emilio B. Aquino.

“We will continue spearheading corporate governance reforms, as part of our commitment to contribute to the inclusive development of the country’s economy through the introduction of reforms that protect minority investors,” Aquino added.

The vote of the stockholders representing at least two-thirds of the outstanding capital stock in a stockholders’ meeting duly called for the purpose shall be required prior to the execution of the sale transaction.

In aggregate sale transactions,

shareholder approval shall be required for the sale transaction that will breach the 51-percent corporate asset threshold.

The determination of whether the sale breaches the threshold must be based on the total assets of the corporation as shown in its latest audited financial statements. The computation may also be based on the latest quarterly financial statement or a special purpose financial statement prepared in connection with the execution of the transaction.

The SEC may impose any or all of the sanctions provided under Section 158 of Republic Act 11232, or the Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines, for the violation of any provision of the memorandum circular.

PSALM hikes power capacity of Mindanao co-ops

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

T

HE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) said it has increased the power allocation of two Mindanao electric cooperatives (ECs) to help them provide uninterrupted service for the duration of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

The state-run firm said Tuesday that Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative Inc. (LASURECO) and Maguindanao Electric Cooperative Inc. (MAGELCO) were provided with a total of 59.88 megawatts (MW), from 26.8 MW. From 16.8 MW, LASURECO’s power capacity for April was increased to 42 MW while MAGELCO’s 10 MW was also hiked to 17.88 MW. “Overall, the two electric cooperatives will net a 59.88 megawatts capacity for the month of April 2020 as a temporary emergency measure, especially to make sure that the hos-

pitals and frontline services in their area will not experience any power outages,” said PSALM. This move is pursuant to Republic Act (RA) 11469, or “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act,” and the memorandum from the Executive Secretary dated March 28 that mandates government agencies to implement emergency measures in support of the ECQ. As a government-owned and -controlled corporation cognizant of its critical role in the power sector, PSALM has been strictly adhering to Section 4 (u) of RA 11469, authorizing the conservation, and regulation of the distribution and use of electricity amid the public health crisis brought by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

It is noted that PSALM has 54 power customers in Mindanao composed of electric cooperatives, industrial entities, private and government corporations.

MAGELCO registered 44,156 member consumers and LASURECO has 63,003.

Eagle Cement extends aid to Bulacan residents

E

agle Cement Corp. (EAGLE) said it has donated food packs to the residents of Bulacan amid the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

With the help and dedication of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, volunteers from the company’s work force and the local government of San Ildefonso, EAGLE has distributed thousands of food packs containing rice and canned goods to 20 barangays in San Ildefonso and Dona Remedios Trinidad (DRT).

While supporting affected families during the ECQ, the company said it followed strict measures, such as social distancing and temperature screening, to ensure the safety of volunteers and cleanliness of products during the packing and distribution of relief goods. Apart from food packs, vitamins and other medicine were also distributed to residents who are most in need. Heeding the needs of the communities, EAGLE has also allocated free water supply for residents who are currently experiencing water shortages.

“Our company is committed to give assistance to families in our community who are affected by the ECQ, especially daily-wage earners, senior citizens, and persons with

disabilities. Being able to help the communities where we operate and thrive has always been at the heart of Eagle Cement. Through this effort, we hope to help augment the food supply and slightly ease the current economic situation of the citizens in Bulacan,” said EAGLE President and CEO Paul Ang. EAGLE’s manufacturing plant has been operating in San Ildefonso, Bulacan since 2010. Apart from its manufacturing operations that have provided employment opportunities for local residents, the company continues to develop and serve its local communities through sustainable family and community programs that focus on providing support for nutrition, livelihood, infrastructure, growth and development, health and emergency responses, technology, and education.

The relief operations also included providing assistance to 60 families of the Dumagat tribe in a remote mountainous area of DRT, which EAGLE has been supporting since 2017 through its feeding programs and classroom donation.

Aside from food packs, EAGLE plans to extend its hand to more communities in the area by providing them with better access to essential hygiene products such as soaps and sanitizers.

mutual funds

April 14, 2020

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 184.77 -30.3% -11.25% -8.5% -26.65% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 0.9135 -44.03% -14.23% -9.95% -33.9% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 2.4805 -39.95% -16.05% -11.1% -32.56% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.6308 -33.66% n.a. n.a. -29.68% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.6377 -26.76% n.a. n.a. -24.91% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 4.0239 -27.27% -8.64% -7.51% -24.48% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,6 0.6272 -28.91% -12.54% n.a.

-26.52% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a 70.7 -44.56% n.a. n.a. -31.58% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 37.0681 -29.26% -9.8% n.a. -27.72% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 395.93 -27.52% -9.38% -7.73% -25.69% Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d,8 0.8274 n.a. n.a. n.a. -19.68% Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 0.9477 -28.16% -9.19% -6.83% -26.36% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 27.8086 -28.66% -8.52% -6.81% -26.62% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,1 0.7306 -29.91% n.a. n.a. -28.24% Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 3.7735 -28.88% -9.26% -6.68% -27.76% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a 630.7 -28.78% -9.22% -6.91% -27.68% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 0.5722 -38.6% -13.44% -10.92% -32.79% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 2.9347 -32.45% -10.38% -7.99% -30.28% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.7249 -28.81% -9.35% n.a. -27.57% United Fund, Inc. -a 2.6696 -28.55% -7.37% -5.74% -26.93% Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 84.571 -28.62% -8.73% -6.08% -27.69% ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b $0.8693 -16.94% -2.24% -4.07% -15.47% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.1848 -7.88% 2.58% n.a. -14.06% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.4552 -15.78% -5.98% -5.86% -6.89% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 1.9225 -17.19% -6.13% -4.2% -11.86% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.2931 -13.57% -3.41% -4.93% -12.86% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,5 0.1793 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-21.53% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a 1.7678 -7.98% -1.86% -2.27% -9.95% PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.2381 -12.15% -4.15% -4.07% -14.54% Philam Fund, Inc. -a 14.5403 -12.58% -4.19% -4.09% -14.27% Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 1.8225 -15.21% -3.43% -14.27% -4.86% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.1049 -19.64% -5.6% -4.88% -19.64% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d,2 0.8767 -12.47% n.a. n.a. -13.69% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d,2 0.7752 -22.68% n.a. n.a.

-22.2% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d,2 0.7568 -24.38% n.a. n.a.

-23.8% Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.7502 -23.83% -7.35% -6.93% -23.04% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a $0.03783 5.2% 2.22% 1.41% -1.05% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -a $0.8902 -11.51% -1.71% -2.8% -14.23% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $3.456 -6.72% 1.84% 0.74% -11.63% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,7 $1.0298 -5.09% 0.39% n.a.

-8.77% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 360.98 3.86% 2.86% 2.3% 0.89% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.9218 2.12% 0.77% -0.36% 1.04% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.157 4.78% 5.15% 5.1% 1.31% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.2439 4.03% 2.38% 1.9% 0.85% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.3792 5.48% 2.53% 1.34% 0.85% 2.74% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.4032 9.47% 1.59% 0.69% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a

3.8207 6.16% 3.17% 1.61% 0.86% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 0.9823 7% 2.05% 0.56% 1.87% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.0878 7.18% 4.27% 2.49% 0.39% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a

1.7089 6.93% 3.82% 2.15% 0.46% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $466.59 2.79% 2.25% 2.36% -0.35% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a Є213.8 -1.02% 0.45% 0.51% -2.7% ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.1644 -0.13% 1.4% 1.51% -3.55% 0.96% -0.39% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0257 1.98% 1.06% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -a $1.0404 -2.13% -0.87% -0.86% -5% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.3638 4.82% 2.44% 1.98% -1.66% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0592957 2.06% 1.36% 1.3% -1.69% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.13 5.14% 2.04% 1.95% -1.43% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 126.98 3.84% 3.03% 2.28% 0.95% First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a,3 1.0353 2.77% n.a. n.a.

0.88% Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a 1.2607 5.5% 3.19% 1.71% 0.32% Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.2755 3.43% 2.99% 2.5% 0.86% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0404 1.7% n.a. n.a.

0.31% Feeder Fund Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,4 $0.89 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-10.1% a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day. b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago. c - Listed in the PSE. d - in Net Asset Value per Unit (NAVPU).

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

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

7 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019. 8 - Launch date is December 09, 2019.

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

Entrepreneur BusinessMirror

Pinoy entreps cited in Forbes’ annual ’30 Under 30 Asia’ list

By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28

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UCCESSFUL young Filipino entrepreneurs were cited and featured in the Forbes’ fifth annual “30 Under 30 Asia” list, together with their counterparts in the Asia-Pacific (AsPac) region whose intelligence and innovative leadership enable their organizations to adapt to change and ensure future growth.

Louise Mabulo, founder of The Cacao Project, is among the 30 honorees selected for each of the 10 categories.

She was chosen among the noted social entrepreneurs for her entity that encourages local farmers in her native town in the Philippines to plant cacao trees found to be resistant to typhoon.

The 21-year old Filipina landed on the cover of the magazine along with other Asian business leaders under the age of 30, including Superb AI cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) Hyunsoo Kim from South Korea for the Enterprise Technology category; Yummy Corp. cofounder Marius Suntanu, Indonesia, Industry, Manufacturing & Energy; The Jhakanaka Project Owner Raba Khan, Bangladesh, Media, Marketing & Advertising; Shukatsunet Founder Shota Iwasaki, Japan, Consumer Technology; and Professional Wrestler Nor “Phoenix” Diana, Malaysia, Entertainment & Sports.

Other honorees are Raglan Coconut Yoghurt cofounder Latesha Randall, New Zealand, The Arts (Art & Style, Food & Drink) segment; OkCredit Cofounders Aditya Prasad, Harsh Pokharna and Gaurav Kumar, India, Finance & Venture Capital; Vetreska cofounders Donald Kng and Nico Li, China, Retail & E-Commerce; and SeeMode cofounders Milad Mohammadzadeh and Sadaf Monajemi, Singapore, Healthcare & Science.

“This year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list-makers inspire optimism in what is promising to be a tough year ahead. They are a resilient and energetic bunch who are facing challenges head-on and actively working for a future that matches their aspirations,” said Rana Wehbe, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia editor.

“Young women under 21 especially stand out in our 2020 list: From Malaysia’s hijab-wearing wrestler to Bangladesh’s first female comedian and a social entrepreneur helping farmers in the Philippines improve their livelihoods—these fierce game changers are shattering gender, age and cultural stereotypes across industries,” she added.

Another Filipino featured on this year’s list is Francis Plaza, founder and CEO of PayMongo. Joining him in the spotlight are K-pop girl group Twice and actress So-dam Park (best known for her role in Oscar-winning film Parasite) from South Korea; the current world No. 1 female tennis player Ashleigh Barty and the founder of Myra Swim Bianca Anstiss from Australia; 14-year-old racing prodigy Juju Noda from Japan; Bain Wu, CEO of AI start-up, INFIMIND, from China; Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Kyaw Soe Oo from Myanmar; Justin Lim, cofounder of Fish & Chicks from Singapore; Ajeesh Achuthan, cofounder of Open from India; and sisters Isabel and Melati Wijsen, cofounders of Bye Bye Plastic Bags from Indonesia.

The honorees included in the 2020 list come from 22 countries and territories in AsPac. India leads the region with 69 individuals included in the roster. It’s followed by China with 41; Japan, 31; South Korea, 25; Australia, 22; Indonesia, 22; and Singapore, 22.

Chosen from more than 3,500 nominations, researched by Forbes journalists from across AsPac and vetted by industry veterans, this select group of individuals are disrupting industries and tackling major international issues.

They were chosen for their leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, and growth potential in their respective industries. Other factors considered were innovation, disruption, and even size and growth of their ventures in some categories.

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Wednesday, April 15, 2020 B3

A social enterprise in time of Covid-19

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By Isabela Blancas | Special to the BusinessMirror

N our second Sunday of community quarantine in Butuan City, a priest in an online mass said, “This is the best time to find a purpose in life. If you are good at cooking, you can provide food for the frontliners. If your talent is to sew, make face masks.”

It made me wonder what I could do as a social entrepreneur. I realized that we can encourage people to help in activities geared toward helping our frontliners. Being a social entrepreneur, we have become accustomed to organizing events, or activities for a cause.

Business with a social mission

MY social enterprise One Closet started out as a gown rental shop in Butuan with the aim of assisting marginalized children in Mindanao with their education. Our business model is simple: We ask for donations of pre-loved formal wear from fashion designers and other individuals, and then we rent them out to customers who like to have their “Cinderella” moment, with part of our profit going to charity.

We help two shelters for youth in Agusan del Norte: The Gesu Eucaristico Children’s Inc. in Buenavista for girl survivors of domestic violence, and Balay Silonganan in Butuan for rescued street boys.

Last year, we started venturing into producing charity events. We held in May last year the Resty Lagare Charity Fashion Show in Butuan which

featured an internationally known fashion designer from Butuan. We raised P160,000 for the two shelters we are supporting.

There were also organizations that invited us to support their advocacies through fashion shows. We held a unique fashion show inside the Butuan City Jail to showcase the bags handcrafted by its female inmates. We had a parade of pink gowns for breast cancer awareness and then a showcase of red gowns for AIDS awareness. We’ve also worked with other groups to raise funds for people affected by calamities like the Mindanao earthquakes and the recent fire incident in Butuan.

In the first few months of the year, we were busy preparing for another big charity event as a sequel to last year’s The Resty Lagare Charity Fashion Show but the Covid-19 epidemic rained on our parade. As it turned into a pandemic, lockdowns and community quarantines are in vogue. Thus we had to cancel our charity event.

We thought of what we could do.

What could be our mission at the time of Covid-19? It was made clear in our minds that we needed to aid our frontliners, our first line of defense

in this war against Covid-19. By helping them, we have a fighting chance to triumph against this virus. We are sad that the number of doctors and nurses is dwindling day by day. The frontliners need all the help they can get to protect themselves. We believe that once they have fallen, the rest of the infantry collapses with them.

Charity in the time of Covid-19

AN initiative of three young female entrepreneurs in Butuan inspired us to go into face mask making for frontliners. We also collaborated with an association of hotel and restaurant owners in providing them meals.

As the pandemic worsens, we thought of organizing a project for sewing personal productive equipment (PPE) like laboratory gowns and coveralls to give more protection to our doctors and nurses.

We decided to put to good use my dad’s and One Closet’s wide span of network of contacts to raise fund for PPE production in Butuan. We approached everyone we could think of to ask donations from.

One group of Butuanons overseas gave P40,000, while a group of local artists donated artworks which generated P30,000 in sales. With funds from generous donors, we bought fabric and other materials needed for PPE production and gave these to volunteer partners and paid seamstresses.

We have distributed close to 2,000 meters of taffeta fabric for PPE coveralls for Butuan. Two major partner groups got the bulk of our fabric: Department of Trade and IndustryAgusan del Norte and its employees’ cooperative, and the Association of Technical and Vocational Schools of Butuan City and Agusan del Norte and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority of Agusan del Norte. We expect to produce more than

750 PPE suits, or coveralls.

Together with our donors and partners, we have donated about 200 coveralls and 660 medical-grade face shields to government hospitals Butuan City Medical Center and Agusan del Norte Provincial Hospital.

Because Luzon is in a much more dire state, we thought of helping the front liners there as well. Once more, we put to good use my dad’s and One Closet’s network of donors and fashion designers.

My dad’s friend, Lorenzo “Renzo” Villalon, helped find fabric suppliers, while dad’s former colleague in the Ayala group of companies, Maria Angelica “Gigi” Rapadas, sourced funds to buy fabric. As we started distributing the rolls of fabric to volunteer fashion designers and seamstresses, other friends of dad donated money to buy more fabric that produced PPE laboratory gowns and coveralls and donated to hospitals in Metro Manila and a few provinces in Luzon.

We have distributed more than 15,000 meters of fabric in Luzon. The bulk of the fabric went to designers in Metro Manila and some to designers in Pangasinan, Laguna and Cavite.

Soon we will start production in Bicol.

We are truly grateful to all the designers who help us like Rajo Laurel, Delby Bragais, Julius Tarog, Cecilio Abad, Marlon Victa and Manny Marquez.

Through Commissioner Sandy Montano of the Philippine Commission on Women, we get to work with a group of seamstresses.

Lessons learned

Notwithstanding its many problems and challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic has many a lesson to teach us. Due to the temporarily closure of our One Closet shop, we have turned to purely charity work in this time of

crisis. Certainly, there is no ounce of profit but it’s okay because we get to live a life mission.

Even as a mere teenager, there are things that I can do to help like cutting fabric for face masks or helping my mom prepare meals for the frontliners. Network plays a vital role in our lives these days. My dad’s good relationship with designers and other contacts is a big help in our PPE making project. It is also important that we show our sincerity or authenticity as a social enterprise. We may not feel comfortable in posting on Facebook what we do, but it is necessary so that our donors know where their money goes to as well as to thank our partners and volunteers.

Money is not everything. In a time with so much uncertainty and volatility, it’s wiser to use it for something good. Money is important to buy the needs of our family but it’s more important to share our money and talent in helping the frontliners.

This Covid-19 crisis might take much longer. We are faced with many challenges in our project such as lack of supply of raw materials and drying up of funds, thus we need to be innovative in our solutions. For example, we turned to using neoprene fabric when garter for cotton face mask was hard to find.

We need to persevere. We must be patient in interacting with our donors, volunteers and other partners.

This Covid-19 pandemic has taught us to simplify our lives and to care for each other. When all this is over, hopefully we don’t revert to our old ways of living. Hopefully after this, people will be kinder. And hopefully there will be more enterprises that don’t only have profit in mind.

Isabela Blancas is the founder of the Butuan City-based One Closet shop.

How Ryan Gersava’s ‘Virtualahan’ sprang to life Inclusive employment and the future of work

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio

Virtualahan was also commended at the World Summit Awards for its noble move of working with people who are socially excluded in the workplace like PWDs, recovering drug addicts, formerly incarcerated, solo parents, and other disadvantaged groups. It ensures that the most excluded populations of society are given equal opportunities for highlevel work in the new digital economy using an impact formula that integrates well-being sessions and communitybuilding with digital job skills training.

“It’s only fitting that Virtualahan has become the first organization from the Philippines to be recognized as a Global Champion at the World Summit Awards.

A

T 22, Sultan Kudarat-born Ryan Gersava established social enterprise “Virtualahan” bereft of any social and financial capital. The amazing part was he came from humble beginnings, being born in a family of 12 with his parents not even finishing high school.

Gersava did not aspire to become a social entrepreneur and had never heard of the phrase until four months before he launched Virtualahan.

However, it experienced a big shift when social impact incubators and accelerators like Watson Institute, BPI Sinag, Globe Future Makers, and Social Impact Accelerator by PhilDev provided the mentoring support he needed.

“They helped by equipping us with skills to run a social enterprise, introducing us to relevant people to build social capital, and solidifying our sustainability model,” Gervasa told the BusinessMirror in a recent e-mail interview.

Virtualahan is a tech social enterprise that equips people with disabilities (PWDs) and other disadvantaged groups with the skills and mindset to become successful employees and entrepreneurs using an impact formula that combines life-coaching, community building, with digital skills training. It is breaking down employment barriers for people who are socially excluded in the workplace and working toward the future of work where no one is left behind.

So far, Virtualahan has over 400 graduates coming from more than 60 cities and provinces all over the country.

His efforts were rewarded when it was awarded as one of the Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) and Google Business Stories Award in 2017.

“We believe in the change-making potential of the Filipino youth. To support leadership by young people, we have worked directly with almost 500,000 young people around the world through our Youth Years program and built vital partnerships with aligned and impactful stakeholders to ensure that young people learn to lead the young and to recognize their power to be change makers,” Jayme Mora, country director of Ashoka Philippines said in a news statement.

Ashoka is the oldest and largest net-

2020 World Summit Awards Global Champion under Young Innovators category Ryan Gersava (right) with WSA Chairman Mr. Peter A. Bruck (left). work of social entrepreneurs in the world.

Furthermore, Gersava has also started a new venture called Activating Rural Changemakers that serves as the launch pad for young people from rural communities by providing them with change making experience and knowledge on how to start their social enterprises.

Milestones

The Davao-based social enterprise achieved a milestone when it was cited as Global Champion under the Young Innovators category at the recently concluded World Summit Awards (WSA) held at the Erste Campus in Vienna, Austria from March 8 to 11, 2020.

Virtualahan was hailed the best among 407 solutions from 91 countries and earning a globally recognized quality seal for digital innovation. Among the top 5 global finalists were Almeta from the Syrian Arab Republic, Forest and Climate from Serbia, Shuttle from Bangladesh, and Liberate: My OCD Fighter from India.

Moreover, Virtualahan is the first Filipino company to win as a global champion at World Summit Awards putting Philippines in the spotlight. Among the previous winners who were on the WSA Top 40 were Arko (2014) under the Inclusion & Empowerment category, Rappler (2015)—Media & News, and Universal

Structural Health Evaluation and Recording (USHER) System (2018)—Smart Settlements and Urbanization.

WSA Young Innovators is a special recognition for young social entrepreneurs under 26 years of age who demonstrate how young people from all over the world use of information and communications technology and their entrepreneurial creativity to support the achievement of the UN’s Social Development Goals (SDG).

“The worldwide network of WSA and the Global Champions of 2020 show that action, not fear, leads to avoiding suffering and alleviating need. This results in sustainably positive transformations in our society and a significant advancement toward the UN SDGs,” WSA Chairman Peter A. Bruck stated in a news statement release.

“It is a huge honor and great validation of our impact formula to be recognized and join the WSA Community as a Global Champion. This is for our community and to everyone who continues to believe and contribute to our mission. I hope that this will also inspire young Filipinos to take an active role in solving social issues in our country and share their impact to the world.”

Gersava, the founder and president of Virtualahan said.

Virtualahan has always been on the forefront of promoting inclusive employment, which will be needed more than ever as the world transitions into new ways of working in 2020 and beyond,” said Ezra Ferraz, managing partner at Ambidextr, one of the employment partners of Virtualahan.

“To spread our model via social franchising so we can impact more people and help build the future of work that is truly inclusive and leaves no one is left behind,” Gervasa said.

The WSA was founded in 2003 by Austria as part of the UN World Summit on Information Society as a global initiative to award local digital content with high social value and presents it worldwide.

Filipino reaps recognition as ‘20 WSA global champ

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IENNA—A Filipino emerged for the first time as the World Summit Awards (WSA) Global Champion under the Young Innovators category for 2020.

Ryan Gersava, a 26-year old Filipino from Sultan Kudarat, bested some 407 entries from 91 countries for establishing the pioneering virtual school, “Virtualahan,” which equips persons with disabilities and members of other disadvantaged groups with digital skills and a mindset to become competitive employees and entrepreneurs.

Integrating life coaching with career guidance and leadership development, Virtualahan harnessed the power of technology to give people a fair fighting chance to get out of poverty.

Gersava is in fact the first Filipino to win in WSA not just in his category. His firsthand experience of being denied access to better employment opportunities due to a chronic medical condition provided the impetus for him to find a social enterprise that specifically caters to marginalized sectors such as out of school youth, solo parents, recovering drug addicts, and former sex workers. To date, Virtualahan boasts of more than 350 graduates, with a 78 percent employment rate.

Philippine Ambassador to Austria Maria Cleofe R. Natividad hailed Gersava’s victory as a well-deserved win that comes at a time when our country and the world are in need of hope and inspiration.

In congratulating and thanking Gersava, Ambassador Natividad said, “By making it your life’s work to create opportunities for the disadvantaged—as only someone who has personally overcome hardships can—you have set an excellent example of passion and perseverance for the Filipino youth. Your story is both challenge and testament—a reminder that the empowerment of the marginalized is an imperative of a just and humane society; and a proof that the human spirit triumphs over the human condition.”

The WSA Young Innovators is a special recognition for young entrepreneurs under 26 years of age, who use digital innovation as a way of tackling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The awarding ceremony took place on March 11, 2020 in Vienna, Austria, a few days before the lockdown due to the coronavirus disease 2019.

B4

Show BusinessMirror

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

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Today’s Horoscope

blind spot bruce c.

By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Maisie Williams, 23; Emma Watson, 30; Seth Rogen, 38; Emma Thompson, 61.

Happy Birthday: Being precise and articulate regarding your thoughts, plans and feelings will encourage good results. Aim high, show integrity and compassion, and focus on being your best and bringing out the best in those you encounter. Personal gain is within reach; all you have to do is set your plans in motion. Romance will improve your personal life. Your lucky numbers are 6, 10, 19, 24, 33, 38, 44.

GENEROUS

THERE has been so much criticism directed at this celebrity-politician. He has been bashed for his political and religious leanings and beliefs, and for so many other things as well, but it cannot be denied the celebrity is generous to a fault. He likes sharing his blessings with others, even strangers. He really enjoys giving money to people. It’s gotten to a point that occupants of the exclusive village he lives in have complained about the droves of people who line up outside his house. This same thing happened to another controversial politician whose homeowners association very kindly asked him to stop the financial assistance being given to the less fortunate, which had been taking place every Sunday as the long lines of people were agitating the rich residents of the village. We don’t know how these two politicians are doing their assistance in these times of social distancing but we hope they are still generous and thinking of their countrymen. We may not agree with them politically but we admire them for being human beings who know that they are privileged.

NOT A COUPLE, JUST A LOVE TEAM

THE female starlet is being groomed to be a beauty queen while the guy is an aspiring singer-actor.

Together they seem to be a promising love team and they are. There has been some apprehension about putting the girl in a love team because she is a lesbian and is not open about it. Let’s face it, these may be modern times but there are some things that not everyone can accept. The girl doesn’t even like the singer-actor as friend but, surprisingly, they work well together and their love team has a fan base. The girl being a lesbian is kind of an open secret and she’s not even actively hiding it. She and her handlers are just being discreet.

INSENSITIVE

THE influencer has been milking a tragedy that happened to her loved one for years. While it is understandable that she feels sad about it, many people feel that she is sketchy because she is also using the loss of her loved one as a “theme” for her socialmedia posts. They know that she is mourning but her public display of it seems too much. She recently showed her political colors in the most insensitive manner and was called out for it, and despite her fellow influencers explaining the situation carefully to her, she remained callous to the plight of others and wouldn’t listen to their explanations.

THE BATTLE

THE actress is determined to win the heart of the actor but his baby mama is putting up a good fight.

Now that shooting for their project is on hold because of the enhanced community quarantine, the actress and actor aren’t seeing each other regularly. The actress has been sending food and care packages to the actor but his baby mama will hear none of it. She and the actor are sharing the parenting of their child but they are by no means reconciled. The actor and the actress are not in a relationship but they almost were at one point. Which girl will win this battle for the actor’s heart? Our bet is on the baby mama.

a

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Being a people pleaser will wear you down. Put your needs first, and concentrate on using your skills and knowledge to help you get ahead. A physical improvement will encourage better health. Revisit the past to avoid making the same mistake twice. HHHH

b

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Don’t let confusion take over. Narrow-mindedness will lead you down a rabbit hole. When in doubt, ask questions, research and strive to get as much information as possible. HH

Actor and activist Sean Penn, founder of the nonprofit organization Community Organized Relief Effort, stands outside a CORE coronavirus testing site at Malibu City Hall in Malibu, California. AP

Sean Penn wants to ‘save lives’ with free Covid-19 testing

By Marcela Isaza The Associated Press

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ALIBU, California—After nearly a decade of helping communities in distress abroad, Sean Penn is joining the fight against the coronavirus much

closer to home.

The Oscar winner’s disaster relief organization CORE has teamed up with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office and the city’s fire department to safely distribute free drive-thru Covid-19 test sites for those with qualifying symptoms. He along with his staff wearing hazard suits also are administering tests in his home city of Malibu.

Penn hopes the program can “save lives and alleviate depletion of resources” through the efforts of CORE, which stands for Community Organized Relief Effort. His nonprofit organization stepped in to help rebuild Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and the devastating Hurricane Matthew.

The actor said he and his staff decided to “pull the trigger” very quickly to help run the test sites.

“We have an infrastructure in place to respond, and so we decided that we would if we could be value added,” Penn said in an interview this week. “It’s something that we can adapt to very quickly with the training of the Los Angeles Fire Department initially.

And then we’re able to take all those firemen and put them back in to serve the people in the way that we need them to.”

So far, CORE has provided more than 6,500 free

tests since March 30. The organization is operating at four sites with plans of expanding and will manage a new location in Los Angeles starting Friday.

About 60 staff and volunteers are working in California including 10 Peace Corps volunteers.

“Getting more people tested will help us get Angelenos the care they need and flatten the curve more quickly to slow the spread of Covid-19,” Garcetti said in statement. “We are working closely with these extraordinary partners to expand access and grow capacity—and we’re grateful to everyone who has stepped up to strengthen this work.”

Los Angeles deputy mayor Jeff Gorell said in a tweet that CORE’s efforts will help take over the city’s fire department’s workload and free up first responders for emergency services.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.

Penn hopes other nonprofit organizations and local governments will help run test sites as well. In the meantime, he said everyone should be washing their hands so often, the skin on their hands should change. “They gotta be really crispy, or you’re not doing it right,” he said. n

c

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Rely on your intelligence, foresight and discipline to help you get what you want when you want it. Make personal improvements that will fetch compliments as well as someone’s undivided attention. A romantic suggestion will lead to a closer bond or commitment.

HHHHH

d

CANCER (June 21-July 22): A professional change will help raise your income, but before you start spending, make sure the money is in your account. Someone may ask you to pay back an old debt or donate to something that you cannot refuse.

HHH

e

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Your ability to act fast and to counter anyone trying to corner you before he or she has a chance will save you from an unfortunate mistake. Trust in yourself, and leave nothing to chance. HHH

f

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Don’t believe everything you hear. Go directly to the source to get your information firsthand. A change of scenery will make you question the way you are living. Address, research and take care of health issues sufficiently. HHH

g

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Wheeling and dealing won’t bring you the rewards you expect. Take a practical approach, and keep expenditures minimal and your promises doable. Too much of anything will lead to undesirable results. Strive for positive personal growth. HHHHH

h

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Refuse to let someone’s negativity bring you down. Avoid discussions that can lead to an emotional argument. Put your time and effort into creative projects that you can work on by yourself. HH

i

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Choose to spend time improving your surroundings or doing something that will bring you closer to someone you love. Share your feelings, and make longterm plans that give you the incentive to be and do your best. Romance is favored. HHHH

j

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Stick to the rules. If you overdo it or take on someone eager to fight, you will end up wasting time and energy on something that won’t benefit you. Call on experience to guide you when insecurity surfaces. HHH

k

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Stick close to home and to the ones you love. Surround yourself with the people and places you are most familiar with to avoid a situation that can lead to unwanted change. HHH

l

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Offer help, but don’t share personal information with people you encounter. A change someone makes may tempt you to follow suit. Get the lowdown before you engage in something risky. Walk away from unpredictable people. HHH Birthday Baby: You are controversial, outgoing and persistent.

You are engaging and confident.

‘pronunciation guide’ by alex rosen The Universal Crossword/Edited by David Steinberg

ACROSS 1 Fort Knox has gold ones 5 Unfreeze 9 Sailboat poles 14 Loads and loads 15 Org. for rocket scientists 16 Swell up 17 California wine country 18 Former Russian ruler 19 Entertain 20 Prepared for knighthood 22 Snowballs, in a snowball fight 24 Start the pot 25 Resident of the Hamptons, e.g. (see letters 1 to 5) 28 Not mono, perhaps 30 Dad 31 Was the leader of 32 “Tainted Love” band (1 to 5) 36 List-ending abbr.

37 Bit for a horse?

38 Contend 39 Unfortunate part of a stick (1 to 6) 43 Conan who’s not a barbarian 46 ___ Grey

7 Standards of perfection 4 48 Tough ball for a shortstop to field (1 to 5) 52 Revise, as text 53 Cheeky comments 54 Entice 58 From around here 60 Stud poker?

62 Strong wind 63 Purple candy’s flavor, often 64 Maker of detergent PODS 65 Where Adam met Eve 66 Building add-on 67 Small bills 68 What an Impossible Burger eschews DOWN 1 Vault’s place 2 Rickman who played Snape 3 Plastic weapon in Clue 4 No longer moving 5 Palindromic explosive 6 Attempts, with “at” 7 “Same here” 8 Fond place in the heart, figuratively 9 Degree for an exec

0 Yearly book of facts 1 11 “Bang” or “boing” 12 Sample 13 Turn left, say 21 Ripped 23 Frozen 2 snowman 26 Homer’s neighbor 27 Like the name Matt, for a yogi 28 Rogen or Meyers 29 Food you might eat on a Tuesday 31 ___ Just Not That Into You 32 Down in the dumps 33 Like the serpent in 65-Across 34 They made Pinocchio’s nose grow 35 Name within “Valentina” 37 Temporarily in the possession of 40 Excessive forms and such 41 “You’re it!” game 42 Messes up 43 Like every prime except two 44 Borscht need 45 Uncommon precious stone 47 Not out and about 48 Hagar the Horrible’s wife 49 Decorate

50 Puerto ___ (resident of San Juan, e.g.)

51 Bolt who bolts 55 Created 56 “Not guilty” or “no contest” 57 Sleeping bag cover?

59 Luthor in Superman 61 ___ Miserables Solution to yesterday’s puzzle:

Image BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

AIA Philam Life champions protection during ECQ THE Insurance Commission recently released a circular approving alternative face-to-face selling, providing guidelines that empower insurance companies to continue operations, and uplift consumer confidence in the industry during the current enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period. Provisions for digital insurance sales have been put in place, giving customers access to insurance products at this time.

AIA Philam Life, the country’s premier life insurance company, was quick to respond, further boosting its already comprehensive digital capability, assuring the public of business continuity even during the ECQ. With the guidelines in place, one AIA Philam Life Financial Advisor readily took to the new alternative method of selling. Clint Swayze Pondar from Cebu Leica Cruz Agency made AIA Philam Life history as the company’s first FA to close a digital sale. Pondar was quick to adapt, and used the iPoS (Interactive Point-of-Sale) platform to assess the customer’s needs and guide her throughout the entire process.

“It started with a virtual chat, and the step-bystep transaction process followed. It was really seamless, which my client loved,” he shared. The full digitalization of the insurance sales process paved the way for AIA Philam Life to carry on its mission of racing against risk to protect Filipinos from life’s uncertainties, right in the comfort and safety of one’s home. “My client enjoyed the virtual meeting and was surprised at how convenient everything was. She also developed an appreciation for our tools since we were able to complete the transaction over a casual talk,” Pondar quipped.

This is a testament to AIA Philam Life’s customercentric thrust, effectively anchoring its digital transformation on the goal of providing customers a seamless experience with the company. Insurance education, purchase and maintenance have been made easy with various digital platforms available to FAs and customers alike.

A comprehensive, easy-to-navigate and intuitive web site highlighting a self-help financial calculator kicks-off one’s journey, enabling customers to understand insurance concepts and learn about product offerings, as well as personally assess their needs. Purchase is also made easy with the iPoS system which aids FAs to seamlessly facilitate endto-end selling through the iPad-based platform. This is supplemented by the availability of online and auto-credit and debit payment arrangements that, once done, will immediately generate a receipt and e-contract delivered via e-mail.

After-sales services are also well accounted for in this journey through iServe, the company’s digital customer service platform that empowers its FAs to perform various functions that would normally require mediation of the Customer Service Centers.

Customers who want to access and manage accounts by themselves can also do so through the customer online platform, ePlan, which houses all their digitized documents and is available 24/7. All these platforms (iPoS, iServe and ePlan) empower FAs and customers to be self-sufficient, which in effect makes handling expedient.

“The need for protection during this period of the ECQ does not stop, and is more important than ever. Our commitment to close the protection gap is strengthened in these challenging times, and we are glad that the IC circular has provided us with guidelines that allow us to carry on. As our agency force adapts to the current situation, we are able to continue to bring to life our brand promise of helping Filipinos live healthier, longer and better lives,” said AIA Philam Life Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Ang. More information is available at philamlife.com.

Home sweet work SUI GENERIS CARLO ATIENZA

biblisko@gmail.com

I

USED to like the idea of working from home because I imagined it would be better for me, allowing me to manage my time the way I want to, and I would be able to do whatever I want.

The past four weeks have taught me otherwise.

While I wanted the freedom of working from home, I still had to consider how I could significantly contribute to my work productivity. I realized it is a precarious balance I have to tread, especially since I am also tasked with running errands. Here are some things I learned when working from home to ensure you get actual work done and still enjoy the comforts of your own home.

Create your own workspace away from as much distraction as possible. One important aspect of working from home is your own personal workspace.

Take into consideration ergonomics so you do not end up straining your back, arms and eyes. I realized that most of the furniture in my house is not necessarily designed for long-term sitting and I had to try several places for me to find the optimal spot to work. When I did find it, there were other distractions like noises from neighbors and even from pets. To block all that out, I use noise-canceling earphones. And when I need some extra inspiration, I play instrumental music.

When you find the optimal spot for your workspace, set it up and stake your territory.

Make it clear to people in your house when they can talk to you, and when they need to leave you alone. I was on a call one time and I was in midsentence when our helper started talking to me about something I could not understand. Since I could not tell her I was talking to someone, I just gave her a look which I hoped would make her stop

talking to me and it worked. I talked to her afterwards and explained that I was actually talking to someone through the laptop. However, I should have given notice sooner. Just because you are working from home does not mean you will always be available to people in the house and their concerns. Make sure everybody in your house understands when they can disturb you.

One of the advantages of working from home is the flexibility in the way you manage your work. Since the output speaks for itself, you can manage your workload to when you are at your most productive.

Everyone has their own working rhythm—some are early birds while others are night owls. I have realized I am most productive in the afternoon. I guess it is because everyone is taking their siesta or doing whatever they want to do, and they just leave me alone. In the office, I am most productive in the morning because the office environment conditions my mind to work well into the early part of the afternoon. Find your rhythm and do the heavy lifting during the times when you are most productive.

And speaking of time, create a schedule for yourself and stick to it. This will help you get a semblance of normalcy, and also help you limit the time when you are supposed to be working. This will also set clear boundaries to you and the people in your house that you are no longer working. I also discovered, however, that I can think of an idea for a presentation I am working on while watching a show late in the evening. In this case, I type it in the notepad app on my phone, and then come back to it in the morning. Sticking to a schedule will also help your coworkers to not disturb you during those times when you are supposed to be resting already.

To make sure you are aligned to what your organization expects of you while working from home, get clear directions from your manager.

Your manager knows the big picture and is updated by management on what is the expected output from people working from home. If your manager does not give you directions, set goals for yourself and let your manager know what you are doing.

You can then plan your milestones for the week and manage your workload easier, and have the flexibility to do other things while waiting for

feedback on what you have already finished. If there are milestones which are at risk of being delayed, manage expectations by updating your manager of your progress, recommending contingency measures, and updating the timelines. This will also help your manager find ways on how they can help you succeed in your project.

To ensure alignment, and also to provide a means for checks and balances, set a regular schedule for team catch-up. This will help everyone understand what everybody else is doing, and also provide an avenue for other team members to provide meaningful feedback and suggestions. Not being able to see each other face-to-face can sometimes result in disengagement which in turn results in lower productivity. Find the time to meet regularly with your team so you can align yourself with the team’s objectives and, at the same time, continue to be in touch with one another.

Do not be afraid to talk to individual team members, especially when you are working on the same project. I had some of my best insights from talking to people on what has been done before and if my idea would work. Talking to tenured team members will help you understand the organization better, and help you create objectives and activities suited for them.

Most of all, take advantage of the time flexibility.

Since you have your own personal workspace, feel free to do whatever you want to inspire you to be creative in your work. Being in a safe zone actually helped me take risks in being creative and resourceful by experimenting on what I can do with the tools I currently have. I knew even before that I can make videos using PowerPoint, but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered there are a lot of transitions and animations I can now use to make the video more interesting.

It will be a different work environment when we go back to our offices after the enhanced community quarantine. With the lessons from the pandemic and an existing law allowing for telecommuting, it is possible that more organizations will adopt a workfrom-home setup. But whether you are in the office or in the comforts of your own home, work can remain to be an enjoyable part of our life. ■

Hoarding during the coronavirus isn’t just unnecessary, it’s ethically wrong

BY JAIME AHLBERG University of Florida AS people rush to stockpile provisions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, stores have placed restrictions on the purchase of basic goods and medicines.

When supply chains are vulnerable to spikes in demand, one person’s stockpiling can mean another person’s shortage.

As a philosopher who has studied ethical action in difficult circumstances, I know that when many people fail to act ethically, it can seem that each individual has less of an obligation to act well.

At this time, American political philosopher John Rawls’ theory of justice can offer useful moral guidance.

ETHICS FOR DIFFICULT TIMES JOHN RAWLS famously argued that in a fully just society, two circumstances are in place: everyone upholds the just society, and conditions of life are reasonably favorable.

When society is not fully just, people don’t necessarily have to follow the rules. Rawls argued that if there was systemic injustice, civil disobedience can

be justified. For example, when a minority group is denied the vote, protesters are permitted to disrupt business and stage sit-ins.

Other scholars, following this kind of argument, have said that it can be ethical to lie, when doing so thwarts others’ evil plans.

In other words, individuals are allowed to deviate from the cooperative norms that underpin a fully just society, under certain circumstances. Nevertheless, scholars also argue that there are some lines one must not cross, even when others act badly and conditions are difficult.

For Rawls, a particularly significant set of requirements include the “natural duties.”

These apply to all people and hold in virtually all circumstances. They include refraining from causing unnecessary suffering and harm to innocents, and not aggravating injustice, when possible.

STOCKPILING CAN CAUSE HARM THE warning against harming innocent others or increasing the risk of harm is relevant to most forms of stockpiling.

Consumers stocking up on medical grade face masks contribute to shortages of supplies for health

care workers, which is not ethically permissible.

Similarly, buying up hand sanitizer to sell at premium rates depletes the supply of what has come to be an essential good, not out of need but out of greed. It, too, unnecessarily puts others in harm’s way.

There are less obvious ways in which our shopping behavior can perpetrate harms, or risk of harms, on innocent third parties.

Consider the effects on grocery store workers.

Frequent trips to the store may pose a risk to lowwage workers who have virtually no pandemic preparedness training. It increases their vulnerability to infection.

Venturing to the grocery store to buy only what is needed, and less often, is a more ethical solution.

STOCKPILING CAN AGGRAVATE INJUSTICE AMASSING goods during short-term shortages can increase the economic disadvantages that many people already suffer.

Consider those who cannot afford to stockpile.

Hoarding makes it more difficult for those who are less privileged to get what they need when they do shop. Stockpiling can also turn people against each other. Other shoppers could transform from fellow

members of our communitym into obstacles to survival and well-being.

This view of others undermines the very possibility of social cooperation, which is a precondition of a just society.

SOME EXCEPTIONS STILL, one is permitted to protect one’s life.

Some people have a genuine need for drugs to manage asthma, for example. Securing the drug supply that one will predictably need is warranted. If limited supply means that not all asthma sufferers can get drugs, then no just resolution is possible.

But importantly, this concern will not apply to most people, for most goods. No evidence supports the view that food supply chains are dangerously vulnerable right now, for instance.

Stockpiling can perpetrate harm and threaten the social cohesion that is foundational to a well-ordered society. Even when others stockpile, one has the obligations to do no harm and to do what one can to support social cooperation.

These priorities are important to keep in mind as new and difficult ethical problems emerge during this pandemic. THE CONVERSATION

B5

B6 Wednesday, April 15, 2020

BPI installs acrylic screens in branches for COVID-19 protection

Ayala Land employees pay it forward to help COVID 19 hospitals

Ayala Land employees pay it forward to help COVID 19 hospitals

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ORKING from home as a result of the enhanced community quarantine didn’t stop Ayala Land employees from combining their resources to help the country in this time of need. In an effort to provide much needed hospital supplies to COVID 19 referral hospitals, as well as groceries to families affected by the lockdown, they launched the ALI Pays it Forward campaign to generate donations for The Philippine General Hospital, The Philippine Lung Center, Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital, and Caritas Manila through Project Ugnayan.

“The COVID 19 hospitals needed sustained support to ensure the patients are properly cared for. They required PPEs, additional ECGs and mobile ultrasound units, and post-care facilities. And with the lockdown, we knew thousands of families will be adversely affected,” said Bobby O. Dy, Ayala Land President and CEO. The fund-raising project Ayala Land Pays

It Forward, was supported by the company’s subsidiaries, such as Ayala Land Estates Inc., residential groups Ayala Land Premier, Alveo, Avida, Amaia, and BellaVita, as well as AyalaLand International Sales Inc., Amicassa and AyalaLand Sales Inc. Ayala Land Offices, Ayala Malls, AyalaLand Hotels and Resorts, AyalaLand Logistics Holdings Corp. and ALI Capital are also part of this initiative. Ayala Land’s service businesses Ayala Property Management Corporation, Makati Development Corporation, AirSwift and DirectPower likewise helped. Also providing support to this cause were Seda Hotels, Ten Knots Development Corporation, Cebu Holdings Inc. and Ortigas & Company. ALI’s support groups such as AyalaLand Corporate Support and Aprisa also participated in the project.

The campaign ended last Friday with an overall participation rate of 99%. Around 5,000 employees contributed to the project to express their appreciation for the selfless

dedication exhibited by the country’s frontliners. In an email sent to employees inviting them to share their blessings, Dy said, “We are one with Filipinos and we will do our share to not leave anyone behind in this fight to contain the virus.”

Appreciating the organization’s support, ALI Chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala said, “It has always been a source of pride for us to see our employees across the ALI family coming together and mobilizing a significant amount of resources in such a quick manner, in order to help others at a challenging time like this.”

PPEs and hospital equipment procured with the employees’ donations were delivered to the COVID 19 referral hospitals last week as the company continuously pursues ways to help the government during this health crisis.

Through its construction arm, Makati Development Corporation, it has so far completed the retrofitting of an area inside the Philippine Red Cross headquarters to be used as a COVID 19 testing facility.

In support of the Department of Public Works and Highways’ initiatives, it is likewise leading the renovation of the World Trade Center in Pasay to a 500-bed Quarantine Facility.

The Ayala Group companies Ayala announced that it is rolling out a P2.4 billion COVID 19 emergency response package.

Part of the response package is to waive rental payments amounting to P1.4 billion for all mall merchants in Luzon so that they can, in turn, assist their own employees during the quarantine period. It also includes a P600 million wage assistance program directed towards helping maintenance, security and construction workers under partner employers.

8th PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards 2020 moves anticipated gala night to September

T

HE organisers of the PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards have made the responsible decision of delaying the annual black-tie gala dinner and award ceremony to Friday, 4 September 2020. The delay aims to help flatten the curve of the COVID-19 contagion in the country.

Whilst existing entries are judged as normal according to established criteria, additional entries are now extended until 5 June. The general public are still encouraged to submit their nominations until 29 May, via this portal: https://www. asiapropertyawards.com/en/nominations/ Originally set for 26 June, the most prestigious real estate event of the year in Philippine real estate is still due to take place at the Fairmont Makati ballroom.

The prestigious venue remains committed

to protecting the health and wellbeing of guests and employees by implementing precautionary health measures leading to and on the day of the event.

New key dates for the 2020 edition are: May 29, 2020 – Nominations Close, June 5, 2020 – Entries Close , June 15 -July 3, 2020 – Site Inspections, July 6, 2020 – Final Judging, September 4, 2020 – Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony in Manila, Philippines, November 20, 2020 – Grand Final Gala Dinner & Ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand The team behind the PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards will closely monitor updates from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and follow recommendations from local health authorities.

Jules Kay, Director of the PropertyGuru

Asia Property Awards, said: “The safety of our guests remains a top priority, and if necessary, additional health measures may be introduced going forward.”

For more information, email awards@propertyguru.com or visit the official website: AsiaPropertyAwards.com.

Nestlé NANKID relaunches Parentology and shares activities both mom and kids can enjoy at home

O

NLINE meditation and yoga, storytelling sessions, free consultations with Pediatricians, and

more!

As times change, one thing that remains constant is our commitment to be better parents, better partners in providing only the best for our kids. With this, Nestlé NANKID® is excited to bring back #Parentology, where

we get to provide activities and tips to #NourishEveryPossible, right in the comforts of your own home!

Here are some activities both parents and their children can enjoy.

1. Online Meditation, Yoga and Storytelling Sessions Every Saturday, Sundays and Wednesdays of April, NANKID will be hosting free yoga

and meditation classes for moms and kids in partnership with White Space Wellness and Beyond Yoga. In partnership with Smile Group PH, NANKID will also be hosting a series of storytelling sessions.

2. Arts & Crafts and DIY Science Experiments Everything is possible with science.

Here’s some simple yet fun experiments you and your kids can try at home-- from making your own clouds, tornados and trees!

3. Free Online Medical Consultation NANKID pooled together a team of Pediatricians that can help answer frequently asked questions of moms and dads who would like to seek consultation and medical assistance for their children during this challenging time.

For more details and other information on the activities, you can just head to NANKID Optipro Four’s Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ NANKIDOPTIPRO/)!

T

HE Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is installing acrylic screens in its branches as well as those of its subsidiary BPI Family Savings Bank to help protect clients and employees from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). 4,000 units of these acrylic screens are being distributed to all branches nationwide.

BPI hopes to complete the installation by the end of April and work around the logistical limitations brought about by the quarantine.

Select BPI and BPI Family Savings Bank branches are open nationwide, with shortened banking hours, to accommodate the immediate banking needs of clients

DOT provides virtual backgrounds for video calls to encourage 'travel from home'

T

HE Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) is encouraging the public to “travel from home” by providing virtual backgrounds that people can feature in video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Webex, and many more.

The photos can be downloaded from www.philippines.travel/fromhome for free and will allow users to showcase the beautiful landscapes of the Philippines from the safety and comfort of one’s home.

The “Travel From Home” virtual

backgrounds take you to some of the most popular travel spots in the country and are arranged to reflect the relevant times of day do you can have your early morning meeting with a glorious mountain sunrise and your evening one with a golden beach sunset.

The DOT reminds everyone that while our destinations miss you, it’s vital that you stay at home as much as possible during the community quarantine so you can return to your favorite places in the Philippines soon.

Pay bills in less than a minute: GCash encourages Filipinos to digitally settle bills to help flatten the curve

T

HE coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has forced Filipinos to stay at home to flatten the curve, but with the enhanced community quarantine in most parts of the country, paying bills has become a burdensome task for some.

Typically, Filipinos pay for their bills via payment centers, but due to the limitations in manpower and the strict implementation of social distancing protocols, lines at these facilities have become longer than usual.

Aside from the stress from the long wait, this also exposes people who are lining up to pay their bills to the deadly virus. With this, health experts and even government officials encouraged people to transact -including paying for their utility bills or even government dues -- digitally to avoid going out amid the national health crisis.

GCash, the leading mobile wallet in the Philippines, has made it easier for its users to pay for their bills at the comforts of their homes through their smartphones. In as short as a minute, GCash users have the ability to settle payments for their electricity, water, cable, internet, telecoms, credit cards, loans, government dues, insurance, rent, and healthcare providers, among others.

“As the leader in the local financial technology landscape, we strive to provide Filipinos with the best service in the market. We have partnered with over 400 billers nationwide to make it easier for our users to transact. Our digital bills payment solution is a powerful tool that can help the government in implementing social

distancing and other health protocols during these trying times,” GCash Chief Technology and Operations Officer Pebbles Sy-Manalang said.

To use the service, GCash users need only to click on the Pay Bills icon on the GCash app, choose their biller, input their accounts and the amount that they need to pay, and click on confirm.

GCash users may also save their frequently used billers and their respective accounts to make it easier to pay for their bills. For instance, one can save his Globe postpaid account by clicking on the Pay Bills icon, then tapping the Add a Biller option on the upper left portion of the screen, and inputting the billing details. The user may also set an in-app monthly reminder for further convenience.

“We all need to stay at home during this national health crisis and follow health protocols to help flatten the curve. Using digital finance to manage bills payments is a way for us to contribute in this fight against COVID-19,” Sy-Manalang said.

Aside from settling utilities and other transactions, the Pay Bills icon in the GCash app also houses the accounts of non-government organizations that have partnered with GCash, as well as the GCash-led digital donation drive called #FightCOVID19. GCash users may donate any amount to these accounts to support medical frontline workers as well as help provide daily necessities to those who are most affected by the virus.

TogetherWeGive: Ortigas employees pool funds for COVID-19 relief

T

O further support the communities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ortigas Land has launched #TogetherWeGive, a fund drive that will enable its personnel to share and pool together resources dedicated to COVID-19 relief efforts.

The employee-driven initiative aims to raise donations from Ortigas Group employees and sales personnel who would like to contribute to the company’s relief efforts. All funds raised from the initiative will be allocated to support Ortigas Land’s outsourced employees and medical frontliners in the cities where the company’s estates are located.

Through the #TogetherWeGive fund drive, each affected outsourced employee will be given monetary support from fifty percent of the total donations collected. The other half of the total funds will then be allocated for the donation of personal protective equipment or

PPEs for medical frontliners in Pasig General Hospital, San Juan Medical Center, and San Juan City Science High School.

Since March 16, Ortigas Land as a company has been providing relief packs to different communities in Pasig, San Juan, and Brgy. Bagumbayan in Quezon City. The Company has also been distributing PPEs and medical supplies to public hospitals and health facilities in the cities where the company operates. Apart from relief goods and medical supplies, the Company has also been providing financial assistance to its outsourced personnel, most of whom have been displaced by the COVID-19 crisis.

With the additional donations of its employees from #TogetherWeGive, Ortigas Land looks forward to being able to provide more assistance for Filipinos in this time of need.

BusinessMirror

Editor: Tet Andolong

Wednesday, April 15, 2020 B7

Over communication, creativity and decisiveness: Keys to real estate and the Covid-19 pandemic Amor Maclang

W

first dibs in real estate

E are entering a time of a lot of uncertainty. For businesses of various verticals, recovery plans and pivots must be made on assumptions. For government, realignment and crisis funds are activated with the prescription of experts and medical leaders.

For individuals, a back to basics approach must be implemented.

The purpose of this seminar is certainly not to provide answers to everything, but I think it could be the beginning of a series as we collectively, as a community work through the challenges ahead of us. the pandemic. “The Korea’s first case was on January 20 when a visitor, a female from Wuhan, China, arrived in Incheon Airport in Korea. And that was the first case. And Korea did well for the overall month action, almost a month. And then there was patient No. 31, 61-year-old lady who was showing symptoms of pneumonia. She was part of the Shin Chan Ji Religious group.

“And I would say about 70 percent of the confirmed cases in Korea are related to the religious group that patient No. 31 belong to.

As of now, I think it most recently, I think they create is the country is having about a hundred or so new cases. Of 7,500 or so, where they were able to establish the sources of the infections by 67 percent were followers of this religious group called Shin Chan Ji. And it is believed that they were infected largely through church services on two weekends, on two Sundays,” said Rhee.

Stuart Mercier, head of Asia Brookfield Asset Management, also weighed in and gave his advice for property owners. Brookfield Asset Management, globally, is an asset management group of what they term as real assets. They have 600 billion US of assets under management, across infrastructure, real estate, renewable energy and private equity.

Real estate is the largest of their businesses.

Brookfield manages about 200 billion US realestate assets around the world, including the Canary Wharf precinct in the UK. They also own the second-largest portfolio of retail properties in the US and here in Asia.

“Sadly, there’s no better moment than a global pandemic playing out in real time to sort of exemplify the point. This really is the opportunity to sort of share knowledge and experience and expertise. China and Korea

have, of course, gone through the first wave of this at the moment. And as we all knock on wood, so to speak, appear to be coming down the other side. The first and hopefully only wave,” Stuart said.

“This lockdown has led to a number of things being critically important. One is very active communication, communication with your staff so that they understand what’s expected of them. They understand that, you know, in difficult periods like this where they will have their own family considerations. Of course, here in China, all of the schools have been closed. And so that’s meant that parents have had to not only manage and balance their workloads, but also know full time child care at home or home education and the like.”

“And, of course, with tenants and their employees. And so this has really been the case for us around the world where one of the policies we’ve adapted is sort of very rapid and engaged communication with our tenants and stakeholders. So, for example, if an employee of one of our tenants becomes infected and we are informed of that fact, we disseminate that fact as best as we can, of course, subject to local privacy laws with all of the other tenants in the building so that they can make what decisions are needed for their employees according to their policies and procedures,” he added.

“Again, one of the other things that I think is important is understanding staffing considering all of the facts that will play out. Unfortunately, some employees may become sick, their family members may become sick. There may be a need for someone to stay home for child-care purposes and the like. And so understanding what shift work looks like, how you will balance workloads across all of your

employees is also important.”

Rommel Ortiz of the Aseana group, as well as Raymond Rufino, CEO of NEO Property Management here in the Philippines were also invited to share their thoughts on what property owners should be doing in this time of crisis.

“I work as a director for asset management. So as the head of that group, my duty first and foremost is to ensure all operating assets of the business. That includes people is protected adequately. So, we do this job by having an operationally efficient team, spec people and business partners who are supported by these forces and effective governance and policies to ensure that investments are put in to the most optimal use. So to Stuart’s point earlier, this is really about change management and managing that uncertainty. That’s because uncertainty creates a lot of demands and unrealistic expectations over what’s practical and what isn’t,” Ortiz said.

“We had one particular office then that notify us that they had a positive call it be shut in there in their entire team. We were the first office building to experience that. So going back to the earlier comments of Stuart and Rommel, I think communication is so important. Our communication with other tenants.

Communication with your stakeholders. I think the [first] most important step as a building owner to take is that when you receive that news, you must do quickly and honestly inform everyone involved. The next step that we did was because we at that point you must realize that this early on in this and really there was not too much cases locally. So the amount of fear about this particular space, this particular specific building was quite alarming for a lot of people,” Raymond mentioned.

“At the end of the day, tenants need to be reassured and need to feel that they are safe when coming to the building. So we had a cleaning and disinfection regularly ongoing before the case. After that, we increased the frequency so that you would really see a lot of staff going around, wiping down and disinfecting a lot of the areas. Since then, many buildings have experienced this. A lot of buildings now have encountered positive cases within their premises,” he added.

It is important for us to find groups such as these to collaborate and have a space to discuss ways moving forward amid this crisis. It is important to note that we are all in the same boat, navigating through the same river of uncertainty in the next few weeks and months. The best thing we could do is communicate and collaborate with each other.

Everyone is in crisis mode and there is no clear blueprint to follow. However, there is one thing that I was taught in my training as a crisis manager that people and businesses should do: Overcommunicate. Communication is not enough in dire times.

We need to be able to over communicate and over collaborate in times of crisis.

There’s never been a more important time to communicate to your stakeholders than during a crisis.

I was honored to join one such webinar that talked about overcommunication and other essential skills in the light of a pandemic specifically on real estate and properties.

Last March 27, the Urban Land Institute Philippines held its first webinar, entitled “Properties and Pandemics.” It aimed to gather members of the organization to talk about the ongoing crisis in the world and share case studies of what other companies are doing in the region.

“We’re focusing on property and pandemics, as you know, on March 16, in line with the direction of the government, the national government, we were put into an enhanced community quarantine for the entire Luzon, which basically puts restrictions on work and travel in the Philippines, ranging from having everybody go on work from home to basically stopping non-essential businesses, only

allowing hospital services, utilities, infrastructure like water operations to come online,” said Buds Wenceslao, the current chairman of ULI Philippines.

“So naturally, since most of the real estate and properties are most affected, with this current enhanced community quarantine, we wanted to showcase some of the things that other regions and other developers, both locally and regionally are doing,” he added.

“The purpose of this seminar is certainly not to provide answers to everything, but I think it could be the beginning of a series as we collectively, as a community work through the challenges ahead of us. I thought that a chance to raise strategic questions among this building and property owners and management community would be very helpful to be interested in international solutions, but also a forum for us to discover alignments and to inspire each other and to just identify some pain points,” said Sylvester Wong, vice president of AECOM Philippines.

ULI Philippines also invited Kenneth Rhee, executive director of ULI China Mainland to discuss the low-down of how the pandemic started and spread in China, as well as in Korea. These were the first countries hit with

‘Clean, safe, healthy’ environments much needed amid Covid-19—Creba

Calax opening a game changer in Greenfield City’s accessibility

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By Roderick L. Abad

@rodrik_28

S the nation, together with the rest of the world, battles against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), the country’s biggest organization of major stakeholders in the real-estate industry has called for “clean, safe and healthy” buildings and communities for Filipinos.

The Chamber of RealEstate & Builders’ Associations Inc. (Creba) has issued a statement, encouraging property developers, office and residential building managers, construction sites and homeowners groups to implement safety measures and clean practices to slow down, if not totally eradicate, the spread of this fatal Chinese flu.

The group suggested building administrations, especially in Metro Manila that is now under a community quarantine for 30 days, to put up disinfecting stations at the entrance and exit points of their premises, ensure utmost sanitation of all common areas including rest rooms, promote use of face masks, undertake prompt waste disposal and urge individual unit owners and offices to do the same in their own work and living spaces.

Creba said companies involved in construction and related services should provide their personnel free and ready access to protective face masks, sanitary kits, clean water and facilities, preventive medicines and healthier working conditions.

It added everyone, including the business community, must share in a collective and organized effort to protect people from all walks of life, regardless of nationality, from the Covid-19 outbreak while ensuring that business activities can proceed as usual without putting the public’s health and lives at risk.

Creba is the umbrella group of the real-estate and housing industry whose members include property developers, builders, contractors, suppliers and manufacturers of construction materials, real-estate service practitioners and other stakeholders engaged in more than 75 allied fields all over the country.

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio

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AMPOS-led Greenfield Development Corp. (GDC) recently expressed optimism in its Greenfield City project as infrastructure development projects are expected to make Greenfield City more accessible to the travelers from the city.

Greenfield City is a 400-hectare development of play spaces, productivity hubs and living spaces near the South’s major thoroughfares, allowing urban dwellers to avail of a more relaxing respite after a tedious day in the big city. It is accessible via the Santa Rosa Interchange, Eton-Greenfield Exit, GreenfieldUnilab exit, and its exit leads directly to the South Luzon Expressway (Slex).

GDC said Greenfield City has attracted a lot of potential buyers as they find the verdant metropolis in Santa Rosa, Laguna, as a commercial and residential gem that can provide families and individuals with demanding city responsibilities aiming to find balance in their life. A banner project by GDC, Greenfield City—like other GDC projects—is situated beside major thoroughfares, a non-negotiable feature of all GDC developments.

GDC pointed out that the inaugural opening of the Cavite-Laguna Expressway (Calax) in October 2019 was a game changer in North to South accessibility. “With Calax, travel to Greenfield City and the rest of the Laguna will be reduced to 45 minutes from the original 90 minutes from the stretch of Slex to Cavitex. This increased level of convenience has bolstered the demand for residential properties within Greenfield City, which is rife with all the essentials needed for holistic living,” GDC said in a press statement.

Greenfield City contains three major retail

Greenfield City

Paseo de Santa Rosa

developments—Laguna Central, Arcadia and Paseo Outlets—most known to be the center of premium brand outlets in the South, apart of a wide array of restaurant and fast-food dining choices with a selection that can rival even those of commercial centers up north.

Greenfield City is also fast becoming an industrial hot spot with Santa Rosa Business Parks 1 and 2, and Greenfield Autopark—a total of 85 hectares dedicated to building a sprawling business district in the South that houses automotive and manufacturing companies, hotels, hospitals and corporations.

Moreover, GDC said the construction of Calax marks the realization of Santa Rosa being the “Lion City of the South,” a title related to growth and development in the southern part of the metropolis. “Accessibility and productivity from what was once considered a remote locale no longer becomes an issue, and with Greenfield City comes a community that upholds a well-minded balance between progress and ease of living, a quality that the South has long been known for,” GDC explained.

At the very heart of Greenfield City, GDC pointed out are the communities of individuals and families who bring life and purpose to the development. Greenfield City is home to four residential developments, each tailor-fit to the diverse profiles of people who want to enjoy the ease and comfort of modern Southern living: TRAVA, an ultra high-end suburban community centered on luxurious, sustainable living; Solen Residences, modern family living immersed in space and nature; Pramana, the country’s first residential park dedicated to lush landscapes and tree-lined living, and Zadia, a five-building mid-rise community that blends convenient condo living with parkstyle relaxation.

Sports BusinessMirror

B8 Wednesday, April 15, 2020

By Jun Lomibao

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ARION KIM MANGROBANG and Kim Kilgroe—the country’s 1-2 punch in women’s triathlon— are keeping themselves in harness amid the global lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mangrobang, according to Triathlon Association of the Philippines (TRAP) President Tom Carrasco, has returned to Portugal since last month, while Kilgroe rerouted to the US from Mauritius where she joined the African Cup also in March finishing at fifth place.

Mangrobang and Kilgroe finished 1-2 in the 30th Southeast Asian Games in Subic in December and with John Leerams Chicano also winning the men’s gold medal, kept the country’s stranglehold of the sport in the region.

“Everyone’s okay in the triathlon family although the athletes are strictly quarantined,” Carrasco told BusinessMirror on Tuesday. “The two aspirants for the Tokyo Olympics— Mangrobang and Kilgroe—are in good condition.”

Carrasco said Mangrobang is staying in a private apartment in Portugal while awaiting the reopening of the Desmor training camp in Rio Major next month.

“She’s training on her own,” Carrasco said.

As for Kilgroe, she opted to fly to California from Mauritius after the pandemic caused global travel restrictions.

“I’m in Los Angeles, currently no restrictions preventing me from training solo as normal.

Hope you are well!” Kilgroe told Carrasco in an e-mail on Monday.

“I was stuck in Mauritius for some time after the race dealing with cancellations and decided to reroute to the US after airline shutdowns and lockdowns began,” she said. “I’m going to ride it out here [California] until things settle down and I can return.”

“Zero restrictions on my training here since I have open water access and so far I haven’t

Fuentes

La Salle bags prized hitter from L.A.

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E LA SALLE snatched a prized recruit— Jade Fuentes from Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles—when everyone else was locked at home observing the enhanced community quarantine.

“So stoked and incredibly blessed to be able to announce that I will be joining the La Salle family in the Philippines,” Fuentes wrote on Instagram, announcing her recruitment by the Ramil de Jesus-coached team.

Standing at 5-foot-11, the 17-year-old outside hitter will be available for Season 83 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines. She will be joining a Lady Spikers side boasting of a mix of young and talented players led by Jolina de la Cruz, Leila Cruz and Thea Gagate.

Fuentes helped Eagle Rock to the CIF Los Angeles City Section Open Division championship last year where she was named the Most Valuable Player.

“Congratulations, Jade Fuentes received a full scholarship to play volleyball at De La Salle in the Philippines,” Eagle Rock High School posted on Twitter.

Season 82 of the UAAP was totally scrapped because of the Covid-19 pandemic. De La Salle played only one game, beating defending champion and archrival Ateneo, 25-17, 17-25, 25-17, 25-15.

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph / Editor: Jun Lomibao

PHL TRIATHLETES STAY ON TRACK skipped a beat of work,” she added.

Mangrobang, ranked 193rd in the world, and Kilgroe (No. 204) are hoping to land slots in the Tokyo Olympics which were moved back to July 24 to August 9, 2021. Fifty-five men and as many women will race in the Olympics.

Carrasco said the locally based national athletes are supervised by their assigned coaches.

“They are doing mainly indoor training— stationary bikes, threadmill running and lots of calisthenics,” Carrasco said. “From time to time, they do joint indoor workouts via teleconference facilities.”

The TRAP head thanked the Philippine Sports Commission for releasing in earnest the athletes’ allowances for February and March.

“They are able to buy their needs,” he said.

Carrasco also hailed the sport’s Asian and international federations for regularly keeping in touch with national federations.

“Measures are being undertaken to manage all triathlon activities worldwide without sacrificing the safety and well-being of our coaches, athletes and technical officials,” he

TRIATHLON Association Head Tom Carrasco says Marion Kim Mangrobang and Kim Kilgroe are observing quarantine but are training on their own during the pandemic.

Casado of Spain will hold a virtual meeting with Asian federation heads on Wednesday to discuss the sport’s current status.

“The triathlon community will be resilient and adjusting well to this difficult times,” he said.

said, adding that the International Triathlon Union (ITU) suspended all activities until June 30 and is currently reviewing qualification rules for the Tokyo Games.

Carrasco said ITU President Marisol

BIG MAN RANIDEL RETIRES R

ANIDEL DE OCAMPO, one of the most dominant big man Philippine basketball has seen this decade, is retiring from basketball.

Ocampo, who at 6-foot-6 held his ground against the likes of Iran’s Hamed Haddadi on the Asian stage, announced his retirement on social media on Monday night.

The former TNT and now Meralco star said his string of injuries forced him to retire.

“At first, I only saw basketball as a sport that I like to watch. It never crossed my mind that it will become one of the biggest parts of my life,” de Ocampo, a native of Tanza, Cavite, said.

“At 38, with the guidance of the Lord and my family, I am now announcing my retirement as a professional basketball player,” he added.

De Ocampo ended a 15-year career highlighted by his stint with the national team in the 2014 Fiba World Cup in Spain.

DE OCAMPO

Picked fourth overall by FedEx Express in the 2004 Philippine Basketball Association Rookie 10 Draft, de Ocampo had his breakout with the TNT franchise where he won six titles.

The forward also collected several individual awards, including two Finals Most Valuable Player—2013 Philippine Cup and 2015 Commissioner’s Cup—and the Best Player of the Conference in the 2014 Governors’ Cup. He was also a nine-time PBA All-Star and

three-time member of the Mythical First Team.

De Ocampo played for the silver medalclinching Gilas Pilipinas teams in the 2013 and 2015 Fiba Asia Championship and was also instrumental in the country’s conquest of the 2012 William Jones Cup. Riddled with nagging injuries, de Ocampo saw little action with the Meralco Bolts which acquired him via a trade in 2017.

Ramon Rafael Bonilla

OLYMPICS DELAY COSTLY FOR I.O.C. T

THOMAS BACH: It is already clear that we shall be faced with several hundred million dollars of additional costs. AP

OKYO—The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will face “several hundred million dollars” of added costs because of the postponement of the Tokyo Games, the body’s president said.

Thomas Bach spoke in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt on Sunday.

Estimates in Japan put the overall cost of the postponement at $2 billion to $6 billion. Except for the IOC portion, all added costs will be borne by the Japanese side according to an agreement signed in 2013 when Tokyo was awarded the Olympics.

Bach said it was “impossible to say for now” the extent of the added costs for the IOC caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We agreed with the prime minister that Japan will continue to cover the costs it would have done under the terms of the existing

agreement for 2020, and the IOC will continue to be responsible for its share of the costs,” Bach said. “For us, the IOC, it is already clear that we shall be faced with several hundred million dollars of additional costs.”

Before the postponement, Japanese organizers put the official cost of the Games at $12.6 billion.

However, a government audit report in 2019 said the costs were at least twice that. All but $5.6 billion of it is in taxpayer money.

Tokyo said the 2020 Games would cost about $7.3 billion when it won the bid seven years ago.

On Friday, the CEO of the Tokyo organizing committee said the pandemic left some doubts about the Games going ahead next year.

“I don’t think anyone would be able to say if it is going to be possible to get it under control by next July or not,” Toshiro Muto said, speaking

through an interpreter. “We certainly are not in a position to give you a clear answer.”

Bach was asked about the possibility of another postponement. He did not answer directly, but said later in the interview that Japanese organizers and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “made it very clear to me that Japan could not manage a postponement beyond next summer at the latest.”

Bach was also asked if the pandemic provided an opportunity for some athletes to violate the doping rules with no threat of testing.

Bach countered that the delay could allow new testing methods to be developed. He also said tests made before the Olympics would be saved for 10 years for retesting.

“No one should feel confident that they don’t get caught,” he said. AP

Al Mendoza alsol47@yahoo.com

THAT’S ALL

Marcial MUST remain amateur EUMIR Marcial is being lured to turn pro?

Is there something wrong with that?

Seemingly, yes, if we ask Marcial’s bosses at the national boxing association.

If it’s not fake news, Ricky Vargas, the boxing president, wants to stop the vultures from hovering over Marcial’s head.

I mean, Vargas is just reacting the logical way. He has whipped his ass off to make Marcial an Olympic Games hopeful in Tokyo next year. He wouldn’t just let his hard work go down the drain without a fight, so to speak.

For, if Marcial should succumb to the weakness of the flesh, it’d be an entirely new ballgame again.

While new rules now admit pros to compete in the Olympics, Marcial would be a totally new package—damaged goods, maybe?—if he’s no longer an amateur come Tokyo.

Training would be the chief obstacle.

If Marcial turns pro before Tokyo, will he still train as an amateur in the run-up to the Games?

Of course, not.

While the sweet science has evolved through the years, amateur boxing is anathema to professional pugilism.

The trainer that handles an amateur is a totally different animal from the trainer that mentors a pro.

While an amateur relies more on volume punches to hopefully secure a win, not the pro, whose hits and blows come in calculated staccato.

The amateur rushes, the pro restrains.

So, if Marcial decides to turn pro before 2021 Tokyo, he will essentially abandon his Olympic dream. Vargas might even shoo him away.

That’s as clear as Covid-19 being the current scourge of mankind today.

But will turning pro make Marcial an instant millionaire, which should be the No. 1 temptation I must say?

Maybe. But amid the virus pandemic, not a single mega-fight in the pro world can be seen in the immediate horizons. Thus, his millionpeso dream gets on hold.

In contrast, if Marcial remains an amateur and continues to obey his father’s dream for him to win the country’s first gold in Olympic boxing—we’ve won two silvers already through Anthony Villanueva in 1964 Tokyo and Onyok Velasco in 1996 Atlanta—Eumir stands to win millions just the same if he succeeds.

That’s because the Olympic gold is now worth P10 million alone as per government budget. Add private donors and the stash could amount to a fortune, in the process effectively giving Marcial no less than five lifetimes.

So, c’mon, Ricky, stop worrying. Marcial will stay put. His dad will see to that.

THAT’S IT Commissioner Willie Marcial of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) remains optimistic the PBA All-Star Weekend in Passi City, Iloilo, will proceed as scheduled this year despite the Covid-19. That’s what you call fighting spirit.

Athletes completing bans get unexpected chance at Olympics

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THE Olympic rings are seen behind cherry blossoms in the Odaiba section of Tokyo. AP

RUSSELS, Belgium—Athletes completing doping bans over the next year will be eligible to compete in the postponed Tokyo Olympics, an unintended effect of the coronavirus pandemic that has some crying foul.

Turkish runner Gamze Bulut, for example, will now have plenty of time to qualify for a games she likely would have missed had they gone ahead as scheduled.

“It doesn’t seem like a fair punishment,” Irish race walker Brendan Boyce told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “They haven’t really missed the events they were supposed to miss.”

The 2020 Olympics were officially postponed last month for one year, with the opening ceremony now set for July 23, 2021.

Bulut originally won silver in the 1,500 meters at the 2012 London Olympics but was stripped of her medal because of irregularities in her biological passport, which monitors an athlete’s blood profile. She was given a four-year ban that began in 2016 and expires on May 29—giving her an unexpected full year to qualify for Tokyo.

“I’m trying my best to [attend] the Olympics,”

the 27-year-old runner said. “I hope I can join.”

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) estimates that about 40 of the 200 or so banned track and field athletes who stand to gain from the Olympic postponement are international-level competitors. The AIU maintains a global list of track athletes banned for doping violations.

More than 11,000 athletes are expected to compete in 33 sports in Tokyo, with about 2,000 of them in track and field.

Boyce, a two-time Olympian who has qualified for Tokyo, said restrictions on the number of competitors could make it harder for clean athletes to earn places.

“I wouldn’t be too happy now if I lost an Olympic spot because of an anomaly like what’s going on at the minute,” Boyce said.

The Irishman protested on social media but stopped short of filing any formal complaints.

British long-distance runner and Tokyo hopeful Lily Partridge agreed.

“I don’t believe in second chances with regards to serious doping offenses unless you provide serious assistance to anti-doping authorities and even then I don’t believe you

should have the privilege of being able to compete and earn money from the sport,” Partridge told the AP. However, World Anti-Doping Agency President Witold Banka said the unforeseen health crisis doesn’t mean authorities can “cherry-pick” when athletes have completed their bans.

“While an athlete cannot choose when he or she would like to be ineligible, an [anti-doping organization] cannot either,” Banka said. “This is entirely consistent with principles of natural justice and other areas of the law as it relates to sports or even criminal activity. When an offender has done the time, the sentence is considered to be served.”

Sebastian Coe, the Olympic great who is now president of World Athletics, was less definitive in comments shortly after the Games were postponed.

“This is something we will need to look at,” Coe said. “I know it’s something the Athletics Integrity Unit, and I’m sure all the other agencies out there in concert with our sports, will need to think about, and that will just be another issue in an overflowing inbox at the moment.” AP