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Friday, April 28, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 197

Missing rights for the poorest and most numerous

Lopez to ban open-pit mining for select ores E @jonlmayuga

nvironment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez announced on Thursday a new policy banning the open-pit mining method for gold, copper, silver and complex ores, taking advantage of the “limited time” she has in office, as she sees another rejection at the Commission on Appointments (CA).

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NEW REGULATION TO AFFECT 3 MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR PROJECTS

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

2016 ejap journalism awards

Rene E. Ofreneo

laborem exercens

LOPEZ: “Politics is unpredictable. I want to put in place these policies while I am still here.”

Sought for reaction, Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) Vice President for Legal and Policy Ronald S. Recidoro said the plan to ban the open-pit mining method is “absurd” and, again, “biased” against large-scale mines.

Continued on A2

Conclusion

F

rom the foregoing, one can immediately conclude that the IS/IE is not homogenous, occupation-wise. But one area of commonality is that the IS/IE workers and families are people living on the margin. The exceptions are a few; those with special skills who render unique, but unregistered, business services to different homes, such as expert electricians and plumbers, are compensated well. However, the overwhelming majority of the informals—self-employed, unpaid family workers and non-formal wage workers—are poor. The poorest among them end up as “informal settlers”, who build makeshift houses (around 2x2-meter) made of light materials on vacant private and government lands and dangerous spaces, such as river embankments, canals, etc., such as the homeless members of Kadamay, who took over the government’s housing project in Pandi, Bulacan.

Piñol: Duterte OK’d mandatory TIME TO START TALKS inspection of rice warehouses ON ‘E.U. OF THE EAST’ Continued on A10

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

& Elijah Felice E. Rosales

P

@alyasjah

resident Duterte has approved the proposal of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to set up a task force that would conduct mandatory inspection of all rice warehouses in the country, according to the DA chief.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said on his Facebook post the green light for the creation of the Task Force Bigas was given by the President in a meeting in Malacañang on Wednesday.

“The task force will conduct actual rice-stock inventory in the country and establish accurate

5 MT The current rice inventory of the Philippines, according to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol, who cited IRRI data

baseline information on the country’s rice supply,” Piñol said.

“President Duterte said Task Force Bigas should be led by the DA and supported by other agencies, like the bureaus of Customs and Internal Revenue, and the Philippine Statistics Office [sic],” he added.

PESO exchange rates n US 49.6990

Piñol said the Office of the President will soon release a memorandum order to operationalize the interagency task force. The memo will be signed by Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea.

He said one of the objectives of Task Force Bigas is “to avert any attempt at hoarding rice to create an artificial shortage” following the pronouncement of the President that the country will not import rice while harvest is ongoing.

“The new policy declared by the President is aimed at protecting Filipino rice farmers from price manipulation. Historically, paddy rice-buying prices would fall from a high of P18 per kilogram [before the start of harvest] to only about P10 to P12 per kg

during peak harvest, a result of the inshipment of imported rice,” Piñol said.

“The task force will conduct a nationwide inventory of all rice stocks, including those that entered the country through the backdoor by a well-organized rice-smuggling syndicate, which receives the rice from other countries in the waters off Malaysia and transferred to small boats that bring the stocks to Zamboanga City and other small ports in the peninsula,” he added.

Earlier Piñol said he proposed the setup of Task Force Bigas to Duterte, as the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) data on rice were “not accurate”.

Continued on A2

By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

CASIPLE: “The end goal, of course, was to deal with the rest of the world as a political bloc.”

S

outheast Asian leaders should seriously consider jump-starting discussions on transforming Asean into the “European Union [EU] of the East” when they converge for the summit in Manila, according to experts.

Political analyst Ramon C. Casiple of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform said the plan to turn the Asean into a single base market was already “long overdue”.

“The end goal, of course, was to deal with the rest of the world as a political bloc,” Casiple told the BusinessMirror, adding

the Philippines would benefit from a single base market.

Ateneo de Manila University EagleWatch Senior Fellow Leonardo A. Lanzona Jr. said if Asean can trade as a single economic bloc like the EU, this will further boost efforts tTo attain food security in the region. “Trading as a bloc may be Continued on A2

n japan 0.4474 n UK 63.8384 n HK 6.3881 n CHINA 7.2104 n singapore 35.6112 n australia 37.1450 n EU 54.2117 n SAUDI arabia 13.2534

Source: BSP (27 April 2017 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Friday, April 28, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Lopez to ban open-pit mining for select ores Continued from A1

“Hindi pinag-aralan ’yan [It did not undergo any study],” he said, noting the order was done in haste.

An environmental advocate, Lopez made the announcement during a news conference at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Social Hall on Thursday, where she hinted that she may end up being rejected by the CA next week.

“Politics is unpredictable. I want to put in place these policies while I am still here,” she said.

Lopez added that she will sign and hand down an administrative order effectively banning the open-pit mining method and putting in place policies that will ensure social justice.

The Philippines is known to have rich mineral deposits, particularly gold and copper. It is also known to produce silver, albeit in small quantity. Complex ores are those containing more than one economic mineral, such as ore with both gold, copper and silver.

To be affected

Three multibillion-dollar mining projects stand to be affected by the

order—the Tampakan Gold Project, King-King Copper-Gold Project and Silangan Gold Project—all in Mindanao. While the plan to ban open-pit mining is not retroactive, the three companies have yet to start operation.

Asked whether the three projects would be affected by the ban, Environment Undersecretary for Legal Maria Paz Luna said, “That was the intention.”

She sa id w it h t he ba n on open-pit mining, the Declaration of Project Mining Feasibility for the three projects are essentially set aside.

However, Luna said the proponents of the projects can file an appeal, or even raise legal question, in case of their inclusion in the open-pit mining ban. “They can always come to us to appeal or question the order,” she said.

Recidoro said the plan to ban the open-pit mining method is essentially banning all mining activities, except for those that do tunnel or underground mining.

Open-pit mining

Open pit, also called open cast or open-cut mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting mineral

ores by their removal from an open pit or borrow.

Experts say open-pit mines are developed to extract mineral deposits near the surface, or if the surface material covering the valuable deposit is relatively thin, or the material of interest is structurally unsuitable for tunneling, such as for sand, cinder and gravel.

Mining companies consider open-pit mine as the fastest, safest way of extracting mineral-ore deposits, although environmentalists reject the method because of its destructive nature. Openpit mines are expanded as mineral deposits are found around the mine, in the process, creating a bowl-like hole in an area where mountain and lush forest vegetation used to exist.

According to Luna, banning open-pit mining is within the powers of the DENR secretary. She said the DENR chief can issue rules and regulations to protect the environment against destructive development projects, such as the open-pit mining method.

Since the order specifically identifies gold, copper, silver and complex ores, coal mines, largescale quarry and nickel mines will

not be affected.

Open-pit mining methods are usually used in mining gold, copper and silver.

Lopez gave three reasons for her decision to ban open-pit mines: 1) They are lifetime financial liability to the government. 2) They pose lifetime risk to communities; and 3) They destroy the economic potential of the area.

“I don’t like open-pit mines because once mining is over, who gets to shoulder the cost of rehabilitation? These open-pit mines will only become financial liability of the government,” she said.

The Marcopper experience

Citing the abandoned Marcopper mines, which has three dams filled with tons of bluish-green water, open-pit mines will become manmade lakes or dams that endanger the lives of communities. The method also destroys the economic potential of an area and rehabilitation is impossible.

Left behind open-pit mines, according to experts, are usually developed as part of an ecopark, with the pit forming man-made lakes.

But the lakes are acidic and, during heavy rains, occasional discharge or

Time to start talks on ‘EU of the east’ preferred to explore the possibilities of cooperation and ensure food security,” Lanzona said.

Economist Pablito M. Villegas, president and CEO of agricultural think tank Meganomics Specialist International Inc., said Asean can tread the path taken by the EU and to take full advantage of its strength in agriculture.

However, Casiple said the aspiration to merge Asean member-countries into a political bloc would encounter a number of obstacles, including the absence of a common currency.

“Different countries with different currencies would have differing reception of the global market. As I see it, it would be a difficult task to reach a common currency with the varying economies of the Asean states,” he said.

Adopting one of the existing currencies of the Asean is not the proper way to resolve this, as

doing so would disadvantage the developing member-nations, Casiple added.

The Philippines, he said, is one of the less-developed economies that would face difficulties if Asean decides to transform itself into a single political bloc.

“Our agriculture, mining, textile and other industries have yet to be developed. It would be difficult for us to keep up in the long run because we have not yet fully industrialized our modes of production,” Casiple said.

Former Tariff Commissioner George Manzano said trading as a single economic bloc will take a lot of work and cooperation.

Manzano said there is a need to harmonize tariffs indicated in bilateral agreements forged between Asean members and non-Asean countries.

For instance, the Philippines has a bilateral agreement with Japan—

the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa), which has eliminated or reduced tariffs on 95 percent of the industrial and agricultural products of the two countries.

Similar free-trade agreements (FTAs) have been made between Japan and other Asean countries— Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand. Only Singapore has a bilateral with the European Union.

Manzao said these differences in trade policies across Asean countries are bound to affect the way goods are traded if the region decides to trade as one economic bloc.

‘Not ideal’

Economist Emmanuel A. Leyco of the Asian Institute of Management said it would be “impossible” for Asean member-countries to merge into a political bloc anytime soon.

He told the BusinessMirror

that Asean countries do not enjoy the same political interaction, such as that of the EU. “Notably, Asean states are more diverse compared to European nations.”

Leyco said Asean is mostly concerned with the exchange of goods, which is why there’s a “general and polite consensus” among its members when it comes to trade deals and policies.

He also said he is doubtful over the possibility that the region can work as a single unit, adding that Asean members have more “competing interests”. To achieve a single-base market, Leyco said Asean members should define common and mutual interests.

“As long as these countries compete in hosting foreign investments, consider the single-base market just a dream. Remember, under a single-base market, regional interests are prioritized over national interests,” Leyco said.

spill into waterways is common.

This is currently being experienced in the abandoned Marcopper mines, which was ordered closed by the government following the 1996 accidental leak, when one of its three tailings dam gave in, dumping 3 million to 4 million tons of tailings into the Makulapnit Creek all the way to the Boac River.

The Marcopper mining disaster is considered as the worst mining disaster in the country’s history.

The accidental leak literally killed the 27-kilometer Boac River.

Although there are now signs of life in some portions of the Boac River, with fish species now reappearing, DENR officials in Marinduque cautioned that the water flowing in the Boac River is still not safe for drinking, bathing, or even fish production.

‘It’s absurd’

“We think that the proposed ban is absurd. It is absurd. Mining is a legitimate activity. It’s in the Constitution. There is even a law regulating mining. Mining can only be done two ways, either open-pit underground. It is not something that the DENR can mandate. It is the ore body that determines what

kind of mining method can be used to extract it,” Recidoro said.

He said in the case of nickel or copper deposits that are found 2 meters beneath the surface, it will be absurd to dig a tunnel to extract ores. “Don’t they realize that banning open-pit mining means banning quarrying and even coal?” he said.

Conflict of interest?

According to Recidoro, coal is extracted through open-pit mining.

Quarrying, particularly large-scale quarrying, is also done through open-pit mining.

“If indeed quarrying and coal are not included, is she favoring First Balfour?” Recidoro said, referring to a company owned by Lopez’s family, which operates an open-pit mine in Lobo, Batangas.

First Balfour is allegedly mining aggregates in a watershed.

“Why is there a distinction? If she really wants to prevent the environmental effect of open-pit mining, then all open-pit mines should be banned altogether. If it is selective, it only means she’s favoring some companies that operate open-pit mines, like coal and quarry,” Recidoro said.

Continued from a1

He added it’s not ideal for the Asean states to discuss a singlebase market now, given the tension in the South China Sea, which the economist deemed to be “a more urgent issue”.

Philippine Institute for Development Studies senior research fellow Roehlano Briones said Asean is, in a sense, already working as a single trading bloc.

“We are attempting to impose Asean centrality in various freetrade agreements, like AseanChina, Asean-Japan and AseanKorea, among others. In a way, we are a trading bloc asserting Asean centrality because we are trying to form a single negotiating body for the Codex alimentarius,” Briones told the BusinessMirror.

However, Briones noted that Asean, unlike the EU, is not a customs union, where the membercountries apply the same tariff lines internally and externally.

“That I think would not be possible. I don’t think Asean members will adopt the same tariff.

Say Thailand wants zero tariff on rice but the Philippines will insist that rice tariff should be at 35 percent as a form of protection,” he said.

Becoming a single trading bloc, Villegas said, requires fostering cooperating within the region. “We’re saying in unity there is strength, but there’s only unity in paper.”

Economists said Asean members should start making uniform trade rules, particularly those concerning nontariff measures.

“One reason it’s hard to lobby because within Asean members is the differences in trade rules.

While there are Asean standards, Indonesia and the Philippines, for instance, have differing standards on meat,” Briones said. With reports from Catherine N. Pillas and Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

Piñol: Duterte OK’d mandatory inspection of rice warehouses Continued from A1

He said the PSA data did not take into account smuggled rice.

Citing data from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Piñol said the Philippines has a rice inventory of about 5 million metric tons (MMT ).

IRRI analyst, Dr. Samarendu Mohanty, said the Philippines has an inventory of about 5 MMT of rice.

Mohanty also said the export price of rice in the world market today has fallen to very affordable (levels) partly because of the announcement

by President Duterte that the Philippines will not import during the harvest season, Piñol added.

‘Lift rice QR’

The Asean Business Advisory Council (Abac) on Thursday urged the Philippine government to let go of its quantitative restriction (QR) on rice and to focus instead on addressing the needs of rice farmers.

Abac Chairman Jose Ma. A. Concepcion III urged the Philippine government to pursue its hybridization program to increase rice supply and help farmers increase their income.

“The QR will be removed because there’s no chance to defer it again. But the implementation of the free trade

on rice will take time,” Concepcion told reporters in a news briefing in Pasay City on Thursday.

“Now is the perfect time for the government to support the hybridization of rice. This is the only way for our rice industry to prosper on its own,” he added.

Concepcion noted that the Asean is currently focused on reducing inequality in the region by attending to the needs of the “marginalized and underserved” like the farmers.

“In the middle of all these privatization, liberalization and deregulation, we must work to find the right balance in the distribution of wealth.

And we must begin with the workers in the agriculture sector,” the Abac chief said.

He said Manila should learn from Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam— Asean countries that were once poor but are now reaping the fruits of their hard work.

“Come to think of it, Vietnam was formerly bombed and devastated by the war. But now, look at them. Their agriculture is better than the Philippines, in spite of them learning their ways from us,” Concepcion said.

“We should not be urging our rice farmers to plant another crop. Instead, we should help our rice farmers develop their farming so we will be able to resolve rural poverty.”

The Nation BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Friday, April 28, 2017 A3

Group seeks new rules to protect drug suspects

A

By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

PETITION has been filed before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking the creation of a new procedure that would protect drug suspects and ensure justice to victims of extrajudicial killings.

In a 14-page petition letter, the legal advocacy group Center for International Law (CIL) asked the Court to promulgate new rules creating a writ of contra homo sacer that would ensure that due process would be accorded to drug suspects or other criminal suspects.

Homo sacer refers to a class of persons in ancient Rome that were treated as outlaws and without any rights and is defined in legal terms as someone who can be killed without the killer being regarded as a murderer.

Under the proposed writ, a new mandatory inquest procedure will be instituted to address deaths arising from police operations, as well as from vigilante-style killings.

The CIL explained the writ would require a full documentation of any operation—from planning to implementation and results— on the part of the National Police.

“This includes the mandatory submission of detailed reports, forensic evidence, autopsy reports

and the like, which comply with international standards. Many of these documentary requirements, while already provided under existing rules of the Department of Justice and the National Police, are often ignored by authorities,” the CIL said in the petition.

“The obligation of police officers to turn over records, documents and all evidence in connection with the commission of a crime, as they themselves allege, must be required all the more if the suspect ends up dead, either at the hands of police officers or unknown assailants,” it added.

The CIL suggested to the Court the adoption of international standards laid down by the United Nations Minnesota Protocol on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal Killings, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, Enforced Disappearances and Torture in crafting the new writ.

The group pointed out that drug suspects under the Duterte admin-

istration are being treated as such, saying they are “reduced to mere biological existence, denied of all rights, marked for execution anytime and anywhere”, and “subject to banishment to the realm of uncertain fate”.

This classification of drug suspects under the administration’s war on drugs is seen to bolster the complaint for crimes against humanity filed against President Duterte before the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands earlier this week.

Charges of crimes against humanity, like mass murder, require that the victims belong to a single class of people.

The group, consisting of human-rights lawyers, led by Joel Butuyan, claimed the war on illegal drugs, officially dubbed as Oplan Tokhang by the National Police, has already killed at least 8,000 persons in the last 10 months.

The SC had already put in place the writs of amparo and habeas data as protective remedies against human-rights abuses of law-enforcement authorities.

It can be recalled that that CIL has filed an a writ of amparo petition earlier this year for a survivor and families of four men allegedly killed by members of the Quezon City Police District in Payatas during an Oplan Tokhang operation last year.

The Court of Appeals eventually issued permanent protection order in favor of the victims, after state solicitors hardly objected to the plea of petitioners, saying it is the duty of authorities to protect the citizens.

Senate panel set to unravel P3.8-billion MRT anomaly

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

T

HE Senate Committee on Public Services is poised to open an inquiry into the reported anomalous purchase by former Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) officials of P3.8-billion Dalian trains found to be unusable for existing Metro Rail Transit (MRT) railways.

Sen. Grace Poe, who chairs the committee, expressed readiness to start the investigation as soon as Congress reconvenes regular sessions next week (May 2) after an extended Holy Week recess.

Poe confirmed that among those expected to be summoned to appear at the coming Senate hearing are mostly former DOTC officials involved in the questionable acquisition of the 48 Dalian trains said to be incompatible with Metro Manila’s two railways spanning Epifanio de los Santos and Taft avenues.

In a radio interview, Poe gave current Department of Transporta-

tion (DOTr) officials the benefit of the doubt, noting the Dalian train purchase was consummated during the watch of former President Benigno S. Aquino III. “That’s right. Actually, we know that the incumbent DOTr officials, when they assumed office…wala rin silang alam sa mga nangyari noon sa mga kontratang pinasok ng nakaraang opisyal.” Recalled the committee had been repeatedly informed that the 48 Dalian trains earlier purchased would soon be “operational”.

“So, kami naman, tayong lahat ay naghihintay at mismo noong sa pinakahuling hearing namin, sinabi ng DOTr na unti-unti ay mababawasan na iyong pagpila, sapagkat ipapasok na iyong mga [Dalian] train na iyan,” she said, only to learn about the mismatch.

“Nagulat nga ako noong narinig ko... na hindi na pala gagamitin itong mga in-order na ito, sapagkat hindi nga nagkakatugma sa signaling system.”

This means, she lamented, a huge amount of public money was wasted. “So, P3.8 billion po ang nasayang diyan.”

She acknowledged the point

made by incumbent DOTr officials in advising against potential risks to MRT commuters if the Dalian trains were put in operation.

“Sa isang banda, ang nakikita kong punto ni Secretary [Arthur P.] Tugade na huwag nating gamitin, huwag nating ipilit kung nakasalalay naman kasi dyan ang kaligtasan ng ating mga kababayan.

Pero ang dapat natin balikan talaga, at doon sa mga ibang nagsasabi na move on na tayo, pero hindi matututo ang mga iyan, eh—iyang mga mismong pumasok sa kontrata na iyan.”

At the same time, Poe indicated the committee is likely to recommend pressing charges against liable officials involved in the anomalous government purchase “to teach them a lesson not to do it again”.

“Nasabi pa naman na marami sa kanila, mga abogado diyan, akala mo siguro dahil puro abogado magandang mga kontrata nila. Hindi, eh. Tayo po ang nagiging dehado sa pinasok nilang kontrata kaya sa ating mga kababayan, ito lang naman talaga ang mandato ng Senado para marinig ninyo kung ano talaga ang nangyari, magrekomenda na kasuhan muli,” said Poe.

Legislator hails looming rejection of death-penalty bill in Senate

A

PROLIFE party-list legislator on Thursday hailed Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon’s declaration that the bill reviving the death penalty is dead in the Senate, with at least 13 senators expected to vote against measure.

“If Senator Drilon’s claim is true, then that is very good news. We’ve always maintained the death penalty is useless in fighting crime—it does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by the punishment of long-term imprisonment,” Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza of Buhay said.

“The certainty of capture and incarceration of criminal offenders is our best deterrence to other wouldbe felons,” said Atienza, the House senior deputy minority leader.

Atienza was among those who fought hard against the passage

of the death-penalty bill in the House of Representatives, arguing forcefully that the extreme punishment is antipoor and violates the sanctity of human life.

Voting 217 in favor, 54 against with a lone abstention on March 7, the House approved on the final reading of House Bill (HB) 4727 that impose the death penalty on drug-related offenses.

“Our sense is, even Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III will likely vote against the death penalty in the event of a deadlock in the Senate,” Atienza said.

Pimentel’s father, former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr., is a staunch human-rights crusader, and vehemently opposed the death penalty during his time, Atienza pointed out.

The young Pimentel has repeatedly said the bill reinstating capital

punishment is not among the Senate’s priority measures.

President Duterte has publicly said on several occasions he intends to send hundreds of convicts to the gallows once Congress brings back the death penalty.

“The death penalty is a travesty.

Only indigent citizens inadequately represented at trial will receive death sentences.

Wealthy defendants who are able to retain the best criminaldefense lawyers will always escape conviction, or get the lesser punishment of life imprisonment,” Atienza said.

HB 4727 would give trial judges the leeway to hand out either the lighter sentence of 30 years imprisonment, or the heavier punishment of death, to those found guilty of drug-related crimes.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Hagedorn seeks dismissal of SALN case Marcos lauds PET decision on poll protest vs Robredo

F

ORMER Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn has filed a motion for the dismissal of charges against him for perjury, ethics breach and graft over his alleged failure to declare his businesses and vehicles in his statement of assets and liabilities and net worth (SALN).

Hagedorn filed an urgent omnibus motion to the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division and sought the dismissal of the cases with prejudice because he had no undeclared wealth in his submitted SALNs, which all indicated the true value of his assets. The Office of the Special Prosecutor filed nine counts each of perjury and graft against Hagedorn for his failure to declare 59 residential, agricultural and commercial properties, as well as 45 vehicles—including motorcycles, luxury vehicles such as Volvo, Toyota Land Cruiser, BMW and

other sports-utility vehicles. In their motion, Hagedorn’s lawyers said the antigraft court should note “the accused never under-declared the value of his assets; has no undeclared wealth and all disclosures in his SALNs indicate an accurate value of his assets”.

Hagedorn said the allegation he misdeclared his wealth was “false”, especially because he filed a separate attachment to his SALN, which sufficiently complied with the required truthful disclosure of wealth.

Hagedorn said he had divested his shares in the corporations, which he allegedlydidnotdiscloseinhisSALNs,byexecuting deeds of trust in favor of his grandchildren. He said he should not be prosecuted for not declaring his motorcycles in his SALN because these were raffled off to his constituents, and thus, he no longer owned them. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

T

HE camp of former Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Thursday welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), setting a definite date for the preliminary conference on his electoral protest filed against Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo.

The PET set the preliminary conference on June 21 at 2 p.m.

“We welcome the PET resolution setting the case for the much awaited and prayed for preliminary conference. With this date in sight, finally,” lawyer Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’s spokesman, said in a statement.

“Senator Marcos will have his day in court and prove that the Vice Presidency was indeed stolen from him and from the people. It is time for the truth to come out,” he added.

The tribunal has decided to set just one preliminary conference for the protest and counterprotest, citing Rule 3 of the 2010 PET Rules that allows adjustment in rules “to achieve a just, expeditious and inexpensive determination and disposition of every contest before the tribunal”.

Also in the same resolution, the tribunal said it would conduct the preliminary conference on Robredo’s counter-protest at the same time.

The resolution also directed both parties to file their preliminary conference briefs with the tribunal, and serve the same on the adverse party at least five days before the date of the preliminary conference.

In addition, the tribunal also required both parties to file their respective preliminary conference

briefs, which contain the following: The possibility of obtaining stipulations or admissions of facts and documents to avoid unnecessary proof; the simplification of the issues; the limitation of the number of witnesses; and the most expeditious manner for the retrieval of ballot boxes containing the ballots, elections returns, certificates of canvass and other election documents involved in the election protest.

On Tuesday the PET denied the petition filed by Robredo seeking reconsideration of its March 21 resolution and directed her to pay the cash deposit as stated in the said resolution regarding the election protest filed by Marcos.

“The PET denied protestee Robredo’s motion for reconsideration of the resolution dated March 21,

2017 and directed protestee Robredo to pay the cash deposit as stated in the resolution dated March 21, 2017, within a nonextendible period of five days from notice of resolution,” the tribunal said.

In the same order, the PET deferred action on Marcos’s omnibus motion to dismiss the counterprotest until Robredo complies with the directive to pay the deposit.

On March 21 the PET ordered Marcos to pay P66,223,000 for the 132,446 precincts for his election protest against Robredo to proceed.

The tribunal earlier required Robredo to pay about half of the cash deposit of P8 million on April 14.

But after rejecting her appeal on the order, she was given five days from receipt of the latest order to pay the amount. PNA

Economy

A4 Friday, April 28, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

Lawmaker pushes bigger IRA share to LGUs ahead of shift to federalism

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

@joveemarie

O beef up the financial backbone of local government units (LGUs) in time for the looming shift to federalism, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations is pushing for a measure to increase the share and guarantee the automatic retention and release of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of LGUs.

In House Bill (HB) 4697, Nacionalista Party Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte of Camarines Sur seeks to amend the Local Government Code (LGC), or the Republic Act 7160.

“Our LGUs should stop being at the mercy of the national government. Automatically releasing and retaining their respective IRAs is a major step toward genuine autonomy, and would also best prepare LGUs for the shift to the federal system of government,” Villafuerte said.

Under the bill, the share of each LGU shall be automatically released and retained by it, without need of any further action, directly to the provincial, city, municipal or barangay treasurer, as the case may be, on a quarterly basis within five days after the end of each quarter, and which shall not be subject to any lien or holdback that may be imposed by the national govern-

HB 4697 A House bill being pushed

by Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte of Camarines Sur that proposes, among others, to raise LGUs’ collective IRA from the current 40 percent of national tax collections to 60 percent over a three-year period by amending Section 284 of the Local Government Code

ment for whatever purpose.

HB 4697 also increases LGUs’ collective IRA from the current 40 percent of national tax collections to 60 percent over a three-year period by

amending Section 284 of the LGC. HB 4697 also specifies that the IRA should include all types of national taxes in the formulation or computation of annual revenues due provincial, city and municipal governments.

The bill, likewise, seeks to include “all national taxes” under the IRA share of LGUs. Once enacted into law, the proposal will increase the IRA share of LGUs to 50 percent on the first year of its effectivity, 55 percent on the second year and 60 percent on the third year.

Villafuerte said in HB 4697 that the IRA share increase would “gear up LGUs for the switch from the country’s presidential system to the LGU-friendly federal form of government, which President Duterte wants to happen by the end of his term in step with his 10-point socioeconomic agenda for accelerated poverty reduction and sustained high growth.”

“Achieving local autonomy by increasing the local governments’ IRA paves the way to the Duterte administration’s vision of decentralization by federalism. Thus, the swift congressional approval of HB 4697 would serve as a fitting prelude to greater devolution and local autonomy under the federal switch as envisioned by the President, no less,” he said.

However, in the event that the national government incurs an “unmanageable” public-sector deficit upon the effectivity of this amended IRA law, HB 4697 authorizes the President of the Philippines, upon the recommendation of the secretaries of finance, budget and of the

interior and local government to make the necessary adjustments in the IRA share of LGUs, but in no case shall the amount be lower than 40 percent of all national tax earnings in the third fiscal year prior to the current one.

The bill also provides that on top of the new IRA allotment, the LGUs’ share will include the cost of devolved functions for essential public services.

In filing his bill, Villafuerte said, “Now is the most appropriate time to revisit ‘just share’ of LGUs as worded in the Constitution, in light of the looming switch to federalism that will unleash the full potentials of local governments.”

The lawmaker added that no less than the Supreme Court has, in its Ganzon v Court of Appeals ruling, stressed that the constitutional provision on local autonomy and devolution is meant to “liberate the local governments from the imperialism of Manila”.

Villafuerte also said the IRA provision in the LGC is meant to be “an integral part of local governance and local government”, and to provide LGUs with enough resources to fund the implementation of their respective programs in their pursuit of genuine political and financial autonomy from the national or central government in Manila.

“These modifications seek to truly empower and challenge the LGUs to use the additional allocation in providing better services, creating more development projects and implementing different programs to further the interests of their constituents,” Villafuerte said.

PSA data: Mining and quarry industry net ₧213.8B in 2014

By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

T

he mining and quarrying industry earned P213.8 billion in 2014, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The largest contributor for that year was the nickel-ore mining sector with over a third of the output of the industry.

Nickel-ore mining led all industries, producing P72.1 billion, or 33.7 percent of the total value of output.

“Value of output represents the sum of the receipts from products and by-products sold, income from industrial services done for others and goods sold in the same condition as purchased less the cost of goods sold,” the PSA said. “[This includes] value of fixed assets produced on own account, and change in inventories of finished products and work in progress,” it added.

This was followed by the extraction of natural gas and copper-ore mining with respective output value of P63.5 billion, or 29.7 percent, and P31 billion, or 14.5 percent of the total.

The output of other industries such as mining of hard coal, reached P19.1 billion, or 8.9 percent; gold-ore mining, P12.4 billion, or 5.8 percent; and support activities for other mining and quarrying, P7 billion, or 3.2 percent of total.

Meanwhile, subsidies received by the sector amounted to P990.6 million in 2014. Subsidies included tax perks and other special grants.

Only two industries received subsidies—nickel-ore mining and gold-ore mining with P974.9 million, or 98.4 percent of the total, and P15,700, or 1.6 percent.

Data showed that in 2014 there were 256 establishments engaged in the mining and quarrying activities in the formal sector of the economy.

More than half, or 53.5 percent of the firms, around 137 establishments, employed 20 and over while the remaining 46.5 percent, or 119, were establishments with total employment of less than 20.

Among the industry subclasses, sand and gravel quarrying recorded the highest number of establishments with 57, or 22.3 percent of the total.

Gold-ore mining placed second with 34 establishments or 13.3 percent of the total. Nickel-ore mining and stone quarrying, clay and sand pits, n.e.c. posted third and fourth places with 26 establishments, or 10.2 percent, and 24 establishments, or 9.4 percent of the total, respectively.

Sun dance Workers install steel scaffoldings prior to the full-scale construction of a multistory building along the Marikina-Infanta highway east of Manila under the blistering summer heat. NONOY LACZA

Gradual phaseout of CCT Program eyed

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he business sector is now studying to formally propose for the gradual cut of the funds allocated for the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program “maybe in a span of 10 years,” and shift this as loans for small businesses, according to Presidential Consultant for Entrepreneurship Jose Concepcion.

In a briefing on Thursday at the sidelines of the on-going 30th Asean Summit, Concepcion said providing funding to small businesses, which account for 97 percent of all registered businesses in the Philippines, would be a sure way to help lift people from poverty compared to the CCT Program.

“I’m not against the P80-billion [fund for the CCT] because that is what it has to be done today. Until we have a firm program on how you shift then it can happen. So we’re still working on that firm program,” he said.

The government has allocated some P78.2 billion this 2017 alone for the CCT Program to help ensure the poor are lifted from poverty, since beneficiaries are required to send their kids to school and pregnant mothers are required to have regular

maternity check-ups, among others.

Concepcion said the poor are lifted from poverty under the CCT, but only for a time.

He said members of the present Cabinet know about the proposal and “they are thinking about it.”

“Some Secretaries feel that should shift. If you were to talk to many of the economic managers, to them, that has to shift down the road to help those who help themselves,” he said.

He said this change “should start within the Duterte administration”.

He said giving the micro, small- and mediumsized enterprises (MSMEs) collateral-free or collateral-friendly loans is important because by “then you’re giving them a better chance”.

To date, MSMEs’s share on domestic output is only about 36 percent despite the fact that the sector employs about two-third of the country’s labor force.

Concepcion said this proposal will increase the share of MSMEs on domestic output, but he declined to give any figures. PNA

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Only 23% of Filipinos finish college–survey

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AVAO CITY—A survey conducted by one of the country’s leading insurance firms showed that “only 23 percent of Filipinos were able to finish college due to financial constraints.”

Jenny Santos, director of agencies of Philamlife for South Central Mindanao, on Wednesday revealed that the survey was conducted by their company in order to establish a reference point whether Filipinos have financial protection for their future. The survey was divided into three parts: education, health and retirement.

For education, Santos said of the 1,000 Filipinos surveyed, only 230 were able to finish college.

One of the major factors for the failure of parents to send their children to higher education was lack of funds or savings.

For health, Santos said 96 percent are conscious of their health. Of the 96 percent, 16 percent can afford to pay for serious illnesses.

80% The percentage of Filipinos who want to retire at 50, but don’t have the wherewithal to finance their retirement

The survey also showed that 80 percent want to retire at 50 years old but don’t have the capacity to fund their retirement, prompting them to retire at 65.

Santos said Philamlife conducted the survey as part of its corporate social responsibility and in line with the company’s 70th anniversary.

“Our company will not stop educating the public, if only to help them prepare for their future,” she said. PNA

Congressmen back pay increase for state, private-sector workers

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wo party-list lawmakers on Thursday threw their support behind a proposal to increase the national minimum wage to P750 a day for employees in the private sector and P16,000 a month for state workers.

ACT Teachers Reps. Antonio Tinio and France Castro, citing a recent survey, said pay increases are among the top concerns of the Filipinos, including other economic issues, such as controlling inflation and creating more jobs.

“The Duterte administration should, therefore, heed this resounding clamor of the people by enacting laws that will increase salaries and wages of the working people,” Tinio said.

“We find it alarming that the current administration’s legislative agenda, as announced in its Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, does not include salary increases for public and private-sector workers, and instead only plans to pass a productivity incentives bill for the private sector,” Castro said.

There are five pending bills filed at the lower chamber establishing a productivity improvement program, repealing for the purpose Republic Act (RA) 6971, or the Productivity Incentives Act of 1990, which encourage higher levels of productivity and promote the principle of shared responsibility in employer-employee relationship.

Diwa Rep. Emmeline AglipayVillar, one of the authors, said the Constitution provides that the State shall regulate the relations between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to just share in the fruits of production and the right of enterprises to reasonable return on investment and to expansion growth.

“Adoption of productivity programs will result not only in increased incomes for both the workers and the establishment. It will, likewise, make the Filipino work force more competitive in international trade, thereby contributing to poverty reduction through job genera-

tion,” she said.

Another author of the bill, Lakas Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of Pampanga, said currently labor and management relations are characterized as confrontational when discussing and settling basic and significant issues affecting wages, benefits and conditions of work, “as a result, the productivity expected both from labor and management suffers thereby lessening their ability to compete and survive as one entity.” “[My House Bill 1238] granting productivity incentives to laborers in the private sector, is a recognition of their indispensable contribution to the success of the business enterprise. It, likewise, seeks to promote and provide measures for the mutual benefit and industrial harmony between labor and management,” she said.

Through the measure, Arroyo said the workers’ right to uplift and improve their lives, as well as the management’s right to a reasonable return on their investment are satisfied through their cooperative endeavors.

“The granting of productivity incentive bonus for labor will not only serve as additional income but will work as an incentive for grater productivity. This increased productivity will definitely benefit the business enterprise,” she said.

Scrap

Moreover, Tinio and Castro also urged the Duterte administration to scrap the two-tiered wage system in the private sector and PerformanceBased Incentive System (PBIS), Strategic Performance Management System and similar schemes in the public sector, which both serve to suppress wage levels and impose additional burdens on workers and employees.

They added the government should instead raise the national minimum wage and implement a new round of salary increases in the public sector to enable Filipino workers and their families to lead decent lives. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

[My House Bill 1238] granting productivity incentives to laborers in the private sector is a recognition of their [workers’] indispensable contribution to the success of the business enterprise. It, likewise, seeks to promote and provide measures for the mutual benefit and industrial harmony between labor and management.”—Macapagal-Arroyo

news@businessmirror.com.ph

AseanFriday BusinessMirror

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Friday, April 28, 2017 A5

Singapore growth to remain modest

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ingapore’s GDP growth is likely to remain modest in 2017, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in its twice-yearly macroeconomic review issued on Thursday.

The MAS said the economy should expand by 1 percent to 3 percent in 2017, not markedly different from the growth of 2 percent in 2016.

The revival of the global economy should continue to support Singapore’s trade-related sectors, the MAS said.

The outlook for the global economy has been optimistic as global capital expenditure began to turn up amid

improving business sentiment and labor-market conditions.

Against this external backdrop, MAS said the turnaround in the global information-technology cycle will continue to benefit the domestic semiconductor and precision-engineering industries. The modern-services cluster is also expected to expand at a slightly faster pace in 2017, led by a pickup in

the financial sector and firm demand for Information and Communication Technology services. “While health care and education services will be underpinned by resilient demand, spending on discretionary retail items and other services is expected to be dampened by the still-subdued labor market and weak consumer sentiment,” the authority added.

In terms of inflation, MAS core inflation is projected to average 1 percent to 2 percent, compared to 0.9 percent in 2016, while CPI-All Items inflation is expected to rise to 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent from -0.5 percent last year. The authority said energy-related components will be the main drivers of the projected pickup in inflation. PNA

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Friday, April 28, 2017

The World BusinessMirror

US softens on N. Korea; vows economic and other sanctions

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ASHINGTON—The Trump administration told lawmakers on Wednesday it will apply economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program, as an extraordinary White House briefing served to tamp down talk of military action against an unpredictable and increasingly dangerous US adversary.

President Donald J. Trump welcomed Republican and Democratic senators before his secretar y of state, defense secretar y, top general and national intelligence director conducted a classified briefing.

The same team also met with House members in the Capitol to outline the North’s escalating nuclear capabilities and US response options to what they called an “urgent national security threat.”

A f ter we e k s of u nu su a l ly blunt military threats, the joint statement by the agency chiefs said Trump’s approach “aims to pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear, ballistic missile and proliferation programs by tightening economic sanctions and pursuing diplomatic measures with our allies and regional partners.”

It made no specific mention of military options, though it said the US would defend itself and friends.

The unprecedented meeting in a building adjacent to the White House ref lected the increased American alarm over North Korea’s progress in developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the US mainland.

A flurry of military activity, by North Korea and the US and its partners on and around the divided Korean Peninsula, has added to the world’s sense of alert.

While tensions have increased since Trump took office, they’ve escalated dramatically in recent weeks as American and other intelligence agencies suggested the North was readying for a possible nuclear test.

Although such an explosion hasn’t yet occurred, Trump has sent high-powered US military

100

The number of US senators who were called to the White House for an extraordinary classified briefing vessels and an aircraft carrier to the region in a show of force, while the North conducted large-scale, live-fire artillery drills, witnessed by national leader Kim Jong Un, earlier this week.

On Wed nesd ay Sout h Ko rea started installing key parts of a contentious US missile defense system that also has sparked Chinese and Russian concerns.

America’s Pacific forces commander, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., told Congress on Wednesday the system would be operationa l within days. He said any North Korean missile fired at US forces would be destroyed.

“If it f lies, it will die,” Harris said. The Trump administration has said all options, including a military strike, are on the table.

But the administration’s statement after briefing senators— all 100 members were invited— outlined a similar approach to t he Oba m a ad m i n i st rat ion’s focus on pressuring Pyongyang to return to long-stalled denuclearization talks.

Trump’s top national security advisers said they were “open to negotiations” with the North, though they gave no indication of when or under what circumstances.

Venezuelan unrest continues as Maduro decides to quit OAS

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ARACAS, Venezuela—Following through on its threat, Venezuela’s government announced it is quitting the Organization of American States (OAS), accusing the regional body of meddling in its internal affairs over weeks of political unrest.

The step was taken on Wednesday just hours after violent clashes in Caracas between security forces and protesters during yet another march against the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Nearly four weeks of antigovernment demonstrations have been blamed for 29 deaths, and the opposition is showing no inclination to pull back. Leaders called a march for Thursday to honor a college student who died during the latest violence after being hit by a tear gas canister fired by security forces.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez announced the decision to withdraw from the OAS after a brief, but contentious, meeting at the group’s Washington headquarters in which its permanent council voted in favor of holding a special session to evaluate Venezuela’s crisis.

International pressure has been mounting for Maduro to schedule delayed elections and free detained political activists. Rodriguez accused the OAS of seeking to “intervene and

take custody of our country, something that fortunately will never happen”.

Maduro sent out a tweet on Tuesday night calling for support against outside meddling in Venezuela’s affairs.

“Enough of interventionist abuses and violation of legality,” he said. “Venezuela is the cradle of the Liberators and we will respect it.”

Rodriguez had warned late on Tuesday that Venezuela would leave the OAS if the body proceeded with scheduling the special session. She said the pressure being brought by the US on some members, like Haiti, to punish Venezuela had been considerable.

Tension has been steadily rising between Venezuela and a group of OAS members that includes the United States since OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro issued a 75-page report in March accusing Maduro’s government of systematically violating human rights and standards of democracy.

Almagro unsuccessfully urged OAS members to suspend Venezuela.

The withdrawal announcement drew quick rebuke from Venezuelan opposition leaders. Former Rep. Maria Corina Macahdo said Maduro’s exit from the OAS “formalized Venezuela’s outlaw status”. AP

Sens. (from second from left) Jerry Moran, Republican-Kansas; Joe Donnelly, DemocratIndiana; Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat-Rhose Island; and Michael Bennet, DemocratColorado, prepare to board a bus on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 26 as they head to the White House to get a briefing on North Korea. AP/Susan Walsh

T he strateg y hinges greatly on the cooperation of China, North Korea’s main trading partner. “China is the key to this,” said Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who got a preview of Trump’s message at a dinner with the president this week.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California agreed. “I think the best approach for the administration is to bring the maximum pressure to bear diplomatically on China, as well as North Korea, but otherwise to walk softly and carry a big stick,” he told reporters after attending the Capitol Hill briefing on Wednesday.

Among the options are returning North Korea to the US state sponsor of terrorism blacklist, which Secretary of State Rex Ti l lerson said last week was under consideration. His spokesman, Mark Toner, said on Wednesday that another tactic is getting nations around the world to close down North Korean embassies and consulates, or suspending them from international organizations.

But sanctions will be the greatest tool at the Trump administration’s disposal. Tillerson is chairing a UN Security Council meeting on Friday designed to get nations to enforce existing penalties on North Korea and weigh new ones.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Harris said he expects North Korea to soon be able to develop a longrange missile capable of striking the US, as Kim has promised.

“One of these days soon, he will succeed,” Harris said.

Nor th Korea’s UN mission said on Wednesday the nation would react to “a total war” with Washington by using nuclear weapons. It vowed victory in a “death-defying struggle against the US imperialists”.

Trump, like presidents before him, faces difficult options. Sanctions haven’t forced Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear efforts, but a targeted US attack to take out its weapons program risks a wider war along a heavily militarized border near where tens of millions of South Koreans live. The threat would extend to nearby Japan, another country North Korea regularly threatens.

China has urged restraint by both Pyongyang and Washington.

In Berlin on Wednesday Foreign Minister Wang Yi said North Korea must suspend its nuclear activities, but “on the other side, the large-scale military maneuvers in Korean waters should be halted.”

That was a reference to US and South Korean war games.

China opposes the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) being installed in South Korea, rejecting American assurances that it will only target North Korean missiles. Russia also sees the system’s powerful radars as a security threat.

In Beijing Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said THAAD would upset the region’s “strategic balance.” China will take “necessary measures to defend our own interests,” he promised. AP

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

Pope faces balancing act in Egypt amid security fears

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ATICAN CITY—Pope Francis is facing a religious and diplomatic balancing act as he heads to Egypt this weekend, hoping to comfort its Christian community after a spate of Islamic attacks while seeking to improve relations with Egypt’s Muslim leaders.

Security has been tightened, with shops ordered closed and police conducting door-to-door c hec k s i n t he upsc a le C a i ro neighborhood where Francis will stay on Friday night. His only public Mass is being held at a military-run stadium.

Va t i c a n S p o k e s m a n G r e g Burke said Francis wasn’t overly concerned and wouldn’t use an armored car, as his predecessors did on foreign trips.

Fra nc i s i n si sted on goi ng ahead w ith the tr ip even after t w in Pa lm Sunday church bombi ngs k i l led at lea st 4 5 people and a subsequent attack at the famed Saint Cather ine’s monaster y in Sinai.

“We’re in the world of ‘new normal,’” Burke said. “But we go forward with serenity.”

The highlight of the two-day trip will be Francis’s visit on Friday to Al-Azhar, the revered 1,000-year-old seat of learning in Sunni Islam. There, he will meet privately with grand imam Shei k h A hmed el-Tayeb, a nd participate in an international peace conference.

Fr a nc i s h a s i n s i ste d t h at Christian-Muslim dialogue is the only way to overcome Islamic extremism of the kind that has targeted Christians and driven them from their 2,000-year-old communities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

W hile condemning extremist attacks against Christians, he has said he is traveling to Egypt as a messenger of peace at a time when the world is “torn by blind violence”.

But his message of dialogue and tolerance has been rejected as naive by even some of his fellow Jesuits, for whom Islam remains “a religion of the sword” that has failed to modernize. Even ordinary Egyptian Christians see his visit as a nice gesture but one that ultimately won’t change their reality.

“He has been saying the same words for years, which is all about love and tolerance, but political Islam ruined the world and the most important change should come from Al-Azhar,” said John, a 24-year-old Coptic Christian student from Cairo who declined to give his last name because he feared reprisals.

The visit, though, marks a diplomatic breakthrough for Rome after Al-Azhar severed relations with the Vatican in 2011 after Pope Benedict XVI demanded Egypt better protect its Christian minority following a New Year’s Eve church bombing that killed more than 20 people.

Francis has spent the better part of his four-year papacy seeking to mend the ties, and last year hosted el-Tayeb at the Vatican.

His reciprocal visit will cement the renewed relationship and should help el-Tayeb as he con f ront s a n u nprecedented campaign in Egypt’s progovernment media accusing Al-Azhar of failing to do enough to combat Islamic extremism.

W hile A l-A zhar has been increasingly vocal in denouncing attacks and tr y ing to spread an image of moderation, “ it is considered by some in Egy ptian soc iet y to be f u nd a ment a l ly incapable of reforming the religious discourse,” said Michele Brignone, managing editor of Oasis, t he Ita l ian jour na l of Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher on religious freedoms at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, concurred.

“There is a difference between the statements released by the institution and its conduct on the ground,” he said.

For el-Tayeb, then, the pope’s visit is a timely godsend, showing him as a promoter of ChristianMuslim dialogue who not only scored a visit by Francis, leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, but also Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.

Both men are scheduled to participate in Friday’s peace conference. The pope’s visit will also help Egyptian President AbdelFattah el-Sissi bolster his image as a global statesman fighting religious militancy and advocating for interfaith dialogue.

The pope’s visit, following el-Sissi’s recent reception at the W hite House, will crown the time and effort he has invested in shaking off the international isolation he suffered after his 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president.

Egypt’s Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the country’s 92 million people, have been strong backers of el-Sissi even after the recent attacks and amid mounting international criticism of human rights violations by his government. AP

France: Syrian govt behind sarin attack P A R I S — Fr a nc e s a i d t he chemical analysis of samples taken from a deadly sarin-gas attack in Syria earlier this month “bears the signature” of President Bashar al-Assad ’s government and shows it was responsible. Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said France c a me to t h i s conc lu sion a f ter comparing samples from a 2013 sarin attack in Syria that matched the new ones. The findings came in a six-page report published on Wednesday.

In Damascus Syrian opposition activists and a monitor reported on Thursday that a large e x plosion roc ked t he Sy r i a n capital, followed by a fire near Damascus airport.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdurrahman said the explosion was heard across the capital, jolting residents awake. He said the explosion is reported to have occurred near the Damascus airport road.

Activist-operated Diary of a

Mortar, which reports from Damascus, said the blast near the air port road was followed by flames rising above the area. The pro-government site Damascus Now said the explosion was near the city’s Seventh Bridge, which leads to the airport road.

Russia, a close ally of Assad, promptly denounced the French report on Wednesday, say ing the samples and the fact the ner ve agent was used are not enough to prove who was behind it. Assad has repeatedly den ied t h at h i s forces u sed chemical weapons and claimed that myriad evidence of a poison gas attack is made up.

But Ayrault said France knows “ from sure sources” that “the manufacturing process of the sarin that was sampled is typical of the method developed in Syrian laboratories”.

“This method bears the signature of the regime and that is what allows us to establish its responsibility in this attack,” he added, saying that France is working to

bring those behind the “criminal” atrocities to international justice.

France’s Foreign Ministry said blood samples were taken from a victim in Syria on the day of the April 4 attack in the oppositionheld town of Khan Sheikhoun, which killed more than 80 people.

Environmental samples, the French ministry said, show the weapons were made “according to the same production process as the one used in the sarin attack perpetrated by the Syrian regime in Saraqeb” on April 29, 2013.

Ayrault said French intelligence showed that only Syrian government forces could have launched such an attack—by a bomber taking off from the Shay rat a ir base, whic h was later targeted in a retaliator y US missile strike.

France’s presidency said the country’s intelligence services presented evidence showing the Syrian government “still holds chemical warfare agents, in violation of the commitments to eliminate them that it took in

2013”. It said that information would be made public, without offering details.

It is believed that Assad’s government still has a stockpile of tons of chemical weapons, despite saying it had handed over all of them.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s position on the attack is “unchanged”, and that “that the only way to establish the truth about what happened...is an impartial international investigation”.

Russia has previously called for an international probe, and Peskov expressed regret that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has turned down the Syrian government’s offers to visit the site of the attack and investigate.

The French minister’s comments came as the OPCW, which is investigating the April 4 attack, held a ceremony in The Hague marking the 20th anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention. AP

The World

BusinessMirror He once called it the worst trade deal ever signed by the United States www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Friday, April 28, 2017

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Trump: Nafta can stay for now W

ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump told the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Wednesday he would not immediately move to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), only hours after an administration official said he was likely to sign an order that would begin the process of pulling the US out of the deal.

In what the W hite House described as “pleasant and productive” evening phone calls with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Me x ico and Pr ime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, Trump said he would quickly start the process of renegotiating Nafta—not abandon it, as he said he would do during the 2016 presidential campaign if he could not rework the deal to his satisfaction.

“It is my privilege to bring Nafta up-to-date through renegotiation,” Trump said in a statement issued by the White House at 10:33 p.m. “I believe that the end result will make all three countries stronger and better.”

The announcement appeared to be an example of Trump’s deal-making in real time. It followed a day in which officials signaled that he was laying the groundwork to pull out of Nafta—a move intended to increase pressure on Congress to authorize new negotiations, and on Canada and Mexico to accede to US demands.

It was not clear whether the president would still sign an executive action to authorize renegotiation of Nafta, which he once called the worst trade deal ever signed by the US. Washington must give Canada and Mexico six months’ notice before exiting the trade agreement, which came into force in 1994.

Any action to that effect would start the clock.

But the prospect of the US’s pulling out obviously alarmed the Canadian and Mexican leaders and prompted their calls to the White House.

$4B

The amount of monthly deficit the US has with Mexico

The Mexican peso plummeted in trading after news broke at midday on Wednesday that the White House had drafted an executive order withdrawing the US from Nafta. Trudeau called Trump twice, on Tuesday and Wednesday, to discuss the sudden rupture in the trade relationship between the US and Canada.

On Tuesday the Trump administration announced that it would impose a tariff on Canadian softwood lumber, in retaliation for what it said was unfair treatment of US dairy farmers.

The president has repeatedly derided Nafta, describing it last week as “very, very bad” for the country, companies and workers, and he promised during his campaign that he would remove the US from the deal if he could not negotiate improvements.

The White House wants Congress to authorize those negotiations under legislation that would allow expedited approval of the reworked agreement, but talks between administration officials and congressional Republicans have moved slowly.

While some of Trump’s senior advisers, notably Stephen Bannon and economist Peter Na-

varro, are eager to take strong steps on trade policy, another group—which includes Gary D. Cohn, the head of the National Economic Council—has argued for a more cautious approach, concerned that larger steps could cause economic disruptions.

Lately, Trump has taken the stronger line, moving to reshape the US’s economic relationships with foreign nations. The Nafta order would come on the heels of an announcement of new tariffs on imports of Canadian lumber, and of reviews of whether imports of steel and aluminum are undermining national security.

“Nafta’s been very, very bad for our countr y,” Trump said last week. “It’s been very, very bad for our companies and for our workers, and we’re going to make some very big changes, or we are going to get rid of Nafta once and for all.”

Wa l k i ng away f rom Na f t a would disrupt the economies of the US, Canada and Mexico and strain broader relations among the countr ies. Over the past two decades, their economies have become increasingly intertwined. The volume of trade has multiplied, and the manufacture of many goods, notably cars, involves multiple border crossings and factories in all three.

If the US actually pulled out of the deal, experts said, trade with Canada would probably still be subject to a similar agreement between the two countries that took effect in the late 1980s and that served as a model for Nafta.

The Trump administration, however, could seek to withdraw from that agreement as well.

The shift in the rules governing trade with Mexico would be more significant. The two countries both take part in the World Trade Organization, but that allows much higher tariffs. Mexico, for instance, could impose a 37-percent tariff on US corn.

The disruptions to manufacturing could also come at a hefty cost to consumers. Caroline Freund, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, has estimated that the cost of a pickup truck might increase by $3,000.

Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, said: “It would be a very disruptive shock that would impact everybody. It would impact growth; it would impact companies and supply chains;

US tax overhaul would aid wealthiest

WASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday proposed sharp reductions in individual and business income-tax rates and a radical reordering of the tax code that would significantly benefit the wealthy, but he offered no explanation of how the plan would be financed as he rushed to show progress before the 100-day mark of his presidency.

Trump’s skeletal outline of a tax package, unveiled at the White House in a single-page statement filled with bullet points, was less a tax plan than a wish list. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Gary D. Cohn, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, laid out the bare bones to reporters.

It was part of a mad dash toward the administration’s 100th day on Saturday that has included a resurrection of a health-care bill and near-daily signing of executive orders. But they offered none of the standard accouterments of such rollouts, such as detailed charts showing the cost of each provision, phase-in periods, the effects of the proposals on people

and testimonials on the program’s potential benefits.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something really big,” Cohn said. “President Trump has made tax reform a priority, and we have a Republican Congress that wants to get it done.”

The proposal envisions slashing the tax rate paid by businesses large and small to 15 percent. The number of individual income-tax brackets would shrink from seven to three—10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent—easing the tax burden on most Americans, including the president, although aides did not offer the income ranges for each bracket.

Individual tax rates currently have a ceiling of 39.6 percent and a floor of 10 percent. Most Americans pay taxes somewhere between the two.

The president would eliminate the estate tax and alternative minimum tax, a parallel system that primarily hits wealthier people by effectively limiting the deductions and other benefits available to them—both moves that would

richly benefit Trump.

Little is known of Trump’s tax burden, but one of the small nuggets revealed in the partial release of a 2005 tax return this year was that he paid $31 million under the alternative minimum tax that year. Corporations would not have to pay taxes on their foreign profits, an unusual proposal for a president who has championed an “America first” approach and railed against companies that move jobs and resources overseas.

They would also enjoy a special, one-time opportunity to bring home cash that they are parking overseas, though administration officials would not say how low that rate would be or how they would ensure that money would be invested productively.

Trump wants to double the standard deduction for individuals, essentially eliminating taxes on around $24,000 of a couple’s earnings. That proposal was met with alarm by homebuilders and real estate agents, who fear it would disincentivize the purchase of homes. New York Times News Service

In this February 27 file photo, President Donald J. Trump meets with health insurance company CEOs in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington.

AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

it would impact workers; it would impact voters in Trump states. It’s just crazy to imagine that they would go that route.”

The suggestion of withdrawal, reported by Politico on Wednesday, heightened anxieties in financial markets. The peso fell more than 2 percent against the dollar, and the Canadian dollar fell about 0.3 percent.

“Scrapping Nafta would be a disastrously bad idea,” Sen. Ben Sa sse, R e publ ic a n-Nebra sk a , said in a statement. “Yes, there are places where our agreements could be modernized, but here’s the bottom line: Trade lowers

prices for A merican consumers, and it expands markets for American goods. Risking trade wars is reckless, not wise.”

Both Mexican and Canadian officials have said repeatedly that they are ready to negotiate changes to the trade agreement.

Written in the early 1990s, it is outdated in key respects: Its drafters, for example, did not foresee the rise of the internet.

“Canada is ready to come to the table at any time,” Alex Lawrence, a spokesman for the Canadian foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, told Reuters on Wednesday.

In fact, the Obama administration negotiated changes to the deal as part of the TransPacific Partnership, a broader agreement that would have supplanted Nafta. Trump withdrew from that agreement as one of his first official acts.

T he Trump administration provided an indication of its own priorities in a letter circulated among members of Congress last month. W hile proposing some significant changes, such as strengthening the available penalties for breaches of the rules, it suggested that the administration was not seeking to alter the basic structure of the agreement, prompting relief

both north and south of the US. T he a d m i n i s t r at ion mu s t send a final version of that letter to Congress to start another clock: a 90-day waiting period before negotiations. Starting bot h c loc k s wou ld a l low t he W hite House to begin negotiations with Mexico and Canada while holding in hand the threat of walking away from the table.

It is not clear whom that would hurt most. Trump has repeatedly denounced trade deficits as a major contributor to what he sees as the nation’s broken economy.

But trade among the three North American nations is relatively balanced, particularly in comparison with trade between the US and China.

The US actually ran a trade surplus with Canada in 2015 and during the first three quarters of 2016, according to the most recent data available from the Commerce Department. US sales of goods and services to Canada exceeded purchases of goods and services from Canada, on average, by $1 billion a month.

The US does run a monthly deficit of about $4 billion with Mexico, but even that is a small fraction of the roughly $28 billion monthly deficit with China.

New York Times News Service

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Friday, April 28, 2017

The World BusinessMirror

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

Trump’s order to limit federal role in K-12

W

ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that aims to reduce the federal government’s role in K-12 education.

Trump is giving Education Secretary Betsy DeVos just short of a year— 300 days—to identify areas where Washington has overstepped its legal authority in education, and modify and repeal regulations and guidance from her department, if necessary. A report will be returned to the White House and eventually made public, officials said.

Trump complained that the government over the years has forced states

and schools to comply with “federal whims.” He said the order would help restore local control over education.

“We know that local communities do it best and know it best,” Trump said, surrounded by governors, members of Congress and teachers. “The time has come to empower parents and teachers to make the decisions that help their students achieve success.”

Republicans have long chafed at

federal government involvement in education, asserting that states and local governments, school boards and parents are best positioned to decide what students learn.

Antipathy toward the Education Department ramped up under Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, who offered states billions of dollars of federal money to help improve their schools in exchange for adopting certain academic standards.

DeVos said time has shown that “one-size fits all policies and mandates from Washington simply don’t work”.

But Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, said the review was unnecessary because a bipartisan education law enacted in late 2015 had already shifted power from the federal government to states.

“This is a case of been there, done that,” Weingarten said.

She said the law also contains key civil rights provisions that the federal government is obligated to uphold.

The Center for Education Reform, which advocates for charter schools, said Trump’s executive order would promote innovation and freedom.

“Conducting such a review is part and parcel of ensuring that education innovation and opportunity are able to take root throughout our various education sectors,” the organization said in a statement. “The connection between freedom and excellence is no secret.”

Later on Wednesday, Trump honored teachers as he welcomed the National Teacher of the Year and state-level winners to the Oval Office.

“There is nothing more important than being a teacher,” he said. Trump promised during the campaign to give state and local governments more control over education.

The executive order is one of several the president is signing this week as he seeks to notch accomplishments by Saturday, his 100th day in office. AP

Ivanka parts ways with her father on Syrian refugees

W

ASHINGTON—Ivanka Trump, juggling dual roles of White House adviser and daughter of the president, said in an interview aired on Wednesday the US might need to admit more refugees from Syria, a pointed public departure from one of her father’s bedrock populist positions.

Ivanka’s comments, which seemed to question the basis for President Donald J. Trump’s two executive orders that tried to bar migrants from Syria and other predominantly Muslim nations, set off a minor scramble in the West Wing.

Advisers grappled with a political problem unique to Donald Trump’s family-business White House: how to manage an officially empowered daughter who is prone to challenging elements of the president’s conservative agenda.

“I think there is a global humanitarian crisis that’s happening, and we have to come together and we have to solve it,” Ivanka told NBC, when asked about the refugee crisis in Syria, which has created a nativist backlash in European countries.

Asked whether that would include admitting Syrian refugees to the US, she replied: “That has to be part of the discussion.

But that’s not going to be enough in and of itself.”

The remarks, in an interview that was recorded on Tuesday, came at the end of Ivanka’s rocky 24-hour trip this week to Germany, her first official foray since taking a West Wing office last month. A spokesman for Ivanka did not respond to questions about her position on immigration—or about whether her remarks were intended to pressure her father.

But two advisers to Donald Trump, who declined to be identified talking about an internal White House dispute, described the statement as a political misstep.

Her comments, they said, revealed a simmering private policy debate in the White House that pits Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, against hard-core nationalists like the president’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, and the policy adviser Stephen Miller, who see the crackdown on immigration from Muslim nations as fulfillment of a core campaign promise to Donald Trump’s white working-class base.

Breitbart News, the conservative web site formerly run by Bannon, posted an article about her remarks that sat atop its list of most-read stories on Wednesday. It was followed by thousands of comments questioning Ivanka’s commitment to the populist causes that propelled her rougher-hewn father to the W hite House. The US admitted more than 13,000 refugees from Syria in 2016, before Donald J. Trump proposed restrictions.

Despite his hard line, support has been rising for admitting more migrants from the Middle East country, now in its seventh year of civil war; 58 percent of registered voters in a recent Quinnipiac Poll favored an increase in immigration from Syria, 14 percent more than in a survey conducted in late 2015.

In the days after Donald Trump’s election, Democrats and some moderate Republicans expressed hope that Ivanka and Kushner would act as a moderating and stabilizing force in a West Wing dominated by the mercurial Bannon, who viewed himself as a disrupter intent on dismantling major components of the federal government.

That liberal crown has never fit perfectly: The husband-andwife team, while powerful and socially progressive, have mostly been reluctant to challenge the president publicly and have lost significant battles, most recently an attempt to preserve federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Questions about Ivanka’s ambiguous West Wing arrangement took center stage during the Berlin trip to attend the Groupof-20 women’s conference, where German political and media figures questioned whether her ascent was a product of merit or dynastic privilege. At one point, Ivanka’s was booed and hissed as she sought to defend her father’s record on empowering women, and at times she struggled to define precisely what her responsibilities in the West Wing entailed.

New York Times News Service

The Regions BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Friday, April 28, 2017

A9

OSG voids JVA between BuCor, Tadeco

S

By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

OLICITOR General Jose C. Calida on Thursday said the joint-venture agreement (JVA) between the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) and the Tagum Agricultural Development Corp.

(Tadeco) over a 5,212.46-hectare land within the Davao Penal Colony (Dapecol) is void.

Calida issued the findings after House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez sought the Office of the Solicitor General’s review of the deal, which, the latter said, is grossly disadvantageous to the government.

“The JVA entered into by the BuCor and Tadeco is void as it goes against the Constitution and the Public Land Act,” Calida said.

He said the 5,212.46-hectare land within the Dapecol subject of the JVA is land of public domain.

This means the land belongs to the State.

In 1969 the BuCor and Tadeco entered into a JVA, where BuCor undertook to allocate areas within the Dapecol for Tadeco to develop into a banana plantation.

Another JVA was entered into by

the parties in 1979, whereby they agreed to extend the joint venture for 25 years. In 2003 the JVA was renewed for another 25-year period, or until 2029.

Calida said the Constitution only allows private corporations to hold lands of the public domain through lease for a total period not exceeding 50 years.

“Assuming the JVA is a lease, the initial agreement was entered into in 1969, extended for 25 years in 1979 and extended for another 25-year period in 2003. Tadeco’s use and occupation of the Dapecol lands should cease by 2019. The JVA cannot be allowed to last until 2029.”

He said under the Constitution, private corporations may only lease

lands of the public domain not exceeding 1,000 hectares.

However, Calida noted the JVA covers 5,212.46 hectares, way more than what is allowed in the Constitution.

The Solicitor General also said the JVA violates Commonwealth Act 141, or the Public Land Act, which provides that “agricultural public lands, such as the Dapecol, may be disposed of only through homestead, sale, lease, or confirmation of imperfect title”.

“It should be noted that BuCor and Tadeco entered into a jointventure agreement. Clearly, a jointventure agreement is not one of the modes by which agricultural public lands may be disposed of,” Calida said.

Under the JVA, the BuCor is entitled to receive a “guaranteed annual production share” and a “share in the profits of Tadeco”. In turn, the BuCor guaranteed Tadeco“free a nd u n i nt e r r u p t e d u s e ” of Dapecol’s land.

“These stipulations clearly show that what Tadeco and the BuCor entered into was not a lease, but a joint venture for the purpose of operating a banana plantation within Dapecol,” Calida said. “This is a clear violation of the Public Land Act.” “Assuming arguendo that the agreement falls under the definition of a lease under the Civil Code, the JVA would still be void because it failed to comply with the competi-

tive bidding requirement under the Public Land Act,” Calida said. “The right to lease the Dapecol land must be made through a public auction, where bidders are required to submit sealed bids.”

Alvarez earlier said Tadeco was paying only a guaranteed P5,000 per hectare for the 5,212.46-hectare penal lands, which amounts to P26.541 million per year, or P663.525 mil lion from 2003 to 2028.

Alvarez said plantations with t he sa me development sc a le would fetch as much as P200,000 per hectare. This means Tadeco should be paying P1.061 billion per year, or P26.525 billion for the entire 25-year contract.

The Speaker said it was clear based on the estimates the government would lose a total of P25.464 billion.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II earlier said he would release the justice department’s legal opinion on whether the contract is null and void for being grossly disadvantageous to the government.

Aguirre had formed a legal team, headed by Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras III, to look into the regularity of the BuCor’s 25-year JVA with Tadeco.

The Department of Justice chief ordered the review of the contract upon request of Alvarez, who sought to cancel the allegedly disadvantageous contract.

Marinduque town mayor wants to turn abandoned mine into ecotourism zone

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

M

OGPOG, Marinduque— Mayor Augusto Leo M. Livelo is determined to turn an abandoned copper mine in this town into an ecotourism spot.

With the town’s limited resources, however, Livelo said he is banking on national government help and support, first by making the Consolidated Mines Inc. (CMI)—the operator of the abandoned copper mine in the coastal barangays of Ino and Capayang—pay for its “environmental crime”.

The mayor said with the damage it caused to the environment, CMI should be held liable and made to pay for the rehabilitation of the mine and the lost economic opportunities more than 30 years ago.

CMI has a pending application to renew its mining contract over 2,000 hectares of land in the area, which Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez is not keen on approving.

Lopez visited the abandoned site for an interaction with the local officials of Mogpog and the affected communities on Monday.

She said even after the mining company had stopped operation, people in the area continue to suffer because of the environmental damage the mining company’s operation caused.

Livelo said mining is no longer an option in Mogpog, with people stiffly opposing mining—or any investment that will wreak havoc to their fragile environment.

“We say no to mining. Maybe we can convert this mine into an ecotourism zone to help generate jobs and livelihood for the people,” he said in Tagalog.

The mayor said he plans to turn the abandoned mine into an ecopark.

The open pit where CMI extracted copper ore during its five-year operation is now an inland water body, much like a man-made lake, where tilapia and other fish species thrive.

Upon rehabilitation, the area can be a tourist attraction, he said. Ac-

Hog raisers support DA decision to import 7M kilos of pork to arrest price hike

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

L

OCAL hog raisers belonging to the Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. (ProPork) threw their support behind the Department of Agriculture’s decision to allow importation of 7 million kilograms of pork meat to arrest the increasing price in the local market.

“We support the recent pron o u n c e m e nt o f A g r i c u l t u r e Secretar y Emmanuel F. Piñol.

It is his job to maintain food security and the prices,” ProPork President Edwin Chen told the BusinessMirror on Thursday.

However, Chen defended his group saying no member of ProPork defied their commitment to Piñol to maintain their farm-gate prices amid the spiking price of pork meat in the retail level.

“It’s not true that we increased our prices. There are a lot of hog producers in the country and not all of them are members of ProPork,” Chen said.

“But definitely, those hog raisers who increased their prices were not from our group. You can see, we haven’t increased our prices,” Chen added.

Chen said even before Piñol called the local hog-industry stakeholders for a meeting regarding the spiking price of pork, their group has already maintained their prices.

“When I learned Secretary Piñol met local hog raisers in Davao and when I got the feedback he is asking our support to not increase the price, right that day, I issued an announcement to our members not to increase our prices,” he said.

“And we haven’t increased our prices since then,” he added.

The ProPork chief said they will remain true to their commitment to not increase their farm-gate prices amid recent developments.

“Our members agreed to main-

tain their farm-gate prices because I told them the secretary is asking our help,” Chen said.

On a Facebook post on Wednesday, Piñol said he has allowed the importation of 7 million kilograms (kg) of pork meat, or 7,000 metric tons (MT)—within the in-quota rate—to stabilize the increasing price of the commodity in the local market.

Pork imported within the minimum access volume (MAV) is slapped a 30-percent tariff, while those outside of MAV are leveed a 40-percent tariff.

Piñol said the “insincerity” of some local hog raisers to help the government control the spike of price of pork meat in the market prompted him to call a technical team to assess the situation.

“I appealed to the hog raisers that while the opportunity to make bigger profit is tempting, they should control the price of live weight so as not to further push up the price of pork. In the meeting, they all pledged to help,” Piñol said. “In spite of that, the prices of pork continued to rise, prompting me to call the technical team to assess the situation”.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) chief said right after the meeting of the DA technical team, he notified the local hog industry that he had allowed the importation.

“I have approved the recommendation of the technical team in view of the seeming insincerity of the hog raisers I talked with last week,” Piñol said.

“If you remember, I made an appeal that the price of live weight be controlled, so that I will not be unduly pressured by the consumers. It seems my appeal fell on deaf ears; hence, I made this move to allow importation,” Piñol added.

Piñol also said he already informed Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea about the decision of the DA to allow the importation of 7,000 MT of pork meat.

Albay gov ‘unable to stop illegal gambling in province’

By Manly M. Ugalde Correspondent

L

THE open-pit mine Consolidated Mines Inc. used to operate is now a lake. Residents say the area used to be a rice farm until it was dug to extract copper ore in the 1970s. Today, there are tilapia and other fish in what can now be considered an inland water body in Barangay Ino, Mogpog, Marinduque. Jonathan L. Mayuga

tivities in the ecopark include a walk around the lake, boating or fishing.

During migration season, migratory birds—particularly wild ducks—“visit” the area to feed.

“There are tilapia and other fish there now,” he said.

Livelo said he is also banking on the support of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources chief to help former private landowners to repossess their property bought by the company before it started operation.

The next step, he said, is to seek compensation from CMI, for the adverse impact its copper mine had on the livelihood of farmers and fishermen who were displaced by its operations.

Livelo said Lopez had promised him help and support, including a project that will help uplift the lives of the people in the two barangays.

For decades, he said farmers

who were displaced by mining operation experienced economic hardship.

Fishing in the area also became unproductive because the company dumped its ore stockpile over mangrove areas, destroying marine and coastal ecosystems that led to the scarcity of fish and other marine life.

Lopez vowed to help by tapping residents in the reforestation and rehabilitation of the abandoned mine.

“We are going to provide them livelihood. We need to do reforestation here,” she told the BusinessMirror.

Lopez said the rehabilitation of the abandoned mine is important to restore ecological balance in the area.

The dumping of copper ores literally buried portions of a mangrove forest along the coastal barangays, she said, preventing fish and other aquatic life to flourish.

While some residents said fishing activities are “back to normal”, they will demand justice for what CMI did to their community.

Nonita Mangui, 68, a resident of Barangay Ino, said they experienced economic hardship and loss of job and livelihood when CMI started operation.

Since the mine was closed in the 1980s, long before the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 became a law, there was no fund for its final mine closure and rehabilitation. The law specifically requires mining companies to deposit a certain amount of money to a trust fund for mine closure and rehabilitation activities.

The law also mandates mining companies to spend 1.5 percent of their operating cost for various development programs to benefit its host communities through the Social Development Management Program (SDMP).

EGAZPI CITY—Albay Gov. Al Francis C. Bichara said he has no power to stop illegal gambling amid the continued operation of jueteng in the province.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) said the campaign against illegal gambling began early in March and includes all forms of illegal numbers game. The PNP said it would sue local officials and the police found in cahoots with the illegal operation.

President Duterte has made it clear that illegal gamblimg cannot thrive in a community without the support of the local government units (LGUs) and police officials.

He said during his 22 years as Davao City mayor, jueteng and other forms of illegal gambling never prospered.

In an interview on April 12 with Bichara hosted by Ronda Bicolandia program of Home Radio Legazpi, the Albay governor was quoted as saying he has no power to stop jueteng, adding only the police can stop it. The governor said the allegations about the continuing jueteng operation in Albay was a result of the authority granted by the province in 2009 for the Meridien Vista Gaming in Cagayan to operate

its online jai-alai, Ronda Bicolandia reported.

Non-governmental anti-illegal gambling groups claimed Meridien is being used as a front for jueteng operation, saying LGUs could not even show proof of the firm’s remittances to the province, cities and municipalities. No online jai-alai center can be seen anywhere in Albay’s 16 municipalities and three cities.

Ronda Bicolandia claimed during their interview, the governor allegedly admitted the province has no record of Meridien Vista Gaming tax remittances since 2013. A former congressman, Bichara was elected governor in 2015.

Bichara claimed that since illegal gambling is a police matter, he cannot act without courting the ire of other politicians.

Bichara’s Spokesman Danny Garcia, however, denied the governor was interviewed allegedly by the staff of Ronda Bicolandia regarding jueteng.

On August 6, 2016, then-Dagupan City Regional Trial Court Judge Florentino Dumlao Jr. issued an injunction against Meridien Vista Gaming Corp.’s jai-alai operation, popularly known “jai-teng”.

Meridien jai-teng operation was introduced on March 7, 2009, to operate within the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Ceza).

A10 Friday, April 28, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial Punish the rich!

T

he idea of “inclusive economic growth” is one of those thoughts that everyone seems to know what it means, but no one can offer an accurate and pragmatic application. Politicians like to stand onstage and say, “We must work toward inclusive growth”. Then they take the applause and walk off smiling.

But they never complete their sentence with “and this is how we will do it”.

However, behind every call for inclusive growth lurking in the shadows is the idea of wealth redistribution from rich to poor, since—apparently—the rich benefit more from economic growth than do the poor.

One area of society, though, that is supposed to be inclusive is the rule of law. Laws are supposed to be applied equally, regardless of wealth or income. Further, we assume in a fair and blind legal system that a rich criminal is given the same penalty for the crime as a poor criminal. Certainly, that is not the way it always works, and that is a great problem that must be addressed.

While it would be beneficial to the nation as a whole to devise some method of having economic growth run throughout the economy, we certainly would not want to change the idea of the equality of the law. Or do we?

European countries may have found a way to increase “inclusive growth”, and destroy the concept that all men and women are equal in the eyes of the law.

Breaking traffic rules in Europe means fines and penalties that are totally unequal. If you break the speed limit and are caught in Great Britain, the fine is 175 percent of your weekly wage. If you are a corporate executive earning $25 million a year, your fine will be $841,346. If you are making the average of $680, you pay a fine of $1,190. Finland also adjusts speeding-ticket fees based on the driver’s income. One driver caught doing 65 mph in a 50-mph zone paid a fine of almost $60,000, since he made about $7 million a year.

A Nokia phone director was riding his motorcycle in Helsinki, got ticketed for doing 47 mph in a 31-mph zone, and was fined $127,000.

There is the Swiss millionaire caught speeding. The court said his net worth was $22.7 million, and the court fined him $290,000. A Swedish driver in Switzerland was caught going too fast. He was fined a nice amount of $1 million.

Sometimes it is disturbing to see the bail amounts set for graft and plunder cases. A local official accused of an anomalous purchase of P5 million is able to post P60,000 bail for two counts of graft. An accused in a P35-million Priority Development Assistance Funds scam walks out of court with temporary freedom after posting P125,000.

The bank manager accused of helping facilitate the $81-million stolen funds from the Bangladesh Central Bank posted P6,000 in bail.

Certainly, there is a great difference between someone posting bail accused of a crime and one who has been convicted. But these examples may seem an unfair application of the law.

However, when a person is treated differently by the legal system because he or she is “wealthy”, that is not any different from treating a person of meager means unfairly. A nation and society cannot be considered healthy if wealth or legal rights are taken from one economic class and given to another, whether from rich to poor or poor to rich.

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V

oter registration for the 2017 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections ends tomorrow (Saturday), and it looks like more than 3 million new voters are set to join the ranks of the electorate: 1.2 million new SK voters and 2.2 million new registrants aged 18 and above. It’s an encouraging thing to realize that this many people are embracing elections as an integral part of democratic life.

On the flip side, these numbers also underscore the acute discomfort brought on by the sight of concerted efforts to do away with the Barangay and SK elections for another year— and quite possibly for good. While it is probably safe to assume that some of the 2.2 million adult registrants registered for reasons other than to vote, what are we to make of the 1.2 million kids who, even with the threat of postponement hanging heavy in the air, took the time to queue at voter-registration centers nationwide?

Remember, for 15- to 17-year-olds, SK registration is exclusively for the immediately upcoming SK elections only. This means that if the SK elec-

tions are postponed, some of them won’t be able to vote at all, unless they register again once they hit 18.

Oh, and, for the more cynical, don’t forget that 15- to 17-year-olds aren’t eligible to run for any office; and the Commission on Elections doesn’t issue SK-voter identification cards either. In other words, because registration won’t get them anything else, then those 1.2 million kids must have definitely registered to vote.

And here we are seriously considering taking that away.

Democracy is never a given.

It is an incredibly fleeting belief that the consent of the governed is the only acceptable basis for any

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Democracy is never a given. It is an incredibly fleeting belief that the consent of the governed is the only acceptable basis for any government—not divine right, not the might of arms and, most certainly, not fear. The crux of voter education is to inculcate this belief in everyone, but most of all, in the youth, as they are about to become voters.

With a strong enough foundation, these prevoters eventually become full-fledged voters who stand a better-than-average chance of being resistant to undemocratic ways.

government—not divine right, not the might of arms, and most certainly not fear. The crux of voter education is to inculcate this belief in everyone, but most of all, in the youth, as they are about to become voters. With a strong enough foundation, these prevoters eventually become full-fledged voters who stand a better-thanaverage chance of being resistant to undemocratic ways.

Sadly, these efforts are constantly undermined by those who disagree with this fundamental concept of democracy; those who argue—or whose arguments at least imply— that the great mass of the people are

children who need to be told what to do, how to act and what to believe in; that their only hope for a better tomorrow is to do as they are told.

History teaches us that the youth are particularly susceptible to this kind of corrosive teaching.

So it’s heartbreaking to find that more than a million young people have actually stepped up and declared their readiness for emancipation; moving up as it were, from being children to becoming prevoters with an emerging awareness of their role in a democratic society, only to be taught the lesson that fear can overpower a nation’s commitment to democratic choice.

What a waste.

Shouldn’t these be the lessons we ought to teach, instead? First, that everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives? Second, that everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country? Third, and most important, that the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; and that this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free-voting procedures?

Missing rights for the poorest and most numerous Dr. Rene E. Ofreneo

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The miseducation of 1.2 million

Continued from A1

I

N 2011, the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines (CCCP) 2011 identified the following as among the poorest IS/IE households:

n Kariton households (people living on pushcarts, which double as tools for informal economic activities, such as scavenging); n Seawall households; n Under-the-bridge and footbridge households; n Dumpsite households; n Hillside and mountaintop households, which are usually engaged in slash-and-burn farming and charcoal-making; n Small-scale mining households doing gold panning or camote mining; n Hagdaw households, whose children come in after a harvest to collect fallen rice stalks;

Alm-seeking households; Cemetery households; Luneta households; and Varied street households, which move from one alley to another.

The big question is: Are the IS/IE workers covered by the Labor Code of the Philippines? The big answer is: They are not.

And yet, the 1987 Philippine Constitution mandates the State to guarantee the universal observance of the basic rights of all workers. In Section 3, Article XIII, the charter intones: “Section 3. The State shall afford full protection to labor, local n n n n

and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.

“It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with the law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.”

The facts, however, are glaring: There is no established system of recognizing and registering IS/IE workers organizations; there is no established system acknowledging the right of IS/IE workers to engage in concerted activities and bargain collectively to press for their collective interests (in India the IS/IE organizations formally negotiate with the state governments for housing and other basic community needs); and there is no established system of consultation on policies and programs that affect them (in contrast, in the unionized segment of the formal sector, the Labor Code provides for tripartite consultation). In short, the

IS/IE workers are workers in limbo or in purgatory insofar as their rights are concerned. The IS/IE workers do not enjoy any State guarantees on the observance of workers’ basic rights, because the enabling laws and programs are either missing or silent on how such rights can be applied to these workers.

This is the reason IS/IE workers’ organizations have banded together to form an alliance called Magcaisa to push for the passage of the MCWIE bill. The bill seeks to address concerns on the registration of IS/IE workers’ organizations; representation in policy formulation on issues affecting the IS/IE; enjoyment of the basic freedoms of workers, such as freedom of assembly, social protection for the disadvantaged IS/IE workers and so on.

Unfortunately, the bill has been languishing in Congress for over a decade already. Hopefully, under the leadership of enlightened senators and representatives in the present 17th Congress, the MCWIE bill can finally be signed into law. What is at stake here is the interest of the IS/IE workers, who happen to constitute two-thirds of the Philippine labor force.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Friday, April 28, 2017 A11

Self-sufficiency in rice In support of ghosts, old homes and enchantment policy leads to economic slowdown and poverty Tito Genova Valiente annotations

Leonardo A. Lanzona Jr.

EAGLE WATCH

T

he rice-importation controversy highlights the huge, normally unforeseen, constraint affecting the country’s economic growth and poverty. The Department of Agriculture (DA) has recently deferred the importation of the product despite the continued insistence of the National Food Authority (NFA), the only agency mandated to import rice in the country, to push through with purchase in the global market. According to the DA, the importation will decrease rice prices and will be a disincentive to rice farmers who are expected to produce a bumper crop this year.

This suspension of the rice importation gives the government good publicity, since historically, rice production has been a source of national pride, and rice self-sufficiency is a measure of government success. In fact, a specific goal of the Duterte administration is rice self-sufficiency in two years. Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol on one occasion said DA regional directors should see to it the two-year objective was achieved in their respective areas, or else, they would lose their jobs. He indicated he would give them all the support they would need, including irrigation, seeds, fertilizer and farm inputs. “But I will give them the sack if they fail.

This government is results-oriented.”

This policy is part of a series of government policies aimed directly at providing help to the poor. In this case, the targets are the rice farmers who are believed to be disadvantaged by the rice importation. It needs to be cited though that this policy is not original to the current administration. The goal of rice self-sufficiency has been the hallmark of all presidents since the creation of the NFA, from Ferdinand E. Marcos to Benigno S. Aquino III. Oddly, while growth in the agricultural sector declined, a 97-percent self-sufficiency in rice was achieved.

In effect, this attention-getting but short-sighted policy only permanently jacked up domestic prices above the world levels. The production cost per kilogram of palay (rough rice) is only P6.53 in Vietnam, versus P12.41 in the Philippines. The gradually increasing food prices, especially rice, can explain the higher inflation rate this year. This price increase affects the poor household consumers particularly, since a substantial proportion of their incomes is spent on food, especially rice.

Because of the high cost of production, most of the rice farmers purchase some of their daily rice needs in the markets, and so, they too are adversely affected by this policy. Ironically, the import restrictions only benefit the rich, large rice retailers, and endanger the poor’s food security.

Moreover, the impact of this policy is to make the current industrialization more difficult. Given its labor abundance, the country’s only recourse in improving the lives of the people in the countryside is to push them toward industry where wages are higher. Once the land-labor ratio

in agriculture increases, the demand for labor in the rural sector will also increase, thereby raising rural wages as well. True enough, the current surge in industry, which explains for much of the recent growth, has resulted in higher real wages both in urban and rural areas.

The problem is the devotion to selfsufficiency in rice will make it very expensive to maintain this trend. We need to develop a feasible industrialization program that is complementary to agriculture development.

All industrialized countries have an agricultural history. Because of the importance of food for nutrition, development in a land-scarce, laborabundant, country starts with agriculture. However, as the economy grows and as more trade opportunities become available, industries are created to absorb the labor surplus.

In order to industrialize, resources are needed in order to take advantage of the technological progress that has taken place in the developed world. In the process, the country exported agricultural products or minerals that they have an advantage in producing. For example, Japan’s initial exports were silk and bamboo products; Taiwan’s were rice and sugar and Malaysia’s was rubber and timber.

In the case of the Philippines, the difference between the domestic and international rice prices clearly show we do not have comparative advantage in rice. The role of the DA is, therefore, to determine the products that are highly demanded in other countries that we can produce here at a lower cost. We may have the advantage in producing certain tropical fruits and vegetables and fish, which are in high demand in other countries. Like all industrialized countries, export earnings from agriculture and fishery, as well as earnings from industry and services, can provide us the means to import food for our daily needs.

In the end, agricultural development remains as the only avenue both for economic growth and poverty reduction. Unfortunately, we are wasting our resources with all of these resultsoriented, but sadly, myopic policies.

Leonardo Lanzona Jr. is a professor of Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University and a senior fellow of Eagle Watch, the school’s macroeconomic research and forecasting unit.

‘Let us all #Resurrectlove’ Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

SERVANT LEADER

‘A

S Jesus has risen, let us also #Resurrectlove in our relationships, our society and our lives.”

This is the Easter message of the Catholic Church through its media arms Radio Veritas 846, TV Maria, Catholic Media Network and Caritas Manila in their social experiment video titled “The Lazarus Project”.

Launched on Easter Sunday, April 16, the Lazarus Project shows

the reaction of people to five different characters who typically would

S

ome four years ago, I went home to San Fernando, in Ticao Island, to reclaim the boundaries of my grandparents’ home.

At the municipio, I secured the services of a surveyor.

On the day prescribed by the assessor, I went to the vacant lot, right behind the church. The surveyor had done her job: she had called all the owners surrounding the area.

A day before that, I was informed they had cut all the trees that were planted. All of them were removed, except an old tree the people in the area believed to be enchanted.

If they had cut all the trees, except for one, why was there still one standing? Well, even love can fail us through years and distances. I did not recognize in the sunset the old Atemoya tree. This is the enchanted tree, not that pretentious giant scaring people with its ancient height. With its luscious fruit, yellow, fleshy, sweet and soft when ripe, the tree attracted children who could climb it, with its branches offering kind stairways. The encanto there had been bothered and caused afflictions, which were cured by Nanay Gurang.

The observers had increased at the gate, but they were far from me.

They could not see me. I was talking to the tree and calling my sister, Lilibeth. “You are still here. The treecutter did not see you. See, you are still here. We forgot about you.” I was in tears, like a fool, like a small boy.

Each year I talk to my siblings what we could do with the property.

These talks were practical, businessminded in many ways. I have not told them yet about my plan.

This is my plan. When rebuilt, the house would have its old structure. The paint, which was an odd mixture of light blue and misty ochre, would be used. The living room would be the same: sofa on one side and an empty space before the bright, brown floor goes down 5 or 6 inches to a darker floor of the dining area. I am not sure if I would have a toilet at the rear left of the kitchen. It is said one occupant there discovered her helper had an abortion and dumped the tiny fetus in the toilet bowl.

The dining table would be the same—huge and heavy to hold my

Cousins tell me when the moon is full, brave men follow this woman with long hair. She walks up the stone staircase, lingers on the porch, her lovely profile visible in the night and disappears when they call her. She, not the apparition of headless priests, should be part of our new grandparents’ home. grandmother Emilia’s coffee grinder.

The window would be wide open so you could reach outside to gather avocado in the morning. From the kitchen, one climbs down to a pantaw.

This was a wooden platform that allowed one to wash and dry up after coming from a bathhouse shrouded by guava tree.

There used to be an outhouse. We will keep it bigger and whiter.

My grandparents’ room would still face the street. The altar inside would have the huge yellow

Perdon candle. Everything in this room is about redemption. On the table would be my Lola’s Nuestra Señora de Salvacion, below her feet dangling cherubs clinging in supplication, an assurance that we all could just hold on to Mary’s hem and throne and swing mightily like a star to salvation.

From the window of my grandparents’ room, an old store used to house spirits of priests. My grandmother prayed for them always.

Cousins tell me when the moon is full, brave men follow this woman with long hair. She walks up the stone staircase, lingers on the porch, her lovely profile visible in the night and disappears when they call her.

She, not the apparition of headless priests, should be part of our new grandparents’ home. She is not a white lady, but our memories left in the island, forever and loving the place of a grand and sweet childhood.

E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com.

Drawing circles: Wholeness in leadership

Although the study was conducted in the US, women all over the world can relate to the situation where this type of balancing act between work and home can mean taking a back seat from a leadership role. This does not necessarily mean motherhood.

There are sisters, daughters, daughters-in-law, nieces, granddaughters and every other extended role and family kinship in the Philippine setting. There is certainly nothing wrong in caring for and supporting loved ones, but the risk is to lose sight of one’s dreams and basic self-care.

Which is why on a rainy Wednesday night, the members of Business and Professional Women (BPW) Makati gathered for “Drawing Circles”, a collaboration session for the local chapter of one of the most influential international networks of business and professional women. The group enables women to own their empowerment, to celebrate and to stand witness to

this amazing process of becoming and wholeness.

The event puts the focus on SelfEmpowerment, Diversity, Supportive Community and Best Self. It was an action-packed and empowering exercise, playful but focused and on deeper reflection, a safe space that provided the women a venue to perceive their true authentic selves. In order for the community to journey together, the champions of BPW’s different “circles” facilitated the breakout sessions to learn more about the members, their “whys”, and their individual stories. Codesigning and coleading the program was Kick Fire Kitchen, a high-energy training and coaching consultant team that specializes in kick starting the inner fire and passion of their clients.

Questions about their biggest challenges were posed, the answers written on sticky notes and laughs and candid stories were shared—

there was openness and introspection, the perfect ingredients for a productive night. Slowly, the patterns and themes emerged despite the different stages in both professional and personal lives. Some admitted to creative blocks and plateaus, being unsure about purpose. Others talked about the lack of balance and clarity, the need for direction, the difficulty to cultivate relationships, frustrations with the job, paycheck woes versus hours spent in the office and keeping the peace in the family despite one’s happiness.

It was a deep dive into knowing women at their core—their aspirations, their challenges and ambitions and, more important, the kind of support they need in order to thrive.

The exercise allowed for mindful listening—there were no judgments, and all feminine senses were alert to catch potential ideas that can propel the group and its members to a state of empathy and clarity—the latter being the key word to see the bigger picture in its totality. With clarity comes choice. And with choice comes the ability to decide on one’s own destiny.

For BPW Makati, the goal for this gathering was to create the opportunity to connect, whether for mentorship or validation, and for its members to proceed with confidence knowing they have the tools and the support on hand. New and potential members are highly encouraged to get involved, listen, speak up, seek mentorship and share their success with the rest of their tribe. It’s time

experience judgement, such as an escort, a gay couple, a homeless man and a transgender attending a Holy Mass.

In this video, we want to express the true meaning of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, that God rose from the dead for all of mankind: men, women, even gays. Rich or poor, young or old, in all walks of life, whether you have had an education or not, Christ was resurrected for all of us, most especially for those who have sinned.

Now, God who loves us unconditionally, the Lord who loves us eternally and has risen from the dead is now calling everyone to resurrect the capacity to forgive

and love, especially to those who need it most.

We who are tired, who are troubled in this world, who are lost and have sinned, let us all come to the Lord. Whatever sin we have committed, that is all in the past. The Lord has forgiven you. Offered his life for you and has risen again so you may live in comfort, joy and freedom.

This initiative also aims to reach and remind all people of different walks of life, regardless of race, color, gender or social status that they belong; that God and the Church accepts and loves everyone without judgement. As what Pope Francis said, “The Church is a place

of mercy and hope where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.”

His Eminence Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle, DD in his homily during Palm Sunday Mass on April 9 at the Manila Cathedral said the acceptance of Jesus Christ means acceptance of His presence among the poor and the oppressed.

“Accepting the real Jesus is accepting His presence among the poor; those who get spat at and insulted in society; those who kept silent even when they are being slapped. But they are the ones who have dignity, because only God knows the truth. And that’s how Jesus is, and that’s how we should

Kristine S. González

women stepping up

A

ccording to “Women in the Workplace 2016”, a study by McKinsey & Company in partnership with LeanIn.Org, at every stage in their careers, women do more housework and child care than men—and there appears to be a link between the amount of work people do at home and their leadership ambition.

for women to take an active part in shaping the future—as our intentions will dictate the path for the next generation.

Circles have long been associated with the feminine spirit. It’s the symbol for creativity and the womb.

It’s no wonder that women have the innate ability to create, nurture and let go—leadership qualities highly valued in any field or organization.

Men need not be left out of the equation. Striking a balance between the masculine and the feminine qualities creates stronger bonds in the community. If and when this happens, the powerful healing between the sexes will take place and will probably gift humanity with the energy to finally find the cure to cancer, poverty and end all hunger.

“We’ve come full circle” is a phrase one often hears upon the recognition of a complete cycle.

But truly, there’s no beginning and there’s no end. There’s only the creation and the never-ending evolution of becoming.

follow Him,” the Cardinal said.

Currently, the video garnered a total of 471,000 views and 8,780 shares. You can help us spread the message of love, forgiveness and acceptance by watching and sharing the video at Radio Veritas 846 Facebook page, Veritas846. ph, and use the official hashtag, #Ressurectlove.

For more information on BPW Makati please e-mail bpwmakati@gmail.com or view and like our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ BPWmakati.

González is a former ballerina, advertising executive and freelance writer. She is on leave from her masters in guidance and counseling at the University of the Philippines. She handles human resources at Drink, a sustainability communications agency. She is a certified Ashtanga Yoga Teacher with Yoga Manila, and is working on her MetaCoaching Certification. Kristine is also a member of the BPW Makati.

To know more about Caritas Manila, visit www. caritasmanila.org.ph. For your donations, please call our DonorCare lines 563-9311, 564-0205, 0999-7943455, 0905-4285001 and 0929-8343857.

Make it a habit to listen to Radio Veritas 846 in the AM band, or through live streaming at www.veritas846.ph. For comments, e-mail veritas846pr@ gmail.com.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Friday, April 28, 2017

Inflation to remain above 3 percent in April on higher prices of utilities

T

By Bianca Cuaresma

@BcuaresmaBM

he Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) expects the growth of prices to remain above 3 percent for the third consecutive month in April on higher prices of utilities.

Central Bank Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. told reporters the BSP expects April inflation to hit between 3 percent and 3.8 percent for the month.

“Upward adjustments in electricity and water rates, as well as

higher domestic fuel prices, could be partially offset by lower LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] prices and the stronger peso,” the Central Bank governor said. March’s inflation hit the highest mark since November 2014, at 3.4 percent.

3.4% The revised inflation forecast for 2017

Despite the upward trend of inflation in the previous months, the Central Bank announced recently it has scaled down its annual average forecasts for both 2017 and 2018.

BSP Deputy Governor for the Monetary Stability Sector Diwa C. Guinigundo announced their revised inflation forecast of 3.4 percent in their latest monetary-policy

meeting this year, down from their February forecast of 3.5 percent.

Their forecast for 2018 was also revised from 3.1 percent to 3 percent. The BSP also said the balance of risks surrounding the inflation outlook remains tilted toward the upside, as dictated by the transitory impact of the proposed taxreform program and possible adjustments in transportation fares and electricity rates.

The Monetary Board also noted the “beneficial effects” on inflation of the removal of quantitative restrictions on rice importation. Rice accounts for 9 percent of the consumer price index.

Amid the relatively current inflation path, Tetangco gave no hints

to a move in their current policy setting, and said they will continue to monitor developments to keep their targets in check.

“Moving forward, the BSP will remain watchful of economic and financial developments that could affect the inflation outlook, in l ine with its commitment to price stability conducive to a balanced and sustainable growth of the economy,” Tetangco said. The government’s inflation target range for the year is still 2 percent to 4 percent. The BSP will be having its next monetary-policy meeting on May 11. This will be the BSP’s third monetary-policy meeting and Tetangco’s second to the last before he steps down as BSP governor in July.

BAJA: ASEAN WILLLIKELY IGNORE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S PLEA

By Recto Mercene

T

@rectomercene

he Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday said it would welcome Asean’s support and understanding, while the country is hosting the 30th Asean Summit, in the face of Amnesty International (AI) call on regional leaders to take a stand against President Duter te’s antidrugs war that resulted in the filing of a case before the International Criminal Court for “possible crimes against humanity”.

“We note Asean’s Position in the Statement delivered at the 59th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs special session on March 14, 2016, that reaffirmed ‘the sovereign right and responsibility of each country to decide on the best approach to address its drug problem, taking into consideration the context and norms of its society.’ We welcome Asean’s support and understanding of our efforts in this difficult but important national endeavor,” DFA Spokesman Robespierre Bolivar said.

On Wednesday AI, in a press statement, said: “With mounting evidence of government involvement in thousands of extrajudicial executions in Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’, Amnesty International is calling on regional leaders to take a stand against possible crimes against humanity as they meet at the 30th Asean Summit in Manila this week.”

“While they meet in their comfortable surroundings, Asean leaders should spare a thought for the thousands of people who have been killed as part of Duterte’s brutal crackdown. The vast majority are from marginalized and neglected communities, making it effectively a war on the poor,” said Champa Patel, director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific at AI. “As the death toll mounts, so does evidence of the Philippine authorities’ role in the bloodshed.

That the Philippines is chairing the Asean Summit against this horrifying backdrop is a scandal, and should prompt the government to make independent and e f fe c t i v e i nv e s t i g a t i o n s i n t o unlawful killings an immediate priority. They must send a clear message that there will be accountability and an end to such shocking violations.”

However, former Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former DFA Undersecretary for Policy Lauro Baja, when asked to comment during a telephone interview, said: “That won’t happen, because the Asean

If ever this issue is raised, it will be in the context of lessons learned from the Philippine experience, and not to criticize, not to suggest the plans of action or anything.”—Baja and Asean member-countries live and breathe to this principle of noninterference.”

“Second, because memberstates also have their drug-related problems and they will be raising an issue that is not only particular to the Philippines, AI is thinking and acting beyond its reach,” Baja added. Asked about the possible implications of AI’s statement, Baja said: “Every pronouncement of AI must be viewed in the context, which is AI is not only criticizing the Philippines but almost every other country in the world.

So, we should not really lose sleep over it.”

Asked if he agrees that the degree of drug-related killings has reached alarming proportion, and if the killings are justified, the former DFA official said: “The government has always adopted the position, the policy—and other countries in international organizations appreciated this position—that there is no extrajudicial killing in the Philippines in the sense that it is sanctioned by the government.”

“There are Philippine institutions that investigate these allegations—Senate, House and other institutions. AI is only one institution that keeps on doing this aside from others, which are, I think, contentious,” Baja added.

“There is no standing policy, but controversial issues or sensitive issues are usually raised in retreats. If ever this issue is raised, it will be in the context of lessons learned from the Philippine experience, and not to criticize, not to suggest the plans of action or anything, because, as I said, these countries in Asean also have their drug-related problems and raising it even in retreat is quite remote.”

DEPARTMENT of Tourism Region 9 Director Antonio Fernando Blanco (second from left) leads the opening ceremony of Savores 2017 on April 23 in Paseo del Mar in Zamboanga City.

Millennials dominate vibrant food scene in Zamboanga

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

Y

OUNG food entrepreneurs have energized the culinary scene of Zamboanga City, updating traditional Mindanao dishes and whipping up new creations to entice a growing generation of discriminating food aficionados.

This was the observation of Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo, after attending the Savores 2017 Gastronomic Event held at the city’s seaside boulevard on April 23. “The young ones have slowly caught up with the ‘young once’ as Savores turns another year older. This is proof positive of how rich the Philippines is, not only in terms of gustatory offerings, but of culinary advocates, as well— young food entrepreneurs joining the industry with their creative, new ideas and business savvy,” said the DOT chief, who was still riding high on the success of the recently concluded Madrid Fusión Manila 2017.

O ver a t housand g uests thronged the culinary event, now in its second year, eager to taste the distinct and varied offerings of nine traditional restaurateurs and four emerging food entrepreneurs in Zamboanga, a news statement from the Department of Tourism (DOT) said.

Only 21 years old, Jomari Alfaro

of Zamboanga’s iconic A lavar Restaurant was among the newgeneration food entrepreneurs who presented his family restaurant’s culinary creations in this year’s food fair. Alfaro showed off dishes using their heirloom recipes, such as curacha (spanner crab) in Alavar sauce and imbao (mangrove clams) in garlic sauce, which were among the crowd favorites.

The young Alfaro had quit the basketball court, after realizing that his true calling was in the restaurant business. He said he had high hopes to change the old and unfair perception of people about Zamboanga through its flavorful cuisine.

Another young food entrepreneur at Savores 2017 was Sports Science graduate Martin Go of Chinito’s Asian Kitchen, who felt it was time to rework Zambonga’s image by presenting its fusion of tastes, hoping that more people would consider the province worth exploring and worth the stay.

Rob Patania of Fellini Pizza, and Tribeca Modern Kitchen and Bar, meanwhile, came onboard this year’s Savores after learning about the huge turnout of people last year. He said he was told the event attracted over 800 guests. He described his dishes as “a little of everything that the world has to offer”.

DOT Region 9 Director Antonio Fernando Blanco noted the new millennial food entrepreneurs are driven by a common goal: to show-

case the province through its vibrant and progressive foodscape.

“One of the best come-ons for tourists is to taste the best of the destination. In any place you go, people will always look for the best distinct local flavor to taste. And when people start talking about your food, that is the time they will start coming in and visiting your place,” he stressed.

Visitor arrivals to Region 9, collectively known as the Zamboanga Peninsula, dropped to 344,000 in 2013, from 658,000 the previous year, due to takeover of the Moro National Liberation Front of the city, resulting in clashes with military forces and deaths among civilians. Arrivals bounced back, rising to 370,000 in 2014.

Zamboanga’s diverse cultural heritage is kept alive through its people’s love for good food, Teo said.

“These young culinary entrepreneurs continue to whet the palate of so many with their innovative ways of presenting time-cherished dishes in new ways,” she said, underscoring their “selfless act” to return to their roots and make a mark for themselves closer to home, family and friends.

Aside from its vibrant culinary scene, Zamboanga City is also getting renewed notice from tourists for its pink-sand beach in the Great Santa Cruz Island. The National Geographic recently listed the pink beach as one of the best in the world.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

‘Closing infra gap crucial to attracting more tourists’ DOMINGUEZ: “If we do not move quickly today, we could wind up as the country with the worst infrastructure backbone among the Asean countries.”

By Rea Cu

O

@ReaCuBM

ther Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, may edge out the Philippines in terms of tourist arrivals, if the Duterte administration would not be able to improve the country’s infrastructure, the Department of Finance (DOF) warned on Thursday.

Unless the government closes the country’s infrastructure gap and matches the infrastructure networks of other Asean member-states, Finance Secretar y Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Philippines will never become an investment-driven economy that can achieve true economic inclusion for its people.

“Weak infrastructure is the main reason our tourism sector lags way behind powerhouses such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. At the rate they are investing in their tourism infrastructure, Vietnam and Cambodia could overtake us soon in tourist arrivals. That will be a sorely missed opportunity,” Dominguez said.

Vietnam’s foreign tourist arrivals reached 10 million last year, Cambodia attracted 5.01 million international tourists, while the Philippines was visited by only 576,638 foreign tourists.

According to Dominguez, the Dutertenomics is anchored on an “unprecedented” infrastructure buildup that will let the Philippines finally catch up with its neighbors in Southeast Asia, which is moving closer to a single economic community under a highly competitive global market.

But an inclusive growth strategy, like the “build, build, build” agenda, requires an expansionary fiscal posture, so there is more of a need for the DOF to push in the Congress the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program. Dominguez said this will guarantee a robust revenue stream for the planned massive infrastructure investments under the Duterte administration.

“The call of this time is to build, build and build. We have some catching up to do. As we move closer to an Asean economic community, we must match the infrastructure of our neighbors. We cannot hope to be an investment-driven economy unless we invest in improving our infrastructure,” he added.

The build, build, build agenda was presented to the public recently through the Dutertenomics forum organized by Malacañang, the DOF and the Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence this month.

“If we do not move quickly today, we could wind up as the country with the worst infrastructure backbone among the Asean countries. That will be truly ironic. We are an archipelagic economy. If we do not build up our infrastructure backbone, inequalities between regions will deepen. Island economies will remain cut off from the national economic mainstream. Poverty will remain widespread,” he said.

Dominguez added currently Vietnam has doubled its per-capita steel consumption compared to the Philippines, which underscores Manila’s record of underinvestment in infrastructure.