Businessmirror august 04, 2017

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Friday, August 4, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 295

Residential developments still rising on housing gap Roderick Abad

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@rodrik_28 Contributor

hile prices of residential units are “plateauing” already, developers are still continuing their development binge due to the projected demand from at least 3 million Filipino buyers.

These home buyers represent half of the 6 million housing backlog in the country today, according to Pinnacle Real Estate Consulting Services Inc. (Precsi) Director of Research and Con-

sulting Jojo Salas.

“The big players are still building due to the huge housing backlog. Approximately, half of the 6 million with housing needs can afford to buy,” he said.

Salas presented the Pinnacle Real Estate Market Insight report for the second quarter of 2017, with data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) incorporated.

S a l a s s a i d t h e c o u nt r y ’s

SALAS: “The big players are still building due to the huge housing backlog.

Approximately, half of the 6 million with housing needs can afford to buy.”

re s i d e nt i a l p ro p e r t y v a lu e s slightly grew by an average of 1.1 percent in the first three months of the year from the same period in 2016.

The Residential Real Estate Price Index (RREPI) edged higher by 1.3, from 115.9 in the Januaryto-March period last year to 117.2 in the similar quarter in 2017.

Comparing it to the base level of

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Is plastic to blame for environmental woes, or is it the failure of barangays?

Dr. Jesus Lim Arranza

Make Sense

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lastic has, since the beginning of the modern world, been a part of man’s life. From clothing to shelter, from communications to health-care products, and from utensils to foodpackaging materials, among others, plastic has not only transformed man’s life, it has made daily living convenient and easy, as well.

With its high resistance to corrosion, low electrical and thermal conductivity, high strength-to-weight ratio, wide range of color availability and transparency, resistance to water and low toxicity and, most important, easy to manufacture, plastic is among man’s most reliable and convenient partner in life.

Continued on A11

Continued on A2

Lawmakers want DA budget for 2018 hiked to ₧220 billion

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

he chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food on T hursday backed the proposal of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol to allocate P220 billion for the farm sector next year.

This, after the House Committee on Appropriations deferred the consideration of the P60.6-billion budget approved by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the agency, as several lawmakers sought for an increase in its allocation.

House Committee on AgriculWorkers install a giant lantern with the logo of Asean in preparation for the August 2 to 8 Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting with dialogue partners in Manila. Washington is seeking talks on how North Korea can be suspended from Asia’s biggest security forum as part of a broader effort to isolate Pyongyang diplomatically and force it to end its missile tests and abandon its nuclear-weapons program, US and Philippine officials said. Related story on A3. AP/Bullit Marquez

Tillerson to raise human-rights concerns

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he United States’s top diplomat is expected to raise concerns about human rights in the Philippines during a possible meeting with President Duterte when he visits Manila this week for Asia’s biggest security forum.

Acting US Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will raise all relevant issues in the US alliance with the Philippines, including concerns about human

rights. She said a meeting with Duterte is being arranged.

Human-rights advocates have accused Duterte of unleashing “a human-rights calamity” with his war on illegal drugs, which has left thousands of suspects dead.

Department of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Robiespierre Bolivar said the Philippines is open to discussing its human-rights record.

Meanwhile, the top American and North Korean diplomats may cross paths during the Asean Summit next week in Manila, but have

PESO exchange rates n US 50.4220

no plans to meet, the US said on Wednesday, as it sought to further isolate the North over its nuclearweapons program.

Tillerson and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho are both attending the summit that is expected to focus heavily on regional concerns about Pyongyang. Thornton said Tillerson had no plans to sit down with Ri. “I don’t expect to see that happen,” Thornton told reporters ahead of Tillerson’s trip. “What we would See “Tillerson,” A12

₧60.6 B The budget allocated by the DBM to the DA for 2018

ture and Food Chairman Rep. Jose T. Panganiban Jr. of Anac-IP said he moved to defer the hearing on the DA’s budget until “changes have been made”.

Panganiban said the DBMproposed 2018 budget of P60 billion was not enough to fund the agency’s priority programs, as it is only one-third of the P220 billion proposed by the DA.

“[P60 billion is] insufficient.

We can’t get anywhere with that.

I am supporting the P220-billion original budget proposal of the DA,” Panganiban told the BusinessMirror in an interview.

During the DA’s budget hearing, Party-list Rep. Julieta Cortuna of A Teacher and Rep. Tom Villarin of Akbayan also backed the budget increase for the DA. However, Cortuna said a study should be conducted to determine how the DA could better deliver its services to farmers and fishermen.

“The provision of the budget should be accompanied with feasibility studies that will show what Continued on A2

Contractors warned against ‘BBB’ bid rigging

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

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@alyasjah

resident Duterte’s competition chief on Thursday warned contracting parties to spare infrastructure projects under the “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) campaign from anticompetitive practices. Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan said the PCC is coordinating with relevant government agencies in clearing public biddings of anticompetitive practices.

“We are working on a memorandum of agreement with the

Ombud sm a n so t h at we c a n share information and we could pursue cases col laboratively, cooperatively,” Balisacan said in a news briefing.

He added the PCC is also keen on sharing information with the Commission on Audit. “We are also in discussions with the Commission on Audit for similar arrangements so that we can access their data and we can also share with them what we have.”

“This is an interagency effort to address the problem to make sure that the prices of goods and services, particularly those supplied by the government, whether

[it comes] in the form of toll or fees, will be fair for the public,” the competition chief added.

Hell-bent on completing bigticket public infrastructure, the government plans to spend as much as P8.1 trillion for infrastructure development from 2017 to 2022.

The Department of Budget and Management has augmented allocations for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Transportation (DOTr). The DPWH and the DOTr will receive a budget of P643.3 billion and P73.8 billion, respectively.

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n japan 0.4554 n UK 66.6831 n HK 6.4508 n CHINA 7.5021 n singapore 37.1077 n australia 40.1460 n EU 59.7904 n SAUDI arabia 13.4455

Source: BSP (3 August 2017 )

A2 Friday, August 4, 2017

BMReports BusinessMirror

Residential developments still rising on housing gap Continued from A1

“100” in the first three months of 2014, residential-property prices grew by 17.2 percent.

“While the increase [from 2014] is substantial, the slight increase from the first quarter of 2016 means that prices are ‘plateauing’,” he said.

Pinnacle’s study estimates that residential condominium units in Metro Manila could total 240,000

by December 31.

Major player SM Prime Holdings Inc., the pioneering homegrown company with P1 trillion in market capitalization, will launch residential units anywhere between

15,000 and 18,000.

The Ayala Land Group, with P100 billion worth of projects this year, is set to introduce into the market P40 billion worth of housing inventory, consisting of 16 new projects under its Alveo brand.

Megaworld Corp, which comes third at P146.36 billion, will be de ve lopi ng a P3 0 - bi l l ion 35.6-hectare township in San Fernando, Pampanga, in the next 10 years, combining residential towers, office buildings, a mall, retail hubs, school, ampitheater and events venues.

Banking on stronger-than-expected market demand, Vista Land Group upgraded its target offering

to the property market from P30 billion to P42 billion worth of realestate projects this year, including P12-billion property developments in the first quarter.

“The top developers have been leveraging their sizes to achieve an economy of scale. While most of them would be offering attractive rents and prices for their products, one of their eyes would be watching on the quality of their offerings. Buyers and tenants will remember unpleasant turnover conditions. In addition, efficiency of operations and maintenance are likewise viewed highly by occupiers,” Salas noted.

Small and medium players, on

the other hand, are waiting for the implementing rules and regulations to get the green light, as well as the price ceiling, for vertical socialized-housing projects.

The BSP reported that loans released by both universal and commercial banks to property buyers totaled P1.31 trillion during the first quarter ending March 31.

This represents an increase of 21.5 percent for the same period last year.

“Again, this substantial increase shows that there are more people buying, and they are being financed by the banks,” said the director of research and consulting of Precsi.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

AIRBUS SEES GROWING CHOPPER SALES IN PHL Continued from A12

AS350B with registration number RP-C6828, crashed in Sarawak, Malaysia. The accident claimed the lives of its pilot and several ranking government officials of Malaysia.

Airbus is a global leader in aeronautics, space and related services. In 2016 it generated revenues of €67 billion (P4.02 trillion) and employed a work force of around 134,000. Airbus offers the most comprehensive range of passenger airliners, from 100 to more than 600 seats.

In the Philippines, Airbus holds a sizeable share of the market for planes, with major carriers Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Cebu Pacific currently beefing up their fleets. Cebu Pacific announced in June that it ordered seven A321-CEO planes worth $812 million (P41 billion) from Air-

bus. But the carrier also said it was delaying the delivery of 32 A321-NEO planes it earlier ordered, until 2018.

Last year PAL ordered six A350900 planes from Airbus in a deal worth $1.85 billion (P93.24 billion). The pioneering flag carrier will be using the new planes in a bid to expand its long-haul market, from Manila to the US, Canada and other destinations in Europe. At present, London is the only market PAL services in Europe.

A irbus is a lso a European leader providing tanker, comb at , t r a n s p or t a nd m i s s io n a ircra f t, as wel l as Europe’s No. 1 space enterprise and the world ’s second-l a rgest space business. In helicopters, A irbus provides the most efficient civ i l and mi l itar y rotorcraf t solutions worldwide.

Pernia: $5,000 per-capita income likely by 2018 Lawmakers want DA budget for 2018 hiked to P220 billion Continued from A12

indicators, or “Presyo, Trabaho and Kita”, inflation in the Philippines averaged only 1.6 percent in 2016; unemployment slowed to 4.7 percent in October 2016; and GDP is regarded as the highest in the Asean and East Asia.

Habito also said high economic growth has resulted in lower poverty incidence, which declined to

21.6 percent in 2015, from 25.2 percent in 2012.

With the government’s focus on accelerating infrastructure spending, Habito added this will only improve the country’s chances of meeting its medium-term goals.

The main growth driver of economic growth, Pernia said, will be the government’s aggressive infrastructure investment program worth P8.1 trillion over

the medium term.

T his year the gover nment aims to increase infrastructure spending to 7.3 percent of GDP in 2022, from 6.9 percent in 2021 and 2020; and 6.8 percent in 2019.

For the 2018 budget, the proposed infrastructure outlay is over P1.01 trillion, or 6.3 percent of GDP in 2018. This year the government aims to spend 5.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure alone.

Continued from A1

[the DA] can deliver,” Cortuna said.

In an interview with reporters, Piñol said the DA is pushing for a higher budget to support its Easy Access Financing scheme and the construction of more farm-tomarket roads (FMRs).

“We actually proposed P50 billion for easy access financing because we are computing a maximum

loan amount of P50,000 for a million farmers and fishermen,” Piñol added. The DA chief also disclosed that construction backlog of the department for FMRs is at 13,000 kilometers.

He said the DBM-approved budget for the department’s FMR program next year is only around P6 billion. This, he added, is not enough to eliminate the backlog.

He said that the approved

budget will allow the agency to construct only 600 km of FRMs at an average cost of P10 million per km.

Piñol, however, added he would be okay with a budget of P165 billion for 2018.

“At least three-fourths of [our original proposal] will be very, very good for us because we need to sustain our commitments to farmers and fishermen.”

The Nation BusinessMirror

A3

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Friday, August 4, 2017

US moves to have N. Korea suspended from Asia forum

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ashington is seeking talks on how North Korea can be suspended from Asia’s biggest security forum as part of a broader effort to isolate Pyongyang diplomatically and force it to end its missile tests and abandon its nuclear weapons program, US and Philippine officials said.

Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that North Korea’s actions have violated the conflict-prevention aims of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF), which groups the US and North Korea with 25 other countries.

The Philippines is hosting an annual ministerial meeting on Monday of the 27-nation ARF, which will be attended by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho. Tillerson has no plans to meet Ri on the sidelines of the meeting, Thornton said. With the US, Japan and South Korea expected to push for stronger actions against the North, a verbal showdown looms at the forum.

“What we have been sort of looking at is having a serious discussion of what it would take for a member to be suspended from this organization that is dedicated to conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy,” Thornton said. “I think we’re going to continue to have that conversation as it regards North Korea.”

“What we’ve been doing is going around talking to partners about what more could they do to contribute to that increasing pressure on the regime and the increasing sort of diplomatic isolation of the regime,” she said.

Two Filipino officials told The Associated Press (AP) that US officials have discussed such a prospect with Philippine officials, who told them it may be better to keep North Korea in the forum, where it can be persuaded to stop provocations through dialogue.

A North Korean delegation, led by its vice foreign minister, flew to Manila last week and told Philippine officials of their

hope for a “favorable environment” when Pyongyang’s top diplomat attends the ARF meetings in Manila, said the officials, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

In response, the Philippine officials told the North Koreans they could not guarantee that because other memberstates, like South Korea, Japan and the US, would definitely raise alarm over Pyongyang’s continued missile tests.

They asked the delegation why North Korea staged an intercontinental ballistic missile test last week, days before the ARF meeting, and then expected not to be confronted by other nations over it, the officials said.

While it may be too late for Pyongyang to be barred from the ARF meeting this year, Thornton said Washington would continue to “push the organization to think about what kinds of suspension measures or requirements or stipulations might be included in the future”.

Foreign ministers of the 10-member Asean, will express grave concerns over the North’s continuing missile tests when they meet on Saturday ahead of the ARF meeting, according to a draft of their joint communiqué to be issued after the Asean meeting.

Founded in 1993 by Asean foreign ministers, the ARF aims to foster dialogue and consultation on political and security concerns among Asia-Pacific nations.

Like Asean, the ARF decides by consensus, meaning any initiative can be rejected by just one opposing member, a principle that can possibly hamper any US move against North Korea if the latter would be backed up by countries like China. AP

Palace: Duterte hands off on impeach bid vs Sereno

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alacañang on Thursday said President D ut e r t e re s p e c t s t he separation of powers of the three branches of government and would not meddle in the impeachment case filed against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno at the House of Representatives.

At a Palace briefing, Presidential Communications Office Assistant Secretary Ana Marie Banaag assured that Duterte would respect the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court of the Philippines, or any other coequal branch of government for that matter.

“The President was always clear about saying that if and when the House of Representatives or any other coequal branch would do so, then that is up to them,” she said.

Banaag, who is also a lawyer, said that, with regard to the impeachment complaint filed against Sereno, the Palace would respect any action that is within the bounds of the law.

“We respect, if and when a civilian or any person for that matter would

file a complaint against any impeachable officer. That is up to them because that is within the bounds of the law,” she said.

The Palace official, likewise, belied insinuations that the impeachment complaint filed against the chief magistrate has the blessings of Duterte since it was filed by a group allegedly allied with the President.

As for the complaint itself, she pointed out that it is the prerogative of Congress how to handle the matter.

“That is up for the House of Representatives to handle or tackle. It is really up to them to consider and reconsider,” Banaag said.

On Wednesday Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption Chairman Dante Jimenez and Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. President Eligio Mallari submitted the first complaint against Sereno to the House secretary-general.

However, without an endorsement from a member of the House, the complaint was not considered to have been officially filed. PNA

Economy

A4 Friday, August 4, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

Economist says PHL should look beyond BPO success era

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By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

he technology that promises a better future is the same one that will render millions of Filipinos working in business-process outsourcing (BPOs) jobless in a decade.

At the sidelines of the Philippines-Singapore Business Council (PSBC) Conference on Thursday, former National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Cielito F. Habito said artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are already cutting incomes worldwide.

Habito said AI is changing the services industry and could replace people employed in sectors, such as BPOs. “Some people are saying its time to look at the post BPO scenario for the Philippines because it will not last. Maybe in 10 years or so, those in BPOs will be jobless. Artificial intelligence is taking over, so lets enjoy it [BPO] while its still there, but we should already plan for the era after that,” Habito said.

Habito added there is now a global trend wherein economic growth is increasing rapidly, but incomes and wages are declining. This, he said, can be explained by automation and/or robotics.

This means that moving forward, Habito added, the Philippines should be more strategic in addressing its economic challenges and not rely on just services to boost growth.

“The growth in GDP is a growth in profit, not in income. By the way, this is a phenomenon worldwide that the share of profit income to total income meaning total GDP has been growing through time, but the share of labor income, the share of salaries

and wages to total GDP has been declining over time,” Habito said.

“It’s really a formula for increasing inequality. But it’s not only unique to us. Unfortunately, its because of the technology trends we are seeing, jobs are being taken over by artificial intelligence, robotics,” he added.

Habito said the country has been quite successful in finding other sources of growth in recent years.

He noted that the growth of the economy since 2010 has been largely due to the manufacturing sector.

He added the growth of the industry sector increased to 8 percent in 2016, from only 6 percent in 2015.

In the last quarter of last year and 2015, industry growth increased to 7.6 percent, from 6.5 percent.

However, more needs to be done, especially in agriculture, tourism and manufacturing, which have the highest potential to reduce income inequality nationwide.

One of the ways to do this, Habito said, is to spread development to various parts of the Philippine archipelago by improving the capacity of ports outside Metro Manila.

This means allocating some of the “Build, Build, Build” program funds toward reducing the capacity of the Port of Manila and increasing the capacity of other ports, such as Batangas and Subic.

He added this will not only solve the congestion in Metro Manila, but

will also make it cheaper for all kinds of shipments to reach various parts of the country.

“This is not something you can leave to market forces, because on its own, the situation will self perpetuate in Metro Manila, so we really need an intervention,” Habito said.

This can also pave the way for the transformation of the Philippines into a trans shipment hub, similar to Kaoshung in Taiwan which is the hub for goods from the Pacific ocean being shipped to the Asean and Singapore for European goods.

This was the plan under the term of former President Fidel V. Ramos.

Habito served as the socioeconomic planning secretary of Ramos.

At that time, in the 1990s, he said the Ramos administration obtained information that these ports, particularly Kaoshung, were reaching full capacity.

Habito said the Ramos administration looked at Subic to become a transshipment hub or the port in Infanta Real which is easier to reach than Manila Bay. “Those are the kinds of forwardlooking things that, perhaps, we ought to be reviving again,” Habito said.

These will also help increase the interest of foreign investors in the Philippines. PSBC Cochairmen

Guillermo D. Luchangco of ICCP Group and Loh Chin Hua of Keppel Corp. said interest is still not that high for the Philippines among Singaporean investors.

However, the recent economic success of the country, the PSBC said, has made Singaporean firms more keen on investing the Philippines.

Luchangco said Singapore-based firms are looking for partners in halal goods, information-technology-business-process outsourcing, infrastructure and tourism.

Loh said the interest of Singaporean firms on the country are more long term. He said that these firms remain bullish on the country, despite crises, such as the Marawi siege.

“We look at business opportunities in the long term so is not something that we look at as a short-term engagement. I think this is obviously an area of concern not only for us, but also for everyone but ultimately we look at the long-term fundamentals of the Philippines and the signs are all very positive,” Loh said.

Singapore stands as the Philippines’s largest trade partner with a total trade value of $9.3 billion in 2016. Of this amount, around $3.8 billion are Philippine exports.

The Philippines’s top export to Singapore is electronics with a total export value of $3.3 billion.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Palace suspends ERC chief anew for ‘insubordination’

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alacañang has suspended Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairman Jose Vicente B. Salazar for four months for insubordination.

This was confirmed on Thursday

by Communications Assistant Secretary Ana Maria-Paz R. Banaag at a Palace briefing.

“The Office of the Executive Secretary, in its decision dated August 2, 2017, finds Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jose Vicente B. Salazar, guilty of insubordination.

Thus, Mr. Salazar is meted out the penalty of suspension for a period of four months without pay,” she said.

The Palace official said that Salazar’s suspension is separate from the 90-day suspension earlier meted on the embattled ERC chairman.

She said that the preventive suspension is not a form of penalty, but only a remedial action in order for the office to be able to investigate without any documents being hidden by anybody who is being investigated.

Banaag said the insubordination case against Salazar stemmed from his order to lawyer Ronaldo Gomez as signing authority for the office of the chairman and CEO, despite Malacañang’s order assigning Commissioner Geronimo Sta. Ana to serve as

officer in charge during his absence.

“So this is the insubordination part. This is the penalty, because the Office of the President has jurisdiction over Chairman Salazar. And for his disobedience, for insubordination, for not obeying the previous appointment released by the Office of the Executive Secretary to Mr. Sta. Ana, OIC Sta. Ana and for appointing another person as OIC. That is the case of the insubordination that was decided upon by the Office of Executive Secretary,” Banaag said.

She added, however, that there are other issues surrounding the case of Salazar other than insubordination that she could not disclose. “For investigations, of course, we cannot divulge whatever they are so as not to preempt whatever may happen.

“For the other cases, we will not be mentioning about that or tackling that since it would be a full-blown investigation that would need a lot more time for them [probers] to be able to investigate,” Banaag said.

President Duterte had earlier asked Salazar to resign after ERC Director Francisco Jose S. Villa Jr. committed suicide. Prior to his death, Villa had exposed that some ERC officials were pressuring him to approved anomalous deals. PNA

Some people are saying its time to look at the post BPO scenario for the Philippines because it will not last. Maybe in 10 years or so, those in BPOs will be jobless. Artificial intelligence is taking over so lets enjoy it (BPO) while its still there but we should already plan for the era after that.”—Habito

DBM’s Diokno says SUC free tuition proposal ‘unsustainable’

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he fate of students in various state universities and colleges (SUCs) looking forward to free education continues to hang in the balance, as President Duterte has yet to decide on whether to allow free tuition in these government learning institutions.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia told reporters that the economic team was asked by the President to resubmit the position paper they made in February 2017.

The economic team, which includes Pernia and the secretaries of Finance Carlos G. Dominguez III and Budget Benjamin Diokno, voiced their strong opposition to the free-tuition scheme because they said it will benefit only 12

percent of poor students in the country and the government cannot afford it.

“It’s up to the President to decide. We resubmitted it [position paper] because obviously the President asked it to be resubmitted,” Pernia said. “It’s going to be discussed by the President what to do with the bill.”

Econom ists, for t hei r pa r t, agreed with the position of Duterte’s economic team. University of Asia and the Pacific economist Victor Abola said the funds can instead be channeled to improve elementary and secondary education, through incentives, such as food for education programs.

Former Socioeconomic Secretary

Romulo L. Neri said that the free tuition is not “pro-poor” because most of those who attend college are not poor.

Neri added the government will be able to help more poor students by extending scholarships and support services for basic education.

“It’s not pro-poor. Those who go to college are mostly nonpoor. The money is better targeted as scholarship for the deserving poor students and also to support basic education which benefit the poor more,” Neri told the BusinessMirror.

These reservations have also been expressed in a study conducted by Philippine Institute for Development St ud ies researc h

fellows Aniceto C. Orbeta Jr. and Vicente B. Paqueo.

Orbeta and Paqueo said that if the government were to extend free tuition across all SUCs, it will spend as much as P33 billion to help only 197,828 poor students, or 12 percent of students from the bottom 20 percent of households.

Pernia said that should the government decide to pay for the tuition in SUCs, this will crowd out the private institutions in the education sector.

“The budget for free tuition is really quite large. In fact, it’s not a pittance, its going to be unsustainable over time and I think these reasons are very cogent, very compelling,” Pernia added. Cai U. Ordinario

Cusi at NGCP’s NCC National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) strengthens its part-

nership with the Department of Energy (DOE) as it welcomed Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi to its National Control Center (NCC) on Wednesday. Cusi’s first visit to NCC included a brief presentation on the features, including the communications capabilities, of the NCC. “NGCP is pleased to present its operations to the DOE secretary. It is critical that the secretary is kept up to date on grid operations. We welcome this visit, and look forward to presenting an in-depth look not only for operations in Luzon, but also in the Visayas and Mindanao,” the NGCP said in a news statement.

PNTOA eyes similar ride-hailing Passport-quota withdrawal ‘big blow’ to travel agents app being used by Uber, Grab T

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taxi operators group on Wednesday said it is eyeing the creation of a ridehailing application similar to Uber and Grab to “level the playing field” in providing transportation service to the public.

Philippine National Taxi Operators Association (PNTOA) Head Bong Suntay, during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, recognized that taxis and its drivers had its flaws, but stressed that these were due to “limits” to regulations set by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).

Taxi operators have repeatedly blamed Uber and Grab for a decline in the number of passengers who hail taxis and for the number of drivers who prefer to work for transport network companies (TNCs).

“We have nothing against Uber and Grab.

We have always believed that the market is big enough for all of us to coexist but co-

existence but under a level playing field,” Suntay said.

Suntay acknowledged that while taxi drivers refused passengers, usually during traffic, it was because they did not have the dynamic pricing scheme or surge pricing offered by transport network vehicle services.

“What makes them distinct is they could use the application to tell passengers how much they pay. We are limited on using the taxi meter. We basically use the same vehicles. What makes us distinct are regulations,” he added.

Suntay also asked for the conduct an “automatic review” of taxi fare every two years with or without inflation.

Former taxi driver now Grab driver Ronald de Guzman, agreed that the reason why he switched to driving for a TNVS service was because he could not meet the daily boundary required for taxis at P1,200 to P1,500. PNA

he Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) said on Thursday it expect the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to provide them access to the mobile passport-processing service following the DFA’s withdrawal of the 500 daily passport quota at its Aseana office in Pasay City.

PTAA President Marlene Dado Jante said losing the 500 daily quota guaranteed to its members, even temporarily, is a big blow to travel agencies operational viability.

“It is a fact that 15 percent of the revenue stream of some of our members come from their passport-processing services. This will impact travel agencies’ operations,” Jante said.

She added: “Even with this, we will remain a strong partner of the government in its promotion and development of the country’s tourism industry. We will abide by this decision of the DFA as it tries to improve on its passport-processing system, which they have described to us as having reached crisis level.”

To soften the financial blow on its members, the PTAA, Jante said, is requesting the DFA to grant them once-a-week access to its mobile-passport service, which will be rolled out in October within Metro Manila.

“We have told the DFA that our office in Mandaluyong City can host the mobile service every Saturday and process all applications there that were coursed through our members,” Jante added.

According to Jante, they can coordinate with the Mandaluyong City local government to ensure that they can accommodate the most number of individuals who are looking to renew their passports.

She said the DFA mobile service will enable them to assist their members respective businesses stay afloat until such time that their daily quota is restored or even increased.

“There is a promise that they made to us that they will assess again the situation by December. But by that time, it is already the peak season of travel, and our members would have lost a lot financially,” Jante added.

Still, Jante said they will continue to work closely with the DFA and will support its review of its facilities, manpower and protocols during this time.

Earlier in the week, DFA Office of Consular Affairs Acting Director Ricarte Abejuela III sent a letter to the PTAA, informing the association that they have removed its online appointment slots for passport processing.

In the letter, the DFA said it is now requiring all travel-agency applicants to go through the same process, including application through online-appointment processing, payment, encoding and claiming of passports.

The DFA has also prohibited travel agency staff, including liaison officers, from entering its consular premises to accompany or assist clients.

Under the implementing rules and regulations of the Passport Act of 1996, travel agencies are legally allowed to process passport applications ensure document authenticity.

Recto Mercene

Agriculture/ Commodities

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

BusinessMirror

Friday, August 4, 2017 A5

PHL bans Belgian poultry products over avian flu

Congress asked to pass four agri-related bills

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

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Bloomberg

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

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@jearcalas

he Philippine government has slapped a temporary ban on the importation of poultry meat and products from two municipalities in Belgium, where a lethal strain of the bird-flu virus has been detected.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) issued Memorandum Order (MO) 31 authorizing the ban on Belgian poultry products. This, after Brussels confirmed to the Office International des Epizooties or World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) that there was an outbreak of H5N8 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus in Oostkamp and Menen in West Flanders, Belgium.

“There is a need to prevent the entry of HPAI virus to protect the health of the local poultry popula-

tion,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said in MO 31, a copy of which was given to reporters on August 3.

The official report by Brussels to the OIE was submitted by Dr. Jean-Francois Heymans, director, Animal Health and Safety of Products of Animal Origin, Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain, on June 19 and 21.

In the report, Heymans said there were outbreaks of H5N8 HPAI virus in Waardamme and LauweMenen in West Flanders affecting

birds as confirmed by Belgium’s National Laboratory, Cerva.

With the ban in place, the Philippine government has suspended the processing, evaluation of the application and issuance of sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance of domestic and wild birds and poultry products from Belgium.

The DA warned that it will confiscate all shipments of the banned commodities originating from Belgium. The ban does not cover heattreated products.

“Frozen poultr y meat with slaughter/process date of 21 days prior to the HPAI outbreaks are allowed to enter the country subject to veterinary quarantine rules and regulations,” Piñol said.

The Philippines remains free from the dreaded avian flu virus, which crippled the poultry industries of some countries in Southeast Asia.

The government is seeking to capitalize on this and is now on the lookout for countries where it could export its poultry products.

Currently, the Philippines exports yakitori chicken to Japan.

he Department of Agriculture (DA) on Thursday asked Congress to prioritize the passage of four agriculture-related measures that seek to increase food production.

During the 2018 national budget deliberation, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the four measures would help boost agricultural productivity in the country.

These proposals are related to the provision of free irrigation, faster resolution of coconut-levy funds, roll out of a national landuse policy and the quick and easy access financing for farmers.

“Our legislative agenda, No. 1 would be free irrigation. Second would be not under the coverage of the DA, but we are still pushing for the faster resolution of the use of coco-levy funds and the passage of the National Land Use Act,” he told lawmakers.

Piñol also asked lawmakers to put in place a measure compelling banks to put in place a “quick and easy” loan program for farmers and fishermen.

“Access to credit is a common problem faced by our farmers, so I am asking support for the institutionalization of quick access financing,” he said.

“The DA cannot do it alone.

Congress should pass a loan providing easy access for farmers and fishermen to purchase seeds and fertilizer,” Piñol added.

Earlier, the DA said he will push for a nationwide micro-lending program for farmers.

The House of Representatives has already endorsed for Senate approval a measure providing free irrigation services.

House Bill 5670, Free Irrigation Services Act, seeks to strengthen assistance to all farmers by providing them with free irrigation. The bill seeks to promote irrigation systems that are “free, suitable

Sudan’s traders hedge new risk: Kenya’s vote

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raders in war-torn, hungerstricken South Sudan are stocking up on goods from neighboring Kenya in case unrest around next week’s elections there disrupts imports, the Chamber of Commerce said.

While most of South Sudan’s food supplies originate in Uganda, any upheaval in Kenya could affect goods, such as wheat, building materials and spices that arrive via East Africa’s biggest port in Mombasa, the chamber’s secretary-general, Simon Akuei Deng, said by phone from the capital, Juba. The owners of the shipping containers are being advised to clear them before the August 8 vote, he said.

“Much as we wish Kenyans well in their elections, people need to be conscious in case there is a problem,” Deng said. He warned that imports of fuel for South Sudan, which produces oil but doesn’t have

its own refineries, may also be affected.

Kenya, the region’s biggest economy, has seen unrest during three of its past five national elections. Opinion polls show opposition candidate Raila Odinga gaining ground against President Uhuru Kenyatta, raising the likelihood of a runoff vote. Odinga has warned he won’t concede defeat and his supporters may take to the streets if the elections aren’t deemed credible.

Violence in the wake of a contested 2007 vote claimed 1,100 lives and disrupted Kenya’s agriculture exports, of which Europe is a buyer, and fuel supplies to neighboring Uganda. Kenya’s inspector-general of police, Joseph Boinnet, last month said adequate security measures are in place to ensure next week’s election is peaceful, according to Capital FM, a local broadcaster. Bloomberg News

Bloomberg

and efficient” as a key strategy to agricultural development.

The bill grants free irrigation to all farmers, farmers’ organizations, irrigators association and local government units drawing from all irrigation systems built, operated and maintained by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the Department of Agriculture, or any other government agencies.

However, the bill said owners or operators of corporate farms, plantations, fishponds and other nonagricultural crop users drawing water or using the drainage facilities of the NIA irrigation systems are not qualified beneficiaries of the program.

The measure also authorizes the condonation of all unpaid irrigation fees, back accounts and the corresponding penalties.

It also directs the NIA to provide technical and financial assistance to local government units, farmers’s beneficiaries, irrigators’s associations and farmer cooperatives with respect to irrigation systems located, utilized and managed in their respective jurisdictions.

The measure also said the government, together with the farmers’ and irrigators’ associations and farmers’ cooperatives, would build and operationalize an effective grassroots-based management of irrigation systems, the funding of which will be included in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA).

HB 5745, or a measure creating the Coconut Industry Trust Fund, was approved by the appropriations panel as the substitute bill to the original several bills which seek to utilize the coconut-levy fund.

National Unity Party Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles of Davao, the appropriation committee chairman, said the approval of this measure is needed to finally address certain legal infirmities, as declared by the Supreme Court (SC), that prevented its proper usage.

HB 5745 seeks to create a “Coconut Industry Trust Fund” and amend Republic Act 6260, or the Coconut Investment Act, that created the coconut-levy fund.

If passed into law, the lawmaker said, it would constitute the cocolevy funds and assets into a Coconut Industry Trust Fund and provide the administrative structure that will manage the trust funds and ensure that its use will benefit the coconut industry and farmers.

Party-list Rep. Jose Panganiban Jr., of Anac-IP House Committee on Agriculture and Food chairman and one of the authors of the bill, said the SC has declared in 2012 that the coconut-levy fund is government-owned, to be used solely for the benefit of coconut farmers and for the development of coconut industry.

Panganiban, citing the Bureau of Treasury, said “the total amount of the coconut-levy fund is P62.5 billion in cash, deposited in special account in the general fund, which is not earning interest because it cannot be invested, adding that it needs a law in order to be utilized”.

The other amount of P13.09 billion is held in escrow and earning interest, he said.

The lower chamber had also approved on third and final reading HB 5240, or the proposed National Land Use and Management Act of the Philippines,” which seeks to institutionalize a national land-use policy that will govern the country’s land use and management.

The bill aims to provide for a rational, holistic and just allocation, utilization, management and development of the country’s land and water resources; hold owners and users of land responsible for developing and conserving their lands; and strengthen the capacity of local government units to manage and maintain ecological balance within their territorial jurisdiction.

The measure defines “land use” as the manner of allocation, utilization, management and development of land.

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The World BusinessMirror

Friday, August 4, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Trump signs Russian sanctions into law, with caveats

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump signed legislation on Wednesday imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them, but asserted that the measure included “clearly unconstitutional provisions” and left open the possibility that he might choose not to enforce them as lawmakers intended.

The legislation, which also includes sanctions on Iran and North Korea, represented the first time that Congress had forced Trump to sign a bill over his objections by passing it with bipartisan, vetoproof majorities.

Even before he signed it, the Russian government retaliated by seizing two US diplomatic proper t ies a nd order i ng t he United States to reduce its embassy staff members in Russia by 755 people.

The measure ref lected deep skepticism among law makers in both parties about Trump’s friendly approach to President Vladimir Putin of Russia and an effort to prevent Trump from letting the Kremlin off the hook for its annexation of Crimea, military intervention in Ukraine and its meddling in last year’s US election.

Rather than the rapprochement Trump once envisioned, the US and Russia now seem locked in a spiral of increasing tension. Unlike other bills, Trump did not invite news media photographers to record the event, nor did he say anything about it to reporters. He ignored questions about the legislation at an unrelated event and instead relegated his comments to two written statements, one meant for Congress to describe caveats in his approval of the bill and the other issued to reporters to explain his grudging decision to sign.

As other presidents have in the past, Trump protested that

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The number of US diplomatic properties in Russia that the Moscow government seized in retaliation to the US sanctions Congress was improperly interfering with his power to set foreign policy, in this case by imposing waiting periods before he can suspend or remove sanctions first imposed by former President Barack Obama while Congress reviews and potentially blocks such a move.

In the statement to Congress, Trump said the bill “included a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions.”

Although he added that “I nevertheless expect to honor” the waiting periods, he did not commit to it. Moreover, he took issue with other provisions, saying only that he “will give careful and respectful consideration to the preferences expressed by Congress.”

“This bill remains seriously f lawed—par ticu larly because it encroaches on the executive

President Donald J. Trump at an event at the White House in Washington on July 31. Five days after the White House announced Trump’s intention to do so, the president signed legislation imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them on August 2. The measure has already escalated tensions with the Russian government. Doug Mills/The New York Times

branch’s authority to negotiate,” Trump said in the separate statement to reporters. “Congress could not even negotiate a health-care bill after seven years of talking. By limiting the executive’s flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people and will drive China, Russia and North Korea much closer together.”

“Yet, despite its problems,” he added, “I am signing this bill for the sake of national unity. It represents the will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States. We hope there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues so that these sanctions will no longer be necessary.”

Like Trump, who has offered no public comment or even a Twitter message about the Russian order to slash the number of US Embassy

workers, it appears that Putin has not completely given up on the idea of establishing closer relations.

The Russian government took its retaliatory action before the president signed the bill so that it would be a response to Congress, not to Trump.

After Trump signed the measure on Wednesday, the Russian government reaction was mild.

“De facto, this changes nothing,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press secretary, who was traveling with Putin in the Russian Far East, according to the Interfax news agency. “There is nothing new.”

He added that no new retaliation should be expected. “Countermeasures have already been taken,” he said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry attributed the sanctions to “Russophobic hysteria” and reserved the right to take action if it decided to.

In taking on China over tech, partnerships, trade rules limit US

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ASHINGTON—As the Trump administration moves to take on China over intellectual property, Washington will find it has limited firepower. Beijing has a strong grip on US technology companies, and global trade rules could favor China.

Technology is proving a major battleground for China and the US, as both sides vie to protect t heir economic and nat iona l security interests.

Beijing has forced a long list of US companies to enter joint ventures or share research with Chinese players, part of a broader push to create its own technology giants. From makers of smartphones to chips to electric cars, US businesses have reluctantly agreed, fearful of losing access to China, which has the second-largest economy in the world.

China’s ambitions have set off alarms in Washington, with concerns on both sides of the aisle.

Robert E. Lighthizer, the US trade representative, is now preparing a trade case accusing China of extensive violations of intellectual property, according to people with detailed knowledge of the case.

But China can play a strong defense. The country has broad latitude, under special rules it negotiated with the World Trade Organization (WTO), to maintain restrictions within its market.

“The problem is that US trade negotiators agreed to provisions allowing China to limit market

access for US companies unless they engaged in joint ventures,” said Michael R. Wessel, a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which Congress created to monitor the relationship between the two countries.

“Potential Chinese partners demand the family jewels,” he said.

“Companies can say no, but too many give in to Chinese pressure to make a quick buck.”

The current trade frictions trace back to the Clinton administration. W hen China was entering the WTO in 1999 and 2000, US negotiators gave Beijing some leeway, a position later supported by the administration of George W. Bush.

A s a d e v e lo p i n g cou nt r y, China was allowed extra protections, such as requirements that companies in critical industries work w ith Chinese par tners.

China, in return, promised to shed the extra rules gradually as its economy matured.

But Beijing did not open up, even as China evolved into an economic powerhouse. Quite the opposite has happened under President Xi Jinping, who has pursued a more nationalistic agenda than his reform-minded predecessors.

China now sees the technology sector as a critical piece of its industrial policy—a policy that Beijing is aggressively enlisting US tech giants to support and that the leadership will most likely go all out to protect.

Beijing’s demands have been partly driven by security concerns, particularly after disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, of electronic spying by the US on China’s rapid militar y buildup.

China has also been explicit about its economic motives, seeking to dominate fast-growing global industries that could create millions of well-paid jobs for a generation of increasingly welleducated young Chinese.

In several cases, China’s strategy to control technology approaches the kind of oversight most countries reserve for industries serving the military or government.

New Chinese rules often force foreign tech companies into partnerships with local companies— in part to gain expertise, in part to assert control. Other guidance from the government has indicated that companies must invest more in China to continue to have access to the market. Apple has opened research and development centers in the country as part of a new charm campaign.

In the chip sector, a major initiative intended to lift Chinese capabilities has drafted America’s biggest makers of the electronic brains that run everything from smartphones to driverless cars.

Over the past four years, America’s largest chip companies have entered into a dizzying network of partnerships unlike anything they have anywhere else.

Qualcomm works with a company in southwest China to develop server chips. In 2014 Intel signed agreements with two Chinese chip makers, Spreadtrum and Rockchip, to give it a leg up in the market for China’s smartphones and tablets. Last year Intel agreed to a partnership with the influential Tsinghua University in China as part of a bid to make server chips that match local specifications.

IBM and Advanced Micro Devices have both licensed chip technology to Chinese partners with ties to China’s military. GlobalFoundries, a California-based company, joined forces with a local government in central China to build a $10-billion chip-manufacturing plant there.

US technology companies can find themselves at a serious disadvantage in China unless they agree to cooperate with governmentlinked Chinese businesses.

Take cloud computing, the fastgrowing business of leasing computer power to companies. Chinese laws require foreign companies to join with local partners and allow them only a minority stake.

International businesses are also blocked from branding such services under their own names.

Both Microsoft and Amazon, dominant forces in cloud computing in the US, have local partnerships in China. By contrast, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba operates two data centers in the US without any partner.

New York Times News Service

Vasily A. Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said the law would do nothing to change Moscow’s policies.

“Those who invented this bill, if they were thinking that they might change our policy, they were wrong,” he told reporters. “As history many times proved, they should have known better that we do not bend, we do not break.”

Dmitry A. Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, declared the “end to hope for the improvement of our relations” and mocked Trump for being forced to sign.

“The Trump administration has demonstrated total impotence, handing over executive functions to Congress in the most humiliating way possible,” he wrote on Facebook. He added that “the American establishment has totally outplayed Trump” with the goal “to remove him from power.”

US lawmakers said the new law

sent an important signal that Russia would be held to account for its election interference and aggression toward its neighbors. But the lawmakers expressed concern about whether Trump would try to sidestep the measure.

The president’s signing statement “demonstrates that Congress is going to need to keep a sharp eye on this administration’s implementation of this critical law and any actions it takes with respect to Ukraine,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a prime driver behind the legislation, said, “I remain very concerned that this administration will seek to strike a deal with Moscow that is not in the national security interests of the United States.” New York Times News Service

White House purging Flynn allies from NSC

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ASHINGTON—The White House has engaged in a slow-motion purge of hard-line officials at the National Security Council (NSC) in recent weeks, angering conservatives who complain that the foreign-policy establishment is reasserting itself over a president who had promised a new course. The latest to go was Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who ran the NSC’s intelligence division and, like others who have left, was appointed by Michael T. Flynn, President Donald J. Trump’s first national security adviser.

Flynn resigned in February after it was disclosed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and others about a telephone call with Russia’s ambassador.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster succeeded Flynn and has slowly tried to move out some of Flynn’s appointees. He initially tried to fire Cohen-Watnick earlier this year, only to be rebuffed by Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. But Kushner dropped his opposition this week, according to someone with knowledge of the decision.

A fierce Trump loyalist, Cohen-Watnick drew attention when he and another White House official briefed Rep. Devin Nunes, Republican-California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on classified intelligence reports revealing that US intelligence agencies had conducted incidental surveillance of Trump’s transition team. The briefing was intended to bolster Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama ordered phones tapped at Trump Tower.

Cohen-Watnick’s resignation was announced by the White House late on Wednesday.

“General McMaster appreciates the good work accomplished in the NSC’s intelligence directorate under Ezra Cohen’s leadership,” a spokesman said in a statement. “He has

determined that, at this time, a different set of experiences is best suited to carrying that work forward. General McMaster is confident that Ezra will make many further significant contributions to national security in another position in the administration.”

His departure follows several others last month. Tera Dahl, the deputy chief of staff at the NSC and a former writer for Breitbart News, which was run by Bannon before he joined the White House staff, left for a post at the US Agency for International Development. Later in the month, in separate developments, Derek Harvey, the top Middle East adviser, and Rich Higgins, the director of strategic planning, were pushed out.

Higgins was forced out after writing a memo arguing that Trump was being subverted by an array of foreign and domestic enemies, including globalists, bankers, officials of the “deep state,” Islamists and those questioning interactions between Trump campaign officials and Russia, according to a report in The Atlantic magazine. All four officials were considered Trump allies who shared the anti-globalist views of Flynn and Bannon.

McMaster, whose relationship with the president has been strained at times, has long wanted to remove the pro-Flynn hard-liners from his staff. First to go was K.T. McFarland, a former Fox News analyst, who was pushed out as deputy national security adviser in May and nominated to be ambassador to Singapore.

The latest moves come at a time of heightened unease in the world, punctuated

by North Korea’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, and continued uncertainty about the leadership and direction of the council, which was created to provide presidents with in-house guidance on foreign and military affairs.

New York Times News Service

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Affirmative action battle new focus: Asian-Americans

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y most standards, Austin Jia holds an enviable position. A rising sophomore at Duke, Jia attends one of the top universities in the country, setting him up for success. But with his high graded point average, nearly perfect Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score and activities—debate team, tennis captain and state orchestra—Jia believes he should have had a fair shot at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. Those Ivy League colleges rejected him after he applied in the fall of 2015.

It was particularly disturbing, Jia said, when classmates with lower scores than his—but who were not Asian-American, like him—were admitted to those Ivy League institutions.

“My gut reaction was that I was super disillusioned by how the whole system was set up,” Jia, 19, said.

Students like Jia are now the subject of a lawsuit accusing Harvard of discriminating against AsianAmericans in admissions by imposing a penalty for their high achievement and giving preferences to other racial minorities. The case, which is clearly aimed for the Supreme Court (SC), puts Asian-Americans front and center in the latest stage of the affirmative action debate. The issue is whether there has been discrimination against Asian-Americans in the name of creating a diverse student body.

The Justice Department, which has signaled that it is looking to investigate “intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions,” may well focus on Harvard.

The Harvard case asserts that the university’s admissions process amounts to an illegal quota system, in which roughly the same percentage of AfricanAmericans, Hispanics, whites and Asian-Americans have been admitted year after year, despite fluctuations in application rates and qualifications.

“It falls afoul of our most basic civil-rights principles, and those principles are that your race and your ethnicity should not be something to be used to harm you in life nor help you in life,” said Edward Blum, the president of Students for Fair Admissions, the organization that is suing Harvard. His group, a conservative-leaning nonprofit based in Virginia, has filed similar suits against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Texas at Austin, asserting that white students are at a disadvantage at those colleges because of their admissions policies.

The federal government potentially has the ability to influence university-admissions policies by withholding federal funds under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids racial discrimination in programs that receive federal money.

In many ways, the system the lawsuit is attacking is one Harvard points to with pride. The university has a long and pioneering history of support for affirmative action, going back at least to when Derek Bok, appointed president of Harvard in 1971, embraced policies that became a national model.

The university has extended that ethos to many low-income students, allowing them to attend free.

Harvard has argued in an SC brief that while it sets no quotas for “blacks, or of musicians, football players, physicists or Californians,” if it wants to achieve true diversity, it must pay some attention to the numbers.

The university has also said that abandoning raceconscious admissions would diminish the “excellence” of a Harvard education.

Melodie Jackson, a spokesman for Harvard, said that the university’s admissions policy was fair; that it looked at each applicant “as a whole person,” consistent with standards established by the SC; and that it promoted “the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives.”

Harvard’s class of 2021 is 14.6-percent AfricanAmerican, 22.2-percent Asian-American, 11.6-percent Hispanic and 2.5-percent Native American or Pacific Islander, according to data on the university’s web site.

For the Harvard case, initially filed in 2014, Blum said, the federal court in Boston has allowed the plaintiffs to demand records from four highly competitive high schools with large numbers of Asian-American students: Stuyvesant High School in New York; Monta Vista High School in the Silicon Valley city of Cupertino, California; Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia; and the Boston Latin School.

The goal is to look at whether students with comparable qualifications have different odds of admission that could be correlated with race and how stereotypes influence the process. A Princeton study found that students who identify as Asian need to score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites to have the same chance of admission to private colleges, a difference some have called “the Asian tax.”

The lawsuit also cites Harvard’s Asian-American enrollment at 18 percent in 2013, and notes very similar numbers ranging from 14 percent to 18 percent at other Ivy League colleges, like Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Yale.

In contrast, it says, in the same year, Asian-Americans made up 34.8 percent of the student body at the University of California, Los Angeles, 32.4 percent at UC Berkeley; and 42.5 percent at the California Institute of Technology. It attributes the higher numbers in the state-university system to the fact that California banned racial preferences by popular referendum in 1996, though California also has a large number of Asian-Americans.

New York Times News Service

Friday, August 4, 2017

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Trump supports bill to cut legal immigration by half

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump embraced a proposal on Wednesday to slash legal immigration to the US in half within a decade by sharply curtailing the ability of US citizens and legal residents to bring family members into the country.

The plan would enact the most far-reaching changes to the system of legal immigration in decades and represents the president’s latest effort to stem the flow of newcomers to the US. Since taking office, he has barred many visitors from select Muslim-majority countries, limited the influx of refugees, increased immigration arrests and pressed to build a wall along the southern border.

In asking Congress to curb legal immigration, Trump intensified a debate about national identity, economic growth, worker fairness and American values that animated his campaign last year. Critics said the proposal would undercut the fundamental vision of the US as a haven for the poor and huddled masses, while the president and his allies said the country had taken in too many low-skilled immigrants for too long to the detriment of American workers.

“This legislation will not only restore our competitive edge in the 21st century, but it will restore the sacred bonds of trust between America and its citizens,” Trump said at a White House event alongside two Republican senators sponsoring the bill. “This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first and that puts America first.”

In throwing his weight behind the bill, Tr ump added one more long-odds priority to a legislative agenda already packed with them in the wake of the defeat of legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s healthcare program. T he president has vowed to overhaul the ta x code and rebuild the nation’s roads, air ports and other infrastructure.

But by endorsing legal immigration cuts, a move he has long supported,

Trump returned to a theme that has defined his short political career and excites his conservative base at a time when his poll numbers continue to sink.

Just 33 percent of Americans approved of his performance in the latest Quinnipiac University survey, the lowest of his presidency, and down from 40 percent a month ago.

Democrats and some Republicans quickly criticized the move.

“Instead of catching criminals, Trump wants to tear apart communities and punish immigrant families that are making valuable contributions to our economy,” said Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “That’s not what America stands for.”

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Tom Cotton, Republican-Arkansas, and David Perdue, Republican-Georgia, would institute a merit-based system to determine who is admitted to the country and granted legal-residency green cards, favoring applicants based on skills, education and language ability rather than relations with people already here.

The proposal revives an idea included in broader immigration legislation supported by President George W. Bush that died in 2007.

More than 1 million people are granted legal residency each year, and the proposal would reduce that by 41 percent in its first year and 50 percent by its 10th year, according to projections cited by its sponsors.

The reductions would come largely from those brought in through family connections. The number of immigrants granted legal residency on the basis of job skills, about 140,000, would remain roughly the same.

Under the current system, most legal immigrants are admitted to the US based on family ties. US citizens can

sponsor spouses, parents and minor children for an unrestricted number of visas, while siblings and adult children are given preferences for a limited number of visas available to them.

Legal permanent residents holding green cards can also sponsor spouses and children.

In 2014 64 percent of immigrants admitted with legal residency were immediate relatives of US citizens or sponsored by family members.

Just 15 percent entered through employment-based preferences, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.

But that does not mean that those who came in on family ties were necessarily low skilled or uneducated.

The legislation would award points based on education, ability to speak English, high-paying job offers, age, record of achievement and entrepreneurial initiative. But while it would still allow spouses and minor children of Americans and legal residents to come in, it would eliminate preferences for other relatives, like siblings and adult children.

The bill would create a renewable temporary visa for older-adult parents who come for caretaking purposes.

The legislation would limit refugees offered per manent residenc y to 50,0 0 0 a yea r a nd el im inate a diversit y v isa lotter y that the sponsors said does not promote diversit y. T he senators said their bil l was meant to emu late systems in Canada and Austra lia.

The projections cited by the sponsors said legal immigration would decrease to 637,960 after a year and to 539,958 after a decade.

“Our current system does not work,” Perdue said. “It keeps America from being competitive and it does not meet the needs of our economy today.”

Cotton said low-sk illed immigrants pushed down wages for those who worked with their hands. “For some people, they may think that that’s a symbol of America’s virtue and generosity,” he said. “I think it’s a symbol that we’re not committed to working-class Americans and we need to change that.”

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican-South Carolina, noted that agriculture and tourism were his state’s top 2 industries.

“If this proposal were to become law, it would be devastating to our state’s

economy, which relies on this immigrant work force,” he said. “Hotels, restaurants, golf courses and farmers,” he added, “will tell you this proposal to cut legal immigration in half would put their business in peril.”

Cutting legal immigration would make it harder for Trump to reach the stronger economic growth that he has promised. Bringing in more workers, especially during a time of low unemployment, increases the size of an economy. Critics said the plan would result in labor shortages, especially in lower-wage jobs that many Americans do not want.

The National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group, said the country was already facing a work force gap of 7.5 million jobs by 2020. “Cutting legal immigration for the sake of cutting immigration would cause irreparable harm to the American worker and their family,” said Ali Noorani, the group’s executive director.

Surveys show most Americans believe legal immigration benefits the country. In a Gallup poll in January, 41 percent of Americans were satisfied with the overall level of immigration, 11 percentage points higher than the year before and the highest since the question was first asked in 2001. Still, 53 percent of Americans remained dissatisfied.

The plan endorsed by Trump generated a fiery exchange at the White House briefing when Stephen Miller, the president’s policy adviser and a longtime advocate of immigration limits, defended the proposal. Pressed for statistics to back up claims that immigration was costing Americans jobs, he cited several studies that have been debated by experts.

“But let’s also use common sense here, folks,” Miller said. “At the end of the day, why do special interests want to bring in more low-skill workers?”

He rejected the argument that immigration policy should also be based on compassion. “Maybe it’s time we had compassion for American workers,” he said.

When a reporter read him some of the words from the Statue of Liberty— “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—Miller dismissed them. “The poem that you’re referring to was added later,” he said. “It’s not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty.”

New York Times news Service

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BusinessMirror A BREAKTHROUGH TO REPAIR A SERIOUS DISEASE-CAUSING MUTATION A8

Friday, August 4, 2017

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Scientists edit genes in human embryos

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cientists for the first time have successfully edited genes in human embryos to repair a common and serious disease-causing mutation, producing apparently healthy embryos, according to a study published on Wednesday.

The research marks a major milestone and, while a long way from clinical use, it raises the prospect that gene editing may one day protect babies from a variety of hereditary conditions.

But the achievement is also an example of human genetic engineering, once feared and unthinkable, and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism.

Scientists have long feared the unforeseen medical consequences of making inherited changes to human DNA. The cultural implications may be just as disturbing: Some experts have warned that unregulated genetic engineering may lead to a new form of eugenics, in which people with means pay to have children with enhanced traits even as those with disabilities are devalued.

The study, published in the journal Nature, comes just months after a national scientific committee recommended new guidelines for modifying embryos, easing blanket proscriptions but urging the technique be used only for dire medical problems.

“We’ve always said in the past gene editing shouldn’t be done, mostly because it couldn’t be

10K The estimated number of conditions where the editing of genes in human embryos could be applied

done safely,” said Richard Hynes, a cancer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who coled the committee. “That’s still true, but now it looks like it’s going to be done safely soon,” he said, adding that the research is “a big breakthrough.”

“What our report said was, once the technical hurdles are cleared, then there will be societal issues that have to be considered and discussions that are going to have to happen. Now’s the time.”

Scientists at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), with colleagues in California, China and South Korea, reported that they repaired dozens of embryos, fixing a mutation that causes a common heart condition that can lead to sudden death later in life.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health and Science University, in Beaverton, Oregon, on March 11, 2014. Mitalipov was a senior author on a study published on August 2, detailing how scientists have for the first time successfully edited genes in human embryos to repair a serious disease-causing mutation.

Leah Nash/The New York Times

If embr yos with the repaired mutation were allowed to develop into babies, they would not only be disease-free but also would not transmit the disease to descendants.

The researchers averted two important safety problems: They produced embryos in which all cells—not just some—were mutation-free, and they avoided creating unwanted extra mutations.

“It feels a bit like a ‘one small step for [hu]mans, one giant leap for [hu]mankind’ moment,” Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist who helped discover the gene-editing method used, called CRISPR-Cas9, said in an e-mail.

“I expect these results will be encouraging to those who hope to use human embryo editing for either research or eventual clinical purposes,” said Doudna, who was not involved in the study.

Much more research is needed before the method could be tested in clinical trials, currently impermissible under federal law. But if

the technique is found to work safely with this and other mutations, it might help some couples who could not otherwise have healthy children.

Potentially, it could apply to any of more than 10,000 conditions caused by specific inherited mutations. Researchers and experts said those might include breast and ovarian cancer linked to BRCA mutations, as well as diseases like Huntington’s, TaySachs, beta thalassemia, and even sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis or some cases of earlyonset Alzheimer’s.

“You could certainly help families who have been blighted by a horrible genetic disease,” said Robin Lovell-Badge, a professor of genetics and embryology at the Francis Crick Institute in London, who was not involved in the study.

“You could quite imagine that in the future the demand would increase. Maybe it will still be small, but for those individuals it will be very important.”

The researchers also discovered something unexpected: a previously unknown way that embryos repair themselves.

In other cells in the body, the editing process is carried out by genes that copy a DNA template introduced by scientists. In these embryos, the sperm cell’s mutant gene ignored that template and instead copied the healthy DNA sequence from the egg cell.

“We were so surprised that we just couldn’t get this template that we made to be used,” said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health and Science University and senior author of the study. “It was very new and unusual.”

The research significantly improves upon previous efforts.

In three sets of experiments in China since 2015, researchers seldom managed to get the intended change into embryonic genes.

And some embryos had cells that did not get repaired—a phenomenon called mosaicism that could result in the mutation being passed on—as well as unplanned mutations that could cause other health problems.

In February a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee endorsed modif y ing embr yos, but only to correct mutations that cause “a serious disease or condition” and when no “reasonable alternatives” exist.

Sheldon Krimsky, a bioethicist at Tufts University, said the main uncertainty about the new technique was whether “reasonable alternatives” to gene editing already exist.

As the authors themselves noted, many couples use preimplantation genetic diagnosis to screen embryos at fertility

clinics, allowing only healthy ones to be implanted. For these parents, gene editing could help by repairing mutant embryos so that more disease-free embryos would be available for implantation.

Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford, said creating fewer defective embr yos also would reduce the number discarded by fertility clinics, which some people oppose.

The larger issue is so-called germline engineering, which refers to changes made to the embryo that are inheritable.

“If you’re in one camp, it’s a horror to be avoided, and if you’re in the other camp, it’s desirable,” Greely said. “That’s going to continue to be the fight, whether it’s a feature or a bug.”

For now, the fight is theoretical.

Congress has barred the Food and Drug Administration from considering clinical trials involving germline engineering.

T he National Institutes of Health is prohibited from funding gene-editing research in human embryos. (The new study was funded by OHSU, the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea, and several foundations.)

The authors say they hope that once the method is optimized and studied with other mutations, officials in the US or another country will allow regulated clinical trials.

“I think it could be widely used, if it’s proven safe,” said Dr. Paula Amato, a coauthor of the study and reproductive endocrinologist at OHSU. Besides creating more healthy embryos for in vitro fertilization, she said, it could be used when screening embryos is not an option or to reduce arduous IVF cycles for women. New York Times News Service

Qatar passes landmark law to grant permanent residency to expats

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atar, facing a boycott by a Saudi-led alliance, approved a draft law that will grant permanent residency cards to some foreigners, an unprecedented action among Gulf Arab monarchies that have for decades relied on expatriate labor to run their economies.

Under the law, those eligible for the card include children of Qatari women married to foreigners, those who have special talents “needed by the state,” and others who have extended notable services to the country, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) eported late on Wednesday. The Cabinet will issue the law’s executive regulations later.

Cardholders will be treated like Qatari nationals when it comes to state-run educational and health-care services, and will be given priority, after locals, for military and civilian public jobs, QNA reported. They also would be allowed to own property and to run certain commercial activities without a local partner.

With few exceptions, the majority of foreigners in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council need to be sponsored by locals to live and do business. Citizens, on the other hand, receive state support widely seen as an exchange for political loyalty.

Qatar passed the draft law after the country’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, instructed officials to expedite measures to lure investments and to reduce the economy’s reliance on energy after Saudi Arabia and three allies severed their diplomatic and transport links with the country in June.

Addressing the cabinet at the start of Wednesday’s meeting, Sheikh Tamim also urged authorities to strengthen “the home front,” QNA said.

‘Under siege’

Qatar is giving expatriates a “deeper

stake” in a country that’s “under siege,” Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said in a phone interview.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt accuse Qatar of backing extremist groups to destabilize the Middle East. Qatar has repeatedly denied the charges. “If you give people a greater sense of involvement, you bind them more closely together,” Ulrichsen said.

The decision also could be designed to garner international support against the Saudi-led boycott by portraying Qatar as “something different in the region, tolerant, open and inclusive,” he said.

The idea of allowing foreigners to reside in Gulf countries for longer periods has also been discussed in other countries as they seek to to bolster non-oil revenue after the plunge in crude prices.

Last year Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg in an interview that the government was weighing a green card-type program for foreign workers. The UAE said in February it was working on a new visa system designed to attract top foreign talents in fields, such as medicine, science and research to the country.

Qatar came under intense international criticism over its treatment of foreigner laborers after winning the right to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup. The government has since pledged to improve the workers’ living and working conditions.

Approving these laws doesn’t mean that implementation will swiftly follow, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“That doesn’t mean that there aren’t good intentions,” Cordesman said. “But one has to be careful about assuming too much until you see the practice.”

Bloomberg News

Britain’s Prince Philip (center), in his role as captain general of the Royal Marines, talks to troops as he attends a parade on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace, in central London, on August 2. The 96-year-old husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip made his final solo appearance to mark the finale of the Royal Marines Charity, 1664 Global Challenge. Hannah McKay/Pool via AP

Prince Philip, 96, bids adieu with final solo official duty

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O N D O N — Fo r o v e r 6 5 years, he has been the unwavering presence alongside Britain’s longest-ser v ing monarch, the consummate consort and royal representative.

On Wednesday Prince Philip, 96, made his 22,219th—and final—solo public engagement, braving heavy rain to meet Royal Marines at Buckingham Palace.

The royal appeared in good spirits, waving to cheering crowds and joking with the soldiers, who have completed a 2,678-kilometer trek to raise money for charity.

“You all should be locked up,” he quipped, making the soldiers laugh. Philip announced he was stepping down from public duties in May. The royal, known for his sense of humor and gaffes, recently joked about his big retirement day, telling celebrity chef Prue Leith: “I’m discovering what it’s like to be on your last legs.”

Also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, he will still appear at Queen Elizabeth II’s side—from time to time—as the 91-year-old monarch soldiers on.

Philip is patron, president or a member of over 780 organizations,

with which he will continue to be a ssoc i ated— but he won’t pl ay a n act ive role by at tending engagements. T he queen suppor ted t he dec ision.

Wednesday’s event marks a major landmark for the man born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark in Corfu on June 10, 1921, to Princess Alice of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of Greece.

Amid the upheaval of the military coup that overthrew his uncle, King Constantine, in 1922, the family fled.

King George V, the queen’s grandfather, sent a Royal Navy cruiser to evacuate Philip’s family and he was whisked to safety in a cot made from an orange box.

Later, he rarely saw his parents and went to school in Germany and Britain.

Philip has had a long association with the military and had once had promising military career. He joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1939 and served during World War II, winning mention in dispatches for service aboard the battleship HMS Valiant at Cape Matapan, on Greece’s Peloponnesian peninsula.

He rose to the level of commander.

Two years after the war ended, Philip married the future queen at West m i nster A bbey when she was 21 and he was 26. He renounced his Greek title and King George VI made him the Duke of Edinburgh.

His career came to an abrupt end with George’s death in 1952.

At the queen’s coronation in 1953, Philip swore to be his wife’s “liege man of life and limb.” He settled into a life supporting Elizabeth in her role as queen and they had four children—Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward.

Philip has given 5,496 speeches, written 14 books and gone on 637 solo visits overseas.

He’s championed environmental and conservation issues, and has interests in science, engineering and industry.

An accomplished sportsman, he played polo regularly until 1971.

He earned his Royal Air Force wings in 1953, his helicopter wings in 1956 and his private pilot’s license in 1959.

All that activity has led to overall good health. But Philip has been admitted to the hospital on a number of occasions in the last

few years for abdominal surgery, bladder infections and a blocked coronary artery.

Many of his health issues are related to sports. He has arthritis in his right wrist and broke a bone in his ankle from playing polo. He developed a rheumatic condition of the tendon in the hand after a taking a fall in polo.

He takes the stairs rather than elevators and can still fit into the uniform he wore for his wedding. He was only seen wearing hearing aids for the first time at a palace reception in 2014 at the age of 93.

The palace says his health wasn’t behind the retirement decision. Philip, who enjoys a slightly wicked turn of phrase, has poked fun at himself and his advancing years. In a letter to The Oldie magazine in 2011, he said he appreciated being named “Consort of the Year.”

“There is nothing like it for morale to be reminded that the years are passing—ever more quickly—and that bits are beginning to drop off the ancient frame,” he wrote. “But it is nice to be remembered at all.” AP

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Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Editor: Jun B. Vallecera • Friday, August 4, 2017

A9

July inflation seen no higher than 3%

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ONSUMER price expansion was seen to remain at or even lower than 3 percent in July, allowing the Central Bank sufficient space to maneuver its policy structure.

SM PRIME HITS THE P1-TRILLION MARK Philippine Stock Exchange Chairman Jose T. Pardo (from let) and

President Ramon Monzon presented a plaque of recognition to SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPHI) Executive Committee Chairman Hans T. Sy and President Jeffrey C. Lim on July 26 at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City. The citation was given to SMPHI after making history as the first publicly listed company in the Philippines to breach the P1-trillion market-value mark.

Dominguez on lookout for more tax cheats T

HE Department of Finance lauded the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for decisive action against tobacco firm Mighty Corp. that led to the largest tax settlement made by a single entity in the country.

At the BIR’s 113th anniversary on Wednesday, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III commended Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay and the whole of BIR for its investigative work and decisive act ion aga inst t he ciga rette manufacturer.

Dominguez looks forward to more accomplishments from the agency similar to the case of Mighty Corp., which has offered to settle its tax liabilities of P25 billion, exclusive of value-added tax (VAT) charges, and to leave the cigarette business altogether.

“Please accept my warmest commendations for the great work the Bureau has done in the case of Mighty Corp. Assiduous investigative work and ef fective enforcement broke what could be the biggest instance of tax fraud in our country,” Dominguez said.

The criminal cases filed before t he Depa r t ment of Justice by the BIR has forced Mighty Corp. to sell its assets to Japan Tobacco Internationa l (Philippines) Inc. (JTI) in order to meet its tax deficiencies.

Mighty Corp.’s settlement offer of P25 billion will balloon to P30 billion once the VAT on the sale of assets to JTI, estimated at P5 billion, i s col lec ted , accord i ng to Dominguez.

“President Duterte ordered us to accept the settlement offer, producing a revenue windfall. This, again, is the largest tax settlement in our history,” he said.

He added the beaut y of the settlement lies in the fact that as a consequence of being forced to sell its assets, Mighty Corp. would be permanently out of the cigarette business.

“As a result of the BIR’s decisive action against Mighty Corp., we now expect revenues from sin taxes to increase by P1 billion a month,” he added.

M i g ht y Cor p. t h r ive d du r i ng t he pa st ad m i n i st rat ion s but w a s e x posed for it s f r audu le nt pr ac t ice of u s i n g cou nte r fe it cigarette-ta x stamps less than a year into the Duterte presidency after a series of operations done by the BIR and the Bureau of Customs. Rea Cu

Singapore-based DBS Bank economist Gundy Cahyadi said inflation in July should average 2.9 percent, hardly changed from inflation averaging 2.8 percent posted in June.

Inflation has downtrended since May this year after hitting 3.4 percent in March and April. The target inflation set for the year ranges from 2 percent to 4 percent.

“Given the current inflation picture, it does look like there is now less pressure on the Central Bank to act on rates,” Cahyadi added.

However, the economist from Singapore said a key factor that could compel the BSP to adjust its own monetary policy structure remains on the table.

“Markets still seem to be complacent of the US Fed rate trajectory going into 2018 and 2019. Not only any shift in market expectations will put upward pressure on global rates, but it may also lead to a new bout of volatility in the markets,” Cahyadi said.

“This is something that the BSP [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas] may want to avoid, especially considering [that] the peso looks relatively weak compared to its neighboring

counterparts,” he added.

While the BSP certainly has room to keep rates steady for now, Cahyadi said the Central Bank could surprise the market with an adjustment or two in the coming months.

“Double-digit investment growth and a pretty stable consumption growth will continue to lead overall GDP growth exceeding the 6-percent mark. With fiscal policy set to remain on an expansionary mode, the BSP may choose to play the balancing act,” the economist said.

The July inflation survey is sched-

uled for release today, Friday, at the Philippine Statistics Authority offices. The policy-making Monetary Board of the BSP is scheduled to convene another rate-setting meeting next week.

This will be the first rate-setting meeting of the seven-man board under BSP governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. In their June policy meeting, the BSP kept the rate on its overnight reverse repurchase window at 3 percent.

The corresponding rates on its deposit facilities were also kept steady. The reserve requirement ratios were also kept unchanged. The Central Bank also announced its forecast inflation this year to only 3.1 percent, instead of 3.4 percent announced earlier.

For next year the BSP maintained its 3-percent inflation forecast for both next year and 2019. BiancaCuaresma

Case clippings

By Justice S J Ranada Jr.

RAPE–resistance not an element A rape victim’s failure to shout or to tenaciously resist the accused should not be taken against her. Resistance is not an element of rape. A rape victim has no burden to prove that she did all within her power to resist the force and intimidation employed upon her. As long as the force and intimidation is present, whether it was more or less irresistible, is beside the point.

People v. Bisora 05 Jun 2017

GR 218942 Tijam, J

A10 Friday, August 4, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Pasig River recognized for something good

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ou could almost start this discussion with the opening credit line from the Star Wars movie: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....” But this has to do with when people were able to draw water directly from the Pasig River for drinking and other household use.

However, Manila was not the only city that had seen an important source of water deteriorate into a source of disease and disgust. Forty years ago, the Singapore River had been polluted by the squatters, hawkers and manufacturing industries that crowded its banks. The government decided that this was an unacceptable situation and—with the normal authoritarian rule that the Singapore government is famous for—factories were closed, people were relocated and houses and buildings torn down, and criminal penalties were applied to polluters.

Then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said, “It should be a way of life to keep the water clean. To keep every stream, culvert and rivulet, free from pollution. The Ministry of Environment should make it a target: In 10 years let us have fishing in the Singapore River and Kallang River. It can be done.” The Singapore River cleanup took 10 years and cost the government $170 million. Thousands of people were moved away from the rivers along with duck and pig farms.

For us in Manila, a similar rehabilitation project to clean up the Pasig River would probably seem like a dream, a bad dream. But during the administration of Joseph Estrada, the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) was created in 1999. If you followed the development of the PRRC back then, like most government initiatives, there were charges of corruption, inefficiency and waste.

The public face of the rehabilitation efforts was probably the “Piso Para sa Pasig” effort created by the Clean and Green Foundation Inc. Not only did it bring in funds but started a continuing awareness that there was actually something being done to bring the “dead” Pasig River back to life. Credit must also be given to the ABS-CBN Foundation Inc. for its participation.

The International River Foundation is an Australian non-governmental organization that has been at the forefront of helping spread the word, providing scholarships and training, and assisting communities and organizations to create and manage healthy rivers.

This year, at their 20th International River Symposium, the Pasig River is one of the four finalists for its 2017 Thiess International Riverprize, an international award that gives the highest honors in river restoration and protection. The Philippines is the only developing nation among the finalists, which include two rivers from the US and one from the United Kingdom. And the Pasig River is the only urban waterway, the others being in rural and wilderness areas.

This may not seem like much of a big deal, but it is. That the restoration of the Pasig River has come to a point of receiving positive international recognition is almost amazing considering where we were two decades ago. Congratulations must go to PRRC Chairman Regina Paz L. Lopez and to Executive Director Jose Antonio E. Goitia.

We wish that the government would have pushed this news a little more so the people can know that sometimes the government can successfully accomplish something that seems almost impossible to do.

Certainly, the rehabilitation of the Pasig River has farther to go. But remember, it took Singapore 40 years to rehabilitate its rivers.

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To postpone or not to postpone James Jimenez

spox

D

uring the en banc meeting of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) earlier this week, the commission approved a proposal to conduct a public hearing on whether or not to postpone the 2017 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections in Mindanao.

The root of the matter, naturally, was the declaration of martial law, under Proclamation 216 (Series of 2017), as affirmed and approved by the Supreme Court on July 4, 2017. This, together with the resolution of both Houses of Congress, extending martial law and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, until the end of 2017, effectively triggered Section 5, Article I of the Omnibus Election Code—also known as Batas Pambansa (BP) 881.

Section 5 reads: “When, for any serious cause such as violence, terrorism…of such a nature that the holding of free, orderly, and honest elections should become impossible … the Commission [on its own initiative], and after due notice and hearing … shall postpone the election…”

(As you may have noticed from

the excessive number of ellipses in that quote, I just pulled up the relevant bits.)

The long and short of it is that, because of martial law and all that that state of affairs implies, the barangay and SK elections in the whole of Mindanao might be postponed— not by law, but by Comelec fiat.

This is a course of action that the Comelec isn’t taking lightly.

However, the fact is that, historically speaking, barangay elections are even more hotly—and sometimes violently—contested than national elections. With the threat of violence and terrorism already looming large over the electoral process in Mindanao, in effect aggravating the already tense milieu of barangay polls, it’s really hard to see how the Comelec could justifiably not choose to err on the side

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of safety and security—not just for election workers but for the entire electorate.

Even then, however, the Comelec can’t just willy-nilly pull the plug on the elections, hence the public hearing.

There, all sides will be given the opportunity to weigh in on the issue. In fact, the Comelec has issued a call for interested parties to file their opposition to the proposal to postpone the elections—on or before August 15—the date of the hearing, which, incidentally, will be held in Davao City.

A couple of points worth noting: First, the Comelec’s proposed action is strictly limited to Mindanao, coinciding with the scope of the martial-law declaration.

This means that everywhere else

in the country will not be affected.

So, if the plan is to postpone the elections nationwide, Congress will still need to pass a law for the areas not covered by the Comelec’s postponement.

And second, Section 5 of BP 881 contains a kind of sunset proviso, which says that the elections shall be postponed “to a date reasonably close to the date of the election not held…but not later than 30 days after the cessation of the cause for such postponement”.

Since the cause of the postponement being proposed is tied to the declaration of martial law, it follows that the end of martial law—right now, presumed to be on December 31, 2017—will also signal the start of the 30-day period during which the barangay and SK elections will have to be held in Mindanao.

This falls way short of the expectations of all the pending postponement bills in the House of Representatives, one of which would actually have the next barangay and SK elections held in 2022.

What do these two points signify? Simply this: that the proposed action of the Comelec is not the same as the proposed postponement being deliberated upon in Congress—the justifications are different, the Comelec proposal affects only Mindanao, and the timetables don’t line up.

Stay tuned.

Veritas 846, AUB partner toward financial literacy Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

SERVANT LEADER

K

apanalig listeners now have the chance to be more financially literate and responsible through Radyo Veritas’s new program, Ask Ur Banker, as the station launched its partnership with Asia United Bank (AUB).

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Historically speaking, barangay elections are even more hotly— and sometimes violently—contested than national elections. With the threat of violence and terrorism already looming large over the electoral process in Mindanao, in effect aggravating the already tense milieu of barangay polls, it’s really hard to see how the Comelec could justifiably not choose to err on the side of safety and security—not just for election workers but for the entire electorate.

The partnership has been made possible with Jacob C. Ng, Asia United Bank first vice president, and Rachelle D. Ng, AUB first vice president, together with Radio Veritas marketing consultant Bro. Clifford Sorita and yours truly.

Ask Ur Banker is an on-air financial-literacy campaign that aims to educate radio listeners on basic

money-management skills, financial responsibility, business-banker relationship, investment growth, savings and the importance of good credit standing.

The program is hosted by Mr. Riccon D. Leonardo, assistant vice president and branding and communications head of AUB. It had its first broadcast on July 31, and

Ask Ur Banker is an on-air financial-literacy campaign that aims to educate radio listeners on basic moneymanagement skills, financial responsibility, business-banker relationship, investment growth, savings and the importance of good credit standing.

henceforth, will air every Monday from 5 to 5:30 p.m.

Like in any other endeavor, the key to genuine change comes from the collective support of all its stakeholders, and the station stands committed in transforming our mass-media landscape through its continued partnership with vital institutions in its thrust of educating the listening public at large.

AUB is one of the very few banks in the Philippines that is granted a

full-branch commercial bank license in 1997 and is operating until this day. It has been a member of the League of the Philippine Banks since 2013 and has become publicly listed and acquired universal banking status.

Radio Veritas 846, meanwhile, is owned and operated by the Archdiocese of Manila. Established in 1969, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards-recipient Catholic radio station continues to be the leading social-communications ministry for truth and evangelization in the country today.

To know more about Caritas Manila, visit www. caritasmanila.org.ph. For your donations, call our DonorCare lines 563-9311, 564-0205, 09997943455, 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.

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Is plastic to blame for environmental woes, or is it the failure of barangays?

The sounds of the day Tito Genova Valiente

annotations It was the lark, the herald of the morn…—Romeo of Shakespeare

Dr. Jesus Lim Arranza Continued from A1

B

ut not for the Sangguniang Barangay BF Home in Parañaque City, which passed Barangay Ordinance 002 Series of 2013, banning in the barangay the sale and use of styrophor and plastic for packaging of wet and dry goods. Claiming that plastic is nonbiodegradable, the Sangguniang Barangay said its waste allegedly contributes to the clogging of rivers and water channels.

However, if the said Sangguniang Barangay is not happy with plastic and styrophor as packaging materials for dry and wet goods, there are also people who are not happy with the barangay order, which they believe is bereft of factual basis that styrophor and plastic bags cause pollution and kill wildlife.

I was informed that a resident of Barangay BF Homes, Parañaque City is contemplating of filing a case against the officials of Barangay BF Homes, Paranaque, arguing that Barangay Order 002, Series of 2013 deprived him of his right to buy and use plastic for his packaging materials for dry and wet goods. He pointed out the inconvenience of not being able to use plastic and styrophor as containers, even as he also stressed the impact of banning the use of plastic as primary packaging material for dry goods and secondary packaging materials for wet goods to the local plastic industry.

Plastic, not the culprit to floods

From the invention of plastic in the 1800s to its development as packaging material for food items in the mid-1900s, it was never the intention of its inventors to make plastic a cause for environmental degradation. It was made to make living the day-to-day lives of mankind easy and convenient.

Thus, to blame plastic for the pollution and floods in Metro Manila today is a callous and sweeping accusation. Plastics, after all, cannot go to the rivers and water channels by themselves, unless they are irresponsibly thrown by, mostly, the informal settlers living along rivers and water channels.

It is about time for local government officials, particularly the barangay officials who are tasked to monitor the rivers and water channels within their areas of jurisdiction, to review their environmental and disaster-preparedness programs to see if they have fully enforced their mandates.

Where their information campaign on proper plastic-waste disposal in their barangays may have failed, they can contemplate this with the strict enforcement of proper waste disposal rules in their community. They can install closed-circuit television cameras in strategic points along rivers and water channels in their barangays to identify and punish those throwing plastic waste to water tributaries. And, most important, they can stop informal settlers from building homes and shanties in high-risk areas along rivers and water channels.

Banning plastic encourages cheating and adds cost to consumers

Whoever thought that banning the sale and use of plastic as packaging material and carrying bag can help solve the nation’s environmental woes, such as the floods in Metro Manila? The hard reality is that men, as consumers, cannot detach themselves from plastic in their day-to-day lives. From

flexible plastics, which are used for food packaging, to rigid plastics, which are used for shampoo packaging, among others, plastic shall always be a part of our lives as consumers.

In fact, banning plastic as a carrying bag for food only encourages cheating. With no other sanitary method to pack take-out and leftover foods, restaurants have to place the food in plastic bags or styrophor first, before these are placed in a paper bag, if only to comply with the ban on the sale and use of plastic as packaging material.

Is this market reality not a form of cheating the rules?

I also find preposterous the government ruling that plastic, as packaging material for food, shall only be allowed if it is used as a first contact packaging material.

I cannot see the rationale or the scientific explanation to this rule.

Will the first contact of plastic affect its biodegradability? Will the first contact convert plastic from nonbiodegrabale to biodegradable or vice versa? These are questions that, maybe, only science experts can explain.

Moreover, placing take-out or leftover food in plastic or styrophor first, before these are placed in paper bags, would result in an added cost to the food, which would eventually be passed on to consumers. I pity the poor consumers for carrying the burden of an irresponsible rule on plastic use.

A

t night, in our home in the big city, I am the witch whose ear is pressed onto the ground on Fridays to listen to distant wailings (somebody is dead or dying) or to endless coughing (someone is deathly ill). Well, I am not really the malevolent being. In our apartment, I avoid clambering up the long flight of stairs to the second-floor bedroom. I stay on the ground floor with the mattress on the floor, my ear constantly close to the ground as I listen to the sounds of the night, which are the sounds of day as the early mornings come to us.

The sound of cars is the dominant music. If one forgets they are cars, then one must think of them as wind wheezing outside the gate. The sound is both tender and harsh. The presence of the machine asserts itself only when one car comes to a quick stop. You wait for more sounds. If it is past midnight there could be fewer people on the street. Why did the car come to a halt? It must be one of those hit-andrun cases, you tell yourself even as you make a quick prayer for the car, the driver and the thing that caused the car to stop. You pray but you do not get out of bed. Remember, you are in the big city.

The night has sounds and they are shared by the early hours of the day.

Dogs barking are the angry herald of late nights and early day. They seem to surround the universe— east, west, north and south. Their baying is so persistent they stick on to gates and windows, to the low-lying branches of trees along the street.

Dogs are gods in disguise. Gods do not really want us to sleep all through the night; thus, they alert us to the anxieties and joys of tomorrow.

Even in big cities, in this country at least, there are roosters. They crow at 2 in the morning, on schedule, I learned this from my mother.

She was right. It would take another two hours before the roosters would make a ruckus again.

The birds come late. Birds sleep,

Principal-agent problem

Govt officials must not be naïve about plastic use

The problem with many of our government officials is that, they always find a reason or a fall guy for their shortcomings. If they believe that plastic, as a nonbiodegradable material, causes environmental degradation, why are only the flexible plastic materials used for packaging wet and dry goods covered by the rule banning the use of plastics? Why not include all the other plastic and semiplastic products in the ban? .

This, of course, would be impossible to enforce as this will create chaos in the market. After all, plastic, as mentioned earlier, is man’s convenient partner in daily living. The government can have a more realistic and practical approach to the problem on proper disposal of solid-waste materials through an even more intensified information campaign and strict enforcement of solid-waste disposal rules.

Let me ask this question then to local households, are the barangays successful in their implementation of the waste-segregation law? Have they fully implemented the law?

The local plastic industry does not only generate thousands of jobs for Filipinos, it has also improved the lives of Filipinos, both as an income opportunity and convenience provider. It should be incumbent upon our local government officials, particularly the barangay officials, to strengthen the solidwaste management programs in their barangays at both policy and implementation levels.

I suppose. When you hear them, it must be past four in the morning, and the dawn is breaking. The birds are big deal in whatever form. They were the crisis for Romeo and Juliet in Act 3. They signal sensuality and love, star-crossed or with happy endings. Roosters are for liars. If birds do make sounds at night, they must

Abigail P. Dumalus and Ser Percival K. Peña-Reyes

EAGLE WATCH

T

he Philippine banking sector has endured a series of internal control breaches, which include last year’s money-laundering case involving Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), last quarter’s technological hiccups in the operations of Banco de Oro (BDO) and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), and last month’s internal fraud cases at UnionBank and Metrobank.

Amid these incidents, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) assures the public that the entire Philippine banking system remains resilient. In January 2016 the BSP released Circular 900, which states that financial institutions must adhere to policies and standards to properly manage operational risks. Proper identification and response mechanisms should be present to address business disruptions due to calamities and system failure, employee theft, hacking, internal fraud and so on.

With or without Circular 900, however, risks are always present in bank operations. This article will discuss some of the risks faced by banks and the suggested measures to address such risks.

Economic theory depicts organizations as principal-agent relationships. Familiar illustrations include employer (principal) and employee (agent), shareholders (principal) and corporate management (agent), markets (principal) and brokers (agent), voters (principal) and politicians (agents), and

regulators (principal) and private firms (agent).

In a principal-agent model, there are two individuals: a principal and an agent. The latter is permitted to act on behalf of, or to make decisions that have an influence on, the former. This arrangement is a contract where the principal decides which duties the agent should execute, and then determines the agent’s compensation for services rendered. The agent performs these designated tasks either because the principal is facing time constraints or because these tasks involve some specific range of skills or abilities.

As the principal’s representative, the agent is expected to maintain similar goals. If the principal’s objective is to efficiently produce a good or service, then the agent’s actions must cohere with achieving this outcome, since such actions affect the principal’s benefit. Clearly, the principal has an explicit interest in motivating the agent to behave as desired.

The fundamental problem of

Friday, August 4, 2017 A11

I lived across the street from the office. When I resigned from the post, the dog remained with the janitor. At night, when I came home to open the gate to my place, Potong would bark. He was so tiny he could not see me from where he was kept but he could sense me. He expected me to go to him and carry him once more. But I would not. We shared that angst. be the dreaded kikik, not the herald of the morn, but the mascot of the aswang or the witches.

Way after midnight, the sound of ambulance gets stronger and more frequent. Our place is triangulated by three hospitals. The cars must be bringing patients to one of them.

The sound is assuring even in the dark. One has been helped out of death or affliction. The wailing of the siren is for those aided, attended to. Or, the siren could come from police cars. Then someone must have been harmed or killed in the dead of early morning.

principal-agent relationships could come from two sources. First, the principal and agent have incompatible goals, probably because both are self-interested individuals. Second, the principal has difficulties in validating the agent’s actions. The principal cannot confirm: 1) whether the agent is always performing his or her duties in agreement with the former’s best interest; 2) whether aspects of what the agent does are unreasonable for the principal to scrutinize; and 3) whether pursuits that are worthwhile to the principal are expensive for the agent.

In the banking context, a bank accepts deposits from savers so that it can lend funds to borrowers who presumably have more productive uses for such funds. A bank must have trustworthy employees who can thoroughly screen loan applications to check if borrowers meet certain criteria (e.g., character, capacity to pay, capital, collateral and conditions). The so-called adverse selection problem occurs when potential borrowers who are the most likely to produce undesirable (adverse) outcomes are the ones who most actively seek out loans and are most likely to be selected. For example, people with huge debt burdens due to gambling and other vices are likely to be active loan seekers since they have a dire need for money.

Bank employees should also manage moral hazard, which is the risk that borrowers might engage in activities that are undesirable (immoral) from the lender’s perspective because such activities make it less likely that loans will be repaid. For example, instead of investing loan proceeds in a profitable business venture, an

The wail of the ambulance must be the saddest sound in the city.

After the ambulance and police siren, the dogs take over once more.

While cats can manage short naps, the dogs are the bearers of angst. I should know. When I managed an NGO several years back, I had a dog who served as the guard for the office. He was called Potong because he felt like that name.

I lived across the street from the office. When I resigned from the post, the dog remained with the janitor. At night, when I came home to open the gate to my place, Potong would bark. He was so tiny he could not see me from where he was kept but he could sense me. He expected me to go to him and carry him once more. But I would not. We shared that angst.

For a long time, Potong’s shrill barking was, for me, the saddest sound in this big city.

Recenlty, I was informed Potong died during one of the huge storms that hit the city. This article is really not for him but for me.

E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com.

unscrupulous borrower might just gamble the funds in a casino or use the funds to indulge in other vices.

Thus, bank employees are tasked to monitor the borrowers’ activities to ensure that the loans will eventually be repaid.

Nevertheless, there is a huge problem if the employees themselves can no longer be trusted to do their work properly. A loan manager, for instance, might be enjoying a lifestyle so lavish that she values it more than her employer’s reputation and eventually ends up defrauding the bank to sustain her lifestyle.

So, what should be done? Others have proposed tough measures, like having resident BSP auditors empowered to constantly test the internal control systems of banks. Others have also suggested that bank officials must be subjected to lifestyle checks, and their private accounts must be opened to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) for regular evaluation.

Although bank officials get to enjoy relatively high salaries, these payments do not necessarily make them immune to temptation. Would it be fair, though, to specifically target bankers, or should the same level of scrutiny be applied to other occupations in both the private and public sectors? After all, is the banking sector the only sector that needs to be kept trustworthy?

Indeed, these are tough questions.

Abigail P. Dumalus and Ser Percival K. PeñaReyes are, respectively, former and current faculty members of the Economics Department of Ateneo de Manila University. Ms. Dumalus is studying at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Friday, August 4, 2017

Six Asean suppliers best other bidders for right to sell rice to PHL this year

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By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

@jearcalas

he National Food Authority (NFA) said it has awarded contracts for the importation of 250,000 metric tons (MT) of rice to six traders from Southeast Asia.

NFA Deputy Administrator Tomas S. Escarez said the six winning bidders in the July 25 bidding conference hurdled the agency’s postqualification process and are now required to submit a performance bond.

“All the winning bidders were given a notice of award. After they submit their performance bond, they would be issued a notice to proceed and the signing of contract follows,” Escarez told the BusinessMirror.

E sc a re z , who i s a l so t he chairman of the special bids and awards committee for this year’s rice importation scheme, said there were no changes in the volume allocated to winning foreign suppliers.

Four rice exporters from Vietnam secured six lots representing

175,000 MT. These include staterun Vietnam Southern Food Corp.

II (Vina Food II), which offered to supply 50,000 MT for $424.45 per MT; and Hiep Loi Food Joint Stock Co., which will deliver 25,000 MT of rice for $425.9/MT. Two other Vietnamese companies—Tan Long Group Joint Stock Co. and Gia International Corp.— secured a total of four two lots, totaling 100,000 MT. Tan Long would supply rice at $414/MT and $409/ MT, while Gia International Corp. pegged its bid at $421.64/MT and $415.65/MT. Singapore-based Olam International Ltd. offered to supply 50,000 MT of rice at $413.89/MT, while Thailand-based Capital Cereals Co. Ltd. would deliver the remaining volume of 25,000 MT at $431.7/MT.

250,000 MT

The volume of rice that will be imported by the government for buffer-stocking purposes The NFA pegged the reference price at $451.08/MT and divided the 250,000 MT into eight lots (six lots of 25,000 MT each and two lots of 50,000 MT each) to allow more private-sector participation.

The government had set aside a budget of P5.637 billion for the purchase of imported rice. Based on the offers on July 25, the government would save some P394 million as the total amount reached $104.84 million, or P5.234 billion.

Escarez said the unspent amount for the importation will go back to the food agency’s budget.

Of the 21 foreign suppliers that secured bidding documents from the NFA, Escarez said only 18 companies showed up during the auction.

Out of the 18 companies, only 16 were qualified to bid because two interested exporters did not submit their offers, while a Hong Kong-based company did not meet the agency’s qualifications.

Escarez also said Hong Kongbased company Singsong Ltd.’s motion for reconsideration to participate in the bidding was denied.

Singsong was earlier given three days to file a motion for reconsideration and justify its participation in the bidding, after it failed to submit a required document.

“The motion for reconsideration was denied. Republic Act 9 814 u s e s nond i sc re t ion a r y ‘pass/fail ’ criteria [absence or presence of documents]. Nonsubmission of even one document for eligibility requirements would cause the bidder to automatically fail,” he said.

The NFA divided the delivery of the 250,000 MT of rice into two periods: August and September.

The NFA said 120,000 MT of rice should arrive within August, while the remaining 130,000 MT should arrive by September.

The NFA added its remaining rice stockpile as of July 25 is sufficient to meet the country’s requirement for four days.

The government decided to import rice under the governmentto-private sector scheme to prop up the NFA’s buffer stock during the lean months of July, August and September.

Pernia: $5,000 per-capita income likely by 2018

By Cai U. Ordinario

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@cuo_bm

he Philippines could hit its target of becoming an upper middle-income country as early as next year, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

In a presentation before the Philippines-Singapore Business Council (PSBC) Conference on Thursday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said the country is on track to meeting its economic targets.

This means the country’s per capita income could rise to around

$5,000, from $3,580 as of 2016, by the end of 2018, four years ahead of 2022, or the original target.

“The Philippine Development Plan [PDP] 2017-2022 aims for the Philippines to be an upper middle-income country by 2022.

In fact, as I’ve said, we could achieve that by the end of next year,” Pernia said.

A ssuming Philippine gross national income (GNI) would grow at 5 percent annum, percapita income would be within the $4,000 to $5,000 range by the end of 2018.

Low-income economies are

defined as those with a GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,005 or less in 2016; lower middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $1,006 and $3,955; upper middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $3,956 and $12,235; high-income economies are those with a GNI per capita of $12,236 or more.

Increasing per-capita income would result in lower poverty rate. Under the original target in the PDP poverty incidence could decline to 14 percent in 2022, from

21.6 percent in 2015.

“We’re assuming we’re growing by 5 percent per annum, GNI per capita, so its possible.

We will just be short by a few dollars, [maybe] we will be short by a couple of dollars or less,” Pernia told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

In the same conference, former National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Cielito Habito said the recent growth of the economy has become “more inclusive”.

Habito said based on his “PTK”

www.businessmirror.com.ph

AIRBUS SEES GROWING CHOPPER SALES IN PHL

European aeronautical and space firm Airbus says it sold an H130 to Mactan-based helicopter charter operator GCA Skyline Aviation Inc. Airbus sees a growing market for its choppers in the Philippines. IMAGE COURTESY OF AIRBUS

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

E

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

UROPEAN aeronautics and space firm Airbus sees a growing market for its helicopters in the Philippines.

This developed as it recently sold an H130 (formerly Eurocopter EC130) to Cebu-based helicopter charter operator GCA Skyline Aviation Inc. In a news statement, Lionel de Maupeou, managing director of Airbus Helicopters Philippines, said: “The Philippines is one of the most active markets in the Southeast Asia region, presenting abundant opportunities for new helicopter acquisition.”

He added that the H130 is a member of the Ecureuil family of light helicopters, “renowned for its performance, reliability, safety and multimission capability”.

In the Philippines, close to 60 Ecureuil helicopters are currently flown by civil and parapublic (C&P), and commercial operators, making them the most popular helicopters. Airbus Helicopters accounts for 50 percent of the market share in the commercial and C&P segments in the Philippines, he stressed.

“We are happy that Airbus Helicopters was chosen by GCA Skyline once again as its sole helicopter provider. With our customer center conveniently located at the airport, we are committed to ensuring full support and providing comprehensive services to GCA Skyline,” de Maupeou said.

Airbus said the Philippine firm will use the H130 for commercial operations, the transport of VIPs and tourism purposes. GCA Skyline currently operates an H125 (formerly AS350).

“As a fast-growing company, we look to the most efficient and reliable aircraft to expand our operations in a sustainable manner,” said Joenina Mah, accountable director of GCA Skyline in the same news statement.

“Having experienced the powerful and cost-efficient H125 and the successes it has brought us, we are confident that the H130 is the ideal platform to meet our needs, as we expand our operations,” she noted. GCA Skyline took delivery of the H130 in July.

According to Airbus, the H130’s roomy interior allows an eightseater configuration, ideal for panoramic helitours and comfortable VIP transportation. It has a flat floor design, which can be easily reconfigured within minutes to match a wide range of missions, including emergency medical services, law enforcement, as well as search and rescue.

While Airbus didn’t mention the cost of the H130, independent research show a unit is priced anywhere from $2 million to $2.5 million (P100.8 million to P126 million).

According to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, as of September 2016, GCA Skyline, based in Mactan, has an air operator certificate as a nonscheduled domestic operator. In May 2016 one of GCA Skyline’s helicopters, a single-engine light helicopter Continued on A2

Continued on A2

Contractors warned against ‘BBB’ bid rigging Continued from A1

Under Section 14 of Republic Act 10667, or the Philippine Competition Act, bid manipulation is listed as an anticompetitive practice. The law said that “fixing price at an auction or in any form of bidding, including cover bidding, bid suppression, bid rotation and market allocation, and other analogous practices of bid manipulation” are prohibited.

Balisacan admitted “price fixing and bid rigging” are common in government procurements, saying this is reason enough for the PCC to closely watch on infrastructure projects under the BBB campaign for possible violations of the competition law.

Balisacan said the PCC will not back down against government officials and contracting parties found violating the competition law.

Tillerson. . .

Continued from A1

SUNSET IN BORACAY Tourists enjoy the world-renowned powdery white sand of Boracay beach while doing their activities as the sun sets. FAYE PABLO

expect to see this year at the meeting would be a general chorus of condemnation of North Korea’s provocative behavior, and a pretty serious diplomatic isolation directed at the North Korean foreign minister.”

“We are doing our job and we are created to do precisely that. And I don’t see any reason we’d back out or we step back because there are big players,” the competition chief said.

In its nascent year, the PCC has challenged telco giants PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. for its P69.1-billion purchase of San Miguel Corp.’s telco assets. The PCC in April asked the Supreme Court to bar the completion of the multibillion-peso deal until it completes its review of the acquisition.

Meanwhile, Balisacan said a number of firms involved in manufacturing, public service and agriculture are set to be slapped with penalties for committing anticompetitive practices.

The transitory period provided by the competition law is scheduled to lapse on Tuesday, after which violating businesses will be subject to investigation and persecution.

Tillerson’s reluctance to sit down with his North Korean counterpart comes despite his growing push for Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table with the US. Tillerson said this week such talks would have to be predicated on the North giving up its nuclear-weapons aspirations and that the conditions for such talks haven’t yet been met

by North Korea’s government. AP