BusinessMirror August 24, 2019

BusinessMirror DYING PATRIARCHS, ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS

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A broader look at today’s business n

Saturday, August 24, 2019 Vol. 14 No. 318

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ENTITLED HEIRS

Many family-owned and -run Asian firms are being set on road to ruin by the mortality of their founders and the sense of entitlement of heirs not quite ready to take the helm.

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By Cai U. Ordinario

HE mortality of patriarchs and a high sense of entitlement among children are sending more family-run businesses to ruin all over Asia, including in the Philippines, according to a professor at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.

At the Pandesal Forum in Quezon City recently, Ateneo Professor Enrique M. Soriano III said 8 out of 10 families who ask to consult with him for intervention are already on the brink of a breakup. Soriano said the parents’ fear of losing control of the companies they built, as well as the consequence of bad parenting that makes children feel entitled to their empires, contribute to family boardroom squabbles. “Out of 10 families that go to

me for intervention, 8 are on the verge of a breakup. That bad,” Soriano told the BusinessMirror on the sidelines of the forum hosted by Kamuning Bakery. “When they [are] constantly in conflict with the family and the patriarch or the matriarch, the children become entitled, they continue to receive unlimited amounts of support even if they perform or do not perform. So back to fair is equal and equal is never fair. So there is conflict the moment the

founder is no longer around,” he explained. Soriano said many major firms and jobs have been lost due to these squabbles. One such example was Cosmos, the leading softdrink manufacturer in the 1970s. He said that if family differences were only resolved before everything came to a head, Cosmos would have celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. The company was instead sold and is now owned by San Miguel Corp.

Bloody sometimes

SORIANO said some conflicts can even lead to death. During the forum, he shared the tragic story of the Taiwan-based Mayfull Food Corp., which saw the death of three brothers after a heated boardroom discussion. According to a report from the Taipei Times in 2015, brothers “Huang Ming-huang and Huang Ming-jen were killed by bullet wounds to the head, allegedly fired Continued on A2

As global economic picture dims, solutions seem out of reach By Paul Wiseman, David McHugh & Josh Boak

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AP Business Writers

ASHINGTON—As global leaders gather on two continents to take account of a darkening economic outlook, this is the picture they face: Factories are slumping, many businesses are paralyzed, global growth is sputtering and the world’s two mightiest economies are in the grip of a dangerous trade war. Barely a year after most of the world’s major countries were enjoying an unusual moment of shared prosperity, the global economy may be at risk of returning to the rut it tumbled into after the fi-

nancial crisis of 2007-2009. Worse, solutions seem far from obvious. Central banks can’t just slash interest rates. Rates are already ultra-low. And even if they did, the central banks would risk robbing themselves of the ammunition they would need later to fight a recession. What’s more, high government debts make it politically

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 52.2430

FRENCH police officers get instructions in front of the Le Bellevue at the beach promenade ahead of the upcoming G7 Summit, in Biarritz, France, on August 22, 2019. The G7 Summit will host the heads of countries with advanced economies from the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and France, and will be held in Biarritz between the 24th and 26th of August. AP/MARKUS SCHREIBER

problematic to cut taxes or pour money into new bridges, roads and other public works projects. “Our tools for fighting recession are no doubt more limited [than] in the past,” said Karen Dynan, an economist at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have downgraded the outlook for worldwide growth. On Thursday, Moody’s Investors Service said it expects the global economy to expand 2.7 percent this year and next—down from 3.2 percent the previous two years. And it issued a dark warning: Get used to it. “The new normal will likely continue for the next three to four years,” the credit rating agency said. Concerns are rising just as central bankers meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and leaders of the Group Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4909 n UK 64.0186 n HK 6.6635 n CHINA 7.3758 n SINGAPORE 37.7124 n AUSTRALIA 35.2954 n EU 57.8905 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.9303

Source: BSP (August 23, 2019 )

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A2 Saturday, August 24, 2019

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Dying patriarchs, entitled heirs by their younger brother, Huang Ming-te.” The latter subsequently shot himself. The Taipei Times reported that the siblings were having a meeting to discuss how they were going to divide the business after the death of their father, Huang Jung-tu. “Stop the madness. Every single family member involved in [a] conflict must be willing to throw their animosities, their deep-seated [resentment], their hatred for each other and go to the table and, minus the lawyers, start meeting,” Soriano said.

Yanson vs Yanson

NEWS of the Yanson family feud has recently led the Philippine National Police (PNP) to deploy 100 of its personnel to secure the south terminal of Vallacar Transit Inc., which operates Ceres buses. It is the largest bus transport company in the country. Soriano added that some of the 18,000 employees have already filed a notice of strike. Reports earlier said the CEO Leo Rey Yanson was booted out by his siblings Roy, Emily, Celina and Ricardo Jr. The Ateneo professor listed three possible outcomes if a conflict like this continues. The first, the employees will continue to protest and the courts will step in to divide the company into Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

The second scenario, if the situation continues in court, will have employees filing cases to protect themselves. This will leave the Yanson family with “practically nothing.” The third scenario is, given the business has a public service aspect, the government could step in. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could convene a receiver team to run the business until the problems are resolved. “It will no longer be the same. You know why? The children of the next generation will become strangers. And that’s the demise of the family relationship. So when there’s conflict, so goes the business. It will disappear. So this is so predictable and somebody must stop this madness because sayang [it’s a pity],” Soriano said. One recourse, Soriano said, is for the matriarch to take over the business and prevent herself from siding with any child. This, he said, happened to the Ambani family in India. The Ambani matriarch had to take over and resolve the situation. Soriano said the mother decided that way because the employment of 130,000 employees was at stake. His unsolicited advice to the Yanson family? They should sit down and try to settle their differences without lawyers to prevent any loss of trust. Soriano also said the matriarch of the Yanson family “must be the beacon” in the situation.

When businessmen tell their employees to consider the company like their “family,” that sort of metaphor can sometimes backfire for the workers when the owners get embroiled in a bitter—if not bloody—family feud.

ANDRII YALANSKYI | DREAMSTIME.COM

Continued from a1

Yanson drama ends

THE Yanson matriarch’s being a “beacon” seems exactly what happened more than a month after Leo Rey Yanson was unseated by his siblings. He was re-elected on Monday (August 19) as president of Vallacar Transit Inc. In a special stockholders’ meeting, the shareholders, including the family’s matriarch Olivia V. Yanson, elected him, together with

Olivia V. Yanson, Ginnette Y. Dumancas and Charles M. Dumancas, as members of the board of directors, according to a report in the BusinessMirror. Leo Rey then regained his position, alongside Charles M. Dumancas as vice president, Ginnette Y. Dumancas as treasurer, and Olivia V. Yanson as corporate secretary, when the board held a re-organizational meeting. Vallacar Transit is the company behind Ceres Liner and Sugbo Transit. It is the largest subsidiary of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies. Established in 1968 by Ricardo Yanson Sr., the conglomerate pro-

vides transport services to 700,000 passengers daily. The parent company is among the biggest bus conglomerates in Southeast Asia, and operates more than 4,000 buses nationwide. Domestically, it has 15 bases of operations in the cities of Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, Davao, Pagadian, Dipolog, Bohol and Batangas, said the earlier BusinessMirror report. It’s fortunate for Vallacar Transport to be able to resolve in timely fashion the internal feuding that has torn it apart, given the 18,000 jobs at stake. In many cases, however, Soriano said, employees are also among

the casualties in conflicts in familyowned businesses, apart from the company itself and harmonious family relations. “They [employees] are definitely compromised, their families affected and, most often than not, will likely have to take sides out of survival so they are the end recipients of any nasty family conflict, so it’s really unfortunate,” Soriano said. Indeed, when businessmen tell their employees to consider the company like their “family,” that sort of metaphor can sometimes backfire for the workers when the owners get embroiled in a bitter— if not bloody—family feud.

Global economic picture… Continued from a1

of Seven advanced economies gather this weekend in the resort town of Biarritz in southwestern France. A spotlight will shine, in particular, on whatever message Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sends in a speech Friday in Jackson Hole. The dour global outlook partly reflects President Donald Trump’s combative trade conflicts with China and other countries. A realization has taken hold that Trump likely will keep deploying tariffs—and in some cases escalating them—to try to beat concessions out of US trading partners. “The trade uncertainty is here to stay,” said Madhavi Bokil, senior credit officer at Moody’s. Squeezed by tightening protectionism, global trade is likely to grow just 2.5 percent this year, its slowest pace in three years, the IMF says. Manufacturers, whose fortunes are closely tied to trade, are struggling. J.P. Morgan’s global manufacturing index dropped in July for a third straight month, hitting the lowest level since 2012. The global funk also reflects the pull of gravity: The economies of Europe and Japan, fueled by central banks’ easy-money policies, overexerted themselves a couple of years ago and are now returning to their more typical state: Sluggishness. The IMF expects China’s economy, the world’s second biggest, to grow 6.2 percent this year—the weakest since 1990—and just 6 percent next year. Trump’s trade war is certainly a factor. The president has imposed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports and is set to tax nearly $300 billion more before year’s end. China’s slowdown is also being orchestrated in part by the officials in Beijing, who are trying to contain lending to control the country’s runaway debts. And an economic chill in China sends shivers into the many countries—from copper-producing Chile to iron ore-making Australia—that feed Chinese factories with raw materials.

Then there’s Europe. In the 19 countries that use the euro currency, growth slowed to an anemic 0.2 percent in the second quarter from the quarter before. The eurozone, which maintains close trade ties with the US and China, has been sideswiped by the collision between Trump and President Xi Jinping. What’s more, Trump has threatened to impose significant tariffs on European auto imports. Even more than the tariffs themselves, uncertainty over whether the trade disputes will be resolved is chilling investment and purchasing. Despite cheap borrowing costs from central bank stimulus, investment in new plants is lagging—an ominous sign that bosses don’t foresee future prosperity. In Europe’s usual economic powerhouse, Germany, the economy shrank 0.1 percent in the second quarter from the quarter before. If output should fall for a second straight quarter, Germany would find itself on the verge of a recession. Some of Germany’s troubles originate closer to home. Its major automakers have been compelled to sink billions into technology to meet stricter emissions tests, and some have endured delays in doing so. BMW lost money on its car business for the first time in a decade in the first quarter. Daimler posted its first net loss since 2009 in the second quarter. Brexit is another risk for Europe. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the UK will leave the 28-country European Union and its free-trade zone on October 31, with or without a divorce deal. Not knowing what will happen is a nagging source of uncertainty. Facing such risks, the European Central Bank has signaled that it could launch new monetary stimulus as early as next month. As recently as December, the ECB had been confident enough in the European economy to halt a nearly four-year, €2.6-trillion ($2.9 trillion) bond purchase program. That optimism has vanished.

The US economy, now enjoying a record-breaking 10-year expansion, still shows resilience. American consumers, whose spending accounts for 70 percent of US economic activity, have driven the growth. Retail sales have risen sharply so far this year, with people shopping online and spending more at restaurants. Their savings rates are also the highest since 2012, which suggests that consumers aren’t necessarily stretching themselves too thin, according to the Commerce Department. But Trump’s tariffs loom over the US economy. The import taxes he plans to impose on China on September 1 and again on December 15 are likely to hit ordinary Americans more than the earlier rounds of tariffs. Already, companies are delaying investments because they don’t know where to put new factories, seek suppliers or find customers until they have a better idea where the trade disputes are going. “Uncertainty is high,” said Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management. “Businesses everywhere are sitting on their hands.” “All forecasts for the US economy in the second half of this year and beyond are contingent on the trade war,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, concluded in a note Thursday. For all the global gloom, RBC’s Lascelles said policymakers aren’t without options. Even with shortterm interest rates near zero, central banks can aggressively buy bonds to pump money into the financial system—the so-called quantitative easing the Federal Reserve, the ECB and the Bank of Japan used to revive growth during and after the financial crisis. And even with the heavy debt burdens, governments could capitalize on low rates to borrow cheaply if they decided to stimulate their economies with tax cuts or stepped-up spending, Lascelles said.

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

UN: Possible to eradicate malaria, but not so soon

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O N D O N —T h e Wo r l d Health Organization says it’s theoretically possible to wipe out malaria, but probably not with the f lawed vaccine and other control methods being used at the moment. Dr. Ped ro A lonso, t he UN health agency’s global malaria director, said WHO is “unequivocally in favor” of eradication, but that major questions about its feasibility remain. In a press briefing on Thursday, Alonso acknowledged that “with the tools we have today, it is most unlikely eradication will be achieved.” Alonso was presenting the results of a WHO-commissioned report evaluating if eradicating malaria should be pursued. He said the experts concluded lingering uncertainties meant they were unable to formulate a clear strategy and thus, couldn’t propose a definitive timeline or cost estimate for eradication. WHO has long grappled with the idea of erasing malaria from the planet. An eradication campaign was first attempted in 1955 before being abandoned more than a dozen years later. For decades, health officials were chastened from even discussing eradication—until the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation threw its considerable resources behind the idea. Smallpox is the only human disease to ever have been eradicated. In 1988, W HO and partners began a global campaign that aimed to w ipe out polio by 2000. Despite numerous effective vaccines and billions of invested dollars, efforts have stalled in recent years and officials have repeatedly missed eradication targets.

Although several African countries began immunizing children against malaria in national programs this year, the shot only protects about one third of children who get it. The parasitic disease kills about 435,000 people every year, mostly children in Africa. “An effective vaccine is something we desperately need if we’re ever going to get malaria under control and we just don’t have it,” said Alister Lister, dean of biological sciences at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Lister also raised concerns about whether malaria programs would be able to raise the billions needed given other competing eradication campaigns, like those for polio, guinea worm and lymphatic filariasis. “Should we really be pushing for malaria or should we concentrate on getting some of those other diseases out of the way first?” he asked. Other ex perts agreed that eradicating malaria in the coming years seems aspirational. “It’s a long game and there will be many bumps on the road,” said Sian Clarke, codirector of the malaria center at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Still, Clarke said that eradication might only be achieved if there is a sense of urgency, given how malaria spreads; the parasitic disease is transmitted to people by mosquitoes. “The longer it takes, the more opportunity there is for the parasite to evolve,” she said. “There will be a lot of pressure on the parasite to evolve a mechanism of survival, so this is something that if it’s to be done, should be done relatively quickly.” AP

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump and other leaders of the world’s most industrialized nations will open their annual G-7 summit over the weekend by discussing the global economy. W hite House officials said Thursday that the session was added to Sunday’s schedule at the last minute at Trump’s request. Trump insists the US economy is strong despite fears that a recession may be on the horizon. At the same time, global economic g row th has slowed due to weakness in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, and a pronounced slowdown in China, the world ’s second-largest

economy, as it remains locked in a tense trade standoff with the US. The dour global outlook is partly a reflection of Trump’s combative approach to trade with China and other nations he has hit or threatened to hit with tariffs. Trump and the six other leaders of the Group of Seven nations will begin meeting on Saturday for three days in the southwestern French resort town of Biarritz.

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France holds the 2019 presidency of the G-7, which also includes Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan. Leaders are to meet at an informal dinner on Saturday, where they are expected to discuss foreign policy and security issues before more formal working sessions on Sunday and Monday. Trump is also scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the summit with several world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese P r i me Mi n i ster Sh i n zo A be, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor A ngela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Boris Johnson, Britain’s new prime minister, will also have his first face-to-face meeting with Trump, a personal friend, since taking office a few weeks ago.

Trump also plans to raise the issue of a landmark tax France is imposing on major tech companies like Google and Facebook despite Trump’s threats of retaliatory tariffs on French wine. The French government has said the tax is meant as a temporary measure pending the conclusion of negotiations on an international deal France wants to work out with the US. The tax is designed to keep multinational corporations from avoiding taxes by setting up European headquarters in low-tax European countries. Currently, companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Airbnb and Uber pay very little tax on their significant business in countries like France. The Trump administration says the tax is discriminatory against US business. AP

The world’s biggest companies agree: Rising inequality is a dangerous threat

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ore than 30 of the world ’s biggest companies signed on to an effort to spread the benefits of economic growth, saying that rising inequality is the “ defining challenge of our time.” The initiative, sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is set to be unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron as he prepares to host the G-7 summit this weekend in Biarritz, Fra nce. Pa r t ic ipa nt s i nc lude

inter nat iona l g iants suc h as JPMorgan Chase & Co., L’Oreal and Danone. “The middle class is shrinking in most G-7 countries, whereas it is the foundation of market economy around the world,” Danone Chairman Emmanuel Faber said in a statement announcing the agreement. “ The result is that market economy will not last without more social justice.” Companies including Virgin, Unilever and Goldman Sachs Group are expected to sign a

Global worry over Amazon fires escalates stacle to economic development and who traded Twitter jabs on Thursday with France’s president over the fires. French President Emmanuel Macron called the wildfires an international crisis and said the leaders of the Group of 7 nations should hold urgent discussions about them at their summit in France this weekend. “Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest— the lungs which produces 20percent of our planet’s oxygen—is on fire,”

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G-7 leaders to open summit focused on world economy

In this August 20, drone photo released by the Corpo de Bombeiros de Mato Grosso, brush fires burn in Guaranta do Norte municipality, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, a federal agency monitoring deforestation and wildfires, said the country has seen a record number of wildfires this year. Corpo de Bombeiros de Mato Grosso via AP

IO DE JANEIRO­—Amid global concern about raging fires in the Amazon, Brazil’s government complained Thursday that it is being targeted in smear campaign by critics who contend President Jair Bolsonaro is not doing enough to curb widespread deforestation. The threat to what some call “the lungs of the planet” has ignited a bitter dispute about who is to blame during the tenure of a leader who has described Brazil’s rainforest protections as an ob-

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Macron tweeted. Bolsonaro fired back with his own tweet: “I regret that Macron seeks to make personal political gains in an internal matter for Brazil and other Amazonian countries. T he sensationalist tone he used does nothing to solve the problem.” Onyx Lorenzoni, the president’s chief of staff, earlier in the day accused European countries of exaggerating environmental problems in Brazil in order to disrupt its commercial interests.

“There is deforestation in Brazil, yes, but not at the rate and level that they say,” said Lorenzoni, according to the Brazilian news web site globo.com. His allegation came after Germany and Norway, citing Brazil’s apparent lack of commitment to fighting deforestation, decided to withhold more than $60 million in funds earmarked for sustainability projects in Brazilian forests. T he debate came as Brazilian federa l e x per ts repor ted a record number of w ildfires

pledge on Saturday saying they’ll support “inclusive growth.” The firms will agree to principles such as respect of freedom of association for labor, and support projects aimed at everything from increasing affordable housing to financing small business. Once championed by Occupy Wall Street protesters, the notion of economic justice has become increasingly referenced in the offices of some of the world ’s wealthiest companies. Earlier this week, 181 CEOs of

the Business Roundtable put out a statement rejecting the notion that the primar y pur pose of the cor poration is ma ximizing shareholder value. Under Macron’s initiative, t he l i k e s of L’O re a l — w h ic h counts Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the world ’s wealthiest woman, as a key shareholder— and Danone are promising to make basic products more affordable and retrain employees to adapt to “the future of work.”

across the countr y this year, up 84 percent over the same period in 2018. Satellite images show smoke from the A mazon reaching across the Latin A merican continent to the Atlantic coast and Sao Paulo, Brazil ’s big gest cit y, accord ing to t he World Meteorological Organization. UN Secretar y- Genera l A ntónio Guterres tweeted: “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of ox ygen and biodiversity. T he A mazon must be protected.” Federal prosecutors in Brazil ’s A mazon region launched investigations of increasing deforestation, according to local media. Prosecutors said they plan to probe possible negligence by the national government i n t he enforcement of env ironmental codes. Bolivia is also struggling to contain big fires, many believed to have been set by farmers clearing land for cultivation. Bolsonaro said there was a “very strong” indication that some nongovernment groups could be setting blazes in retaliation for losing state funds under his administration. He did not provide any evidence. Bolsonaro, who won election last year, also accused media organizations of exploiting the fires to undermine his government. “Most of the media wants Brazil to end up like Venezuela,” he said, referring to political and economic turbulence in the neighboring South American country. London-based Amnesty International blamed the Brazilian government for the fires, which have escalated international concern over the vast rainforest that is a major absorber of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. T he rights group this year documented illegal land inva-

sions and arson attacks near indigenous ter r itor ies in the A mazon, including Rondonia st ate, where m a ny f i res a re raging, said Kumi Naidoo, A mnesty’s secretar y-general. “Instead of spreading outrageous lies or denying the scale of deforestation taking place, we urge the president to take immediate action to halt the progress of these fires,” Naidoo said. The WWF conservation group also challenged Bolsonaro’s allegations about NGOs, saying they divert “the focus of attention from what really matters: the well-being of nature and the people of the Amazon.” Brazil contains about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, whose degradation could have severe consequences for global climate and rainfall. Bolsonaro, who has said he wants to convert land for cattle pastures and soybean farms, won office after channeling outrage over the corruption scandals of the former government. Filipe Martins, an adviser to Bolsonaro, said on Twitter that the Brazilian government is committed to fighting illegal deforestation and that many other countries are causing environmental damage. The Amazon will be saved by Brazil and not “the empty, hysterical and misleading rhetoric of the mainstream media, transnational bureaucrats and NGOs,” Martins said. Sergio Bergman, Argentina’s environment minister, appealed for people to overcome political or ideological divisions to protect the environment. He spoke at a five-day UN workshop on climate change in Brazil’s northern state of Bahia. “We all, in a way, understand that it is not possible to keep using natural resources without limits,” Bergman said. AP

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Filipino Design Collective participates in Paris’s Maison et Objet trade fair

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esign Philippines presents Kindred, a design collective of 13 Filipino designers and manufacturers, set to participate in this year’s prestigious Maison et Objet international trade fair in Paris happening from September 6 to 10, 2019.

Maison et Objet is one of the biggest events and lifestyle shows that brings together a complete product offering of décor, design, furniture, home accessories, tableware and even fragrances. It is a melting pot of creativity for designers, manufacturers, exhibitors and visitors, and is a prestigious venue for showcasing Filipino design and talent to the rest of the world, most notably the European market. This year’s participants are gathered to embody the theme Kindred: A Design Collective, curated by Creative Directors Rita Nazareno and Gabby Lichauco who were appointed by the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem). When asked about Kindred and its objective for this year’s participation in Maison et Objet, Nazareno, also an accomplished designer, said: “Kindred is a design collective

of like-minded designers and manufacturers. This year, we wanted to focus on objects and contemporary design with a specialist, simple, smaller, straight-forward approach to both the booth and the design.” In addition, Lichauco said, “Kindred highlights the craftsmanship of each of the Filipino designers and manufacturers, but in a refreshing and innovative approach.” Focusing on home accessories like tabletop décor and lighting, as well as a sampling of fashion accessories, this year’s Philippine delegation will include a combination of Maison first timers and seasoned entrants alike: Vito Selma, Schema, E. Murio, Finali, Nature’s Legacy, CSM Philippines, CDO Handmade, JB Woodcraft, Southsea Veneer, Halo Halo, Tali Handmade, Weave Manila and Zacarias 1925 are all set to present their products in Paris this September.

Foods, beverages and ingredients made from coconuts are widely known for their various health benefits.

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Through the guidance and direction of seasoned designers and exporters Nazareno and Lichauco, Kindred’s 13 exporters will showcase newly developed products. These were made with each of their signature styles, techniques and local materials, and some in collaboration with each other. From fine bone China décor, abaca woven rugs, to wire mesh lighting fixtures, solid-wood accessories and even recycled plastic, the one-stop shop booth at Maison will allow buyers to easily peruse the products, and visualize how items of separate manufacturers, aesthetics and visions can actually be styled together.

With the continued support of Citem and its notable collaborators, this year’s participation in the Maison et Objet trade fair marks another opportunity to bring Filipino design talent and artistry to the world stage. “Gabby and I are both looking forward to showing these special objects at Kindred: A Design Collective presented by Citem at Maison et Objet. The breadth of specialties, materials, aesthetics we are working toward is quite exciting,” said Nazareno. “We are grateful to be part of Citem’s initiative and we hope to continue exposing local objects globally.” For more information on the event, as well as other projects, visit citem.gov.ph.

Seven Philippine fashion brands to present at Premiere Classe Paris

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even notable and well-loved Filipino fashion accessory and ready-to-wear brands are heading to Paris to participate in the Premiere Classe fashion trade show happening from September 27 to 30, 2019. Held annually since 1989 and happening in the midst of Paris Fashion Week, Premiere Classe showcases fashion design and accessories by brands and designers from all over the world. The event registers over 10,000 visitors each year, including buyers and media editors over the course of four days. It is an international platform for fashion accessory designers to present their products in categories that include jewelry, footwear, bags, leather goods and ready-to-wear items. Organized by the Department of Trade and

PHL to highlight organic food products in CIIE 2019

Industry’s Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (DTI-Citem), whose mission includes promoting Filipino brands and talents to be recognized internationally, the Philippines will be proudly represented at Premiere Classe this year by noteworthy local brands. Aranáz, Beatriz Accessories, Mele + Marie, Joanique and Zacarias 1925 will be presenting their bags and accessories; Merriam Batara for jewelry; and Filip + Inna’s ready-towear line completes the roster. First on the Philippine delegation lineup is Aranáz, which was founded by Becky, Amina and Rosanna Aranaz in 1999. Aranáz has enjoyed a steady local following over the years and continues to gain popularity internationally. The brand’s handmade bags have perfected that signature balance of polished and artisanal, while bringing to the spotlight the use of indigenous materials, like abaca, raffia and wicker. Beatriz Accessories, led by Founder and Chief Designer Carissa Cruz Evangelista, offers a more luxurious take on handcrafted bags with clutches made with vibrant color combinations and eyecatching graphic details. This is true for Mele + Marie’s elegant purses, as well. Created by the husband-and-wife team of Melecio and Rosemarie Oamil, the brand’s bags boast refined artistry

through the use of iridescent abalone shells and lightweight acrylic. Founded by designer Malou Romero in 2011, Joanique creates contemporary bags and accessories with a cultural reference. Its Maskara collection of minaudières mimic the intricate designs and carvings of the masks featured in the MassKara Festival in the southern city of Bacolod. Zacarias 1925, on the other hand, references architecture, art and even cinema in its progressive designs. Designer Rita Nazareno cleverly mixes materials like leather and shaped rattan to add even more personality to her pieces. Jewelry designer Merriam Batara hails from a family with a background in crafting fine jewelry and hand-beaded accessories. Her work emphasizes the immense detail and precision of hand beading, as seen in her collection of shouldergrazing earrings. Finally, Lenora Cabili’s clothing label Filip + Inna applies to each garment age-old and traditional techniques of weaving and embroidery, and incorporates these into more current silhouettes. Each brand brings its own distinct style to the table to highlight local materials, styles and craftsmanship that further define fashion’s visual codes in this day and age.

hina is currently one of the fastest-growing health and wellness markets in the world. Its demand for packaged HW foods and beverages has been on the rise since 2018, in response to the domestic market’s shift in consumer behavior toward a healthier, more natural and organic diet. To address this, the Philippines will promote a bevy of organic and specialty food products in the second edition of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) from November 5 to 10, 2019 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, China. This participation is organized by the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), the export promotion arm of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, the Export Marketing Bureau and the Philippine Trade and Investment Centers in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Fifty exhibitors from the Philippines’s food and beverage sectors are being eyed to be featured in the Food and Agricultural Hall of the importexclusive expo. These exhibitors will showcase a wide range of products and services, including coconutbased products, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, fruit-based products, frozen and canned meats and seafood, snack foods, beverages and food and agricultural services. According to a recent study by Nikkei Asian Review, China is poised to surpass the USA and take its place as the world’s largest consumer market this year. This projected economic growth and the increasing purchasing power of China’s middle and upper classes makes the import expo the perfect trading platform for exporters. The Philippines can tap into this lucrative consumer market by showcasing a variety of world-class exports from the country’s rich and culturally infused food industries to cater to the current health trends observed in the Chinese market.

Bigger and better CIIE

With CIIE being just on its second edition this year, the majority of the Philippine companies confirmed to exhibit at the expo will be joining for the first time. Some of these include Century Pacific Food, Fisherfarms, Monde Nis-

Cardava banana chips will be one of the top-featured products at the expo

sin, Fruits of Life and San Miguel Pure Foods, to name a few. They are accompanied by six returning exhibitors, namely W.L. Food Products, Excellent Quality Goods Supply, Phil. Morinda Citrifolia, Philippine Franchise Association, Team Asia Corp. and Brandexports Philippines. “The Philippine delegation for this year’s CIIE aims to generate a sales target of $5 million, as they promote world-class Philippine food products to potential Chinese and international clients. This move will strengthen and improve the country’s trade relations across Asia and the rest of the world,” said DTI-Citem Executive Director Pauline Suaco-Juan. Topping the list of featured products are coconut-based beverages and ingredients with 10 exhibitors carrying the commodity. This is in response to the current shift in dietary preferences, given the various health benefits associated with coconut water and other related ingredients, like coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut flour. Philippine bananas will also make their mark at the expo with eight exhibitors bringing a variety of fresh and banana-based products. These are bound to drum up their fair share of sales since China has become the biggest importer of Philippine bananas since 2018. Both product lines will be showcased along other healthy food offerings like fruit preserves, mango flour, dried fruits and fruit juices. “We are encouraging our exhibitors to take this opportunity to further position the Philippines in the global market as a premier source of healthy and organic-food products by promoting the world-class quality of our products and services, and our export capabilities at the upcoming China International Import Expo,” said Trade Undersecretary Abdulgani Macatoman. Exporters from the food and agricultural sectors interested in joining this year’s CIIE may contact Ms. Janine Briones, project officer, via e-mail at jbriones@citem.com.ph.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

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Saturday, August 24, 2019 | Editor: Jun Lomibao

Highlighting positive impact of cycling events on tourism, economy

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RGANIZERS of a recent mass participation race through the Swiss Alps have used their event to stage a wider Alpine Cycling Festival to highlight the positive impact of cycling events on tourism and the economy. The Tour des Stations in the Swiss region of Valais offers riders different challenging and mountainous routes to test their climbing skills. In its second year, the Tour des Stations attracted hundreds of cyclists—including former Elite champions such as Spain’s Alberto Contador—to different mountain resorts: each race route started in a different venue, with all finishing in the ski resort of Verbier. During four days before and after the challenging event, the Alpine Cycling Festival in Crans-Montana (starting resort of the Tour des Stations Marmotte Gran Fondo) hosted a series of presentations and roundtable focusing on the positive impact and opportunities that the sport of cycling can create. The key focus: how and what can the host region of Valais learn from a global leader in this field—the Italian Dolomites?

SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE

ON June 26, 2009, Italy’s stunning Dolomite mountains were declared a United Nations World Heritage Site. The Dolomites comprise a mountain range in the northern Italian Alps, numbering 18 peaks which rise to above 3,000 meters, as well as nine distinct geographical areas, all characterized by spectacular landscapes. Two such areas have been using the full potential of cycling events to broaden the appeal and popularity of the region: Alta Badia and Val Di Sole. Representatives from both mountain areas were present at the Alpine Cycling Festival to share practical recommendations on how to turn a four-

season mountain destination into a true paradise for cyclists. Roberto Huber and Alessia Sora (both from the Alta Badia Brand) focused on how the region has become a true “home to bike moments,” with the key pillar of that strategy being the Maratona dles Dolomites. The first Maratona dles Dolomites was organized on July 12, 1987, and saw 166 participants cycle 175 km over seven Dolomite passes and toward the finish line in Pedraces. The race has since grown into one of the most recognized and sought-after cyclosportives in the world; in 2019, the Maratona received over 31,600 applications, from which a total of 9,000 lucky entrants from 72 different nations obtained their place on the start line. In addition to the Maratona, Alta Badia hosts other annual road cycling events with roads fully closed to traffic, including the Sellaronda Bike Day (which sees 23,000 riders explore four mountain passes) and the Dolomites Bike Day (with 108 km of routes and five mountain passes). Some of the key elements of Alta Badia’s strategy to become the best summer cycling destination in the world include: holiday offers dedicated to cyclists (including bike-friendly hotels), cycling schools, guided tours and kids’ races, as well as recognized Italian bike brands as key partners. Since hosting the 2008 UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships, the region of Val di Sole has hosted and continues to host a variety of UCI mountain bike events (World Cups and World Championships). Sergio Battistini (from Dolomeet HUB and race director of the Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup) shared practical recommendations on how to become a bike-friendly destination. Key messages included focusing on creating a spectacular and memorable product—with cycling events at its

core; targeting different experiences for different types of bike users; using the winter ski season to promote the summer appeal of a mountain resort; and creating a bike culture among the younger generations. With over 25,000 people attending the Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup event every year, the event represents a key milestone to market the numerous tourism offers to a global audience.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH

WITH signposted cycling routes, challenging and panoramic mountain passes, and adventurous alpine and valley roads, the Swiss region of Valais has great potential to develop into a well-known cycling destination like the Dolomites. Traveling by bike is one of the best ways to experience the Valais, both for leisure riders, mountain bikers, road racers and gravel riders. While skiing currently still steals the spotlight in terms of regional tourism, all roundtable participants agreed that cycling offers great potential to increase the area’s international exposure. Events such as the Tour des Stations—which takes the most courageous riders through 220 km of mountainous roads, with 7,400 meters of climbing—are thus working to become the annual “product” that the Maratona dles Dolomites has become. In addition to hosting three Tour de France stage finishes (Crans-Montana in 1984, Verbier in 2009, and the Émosson Dam in 2016), all eyes will be on Aigle and Martigny in 2020 when the two cities host the 2020 UCI Road World Championships. The key lessons shared by the Dolomites representatives thus provided practical food for thought to fully maximize the impact of such an international event on the economic, social and tourism development of this Swiss region. UCI News

INTENSE HEAT Brazil’s Priscilla Stevaux

(from left), Canada’s Daina Tuchscherer and Drew Mechielsen, and Colombia’s Mariana Pajon compete in the women’s cycling bmx heat at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, recently. AP

JENNY NE GIVES UP T

A WIDER Alpine Cycling Festival inspires bikers of all ages.

In an emotional interview directly after the victory, the Swedish racer described this step in her personal journey as coming

“full circle” and implored viewers to “never give up”—powerful words from the heart of someone who has been to some dark depths and, seemingly, has just announced her return to the very top.

HREE years after becoming Olympic Champion at the age of 22—nearly two years after taking the painful, but clearly necessary decision to take time out of the sport she loves, and a little over one year since a tentative return to competitive racing—Jenny Rissveds found herself back on top of the world, at least in terms of her result at the Olympic Distance UCI World Cup race. At the Lenzerheide XCO race in Switzerland, the Swedish rider powered away on the last lap, to take a winning margin of 25 seconds from Anne Terpstra—and well over two minutes from overall UCI World Cup leading duo of Jolanda Neff and Kate Courtney. In an emotional interview directly after the victory, the Swedish racer described this step in her personal journey as coming “full circle” and implored viewers to “never give up”— powerful words from the heart of someone who has been to some dark depths and, seemingly, has just announced her return to the very top. Back in 2017, while her sporting career looked brilliant, things quickly went wrong for Jenny. A significant family bereavement triggered a depression, that became exacerbated by the pressure of competition and, in turn, led to a severe eating disorder. Jenny had no option but to leave the sport, break from her successful team and focus on recovery. No matter what we do as a career, what country we are from or at what level we perform, none of us are immune from mental-health issues. Many sports worldwide, including across different disciplines of professional cycling, have witnessed examples of their brightest talents facing “the black dog.” When it bites, we all need help.

Debates over motorpacing spill over fro

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Elevate-KHS protests the penalty, saying its actions to get James Piccoli back to the caravan are not out of the ordinary or extreme, and not deserving of a penalty.

HE International Cycling Union (UCI) commissaires at the Tour of Utah denied the protest Elevate-KHS filed over the 20-second time penalty given to James Piccoli for motorpacing behind his team car to regain the race caravan after suffering a puncture inside 10 kilometers to go. Piccoli, who was in yellow at the time, lost the jersey to Lawson Craddock (EF Education First) by six seconds on the stage and sat second overall until the commissaires added a 20-second penalty, knocking him to 13th at 26 seconds back. After puncturing, Piccoli motorpaced behind the ElevateKHS vehicle to the back of the caravan, where Team Manager Paul Abram dropped him off to work his way back to the field. Piccoli regained the field before the finish, but he was unable to cover a late attack from Craddock. Elevate-KHS protested the penalty, saying their actions to get Piccoli back to the caravan were not out of the ordinary or

extreme, and not deserving of a penalty. Kurt Sauer, president of the Commissaires Panel, told Abrams the panel denied the protest because Piccoli clearly violated the rules. “The rule is pretty clear about pacing, and the video you sent me actually reinforced even stronger with the panel that the riders were, in fact, pacing very closely,” Sauer told Abrams during a meeting in the team parking lot before the start of Stage 2 in Brigham City. “Think about it,” Sauer said. “The yellow jersey went through the finish line about a centimeter off the bumper of a team car. Think of the optics of that.” Abrams responded that he did not care about the “optics” involved, rather he was concerned about the consistency of the UCI judge’s rulings. “I got about 10 responses from [other team] directors last

irror CYCLING

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph | Saturday, August 24, 2019

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Lutsenko: I believe I can win world championships

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STANA’S Alexey Lutsenko issued a statement of intent ahead of next month’s UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire with a dramatic final-day victory at the Arctic Race of Norway on Sunday. The Kazakh champion toppled Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic) in a nail-biting battle on the finishing circuit in Narvik that came down to bonus seconds. Lutsenko had built his victory by making a 33-rider split on the frenetic rolling opening stage on the Lofoten islands and then limiting his losses to Barguil on the short-but-steep Storheia summit finish on Saturday, before snatching it at the very last. The Norway parcours, Lutsenko noted, bears a lot of similarities to the terrain on which he’ll be

NEVER P! We are not inside Rissveds’s head, we cannot truly know what she has been through or how she is, but she wants her experience to help others, and has shared her thoughts at various steps on her journey. Here are some of the steps in her comeback: In July 2018, after more than a year away from competition and outside of structured training, Jenny entered and won the Swedish National Championships. This appears to have been an important hook for her building her recovery, and set a trail for her return to regular racing in 2019. Early this year, Rissveds set up her own team—Team31. The name is significant: it refers to the 31st article of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The new team debuted in late April at Klippingracet in the Swedish XCO Cup, and with it came a victory for Jenny. A big step. And a bigger one was to follow. Rissveds was entered for the first round of the 2019 MercedesBenz UCI World Cup in Albstadt, Germany, but did not start. It was the following week, in late May at Nove Mesto na Morave (Czech Republic) that she raced her first UCI World Cup in almost two years. On paper, she finished 33rd but the real result is that she proved she could deal with a return to her workplace. “Since I decided to come back to cycling, a little more than a year ago, I’ve been struggling with my self-confidence. During the last six months I’ve had serious doubts about coming back to the same psychological and physical level as I have experienced in the past,” she said. “I fought down my own demons and I can’t even describe the feeling of winning that fight. I’m pretty sure though, it wasn’t the last fight as the inner demons seem to visit all of

us now and then.... Never let them win. From now on I know it is worth it. All of it,” she added. And a week later, racing at Les Gets, France, she was right in the battle, with a nine place finish. “We just pulled off two World Cup weekends in a row. And you know what? I’m already looking forward to the next trip and the next competition,” she said. “I never thought I would say that as I’m normally a very homesick person.... For me to actually enjoy racing is a very big step.” On July 20, Jenny returned to the Swedish Nationals, beating the field by four minutes at Östersund. And on to the Val di Sole (Italy) UCI World Cup on August 2 where Rissveds took third, sharing the podium with Pauline

regardless of whether people saw it or not, my referee saw it, and it is clearly a violation of the rule. The rule I have is actually relatively inflexible if you want to take a look at it. You got the minimum penalty possible.” Abrams again asked for consistency from the officiating. “As long as it’s standard across the whole entire race every single day and it’s completely fair on every single race, I have no problem,” The Elevate-KHS manager said. Sauer countered that he cannot control what happens at other UCI races. “What I’m telling you is this is how I’m interpreting this rule, and it’s based on the guidance I get from the UCI,” Sauer said. “Especially in the last 10k of a race. The rules say especially of the last 10k.” Abrams used the example of the UCI jury’s decision at the Tour of California to allow Tejay van Garderen (EF Education

door Vlaanderen, fourth at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and seventh at Strade Bianche in recent years. Asked if he believed he could become world champion next month, he simply said: “For sure. For sure.” Lutsenko will not go to Yorkshire to recon the course before Worlds week, nor will he race the Tour of Britain. Instead, he’ll keep his foot on the gas, following a July spent at the Tour de France, with a two-week altitude camp planned to hone his condition. “Tomorrow I’ll go home and rest for one week, then I’ll be back racing. I’ll do the Deutschland Tour [August 29-September 1], before going to altitude for a two-week training camp for the world championships,” he said. “Before going to Yorkshire I’ll do a couple of one-day Classics in Italy, at which point hopefully the legs will be in top condition.” Cyclingnews

Arctic Race of Norway winner Alexey Lutsenko says that Yorkshire course suits him.

‘His victories taught us to be courageous, his defeats taught us to never give up’

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OME 2,000 people attended Felice Gimondi’s funeral on Tuesday, with many following the ceremony from outside the packed church in the central of his hometown of Paladina near Bergamo. The 76-year-old Gimondi died of a heart attack while swimming in the sea off the coast of Giardini Naxos in Sicily, southern Italy, while on holiday. He was due to be cremated after the public funeral. Gimondi was one of only seven men to win all three Grand Tours during their career. He won the 1965 Tour de France as a 22-year-old neo-pro, won the Giro d’Italia three times in 1965, 1967 and then in 1976, defeating Eddy Merckx at 34 and winning the penultimate stage in Bergamo, and also won the 1968 Vuelta a España. Gimondi was known for his tenaciousness in the face of Merckx’s dominance in the late 60s and early 70s but the two became friends, with Merckx in tears when he was told of Gimondi’s death. He was reportedly too saddened to attend the funeral but promised to visit Gimondi’s widow and family very soon. Many of Gimondi’s former teammates and rivals were at the funeral, as were the riders he inspired during his career, including his longtime domestique and then team manager Giancarlo Ferretti, current Italian team manager Davide Cassani, Francesco Moser, Giuseppe Saronni and fellow Bergamo-born riders Ivan Gotti, Paolo Savoldelli

Jenny Rissveds wants her experience to help others.

rom California with Piccoli’s penalty night, and they all said, ‘We would have done exactly the same thing,”’ Abrams told Sauer. “I never overtook another car. I understand your concern with optics. My concern is with clarity of the rules. If you look at California this year, a very similar thing happened, and a very different ruling was made,” Abrams said. “I would just like there to be a very clear understanding if one race is one set of officials, and then we come to a different race and there’s a different group of officials and a different set of rules. So I would just like some parity and not have it feel like it’s dependent on optics.” Sauer replied that “optics” involved were Piccoli’s time on camera while motorpacing and riding through the start/finish line on his team car’s bumper. “What I’m saying to you is that from an optics point of view, it’s clearly recorded and people would see it,” Sauer said. “But

racing at the Worlds in Yorkshire in a bid for the rainbow jersey on September 29. As such, his ambitions are high. “I think Yorkshire will be a really good Worlds for me,” Lutsenko told reporters in Narvik after raising the trophy. “It will be a similar parcours to here—up and down all the time. “I’m going to do the maximum I can to go there and try to win. I’m preparing 100 percent, and this was a good first step.” Lutsenko has had a fine season so far. There was no stage win at the Tour de France but the Norway victory is his eighth of the year, following three stages and the overall at the Tour of Oman, a stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, and the road race-time trial double at the Kazakh national championships. At 26, he is growing in stature and confidence. When it comes to one-day racing, he has finished third at Dwars

Former world champions Felice Gimondi (left) and Eddy Merckx pose for photographers before the start of the presentation of the 2006 edition of the Giro d’ Italia. AP

Ferrand-Prévot and Jolanda Neff, after fighting from the back of the pack. Then the return to Lenzeheide last weekend, and victory. “Two years ago, I didn’t want to be alive. I just want to say that it is possible. Never give up. Like Pauline [Ferrand-Prévot] said last week when she won her first World Cup in a very long time, ‘never give up,’ and I just want to say never give up. Never,” Rissveds said. “In Swedish we say the circle is complete. Two years ago, I won this World Cup and I won today. It’s such a journey. I can’t believe what journey I’ve been through. The circle is complete again,” she added. UCI News First) to keep yellow despite crashing outside the 3-km line and motorpacing behind his team car to regain the bunch. “If you look at California this year, a very similar thing happened with a very different ruling,” Abrams said. “Tejay was behind his car for multiple kilometers in the last 10 kms, and nothing happened.” Sauer assured Abrams that if a similar thing happened this week in Utah, it would result in a similar penalty as Piccoli. “I wasn’t at California, but I can tell you if that happens at the next race or the last race, that doesn’t have anything to do with this race,” he said. In a last gasp at persuasion, Abrams repeated that he didn’t pass any other team cars with Piccoli on his wheel, and he didn’t advance him into the bunch. “I understand that,” Sauer said. “If you had done that the penalty would have been worse.” Abrams closed with a simple declarative statement. “I think every director in my case would have done the exact same thing,” he said.

and Gibi Baronchelli. Gimondi’s family agreed to the broadcasting of the funeral on Italian television after huge public out pouring of emotions and memories of Gimondi’s career and life. “Today we need to recall the life of a champion and of a human being, that was always guided by the values of family and hard work. Thanks to his victories and his defeats, he helped us to never give in,” the Gimondi family priest Mansueto Callioni said during the funeral. “His victories taught us to be courageous, his defeats taught us to never give up because you can’t always win.” Gimondi raced for Bianchi for much of his career and was linked to the Italian bike brand for the rest of his life as manager of the mountain bike team and other initiatives. In recent years Gimondi has ridden a number of Eroica-style events with his daughter Norma. “In Felice, the whole cycling World lost a great man, a good and loyal person. We at Bianchi owe him a special gratitude for everything he did over the years for the success and prestige of our brand,” an emotional Bianchi President Salvatore Grimaldi said. “He was an extraordinary man and champion, but he always remained humble and relatable. That’s why he was so unanimously loved, and what made him even greater after his career ended.” Cyclingnews

The directors of Cyclingnews spoke with at the start of Stage 2 said it didn’t appear to believe Elevate-KHS and Piccoli did anything out of the ordinary. Most of all, they appealed for consistency among the UCI jurys’ rulings from race to race and situation to situation. “They motorpaced three guys, not just one guy,” said Wildlife Generation Manager Danny van Haute. “But is it normal. Again, every race is different. Every official is different, and that’s been my complaint for the last 10 years. Every time we go to a race there are different officials, and every official has a different opinion. And so we just need to find that out at the beginning of the race. And now I know they’re going to call it pretty strictly here at the Tour of Utah.” Van Haute said team directors and managers just want consistency from race to race. “And from team to team,” he added. “Paul had a good point. Sometimes it seems like there are teams where they let things go by, and then the other teams they don’t. We’re all really good friends with the officials. We know them. We

just want a little consistency. I think that’s in every sport. We just need consistency. That’s all.” Rally UHC Director Pat McCarty said he had full confidence Abrams and Piccoli did everything correctly, but he said the penalty was still a tough situation. “As a former rider and now director, I feel for those guys,” McCarty said. “That’s a bad way to lose time. I didn’t see exactly how Paul handled it, but I imagine he did everything within the norms. Nothing crazy. No big bottle swings. I imagine it was as on the up-and-up as any other director would have done for their guy in the yellow jersey.” But McCarty said he can also understand the officials’ perspective. “They’ve made it very, very clear to teams at every race and every directors’ meeting, that there are two things, littering and the image of cycling where people are hanging on the cars, drafting, those things are going to be cut out and it’s going to be done with heavy, heavy fines. And they’ve told us that. Cyclingnews

Sports BusinessMirror

A8 Saturday, August 24, 2019

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph • Editor: Jun Lomibao

THE US’s Khris Middleton in action during their exhibition game against Australia in Melbourne. AP

EXPECT Jheck Gionela to rise to the occasion for Cignal.

BusinessMirror

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

Viu, Wattpad announce collaboration PRIMETIME

DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com

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AN fiction is not something to be dismissed. Anna Todd wrote A�ter on Wattpad and it became an international sensation, with a billion reads on the site before becoming a best-selling book and a hit film. The movie opened No. 1 in 17 countries, going on to become the highest-grossing independent film so far for 2019. It also won three Teen Choice Awards. A�ter started out as a story inspired by One Direction with the lead character patterned after Harry Styles. So why am I talking about fan fiction? It is because Wattpad, the global multi-platform company for original stories, and Viu, a leading pan-regional OTT video service from PCCW Media Group, have announced a collaboration to develop Viu Original series and film projects based on Wattpad stories. Via the collaboration, Viu will work with Wattpad to develop youth-oriented shows across its markets. The two companies will leverage Wattpad’s Story DNA Machine Learning technology to identify exceptional stories and guide the development process. Wattpad has become the go-to place for global entertainment companies to find hit projects for young adult audiences. I do know that one or two entertainment companies have partnerships with Wattpad. Viu operates across 17 markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, India and South Africa, with subscribers spending an average 1.2 to 1.8 hours daily on the platform. Wattpad, on the other hand, has a global community of 80 million users, including more than 22 million users across the Asia Pacific region

IPC EARNS SALESFORCE GOLD CONSULTING PARTNER STATUS

IPC (IP Converge Data Services Inc., www.ipc.ph) has been appointed as a Gold Consulting Partner of Salesforce, an international cloud-based software company and the world’s No. 1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform. This recognition enables IPC to not only deliver Salesforce licenses but also provide a host of professional services that simple resellers may not be able to offer. As the first and longest-running Salesforce partner in the Philippines, IPC cements its position as the country’s foremost authority in Salesforce CRM deployment and adoption. With its Gold Consulting Partner status, IPC’s professional services now include Implementation/Integration, Migration of Data, User Adoption, and Change Management, alongside the Salesforce complete suite—Sales, Service and Marketing Clouds and Salesforce Platform—the first Salesforce partner in the country to do so. “As one of the few companies in the country to achieve such status, IPC is inspired to lead the next phase of innovation and help our clients connect with their customers in entirely new ways. We have always provided holistic IT services, but this enhanced partner status further solidifies our expertise on Salesforce products and services to better help our clients navigate and grow their business,” said Niño Valmonte, IPC director for marketing and digital innovation. IPC is also the sole Salesforce Trailhead partner in the Philippines, allowing it to provide clients with product training and educational content. This partnership, coupled with years of expert experience, serves as IPC’s badge of excellence that guarantees clients of its competence in providing Salesforce services.

IPC COO David de Leon during a recently held IPC event featuring Salesforce.

who spend billions of minutes on the platform every month. Ninety percent of Wattpad’s users are Gen Z and millennials. “All over the world, millions of young people spend billions of minutes reading and writing every genre imaginable on Wattpad. We will continue to invest in original content to develop a sustainable ecosystem with local creators and providing them with a platform for their content. Wattpad has its finger on the pulse of youth culture, and with this collaboration we are able to enable the youth to connect global audiences on Viu’s engaged base,” said Helen Sou, senior vice president for digital media, PCCW Media Group. “Gen Z and millennials are zealous consumers of online content. We know that young Viu-ers are not only listening to pop music and watching teen drama, they are also making their own stories and reading other young writers’ stories on Wattpad. So we collaborate with Wattpad to transform these stories that they love into another format not only to reach audiences who primarily consume video content but also to celebrate the stories that the youth create,” said Ari Kader-Cu, country manager for Viu Philippines. “Viu is a leader in bringing diverse, high-quality entertainment to audiences, while also creating new models for people to experience great storytelling. Viu knows what people love to watch, and its forwardlooking approach is what makes it an ideal partner for Wattpad. We are thrilled to work with Viu to bring more Wattpad stories to screens around the world,” said Allen Lau, chief executive officer and cofounder of Wattpad. Viu has been expanding its originals output, with successful productions such as adaptation of global phenomenon The Bridge, which is available on HBO Asia’s channels and services throughout Asia; and experimental regional format No Sleep, No FOMO, the success of which has resulted in a new tie-up with Discovery to reach a wider audience. Viu plans to have over 80 scripted and nonscripted Viu Original titles this year. Viu is the latest international entertainment company to strike a deal with Wattpad. Some of Wattpad’s other partners include Sony Pictures Television, Mediacorp and Huayi Brothers Korea. ■

FITBIT COLLABORATES WITH SINGAPORE’S HEALTH PROMOTION BOARD WELLNESS-FOCUSED tech brand Fitbit has announced it will be collaborating with Singapore’s Health Promotion Board (HPB) on a healthy population project in support of Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. The HPB is Singapore’s government agency that implements policy and programs to improve the nation’s health. This is Fitbit’s first major integration of a digital health platform and wearables into a national public health program globally. The initiative, named Live Healthy SG, was uniquely designed for Singapore by Fitbit to harness technology, behavior insights and analytics to help Singaporeans get healthier through meaningful and sustained behavior change. Live Healthy SG will engage people of all ages and levels of health using Fitbit devices and its new Premium service, which is launching to consumers in select markets around the world this fall. Live Healthy SG builds on Singapore’s Smart Nation efforts to transform key sectors of society, including health care, through innovative technology. As one of the healthiest countries in the world, Singapore is recognized globally for its efficient health-care system—comprised of high-quality health services, world-class infrastructure and skilled health-care talent. But like many nations, the country is facing the rise of chronic conditions, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Fitbit was identified through a competitive call for collaboration and various levels of competitive evaluation. The initiative takes on the unique challenge of using its technology to help improve population health, based on the company’s ability to drive behavior change and health outcomes.

“The area of population health presents an exciting opportunity for innovation. Increasingly, the Health Promotion Board has leveraged emerging technologies, as well as behavior insights in the design of our programs, such as the National Steps Challenge—a nationwide program to keep active, to encourage Singaporeans to adopt healthy living and to affect behavior change. HPB will continue to embark on such nationwide programs to encourage and support Singaporeans in keeping active, adopting healthy living and affecting behavior change,” said Zee Yoong Kang, CEO, Health Promotion Board. Live Healthy SG will leverage the full Fitbit ecosystem of wearable devices, software and services, including programs, guidance and individual oneto-one health coaching that will be offered through its new Premium service. Participants will receive a dynamic and personalized experience, helping to motivate them to adopt healthier habits and achieve better outcomes in the areas of physical activity, sleep, nutrition and emotional well-being. “At Fitbit, our focus has always been on making health more accessible and achievable by giving people fun, simple and innovative technology—and this focus has driven results for millions around the world,” said James Park, cofounder and CEO of Fitbit. “Our partnership with the Singapore Health Promotion Board is a recognition of our work to date, and we are confident the powerful combination of our devices, software and services will motivate Singaporeans to improve their health, while also tangibly helping a nation to improve health at scale. We commend Singapore for its leadership and look forward to seeing other countries follow a similar blueprint to improve the health of their people.”

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Will the AI jobs revolution bring about human revolt, too? THE rise of artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate jobs once considered impossible to automate. One series of papers by Oxford researchers ranks jobs by their estimated susceptibility to automation. Among those most rated likely to vanish—because they involve work that AI can increasingly accomplish less expensively—are real-estate brokers, insurance claims adjusters and sports referees. Could anything good come of mass unemployment? History tells us that when technology squeezes people out of jobs, they revolt. Industrialization in 19th-century England, for example, gave rise to Luddite activism. Unfortunately, history also suggests that protests of the marginalized don’t solve the underlying problem. The British Army suppressed the Luddites; the government passed laws to protect factory equipment and industrialization marched on. As Marx went on to theorize, in a capitalist society, the government is co-opted by the wealthy classes. What happens, though, when that skilled upper class is itself put out of a job? That’s the question that mass AI-based unemployment would pose. What would happen when well-educated lawyers, journalists, bureaucrats, corporate managers and other creative-class knowledge workers can’t find work? Could the rise of AI lead to a white-collar rebellion?

EXTREMELY CAPABLE AI

WHEN I was a PhD student in the mid-1990s working in a subfield of AI known as computer vision—the automated processing of imagery—I used to think that the grand challenge of the field was to develop software that could take an arbitrary image and output a text description of it. At the time, computers couldn’t tell if a photo contained a human face or a bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was a problem I didn’t think I would live to see solved. Just two decades later, a combination of advances in hardware, big data, parallel processing and neural networks have made impressive headway. Not only are AI systems increasingly able to describe image content, they are gaining significant footholds in translating between languages, grading essays and composing music. Modern AI systems are already conducting financial analysis, writing news articles and identifying legal precedents. Old ideas that computers can’t do certain human things— be creative, express emotion, empathize—are being tossed out one by one. A visceral way to feel AI’s looming approach to human intelligence is to view the output from Google’s DeepDream, in which a trained neural network run in reverse produces eerie, dream-like images that seem genuinely creative and uncomfortably human. It’s hard to overstate what this and related advances portend. Even technologists who made fortunes paving the way for the AI future have begun to sound an alarm. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, whose self-driving car technology includes plenty of AI, has called AI humanity’s “biggest existential threat.” Bill Gates seems to think the crisis is selfevident, saying he doesn’t “understand why some people are not concerned.” And if futurist Ray Kurzweil is right, by 2045, computer intelligence will match or exceed human abilities in every way—what he calls the “singularity.”

PROFESSIONALS PLOTTING REVOLUTION

BUT the job apocalypse might have a silver lining. The Luddites of the 1800s were unsuccessful for a number of reasons: They were politically marginal. They were not wellorganized. They misdiagnosed the problem as being either about the technology or their employers. And, at least, in some tellings, they had little public support. In contrast, those involved in a white-collar movement would have strong ties to influential people. They would organize effectively. They would understand the larger problem as an imperfect economic system whose pathologies technology merely amplifies. And, they would have the rhetorical skills to draw the sympathy of the public— who are likely to be themselves jobless, too. Unlike other worker revolts, a white-collar rebellion could move the levers of power so as to uproot the underlying problem: a politico-economic system that concentrates wealth, increases inequality, protects corporations from public accountability, and fails to separate wealth and state. I expect the AI job takeover to pose a problem primarily because its benefits will go to the few who own the technology, while all the harm will fall on the rest of us. It is a political problem, not a technological one. In my view, technology amplifies the inequities of capitalism. What AI will do is to turn nearly everyone into displaced workers, even some who were previously among the elite. AP

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SAP POSTS POSITIVE Q2 GROWTH DUE TO STRONG CLOUD, SOFTWARE, OTHER BUSINESSES BY RODERICK L. ABAD Contributor AS more and more organizations shift to digitization, network security solutions provider SAP reported a double-digit growth in total revenue to €6.63 billion (International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS) in the second quarter of 2019, or 11 percent (non-IFRS) and 8 percent (non-IFRS at constant currencies) higher than the same period a year ago, on the back of its strong cloud, software and other business portfolios. “I am pleased that our operational excellence measures are already showing effect. Our nonIFRS operating profit and margin performance is remarkable considering the margin headwinds from our latest acquisition and the recent short-term trade-related uncertainty in Asia that impacted our software revenue performance in the region,” said Luka Mucic, chief financial officer of SAP. During the period ended on June 30, new cloud bookings increased by 17 percent to €494 million (15 percent at constant currencies). Excluding Infrastructure-as-a-Service, new cloud bookings rose by 27 percent. This is because the company focuses on higher-margin IaaS opportunities in relation to its strategy of closely partnering with the hyperscale IaaS providers. Cloud revenue hiked 40 percent year-on-year (YoY) to €1.69 billion (IFRS), up 40 percent (non-IFRS) and 35 percent (non-IFRS at constant currencies). The firm’s topline on software licenses, though, declined 5 percent YoY to €948 million (IFRS), down 5 percent YoY (non-IFRS) and 6 percent YoY (non-IFRS at constant currencies). This could be attributed to the latest macro uncertainties, particularly in Asia. New cloud and software order entry was up 3 percent (1 percent at constant currencies) YoY, but up 9 percent excluding IaaS. Cloud and software revenue grew 11 percent yearon-year to €5.49 billion (IFRS), or more than 11 percent (non-IFRS) and 8 percent (non-IFRS at constant currencies). The share of more predictable revenue surged by 3 percentage points YoY to 69 percent in Q2. SAP’s operating profit in the second quarter was mainly due to disciplined hiring, as well as continued efficiency gains in its cloud business. As expected, the IFRS operating profit in Q2 was impacted by higher acquisition-related charges, more share-based compensation due to the Qualtrics acquisition and the strong SAP share price increase over the second quarter, and additional restructuring charges. Operating profit declined 21 percent YoY to €0.83 billion (IFRS), up 11 percent (non-IFRS) and up 8 percent (non-IFRS at constant currencies). “SAP delivered double digit growth in total revenue, cloud revenue and non-IFRS operating income. Qualtrics is growing fast as the global standard in the Experience Management category. As shown by our rising cloud gross margins, we are progressing nicely on our ambition to be the Best-Run SAP. With XM driving the CEO digital transformation agenda, we resolutely reaffirm our full year guidance,” said Bill McDermott, chief executive officer of SAP. “With continued strong customer demand and our tight focus on profitability, we remain as confident in our 2019 outlook as we are in our midterm ambition,” added Mucic. Leading enterprise application software company SAP helps organizations of all sizes and in all industries run at their best. In fact, 77 percent of the world’s transaction revenue touches on its system. The firm’s end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 437,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously and make a difference. In the Philippines, SAP makes the digital transformation journeys of the country’s top innovating companies. These include JG Summit Holdings Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc., to name a few.

Privacy questions as humans reviewed user audio at Facebook BY MAE ANDERSON & RACHEL LERMAN The Associated Press

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EW YORK—Facebook has paid contractors to transcribe audio clips from users of its Messenger service, raising privacy concerns for a company with a history of privacy lapses. The practice was, until recently, common in the tech industry. Companies say the use of humans helps improve their services. But users aren’t typically aware that humans and not just computers are reviewing audio. Transcriptions done by humans raise bigger concerns because of the potential of rogue employees or contractors leaking details. The practice at Google emerged after some of its Dutch language audio snippets were leaked. More than 1,000 recordings were obtained by Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS, which noted that some contained sensitive personal conversations—as well as information that identified the person speaking. “We feel we have some control over machines,” said Jamie Winterton, director of strategy at Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative. “You have no control over humans that way. There’s no way once a human knows something to drag that piece of data to the recycling bin.” Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy privacy-advocacy group, said it’s bad enough that Facebook uses artificial intelligence as part of its data-monitoring activities. He said the use of humans as well is “even more

alarming.” Tim Bajarin, tech columnist and president of Creative Strategies, said it’s a bigger problem when humans use the information beyond its intended purpose. Facebook said audio snippets reviewed by contractors were masked so as not to reveal anyone’s identity. It said it stopped the practice a week ago. The development was reported earlier by Bloomberg. Google said it suspended doing this worldwide while it investigates the Dutch leaks. Apple has also suspended its use of humans for the Siri digital assistant, though it plans to bring them back after seeking explicit permission from users. Amazon said it still uses humans, but users can decline, or opt out, of the human transcriptions. A report from tech news site Motherboard last week said Microsoft also uses human transcribers with some Skype conversations and commands spoken to Microsoft’s digital assistant, Cortana. Microsoft said in a statement that it has safeguards such as stripping identifying data and requiring nondisclosure agreements with contractors and their employees. Yet, details leaked to Motherboard. After the Motherboard report, Microsoft said it “could do a better job” explaining that humans listen to the conversations. It updated its frequently asked questions for Skype to say that using the translation service “may include transcription of audio recordings by Microsoft employees and vendors.” It makes sense to use human transcribers to train artificial-intelligence systems, Winterton said. But the issue is that companies are leading people to believe that only machines are listening to audio, causing miscommunication and distrust, she said.

“Communicating to users through your privacy policy is legal but not ethical,” she said. The companies’ privacy policies—usually long, dense documents—often permit the use of customer data to improve products and services, but the language can be opaque. “We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content, and message or communicate with others,” Facebook’s data-use policy reads . It does not mention audio or voice specifically or using transcribers. Bajarin said tech companies need to use multiple methods to refine artificial-intelligence software, as digital voice assistants and voice-to-text technology are still new. But he said being more clear about the human involvement is “the very least” companies could do. “They should be very clear on what their policies are and if consumer messages or whatever it is are going to be seen,” he said. “If humans are part of the process for analysis that needs to be stated, as well.” Irish data-protection regulators say they’re seeking more details from Facebook to assess compliance with European data regulations. The agency’s statement says it’s also had “ongoing engagement with Google, Apple and Microsoft” over the issue, though Amazon wasn’t mentioned. Facebook is already under scrutiny for a variety of other ways it has misused user data. It agreed to a $5-billion fine to settle a US Federal Trade Commission probe of its privacy practices. ■

Women-led law firm focuses on start-up, technology companies BASED in the Philippines, Ongcangco Ponce and Associates Law (OPA Law, www.opalaw.com.ph) is a full-service law firm with primary focus on start-ups and technology, investments, energy, franchising and corporate law. Led by young lawyers Atty. Kristine Claire Ongcangco and Atty. Kathrina May (Kamae) Revestir Ponce, both graduates of Ateneo de Manila University School of Law, OPA is dedicated to providing their clients with nothing but exceptional and personal legal service as they keep abreast of developments and modernization in the legal and technology landscape. Established in 2017, Claire and Kamae founded OPA before either of them turned 30 years old. For Kamae, her training days in a legal firm before starting OPA Law equipped her with the necessary knowledge and skills that would be proven useful in the field of litigation and corporate law. Meanwhile, for Claire, her vast experience in business and the IT industry gave her the confidence boost to bypass the traditional

career route of seeking employment in a legal firm. Together, both lawyers make a young but dynamic team that is prepared to face any legal and business challenge in this technological-driven world. “The state of the Philippine start-up scene is reaching new heights. As I attended the RISE Conference in Hong Kong, I am proud to see fellow Filipinos with promising start-ups,” said Claire. “We wanted to be at the forefront of innovation while helping support founders and tech ventures. At OPA, we specialize in helping them navigate the legalities of the investment landscape. We make sure that the advanced and cross-border nature of technology is aligned with the law.” Claire’s expertise comes from founding her own technology firm, Concept Machine, and from serving as a lecturer of IT Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University. Claire has also recently founded and launched her beauty-tech start-up, Parlon, which helps consumers discover the best salons and clinics for beauty and wellness.

ATTY. Kristine Claire Ongcangco (left) and Atty. Kathrina May Revestir Ponce

Law continues to be a heavily maledominated industry, with women making up only about 38 percent of the work force according to a recent survey in the US. Despite the Philippines’s continued rise in the ranks when it comes to global political and economic leadership for both genders, many firms are still traditionally led by men. Not the type to shy away from a

challenge, Claire and Kamae forged their path to the top of their field and are continuing to break into new heights. “We are starting to dip our toes into energy law. We are strong advocates of renewable energy and are thrilled to work with companies who share the same vision of promoting clean and sustainable energy security,” added Kamae.

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BRITAIN’S Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks to hospital patient Scarlett Gibbons, 5, during a visit to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, southwest England, on August 19. AP

Smart carrier billing now available for App Store, Apple Music, iTunes FILIPINOS now have an easier and more convenient way of buying all the apps and content they love as Smart (www.smart.com.ph) pioneers Carrier Billing for App Store, Apple Music and iTunes. With Smart carrier billing, which was launched on August 15, mobile users can conveniently charge their App Store, Apple Music and iTunes purchases across Apple devices to their Smart Prepaid load or Smart Postpaid bill—providing a safe, secure and versatile payment method to meet the Philippines’s growing demand for digital entertainment. This feature makes it easier for subscribers to enjoy all the apps they love, with one easy way to pay. “For the longest time, the need for a credit or debit card has kept many Filipinos from maximizing the full potential of their iOS devices. By introducing Smart Carrier Billing, we are eliminating this barrier and therefore, empowering our customers to truly embrace the digital lifestyle with easy access to millions of paid iOS apps and digital content at their fingertips,” said Oscar A. Reyes, SVP and head of individual consumer business. Signing up for Smart carrier billing takes only a few simple steps. Smart customers need to have a new or existing Apple ID, and select “Mobile Phone” as their payment method from their account settings on App Store, Apple Music and iTunes from their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac, or on iTunes from their PC. Once “Mobile Phone” has been selected, all future purchases with the customer’s Apple ID will be automatically charged as part of the monthly Smart Postpaid bill or directly deducted from their Smart Prepaid load—eliminating the need to use a credit card. The new payment option will be configured automatically and immediately allow for easy, one-tap purchasing from all Apple devices, including Apple TV and Apple Watch. This includes purchases of apps, music, movies, TV shows, as well as Apple Music subscriptions and iCloud storage. No personal information will be shared with any third parties, making carrier billing both simple and safe to set up and use.

UK to pressure social-media companies to fight anti-vax info

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BY DANICA KIRKA The Associated Press

ONDON—Britain’s government plans to call a summit of social-media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation about vaccines following a spike in measles cases. Although plans for such a gathering were still being worked out, Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed concern Monday at the rising incidence of measles. He said Britain had a great record in fighting the disease but things were suddenly “going in the wrong direction,” with 230 new measles cases in the first few months of this year. He said authorities need to address misleading information online about vaccinations. “I’m afraid people have been listening to that superstitious mumbo jumbo on the Internet, all that anti-vax stuff and thinking that the MMR vaccine is a bad idea,” Johnson said while visiting a hospital in southwestern England. “That’s wrong.” Social-media companies have struggled to combat fake news of all sorts, from political propaganda to bogus warnings about vaccines, such as MMR for measles, mumps and rubella. Though anti-vaccine sentiments have been around for as long as vaccines have existed, health experts worry that anti-vaccine propaganda can spread

more quickly on social media. That can push parents who are worried about vaccines toward refusing to inoculate their children against various diseases, leading to their comeback. Pinterest, a leading online repository of vaccine misinformation, took the seemingly drastic step in 2017 of blocking all searches for the term “vaccines.” Facebook, meanwhile, said in March that it would no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines and that it would reject ads that do this. But anti-vax information still slips through. That includes soundly debunked notions that vaccines cause autism or that mercury preservatives and other substances in them can harm people. Some companies, such as Twitter, don’t have policies against misinformation, so anti-vax propaganda wouldn’t be against their rules. But to counter such material, Twitter said US and UK users who search for information on vaccines get a government information site first from their respective countries. In the UK, this is the National Health Service. Of course, for people already distrustful of the government when it comes to health information, this might not do much. Experts say that besides combatting bad information, people need to be given science and evidence-based data they can trust and understand. Measles is highly infectious and health officials

say at least about 95 percent of the population must be immunized to prevent outbreaks. In May, Public Health England estimated that about 87 percent of children aged five had gotten both doses. According to the World Health Organization, there were more reported measles cases worldwide in the first six months of 2019 than in any year since 2006, “with outbreaks straining health care systems and leading to serious illness, disability and deaths.” The US has reported its highest number of measles cases in 25 years. Some British health officials welcomed Johnson’s proposal but said the country’s health service was already struggling to cope with existing demands. Helen Bedford, a professor at the Institute of Child Health at University College London, noted that numerous doctors’ clinics were closing and the number of health workers in the country had dropped significantly recently. “This is a system under pressure,” she said in a statement. Johnson set out plans to improve the UK’s vaccination rates, calling for health leaders to renew efforts to ensure that 95 percent of residents have had both doses of the MMR vaccine. The Department for Health will deliver a strategy to address the issue this fall and is expected to consider using technology to identify who may have missed a vaccination and to make booking appointments easier. ■

New digital platform links ‘tech-voc’ graduates with over 11,000 job orders BY RODERICK L. ABAD Contributor MORE than 11,000 employment opportunities are now open for Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) National Certificate (NC) holders in the country. These job orders are now listed on 911Tesda web site, www.911tesda.ph, which books services and additional registration from certified Tesda graduates who want to be part of the initiative. For this year alone, the partner digital/online service platforms (D/OSPs) projected that the demand for service providers can reach up to 11,425. They are positive that with the platform, the supply for this certified worker demand will be met. Prior to the program’s launch last July 30, Tesda and these D/OSPs started to open a registration and on-boarding initiative to help the NC holders in signing up to the 911Tesda pool and hiring previously

screened registrants. A total of 2,601 registrants have already enlisted and verified their NCs in the system as of July 26. Additionally, 171 NC holders were scouted by Region 3, 4A and National Capital Region (NCR) regional offices to register on July 31. Meanwhile, a total of 164 registrants were already confirmed for employment by the D/OSPs. 911Tesda was developed by Tesda, through its National Institute for Technical Education and Skills Development. It works as a free web-based linking program that seeks to give employment opportunities for certified graduates of technical vocational education and training (TVET), and deliver skill-service needs of individuals, households and enterprises. “We can see that 911Tesda was also developed to create a value chain for the country’s social, economic and political development,” said Tesda Secretary Isidro Lapeña, who led the kickoff of the 911Tesda

Program at the Tesda Covered Court within the Tesda Complex in Taguig City. Apart from providing job and/or livelihood after training, he envisions the program to help address poverty and criminality in the country, and facilitate ease of doing business. In line with the Republic Act 11032, Tesda aims to simplify the processes of extending quality TVET services to the Filipino people. The 911Tesda program is one of the banner projects launched under Lapeña’s directorship highlighting this directive. “It is a very good and effective project where everyone has access to get help from the government when needed,” he said, explaining how 911Tesda is like the 911 Emergency Hotline that responds to employment emergencies. “[It is also] a modern and vibrant way of delivering citizen-focused services of Tesda, matching and linking the TVET certified graduates with prospective employers and persons in need of services,” he added.

911Tesda services, such as aircon cleaning, carpentry, housekeeping, massage therapy and plumbing available in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija (Palayan City), Batangas, Rizal, Cavite and Laguna are brought by partner DOSPs who signed their memoranda of agreement with Tesda on July 5. All of these digital/online service platforms— FindWork Inc., Gawin Inc., Goodwork Solutions Inc., Remedium Inc. (Zennya), Teko Solutions Asia Inc., Urbia Household Errands Services, Mr. Butler Home Services, Helply.ph and LBP Service Corp., operate full time in the National Capital Region, but FindWork Inc. and LBP Service Corp. are present in Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Batangas, Rizal, Cavite and Laguna, and are headhunters that recruit workers for permanent employment. To widen the program’s coverage, Tesda aims to connect with more D/OSPs and startup companies in other areas of the country like General Santos City, Koronadal City and Davao City this month.

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

Alibaba Cloud extends integration with Fortinet Security Fabric ALIBABA Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, and Fortinet, a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cyber-security solutions, has announced the expansion of its Fortinet Security Fabric offerings and new automation capabilities for Alibaba Cloud to provide streamlined and consistent security for organizations with hybrid cloud infrastructures. The combination of Alibaba Cloud and the Fortinet Security Fabric provide organizations with the ability to extend security visibility and control from the data center to the cloud, and the ability to ensure that organizations employ consistent security policies no matter where their applications are deployed. By implementing the Fortinet Security Fabric on Alibaba Cloud, customers can apply consistent security policies throughout their hybrid infrastructures and can realize multilayer security protection and operational benefits for running applications on Alibaba Cloud. Sodexo and Fung Group are among the global customers leveraging Fortinet’s cloud native integration with Alibaba Cloud to secure its hybrid cloud environment. Sodexo is using Fortinet’s FortiGate-VM to deploy secure VPC on Alibaba Cloud, effectively aggregating and securing its globally distributed infrastructure. Fung Group is also taking advantage of the integration with the deployment of the FortiGate-VM on Alibaba Cloud, which enables consistent visibility and security management across its cloud environments. As organizations move workloads and applications to the cloud, the digital attack surface is expanding and making it harder to ensure robust, consistent security across clouds and data centers. Organizations are looking to take advantage of the agility and scalability that cloud environments offer without compromising security. Alibaba Cloud’s extended collaboration with Fortinet addresses this concern as it leverages Fortinet’s breadth of cloud security offerings that are part of the Fortinet Security Fabric. Additional benefits of this expanded partnership include: Native integration: Fortinet’s security solution will natively integrate with Alibaba Cloud for seamless integration with workloads running in Alibaba Cloud. Broad protection: The Fortinet Security Fabric for Alibaba Cloud includes a broad range of Fortinet security offerings which address a broad set of use cases, including protecting cloud workloads, securing hybrid cloud and cloud-based security management. Management and automation: With the expanded integration, Alibaba Cloud’s security functionalities can be managed through the Fortinet Security Management tools across both Alibaba Cloud and on-premises deployments to streamline security operations. “Fortinet is committed to helping customers make their journey to the cloud even more secure by integrating more tightly with Alibaba Cloud and supporting additional cloud security use cases. To further support resourceconstrained teams, this announcement is helping our joint customers automate additional security processes and more seamlessly integrate into their application life cycle,” John Maddison, executive vice president of Products and Solutions at Fortinet.

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Europe within China TECHNIVORE ED UY

whereiseduy@gmail.com

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E went to China and got a glimpse of Europe instead. Our recent trip to Shenzhen, China, had three highlights. First was the Huawei Developers Conference (HDC) where the HarmonyOS was announced. The next was our tour of the Huawei Production Facility and Huawei University in Dongguan, while the third will remain a secret—for now. It’s not everyday that you get a chance to tour the facilities of the second-biggest smartphone company in the world and see just how much effort they put into manufacturing and research and development. We went to one of their production facilities where Huawei devices are assembled and we were even required to wear lab gowns, which I think is more for the protection of the equipment. Did you know that a new P30 comes out of the assembly line every 28 seconds? Huawei facilities in Shenzhen and nearby Dongguan are massive, even by Chinese standards, and you’ll see a lot of signs pointing to a Huawei logo instead of a street name. I remember thinking why they were holding a big event like the HDC in a basketball center, only to find out that the Dongguan Basketball Center was actually even bigger than the Mall of Asia Arena. We stayed at the Amber Hotel for the first couple of days and it overlooked the Huawei Campus, a.k.a. the Ox Horn Campus, and the first time I saw it all I could think of was Hogwarts and Harry Potter. Huawei’s new campus is in Songshan Lake Dongguan, a city in China’s province of Guangdong. The city is just north of Shenzhen, where Huawei’s main headquarters are located. Its called the Ox Horn Campus because of the pointed shape of the site. In Chinese, the campus is called Xi Liu Bei Po, which translates to “leeward slope with streams and brooks.” Construction of the campus began in September 2014 and is worth 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion). It can house around 25,000 staff and covers 9 square kilometers (about 3.5 square miles) of land. The sprawling Huawei campus comprises various facilities for factories, business and employee housing. Unlike other tech companies which often boast of futuristic offices and architectural designs, Huawei decided to go for a more historical look, incorporating classic European architecture as the theme for their campus. The company said the theme represents the world’s classic landmarks and the accumulated wisdom and essence of humanity for hundreds of years, recording a history of failures and successes. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the size of the place and even easier to get lost in the magnificence of how each structure was meticulously built to resemble old European buildings. It’s like a theme park but without the rides (except for the train that goes around campus). It’s a testament to how much the company has grown since Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former People’s Liberation Army engineer, started the company in 1987 with just three staff members and the equivalent of £4,000, to becoming a $100-billion company. Huawei is the world’s biggest maker of

telecommunications equipment and the second-largest smartphone manufacturer, behind only Samsung. The campus is divided into 12 separate blocks or “towns.” Each section is modeled after various landmarks in Europe with historical significance including: 1. VERONA: The story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was set in Verona. This area of the campus was designed to bring about an atmosphere of the Italian saying “la belle vita” (a beautiful life). 2. CESKY KRUMLOVE: Named a Unesco world heritage site in 1992. It was inspired by the charm and rich history of Czech town of Krumlov, and this section was built to invigorate the senses. 3. FREIBURG: A historic town in Switzerland replicated to simulate the tranquility of Freiburg. 4. HEIDELBERG: The construction of this site draws on one of Germany’s most ancient universities embodying a vibrant mixture of tradition and modernity. 5. BURGUNDY: One of France’s most famous wine producing regions and one of Europe’s most historically and culturally rich regions. 6. BOLOGNA: This area features elegant renaissance pillars, colonnades and a Gothic church. Bologna is known for being one of Italy’s best places to live in, with a strong industrial tradition and highly developed welfare systems. 7. WINDERMERE: This area of the campus draws on the style of the Lake District, England’s largest National Park, and it provides a dreamy, refreshing atmosphere. 8. LUXEMBOURG: One of the greatest capitalist trading nations despite being a small country, the traits of resilience and success informed the construction of this site. 9. BRUGES: Known to be one of Belgium’s oldest and most beautiful cities, the standout attractions of this site are the bell tower and the arched stone bridges which create a human environment in harmony with its natural surroundings. 10. OXFORD: A place for the pursuit of excellence, this block inspires the quest for deeper insights and better technology. 11. GRENADA: Draws on Spanish and Arabic styles for a unique amalgam of East and West, signifying a union of different cultures. 12. PARIS: This area takes its style from emblematic Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, and is home to Huawei’s R&D teams. One of the biggest features of the campus is the massive castle that sits over a man-made lake. This Huawei castle was inspired the Heidelberg Castle in Germany. There’s also a replica on campus of the Freedom Bridge in Budapest, Hungary. There’s also an area where you can see black swans that apparently represent “non-complacency within the corporate culture.” To get employees and guests like us around the massive campus and between the different towns, Huawei has its own bright red train that circles the campus. Brenda, our guide, said it takes 22 minutes to do one complete lap of the place by tram. We had lunch at one of their exclusive cafeterias, and again unlike the “cafeteria” I had in mind, the place was an entire building with rows of restaurants, much like what we see in the mall, with various dining options from casual to fine dining and private rooms. Sadly we weren’t able to explore inside the buildings as there were a lot of activities happening all over campus with the ongoing Huawei Developers Conference. But hopefully, we would get a chance the next time.

EMUI 10: ENABLING SMART LIFE IN ALL SCENARIOS

ALONG side HarmonyOS, Huawei also showcased the next evolution in its UI as it released the EMUI 10. Dr. Wang Chenglu, president of the Software Engineering

Department at Huawei Consumer Business Group, said that EMUI 10 is pioneering distributed technology applications for providing an all-scenario experience. Its development has enabled scenario-specific applications, such as audio and video calls in all scenarios, business tasks across devices, and smart vehicle-mounted devices. In the same stroke, one-time development for multi-device deployment can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and provide users with an all-scenario smart experience. EMUI 10 brings three updates: UX design, an all-scenario ultimate experience and a new standard of smooth operation. EMUI 10 adds adaptive dark mode, which means it can “force” other apps to switch to dark mode to bring more visual comfort. The dark mode optimizes both color contrast between texts and dark backgrounds, as well as the color of texts and system icons, and the end result ensures visual consistency, comfort and legibility. So far, the visual changes in EMUI 10 aren’t too different from the current version but there are subtle changes that you’ll notice the more you use it. There are now several choices for AlwaysOnDisplay (AOD) which also changes color to reflect the time of the day. The quick settings dropdown has also been tweaked with a new black gradient effect and larger icons. Huawei’s gesture navigation is still here, and works the same as before but the task switching animation is a bit snappier now, with a more appropriate “bounce”. Huawei will also be using the Morandi color gradient throughout the EMUI interface, as well as design tweaks to some of Huawei’s built-in apps. The new EMUI 10 camera app also receives a much needed refresh, and you’ll see the mode displayed in large letters when you switch to a different mode. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a fan of how the zoom gestures have changed. The change I like most, however, is the new “magazine”-inspired layout, especially in the highlights option of the gallery app. Unlike now where you just see it in a grid, in EMUI 10 it gets a more pleasing layout with different sized thumbnails. EMUI 10 adopts revolutionary distributed technology to support HD video calls among multiple devices. Users can make audio and video calls whenever and wherever they are. If there is an incoming call, users can choose to answer using a smart speaker. Or if it is a video call, they can answer through a TV, vehicle-mounted device, or even send a realtime video feed from a drone so that friends and family can also enjoy the beautiful scenery. At work, a smartphone and computer can share screens so that data can be exchanged easily through drag-and-drop. Huawei continuously pays attention to security. In addition to improve product experience, it also builds a distributed all-scenario security system. It fortifies an in-depth security defense system by using in-house hardware and software, and uses a chip system architecture and system kernel as a foundation for security and trust. In the future era of multiple scenarios and multiple devices, application developers need to change when the requirements are changed. As stated at the launch event, EMUI provides a distributed UI programming framework and virtualizes hardware capabilities. As a result, developers can create apps for multiple devices without needing to make adaptations for the same program. EMUI exhibits its capability in driving the industry and facilitating ecosystem development. In recent years, the number of Huawei mobile phone users has increased significantly. Huawei shipped 100 million units in just five months this year, and in the future, EMUI will provide more applications and synergized cross-device experiences for users. The Huawei P30 series will be the first to upgrade to the EMUI 10 Beta version this September and will roll out for the Mate 20 series soon after. ■

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