Businessmirror august 28, 2017

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Monday, August 28, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 319

MSMEs told: Register IP or risk profit loss M

By Catherine N. Pillas

@c_pillas29

any micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines are not aware of the value of their intellectual property (IP), which could limit the economic benefits they could derive from it and even their access to credit.

DOF: Bill us when you finish 50% of the work

By Rea Cu

T

@ReaCuBM

he Department of Finance (DOF) is seen requiring winning bidders of government projects to finish at least 50 percent of the work they are contracted to do before being allowed to present the bill to minimize the risk of delays.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the DOF, together with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), is looking into the capacity of winning bidders to finish the project they signed up to build.

“So what we are going to do now is, okay, we are going to make a very low deposit for mobilization, then we say the first time that you can bill us is when you finish 50 percent of the work. At least we will know that you have the funds to finish 50 [percent],” Dominguez told financial reporters.

Under the 2016 revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 9184, or the Government Procurement Reform Act, the completion of the awarded contracts can be

DOMINGUEZ: “We are going to make a very low deposit for mobilization, then we say the first time that you can bill us is when you finish 50 percent of the work.”

monitored by the public and should be completed according to the specifications under the contract.

“Public monitoring of the procurement process and the implementation of awarded contracts with the end in view of guaranteeing that these contracts are awarded pursuant to the provisions of the Act and this IRR, and that all these contracts are performed strictly according to specifications,” the IRR said.

Dominguez said the government will still pay the mobilization cost, and that the 50-percent completion requirement will only help in eliminating bidders who present a low bid but fail to push through with the project.

Continued on A2

PESO exchange rates n US 51.0500

Gepty: “These days, so many food concepts are going into franchising.

It may very well be that in these franchise agreements, they don’t factor in the IP.”

According to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), only 10 percent of registered businesses in the country

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PPP Conversations #9 with Bohol Gov. Chatto PPP Lead Alberto C. Agra

‘W

e’ve already done it,” underscored Gov. Ed Chatto of the Provincial Government of Bohol (PGBh) in this ninth edition of PPP Conversations. In the areas of water and power, even prior to the enactment of its public-private partnership (PPP) Ordinance, the PGBh has entered into and has been benefitting, to this very day, from joint-venture arrangements with the private sector.

Chatto shares with us his thoughts on this strategy.

See “MSMEs,” A16

Continued on A15

BMReports

Climate change: Are we there yet?

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

S

Part One

CIENTISTS have been fretting about climate change for quite some time. Somehow, they have been sounding the alarm bells for global action to avert doomsday.

The Philippines, like other countries, is not oblivious to the clear and present danger posed by climate-change effects.

An archipelago composed of over 7,500 islands and islets situated in the so-called typhoon belt and so-called Ring of Fire, the Philippines is considered as one of the highly vulnerable and at-risk countries in the world because of climate change.

The Ring of Fire is a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. Its southern portion includes the Philippines.

Continued on A2

This November 15, 2014, file photo shows houses near the shore of Tacloban damaged by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), which hit the Philippines in 2013. Environment Undersecretary for Policy, Planning and International Affairs Jonas R. Leones has noted that supertyphoons, like Yolanda, is proof that “climate change is real and already here”. NONIE REYES

n japan 0.4660 n UK 65.3491 n HK 6.5260 n CHINA 7.6606 n singapore 37.4871 n australia 40.3295 n EU 60.2441 n SAUDI arabia 13.6134

Source: BSP (25 August 2017 )

A2 Monday, August 28, 2017

BMReports BusinessMirror

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Climate change: Are we there yet?

Continued from A1

Response

THE Philippines’s response to the threat of climate change was strongly pronounced when it acceded and become a party to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC acknowledges the change in the Earth’s climate, and its adverse effects are a common concern of humankind.

On October 23, 2009, thenPresident Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Republic Act (R A) 9729, or the Climate Change Act of 2009. The law aims to mainstream climate change into governmentpolicy formulations.

RA 9729 calls for the establishment of a framework strategy and program on climate change, and created for the purpose the Climate Change Commission (CCC).

The following year the Philippine government, through the CCC, came up with the National Frame-

PHL. . .

Continued from A16

The ESL program in the Philippines also caters to Filipinos working in call centers, such that some institutions are partners or have been set up by business-process outsourcing companies.

According to the 2007 study, “Understanding the Korean Diaspora in the Philippines”. Koreans started

work Strategy on Climate Change 2010-2022. On November 22, 2011, former President Benigno S. Aquino III, acting as concurrent chairman of the CCC, signed Resolution 2 approving the National Climate Change Action Plan.

Also in 2010 the government, through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), launched the National Greening Program (NGP), a massive and nationwide reforestation project that aims to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares of open, degraded and denuded forest.

As part of its commitment to the global effort to limit the increase of temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius, the government decided to submit its intended national determined contribution to the UNFCCC secretariat, promising to reduce the country’s carbon emission by 70 percent between 2020 to 2030, provided it will get financial and technical support

coming to the Philippines to study in universities in the 1960s, when South Korea was still an undeveloped economy. The Philippines in the 1960s, the study noted, was the second-most economically progressive country after Japan. To this day, many South Koreans of an older generation still believe that Philippine universities still offer quality education, which the study believe has also contributed to the influx of young Koreans studying

from developed countries.

In December in Paris, members of the UNFCCC, including the Philippines, crafted the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in the global average temperature to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Signed by 175 countries in New York, on April 22, 2016, the pact took effect on November 4 after parties representing 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions ratified its provisions. The culmination of all these initiatives was the accession to the Paris Agreement in February this year with its signing by current President Duterte.

Malacañang transmitted to the Senate on February 28 the signed Instrument of Accession. It has to be ratified by the Philippine Senate for it to become legally binding.

Is climate change really here?

ENVIRONMENT Undersecretary for Policy, Planning and International Affairs Jonas R. Leones English in the Philippines.

South Korea continues to be the top tourism market for the Philippines, with a record-breaking 1.48 million visitor arrivals in 2016, up 10.1 percent from 2015. South Korean tourists account for almost 25 percent of the number of tourists that visit the Philippines each year.

In the first half of 2017, tourists from South Korea increased by some 24 percent to 795,085.

said proof that climate change is real and already here is the changing climatic events obser ved through the years, particularly in the Philippines.

“There is no official declaration or information when it [climate change] all started,” Leones added.

“But based on observation, it is really happening.”

He pointed to “the frequent and ever-intensifying weather disturbances—supertyphoons, excessive amount of rainfall and longer season of drought”, as “all proof of climate change”.

According to Leones, when the Philippines signed the Paris Agreement, the government started setting up goals to reduce carbon emission. Under the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, the Philippines vowed to reduce carbon emission by 70 percent, using the 2010 baseline.

Currently, Leones said the Philippines, through the DENR, is expecting interventions to reduce

the country’s so-called carbon footprint, even though the country is not really a major polluter.

“Through our national greening program, we started planting more trees to expand our carbonabsorption capacity,” Leones added. “[A] forest is carbon sink so that is what we are doing now.”

The Dutch Foundation Stichting Fern defines a carbon sink as “anything that absorbs more carbon than it releases as carbon dioxide”.

“European forests are currently a net carbon sink, as they take in more carbon than they emit,” Fern said in its web site. “In climate negotiations, this temporary reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also known as negative emissions.”

Vehicle emission

LEONES added that, since a major source of carbon dioxide is vehicle emission, the DENR is working closely with other government agencies, such as the

Department of Energy, to prescribe cleaner fuel.

By 2018 he said they expect all imported vehicles will have engines designed for fuels that comply with the European Commission’s emission standards. Leones added they also expect all pump gasoline stations next year to only sell fuels that match these engines.

In partnership with the Department of Tourism, the DENR is working to reduce the number of vehicles, Leones said, adding that together with the Metro Manila Development Authority, the DENR is working to improve traffic situation.

The NGP, he said, is a strategy to strengthen the country’s natural defense against climate changetriggered extreme weather events.

“We are also into massive rehabilitation of our coastal areas through mangrove reforestation, to prevent disasters caused by storm surges and sea-level rise,” Leones added. To be continued

DOF: Bill us when you finish 50% of the work Continued from A1

“We have to pay some mobilization fund, that’s normal, but we will try to eliminate the potential bidders who are just there to get a low bid. The rule doesn’t need any amendment, it’s just the terms of reference [that’s being reviewed],” he added.

The proposal’s application to all government departments and agencies, however, has yet to be determined, since it is only applicable to jobs that are small in nature. But Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno is currently looking at it, according to the finance chief.

“ T hat is what Secretar y Diokno is think ing about. I’m only in charge of my department. But I don’t know if it w ill be adopted at the DPW H [Department of Public Works and Highways] or what, it is genera lly in sma ll jobs [where this w ill apply],” he said.

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Supreme Court special body reviews writs in addressing human-rights issues

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

C

HIEF Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno has disclosed that the Supreme Court (SC) is looking for other legal remedies to discourage the continuing spate of extrajudicial killings and human-rights violations in the country.

During her annual meet the press event in Cebu last Thursday, Sereno admitted contemplating whether the existing writs of Amparo, habeas corpus and habeas data provided in courts are sufficient to address the series of extrajudicial killings that coincided with the Duterte administration’s war against illegal drugs.

“Are the present writs sufficient to uphold citizens’ rights? This question has been bothering me for sometime now,” she said.

“Of course, it is our duty to do what we can, so how do we account for the number of violent deaths being seen right now?” Sereno asked.

The country’s top magistrate d isc losed t hat t he jud iciar y, through its special human-rights committee chaired by Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang, is currently reviewing the sufficiency of the writs in addressing human-rights issues in the country.

“There’s a special committee on study of special writs.... We’re still in the process of evaluation on what still could be done,” she said.

Likewise, Sereno said she has also discussed the issue with several groups of journalists, who have raised the same issue due to the continuous spate of media killings in the country.

However, right now, Sereno admitted that the hands of the judiciary are tied when it comes to cases of extrajudicial killings, since it could only step in when cases are filed in courts.

“The problem is we have a Constitution that provides that judiciary is the last part of the process... Because of this sequence, we find ourselves timid because we do not do investigation, we do not file cases, so the limitations remain,” she explained.

The SC chief also noted that only a few cases of extrajudicial killings are being pursued in court.

She said the mandate to conduct investigations and file cases in courts belongs to the executive branch.

“The executive implements the law and has the sole monopoly of the use of force. When force is used and results in death, legal questions come in and are brought before the courts. But, so far, we have not had so many questions brought before us,” Sereno added.

Of the thousands of reported cases of killings in the war on drugs during the 13 months of the Duterte administration, only one has reached the SC in January.

This was when a survivor of the war on illegal drugs and families of four drug suspects killed in a police operation in Payatas, Quezon City, filed a petition before the SC seeking the issuance of a writ of Amparo with a temporary protection order (TPO).

The Court granted the petition and issued a writ of Amparo and a TPO that specifically prevented operatives of Station 6, which conducted the operation in the area in August last year, from entering the residence and workplaces of survivor Efren Morillo and other petitioners within a 1-kilometer radius.

Last March charges of multiple murder, frustrated murder, robbery and planting of evidence, as well as grave misconduct, were filed against the policemen involved in the operation where drug suspects Marcelo Daa Jr., Raffy Gabo, Anthony Comendo and Jessie Cule were killed.

Duterte: ‘Uphold rule of law in fight vs lawlessness, criminality, poverty’

P

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

@alyasjah

resident Duterte on Monday urged Filipinos to embody the values of the Philippines’s national heroes in the fight against lawlessness, criminality and poverty.

In his National Heroes Day message, Duterte paid respect to the heroes of the nation, who, in the fight for independence and civil rights, have given up their life for their fellowmen. “Today, we pay homage to the men and women who helped lay the foundations of this nation,” Duterte said.

“Their courage, leadership and wisdom paved the way for us to enjoy the blessings of freedom, independence and democracy. They have dedicated their lives to ensure that future generations will have a life that is full and comfortable,” the President added.

Duter te sa id Fi l ipinos are

forever indebted to the “noble deed s a nd sacr if ices” of t he countr y’s national heroes, as, if it were not for them, the countr y would not be liberated from the shackles of colonialism.

The President urged Filipinos to abide by laws and regulations set by the government as a display of gratitude to the heroes of the nation.

“Let us honor them by upholding the rule of law, protec t i ng ou r n at ion a nd fos ter i ng goo dw i l l a mong ou r se lves. We w i l l h a r ness t he same v irtues as we continue t he f ight aga inst l awless-

@awimailbox Mindanao Bureau Chief

D

AVAO CITY—The Autonomous Region in Muslim (ARMM) has maintained its pace of reversing the reputation of warlordism and corruption since 2011 and attracting multibillion-peso investments in return.

This month the ARMM said 25 of its local government units (LGUs) have passed the region-wide assessment for the 2017 Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG), the highest recognition for transparency and better government awarded by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

DILG-ARMM Secretary Noor Hafizullah M. Abdullah said the seal passers would still need to undergo the final stage of assessment and validation from the DILG national office.

“The 25 LGUs will still undergo a more strict assessment and national validation next week before the final list of passers will be re-

leased,” Abdullah said. “It’s a confirmation the LGUs in the ARMM are providing better services to their constituents.”

The seal of good local governance is among the DILG’s flagship programs of giving due recognition to works of integrity and good performance of the LGUs. Usually these are seen in government reforms in their general and frontline operations, such as the reduction in the processing of licenses and permits and reducing the cost of doing business.

Although this was initiated by the DILG, the seal “is guided by the provisions of Republic Act 716, or the Local Government Code of 1991, the General Appropriations Act of 201 and Administrative Order 267 of 1992,” the ARMM said.

“It is a progressive assessment system adopted by the department to give recognition and distinction to remarkable local government performance across several areas,” the ARMM added.

For the SGLG 2017, “4+1” assessment criteria were applied, the

DUTERTE

ness, criminality and poverty,” Duterte said.

“As we commemorate the life and works of our national heroes, we must continue to embrace their life ways in daily undertakings. Let us emulate their example as we continue to realize our ideals and aspirations for ourselves and for our country,” the President added.

National Heroes Day, which fa l ls on t he l ast Mond ay of

Aug ust, is a reg u lar hol iday honoring and comm e m o r a t i n g t h e c o u n t r y ’s national heroes. National Heroes Day specifies no single hero for Filipinos to remember, and, according to the Official Gazette, “this lack of specifics offers an opportunity to celebrate the bravery of not one, not a few, but all Filipino heroes who have braved death or persecution for home, nation, justice

Drilon prods DOJ to allow Ombudsman to probe Kian killing

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

S

enate Minority Leader Sen. Franklin M. Drilon, moving to allay public fears of a whitewash, prodded Justice Secretary Vitalliano N. Aguirre II to give way and let the Office of the Ombudsman investigate the controversial killing of 17-year-old Kian de los Santos.

Drilon said in a radio interview last Sunday: “In the first place, it is clear from the pronouncements

[made by the Department of Justice (DOJ) chief] that appears somebody is taking sides and protecting the police officers” involved in the victim’s death. De los Santos succumbed to three gunshot wounds while in the custody of the police officers.

The senator, however, clarified that he was not saying that Aguirre and the assistant prosecutor assigned to handle the case are biased, “ but the public perception is they are protecting”

25 ARMM LGUs pass good government seal

By Manuel T. Cayon

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Monday, August 28, 2017 A3

The 25 LGUs will still undergo a more strict assessment and national validation next week before the final list of passers will be released.”

—Abdullah

ARMM said. The LGUs must pass four core areas of financial administration disaster preparedness, social protection and the new area of peace and order.

They must also pass at least one essential area, either the business friendliness and competitiveness;

or the tourism, culture and the arts; or environmental protection.

An awardee is entitled to a development fund as its incentive.

The fund is usually spent on the unfunded development program of the awardee.

In 2016 six ARMM LGUs were awarded with the seal, when none passed the previous year. The 2016 awardees were the province of Maguindanao, the city of Lamitan in Basilan and the towns of North Upi and Parang in Maguindanao, Wao in Lanao del Sur and Jolo in Sulu.

The national government has cited the ARMM as the most improved region in terms of peace and order, as well as financial administration during that year.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman said, “Good governance practices should be emulated by all LGUs in the region.”

“All qualified LGUs will be conferred with a 2017 SGLG marker, a national recognition and a cash incentive through the Performance Challenge Fund to finance their local development projects,” he added.

the police officers involved.

“That is the public perception, so it could not be avoided, even if there is no concrete evidence,” Drilon said.

That’s why he was asking the DOJ to give way and let the Ombudsman investigate the case, since it also has jurisdiction even if the DOJ already opened its investigation.

The senator acknowledged an existing memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Ombudsman and DOJ to avoid duplication of work on the same case.

“But this should not mean that DOJ can no longer tell the Ombudsman to go ahead and handle the investigation of Kian’s death,” Drilon added.

Drilon said that “ because of the MOA, the Ombudsman is not going to move. The Ombudsman respects the agreement with the DOJ”.

But Drilon noted the DOJ appears to be “overly interested” in handling the case, adding: “I do not know why.”

AFP report on Marawi death toll: 603 terrorists,130 soldiers, 45 civilians

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM

T

he Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command said last Sunday that the death toll on the side of the terrorists has already reached 603 since the military operations commenced on May 23, and at least 45 civilians have already been killed.

On the other hand, at least 130 soldiers have been killed, with more than a thousand wounded in the operations, which military officials said were nearing its end, as the soldiers are being repelled by 30 to 40 terrorists who have been surrounded in two barangays.

The military said it has also rescued 1,728 civilians, cleared 33 buildings from the MauteIS Group and recovered at least 661 firearms.

While officials kept on saying the Marawi City operations are winding down with the “defenders” merely holding on in two barangays, they could not say when the fighting will finally stop.

Soldiers, however, have already recovered the city’s Islamic Center last week, which became the headquarters of the Maute-IS Group since the fighting broke on May 23.

Just before the weekend, President Duterte visited Marawi for the third time, where he huddled with troops for about four minutes.

During his conversation with the soldiers in the battle area, the Commander in Chief reiterated his support to the troops, saying he will never abandon them.

“I would like to reiterate this: I will never abandon you as long as you are doing the right thing,” he said.

“This would include fighting against the terrorists groups, the drug lords or the common criminals, as long as you are doing your sworn duty to enforce the law and protect the republic,” he added.

“Let me emphasize, however, that you must do your job in accordance with the law,” Duterte said.

Economy

A4 Monday, August 28, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

A

@joveemarie

vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations last Sunday asked the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to expedite the accreditation process for local universities and colleges (LUCs) as only 16 of these schools are qualified to become tuition-free in the next academic year.

Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte Jr. of the Second District of Camarines Sur, in a statement, said LUCs might be left out of the benefits of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, or the free college tuition law, if only 14 percent out of the total 111 LUCs in the country are accredited by the CHED. “We urge LUCs across the country to beef up their standards in terms of providing quality educa-

tion and have their schools evaluated by the CHED, which should, in turn, speed up this evaluation process to determine the LUCs that can be accredited and can get to enjoy the benefits of the freetuition law by next school year,” Villafuerte said.

Following the signing into law of Republic Act (RA) 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, at least 60 LUCs have already applied for accreditation.

Under the law, the government shall provide free tuition and other fees for students in state universities and colleges (SUCs), as well as LUCs and technical-vocational institutions (TVIs).

SUCs refer to public higher education institutions established by national laws that are financed and maintained by the national government and are governed by their respective independent boards of trustees or regents, while LUCs refer to CHED-accredited tertiary education institutions established and financially supported by local government units (LGUs).

But, Villafuerte, citing CHED commissioner and Spokesman Prospero de Vera III, said only 16 LUCs have been accredited by the CHED to have passed the commission’s standards in terms of providing quality tertiary education.

“While the accreditation process needs to be fast-tracked, the CHED should also make sure that the LUCs that get to benefit from the free-tuition law truly meet the standards set by the CHED for LUCs in terms of quality of education, so that public funds would not go to waste and our

www.ched.gov.ph

CHED told to expedite accreditation of LUCs

students are ensured of getting the first-rate education they deserve,” Villafuerte said.

He said the budget calculated by the CHED to start implementing the free tuition law next year, estimated at around P20 billion,

only covers the 112 SUCs and the 16 accredited LUCs across the country. Another P3 billion to P4 billion would be needed to fund the free tuition for TVIs. Villafuerte said government agencies are now working double

time on the implementing rules and regulations of the free- tuition law, but cautioned against coming out with a haphazardly drafted set of IRR that could only lead to delays in implementing this pro-education statute.

Fewer collective bargaining Cement makers offer to undergo agreements forged in 2015–PSA import-shipment inspections Five out I of every eight [62.4 T percent] workers

By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

he number of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) declined by 9.06 percent yearon-year in 2015, according to the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

PSA data showed there were a total of 298 CBAs registered in 2015, lower than the 325 CBAs recorded in 2014.

A CBA is a contract between employers and employees on wages, hours or work, and other terms and conditions of employment. CBAs outline both economic and noneconomic provisions.

“Economic provisions include monetary value of wage increases, loan benefits, bonuses, allowances, retirement plan and other fringe benefits. On the other hand, noneconomic clauses include union security clauses, grievance procedures, labor-management cooperation schemes and other provisions without monetary value,” the PSA said.

The majority, or seven out of 10, registered CBAs were renewals, while first time CBAs were less than 20 percent. Around 9.4 percent of them were renegotiated CBAs.

covered by CBAs were members of affiliated unions while the remaining 37.6 percent were members of independent unions.”—PSA

Among the three sectors, the industry sector recorded the biggest share of registered CBAs at 183, or 61.4 percent of the total. This was followed by the services sector at 33.6 percent of CBAs. The agriculture sector

recorded the lowest share, with only 14 CBAs, or 4.7 percent of the total.

In terms of scope of bargaining unit, around 283, or 95 percent of the CBAs, covered rank and file workers, while only 15 CBAs, or 5 percent, comprised supervisory level positions.

With the decline in the number of CBAs, compared to 2014, the PSA noted a similar decline in the number of workers covered by CBAs in 2015 at 56,435 workers compared to the 58,306 workers covered in 2014.

“Five out of every eight [62.4 percent] workers covered by CBAs were members of affiliated unions, while the remaining 37.6 percent were members of independent unions,” the PSA said.

The PSA added the registration of CBAs is monitored as an indicator of harmonious labor-management relations and industrial peace in the country. A collective bargaining is a process where both parties, labor and management, agree to fix and administer terms and conditions of employment which must not be below the minimum standards fixed by law, and sets a mechanism for resolving the parties’ grievances.

N a move aimed at fostering industry harmony and ensuring adequate supply for the Duterte administration’s infrastructure push, three of the country’s biggest cement manufacturers have offered to waive their exemptions from inspection procedures for cement shipments, which are currently required only from pure importers.

The offer was contained in a letter sent to Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez last Thursday, by Ernesto M. Ordoñez, president of the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines [CeMAP], as the three companies’ conciliatory positions on import procedures that have caused a running feud between manufacturers and importers.

“In essence, Taiheiyo [Cement Philippines Inc.], Cemex [Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc.] and Republic [Cement Group] are willing to undergo the same shipment inspection procedures as the traders,” Ordoñez told the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) chief.

“I emphasize here that though they are allowed to be treated dif-

ferently because of their lower risk category consistent with the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, and even if it is the DTI position… the three companies are very willing to forego this justified different treatment. They are willing to go through the same import procedures that the traders undergo,” he added.

“This is to contribute to harmony in promoting consumer welfare,” Ordoñez said.

The CeMAP president said the stance of Taiheiyo, Cemex and Republic are individual positions and do not reflect the entire association’s views, but that it is his duty to directly inform the DTI secretary of such development.

Ordoñez also reiterated in the letter that the three cement companies sampling and testing of imports should be conducted in the Philippines either at the point of entry area, the importer’s declared warehouse, or silo and that the test results should conform to Philippine National Standards (PNS) before releasing the imported cement to the market.

He stressed the need for local testing and not to rely only on Pre-Shipment Quality Inspection (PSQI) done in the cement’s point of origin or manufacture overseas because of concerns over the integrity of such inspection and testing.

He, likewise, said conversion of testing results using standards in other countries to local (PNS) standards may not be accurate.

The position of the three local cement manufacturers was made as part of ongoing DTI studies and consultations on import procedures to ensure that cement from overseas sources are of high quality to protect consumers amid reports on the proliferation of expired, substandard and mislabelled cement in the local market.

DTI’s Lopez, a strong consumer-protection advocate, has repeatedly said stringent testing and import requirements are also needed to ensure adequate supply, and thus ensure price stability, as the government embarks on its aggressive infrastructure development program.

Asean needs to leverage collective unity when joining RCEP, FTAAP–economists Global trade growth seen to strengthen in July-September We are in RCEP, we are in

M

ember-economies of the Asean need to tap into the strengths of their united front to achieve bigger objectives and ensure more favorable outcomes, such as when joining free-trade agreements (FTAs) beyond Asean, according to economists who gathered in Manila recently.

Dr. Josef Yap, professorial lecturer at the UP School of Economics and former president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (Pids), said during a presentation at a recent forum in UP Diliman on Asean integration that member-nations should focus on how to leverage Asean’s comparative advantage of “collective action” to gain entry into broader FTAs. One way to harness this advantage, Yap said, is to apply it in efforts to expand regional cooperation beyond Asean to the bigger arena of the Asia Pacific.

He said Asean can look at participating in either—or both— t he Reg iona l Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) or Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),

with the eventual target being the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).

Dr. Tham Siew Yean, a senior fellow from Malaysia affiliated with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the YusofIshak Inst it ute in Singapore, l i ke wise, stressed the importance of Asean unity in talks to establish bigger groupings with partners outside t he A sea n Econom ic Community.

She said that for Malaysia, in particular, it is now positioning itself to be “everywhere” in the regional cooperation movement, intending to be a member of both RCEP and TPP. And while Malaysia hopes to be part of Asean in joining these FTAS, it is determined to do this on its own if necessary.

“We are in RCEP, we are in TPP. We will go with Asean and without Asean as demonstrated by our position in the TPP. If Asean wants to move forward, Malaysia will support it. If Asean does not want to move forward, Malaysia will move forward,” Tham said.

She added that Malaysia also

TPP. We will go with Asean and without Asean as demonstrated by our position in the TPP. If Asean wants to move forward, Malaysia will support it. If Asean does not want to move forward, Malaysia will move forward.”—Tham seeks to be a member of the FTAAP, joining via Asean, RCEP, or TPP. Tham said her country is still keen to participate in the TPP despite US withdrawal, explaining that by keeping the TPP negotiations alive, it opens the possibility that the US may change its mind and decide to reenter the partnership.

Moreover, since Malaysia is a small country, it regards TPP as providing a counterpoint, so that “we are not completely controlled by China” and “we will not be squashed in between” the two su-

perpowers, she said.

For her part, Dr. Erlinda Medalla, a senior research fellow at Pids and project director at the Philippine Apec Center Network, echoed the importance of active engagement

by Asean members with expanded regional groups.

She noted that Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore stand out as the most active in all levels of FTA negotiations—bilateral, regional and multilateral—and that others, like the Philippines, should take their cue from them.

Philexport News & Features

G

lobal merchandise trade growth will continue to strengthen in the third quarter of 2017 on strong performances in export orders, air freight and container shipping, according to World Trade Organization (W TO).

T he W TO’s World Trade Out look Indicator ( W TOI) latest reading of 102.6 is the highest level of the indicator since Apr il 2011, sug gesting that trade volume grow th w il l continue to be above trend in Ju ly-to-September quar ter.

T he latest reading is higher than the prev ious reading of 102.2 issued in May this year.

“Strong growth in export orders, air freight and container shipping is leading the upward trend in the indicator as economic activity picks up around the world,” it said.

WTOI noted that results for agricultural raw materials and electronic components trade have been weaker, but both indices have turned up recently.

Meanwhile, weak growth in automobile production and sales is a cause for concern as it may signal weakening consumer confidence.

“Global export orders also show signs of plateauing, which could mean that upward momentum in trade growth may have peaked. If this is the case, trade growth would be expected to moderate later this year,” it added.

The WTOI is designed to provide “real time” information on the trajectory of world trade relative to recent trends.

It measures short run performance against mediumterm trends, combining several trade-related indices into a single composite indicator.

Philexport News & Features

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng • Monday, August 28, 2017

A5

‘Chicken prices declined in only 2 regions’

T

he price of dressed chicken remained relatively stable even after the Department of Agriculture (DA) confirmed the outbreak of bird flu in San Luis, Pampanga, on August 11, according to the latest report from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In its report, titled “Price Situationer of Selected Agricultural Commodities”, the PSA noted that among the 17 regional trading centers it surveyed, only Region 4 and the National Capital Region (NCR) registered lower prices of dressed chicken in the third week of August.

“A kilogram of dressed chicken registered a price reduction of P10 in both the NCR and Batangas City [Region 4],” the report read.

The PSA report, which was released on August 25, noted that the price of dressed chicken declined to P140 per kilogram, from the previous week’s record of P150 per kg in the NCR and Region 4.

Data also showed that the demand for chicken egg remained stable as prices did not decline significantly despite the discovery that the bird flu in Pampanga struck commercial layers.

As for other farm products, the PSA report noted that rice prices were relatively stable in many parts of the country. “The price of a kilogram of well-milled rice inched up by P1 in Cabanatuan City. However, the price of regular milled rice went down

by P1 during the week.”

According to the PSA, varied price movements for fish species were observed in some regional centers. A kilogram of alumahan was cheaper by P10 in Naga City but it was higher by P10 in Iloilo City.

“A P10 per kg gain for galunggong was observed in Baguio City.

However, it went down by P10 in Naga City. The price per kilogram of tilapia picked up by P5 in Iloilo City and by P10 in Naga City.

Meanwhile, it was priced lower by P30 in Davao City,” the report read.

Data from the PSA also showed that vegetables in select

Making full use of Asean integration

I

f Asean is to avoid the middleincome trap, each Asean country has to invest in infrastructure.

This is especially true for the Philippines, where basically no major infrastructure projects have flourHenry J. Schumacher ished for years, if not decades. It has to be understood that inadequate infrastructure is possibly the biggest deterrent to create sustainable growth. Spending on roads, ports, power stations, water and railways increase aggregate demand in the short term and creates a cost-effective and flexible business environment in the midterm that allows manufacturing and high-yield agriculture as drivers of long-term inclusive growth.

Infrastructure, yes—hope is still high in the Philippines that “Build, Build, Build” is going to deliver the much-needed infrastructure. Unfortunately, I do not see the same kind of determination in the Philippines to get agriculture going. I am amazed about the news from Thailand: “Agriculture drives fastest Thai economic expansion in more than four years”. And by how much did Thailand’s agriculture surge in the second quarter of this year? It’s 15.8 percent from a year earlier!

Maybe it is high time for the Philippines to learn from Thailand and other Asean countries on how to substantially increase agricultural output. Let’s look at some of the main agri commodities that drive Asean agriculture, based on an article published by Rolando T. Dy earlier this year: n Rice—Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar are exporters, while the rest, led by Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, are importers. n Palm oil—Asean supplies some 80 percent of the world surplus.

Indonesia and Malaysia dominate the world market. n Coconut oil— The Asean accounts for three-quarters of world exports, with the Philippines and Indonesia as major sources. n Cassava starch—Thailand and Vietnam account for 97 percent of world exports. The Philippines could be a major player! Nestlé is opening a door for cassava widely at its new plant in the Philippines. n Coffee —The region has a quarter of world exports with Vietnam and Indonesia as major suppliers. The Philippines, as an importer, should make a determined move to at least cover its growing demand. Again, Nestlé needs more farmers to intercrop coconuts with robusta coffee. n Bananas—The Philippines exports over 3 million tons to Asia and the Middle East. Let’s just hope that controversies involving Davao banana growers will not affect banana exports in future. n Pineapples—The Philippines ranks No. 2 in exports, with 18 percent (behind Costa Rica). n Shrimps and prawns—Asean comprises nearly 30 percent of world exports with Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia as key players.

The Philippines has an advantage, given the GSP+ privilege granted by the European Union. n Fish filet—The Asean is almost tied with China at 22 percent each, with Vietnam being the major Asean player. n Sugar—While Thailand is the No. 2 world player, Asean is a net importer. In 2016 Thailand exported 6 million tons. n Chicken meat – Asean imported some 1 million tons of poultry meat with Vietnam and the Philippines as import leaders. These could not be compensated by the Thai export of 220,000 tons of value-added meat. n Pork meat—Singapore and the Philippines imported a total of 220,000 tons in 2016. n Beef/carebeef—The region bought 1.1 million tons in 2016, with Vietnam importing two third of the volume. n Corn—Asean was a major corn importer in 2016; the main importers are Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam enjoy huge trade surpluses in agri-food. The Philippines should take up the challenge and develop those agricultural supply and value chains that will benefit the Philippine farming community. The benefits are obvious: We will stop the rural migration and finally reduce the average age of farmers. The Philippines will have to watch land use and water availability carefully, and drive agri-food manufacturing for the domestic market and exports.

Comments are welcome; contact me at hjschumacher59@gmail.com.

europe Beat

regional centers registered price decreases in the third week of August.

“A kilogram of ampalaya dropped by P10 in Batangas City and Naga City. On the contrary, it rose by P5 in Davao City,” the report read.

“A price cut of P10 per kg of cabbage was posted in Cabanatuan City and by P20 per kg in Cotabato City. Meanwhile, it picked by P5 in Tuguegarao City;

by P10 in Baguio City and Batangas City; and by P20

in the NCR,” it added. The PSA report noted that the price of carrots fell by P10 per kg in Cabanatuan City and Zamboanga City, while it went up by P10 per kg in four regional centers and by P20 per kg in the NCR. The price situationer provides weekly updates on the prevailing retail prices of indicator agricultural commodities. The PSA said the prices are gathered from designated trading centers in key city of each region, including the NCR.

Prices are obtained from respondents through direct or face-to-face interviews by regular market reports of the PSA using structured collection forms.

Based on the collected prices, the price with the highest frequency count is considered as the prevailing price.

The price update is a weekly report generated from the Retail Price Surveys, which is one of the services provided by the Agricultural Marketing Information System.

A6

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Monday, August 28, 2017 • Editor: Jun B. Vallecera

news@businessmirror.com.ph

DOF reluctantly agrees to lower SSB excise

A

By Rea Cu

@ReaCuBM

lthough the Department of Finance (DOF) has maintained that it wants a 20-percent reduction in the price of bared sugarsweetened beverages (SSBs), a senior official said the agency would support legislation that cuts the price by half or only 10 percent.

But Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua flatly rejected a House of Representatives proposal imposing a tiered tax scheme on SSBs, saying such a measure defeats the point of imposing a punitive excise tax so that consumers are forced to give them up and find healthier alternatives instead.

This developed at the sidelines of the public forum hosted by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (Ejap) last Friday in which Chua reiterated the government intent of shifting the unhealthy public preference for sugary beverages for far more healthy alternatives out there.

According to Chua, with the SSB tax being mainly a health measure instead of a revenue measure, a tiered excise approach on SSB products will not produce the desired result of shifting consumption

to healthier food and beverages.

“The tiered system has no effect. The threshold, that will not work,” Chua told financial reporters at the sidelines of the Ejap forum last Friday at the Bureau of the Treasury.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), an excise tax translating to a 20-percent fall in price should be imposed on unhealthy beverages to discourage the continued consumption of SSBs and help cut instances of diabetes and obesity among consumers.

“There are studies that propose that for a positive change in consumer behavior to be achieved, meaning reducing the consumption of SSBs, [there] generally should be [an] additional tax,” DOH Undersecretary Mario C. Villaverde said.

Under House Bill 5636, or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion

Act, a P10-per-liter excise tax was seen moving SSB prices by 20 percent and result to a shift in consumption to socalled healthier alternatives, according to the DOH. An excise tax of just P5 translates to a 10-percent adjustment that Chua acknowledged may not be enough to shift consumption.

Chua said the magnitude of the tax imposed on SSBs is important mostly because the measure has health objective and that a low tax of P1 or P3 definitely will not produce the desired reduction in consumption of the unhealthy beverage.

“Some people would say why are we complaining when the tax is lower than P5 since it’s not a revenue measure? That is not the point. The point is the health objective, that the price should fall by 20 percent to have the optimal impact,”

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Chua said.

He would quickly add that it was “okay if it’s at 10 percent because it has a little impact” but reiterated that an excise tax of just P1 to P3 on SSBs “do not [result to] a reduction in consumption”.

At the Senate, Sen. Juan Miguel T. Zubiri has proposed a multitiered contentbased excise proposal in which SSBs having zero to 5 grams per liter sugar is exempt from excise tax.

Tier-two, containing 6 to 12 grams of sugar per liter, will be taxed at P3 and that the third tier, where SSBs have sugar content at 12 grams and above per liter, will be slapped with a P5 tax.

“Our position is to support the House Bill [5636] version as forwarded to the Senate. It is very simple to administer, it is easier to enforce [and has] a flat rate,” Villaverde said.

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B

usinesses look to hire more employees in the third quarter, as firms anticipate improved economic conditions for employment during the period.

Latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s quarterly Business Expectations Survey showed businesses gave more job opportunities for Filipinos in the July-to-September quarter compared to the previous quarter. This developed as the employment outlook index increased, from 24.7 in the April-to-June period to 27.3 in the third quarter.

The index is computed as the percentage of firms optimistic about added employment plans minus the percentage of firms that indicated otherwise.

A lower index means that the number of firms wanting to expand and hire more employees in the given period decreased as a result of their perception on particular economic developments.

The Central Bank said the positive employment outlook was driven by the positive sentiment of the services and wholesale and retail sectors, offsetting the less optimistic outlook of the industry sectors.

The increase in the local firm’s enthusiasm to employ more was in contrast to their expansion plans as the percentage of businesses with plans to expand their operations declined, from 34.6 in the previous quarter to 32.8 in the third quarter. Bianca Cuaresma

Perspectives Preparing to disrupt and grow A moderating outlook

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nsurance CEOs may have lost some confidence in the economy, but they are certainly confident about their own short-term growth prospects.

Yet, while many believe they can outperform the market over the next year, our survey suggests they are much less confident about the future.

Rarely has the geopolitical and economic landscape been so unpredictable. International agreements are being reviewed. Social expectations are changing. National and regional tax and regulatory environments are evolving. Indeed, after a year of surprise election results, continued global economic uncertainty and rapidly shifting social expectations, it is perhaps not surprising that insurance CEOs have lost some confidence in the world around them.

Indeed, while two-thirds of insurance CEOs say they are confident in the strength of the global economy over the next year, this is down five percentage points from 2016. Confidence in the prospects for the industry fell 12 percentage points to 70 percent, suggesting that many CEOs expect a moderate year ahead for the economy and the industry.

Yet, they are positively bullish about their own company’s prospects. In fact, 85 percent say they are confident in their short-term growth prospects (unchanged from last year), indicating that many believe they will out-perform their peers this year.

Over the longer term, however, CEOs seem increasingly concerned. Fifty-nine percent voice confidence in the growth prospects for the global economy over the next three years (down 26 percentage points from 2016). Confidence in the industry fell even further­ from 92 percent in 2016 to just 61 percent today.

While insurance CEOs still believe they can outperform the industry over the medium term, our survey suggests growing uncertainty about the future.

So while almost four out of every five CEOs expect to achieve growth over the next three years, this is down significantly from the 92 percent that anticipated growth last year.

At the same time, expectations for medium-term revenue growth have also moderated significantly.

Whereas the majority of insurance CEOs participating in last year’s survey said they anticipated topline growth in excess of 2 percent over the next three years, the majority of this year’s respondents say they expect less than 2-percent topline growth. Just 8 percent expect to achieve growth of more than5 percent.

Positive signs of positive activity

MEDIA PARTNERS

Business survey show buoyant Q3 hiring

Insurers seem to believe they have been making strong progress toward transforming their organizations. And many suggest they are now better equipped to respond to changing market forces. Indeed, most now view disruption more as an opportunity than a threat.

In some cases, insurers have reason to be confident in the short term. Indeed, in a market characterized by rapidly changing customer preferences, pernicious new competitors and constant technological change,

our data suggests that many insurers feel they have made great efforts to improve and transform their capabilities.

“Our experience suggests that most insurers are now undertaking some form of emerging technology implementation,” noted Gary Reader, KPMG’s Global Head of Insurance. “Some are pushing their way toward the cutting edge by partnering with InsurTechs to develop new artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics solutions while others are doing more fundamental work, focusing on transforming their capabilities with investments in areas, such as cloud implementations.”

Many are certainly saying the right things about innovation and disruption. Eighty-one percent believe that—in some way or other—they are already actively disrupting the sector. Fifty-eight percent say they are effective at sensing new market signals.

And less than a third admit to struggling with the current pace of technological change.

Our survey suggests that most also feel they have put significant attention toward improving their customer focus. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of insurance CEOs say they can confidently articulate their customer proposition. Sixty-eight percent say they now take personal responsibility for advocating for their customers’ interests. Half also say they have aligned their middle and back office processes to improve the customer-centricity of the front office.

“Some insurers have made great progress in transforming their businesses by realigning their business and operating models with their goto-market strategies,” Tek Yew Chia noted. “But the reality is that most are still focused on making incremental changes to their current models and processes and are only now starting on the journey to real disruption.”

That being said, it is a positive sign that the majority of insurance CEOs seem to view much of the current market disruption as an opportunity to create competitive advantage and improve their operations. More than six in 10 say they see technological disruption as an opportunity rather than a threat.

And more than three-quarters view cybersecurity as an opportunity rather than an overhead cost.

“The problem is that the vast majority of these efforts are happening at the functional or project level rather than the enterprise level,” Gary Reader noted. “If insurers truly want to reinvent their customer proposition, they need to take a much more fundamental approach to their transformation and innovation initiatives.”

The article “Preparing to disrupt and grow” by Gary Reader, KPMG in the UK, was taken from KPMG International’s annual CEO Outlook survey. © 2017 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member-firm of the KPMG network of independent member-firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. All rights reserved. For more information on KPMG in the Philippines, you may visit www.kpmg.com.ph.

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Monday, August 28, 2017 A7

Critics: Trump pardon his latest affront vs judiciary

W

ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump’s pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio shows a lack of regard for an independent judiciary, say critics who note Trump’s past criticism of federal judges, including the chief justice of the United States.

Supporters counter that the veteran lawenforcement officer deserved America’s gratitude, “not the injustice of a political witch hunt.”

“I am pleased to inform you that I have just granted a full Pardon to 85 year old American patriot Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He kept Arizona safe!,” Trump tweeted late last Friday after the White House announced that he had used his pardon power for the first time, sparing a political ally the prospect of jail time for defying court orders to halt police patrols that focused on Latinos.

The announcement came as Trump hunkered down at the Camp David presidential retreat while millions along the Texas coast braced themselves for Hurricane Harvey’s impact.

Trump’s decision also followed the uproar that ensued after he said “both sides” were responsible for deadly violence during race-fueled clashes this month in Charlottesville, Virginia.

There is no legal dispute over Trump’s ability to pardon in a contempt of court case, as was Arpaio’s. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1925 that a presidential pardon for a criminal contempt of court sentence was within the powers of the executive, and Trump had telegraphed his move for days. But the pardon was unusual given that Arpaio was awaiting sentencing.

It also had not gone through the normal pardon process, which includes lengthy reviews by the Justice Department and the White House counsel’s office.

The Washington Post reported last Saturday that Trump had asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions last spring whether it would be possible for the government to drop the criminal case against Arpaio.

After being advised that would be inappropriate, Trump decided to let the case go to trial and, if Arpaio were convicted, could grant clemency later, the Post reported. The newspaper said its sources, who were not identified, were three people with knowledge of the conversation.

The Post reported that when Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the Trump-Sessions conversation about Arpaio’s case, she responded: “It’s only natural the president would have a discussion with administration lawyers about legal matters. This case would be no different.”

Reaction to Trump’s pardon was sharp and swift, including among some fellow Republicans with whom the president has been feuding openly.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, RepublicanWisconsin, signaled his disagreement with the pardon through his spokesman.

“Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States,” Ryan Spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement. “We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon.”

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who incurred Trump’s wrath after voting against a Republican health-care bill, said: “The president has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions.”

The state’s junior senator, Republican Jeff Flake, also disagreed with the move.

“I would have preferred that the president honor the judicial process and let it take its course,” tweeted Flake, a Trump critic who has come in for particularly harsh treatment from the president.

Trump has called Flake, who is up for re-election next year, “toxic” and “weak” on

border issues and crime. Trump has rooted openly for Flake’s GOP challenger, state Sen. Kelli Ward, who supports Arpaio’s pardon, which could become an issue in the race.

“We applaud the president for exercising his pardon authority to counter the assault on Sheriff Arpaio’s heroic efforts to enforce the nation’s immigration laws,” she said.

Rep. Andy Biggs, Republican-Arizona, said, “America owes Sheriff Arpaio a debt of gratitude and not the injustice of a political witch hunt.”

But while the pardon could in the short term energize Trump’s conservative base, which includes many with strong anti-immigration views, the decision could further alienate voter groups, such as Latinos, whose support the Republican Party has said it needs to win future elections. Trump managed to defy those dynamics in 2016.

Jens David Ohlin, vice dean and professor at Cornell Law School, said he was disturbed by the pardon, given Trump’s relationship with the judiciary.

“Ever since the campaign and the beginning of his administration he’s had a very contentious relationship with the judiciary and hasn’t shown much respect for either members of the judiciary or the proper role of the judiciary within our constitutional structure,” Ohlin said last Saturday.

During the campaign, Trump called Chief Justice John Roberts “an absolute disaster” and “disgraceful,” mainly for two opinions Roberts wrote that left President Barack Obama’s health-care law intact.

Trump also went after US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presided over fraud lawsuits against Trump University. Trump said Curiel was “a hater of Donald Trump” who couldn’t be fair to Trump because of Curiel’s “Mexican heritage” and because of Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Trump also referred to US District Judge James Robart as a “so-called judge” after Robart imposed a temporary halt on Trump’s travel ban.

Arpaio earned a national profile by acting aggressively to arrest immigrants in the US illegally, including tactics that Latino and immigrants’ rights advocates said were akin to racial profiling.

His alliance with Trump centers heavily on immigration enforcement, such as getting local police officers to participate in immigration enforcement.

Both men have also questioned the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate.

They share a similar history of sparring with judges and even a birthday, June 14.

“Sheriff Joe Arpaio was the instigator of racial profiling and made official a policy of harassment and abuse based on the color of one’s skin,” said Janet Murguia, president of UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil-rights and advocacy group. “Every person of color in this nation has been put in harm’s way because of this action and that is unconscionable.”

P.S. Ruckman Jr., who edits a blog about presidential pardons, said the pardon is not an indicator of any serious interest by Trump in the pardon power.

“It just looks like a political stunt, basically, as opposed to an act of policy,” Ruckman said. It is not unprecedented for a president to issue a pardon in his first year in office. President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his involvement in the Watergate scandal just four weeks after assuming office when Nixon stepped down.

George H.W. Bush granted clemency after seven months in office.

Ruckman said that waiting until the end of a term to issue a pardon often gives the appearance that the president is trying to skirt accountability for it. AP

A8

The World BusinessMirror

Monday, August 28, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Harvey could drive up econ damage for Texas

A

S Harvey’s winds die down, trouble for Texas may have just begun with forecasts for unprecedented flooding across the heart of US energy production and in Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city.

Harvey smashed ashore as a Category 4 hurricane last Friday near Rockport, Texas. Two deaths and 14 injured have been attributed to the storm, which has also halted about one quarter of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and 5 percent of US refining capacity.

Its second act could be worse as Harvey stalls and promises to dump feet-high of rain onto Texas for the next few days.

“This is catastrophic,” said Greg Waller, a service coordination hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth, Texas. “When we say record setting it means you cannot use history on your side because the rivers have never been this high before.”

Damage from the initial strike won’t tell the whole story, said Chuck Watson, director of research and development, at Enki Holdings Llc. in Savannah, Georgia. “If it was a traditional hurricane it would be a $2billion storm, maybe $3 billion, but that is not what this storm is about,” Watson said.

Harvey was the strongest storm to hit the US since 2004. After making landfall, it was downgraded to a tropical storm and came to a near-standstill near the town of Victoria, Texas.

Harvey is flooding a region that has a cluster of refineries that process 5 million barrels of oil a day.

About 1 million barrels a day of crude and condensate refining capacity in Texas have been shut by companies, including Valero Energy Corp., according to company statements, government releases and people familiar with the situation.

Its path through the Gulf shuttered 24 percent of oil production, along with the port of Corpus Christi, which ships the largest amount of US crude overseas.

In addition to the energy threat, crops and livestock may struggle to cope with rising waters, while airlines have canceled flights at multiple Texas airports.

At least 1,121 inbound and outbound flights were canceled last

1M

The number of barrels of crude and condensate refining capacity in Texas that have been shut by companies owing to flooding brought by Hurricane Harvey Saturday from Texas airports in Houston, Dallas, Corpus Christi, Austin and San Antonio, according FlightAware, a Houston-based airline tracking company.

At least another 1,214 were scrubbed for Sunday. At least 226,330 customers were without power across the state, according to a Bloomberg survey of electric utility outage maps as of 9 p.m. local time.

The drop in electricity demand could depress natural gas prices.

Harvey’s position is allowing it to pull moisture-laden air off the Gulf, called a feeder band, which will help keep it alive and promises more moisture for Houston, said Dan Pydynowski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.

“That feeder band is going to remain in the general vicinity of Houston perhaps through Monday or even beyond,” Pydynowski said.

“This is going to flood areas the don’t typically flood. It is going to have a tremendous impact on businesses, homes, property and the ability to travel in the entire Houston area.”

From 15 to 25 inches of rain is forecast across the entire region, with some areas getting as much as 40 inches, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory issued around 10 p.m. local time.

Harvey sent thousands of residents along the coast fleeing and caused Gov. Greg Abbott to declare an emergency.

President Donald J. Trump approved a major disaster declaration, making federal assistance available to supplement state and local recov-

A truck in flood waters passes a home damaged in the wake of Hurricane Harvey on August 26 in Aransas Pass, Texas.

(Inset) A dead dog lies out of the passenger window of an overturned pickup truck after Hurricane Harvey landed in the Coast Bend area in Port Aransas, Texas. Harvey rolled over the Texas Gulf Coast last Saturday, smashing homes and businesses and lashing the shore with wind and rain so intense that drivers were forced off the road because they could not see in front of them. AP/Eric Gay and Gabe Hernandez/Corpus Christi Caller-Times via AP

ery efforts. The US Environmental Protection Agency waived certain fuel requirements for gasoline and diesel supplies in Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to allay concerns of fuel shortages.

If the storm does significant damage to the refineries in the region, or causes the Colonial pipeline to go offline, the effects could ripple to other parts of the country that rely heavily on the Gulf Coast for fuel supplies. Gasoline futures settled at a three-week high Friday as the storm approached.

Harvey spun deeper into Texas and unloaded extraordinary amounts of rain last Saturday after the once-fearsome hurricane crashed into vulnerable homes and businesses along the coastline in a blow.

Throughout the region between Corpus Christi and Houston, many people feared that toll was only the beginning. Authorities did not know the full scope of damage because weather conditions prevented emergency crews from getting into the hardest-hit places.

And they dreaded the destruction that was yet to come from a storm that could linger for days and unload more than 100 centimeters of rain on cities, including dangerously

flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth largest.

In the island community of Port Aransas, population 3,800, officials were unable to fully survey the town because of “massive” damage. The police and heavy equipment had only made it into the northernmost street.

“I can tell you I have a very bad feeling and that’s about it,” said Mayor Charles Bujan, who had called for a mandatory evacuation but did not know how many heeded the order.

Some of the worst damage appeared to be in Rockport, a coastal city of about 10,000 that was directly in the storm’s path. The mayor said his community took a blow “right on the nose” that left “widespread devastation,” including homes, businesses and schools that were heavily damaged. Some structures were destroyed.

Rockport’s roads were a mess of toppled power poles. A trailer blocked much of one major intersection.

Wood framing from ripped-apart houses was strewn along Route 35 on the town’s southern end.

Harvey’s relentless wind tore the metal sides off the high-school gym and twisted the steel door frame of its auditorium.

“We’re still in the very infancy

UK Labour Party backs single-market membership during Brexit

T

he UK’s opposition Labour Party wants Britain to stay in the European Union’s (EU) single market for an extended period after it leaves the bloc, a shift in its position that could undermine Prime Minister Theresa May’s efforts to deliver her vision of Brexit.

The proposal, which would mean no additional customs or migration controls in March 2019, would allow more time to finalize details of the UK’s departure, and give government and business time to prepare, Labour’s Brexit Spokesman Keir Starmer said.

It would also eliminate the need to negotiate a transitional arrangement at the same time as a final deal.

“There would be no need to set up complex alternative customs or trading relations,” Starmer wrote in the Observer newspaper last Sunday. “It is a grown-up acknowledgment that bespoke transitional arrangements are highly unlikely to be negotiated, agreed and established in the next 18 months.”

If Labour can force a Parliamentary vote in support of its position, it will put pressure on Conservative lawmakers who oppose leaving the single market to fall in behind it. Legislation that seeks to prepare Britain for leaving the EU returns next month to Parliament, where May doesn’t have a majority, and lawmakers are expected to battle over amendments.

Limited purgatory

Starmer was clear that Labour remains com-

mitted to implementing Brexit. He also said his party wanted to see a final settlement that allowed the UK “more effective management of migration”—something that would make permanent membership of the single market difficult. And he emphasized that he saw the transition as time-limited. “It cannot become a kind of never-ending purgatory,” he said.

Instead, he said Labour remained open to “negotiating a new single market relationship” or “working up from a bespoke trade deal.”

Some Labour lawmakers are pressing for more than that. A new group, Labour Campaign For The Single Market, will launch on Tuesday, pushing to get the party policy changed to supporting continued single market membership.

Business leaders overwhelmingly support continued single-market membership, while several prominent Conservative lawmakers have defied May to speak publicly of their support for ongoing single-market membership.

The shift in Labour’s policy comes as the UK prepares for another round of negotiations in Brussels on Monday, which EU officials have signaled are unlikely to yield much progress.

Brexit Secretary David Davis will ask his EU counterpart Michel Barnier to use “imagination” and flexibility to allow talks to move forward, as EU officials remain doubtful that enough progress will have been made by October to move on to trade talks.

While the round of negotiations kicking-off in Brussels this week will be technical, the UK

is hoping to proceed to discussions mapping out the future relationship with the EU as soon as possible, Davis’s office said.

While the UK said neither side should “drag its feet” with the deadline for exit set for March 2019, May’s decision to call an election last June means months of negotiation time has already been lost. The European Commission has warned that Britain must first settle its so-called divorce bill, resolve the issue of EU citizens’ rights and find a workable solution for the Northern Irish border before taking discussions further. A senior EU official last Friday downplayed the chance of any major progress this week in key areas such as the bill.

While even Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson last Friday acknowledged some payment would have to be made to the bloc—after saying a month ago the EU could “go whistle” if it expected Britain to pay—the two sides haven’t even agreed how to calculate the bill.

While the EU isn’t demanding the UK signs up to a specific amount at this stage, it does want it to agree soon on a methodology for reaching the final figure. German Chancellor Angela Merkel reminded Britain on Saturday that it had to settle its dues.

Davis and Barnier will meet to formally open talks, and officials will then hold working groups to discuss technical details behind each side’s proposals, Davis’s office said. Davis and Barnier will then close negotiations on Thursday. Bloomberg News

stage of getting this recovery started,” Aransas County Spokesman Larry Sinclair said.

Rockport Mayor Charles “C.J.” Wax told The Weather Channel that the city’s emergency-response system had been hampered by the loss of cellphone service and other forms of communication.

A day earlier, Rockport Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Rios offered ominous advice, telling people who chose not to evacuate to mark their arms with Sharpie pens, implying that the marks would make it easier for rescuers to identify them.

One person was killed in Aransas County when in a fire at home during the storm, county Judge C.H. “Burt” Mills Jr. said. A second person died in flooding in Harris County, where Houston is located.

Gary Norman, a spokesman for the Houston emergency operations center, said late last Saturday that the person was a woman appeared to have gotten out of her vehicle in high water, though authorities had not confirmed a cause of death. She was found by neighbors about 27 meters away from her vehicle, and Norman said she was pronounced dead at the scene by a doctor who was in the area.

Mills also said as many as 14 people suffered minor injuries in his county, including slips and falls, scrapes and a broken leg.

About 300,000 customers were without power statewide. Gov. Greg Abbott said it would probably be several days before electricity is restored.

Meanwhile, the storm was barely moving. Rainfall totals varied across the region, with Corpus Christi and Galveston receiving around 8 centimeters; Houston, 18 cm; and Aransas 25 cm. Tiny Austwell got 38 cm.

In Houston authorities were pleading with people not to leave their homes as a flood emergency was declared. “The streets are treacherous,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said.

Elsewhere in the storm’s immediate aftermath, the Coast Guard had rescued 20 people from boats and barges in distress, said Capt. Tony Hahn, commander of the Corpus Christi sector.

The Corpus Christi port was closed with extensive damage. Because the city is the third-largest petrochemical port in the nation, the agency will be on the lookout for spills, Hahn said. Bloomberg News and AP

Merkel: UK must pay EU obligations in Brexit talks

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erman Chancellor Angela Merkel warned the UK that it must pay what it owes the European Union as part of Brexit talks, saying it’s misleading to view the costs as a divorce bill.

“This is about obligations that Great Britain has entered into and that naturally must remain on the books,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast published last Saturday. “It’s not about the cost of divorce—that makes it sound like fines. We’re still at the very start of these negotiations.”

Talks on the UK’s exit from the European Union are to resume on Monday in Brussels with little clarity on key topics, including the amount of the financial settlement that’s an early part of the discussions.

With Prime Minister Theresa May’s government silent on how much it’ll pay the EU, Merkel said the two are facing a “very difficult issue.”

How much the UK owes the EU in leaving the bloc is among the most difficult issues, with analysts estimating the EU will put forward a gross bill of as much as €100 billion ($120 billion).

Britain’s government acknowledged in July that it will have a bill to pay, saying it wants to “determine a fair settlement of the UK’s rights and obligations.” Separately from any Brexit deals, the EU’s next budget talks will “surely be very difficult” because the 28-nation bloc is losing a net contributor, Merkel said.

As Merkel runs for a fourth term in Germany’s September 24 election on a platform of defending

EU values, she joined French President Emmanuel Macron in criticizing Poland for a government push to encroach on the courts.

While countries such as Poland and Hungary can always take grievances to the European Court of Justice, “we can’t make any false compromises,” Merkel said in response to questions from a German student in the podcast.

“That’s why we’re in a very serious situation, particularly with Poland,” Merkel said. “But we can’t say that the member states have unlimited plurality. Rather, it has its limits at those points where fundamental democratic values might be infringed.”

After a series of government overhauls of Poland’s judiciary raised questions about the independence of courts, the EU’s biggest eastern economy may face EU sanctions over what the union calls an attack on the rule of law. Along with countries, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic, Poland has also ignored EU policy and refused to take in refugees, citing security concerns.

“We can’t pick and choose the areas in which Europe offers solidarity,” Merkel said.

Separately, Spiegel magazine reported that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is preparing a motion that could strip Poland of its voting rights in the European Council if the country doesn’t roll back the reforms of its judiciary system, a move that Merkel opposes and that Hungary may veto. Bloomberg News

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Monday, August 28, 2017 A9

Thousands in Barcelona march shouting ‘I’m not afraid!’ under preliminary charges of terrorism and homicide and two more were freed by a judge but will remain under investigation.

Medical authorities said last Saturday that 22 people wounded in the attacks are still being treated in hospitals. Six of them remain in critical condition.

In the northeastern town of Ripoll, home for many of the attackers, members of the local

A young girl holds a sign reading “We are not afraid” in the Catalan language during a demonstration condemning the attacks that killed 15 people last week in Barcelona, Spain, on August 26. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on August 17 and 18 in Barcelona and Cambrils that also left more than 120 injured. Eight suspects are dead and four more under investigation, two of them in jail.

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AP/Emilio Morenatti

ARCELONA, Spain—Hundreds of thousands of peace marchers flooded the heart of Barcelona last Saturday shouting “I’m not afraid”—a public rejection of violence following extremist attacks that killed 15 people, Spain’s deadliest in more than a decade.

Emergency workers, taxis drivers, the police and ordinary citizens who helped immediately after the attack on August 17 in the city’s famed Las Ramblas boulevard led the march.

They carried a street-wide banner with black capital letters reading “No Tinc Por,” which means “I’m not afraid” in the local Catalan language.

The phrase has grown from a spontaneous civic answer to violence into a slogan that Spain’s entire political class has unanimously embraced.

Spain’s central, regional and local authorities tried to send an image of unity last Saturday by walking behind emergency workers, despite earlier criticism that national and regional authorities had not shared information about the attackers well enough with each other.

In a first for a Spanish monarch, King

Felipe VI joined a public demonstration, along with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other Spanish and Catalan regional officials.

Still, some citizens whistled their displeasure as authorities passed by and held banners criticizing the king’s role in promoting military exports to Saudi Arabia.

Barcelona police said some 500,000 people showed up to the march last Saturday.

The Islamic State group has claimed the vehicle attacks in Barcelona and hours later in the coastal town of Cambrils that left 15 dead and over 120 wounded.

The investigation into the Islamic extremist cell behind the attacks has shown that the group planned even more deadly carnage but accidently blew up a house in Alcanar where explosives were being built and gas tanks were being stored.

Eight suspects are dead, two are jailed

Hundreds of Israelis protest vs Netanyahu

Israelis take part in a weekly protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seen on the poster, in front of the home of Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit in Petah Tikva on August 26. AP/Dan Balilty

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ETAH TIKVA, Israel—Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of Israel’s attorney general’s home last Saturday to demand he indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges.

The weekly vigils have become the vanguard of a grassroots protest movement against Netanyahu’s alleged financial misdeeds and illicit ties to executives in the media, international business and Hollywood.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and called the accusations against him a witch hunt orchestrated by a hostile media.

The scandal has yet to threaten his lengthy rule, but has harmed his public approval ratings.

Last Saturday night’s demonstration comes a week after a pair of high-profile organizers were arrested and after Israel’s

Supreme Court ruled the protests could continue as long as they didn’t exceed 500 people or include the use of loudspeakers in the residential area.

Israeli police said far more than that arrived last Saturday, with some 2,000 attending. They also said protesters violated the other conditions set by the court, using loud speakers and spreading out to adjacent streets.

What began as a gathering of a handful of good-governance activists outside the home has now, in its 40th week, swelled into a powerful display of flag-waving Israelis each Saturday night that has drawn heavy media coverage, sparked counter pro-Netanyahu protests and unnerved police.

Israel law says the prime minister can only be removed by parliament, though the Supreme Court has since ruled that government ministers and mayors had to resign if indicted. AP

Muslim community and other residents gathered last Saturday in a central square to condemn the deadly attacks. Located at the foothills of the Pyrenees, the town is where most suspects came under the influence of a radical imam, investigators say.

The sister of two of the alleged extremists gave an emotional speech, thanking her neighbors for the support shown to Muslim

families in Ripoll.

“We share the same grief and the [need] for an understanding of what happened,” said Hafida Oukabir, whose younger brother Moussa was shot dead by the police in Cambrils and whose elder brother Driss is under custody facing terrorism charges. “We must all work together to stop this from ever happening again.”

Her sobbing speech was met with applause. AP

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A10 Monday, August 28, 2017

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Iraq: 90% of Tal Afar retaken from Islamic State

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AGHDAD—Iraq’s military said last Saturday it has driven Islamic State (IS) militants out of 90 percent of the northern town of Tal Afar and retaken the town center.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, a military spokesman, spoke hours after Iraq’s foreign minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said 70 percent of the town west of Mosul had been retaken. Al-Jaafari spoke during a news conference with his French counterpart.

Iraqi officials often declare areas liberated before the fighting has completely ended, and the militants have been known to carry out surprise counterattacks.

Iraq launched the operation to retake Tal Afar last Sunday, a month after it declared the northern city of Mosul, its second largest, to be fully liberated. Tal Afar is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Syria’s border and it’s among the last IS-held towns in Iraq.

Iraqi and Syrian forces have advanced against the extremist group on a number of fronts in recent months with the help of a

$513M

The amount of France’s loan to Iraq this year after the nation’s budget was crimped by the fight against Islamic State and the drop in oil prices US-led coalition.

US-backed and Kurdish-led forces are currently battling IS inside the group’s self-declared capital, Raqqa, in northern Syria.

IS still controls large areas in Syria and a handful of towns in Iraq. In the past, it has managed to inspire or carry out attacks in Europe and elsewhere even while suffering battlefield setbacks in the Middle East.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari speaks during a joint news conference with French Defence Minister Florence Parly and French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Baghdad, Iraq, on August 26. AP/Karim Kadim

France plans $513-M Iraq loan

France will give Iraq a €430-million ($513-million) loan this year after the nation’s budget was crimped by the fight against IS and the drop in oil prices,

accord ing to A gence Fra nce Presse (AFP), citing the French government.

France Foreign Minister JeanYves Le Drian, visiting Baghdad, told Iraqi Prime Minister Haider

al-Abadi at a meeting last Saturday that the money will be delivered before the end of the year, AFP said.

The loan, like those of the World Bank, requires an im-

provement in Iraq’s management of its public finances and the governance of state-owned enterprises, as well as greater energy efficiency, the news agency said. Bloomberg News and AP

Indian guru faces 7 yrs up Merkel stands by her German to life in prison in rape case border opening to refugees C hancellor Angela Merkel, the front-runner in next month’s German election, said she’d change nothing in her approach to Europe’s refugee crisis two years ago if she had the chance.

“I would make all of the important decisions of 2015 the same way again,” Merkel was quoted as saying in a Welt am Sonntag newspaper interview published on Sunday.

Four weeks before Germany’s election on September 24, the comments underscore her conviction that there was a humanitarian need to open the border when a record influx of refugees made their way through southern and eastern Europe to Germany that year.

Part of the problem in the buildup to the 2015 crisis is that Mediterranean countries, such as Greece and Italy, were too often left alone by other European Union countries to deal with refugees arriving from outside the EU, Merkel was quoted

In this October 5, 2016, photo, Indian spiritual guru, who calls himself Saint Dr. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan (center), greets followers as he arrives for a news conference ahead of the release of his new movie MSG, The Warrior Lion Heart, in New Delhi, India.

Several cities in north India were under a security lock down ahead of a verdict in a rape trial involving the controversial and hugely popular spiritual leader. AP/Tsering Topgyal

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EW DELHI—Thousands of supporters of an Indian quasi-religious sect leader were leaving his headquarters in northern India last Sunday as authorities relaxed a curfew a day ahead of his sentencing for rape.

They responded to an appeal by authorities to go home after thousands of followers protested the guru’s rape conviction with violence that left at least 36 people dead in Panchkula and Sirsa towns in Haryana state last Friday.

The guru faces seven years to life in prison.

Pol ice Spokesm a n Su r jeet Singh said the curfew imposed in Sirsa town, where the headquarters is located, was relaxed for five hours on Sunday to help people buy food and other essential items and outsiders to return home.

The presence of nearly 10,000

people in the guru’s headquarters has raised fears they may turn violent again after their leader is sentenced on Monday.

The judge will hold the proceedings in a prison in Rohtak town, where the guru, who calls himself Saint Dr. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insaan, has been detained since last Friday amid tight security.

Singh said hundreds of government forces, including the army, have been posted outside the sect’s headquarters since last Friday’s violence, when mobs set fire to government buildings, vandalized bus stations and government vehicles and attacked police and TV journalists in Panchkula.

Police said 30 people died in Panchkula and another six in Sirsa while 524 were arrested.

The guru had denied the charges of raping the two women at his

ashram in 2002.

The sect claims to have about 50 million followers and campaigns for vegetarianism and against drug addiction.

It has also taken up social causes such as organizing the weddings of poor couples. Such sects have huge followings in India and their leaders often maintain private militias for protection.

Clashes in 2007 between the guru’s Dera Sacha Sauda followers and members of the Sikh faith left at least three people dead in northern India.

In 2014, six people were killed when followers of another religious leader, the guru Rampal, fought pitched battles with police who were attempting to arrest him after he repeatedly failed to appear in court in connection with a murder trial. AP

as saying.

She renewed her campaign pledge that Germany “should never again witness” such an emergency.

Merkel’s open-borders stance depressed her approval ratings last year and spurred the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party after a record number of 980,000 asylum seekers, many of them fleeing war in Syria, arrived in Germany in 2015.

Critics included US President Donald Trump, who called Merkel’s policy a “catastrophic mistake” in an interview with European media.

Merkel’s poll numbers rebounded as the influx ebbed to 280,000 last year, restricted by border closures along the so-called Balkan route and a refugee accord between the EU and Turkey.

Some 106,000 asylum seekers arrived in the first seven months of 2017, led by Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, according to German Interior Ministry figures.

Support for Merkel’s Christian

Democratic-led bloc declined 1 percentage point to 38 percent, while her main opponent, the Social Democrats led by challenger Martin Schulz, also fell 1 point to 23 percent, according to a weekly Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The pro-business Free Democrats and the Alternative for Germany gained one point each, polling 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively, with the anticapitalist Left party unchanged at 9 percent and the Greens declining 1 point to 7 percent.

Merkel, 63, has governed with the Social Democrats in a “grand coalition” for eight of her 12 years in office, including the last four.

Surveys suggest the numbers may not add up on election day for a coalition with a smaller party, such as the Free Democrats, her secondterm partner. Emnid polled 1,979 people between August 17 and August 23. No margin or error was given. Bloomberg News

Some Republicans talking about 2020 challenge as Trump struggles

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EW YORK—Mark Cuban isn’t ready to launch a formal campaign to challenge President Donald J. Trump.

Yet Cuban, an outspoken Texas billionaire who describes himself as “fiercely independent” politically, sees an opportunity for someone to take down the Republican president, who is increasingly viewed as divisive and incompetent even within his own party.

“His base won’t turn on him, but if there is someone they can connect to and feel confident in, they might turn away from him,” Cuban told The Associated Press. “The door is wide open. It’s just a question of who can pull it off.”

Indeed, just seven months into the Trump presidency, Republicans and right-leaning independents have begun to contemplate the possibility of an organized bid to take down the sitting president in 2020.

It is a herculean task, some say a fantasy: No president in the modern

era has been defeated by a member of his own party, and significant political and practical barriers stand in the way.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), now run by Trump loyalists, owns the rulebook for nominating the party’s standard-bearer and is working with the White House to ensure a process favorable to the president.

Yet, Trump’s muddled response to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this month has emboldened his critics to talk about the once unthinkable.

GOP officials from New Hampshire to Arizona have wondered aloud in recent days about the possibility of a 2020 primary challenge from a fellow Republican or right-leaning independent. No one has stepped forward yet, however, and the list of potential prospects remains small.

Ohio’s GOP Gov. John Kasich has not ruled out a second run in 2020. Another Republican and fre-

quent Trump critic, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, last month visited Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first presidential caucuses. And a handful of wealthy outsiders, including Cuban and wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson, are being encouraged to join the fray.

Trump’s comments about Charlottesville “frightened” many Republicans in New Hampshire, said Tom Rath, a veteran Republican strategist in the state that traditionally hosts the nation’s first presidential primary election.

“While he has support from his people, the party itself is not married to him,” Rath said of his party’s president.

Trump denounced bigotry after the Virginia protests, but he also said “very fine people” were on “both sides” of the demonstrations, which drew neoNazis, white nationalists and members of the Ku Klux Klan. One woman was killed when a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. AP

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To escape violence, Rohingya attempts entering Bangladesh

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OX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh— Thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims were trying to cross from Myanmar into Bangladesh last Saturday, following an attack by Rohingya militants in western Myanmar that left 89 people dead in a dramatic escalation of communal violence that has plagued the region.

The militants launched the attacks overnight last Thursday on more than two dozen police and border outposts.

The office of Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said military and border police responded to the attacks— which left 12 security personnel and 77 Rohingya dead—by launching “clearance operations.”

Advocates for the Rohingya on social media have been reporting many army raids on villages, including killings and the burning down of homes. They have also posted videos they say show villagers who have fled to the mountains for safety.

The accounts, from activists who have given generally reliable information in the past, are impossible to independently verify because the government bars journalists and other outsiders from entering the region without permission.

Mohammad Nur, a Rohingya leader at an unregistered camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, told The Associated Press by phone that he had heard that some 100,000 Rohingya had gathered along the border to try to enter Bangladesh, but the number could not be confirmed.

40-hour journey

NURUL Kabir, a Rohingya man from Buddhist-majority Myanmar, said many Rohingya started fleeing their villages last Thursday morning after Myanmar soldiers and Buddhists started entering their areas.

Kabir said he rescued a four-yearold boy from a road on his way to the border. “He was crying, he was alone,” he said. “I asked him where are your parents, and he was just crying. I took him and brought him with me.”

Roshida Khatun, 40, crossed into Bangladesh last Saturday morning along with more than 30 other Rohingya. Khatun told The Associated Press that she left behind her entire family along the border in Myanmar after she lost track of her whereabouts last Friday night. She said that she and hundreds of others started walking to reach the border after her village was attacked by Myanmar soldiers. She reached Amtoli, a border village in Bangladesh’s Bandarban district, at around 11 a.m. on Saturday after a nearly 40-hour journey.

“I have left everything behind,” Khatun said. “My husband died 11 years ago, and now I have nobody. I have lost my entire family this time.”

She said many others were still waiting to enter Bangladesh. “If they are not allowed in they will die,” she said.

Already overburdened

FARID Alam, a Bangladeshi who lives in Amtoli village, through which many Rohingya have crossed the border, told the AP on Saturday that over last two days, at least 2,000 Rohingya had entered Bangladesh.

“The patrol in my area is not that tight often, especially during changing of shifts,” he said.

Bangladeshi authorities would not confirm how many Rohingya had entered Bangladesh.

Ali Hossain, a top government official in Cox’s Bazar, said Friday that authorities were on alert in the wake of the new violence in Myanmar.

He said that “Bangladesh is already overburdened” and “is unable to take more Rohingya.”

“That’s the order we have gotten from the Ministry of Home Affairs,” Hossain said. “We have done enough and sheltered hundreds of thousands despite our limited resources.”

Nur, the Rohingya leader, said Bangladeshi authorities had asked him and his associates to “discourage” their people in Myanmar from leaving the country.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration said recently that around 87,000 Rohingya had crossed the border and entered Bangladesh since last October, when a new string of violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

A militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, took responsibility for the Thursday night attacks on more than 25 locations, saying they were in defense of Rohingya communities that had been brutalized by government forces.

Calculated attempt

SUU Kyi called the attacks “a calculated attempt to undermine the efforts of those seeking to build peace and harmony in Rakhine state.”

The United States urged authorities to avoid a response that would inflame the tensions. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the attacks underscored the importance of the government implementing recommendations of a commission chaired by former UN chief Kofi Annan, which published its final report on Thursday recommending that the government act quickly to improve economic development and social justice in Rakhine state to resolve violence between Buddhists and the Rohingya.

The clashes were deadlier than an attack by the militants on three border posts last October that killed nine policemen and set off months of brutal counterinsurgency operations

by Myanmar security forces against Rohingya communities in Rakhine.

Human rights groups accused the army of carrying out massive human rights abuses including killing, rape and burning down more than 1,000 homes and other buildings. AP

Case against BBC reporter in Thailand withdrawn

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ANGKOK—A Thai lawyer has withdrawn a criminal defamation case against a British BBC journalist involving a report on foreigners being defrauded of property, the BBC says.

The case against Jonathan Head, BBC’s Southeast Asia correspondent, had begun last Wednesday and has been criticized as an example of how Thailand’s harsh criminal defamation laws can be used to intimidate journalists.

The BBC said in a statement last Wednesday that the plaintiff had withdrawn the case against Head, who said in a Twitter post last Thursday that the charges against his codefendant were also withdrawn. “Charges against my codefendant Ian Rance now also withdrawn,” Head said in the post. “Relief for me but Ian’s fight 4 justice & restoration of stolen assets goes on.”

Head had reported about Rance, a British expatriate whose Thai wife allegedly defrauded him of properties on the southern resort island of Phuket by forging his signature on multiple occasions.

The criminal complaint against Head

and Rance was brought by lawyer Pratuan Thanarak, who said he was defamed by an allegation in the report that he had notarized Rance’s forged signature, allowing the wife to transfer properties.

If found guilty, Head could have faced up to two years in prison for online criminal defamation and five years under a law regulating online content.

Rance was charged with criminal defamation, which carries a one-year maximum sentence. Pratuan’s complaint said the BBC report caused the public to perceive him as a “deceitful lawyer” and “an unethical lawyer.”

In February the American-based Committee to Protect Journalists called for an end to the use in Thailand of criminal defamation charges against journalists.

“The use of criminal defamation complaints in Thailand has a chilling effect on journalists who fear being bogged down in time-consuming and expensive litigation,” Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative, said in a statement. AP

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Monday, August 28, 2017 A11

Palm oil kills orangutans in Indonesia peat swamp

In this August 10 file photo, Pandu Wibisono, a conservationist of Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP), carries a medical pack and tranquilizer rifle during a rescue operation for orangutans trapped at a swath of disrupted forest near a palm-oil plantation at Tripa peat swamp in Aceh province, Indonesia. AP

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RIPA PEAT SWAMP, Indonesia—It’s been called the orangutan capital of the world, but the great apes in Indonesia’s Tripa peat forest on the island of Sumatra are under threat by palm oil plantations that have gobbled up thousands of acres of land to make room for trees that produce the most consumed vegetable oil on the planet.

Palm oil is found in everything from cookies and lipstick to paint, shampoo and instant noodles, and Indonesia is the world’s top producer. As demand soars, plantations are expanding. In Tripa, companies

drain the swamp, releasing planetwarming carbon into the atmosphere and clear the forest of its native trees, often setting illegal fires.

T his robs ora ng uta ns a nd other endangered species of their

habitats, leaving the animals marooned on small swaths of forest, boxed-in on all sides by plantations. They slowly starve because there is no longer enough food to sustain them or they are frequently killed by plantation workers when they emerge from the jungle in search of food. Mothers often die protecting their babies, which are taken and sold as illegal pets.

On August 10 a rescue team from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program, accompanied by the Indonesia’s Nature Conservation Agency, hiked into the Tripa peatlands to look for a mother and baby orangutan that had been reported in an area being overtaken by oil palms. The plan was to sedate and relocate them, but when the team arrived, there was no sign of the duo. Instead, they encountered a 50-kilogram male orangutan that was about 20 years old. He, too, was

suffering, and the team managed to tranquilize him and carry him out of the jungle in a stretcher net.

He was named “Black,” and driven about eight hours to an orangutan reintroduction center in Jantho, Aceh Besar. He joined about 100 other primates that have been released in the jungle to establish a new wild population. Only an estimated 6,600 critically endangered Sumatran orangutans remain. Less than 200 are believed to be living in the Tripa swamp, but it is still one of the densest concentrations of orangutans. The great apes are only found on two islands, Sumatra and Borneo, which Indonesia shares with Malaysia. Both support separate species.

“Capturing wild orangutans is not something we like to do. It is difficult, highly stressful and risky for all concerned,” said the rescue group’s director, Ian Singleton, who has been studying Sumatran orangutans since the 1990s. “It really is a last resort, and a reflection of the dire situation many of these animals are in as a result of the ongoing destruction of their habitat.”

The Tripa peat swamp is part of the 2.6 million hectare Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra, which is the last place on earth where orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos live together in the wild.

The entire area is also under threat from logging, pulp and paper plantations and mining. In 2012, huge fires that were intentionally set to clear the land for palm oil ripped through the swamp, killing wildlife and blanketing surrounding areas in a thick haze.

The Indonesian government filed a lawsuit against palm oil firm P.T. Kallista Alam in 2012 for illegally burning 1,000 hectares of the Tripa swamp. Three years later, it was ordered to pay $26 million in fines and reparation. A manager was sentenced to three years in prison. However, the company filed a lawsuit against the government in July and so far no fines have been paid and no prison time has been served. AP

Flight of ex-Thai prime minister boosts junta rule

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ANGKOK—As a prominent opponent of Thailand’s ruling junta, ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra would have been a thorn in the government’s side no matter how the country’s top court ruled this week in a criminal trial her supporters say is politically motivated.

A 10-year prison sentence, for allegedly mismanaging an ill-fated rice subsidy project that cost the government billions of dollars, would have made her a martyr and might have set the stage for a new era of upheaval and mass protests. An acquittal would have left her emboldened and free to challenge the junta at home.

In an unexpected move, Yingluck chose a third option: skipping out on the court’s verdict last Friday and, according to a member of her political party, fleeing into exile abroad. Her whereabouts could not be confirmed last Saturday, but local media have cited anonymous officials as saying she traveled overland to Cambodia and then flew to Dubai to join her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra— another exiled former prime minister whose administration, like hers, was dismantled in a coup.

The outcome is a clear victory for Thailand’s military government—Yingluck poses much less of a threat from exile. But it doesn’t mean Thailand’s political problems are over.

Societal struggle

“THOSE who are opposed to what Thaksin stood for will be pleased to see the back of her for the time being,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak,

In this July 21 file photo, former Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra arrives at the Supreme Court for the last day of her hearing in Bangkok, Thailand. Facing a possible 10-year jail term, the former prime minister fled the country ahead of a court verdict her supporters say was politically motivated, a senior member of her party said. AP

director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. But Thailand remains divided, he said, and it remains to be seen whether the junta and its allies “will take away the right lesson, which is that Thaksin’s legacy of awakening neglected segments of Thai society must be incorporated and internalized.”

If the military fails to appease its opponents, “the winners today can still lose in the longer term as grievances accumulate and burst to the fore down the road.”

The trial is the latest chapter in a decadelong struggle by the nation’s elite minority to crush the powerful political machine created by Thaksin, a billionaire populist who won over rural voters who had long felt ignored

with promises to improve their lives.

Thaksin’s ouster, in a 2006 coup, laid bare a societal struggle that pits an impoverished northern majority that supports the Shinawatras against royalists, the military and their backers in Bangkok and the south.

Inflaming tensions

DESPITE living in exile in Dubai since fleeing a 2008 corruption charge that he says was fabricated, Thaksin has remained hugely influential at home for years. His popularity was credited as the driving force in helping Yingluck become Thailand’s first female prime minister in 2011 elections.

But he remained a divisive figure, and his influence waned after Yingluck’s government proposed an amnesty in 2013 that would have

allowed his return. The proposal triggered street protests that culminated in another coup in 2014. Since then, Thaksin has remained largely silent, apparently to protect his sister and avoid inflaming tensions.

Under Thailand’s military government, though, prosecutors have doggedly pursued Yingluck in court.

In one ruling, she was held personally responsible for about $1 billion of the state’s losses in the rice subsidy program, which saw authorities stockpile rice in a failed effort to drive up global prices. Other Asian producers filled the void, knocking Thailand from its perch as the world’s leading rice exporter.

Last Friday the Supreme Court had been expected to decide whether Yingluck was criminally negligent for overseeing the disastrous program, but she never appeared and the court ordered a warrant issued for her arrest.

For democracy

THE trial is now due to resume on September 27, and if Yingluck fails to appear, she is likely to be convicted in absentia.

Puangthong Pawakapan, an assistant professor at Chulalongkorn University, said “this probably spells the end of the Shinawatras’” ability to lead a political party in Thailand.

“There probably will not be a third person from this family who would be brave enough to risk their well-being by getting into politics,” Puangthong said. To survive in the future, political parties will have to work with the military, he said. AP

Green Monday BusinessMirror

A12 Monday, August 28, 2017

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

Climate migrants might reach 1B by 2050

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OME—Imagine a world with as many as 1 billion people facing harsh climate-change impacts resulting in devastating droughts and/or floods, extreme weather, destruction of natural resources, in particular lands, soils and water, and the consequence of severe livelihoods conditions, famine and starvation.

A lthough not yet based on definite scientific projections, the proven speed with which the process of climate change has been taking place, might lead to such a scenario by 2050. If so, one in nine human beings would be on the move by then.

C u r re nt l y, fore c a s t s v a r y from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, mo v i n g e it he r w it h i n t he i r countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporar y basis, with 200 million being the most widely cited estimate, according to a 2015 study carried out by the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University.

“This figure equals the current estimate of international migrants worldwide.”

Other specialized sources estimate that “every second, one person is displaced by disaster.”

On this, the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports that in 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people f led disasters in 113 countries. “Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conf lict and war worldwide.”

One person displaced every second

As climate change continues, NRC adds, it will likely lead to more frequent and severe natural hazards; the impact will be heavy, warns this independent hu ma nit a r i a n orga ni zat ion providing aid and assistance to people forced to flee.

“On average, 26 million people are displaced by disasters, such as floods and storms every year.

That’s one person forced to flee every second.”

For its part, the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) also forecasts 200 million environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. Many of them would be coastal population.

In an interview with Inter Press Service (IPS), the IOM Director General William Lacy Swing explained that political crises and natural disasters are the other major drivers of migration today.

“We have never had so many complex and protracted humanitarian emergencies now happening simultaneously from West

National security, migration

A resident uses a bamboo raft to bring to a dry area goats after being trapped following the flooding brought about by Supertyphoon Haima (local code name Lawin), which lashes Vigan township, Ilocos Sur province in northern Philippines, on Thursday, October 20, 2016. Supertyphoon Haima slammed into the northeastern Philippine coast late-Wednesday with ferocious winds and rain that rekindled fears and memories from the catastrophe wrought by Supertyphoon Haiyan in 2013. AP/Bullit Marquez

113 The number of countries from which 19.2 million people fled disasters in 2015, the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council report says

Africa all the way to Asia, with very few spots in between which do not have some issue.”

T he U N s p e c i a l i z e d b o d y ’s c h ie f a d d e d , “ We h av e t o d ay 4 0 m i l l ion forc i bl y d i s pl a c e d p e o pl e a nd 20 m i l l ion re f u gees, t he g reatest number of upro ot e d p e o pl e s i nc e t he S e cond Wor l d Wa r.”

Droughts, desertification

Another warning comes from t he Un ited Nat ions Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which estimates that some 135 million people may be displaced by 2045 as a result of desertification.

Up to 12 million hectares of productive land become barren every year due to desertification and drought alone, which is a lost opportunity to produce 20 million tons of grain, adds the Bonn-based Convention secretariat.

Meantime, the increase in droughts and flash floods that are stronger, more frequent and widespread is destroying the land—the Earth’s main fresh-water store, according to UNCCD. “Droughts kill more people than any other single weatherrelated catastrophe and conflicts among communities over water scarcity are gathering pace. Over 1 billion people today have no

access to water, and demand will increase by 30 percent by 2030.”

On the other hand, getting sustainable energy to all represents one of the biggest development challenges of the 21st century, it continues.

“Research suggests that 1.4 billion people—over 20 percent of the global population—lack access to electricity, and that at least 2.7 billion people—some 40 percent of the global population—rely on the traditional use of biomass for cooking.”

I n shor t , l a nd , w ater a nd e ne r g y a s re s ou rc e s a re a l l pi l l a rs of ou r su r v iv a l a nd of su st a i n able de ve lopment. “ They stand or fall together.

To be sustainable and in particular to reach poor rural populations, we need to enhance supply, access and security across all three pillars, at the same time, while supporting global climate ambitions.”

On this, based on the UN Environment Programme’s 2009 study “From Conf lict to Peacebuilding. The Role of Natural R esou rces a nd t he Env i ronment,” UNCCD reminds that 4 0 percent of a l l i nt ra st ate conf licts in the past 60 years are linked to the control and allocation of natural resources.

“The exposure of more and more poor people to water scarcity and hunger opens the door to the failure of fragile states and regional conflicts. Nonstate actor groups are increasingly taking advantage of large crossborder migration flows and abandoned lands.”

Where natural assets, including land, are poorly managed, warns the Convention, violence might become the dominant means of resource control, forcing natural resource assets out of the hands of legitimate government.

Meanwhile, the number of international migrants worldwide has been on the rise. According to the International Migration Report (2015), their number has continued to grow rapidly over the past 15 years reaching 244 million in 2015, up from 222 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000.

Losing productive land is driving people to make risky life choices, UNCCD says, adding that in rural areas where people depend on scarce productive land resources, land degradation is a driver of forced migration.

Africa is particularly susceptible, since more than 90 percent of economy depends on a climatesensitive natural resource base like rain-fed, subsistence agriculture.

“Unless we change the way we manage our land, in the next 30 years we may leave a billion or more vulnerable poor people with little choice but to fight or flee.” IPS

GE Steam Power Systems cleaning What does climate-smart agri mean? New tool breaks it down emissions to improve air quality

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y 2050 the world population is expected to exceed 9 billion. That phenomenal rate of growth requires increased power generation to provide higher living standards for all. It also demands greater use of materials, like aluminum, cement and pulp, and fuels, like oil and gas to create and manufacture the infrastructure and consumable goods needed.

But to make or extract those materials or fuels is not an easy process. It has an impact on the environment and on air quality that needs to be minimized.

For decades now, GE Steam Power Systems has been leading the charge within the industry to improve air quality. Today, the company remains at the forefront of efforts to reduce air pollution generated through energy generation or industrial processes. The company has installed air quality-control systems in power and industrial plants across the globe that collectively account for around 500 gigawatt of output, removing countless pollutants and harmful substances from the air the people breathe. The historic contribution GE’s technology has made to cleaning up our air is incalculable, but it is the company’s latest solutions that have the potential to be a game changer in the battle against air pollution.

By drawing on a host of advanced tools, from dry and wet flue gas desulfurization (FGD) technology to particulate control systems (electrostatic precipitators and fabric filters) and selective catalytic reduction systems (SCR), GE Steam Power Systems is now able to deploy solutions that remove up to 99 percent of particulate matter, 98 percent of sulphur oxide, 95 percent of nitrogen oxide and 92 percent of mercury and other pollutants from power and industrial-plant emissions.

These impressive removal rates are testament to GE’s long-standing commitment to innovation. The company

currently earmarks between 4 percent and 5 percent of its annual revenues for research and development and continues to invest into pioneering new technologies that capture hazardous pollutants and greenhouse-gas emissions.

At present, GE has mobilized 1,000 employees globally in this important endeavor. “We have established four state-of-the art centers of technological development around the world and each works toward the same goal of enabling our customers to meet the strictest environmental regulations at the lowest cost,” says Pascal Radue, head of Clean Combustion Business, GE Steam Power System. “The dry FGD and particulate matter systems are developed and tested in Växjo, Sweden, the wet flue gas technology is nurtured and developed just outside Milan, Italy, and the SCR technology is in the US-state of Tennessee.”

Meanwhile, a center that specializes in seawater FGD systems is in Beijing, a city that has often been the scene of air-quality alerts.

The seawater FGD technology that GE has been developing for over 40 years is supplied to power plants and industrial facilities in coastal areas in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It works by taking seawater and using it as a reagent to absorb sulphur-dioxide emissions. A pulse-jet fabric-filter system then helps to keep particulate emissions at the plant below 50 milligrams per normal cubic meters.

The multiple air quality-control systems that GE is able to offer its customers can be applied across a wide range of power plants and industries that rely on different types of fuel and have different capacities. GE’s various offerings enable customers to apply the best solution to reduce emissions and comply with the increasingly tough restrictions imposed by regulators.

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ORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad— A Trinidadian scientist has developed a mec hanism for determining the degree of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) compliance with respect to projects, processes and products.

T his comes as global attention is draw n to CSA as one of the approaches to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

Steve Maximay said his Climate-Smart Agriculture Compliant (C-SAC) tool provides a certification and auditing scheme that can be used to compare projects, processes and products to justify the applicability and quantum of climate-change funding.

“C-SAC provides a step-bystep, checklist-style guide that a trained person can use to determine how closely the project or process under review satisfies the five areas of compliance,” Maximay told the Inter Press Service (IPS).

“This method literally forces the examiner to consider key aspects or goals of climate-smart agriculture. These aspects [categories] are resource conservation, energy use, safety, biodiversity support and greenhouse-gas reduction.”

He said each category is furt her subd iv ided, so resource conservation includes the use of land, water, nutrients and labor.

Energy use includes its use in power, lighting, input manufacture and transportation. Safety revolves around production operations, har vesting, storage and utilization.

Biodiversity support examines land clearing, off-site agrochemical impact, limited introduction of invasive species

and ecosystem-services impact.

Green hou se - ga s reduc t ion involves enteric fermentation (gas produced in the stomach of cattle and other animals that chew their cud), soil management, fossil-fuel reduction and manure/waste management. “ T hese subd iv i sion s [fou r each in the five categories] are the basis of the 20 questions that comprise the C-SAC tool,” Maximay explained.

“The manual provides a means of scoring each aspect on a fivepoint scale. If the cumulative score for the project is less than 40 it is deemed noncompliant and not a truly climate-smart agriculture activity. C-SAC further grades in terms of degree of compliance wherein a score of 40 to 49 points is level 1; 50 to 59, level 2; 60 to 69, level 3; 70 to 79, level 4; and 80 to 100 being the highest degree of compliance at level 5.

“It is structured with due cognizance of concerns about how the global climate-change funds will be disbursed,” he added.

The United Nations Food and Agr iculture Organisation describes CSA as agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, enhances resilience (adaptation), reduces or removes greenhouse-gases (mitigation) where possible, and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals.

T he CSA concept ref lects an ambition to improve the integration of agriculture development and climate responsiveness. It aims to achieve food security and broader development goals under a changing climate and increasing food demand.

CSA initiatives sustainably

increase productivity, enhance resilience and reduce/remove greenhouse gases, and require planning to address trade-offs and sy nergies bet ween these three pillars: productivity, adaptation and mitigation.

W hi le t he concept is st i l l evolving, many of the practices that make up CSA already exist worldw ide and are used by farmers to cope w ith various production risks.

Mainstreaming CSA requires cr itica l stoc kta k ing of ongoing and promising practices for t he f uture, and of institutional and financial enablers for CSA adoption.

Maximay said C-SAC is meant to be a prioritizing tool w ith a holistic inter pretation of the perceived benefits of climatesmart agriculture.

“It can be used as a preliminary filter to sort through the number of ‘green-washing’ projects that may get funded under the rubric of climate-smart agriculture... all in a bid to access the millions of dollars that should go to help small and genuinely progressive farmers,” he said.

“C-SAC will provide bankers and project managers with an easy to use tool to ensure funded projects really comply with a broad interpretation of climate smart agriculture.”

Ma x imay added C-SAC incorporates major categories of compliance and provides a replicable analysis matri x using sca lar approaches to convert qualitative assessments into a numeric compliance scale. “ The rapid qualitative analysis at the core of C-SAC depends on interrelated science-based

g u ide l i nes honed f rom peer re v ie we d , f ie ld - te s te d pr ac t ices a nd operat ions,” Ma x im ay e x pl a i ned.

“Climate-smart agriculture often ama lgamates activ ities geared toward adaptation and mitigation. T he proliferation of projects claiming to fit the climate-smart agriculture designation has highlighted the need for an auditing and certification scheme. One adaptation or mitigation feature may not be enough to qualify an agricultural operation as being climate-smart.

Consequently, a more holistic perspective can lead to a determination of the level of compliance with respect to climatesmart agriculture.

“C-SAC provides that holistic perspective based on a structured qualitative assessment of key components,” Maximay added.

The scientist noted that in the midst of increased opportunities for the use of global climate funds, it behooves policy-makers and financiers to ensure projects are not crafted in a unidimensional manner.

He added that small farmers in Small Island Developing States are particularly vulnerable, and their needs must be met by projects that are holistic in design and implementation.

Over the years, agriculture organizations in the Caribbean have been providing funding to set up climate-smart farms as demonstrations to show farmers examples of ecological practices that they can use to combat many of the conditions that arise due to the heavy rainfall and drought conditions experienced in the region. IPS

Biodiversity Monday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Monday, August 28, 2017 A13

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

Catching tuna the sustainable way Story & photos by Jonathan L. Mayuga

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@jonlmayuga

eet Francis Silosia. At 36, he is already the captain of Ryan 628, a medium-scale commercial fishing vessel based in General Santos City, considered as the “tuna capital” of the Philippines.

For appropriate pricing, a man checks the quality of the meat of every tuna caught and sold in the market.

A crew of a fishing vessel shows a juvenile yellowfin tuna, called tambakol. kg, depending on the quality of the meat. Romeo Ortiz, a tester, checks the quality of tuna meat. He has been working at the fish port since he was a teenager.

Mario Liquit, 74, remains employed as a consultant of Arnold Sison, who is in the buy and sell of prized blue marlin and black marlin.

“If am lucky, in three hours I am done buying tuna. I sell them in Manila, to where I bring them via plane.

I can earn as much as P10,000 a day,” Sison said.

His buyer, he added, chops and repacks the tuna for export.

Unsustainable

A fish porter carries a yellowfin tuna at the General Santos City Fish Port.

This reporter met him on August 16 on board Ryan 628, which is one of seven commercial fishing vessels owned by a local businessman he works for.

Silosia, sitting on top of a blue container drum, flashed a smile as we shook hands when we were introduced to each other by Jimely Flores, a marine biologist at Oceana Philippines.

Silosia and some of the crewmembers were busy preparing for their next fishing expedition. One of them was overhauling a small engine while another was painting a smaller boat atop the katig, or outrigger to stabilize the boat.

Vessel monitoring Oceana is pushing for the implementation of Republic Act (RA) 10654, or the Amended Fisheries Code, which requires commercial fishing vessels to install a vessel-monitoring device for proper monitoring and tracking.

An international ocean-conservation advocac y g roup, Oceana, sa id commercia l f ishing vessels often encroach the country’s 15-kilometer exclusive fishing ground for municipal fishers, and sometimes, even raid “no-take” marine reser ves declared as protected areas under National Integrated Protected A reas System Act. Municipal fishing grounds are supposed to be for the exclusive use of municipal fishers.

The Philippines has a total of 240 protected areas, including national 70 marine-protected areas (MPAs), 30 of which are predominantly marine areas.

There are also over 1,500 locally managed MPAs all over the country, where fishing is regulated, if not totally banned, to protect the breeding grounds of fish and other marine wildlife.

Oceana is eyeing to sponsor the subscription of 100 small-scale com-

Francis Silosia, captain of Ryan 628, a commercial fishing vessel based in General Santos City mercial fishing vessels for one year using the Futuristic Aviation and Maritime Enterprise Inc. (FAME) technology to boost its advocacy.

According to Oceana, two-thirds of the country’s fishing grounds are already overfished.

Recently, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and Oceana Philippines have launched a project, dubbed as “Sagip Sardines”, to conserve and protect the fish species which is now being threatened by overfishing.

The project aims to create a National Management Framework Plan for sardines—the first of its kind in the Philippines—to address excessive sardines fishing and ensure the sustainability of the industry.

Commercial fishing is seen as the culprit behind overfishing. Besides excessively fishing, commercial fishing often use destructive or unsustainable fishing methods.

Unlike handline fishing, largescale commercial fishing vessels use active gear, and are also known to use fish-aggregating device, or locally known as payao.

Trawling is the most destructive among commercial-fishing methods.

It drags the net at the bottom of the ocean, often destroying corals.

The use of payao aggravates commercial fishing, as it attracts all sorts of fish—big or small—resulting in accidental by catch of nontargeted fish that are not commercially viable.

Pilot testing

Flores, along with Roger Guzman, Oceana’s legal policy officer; Aga Khan M. Salong, a member of the Quick Response Team of BFAR-Soccsksargen; and Ronaldo Aguila, the chief technology officer of FAME, just finished installing the FAME transponder which will track and monitor Ryan 628 as it sails to catch those commercially viable tuna.

The pilot-testing of the FAME transponder is in preparation for the nationwide implementation of RA 10654.

FAME is charging a monthly subscription of P800. The transponder and its installation is free of charge for a minimum subscription of three months, said Arcelio J. Fetizanan Jr., FAME CEO. Section 2 of RA 10654 states that no commercial fishing vessel can fish without putting in place vessel-monitoring measures, which is basically a telecom or radio frequency-based monitoring system.

Large commercial fishing vessels, which usually fish beyond Philippine waters—whether in high seas or in exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of other countries—are mandated to inst a l l satel l ite -based vessel monitoring system so they could be tracked anywhere, anytime while on a fishing expedition.

Handline fishing

On board the Ryan 628 are more than 20 of drums which contain either diesel, gasoline or the crew’s freshwater supply.

The diesel is for the engine of Ryan 628, while the gasoline is for the smaller skiff boats called pakura.

Water is important while on a fishing expedition. Ryan 628 will be out fishing in the waters of Surigao for at least three weeks, which requires the crew to cook their food, and consume water for drinking and bathing.

Ryan 628 makes use of the handline fishing, which is considered as the most environment-friendly and sustainable fishing method. It basically makes use of hook, line and sinker to catch one fish at a time, in Ryan 628’s case, the commercially viable tuna.

Silosia has a total of 23 crewmembers. “We are just preparing things” for a fishing expedition in a few days, he said.

From General Santos City in Soccsksargen, it takes at least three days to reach Mangagoy or Bislig, which is part of the country’s EEZ off the waters of Caraga region’s Surigao del Sur—one of the country’s tunafishing grounds.

There, Silosia and his crew, using the smaller skiff boats, will catch tuna using squids as bait attached to the hook, and apple-sized rocks as sinker.

“It’s seasonal. If we are lucky, we get to go back after 15 days. Sometimes, we had to stay for a month just to catch enough tuna to cover for the cost of our operation,” he said in mixed Tagalog and Visayan languages.

He added to cover for the cost of gasoline and food of the crew, they have to catch at least 100 tuna with an average weight of 40 kilos.

Learned skill

Like most fisherman, Solisia said he started fishing at the young age of16.

Because he learned how to trouble shoot and fix the boat’s engine, he became a second engineer in 2010.

It was only recently that he finally got the chance to run his own fishing vessel as captain.

He said Ryan 628 will not go beyond the Philippines’s EEZ, although sometimes, he admits some commercial fishing vessels go as far as Indonesia or China to catch fish.

Silosia is not much into hightech gadgetry but he knows what transponders do.

“I was told by my operator that they [BFAR and Oceana people] will install the vessel-monitoring device today,” he said.

Flores said the boat, which is made of wood, has a gross tonnage of 26.6 tons and is, hence, classified as a medium-scale commercial fishing vessel under RA 8550 as amended by the amended Fisheries Code.

The gross tonnage (GT) of the

vessels classify commercial fishing whether it is small scale (3.1 GT to 20 GT), medium scale (20.1 GT to 150 GT) or large scale (150 GT and above).

Lucrative trade

General Santos City hosts the biggest tuna landing area in the city’s fish port. In fact, a separate market is dedicated for big tuna alone.

The industry employs thousands of tuna catchers. There are around 3,000 commercial fishing vessels based in General Santos City. A sm a l l-sc a le f ish ing vessel h ires a n average of 20 t u na- c atc hers and crew.

Richard Intia, or Teteng to his fellow catcher, said while the job is difficult, it pays to be a tuna catcher, who earns a commission for every tuna he catches.

One t ime, he sa id he ear ned P15,000 for the 15 tuna caught during that fishing expedition.

“I was happy to bring home that amount of money. Everyone was happy. We had a little celebration,” he said.

The 23-year-old father of two started tuna catching at 14.

The industry provides jobs and livelihood, not only to tuna catchers, but to a lot more whose livelihood directly or indirectly depend on the day-to-day tuna-catching act iv it ies—i nc lud i ng e x por ters, food processors, fish dealers, market vendors and ice dealers.

Tu n a i s s o l d w h o l e , t h e n chopped and packed. Even interna l organs, f ins and tai ls of tuna are sold, processed as f ishmea l.

Every day, commercial fishing vessels dock at the fish port to unload their haul. On the average smallscale commercial fishing vessels bring 100 tuna weighing around 40 kilograms ( kg ) to 50 kg. Some tuna being sold at the fish port weighs up to 100 kilos.

Tuna is sold at P180 to P220 per

The tuna industry in the Philippines continue to grow as more have expressed interest in catching the fish, an official of the BFAR Soccsksargen Office told the BusinessMirror.

Despite a moratorium in the processing of new applications, new commercial fishing vessels have been sighted in General Santos City, said Ely Borbon, chief of the BFAR Soccsksargen’s Leasing and Licensing Section.

T he t h re e - y e a r mor at or iu m , which started in 2014, will end by the end of this year. This means the BFAR will have to accept and process new applications starting next year, Borbon added.

According to the Food and Agriculture Office (FAO) of the United Nations, the value at land of the 2010 catch of the principal species was more than $10 billion.

The species are landed in numerous locations around the world by fishing vessels from more than 85 countries, the FAO reported.

The FAO reported that the main tuna stocks are currently more or less fully exploited, some are overexploited and very few are underexploited.

As such, the FAO said that the future sustainability of tuna fisheries calls for improved and strengthened fisheries management through incentives for international cooperation and for better national monitoring and fisher y management; innovative systems for monitoring and management; and capacity development for fisheries research and management, particularly in developing countries.

The Philippines is a signatory to the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The country is also a party to various regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), such as the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and other tuna RFMOs As such, the Philippines is compelled to implement measures, such as vessel-monitoring systems in accordance with the convention and resolutions of RFMOs. Unless catching tuna on a massive scale stops to allow the remaining tuna stocks to repopulate, there will less tuna to catch soon, and none of the species left later on.

A14 Monday, August 28, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

How safe do you feel?

‘I

S life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” American founding father Patrick Henry asked.

Societies since time immemorial have constantly struggled in attempting to find a balance between personal safety and freedom. While Patrick Henry was speaking of the choice between accepting the economic oppression of the British Crown against fighting a war of independence from the king, the same applies to crime.

How far are we willing to go to be safe?

“Everyone” wants to have laws that would open up to full transparency the finances of politicians and government officials to reduce corruption. But are those same advocates willing to have everyone’s finances made public to reduce the rampant tax fraud and evasion that permeates all economic classes?

The 2017 Global Law and Order report, based on research from Gallup’s World Poll, offers a glimpse of how close or far countries are from achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of “promoting just, peaceful and inclusive societies”.

A total “Law and Order” score, from 0 to 100, was derived from a global survey. Residents from 135 countries were asked the following questions: n In the city or area where you live, do you have confidence in the local police force? n Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live? n Within the last 12 months, have you had money or property stolen from you or another household member? n Within the past 12 months, have you been assaulted or mugged?

In the worst nation, just 12 percent of Venezuelans say they feel safe walking alone in their area at night. In Singapore, 97 percent feel safe.

Globally, 6 percent of respondents had been assaulted in the last year with a low 2 percent in the nations of the former Soviet Union to 14 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on the total assessment, Latin America and the Caribbean region was the least safe area, with a 64 score, and the United States and Canada with the best at 86. Interestingly, Southeast Asia came in second at 85. More than six in 10 people worldwide have confidence in their police forces. However, that result may be distorted by the fact that in some countries there is almost unanimous confidence in the police while in others there is almost unanimous lack of confidence.

For example, scores worldwide ranged from a high of 97 in Singapore to a low of 42 in Venezuela.

The Law and Order Index Score Results for 2016 put the top two countries as Singapore at 97 and Uzbekistan at 95. The Philippines was scored at 82, the same as Belgium and Egypt. Thailand reached a score of 80, while Indonesia scored 86.

Looking for some reason to account for the national differences, the report says: “In most economically developed countries with strong rule of law, high majorities of residents say they feel safe walking alone in their areas at night. Uzbekistan—at 92 percent—is the only country surveyed worldwide in which no residents said they had been assaulted or mugged in the past year. However, the country is sometimes described as a police state. Singapore is a remarkable success story by many measures—but it has been subject to criticism regarding civil liberties, such as freedom of speech.”

The rule of law is critical for a nation to properly function and is not subject to debate. But how far do we go in giving up personal freedoms to be able to feel safe?

Since 2005

A day to remember our heroes Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

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T is another long weekend, and this time, Monday is a nonworking holiday because the country is celebrating National Heroes Day, a remembrance not only of prominent national heroes, but also of unknown Filipino heroes from the past and those currently living. This day has been celebrated since October 1931, pursuant to Republic Act 3827.

I would like to encourage everyone to remember those people who have done so much for our country, including ordinary Filipinos who now offer their time, skills, efforts and lives for freedom, justice and independence. The law that started today’s celebration does not specify any hero to be remembered. It is, therefore, a beautiful opportunity for us Filipinos to celebrate the bravery of all Philippine heroes who have fought (and are fighting) for our country and our freedoms.

For example, in 1943 President Jose P. Laurel chose to pay tribute

Recovering delays

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

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to the Filipino and American forces who were defeated in Bataan and also those in Corregidor. In 1945 President Sergio Osmeña remembered the town of Capas, Tarlac, not only as a prison camp but also as a “symbol of spiritual resistance, a symbol of faith”.

We might even take it a little further and use this day to reflect upon our own lives and recognize our personal heroes. It may be our parents, teachers, relatives or any other influential figure in our lives.

It wouldn’t hurt to offer prayers for our heroes who have passed on or to

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N all aspects of life, there are things beyond our control—big or little things that affect our performance and cause delays in carefully drawn plans. In the end, how we can recover from those delays matter.

Time-sensitive businesses in transportation and logistics use the concept of On Time Performance (OTP) as one of the most important yardsticks in measuring their performance. When a company contractually binds itself to deliver goods or perform services at a particular day and time, customers expect nothing later than what was promised.

Some food companies even commit not to charge their customers in case orders are not delivered within certain time periods. In the airline business, OTP is directly proportional to a customer satisfaction (CSAT) score; that is, the higher the OTP, the higher the CSAT. Philippine Airlines (PAL) recently reinforced its customer-recovery efforts through instant online feedback and empowering all station heads to consistently apply customer-recovery guidelines every time they encounter dissatisfied passengers.

Currently, PAL OTP revolves around 60 percent to 70 percent, which means that 3 or 4 out of 10 flights of

PAL are delayed on a weekly basis.

Delays are due to external, uncontrollable, maintenance or internal factors.

In recent months, based on our Integrated Operations Control Center, PAL OTP should be more than 90 percent if delays due to external factors are not taken into consideration.

These external factors include runway closures, weather disturbances, sunset limitations, and other incidents beyond the control of the airline. Thus, no matter how much the technical crew of PAL wants the flights to be on time, delays are simply unavoidable.

I recently came from a trip in Australia. A colleague from PAL, lawyer Elaine Tan, drew up the itinerary for our group of five lawyers.

Elaine and I go a long way, as she was my former law student in Ateneo, a former Associate in Malcolm Law and a former technical staff in the Bureau of Immigration. After all those years, I know her to be very meticulous and patient. I was not mistaken. The group of five lawyers was supposed to see the usual

I hope that, reflecting upon this day, we all realize that the Filipino race is a courageous one. The Filipino, as it were, is hero-material; ever ready to take up arms (in whatever form it may be) and fight for country and freedom. While there are no featured women fighters in the online space I mentioned, we all know that there are countless Filipino women who have shown, and are showing, utmost bravery in the face of challenges and adversity. All this is certainly worth celebrating.

Mabuhay ang matatapang na bayani ng bayan!

send those who are living a personal message of appreciation.

Interestingly, the Malacañan Palace web site (www.malacanang. gov.ph) have made available printable “trading cards” featuring the commanders of the Philippine Revolution. These cards are supposed to be used as educational guides, as they contain pertinent information about the featured commanders. What’s nice about them is that one can have some knowledge about these heroes in one quick glance. Everybody knows that many Filipino heroes arose from the ranks of these revolutionaries.

The site features the following commanders: Gen. Antonio Luna, Gen. Macario Sakay, Gen. Artemio Ricarte, Maj. Manuel Quezon, Gen. Baldomero Aguinaldo, Gen. Manuel Tinio, Gen. Edilberto Evangelista, Gen. Mariano Trias, Gen. Emiliano Riego de Dios, Gen. Miguel Malvar, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, Gen. Pantaleon Garcia, Gen. Gregorio del Pilar, Gen. Pio del Pilar, Gen. Jose Ignacio Paua, Gen. Santiago Alvarez, Gen. Isidro Torres, Gen. Tomas Mascardo, Gen. Juan Cailles, Gen. Venancio Concepcion, Gen. Licerio Geronimo and Gen. Vito Belarmino.

ON August 20 the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) National Grand Derby was held at the Philippine Racing Club Inc. in Naic, Cavite.

This particular race was exclusive to PCSO Maiden Race Runners who have been participating for the last three to four years. I would like to extend warm congratulations to the winners: First place—Son Also Rises (Val R. Dilema); Second place— Pinagtipunan (J.B. Hernandez); Third place —Salt and Pepper (M.M. Gonzales); and Fourth place—Great Wall (A.P. Asuncion).

tourist spots, play golf and enjoy the nightlife—according to Elaine’s plan. She laid out activities for each day so that the group can maximize its time in Australia. However, as in most plans, not all details were followed. The group had to adjust— happily I might add—inasmuch as we understood that there are just some things beyond our control.

Having been trained and educated in OB Montessori, University of the Philippines and in the Ateneo Law School, Elaine somehow managed to keep the group intact and the trip worthwhile as she adjusted along the way. The group got lost a few times, but we managed to regain our bearings, largely due to Elaine’s efforts and initiatives. Elaine had the firmness to follow the plan and the flexibility to adjust our itinerary.

Talking about plans, during the six-day trip, the group learned that the Sydney Opera House was originally planned and designed to be completed in three years at a cost of seven million Australian dollars.

From more than 200 design proposals, design number 218 from Danish architect Jorn Utzon was selected and commissioned by the government. Utzon, however, left the construction project in 1966 for various reasons, principal of which were disagreements with government executives who naturally changed over time. The Opera House was eventually opened after 15 years of construction at a cost of 102 million Australian dollars, most of the investment coming from casino funds. Plans were drawn up,

but adjustments had to be made to complete the task.

Business leaders will make plans.

Some succeed. Some fail. In Proverbs 16:3-4, the Bible tells us, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. The Lord works out everything to its proper end.” While Utzon was ousted due to some internal squabbles, he was eventually vindicated. Several years after he left, government tried to reengage Utzon, this time as a consultant. Since he was already 81 years old and too old to travel, Utzon did what he could do, remotely, before his death in 2008.

When the Sydney Opera House was declared a World Heritage Site in 2007, Utzon became only the second person to have received such recognition during his lifetime. Utzon was even granted a Pritzker Architecture Prize, the highest honor for architects, a few years before his death. In the case of Elaine, the group OTP in terms of the scheduled itinerary was not as great. Somehow, Elaine managed to keep the CSAT score high enough, as all of us were pleasantly satisfied during the trip.

In business and in life, we have our desired timetables and schedules.

Nothing can outmatch God’s timing.

Delays can ruin the best-laid plans.

But the task can still be achieved, just like how PAL and Elaine have done it, by patiently making adjustments with a smile and with lots of prayers. More on OTP in my next column.

For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.

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opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

Breaking her silence

PPP Conversations #9 with Bohol Gov. Chatto

BusinessMirror

By Alberto Agra

Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan

PPP Lead

legally speaking Part One

Continued from A1

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OMMISSION on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres D. Bautista has not stopped his media interviews despite his claim that for the sake of his children, wife Patricia Paz C. Bautista should not expose “family matters” in public but resort to the courts, which is the proper venue. Patricia, but for one interview and a news briefing, has refused all media interviews precisely to shield her children from public exposure. Chairman Bautista, on the other hand, has not let any opportunity pass (whether it be a Comelec flag ceremony or a barangay town hall gathering on the barangay elections) to shed tears and blame his wife for the trauma the exposé has caused his children.

In the interest of truth and fairness, this column is publishing pertinent portions of Patricia’s sworn statement, for herself and on behalf of her children for violation of Republic Act 9262 (Violence Against Women and Children Act) or the domestic violence law.

Affidavit

1. Respondent Andres D. Bautista is my lawful husband. We contracted marriage on January 8, 2000, at the City of Manila. From our lawful marriage, we begot four children. The eldest being Andres Xavier who was born in 2000, the second child being Jose Mateo who was born in 2002, the third child being Juan Alvaro who was born in 2004, and the youngest son being Rafael Jacobo who was born in 2009.

2. At the start of our marriage, we lived harmoniously as husband and wife and as parents to our children.

Although our personalities were not perfectly aligned, and we had major differences, particularly when it came to work and finances, we were still able to get through our differences to make the marriage work.

3. However, our marital problems reached a tipping point in 2002 when I gave birth to my second son. I suffered a placenta rupture where I almost died in the process yet, all Respondent could think about was how much the hospital bill would cost him.

4. My husband had and continues to have a very successful career both in the private and public sectors. I have always regarded Respondent as a very smart and brilliant person and lawyer. He started out his career in the Supreme Court as a judicial clerk before he took his master degree in the United States of America. After successfully finishing his Master of Laws from Harvard University, he worked abroad for the law firms White & Case Llp. and Allen & Overy. When he came back to the Philippines, he became the president of Shangri-La Properties, before he finally entered the public sector. As a public servant, Respondent was appointed in 2010 as the chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government then as the chairman of the Commission on Elections in 2015.

5. Though I have never seen a single pay check of Respondent through the years, and though he still remained stern on his stringiness, I knew that he was earning a hefty income from his previous employments here and abroad. I knew, at the very least, that he was earning more than enough to provide for our family.

6. Although we never formally discussed or agreed, but it has always been the arrangement between Respondent and I that for substantial expenses for the family, Respondent was the one who will pay for them, while for the minor and everyday expenses of the family, particularly our four children, I was the one who would pay. This type of arrangement was consistent with the discrepancy and amount of income that Respondent and I respectively earn.

7. Respondent’s hefty income from his previous and current positions is manifested by the substantial acquisitions he made for our family. On top of this list are the two units in Pacific Plaza Condominiums, which we are currently occupying. Apart from these are other properties, either condominium properties or land, located at One Shangri-La, Saint Francis Shangri-La, Ayala Westgrove, among others.

8. On my part, I did not have the same kind of career that Respondent

had. I worked for my mother in her salon in Alabang as the company president. Although the job paid reasonably well and was not too stressful, I did not love my job. However, I could not seek employment elsewhere because my mother would always tell me that if I left, I would be considered dead to her. On the other hand, Respondent did not take me seriously and he would always make me feel that whatever employment I took was only secondary to his, in terms of the income he gets vis-à-vis mine.

9. Thus, I always had that financial dependence on both my mother and on Respondent and these circumstances prevented me from seeking gainful employment somewhere else.

10. Despite Respondent’s wealthy stature, one thing that I noticed with him is that he is a very frugal man.

His frugality can best be described as “bawat galaw, pera”, which he himself describes of himself and his family, and which more often than not affected our family’s dynamics and sensibility about our financial condition.

11. At first, his frugality was bearable as I thought that he was simply keen on saving for our family’s future. However, as his income grew through his differing jobs and positions in the private and public sectors, contrariwise, he grew more frugal with regard to his financial contributions to the family.

12. For instance, Respondent refused to pay for the tuition of our children during Kindergarten, leaving me no option but to pay the amount by myself. Respondent knew very well that the income that I generate at any given time is easily only one-tenth of whatever income he receives from any of his previous and present employments. Respondent only agreed to pay for their education when they entered the Ateneo.

13. Another instance was when he bought me a car for my birthday and anniversary. This was the first time that he ever bought me a gift, which really surprised me. However, a few months later, Respondent sold the same car without informing me because I was allegedly underutilizing the car.

14. His frugality turned into abuse after we separated de facto. We had been going through marital problems, which pushed me to live separately from my husband in 2013. Despite this de facto separation, I remained the constant “hands-on” parent to all my children.

Respondent has been spreading the falsity that I abandoned our children.

The truth is they have always been, and still are in my care and custody.

Initially, Respondent still provided support financially with the expenses of our children. However, all support would be through reimbursements, meaning he would only pay upon being furnished with the necessary receipts of these expenses. Later on, I learned that Respondent needed receipts from me and my children so that he would be able to charge it to his representation allowances in his private and public positions. Thus, our children were somewhat conditioned to scavenge for receipts or make it a point that they should have receipts for all of their legitimate and needed expenses, otherwise, Respondent would not reimburse them.

15. There were also instances that even for the legitimate expenses of the children, Respondent would refuse to pay for them as he found them unnecessary and/or too expensive. I end up the one paying for these expenses.

To be continued

What is your concept of PPP?

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ublic-Private Partnership (PPP) presents the government (both national and local) with an opportunity to expand the reach of governance services by taking advantage of access to capital, management acumen and technological expertise that is abundant in the private sector.

What makes PPP a viable and preferred development strategy at all levels?

From a local government unit (LGU) perspective, the funds provided by the national government to LGUs, and even to its own line agencies, is limited. PPP presents an opportunity to address the always-prevalent scarcity of funds.

On top of that, it also provides government with the benefit of top-of-the-line technology and expertise from the private sector.

Operational efficiency and sustainability of enterprises (especially in terms of revenue), which are often not optimally explored (or at worst are even ignored) in purely government-run entities, become primordial concerns in PPP ventures.

What makes the Province of Bohol ready for PPPs? We’ve already done it, through the joint venture initiative for the (partial) privatization of our electric and water distribution

Monday, August 28, 2017 A15

From a local government unit (LGU) perspective, the funds provided by the national government to LGUs and line agencies are limited. PPP presents an opportunity to address the scarcity of funds. On top of that, it also provides government with the benefit of top-ofthe-line technology and expertise from the private sector. Operational efficiency and sustainability of enterprises, which are often not optimally explored in government-run entities, become primordial concerns in PPP ventures.

utilities, resulting in a 70/30 ownership ratio, with the Province of Bohol (PGBh) retaining 30-percent ownership in the utilities. To this day, the PGBh continues to enjoy dividends from its share—and it has received more than P50 million in dividends, without having to be burdened by the day-to-day management of these companies.

Also, the PGBh has already passed its own PPP Ordinance, paving the way for other PPP projects. In achieving both of these milestones, we had the benefit of the expertise and guidance of lawyer Al Agra.

What are the challenges and risks of local PPPs?

The most obvious risk is that of any PPP project being used as a political issue, especially in the lead-up to elections. There is also the risk of political persecution through the courts. True, any PPP project that is done properly and in a transparent manner may be given its own protection through compliance with the law, but the hassle of having to defend a PPP project in numerous court cases can become a disincentive, so that local chief executives (LCEs) of other LGUs, having seen what can happen to LCEs who are bold enough to embark on PPP projects, are no longer interested in pursuing PPPs. What is your message to the public?

To the general public: Be supportive of PPP initiatives. Welcome them as opportunities for raising the standard of governance services, instead of viewing them with suspicion.

To the investing public: We welcome your participation in governance services. As is often said, governance is too important to be left to the government alone. We need the participation—nay, the partnership —of the private sector.

Dawning of the new era in accountancy education

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The deans and heads of the more than 500 accountancy schools in the country will have to make decisions on how to move with the opportunities available on the four accountancy programs. Will a school offer any of the new accountancy programs in addition to the existing BSA? Or should it drop its BSA since the school is not performing in the certified public accountant examination performance of its graduates?

These new accounting courses provide for the much-needed enhancement of the accountancy education where the professional accounting competencies and practical experience are addressed in a learning outcome based approach.

The practical experience component will be addressed by requiring the accounting students to undergo a mentored internship program consisting of a minimum of 400 hours.

This internship will address the

that accounting interns can provide to the employers that they will be assigned. Just imagine a business enterprise being able to benefit from the research of its interns focused on process improvement or pinpointing business expansion opportunities for the company.

The major work is still forthcoming. The CHED and the Board of Accountancy (BOA) will soon be doing a series of public consultations to make all stakeholders aware of the implementation phases and requirements of the CMOs. The deans and heads of the more than 500 accountancy schools and departments in the country will have to make decisions on how to move with the opportunities available on the four accountancy programs. Will a school offer any of

Joel L. Tan-Torres

DEBIT CREDIT Conclusion

ow that Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Memorandum Orders (CMOs) 27 to 30, Series of 2017, are in place, the various accountancy education stakeholders can now proceed to implement this landmark development. These CMOs prescribe a revised Bachelor of Science (BS) in Accountancy and three other new BS accountancy programs, namely, BS in Accounting Information System, BS in Internal Audit (BSIA) and BS in Management Accounting (BSMA). These degree offerings will become effective in school year 2018-2019. These new and expanded programs will address the specialized business requirements of the industry and the varied competency opportunities available in the accountancy profession. requirement of the industry of hiring accounting graduates with practical work experience. The new accountancy programs also provide for a capstone project, which is a multifaceted assignment that serves as a culminating academic and intellectual experience for students, involving undergoing six units of research and statistical studies and the preparation of a thesis. The internship and thesis requirements can be consolidated, resulting in outcomes

Effective classroom management

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By Jocelyn Alipio

very successful teacher knows that to be effective, an educator must have full control of the entire classroom situation and come to class well prepared with all the necessary tools. Being ready and maintaining control of the classroom spell the difference between success and failure as far as teaching is concerned.

The goal of every teacher is to continue to grow, to become a better educator year in year out. All educators know that there is always room for improvement. But how often do we step back and take a look at how we can improve our teaching strategy?

To do this, we must go back and think where we came short last year and determine the areas where improvements are needed. We have to commit to continuous improvement, and make plans develop ourselves to become better teachers.

One problem in school, especially for new teachers, is how to treat misbehaving students. The primary rule for these students is to avoid any form of confrontation in front of them. Never let them lose face. It is

One problem in school, especially for new teachers, is how to treat misbehaving students. The primary rule for these students is to avoid any form of confrontation in front of them. Never let them lose face.

It is never a good idea to make an example of misbehaving students by shaming them in front of their peers. If you’re dealing with misbehavior, speak to the student after class to resolve the issue instead of allowing an in-class confrontation.

never a good idea to make an example of misbehaving students by shaming them in front of their peers. If you’re dealing with misbehavior, speak to the student in after class to resolve the issue instead of allowing an inclass confrontation.

Establish rules on the first day of class, and always follow through on the specified rewards for achievement and consequences for misbehavior. If you allow a student to get away with misbehavior without any consequence, you’re opening the door to future misbehavior.

Remember that praise is a

powerful tool. Praise can be used to transform a student’s image, uplift the entire class and reinforce the values you seek to promote in your classroom.

When praising students, it’s important to be specific, and encourage behavior that’s repeatable. If you praise someone for scoring high in math, for example, that student will make sure to never score low in this particular subject for the rest of the year. It creates a template for a better study habit on the student’s part.

Get the attention of every student before beginning class.

This doesn’t require shouting— “Be quiet, we are about to start!” — in fact, that’s almost sure to backfire.

Instead, stand silent and wait until the students shush each other and settle down. Or, if that’s not your style, redirect the beginning-of-class chatter by throwing out an engaging question, comment, or observation like asking them about the latest news in TV this morning. Once you have everyone’s attention, proceed with the day’s lesson plan.

Classroom rules protect every student’s right to learn and enjoy school—and your right to teach.

the new accountancy programs in addition to the existing BSA? Or should it drop its BSA since the school is not performing in the certified public accountant examination performance of its graduates? These issues should be carefully evaluated. Once decisions have been made, the tedious process of implementing these will follow.

These activities will include retooling of the teaching faculty and administrators, preparation of the academic requirements (textbooks, syllabi, teaching guides, etc.), filing the application with the CHED, marketing the program, etc. The concerned regulators (CHED, BOA), the industry players, and the local and global accountancy bodies will be there to provide support and guidance.

The well-being of the accountancy profession and the industry players are at stake with the successful implementation of this new era in the accountancy education.

Chairman Joel L. Tan-Torres is the chairman of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy.

He is a Certified Public Accountant who placed No. 1 in the May 1979 CPA Board Examinations. He is concurrently a tax partner of Reyes Tacandong & Co. CPAs. He was the former commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue from 2009 to 2010.

This column accepts contributions from accountants, especially articles that are of interest to the accountancy profession, in particular, and to the business community, in general. These can be e-mailed to boa.secretariat.@gmail.com.

They must cover every possible disruption, interruption and misbehavior—and there should be no misunderstanding regarding what constitutes breaking the rules.

Define each rule explicitly during the first few days at school. Modeling is key here; show your students examples of the precise behaviors that transgress your rules. For example, if you were teaching children to raise their hand before speaking, sit in a student’s seat and demonstrate what following the rule does and doesn’t look like.

At the end of the day all educators must admit that some strategies do not always work in our favor.

But the truth is, classroom management has the largest effect on student achievement. This makes intuitive sense that students cannot learn in a chaotic, poorly managed classroom. It is important that there is a balance between teacher actions that provide clear consequences for unacceptable behavior and teacher actions that recognize and reward acceptable behavior.

A Doctor of Philosphy, the author is Principal 1 in Cagayan Valley.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A16 Monday, August 28, 2017

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PHL still in demand as ESL tour destination, DOT says

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

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@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

HE demand for learning English as a Second Language (ESL) from non-native speakers has been growing all over the world, such that the Department of Tourism (DOT) has identified it as a specific tourism target market, especially in South Korea.

In a news statement, the DOT said its Korea office recently hosted over a hundred Korean students and parents at the Philippines Study Abroad Fair at the Samsung

Textile Center in Seoul.

Tou r ism Sec ret a r y Wa nd a Corazon T. Teo said ESL study in the Philippines is one of the most in-demand programs worldwide,

catering to Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean clients.

The Philippines is considered the world ’s third-largest Englishspeaking nation.

“It is very encouraging to see that more and more Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese, among other foreign students, are considering the Philippines over other Englishspeaking nations for their studies,” she said.

“With a booming tourism industry and improving economy, it is no surprise that the Philippines has become one of the choice destinations of foreigners for high-quality and affordable education, as well as for fun vacations,” she added.

DO T-K orea orga n i z ed t he ninth edition of the Philippines Study Abroad fair in partnership with PHILja, and featured 15 of the leading ESL institutions in

Cebu, Baguio and Iloilo. Their representatives discussed with the students and parents about their respective programs and admission procedures.

According to the DOT web site, the English courses vary depending on the need or objective of the student. Modules may range from one week to one month, depending on the student’s proficiency. For one-week modules, English lessons are conducted daily, with excursions and immersion activities integrated into the program.

For the one-month module, students can go on organized out-of-town trips on weekends, aside from their English classes.

T he DOT also prov ides an inventory of ESL Partner English Training Centers, which are authorized by the Bureau of Immigration (http://bit.ly/2w8COXT).

The DOT’s ESL Tour Program was launched in 2005.

The Philippines Study Abroad Fair, according to Teo, has become the “go-to” event for potential Korean students planning to study English in the Philippines. In addition to helping the students and their parents understand the ESL in the Philippines system, the fair also promotes the Philippines as an exciting tourism destination.

“Hopefully, this will also help keep our best teachers here, closer to their family and friends,” stressed Teo, as she noted the high numbers of teachers who have left the Philippines to work in schools abroad, or as househelp and caregivers.

According to listings on Jobstreet.com, fresh graduates earn as much as P20,000 a month as ESL teachers. A number of ESL teaching positions are also online, and

HOUSE PANEL OKAYS REDISTRIBUTION OF GOVT HOUSING UNITS

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

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fter the failed implementation of one of the biggest housing programs of the government, the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development has authorized the redistribution of thousands of housing units intended for soldiers and policemen.

This, after the housing committee has endorsed for plenary approval a measure authorizing the National Housing Authority (NHA) to distribute the unoccupied and unawarded government housing units to other qualified beneficiaries.

Rep. Alfredo Benitez of Negros Occidental, the panel chairman, said House Joint Resolution 11 was unanimously approved last week by members of his committee. The Senate version of the measure is still pending for approval.

According to B enitez, the resolution seeks to give to other qualified beneficiaries the unawarded housing units in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Philippine National Police (PNP), Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) housing projects that are not yet occupied and whose ownership and possession is surrendered by their respective awardees.

The lawmaker said housing units, whose respective awards were canceled by reason of default in the payment of amortization or for any violation of the terms and conditions of the individual loan agreement, were also included.

Under the resolution, the NHA may instead identify alternative beneficiaries and beneficiaryspecific sites, such as in the case of public-school teachers living within the area; employees in the local government concerned where the housing units are constructed; barangay employees and functionaries and informal settlers who could all benefit from the unoccupied housing units.

Some of the units of this housing

program in Pandi and San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, have already been occupied by the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay).

Administrative Order 9, Series of 2011, directed the NHA to provide permanent housing sites for qualified low-salaried members of the AFP. The project was expanded to include employees of BFP, BJMP and BuCor in 2012.

However, Benitez said years after implementing the program, several housing units constructed under the AFP/PNP housing project are still unoccupied, as verified by the Commission on Audit.

“The reported occupancy rate of the completed housing units for the program is at a mere 8.09 percent,” he said. Benitez said the Department of Budget and Management has already released a total of P20.7 billion—through the General Appropriations Act—for the implementation of the housing program with a target of 74,195 units as of March 31.

Out of a target 74,195 housing units as of March 31, 62,308 units were fully completed. Of the completed units, 52,892 were already awarded but only 8,240 units are occupied.

The NHA board will have to convene within 60 days from the approval of the resolution for the purpose of formulating the necessary implementing rules and regulations.

Benitez, citing the COA, said the nonuse by the intended beneficiar ies of the housing units under the AFP/PNP housing project resulted to the loss of revenues on the part of the government, unnecessar y exposure of the units to unfavora b l e we a t h e r c o n d i t i o n a n d nonattainment of the objectives of the program.

Also, he said the low occupancy rate of the completed housing units by their intended beneficiaries is a “clear indication of a failed program in the face of the need for government to provide housing to a larger portion of its populace, an undeniably undesirable situation that needs remedial legislation”.

cater to the increasing Korean population in the Philippines, which, as of 2015, numbered about 100,000.

Large concentrations of Korean citizens living in the Philippines are in Metro Manila, Baguio, Angeles City in Pampanga, Metro Cebu, Metro Iloilo-Guimaras, Negros Occidental and Oriental, Metro Davao and Cagayan de Oro in Misamis Oriental.

ESL teaching has become an alternative revenue earner for many professionals and entrepreneurs in the Philippines. According to the list of DOT partner-schools, there are about 33 ESL schools and programs in the Philippines, but the numbers are believed to be higher if online-course programs are included. A two-month course for non-native speakers cost about $2,000 (P102,000), including a tour of the Philippines.

See “PHL,” A2

DOE, DFA working to lift ban on oil drilling in WPS

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

T

national HERO An elderly woman walks past the Andres Bonifacio Shrine near the Manila City Hall. The shrine hosts a statue of Andres Bonifacio and the iconic bolo of rebellion. The shrine depicts the life of one of the country’s greatest heroes—from his childhood to his controversial death. The entire country honors Bonifacio and many other great Filipinos in rites today, August 28, as part of the celebration of National Heroes’ Day. ROY DOMINGO

MSMEs. . .

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have secured patents, trademarks and copyrights. Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that there are 225,244 establishments in the formal sector in 2013.

“IP is an asset that is intangible but should be treated similarly to ordinary property, which has inherent value,” IPOPHL Deputy Director General Allan B. Gepty said.

“One of the advocacies is for our MSMEs to see the value of IP, particularly how to monetize it. The first step to this is to protect their IP, whether in trademark, or copyright or patents and avail themselves of the IP system through registration,” Gepty added.

While the valuation of IP may be an abstract concept to MSMEs, it figured prominently in mergers and acquisitions in the Philippines in recent years, according to the IPOPHL. Of the P3 billion paid by Jollibee Foods Corp. for a 70-percent equity in Mang Inasal back in 2009, IPOPHL’s research revealed that Mang Inasal’s trademark was valued at P2 billion.

Gepty also said that in the IP transaction between Purefoods and

San Miguel Corp. in 2011, the value of the “purchased” brands, such as Monterey, Magnolia and Star, was estimated at P3.2 billion.

Valuing IP isn’t just triggered in mergers and acquisitions, according to the World Intellectual Property Office’s (Wipo) IP Valuation Manual. IP valuation can also be used in instances when one is franchising a business for purpose of licensing the asset, in joint-venture alliances, or simply in the outright sale or purchase of IP. “These days, so many food concepts are going into franchising.

It may very well be that in these franchise agreements, they don’t factor in the IP,” Gepty said.

Valuation of intellectual property is simply determining the monetary value of a particular subject IP. For MSMEs, the most relevant use of valuing IP is in accessing loans as patents, copyrights and trademarks can be treated as collateral.

“This is another opportunity for our MSMEs to avail themselves of financing or be given access to loans, to make use of this valuation mechanism in promoting businesses,” he added.

Valuation of IP

Gept y sa id t here a re t hree common methodologies used in IP

valuation: the income approach, where the value is derived from the projected revenues it will generate; the cost approach, which considers the cost incurred in developing the IP; and the market approach, where a comparison of how a similar brand or trademark in the market was priced.

But the Wipo also cites a number of factors considered in valuing IP, aside from the methodologies. These factors determine the chosen method and these would depend on the “context or circumstance of the IP”. The ambiguity of this valuation system may be discouraging for MSMEs, but Gepty assured there are really no set standards in determining value. He said, however, that useful guidelines may be rolled out.

“The value changes from time to time. It’s different from the perspective of an investor and, of course, different from that of an IP owner. What’s key is first having a roster of certified IP appraisers, and second, guidelines on which methodologies to use under the certain circumstances,” he said.

“It’s about time the government and private sector to work together to come up with a mechanism to monitor to valuation,” Gepty added.

he Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) have resumed talks aimed at lifting a moratorium on oil exploration in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

“We’re working for the lifting of moratorium. We are working together so that we can resume work at the contested areas and we are looking for ways. By being pragmatic about it, we are looking for ways, solution, a way to move forward that is a win-win for all,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said. The two agencies, Cusi said, are discussing how to overcome the hurdles so that exploration work can continue.

“How do we proceed? What are the hurdles? How do we address these in order to lift the suspension?

We are doing this with a sense of urgency, but we’re being very analytical and careful to make sure we do the correct move,” he added.

The DOE chief said these are the preparations being undertaken by both agencies as both continue to look for solutions in order to move forward. He added that ongoing discussions with DFA are “gaining headway for the lifting”.

Cusi declined to say when the moratorium would be lifted. “We don’t have control of all things so it’s hard to say a certain timeframe.

We have to give the order that they can resume so they can start.”

PXP Energy Corp. holds a 60.49-percent interest in UK-based Forum Energy Plc., which, in turn, has a 70 percent stake in SC 72, an oil-andgas-exploration permit covering the Sampaguita natural-gas prospect in the Reed Bank, to the west of Palawan.

PXP and China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) used to discuss a possible joint exploration of Service Contract 72 to develop a part of the Reed Bank. However, the Philippine government has declared force majeure on the license in 2015 due to an ongoing territorial dispute with China then.

In July last year the Philippines won an arbitration case against China over the South China Sea. In particular, the Philippines has exclusive sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea and that China’s “9-dash line” is invalid, according to the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal Manuel Pangilinan, PXP chairman, remains hopeful that there will be future discussions on the matter as his company has recently expressed interest to resume exploration activities on the disputed Reed Bank area of the West Philippine Sea.