BusinessMirror August 30, 2021

Monday, August 30, 2021 Vol. 16 No. 320

TAX EFFORT IMPROVES

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P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 20 pages |

IN H1 DESPITE PANDEMIC TALK OF CASINO SPURS ALARM: WILL BORACAY BE GAMING PARADISE?

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

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A MEMBER of the Las Piñas City disinfection team sprays disinfectant on Rosal Street to keep it sanitized as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Metro Manila will remain under modified enhanced community quarantine until September 7, 2021. NONIE REYES

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By Cai U. Ordinario

@caiordinario

ORE Filipinos paid taxes in the first semester of this year despite the pandemic, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).

In an economic bulletin, the DOF said the tax effort improved by 0.55 percentage points to 14.74 percent.

The DOF said this is closer to the 2019 first semester level of 14.86 percent.

DOF Undersecretary and Chief Economist Gil Beltran said in the full year of 2019, the tax effort

peaked at 14.49 percent which is deemed the highest in 22 years.

“The country should continue to adopt fiscal reforms, particularly tax reforms still pending in Congress, to sustain these fiscal gains,” Beltran said in his economic bulletin.

Continued on A2

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 49.9030

ESIDENTS and business owners opposed the idea of any casinos operating on Boracay, often hailed as the crown jewel of Philippine tourism.

One source whose company manages a string of resorts in the country, including Boracay, told the BusinessMirror: “Boracay already has its own natural market WITHOUT the casinos! In fact it’s this [administration] that has put out this script that Boracay has a carrying capacity ergo, it capped the number of flights and the number of guests entering the island, right? It only means that it has reached the maximum number of guest—so the argument that Boracay needs

additional warm bodies [now of the wrong type : gamblers] is null and void.”

Restaurateur Now ie Potenciano, owner of the popular Sunny Side Cafe, worried “about the changes that the entry of Chinese casinos will have on Boracay. While there will be visitors coming in, I fear it will be at too high a price. As we’ve seen in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, a beach paradise radically transformed by Chinese casinos, the character of Boracay will become unrecognizable.

And with the entry of casinos comes crime, prostitution, and displaced locals—all of these we do not want to happen to the island. I would prefer that investment in Boracay is better in the direction of wellness and a return to nature.

Continued on A2

PHL faces ‘critical’ lack of farmers in 12 years

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

@jearcalas

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HE Department of Agriculture (DA) has sounded the alarm that the country may suffer from a “critical” shortage of farmers in just 12 years due to declining employment in the agriculture sector worsened by aging farmers.

Speaking to aspiring young lawyers and law advocates, Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar emphasized the role of the youth in innovating and developing Philippine agriculture.

“Our nation is in need of educated, talented public servants and leaders—especially in the field of agribusiness and food security.” —Dar

“I am always especially pleased when educated young people show an interest in agricultural development and the future of Philippine agriculture,” Dar said during Ley La Salle’s Business Law Conference held recently.

“We of course recognize that the youth have most to gain from this future-oriented development agenda,” he added.

In his speech, Dar shared that a recent survey of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños showed that the average age of the Filipino farmer is around 53 years old.

“Assuming that average holds,

we might reach a critical shortage of farmers in just 12 years or so,” he said.

The number of employed Filipinos in the agriculture sector sank to a 24-year low in 2018 at 9.998 million, the lowest since 1995 based on Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data available. Of the total number, about 7.75 million were male while the remaining 2.248 million were female, PSA data showed.

“As Secretary of Agriculture, I am committed to providing opportunities for the youth to Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4535 n UK 68.3821 n HK 6.4078 n CHINA 7.6993 n SINGAPORE 36.8533 n AUSTRALIA 36.0998 n EU 58.6710 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.3060

Source: BSP (August 27, 2021)

News A2 Monday, August 30, 2021

BusinessMirror

PHL-made Maya-3, Maya-4 cube sats launched from SpaceX to ISS

LAUNCH of SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying the Philippines’s cube satellites Maya-3 and Maya-4 to the International Space Station. PHOTO CAPTURED VIA NASA LIVE STREAM BY STAMINA4SPACE

THE completed Maya-3 and Maya-4 flight models that measure 10cm cubic sq and weigh approximately 1.15 kilograms each. STAMINA4SPACE PHOTO

HE first Philippine universitybuilt Maya-3 and Maya-4 cube satellites (cube sats) were finally launched to the International Space Station (ISS) a few minutes after their scheduled 3:14 p.m. launch (PST) on August 29 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s Dragon C208 as part of SpaceX Commercial Resupply Service Mission-23 (SpX-23).

The scheduled launching on August 28 was moved because of bad weather.

The launching was beamed live by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on its web site.

The docking of the SpaceX CRS23 Cargo Dragon Craft to the ISS is scheduled on August 30 at 11 a.m. (EDT) Once released from the ISS, Maya-3 and Maya-4 will move along an orbit similar to the space station’s at an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers.

Each weighing about 1.15 kilograms with 10-cubic centimeters, the cube sats carry components

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that are designed to demonstrate nanosatellite-based remote data collection systems and optical imaging.

The first Philippine cube sats built in a university, at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Maya-3 and Maya-4 are fashioned after the bus heritage of Maya-1 except for some enhancements.

Maya-1 and Maya-2 were built by Filipino engineering scholars at the Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech) in Japan.

The new cube sats are mostly identical with a difference only in a mission, with Maya-4 mounted with near-infrared camera.

The two cube sats were built under the Space Science and Technology Proliferation through University Partnerships (STeP-UP) project of the Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation and Advancement (Stamina4Space) Program.

It is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and is implemented by UPD and the DOST’s Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI), the Stamina4Space said in a news release.

The development of the cube sats is part of the course requirements of the Master of Science, or Master of Engineering of the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of UPD under the nanosatellite engineering track.

It was also implemented in collaboration with the Kyutech in Japan. It has scholarship support from the DOST’s Science Education Institute.

The Maya-3 and Maya-4 cube sats provide local opportunities to learn and acquire space technology knowhow, and hands-on experience in satellite development, which aims to contribute to building human resources for furthering the country’s space initiatives and activities.

Its mission and payloads were conceptualized and developed to test and demonstrate technologies that can later on be used to provide data that may be used in a number of applications across various sectors, such as agriculture, environment and natural resources, and disaster risk reduction and management, among others.

Maya-3 and Maya-4 can also be used to demonstrate technologies, such as data collection systems that work with ground-based sensors and radios that serve the amateur radio community and emergency response teams.

“The success of Maya-3 and Maya-4 will prove that cube sats can be successfully built locally [in the Philippines],” said STeP-UP Project Leader, Prof. Paul Jason Co. “The knowledge and experience gained from this endeavor can and will be shared to any other institutions through collaboration and cooperation.”

The first batch of STeP-UP scholars are composed of eight students who received scholarship support from DOST-SEI. They are Gladys Bajaro, Derick Canceran, Bryan Custodio, Lorilyn Daquioag, Marielle Magbanua-Gregorio, Christy Raterta, Judiel Reyes, and Renzo Wee. Continued on A8

www.businessmirror.com.ph

TAX EFFORT IMPROVES IN H1 DESPITE PANDEMIC Continued from A1

“Due to fiscal reforms, the country was able to fund the unprecedented fiscal requirements imposed by the pandemic and, at the same time, protect its strong macroeconomic fundamentals,” he added.

Beltran noted that the increase in tax effort was mainly due to higher collections made by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

DOF data showed BIR collections increased 0.17 percentage points to 11.32 percent from 11.15 percent.

BOC collections, meanwhile, saw a 0.36-percentage point improvement to 3.31 percent in 2021 from 2.95 percent in 2020.

Tax reforms

“TAX collections improved partly due to tax reforms which include legislative measures and digitaliza-

tion of revenue collections’ operations,” Beltran said.

Despite the improvement in tax effort, Beltran said the government’s total revenue dipped to 16.35 percent in the January to June period this year from the 16.94 percent recorded in the same period last year.

Beltran said non-current tax revenues last year were boosted by the nonrecurrent GOCC dividends collected under the Bayanihan 1 Act. The DOF official also said the expenditure effort rose to 24.21 percent, the highest in the country’s history and 0.74 percentage point higher than the 23.47 percent recorded in 2019.

The NG deficit settled at 7.86 percent of GDP, higher than 6.53 percent deficit set last year, due to continuing Covid-related programs.

TALK OF CASINO SPURS ALARM: WILL BORACAY BE GAMING PARADISE? Continued from A1

These have always been the island’s strengths and will be the sustainable way to go moving forward.”

Pr ior to Boracay’s closure, casinos already operating there were those owned by Alpha Allied Holdings Ltd. in juice king Alfred Yao’s Movenpick Resort & Spa, Crown Regency Resort and Convention Center of the Cebubased King family, and Paradise Garden Resort Hotel and Convention Center of entrepreneur Joey Peña. Other investors with gaming licenses include Leisure and Resorts World Corp. (LRWC) in partnership with Galaxy Entertainment of Macau, taipan Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global in Savoy Hotel, and Hotel Soffia owner Archibald Po. The Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force, chaired by Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu, earlier requested the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to pull out all the gaming licenses of casinos operating on the island before its closure on April 26, 2018, as well as those still to be constructed. (See, “Cancel Boracay casino licenses, TF tells Pagcor,” in the BusinessMirror, October 22, 2018.)

Duterte, in a public conversation with select members of the Cabinet on August 26, said he allowed the operation of a casino on Boracay because he needed government revenues. In Filipino he said, “Forgive

me for the contradiction. We don’t have any money now, so I will get it from wherever I can. If it’s from gaming, then so be it.” Duterte in 2018, called Boracay a “cesspool” after seeing images of a drain pipe spewing untreated sewage into the waters of Bulabog Beach.

A long-time businessman on Boracay, who requested anonymity, believes Duterte’s remarks are just meant to deflect attention from “the Senate blue ribbon investigation into [the overpriced] face shields and face masks. Galaxy has yet to put up one single post [on its property]. There is no earthmoving activity. If ever they get the go-signal to operate, it would be three years before the project will be completed. I don’t see how it will help generate revenues for him.”

T he businessman added, “If the casinos will help and donate a quarantine facility and donate more bed capacit y in our hospital, then they will be helpful. If the casinos are only for foreign tourists, then it will have no conf lict with the locals.”

If the previous casinos will be allowed to reopen, he also doubted they would operate during the pandemic.

“They will just lose. Boracay now is close-open, close-open because of the changing community quarantines. Hotels and other businesses are having difficulty with this.”

PHL faces ‘critical’ lack of farmers in 12 years Continued from A1

ensure they are not only the leaders of tomorrow, but also agents of change, reform, and agricultural modernization today,” the agriculture chief said.

“Our nation is in need of educated, talented public servants and leaders—especially in the field of agribusiness and food security. It is a vocation that I highly recommend for those who seek deep, personal satisfaction and who seek self-fulfillment,” Dar added.

Dar noted there are about 30 million young Filipinos between the ages 10 and 24 in the country, accounting for 28 percent of the total population.

During the forum, Dar presented the DA’s programs aimed at at-

tracting the youth to venture into agriculture, which include loan and mentoring programs.

Dar shared the Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs (KAYA) loan program which offers zerointerest loans of up to P500,000 payable in five years for young agri-preneurs, specifically those who are 18 to 30 years old, and are graduates of either formal or non-formal schooling.

He also presented the Mentoring and Attracting Youth in Agribusiness (MAYA) program, a 24-week internship program that seeks to develop young Filipinos into agrifishery entrepreneurs or train them to become future leaders in the agriculture sector.

A4 Monday, August 30, 2021 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Economy BusinessMirror

Workers to get 200% of wage as Aug. 30 a regular holiday

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

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ORKERS, who will be on duty on Monday, will get twice their regular pay as the country celebrates National Heroes Day, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

This after President Rodrigo R. Duterte declared the event as a regular holiday.

“For work done by employees during the regular holiday, they shall be paid 200 percent of their wage for the first eight hours,” Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said in a statement.

Also during the holiday, he said employeeswillget30percentoftheirhourly rate in case they work overtime and an additional 30 percent of their basic pay if it coincides with their rest day.

Bello said workers, who will opt to spend the National Heroes Day on vacation, must still be paid 100 percent of their regular pay.

The regular holiday is held every last week of August to commemorate the country’s heroes.

Labor groups and other sectors also usually celebrate the event through demonstrations.

On Monday, health-care workers unions in private hospitals will hold

Nurses’ group thanks DBM for salary upgrade ruling

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3

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FTER waiting for over a year, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) heaved a sigh of relief after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) issued Budget Circular 2021-2 prescribing the rules and regulations on the upgrading the salary of the Nurse II position from salary grade 15 (SG15) to salary grade 16 (SG16), as well as the retention of the position titles of Nurse III to Nurse VII with the corresponding salary grade prior to demotion.

The FNU felt that the issuance of the DBM circular on August 25, 2021, issuance is a testament of the “power of nurses’ sustained vigilance” in fighting for what is right and just.

The group noted they were the first ones to expose and oppose the unjust provision of “position modification” that effectively demoted Nurse II to Nurse VII positions to one rank lower. FNU immediately registered its rejection of Budget Circular 2020-4 issued on July 17, 2020, by submitting a formal query to DBM on July 20.

They also took the lead in undertaking bold collective actions like petition-signing, lobbying, sit-down protest, hospital pickets and motorcades among others.

“From then on, we have continuously amplified our rejection and opposition to this unjust policy through series of virtual dialogues with the DOH [Department of Health], DBM and legislation in the Congress,” the group said.

“The FNU did not hold back then. We will not hold back now until the government fulfills its commitment specifically to raise the salary of Nurse II to SG16 for an estimated P3,000 monthly increase and the return to their previous ranks and positions of nurses; Nurse III to Nurse VII, affected by the earlier demotion termed “position modification”

by DBM Circular in July 2020,” the group added.

UNIDENTIFIED men work installing a “Living Heroes” photo exhibit at a shopping mall’s activity area on August 29 as Araneta City joins in commemoration of the National Heroes Day on August 30 by saluting the bravery and heroism of Filipinos. Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said in a statement that workers must be paid 200 percent of their wage this day. NONOY LACZA

their National Heroes Day demonstration to call for better benefits for those employed in their sector especially amid the existing risk they face due to the novel coronavirus disease

(Covid-19) pandemic.

The protesters will be demanding for the immediate release of their special risk allowance, meals, accommodation, and transportation

allowance and other benefits under Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2) and the removal of Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III from office.

Brunei seeking exemption from PHL deployment cap B

RUNEI is now also seeking an exemption from the country’s existing deployment cap for Filipino health-care workers (HCW), according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Labor Attaché Melissa C. Mendizabal of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (Polo) in Brunei Darussalam said two hospitals in the Southeast Asian country are eyeing to hire 200 nurses and 30 doctors.

She noted Brunei employers prefer to hire Filipino HCWs to fill up the said positions.

“The salary is comparable to the salary of nurses in Singapore.

Nurses receive high take-home pay because of the free accommodation and transportation. If they render overtime work, they earn as much as 2,000 Brunei Dollars per month,” Mendizabal

said in an online news briefing last Friday.

She noted Brunei reiterated the request last July after its initial appeal for exemption in 2020 was not approved by the government.

Currently, only the United Kingdom and HCWs covered by government-to-government hiring arrangements are exempted from the deployment cap.

Preferred workers

ASIDE from HCWs, she said Brunei employers want to hire Filipinos for: oil- and gas-related jobs; household service workers (HSW); and, semiskilled workers, such as car technicians of high-end vehicles “At the moment, we are in semi lockdown, but once we go back to normal, almost all sectors want to hire our OFWs [overseas Filipino

workers],” Mendizabal said.

Based on data from the Polo, there are currently 20,000 OFWs in Brunei.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) imposed a deployment cap for HCWs last January to ensure the country will have a sufficient workforce for its novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) response.

Last week, the POEA clarified there were around 900 available remaining slots from the 6,500 deployment cap for HCWs this year.

This after DOLE initially said all of the said slots for the deployment cap this year were already exhausted.

Labor officials said the deployment cap is already unlikely to be increased this year due to the “perceived” shortage of HCWs.

Samuel Medenilla

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Young workers regained jobs in only 7 of 35 sectors–ADB

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

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AJORITY of young Filipinos who lost their jobs in 2020 were working in only seven out of 35 sectors, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In a report titled, “Tackling the Covid-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific,” the ADB and the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that 76.4 percent of youth job losses in 2020 were seen in sectors such as tourism, trade and agriculture.

Data showed that of the 76.4 percent of youth job losses in these seven industries, tourism— namely, hotels and restaurants— accounted for 19.8 percent of the young job losses.

“Tourism has been hit hard by the economic crisis and this is reflected in expected employment losses in hotels and restaurants.

The sector may account for 10 percent or more of employment losses in nine countries, with the highest losses in Cambodia, Mongolia and the Philippines,” the report stated.

The multilateral lender also estimated that around 1.019 million young Filipinos lost their jobs during the long lockdown. Some 687,000 lost their jobs during a short containment.

The unemployment of young Filipinos during long containment reached 19.5 percent while the rate during short containment was at 15.1 percent.

“Job losses among youth may reach 14.8 million in 2020 in the 13 countries under the 6-month containment scenario. A longer containment period will naturally result in higher job losses,” the ADB said. “ Fo r m o s t c o u nt r i e s , a 6-month period would reach into September because containment started near the beginning of April. This is likely the case for the Philippines,” the report stated.

Sectors

THE ADB said the aggregate job losses will be concentrated in seven sectors. Some of these sectors have been hard hit by the pandemic and employ many young people.

These sectors “retail trade, textile manufacturing, and hotels and restaurants” will naturally experience large aggregate job losses.

Other sectors may not be es-

pecially hit hard by the pandemic but will nonetheless incur large aggregate job losses because they employ many workers.

These sectors include agriculture and other community, social and personal services.

Some sectors that may be hard hit by the pandemic and likely to experience a high rate of job loss may, however, have only modest aggregate job loss because they are relatively small and do not employ many young workers.

An example is the rental and business services sector; it is listed among the high impact sectors, but is not among the seven sectors identified as having the most youth job losses.

“The seven sectors, out of 35, may account for 70 percent or more of total youth job losses in all but three countries. In manufacturing, the largest losses are expected in textiles, although they are concentrated in the major exporters,” the report stated. “Agriculture will suffer the largest losses in four of the 13 countries.”

Data showed that apart from tourism, most of the job losses among young Filipinos were seen in retail trade at 16.2 percent. The data included the repair of household goods but excluded the retail trade of motor vehicles and motorcycles.

This was followed by Agriculture which accounted for 15.2 percent of youth job losses in 2020. The ADB said the data included jobs lost in hunting, forestry and fishing.

The estimates done by the ADB using ILO data and the bank’s “Multiregional Input–Output Tables,” showed 12.9 percent of young Filipinos who lost their jobs last year were working in the construction sector.

This was followed by “Other services,” which included community, social and personal services, 8.1 percent of lost jobs; inland transportation, 3.6 percent; and, textiles and textile products, 0.6 percent.

As of June 2021, the Youth Labor Force grew by 265,000 to 7.989 million from 7.724 million in May 2021.

Those who were employed reached 6.831 million while 1.158 million were deemed unemployed. Some 919,000 were considered underemployed.

The Youth Labor Force Participation Rate reached 39.8 percent in June 2021; employment rate, 85.5 percent; unemployment rate, 14.5 percent; and, underemployment, 13.5 percent.

Lawmaker seeks full accounting of $4-B foreign loans in Covid response

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie

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MEMBER of the House Committee on Appropriations on Sunday asked the national government to make a full accounting of $4 billion foreign loans for Covid-19 pandemic response.

Citing the National Expenditure Program (NEP) annexes of the proposed P5.024-trillion 2022 budget, BHW Rep. Angelica Natasha Co said the national government secured foreign loans from six international aid bodies covering eight different loan programs for 2020 to 2022.

“We want a full and detailed accounting of these foreign loans, including the terms and conditions, payments made and payments due in the coming years,” Co added.

According to her, $4 billion is roughly P200 billion.

“The national government will eventually have to pay back all those loans, so we want to know until when we will be paying for them and how much,” Co said.

Submit to Congress

THE lawmaker noted that $1.9 billion is from the Asian Development Bank, $500 million from the World Bank, $750 million from the AIIB, about $756 million from JICA, $100 million from the Export-Import Bank of Korea and $50 million from Spain’s AIIDC. “Now, we here in Congress want to know from the Department of Finance, the Neda [National Economic and Development Authority] and the recipient implementing agencies how much of these foreign loan funds have been spent, whether they were spent as programmed and on time, the implementation programs encountered, and the loans yet to be signed and implemented,” she added.

Likewise, Co asked the national government to submit to Congress its reports containing these foreign loans.

“We want certified copies of the accomplishment reports and implementation updates submitted to the foreign loan agencies, including the audited reports,” she added.

Co said that as a member of the Lower Chamber she also wants a detailed inventory report on all the donated Covid vaccines from all foreign sources.

“We want to know whether those donations are reaching their intended ultimate beneficiaries, the Filipino people prioritized for vaccination,” Co said.

No ordinary measure

MEANWHILE, House Deputy Minority and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate chided the national government for the huge debt service under the proposed 2022 national budget.

According to Zarate, with the country’s national debt record of P11.071 trillion as of May, each of the 109 million Filipino owes P102,440.

Zarate said a big portion of the 2022 NEP goes to debt servicing.

“However, we borrow more than we need [deficit]. We pay for loans.

We, the people, are not aware of who or where these are spent. We cannot spend our appropriations properly.

We even have billions of unused appropriation, budgetary adjustments

also in billions and yet our expenditure program increases every year.”

The lawmaker added that when the administration started, the expenditure program was only at P3.002 trillion.

“But in a matter of just five years, the Duterte administration is proposing a gargantuan budget of P5.024 trillion.”

With this, Zarate said the country’s highest national budget, belatedly submitted to Congress almost a month after the State of the Nation Address (Sona), should be scrutinized and not railroaded.

“This is not an ordinary measure where the process can be short circuited or taken via shortcuts. This is the highest national budget ever and the budget for an election year at that,” Zarate said. “We cannot sacrifice the quality of analyzing it even if they submitted it just yesterday because it will mean surrendering outright Congress’ power of the purse.”

Many issues

THE Lower Chamber is eyeing to finish the deliberations of the

2022 proposed national budget by September 30.

“There are so many issues hounding the national budget today, especially now at the time of the Covid pandemic,” Zarate said.

The Davao-based solon said the Duterte administration has in 2020 an actual unobligated allotment of P200,059,408,000 and unreleased appropriations of P62,181,664,000 totaling to unused appropriations at P262,241,072,000.

“This is scandalous, even anomalous, when many people are in dire need for ayuda or aid while they are forced to stay at home without jobs or income, during different levels of lockdowns” Zarate said.

“In fact, the 2020 and 2021 budgets are still not depleted. So there is no urgency to railroad this to supposedly address pandemic measures,” he added.

Zarate said Congress should conduct full and transparent deliberations of the budget because, if this one passes as is, “then the people would also hold Congress into account for being a rubber stamp of Malacañang.”

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The Nation BusinessMirror

‘Pinoys quarantined, infected with Covid-19 allowed to vote’ If you arrive there, and your temperature is high—you will be diverted [to the isolation voting place].”

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez

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VEN quarantined voters, who are infected with novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) may still be allowed to participate in the 2022 National and Local Elections (NLE), according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Comelec Spokesman James Arthur B. Jimenez said they are now drafting the guidelines, which will be based on the voting scheme for people deprived of liberty (PDL) as a model.

“Hopefully, we can nail that down [so we can ensure the] voting rights [of] Covid-19 positive cases.”

Jimenez said in an online forum last Sunday. The poll official, however, pointed out that such a scheme will be “complex” since it will entail ad-

BM

ditional resources.

As for voters who will be suspected or be proven to be infected with Covid-19 during election day, he said they will be asked to vote in an “isolation voting place.”

Jimenez explained voters will be required to go through a screening station to determine if they are positive for Covid-19 or not through temperature checks and answering a health declaration form.

“If you arrive there, and your temperature is high—you will be diverted [to the isolation voting place],” Jimenez said.

Comelec already used the said strategy during the 2021 Palawan plebiscite. Samuel P. Medenilla

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Monday, August 30, 2021 A5

Armed Forces modernization program gets addl ₧8 billion

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By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

@joveemarie

S the country battles a health crisis, Congress increased the budget allocated for the modernization project of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) next year to P8 billion.

In a statement, Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny T. Pimentel said the AFP Modernization Program is getting another P35 billion under the proposed 2022 P5.024-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP), saying the funding is P8-billion more than the program’s P27 billion allocation this year.

Under the 2022 NEP, the Department of National Defense (DND) receives a total allocation of P222 billion.

“We expect the bulk of the fresh funding to be spent on new naval assets

for heightened national security missions, considering our lingering territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea,” according to Pimentel, chairman of the House Committee on Strategic Intelligence on Sunday.

“We are counting on Camp Aguinaldo to sign the contracts for the Philippine Navy’s acquisition of six 83-meter offshore patrols vessels (OPVs) from Australia before the end of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term,” Pimentel added.

Citing National Defense Secretary

Delfin N. Lorenzana, the lawmaker said that the Australian global shipbuilder and defense contractor Austal Ltd. is at the forefront of the Navy’s procurement program for the OPVs at an aggregate cost of P22 billion.

“We expect the highly agile OPVs to serve as the Navy’s remote workhorses,” Pimentel said.

As designed, he said each OPV will have an aviation deck capable of launching helicopter and drone missions.

They will also be capable of rapidly deploying and recovering high-speed rigid-hulled inflatable boats armed with large-caliber machine guns, the lawmaker added.

Also, he said the OPVs will have a top speed of 41 kilometers per hour (kph) and a maximum cruising range of over 6,000 kilometers at 22 kph.

“We want Austal to build the OPVs in its shipyard in Balamban, Cebu because it will mean more jobs for Filipinos,” Pimentel said.

Austal Philippines Pty. Ltd.’s shipyard at the West Cebu Industrial Park currently employs over 300 Filipinos.

Pimentel said Austal’s local boatyard can also facilitate the periodic upkeep of the OPVs. Under the Duterte administration, the Navy has so far acquired two guided-missile frigates at a combined cost of $337 million (P15.8 billion) from South Korea.

The 108-meter frigates BRP Jose Rizal and BRP Antonio Luna are now the Navy’s largest and most modern warships.

Earlier this year, the Navy also ordered eight 33-meter Shaldag-class fast attack craft worth $127.9 million (P6.16 billion) from Israel Shipyards Ltd., plus $79.4 million (P3.82 billion) worth of remote-controlled weapon stations and missiles from Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. The first of the missile-armed fast attack craft is due for delivery in the first quarter of 2022.

“After the eight fast attack craft from Israel and the six OPVs from Australia, we expect the Navy to acquire two heavily armed corvettes worth P30 billion,” Pimentel said.

The W

Business

A6 Monday, August 30, 2021 | www.businessmirror.com.ph

breaks another record Oregon counties request trucks Sydney amid struggle to suppress Delta for bodies as Covid deaths climb S

Covid-19 deaths in the county, surpassing the five total Covid-19 deaths that occurred during the first 18 months of the pandemic.

“In the past week, we more than doubled the number of Covid deaths in Tillamook County, from five to eleven,” Commissioners Mary Faith Bell, David Yamamoto and Erin Skaar wrote.

They begged residents: “Please get vaccinated.”

T he request comes a s t he coronavirus Delta variant tears through Oregon’s unvaccinated population.

The county vaccination rate is 70%, either in progress or fully vaccinated.

But in Josephine County, where hospitals are overwhelmed and its morgues are also reaching capacity, the vaccination rate is only 53%, according to Oregon Health Authority data. The vast majority of Covid-19 patients clogging the state’s hospitals and intensive care units are unvaccinated.

Unlike their counterparts in Tillamook Count y, Josephine County commissioners are not

promoting the vaccine.

Jefferson Public Radio reported that in a meeting earlier this month with local health officials, Josephine County Commissioner Herman Baertschiger Jr., a former leader of the minority Republicans in the Oregon Senate, said: “I’m not going to hog-tie anybody and give them a vaccination.”

Hospital workers in Grants Pass, the county seat, said their morgue was full as a result of a surge in coronavirus cases.

CEO Win Howard of Asante Three Rivers Medical Center in Grants Pass told commissioners: “We are in a full-blown health care crisis in our community. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

During the public meeting, the commissioners repeatedly questioned the efficacy of the vaccines, suggested the surge was caused by Mexican immigrants, and instead promoted unproven medicines, Jefferson Public Radio reported.

Josephine County Emergency Manager Emily Ring asked the state on Tuesday for a refrigerated trailer that could hold “2048 cadavers.”

She wrote that the county hospital is daily exceeding its body storage capacity and that the five funeral homes and three crematoriums are “at the edge of crisis capacity daily.”

“Trailer must have hoists for body lifts and shelves,” she said in her urgent request form.

Morgues are allowed to legally have only a certain number of bodies at the same time, and that creates the capacity issue, Doan said. Her office is facilitating the transfer of a refrigerated morgue truck from Yamhill County to Josephine County.

“Right now, OEM’s role is really in that air traffic control,” Doan said. “It’s like, here’s a need, here’s a resource to help them to connect the dots through mutual aid.”

The Oregon Health Authority on Friday reported 20 new deaths, raising the state’s death toll to 3,115.

Since the start of the pandemic there have been 268,401 reported coronavirus cases in this state of 4.2 million. AP

the “bravery and selflessness” of the American troops executing the hurried airlift of tens of thousands from Kabul airport, including the 13 US service members who were killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing at an airport gate.

The evacuation proceeded as tensions rose over the prospect of another IS attack. The State Department issued a new security alert early Sunday morning Kabul time instructing people to leave the airport area immediately “due to a specific, credible threat.”

“Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours,” Biden said, add ing that he has instructed them to take all possible measures to protect their troops, who are securing the airport and helping bring onto the airfield Americans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule.

The remains of the 13 American troops were on their way to the United States, the Pentagon said. Their voyage marked a painful moment in a nearly 20-year American war that cost more than 2,400 US military lives and is ending with the return to power of a Taliban movement that was ousted when US forces invaded in October 2001.

The remains of troops killed in action overseas are usually flown back to the US via Dover Air Base in Delaware, where fallen troops’ return to US soil is marked by a solemn movement known as the “dignified transfer.”

The White House on Saturday did not say if Biden would travel to Dover for the troops’ return.

Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said shortly after the attack that the president “would do everything he can to honor the sacrifice and the service” of those killed.

The Pentagon released the names of those killed—11 Marines, one Navy sailor and one Army soldier. Twelve of them were in the 20s; some were born in 2001, the year America’s longest war began. The oldest was 31.

They were the first US service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban in which the militant group halted attacks on Americans in exchange for a US agreement to remove all troops and contractors by May 2021. Biden announced in April that the 2,500 to 3,000 troops who remained would be out by September, ending what he has called America’s forever war. AP

In this Aug. 20, 2021 file photo, a nurse talks to a patient in the emergency room at Salem Hospital in Salem, Oregon, with gurneys lining the hallway behind them, ready to take patients if needed. Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021, that the state has contracted with a medical staffing company to provide up to 500 health care workers to hospitals around the state to help respond to the surge in patients due to the Delta variant. AP Photo/Andrew Selsky

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END, Oregon—The death toll from Covid-19 in Oregon is climbing so rapidly in some counties that the state has organized delivery of one refrigerated truck to hold the bodies and is sending a second one, the state emergency management department said Saturday.

So far, Tillamook County, on Oregon’s northwest coast, and Josephine County, in the southwest, requested the trucks, said Bobbi Doan, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.

Tillamook County Emergency Director Gordon McCraw wrote in his request to the state that the county’s sole funeral home “is now consistently at or exceeding their capacity” of nine bodies.

“Due to Covid cases of staff, they are unable to transport for

storage to adjacent counties,” he wrote, adding that suicides are also up in the county.

The refrigerated truck arrived in the county on Friday, loaned by Klamath County, Doan said in a telephone interview.

The Tillamook County Board of Commissioners said Friday the spread of Covid-19 “has reached a critical phase.”

In a statement published online in the Tillamook County Pioneer, they said that from Aug. 18 to Aug. 23, there were six new

ydney had a record number of Covid-19 infections, accounting for the bulk of cases in New South Wales as Australia’s most populous state battles to contain the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant.

The state saw a high of 1,218 daily infections in the 24 hours to 8 p.m. local time on Saturday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters Sunday in Sydney.

Six more people died.

Infections in the countr y’s most populous state have been rising—topping 1,000 for the first time last week—despite a ramped up immunization drive and a lockdown in Sydney since the end of June. The state is about half way to a double-dose vaccination rate of 70%, the threshold Berejiklian has set for people to get back some freedom of movement and begin to live with the virus in the community, she said.

T h e s t a t e ’s p r e m i e r a l s o stressed the importance of vaccination to help keep people out of hospitals. About 800 people are currently hospitalized and 120 are in intensive care units.

Given the daily tally of cases, patients with the virus in ICU won’t peak before October, Berejiklian said.

“What is the most relevant number for New South Wales is how many people are vaccinated and how many people we are keeping out of hospital and out of intensive care,” she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people per day are now being inoculated after a slow start to Australia’s rollout, though cases continue to rise in Sydney’s least-affluent south and southwestern suburbs and the west of the state, which has relatively large populations of vulnerable Indigenous people.

Bloomberg News

Report: Russia’s Covid-19 deaths hit new high in July

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OSCOW—A new report from Russia’s state statistics agenc y shows the country recorded a record number of deaths in July of people infected with coronavirus.

The report from the Rosstat agency said 50,421 people suffering from Covid-19 died during the month, sharply higher than the previous record of 44,435 in December.

Howe ver, t he agenc y sa id in the report that only 38,992 deaths were directly attributed to the disease. In another 5,206 deaths, the virus was assessed as likely the main cause but that more investigation wou ld be need; in 1,449 other cases, the virus contributed to the deaths but was not the main cause.

Rosstat said the other 4,844 deaths of infected people were not connected to the virus.

The report said the total of virus-related deaths in Russia by the end of July was 215,265

— well higher than the 180,840 cited by the national coronavirus task force. Russian officials ascribe that to different counting methods, saying the task force only includes deaths where Covid-19 was the main cause.

Officials also say the task force uses data from medical facilities while Rosstat takes its numbers from civil registry offices, where registering a death is finalized.

Russi a’s vacc i nat ion d r ive against Covid-19 has lagged behind other nations. As of midAugust, only a quarter of the countr y’s 146 mil lion people had received at least one vaccine dose, while 20% had been fully vaccinated.

Authorities in many regions have made vaccines mandatory for certain groups of workers, inc lud ing t hose employed in health care, education, retail, public transportation and government offices. AP

US intelligence still divided Biden: Another attack likely, pledges more strikes on IS on origins of coronavirus

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ASHINGTO—President Joe Biden has vowed to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. He warned another attack was “highly likely” and the State Department called the threat “specific” and “credible.”

The Pentagon said the remaining contingent of US forces at the airport, now numbering fewer than 4,000, had begun their final

withdrawal ahead of Biden’s deadline for ending the evacuation on Tuesday.

After getting briefed on a US drone mission in eastern Afghanistan that the Pentagon said killed two members of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday, Biden said Saturday the extremists can expect more.

“This strike was not the last,” Biden said in a statement. “We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay.” He paid tribute to

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ASHINGTON—US intelligence agencies remain divided on the origins of the coronavirus but believe China’s leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic, according to results released Friday of a review ordered by President Joe Biden.

According to an unclassified summary, four members of the US intelligence community say with low confidence that the virus was initially transmitted from an animal to a human. A fifth intelligence agency believes with moderate confidence that the first human infection was linked to a lab. Analysts do not believe the virus was developed as a bioweapon and most agencies believe the virus was not genetically engineered.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement Friday that China “continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information and blame other countries, including the United States.” Reaching a conclusion about what caused the virus likely requires China’s cooperation, the office said.

The cause of the coronavirus remains an urgent public health and security concern worldwide. In the US, many conservatives have accused Chinese scientists of developing Covid-19 in a lab and allowing it to leak. State Department officials under former President Donald

Trump published a fact sheet noting research into coronaviruses conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in the Chinese city where the first major known outbreak occurred.

The scientific consensus remains that the virus most likely migrated from animals in what’s known as a zoonotic transmission. So-called “spillover events” occur in nature, and there are at least two coronaviruses that evolved in bats and caused human epidemics, SARS1 and MERS. In a statement, Biden said China had obstructed efforts to investigate the virus “from the beginning.”

“The world deserves answers, and I will not rest until we get them,” he said. “Responsible nations do not shirk these kinds of responsibilities to the rest of the world.”

China’s embassy in Washington hit back with a lengthy statement saying the US had “ fabricated ” the report and invoking mistaken American intelligence about weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq War. “The report by the intelligence community is based on presumption of guilt on the part of China, and it is only for scapegoating China,” the embassy said. “Such a practice will only disturb and sabotage international cooperation on origin-tracing and on fighting the pandemic, and has been widely opposed by the international community.” AP

World

ssMirror

Ediror: Angel R. Calso | Monday, August 30, 2021

Winds frustrate effort to corral wildfire near Lake Tahoe

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OUTH LAKE TAHOE, California—Firefighters battling a stubborn California wildfire Friday near the Lake Tahoe resort region faced gusty winds and dr y conditions that made vegetation ready to burn.

T he C a l d or Fi re h a s proved so difficult to fight that fire managers this week pushed back the projected date for full containment from early next week to Sept.

8. But even that estimate was tenuous.

“I think that’s going to be assessed on a day-by-day basis,” said Keith Wade, a spokesman for the incident management team.

A Northern California police officer who had been on his way to help with the fire died Thursday of his injuries, officials said Friday.

Galt Police Officer Harminder Grewal was gravely injured in a head-on traffic collision that sent him and his partner to the hospital on Sunday.

“He made the ultimate sacrifice while ... responding to danger. Officer Grewal took pride in serving his community and his work ethic was contagious to all who worked with him,” the department said in a statement.

Grewal, 27, was a 2 1/2year veteran who was the department’s “officer of the year” in 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement honoring him and ordering Capitol flags to half-staff.

Grewal was a member of the honor guard and had recently been selected to be a motorcycle officer, Newsom said. He said Grewal’s partner is recovering from her serious injuries. The driver who crossed into their lane also died.

Burning since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada, the Caldor Fire has scorched nearly 144,000 acres, or 225 square miles (583 square kilometers), and remained only 12% contained Friday.

Flames churned through mountains just southwest of the Tahoe Basin, home to thousands and a playground for m i l l ions of tou r ists who visit the alpine lake in warmer months, ski at the many resorts in winter, and gamble at its casinos yearround. The area is blanketed in smoke at a time when summer vacations should be in full swing.

The fire’s eastern edge was about 7 or 8 miles (11 or 13 kilometers) from the city of South Lake Tahoe, said Robert Baird, a US Forest Service director of fire and aviation management.

“That area has been a focus of intense resource and concern for all of us,” he said.

Primary and secondary fire lines cut by bulldozers, hand crews and burnout operations were in place to try to catch the fire before it reaches South Lake Tahoe, he said.

Evacuation planning was being done as a precaution, but there were no evacuations there as of Friday afternoon, he said.

There was equal concern

for communities along the western side of the fire.

“When you look at the Caldor Fire, obviously there are many reasons that it’s the highest priority fire in the country and in California. It has community and inf rastr ucture in prett y much every direction,” said Anthony Scardina, the US Forest Service deputy regional forester for the Pacific Southwest region.

“That’s why that fire is so complex, because in every direction there are significant risks,” he said, adding that “it’s right in the back door of communities on the west side.”

The Caldor Fire is one of nearly 90 large blazes in the US Many are in the West, burning trees and brush desiccated by drought. Climate change has made the region warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

In California, 14 active, large fires are being fought by more than 15,200 firef ighters. Fires h ave de stroyed around 2,000 structures and forced thousands to evacuate in the state this year while blanketing large swaths of the West in unhealthy smoke.

The Caldor Fire has continued to grow, but not as explosively as its early days when it ravaged the community of Grizzly Flat. Ongoing tallies have counted 469 homes and 11 commercial properties destroyed, along with many smaller structures.

In the Lake Tahoe area, visitation began to drop when Highway 50, the major route to the south end, closed and again when a Dierks Bentley concert was canceled, according to Carol Chaplin, president and CEO of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, which promotes tourism to the south side.

“Obviously, the air quality began having a significant negative impact at that same time,” she wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “At our visitor center, many of our calls were around concern for future reservations, but as the fire has grown, lodging has experienced a significant drop.”

Chaplin said she suspects occupancy is currently below 30%, and businesses are reducing hours and or days or temporarily closing.

“Our summer season was incredibly strong, and we were looking forward to continuing that trend through the holiday and into the fall,” she said.

South Lake Tahoe City Manager Joe Irvin issued an emergency proclamation Thursday so the city that’s home to Heavenly Ski Resort can be better prepared if evacuation orders come and be reimbursed for related expenses.

The last time the city declared a wildfire emergency was during the 2007 Angora Fire, which destroyed nearly 250 homes in neighboring Meyers and was the last major fire in the basin. AP

A7

Iraq brings together Mideast rivals in bid to ease tensions

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AGHDAD—Arab heads of state and senior officials from the region including archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia held a rare meeting Saturday at a conference hosted by Iraq.

The meeting is aimed at easing Mideast tensions and underscored the Arab country’s new role as mediator.

French President Emmanuel Macron also attended the Baghdad meeting, hailing it as a major boost for Iraq and its leadership. The country had been largely shunned

by Arab leaders for the past few decades because of security concerns amid back-to-back wars and internal unrest, its airport frequently attacked with rockets by insurgents.

On Saturday, Iraqi leaders were on hand at Baghdad International Airport to receive the red carpet arrivals. They included Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. It was the first official visit to Iraq by the Qatari emir, whose country’s ties with Saudi Arabia are also fraught with tensions. Relations have improved recently since a declaration was signed with the kingdom and other Arab Gulf states to ease a years-long rift.

Among the participants were also the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rivalry over regional supremacy has often

played out to deadly consequences in Iraq and other countries across the region, including Yemen and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia was represented by its foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Iran with its foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

It was not immediately clear if the two ministers held a meeting on the sidelines. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hassan avoided a question as to whether they did, saying only: “These meetings in fact began in Iraq, and in Baghdad, and these meetings are continuing, and will continue.”

“What we understood from the two sides, or the parties, is a great and wide desire to reach positive results to solve the outstanding problems between the two countries,” he added.

The high-level meeting in Baghdad sent a message of Arab solidarity with Iraq, which has increasingly been pulled into Iran’s orbit in recent years.

“This summit marks the return of Iraq as a pivotal player in the region,” said political analyst Ih-

san al-Shammari, who heads the Iraqi Political Thinking Center in Baghdad. “Having rival parties be seated at the same table is a significant step in that direction.”

Iraqi special forces deployed in Baghdad, particularly around the Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government, where the meeting was held. Participants were expected to discuss a regional water crisis, the war in Yemen and a severe economic and political crisis in Lebanon that has brought the country to the point of collapse.

Lebanon, which has been without a functional government for the past year, and Syria, which has been suspended from the Arab League since 2011, were not represented at the meeting.

Macron, whose country is coorganizing the meeting, described Saturday’s meeting as “historic,” showcasing Iraq’s return to stability following the ruinous war against the Islamic State group, which was defeated in 2017.

Sunday’s meeting was a chance for Iraqi leaders to underscore their recent efforts to portray Iraq as a neutral mediator in the region’s crises and re-engage with the world after decades of conflict.

“Iraq, which for years has been a headline for war and conflicts, is hosting leaders and representatives of the region today to affirm their support for Iraqi sovereignty and prosperity,” said President Barham Salih.

Earlier this year, Iraq hosted several rounds of direct talks between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, with mid-level officials discussing issues related to Ye-

China protests US Navy, Coast Guard ships in Taiwan Strait

men and Lebanon, according to Iraqi officials.

The talks, while significant, fell short of a breakthrough in relations given the deep strains, historic rivalry and continued sporadic attacks on Saudi oil targets by Iran-backed Houthis from Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has sought talks with Iran as the kingdom tries to end its years-long war in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Tehran, meanwhile, appears to have calculated that a gradual detente with Riyadh, a longtime US ally, will work in its favor during renewed nuclear talks with Washington and world powers.

An Iraqi government official had told The Associated Press he anticipated Saudi and Iranian officials would hold talks on the sidelines of Saturday’s meetings.

He said the aim was to create a political atmosphere for resolving outstanding problems.

Iraq’s message at the summit is that it stands at the same distance from all sides, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.

After decades of conflict, Iraq is seeking to reclaim a leadership role and status in the Arab world with a centrist policy and a determination among the country’s top leaders to maintain good relations with both Iran and the United States and its regional allies.

The Shiite-majority country lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a theater in which Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out. AP

Belarus closes journalist organization in continuing crackdown after protests

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In this photo provided by US Coast Guard, Coast Guard cutter Munro, bottom, and Japan Coast Guard patrol vessel Large Aso transit together in formation during a maritime engagement in the East China Sea on Aug. 25, 2021. China’s defense ministry protested Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021 the passage of a US Navy warship and Coast Guard cutter through the waters between China and Taiwan, a self-governing island claimed by China. US Coast Guard via AP

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EIJING—China’s defense ministry protested Saturday the passage of a U.S. Navy warship and Coast Guard cutter through the waters between China and Taiwan, a self-governing island claimed by China.

A statement posted on the ministry’s website called the move provocative and said it shows that the United States is the biggest threat to peace and stability and creator of security risks in the 160-kilometer (100mile) wide Taiwan Strait.

“We express firm opposition and strong condemnation,” the statement said.

The USS Kidd guided-missile destroyer and Coast Guard cutter Munro sailed through the strait Friday in international waters, the U.S. Navy said. Such exercises are seen as a warning to

China, which recently conducted drills near Taiwan and has not renounced the use of force if needed to bring the island under its control.

“The ships’ lawful transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a statement from the Navy’s Japan-based 7th Fleet said.

Taiwan, home to 23.6 million people, split from China during a civil war that led to the Communist Party taking control of the mainland in 1949. The U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but maintains a representative office in the capital, Taipei, and is its biggest supplier of military equipment for its defense.

The U.S. Coast Guard has been stepping up its presence in Asia, as the Chinese coast guard

patrols near disputed islands that both China and other governments claim in the South and East China Seas.

The 418-foot (127-meter) long Munro, which is based in Alameda, California, arrived in the region in mid-August for what the U.S. Coast Guard said would be a monthslong deployment. It trained with a Japanese coast guard ship, the Aso, in the East China Sea for two days earlier this week.

The U.S. and Taiwan coast guards held talks this month after the two signed a cooperation agreement in March. China has denounced the agreement.

Saturday’s defense ministry statement said that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China,” and that China would not tolerate any interference in what it called its internal affairs. AP

YIV, Ukraine—Belarus has ordered the closure of the country’s largest independent journalists’ organization, the latest move by authorities to suppress critical reporting in a yearlong crackdown on dissent.

Friday’s order by the country’s supreme court to liquidate the Belarusian Association of Journalists follows the jailing of some 30 journalists, raids on newspaper offices, blocking the websites of major independent media and closing the PEN Center writers’ organization that was headed by Nobel literature laureate Svetlana Alexieveich.

Belarus also cancelled accreditation for foreign news organizations after massive protests began in August 2020 following presidential elections that official but disputed results say gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

Lukashenko has led the former Soviet republic since 1994.

The formal reason for the order was that two of the BAJ’s six branches allegedly ended their lease contracts. The organization denied the accusation, but was unable to provide supporting documents, since the organization’s office was sealed after searches and confiscation of equipment in July.

“We will continue to do our job, regardless of the decision of the courts, which clumsily fulfill the political order of the authorities,” BAJ head Andrei Bastunets told The Associated Press. “Expanding the space for freedom of speech has been the mission of the organization for over a quarter of a century, but now the darkest times have come in Belarus.” AP

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

A4 Monday, August 30, 2021 • Editor: Jennifer A. Ng A8

www.businessmirror.com.ph

SRA board members push for 100% ‘B’ sugar

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

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EMBERS of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) board want to allocate all sugar output to the domestic market to ensure that the country’s supply of the sweetener would be sufficient as production is expected to fall slightly in crop year (CY) 2021-2022.

The BusinessMirror learned that the two sugar industry representatives to the Sugar Board have voted for an all “B” or domestic market sugar allocation for CY 2021-2022, which starts on September 1.

The industry representatives also lamented the lack of “proper interventions” to boost the sugar industry’s productivity amid the threat of climate change.

In a letter to the SRA board dated August 28, Roland B. Beltran, who

represents the millers sector, voted for a “B” classification for the next crop year’s output.

Beltran indicated that his vote was based on the projected raw sugar output of 2.099 million metric tons (MMT) for CY 2021-2022, which is slightly lower than the two-year average of 2.14 MMT due to the adverse impact of La Niña on sugarcanes.

Emilio Bernardino L. Yulo, who represents the sugar producers’ sector, also voted for the “B” classification of the entire sugar output for the next crop year.

“We need to ensure domestic supply and our food security amid the pandemic,” Yulo told the BusinessMirror in an interview.

The SRA’s pre-milling estimate for the next crop year stood at 2.099 MMT, which was based on expectations of above normal rainfall condition from October 2021 to January 2022 in Batangas and

Negros Island, which are sugarproducing provinces.

“Slightly above normal rainfall” is also expected for Bukidnon from December 2021 to January next year, based on the state weather bureau’s forecast.

Despite having 158,577 metric tons (MT) of carry-over raw sugar stocks, the country’s sugar supply would be “better served with an all ‘B’ sugar domestic sugar allocation” for the next crop year, based on projections obtained by the BusinessMirror.

‘Disappointing’

THE two sugar board members expressed disappointment over the “dismal” performance of the country’s sugar industry in the previous crop years.

They said the government must act “more proactively” by implementing “aggressive and correct

interventions” to improve the industry’s productivity despite the threat of La Niña.

Beltran and Yulo said the government cannot always blame La Niña for the decline in sugar output. They also noted that the country’s sugar output has remained stagnant while the country’s population is expanding every year.

“Inevitably, the demand for local sugar will outpace the supply thereby denigrating the mandate of SRA ‘to establish and maintain such balanced relation between production and requirement of sugar and such marketing conditions as well insure stabilized prices at a level reasonably profitable to the producers and fair to consumers,” Beltran said in his letter.

Beltran and Yulo also lamented the lack of a national program that would encourage or initiate the expansion of sugarcane areas

in the country.

“Sadly, opportunities were lost and squandered because of ineptitude and wrong prioritization.

Among the many problems that beset the sugar industry is that the combined land area planted by sugarcane is fast declining, and there has been no policy and program aggressively pursued to explore and develop land areas suitable for sugarcane plantation,” Beltran added.

Yulo said the sugar industry must adapt to climate change since La Niña has become a perennial problem.

“We do not expect planted area to increase any sooner and it is even dwindling due to other business opportunities. We need to ramp up domestic production amid the challenge of climate change,” he said.

“There is no national expansion program. We should not be contended with the current situation.

The government should be doing its

homework on what is going to happen in the next three to five years.”

Beltran said he anticipates a “bleak and disturbing” future for the sugar industry unless measures that are “substantial, inclusive and sustainable are immediately put in place.”

“We cannot forever blame the weather for the low production of raw sugar without finding ways on how to reverse the trend and increase it. It is lamentable that there has been no significant improvement despite the subsidy from the government through the SIDA [Sugarcane Industry Development Act] funds, not to mention the corporate funds of SRA that had been disbursed by the millions of pesos,” he said.

“As the writing on the wall becomes clearer, the sugar industry might be counting what is left of its productive years.”

Filipinos remain partial to high-GI Group criticizes DA’s fish import policy polished rice—PhilRice study

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

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ESPITE their awareness of the benefits of consuming low-glycemic index (GI) food, Filipino consumers still prefer polished or white rice which has high GI, according to a study conducted by government researchers.

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), said a study conducted by its researchers showed that Filipinos have a high level of awareness on the benefits of consuming low-GI rice.

“Results of our study showed that majority of our respondents from all 17 regions in the country had high level of awareness on GI,” said Riza G. Abilgos-Ramos, supervising science research specialist of DA-PhilRice’s Rice Chemistry and Food Science Division and one of the researchers.

PhilRice said GI is a value assigned to foods based on how slowly or how quickly those foods cause increases in blood glucose levels.

Abilgos-Ramos said foods with low GI, such as brown rice, are recommended for controlling blood sugar levels because these release glucose in the body slowly after intake.

“White or polished rice has high GI. Consumption of this is associated with increased risk of diabetes,” she said.

“Despite the high level of awareness, more than 75 percent of the

PHOTO from www.philrice.gov.ph

respondents still consume polished or white rice at least twice a day.”

However, Abilgos-Ramos noted that all respondents “signified interest in rice with naturally low-GI” but “only half of them were willing to consume brown rice.”

“Identifying factors that influence food behavior among consumers is also key in improving diet to lower the risk of diabetes mellitus, which is one of the top five non-communicable diseases [NCDs] causing deaths among Filipinos,” AbilgosRamos said.

The PhilRice study showed that the primary considerations of consumers when buying food are “taste, satiety, and nutritional value.”

“[We] will further study the reasons why despite their awareness and willingness to buy low-GI rice, the majority of the respondents are still consuming white rice,” AbilgosRamos said.

The researchers recommended that a campaign on the consumption of whole grains, particularly brown rice, should be intensified.

The agency said the researchers will also conduct an in-depth market study that will focus on millennials.

“Millennials represent a group where interventions for prevention of NCDs, particularly diabetes mellitus, would be most useful,” Rosaly V. Manaois, one of the researchers, said. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

PHL-made Maya-3, Maya-4 cube sats launched from SpaceX to ISS continued from a2 Prior to the launch, the cube sats were tested thoroughly to ensure that they can survive the launch and harsh space conditions. The team performed space environment tests of Maya-3 and Maya-4 and analyzed the results.

The results of various tests were then sent to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for evaluation.

After satisfying the set acceptance requirements, the CubeSats were turned over to JAXA for their launch to the ISS. DOST Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said this latest development is a “crowning moment” for these initiatives.

“As a Filipino, I feel proud and hopeful that we have already developed our cube satellites locally. As a science and technology administrator, I think this is a crowning moment for the initiatives that we have undertaken,” de la Peña said.

He said it is a return on investment of sorts for whatever resources

the government has poured in its Philippine space technology development program, “and a proof that our Filipino scientists, engineers, and researchers can be depended upon given a clear vision and target that we want to achieve,” he said, “I commend the team who worked to accomplish this particular goal. We will aim higher of course. I feel fortunate about having our first batch of STeP-UP Scholars, who in spite of diversity of backgrounds in science and engineering, were able to accomplish their tasks within the given time frame,” de la Peña added.

According to Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) Director General Dr. Joel Joseph Marciano Jr., “When we sent Filipino scholars to Kyutech to work on Maya-1 in 2016 and Maya-2 in 2018, we committed to the idea of being able to build and innovate future Maya cube sats in our own laboratories.

With Maya-3 and Maya-4 being

lifted up to the ISS today [August 29], we achieve that proximate objective,” he said.

“This accomplishment spurs us on toward our larger goal of growing local space capabilities and cascading them to industry and society. I thank and congratulate the scholars, their mentors, and everyone in the team for their hard work, and look forward to more Mayas and breakthroughs to come,” Marciano added.

The UP said it was pleased to be home to these cube sats.

“Certainly there is much pride among the entire UP community in having our first ever university-built cube satellites. Considering the more obvious uses of these satellites such as in disaster mitigation and regional monitoring, the potential of these high-technology devices is limitless.

We join the Stamina4Space Program and STeP-UP Project in their success,” said Dr. Gonzalo Campoamor II, UPD Vice Chancellor for Research and Development. Lyn B. Resurreccion

HE Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Sunday chided the Department of Agriculture (DA) anew for its plan to import 60,000 metric tons (MT) of fish.

“When will DA Secretary [William] Dar ever learn that flooding the local market with imported fish does more damage than good to our struggling food industry? We never fail to remind the agriculture department that importation is not the solution to fish shortage which is artificial in essence,” Pamalakaya National Chairman Fernando Hicap said in a statement.

The group noted that the DA recently approved the purchase of 60,000 MT of imported small pelagic fishes like galunggong (round scad), mackerel, and bonito to augment the shortage caused by the upcom-

ing “closed fishing season” in the country’s major fishing grounds in the last quarter of the year.

“Even with ‘closed fishing seasons,’ there are abundant fish stocks in the Philippine seas and that there is no need to open the floodgates with imported fish that threatens the local fishers because imported fish outcompetes their products,” said Hicap.

According to Hicap, the entry of imported fish pulls down the price of local fish caught by small fishermen.

In Palawan, the price of fish, such as round scad, is already P60 to P70 per kilo. With imported fish flooding the market, this is expected to further go down. This will be very difficult for small fishermen, according to Hicap.

“We attest that the shortage of fish is artificial as it is caused by the unregulated and unjust declaration of closed fishing season in our ma-

jor fishing grounds. Following the government’s reasoning for importation, why declare fishing ban that generates alleged shortage in the first place? Moreover, even closed seasons are in place, we have lots of fishes in our seas, importation is just unnecessary,” Hicap added.

During the 16th Congress, Hicap said that “closed fishing season” is detrimental to the livelihood of small fishers who are being prevented from catching fish within the closed fishing waters. He also lamented the lack of compensation and government subsidy for the affected fishers during the closed season.

“The government’s liberalization policies exacerbated the importdependent characteristic of our fisheries industry to the detriment of our local fisherfolk. Instead of holistically addressing the constant agricultural crisis, the government always resorts to band-aid solution like importation,” Hicap said.

Gold gains as Fed’s Powell stops short of giving taper timeline

G

OLD rose the most in two weeks after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said tapering may be appropriate this year, easing concern that policy makers will soon tighten monetary policy.

The central bank could begin reducing its monthly bond purchases this year, though it won’t be in a hurry to begin raising interest rates thereafter, Powell said Friday in a virtual speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium. The dollar and real Treasury yields sank as the Fed Chair spoke, allowing gold to gain past two of its main moving averages.

“Powell’s speech is slightly dovish but not dovish enough to jump start any large-scale buying in precious metals,” said Nicky Shiels, head of metals strategy at MKS (Switzerland) SA. “It was his strongest signal yet that the taper will begin this

year (not next) and he didn’t fully capitalize on the risk of the delta variant on policy.”

Powel l ’s muc h-a nt ic ipated speech eased prior concerns that the central bank will soon tighten monetary policy to combat inflation. A rapid increase in United States prices linked to snarled supply chains and shortages had raised the prospect of an early reduction in stimulus, which has cast a shadow over the gold market this month.

The Fed Chair used his speech to reiterate his view that those pressures are temporary and confined to a narrow group of goods.

The metal has stumbled much of this year as vaccine rollouts, stronger-than-expected recoveries in some economies and worries over rising interest rates dimmed its appeal. Low rates helped power non-interest-bearing bullion to a

record high last year on a wave of investor cash. In 2021, exchangetraded funds holding the metal have experienced outflows.

Spot gold rose 1.5 percent to $1,818.37 an ounce at 3:28 p.m. in New York, its highest since Aug. 4.

The metal is down 4.3 percent this year. Bullion futures for December delivery rose 1.4 percent to settle at $1,819.50 on the Comex, its biggest jump in two weeks. Silver, platinum and palladium all gained.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index weakened 0.5 percent.

Attention will now turn to data on the strength of the US labor market, which with inflation at target will likely determine the timing of tapering. The next non-farm payrolls report is due in a week, with a repeat of the substantial out-performance seen in August almost certain to hurt gold. Bloomberg News

Chinese boats in WPS constantly changing locations–Esperon continued from a9

Some of the Chinese fishing vessels, according to Esperon, are even bigger than “our 44-meter Coast Guard vessels.” The Philippine Coast Guard is in the process of acquiring bigger patrol boats and multi-role vessels from Japan and France.

While Chinese vessels are present in the WPS and KIG, the government has been guarding its stakes in those territories where the “Philippine flag” is visibly planted and flying.

“Please take note that there are nine Philippine flags here. And four of them are inside our EEZ (WPS)

and five are outside our EEZ, but within our Kalayaan Island Group,” Esperon said.

The Kalayaan Island Group automatically became part of the Philippine territory by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 1596 issued in 1976 by then President Ferdinand Marcos, which as a result, gave way to the creation of the Municipality of Kalayaan, part of the province of Palawan.

Kalayaan’s seat of power is located in the island of Pagasa.

While three other features,

Subi, Fiery Cross and Mischief Reefs, are also subjects of claims by the country or even located within its exclusive economic zone, they have been occupied and reclaimed

by China.

“Mischief Reef used to be a low tide elevation, but today it is 586 hectares with the three-kilometer air strip. 586 is more than double the size of the Bonifacio Global City.

Subi is also a low tide elevation. It is also twice that of the Bonifacio Global City. Fiery Cross is about 180 hectares,” Esperon said.

News BusinessMirror

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SENATE ENERGY CHIEF DOUBTS POWER-SUPPLY ASSURANCE BY CUSI

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

D

EPARTMENT of Energy (DOE) officials assured last week that there will be enough electricity supply during the election period in May next year.

“We are telling you that there is power come election time. We can refer to the PEP [Philippine Energy Plan] and included in that is the demand and supply outlook, where we are not only looking at election time.

What we stated there is there is enough power. Now, if you will insist that there is none, then I can’t do anything. But we are telling you, there is sufficient power,” said DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi during a virtual press conference last week.

DOE Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella had also said that based on the agency’s outlook, there is “sufficiency of supply, with no yellow alerts, and no power interruptions” during the May 2022 polls.

“Our goal is to maintain this situation, or improve it, and this could be done through our continued coordination and joint monitoring activities,” added Fuentebella.

Despite pronouncements that there will be no brownouts during the week of the May 2022 elections, a lawmaker wants the Senate to conduct an inquiry on the plans and preparations of the DOE and other stakeholders.

“It is crucial that programs are already in place, taking into account all eventualities to guarantee continuous supply of electricity during the 2022 automated elections. We must ensure the credibility and transparency in the conduct of elections as well as the delivery of fast and accurate results reflective of the genuine will of the people,” said Senate Energy Committee Chairman Sherwin Gatchalian.

Gatchalian pointed out that DOE’s forecast does not take into consideration the forced and unplanned outages of power plants during summer, when electricity demand is at its peak and the declining supply from the Malampaya gas field.

“Power interruptions last summer happened despite earlier statements from the DOE that it was optimistic that the country will not encounter major challenges or any alerts that may result in insufficiency of supply,” Gatchalian reminded the energy officials The senator was referring to the unscheduled Luzon brownouts on May 31 until June 3, which hampered efforts of just-recovering businesses to restart operations after crippling pandemic lockdowns.

Nonetheless, Cusi reiterated his assurance of sufficient power supply in the country as he traveled to Mindoro to personally resolve the rotating brownouts plaguing the island province. “Mindoro can expect an improved power service by September 30,” the energy chief said.

Cusi said his recent visit to Mindoro was part of the DOE’s efforts to make sure the department can achieve its goal to provide 100 percent electrification by 2022. “We are ensuring that household electrification is expedited. That’s why we are visiting provinces in off-grid areas.

We are making sure the commitment of this administration is met when our term ends in June [2022],” he stressed.

The DOE also assured the public of adequate power supply despite the scheduled preventive maintenance of the Malampaya gas field from October 2 to 22 this year.

“As far as the months of September, October—even up to February [next year]—we have sufficient power, we have more than enough reserves,” said Fuentebella.

Chinese boats in WPS constantly changing locations–Esperon

By Rene Acosta

@reneacostaBM

C

HINESE fishing and maritime militia vessels that are inside the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) are irregularly moving and are changing locations, but the government has managed to track them, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said.

Esperon, who is also the chairman of the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS), disclosed the Chinese boats’ pattern of movements while emphasizing that the country has not given up any of its maritime claims by guarding all of the islands and features that it owns in those territories.

“We have our stations, eight stations. Look at the flags. Our biggest station is Pagasa Island. We have maritime patrols over the area.

Our Coast Guard are deployed in the area, the Bureau of Fisheries vessels and the Philippine National Police, it’s a combined effort,” Esperon said at a virtual briefing on the fishery situation in the WPS. “And there are two primary missions there: one is to protect our stations, second, if not number one, would be to protect our fisherfolks wherever they reach, wherever they

go within this area,” he added.

In December last year, more than 230 Chinese ships, both fishing vessels and maritime militia boats, were seen at the Julian Felipe Reef (Whitsun Reef) before they dispersed and reappeared in bigger number in different locations within the KIG and the WPS, prompting the government to intensify its patrol and send more ships to those areas.

“If you would ask me now, where the Chinese fishing vessels are, there would be as we know, we have seen them in Julian Felipe, which we are showing there, or the Whitsun Reef and in the vicinity of this whole complex which is the Union Bank,” Esperon said while pointing to the WPS areas.

“We have also seen them in Sabina Shoal to the right and in Ayungin or in the Reed Bank area, or in Pagasa area or near the islands that have become the centers of action of other countries. In other words, they keep changing their locations,” he added.

The national security adviser said the government continues to keep track of the Chinese vessels and their locations while recalling previous incidents where Coast Guard ships have shooed them away from Sabina Shoal, Reed Bank, Julian Felipe Reef and near Pagasa Island.

Continued on A8

Monday, August 30, 2021 A9

GOCC July subsidy down 66%; 7-mo total dips to ₧94B

S

By Cai U. Ordinario

@caiordinario

UBSIDIES extended by the national government to state-owned enterprises contracted 66.1 percent in July 2021, according to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).

Data showed subsidies received by government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) declined to P6.079 billion in July.

This is also the second lowest recorded for the year after January’s P11 billion.

In July 2020, NG subsidies amounted to P17.934 billion while in June 2021, subsidies reached P7.153 billion.

BTr data also showed that subsidies extended to GOCCs amounted to a total of P94.361 billion in the January to July period this year.

This represented a 35.64-percent decline from the P142.622 billion recorded in the same period last year.

NIA, NHA top recipients

THE bulk of the government

subsidies in July were received by Major Non-Financial Government Corporations at P5.265 billion.

Of these corporations, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) received the largest amount at P2.756 billion followed by the National Housing Authority (NHA) at P1.483 billion.

In the past seven months, NIA has received a total of P19.596 billion in subsidies from the national government while NHA received P8.783 billion. These are also the highest extended to Major Non-Financial Government Corporations this year.

Other government corporations, meanwhile, received a total of P814 million in subsidies in July. In the January to July period, the total subsidies they received reached P56.31 billion.

Of these corporations, those which received the largest subsidies in July were the Philippine Heart Center (PHC) at P147 million; Philippine Postal Corp. (PPC), P135 million; and the National Kidney

and Transplant Institute (NKTI), P107 million.

In the January to July period, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) received the bulk at P45.456 billion. In July, PhilHealth did not receive any subsidy.

A distant second and third were the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority which received a total of P1.751 billion and P1.277 billion, respectively.

Both GOCCs did not receive any subsidies in July.

Earlier, the budget department noted that subsidies fell below the program due to the timing of releases pending submission of special budget releases by the GOCCs. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said delays were mainly due to their compliance with documentary requirements as well as the late submission of progress billings from contractors.

SAN Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora leads the distribution of financial assistance to both medical and non-medical frontliners involved in the city’s Covid-19 response and interventions at FilOil Flying V Centre (San Juan Arena). Around 2,500 medical and non-medical workers fighting the pandemic received the cash aid: P5,000 for medical frontliners and P3,000 for non-medical frontliners. They do Covid response and interventions such as contact tracing, swabbing, isolation, treatment, patient transport, hospitalization, community quarantine, ayuda distribution and vaccination. NONOY LACZA

Senators to seek NBI help to find DOH suppliers

By Butch Fernandez

T

@butchfBM

HE Senate will seek the help of the Justice Department, specifically the National Bureau of Investigation, to track down persons behind the undercapitalized contractor that bagged P8.7-billion in questioned personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts at the height of the pandemic even as Blue Ribbon probers are set to wrap up their inquiry soon, said Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon.

Drilon disclosed in an interview with DWIZ at the weekend that Sen. Richard Gordon, Blue Ribbon chairman, had subpoenaed most of these individuals behind Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., linked to Davao-based businessmen, but that subpoena servers had not been able to track them down yet.

“That’s right. The OSAA was unable to serve the subpoenas. Let’s ask the Bureau of Immigration if they have left the country. We will

ask the NBI to track them down,” Drilon said, partly in Filipino.

As of Friday, only former Budget Undersecretary Christopher Lao and Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque were grilled by the senators in connection with the wholesale transfer of P42 billion in Bayanihan funds lodged with DOH, to the then Lao-led Procurement Service of the DBM (PS-DBM).

Senate probers learned that under Lao, several suppliers with questionable credentials were able to bag billions in contracts for pandemic-related needs. Gordon noted that Lao admitted meeting with some of the suppliers, which the Blue Ribbon chief said violated a basic tenet in bidding, marking out the subsequent deals as smacking of “supply-driven contracts.”

Also at the DWIZ interview, Drilon said the senators will now insist on abolishing two offices that have made a mockery of fiscal governance because these allowed billions in scarce State funds to be

“parked” instead of being returned to the National Treasury.

It was noted that the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) and PS-DBM also counter the spirit of the procurement law, which encourages capacity building among the individual procurement offices of various government agencies, because the agencies simply “outsource” their bidding requirements to the PITC and PS-DBM. Last week, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto had tagged the PITC and PS-DBM as “mega parking lots” of billions, skirting the law requiring unused funds to revert to the National Treasury.

State witness Lao?

IN a separate weekend radio interview, Drilon, replying to a query, said that if Lao wishes to spill the beans on who caused the transfer of the funds from DOH to PS-DBM or who “endorsed” the questioned suppliers like Pharmally Corp. to his office, Lao must first undertake

a sworn affidavit detailing all these and naming the parties involved.

Otherwise, he said, partly in Filipino, “I pity him; he’s the only one who will be punished.”

Drilon also noted the witness protection program usually prioritizes the “least guilty,” so that Lao would first have to prove that there were far more powerful people who caused such questioned transactions.

Duque would certainly have a liability, for authorizing the transfer of the P42-billion funds, as he admitted to Blue Ribbon probers, said Drilon.

Drilon deplored that the face masks and face shield were “too much overpriced,” noting that one supplier “starting from zero income in 2019 earned more or less P300million earning in 2020.”

He cited Gordon saying the Philippine Red Cross, which Gordon chairs, bought face masks at P5 apiece, “but here it was priced at P22.00 and even up to P27.00.”

A10 Monday, August 30, 2021 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

What do we do next?

B

Y late April 2020, scientists were already scrambling to find which protocols for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic were working and more effective. Comparisons between countries were not always valid or reliable. However, there should be some sort of benchmark that all nations could adopt to mitigate the spread of the virus.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is taking the lead on this. Rosalind Eggo, a mathematical modeler, was one of the prime movers of the research and search for answers. From nature. com April 27, 2020: “Researchers hope that, ultimately, they will be able to accurately predict how adding and removing control measures affect transmission rates and infection numbers. This information will be essential to governments as they design strategies.” It did not work as planned.

The researchers could not untangle which measures were genuinely effective. Too many variables. The best they could do even now is to measure how governments enforce “stringent” health guidelines, and to observe whatever protocols are being implemented. More “stringent” meant the doubling of cases took longer. But there is no universal consistency in results.

More than a year later, with some exceptions, the most prevalent strategies are: 1) National and localized quarantines, 2) Substantial testing and contact tracing, and the most current 3) Mass and targeted vaccinations.

Yet globally we have seen massive increases in cases with peaks in January, April, and now in August 2021.

The mass testing protocol is difficult to measure in terms of results in stopping the spread. Contact tracing and quarantine also help determine the effectiveness of health protocols. However, we know that there’s an inherent percentage of false results—both positive and negative. How much is anyone’s guess. Further, we also know that not all types of testing are “created equal,” given the various procedures and parameters.

Contact tracing is extremely difficult unless you have an in-place system, like what Singapore is doing with its universal ID, or an army of contact tracers like Vietnam’s military, police, and militia. Once tracers in Vietnam identify close contacts, they send them to quarantine camps. It has worked elsewhere, including in Taiwan. South Korea and Japan are using mobile-phone signals to track obedience.

In reality, failures occur at every stage of the test–trace–isolate sequence.

Vaccinations are looking to be the best protocol but are not a magic bullet. Dr. Anthony Fauci and the US Covid advisors have been proven wrong about “the science” of vaccines. After telling Americans that vaccines offer better protection than natural infection, a new study in Israel suggests the opposite.

Never-infected people who were vaccinated in January and February were six to 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with Covid. Israel was the first country to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens. Now Israel has 6.5 times as many cases per capita than the Philippines.

And now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that 78 percent of Covid hospitalizations involved people who were overweight or obese.

At some point in time, someone is going to have to stand up and say, “It’s not working.” We have not heard any new or original ideas for months. And if you think that only applies to the Philippines, you probably do not have a working Internet connection or are intellectually cut off from the rest of the world.

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Antidote to the always-on culture

wonder how many of my readers are finding it difficult to sleep at night or to maintain their pre-pandemic sleeping schedules. This crisis is changing many things about our lives, including our habits and routines. Other people are finding it hard to get the same amount of outdoor exposure, along with a healthy dose of vitamin D, exercise, and fresh air. For some people, it’s their diet that’s changing and, unfortunately, there are many of us who have gained weight or have been consuming more unhealthy food and drinks.

The line between weekdays and weekends has also started to blur. More people are working way into the night and the early morning, sitting down at the dining table to get some work done while eating a meal. They are constantly bombarded with notifications and calls even during their private time, or when they are trying to relax with their family. We have come to embrace the always-on culture, at the expense of sleep and our general well-being.

The line between weekdays and weekends has also started to blur.

More people are working way into the night and the early morning, sitting down at the dining table to get some work done while eating a meal.

They are constantly bombarded with notifications and calls even during their private time, or when they are trying to relax with their family. We have come to embrace the always-on

a digital detox, as some people call the hours or days of complete disconnection from electronic gadgets.

It doesn’t have to take so much time either—for example, in a day, we can designate a short period when we decide to leave our phones and focus on doing something enjoyable, like reading or cooking.

Another symptom we need to look out for is something that is very common: pushing our needs aside be-

Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

I

culture, at the expense of sleep and our general well-being.

Wellness experts are flashing the warning sign against these tendencies that have become more prevalent in this pandemic. They’re telling us to stop, evaluate, and do what is necessary to return to our center, a place where we are stable and well. For example, we might have to go on a digital cleansing or

cause of an emergency at work, a tight deadline, or a commitment we can’t cancel. The experts are unanimous in saying that it is very important to listen to what we need (mind and body) and to create a self-care plan to make sure that these needs are addressed. For example, if we’ve been cooped up alone for so long and we are longing for company and a conversation, we should take time off to schedule a call or a safe meeting with close friends or relatives.

Finally, it would help to take a look at the findings of one study that was done by the scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. They found out that outdoor activity actually affects our brain structure in a positive way. All those hours spent inside the house are making us less effective at work and even prone to psychiatric disorders, according to science.

So, if you are presented with the opportunity to go outside, go to the beach, or go on vacation in the province, grab it. Studies show that even short daily walks can greatly improve our health and well-being.

Contact tracing takes a back seat during latest Covid surge

By Michelle L. Price | Associated Press

H

ealth investigators across the US are finding it nearly impossible to keep up with the deluge of new Covid-19 infections and carry out contact tracing efforts that were once seen as a pillar of the nation’s pandemic response.

States are hiring new staff and seeking out volunteers to bolster the ranks of contact tracers that have been overwhelmed by surging coronavirus cases.

Some states trimmed their contact tracing teams this spring and summer when virus numbers were dropping and are now scrambling to train new investigators. Others have triaged their teams to focus on the most vulnerable, such as cases involving schools or children too young to be vaccinated.

Texas got out of the business entirely, with the new two-year state budget that takes effect Sept. 1 explicitly prohibiting funds being used for contact tracing. That left it up to local health officials, but they can’t keep up at a time when Texas is averaging more than 16,000 new cases a day.

Mississippi has 150 staff working full time to identify people who have had close contact with an infected person, but they are swamped, too.

“A lot of times by the time of cases are reported, transmission has already occurred by the time we reach that person,” state epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said.

Since the pandemic began, states have been relying on the practice of contact tracing to track down, notify and monitor those who were exposed to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of global health and infectious diseases at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said that while contact tracing can be time-intensive, especially if one person potentially exposed a lot of people, “it does in the end prevent additional cases.”

Maldonado said it’s a “staple of public health” and can be the only way someone can find out a stranger may have potentially exposed them to the disease.

The contact tracing response has varied from state to state throughout the pandemic.

New York, which has had a robust team, has adjusted its contract tracing staff with the pandemic’s waves.

The state had more than 8,000 contract tracers in February and March of this year but now has 3,860 staff working on contract tracing. That does not include New York City, which has its own $600 million tracing initiative with thousands of staff.

Arkansas has hired two outside firms, General Dynamics Information Technology and Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, to handle the investigations for the state. The firms have about 257 people working right now and are each trying to add about 100 more.

In Louisiana, another virus hotspot, state officials have added 130 people in recent weeks to their staff working on contact tracing. They now have more than 560 people working on tracing efforts.

In Idaho, a new public health web site, VolunteerIdaho.com, encourages people with health care skills or a simple willingness to volunteer for Idaho’s Medical Reserve Corps.

Among the volunteers they are seeking are people who can with contact tracing and data entry.

Health officials say with the overwhelming number of new cases, they’re not able to track every case and instead try to focus on infections that could have exposed large numbers of people or vulnerable groups.

That’s the case in Alabama. Dr. Karen Landers with the Alabama Department of Health said her agency encourages anyone who tests positive or is exposed to follow isolation and quarantine guidelines and notify anyone they had close contact with, but the health department is focusing its resources on bigger outbreaks, clusters and group settings.

In Nevada, the investigators are prioritizing their efforts around

cases involving children or schools, according to Julia Peek, Deputy Administrator of Community Health Services at Nevada’s health department.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott last year approved a $295 million contract with a firm to run contact tracing for the state, but the deal drew conservative backlash and a lawsuit from lawmakers who said the governor overstepped his authority by approving the deal with the Legislature was not in session.

Abbott eventually won the lawsuit, but contact tracing funds were stripped from the new budget.

Local governments say they’re continuing the effort and trying to ramp up staffing as cases climb. In Austin, for example, the local health department had about 50 investigators working on contact tracing at the peak of the pandemic. But when cases dropped, they reduced their staff to 12, according to Austin Public Health spokesman to Matt Lara.

In California, state workers have been dispatched to help county health department teams working on contract tracing. At the peak of the pandemic, Los Angeles County had about 2,800 people working on the effort until this spring, when cases began falling, said True Beck, a public health worker who manages a team of contract tracers for the county.

Beck said some staff in the spring were reassigned to make calls enSee “Contact,” A11

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Musings on the amendments of the Accountancy Law Joel L. Tan-Torres

DEBIT CREDIT Thirteenth of a series

T

he most fulfilling experiences I had as Chairman of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy from 2014 to 2018 include the engagements I had with the various accountancy regulators, experts and thought leaders here and abroad. These interactions brought in a lot of insights on current developments and future directions of the profession that immensely helped define the regulatory and legislative agenda that I pursued during my term as BOA Chairman.

It was a learning experience for me to participate in the meetings of the International Academic Education Standards Board (IAESB) and International Ethics Standards Board (IESB) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).

I attended at least four meetings of the Consultative Advisory Group of IAESB and IESB in New York City and Paris in 2017 and 2018. I observed the protocols and procedures for conducting meetings with participants coming from various sectors and countries. I participated in the deliberations of the priority and emerging issues of the accountancy profession, including some matters as the strategy and work plans, Continuing Professional Development, application of professional skepticism, impact on independence of engaging on non-assurance services, the development of skills and competencies in the area of Information and Communications Technology, formulation of the eCode of Ethics, and several initiatives in developing standards on accounting academic and ethical guidance. In one of these meetings, I chanced upon a Filipina CPA colleague, Dr. Conchita Manabat, who was representing the International Association of Financial Executives Institutes. It is always a feather in the cap of the Filipino CPAs when our fellow Filipinos are able to represent the country or their institutions in these global marketplace of ideas.

The other landmark occasions where I proudly represented the Philippines include several events of the World Bank (WB) and the Center for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR) in Austria from 2016 to 2018. The CFRR is part of the WB Group that is tasked to provide a broad range of knowledge, convening and capacity development services in support of financial reporting reform, institutional strengthening and the dissemination of good practice in the area of financial reporting and auditing.

It is based in Vienna, Austria and is presently headed by a good friend, Jarett Decker. The CFRR and WB invited me to participate in several events, including the IFAC-CFRR Regional Education Community of Practice conference, the Audit Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop, the IFAC Regional Small and Medium Practices Forum, a conference on “Achieving Excellence in Accountancy Education: Sharing Good Practices and Opportunities for Reform,” and the World Bank-hosted Ministerial

Contact. . .

continued from A10

couraging people to get vaccines and others were sent back to their regular jobs at other county departments, but lately they’ve been bringing people back and have about 1,000 working.

She said the work is relentless and the calls, which can last an hour, can be emotional. Workers making contract tracing calls not only help people learn about what they should do to keep themselves and others safe, but they can hear from people

The other landmark occasions where I proudly represented the Philippines include several events of the World Bank and the Center for Financial Reporting Reform in Austria from 2016 to 2018. The CFRR is part of the WB Group that is tasked to provide a broad range of knowledge, convening and capacity development services in support of financial reporting reform, institutional strengthening and the dissemination of good practice in the area of financial reporting and auditing.

Conference on “Financial Information: Catalyst for Growth.” In the process of participating in these international events in Vienna, I, as representative of the Philippines, was able to wave our flag and share our insights and experiences that my foreign counterparts apparently appreciated very much, and learned from them. In fact, Kalina Sukarov, project manager of one of the ToT training courses, included an article that I wrote in BusinessMirror in the WB brochure that they printed in 2017. In addition, I was able to establish a professional and personal relationship with the kind staff of the CFRR, including Bonnie Ann Sirois, Piotr Pyziak, and Elena-Cornelia Salcher. It would have been good if I was given the opportunity to transition this network of professional contacts and initiatives to my BOA Chairman successor, but circumstances did not allow it.

Instead, I now continuously share these insights and experiences with the accounting community and the various stakeholders toward achieving reform and transformation of our accounting profession.

To be continued.

Joel L. Tan-Torres is the Dean of the University of the Philippines Virata School of Business. Previously, he was the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the chairman of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy and partner of Reyes Tacandong & Co. and the SyCip Gorres and Velayo & Co. He is a Certified Public Accountant who garnered No. 1 in the CPA Board Examination of May 1979.

This column accepts articles for publication from the business and academic community.

Articles not exceeding 600 words can be e-mailed to jltantorres@up.edu.ph.

Inverted iceberg Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

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thought I knew physical pain until I fractured my left tibia in a freak bike accident more than a month ago. I am still enrolled to finish a Bachelor of Pain degree, 90 days after my surgery, with the help of consistent physical therapy and doses of hyperbaric treatments. Days immediately after the surgery, were it not for a sedative or anesthetic, the excruciating agony would keep me awake for nights on end. But the pain I experienced pales in comparison with the latest uncertainty in the national fabric of Afghanistan. Upon ephemeral recollection, my leg injury would hardly come even close to the tragedy that a disabled Afghan is thrown into. Memories of Afghans losing their lower limbs, altogether getting disabled because of war, are back and in earnest! Landmines served as thieves, robbing them of precious legs and arms. Suddenly, my momentary suffering was inconsequential.

Zardou, a 12-year old Afghan, lost his left leg during the Afghan war. He was orphaned when he was barely three months old. The vestiges of civil conflict were real. In 2002, while a Filipino crew led by celebrated journalist Jessica Soho was conducting a TV coverage in Afghanistan, a left-over furtive landmine exploded just 2 kilometers away from them, which instantly killed five people aboard an ambulance! Such was the actual backdrop where Afghans, unfortunately, were thrown inside a “laboratory of terrorism”. During the war following the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan lost an estimated 1.8 million people, with1.5 million disabled (among them more than 300,000 children), and there were 7.5 million refugees. More than 14,000 villages were destroyed. During the US military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, over 100,000 Afghans died, and many were disabled.

As the Taliban ruled, female education was forbidden while severing of hands and execution

reins from the US-installed government in Afghanistan.

Many of people focus only on what we can see. We are fixated to the pain and struggle of our loved ones stricken with an illness. We focus on the hardships of children who roam the streets of Metro Manila begging for food and money. We only see how friends physically struggle as they find work to put food on the table. We witness the sorrow and grief of those who lost a loved one due to Covid-19.

What our eyes fail to catch is the sight of the resolute spirit of these people, who, despite their physical suffering, are “gifted” with the enduring acceptance to move on. While some may have seen the loss of Manny Pacquiao against Yordenis Ugas as a shameful and distressing loss for the greatest Filipino boxer, others have seen the loss as a display of the “indomitable spirit of the man, his incurable love for the sport, and the raw courage to conquer fear itself”—to borrow a friend’s statement. To me, such is the beauty that only a few can see, which outweighs the struggles that most are accustomed to seeing.

Like an iceberg, most people are often familiar with that white and insignificant piece of ice floating in the ocean. Since icebergs are generally 90 percent submerged, we only see the “tip of the iceberg,” barely 10 percent of their total mass. Amazing and rare photos, taken by filmmaker Alex Cornell, which captured the underside of an iceberg, revealed an irregularly shaped crystalline blue matter like that of the ocean! As if it were alive, water could be seen flowing inside the submerged portion of the iceberg! Such photo was touted as one of the rare treasures of photography, as rare as the flipping over of the iceberg itself.

Knowing that what we see in an iceberg is far smaller than what we don’t see, what we can see in a suffering person is definitely less significant than what we don’t see,

unless we use a different lens like the underwater camera used by Alex Cornell when he took a photo of an inverted iceberg. Therefore, let’s refrain from judging a person’s suffering. Lurking beneath the surface of such affliction can be a fighting spirit that can make the person stronger, if not closer to God. With a different perspective, let’s embrace any pain, not just as a fact, but more for its underlying and precious value, in keeping with what the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:9—“it felt like we had a death sentence written upon our hearts, and we still feel it to this day. It has taught us to lose all faith in ourselves and to place all of our trust in the God who raises the dead.”

Believers might doubt and ask why suffering takes place—in Afghanistan or anywhere in the world. This superfluity of struggles that beset our country—pandemic, hunger, unemployment, injury, and even death, allow us to refocus our vision on the unconquerable spirit of every Filipino! We always have this stubborn resolve to survive despite many losses and that intoxicating kindness to help those in need, and that indefatigable courage to take any pain as it comes. Believers can always look at suffering as something disruptive yet profitable. Our suffering can be seen as a form of discipline or encouragement to help others who are on the same boat!

Still beset with sporadic pain albeit on the road to recovery, I am confident for “The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.” (Habbakuk 3:19). Let’s all discover the beauty and strength of an “inverted iceberg” within us! We can see things differently only by way of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ and not by any encounter with a glacier of false truths. It’s time to break away from that glacier and flip over. Rare, but possible.

Evacuee: World has ‘abandoned’ Afghanistan’s new generation

By Aritz Parra | Associated Press

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ADRID—Until last week, Shabeer Ahmadi was busy covering the news in Afghanistan. But after a hasty and excruciating decision to leave his Taliban-controlled country for an uncertain future in Spain, he’s helplessly glued to news feeds on his cellphone, following every twist in the dramatic end of the evacuation of Afghans from Kabul.

The 29-year-old journalist and nine close relatives managed to board one of the evacuation planes and are now going through the lengthy asylum process while starting a new life in a northern Spanish city. But the future of thousands of Afghans who have not been able to escape, including members of his own family, is now the focus of his fears, Ahmadi said.

“There is a feeling of desperation in Afghanistan,” he said. “Imagine if you had made a building for 20 years now, that building is getting destroyed and you cannot go out from that building. It feels very bad. Our education, our hopes for ourselves, for our children, for our future, for our country is all destroyed.”

Tolo News, the private Afghan

outlet where Ahmadi worked as deputy head of news, has been a target of the Taliban. But it was not only him who felt under threat in his immediate circle: Ahmadi’s mother is an attorney. His father, a former journalist. And his brother, an engineer, worked on hydropower generation, a crucial infrastructure for the operation of the conflict-worn country.

Earlier this month, as the Taliban’s siege closed on Kabul, the family started applying for emergency visas to several countries. Spain was the first to react, thanks to the mediation of a Spanish journalist whom Ahmadi had befriended in Kabul.

Ahmad and his relatives spent a challenging day amid the crowds piling up outside Kabul’s airport — and another one inside, sleeping among

hundreds on the ground — before the 10 were cleared to go, despite some of them lacking passports.

“When I boarded the plane, I was thinking that finally, thank God I’m safe. But what happens to other people who remain in Afghanistan?” he wondered, speaking via video conference from Huesca, where the group was relocated on Thursday, one day after landing in Madrid.

“There are people calling me saying that there’s no salary by the government or by the Taliban now. And banks are closed and they cannot afford their families’ evacuation,” the journalist said.

He explained that as foreign troops are pulling out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, many of his acquaintances are looking for alternatives to leave Afghanistan via Iran and Pakistan.

The former correspondent thinks that the future of Afghanistan is bleak. He blames, largely, the US administration of Joe Biden for pressing ahead with the decision to pull out.

“Because it couldn’t negotiate a good deal with the Taliban, the US

handed us over to the Taliban, to a group that has ties to so many terrorist groups around the world,” he said. “They abandoned the new generation of Afghanistan.”

He fears that “a very bloody war” will break out between the Taliban and ISIS in the coming months and years, drawing foreign extremist fighters and leaving millions of innocent lives caught in the conflict.

That’s why leaving Afghanistan, he said, “hurts every moment.” But he couldn’t work for the future of his country while his life was at stake, he added. And yet, if things calm down to a degree, if a government is formed that guarantees certain conditions even while the Taliban remain in control, he’s pondering returning home.

“I always tell my friends that any strong country is strong because of the people who work for it, so we cannot leave our country forever,” Ahmadi said.

“We are a generation that has not seen any single day without war in Afghanistan, but if you want our future generations to see such a day, we have to work for our country.”

US port problems reach worst of pandemic amid crush of imports

By Brendan Murray Bloomberg Opinion

who are scared, lonely or grieving or in need of assistance, such as with paying rent or getting food. Beck said the staff on her team tries to help and connect people with other resources.

“It’s hard to do this day in and day out calling perfect strangers,” she said.

She said people are not as eager to talk or do interviews, as they were earlier in the pandemic, when there was a lot more fear and unknowns about the virus.

“Now I think people are a little tired of Covid. I think we all are, frankly.”

were prescribed as punishment for petty crimes. Fear permeated every household and poverty struck hard as children beg for food or are forced to work. Yet through it all, we bear witness to the Afghans’ resiliency.

Men with severed legs still gleefully walk in crutches. Businessmotivated families put up souvenir shops, as well as beauty parlors where women finally get dolled up without their burkha. Men, women, and children get educated in training centers established by the World Bank and other organizations like the Aschiana Drop-in Center. Zardou, the orphaned kid, can now read, write and draw, and wears a smile each day. The Afghan people won’t simply give up as they dream and hope and wake up each day clothed with dignity and positive anticipation. As to how long they can maintain this admirable posture, whose eyes and ears have long seen and heard of bombings and execution, it remains to be seen as the Taliban has taken over the

Monday, August 30, 2021 A11

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he number of ships waiting to enter the biggest US gateway for trade with Asia reached the highest since the pandemic began, exacerbating delays for companies trying to replenish inventories during one of the busiest times of the year for seaborne freight.

Forty-four container carriers were anchored and awaiting a berth space outside the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, as of late Friday, topping the record of 40 initially set in early February, according to officials who monitor marine traffic in San Pedro Bay. The

Labor shortages are part of the problem, but companies are also trying to stock up ahead of the year-end holidays. August and September are key months for shipping goods out of China before that country’s Golden Week holiday in early October. average wait rose to 7.6 days, from 6.2 in mid-August, according to L.A. port data.

Vessels are lining up because imports are pouring into the world’s largest economy just as inland transportation—like trucking and railroads—contends with its own bottlenecks of shipping containers

that aren’t being moved fast enough into distribution centers and warehouses.

Labor shortages are part of the problem, but companies are also trying to stock up ahead of the year-end holidays. August and September are key months for shipping goods out of China before that country’s Golden Week holiday in early October.

On top of those issues, importers that rely on goods from Asia in particular have experienced virus-related shipping disruptions like the one Mike Witynski, the chief executive officer of Virginia-based discount retailer Dollar Tree Inc., shared on a conference call this week.

“One of our dedicated charters

was recently denied entry into China, because a crew member tested positive for Covid, forcing the vessel to return to Indonesia to change the entire crew before continuing,” he said.

“Overall, the voyage was delayed by two months.”

With ships thrown off schedule and most of them fully laden with boxes of goods, container ports on both US coasts are experiencing record volumes that they’re having difficulty handling over a sustained period. Just off the coast of Georgia, for instance, Bloomberg mapping data showed at least a dozen cargo ships anchored in a cluster with the Port of Savannah listed as their destination.

Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua 1934-2016

You are never far from the hearts of those you love, and who love you.

• ALC GROUP OF COMPANIES •

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, August 30, 2021

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‘Revenues of 8990 on track to reach ₧20B by year-end’

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By VG Cabuag

@villygc

ass housing builder 8990 Holdings Inc. said its revenues may post double-digit growth and hit P20 billion by the end of the year as its business recovers from the impact of the pandemic.

Alexander Ace Sotto, the company’s acting president and COO, said the company’s expected revenues by the end of the year are double the P10.01 billion recorded in the first semester.

“With our first half figures, we are actually optimistic and we see double-digit growth by the end of the year. By next year, we should see revenue growth normalizing [and reaching] pre-pandemic levels,” Sotto said during the com-

pany’s stockholders meeting on Friday.

He said the company has allocated some P8 billion in capital expenditures (capex) this year, some 33 percent lower than last year’s capex of about P12 billion.

“For 2021, our capex is 8 billion and that includes the cost to build houses that are scheduled for take out within this year. And I think it also includes replenishment for land bank,” Sotto said.

He said its cancellations and default ratio improved this year, as 93 percent of its buyers were able to pay their monthly amortizations. The figure was up from 75 percent last year, partly as a result of the passage of Bayanihan Acts 1 and 2, which allowed buyers not to pay for their bills without being penalized.

“So I think our buyers have started to realize—most of our buyers are first home buyers—the importance of owning their house or maintaining their house. So we are optimistic that our default ratio will continue to improve,” he said.

For this year, the company has already launched two projects and is slated to launch at least two more, which include a condominium project in Cubao in Quezon City and an a development in Cutud in Angeles City, Pampanga.

The company earlier said its income in the first semester more than doubled to P3.45 billion from last year’s P1.48 billion as many consum-

ers decided to purchase houses due to the pandemic.

The increase was also due to the so-called “base effects.” For the second quarter alone, its income reached P1.9 billion or 13 times higher than the P138.93 million recorded last year. Revenues for the quarter, meanwhile, grew almost fourfold to P5.53 billion from the previous year’s P1.42 billion.

8990’s sales in the first half came mostly from Luzon which accounted for P6.74 billion, or 71 percent of the total; sales from the Visayas contributed 15 percent or P1.47 billion, while Mindanao’s share was 13 percent or P1.27 billion.

In terms of total units sold during the period, Luzon accounted for 56 percent or 3,318 units; Visayas, 27 percent or 1,606 units; and Mindanao, 16 percent or 965 units.

The company’s gross margin declined to 49.5 percent from 54.6 percent, while net income margin improved to 34.5 percent from 30.2 percent last year.

Group urges govt to retain PMVICs

Agham says private motor vehicle inspection centers are a better alternative to private emission testing centers whose shortcomings have led to continued air pollution from smoke-belching vehicles. Photo from CNN Philippines

CA upholds order against Planpromatrix C

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he Court of Appeals (CA) has upheld the order of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to stop the electronic loading business of Planpromatrix Online Co. after the agency found that it solicited investments without securing the required licenses.

In a 17-page decision dated July 19, the CA Special 10th Division affirmed the cease and desist order (CDO) issued by the SEC against Planpromatrix for its fraudulent operations, which caused grave injury to the investing public.

The SEC ordered Planpromatrix to halt its operations on July 16, 2019.

The investment scheme involved the solicitation of P600 to P1,850 of investments from the public, from which they can sup-

posedly earn through an e-loading business, data entry job and advertising package.

An investment of P600 can have a return of P100,000 just from e-loading business, from typing CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test) composed of the digits and letters to distinguish humans from robots or from getting more members to join the system.

Planpromatrix, also known as PPM, filed a motion to lift the said order, but the SEC denied the motion and declared the order permanent in a resolution dated November 11, 2019.

The company then filed a petition for review before the CA, assailing the validity of the SEC’s order and the finding of the agency that its

Cassava shares fall by 18%

Overlooked IPO markets are suddenly booming

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assava Sciences Inc. plummeted 18 percent on Friday after a lab denied it had prepared recent results for the biotech’s lead product, an experimental Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

The denial counters a Wednesday statement from the company that Quanterix Corp. generated the results. Cassava shares have fallen about 50 percent, shaving off roughly $2.4 billion of value over the past three trading days.

The fall comes after a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to put a halt to Cassava’s trials of the drug on questions over the integrity of the results. The law firm behind the petition said their client holds a short position in Cassava.

Quanterix said it had performed some prior services for Cassava but “Quanterix or its employees did not interpret the test results or prepare the data charts presented by Cassava at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in July 2021 or otherwise,” according to a company statement. Bloomberg News

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hina’s crackdown on technology companies is prompting global investors to look for new opportunities across Asia, contributing to a record jump in initial public offerings (IPO) from India to South Korea that shows few signs of slowing.

Tech companies from those two countries and Southeast Asia have raised $8 billion from first-time share sales this year, already blowing past the previous annual peak.

The tally is poised to get bigger with planned listings by companies including Indian fintech giant Paytm and Indonesian internet conglomerate GoTo, both of which may break local fundraising records.

Long overshadowed by their Chinese peers, this new crop of startups is coming of age just as Beijing’s clampdown puts a damper on listing and growth prospects in what had long been the region’s hottest IPO market.

The result, some bankers say, may be the start of a new era for tech listings in Asia. Investors are already boosting exposure to markets outside China, with some buying into IPOs from countries like India and Indonesia for the first time. Prospective issuers that historically benchmarked themselves against Chinese companies are now highlighting similarities to other global peers in hopes of attaining higher valuations.

“These are strong companies and stories in their own right, but the

operations required a secondary license and registration statement, among others. “[T]here is wisdom in the issuance and continuance of the CDO against petitioner,” the CA said.

The SEC found that the business activities of Planpromatrix “partake of the nature of an investment contract,” where there is placement of money in a common enterprise with an expectation of profits derived primarily through the effort of others.

The CA noted the implied admission made by Planpromatrix president and CEO George Naval, who did not dispute the contents of the advisory issued by the SEC on February 9, 2018 during a meeting with the SEC’s Enforcement and

overwhelming demand has been enhanced by rotation away from China tech,” said Udhay Furtado, co-head of Asia equity capital markets at Citigroup Inc. China’s regulatory onslaught, now in its 10th month since the shock implosion of Ant Group Co.’s IPO, has slashed valuations for the nation’s listed tech companies by nearly 40 percent. It has also forced many startups to pause their IPO plans after regulators announced a stricter vetting process for overseas offerings.

China and Hong Kong accounted for about 60 percent of Asian tech IPOs since the end of June, down from 83 percent in the second quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. About three quarters of Chinese companies that listed overseas this year are now trading below their IPO prices.

Meanwhile, deals in smaller markets are attracting outsized demand as investors bet on increasingly internet-savvy populations, growing consumer spending and a new class of tech entrepreneurs.

PT Bukalapak.com, an Indonesian e-commerce firm, raised $1.5 billion around the end of July in the country’s largest ever IPO, far outstripping an early goal of between $300 million and $500 million.

Zomato Ltd., an Indian online food-delivery and restaurant platform, received bids worth 1.5 trillion rupees ($20.2 billion) from

Investor Protection Department on February 13, 2018.

“There can be no debate on the authority of the SEC to issue the subject CDO, provided that the conditions therefor, i.e., that fraud has been perpetrated and grave injury is likely to be caused to the public, are extant,” the CA said.

An investigation conducted by together with the SEC Legazpi Extension Office, also revealed that the company did not have the required business permit.

“Those considerations and their supporting documents muster more than a mere scintilla of proof, and satisfy the required substantial evidence of fraud and grave injury committed against the investing public,” the CA said. VG Cabuag

large funds for its anchor tranche, making it one of the most popular Indian offerings among institutional investors. The company raised $1.3 billion in July.

KakaoBank Corp., South Korea’s first internet-only lender to go public, sold $2.2 billion of new shares last month and soared more than 70 percent in its trading debut.

The hurdle for allocating capital to tech companies in China “is now much higher than it was even a month ago,” said Vikas Pershad, a portfolio manager at M&G Investments (Singapore) Pte. “The net exposure to China tech is lower and the net exposure to technology-driven business models outside of China is higher.”

One banker who asked not to be named discussing client information said some Hong Kong-based investors who previously focused on Chinese deals are now participating in tech IPOs elsewhere in the region.

US hedge funds are also looking at India more closely, another banker said. Morgan Stanley research analysts recently advised clients to re-balance their internet holdings away from China and into India and Southeast Asia.

“Are investors more interested?

Definitely,” said William Smiley, cohead of Asia ex-Japan equity capital markets at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “Global capital competes among itself and investment opportunities are judged on both an absolute and relative basis.” Bloomberg News

onsumer advocacy group Agham has appealed to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to maintain the operations of private motor vehicle inspection centers (PMVICs) to comply with the Clean Air Act. According to Agham President Angelo Palmones, the removal of the PMVICs is a reversal of the progress that the government has achieved in upholding the environmental law.

DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade recently ordered the temporary suspension of the mandatory testing via PMVICs pending the resolution of the issue on the geographic areas of responsibility.

“When you look at it carefully, there is an environmental issue at its core. We can’t continue the old normal with Private Emission Testing Centers (PETCs), the blatant shortcomings of which has led to continued air pollution from smoke-belching vehicles even during the coronavirus disease pandemic,” Palmones said.

He said the group believes that PMVICs provide better evaluation versus PETCs, as they use a 72-point test for vehicles, while the latter only checks the smoke emission of vehicles.

“Republc Act 8749 or the Clean Air Act places utmost importance on the maintaining healthy and safe air to breath for Filipinos. This can be achieved if motorists patronize the more modern and scientificallyinclined PMVICs.” Laban Konsyumer Inc. President Vic Dimagiba also chimed in the group’s support for PMVICs. “Laban Konsyumer Inc. supports

the advocacy of Agham for the transport agencies to implement now the PMVIC, which has been a much-delayed project for the past three to four administrations,” Dimagiba said.

He added: “Millions in foreign aid as well as local appropriations has been spent and this is a project that complies with the specific mandate of the Clean Air Act.” Dimagiba proposed for PETCs to remain operational in areas that have no PMVICs “provided that they are competent and truly fulfill their role in checking out vehicle.”

Palmones also noted that solely relying on PETCs and the Land Transportation Office (LTO) District Office visual inspectors to determine vehicles’ roadworthiness and exhaust emissions compliance “has failed and will continue to fail the public unless it is completely revamped”.

“The status quo of non-appearance/no-show practiced by fixers in collusion with PETCs, insurance companies, and the LTO District Offices themselves, has been so institutionalized that the very mentality of Filipinos is no longer that of safety, but one of misplaced ‘convenience’, unspeakable corruption, and worst of all, complete disregard of Filipino lives,” he said.

He added that consumers are better off paying the services of PMVICs versus PETCs, both of which charge around P600 for a vehicle evaluation.

“This means that those who patronize PETCs are better off going to PMVIC which can provide more comprehensive tests.” Lorenz S. Marasigan

India mapmaker powering Apple Maps looks to IPO

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apmyIndia, a digital mapping company whose data powers Apple Inc.’s Maps and Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa in India, will file initial public offering (IPO) documents as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with its plans.

The firm, backed by Qualcomm Inc. and Walmart Inc.-owned payments startup PhonePe, is targeting an IPO size around $175 million at a valuation of about $825 million, one of the people said. The offering will be comprised entirely of secondary shares, the people said, declining to be named as the information is private.

The Okhla, Delhi-headquar-

tered company sells its technology and geospatial information to a broad range of global brands, including Uber Technologies Inc., Mercedes -B en z , Mc Don a ld ’s Cor p. and e-commerce rivals Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.

MapmyIndia, formally named CE Info Systems Pvt, is profitable unlike many of the current crop of highprofile but loss-making startups such as Zomato Ltd. that is fueling a tech IPO boom in India. The market for geospatial data and services in the country is one of the fastestgrowing in the world, estimated by the government to be worth about $14 billion by 2030. Bloomberg News

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Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, August 30, 2021

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

August 27, 2021

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

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

43.45 112 82.85 24.25 9.29 45.9 18.88 20.65 56 96.05 20.2 112.8 82.4 1.18 4.3 7.32 1.3 0.345 0.65 205 2,450 0.88

43.5 112.3 82.9 24.35 9.3 45.95 19.2 20.7 56.05 110 20.6 112.9 82.5 1.2 4.32 8.63 1.35 0.35 0.67 210 2,500 0.94

43.5 111.9 82.65 24.25 9.35 46 19.14 20.7 55.5 98.5 20.1 113 82 1.2 4.33 7.33 1.34 0.35 0.66 214 2,450 0.95

43.5 112.4 83.4 24.35 9.35 46.35 19.14 20.8 56 110 20.2 114.8 82.55 1.2 4.33 7.33 1.35 0.35 0.66 214.8 2,450 0.95

43.45 111.1 82.15 24.2 9.28 45.9 19.1 20.6 55.15 98.5 20 112.8 81.9 1.2 4.32 7.32 1.34 0.35 0.66 205 2,450 0.9

43.45 112 82.9 24.35 9.29 45.95 19.12 20.65 56 110 20.2 112.9 82.5 1.2 4.32 7.32 1.35 0.35 0.66 205 2,450 0.9

23,800 568,670 1,117,210 61,300 170,000 905,000 1,500 152,500 5,870 1,120 77,800 382,380 87,230 46,000 16,000 600 9,000 30,000 40,000 5,950 1,055 73,000

1,034,875 63,556,912 92,617,318 1,485,560 1,579,862 41,684,450 28,676 3,153,995 325,196.50 111,700 1,565,110 43,249,530 7,187,997.50 55,200 69,180 4,395 12,110 10,500 26,400 1,228,914 2,584,750 67,850

-212,900 -2,067,344 -1,382,450.50 -292,002 -13,187,105 -181,805 -625,880 -16,632,234 4,289,278 2,584,750 -

INDUSTRIAL AC ENERGY 9.19 9.2 9.2 9.25 9.12 9.2 16,521,200 151,551,883 1.18 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.19 1.2 116,000 138,090 ALSONS CONS 26.15 26.2 26.5 26.5 26.1 26.2 1,946,400 51,135,275 ABOITIZ POWER 0.59 0.6 0.59 0.6 0.58 0.6 7,715,000 4,560,360 BASIC ENERGY 76.7 77 74.35 76.7 74.35 76.7 186,640 14,144,738 FIRST PHIL HLDG 285 289.2 289.4 292 285 285 272,670 78,631,330 MERALCO 18.56 18.66 18.88 18.88 18.34 18.56 891,800 16,586,912 MANILA WATER 3.13 3.15 3.18 3.18 3.12 3.15 640,000 2,012,130 PETRON 3.91 3.95 3.92 3.92 3.91 3.91 16,000 62,610 PETROENERGY PHX PETROLEUM 12.8 12.96 12.84 12.96 12.54 12.96 218,400 2,824,696 18.22 18.28 18.3 18.34 18.22 18.28 492,000 8,996,182 PILIPINAS SHELL SPC POWER 12.82 13 12.82 12.82 12.68 12.82 92,800 1,181,790 AGRINURTURE 5.63 5.8 5.85 5.85 5.6 5.8 349,400 2,003,837 AXELUM 2.83 2.88 2.82 2.88 2.82 2.88 129,000 369,960 CNTRL AZUCARERA 13.94 14.3 14 14 14 14 12,500 175,000 25 25.2 25 25.2 24.75 25.2 1,781,800 44,621,315 CENTURY FOOD DEL MONTE 13.7 13.74 13.18 13.7 13.18 13.7 445,000 6,000,210 8.17 8.2 8.26 8.3 8.11 8.2 2,601,000 21,365,707 DNL INDUS 15.82 15.84 15.5 15.84 15.5 15.84 3,143,400 49,500,732 EMPERADOR 78.95 79 79.9 79.9 78.5 79 270,000 21,324,297 SMC FOODANDBEV 0.65 0.66 0.64 0.65 0.63 0.65 1,220,000 770,650 ALLIANCE SELECT 1.24 1.29 1.25 1.29 1.23 1.29 10,534,000 13,405,500 FRUITAS HLDG 103.4 105.2 106 106 103 105.4 49,200 5,162,175 GINEBRA 199.6 199.7 200 200 197.8 199.6 271,810 54,141,593 JOLLIBEE 28.05 29.75 29 29.7 29 29.7 700 20,440 LIBERTY FLOUR 6.6 6.62 6.3 6.62 6.3 6.62 497,200 3,274,492 MAXS GROUP MG HLDG 0.223 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.22 0.23 240,000 54,370 MONDE NISSIN 16.72 16.74 16.34 16.88 16.34 16.74 7,161,300 119,315,112 SHAKEYS PIZZA 7.63 7.84 7.9 7.9 7.62 7.63 30,700 237,963 ROXAS AND CO 0.89 0.9 0.9 0.94 0.89 0.9 2,658,000 2,451,430 RFM CORP 4.51 4.55 4.56 4.59 4.55 4.55 6,000 27,400 0.133 0.134 0.132 0.135 0.13 0.134 12,560,000 1,663,420 SWIFT FOODS UNIV ROBINA 144 144.5 142 144.9 140.2 144.5 762,690 110,055,516 VITARICH 0.8 0.81 0.8 0.82 0.79 0.8 1,986,000 1,591,080 49 54.95 49.05 49.05 49 49 1,200 58,805 CONCRETE A 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.25 1.21 1.24 1,440,000 1,773,330 CEMEX HLDG 14.4 14.5 14.28 14.5 14.28 14.5 53,100 766,384 EAGLE CEMENT 8.12 8.28 8.35 8.35 8.12 8.12 148,300 1,215,088 EEI CORP 6.64 6.7 6.71 7 6.63 6.7 99,800 674,862 HOLCIM 6.24 6.25 6.4 6.4 6.25 6.25 445,900 2,809,037 MEGAWIDE 13.9 13.96 13.96 13.96 13.9 13.96 19,100 266,456 PHINMA 0.98 0.99 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 46,000 45,080 TKC METALS VULCAN INDL 1.44 1.45 1.51 1.53 1.42 1.45 12,404,000 18,244,390 CROWN ASIA 1.72 1.73 1.7 1.72 1.69 1.72 583,000 987,220 EUROMED 1.79 1.83 1.79 1.8 1.77 1.78 64,000 113,950 4.58 4.6 4.84 4.84 4.6 4.6 3,011,000 14,572,170 LMG CORP 5.4 5.44 5.44 5.44 5.4 5.4 84,500 457,500 PRYCE CORP 21.3 22 21.75 22 21.3 21.3 144,300 3,148,825 CONCEPCION GREENERGY 2.86 2.88 2.9 2.93 2.84 2.88 4,215,000 12,120,460 INTEGRATED MICR 8.68 8.7 8.64 8.78 8.64 8.7 67,300 586,004 IONICS 0.91 0.92 0.93 0.93 0.91 0.91 430,000 392,740 5.78 6 6.02 6.02 6.02 6.02 1,000 6,020 PANASONIC 1.21 1.22 1.2 1.21 1.19 1.21 118,000 142,120 SFA SEMICON 4.47 4.48 4.52 4.54 4.46 4.48 1,751,000 7,873,530 CIRTEK HLDG

27,045,434 13,091,405 120,860 -736,272.50 -4,371,468 2,383,070.00 -251,620 5,510,520.00 12,680 -23,324 -143,500 2,650,295 -485,480 2,463,458 -5,175,596.50 -332,730 3,532,625 23,240,020 1,069,535 15,610 9,434,834 -137,462 1,841,620 -132,310 66,635,913 8,000 -285,860 10,073 -300,007 302,340 86,960 -381,300 -1,552,880 3,340 8,190 -15,730 85,230

HOLDING & FRIMS

ABACORE CAPITAL AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL AYALA LAND LOG ANSCOR ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A ATN HLDG B COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG FILINVEST DEV FORUM PACIFIC GT CAPITAL JG SUMMIT LODESTAR LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP METRO PAC INV PACIFICA HLDG PRIME MEDIA SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP SOC RESOURCES SEAFRONT RES TOP FRONTIER WELLEX INDUS ZEUS HLDG

1.03 792.5 40.3 10.22 4.79 6.73 0.96 0.56 0.56 4.96 6.48 7.51 0.29 549.5 64.85 0.7 3.01 8.98 3.87 3.04 1.98 975 109 0.67 2.2 135 0.26 0.191

1.04 793 41.6 10.24 4.8 7 0.97 0.57 0.58 4.97 6.49 7.78 0.315 550 64.9 0.71 3.04 8.99 3.88 3.28 2 989 110 0.71 2.37 136.9 0.27 0.198

1.04 775 41 10.24 4.9 6.95 0.97 0.6 0.56 4.98 6.3 7.75 0.295 551 65 0.7 3.01 9.09 3.86 3.15 2 981 111 0.68 2.2 133 0.26 0.19

1.07 796 41.8 10.3 4.98 7 0.98 0.6 0.56 4.98 6.5 7.78 0.32 572 65.75 0.72 3.05 9.14 3.9 3.15 2.05 999 111.1 0.68 2.2 137.5 0.26 0.195

1.02 769.5 40.3 10.12 4.74 6.95 0.95 0.57 0.56 4.96 6.3 7.75 0.29 545.5 64.2 0.7 3.01 8.96 3.85 3.02 1.97 975 108.8 0.68 2.2 133 0.26 0.19

1.04 793 40.3 10.22 4.8 7 0.97 0.57 0.56 4.96 6.49 7.78 0.315 549.5 64.9 0.71 3.01 8.98 3.87 3.03 1.98 975 110 0.68 2.2 137.5 0.26 0.191

8,761,000 825,340 481,600 2,584,700 10,723,000 50,000 794,000 1,215,000 5,000 1,126,000 9,616,700 3,500 630,000 410,780 2,515,620 714,000 1,030,000 15,049,100 3,675,000 25,000 233,000 102,080 373,200 40,000 5,000 350 20,000 1,440,000

9,170,890 649,476,615 19,549,760 26,386,708 52,051,370 348,800 761,350 693,340 2,800 5,594,280 61,962,823 27,170 189,150 226,490,040 163,797,441 508,770 3,100,940 135,505,776 14,223,950 76,290 467,270 100,478,170 41,039,919 27,200 11,000 47,675 5,200 273,680

PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.66 0.68 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 161,000 106,260 6.91 7.3 6.9 6.9 6.9 6.9 3,600 24,840 ANCHOR LAND 33.5 33.7 34.2 34.2 33.5 33.5 4,368,000 147,454,705 AYALA LAND 1.1 1.15 1.1 1.11 1.1 1.11 19,000 21,010 ARANETA PROP 36.95 37 37 37.1 36.95 36.95 179,300 6,632,255 AREIT RT 1.39 1.41 1.4 1.41 1.37 1.41 168,000 235,820 BELLE CORP 0.86 0.88 0.88 0.88 0.86 0.88 561,000 485,620 A BROWN 0.78 0.8 0.79 0.8 0.78 0.79 130,000 103,290 CITYLAND DEVT 0.124 0.128 0.127 0.128 0.124 0.128 300,000 37,630 CROWN EQUITIES CEBU HLDG 6.1 6.4 6.1 6.1 6.1 6.1 7,200 43,920 3.27 3.28 3.31 3.33 3.24 3.27 1,769,000 5,790,460 CEB LANDMASTERS CENTURY PROP 0.45 0.46 0.455 0.47 0.445 0.46 41,360,000 18,812,950 DOUBLEDRAGON 10.16 10.18 10.12 10.2 10.12 10.18 159,600 1,625,148 DDMP RT 1.8 1.81 1.79 1.81 1.78 1.8 7,864,000 14,134,260 DM WENCESLAO 6.97 6.99 6.99 6.99 6.95 6.97 19,300 134,637 0.28 0.285 0.28 0.28 0.28 0.28 190,000 53,200 EMPIRE EAST 0.4 0.405 0.395 0.435 0.39 0.4 61,320,000 25,423,400 EVER GOTESCO 7.19 7.2 7.25 7.27 7.18 7.19 1,303,000 9,390,116 FILINVEST RT 1.12 1.13 1.12 1.13 1.1 1.13 22,742,000 25,463,680 FILINVEST LAND 0.87 0.9 0.85 0.9 0.85 0.87 100,000 87,890 GLOBAL ESTATE 7.2 7.45 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 10,000 72,000 8990 HLDG 1.28 1.29 1.31 1.31 1.25 1.29 951,000 1,192,120 PHIL INFRADEV 1.3 1.31 1.3 1.31 1.28 1.31 189,000 245,730 CITY AND LAND 2.93 2.94 2.93 2.98 2.88 2.93 16,354,000 48,133,590 MEGAWORLD 0.31 0.315 0.315 0.32 0.31 0.315 6,690,000 2,104,600 MRC ALLIED 0.53 0.54 0.53 0.55 0.53 0.54 1,855,000 1,000,260 PHIL ESTATES PRIMEX CORP 2.15 2.18 1.95 2.19 1.95 2.18 693,000 1,467,930 ROBINSONS LAND 16.72 16.8 16.62 16.8 16.52 16.8 4,783,100 80,152,252 PHIL REALTY 0.265 0.27 0.275 0.28 0.27 0.27 350,000 95,200 1.5 1.52 1.51 1.51 1.5 1.5 135,000 202,660 ROCKWELL SHANG PROP 2.61 2.64 2.61 2.64 2.61 2.64 34,000 89,100 STA LUCIA LAND 2.93 3 3 3 3 3 183,000 549,000 SM PRIME HLDG 34 34.3 33.9 34.3 33.6 34 5,043,700 171,833,705 VISTAMALLS 3.71 3.81 3.7 3.81 3.7 3.81 3,000 11,320 1.61 1.66 1.62 1.68 1.62 1.67 30,000 49,130 SUNTRUST HOME 3.48 3.51 3.5 3.54 3.46 3.48 526,000 1,834,350 VISTA LAND

SERVICES ABS CBN 10.88 11 11.02 11.06 10.86 10.86 125,400 1,370,462 13.72 13.74 13.64 13.86 13.42 13.72 1,886,800 25,691,694 GMA NETWORK 2,844 2,848 2,904 2,930 2,792 2,848 388,615 1,103,409,720 GLOBE TELECOM 1,467 1,468 1,450 1,477 1,405 1,467 632,930 916,543,460 PLDT 0.113 0.114 0.123 0.126 0.114 0.114 606,130,000 71,639,580 APOLLO GLOBAL 31.2 31.3 31.2 31.5 30.6 31.3 7,020,700 218,792,370 CONVERGE 3.86 3.87 3.81 3.99 3.81 3.87 371,000 1,429,500 DFNN INC 8.6 8.61 9 9.14 8.45 8.6 26,269,100 229,733,998 DITO CME HLDG 1.41 1.48 1.41 1.41 1.41 1.41 3,000 4,230 IMPERIAL JACKSTONES 2.2 2.25 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 5,000 11,000 2.08 2.09 2.15 2.19 2.07 2.09 3,163,000 6,686,630 NOW CORP TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.4 0.405 0.42 0.42 0.4 0.405 9,500,000 3,855,850 PHILWEB 2.21 2.23 2.25 2.27 2.19 2.23 67,000 148,940 2GO GROUP 8.07 8.22 8.22 8.22 8.07 8.08 11,600 94,405 13.6 14.1 13.9 13.9 13.6 13.6 51,000 693,850 ASIAN TERMINALS CHELSEA 2.61 2.62 2.68 2.68 2.6 2.61 470,000 1,228,340 CEBU AIR 43.6 43.7 43.5 44.1 43.4 43.7 220,500 9,617,970 178 179.8 180 180 177.4 178 420,430 75,256,626 INTL CONTAINER 0.93 0.99 0.94 0.94 0.93 0.93 22,000 20,660 LORENZO SHIPPNG 4.79 4.8 4.8 4.89 4.77 4.8 349,000 1,678,700 MACROASIA 1.75 1.79 1.75 1.75 1.75 1.75 78,000 136,500 METROALLIANCE A 1.08 1.09 1.11 1.11 1.02 1.1 159,000 168,350 HARBOR STAR 1.66 1.69 1.7 1.7 1.65 1.69 120,000 199,830 ACESITE HOTEL 0.096 0.097 0.1 0.1 0.096 0.096 105,950,000 10,280,740 BOULEVARD HLDG 2.26 2.33 2.3 2.33 2.26 2.27 128,000 291,850 DISCOVERY WORLD 0.52 0.53 0.54 0.54 0.53 0.53 104,000 55,470 WATERFRONT CENTRO ESCOLAR 6.9 6.98 6.9 6.98 6.9 6.98 3,200 22,229 7.09 7.47 7.1 7.47 7.09 7.47 11,100 79,577 IPEOPLE 0.345 0.35 0.345 0.35 0.345 0.35 140,000 48,500 STI HLDG BERJAYA 5.54 5.55 5.4 5.6 5.4 5.55 49,100 270,125 BLOOMBERRY 6.11 6.12 6.1 6.17 6 6.11 2,440,700 14,878,274 PACIFIC ONLINE 1.94 2 2 2 2 2 12,000 24,000 1.6 1.61 1.57 1.69 1.55 1.6 6,745,000 10,962,780 LEISURE AND RES MANILA JOCKEY 1.93 2.05 2 2 2 2 5,000 10,000 1.64 1.65 1.65 1.67 1.63 1.65 1,337,000 2,206,780 PH RESORTS GRP 0.425 0.43 0.42 0.43 0.42 0.43 3,320,000 1,415,800 PREMIUM LEISURE 8.24 8.25 8.37 8.42 8.2 8.25 345,900 2,883,813 ALLHOME 1.29 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.29 1.3 3,619,000 4,700,070 METRO RETAIL 39.95 40 39.95 40.5 39.2 40 893,900 35,835,565 PUREGOLD 50.45 50.9 51 51.05 50.25 50.9 549,380 27,902,447.50 ROBINSONS RTL 84.85 85 84.5 85 84.45 85 17,790 1,507,244.50 PHIL SEVEN CORP 1.13 1.14 1.13 1.14 1.11 1.13 1,334,000 1,504,720 SSI GROUP WILCON DEPOT 24.1 24.3 23.7 24.4 23.65 24.3 480,100 11,431,755 APC GROUP 0.31 0.325 0.32 0.33 0.3 0.325 8,920,000 2,761,200 5.38 5.59 5.3 5.6 5.3 5.59 45,800 242,888 EASYCALL 470 477.8 476 477.8 476 477.8 310 148,040 GOLDEN MV 6.85 7.1 7 7 7 7 6,000 42,000 IPM HLDG 2.3 2.4 2.46 2.46 2.46 2.46 8,000 19,680 PAXYS 1.16 1.17 1.17 1.22 1.15 1.16 22,154,000 26,166,900 PRMIERE HORIZON SBS PHIL CORP 4.15 4.25 4.14 4.15 4.13 4.15 55,000 228,200

MINING & OIL

ATOK 6 6.03 6.05 6.09 5.99 6 929,100 5,589,178 1.49 1.5 1.51 1.52 1.49 1.49 1,975,000 2,957,010 APEX MINING 6.3 6.33 6.3 6.32 6.3 6.3 638,700 4,026,206 ATLAS MINING 4.98 5.2 4.98 5.2 4.98 5.2 800 4,028 BENGUET A 2.8 2.87 2.78 2.87 2.78 2.87 10,000 28,250 CENTURY PEAK 6.02 6.38 6.39 6.39 6.38 6.38 1,400 8,945 DIZON MINES 2.13 2.14 2.27 2.27 2.1 2.14 9,714,000 20,962,420 FERRONICKEL 0.27 0.28 0.275 0.275 0.275 0.275 40,000 11,000 GEOGRACE LEPANTO A 0.137 0.139 0.138 0.138 0.137 0.137 3,990,000 548,250 0.01 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.01 0.01 183,800,000 1,844,800 MANILA MINING A 0.95 0.97 0.99 0.99 0.96 0.97 754,000 737,080 MARCVENTURES NIHAO 1.22 1.26 1.22 1.24 1.22 1.24 116,000 142,660 5.51 5.52 5.65 5.66 5.5 5.51 13,395,600 74,306,319 NICKEL ASIA OMICO CORP 0.385 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 10,000 4,000 0.9 0.91 0.9 0.92 0.9 0.91 94,000 85,240 ORNTL PENINSULA 5.56 5.58 5.59 5.62 5.53 5.58 430,100 2,406,299 PX MINING 16.5 16.52 16.6 16.6 16.42 16.5 3,495,600 57,682,136 SEMIRARA MINING 0.0082 0.0083 0.008 0.0084 0.0079 0.0082 120,000,000 966,100 UNITED PARAGON 15.4 15.8 15.9 16.1 15.4 15.4 480,300 7,489,810 ACE ENEXOR 0.011 0.012 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 31,300,000 344,300 ORNTL PETROL A 0.011 0.012 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 1,500,000 16,500 ORNTL PETROL B 0.01 0.011 0.011 0.012 0.01 0.01 47,800,000 523,000 PHILODRILL 6.33 6.4 6.18 6.7 6.18 6.4 1,733,900 11,159,983 PXP ENERGY

PREFFERED HOUSE PREF A 100.2 102 102 102 102 102 480 48,960 515 520 515 520 515 520 400 207,800 AC PREF B1 520 528 520 524 520 524 370 193,480 AC PREF B2R 43.6 43.9 43.7 43.7 43.6 43.6 31,000 1,354,210 CEB PREF 100.8 100.9 100.9 100.9 100.9 100.9 4,560 460,104 DD PREF 1,000 1,018 1,018 1,018 1,018 1,018 5 5,090 GTCAP PREF A 1,022 1,048 1,022 1,022 1,022 1,022 200 204,400 GTCAP PREF B 100.7 101 100.9 101 100.6 101 56,280 5,667,463 MWIDE PREF 99.85 107.2 107.3 107.3 107.3 107.3 100 10,730 MWIDE PREF 2A MWIDE PREF 2B 101 101.8 101.8 101.8 101.8 101.8 200 20,360 105 106 106 106.7 106 106 13,740 1,456,447 PNX PREF 3B PNX PREF 4 1,001 1,003 1,003 1,003 1,002 1,003 375 376,015 1,020 1,025 1,028 1,028 1,020 1,020 30 30,720 PCOR PREF 2B 1,085 1,116 1,085 1,085 1,085 1,085 1,000 1,085,000 PCOR PREF 3A 1,140 1,169 1,169 1,169 1,169 1,169 500 584,500 PCOR PREF 3B 76.05 76.1 76 76.2 76 76.1 116,490 8,864,122.50 SMC PREF 2C 76 76.65 76.65 76.65 76.65 76.65 10 766.5 SMC PREF 2E 78.35 78.7 78.7 78.7 78.3 78.65 105,890 8,300,089 SMC PREF 2F 76.2 76.9 76.9 76.9 76.2 76.3 124,800 9,513,280 SMC PREF 2H 78.2 78.95 78.9 78.95 78.2 78.2 16,500 1,292,167.50 SMC PREF 2I 76 76.9 76.9 76.9 76.9 76.9 180 13,842 SMC PREF 2J 76 76.5 76 76 76 76 845,500 64,258,000 SMC PREF 2K

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR 10.4 10.5 10.5 10.5 10.4 10.5 1,000 10,420 12.24 12.3 12.2 12.3 12.12 12.24 31,000 378,710 GMA HLDG PDR

WARRANTS LR WARRANT 0.5 0.51 0.49 0.52 0.48 0.5 3,090,000 1,557,350 1.65 1.66 1.72 1.77 1.66 1.66 13,114,000 22,248,900 TECH WARRANT

-1,600,500 154,696,245 -3,198,500 2,170,322 2,257,260 -2,081,040 14,953,021 -101,805,975 75,226,691 27,730 -84,802,882 2,962,560 2,000 29,078,025 12,879,350 6,600 -35,259,455 1,094,375 8,600 12,400 -308,400 168,650 261,602.00 -5,176,190 -713,400 -752,364 12,964,990 2,560 407,520 3,150 -92,830 -22,890 12,649,140 9,000 34,050 180,000 21,959,085 -591,600 242,317,790 411,335,940 2,185,750 -9,728,240 -880,110 -2,354,126 20,900 -16,100 -72,660 354,960 169,000 -7,642,405 18,134,206 -38,800 15,720 18,900 -3,500 7,770 9,435,759 -598,180 -831,830 1,066,499 -4,144,300 13,959,345 -12,404,357.50 -381,018 -747,550.00 138,930 -5,321,150 165,674 58,890 90,233 28,250.00 -1,108,880 286,110 24,319,235 568,578 -10,842,588 -118,580 535,929 -1,114,150 -20,200 -1,067 - -2,100 9,760 254,800 66,380

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ALTUS PROP ITALPINAS KEPWEALTH MAKATI FINANCE MERRYMART

20.6 2.03 4.18 2.4 3.74

FIRST METRO ETF

102.9

20.85 2.05 4.44 2.73 3.75

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS

103

20.1 2.06 4.17 2.4 3.79

20.65 2.08 4.18 2.4 3.79

19 2.02 4.17 2.4 3.67

20.65 2.05 4.18 2.4 3.75

179,900 189,000 6,000 1,000 3,304,000

3,645,105 385,270 25,070 2,400 12,330,560

1,263,645 8,120 62,910

103.4 103.5 102.8 102.9 5,190 535,446 88,645

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Market share of major oil firms declines in Jan-June

T

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

he market share of petroleum products from the country’s major oil firms dipped to 38.96 percent in the first semester from 46.4 percent in the same period last year.

This was mainly due to the decision of Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. to cease their refinery operations during the period. Shell permanently shut down its refinery operations in Tabangao, Batangas since August last year.

Petron’s refinery in Bataan was shut down in May 2020. It resumed

operations in October last year.

However, the facility was closed down again last February and opened last June.

Data from the Department of Energy showed that Petron’s market share went down to 18.6 percent in the first half from 21.94 percent a year ago.

STOCK-MARKET OUTLOOK Last week Share prices continued to rise last week, with the main index almost touching the 6,800-point level, after the country gained new special drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gained 153.40 points to close at 6,786.62 points.

The main index made significant gains on Tuesday and Wednesday, when it closed at 6,822.15 points, before succumbing to selling pressure towards the end of the week.

Average daily trading for the week was slightly higher at P6.34 billion, while foreign investors, which accounted for 37 percent of the trades, were net buyers at P2.03 billion.

Most of the subindices closed higher led by the All Shares index that rose 80.39 points to close at 4,204.11 points, the Financials index gained 8 to 1,437.32, the Industrial index increased 198.74 to 9,847.76, the Holding Firms index climbed 151.19 to 6,760.88, the Property index fell 25.75 to 3,093.92, the Services index soared 121.53 to 1,757.56 and the Mining and Oil index was down 24.22 to 9,125.44.

For the week, gainers led losers 120 to 101 and 30 shares were unchanged.

Top gainers were Philippine Trust Co., Globe Telecom Inc., PLDT Inc., Metro Alliance Holdings and Equities Corp. B shares, Primex Corp. and Macay Holdings Inc. Top losers were Makati Finance Corp., Discovery World Corp., Philodrill Corp., Pacifica Holdings Inc., Manila Broadcasting Co. and Kepwealth Property Phils. Inc.

This week

Share prices may start to decline this week as Covid-19 infections remain elevated, which led to the extension of the tough quarantine curbs for Metro Manila and nearby provinces through the first week of September.

It will be a four-day trading week as markets will be closed on August 30 in observance of National Heroes Day, a regular holiday in the Philippines.

“In general, the local market has shown bullish momentum in the past two weeks. The sustainability of its rally is at risk next week given the situation in the macro-environment. First, the extension of MECQ [modified enhanced community quarantine] in Metro Manila and in other parts of the country is seen to weigh on sentiment since it is expected to widen our economic losses,” Japhet Louis O. Tantiangco, senior research analyst at Philstocks Financials Inc., said.

“At the same time our daily new Covid-19 cases remain elevated. If the daily new case counts continue with its uptrend next week, then it may put downward pressure on the market.”

Broker 2TradeAsia said that while there’s likelihood that the government may revert Metro Manila and nearby provinces to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) after the country logged over 18,000 infections per day last week, the targeted lockdowns even at the barangay level may continue to hurt market sentiments.

“The wild card will be the improvement in vaccine rollouts, which are improving outside of Metro Manila, which will have to move to an almost parabolic level to counter arguments of a return to ECQ by the fourth quarter,” it said.

Chartwise, the PSEi’s support is seen at 6,600 points and resistance is seen at 6,900 points.

Stock picks

Broker Regina Capital Development Corp. gave a hold recommendation on the stock of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) as all of its technical indicators point to a buy signal, but at varying strengths.

“Volatility is picking up as well. Therefore, it looks like MPIC would likely remain confined within its thin trading band of P3.79 to P3.91 in the near term.”

Shares of MPIC closed Friday at P3.87 apiece.

Meanwhile, the broker gave a buy recommendation on pullback rating on the shares of GT Capital Holdings Inc. after it has found its footing to move in an uptrend trajectory after days of consolidating near its 260-day moving average support.

“Buying pressure is spiking. Looking at the charts, investors who wish to get in position could consider doing in an event of a pullback.”

GT Capital shares closed last week at P549.50. VG Cabuag

Shell recorded a market share of 15.5 percent at end-June from last year’s 18.35 percent. Chevron, which closed down its refinery facility since 2003, recorded a market share of 4.86 percent in the first six months of the year from 6.12 percent in the first half of 2020.

The market share of the socalled Big 3 was also affected by stiff competition and aggressive expansion and marketing programs of smaller oil firms.

The market share of other players, meanwhile, increased to 52.29 percent at end-June this year. The balance of 8.45 percent is from endusers who imported directly most of their requirement.

These other players include Phoenix Petroleum, Seaoil, PTT Philippines, Total Philippines,

Liquigaz, Prycegas, Unioil, Eastern Petroleum, Filoil, Jetti.

In terms of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market share, Petron still held the number one post at 18.96 percent; followed by Liquigaz, 23.85 percent; South Pacific, 21.61 percent; Islagas, 12.35 percent; Pryce Gases, 13.30 percent; Phoenix LPG, 8.03 percent; Shell, .12 percent; and other LPG players at .17 percent.

Except for Petron, Shell and other LPG players, the rest recorded a higher market share during the period.

As for overall petroleum product demand, the share of gasoline products stood at 27.2 percent; diesel, 42.6 percent; kerosene, 3.7 percent; fuel oil, 4.6 percent; LPG, 13.3 percent and other products, 8.6 percent.

mutual funds

August 27, 2021

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year

per share

Return*

Y-T-D Return

Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a

220.32

12.78%

-5.92%

-4.05%

ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a

1.4889

43.59%

-0.22%

0.92%

-3.04% 13.4%

ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 3.0219

15.9%

-10.17%

-7.17%

-3.55% -8.16%

Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.7383 10.28%

-7.37% n.a.

First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.7421 7.66%

-5.16% n.a.

0.07%

First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 4.8901

16.07%

-3.61%

-2.29%

-1.04%

First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,4 0.7346

11.83%

-5.76%

-6.02%

MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a

97.74

24.22%

-5.25% n.a.

-4.12%

PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a

44.927

14.78%

-4.49%

-3.07%

Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a

473.81

12.41%

-4.04%

-3.38%

-3.1%

Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d,5

1.0864

23.15% n.a. n.a.

-0.99%

Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a

1.2021

20.21%

-2.72%

-1.71%

2.9%

Philequity Fund, Inc. -a

34.2263

16.81%

-3.66%

-1.88%

-1.56%

14.12% n.a. n.a.

-3.15%

-4.1%

Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a

0.8842

Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a

4.6188

15.6%

-3.83%

-2.28%

-3.6%

771.57

15.51%

-3.8%

-2.43%

-3.75%

Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a

0.7008

17.11%

-7.63%

-5.49%

-2.52%

Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 3.5313

14.05%

-5.98%

-3.64%

-2.55%

Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.8811 15.1%

-4.13%

-2.59%

-3.99%

United Fund, Inc. -a

-4.01%

-1.57%

-2.4%

-3.61%

-1.91%

Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a

3.2393

16.2%

-3.32%

Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c

103.602

15.49%

-3.67%

Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b

$1.181

9.66%

4.7%

5.7%

-1.82%

Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.8352

20.31%

12.56%

11.85%

9.71%

Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a

1.6693

6.16%

-0.69%

-1.83%

0.04%

ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a

2.2015

7.55%

-1.58%

-1.66%

-3.67%

First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.5963

8.28%

-0.37%

-0.52%

-1.17%

First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,1 0.1918

4.75% n.a. n.a.

NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a

6.68%

1.18%

1.9503

0.18%

PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a

3.6687

5.61%

0.09%

-1.1%

-3.15%

Philam Fund, Inc. -a

16.4331

6.26%

0.22%

-1.06%

-2.97%

Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a

2.0497

7.66%

-1.05%

-0.72%

-2.12%

Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.5207 8.32%

-2.22%

-1.84%

-1.47%

Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d 0.9809

4.99% n.a. n.a.

-4.08%

Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d 0.8986

7.64% n.a. n.a.

-5.33%

Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d 0.885

9.61% n.a. n.a.

-5.15%

Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a

0.8881

10.42%

-2.66%

-2.11%

-3.42%

-0.7%

0.05%

Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a

$0.03833

-2.19%

2.77%

1.14%

-2.02%

PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -b

$1.0953

3.65%

3.34%

3.2%

-4.77%

Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $4.8031 15.4%

9.55%

8.32%

6.43%

Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,3 $1.2257 6.99%

5.49%

4.36%

1.96%

Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a

372.7

1.23%

3.05%

2.42%

0.44%

ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a

1.9256

-1.21%

1.11%

0.1%

1.33%

Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a

3.2376

1.21%

3.52%

4.25%

0.71%

Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a

2.2607

-2.14%

2.1%

1.27%

-1.54%

First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.4399 -0.74%

3.21%

1.65%

-0.54%

Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a

4.4758

-4.75%

4.22%

1.12%

-3.43%

Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a,6

1.3158

0.44%

3.9%

2.64%

-0.41%

Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a

3.9783

0.57%

4.63%

2.1%

-0.57%

Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a

1.0367

-0.15%

4.71%

1.54%

-0.51%

Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.217

1.15%

5.06%

2.44%

0.34%

Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a

0.29%

4.4%

1.77%

-0.27%

1.7502

Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a

$487.76

2%

3.14%

2.09%

0.8%

ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a

Є220.64

1.65%

1.08%

0.83%

0.67%

ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.2063

-5.79%

-2.77%

2.56%

1.39%

First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0262 - 0.76%

1.85%

0.86%

-1.5%

PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -b

0.35%

-1.18%

-3.85%

$1.0506

-3.71%

Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a

$2.5247

0.69%

5.04%

1.85%

-0.43%

Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a

$0.0630976

3.46%

3.56%

2.08%

1.25%

Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.1979 -0.91%

3.22%

0.69%

-0.8%

2.53%

0.56%

Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a

130.54

1.32%

2.97%

First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.0545 1.01% n.a. n.a.

0.61%

2.55%

0.91%

Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.3084

1.54%

2.79%

Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0583

1.01%

1.61% n.a.

0.56%

Feeder Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities Sun Life Prosperity World Equity Index Feeder Fund, Inc. -a,d,7 1.3336

29.43% n.a. n.a.

18.06%

Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,2 $0.99

4.21% n.a. n.a.

1.02%

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

1 - Launch date is September 28, 2019. 2 - Launch date is November 15, 2019. 3 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019.

4 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last October 12, 2018 (formerly, One Wealthy Nation Fund, Inc.). 5 - Launch date is December 09, 2019.

6 - Re-classified into a Bond Fund starting February 21, 2020 (Formerly a Money Market Fund). 7 - Launch date is July 6, 2020.

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

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Banking&Finance

SB Corp. requirements for shipping loan cited

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad @Tyronepiad

T

HE Small Business Corp. (SB Corp.) has set the terms for its shipping loan facility and the qualifications for the exporters to be deemed an eligible borrower.

The attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) explained that a 1-year credit line will be granted to qualified exporters under the Covid-19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises (Cares program).

The threshold limit is 15 percent of sales based on the financial statements for 2019 and 2020—both of which should be filed with the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

“From there, we will compute 15 percent of the sales that will be the [credit] line that we can provide [exporters] but up to P5 million only is the limit,” SB Corp. Financing Sector Head Lourdes Rosario M. Baula said.

The loan availment shall be up to 20 percent of presented confirmed purchase orders or letter credits.

The borrowers will pay a service fee of 1 percent for a 30-day term loan, 2 percent for a 60-day term loan and 3 percent for a 90-day term loan.

The loan application process may take two to three working weeks, Baula said.

“But for the processing of loan

release, usually it is not immediate,” she added. “[But] unless there is really an immediate need, we can process it within seven days.”

The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with at least 1-year experience in export transactions may apply for the shipping loan, SB Corp. noted.

The eligible borrowers should have asset size of at least P3 million but not more than P100 million. The SMEs should also have at least three consummated purchase orders or letter of credits.

Baula said that the loan facility was a response to the call of the exporters who may need additional financing to advance the freight cost when booking shipments.

“The increase in freight rates and cost of raw materials resulted in the increase of total production cost.

With this scenario, the local exporters have to compromise their profit margin to meet export sales target and to keep their businesses afloat,” she said.

Earlier, the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) welcomed the opening of the lending window for the exporters amid surging freight costs.

“The SB loan would help financially tide exporters over, both small and medium establishments,” Philexport Chairman George T. Barcelon told the BusinessMirror.

Perspectives Reaching Gen Z in the time of Covid-19

T

HERE is no single Gen Z, as the variety of nicknames this demographic has acquired globally vividly demonstrates.

In the United Kingdom, they are ‘Generation Sensible.’ In America, they are are ‘iGen,’ ‘Zoomers’ and the ‘Homeland Generation.’ In Russia, they are ‘Centennials.’ In India, they are ‘Digizens.’ They are also more generally known as the ‘empowered generation’ and the ‘green generation.’

For every fact about Gen Z there is a contradictory one. One in three wants to be the first to use new technology. At the same time, more than one in eight have scaled down or discontinued their use of social media in the past year. No wonder this cohort—born between 1997 and 2010—is sometimes referred to as ‘the identity shifters.’

Uncertain, unpredictable and unavoidable

MANY of the life events that were predictable for Gen X and Baby Boomers have been disrupted for Gen Z by Covid-19. Where they live, how they connect to others, whether they enter higher education, where and how they work—all these are up in the air.

In Europe and North America, Gen Z has already experienced exceptional economic, social, and political turbulence. This demographic has experienced volatility in Asia Pacific too—that is where Covid-19 struck first— but in China they account for 13 percent of household spend and their fondness for late night impulse shopping online has earned them the nickname the ‘Moonlight Club.’

It’s time for organizations to take Gen Z seriously. Estimated to account for 40 percent of the world’s consumers, they have a global buying power of $150 billion and influence $600 billion of consumer spend. Yet how freely will they use that spending power?

KPMG International’s research shows that Covid-19 has left more than half of this demographic worried about their finances and

prompted 48 percent to save more and spend less.

What makes Gen Z happy?

IN a rapidly changing landscape, there are some things that Gen Z does have in common: their present feeling of vulnerability, their expertise as the first digitally native generation, their fascination with new technology, their quest for the personal touch and their heightened concern about the environment: 61 percent are perturbed by climate change and 56 percent worry about natural disasters, higher than for any other generation.

Gen Z has also used social media to express their individualism, define their own digital identity and create—and share—content that reflects their exact values and passions. They have been described as ‘mainstream but exiled’ because they are less likely to care about fashion, music and entertainment trends and are more focused on family, friends, their job and their wellbeing—in one survey of Gen Z in 20 countries, 94 percent define feeling mentally and physically healthy as key to happiness.

Social media has helped Gen Z decide which organizations they empathize with and/or empathize with them. They identify with young, tech-savvy organizations offering services such as meal delivery, ride-hailing and music streaming which make their lives easier and saves them money. They also connect with businesses they believe defend their values. Their motivations may vary but 72 percent of Gen Z consumers rated empathy as ‘important’ or ‘very important.’

The excerpt was taken from the KPMG Thought Leadership publication entitled “Me, my life, my wallet.”

R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member-firm of the KPMG global organization of independent member-firms affiliated with KPMG Intl. Ltd., a private English company limited by guarantee. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the BusinessMirror’s.

BusinessMirror

Editor: Dennis D. Estopace • Monday, August 30, 2021

B3

Banks, pawnshops pursued expansion amid restrictions

L

By Bianca Cuaresma

@BcuaresmaBM

OCAL banks continued to expand branches in the country in the first half of the year despite movement restrictions and predilection for online transactions; but non-bank institutions like pawnshops posted faster expansion during the period.

Latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed that local bank branches hit 13,114 in end-June this year, up 202 branches from the 12,912 branches in endJune 2020.

Broken down, universal and commercial banks still comprise the majority of bank branches in the country with 7,040 branches during the period. This is 45 more branches compared to the 6,995 in the same

period last year.

Rural and cooperative banks were also able to expand their physical network during the period to 3,306 branches, up 43 branches from the 3,263 total in end-June 2020.

Thrift bank branches, meanwhile, registered the strongest growth in terms of physical network as it hit 2,768 branches during the period.

This is 114 more branches from its level in the same month last year.

While bank branch growth remains intact, non-bank branches continue to dominate financial access in the country.

As of end-June 2021, non-bank financial institutions—which largely comprise of pawnshops—hit 15,238 branches during the period. This is a 2,124 branch gap between the traditional banking system during the period.

Non-bank financial institutions

also posted stronger branch expansion during the period, adding 534 branches in June 2021 from the same month last year.

Earlier this year, BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno recognized pawn shops as one of the key financial drivers of the country, especially in hard to reach areas.

“Pawnshops play a key role in inclusive finance because of their extensive network that serves as financial access points for low-income individuals, small businesses and social amelioration beneficiaries,” Diokno said.

Because of their ability to reach even the farther areas of the country, Diokno also said that about P6.8 billion in cash aid for 983,505 beneficiaries has been distributed via pawnshops as of end-December 2020, according to reports by banks and e-money issuers to the BSP.

Former Monetary Board member joins PDIC board

T

HE Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) announced the appointment of former Monetary Board (MB) member, Juan D. De Zuñiga Jr., as member of the PDIC Board representing the private sector. Atty. De Zuñiga, Jr. took his oath of office before Finance Secretary and PDIC Chairman Carlos G. Dominguez via Zoom on August 16.

Prior to joining PDIC, Atty. De

Zuñiga held several key positions at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), where he served as MB Member from 2014 to 2020. He was also the former Deputy Governor for the BSP’s Resource Management Sector and the Security Plant Complex and General Counsel from 2000 to 2010.

De Zuñiga placed fifth in the 1970 Bar Examinations. He earned his Bachelor of Laws and Political Sci-

ence degrees from the Far Eastern University.

De Zuñiga joins Rogelio M. Guadalquiver, lawyers Eduardo M. Pangan and Reynaldo F. Tansioco as private sector representatives to the PDIC Board. He replaces former PDIC Director Anita Linda R. Aquino, who was appointed as MB Member in July 2020.

The 58-year-old PDIC is the gov-

ernment instrumentality mandated to insure deposits of all banks. It was created by Republic Act 3591, as amended to achieve the public policy objectives of protecting the depositing public by providing deposit insurance coverage up to the maximum deposit insurance coverage of P500,000 per depositor per bank and promoting financial stability.

Funds holding $10T told their ESG goals fall short

T

HE world’s sovereign wealth funds, representing about $10 trillion in combined assets, will end on the wrong side of history if they cling on to strategies that fail to acknowledge how rapidly the planet is overheating, according to the woman who presided over the Paris Agreement.

Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, says wealth funds need to update their strategies and stop just looking for ways to “take advantage”

of the increase in global temperatures for economic gain.

“Sovereign wealth funds’ concern with climate change has so far focused overwhelmingly on managing climate risk and taking advantage of the opportunities resulting from the low-carbon transition,” Figueres told Bloomberg.

“Given the gravity of the climate crisis, this is no longer sufficient.”

The industry’s failure to meet the moment means that trillions of dollars that could be mobilized to fight rising temperatures are still being channeled into strategies designed mostly to

briefs

➜ Mastercard boosts digital first tack Mastercard announced it is strengthening its global “digital first” program across Asia Pacific “with a range of innovative partners to deliver even more seamless and secure digital payment options than consumers expect as they shop and bank online more than ever before.” According to the financial services firm, its program “maximizes the safety, security and convenience of e-commerce, online banking and contactless transactions by providing the guidelines for payment processors, fintechs, issuing banks and other partners to create end-to-end digital payment options at scale.” Mastercard said its program “offers consumers the ease of applying online, rapid access to begin making purchases, flexibility and peaceof-mind while shopping.”

➜ Spanish FX trader tapped by PAL SPAIN-headquartered Amadeus IT Group S.A. announced it was tapped by Philippine Airlines for its foreign exchange platform. Amadeus said its “service allows the airline to offer an improved customer experience while controlling the exchange rates used. This is different from many foreign exchange services available today, which are managed by the payments chain directly.” “When international passengers shop on the airline’s website they can choose to have the offer presented in their preferred currency, making the shopping experience easier, clearer and more compelling,” the company said. “With the newly launched FX box platform, PAL offers are re-priced in the passenger’s currency based on direct access to highly competitive exchange rates,” Amadeus said.

➜ Pru Life UK bests PHL insurers THE subsidiary of Pru Life Insurance Corp. of UK announced it bested other insurance companies from the Philippines in the recently concluded 2021 Insurance Asia Awards. “This recognition comes at the heels of Pru Life UK’s number-one ranking in the insurance industry in the Philippines in terms of New Business Annual Premium Equivalent (NBAPE) for 2020,” the insurer said in a statement. “It is the only company among the top five firms in terms of NBAPE, that registered positive growth despite the ongoing health crisis. It recorded a total NBAPE of P7.95 billion last year. NBAPE is the global standard adopted by the Insurance Commission to measure the Philippines’ life insurance industry’s sales performance more accurately.

➜ Bank advisory for August 30 SECURITY Bank Corp. advised its clients its branches nationwide will be closed on Monday, August 30, in observance of National Heroes’ Day, per Malacañang Proclamation 1107. The bank advised clients to call its customer service hotline for assistance during this time.

maximize economic returns, according to Figueres. Wealth funds “need to take an active role in reducing their portfolio carbon footprints,” she said.

Her warning comes amid growing anxiety that the investment management industry is using environmental, social and governance strategies as yet another way to generate more money, without making much of a meaningful impact on climate change or social justice. In Europe alone, fund managers have already had to strip the ESG label off $2 trillion in assets in anticipation of more rigorous regulations.

And the wealth management arm of Deutsche Bank AG made headlines earlier this week as it’s probed in the US and Germany amid allegations of greenwashing.

The former UN executive didn’t accuse wealth funds of greenwashing. But she bemoaned what she characterized as the industry’s failure to embrace strategies that commit to a lower carbon footprint. Scientists have made clear that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the only hope the planet has, if it’s to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bloomberg News

Bond traders intensify concentration on jobs

T

HE world’s biggest bond market won’t have to wait long for its next potential volatility jolt, with a pivotal US jobs reading ahead that will help shape bets on the path of Treasury yields for the remainder of 2021.

The yield curve just posted its first week of steepening since July, rebounding from its flattest level in a year after a highly anticipated speech

by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. He stressed that the central bank could start slowing its debt purchases in 2021, though it won’t rush to begin raising rates thereafter.

He also expressed caution about the surging delta variant, leaving traders to focus on August jobs data to gauge at which of the three remaining 2021 policy meetings the Fed might be confident enough to unveil its tapering plans. Against that backdrop, robust labor figures on September 3 could extend the steepening trend by fueling bets tapering will come sooner rather than later.

“Powell did an exceptional job of trying to separate the requirements and thresholds for tapering as being very different—saying there was a substantially more stringent test for rate hikes,” Gene Tannuzzo, a portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle, said in a phone interview. “So I think if it is better-than-expected data through this delta surge and the tapering is happening, that the yield

curve could steepen.”

The median projection is for an addition of 750,000 jobs in August, compared with a gain of 943,000 in July. An above-forecast August figure will likely put the 10-year yield on course toward 1.5 percent or higher, Tannuzzo said, from about 1.3 percent now.

Volatility opportunity

IT may also offer traders a burst of volatility. The ICE BofA MOVE Index—which tracks implied price swings in Treasuries—is hovering around its average for 2021, after Powell’s Friday speech failed to spur much in the way of turbulence.

The yield curve, as measured by the gap between 5-year to 30-year yields, is around 111 basis points.

It’s flattened from a 2021 peak of 167 basis points touched in February— an inflection point that some Wall Street strategists had pegged as the end of a multi-year steepening trend.

The flattening of recent months came as traders started to anticipate Fed liftoff from near-zero interest rates within the next couple of years. But the recent spread of the delta variant is raising uncertainty about the path of the economy, and thus Fed policy.

The Fed is now buying a combined $120 billion of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities a month.

Bloomberg News

HarvardManagementUpdate BusinessMirror BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph Monday, August 30, 2021 b4

Monday, July 13, 2020 B www.businessmirror.com.ph

Managers, Compassion and Accountability

Aren’t Mutually Exclusive

S

By Amy Gallo

say, “This is the work you need to get done. Is that possible?” And then listen to what they think is feasible. Taking into account the circumstances, you can then decide together what makes sense going forward. Don’t feel like you need to tolerate sustained underperformance, though. “If they’re not being productive and you’ve made it clear what’s required for the job, and they can’t do that, then you have a decision to make,” explains Hill.

ince the pandemic began, there’s been a call for managers to be understanding and lenient with employees as they navigate the stressors the global crisis has brought on.

n Reframe how you think about the last year: It’s been

a terrible year for most people, though not everyone experienced the trauma of the pandemic, the ongoing reckoning around racial inequalities and the contentious U.S. election in the same way. It can be easy to frame the past year as a wash—a time when none of us were at our most productive.

But that wouldn’t be entirely fair.

Rather than thinking, “We lowered our expectations,” focus on every-

thing you and your team got done, suggests Linda Hill, a professor at Harvard Business School. Chances are that it was a lot, accomplished under not particularly easy circumstances.

n Take it to the group: One of the best ways to encourage accountability is to do it at the group level. As Hirsh says, “Accountability is a collective goal, and it works best if the team can find a way that we are all achieving.” So sit down together and try to find solutions as a group. Hill suggests you say something like, “OK, let’s assume these are the conditions we have to work under for another six months. How can we best do our work?”

n Reframe how you think about motivating employees:

You may also need to rethink your assumptions about what motivates employees. Jane Dutton, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, says that if you see compassion and accountability as opposite sides of a coin, you’re thinking about it wrong. Many managers believe they need to be tough to get people to produce results, but the research doesn’t support that.

In fact, adding stress to an employee’s workday can negatively affect a person's creative output.

Jacob Hirsh, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, notes that part of a manager’s job is to create a psychologically safe workplace—and if you do that for your team members, it will be far easier to ask them to do their part.

According to Dutton’s research, “People’s response to compassion is often to invest more in the organization.” So being compassionate and caring is not just a nice thing to do—it’s critical to performance. n Don’t ignore the reality: Now that many people are trying to return to some semblance of normalcy in their lives, you might assume that you can go back to a

pexels.com | edward jenner

Now that restrictions are lifting in many parts of the world, some managers are wondering how to continue to balance compassion for the people on their teams and accountability for getting work done. Should you offer flexibility around deadlines and performance expectations even if it means missing team targets? How can you be understanding about what people have been through while holding them accountable?

And should you worry about being taken advantage of?

I posed these questions to several experts who study motivation and compassion at work to see what advice they might have, and they all agreed that now is not a time to let up on the care and consideration you’ve shown your employees over the past year.

Here’s some advice for how to navigate the seeming tension between being caring and thoughtful and holding people to high standards:

pre-pandemic level of productivity. But don’t ignore the fact that most people are still feeling burned out. “We are all depleted,” says Dutton, and reopening offices isn’t going to make that go away. Hirsh also cautions that the “old style” of dealing with mental health at work—essentially keeping it hidden and pretending it doesn’t exist—just doesn’t work. We know now that people want to be able to talk openly about mental health issues in their workplaces. n Focus on resilience: “The limiting factor for many employees

is going to be how they handle stress and everything going on in their lives. Some people handle it fine—it’s part of their disposition to be able to manage the stress.

Others will need more support,” says Hirsh. While it doesn’t fall solely on you, as their manager, to help a struggling employee build resilience, you can play a role. One way to motivate your team members is to show them the progress they’ve made. “Help people see how they’ve grown over the past year,” says Dutton. You might ask people to share whether they’ve honed or discovered new skills

during the pandemic). You also want to connect them to the purpose behind their work. “Bathe people with the positive impact of their work. It’s like a booster shot—physiologically and psychologically,” she says. n Have individual conversations: Talk with your team members one on one so you understand their unique circumstances. Don’t assume you know what those are, even if you’ve been in close contact. Things shift. At the same time, Hill suggests you make clear what the job requires. You might

n Take care of yourself: While taking care of your employees, don’t lose sight of yourself. You’re likely feeling the same stress as your team members and the pressure to produce results. So be sure to take the time to take care of yourself. That includes getting a good night’s sleep, eating well, exercising and making sure you have the support you need.

Given how tiring it is to be constantly worrying about your team while also trying to meet goals, it’s tempting to try to pull back on compassion. But it’s important to stick with it. Of course you need to be realistic about what you can and can’t do for people, but Dutton urges managers to think of compassion as an investment in your people—one “that has a huge payoff.”

Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review.

Managing star performers in high-pressure situations

By Dane Jensen

I

t is generally accepted that success breeds confidence, and confidence increases the ability to handle pressure. And yet, the story is not so simple.

While success can indeed boost confidence, it can also increase visibility, multiply expectations and raise pressure to unhealthy levels over time. When you are leading star performers, you need to recognize the double-edged nature of success and help your employees do two things: keep the stakes of failure in perspective and manage the volume of demands for their time.

The burden of status

Even the greatest performers feel pressure more than you might think. Consider the penalty kick in soccer. The stakes for each shot are immense, and players are expected to score; a miss is considered a failure. Beyond losing the game, players who miss high-profile shots often face vitriolic abuse from the audience, as did three Black members of England’s soccer team after it lost to Italy in the European Championship in July.

So, if you’re the coach, you want your superstars taking these

shots, right? Not necessarily. Geir Jordet, a researcher, studied 366 kicks from 37 penalty shootouts held at the world’s three largest soccer tournaments. His counterintuitive finding was that superstar players who had won major international awards (like FIFA’s Player of the Year) performed worse than those who had not received those accolades. The superstars scored only 65% of the time versus the 74% overall average.

Even more striking, they scored far less than players who would later go on to win the same awards.

These “future stars”’ scored 89% of the time.

In short, players who have the skill but not yet the status that comes with winning a major award performed far better than those who had both the skill and the status.

Understanding the burden of status requires understanding what creates pressure. Over the past three years, I’ve conducted research into pressure with hundreds of high performers in sports, business, medicine and the military, including conducting in-depth interviews. I found that pressure is a function of three things: n The importance of a situation’s outcome;

n The uncertainty of the outcome; n The volume of tasks, decisions and distractions surrounding the outcome.

All three are affected by success and status, but two are particularly acute: a ratcheting up of the importance attached to the outcome, and a dramatic rise in the volume of tasks, decisions and distractions facing the performer.

When under pressure, reduce the stakes of failure

As success and visibility accumulate, the stakes in high pressure situations like a gymnastics competition or a big sales pitch expand from tangible things like meda ls or compensation and begin to encompass existential things like identity and selfworth. Leading or coaching highly successful performers through a high-pressure event requires reducing the overwhelming baggage these individuals attach to failure. You can start to accomplish this by asking your superstar one key question: What are the things that are the most important to you—that are integral to your being—and won’t change regardless of the outcome?

When Norwegian speedskater

Johann Koss found himself overwhelmed by pressure in the leadup to his first Olympic Games in 1994, his sports psychologist did just that. The psychologist methodically worked through with him all of what wasn’t at stake: his future career as a doctor, Norway’s overall success at the Olympics, and so on. It helped Koss regain his perspective and deliver three all-time great performances in which he won three gold medals and established three world records in three events.

As you work through the stakes with someone, play the role of challenger. For example, at a key moment Koss’s sport psychologist asked, “Do you think the Norwegian people care whether you or another Norwegian win a medal?”

This push caused Johann to admit that, no, the Norwegian people would be fine either way—their happiness wasn’t at stake. The cost of failure dropped.

Reduce the volume of ancillary demands

On May 26, 2021, tennis phenom Naomi Osaka announced on Twitter that for the sake of her mental health she would not do any press interviews at the French Open tennis championship. After a tone-deaf response

from the organizers, she pulled out of the tournament.

The volume of tasks and distractions that sur round performances can dramatically increase pressure. And as success and status build, so too does volume. The requests for Osaka’s time at the French Open in 2021 were vastly greater than they were in 2016 during her first Grand Slam event. In response to the increase in volume, Osaka— like all of us—had two choices: accommodate more or eliminate the volume that was creating the most pressure. She chose the latter, which is exactly the right response to pressure that comes from volume.

As leaders, we can aim higher than the French Open organizers and hold more productive discussions with our stars to help them manage the volume they face. If your star subordinates are feeling overwhelmed, consider sitting down and looking at each of the items demanding their time and asking: n Is this helping or hurting performance on what matters most?

This is the key filter for sources of pressure that are ancillary to the core matter at hand (like winning a tennis tournament).

n Will this help you grow in a way that matters to you? Growth

gives meaning to pressure. Preserving the pressure that is helping move us forward is vital, even if it is uncomfortable. n Will eliminating a particular source of pressure lead to regret?

There are some sources of pressure that don’t help us grow and hurt performance but ultimately must be endured in order to stave off regret down the line (for example, filing your taxes on time, maintaining a good relationship with your son-in-law, and so on).

If something is hurting performance, detached from growth and not linked to regret, it’s a source of pressure that likely should be eliminated or redirected from your stars to other team members.

Few of us will ever know the pressure of carrying the expectations of 300 million people into a physically and mentally demanding environment. But, through thoughtful conversations that aim to keep importance in perspective and simplify volume, we can help our own stars carry the burden of success a little more lightly.

Dane Jensen is CEO of Third Factor.

Style

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

• Monday, August 30, 2021

B5

Miss Universe Philippines 2021: The stunning 16

THE Body Shop’s new vegan Tea Tree haircare line purifies and balances oily hair and scalp made with organically grown Community Fair Trade tea tree oil from Kenya and Vegan Silk Protein. Bottles and tubs are made from 100 percent recycled plastic.

Hair care goes vegan HAIR has an attitude, an identity. It tells a powerful story about who you are. Which is why it’s so important to keep it in root-to-tip shape. Luckily, The Body Shop’s new vegan haircare routines are here to help your hair look and feel as powerful as you, so you can keep telling your story, your way.

Vegan products provide a natural source of nourishment made from plants and minerals coupled with safe and tested ingredients. They contain no harmful chemicals, and if you have sensitive skin, they are just perfect for you. And sustainable for you and the environment.

What makes The Body Shop’s new haircare routines so powerful is that they are all made with Vegan Silk Protein, a 100 percent plant-based protein which cleverly replicates the chemical structure of natural silk produced by the common European garden spider. But The Body Shop’s is fully plantbased. The Body Shop’s new haircare routines, Tea Tree and Moringa, are designed to improve the appearance of damaged hair, so they literally help repair the hair follicle from the inside out.

Get fresh and clean locks for longer with the new Tea Tree haircare routine—Tea Tree Purifying and Balancing Shampoo, Conditioner and Hair & Scalp Scrub—that purifies and balances oily hair and scalp.

Made with organically grown Community Fair Trade tea tree oil from Kenya and Vegan Silk Protein, this routine also helps eliminate build-up, leaving hair feeling purified and refreshed without stripping its natural moisture.

The new Moringa haircare, on the other hand, brightens up your crown. Get healthier-feeling, shinier hair and help protect it from daily pollution.

Made with Community Fair Trade moringa seed oil and extract from Rwanda and Vegan Silk Protein, this routine, which includes the Moringa Shine and Protection Shampoo, Conditioner and Hair Mist, visibly restores dull hair’s radiance and shine. Expect softer, smoother and healthier looking hair that smells fragrantly floral.

The Body Shop’s new haircare bottles and tubs are made from 100 percent recycled plastic, including Community Fair Trade recycled plastic collected off the streets of Bengaluru, India.

Give your hair these vegan haircare treats and power your do like never before with The Body Shop’s new Tea Tree and Moringa Haircare Routines. More information can be found at www.thebodyshop.com.ph.

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ITH only one crown in contention, the Miss Universe Philippines pageant is the most thrilling of them all. From an initial 100 then trimmed to 75 and currently at 50, the delegates have been subjected to runway, casting and interview challenges. Virtually.

A panel of Miss Universe Philippines experts will select 27 delegates while the remaining three slots will be filled in via fan votes to comprise The Final 30. So if you think your bet won’t make it on her own merit, secure a slot for her by casting your vote on the Miss Universe Philippines app until August 31, 11:59 pm.

The winner will succeed Iloilo’s Rabiya Mateo. She will represent the country at the 70th Miss Universe in Israel in December. Here are my fierce choices for the next “Phenomenal Filipina”. n SUPER QUEENS. Having competed successfully at the international level is a definite advantage.

Fil-Am Katrina Jayne Dimaranan (28, Taguig City) represented the US at the Miss Supranational 2018 pageant and placed second. She was Binibining Pilipinas Tourism 2012 but the Miss Tourism Queen International 2012 pageant was canceled.

Leren Mae Bautista (28, Laguna) was Mutya ng Pilipinas Asia Pacific International 2015 and crowned Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International 2015.

She was also Binibining Pilipinas Globe 2019 and placed third at The Miss Globe 2019.

Fil-German Maureen Christa Pojas Wroblewitz (23, Pangasinan) won the fifth season (2017) of Asia’s Next Top Model.

As Mutya ng Doha, Qatar, Janela Joy Cuaton (24, Albay) was Mutya ng Pilipinas Tourism International 2015 and finished second at Miss Tourism Metropolitan International 2016.

Fil-Am Christelle Anjali Abello (27, Aklan) was Binibining Pilipinas USA-Tourism 2014, Top 13 at Miss World Philippines 2015 and Top 16 at Miss Universe Philippines 2020.

Cebu Province’s Steffi Rose Aberasturi was Sinulog Festival Queen 2011, Miss Campus Femme 2012, Miss Mandaue 2013, Reyna ng Aliwan 2014 and Binibining Cebu 2018-2019. She hasn’t had an international campaign yet but her multiple local crowns have catapulted her as the girl to beat in this year’s edition. What can harm her chances, however, is her polarizing political stance. n LGBT QUEENS. Simone Nadine Bornilla (18, Marinduque) proudly admits that she grew up to be a fine young lady because of her two gay dads. Reigning Binibining Cebu Beatrice Luigi Gomez (26, Cebu City), meanwhile, is proudly LGBT. Ally or member, both staunch advocates have the wholehearted support of the pageant-loving LGBT community. n HOMETOWN QUEENS. Hailing from Region 10, I am apologetically cheering for my home girls. Though it is sad that Camiguin’s Sherlyn Legaspi Doloriel (Miss Cagayan de Oro 2016, Miss Scuba Philippines 2017) did not make the Top 50, there are two more in contention: Misamis Oriental’s Chella Grace Falconer

First row (horizontal): Katrina Jayne Dimaranan (FLORENZ JOHN CERVANTES TORRONTEGUI), Leren Mae Bautista (MARK NETO DIAZ), Steffi Rose Aberasturi (GAREL SISON), Maria Corazon Abalos (@IAMDOC); second row: Victoria Velasquez Vincent (@JUNESSARENDONPHOTOGRAPHY), Maureen Wroblewitz (@DONALDLAPEZ), Beatrice Luigi Gomez (LARLO RAY), Simone Nadine Bornilla (RAYMOND SALDAÑA PHOTOGRAPHY); third row: Chella Grace Falconer (PHILIP VALLESPIN), Kirsten Danielle Delavin (RAP YU), Mirjan Hipolito (CHESTER SIGUA), Vincy Vacalares (KEVIN BALDEVISO); fourth row: Maria Ingrid Santamaria (@RIAREGINO), Janela Joy Cuaton (@SEVENBARRETTO), Christelle Abello (SIGNATURE BY GUILLANO), Megan Julia Digal (EAKARAT PHONGTHANAPANICH).

(22), Thailand-based Megan Julia Roa Digal (25), and Cagayan de Oro’s Vincy Labadan Vacalares, a Covid-19 survivor who had to withdraw last year after testing positive. n QUEEN MARY. From Mary Ann Carmen Philipps Corrales (1957) to Rose Marie Brosas (1975) and Maria Mika Maxine Medina (2016), there have been 15 winners with variations of this magical name.

This year, we have Maria Corazon Abalos (23) of Mandaluyong City and Parañaque City’s Maria Ingrid Teresita Palanca Santamaria (25). Abalos’ mother, Carmelita “Menchie” Aguilar Abalos, the current mayor, was a Binibini in the early 1980s, while Santamaria is the niece of 1990s socialite/model Crispy Santamaria Laurel and the granddaughter of legendary concert pianist Ingrid Sala Santamaria.

n QUEEN SLAYERS. These delegates can snatch the crown: New Zealand-born Filipino-Spanish/ Irish Victoria Velasquez Vincent (25, Cavite), she with the Nastassja Kinski eyes; and Manila’s Izabella Jasmine Umali (25), a fashion muse. Angeles City’s Mirjan Hipolito (24), a financial journalist, is the natural successor to dusky beauties such as Miriam Quiambao, Janine Tugonon and Janicel Lubina.

Two women sending shock waves for defying pageant standards are Masbate’s Kirsten Danielle Delavin (22), the showbiz starlet with a formidable fan base; and San Juan City’s Rousanne Marie Bernos (26), a TikTok personality, podcaster and founder of clothing line Morena The Label, whose candor is refreshing. Because, yes, pageants are political. And the personal is political. n

Retailer launches sustainability program

THE sachets and plastic bottles and jars containing the personal care products we use result in a lot of waste. All that plastic and waste end up in the ocean. If we do not do something about this, there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish, according to a report introduced by British sailor and environmentalist Ellen MacArthur at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2016.

Realizing this, A.S. Watson Group and its 13 retail and manufacturing brands have launched its Social Purpose and Sustainability Vision 2030,

pledging actionable responses to the growing call for responsible consumption and production through its global operations.

In March, A.S. Watson Group announced its 2030 Sustainability Vision, with pledges to restore thousands of perfect smiles through life-changing free surgeries to kids with cleft palates, reduce tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and offer more sustainable choices in stores.

The spirit of doing good is ingrained in the Watsons culture. The first dispensary in 1841 saw its founder, Alexander Skirving Watson, providing free medicine to the needy.

Watsons Philippines has launched a sustainability program anchored on four pillars: Planet, Community, People and Customers.

“Watsons has always been at the forefront of sustainability since its founding 180 years ago. In recent years, we have invested in various initiatives that take our commitment to the planet that sustains us all. And we are glad that our customers and supplier partners have been open to help do good for the planet through the Watsons Sustainability

programs,” said Danilo Chiong, Watsons general manager.

The health, wellness and beauty retailer hopes to reduce its environmental footprint with a goal of 65,000 kilograms of trash collected via the Trash for Cash program and 40 million plastic bottles to be recycled. Watsons Philippines has also pledged to give 3,300 perfect smiles through free cleft surgeries and medicines to the needy.

Further, it wants a healthy work force, and it wants to provide more sustainable product choices for its customers. “Climate change is not just an issue for the future but today. We must do good now,” said Viki Encarnacion, Watsons public relations and sustainability director, during the first in a series of Do Good webinars hosted by Watsons Philippines.

Also present during the webinar hosted by Anna Escalona were Jared de Guzman, senior assistant vice president of Global Own Brand and Exclusives (GOBE) at Watsons Philippines, and Atty. Rachel Herrera, commissioner of the Climate Change Commission.

Herrera outlined five easy small actions that we

can do to live more sustainably: eat sustainably and reduce food waste, advocate for people and planet, repair and refill instead of buying, turn down singleuse plastics, and help organizations that do good for the planet.

De Guzman presented four Sustainable Choices that Watsons Philippines is hoping its customers would embrace. These include Clean Beauty (mindfully created products without “unwanted” ingredients), Refill and Reduce (refilling bottles and reusing containers), Better Ingredients and Better Packaging.

Also present during the webinar was Kat Lim of Unilever, who talked about Love Beauty and Planet, a sustainable personal care brand. Love Beauty and Planet products are vegan and have not been tested on animals. An interesting feature of the cleansing products is they are all fast-rinsing so you get to save on water.

Watsons Philippines, with its 900+ stores nationwide, rallies its stakeholders along with its millions of customers and partners to do good together in making responsible, sustainable choices.

B6 Monday, August 30, 2021

Improve your child’s focus during e-learning

Coca-Cola and TeaM Energy complete solar energy project at Davao del Sur

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OCA-COLA Beverages Philippines, Inc. (CCBPI)—the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country—has partnered with TeaM Philippines Energy Corporation (TPEC), a subsidiary of TeaM Energy Corporation, for a solar panel installation in Coca-Cola’s Davao del Sur plant.

“Our collaboration with TeaM Energy has allowed us to reach yet another sustainability milestone. We remain committed to our energy efficiency goals, a big aspect of which is the integration of more renewable energy into our operations,” says Gareth McGeown, CEO and President of CCBPI. “We follow the highest safety and quality standards for every single bottle of Coke that we make.”

To date, over 65% of Coca-Cola’s total

energy consumption is being sourced from renewable and clean sources— including geothermal and solar. Earlier this year, CCBPI announced the complete installation of 14,000 solar panels in three of its sites: Davao del Sur, Misamis Oriental, and Bacolod plants. TeaM Energy’s recently completed rooftop green energy system in Davao del Sur has a peak capacity of 1.5 megawatts (MWp).

“Our solar rooftop project for CocaCola Philippines in Davao is now fully operational,” says Gen Takahashi, President of TPEC. “Through this undertaking, we hope to contribute to Coca-Cola’s global sustainability efforts.

It is a partnership we deeply value,” adds Takahashi.

Mr. Takahashi explained that

construction and installation works were started and completed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic with zero incidents, while operation of the system began in March 2021. “We had to work through the various challenges posed by the pandemic, ensuring that all health and safety protocols were met at all stages of development,” says Takahashi.

Tier 1 solar modules and best-inclass solar Photovoltaic (PV) system components were used for the project in the CCBPI facility in Barangay Darong, Davao Del Sur. TPEC’s Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) partner for the project was Transnational Uyeno Solar Corporation. From the start of operations in March 2021, the average monthly solar generation is at 180,000 kWh.

DepEd, Smart sign landmark deal connecting 1M teachers with Smart Giga Study plans nationwide

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HEN the pandemic hit, various news on the challenging situations of public school teachers around the country painted the plight that the Education sector faced and continues to struggle with to sustain the quality of education that their students deserve.

The noble sacrifices that the public academe continues to endure in this pandemic has cultivated the public-private partnership between the Department of Education and Smart, the wireless subsidiary of PLDT, to enrich online learning and education, and more importantly, ensure no teacher is left behind.

“Just as much as we believe that it is the right of Filipino students to stay in school, we are committed to delivering solutions for the Department of Education so that they may continue supporting the faculty of government learning institutions across the country. Giving them access to the fastest and most reliable internet connectivity that enables their own learning and development, and empowers their online classes as they teach our youth wherever they are, is our way of honoring our public school teachers for their heroic efforts and sacrifices,” said Alfredo S. Panlilio, PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications President and CEO. Subsidized by DepEd through the funds sourced from Bayanihan 2 which Congress approved, activated SIM cards pre-loaded with Smart Giga Study plans will

be distributed to public school teachers for their use in online teaching and learning, and interacting with their students.

“This is part of our commitment to deliver the promises of the Bayanihan 2 Act. Through the support of our President, our lawmakers, and our field offices, DepEd has ensured that our personnel and teachers can efficiently provide basic education services to our learners despite the situation,” Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said.

This empowering project will equip teachers, who play a critical role in delivering inclusive education, with the necessary tools and connectivity to enable them in their arduous daily task of providing quality online teaching to students.

DepEd Undersecretary Alain Del B. Pascua shared, “The Department has procured the sim cards and connectivity load from our external partner for all the teaching and non-teaching personnel to ensure ease in communication and unhampered delivery of services amid the crisis.”

The project also supports DepEd’s vision in making public schools resilient and more conducive to learning in the future.

“Parents - especially those part of the workforce - heavily rely on teachers to give their children proper guidance, which makes the role of teachers today even more critical. As the secondary parents of our children, teachers have the most important

job in shaping and inspiring the leaders of the future,” said ePLDT Group President & CEO and PLDT SVP and Head of PLDT and Smart Enterprise Business Groups Jovy I. Hernandez.

“Teachers mold the holistic development of our children and this is why we endeavor to assist them in turn with the best technologies that will allow them to give our learners better guidance.

We are one with DepEd in ensuring that the future of education is fully backed by the necessary support both the educators and students need,” Hernandez added.

Both DepEd-provided SIM cards are linked and supported with CuroTeknika Helpdesk that will manage the disbursement of monthly loads for the recipient teachers. These SIMs are powered by Smart LTE—recognized as the country’s fastest mobile data network by global internet testing and analysis leader Ookla—and Smart 5G in selected areas.

The Giga Study plans is a tailor-fit data package that gives users access to a selection of learning apps and productivity tools. Giga Study offers access to Google Suite, which includes Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, Meet, and Drive. The data pack also offers access to Microsoft 365, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Teams, and OneDrive.

When the pandemic affected the course of schooling last year, Smart whitelisted the DepEd Commons site, the Department’s online education delivery platform, making access to this site free to students and teachers using Smart even without data load even until today.

This gave them access to a multitude of educational resources for use in various grade levels of curriculum.

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ITH the school season on the horizon, parents are becoming anxious on how to prepare their kids for online learning. On top of work, they now must contend with an active teaching role at home. There are a lot of challenges facing e-learning since it was abruptly implemented due to the pandemic. Two of the biggest drawbacks associated with online classes is the kids’ lack of attention and that students find it boring and disengaging due to a virtual environment. Couple that with issues like a slow internet connection and problems with video and audio streaming, and students will definitely find excuses to do something else.

Here are some ways to improve their focus and concentration during online learning: Set up a positive learning environment free from distractions. Set up a clean, comfortable space for the child to study in and find a workable schedule in using their gadgets for work and play. For example, you can set a rule that laptops and smartphones should only be used for online learning during classes.

Break bigger tasks into small chunks.

Instead of pressuring kids to do their tasks and assignments in one swift move, why not break it down into smaller portions?

When they are overwhelmed with daunting tasks, they tend to stress, overthink and procrastinate. Setting specific goals can help them organize and see bigger tasks as attainable.

Establish healthy eating habits to better

prepare them for grueling e-classes. Instead of junk food, let them snack on healthier alternatives and give them balanced meals that include vegetables, lean protein and whole carbohydrates. Along with healthy habits like good nutrition, proper exercise and rest, a natural, plant-based supplement like Focus Syrup can aid students by giving them additional mental energy to complete their tasks. Focus Syrup contains Bacopa monniera, Centella asiatica, lecithin, choline and DHA to help boost memory and brain function.

Protect their eyes by minimizing their exposure to blue light. During online learning, kids are in front of digital screens for hours at a time. Prolonged exposure to blue light emitted by smartphones and computer screens can have several negative side-effects like eye strain, eye fatigue and headaches that can interrupt their learning experience.

Make sure they get sufficient sleep. Sleep deprivation leads to lower alertness and concentration, it’s important to make sure they get the recommended amount of sleep for their age. Create a consistent bedtime routine that is quiet, relaxing and free from distractions. Take away blue light-emitting digital devices that inhibit the production of melatonin which disrupts sleep. Focus Syrup has LUTEMAX 2020, an award-winning, proprietary ingredient which helps improve sleep quality by protecting eyes from blue light. For more information, visit www. greenleafherbals.ph/focus-syrup.

Forging strategic partnership through World Trade CONNECT

FORMALIZING the partnership are, from left: MVIRDC Executive Director Ms. Rupa Naik, MVIRDC Vice President Captain Somesh Batra and Executive WTCMM President and Chief Executive Officer Ms. Pamela D. Pascual, representing WTCMI.

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MIDST the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the future of trade shows, exhibitions and convention is expected to evolve and thrive in the digital space for safer business and social environments, borderless markets, new and better opportunities, environmental consciousness, and in the end, result in a sustainable business model.

World Trade Center Metro Manila (WTCMM) President and Chief Executive Officer Ms. Pamela D. Pascual representing World Trade Center Management Inc. (WTCMI) formalizes the partnership with World Trade Center Mumbai and M Visvesvaraya Industrial Research and Development Center (MVIRDC), represented by its Vice President Captain

Somesh Batra and Executive Director Ms. Rupa Naik for the use of the virtual exhibition platform to be hosted in the online trade exhibition website www. wetrade.org. WTC Metro Manila and WTC Mumbai are both active members of the World Trade Centers Association, a premier global network headquartered in New York, USA. The virtual exhibition platform, under the brand name, World Trade CONNECT, will be exclusively marketed in the Philippines by WTCMM with the aim to provide trade show organizers a reliable platform in staging virtual shows and hybrid events, to enable expansion of markets, never before tapped, but now made possible through the WTCONNECT.

Subway brings New Savoury Chipotle Quesadillas

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ubway is bringing you delicious treats for take-out or delivery at the safety of your homes with their NEW Savoury Chipotle Quesadillas. It's a guaranteed affordable snack for work- or study- fromhome customers that comes with exciting flavors to fuel up their entire day!

The Chipotle Quesadillas is one of the most popular items for take-out and delivery. Especially since Subway serves these Mexican treats into three variants which are the Cheesy Pork Quesadilla, Ultimate Cheesy Quesadilla, Classic Beef & Cheese Quesadilla. They are made from responsibly sourced ingredients that are served with onion, chipotle sauce & spices with mozzarella cheese!

The Chipotle Quesadilla ala carte price starts at Php 99 while the combo meal price or Quesadilla with a 12oz drink is at Php 119.

For delivery orders, the Chipotle

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Monday, August 30, 2021 B7

Audits (and transparency) are essential­­­—yes, they are I

By Abigail L. Ho-Torres

Brand & Business: GCash and kumu partnership makes virtual gifts and coins more accessible to Kumunity

M A NIL A , PHILIPPINES — St a r t ing Aug ust 2021, Kumu coins w i l l be available on the GCash app, with exclusive prices that are sure to excite Kumunizens. As an in-app currency, Kumu coins have become essential for streamers and followers alike; it’s the

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PR Matters

HAD my first taste of corporate audits a decade ago, when, after almost 11 years of working as a business journalist, I joined the corporate world as a government affairs executive. It was a bit shocking for me, all those system and process improvements that had to be crafted, implemented, and reviewed, plus the stringent internal and external audits that came with the territory.

And then I met the budget preparation and audit process.

Again, a shocking experience for me. Imagine having to project the number of paper clips and staple wires (okay, the number of boxes, at least) that your department will use in a year. I am not even exaggerating. That’s aside from the many budget components that you need to flesh out, particularly program budgets that are directly linked to the attainment of yearly functional area and enterprise objectives.

It was shocking for me, as I did not have to go through that exercise as a journalist. Audits for us field reporters meant annual grammar checks (in the Inquirer many, many moons ago, our body of work was reviewed and rated annually by a language guru), editorial gatekeeping and fact-checking, and tallies of our submitted vs. published stories.

It was not like the audits that I’ve come to know—and appreciate, imagine that—in the corporate setting.

But what journalists, especially those covering the business beats and the Commission on Audit (COA), do know how to do is read, analyze, and write about data in financial statements and audit reports. Journalists, as members of the so-called Fourth Estate, k now how impor tant their role is in ensuring proper spending of hard-earned shareholder and taxpayer money.

In the same vein, agencies like the COA have a mandate to be a watchdog as well—one that safeguards the way government spends its citizen’s money. This is enshrined very clearly in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article IX-D, Section 2.1: “ The Commission on Audit shall have the power, authority, and duty to examine, audit, and settle all accounts pertaining to the revenue and receipts of, and expenditures or uses of funds and property, owned or held in trust by, or pertaining to, the Government, or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or instrumentalities, including government-owned or controlled

corporations with original charters, and on a post-audit basis: (a) constitutional bodies, commissions and offices that have been granted fiscal autonomy u nder t h is Const it ut ion; ( b) autonomous state colleges and universities; (c) other government-owned or controlled corporations and their subsidiaries; and (d) such non-governmental entities receiving subsidy or equity, directly or indirectly, from or through the Gover nment, which are required by law or the granting institution to submit to such audit as a condition of subsidy or equity.”

So when our hardworking COA auditors sift through piles and piles and piles (both electronic and hard copies) of documents from the agencies that they are mandated to audit, they are just doing their job. Like the rest of us, they have a job to do, and they are doing it.

Transparency as a mandate

Tr ansparency of findings is part of COA’s mandate as well.

But this does not just apply to the COA, but the rest of the government bureaucracy. The Department of Budget and Management issued in 2012 National Budget Circular 542, which reiterates Section 93 of the General Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2012, or the Philippine Transparency Seal provision, “to enhance transparency and enforce accountability” among all national

users’ way of showing appreciation and sharing the love within the Kumunity. Now, with GCash, Kumunizens can also buy Kumu coins for friends, and send to any local mobile number, anytime and anywhere all through the tap of their phones.

Purchasing Kumu coins through GCash is simple. Under the “Buy Load” feature in the GCash homepage, users can swipe the upper tabs to look for the “KUMU” option. Coin packages under the GCash “KUMU” tab have their exclusive prices and points benefits, so it’s sure to give loyal gifters some added top-up options.GCash is also available as an online payment option for the Apple Store and Google Play Store, when purchasing Coins from the app.

This partnership between the #1

government agencies. The seal shows an open clamshell with a bright pearl inside, surrounded by eight rays of a sun, as in the Philippine flag.

The symbolism behind the seal is clearly explained on the DBM web site: “A pearl buried inside a tightly-shut shell is practically worthless. Government information is a pearl, meant to be shared with the public in order to maximize its inherent value.

“The Transparency Seal, depicted by a pearl shining out of an open shell, is a symbol of a policy shift towards openness in access to government information. On the one hand, it hopes to inspire Filipinos in the civil service to be more open to citizen engagement; on the other, to invite the Filipino citizenry to exercise their right to participate in governance. “ This initiative is envisioned as a step in the right direction towards solidif ying the position of the Philippines as the Pearl of the Orient—a shining example for democratic virtue in the region.”

COA takes this mandate to hea r t, not on ly t hrough t he prominent display of the seal, but through the publication of its various audit reports on its web site. Even without issuing any press release, the media— and the rest of the public—can access these audit documents, analyze them, and write about them. Because, like COA audi-

Pinoy l ivestreaming app, and t he country’s leading mobile e-wallet app marks a new age for Filipinos online, as our activities and interactions become increasingly digital. More than a payment platform, GCash is fast evolving into a lifestyle super-app, enabling users to have one platform for transfers, e-commerce, investments and so much more. Now with Kumu coins in the GCash platform, it gives the Kumunity more access points, allowing them to support their fellow streamers, buy their favorite brands, pay bills, send money, invest and purchase coins for friends—all in one app.

“The needs of Filipinos, and our Kumunity are evolving. We want to keep up with that by making kumu coins more available to them,” says Paolo

tors, journalists have a job to do.

And they are but doing this job when they distill these audit reports into factual narratives that Juan de la Cruz can more easily understand.

In the case of the DOH and the whole issue of causing the public “unnecessary” alarm, as Malacanang put it: that does not seem to be COA’s intent at all. The COA auditors did their job. The journalists did theirs as well. None of this is meant to be political—unless anyone wants to look at it that way.

According to a COA statement: “The Consolidated Annual Audit Report for FY 2020 of the Department of Health contains observations and findings made by the Commission on Audit on the utilization of the budget by the DOH. Accompanying the observations and findings are the recommendations made by the auditors for the management of DOH to address the observation and findings. These are part of the audit process, which allows the audited agency to comply with the recommendations and rectify any deficiencies. The Report itself does not mention any findings by the auditors of funds lost to corruption.”

At the end of the day, we all have our jobs to do, our roles to fulfill in society. We are all citizens of the Philippines, and I think it is safe to assume that we only want what’s best for the country.

Pineda, SVP of Business Development at Kumu. “GCash is an ideal partner for these efforts, because it combines accessibility with convenience. It’s really about keeping up and prioritizing the needs of today’s Filipinos.”

Kumu coins are the app’s specialized currency, which allow users to send various virtual gifts to each other.

These virtual gifts are iconic and vital to the Kumu experience, as the added amounts earned from virtual gifts (diamonds) can be converted to real cash.

With GCash as an added platform for kumu Coins, the Kumunity has better f lexibility in topping-up, and sending gifts. It is just one of the many ways Kumu and GCash can help enrich the online and mobile opportunities for Pinoys. So spread the word, and don’t

Speaking of which: the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) Philippines, together with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Philippines and Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) recently staged a webinar titled “Vox Juventus: Amplifying the Voice of the Youth.” Its main objective was to persuade eligible youth to register and vote in the upcoming National Elections.

Speakers for the webinar were Senior Commissioner Rowena Guanzon of the Commission on Elections; Riza Mantaring, trustee of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV); and Mori Rodriguez, chief innovation officer of EON The Stakeholder Relations Group. They shared their insights on voting as a citizen’s right and responsibility, the youth’s role in securing the country’s future, and the face of the new Filipino voter.

Joining them were young panelists who represent the bright future that we can look forward to as a nation: UP Student Regent Renee Co, Girl Scouts of the Philippines rep Dorothy Rosario, Xavier University Central Student Government President Andre Daba, and Tyempo Naton Movement founder Adrian Camposagrado. They talked about their experiences and thoughts about voter registration, voting, and convincing their peers to take this responsibility and right seriously.

It is never too early for the youth to be involved in the shaping of a country. As Comelec Commissioner Guanzon aptly put it: “For young people, this election is very crucial, because you will choose your leaders that will— like Moses—bring you across the Red Sea. Voting in 2022 is one of the best things that you can do for your future.”

PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Abigail L. HoTorres is AVP and Head of Advocacy and Marketing of Maynilad Water Services Inc. She spent more than a decade as a business journalist before making the leap to the corporate world.

We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations.

Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.

forget to keep that online wallet wellstocked!

More exciting news and shows are expected in the coming weeks! So make sure to stay tuned at Kumu. You can also follow @kumuph on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to keep up to date with all the latest events, and surprises from your favorite Pinoy livestreaming platform. To keep tabs on the Kumunity and all its exciting happenings, follow the @juankumunity on Instagram, or check the Kumu blog for all the latest news.

Don’t have the Kumu app yet? It’s easy! Download the app at Google Play or the App Store, and start adding to cart! Visit our web site kumu.ph for more information and insights into the exciting world of Kumu.

OBIENA RESETS PHL RECORD IN PARIS MEET

O

LYMPIAN Ernest John “EJ” Obiena cleared 5.91 meters not only to bag a silver medal at the Wanda Diamond League on Sunday at the Stade Charlety in Paris, but more importantly to set a new Philippine men’s pole vault record.

Obiena’s father Emerson Obiena relayed his son’s milestone in the outdoor tournament in Paris, where Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Armand Duplantis clinched gold with a 6.01-meter performance.

Obiena established the new national record in his first attempt, breaking the previous standard of 5.87 meters he himself set in a preOlympic competition in Poland last June. He attempted 5.96 meters but fouled twice and also went for 6.01 meter but also missed.

“At last, he finally made it, although it didn’t happen there [in the Olympics],” Emerson, a former national pole vaulter, said. “He’s still in the ‘the learning process’ coming off his 11th finish at the Tokyo Olympics early this month.”

Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Chris Nilsen of the US tallied 5.81-meter for the bronze medal while Sam Kendricks, also of the US, posted 5.73-meter for fourth place.

Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association President Dr. Philip Ella Juico congratulated Obiena for his stellar performance, saying “you may not always win gold or silver or even a bronze but you can always improve on your earlier performance to raise the bar.”

“We are extremely happy with EJ Obiena’s latest record breaking performance that he achieved in Paris,” Juico said in a statement.

“This new Philippine record achieved our goal for our athletes of constantly striving to improve.”

Obiena travels to Brussels for the continuation of the series on Friday and to Zurich for more competitions on September 8 and 9. Josef Ramos

Team Lakay bet Olsim fights anew

F

ILIPINO Jenelyn Olsim goes after the hider of ThaiAmerican Grace Cleveland this Friday in a historic allfemale card One: Empower at the Singapore Stadium.

Olsim will only have a week’s rest heading into her duel with Cleveland, but is expected to be all fired up from her unanimous decision over Vietnamese Bi Nguyen in the One: Battleground 3 last Friday also in Singapore.

Team Lakay head coach Mark Sangiao expressed satisfaction after Olsim, 24, beat Bi Nguyen, telling an online news conference that his ward showed a lot of improvement.

But Sangiao said he expects the atomweight fight against Cleveland to be more difficult.

“I hope she competes in the finals because every time she gets closer, her improvement keeps showing and that’s her advantage,” Sangiao said. “She’s very eager to learn and her preparation is now 95 percent.”

Olsim (5-2 win-loss) said she was motivated against Bi but wants to become a better fighter especially on her technical game and wrestling skills.

“I’m really motivated after my fight with Nguyen but we need to prepare well for Cleveland,” she said.

Olsim banked on impeccable striking skills, particularly punching and counter-punching, in beating Bi in the three-round fight.

Josef Ramos

Sports

ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA is undergoing a “learning process.”

BusinessMirror

E

RNIE GAWILAN swam with all his might in the last 100 meters to wind up in sixth place in the men’s 400-meter freestyle-S7 event in the Tokyo Paralympics swimming championships at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre on Sunday.

Trailing in the seventh spot for most of the race, Gawilan made his move at halfway mark before going full throttle in the seventh lap, emerging from the pool as the first Filipino para swimmer to reach the finals of the quadrennial sportsfest featuring the best para athletes in the world.

He clocked four minutes and 56.24 seconds to finish 25.18 seconds behind Israel’s Mark Malyar, who led from start to finish in bagging his second gold medal in a new world record of 4:31.06, surpassing his previous mark of 4:33.62 in 2019.

Ukraine’s Andrii

B8

| Monday, August 30, 2021 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

PACQUIAO: I CAN STILL FIGHT

By Josef Ramos

T

HE writing on the wall says retirement is a better option, but reading fighting senator Manny Pacquiao between the lines, quitting is nowhere in the transcript, even by context.

“I can still fight the good fight,” said Pacquiao on Sunday.

Pacquiao gave BusinessMirror a call from his North Laurel BLVD residence in Los Angeles, California, as he and his family prepared to head for the airport to board a Philippine Airlines flight for home.

The 42-year-old ring icon said he has yet to decide if he would go for one more fight, challenge [Yordenis] Ugás for a rematch or retire from the sport that made him famous for good.

“I still have that competitive nature inside of me for more than 20 years. I can still fight competitively despite my age, he said. “I don’t have any problem with my body, but I haven’t decided yet if I will go for it [last fight].”

Pacquiao is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Cuban Ugás, who kept his World Boxing Association welterweight title in the duel two weekends ago at the

T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“I’m still in the planning stage,” Pacquiao said.

His battle scars could be gone by the time his plane lands in Manila on Monday, particularly his eyes which suffered the most from Ugás’s jabs and orthodox rights.

Pacquiao’s inner circle, however, are against a rematch with Ugás.

“I don’t like a rematch if you’ll ask me honestly.

It will be a dangerous fight for the senator,” Pacquiao’s long-time associate, US-based Filipino Greg Asuncion, said. “Remember, the Cuban just wanted to win by points because he respected Manny a lot. But in the second fight, it will be different and we don’t know what may happen because Ugás will be better prepared by then.”

“At his age, the senator still performed well in that fight despite the result but I’m against a rematch,” Asuncion added.

Sean Gibbons, president of Pacquiao’s boxing outfit MP Promotions is also against a rematch, saying both fighters have

MANNY PACQUIAO says he has yet to decide if he’ll go for a last fight. AP

contradicting style.

Pacquiao admitted he overtrained a week before the August 21 (August 22 in Manila) fight. He hit the University of Nevada, Las Vegas track a day before weigh-in, proof that he wanted to build on stamina only to find out at fight night that that didn’t work.

Manila Chooks TM returns to action in Montreal

T

HE Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas team will compete in the International Basketball Federation 3x3 World Tour Montreal Masters set this Saturday and Sunday in Canada.

This will be Manila Chooks TM’s second tournament this year after the Doha Masters last March 26.

The Manila Chooks TM of Mac Tallo, Zach Huang, Dennis Santos, newcomer Mark Yee and reserve Chico Lanete is seeded No. 11 in the 12-teams field in Montreal.

The anti-Messi I WONDER if Cristiano Ronaldo is the anti-Messi.

Just when Lionel Messi is in the news or is feted some recognition, the Portuguese footballer swoops in and all attention is on him. Of course, rightfully for his feats.

The two are actually friendly with each other. It’s just that the fans of each footballer who ferment this rivalry more so when they butted heads in the nine seasons that Ronaldo played for Real Madrid while Lionel Messi was

“The team is hungry to redeem itself,” Chooks-to-Go president Ronald Mascariñas said. “The players have been ready since May but unfortunately their Croatian visas did not make it in time for the Fiba 3x3 Lipik Challenger.”

“There have been a lot of challenges faced by the team brought about by the current pandemic but we are confident that frequent participation in the Fiba 3x3 pro circuit will only make the team stronger,” he added.

with Barcelona for 17 seasons.

But let’s give it to the fanboys and take a look at their head-to-head match-ups.

The two have for more than a decade competed for the title of the world’s best footballer with Messi winning six Ballon d’Or trophies to Ronaldo’s five.

In their match-ups that encompass La Liga, the UEFA Champions League, Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España, and international friendlies, Messi has a 16-9-11 win-draw-loss slate against the Portuguese player with 22 goals scored.

Obviously, Ronaldo has the reverse 9-11-16 slate against the Argentine but has scored 21 goals.

Then Ronaldo won the Euros in 2016.

Messi, who has had much success on club level, but very little to show for in international football, was pilloried for failing to bring Argentina glory.

But the then-Barcelona skipper guided Argentina to the 2021 Copa America. Although it was teammate Angel di Maria who scored the 1-nil winner over Brazil in the finals, Messi was feted for his tournament-long brilliance as he tallied four goals and five assists.

And he wasn’t done, he became the most capped Argentine with 151 international caps to his name.

The 34-year-old was rightfully handed the Golden

GAWILAN PUSHES HARD IN TOKYO

Because of the heightened quarantine in Luzon, head trainer Aldin Ayo limited team training to online sessions for the past month.

“With regards to conditioning, there will be no problem as we made sure that the players figured in high-intensity workouts,” Ayo said.

“The chemistry will also be there because the team has been together for three months already.”

The maximum level tournament offers a prize pool

“I could absolutely dominate him [Ugás] because he’s not moving, but I couldn’t move sideways because of tightness in my legs,” Pacquiao said.

“I didn’t expect that to happen.

I didn’t [estimate] my training routine properly, I sprinted a lot on the last day of my training.”

Pacquiao and his family and staff will be quarantined for 10 days at the Conrad Hotel in Pasay City. After that, he said he’ll buckle down to work as a senator.

“I will do what I usually do—help my fellow Filipinos all over the country especially the Covid-19 victims,” Pacquiao said. “I am still thankful also to the overwhelming support of the fans around the world for more than two decades. They are still there.”

He again said that he’ll announce his decision to run for president in May’s general elections next month.

Ugás, a 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medalist, improved to 27-4 win-loss record with 12 knockouts, while Pacquiao dropped to 67-8-2 win-loss-draw with 39 knockouts. of $110,000 with the champion bagging US$40,000.

World No. 2 Riga of Latvia headlines the field along with No. 4 Ub of Serbia, No. 7 Amsterdam of The Netherlands, No. 8 Antwerp of Belgium and No. 10 Edmonton of Canada.

Completing the field are USA’s Princeton, Switzerland’s Lausanne, Lithuania’s Raudondvaris, Canada’s Old Montreal, USA’s Omaha and one more team that will qualify through a Quest event.

The Manila Chooks TM members will have their RT-PCR tests on Tuesday and will leave the country the following day.

Ball Award. Now he was a winner of an international trophy for Argentina.

With Messi departing Barcelona for Paris St. Germain this season, the Argentine was in the world football news a lot.

While almost suddenly out of nowhere, Ronaldo is in the news. Well, major news.

At first, word circulated that he was joining Manchester City as incredible as it sounded. Then within a day or so, he was back to his old Premier League club, Manchester United.

With the Premier League the top domestic football league in terms of awareness and popularity, Ronaldo, especially if he leads the Red Devils to their first post-Alex Ferguson title, will be the toast of England and the football world.

That is a bigger story than perhaps PSG winning the Ligue 1. Now, if PSG wins the UEFA Champions League, that is another story.

Although England and France are separated by a channel, their proximity even post-Brexit will not fail to capture the imagination and of sportswriters.

The anti-Messi—and I say that half-jokingly and with much respect—is in the limelight again. Let the games begin.

Trusov (4:35.56) secured the silver and American Evan Austin (4:38.95) bagged the bronze.

“Intense! Hahaha. Finally, Ernie is the first para [Filipino] swimmer to get into the finals.

So happy naman kami with the outcome” noted coach Tony Ong of a feat of the Davao City pride, who bested by more than two seconds his qualifying time of 4:58.58 in the morning heats.

Wheelchair racer and Rio Paralympic veteran Jerrold Mangliwan was scheduled to compete late Sunday in the men’s 1,500-meter-T52 finals to cap the day’s Philippine campaign in Tokyo backed by the Philippine Sports Commission.

Gawilan’s accomplishment softened somewhat the sad news that discus thrower Jeanette Aceveda and athletic coach Bernard Buen tested positive for Covid-19 and were now quarantined just a few days before the athlete’s event on Tuesday.

“We are sad to share the news that our para athletic discus thrower Jeanette Aceveda and her coach, Bernard Buen, tested positive for Covid-19 after undergoing the mandatory saliva antigen test followed by a confirmatory RT-PCR test at the Tokyo Paralympic Athletic Village,” Philippine Paralympic Committee president Mike Barredo said in a statement.

“Both [Aceveda and Buen] will be brought to an outside quarantine facility in compliance with the Paralympic playbook,” Barredo said.

“Jeanette is greatly disappointed that she will have to withdraw from her event scheduled for August 31.

Although she would not be able to fulfill her dream to compete in the Paralympics and represent the Philippines, she still hopes that there will be more chances to make this come true in the future,” he said.

ERNIE GAWILAN is the first Filipino para swimmer to reach the Paralympics finals. AP