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Wednesday, August 31, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 326
Govt to allow ‘endo’ in some industries T
By Cai U. Ordinario
n
@cuo_bm
he national government will draft a list of industry sectors that will be allowed to continue hiring contractual workers, according to the chief of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
1.336M The number of nonregular Filipino employees in 2014
In a budget hearing at the Senate on Tuesday, Neda Director General Ernesto M. Pernia said the government may not be able See “Endo,” A2
INSIDE
QUESTIONS ON 5G’s IMPACT ON HEALTH RAISED
LIFE
BusinessMirror
SAGA OF SUCCESS The Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Memorabilia Museum Saga of Success was inaugurated on Tuesday on the
MACTAn Island
fourth floor of Dominga Building III in Makati City. Gracing the event were (from left) D. Arnold A. Cabangon, president of FortuneLife; D. Edgard A. Cabangon, chairman of Aliw Media Group; J. Wilfredo A. Cabangon, FortuneCare chairman; Bienvenida Cabangon Chua, wife of the late Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua; D. Alfred A. Cabangon, chairman of Citystate Bank; and D. Edward A. Cabangon, president of ALC Realty. NONIE REYES
MACTAn Island aerial shot
I
N the past, the city of LapuLapu was known as the place where local chieftain—the city’s namesake, Lapu-Lapu—defeated and killed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, putting on hold Spain’s ambition to colonize the Philippine islands for another 40 or so years.
to high-end hotels and beach resorts? Lapu-Lapu City offers these. In fact, the city government reported in 2015 that the number of business establishments in the city surged to approximately 12,000 in 2014, compared to about 7,000 logged in 2010, according to a report published in The Freeman. In addition, the local government reported that the city’s revenue surged 50 percent to P1.4 billion, from P927 million in 2010. Lapu-Lapu City’s mayor was quoted as saying: “The sharp rise, she said, is the result of the taxes paid by companies doing business in the city because of its rosy economic prospects.”
LAPu-LAPu City Monument
It has an impeccable transport infrastructure.
MARCELO Fernan Bridge in Mactan
Today, the city is known for quite different reasons. Although much of the natural beauty of Mactan Island, where Lapu-Lapu City is located, has been retained over the centuries, it looks that the place is looking very optimistically into the future. Lamudi Philippines has put together five reasons Lapu-Lapu City is the next business and tourism hot spot in Cebu province and the Central Visayas region, and the exciting future that awaits the city.
It is home to the country’s second-busiest airport
For years the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, which is under the jurisdiction of Lapu-Lapu City, has been Central Visayas’s gateway to the rest of the Philippines. However, this airport, which handled 7.78 million passengers in 2015, is also fast becoming Cebu’s gateway to the rest of the world. regular scheduled flights operate from the Mactan airport to other major cities in Asia, such as Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Dubai. But just
LAPu-LAPu Shrine Mactan
recently, flag carrier Philippine Airlines has started operating daily nonstop flights from the airport to Los Angeles, a testament to LapuLapu City’s, and indeed, the rest of Cebu province’s position as a favorite Philippine destination by foreign visitors. To keep up with increasing passenger number, the Mactan airport is currently undergoing a major upgrade. Construction of the airport’s Terminal 2 is on track for a June 2018 delivery, according to GMrMegawide Cebu Airport Corp. in an article published in SunStar Cebu. The new terminal will serve all the airport’s international flights and will have an area of about 45,000 square meter, which can be expanded further in a succeeding development phase. The old terminal, meanwhile, is currently being refurbished and will eventually handle all domestic flights.
showed that tourist arrivals in Central Visayas reached 3.5 million for the first 10 months of 2015. According to the DoT, Cebu province, as a whole, accounted for 64 percent and 84 percent of total domestic and foreign arrivals, respectively, to Central Visayas. This amounts to approximately 2.5 million tourists during the 10-month period. In addition, Lapu-Lapu City lodged majority of foreign tourists to the province, while Cebu City registered most of local visitors. So what makes Lapu-Lapu City popular to tourists? According to Hembler Mendoza, the city’s chief tourism officer, aside from an international airport, Lapu-Lapu City is also home to at least 11 marine sanctuaries, bird and other wildlife sanctuaries, white-sand beaches, high-end hotels and resorts, and world-class dive sites. The city also offers leisure attractions not found in other parts of Cebu province, such as sunrise tours aboard a yacht and flight adventures, not to mention that there are 79 hospitality establishments in the city (and one
on olango Island) offering approximately 5,000 room inventories.
Its competitiveness ranking is improving
ASIDe from the Mactan airport, road travel within Lapu-Lapu City and the whole Mactan Island is quick and easy. Major thoroughfares encircle the entire periphery of island, while it is also connected to Mandaue in mainland Cebu via two bridges: osmeña Bridge and Marcelo Fernan Bridge. And to ease traffic congestion on these two bridges, especially during rush hour, a third bridge is now being proposed, this time will connect the town of Cordova south of Lapu-Lapu City to Cebu City on the mainland. The city is also much less prone to flooding during the monsoon season compared to Cebu and Mandaue. In fact, heavy rains brought about Habagat (southwest monsoon) in July of this year caused major floods of up to 2 feet in Cebu City’s busiest areas, but Lapu-Lapu City was virtually unaffected.
It is one of the most-searched locations in Lamudi
DATA from Lamudi Philippines shows that Lapu-Lapu City is one of the most searched locations for properties in the Central Visayas region (and second to Cebu City, which has more inventory and higher population base). But what’s noteworthy is that combined search volumes for houses and condos (both for sale and for rent) for Lapu-Lapu City increased 21 percent from the first quarter to the second quarter of 2016. In addition, looking at compound average growth rate (CAGr) using search data from the first six months of 2016, condos for sale
signs of trouble It is Central Visayas’s major tourism driver
An article published in The Freeman cited data from the Department of Tourism (DoT), which
B
ACK in 1972, the Robles-Santos clan, including the siblings Buenaventura Robles and Marcela Robles-Santos, along with their spouses Dominga Dumandan-Robles and Felipe G. Santos, created a company named Buen Mar Realty. Two years later, in 1974 came the birth of Sta. Lucia Realty. The main focus of the company was to acquire vast land and turn it into residential communities that cater to the middle-class families. The strategy of the company was to find strategic locations with areas that have good urban planning, which brought
great advantage to their clientele. Four decades later, the family-owned company, which is now Sta. Lucia Realty Group, through Sta. Lucia Land Inc. (SLI), is considered as one of the Philippines biggest real-estate developers in terms of combined land area (totalling 10,000 hectares )—a diversified realestate portfolio and strong balance sheet. SLI is now expanding its business further to condotels and residential developments, such as Residenze, Arterra Residences, La Breza and Soto Grande in Katipunan, as well as resort and leisure projects similar to its lake-side communities in Iloilo and Davao. SLI has also developed some major projects, including Splendido Taal
NOVAK DJOKOVIC gets medical attention during his first round match against Jerzy Janowicz. AP
Golf and Country Club, Orchard Golf and Country Club, Eagle Ridge Golf and Country Club. As business progress, the company had invested with their own Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall in Cainta and, as part of their expansion, they are planning on selling shares in the future, according to David de la Cruz, EVP and chief financial officer who has years of experience, innovative thinking and the foresight of its top management with the firm through economic upheavals. Recently at the Romulo’s Café in Makati City, SLI introduced versatile actress Bea Alonzo, who was named the brand ambassador for Sta. Lucia. Now on her second year, Alonzo said, “I only endorse products and
It has a buoyant local economy
WHere else in Cebu province will you find a diverse range of businesses, where business-process outsourcing (BPo) offices sit close
N
The Associated Press
EW YORK—Novak Djokovic double-faulted, then shook his right arm and grimaced. Seconds later on Monday night, a weak serve produced a wince from the US Open defending champion, then was followed by a missed forehand that gave away a set—the first set dropped by Djokovic in the first round of any Grand Slam tournament since 2010. While he managed to emerge with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Jerzy Janowicz of Poland, there were plenty of signs of trouble, starting with a visit from a trainer who massaged Djokovic’s bothersome arm after only five games. Asked about his health during an on-court interview, Djokovic deflected the question, saying, “I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about this now. I’m through. I’m taking it day by day.” When the subject arose at his news conference, Djokovic
STA. Lucia Land Inc. (SLI) CEO and President Exequiel Robles (from left), SLI brand ambassador Bea Alonzo, and SLI Chairman Vicente Santos
Sports
Public-health sector, families bear brunt of Duterte’s war on drugs
companies na pinaniniwalaan ko—and Sta. Lucia is one of them,” she said. Alonzo is a proud owner of one of Sta. Lucia’s properties. She has always been happy to experience good client care from Sta. Lucia and now she is also an investor in one of their condo-hotel situated in Tagaytay. “There is no limit to how much growth a company can reach. Our dynamism is here to stay and I would not limit growth to a few statistics. We have a lot of projects—our goal should be and has always been to achieve client satisfaction and to introduce new opportunities and development concepts,” said Exequiel Robles, CEO and president Sta. Lucia Group.
C1
| Wednesday, august 31, 2016 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao Asst. Editor: Joel Orellana
OF TROUBLE
again avoided addressing the topic, saying the trainer’s visit “was just prevention; it’s all good.” During the match, Djokovic hit first serves around 100 mph, sometimes slower—25 mph or so below what’s normal for him. He hit second serves in the low 80s mph. He flexed that right arm, the one he has used to wield a racket on the way to 12 Grand Slam titles, and appeared generally unhappy, covering his head with a white towel at changeovers. Djokovic’s coach, Boris Becker, gnawed on his fingernails, looking nervous as can be. All in all, Djokovic’s issues figure to loom large as the tournament progresses, and therefore amounted to the most noteworthy development at Flushing Meadows, even if there were results of interest elsewhere. Those included No. 8-seeded Madison Keys’s 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2 comeback victory over 60th-ranked Alison Riske in the last match of the night. It finished at 1:48 a.m., well after Keys took a medical time-out while a trainer worked on her right shoulder in the second set, and extended Riske’s Grand
Slam losing streak to 10 matches. That was one of three intriguing all-American contests on Monday. The others were 20th-seeded John Isner’s comeback from two sets down to edge 18-year-old Frances Tiafoe before a rowdy, standing-room-only crowd at the new Grandstand, and 26th-seeded Jack Sock’s five-set victory over another 18-year-old, Taylor Fritz. More drama, too: A first-round loss by Rio Olympics gold medalist Monica Puig, and French Open champion Garbine Muguruza’s complaints about having trouble breathing after dropping the first set of a match she would go on to win in three. This was the No. 1-ranked Djokovic’s first match at a major since losing to Sam Querrey in the third round of Wimbledon, which ended the Serb’s bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam after titles at the Australian Open and French Open. He exited the Rio Olympics in the first round this month, then sat out the Cincinnati Masters because of a sore left wrist. “After all I’ve been through in the last couple of weeks, it’s pleasing, of course, to finish the match and win it,” said Djokovic,
who lost to his next opponent, Jiri Vesely, at Monte Carlo in April. “Look, each day presents us some kind of challenges that we need to overcome, accept and overcome.” The wrist appeared to be just fine against Janowicz, a former top-20 player who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2013 and is now ranked 247th after his own series of injuries. Earlier in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Rafael Nadal stood near the net after winning his first Grand Slam match in three months—6-1, 6-4, 6-2 against Denis Istomin—and unraveled the thick wrap of white tape protecting his all-important left wrist. He said he’s still not back to hitting his forehand the way he does when he’s at his best. Nadal’s afternoon match was played with the new $150-million retractable roof open under a blue sky, while offering some extra shade on a day when the temperature reached 90 degrees. The good news for Nadal, he said afterward, is that the pain is gone from his wrist, which whips those violent, topspin-heavy forehands that are the key to his success—14
By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
of his 21 winners came off that wing. The bad news for Nadal? He still is working on feeling comfortable hitting downthe-line forehands, in particular, after sitting out—not just zero real matches, but barely any practice, either—from his withdrawal at the French Open in late May to the Olympics. “Not easy to go 2½ months out of competition, in the middle of the season, without hitting a forehand,” Nadal said. “I need to have the confidence again with my wrist.” Both Nadal and his coach, Uncle Toni, described the way Rafael changed the way he hits a forehand during the Rio Games to try to avoid pain. Both said things are improving. But as Toni noted: “We need a little time.” Istomin, ranked 107th, was not likely to give Nadal much of a test. So what did he think of Nadal’s play on Monday? “For the first set, I was feeling that he was not hitting hard,” Istomin said. “A lot of short balls.” Nadal’s summation of his day: “Not very good; not very bad.”
F
Olympic gold medalist bombs out in 1st round
CHRISTINA MCHALE aims for US Open success. AP
MONICA PUIG realizes that if she wants to climb back to those heights, she’ll need to figure out this sort of turnaround. AP
CONFIDENT CHRISTINA
N
EW YORK—Since Christina McHale won a first-set tiebreaker against her idol Serena Williams at Wimbledon last month, she’s played three tournaments and World Team Tennis to prepare for the US Open. Before considering a rematch, McHale needs to defeat first-round opponent Mona Barthel of Germany on Monday. McHale hasn’t advanced past the third round of a Grand Slam, but her confidence grew after a 6-7 (7), 6-2, 6-4 loss to the eventual Wimbledon champion, who earned a recordtying 22nd major singles title. “There were a lot of positives I took from my Serena match,” McHale said. “The first and most important for me being that I can compete with the best. That match has really motivated me to keep working and improving.” McHale served well early and kept Williams off balance in winning the tiebreaker during the second-round match at Wimbledon. In the second set, McHale went up 40-15 on serve, with two chances to take a 3-0 lead. But she double-faulted and Williams ran off 11 straight points. McHale also double-faulted on a game point and Williams attacked her second serves to break for 5-4. It was a lesson in thought management for the 24-yearold McHale. “You think about the big picture all of a sudden,” Billie Jean King said. “Your brain goes from one ball at a time to, ‘Oh crap, I’m up playing for 3-0 and I’m up a set already. I should win this.’”
McHale played nearly every day for two weeks in early August for the New York Empire in the World TeamTennis league cofounded by King. The tennis great knows it’s important to stay focused and relaxed during critical points. “Serena talks about being in the zone,” King said. “Everybody understands that means stay in the present and be in the now. It sounds so easy. Before the point is how you tee it up and get ready. Seventy-five percent of the time in the match, you are not hitting a ball.” McHale started playing tennis in Hong Kong, where she lived from age 3 to 8 and learned to speak Mandarin. She also was a competitive swimmer growing up in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. She turned pro in 2010, and last year, she moved to South Florida to train at the US Tennis Association National Tennis Center in Boca Raton. Her older sister Lauren graduated from North Carolina, where she played tennis for the Tar Heels. Lauren is engaged to American tennis player Ryan Harrison. Christina reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 24 in 2012. She’s coached by Jorge Todero, who has guided her the last five years. McHale has posted wins over former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki and Grand Slam champions Victoria Azarenka, Petra Kvitova and Svetlana Kuznetsova. “He’s gotten me to use my forehand more,” McHale said of the Argentine. “I try to hit as many forehands as I can, go to my strength in the pressure moments.”
She’s currently ranked 55th with a 31-20 record this year. Her first-serve percentage is just 59 percent, with 64 percent of those points won. She’s had 119 aces and 136 double-faults. After Wimbledon, McHale upset eighth-seeded Monica Niculescu at the Citi Open in Washington in mid-July. She then lost to Jessica Pegula, daughter of Buffalo Bills and Sabres owners Terry and Kim Pegula, 7-5, 6-2. She bowed out in the second round in Montreal at the Rogers Cup, but joined Asia Muhammad to defeat the topranked doubles team of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza, 6-3, 6-4, in the quarterfinals before losing in the semifinals. McHale, who recently reached the second round in Cincinnati, is among 19 American women in the US Open. Next up is Barthel, who she beat in matchups in Seoul in 2014 and Madrid in 2015. If McHale gets past her, she’ll play the winner of Roberta Vinci vs. Anna-Lena Friedsam. Vinci took out Williams in the semifinals of the US Open last year, ending the quest for a calendar-year Grand Slam. Patrick McEnroe, who coached the Empire and McHale, calls her “a grinder.” “She’s right there. I’ve always been impressed with her work ethic,” said McEnroe, who previously helped McHale while leading the USTA player developmental program. “From the first time I saw her, she’s really been committed to putting in the work to be the best she can be.”
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EW YORK—Sure, Monica Puig would have loved another week between the Olympics and the US Open to “come down from the high” of becoming Puerto Rico’s first gold medalist. Then again, that’s not how the tennis calendar works. Puig realizes that if she wants to climb back to those heights, she’ll need to figure out this sort of turnaround. For now, she’s a 22-year-old who was seeded 32nd at the US Open and lost her first-round match in straight sets. Zheng Saisai, ranked 61st, upset Puig, 6-4, 6-2, on Monday. “These are new waters for me, new territory,” Puig said. “I’m going to have to start getting used to it.” She noted that Angelique Kerber, the player she beat in the gold-medal match, was able to come right back from a draining run in Rio de Janeiro to reach the final at Cincinnati. Kerber, in contrast, is 28 and an Australian Open champ and Wimbledon runner-up this year. “She’s been there,” Puig said. “She knows what it’s like. She knows she’s No. 2 in the world. She’s tested the waters out a little bit. “I’m brand new to this.” And back when Kerber was brand new to being a major champion just a few months ago, she lost in the first round of her next Grand Slam. Garbine Muguruza, also 22, struggled as well following her French Open title.
“A lot of people go through this,”Puig said. “It’s not just me.” She upset Kerber, Muguruza and a third major champ, Petra Kvitova, on her stunning run to gold. Less than a week ago, Puig was in Puerto Rico, riding in a parade with other Olympians through streets packed with admirers—her victory a joyous respite from the island’s economic crisis. Then it was back to the grind of tennis. When she took the court on Monday, with plenty of Puerto Rican fans cheering her on, she knew she wouldn’t be viewed as the player who has never made it past the fourth round at a major or the second round at the US Open. “A lot of pressure, a lot of expectation,” Puig said. “Once it starts becoming a little bit more of a habit,” she added, “then I’ll feel comfortable.” Zheng, another 22-year-old, upset Agnieszka Radwanska at the Olympics. She’ll be seeking to reach the third round at a Grand Slam for the first time when she faces 59th-ranked Kateryna Bondarenko. And Puig will get back to working on how to start making some magical runs at the majors. “I need to keep racking up as much experience as I can,” Puig said. “You know what? This isn’t going to be the last of me. I know I’m going to keep working hard. The Olympics was something that happened because of all my hard work.” AP
sports
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SIGNS By Howard Fendrich
What the future holds
InDeeD, Lapu-Lapu is a city that, while deeply rooted to its past, is looking positively into the future. Its population grew an average 2.94 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to data from the Philippine Statistical Authority, and now stands at 408,112, according to the 2015 census. This growth may in part be attributed to the city’s remarkable economic performance. over the next few years, the city will see the opening of BPo offices, mixeduse townships and resort-oriented developments, which will bring in more employment opportunities to the citizens of Lapu-Lapu City. And these developments are even more visible in the city’s Punta engaño section and neighboring areas, a peninsula jutting out from Mactan Island’s northeastern corner. This area is where many of the city’s most upscale resorts and developments are located, including Discovery Bay resorts and residences, Shangri-La’s Mactan resort and Spa, Mövenpick Hotel and Megaworld Corp.’s Mactan newtown. These new developments are, perhaps, one reason many consider relocating to Lapu-Lapu City, as shown by data from Lamudi for the first six months of 2016. Most of searches for Lapu-Lapu properties are not coming from LapuLapu itself, but from other places. Data from Lamudi shows that 35 percent of search volume for LapuLapu properties originated from neighboring Cebu City, while 8.2 percent and 5.5 percent of searches came from Quezon City and Makati City, respectively. In addition, and although still small, 1.24 percent, 1.02 percent and 0.88 percent of the total search volume for LapuLapu City originated from online property-hunters based in Dubai, Singapore and Sydney, respectively. This shows that real estate in Lapu-Lapu, particularly houses and condos, are becoming popular not only among Cebu-based property-hunters but also among those based in Metro Manila and in other countries. Whether this will continue into the future remains to be seen, but highly likely, given how progressive Lapu-Lapu City is becoming.
PROPERTY
LAPu-LAPu is also the only highly urbanized city in Cebu province whose competitiveness ranking has improved, according to the national Competitiveness Council (nCC). From the 23rd place in 2015, Lapu-Lapu City moved up to the 21st spot among all highly urbanized cities in the Philippines, while its overall ranking when all Philippine cities are considered surged to 39th in 2016 from the 70th position in 2015. According to the nCC, the categories in which Lapu-Lapu City excels include presence of investment promotions unit, availability of utilities and compliance to national directives to local government units.
Alonzo continues as Sta. Lucia ambassador By Jacqueline Salvador-Marvida
and condos for rent have the highest growth rate in search volume, at 9.69 percent and 10.91 percent, respectively.
c1
Teddy Locsin Jr.
free fire
T
WO Sundays ago Monsignor Gerry gave a sermon against extrajudicial killings. He mentioned the answer of Bishop David to Manny Pacquiao’s defense of the death penalty upon scriptural authority. But Bishop David studied scriptural theology in Louvain—the MIT of Theology.
Continued on A10
THE PLACE THAT PUT THE PHL ON THE WORLD MAP
The place that put the Philippines on the world map
Needs expanding
After Mass I went to Monsignor to ask him how to access David’s answer. He asked why. I said I had answered Pacquiao on Twitter but briefly. How brief? he asked in an ecclesiastical tone. I said I called him an idiot. The priest did not say it, but his look said more: my answer needed expanding. He e-mailed me Bishop David’s answer.
D1
E1 | Wednesday, August 24, 2016 • Editor: Tet Andolong
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Conclusion
URNITURE and appliances business owner Melanie, not her real name, thought her son Daniel will change once he has a family of his own. After being released from a facility for drug rehabilitation in 10 months, Daniel offered to help in the family business by taking care of deliveries. But after collections were getting short, Melanie suspected her son has gone back to abusing narcotics. She hoped she was wrong when Daniel, not his real name, got married. Continued on A2
PESO exchange rates n US 46.3490
₧1 billion
The amount expected by the Department of Health, to come from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., for the establishment of treatment and rehabilitation centers for an estimated 1.8 million drug dependents in the country
Catastrophe pool insurance shelved By David Cagahastian
T
@davecaga
he proposed mandatory catastrophe insurance for all households and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) has been shelved, an official of the Insurance Commission (IC) said. IC Deputy Commissioner Vida T. Chiong said the proposal was dropped on Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III’s opposition to the draft executive order seeking to impose a mandatory insurance coverage during natural calamities, such as earthquake and floods, for real properties all over the country. “The last time that I heard of it from [Insurance] Commissioner [Emmanuel F. Dooc], Secretary Dominguez is against it,” Chiong told the BusinessMirror. Chiong said Dominguez was particularly against the mandatory nature of the proposed catastrophe insurance.
Without an endorsement from the secretary of finance, we can’t go forward with it.”—Chiong
According to the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association (Pira), the mandatory coverage for all households is necessary to allow the insurance pool to gain enough volume and make it sustainable, amid the huge risks for losses on claims due to earthquakes and floods. Pira is the proponent of the said catastrophe insurance and it helped the IC draft the proposed executive order. See “Catastrophe,” A2
n japan 0.4549 n UK 60.7357 n HK 5.9763 n CHINA 6.9345 n singapore 34.0927 n australia 35.0723 n EU 51.8645 n SAUDI arabia 12.3624
Source: BSP (30 August 2016 )
BMReports BusinessMirror
A2 Wednesday, August 31, 2016
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Public-health sector, families bear brunt of Duterte’s war on drugs Continued from A1
“Pero hindi pa rin. Naging palaasa na; kahit sa apo ko, lahat, ako na ang gumastos, [But he didn’t change for the better and became dependent on me for money. I spent for his children, for everything],” Melanie said. According to Melanie, Daniel’s family stayed with her. “Minsan nag-away silang mag-asawa at doon ko natuklasan na dalawa na pala silang mag-asawa ang gumagamit. Ang apo ko na nasa limang taon pa lang noon [One time I heard them quarrelling and discovered both of them were abusing illegal drugs. My grandchild was only five at that time].” Melanie decided to buy a new house and brought her grandson to live with her. Her two other sons were already studying in Manila.
Doubts
MELANIE said her trust in Daniel was eroded with her son’s consistent lying. One afternoon, Daniel went inside her office and asked her for money he said he would use to put up a business. “I doubted him. I just made an excuse that there was no available money I could give him at that time,” Melanie told the BusinessMirror. “But what surprised me is his answer: ‘Then sell the house. You no longer live there. It’s too big for me and Linda [his wife]. I refused.” She admitted that even if she left Daniel on his own she would still provide for the groceries and pay the water and electricity bills. Daniel’s wife is working as an office staff. “Nahirapan din ako. Minsan wala naman masyadong benta. Mabuti na lang marami ring kaibigan na tumutulong sa akin at ipinagdarasal ako. [Life was not easy for me. Sometimes sales were few and far between. Luckily, I have friends who helped me and prayed for me].”
‘Endo’. . .
Continued from A1
to fully implement its “no endo [end of contractualization]” policy. Pernia told the BusinessMirror that the government will specify which sectors may continue to hire contractual employees. These may include industries that deal with seasonal
Arrrest
WHAT Melanie feared the most happened. Last year the authorities raided the house where Daniel was staying. The police caught Daniel and his friends using illegal drugs. Daniel and his three friends are still in jail for drug offenses and are facing charges of violating Sections 5 and 12 of Republic Act 9165, or Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. “It is really very painful on my part, because as a mother, you only want the best for your children,” Melanie said adding she still hopes Daniel will be cured of his addiction. “Tumatanda na ako. Paano na lang siya kapag nawala na ako, [I’m getting old. What would happen to him if I die],” she said, wiping her right eye before a tear dropped.
Money
IF Melanie can afford the rehabilitation of his son, it’s a different story for Elvie, 50, who works as a technician. When his 18-year-old son Ivan was jailed for possession of illegal drugs, Elvie faced a conundrum: pay bail or feed her six other children. Being a single mother, Elvie opted for the latter. “Siguro dahil nababarkada at doon nakahanap ng masasandalan dahil halos minsan lang kami kumakain [I guess he stayed with friends he can rely on for times when we really cannot afford a meal],” she told the BusinessMirror. However, Elvie said Ivan began selling things to support his addiction: clothes iron, electric fan, newly bought clothes and shoes. After serving his sentence, Ivan was brought by Elvie to a relative who is very religious. Her relative’s guidance, as well as a life in prison, helped jar Ivan to his senses, according to Elvie. “Natakot [siya] na makulong ulit. Ayaw na rin niya balikan ang buhay niya sa kulungan. work, such as construction. “I think we cannot do away with contractualization in general. What we have to do away with is the practice of endo, which is to escape having to pay Christmas bonuses and other benefits to workers,” he said during the hearing. If the government ends the practice of endo, Pernia expects this to have a positive impact on the productivity of
[He fears going back to prison. He said he doesn’t want to return to jail].”
Motivation
PHYSICIAN Clara Fuderanan said money remains the main problem of families seeking rehabilitation services for a member. Fuderanan, head of a Department of Health (DOH) unit addressing drug abuse, said they have patients who took illegal drugs to be able to work longer than eight hours. “Para walang pagod pag nagtatrabaho, [gumagamit sila]. Pero kung pumasok sa rehab, ang iisipin ng tao paano na ang pamilya. [They take drugs to numb their body during work. Spending for rehabilitation, hence, is major consideration because they would be concerned where the family would get a source of income when the member is admitted to a facility],” said Fuderanan, who heads the DOH-Special Concerned Technical Cluster-Dangerous Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Program. Services of privately-owned rehabilitation facilities are estimated by Fuderanan to cost from P20,000 to P30,000 per month. The services include psychological and psychiatric evaluation, counseling and healing sessions, sports and recreational activities, therapy sessions and aftercare support groups, among others.
She said money, mainly the lack of it, is also a major factor that causes patients to relapse during the recovery period. Myrna Lopez-Roces of the Philippine Psychiatric Association said it is very important that the family will give not only financial, but moral support to the patient. “It is also important to let them [patients] know or remember their inner strength,” Roces said. She cautioned, however, it would be very difficult for the patient to regain the trust of the family.
Procedure
FUDERANAN said for indigent patients, DOH-operated facilities tap the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) for skills training. “We really want to help them so that when they reintegrate into society they will have work,” Fuderanan said, adding it is also important for the family to undergo family counseling to determine what triggered the patient to take illegal drugs.
GOVERNMENT health officials said after surrendering to the police and being profiled, a drug user will be referred to the city or municipal health officer for initial assessment. The drug user will then be referred to doctors accredited by the Department of Health (DOH) and were trained on how to deal with users of illegal drugs, who will be considered patients. Patients who need an addiction-rehabilitation program will then be recommended to a rehabilitation center. The patient will choose either being admitted to a government-run center or a private facility. Fuderanan said the aftercare session will last six months but not more than eight months. “Wala silang pamasahe. So dito na pumapasok ang DSWD [Department of Social Welfare and Development] para mabigyan sila ng pamasahe para bumalik sa session sa rehab center [They don’t have cab fare. The DSWD would provide them money so they can attend their session at the rehabilitation center].” According to Health Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial, the fund to address rehabilitation of drug dependents would come from the present budget of the DOH, as well as the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor). Ubial said they are eyeing around P1 bil-
workers nationwide. Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) President George T. Barcelon told the BusinessMirror that more than seasonal work, there are also time-bound businesses that will need to continue hiring workers on a contractual basis. Industries hiring workers on a seasonal basis include construction and services, such as restaurants and hotels, while
time-bound employment include projectbased work. Barcelon said implementing a no-endo policy would result in the loss of jobs. This includes workers who prefer signing two- to three-year contracts. “The PCCI position has always been that we encourage regularization. Endo is really against the law,” Barcelon said. “But the government has to clearly define the
Support
lion from Pagcor to establish treatment and rehabilitation centers for an estimated 1.8 million drug dependents in the country.
Tesda
THE Tesda recently announced it is opening its training centers all over the country to help drug dependents and dealers get hooked on a different addiction—skills training. “This is in response to reports that convicts and inmates resort to their old trades after serving time in jail because they have no other means of livelihood,” said Guiling Mamondiong, the newly appointed Tesda director general. Mamondiong said he has directed the agency’s regional and provincial directors to coordinate with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the implementation of the initiative. “We will work hand in hand with the DILG and the PNP in identifying the beneficiaries and the skills training that may be available to them,” he said. “This is one way of helping them get clean and stay clean,” the new Tesda chief added. Mamondiong said the Duterte administration’s war on drugs should not only involve stamping out the drug syndicates and pushers but should also be comprehensive in nature. This nature, Mamondiong said, involves rehabilitation of those who desire a new life. Introducing them to skills training, he added, will tap their potentials and make them realize their value to their families and to society. “When armed with skills and the opportunity to be engaged in livelihood or get employed and earn money, these drug users and pushers will be transformed,” Mamondiong said. He added that, sometimes, all the people in distress needs is another chance. term contractualization.” President Duterte has vowed to end job contractualization, in keeping with his campaign promise. If the Duterte administration ends contractualization, ManpowerGroup Solutions earlier said 30 percent of the Philippine work force, which subscribe to contract labor, will be affected by the measure. ManpowerGroup Solutions said the most affected will be the construction sector where 71 percent of employees are considered end-of-contract workers. However, overall, ManpowerGroup Solutions said the impact will be minimal, especially if employers have the “right mix” of workers in their company. The Philippine labor force has struggled with low productivity for many years. Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data showed that in 2014, the year-onyear growth of labor productivity in the country slowed to 2.7 percent, from 5.6 percent in 2013. “It could motivate workers, they could be more motivated to increase their productivity on the other hand,” Pernia said. In 2014 PSA data showed over a million Filipino workers did not hold regular positions in their companies. Based on a report, titled “Statistics on Non-Regular Workers,” PSA said 1.336 million workers were considered nonregular employees in 2014. This translates to some 29.9 percent of all 4.472 million workers employed in establishments with 20 or more workers. Nonregular workers are composed of contractual/project-based workers, probationary workers, casual employees seasonal employees and apprentices/learners.
Catastrophe. . . Continued from A1
Chiong said the earlier endorsement of Dominguez’s predecessor, former Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima, is no longer valid, and the draft executive order will require Dominguez’s endorsement before it could reach President Duterte’s desk. Dooc, who earlier pushed for the enactment of the draft executive order, still supports the said mandatory catastrophe pool insurance, but the opposition from the Department of Finance effectively shelves the proposal. “It was already up for signature during the previous administration, but without an endorsement from the secretary of finance, we can’t go forward with it,” Chiong said.
BMReports BusinessMirror
A3 Wednesday, August 31, 2016
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Grant of emergency powers faces delays
T
By Lorenz S. Marasigan & Butch Fernandez
@lorenzmarasigan @butchfBM
ransportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade lamented on Tuesday that implementing his solutions to the traffic mess in Metro Manila may face delays should lawmakers fail to grant President Duterte and his department so-called emergency powers.
Tugade issued the statement as Sen. Grace Poe on Tuesday said she will not reconvene the Senate Public Services Committee hearings until Cabinet officials identify and provide details of the projects proposed to be covered by President Duterte’s emergency powers being sought from Congress by Malacañang. Poe said senators are unlikely to issue virtual “blank checks” for an unseen list of traffic-mitigation projects to be paid for by taxpayers and commuters Clarif y ing the committee’s consensus to first review the list, Poe said the committee “will hold off hearings in the meantime, u nt i l a f ter det a i led subm is sions” from the Department of Transportation (DOTr). The senator pointed out that while the Executive branch is “in a hurry to pass the emergency powers bill, based on our hearings, we have learned that the DOTr and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority have yet to come up with concrete projects under the emergency powers bill.”
Compliance
emergency powers are needed at this point in time. One is that we are losing P2.4 billion a day because of traffic and transportation costs —and that is not even counting the expenses on health because of traffic,” Tugade said. Estimates by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) showed that losses due to traffic costs will balloon to P6 billion a day come 2030, should congestion in Metro Manila persist as it is today. Second is that the Filipino value of family ties is being severed by the congestion. “Instead of spending time with their families, Filipinos spend most of their time waiting for a ride to work and vice versa,” Tugade said. Third is that foreign interest in the Philippines is being diminished due to issues on logistics. “What we are expected to do is nothing new. Most of them are borrowed after what has been formulated by previous administration, but we want to inject political will to it,” Tugade said. The special powers will not only cover the hasty procurement of supplies, it will also grant the transportation department the authority to create a single body to implement transport rules and regulations. Currently, there are three entities that handle traffic in Metro Manila: the MMDA, the Highway Patrol Group, and local government units. “When you have multiple people involved in traffic, you will have different rules for the same thing. And what does it breed? It breeds confusion on the road. It just plants the seeds of a traffic mess,” Tugade said, citing, for example, the inconsistent number-coding scheme of different cities and municipalities in Metro Manila.
Tugade acknowledged, however, that his camp may have to submit the documents to the Senate soon to allay fearful solons that such special powers may lead to corruption and abuse. “We have to make a submission to satisfy lawmakers fully, and that they would grant us the emergency powers without hesitation. I want to submit the documents tomorrow [Wednesday],” he said. Tugade assured stakeholders his agency will never abuse the special powers when granted. “It is subject to special conditions, wherein it cannot be abused. It is good for two years only, and both houses of Congress have an oversight function. People can still go for regress to the Supreme Court, and we will be FOI-compliant on projects,” he said, referring to the Freedom of Information (FOI) order signed by President Duterte early in his term. W it h e m e r g e n c y p o w e r s , Tugade said his agency will be able to fast-track the implementation of much-needed reforms in the transportation sector. “The change we want to paint is the platform of political will which we can use by having the special power,” he said. Tugade also cited issues on procurement as one of the issues that will be easily resolved when the agency is granted special powers.
Tugade also mentioned issues pertaining to the supply of licenses and plates, the common railway station, passage through exclusive villages and bus stations along Edsa. “To resolves issues like these, let us have special powers, so we can move forward,” he said. The transport chief also assured that the effects of the emergency powers will be felt not in three years, but in a matter of months. “Right now, without the special powers, you can feel the effects of our reforms, what more if we get the special powers,” Tugade said.
Losses
Bill of particulars
“ T h e r e a re t h re e re a s o n s
Moving forward
But even as it awaits the draft
Instead of spending time with their families, Filipinos spend most of their time waiting for a ride to work and vice versa.”—Tugade
bi l l f rom t he DOTr spel l i ng out proposed projects and particular issues to be addressed using Mr. Duterte’s emergency powers, Poe said the committee can conduct consultative technical working group meetings to fast-track the crafting of solutions that will address the traffic and transport problems in the countr y.
She recalled in last week ’s (August 25) Senate hearing on the proposed emergency powers, t ra nspor t at ion of f ic i a l s asked senators for “two weeks” to prepare a bill of particulars, including list of proposed trafficreduction projects. At the same time, the Senate panel is also considering proposals from urban planners, as
well as affected transport and commuter groups, expecting the DOTr to incorporate suggestions from stakeholders. Poe indicated that senators are inclined to grant a limited two- to three-year time frame for President Duterte’s exercise of emergency powers to effectively address the traffic mess left unsolved by the previous administration.
₧2.4B
The estimated daily loss to the economy because of traffic and transportation costs, excluding expenses on health
A4 Wednesday, August 31, 2016
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PHL still ‘good value’ for British tourists By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo | Special to the BusinessMirror
T
HE Department of Tourism (DOT) is keeping its fingers crossed that the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, dubbed Brexit, will have minimal impact on Philippine tourism.
“We still don’t know the full impact of Brexit on UK outbound travel except for the initial assessment that it’s more expensive to travel out of the country because of the costlier tickets, with the depreciation of the sterling pounds,” said Gerard Panga, tourism attaché and director for Southern and Northern Europe-DOT London. But he stressed: “The British still have good value for their money when traveling to the Philippines at £1=P60+,” adding that “the appetite of the Brits for travel cannot be stopped or limited by the ongoing economic and political uncertainties brought about by Brexit.” Since the Brexit vote on June 24, the British pound has plunged heavily against major currencies, like the US dollar and the euro, but has strengthened against the peso. The pound has risen sharply to an average of P61.93 in July from an average of P66.23 in June. The pound fetched an average of P68 at the beginning of 2016, enabling tourists from the UK to spend more on
₧53,000 The per-capita spending of British visitors in the country
their trip to the Philippines using less of their home currency. As of Tuesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reference rate for £1 was P60.73. Notwithstanding the uncertainties brought on by Brexit, the DOT continues to market the Philippines heavily in the UK. “We continue to push with our strategic travel trade and media engagements and highimpact consumer promotions. The UK remains as the important source market for the Philippines in Europe for both tourism and trade,” Panga said. The DOT has been trying to encourage more tourists from the UK to come to the Philippines, because they stay longer on their holidays from 10 days to a month, and spend more during their travels at over
P53,000 per capita on the average. He said the DOT is targeting a 15-percent increase in visitor arrivals from the UK this year, or about 178,000, and a 15-percent to 20-percent growth in 2017. The 2017 target “may be adjusted depending on the full effects of Brexit.” On August 27 and 28, Londoners experienced what possible fun they could have in the Philippines while attending the DOT’s Philippine Tourism Weekend at Potters Fields Park by the River Thames. The event “showcased the best of the Philippines, and showed how the country has been increasingly known as one of the world’s most exotic holiday destinations to Londoners,” Panga said. Some 40,000 people attended the free event where they were taken on a virtual and interactive trip around seven major destinations (Manila, Bohol, Boracay, Cebu, Palawan, Davao, Banaue), with each region featuring their different cultural pleasures. Visitors enjoyed a multitude of performances and Filipino traditions, including regional food and drink demonstrations from the Filipinos living in the UK. Participants also had the chance to win a “holiday of a lifetime” to the Philippines by collecting stamps on their event “passport” around the site. Attendees entered the competition by uploading a photo of their completed passport to social media using the hashtag #PHfunLondon. The lucky winner will experience the best of the Philippine islands on a luxury nine-day holiday for two to Manila, Boracay, Cebu and Palawan (Coron) with
London-Manila return international flights provided by flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL). The couple will be hosted by Shangri-La hotels at the Fort, in Boracay and Cebu; and Huma Island Resort and Spa in Coron. The winner will be drawn on September 16. Philippines-based Rum makers Don Papa Rum, likewise, exhibited at the event,concoctingcocktailsinspiredbyauthentic tastes from the different regions. “We were excited to have been able to showcase just some of the many wonderful aspects that our country has to offer. This event was great fun for all who attended and we hope they were inspired to see and experience our country,” Panga said. The DOT has been conducting several major promotions throughout the year, including “station dominations” at key London Underground terminals, like the Waterloo and King’s Cross stations, as well as the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” advertisements on London buses and black cabs. The DOT also participates in the annual World Travel Market in London, the biggest among the tourism and travel expos in the world, with some 182 countries exhibiting and attracting a footfall of over 100,000 visitors. Boosted by direct flights between London and Manila via PAL, this steady year-round marketing campaign has worked for the government agency. In 2015 some 155,000 visitors from the UK arrived in the Philippines, up 15.7 percent from 2014. From January to May 2016, visitors from the UK grew by almost 15 percent to 76,275, from 66,410 in the same period last year.
PHL eyes provisional fishing deal with China
M
anila is keen on entering into a provisional fishing agreement with China on the West Philippines Sea, the chief of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Tuesday. During the agency’s 2017 budget briefing, Foreign Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr. said a temporary agreement on fishing rights between the Philippines and China is needed until the two countries can find a “permanent solution.” “What we are trying to do at this point is to create the environment under which we can formally move forward toward bilateral negotiations with China. But before these bilateral negotiations to take place, we would like for China at this point to come out and agree with what is knownasaprovisionalagreementforthepurpose of allowing our fishermen to go back into their traditional fishing grounds,” Yasay said. “[Agreement with] China on a provisional basis [is important] to move forward and come up with a permanent solution,” he added. Despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, Filipino fishermen are still being barred by Chinese government from fishing in the West Philippine Sea. But the DFA chief assured lawmakers that the Philippines will not engage in a “shooting war” with Beijing. “We won’t be engaging China in a shooting war. We will exercise maximum tolerance, restraint and sobriety for this purpose. Our tasks at this point is to make sure that our diplomatic processes that we will be embark-
We won’t be engaging China in a shooting war. We will exercise maximum tolerance, restraint and sobriety.” —Yasay
ing and continue to embark, in fact, will result in the kind of objectives that we would like to achieve,” Yasay added. He also made an assurance that the DFA will continue to contribute to the safeguarding of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity, specifically through the implementation of postarbitration strategies related to the West Philippine Sea issue. “The Philippines has always maintained that it will abide by the decision of the arbitral tribunal on the matter of its maritime entitlements in the South China Sea,” he said. By 2017, Yasay also said the DFA expects to be actively involved in initiatives built upon the tribunal’s decision and aimed at establishing and strengthening rules-based norms of conduct in the area. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz
Senate starts scrutiny of ₧3.35-T 2017 budget bill By Butch Fernandez
@butchfBM
T
he Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday started scrutiny of the voluminous P3.35-trillion national budget for 2017 submitted by Malacañang for congressional approval to bankroll President Duterte’s “Real Change” agenda to spur investments, create more jobs and disperse wealth. “As we express our support to the administration’s programs, your Committee on Finance will, likewise, ensure that it will scrutinize the national budget of 2017 in a manner that is transparent and consultative,” Sen. Loren B. Legarda, panel chairman, said in opening the Senate’s budget hearings on Tuesday. In attendance were ranking Cabinet officials sitting in the Executive’s Development Budget Coordinating Committee that included Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III and Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, who briefed senators on the thrusts and priorities of the proposed 2017 national government budget. At the outset, Legarda assured Duterte administration officials that the Senate Finance Committee will “work closely with the country’s economic managers and all our government agencies, and consider our constituents’ concerns to ensure that the national budget for 2017 will, indeed, be ‘a budget for real change.’” She added that the panel will also support the administration’s
main thrusts to “prioritize and improve education, ensure that more citizens have access to quality and efficient social services, and increase public spending in terms of infrastructure.” Legarda said in endorsing Senate plenary approval of the money measure, the Finance Committee will align the 2017 national budget with the government’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which, she notes, are attuned with global aims to end poverty and hunger, improve health and education, make cities more sustainable, combat climate change, promote peace and justice for all, and protect the environment and biodiversity, among others. In turn, Dominguez presented to the committee the funding prog ram to f u lf i l l President Duterte’s inclusive-growth agenda, which, he said, includes the implementation of a comprehensive tax-reform package. It includes lowering personal and corporate income taxes and simplified tax processes “while accelerating spending on infrastructure and investments in human capital formation and social protection.” “Obviously,” he told the senators, “we need to put together a truly transformative tax-reform program. Dominguez added: “Just to make the challenge more interesting, the tax-reform package must be designed not just to raise revenues but support inclusive growth. It must be a revenue package that coheres with the goals of maintaining the
sustainability of our program, and more important, attracting investments, creating meaningful jobs and eradicating poverty.” According to the finance chief, “the country is at a critical juncture [and] the next six years can either continue along the path of high economic but high socioeconomic inequality,or chart a different path toward shared prosperity that will uplift all.” He reminded lawmakers at the hearing this was the reason it was important to fund Mr. Duterte’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda, which, Dominguez explained, revolves around the need to maintain sound macroeconomic and fiscal policies, invest in people and address the binding constraints to investment and job creation. “This is why we need tax reform,” he added. Dominguez assures that the revenue erosion from lowering income-tax rates would be offset by reform initiatives that include broadening the tax base, reviewing fiscal incentives that have not been indexed to inflation, adjusting the fuel excise tax, imposing taxes on unhealthy food items and reduction of existing value-added tax exemptions. “Today, the Philippines has among the highest tax rates in the region and among the narrowest tax bases,” the finance chief said, adding “this is a condition tax reform should reverse. We should bring down tax rates, while at the same time, broadening the tax base.”
House to OK ‘concurring bill’ moving barangay polls to 2017
T
he leadership of the 17th Congress on Tuesday agreed to move the conduct of barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections from October 31, 2016, to October 23, 2017. Majority Floor Leader Rodolfo Fariñas of Ilocos Norte, during the caucus at the lower chamber, said the House has agreed to adopt the Senate version of a bill seeking to hold off the conduct of the village polls next year. Fariñas, however, said the bill is going to be a “concurring bill,” which will be passed by both the
House and the Senate. “Since the Senate is filing a bill, we also filed a bill with the aim in view of avoiding a bicameral conference committee,” he said. Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez on Tuesday filed a bill seeking the postponement of the barangay elections. For his part, Party-list Rep. Sherwin Tugna of Cibac, chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, said his committee will start its hearing on Monday to consolidate all proposals to postpone the conduct of the
October 2016 elections. He said the lower chamber will harmonize its version with the Senate bill, which was principally authored by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr. Fariñas said the bill will be approved on second reading or on September 5 or 6, and on third and final reading on September 12. He said after the Senate approves the concurring bill passed by the lower chamber, the measure will be immediately submitted to the Palace for President Duterte’s signature. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz
news@businessmirror.com.ph
AseanWednesday BusinessMirror
Editor: Max V. de Leon • Wednesday, August 31, 2016 A5
SGX’s dual-class shares move welcomed
S
ingapore’s stock exchange won approval from its listing advisory committee to allow dual-class shares, as it seeks to lure international businesses.
Definitely, this is a positive move. But there is still some work to be done.” —PropertyGuru
Companies will be permitted to have weighted voting rights, subject to various corporate-governance safeguards, to mitigate the inherent risks of such structures, according to the report by Singapore Exchange Ltd.’s (SGX) committee published on Monday. The move may help narrow the city’s gap with Hong Kong, Asia’s biggest market for new listings, where minority-control voting structures aren’t permitted. Hong Kong lost Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $25-billion initial public offering (IPO) to the US after regulators rejected the Chinese e-commerce company’s governance structure. Singapore paved the way for dual-class shares by amending laws governing companies earlier this year. “Definitely, this is a positive move,” said Steve Melhuish, CEO of Singapore-based PropertyGuru, which raised the second-largest amount by a tech company in Southeast Asia last year. “But there is still some work to be done,” including lack of comparable tech start-ups and difficulty in valuing companies in the market, he said. Singapore has been introducing rules to try to attract more public companies, including allowing the listing of resource firms without an earnings track record and dual-currency trading for stocks and exchange-traded funds. Any change to the listing rules will only occur after a public consultation process, SGX CEO Loh Boon Chye said in an e-mailed statement. “The envisaged dual-class share structure listing framework is intended to enhance SGX’s attractiveness as a listing venue and to broaden and deepen Singapore’s capital market,” the advisory committee said in its report. “Unlike many other countries, Singapore does not have a vast hinterland providing a continuous pipeline of IPO-ready listing applicants.” The committee said the “one-share, one-vote” structure will remain the default for new listings unless there’s a compelling reason for a dual-class model. The listing group’s approval ends a debate over whether such structures compromise the city-state’s levels of corporate governance, a discussion ignited in 2011 when Manchester United Plc. was considering to list in Singapore. The UK soccer club scrapped its Singapore sale due to market conditions and eventually listed in the US under a dual-class share structure. In the US listed companies with more than one type of share class, including Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc., are subject to more stringent reporting requirements and shareholders have the ability to band together on lawsuits. Since it became easier for investors to buy stocks overseas, it’s become more challenging for the Singapore Exchange to attract international listings. The bourse operator is looking to fight the disruption by becoming the venue of choice for technology companies. While that may boost IPOs, it’s hard to see the golden days returning. SGX won approval on Monday from its listing advisory committee to allow dual-class shares. The looser rule caters especially to technology companies, such as Alibaba, which chose to list in the US instead of Hong Kong because it wanted to use such a structure to keep more decision-making power in the hands of founders. The change comes a week after the institution suggested it may backtrack on a 20 Singapore cents (15 cents) minimum trading price rule for main board companies with a market value of at least S$40 million, another move that would cater to start-ups. For SGX, it makes sense to become more flexible. It’s not as though the IPO business is growing in leaps and bounds. Liquidity has also been dropping in the past few years. SGX seems to have come to terms with the fact that it can’t become the New York Stock Exchange of Asia. The push, therefore, is to appeal to technology start-ups. Apart from easier rules on minimum price and dual-class shares, SGX
Myanmar-India taLks
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) thanks Myanmar’s President Htin Kyaw after his press statement in New Delhi, India, on Monday. Htin Kyaw is on a four-day visit to India. AP
is also backing CapBridge, a Singaporebased company that specializes in helping start-ups raise funds and go public. CEO Steven Fang explained to Bloomberg Gadfly a couple of weeks ago that one of his goals is to attract new companies that aren’t big enough for the Nasdaq. In Singapore the thinking goes, they can build their market cap and track record before eventually graduating to a US listing.
The shift fits with Singapore’s aspirations of recovering its status as a technology hub and may reverse the slump in listings. That all sounds good on paper. However, Singapore faces competition not only from Hong Kong but from the Australian Stock Exchange, which so far has been quite successful as an intermediary venue. Distance is no barrier: Silicon Valley, after all, is almost 3,000 miles
(4,800 kilometers) from New York. The strategy also presents added risks for Singapore’s local investors. Research shows that 90 percent of start-ups fail. To be sure, most are companies that haven’t sold shares yet; the ratio is far lower for those with publicly traded stock. Still, the chances of losing money are much higher when investing in small caps, especially in the technology arena.
More volatility could make the SGX a more lively venue and increase trading. Even so, this is unlikely to be a game changer. As the world becomes more interconnected and investors are able to access stocks anywhere, they’ll be less willing to stay local. The same technology that Singapore is trying to attract will, in all probability, continue to shrink the global role of its stock market. Bloomberg News
Gencars , Inc .
BATANGAS
POPEMOBILE GEN
GRAND OPENING
Gencars Batangas City opens
L
EADING automotive dealership Gencars Inc. extends its reach to more areas as it opens today a new branch in Batangas City, bringing to the bustling port city in the Southern Tagalog Isuzu’s dependable and strong diesel-powered cars, vans, trucks and other vehicles, as well as its well-known quality automotive service. Gencars Batangas City, the sixth in the Gencars group of dealerships, is on a one-hectare lot which is part of the 2.5-hectare Batangas City Grand Terminal property on Diversion Road, Alangilan, Batangas City. The place is known as Automotive Row in the province of Batangas for being the home of several major automotive vehicle manufacturers. With this expansion south of Metro Manila, Gencars affirms its confidence in the country’s sustained economic
growth, which international financial institutions predict will be better compared to other Asian economies. “We have faith that, with the country’s improving economy, the outlook is very promising for setting up a new dealership, especially in such a prosperous and progressive place as Batangas City and the province of Batangas as a whole,” said D. Edgard A. Cabangon, Gencars’s managing director. The opening of its sixth dealership
comes less than two months before Gencars celebrates its 38th anniversary. The dealership was conceptualized and established by Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua, founder, on October 16, 1978. Since then, it has proven to be a leading franchised dealer on which Isuzu Philippines Corp. (IPC) relies for its Philippine operations, providing high-quality service and maintaining brisk sales for IPC. The newest dealership is the second in the province of Batangas for Gencars. It opened Gencars Batangas in 1996 as its second dealership, following the first ever branch in Makati. This second dealership is on a 5,884 square meter lot at the Crossing of barangay San Roque in Sto. Tomas town. The dealership provides for the vehicle requirements and the motoring service needs of motor vehicle owners residing in the Southern Tagalog, which includes Calamba, Batangas, Lucena, Mindoro and Bicol. Gencars San Pablo City, the company’s third outlet which started its operations on November 17, 2000, is situated on a 1,070 square meter piece of land along Colago Avenue, Barangay 1-A, San Pablo City, Laguna. This third dealership caters to the brand-new vehicle requirements, as well as the vehicle-service needs of Isuzu vehicle owners in Laguna, Quezon Province and the Bicol Region.
Gencars established its fourth outlet, Gencars Legazpi, on July 17, 2006 on the Ground Floor, ALC Fortune Building, J. P. Rizal Street, Legazpi Port District, Legazpi City, Albay. A fifth outlet, Gencars Naga, opened on August 8, 2008 at Km. 443 Maharlika Highway, Brgy. Palestina Pili, Camarines Sur. Both outlets serve the motoring needs of major establishments in Bicolandia that require an improved mode of transport with modern facilities for after-sales service and parts. Like the head office distributorship in Makati as well as the others outside Metro Manila, Gencars Batangas City has a large showroom that can accommodate several big trucks and cars. It also has a Parts and Services section that will provide motorists in Batangas City and nearby places with Isuzu’s quality parts and services. A huge service bay can accommodate a number of trucks, while its Service unit is equipped with the most modern automotive repair and maintenance technology and manned by dedicated and well-trained mechanics and technicians that meet all motoring needs. It renders services, such as general repairs, periodic maintenance service, under-chassis and wheel alignment, aircon jobs, diagnosis and many others.
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ENCARS, Inc., as a leading provider of top-quality vehicles in the country, has a long list of awards to prove its reliability and excellence in terms of products and services. But the company’s most shining moment came last year when it provided the Popemobile used by Pope Francis in going around Manila during his January visit. It was an opportunity for Gencars to show not only the whole country but also the entire world its brilliance and expertise. The company donated the Isuzu D-Max unit that was customized with the help of Almazora Motors to meet strict Vatican standards, and at the same time add a Pinoy touch to its overall design.“We considered it a great privilege and a blessing to be asked to build the Popemobile. We were able to
How Gencars came about G
ENCARS Inc. was conceptualized and established on October 16, 1978 by Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua as an automotive dealership to serve the development needs of the nation. According to his biography, A Saga of Success, written by National Artist Nick Joaquin, Gencars was one of three companies that he was proudest of at that time of the late 1970s. The other two were Fortune Insurance and Eternal Gardens. The book narrates that Gencars came into being when several of his colleagues in the military (he was
a colonel in the reserve force) asked him to organize a company that they could invest in. “Many of them were generals and because of them, I decided to call our company General Cars, or Gencars,” the founder recalled. The very first dealership opened on a one-hectare lot at the corner of Chino Roces Avenue (also still known by its former name Pasong Tamo) and De La Rosa Streets in Makati’s barangay Pio del Pilar. On this location, Gencars began as a franchised dealer of General Motors Philippines, a partnership of
General Motors of the United States and Isuzu of Japan. The partnership introduced the Isuzu brand in the country through its trucks in the 1950s. These were much in demand to meet post-war development needs. By September of 1985, General Motors Philippines shut down because of the prevailing political chaos in the country at that time. The ambassador, never running out of hope, banked on the expectation that Isuzu would buy the majority stock of GM Philippines, enabling Gencars to continue selling, this time vehicles from Japanese manufacturers.
Time proved him right. The year 1989 marked the rebirth of Isuzu Motors Pilipinas Inc. Gencars Inc., formerly a franchised dealer of General Motors Philippines Inc. (GMPI) for Isuzu Gemini and Opel cars, again became one of its franchised dealers. An offer from Sime Darby Philippines in 1994 to become tire distributor paved the way for the establishment of the Gencars Building, which now houses the sales and administrative offices of Gencars Makati. In 1997 the company adopted the trade name Isuzu Makati, retaining Gencars Inc. as its corporate name. This
change in name further binds Gencars Inc. to the image of strength and dependability, precisely the qualities that customers count on for their Isuzu vehicles. In its nearly 40 years of operation, Gencars has been recognized several times for its high-quality service and outstanding sales performance. In March 2005, IPC conferred the first ever Dealer of the Year Award to Gencars Makati for its outstanding performance for the year 2004. After once again performing exceptionally in 2005, Gencars Makati was once again named Dealer of the Year by IPC in 2006, making it the first back to back Dealer of the Year
Messages
E GENCARS’ CROWNING GLORY
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E are delighted to greet our Batangueño countrymen and our people in nearby towns and cities as we formally open our Gencars Inc. Batangas City branch in this beautiful and progressive city. The opening of Gencars Inc. Batangas City, the sixth in our chain of Isuzu vehicle dealerships, fulfills our desire to bring to the biggest number of Filipinos possible the strong and durable diesel-engine powered Isuzu vehicles. With the city’s vibrant and prosperous economy, we look forward to success as we open shop in what is known as the Automotive Row of Batangas City for hosting several major automotive vehicle makers. Significantly, this branch opening happens a day after August 30, the birthday of our dear founder, Ambassador
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WISH to extend my warmest greetings and congratulations to the officers and staff of Gencars, Inc. on the occasion of the Grand Opening and Blessing of Gencars Batangas City Branch. For nearly four decades, Gencars has been a reliable partner of Isuzu Philippines Corporation in making our top quality vehicles available in key cities around the country. Through your dealerships, we are able to reach and provide for the transportation needs of many Filipinos. Likewise, your branches around the country enable us to contribute to the development of your host cities by way of providing numerous jobs for their residents and promoting the
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EXTEND my most heartfelt greetings to the officers and staff of Gencars, Inc. on the occasion of the Blessing and Grand Opening of their branch in Batangas City. An efficient transport system plays a vital role in a community’s economic growth as it provides ease of mobility to people, products, and resources for productive purposes. Hence, the presence of Gencars, Inc. and its increased activity will surely enhance the development of this so-called Industrial Port City of CALABARZON – the region’s most progressive city.
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serve His Holiness, and while doing so we also managed to prove our commitment to excellence and innovation,” D. Edgard A. Cabangon, Gencars managing director said, adding that the Isuzu Popemobile is also proof that Filipinos are definitely capable of building world-class vehicles. Impressed by the outstanding quality of the Filipino-made Isuzu Popemobile, saying it was a “beautiful car,” Pope Francis has requested another one to be brought to the Vatican so he can use it in going around and meeting the people, a request that was graciously granted by the Cabangon family. After making the necessary arrangements, another D-Max unit from Isuzu Gencars was customized with the help of the Almazora Group. This second Isuzu Popemobile, which was airlifted to Rome, Italy on June 30, was officially turned over
Awardee of IPC. Isuzu Gencars Makati marked another feat when it placed second as Dealer of the Year for 2010. Later on, the other dealerships in the Gencars group have also been recognized for their outstanding performance in various fields. In 2012, Gencars Makati and Santo Tomas Batangas placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in the Best in Parts Performance Award for 2011. The 3rd Place in Customer Service Performance was also awarded to Gencars Santo Tomas Batangas, while the top Sales Executive of the Year Award was given to Danilo Ocampo of Gencars Makati. Gencars, Inc., with the opening of its newest branch in the City of Batangas, extends its reach significantly, bringing the best Isuzu vehicles in more locations in the country. Likewise, the company promises to continue providing excellent service to motor vehicle owners in the areas that it serves.
to His Holiness by members of the Cabangon Family, headed by D. Edgard A. Cabangon, during a special audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican on October 14, 2015. The simple but innovative and practical design of the Gencars Popemobile has also become the basis of other countries in making their own popemobile. Meanwhile, the original D-Max Popemobile that Pope Francis used during his Philippine visit is now being kept at the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila. Today, as it opens its newest outlet in Batangas City, Gencars Inc, is filled with the same enthusiasm and vigor that it had when it served His Holiness, through the Popemobile that it provided for him last year. That event surely inspired the company to work even harder in providing only the best vehicles for Filipinos.
“Many of them were generals, and, because of them, I decided to call our company General Cars, or Gencars.”
ONGRATULATIONS to the officers and staff, the sales agents, service technicians and all the workers of Gencars, Inc. as you launch your newest dealership in Batangas City. Gencars Inc. opens its sixth automotive dealership in Batangs City at a very encouraging time. The Philippines is looking forward to brighter days ahead as it sustains the economic gains it has made in the past several years. The automotive industry is sure to enjoy a hefty share from this positive outlook, and this definitely includes Gencars as a leading industry player and distributor of Isuzu’s excellent diesel-powered vehicles.
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E welcome Gencars, Inc. to Batangas City as you inaugurate your sixth motor vehicle dealership and we extend warmest congratulations to your officers and staff, your sales and service workers on this milestone. The local government of Batangas City is truly very proud and honored to host your sixth and newest motor vehicle distributorship for the strong and dependable diesel engine-powered vehicles of Isuzu. We are grateful not only for your investments in our city but also for the job opportunities that you offer to our residents. The opening of business ventures in our city, such as your
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Y most heartfelt greetings and congratulations to Gencars Inc. as it opens its dealership on Diversion Road in our Barangay Alangilan, Batangas City. Extend my fervent thanks to the management of Gencars Inc. for establishing your sixth dealership in our humble barangay. We deeply appreciate your faith and confidence in the promise of business success that our community offers. By your bold decision to open and operate your dynamic dealership in our midst, you bring job opportunities as well
Antonio L. Cabangon Chua. Please join me in offering up to him our promise of continuing his commitment to excellence in sales and service to our countrymen. On behalf of the management, officers and staff, sales force and the automotive service crew of Gencars Inc., we heartily express our pleasure and thanks for this opportunity to serve our countrymen in this bright and dynamic city of Batangas.
D. EDGARD A. CABANGON Managing Director
fast and efficient transport of manufactured goods and farm produce for productive purposes. As you open another Gencars branch, rest assured that Isuzu Philippines will give you all the support that you need. This new venture in Batangas City will allow us to bring our wide selection of vehicles to a larger segment of consumers in the Calabarzon region. Congratulations once again and keep up the good work! HAJIME KOSO President | Isuzu Philippines Corporation
With Gencars, Inc., we are more confident that the City and the Province of Batangas will expedite its move toward its goals of amplified economic growth. Congratulations and God speed.
HERMILANDO I. MANDANAS Governor
We welcome the expansion of Gencars to Batangas City as a big boost to the trade and economic growth not only of Batangas City but of the entire Province of Batangas as well. At the same time, we are happy to extend our assurances of support and cooperation for your endeavors. Again, our heartiest greetings to Gencars Inc. and mabuhay!
MARIO VITTORIO “MARVEY” MARIÑO Representatitive, 5th District of Batangas House of Representatives
Gencars Inc. dealership, promises to bring economic progress and stability. By locating your business in Batangas City, you promote growth and progress for our people. As you formally begin your service to the people of Batangas City, rest assured that you have our full support and unwavering allegiance. Again, congratulations and mabuhay po kayo! BEVERLEY ROSE A. DIMACUHA Batangas City
to our people in the barangay and other nearby places. On behalf of Barangay Alangilan, its officers, kagawad and community leaders, we give our assurances of support and cooperation in your endeavors. Maraming salamat po at mabuhay ang Gencars, Inc.
GUILBEERTO B. ALEA Chairman | Barangay Alangilan
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The World BusinessMirror
Wednesday, August 31, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion
India’s angry ‘untouchables’ rise against age-old caste prejudices D
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Slain nuns remembered for helping the needy
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EW DELHI—The video footage posted on social media by India’s self-proclaimed cow saviors was brutal. It showed four barechested men tied with ropes to a car, flinching, as an angry group of men took turns beating them with wooden sticks, belts and iron rods. Their crime: skinning a dead cow. T he savage beating of the men—all “Dalits” from the lowest rung of India’s caste hierarchy—in the small town of Una in the western state of Gujarat last month stirred outrage across the country. The men were beaten by a group of upper-caste men, highlighting how the rigid social hierarchy persists more than 65 years after India instituted laws banning caste discrimination. Every day, newspapers are awash with stories of injustices against Dalits and their oppression by upper-caste Hindus. Among the attacks on Dalits in the past month: a 13-year-old girl who was beaten up for drinking from a temple water pump; a Dalit team in the traditional Indian sport of kabaddi attacked by a rival upper-caste squad for winning a match; an impoverished Dalit couple hacked to death following a disagreement with an upper-caste shopkeeper over a debt of 15 rupees (22 cents).
‘Untouchables’
BUT while Dalits—formerly known as “untouchables”—are still victims of thousands of attacks each year, despite laws put in place soon after India’s independence, there has been a slow change in the way they react to the atrocities, social scientists and Dalit activists said. The outrage and protests that spread across India following the incident in Una are viewed as signs that the Dalit community will no longer tolerate the injustices they face, Beena Pallickal of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights said.
204M The total number of Dalits—formerly known as “untouchables”—in India, according to a 2011 census
“Una was a turning point in our fight,” she said recently in her office in New Delhi. “The Dalit community will no longer stay silent. We will rise in protest against all forms of prejudice.” The 2011 census counted about 204 million Dalits in this country of more than 1.2 billion—a population the size of Brazil, the world’s fifth-most populous nation. Dalits are finding the rigid caste divisions slowly being eroded due to fundamental changes in Indian society, at least in the urban centers.
Prejudices
AS India’s booming economy fuels urbanization, people from different regions and all walks of life are being packed into the cities’ crowded apartments and slums. Living in such close quarters, they are becoming less concerned with centuries-old caste divisions and traditional prejudices, analysts say. For some Dalits, though, the change isn’t happening fast enough. An emerging class of educated Dalits has begun demanding an end to caste bigotry and discrimination—demands that sometimes touch off deadly clashes between communities. India’s National
Crime Records Bureau reports that more than 700 Dalits were killed in attacks in 2014, the last year for which data is available. Chandra Bhan Prasad, a Dalit writer, said there is a conflict between the past and the future that younger Dalits envision for themselves. “This new generation of Dalits cannot tolerate humiliation. Nor will they accept it,” said Prasad, who has written and lectured widely on Dalit rights. “They may have done so before, because they saw no way out of their subjugation at the hands of upper-caste Hindus, but not anymore.”
Unwillingness
FOR centuries, Dalits, as the lowest caste in the occupational hierarchy, have been assigned the most demeaning jobs, such as skinning dead animals or cleaning public toilets and sewers. But now they have other options to earn a living. “The business explosion in India after the economic reforms of 1991 has thrown up many alternative avenues for Dalits to earn a livelihood,” Prasad said. “They are no longer beholden to their upper-caste landlords for their daily bread.” After the horrific beating of the men for skinning the dead cow in Gujarat, Dalits in the state refused to remove dead cows in protest, further provoking upper-caste Hindus by telling them to handle the task themselves. Hindus consider cows to be sacred and revere them, but expect Dalits to deal with skinning and disposing of any that have died. But even though the reaction to the incident highlighted changes in how the Dalits view their standing in society, Pallickal said there is still an unwillingness among politicians to enforce the laws. Knowing the pernicious nature of India’s caste prejudices, early leaders who framed India’s constitution soon after independence from the British in 1947 put in place exceptionally clear and laudable laws that ban all forms of discrimination against caste, Pallickal said.
Mind-sets
STILL, according to the crime records bureau, more than 47,000
crimes of discrimination against Dalits were registered in police stations across the country in 2014. Udit Raj, a member of Parliament from New Delhi and a strong voice for Dalit rights within India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said the conviction rate for crimes against Dalits is 2 percent to 8 percent. “In the more than six decades since India’s independence, political parties have not found the will to enforce these laws,” Pallickal said. “ There is a complete lack of political will to implement the laws, which is why such outrages continue.” Politicians across the political spectrum said it’s not just implementation of laws, but the lack of a change in people’s mind-sets that leads upper-caste Indians to shun Dalits. “Even if Dalits are empowered economically, it is not necessary that they will be accepted socially,” said Raj, who has fought for Dalit rights for the past four decades. He pointed to injustices that continue to haunt the lower castes and the all-pervasive presence of caste divides. In many cities, Dalits are not allowed to own apartments in upper-caste neighborhoods.
Empowerment
ALTHOUGH intercaste marriages are on the rise, all Indian newspapers still carry advertisements seeking brides and grooms stating their caste and the castes they will marry into. “Dalits are not accepted socially. Period,” Raj said. Access to education and the clout wielded by their vote in local and national elections have empowered Dalits to dream of a better future. But the aspirations of the Dalits are often resented by upper-caste Hindus. If their economic progress is modest and their ambitions go as far as obtaining lowly government jobs or small businesses, there is no problem, said Prasad, the Dalit writer. “The attitude of the upper caste when they see a Dalit succeeding in life goes like this: A Dalit driving a cheap car can be endured, but a Dalit driving a BMW—that is a problem,” he said. AP
UR A NT, Mississippi— Hundreds of people filled a cathedral in Mississippi’s capital city on Monday to remember two nuns who spent decades helping the needy and were found stabbed to death last week in their home in one of the poorest counties of the state. Bail was denied during the initial court appearance for the man charged with two counts of capital murder in the slayings of Sis. Margaret Held and Paula Merrill, both 68. Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, of Kosciusko, Mississippi, was also charged with one count of burglary and one count of grand larceny. He was not represented by an attorney during his appearance on Monday afternoon in Durant city court. City Judge Jim Arnold said the state will appoint an attorney for Sanders. Capital murder is punishable by execution or life in prison; the sisters’ religious orders have issued a joint statement against the death penalty. “We are going to consider the heinous nature of the crime and their wishes,” District law yer Akillie Malone-Oliver said on Monday, referring to the families of the sisters and their religious orders.
Confession
SANDERS confessed to the killings but gave no reason, said Holmes County Sheriff Willie March, who was briefed by Durant police and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials who took part in Sanders’s interrogation. Sanders had been living about 15 miles east of the sisters’ Durant home. He has been held at an undisclosed jail since his arrest late Friday. Sanders’s wife attended the hearing and broke down afterward when addressing the family and friends of the nuns. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say to y’all. I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry. I can’t take this. Oh my God,” Marie Sanders said. Merrill and Held worked as nurse practitioners at Lexington Medical Clinic, about 10 miles west of Durant, where they often treated poor and uninsured patients with diabetes and other chronic conditions. Their bodies were found in their home after they failed to show up at work on Thursday. The clinic in Lexington and the
nuns’ home in Durant are in Holmes County, population 18,000. With 44 percent of its residents living in poverty, Holmes is the seventh-poorest county in America, according to the Census Bureau. The killings shocked people in the small communities where the women committed their lives to helping the poor.
Punishment
BISHOP Joseph Kopacz and more than 20 priests from the Diocese of Jackson celebrated a memorial Mass on Monday at the small but ornate Cathedral of Saint Peter in downtown Jackson, about an hour’s drive south of Durant. The front pews were filled by family members and sisters from Held’s and Merrill’s religious orders, the Kentucky-based Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and the School Sisters of Saint Francis of Milwaukee. The Rev. Greg Plata, who ministers at the church in Lexington, Mississippi, where Held and Merrill led Bible study, praised them for their lives of service. Plata also noted the joint statement against the death penalty released on Sunday by the sisters’ orders. “Justice for a heinous crime demands punishment, but it does not demand revenge,” Plata said. On Sunday more than 300 people attended a service at the church in Lexington.
Records
WARREN Strain, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, which includes the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, said the organization would neither confirm nor deny that Sanders confessed. Records from the Iowa Department of Corrections show Sanders was in prison from June 2004 to February 2011 on a conviction of second-degree robbery. Records show he also was in prison in Iowa from August 1999 to August 2002 on a conviction of theft, and from April to October 1996 for two counts of third-offense drunken driving. Sanders was on probation after a prison term for a felony drunken-driving conviction in Mississippi last year, said Grace Simmons Fisher, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He was also convicted of armed robbery in Holmes County, sentenced in 1986 and served six years. AP
Federal officials reviewing use of private immigration facilities
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UCSON, A r izona—Federal immigration officials said on Monday they are considering phasing out the use of private contractors at its detention facilities amid pressure from immigrant advocates to end the practice over safety concerns. US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson said he has asked an advisory council to review whether US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which falls under the DHS umbrella, should make the change. He said the decision came after the Department of Justice announced on August 18 that it was phasing out the use of some private prisons, citing an audit that found such facilities have more safety and security problems than government-run ones. Forty-six of the roughly 180 facilities in which ICE holds immigrants are privately run, according to ICE. About 73 percent of detainees held by the agency are in privately operated facilities. Immigrant advocates said some ICE detention centers are unsafe and they have been pushing the government to abandon its private contracts.
Horrifying
CARL Takei, an attorney with
the A mer ican Civ i l Liber ties Union (ACLU), said DHS shouldn’t need a review to end its relationship with private contractors. The ACLU and other advocacy groups published a report earlier this year that found ICE provided inadequate medical care at its detention facilities, leading to in-custody deaths. “The majority of those deaths occurred in facilities run by private companies,” Takei said. I n A r i z on a ac t iv i st s h ave been critical of the Eloy Detention Center over its conditions, which they say have led to the deaths of 14 people since 2004. The center has had the most reported deaths of any ICE facility in the country, advocates said. “I think its record is particularly horrif y ing on suicides,” Takei said. Activists staged a protest outside ICE offices in Phoenix last week, demanding that the agency sever ties with private contractors. The Eloy Detention Facility is operated by CCA, also known as Corrections Corp. of America. CCA Spokesman Jonathan Burns said the company welcomes the planned review of its contract. “We’re proud of the quality and value of the services we provide
and look forward to sharing that information with Judge [William] Webster and his team,” Burns said, referring to the chairman of the council who is in charge of making recommendations to DHS.
Inspected
C A R L O S G arcia of P ue nte Movement said the organization welcomes the review, but it is long overdue. Garcia cited the numerous deaths and a recent massive measles outbreak at the Eloy Detention Center as examples of shortfalls. “It’s people’s lives we’re talking about that are in these detention centers,” Garcia said. ICE says all of the facilities that hold its detainees are thoroughly inspected to ensure that people are in a safe environment. “ICE provides several levels of oversight in order to ensure that detainees in ICE custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments and under appropriate conditions of confinement,” Spokesman Virginia Kice said in a written statement. The agency said its detention centers are different from federal prisons in that they are not punitive in nature and are meant to be short term. AP
In this August 9, 2012, file photo, suspected illegal immigrants are transferred out of the holding area after being processed at the Tucson Sector of the US Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. AP
ExportUnlimited Editor: Efleda P. Campos
BusinessMirror Wednesday, August 31, 2016 A9
DTI-EMB orients Chinoy biz leaders on preferential trading arrangements By Rafaelita C. Castro | Chief, Market Innovation Division DTI-EMB
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HE Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) conducted a Doing Business in Free Trade Areas (DBFTA) information session for the executive directors of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII) on August 2 at the Federation Center in Manila. Assistant Director Agnes Perpetua R. Legaspi presented to the officers of FFCCCII the tariff savings that business people can enjoy when they export to countries where the Philippines has freetrade agreements (FTAs) and also to countries which grant Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP). The elimination or reduction of tariffs under these preferential trad ing ar rangements ma kes Philippine products more pricecompetitive. As more than half of Philippine exports are with FTA partners and GSP donor countries, exporters are encouraged to make use of these preferential arrangements to expand their shares in these markets. At present, aside from its FTA with the nine member-states of Asean, the Philippines is a signatory to Asean FTA with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. It also has a bilateral agreement with Japan and recently signed an FTA with the European Free Trade Association (Efta), composed of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, which is still undergoing ratification. The Philippines also enjoys preferential tariffs for certain goods under the GSP granted by donor countries, which include the European Union (EU) and the United States. In December 2014 the EU included the Philippines in its GSP+ scheme, which grants zero tariffs to 6,274 products. Last year the US reinstated its
GSP, which eliminated duties on about 5,000 products coming from the Philippines. Legaspi also alerted FFCCCII to prepare for market openings to be brought about by other FTAs currently being negotiated by the Philippines, like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or RCEP, which is with Asean and its six partner economies (China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand) and the Philippines-EU FTA. Aside from the DBFTA, Legaspi also presented the various activities of EMB to assist exporters in export documentation, business matching, handling of export trade complaints, and inbound and outbound business mission. She also discussed the several capacity-building programs for exporters, like the Philippine Export Competitiveness Program (PECP), the Regional Interactive Platform for Philippine Exporters (RIPPLES); and the Halal Export Industry Development and Promotion Program. FFCCCII officers appreciated this ser vice by the EMB and shared their various concerns during the open forum. Concerns on the garments sector include the strict rules of origin, which make it difficult to avail of preferential tariffs. They are also concerned about the plan to end labor contractualization, which could increase labor costs and erode their competitiveness in
the international market. There were also specific requests for assistance on marketing their export products. The DBFTA is a business-education program that aims to inform businesses of the benefits of FTAs. It has recently expanded to include sessions on Asean integration and GSP schemes. Business-support organizations interested in having the DBFTA conducted for them can contact the DBFTA secretariat at dbftasecretariat@gmail.com.
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DTI CALLS ON BUSINESSES TO SUPPORT MSMEs IN ASEAN SUPPLY CHAIN Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez chats with Vice President Maria
Leonor G. Robredo during the 47th National Marketing Conference in Pasay City. Lopez urged the participating CEOs to support micro, small and medium enterprises by adopting the inclusive business model, by involving communities as partner in mainstream business and allowing them to become part of the Asean region’s production network and supply chain. DTI-PRU
Korea, PHL hosted companies on Copyright Technology By Rhys Jason V. Manapat
Trade-Industry Development Specialist Export Marketing Bureau Services Division Department of Trade and Industry
THE 2016 Korea-Philippines Copyright Technology Business Exchange Meeting held on August 4 at the Manila Hotel.
High Definition Broadcasting over the world; T-IME Education, publisher of various online and offline education tools in Korea; and Korea Educational Broadcasting System, a public broadcasting company that specializes in producing educational and documentaries in Korea. Philippine companies matched are People’s Television Network, Intercontinental Broadcasting Corp., Eagle Broadcasting Corp., ATC Sports, Chinatown TV, One Outsource Direct Corp., Logistika and Olive Air.
The activity provided platform for broadcasting companies and private industries to share knowledge and participate in one-on-one business-matching activities with the Korean copyright technology and content corporations. Korean companies expressed willingness to collaborate with Philippine companies, which can provide relevant services in areas of information-technology, broadcasting, education, copyrighting and other related activities.
HE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) continues to boost the presence of regional micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Metro Manila market, as it provides an avenue to sell their products and services for a period of time at the One Town, One Product (Otop) Makati Showroom. The recently concluded exhibit at the showroom, dubbed as “Bahandi: Eastern Visayas Island Treats,” recorded a total of P3.125 million total sales that included P971,000 total cash sales and P2.145 million booked sales, the highest recorded sale among 25 entities that showcased their products since the showroom’s inception in 2009. The DTI’s Bureau of Domestic Trade Promotion (BDTP) said a total of 50 exhibitors from Region 8 participated and were able to exhibit their products from July 4 to 29. Local products, such as the handmade mats (banig) of Leyte; food products, like teas, tablea chocolates, banana chips, honey and other local delicacies; and fashion accessories were among the products visited by over 3,350 guests and trade buyers. “We hope to encourage more MSMEs, especially with the help of their respective LGUs [local government units] to bring their products here in Metro Manila and let us promote them. We are here to support every entrepreneur in the region that needs support for promotion and market
DTI-IPG kicks off first joint ideation workshop at the QBO Innovation Hub
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HE Philippines Copyright Technolog y Business Exchange Meeting event was hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea and coorganized by Asia Exchange Association, Korea Copyright Commission, in collaboration with the Philippine Trade and Investment Center (PTIC)-Seoul, represented by Jeon Ai-Ja, in coordination with the Export Marketing Bureau (EMB)— Services Division of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which participated in the event. Korean companies that participated in the meeting are DaolSoft, a mobile app and e-book solutions developer; BeyondTech, specializes in software development for Macintosh, localization service, publishing and copyright solutions; KT Skylife, sole Satellite Broadcaster in Korea operating 12 channels and the first Multi-Channel Ultra
DTI boosts regional products’ presence in Metro Manila
HE Department of Trade and Industry’s Office of the Undersecretary for Industry Promotion Group (DTI-OUIPG), with its Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) and the Foreign Trade Service Corp. (FTSC), spearheaded the Ideation and Prototyping Workshop in partnership with Spiceworx Consultancy Inc., at the newly launched Negosyo Center Plus: QBO Innovation Center on August 10. “It couldn't have come at a most opportune time when creativity and innovation have emerged as the currencies of the future,” DTIEMB Director Senen Perlada said. The workshop aimed to provide practical skills through ideation and prototyping of innovative design solutions. It was attended by over 20 participants from the public and private sectors, joined by start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and One Town, One Product (Otop) vendors. Bureau of Domestic Trade Promotion (BDTP) Assistant Director Marievic Bonoan provided an overview of the Otop program, which served as the main topic of the workshop, where innovative designs can be applied.
At the end of the interactive workshop, the participants were able to stimulate their innovative mind-set and presented creatively their “prototype” solutions on how to further support the Otop Program. Some of the key ideas that BDTP Director Rhodora Leaño shared were technologybased solutions to further promote Otop products and to engage more stakeholders both in the local and international markets. Perlada encouraged participants to practice the methodology and share ideas to other people in developing creative and innovative solutions to everyday challenges. The QBO Innovation Hub was recently launched by DTI and IdeaSpace Foundation, which aims to link innovators, explorers, investors, academic institutions, start-up mentors, funders and enablers, as well as a broad spectrum of partners and stakeholders from both public and private sectors to convene in constructive interaction. The hub is DTI’s support to the start-up community, particularly targeting start-ups with viable business propositions. Abigael Mei M. Yaokana
access through Otop Makati Showroom,” DTI’s BDTP Director Rhodora Leaño said. DTI noted its plan of strengthening the Otop program this year by enhancing the Makati Showroom landscape and by further incorporating promotional activities with commercial establishments, such as malls. More medium and large enterprises will be encouraged to link up with micro and small enterprises, including those large establishments through the promotion of the practice of inclusive business (IB). DTI established Otop Philippines to support small and medium enterprises through product development, marketing, promotions, business counselling, skills and entrepreneurial training, and capital sourcing. It helps in the development of a particular province’s or region’s main produce or industry in able to revitalize each region’s economic activity. Through the conduct of regional and national trade fairs, products from the regions are showcased to the domestic markets and possible trade partners. The Otop Makati Showroom is one way of providing market avenues to introduce products in the local market. Otop Philippines is also envisioned to become a global brand for Philippine products. With stringent standards for quality, market acceptance and competitiveness, the DTI hopes to encourage more MSMEs to carry the Otop seal. Kathleen Joyce
upcoming events Compiled by Louise Kaye G. Mendoza DTI-EMB Knowledge Processing Division
SEPTEMBER 8
Time: 1 to 4:30 p.m. Event: Philippine Export Competitiveness Program • Overview of EMB Services and Export Procedures • Doing Business in Free Trade Areas (DBFTA) • Phytosanitar y Export Certification Procedures of the Bureau of Plant Industr y (BPI) Venue: Penthouse, DTI International Building, 375 Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City
SEPTEMBER 8
Time: 11:30 to 2:30 p.m. Event: Doing Business in Free Trade Areas (DBFTA) for Pampanga Chamber of Commerce Venue: Pampanga
A10 Wednesday, August 31, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso
Opinion BusinessMirror
editorial
Where the Fed goes from here
I
nvestors scouring Janet Yellen’s speech last Friday for clues on short-term interest rates came away disappointed. The Fedederal Reserve (the Fed) chairman chose to deliver a more important message: The future of US macroeconomic policy cannot be like the past.
Dealing briskly with the immediate future, Yellen made it clear that the Fed’s short-term stance is watchful waiting—just like before the speech. Turning to the main theme of the annual economic policy conference, Yellen addressed a much bigger question. Mainstream economics has long proposed a basic division of labor between monetary policy and fiscal policy. Interest rates are easy to change, so they’re well-suited to managing the short-term economic cycle; taxes and public spending involve hard choices and far-reaching consequences, so they aren’t. Yellen’s basic point was that this thinking will have to change. Demographic pressures and slower productivity growth are pressing down on future interest rates. This is a structural, not cyclical, phenomenon. As a result, forecasters expect the federal funds rate to average about 3 percent in the long term, compared with an average of more than 7 percent between 1965 and 2000. This means that, in future downturns, the Fed won’t be able to cut interest rates by as much. Now, this reduction in the potency of monetary policy isn’t quite as bad as it looks, Yellen argued. That 3-percent rate is a long-term average—the starting point for interest-rate cuts will often be higher. And the Fed has new instruments for monetary control—quantitative easing (QE), paying interest rates on excess reserves, and so-called forward guidance. In extremis, as in Japan and Europe, interest rates can be pushed below zero. In each case, however, serious difficulties arise. Where they’ve been tried, negative interest rates haven’t been a conspicuous success. Forward guidance is especially hard to get right in the US, because the Fed’s policy-makers rarely agree with each other and enjoy advertising the fact. And the idea that QE, with its attendant asset-price inflation and risk of unintended consequences, should become a standard tool of monetary policy is anything but reassuring. Then what’s the alternative? The answer must be fiscal policy. In severe slumps, like the one that followed the crash of 2008, governments do resort to fiscal stimulus as an emergency measure. The challenge, though, is to make fiscal policy a more usable instrument of macroeconomic management in less extreme circumstances, so that it can carry more of the burden traditionally assigned to monetary policy. That certainly isn’t going to be easy. Possibilities include reforming the tax system in ways that make revenues more sensitive to the economy’s position in the cycle—nudging the tax base from income to consumption would serve that purpose, for instance. The same goes for higher spending on unemployment benefits and other programs that respond automatically in a slowdown. Bloomberg View editorial
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59 years of faithful service to the nation Susie G. Bugante
All About Social Security
O
N September 1 the Social Security System (SSS) will celebrate its 59 years of faithful service to the Filipino people— just one year shy of being a senior corporate citizen. But they say, as institutions go, the SSS is still pretty young and, hopefully, still has so many more years to go in the service of the privatesector workers and their families.
Did you know that the idea of setting up a social-security program for private-sector workers gained impetus in the aftermath of World War II, when thousands of Filipinos lost their lives or became disabled fighting the Japanese invaders? Seeing the devastation the war inflicted on the country’s economy and people and with hardly any funds to provide long-term financial assistance to those affected by war, then-President Manuel Roxas, in his State of the Nation Address in January 1948, urged Congress to establish a social security system for the wage earners and low-salaried employees. Roxas died before a bill was passed. He was succeeded by President Elpidio Quirino, who created a social security study commission, which drafted the Social Security Act that was submitted to Congress. However,
it was not until the term of President Ramon Magsaysay that the bill was passed into law in 1954, known as Republic Act (RA) 1161 or the Social Security Act of 1954. Due to strong opposition from the business and labor sectors, it was not until September 1, 1957—a day after Magsaysay’s 50th birthday—that RA 1161, as amended by RA 1792, that the SSS was opened to the public. This was during the term of President Carlos Garcia, who pursued the passage of the SSS law after Magsaysay’s untimely death in March that year. After 59 years and starting with a seed money of P500,000 from the government, the SSS now has an asset base of P474.7 billion as of end-June this year, serving over 34.2 million members. The prudent management of its members’ funds has yielded an average net revenue of P35 billion during the last five years.
Needs expanding Teddy Locsin Jr.
Free fire
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Continued from A1
I
T was, of course, correct—not just logically but scripturally. Yet, I found it too kind and in a way patronizing. Bishop David spared Pacquiao what he knows about scripture, which is a universe by comparison to a grain of sand.
Let me try my hand at it. Now, idiots who cite scripture never studied it. They think reading it is studying it; and that quoting it means knowing it. That is the farthest thing from the truth. You and I use phrases from advanced physics. None of us pretends a doctorate in that field. We use words from quantum mechanics without understanding Schrodinger and his cat. But we do not cite equations like defenders of the death penalty cite scripture. The most famous is “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.” And presumably “a life for a life,” though I am not sure the last one is scripture. But the
opthalmological and dental references—those I have encountered. But far from a defense of the death penalty—and an incentive to barbarity—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is a counsel of moderation in state-imposed punishments; though probably not in private revenge. I think a Jew went to the Pharisees to get an eye from his neighbor but I may be wrong. Be that as it may, the counsel of a tooth for a tooth or any other organ for the same kind addressed the excesses of human nature. Before Leviticus and Numbers it used to be among the Jews as it continues to be among the Arabs:
So, why can’t it grant the P2,000 pension increase being clamored by its pensioners? While SSS, as a matter of principle, is not opposed to improving the lot of its pensioners, it cannot do so at the expense of the program and the entire membership. The additional pension will translate to at least P56 billion annually on top of the regular pension payments. In order to raise this amount, SSS will have to liquefy part of its investments and this would mean a reduction in its income. If this situation continues unabated, it could lead to the brankruptcy of the system. If, however, additional funding is given by way of an increase in the rate of contributions or through government subsidy, that might be another matter. It cannot be denied that the SSS has been faithful in fulfilling its mandate of providing social-security protection to its members during the last 59 years. With the help of its stakeholders, workers and the employers alike, as well as the government, it can be a stronger institution able to provide its members with more meaningful benefits.
Last year it paid more than P112.5 billion in benefits to more than 3 million members and beneficiaries. Also, more than 1.5 million members have availed themselves of loans—salary, educational assistance, housing—amounting to over P30.7 billion. It is worth mentioning that to make its services more accessible and more convenient to members, SSS has opened a total of 291 branch, service and representative offices nationwide and in select countries abroad. Considering the millions of members it serves, these offices are not enough to give more efficient delivery of services. Thus, SSS has made use of information technology to provide online services, including SS number issuance, sickness and retirement benefit applications, salary loan application and many others. It has also made it easier for members to contact SSS for information or other concerns through its 24-hour telephone service at 920-6446 to 55 or through its tollfree number of 1-800-10-2255-777, available Monday to Friday. Recently, in June 2014, it granted a 5-percent across-the-board increase in pensions, while in August last year the funeral benefit was increased from a fixed amount of P20,000 to a variable amount ranging from a minimum of P20,000 to a maximum of P40,000 depending on the total number of contributions and the average monthly salary credit.
For more details on SSS programs, members can drop by the nearest SSS branch, visit the SSS web site (www.sss.gov.ph), or contact the SSS call center at 920-6446 to 55, which accepts calls from 7 a.m. on Monday all the way to 7 a.m. on Saturday. Susie G. Bugante is the vice president for public affairs and special events of the SSS. Send comments about this column to susiebugante.bmirror@gmail.com.
A spleen for a tooth, A family for an eye, A clan for a life, And the village if you take the guy’s sheep, Because it happens to be his girlfriend. So far from a counsel of barbarity, the Old Testament began with little nuggets of comparative moderation in the moral education of the race which God chose to be born in as His own Son. As Robert Barron puts it: Throughout the history of the Jews God was trying them on for size; stage by moral stage; until they were ripe and ready to receive his Son. And that was a mistake; although it wasn’t the Jews themselves but the Italians who killed him. The Son of the Father, Who was the same as the Son, Said to the creatures He had made in his own likeness: “He without sin cast the first stone.” Even as who is not screwing around Condemn the woman caught on video. (I made that up.) And if a man slaps you on the cheek do not wipe out his village but offer your other cheek, as well. Yet, Christ did not really have to tell them to respect human life, as one respects
one’s own; and to love one another as one loves oneself and thereby become a trinity in one person just like God. For even in the Old Testament it was clear, right from the very first verses. God made all living things already living—be they on the earth, in the water, or in the sky. But man he made out of clay. And it was dead. Until God put His mouth on the mouth of His creature and blew His spirit into it. Man came to life with the breath of God. The very same breath the loving Father exchanged with the Son, and the loving Son with the beloved Father. And that breath, passing back and forth, said Augustine, is the Holy Spirit. That is why the Church gets all hot and bothered, not so much that life is taken—men being what they are they will take it—but that some dare say it is okay. Not just in extreme cases but just to get a point across. The taking of any life is a taking of the breath of God; which, by the way, not even God takes back. We die at the hands of each other, or from sickness or old age, because of the wrong we did when we were still immortal as He made us at first.
Opinion BusinessMirror
opinion@businessmirror.com.ph
US-EU trade deal gets hung up on politics
Wednesday, August 31, 2016 A11
The toughest question in climate change: Who gets saved?
Leonid Bershidsky
BLOOMBERG VIEW
G
ermany’s vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, says talks about a major trade deal between the European Union (EU) and the United States have failed, though “nobody is really admitting it.” That statement should be taken with a grain of salt, but the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) appears to be doomed, at least until after elections in the US and major European countries. Gabriel’s Economy Ministry is not involved in the TTIP negotiations. He also is the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), the coalition partner of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), but also its biggest political rival. Germany has a general election next year, and polls show a 10-11 point lead for the CDU over Gabriel’s SDP, so it’s in the vice chancellor’s interest to kick off the political season early and try to score points by taking popular positions. He is, for example, also calling for a cap on the number of refugees Germany will accept—an unusual position for a leftist, but one that the German public considers reasonable and Merkel rejects. Denouncing the TTIP looks like a similar ploy: The trade deal’s negative rating in Germany reached 59 percent late last year. “As Europeans, we mustn’t, of course, submit to American demands,” the vice chancellor said in an interview with the German TV channel ZDF. Originally, EU and US officials planned to conclude the deal by the end of 2014—“on one tank of gas,” as US Trade Representative Michael Froman said. The 14 weeklong rounds of talks held so far have not produced a deal on any of the 27 subject areas, as Gabriel has correctly pointed out. The EU’s public report on the latest stage of the talks reads as though they are still in a starting phase. The sides are still exchanging widely diverging proposals on the most contentious issues. The three most sensitive areas concern trade in agricultural goods, the mutual opening of government procurement and the resolution of disputes between governments and investors. On agriculture, European nations—especially France, Italy and Greece—insist on the recognition of their sole rights to sell certain products under their common names. Greece, for example, demands exclusive ownership of feta cheese. There also are politically important issues, such as European environmentalists’s objections to the US’s “chlorine-washed chicken” and genetically modified corn. On government procurement, Europeans have pointed out that they have a unified bidding system that would let US companies compete for orders at lower government levels but that the US cannot provide equal access to state- and city-level procurement. Investor conflict resolution is another politically fraught issue. To antiglobalization activists both on the left and on the right, the deal
attempts to make multinational corporations unaccountable to national governments. The EU is pushing for a greater role for governments in regulating foreign investors’ activities. All these issues have been successfully resolved in the EU’s trade deal with Canada, CETA, which now needs approval by individual EU members and the European Parliament to take effect. For example, subfederal government procurement has been opened with certain limitations, the European product origin demands have been met, and Canada agreed to use Europe’s new dispute resolution mechanism—the Investment Court System. Even so, the negotiations and the legal editing of the text have taken much longer than planned, and individual European countries can still scuttle the deal. In the case of TTIP, US negotiators did the deal a disservice from the start by insisting on stricter secrecy than necessary. The public, acutely interested in a major agreement that would remove most of the remaining trade barriers with the US, has had to rely on partial leaks, and distrust has flourished. Antifree-trade activists have used this to their advantage. Besides, as the negotiations progressed, trust in the EU has somewhat eroded, and, as a recent study from the Austrian Institute of Economic Research showed, it is directly correlated with support for the TTIP. In addition, the US has been less flexible than Canada, even though it probably stands to benefit at least as much as does the EU, which enjoys a big surplus from the existing relationship. According to a recent paper from the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, TTIP could increase Europe’s per-capita GDP by 0.4 percent, while the US should get a 0.5percent boost. Now the negotiations have dragged on for so long, and so many doubts about it have been raised in Europe, that neither the German government nor the French will want to make any serious compromises before next year’s elections. Nor will the US want to back down during the next round of talks, expected at some point in the fall. The Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump opposes the deal, and his rival Hillary Clinton is careful not to be seen backing any agreement that could hurt US jobs. President Barack Obama’s administration will be careful not to hurt Clinton in any way. Whether she will be more disposed toward concessions if she wins is unclear.
Flooding in New Jersey in January. It’s not just remote towns in Alaska that will need to move. Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images
L
By Christopher Flavelle | BloombergView
ast fall, two towns at opposite ends of the country entered a new kind of contest run by the federal government. At stake was their survival: Each is being consumed by the rising ocean, and winning money from Washington would mean the chance to move to higher ground. On the western edge of Alaska, the remote town of Newtok was losing 50 feet to 100 feet of coastline each year to sea-level rise and melting permafrost. It was about to lose its drinking water, its school and maybe even its airport. Its 350 or so residents had been trying to move to safety for 20 years; in 2003, they obtained new land, about 10 miles to the south. Four thousand miles away on the Louisiana coast, another town, Isle de Jean Charles, was also starting to drown. It was home to just 25 families, some of whom remained ambivalent about relocating. It wasn’t losing land at the rate of Newtok. Its residents didn’t face the same risk of losing access to key facilities. And they had yet to select a new site, let alone secure the rights to it. In January the government announced its decision: Isle de Jean Charles would get full funding for a move. Newtok would get nothing. “Don’t get me wrong—I don’t want nothing against Louisiana,” Romy Cadiente, Newtok’s relocation coordinator, told me by phone. And yet: “Surely you would have thought somebody as far along in the project as we are, we would have got some type of consideration.” The contest, called the National Disaster Resilience Competition, was the first large-scale federal effort to highlight and support local solutions for coping with climate change. It wound up demonstrating something decidedly less upbeat: The federal government is still struggling to figure out which communities should be moved, and when, and how to pay for it. The importance of answering those questions is shifting from hypothetical to urgent. The Alaskan town of Shishmaref this month became the latest coastal community to vote in favor of relocating; more will follow it. Figuring out who most deserves money to move will only get more contentious as more places raise their hand. If cutting emissions seems like a political nightmare, just wait.
‘It doesn’t make any sense’ The resilience competition, run by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), awarded $1 billion to states, cities and towns that had been hit by major natural disasters and that proposed novel approaches to coping with future ones. That level of funding, part of a bill Congress passed in 2013 after Superstorm Sandy, allowed HUD to support projects that would otherwise be hard to find money for, but will become increasingly necessary as the sea level rises and extreme weather worsens. Perhaps the best example is relocation, which has high up-front costs but can save money over time by getting people out of harm’s way. Isle de Jean Charles illustrates the conundrum nicely. HUD will give Louisiana $48 million to move a few dozen members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe off an island that was slipping under the gulf into custom-designed housing on better land. Try getting Louisiana taxpayers facing a budget crisis and no shortage of people seeking disaster relief to fund a project like that on their own. But just as pressing was the situation in Newtok. Home to members of the indigenous Yupik people, the town has become shorthand for the costs of climate change. Geologists warning of erosion had recommended relocating the town as far back as 1984. Newtok has received seven disaster declarations, according to local officials. The Government Accountability Office determined the town to be “in imminent danger.” And that was 13 years ago. By 2017, erosion is expected to drain the pond that provides drinking water for the town. The edges of the airport are collapsing, a potential disaster for a place that can’t be reached by road. The town’s school could be unusable by next year. Washington appeared to notice: President Barack Obama, in a visit to Alaska before attending the Paris climate summit last December, called what’s happening in places like Newtok “a wake-up call,” and “a preview of what
Colombia shows the world how to wage peace
N
o one won the guerrilla war in Colombia. The conflict dragged on for decades, killing 220,000 people and destroying many more lives. That’s Colombia’s tragedy. Now there is hope, and a lesson: how two sides, accepting that neither would prevail in battle, can find peace by talking. The deal to end hostilities between Colombia’s government and the rebels of FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) is such a marvel of compromise and trust between bitter foes that bells should ring around the world, especially in those places where civil
war rages: Yes, it’s possible to resolve an entrenched, stalemated conflict through negotiation. In the Middle East, as well? Well, someday there, too, we hope. The Colombia settlement isn’t unprecedented, which is part of its allure. There are similar cases, creating an instruction manual of sorts for potential success ending war. The Northern Ireland peace process worked, and holds. South Africa came together after apartheid. In each of those cases, the end to fighting included a promise to heal wounds through a truth and reconciliation process, in which the
participants acknowledge their roles in violence and other wrongdoing, providing victims with closure. Truth commissions set the record straight for the sake of history at the cost of pursuing legal charges against individuals. They worked in South Africa but didn’t get off the ground in Northern Ireland. A version of that process is a key component to Colombia’s peace plan. Should the rebels and soldiers and others sit before their country to confess their crimes, it will be an extraordinarily emotional moment for Colombia. This was a bloody conflict dating to 1963 that involved
killings, kidnappings, torture, extortion and other traumas. FARC, a leftist insurgency officially known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, sought to overthrow the government. Right-wing paramilitaries, FARC drug trafficking and assassinations were big parts of the mix. Representatives of FARC and the government met over the course of four years in Havana to try to find peace. The deal they came away with required ego-crushing sacrifices by both sides. FARC relinquished its aim to displace the political and economic system of Colombia. The government
will happen to the rest of us.” So when Alaska’s application on behalf of Newtok and three other towns was rejected, while projects in 10 other states got money, the response wasn’t just anger but incomprehension. “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Sally Russell Cox, the state official in charge of Newtok’s application. The decision “simply astonishes me,” Alaska Gov. Bill Walker wrote to Julian Castro, the secretary of HUD. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in a letter to Obama, said HUD’s decision “left rural Alaskans looking like simply a backdrop on your pathway to Paris.”
The HUD officials started by noting that federal law prevented them from calling applicants for more information—for example, to ask whether Isle de Jean Charles or Newtok had chosen a new site. They suggested that the money Alaska provided didn’t qualify as leverage, while Louisiana got a higher score because it promised money for other projects in its application—even if none of that money was going to Isle de Jean Charles. In other words, HUD decided which town to move in accordance with the rules, regardless of whether that meant money went to the town with the greatest need, or that had waited the longest, or was the most ready. Those rules may not have made sense, but HUD staff followed them to the letter. “The people that made the decisions are far away from us; maybe they just don’t have a good understanding of Alaska,” Cox told me. She may not have realized how right she was.
Pick up the phone
What happened? The story behind Newtok’s exclusion turns out to be a cautionary tale about the shortcomings of rigid checklists—and not one that HUD was eager to tell. Officials who’d been happy to describe their plans for Isle de Jean Charles clammed up when I asked why Alaska was rejected, insisting I file a freedom of information request. I did; three months later, HUD responded with 89 pages of documents, from which it had redacted every scintilla of information that might have answered the question. Alaskan officials were less reticent. Ann Gravier, who oversaw the state’s application as Alaska’s director of hazard mitigation, said HUD told her that Alaska had been shut out of the contest primarily because it scored zero points in a category HUD called “leverage”—the ability of federal money to unlock funds from the state government or other sources. That makes some sense. The federal government should direct scarce adaptation resources to projects that are most likely to succeed, and a good indicator of likely success is support from the state government. There was just one problem with this explanation: The relocation of Isle de Jean Charles will be funded entirely with federal money because the state hadn’t committed a single dollar. Meanwhile, according to Cox, Newtok had already secured $15 million in state funding. Presented with that puzzle, HUD relented, letting me talk to some of the staff involved in the contest on the condition that I not use their names. What they told me does not bode well for divvying up federal adaptation money through scored competitions.
The inane bureaucracy of funding climate adaptation may not seem like a big deal when the towns competing for money are places few people have ever heard of. But once sea levels rise another foot, the federal government may have to choose between funding the relocation of entire neighborhoods in Galveston, Texas; Hilton Head, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; and even Miami. Two feet, and swaths of Boston and Charleston, South Carolina, could be underwater. According to an official with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sea levels could rise 9 feet by 2050. There will almost certainly not be enough money to dyke, pump out or elevate every community that needs it. Nor will there be enough to provide every community the kind of thoughtful, orderly and expensive relocation that HUD has promised Isle de Jean Charles. The federal government will need to choose. Here’s the problem: If scored competitions are the wrong way to make these decisions, what’s the right way? Leaving it to Congress doesn’t seem promising: A representative’s obligation is to constituents, which means struggles for funding would be decided by who can exert the most pull. Less defensible than a rigid checklist is no checklist. The better answer may be the most counterintuitive: Instead of restricting the decision-making power of federal bureaucrats, give them more power. The best role for Congress may be to establish the broad criteria that agencies, such as HUD, must consider (such as the cost and benefits, the availability of other alternatives, and the level of need and community commitment), then provide adequate and predictable funding and get out of the way. If that seems insane, remember that there’s no response to climate change that can possibly make everybody happy; we’ve waited too long to cut emissions, and many more Americans will be forced from their homes. The burden of choosing who gets federal money has to reside somewhere, and it might, as well, be someplace like HUD. Congress’s directions should be simple: Make the best decisions you can. And maybe even pick up the phone.
was forced to recognize that it could not vanquish FARC or even imprison its leaders. Their agreement, announced on August 24, calls for FARC members to disarm. Guerrillas and government forces will appear before a tribunal, and if they hold back, nothing in their testimony will avoid jail time, agreeing to an alternate form of restricted liberty, such as community service. FARC members will get compensation and the group will morph into a political party with guaranteed participation in the legislature for several years. The government promises to invest more in rural areas.
This peace deal is controversial. The current president sees “a new stage in history” for Colombia. A former president says the terrorists are getting away with war crimes. That disagreement matters because the deal must be approved in a referendum on October 2. If voters approve and the accord sticks, Colombia will get a better future. If it fails, war may reignite. So much work went into this agreement, and so much is at stake, that optimism seems warranted. Mostly for Colombia’s sake, but a little for the rest of the world. Maybe even the Middle East. TNS
Letter of the law
A12 Wednesday, August 31, 2016
BusinessMirror Special Feature
www.businessmirror.com.ph
WIDUS HOTEL AND CASINO
Perfect getaway destination North of Manila
NEKI LIWANAG AVP for Business Development
POOL BAR
TAREK AOUINI General Manager
W
SALT
By Leony R. Garcia
ITH plans of decongesting Metro Manila by developing new cities or metropolitan areas in the countryside, Clark easily comes to mind. Around Clark is an excellent seaport in Subic that is underutilized and an airport which is the biggest airport in the Philippines in terms of land area. In terms of accessibility, these free ports are connected by several tollways, such as the North Luzon Expressway, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union [Expressway]. Clark Freeport Zone will stand to benefit with the government’s urbanization project with more tourists and investment opportunities coming in. In anticipation of Clark International Airport’s expansion, Marriott Hotel Clark’s construction has gone full swing and is set to be completed by 2018. The Marriott at Clark is Korea’s Widus International Leisure Inc.’s latest development that is expected to cost some $50 million to $60 million. Touted as Pampanga’s first five-star hotel, the 15-storey development will sit on a 3.2-hectare lot right next to the existing Widus Hotel and Casino. “Other companies plan for the next month or the next year, kami we plan for 2020. Especially that Marriott is expected to be up hopefully by mid of 2018,” said the statuesque Neki Liwanag, Widus’ AVPBusiness Development/Executive Assistant to the President. According to Liwanag, Widus began operating in Clark in 2008 through what was then known as Hotel Vida. In 2010, Hotel Vida changed its name to Widus Hotel & Casino, which has since embarked on an aggressive expansion program, opening a second tower, expanding its casino and building a multi-function 600-seater convention center. In 2014, Widus invested an additional $100 million in the Marriott Hotel, a water theme park and another casino expansion project. The new Marriot at Clark, the third Marriott-branded hotel in the Philippines, aside from Marriott Manila and Marriott Cebu, will have 260 room keys. It will feature the usual Marriott facilities such as Goji kitchen and bar, great room, pool bar, executive lounge, ballroom and meeting places. Currently, Widus Hotel & Casino leads the hotel industry in the Freeport by enjoying full occupancy courtesy of families frequenting the hotel especially on weekends and the Korean gamers who have been the long time and repeat clients of the casino whose room re-
quirement reaches to 90 out of the 233 rooms of the hotel. “We are aware that hotels and casinos are coming up in this area but we don’t see them as competitors. Rather, we see the situation as a good market indicator, maraming demands so they have to construct hotels and casinos. Ang sa amin, we make sure nauuna kami palagi. So far I think other casinos are doing as well also. Sabi nila we’re No. 1, so I like to believe that,” Liwanag said. “Our forte is the Korean market. We know how they want things done so we know how to entertain them. So we hope the airport will consider the international market as well not just the domestic. We used to have Malaysian gamers but when Air Asia left the airport, wala na. So we expect the CIA’s expansion to bring more tourists from Korea and other parts of Asia,” she added. Sitting on 1.9 hectares of land in the Freeport, the Department of Tourism has accredited Widus as deluxe hotel due to its first-class services, facilities, and modern, cutting edge designs. It boasts of 233 luxuriously-appointed guest rooms, outdoor swimming pool, convention center and casino. The interior of the hotel is Southeast Asian inspired with tropical influences and lush landscaping around the property. To unwind, guests are welcomed to make an appointment for blissful spa services and massages in the privacy of their rooms. Outstanding F&B outlets present delicious international dishes and sumptuous buffets, while the bar is well-stocked and is one of the hippest hangout spots in town. Other features of the hotel include the Business center, Conference room, Currency exchange, Fitness center, Gift/sundry shop, and Meeting room. Room service is available around the clock. Widus is strategically located seven minutes away from Clark International Airport, five minutes away from Mimosa Golf and Country Club and three minutes away from the Duty Free shops and Casinos. Nearby tourist attractions include the Mt. Pinatubo, Mt. Arayat, Expo Filipino and the Mimosa Leisure State. This one-stop premier leisure destination North of Manila is
approximately 90 minutes drive from Metro Manila. The property is ranked as the top hotel choice in Clark and is also a recipient of the 2015 Travelers’ Choice Award by TripAdvisor. The same travel review website also acknowledged Widus as one of the best hotel for families in the Philippines, being consistently on its Top Ten list. “We have not foreseen to have this project to be this big. The original plan was for a vacation time-sharing concept. I joined the company in 2007 as marketing supervisor for the time-sharing project. At that time we only had a villa as an office which eventually was constructed into tower one,” Liwanag reminisced. “Tower one opened in July 2008. Our license for casino operation was granted on September 9, 2009, making 999 our lucky number. We opened the casino on December 18 of the same year, barely three months of non-stop construction. We never expected na ganito pala siya kalaki and still growing. In the drawing board is how to make it bigger. Aside from Marriott, Widus Tower 3 is also under construction to cope up with the growing room requirements of our clients both local and foreign tourists. So the long-term plan is for Marriott to bring high-end tourists who will eventually go to the casino. It would be an integrated sharing market, sharing lahat to contribute the revenue of the entire project,” Liwanag concluded. Meanwhile, Tarek Aouini, the hotel’s general manager, is happy that Widus is on the right track. “Our guests keep coming back and are happy. We are on the right track. We have lot of plans which we can share by middle of September. Our immediate plans for promotion, of course, would be for the Halloween in November, and for the long holiday of December for Christmas and New Year,” Aouini said. The amiable hospitality expert has been in the industry for 16 years and has gone around the globe working in various international hotels. His immediate plan is to help “this company to move, to grow and build better service, and to help the local community as well.” Lending his expertise in the hotel industry which he has loved since he was a kid growing up in the resort in his hometown Tunisia, Aouini is a first-timer in the Philippines which he said he really finds to be fun. He has just moved in the country with her Filipina wife and two young kids in March this year. “Yes, it’s more fun in the Philippines! You have a growing hospitality business and you have a lot of hospitality schools to help you in the business,” he said. The only thing he wants to change or innovate in the country
is to go high tech. “It’s about time you invest more in technology. It would be nice for the Philippines to reach the level of modern cities in the world. High technology would really help in the business includ-
LOBBY
ing the hotel industry. Internet connectivity should be excellent. As for Widus, we would be starting our check-in process through the tablets by September this year. Aouini must be walking the
PEPPERS 21
talk. The first thing we noticed at Widus, aside of course from its wellappointed facilities, was the very fast Wi-Fi connection. And we didn’t need a password to be able to use it. And that made us very happy…