Businessmirror december 07, 2014

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week ahead

ECONOMIC DATA PREVIEW Foreign exchange

n Previous week: The local currency followed a straight appreciating trend during the week after several weeks of rally. The trend started with a 6-centavo appreciation on Monday to hit 44.83 to a dollar from the previous week’s close at 44.89. This continued toward Tuesday and Wednesday, hitting 44.735 to a dollar and 44.68 consecutively. This continued to 44.64 to a dollar on Thursday and ended the week at 44.54 to a dollar on positive local news, like the lower inflation data for November. Friday’s close is the strongest that the peso has been in more than two months, or since September 24, when it hit 44.46 to a dollar. The total traded volume for the week is also larger at $2.86 billion, from the previous week of $2.03 billion.

n Week ahead: The peso is expected to trade with an appreciation bias in the week ahead as economists and traders note that remittances are starting to come in. Markets also seek leads from the upcoming Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) meeting during the week.

Manufacturing (October 2014)

December 10, Wednesday

n September manufacturing: The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the volume of production index (VoPI) grew by 3.2 percent in September this year, losing steam from the 19-percent increase seen in the same month last year. Production volume declined across sectors, including electrical machinery, food, transport, apparel and tobacco products, among others.

n October manufacturing: Moody’s Analytics said the country’s slowdown in manufacturing mirrors the “broader economy’s cooling” during the period. The research arm of the international credit watcher also said that solid export demand and continued remittances from overseas should lift production in the coming months.

n Sunday, December 7, 2014 Vol. 10 No. 59

P25.00 nationwide | 7 sections 32 pages | 7 days a week

Natl govt’s failure to spend in Q3 is ‘necessary sacrifice’

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By Bianca Cuaresma

HE national government’s inability to disburse public funds to fund projects in the months of July to September this year—which inadvertently led to the country’s economic growth slowdown during the period—is a “necessary sacrifice” for the economy to maintain its expansion in the medium to long term, a Cabinet official said.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan told reporters in a recent interview on the sidelines of an economic forum in Makati City that, while the lower spending in the third quarter of the year may have “led to a short-term bump in the economy,” it can be good for the country in the long run.

Balisacan attributed the lower fiscal spending—which was the See “Sacrifice,” A2

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

G

ULF carrier Emirates should be fined and penalized for selling international passenger tickets bound for Manila and back to Dubai under a third frequency.

This was the call of the two largest Filipino carriers in the Philippines, after they discovered that their competitor has been offering a third daily flight up until October 2015.

Emirates is only authorized to operate a third daily flight until December 26 this year.

In separate petitions before the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Cebu Pacific (CEB) urged the regulator to investigate the malpractice and penalize Emirates for such move.

The flag carrier called on the regulator to issue a cease-and-desist order that directs Emirates to immediately halt the promotion and sale of

PESO exchange rates n US 44.6480

Job gains put U.S. on pace for best growth since ’99

BALISACAN: “I do not know of any good reform that is not painless. If you want to do serious reforms, some sacrifice must be made initially.”

PAL, CEB demand fine, penalty for Gulf carrier

Policy stance

n Previous monetary-policy stance: In its October 23 monetary policy meeting, the Monetary Board decided to keep the central bank’s policy rates unchanged—at 4 percent for the overnight borrowing or reverse repurchase facility and 6 percent for the overnight lending or repurchase facility. The central bank decided to keep all its monetary tools unchanged only for the second time this year due to its assessment of a more “manageable” inflation environment based on its latest baseline projections for the policy horizon.

n Upcoming monetary-policy stance: Private economists in the country bet that the seven-man Monetary Board will pause again on its tightening measures as inflation eases in November this year. This, however, will not last long as the BSP will likely hike again coming into 2015 to take into consideration the lower inflation target for next year and the normalization of monetary policy in the US. See related story.

Bianca Cuaresma

A broader look at today’s business

its third daily Dubai-Manila frequency beyond December 26.

“In addition, PAL likewise prays that, after due notice and hearing, this Honorable Board impose a fine on Emirates,” the Lucio Tan-led carrier said, pointing out that the continued operation of the “third daily frequency is not justified by national interest.”

Emirates used to operate a third daily flight under a code-share agreement with PAL. But the flag carrier decided to let the agreement expire, thus leaving Emirates with no recourse but to petition for an extension of the third frequency up until March 2015.

The petition was turned down by the regulator, prompting Emirates to ask for a reconsideration. It is up for deliberation on December 11.

Thus, so as not to disrupt the status quo, the regulator decided to temporarily extend the operations of Emirates until December 26.

Both carriers were irked by this decision, with CEB reminding the

See “Emirates,” A2

By Christopher S. Rugaber | The Associated Press

W

ASHINGTON—A resurgence in US hiring accelerated in November and put 2014 on track to be the healthiest year for job growth since 1999.

Jobless 10 ANNUAL 8 6% rate 6 Percent of 4 civilian labor 2 force that 0 is unemployed, ’03 by month, seasonally adjusted:

7.4 ’13

5.8%

10 10 88 66 44 22 00

November ’13

November ’14

Graphic: TNS Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The gain of a robust 321,000 jobs—the most in nearly three years—put further distance between a strengthening American economy and struggling nations throughout the developed world.

The job market still isn’t yet fully healthy. But its steady improvement raises the likelihood that the Federal Reserve (the Fed) will start raising interest rates from record lows by mid-2015.

The unemployment rate remained at a six-year low of 5.8 percent, the Labor Department said on Friday.

“These were boom-like numbers,” said Mark Zandi, chief econo-

mist at Moody’s Analytics. “They indicate that the US economy is on very solid ground.”

Friday’s report also raised hopes that Americans’ pay might finally be starting to increase, after barely budging since the Great Recession began seven years ago.

The average hourly wage rose 9 cents to $24.66, the biggest gain in 17 months.

Fed Chairman Janet Yellen has cited stagnant wages as a key reason to keep rates low. Higher wages could lead to higher prices, and the Fed might feel compelled to raise rates to limit inflation.

See “Job gains,” A2

n japan 0.3729 n UK 69.9902 n HK 5.7584 n CHINA 7.2544 n singapore 34.0253 n australia 37.5320 n EU 55.2832 n SAUDI arabia 11.8973 Source: BSP (5 December 2014)

News BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, December 7, 2014

Sacrifice...

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main culprit to the lower-than-expected 5.3-percent growth in the third quarter of the year—to the officials’ refusal to spend, owing to the effects of the controversies surrounding the usage of public funds such as the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam and the Disbursement Acceleration Program issues.

“I think a big part of the explanation of the lower spending this time is really the chilling effect of these issues. Even in my office I feel that. People are very very cautious in spending—which is good,” Balisacan said.

He added that the government’s cautiousness in spending is an “investment” for the country’s future economy as officials are now pressured to channel the funds into more productive projects with tangible outcomes and investments to spur the economy’s structural growth.

“I would like to see this as an investment in the future. These reforms are for the better. Our agencies are being more conscious about what to spend, and they are tying what they spend to measure-

Emirates...

able outcomes,” Balisacan said.

Eventually, he said the agencies will be able to normalize spending and public funds usage after adjusting to the public’s demand for transparency.

“In the medium to long term that should be good for the country and governance. As we know, I do not know of any good reform that is not painless. If you want to do serious reforms, some sacrifice must be made initially,” he said.

Balisacan, meanwhile, warned that the ongoing reforms on the country’s public fund usage will not hurt the country’s marginalized sector.

“Of course, the challenge there is to make sure that those who are hurt by reforms are not the poorest ones. So we should be able to do some programs to make sure that there are safety nets for them,” he said.

The country’s growth rate decreased in the third quarter of the year down to 5.3 percent, slowing down from last year’s third-quarter gross domestic product growth of 7 percent and from the previous quarter’s 6.4 percent.

  A

government that the regulator, under the law, only has the freedom to grant 30-day extra-bilateral rights to a foreign carrier.

“It does not allow the board to grant any increase in capacities for more than 30 days. Hence, Cebu Pacific believes that the extension of 30 days from November 27, 2014, is contrary to law,” the Gokongwei-led carrier said.

“Granting that the board has the discretion to give such 30-day extension, the board should immediately order Emirates to stop selling seats for flights beyond Decem-

ber 26, 2014. Otherwise, Emirates will continue its blatant disrespect of the CAB’s resolutions,” Cebu Pacific added.

Under the air-services agreement between the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates, each nation is given the privilege to operate 28 flights per week between Manila and the states under the Arabian bloc.

The entitlements of the Philippines are held by PAL with 14, its sister carrier PAL Express with seven, and Cebu Pacific with seven. Emirates and Etihad Airways equally share the coefficients of the UAE.

Job gains...

  A

tary part-time workers and people who have given up looking, stands at 11.4 percent.

In addition, the number of unemployed people who have been out of work for more than six months is 2.8 million, more than double its pre-recession level.

“At this rate, we won’t return to pre-recession labor market health until October 2016—nearly nine years since the recession began,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Many Americans remain anxious about the economy. In a Gallup poll last month, 30 percent said the economy was “poor,” compared with 24 percent who said it was “good” or “excellent.” Americans who earn above $90,000 had a much brighter outlook than those who earn less.

Even among Americans who have found jobs, many are earning less than they did before the recession.

One of them is Stephen Tripp, 40, who’s starting a job this month in the Minneapolis area as a cook at Aramark, a corporate food-services provider, after years of intermittent work at country clubs and restaurants. The job pays much less than the $75,000 he made as an executive chef in 2007. But he expects higher-paying positions at the company will open soon.

“I’m kind of taking steps back in the hopes of moving forward,” Tripp said.

Seasonal hiring related to the holiday-shopping season helped lift the overall gains. Retailers added 50,200 jobs, the most in 11 months. Transportation and warehousing gained 16,700.

Shipping companies have announced ambitious plans, after some holiday gifts ordered online

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

TODAY’S WEATHER

TYPHOON “RUBY” (HAGUPIT) WAS LOCATED AT 190 KM EAST SOUTHEAST OF CATARMAN, NORTHERN SAMAR OR AT 90 KM EAST OF DOLORES, EASTERN SAMAR

Typhoon is a cyclone category with winds of 175 kph.

Budget...

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Still, over the past 12 months, hourly pay has risen just 2.1 percent, barely above the 1.7-percent inflation rate. And economists note that inflation remains below the Fed’s 2 percent target and will likely stay tame because of lower energy prices. That might give the Fed some leeway to wait.

The Fed has kept its benchmark rate near zero for six years to encourage borrowing and spending.

Investors welcomed Friday’s news: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 58 points to close at 17,958. Earlier in the day, the Dow came within 9 points of crossing the 18,000 mark for the fi rst time. The yield on the 10year Treasury note rose to 2.31 percent, from 2.25 percent, a sign that investors foresee a Fed rate increase relatively soon.

So far this year, the economy has gained 2.65 million jobs. With a month to go, 2014 is already the best year for hiring in 15 years.

That is partly a reflection of the anemic pace of job growth for much of the recovery. Only this year, five years after the recession officially ended, have job gains neared levels historically associated with a strong economy. In the 1980s and 1990s, employers regularly added more than 3 million jobs a year.

Even now, signs of weakness remain: There are 6.9 million people with part-time jobs who would prefer full-time work—up from 4.1 million before the recession.

And millions have given up looking for work. That has been a factor in the declining unemployment rate: Once people stop seeking a job, they’re no longer counted as unemployed.

A broader measure of unemployment, which includes involun-

DECEMBER 7, 2014 | SUNDAY

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arrived late last year. UPS has said it expects to add up to 95,000 seasonal workers, up from 85,000 last year. FedEx plans to hire 50,000, up from 40,000.

But the hiring was broadbased: A measure of industries that added jobs reached its highest point since 1998.

Manufacturers added 28,000 jobs, the most in a year, and education and health services 38,000.

Professional and technical services, a category that includes higherpaying jobs, such as accountants, engineers and architects, gained 37,500 positions, the most in three-and-a-half years. Construction firms added 20,000.

The hiring surge comes after the economy expanded from April through September at its fastest six-month pace in 11 years. Many analysts foresee the economy growing 3 percent next year. If so, 2015 would mark the first time in a decade that annual growth reached that threshold.

Overall, the improving US job market contrasts with weakness elsewhere around the globe.

Growth among the 18 European nations in the euro alliance is barely positive, and the eurozone’s unemployment rate is 11.5 percent.

Japan is in recession. China’s growth has slowed. Other large developing countries, including Russia and Brazil, are straining to grow.

The US economy is less dependent on exports than are Germany, China and Japan. American growth is fueled more by its large domestic market and freespending consumers.

Most of the industries that have enjoyed the strongest job gains depend on the US market, such as retailers, restaurants, education and health care.

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of Light Rail Transit lines 1 and 2; and P715.36 million for Supreme Court Enterprise Information System Plan.

Moreover, Ungab said the lower chamber will pass the P22.46billion supplemental budget before the year ends to continue all the projects halted by the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund and the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

“We will ask the [government] agencies and the DBM to give us a breakdown as to where the money [supplemental budget] will come from,” Ungab said. “[However] I have not yet studied the supplemental budget because we are busy preparing for the bicameral conference committee [for the 2015 budget]. We’ll look into that this coming Monday and Tuesday.

We are going to hold the committee hearing on the proposed supplemental budget,” he said.

Earlier, Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry L. Ridon said the DBM and the House leadership make it appear that the projects in the supplemental budget they are asking for are of utmost importance but “a cursory reading of the bill itself proves otherwise.”

House independent bloc leader and Lakas Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez of Leyte vowed that his bloc will scrutinize the measure “all the way down to the last centavo, since it has a lot of unanswered questions.”

According to Reps. Lito Atienza of Buhay and Jonathan de la Cruz of Abakada, most, if not all, of the funds being asked under the supplemental budget are already programmed in the 2014 and 2015 GAA but have not been fully accounted for.

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A4 Sunday, December 7, 2014 • Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay

editorial

Supplemental budget needs to be refocused

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T is basic economics that, in a global recession, when net exports are negative, the best counteractive move that an affected economy can make is to increase “absorption”—expanding consumer spending, domestic investments and government expenditures. For developing countries like the Philippines, it is best to direct the increased government expenditures to the expansion of productive capacity.

The Aquino administration’s request for a P22.4-billion supplemental budget is, presumably, for increasing absorption, except that the projects covered by it are unrelated to the enhancement of the economy’s productive capacity. Plus, these projects seem to lack a central purpose. We can infer this from some of the questions asked by some members of Congress: n If the projects included in the supplemental budget were that important, why were they not included in the 2015 General Appropriations bill? n What’s so urgent about the hiring of 294 former rebels as guards under the National Greening Program; the renovation of the Department of Finance office; the construction of the Bohol Provincial Capital; the retrofitting of the Presidential Management Staff building; and the payment of Priority Development Assistance Fund projects that have been discontinued or completed? n Why should the Department of Social Welfare and Development need P1.942 billion just to update the list of families in the poverty-reduction program? n With respect to Light Rail Transit lines 1 and 2, why request for funds that have already been included in the 2014 and 2015 national budgets? n On the P2.833 billion requested for the operational transformation plan of the Philippine National Police: Why is this plan so expensive? What exactly is it about? n On the P1.849 billion being sought to cover obligations arising from the implemented projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways: What are these supposed projects? n With regard to the P7.999 billion requested for the construction of permanent housing for the survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), why don’t you first account what happened to the tens of billions of pesos already appropriated for this purpose, as well as donations from the international community?

These are serious questions that deserve serious answers. More to the point, why were the requested funds not directed to projects that can enhance the economy’s productive capacity, for instance, to the so-called FIELDS (Fertilizers, Irrigation and Infrastructure, Extension, Education and Training Loans, Dryers and other postharvest facilities, and Seeds) program of the Department of Agriculture; the so-called One Town, One Product program for local governments; or the increase and improvement of tourism facilities?

As matters stand, this is likely to become another case of missed opportunity—the failure to use resources for the improvement of the economy’s productive capacity when there is the opportunity to do so.

We hope the supplemental budget is reconceptualized and redirected. If it is refocused on the expansion of our economy’s productive capacity, it will unambiguously benefit Filipinos.

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

Diplahan ‘lechon’ A

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DIFFERENT kind of lechon (roast suckling pig)—slowcooked on charcoal for two hours after being marinated in secret herbs and spices; and served, not with the usual liver sauce, but with homemade vinegar—is catching the imagination—and whetting the appetite—of Christmas revelers after it was learned that the lechon reputedly contains less fat and that the enterprise making this very tasty food item uses only native pigs.

Credit for this new kind of lechon goes to Jotle and Luisa Viray, who accidentally discovered it during a business trip to Diplahan, a quiet town in Zamboanga Sibugay province, a year ago. What the couple did was to persuade the lechon-making family they met in that municipality to share their cooking secrets with them so that Manila may taste what’s now called the Diplahan lechon. In return, the couple would share part of their profits with the town.

The Virays are actually employing a new kind of marketing—connecting meaningfully with their customers—that is different from what came to be known as “interventional marketing”. In educating their customers about the finer points of the Diplahan lechon—how it is cooked and why it is crispy-brown, and why the sauce for it is homemade vinegar—the Virays need not press their future clients to buy. The fact that they are offering less fatty lechon makes for a subtle pitch.

Jotle, a big bike enthusiast who spearheaded a group that first went to Tacloban City, Leyte province, in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), and later donated several fishing boats to the affected families there, oversees preparations for the Diplahan lechon. He said it took a while, but, so far, the enterprise has been so successful that buyers can get their orders after a day’s notice.

The Diplahan lechon is in Barangay Masinag, Antipolo City. For details, call 0917-8268017 or 0917-8268010.

Protecting electricity consumers

IT is high time the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) institutionalized the so-called secondary price cap in the Wholesale Electricity Spot

Gospel

Sunday, December 7, 2014

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Market (WESM) starting next year, especially after it was predicted that there would be power outages, beginning in March. As of now, the secondary price cap, which effectively moderates the greed of the power-generation companies (gencos) by ensuring that the generation charge does not go out of whack, like what happened last year, when electricity rates went up to P62 per kilowatt-hour.

As of now, the secondary price cap—which reins in the clearing price for the generation charge, even when there are power outages, at P8.186—is just being extended every time the expiry date approaches.

First set in May, the expiry date was later extended to August, and then for another 120 days, until the end of the year. So far, the measure put in place is supported by the Manila Electric Co., while the gencos are against the proposal, saying it is unconstitutional, among others.

But, as the Supreme Court proved when it struck down the huge spike in energy prices when the WESM pricing went out of whack more than a year ago, the gencos and their grumbling do not stand a chance against blindfolded Lady Justice.

And the ERC mandate for the secondary price cap set for this summer is the right step toward protecting electricity consumers.

What is given is that spot-market prices spike whenever there is any outage in the power plants. Simulations by the Department of Energy show that the Luzon grid can have an average of up to 1,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity on forced outage, with actual experience showing that we can have as much as 2,000 MW. All these are on top of plants that are under scheduled or

he beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight—”John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And there went out to him all the country of Judea,

maintenance shutdown, such as those fed by Malampaya.

That means the ERC should now institutionalize the secondary price cap. After all, gencos are allowed to charge additional costs they incur that are beyond the price cap set. So why should they continue to complain?

LA publisher honored

LOS Angeles-based publisher and real-estate investor Oscar L. Jornacion was conferred an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree by the Polytechnic University of the Philippines on Friday. Jornacion founded his publishing empire 32 years ago under the banner of the First TriMedia Group of Companies, which include Philippine newspaper publications in Los Angeles and San Diego, the first Philippine radio station in California, and Philippine-American expositions and conventions.

Later, Jornacion, a classmate and close friend of billionaire Dr. Andrew L. Tan of Megaworld Corp., ventured into real-estate investments. He currently owns and manages two large commercial buildings in Los Angeles: the Philippine Village Center and the Tri-Media Building, both of which house numerous Philippine businesses and are regular venues for various Philippine events and celebrations. His real-estate businesses include holdings in 12 states.

A certified public accountant in the Philippines and the United States, Jornacion has been the recipient of numerous awards and commendations from various organizations and government agencies in both countries.

E-mail: hugagni@yahoo.com.

and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”—Mark 1:1-8

Voices

essMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph • Sunday, December 7, 2014 A5

The listening pope T

Free Fire

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

HE seal of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is carved above the doors of the renovated Vatican libraries, writes Father Rogers of the Society of Jesus: A fitting reminder of one of the finest scholars and theologians of the Roman Catholic Church.

To restore respect for a Church that had been under siege from emperors and kings, Pope Julius II led troops into battle wearing an armor under his cassock. His name is all over the walls painted by Raphael, glorifying the Church.

The Sistine Chapel is named after Pope Sixtus IV. Pope Urban VIII built the Trevi Fountain, not for tourists, but as a clean source of water for the poor people of Rome.

It is unlikely that Pope Francis’s name will be carved above the public showers that he has ordered built on the suggestion of

his almoner. The post of almoner is suddenly one of the most important and highest-profile positions in Francis’s papacy. The almoner’s job is to check on the needs of the poor. It’s been that way since the beginnings of the papacy.

It seems the current almoner had invited a homeless man to lunch, but the man declined. He felt he was too smelly to dine with a top Vatican official. So, with the full backing of Francis, the almoner ordered public showers to be built along one of the arms of Saint Peter’s Basilica that represent the Church’s embrace of the poor. Why didn’t the almoner send a soup kitchen to the smelly man’s neighborhood? Because there are enough soup kitchens in Rome, provided by its hundreds of churches. But mostly because it is not food the man needed to feed his starved

dignity, but a shower.

This is the new pope, Father Rogers says: A man who doesn’t tell you what you need, but asks you, such as kindness to prisoners, safety for refugees on the high seas, communion to a divorced woman, baptism to a child born out of wedlock and showers for those who want to feel their human dignity again. In that regard, Father Rogers says, Francis is no different from previous popes, starting in modern times with Pope Leo XIII, who answered the challenge of capitalist abuse with the Catholic commitment to social justice.

When Francis comes here, he will want to see not the rich, but the poor, and they better smell clean, because he is not going to blame them, but the local bishops and the local rich. This guy is not kidding about Christian duty.

“I will not be very patient with excuses after this event [Typhoon Ruby (international code name Hagupit)]. Failure on the priorities is unforgivable.”

—President Aquino, during a meeting with members of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, on Thursday.

Where Katniss, Wonder Woman and Marvel’s new Thor come from

By Adrienne Mayor Los Angeles Times (TNS)

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Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in a scene from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. AP/Lionsgate

OME 2,500 years ago, the Greeks had a big Amazon moment.

Warrior women who gloried in their freedom rode into Western culture in the myths, artwork and histories of classical antiquity. On horseback, shooting bows, swinging battle-axes, hurling spears and dying heroically in battle, they were wildly popular subjects on painted Greek vases. Bold Amazons also decorated the Parthenon frieze, the crockery given to newlyweds, men’s drinking cups and women’s jewelry boxes. Little Greek girls even played with clay Amazon dolls with movable arms and legs.

Every man, woman and child knew the tales: How Hercules fought Queen Hippolyta for her precious war belt, how Antiope was kidnapped by Theseus, how Achilles and Penthesilea dueled to the death outside the walls of Troy. From labels on ancient vases, oral legends and historical documents, more than 130 Amazon names survive.

And for ancient Greeks, Amazons had a life beyond legend. Greek historians reported on the equestrian mastery, the martial skills and the passionate love affairs of women

warriors living in Scythia, the Greek name for the vast territory around and beyond the Black Sea. These “Amazons”, as fearsome and courageous as their men, belonged to “warlike tribes with no fixed abodes,” marveled one Greek writer.

“They live free and unconquered— so savage that even the women take part in war!”

Until recently, modern historians dismissed such reports. But the Greeks weren’t making it up. The women didn’t live in an all-female world or slice off their breasts the better to shoot a bow (that part the Greeks did make up). But there is compelling evidence that, in the 7th-century BC, Greek colonists and traders encountered astonishingly independent warrior women, members of diverse, but culturally related, nomadic tribes that were distinguished by gender equality and that ranged across the steppes of Eurasia from 700 BC to 300 AD. Beginning in the 1940s in Ukraine, south Russia, Caucasia and Central Asia, archaeologists have uncovered grave mounds— called kurgans—containing human remains and artifacts of the steppe cultures. Until the advent of DNA testing, all skeletons discovered with “masculine” grave goods were routinely identified as male. Today

overwhelming genetic evidence from hundreds of kurgans indicates that at least one-third of Scythian women died as active fighters.

They were interred with spears, swords, battle-axes and quivers full of arrows. Many of the armed females bear war injuries, just like their male counterparts: arrows embedded in bones, ribs slashed in sword fights and skull wounds from pointed battle-axes. Some skeletons show clear evidence of a lifetime of hard riding and hands shaped by the heavy use of a bow. Bioarchaeologists can even determine whether the women were in motion, fighting face to face on foot or on horseback when they died.

The graves also reveal that Scythian women, like Scythian men, wore trousers, tunics and boots. Babies were buried with both sexes. Males and females received the same burial honors: sacrificed horses, golden ornaments, hemp-smoking kits and a last meal—fermented mare’s milk and a hunk of horse meat impaled on a wooden plate with an iron knife.

What made the Scythians such dedicated egalitarians? Survival.

They lived rugged lives in a harsh landscape, always on the move, raiding and fending off hostile tribes.

Everyone was a stakeholder; everyone had to contribute. Children were also trained for battle. The youngest

warriors, girls and boys, buried with weapons and armor, were 10 to 14 years old when they died. And the Scythians developed a great equalizer: the combination of horses and archery. Astride a horse, armed with a bow and arrows, a woman could be just as fast and deadly as a man.

For the Greeks, a gender-neutral social order was fascinating. Greek society was essentially settled, urban. Greek women and girls led restricted, indoor lives, weaving and minding children. Greece may have been the cradle of democracy, but aside from their myths, gender equality never got much traction.

Perhaps, it’s telling that the Greek mythic scenarios invariably doomed all Amazons to defeat and death at the hands of great male heroes.

The Scythians didn’t have it easy. The steppe cultures were subjected to incredible pressures— imperial conquest, wars and hardship wiped out or relocated entire peoples and erased their languages, histories and ways of life. And, yet, just as the mythic Amazon Queen Hippolyta “survived” death at the hands of Hercules, vestiges of the old egalitarian order persist to this day in Mongolia, Siberia, Kazakhstan and other lands where women still drink fermented mare’s milk, ride horses, shoot arrows, hunt with

eagles, give counsel in decisions and rise to leadership positions.

Which brings us to the 21st century’s own Amazon moment.

Like the ancient Greeks, Americans today are fascinated by heroic superwomen: Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games strides at the head of long line of female heroes from Wonder Woman to Marvel Comic’s brandnew hammer-throwing female Thor.

And like the Scythians, Americans today see egalitarianism—extending even to women in combat—as a matter of common sense.

And, yet, in too many places women remain violently oppressed. And even in some of the most forwardthinking nations, the battle for equality remains incomplete. Thousands of years after the Greeks and Scythians—and despite our heroic female idols and civil rights—we have yet to fully achieve what the mythic and historical Amazons portend: a world in which women are truly the equals of men in every domain.

But, at least, we no longer require that Amazons die in the last act.

Adrienne Mayor is a research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University. She is the author of The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World.

The journalist will get the last laugh

By Reg Henry

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

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VERY so often, young people visit us here at the word factory to see if they would like to pursue careers in journalism. Given the politically motivated bad-mouthing of the industry these past 30 years, a visit to a newspaper might seem an unlikely choice.

It is possible that some of the youngsters view it like a field trip to one of those museums featuring antique characters in period costume who show how folks lived and worked in the good old days.

Look! There’s a journalist, scowling, all rumpled and gnarly, his tie stained from the cafeteria soup of the day, crouched over a keyboard or cadging a doughnut left over from the union meeting. But enough about me for the moment.

Actually, what strikes me about our young visitors is that most seem genuinely interested in journalism.

They seem brighter and more talented than I was at their age and less rough around the edges—some even know how to use a knife and fork. My superficial impression that they are the future turns out to have some substance.

Caroline Little, president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, wrote last month, “The digital audience for newspapers hit a new high of 164 million in August and that growth was driven by young adults, particularly women.” (Data for October pushed the number to 166 million.)

Print is not dead, either. To the shock of doomsayers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently installed new, state-of-the-art presses at a facility near the Pittsburgh International Airport.

To mark the occasion, Roman Catholic Bishop David Zubik and Rabbi James Gibson presided over a blessing of the presses. This promised to be a singular event in my

newspaper career—a moment when the sacred and profane confronted each other.

To be sure, the newspaper industry has a tradition of this. Unions in this business hold “chapel meetings.”

Apprentices in the print shop were once called printer’s devils.

But when the men of the cloth blessed the presses, and the force of the ecumenical met the shades of the typographical, it seemed, at least, half a chance for an Exorcist moment, only with demon typos sent shrieking out the door.

Instead, it was rather sedate.

Sadly, the full effects of the blessing are not yet evident. Not only are grammatical errors still made, but the reading public remains bedeviled by ridiculous editorials. However, the Lord moves in a mysterious way, His headlines to perform.

Viewed from the summit of my career, there’s a greater blessing to be discerned: that after a long and miserable night, the newspaper

industry is emerging again into the light. It’s been a horrible time, with many jobs lost and readership down, but the industry survives.

And, now, there’s no way to go but up, because of a simple fact that perennial critics forget: What the age of information needs is reliable, professionally gathered information. Bloggers in pajamas can’t do it all, not that there’s anything wrong with pajamas.

Certainly, newspapers are evolving and, in the future, may exist in a different form than a bundle of paper thrown over a fence, to the peril of lurking cats. But, for the moment, let cats and Internet trolls beware. Lamestream media, you say?

Nah, more like bloodstream media, as ever feeding the beating heart of the republic.

Forgive my annoying optimism.

I followed my father into the profession and have proudly been a newspaperman for more than 40 years. For the last 25, I have been

told that my career was imminently doomed, due to the Internet.

While this proved professionally fatal to many, reports of the industry’s death have been greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain observed about himself.

In a few weeks I am going to retire from full-time employment and let my seasoned friends pass on journalism lore to the younger generation (for example, any doughnut left on a desk is fair game).

I am leaving Pittsburgh—it’s nothing anybody said—to go to Australia for three months to see my daughter’s little family before retiring outside Monterey, California, where I was once editor of the local paper. However—and sorry, troll community—I hope to keep writing this column to provide smiles to those who appreciate laughter and to cause irritation to those who like to be irritated.

Look! There’s a retired journalist, beaming. All’s well that ends well.

NewsSunday

A6 Sunday, December 7, 2014 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Aquino faces new typhoon test a year after Yolanda devastation

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yphoon Ruby (international code name Hagupit) is set to lash the central Philippines on Sunday morning, heading toward Manila in a new test of President Aquino’s leadership a year after he earned low marks over his handling of the deadly Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan).

Mr. Aquino, two days ago, began ordering evacuation of thousands to safer ground and stockpiling of food in preparation for the latest storm.

Last year he was criticized for not doing enough to prepare for Yolanda and taking two days to visit victims.

“Reconstruction following Typhoon Haiyan has moved at a snail’s pace and has highlighted the gap between well-publicized commitments by the government and delivery of

these pledges on the ground,” Eufracia Taylor, Asia analyst at Maplecroft, a UK research company, said in an e-mail. “Confidence in the government’s capacity to respond effectively to the fallout from Typhoon Hagupit is considerably low.”

Hagupit—“whip” in Filipino— was centered about 800 kilometers east-southeast of Manila, with winds gusting to 270 kilometers per hour, the US military’s

Joint Typhoon Warning Center said on Saturday.

The typhoon will probably make landfall on early Sunday morning in the central Philippine province of Eastern Samar, Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo told dzMM radio.

‘High impact’

AS many as 12.9 million people may be affected, the United Nations’s Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System said on its web site.

Hagupit “can have a high humanitarian impact.”

Maplecroft ranks the Philippines second to Japan as at-risk from tropical storms. Yolanda, the strongest recorded cyclone ever to hit land, killed more than 6,200 people and left more than 1,000 missing in November 2013.

Mr. Aquino’s popularity eroded after efforts to deliver local and foreign relief supplies to Haiyan victims were hampered by gridlock and damaged roads, and further complicated by a lack of running

water and power failures over a large swath of territory.

The disaster-risk agency on Saturday said 616,550 people have been evacuated from high-risk areas, 88 domestic flights were canceled and 49 sea trips suspended. The Office of Civil Defense on Friday ordered the dismantling of billboards and market tents in the southern provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Quezon. Local governments in danger zones were told to prune trees along major roads.

‘Concrete plans’

“TO show people he means business, Aquino must come up with concrete plans, including relocating people to higher ground to solve typhoon-related problems in the long term,” Benito Lim, a political science professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, said by phone.

“He can’t just give victims a kilo of rice, three cans of sardines and five packs of instant noodles every time a disaster strikes. He must also provide sources of livelihood.”

Mayor Alfred Romualdez of Tacloban City, which was devastated

by Haiyan, said the local government forced coastal residents to evacuate so it can focus on clearing roads of debris that Hagupit will leave behind, according to news web site InterAksyon.

The government is applying lessons learned last year, Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said at a televised briefing on Friday. “It’s no longer difficult to effect evacuation as people voluntarily do it, especially in areas hit by Haiyan.”

A US team will arrive in the Philippines on Saturday to monitor the storm and coordinate with agencies and humanitarian groups, the US Agency for International Development said in an e-mailed statement. A team from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade is also coming and more US government personnel in the region are on standby, it said.

Worried investors

The benchmark Philippine Stock

Exchange Index on Friday fell 0.9 percent in Manila to 7,230.56, the lowest close since November 17.

The peso rose 0.3 percent.

“It’s now more certain that we are on the typhoon’s path,” said Allan Yu, who helps manage $7.3 billion as first vice president at Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. “Many investors are taking profit, worried by the damage this will cause on infrastructure and the impact it will have on growth.”

Global aid agency Mercy Corps will send warning messages by mobile phone to 20,000 of its beneficiaries hit hardest by Haiyan, it said in an e-mailed statement on Friday.

“Hagupit is a test for the president, given the flak that he received because of the slow government response to Haiyan last year,” said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform in Manila. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we can judge him after the disaster strikes.”

Bloomberg News

Intl travel festival seen to boost influx of tourists

By Roderick L. Abad

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OW on its second year, the upcoming International Travel Festival (ITF) is seen to boost the momentum that the Philippine tourism industry is experiencing nowadays.

Maria Felisa C. Marques of the City Tourism Operations Office of Davao said this three-day affair is expected to contribute and jumpstart the country’s first-quarter travel and tour volume every year by providing a promotion venue for travel and tour agencies, hotels, re-

sorts and related tourism companies.

Recent figures from the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed that total visitor arrivals from January to July of this year reached 2.862 million, or 2.24 percent higher than the same period last year.

South Korea and the United States

continue to top the countries of origin of tourists coming to the Philippines. The DOT aims to bring in 10 million tourists in the country annually until 2016.

Marques is confident that such goal is attainable, given the major improvements in International Airports in Manila and secondary airports in Cebu, Clark and Iloilo, among others. The rise in arrivals of both the domestic and foreign visitors have been driven by budget fares offered by various airline companies.

In line with the “Visit the Philippines” campaign launched by the DOT, international events lined up for next year that will help propel the country’s tourism growth are the Pope’s visit, Asia-pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, Madrid Fusion, Asia Pacific Retailers Convention and Exhibition and the 40th Kiwanis AsiaPacific Convention, to name a few.

TAX TALK Dr. Stella Luz A. Quimbo (right), professor and department chairman of

the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE), presents her research at the forum “Should We Re-think Income Taxation in the Philippines?” organized by the Ayala Corp. and the UPSE on Thursday at the UP. Also in photo is Rina Lorena R. Manuel, president of Tax Management Association of the Philippines.

Labor group hits Napocor plan to pass burden on to consumers

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OWER consumers should not bear the brunt of the Supreme Courtapproved P60.2-billion labor-dispute settlement between the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Napocor Drivers and Mechanics Association (NPC-Dama), the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) said on Saturday.

The group, such plan is “totally unacceptable.”

BMP was reacting to the proposal made by Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla and Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima during a Senate energy committee hearing on Thursday that the consumers be the ones to pay the back wages of the illegally dismissed Napocor workers.

The group accused Petilla of trying to hit two birds with one stone.

“First, he tries to blame the labor union for the power-rate hike if ever the garnishment of Napocor assets will proceed and second for passing the workers’ claim to the consumers coupled with his patented blackmail of power outages. At both instances, Petilla is evading the issue of his liability and his incompetence,” the group said in an e-mailed statement.

BMP’s Gie Relova said Petilla and Purisima have no sense of fairness in doing so.

“First, the consumers had no participation whatsoever in the mismanagement of the Napocor assets for them to pass it on to the consumers.

Moreover, there is no connection, legal or otherwise, between the consumers and the labor case of NPC- dama,” Relova said.

BMP said that with the privatization of Napocor assets almost complete, the debt stock of the government has not been dented and remains to be standing at $16 billion from 2001 up to the present.

“If that is not mismanagement then I don’t know what is,” he added.

The group said Napocor’s plan to pass the burden on to consumers may constitute grave abuse of authority. BMP said it will question its legality, as well as the accountability of officials from other concerned agencies.

“By all means, the dismissed workers must receive what is rightfully theirs. Same as us, they are but victims to the privatization schemes this government has been peddling for the past two decades but this must not be the burden of ordinary electricity consumers but by those accountable for such mismanagement,” Relova added.

He said that Republic Act 9163, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), was to blame for the failures of the government to address the power crisis.

“Time and again, this present dilemma can be easily rooted to the Epira. This is but another manifestation of the colossal failure of the Epira and the people shall continuously be haunted by until it is repealed,” Relova said.

The BMP has long called for the junking of Epira and the nationalization of the power industry to veer away from the profit orientation it has taken.

Solons seek House review of WB’s ESS policies

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WO lawmakers recently filed a measure urging the House Committee on National Cultural Communities to review the status of the consultations of the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Safeguard (WB ESS) policies.

House Resolution 1624, filed by Liberal Party Reps.

Teddy Brawner Baguilat Jr. of Ifugao and Nancy A. Catamco of North Cotabato, seeks to ensure the consistency of the WB ESS policy to the country’s Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997.

The resolution said that on October 22, 2014, the World Bank conducted consultations for the creation of a new environmental and social safeguard that affects the rights of various sectors that include the tribal people in the Philippines.

It added that the objective of the WB ESS is to prevent and mitigate undue harm to people and their environment in the development process.

“These policies provide guidelines for bank and

borrower staffs in the identification, preparation and implementation of programs and projects,” Baguilat said in the resolution.

The lawmaker added the safeguard policies have often provided a platform for the participation of stakeholders in project design and have been an important instrument for building ownership among local populations.

Catamco said the inquiry should determine the relationship between the laws affecting tribal people and the WB ESS policy.

She said Congress should exercise its oversight functions over the Executive Branch’s implementations of projects funded through World Bank loans.

Catamco also said the WB ESS policy is greatly entwined with the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997, or Republic Act 8371, because of the provisions on the free, prior and informed consent.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

RegionsSunday www.businessmirror.com.ph

BusinessMirror

Sunday, December 7, 2014 A7

₧1.5-billion business hub seen to rise in Palayan City

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ALAYAN City in Nueva Ecija will soon be the next growth area in Central Luzon as an ambitious P1.5-billion business complex was recently inaugurated.

The project, a brainchild of Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali is a joint-venture project between MTD Philippines, a subsidiary of the Malaysian conglomerate Alloy MTD and the provincial government of Nueva Ecija.

Four multistory buildings will be built on a 3-hectare property donated by the Palayan City local government to the provincial government. It will be known as the Palayan City Business Hub. The hub, with a total area of 37,500 square meters, will be home to two world-class business-processing outsourcing buildings with a combined seat capacity of 2,500, equipped with high-speed Internet connectivity. Also, a threestory, 75-room hotel will be built, as well as the first major commercial complex in the city.

The 75-room hotel is expected to complement the nearby 60-room Sierra Madre Suites, giving Palayan City enough rooms accommodate the influx of visitors and investors in the city. The main building is going to be the Nueva Ecija Government Center. The main building will be occupied by national offices that will be relocated from Cabanatuan City to Palayan City.

This is part of Umali’s project to consolidate all services, both national and local, in one location, to provide better service to the people. The gov-

ernment center will be comparable to buildings in Metro Manila.

The buildings will have state-of-the-art airconditioning and mechanical systems as well as high-speed Internet connectivity.

Umali and his wife Liberal Party Rep. Cherry Mercado of Nueva Ecija, led the inaugurationground breaking ceremony on December 4, together with DatoAzmilKhalili Bin Khalid, CEO of Alloy Mtd accompanied by Isaac David, president of MTD Philippines together with several members of the board of directors of Alloy MTD. Also on hand at the ceremony was Palayan City Mayor Adrianne Mae Cuevas.

Umali said that providing a better working environment will definitely boost incrementally the delivery of services of government personnel to the people.

There will also be a central plaza at the center of the business hub. The central plaza will have well-designed softscapes and hardscapes.

The plaza, with a total area of 7,500 sq m will serve as the main activity center in the complex.

To assure sufficient and stable power for the hub, the provincial government obtained a direct connection agreement from the Energy Regulatory Commission wherein the complex will have its own substation con-

nected to the national grid. In addition, the business hub will have the first liquefied petroleum gas fueled generators to act both as standby or baseload support for the power requirements of the center.

The Palayan City Business Hub is expected to generate 13,000 jobs. At least 10,000 of these are for call-center agents, and 3,000 for the various commercial establishments, the hotel and the government offices.

The Palayan City local government, in support of this major project, is planning to build a central-transport terminal close to the business hub. This will enable people from other towns and cities of Nueva Ecija to have easier access to the business hub.

Construction will start in January 2015 and target completion is between 18and 24 months.

Recovery efforts

Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Chairman Richard Gordon (third row) with one of the beneficiaries of shelter units in Dulag, Leyte. A year after Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) devastated the Visayas, PRC and the Red Cross Movement have built or repaired about 39,000 houses, with 12,000 of these in Leyte province alone. In addition to shelter projects, the PRC has also constructed or repaired classrooms, built and rehabilitated rural health units and hospitals, and conducted programs for livelihood support, water and sanitation, and health and disaster-risk reduction. With Gordon are PRC Secretary-General Gwendolyn Pang, Internation Federation of the Red Cross Head of Delegation Marcel Fortier, German Red Cross Country Representative Emilio Tejiera, PRC Disaster Management Services Manager Roderick Salve and Red Cross movement partners.

Troops rescue European bird watchers in Sulu

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AMBOANGA CITY—Government forces have safely rescued one of the two European bird watchers seized

by Abu Sayyaf bandits two years and nine months ago off Tawi-Tawi, a military official announced on Saturday.

Ens. Chester Ian Ramos, Joint Task Force Zambasulta (Zamboanga-BasilanSulu-Tawi-Tawi) information officer, said Lorenzo Vinciguerra, 49, was rescued around 7a.m., Saturday in Barangay

Timpook, Patikul, Sulu.

Ramos said the safe rescue of Vinciguerra, a Swiss, came after the latter escaped from his captors.

“According to Vinciguerra he took advantage of the situation by escaping from his abductors while military units were conducting intensified law enforcement operations in the area,” Ramos said in a text message to the Philippines News Agency.

However, Ramos said Vinciguerra was wounded as the Abu Sayyaf bandits shot him during his escape. He said Vinciguerra was immediately taken to the task force headquarters in Jolo, Sulu.

The Abu Sayyaf bandits seized Vinciguerra together with Dutchman Ewold Horn, 52, while the two were on a bird watching trip in February 2012 in the province of Tawi-Tawi.

The hostages were later moved to the hinterlands of Sulu. PNA

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45 ‘mega’ BPO companies House, Senate leaders vow to scrutinize to create 248K+ new jobs in 2 years, lawmaker says ₧22.46-B proposed supplemental budget

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HE chairman of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education on Saturday cited the country’s 45 largest business-process outsourcing (BPO) providers for driving the creation of thousands high-paying jobs.

Liberal Party Rep. Roman Romulo of Pasig City said he is counting on the 45 companies to lead the production of more than 248,000 new jobs in the sector over the next two years.

“These leading players in the BPO and information technology [IT]-enabled services sector are now among the nation’s biggest employers,” Romulo said.

“They have helped to ease joblessness among fresh college graduates and young professionals in a big way,” he added.

Based on their combined revenues of P250 billion ($5.9 billion) in 2013, Romulo named the top 45 BPO companies as Accenture Inc. (P32.429 billion); Convergys Philippines Services Corp.

(P19.830 billion); 24/7 Customer Philippines Inc. (P13.061 billion); JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A.Philippine Global Service Center (P11.789 billion); Telephilippines Inc. (P8.722 billion);

Sutherland Global Services Philippines Inc. (P8.080 billion); Hewlett-Packard AP (Hong Kong) Ltd. (P7.081 billion); Stream International Global Services Philippines Inc. (P6.924 billion); Teletech Offshore Investments B.V. (P6.590 billion); IBM Daksh Business Process Services Philippines Inc. (P6.307 billion);

Sitel Philippines Corp. (P6.084 billion); TeleTech Customer Care Management Philippines Inc. (P5.654 billion); Manila-Oslo Renewable Enterprise Inc. (P5.605 billion); IBM Business Services Inc. (P5.599 billion); Aegis People Support Inc. (P5.474 billion);

Coca-Cola Far East Ltd. (P5.439 billion); Sykes Asia Inc. (P5.415 billion); Shell Shared Services (Asia) B.V. (P5.289 billion); Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd. (P5.258 billion); HSBC Electronic Data Processing (Philippines) Inc. (P5.035 billion);

Telus International Philippines Inc. (P5.010 billion); Luen Thai Macao Commercial Offshore Co. Ltd. (P4.336 billion); IBM Solutions Delivery Inc. (P4.293 billion); VXI Global Holdings B.V. Philippines (P4.049 billion);

Macquarie Offshore Services Pty. Ltd. (P4.026 billion);

ACS of the Philippines Inc. (P3.917 billion); Citibank N.A. Regional Operating Headquarters (P3.710 billion); SPi CRM Inc. (P3.551); Emerson Electric (Asia) Ltd. (P3.481 billion); Chevron Holdings Inc. (P3.271 billion);

StarTek Philippines Inc. (P3.123 billion); Genpact Services Llc. (P2.846 billion); West Contact Services Inc. (P2.815 billion); Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd. (P2.795 billion); SPi Technologies Inc. (P2.767 billion);

ANZ Global Services and Operations Manila Inc. (P2.503 billion); Sykes Marketing Services Inc. (P2.493 billion); Maersk Global Service Centres (Philippines) Ltd. (P2.324 billion); Manulife Data Services Inc. (P2.191 billion); Lexmark Research & Development Corp. (P1.963 billion).

ExlService Philippines Inc. (P1.907 billion); Cognizant Technology Solutions Philippines Inc. (P1.892 billion); Thomson Reuters Corp. Pte. Ltd. (P1.877 billion); Citigroup Business Process Solutions Pte. Ltd. (P1.816 billion); and Acquire Asia Pacific Philippines Inc. (P1.789 billion).

Romulo is the author of the Data Privacy Act of 2012, which has encouraged transnational companies to either establish new back offices in Manila, or to transfer their noncore, business-support activities to independent BPO firms operating here.

The lawmaker said that the law mandates all entities, including BPO firms, to protect the confidentiality of personal information collected from clients and stored in IT systems, in accordance with rigorous international privacy standards.

The BPO and IT-enabled services industry now directly employs 1.052 million Filipinos. The sector includes contact-center services; back offices; medical, legal and other data transcription; animation; software development; engineering design; and digital content, he added.

The industry is projected to yield up to $27 billion in annual revenues and engage over 1.3 million Filipinos workers by 2016, according to the IT and Business Processing Association of the Philippines, which has 229 membercompanies. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

BSP unlikely to change policy rates

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By Bianca Cuaresma

HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP) Monetary Board (MB) is expected to pause for the second time this year in tightening its monetary policy during an upcoming meeting on the back of tame inflation expectations.

Private economists in the country agree that the central bank will end the year with a status quo on its monetary levers as it has already lowered the path of inflation until the end of the year.

“Pause continues—no change in policy rates.... Softening inflation and inflation expectations allow the BSP room to keep policy steady. Global energy-price weakness and improvements in local supply chain for basic commodities and services would likely exert downward pressure on prices,” ING Bank Manila’s economist Joey Cuyegkeng said.

“It is likely the BSP will keep policy rates unchanged. Reasons are simple. Inflation is clearly normalizing its trend and will likely remain soft. Even if there is a temporary impact of the storm, this will be a passing effect than a longer term one. Also, the surprisingly weak third quarter of 2011 gross domestic product is another compelling reason for the BSP to hold off rates,” Security Bank economist Patrick Ella said.

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) associate economist Nicholas Antonio Mapa and Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. chief market strategist Jonathan Ravelas also see unchanged monetary policy in the BSP’s policy-stance meeting on Thursday.

Pause, not stop

Meanwhile, economists also agree that the central bank’s unchanged views of policy may not last long as they see another bout of interest-rate tightening into the mid-2015 due to the expectation of a “more normal” policy environment in the US.

“We would likely see the pause to be extended into first-quarter or second-quarter 2015, especially from an inflation policy-related perspective.... The BSP-MB is likely to consider other factors that risk threats to the financial-banking sector, especially when US and global data become more favorable and monetary policy in the US is increasingly expected to start further normalization,” ING’s Cuyegkeng said.

“I do not see him [BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr.] acting on December 11, but I am very confident that he does act in the second quarter of 2015 to continue to bring monetary policy to a more normal stance, guarding against possible second-round effects and in anticipation of the Fed hikes at the end of the second quarter of 2015,” BPI’s Mapa said.

The central bank has held its horses to decide on unchanged overnight rates and retained reserve requirement ratio and special deposits account interest rate in its October 23 meeting.

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

wo members of Congress have vowed to scrutinize in their respective committees the Palace-proposed P22.46-billion supplemental budget.

Sen. Francis Escudero, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance; and Liberal Party Rep. Isidro Ungab of Davao City, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said in a recent interview that they will start their hearings on the supplemental budget next week.

They, however, asked the Palace and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to

justify further the supplementary budget they requested for Supertyphoon Yolanda-hit areas.

They said the Executive department should first report to Congress where it spent the P137 billion, which had been allocated for the Yolanda victims, before they approve the supplemental budget for calamity victims.

“Under the 2014 budget, we have yet to see the utilization of

the same. So hanggang ’di nauubos ’yun, we will always question any additional budget cover for Yolanda and other calamities,” Escudero said.

“Unless they justify that they actually need it, we’re not prepared to actually give it to them, given the budget space and legislative authorization given to them previously. Tatanungin namin at pagpapaliwanagin sila kung bakit hindi pa nagagamit ’yun. Bakit di pa nauubos ’yun nanghihingi na naman sila. We would have to wait for satisfactory answers insofar as those issues as concerned,” the senator said.

Under House Bill (HB) 5237, or the P22.46-billion supplemental budget, as proposed by the Palace through the DBM, the National Housing Authority (NHA) will get the big chunk of the fund, with P7.999 billion, for the construction of permanent housing for the victims of Yolanda.

The authors of the bill include Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., Majority Leader and Liberal Party Rep. Neptali Gonzales II of Mandaluyong City and Ungab.

The P22.46-billion supplemental budget will be augmented to the P2.006-trillion 2014 General Appropriations Act (GAA) to support the implementation of priority projects of the administration.

Under the bill, besides the allocations for the NHA, P2.833 billion will be allocated for operational transformation plan for the Philippine National Police; P1.849 billion for the Department of Public Works and Highways, for obligations arising from implemented infrastructure projects; P1.942 billion for the Department of Social Welfare and Development, for updating of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction; P977.69 million for rehabilitation See “Budget,” A2

PBSP, BDO tie up

Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), the largest businessled social-development organization in the Philippines, has signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO) for various cash-management solutions.

PBSP will use BDO’s Outsourced Check Printing, a Web-based disbursement service that eliminates manual check preparation and allows easy reconciliation because reports are available online. Likewise, PBSP will avail itself of BDO’s payroll service, giving its employees a convenient way of receiving their salaries through BDO’s automated teller machine (ATM) debit and cash cards. An ATM will also be situated at the PBSP office for employees’ easy accessing of their bank accounts.

Present during the MoA-signing ceremonies were (from left) PBSP Group Director for Finance, Human Resources and General Services Maria Lourdes Arroyo; PBSP Executive Director Rafael C. Lopa; BDO Senior Vice President and Transaction Banking Group (TBG) Head Emmanuel T. Narciso; and BDO Vice President and TBG-Client Implementation Head Angela Veronica M. Dulalia.

China arrests former security chief Zhou Yongkang

By Ian Mader The Associated Press

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EIJING—Chinese authorities arrested the once-feared ex-security chief, Zhou Yongkang, and launched a criminal investigation on Saturday on charges ranging from adultery and bribery to leaking state secrets, after expelling him from the Communist Party overnight.

The developments, announced shortly after midnight, pave the way for a trial of the most senior figure so far to be ensnared in President Xi Jinping’s anticorruption crackdown and appear to seal the downfall of a formerly powerful politician once considered a potent rival for Xi.

The square-jawed, granitefaced Zhou, 72, is the highest-level official to be prosecuted since the 1981 treason trial of Mao Zedong’s wife and other members of the “Gang of Four,” who persecuted political opponents during the 19661976 Cultural Revolution.

He had been under investigation for “severe disciplinary violations”—a phrase usually used to describe corruption—since July and presumably had been detained by party investigators months earlier. He had not been seen publicly since October 2013.

“He abused his power to help relatives, mistresses and friends make huge profits from operating businesses, resulting in serious losses of state-owned assets,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a news statement posted online that

Zhou Yongkang

AP/Lee Jin-man

the decision to expel Zhou was made on Friday at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the party’s Central Committee. The attendees deliberated an investigation report on Zhou, who was in charge of China’s massive domestic-security apparatus before his retirement in 2012, and referred the case to prosecutors.

Shortly after the expulsion was announced early Saturday, prosecutors announced Zhou’s formal arrest and opened a criminal case against him, the party said.

The investigation had found that Zhou had “seriously violated the party’s political, organizational and confidentiality discipline,” Xinhua said.

“Zhou leaked the party’s and country’s secrets,” the Xinhua report went on to say, without revealing what he might have leaked, or to whom. “He seriously violated self-disciplinary regulations and accepted a large amount of money

and properties personally and through his family. Zhou committed adultery with a number of women and traded his power for sex and money.”

Any trial would be expected to have a foregone conclusion with Zhou convicted of his charges, because the outcomes of such highprofile trials are widely believed to be negotiated among top leaders ahead of time.

Zhou was considered by many observers and political experts to have been a key rival to Xi. By targeting Zhou, Xi showed the considerable power he has amassed since he took the helm of the party in November 2012.

Former members of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee had long been considered off-limits for prosecution in an unwritten rule aimed at preserving party unity. But Xi vowed to go after both low- and high-level officials in his

campaign to purge the party of corruption and other wrongdoing that have undermined its legitimacy in the public eye.

“What Zhou did completely deviated from the party’s nature and mission, and seriously violated party discipline. His behaviors badly undermined the reputation of the party, significantly damaged the cause of the party and the people, and have yielded serious consequences,” the report said.

Zhou was once perceived as untouchable, with expansive patronage networks covering the sprawling southwestern province of Sichuan where he was once party boss and controlled the state oil sector, police and courts.

More significantly, as China’s security chief, he oversaw the country’s domestic spy agencies, a position that afforded him access to information on other high-ranking politicians who might pose a threat to him.

Zhou was born the son of an eel fisherman in a little-known eastern village, the eldest of three boys and the only one to attend university, from which he graduated as an engineer, according to financial news magazine Caixin.

He spent the early part of his career in the oil sector, rising through the ranks over several decades to become the general manager of China National Petroleum Corp., one of the world’s biggest energy companies, in 1996.

He then served as party chief of Sichuan province between 1999 and 2002, and became a Politburo Standing Committee member and the national security chief in 2007.