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BusinessMirror E1 | Wednesday, December 7, 2016 • Editor: Tet Andolong

Vireya is where the different elements of nature and architecture seamlessly fuse to create a Bali-inspired community (Photo shows the artist’s perspective of Vireya’s architectural theme, to be strictly followed by lot owners)

A tropical haven in Tagaytay T

By Reni Salvador

Vireya features recreational amenities unique to each block. the resort zone highlights the Pavana, a pavilion with infinity pool, perfect for family bonding. (Photo shows the artist’s perspective of the Pavana)

A tropical abode amid the conveniences of a mountainside setting may be too good to be true, but this dream environment proves to be

just within your reach.

Located at the highest point of The Midlands, Vireya offers scenic vistas of Taal Lake and the lush

Vireya homeowners are given membership rights to the Country Club at tagaytay highlands, where they may enjoy a number of leisure activities. the Country Club’s newest offerings include atV and oxboard Maze.

Vireya lets you enjoy the cool, misty weather of tagaytay and the warm, vibrant sense of its community

mountain ridges of the city. The palm trees, tropical landscaping and amenities evoke Bali’s tranquil vibe, making Vireya your ideal haven to relax and recharge.

Adhering to its tropical-resort ambiance, homes to be built in Vireya are envisioned to be designed along clean minimalist lines and neutral tones. Picture beautiful houses that let the outdoors in: comfy lanais, floor-to-ceiling glass windows and patios that look out to a well-landscaped garden. All these complemented by wood and stone treatments, tile roofing and contemporary floor finishing.

Vireya lots range from 250 to 562 square meters, with over 60 percent of the total subdivision area dedicated to themed parks and open spaces, which makes it the perfect choice for growing families who love spending quality time basking around nature.

Each residential block features

unique points of interest for you to enjoy. The Resort Zone highlights the Pavana—a pavilion with an infinity pool, perfect for intimate gatherings with family and closest friends. A jogging path that encourages a healthy mix of active lifestyle also surrounds the area.

The Leisure Zone presents Ammanya Massage Point, a prime spot for one’s serene pursuits, while three distinct pocket parks set the tone of the Park Zone. It houses the Cala Mira—a beautifully landscaped garden to enjoy lazy afternoons on; the Leafwing, which is purposely bedded with flowery plants to attract butterflies—sure to delight families in one of their afternoon bonding; and the Herb Garden, where selected herbs are nurtured for residents who enjoy healthy, home-cooked meals with their kin.

For the kids and kids at heart, the Treehouse serves as a great leisure venue, not to men-

tion quite an active treat. Reminisce your good old fun as you climb up the treehouse with your young ones and tell-tales of childhood memories while you rest at its peak, enjoying the calming fresh air touching your skin, and the picturesque scenes of the Taal Lake inspiring your thoughts.

On top of these, Vireya’s homeowners will also enjoy membership rights at The Tagaytay Highlands Country Club, providing access to world-class amenities.

Residents can try the newest activities, the Oxboard Maze, where they go through a maze on a hoverboard; and Sporting Arrow, where archery skills can be tested.

ATV rides, fishing and horseback riding may also be enjoyed. Sports enthusiasts will find refuge at The Sports Center, which boasts of active sporting facilities, like the swimming pool, basketball, tennis, badminton and squash courts

while foodies will surely find their own haven in one of the many restaurants available.

In Vireya, residents not only live a life of leisure, fun and relaxation.

Safety and security are ensured for all homeowners at all hours. The resort, after all, is an exclusive gated community with 24-hour security.

Start a good investment and be part of the Vireya community, where you can enjoy the best of both worlds with your family—the cool, misty ambiance of the mountains and the warm, vibrant tropical sense of its community.

Nestled among the highest elevations of the city, Tagaytay Highlands is a leisure destination that speaks of exclusivity and luxury, where stunning nature views and a breezy, cool climate come together to redefine relaxation.

For inquiries about owning a Highlands home, visit www.tagaytayhighlands.com.

Megaworld to build St. Moritz’s second tower

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UE to the growing demand for luxury suites at the upscale community of McKinley West in Fort Bonifacio, Megaworld is expanding St. Moritz by launching a second tower.

The nine-story tower will be built beside the first tower located strategically along the expansive Le Grand Avenue, just right outside the McKinley West Village.

St. Moritz Tower Two will have 32 private suites, ranging from two-to four-bedroom, with sizes up to 220 square meters.

The tower will also offer bilevel penthouses equipped with elevators that open to their suites’ own foyer area, keyless access to doors and indoor private pools in each suite.

All suites will be furnished with top European lifestyle brands, par-

PROPERTY St. Moritz’S Penthouse

three-bedroom unit

ticularly the Philippe Starck collection of Duravit for bathroom fixtures, Liecht for kitchen design and Bosch for home electronics.

“Our first tower has been well-received by the top-tier

market. Each suite in St. Moritz offers an intimate space for the private yet sophisticated individual who values selffulfillment. With the launch of the second tower, we hope to

further expand our offerings to the luxury-property market,” said Rachelle Peñaf lorida, vice president for sales and marketing of Megaworld.

Suites at St. Moritz now value

at around P230,000 per sq m, up 21 percent compared to its price two years ago.

“McKinley West’s strategic location beside Forbes Park and the Manila Polo Club makes it an attractive preference for property investment in the entire Fort Bonifacio. We expect property

E1

prices to even go up in the next two to three years,” Peñaflorida explained.

Megaworld has commissioned UK-based architectural firm Broadway Malyan to design the St. Moritz residential development. The tower’s completion is scheduled in 2019.

ON A ROLL Editor: Jun Lomibao • mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Sports BusinessMirror

WINNING MUST BE EXHAUSTING FOR THE 24-YEAR-OLD JAPANESE STAR, AND NO ONE HAS BEEN MORE PROFICIENT AT IT OVER THE LAST TWO MONTHS. EVEN MORE ALARMING IS THAT MATSUYAMA IS MAKING IT LOOK EASY, ALTHOUGH GETTING THROUGH THE FINAL NINE HOLES AT THE HERO WORLD CHALLENGE FELT AS HEAVY AS WALKING THROUGH THE BEACH SAND OF THE BAHAMAS.

THE way Hideki Matsuyama is playing, he might wish the Masters starts next week.

AP

ON A ROLL B D F The Associated Press

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ASSAU, Bahamas—It started with a victory at home in the Japan Open. It ended with another trophy in the Bahamas against a short but strong field.

Five tournaments. Four victories.

The way Hideki Matsuyama is playing, he might wish the Masters started next week.

Or maybe not.

“I’m kind of glad it’s not,” he said with a broad smile, “because I don’t think I could win next week.”

Winning must be exhausting for the 24-yearold Japanese star, and no one has been more proficient at it over the last two months. Even more alarming is that Matsuyama is making it look easy, although getting through the final nine holes at the Hero World Challenge felt as heavy as walking through the beach sand of the Bahamas.

Coming off seven-shot victories in the HSBC Champions and the Taiheiyo Masters, he had a seven-shot lead over Henrik Stenson going into the final round at Albany Golf Club. Matsuyama didn’t make another birdie after the ninth hole, and his lead was reduced to two shots with two holes to play when he closed with two pars for a one-over 73 and a two-shot victory.

“I can’t say that I played well today,” he said.

“But I did win Tiger’s tournament, and what a great honor it is.”

Matsuyama said Tiger Woods has been his golfing idol as long as he can remember, and as much as he enjoyed winning, he was just as happy to see Woods back in competition. Woods led the field with 24 birdies, but six double bogeys contributed to a 15th-place finish in the 17-man field.

The first time he heard of Woods was when Matsuyama was five and watched video—“over and over and over again,” he said—of Woods winning the 1997 Masters. Three years later, Woods won 10 times around the world, including the final three

majors in what is considered his best season.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see all those wins because they didn’t have the broadcast in Japan,” Matsuyama said. “But I knew Tiger was winning, and I knew he was very good. And I almost expected him to win every tournament.”

Perhaps he is starting to appreciate what it’s like to get on a roll.

“I’m not even close to being mentioned in the same sentence as Tiger,” he said. “But I am working hard and, hopefully, little by little, I’ll get better and better.”

Matsuyama isn’t the first player to get on a hot streak. Last year, Jason Day won four out of six tournaments against the strongest competition in the world, including the PGA Championship and a pair of FedEx Cup playoff events.

Matsuyama now has 12 victories worldwide, and while he became the first Asian to win a World Golf Championships title, a major is where players are measured.

“You’ve got to do it in the big events in the summer, too,” Woods said. “So it’s going to give him a boat load of confidence going into next year and he’s going to be one of the top guys to beat for a very long time. Look at his swing, look at his game and look at the body that he has. It’s built to handle the test of time.”

Matsuyama hasn’t finished out of the top five since the Tour Championship, and while he can’t explain why he keeps winning, this recent run likely dates to the Deutsche Bank Championship.

It was there that Hiroshi Iwata suggested a drill for his putting, which has held Matsuyama back.

Iwata introduced him to the “Pelz Putting Tutor”, a small metal plate with two tiny steel balls at the end that are set apart just over the width of a golf ball. It is designed to help players line up putts and with their stroke.

Iwata’s drill is to make 10 short putts in a row with a conventional grip, using only the left hand and only the right hand.

Perhaps it helped this week that Matsuyama’s caddie, Daisuke Shindo, wanted the week off. So he borrowed Iwata’s caddie, Mei Inui. Not only does she know the drill, she managed to keep Matsuyama calm when his lead was slipping away.

“When things get tough, I sometimes put my head down and become quiet,” he said. “But Mei was always positive throughout, even the back nine, and was giving me good vibes, which really helped coming in.”

Matsuyama, who now lives primarily in Orlando, Florida, is headed home for Japan to spend time with his family. He’s worked hard. He’s won plenty. He could probably use a break, but it won’t be for long. He wants to keep this going into the new year, which starts January 5 in Hawaii. And he’s already thinking about the Masters.

“I think he’ll be a major champion within the next couple of years, personally,” Jordan Spieth said. “It’s awesome to see him tearing it up here.”

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

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CALL FOR JUSTICE

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ANCHESTER, England—The man whose harrowing testimony of being sexually abused by a youth coach sparked an ongoing crisis in English soccer wants to take the issue to a global level.

“I can’t even begin to give you the numbers of people contacting me directly, not just footballers and ex-footballers, but members of the public,“ Andy Woodward told The Associated Press (AP) on Monday. “It’s everywhere.”

If he’s not too weary by the sheer scale of the scandal he helped to uncover, Woodward will fly to New York on Wednesday to speak to an American broadcaster about his 30-year journey from abused youth player to an inspiration to millions.

“I personally know that in America, there are certain things which have potentially happened there,” Woodward said. “It’s just about reaching out to everyone.”

Woodward was the first of a growing list of former soccer players to go public over the past three weeks about the ordeals they went through as youngsters. The effect has been bigger than they could ever have imagined.

About 450 people have reported incidents of child sexual abuse at soccer clubs to 18 British police forces. A hot line set up by a children’s charity in response to sex-abuse claims has taken about 1,000 calls in little more than a week. At least 55 clubs, professional and amateur, have been implicated in the story.

On Saturday Chelsea—the current leader of the English Premier League and one of the biggest clubs in the country— apologized to a former player who was sexually abused while a member of the club’s youth team and who was paid £50,000 ($77,500) to keep the matter out of the public domain.

The English Football Association, meanwhile, has started an internal review to reexamine its response to convictions of soccer coaches in the 1990s.

All this because Woodward was brave enough, after decades of anguish and soul-searching, to break his silence. “I have no words for the emotion about how I feel about it all,’ Woodward told the AP. “In my stomach, I knew there was a lot more [victims] out there.”

The scandal is sure to get bigger.

On Monday Woodward and other victims launched an independent trust to support players—and their families—who have suffered from child abuse. The aim of the “Offside Trust” is to create a support network for victims, and establish a united front in the search for justice. AP

SOCCER BODY HONORS CHAPECOENSE CLUB

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SUNCION, Paraguay—The Brazilian club Chapecoense, which lost most of its players in an air crash last week, has been awarded the Copa Sudamericana championship by the governing body of South American soccer.

In a statement on Monday, Conmebol said it awarded the title “as a posthumous homage to the victims of the fatal crash that leaves our sport in mourning.”

Nineteen of Chapecoense’s players were killed in the crash just outside Medellin, Colombia, as the team headed to the first of two matches against Colombian club Atletico Nacional to determine the champion of the Copa Sudamericana—Latin America’s No. 2 club tournament. As the winner, Chapecoense qualifies automatically for next season’s Copa Libertadores, the continent’s top tournament.

This also means that Chapecoense will face Atletico Nacional— the defending Copa Libertadores champion—in an emotioncharged two-game series next year between the continent’s two club champions. Conmebol also awarded Atletico Nacional its Fair Play award. Conmebol said it was asked to award Chapecoense the title by the directors of Atletico Nacional.

Chapecoense is likely to field a team next season of borrowed players from other clubs. Later on Monday the club confirmed it will not play against Atletico Mineiro on Sunday in the last round of the Brazilian championship.

Atletico has agreed with that decision as the result won’t impact the position of either team in the tournament. All the other games will proceed, the Brazilian football confederation said. Brazil, meanwhile, will play Colombia in a friendly match at the end of January to help victims of the air crash. AP

sports

CHAPECOENSE soccer fans attend a funeral ceremony in tribute for victims in Colombia of an air crash, most of them Chapecoense soccer team members, at the Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco, Brazil, over the weekend. AP

free fire

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URING the snap election campaign, Cory went to Davao to deliver one of her three landmark speeches to rally God and country against the Marcos dictatorship. However, the venue was Davao.

While we all loved our Tito Chito Ayala, whose lavish hospitality and vast political contributions knew no bounds, a two-hour flight can take you to Hong Kong—but Davao?

No one went with her. But the Jesuits were waiting.

Continued on A11

The maximum foreign equity allowed by law for public utilities

In an interview with the BusinessMirror, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said items in the RFINL, such as statutory provisions that can be removed through Congress,

BMReports

Continued on A2

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he death knell sounding for a United States-led Pacific trade pact creates a vacuum that a separate Asia deal being championed by China should quickly fill, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Negotiators at the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) meeting this week in Indonesia would normally hold talks without much public scrutiny. But the latest round comes after US President-elect Donald J. Trump pledged he won’t revive the alternative, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), once vaunted as the centerpiece of US economic engagement in Asia.

That has shifted focus to the RCEP, which would cover 30 percent of the global economy and includes China and India among its 16 country members. Trump’s protectionism potentially creates a window for China, which has been vocal on the global stage in recent weeks in advocating for free trade, to push along the timetable for the RCEP and build its inf luence in the region.

Arjun Goswami, a technical adviser with the ADB’s Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, said the timeline for the conclusion of the pact was up to the countries involved.

“But with the prospects of ratifying TPP now receding, there is a vacuum which RCEP should try to fill by concluding negotiations expeditiously,” Goswami said in an e-mailed response to questions.

“Expectations are for the deal to be concluded in 2017.”

While the RCEP is much more

PESO exchange rates n US 49.7090

a straight up and down trade deal compared to the TPP, which would extend to subjects, including intellectual property and state-owned enterprises, it does have its own sticking points.

Some countries may favor greater trade and investment liberalization than others based on different levels of development, and “there may be differing views on the extent of coverage of RCEP trade and investment liberalization in terms of goods and services, with the latter posing greater challenges,” Goswami said.

“There is a slowdown in global

and regional trade growth that is partly cyclical and partly structural.

In addition, there is a risk of rising protectionism fueled by economic insecurity and inequality, which makes it more critical to have inclusive trade and investment flows with their effective utilization by small and medium enterprises.”

The RCEP aims to level tariffs and rules on the region’s supply chains, liberalize investment and introduce dispute-resolution mechanisms. Unlike the TPP, it would not require members to take steps to protect labor rights or improve environmental standard. Bloomberg News

Trade with the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries Countries that export more to the U.S. than they import from it.

Countries that import more from the U.S. than they export to it.

CANADA

UNITED STATES JAPAN

VIETNAM MALAYSIA

MEXICO

BRUNEI PERU

SINGAPORE Pacific Ocean

AUSTRALIA

CHILE NEW ZEALAND

2000 km 2000 miles Source: U.S. International Trade Commission Graphic: Tribune News Service

By Bianca Cuaresma @BcuaresmaBM

The thickness of the line between countries is proportional to the trade deficit or surplus.

RUSSIA

CHINA

NONIE REYES

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A TROPICAL HAVEN IN TAGAYTAY

RUE to its vision of defining mountain-resort living in the country, Tagaytay Highlands once again sets the bar through its newest lot development—Vireya, the first and only tropical-resort community within a mountainresort development.

Teddy Locsin Jr.

China-led trade talks should Regulators and wrap up with speed, ADB says bank scams: A game of cat and mouse T

DO’S AND DON’TS WHEN TRAVELING WITH YOUR DOG

pet corner

Barnacles

@cuo_bm

he government’s plan to open up public utilities to foreign players will be included in the major amendments to the country’s Regular Foreign Investment Negative List (RFINL), according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

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New RFINL to exclude public utilities–Pernia 40% T

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Conclusion

HE seem i ng ly most reported form of bank scams are always through the use of plastic money, such as credit cards, debit cards and automated teller machine (ATM) cards, and those done in cyberspace.

T he tec hniques of ca rd thieves, scammers and fraudsters have been wide-ranging— spanning from the most outright theft of the physical card to email, wherein the sender pose as the financial consumers’ bank or credit-card company agent.

In 2013 the country lost some P220 million in bank scams and frauds, as reported by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to the Senate.

Skimming, for example, has

been one of the more notorious forms of electronic scams, where scammers illegally copy information from the magnetic strip of a credit card. Scammers then use the information stolen to manufacture counterfeit credit cards or to use in online transactions.

Phishing has also been apparent in recent technologies, where victims are sent e-mails from their bank or credit-card company looking like the “real thing” and asking for crucial information, such as log-in information and passwords.

Phishing

ANGEL Redoble, chairman of the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group Advisory Council, explained that phishing is usually executed through sending emails.

Redoble told the BusinessMirror the e-mail entices the

n japan 0.4370 n UK 63.2696 n HK 6.4103 n CHINA 7.2220 n singapore 35.0211 n australia 37.1277 n EU 53.5068 n SAUDI arabia 13.2582

Continued on A2

Source: BSP (6 December 2016 )

A2 Wednesday, December 7, 2016

BMReports BusinessMirror

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Regulators and bank scams: A game of cat and mouse Continued from A1

victim to visit a malicious web site and make them supply their login credentials.

“The more sophisticated phishing attacks that we have seen are those pretending to be your bank and telling you to update your login credentials by redirecting you into a web site that mimics the web site of your bank,” he explained.

“While some are able to identify this scam, many of our netizens are still vulnerable to this kind of identity theft.”

Phishing may also be done using methods and forms other than email, according to the central bank.

The BSP cited other methods as mobile-phone text messages, chat rooms, fake banner ads, message boards and mailing lists and fake job-search sites and job offers.

“Fake browser toolbars may also be used to get information.”

Skimming

REDOBLE said skimming is done through the use of devices that are used in restaurants and other establishments where the perpetrators are those who are also working in these establishments.

When you pay using your credit or debit card, these suspects swipe

your card to their skimming devices and download all the information from your card.

“The vulnerable item or target here are the credit-cards,” Isaac Sabas, CEO of Pandora Security Labs, told the BusinessMirror.

“This is because the credit card vendors or merchants are not keen in securing the customers’ creditcard information.”

Sabas, who founded the homegrown security solution developer, explained “given that we utilize technology and software to transact, attackers turn their attention into circumventing the business logic of the software or even attacking it to get credit-card data.”

“Once credit card data is harvested, anyone with the creditcard holder’s information can use the card as if they were the owner,” Sabas said.

Another skimming device is t he one inst a l led on AT Ms, Redoble said.

“Unsuspecting ATM users are victimized by merely doing legitimate transactions in the ATM,” he explained. “It is usually installed on the card entry part, when you slide your card into it, the skimming device will also download all your information.”

The latest skimming device is

the connectionless skimming device, Redoble said. This type of device victimizes cards that are using radio-frequency identification, he explained.

“If your card and the device are within range, your information will be downloaded without the need to get hold of your card.”

Response

As a response to the ever-evolving nature of bank scammers and fraudsters, the BSP is rolling out several more stringent reforms to the banking industry’s security, taking advantage of the fact that the sector is in the pink of health.

As of end-June this year, the total resources of the Philippine financial system stood at P15.8 trillion, 9.6 percent higher than the previous year’s P14.4 trillion.

The Philippine banking system’s assets also grew during the year by 12.2 percent to P12.5 trillion as of the first half of the year.

Latest capital adequacy ratios show the banking industry is well above local and international thresholds.

“The pursuit of continuing reforms coming from a position of strength proved beneficial to the Philippine financial systems it continued to be sound and stable as evidenced by sustained asset

expansion, improved asset quality, adequate liquidity and strong core earnings for the first half of the year,” the central bank said.

As such, the BSP is set to take advantage of this “position of strength” to implement recently established regulations and craft new ones to protect banks and consumers from scams, particularly in the rise of electronic transactions across the globe.

Interventions

Deputy Governor for the Supervision and Examination Sector Nestor Espenilla Jr. told the BusinessMirror the BSP prepared an “array of interventions” to counter scams in the country. “[These range] from required physical improvements, like EMV [Europay, MasterCard and Visa] chip installation to guard against card skimming, to enhanced cyber-security risk management practices such as active account monitoring and real time transaction confirmation, to issuance of public advisories, to financial literacy programs,” Espenilla said.

In mid-2013, the monetary board issued a circular mandating banks to enhance their information technology risk-management framework to the evolving

schemes of information thieves and skimmers.

Among the measures mandated was the shift from the magnetic stripe technology to a more secure EMV chip-enabled card by 2017.

Espenilla earlier said this banks are already “on track” with the deadline set next year.

Espenilla also told the BusinessMirror they are currently preparing further upgrades to the banks’ mandated information technology risk management standards.

Regulations

IN response to huge losses in scam activities, the central bank mandated all banks operating in the country to upgrade all ATM terminals and cards to shift from the magnetic stripe technology to the EMV chip technology.

“In the past, it was the hidden camera that was the solution. Banks could validate who and when people withdrew from which ATM machine,” the BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. earlier said. “It turns out that not all ATM machines have the camera…. But more important, people now use hats to cover their faces so the camera has become ineffective.”

“Our solution then [from a technology perspective] is the

chip-based card to replace the magnetic strip,” Tetangco added.

“You cannot ‘skim’ a chip [that] is physically embedded in a card but not in its replica.”

The central bank is also bent on subjecting the entire banking industry to new and stricter security standards, as it announced this year their plans of drafting new guidelines to address emerging cyber-security threats, especially following the $81-million cross-border Bangladesh heist.

Espennila added that some elements in the new mandate of the BSP will require banks to craft their own defined cyber riskmanagement process.

Espenilla also said they are look i ng to i mplement “more stringent cybersecurity requirements” for BSP-supervised financial institutions with high cyber-risk profile.

“This would include adoption of more sophisticated security solutions, establishment of Security Operations Center, conduct of advance security tests such as compromise assessment and redteaming exercises,” the deputy governor said.

Espenilla said added that are likely to roll out these new regulations in the first quarter of 2017.

New RFINL to exclude public utilities–Pernia Continued from A1

will also be removed.

Under the RFINL, a maximum of 40-percent foreign equity is allowed for public utilities. This is also the case with sectors, such as education, ownership of private lands, condominium units, and others.

“[The priorities] will include taking out items on the negative list that can be done by Congress.

These are called statutory provisions. There are investment areas on the negative list that are statutorily prohibited that can be taken out by Congress,” Pernia said.

Commissioner Johannes Bernabe of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) said in the case of public utilities, the law protecting the sector is the Public Services Act of 1930 and not the 1987 Constitution per se.

Bernabe said the Constitution

does not define what a public utility is. It is only defined by the Public Services Act of 1930.

He said limiting the definition of public utilities in this law will enable the government to allow foreign players in this sector.

“In the Public Services Act of

1930, there are even references to ice plants, the operation of ice plants being public utilities. It’s really archaic.

If we can limit the scope of the Public Services Act of what constitutes public utilities, then that will lay the framework for foreign inves-

tors to come in in critical areas like telecommunications,” Bernabe said.

PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan welcomed this move, noting that shortening the RFINL bodes well for the promotion of competition in the Philippines.

Balisacan believes competition is key to addressing the country’s development constraints and struggle to attain inclusive economic growth.

He said that for one, millions of Filipino students are deprived of receiving topnotch education simply because the RFINL only allows a 40-percent foreign equity in this sector. Balisacan said this is the reason top foreign schools are locating in other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia.

“I think it’s a good idea to lift the restrictions, not only in telecommunications, but in other sectors in the economy, including education,” Balisacan said.

For her part, Neda Deputy Director General Rosemarie G. Edillon said the government should also remove restrictions in the practice of professions.

The existing RFINL states that professions that do not allow any foreign participation include pharmacy, as well as radiologic and xray technologists.

Pharmacy is protected by Republic Act (RA) 5921, or the Pharmacy Law, while radiologic and x-ray technologists are protected

by RA 7431, or the Radiologic Technology Act of 1992.

The RFINL contains investment areas/activities where foreign equity participation is limited by mandate of the Constitution and specific laws. It also consists of investment areas/activities where foreign equity participation is limited for reasons of defense, security, risk to public health and morals, and protection of small- and mediumsized domestic market enterprises.

The amendment of the list is headed by the Neda Secretariat, as provided for under Section 8 of RA 7042, or the Foreign Investments Act of 1991, which states that amendments may be made upon the recommendation of the secretary of national defense or the secretary of health, or the secretary of education, endorsed by the Neda, approved by the President, and promulgated by a Presidential Proclamation.

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Ubial faces C.A. rejection

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HE confirmation of Health Secretary Paulyn Jean B. RosellUbial appears headed for rough sailing in the Commission on Appointments (CA) following strong opposition registered by a member of the House contingent in the powerful body.

Ubial is in danger of becoming the first Cabinet appointee of President Duterte to be rejected by the CA, after Party-list Rep. Harry L. Roque of Kabayan filed a five-point objection in a letter to Senate President Aquilino L. Pimentel III, ex officio chairman of the CA. “After attending several meetings of the Committee on Health, as well as talking to concerned sectors, I have become convinced that she [Ubial] is not the right person to head a department crucial to the success of the Duterte administration’s program to alleviate the pitiable condition of many of our countrymen,” Roque said.

He said Ubial has a propensity to lie, even to Congress, to cover up her alleged incompetence.

“She lied to the public when she declared that Zika virus is not endemic to the Philippines, and that there were no cases yet of the viral infection here, only to be contradicted in the same breath by her subordinates in the Department of Health [DOH],” he added.

When confronted about this during a hearing of the Committee on Health of the House of Representatives, Roque said she tried to explain away her alleged

incompetence by saying that the data presented by her subordinates were old.

“How ironic it is to see that the latest case of Zika virus at that time was found in her hometown, Iloilo City?” he asked Second, Roque said Ubial has flipped-flopped on the P3-billion dengue-vaccination program, at one point calling for its suspension but later on saying it should push through.

Contrary to what really happened, she told Congress that P500,000 worth of vaccines have not been withdrawn from the health centers on her orders.

“These vaccines are very delicate, as they require a cold chain process. If mishandled, they could go to waste, especially if the warehouses to which they are withdrawn are not properly refrigerated. And there is no showing that the cold chain process has been properly executed for this purpose,” Roque said.

Third, according to Roque, Ubial has neglected the Expanded Program of Immunization of the DOH, as the data made available to him by concerned sectors in the DOH indicate a shortage of regular vaccines for the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine, the DOH itself and the regional hospitals. The World Health Organization (WHO) reportedly tried to bring this matter to her attention repeatedly, but she has not replied to the queries sent by the WHO. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Wednesday, December 7, 2016 A3

BI to 16 Chinese on the lam: Please return

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By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

EN more of the 57 Chinese who earlier escaped after getting arrested for illegally working in an unlicensed online gambing casino in Clark Field, Pampanga, have returned to the custody of the Bureau of Immigration (BI).

BI Spokesman Maria Antonette Mangrobang said as of Monday, only 16 of the 57 Chinese who bolted their holding facility at the convention center of the Club Fontana Hotel are still unaccounted for.

“We are, therefore, appealing to these 16 Chinese to return to our custody, so that their cases can be resolved with dispatch in the ongoing deportation proceedings,” Mangrobang said.

She said those who returned gave the same reasons for their escape: They could not withstand the conditions in the holding facility and that they wanted to return to the comfort of their villas, take a bath and sleep in their bedrooms.

“All of them also denied allegations that they bribed their guards or gave money to anyone to help them escape,” Mangrobang said.

The Chinese who remain at large were Song Yun Zheng, Fang Qing Yong, Song Ye, Huang Jian Hui, Huang Zhen Zhi, Huang Long Bao, Zhao Di, Liu Moi Hui, Yu Chang Ung, Huang Wei Sen, Li Fei Yun, Cheng Rong Quan, Huang Yong Cheng, Huang Wei Bin, Chen Quean Qing and Chen Han Xiang.

Mangrobang said the other escapees who earlier surrendered were persuaded by Chinese Embassy officials and their managers to return to the holding facility.

It was learned that of the more

than 1,000 Chinese arrested during the November 24 raid at the Fontana casino, 592 have been allowed to post bail by the BI. Mangrobang said the Chinese were granted temporary freedom while the deportation cases against them are being heard by the BI Board of Commissioners (BOC).

The BOC said it found no indications that the 592 are a threat to public safety and their temporary liberty is consistent with the BI’s objective of decongesting the temporary detention facility.

‘Include Tugade in raps vs Lam’

AN umbrella network of commuter stakeholders has asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to include Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade in the economic sabotage case against Jack Lam, one of the biggest gambling moguls in Asia, over illegal online-gambling operations at the Clark Freeport in Pampanga.

Ray Junia, chairman of the Road Users Protection Advocates (Rupa), said Lam could not have prospered in his illegal operations inside the Fontana Leisure and Casino Hotel if not for Tugade, who previously headed the Clark Development Corp.

“We urge the DOJ to include Tu-

gade and other CDC officials as corespondents in the case. Tugade is a lot guiltier than Lam,” Junia said during the launching of the Oust Tugade Movement on Tuesday.

“As a businessman, Lam will really try to maneuver against the government to protect his illegal interests.

But Tugade was entrusted with the job of making sure these maneuvers are stopped. Tugade committed the bigger crime, which is betrayal of public trust. Bantay-salakay siya,” Junia added.

Rupa has been calling for the ouster of Tugade for alleged conflict of interest, incompetence and for failing to at least alleviate the plight of commuters for the past five months.

Junia said Tugade cannot claim that he is innocent or unaware of the illegal activities that happened while he was still head of CDC.

CDC accused of neglect

IN Angeles City the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) called for a deeper investigation on Fontana Leisure Parks that blamed the CDC for neglect that led to pirregularity.

PGKM Chairman Ruperto Cruz said it is backing the call to further investigate Fontana and find out who is behind its illegal operations for such a long time already. With Ashley Manabat

Economy

A4 Wednesday, December 7, 2016 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

Energy dept to investors: Don’t pull plug on power investments

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By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

he Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday strongly urged the private sector to continue investing in the power sector, stressing the country needs an additional 17,338 megawatts (MW) of power-generation capacity by 2030.

The bulk of the capacity, equivalent to about 10,070 MW, is needed in Luzon, of which 4,320 MW must come from base-load plants, 4,800 MW from midmerit and 950 MW from peaking plants.

The Visayas needs 3,618 MW, with 1,968 MW to be provided by base-load plants, 1,500 MW by midmerit and 150-MW by peaking plants.

In spite of the new capacities installed in Mindanao, the grid will still need 3,650 MW, with 2,100 MW base-load requirement, 1,500 MW midmerit and 50 MW peaking plants.

“The 17,338-MW requirement of the country will result in optimal power plant categories of 70-percent base-load, 20 percent midmerit and 10 percent peaking,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said during the 2016 Energy Investment Forum in Makati City.

“This could serve as a guide for the entry of investors and/or proponents in the energy industry,” Cusi added.

In support of the base-load requirement, the agency is also exploring the use of nuclear energy to

17,338 MW The additional powergenerating capacity needed by the Philippines determine its possible place in the country’s energy mix. Thus, the DOE is conducting a study to enable the government to determine nuclear energy future in the country.

For the first half of the year all existing power plants’ installed generation capacity is 20,000 MW, with available capacity of only 13,877 MW, or 69 percent of installed capacity.

If broken down into fuel type, the country’s installed capacity is 34 percent renewable energy, 33 percent from coal plants, 18 percent from oil-based plants and 14 percent from natural-gas plants.

The DOE noted that current data indicates the need for critical intervention to address the period where there is peak demand and low availability of hydropower capacities.

“Based on available capacity, an 8 percent annual gross domestic

product growth rate and 1.5 percent population growth, our power demand will continue with its upward trend, as we aggressively move toward industrialization and urbanization,” Cusi said.

To support these additional capacity requirements, the DOE has directed the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to expedite the implementation of the transmission development plan (TDP), which includes the completion of the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection project.

“The TDP is long over due. It cannot be further delayed. What we want is, before this administration ends, matapos na ’yun [is to finish] TDP. Pabilisin natin iyan [Let’s speed up its completion],” Cusi said.

The energy chief added that he has been meeting with the NGCP and the National Transmission Corp. to speed up the TDP. For the oil and gas sector, the DOE has identified 16 sedimentary basins, with a combined potential of 4,777 million barrels of fuel equivalent. These areas, approximately 709,000 kilometers, require privatesector investments, particularly in the exploration, development and production activities.

“At present, the DOE is monitoring 25 active petroleum service contracts. We hope to have more of these contracts through the conduct of the Philippine Energy Contracting Round,” Cusi said.

For coal, the country has a total of 400.8 million metric tons of coal reserves and a total resource potential of 2.36 billion metric tons. “We need to develop these areas to increase our local sources of coal and reduce importation. We will offer new areas in the next contracting round,” Cusi added.

The DOE also said it is monitoring 48 active coal operating contracts in the exploration phase and 30 contracts in the development and production phase.

On the natural-gas sector, the DOE is preparing for the depletion of the Malampaya gas field. “We are currently designing and crafting a natural-gas policy that identifies strategic activities, including the further exploration and the necessary implementation of critical infrastructure,” Cusi said.

He also assured that the agency will continue to identify appropriate alternative fuels and technology.

At present, the DOE is prioritizing the development of liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, electric vehicle and hybrid electric vehicle.

Cusi said the agency is also studying the impact of biofuels on current and future fuel prices, and balancing the mandate of the law with consumer interests.

For renewable energy (RE), a target installation of 10,381 MW has been set. Cusi vowed to accelerate the exploration and development of RE resources.

To date, 781 RE contracts were awarded with a potential capacity of 15,910 MW and 4,132 MW were installed. There are still about 300 RE applications undergoing processing, which has a potential capacity of 3,826 MW. “To sum everything up, the Philippine energy sector offers a number of investment opportunities. The incentives, policy mechanisms and the regulation framework are in place. We just have to work together and continuously provide feedback for the improvement and effective implementation of programs,” Cusi said.

DOTr insists transfer of unspent funds to attached agencies ‘legal’

By Aerol B. Patena Philippines News Agency

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he Department of Transportation (DOTr) has reiterated the legality of the transfer of its 2015 unspent funds to its attached agencies.

In a news statement, the DOTr said some of these funds were downloaded to its attached agencies through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) in accordance with existing government audit regulations.

“Downloading of projects through a MOA is guided by the Commission on Audit [COA], which ensures that the transferred fund is properly taken up in the books of both agencies and are used only for the intended purpose,” Transport Undersecretary for Finance Garry de Guzman said.

Downloading funds to an attached agency is allowed under COA Circular 94-013, dated December 13, 2014. The circular states that the source agency, which originally programmed a project and received the appropriation for a project, is allowed to transfer funds to any department or office of the national government capable of implementing or continuing the project.

The new administration assumed office on June 30, 2016, giving the DOTr six months to allocate unspent funds from its 2015 budget before its expiry on December 31, 2016.

Government agencies have two years to allocate their budget before this will be reverted back to the National Treasury as “unobligated” funds.

Thus, entering into a MOA with attached agencies is seen as a practical means to ensure that specific projects will continue.

“We are trying to handle backlogs from the past budget as much as we can, but this was a transition phase. We came in six months prior

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Duterte sought for Licuanan’s resignation in August–Palace

By David Cagahastian @davecaga

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alacañang on Tuesday said President Duterte had already asked for Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman Patricia B. Licuanan to resign as early as August this year, but she did not heed his request, resulting in their “irreconcilable differences” since.

Palace Spokesman Ernesto C. Abella cited a memorandum issued

by Duterte on August 22, asking for the courtesy resignation of all the members of the Cabinet, including Licuanan, to give his incoming administration a free hand in implementing its policies.

“On August 22 a memorandum circular was given. It was asking for the courtesy resignations of presidential appointees,” Abella said in a news conference.

“But when I checked with the Office of the Executive Secretary, apparently there was no letter submitted from the commissioner [Licuanan],” he added.

Abella cited Duterte’s memorandum in August, which was one of the first steps toward his “desire to rid the bureaucracy of corruption, and to give him a free hand in achieving this objective.”

Abella said the recent directive of Duterte to ban Licuanan from all Cabinet meetings was merely a reiteration of his request for her to resign some months ago, which reiteration was made only now because he was

only “being a gentleman” in tolerating her adamant refusal to comply with his earlier request.

Cabinet Secretary Leoncio B. Evasco Jr., who was recently appointed to replace Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo as Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council chairman, said the reason behind Duterte’s directive to ban Licuanan from all Cabinet meetings is “irreconcilable differences.”

It was Evasco who sent similar text messages to Robredo and Licuanan, relaying to them the President’s directive to stop attending Cabinet meetings. Robredo resigned as a result, but Licuanan issued a statement that she would stick to her post, invoking a fixed term as chairman of the CHED. However, a militant party-list representative said Licuanan should resign, saying that the CHED had been a mere stamp pad for tuition increases during her two successive terms as head of the agency.

“Mrs. Licuanan, in your term as CHED chairman, the higher-education situation has gone from bad to worse. Your agency has become nothing but a stamp pad for tuition hikes, and the policies you introduced and supported further transformed higher education into the monstrous for-profit behemoth it now is. For the youth, it is better if you would resign immediately and provide space for a successor that will hopefully join the students’ clamor for affordable and accessible education,” Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago of Kabataan said.

briefs b.o.i. eyes to speed up hotel development amid tourism boom The Board of Investments (BOI) is considering the removal of geographical limitations on incentives availment for hotel development to address the rising demand in tourism accommodation.

This may possibly be reflected in the 2017 to 2019 Investments Priorities Plan (IPP), which is currently undergoing review at the BOI. The IPP lists the preferred activity that the government deems needs more investment and offers juicy perks in exchange.

In the current IPP, accommodations that are in Metro Manila, Cebu City, Mactan and Boracay are not entitled to income-tax holiday (ITH), due to the already congested development in these areas.

The ITH extended to hotels in these areas are limited to the revenue generated directly from the hotel operations, such as in room accommodation and food-andbeverage concessions within the hotel.

But BOI Governor Lucita P. Reyes said that, with the dearth in accommodations and rising tourism numbers, they are considering removing the restrictions in these places, except in Boracay.

The agency will be consulting with the Department of Tourism and the Philippine Hotel Association on the proposal.

As this developed, real-estate consultancy Santos Knight Frank, formerly CBRE, sees tourism to drive real-estate requirements in the country.

Tourism can possibly be the third pillar of growth for the real-estate industry next to office and residential, the consultancy said. Catherine N. Pillas

b.o.c. sets auction of P27-M ‘hot goods’ at micp

Airport pedestrian bridge

Public Works Secretary Mark A. Villar (left), Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade (second from right) and Transportation Assistant Secretary Cherry Mercado lead the inspection of the Manila runway, a 220-meter elevated pedestrian link bridge. The construction of the pedestrian bridge, which directly connects Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 3 with Newport City, is due for completion in the first half of 2017. According to the Manila International Airport Authority, Naia Terminal 3 has the capacity to handle 13 million international passengers annually. PNA/Avito C. Dalan

to the reversion of funds,” according to de Guzman.

From P19.2-billion in June 2016, the DOTr was able to obligate P1.3 billion, leaving the total amount of unspent funds for 2015 to P17.9billion as of October 2016.

Of the remaining unspent funds, P7.9 billion was downloaded to the DOTr’s attached agencies, P6.2-billion was allotted for procurement until the end of the year, while the remaining P3.8 billion will be reverted back to the Treasury.

Most of the downloaded funds

were meant to finance regional airport projects. Among the recipients of the unspent funds were the Manila International Airports Authority, Clark International Airport Corp., Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines and Philippine Ports Authority.

The department stated that when government spends the infrastructure funds, it implements the projects previously identified and approved to be beneficial for the citizens.

The DOTr assures the public

that the budget spent and allocated will be accounted for and properly taken up in the books of all agencies concerned.

Apart from the FOI portal of the government, the major infrastructure agencies—DOTr, Department of Public Works and Highways, Bases Conversion Development Authority and the National Economic Development Authority—will launch a Transparency Portal that will have the project details of all the major infrastructure projects of the Duterte administration. PNA

A total of 46 containers containing various items, including used vehicles and e-bikes, with an estimated amount of more than P27 million, will be sold through public auction by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) at the Manila International Container Port (MICP) next week.

According to the MICP Auction and Cargo Disposal Division, the BOC is expected to garner a total of P27,745,493.90 in the bidding of the seized items totalling 24 lots on December 14.

Among the items to be sold are one used Honda CRV 2000 model pegged at P150,000; one used Toyota car 1986 model valued at P36,000; one unit of Chevrolet Venture with a floor price of P30,000; and two units of used passenger car (Hyundai Starex ambulance 2003 model) with a floor price of P848,000.

Other vehicles include three 40-footer containers containing one unit electric car and nine electric passenger multicab, two scooter bikes and one unit all-terrain vehicle with a floor price of P1,028,170.50 and three units of e-bike with a floor price of P60,000.

Other goods to be sold in the auction are one 40-footer container containing computer CPUs and computer parts (mouse, keyboard) at a floor price of P3,360,000. PNA

dole gives p4m worth of livelihood equipment in pampanga CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga—The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Monday turned over various equipment worth P4 million to livelihood organizations in the province.

Lawyer Anna Dione, DOLE regional director, together with Gov. Lilia Pineda, distributed 12 nego trailer units, 10 units of nego kart, 50 push-cart units, 50 sewing machines and starter kits to the beneficiaries.

The San Nicolas MPC (San Luis), Women’s Organization (Macabebe), Forever Friends Farmer Association (Candaba), Care Consumer Cooperative (Mabalacat), Kalipunan ng Liping Pilipina (Mexico), Cruzanian’s Organization (Sasmuan), Women’s Organization (Masantol), Thomasian Association of PWD’s (Santo Tomas), Black Ladies (Minalin), Women’s Organization of PIO (Porac), OFW Family Circle (Floridablanca) and OFW Family Circle in Macabebe are the 12 beneficiaries of nego-trailers. PNA

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng • Wednesday, December 7, 2016 A5

DA issues rules for new import permits

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

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@jearcalas

eat importers who want to secure new import permits will have to undergo a more tedious application process, according to an official of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).

The changes in the application process for new import permits were made after the Department of A g r icu lture (DA) released Memorandum Circular (MC) 5, which called for the “revalidation” of existing sanitary phytosanitary import clearances (SPS-ICs).

“The application of new SPS-IC shall be done electronically, but processing and approval will have to be done manually,” BAI assistant director Simeon S. Amurao Jr. told the BusinessMirror. “[The new process has introduced] more layers compared to the old one,” Amurao added.

He said accredited importers will still have to file their application for SPS-ICs electronically via InterCommerce Network Services.

Under the new process, the concerned attached agency of the DA will print the application and bring it to the department’s central office for manual processing, Amurao added.

He said the application will have to be signed by the assistant secretary overseeing the regula-

tory agency. After the assistant secretary gives the green light, it will be recommended for approval

by Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel T. Cayanan.

“After Cayanan signs it, the application will be returned to [the BAI] and we will tag the application in our system as approved.

T h at approva l not ice on l i ne shall trigger the importer to go to the BAI and personally claim the hard copy of their SPS-IC,” Amurao said.

Amurao added that this process will have to be observed by the agencies concerned with the importation of farm goods: the BAI, Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

“Before, the review and signing of all SPS-IC are done electronically, even the recommendation of the concerned division chief and the approval of the director are automated,” he said.

He added that agencies started to tweak the application process on November 23, when Agricul-

UN says dairy a potential ally in Asia nutrition challenges

Bloomberg

ture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol announced the revocation and revalidation of all existing SPS-ICs.

MC 5

ON November 23 the DA published MC5 which authorized the agency to review the validity of all issued SPS-ICs before the circular was issued.

The BPI released a separate memorandum on November 24

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ANGKOK—An apple a day kept the doctor away—but now in Asia, a cup of milk might do the trick.

Milk and other dairy products have become an unexpected ally in the fight against Asia’s newest dietary challenges: obesity, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies, according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released on Tuesday.

“This report is an eye-opener and a wake-up call we still have nearly half-a-billion hungry people in this region,” said Kundhavi Kadiresan, FAO assistant director general. But “increased consumption of milk and dairy holds out excellent promise to improve nutrition,” she said.

With greater political stability and mechanized farming, Asia has made clear strides in taming famine and hunger. In the past 25 years, undernourishment rates halved in Asia, from 24.3 percent to 12.3 percent, satisfying one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

As people move from the countryside to the big city by the millions, diets are changing from more traditional ones dominated by rice to a more varied, Westernized version incorporating more fruits, vegetables and meats: Calories from starches declined by 50 calories per person a day, while calories from fruits, vegetables and meat increased by over 300 calories per person a day.

But like citizens of the West, people in Asia are exercising less

and chowing down more on heavily processed foods filled with sugar and fat. This means many still aren’t getting enough nutrients like zinc, iron, or vitamin A; and obesity levels are skyrocketing, rising more than 4 percent a year.

On top of still-persistent undernourishment in South Asian countries, such as Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, only seven out of 19 developing Asian countries are now on track to reach the UN FAO’s bold goal of “zero hunger”.

However, changing tastes for food means Asians are drinking more milk, traditionally absent from many Asian kitchens but which now flies off the shelves from Bangkok to Beijing. Production has almost tripled, from about 110 million tons in 1990 to nearly 300 million tons in 2013—accounting for more than 80 percent of the world’s increase in milk supplies during that time.

Nutritious and cheap, the dairy boom has encouraged governments to bring cartons to classrooms. Studies have found Thailand’s National Milk Program, which brings milk to schools, causes students to grow taller and take in more protein and calcium. Similar programs were rolled out from India to China to the Philippines.

The main beneficiaries have been small farmers, who produce nearly 80 percent of the milk in Asia, because of low costs and a more equal distribution of cows and goats—in contrast to farmland, which can be dominated by big landowners. AP

However, after meat importers complained about the new importation rules, the DA created a “green lane”, which prioritizes the release of validated SPS-ICs for inbound shipments containing per ishable goods, such as chilled or frozen products. The green lane may also be accessed by “compliant” and institutional importers in the country, Cayanan said.

On November 29 the DA released a memorandum instructing the facilitation of the release of highly perishable items. The perishable items covered by the memorandum are live items, chilled items, dairy products, fresh fruits; vegetable and flowers, except onions and garlic; hatching eggs; live plants and orchids; veterinary products and nutritional products.

Lawmaker eyes special fund for rice farmers

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

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A dairy plant in New Zealand. Bloomberg

ordering the manual processing of clearance for onion and garlic imports from the point of application.

“In addition, starting November 24, the BPI will be accepting applications for import clearance of fresh garlic and fresh onion, provided that ever y importer has completed the [required] doc u me nt s for subm i ssion ,” the memorandum read.

vice chairman of the House Committee on Economic Affairs on Tuesday called for the creation of a special fund for rice farmers to ensure their survival after the rice-import quota is removed next year.

Rep. Josephine Ramirez-Sato of the Lone District of Occidental Mindoro said in a statement that a special fund is needed to ensure sustainable rice production with the impending lifting of the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice by 2017.

“The revenue to be collected from rice-import tariffs should be used to ensure a healthy rice economy that

leans toward helping our farmers cope with the worst-case scenario once the rice quantitative restriction is lifted next year,” Sato said.

She added that concerned government agencies should put in place sufficient safety nets for rice farmers to protect them from the removal of the QR, a nontariff trade barrier.

With the lifting of QR, Sato said resource-poor farmers, particularly rice producers, would not be able compete once imports start to flood the market.

Sato added that she is worried the lifting of the QR on rice would force farmers to shift to planting other crops, or worse, give up farming, which would affect the govern-

ment’s goal of making the country self-sufficient in rice.

“The unrestricted or unregulated importation of rice would not only affect farmers, but would also slow down agricultural production, affecting the country’s economic growth,” she said.

While the Philippines is a net importer of rice, it is also the eighth-largest rice producer in the world, accounting for 2.8 percent of global rice production, said Sato, citing the 2009 crop production statistics report of the Food and Agriculture Office.

According to Sato, the DA should come up with ways to make the business of rice farming more profitable.

Citing inputs from local farmers in the province, Sato said many rice farmers remain landless and have to cope with the challenges posed by excessive rice importation.

“The government should put in place necessary measures as safety nets in the form of direct support to the farmers, particularly those with small landholdings, such as seed and fertilizer subsidies and free irrigation,” she added.

Occidental Mindoro is one of Mimaropa region’s top rice-producing provinces but, she said, farmers there remain poor because of the high cost of production, such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.

‘Cease-fire not working for banana plantations in Mindanao’

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he New People’s A r my (NPA) is still harassing agricultural plantations in Mindanao while there is ongoing peace talks between the government and the communist rebels, according to banana growers in the region.

Banana growers said the rebels are asking money from companies in Mindanao, including agricultural plantations, private contractors, quarrying operators, public market stallholders and small entrepreneurs.

“The amounts range from as low as P5,000 to as high as P5 million a month. If we pay we will lose our shirts and would be forced to close shop; if we refuse to pay, our lives and that of our family members will be in danger,” said a businessman in Toril, a district in Davao City.

Some groups from the NPA are reportedly asking for “commission”, ranging from 5 percent to 10 percent, from private contractors doing multimillion-peso projects for the government and private companies.

In some provinces of Mindanao, the extortionists even demand revolutionary taxes from baran-

gay captains and municipal mayors and councilors. A number of politicians were reportedly asked to settle unpaid permits to campaign, which became due during the elections in May.

Hardest-hit

Among the hardest-hit are banana plantations and big transportation companies operating passenger buses and contractors.

Just a few months ago one banana company had to close its plantation in Surigao del Sur after losing more than P20 million to the NPA’s burning of their equipment and packing plants since the start of its operation in 2010.

The firm’s decision expectedly resulted in worsening of joblessness in the area.

Dole-Stanfilco recently shutdown its plantation and packing plants in the northern part of Mindanao after the NPA torched container trucks early this year, because the company refused to pay revolutionary taxes.

Even President Duter te acknowledged that the banana industry is hampered by the continuous harassment of lawless groups in Mindanao.

“The greatest challenge of the banana growers in the Philippines is really the law and order. If it’s not taxation of the communists, it’s extortion of the roving bandits in Mindanao,” Duterte said at the closing ceremonies of the 2016 Banana Congress held in Davao City in October.

Big banana plantations have been seeking government support in fighting extortions from the communist rebels who are demanding revolutionary taxes.

The President said Mindanao is the key to driving developments in Philippine agriculture.

W hile mining industries and e x por t processing zones can sprout “ever y where”, Duterte said, “what would make the industry valuable is actually [agriculture in] Mindanao, and only in Mindanao.”

He added that he is bullish about agriculture in the country, and sees that the sector will “make it big in the span of the next 30 years,” provided the country is able to iron out law and order, and stop extortion attempts of bandits on farm owners.

The businessmen, who requested anonymity for security

reasons, said the “biggest adverse impact” of revolutionary taxes, apart from the unchecked government red tape and corruption, is on foreign investors invited

by Duterte to do business in the Philippines.

Businessmen asking for protection from the military are disappointed that the military and the police can’t help stop the extortion activities after the government declared a unilateral ceasefire as part of the ongoing peace process. They have been ordered to stay in the barracks.

Worried businessmen are concerned what the peace talk could really mean to their businesses, since the rebels are taking advantage of the government’s unilateral cease-fire. They have set up camp in areas near the population centers, recruit new members, extort from big- and small-time businessmen and even conduct medical missions.

The rebels do their illegal activities practically within striking distance of police stations, military detachment and camps, which have been temporarily abandoned due to the declared cease-fire. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

A6

The W

Business

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Fake US embassy in Ghana shut down after ‘about a decade’

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CONTROLLED MOVES Kashmiri children ride on a bicycle at a closed market during restrictions in parts of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on December 5. Authorities imposed restrictions on the movement of people in some parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city as separatists called for a march toward the city’s main business district to hold a protest against Indian rule. AP

Thailand’s new king appoints a smaller council of advisers

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ANGKOK—Thailand’s new king named an 11-member council of advisers on Tuesday, bringing in three new officials, including a former army chief and two representatives of the ruling junta.

The so-called Privy Council that Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun named is sma ller than the 16 -member council of his father, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died on October 13. Vajiralongkorn took the throne on December 1.

An official statement said Vajiralongkorn retained seven members from the old council, as well as the privy council head, Prem Tinsulanonda.

The new members are former army chief Gen. Theerachai Nakvanich, Justice Minister Gen. Paiboon Koomchaya and Education Minister Gen. Dapong Ratanasuwan. The two ministers are part of the ruling junta, which took power in a 2014 coup by ousting Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s elected government.

“The new appointments lend a more military presence to the Priv y Council,” said Thitinan

Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University. But “there has been more continuity from the new lineup than anticipated because most of the previous members have been retained,” he said.

Among those removed through the contraction of the council are the director of the crown property bureau, the former chief of navy, a former deputy chief of the military supreme command, former officials, a former diplomat and a businessman.

The seven advisers who were retained are an ex-bureaucrat, an ex-minister, a former prime minister, three ex-jurists and the former chief of the air force.

While the makeup of the new council doesn’t shed much light on the 64-year-old king’s thinking, the re-appointment of Prem as the privy council chief signals some continuity from Bhumibol’s reign.

Prem, one of Bhumibol’s closest advisers, had acted as the regent after the king’s death during the period before Vajiralongkorn formally accepted the throne.

Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, but Bhumibol played an important role during his 70-year reign in stabilizing the country through a time of enormous change that saw neighboring monarchies collapse under the pressures of the Vietnam War. He was especially known for his energy in development activities, doing hands-on inspections in remote rural areas.

He calmed the country through several political crises.

Vajiralongkorn faces the challenges of a country in which democracy has struggled to take root amid frequent coups, ostensibly to control corruption and pull political factions away from their bitter battles. AP

Thousands mourn beloved leader Jayalalithaa in India

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HENNAI, India—Hundreds of thousands of people thronged the southern Indian city of Chennai on Tuesday to honor their beloved leader, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, a former film actress and popular politician.

Jayalalithaa, chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, died late Monday after surgery following a heart attack a day earlier.

A sea of weeping mourners surged toward the steps of a public hall, where Jayalalithaa’s body, draped in the Indian flag, was kept on a raised platform.

T housands of police officers formed chains to stop the heaving crowd from surg ing up the steps. Men and women wept, s ome s he d d i n g t e a r s , w h i le others broke into loud wails.

Several mourners fainted from the heat and dehydration. Police said some of them had been keeping vigil outside the Apollo Hospital since Sunday and then wa lked to R ajaji Ha l l at daybrea k. In New Delhi lawmakers

observed a minute’s silence on Tuesday before both houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day in respect for the woman who many referred to as “Amma,” or mother.

P r i me M i n i s te r Na re nd r a Modi led the country in mourning Jayalalithaa’s death, saying her death leaves a “huge void in Indian politics.” Modi was to arrive in Chennai later Tuesday to join mourners at Rajaji Hall.

Roads leading to Chennai were clogged as people from remote villages poured into Tamil Nadu’s capital to catch a last glimpse of their leader.

Seven days of mourning were declared for Jayalalithaa, who was a five-time chief minister of the state. Schools and offices were closed after authorities declared public holidays for three days.

Hundreds of political leaders and film celebrities are expected to attend Jayalalithaa’s funeral, scheduled for later Tuesday.

Jayalalithaa, 68, had been

hospitalized since September, suffering from a fever, dehydration and a respiratory infection.

At the time, thousands of people prayed and fasted outside the hospital for her recovery. Doctors barred visitors, sparking rumors that they were withholding bad news out of fear it could trigger the same outpouring of grief, riots and suicides that followed the death of Jayalalithaa’s political and acting mentor, M.G. Ramachandran.

Jayalalithaa was 13 when she began her film career and quickly became known as a romantic lead in many of the nearly 150 Tamil-language movies that she worked on.

She entered politics in the early 1980s, under the guidance of Ramachandran, and after his death in 1987 she declared herself his political heir and took control of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam party.

She served as Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, the highest elected position in the state of 71 million

people, for nearly 14 years over five terms beginning in 1991. She regained her office last year after a corruption case against her was overturned by the court.

Jayalalithaa endeared herself to the poor and powerless with her policy of giving out handouts.

Laptop computers and bicycles to students, spice grinders, free rice and subsidized food to the poor, cows and goats to farm women, enabling them to rise out of rural poverty. She pushed government officials and workers to promote health and education by handing out gold coins and awards to those who exceeded their goals.

Although she was criticized by many who equated her handouts with bribery, she said it was her scheme to wipe out rural poverty.

In return, she was loved by the poor who saw her as their charismatic benefactor. “She was their redeemer. Their savior,” Vasanthi, a well-known Tamil writer and Jayalalithaa’s biographer, wrote in the Indian Express. AP

CCRA, Ghana—A fake US embassy that operated for “about a decade” in Ghana’s capital issuing counterfeit and fraudulently obtained visas has been shut down, the US State Department announced.

The scam was orchestrated by “Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings” and a Ghanaian attorney, a statement said. Several suspects have been arrested, though others remain at large.

Raids led to the recovery of 150 passports from 10 countries and visas from the US, India, South Africa and the European Schengen zone.

In Washington State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said no one was able to enter the US illegally using a counterfeit visa obtained at the fake embassy.

“This was a criminal, fraud operation masquerading as a fake US embassy,” he told reporters.

It was not clear how many people were defrauded by the fake embassy, which charged $6,000 for its services.

Those running the operation were able to bribe corrupt officials “to look the other way,” the State Department said. Ghanaian officials said on Monday they were still collecting information and were not prepared to comment.

“This is a shocker,” said one Ghanaian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists about the case. Toner said the fraudsters obtained Ghanaian and other passports with

expired US visas that were either lost or stolen. Using them as a prototype, they then produced counterfeit visas.

But, as Toner stressed, “it’s very, very hard to counterfeit US visas these days,” including numerous security features such as biometric information to prevent fakes from being used.

To the best of the State Department’s knowledge, he said, no one had even been caught at the US border attempting to enter the country with such a document.

“Frankly, the counterfeit visas were pretty poor quality,” he said, claiming that people who obtained them must have realized they weren’t going to be able to use them to get into the US The State Department learned of the fraud operation earlier this year, he said. Ghana acted on information that the US provided.

Those involved in the scheme would drive “to the most remote parts of West Africa” to find visa applicants and transport them to Accra, the State Department said. They also used fliers and billboards to lure victims from Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo.

Victims would be taken for appointments at the fake embassy, which featured an American flag and photo of President Barack Obama. The fake consular officers were Turkish.

The scheme also used satellite locations including a dress shop.

An industrial sewing machine is suspected to have been used to bind fake passports. AP

Indonesia takes new step to combat loss of forests

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AKARTA, Indonesia—Indonesia has strengthened its morator ium on converting peat swamps to plantations in a move a conser vation research group says will help prevent annual fires and substantially cut the countr y’s carbon emissions if properly implemented.

840K

The total hectares of forests cleared by Indonesia every year

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s amendment to the moratorium regulation, which was issued on Monday, expands it to cover peatlands of any depth and orders companies to restore areas they’ve degraded.

Indonesia’s move was welcomed by Norway, which in 2010 pledged $1 billion to help the country stop cutting down its prized tropical forests but has released little of it. As a result of the expanded regulation, Norway said it would give $25 million to Indonesia to fund restoration of drained peatlands and another $25 million once an enforcement and monitoring plan is ready.

Draining of peat swamps by palm oil and pulp wood companies is a major contributor to destruction of tropical forests in Indonesia and the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions. The land conversion worsens annual dry season fires that release huge amounts of carbon stored in the peat. Many of the fires are deliberately set to clear land of its natural vegetation.

Indonesia has made major commitments to reduce greenhousegas emissions and protect its tropical forests, which are home

to critically endangered species, but deforestation has continued largely unabated. A study in the journal Nature Climate Change estimated that by 2012, Indonesia was clearing 840,000 hectares (2 million acres) of forests a year, more than any other country.

Arief Wijaya, a forests expert at the World Resources Institute, said on Tuesday that the strengthened moratorium is particularly important for protecting Indonesia’s Papua region as the “last frontier of natural forests” still largely untouched by exploitation.

Deforestation is far advanced on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and worsening in Kalimantan, which is the Indonesian part of Borneo. The institute estimates Indonesia could achieve a 7.8-gigaton reduction in carbon emissions over 15 years, which is equivalent to about one year of US greenhousegas emissions. Wijaya said that in practice the amended regulation means companies such as Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world’s largest paper producers, are prohibited from expanding their use of peatlands, even if they are within their concessions. They also must rehabilitate drained peatlands and peatlands damaged by fires.

Last month the company was criticized by Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency, which released photos showing one of its suppliers in South Sumatra was replanting peatlands which burned in last year’s dry season fires and were supposed to be restored.

The fires from July to October last year in southern Sumatra and Kalimantan were the worst since 1997, sent a life-threatening haze across Indonesia into Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand.

A study by scientists from Harvard and Colombia universities estimated that fine particulate matter in the haze hastened the deaths of 100,000 people. AP

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Mexico awards first deepwater oil deal

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EXICO CITY—Mexico’s state-owned oil compa ny Peme x sa id on Monday it has awarded its first contract with a private firm for a joint operating agreement in deepwater oil drilling.

485M

The total barrels of oil believed at the Gulf of Mexico

The deepwater field, known as the Trion block, will be developed by the Australian firm BHP Billiton under a “farm-out” agreement in which the leaseholder of an oil field grants an operating interest to another company to develop the field.

The Trion field is near Mexico’s maritime boundary with the United States in the Gulf of Mexico and is believed to hold the equivalent of 485 million barrels of oil.

BHP Billiton said it will take a 60 percent interest in the block, while Pemex will retain 40 percent.

The Australian company could eventually invest funds and give payments to Pemex totaling $624 million under the agreement.

“Today is a historic day for Pemex and Mexico, as it is the

company’s first association agreement,” a Pemex statement said.

The National Oil Commission later said the agreement could eventually result in as much as $7.4 billion.

T he com m i ssion a l so a nnounced the results of bidding on exploration licensing contracts for 10 other deepwater fields. Two of the contracts drew no bidders, but eight were assigned.

The commission said the eight blocks would result in a total of $34.4 billion over 35 years. It said the Mexican government wou ld rece ive bet ween 59. 8 percent and 66.1 percent of the profits from the exploration and production projects.

Four blocks in the Perdido Fold belt, which is in the same area where Trion is located, were won mostly by foreign firms. China Offshore Oil Corp. E&P Mexico won contracts for two blocks. An alliance of Chevron, Pemex and Japan’s Inpex got another block, and France’s Total and ExxonMobil won the fourth.

Six deepwater blocks were offered farther south in the Salina basin. Two drew no bidders, and four were awarded, mainly to foreign firms. An alliance of Norway’s Statoil, BP and Total took two blocks. Malaysia’s PC Carigali and Mexico’s Sierra took another, and the US Murphy Oil Corp. joined them and Britain’s Ophir in winning the fourth. AP

Obama legacy: Handing Trump broad perspective of war powers

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ASHINGTON—After eight years as a wartime president, Barack Obama is handing his successor an expansive interpretation of the commander in chief’s authority to wage war around the globe. And that reading has continued to grow even as Obama prepares to pass control to Donald Trump.

In his final weeks in office, Obama has broadened the legal scope of the war on extremism, the White House confirmed on Monday, as it acknowledged for the first that the administration now asserts it is legally justified to take on the extremist group alShabab in Somalia.

The determination is based on an expanded application of a 9/11-era use of force authorization, a statute Obama has repeatedly leaned on to justify military operations. That rationale has raised concerns about how Trump might use Obama’s precedent to justify other overseas entanglements—without consulting Congress.

The White House staunchly defends Obama’s use of military power, arguing in a detailed report Monday that all operations have been firmly grounded in domestic and international law. White House counsel Neil Eggleston called the report—the first of its kind—a demonstration of how Obama has ensured “that all US national security operations are conducted within a legal and policy framework that is lawful, effective and consistent with our national interests and values.”

Evolving threats

YET the report, which Obama said should be updated annually, also reveals how his administration has relied overwhelmingly on the 2001 authorization, which even Obama acknowledges is outdated.

Though the law’s targets were al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a clause in the bill includes “associated forces” of al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan or beyond. That clause is now being used as a catch-all for military action in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya, the report shows, plus the basing of US troops in other countries.

As for al-Shabab, until recently, the US determined only that its individual leaders were linked to al-Qaeda, which limited targeting of those individuals. Now the broader group is included.

Trump has promised a more muscular and militaristic approach to counterterrorism, occasionally using expletives to suggest he’d aggressively bomb ISIS militants, although he has been vague on details.

Deborah Pearlstein, a former White House

official and international law professor at Yeshiva University, said it’s likely the next administration will use Obama’s framework as its starting point. “By practice and long history, those opinions tend to stand,” she said.

For Obama, the heavy reliance on 9/11era authorities is a powerful illustration of how his campaign pledges to construct limits on the president’s war-making powers were confounded by difficulties of dealing with Congress and the pressures of rapidly evolving threats.

Strict constraints

OBAMA came into office aiming to reverse what he argued were the overreaches of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama had built a national name opposing the unpopular Iraq War and pledging safeguards to ensure mistakes in that conflict weren’t repeated.

In the first days of his presidency, he signed executive orders prohibiting secret CIA “black site” prisons and ending harsh interrogation techniques considered by many to be torture.

Yet, Obama quickly discovered that imposing strict constraints made it harder to pursue his preferred approach to counterterrorism.

Wary of major overseas entanglements, he turned increasingly to surgical, stealthy operations like drone strikes that have traditionally operated under a murky legal framework. In a nod to that approach, Obama planned to visit US Special Operations Command headquarters on Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, to pay tribute to special ops forces.

Obama’s challenges were exacerbated by extremist groups whose attacks bear little resemblance to traditional state-versus-state warfare. Meanwhile, Congress displayed little appetite for politically controversial votes to authorize new uses of force.

So even when Obama, in 2014, announced the US would target ISIS with airstrikes, he said the 2001 law gave him authority because the group had grown out of al-Qaeda. Months later, he asked Congress to pass a new war powers resolution to address ISIS more specifically and replace the outdated law.

Better idea

CONGRESS never acted. Obama, unbowed, stuck by his legal argument that the 2001 version was still sufficient.

Not everyone agrees.

“If a president can’t convince Congress, as the proxy for the people, of the need to do this such that they will pass an authorization to do it, then we ought not to be using force abroad,”said Scott Roehm, vice president of the Washington-based Constitution Project. AP

Children ride a bicycle past a camper and teepee at the Oceti Sakowin camp, where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on December 2. AP

Winter menaces North Dakota camp as pipeline protesters dig in

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ANNON BALL, North Dakota—So far, the hundreds of protesters fighting the Dakota Access pipeline have shrugged off the heavy snow, icy winds and frigid temperatures that have swirled around their large encampment on the North Dakota grasslands.

But as they defy government orders to abandon the camp and vow to stay put even after a surprise federal decision to further delay and review the project, demonstrators know the real deep freeze comes when the full force of the Great Plains winter descends on their community of nylon tents and teepees. Life-threatening wind chills and towering snow drifts could mean the greatest challenge is simple survival.

“I’m scared. I’m a California girl, you know?” said Loretta Reddog of Placerville, California, a protester who said she arrived several months ago with her two dogs and has yet to adjust to the harsher climate.

The government had ordered protesters to leave federal land

by Monday, though authorities made no noticeable effort to enforce that mandate as the deadline passed. Many demonstrators insist they will stay for as long as it takes to permanently divert the $3.8-billion pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe believes threatens sacred sites and a river that provides drinking water for millions of people.

Crude corral

THE pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir, and opponents scored a victory during the weekend when the Army said it would not approve a permit for the crossing while further assessing potential changes. The company doing the building says it is unwilling to reroute the project.

For several months, the government permitted the gathering, allowing its population to swell. The Seven Council Fires camp began growing in August as it took in the overflow crowd from smaller

protest sites nearby. It now covers a half square mile, with living quarters that include old school buses, fancy motorhomes and domelike yurts. Hale bales are piled around some teepees to keep out the wind. There’s even a crude corral for horses.

The number of inhabitants has ranged from several hundred to several thousand. It has been called the largest gathering of Native American tribes in a century.

Increasingly, more permanent wooden structures are being erected, even though the Army Corps of Engineers considers them illegal on government property. The Standing Rock Sioux insist the land still belongs to their tribe under a nearly 150-year-old treaty.

Camp morale

NATE Bison, a member of South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux, came to the camp after quitting his job in Las Vegas. He said last week that he intends to stay indefinitely, a prospect that may cause him to lose his house in Nevada.

“But since I’ve lived in these conditions before, to me it’s not all that bad,” he said.

Camp morale is high, he added, despite the onset of winter.

“Everybody I’ve talked to, you hear laughter and people just having a good time, enjoying the camaraderie and the support from each other,” Bison said. “And the love.

People are taking the shirts off their own backs for other people.

No one is left out that I’ve seen.”

In the last week, the camp near the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers has been shrouded in snow, much of it compacted by foot and vehicle traffic.

Temperatures hovered in the 20s.

This week’s forecast calls for single digits and subzero wind chills.

Camp dwellers are getting

ready for the hardships of a long stay. Mountains of donated food and water are being stockpiled, as is firewood, much of which has come from outside of North Dakota, the least-forested state in the nation. A collection of Army surplus tents with heating stoves serve as kitchen, dining hall, medical clinic and a camp-run school.

Many of the smaller tents have become tattered by the wind.

Stepping up

THANE Maxwell, a 32-year-old Minneapolis native who has been living at the camp since July, said North Dakota’s bitter cold will not deter protesters committed to fighting the pipeline, or “black snake” as they call it.

Tribes from the Great Plains states are adept at surviving brutal winters, he said. Others from warmer climes are being taught how to endure the frostbiteinducing temperatures that are sure to come.

“A lot of these people have been living in this climate for hundreds of years,” said Maxwell, a member of Minnesota-based Honor the Earth Foundation. “It’s a skill set that can be learned. The danger is escalating from law enforcement, not the weather.”

Reddog said she has confidence in the camp community. “Everybody’s really stepping up and taking care of each other,” she said.

Maxwell put out a call on social media for more donations, seeking four-wheel-drive trucks and foul-weather clothing. He also asked for gas masks and protective baseball and hockey gear to shield protesters from any future skirmishes with police.

More than 525 people from across the country have been arrested since August. In a recent clash between police and protesters near the path of the pipeline, officers used tear gas, rubber bullets and large water hoses in subfreezing temperatures. Organizers said at least 17 protesters were taken to the hospital, some for hypothermia and one for an arm injury. One officer was hurt.

Harsh winter

NORTH Dakota has often conjured images of a wind-swept, treeless wasteland. The perception was so great that it led to a short-lived proposal to change the state’s name by dropping “North” and

leaving just “Dakota,” to dispel the image of inhospitable winter weather.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, who is heading the law-enforcement effort around the pipeline, said he hopes the harsh conditions force people to leave the encampment, something the state and federal governments have so far been unable to do.

In addition to the federal order, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple issued a “mandatory evacuation” for the camp “to safeguard against harsh winter conditions.” But he says the state has no intention of blocking food and supplies from coming into the camp.

Doing so would be a “huge mistake from a humanitarian viewpoint,” the Republican said.

At the camp last week, about 75 people lined up to draw propane for heating and cooking from a fuel truck. The driver, Rodney Grant, said it was his seventh trip in a week. The propane was free to campers. Grant said he did not know who was paying for it.

God’s country

DANI Jo McKing, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, was among those in line. She and her husband have been sharing coldweather tips with people who are not from North Dakota. She said people with out-of-state license plates, including California and Nevada, have been seen driving away from the camp. The cruel winter is bound to induce others to head home, she said. The cold weather has never bothered her.

“This is where I live. I’ll stay until the end. This is God’s country,” she said.

Summer Moore arrived last week from Paintsville, Kentucky, and quickly learned the power of the whipping North Dakota wind.

When a snowstorm rolled in Monday, it ripped her tent to shreds.

“It wasn’t that cold, but the wind was so bad it knocked me down three times,” Moore said.

She hitched a ride to the casino on the Standing Rock reservation and rode out the storm in a hotel room. A carpenter named Joel Maurer came from California last month. He’s been building small shed-like bunkhouses that will sleep seven people each with room for a stove.

“I know things are going to get real here real quick,” he said. AP

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016

The World BusinessMirror

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

Indians look for solutions only when pollution soars

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Zammo Marza, Abdo Marza, Charli Kanoun and Sherineh Marza stand at the grave of Marza Marza in Saarlouis, Germany, in this November 7 photo. The Marza family was among 226 Assyrian Christians taken captive by the Islamic State group in a February 2015 attack on their villages in northern Syria. AP

Ransomed: The race to free 226 Christian hostages in Syria

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AARLOUIS, Germany—Deep inside Syria, a bishop worked secretly to save the lives of 226 members of his flock from the Islamic State (IS) group—by amassing millions of dollars from his community around the world to buy their freedom.

The Assyrian Christians were seized from the Khabur River valley in northern Syria, among the last holdouts of a minority that had been chased across the Mideast for generations. On February 23, 2015, IS fighters attacked 35 Christian towns simultaneously, sweeping up scores of people.

It took more than a year, and videotaped killings of three captives, before all the rest were freed.

Paying ransoms is illegal in the United States and most of the West, and the idea of giving money to the IS group is morally fraught, even for those who saw no alternative.

“You look at it from the moral side and I get it. If we give them money we’re just feeding into it, and they’re going to kill using that money,” said Aneki Nissan, who helped raise funds in Canada. But “to us, we’re such a small minority that we have to help each other.”

The Khabur families trace their heritage to the earliest days of Christianity. To this day, they speak a dialect of Aramaic, believed to be the native language of Jesus.

W hen the villages were attacked, fleeing residents phoned cousins, sons, d aughters, f r iend s —A ss y r i a ns who h ad left the region in waves for the West. In the chaos, no one was sure how many were taken captive—but everyone was certain

$50k the amount demanded

by Islamic State for every person the group took hostage in the village of Tal Goran. A total of 17 men were captured by IS.

they were going to die.

As days stretched into a week, it became clear IS had other plans.

The group told the 17 men captured from one village, Tal Goran, they could have their freedom but with a catch. Four female captives would remain, and one of the men had to deliver a message to their bishop in the town of Hassakeh about 40 miles away, and return with an answer. The extremists demanded $50,000 per person for the whole group.

Abdo Marza reluctantly agreed.

His 6-year-old daughter was one of the captives. It took the bishop, Mar Afram Athneil, three days to make a decision, as he consulted with members of the church around the world on what to do. Then he gave Marza a sealed envelope, with no explanation.

When Marza handed it over, the IS extremist broke into a smile.

“Your bishop is a very smart man.”

With that, his daughter and three old women were freed.

Athneil began secret negotiations for the remaining captives.

Illegal

IN California Assyrian filmmaker Sargon Saadi packed his gear, hoping to learn what had happened to the Khabur villages. He found them almost deserted.

“We didn’t know why they took them, we didn’t know where they took them, what they wanted to do with them,” Saadi said.

W hen word f i ltered dow n about the ransom, the price was daunting. IS’s starting demand of $50,000 a person would mean more than $11 million for the remaining captives. “There’s no easy way to give them money. It’s very dangerous, it’s also illegal in many countries,” Saadi said.

Fundraising

THE calls for donations went out across social media. In Germany Assyrian entrepreneur Charli Kanoun persuaded the government to accept the Tal Goran hostages, and then he began fundraising for the others. Outside London, Andy Darmoo also fundraised while running his chandelier business.

On May 26 two women were freed. On June 16 one man was released. On August 11, 22 more people were liberated. Many in the diaspora hoped the ordeal was nearly over. Then in September 2015 came the video showing three Khabur men, dressed in orange, being shot to death. “ W hen that happened, everybody went crazy and money started flying in from all over,” Saadi said. “Assyrians don’t have an army to go rescue them. They don’t have SWAT teams, they don’t

have SEAL 6. The only option they have is to pay ransom.”

The IS group has made a fortune off the desperation of hostages. A United Nations resolution from December 2015 called on gover nments “to prevent kidnapping and hostage-taking committed by terrorist groups and to secure the safe release of hostages without ransom payments or political concessions.”

But while no government appeared to stop the fundraising, the Assyrians say no country stepped in to free the captives either.

Brokered

BROKERED by the bishop, Athneil, negotiations resumed in midfall.

The money went into an account in Irbil, Iraq. From November, releases took place every few weeks.

On February 22 a final list of 43 names was sent to the bishop.

The last Khabur captives were on their way out.

But when the bus arrived in Hassakeh, only 42 hostages were on board. Sixteen-year-old Maryam David Talya had been pulled off at the last checkpoint by an IS guard, Kanoun said.

After another agonizing month of negotiations, Maryam stumbled into the arms of her parents.

How much was ultimately paid remains a mystery. The bishop, the only person with a full accounting, declined to speak to The Associated Press. Those involved credit him for saving the lives not just of the hostages but of hundreds of other Assyrians who fled the war zone. The Khabur valley is now all but empty of its Christians.

“Honestly, this man should go down as a saint, the things that he’s done, the sacrifices he’s made to help these people,” Nissan said.

“He’s refusing to leave Syria until all his flock is secured.” AP

Boy Scouts of America to relocate national museum to New Mexico

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LBUQUERQUE, New Mexico—From merit badges and uniforms to an impressive collection of Norman Rockwell paintings and drawings, the Boy Scouts of America will be packing up more than a century of scouting history and taking it to the wilds of northern New Mexico.

The organization announced on Monday that it will move its national museum from its current home in Texas to the Philmont Scout Ranch, which has served as an adventure destination for generations of troops and their families. Plans calls for expanding the existing Philmont Museum and Seton Memorial Library to make room for a national collection that includes more

than 600,000 items and reams of historical documents and photographs.

Construction is expected to start next year, with the opening planned for 2018.

Boy Scouts officials didn’t say how much the project will cost but said they’re committed to preserving the 100-year history of the scouting movement through the museum’s extensive collection. They say all the artifacts, fine art and documentation provides a look at Scouting’s influence on American culture. With the Philmont Ranch hosting more than 32,000 visitors each year, officials say more people will get to see the national collection.

“We considered all possibilities and

decided that relocating the museum to the iconic Philmont Scout Ranch best accelerates what the museum is trying to accomplish,” Rick Bragga, chairman of the museum support committee, said in a statement.

Rockwell

THE official museum of the Boy Scouts of America got its start in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1959. It was moved to the grounds of Murray State University in Kentucky in 1986 and then was relocated in 2002 to Irving, Texas, adjacent to the organization’s National Service Center.

The collection includes items from each of the national jamborees, rare merit

badges, pocket knives and compasses, historical records, speeches, photographs and dozens of examples of the artwork commissioned by the organization to deliver its message.

As for Rockwell, he was best known for his covers of The Saturday Evening Post that capture the spirit and popular culture of everyday American life.

In 1912 he was hired for his first gig as a staff artist for Boy’s Life magazine, an official publication of the Boy Scouts.

He went on to become the magazine’s art editor. He later created 51 original images for the official Boy Scouts annual calendar. AP

EW DELHI—The truth of New Delhi’s toxic air finally hit home for Rakhi Singh when her 3-year-old son began to cough constantly early this year. She bought air purifiers for her home. When a thick, gray haze turned the view outside her home into a scene from a bad science-fiction film last month, she bought pollution masks.

“Having a kid made the reality of the city’s pollution hit me harder,” she said.

The news that the Indian capital is one of the dirtiest cities in the world is three years old. But the awareness that it’s toxic enough to leave its citizens chronically ill and requires long-term lifestyle changes is relatively nascent. The first week of November, when a thick blanket of toxic haze covered the city, did much to hasten that awareness. And with the awareness came a brisk uptick in the sale of air purifiers and pollution masks.

As the noise and smoke from millions of firecrackers from the Hindu festival of Diwali died down, the city woke up on November 1 to soaring levels of PM2.5—pollution particles so tiny they can get deeply embedded in the lungs. Levels in the Indian capital averaged well over 900 micrograms per cubic meter, more than 36 times the level the WHO considers acceptable and 15 times the Indian norm.

Manufacturers and importers of air purifiers and pollution masks say in late2016 is the first time they’ve had a serious number of Indian families inquiring about and buying their products. “It’s only in 2016 that we’ve started to get through to the middle class,” said Barun Aggarwal, who heads Breathe Easy, a company that assesses homes and offices in New Delhi for pollution and provides solutions such as air purifiers and indoor plants.

World’s dirtiest city

WHEN Aggarwal started his business in 2013, he had no customers for months. Later that year the World Health Organization (WHO) report describing Delhi as the world’s dirtiest city was released.

“In the last four months [of 2013] we finally managed maybe 50 customers,”he said, adding that those first customers were almost entirely foreigners living in the Indian capital who came from cities with much cleaner air.

This year he expects to hit close to 5,000

customers, with more local residents looking for solutions, Aggarwal said.

Other businesses show similar numbers.

SmartAir, a company that started selling low-cost air purifiers in China in 2013, set up shop in India in early 2015 and sold 1,000 pieces of its basic do-it-yourself model that year. This year it sold about 500 pieces in the first week of November alone.

Hundreds of people queued up outside the Vogmask store in a posh shopping area to spend as much as 2,000 rupees ($29) on high-end pollution masks manufactured by the California-based company.

When the Indian capital topped the pollution charts in 2013, the city’s first response was almost defiant. There was a belief that pollution only sickened the city’s expatriate population.

“There was a strong defiance. ‘I’m born and brought up in Delhi. This doesn’t affect me,’“ was how people saw the pollution problem, said Jay Kannaiyan, head of SmartAir in India.

“This year that’s gone out the door. Middleclass, even lower-middle-class Indians are looking at air purifiers,” he added.

Panic-driven market

BUT while awareness is growing, New Delhi’s response to air pollution isn’t very consistent.

Air pollution is a year-round problem in the Indian capital, but it’s only when the cold winter makes toxic air visible that people respond. On days when the air so awful that one can see and taste it, the parks are empty and those who cannot afford pollution masks tie handkerchiefs or scarves across their faces.

The week after Diwali, when the city saw its most shocking pollution spike in years, the SmartAir office and shop in south Delhi was open all night, with long lines outside the store.

But on other days, when the sun shines and the haze lifts, most people forget about pollution. The masks vanish and the face coverings come off, even though pollution is often still way above government and WHO norms. “When the media stops talking about it and people see sunshine they start thinking it’s OK. It’s really not. It’s terrible,” Singh says.

“Right now it’s a completely a panic-driven market,” says Kannaiyan. “People are only buying when it’s so horrendous that they can’t see their own hand in front of them.” AP

Live on television: Samsung heir grilled by South Korean lawmakers

S

EOUL, South Korea—It’s a rare moment of public reckoning for South Korea’s most powerful business leaders and possibly the worst day for Samsung’s billionaire heir, courtesy of the country’s biggest political scandal in years.

Lee Jae-yong, 48-year-old vice chairman at Samsung Electronics and the only son of the ailing chairman, was shouted down and admonished by lawmakers for the most part of the 2 ½-hour parliamentary questioning on Tuesday morning. Lawmakers questioned him on wide-ranging issues from why Samsung sponsored the family of President Park Geunhye’s confidante to Samsung’s treatment of sickened workers.

The hearing, which is expected to go on all day, was broadcast live on major TV channels.

Lee fielded questions for the first time in parliament as part of the unprecedented questioning of nine leaders from South Korea’s biggest business groups about their possible roles in the scandal involving President Park and Choi Soon-sil, her shadowy confidante.

Lawmakers are looking into any links to prosecution claims that South Korean President Park Geun-hye allowed a corrupt confidante to pull government strings and extort companies.

Park’s scandal has increased doubts over deep ties between politicians and the country’s top family-controlled businesses, known as chaebol. The South Korean president faces allegations she played a role when big business groups donated funds for non-profit foundations under the control of her confidante, Choi Soon-sil.

Donated funds

PROSECUTORS are reportedly looking into whether some of the 53 businesses that donated funds received any favors in return.

Many protesters who have filled Seoul streets calling for Park’s arrest have also vented anger toward the chaebol and their founding families, shouting they are accomplices in the scandal.

During the questioning, Samsung’s Lee and other chaebol bosses denied that they donated the funds to the foundations in order to receive any favors from the government. Huh Chang-soo, chairman of GS Group, told lawmakers that in South Korea it is difficult for business leaders to refuse the government’s requests.

Samsung’s Lee faced most of the questions from both ruling and opposition party lawmakers as the group donated the largest amount of money to the nonprofit foundations and also because it was the only group that sponsored the Choi family outside the foundations. They tried to have Lee explain who at Samsung made decisions to sponsor the Choi family, but he evaded answering.

Lawmakers also grilled the 48-year-old heir regarding his one-on-one meetings with President Park, his company’s business deal with the Choi family-owned company and a contentious merger of two Samsung companies last year. Lee admitted that the way Samsung sponsored Choi’s daughter was not appropriate and that he regrets it.

Secretive confidante

BUT most of the time, he answered that he was not aware of it or could not recall details. When asked about how he first knew the secretive confidante of the president, the Samsung leader said he cannot remember.

“I heard many times [about Choi] recently and I learned how [Samsung] supported as I confirmed the facts but I’m really sorry lawmaker that I don’t know when I first learned [about Choi],” he said.

Some lawmakers’ questions went beyond the scandal to other issues such as Samsung semiconductor workers who fell gravely ill and how Lee accumulated wealth. Park Young-sun, an opposition party lawmaker, grilled Lee on how much tax he paid since he received 6 billion won ($5.1 million) from his father 20 years ago, which snowballed to 8 trillion won ($6.8 billion) through complicated business dealings within Samsung and initial offerings of Samsung companies. AP

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Wednesday, December 7, 2016 A9

National Exporters’ Week highlights participation of SMEs in global trade

I

By Roderick L. Abad

@rodrik_28

N celebration of the significant contribution of exports as the main source of the Philippines’ foreign revenue, the 20th edition of National Exporters Week (NEW) is being observed this week with focus on developing, strengthening and integrating the homegrown small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the global business community.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) once again is leading this event by holding the National Exporters’ Congress (NEC), themed “Advancing SMEs through Inclusive Business: From Local to Global,” at the Philippine Trade Training Center in Pasay City on December 7.

As the highlight of the NEW, this conclave conducted through collaborative efforts of the DTI’s Export Marketing Bureau (EMB), the Export Development Council (EDC) and the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) will be participated in by foreign-trade

stakeholders—both from the public and private sectors.

Lined up for this daylong affair are seminars tackling various subjects on the promotion of inclusive business via innovation and facilitating trade by supply, connectivity, regulations, and new markets.

Officials of the trade, agriculture, finance, and science and technology agencies, as well as the other resource persons invited provide insights on these topics.

The Top Sectoral Exporter Awards are conferred to exemplary exporters and outstanding SME and global

players in the service sector.

Starting the weeklong celebration was the One Town, One Product Showroom event, featuring Ripples Plus Enrollees, at the DTI Main Building along Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City.

Tubong Pi l ipino R ipples Plus Showcase, ongoing until December 10 at the Glorietta 5 Activity Center, Makati, serves as a venue for Filipino exporters and artisans alike to widen their reach by exhibiting their own unique products.

Ripples Plus is the advanced and expanded version of the Regional Interactive Platform for Philippine Exporters (Ripples) that is implemented across the country, in coordination with the DTI Regional Operations Group (DTI-ROG).

Tubong Pilipino is conceptualized as a caravan or a roadshow for local manufacturers slated to tour selected Ayala Malls nationwide. This is also a lifestyle event that features wellcrafted furniture, furnishings, home décor, fashion items and delicacies native to the municipality or province.

Meanwhile, engaging sessions called “Usapang Exports,” centered on the updates on the Philippine Export Development Plan, Export Outlook for 2017, Leveraging the Asean Integration, Packaging Trends and Visual Merchandising, Phytosanitary Export Certification Procedures of the Bureau of Plant Industry, Interactive Statistics and Business Matching Plat-

form, Digital Marketing for Beginners, Virtual Seminar on Nontariff Measures and Doing Business with the United Nations, and Export Markets (Israel, Russia, Mexico, South Africa and India) are held throughout the week at the nearby DTI International Building, except during the staging of the NEC. This year’s observance of the NEW is timely to reflect on the export momentum in the Philippines, which at the latest grew by 5.1 percent from a year earlier to $5.21 billion in September 2016, following a 3-percent decline in August.

By virtue of Presidential Proclamation 931, Series of 1996, and House Resolution 33, the first week of December is declared as the NEW for both the government and the private sector to reaffirm their commitment to sustain export promotion and development.

This national occasion beefs up linkages among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); government agencies; business-support organizations; multinational companies; Philippine exporters; academe; and domestic producers in improving capabilities in supplying and maintaining presence in global markets.

At present, there are 950,000 DTIlisted MSMEs in the country. They account for 35 percent of the country’s GDP. More than half or 63 percent of jobs comes from this sector.

DTI-EMB revives Tradeline Philippines

By Victorino Soriano

Chief Trade-Industry Development Specialist, Knowledge Processing Division Export Marketing Bureau, DTI

I

N an effort to enhance the capabilities and competitiveness of local exporters as suppliers of quality goods and services to global markets, as well as help develop potential exporters, the Department of Trade and Industry’s Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) is set to launch on December 7 the enhanced Tradeline Philippines during the National Export Congress (NEC) at the Philippine Trade Training Center (PTTC). “Tradeline Philippines is positioned as DTI-EMB’s main information and communications technology [ICT] tool in providing its stakeholders with an integrated export information system that will deliver regular trade statistics reports, market and product information, supplier and buyer databases and other trade-related information through the Internet,” EMB Director Senen M. Perlada said.

Accessible via www.tradelinephilippines.dti. gov.ph, the Web-based portal features an interactive online Trade Statistics to the public and a business-intelligence platform to registered exporters and foreign buyers through the business-matching system, which are all available for free.

“The DTI is at the forefront of providing innovative services to its customers and this is EMB’s way of employing technology to make doing business a lot easier. We hope our target audience will take full advantage of this free service so they can get timely and relevant information, as well as develop new markets and buyers,” Perlada added.

Through www.businessmatching.dti.gov.ph, Tradeline Philippines’s business platform for registered foreign buyers and local suppliers, buyers can easily search for available Philippine products or raw materials and transact business by contacting the suppliers through the dashboards the system will provide.

This means registered exporters will have their own Web presence, where they can post their products for business matching with the requirements of foreign-based buyers. Registered buyers will also have their own facility to match their requirements with the products being marketed by Philippine exporters.

As a value-added service to EMB-assisted exporters who are already included in EMB’s database, these exporters have been preregistered and just need to activate their account once they receive a notification e-mail from the EMB. Once the account is activated, export-

SOFT LAUNCH

Officials of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) attend the soft launch of the exhibit area of the Ripples Plus program at the One Town, One Product display room, DTI Main Office along Buendia Avenue in Makati City. Present during the launch on December 2 are (from left) Senen M. Perlada, director of DTI’s Export Marketing Bureau (EMB); Rhodora M. Leano, director of DTI’s Bureau of Domestic Trade Promotion; and Anthony Rivera, EMB assistant director. ALYSA SALEN

ers can start signing in via businessmatching. dti.gov.ph, the business intelligence platform of Tradeline Philippines, to update or modify their account. A User’s Manual for both buyers and suppliers is also downloadable at the web site for easy reference and guide.

Hand in hand with various export traderelated government and private agencies, institutions and organizations that work with the promotion and development of the country’s exporters, Tradeline Philippines is expected to propel the growth of the export industry. The Philippine merchandise exports finally broke into positive territory in September 2016 after languishing in negative territory during the previous 17 months.

The 5.1-percent year-on-year (YOY) growth in September tempered the year-todate (YTD) decline of Philippine merchandise exports to 6.2 percent, representing a moderate improvement from the negative 7.8-percent figure posted in the first eight months of the year.

The better-than-expected export performance in September 2016 partly contributed to the country’s strong third-quarter GDP expansion at 7.1 percent, which has prompted the Asian Development Bank to raise its 2016 full-year forecast for the Philippines anew to 6.8 percent.

upcoming events Compiled by Louise Kaye G. Mendoza DTI-EMB Knowledge Processing Division

DEC 7

Time: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

Event: National Export Congress 2016 Venue: Philippine Trade Training Center (PTTC), Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue

corner Roxas Boulevard Pasay City

DEC 8

Time: 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Event: Usapang Exports * Interactive Statistics and Business Matching Platform;

* Digital Marketing for Beginners; * Virtual seminar on Nontariff Measures and Doing Business with the UN Venue: Penthouse, 5th Floor, DTI International Building, 375 Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City

DEC 9

Time: 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Event: Usapang Exports * Israel, Russia, Mexico, South Africa and India Venue: Penthouse, 5th Floor, DTI International Building, 375 Sen. Gil Puyat

Avenue, Makati City

Inclusive business: Capacitating the domestic industries to go global

By Senen M. Parlada Director, DTI-EMB

T

BUSINESS BEYOND BORDERS

HE continuous growth of the Philippine economy— currently looked at globally as the brightest spot in an economically burgeoning region in Asia—is effectively changing the economic scene in the countryside, carrying in its momentum the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have mushroomed nationwide.

In the third quarter of 2016 alone, the country’s GDP grew by 7.1 percent, the fastest growing among Asia’s major emerging economies.

The figure, which covers the first full quarter of the Duterte administration, is higher than the GDP growth of 7 percent in the second quarter, and is an improvement on the 6-percent GDP growth recorded in the same period last year.

The country’s strong third-quarter expansion has prompted the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to raise its 2016 full-year forecast for the Philippines anew to 6.8 percent. It is worth noting the higher forecast is due partly to the better-than-expected export performance in September 2016 when it finally broke into positive territory after languishing in negative territory for the previous 17 months.

The 5.1-percent year-over-year growth in September tempered the year-to-date decline of Philippine merchandise exports to 6.2 percent, representing a moderate improvement from the negative 7.8-percent figure posted in the first eight months of the year.

It is hoped this rebound signals the start of the gradual recovery in Philippine merchandise exports.

Added to this optimism is the planned 7-percent infrastructure spending of the present administration, higher than the 5-percent target of the previous administration.

This bodes well for the Philippine economy, comprised mostly of SMEs. The growing number of SMEs operating in the country is seen by the government as a welcome development, a testament to the inclusive growth being experienced by various sectors.

The government, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in particular, has for years been in the forefront of efforts to harness the economic power of the country’s smaller, but numerous business entities.

Partnering with the private sector including business groups and federations, and academe and local government units, the DTI has various programs seeking to bolster the capacity and capability of SMEs. Its Regional Interactive Platform for Regional Exporters Plus (Ripples Plus) is a program seeking to expand the supply base of internationally competitive Philippine export products and services by extending strategic company-level interventions to SMEs. Assistance comes in the form of capacity-building trainings, product development, market information and global product trends to participating companies to make them export-ready, and/or to enhance their export capacity and competitiveness.

The program prepares these companies to compete in terms of volume, quality, price, packaging, compliance with marketentry requirements, rules and regulations, design leadership or alignment with current design trends, and when export-ready, to match these companies with prospective foreign buyers and actively promote their products in the export market.

In the forefront of efforts to reach out to these small clusters of starting business entities and operational SMEs are the DTI’s Regional Operations Group and Industry Promotion Group, and various government entities under its jurisdiction: the Export Marketing Bureau, the Philippine Trade Training Center and the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions.

Also part of the network of assisting government entities is the Foreign Trade Service Corps (FTSC), located in many of the world’s most significant hubs of trade and economic activities, serving to identify new markets and trends, among other functions, to help broaden the perspective of Philippine business about the many possibilities of global trade.

While conducting information and training sessions in its central offices in the National Capital Region, the DTI and its various service agencies, with the support of bigger private-sector companies, continue to send teams of experts to province-based businesses, to share information on bolstering the production capabilities of these local business enterprises, and encouraging them to expand their horizons to include not only trade in their geographical region, but the world market at large.

The DTI and its partners also continue to bolster the government’s infrastructure network, creating venues to facilitate business-to-business conversations, with the hope of building the country’s export capabilities, one small enterprise at a time.

A10 Wednesday, December 7, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Messy import permits

I

mporters of farm goods were taken aback when the Department of Agriculture (DA) issued Memorandum Circular (MC) 5 on November 23. Signed by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol, the circular revoked existing import permits and compelled traders to revalidate their sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances (SPS-ICs). The DA said the measure was undertaken to prevent the technical and outright smuggling of meat products.

Piñol said he issued the new rule after noting the discrepancy between official government data and figures from the United Nations on meat products imported by the Philippines.

He said the data proved there was technical smuggling, as some unscrupulous traders misdeclare pork cuts as offal, which is slapped a lower duty ranging from 5 percent to 10 percent.

Aside from MC 5, the DA said it will ask the Tariff Commission to increase the tariff on imported offal to 35 percent.

The issuance of MC 5 also triggered changes in the application process for new import permits. This process, according to an official of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), is “more tedious”. This is because importers would have to wait for the nod of two DA officials before they can get their new SPS-ICs. Before MC 5, the BAI official said everything can be done online.

While the efforts of the DA to stop the smuggling of agricultural goods are laudable, the manner by which it is doing so could present more difficulties to businessmen and consumers. Right after Piñol announced the new rule, traders trooped to the DA’s central office in Quezon City to have their SPS-ICs revalidated. The DA chief promised that importers would get their revalidated import permits within 24 hours so their shipments would not face delays.

There was bedlam in the DA central office in the first few days after the announcement of the new rule, as guidelines on how they could seek revalidation were unclear. Confronted with the deluge of import permits for revalidation, the DA came out with a more detailed process for replacing SPS-ICs on December 5, nearly two weeks after it came out with MC 5. The 24-hour period for the release of revalidated permits is no longer guaranteed.

Right now, traders are operating under a cloud of uncertainty, something that businesses abhor. Consumers are also faced with the possibility of paying more for canned goods and other food products that make use of imported raw materials.

Allowing compliant importers to access the special lane to fasttrack the release of their shipments is a step in the right direction. The DA must see to it that the other changes it will introduce to fight agricultural smuggling would not harm traders, consumers and encourage corruption.

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Why not tax banks for ‘robbing’ depositors legally Michael Makabenta Alunan

on the contrary

D

O you know that the banks we entrust our money with are effectively “robbing legitimately” their own small depositors, who probably account for 80 percent of total depositors, if we estimate the number based on the Pareto principle or 80-20 rule?

Defining metaphors of robbery Legally, it’s not robbery being allowed by law and sanctioned by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), but, technically, it is a “form of effective robbery”, as hundreds of thousands of depositors feel aggrieved and victimized that their accounts are eroded or slashed by an average of P350 per month if they fall short of the maintaining bank balance.

It is a phenomenon affecting hundreds of thousands or maybe a few millions of small depositors, who are mostly young workers or couples surviving meagerly from paycheck to paycheck, and often forced into the trap of in-between jobs after completing the usual five-month job contracts, popularly known as endo —a colloquial for “end of contract”.

By definition, theft happens when somebody steals from you stealthily without your knowledge. Qualified theft is established when the same person entrusted with the responsibility to take care of your finances or assets steals from you. Robbery happens when money or assets are forcibly taken from you. In our bank case, it is tantamount to both a qualified theft and robbery.

When interests hurt much

Middle and higher income people, more likely the learned, vocal and articulate people when it comes to their rights, have been silent as they have not been affected. Obviously, most of them have fat bank accounts

and, therefore, do not experience this problem. For the hoi polloi or the masses, their little savings are systematically siphoned off monthly only because they are poor. For the longest time, the system has hurt them so much, and this speaks a lot about our unjust banking system.

In many banks, a P350 monthly penalty is deducted from accounts falling below the minimum P2,000 maintaining balance, which is about 17.5 percent of P2,000, and if annualized for 12 months, this translates to 210 percent per annum. What is left is less than P1,650; and if you deduct again another P350 every month thereafter, you end up with only P250 on the sixth month, and an account closure thereafter.

Worst, the penalties or effective interest rates slapped on deposits below the maintaining balance increasingly become usurious, much worst than rates of the detested informal loan sharks.

If we proceed with the computations, the next P350 monthly deduction against the remaining P1,650 is a 21.21-percent penalty, and if annualized again, the result is an effective interest rate of 254.54 percent per annum. Subsequently, the third month becomes an annualized effective penalty of 323.07 percent per annum; fourth month, 442.1 percent per annum, fifth month, 700 percent per annum; and on the sixth month, 1,680 percent per annum.

For those who have little in life,

these interest rates really hurt. These grievances have been expressed a lot so far in social media, particularly on Facebook.

Burden of proof is ‘fine’?

Banks could readily argue that the P300 or P350 monthly deductions for deposits below maintaining balances are administrative and storage costs on the deposits.

For them, the fine or penalty is the burden of proof itself. With the volume of retail accounts from depositors, banks would claim they have to maintain a big army of tellers and admin people. However, with the advent of computer technology, all this administrative burden can be absorbed at no extra cost. And even assuming admin costs are valid, what amounts or percentage fees are reasonable to the public?

Perhaps, this has to be probed for possible legislation.

Let’s analyze this burden of proof if it’s justified and acceptable. Currently, bank lending rates are about 5.5 percent per annum, but interest rates on savings for depositors are only at 0.2 percent per annum. This is a whopping 2,650-percent markup.

Isn’t this more than enough to cover the costs of handling money for small depositors. Not lending much for wealth-creation? And because big depositors get higher interest earnings on their deposits and enjoy lower prime rates on their borrowings, perhaps government can tax the incremental difference, not for a cross-subsidy mechanism for small depositors, which is wrong, but to be channeled to solid programs that will make banks lend liberally to inclusive investments for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and farmers and fisherfolk.

Numerous programs can be designed to address this concern, but this entails a separate discourse. So far, Congress has pushed for a reform of outmoded financing laws through the proposed “Secured Transactions Reform” bill seeking to make other forms of assets besides real estate

The wrong way to stand up to China

A

ides to President-elect Donald J. Trump say that his precedent-shattering phone call with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen on Friday was not a diplomatic blunder, but a deliberate move to signal resolve against China. If so, he needs to rethink his strategy.

There are valid arguments for the US to be more assertive toward China, and Trump has even articulated some of them. China’s island-building efforts in the South China Sea, and its harassment of Japan in the East China Sea, are destabilizing. In many ways, the Chinese economy remains unfriendly to foreign competition, with certain areas closed off entirely.

In North Korea China has not done nearly enough to temper the regime’s bellicose instincts.

Any successful strategy to change China’s calculations and behavior, however, requires several elements— chief among them clarity and consistency. This Trump has not provided.

After news broke of the call, the first between a US president or presidentelect and Taiwan’s leader since the US established diplomatic relations with Communist China in 1979, Trump initially seemed to suggest it hadn’t been his idea. Then he protested that critics were overreacting. Then he lashed out at China for its supposed hypocrisy.

Claims that he was challenging conven-

tional State Department thinking won’t impress leaders in Beijing. The incoming administration now stands to lose credibility if it fails to follow through.

Moreover, any attempt to reorder the chessboard in Asia requires buy-in from allies. Chinese leaders weren’t the only ones left wondering what exactly Trump intends or how he plans to pursue his goals. America’s friends in the region are already worried about the president-elect’s isolationist impulses and frustrated with his sinking of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Several were hedging toward China even before Trump’s victory, and now more will be reluctant to participate in any attempt to pressure

as bank collateral. Right now, banks still find SME financing unattractive and risky. More so, farmers and fishermen. Thus, banks are circumventing the Agri-Agra law to lend to agriculture by buying government securities as a form of compliance.

And yet banks are so awash with funds with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) estimates showing that 2015 savings rate was 30.3 percent of gross national income, but actual invested into gross capital-formation rate was only 19.8 percent. The difference is therefore held unproductively by the banks.

Are we lax with tax?

IT is high time Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III scrutinized this widespread practice of banks, which is among the country’s richest industries. If selling property is taxed a capital gains tax for windfall returns, perhaps by parallelism windfall returns from small depositors must be taxed in the same way.

We need more taxes to catch up with our Asian neighbors, particularly in infrastructure and social investments, like education and health, that enhance the ultimate productive resource—human capital. Dominguez admits investments are only 20 percent of our GDP, while our neighbors are hitting 30 percent to 40 percent.

While more tax revenues are needed, the Laffer Curve theory in economics suggests ironically that more revenues are actually generated by lowering corporate and personal income taxes, which will encourage more compliance and potentially increases the tax base. When tax rates are too high, people tend to dodge taxes or find ways to under declare income and tax payments.

Meanwhile, let’s correct and settle this problem over what is now perceived by many, but pardon me for spelling it out here as an institutionalized “bank holdup or robbery”, which is a wholesale “inside job” and conspiracy.

E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com

the Chinese regime. That knowledge is sure to stiffen rather than weaken Chinese resolve.

The new US administration will have more luck if it calibrates the pressure it places on China rather than engages in showy gambits. The Barack Obama administration did actually manage to alter Chinese behavior with specific threats on some issues—cyberspying and on land reclamation at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, for example. By contrast, Taiwan’s status remains the foremost of China’s core interests and pressing further there will make compromise in other areas virtually impossible.

Bloomberg View

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

Barnacles

Odes to joy: The joy of memory

BusinessMirror

Liling Magtolis Briones

Teddy Locsin Jr.

Free fire Continued from A1

T

hey persuaded her to read a speech they had prepared, called “Land of Broken Promises”. In it, she committed to enact a sweeping agrarian-reform law. She returned to Manila to an open-mouthed reception from us. “Whaaaaat? Agrarian reform? The Americans will think we are communists.” Still, we thought, try getting a Congress to pass it.

Unexpectedly, she won; and so decisively that Congress dissolved.

All the powers of government devolved upon her, including the power to make laws. The Jesuits turned up again to remind her of her promise.

Panic time for us.

Some of us came up with a brilliant idea: sure, an agrarian-reform executive order (EO) that was bold in principle—but shy in coverage; leaving it to a future Congress to flesh out. Winnie Monsod, who was not even-tempered like me, blew her top and flew off the handle. It was a most unpleasant Cabinet meeting.

I was already thinking of how to phrase what we had in mind: “Agrarian reform cannot mean just subdividing the misery on the land but must await the fruition of agricultural progress—and so divide the prosperity there on.” Rhymes.

Winnie did not buy it and resigned. I had pleaded with her not to and stay to continue influencing the government for the better. It might have been that she still resented what I had down to her ball gown, which I said I would carry in my luggage with care; but which I wrapped around some precious books I had purchased to protect their edges.

When she asked for it to attend the Washington ball, well…let’s just say I went into hiding. When the draft EO was passed around for comment, I called my friend Sonny Dominguez.

We had worked together for the great Enrique Zobel. “Sonny,” I said, “no dramatics.” I knew he held the same views as Monsod.

He had just told off the Bankers Association of the Philippines, which came to the Palace to issue an ultimatum: if we passed agrarian reform the banks would cut off all credit to those “deadbeats” on the land. Farmers still owed some P5 billion to an agricultural program, I think Masagana 99. That would be some 35 million people reneging on P5 billion of loans. Most of the loans had been faithfully paid back as poor people have an exaggerated sense of personal credit. I think the rate of repayment was 90 percent of farmer loans. So Sonny told the bankers, “Ah, so 35 million farmers fail to repay P5 billion and they are deadbeats.” The bankers nodded.

“Okay,” Sonny said, “so what are a handful of Marcos cronies who never

paid back a cent of”—if I recall rightly, some P230 billion in loans from just one government-owned and -controlled corporations? The bankers answered in unison, “People who made bad business judgments.” So I was worried when I called Sonny, and said to him with some trepidation, “What do you think of the agrarianreform EO?” After a nanosecond of hesitation, he said, “Why, Teddy, it is the best agrarian-reform law I never saw.” He stayed in the government.

That episode comes to mind with Leni’s resignation. President Duterte liked her. It doesn’t matter if she turns up at Cabinet meetings or no. Hers is not a line position. What is important is that Duterte recognized her quality and gave her a post to show her talents. From time to time, he would remark that people should not worry about his health, for he had her to succeed him. But, like barnacles set adrift by the Yellow shipwreck, old discredited crustaceans adhered to Leni with great suction and, thereby, stuck to the hull of the ship of state.

But barnacles spoil navigation. A good captain will dry dock his ship and scrape them off—along with she to whom the barnacles are drawn. Telling Leni not to turn up at Cabinet meetings, which are properly limited to line positions, did not mean she’d lost her job.

You might say but you, Teddy, occupied a seat in the Cory Cabinet. I did but I hardly ever spoke up. The Cabinet and I were distinctly aware that I was not a line secretary and I had no line responsibilities. And as often as I was seated, I was out of my chair; for I was there mainly to see if her Cabinet behaved with the appropriate deference. You might say, I was her self-appointed Vyshinsky and I spared no one I felt should have earned her displeasure, though I never consulted her on the matter.

To return to our subject, Leni’s exclusion from the Cabinet did not, in anyway, endanger the higher office to which she was elected, and whose term and tenure the Constitution and the Army guarantee to her. But she took it that way and left.

It was probably the right thing to do. But she might have waited a wee bit longer, and meanwhile, scraped off the Yellow barnacles that are a drag on the ship of her political future.

Boiled Green Bananas (Again!)

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was planning to write about the joy of music. However, the joy of memory intruded.

My earliest memories go back to a time when I was a little over a year old during the war years. Flashes of images and bits of conversation bring me back to a sitio at the bottom of a gorge beside a river in Barrio Guihob, La Libertad, Negros Oriental.

The name of the sitio is Mala-ite.

My family fled there together with my maiden aunt Tiya Basay and the family of my mother’s sister Mama Diday, and her husband, Sergio Catacutan.

My family originally lived in the poblacion of Guihulngan, where I was born, and my parents were both teachers. When the war broke out, my father joined the guerrillas.

When our house was caught in the middle of a firefight between guerrilla and Japanese forces, my family decided to flee, as did the families of other guerrilla leaders.

I grew up listening to stories of our stay in Mala-ite. My elder sister Daisy and eldest brother Manong Ani have the most stories, which they passed on to us younger siblings and to their grandchildren.

Mala-ite lay at the bottom of a deep gorge. It was thickly forested and could not be seen from the top of the ridge. The house where our two families lived in was surrounded by huge trees. In the morning, our

families would be awakened by the singing of countless birds accompanied by the sqawking of parrots.

Wild flowers were everywhere. And, of course, the monkeys created their own racket. Since the house was beside a river, the older children, upon waking up, would jump into the river and take their morning swim. There was no lack of food—fish from the river, root crops, bananas and corn kept us well fed and happy.

My father would visit us without notice. He would come—sometimes in the night—riding a coal-black horse who was as nasty as his name: Devil. I don’t know what route he took to descend to our gorge a la Harrison Ford. I remember his hat—we called it “bostipol” then. My father always had a thick green woolen blanket, and a saddle for a pillow.

My younger brother was born in the middle of the night in Mala-ite.

By the time the midwife arrived by lamplight from the nearest sitio, Baby Ely had already arrived in our little paradise.

Bloomberg View

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atteo Renzi c a me to power promising to change Italy or change his job. On Sunday Italians made that choice for him, rejecting the constitutional reform on which he’d staked everything.

It’s tempting to plot a continuous line from the UK’s June vote to leave the European Union through to the election of Donald Trump to the Italian referendum on Sunday that ended Renzi’s government and his hopes of changing politics in Italy.

In each, populists won and establishment power was rejected. But Tolstoy’s famous observation about families can be applied to elections: All victories are alike, but each loss is a failure in its own way.

The populist side likes the BrexitTrump narrative. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen tweeted

on Sunday night that “Italians have disavowed the EU and Renzi.” She was only half right. Italians support the EU and the euro, even if the main opposition party, the Five Star Movement, wants out of the single currency. Unlike Americans who voted for Trump, Italians elected to keep the current political system.

Le Pen was on target when she pinned the loss on Renzi. He had explicitly made the vote a referendum on his leadership. Once a popular outsider himself, he showed a flair for both reform and popular appeal as a mayor of Florence and became Italy’s youngest prime minister at 39, when, as Democratic Party leader, he used a political maneuver to muscle out Prime Minister Enrico Letta in February 2014.

Once in power, he enacted changes to the electoral system and made it easier for employers to hire and dismiss workers through his hardfought Jobs Act. He forced out chief

On a Sunday morning I traveled from Dumaguete to La Libertad and proceeded to Barrio Guihob. The ride up the mountain was long and bumpy but the vista was spectacular. I cannot imagine how my mother in her pregnant state was able to walk 12 kilometers from Guihulngan to La Libertad, trek up the mountain and still descend down to the gorge.

What do I remember of Malaite? My mother and aunts sorting old clothes for bartering with far off “neighbors” for food. One of the sharpest images in my mind is that, of the three of them sitting across each other, unraveling threads from my father’s socks for darning and sewing. Thread was very precious.

The loving arms of an elder cousin who was my yaya. Laughter of my cousins and siblings who spent all their time playing, unless they were called to lessons by my teachermother. Excitement over a python who got stuck in the bird trap made of sap from the bark of trees by my eldest brother and a cousin. Swallowing a leaf and getting sick. My mother’s singing, which was all the time.

Later on, our families moved much farther up the mountains to Malasbalas.

Seventy-four years later

Seventy-four years later, at the age of seventy-six, I decided to visit Mala-ite. I requested the

young Mayor of La Libertad, Negros Oriental, Emmanuel Iway, and the Vice Mayor (former Mayor) Dodong Limkaichong to bring me there. I was told that, at my age, it is impossible for me to descend down the nearly perpendicular gorge to Mala-ite. The farthest they could take me by road was to Barrio Guihob, where the elementary school was.

Em and Dodong tried to track down the families who probably lived nearby. He was able to trace the grandchildren. Em called up my living siblings to get more details.

And so, on a Sunday morning I traveled from Dumaguete to La Libertad and proceeded to Barrio Guihob. I was accompanied by our Regional Director Gilbert Sadsad and other Department of Education officials. I brought computers for the school. The ride up the mountain was long and bumpy but the vista was spectacular. I cannot imagine how my mother in her pregnant state was able to walk 12 kilometers from Guihulngan to La Libertad, trek up the mountain and still descend down to the gorge.

During the turnover ceremonies for the computers at Guihob, I told the huge crowd, especially the schoolchildren that 74 years ago, I was brought to Mala-ite as a baby and am now returning as secretary of education. After lunch, Em and Dodong took me to the place where I could look down the gorge at Sitio Mala-ite. I could see the winding river, a bit of forest and bamboos.

The barrio captain told me monkeys are still there.

Ahh, the joy of memory!

Putin shows off Russia’s embarrassing aircraft carrier

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By Tobin Harshaw | BloombergView

’ve written before on how Russian involvement in the war in Syria is about more than just propping up the Assad regime.

President Vladimir Putin has also been putting on a demonstration of military might, both to enhance Russia’s status as a resurgent power and to show off all its new hardware to prospective international buyers.

And things had been going well: Ground-based Russian planes have been flying sorties at a highly efficient pace; warships in the Caspian Sea have hit targets in northern Syria with cruise missiles; one of Russia’s new T-90 tanks survived relatively unscathed after being hit by a US-made TOW missile.

But when Putin decided to send Russia’s lone aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, down to the Mediterranean, he blundered. First, there is no military purpose: The carrier was designed to protect home waters, not for strike missions, and with only 15 planes aboard, will do little to augment Russia’s groundbased aerial assault.

Second, the ship is simply embarrassing to look at. It lumbers along belching black smoke, accompanied

by tugboats standing ready to tow because of frequent breakdowns.

Its distinctive “ski jump” prow is an admission of technological defeat— because the deck lacks the catapults found on US carriers, jets need the extra boost of the ramp to avoid toppling into the ocean.

In service since the mid-1980s when it was part of the Soviet navy (and called, variously, the Riga, the Leonid Brezhnev and the Tbilisi), it has made only a handful of deployments in its history, none further than the Mediterranean. According to media reports, problems with freezing pipes have reduced it to just 25 latrines for a crew of 2,000.

In 2012 it broke down in the Bay of Biscay and had to be towed thousands of miles to its home port near Murmansk. It had a particularly bad

Don’t confuse Italy with Brexit or Trump

By Therese Raphael

Wednesday, December 7, 2016 A11

executives of some of Italy’s biggest companies and appointed the first female chief executive of a stateowned Italian company. In a move rich in symbolism, he sought to auction off a fleet of luxury state-owned cars. Many of his efforts were watered down or only half-completed.

But by Italian standards, this wasn’t business as usual.

His ultimate goal was to change the constitutional setup that Renzi believed was responsible for a lot of governing gridlock. His key proposal was to reduce the size of the Senate, the upper house of parliament, weaken its powers and change its composition. Renzi spent a lot of his political capital getting parliamentary approval for his changes.

Meanwhile, Italy’s economy barely grew and the banking crisis worsened. Italian youth, which as a group has among the lowest employment rates in Europe (over 37 percent are without a job), grew dis-

enchanted. Among the 18 to 34 age group, support for a yes vote trailed other age groups in polls leading up to the referendum. When he became prime minister, Renzi’s approval rating was 74 percent; a year later it was just over 35 percent. Support for his constitutional referendum declined in parallel to his personal support.

As Italy’s economy stagnated and its banking crisis deepened, Renzi began to look like less the reformer and more like what postwar Italy has grown used to: an embattled, ineffective leader of a weak government in a divided parliament.

His constitutional reforms were also poorly drafted and confusing to many. There was a grant of parliamentary immunity senators, for example, a politically expedient idea that stretched credulity in a country where corruption is rife. There were also worries that his electoral reforms gave the sitting government too much power. (They were, in fact,

year in 2009, spilling hundreds of metric tons of oil off the coast of Ireland and catching fire near Turkey, an accident in which one sailor died.

Now the Kuznetsov Curse has struck again. According to the trade website the Aviationist, on Saturday an Su-33 Flanker returning to the carrier crashed into the sea after failing to hook onto the decktop “arrestor cables” that slow the jets upon landing. A similar thing happened last month with a Mig29 fighter. (In both cases the pilots were able to eject before impact.)

Perhaps the Russian navy had been anticipating such problems.

According to the military information service IHS Janes, the Russians have for weeks been moving planes off the flattop to an airfield in Syria.

Even without these fiascos, it’s unlikely there would be much of a market anyway if Russia decided to sell the Kuznetsov off—as it did with the former Admiral Gorshkov to India for $2.35 billion in 2004 and Ukraine did with the hull of the Varyag to China in the late 1990s. In both cases, there was a fair amount of buyer’s remorse.

The Chinese have spent hundreds of millions on repairs and new technology for a ship, now called the Liaoning, that’s more or less incapable of combat missions and really used for training.

Delivery of India’s ship, now called the Vikramaditya, was delayed for years, in part because seven of its eight steam boilers failed during sea trial. It was recommissioned in 2013 and is patrolling the Indian Ocean, although the government has decided that its new, domestically built Tejas lightweight aircraft won’t be able to land on the carrier’s small deck.

Russia continues to roll out some impressive weaponry in Syria, most recently the sophisticated S-400 airdefense system at its naval base at Tartus. This is only going to help its arms exporting business, which hit a record $15 billion last year. But, unless the purpose was to show off the effectiveness of Russian ejector seats and tugboats, the Kuznetsov should have stayed home. Or, better yet, been sent to the graveyard. It’s undoubtedly worth more as scrap metal than as a projection of Russian power.

probably what Italy needed—a system that was more like that of the UK or Germany.)

For some, I suspect, the reforms disrupted a cozy working order. Italians have grown used to the smallscale criminalization of daily life, the myriad ways in which rules, often inscrutable, are bent or evaded to get things done. It is messy and often unfair, but like a highly functional drunk, Italy largely works.

Renzi’s threat to that ecosystem pitted him against a lot of the Italian establishment.

The triumph of the populist Five Star Movement does share some striking similarities with the winning side of the Brexit vote and with Trump’s victory. In each, a populist, nonconformist, irreverent outsider —Nigel Farage in Britain, Trump in America, the comedian Beppe Grillo in Italy—mastered social media. And all ran campaigns that peddled falsehoods as often as cited facts.

Speaking after the results were clear, Renzi once again adopted the mantle of the outsider. Italy’s political leaders aren’t interested in reform, he charged. “They don’t change their habits and they will never change their seats.” It will now be up to President Sergio Mattarella to appoint a caretaker government and decide on new elections. Italy has been here before.

It’s also worth noting that Renzi took 40 percent of a high-turnout vote even though every major party was against him and though many in his own party either opposed his reforms or were lukewarm in their support. That is a vocal minority for concrete change that the next government will ignore at its peril.

Unlike the Brexit vote and the US presidential election, both the yes and no votes in Italy were for a change to the system; the difference was how each side defined the status quo it wanted to upend.

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Low food prices to temper 2017 inflation

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By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm & Bianca Cuaresma @BcuaresmaBM

espite the increase in inflation in November, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said it expects food prices to remain low next year.

Neda Director General and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said this will

be the case, particularly after the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice is lifted in June 2017.

Pernia said the lifting of the QR on rice imports by July 2017 is expected to decrease prices of well-milled rice by P7 and farm gate price by P5.

“Overall, we expect the fullyear inflation for 2016 to be well within the government’s inflation target band of 2 percent to 4 percent. The overall balance of risks is tilted on the upside, with supplyside factors as the main contributor to price adjustments,” he said.

In November the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said inflation was at 2.5 percent, the

highest since February 2015, when inflation was also at 2.5 percent.

Inflation in October was at 2.3 percent, while inflation in November 2015 was only at 1.1 percent.

The PSA said this was largely due to higher prices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco; housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels; and transport.

“The increase in inflation can be attributed to the increase in domestic prices of petrol products, which comprise the bulk of the nonfood commodity basket usually purchased by the average Filipino household,” Pernia said.

Nonfood inflation increased due to the uptick of prices in all major nonfood items, such as housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (1.3 percent from 0.9 percent), and transport (0.5 percent from 0.2 percent).

Meanwhile, food inflation remained unchanged in November 2016 at 3.5 percent, with rice prices breaking its five-month long increasing trend and corn prices continuing in its downward trend since August.

“The decrease in rice prices signals the recovery of the rice sector from the devastation of Typhoons Karen and Lawin. We must foster technological advances in agriculture to decrease the susceptibility of our crops to natural calamities,” Pernia added.

Inflation in Metro Manila decelerated to 2 percent in November 2016. It was pegged at 2.1 percent last month and 1 percent in November 2015.

The heavily weighted food and nonalcoholic beverages index

posted slower annual increase with the index for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels; and transport registering negative annual rates. The November inflation is the highest growth of prices in the country since December 2014, when it hit 2.7 percent. It is also higher than the given forecast range of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr. for the period.

About a week ago, the BSP governor said their forecast suggests that November inflation could settle within the 1.6-percent to 2.4-percent range.

“While higher than in October and slightly above the upper-end of our forecast range for the month, the November figure brings yearto-date average to 1.7 percent, still slightly below the lower bound of the NG target range of 2 percent to 4 percent,” Tetangco told reporters.

Weak peso

The BSP said it does not need to worry about the recent movements of the local currency, as its ability to affect the overall inflation has declined through the years.

In an Investor Relations Office (IRO) Investor Conference Call on Tuesday, BSP Managing Director Francisco Dakila Jr. said despite the peso’s weakness recently, the impact of the peso to the country’s inflation has gone down through the years.

“What we’ve seen is the passthrough from the peso to inflation has gone down considerably through the years with inflation targeting,” Dakila said.

“So the central bank does not

have to really worry about the implications of recent developments on the peso on achievement of the inf lation target range. The prospect is that for both 2017 to 2018, inflation will revert close to the inflation target band,” he added.

The local currency has seen considerable weakness in recent weeks, following the confluence of local and international developments.

In November the peso neared the P50 territory and has hit several eight-year lows.

On Tuesday data from the PDS Group showed the peso hit 49.601 to a dollar. This is higher than the 49.69 to a dollar in the previous day’s trade. The total traded volume on Tuesday hit $400.8 million, higher than the $334.4 million on Monday.

Dakila also said the depreciating peso has “countervailing effects” that would benefit the local economy.

“It actually supports the exports sector. Second, we do have sizable number of families that are dependent on remittances. That will be a support to consumption of overseas Filipino families,” he said.

The BSP official also said the peso volatility is not out of line with other regional currencies, as well as the volatility seen in the previous year.

“We see the peso has experienced some volatility lately along with other currencies in the region. But if you were to look at the year-todate movement of the currency, we see that as of December 5, the peso has depreciated by 5.3 percent. The comparable movement last year was 5.1 percent,” Dakila said.

Senators lift Dayan’s detention order

By Butch Fernandez

S

@butchfBM

ENATORS, citing “purely humanitarian reason,” agreed to release witness Ronnie Dayan from indefinite detention on Monday night after being cited in contempt for giving evasive answers at an inquiry into alleged payoffs from drug lords at the Bilibid prison.

Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson Sr. confirmed that Dayan, former chaffeur-paramour of then-Justice Secretary now Sen. Leila M. de Lima, was allowed to go home following a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III, Committee on Rules chairman; Sen. Gregorio Honasan and Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao, who earlier moved to cite Dayan in contempt.

“After listening to him [Dayan], for purely humanitarian reason, and his commitment to be just a call away, as well as a pledge to attend the next hearing, we let him go,” Lacson said, adding Dayan was accompanied by his wife and child [Kasama asawa niya at anak, meron siyang anak na di niya nakikita].”

Lacson recalled that after Dayan

was arrested earlier and taken to the National Police general headquarters in Camp Rafael Crame in Quezon City, the witness was first brought to the House of Representatives, which issued the arrest order for ignoring summons to testify at a separate House hearing before he appeared at the Senate inquiry on Monday.

“Since then wala pa siyang pahinga kaya medyo magulo,” Lacson told reporters. “We advised Dayan to compose himself and rest his mind” so he can remember the events he needed to recall in relation to the ongoing legislative investigations. Para maalala ang dapat maalala.”

Lacson added: “I think that is a proper approach para ma-reboot ang kanyang memory kasi nalilito.

For instance, he cited Dayan’s admission that he received money from former Bureau of Prisons Director Franklin Bucayu and former National Bureau of Investigation Assistant Director Rafael Ragos.

“May inamin siyang naalala niya.

So we deemed it wise to give him some more space, some more time, to really compose himself and think

of even na nalimutan niya.”

Lacson confirmed that the contempt citation against Dayan had been “effectively lifted” by the Senate as of Monday night on condition he will appear at the next Senate hearing the date of which has yet to be set by the committee.

“Sabi niya [Dayan] meron siyang gustong sabihin pero hindi pa malinaw sa mind niya masyado. Sabi ko sige samahan mo ang pamilya mo, ipapa-escort ka namin pauwi. Last [Monday] night pinasamahan namin sa Senate security personnel and with a SWAT [Special Weapons and Tactics] team from the Pangasinan provincial police office,” Lacson said, voicing hope that Dayan, following complete rest, will be able to make full recollection.

He added: “I hope after having fully rested marami pa siyang marecall. Sabi niya noong tumakbo siya, he stayed under water, chest-deep sa river for so many hours, nakababad ang katawan niya. Noong pagod na pagod na, he just sat there and waited for the pursuing policemen and just surrendered…resigned to being captured.”