BusinessMirror December 12, 2019

COKE-ISUZU PARTNERSHIP Coca-Cola Beverage Philippines Inc. (CCBPI), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country, has partnered with Isuzu Philippines Corp. (IPC)—the country’s leading manufacturer of brandnew trucks through Isuzu Gencars—to enhance safety and sustainability within Coke’s logistics operations. Sealing the partnership are (from left) Conrad Almazora, Almazora Motors Corp. executive vice president; Ruth Genota, CocaCola Beverages Philippines Inc. logistics director; D. Edgard A. Cabangon, Isuzu Gencars Inc. president and CEO; and Hajime Koso, Isuzu Philippines Corp. president. Story in Companies, page B1.

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Thursday, December 12, 2019 Vol. 15 No. 63

Senate, House ratify ₧4.1-trillion budget bill T

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM & Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

HE Senate and the House of Representatives separately ratified on Wednesday the final version of the P4.1-trillion national budget bill for 2020, paving the way for its early submission to Malacañang for signing into law by President Duterte before the year ends.

The ratification met a strict timeline that the two chambers had set, in a bid to avert the scenario of having the government operate under a reenacted budget,

as what happened in the 2019 budget, when the four-month delay in approval dented economic growth.

The Senate ratified the bicam-

eral conference committee version of the 2020 budget bill despite concerns aired by Sen.Panfilo Lacson over reported “insertions.”

Senate President Vicente Sotto

“The early approval by the committee provides the President ample time to review the bill’s provisions and ensure that it is aligned with the priority programs of the administration.”

—Cayetano

III, however, said he was unaware of the alleged insertions and would look into it.

“I am not aware of it yet,” the Senate leader said, adding he expects to get more details from Lacson. “Siguro magkukuwento siya sa akin [I presume he’ll be filling me in on it].”

Continued on A2

P25.00 nationwide | 6 sections 56 pages |

medal tally as of december 11, 2019 | 12:30 p.m. contingent

gold

silver

bronze

total

philippines

149

117

120

386

vietnam

98

85

104

287

thailanD

92

103

123

318

inDonesia

72

84

111

267

malaysia

55

58

72

185

sinGapoRe

53

46

69

168

myanmaR

4

18

51

73

CamBoDia

4

6

36

46

BRUnei

2

5

6

13

laos

1

5

28

34

timoR-leste

0

1

5

6

DBCC scales down GDP growth target to 6-6.5%

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

T

@BNicolasBM

HE interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) has accepted that the country would not hit the higher end of the government’s growth target of 7 percent this year as it decided to scale it down to a tighter range of 6 to 6.5 percent.

While the government decided to maintain its growth target for next year at 6.5 to 7.5 percent, it also cut its growth goals for 2021 and 2022 to 6.5 to 7.5 percent from its original growth target of 7 to 8 percent.

The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said GDP growth target for this year was revised downward since the 6-percent to 7-percent original target band is “no longer credible” given the GDP growth numbers in the last three quarters.

The DBCC decision to revise its growth expectations downward is consistent with Asian Development Bank (ADB) expectations for this year. See related story on page A2.

Year-to-date economic growth is 5.8 percent after two quarters of deceleration and a surge in the growth of Philippine economy in the third quarter at 6.2 percent.

“For the year, we are actually proposing a tighter band because we really have the Q1, Q3 num-

PESO exchange rates n

bers but we still think that we are at the range of 6 to 6.5 percent. I think, you know, if we say it’s 6 to 7 [percent] then it’s no longer credible, given that we already have the first three quarters,” Neda Undersecretary for Policy and Planning Rosemarie G. Edillon told reporters following the 177th DBCC meeting.

As for the revision of the GDP growth goals for 2021 and 2022, Edillon explained the move is “consistent with fiscal prudence.”

She added: “Moving forward, we want to stick to prudent fiscal management and so looking also at the different tax-reform programs that are there, the revenue projections and then we want to maintain a fiscal deficit to GDP ratio of 3.2 percent and also we want to make sure that the debt does not balloon…” she said.

Exports cut, too

Aside from GDP growth projections, the DBCC also slashed its growth assumptions for merchandise exports and imports for 2019.

Due to ongoing trade tensions, the government is now seeing a lower merchandise exports growth this year at 1 percent, compared to its previous assumption of 2 percent.

It also cut its merchandise exports growth projection for next year to 4 percent from 6 percent, while retaining a 6-percent hike for the country’s exports bill for 2020 to 2022.

See “Growth,” A8

Meralco: 100% coverage of unserved sites by end-2020

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vested, yield level, cost of production, and share of irrigated area.

These municipalities and cities have an annual area planted of more than 500 hectares for dry season 20192020,” said Dar in a statement, citing recent data released by the DAPhilippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).

HE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said it will achieve 100-percent electrification in all 118 identified unserved and underserved sites covered by its franchise within next year.

“Meralco has intensified its electrification program since the second quarter of 2019 to attain 100-percent electrification of its franchise area by 2020. The focus now is to provide distribution and connective service to underserved and unserved customers in Metro Manila and Batangas. To date, additional 38 sites were already energized,” said the utility firm in a report.

The 118 sites consist of 15,969 households, with total spending to reach P267,186,128.00. Of the 118 sites, 81 sites (12,839 households) are in Metro Manila and 37 (3,130 households) in Batangas.

Meralco has so far energized 19 sites.

Of these, 13 are located north of Metro Manila, one in the central part of the metropolis, four sites in the southern part and one in Batangas.

The report said there is ongoing construction in 27 sites—with 22 in Metro Manila and five in Batangas.

Also, it has completed right-of-way acquisition and project design in 41 sites located in Metro Manila and 30 in Batangas. Meralco said one site in Batangas is still being evaluated.

Meralco’s electrification program within its franchise area originally

See “RCEF,” A2

See “Meralco,” A2

WE WIN AS ONE, WE ARE NO. 1 The overall champion’s trophy of the Southeast Asian Games is not going anywhere as the Philippines dominates the 30th edition of the Games with its runaway haul of 149 gold, 118 silver and 120 bronze medals. And hoisting the biggest trophy of them during Wednesday night’s Closing Ceremony at the Athletics Stadium of the New Clark City are (from left) Philippine Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, Philippine Sports Commission Chairman and Team Philippines Chef de Mission William Ramirez, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee Chairman Alan Peter Cayetano. ROY DOMINGO

81% of RCEF target sites got rice seeds–DA

T

HE Department of Agriculture on Wednesday said 46 out of the 57 target provinces have already received 341,203 bags at 20 kilos per bag of inbred rice seeds under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) Seed Program.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the 46 provinces, which

make up 81 percent of the accomplishment, include 282 municipalities and cities with high potential for competitiveness in rice production.

Among the rice seed varieties distributed include NSIC Rc 160, Rc 216, Rc 222, and two locationspecific inbred varieties.

“The provinces have been identified based on the size of area har-

US 50.7360 n japan 0.4665 n UK 66.9309 n HK 6.4822 n CHINA 7.2135 n singapore 37.3526 n australia 34.5664 n EU 56.3017 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.5300

Source: BSP (11 December 2019 )

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Thursday, December 12, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Lower growth goals in sync with ADB forecast

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

@caiordinario

HE government’s decision to revise its growth expectations downward at the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) meeting on Wednesday is consistent with Asian Development Bank (ADB) expectations for this year.

In its Asian Development Outlook Supplement (ADOS) released on Wednesday, the Manila-based multilateral development bank maintained its growth and inflation forecasts for the Philippines.

The ADB said GDP growth will average 6 percent in 2019 and 6.2 percent in 2020, while inflation is

expected to average 2.6 percent in 2019 and 3 percent in 2020.

“GDP growth is seen accelerating in the fourth quarter of 2019 and throughout 2020, supported by investment as more inf rastr ucture projects come onstream. Accommodative fiscal and monetary policies will

support domestic demand,” ADB said.

The ADB also noted the country’s 6.2 percent GDP growth in the third quarter of the year, saying that it boosted the GDP growth in the January-to-September period to 5.8 percent.

The uptick in GDP growth was supported by the rebound in the government’s infrastructure spending, as well as robust private consumption. The Philippines’s GDP growth and inflation expectations bucked the trend observed in developing Asia.

ADB trimmed its forecast for the region to 5.2 percent in 2019 and 2020, lower than the September forecast of 5.4-percent growth this year and 5.5 percent next year.

The supplement also forecast inflation in the region to average 2.8 percent in 2019 and 3.1 percent in

6%

The ADB’s forecast average GDP growth in 2019. It forecast 6.2-percent growth in 2020, while inflation is expected to average 2.6 percent in 2019 and 3 percent in 2020 2020, up from the September prediction that prices would rise 2.7 percent this year and next.

“While growth rates are still solid in developing Asia, persistent trade tensions have taken a toll on the region and are still the biggest risk to the longer-term economic outlook. Domestic investment is

Senate, House ratify P4.1-trillion budget bill Continued from A1

Should he find basis in Lacson’s concern, Sotto indicated he would rather alert President Duterte and let Malacañang act on it so as not to delay the process and avert a reenacted 2019 budget by January.

“What will happen to us now, in order not to delay the budget, [is that] we will just inform the Executive Department that this is the assessment of the Senate,” Sotto said in an interview on Wednesday.

“We will leave it to the discretion of the President again, as what happened the last time, but I cannot express my personal opinion until I get to know what it is and what is behind it,” Sotto added. He was referring to the standoff between House and Senate leaders which triggered the 2019 budget’s approval. Since the alleged insertions by House leaders in that bill were made after both chambers had already ratified the bicameral conference committee version, Sotto—with bipartisan advice from other Senate leaders—then informed Duterte of their serious reservations about the illegality of such post-ratification insertions on the 2019 GAB. As for the 2020 budget bill they ratified on Wednesday, Sotto declined to divulge the tone of the letter he would send to President Duterte in case he finds Lacson’s concerns valid, saying he just heard about the reported “last-minute insertions.”

“It depends on what it contains,

RCEF. . .

Continued from A1

According to Dar, seed distribution is ongoing to cover the remaining 11 provinces, including 703 municipalities/cities.

He said the remaining 1,766,805 bags of seeds are scheduled for distribution this 2019-2020 dry season.

He said DA-PhilRice has already contracted out 97 percent of the seed requirement for this cropping period. “The 2 million bags of certified seeds will translate to planting around 1 million hectares of rice land which can contribute to increasing the yield up to 6 tons per hectare in high-yielding provinces by 2024,” Dar said.

Earlier, the DA forged a P432.78million deal with the country’s top seed growers to kick-start the government’s seed-distribution program via the RCEF. The DA said it forged a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with five seed growers’ associations and cooperatives for the seed component of the RCEF. The deal accounts for 21.64 percent

the so-called P93 billion,” Sotto said, adding: “It depends on what it contains, and what projects are identified there, on what departments they are placed.”

The Senate President said he would also need to confer with the Finance committee chairman, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, on the matter. “The only difference from then to now is that before, the problem that we encountered last year, it was after we ratified [the bicameral panel version] that they inserted. But now, it wasn’t ratified yet [when the alleged insertions were made]. So, in a sense, it’s still the output of the bicameral panel....

So in order for me to have a very intelligent opinion on it, I really have to look at it first and ask Senator Angara for an explanation. He would know what it is all about,” Sotto explained, in a mix of English and Filipino.

‘Pork-free’ budget—Cayetano

The House also on Wednesday endorsed for Duterte’s signature on the proposed General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2020. It earlier ratified the bicameral conference committee report on 2020 appropriations, which was approved on the same day by members of the congressional bicameral conference committee.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, in a statement, reiterated that the bicameral-approved 2020 budget is “pork free.” He asserted, “We passed a budget with no pork, no parked funds, and no delays with full tranparency.”

of the P3 billion allocated for the RCEF seed program.

Under the MOA, the seed growers will supply 25 percent, or about 500,000 bags, of the 2 million bags of inbred rice seeds to be distributed to farmer-beneficiaries of the program.

The seeds procured by the government from the seed producers will be distributed to rice farmers in 57 provinces identified to have high potential for competitiveness.

The eligible farmer-beneficiaries should be listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture. Each farmer could receive a maximum of four bags of inbred seeds, depending on farm size for the October to December planting season.

The creation of the RCEF was mandated by the rice trade liberalization law, which took effect on March 5. The P10-billion fund will bankroll various programs for improving the productivity of planters who will have to compete with cheaper imports in the aftermath of rice liberalization.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Cayetano added: “While there is no perfect budget, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have identified areas where funds have been underutilized for various reasons.”

According to Cayetano, the adjustments made by both chambers will help the government implement its programs such as “Build, Build, Build” and social welfare programs in improving the quality of life of Filipinos.

“The early approval by the committee provides the President ample time to review the bill’s provisions and ensure that it is aligned with the priority programs of the administration. We now leave it up to the departments, agencies, and the rest of the Executive branch to fully implement the projects and programs with no corruption and with full transparency,” he said.

House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez denied allegations of “pork barrel” in the proposed budget.

Lacson had said there are still “lump sums” and “vaguely described projects” in the bicamecal report.

L acson added t hat upon preliminary scrutiny of the last-minute insertions made by the House, it was discovered that the “Source File” is the list of 1,253 budget items worth P83.219 billion that was allegedly used as the congressmen’s “source” of their “list” of 742 projects worth P16.345 billion that were inserted in the bicameral report.

Meanwhile, Romualdez said

DBCC. . .

Continued from A8

of the 2020 budget by the President that is within the month,” Avisado said.

“Certainly, there will be much improvement over last year so we are quite pleased that we will start the year with an honest-to-goodness 2020 budget rather than what happened last year,” Dominguez added.

To recall, the government was forced to operate on a reenacted budget for months since the passage of the 2019 national budget got delayed by a number of issues, including alleged last-minute

Meralco. . .

Continued from A1

identified 130 sites. However, 12 sites were excluded due to demolished residences, ongoing land disputes, bans by local government units, refusal of Meralco facilities by private property owners and those with legal issues.

“We are working very hard to address these hurdles and to extend our facili-

Congress is eyeing to submit the 2020 national budget to the President for signature on December 20.

Earlier, Duterte had certified as urgent the 2020 budget in a bid to ensure its timely passage and prevent a repeat of the delay in the passage of the 2019 appropriations act.

The 2020 national budget of P4.1 trillion, which is cash-based, is 11.8 percent more than the 2019 budget and is equivalent to 19.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Social and economic services will receive the largest chunk of the 2020 budget.

Deficit-to-GDP

In 2020 national budget, the government maintains a manageable deficit of 3.2 percent of GDP to enable a declining debt burden.

The government revenue collections are expected to reach P3.536 trillion in 2020, or 12.3 percent higher than this year’s targeted level of P3.1 trillion.

This will fund 83.9 percent of programmed disbursements for 2020.

Meanwhile, the total gross borrowings for 2020 amount to P1.4 trillion. With a borrowing mix policy of 75:25 in favor of domestic sources, P1.047 trillion will be sourced locally and the remaining P353.2 billion from abroad.

Of the total gross borrowings, P677.6 billion will finance the deficit, which is equivalent to 3.2 perent of GDP.

insertions and realignments by lawmakers. The President was only able to sign the budget on April 15 this year.

Due to the budget impasse, new and continuing infrastructure projects were not started earlier in the year when weather conditions were better. On top of that, the government also needed to comply with the election ban from March 29 until May 12.

The delay in the passage of the budget was also blamed for the slower GDP growth for the first quarter and second quarter at 5.6 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. This is lower than the 6.5 percent and 6.2 percent recorded in 2018. Bernadette D. Nicolas ties and serve these areas under our franchise,” Meralco Senior Vice President and Networks Head Ronnie L. Aperocho said.

Meralco is the country’s largest power distribution utility firm with a franchise area of 9,337 kilometers covering Metro Manila; Bulacan; Rizal; Cavite; parts of the provinces of Laguna, Quezon and Batangas; and 17 barangays in Pampanga.

As of end-September this year, Meralco registered more than 6.8 million customers. Lenie Lectura

also weakening in many countries, as business sentiment has declined,” said ADB Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada.

“Inflation, on the other hand, is ticking up on the back of higher food prices, as African swine fever [ASF] has raised pork prices significantly,” he added.

ADB said growth in the People’s Republic of China (PROC) and India were weighed down by both external and domestic factors.

In Southeast Asia, ADB said many countries are seeing continued export declines and weaker investment, and growth forecasts have been downgraded for Singapore and Thailand.

UnionBank forecast

Meanwhile, UnionBank’s Economic Research Unit (ERU) also released its latest growth forecasts

for 2019 and 2020.

The ERU forecast the country’s growth to settle at 5.9 percent in 2019, and increase to 6.6 percent in 2020.

It also expects fourth-quarter GDP to reach 6.4 percent despite its GDP nowcast model placing growth at the range of 6.1 percent to 7.2 percent in the October-toDecember period.

“This is supported by signals from the seven-year low October imports and historically weak absorptive capacity of government agencies involved in infrastructure projects implementation including local government units [LGUs],” the ERU stated.

It also said it expects inflation to settle at 2.4 percent in 2019 and 2.8 percent in 2020. Monetary policy would likely average 4 percent in 2019 and 3.5 percent next year.

MWSS revokes water deals’ extension reso Continued from A8

made would have to be recouped in a much shorter period.

Not enough

Cleofas admitted, meanwhile, that the current resources of MWSS are not enough to manage the water resources being provided by the Maynilad and Manila Water.

“We can’t handle [the water resources currently provided by the two concessionaires] with our existing resources,” she added.

Also, MWSS Deputy Administrator Chris Chuegan said that if contracts are canceled, new water firms may now come in.

“However, it is not clear if water prices will increase after the contracts end. It is possible to [conduct] rebidding or another bidding wherein new operators may come in,” Chuegan added.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), one of the onerous provisions they found from reviewing the 1997 concession agreements is the premature extension of these contracts until 2037.

Manila Water is a subsidiary of Ayala Corp. while businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. owns a controlling stake in Maynilad.

2 firms concerned

During the hearing, Maynilad President and CEO Ramoncito Fernandez and Manila Water board member Antonino Aquino said they received the decision of the MWSS on Wednesday.

“It is with very grave concern that we view this action. We believe it’s not proper to unilaterally revoke the agreement,” Fernandez said.

For his part, Aquino said the water firm has drafted its spending plan based on the extended concession agreement.

Aquino added the cancellation of concession agreement may affect the “recovery period” of Manila Water.

“We presume that all of our investments will be recovered for that extended period of time.

The longer our recovery period, the lower the tariff will be,” he said.

Earlier, President Duterte said he is keen on meeting officials from Manila Water and Maynilad, as well as the government lawyers who were behind the 1997 water concession agreements, which the DOJ described as “onerous.”

The Chief Executive has also reiterated his threat that those behind the government contracts with the water concessionaires are liable for “economic plunder.”

Prior to this, Duterte accused them of committing economic sabotage.

The President has been lam-

basting the water concessionaires after the PCA in Singapore ordered Manila to pay east zone concessionaire Manila Water P7.39 billion for the nonimplementation of water-rate increases that occurred prior to his presidency. The PCA had also ruled on a similar case filed by west zone concessionaire Maynilad Water Services Inc., ordering the State to pay P3.4 billion for Maynilad’s losses from March 2015 to August 2016.

Duterte to read letters

President Duterte, meanwhile, will be publicly reading the letters of Maynilad and Manila Water before the public, Malacanang announced on Wednesday.

Presidential Spokesman and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador S. Panelo said this a day after the President threatened anew to take over the operations of the water concessionaire if he will not be satisfied after hearing the side of the water firms.

“The Chief Executive will read the letters of Maynilad and Manila Water before the public for transparency and to show that all the steps being undertaken by the government in resolving this issue with the two Metro Manila water concessionaires are aboveboard and legitimate,” Panelo said.

According to Malacañang, the separate letters of Maynilad and Manila Water basically state that they are heeding the call of the President and are willing to revisit the concession agreements for revisions of the onerous provisions of the government with water firms. Moreover, the water concessionaires also said they will no longer pursue their combined P11-billion claim against the government.

While there is no definite date when the President will be reading the letters publicly, the Palace said the Chief Executive will evaluate the development, as he will study the practical and legal consequences before making any decision on what measure to undertake next.

“PRRD wants to speak first with all the lawyers involved in the preparation, negotiation and drafting of the present concession agreements and determine the reason why they allowed the incorporation of onerous provisions,” he said.

“The Filipino people have just been protected from paying a total amount of at least P10.8 billion, an obligation which has no legal basis, to private entities.

These companies not only have inefficiently delivered water to the households but exacted unconscionable amounts from the taxpayers,” he added.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The Nation BusinessMirror

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Thursday, December 12, 2019 A3

Peace talks with Reds likely to resume next year–Bello

By Samuel P. Medenilla

@sam_medenilla

G

OVERNMENT Peace Panel Chief Negotiator and Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III on Wednesday said peace talks with leaders of the Communist Party Philippines (CPP) is likely to resume by next year.

Bello issued the statement following his 21-hour meeting with CPP founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, who is still in self-exile, on December 7 and 8, in the Netherlands.

“More or less there will be a resumption [of peace talks], but as to how, when, and what process it will have to go through will still up to the President,” Bello said at the sidelines

of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center Christmas Party for overseas Filipino workers (OFW).

The labor official said the peace talks is likely take place next year.

High hopes

ALSO present in the meeting are National Democratic Front (NDF) Senior Advisers Fidel Agcaoili and Luis Jalandoni, along with the wives of Sison and Jalandoni, and a fifth person, whom Bello refused to identify.

“There was also a representative from the Royal Norwegian government,” Bello said.

He declined to reveal specific details of the talks since he has yet to report it to President Duterte. However, he noted that

about 90 percent of Duterte’s terms for the resumption of the talks were accepted by the NDF panel.

Bello headed to the Netherlands upon the President’s instructions, who gave him the go signal last week to resume peace talks with the CPP on the condition it be done here in the Philippines.

Government commitment

BASED from new reports from CNN Philippines, Sison said he will not push through with the resumption of the peace negotiation if it will be held in the country.

For his part, Bello assured the communist leader will not be arrested if he chooses to

return to the country.

“He will not be invited only to be arrested.

That is not the kind of person the President is,” Bello said.

To recall, Duterte ordered the termination of the peace talks with the communist party in 2017, after its alleged attacks against military forces, while negotiations were still ongoing.

Bello, however, clarified Duterte never did fully gave up on the peace negotiations.

“What was terminated was the panel to panel [talks]. It was replaced by the localized peace talks so his [Duterte] goal of achieving lasting peace is still there,” Bello explained.

From Obya to BYC: Bangsamoro sets reconstitution of Muslim youth body

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AVAO CITY—The Bangsamoro region would be reconstituting its youth commission with focus on ensuring coordination with the other ministries, or the equivalent of the Cabinet departments, of the autonomous region.

Dr. Marjanie Macasalong, executive director of the defunct Office on Bangsamoro Youth Affairs (Obya), said the bill drafted for the creation of the Bangsamoro Youth Commission (BYC) is now on its second reading in the Bangsamoro

Transition Authority (BTA).

Macasalong, also a member of the BTA, said the BYC would replace the Obya, which was created during the previous Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The Obya was created “to plan,

prepare and implement development programs that will address the concerns of the ARMM’s youth sector,” he added.

He said the BYC would be “patterned after the National Youth Commission [NYC] but it would exercise

the autonomous privilege given to the BARMM.” The BARMM has replaced the ARMM. Macasalong said there would be minor changes in the mandate, powers and functions of the BYC as with the Obya “in order to widen the

scope of the office and strengthen it.”

However, the new youth commission would address “one of the main challenges of the previous administration [ARMM], which was the coordination of Obya with other departments in the ARMM.” Manuel T. Cayon

A4 Thursday, December 12, 2019 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Economy BusinessMirror

Campi, TMA: Strong finish for automotive industry despite missed overall sales goal

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By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

@alyasjah

HE automotive industry is poised for a strong finish this year after growing sales by more than 10 percent in November, but is also headed to miss its target of selling 410,000 units overall.

In a joint report on Wednesday, the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) and Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) said November sales rose 10.25 percent to 34,465 units, from 31,258 units during the same month last year.

The passenger car (PC) and the commercial vehicle (CV) brackets both posted growths, although they are too far ahead.

In November, PC sales improved and went up 3.84 percent to 9,551 units, from 9,197 units, while CV

sales improved almost 13 percent to 24,914 units, from 22,061 units.

Industry sales from January to November expanded 3.27 percent to 336,226 units, from 325,569 units during last year’s same stretch. Sales of CVs—making up for seven in every 10 units sold by the industry—went up 4.66 percent to 236,746 units, from 225,746 units.

Sales of passenger cars, however, grew flat at 99,951 units, from 99,823 units, on slowdown in demand for the product tracing back to last year when the government

410K

Overall total units of vehicles sales target for the year set

by Philippine automotive players. To hit the target, the industry should sell a total of 73,774 more units this month. slapped excise taxes on automobile under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law.

Campi President Rommel R. Gutierrez said the industry is optimistic market demand will pick up big time this December on persistent sales promotions and sustained favorable economic outlook. Further, he said the Christmas month is historically when “the industry experiences exponential growth every year.”

“We are continuously working double time to achieve the industry’s overall sales target of 410,000 units, which we believe remains achievable,” Gutierrez said in a statement.

To hit this 410,000 unit sales target, the industry should sell a total of 73,774 units this December. The industry has yet to post monthly sales this big this year.

Last year vehicle sales dropped over 16 percent to 375,410 units, from 425,673 units in 2017, on tax hikes, record-high inflation, unstable fuel prices and rising interest rates.

As of November, Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. is leading the industry in terms of sales, holding 43.47 percent of the market. Trailing the industry leader are Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. and Nissan Philippines Inc. with market shares of 17.27 percent and 11.88 percent, respectively.

Completing the industry’s leading five are Suzuki Philippines Inc. and Ford Motor Co. Philippines Inc. with shares of 6.56 percent and 5.85 percent of the market, accordingly.

ADB grants PCC $23.3-M loan to boost capability

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

T

HE Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $23.3million loan to support the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) in its effort to invest in better investigation strategies and competition education.

In a joint ADB and PCC briefing on Wednesday, ADB Principal Country Specialist for the Philippines Cristina Lozano said after the first phase of the project, the bank could extend another $23.3 million to continue the project.

The concessional loan has a grace period of nine years and will be payable in 28 years. The interest rate to be used is the London interbank offered rate (Libor).

“From the perspective of ADB, the current government has had a very proactive reform program both in economic and social policy. But the next big reform in the Philippines is really about effective implementation of competi-

tion law and a national competition policy,” ADB Country Director for the Philippines Kelly Bird said.

“That’s important if the Philippines is to maintain that economic growth rate above 6 percent for the medium to long term.”

PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan said apart from maintaining high economic growth, better competition will also help sustain the gains in poverty reduction.

The preliminary data released by Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed poverty incidence nationwide was pegged at 16.6 percent in 2018, only 2.6 percentage points away from the 14 percent target by 2022.

This translates to 17.6 million Filipinos who lived below the poverty threshold estimated at P10,727, on average, for a family of five per month in 2018.

“Poverty has a lot to do with not just incomes but also with the prices of consumers pay for goods and services, and sectors that are so crucial, so critical for the poor are food and food, as you know, has been quite

high in this country,” Balisacan said.

The Socioeconomic Planning secretary turned PCC chairman explained without an effective competition policy, anticompetitive practices will continue in the country.

This now affects the price of goods and services, as well as the quality of these products. Balisacan said the lack of competition in the market “inhibits [market] innovation.”

The six-year project has three key components which are: strengthening institutional capacity of the PCC; developing a government staff development program for competition; and the establishment of an academic Center of Excellence (COE) in Competition Law and Policy.

The first component on strengthening the PCC involves improving investigation techniques, formulating enforcement guidelines, providing economic analyses to support investigations, and the conduct of market studies, among others.

Under the second component, the PCC will be granting short-

term and degree programs for government workers, not just for the antitrust body’s own staff. These programs may be local or foreign in nature.

It can be noted that other state agencies with competition-related mandates include the National Economic and Development Authority, Department of Justice, and the Office of the Solicitor General.

The third component aims to establish a COE at the University of the Philippines College of Law on Competition law and policies. The center is already up and running since the PCC signed a memorandum of agreement with UP in August.

The Philippines has substantially improved its enforcement of the competition law. In 2018, the Philippines climbed three notches to fifth place out of the 10 most active countries in Asia and the Pacific in antitrust enforcement and policy.

This was according to the findings of the 2019 Global Trends Monitor published by the global competition news and analysis company PaRR.

Wounded troops NO EMPLOYER APPLICATION TO SKIP get Christmas gifts 13TH-MONTH PAYMENT YET–DOLE

I

N recognition of their service to the country, Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana gave Christmas gifts to 36 soldiers who were wounded in action.

The gift-giving took place at the Army General Hospital in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, said Philippine Army Spokesman Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala.

The activity is part of the DND Christmas tradition project called “Kapagdaka” (Kapakanan at Gabay sa Dating Kaanyuan) that promotes the welfare of persons with disabilities particularly with the soldiers who were injured during their mission.

Army chief Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay assisted Lorenzana in the giving of grocery items and cash incentives to the 36 wounded soldiers, who were with their dependents.

“This gives us happiness and boosts our morale. We thank them for these Christmas gifts. We are happy because we feel that we are valued and given attention,” Sgt. Renato Eucogco, who is currently recovering at the hospital after he lost his legs during the Marawi siege in 2017, said in Filipino.

The DND chief said Kapagdaka also has additional programs like the distribution of wheelchairs and assistive devices; livelihood trainings for wounded-in-action soldiers and their dependents; skills development opportunities to equip the WIA as they return or get discharged from the service; and other future programs that will further provide assistance to the wounded troops.

“Let me express my most serious thanks to you all for your great service to the nation, even risking your lives to serve our country and the people. I hope that you find comfort with the assurance that the government is at your back to support you and your families. You may have lost or injured a part of your body, but your spirit has definitely become stronger,” Lorenzana added. PNA

By Samuel P. Medenilla

D

@sam_medenilla

ESPITE recent disasters that hit some parts of the country, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has yet to receive any application for exemption from the payment of 13thmonth pay for workers.

In an interview on Wednesday, Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said this could be an indication that even calamitystricken companies are paying their employees the monetary benefit mandated by Presidential Decree 851.

BELLO “In order for them [employers] to be exempted [from paying 13th-month pay], they would have [to] prove to us that they are financially incapable paying it [to their workers],” Bello said.

“We still have to get any such request,” he added.

Many parts of the country are still reeling from the impact of the series of strong earthquakes, which devastated

some parts of Mindanao in November and Typhoon Tisoy, which left a wide swath of destruction in some parts of Luzon and Visayas.

Bello noted that exemption from 13th-month payment is rarely granted by DOLE since companies tend to already factor it in their annual expenses.

“They are already prepared for it. Some even already paid the 13th-month pay of their workers as early as six months ago so it will not be much burden to their finances,” Bello said.

He also said this is also the reason why they receive only few complaints of none payment of 13th pay.

Bel lo reminded a l l employers to complete the 13th-month pay ment to their workers before its dead line on December 24.

He said they will issue compliance orders against firms, which will not comply with the said regulation.

PD 851 covers all rank-and-file employees in the private sector regardless of their position, designation or employment status.

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Group urges ERC to cite Meralco for alleged ‘abuse of market power’

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

T

HE National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms Inc. (Nasecore) is asking the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to penalize the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) for alleged abuse of market power.

In its motion filed with the ERC, Nasecore also pointed out that Meralco allegedly threatened the ERC into granting them provisional authority (PA) for their five power supply agreement (PSA) applications pending before the commission.

Nasecore alleged that Meralco’s application for PA for the issuance of the PSAs is tantamount to a threat to the government regulator as it provided the ERC with a deadline of December 26, 2019, to approve the contracts. Otherwise, it added, Meralco may be “exposing” its consumers to “volatile” electricity prices.

“The subject application seeks this PA which means that there is an emergency situation not within the control of Meralco.

However, it should be stressed that this emergency situation is not based on a ‘force majeur’ situation,” Nasecore added.

In short, there was no force majeur beyond Meralco’s control that prevented it from sourcing, procuring and entering into bilateral contracts in accordance with the law and rules governing the same, on the Power Demand and Supply Outlook and Distribution Development Plan it submitted to the DOE as early as 2016, the group added.

“Obviously, Meralco failed to do this, thus creating this emergency condition which is of its own making,” it said, adding that “this application holds hostage the regulators into approving the contracts. It’s a veiled threat not only to ERC but also to its consumers.”

Meralco is seeking the approval of ERC for five power supply con-

“I really hope that we just stick to the issues which is to obtain the least cost through reliable and adequate supply as evidenced by our submission to the regulator.”

—Zaldarriaga

tracts with San Miguel Energy Corp., First Gen Hydro Power Corp., South Premiere Power Corp. and Phinma Energy Corp. for 1905 megawatts as some of its current supply contracts are set to expire on December 25, 2019.

“Meralco’s application for PA is not based on force majeure condition. Therefore, inappropriate, misplaced and a violation of the law as this constitutes abuse of market power, such as not limited to unfair trade practices, monopolistic schemes and any other activities that will hinder competitiveness or business and industries,” said Nasecore.

When sought for comment, Meralco Assistant Vice President Joe Zaldarriaga said these PSAs underwent CSP’s (competitive selection process) that were observed by the Department of Energy.

“We presented and continue to present our evidence and testimony in public hearings at the ERC, during which other consumer groups expressed their support for the approval of the PSAs except, perhaps, for a few. We believe the PSAs will benefit our customers through cost competitive and reliable supply. To also say that we issued a threat or any form thereof is baseless, unfair and devoid of factual and legal basis,” he said.

“I really hope that we just stick to the issues which is to obtain the least cost through reliable and adequate supply as evidenced by our submission to the regulator,” Zaldarriaga said.

Hiring of alien workers to PHL learning opportunity for Pinoys

A

N official of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) sees the employment of foreign workers in the country as an opportunity to learn from other nations.

“The other good thing of the mobility of our workers, or the coming in of foreign workers, is the knowledge exchange because, in a way, they also help us, we will be able to benchmark on the knowledge coming for other nations. We learn from other practices and culture, and to enhance our human capital, our skills, and our competency” DOLE-Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) Director Dominique Tutay said in an interview.

Tutay added foreign workers are needed to further enhance the perspective of the country’s labor market.

“It is also part of our commitment on freer flow of goods and services, the entry of foreign nationals that’s in the form of services. It’s our free trade commitment. Second, we have reciprocity with other countries.

Third, in a globalized economy, we are open to accepting foreign nationals, the mobility of our workers is a consequence of globalization,” she added.

The DOLE official added that the government must ensure that allowing foreign workers in the country must not sacrifice the Filipino workers, adding that there are regulations that they have to abide for their stay in the country is legal.

Over 86K POGO workers

BASED on initial data as of June,

Tutay said over 86,000 are employed in Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs).

She noted that employment in POGOs is not limited to Chinese nationals.

Out of a total of 86,536 people employed in POGOs, 17 percent, which is equivalent to 15,500, are Filipinos while the remaining 83 percent or about 71,532 are people of various nationalities.

Chinese nationals comprise around 88 percent of foreign workers in POGOs, which is equivalent to 62,907 while the remaining 12 percent are other nationalities, such as Malaysian, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Indonesians and Thais.

She said the sectors where these foreign nationals are employed include administrative support and service activities.

“Aside from that, we have also in Information and Technology but that’s very minimal only 7.7 percent,” Tutay added.

Asked on what are the jobs not available for foreigners, the BLE official said: “Low skilled, low skilled workers, are not for foreign nationals.”

“The rule is a foreign worker will be hired only as skilled and professionals. There are also other categories if they would like to invest in retail business, but there is a capitalization requirement,” she added.

Earlier, a survey revealed that many Filipinos are worried about the surge in the number of Chinese workers in the country. PNA

A6 Thursday, December 12, 2019 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

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editorial

SEA Games’ success and a reluctant hero

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uccess, as George Bernard Shaw claims, can cover many blunders. The success of our athletes at the just concluded 30th Southeast Asian Games may even help cover the way organizers initially goofed up their jobs. We have shown the world how gracious we are as hosts. The vice president of Olympic Council of Asia, Wei Jizhong, after seeing how the 30th SEA Games was staged, said he believes the Philippines can host bigger sporting events. Expressing his admiration for President Duterte, Wei said it was only in the Philippines where he saw for the first time the chief executive of a country apologize for the mistakes and mishaps experienced by foreign delegates.

Unfortunately, social media did a good job documenting and overplaying how several teams experienced mishaps from the airport to their hotel, and that even the food initially didn’t meet the athletes’ standards. House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, head of the organizing committee, promptly apologized for the mistakes that happened mostly before the SEA Games officially opened.

Still, fake news and partisan posts online tried to blacken and derail the successful staging of the Games.

Overall, we did an outstanding job hosting the event. As we congratulate our athletes for their wonderful performance, we must give special accolade to a reluctant hero who soared like an eagle during the games. A day before Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. was set to deliver a speech at the Embassy of Indonesia in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Indonesia, surfer Roger Casugay went viral on social media for saving his Indonesian competitor Arip Nurhidayat, whose surfing leash snapped during one of the heats in the men’s longboarding event in San Juan, La Union. Casugay rescued the Indonesian surfer unmindful of the ongoing race for gold medal.

This heroic act prompted the Games organizers to name Casugay as the Philippine flag-bearer in the closing ceremony of the regional biennial meet.

Philippine Deputy Chef de Mission Stephen Fernandez said: “He went above the medal, and it’s a show of his character. He deserves to be the flag-bearer.”

Casugay later on won the gold medal in the men’s longboarding event after defeating his teammate Jay-R Esquievel on December 8.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo commended Casugay for personifying sportsmanship in the 30th SEA Games. “Winning the competition and upholding sportsmanship is important, but humanity is above all. My appreciation for Roger Casugay, a Filipino surfer who lost the chance to gain gold to save an Indonesian athlete from falling during the competition,” Widodo said on his official Twitter account.

As the 25-year-old Casugay was being heralded as the event’s hero for an unselfish act during a semifinal surfing competition, he publicly refused to be called a hero. “As a surfer, we have a brotherhood. No matter what happens, if someone needs my help, I will be there. If you have something to give, you have to give it,” Casugay said.

What Casugay did was a demonstration of the Filipino value of malasakit, which we give even to a stranger or those who can’t return the favor. We show malasakit even to those who do not ask for our help because we care. As netizens continue to praise Casugay’s act of heroism and how he showed the true Filipino spirit of malasakit, other social-media posts observed the absence of malasakit among our leaders. One post read: “Imagine what we can accomplish as a nation and as a race if only half of the Filipinos who are on the higher levels would reach back and pull someone up from the lower levels, rather than stepping on them.”

Here’s the clincher: Imagine where the Philippines should be by now were it not for the inaction of our leaders who had all the chance to uplift the life of their poor constituents. These leaders have the power to make Filipinos happy…by leaving the country permanently!

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OUTSIDE THE BOX

T

he Philippine stock market broke a lot of hearts in 2019.

Just when many thought they had it all figured out, it all changed quietly and subtly.

It was not like your significant other suddenly walking out after the final big argument and slamming the door. This was more of slow burn where you finally discover that she or he just isn’t into you anymore.

Economic data that was supposed to move prices higher did not. Big announcements from individual companies seemed to eventually fall on deaf ears. Some of the good news turned out to be “fake,” which is a stock market disaster.

Consistently higher company profits are “always” followed by a higher stock if you wait long enough.

Not this time. A company that goes public through an initial public offering is always supposed to provide good investment opportunities. This year’s IPOs are pretty much dust and

ashes so far.

Going into 2020, here are some thoughts. The first thing that will be missing in the next 30 days will be all the results from the experts’ favorite stock picks from 2019. We all look forward to that because it is good to have the winners pointed out. Maybe the best we can now hope for is, “My picks did not go down as much as your stock picks.”

This coming year is going to be difficult for companies that want to do an IPO. But like the man that picked up and ate the first raw oyster, it will be the brave heart that steps up to list first next year.

It will be also difficult to justify a higher price for an individual issue based on corporate fundamentals. It is not that earnings were completely

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The next IPO needs to have a more persuasive business model rather than “the offering is three times oversubscribed.” I want to put my money on new consumer products since it has been a long time since “C2” drink and “Magnum Ice Cream Bars” were introduced. I want to find a company breaking new ground and not just plowing the same field for the tenth time. ignored in price movement. But while earnings may have met analysts’ expectations, price movement did not. Sure there have been many issues hit by “controversy.” But SM Investments and SM Prime Holdings are not in that category. SM profits were up 26 percent in the first nine months while SMPH saw an 18-percent increase. Yet, both have stock prices about 15 percent higher. The traditional parameters for “undervalued” and “expensive” are broken.

Maybe you want to justify the PSE performance because of the “trade war.” Why then are the US stock markets at historic highs? Why is the Euro Stoxx 50 at four-year high? Why is China A50 index at its 2019 high?

In my opinion, making good stock market money in 2020 is going to require getting creative. By that I mean finding companies to invest in that are being creative.

I want to see a property developer that is doing something differently than relying on POGOs and BPOs for rental income. I want to see developers and banks doing some creative financing for the middle class and not relying on the rich guy adding another condo to his portfolio.

The next IPO needs to have a more persuasive business model rather than “the offering is three times oversubscribed.” I want to put my money on new consumer products since it has been a long time since “C2” drink and “Magnum Ice Cream Bars” were introduced. I want to find a company breaking new ground and not just plowing the same field for the tenth time.

I want to see more creative corporate action and not creative press releases. It is time for—if not some new blood—at least some new thinking in the Philippine corporate world.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stockmarket information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

Europe’s young leaders are bucking politics as usual

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

BusinessMirror is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror

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he emergence of 34-year-old Sanna Marin as Finland’s new prime minister is no fluke: In recent years, Europe has seen its leaders get younger as the new generation appears better at navigating increasingly complex political landscapes.

The average age of global leaders actually has increased since the 1950s, according to the Rulers, Elections and Irregular Government dataset, created by Curtis Bell from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

In Europe, though, it has been going down since the 1980s, falling significantly below the global average.

The European Union’s current cohort of national leaders has a median age of 52. The group of 28 people includes eight leaders under the age of 45 (and will include nine once Sebastian Kurz, 33, comes back as Austria’s chancellor: He’s working on forming a new coalition government after winning an election in September, while the chancellorship

is held by temporary stand-in Brigitte Bierlein, who is 70). Only five of the leaders, including Bierlein, are older than 60, and only one— Cyprus’s Nicos Anastasiades, 73—is older than 70.

Marin, confirmed as prime minister by the Finnish parliament on Tuesday, got the job after the ruling coalition of five parties ousted the previous prime minister, Antti Rinne, for mishandling a major labor dispute at the national postal service. Marin was Rinne’s deputy in the Social Democratic Party, and effectively ran its successful election campaign earlier this year because Rinne had to take a protracted sick leave. Often asked about her age

European politicians in their 30s and early 40s don’t subscribe to the traditional left-right paradigm; ideologies and identities are less important for them than for their predecessors.

They use traditional political institutions to gain power, but they have little loyalty to them.

and sex, she keeps repeating that she never thinks about either, just about her goals in politics. The other four parties in the coalition are also led by women, three of them in their thirties.

But Marin’s rise isn’t just about Finland’s progressive political culture; more than a century ago it became the first country in Europe to let women vote. It’s also about a certain new approach young leaders bring to the continent’s increasingly fragmented politics.

In Denmark, 41-year-old Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen runs a minority government that relies on the support of three other parties to rule; she’s lasted 152 days so far, and her party has extended its poll lead over rivals. Though technically center-left, Frederiksen adopted a tough

anti-immigration stance to win.

Austria’s Kurz, of the centerright, has shown a similar disregard for convention. He first built a coalition with the toxic far-right, and now that this has failed, is working on a deal with the Greens. In Estonia, Juri Ratas, who became prime minister at 38 in 2016, is hoping his own controversial deal with the far-right will work out better than Kurz’s.

In France, Emmanuel Macron, who was 39 when he won the presidential election in 2017, steamrolled over the traditional party landscape; it’s still impossible to place him with any precision on the left-right matrix.

Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s half-Indian prime minister who came out as gay before the country legalized gay marriage, also got his job at 39.

It’s just as difficult to pin down on any traditional political map—and, like Marin, he says he gives little thought to the identity issues that are supposed to define him.

In Slovenia, the former comedian Marjan Sarec, who became prime minister at 41 last year, leads a shaky multiparty minority coalition that is vaguely centrist, but anyone would struggle to define its ideology.

See “Bershidsky,” A7

Opinion BusinessMirror

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Manila Water, Maynilad Works of reconnecting woes still not water Msgr. Sabino A. Vengco Jr. under the bridge

Alálaong Bagá

Val A. Villanueva

Businesswise

T

he move is just like the scene of firemen containing the blaze. Water concessionaires Manila Water Co. and Maynilad Water Services will no longer seek payment for the more than P10.8 billion arbitral award they won before by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Singapore.

Manila Water was supposed to get P7.4 billion, and Maynilad, P3.4 billion, which should have covered their claimed losses when the government rejected their demand for tariff hikes.

The two water firms also signified their intent to renegotiate their respective concession agreements, which have been in effect since the government of former President Fidel V. Ramos and given a boost during the incumbency of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The arrangement was signed during Ramos. Under Arroyo, Maynilad’s and Manila Water’s 25-year deals were to expire in 2022, but were extended to 2037, after they were mandated to fast-track their respective wastewater investments.

Even before such extension, however, through the Metro Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), Arroyo decided in July 2004 to recognize the two private firms not as public utilities but as mere agents of the government agency, which sanctioned them from passing on income taxes to consumers via tariffs.

It is clear that both firms were never in violation of any law. They operated under the terms set forth by the Ramos and Arroyo governments. From their perspective, it was the government that was in breach of the agreement, thus the legal battle.

Still, with his usual incendiary and intimidating style, President Duterte threatened them with plunder, economic sabotage and possible expropriation—moves that do not really solve the problem, but were intended to rally the people behind such populist stance.

Constitutionalist Oscar Plameras told BusinessWise that Duterte’s threat had no such specific provisions in the 1987 Constitution. “I believe the merits/demerits of the ‘plunder case’ Duterte is talking about against water concessionaires may be examined by the court, if any, in the context of the conditions/ limitations of the specific concession signed by and agreed to between the government and the concessionaires.

The 1987 Constitution itself, and the Constitution in general, provides for the powers of Government and for the limits to these powers.

Personally, I think that consumers are generally in agreement that the water concession deals of the government with Maynilad, Manila Water, and—don’t forget—Villar’s Prime Water are heavily tilted in favor of these firms. The Aquino administration tried, but failed, to wiggle out of it. Why? The Ramos administration, in its ambitious privatization program, made “sovereign guarantee” as a come-on to both local and foreign investors. This provision is not only confined to water companies. It is written in government contracts with infrastructure, telecommunications, and other companies under the build-operate-transfer or public-private partnership scheme.

The concession deals Manila Water and Maynilad inked with MWSS are offshoots of this business incentive.

In fact, this was the very reason why the arbitration court favored both water firms.

Giving incentives to business is nothing new. The Board of Investments also offers tax breaks to pioneering enterprises. But sovereign guarantee under Ramos takes the cake. It forces us taxpayers to shoulder the losses these firms will incur

in the conduct of their business. It is under the privatization provision allowed by members of Congress, most of whom are still in power.

What is disconcerting is the manner by which Prime Water of the Villars was able to buy and consolidate local water units in almost all the local government units in the north. Local water units are all under the supervision of the Local Water Utilities Administration, which is directly under the Department of Public Works and Highways headed

by Secretary Mark Villar.

President Duterte’s men rightfully favor renegotiation of the whole contract. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra says that “the issue of paying the arbitral award is not as important as ensuring that disputes arising from burdensome provisions of the water concession agreements will never happen again in the future,” thus signaling a possibly new concession deal that favors both the concessionaires and their customers.

Aside from sovereign guarantee, the government cannot interfere in setting water rates under the deal, a provision that the two firms used in filing a suit against it in the Singapore-based Permanent Court of Arbitration.

Also in 2008, the MWSS approved the business plans of Manila Water and Maynilad that considered income taxes, and other items as part of operating expenses that could be recovered from or passed on to consumers as part of the expense of going to arbitration! Included therein is a penalty clause provision should the concessionaires fail to put up a wastewater treatment facility. The agreement provided that the penalties could also be passed on as cost to the consumers.

These are the salient points of the agreement that should be threshed out to balance the interest of the water concessionaires and their customers. The idea of the government taking them over should be tossed right into the thrash bin. We all know how woefully the government handles business. It would be a disaster if we allow this to happen.

Operating and managing water concessions is not as easy as many people seem to believe. There was a time when even Maynilad expanded access, but was still unable to reduce water losses. Maynilad failed to pay concession fees to the government and went bankrupt in 2003. It was temporarily taken over by the government, but sold to new investors in 2007. Performance has improved since then. Manila Water struggled initially, but increased its contractual rate of return by arbitration in 1998, and improved its performance.

In 2003 came a loan from the International Finance Corp., which then took an equity stake in the company, followed by an initial public offering of shares on the Manila stock exchange in 2004, and local currency bond sales in 2008.

Neither company achieved its contractual targets of increased access. Improvements in access and service quality were slow during their first years, especially in west Manila. Progress in water sanitation has been far below the contractual targets of access to sewerage, from less than 10 percent to 66 percent in west Manila and 55 percent in east Manila until 2021.

For comments and suggestions, e-mail me at mvala.v@gmail.com

J

ohn the Baptizer not only personifies for us the message of Advent as preparing the way of the Lord who is coming, he also represents to us the need to be involved with Jesus’ works of restoration and reconnection that concretize the presence of God’s reign among us.

Good fruits as evidence Last week we saw John the Baptizer challenging the Pharisees and Sadducees approaching him for the ritual washing in the Jordan to produce instead good fruit as evidence of their repentance. Now, himself in prison for standing up against King Herod’s immorality (Matthew 14:34), John heard “of the works of the Messiah” and he set off a clarification necessary for him and for us all. “Jesus, are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Why the question? John’s own vision of what was to come underscored judgment, punishment and vindication, but he was at the moment languishing himself in prison waiting for his end like a helpless pawn to the capricious malice of an evil woman. What was John with his

disciples looking for in the coming of the Anointed One? What are we ourselves looking for in the coming of the Lord?

Jesus points to his works, to answer the question. John’s own stringent criterium for religious leaders: “produce good fruit as evidence” (Matthew 3:8) and Jesus’ standard for true prophets: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16) now come to apply. The works of Jesus lead us into an awesome understanding of His mission and of His program of action. His works are examples of restoration, restoring creation wounded and thrown into chaos by the fall of Adam, reconnecting people with God and with one another. The sign of the new order in the reign of God is a whole human person: seeing not blind, mobile not

Thursday, December 12, 2019 A7

lame, cleansed, hearing, fully alive and energized by the good news of God’s saving love. Is this Jesus with His deepest desires for humankind the one for whom we are waiting?

The least in the kingdom of heaven

Jesus turned the attention of everyone to the deeply personal question of what each one is truly looking for. “What did you go out to the desert to see?” In the desert of self-examination and back-tothe-basics, in your confrontation with the Lord? Three times the question, trying to uncover the deepest desires of the heart, for only in true self-understanding can one make an authentic response to Jesus. Nobody really wants someone who is a plaything of every outside influence, or a model of pomp and circumstance, of empty glitz and luxury. We are not even looking for just any prophet with some sensationalizing message to the public, but for a true prophet, a God-grounded person who does the will of the Father in heaven (Matthew 7:21), what the least in the kingdom of heaven surely does.

The people then and we today need a prophet, a voice in the desert, preparing the way of the Lord. One who does not only criticize sin and even go to jail for it, but can actually point to redemption, to Jesus, who is

ultimately the one we all are looking for in the “desert time” of Advent.

Some people may not know it yet, but Jesus is the one who does the deepest desires of our hearts: sight restored, life moving again, one’s person cleansed, ears open, poverty enriched, human existence empowered—wholeness and renewal, new life in redemption. “Shall we wait for another?” Only if we miss to see and hear and experience Jesus and His works. What are we looking for? If we uncover the deepest desires of our hearts, we will answer our own question and know Jesus is the one.

Alálaong bagá, anyone blessed

by God does not take offense at the work of restoration and renewal as identifying the mission of Jesus Christ, the ongoing divine creative activity and what each true believer must join and participate in as the ultimate purpose of Advent and the whole season celebrating the coming of the Lord Jesus, God’s loving presence flooding into the world.

The deepest desire of the human heart is to be connected to God. We have strayed from our communion with God, and we now go out to see the invitation in Jesus Christ to reconnect with our Father in heaven.

Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, from 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio streaming on www.dwiz882.com.

Water for all: Where is the development framework?

other cause-oriented organizations have been critical of this water privatization solution that the Ramos administration embraced with the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These two institutions played a central role in squeezing or subverting economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s, the two lost decades in Philippine development.

They forced the post-Marcos regimes to implement a severe austerity program and an equally severe debt servicing program (in certain years, debt service got the lion’s share of the national budget). These twin programs were responsible for the inability of the government to invest on new infrastructures and upgrade and maintain major public services, such as water and irrigation. Thus, it was in these two lost decades that the agricultural sector literally nosedived due to the crumbling rural infrastructures, nonexistent government support and deepening debt. To a great extent, these also happened in the power and water sectors.

Then voila, a neoliberal “solution” to the crisis in infrastructures and delivery of basic public services was found—privatization! The IMF and the World Bank, both of which were major contributors to the making of the crisis, became the major proponents of the privatization program,

offering new loans to the government and to the interested privatesector participants in the privatization program. In Filipino, what the two international lenders were trying to do is “iginigisa ang bayan sa sariling mantika.”

In the meantime, the government spared no efforts to seduce big corporations to get involved in the various privatization programs. In the case of the water privatization, business participation was made virtually “risk-free” and “tax-free.” As documented by Mae Buenaventura and Bubut Palattao of FDC, the water concession agreements were full of provisions that were lopsidedly in favor of the investing private corporations, such as the liberal treatment of these corporations’ obligations to pay the water concession fees in a timely and substantial manner.

However, the most absurd development was the transformation of the regulatory body and owner of the water assets, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, into a baby of the two corporations.

The MWSS has become dependent on the two behemoths for the MWSS budget, including salary and other emoluments of the MWSS officials.

The regulators have become busi-

ness partners under a hazy environment. Thus, in past controversies over water tariff rate increases, payment of concession fees, inclusion of taxes in the charges levied on the consumers, weaknesses in water distribution and so on, the MWSS, as the sentinel and monitor of the people, could not be heard.

Its voice is stifled. Economists call this situation “regulatory capture.”

The industry that is supposed to be regulated is the one doing the regulation.

Now another “water solution” is being announced in Congress—the creation of a Department of Water Resources (DWR). According to Congressman Joey Salceda, there is a need to look at the water problem in a holistic manner and address every segment of the water system: generation, transmission, distribution and conservation.

Looking at the water crisis in a holistic manner, yes. Why not? But reducing the water issue by simply relating each segment to the other, from generation to conservation, tends to sideline the major unaddressed concerns of the consuming public and the Republic under the 1995 Water Crisis Act, such as universal access to the water service, affordability, equity, transparency, sustainability, and yes, sovereignty. If the idea behind the proposed DWR is to copy the Epira, then something is terribly wrong.

Epira, which paved the way for the privatization of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in a wholesale manner has failed to liberate the consuming public from high electricity prices, considered among the highest in Asia and in the world.

Thus, if DWR shall become another Epira, this can only mean that the country shall be subjected to tighter imperial rule of the big private corporations which have no qualms in haling the Republic to a foreign court in a foreign land.

buy any party platform wholesale should be recognizable to Americans: Millennials in the US often have been described as “post-partisan” and distrustful of the traditional political institutions.

If millennials are people born since the 1980s, most of the young European political leaders don’t qualify. But the generational succession doesn’t work exactly the same in Europe as in the US. Here, Marin and Macron belong to an age group that represents a rising political

generation, one that stays in school longer than previous ones, grows up in a more diverse environment, and is completely at ease with the Internet. It defies antiquated forms of political organization, tends to believe in civil society more than in parties, and is passionate about specific issues rather than allembracing ideologies.

As this generation becomes more powerful at the ballot box, there’s no way traditional umbrella parties will be able to preserve themselves unless

they choose leaders who know how to listen and talk to these voters. The young European leaders and some politicians outside the EU—notably Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, who became prime minister at age 37 in 2017, thanks in large part to a record turnout of young voters, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, elected at 41 this year—have figured this out. Older politicians have to study their experience and find the determinants of their success to see if they can keep up.

Dr. Rene E. Ofreneo

LABOREM EXERCENS

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he angry response of President Duterte to the scandalous outcome of the water arbitration in Singapore is fully understandable. Why indeed should a sovereign country like the Philippines be haled to court in a foreign land by a private corporation like Manila Water? Who bartered away Philippine sovereignty?

And why should a corporation earning billions and billions of pesos every year from ordinary Filipino consumers be rewarded an extra P7.4 billion “as compensation for losses or damages” supposedly incurred by the corporation when it was not allowed to raise water rates

by P5.85 between 2013 and 2017?

Yet, in the said period, Manila Water and Maynilad were each accumulating profits amounting to around P6 billion a year. At the same time, they were allowed to pass on to consumers the taxes the corporations are supposed to pay to the government. As a former senator put it, these corporations could not even “moderate their profits.”

The derogation of Philippine sovereignty through the submission of the “complaint” of Manila Water to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Singapore is not a novelty. The two water corporations had filed in the past similar tariff rate complaints in the said foreign court and had easily won their cases with nary a murmur of complaint from the previous administrations. As a result, the water rates have been rising through the years and putting to naught the promise of the 1995 Water Crisis Act—universal and affordable water to all through the privatization of water distribution.

From the very beginning, the Freedom from Debt Coalition and

Bershidsky . . . continued from A6

In other words, European politicians in their 30s and early 40s don’t subscribe to the traditional left-right paradigm; ideologies and identities are less important for them than for their predecessors. They use traditional political institutions to gain power, but they have little loyalty to them. This tendency to seek results on specific issues rather than

The derogation of Philippine sovereignty through the submission of the “complaint” of Manila Water to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Singapore is not a novelty.

The two water corporations had filed in the past similar tariff rate complaints in the said foreign court and had easily won their cases with nary a murmur of complaint from the previous administrations. As a result, the water rates have been rising through the years and putting to naught the promise of the 1995 Water Crisis Act—universal and affordable water to all through the privatization of water distribution.

A8 Thursday, December 12, 2019

MWSS revokes water deals’ extension reso

T

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie & Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM

HE Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) on Tuesday confirmed that it has revoked the resolution extending by 15 years the 1997 concession agreements with Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co.

At the continuation of the joint hearing of the House Committee on Good Gover nment and Public Aut hor it y, House Committee on Public Accounts, MWSS Deput y Administrator for Engineering Leonor Cleofas told lawmakers the decision to revoke the board resolution, adopted in 2008, was reached last December 5.

The 2008 board resolution sought to extend the concession agreements with the water companies until 2037. The 25year concession agreements of

2037

The year to which the 2008 MWSS board resolution sought to extend the concession agreements with the water companies. The 25-year concession agreements of the two water firms are set to expire in 2022

DBCC okays ₧4.6-T 2021 budget A

S the bicameral conference committee ratified the 2020 national budget bill on Wednesday, the interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) approved to propose a P4.640-trillion national budget for 2021.

DBCC Chairman and Acting Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado said this cash budget for 2021 is higher by P540 billion, or 13.3 percent, than the P4.1-trillion cash budget for 2020.

The 2021 budget is also equivalent to 20.2 percent of GDP. “The proposed 2021 national budget will continue to support

anti-poverty and peace-sustaining measures through funding of recently approved legislative measures,” Avisado said in a press briefing following the 177th DBCC meeting on Wednesday.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) already issued a budget call for 2021 last week.

The budget chief also assured funding for priority social protection and economic programs, including the Universal Health Care Program, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Rice Tariffication Law and the provision for the annual block grant, special development fund, and share in national

taxes of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Other programs to receive continued funding include the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education, refocusing of national government assistance to local government units with high poverty incidence, and climate-change mitigation and adaptation measures.

The DBCC also announced that it has approved the creation of the Subcommittee on Sustainable Development Goals to review and recommend DBCC-SDG related policies and programs.

“We are committed to building a more effective and competitive

economy, one that will provide good jobs to our workers, improve the living conditions of the poor and create more opportunities for all Filipinos,” Avisado said.

On Wednesday, the bicameral conference approved the 2020 budget proposal.

Both Avisado and Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III welcomed the development, especially since the budget will likely be passed on time.

“Well, in terms of the timetable, we are glad that they have finally approved it or ratified it because it will then also fast-track the signing See “DBCC,” A2

‘Hybrid’ AES among 3 poll options INTERTROPICAL CONVERGENCE ZONE AFFECTING PALAWAN AND MINDANAO NORTHEAST MONSOON AFFECTING LUZON as of 4:00 am - December 11, 2019

A

NEW “hybrid” automated election system (AES) is now among the options of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the 2022 polls.

In an interview, Comelec Spokesman James B. Jimenez said this was among the three budget options which they submitted to Congress for consideration in the passage of the 2020 budget.

He said the three options include using a hybrid system; using the current voting machines plus buying additional of such units; and buying a whole new batch of machines to replace those being used by Comelec.

Among the budget proposals, Jimenez said the hybrid system is the most expensive.

“I don’t have the exact figure, but I think it is twice or up to three times of what we would normally pay for an election,” Jimenez said.

Under the hybrid AES, which is being pushing by former Comelec commissioner and now-National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections Chairman Gus Lagman, only the canvassing of election results will be electronically done, while the voting and counting will be conducted manually.

Jimenez said this system will be more costly for Comelec since it will entail the acquisition of new equipment, including projectors for the canvassing phase.

Despite the hefty price tag for a hybrid AES, the poll official said lawmakers will still consider it due to its cited advantage of being more transparent.

“I don’t think that is going to be a major hindrance for the legislators if they really want to go to a certain path that is doable,” Jimenez said.

He said they will leave it up to Congress to decide which of their three proposal will be implemented come 2020 . Samuel P. Medenilla

the two water firms are set to expire in 2022.

“It was on the agenda that the board tackle the resolution on the approval of the extension of the concession agreement,” Cleofas said.

“That was brought about by the directive of the President tackled in the Cabinet meeting; they are now revoking the board resolution adopted in 2008,” Cleofas added.

The cancellation of the resolution was confimed by MWSS a day after concessionaires Manila

Water and Maynilad said they will no longer ask the government to pay a total of P10.79 billion in arbitral awards given by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Singapore, covering their losses arising from government’s refusal to allow tariff hikes.

The two companies’ top officials, meanwhile, raised serious concern over the unilateral revocation of the resolution extension, with one executive hinting at possible rate hikes as the huge multibillion investments they Continued on A2

SC JUNKS ABS-CBN’S BID TO GET P127-M DAMAGES FROM TV5, REVILLAME

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

T

HE Supreme Court has denied the bid of television network ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. to seek P127 million in damages for copyright infringement from television host Willie Revillame and ABC Development Corp. or TV5.

In a three-page resolution, the Court’s First Division affirmed the September 5, 2011, decision and the April 26, 2012, resolution of the Court of Appeals (CA), which junked ABSCBN’s civil suit due to forum shopping.

Prior to the CA ruling, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati City Branch 66 Presiding Judge Joselito Villarosa issued an order stopping the airing of Revillame’s former show Willing Willie and allowed the civil complaint against the comedian, his production outfit Wilprod and TV5 to proceed.

However, the CA reversed the trial court’s ruling and ordered the dismissal of the copyright infringement complaint before the Makati RTC, having been filed in violation of the rules against forum shopping.

It noted that the network filed a similar case before the Quezon

Growth. . .

Continued from A1

“The assumption for goods export growth is revised downward in the short term to 1.0 percent for 2019 and 4.0 percent in 2020 due to continuing unresolved trade tensions.

However, the assumptions for 2021 and 2022 are retained at 6.0 percent as global economic activity is expected to recover in the medium-term,” said DBCC Chairman and Acting Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado.

The DBCC also made a drastic reduction for its merchandise imports assumption for the year, revising it to 2 percent—far from the original 7 percent. It maintained its forecast of 8 percent for 2020 to 2022.

Edillon attributed the move to the slowdown in the importation of capital equipment due to the impact of the budget reenactment early this year, as well as the end of re-fleeting programs by airline companies and transport companies. On services, the government also downgraded its imports growth assumption for this year to 2 percent from the previous 3 percent. It retained its growth forecasts of 4 percent for 2020, and 5 percent for 2021 and 2022.

Services exports growth assumption for 2019 to 2022 were also maintained at 9 percent.

Inflation

The average inflation rate for 2019 is also projected to settle at 2.4 percent from the previous 2.7 percent to 3.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the assumed average rates for 2020 to 2022 are expected to remain between 2 percent to 4 percent.

The DBCC also narrowed its 2019 forecast for Dubai crude oil to the range of $63 to $64 per barrel, from $60 to $75 previously. For the medium-term it also adjusted downwards its projection to $55 to $70 per barrel, from $60 to $75 for 2020 to 2022.

Moreover, the foreign-exchange rate assumption for 2019 was also narrowed to

City RTC (QC-RTC).

“Here, the petitioner committed forum shopping of the third kind— by splitting the same cause of action —when it filed separate cases with different reliefs, but with both cases arising from a single cause of action,” the SC explained in upholding the CA decision.

The SC said the CA correctly held that Revillame’s refusal to honor his talent agreement by not working for a rival network “is the delict that purportedly violated the petitioner’s rights in the separate claims.”

Thus, the SC said ABS-CBN resorted to forum shopping when it filed a complaint for infringement considering that both stemmed from Revillame’s refusal to honor his talent agreement.

ABS-CBN, in its complaint filed with the Makati RTC, sought to stop the airing of Revillame’s show, citing its confusing similarity to its previous program Wowowee—the show used to be aired by the network before they had a falling out with the host.

On the other hand, in the case pending before the QC-RTC, the CA noted that ABS-CBN implored to uphold its talent agreement with Revillame.

P51 to P52 against the United States dollar, from the previous P51 to 53. For 2020 to 2022, the forex assumption was calibrated to P51 to P54 from the earlier forecast of P51 to P55.

Likewise, the assumptions for the 364day Treasury bill rate and the six-month London Inter-Bank Offered Rate have been adjusted downward. The average T-bill rate will range from 5.1 percent to 5.3 percent in 2019 and 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent in 2020 until 2022. On the other hand, the six-month Libor will range from 2.3 percent to 2.4 percent in 2019, and from 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent from 2020 to 2022.

Fiscal program

In terms of the government’s medium-term fiscal program, revenue collections are still projected to reach P3.15 trillion in 2019, equivalent to 16.8 percent of gross domestic product. Meanwhile, disbursements are targeted to hit P3.76 trillion in 2019, which is equivalent to 20.0 percent of GDP. For 2020, revenues are projected to increase to P3.49 trillion, or 16.6 percent of GDP, while disbursements are programmed at P4.16 trillion or 19.8 percent of GDP. By 2022, revenue and disbursement projections are estimated to rise to P4.31 trillion (17.0 percent of GDP) and P5.12 trillion (20.2 percent of GDP), respectively.

“The Comprehensive Tax Reform Program can help ensure a reliable revenue base and, more impor tant, enhance the modernization of our economy. Quickly completing the passage of the remaining tranches of the tax reform will ensure a steady revenue flow and equitable sharing for the government’s social and infrastructure programs, while securing fiscal stability long into the future,” Avisado said.

Given the revenue and disbursement program adopted by the DBCC, the deficit target will be maintained at 3.2 percent of GDP from 2019 to 2022 to sustain the government’s investments in infrastructure and human capital development.

News BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Vietnam SEA Games players may have to wait longer to catch flight back home

By Recto Mercene @rectomercene

V

IETNAMESE participants to the recently concluded 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games were stranded in Manila after the A321 plane that would have brought them home was slightly damaged while being towed to parking Bay 4 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 1.

V i e t n a m A i r l i n e s F l i g ht HVN9654, which could seat between 185 to 236 passengers, grazed its left-hand side leading edge of the wing when it accidentally struck the side of the passenger loading bridge.

Following regulation, the unidentified pilot decided to remain at the tarmac overnight, while avia-

tion accident investigators (AAI) assessed the damage.

On Wednesday morning AAI representatives from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines conducted a visual inspection of the plane.

As of this writing, the passenger plane remains parked at Naia Terminal 1, waiting for the AAI to decide whether the plane could proceed to Vietnam.

The alternative is to tow the plane to a hangar for repairs, said airport ramp controller and former pilot Alger Ramo.

Vietnam has beaten Indonesia in the final games of the SEA Games 2019 men’s football game tournament to clinch the gold medal at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

Tisoy damage on EC facilities breaches ₧300-million mark

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

T

HE extent of damage to power distribution facilities of electric cooperatives (ECs) induced by Typhoon Tisoy (international code name Kammuri) reached P300 million as of last Friday, according to the National Electrification Administration (NEA).

Engr. Federico Villar Jr., acting director of NEA Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Department (DRRMD), said Wednesday the amount is expected to increase as many of the power ECs have yet to fully assess the extent of the damage to their facilities.

“As we continue to closely monitor the power situation in areas hit by the typhoon, rest assured that the NEA is ready to assist in restoring power and help our severely affected power coops get back to normal operations at the soonest possible time,” Villar said.

Meanwhile, NEA and the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association Inc. deployed contingents to Mimaropa and Bicol, two of the hardest-hit regions, to bolster ongo-

ing power restoration activities.

Some 26 ECs from Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and the Cordillera Administrative Region are sending 159 line workers and support personnel with boom trucks and equipment to assist power distribution utilities in the typhoon-hit provinces.

Last December 4, Eastern Visayas ECs also sent crews to Northern Samar. They are part of the Task Force Kapatid Typhoon Tisoy, a special unit of line workers strategically organized to quicken the pace of power restoration activities in the aftermath of disasters.

Based on its power monitoring report, as of 3 p.m. last Friday, the NEA DRRMD reported an estimated 1,476,719 households in 16 provinces in Luzon and Visayas covered by 26 ECs are still without electricity.

Power was fully restored to 51 cities and municipalities affected by power outages due to the typhoon. Electricity service is partially restored to 104 cities and municipalities, while restoration is ongoing for the remaining 150 cities and towns.

Govt told to come up with new rules in selecting motorcycle taxi players

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

W

HILE commuter group Lawyers for Commuter Safety and Protection (LCSP) favors competition, its spokesman believes that certain parameters must be set to ensure that new players will not put to waste the budding two-wheel ride-hailing industry.

Ariel Inton, who speaks for the commuter group, said introducing competition will be beneficial to consumers, but noted that the government has to be strict in determining the most viable competitor to Angkas, the only motorcycle taxi app in the country.

“It is important but we have to know the legal parameters of the competition. There should be real competition,” he said.

He said the parameters in choosing new players should be the same as when Angkas was allowed to

provisionally operate under the Motorcycle Taxi Pilot Implementation Program. These include: training, insurance, fares, speed limits, hygiene, gender sensitivity, and other standards on safety and passenger convenience.

On Tuesday, the government body tasked to review the feasibility of motorcycle taxis as a mode of public transportation considered to extend the six-month trial period of the pilot program to allow new players to participate in the study.

Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Member Antonio B. Gardiola Jr. has said the extension will give a wider perspective on the program which, by schedule, is subject to termination on December 26.

So far, the Department of Transportation has heard proposals from six motorcycle taxi companies, namely, Citimuber, JoyRide, MoveIt, EsetGo, Sakay

@caiordinario

I

F the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on ending hunger will be met, around 100,000 people living in Asia and the Pacific could be lifted out of hunger everyday until 2030, according to a new United Nations report.

In a joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO), around 3 million people in Asia-Pacific a month must be lifted from hunger in the next decade.

With this tall order, FAO, Unicef, WFP and WHO called for urgent action to address hunger and malnutrition in all its forms.

They also said countries must take decisive action placing nutrition at the heart of social protection programs.

“Social protection programs can help provide effective responses to shocks. They can build the capacity of vulnerable and poor households to manage risks and take early actions in predictable crises, and they can help ensure food security and nutrition in both normal times and during crises,” the report stated.

The report stated that some interventions that are being done by countries include the imposition of taxes on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) in the hope of curbing consumption of sugary drinks.

The Philippines imposed excise taxes in January 2018, raising the price by P6, or $0.12, per liter on SSBs made with caloric and noncaloric sweeteners and

by P12, or $0.24, per liter on beverages made with high-fructose corn syrup.

The country, the report stated, is only 1 of 16 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific that imposed taxes on SSBs. The report added that half the Pacific Island countries and territories monitored by the WHO have taxes on SSBs, typically ranging from 7 percent to 15 percent.

It added that Brunei Darussalam, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are among the Asian countries to recently introduce SSB taxes.

However, the report stated that while these taxes have influenced consumption of sugary beverages, it has done little to promote weight outcomes. Therefore, the report said, a more holistic approach must be done.

“In designing and implementing SSB taxes, nutrient-profile models can be important tools for establishing criteria for determining which products are high in fat, sugar or salt and therefore should be taxed,” the report stated.

Apart from taxes on SSBs, the Philippines also reformed social protection programs to allow the poorest households to afford a wider variety of foods.

With the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the report stated that households who receive the conditional cash trans-

and VroomGo, to participate in the pilot program.

This move, according to Inton, was not consulted with the “original members” of the technical working group for the study. Inton was part of it.

“Since the start of the pilot run, I have never been invited to meetings and discussions, and now I heard that they have decided on something critical, which is not only irregular, but rather suspicious and unacceptable,” he said.

C om mute r g roup K omy ut Spokesman Toix Cerna added that the government is not transparent in the initial findings of the study.

“Our task was also to monitor and assess the results of the pilot so that we are informed of what to recommend for the legislative measures pending in Congress,” Cerna said.

For pol ic y advocate g roup Move Metro Manila Spokesman

Raymond Gascon in principle said his group agrees to the need for the motorcycle taxi safety protocols to be extended to and applied to other motorcycle taxi service providers.

“Compet it ion is good a nd should be a welcome development.

We are just concerned with the process through which this decision was made without us having been call into a meeting at all,” he said.

Earlier, Inton’s group filed for an injunction order against five motorcycle taxi apps­—We Move Things Philippines Inc. (JoyRide), Habal Rides Corp., i-Sabay, SampaDala Corp. and Trans-Serve Corp.

—that it called “illegal” as they had not been recognized and authorized by the transport regulator.

Shou ld the transpor tation agency approves the filings of companies that were sued by LCSP, Inton said his group might “drop the case” against them.

37 former drug users in Calabarzon complete two-month rehab program

A

TOTAL of 37 PWUDs, or People Who Use Drugs, have successf u l ly completed the first batch of modified Communit y-Based Rehabilitation Program (CBRP) of the Department of Health (DOH) in Calabarzon as part of government’s efforts to help people with substance use disorders achieve, and maintain, a meaningful and sustained recovery.

DOH Regional Director Eduardo C. Janairo stressed in his message the importance of forgiveness, acceptance and loving one’s self in order to gain full recovery.

“Napakaimportante na mahalin ninyo at bigyan respeto ang inyong mga sarili, dahil kayo lang ang makapagbibigay ng lakas ng loob upang mabago at makabangon muli,

at bigyan ng halaga ang inyong buhay para sa mga taong umaasa sa inyo; kasama na ang inyong mga mahal sa buhay na patuloy na nagmamahal at sumusuporta sa inyo,” he said.

Janairo added: “Ang mahalaga ngayon ay bigyan ninyo ng panahon at harapin ang inyong kinabukasan na puno ng pag-asa at tiwala na kaya ninyong bigyan ng magandang buhay ang inyong mga sarili, at magbigay ng magandang ehemplo sa inyong komunidad at sa mga iba pang mga naliligaw ng landas, mga kakilala at kaibigan, upang sila ay mahikayat na sumama sa programang ito na pinangunguhan ng ating lokal na pamahalaan.”

The CBRP for PW UDs is a holistic wellness program and life coach training focused on

UN report stresses urgency to meet SDG to end hunger in AsPac region

By Cai U. Ordinario

Thursday, December 12, 2019 A9

fer (CCT) were able to increase spending for protein-rich foods.

“Social protection is an important way to help reduce inequality and mitigate the impacts of disasters, the report notes, and a special section on social protection explains that making programs nutrition-sensitive can accelerate progress in eradicating hunger and malnutrition,” the UN said in a statement. “[The report] finds that such specif ic nutr ition pr inciples should be applied to the design, implementat ion, monitor ing and evaluation of social protection programs, both in normal times and in the face of shocks,” it added.

The report’s latest figures relating to hunger, including micronutrient deficiencies (also known as hidden hunger), child stunting and wasting make for grim reading amid the emerging nutritional complications brought forward by a crisis of over weight and obesit y a lso sweeping the region.

It stated that the prevalence of stunting and wasting in the region remains high, with stunting rates exceeding 20 percent in a majority of the region’s countries. In the Philippines, around 30.3 percent are stunted.

In the region, an estimated 77.2 million children under five years of age were stunted in 2018, and 32.5 million suffered from wasting.

Meantime, overweight and obesity are also rising among both children and adu lts in Asia-Pacific, negatively affect-

ing health and well-being.

The resultant burden of dietrelated noncommunicable diseases, like diabetes, high blood pressure and respiratory problems, is placing great strain on national health-care budgets and causing productivity losses.

“In many countries in the region, child undernutrition, overweight, obesity and micronutrient deficiencies are converging at the national level, in individual households and even, in some cases, in the same person.

A multi-stakeholder approach is needed to address the multiple burdens of malnutrition,” the reports states.

Earlier, Unicef said the Philippines must invest $1 billion in the next 10 years to avoid the triple burden of malnutrition—stunting and wasting; micronutrient deficiency; and obesity.

This translates to an additional investment of $100 million annually, or around P5 billion every year.

The level of this investment is not that high considering the alternative of underinvestment or worse, business as usual.

If the government continues on this path, the Unicef said the Philippines stands to lose 3 percent of its GDP annually. This equates to $4.5 billion, or P220 billion, annually.

Clearly, Unicef Philippines Nutrition Specialist Rene Gerard C. Galera Jr. said, investing $100 million annually is cheaper, especially given that a third of Filipino children are already stunted.

improving one’s lifestyle, eliminating unwanted behaviors and become goal-oriented, or forward thinkers through life coaching and actual practice of stress management.

Janairo said the program revolves around the concept of wholeness and apply ing it in the eight areas of life, including intellectual growth, physical, emotional, spiritual, social, occupational, financial and environmental health.

“It is a two-month program wherein PWUDs must undergo a three-day rehabilitation and life coaching training program, and then seven weekly triad mentoring session for coaching practice and group life coaching sessions,” he explained.

The CBRP was piloted in two areas in Calabarzon, namely, Bacoor City in Cavite with 19 successful PWUDs and Antipolo City in Rizal with 18 graduates. The completion ceremonies were held on December 5 and 6, respectively.

Janairo said that the graduates will continue to have training in skills development that will be conducted by their respective local government units. “ This will provide them the personal development they need which will not only increase the opportunities for livelihood, but will also empower them as an individual,” he further explained.

The modified CBRP for PWUDs was a joint endeavor with the local governments of Bacoor City and Antipolo City.

Free mentorship for OFWs, seafarers aspiring entreps

By Roderick L. Abad

Contributor

R

@rodrik_28

ETURNING overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and seafarers, together with potential entrepreneurs, stand to gain the “gift of knowledge” on how to put up a business during the special leg of the Mentor Me on Wheels (MMOW) at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City today, Thursday.

This mentorship program of GoNegosyo, together with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), recognizes the sacrifices of Filipino workers deployed abroad to uplift the economic status of their families and the country as a whole.

Based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were around 2.3 million OFWs from April to September 2018.

Their estimated total remittance during the period reached P235.9 billion, up from P205.2 billion the prior year.

From more than a quarter of the 1.2 million seafarers in 2019, per The Economist, 378,000 are Filipinos. There are about 250,000 Filipino seafarers at sea in a day. Party-list group ACTSOFW reported that the money they sent home account for 19 percent of the total OFW remittances, which was at $32.21 billion in 2018.

In this 34th edition of MMOW, they can avail themselves of a oneon-one free consultation sessions

with around 100 distinguished entrep-mentors. Success stories of OFW-turned-entrepreneurs will also be featured in the event. They will also be introduced to various livelihood opportunities from key business players, including ridehailing app providers Angkas and Grab.

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and GoNegosyo Founder Joey Concepcion said that the government, through the DTI, GoNegosyo and the private sector, is committed to educate Filipinos on how to invest in any business and grow sustainably by reaching more markets for their products and services.

“The fulfillment we are getting by helping our MSME [micro, small and medium enterprises] is truly rewarding. This, I think is the best Christmas gift we can give to our OFW and seafarers for the sacrifices that they are doing,” he said.

MMOW started last year and since then has gathered around 1,000 mentors nationwide to cater to around 15,000 mentees. Along with the Mentor Me Online app, it aims to teach technical knowhow and practical entrepreneurship strategies to micro and small entrepreneurs.

This special leg is supported by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Villar SIPAG Foundation, DTI, Parola Maritime Agency Corp, and Philippine Transmarine Carriers Inc.

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If you have any information / objection to the above mentioned application/s, please communicate with the Regional Director thru Employment Promotion and Workers Welfare (EPWW) Division with Telephone No. 400-6011.

ATTY. SARAH BUENA S. MIRASOL REGIONAL DIRECTOR

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Companies BusinessMirror

Thursday, December 12, 2019

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Chevron-Malampaya stake sale to Udenna with PCC

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HE country’s antitrust body has confirmed its receipt of the submission of documents to review the sale and purchase agreement of Chevron’s stake in Malampaya.

On the sidelines of a briefing on Wednesday, Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan told reporters the submission is now being evaluated.

Balisacan said initially, PCC will evaluate the “completeness” of the submission, asserting that PCC will not entertain “piecemeal submissions” of requirements.

This is part of the sufficiency determination stage.

“The clock will not tick until all the requirements are there. We can return it if it’s not complete. When they submit, we allow for [time to check if requirements are complete].

If it’s not complete, we will ask them to come back with the complete set of documents,” Balisacan said.

Recently, Chev ron and UC Malampaya Philippines Pte. Ltd., a unit of Udenna, signed a sale and purchase agreement.

First Gen Corp., which sources most of its supply from the Malampaya gas field, expects a “business as usual” scenario once the sale of Chevron Malampaya Llc.’s entire 45-percent stake in the gas field to Udenna Corp. of businessman Dennis Uy is finalized.

In its web site, Chevron said it holds a 45-percent non-operated working interest in the Malampaya gas-to-power project, the first natural gas development and largest industrial project in the Philippines.

The Malampaya gas-to-power project opened the door to the natural gas industry in the Philippines.

It lies about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of the Philippine island of Palawan.

In 2018, Chevron said the net

daily production averaged 138 million cubic feet of natural gas and 3,000 barrels of condensate.

Produced from fields at water depths of about 2,800 feet (853 meters), Chevron said the gas is transported 314 miles (505km) through subsea pipelines from an offshore platform to the Batangas onshore natural gas plant on the main island of Luzon.

Once treated, Chevron said the gas is transported via overland pipelines to three power plants designed to generate a total of 2,700 megawatts of power.

The Malampaya Phase 2 Project was completed in 2015. The infill wells and compression facilities have maintained production and, delivered contracted volumes to customers. Cai U. Ordinario

Competition body chief: Grab needs a big rival; SMC-Holcim review out soon; rice probe ongoing

SEC allows revival of expired entities

By VG Cabuag @villygc

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HE Secur ities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday said it has started accepting applications for the revival of expired corporations, after the guidelines became effective upon its publication on December 6.

Under the guidelines, an expired corporation whose certificate of registration has been suspended or revoked for non-filing of reports may revive its existence, provided it shall file the proper petition and settle the corresponding penalties.

An expired corporation whose corporate name has already been validly reused by another existing corporation may also apply for a revival of corporate existence, provided it changes its corporate name.

On the other hand, the guidelines shall not apply to corporations which have completed the liquidation of their assets or have been dissolved.

An expired corporation may also not apply for revival of corporate existence when it has already availed themselves of reregistration, except when the reregistered corporation has undertaken to undergo voluntary dissolution or change its corpo-

rate name. At least a majority of the board of directors or trustees and of the outstanding capital stock or members, in the case of a nonstock corporation, must vote in favor of the revival of the expired corporation.

The expired corporation shall file with the SEC a verified petition for revival, which shall state that there is no intra-corporate controversy and that no third persons nor government agency will be prejudiced by its revival, among others.

Along with the petition, the expired corporation shall file copies of its certificate of incorporation, articles of incorporation, revived articles of incorporation showing the proposed changes in its corporate term, general information sheet and audited financial statements as of expiration, and other documentary requirements.

The petition may be filed with the SEC Company Registration and Monitoring Department or any of the SEC’s Satellite and Extension Offices.

The revival of expired corporations is pursuant to Section 11 of the Revised Corporation Code, which provides for the perpetual existence of corporations. Under the old Code, corporate terms were capped at 50 years.

Coca-Cola, Isuzu partner for safety, sustainability in fleet operations

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A security guard stands beside a Grab pickup point signage at a mall in Quezon City, in this BusinessMirror file photo. NONOY LACZA

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

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ONITORING Grab fares and holding them to their commitment to maintain prices within the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) range is not sustainable, according to the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC).

On the sidelines of a briefing on Wednesday, PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan told reporters that the only sustainable solution for Grab riders is for a new TNVS player to enter the market.

Balisacan said this TNVS player or players must rival Grab not only in services but in its ability to make the same level of investment.

“The longer-term solution to this is really to have an effective competitor to Grab. Another player, just like Uber who has deep pockets. In our analysis, none of these small players would be able to compete effectively with Grab, with that kind of resources. So you need another player, a big player [to] come in and compete with Grab, pocket to pocket, that’s how this market works,” Balisacan said.

Reports from the Philippine News Agency stated that the LTFRB allows TNVS companies to charge a flagdown rate of up to P40 for sedans

and up to P50 for premium Asian utility vehicles/sport-utility vehicles (SUV). A maximum of P30 is charged for hatchbacks/subcompact vehicles.

There will also be an additional charge of P15 per kilometer for sedans; P18 for SUVs; and P13 for hatchbacks. This is on top of the P2 charge per minute of travel.

TNVS companies, the report said, are also allowed to double their perkilometer and per-minute charge through surge pricing.

Balisacan announced on November 18, the PCC had imposed a penalty of P23.45 million on Grab for breaching its price commitments.

The fine is an accumulation of all of the firm’s violations during the three quarters of its undertaking, he explained.

Of this total, Grab has to transmit to government coffers the sanctions for the first quarter and the second quarter, and return to its users the penalty for the third quarter.

markets across the Philippines would be left with fewer options when purchasing cement under SMC’s acquisition of Holcim Philippines Inc. The PCC initiated a second-phase review of the deal. In a statement, the PCC said the new review will assess if the transaction will substantially lessen competition in the grey cement, clinker, ready mix concrete and aggregate markets.

According to the PCC, initial findings of the merger review showed the buyout could affect market concentration of cement in six areas. These markets are northeast Luzon, northwest Luzon, central Luzon—including National Capital Region—southern Luzon, northern Mindanao and southern Mindanao.

“In the next couple of days, the commission, the MAO [Mergers and Acquisitions Office] will release information about the VC and the statement of concern,” Balisacan said.

Holcim case

Rice sector

Meanwhile, Balisacan said the PCC will be releasing the results of its review of the voluntary commitments (VC) submitted by San Miguel Corp.’s (SMC) on its acquisition of Holcim Philippines Inc. Earlier, the PCC expressed concern that consumers from six

Meanwhile, Balisacan said the PCC’s investigation on the rice sector is ongoing and that cartels are not the only anti-competition practice that it is investigating.

Balisacan said all kinds of anticompetitive practices, such as abuse of dominant position are part of the

investigation of the rice sector.

Competition officials earlier said they are curious as to why the retail price of rice is not falling as fast as the farm-gate price of palay.

Balisacan said the implementation of the rice trade liberalization law should cut the price of the staple to as low as P27 per kilogram, but prices have yet to come near that level seven months after the measure was passed in March.

For Balisacan, the drop in retail prices is “too slow” when compared to the decline in farm-gate prices, and this should be probed by government agencies, the PCC included, as certain parties could be taking advantage of the situation.

Asked if the competition body is looking at a possible case of collusion, Balisacan said: “That’s what we will find if we can find such evidence.

There are already some leads: for example, the Senate has started and concluded its own inquiry and those were referred to us and that will be part of the basis.”

Earlier, the BusinessMirror reported that big-time rice traders are apparently using farmer irrigators groups to be able to import huge amounts of cheap rice, with their resulting ample inventory allowing them the latitude to control prices in the local market.

OCA-COLA Beverages Philippines Inc. (CCBPI), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country, has partnered with Isuzu Philippines Corp. (IPC)—the country’s leading manufacturer of brand-new trucks through Isuzu Gencars—to enhance safety and sustainability within its logistics operations. At least 95 top-of-theline vehicles have been turned over to Coca-Cola’s already expansive delivery fleet.

Coca-Cola operates one of the biggest truck fleets in the Philippines, with almost 3,000 trucks and over 2,000 sales service vehicles. Approximately 2,500 shipments per day are undertaken, transporting to 20,000 doors across the country. For operations this massive in scale, the company implements a road safety framework built on three pillars: organization and culture, vehicles and technologies, and the drivers. Each pillar, in turn, has different programs and initiatives that address capability development, technical standards and monitoring, and driving performance and engagement.

“For every bottle of Coca-Cola that you purchase, there’s an implicit promise that it was delivered with the utmost quality, in accordance with strict safety guidelines, and adhered to high sustainability standards,” said CCBPI Logistics and Distribution Director Ruth Genota.

Isuzu FVR trucks with installed Allison Automatic Transmission— the first of its kind in the Philippines—were among the partnership turnover highlights. These trucks’ transmission were specially crafted by leading automotive expert Gendiesel Philippines Inc. All the turned-over trucks deliver Isuzu’s 8-Point Advantage: 1) nationwide dealer network; 2) nationwide parts availability; 3) expert Japanese engineers; 4) expert service technicians; 5) mobile medic; 6) drivers and mechanics training; 7) safety driving training; 8) fuel eco-driving training.

The installed palletized bottle carriers were made by IPC partner body

builders, Almazora and Centro.

The partnership with Isuzu, whose commercial vehicles are known for their reliability and efficiency, is seen to deliver dependable transportation solutions to support Coca-Cola’s extensive and intensive distribution requirements. Isuzu trucks are equipped with Euro IVto V-compliant engines that produce cleaner emissions; and with blue-power technology, which helps make the trucks more powerful, yet economical and environmentally friendly.

These new acquisitions are in keeping with Coca-Cola’s long-standing commitment to reduce carbon emissions and to achieve sustainable operations in fleet management— through low-emission engines in its trucks and through the adoption of new technologies to further improve our logistics and distribution capabilities.

Genota added, “At Coca-Cola, we make sure that our sustainability practice is a holistic process: our whole value chain, from manufacturing to distribution, has systems in place to reduce our environmental impact. This is a continuous process of improvement, as we work toward further strengthening our environment-conscious policies, across all facets of our operations.”

Coca-Cola in the Philippines said it has delivered strongly on its environmental stewardship across the business and the value chain through its other sustainability pillars: water, energy and waste.

It reported attaining 100-percent water replenishment in the Philippines, via its water-saving programs and waste water treatment in its operations, in addition to providing far-flung communities access to potable water through the Agos Program. The company sources over 60 percent of its total energy requirements in the country from renewable energy; and in 2018, Coca-Cola announced its World Without Waste global goal of collecting and recycling every bottle and can sold, by 2030.

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Companies BusinessMirror

Thursday, December 12, 2019

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

December 11, 2019

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

BDO UNIBANK BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK PHILTRUST RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BDO LEASING COL FINANCIAL FERRONOUX HLDG FILIPINO FUND MEDCO HLDG NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH SUN LIFE VANTAGE

157.9 88.85 25 12.98 67 36.3 58.1 112.1 23.95 198 57.5 1.84 18.2 4 7 0.37 0.78 174 1800 1.04

158.2 89 25.1 13 68.2 36.5 58.55 128 24 199.5 58.4 1.98 18.46 4.08 8.49 0.4 0.84 177 1840 1.08

159.9 87.9 25 12.76 67 35.7 58.65 112.1 24 196 57.5 1.85 18.46 4 7.03 0.375 0.8 173.5 1800 1.08

159.9 89 25.05 13.02 68.2 36.95 58.65 112.1 24 200 58.05 1.85 18.46 4 7.03 0.375 0.84 174.5 1800 1.08

157 86.75 25 12.72 66.95 35.7 58.65 112.1 23.95 196 57.5 1.85 18.46 4 7 0.37 0.77 173.5 1800 1.08

157.9 89 25 13 68.2 36.3 58.65 112.1 23.95 199.5 57.5 1.85 18.46 4 7 0.37 0.84 174 1800 1.08

1037570 991040 78000 178500 1794540 156800 1120 20 12900 365150 41850 25000 4800 34000 1900 280000 38000 1080 95 700000

164024776 87967335 1950510 2311392 120946251 5698400 65688 2242 308965 72320116 2410664 46250 88608 136000 13315 104350 30410 187900 171000 756000

-26531133 36629974.5 -515000 306420 39609296 -1269550 11975 7474433 -313464 8000 44400 13960 -

INDUSTRIAL AC ENERGY 2.24 2.26 2.25 2.33 2.22 2.26 4616000 10491110 109389.9998 ALSONS CONS 1.23 1.26 1.23 1.23 1.23 1.23 23000 28290 33.8 33.9 33.85 34.6 33.8 33.8 285300 9,678,310( 4,731,330.0002) ABOITIZ POWER 0.226 0.233 0.235 0.235 0.235 0.235 10000 2350 BASIC ENERGY FIRST GEN 23.6 24.4 24.35 24.6 23.5 23.6 498600 11952805 -96945 FIRST PHIL HLDG 72 72.8 73 73.1 71.2 72.8 147730 10,729,335.5( 5,419,170.4999) 323.4 324 322 325 321.6 323.4 64420 20810852 4150160 MERALCO 12.42 12.48 14.5 15.1 11.04 12.48 6161700 85231504 3192338 MANILA WATER PETRON 4.29 4.31 4.31 4.35 4.24 4.31 4807000 20819140 -1090000 PETROENERGY 3.81 4 4 4 4 4 1000 4000 11 11.28 11 11.28 11 11.28 166000 1866540 -112800 PHX PETROLEUM 33.45 33.5 33.45 33.6 33.25 33.45 630400 21106860 6030885.0003 PILIPINAS SHELL SPC POWER 7.83 7.87 7.84 7.85 7.83 7.83 26000 203805 31330 VIVANT 16 16.8 16.5 16.5 16.5 16.5 1400 23100 13.3 13.4 13.68 13.68 12.88 13.4 597400 8123672 -3710886 AGRINURTURE 2.74 2.75 2.6 2.77 2.6 2.74 4593000 12551720 2037280 AXELUM CNTRL AZUCARERA 20 20.3 20.5 20.8 20.1 20.3 27100 547155 CENTURY FOOD 15.24 15.36 15.24 15.42 15.24 15.24 198400 3058284 47244 5.03 5.19 5.23 5.23 5.2 5.2 20900 109157 DEL MONTE DNL INDUS 8.45 8.48 8.38 8.5 8.37 8.45 5587000 47,055,650( 19,496,934.9998) EMPERADOR 7.19 7.2 7.22 7.25 7.18 7.2 429400 3089294 -2316478 SMC FOODANDBEV 86.5 88 88.4 88.4 86.5 88 82000 7169118 -2674112.5 0.53 0.54 0.57 0.57 0.53 0.53 424000 231840 ALLIANCE SELECT FRUITAS HLDG 1.1 1.11 1.16 1.21 1.08 1.1 38908000 44579510 214790 GINEBRA 40.5 40.9 40 40.9 40 40.9 19000 761170 108000 JOLLIBEE 207 207.6 205.8 207.6 202.6 207.6 259440 53462656 19924066 MACAY HLDG 7.52 7.7 7.23 7.92 7.12 7.7 27800 208144 -16550 11.9 12.24 12.2 12.4 11.9 11.9 69700 833744 -152126 MAXS GROUP 0.152 0.161 0.162 0.164 0.16 0.16 2700000 433080 -320000 MG HLDG SHAKEYS PIZZA 9.94 9.96 9.9 10.1 9.9 9.96 62400 623310 -529362 ROXAS AND CO 2.12 2.13 2.18 2.19 2.13 2.13 1340000 2898320 5.37 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.35 5.4 20200 108679 -27999 RFM CORP 1.88 1.92 1.92 1.92 1.92 1.92 5000 9600 ROXAS HLDG SWIFT FOODS 0.115 0.12 0.114 0.116 0.114 0.115 1240000 143010 UNIV ROBINA 141.5 141.8 142 142 140 141.5 499040 70579646 9116207 1.14 1.15 1.14 1.16 1.13 1.15 7121000 8187520 -47150 VITARICH 2.45 2.55 2.6 2.6 2.55 2.55 5000 12800 VICTORIAS CONCRETE A 64.75 65 65 65 64.75 64.75 310 20135.5 CEMEX HLDG 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.18 2.12 2.12 426000 910950 -223670 14.6 14.92 14.58 14.96 14.58 14.6 4700 68680 -59884 EAGLE CEMENT 10.22 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.24 10.3 202100 2079884 -65666 EEI CORP HOLCIM 13.52 13.9 13.54 13.9 13.52 13.9 60700 839868 -381474 MEGAWIDE 16.54 16.9 16.6 16.9 16.6 16.9 340100 5741696 257480 9.8 9.89 9.8 9.9 9.8 9.89 87700 859600 -9890 PHINMA 1.01 1.06 1.05 1.07 1.05 1.06 19000 20030 TKC METALS VULCAN INDL 0.85 0.89 0.83 0.9 0.83 0.88 537000 475650 CHEMPHIL 165 169 165 165 165 165 240 39600 2.03 2.05 2.02 2.03 2.01 2.03 101000 204180 64959.9998 CROWN ASIA 4.73 5.01 4.75 4.75 4.75 4.75 4000 19000 LMG CHEMICALS MABUHAY VINYL 3.1 3.25 3.25 3.25 3.1 3.25 9000 28500 9750 PRYCE CORP 5 5.16 4.88 5 4.88 5 1600500 8002488 -7500000 CONCEPCION 26.15 28.1 28 28.45 28 28.3 1100 31055 1.93 1.96 1.94 1.98 1.92 1.96 1361000 2650650 180570 GREENERGY 7.76 7.99 7.75 7.99 7.75 7.99 3300 25599 2325 INTEGRATED MICR IONICS 1.25 1.4 1.33 1.4 1.25 1.4 301000 384460 PANASONIC 5.12 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 100 560 0.9 0.92 0.91 0.94 0.9 0.9 21000 19190 SFA SEMICON CIRTEK HLDG 4.14 4.33 4.72 4.72 3.9 4.33 416000 1834050 18690 HOLDING & FRIMS

ABACORE CAPITAL ASIABEST GROUP AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL AYALA LAND LOG ANSCOR ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A ATN HLDG B COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG FILINVEST DEV GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV JG SUMMIT JOLLIVILLE HLDG LODESTAR LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP MABUHAY HLDG METRO PAC INV PACIFICA HLDG PRIME MEDIA SOLID GROUP SYNERGY GRID SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP TOP FRONTIER WELLEX INDUS ZEUS HLDG

0.75 11.8 789 51.5 11.1 3.05 6.6 0.69 0.92 0.95 6.78 5.11 12.98 874 5.3 78.85 5.15 0.485 3.76 11.8 0.56 3.18 4.6 1.37 1.23 190.1 1066 155.1 205 0.216 0.2

0.76 11.98 790 51.6 11.16 3.08 6.72 0.71 0.93 0.97 6.8 5.12 13.26 875 5.44 79.3 5.35 0.5 3.77 11.84 0.58 3.19 4.99 1.39 1.25 198 1068 156 214 0.22 0.215

0.76 12 820 51.95 11.12 3.04 6.72 0.69 0.92 0.95 6.84 5.97 12.98 873 5.31 79 5.35 0.495 3.77 11.6 0.58 3.72 5.06 1.36 1.23 199.8 1052 157.7 207 0.214 0.215

0.77 12.1 823 51.95 11.26 3.13 6.72 0.71 0.94 0.97 6.89 6.18 13.26 884.5 5.31 79.3 5.35 0.5 3.84 11.86 0.58 3.9 5.24 1.38 1.25 228 1079 157.7 217.8 0.216 0.215

0.74 11.8 784 50 11.06 3.04 6.72 0.68 0.92 0.95 6.77 4.95 12.98 873 5.3 78.5 5.35 0.485 3.76 11.6 0.56 3.13 4.8 1.35 1.23 180 1052 155 205.6 0.214 0.2

0.75 11.98 790 51.5 11.1 3.05 6.72 0.71 0.93 0.97 6.8 5.11 13.26 874 5.3 79.3 5.35 0.5 3.76 11.84 0.58 3.19 4.8 1.38 1.25 198 1068 155.1 214 0.216 0.2

1048000 8800 292900 715370 12672800 2014000 900 1129000 532000 155000 488700 66135200 71200 27300 50000 1449860 1000 9000 291000 636600 32000 131833000 121300 240000 15000 6750 189900 165620 1670 890000 900000

786970 104452 233117635 36729987.5 141273140 6216580 6048 773380 495440 147350 3327880 359764902 933376 23871945 265010 114763928.5 5350 4455 1104920 7505670 18160 447264180 606518 330560 18520 1358338 202622410 25925680 353454 191740 180640

1570 -40729795 5179483.5 -40775560 301840 6800 -142500 811967 -88233711 -7175215 -106000 8478750.5 -782070 -1950256 39501860 99070 -72610 10100 -58104475 -807552 10898 -

PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.82 0.84 0.81 0.84 0.81 0.84 1365000 1131540 ANCHOR LAND 8.82 9.45 9.5 9.5 8.82 8.82 300 2782 45.45 45.75 44.8 45.9 44.65 45.45 5165800 235308375 -22992435 AYALA LAND 1.37 1.44 1.47 1.47 1.36 1.44 21000 29090 ARANETA PROP BELLE CORP 2.01 2.02 2.02 2.03 2 2.01 256000 515170 -26460 A BROWN 0.7 0.72 0.72 0.74 0.7 0.72 1001000 709080 0.84 0.86 0.86 0.86 0.84 0.86 45000 38620 CITYLAND DEVT CROWN EQUITIES 0.18 0.19 0.18 0.19 0.18 0.19 30000 5600 CEBU HLDG 6.3 6.43 6.45 6.47 6.26 6.43 42600 273032 150211 CEB LANDMASTERS 4.67 4.74 4.7 4.8 4.67 4.74 504000 2373860 -251820 0.55 0.56 0.52 0.57 0.52 0.56 33572000 18565490 -96730 CENTURY PROP 0.4 0.405 0.4 0.4 0.39 0.39 30000 11900 CYBER BAY DOUBLEDRAGON 19.24 19.28 19.16 19.28 19 19.28 192900 3701956 -439114 DM WENCESLAO 10.16 10.2 10.24 10.24 10.06 10.2 110200 1114570 0.415 0.425 0.43 0.43 0.415 0.425 3730000 1567150 EMPIRE EAST FILINVEST LAND 1.5 1.51 1.5 1.53 1.49 1.51 11071000 16726200 4026740 GLOBAL ESTATE 1.17 1.18 1.18 1.19 1.16 1.17 570000 670650 8990 HLDG 14.8 14.82 14.98 14.98 14.8 14.8 414100 6141236 -257770 1.25 1.26 1.32 1.32 1.22 1.26 2171000 2746340 -127770 PHIL INFRADEV 4.12 4.67 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 10000 42000 KEPPEL PROP CITY AND LAND 0.73 0.75 0.78 0.78 0.74 0.75 18000 13460 MEGAWORLD 4.3 4.31 4.27 4.35 4.26 4.31 14311000 61548840 1231700 0.194 0.195 0.181 0.204 0.181 0.195 21050000 4125790 58500 MRC ALLIED 0.395 0.41 0.42 0.42 0.395 0.41 40000 16200 PHIL ESTATES PRIMEX CORP 2.01 2.02 2.01 2.01 2.01 2.01 298000 598980 ROBINSONS LAND 26.6 26.7 25.5 26.6 25.3 26.6 2329200 61584580 22883865 ROCKWELL 2.12 2.15 2.14 2.15 2.11 2.12 153000 327940 279180 3.15 3.24 3.24 3.24 3.24 3.24 3000 9720 SHANG PROP STA LUCIA LAND 2.36 2.45 2.45 2.47 2.36 2.47 61000 147700 SM PRIME HLDG 41.5 41.95 40.9 41.95 40.2 41.95 6175400 255640455 131809055 VISTAMALLS 5.21 5.5 5.24 5.5 5.21 5.5 126500 679126 1.1 1.12 1.14 1.17 1.1 1.12 3144000 3543200 SUNTRUST HOME PTFC REDEV CORP 42.1 45 45 45 45 45 6500 292500 VISTA LAND 7.45 7.48 7.48 7.49 7.45 7.48 4261300 31847900 -7867856

SERVICES ABS CBN 16.32 16.36 16.74 16.9 16.36 16.36 284800 4749742 GMA NETWORK 5.21 5.24 5.19 5.25 5.16 5.24 56000 290656 0.39 0.41 0.385 0.39 0.385 0.39 650000 251300 MANILA BULLETIN GLOBE TELECOM 1936 1980 1936 1980 1933 1980 27260 53454370 14447390 PLDT 1002 1003 1001 1018 1001 1003 78050 78472620 -50051945 APOLLO GLOBAL 0.041 0.043 0.041 0.045 0.04 0.043 58800000 2505500 -412100 5.1 5.19 5.2 5.75 5 5 491200 2510478 DFNN INC ISLAND INFO 0.1 0.102 0.1 0.102 0.1 0.102 30000 3040 ISM COMM 3.35 3.36 3.63 3.66 3.21 3.35 9534000 32249190 28130 NOW CORP 2.48 2.5 2.75 2.75 2.45 2.48 3959000 10311590 -297940 0.28 0.285 0.29 0.29 0.28 0.29 2500000 708650 TRANSPACIFIC BR PHILWEB 2.58 2.64 2.65 2.66 2.58 2.64 824000 2154310 -26230 2GO GROUP 9.7 9.75 9.8 9.8 9.7 9.7 11300 109960 ASIAN TERMINALS 18 18.5 18 18 18 18 98100 1765800 1765800 5.26 5.27 5.49 5.49 5.27 5.27 1359000 7275990 -17593 CHELSEA 91 91.35 91.35 91.35 89.85 91 50360 4554868.5 -1876502.5 CEBU AIR INTL CONTAINER 119.8 120.5 118 121.7 117.2 120.5 1140780 137515313 23853359 LBC EXPRESS 13.1 13.98 13.1 13.1 13.1 13.1 900 11790 17 17.02 16.9 17.2 16.62 17.18 74600 1270086 -19942 MACROASIA 0.98 1 1 1 1 1 17000 17000 METROALLIANCE A METROALLIANCE B 1.03 1.15 1.03 1.03 1.03 1.03 18000 18540 PAL HLDG 7.5 7.7 7.52 8 7.3 7.5 19600 147914 1.17 1.2 1.13 1.19 1.13 1.19 939000 1101020 170000 HARBOR STAR 1.43 1.5 1.52 1.56 1.5 1.5 4000 6100 ACESITE HOTEL DISCOVERY WORLD 1.97 2.04 2 2 2 2 15000 30000 WATERFRONT 0.6 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.6 0.6 489000 293520 FAR EASTERN U 890.5 900 891 891 890 890.5 700 623130 213720 7.75 8.2 7.73 8.29 7.73 8.29 3000 23750 IPEOPLE STI HLDG 0.63 0.66 0.64 0.65 0.64 0.65 5377000 3472570 -2296840 BERJAYA 4.1 4.14 3.91 4.17 3.91 4.1 2775000 11365080 -218310 BLOOMBERRY 10.88 10.9 10.4 10.98 10.4 10.9 3894600 41078346 32805172 2.5 2.57 2.53 2.53 2.43 2.5 99000 247440 -25300 PACIFIC ONLINE 2.69 2.72 2.72 2.72 2.69 2.7 576000 1554930 1350000 LEISURE AND RES MANILA JOCKEY 3.36 3.39 3.39 3.39 3.39 3.39 30000 101700 PH RESORTS GRP 4.46 4.5 4.46 4.5 4.46 4.5 5100 22946 0.57 0.58 0.59 0.59 0.57 0.58 1251000 728360 -128590 PREMIUM LEISURE 11.46 11.48 11.44 11.5 11.44 11.48 3368600 38667760 14238162 ALLHOME METRO RETAIL 2.1 2.12 2.12 2.13 2.09 2.1 1949000 4112290 -521610 PUREGOLD 38.95 39.5 38.9 39.6 38.8 39.5 449000 17471620 -784200 73.6 75 74.8 75 74 75 238240 17865284 15869950 ROBINSONS RTL 140 149.4 158.8 158.8 140 149.4 1233570 172700082 -0 PHIL SEVEN CORP SSI GROUP 2.49 2.53 2.5 2.54 2.48 2.53 1713000 4301600 2035010 WILCON DEPOT 17.94 17.96 17.98 18.08 17.9 17.96 4829000 86908080 -8056910 0.43 0.435 0.455 0.455 0.43 0.43 2350000 1020850 -48900 APC GROUP 8 8.4 8.31 8.75 8 8 34400 282955 5190 EASYCALL GOLDEN BRIA 417.2 424.8 427 427 417.2 417.2 250 104398 PRMIERE HORIZON 0.425 0.43 0.415 0.435 0.415 0.43 840000 359350 -4300 8.8 9.12 8.82 9.12 8.77 9.12 18200 160514 SBS PHIL CORP

MINING & OIL ATOK 10.12 11.02 11.04 11.04 10.12 11.04 300 3220 APEX MINING 0.97 0.98 0.99 1.01 0.97 0.98 785000 777220 -91950 0.0015 0.0016 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 29000000 43500 ABRA MINING ATLAS MINING 2.4 2.41 2.41 2.41 2.41 2.41 11000 26510 -9640 COAL ASIA HLDG 0.27 0.28 0.27 0.27 0.27 0.27 140000 37800 CENTURY PEAK 2.65 2.7 2.79 2.79 2.65 2.65 751000 2026900 7.05 7.15 7.56 7.56 7.02 7.05 1467300 10364753 DIZON MINES FERRONICKEL 1.49 1.51 1.51 1.51 1.49 1.49 2328000 3485810 1445250 GEOGRACE 0.2 0.206 0.209 0.209 0.2 0.207 70000 14160 LEPANTO A 0.095 0.097 0.094 0.097 0.094 0.095 4730000 446080 0.091 0.101 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 80000 8000 LEPANTO B MARCVENTURES 0.93 0.95 0.93 0.95 0.93 0.95 21000 19550 NIHAO 1 1.03 1.04 1.04 1 1.04 3000 3080 NICKEL ASIA 2.89 2.92 2.99 3.01 2.88 2.92 2536000 7507380 -130190 0.46 0.48 0.455 0.46 0.45 0.46 620000 279450 OMICO CORP PX MINING 2.93 2.95 2.96 2.96 2.93 2.95 606000 1785870 -235710 SEMIRARA MINING 20.2 20.4 20.3 20.5 20.15 20.4 1072200 21822290 401605.0001 UNITED PARAGON 0.0054 0.0058 0.0054 0.0059 0.0054 0.0059 6000000 32900 7.17 7.18 7.74 7.75 7.18 7.18 688400 5081976 243311 AC ENEXOR 0.011 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.012 15000000 180000 ORNTL PETROL A PHILODRILL 0.01 0.011 0.01 0.011 0.01 0.011 46500000 483400 PXP ENERGY 9.08 9.09 9.06 9.1 9 9.08 1016100 9157691 69307

PREFFERED

HOUSE PREF A 97.75 99.55 97.65 99.6 97.65 99.55 650 63762.5 AC PREF B1 501 508 501 501 501 501 3000 1503000 101.3 103.3 101.3 101.3 101.3 101.3 500 50650 ALCO PREF B AC PREF B2R 501 503 502 502 501 501 400 200510 SMC FB PREF 2 997 997.5 997.5 997.5 997 997 2800 2792950 FPH PREF C 490 499.4 490 490 490 490 20 9800 963 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 3160 3160000 GTCAP PREF B MWIDE PREF 99.2 100 100.1 100.1 100 100 21150 2115370 PNX PREF 3B 105 108.9 107 109 105 105 56290 5939292 PNX PREF 4 1020 1028 1028 1028 1028 1028 1855 1906940 1855540 1025 1030 1026 1026 1025 1025 3665 3756630 PCOR PREF 3A SMC PREF 2C 78 78.45 78.4 78.45 78 78.45 121540 9486345.5 SMC PREF 2D 75.3 75.5 75.3 75.5 75.3 75.5 4000 301600 SMC PREF 2F 77 77.7 77.4 77.75 77.4 77.75 10800 836515.5 -376938 75.4 76.9 75.4 78 75.35 75.5 23090 1761786 SMC PREF 2G SMC PREF 2H 75.6 75.85 75.8 75.8 75.8 75.8 26700 2023860 SMC PREF 2I 76.1 76.75 76.1 76.1 76.1 76.1 61700 4695370 PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR GMA HLDG PDR

15.7 5.03

15.8 5.18

15.6 5.18

15.8 5.18

15.6 5.18

15.8 5.18

77700 1000

1224520 5180

WARRANTS LR WARRANT

1.33

-812420 5180

1.45

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

ITALPINAS 4 KEPWEALTH 9.9 XURPAS 0.86

4.04 10.02 0.87

3.89 9.71 0.87

4.06 10.38 0.88

3.84 9.71 0.86

4 10 0.87

403000 266300 501000

1595210 2668222 433610

-7150 -

FIRST METRO ETF

116.8

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS 116.7

116.2

117

116.2

116.7

3770

439839

15197

www.businessmirror.com.ph

South Korea’s Lotte offers to buy all of local Pepsi-Cola for ₧4.15B

L

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

OTTE Chilsung Beverage Co., one of the biggest beverage companies in South Korea, has offered to buy all of the shares of bottler PepsiCola Products Philippines Inc. that it still does not own.

Shares of Pepsi-Cola were suspended for trading as a result of the offer.

In its disclosure Lotte Chilsung, the owner of brands such as Milkis aside from other popular Pepsi-Cola brands, is buying some 2.13 billion common shares of the local bottling firm or about 57.78 percent for P1.95 apiece,

or a premium from its P1.40 per share close on Tuesday.

The deal is worth about P4.15 billion.

Lotte Corp. already owns at least 38.88 percent of Pepsi-Cola.

Pepsi-Cola suffered a net loss of P65.95 million for the third quarter ending September, deeper than last year’s loss of P32.55 mil-

lion. For the nine months of the year, however, it still reported a net income of P380.1 million, a turnaround from last year’s loss of P81.19 million.

The company on Wednesday also said it formalized the halting of its local manufacture of Cheetos snack franchise.

“Successfully reaching this agreement allows PCPPI to advance and renew its focus and commitment to a more sustainable future, while optimizing and strengthening the production and distribution of carbonated and non-carbonated beverages to millions nationwide, with the brands Filipinos love,” it said in its disclosure.

“PepsiCo will continue to import and sell Cheetos in the Philippines, along with its other brands of snacks,” it said.

Pepsi-Cola started locally producing Cheetos in 2015, spending some P650 million for its entry in the junk food market in the country, where it competed head-on with main players Universal Robina Corp., Liwayway Holdings Co. Ltd. and Leslie Corp., among others.

The company has been booking start-up losses from its snacks line since the start of production.

Its snacks line, meanwhile, has been contributing little to its revenues. Last year, snacks line generated some P200 million in net sales out of the P33.59 billion in total. That figure is lower than the P267 million it sold in 2017.

For the six months of the year ending June, its snacks line contributed sales of P50 million as against the P20.87 billion worth of gross sales from its carbonated and non-carbonated drinks.

Talino Venture Labs unveils new mobile apps in insurance and lending markets

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

S

TART-UP incubator Talino Venture Labs launched on Tuesday evening three new mobile apps that are geared toward tapping a hugely unserved market in the insurance, lending and regulatory compliance markets.

Winston Damarillo, the CEO of Talino Venture Labs, said his group is primarily focused on creating new tech-based services that promote inclusion by providing basic services to the lower end of the economic ladder.

He led the formal introduction of insurance-tech app Saphron, lending app Asenso and legal compliance app Unawa.

“Inclusion is good business and that’s very true,” he said. “Inclusion tech simplifies the way that people buy insurance, take loans and others. We actually think it’s a really good business and it’s not heavily competed.”

He cited a recently released study conducted by Google and Temasek that found that the Internet economy in the Philippines will reach $25 billion in gross merchandise value by 2025, or triple its currently value.

“What this immediately points

out is that we in Southeast Asia are no longer just in the sidelines of the Internet economy. We have a large, digital-savvy, and tech-driven population that now consumes online.

But, there is still a huge underserved market at the base of the pyramid.

For us to fully realize the potential of our market, we need to empower the underserved with more inclusive digital products and services,” Damarillo said. He noted that his group has become the first “inclusion tech” venture builder in the region, as it addresses a “large unmet need.”

“We build tech start-ups in partnership with industry leaders, to drive tech-accelerated inclusion and access for Asia’s emerging economies with scale and agility,” he said.

For instance, Saphron allows users to purchase online various micro and modular insurance products that offer protection for individuals and families.

Asenso, on the other hand, offers fair and responsible capital, an integrated supply chain, broader market access, smarter rewards and loyalty campaigns, and microinsurance to sari-sari stores and agripreneurs.

Last, Unawa provides legal and regulatory advice and services to users, especially businesses.

Axelum allots P600-M capex for 2020

C

OCONUT products manufacturer Axelum Resources Corp. said it will spend some P500 million to P600 million next year to further strengthen its production capabilities and broaden its geographic reach.

The company said it intends to invest in pioneering technology and equipment to optimize manufacturing output as it plans to penetrate new markets or expand within existing territories by setting up regional distribution hubs and appointing reputable foreign distribution partners.

Axelum said it is on track to hit its target for the year after its income grew more than half during the nine months ending September to P609 million from last year’s P364.8 million.

“At this rate, we are on-track to meet or even surpass our own profit expectations,” Henry J. Raperoga, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said.

“We have yet to maximize our presence in the global scale. As

such, we are looking to aggressively widen our footprint particularly in the United States West Coast, Eastern Europe and Asia,” Raperoga said.

The company said its nontraditional segment, specifically coconut water and coconut milk powder, will continue to drive its growth momentum in 2020.

Axelum said is finalizing the renewal of its coconut water supply contract with its anchor client, and such will include additional product variants translating to higher annual committed volumes of 25 million to 27 million liters from 20 million to 22 million liters.

Recently, the company also completed the extension of its spray-drying line that will double its production capacity for coconut milk powder from 2,400 metric tons to 4,800 metric tons per year to allow the company to capitalize on the healthy demand for coconut milk powder, which is known for its extensive commercial applications. VG Cabuag

“At the heart of our work at Talino is the belief that we can build the region’s next unicorns by unlocking the power of our previously untapped

mutual funds

sectors. When we empower everyone from the base of the pyramid to first-time entrepreneurs, everybody wins,” Damarillo said.

December 11, 2019

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 249.85 0.33% 0.59% -0.9% -0.93% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 1.3815 0.14% 1.03% -2.9% -4.12% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 3.6822 -4% -2.21% -3.11% -5.66% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.8915 1.01% n.a. n.a.

-1.05% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.8465 3.75% n.a. n.a.

3.14% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 5.2716 2.25% 1.94% -0.8% -0.03% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,6 0.8459 2.92% -1.96% n.a.

1.1% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a

105.64 -7.65% n.a. n.a.

-9.06% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 50.8025 4.8% 3.1% n.a.

3.21% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 528.96 4.24% 1.91% -0.34% 2.76% Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d ,8 0.9997 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 1.2791 2.92% 2.47% 0.7% 2% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 37.6265 3.98% 3.35% 0.58% 2.71% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,1 1.0121 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

5.95% Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 5.173 3.62% 1.57% 4.32% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a 863.15 5.84% 3.51% 1.5% 4.19% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 0.8535 0.48% 1.05% n.a.

-0.76% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 4.1838 3.96% 2.93% 0.69% 3.08% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.9909 5.44% 3.32% n.a.

3.84% United Fund, Inc. -a 3.6324 4.91% 4.99% 2.3% 3.76% Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 115.7407 6.18% 4.24% 2.49% 4.51% ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b

$0.9772 4.52% 3.98% -0.15% 5.18% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.3458 14.13% 9.19% n.a.

21.77% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.5563 -5.12% -2.72% -4.04% -5.75% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 2.1899 0.34% -0.76% -1.23% -0.87% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.6106 4.45% 2.26% -1.23% 2.65% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,5 0.2275 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Grepalife Balanced Fund Corporation -a 1.329 2.55% n.a. n.a.

1.89% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a 1.9538 6.79% 2.77% 1.09% 6.01% 2.06% 0.22% 6.7% PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.7658 7.43% Philam Fund, Inc. -a 16.8478 6.82% 1.9% 0.14% 5.91% Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 2.1171 3.41% 1.64% 0.81% 2.31% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.8398 5.7% 2.82% 0.57% 5.16% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d,2 1.0067 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d,2 0.9868 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d,2 0.9837 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.9699 5.41% 2.15% -0.33% 5.23% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a $0.03818 9.18% 2.96% 1.98% 8.16% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -a $1.0012 6.22% 3.8% 0.42% 9.58% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $3.8465 11.29% 7.24% 3.67% 16.26% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,7 $1.1171 8.88% 4.38% n.a.

11.15% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 356.87 4.12% 2.73% 2.27% 3.9% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a

1.9292 4.48% 0.67% -0.32% 3.77% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.1122 5.05% 5.22% 5.21% 4.57% 4.17% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.2179 4.18% 2.35% 1.84% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.3509 6.53% 2.16% 1.42% 6.61% Grepalife Fixed Income Fund Corp. -a P 1.6068 2.66% 1.03% -0.32% 2.71% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.348 11.12% 2.51% 1.5% 10.92% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a

3.7554 7.57% 2.62% 1.44% 6.78% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 0.9573 7.37% 1.21% n.a.

7.42% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.0551 10.42% 4.6% 2.44% 10.46% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a

1.689 9.75% 4.15% 1.88% 9.68% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $467.37 4.42% 2.64% 2.74% 4.23% Є219.66 3.45% 1.7% 1.34% 3.29% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.2045 7.16% 3.09% 2.54% 7% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0258 3.61% 1.33% 1.29% 4.03% Grepalife Dollar Bond Fund Corp. -a $1.7088 1.2% -0.3% 0.08% 1.1% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -a $1.0933 6.1% 1.21% -0.88% 5.5% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.3982 11.29% 3.29% 2.9% 10.48% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0602926 5.84% 2.27% 1.96% 5.78% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.1679 10.38% 2.76% 2.48% 10.3% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 125.58 4.16% 2.81% 2.16% 3.89% First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a,3 1.0302 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a 1.2524 6.17% 2.83% 1.65% 5.96% Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.2625 3.78% 2.87% 2.31% 3.55% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0363 2.09% n.a. n.a.

2.01% Feeder Fund Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,4 $0.99 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day. b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago. c - Listed in the PSE. d - in Net Asset Value per Unit (NAVPU).

1 - Launch date is January 3, 2019. 2 - Launch date is January 28, 2019. 3 - Launch date is February 1, 2019. 4 - Launch date is November 15, 2019.

5 - Launch date is September 28, 2019. 6 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last October 12, 2018 (formerly, One Wealthy Nation Fund, Inc.).

7 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019. 8 - Launch date is December 02, 2019.

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

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Banks lap up BSP shorter-term deposit on anticipated demand

L

OCAL banks favored the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) shorter term deposit offerings on Wednesday indicating that financial institutions are getting ready for the liquidity demand surge in the coming holiday season.

The BSP’s term deposit facility (TDF) auction this week showed oversubscription in both the 7-day and 15-day term deposit offerings but fell short in the 28-day offering for Wednesday.

The higher volume offerings lured local lenders.

Total tenders for the 7-day TDF during the week hit P66.835 billion, overflowing from the P60-billion offering for the week.

The same is true with the 15-day TDF, as

bids hit P69.993 billion. The total volume offered for the week was also at P60 billion for this tenor.

However, the 28-day TDF was undersubscribed with bids only at P44.71 billion of the P60 billion offered for the week.

“The BSP offered P180 billion in today’s auction, a slight increase from the previous week’s offer of P170 billion, with a P60-billion allocation for each of the three tenors,” the BSP said. “The upward adjustment was

HSBC agrees to pay $192M to resolve US tax probe

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SBC Holdings Plc. admitted that it helped hundreds of American clients hide more than $1 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and agreed to pay $192.4 million to resolve a decade-long US tax investigation.

Prosecutors filed a charge of conspiracy to defraud the US against a unit of the bank, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA, but agreed to drop it in three years if it abides by a deal submitted on Tuesday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

From at least 2000 through 2010, HSBC Switzerland “assisted US persons in concealing their offshore assets and income from US tax authorities, evading their US tax obligations and filing false federal tax returns with the IRS,” according to the conspiracy charge.

The settlement follows years of Justice Department and IRS battles against Swiss banks, taxpayers and enablers over undeclared accounts, which led to settlements with dozens of banks. It also caps a decade in which HSBC, an Asia-focused lender, entered into two other deferred-prosecution agreements with the US and spent heavily on improving internal controls. For the past two years, the Bank of England has warned HSBC that it hasn’t done enough to tackle concerns about handling risks including financial crime and staff conduct.

“HSBC Switzerland conspired with US account holders to conceal assets abroad and evade taxes that every American must pay,” said Stuart M. Goldberg, the acting deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

In a “statement of facts,” HSBC Switzerland admitted that it helped 720 US clients hide $825 million in assets from the IRS. The amount of undeclared assets rose to $1.26 billion in 2007, before dropping by half three years later. HSBC Switzerland offered a variety of traditional Swiss banking services that helped clients cheat the IRS, including advising clients to withdraw less than $10,000 to avoid reporting requirements, and providing credit, debit and travel cards to access funds.

Many banks have made similar admissions. UBS Group AG said in 2009 that it helped thousands of clients cheat the IRS and paid $780 million, and Credit Suisse Group AG reached a $2.6-billion deal in 2014. Another 80 Swiss banks avoided prosecution by agreeing to pay $1.37 billion in penalties and voluntarily disclosing their wrongdoing as part of a Justice Department program.

HSBC has been caught up in other scandals as well. In 2012, the bank paid $1.9 billion in penalties, admitting that it failed to prevent Latin American drug cartels from laundering money and violated US sanctions against Iran. Within a year, its reform efforts met resistance from leaders of HSBC’s US investment-banking unit —some of whom mounted a campaign of bullying, foot-dragging and discrediting in-house watchdogs, according to a courtappointed monitor.

Soon after that deal expired, the bank agreed in early 2018 to pay about $100

million to resolve an investigation into rigging of currency rates. Later that year, the bank agreed to pay $765 million to settle allegations that it sold defective residential mortgage-backed securities.

In the tax case, HSBC bankers told clients not to receive bank statements in the US mail or carry them back from Switzerland.

The bank used wholly owned or affiliated companies to offer people in tax-haven countries to serve as trustees or directors of shell companies that helped hide the true owners of accounts. From 2005 to 2007, at least four bankers on the North American desk traveled to the US to advise existing client and troll for new ones at events like Design Miami.

On numerous occasions from 2002 through 2006, bankers used an HSBC Switzerland account to purchase art at auction for a client, known as Client 1, according to the statement of facts. On another occasion, bankers used it to pay for a luxury vacation package provider.

In 2008, as the US crackdown on offshore tax evasion took root, the bank began forcing US clients with undeclared accounts to close accounts. But bankers helped clients close accounts “in a manner that continued to conceal their offshore assets,” according to the bank’s admissions.

HSBC has undertaken “substantial remedial measures and extensively cooperated” with the Justice Department, according to the agreement. It contacted the Justice Department in December 2008, conducted an internal investigation, and reported its misconduct.

“We are pleased to resolve this legacy matter,” said Alex Classen, the chief executive officer of HSBC Private Bank (Suisse), who attended the Tuesday hearing. “Over the past decade we have strengthened our compliance function, enhanced our control framework and put in place a comprehensive client tax transparency policy.”

In recent years, the bank quintupled the number of employees assigned to spot suspicious activity to 5,000, upgraded its technology and, in 2016, hired Jennifer Calvery, the US Treasury Department’s top anti-money-laundering official, to oversee its efforts.

Still, the tax case was left unresolved for at least eight years. In 2011, the IRS went to court to seek information about Americans with accounts at HSBC India from 2002 to 2010. Through 2010, about 9,000 US residents had nonresident Indian accounts of $100,000 or more, and only 1,391 disclosed them to the US in 2009, the IRS said in court filings. The clients had deposits of almost $400 million.

In 2013, a New Jersey businessman who cooperated with prosecutors avoided prison after admitting he conspired with five HSBC bankers to hide Indian bank accounts from the IRS. Several other HSBC clients were convicted of tax crimes.

HSBC Switzerland has effectively exited the US market, and now has fewer than 5,000 accounts in total, a decrease of more than 85 percent since the late 2000s, according to the agreement. Bloomberg News

due to expected higher liquidity from the implementation of the reduction in reserve requirements of banks.”

The central bank further said that Wednesday’s auction results were generally in line with their expectations.

“The 7-day and 14-day tenors were oversubscribed while the 28-day TDF was undersubscribed as banks preferred the shorter tenors in view of the holiday season,” the BSP said.

The TDF is one of the BSP’s liquidity absorption facilities to management circulation in the economy.

As banks bid to park funds in the BSP’s facility, the TDF effectively siphons off a part of this structural liquidity from the financial system to bring market rates closer to the BSP’s main policy rate.

The average rate for the 7-day TDF increased by 2.1 basis points while that for the 14-day and 28-day tenors declined by 0.6 basis points and 0.3 basis points, respectively.

The BSP is scheduled to have its last monetary policy meeting for the year on December 12. Bianca Cuaresma

Thursday, December 12, 2019 B3

PDIC releases amended rules on banks’ use of agency signs

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HE Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. has released regulations amending the Regulatory Insurance (RI) on the use of its official signs in banks following the launch of the new PDIC logo.

The official insurance statement replaces the long-standing statement, “Member: PDIC. Maximum deposit insurance per depositor P500,000,” and the short title, “Member: PDIC.” According to PDIC, the amendments contained in RI 2019-01 prescribe the guidelines, procedures and standards on the use, display requirements, and procurement of the PDIC seal, official insurance statement and official signs, among others. RI 2019-01 took effect on November 15, 2019. The RI states that the PDIC official signs in banks should come in forms of sticker, desktop standee, and electronic or digital image for automated teller machines issued by PDIC. These official signs bear the PDIC seal and the official PDIC insurance statement.

Under RI 2019-01, banks are required

to prominently and continuously post the PDIC sticker at the entrance of its head office, branches and branch-lite units, and the PDIC desktop standee at the bank’s counters or windows where deposits are received in the head office and branch-lite units.

The regulation also authorizes the state deposit insurer to remove the PDIC seal, official insurance statement, and PDIC official signs in any display, sign, or exhibit of banks, to discontinue their use if these are found inconsistent with the policy objective of said RI, and to impose sanctions against an erring bank or its officials and employees.

The bank and its directors, officers, employees, or agents found in violation of the pertinent sections of the RI shall be subject to administrative fines, and may also be liable for civil and criminal actions as provided for in Republic Act 3591, as amended, or the PDIC Charter.

The PDIC started distributing to banks complimentary copies of the new decals and standees during the fourth quarter of the year. Jove Moya

TheBroa A DECADE LATER, LEGA WORLD’S LARGEST WA B4

Business

Thursday, December 12, 2019

By the BusinessMirror Broader Look Team

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WENTY-THREE years ago, an elephant that couldn’t fly became lean and water was separated into two.

These characterized the world’s largest water privatization: the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System (MWSS)—the elephant, according to former government official Mark Dumol— shredded a large chunk of its workforce when its water business was halved into the East Zone and the West Zone.

MWSS no longer was the operator; it became a regulator and franchisor of water for East Zone franchisee Ayala Corp. and West Zone franchisee Benpres Holdings Inc. beginning August 1, 1997.

This almost came to naught because of a legal tussle prior to the bidding for the contract, according to Dumol, then Chief of Staff at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). In his book The Manila Water Concession: A Key Government Official’s Diary of the World’s Largest Water Privatization, Dumol said that while a Committee on Privatization reviewed documents related to the business transaction, the Court of Appeals (CA) issued a 20-day restraining order on the awards of contract.

Dumol wrote that then-President Fidel V. Ramos “vowed to fight the [RO], using all of the government’s resources.” Ramos and his administration did, and Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co. Inc. took over the operation previously led by the MWSS.

More than two decades later, a tiff between the MWSS, Maynilad and Manila Water and the Supreme Court on waste water muddies the generation, storage and distribution of a very essential resource.

Waste not, want not

THE legal row on dirty water revolves around two sections of the CWA, or the “Clean Water Act of 2004” [Republic Act (RA) 9275]: Sections 7 and 8. Included in the legal tussle are the fines and penalties imposed on the regulator and the concessionaires when they were sued by the agencies attached to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) because of these sections.

Section 8 of the CWA provides that “within five years following the effectivity of this Act, the Agency vested to provide water supply and sewerage facilities and/or concessionaires in Metro Manila and other HUCs [highly urbanized cities] as defined in Republic Act 7160, in coordination with LGUs [local government units], shall be required to connect the existing sewage line found in all subdivisions, condominiums, commercial centers, hotels, sports and recreational facilities, hospitals, market places, public buildings, industrial complex and other similar establishments including households to available sewerage system: Provided, that the said connection shall be subject to sewerage services charge/fees in accordance with existing laws, rules or regulations unless the sources had already utilized their own sewerage system: Provided, further, that all sources of sewage and septage shall comply with the requirements herein.”

Section 8 continued that, “in areas not considered as HUCs, the DPWH in coordination with the Department, DOH [Department of Health] and other concerned agencies, shall employ septage or combined sewerage-septage management system.”

A world of difference

MAYNILAD said in its Motion for Reconsideration (MR)—in the High Court’s August 2019 decision upholding the DENR’s fines—that the SC literally interpreted Setion 8 and failed to consider that it is “related to and is dependent on Section 7, considering that the NSSMP [National Program on Sewerage and Septage Management] required under the latter provision is, by express wording, to be prepared in connection with Section 8 of the same law.”

Maynilad added, “This is confirmed when one takes into consideration the definition and contents of the NSSMP” under Rule 7 of DENR Administrative Order (AO) 2005-10 dated May 16, 2005, otherwise known as the CWA implementing rules and regulations (IRR), “which specifically implements Section 7 of the CWA.” Thus, Maynilad said it “most respectfully moves for the reconsideration of the [SC] decision” dated August 6, 2019. Maynilad said it received the SC decision on September 17 while its MR is dated December 11, 2019.

Manila Water, on the other hand, said in its prefatory statement in its own MR, that it is presenting to the High Court the “proper interpretation of the provisions” cited in Section 8.

Manila Water asks if it is “mandated within five years from enactment of the law [the CWA] to establish a complete centralized sewerage system or interconnect sewage lines existing at the time of the enactment of the law to available sewerage systems.”

The Ayala-led Manila Water noted, “With all due respect, there is a world of difference between the two.”

Manila Water explained that, “from an urban development perspective, it is impossible to establish a complete centralized sewerage system that will service a steadily rising urban population within just five years.”

It continued: “Such undertaking in such a timeframe would require simultaneous excavation in the roads that would bring the metropolis to a standstill.”

Tariffs, taxes

ACCORDING to Maynilad, the SC’s “isolated and overly restrictive reading of Section 8 of the CWA has consequences which are prejudicial to the trust beneficiaries— the general public—under [a] ‘Public Trust Doctrine.’”

In its MR, the Pangilinan-led Maynilad added that, “In addition to promoting the fragmented approach abhorred by the CWA, and thereby aggravating the overall water pollution problem, the isolationist approach to Section 8 of the CWA, which forces compliance [whether then or now] in a span of five years, has other detrimental consequences [that] impose great burden on the general public.”

It explained: “First, forcing complete interconnection in a span of five years would result in a huge financial burden on Maynilad’s customers.”

It is the MWSS, the company explained, that has the power to fix periodically the water rates, which include the sewerage charge. “In fixing the rates or in determining the adjustments thereto during a

rate rebasing exercise, the past receipts and expenditures as well as the anticipated receipts and expenditures of the concessionaires are taken into consideration.”

The company also emphasized “that the expenditures involved in completing interconnection in just a span of five years, if it were to be effective at all, would not only pertain to the connection of all existing sewage lines to available sewerage systems, but also, to the acquisition of all the necessary land and rights-of-way/road access to build sufficient wastewater treatment facilities that are necessary to treat sewage and septage, and likewise, to the construction, operation and maintainenace of said facilities.”

Expenditures massive

MAYNILAD said that “requiring all of these to be done in a span of five years would mean massive expenditures in a short period of time, thereby resulting in unacceptable tariff levels which the general public will have great difficulty paying.”

Based on its financial projections, Maynilad said it would have to spend more than P149 billion using 2019 prices to put up sufficient wastewater facilities to meet 100-percent sewerage coverage by 2022. Such expenditure would result in an increase in tariff by P11.74 per cubic meter, which is more than twice the tariff increase of P5.73 for the period 2018 to 2022, or almost P49 per cubic meter, Maynilad explained.

“This does not yet consider the capital expenditures needed for the development of alternative water sources, concession fee payments and other costs to operate the water and wastewater treatment facilities of Maynilad,” the company added.

Such “sudden increase would cripple common Filipinos’ access to water, as many would be unable to shoulder such high financial burden, especially in these difficult times where they are already dealing with skyrocketing prices of other equally important necessities like food, electricity and gasoline,” Maynilad claimed. “Worse, even with the drastic increase in expenditure, it would be difficult to guarantee the efficiency of a sewerage and septage management program that is haphazardlyimplemented, and even lacking, in terms of guidance from the respective government agencies like the DOH and the DPWH.”

Road congestion

INTERCONNECTING all the sewage lines in the service area of Maynilad within a period of five years will aggravate the already unacceptable traffic situation in Metro Manila, the utility claimed in its MR. This, at a time when Metro Manila has been declared the most congested developing Asian city in a 2019 report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In 2018, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) had estimated that the country was losing P3.5 billion daily due to traffic congestion in Metro Manila.

Maynilad said assuming it pushed for the interconnection of all sewage lines within five years as demanded by the SC’s decision, the Jica estimates it “would most certainly soar to unconscionable amounts.”

The company said that for Maynilad alone, achieving 100-percent sewerage coverage for its concession area in a span of five years would mean having to lay down sewer lines with a total length of 424,283 meters within

the said period.

“Even assuming that this is humanly possible given such distance and time period, traffic within the affected areas would have to be at a complete standstill in order to accommodate the excavation works necessary to lay down the said sewer lines,” the company warned.

It added that this is especially true with respect to Metro Manila, where 378,855 meters of the 424,283 meters or 89 percent of the required sewer lines will have to be installed.

Five years

IT must be stressed that the works required to install a centralized sewerage network involve an extensive excavation of major and

minor thoroughfares. Conventional methods of trench digging for large-bore gravity sewerage would be chaotic and would take decades to implement.

As sewage pipelines must be installed five meters, on the average, below the ground (vis-a-vis water lines which are installed only a meter, on the average, below ground), contractors would have to dig deep, which in itself is also a difficult process considering the numerous factors affecting the process of excavation, like soil liquefaction and positioning of existing pipelines, among others, the utility pointed out.

“With such intricacies and considering the length of sewerage lines that need to be installed, re-

quiring interconnection in a span of five years [assuming possible] would lead to a complete standstill of traffic in roads and thoroughfares in Metro Manila, as well as portions of Cavite, and, as a consequence, adversely impact businesses and the economy in general.”

In residential areas bordering central business districts and even in commercial districts, the roads are too narrow that they sometimes cannot accommodate even two-way traffic. Rerouting in these areas could be possible if work were to be done only at certain times of the day.

But Maynilad asserted that if it simultaneously worked on interconnecting all sewage lines within the area as the SC deci-

aderLook

sMirror

Editor: Dennis D. Estopace | Thursday, December 12, 2019

B5

AL TIFF STILL HAUNTS

ATER PRIVATIZATION ter resources, but also ensure that the populace has access to safe and reliable water supply.”

The penalty explained

IN its decision, the SC upheld the CA’s decision in finding Manila Water and Maynilad to have violated Section 8.

The two companies were imposed a fine amounting to P921,464,184 each, based on the assumption they must establish a complete centralized sewerage system within five years from effectivity of the CWA. The SC noted that as of 2016, Manila Water had only completed 19 percent of a complete centralized sewerage system. Maynilad had attained only 13-percent sewerage coverage for its water-served population as of April 30, 2017.

“Basing on Maynilad and Manila Water’s own assertions, petitioners’ compliance with Section 8 of the law is dismal at best,” the SC said. “Given that a decade has already passed following the effectivity of the Clean Water Act, both concessionaires’ compliance to Section 8 at this current year do not even reach 20-percent sewerage coverage.”

Meanwhile, Buhay Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) whom the water companies had sued all the way to the SC when he imposed the fines, expressed relief over the SC’s August 2019 ruling at a recent BusinessMirror Coffee Club Forum organized by the ALC Media Group.

Atienza pointed to the huge incomes reported yearly by the two concessionaires in a bid to show that their operations, while requiring huge investments, were very profitable.

KLOEG008 | DREAMSTIME.COM

What about the LGUs?

sion would impose, there would be no alternative routes left for individuals residing in or passing through the area.

Overspending

MANILA Water also raised the traffic congestion flag and the amount of investments required.

The company claimed that “even under the most optimistic of projections,” a complete centralized sewerage system would require an estimated total investment of at least P114.836 billion in capital expenses and P57.4 billion in operating expenses, or a total expenditure of P172.240 billion to complete the project within a period of 19 years. It added that the traffic congestion concomitant

to the project would cost P3.5 billion in losses, which translates to a daily loss of an estimated P274 for every motorist in Metro Manila, which is a few steps behind Metro Manila’s minimum wage of P345.

“It bears emphasis that the investment required is actually on par with cities of comparable size, population and density to that of Metro Manila,” Manila Water said.

It cited as example Singapore’s development of its sewerage system to achieve full coverage within 40 years. The firm added that in Hong Kong, the modernization of the city’s sewerage system required two tranches of investments amounting to $8.1 billion with projected annual operating cost of $1.43 billion and $10.8 billion,

with projected additional annual operating cost of $700 million to ensure full sewer coverage within eight years.

Recoup expenses

MANILA Water said that as of December 2018, it had already spent a total of P38.5 billion for wastewater projects, greater than the P36.9 billion it collected in sewer charges.

“On the assumption that costs related to the full implementation of the sewerage network are to be recovered by the concessionaires, by the end of the concession agreement, the fees that ought to be collected from the end consumers [on top of their water consumption] would amount to P26.70 per cubic meter—or a 780.18-percent

increase in water rates.

“In Metro Manila, where the median household monthly income is P35,416.67 per month with P29,083.33 going to expenses, the additional fees would not only eat into the meager savings of the average Filipino household, but also potentially divert funds supposedly dedicated to other necessities,” Manila Water said. “In this regard, the additional expenses clearly have an exclusionary effect since it makes it more difficult for the average Filipino family to have access to water.”

It told the High Tribunal that “this setup is diametrically opposed to the very spirit” of the Clean Water Act, “which aims to not only improve the quality of wa-

THE total P2-billion fine imposed by the SC, meanwhile, has been cited as “excessive” and unjust by the water concessionaires.

Maynilad said it “and other water concessionaires have been unjustly singled out to suffer the detrimental consequences of the SC’s decision, despite and in spite of the glaring failure of other government players to concomitantly take the necessary steps to implement the CWA.” “Without the LGU’s cooperation in appropriating needed land and right-of-way/road access; as well as the required DOH Guidelines and Standards on sewage, the DPWH’s NSSMP, and the DENR’s Water Quality Management Strategy Action Plan, the mandated interconnection of all sewerage lines within a five-year time frame is to force Maynilad to walk blindly into an undertaking which will unduly disrupt the everyday lives of the metropolis’ citizens,” the company said.

“Moreover, by the imposition of penal sanctions in the form of excessive fines, inflicted without the benefit of an evidentiary hearing, and therefore in the nature of a bill of attainder, this Honorable Court would sacrifice Maynilad upon the altar of an erroneous appreciation of wastewater management,” it added in its MR.

Lost legacy?

IN its concluding statements, Maynilad noted the history of the “world’s largest water privatization,” as cited by the International Finance Corp.

Indeed, “more than two decades ago, one of the most sweeping structural reforms in Philippine economy took place—the privatization of water and sewerage services in Greater Manila.”

Maynilad said this “drastic shift was set against the backdrop of an acute water crisis, with large swathes of Greater Manila having little to no supply of potable water, a proliferation of water theft and water smuggling, and lack of access to piped-in water supply.”

“At such time, the MWSS was supplying water to only twothirds of its coverage population, with an average of only 16 hours per day, as opposed to 24 hours in other Southeast Asian countries,” it said. “Out of the roughly 3,000 million liters per day flowing from the Angat reservoir, 56 percent was non-revenue water. With respect to sewerage, MWSS serviced only 8 percent of its coverage population.”

The Philippine government recognized that monumental problems—water supply and sanitation—called for bold action. Thus, RA 8041, or the Water Crisis Act of 1995, was passed, setting the stage for the privatization of state-run water facilities. The Philippine government decided to award concession contracts covering two service areas with a combined population of 11 million and projected investment needs of $7 bllion, the company wrote in its MR.

“In spite of the obstacles ahead and the enormous responsibility on its shoulders, Maynilad rose to the challenge and took it upon itself to do what no other water concessionaire has done,” the company said. “Thereafter, Metro Manila became ‘the biggest metropolis in the developing world to be served by private water operators.’”

These days, as the High Court is still reviewing the two concessionaires’ respective MRs, they both must grapple with yet another challenge. The Executive branch, completing a Justice department review of their 1997 concession agreements with the Ramos administration—and the subsequent 15-year extension to those contracts given by the Arroyo administtration—has hit back at Maynilad and Manila Water, deeming several provisions of the agreements “onerous.”

In marathon hearings at the House of Representatives on Tuesday, officials of both utilities announced they were waiving the collection from the government of separate awards, totalling P10.79 billion, given them by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Singapore. The two companies had sought arbitration because they blamed huge losses on the refusal of the Philippine government—not the Duterte administration—to approve tariff hikes.

Waiving the arbitral awards and deferring scheduled January 2020 rate hikes; not to mention seeing the MWSS revoke its 2008 board resolution extending their original contracts from the 2022 expiration until 2037— the two giant utilities are, indeed, facing existential challenges.

If Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra’s words are any consolation, the present government’s thrust is to redress any part of the 1997 deal that could give rise to more disputes. “The issue of paying the arbitral award is not as important as ensuring that disputes arising from burdensome provisions of the water concession agreements will never happen again in the future,” the DOJ chief said. Among others, he was apparently referring to sovereign guarantees, the restrictions on regulators, and the premature extension of the 25-year contracts.

Unless the government and the private concessionaires find a clear and just way out of this, what was once hailed as the world’s biggest privatization may end up as a major failure.

B6

Thursday, December 12, 2019

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

China sees US delaying Dec. 15 tariff increase as trade talks drag

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hinese officials expect President Donald Trump to delay a threatened tariff increase set for Sunday, giving more time to negotiate an interim trade deal that both sides continue to insist is close to fruition despite a series of missed deadlines, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The two sides, staying in almost daily contact, have also come closer to an agreement on scaling back the tariffs already in place.

But rather than removing or rolling back existing levies, the focus has been on reducing the rate of the tariffs already in effect, according to officials and other people familiar with the talks.

The Trump administration has so far not sent a clear signal on its willingness to agree to a delay on tariffs set to take effect on December 15 on a list comprising some $160 billion of imports from China including consumer items like smartphones and toys.

“It’s the president’s decision,” White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro said on Tuesday. “I’ve got no indication that he’s going to do anything other than have a great deal or put the tariffs on.”

That came a day after US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that he believed there would be “some backing away” from the new wave of levies. People familiar with the discussions say Trump was expected to meet with his trade team on Thursday as discussions continue over a potential delay.

The US has added a 25-percent duty on about $250 billion of Chinese products and a 15-percent levy on another $110 billion of its imports over the course of a 20-month trade war. Discussions now are focused on reducing those rates by as much as half as part of a phase one agreement that would relax tensions and pave the way for further talks.

Saudi Aramco starts trading, gaining 10% and reaching $1.8T

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IYADH, Saudi Arabia—Saudi Arabia’s oil company Aramco began trading for the first time on Wednesday, gaining 10 percent in the first moments on the market and pushing its worth to $1.88 trillion, making it the most valuable listed company in the world.

The state-owned oil giant started trading on the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange after a mammoth $25.6-billion initial public offering that set the record as the biggest ever in history. Trading for Aramco shares began at 10:30 a.m. in Riyadh.

The company had announced a sale of 1.5 percent of its shares at 32 Saudi riyals a share, or what is $8.53.

At a pre-trading auction earlier in the morning, Saudi Aramco’s shares reached its 10-percent cap at 35.2 riyals, or $9.39 a share, according to Saudi state TV. This makes Aramco more valuable than the top 5 oil companies—Exxon Mobil, Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and BP— combined.

Aramco is selling 0.5 percent of its shares to individual investors—most of whom are Saudi nationals—and 1 percent to institutional investors, most of which are Saudi or based in the Gulf.

The company has exclusive rights to produce and sell the kingdom’s energy reserves.

It was founded in 1933 with America’s Standard Oil, and became fully owned by Saudi Arabia by 1980. AP

Asian stocks were mixed and US futures saw a small drop amid concern that the tariff hike on Chinese imports scheduled for Sunday could still go ahead. The onshore yuan weakened to 7.0376 per dollar as of 10 a.m. Hong Kong time.

Beijing sees delaying that increase on imported consumer goods as allowing the talks to continue on the unfinished items in phase one of the accord, two officials said on condition of anonymity because the conversations are private.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told the Fox Business Network on Tuesday that getting the right deal was more important than whether it came before or after December 15. “Every day that goes by, we are in a better negotiating position,” he said, adding that most of the tougher issues would be addressed in later phases of negotiations.

Larry Kudlow, the head of the White House National Economic Council, warned on Tuesday that the tariff increase remains in play for now, although he said Trump was encouraged by the progress he is seeing in the talks. “The reality is that those tariffs are still on the table,” Kudlow said, though he added that Trump has struck a “constructive and optimistic tone” on China.

The ongoing discussions illustrate the difficulties in reaching an accord that Trump said more than eight weeks ago was basically done and would take three to five weeks to put on paper. US

stocks were little changed amid conflicting signals of a trade-war cease-fire.

The “phase one” deal is expected to be built largely around a significant increase in Chinese agricultural purchases in exchange for a reduction in tariffs by the US. Officials have also said it will include Chinese commitments to do more to stop intellectual-property theft and an agreement by both sides not to manipulate their currencies. Put off for later discussions are knotty issues such as longstanding US complaints over the vast web of subsidies ranging from cheap electricity to low-cost loans that China has used to build its industrial might.

Beyond the discussions of tariffs, the most contentious issue in the talks currently is the US insistence that the Chinese commit to a strict schedule for an increase in agricultural purchases that Trump has touted as the biggest component of his phase one deal. US farmers have been one of the constituencies hit hardest

by Trump’s trade war with China with the administration rolling out some $28 billion in farm aid over the past two years to offset losses due to lost exports of soybeans and other commodities.

The US is wary of China’s history of not living up to its promises to previous administrations and wants to lock the Asian nation into a firm schedule of purchases. China, which is under pressure from other trading partners and has diversified many of its commodity purchases away from the US as a result of the trade war, insists that any buying commitments should be market-based and not conflict with its obligations under World Trade Organization rules.

Officials on both sides continue to insist a deal is in their mutual interest. A tariff reprieve would lift confidence in the global economy and signal that the two sides are determined to push through a deal, despite heightened tension in the past two weeks over non-trade conflicts including the US stance on Hong Kong’s human-rights protests and alleged abuses in China’s Xinjiang province.

But the drift in the talks since the narrow phase one deal was first announced October 11 by Trump has also highlighted the sensitivity of the discussions on both sides at a time that the broader relationship is deteriorating and hawks on both sides see an existential rivalry developing.

“Both China and the US need it but we need a fair phase one deal,” former Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming told a conference in New York on Tuesday. “If the tariff on December 15 can be postponed, there will be a better chance for a deal. If the tariff is implemented, your ammunition will be used up soon. China will surely retaliate. It will be difficult to negotiate next year.”

US Sen. Marco Rubio, one of the most vocal China hawks in Congress, said Tuesday that Beijing’s goal to surpass the US as a military and economic power remained a “fundamental challenge” that “will not simply be solved by some future trade agreement.”

“The market may say shortterm profits justify adhering to the requirements China places on our companies. But policy makers must take into account that long-term surrendering our productive capacity to China is reckless,” Rubio told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington.

Analysts say the slow progress in the trade talks illustrates that broader suspicion and how the relationship is facing a new reality.

Any delay in the December 15 tariffs without a phase-one deal in place would be “a stark admission that the two sides can’t find agreement on even the narrowest of terms, which stems from both sides believing they occupy the high ground,” said Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

It also is likely to embolden hardliners. “By delaying a final settlement, the increasingly hawkish tone on China in Washington, D.C. ,will narrow the possibility of a politically acceptable trade deal here in the US,” he said.

Bloomberg News

New President of European Central Bank Christine Lagarde arrives to a Finance Ministers Eurogroup meeting at the European Council headquarters in Brussels on November 8, 2019. AP Photo/Francisco Seco

Europe’s new central bank chief confronts slow growth, dissent

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RANKFURT, Germany—Mario Draghi took over as head of the European Central Bank eight years ago amid market speculation that the euro currency union might break up. Christine Lagarde succeeds him with more breathing room—but facing serious challenges from a weak economy, policy differences among her own officials, and questions about how much more central banks can do to help.

Analysts do not expect Lagarde to announce any changes in the bank’s interest rates and bond-purchase stimulus program when she holds her first rate-setting meeting and news conference on Thursday. The bank enacted a stimulus package in September to nudge the economy along in the face of headwinds like the US-China trade conflict and Britain’s departure from the European Union.

It’s the first chance to hear how Lagarde communicates with markets and the public, a chief task for the head of an institution that affects the lives of 342 million people in the 19 countries that use the euro. That is not an easy task; the bank’s policy to keep one of its key interest rates below zero has come under criticism from Germany news media as penalizing savers, while any imprecise remark from Lagarde can set off big market movements.

Lagarde may “err on the side of caution and continuity” at first, said Frederik Ducrozet, senior European economist at Pictet Wealth Management. That would be a contrast to Draghi’s first meeting in 2011 when the bank cut interest rates during a debt crisis that threatened to break up the currency union.

Lagarde’s challenges include managing dissent within the ECB over stimulus policy after a minority of governing council members openly criticized the stimulus package that was decided at Draghi’s next-to-last meeting. That job may be supported by Lagarde’s extensive political experience from serving as head of the International Monetary Fund and before that as French finance minister.

She has said the bank will pursue a review of how it defines its inflation goal and also

look at whether the bank’s measures could support efforts to fight climate change. Currently, the bank defines its mission as having annual inflation of “below, but close to, 2 percent.” One reason for the review is that the bank—like other central banks—has struggled to raise inflation to levels that are considered healthier for the economy despite massive stimulus involving pumping newly created money into the economy. Inflation was an annual 1.0 percent in November. The eurozone economy grew only 0.2 percent in the third quarter.

The ECB—like the US Federal Reserve and several other central banks around the world—has cut interest rates to combat economic weakness amid a trade dispute between the US and China that threatens to disrupt world supply chains. But some economists question to what extent more stimulus such as interest rate cuts can help the economy after a decade of low rates since the global financial crisis.

Lagarde, like Draghi, has urged European governments to spend more on initiatives that can boost economic growth, such as roads, bridges and high-speed Internet networks.

Neither has received much response, however.

The central bank on September 12 cut the rate on excess cash deposited with it by commercial banks overnight to minus 0.5 percent. That unusual step amounts to a penalty pushing banks to lend money rather than let it pile up at the ECB. The bank also started €20 billion ($22 billion) in bond purchases a month, a step that pushes newly created money into the banking system to ease credit to companies and promote economic activity. That move was publicly questioned by the heads of the Dutch, German and Austrian central banks, who are also members of the governing council.

Stimulus opponents argue that cheap credit and low rates hurt savers and support profligate governments. The ECB says the measures have helped companies put millions of people back to work and prevented worse trouble. AP

EU: Trade’s ultimate court demise is ‘very serious blow’

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RUSSELS—The European Union says the upcoming shutdow n of the World Trade Organization’s appellate body is “a very serious blow” for the global trading system, and plans to set up alternative arbitration processes to counter its demise .

At midnight on Tuesday, the WTO’s appellate body, whose decisions affect billions of dollars in trade, will lose its ability to rule on new dispute cases. Without having to worry about possible sanctions, countries could use tariffs or be tempted to implement protectionist measures.

In a statement released on

Brazilian Roberto Azevedo, Director General of the World Trade Organization, waits the opening of the General Council at the WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday, December 9, 2019. Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP

Tuesday, the EU Commissioner for trade, Phil Hogan, said “this is a regrettable and very serious

blow to the international rulesbased trade system, which, for the past 24 years, has relied on

the WTO’s Appellate Body—and dispute settlement generally.”

The panel is supposed to have seven judges. But their ranks have dwindled because the United States—under the past three presidents—has blocked replacements to protest the way the WTO does business. A minimum of three judges is needed and the terms of two of the last three judges neared their end at midnight on Tuesday. “ This is a critical moment for multilateralism and for the global trading system,” Hogan said. “With the Appellate Body removed from the equation, we have lost an enforceable dispute

Oil falls from 12-week high as report shows US stockpile build

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il retreated from its highest close in almost three months after an industry report showed American crude inventories expanded last week, adding to concerns over weakening demand.

Futures in New York dropped as much as 0.6 percent after climbing 0.4 percent on Tuesday. The American Petroleum Institute reported US stockpiles grew by 1.41 million barrels, according to people familiar with the data. Chinese officials expect the US to delay a tariff increase

scheduled for Sunday, giving more time to negotiate an interim trade deal, people with familiar with the discussions said.

Crude has been hovering around the highest levels since mid-September after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies surprised the market on Friday by announcing deeper-than-forecast production cuts for next year. While there’s optimism a limited trade deal is close, there’s still a lot of uncertainty. White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro told Fox Business

Network that there’s no indication that President Donald J. Trump has made a decision either on a deal or on the tariff hike. “On top of data that suggests an inventory build in the US, the December 15 deadline for the imposition of new US tariffs on Chinese goods is rapidly approaching,” said Stephen Innes, chief Asia market strategist at AxiTrader Ltd. “Although there are indications that both sides are looking for a resolution, concerns will linger until that is finally announced.”

West Texas Intermediate for

January delivery fell 33 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $58.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 11:25 a.m. in Singapore. The contract finished up 22 cents at $59.24 on Tuesday, the highest close since September 17.

Brent for February settlement dropped 0.7 percent to $63.89 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe Exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a $5.08 premium to WTI for the same month.

If the API figures are confirmed by official Energy Information Ad-

settlement system that has been an independent guarantor, for large and small economies alike, that the WTO’s rules are applied impartially.”

Anticipating the end of the appellate body, the EU and Canada agreed this summer on a new trade dispute resolution system as a temporary backstop. The EU wants to expand it, but it’s unclear how many countries might join in.

“The European Commission will soon unveil further proposals to make sure that the EU can continue to enforce its rights in international trade matters should others block the system,” Hogan said. AP

ministration figures due Wednesday, it will be the second straight weekly drop in US crude inventories.

Stockpiles are forecast to drop by 3 million barrels, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts.

China and the US are focusing on reducing the rate of the tariffs already in effect, rather than removing them, according to officials and other people familiar with the talks.

The ongoing discussions illustrate the difficulties in reaching an accord that Trump said more than eight weeks ago was basically done and would take three to five weeks to put on paper. Bloomberg News

The World BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Thursday, December 12, 2019

US imposes sanctions on individuals suspected of human-rights violations

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ASHINGTON—The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed economic sanctions on more than a dozen individuals suspected of humanrights violations in six countries and banned two others from entering the United States, including a former Saudi official in Turkey for his alleged role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Treasury Department’s announcement, made on International Human Rights Day, sanctioned individuals from Myanmar, Pakistan, Libya, Slovakia, South Sudan and the Congo. The action blocks all property and interests in property within US jurisdiction that are owned or partially owned by those sanctioned.

In addition, the State Department restricted US entry for Mohammed al-Otaibi, former consul general of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul, Turkey, in connection with the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist living in the United States who had written critical articles about the Saudi royal family.

State also restricted US entry for Aslan Iraskhanov, director of the interior affairs ministry for Chechnya’s provincial capital, Grozny, who, the US alleges, was responsible for the execution of 27 men.

“The Russian government fails to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish officials involved in these abuses and violations,” the department said in a statement, which was issued on the same day that Russian Foreign

Minister Sergey Lavrov is visiting Washington.

The Treasury sanctions were imposed under an executive order implementing the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human-rights abuse and corruption. “ Treasur y’s act ion focuses on those who have killed, or ordered the killing of innocents who stood up for human rights, including journalists, opposition members, and lawyers,” said Justin Muzinich, deputy treasury secretary.

In Myanmar, Treasury sanctioned Min Aung Hlaing, commander of Myanmar militar y forces that have engaged in serious human-rights abuses. His forces have been responsible for a brutal security operation, beginning in August 2017 in Rakhine, that caused more than 500,000 people to f lee to Bangladesh.

Deputy commander Soe Win and two other military leaders, Than Oo and Aung Aung, also were sanctioned.

“During this time, members of ethnic minority groups were

Mexico’s former top police official charged in U.S. with aiding cartel

The people sing: ‘Les Miserables’ soothes, breaks Hong Kong hearts

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exico’s former top federal police official, who was appointed by the president to spearhead a war on drugs, has been arrested in the US for allegedly taking millions of dollars in bribes to help protect the deadly Sinaloa cartel run by convicted kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, was charged with drug-trafficking conspiracy in a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday in New York, after he was arrested in Texas. While serving in several high-ranking positions from 2001 to 2012, he accepted bribes to protect the cartel’s drugtrafficking activities and cleared the way for multiton shipments of cocaine and other drugs into the US, Brooklyn Atty. Richard Donoghue said on Tuesday. His arrest “demonstrates our resolve to bring to justice those who help cartels inflict devastating harm on the United States and Mexico, regardless of the positions they held while committing their crimes,” Donoghue said in a statement.

Prosecutors charge that Garcia Luna engaged in three separate drug conspiracies since 2001, when he was appointed to head the newly created Federal Investigation Agency under then-President Vicente Fox. From 2006 to 2012, he served as the country’s secretary of Public Security, overseeing the Federal Police Force, and was one of the country’s officials in charge of implementing then-President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug trafficking.

But while serving as the nation’s top lawenforcement official, Garcia Luna secretly allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate “with impunity” in Mexico, prosecutors said. He provided “safe passage” for drug shipments, disclosed sensitive information about government investigations, and shared law-enforcement intelligence about rival drug cartels, prosecutors said. Bloomberg News

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (left) is seated with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) before their meeting at the State Department on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, in Washington. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

killed or injured by gunshot, often while fleeing, or by soldiers using large-bladed weapons; others were burned to death in their own houses,” Treasury said. “There are credible claims of mass-scale rape and other forms of sexual violence committed by soldiers under Min Aung Hlaing’s command.”

John Sifton, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said the sanctions were a welcome, but overdue step.

“It is unfortunate that the US government took so long to make this decision,” Sifton said. “The crimes in question were incredibly serious: forced deportations, mass arson, summary executions, systematic mass rape and torture. ... Sanctions are meant to have impact, and it would have been better had the US acted earlier.”

In Pakistan, Treasury sanctioned Rao Anwar Khan for his role in staging numerous fake police encounters where individuals were killed by police and was

involved in more than 190 police encounters, resulting in the deaths of more than 400 people.

Libyan commander Mahmoud al-Werfalli, who leads a militia known as the al-Saiqa Brigade, was sanctioned for carrying out or ordering the killings of 43 unarmed detainees in separate incidents since 2016, including many filmed and published on social media. On January 24, 2018, alWerfalli was filmed carrying out a mass execution of 10 unarmed detainees in Benghazi. After alWerfalli shot each detainee in the head one by one, al-Werfalli fired freely at the group of those already executed, Treasury said.

In Slovakia, Treasury sanctioned Marian Kocner for threatening Jan Kuciak, a reporter who was investigating Kocner’s corrupt business dealings. Kocner allegedly also hired former Slovak intelligence officials to surveil Kuciak ahead of his killing.

Slovak authorities charged Koc-

ner with hiring a hit man to kill Kuciak and his fiancé, Martina Kusnirova. Six of his businesses also were sanctioned.

In Congo, Treasury targeted members of the Allied Democratic Forces, who are accused of committing mass rape, torture, killing and civilian abductions.

Sanctioned was Musa Baluku, a leader of the forces and five key ADF members accused of supporting human-rights abuses: Amigo K ibirige, Muhammed Lumisa, Elias Segujja, Kayiira Muhammad and Amisi Kasadha.

Treasury also sanctioned five people responsible for the abduction and believed death of two human-rights activists in South Sudan in 2017. The two activists, Aggrey Idri, a member of the Sudanese opposition, and Doug Samuel Luak, a South Sudanese humanrights lawyer, disappeared from Nairobi, Kenya, in January 2017, according to a United Nations’ report. AP

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ONG KONG —For Hong Kong spectators mentally and physically drained from six months of pro-democracy protests that have convulsed the city, a rousing performance of Les Miserables proved almost too much to bear.

Audience members wept, dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs, big tears rolling down their cheeks, as a Hong Kong theater troupe aiming to both comfort and reenergize emotionally battered spectators belted out the rousing musical based on Victor Hugo’s classic tale of rebellion in 19th-century France.

Audience members said images from the protests flashed through their minds as they soaked up the free outdoor performance on Tuesday night.

The crowd of several hundred strong joined with the troupe in singing “Do You Hear the People Sing?”—the stirring lyrics eloquently putting to words what many Hong Kong protesters feel.

“It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again!” they sang. “Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me?” The amateur troupe, dressed in black, which has become the color of protest in Hong Kong, is made up of volunteers who responded to an online appeal for singers and musicians.

Singer Harriet Chung said their aim is to tour the show to all 18 of Hong Kong’s districts. Tuesday’s performance was the troupe’s third, staged in a park in Tai Po in the New Territories that are north of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and which butt up against mainland China.

“It is a very powerful work that everyone needs in such a time in Hong Kong,” Chung said. “There’s a lot of violence. There’s a lot of injustice around. But this piece is about love and power, and what you can do for love, for your ideals, for your ideas, so that is why we want to pass this message to ev-

In this Tuesday, December 10, 2019, photo, a theater troupe performs Les Miserables at an outdoor event space in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong theater troupe is making audiences weep by touring a stirring production of Les Miserables. Based on Victor Hugo’s tale of rebellion in 19th-century France, the rousing music and lyrics of struggle and resistance struck chords with audience members emotionally and physically drained after six months of protests that have convulsed the city. AP Photo/John Leicester

eryone in Hong Kong.”

With no costumes and minimalist lighting, the show lacks the big-ticket stagecraft of Hollywood, Broadway and London West End cousins but packs a powerful emotional punch in the febrile atmosphere of antigovernment protest in Hong Kong.

Wiping away tears that welled behind his glasses, red-eyed spectator Herman Tang said the song “Bring Him Home” made him think of protesters who were trapped by a police siege of a university campus last month.

“Very moved,” he said. “Some of the words in the song echo the current situation in Hong Kong.”

Organizers made booklets of the lyrics, in Chinese and English, for spectators to download onto their cell phones, so they

could sing along. Audience members waved lit phones in the air during songs, creating a tapestry of lights. At the end, the troupe and the audience, accompanied by the orchestra, joined in a hair-raising rendition of “Glory to Hong Kong,” an anonymously penned anthem that has become the protest movement’s signature song.

Chung, the singer who works as a writer in her day job, said she’s long been a fan of Les Miserables, but that it strikes an especially deep chord now.

“It’s like pictures after pictures of happenings in Hong Kong passing through my mind when I sing the lyrics. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. Sometimes it’s heartwarming,” she said. “There are pictures of protests, police violence, and the life we have

lost, the brothers and sisters we lost in this movement, so it is a very emotional journey and I can feel that from the audience, too.”

Spectators who came to the show worried that the protest movement is flagging as it enters a seventh month went away feeling energized and sounding recommitted to a long-haul struggle. The movement is pushing five key demands, including full elections for Hong Kong’s legislature and leader, and a probe of the city’s police force, which has fired 26,000 tear gas and rubber-baton rounds at protesters and arrested more than 6,000 people.

“When people unite together, there is power,” said audience member Yan Chan.

“We have energy and power to make Hong Kong better.” AP

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Argentina can’t pay debt until economy grows, Fernandez says

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rgentina is willing but unable to pay its debts under current conditions and needs the economy to grow again before meeting its obligations, President Alberto Fernandez said in his first speech after being sworn in.

T he gover nment w i l l seek “constructive and cooperative” dialogue with the International Monetary Fund and bondholders to address the debt load, Fernandez said, without giving additional details. The outgoing administration of Mauricio Macri left Argentina in “virtual default,” he said.

Fernandez, 60, read off a list of challenging economic indicators that he’s inheriting including the biggest debt load as a percentage of gross domestic product since 2004, when the country was in default and he was cabinet chief.

Investors are awaiting details from incoming Economy Minister Martin Guzman on his plans to confront the debt crisis which may include proposals to extend maturities. “ T he cou nt r y is indebted, cloaked by an instability that discards the possibility of development and leaves it hostage to foreign financial markets,” he said.

“Argentina should grow with a project of its own and implemented by Argentines, not dictated by foreigners with old recipes that always fail.”

Fernandez’s speech was “constructive,” said Shamaila Khan, the New York-based director of emerging-market debt at AllianceBernstein. “They obviously didn’t have much policy details. But I don’t think we were expecting that from an inauguration speech.”

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva congratulated Fernandez on his inauguration and said they have the same goals.

“We fully share your objectives of pursuing policies that reduce poverty and foster sustainable growth,” Georgieva said in a tweet Tuesday afternoon. “The IMF remains committed to assisting your government in this endeavor.”

Debt challenge

Macri, who reinserted Argentina into global bond markets after taking office in 2015 but later failed to control inflation and kick-start growth, signed a record $56 billion IMF credit line last year. The implied probability of nonpayment over five years with credit-default trading stands at about 95 percent.

Macri, who was forced to reimpose capital controls in September after markets sank due to a primary election that showed Fernandez set to win the presidency, had also announced plans to “reprofile” a total of $101 billion in debt between payments due to private creditors and the IMF. Moody’s Investors Service Inc. said restructuring Argentina’s medium- and long-term debt will be a challenge for Fernandez’s administration, and that the future of the nation’s credit ratings will depend on “losses imposed on bondholders, as well as the long-term sustainability of the government’s yet-to-be-defined economic program.”

Fernandez said that the 2020 budget can only be drawn up once the debt negotiation has been completed, as well as some economic and social measures have been implemented to compensate the impact of the crisis in the economy.

“Solving the problem of the unsustainable debt that Argentina has today is not a matter of winning a dispute. The country has the will to pay, but it lacks ability to do it,” Fernandez said.

Argentina’s bonds traded lower on Tuesday, with notes due in 2028 falling 0.5 cent to 40 cents on the dollar. Bloomberg News

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The Philippine Chinese Racing Club races for hope, one lap at a time Get Christmas-ready with Merry Metro Christmas

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VERY year, Metro Department Store and Supermarket has helped make countless Yuletide gift lists come true with their extensive offerings for every need and budget.

This Merry Metro Christmas, customers can continue to make their Christmas wishes come true with special deals and selections available. Of course, a fan favorite that never ceases to amaze, the Metro Celebration Baskets are taking center stage.

With baskets ranging from more modest arrangements like Jolly Budget Bundles starting at Php 149 to larger extravagant baskets like Grand Celebrations, Metro has something for everyone. All baskets contain Christmas staples like pasta, hamon, queso de bola, and more depending on the basket size.

Customers can even opt for the Metro Fruit Basket that can even be enjoyed up to your New Year parties.

You can even visit your local Metro Supermarket ahead of time and arrange a customized Christmas basket for any work-giveaway in just three easy steps.

This is made possible only with Metro’s Corporate Gifting Solutions. These baskets are classic choices whether you will be giving them to family or even work mates and are sure to spread the cheer.

Aside from exclusive sales across all departments, Merry Metro Christmas will feature unique offerings perfect for Noche Buena.

Adding a sweet touch to any Christmas gathering, Suisse Cottage Cakes which is known for its mouthwatering breads and pastries will be featuring daily bakes of

Christmas Tree Cake, White Forest Cake, Poinsettia Chocolate Cake, and more.

To complete your night and lessen the stress of cooking all day, Metro’s Food Avenue Meals like the Boodle Fight Feast, Lechon Belly, Baked Lasagna and more which will take the guesswork out of your Noche Buena festivities. For the recipes you and your loved ones hold near and dear, make them even more special with Metro’s house brands that include Q Meat, Tropical Delight Kaong and Nata de Coco, Tropical Condensed Milk, and Saver Select Party Needs.

From early Christmas parties to the big day itself, make every gathering more meaningful. Visit your nearest Metro Supermarket today and start creating another beautiful Merry Metro Christmas!

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HILE all car enthusiasts seem to have at least one personal reason for joining car clubs which is to share interests, only some have other reasons for doing so. Exclusive, premium car enthusiast group PCRC (Philippine Chinese Racing Club) will race for a cause at The Clark International Speedway, Clark Freeport, Mabalacat, Pampanga on the 7th of December 2019.

The Philippine Chinese Racing Club is an elite car enthusiast group that enables its members to expand their knowledge to become true racing connoisseurs and gain exclusive insights to trendy things in life such as exclusive sport parties, prestigious lifestyle events and other exciting leisure activities.

The event by PCRC will be an activity to share happiness and put smiles on the faces of the children in light with the Holiday Season to their chosen foundation, Duyan ni Maria Children’s Home, Sisters of Mary of the Eucharist.

Duyan ni Maria is a 32-year-old childcaring institution in the Philippines which hopes to raise awareness and funds to build a new home for its children. In addition, premium, luxury car brands such as Lamborghini, Ferrari and Maserati will once again blaze through the racetracks of Clark International Speedway to raise awareness for these foundations, one lap at a time. For more information about PCRC and their future activities, be sure to follow their official Facebook page PCRC 菲律人俱部 @PCRC111.

Tecnogas presents first ever Kitchen Superstar

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ITH the objective of promoting culinary excellence in the country, Tecnogas Philippines recently hosted its first-ever cooking competition entitled “Tecnogas Kitchen Superstar”. The live cookoff served as an exciting platform for food enthusiasts with no professional culinary experience to showcase their skills and love for cooking.

“For more than 65 years, Tecnogas has always been passionate in creating cooking appliances designed to deliver best results. And through this event, we want to encourage and promote culinary excellence even more by letting them use the right equipment,” said JP Rahnema, Sales Manager of Tecnogas Philippines.

Being the first of its kind for Tecnogas, the fun-filled afternoon saw the attendees

Salinas Pasta creation. Mariane Camba and Rholielyn Garcia bagged the first and second places, respectively.

As the first ever Tecnogas Kitchen Superstar, Ms. Tan-Schnieder got to take home a P20,000 cash prize and over P100,000 worth of gift packs including a kitchen showcase from Tecnogas.

Tecnogas, the legendary Italian brand, is renowned as one of the top premium cooking appliance brands from Italy since 1952. Its line of cooking ranges,

cooktops, range hoods, ovens, and Vortex stoves combine a strong design with extraordinary quality and performance.

Tecnogas products are exclusively distributed by Appstar Global Distributor, Inc. and are available in all leading appliance stores nationwide with over 250 service centers.

In partnership with Anson’s Appliances and Unimart Capitol Commons, the Tecnogas Kitchen Superstar event was made possible together with Jolly Food,

Doña Elena, Kessler’s, Masflex Cookware & Kitchenware, King Sue Ham and Sausages, Fujidenzo, Solane, Doña Maria, Whirlpool, Al Dente, Good Life, Bubble Man, Cif, Klio, Philadelphia, LocknLock, Fineti, Gardenia, Mother’s Best, and many more.

For more information and updates about their products and events, you may like Tecnogas Philippines on Facebook or visit their official website www.tecnogas. com.ph.

enjoying good food and winning exciting raffle prizes, aside from witnessing the main competition.

Tasked with creating an Italian pasta dish with a Filipino twist, judges Chef Charmaine Fider of TESDA, Mr. Marlon Aldenese of Cook Magazine, and Ms. Marilou Acuna of Flyace Corporation hailed Ida Tan-Schneider as the grand champion with her Creamy Smoked

2nd Place Winner Rholielyn Garcia

Tecnogas Kitchen Superstar Grand Champion Ida Tan-Schneider

1st Place Winner Mariane Camba

Event hosts with the competition judges

Tecnogas Kitchen Superstar event attendees

SEA GAMES Sports CHAMPION! BusinessMirror

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| Thursday, December 12, 2019 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

By Ramon Rafael Bonilla

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EW Clark City— Doubters said it was impossible.

But after 11 days of passionate cheering from the crowd, the persistence and hard work of the men and women behind the scene and, of course, the blood, sweat and tears of the Filipino athletes—the host nation emerged amazingly victorious.

Filipino athletes scooped the largest harvest in history, gifting the home crowd a performance to cherish with 149 gold, 117 silver and 120 bronze medals.

Bringing close to 10,000 visitors to the country and assembling the biggest ever staging with 529 events in 56 sports, hosting the 30th edition of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games was no easy task.

Met by skeptics and miscues, the recipes for disaster were all in place. But Filipinos are of different breed.

“It feels like yesterday that we went into the planning stages, the feverish preparations, the many challenges faced and hurdled, then the excitement of the competitions and the inevitable euphoria…we bid each other farewell,” Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman and Chef de Mission William “Butch” Ramirez said.

It was also Ramirez who was at the helm when Manila hosted the Games in 2005. At that time, the country clinched 112 golds to also clinch the overall title.

Yet, times have changed, and so did the leaders. Competition became harder and the country rolled steeply downward in the medal tally, the most lethal blow in Kuala Lumpur last year with a measly haul of 23 golds.

The redemption went 14 years in the making, and the 11 days of battle on home ground served as evidence that today is the renaissance for Philippine sports.

But the ride wasn’t smooth all the way. Doubters came in many forms.

They bashed the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee with whatever they could throw at the organization.

The cost of the Games was pelted left and right. The cauldron at the New Clark City Athletics Stadium was burnt down even before it was lit—not by fire, but by skeptical politicians, netizens, what have you.

And what about the possible medals haul and the goal of finishing No. 1?

Only those who were embedded in the training and preparation of athletes knew the impossible was possible.

The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), led by its president, Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, picked the right sports where the country would really reap good numbers.

The PSC, chaired by Ramirez, didn’t hesitate to support the heart and soul of the Philippine campaign—the athletes. And for more than P1 billion, the hosts’ bets delivered.

“The Philippines was fortunate to work with some of the most well-meaning and experienced personalities ever gathered that gave us the chance to stage the biggest SEA Games ever, and hopefully, to some semblance of success,” Ramirez said.

“But success does not only mean victory in the field of play, but our ability to impress upon every participant the importance of embracing the values of fairness, dedication, excellence and grace in the face of intense competition,” he added.

Tolentino, the architect behind the 56-sport Games, was relentless from Day Zero.

“I am overwhelmed by the performance of our athletes. They showed us that with proper support and

encouragement, they will deliver. I am proud that they proved that my faith in them was well-placed,” Tolentino said.

“But this is just the beginning. I see better things ahead of Philippine sports,” he added.

At far second was Vietnam with a haul of 98 gold, 85 silver and 104 bronze medals. Thailand ended in third with a 92-103-123 tally. Rounding up the top 5 were Indonesia (72-84-111) and Malaysia (55–58-72).

On Tuesday night, the victories of the men’s and women’s basketball teams capped the successful campaign.

After a 14-year hiatus, arnis was resuscitated and contributed the biggest haul of 14 gold medals on top of four silvers and two bronzes.

The athletics team put its signature on the brand-new Athletics Stadium with 11 golds, eight silvers and eight bronzes.

Dancesport delivered 10 golds, while taekwondo produced eight mints. Wushu had seven golds, and also did boxing. And the Christmas would be one warm and fruitful holiday for the winning athletes.

Under Republic Act 10699, each gold medalist will receive P300,000, silver medalist P150,000 and bronze medalist P60,000.

The POC, Tolentino said, will match government’s incentive program.

President Duterte will also give an addition of P250,000, P150,000 and P100,000 for the gold, silver and bronze winners, respectively.

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PARTY! PARTY! AT NEW CLARK CITY!

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EW Clark City—The 30th Southeast Asian Games came to a close on Wednesday night at the world-class Athletics Stadium in Capas, Tarlac.

And what a way to close what is now etched in sports history as the biggest SEA Games ever and more important, the best performance ever by Team Philippines.

Unity was the theme of the ceremony that was witnessed by thousands of Filipino fans, members of the SEA Games work force and volunteers, and athletes and coaches.

Lively performances, highlighted by world-class acts Arnel Pineda and Apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas, made the crowd stand on their feet and dance to party music.

The parade of athletes was iconic. Surfer turned hero, Roger Casugay, carried the country’s colors and was later hailed Fair Play Athlete of the Games.

Joining Team Philippines in the closing ceremony were Philippine Sports Commission Chairman and Chef de Mission William Ramirez, Commissioners Ramon Fernandez and Charles Maxey, Deputy Chef de Mission Stephen Fernandez and polo player Rep. Mikee Romero.

A fireworks display lit the sky above the 20,000seat stadium and the cauldron that was pelted with controversy ahead of the Games was extinguished as the SEA Games Federation flag changed hands from the Philippines to 2021 host Vietnam.

“The Philippines has the longest Christmas and holiday season in the world. This time, Christmas has come early. Filipinos have shown the world na kaya natin,” Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee Chairman Alan Peter Cayetano said as he addressed the ceremony.

“We are here to celebrate unity.

Sports have brought people to play and win as one,” POC President Abraham Tolentino said.

Swimmers Zheng Wen of Singapore and Nguyen Thi Anh Vien of Vietnam, who both scooped six gold medals each, were named Games MVPs.

Ramon Rafael Bonilla

SURGING hero Roger Casugay marches proudly with the national colors. ROY DOMINGO

30TH SOUTHEAST ASIAN GAMES

Royalties, VIPs awed by Miguel Romero Polo Field

HONOR ROLL

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mid the glitches and controversies early on, the just-concluded 30th Southeast Asian Games will definitely go down in history as one of the best sports extravaganza in the region.

Feel-good stories from about every event—529 in all—in the 56-sport biennial meet were enthusiastically told and retold by sports fans, including the heroism of surfer Roger Casugay and the historic win of the men’s volleyball team over powerhouse Thailand in the semifinal round.

The playing venues that served as prime witnesses to 11 exciting days of athleticism and bravery from more than 5,000 athletes were another great source of pride for millions of sports-loving Filipinos.

One of them was the enchanting Miguel Romero Polo Field in Calatagan, Batangas.

Surely, Brunei Darussalam will not forget this polo field since this was where it achieved its biggest sporting triumph so far after ruling polo’s 0-2 goals division at the expense of Malaysia.

Besides winning the gold medal, Brunei royalties, including Prince Jefri Bolkiah and son Prince Bahar, Prince Mateen and Princess Azemah—children of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah—were all charmed by the world-class playing facility.

They, including Indonesia and Malaysian officials, were one in saying that the Miguel Romero Field will be hard to top by any future SEA because since the facility almost has everything.

Indonesian Coach Nico Curto even likened the Romero Field to the best polo field in the world, the well-loved Palermo Polo Field, in Argentina.

“The Miguel Romero polo field is one of the best I have seen in the world,” Curto said.

Dato Mohammad Moise, president of the Royal Malaysian Polo Association, echoed Curto’s observation, adding that they are looking forward for other tournaments at the Miguel Romero Field after being awed by its worldclass facilities especially its now iconic and architectural masterpiece—the Bamboo Pavillion.

PHILIPPINE Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino congratulates the men’s team led by Coach Tim Cone.

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“We feel home here because we know Mikee [Rep. Mikee Romero] for a couple of years already so we would like to come back and play here again,” added Curto.

For Brunei National Olympic Committee Head and Sultan Hassanal’s brother, Prince Sufri Bolkiah, “winning one of Brunei two gold medals in a world-class facility such as the Miguel Romero facility will be one of the most memorable moments for the whole Bruneians.”

The facility, the ambiance and Romero’s hosting, according to Prince Mateen and Princess Azemah Bolkiah, will now be the standard for future polo event in the SEA Games.

The Philippine team settled for the bronze medal in the 0-2 goals division, but for Romero and company—Tonio Veloso, Noel Vecinal, Jam Eusebio, Santi Juban, Julian Garcia, Franchesca Eusebio and Coach Anthony Garcia—the medal glitters like a gold.

“We fell short in our mission but we did our very best,” said Romero. “Good thing we received inspiring words so hopefully we can do better next time.”

REP. MIKEE ROMERO is proud about his polo venue, the Miguel Romero Polo Field, in Calatagan, Batangas.

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KING AND QUEEN OF BASKETBALL I

By Ramon Rafael Bonilla

N a country where basketball is religion, Team Philippines lorded it over its opponents to remain gods of the sport in the Southeast Asian Games.

The Filipino dribblers swept the men’s and women’s 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 events to remain untouchable in the region.

As expected, the Gilas men’s squad took the gold with ease for its 18th overall title, yielding the trophy in only two occasions.

Composed of professionals and guided by multi-titled Coach Tim Cone, Gilas was never in trouble and cruised past hapless Thailand in the gold-medal match on Tuesday night at the MOA Arena.

Led by Philippine Basketball Association five-time Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo, defensive specialist Chris Ross, prolific scorer Stanley Pringle and shooters Matthew Wright and Marcio Lassiter, the hosts smashed the Thais, 115-81.

Gilas created a 48-39 cushion at the half and was unrelenting in scoring the 34-point win.

Fajardo scored 17 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, while his former San Miguel Beer teammate Christian Standhardinger added 16 points and 11 boards.

The women’s side, on the other hand, wrote SEA Games history by winning the country’s first gold medal in the event.

They also beat the Thai squad, 91-71, in front of an appreciative crowd, with Janine Pontejos, Afril Bernardino

Giant leap for beach volleyball

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T was one Southeast Asian Games to remember for the Philippine women’s and men’s beach volleyball teams.

For eight days, the country’s top sand court players put a valiant stand in front of their home fans at the Subic Tennis Courts.

Rallying with the battle cry #Sambansa, their efforts were rewarded.

The women’s team of Sisi Rondina, Bernadeth Pons, Dzi Gervacio and Dij Rodriguez fulfilled their goal of bringing the

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country back to the podium for the first time in 14 years.

It was a breakthrough for Jude Garcia, Jaron Requinton, Edmar Bonono and James Buytrago, as they gave the Philippines’s its first-ever men’s beach volleyball medal.

“This has been such a historic feat for Philippine Beach Volleyball and we dedicate this win to our fellow Pinoy athletes who have sacrificed a lot to pursue what they love doing the most. We also dedicate this win to our Philippine Volleyball Community, who has continuously given us the

and Jack Danielle Animam leading the team.

“Mission accomplished. Four gold medals for the Philippines in basketball capped by another run by our Gilas Pilipinas men’s team. With the country hosting the SEA Games, it gave us a unique opportunity to be able to showcase the best team we could form,” Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas President Al Panlilio said.

“To all the Filipino basketball fans, we thank you for the support, and we hope we made you proud,” he added.

In the inaugural 3-on-3 event, the Filipinos were unstoppable, sweeping the men’s and women’s divisions in emphatic fashion at the Filoil Flying V Centre.

Bannering the men’s squad are CJ Perez, Jason Perkins, Chris Newsome and Moala Tautuaa, while Animam, Bernardino, Pontejos and Clare Castro consisting the

strength and support to power through. Maraming salamat, Pilipinas!” said Team Manager Charo Soriano.

With five victories and producing a gallant effort in losses against traditional powerhouses Thailand and Indonesia in the single-league competition, the Rebiscobacked Philippines side matched the 2005 bronze-medal finish by Fil-Ams Heidi Ilustre and Diane Pascua.

There’s no way for the Filipinas but to go up, not only in the next SEA Games in Vietnam, two years from now but also in future international competitions, such as FIVB World Tour 1-star tournaments.

“We are so thankful for our sponsor, unang una ang Rebisco. Natupad pangarap namin na makapaglaro ng

women’s division.

The Gilas women finally ended a 42-year slump after dealing Thailand a 91-71 beating also on Tuesday, sweeping all its matches.

The Philippines has not won the women’s basketball gold medal since 1977 but finished runner-up six times and third five time.

“Thank God,” a teary-eyed Gilas Pilipinas Coach Patrick Aquino said. “Everybody helped in this gold medal. I am so happy for the girls. I hope na sana, mapansin na nila kami.”

“The gold is with us now, not just happy for the girls, but also for the whole country,” added Aquino, who also handled the national women’s squad two SEA Games ago.

The five-time women’s champion Thailand, with eight silvers and two bronzes, never tasted the lead and even

maayos dahil sa kanila,” said Gervacio.

In a tough eight-team men’s field, the Filipinos made it to the semifinals for the first time since 2007 behind Parley Tupaz and Rhovyl Verayo.

After bowing to Thailand in the semifinals, the Philippines nipped Singapore, 2-1, for the bronze medal, as Garcia and Requinton took charge in the golden match.

Ryniel Berlanga

SISI RONDINA and Bernadeth Pons lead the Philippines to a bronze-medal finish in beach volleyball.

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trailed by 21 points, 87-66.

Even Tiffany Bias, who was selected in the second round (17th Overall) of the 2014 WNBA Draft by the Phoenix Mercury, could not help her team get over the hump after scoring 13 points in the first period and ended the game with only 15 points.

Animan had 21 points, five rebounds and two blocks while Pontejos had 16 points, five rebounds, one assist and four steals.

Ana Castillo and Kelly Hayes had 11 points each while Afril Bernardino had 10 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and two blocks.

Animam and Bernardino now had two gold medals after winning also the gold medal in the women’s 3X3 competition along with Pontejos and Castro.

OLYMPIC ‘FAMILY’

HAS DOPING PROBLEM, TOO

Sports

Russian Olympic Committee President Stanislav Pozdnyakov speaks during a news conference in Moscow. AP

BusinessMirror

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| Thursday, December 12, 2019 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

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By Jim Litke

The Associated Press

ussia cranked up a state-sponsored, industrialscale doping operation ahead of the 2014 Sochi Games worthy of its own gold medal.

It swept up more than 1,000 athletes and stretched from lowly lab technicians to the highest reaches of the nation’s sports ministries. And despite getting busted twice since, it was never really shut down.

What’s clear is that someone, or several people very near the top of the sporting pyramid there, believes winning is a lot more important than “clean” sport.

The first time they caught on, Olympic officials ordered the Russians to keep their flag, anthem and junket-loving officials—but not necessarily their athletes—out of the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang. Here’s how lasting an impression that made: another one of their labs got busted not long after, this time for tampering with the very data that was supposed to prove things had changed.

Handed a do-over, the pooh-bahs in charge of the Olympics proved they hadn’t changed much, either.

Instead of telling Russian athletes not to bother showing up, something that might spark real outrage there, they opted for tough love again.

Based on the recommendation of the World AntiDoping Agency, Russia’s flag and anthem—but again, not its athletes—will be barred from international sports’ biggest arenas for the next four years. The ban begins with next summer’s Tokyo Olympics and extends through the 2022 World Cup and Winter Games in Beijing—assuming the Russians don’t get busted between now and then.

You could almost hear glasses clinking at the Kremlin during Monday’s announcement.

“While being tough on the authorities, this recommendation avoids punishing the innocent and instead stands up for the rights of clean athletes everywhere,” said Jonathan Taylor, the British lawyer who headed the Wada committee that set the punishment.

Not really. But if that rationale sounds familiar, it should. It’s essentially the same one International Olympic Committee President Portland’s Carmelo Anthony drives against New York’s Marcus Morris Sr. AP

Reeling Knicks can’t handle Trail Blazers

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n the wake of an easy win, the Portland Trail Blazers agreed they needed the rout for their own morale.

Damian Lillard had 31 points, including eight 3-pointers, and Portland handed the wretched New York Knicks their 10th straight loss, 115-87, on Tuesday night.

“Anytime you have that type of win, and the way that we did it, I think we should feel good about it, especially in a game that we feel we should have won,” Lillard said.

Hassan Whiteside added 17 points and 15 rebounds as the Blazers ended a two-game skid. Portland led by as many as 32.

“Those kind of games feel good,” Coach Terry Stotts weighed in.

Julius Randle had 15 points for the Knicks, who have won just four games, fewest in the NBA. They have one victory on the road.

The Knicks opened their four-game West Coast trip in disarray after Coach David Fizdale was fired on Friday, just hours after he ran

practice. Mike Miller was named interim head coach, and New York lost 104-103 at home to Indiana the next night.

“In an 82-game schedule you may have some nights where it won’t go in, and we found ourselves in that,” Miller said.

In Portland, New York faced Carmelo Anthony, who played for the Knicks from 2011-2017.

When the Blazers picked up Anthony on November 19, the 10time All-Star had been out of the game for more than a year. But he has fit in well with Portland as a starter, averaging nearly 16 points and six rebounds a game.

Anthony finished with 16 points.

“We were locked in, since this morning, since shootaround, we were locked in,” Anthony said. “Dame came out and led us, Hassan played great, but I thought overall defense was what got us going. We were talking, we were active, a lot of energy on the defensive end.” AP

COLLEGE STAR SCORES 100 POINTS

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LAINVIEW, Texas—Wayland Baptist senior guard JJ Culver became the fourth college basketball player to score 100 or more points in a game, reaching the century mark in a 124-60 win over Southwestern Adventist on Tuesday night.

Culver hit 34 of 62 shots, 12 of 33 from three-point range and was 20 for 27 on free throws to finish with an even 100 points for the NAIA Pioneers. He also had nine rebounds, five steals, two blocked shots and an assist.

Culver is the older brother of former Texas Tech guard Jarrett Culver, who led the Red Raiders to the NCAA championship game for the first time last season. Virginia won the title in overtime.

The Culver brothers grew up in Lubbock, home to Texas Tech and about 50 miles south of the Wayland Baptist campus in Plainview.

Jarrett Culver declared for the NBA after two seasons at Texas Tech and is a rookie with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

JJ Culver is the first college player to score at least 100 since Jack Taylor of Grinnell College, who scored an NCAA-record 138 points in a game in 2012 and followed that up with a 109-point effort in 2013.

“We always script our first couple of plays, and JJ scored on the first three or four,”Wayland Baptist Coach Ty Harrelson said. “The guys realized he was hot and kept going to him. We figured as long as he’s taking good shots and shots out of philosophy that he had a chance to do something

Thomas Bach trotted out when he let Russia off the hook ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Instead of a blanket ban, he handed off the tough decisions on which Russian athletes should be allowed to compete to individual sports federations. Many of those organizations rely on rubles to pay the rent and had a million more reasons to worry about reprisals than the independently wealth swells at the IOC ever did.

Not surprising, Russia sent a nearly full team to Rio, and even stripped of its flag and anthem, still mustered the third-biggest delegation in Pyeongchang. Even less surprising, the first Russian athlete to compete in those 2018 Winter Games, mixed doubles curler Alexander Krushelnitsky, failed a doping test, got disqualified and had to hand back his bronze medal.

One problem is that dopers, like burglars, rarely get caught in real time. Just last month, four US sledders got their medals from Sochi upgraded retroactively. Unless something changes, those medals won’t be worth the metal they’re stamped on.

To be fair, every member-nation of the Olympic “family” has some dopers on its team, or at least the ones serious about winning something do. But no nation this side of the old East Germany has tried to do it on the same scale as the Russians. There’s no reason to believe that will change until the punishment fits the crime.

But the Russians are not the only ones who have to decide whether to really buy into “clean” sports—though “cleaner” sports would be a more accurate description for these times. It’s the folks who are selling it and supposed to be enforcing it, even while getting rich in the bargain. That happens to be the IOC at the moment, because they’re in the spotlight.

But you don’t have enough fingers on both hands to count the number of big-time sports wrestling with the same problem. Science has made it a fact of life at the top.

They all have similar rules against and no shortage of rulesbreakers, too.

And so somewhere down the road, the people in charge of the rest of the alphabet soup that governs international sports—the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Fifa and even Fide, the international chess federation—will get more than enough chances to make a stand for clean sport.

Here’s hoping they show more backbone than the IOC did.

Translation issues delay verdict in Sun Yang case

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AUSANNE, Switzerland—Translation problems in the doping case of Olympic swimming champion Sun Yang have delayed the expected verdict to January, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said Tuesday.

CAS said an “agreed-upon written transcript” from the hearing, including Sun’s testimony from Chinese into English, is being prepared to help the judging panel who heard the appeal in open court last month.

“In view of these circumstances, the [verdict] is not expected to be issued before mid-January,” the court said.

Sun is facing a ban from next year’s Tokyo Olympics if the three-judge

panel decides he broke anti-doping rules by refusing to cooperate with officials who visited his home in China in September 2018. He disputed their credentials to take his blood and urine samples.

The World Anti-Doping Agency appealed against a ruling by swimming governing body Fina to simply warn Sun over the confrontational incident.

Lawyers and the three judges often had difficulty following proceedings, including cross-examination of Sun early in the 10-hour hearing.

CAS rules allow parties to provide their own translators, but those brought by the three-time Olympic gold medalist’s team were replaced during the lunch break by a Wada staff member.

Wada asked the court to ban Sun for between two and eight years. It would be a second violation for Sun, who served a three-month ban imposed by Chinese authorities in 2014 after testing positive for a banned stimulant. AP

special tonight.”

Culver’s total is the second-highest in NAIA history. The NAIA record is 113 points by Clarence “Bevo” Francis for Rio Grande (Ohio) in 1954.

The only other college player to reach 100 in an official game was Frank Selvy of Furman in 1954, according to SportRadar.

Culver, a 6-foot-5 guard, had 51 points in the first half to break the previous school record of 50 set by Roy Young in

the 1955-56 season.

Culver was a first-team NAIA All-American and the South Atlantic Conference player of the year as a junior after averaging 17.5 points per game. He is averaging 36.1 points per game this season.

Culver’s big night pushed his career total to 1,534 points, ninth all-time at Wayland Baptist. Kendall Webb has the school record at 2,074 points. Culver could reach the school mark by averaging about 25 points per game the rest of the season. AP

JJ Culver hits 34 of 62 shots, 12 of 33 from three-point range and was 20 for 27 on free throws to finish with an even 100 points. AP

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Saving God

EAR God, You are always ready to help those who hope in You. In faith we pray: Oh God, listen to our prayer. Inspire Your Church to proclaim the Gospel with justice, joy and love. Give insight and knowledge to scientists, medical researchers and physicians who work to cure those with AIDS and other diseases. Grant farmers, migrant workers, and gardeners a productive harvest and just wages. May God look upon us with kindness and fill us with the peace of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GIVE US THIS DAY, SHARED BY LUISA LACSON, HFL Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

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Life BusinessMirror

SET THE TABLE EARLY, AND OTHER TIPS FOR YULETIDE HOSTS D2

Thursday, December 12, 2019

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‘WINTER WONDERLAND’ AT F1

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❶ PEOPLE pass

by the “The Walled Off Hotel” and the Israeli security barrier in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

PHOTOS: AP

Palestinians in Bethlehem look beyond religious tourism

❷ A PALESTINIAN wearing a Santa Claus costume welcomes Christian visitors outside the Church of the Nativity.

❸ A BANKSY wall painting showing an Israeli border police officer and a Palestinian in a pillow fight decorates one of the rooms of The Walled Off Hotel in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

❹ A WOODEN

figure is displayed in the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed

by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

❺ VISITORS shop near the Church of the Nativity.

❻ TOURISTS

gather outside the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ.

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BY JOSEPH KRAUSS & MOHAMMAD DARAGHMEH The Associated Press

ETHLEHEM, West Bank—For decades, the people of Bethlehem have watched tour buses drive up to the Church of the Nativity, disgorge their passengers for a few hours at the traditional birthplace of Jesus, and then return to Israel. But, in recent years, a new form of tourism has taken root, focused on the West Bank town’s Palestinian residents, their culture and history, and their struggles under Israeli occupation.

As pilgrims descend on Bethlehem this Christmas, they have the option of staying in restored centuriesold guesthouses, taking food tours of local markets, and perusing the dystopian art in and around a hotel designed by the British graffiti artist Banksy.

The centerpiece of tourism, and the focus of Christmas celebrations in the coming weeks, is the sixth-century Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born in a manger.

Extensive renovations in recent years have saved the roof from collapse and revealed colorful wall mosaics depicting angels and saints.

Earlier this month, the Vatican returned a small part of what Christians believe to be the original manger, which was sent to Rome as a gift to the pope in the seventh century. The thumb-sized relic, displayed in an ornate silver case, can be seen in a chapel adjoining the church.

In Manger Square, just outside the church, a massive Christmas tree has been set up and festivities are planned in the coming weeks as various denominations hold staggered Christmas celebrations. On January 7, Bethlehem will host an international Santa convention.

Tourism has suffered in the past during outbreaks of violence between Israel and the Palestinians. But the Palestinian Tourism Ministry expects 3.5 million visitors to Bethlehem in 2019, up from 3 million the previous year, and many think there is still room for growth. “The general situation in Palestine and the Holy Land is that there is very good security, better than most countries in the world, and so the people are visiting,” said Elias al-Arja, chairman of the local hotel association.

He noted that while the Holy Land includes the

most important sites in Christianity, including the places where tradition says Christ was born, where he grew up, was crucified and resurrected, it attracts far fewer visitors than the Vatican. “We have the opportunity to draw more people,” he said.

Religious tourism is a boon for the local economy, but many Palestinians feel the city’s modern residents are largely ignored.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians view the territories as part of their national homeland and hope to one day establish an independent state.

Visitors traveling to Bethlehem pass through a sprawling Israeli checkpoint and then drive along the separation wall, which Israel began building during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s. Israel says the barrier is needed to prevent attacks, but the Palestinians view it as a land grab because its route places almost 10 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side. Bethlehem itself is almost completely surrounded by the barrier and a string of Jewish settlements.

The town’s predicament is on vivid display in and around the Walled Off Hotel, which was designed by Banksy and opened in 2017. The hotel looks out on the separation wall, which itself is covered with artwork, graffiti and museum panels explaining life under occupation. Inside, a number of Banksy pieces are depicted in a haunting lobby, which this time of year is dimly lit with Christmas lights.

The hotel offers weekly performances by local musicians and daily tours of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp. Tours of Banksy’s public artwork elsewhere in the town can be organized on request.

A different form of alternative tourism, conceived

by Palestinians themselves, can be found in the city center, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the church. There the municipality, with Italian aid, has restored an 18th-century guesthouse and rented it out to Fadi Kattan, a French Palestinian chef.

The Hosh Al-Syrian Guesthouse includes 12 tastefully furnished rooms ranging from $80 to 150 a night. At its Fawda Restaurant—Arabic for chaos— Kattan uses local ingredients to cook up traditional Palestinian cuisine with a modern twist.

“My vision was to say religious tourism will promote itself by itself, it doesn’t need the private

sector to promote it,” he said. “Let’s promote everything else. Let’s promote our food, let’s promote our culture, let’s promote our history.”

Kattan is especially keen to promote Palestinian cuisine, which he says has been appropriated

by Israeli chefs and food writers. As with nearly everything else having to do with the Middle East conflict, there are two sides: Israeli cuisine owes much to Jewish immigrants from ancient communities across the Middle East and North Africa.

The guesthouse partners with a local group known as Farayek to offer food tours in which visitors wander through the local market, meeting farmers, butchers and bakers before having lunch at the guesthouse.

Another program includes cooking classes taught by a Palestinian grandmother.

“What I was hoping to achieve is to have people stay three nights in Bethlehem, to have people go to the fruit and vegetable market, to have people meet the people of Bethlehem, not just the very short tour into the city,” he said.

When the guesthouse opened in 2014, the average stay was one night, but now it has risen to three-anda-half, with steady occupancy throughout the low season, Kattan said.

A handful of other restored guesthouses have also opened in recent years, including Dar al-Majus, Arabic for House of the Maji, named for the three kings said to have visited the manger after Christ was born. The guesthouse is part of a wider initiative by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and a local association to support the Christian community. Bethlehem’s Christian community, like others across the Middle East, has dramatically dwindled in recent decades as Christians have fled war and conflict, or sought better economic opportunities abroad.

A local family living next to the guesthouse cooks breakfast and traditional meals for guests, and the guesthouse employs members of another two families. The guesthouse mostly supplies itself from the local market, and there are plans to expand to another restored house in the old quarter next year.

Bethlehem’s mayor, Anton Salman, expects the recent growth in tourism to continue.

“Each season is more active and more organized and more attractive for the local community in Palestine and for the tourists,” he said. ■

CHRISTMAS is celebrated the world over, but no other country embraces this season the way Filipinos do. This year, F1 Hotel Manila (www.f1hotelmanila.com) brings a Winter Wonderland-inspired Yuletide celebration.

What better way to indulge in the festivities than with family. Enjoy a relaxing stay with the Christmas Holistay room package in a Deluxe Room available until December 30 for only P6,200 per night, inclusive of an hour-long massage for one, breakfast buffet for two, and free single serving of F1 Hotel Manila’s drink of the month, Chocolate Mud Slide, at the Canary Lounge.

Complete your staycation with An American Feast for lunch or dinner on December 24, 25, 31 and January 1, 2020.

Savor a wide range of holiday flavors meticulously prepared for the celebration of the season.

Hotel guests can also attend Christmas Eve Mass on December 24 and New Year’s Eve Mass on December 31, both at 5 pm, at the Infinity Ballroom. Guests will also enjoy Christmas carols filling the air from December 16 to 23, and on December 24, from 6 to 10 am, at F All Day Dining.

Savor a traditional Christmas main dish with F1 Hotel Manila’s Chicken Galantina that is best paired with a choice of Spaghetti Bonita, Spaghetti Bolognese, or Tomato and Basil Aglio Olio for only P2,200 per set. For more indulgence, there’s the soft moist white chocolate cake perfect for noche buena: White Forest Log Cake, available for only P1,250.

GROWING PHILIPPINE TOURISM

THE Philippines is once again at the forefront of the global tourism industry with its participation in the World Travel Market (WTM) 2019 in ExCel, London. Organized by the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), the marketing and promotions arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT), the Philippines’s participation was able to generate more than P62 million based on partial sales leads gathered, or a 35.73-percent return of investment.

With Korea, China, the US and Japan topping the country’s tourist arrivals, the Philippines’s participation in WTM strengthens the country’s presence in the international tourism and travel arena, particularly Europe, and brought it close to its goal of attracting 8.2 million tourists by the end of 2019. The WTM provided a platform for the Philippine private sector to conduct business-to-business meetings and renew linkages with their tourism markets around the world. It also enabled TPB and DOT to generate marketing and promotions leads, and stay abreast with the latest trends to support its bid to promote the Philippines as the preferred destination.

“The private sector always looks forward to joining WTM,” said Tourism Assistant Secretary Roberto Alabado III. “In fact, the Philippines gets very good tourists arrivals from the United Kingdom, with a 10-percent increase from last year.

But our participation is not just about tapping the UK market.

Through WTM, which is the Olympic of travel fairs, we are able to tap key travel and tourism markets in Europe and the rest of the world.”

The Philippine delegation was composed of industry partners and stakeholders including DOT-accredited tourism establishments led by Amorita Resorts, El Nido Resorts, Bohol Beach Club, Nature Wellness Village, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, Movenpick Resort and Spa Boracay; travel and tour operators Baron Travel Corp., Rajah Tours, Annset Holidays, Intas Destinations Management, Travelexperts, as well as the Clark Development Corp. Through active participation in global tourism industry events like WTM, TPB is more than optimistic that the Philippines will indeed be the next must-see destination in Asia.

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Thursday, December 12, 2019

Entertaining BusinessMirror

Set the table early, and other tips for yuletide hosts

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and bread baker in New York’s Hudson Valley, suggests making your own. You might be surprised by the bread he recommends, and an intriguing secret ingredient: “I love to use slightly dark, gnarly sourdough bread with its nooks and crannies for stuffing. I cut up a little over a pound of bread into 1-inch cubes and mix with a generous 1/3 cup of bourbon.

I saute a mix of onions, celery, carrots, local honey crisp apples, garlic, fresh thyme, rosemary, combine it all, and add chicken stock as needed.”

Leader stuffs his bird with the mixture, but you can also bake it separately.

H

them directly on an oven rack. Once baked, cut them open and scoop out the insides for mashing.

By Katie Workman The Associated Press

OSTING this holiday season isn’t for the faint of heart. There are more dishes than you might usually serve. More timing concerns because of that. More pots and plates to wash. And, perhaps, more family dynamics, buried deep below the surface for the other 364 days a year, that threaten to bubble up through the gravy.

Well, I can’t do anything about your family dynamics (if I could, I would start closer to home). But I can share tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years, along with advice from some other Yuletide dinner pros.

MASHED POTATOES THERE are two basic ways to make potatoes for mashing. n Boil and then peel them. Peeling potatoes can be a drag (though if you need a kitchen task to give an eager family member, this is a good one). But if you boil your potatoes whole in their skins until tender (about 20 to 25 minutes), then transfer them to an ice bath (a big bowl of ice water) and let them sit for 20 to 30 seconds, the skins will slide right off.

Then you can go right ahead and mash them. n Bake your potatoes. Megan Scott and John Becker, authors of the new Joy of Cooking, explain, “Baking the potatoes dries them out a bit more, allowing for maximum butter/cream/dairy absorption and a fluffier texture. You can bake them at the same time as the turkey.’’ A medium russet potato will bake in approximately one hour at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Just pierce them a few times with a knife and set

TURKEY ROASTING CHRISTMAS is always about a good leg of richly glazed ham, of course, but who says you can’t mix it up and have an impressive bird instead? On taking the turkey route, Scott and Becker note, “A turkey is actually two roasts in one. The breast is thick, lean and will begin to overcook the minute it exceeds 165°F. The leg quarters, on the other hand, are bonier, fattier and practically impossible to overcook. In fact, we find that they have the best texture when cooked to 175 degrees or above.”

They recommend separating the legs from the breast toward the end of cooking to get both dark and white meat perfect. “When the breast reaches an internal temperature of 155°F to 160°F, remove the turkey, and carefully [using a dish towel and a sharp knife] cut off the whole legs,’’ they say.

“Return the leg quarters to the pan and cook them until they register an internal temp of 175 degrees. Meanwhile, tent the breast loosely while the legs finish cooking.”

If you want to warm up the breasts before cutting and serving, they suggest adding them to the back of the pan at the end. True, you don’t end up with a whole turkey dramatically presented and carved at the table, but Scott and Becker are right that “your guests will appreciate a properly cooked turkey more than a turkey as centerpiece.”

STUFFING SURE, you can use a mix, but Daniel Leader, cookbook author

sustainable low energy zero-waste methods.

“We want to show our customers and clients that it is possible to go green even with your events and catering,” says Pia Trinidad, Cravings business development head and a granddaughter of Annie. “This is more relevant these days as we know that whatever we do has an impact on our climate and our one and only planet. We might as well be responsible citizens who uphold environmentalism in our deeds and daily life.” The Green Christmas offered by Cravings, perhaps, the only one of its kind in the market today, features two sets. The lunch/dinner buffet menu Set A features appetizers, such as Root Crop Chips and Tomato Mango Salsa and Annie’s Organic

Today’s Horoscope

By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Mayim Bialik, 44; Madchen Amick, 49; Regina Hall, 49; Jennifer Connelly, 49.

Happy Birthday: Evaluate your relationships, and be selective regarding who you have time for and who you should probably not see as much. Making the most of your time and being honest with yourself, as well as others will make a difference to how much you gain moving forward. Put your needs and your plans first, and you will get positive results. Your lucky numbers are 2, 12, 20, 26, 31, 38, 46.

a

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Look beyond what’s right in front of your nose. Refuse to let someone sidetrack you or put you in an awkward position. Speak up, make your thoughts and intentions known, and offer suggestions that implement overall compromise, and success will follow. HHHH

GRAVY BILL SMITH, recently retired chef at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has had the good fortune to be a guest at an old friend’s home for years, and his sole task is to make the gravy. He does a lot of the prep ahead of time, and lets the giblets do some of the heavy lifting.

Put the neck and all the giblets except the liver in a saucepan of cold water and simmer until they are well done, he says. You can do this the day before and degrease the cooled broth later. Chop up the gizzard and heart, and shred the meat from the neckbone.

Then, just before dinner, when the bird is done, move it to a platter to rest. Pour off as much fat from the roasting pan as possible, while saving as much of the juices as you can. In a jar with a tight lid, shake a few tablespoons of all-purpose flour into the cold broth until it is completely combined. Put the roasting pan with the remaining cooking juices on the stove over high heat.

“Grab whatever wine is nearby [I have used both red and white] and pour a generous cup into the pan,” Smith says.

“Use a whisk to swirl it around and reduce it by half. Add your broth-flour slurry, pouring it through a sieve, and whisk and reduce to the thickness that you prefer. Taste for salt and pepper and stir in the chopped giblets.”

b

GRATE YOUR BUTTER IF you are making your own pie crust, first, wow, good for you. And second, instead of cutting the butter into the flour mixture, which is messy and time consuming, try grating it.

Take cold butter straight from the fridge and grate it on the large holes of a grater. Mix the flakes into the dry ingredients, then add your liquid.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Refuse to let anyone railroad you into something that isn’t right for you. Open your eyes, do your own thing and make positive personal changes that will improve your life. HHHH

HOUSEKEEPING SET the table the night before, or earlier. All of it—glasses, centerpieces, pitchers for drinks, etc. Take out every serving platter, bowl and utensil you will need, and create a little label saying what will go into each dish.

Get thee a cooler: Fridge space is a hot commodity during the holidays, so buy yourself some extra real estate with a big cooler or two filled with ice. Use these for drinks, whipping cream, salad dressing, anything that doesn’t need to be sitting on a flat surface in the fridge.

And now, you’re ready. May your holiday be as smooth as your gravy, and vice versa. n

Truly ‘green’ holidays at Cravings IT is the most wonderful time of the year and, at Cravings, it is not an excuse not to go “green.” A restaurant brand of three decades, born from the dreams and passion of mom-and-daughter tandem of Annie Guerrero and Badjie Trinidad, Cravings has evolved to become an eco-conscious restaurant that cascades its green practices to its customers.

Annie is a known environmentalist who has published various books on how to live a waste-free lifestyle. Thus, she is also the inspiration behind the green advocacy of Cravings. With this, Cravings is offering for the first time “Green Christmas” packages highlighted by a sustainable menu made with local produce and prepared through

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Salad. Hot selections include Free Range Chicken with Rosemary Garlic Rub, Organic Spaghetti Bolognese and Roasted Seasonal Vegetables. Desserts include Seasonal Fruit Platter and Table Praline Brownies.

For Set B, start with Sopa de Molo and Annie’s Organic Salad. Hot selections include Pancit Palabok, Fried Lumpiang Labong, Seared Tilapia with Coconut Pineapple Relish and Chicken Inasal. Cap it off with Assorted Kakanin and Seasonal Fruit Platter.

Adding to the festive mood, one can also have Cravings’s Organic Lechon Station, where one can feast on roast pig with crackling skin and tender meat.

Of course, as Cravings is also known for

its wide selection of food offerings, one can also customize or create their own menu.

Choose from a wide selection of appetizers, such as Tomato and Basil Bruschetta, Chicken Liver Pate and Crostini, and Vegetable Crudite with Blue Cheese Dip. For soup selections, there is Truffle Mushroom Soup, Seafood Chowder, and Roasted Pumpkin Soup, among others. There are also beef, pork, and chicken selections and a wide array of pasta and vegetable dishes.

Cravings is best known for its cakes and not to be missed are the Mango de Crema, Salted Caramel Cake, Tres Leches, or the popular Cookies, S’mores and Chocolate Barks. More information is available at 02726-2712.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Make change count. Check your motives, decide what’s best and choose the most cost-efficient way to get what you want. Strategic plans will make a difference in how things turn out. When in doubt, ask an expert. Romance is in the stars. HHH

c

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If you are too accommodating, someone will take advantage of you emotionally, financially or contractually.

Do your due diligence before you sign papers or commit to someone. Let intelligence be your vehicle when making important decisions. HHH

d

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Tie up loose ends, and plan to relax and mull over what you want to do to have fun. Make arrangements with someone you enjoy being around, or sign up for something that stimulates your creative imagination. Romance is encouraged. HHH

e

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Don’t worry about what others are doing; concentrate on what you are doing. Gather information, test out a theory or sign up for something that interests you, but don’t sit idle. Say no to pressure tactics and impulsive purchases. HHH

f g

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Take a mental, emotional or physical trip that will lead to information that will help you make a decision.

Stop letting others decide for you. Use your voice to get what you want. HHHHH

h

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Dream on.

Let your imagination entertain you and encourage you to branch out in directions that excite you. Embrace friendships with people who inspire you to try something new, and offer alternative options to put your talents to good use. HHH

i

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Express your thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes.

Being on the same page as someone you spend a lot of time with will help you combine your needs and encourage higher personal growth and happiness. Honesty must prevail. HHH

j

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A particular change you make will improve your health and your appearance. Reach out to someone you don’t see often, and something that makes you happy will develop. An unusual find will be a surprise. HHH

k

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Make plans to do things with youngsters or to bring a little cheer to someone who doesn’t get out much. Don’t let the changes others make anger you. Go about your business, and do what matters to you most.

HHHHH

l

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Be honest about the way you feel and what you want to happen. Take control, and be willing to put in the time and energy to get things done. Helping others will be the greatest gift you can offer. HH Birthday Baby: You are imaginative, emotional and heroic.

You are steadfast and possessive.

‘bite-size’ by emily carroll The Universal Crossword/Edited by David Steinberg

ACROSS 1 Photo finish?

6 Bear, in Bolivia 9 Soothing substances 14 Actress Zellweger 15 Kilmer of Top Gun 16 To no ___ (uselessly) 17 Following 18 Come to a conclusion 19 Past or future 20 Trendy dining garnishes 23 Alternative to a H.S. diploma 24 Saharan refuge 25 Hangs around 27 Guard’s shout 29 “Move on already!”

31 Mil. entertainers 32 Notion 33 Shaving mishaps 37 Hot cocoa topper 41 Final authority 42 Blue-green hue 43 Article in El Pais?

44 As a substitute

7 Online auction site 4 48 She played Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend 51 The Dancing Class painter Edgar 53 Sashimi tuna 54 Orange items on a crudites platter 58 Greet silently 60 Language spoken along the Mekong 61 Art house film 62 Puccini production 63 90-degree building extension 64 Stiller and ___ 65 Alarm clock button 66 Baseball Hall of Famer Williams 67 Famous Ford flop DOWN 1 Metric weight unit 2 Get a new loan, briefly 3 Insect group with a queen 4 Scrutinize 5 Sandwiches also known as submarines 6 Supervisor 7 Sensible 8 Nickname for 55-Down

9 Gotham sky sighting 10 NYC’s Park or Madison 11 Tootsie Oscar winner Jessica 12 Pinchpenny person 13 Iditarod vehicles 21 SNL legend Radner 22 “Just kidding!”

26 Put one’s nose to the grindstone 27 Runs smoothly 28 About 30 percent of the Earth’s land mass 30 Personal preference 32 The Lonely Island hit whose lyrics mention climbing buoys 34 Carbonated mixers 35 Hawaiian coffee region 36 Influence 38 Sister of Osiris 39 Cause of the sniffles 40 Tyler Perry title character 45 Mme., across the Pyrenees 46 Microsoft Surface or iPad 47 Was worthy of 48 Country estate

49 “Fingers crossed!”

50 Some Washington workers 52 Cleaner’s target 55 New Haven Ivy 56 Makeshift swing 57 Notary’s mark 59 Three, in Tuscany

Solution to yesterday’s puzzle:

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Thursday, December 12, 2019

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FROM left: one of my boxes of letters dating back to as early as 1988; two snaps from our past family trip with my dad, sister and cousins, where we as a family learned to ski; the kids with the magician in the cruise ship, where Marcus had a magician class and taught us some of his magic tricks; a poster of the movie The Art of Racing in the Rain

HOW TO GET MORE ‘SUPER’

THE newest line from Locally, Locally Superfruit Juices (www. facebook.com/LocallyPH) offer the goodness of homegrown “superfruits,” which are known for the nutrients they provide.

With natural superfruits sourced from farms found around the country, each serving is packed with a combination of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals to help you live longer, look better and even prevent diseases.

Available in three flavors, Locally Superfruit Juices are made from natural superfruit puree, blended and made ready to drink to help all Filipinos fight toxins, and maintain a healthy lifestyle in a fun and delicious way.

■ Made with natural dragonfruit from Baler, Nueva Ecija and Isabela is the Wondragonful Wonder Detox. Dragonfruit contains carbohydrates and prebiotics to help enhance digestion, antioxidants to combat gout and arthritis, and vitamins and minerals to support, and have a healthy and well-functioning body.

■ The Mangosteencredible Heart Protector is made with what’s known as “queen of fruits.” Locally sourced from Davao, mangosteen is filled with xanthones, which help boost your immune system and heart health, and can aid in the fight against cancer.

■ For those looking to avoid sugar, look no further than Locally’s Passiontastic Sugar Buster. Aside from helping improve insulin sensitivity, passionfruit, which is sourced from Quezon, also contains fiber to regulate digestion, antioxidants to reduce inflammation, vitamin C to boost immunity and potassium to regulate blood pressure.

Whoever thought it would be this easy and refreshing to put the “super” in you?

My Christmas Rs out a new home gadget, playing basketball in the park, or sharing our old childhood games like jackstone. I love activities that involve exploration and discovery.

I feel it fosters our family to find answers together. If an office has team-building exercises, I see recreation as our family team-building time.

MOMMY NO LIMITS

MAYE YAO CO SAY

mommynolimits@gmail.com

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HIS year’s Christmas work holidays are a bit longer. Aside from all the parties and gettogethers, what are you planning for those free days? For me, I would do my 3Rs—Rest, Recreation and Reflection.

REST THIS is the first “R” that I allot time for. Aside from physical rest, I also consciously rest my mind. I would spend a longer time getting out of bed in the morning, even if I have already woken up. I would take my sweet time in the shower listening to my “soulful” playlist. I would even take a priceless nap in the middle of the day.

I read an article written by the American Psychological Association, titled “How Stress Affects Your Health.” According to APA’s 2012 Stress in America survey, stress keeps more than 40 percent of adults lying awake at night. To help ensure you get the recommended seven or eight hours of shut-eye, cut back on caffeine; remove distractions, such as television or computers from your bedroom; and go to bed at the same time each night. So during my planned rest days, I plan to keep my gadgets far from my reach and turn off any screens.

RECREATION FOR me, holiday recreation is family time. It can be a trip. It can be simple family activities, like figuring

REFLECTION REFLECTION for me involves triggers. In holidays where I am home, I love going through my stash of memorabilia. I love going back in time to remember how I felt, what I learned and why I am grateful for that memory today. Other triggers for me include a good book, my digital photo folders and my favorite—movies.

My favorite genres are romance and those based on real-life stories. Especially when I travel, I like to type down nice quotes from the movies. I like to be evoked with questions of “would you decide the same way?” and “would you have the same strength?” After a movie, I would write a short reflection. Through the years, I have shared these reflections with my kids.

Later on, they would also do the same with the movies they have watched without me. More often than not, they would invite me to watch the movie over again with them just to see if we have the same reflection.

Today, movies have become a great way to get to know my kids better.

Below are some of my reflection movie recommendations, as well as my brief notes about them: 1. ‘A WALK TO REMEMBER’—This is a touching story based on the book by Nicholas Sparks.

Landon Carter (Shane West) relays his story on how his love for Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore) transformed his life out of his troubled high-school past. He ends up entering medical school and, more important, recognizing the meaning of “Faith.” I have seen this movie at least 10 times after it came out in 2002. I shared to Meagan (my daughter) why I cried so much while watching this movie. I shared to her how

losing people we love makes us realize the memories made with them will never be enough. There is always that regret that we never got to spend enough time.

I told her I made that mistake with my grand aunt, who was my tutor and “defender.” After that, I made a resolve to take care of the people I love and build as many memories with them while I can.

2. ‘LOVE, ROSIE’—I came across this movie because I was looking for another film where the lead actor in Me Before You was in. I love this movie because it’s about decisions and consequences. It made me realize that if we constantly cloud our decisions with fear, it makes our route longer to get to where we really wanted to be.

3. ‘LITTLE WOMEN’—I watched this movie when I was in high school. I was not an avid reader of Louisa May Alcott. I watched it because we were also four girls in the family. I rewatched th film in a flight from LA this year because I was curious how it would make me feel now that my family circumstances have changed. What I took in this time was what true family would do for each other. Jo March sacrificed selling her hair for the mom’s train ticket to see their father. Laurie, their neighbor and not related to them, was always there like a brother. My favorite line in the movie, “Jo, you have been given so many extraordinary gifts. How can you expect to live an ordinary life?”

4. ‘BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY’—This is one of the movies that my daughter insisted I watched, so she saw it again with me. The line I wrote down was from Freddie Mercury’s father: “You can’t be proud of who you are if you do not love yourself.”

5. ‘THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN’—This is a recent movie I watched on a flight starring Milo Ventimiglia from the TV series This Is Us. I remember thinking how much can one take after losing one’s wife, your son being taken away and not having the financial means to fight your best. And yet, no matter how late, you are able to claim your rightful course because you pushed forth. ■

THIS gorgeous S Maison Christmas tree is embellished with huge crystal balls, steel cubes, and big-and-small snowflakes, and is highlighted with three mini Christmas tree lamps made of crystal beads.

IT’S flapper fun for this little girl in her 1920s Gatsbyinspired outfit.

FASHION designer Amina Aranaz-Alunan with her kids Diego, Helene and Lucas

CHRYSLER BERNARDO and daughter Hexine

LITTLE Miss Chinatown Skye Venice Cerrhiza Ong whispers her Christmas wish to Santa.

Tap into the holiday magic at S Maison S MAISON recently welcomed the holiday season with music, dance and dazzling décor, as it tapped its way into the holiday magic. Inspired by the Jazz Age of the 1920s—when jazz, flappers and a lost generation of artists, writers and intellectuals came of age—guests were treated to performances by Julie Borromeo’s Performing Arts Foundation and the Brass Pas Pas Pas Pas Orchestra.

Santa Claus came all the way from the North Pole, while the Brass Pas Pas Pas Pas also serenaded the crowd with their own rendition of all-time favorite Christmas songs. The highlight of the event was the lighting up of S Maison’s Christmas tree, which is embellished with big-and-small gold and silver

snowflakes, huge crystal balls, gold balls in different sizes, metal cubes and three smaller Christmas tree lamps made of crystal beads. Seen enjoying the launch were personalities Amina AranazAlunan and kids; Chrysler Bernardo and her daughter Hexine; Sheena Gonzales; Feliz Lucas; Alexa Gutierrez; Ina ArabiaGarcia; and the Gatsby cute little kids who entertained the guests with their fashionable outfits.

S Maison’s very own Perkin So regarded the night as a get-together for family and friends, saying, “Christmas, truly, is a magical season where everyone and everything just come together to enjoy special moments with dear friends and family.”

EVENT host Cerah Hernandez Co, with her husband Andre and son Manu

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Because the peripheries can teach: Films from Zamboanga REELING

TITO GENOVA VALIENTE

titovaliente@yahoo.com

NETFLIX ‘YOU’ SEASON 2 TEASER TRAILER DEBUTS WHEN audiences last saw Joe (Penn Badgley) his heart was tragically broken and his past just caught up with him in the form of long-lost ex-girlfriend Candace (Ambyr Childers)—a woman now hell-bent on teaching him a lesson. Season 2 finds him on the run from Candace, leaving New York City for his own personal hell: Los Angeles.

He’s fresh out of an intense relationship that ended in murder. The last thing he expects is to meet an incredible new woman but he’s falling in love again— with a woman named Love (Victoria Pedretti). Is history repeating? Or will this time be the real thing?

Joe’s just crazy enough to risk finding out.

The Season 2 cast includes Badgley (Joe Goldberg), Pedretti (Love Quinn), Childers (Candace Stone), James Scully (Forty Quinn), Carmela Zumbado (Delilah Alves), Jenna Ortega (Ellie Alves), and Chris D’Elia (Henderson). Developed by Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti based on the book by Caroline Kepnes, You returns to Netflix soon.

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HE young man is alone in his hut. He wakes up each day and goes to work. The camera follows him but it is not our perspective that is working here. Someone seems to walk behind him. Someone is looking at him. He senses presences and confronts them. We are not audiences in this work; we are initiands in this rite of passage from living to dying. This is the short film of Rayan Amacna from Ozamis and he has titled it Trespas.

In Amacna’s imagination, the land can be owned and not owned. Or one could be a steward but there are beings that insist they can own it. They are called landlords and they can also be unseen beings. On both counts, the ordinary farmer or the peasant is helpless.

He looks out into the horizon and hears a shot and he does not know where it is coming from. Evil is unseen; menace is invisible in this narrative.

A young girl attends a fiesta in a place she is not familiar with. Beside her, a stranger taps on the table.

When the girl reaches home, she is unwell. She throws up. Her mother takes her to a healer who declares her as having been victimized by a Pikpik. This is a form of casting an evil eye by the simple act of tapping on an object that also touches the object of obsession.

In other towns, Pikpik can be in the form of someone tapping you on the shoulder and with that touch bring upon you a spell or a curse.

The healer is assured what he has done to the girl is sufficient. But the girl comes back to him, still feeling nauseous and afflicted. Without the healer knowing it, the girl is pregnant by her very young boyfriend.

In the classroom, the girl feels sleepy and we believe the spell has not left her. In school, she sees her boyfriend with another girl. She is distraught. She soon finds out too that there is something more in her body than the old belief in magic and sorcery. She goes home and her mother is angry but later relents and embraces her. This short film is by Xytel Freya Lopez and Kent Xerus Labrador of Nabunturan in Compostela Valley. The film bears the title Pikpik.

The two are just some of the entries at the Festival de Cine Paz in Zamboanga. The two are just two of the films that manage to fuse the two layers and meld the two levels of the socioec0nomic with the notion of enchantment.

The trope of the fantastic tale is employed by these filmmakers to tell stories that affect people in the most realistic way. This mode of the storytelling succeeds to work around our assumptions about realities even as the events happening before us appear to be told with the patina and persuasion of the mysterious.

Where have we been when these stories were being told?

The two films were entered under the section “La

Bella Mindanao” or “The Beautiful Mindanao.” But the astute festival director, Ryanne Murcia, knows that the beauty of the region does not refer to the exotic allure we from Luzon and even Visayas ascribe to the southernmost regions of the country. The beauty of Mindanao can be found in how the films can capture the small stories about these regions, not the huge monolithic homogeneity that lowland Christian filmmakers tend to paint about a land they love to frame in their own image or counter-image.

Even the melodrama genre is thoughtfully subverted in the films from this region. In Ang Pagbalik sa Ugat-Hinungdan (The Return to the Reason), the story of death and loss caused by the bombing in the Davao night market is told through flashbacks and moments of insanity and lucidity. The mother who recalls her daughter talk about whether chickens feel it when they are butchered and skewered. Instead of being camp, the conversations assume a levity that is all poignant and gross. Violent and senseless death, after all, is never not gross.

Ang Pagbalik is directed by Keisha Halili of Davao.

In Alindahaw, an entry from Butuan, a little boy watches over his grandmother. At an early age, the boy realizes there are many good things he will not have because they do not have money. One evening, the boy and his grandmother stay up to wait for the alindahaw to come. This was the money distributed to each household to buy votes. That morning, the grandmother falls ill. That night, the boy notices the men who carry the boon have skipped their home thinking that the grandmother is too ill to vote anyway. The money will be wasted on them. The metaphor of corruption as seen by the young has never been told in this manner.

Alindahaw is directed by Marie Claire Amora.

In the recently concluded film festival in Zamboanga, there was an award to be given called “Pluma de Paz.” Murcia explained the award as not really about film depicting peace but about films that depict events happening because there is no peace.

The festival and the filmmakers found a kindred soul in the person of Adjani Arumpac. The awardwinning documentarian, fresh from her Chevening fellowship in England, screened her work, War is a Tender Thing. It is a documentary that, while introspective, is deceptively personal. It looks at the filmmaker’s own parents and from there goes on to inscribe a peace process that begins from the self that questions the concept of peace.

For Arumpac, there is really no definition of peace.

What we have is a laundry list of the conditions when there is war and there is no peace.

It is in this open field of discourse, where things are contested, that I find the value of local filmmakers. Where peace is not burdened to find a definition but is rather subjected to questions. In the greater capital of Manila, the practice is to find an answer. In the region, the mode is to ask and ask, to question and to confront.

The lesson from regional film festivals is the foundation of stories, not particular stories but the fact that things begin always with stories. Where it has been a fashion in the lowland Christian civilization of Metro Manila to learn how to write screenplays, the valor of regional filmmaking is in the stories they will be able to tell. The screenplay can assume any form; the stories need not follow the formulae of classrooms and workshops. The regions— the outlying marginal lands—are the workshops. ■

WHEN it comes to matters about friendship, people are often using the phrase “friends for keeps.”

But what happens when love gets on the way of friendship? The characters of Bea Alonzo and Angelica Panganiban face the same question in the latest ABS-CBN Star Cinema film Unbreakable.

The film tells the story of best friends Mariel (Bea) and Deena (Angelica) whose friendship was forged when they were in college. They are inseparable until brothers Justin (Richard Gutierrez) and Bene (Ian Veneracion) enter their lives.

As life happens in their respective lives, Mariel and Deena will have to face the ultimate test of their friendship that could tear them apart forever.

Aside from touching on their married lives, director Mae Cruz-Alviar says the film “is a story of friendship and life happening. The obstacles will be marriage, love, but it is not the main obstacle and there are internal conflicts with other people. So, it is still the journey of friendship.”

Being friends in real-life, it was easy for Bea and Angelica to be in the shoes of their characters. Both admired by many for being real-life empowered independent women, the two versatile actresses share what they think makes a person “unbreakable” despite the hurdles in life.

Bea believes that facing the trials head-on can make you a stronger and better person. “If you can get through everything that life throws at you, that makes you unbreakable. Don’t avoid pain; you should learn from it. Don’t be scared when it is right before you. Face it head-on and then learn from it and you

will become unbreakable, you will become a better person after,” she said.

For her part, Angelica believes that keeping faith and hope alive despite the pain will help you get through the tough times in life.

“Do not lose faith with people. If one person hurts you, that does not make everybody a bad person. You must move on and use that to make you a stronger person and understand that things happen for a reason. Yes, it’s easier said and done but you must do it so that when bigger problems come, you already know what to do,” the actress explained.

Unbreakable is now screening in the following regions on these dates: now screening in the Middle East; the United States; Canada; Saipan; the United Kingdom; Guam; Milan, Rome and Bologna in Italy; Madrid and Barcelona in Spain; Vienna in Austria; Dublin in Ireland; and Malta.

It screens beginning December 12, in Brunei Darussalam, Australia; and New Zealand; December 13, in Singapore; December 14, in Oslo, Norway and Amsterdam; and December 15, in Florence and Parma in Italy.

More information is available at www.mytfc.com.

Cardi B shows up at court in style for strip club fight case Friends turn into foes in the film ‘Unbreakable’ NEW YORK—Cardi B turned up for a court appearance Tuesday in an attempted assault case, staying mum—except for fashion statements—as it proceeds.

The Grammy-winning rapper sported a feathertrimmed black coat with a long train and a widebrimmed black hat to her court date in Queens, where she faces felony charges stemming from an August 2018 fight at a strip club.

The court session centered on her lawyers’ efforts to get access to the alleged victims’ socialmedia messages.

“We believe she’s innocent, and so we’re investigating all aspects,” lawyer Drew Findling said after the court appearance.

Cardi B whispered to him and Atty. Jeff Kern in court but otherwise didn’t speak.

She has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers have denied she harmed anyone.

Police have said Cardi B, 27, and her entourage argued with a bartender at Angels Strip Club.

The dispute sparked a bottle-and-hookah-pipe throwing fracas that caused minor injuries to the woman and another employee, according to police.

Born Belcalis Almanzar, Cardi B boasts charttopping hits including “I Like It” and the Maroon 5 collaboration “Girls Like You.” She won a best rap album Grammy for Invasion of Privacy this year and has notched other honors, including the American Music Awards’ Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist title. AP

THE award-winning documentarian Adjani Arumpac, fresh from her Chevening fellowship in England, screened her work, War is a Tender Thing, at the Festival de Cine Paz in Zamboanga.

Envoys&Expats

www.businessmirror.com.ph | Thursday, December 12, 2019 E1

GM: In hotel and hospitality, Filipinos spell the ‘plus factor’

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By Cesar M. Cruz Jr. | Contributor

HE growth of the local hospitality sector is everexpanding, evident in the establishment of new hotels across the country.

Quezon City now has Park Inn

by Radisson in North Edsa, as the international chain further solidifies its presence in a major market. The upper-midscale hotel is a testament to the global brand’s partnership with the SM Group, becoming the fourth in the Philippines after Park Inn in Davao, Clark and Iloilo. It is also the first in Metro Manila.

While the hotel has already been fully operational for some months already, General Manager (GM) Nils Rothbarth admits finding exhilaration and excitement in all the work that goes into opening a new one.

“It’s the make-or-break phase.

Believe it or not: beyond all preparations that go into groundbreaking, it’s actually the securing of paperwork that’s the trickiest part,” Rothbarth intimated.

We wondered if it was just in the Philippine setting, or a normal occurrence in other countries.

After all, the German hotelier has the distinction of bringing many hotels into existence, having spent a great deal of his career as a hotel “GM,” from the cities of Europe, to the capitals of a number of African countries and, now, in this side of Southeast Asia.

“Everywhere, it’s the same.

When the paperwork is hurdled, then everything else follows.”

Take it from Rothbarth, who shared his being hands-on with his team members. Whenever possible, he personally interviews applicants.

He could not emphasize enough the importance of having the right people to develop and empower.

“The selection process during recruitment stage is the most important one. Without the right people, which we consider as our most important asset, we won’t have a successful hotel. I probably interviewed each and every person employed here, in an effort to get to know the person and discover if we have a cultural fit,” Rothbarth explained.

“It is vital that a lot of things are not scripted, and that is the nice thing about the culture of Filipinos: Service comes naturally. You can feel their sincerity,” he added.

Having set foot in the Philippines only this January, the hotelier is already loving every minute of his stay. He may be new to the Philippines, but not to its nationals.

“From my time in the Middle East, I still remember my former colleagues—a lot of whom were Filipinos. I have always kept in touch with them over the years,” Park Inn

by Radisson’s GM told this writer.

“So, when the opportunity to move to the Philippines came, there was not a second of doubt to say ‘Yes,’” the GM beamed with pride.

Filipinos, he said, have left quite an impression on him. In his own words, he finds them as “patient, friendly and sincere.”

The Radisson advantage

APART from manpower, the GM shared the elements that make Park Inn by Radisson stand out from the rest, starting with their company philosophy.

“I believe that what sets us apart is our people, together with our mantra which we call ‘EMMA,’ or ‘Every Moment Matters.’ Everyone has a lapel pin which says, ‘Yes, I can!” It is important for staff members on the floor to be able to make a decision for our guests and colleagues.”

That team members are able to call the shots when needed translates to a high level of enjoyment among guests during their stay which, in turn, gives the GM utmost satisfaction.

The GM also champions diversity, inclusion and women empowerment to enable more female team members to assume leadership roles. “My leaders here are all women, which is fantastic.

Needless to say, they are so passionate with their work,” Rothbarth voiced out.

Being the people person that he is, the GM finds himself in the thick of things when it comes to the hotel’s operations. Quite expected that his genuine concern for his staff has allowed him to address rank-and-file employees by name.

From his manpower complement, Rothbarth also acknowledged other aspects of the success of Park Inn by Radisson. One is the partnership with the SM Group.

“Being associated with the SM brand is a definite plus for the hotel. For starters, our guests can avail of exciting rewards if they happen to be SM Advantage cardholders. They can enjoy discounts from hotel establishments, like dining in Casa, our all-day dining outlet. Or, they can opt to save points by enlisting in the Radisson Rewards Program.”

Taking a page from the late great mall magnate Henry Sy’s list of must-haves for a successful undertaking, Park Inn by Radisson, as well as its provincial counterparts, bank on their individual strategic locations to draw “staycationers” and leisure travelers.

Particularly for the neighboring locales of “QC,” this is a definite plus, as the hotel is in the nexus of the northern part of Edsa and the North Luzon Expressway via Mindanao Avenue.

“We, likewise, find ourselves serving a market that is in need of larger conference, function and events venue,” Rothbarth related.

“The hotel happens to have one of the biggest ballrooms in its category, which is able to host 500 guests in one setting. Thus, we are able to cater to different branches of government, nongovernment agencies, medical associations and the like.”

Continued on E2

Envoys& BusinessMirror

E2 Thursday, December 12, 2019

CULINARY CREATIONS

German chefs whip up Pinoy snacks

CHEFS Maite Hontiveros-Dittke (from left) and Niklas Siebecke, Ambassador to Germany Ma. Theresa B. Dizon-de Vega, Caroline Glusa and Chef Bulawan Callanta BERLIN PE

GUESTS try binaki with latik and food prepared by the competitors. BERLIN PE

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ERLIN—Metro, one of the largest supermarket chains in Germany and Europe, held its Metro Cup Young Chefs in August at the Metro Cooking Academy in the German capital.

The event featured six young German chefs who were tasked to prepare Lebanese, Argentine, Japanese, New Zealander and Philippine street food or snacks in a five-course challenge.

For the Filipino course, binaki and latik, a popular corn-based snack in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, was chosen.

GM: In hotel and hospitality, Filipinos spell the ‘plus factor’

Norwegian resto features Filipino cuisine

The adjudicators are all active chefs in Germany, including Filipino-German Chefs Bulawan Callanta of Ayan Street Food restaurant, as well as Dusseldorfbased chef and food advocate Maite Hontiveros-Dittke.

Ambassador to Germany Ma. Theresa B. Dizon-de Vega lent her presence to the occasion and

awarded young German Chef Caroline Glusa for creating the best version of the corn snack. Glusa received a native bag filled with Philippine cookbooks and food items from Dizon-de Vega.

Asked about the most challenging part of preparing the s w e e t s out he r n Ph i l ip p i ne s snack, the young German chef

mentioned that getting the consistency of the corn right was most trying because they had never attempted to prepare, nor tasted, binaki before.

The Philippine Embassy in Berlin continues to have a full slate of culinary-related activities for the remainder of the year as part of its Culinary Diplomacy thrusts. DFA

Nils Rothbarth Continued from E1

Climbing the leadership ladder PRIOR to assuming one of the highest leadership positions within his industry, the German GM shared his story of working his way up, starting from the most basic of roles.

“My first job was being a storekeeper. Basically, I ran all the inventory for the hotel. I was responsible in making sure all the goods that the hotel needs: from the most important, such as food and beverages [F&B], to the most trivial, like paper clips, are in stock and never run out,” Rothbarth recalled.

By being exposed to various hotel departments, he grew a liking for the F&B department. It taught him to be detail-oriented, especially during demanding events, such as wedding receptions, when everything is expected to be perfectly executed.

It comes as no surprise then that Rothbarth considers himself as a passionate “hobby cook.”

Mussels, he said, are his go-to

main ingredient for his signature dishes because of their amazing flavor, as well as versatility to allow for a host of cooking styles.

As a German who knows his kind of beer and enjoys it, Rothbarth delights in sampling domestic brews.

As for local dishes, he has grown a craving for good ole sisig.

In order to stay on top of his game, the expat-hotelier keeps his mind sharp and his spirit inspired by picking up nuggets of wisdom from leisure reading. He is currently delving into Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and a biography on Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg.

For leisure activities, Rothbarth heads out of town to Subic in Zambales, and the beach towns of Batangas. He is looking forward to visit more beautiful dive spots around the country.

To cap off our conversation, we asked the established hotelier for his advice to upstarts who want to establish themselves in the hospitality industry. His straightforward reply: “Get involved, and have fun.”

(IN last week’s expat profile, IWG Country Manager Lars Wittig’s first name was inadvertently written as “Charles.” We regret the oversight and offer our sincere apologies to Mr. Wittig.)

FILIPINO food fare in one of Oslo’s landmark restaurants

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THEATERCAFéEN menu featuring Filipino food offerings

SLO—Kitchens in Oslo swung their doors open to two Filipino guest chefs from Grand Hyatt Manila for the Theatercaféen “Filipino Takeover” project in September.

Theatercaféen-Hotel Continental invited Filipino Chef Ana Liezl Enriquez and Chef Antonio “Jun” Cantiller Jr. to collaborate with Executive Chef Stig Drageide for a Filipino food extravaganza.

Enriquez and Antonio created an authentic Filipino menu comprised of adobo, kare-kare, and chicken inasal.

Enriquez is currently the sous chef at the Grand Hyatt Manila’s premier a la minute restaurant, The Grand Kitchen, while Cantiller has been working as sous chef in Grand Hyatt

Manila since 2017. The collaboration between the Philippine hotel and Theatercaféen was preceded by a Norwegian Seafood Extravaganza in May for the Norwegian Constitution Day celebration in Manila.

Friends of the Philippines, including Norwegians and other nationalities, members of the Filipino community, and officers and staff of the Philippine Embassy in Oslo, attended the event.

The Philippine Embassy in the Norwegian capital reported that Theatercaféen-Hotel Continental in Oslo, known as a landmark and one of the most popular places to dine in the said city for more than a century, gained a new attraction to its premier restaurant with the resounding success of the Filipino culinary takeover. DFA

&Expats

envoys.expats.bm@gmail.com |Thursday, December 12, 2019 E3

EMBASSIES, EVENTS, ETC.

FAREWELL, PHILIPPINES Before ending his tour of duty on December 22, Archbishop

Gabriele Giordano Caccia (right) made his farewell call to Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. on December 5 at the Department of Foreign Affairs headquarters. Locsin, together with assistant secretaries and other officials of the department, thanked Caccia for his dedicated work and wished him well on his next posting in New York as permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. The latter served as the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps since December 6, 2017. DFA

tendered a year-end luncheon for the Heads of Missions to the Philippines from the Middle East and Africa on December 3. The Department of Foreign Affairs chief underscored the strong and strategic partnerships the Philippines currently enjoys with their countries, which he also vowed to intensify. DFA/NILO K. PALAYA

‘SPIRIT OF THE UNION’ Members of the local diplomatic community join Ambassador

THAILAND DAY Communications Secretary Martin M. Andanar (left) greets the new

Hamad Saeed Al-Zaabi (seventh from right) for the local celebration of the 48th National Day of the United Arab Emirates on December 2. RECTO MERCENE

YEAR-END LUNCHEON Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. (front row, center)

Ambassador of Thailand Vasin Ruangprateepsaeng. The latter led the local commemoration of the National Day of the Kingdom of Thailand at a reception on December 5. PCOO/PNA

New envoy to tighten Manila-Beijing links

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HINESE Ambassadordesignate to the Philippines Huang Xilian arrived in Manila on December 3, replacing longtime envoy Zhao Jianhua, who ended his five-year tour of duty.

on Asian affairs in his diplomatic career and had previously visited the Philippines, which he described as “a paradise on Earth.”

Prior to becoming China’s ambassador to the Asean—his most recent posting—Huang served as deputy director general of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Department of Asian Affairs.

As China’s new representative in Manila, Huang vowed to lead initiatives and programs that would effectively implement the recent agreements and consensus between President Duterte and President Xi Jinping of China.

“I’m designated by [our] president as the ambassador to promote friendship and to deepen our pragmatic cooperation,” the Chinese diplomat told reporters who covered his arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. He said the Philippines and China have reached a “level of agreement of consensus.”

“For me, the most important task is to implement those agreements and turn them into tangible benefits for our people,” he said.

MEANWHILE, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. has vowed to maintain closer coordination with Huang to further strengthen ties between Beijing and Manila.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila reported that both officials discussed the overall status of the Philippines-China relations “that continue to develop in-depth” under the current administration.

“The secretary reaffirmed that [he and] the Department of Foreign Affairs [DFA] would maintain close cooperation with Ambassador Huang and the Chinese Embassy… to consolidate the Philippines-China friendship and enhance mutually beneficial cooperation,” the embassy said. “[Huang] pointed out that in recent years, the Philippines-China relationship has developed at a steady pace, [as] the two countries have continuously advanced their cooperation in various areas, [bringing] benefits to the two peoples,” the embassy statement read.

The Chinese envoy was received by protocol officials from the DFA, officials from the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines and representatives from the local Chinese communities. Joyce Ann L. Rocamora/PNA

‘Best yet to come’

IN his speech, Huang made it apparent that his focus would also veer toward promoting the China-led Belt and Road Initiative in the country.

“China stands as the Philippines’s top trading partner, the largest source of imports, the third-largest export market and the second-largest tourist origin. The growth of China-Philippines relations, embodying common wishes of our people, have been generating more and more tangible benefits...and brought about a

CHINESE Ambassador-designate to the Philippines Huang Xilian JOYCE ANN L. ROCAMORA

closer community of [a] shared future,” he noted.

Huang said, “the best is yet to come,” as 2020 is the conclusive year for China to complete building a “moderately prosperous society in all respects, and achieve its first centenary goal,” which coincides with the 45th anniversary of the establishment of China-Philippines diplomatic relations.

“I feel extremely honored to serve as the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines at such an important historical juncture, and will work wholeheartedly to promote ChinaPhilippines friendship and cooperation, living up to the significant mission entrusted upon me,” he remarked.

Huang has mostly been working

NEW ENVOY Ambassador-designate Bartinah Ntombizodwa Radebe-Netshitenzhe of the

Republic of South Africa (right) paid a courtesy call on Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. at the Department of Foreign Affairs headquarters, also on December 3. Radebe-Netshitenzhe provided open copies of her credentials and the letter of recall of her predecessor. She and Locsin discussed the strengthening of bilateral relations and the proposed convening of the fifth Bilateral Consultative Forum between the Philippines and South Africa. DFA

‘ELEVATION...’ VIA DRONE Ambassador of the United States Sung Y. Kim (from left); Sen. Richard J. Gordon, chairman and CEO of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC); Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo and U2 frontman Bono lead the launch of the partnership between the PRC and Zipline in deploying drones for the delivery of medicines across the Philippines. BERNARD TESTA

PHL, Austria hold round 1 of political consultations

‘Mutually beneficial cooperation’

THE inaugural Philippines-Austria political consultations discussed bilateral relations, regional developments and international issues of mutual interest. DFA/NILO PALAYA

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HE Philippines and Austria successfully held their inaugural political consultations in Manila on November 28.

The meeting, cochaired by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Policy Enrique A. Manalo and Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs Director General for Bilateral Affairs and Political Director Alexander Marschik, also saw the participation of

Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Ma. Amelita C. Aquino, Philippine Ambassador to Austria Maria Cleofe R. Natividad and Ambassador of Austria to the Philippines Bita Rasoulian.

The two sides discussed the strengthening of their bilateral relations, and noted the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Philippines-Austria diplomatic relations in 2021. They further

exchanged views on regional and multilateral issues of common interests.

In the course of their discussions, a number of areas for action, aimed at strengthening and enhancing the relationship, were identified.

Marschik extended an invitation to Manalo to visit Vienna for the next round of bilateral consultations. DFA

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E4 Thursday, December 12, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

MINDANAO MONITOR

Matrade exec: Mindanao an ‘attractive market’

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AVAO CITY—Mindanao, and the rest of the Philippines in general, remain an “attractive market” for Malaysia.

“And, we hope that both Malaysia and the Philippines would benefit from this venture, as some of the companies that are here with us are looking for sites in [your country where] they could establish manufacturing or processing plants,” she added.

Siti Azlina Mohd Ali Hanafiah, trade commissioner of Malaysia External Trade Development Corp.

(Matrade), said their members are actively looking for sectors to do business and partner with local traders.

In the Malaysia-Philippines Business Forum in this Mindanao capital city, Hanafiah noted the island’s close proximity to Sabah and Sarawak, as well as its accessibility within the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga).

“Since the island is within the framework of BIMP-Eaga, we should enhance more activities in Mindanao,” Hanafiah said.

She stated that as of November 19, they have already conducted cluster meetings in various sectors and explored opportunities in food

Platform for collaboration

and beverages, cosmetic products, information and communications technology services, construction and building materials, as well as logistics.

“We are still in the initial stage, but we will conduct a series of discussions and meetings with prospective partners,” the trade official revealed.

She also added that they are looking at raw materials on agricultural produce and minerals that they can further manufacture in Malaysia.

Potential and opportunity

HANAFIAH also noted that the Philippines has a huge potential in the domestic market as it has about 109 million in population, compared to Malaysia’s 32 million.

“With this big opportunity, we encourage Malaysian companies to go

THE Malaysia External Trade Development Corp. held a business forum in Davao City, on November 20. DIGNA BANZON/PNA

out and explore the Asean markets.

The Philippines is one interesting market, rather than Indonesia and Vietnam, which have been exploited already,” she said.

Malaysia’s exports to the Philippines consists largely of electrical and electronic products, palm oil and palm-based agriculture products, chemicals and chemical products,

petroleum products and machinery, as well as equipment and parts.

She said the Malaysian economy has already transformed from agriculture to manufacturing.

IN her message during the business forum, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said the Matrade business mission would further enhance trade and investment relations between the two countries, plus forge ties among its business sectors.

The mayor said she hopes the activity would become a platform for local and Malaysian entrepreneurs for collaboration, not only to discuss challenges and breakthroughs in the business sector, but also find ways for economic advancement and development. “Malaysia is a priority business partner of Davao. We hope that our top quality products and businesses will possibly gain more Malaysian investors and business partners in the coming years,” she said. Digna Banzon/PNA

Talks on Mindanao culture draws London crowd

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ONDON—Two scholars conducted “Tales of Mindanao: The Epics and Textiles of Mindanao,” a series of talks on the island-region’s epics and indigenous textiles at the University College London (UCL) on October 28, which drew crowds of students, artists, writers and fellow scholars who were interested to know more about the second-largest island of the Philippines.

Dr. Christine Godinez-Ortega, renowned Philippine poet, scholar and director of the Iligan Writers Workshop, introduced the

various epics of Mindanao, juxtaposing these with contemporary literature by the region’s writers who drew on these tales as inspiration for their work.

On the other hand, Dr. Leonard Rey S. Cariño engaged the audience with a comprehensive discussion on the different textiles of Mindanao, as well as their use and production of these fabrics meant to the community.

“Many foreigners and children of Filipino migrants do not know about our precolonial literature. They are there for one’s

MINDANAO scholars Dr. Christine Godinez-Ortega and Dr. Leonard Rey S. Cariño engage the audience with discussions on the epics and textiles of Mindanao, to introduce a lesserknown aspect of Philippine culture. LONDON PE

learning about our country’s true self, values and truths,” said Godinez-Ortega.

“These are in the legends, epics and poetry that should be advanced today, lest we give the wrong image about our country. Before we realized our nationhood, colonialism cut this short. Our geography or groups of islands hasn’t helped. Everyone should help reimagine our country,

embrace her diversities, and embrace the local toward internationalization, toward the realization of a global Filipino.”

Ambassador to the United Kingdom Antonio M. Lagdameo expressed his sentiments on the talk, saying “talks about Philippine culture and heritage, especially those that probe deep into the heart of our indigenous heritage, help Filipinos

around the world to better understand our identity as a people. These talks are also vital in introducing our culture to the rest of the world.”

The talk was organized by the UCL Filipino Society, a group of students in one of London’s most prestigious universities, who share a passion for promoting Philippine arts and culture in the UK. DFA

Indonesia holds investment forum, trade expo in Davao City

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AVAO CITY—At least 26 Indonesian companies joined the Investment, Trade Expo and Business Forum in Davao del Sur’s capital, slated from November 28 to December 1.

The companies specialize in a variety of products ranging from food products, children’s wear, fashion accessories, shoes, leather products, and several others.

Republic of Indonesia’s Consul General in Davao Dinky Fabrian said the event seeks to further improve Indonesian-Philippine trade relations through outcomeoriented business transactions.

In his message during the “Business Networking Session” on November 29, Fabrian said: “We offer a platform for our Filipino brothers and sisters to deepen international business cooperation for our shared prosperity and progress.”

“With the relaunching of ManadoDavao flights, there is more reason for us to develop and strengthen our trade and tourism potentials,” he added.

The consul general also encouraged Mindanao businesses to seize the oppor-

tunities presented by Indonesia’s development in the era.

He pointed out that in 2018, Indonesia was the ninth-largest trading partner of the Philippines, 14th as export market, and sixth as import supplier.

Total bilateral trade was valued at

$7.81 billion, while exports to Indonesia increased by 21.79 percent from $724.21 million in 2017 to $881.99 million in 2018.

Fabrian added that the trading activities are mainly dominated by Luzon in the Philippines, and Java in Indonesia.

Digna Banzon/PNA