Businessmirror december 15, 2016

BMReports

PHL coconut-rehab program in Yolanda-hit areas yet to bear fruit

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

R

@jearcalas

Conclusion

UNNING against time is an impossible task for any mortal. For Philippine Coconut Authority’s (PCA) Roel M. Rosales, however, it is a task he is willing to undertake.

According to Rosales, PCA deputy administrator for operations, learning from the past and applying the Continued on A2 A statue of Jesus Christ stands on Calvary Hill scattered by trees fallen by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in Tacloban City, Leyte, on November 12, 2013. AP/Philippine Air Force

media partner of the year

United nations

2015 environmental Media Award leadership award 2008

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

A broader look at today’s business n

Thursday, December 15, 2016 Vol. 12 No. 63

2016 ejap journalism awards

business news source of the year

P25.00 nationwide | 4 sections 24 pages | 7 days a week

D.O.T.R. SAYS MOVING PROJECTS FASTER WILL ERASE CORRUPTION

‘Emergency powers key to golden age of infra’ President Duterte he Department of Transwants this to be portation (DOTr) has a new the golden age of pitch for the emergency powers infrastructure, so we are trying it has been seeking: This measure will help pave the way for the Duterte to pursue the backlogs, and administration’s much-hyped P9emergency powers trillion “golden age of infrastructure” will be enabling Continued on A2 campaign. that.”—Santos @lorenzmarasigan

the broader look

Fleyeing | Dreamstime.com

T

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

a6-a7

While costly, groups urge persistent pursuit of peace

SMC BID TO BUILD AIRPORT PIQUES DUTERTE’S INTEREST T

By Recto Mercene

@rectomercene

he Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Wednesday said that, so far, only the proposal of San Miguel Corp. President Ramon S. Ang to build a separate airport in Bulacan has been regarded as “serious enough” for consideration by the Duterte administration.

“The proposal is under review and, by early next year, it will be endorsed to the National Economic and Development Authority [Neda],” Transportation Assistant Secretary Cherie Mercado said during the BusinessMirror Coffee Club forum held at its offices in Makati City.

See “SMC,” A2

Department of Transportation (DOTr) officials on Wednesday discussed plans, roadblocks and challenges facing the agency at the BusinessMirror Coffee Club forum. Gracing the event are (from left) D. Edgard Cabangon, ALC Media Group chairman; Thomas M. Orbos, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority general manager; Cherie Mercado, DoTr assistant secretary; and T. Anthony C. Cabangon, BusinessMirror publisher. NONOY LACZA

PESO exchange rates n US 49.7680

n japan 0.4322 n UK 62.9864 n HK 6.4169 n CHINA 7.2128 n singapore 34.9347 n australia 37.3061 n EU 52.8685 n SAUDI arabia 13.2725

Source: BSP (14 December 2016 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Thursday, December 15, 2016

www.businessmirror.com.ph

PHL coconut-rehabilitation program MMDA gets DILG support to solve in Yolanda-hit areas yet to bear fruit Continued from A1

lessons double-time is a non-negotiable task: it must be done.

And it must be done now.

“With the experiences [from Supertyphoon] Yolanda [on coconut farms in the Visayas] we now see it as a priority to really fast-track the implementation of the remaining targets because what has been provided somehow was never enough,” Rosales said.

He is referring to the Philippines’s centerpoint Yolanda Recovery and Rehabilitation Program (YRRP). The YRRP is currently the end-all and be-all so that Visayas’s coconut farmers avoid destitution.

“Nakita rin namin yung suffering ng mga tao so kailangan talagang ma-alleviate ’yan,” Rosales told the BusinessMirror. “Kailangan macommensurate sila by way of fast tracking [the implementation of the YRRP]. Taking cognizance of all these things, kailangan talaga naming madaliin ang ginagawa namin” [We have seen how farmers are suffering so there’s really a need to alleviate this. We really need to commensurate them by way of fast tracking the implementation of the YRRP. Taking cognizance of all these things, we really need to hasten the way we perform our duties].”

Returning vigor

THE YRRP is PCA’s mother plan for the coconut farms damaged by Yolanda in November 2013. The four-point YRRP is composed of debris management, replanting, fertilization and intercropping.

According to PCA documents, the YRRP aims to resurrect the coconut industries in three Yolanda-affected provinces in the long term. At the same time, the YRRP is also expected to serve as a mitigation program to ease Yolanda’s negative economic impact on coconut farmers.

Under the debris management (DM) component, the PCA aims to cut around 10 million of totally

SMC. . .

devastated coconut trees to clear public and private lands of the debris that pose hazard to the environment and health.

For the coconut replanting component, the PCA targets to replant around 10 million coconut trees in 100,000 hectares of devastated land. The PCA also aims to provide grant-in-kind fertilizers to affected coconut farming families.

Last, the PCA decided to introduce intercropping in the affected regions to help affected coconut farmers earn income by planting cash crops while awaiting for their new coconut trees to fully grow and bear fruit.

Rosales said the fertilization program was ver y important because it will compensate for the loss of the trees as it also would restore the vigor of the land.

“We know that it takes a minimum of five years before coconut trees bear fruit. So in the meantime, the fertilizer will swing things favorable for more production,” Rosales told the BusinessMirror.

“The Yolanda victims needed it the most—to bring back the vigor of coconut industry in those areas.”

while some 13,620 hectares were fertilized this year. A total of 41,149 hectares has been fertilized so far.

The hectarage translates to around 4,114,900 coconut trees fertilized and 17,121 coconut farmers benefiting from the program, PCA document shows.

Rosales said around P700 million was allocated for the fertilization component of the YRRP. To date, the PCA has covered 82,964 hectares for intercropping since 2014, with around 81,024 farmers benefiting from the program. A report by the National Economic and Development Authority shows that the PCA aimed to cover 282,000 hectares for its intercropping program. However, since 2014, the PCA has only covered 29.42 percent of its intercropping target.

“We are haven’t reach 50 percent of our target for intercropping because the funds are not enough to sustain that activity,” Rosales told the BusinessMirror.

The PCA allocated P650 million for the intercropping component of the agency’s YRRP, according to Rosales.

Hits, misses

UNDER the replanting component of the YRRP, the PCA distributed local tall varieties of coconut. Local tall varieties are expected to bear fruit in five years to seven years, compared to its dwarf variety counterpart, which only takes two to three years before fruition.

“We distributed local talls because they are the abundant ones.

So by 2019 they will already bear fruit,” Rosales said.

He added they anticipate that the replanting woes would ease up as the coconut industry is slowly reviving, primarily in Region 8.

“Nagno-normalize na ’yung production although still medyo tight pa rin ’yung supply,” he said in an interview. “Pero iniisip namin na in the next few months magno-normalize na ang production.”

THE PCA finished cutting the target 10 million trees in May of last year, according to Rosales, citing the DM component of the YRRP. For the duration of this component, the PCA used 2,736 chainsaws, wherein 29,947 coconut farmers-benefited from the program, PCA documents show. Rosales said they allotted around P800 million for the YRRP’s DM component.

For the P700-million coconut replanting program, the PCA has completed replanting 8.549 million seedlings in over 85,495 hectares, with 21,858 farmers benefiting from the program, PCA documents show.

PCA documents also showed that from 2014 to 2015 the agency has fertilized 27,529 hectares,

Continued from A1

When asked about the alleged proposal of certain group to make Sangley another hub, Mercado said: “As far as the DOTr is concerned, there’s a process, you have to follow the process, give a proposal, but so far, only San Miguel’s proposal is under review and by early next year, we will endorse it to the Neda.”

The reported Sangley hub pertains to the presentations in Malacañang made by the Tieng brothers of the Solar Entertainment Group. They sought Duterte and complained of their inability to get an audience with Transport Secretary Arthur P. Tugade.

A former president of Clark Development Corp., Tugade is said to be in favor of expanding Clark from a budget terminal and transform it into the country’s main international gateway.

Reports earlier indicated that the Tiengs were able to bypass Tugade and have submitted an unsolicited proposal to Duterte in favor of Sangley, initially as a secondary budget and general aviation airport before eventually expanding it into a two-runway international airport and seaport.

Replanting season

The transfer of some budget carrier flights to Sangley would make the current Philippine Air Force base commercially viable rather than as a purely general aviation hub, as envisioned by Tugade. The government earlier said it has set aside close to P1 billion to relocate within two years the 15th Strike Wing from its current Sangley base to Cagayan de Oro’s Lumbia airport.

The Tiengs’project adviser, Aexxell of Germany, has estimated that it would cost P3.3 billion to upgrade the existing Sangley runway and build a new low-cost terminal to accommodate Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-series planes.

The single-level terminal will be a modest 2,300-square-meter affair, capable of handling one arrival and one departure every hour. According to the presentation, PAL Express, the budget subsidiary of Philippine Airlines, may relocate some of its flights to Sangley, following the earlier decision of PAL Chairman Lucio Tan to lead the Sangley exodus with the transfer of the LT Group’s general aviation fleet and help decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

Should the Tieng proposal push through, there would be two budget airports operating simultaneously—with Clark serving Central and Northern Luzon and Sangley the Southern Luzon

“Thats why fertilization is very important because it will compensate for the loss of the trees kasi nga alam natin na five years minimum na mag-flower s’ya at mamumunga,” he added. “Fertilization will swing things in favor of the farmer. Somehow, the loss is diminished kasi hindi mo naman mababawi ’yung nawala agad eh, kasi limited din ’yung resources [we can’t recoup what was lost because the resources are limited].”

Finding opportunities

ROSALES is upfront in admitting the YRRP has hit some snags.

“Well, we missed the opportunity,” Rosales said of the fertilization component of the YRRP. “Nagkaroon talaga ng bureaucratic problems because the bidding has to be transparent dahil government ’yan. [Still,] there were some bureaucratic problems here and there,” Rosales said sans citing details.

Rosales said the PCA may not anymore seek additional budget from the government’s Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan (CRRP). He said the agency will complete and finish the YRRP by using the agency’s P1.4-billion budget.

“The PCA is committed in being able to assist the coconut farmers of the Yolanda-affected areas,” Rosales said. “We shall pursue that goal certainly not by using the Yolanda funds anymore but using our regular budget and pool our resources to address the specific concerns of those farmers.”

He added they will increase the funding allocation for Region 8, the area most affected by Yolanda. Rosales said the increase would come from the PCA’s 2017 budget, given the accumulated unspent funding of the agency throughout the years.

“On top of the P1.4 billion next year, even if we speak of around P3 billion [of unspent funding] you can imagine that it would be more than enough,” Rosales said.

region—and with the Naia still remaining open as the primary gateway to Metro Manila.

The main challenge to making Sangley viable is, like Clark, the absence of fast road and rail connectivity, as the main road leading to the Sangley peninsula is a two-laner built during the American occupation.

Mercado stood pat on her denial about the Sangley proposal of the Tiengs: “There is no formal proposal yet, but definitely, we are waiting to build another airport apart from Sangley and the Naia.”

“It’s just a matter of whoever wants to propose, submit the proposal to the DOTr that will do an analysis, but the Naia will remain as the main airport although it has limitation, hopefully, there is another airport,” she added.

“And then we have Clark,”she said, saying it is more predictable for residents of Quezon City to proceed to Clark rather than go to the Naia because of traffic congestion.

“Today, some local airlines have added flights to Clark, we would like to expand and improve Clark, Tugade said he is serious about it and he wants to be a guinea pig for decongesting the the Naia,” Mercado said. “While doing that he is also pressuring himself to make the interconnection to Clark,” she added.

Mercado said the DOTr would like to transfer its office to Clark, and by then, she said it’s employees would be able to experience how it feels to commute by rail or by car.

Asked if the DOTr meant that there should be three air-ports— the Naia, Sangley and Clark, Mercado said: “The [DOTr] belief is we’re open to more than two airports.” She said Ang’s proposal to build an airport is Bulacan would be viable because early study showed it is too far from Clark to affect its flight patterns.

Aviation experts have said no two international airports should be closer than 25 miles, otherwise, both of their traffic patterns would overlap. Clark CEO and President Alexander Cauguiran, however, said during an interview that Ang’s airport would not be viable in Bulacan because it is hemmed in by two international airports, the Naia and Clark.

“Ang’s airport in Bulacan would not be viable with two main airports in the North and South,” he said.

Caugiran said the ideal setup is the present Clark and the Naia, since Clark would be the airport for the residents of Northern and Central Luzon, while the Naia would be for passengers residing in Southern Luzon. But Mercado said it is Ang’s lookout to attract airlines to use his airport provided that he does not ask the government for sovereign guarantee.

“Definitely, we think there’s a need, apart from the Naia and Clark, which is matter of studying and accepting the proposal to the DOTr, but still the main airport needs expansion because it is probably useful only in the next 10 years,” she said.

Ang has abandoned an earlier offer to construct a new airport out of reclaimed lands on Manila Bay, across Sangley and near the Entertainment City.

illegal-parking woes

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

T

Correspondent

he Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is inching toward solving the illegal-parking problem in the metropolis by getting the support of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

MMDA Of f icer i n C h a rge Thomas M. Orbos on Wednesday also revealed that the agency is planning to privatize the towing operation in January 2017.

“Regulatory [concerns] will still be with us [MMDA] but the service will be privatized,” he added.

The MMDA chief disclosed that the agency is looking into other traffic-obstruction solutions, such as “time-bound parking”. This means the vehicles are removed from the streets during peak hours.

“This is being done in other countries. In New York motorists transfer their cars during the 7 a.m. rush hour. Or else the person is fined or the car is towed,” Orbos said in Filipino at the BusinessMirror Coffee Club Forum on Wednesday.

“We need multifaceted solutions [to the traffic problem]. That’s the only way we can address this.”

With an average of 70 to 100 illegally parked vehicles towed every day by the agency’s personnel, Orbos warned that charges would be filed against barangay officials who allow illegal parking of vehicles, adding that these vehicles worsen the traffic situation.

Orbos expressed confidence that the plan to make barangay officials accountable will materialize soon, now that the MMDA already has the support of the DILG. “The problem with towing is that it takes time, it takes resources, it

takes space, which becomes also a point of obstruction of traffic,” Orbos said.

Orbos added that he has already relayed the problem to Interior Secretary Ismael D. Sueno.

“What we are asking for is for the DILG to help us here [illegalparking problem]. Besides the filing of charges [at the Office of the Ombudsman], he [Ismael D. Sueno] can suspend barangay officials,” Orbos said.

There have been 20 private towing companies licensed by the MMDA, which are allowed to operate along major thoroughfares.

Orbos reiterated that the MMDA is mulling over the possible filing of charges against motorists who will illegally park their vehicles on secondary roads.

“We are looking into filing a case [against motorists] besides giving a citation ticket. If [the motorist] will not redeem his or her ticket then we will have to file a case,” he said.

Orbos said other options the agency are considering is putting the violator’s name on the watch list so they will have a hard time renewing their license.

Besides the P500 penalty, the MMDA is considering charging the vehicle owner of a fee based on the distance from the area it was towed up to the impounding area.

“That is why we are thinking of sending the towed vehicles to Tarlac [province in Central Luzon]. Again, the problem is that it would take time, but we are also talking to the barangay. We will be talking as an interagency [group] to the barangay captain,” Orbos said.

He reiterated the implementation of one-side parking. “Double parking hinders the smooth flow of traffic,” he said in Filipino.

‘Emergency powers key to golden age of infra’ Continued from A1

“The emergency powers is an enabling way. President Duterte wants this to be the golden age of infrastructure, so we are trying to pursue the backlogs and emergency powers will be enabling that,” Transportation Spokesman Cherie Mercado said at the BusinessMirror Coffee Club forum on Wednesday.

Mercado said the department faced headwinds and birthing pains during the administration’s first six months in power, and is bracing itself for more to come 2017. These issues, she said, include almost dead end-like problems, such a court cases and delays in right-of-way acquisition.

“We need to move forward with the projects that were left behind.

We have to move with the ones that were left in the past, and make the new ones move faster,” Mercado said.

She explained that when projects move faster, these are the deals that more likely free of corruption. “When we push for projects to move faster, they are cleaner, because delays give corruption a chance to creep in on a contract’s implementation. That is why we want to make them move faster.”

The issues she mentioned, Mercado said, could easily be resolved when the emergency powers has been granted by Congress to the DOTr. “Those are a few major things that we were hopeful in resolving through the emergency powers. The emergency powers will help us to make projects move.”

With emergency powers, the

transport agency will be able to fast-track the implementation of much-needed reforms in the transport sector, she noted.

Currently, the plea for the grant of emergency powers to the transport department hangs in Congress. A bill granting the said power to the executive branch, on the other hand, is unlikely to be passed before the end of the year.

“The ball is really in their [Congress] court. It is up to them if they will grant it to us or not. We feel that if granted, we will be delivering our deliverables at a faster phase and better manner. If they deem that it is not necessary then we have to do things in the usual slow project implementation motion,” Mercado said.

Asked if her group is still bullish on getting the emergency powers despite hitting roadblocks in securing it, Mercado replied that her department is just hopeful that lawmakers will see the rationale behind the need for it. “There’s an urgency to our traffic crisis, that is why it is called a crisis,” she said.

T he transpor t depar tment will, however, accept whatever amendment Congress might include in the bill. “The bottom line there is whatever will be the final, that would still enable us to move the projects; that would help a lot.”

Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno earlier said the government is ready to spend P8.2 trillion to P9 trillion from 2017 to 2022 for the administration’s golden age of infra campaign. The program targets to generate more than 1 million jobs annually.

The Nation BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Thursday, December 15, 2016 A3

DOJ summons cops in Leyte mayor’s killing

T

By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

HE Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday summoned the policemen allegedly involved in the killing of Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte, and fellow inmate Raul Yap inside the Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail in Baybay City on November 5 to answer the multiple murder and perjury complaints filed against them by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The subpoenas were sent to the respondents’ mother units, as well as to the National Police general headquarters in Camp Rafael Crame, Quezon City.

Supt. Marvin Marcos, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Eastern Visayas detachment, and the other policemen involved in the killing were required to appear during the preliminary investigation of the

T

wa lkways,” MaCE A President David L. Balangue said.

“Ultimately, it will encourage motorists to leave their cars and join the pedestrians on short trips to the commercial center and back, which is the core objective of the pedestrianization program.”

The De La Rosa Elevated Walkway has serviced hundreds of thousands of pedestrians since its first phase was built from the Enterprise Center in Paseo de Roxas to Greenbelt. Today, with the elevated walkway’s connection to Ayala Center, commuters have the option to start from the Ayala MRT station on Edsa and comfortably walk all the way down to Makati Medical Center fully protected from the sun and rain.

“The walkway offers workers, residents and transients safety, comfort, convenience and protective cover on their short trips to the commercial center and back.

There are many benefits to walking, and savings on gas and the vehicle’s wear and tear. Reduced vehicular traffic in the district will also have a positive impact on the environment,” Balangue added. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

Govt relocates 1,039 Tacloban families from danger zone

By Roel T. Amazona Philippine News Agency

T

ACLOBAN CITY—The government has relocated some 1,039 families from danger zones to permanent housing sites in the past two weeks.

Leading the transfer of families badly hit by Typhoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) are the city government and the Army’s 53rd Engineering Brigade.

To include households that were transfered earlier, there are already 2,400 families who were moved to their new homes built by the National Housing Authority (NHA) as of December 10.

Among the occupied housing sites are North Hill Arbour in San Roque village, Guadalupe Height a nd Gre end a le R eside nces i n Suhi village.

Col. Edgar Yerro of the Army’s 53rd Engineering Brigade, who supervises the relocation of residents living along coastal areas, said the

Citing testimonial and forensic evidence, the NBI said Espinosa and Yap were killed in a rubout and not in a shootout, as claimed by the policemen who conducted the raid in their prison cells.

“There was unison in their pur pose and action, sig nif ying that they were all moved by a single criminal intent,” the NBI said.

For their part, respondents had claimed Espinosa and Yap were in possession of firearms and refused to allow the raiding team to search their cells.

case, and answer the complaints against them.

The five-member panel of prosecutors, chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Lilian Doris Alejo, set the preliminary investigation on December 20 and January 8, 2017, at 10 a.m. at the DOJ Multipurpose Hall.

The complaint was filed by the NBI, which determined that Espinosa and Yap were victims of

MaCEA investment for Makati pedestrianization now at ₧497M HE Makati Commercial Estate Association (MaCEA) revealed early this week said that some P497 million so far had been invested in the Makati Central Business District’s pedestrianization program.

MaCEA has been a primary mover in the district’s development, building at least seven underpasses, on grade covered sidewalks, and the De La Rosa Elevated Walkway.

MaCEA’s latest project has extended the De La Rosa Elevated Walkway 305 meters more, from V.A. Rufino to Salcedo Street.

The extension was built at a cost of P110.6 million over a year and eight months. This brings the De La Rosa Elevated Walkway to about 1,100 meters long, making it the country’s longest elevated pedestrian walkway.

MaCEA, composed of all the property owners within the Makati CBD, expects to invest approximately P150 million more for its pedestrianization program in 2017.

“We envisioned the program as a network of trilevel pedestrian pathways composed of underground passageways, on-grade covered sidewalks and elevated

summary execution or rubout.

Aside from Marcos, other respondents are Chief Insp. Leo Daio Laraga; Senior Insps. Deogracia Pedong Diaz and Fritz Bioco Blanco; and eight other policemen assigned to the CIDG in Eastern Visayas, as well as Chief Insp. Calixto Cabardo Canillas Jr.; Insp. Lucresito Adana Candelosas; and four other policemen assigned to the Eastern Visayas unit of the National Police Maritime Group.

Laraga, the confessed gunman; Abellanosa and Paul Olendan are facing separate complaint for perjury.

NHA has picked specific recipients of each of the 7,231 housing units through raffle.

“The NHA will continue doing the raffle for beneficiaries, but this doesn’t mean that they can already occupy the house. The NHA is doing it so that a family will know where their future house is, regularly monitor its construction and plan for relocation,” Yerro said.

They are targeting to relocate 8,000 families to permanent shelters by end of this year, but this will still depend on the availability of houses, according to the Army official.

Earlier, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Diño ordered government agencies to ensure that housing units are livable before relocation. Other primary considerations are livelihood and available classrooms for children.

There is a complaint desk in every relocation site with a personnel assigned to list their constructionrelated concerns and relay it to the contractors.

Peace advocates still hope for successful talks with NDF

By Catherine Joy L. Maglalang Correspondent

P

LARIDEL, Bulacan—Peace advocates still believe that there is still a chance that the negotiations between the government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) would still succeed.

Despite what is seen as a fatal blow to the ongoing peace negotiations from the government and NDF panels, Ernesto A. Alcanzare, lead organizer of Yes for Peace—Bayanihan ng Bayan para sa Mapayapa, Maunlad at Masaganang Pilipinas based in this town, is confident that the groundwork “for an era of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace is still attainable.”

The disagreement over the release of detained activists between President Duterte and Luis Jalandoni, an NDF negotiator, “ has dimmed the bright prospects for a just and lasting peace,” Alcanzare added.

He sa id t he NDF recent ly blamed government negotiators for not pursuing the release of political prisoners, which it demanded as a precondition to signing a bilateral cease-fire agreement, while Duterte categorically rejected the NDF demand and instead declared the signing of the bilateral peace agreement as the precondition for the release of so-called political prisoners, most of whom were convicted of common crimes.

The government earlier released several communist personalities, including Benito Tiamzon, who was the Communist Party of the Philippines chairman when he was arrested with his wife Wilma, also a high-ranking members of the communist underground movement.

Alcanzare however is still optimistic that the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-NDF will return to the negotiating table.

Graft charges filed vs Palawan’s Alvarez, others

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

A

BUSI N E S S WOM A N on Wednesday filed graft and other charges against Palawan Gov. Jose Alvarez and several other officials of Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD), Local Water Utility Administration (LWUA) and Rio Verde Water Consortium Inc. (RVWCI) before the Ombudsman.

In her complaint, Michelle Fox accused Alvarez, COWD Chairman Francisco Mendez, Vice Chairman Federico Gapuz, Secretary Raymund Java, Treasurer Sarah Borja and Assistant SecretaryTreasurer Sandy Bass Jr., as well as officials of RV WDC, which is majority-owned by Alvarez—

Fiorella Azura, Bienvenido Santos, Roberto Lozada and Chona Alvarez—of violating RA 3019, or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act; and RA 9184, or the Government Procurement Law. The complainant said that, despite the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) ruling disqualifying RVWDC, the latter was consistently awarded with contracts by the COWD. “The project was awarded to RVWCI on December 9, 2004, 11 days ahead of its registration with the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] on December 21, 2004,” Fox said, adding that, despite these, the COWD board of directors overruled the BAC report and nonregistration of Rio Verde with the

SEC and proceeded to award the contract to RVWCI. “Among some legal effects are as follow: Mr. Alvarez was able to borrow P.5 billion from DBP to finance construction of the filtration plant built bigger than COWD project specifications. He also built a mansion. Intending all along to engage in retail, contrary to the terms and conditions of the COWD contract, and also to supply water to his mansion, Mr. Alvarez changed the location of the ‘take-off point’. In effect, the COWD pipes became his. That was [with] tacit approval of the board,” the complainant added.

“To lay those pipes, the board authorized a P200-million loan. It entered into a ‘supplemental contract’ with contractor Geo-Transport Inc.

That contract was not half as complicated as an earlier contract with the same contractor, yet is cost more than double. The project involved a ‘ghost’ crane. The members of the board, their families were treated to vacations in Cebu,” she said.

Fox said her complaint is based on an official Commission on Audit finding and recommendation to file appropriate charges.

“The anomalous transaction and activities have greatly prejudiced and damaged the resident of Cagayan de Oro, as well as the general public. Public funds and interests have also been irregularly used and utilized,” Fox said.

The COA, meanwhile, also wants Alvarez’s company to return the million of pesos it received.

HR watchdog seeks prosecution of Lapanday executives, guards

By Marvyn N. Benaning Correspondent

T

HE human-rights watchdog Karapatan has called on President Duterte to distribute land formerly owned by Lapanday Foods Corp. to farmers in Tagum City who had been awarded lots in the 145-hectare area in December 2015.

“The December 12 shooting of farm workers in Barangay Madaum, Tagum City, by Lapanday guards has been one too many incidents of v iolence against farmers asserting their right to land. President Duterte should uphold the interests of farmers by addressing landlessness,” Karapatan Secretary-General Cristina Palabay said.

Initial reports by Karapatan’s chapter in Southern Mindanao indicate that seven farmers were shot

by Lapanday security guards wearing masks and black sweatshirts.

Members of Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Inc. (Marbai) were attending a protest action to press for the distribution of the land when they were fired upon.

“Just when everyone thought the worst was over, Lapanday guards are at it again. Around 8 a.m. today [December 12], guards attacked and fired at the farmer-beneficiaries belonging to Marbai. Three were reported wounded, Ronald Patindol, Randy Rana and another still unnamed,” Palabay reported.

On December 5 farmers en-

WOW CHRISTMAS Christmas lights at the Nuvali in Santa Rosa City, Laguna, draw lots of visitors to enjoy the field that

features a variety of attractions, such as the 50-meter-long light tunnel, Christmas trees and dandelion light installation. NONIE REYES

gaged in bungkalan, or land cultivation, in Barangay Mapalacsiao, Hacienda Luisita, were forcibly evicted by drunken guards of Lourdes Barangay Chairman Edison Diaz. Those guards are still occupying the farmers’ huts as of this writing.

“Throughout history, peasants have been massacred, killed, de-

tained, tortured and disappeared due to their struggle to break free from feudal bonds. Thus, the list of incidents go on—the Mendiola massacre, Hacienda Luisita massacre, Lupao Massacre, Kidapawan shooting, Sumilao massacre and more,” Palabay said.

Karapatan has recorded 18 political killings when Duterte took

over in July until last month.

All of the victims were farmers.

“We call on President Duterte to immediately enforce the distribution of land to the farm workers of Lapanday and protect the struggling farmers from the violence inf licted on them by landlords and agribusinesses,” Palabay also said.

A4

Economy BusinessMirror

Thursday, December 15, 2016

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Rice inventory up 6.28% in November–PSA

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

T

@jearcalas

he country’s rice inventory as of November 1 reached 3.30 million metric tons (MMT), 6.28 percent higher than the 3.11 MMT recorded a year ago, according to the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In its monthly report, titled “Rice and Corn Stocks Inventory,” the PSA said the November figure was 44.42 percent higher than October’s inventory level of 2.29 MMT. “The total rice inventory for this month would be sufficient for 97

days,” the PSA report read.

“Stocks in the households would be enough for 49 days, those in commercial warehouses for 32 days, and those in NFA [National Food Authority] depositories for 16 days,” it added.

3.30MMT The country’s rice inventory as of November 1, 2016

Of the rice inventory as of November 1, the PSA said 50.80 percent were with the households, 32.67 percent in commercial warehouses and 16.53 percent in NFA depositories. The majority, or 79.56 percent, of NFA stocks consisted of imported rice.

PSA data showed that NFA stocks during the period reached 545,990 MT, while commercial warehouses accounted for 1.078 MMT. Rice in households reached 1.677 MMT. “Year-on-year, rice stocks in the households and in commercial warehouses grew by 10.59 percent

and 22.30 percent, respectively.

However, stocks in NFA depositories dropped by 22.92 percent,” the report read.

On a monthly basis, rice stocks in households and commercial warehouses were higher compared with those in October. The PSA said stocks in the households expanded 69.32 percent, while commercial warehouses grew by 36.92 percent. Stocks in NFA depositories decreased by 7.49 percent.

The PSA data also showed that the country’s corn inventory in November reached 604,790 MT, more than double, or 102.84 percent higher, than the 298,160 MT recorded a year ago. The November corn-stock inventory is 11.21 percent higher than the October inventory level of 543,850 MT. “Compared with last year, corn

stocks in the households and in commercial warehouses increased by 69.65 percent and 122.47 percent, respectively. On the other hand, stocks in NFA depositories decreased by 34.77 percent,” the report read.

The PSA said 69.73 percent of total corn-stock inventory in November were in commercial warehouses, while 30.15 percent were held by households. Corn in commercial warehouses reached 421,730 MT, stocks in households accounted for 182,330 MT of the total inventory, while corn stored in NFA warehouses amounted to only 730 MT. “Compared with last month, stocks in commercial warehouses and in NFA depositories grew by 69.41 percent and 190.40 percent, respectively. However, stocks in the households dropped by 38.12 percent,” the PSA said.

CMRPI jumps 2.2% in Nov

By Cai Ordinario @cuo_bm

H

igher prices of select construction materials caused the Construction Materials Retail Price Index (CMRPI) in Metro Manila to increase last month, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

On Wednesday the PSA said the CMRPI posted a growth of 2.2 percent in November. This was higher than the contraction of 0.8 percent in the same period last year.

However, this was slower than the 2.3-percent growth posted in October, the highest CMRPI growth for the year.

“Higher annual mark-ups were observed in the indices of carpentry materials at 1.7 percent, and masonry materials and plumbing materials both at 3 percent,” the PSA said.

Meanwhile, the lower annual increases were registered in the indices of electrical materials at 1.3 percent; tinsmithry materials, 0.8 percent; and miscellaneous construction materials, 10.1 percent.

The painting materials and related compounds index, however, remained at its previous month’s rate of 1.6 percent.

On a monthly basis, the CMRPI in the National Capital Region (NCR) moved up at a slower pace of 0.1 percent in November. Last month it gained by 0.2 percent.

“Upward price adjustments were noticed in common wire nails, hinges, solid wires, cement, gravel, water closet and fitting, faucet and GI pipes. Price declines were however, seen in sand, hollow blocks, glazed tiles and corrugated GI sheets,” the PSA said.

The CMRPI is a variant of the General Retail Price Index that measures the changes in the average retail prices of construction materials.

The market basket for select construction materials is composed of 102 commodities and classified into seven major groups.

These are carpentry; electrical; masonry; painting materials and related compounds; plumbing; tinsmithry; miscellaneous construction materials.

Palace declares December 26, Jan. 2 special nonworking days

T

o allow people to fully enjoy Christmas and New Year days, which both fall on a Sunday, Malacañang has declared December 26 and January 2 as special nonworking days throughout the country.

The declaration was based on the Proclamation 117 signed by Acting Executive Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra.

“The declaration of December 26, 2016, and January 2, 2017, both falling on a Monday, as special [nonworking] days will give the people full opportunity to celebrate the holidays with their families and loved ones,” stated in the proclamation.

“A longer weekend promotes domestic tourism and enables employers to plan their work schedules effectively and efficiently, resulting in improved productivity,” it added.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has been directed to issue the appropriate circular to implement the proclamation for the private sector.

With the Palace declaration, the people will also be able to enjoy a long weekend from December 30 to January 2.

December 30, a Rizal Day, is one of the 10 regular holidays listed under Proclamation 50 signed by President Duterte in August. PNA

Discount bazaar

A stall owner presents her inventory of locally made and imported slippers and sandals during the ongoing Diskwento Caravan bazaar at the trade department office on Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City. Other items on sale at a hefty discount are clothes, bags, accessories and a lot more. ALYSA SALEN

Senators push ₧214-billion debt audit

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

S

enate President Aquilino L. Pimentel, in tandem with Sen. Risa Hontiveros, are pressing for a congressional audit of so-called dubious debts and illegitimate loans incurred by past administrations, for which the government set aside P214 billion for debt service in the 2016 national budget.

Pimentel and Hontiveros jointly filed on Wednesday Senate Resolution 253 authorizing the Senate to “conduct a comprehensive debt audit to verify whether the loan agreements the Philippines has entered into are legitimate and to enact measures to ensure the prudent and proper use of foreign loans.”

In filing the resolution, the two senators asserted the government is dutybound to verify whether the country’s loan agreements entered into with different international financial institutions are in accordance with the principles on promoting responsible sovereign lending and borrowing by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).

Pimentel and Hontiveros affirmed the need to conduct the upcoming joint inquiry to be conducted by the Committees on Economic Affairs and Finance in aid of legislation, citing the urgent need to scrutinize questionable foreign loans contracted by past administrations.

In a statement, Hontiveros acknowledged she was glad to have “found an ally in no less than Senate President Pimentel in the crucial first step to free the nation’s coffers from illegitimate debts and/or loan agreements riddled with questionable processes, contractual obligations, purposes and use.”

The neophyte senator added the upcoming legislative audit of public debt could “lead to the repudiation of the illegitimate part of the country’s debt and free funds to augment the government’s social spending and guide us in reformulating our policies based on the Unctad principles.”

Hontiveros, who voted against Philippine entry in the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) billed as another foreign loan provider, stressed the necessity of conducting the debt audit first be-

fore the country joins another international financial institution.

The senator also recalled a recent report by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) that P3.78 billion in the 2016 national government budget “went to interest and principal payments in connection with a number of questionable loan-funded projects.”

She said the list included the Power Sector Development Program, Sixth Road (Tullahan), Pampanga Development Flood Control, Bohol Irrigation II, and Angat Water Supply Optimization.

The senator cited FDC findings that among the so-called dubious debts include loans “contracted in manners that violate procedures and requirements mandated by constitutional and related national laws of both lender and borrower,” while illegitimate terms and contractual obligations include “usurious interest rates and onerous provisions,” such as public guarantees of private profits.

It also includes “illegitimate use of the funds, loan-financed programs or projects which funds were wasted through corruption, mismanagement and failure of projects.”

Taxpayers’ subsidy to water-collection business down to ₧31.2M in 2014

F

ilipino taxpayers extended a P31.2 million worth subsidy to water collection businesses in 2014, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In the preliminary data for the 2014 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI) released on Wednesday, the PSA said the subsidies were extended to support business in the sector with employees of 20 and more.

This was significantly lower than the total subsidies of P96.1 million provided by the government to support the business operation of

establishments with total employment of 20 and over in 2013.

“Water collection, treatment and supply industry was the only recipient of subsidies in 2014,” the PSA said.

Subsidies are all special grants in the form of financial assistance or tax exemption or tax privilege given by the government to aid and develop an industry.

Despite the decline in the the subsidy, the total value of output generated by establishments, with total employment of 20 and over, reached P60.5 billion.

The industry of water collection, treatment and supply posted the highest output value of P55.1 billion and accounted for the lion’s share at 91.1 percent of the total.

Other industries accounted for less than 5 percent of the total. These included materials recovery, which posted a total production value of P2.3 billion, or 3.8 percent, and waste collection at P1.9 billion, or 3.1 percent of the total.

This also includes sewerage, and remediation activities and other waste management services, which posted an output value of P0.8

billion, or 1.3 percent of the total and waste treatment and disposal with an output of P0.4 billion, or 0.6 percent of the total.

“Among regions, NCR [National Capital Region] shared the biggest output value estimated at P31.8 billion or more than half [52.6 percent] of the total value of output,” the PSA said.

In 2014 there were a total of 331 establishments, with total employment of 20 and over, engaged in water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.

Among the industries, water

collection, treatment and supply led the sector with 297 establishments accounting for 89.7 percent of the total.

This was followed distantly by waste collection with 12 establishments, or 3.6 percent of the total count. The top 3 regions, in terms of number of establishments, comprised 45.6 percent of the total.

These were Central Luzon (Region 3), with 67 (20.2 percent); Calabarzon (Region 4A), with 57 (17.2 percent); and Western Visayas (Region 6), with 27 (8.2 percent).

Cai U. Ordinario

House panel OKs amnesty grant to unpaid estate taxes

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

T

he House Committee on Ways and Means on Wednesday approved a measure seeking to grant tax amnesty to all unpaid estate taxes.

Deputy Speaker and Liberal Party Rep. Romero S. Quimbo of Marikina City principal author of the bill, said the proposal grants full amnesty for a net estate with P3 million value and below.

Under the bill, which will be submitted to the plenary for consideration, if the net estate is P3 million, but not over P6 million, the heirs will pay fixed estate tax of P20,000, with additional 5 percent of an excess of over P3 million.

If the net estate is P6 million, but not over P12 million, the heirs will pay fixed estate tax of P200,000, with additional 8 percent of the excess of over P6 million.

Also, if the net estate is P12 million, the heirs will pay fixed estate tax of P650,000, with additional 11 percent of the excess of over P12 million.

The law states that if the net estate is P200,000, the heirs are exempted from estate tax, but the P10 million above will pay P1.2 million, plus 20 percent of the excess of over 10 million.

The measure said the tax amnesty granted shall cover all unpaid estate taxes as of the time the act shall have taken effect, and those that shall be due within three years henceforth.

The bill also directed the secretary of finance to promulgate the necessary rules and regulations for the effective implementation of the provisions of the act.

“The estate-tax amnesty instantly resolves the triple deadlock we now have in noncompliance, low tax collection and idle properties. Even while dealing with bereavement, the heirs are faced with the obligations of complying with the filing of tax returns and substantial payments within a small window of time. This commonly results in noncompliance, which, accordingly, leads to idle properties and low tax collection,” Quimbo said.

According to the lawmaker, the complicated scheme of filing the estate tax is also a disincentive for the heirs to comply. The failure in filing estate tax within a timeframe also subjects the taxpayer to penalties and interests under the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC).

“The current policy on estate taxes creates a double whammy: the government is not able to derive revenue from the decedent’s property due to the heirs’ nonpayment of taxes; and the heirs are not able to productively use it. Thus, the economy is at a losing end with diminutive tax collection and stagnant properties. It is a stalemate we want to immediately unlock through the proposed bill,” Quimbo said.

“With the estate-tax amnesty bill, we hope to instantly resolve the impasse in noncompliance, low tax collection and idle properties. This can be done even while we are working on restructuring the current estate-tax rates [under the] NIRC,” he added.

After deducting the registered estate taxpayers from the total deaths in 2013, Quimbo said data show that 94 percent did not file the required estatetax return. Even if the estate is exempt from taxes, the filing of a return is still required under the NIRC, he said.

Quimbo added the complicated scheme of filing estate taxes is also seen as one of the reasons for taxpayers’ noncompliance.

“It disincentivizes the heirs to comply. The failure in filing estate tax also subjects the taxpayer to penalties and interests under the NIRC,” he added.

Quimbo also said that, apart from the grief of losing a family member, the heirs are faced with the obligations of complying with the filing of returns and payments, especially for the family home.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

BusinessMirror

Thursday, December 15, 2016

A5

BM-NOVEMBER 18 & 25, 2016

TheBroa While costly, groups urge p

Business

A6 Thursday, December 15, 2016

F

By Rene Acosta & Jonathan L. Mayuga

ROM North to South, the war with the Moros and communist rebels has caused years of political and economic stagnation for the country, political leaders, who have dealt with the two conflicts, said in their lexicon.

In this photo taken on November 23, 2016, members of the New People’s Army march with their firearms before a news conference held at their guerrilla encampment tucked in the harsh wilderness of the Sierra Madre mountains. AP/Aaron Favila

It is for this reason President Duterte is working to mint a separate peace agreement with those in the South and with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

But just how huge and immense have been the cost for the country?

There is no exact data as to how much the government has spent in dealing with the almost 47-year-old communist insurgency. The latest data comes from the Swiss group Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The IDMC said the war with Southeast Asia’s longest-running insurgency has already killed more than 40,000 people as of 2011 and has displaced thousands of families.

“Its [armed conflict] effects [are] felt throughout the country, but are particularly significant in eastern Mindanao, an NPA [New People’s Army] stronghold,” the IDMC noted, referring to the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Another group, the International Crisis Group, noted that during the NPA’s attack of three mining companies in Surigao del Sur in 2011 alone, the rebels damaged more than $1 billion in both business and property.

Last year the Armed Forces Eastern Mindanao Command estimated that business companies in eastern Mindanao have lost about P246 million to attacks blamed on the NPA.

Most of the firms that were attacked were mining companies, logging concessionaires, construction firms and banana plantations.

Bigger costs

WHILE the effects of the conflict with the communist insurgency run into billions of pesos, the losses incurred from the war with the Moros were, however, bigger, according to a report by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp).

Citing estimates from various groups, including the World Bank, the Opapp said the conflict in Mindanao covering the period of 1970 up to 2001 alone has resulted in economic losses of P2.013 trillion.

The Opapp said the amount nearly equaled the P2.606-trillion national budget last year.

The agency’s data cited only the conflict by the government with the Moro National Liberation

Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Opapp data do not include the state war against the Abu Sayyaf Group, whose penchant for kidnapping, which raged from 2001 up to the present, has scared potential investors for Western Mindanao.

The Opapp said that, from 1970 to 1996, at least P73 billion has been used to support soldiers in their operations against the MNLF, which has claimed the lives of more than 120,000 people.

It is the war’s casualty on the economy why Mr. Duterte, who is friendly with the Philippine Left, is moving to seal a peace agreement with the rebels.

Peace path

THE government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working for peace and development need to put their acts together to bring about that elusive peace and stability in conflict-afflicted areas.

To end the costly war in conflict-afflicted areas, an advocate said the government and NGOs should invest more in peace and development, with investment leaning toward inclusivity where local communities, which are the target beneficiaries, play a more active role in delivering development services.

Francisco Lara, country director of the United Kingdom-based NGO International Alert (IA), said peace is difficult to achieve in the country if it is not accompanied by development. In the same way, Lara said, development can never happen if there is no peace.

“The most direct connection [between peace and development] is that it is difficult to undertake development projects or programs when the places where we are actually putting those interventions in are afflicted with conflict,” said Lara, a development NGO worker for more than two decades.

Violent playground

LARA is currently involved in the peace process between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the NDFP. He is a member of the cease-fire committee of the government that is negotiating with the counterpart committee of the NDFP to forge a bilateral ceasefire agreement.

Lara explained that lack of peace, like in many places in the

The Monument of Peace and Unity in Davao City symbolizes the ethnic and religious pillars of multicultural Mindanao. Hugo Maes/Dreamstime.com

sis State Research Centre of the London School of Economics, said there are also instances that development projects trigger conflicts.

One direction

SHOWN at the start of peace negotiations hosted by Norway on August 22, 2016, between Philippine government officials and rebels are Wilma Austria Tiamzon (left) and Benito Tiamzon (center), who were released from prison on August 17 to participate in the talks, and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Chairman Jose Maria Sison (right). Norwegian officials opened a new round of peace talks between the Duterte administration and communist rebel members of the NDFP aimed at ending one of Asia’s longest-running rebellions that has killed an estimated 150,000 people. Berit Roald / NTB scanpix via AP

Philippines, prevents the government and even development NGOs to deliver development services.

“Sa mga may conflict areas, ang nangyayari, hindi naabot ng government services, hindi naabot ng NGO

services, at hindi naabot ng international development services, because, precisely, violence prevents them from being able to enter those areas.”

This situation, he said, ex-

plains why places like Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and far-flung areas like the Caraga, which are conflict areas, are also impoverished.

Lara, who studied and completed his doctorate degree at Cri-

ACCORDING to Lara, “a lot of development projects that are brought to communities sometime favor one group over the other”.

“That [in itself] can cause tensions,” he added.

Lara explained that to prevent tensions that may eventually lead to violent conflicts, the government and NGOs should promote inclusive growth. This growth must not appear to favor one group or sector over another.

Peace and development efforts, he said, have to go in one direction.

“You hit it on the nose: the relationship between development and the link between security inputs versus service inputs.”

Lara explained that sometimes government puts security inputs— military, police—more than services.

Human-rights groups have been demanding for the immediate pullout of state forces in rural areas, complaining that instead of promoting peace and order, the presence of uniformed and armed government personnel brings an atmosphere of fear.

In some cases, human-rights groups complain against police and military allegedly perpetrating human-rights abuse against civilians because of their suspected association to leftist groups.

aderLook

sMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph | Thursday, December 15, 2016

A7

nonoy lacza

persistent pursuit of peace

Community health workers release white doves following a protest-motorcade around Manila to call for the resumption of the peace talks between the government and communist rebels on August 3, 2016. AP/Bullit Marquez

tivities, such as illegal drugs, illegal arms deal and kidnap-for-ransom activities.

Based on IA’s database, the violent conflict incidents in Davao Region outnumbered that of incidents in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm).

During the period, a total of 28,325 incidents took place in the Davao Region as against the 6,759 incidents in the Armm. The top five provinces in terms of number of incidents were Davao del Sur, Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental and Maguindanao, the biggest province in the Armm.

“While the real threat of violent conflict was similar in all the 10 provinces in the two regions, it was actually less frequent and less concentrated in the Armm, which is often seen as the locus of intense and continuous violence in Mindanao,” the IA report said.

Conflict unbound

While some complaints against the presence of state forces in rural areas are valid, Lara said there are also some responsibilities that cannot be left behind.

“For example, if a local government, a mayor or a local business group, complains that merong pumupunta at humingi ng taxes, law enforcement has no choice but to go to an area to address these complaints,” Lara told the BusinessMirror. “Sometimes, human-rights groups complain against violence.”

Lara cited as example the experience of the lumad indigenous people who were caught in the implementation of the government’s counterinsurgency campaign last year.

He said the security formula under “Oplan Bayanihan” was to plant peace and development teams in communities and organize lumad who will fight fellow lumad, whom state forces accused of having links with leftists.

“What happens is nagkakaroon ng proxy war [What happens is a war by proxy has started].”

Balanced intervention

ACCORDING to Lara, the government should ensure balance intervention in conflict areas.

Rather than being securityoriented, intervention should be welfare oriented, he explained.

“You cannot blame law enforcers when they are called. There is where the problem lies,” he said.

“Both sides have valid claims why they are in the areas.”

The talks between the GRP and the NDFP and between the GRP and the MILF, he said, contain discussions on such issues as part of peace negotiations.

Currently, Lara said peace panels from negotiating parties are after bilateral cease-fire “because unilateral cease-fire is dangerous.”

According to Lara, a cessation of hostilities between the government and the insurgents could come if they both declare a bilateral cease-fire.

However, President Duterte has declared that there will be no release of political prisoners if the NDFP will not agree to a declaration of a bilateral cease-fire.

For its part, the NDFP is demanding the release of political detainees as a condition for cease-fire.

According to Lara, peace negotiators are working out the details to come up with a win-win solution.

“We [still] need to define what constitutes a hostile act,” Lara said. “At the moment, maganit ang NDF because they are after prisoner releases.”

According to Lara, NDF representatives are urging Duterte to release political prisoners, especially the old and sick, who are estimated to number around 400.

“It depends upon the President, but I know the release of prisoners is being done gradually for humanitarian reasons,” he said.

Empowering NGOs

LARA said development services, whether initiated by the Philippine

government or by international financing agencies, should be reviewed in terms of its long-term impact on the community.

He explained there are a lot of peace-building groups working in the Philippines and they operate in different areas.

Government or even international financing institutions, he said, should channel resources to NGOs.

NGOs lack the capacity to make significant impact that will bring about development that will help bring peace, particularly in impoverished areas. What they need, he said, is the resources that can only come via government apparatus.

Lara said International Alert focuses on research analysis and capacity building, while others provide services addressing poverty alleviation through various livelihood programs and capacitybuilding initiatives.

Over the last five years, International Alert has been building a database of violent conflict incidents.

The group’s monitoring system aims to provide accurate and timely information about violent conflicts.

Davao leads

THE Davao region tops the list of areas in war-torn Mindanao with the highest violent conflict incidents, a recent IA report said.

Lara said most of the killings monitored from 2011 to 2015 are related to clan wars and tied to territorial or land disputes, while others are related to criminal ac-

VIOLENT conflict incidents surged to unprecedented levels in the ARMM last year.

There were 2,444 incidents this year, or more than a third of the total number of incidents for the whole five-year period. In the Davao Region, the number of incidents slid by 7 percent to 5,688 in 2015 from the previous year.

The surge of violent incidents in the Armm was due to higher political and extremist violence, especially after the Mamasapano tragedy in January 2015, the report said.

Meanwhile, shadow economyrelated conflicts and common crimes stayed high in the said areas.

In the Davao region, most of the conflicts stemmed from common crimes.

“While actual numbers fell, they stayed high while a surge in identity-related, mostly gender issues, and shadow economy conflicts offset the decrease,” the IA report said. “Violent conflict in the ARMM was intimately related with the operation of shadow economies, especially the manufacture and trade of illegal weapons and illicit drugs.”

Common crimes

IN the Davao Region, violent conflict was characterized by high levels of common crimes such robberies, alcohol-related violence, and civilian- and community-level disputes over land and other resources in urban or peri-urban areas, the IA report said.

“The scale of violence reported in the cities and towns of the Armm and the Davao region pointed to the evolving role of cities, towns and other urbanizing areas as theaters of violence,” the report added.

Conflict incidence was highest in the urban centers of Cotabato City, Islamic City of Marawi, Parang and Malabang in the Armm mainland, and in the cities of Tagum and Panabo in Davao del Norte.

Conflicts also converged in poor yet less disadvantaged areas rather than in areas that are extremely poor.

In Compostela Valley the municipalities of Nabunturan, Mabini, Maragusan, Asuncion and Carmen, which are either first or second class based on average annual income, showed a high concentration of conflicts.

The IA’s monitoring activities now cover the 15 provinces in the Armm, Davao region and Caraga, as well as Cotabato and Isabela cities, which are within the Armm but are not administered by it.

IA’s monitoring system, called Conflict Alert, is currently the only existing tracker of violent conflict at the subnational level in the Philippines.

The areas covered by the IA’s monitoring system are major sites of rebellion and insurgency, criminal violence and shadow economybased conflicts.

Complexities complex

PEACE building in conflict areas in the Philippines is complicated, Lara said.

“What we need to address is how intervention of troops or state forces can be coordinated because interventions are not coordinated,” Lara said. “Rebellion is not the cause of most violent conflicts.”

According to Lara, a lot of people were killed because of their involvement in the trade in illegal drugs and illicit weapons and kidnap-for-ransom criminal activities.

“These have nothing to do with rebellion,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lara said the IA has detected an emerging risk of violence from violent extremism like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) type in Mindanao.

“These are not rebellion or separatists,” he said. “Caliphate is emerging in Mindanao.”

Lara explained that caliphate may have gained popularity in Mindanao because of the disenchantment of young, idealistic Muslims on the government and fellow Muslim leaders. It has been exacerbated with the failure of the basic Bangsamoro

law (BBL), he added.

Lara said Mindanao’s clan leaders can be instrumental in neutralizing the recruitment of violent extremist groups, such as the Maute group, which is being linked to the terrorist Isis group.

“Clan leaders are influential and the government should see this as a window of opportunity to channel efforts to clean [leadership] in Mindanao, to neutralize and prevent violent extremism anchored on caliphate.”

Peace investment

ACCORDING to Lara, the government should bring in investment— but not investment that attracts or generates conflict.

Businesses, he said, are conflict magnets sometimes as they hire security forces who are insensitive to people in host communities.

“They hire security forces who are more ruthless than the military,” Lara said. “Tatakutin ang mga tao [They sow fear on the people’s hearts].”

According to Lara, investors that do business in energy and mining are conflict magnets.

“These investments bring in big money, but they also attract different groups. Why are businesses focused on extractive industries rather than agriculture?”

The ongoing “war” in Caraga and Southern Mindanao, he said, is tied to mining.

Indigenous peoples fight each other now because some of them say they favor the project, while others oppose it, according to Lara.

According to Lara, the government should enhance its peace and development program, such as the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana) Program. Ironically, Pamana is being handled neither by government agencies with expertise on promoting growth and development nor NGOs with skills to reach out to communities in conflict-afflicted areas.

“There’s no evaluation if it [Pamana] has contributed to actual reduction of conflict or violent incidence.”

Lara said different faces of violent conflicts should be looked into by various actors in peace-building especially the media, so as not to paint a bad picture of the situation that is not helping in the peacebuilding effort.

“We need deeper narratives.

We need to come up with timely and accurate information—the actors, the cause of violence,” he said.

“We should also know if the violent conflict is resource-related or rebellion-related.”

A8

Thursday, December 15, 2016

briefs

S. Korea’s youth jobless rate rises to record high

South Korea’s youth unemployment rate rose to a record high in November, following political protests that paralyzed the government and led parliament to vote to impeach the president.

The unadjusted jobless rate for people aged 25 to 29 rose to 8.2 percent in November, up from 8 percent in October and 7.4 percent a year earlier, Statistics Korea said. That is the highest in comparable data back to 1999. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell to 3.6 percent from 3.7 percent in October, with rising employment in agriculture and fisheries compensating for job losses in manufacturing. Bloomberg News

B.O.J. survey shows cheaper yen lifts Japan business sentiment TOKYO—Large Japanese manufacturers have gained confidence as the yen has weakened against the US dollar since Donald J. Trump was elected US president, a quarterly survey by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) showed on Wednesday.

The BOJ tankan survey for December showed a measure of business sentiment among automakers and other big manufacturing companies climbed to 10 from 6. Though modest, it was the first such improvement in six quarters. The report comes a day before the Bank of Japan is due to hold its last meeting of the year, where it is expected to leave policy unchanged given hints of improved conditions in the economy, the world’s fourth largest.

The tankan index measures the percentage of responding companies that say business conditions are better minus the percentage that say they are worse. So an index level of 10 means slightly more companies are optimistic than pessimistic.

Companies can also respond that conditions are unchanged. AP

Report: I.S. manufacturing arms on industrial scale IRBIL, Iraq—The Islamic State (IS) group was manufacturing weapons in and around Mosul on an industrial scale with products largely purchased in bulk from Turkey, according to a report published by an arms research group on Wednesday.

The findings show that IS maintained a “robust and reliable” supply chain between Turkey and Iraq that allowed the fighters to produce tens of thousands of weapons, the London-based Conflict Armaments Research said.

The group’s researchers studied IS weapons found at manufacturing facilities and on the battlefield during the Iraqi operation to retake Mosul that is under way. AP

The World BusinessMirror

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

Trump’s China bluster threatens US exports and supply networks

D

onald J. Trump’s suggestion that the decadesold One-China policy could be used as a bargaining chip to win future trade concessions from China is a brash negotiating ploy loyal viewers of The Apprentice might appreciate.

Yet for US executives with big economic stakes in Greater China, that kind of bravado poses huge forward risks if the president-elect is anywhere near serious.

Any move to elevate the international status of Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province, would likely elicit an immediate and forceful response and endanger a two-way trade relationship that reached $627 billion in 2015.

China has obvious leverage of its own: namely, the $145 billion in planes, computers, machinery, chemical and agricultural products and array of services that US companies imported from the mainland in 2015. Beijing also has enormous clout over Taiwan, whose economy is steadily becoming intertwined with the mainland.

Beyond slapping outright tariffs on incoming American goods, Chinese leaders also have far more subtle weapons at their disposal, such as selective enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, business regulations and government procurement tenders that can quickly tilt the playing field to European and Asian rivals of US multinationals.

The US ran a $337-billion trade deficit with China last year.

“People feel off-balance right now. When there is a sour relationship between the US and China, everyone is affected,” said Kenneth Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. “State-owned enterprises in China have considerable purchasing power and they’ll be inf luenced by the government tone, or get specific directives, to avoid American businesses. People will try to read Beijing’s mood and that’ll shape economic activity.”

Brash talk

American executives, not to mention their Chinese counterparts, fear the business impact of Trump’s cavalier talk of upending the long-standing One-China policy, in which the US severed

$627B

The volume of trade between China and US in 2015

formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 and recognized the People’s Republic of China.

Optimists hope Trump’s China policy will become more nuanced once he’s in office. “The talk of the US shifting its recognition to Taiwan seems likely to be just talk,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and former US Treasury attaché to Beijing. “If the US goes down that road, other countries are definitely not going to follow.”

Already, Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group Co., has said that the jobs of his 20,000 US employees would be in jeopardy in the event of a trade war, speaking at a Saturday conference in Beijing. “To deal with Trump’s threats, China has a full toolbox,” warned an editorial on Tuesday in the Global Times, a newspaper published by the state-run People’s Daily group and known for its hawkish, nationalist tone.

Among the most vulnerable would be Silicon Valley tech giants with extensive supply networks in Asia, particularly Taiwan. “Technology companies are quite nervous,” said Eric Huang, a board member of the Monte Jade Science and Technology Association in Silicon Valley who is also chief executive of a start-up accelerator.

Supply networks

Taiwan plays a critical role in the global tech-supply chain.

Apple Inc.’s main manufacturing partner is Foxconn Technology Group, while Intel Corp. provides chips to many Taiwanese devicemakers and the country’s contract

China’s business area Bloomberg News

semiconductor firms Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics Corp. supply many US companies.

While contract manufacturers, such as Foxconn and Pegatron Corp., are Taiwanese, most of the assembling is done at enormous plants in mainland China.

The nightmare scenario would be a Chinese economic embargo of Taiwan that would reverberate around global supply chains, according to Ben Lee, cofounder of Glogou Inc., a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, whose software helps US businesses link with customers in Asia.

Any Trump-led policy shift “will create a huge tension among Taiwan, China and the US—this could be dangerous,” Lee said. “It could lead to an embargo between China and Taiwan. All the foundries are in Taiwan. The whole semiconductor industry could collapse.”

Even if Trump’s heated rhetoric is just a negotiating ploy, it’s already having an impact, said Talin Hsu, founder and chairman of Palo Alto, California-based private equity fund H&Q Asia Pacific. Investment plans are on ice given the uncertain outlook and should a USChina trade war break out, companies with small margins caught in the cross-hairs may go bankrupt, according to Hsu. “Donald Trump doesn’t follow any the rules,” Hsu said. “It’s causing a huge sense of uncertainty.

People are trying to guess what will happen next. No one has a clue.”

Chinese executives are betting that Trump’s business background means he will take a practical, bottom-line approach to the China relationship. “For now, I see his aggressive talk as a negotiation trick,” said Yang Nong, secretary of the board of Rastar Group, a

Shenzhen-listed toy-car maker. “He is a businessman and his ultimate consideration is about what’s good for profit, what’s good for business.”

Chinese expansion

Tao Weimin, vice president of Nanjing-based fashion apparel company V-Grass Fashion Co. agrees, but worries the Trump transition team’s brusque approach runs the risk of backfiring. “Beijing might feel like it cannot back down or be seen to be weak,” he said. “So there is a possibility of escalation.”

Even if the flap over Taiwan blows over, Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald is far more concerned about what he sees as a global trend toward isolationism and regional tensions over China’s claims in the South China Sea that could harm his cruise ship business—though he’s optimistic that won’t come to pass.

“Anything that inhibits travel.

Anything that says to people you can’t travel here. Anything that says people getting nervous about traveling,” Donald said. “Those are the things that can hurt the cruise industry.”

Despite Trump’s tough talk tow a rd C h i n a , t he re’s l it t le prospect his tariff threat would bring many jobs back to the US, according to Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the US-China Business Council in Beijing. American companies that manufacture goods in China for export to the US would more likely shift their production to Southeast Asia or India.

“They will not move manufacturing back to the US as the costs are too high,” Parker said. “So in the short term, the cost of moving would raise prices on US consumers, making them the biggest losers.” Bloomberg News

Rebels to evacuate Aleppo in surrender deal as fighting ends

B

E IR U T— S y r i a n r e b e l s reached a cease-fire deal to evacuate from eastern Aleppo in an effective surrender on Tuesday, as Russia declared all military action had stopped and the Syrian government had assumed control of the former rebel enclave.

The dramatic developments, which appeared to restore the remainder of what was once Syria’s largest city to President Bashar al-Assad’s forces after months of heavy fighting and a crippling siege, followed reports of mass killings by government forces closing in on the final few blocks still held by the rebels.

Damascus confirmed the evacuation deal and the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, called for immediate access to the former rebel enclave to confirm the end of military operations and to oversee the safe departure of tens of thousands of civilians and opposition fighters. He was at the Security Council where an emergency meeting for Aleppo was under way.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly

Churkin took to the floor near the end of the session at the UN Security Council to announce fighting had ended.

“According to the latest information that we received...military actions in eastern Aleppo are over,” Churkin said. “The Syrian government has reestablished control over eastern Aleppo.”

Minutes earlier, he had announced that “all militants” and members of their families, as well as those wounded in the fighting, were being evacuated through “agreed corridors in directions that they have chosen voluntarily,” including the rebel stronghold of Idlib province. As word spread of the deal, celebrations broke out in the government-controlled western sector of Aleppo, with convoys of cars driving around honking their cars and waving Syrian flags from the windows.

Retaking Aleppo, which has been split between rebel and government control since 2012, would be Assad’s biggest victory yet in the civil war. Aleppo, the country’s

Russia’s praise for Tillerson highlights debate over Trump pick

D

onald J. Trump’s pick of Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson for secretary of state won quick praise from a key foreign-policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, evoking concerns the presidentelect’s critics have raised about whether he will be too accommodating toward Moscow.

Exxon’s chief executive officer is a “very great professional in his sphere” who is “well-known to Russian officials and was actively engaged in business cooperation,” Yuri Ushakov, a former ambassador to the US who’s one of Putin’s closest aides on foreign policy, told reporters on Tuesday in Moscow.

Ushakov’s comments add to statements made in recent days by Putin advisers and aides. Sergei Markov, a consultant to Putin’s staff, on Sunday called Trump’s emerging Cabinet a “fantastic team” filled with “people that Russia can do business with.”

Tillerson’s possible elevation would be a “sensation,” said Alexei Pushkov, a member of the defense and security committee of parliament’s upper house.

While foreign governments often offer generic praise about an incoming administration, the Exxon CEO has unusually strong connections to Moscow. On a personal level, Putin awarded him Russia’s Order of Friendship, a high civilian honor.

Professionally, his company’s drilling rights in Russia stretch across tens of millions of acres, dwarfing its holdings in the US, formerly its largest drilling opportunity, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Those operations are also subject to US sanctions, which he’ll have input on if confirmed for the post.

Trump and Russia

T r u m p has repeatedly fended off accusations—from both Republicans and Democrats—that he is too accommodating toward Russia, whether over accusations of hacking during the presidential campaign or in proposing cooperation in Syria’s civil war.

The president-elect has said flat-out that he doesn’t believe the intelligence community ’s conclusion that Russia was behind hacks on Democratic Party institutions, suggesting it’s a partisan attack on his electoral victory.

At a Tuesday night rally in West Allis, Wisconsin, Trump called Tillerson “one of the greatest and most skilled global business leaders of our time.” Trump said Tillerson is friendly with leaders of countries the US doesn’t get along with and that some people don’t like that.

“Rex will be a fierce advocate for America’s interests around the world,”Trump said, describing him as a “strong man, a tough man.”

Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida were among the first to say they had questions about Tillerson’s dealings with Putin after Trump’s pick was announced early on Tuesday.

‘Moral clarity’

“The next secretary of state must be someone who views the world with moral clarity, is free of potential conflicts of interest, has a clear sense of America’s interests, and will be a forceful advocate for America’s foreignpolicy goals to the president, within the administration, and on the world stage,” Rubio said in a statement on Tuesday.

McCain was even more blunt, saying he has “concerns about what kinds of business we do with a butcher, a murderer, a thug, which is exactly what Vladimir Putin is.”

It would take only one Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee joining all of the panel’s Democrats to block a Tillerson nomination in the committee. The nomination could be taken to the Senate floor despite a rejection in the committee, but that would be an unprecedented move for a Cabinet post.

Poor relations

Syrian troops and progovernment gunmen walk inside the destroyed Grand Umayyad mosque in the old city of Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday. Government forces and rebel fighters have fought to control the 12th-century mosque in the last four years, until Syrian troops seized control of it this week. Sana via AP

former commercial powerhouse, has long been regarded as a major gateway between Turkey and Syria and the biggest prize in the conflict. The agreement on Tuesday came after world leaders and aid agencies issued dramatic appeals on behalf of trapped

residents, and the UN humanrights office said that pro-government forces reportedly killed 82 civilians as they closed in on the last remaining rebel areas.

That and other reports of mass killings, which could not be independently confirmed, reinforced

fears of atrocities in the final hours of the battle for the city.

UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon told the emergency meeting he had received “credible reports” of civilians killed by intense bombing and summary executions by pro-government forces. AP

From Syria to Ukraine, US-Russian ties have been at their lowest since the end of the Cold War. Current Secretary of State John Kerry called for an investigation into possible war crimes in Syria after a hospital bombardment earlier this year, saying that Russia and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad “owe the world more than an explanation” for the attack.

Russia in October suspended a 16-year-old treaty with the US meant to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation, and Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov said the military is revisiting a 2001 decision to close bases in Cuba and Vietnam, nations Washington has been reaching out to. Bloomberg News

Asean

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The importance of Asia Pacific Asean-EU Perspective

HENRY J. SCHUMACHER

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Thursday, December 15, 2016 A9

Duterte, Hun Sen to partner versus transnational crimes

T

he economic importance of the Asia-Pacific region has increased substantially in recent years. And the success story is expected to continue despite the election result in the US. Countries, including China and India, as well as the whole Southeast Asian region, will continue to grow at rates faster than the global average. The AsiaPacific region accounted for roughly one quarter of global GDP in 2005.

A decade later it was already almost one third. In 2020 it is expected to make up more than 35 percent of the world economy. Most prominently, the share of China tripled from 5 percent in 2005 to 15 percent in 2015, while Japan lost in relative importance. The region has become more prosperous. In Asean the per-capita GDP has doubled, in China it rose fivefold; in South Korean and Australia it has increased by more than 40 percent.

The region is also increasingly becoming a global foreign direct investment (FDI) hub. In terms of both incoming and outgoing FDI, the Asia-Pacific region now accounts for almost one quarter of global FDI stock. Hong Kong and Singapore enjoy special roles as hubs of foreign investment in Asia.

Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Australia together accounted for 72 percent of total inward FDI stock in the Asia-Pacific region from 2005 to 2015. Almost three quarters of Asia-Pacific region outward FDI is accounted for by Hong Kong, Japan, China and Singapore. Over a 10-year period, China saw a seventeenfold increase in its investment stock in foreign countries, followed by Japan with a fourteenfold increase. This suggests an even more important international investment role for these countries in the coming years.

Trade policy in the 21st century has become part of the public debate and is no longer just about negotiating tariff rates. It has developed into a much wider and more politically contentious issue as the implementation of environmental and consumer rights standards become a new objective. Global value chains have increased significantly. The network of value chains has become highly complex, with trade barriers having to be tackled along the entire value chain. World Trade Organization (WTO) members have unfortunately not been able to agree on a common set of trading rules adapted to a modern trading environment. Instead, companies now face a record number of preferential trading agreements and trading barriers.

But it is not just the European Union that has placed a greater emphasis on concluding FTAs since 2006. Asian countries have, likewise, been eager to further develop the network of agreements. Examples include initiatives undertaken by the Asean community, the negotiated TransPacific Partnership Agreement (which Trump is not going to further pursue), and activities by China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and—of course—the Philippines.

A strong and modern multilateral trading system would provide not only a strong monitoring mechanism but also require horizontal instruments for mediating nontariff barrier conflicts. Another issue is improving the compatibility of free-trade agreements (FTAs) with the multilateral trading system. One of the preconditions for this being common definitions and understandings of crucial trade factors, such as rules of origin in FTAs. These could be more strongly standardized through precise WTO rules. In the end, freer trade can only be achieved through the strong commitment of WTO members to reduce trade barriers.

President Duterte salutes the honor guard prior to his departure for Cambodia and Singapore for official visits to the Asean neighbors on Tuesday at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. AP

P

resident Duterte arrived on Tuesday on a state visit to Cambodia, where a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen will bring together two Southeast Asian leaders known for their tough-guy approach to governing.

The two leaders will witness the signing of memoranda of understanding on cooperation in sports and combating transnational crime.

Their talks are also expected to touch on the South China Sea, where the Philippines has a territorial dispute with China, which is Cambodia’s closest ally.

Former President Benigno Aquino III took a combative stand against Beijing, but Duterte has changed his country’s geopolitical orientation, seeking accommodation

Malaysia crowns new youthful king

A

47-year-old sultan, known as a devout Muslim who loves extreme sports and four-wheel-drive vehicles, became Malaysia’s 15th king on Tuesday, one of the youngest constitutional monarchs in the Southeast Asian nation’s history.

British-educated Sultan Muhammad V took his oath of office in a nationally televised ceremony attended by hundreds of dignitaries at a cavernous hall in Malaysia’s federal palace.

Under a unique system maintained since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957, nine hereditary state rulers take turns as the country’s king for five-year terms.

The monarch’s role is largely ceremonial, since administrative power is vested in the prime minister and Parliament. But he is highly regarded, particularly among the ethnic Malay Muslim majority, as the supreme upholder of Malay tradition and symbolic head of Islam.

Garbed in cream regalia, Sultan Muhammad V was sworn in after inspecting a military honor guard and receiving a 21-gun salute at Parliament.

The king’s roles include appointing Cabinet ministers and senior judges on the advice of the prime minister.

He also appoints top Islamic clerics and is considered the highest-ranking figure in the armed forces.

Public criticism of the king and state sultans is virtually illegal. Under Malaysian sedition laws, people who incite “hatred or contempt” toward royal rulers can be imprisoned for three years.

Sultan Muhammad V, who is known to bring his Islamic teacher with him when he travels abroad, is the constitutional ruler of Malaysia’s northeastern Kelantan state. Installed as a state ruler in 2010, he loves fourwheel-drive expeditions and enjoys horse riding, golf, shooting and football.

He succeeds Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah, 89, who was Malaysia’s oldest king. AP

Sultan Muhammad V inspects an honor guard during his welcoming ceremony at Parliament House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday. AP

with China as he distances the Philippines from its traditionally close relations with the United States.

Before his departure from Manila, Duterte said his trip to the Philippines’s neighbors—he will go to Singapore after Cambodia—is in preparation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit meeting, which the Philippines will host late next year.

Since he became president at the end of June, Duterte has been directing a war on illegal drugs,

which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users. Hun Sen has led his country for three decades by directing violence and intimidation at his political opponents.

Duterte, accompanied on his trip

by Philippine boxing star and Sen. Manny Pacquiao, will also meet with King Norodom Sihamoni.

Addressing the Filipino community in Cambodia on Tuesday, President Duterte has expressed disdain for corruption anew and repeated his promise to end corrupt activities in the government.

“Corruption it will stop. I will not spare anyone, even friends. It will stop,” Duterte assures the members of the Filipino community.

He urged the Filipino community to help him in the campaign against corruption. “Let us give the Filipinos a respite from corruption,” the President said.

He added that a government complaint office and a number was set up, and the number is 8888. “They can report to me any complaint,”

the President said. He also warned of drastic actions against corrupt government employees and officials, and urged them to stop now.

Duterte said he did not mind losing friends to maintain his integrity.

The President advised them to be assertive, especially when employees from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and other airport staff ask for pasalubong or take some items from their luggage. He began his speech with how he came to become the Chief Executive. He said he did not really want to run for president .

What convinced him to seek the presidency, he said, was the decadesold Mindanao problem and the gravity of the problem over illegal drugs.

Meanwhile, in an earlier interview with Christopher B. Montero, Philippine ambassador to Cambodia, he expressed confidence that the visit of the President to Cambodia will be productive and fruitful in terms of two major areas of cooperation: tourism and sports.

Tourism management, tourism marketing, and exchange of best practices on conservation of heritage sites are among the subjects of tourism cooperation, according to the ambassador.

In the area of sports, the agenda for cooperation includes exchange of best practices in sports management and training, as well as exchange of sports officials.

“It is expected that they [the leaders of two countries] will reaffirm their commitment to advance our bilateral relations to a higher level,” Montero said.

Two other areas that are being finalized for agreement are related to transnational crimes and labor cooperation, according to Montero.

Cooperation in addressing transnational crimes, such as terrorism, extremism, financial and economic crimes and drug trafficking, will involve the national police institutions from both countries. If the agreement on combating transnational crimes pushes through, it will lend international dimension to President Duterte’s campaign against the drug menace, Montero added. AP, PNA

Women migrant numbers high in Thai construction

T

hey toil high on scaffolding, pouring concrete and twisting iron bars. At night, they squeeze into shipping containers with their husbands by the dozens to get some rest.

They are female migrant construction workers, a rarity in most parts of the world, but not in Thailand. The International Labor Organization (ILO) said in a report released on Tuesday that more than 200,000 women from Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos work in Thailand, accounting for almost 40 percent of the migrant construction workers in the country.

By comparison, less than 9 percent of construction workers in the US are women, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a 1990 survey found that among 49 developing countries Thailand was the only one where women made up more than 10 percent of the construction work force.

They work alongside men to smooth walls, lay bricks and carry bags of cement on Bangkok’s high rises and railway digs.

But their large numbers don’t shield them from the same problems women in the work force face around the world. They’re paid less and trained less. Their shipping container homes provide little security

200,000

The number of women from Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos working in Thailand

from rowdy male workers. Having a husband for protection is almost a prerequisite.

“Employers think of hiring women migrant workers as a ‘package’ with their husbands,” said Rebecca Napier-Moore, a coauthor of the study. “They don’t value them as highly as men and think of them as secondary or ‘tag-alongs.’”

For migrants building stadiums in Qatar or skyscrapers in Dubai, stringent salary requirements for family visas mean that young men tend to leave their families, working to feed mouths thousands of kilometers (miles) away in India, Pakistan and Nepal. But proximity and relatively porous borders allow Cambodians and Burmese to come together as a family to don hard hats in Thailand.

“Thailand’s long land borders often run through remote areas,” said Nilim Baruah, a migration expert

at the ILO. “Many migrant workers enter Thailand informally.”

For decades, Thai law has required men and women to receive equal pay for equal work, but managers say that migrant women are paid less because they are less capable. Most women work as manual laborers, cleaning up the site or moving materials around, while men do more skilled work such as welding or masonry.

More than 70 percent of the women surveyed earned wages as low as $5.34. Employers often don’t pay on time, and will ask employees to lie about their wages on their contracts to get away with paying below the minimum daily wage of about $8.40.

Some women, eager to earn more, stick around for hours of overtime every day and live in fear of getting pregnant.

Thai labor legislation provides for 90 days of paid maternity leave, but many companies get around this by firing women if they’re discovered to be pregnant. Companies skirt safety regulations as well.

“Women go up high places. The structures are makeshift. Boards are tied together. There is no safety equipment, like belts,” said Thong Kham, a former construction worker.

“It’s difficult and dangerous.” AP

A10 Thursday, December 15, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

What if PHL has no President Duterte?

T

he Western media has described President Duterte’s war on drugs as “The Killa in Manila”, adding that the Chief Executive has inspired the slaughter of thousands of drug dealers and addicts. What’s more, the American press has even called these drug-related killings as “state-sanctioned”, notwithstanding denials by Malacañang. However, the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which investigated the alleged extrajudicial executions, found no proof that the drug-related killings in the country were state-sanctioned.

In a recent speech, the President said he cannot explain every death in this country, but showed his resolve to see his war on drugs to the very end: “If you say that I retreat from this fight, I cannot; because I cannot afford it. I cannot now stop the momentum, when there are 4 million drug addicts spread all throughout the country. I would be abandoning my responsibility. It is a harsh one, but somebody has to be crucified for it. It’s okay with me. It’s part of the territory to be disliked.”

Admittedly, the President, in his war on drugs, is trying to apply nationally a formula his supporters find to have worked in Davao City, hailed as one of the most peaceful Philippine cities. As city mayor there for more than two decades, Duterte’s iron-fist approach restored security amid vigilante killings. His constituents swear they feel safe walking alone in their city even at night.

In Metro Manila people are starting to feel the same sense of security a couple of months after the President launched his war on drugs.

Now they can go home late at night with no fear of being mugged by drug users. That’s why most everyone supports Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs.

But what if we don’t have a Duterte who hates drugs and corrupt government officials? Here’s a likely scenario: Crime will continue to be a significant concern not only in urban areas, but in most barangays where shabu addiction will get worse.

In Metro Manila robberies and rape committed by taxi drivers or bad elements using stolen taxi cabs will continue.

We will still be at the mercy of carnappers, kidnappers and robbers.

Violent assaults perpetrated by thugs riding-in-tandem would not stop.

The number of tanim-bala victims will continue to rise.

Drug lords will still have politicians and judges in their pockets.

Shabu factories will continue to multiply.

Shabu tiangge will sprout in every barangay.

Drug dealers will continue to use kids to sell shabu.

We won’t have enough space if we try to enumerate all the possible scenarios. Suffice it to say that the Philippines, if we don’t have Duterte, stands a good chance of becoming a narco-state. All the signs are there: We have become a major transshipment point for drugs, and shabu laboratories exist and are being supported by a growing population of shabu addicts. Regionally, the Philippines is an identified shabu source for Guam, and a transit point from Africa to Southeast Asia.

Without Duterte, a corrupt Philippine National Police will remain as a useless agency in fighting the drug menace. Add to that a weak judicial system, and one can see the reality of how the Philippines has nearly become a narco-state. Filipinos are lucky to have a President who can scare drug lords away with these simple words: “If you destroy my country, I will kill you.”

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

C

lassic “globalization” can be found in India during British colonization. India grew cotton, which was exported to the textile mills of England. The manufactured textile was sent back to India to be made into clothes. The value added to the cotton created great, but unequal, wealth for one party.

For decades the people have been told that greater trade was beneficial to all. However, as in the case of India/England, the globalization of trade has never been equal.

The idea that all nations would play fairly was always a convenient myth. As trade expanded, some nations acted like the one child who tries to keep all the toys for himself.

Japan found ways to limit American exports of its fruit by requiring that each apple be individually washed, arguing that the surface of harvested apple fruit could be infected by E. coli.

This past December 11th, China

Ninoy’s trip to America Cecilio T. Arillo

✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua

database

Founder

Publisher Editor in Chief Managing Editor Associate Editor News Editor City & Assignments Editor Senior Editors

T. Anthony C. Cabangon Jun B. Vallecera Max V. de Leon Jennifer A. Ng Dionisio L. Pelayo Vittorio V. Vitug Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Efleda P. Campos

Online Editor Social Media Editor

Ruben M. Cruz Jr. Angel R. Calso

Creative Director Chief Photographer

Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes

Chairman of the Board & Ombudsman President VP-Finance VP Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Manager Group Circulation Manager

Judge Pedro T. Santiago (Ret.) Benjamin V. Ramos Adebelo D. Gasmin Marvin Nisperos Estigoy Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Dante S. Castro

BusinessMirror is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror

HOM

Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines.

Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725. Fax line: 813-7025.

(Advertising Sales) 893-2019; 817-1351, 817-2807.

(Circulation) 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. E-mail: news@businessmirror.com.ph.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Printed by brown madonna Press, Inc.–San Valley Drive KM-15, South Superhighway, Parañaque, Metro Manila MEMBER OF

was supposed to be certified as “market-economy status” by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This would have given China the legal ability to avoid charges that it was dumping products to other economies at prices designed to drive out competition. The WTO has put China’s request on hold—perhaps for years —in spite of a protest from Beijing.

US President-elect Donald J. Trump has said he will kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and do the same with the European trade initiative—the

P

RESIDENT Marcos approved Ninoy’s trip to American on May 8, 1980, with the First Lady facilitating it. On May 7, two days after doctors at the Philippine Heart Center for Asia diagnosed his ailment, Ninoy sought the President’s permission to leave for America for medical treatment. At the time, Ninoy’s mother, Doña Aurora, had a petition for habeas corpus pending with the Supreme Court. President Marcos, therefore, had to endorse Ninoy’s request to the High Tribunal. The Court immediately acted on the endorsement, giving the request its imprimatur the following day.

Ninoy departed for America on the same day, May 8. The officials who saw him off were Metro Manila Deputy Governor Ismael Mathay, Deputy Defense Minister Carmelo Z. Barbero, Philippine Airlines (PAL) General Manager Roman A. Cruz, Manila International Airport Manager Luis Tabuena, and Generals Jose Zumel and Josephus Ramas. On the PAL flight to Houston, Mrs. Marcos sent along cardiac specialists to make certain that nothing more ill befell him on the way to the Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

Ninoy himself kept President Marcos informed of what lay ahead following his surgery. On May 26, 1980, Ninoy sent a cable to the President. The Sandiganbayan, during the 1985 trial of those charged with the 1983 murder of Ninoy, would refer to this cablegram: “He was discharged from Baylor Medical Center on that day with peri-

carditis [inflammation of tissue surrounding the heart] and was proceeding to San Francisco, California, for a fourweek convalescence as ordered by his doctors. He was to return to Dallas by the end of June for final checkup and to begin six to eight weeks of physical-rehabilitation therapy. However, he added, if the President felt that he ‘should return to his Fort Bonifacio cell soonest,’ he shall forgo the recommended physicalrehabilitation therapy.”

The Sandiganbayan continued with what Aquino did next, after being given permission to remain a free man: “In less than two days [May 27 and 28 1980], Gen. Fabian C. Ver, in behalf of the President, called up to say that President Marcos had given Senator Aquino Jr. permission to take his time and go through with his physical-rehabilitation therapy, and that he can stay in America indefinitely.”

Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. In his speech before leaving for a trip to Singapore and Cambodia, President Duterte said, “With Asean integration, it is important that we harness the economic strengths and complementaries in our region to sustain growth beneficial to all.”

Both Trump and Duterte are signaling moves in the direction of regional trade alliances rather than global. While Trump has called for a rewrite or outright abandonment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, again this is to level the playing field between regional neighbors.

The truth, though, is that globalization in its previous form went in to intensive care from the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. Now it may be in a terminal state. In 2015 world trade, in general, dropped by more than 10 percent for the first time since 2009. This is the worst performance since the Great Depression. By contrast, trade between Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) members is growing at about 10 percent per year.

Currently, at 24 percent of total

“The reply gave Aquino the distinct impression that his return was not desired, so he accepted a fellowship at the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University, where he stayed for two academic years.”

“He punctuated his sojourn in the United States with travels to such countries as Syria, West Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Nicaragua, Mexico, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia.”

Ninoy accepted a teaching fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after recovering from his heart surgery. This was after Ver informed him in May 1980 that his stay in America had been “extended indefinitely”. Ninoy’s mother, Doña Aurora A. Aquino, also recalled about two weeks after his death: “The late Minister [Carmelo] Barbero phoned Ninoy three days after his [Ninoy’s] operation, saying that, by order of the President, Ninoy could take his time and could stay in the United States as long as he wanted.” He was, for practical purposes, a free man. The order for his release from detention was never revoked, at least as of June 1983.

Laurel quoted then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile as having told him at that time: “The order of the President releasing him from Fort Bonifacio still stands.”

Justice Minister Ricardo Puno and Chief Justice Enrique Fernando also scotched rumors that new charges had been filed against Ninoy (those would come later) in answer to Laurel’s query.

Ninoy accepted another fellowship after his one at Harvard ended in June 1981, this time at the Massachusetts

Asean trade, intra-Asean trade is seen hitting 30 percent by 2020.

The ideal situation for a nation would be to be a member of a trading bloc filled with economic winners.

The “losers” turn to protectionism.

According to the WTO, between October 2015 and May 2016, the Group of 20 (G-20) countries adopted 145 trade-barrier laws, 1,500 since 2008.

The countries of the G-20—accounting for 90 percent of global trade— are responsible for 80 percent of those trade barriers.

If this trend continues, a trade war is all but inevitable.

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of World War II Japanese Imperial Army propaganda is beginning to sound more logical and even attractive. With Asean’s formidable and established trade unity, turning to the region for enhanced economic cooperation and potential success makes sense. Being dependant on the West no longer does.

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.

Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.

Ostensibly, there was a deal between President Marcos and Ninoy, that in exchange for his release from detention to go on exile, the latter would not make any critical political statements against the Marcos administration.

A pact with the devil

According to Escalante and de la Paz, Ninoy himself referred to this deal when he announced that he was breaking it in his well-publicized speech before the Asia Society in New York on August 4, 1980. He had justified his action by declaring that “a pact with the devil is no pact at all.”

Steve Psinakis, the anti-Marcos journalist-businessman, wrote of that day in New York: “In a stinging speech which caused headlines in the Philippines and in other countries, Ninoy warned Marcos of the ‘gathering storm’. He told his audience that he had talked to the leaders of several ‘young, idealistic groups of Filipinos,’ who have been preparing for ‘massive urban guerrilla warfare.’ The guerrillas, Aquino said, had revealed to him their ‘destabilization plan’, which included bombings, assassinations and kidnappings of public officials and military officers…in order to bring the Marcos regime to its knees. Ninoy warned that unless Marcos moved quickly and sincerely toward normalization, the urban guerrillas will start implementing their destabilization plan.”

To be continued

To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@ gmail.com.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Truth or consequence in media

A man who can be counted upon Msgr. Sabino A. Vengco Jr.

Alálaong Bagá

Ariel F. Nepomuceno

DECISION TIME

W

e all know the drill: There is a guaranteed consequence for not telling the truth. We have learned this early on in the popular parlor game that has kept us entertained at parties and get-togethers during our younger years. And even back then, there were occasions when we intentionally opted for the consequence, no matter how ridiculously difficult it was, because truth has its way of making us uncomfortable.

Truth in itself is complicated.

Especially when it doesn’t favor us, it can stare us in the eye and we wouldn’t know any better. Throw in there a mix of half-truths and you get the formula for disaster. Misinformation breeds disinformation, and disinformation breeds a culture of deceit, distrust and cynicism.

US elections challenged

Outgoing US President Barack Obama, in a speech, commented on how “so many people get their information and sound bytes and snippets off their phones,” referring to social media. Then came his thought-provoking postulation: “If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then, we have problems.”

The issue of online “fake news” surfaced, particularly in the US media, when some quarters began correlating the unanticipated victory of Donald J. Trump over Hilary Clinton to the alleged proliferation of fake news stories about Clinton leading to the recent US presidential election.

One newspaper reported that, based on a BuzzFeed News analysis, “the 20 top-performing bogus stories from hoax web sites and extremely partisan blogs generated slightly more than 8.7 million “Shares” on Facebook to just 7.4 million from major news web sites, in the three months before the election.” No wonder one Facebook user even claimed to have put Trump in the White House. Depending on his online clout, we can cut the guy some slack. After all, according to Pew Research Center, 62 percent of US adults get news from a social-media networking site.

While they debate on the boonor-bane merit of social media, back here in the Philippines, we are also assaulted by a deluge of massive information overload that redound to irksome social-media noise.

Dangerous news

But fake news is not only irksome, it is also harmful and dangerous.

Unless due diligence is done, it can actually pass for a factual story and deceive even the supposedly most discerning.

If even intelligence experts fall for

online hoaxes, how do we discriminate between real and fake news?

In an episode of CBS This Morning television program, resource speakers on fighting fake news online gave three cues on how to spot a fake news story: First, check the account history of source. Second, check the images used in a story since images from a legitimate live event are often reused by fake storytellers with an intent to deceive. Third, check story for context. At a time when random blogs pass for legitimate news sources, I say there is still no substitute for vigilant fact-checking. And as rabid information consumers, we share with information producers the same amount and degree of responsibility to always speak and share the truth.

T

he gospel narration for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Matthew 1:16-24) depicts Joseph as a reliable instrument in God’s unfolding plan of salvation. Joseph’s story of faith is a subplot in the major proclamation of the birth of the awaited Messiah.

Jesus of the line of David One of Saint Matthew’s concerns is to express the tradition that Jesus is the Son of God born of the house of David as promised of old. The lineage of a Jew is based on that of the father.

Part of Joseph’s role in the story of Jesus is to provide the ancestry traced in the genealogy that confirmed Jesus as truly a Son of David (Romans 1:3-4; Acts 2:29-32; 13:22-23). As the husband of Mary, Joseph was legally the father of Mary’s son. “You are to name him Jesus,” the angel instructed Joseph specifying his paternal duty. The extraordinary nature of the birth of the Savior is underlined by the fact among others that Joseph, though the legal father, was not the biological father of Jesus.

During the first portion of the

Bloomberg View

S

amuel Johnson got it wrong: Patriotism is the last refuge of the unprofitable. The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart Online Services Pvt. lost 23 billion rupees last year, and so its cofounder and executive chairman, Sachin Bansal, has suddenly morphed into a great champion of local companies.

“We need to take a more India-centric approach” to regulation, he told a Bengaluru audience last week, citing Donald J. Trump approvingly.

Bansal is leading an effort to lobby the Indian government to raise new barriers to foreign competition. He has plenty of global examples to back up his argument. Besides Trump, there’s China: “What we need to do is what China did and tell the world we need your capital, but we don’t need your companies,” he said. Bhavish Aggarwal, cofounder and CEO of

Through the Holy Spirit

When Mary was found with child before they lived together, Joseph’s

Economic threats

For comments and suggestions arielnepo.businessmirror@gmail.com

the taxi aggregator Ola, which lost 8 billion rupees last year, has joined Bansal’s lobbying group. “The markets are being distorted by [foreign] capital,” he complained during the same Bengaluru discussion.

The chutzpah on display here is truly extraordinary. Presumably the $1.3 billion Ola raised from Japan’s Softbank didn’t distort the market too much for Aggarwal’s liking. He and Bansal clearly aren’t speaking as disinterested observers of economic theory, but as entrepreneurs locked in fierce competition with Uber Technologies Inc. and Amazon India Ltd., respectively. They also seem to be employing a rather odd definition of “Indian.” Flipkart’s parent company, for example, is incorporated in Singapore, which last I heard was not a state in the Republic of India.

So is the produce delivery startup Grofers and the doctor-finding app Practo. Grofer’s competitors,

When Mary was found with child before they lived together, Joseph’s dismay was at the horrible specter of an adultery case; he knew it was not his.

Whose child is it then? Joseph loved Mary, but “since he was a righteous man” he could not bring himself to condone nonfeasance or be even a passive accomplice by toleration of an abomination before God. dismay was at the horrible specter of an adultery case; he knew it was not his. Whose child is it then? Joseph loved Mary, but “since he was a righteous man” he could not bring himself to condone nonfeasance or be even a passive accomplice by toleration of an abomination before God. Yet, he would not want Mary to be exposed to the shame of a trial for adultery and to the possibility of death penalty, and so Joseph decided to divorce Mary quietly.

Joseph’s faith, like that of Mary’s, received an extreme challenge when the explanation given for this pregnancy was that it is an act of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. But he rose to the occasion and showed himself totally trusting and obedient to the divine will. God’s intervention

and intention were manifested in the first of three angelic appearances to Joseph in a dream. Not to be afraid to take Mary home as his wife, not to be fazed by the extraordinary turn of events, not to hesitate to assume his assigned role in the developing drama of God’s long-awaited saving action in the life of His people, Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took Mary home as his wife and became the legal father of the Messiah.

Alálaong bagá, as our Savior from the reign of sin, Jesus would be the very presence of merciful God among His people— “Emmanuel”. But then as now for God to be present in the affairs of humankind, persons like Joseph and Mary are called upon to cooperate with Him. It is terrifying to think that our faith and responsibility may well determine if God would be incarnated and present in our families, workplaces, communities and nation. As Joseph and Mary made Christmas possible then, so now it is our turn.

Needed are people who can be counted upon.

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

he health of the Philippine economy—or any other country for that matter—depends on what happens inside and outside of its territory.

Although the Philippines has seemingly sound fiscal policies, it now faces several external and internal economic threats that could affect the health of its economy in the long run. The devaluation of China’s yuan and its sagging economy, rising oil prices and uncertainties of the US economy under President-elect Donald J. Trump could disrupt world markets.

diminished stock markets and other asset prices, and a swift rise in private debt.

Although the Philippines has seemingly sound fiscal policies, it now faces several external and internal economic threats that could affect the health of its economy in the long run.

The devaluation of China’s yuan and its sagging economy, rising oil prices and uncertainties of the US economy under President-elect Donald J. Trump could disrupt world markets. We have competent financial managers, yes; but one thing they could not rein in is President Duterte himself. His mouth could put to waste the economic gains attained during the past administration; and it is proving to be a major internal factor, which could affect our economic health.

Already, an estimated $58 million in foreign funds have pulled out from local equities after the president cursed US President Barrack Obama

when the latter reminded him to “do it the right way”, referring to his deadly war on illegal drugs. Earlier, US credit-ratings agency Standard and Poor (S&P) warned of a reduction in the country’s credit rating, alluding to, among others, weakened stability and impulsiveness in his policy-making.

The country’s credit rating now stands at “BBB”/“A-2”, with a stable outlook, indicating reasonable capacity to meet its monetary commitments. But S&P believes a hostile economic condition may lead to a weakened capacity. A lower credit rating makes the cost of paying off debt more expensive. Contingent to how Duterte’s administration plans to fund his supercilious economic growth policies, this could be vital.

To some investors, the President’s inflammable pomposity and insistent social-order policies are putting a negative view of his governing skill.

They are doubtful that he has what it takes to pilot one of Asia’s most auspicious economies as he is quickly

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

to demand restrictions on other companies just because those same consumers are choosing them in droves. If Ola wants to beat Uber, it should focus less on foreign capital and more on why it’s losing—because Uber’s taxis have the reputation of being cleaner and more efficient, and their drivers more polite and bettertrained than Ola’s.

The bigger worry is that these demands from India’s e-commerce giants come at a time when the government might well be predisposed toward listening. Capitalism with hyper-national characteristics has become visible in several other sectors of the Indian economy. Even in e-commerce, the government has consistently given in to nativist sentiment by passing laws that stunt the business model: Foreign investment is allowed in online “marketplaces” only, for instance, which means that Amazon India can’t hold any inventory of its own.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, since it came into power, has made promoting investment into India a priority. But Modi’s “Make in India” program is already dangerously close to becoming a protectionist campaign, rather than one that increases India’s openness and attractiveness as an investment destination. The last thing India needs now is to suggest to possible investors that their “Indian” competitors can successfully use nationalist sentiment against them.

That’s especially true in e-commerce: The money flowing into the sector has been one of the few developments that’s allowed the government to claim that investment into India is growing, and not stagnant.

If India wants to emulate China, as Bansal suggests, it should remember the real reason for the mainland’s success—a predictable and profitable business environment for foreign investment, not false patriotism.

Val A. Villanueva

Businesswise

T

Striking a balance between internal and external factors rests on the shoulders of the country’s fiscal managers.

There had been trying economic times globally, such as the Asian financial crisis in 1997, but the Philippines was able to cushion its dire effects because its economy was fundamentally sound. The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion.

It began in Thailand (well known in Thailand as the Tom Yum Goong crisis) with the financial collapse of the Thai baht after the Thai government was forced to float it. Thailand simply lacked support to peg its currency to the US dollar. Also, the burden of its heavy debt made the country virtually bankrupt.

The crisis spread like wildfire.

Nearly all of Southeast Asia and Japan saw collapsing currencies,

Protectionism isn’t patriotic

By Mihir Sharma

two-part matrimonial procedure among the Jews, Mary was betrothed to Joseph. It means that a formal exchange of consent between Joseph and his parents on one side and the parents of Mary on the other was done with witnesses present. This betrothal takes place when the bride turns around 12 to 13 years old.

Joseph and Mary were, thereafter, considered already husband and wife.

But they would start to live together only at the second part of the procedure, around a year afterward at the formal transfer when the groom fetches the bride home and assumes full responsibility for her welfare.

Defend truth

Before we hit those “Like” and “Share” buttons on our social-media accounts, we have to be certain about the veracity of the story we are about to share. If we intend to merely humor our friends online, it wouldn’t hurt if we’d include a cautionary word in our message board that it’s a satirical piece and that everything is just for fun. And we can do extracautionary contextualization also if what we mean to share is legit and to be taken seriously.

Free media, like social media, has afforded us unprecedented access to virtually limitless information, and information is power. Rather than corrupt and be corrupted by this power, let us instead choose to help create a culture that reveres veracity and honors truth, particularly in news reporting.

New York Times columnist Jim Rutenberg, in his column Media’s Next Challenge: Overcoming the Threat of Fake News, opined: “The cure for fake journalism is an overwhelming dose of good journalism.” He was optimistic that the explosion in fake news will serve to raise the value of real news.

“If so, it will be great journalism that saves journalism,” he asserted.

Considering that media remains a democracy’s Fourth Estate, I most certainly hope so.

Thursday, December 15, 2016 A11

Freshdesk, operate out of the US. If, one happy and distant day, Flipkart makes a profit, Singapore will presumably benefit and the Indian government’s revenues will be unaffected. Amazon India, meanwhile, is very definitely registered in India—in Bengaluru, in fact, a short distance from where Bansal was lambasting the company for its foreign roots.

The call for a “level-playing field” for Indian firms is also dubious on its face. As always, Western companies have struggled more than local competitors with Indian regulators.

On one well-known occasion, the government of the southern state of Karnataka granted Ola a licence but denied Uber one for apparently frivolous procedural reasons that set off alarm bells.

The air of self-righteousness adopted by these foreign-funded, foreign-registered tech companies seems particularly unwarranted giv-

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, since it came into power, has made promoting investment into India a priority. But Modi’s “Make in India” program is already dangerously close to becoming a protectionist campaign, rather than one that increases India’s openness and attractiveness as an investment destination. en that they are, after all, as “disruptive” as any multinational. Flipkart hopes to put small neighborhood retailers out of business. Ola cannibalizes local taxi stands.

When they stand up and argue for their business models and against outdated regulations, they make the case—rightly—that they provide great benefits for Indian consumers. So it’s a little absurd for them

chipping on the economic gains made by the previous administration. The country had one of the fastest growing economies with an average annual growth rate of 6 percent during the Aquino years.

The health of the market mirrors an investor’s confidence in the economy, and by and large, the political makeup of that country. The swelling union of politics and the economy reflects the difficulties in hurdling political uncertainty. The country cannot afford to be viewed globally as a house in disarray. It is a sure deterrent on investments. According to the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, “several companies that had intended to establish operations to the Philippines are adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude, because of the uncertain political climate.”

Duterte cannot flaunt his achievements during his more than two decades of dominating Davao politics.

The Philippines is far bigger than his province and it takes more than the aptitude of a mayor to run it efficiently. His die-hard supporters point to Davao’s economic growth of 6.6 percent on average, even higher than the country’s growth rate of 6.3 percent. But his unrestrained tongue, his impetuous governance and boorish behavior do not and cannot make him the leader that his supporters paint him to be.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12

Thursday, December 15, 2016

DOT on track to hit 6-M target for 2016 T

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

HE Philippines is well on its way of hitting its target of 6 million foreign tourists this year, according to the Department of Tourism (DOT).

From January to September, total visitor arrivals grew by 12.08 percent to 4.46 million, largely boosted by the unabated influx of tourists from South Korea, the United States, China and Japan.

In a news statement, tourism secretary enthused: “We are well under way to achieving our target of 6 million international visitor arrival by the year’s end, thanks to the support of all stakeholders in the tourism sector.”

Data released by the DOT also showed visitor receipts, or the amount of money spent by foreign

4.46M The total number of foreign tourists that visited PHL from January to September

tourists in the local economy, increased by 5.76 percent to P178.48 billion (or $3.8 million) in the first nine months of the year.

The DOT is targeting visitor receipts to grow by 15 percent to

P353 billion in 2016.

Canadians were among the top spenders in the country, the DOT data showed. “On the average, a Canadian visitor spent P76,670.97 during his stay. Visitors from the United Kingdom came in second, with a per-capita spending of P47,433.21. Korea followed, with P43,963.64 per-capita expenditure,” Wanda Corazon T. Teo said.

Of total arrivals in the nine months to September, visitors from South Korea rose by 9.48 percent to 1.09 million; followed by the US at 636,015 (+10.13 percent); China at

537,582 (+43.82 percent); Japan at 410,669 (+7.84 percent); Australia at 178,600 (+4.62 percent); Taiwan at 178,290 (+31.88 percent); the UK at 126,796 (+12.85 percent); and Canada at 123,622 (+12.54 percent).

“The growth in tourism figures can be attributed to massive marketing campaigns of the tourism department to increase awareness on different Philippines destinations,” the tourism chief added.

Dips, however, recorded in visitors from Singapore at 133,431 (down 1.92 percent) and Malaysia 105,662 (down 9.83 percent).

Senate ratifies 2017 budget bill

T

he Senate, voting 17-2 with one abstention, on Wednesday ratified the P3.35-trillion national budget bill for 2017, following final approval of the annual measure in a separate session on Monday.

Sens. Panfilo M. Lacson and Sherwin Gatchalian cast negative votes, while Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III abstained.

The final version of the 2017 budget bill, having been ratified by both chambers of Congress, is expected to be transmitted to Malacañang within the week for signing into law

by President Duterte before the yearend, averting a scenario where the government would operate under a reenacted 2016 budget law.

Butch Fernandez

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Aklan-Ex Solon Allen Salas Quimpo dies at 71

The former Aklan Congressman Allen Salas Quimpo died yesterday (Tuesday, December 14) at the Medical City. He was 71.

Quimpo, who served for 3-terms as the lone representative of Aklan for 3 consecutive terms, was a vice mayor and mayor kalibo aklan.

During his term in the House of Representatives, Quimpo was chairman of the committee on education.

Quimpo, a lawyer and holder of doctorate degree was president of the Northwestern Visayan Colleges (NVC), a leading institutions in the Visayas.

He founded the man-made 250-hectare forest mangrove, popularly known as Bahkawan in Kalibo, the capital of Aklan.