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A10 Thursday, July 14, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

China must respect international law

he Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday sided with the Philippines against China’s territorial claims. In a ruling on an arbitration case brought by the Philippines against China, it said there is no legal basis for China’s “nine-dash line” claiming rights to much of the South China Sea. It added that any historic rights to resources that China may have had were wiped out if they are incompatible with exclusive economic zones established under the United Nations Law of the Sea treaty that sets rules for establishing zones of control over the oceans based on distances to coastlines. More than a hundred million Filipinos celebrated with joy upon hearing the ruling “that China had violated the Philippines’s sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, constructing artificial islands and failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone.” Unfortunately, the Chinese government rejected the international tribunal’s ruling. In a statement, the foreign ministry said China “solemnly declares that the award is null and void and has no binding force. China neither accepts nor recognizes it.” Displaying unyielding obduracy even in the face of undisputed evidence that it was wrong, the Chinese government declared: “China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea shall, under no circumstances, be affected by those awards. China opposes and will never accept any claim or action based on those awards.” Experts on international law said the ruling offers a fresh opportunity to resolve maritime disputes in a peaceful manner. They said countries wrangling with China over territories in the South China Sea should join the Philippines in endorsing the tribunal decision and then proceed, if necessary, with their own arbitration cases. Japan, which has its own territorial disputes with China over a set of islands in the East China Sea, was the first country to endorse the ruling. Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said the Arbitral Tribunal’s decision is “final and legally binding” and that the two sides should comply with it. He added: “Japan strongly expects that the parties’ compliance with this award will eventually lead to the peaceful settlement of disputes in the South China Sea.” Foreign Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr., who called the ruling a “milestone decision,” pledged to pursue a peaceful resolution to the country’s territorial disputes with China. However, there are serious concerns about what will happen next. For one, the tribunal has no authority to enforce its ruling. And China, which boycotted the legal process, is threatening to use its might to protect the maritime interests that the Arbitral Tribunal has declared illegal. China’s actions after its legal defeat will show the world how it regards international law. So far, the signs are distressing. It has defiantly rejected the Arbitral Tribunal’s ruling and flaunted its readiness to use power to keep what it wants to keep. There are fears that China’s provocative actions could inflame regional tensions. In the face of mounting pressure from Beijing, the South China Sea could inevitably become a flashpoint, with potentially serious global consequences.

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Reaching a tipping point? John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

verything that happens in life is part of a process. The process leads to a tipping point, which then creates an event. Some are obvious, like pregnancy. A woman goes into labor— the tipping point—and the gestation process then creates a birth event. Prior to the event, there is always a “tipping point” from which there is no turning back. A storm forms in the Western Pacific Ocean over time and may or may not become a typhoon. At some point, the process evolves, creating the typhoon and rarely does a typhoon die out before reaching land. The tipping point is not the event. It is the time at which the “event” becomes inevitable, and we do not know exactly what the results will be. The typhoon could bring death and destruction or thunderstorms that mainly bring needed rain.

Numbers and death Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

feng shui consultant noted that President Duterte’s inauguration as the 16th President of the Philippines, after garnering 16 million plus votes, is an auspicious omen. In numerology, 16 is 1 + 6 = 7, which is a lucky and powerful number. Numerology has increasingly been consulted by Filipinos to predict the outcome or success of an event or endeavor.

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During his first flag-raising ceremony as commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration, retired Police General Jaime Morente (Philippine Military Academy [PMA] 1981) said, perhaps, his designation to serve as the chief implementer of immigration law was written in the stars. He noted that his birthday is June 13, or 6/13, whereas the antiquated Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 is known as Commonwealth Act 613. As I recall, to get your lucky number in numerology, you should add the digits in a number of significance to you, say your birthday or anniversary, until you get a single digit. So in Commissioner Morente’s case, since his birth date is 6-13, the formula is 6+1+3=10, then 1+0=1. Thus, Commissioner Morente’s lucky number in the bureau is the number 1.

This appears to be true. Commissioner Morente is the first ever retired police general to be appointed BI head, and apparently, the first person from Cotabato to head any of the attached agencies under the Department of Justice. Commissioner Morente said his twofold mission in the bureau is to curb corruption and to get rid of the long queues, which have plagued the bureau for many years. On the elimination of long lines, several measures have been undertaken in the past years, such as the introduction of the online processing of annual reports for foreign nationals on the suggestion of former Alien Registration Chief Fortunato Manahan Jr., and the use of electronic payments via debit cards on the initiative of Finance Chiefs Elvira Presdao and Libertad Tumlos.

The Philippines and China have been on a course toward confrontation over regional waters and Philippine economic rights for some time. The tipping point occurred with the arbitration ruling. The event could be a shooting war, an agreement of cooperation, or even China and the Philippines making no changes from the status quo. Abe announced a new “stimulus,” sending the yen down by 4 percent. The Tokyo stock market had its largest three-day upside run in six years. Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange hit an historic high; good for the country that has its economy now growing at 1.1 percent, from 3.9 percent about a year ago. The European Union (EU) has been on a clear course to potential destruction for a long time. The recent “Brexit” vote was the tipping point. The EU could get its economic and financial house in order or completely

With the marching orders of President Duterte for the first 100 days of his administration, for the BI with Morente at the helm, the number 1 may very well herald the death of corruption and mean grief for corrupt government personnel and their cohorts who will soon be permanently out of business. With sufficient budget for information technology, online processing can also be done for visa processing, revalidation, restamping, implementation and lifting of blacklists. With lesser human interaction, the opportunities for corruption will be minimized and, more important, the time to process these transactions will be considerably shortened. With online processing of most, if not all, of BI applications, Commissioner Morente may well be the first among the current officers of the present administration to report to President Duterte “mission accomplished” insofar as the eradication of long queues in government agencies is concerned. On his mission to eradicate corruption in the bureau, Commissioner Morente announced that he already knows the few rotten eggs in the bureau, thanks to good intelligence work and friendly advice from well-meaning former BI employees,

dissolve. That will be the event and it will come. While the “experts” warned that leaving the EU would be a disaster for the United Kingdom, in fact, now the European Commission is forecasting a recession for the EU because of Brexit. Italian banks have had a continuing build up of nonperforming loans for the past three years, now at €360 billion, comprising 20 percent of total loan portfolio, and four times as much as when the 2007 financial crisis hit. This past week Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said state intervention to support Italian banks may be needed to save the Italian financial system from collapse. We may have come to, or are reaching near, a tipping point. The next weeks and months will significantly shape the future, as the events that are appearing on the horizon are not to be taken lightly. 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.

myself included. He vowed that he will find ways to stop them, and with President Duterte’s support, he will surely “take care” of these scalawags who have no place in the bureaucracy. I was told that for the Chinese, the number 1 is not exactly the luckiest number. In fact, the number 1 is associated with death, grief, mourning and sorrow as it resembles a candle. With the marching orders of President Duterte for the first 100 days of his administration, for the BI with Commissioner Morente at the helm, the number 1 may very well herald the death of corruption and mean grief for corrupt government personnel and their cohorts who will soon be permanently out of business. For five years, the leadership of the BI had these corrupt people on the ropes and these evil practices down to a minimum. Alas, fate intervened. Of the three values in PMA: courage, integrity and loyalty, I fervently wish Commissioner Jaime Morente to have courage the most, as he embarks on this new challenge in his career. Dare to be different, sir! Dare to try new things, sir! Fidel V. Ramos, our 12th president and selfconfessed older brother of President Duterte, said: “Daring is to give more than to take; …daring to perform to reform and to transform to make a difference….” Morente. 613, number 1. Death to corruption.