BusinessMirror June 06, 2020

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Someone to watch over me Navy’s first brand-new frigate—soon named BRP Jose Rizal—to flex might in PHL’s WPS domain

THE BRP Jose Rizal launched in South Korea, the frigate built by Hyundai Heavy Industries for the Philippine Navy. PHILIPPINE NAVY

By Rene Acosta

A

MID the vast expanse of territorial sea waters that it protects and the country’s claims of some parts of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) being aggressively challenged, primarily by China, the Philippine Navy (PN) is stepping up its modernization program, boosted by the arrival of its first brandnew frigate almost two weeks ago.

IN this February 17, 2018, file photo, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson anchors off Manila, along with guided-missile destroyer USS Michael Murphy. AP/BULLIT MARQUEZ

The berthing of the first of the two South Korean-made combat ships at Subic Bay Freeport where it awaits christening into military service as the BRP Jose Rizal in a couple of days further assured the sustained flying of the country’s tricolor in the territory that is being contested by Manila’s other neighbors.

Back then, when its keel was still being laid out in Ulsan, South Korea, by its contractor, the vessel had been projected to bear a wide array of weapons that included an Oto Melara 76-mm super rapid main gun and an Aselsan SMASH 30-mm remote-controlled secondary cannon.

The warship is also envisioned to pack a more devastating firepower that included surface-tosurface missiles, surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes, thrusting it into the four dimensions of modern warfare—anti-air, antisurface, anti-submarine and electronic warfare.

The vessel’s potentially lethal firepower became immediately discernible almost just as soon as it showed itself on the radar when it entered the country’s waters from the north, where it was accorded both the necessary and customary military rituals for new arriving Navy vessels.

Continued on A2

Protests eclipse pandemic, but White House fears resurgence

By Jonathan Lemire & Zeke Miller

W

tion. The White House coronavirus task force, which has dramatically scaled back its operations as states reopen their economies, is scrambling to track the potential impact on infection rates.

Any uptick in cases in the weeks ahead could slow the economic rebirth that Trump’s advisers believe he needs before he faces voters again in five months.

The Associated Press

ASHINGTON—For weeks, President Donald Trump has been eager to publicly turn the page on the coronavirus pandemic. Now fears are growing within the White House that the very thing that finally shoved the virus from center stage—mass protests over the death of George Floyd—may bring about its resurgence.

Trump this week has eagerly pronounced himself the “President of law and order” in response to the racial unrest that has swept across the nation, overshadowing the pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 105,000 Americans and imperiled his reelection prospects.

But political dangers for the president remain.

Thousands of Americans— many without protective face masks—have jammed the nation’s streets over the past week in defiance of social-distancing guidelines from governors and the Centers for Disease Control and Preven-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 49.9820

Setback in polls

IN this March 17, 2020, file photo, people wait in line for help with unemployment benefits at the One-Stop Career Center in Las Vegas. The coronavirus pandemic has been particularly brutal to the tourism-dependent economies of Nevada and Hawaii, lifting the unemployment rate in both states to about one-quarter of the workforce. AP

“A SECOND wave, whether now or in September, would obviously be a setback to the economic recovery and Trump’s reelection hopes,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “What Trump needs more than anything is a resurgence of consumer and business confidence.

A second wave, or prolonged civil unrest will undermine that.”

It could take weeks to judge the impact of the nationwide protests on the spread of Covid-19, which had been dramatically ebbing across most of the country Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4581 n UK 62.9473 n HK 6.4494 n CHINA 7.0269 n SINGAPORE 35.7653 n AUSTRALIA 34.6825 n EU 56.6696 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.3179

Source: BSP (June 5, 2020)

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Someone to watch over me Continued from A1

Waving the flag in WPS

AS the frigate is designed for modern-day warfare waged and carried out at the click of a button, the warship is seen to maintain its presence and prove its might in the waters off the WPS for which, along with its mission, it was purposely built.

“We will show the [Philippine] flag… expose it in the 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and even in the 350 nautical miles extended continental shelf (ECS),” said Navy Flag Officer in Command Vice Admiral Giovanni Carlo Bacordo.

Bacordo said the PN will undertake and sustain its mission in the maritime waters that Beijing disputes, and this includes regular presence and patrol, maritime domain awareness and security, and rotational and resupply missions.

The frigate should lead and usher the stronger presence of the military in the area, on the heels of the recent completion of a beaching ramp on Pagasa Island, a project previously marred by delays.

The beaching ramp, whose purpose was to facilitate the transport and landing of necessary building materials and equipment, would pave the way for the repair of the Rancudo Airfield, an equally important but much delayed project.

It could also propel small development projects seen to uplift the economic lives of the less than

200 residents of the Municipality of Kalayaan, the seat of the Philippine government of the whole Pagasa Island.

“The completion of the beaching ramp means a big thing to us and to the people of Pagasa. It means that we can now bring in more supplies, especially in the repair of the runway because the next project will be the repair of the runway, dirt runway,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said earlier over CNN Philippines.

“We can now bring in materials, we can bring in heavy equipment. We can also bring in construction materials to improve the living quarters of our people there, and also help the people there. I think we could improve their lives better because we can bring in especially generators because they don’t have any electricity,” he added.

Lorenzana doused apprehensions that the construction of the ramp and the other impending projects would lead to the militarization of Pagasa, a tack that China took over the features that it has occupied and even built in the South China Sea by transforming them into military fortresses.

“In defending our islands there, we will not militarize our islands there. We will not bring in military equipment to defend it because I don’t think there is any threat of attack [on] Pagasa and [the] eight other islands. We have nine islands there in the Spratlys and all occupied by our troops,” he said.

Submarine program

WITH the arrival of the frigate and the awaited delivery of its sister ship within this year, the Navy’s gaze is now fixed on the development and full realization of its submarine project, which is only a notch lower from the requirement of a blue-water navy that only a few privileged countries possess.

The PN has set its focus on acquiring, ideally two, Scorpene-class submarines after going through the technical specifications and capabilities of the French-made underwater craft against other offers, including one coming from its closest competitor, the Russian-made Kilo-class submarine.

The acquisition of submarines is the pinnacle of the Navy’s capability upgrade program and has remained as the primary aspiration of sailors after the country notched its first brand-new frigate, courtesy of the South Korean Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The submarines are programmed to provide further muscle to the military, both in its capability and in its territorial defense operations, and put it in the league of leading militaries in the region.

According to Bacordo, the Navy’s submarine group was formed as early as 2017 and it has been staffed with officers and personnel, who, among others, have studied the whole aspect, even the nittygritty of submarine operations, including training, doctrines and deployment.

While submarine warfare

‘W

e will show the [Philippine] flag… expose it in the 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone and even in the 350 nautical miles extended continental shelf.”—Navy Flag Officer in Command Vice Admiral Giovanni Carlo Bacordo

maybe an entirely new dimension for the PN, its anti-submarine operations has not only been initialized by the arrival of the soonto-be-known BRP Jose Rizal, but would even be completed, expectedly by November this year, when the armaments for its two AgustaWestland 159 helicopters are completely delivered.

Nicknamed the “Wildcat," the two anti-submarine choppers, procured at a cost of P5.4 billion, would be armed with a variety of weapons, including the LIG Nex1 “Blue Shark” lightweight torpedoes that will serve as their primary weapon.

South Korea has already made an initial delivery of the torpedoes.

The frigates, the submarines

and even the other big-ticket projects of the Navy, which include the procurement of two corvettes and Israeli-made smaller, but more agile attack gunboats known as the fast-attack interdiction craft, or FAIC, would help plant the Philippine flag anywhere in the country’s maritime waters.

Doctrinal shift

ARMING the Navy with modern platforms and ensuring the presence of even a flotilla of its warships in the territory that neighbors are disputing is just part of the overall effort of totally transforming the country’s sea force into a modern fighting organization. It needs a doctrinal shift, too.

According to Bacordo, trans-

forming the PN into a modern fighting force also involves changing the mindset of its personnel for them to fully cope, steer and operate their new assets and even the other upcoming procurements of the organization.

In short, their minds, training, development, doctrines and even character should always be in step with the modernization of the Navy.

Bacordo noted that for the longest time, the PN had operated with a “legacy mindset,” meaning it had been used to merely improvising, fixing or servicing its available assets and equipment just for them to stay afloat and conduct their missions.

In fact, in the Navy jargon, the word legacy, ironically, is more appropriately used to describe the status, age and quality of most of the PN vessels.

With the stepped-up modernization, however, the word “legacy” may just as well spell something worth leaving behind, for future generations to enjoy: the confidence that they will always be protected in their homeland.

Protests eclipse pandemic, but White House fears resurgence Continued from A1

before the killing of Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.

Those infected with the virus sometimes take several days to display symptoms, creating a lag in the data. And many protesters were masked and skewed younger—a population that is less affected by the virus but may also have greater numbers of asymptomatic spreaders—complicating predictions.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the administration’s coronavirus coordinator, has been monitoring the protests since they began, looking for indicators of potential resurgence in cases, a White House official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said Birx was expected to present the task force with early impressions this week but the fuller picture likely won’t be known for some time.

Bracing for resurgence

QUESTIONS are swirling about whether the White House is prepared to handle a possible resurgence after deliberately placing the government’s public health response on the back burner to put more focus on restarting state economies.

The task force received a stay of execution last month when Trump decided not to dissolve it.

The group now has a smaller port-

folio as the federal priority shifts to helping states safely reopen and the race for a vaccine has been put under the separate auspices of “Operation Warp Speed.“

The task force is still collecting data, coordinating the distribution of supplies and test kits, and serving as a sounding board for states, but officials said there is less to do now that critical supply shortages have been largely eliminated and tests are more broadly available.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told CNN this week that he had not spoken to Trump in half a month.

White House officials are warily watching metropolitan areas where the protests have ignited, hoping that the outdoor settings reduce the risk. The administration will also encourage governors to reestablish testing sites that were either destroyed or shut down due to the protests.

“President Trump continues to lead the nation through this unprecedented pandemic, including expedited vaccine development and responsibly reopening our economy, while also taking decisive action to restore law and order to our streets and ensure justice,” said White House spokesman Judd Deere.

Soon after the coronavirus reached American shores, the president expressed frustration at how quickly the pandemic crippled the economy, depriving Trump of his best argument for reelection.

Trump also had hoped to revive his 2016 playbook to tarnish Democratic rival Joe Biden as an inef-

fective and corrupt Washington insider, only to have the pandemic all but suspend the campaign.

Desperate to change the subject, Trump labeled the Obama administration’s use of a routine intelligence procedure known as unmasking as “the biggest political crime in history” to slam Biden and promoted an unfounded murder conspiracy theory against MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a frequent Trump critic.

The president has spoken about the coronavirus only sparingly over the last week, mostly to level broadsides against China and the World Health Organization for what he sees as a failure to adequately warn the world about the threat of the virus. Aides have been encouraged by the lack of a significant spike in cases after Memorial Day and some states’ reopening.

Trump is slated Friday to visit a factory in Maine that makes swabs used to test for the coronavirus, his first pandemic-themed travel in more than two weeks. The event has a 2020 backdrop: Maine divides its electoral votes and the event will be held in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which Trump won four years ago and is banking on again this November.

Campaign trail

ALL of Trump’s recent travel official travel has been to electoral battleground states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and Arizona, as advisers nervously track his standing in the polls.

His campaign has welcomed the recent shift to law-and-order themes, believing that the president’s combative rhetoric and talk about sending the military into cities will reassure voters concerned about lawlessness, including senior citizens and suburban women.

But, just as with the pandemic, the Biden campaign sees Trump’s handling of the protests after Floyd’s death as fresh proof for the former vice president’s argument that the president is dangerously unfit for the presidency. Its pitch is that Biden has the experience and temperament to clean up the mess and “restore the soul of the nation.”

“The American people are crying out for leadership,” said Biden spokesman Andrew Bates.

“Narcissism, fear, and smallness will never meet this moment, but Trump doesn’t know how to offer anything else.”

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Factory output hits 2-decade low in April on impact of lockdown

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

HE country’s factory output plunged to its lowest in nearly 20 years, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Based on the results of the Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI), the country’s Volume of Production Index (VoPI) shrank 59.8 percent in April, the largest contraction since 2001.

The PSA said the Value of Production Index for Manufacturing sector also plummeted to 61.4 percent in April 2020, also the highest recorded annual decrease in VaPI since 2001.

“The preliminary results of the April 2020 Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries or MISSI show that manufacturing, both volume and value indices, fell significantly. All manufacturing subsectors posted double-digit negative growth rates in April 2020 given the imposition of community quarantines. As we shift from ECQ to GCQ, we will be seeing improvements in the succeeding months,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua said in an online briefing on Friday.

Data showed industry groups with the higher VoPI contraction were led by leather products, the factory output of which contracted 99 percent.

This was followed by footwear and wearing apparel, where VoPI contracted 97.8 percent, as well as furniture and fixtures which contracted 91.7 percent.

It can be noted that all industry groups posted contractions. The industry with the least drop in factory output was food manufacturing at 46.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the decline in VaPI was due to

seven of the 20 industry groups registering more than 85-percent contractions.

These were led by leather products which contracted 98.6 percent followed by footwear and wearing apparel with a contraction of 98 percent and furniture and fixtures at 90 percent.

Other industries included fabricated metal products which contracted 89.9 percent; nonmetallic mineral products, 87.7 percent; rubber and plastic products, 87.7 percent; and tobacco products, 86.8 percent.

The MISSI data also showed that the average capacity utilization rate for total manufacturing stood at 70 percent.

PSA said this was lower than the average capacity utilization rate of 77.9 percent recorded in March 2020.

Data showed 23.9 percent of the establishments operated between 90 percent and 100 percent while 43.1 percent operated between 70 percent and 89 percent. Over a third or 33 percent of firms operated below 70 percent capacity.

In terms of industry group, the highest average capacity utilization was recorded by footwear and wearing apparel at 87.4 percent and textiles, 87.2 percent.

The industries with the lowest average capacity utilization rate are leather products at zero, followed by printing at 27.4 percent and beverages at 30.2 percent.

The MISSI is a report that monitors the production, net sales, inventories, and capacity utilization of selected manufacturing establishments to provide flash indicators on the performance of the manufacturing sector.

House approves ₧1.5-T CURES bill to boost infra spending in countryside

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

T

he House of Representatives on Friday passed on third and final reading another stimulus package worth P1.5 trillion that will focus on infrastructure spending and create more jobs in the countryside.

Voting 210 affirmative and 7 negative, the lawmakers passed House Bill 6920, or the Covid-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act of 2020.

In news statement, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte, one of the principal authors of the bill, said the approved measure designed to be a three-year stimulus to set the stalled economy back on its high-growth path and initial boost as well for President Duterte’s new initiative to decongest Metro Manila.

The bill, which was also co-authored by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano along with 212 more legislators, seeks to further raise state spending on health, education, agriculture, local roads, livelihood, information and communication technology (ICT) and tourism (HEAL IT) infrastructure.

“This measure aims to blunt the impact of what the International Monetary Fund expects to be the worst global recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s by stimulating economic activity and creating so many jobs in the countryside,” Villafuerte said.

“In so doing, CURES will, at the same time, boost President Duterte’s Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-Asa program by encouraging city dwellers to return to their home provinces amid the prospects of more employment and livelihood opportunities in the regions outside the national capital,” he added.

The CURES bill proposes a threeyear, P1.5-trillion stimulus program anchored on infrastructure spending, particularly outside of Metro Manila, as the “cures” to reset the economy and generate a lot of jobs following the sudden work stoppage set off by the quarantine measures that were effected in mid-March to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

Wit h inf rastr uct ure investments having the highest multiplier effect on the economy, Villafuerte said “the House passed the CUR ES bill in a bid to dramatically raise state spending on HEAL IT projects and thus spur t he domest ic economy ’s qu ic k recover y from the coronav irus pandemic’s economic fallout.”

The CURES bill seeks to create, appropriate and automatically release a special outlay dubbed the CURES Fund equivalent to P1.5 trillion over a three-year period to bankroll infrastructure projects in the HEAL IT priority areas, at P500 billion worth of projects per year.

Chosen projects should be “shovel-ready,” or ready for construction within 90 days after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) certifies actual fund release.

Villafuerte said the huge infrastructure projects outlined in the CURES bill shall be undertaken in conjunction with the “Balik Probinsya” program.

The CURES Fund would be available for a wide gamut of projects ranging from barangay health centers and municipal and city hospitals to digital equipment for testing, “tele-health” services and e-prescriptions to postharvest facilities, bagsakan centers and food terminals, among others.

Such funds would also be available for infrastructure projects like walking or bicycle lanes; bridges across creeks and irrigation canals; evacuation centers and disaster emergency facilities; and roads going to tourist spots, beaches, mountain parks, new business districts or economic zones, and hubs for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Funding would be available, too, for projects like farm-to-market roads, roads connecting communities to schools and health facilities; along with the Enhanced Sustainable Livelihood Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Enhanced Tupad Program and Barangay Emergency Employment Program of the Department of Labor and Employment, and access of micro, small and medium-scale enterprises to credit and financing.

Moreover, the CURES Fund could be used to bankroll projects like the purchase and deployment of mobile network POPs (Telecommunications Point of Presence); implementation of digital platforms in doing government transactions; and acquisition of ICT equipment or laboratory facilities to enable immediate coordinated health response to suppress virus transmission or contact tracing.

An initial P500 billion of this CURES Fund shall be released on the first year of this 2020-2022 economic stimulus and employment program, with P500 billion more for release on the second year, and the remaining P500 billion on the third and final year.

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May inflation slows further to 2.1% on weak demand, cheap oil prices

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HEAP oil prices and weak demand caused inflation to slow further in May, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Data showed inflation averaged 2.1 percent in May, slower than the 2.2 percent in April and 3.2 percent posted in May 2019. Inflation in the first five months of the year averaged 2.5 percent.

PSA said primary reasons for the slower inflation is the 28.8-percent deflation recorded in petroleum and fuels for personal transport equipment; the 2.7-percent deflation of rice prices; and 3-percent growth of garments.

“What we are looking at are prices, so we are scouting for prices so our basis for the inflation computation are really the prices,” National Statistician Claire Dennis S. Mapa said in an online briefing on Friday.

“We can surmise that perhaps there’s a slow demand on this side.

Right now, what we are seeing are just simply the movement in the prices and those are our inputs to the computation of the inflation rate,” he added.

Neda chief cites reforms

In a separate briefing, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua said inflation was low and stable due to recent reforms undertaken by the administration.

Chua said these include the continued implementation of the rice tariffication law, which has brought down the price of rice by around P10 per kilo from the 2018 peak.

The country’s chief economist also said efforts to improve the country’s supply chain of essential goods, particularly food, help keep inflation at bay during the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

He added that the government’s implementation of a price freeze during the ECQ prevented “unscrupulous traders” from taking advantage of consumers.

“In all these, it was not just government that made this happen. Producers workedhardtosupplygoodscontinuously despite initial challenges, businesses supported the price freeze order, and

Globe, Innove sustain hike in tax payments in 2019

T

HE tax payments of Globe and Innove Communications Inc. continue to rise for the fifth consecutive year, the telco reported on Friday. For fiscal year 2019, Globe said it paid over P20.7 billion in taxes, P3 billion, or 20 percent higher than the previous year’s remittance.

The company said it has remitted to the government close to P80 billion in taxes over the last five years.

“We regard the company’s increasing tax payment as a testament to our efficient operations even as we give our customers better service. This will further help the government in its efforts to manage the impact of Covid-19 on our economy and the people hardest hit by the pandemic,” said Rizza Maniego-Eala, Globe chief finance officer and chief risk officer.

Innove, on the other hand, settled at least P4.8 billion in taxes for 2019, a 9-percent increase compared to its payment in 2018.

Globe and Innove were recently cited by the Department of Finance (DOF) as among the big companies in the top 500 corporate taxpayers that filed their income tax returns (ITR) ahead of the extended deadline. They were among the top 11 companies which complied early with their tax obligations, even when the deadlines were extended twice as a result of the community quarantines that shuttered businesses since mid-March.

Also included in the DOF Top 500 list are the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), Manila Water Co. Inc. and BPI Capital Corp., which are part of the Ayala Group of Companies.

consumers cooperated and purchased only what they needed. This is the kind of ‘whole-nation-approach’ that will help the country recover faster,” Chua said.

PSA data showed inflation for food at the national level slowed to 2.9 percent in May 2020 from 3.4 percent in the previous month and 3.2 percent in May 2019.

Annual decreases were still noted in the indices of rice at 2.7 percent; corn, 0.7 percent; and sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery, 0.8 percent.

Other food groups also posted slower inflation, except for cereals, flour, cereal preparation, bread, pasta and other bakery products; and oils and fats, the inflation rates for which were higher at 2.7 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

Data showed inflation in Metro Manila, however, was higher at 1.4 percent in May 2020 than in the previous month’s 1.2 percent. But this was still lower than the 3.4 percent posted in May 2019.

Inflation in areas outside the National Capital Region eased further to 2.2 percent in May 2020. Inflation in areas outside NCR (AONCR) was recorded at 2.5 percent in the previous month and 3.1 percent in May 2019.

Poorest Filipinos PSA said inflation for the bottom 30-percent income households at the national level was recorded at 2.9 percent in May 2020.

The same rate was observed in April 2020, while in May 2019, inflation was posted at 3.2 percent.

“Mixed annual movements in the indices of the commodity groups were observed during the month,” PSA said in a statement.

Annual growth rates were higher in the indices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco at 20.7 percent; and restaurant and miscellaneous goods and services at 2.8 percent than their respective annual rates in the previous month.

Inflation in the indices of heavilyweighted food and non-alcoholic beverages, and education remained at 2.3 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the annual rate of transport index dropped further by

2.3 percent in May 2020.

Food inflation in May 2020 was recorded at 2.2 percent. This was the same annual rate posted in April 2020 while in May 2019, it was registered at 2.6 percent. Cai U. Ordinario

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Jobless rate rises to 17.7% in April, swelling unemployed ranks by 5M

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By Cai U. Ordinario

HE bad news was expected, but when it came, it beat even the worst forecasts: at least 5 million Filipinos lost their jobs in April due to the imposition of quarantine restrictions to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), citing a survey it conducted.

Its April Labor Force Survey (LFS) showed the number of jobless Filipinos ballooned to 7.254 million in 2020 from 2.267 million in the same period in 2019.

This represented a 220-percent increase in the number of unemployed Filipinos. A total of 4.987 million were added to the existing number of the unemployed.

“Let us remember that we made the difficult decision to implement the ECQ because we resolved to save lives and prioritize the health of

our fellow Filipinos, including our family and friends,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua said in a briefing after the PSA released its survey report.

Based on the LFS, the unemployment rate rose from 5.1 to a staggering 17.7 percent in the same period. The underemployment rate also rose to 18.9 percent from 13.4 percent last year.

Chua said the government’s efforts to help workers have prevented even more Filipinos from

becoming underemployed.

T he u nderemploy ment rate mea su res t he nu mber of worke r s w ho w a nt more w or k t o ea r n more, t he cou nt r y ’s c h ief e conom i s t e x pl a i ne d . “ This relatively smaller increase suggests that government support to the people, such as the social amelioration program or SAP, the conditional cash transfer program, the rice subsidy program, and the unconditional cash transfer program under the TRAIN law, are working and reaching the people,” Chua said.

PSA data showed the employment rate in April 2020 fell to 82.3 percent from 94.7 percent in January 2020.

In April 2019, it is posted at 94.9 percent. This translates to 33.8 million employed persons in April 2020 from 41.8 million in April 2019.

Labor force participation rate among Filipinos 15 years and older is estimated at 55.6 percent in April 2020, the lowest in the history of the Philippine labor market.

Across all regions

All regions reported doubledigit unemployment rates. The

highest unemployment rate was in Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARRM) at 29.8 percent.

It is followed by Region 3 (Central Luzon) and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) with unemployment rates recorded at 27.3 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively.

Earlier, in a presentation at the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) this week, Ateneo de Manila University Associate Professor Geoffrey M. Ducanes said even with the assistance extended by the government through SAP and the private sector, more Filipinos would fall into poverty due to the pandemic.

The pandemic, among the major causes of the 0.2-percent contraction in economic growth in the first quarter of 2020, is also the main reason for the possible double-digit increase in April unemployment. This is affecting incomes and causing millions to fall into poverty.

Ducanes said the study assumed that the lockdown prevented people from working and that social distancing will impact jobs that require close human interactions,

limiting employment options.

Based on data from the 2018 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) and LFS, Ducanes said household poverty before Covid-19 was at 14 percent.

Without any cash transfers, this could increase to 17.9 percent assuming that 30 percent of the workers lost their jobs during the lockdown for one month to as much as 23.5 percent, assuming 60 percent of the workers lost their jobs for three months.

The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) survey estimated that around 44 percent lost their jobs during the two-month lockdown.

Applying this to Ducanes’s e s t i m ate s, t he d at a s ho we d that if 40 percent of workers lost their jobs for two months, this would increase household poverty to 21.2 percent or by 7.2 percentage points.

The poverty gap is also expected to worsen under this scenario from a baseline of 3 percent to a minimum of 4.4 percent and a maximum of 6.4 percent. This means, poor Filipinos will require more funds to even reach the poverty line.

‘Pandemic’s job-hunting season Salceda warns of ‘potentially deep troubles timing worsened jobless numbers’ ahead’ if Congress fails to pass CREATE bill

By Samuel P. Medenilla

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HE Covid-19 crisis hit the country’s work force when it hurt the most: the job hunting season of new graduates.

This, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said, compounded the impact of the over a month-long enhanced community quarantine of Luzon as of April, leading to the to sky-rocketing unemployment rate of 17.7 percent as announced by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

“The lockdown during the community quarantine from March to May, which is supposed to be the period for job hunting of our fresh graduates, has put the labor force in a standstill as two-thirds of the economy is shut down,” Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said in a news statement.

He noted PSA’s recently reported 17.7-percent unemployment rate during the period, which translates to 7.3 million unemployed, surpassed the 10-percent unemployment rate in the 1998 recession in the Philippines.

The labor chief said they hope unemployment figures will go down starting May, when the government started relaxing community quarantine nationwide, allowing many companies to reopen.

DOLE earlier said it expected the number of unemployed workers to reach 3 million to 5 million this year because of the Covid-19 crisis. However, it did not expect it will happen as early as April.

Data limitations

In its displacement report, DOLE was able to register 2.8 million workers who were temporarily displaced, or engaged in flexible work arrangement, but it was unable to record any permanently displaced worker.

It is only this month that the agency has started getting reports from companies in the formal sector of the economy, as some started processing the retrenchment of their employees.

Labor advocate group, Defend Jobs Philippines (DJP), criticized DOLE for having data inconsistent with that from the PSA. “The Labor Department must be true to itself and

be honest enough with its figures and data on the actual number of affected workers due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” DJP spokesman Thaddeus Ifurung said.

Labor Assistant Secretary Officer in Charge Dominique R. Tutay, however, explained their data is different from the PSA’s.

“PSA is macro data, while ours is administrative data. If it is macro, it’s representative of the economy,” Tutay told the BusinessMirror in an SMS. “Ours is actual data but with limitation as there are companies, who may not report [their displacement figures to us]. The informal sector workers are also not included yet in our administrative data as well,” she added.

Government response

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the government anticipated the labor impact of Covid-19, thus it launched its comprehensive Social Amelioration Program (SAP), which provided cash aid for different sectors.

“The administration thus implemented various forms of subsidies during the period of enhanced community quarantine to assist affected workers,” Roque said in a statement.

These include the SAP by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Covid 19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP), the Abot-Kamay ang Pagtulong (AKAP) for displaced OFWs, Tulong Panghanapbuhay para sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) by the DOLE; Financial Subsidy for Rice Farmers (FSRF) by the Department of Agriculture (DA); and the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) Program by the Department of Finance (DOF).

The Department of Budget of Management (DBM) earlier reported that the government had released P353.8 billion for these initiatives.

Most of the projects have limited funding and are not expected to go beyond this year.

Moving forward

To provide a long-term solution for the mass displacement, DJP as well as the Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro) urged the government to prepare a significant recovery plan to help companies and their employees cope with effects of Covid-19.

Ifurung said the assistance could be in the form of additional emergency cash and non-cash aid like new employment opportunities.

Sentro Secretary-General Joshua Mata said the aid should be well-funded. He issued the statement after the DOF was reportedly pushing to limit the recovery program for the labor sector to just P130 billion.

Until the bill is passed into law, Bello said they will coordinate with Public Employment Service Offices (PESOs) to provide employment facilitation for the displaced workers.

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz & Butch Fernandez

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ouse Committee on Ways and Means Chairman and Economic Stimulus Cluster co-chairman Joey Sarte Salceda has warned the government of “potentially deep troubles ahead” if it is unable to pass a meaningful stimulus plan and the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act early within the next half.

Salceda said the 7.3 million jobs losses in April 2020 are worse than projected.

“Although the jobless figures say you have 5 million more unemployed workers, the problems could actually be bigger, as you had almost 8 million fewer workers who were employed in April 2020 compared to April 2019. Most of them were in the services sector,” Salceda said, citing PSA data that shows that there were 5.34 million fewer employed persons in the services sector.

“Much of the figures in the services sector, of course, are attributable to the enhanced community quarantine. Many small businesses were unable to open, so their workers were also unable to go to work.

We should see some uptick from this month’s figures to May and June figures,” Salceda added.

According to Salceda, the service sector includes retail jobs, and those in the hospitality and travel sectors are in obvious need of strong support.

“The House of Representatives had almost 40 briefings with various industries before we came up with the Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy [ARISE] bill, and that’s why, even before the release of the figures, we had a sense of what was to come,” he said.

“These are warning signs of deep troubles ahead unless we can create new jobs, and not just protect the ones that exist. The best job creator, infrastructure, will be extremely critical

in getting our people back to work,” he added.

The job figures, Salceda said, do not yet include overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are not considered part of the domestic labor force.

OFWs

Salceda said he estimates that “more than 400,000 OFWs may be temporarily unemployed. Many of them can easily be hired as skilled workers in the construction sector, so an enhanced ‘Build, Build, Build’ [BBB] [program] will really be crucial to giving them employment. But you also need to create strong aggregate demand in general, as most of these workers will opt to be small entrepreneurs in the meantime.”

Salceda said that the enhanced BBB plan under ARISE will create about 1.5 million jobs.

The lower chamber has already approved the P1.3-trillion ARISE. Also, Salceda said CREATE bill is expected to generate 1.1 million jobs over the next 5 years.

“We will also need to pass CREATE soon. I asked the President to call for a special session of Congress to get these bills passed, and I reiterate that request,” Salceda said.

Salceda also reiterated that the House is willing to adopt the Senate version of CREATE to fast-track the approval of the measure as long as it is fiscally sound.

CREATE is still pending before the plenary of the Senate.

The Senate, for its part, committed to frontload the passage of CREATE upon resumption of session in July, but explained that the bill needed thorough discussions that their June 5 deadline could not allow.

“While we see the merits of the measure, we are also committed to ensuring that the best version of the bill should pass the Senate—one that is truly responsive to the extraordinary needs of our time,” said the statement signed by 15 senators led

by Senate President Vicente Sotto III a day after the chamber adjourned.

Congress is on break until July 27, when the President is to deliver his State of the Nation Address.

The 15 senators gave the commitment, through the office of Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, a day after more than a dozen former economic managers issued a statement pushing for CREATE’s immediate passage, lambasting the bill’s critics for their “rehashed” arguments against the bill, formerly known in pre-Covid as Citira, or Corporate Income Tax and Rationalization of Incentives Act. The Department of Finance had been pushing the Senate to pass CREATE, saying it’s the best stimulus for businesses recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic’s devastation, but while its provision drastically cutting by 5 percent the CIT enjoys universal support, the other provision on incentives has stirred controversy.

At least 26 economists, including deans of some leading schools, had warned that rushing CREATE is ill-advised, as the incentives portions induce uncertainty and disruptions—the last thing recovering businesses need.

On Friday, the 15 senators led by Sotto said in their statement: “Rest assured that your legislators are working tirelessly in scrutinizing the measure in its finer points in order to craft and approve the most effective economic recovery plan possible.”

CREATE seeks an outright cut in the country’s CIT rate from 30 percent to 25 percent. The proposal further offers more flexible incentives, with an immediate 5-percent income tax slash, after which the CIT will be reduced by 1 percent every year from 2023 to 2027 until it reaches the 20-percent mark.

“The wage subsidies and other interventions were good for protecting jobs, but at the rate we’re losing them, we have to start being more aggressive and create more jobs. Preventing subtraction will no longer be enough. We need to start inducing addition,” Salceda added.

Maynilad, Manila Water told: Repay customers even on installment

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RESIDENT Duterte said he is willing to allow Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co. Inc. to pay their customers in installments for compensation that the government claims the private concessionaires owe the public.

“I am already okay as long as we could get back the cash they owe to the people even if it is [in] installments,” Duterte said in a public address, which was aired on Friday, but was video recorded the day before.

He said the installment payments could even last for a year as long as both water concessionaires make “amends to their customers.”

The public address came as the justice department rushed to finish a Palace-mandated review of the service contracts, which became the object of the President’s ire as a result of two developments—a severe water crisis in early 2019, and the successive, but separate victories of the private concessionaires, in suits they brought against the government before an arbitral tribunal in Singapore. Amid the spat with Malacañang, the two companies announced waiving their separate awards, which would have required government to pay out a total of P11 billion.

Fair compensation

Duterte has alleged the service contracts of Manila Water and Maynilad contain onerous provisions, which are disadvantageous for both the government and their customers in Metro Manila.

Among the so-called onerous provisions, the Executive earlier said, was one preventing the government from regulating the rates being charged by both companies as well as collecting fees for water treatment facilities, which still do not exist.

“That has to be returned to the people.

Equity and fairness requires that we should return the money to [their customers],” said Duterte, referring to the collected fees for water treatment facilities.

Duterte in the past had repeatedly lashed out against Fernando Zobel de Ayala, the chairman of Manila Water, and Manuel V. Pangilinan, the chairman of Maynilad.

Last month, Duterte apologized to Zobel and Pangilinan for his harsh remarks against them after both conglomerates were among the first to provide support to the government’s efforts against the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The businessmen welcomed his conciliatory stance and promised to continue to guide their business in boosting nation-building.

Duterte said he was willing to be “reasonable” in the terms of the new service contracts, which will be extended to Manila Water and Maynilad.

Target completion

Duterte had also ordered a committee led by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review the service contracts of both Maynilad and Manila Water.

On Friday, Duterte started reviewing the recommended draft service contract.

In an SMS, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told the B usinessM irror they are still finalizing the service contract.

“The committee reviewing the water concession agreements will submit its recommendations to the President hopefully before the end of the month,” Guevarra said.

If both companies refuse the new service contract, Duterte said the government will file the necessary charges against them.

Samuel P. Medenilla

PHAP to govt: Defer order to cut retail price of meds

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

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he Pharmaceutical and Health-care Association of the Philippines (PHAP), citing the economic impact the virus pandemic, is appealing to the government to defer the implementation of an executive order (EO) that mandates a 50 percent slash on the prices of medicines for top burden diseases.

EO 104, also known as “Improving Access to Healthcare through the Regulation of Prices in the Retail of Drugs and Medicines,” sets the maximum retail prices (MRP) of 87 medicines, or 133 formulations, for hypertension, diabetes, breast, colorectal and lung cancers, chronic kidney disease, and asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

In a news statement, PHAP said on Friday that the implementation of price cuts comes at a critical period when companies and the country must start economic recovery, saying challenges in logistics, global competition for supplies, and stockpiling, have led to unforeseen and unplanned expenses impacting operations.

“From keeping manufacturing plants, warehouses, and retail stores open to chartering flights, the

pharmaceutical and health-care industry has taken and absorbed significant increases in expenses to the fullest extent possible, with deliberate and conscious effort to prevent prices from surging,” the PHAP said.

Together with other industry associations, retail groups, and professional organizations, PHAP is hoping for reconsideration from the government.

“PHAP reiterates our commitment to have a dialogue with the government to collaborate for sustainable approaches to make current medicines more accessible and affordable. In light of the current national calamity brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused unprecedented and massive economic impact to the entire country, we can also explore other sustainable approaches such as price negotiations, patient access programs and other measures under various laws so as not to further aggravate the setbacks that many companies like ours have endured these past months,” the group added.

Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III on June 2, 2020 announced that EO 104, which provides economic relief to Filipinos by making life-saving medicines more affordable, took effect.

“The DOH has always prioritized the health of every Filipinos in all its policies and decisions. This is amplified now, more than ever, to assist the public from the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and protect the vulnerable from further impoverishment,” Duque said.

With the MRP, a diabetic patient on daily insulin glulisine spending P818.75 per pre-filled pen can now purchase the medication at P435.18. If the patient is a senior citizen, the law grants a mandated 20-percent discount resulting in a final purchase price of P336.14, or an almost 60 percent in price deduction.

According to Duque, the DOH recognizes the economic impact of the pandemic to the business sector, including the pharmaceutical industry, brought about by the global and local disruptions of the supply chain, but the department believes that there are other economic pathways to alleviate this concern.

Recently, the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) issued joint guidelines to ensure the unhampered operations of the pharmaceutical and health-care industry, which include provision for exemptions from taxes and duties on importation and manufacturing of

medical equipment, drugs, and supplies needed by the frontliners.

This is in accordance to Republic Act 11469 or the “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act,” he said.

The DOH said it is committed to engaging patients and key players of the pharmaceutical sector in meaningful dialogues toward achieving Universal Health Care and in finding a cure for Covid-19.

“We thank the industry as they continue to stand with the government and Filipinos in ensuring continued access to medicines despite the unprecedented challenge of the current pandemic. It is never easy, but together we must stand shoulderto-shoulder to weather this storm, sharing risks and burdens for the greater public good. In the spirit of bayanihan, let us not turn our backs on our patients but continue to strive toward providing Filipinos the quality of life they deserve,” Duque stated.

Meanwhile, PHAP also asked that the opportunity be provided to the DOH and the industry to revisit the references, criteria for selection, bases and impact of the proposed price reductions for transparency, and come out with prices that balance the needs of patients and viability of medicine manufacturers.

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Japan’s FM Aso: ‘Cultural standard’ helped beat virus

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apan’s success against the coronavirus without enforcing a strict lockdown is due to the citizens’“cultural standard” that is different from other nations, Finance Minister Taro Aso said, drawing criticism from the public that the comments were inappropriate.

“Other countries have called me up and asked me if we’re the only ones with some drug against the virus or something,” Aso said on Thursday in response to a question from a lawmaker on Japan’s reputation of successfully containing the pandemic. “When I tell them ‘our country’s cultural standard levels are different to yours,’ they’re left speechless. That’s the simplest way to put an end to the questions.”

Aso’s remarks, which elicited laughs at the committee meeting, were made in the context of Japan’s inability to enforce a hard lockdown due to civil liberties enshrined in the postwar constitution.

Japanese officials were only able to ask for people to stay home and businesses to close, though the level of cooperation was high.

Despite the lack of harsh measures, Japan suffered far fewer coronavirus infections than any of its Group of Seven peers, with about 7 deaths per million, a track record that Aso noted in his comments. Japan isn’t an exception though in Asia, with Taiwan and South Korea reporting lower mortality rates.

Not everyone agreed with how Aso framed his comments, with his words striking some on social media as inappropriate, particularly in light

of the ongoing protests in the US against police brutality and racism.

“That’s exactly the thing you shouldn’t say at this time,” Kenichiro Mogi, a renowned neuroscientist and author, said on Twitter.

Kentaro Iwata, a Japanese infectious disease expert who made international headlines criticizing the bureaucrats’ handling of the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February, seemed exasperated in his response saying, “Well, of course they would be speechless.”

Opposition politician Renho Murata also blasted the remarks. “Who do you think you are, Minister Aso?” she asked. “I don’t want you commenting to the world as Japan’s finance minister.”

The backlash caused Aso to explain his remarks on Friday. The comments were meant to say Japan should be proud that it was able to fight the virus without any coercion, when some other nations struggled to do so even with stricter controls, Aso said, adding that his comments weren’t meant to be disparaging of other nations.

Aso, a frank speaker who is also deputy prime minister, is known for his gaffes and has been able to survive multiple verbal blunders during his political career.

In the past, he has remarked that Japan could learn from the Nazis about how to change the constitution, been criticized for his response to a sexual harassment case within his own ministry, and said people not having children are raising the burden on welfare. Bloomberg News

Australia to toughen foreign investment laws amid diplomatic spat with Beijing

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ustralia will implement a tough new screening regime on foreign investors seeking to buy sensitive assets, as it bids to bolster national security amid a diplomatic row with China.

Telecommunications, energy, technology and defense-manufacturing companies will be included in the zero-dollar threshold for screening.

The changes, intended to be legislated this year and enforced from January 1, will include a new national security test and give the treasurer lastresort powers to force asset sales.

The changes could have implications on Australia’s relationship with its largest trading partner China, which have soured this year after Prime Minister Scott Morrison led calls for an independent probe on the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan.

Beijing responded with verbal attacks on the conservative government, saying it was doing the bidding of key ally, the US, while new tariffs on Australian barley and a ban on beef from four meat works have raised fears in Canberra that the Chinese government is using“economic coercion”in retaliation.

Asked by a reporter in Canberra on Friday whether the changes will create new tensions with China, Morrison said: “I don’t believe why it should. Countries make decisions on their own interests for their own rules and we respect the rules and interests of other countries.”

Wider concerns

Australia isn’t alone in ramping up its foreign investment screening—in recent years, economies including the US, Japan and the European Union have toughened their own laws to protect national security. The new announcement comes a day after Morrison signed a crucial defense agreement with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and upgraded ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, as both nations navigate fraught relations with China.

“We have to be on our guard against China purchasing critical infrastructure and investing in our vital industries, so it makes sense for the government to extend and deepen its oversight of foreign investment,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra. “China will probably take umbrage but it needs to understand that Australia makes these decisions in its own interests.”

The US remains Australia’s largest source of approved investment from overseas, comprising A$58.2 billion ($40.4 billion)—or 25 percent of the total—in the year ending June 2019. China comprised 5.7 percent of the total, valued at A$13.1 billion.

Under Australia’s current rules, state-owned enterprises already have zero-dollar screening threshold while most private investments under A$275 million, often for large land holdings, are waved through. The monetary thresholds have meant some investments that have raised nationalsecurity concerns have escaped screening.

Chinese purchases of agricultural land, including iconic properties such as the Cubbie Station in Queensland and the Van Diemen’s

Land dairy in Tasmania, have proved particularly contentious in Australia.

Call in powers

“The reforms will ensure that our foreign investment regime is able to respond to emerging risks and global developments,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said, labeling the changes the most significant in the area since 1975. The government will spend an additional A$54 million to bolster compliance and monitoring, he said.

After the changes, the treasurer will have power to “call in” an investment before, during or after an acquisition for review if it raises national security risks and has not captured by the “sensitive national security businesses” definition.

“Technology has been evolving and our geopolitical climate has become more complex,” Frydenberg told reporters on Friday. “In fact, the world over, governments are seeing foreign investment being used for strategic objectives, not purely commercial ones.”

While the treasurer will have the power order disposal of approved foreign investments where national security risks emerge post-approval, the last-resort power will not be retrospective.

As treasurer in 2016, Morrison ordered the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB)to step up scrutiny of foreign investment in state-owned infrastructure after a strategic port in Darwin used by the US military was leased to a Chinese company. The prime minister on Friday ruled out the possibility of that sale, which at the time escaped the regulator’s scrutiny as it was managed by the Northern Territory government, being revoked.

Protecting assets

Sandy Mak, partner and head of corporate at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, said she looked forward to seeing whether details in the draft legislation due for release next month would make a fundamental difference to existing rules, and which sectors would be classified.

“The government’s objective here is protect sensitive assets and you’d hope when the legislation comes out it will achieves that without stymieing investment in the types of sectors and businesses that need it most,” Mak said. “Anything oil and gas related for energy independence, anything telecommunications related, and anything defense related is definitely going to be top of their list,” she said, while data-related investments may also be targeted.

Before Australia’s calls for a probe into the origins of the coronavirus, its diplomatic ties with Beijing were already under stress. The government cited Beijing’s “meddling” into national affairs as a catalyst for its anti-foreign interference laws passed in 2018, the same year it banned Huawei Technologies Ltd. from helping build its 5G network.

FIRB Chairman David Irvine welcomed the new screening package, saying it “appropriately addresses increasing risks to the national interest while ensuring Australia remains welcoming and open to foreign investment.” Bloomberg News

Saturday, June 6, 2020

A5

Lawmakers in 8 countries form new alliance to counter China

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in a video message on Twitter.

The time has come for democratic countries to unite in a common defense of our shared values.

Delighted to be co-chairing the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China @ipacglobal #IPAC https://t. co/Rz2hQvTurl

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which launched Friday, comes as the US struggles to muster a cohesive alliance to take on China’s growing economic and diplomatic clout and as it leads foreign governments in condemning Beijing’s move to impose national security legislation on Hong Kong that threatens the city’s autonomy.

The group said it aims to “construct appropriate and coordinated responses, and to help craft a proactive and strategic approach on issues related to the People’s

Beijing has repeatedly stressed that the situation in Hong Kong is an internal matter, while saying China’s broader economic and diplomatic expansion poses no threat to the world.

The group said China’s economic rise is putting the global, rulesbased order under pressure and that countries that have tried to stand up to Beijing have mostly done so alone—and “often at great cost.”

The list of participating nations includes the US, Germany, UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Norway, as well as members of the European parliament.

Several of those nations have faced intense economic or political

group of senior lawmakers from eight democracies including the US have launched a new cross-parliamentary alliance to help counter what they say is the threat China’s growing influence poses to global trade, security and human rights.

Republic of China.” US Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democrat Bob Menendez, former Japanese defense minister Gen Nakatani, European Parliament foreign affairs committee member Miriam Lexmann and prominent UK Conservative lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith are all co-chairs of the newly launched group.

“China, under the rule of Chinese Communist Party, represents a global challenge,” Rubio, a frequent critic of Beijing and supporter of US legislation targeting China over its actions in Hong Kong, said

—Iain Duncan Smith MP (@MPIainDS) June 5, 2020

consequences for crossing China’s strategic ambitions.

The Trump administration’s assertive efforts to rewrite the bilateral trade relationship with China have prompted a protracted trade war that has had global consequences, while other efforts have seen US journalists ejected from China.

Canada saw two of its citizens— Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor—detained without trial as a result of the arrest of a Chinese Huawei Technologies Co. executive.

Norway saw trade relations with China derailed for six years—and salmon exports plummet—after a Chinese dissident was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Australia’s efforts to hold China accountable for the Covid-19 pandemic, which first broke out in the mainland city of Wuhan, have led to new tariffs on Australian barley and bans on some meat.

“The time has come for democratic countries to unite in a common defense of our shared values,” Smith, the UK lawmaker, said on Twitter.

Bloomberg News

UK summit calls for freely available Covid-19 vaccine

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ONDON—A vaccine summit has raised billions of dollars to immunize children in developing countries as experts wrestled with how any potential vaccine against the coronavirus might be distributed globally—and fairly.

The United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have urged that “a people’s vaccine” be developed for Covid-19 that would be freely available to everyone, calling it a “moral imperative.”

Thursday’s event hosted by Britain raised $8.8 billion, exceeding its target, for the vaccines alliance GAVI, which says the funds will be used to vaccinate about 300 million children in dozens of countries against diseases like malaria, pneumonia and HPV. GAVI also announced a new “advance market commitment” mechanism to enable developing countries to get any effective Covid-19 vaccine when available. It hopes to raise an additional $2 billion for that effort, to immunize health-care workers as well as high-risk individuals and create a buffer of doses to be used where needed most.

But experts pointed out that the unprecedented pandemic—where arguably every country will be clamoring for a vaccine—may make efforts at fair distribution extremely messy.

The worldwide scramble for masks and ventilators that erupted in the early stages of the outbreak—where France took over the country’s mask stocks so they could be given to first responders and others inside the country and the US apparently paid off shippers to redirect ventilators to the US—are not encouraging signs that there will be much global cooperation if and when a coronavirus vaccine is available.

First on the queue

“Rich countries will most likely try to push their

way to the front of the queue, leaving poorer countries at the back, and that’s a problem,” said Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“I can’t imagine any country saying, ‘Africa’s need is greater than ours, so they can get the vaccine first and we’ll remain vulnerable.’”

The urgency of finding a way to stem outbreaks was evident as the worldwide total of reported virus cases reached 130,398 on Wednesday, the highest one-day total so far, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Brazil reported yet another record number of deaths—1,473—raising its toll above 34,000, surpassing Italy for the world’s third-deadliest outbreak even though it’s still considered by experts a significant undercount due to insufficient testing.

I n d i a re p o r t e d a re c o rd n u m b e r o f infections—9,304, with 260 deaths—as its tally of fatalities surpassed 6,000 and its number of infections rose to nearly 217,000, the world’s seventh-highest. Neighboring Pakistan reported over 4,000 new cases as its confirmed infections surpassed neighboring China—a spike that came weeks after Prime Minister Imran Khan overrode warnings from experts and eased a lockdown.

Ahead of the vaccine gathering, philanthropist Bill Gates said there were potential solutions to the growing tide of vaccine nationalism—exhibited when the chief executive officer of Sanofi suggested the US had a right to the first doses of any vaccine because of its significant investment.

“The key to that challenge is having scale and having factories all over the world that are making the vaccines,” including multiple factories in Asia,

the Americas and Europe, Gates said.

Gates acknowledged there could be some benefit to countries that funded vital vaccine research but called for a “system of allocating doses to those most at risk, and making sure that even the countries that can’t compete financially for that access, that they’re considered—their health workers, their elderly.”

Hope

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped Thursday’s gathering would mark “the moment when the world comes together to unite humanity in the fight against disease.”

But Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, noted that in the past such sentiments have not always been backed by action. “In reality, that can be turned on its head in the weeks and months ahead,” he said.

About a dozen vaccine candidates are in early stages of testing in thousands of people.

There are no guarantees any will work but there’s increasing hope that at least some could be ready by the end of the year. Oxford University is beginning an advanced study involving 10,000 volunteers; the US is preparing for even larger studies in July that involve 30,000 people each testing different candidates, including Oxford’s and one made by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. Vaccine developers are worried about whether the virus spread is slowing enough in the US and Europe that it will be hard to prove if their candidates really work. So later this month, the Oxford vaccine will be tested on 2,000 Brazilian volunteers in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, according to the UK ambassador to Brazil, Vijay Rangarajan. The

US government also is considering test sites in other countries.

While Oxford scientists say they are committed to making their shot available to all who need it at a fair price, academic Whitworth noted “that doesn’t square with the rhetoric coming from British ministers funding it, saying UK citizens will be at the front of the queue.”

And the US has signed a contract with AstraZeneca, which makes the Oxford vaccine, for 300 million doses.

Fair share

Vaccine makers know they’ll be judged if rich countries buy up all their supply. Thursday, AstraZeneca said it would provide 300 million doses of the Oxford vaccine to GAVI’s new financing mechanism to try to ensure equitable access. The doses will be provided when the vaccine is licensed or pre-qualified by the World Health Organization.

“I’m thinking very carefully what would be the best way to make sure that everybody will get a fair share of the supplies that exist as quickly as possible and that in this fairness we will not forget the unprivileged countries,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. “From the human perspective they have equal rights.”

In the US, where a wave of protests is adding to concerns over possible additional outbreaks, new cases have been surging just weeks after many businesses were allowed to reopen. On Thursday, Vegas casinos and Universal Orlando were among those welcoming visitors.

More than 6.6 million people have been infected with the virus and more than 389,000 have died from Covid-19, according to the Johns Hopkins count. The true toll is likely much higher, due to limits on testing and many asymptomatic cases.

‘Power to the people’: Floyd’s brother talks at NYC memorial

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EW YORK—New Yorkers stayed on the streets of New York City Thursday for another day of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd, including at a memorial service at the site where police used batons against demonstrators who were out past the city-imposed curfew the night before.

“You are not alone,” the large crowd at Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza chanted before an emotional Terrence Floyd, wearing a mask and a t-shirt bearing his brother’s likeness, thanked them for their support of his brother, killed by Minneapolis police.

“I thank God for you all showing love to my brother,” he said.

Of the demonstrations that have engulfed the city and the nation, and the violence that has taken place, he said, “I’m proud of the protests but I’m not proud of the destruction.

My brother wasn’t about that. The Floyds are a God-fearing family.”

“Power to the people, all of us,” he said.

The memorial was par t of a day of demonstrations around the city that once again continued past the city’s imposed curfew of 8 p.m., even as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to deflect criticism over

harsh tactics from police enforcing it.

After curfew time, thousands of protesters were out, and so were police. In some places, they watched but didn’t immediately move in, while in others, they made orderly arrests without the batons and riot gear of previous nights.

‘Deeply disturbed’

In western New York, video from WBFO showed a Buffalo police officer appearing to shove a man who walked up to police clearing Niagara Square around Thursday night’s 8 p.m. curfew. The man falls straight backward and hits his head on the pavement, with blood leaking out as officers walk past.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the unidentified man is 75 years old, and in “stable but serious” condition at a hospital, according to a statement released late Thursday in which the mayor said he was “deeply disturbed” by the video.

Buffalo police initially said in a statement that a person “was injured when he tripped & fell,” WIVB-TV reported, but Capt. Jeff Rinaldo later told the TV station that an internal affairs investigation was opened. Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood suspended two officers late Thursday, the mayor’s statement said.

Cuomo tweeted that the incident caught on video was “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful,” endorsing the officers’ suspension.

The state attorney general’s office tweeted that they were aware of the video.

“The casual cruelty demonstrated by Buffalo police officers tonight is gut-wrenching and unacceptable,” John Curr, the Buffalo chapter director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

Calls and e-mails to Buffalo police from The Associated Press seeking comment weren’t immediately returned.

Nights of rage

Meanwhile in New York City, Miguel Fernandes said there were “a lot more nights to go” of marching because protesters hadn’t got what they wanted.

“We’re still waiting for a conviction. We still haven’t gotten it,” Fernandes said. “All they’re doing is putting in charges. The system is not doing anything to make these guys pay for what they did.”

As darkness fell, cries of “George Floyd” and “No justice, no peace” continued to come from protesters, even as crowds shrank.

“It’s energetic,” said Kenyata Taylor. “It’s great to be alive, it’s history right now.

Demonstrators had been in Cadman Plaza, the site of Floyd’s memorial, on Wednesday night, when videos were taken of officers using batons and pepper spray on protesters who remained there after the curfew.

Both Democrats said they had not seen the widely shared videos, but later Cuomo t weeted that he was asking the state attorney general to investigate the incidents as par t of her ongoing look into police tac tics during the protests.

“Peaceful protest is a sacred American right,” Cuomo tweeted. “No peaceful protestor deserves to be hit with a baton and no self-respecting police officer would defend that.”

De Blasio spoke at Floyd’s memorial, with the crowd booing and heckling from the moment he arrived, shouting over him as he urged that Floyd’s death not be in vain.

“We have too much to change in this city and this country,” the mayor said.

Even some of the speakers took shots at the mayor, criticizing his management of the NYPD and his administration’s response to the coronavirus. AP

A6 Saturday, June 6, 2020

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

DTI-Export Marketing Bureau hails exporter-turned PPE maker

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HE Department of Trade and Industry-Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) hailed a local personal protective equipment maker for spearheading the PPE Bayanihan Project for health-care frontliners.

Since the country has been under quarantine, all but essential businesses are closed, including leather goods manufacturer The Leather Collection (TLC).

The company, availing of businessmatching services from the DTIEMB, was already exporting their products. But they had to shut down operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead of being discouraged, TLC Chairman Federico Sevilla Jr., and Chief Executive Officer Yolanda Sevilla used the time to spearhead the PPE Bayanihan Project for healthcare frontliners.

Cheap oil is one culprit as US chicken exports dip

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MERICAN companies are shipping less chicken overseas, and cheap oil isn’t helping.

Profits from oil production in South American countries like Venezuela and Western African nations often translate into poultry purchases, said Russ Whitman, senior vice president at commodity researcher Urner Barry.

Cuba, a major buyer of American chicken, will resell oil at a profit and buy poultry.

“When oil prices plummet the way they have, these countries can’t turn cash into food,” Whitman said.

Oil is just one factor compounding the anemic export environment. Weak currencies in Mexico and South America are hurting US meat exports. In recent weeks, China has slowed down purchases because of weak consumer demand, Sanderson Farms Inc. executives told analysts on a call to discuss financial results.

The Asian behemoth had been buying up significant amounts of poultry and pork, but now there’s oversupply as restaurants in the newly reopened, post-Covid-19 economy struggle to find patrons. US shipments will likely stay slow through June, according to Sanderson.

Prices for leg quarters, a commonly exported cut, have touched seasonal prices in May that are the lowest in at least 10 years, according to government data. At 32.71 cents a pound, prices are down almost 30 percent from a year ago.

In the first three months of the year, exports of chicken legs to Cuba were down 35 percent from the same period in 2019, US Department of Agriculture data showed.

Meanwhile, oil prices are still well below pre-Covid-19 levels, with global demand crushed by the pandemic. At around $37.50 a barrel, global benchmark Brent crude in London is down more than 40 percent from the start of the year. Bloomberg News

To date, they have donated over 15,000 PPEs (face shields, isolation gowns, and jumpsuits) to 82 hospitals, rural health units, and health centers in Metro Manila, Laguna, Batangas, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Antique, Quezon, Leyte and Bataan.

The PPE Bayanihan Project began when the Fashion Design and Merchandising School of the College of St. Benilde (St. Benilde FDM) asked for materials to make PPEs. TLC gave water-resistant lining material and St. Benilde FDM acknowledged their donations in a Facebook post.

A friend of the Sevillas heard of t hei r don at ion a nd don ated P100,000 seed money to fund the project. Another donated rolls of water-resistant material. A third called to say he had a network of home-based sewers in Bulacan who could make the PPEs. With all these elements in place, the PPE Bayanihan Project was launched. Its objective was and still is to provide our health-care workers with PPEs since the demand for these was high and the supply scarce and

were very important for protecting the health of the medical workers, as well as prevent the transmission of Covid-19.

More friends and friends of friends got into the bandwagon—donating and soliciting donations, vetting requests for donations from hospitals, rural health units, health centers and health-care workers.

TLC functioned as the operations center: receiving and accounting for donations of money and materials; sourcing, qualifying and repurposing materials; product research and design; prototyping and approval of prototypes by anesthesiologists; coordinating production; receiving and dispatching finished goods, which included face shields, isolation gowns, and coveralls, or jumpsuits.

The PPE Bayanihan Project not only helped protect the frontliners but also allowed the Sevillas to leverage their experience in manufacturing; allowed volunteers to help stem the tide of contagion and provided livelihood to home-based sewers in Guiguinto and Baliuag, Bulacan.

Firms told: Tap rising global halal market amid contagion

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OCAL entrepreneurs are encouraged to tap the growing global market for halal food products, amid rising demand in time of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

“Fortunately for the halal industry and in particular in the food sector, halal food is rising in popularity amid Covid-19…,” Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary for Trade Promotions Group (TPG) Abdulgani Macatoman said in a webinar.

Citing a report, Macatoman said concerns over the risk of the coronavirus accordingly had contributed to an increase in people’s awareness about the importance of consuming halal and hygienic foods.

Leany Mokhtar, senior manager of MATRADE’s halal of food and beverage (F&B) and agro-based section, said halal promotes cleanliness to people so the “adoption of halal would be greater than before.”

“Halal does not contain any substance that is considered impure in Islamic law. [It] is not prepared, processed, or manufactured using equipment or utensils that are not free from impurities as defined by Islamic law,” she said.

Mokhtar noted a rising preference in consuming halal products and utilizing services, aside from the Muslim community comprising 11 percent of global consumption.

Noordazleena Mohd Daud, managing director of A-Transglobal Logistics, said global expenditure on halal trade is expected to grow to $2.67 trillion in 2023 and $10 trillion by 2030 from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

Daud said the Philippines is seen to capture about 30 percent of the halal market in Asean, which translates to $15.9 billion of potential businesses.

She underscored the need to develop a certificate scheme first for slaughterhouses, or halal slaughterhouses, and then for food premises, food and drinks, logistics, consumer goods, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.

A ‘unique’ engine is bringing power to a remote PHL island

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N Israeli start-up is hoping a new engine design can help bring power to remote outposts in Asia.

Aquarius Engines Ltd. announced a partnership with Nokia Oyj on Monday and plans to begin field tests in the Philippines this year for a small-scale electrical generator using its unique lowmaintenance design.

The company is targeting far-flung locations in Asia to power remote populations and telecommunications centers. The field test in the Philippines is expected to begin this year and run several months, providing the company with feedback as it prepares for mass production, said Gal Fridman, Aquarius’s chairman.

The generators can power commercial and industrial sectors that need around-the-clock electricity in remote spots, or help support wind and solar generation when the sun goes down, or breezes halt. It underscores the increased attention businesses are paying to off-grid power, which drew nearly $1 billion in corporate investments during the previous two years combined, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. The engine “technology enables us to open huge markets that were once totally off-limits,” said Stuart Hendry, vice president of Nokia Enterprise, Asia Pacific. “We will have the ability to supply power to those residing in extremely isolated areas such as remote islands, high

in the mountains, or deep in the jungle.

Aquarius, headquartered in Rosh Ha’ayin in central Israel, uses what it calls a free piston linear engine, in which a single piston rod moves back and forth between two engine heads. It still uses fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel or LPG, but it’s a fraction of the size of competing models and doesn’t need lube oil, reduc-

ing the need for maintenance.

That last part is important, because traditional generators can require maintenance and oil changes every 200 to 400 hours, which becomes expensive when technicians need to take long truck, boat or helicopter rides to reach them. Aquarius engines need maintenance once every 1,000 hours or

so, according to the company’s web site.

“There’s no oil and just one moving part,” Fridman said. It’s much more “efficient than any conventional engine today.”

The company didn’t disclose where in the Philippines the generators would be tested, only that it’s a two-hour boat ride from the nearest grid connection.

Bloomberg News

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Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, June 6, 2020 A7

Dumaguete City senior citizens receive P3,000 social pension

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UMAGUETE CITY—Eligible senior citizens in this capital city are now receiving P3,000 each from the Department of Social Welfare and Development Office in Region 7 (DSWD-7) or Central Visayas.

City Public Information Officer Dems Rey Demecillo said the payout of social pension for eligible senior citizens was scheduled in clusters of barangays, as announced by the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA).

The senior citizens who received their social pension on Monday were from the barangays of Motong, Pulantubig, Buñao,

In virus-hit South Korea, AI monitors lonely elders

By Kim Tong-Hyung The Associated Press

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EOUL, South Korea—In a cramped office in eastern Seoul, Hwang Seungwon points a remote control toward a huge Nasa-like overhead screen stretching across one of the walls.

With each flick of the control, a colorful array of pie charts, graphs and maps reveals the search habits of thousands of South Korean senior citizens being monitored by voice-enabled “smart” speakers, an e x per imenta l remote care service the company says is increasingly needed during the coronavirus crisis.

“We closely monitor for signs of danger, whether they are more frequently using search words that indicate rising states of loneliness or insecurity,” said Hwang, director of a social enterprise established by SK Telecom to handle the service.

Trigger words lead to a recommendation for a visit by local public health officials.

As South Korea’s government pushes to allow businesses to access vast amounts of personal information and to ease restrictions holding back telemedicine, tech firms could potentially find much bigger markets for their artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

The drive, resisted for years by civil liberty advocates and medical professionals, has been reinvigorated by a technologydriven fight against Covid-19.

It has so far allowed South Korea to emerge as something of a coronavirus success story but also raised broader worries that privacy is being sacrificed for epidemiological gains.

Armed with an infectious disease law that was strengthened after a 2015 outbreak of a different coronavirus, MERS, health authorities have aggressively used creditcard records, surveillance videos and cell-phone data to find and isolate potential virus carriers.

Locations where patients went before they were diagnosed are published on websites and released through cellphone alerts. Smartphone tracking apps are used to monitor around 30,000 individuals quarantined at home.

Starting in June, entertainment venues will be required to register customers with smartphone QR codes so they could be easily located if needed.

But there’s a dark side.

PEOPLE here have often managed to trace back the online information to the unnamed virus carriers, exposing embarrassing personal details and making them targets of public contempt.

A low point came earlier this month when local media described some Seoul nightclubs linked to dozens of infections as catering to sexual minorities, triggering homophobic responses.

Officials reacted by expanding “anonymous testing,” which allowed people to provide only their phone numbers and not their names during tests. There was a subsequent increase in tests.

The past months have exposed a stark division about the best

Taclobo, Piapi, Cadawinonan and Tabuc-tubig, he said.

The other villages and their respective schedules are as follows: Mangnao, Looc, Poblacion 8, Candau-ay, Bantayan, Poblacion 1 (Tinago) and Poblacion 2 on Tuesday; Calindagan, Camanjac, Cantile, Daro, Junob and Poblacion 7 on Wednesday; and Banilad, Batinguel, and Talay on Thursday.

Last May 29, senior citizens in Bagacay, Bajumpandan, and Balugo received their social pensions.

Demecillo said the financial assistance, downloaded from the DSWD7 and distributed through the city government via the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO), represents the first semester or from January to June, this year.

Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo

allowed the payout provided that proper protocols are followed by the barangay officials, CSWDO and OSCA personnel, such as the wearing of facemasks and observing safe physical distancing, he said.

He said the social pension for senior citizens who could not be physically present at the designated venues should be delivered to their homes. PNA

TikTok epidemic

By Nick Tayag

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH

T SK Telecom’s AI speaker Nugu built with an artificial intelligence called “Aria” and a lamp that turns blue when processing voice commands for news, music and Internet searches, is seen at a senior citizen’s home in Seoul, South Korea, on May 13, 2020. The devices can also use quizzes to monitor the memory and cognitive functions of their elderly users, which would be potentially useful for advising treatments. AP PHOTO/LEE JIN-MAN

ways to make important decisions when privacy concerns collide with public health needs, said Haksoo Ko, a Seoul National University law professor and co-director of the school’s Artificial Intelligence Policy Initiative.

Around 3,200 people across the country, mostly older than 70 and living alone, have so far allowed the SK Telecom speakers to listen to them 24 hours a day since the service launched in April 2019.

The company expects users to at least double by the end of the year, judging by local government interest. The technology has reduced human contact in welfare ser vices while still providing governments with a tool to prevent elderly residents from dying alone. That’s especially needed in a country grappling with an aging population and high poverty rates among retirees.

The speakers are built with an artificial intelligence called “Aria” and a lamp that turns blue when processing voice commands for news, music and Internet searches.

The devices can also use quizzes to monitor the memory and cognitive functions of their elderly users, which would be potentially useful for advising treatments.

But it’s difficult for SK Telecom’s clients to use the information without clear legal guidelines for handling health data on private networks.

Similar reasons may also impede domestic use of health technologies developed by Samsung Electronics, which recently received approval for a smartwatch application that monitors blood pressure.

KT, SK Telecom’s telecommunications rival, is focused on business customers, providing artificial-intelligence devices such as speakers and service robots to hotels, offices and new apartments.

President Moon Jae-ins administration has said data-driven industries will be critical in boosting a pandemic-hit economy.

Officials are preparing regulations for revised data laws that lawmakers passed in January after months of wrangling. They aim to allow businesses greater freedom in collecting and analyzing anony-

mous personal data without seeking individual consent.

If they work as intended, optimists say the laws would allow artificial intelligence to truly take off and pave the way for highly customized financial and health-care services after they start in August.

But activist Oh Byoung-il said the changes could bring excessive privacy infringements unless robust safeguards are installed.

“Companies will always have an endless thirst for data, but you can’t give it to them all,” he said.

Doctors’ groups have also resisted government calls for legalizing telemedicine, raising concerns related to data security and a negative impact on smaller hospitals.

Industrial benefits will be limited if officials can’t find the right combination of techniques to process personal information so that it can’t be used to identify individuals. Health and government authorities have failed to do this during the pandemic.

South Korea’s anti-virus experience provides “lots of lessons and implications” as it steps toward a data-driven economy, Ko said.

With data, it’s bad to take the more, the better’ approach,” he said. “An appropriate control system needs to be baked into the process, to make decisions on data access based on necessity and sensitivity and restrict access to information that isn’t really needed.”

In Seoul’s Yangcheon district, officials are using SK Telecom’s tech to monitor some 200 seniors who live alone.

Social workers, who have smartphone apps that look like a mini version of the main dashboard, make calls or visits when users don’t use their devices for more than 24 hours.

“It’s nice to have something to talk to,” said Lee Chang-geun, an 89-year-old who has lived alone in his small apartment since his wife died three years ago. “But I wish they developed an Aria function for opening doors. What good is a distress signal if I die while emergency workers try to force open my door?”

HIS protracted lockdown is giving many of us more idle time than we can handle. Feeling restless and antsy at home, not knowing what to do to while the time, we have turned to our default entertainment device: our mobile gadgets. This has triggered a surging wave of unwelcome (to me) short videos using mobile apps like TikTok on social media.

They are ubiquitous, inescapable and intrusive, inflicted on the casual social-media surfer.

It reminds me of Woody Allen’s prisoner locked in solitary confinement with an insurance salesman as maximum punishment for numerous attempts at jailbreaking.

For the information of senior citizens who are digital illiterates, TikTok and Dubmash are free mobile apps that enable one to create and share 60-second videos of themselves dancing, lip syncing, or doing funny and sometimes dangerous or provocative stunts.

They are the latest global craze.

TikTok, created by Chinese unicorn ByteDance, has emerged as one of the most popular available today specially among teens and tweens. Despite the serious security flaws found on it, TikTok has 800 million monthly active users as of April 2020.

Since TikTok provides an inexhaustible cache of material, young people are likely to spend a long time in the app and might even become addicted to watching the videos for hours at a time.

One caveat though: the TikTok app allows hackers to take control of your account and steal your biometrics without consent.

Another red flag: apps like TikTok can easily be used by cyber predators to solicit minors because the app makes it easy for strangers to direct message to children. One concerned mother revealed that her daughter’s friend downloaded TikTok onto her daughter’s phone to post videos of the two of them.

“In the matter of an hour, she has 20 followers, all men, and they were starting to make inappropriate comments.”

Persona l ly, v iew ing these videos often makes me cringe in embarrassment even as I am forced for courtesy’s sake to suffer through them because they are sent by relatives and friends.

I find the performances silly and amateurish. Who wants to see individuals dancing and doing all these inane superficial things just to garner likes? This is why I am extremely reluctant to press the “like” icon even if the video is sent by a friend or relative.

Don’t get me wrong. I welcome new developments. I am an advocate of innovation.

But as someone said, not all innovation is necessarily progress. TikTok and similar mobile apps are not my idea of progressive innovation.

To me they are emblematic and reflective of the shallowness of many technological development. They are nothing but video selfies recorded by a front-facing camera. Meaning, the focus is always on oneself, as if to say, look at me, am I not appealing, am I not cool, am I not kwela? It’s all about oneself.

That when used well and meaningfully, these apps are great vehicles for celebrating moments of life, sustaining family engagement especially during these times of physical separation. By offering a creative outlet for users to post dance compilations, tell funny jokes, and show off their talents, they encourage creativity and may be giving birth to a new generation of digital creators. One mother says that her 12-year-old daughter is “obsessed with TikTok. She loves to edit videos and lip sync, and this app allows her to do what she enjoys. She can create funny, humorous scenarios and express herself with song.” Parents, take note also: a lot of the available music and sound bites contain adult language so never leave your kids to their own devices.

The disturbing side to all these is that young users keep pushing the envelope to see how many ‘likes’ they can get. What originally is supposed to be a private account becomes public for the thrill of getting the approval of strangers. These apps have enabled and empowered too much self-regard!

This hunger for approval can be obsessive. Consider the recent reflections of one addicted mobile app user: “I said to myself, once I hit this number, maybe I’d stop wanting more…. That ever-growing number of likes was addicting, and it consumed me. For a moment, these numbers will define your worth.

Social media acceptance becomes an obsession.”

If there’s anything we should learn from this pandemic, it’s this: the invisible virus of Covid-19 is telling us all to reflect, and to have the wisdom and courage to say goodbye to a self-centered “old world.”

But I am afraid many can never get enough of these gadget enablers that enable us to indulge in self-centered frivolities. The longer the quarantine, the more time young people think of ways to contort themselves on camera to entertain friends online and gain ‘likes.’

However, there are also new but less popular apps that allow users

to craft and share not only fun but also inspiring stories. Without doing away with TikToks and similar apps, we should nevertheless encourage the development of such new apps that nurture not only personal creativity but also shift the focus away from the self to other people and world we live in. Apps that help us toward selftransformation instead of selfpromotion or aggrandizement.

Apps that let us share fresh, heartfelt, sincere musings that stretch our minds and souls.

In our long road to a post-Covid world, what we need are new apps that provide better connectivity and promote the importance of reaching out to others. Not a vehicle for promoting oneself but a tool to keep each other company as we walk together through the storm of an uncertain future.

I like to think that there’s one side of the Internet that can be harnessed for good, as a vital way for all of us together to lift values and visions to a higher level. The weight of these times is way too much to handle alone, but when we connect with each other through shared ideals, much more becomes possible. We can pluck nuggets of wisdom here and there from the Internet and share it around. Instead of videos of people singing silly love songs, why not apps that provide a treasure of images and words to enable us to craft personalized messages for sharing on a daily basis or when the occasion rises? How about an app for seniors that enables them to converse meaningfully with peers, or an app that helps us reach out to the sick, the lonely, the neglected and the forgotten?

In other words, let’s think of a new system of apps that do less with feeding on our exhibitionistic tendencies and desires and other nonessentials but addressing our essential needs as human beings. A new kind of social network that has at its core love and care, free of algorithms and safe from data mining, privacy intrusion and identity theft. Where a ‘like’ is not meant to build up selfregard or feed individual vanities but feels more like a genuine human feeling of connection, a virtual hand gesture of support or a warm embrace.

This piece may sound like a killjoy note or a crazy wish. It may betray my age but let me express it anyway, and maybe there are people out there in the wilderness of the Internet who may share the sentiment or see a point in it to start considering innovative apps that will cater to the deeper needs of people on the other side of the TikTok generational divide.

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Saturday, June 6, 2020

BusinessMirror

‘Captain Ri’ is the face of telco’s new campaign

KOREAN star Hyun Bin of the Netlix hit Crash Landing on You.

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Y daughter jokingly calls my Smart Postpaid line a “frontliner” because during the time we’ve been quarantined, this has served as our hot spot as our home Internet has kind of given up on us. My daughter’s job is related to social media and her work volume is quite heavy so she needs fast and reliable Internet. I love how my Smart LTE sees us through our work (from home) days. Full disclosure: I paid this line and I continue to pay for it. My former employer paid for the unit I am using right now.

Anyway, I mentioned this because Smart recently launched its new tagline in Filipino: “Simple.

Smart Ako.” The line is delivered by Smart’s new face, Korean actor Hyun Bin, in the brand’s new TVC. Hyun Bin plays North Korean officer Captain Ri opposite actress Son Ye-jin in the phenomenally successful drama Crash Landing on You (CLOY), which is streaming on Netflix. The 37-year-old actor first became popular in the Philippines after appearing in the 2005 romantic comedy My Name is Kim Sam-soon.

He was also in the romantic fantasy drama Secret Garden (2010-2011) and fantasy drama Memories of the Alhambra (2018-2019).

In Smart’s latest TV commercial, Hyun Bin rides a sports car and zooms past the city streets—a fitting reference to the blazing speeds by which Filipinos can enjoy their daily dose of entertainment powered by Smart LTE and Giga promos.

In an online press conference organized by Smart, it was disclosed that the TVC was shot in its entirety in Korea, with the Smart team online on Zoom to supervise the shoot, which was took place from 1 pm to 12 mn of May 12.

Jane Jimenez Basas, Smart’s senior vice president and head of wireless consumer business, is a Hyun Bin fan. The first Korean drama that she watched was Crash Landing on You. “Bringing Hyun Bin into the Smart family was something that was natural to us. We knew he has a big following. Even Al’s wife made him watch CLOY,” said Basas. Al is Alfredo Panlilio, Smart president and CEO, and PLDT chief revenue officer.

Basas even got her boss’ permission go to Korea for the TVC shoot. But the pandemic happened and travel had to be suspended.

“One hundred percent of the project, except for the shoot, was done online. This is the power of technology. We got him [Hyun Bin] to sign the contract in April and, surprisingly, working with his team was simple and easy,” said Basas.

“I think they understood the challenges that we have been facing globally. And what was surprising was, like his character in the popular series, he didn’t make a lot of fuss. They would tell us if it’s doable or not, and obviously they were working with obvious diligence and they were very professional,” said

Lloyd Manaloto, Smart vice president for corporate marketing strategy.

Smart’s new tagline is not only about its new endorser. “We move forward into this new norm.

We need to continue to innovate. Our new tagline is drawn from our history of innovations. Smart Load and Pasaload are things that may seem so simple now but they’ve helped so many Filipinos. We are embracing our role as a digital lifestyle enabler that keeps innovating to make the lives of our customers simpler. Now that the world becomes more and more complicated, we believe that what matters most in life are the simplest things,” said Panlilio.

The new campaign follows a string of awards from third-party mobile analytics firms that recognize Smart as the country’s fastest mobile data network.

Ookla, the global leader in Internet testing and analysis, cited Smart as the Philippines’ Speedtest Awards Winner for mobile network speed during Q1Q4 2019. To win this award, Smart achieved a Speed Score of 17.40, with average speeds of 19.62 Mbps for download and 9.45 Mbps for upload.

Opensignal, an independent mobile analytics firm, reported in its April 2020 Mobile Network Experience Report for the Philippines that Smart remained ahead of the competition in terms of video

experience, upload and download speed experience, voice app experience, games experience and 4G availability. Smart’s mobile data network now supports a wide range of Giga promos catering to the different needs of its subscribers.

Giga Video is for subscribers who want to bingewatch the latest K-dramas, online shows and series, while Giga Stories is for those who love sharing their experiences with friends and loved ones on social media. Smart also offers Giga Games for avid mobile gamers and Giga Music for those who want their daily dose of tunes and podcasts. Giga Work is for easy access to a wide range of productivity apps to make work and school life simpler and more convenient.

Smart customers can register to Giga promos by simply dialing *123#.

Toward the end of the online press conference, the Smart people were asked about their future plans for Hyun Bin and they disclosed that there is a second TVC. But for me, the best statement came from Panlilio when asked about the possibility of Smart getting more Korean endorsers.

“Captain Ri is lonely because he is alone.”

Will Smart do what we think they will do? Will they bring together Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin together for a campaign? These are exciting times, indeed. ■

Globe continues to build 5G network despite GCQ AS the country slowly works its way into the new normal, leading telco Globe remains steadfast in building its 5G network for launching in the coming weeks, following the transition of key areas into general community quarantine (GCQ).

With the heightened role of digital connectivity and the Internet during the quarantine period, Globe is aggressively pushing for the expansion of its 5G coverage, a highly anticipated mobile technology, in key areas in the metropolis, specifically in the Makati and Bonifacio Global City central of business districts.

After showcasing mobile 5G to select Platinum customers last February 2020, Globe is expected to make the service available to

more Platinum and Postpaid mobile customers who are within 5G coverage areas in the coming weeks. The company is also slated to launch more affordable 5G-capable smartphones to the market soon, making the 5G experience progressively accessible to more mobile customers. In its bid to also make 5G more relevant, it is eyeing to launch more ways for consumers to enjoy 5G not just with faster data speeds but with newer forms of technology like augmented and virtual reality.

“Globe is doing this in solidarity with Filipinos who are on their way to getting back on their feet. In response to what seems to be increased dependence on digital technology among our mobile customers, we want to make the 5G experience progressively available to

more of our mobile customers at the soonest possible time. As we all look forward to better days, 5G will definitely hasten the digital transformation in the country as businesses, the government, and its people move toward digitalization,” said Albert de Larrazabal, Globe chief commercial officer.

Globe is the first telco in the country to introduce 5G technology in 2019 when it launched AirFiber for its broadband customers.

It’s also the first company to offer the first 5G-capable smartphone in the Philippines early this year. Globe is also the first telecom provider to do a 5G video call in the country after it completed a three-minute 5G call with AIS, a leading mobile operator in Thailand, from Bangkok also early this year.

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French minister confident in virus tracing app PARIS—As France is easing most virus-related restrictions next week, the French government is confident its contacttracing app will be effective in the process to contain the spread of the pandemic, despite skepticism and worries about privacy. The man at the forefront of the French app, junior minister for digital economy Cedric O told The Associated Press on Friday, “It is not a miracle solution, but it is useful and necessary.”

The StopCovid app became available to the public on June 2, when the country started reopening its restaurants and cafes together with monuments and museums, theaters, gyms and public swimming pools. It will make France the first major world democracy to roll out such a tracing app.

Holding his phone with the app opened, O said: “Imagine we’re sitting next to each other or face to face—we don’t know each other. Or we pass each other in the metro. Both our phones will keep a trace of that contact.”

People tested positive to the virus will be able to send a quick notification in the app to warn people they were in close contact with, allowing them to call a doctor and get a test.

Like other countries, France sees the app as an additional measure to contain the spread of the coronavirus that comes in addition to manual contact tracing, which involves workers interviewing people who test positive for the virus. O said the app has been tested for two weeks and the government is confident that the data are protected.

“The installation of the app is on a voluntary basis only: no one can force you to install it. It’s anonymous: no one has access to the data. Neither you, nor the state or others,” he insisted.

In addition, the app does not create a list of infected people and the data is cleared after 14 days, he said.

O also noted the government published the code of the app so that experts can check it. The French parliament on Wednesday approved the app after a sharp debate focusing on privacy protection.

Some opposition lawmakers expressed fears the app would lead to broader surveillance from the state. Others shared doubts about its efficiency if only a small part of the population accept to use it.

Gérald Schneiber, 43, who works in Paris, said “It’s out of question” to download it. “I won’t let anyone keep a close watch on me—and I hope it will never happen in France,” he said. Parisian Florence Cieslak, 34, said she’s in favor of “anything that can help in the fight against Covid-19 and protect the population.”

She is ready to install the app, but only after carefully reading the fine print on data protection and compliance with GDPR, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

The French app uses low-energy Bluetooth signals on mobile phones to trace individuals that people infected with the virus come into close contact with. It will store anonymous data in a government-run centralized database.

O advocated for France’s choice not to use a Google-Apple technology released last week, because “we think health data should be stored by health authorities and not by the private sector”—notably after the tech world faced scandals in the past about how it uses private data.

Germany, Italy, Austria, Estonia, Switzerland, and Ireland are embracing a “decentralized” approach, widely preferred by researchers and privacy experts because anonymous identifier codes for contacts are kept on devices only. The Google-Apple technology works with the decentralized system and is being used notably by Germany.

But the French government considered the decentralized solution “is less efficient from health care point of view. We’d have less information,” O said. AP

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Put emphasis on cybersecurity in the ‘new tomorrow’

BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES IN the so-called new tomorrow caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, technology companies said individuals and companies must give importance to the protection of their data and networks from the threats that abound in the cyber landscape.

Local computing technology Radenta Technologies, through its Global Reconnaissance and Defense Intelligent System (GRIDS) program, recently announced it is offering a free 60-day Managed Security Operation Center (SOC) access to experience the benefits of using the most advanced Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technology without the cost and complexity of owning and administering a SIEM system.

The company said GRIDS provides an enterprise with the ability to improve threat detection, automate reporting and reduce complexity associated with your security monitoring and log management needs.

By enlisting in GRIDS, Radenta said an organization can get real-time monitoring, advanced contextual analysis and better visibility through customized reports and dashboards to proactively prevent, detect and address security threats. “A team of highly skilled cybersecurity analysts and engineers are on guard 24/7 so you can focus on other pressing matters knowing that your security is rock solid,” the company said in a statement. Other features include Infrastructre Protection, Intelligence and Analytics, and Security Control and Management.

Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky, meanwhile, has urged a change in the virtual habits and security awareness of consumers. According to the company, 40 percent of consumers from the Asia-Pacific (Apac) have faced incidents where their private information was accessed by someone who did not have their consent. This is while more than 5 in 10 online users in the region have expressed their equal concern in terms of guarding their virtual and physical lives.

“With the current remote working situation in the majority of countries in the Apac, digital privacy should be a concern for both personal users and enterprises. Our corporate networks have reached the comfort of our homes, in turn increasing cybercriminals’ surface of attack. It’s definitely high time to improve cyber hygiene for both our personal and professional reputation and peace of mind,” Stephan Neumeier, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky, said in a press statement.

Some of the breaches involve accounts being accessed without permission (40 percent), illegal takeover of devices (39 percent), confidential data being stolen and used (31 percent), private data being accessed by someone without consent, and private information being divulged publicly (20 percent).

“To protect yourself during this critical time, it is important to be careful about the personal particulars you share online, and to understand how these data will be used. Revisit your privacy settings and tweak them accordingly. The Internet is a place of opportunities and anyone can benefit from it as long as we know how to intelligently manage our data and our online habits,” Neumeier added.

For its part, British cybersecurity firm Sophos recently warned that paying cybercriminals to restore data encrypted during a ransomware attack is diffcult and an expensive path to recovery. In its State of Ransomware 2020, Sophos said the total cost of recovery almost doubles when organizations pay a ransom. The survey polled 5,000 IT decision-makers in organizations in 26 countries across six continents, including Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

One in three organizations in the Philippines (30 percent) had experienced a ransomware attack in the previous 12 months. On a global level, data was encrypted in nearly three quarters (73 percent) of attacks that successfully breached an organization.

“Organizations may feel intense pressure to pay the ransom to avoid damaging downtime. On the face of it, paying the ransom appears to be an effective way of getting data restored, but this is illusory. Sophos’ findings show that paying the ransom makes little difference to the recovery burden in terms of time and cost. This could be because it is unlikely that a single magical decryption key is all that’s needed to recover.

Often, the attackers may share several keys and using them to restore data may be a complex and timeconsuming affair,” Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist of Sophos, said in a press statement.

Saturday, June 6, 2020

Twitter, Facebook diverge on Trump’s words

BY BARBARA O�TUTAY & PAUL WISEMAN The Associated Press

O

AKLAND, California—President Donald J. Trump posted identical messages on Twitter and Facebook this week. But while the two social platforms have very similar policies on voter misinformation and glorifying violence, they dealt with Trump’s posts very differently, proof that Silicon Valley is far from a united front when it comes to political decisions.

Twitter placed a warning label on two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted problems with the November elections. It demoted and placed a stronger warning on a third tweet about Minneapolis protests that read, in part, that “when the looting starts the shooting starts.”

Facebook left the posts alone.

“Facebook doesn’t want to alienate certain communities,” said Dipayan Ghosh, co-director of the digital platforms and democracy project at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “It doesn’t want to tick off a whole swatch of people who really believe the president and appreciate his tweets.”

Twitter, on the other hand has a history of taking stronger stances, he added, including a complete ban on political advertisements that the company announced last November.

That’s partly because Facebook, a much larger company with a broader audience, caught in the crosshairs of regulators over its size and power, has more to lose. And partly because the companies’ CEOs don’t always see eye to eye on their role in society.

“Our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his social network Friday.

Referring to the president’s comments about the Minneapolis protests, Zuckerberg said that he had “a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric.″ But Facebook decided, he said, to keep the president’s comment’s on the site because “we read it as a warning about state action, and we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force.″ More broadly, Zuckerberg has often said Facebook does not seek to be “the arbiter of truth.″ Still, Facebook has long used fact checks on its site, done by third-party news organizations, such as The Associated Press, and it constantly uses algorithms to decide what to show its 2.5 billion users. And it is setting up an oversight board to decide whether to remove controversial posts.

Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that Twitter will “continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally.” But he added: “This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’”

This is not the first time that a social-media company clashed with the president. And with six months to go before the election, it won’t be the last.

“It sure looks like, in the face of pressure to follow the White House’s preferred speech policies, Facebook chose appeasement and Twitter chose to fight,” said Daphne Keller, a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society. “Why the difference?...Maybe Facebook thinks it has more to lose by alienating Republicans.”

Trump and fellow conservatives have been

claiming for years that Silicon Valley tech companies are biased against them. But there is no evidence for this—and while the executives and most employees of Twitter, Facebook and Google may lean liberal, the companies have stressed they have no business interest in favoring on political party over the other.

The trouble began in 2016, two years after Facebook launched a section called “trending,” using human editors to curate popular news stories.

Facebook was accused of bias against conservatives based on the words of an anonymous former contractor who said the company downplayed conservative issues in that feature and promoted liberal causes.

Zuckerberg met with prominent right-wing leaders at the time in an attempt at damage control.

In 2018, it shut down the “trending” section but by then the narrative of conservative bias had spread far and wide. Congressional hearings about conservative bias followed, with the leaders of Google, Twitter and Facebook defending their companies and explaining that it would not be in their interest to alienate half of their US users.

While critics have accused both Zuckerberg and Dorsey of cozying up with one side of the political alley or the other, Zuckerberg appears more intent on remaining in the mushy middle—even when that’s proving increasingly difficult.

“Facebook doesn’t want to alienate anybody,” said Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology’s Center for Civic Media.

“Twitter seems more comfortable saying: ‘Look, as a private platform we reserve the right to do whatever want to do.’... They’re right. This is not a First Amendment issue’’ involving government censorship.

Zuckerman said that tech companies’ approach to handling misinformation and incitement to violence has had to change. “Both Zuckerberg and Dorsey are from the generation of internet entrepreneurs that had a very strong freedom of speech bias...you should be able to say whatever you want, and no should block it,” Zuckerman said.

But that hands off approach no longer appears sustainable. Perhaps even more than Trump’s provocative tweets the coronavirus pandemic is forcing tech firms to rethink what goes unchallenged on their platforms. Zuckerman noted, for example, that both Facebook and Google have been vigilant about barring the conspiracy theory video “Plandemic,” which makes false claims about Covid-19 and therefore poses a potential threat to public health.

“It’s really a no-win scenario” for social-media companies, said Patrick Hedger, research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Conservatives will complain if they block or correct Trump statements.

Liberals will cry foul if they don’t.

Hedger also noted that “the unmoderated world does exist,” pointing to Gab.com, which has become a haven for extremist views. “The unmoderated internet is not a pretty place,’’ he said. ■

Foodpanda now delivers grocery items right at your doorstep FOODPANDA (www.foodpanda.ph), the on-demand food delivery service, has announced grocery and essential items delivery through foodpanda shops.

In partnership with a variety of retailers nationwide, customers can now order products and groceries without any minimum order requirement. They can have items delivered right to their doorsteps, at an average delivery time of 25 minutes or less.

No need to schedule a grocery run when the pantry is empty with snacks, beverages, and bread as 7-Eleven’s list of favorite essentials are just a few taps away. Racks is also offering their ready-to-cook entrees from meats to seafood, while Tous Les Jours offers its frozen bread. For those who need their daily caffeine fix, they can now set up a cozy coffee station at home with Coffee Project and Bo’s Coffee.

Hankering for Subway’s deli sandwiches? foodpanda

shops offers their staple ingredients so anyone can recreate their signature favorites any time of the day.

It will surely make access to necessities and favorites much easier.

With more than a hundred partners already on board, and growing every day, foodpanda aims to continue to expand an even broader range of lifestyle and convenience offerings for its customers.

“In the Philippines, we know that comfort and convenience are king. That’s why with the launch of shops, consumers now have the ability to take control of their time, effort and money, as the platform officially offers a one-stop shop of everything they need from personal care, household items to other staples. Shops provide foodpanda users more options and upgrades so they will never have to run out of everyday essentials. With this newly added service,

we’re confident this will bring delight and satisfaction to our customers who need easy access to their daily essentials, while providing elevated experiences to Filipinos’ everyday lives,” said foodpanda Head of Grocery Paolo Biondi Te. Foodpanda’s growing pipeline of new business is fueled by its industry-leading network of partnerships, innovative technological platform, and dispatch algorithm.

Available on the foodpanda app, start by entering the delivery address, choose the shop and place an order. The merchant will prepare the items, and when ready, the courier delivers the items at once.

The customer can also track the rider in real-time.

Whatever customers need at the moment, all it takes is a few taps and let foodpanda shops deliver the things that matter.

A9

A10 Saturday, June 6, 2020

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SIX CAMERAS PACKED INTO REALME FLAGSHIP

With rare candor, employees protest Facebook’s Trump policy

BY BARBARA O�TUTAY The Associated Press

O

AKLAND, California—Facebook employees are using Twitter and Facebook’s internal communications tools to register their frustration over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to leave up posts by President Donald J. Trump that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.

Twitter flagged and demoted Trump’s tweet about the protests when he used the phrase “when the looting starts the shooting starts.” Facebook has let it stand, and Zuckerberg explained his reasoning in a Facebook post on Friday.

“I know many people are upset that we’ve left the President’s posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Angry demonstrations have spread across the US over the past week, creating some of the most widespread racial unrest since the 1960s. The protests, which have been met by violent police action in many cities, were spurred by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after he was pinned to the pavement by an officer who put his knee on the handcuffed man’s neck until he stopped breathing.

Trump’s comment evoked the civil-rights era by borrowing a phrase used in 1967 by Miami’s police chief to warn of an aggressive police response to unrest in black neighborhoods.

On Monday, dozens of Facebook employees staged a virtual “walkout” to protest the company’s decision not to touch the Trump posts according to a report in the New York Times, which cited anonymous senior employees at Facebook. The Times report says dozens

of Facebook workers “took the day off by logging into Facebook’s systems and requesting time off to support protesters across the country.”

Workers also expressed frustration in other ways, including posting on Twitter, speaking to managers and writing on Facebook’s internal communication network. Though virtual, this was the first time that Facebook workers have staged a walkout in the company’s history. Employees at the social media giant have been less outspoken than their counterparts at other tech companies such as Google and Twitter.

“I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard,” tweeted Jason Toff, a director of product management at Facebook who’s been at the company for a year.

Toff, who has a verified Twitter account, had 131,400 “likes” and thousands of retweets of his comment. He did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Monday.

“I don’t know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not acceptable. I’m a FB employee that completely disagrees with Mark’s decision to do nothing about Trump’s recent posts, which clearly incite violence.

I’m not alone inside of FB. There isn’t a neutral position on racism,” Facebook design manager Jason Stirman tweeted.

Stirman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Sara Zhang, a product designer at the company, tweeted that Facebook’s “decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. The policy pigeon holes us into addressing harmful user-facing content in two ways: keep content up or take it down.”

“I believe that this is a self-imposed constraint and implore leadership to revisit the solution,” she continued. Zhang declined to comment to The Associated Press. “We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community. We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership. As we face additional difficult decisions around content ahead, we’ll continue seeking their honest feedback,” Facebook spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois said in a statement on Monday.

Facebook moved a weekly employee question-andanswer session with executives to Tuesday from this coming Thursday to respond to workers’ concerns.

Late Sunday, Zuckerberg again posted on Facebook, pledging a $10 million donation to racial justice groups. But he made no mention of Trump’s posts. Instead, he highlighted Facebook’s role in the spreading of the video of Floyd’s death.

“We need to know George Floyd’s name. But it’s clear Facebook also has more work to do to keep people safe and ensure our systems don’t amplify bias,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Twitter has historically taken stronger stances than its larger rival, including a complete ban on political advertisements that Twitter announced last November. That’s partly because Facebook, a much larger company with a broader audience,targeted by regulators over its size and power, has more to lose.

And partly because the companies’ CEOs don’t always see eye to eye on their role in society.

Over the weekend, Twitter changed the background and logo of its main Twitter account to black from its usual blue in support of the Black Lives Matter protesters and added a #blacklivesmatter hashtag. Facebook did the same with its own logo on its site, though without the hashtag. ■

Tech-rights group sues Trump to stop social-media order NEW YORK—A tech-focused civil liberties group on Tuesday sued to block President Donald J. Trump’s executive order that seeks to regulate social media, saying it violates the First Amendment and chills speech.

Trump’s order, signed last week, could allow more lawsuits against Internet companies like Twitter and Facebook for what their users post, tweet and stream.

The order was more political than substantive, with many experts questioning whether it was constitutional. The president aimed to rally his supporters after Twitter put fact checks on two of his tweets. Trump, without evidence, has long accused tech companies of being biased against conservatives.

The order targets current law—you may have heard recent references to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—that protects Internet companies from lawsuits. They can’t be sued for hosting videos and posts from users, or for moderating their services, with some exceptions.

In its suit, the Center for Democracy and

Technology said that Trump’s executive order violates the First Amendment because it attacks Twitter for putting the fact checks on the president’s tweets, which CDT said is Twitter’s right as a private company. More broadly, the order is trying to curb speech of all online platforms and people “by demonstrating the willingness to use government authority to retaliate against those who criticize the government,” CDT said.

“The government cannot and should not force online intermediaries into moderating speech according to the president’s whims,” said Alexandra Givens, CDT’s CEO, in an emailed statement. The organization filed the federal suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

There was pushback against Trump’s order from various sources. Tech industry groups, unsurprisingly, said it was bad for innovation and speech. Civil rights and libertarian organizations and the US Chamber of Commerce also criticized Trump’s order. AP

FOLLOWING the successful launch of the realme 6i, realme Philippines has ushered in realme 6 Pro that elevates the user experience in its price category, packed as it is with key features in photography, style and performance.

Designed to be every aspiring Filipino photographer’s partner, the realme 6 Pro packs six cameras in total: a rear 64MP Pro quad camera system with 20x hybrid zoom capability and 16MP dual wide-angle front cameras. The realme 6 Pro is also the world’s first smartphone to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor, which boasts an advanced 8nm channel for powerful multitasking and longer battery life.

Realme Philippines VP for Marketing Austine Huang said: “We are very happy to launch the realme 6 Pro, and we are confident that it will be a tool of empowerment promoting opportunities for everyone, especially for aspiring photographers and content creators.”

The realme 6 Pro is being touted as a leader in photography in its price segment with its state-ofthe-art camera features producing sharp images and high-quality videos. Its rear Pro quad-camera system comprises a 64MP primary camera, a 12MP telephoto lens with a 20x hybrid zoom, an 8MP 119-degree ultrawide-angle and a 2MP macro lens.

The device’s in-display dual cameras feature a 16MP main camera with Sony IMX471 and an 8MP super wide-angle camera with 105-degreefield of view. The realme 6 Pro also has a face recognition technology that identifies facial features and automatically improves face contours with its Edge Deformity Correction feature. It also has a shooting range 2.5 times larger than previous models.

The midrange snapmaster is a round-theclock partner for photographers. Its newest Super Nightscape 3.0 feature allows users to capture raw night shots, which can then be optimized through the Ultra Nightscape mode. The Tripod Mode supports super-long exposure settings.

The realme 6 Pro has a 6.6-inchUltra Smooth Display with a 90Hz refresh rate for lower display latency and enhanced visual experience. The display uses Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for better protection against drops and shock. It comes with punch hole light for facial unlock, eye protection, customer color mode and OSIE for better video clarity, and improved color display for a more engaging experience.

Heavy users and gamers need not worry about battery life as the realme 6 Pro comes with the newly upgraded 30W Flash Charge that fully charges the device’s 4,300mAh battery in just 60 minutes.

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Saturday, June 6, 2020 A11

HUAWEI SHUT OUT IN CANADA’S 5G DEPLOYMENT

BY ROB GILLIES The Associated Press TORONTO—Two of Canada’s three major telecommunication companies announced on Tuesday they’ve decided not to use Chinese tech giant Huawei for their next-generation 5G wireless network. Bell Canada announced that Sweden-based Ericsson will be its supplier and Telus Corp. later announced that it had also selected Ericsson and Nokia. Rogers already has a long-standing partnership with Ericsson.

Canada and its security agencies have been studying whether to use equipment from Huawei as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology. 5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to facilitate medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology.

Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and Internet companies, but has long been seen as a front for spying by China’s military and its highly skilled security services.

The US has urged Canada to exclude Huawei equipment from their next-generation wireless networks as they claim Huawei is legally beholden to the Chinese regime. The United States and Australia have banned Huawei, citing concerns it is an organ of Chinese military intelligence—a charge the company denies.

“We look forward to the federal government completing its 5G review and making an evidencebased decision about Huawei’s role in helping build Canada’s next-generation wireless networks,” Huawei spokesman Alykhan Velshi said in an e-mail.

The Canadian government is studying the use of Huawei as Canada and China are locked in a political dispute. China’s imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor is widely seen as retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Huawei senior executive Meng Wanzhou on a US extradition warrant.

A Canadian judge ruled last week the United States extradition case against a senior Huawei executive can proceed to the next stage.

Zoom’s boom pokes holes in the big-tech ‘Borg’ narrative

O

Globe ‘6.6 Comeback Deals’ offers consumers digital tools CONSUMER behavior has undoubtedly been changed by the Covid-19 pandemic. With the governmentimposed quarantine protocols, new habits have been formed and new needs have arisen.

With the prevalence of doing practically everything from home, whether that be working, working out, or anything in between, the leafing telco understands the heightened need for reliable tools in order to not just survive, but to thrive.

In an announcement touted a show of solidarity with Filipinos who are slowly getting back on their feet, Globe on June 6 is rolling out discounts on select mobile devices with its 6.6 Comeback Deals.

With as much as 29 percent savings, the smartphones are bundled with Globe Prepaid SIM cards preloaded with free 1GB +500 MB video valid for 15 days when purchased from Globe Online Shop and the official Globe store on the Lazada and Shopee apps. The lineup of discounted phones includes Huawei Y5 2019, Huawei Nova 5T, Huawei Y9s, Huawei P30, Oppo A5s, and Oppo A9 2020. The iPhone 6S Whitebox will be exclusively offered in the Globe store on Lazada.

More information is available at shop.globe.com.ph.

BY TAE KIM Bloomberg News

NE of the most feared antagonists in the Star Trek universe is the seemingly unstoppable alien species called the “Borg.” These cybernetic aliens travel the galaxy, conquering and assimilating everything in their path while greeting each new victim with the catch-phrase, “Resistance is futile.”

In many ways, the prevailing narrative around Big Tech is similar to this sci-fi series villain story line.

Pundits often cite how the technology giants’ vast financial resources and R&D budgets will lead to an inexorable march to control more and more of the economy. And sure, on the surface it makes sense. Apple Inc. and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. sport net cash balances of roughly $100 billion each and dominate their respective markets, generating vast profit streams from smartphones to search engines. Together with Facebook Inc., Netflix Inc. and Microsoft Corp., these behemoths also reign over the stock market with their ballooning valuations. How can any smaller company hope to compete against such power in the current difficult environment?

The reality paints a much less daunting picture. It turns out that the Covid-19 era has led to an explosion of innovation and rapid growth for dozens of smaller technology companies. Many of these upstarts—from videoconferencing software maker Zoom Video Communications Inc. to cloud-computing firm Datadog Inc.—are emphatically winning even as the tech giants try to squash them. And they’re doing it in many cases by simply making a better product and having a laser focus on it.

There’s a flaw in the concept that Big Tech can easily expand into new markets by leveraging the power of their core businesses. The reason is all companies—big or small—have finite top-tier engineering talent. And of course, companies tend to put their best people on their most important profit-making segments, versus any peripheral new markets, opening the door for the upstart specialists to thrive.

Earlier this year, I wrote how corporations were flocking to software vendors, such as Zoom for solutions on how to get the job done at a time when their employees were forced to work from home amid lockdown restrictions.

Since then, Big Tech has taken particular aim at the software company as they sought to push their own videoconferencing tools. Last month, Google added a large, blue-colored “Add Google Meet video conferencing” button any time a Google Calendar user tries to add an appointment, while its Gmail accounts with its billion-plus user base also conspicuously have Google Meet in the lower left corner at all times. Microsoft, meantime, has sought to capitalize on early security concerns with Zoom to promote its Teams product.

Despite the aggressive moves, you couldn’t see any negative impact in Zoom’s results. Late Tuesday, the upstart posted April-quarter sales results that crushed Wall Street estimates. The company posted first-quarter revenue of $328 million, up 169 percent from a year earlier, versus the $203 million Bloomberg consensus. It also projected a sales range of $495 million to $500 million for the current quarter, more than double the $222 million analyst estimate. Zoom shares climbed 5 percent on Wednesday, adding to year-to-date gains that already topped 200 percent.

That’s just Zoom. There are plethora of cloud software names—including monitoring analytics provider Datadog and user authentication company Okta Inc.—that are also seeing surging demand for their services and the soaring stock prices to match. These companies are building out comprehensive offerings and stronger leadership positions in their respective categories that will be harder to displace as they grow in stature. And it’s still early innings on the growth curve for many of these firms.

The move to cloud-computing is a seminal paradigm shift similar in scope to the transition to mobile smartphones nearly a decade ago. Gartner said the world-wide enterprise technology market was $3.7 trillion last year. Even if the economy contracts, it will be a large market, with lots of room for fast-growing

companies to make meaningful share gains as spending shifts toward new technologies. “The trends of digital transformation and cloud migration remain very much intact over the long term and may even be accelerated or amplified,” Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel said during his May earning call with investors.

Another recent example of Big Tech’s failure is Amazon.com Inc.’s foray into gaming. After years of development, the e-commerce giant released its first big-budget video game “Crucible” last month to much fanfare, even advertising the title on the front page of its website. It was meant to be Amazon’s beachhead into the large attractive gaming market. It didn’t go well. To illustrate, just a couple weeks after its launch “Crucible” has precipitously fallen in the Twitch charts, a key indicator of gamer engagement, to roughly 100 viewers or barely in the top 500 titles. It turned out to be a complete flop, even as Epic Games Inc.’s “Fortnite” remains a fan favorite.

Despite the worries over Big Tech’s growing dominance, the flip side may actually be the bigger risk. Last month, I wrote how other retailers appear to be taking advantage of Amazon’s service troubles to make incursions, which has allowed them to grow their e-commerce businesses at triple-digit rates. In social media, the short-video platform TikTok has also surged in popularity.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported TikTok’s parent ByteDance Ltd.’s revenue for last year more than doubled to more than $17 billion from $7.4 billion in 2018, a level of sales nearly triple that of Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc. combined.

Incredibly, if TikTok continues its current growth trajectory, it has the potential to surpass some of Facebook’s key platforms within a few years.

And speaking of Facebook, its latest big push into e-commerce space, Facebook Shops, relies in great deal on a partnership with online-store software maker Shopify Inc. and its extensive array of commerce tools for small businesses.

History shows the tech industry’s reputation for disruption is unmatched. And if it is any guide, investors shouldn’t overlook or underestimate the industry’s up-and-comers, even in—or should I say especially in—times like these. ■

Sports BusinessMirror

A12 Saturday, June 6, 2020

Editor: Jun Lomibao | mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

DOWNSIZED. SIMPLIFIED. DIFFERENT. T

By Stephen Wade The Associated Press

OKYO—The Japanese public is being prepared for the reality of next year’s postponed Olympics, where athletes are likely to face quarantines, spectators will be fewer, and the delay will cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

In the last several weeks, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has given selected interviews outside Japan and hinted at empty stadiums, quarantines and virus testing.

IOC member John Coates, who oversees Tokyo preparations, said a few weeks ago in Australia that the Tokyo Olympics face “real problems,” partially because of the numbers involved: 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes to start with, and then staff, officials, media and up to 80,000 volunteers.

The stark message about a very different, reduced Olympics is now being floated in Japan by politicians, and in unsourced news stories. The themes include the possibility of reduced seating at the Olympics—if any fans at all—tests for all athletes, fans and staff, and a quarantine-like situation at the Athletes Village.

In the hours before an online news conference on Thursday with Tokyo Olympics spokesman Masa Takaya, Japanese media

published several versions of virtually the same story citing unnamed sources: Next year’s Olympics will be “downsized,”“simplified,” or “very different.”

Tokyo CEO Toshiro Muto has been open about slashing costs and “reducing service levels.”

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, in Thursday newscasts, sounded the same tune.

“We will move ahead with the items that should be streamlined and simplified,” she said, giving no details on the downsizing and adding that the public would be consulted.

“First of all we need to gain the understanding of Tokyo residents and the Japanese people,” she said.

But in the news conference, Takaya did not substantiate any of the leaked information and said it did not come directly from him.

One typical report said Olympic seating could be reduced, leaving in limbo the disposition of millions of tickets already sold.

“We want to brush away these concerns,” Takaya said, speaking to worried ticket holders.

However, he offered nothing concrete accept to say that “countermeasures” against Covid-19 will not be determined until this fall. That would include plans for fans, quarantines and so forth.

Tickets are going to be a battle ground. The organizing committee has budgeted income of at least $800 million from ticket sales, and may

be reluctant to return it. The tickets carry a “force majeure” clause, which may permit organizers to avoid refunds.

“We understand that countermeasures for Covid-19 next year, particularly during games time, is one of the biggest things to address in preparing for the games next year,” Takaya said.

“But once again these countermeasures will be discussed in more depth from this autumn onward.”

Like many countries, Japan is headed into a recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Olympic costs have soared. The cost of the delay in Japan has been estimated at $2 billion to $6 billion. Neither the IOC nor organizers have given a figure for the costs to Japan, or who will pay for them.

Before the postponement, organizers said they were spending $12.6 billion to put on the games. But a government audit last year said the figure was twice that, and all but $5.6 billion is public money.

When Tokyo was awarded the games in 2013, it said the cost would be $7.3 billion.

There is also talk of combining the opening and closing ceremony for both the Olympics and Paralympics.

“Many discussions are ongoing covering various areas, including the ceremonies,” Craig Spence, a spokesman for the Paralympic Games, said in an e-mail. “A lots of things are still at a discussion stage and, therefore, it’s not appropriate to provide comment on things until they are finalized.”

Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto acknowledged costs must be cut, but said safety for athletes could drive them up.

“Unless safety and security are ensured, there will be uncertainty for the athletes-first point of view,” she said Thursday. “We must study measures including virus testing in order to ensure safety and security.”

MAJESTIC RIDE

National athlete Avegail Rombaon strikes a pose with the majestic Mayon Volcano as backdrop as she returns to outdoor training on her mountain bike on Friday in her native Barangay Balagbag Na Bulod in Legazpi City, Albay. Rombaon clinched a women’s crosscountry bronze medal in the 30th Southeast Asian Games in Laurel, Batangas, last December.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach hints at empty stadiums, quarantines and virus testing.

Paris 2024 organizers acknowledge ‘shift in approach’ due to Covid-19

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RGANIZERS of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games acknowledged a “shift in approach” as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

At a virtual meeting with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Coordination Commission on Thursday, Paris 2024 organizers said their new approach was partly as a result of a letter from IOC President Thomas Bach in April, when he called on the Olympic Movement to “look more closely at the proliferation of sports events” in future.

The IOC said following the meeting they believed Paris 2024’s preparations were “innovative and responsible,” while they also used the meeting to express to organizers their sympathies for the challenges faced by France as a whole.

Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet echoed Bach’s sentiments following the IOC head’s letter, calling for all parties involved in

delivering Paris 2024 to look for “creative and sustainable optimizations,” a vision supported by the Coordination Commission.

Paris 2024 organizers gave examples of measures they had already introduced toward this goal, including reducing the number of beds required in the Olympic and Paralympic Village from just over 17,000 down to 14,000.

“The coronavirus situation has impacted everyone around the world, and our sincere thoughts are with all those affected, particularly in France, which has been hit hard,” IOC Coordination Commission Chairman Pierre-Olivier Beckers-Vieujant said. “This makes Paris 2024’s continued progress over the past few months incredibly inspiring.”

“Paris continues to illustrate its determination to deliver an innovative and responsible new model for the organization of the Game. The postponement of Tokyo 2020

to 2021 and the call from our President to look to ‘further strengthen the sustainability and feasibility reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020 with a new phase of the New Norm’ provide the impetus for all stakeholders to take that ambition even further,” he added.

“The Coordination Commission meeting is always a privileged time with Commission members,” Estanguet said. “This moment of exchange allows us to present our latest advances, to challenge and enrich our project in contact with experienced Commission members.”

“Despite the current context, it was important for us to maintain this time of exchange in order to present the latest advances in our project,” he added. “From the start, our common purpose has been to create the Games of a new era—Games that are responsible, sustainable, socially conscious, and open for everyone to take part.”

Inquiry discovers doping cover-ups in weightlifting COULD Lionel Messi’s injury be that bad? AP

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ÜSSELDORF, Germany—An investigation into the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has found doping coverups and millions of dollars in missing money, lead investigator Richard McLaren said Thursday.

McLaren said 40 positive doping tests were “hidden”in IWF records and that athletes whose cases were delayed or covered up went on to win medals at the world championships and other events. The cases will be referred to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“We found systematic governance failures

and corruption at the highest level of the IWF,” McLaren said.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it was studying the report “very carefully,” adding that “the content is deeply concerning.”

McLaren said former IWF President Tamas Ajan was “an autocratic leader” who kept the board in the dark about finances and left officials fearing reprisals if they spoke out. Ajan received cash payments on behalf of the IWF as doping fines from national federations or sponsors, the report said, but what

Organizers updated the Commission on the status of Games-related construction projects, with the commission passing on their congratulations for the awarding of contracts for two Olympic venues to Bouygues in recent weeks, and the start of demolition works on the site of the Olympic and Paralympic Village.

Bouygues was awarded contracts to construct Arena Porte de la Chapelle, a venue that will host the badminton, Para-taekwondo and Para-badminton, as well as the Aquatic Centre, which will host artistic swimming, diving, water polo and swimming.

Paris 2024 organizers also covered the status of the Paralympic Games, the progress of a number of other venues, the unveiling of Paris’s new emblem, the launch of the Terre de Jeux 2024 initiative and the Club 2024 project, as well as giving updates on its legacy and sustainability plans. Insidethegames happened to some of the money is unclear.

McLaren said $10.4 million was unaccounted for, based on his team’s analysis of cash going in and out of the IWF over several years. Ajan denies any wrongdoing.

The largest fine recorded in the report was $500,000 paid by Azerbaijan. It’s unclear how that payment was made. On one trip to Thailand for a competition and conference, Ajan collected more than $440,000 across 18 cash payments, according to the report.

“Everyone was kept in financial ignorance through the use of hidden bank accounts [and transfers],” McLaren said. “Some cash was accounted for, some was not.” AP

Everyone’s concerned as Messi misses one practice

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ADRID—One missed practice was enough to raise concerns about Lionel Messi.

Messi’s presence in next week’s return of the Spanish league was put in doubt by some Barcelona media after he trained separately from the group on Wednesday.

Even though Barcelona said there was no reason to worry about Messi, and that he simply underwent an alternative training program in the gym, some reports said there could be more to it.

Catalan channel TV3 said Messi has

a minor thigh muscle problem that could keep him from being ready to play in Barcelona’s June 13 match at Mallorca, the team’s first since the league was halted nearly three months ago because of the coronavirus pandemic.

TV3 said late Wednesday that Messi underwent tests to determine the real extent of the injury.

Barcelona did not confirm Messi had to be tested.

Thursday was a scheduled rest day for the club, with the squad returning on Friday to continue its preparations.

Messi missed nearly two months at the

beginning of the season after hurting a calf muscle in the first preseason training.

He is the league leading scorer with 19, five more than Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema. Messi also has the most assists, with 12.

Defender Clément Lenglet is set to miss the trip to Mallorca because of an accumulation of yellow cards, but striker Luis Suárez, who underwent right knee surgery in January and was expected to miss the season before the pandemic, has been practicing normally and is expected to be back in action in Mallorca. AP

RAFAEL NADAL didn’t touch a racket for more than two months before recently resuming training in a less-intense way than normal and “not testing my body.” AP

NADAL RELUCTANT ON U.S. OPEN CAMPAIGN

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F it weren’t for a pandemic-caused postponement, the French Open would have been in Week 2 now, and Rafael Nadal might still have been in contention for a 20th Grand Slam title. Instead, he’s home in Spain, practicing lightly—and wondering along with everyone else in tennis whether the next Grand Slam tournament, the US Open, will be held.

And if it is, would he play?

“If you [ask] me today, today I will say, ‘No,’” Nadal said with a shake of his head during a videoconference call with The Associated Press and other wire services Thursday.

“In a couple of months? I don’t know.

Hopefully, ‘Yes,’” he continued. “But we need to wait probably until we have more clear information about how the virus evolves and how the situation is going to be in New York in a couple of months. Because, of course, New York has been one of the places that have been very strongly hit by the virus. So let’s see.”

Nadal thinks there are two key requirements for the US Open to happen— and for tennis to resume anywhere: assurances about being protected from the coronavirus and having everyone be able to fly internationally.

“We can’t come back until the situation is completely safe enough in terms of [health],” he said, “and fair enough in terms of all the players from every single [country] can travel to the tournaments under safe circumstances to compete.”

Tennis, like most sports, has been on hold since March because of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Association of Tennis Professionals

and Women’s Tennis Association tours are suspended at least until late July. The French Open’s start was pushed back from May until September. Wimbledon was canceled for the first time in 75 years.

A decision about the US Open is expected within weeks; the tournament’s main draw is scheduled to begin in New York on August 31.

The US Tennis Association’s chief executive for pro tennis, Stacey Allaster, told the AP on Saturday that contingency plans include providing charter flights from around the world for players and requiring proof of negative virus tests before travel.

“I really believe we need to be patient, be responsible,” Nadal said, “and we need to [be] calm and do the things the right way.”

Nadal, who turned 34 on Wednesday, said he didn’t touch a racket for more than two months before recently resuming training in a less-intense way than normal and “not testing my body.”

“I am going very slow, step by step, not playing every single day and not practicing much,” he said.

Usually at this time of year, he is exerting himself on the red clay of Roland Garros, where he has won a record 12 of his 19 major championships.

He’s neither optimistic nor pessimistic right now about whether the French Open can be played later in 2020.

“I miss playing tennis. I miss playing the tournament that I love the most,” Nadal said. “But at the same time, my mind is not thinking about that. My mind is focused on trying to recover the normal life. The first thing we have to do is recover the normal.” AP