BusinessMirror June 08, 2021

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SASO U.S. OPEN CHAMP

Yuka Saso captures the US Women’s Open—the first Filipino to win a golf major­—at the Olympic Club in San Francisco on Sunday and on hand to celebrate with her are a horde of fans who live just up the road from Daly City—dubbed “Little Manila“ for its large population of Filipinos. Story on B8 photo courtesy lpga.com

RICE IMPORT VALUATION SPURS CUSTOMS CHECK

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n Tuesday, June 8, 2021 Vol. 16 No. 237

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 24 pages |

Residents of Parañaque City queue up for their turn to be vaccinated inside SM City Mall. The government launched on Monday (June 7, 2021) the vaccination of the A4 priority group or the country’s essential workers—the private sector workers required to be physically present in their workplace, employees in government agencies, informal sector workers and selfemployed persons who work outside their homes, and those working in private households. The initial phase targets 13 million workers, and eventually, 35.5 million. NONIE REYES

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By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

HE Bureau of Customs (BOC) said it is looking into valuation issues on rice shipments from Vietnam after noticing that most of the imports were declared with values lower than the published prevailing prices for exports from that country.

In a Department of Finance Executive Committee (Execom) me e t i n g , C u s t om s C om m i s sioner Rey Leonardo B. Guerrero reported that the average value of rice imports, coming mostly from Vietnam, dropped 12.7 percent to P19,312 per metric ton in May 2021, compared to P22,119 per MT in the same month last year. The average value of rice in May was also lower than the P21,066 per MT recorded in April and P22,119

per MT in March. “We discovered that many of these importations are under a tentative assessment so we are reviewing the payments,” Guerrero said. Customs spokesman Assistant Commissioner Atty. Vincent Philip Maronilla also told the BusinessMirror on Monday that they are doing a transaction audit of the rice shipments from Vietnam from January to May this year. See “Rice import,” A2

Financing, red tape restrain Luzon power fix By Lenie Lectura

E

@llectura

NERGY experts on Monday said financing and the permitting process remain to be the biggest hindrances to achieving a comfortable power supply level in Luzon. Alberto R. Dalusung III, energy transition advisor of Institute of Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), said during a forum that “a mix of supply and demand actions” is the answer to a possible power crisis that is likely to happen

in 2022 if no new capacity is added to the grid. Demand, he said, can be tweaked via load curtailment and own-use generation. Supply, on the other hand, is a different issue. “You can’t just replace a coal plant with another coal plant in a year so we need to think of solutions in terms of quick to deploy power plants. Solar is the quickest to deploy,” said Dalusung. The Department of Energ y (DOE), he said, has already issued 9,000 megawatts (MW) of service contracts in Luzon.

PESO exchange rates n US 47.8000

Solar option

Though solar is not available 24 hours a day, ICSC Senior Policy Advisor Atty. Pedro Maniego Jr. said these can address the 1,700 to 1,800 MW deficit in Luzon during peak hours, which is normally from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. when solar plants produce higher generation. “If you have enough solar, they could be more than enough to augment the supply requirement during these times. Proponents are ready to build but the problem is funding. Our banks

will not give you loans unless they have the PSA [power supply agreement] and it is difficult to get that, especially when you are just a small renewable player,” said Maniego.

Bottlenecks

Financial Futures Center founder Sara Jane Ahmed stressed the need for the country to build more capacity. “It takes a long time to build and the reason for that is not [the] actual building of it, rather, it’s the process. See “Financing,” A2

WITH FUND BOOST VIA ‘MANDANAS,’ LGUS PREP FOR FULL DEVOLUTION By Jonathan L. Mayuga

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@jonlmayuga

NTERIOR Secretary Eduardo M. Año said the full devolution of basic services and facilities from the national to the local government units will begin next year, simultaneous with the increased share of local government units in all national taxes and revenues, following President Duterte’s signing of Executive Order 138. “With EO 138, the long-cherished goal of LGUs to finally implement the full devolution of powers and resources mandated by the 1991 Local Government Code will happen under this administration. Under full devolution, many good things are coming our LGUs’ way and the public in general starting next year,” Año said a statement on Monday. Duterte’s EO, he said, will ensure that the policy of decentralization as enshrined in

the Constitution and the Local Government Code, as well as the increase in the LGU’s just share in national taxes, as provided for in the Mandanas-Garcia ruling of the Supreme Court, will be carried out systematically and smoothly. “We thank President Duterte for staying true to his commitment to local autonomy and full devolution through the signing of this EO. This will start the ball rolling and ensure that LGUs will be ready for bigger responsibilities that come with more financial resources. Dahil sa full devolution, ‘Aangat ang Lakas ng Lokal’ sa tulong ng ‘Dagdag na Pondo’ na magdudulot ng ‘Angat Serbisyo’ para sa mga mamamayan [Because of full devolution, the strength of LGUs will be increased with the help of more funds, which in turn will mean more services],” he said. Continued on A2

n japan 0.4367 n UK 67.6896 n HK 6.1621 n CHINA 7.4746 n singapore 36.0973 n australia 36.9733 n EU 58.1583 n SAUDI arabia 12.7460

Source: BSP (June 7, 2021)


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