Businessmirror june 27, 2017

Compliance professionals: What should they monitor in anticorruption?

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recently wrote about the arrival of a new tribe: the compliance professionals, and indicated the areas where their services are needed in organizations. Today, let me focus on specific tasks which are in line with the control processes the Integrity Initiative has developed over time. What are those tasks that he or she has to monitor?

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»continued on A12

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Tuesday, June 27, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 257

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

@joveemarie

he House of Representatives is now looking at including the sale of vehicles and real estate in the transactions that will be covered by the expanded AntiMoney Laundering Act (Amla).

This was disclosed by the chairman of the House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries, PDP-Laban Rep. Ben P. Evardone of

D.O.L.E. HAS UNTIL THURSDAY TO REPATRIATE ABOUT 1,000 FILIPINO WORKERS IN SAUDI

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

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@alyasjah

he Department of Lab o r a n d E mp l o y m e nt (DOLE) will have to race against time to meet its target of repatriating 6,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh’s amnesty program for undocumented migrants comes to a close on Thursday.

The DOLE and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) still need to bring home about 1,000 OFWs as of last Friday. Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III wants all the 6,000 Filipino migrants in Saudi Arabia that are seeking repatriation to be on Philippine soil before the deadline.

“As of [last Friday], a total of 5,016 OFWs from Saudi Arabia have already arrived in the country. We welcomed more than a hundred [last Saturday], so, all in all, we were able to repatriate more than 5,100 Filipino m ig r a nt s,” Owwa A d m i n i s trator Hans Leo J. Cacdac told the BusinessMirror.

Cacdac, together with Labor Undersecretary Dominador R. Say, headed the augmentation team that coordinated with labor attaches in Saudi Arabia in the roll-

ing out of the repatriation. Bello in April formed and instructed the augmentation team to ensure the swift, efficient and safe transport home of the repatriates.

In a previous interview with reporters, Bello said most of the repatriates were victims of maltreatment and illegal recruiters.

Bello added some of them were forced to flee their employers after being harmed or violated, so they sought refuge in Philippine labor offices in Saudi Arabia.

In a text message to the BusinessMirror, Labor Undersecretary Joel B. Maglunsod said the Philippine government has paid for the plane tickets of the repatriates. “The DOLE and the DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] have shouldered the expenses of their return flight.”

Maglunsod added that the government has provided financial aid to the repatriates. “They were given a cash assistance of P5,000 and a livelihood [capital] of P20,000 for Owwa members and P10,000 for non- Owwa members,” he said.

The first batch of repatriates was brought home by President Duterte in April after completing his state visits to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. Upon arrival at the airport, See “Dole,” A2

PESO exchange rates n US 50.3270

Eastern Samar.

Evardone said the members of his committee are eyeing to file several measures expanding further

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Why we need to accelerate military modernization

HB 5663

Manny B. Villar

The House-approved bill expanding anew the AntiMoney Laundering Act

the coverage of the Amla to include cockfighting, purchase of paintings, selling of cars, real-estate business and financial activities of various companies involving P5 million per every transaction.

These measures, he noted, are needed to strengthen the powers of the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

“We are now studying to file Continued on A2

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House wants real estate, auto sales covered by Amla

By Henry J. Schumacher

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THE ENTREPRENEUR

o Filipino should take the terrorist attack on Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, lightly, with thousands of families displaced, hundreds of lives lost and a city once vibrant with economic activities laid in ruins.

In today’s world, problems like this can happen in any country, but the Philippines is lucky for having a decisive president, who did not dilly-dally, but acted immediately to respond to the siege.

Continued on A10

BMReports

PHL sets sail for sea safety

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

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Part Two

HE Philippine Merchant Marine Rules and Regulations (PMMRR) of 1997, is now outdated, given that two decades have passed since it was first promulgated, and that new international rules are now in place.

Over the past few years the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) tried to overhaul the antiquated rules and regulations but has since failed due to various reasons, including lack of resources.

For this administration, however, Marina is raising its sails, and has revved up its motors to jump-start the actual updating of the 1997 rule to make the Philippine ship registry more attractive to foreign and local investors.

While it has created a task force of eight technical working groups to review and revise the two-decade-old rule book, the Marina has also sought the views of the maritime stakeholders. In August last year it invited groups to join any of the technical working groups, namely, ship building, repair, or conversion; ship safet y and occupationa l safety (health or environment);

This undated photo shows the province of Bohol underwater. The Philippine Coast Guard has intensified its safety measures to ensure that seafaring in the Philippines is on a par with its neighbors. STEPHANIE TUMAMPOS

manpower development; domestic shipping; overseas shipping; fishing vessels; pleasure craft or special vessels for tourism; and offshore vessels.

Marina officials have repeatedly said that updating the said set of rules and regulations have been “long overdue”, hence, the urgency of the matter.

Updating the decades-old rules is just a portion of the 10-year Maritime Industry Development Roadmap, which is aligned to the 2017- 2022 Philippine Development Plan, the Ambisyon Natin 2040, and the country’s commitments under various international conventions, agreements and protocols.

“The road map, which imple-

ments a mandate that has been long overdue, intends to provide an overarching framework to further develop and enhance the competitiveness of the country’s maritime industry,” the transportation department said in an e-mail.

The last time that the Philippines had such a road map for the Continued on A2

n japan 0.4521 n UK 63.8297 n HK 6.4536 n CHINA 7.3612 n singapore 36.2091 n australia 37.9516 n EU 56.1398 n SAUDI arabia 13.4184

Source: BSP (23 June 2017 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Tuesday, June 27, 2017

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PHL sets sail UNWTO conference concludes for sea safety with Manila ‘call for action’ Continued from A1

maritime industry was in the 1980s.

“We want to be able to produce doable and sustainable programs coming from all stakeholders in the industry to be able to produce highly qualified seafarers.

We also want to create a robust shipbuilding industry, a dynamic shipping hub and sustainable fishing sector to make the Philippines a major maritime country not just in Asia but the world,” Marina Administrator Marcial Q. Amaro said.

The maritime blue print seeks to strengthen Marina’s powers to accelerate and expand domestic shipping, modernize seaworthy ships, improve the ship repairing sector, revise and update memos to national laws and promote the Philippines as a haven for maritime services.

Aside from the safety regulations that Marina has put and will put in place, the Philippine Coast Guard has also intensified its safety measures to ensure that seafaring in the Philippines is on a par with its neighbors.

Continued from A12

He sees a critical need to “develop tourism products with a sustainable focus, helping to fit in with the local environment and ensure its preservation”. If not handled properly, “tourists will migrate to competing destinations or attractions,” he emphasized.

For her part, Roxana Arguedas, head of Information Management at the Costa Rican Tourism Board, urged the “need for a good methodology”, since tourism is a

large industry to measure.

Referring to her country experience, she proposed a social progress index (SPI) methodology as “a tool for measuring and understanding the well-being of the residents of tourist destinations to improve the way the public-private agendas are set in order to support social progress and inclusive and sustainable economic growth.”

She cited three indicators that can measure SPI, which include basic human needs, foundation of well-being and opportunities.

Vincent Nijs, project manager for research of Visit Flanders in Belgium, underscored the importance of the well-being of the residents in a tourist destination, as a key in projecting the place’s desirability. “Even the best destinations need supportive, happy and positive residents to convey the identity of the destinations in a positive way,” he observed in his study, titled “Learnings f rom R esident At t it udes to wards Tourism for Tourism City Management Activities.”

House wants real estate, auto sales covered by Amla Continued from A1

several measures to include cockfighting, purchase of paintings, selling of cars, realestate business and financial activities of various companies involving P5 million per every transaction in the coverage of Amla. We will do this one by one,” he said.

“But these proposals were not part of the amendment that we approved in May. We are in a hurry to pass the bill to include casinos because we do not want to get blacklisted by the international community,” Evardone added.

Before adjourning sine die in May, the House of Representatives has passed on third and final reading House Bill 5663 expanding the coverage of Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 to include casino operators, as well

as Internet and ship-based casinos and chipwashing, or junket operators, with respect to their casino financial transactions.

The bill is pending before the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies.

Under the bill, to be covered includes a transaction in cash or other equivalent monetary instrument involving a total amount in excess of P500,000 within one banking day, while for covered persons under this Act, a single casino financial transaction involving an amount in excess of P5 million or its equivalent in any other currency: provided that the said threshold may be adjusted by the council based upon the recommendation of the Congressional Oversight Committee.

According to Evardone, the amendments were intended not only to further strengthen the law, but also to make it fully compliant with the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000 Palermo Convention) and related UN Conventions, such as the UN Convention Against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988 Vienna Convention) and the UN Convention Against Corruption (2003 Merida Convention), and the international standards on combating money laundering and terrorist financing set by Financial Action Task Force (FATF) through its Revised 40 Recommendations.

The Amla was enacted in 2001 in reaction to the inclusion of the country by the FATF

in the “Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories” list, also known as the “black list”.

It has undergone three amendments so far, in 2003, 2012 and 2013.

He also said the passage of the measure would toughen up Amla following the $81-million Bangladeshi cyber heist last year. The diversion of Bangladeshi funds by hackers to R izal Commercial Banking Corp. that reportedly ended in the hands of local casinos exposed the vulnerability of the countr y’s establishments to illegal activities.

“This will enhance the country’s competitiveness and transparency of financial transactions. This will also improve the image of the gaming industry as a haven for investors,” Evardone said.

Citing the city of Bruges as an example, Nijs said a destination’s residents need to be empowered to enhance support for tourism.

“Empowered residents are better ambassadors, spokesmen of the city. The more residents feel empowered—proud, feel connected, are given a voice, are part of policymaking and planning—the more they see positive impacts and less of the negative impacts of tourism activities,” he said. “The more they see positive impacts, the more they support tourism.”

DOLE. . .

Continued from A1

they were handed P10,000 cash assistance—P5,000 from the social welfare department and P5,000 from the labor department—for their rebuilding.

According to Bello, the repatriation is Duterte’s way of repaying OFWs. “The President recognizes their contribution to the national economy, as they were remitting more than P1 trillion every year, which speaks almost half of our budget,” he said.

Riyadh has rolled out a 90-day amnesty program for undocumented migrants, as well as for workers who sought refuge in labor offices. It began on March 29 and is scheduled to end on Thursday.

The Nation BusinessMirror

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Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Tuesday, June 27, 2017 A3

Stricter profiling of travelers imposed at airport

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By Recto Mercene

@rectomercene

HE Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) unit of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Monday installed cameras at every counter to automatically photograph every departing and arriving passenger, including airline pilots and crew members, as part of the intensified campaign to stop potential terrorists who will attempt to gain entry into the country or try to flee.

The mug shots of individuals will be automatically downloaded on the BI servers that are linked in turn to servers maintained by international security agencies for future references of persons with derogatory record.

Immigration personnel have

tightened passenger screening measures following reports that some of the terrorists fighting government troops in Marawi City are foreigners.

Last week Immigration Commissioner Jaime H. Morente tasked immigration officers to thoroughly screen foreign passengers from coun-

tries where the foreign jihadists who linked up with local terrorists are believed to have originated.

He also directed Marc Red Mariñas, the bureau’s port operations division chief, to assign intelligence agents from the border control and intelligence unit (BCIU) at the airports to spot or watch out for suspected foreign terrorists who might attempt to enter the Philippines.

“Those who have questionable documents or doubtful purposes in coming to the country should be identified and booked on the first available flight to their ports of origin,” Morente said.

The bureau’s intelligence personnel and experts in profiling of individuals were posted at the arrival and departure areas, while Bureau of Customs agents help the immigration in providing information about individuals they monitored.

According to sources, the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) intelligence and security chief bought tracking devices that can monitor everybody roaming inside the Naia terminals.

The BI in 2015 installed at the

Naia the state-of-the-art “MIND” devices provided by the International Police Organization (Interpol) that can identify individuals from 190 countries with derogatory records.

The device can also recognize impostors or possible terrorists.

The Interpol’s device has colorcoded system of international alerts and has been endorsed as an important border security tool by the United Nation Security Council, G-8 European Union, International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) and by the law-enforcement representatives from Interpol’s 190 member-countries that includes the Philippines.

Morente last week ordered immigration officers to “double screen” all passengers coming from countries with foreign jihadists who are connected to local terrorist now operating in Mindanao.

The military also called for stricter immigration procedures after it received reports that some terrorists entered the country through the airports.

It was reported that some foreigners who helped the Maute Group in Mindanao came from Saudi Arabia,

Pakistan, Chechnya, Morocco, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, Armed Forces spokesman, said in a news conference that it is important to strengthen immigration procedures because of reports that some terrorists have obtained Philippinestamped passports and flew into the country.

“Kailangang patibayin o palakasin natin ang ating procedures sa immigration. Ito ang unang line of defense natin eh,” Padilla said.

In May immigration counters at the Naia terminals experienced long lines of passengers because there were only a few immigration officers available to process documents.

Immigration supervisors and agents from other airport units were ordered to come to the Naia and function as immigration officers.

Padilla added that the Human Security Act, or the Republic Act (RA) 9372, should also be reviewed.

“Kaya nga noong nakaraang linggo iminungkahi natin na kinakailangan siguro tignan nang mabuti ang Human Security Act para mas maging matibay. Ang mga puwedeng gawin

Snipers, land mines delay liberation of Marawi City

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ILITARY forces have made significant headway in clearing Marawi City of the remaining Maute Group remnants, but fighting in urban terrain with an enemy well versed in the use of homemade bombs, landmines and snipers has certainly posed significant challenges to the liberating military forces.

Adding to the difficulties is the presence of civilian hostages whom the bandits have no qualms in using as human shield if they get cornered by troops, the Armed Forces Spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, said over the weekend. “[Things] are difficult because of the urban terrain [which is the worst form of battlefield] and we are doing this [clearing operations] very carefully because we have compounding issues which are presence of hostages, residents who refused to leave their homes, continued discovery of homemade bombs [which necessitated] the door-to-door clearing operations being done by our troops,” Padilla said.

These factors have made combat

in Marawi City very complicated, he said.

These same factors are also present in most Middle East engagements with Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and al-Qaeda terrorists, and these contributed greatly to the length of time to neutralize them.

“In the case [of] the Battle of Mosul [in Iraq], it is still ongoing, since it started in October 2016… it not finished yet, although it has been going on for eight months. In Libya, [which conducted operations against] Daesh, the battle started May 12 and ended only last November 6, so it lasted over six months; in the Battle of Ramadi, where American and Iraqi militaries combined to fight the Daesh terrorists, the operation started April and ended only in November 2006 and during the Second Battle of Fallujah [where the Iraqi, American and British forces combined] against al-Qaeda terrorists, operations lasted November 7 up to December 23, 2004,” he added.

Fighting in Marawi City broke

Try tobacco ‘quitline’, group tells smokers DAY OF CELEBRATION Thousands of Filipino Muslims gather at Rizal Park to celebrate Eid’l Fitr or “Festival of Breaking of the Fast”.

Muslims worldwide celebrate it to mark the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. PNA

out when military forces tried to arrest Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon, the “emir” of Daesh in Southeast Asia, on May 23.

As of Monday, the death toll in the ongoing fighting is placed at 268 Maute Group bandits, 66 soldiers and police officers and 26 civilians.

‘Do not discriminate’

A SENATOR on Monday appealed to the public not to discriminate against evacuees from Marawi who seek temporary shelter in safer areas amid the ongoing conflict in their city.

“I appeal to the public not to stoke the flames of Islamophobia. Discrimination breeds hate. It builds walls.

It sustains unjust wars,” Sen. Anna Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel said in a statement coinciding with the celebration of Eid’l Fitr.

Hontiveros made the appeal following reports that a number of Maranaoans have complained of discrimination noting that some house and apartment owners in nearby provinces have refused to rent out their properties to them.

She said she understood the public’s security concerns, but warned them not to mistake discrimination for vigilance.

“This is the time for unity and solidarity. Amid these challenging times, we should not give in

to our fears and prejudice. Let us not play into the script of the Maute bandits, who want to sow fear and hate between Christians and Muslims,” she said.

The neophyte senator also urged government agencies to look into alleged cases of discriminatory practices against people displaced by the Marawi crisis, particularly Filipino-Muslims.

“The government must ensure that the well-being of all internally displaced persons are taken care of, including their protection from all forms of discrimination. They have suffered so much. Let us not add to their pain,” she added. PNA

‘Ilocos Six’ to CA: Declare our detention illegal, act of torture

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

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HE six employees of the Ilocos Norte local government who have been detained at the House of Representatives for almost a month have asked the Court of Appeals (CA) to declare their continued detention as illegal and a form of torture.

In a motion filed late last week at the CA’s Special Fourth Division, the petitioners—Josephine Calajate, Encarnacion Gaor, Genedine Jambaro, Evangeline Tabulog, Pedro Agcaoili Jr. and Eden Battulayan—also asked the appellate court to immediately resolve their petition for habeas corpus they said was crucial to the protection of their constitutional right for the case to be speedily resolved.

“Four weeks later, with a pending habeas corpus petition and a court order for their release, the petitioners still find themselves without any right to liberty, with no reprieve in sight and with no recourse to justice.

The four weeks that the petitioners have spent in detention is time lost which petitioners could never recover,” the 18-page motion which was filed through lead counsel, former

Solicitor General Estelito P. Mendoza, read.

“The Honorable Court, by exercising its power to issue the extraordinary writ of habeas corpus, may still relieve petitioners of the protracted and arbitrary deprivation of their liberty,” it added.

The six were detained on May 29 by the House Committee on Good Government and Accountability that is inquiring into the local government’s purchase of motor vehicles amounting to P66.45 million, which was allegedly sourced from its share of tobacco-excise taxes.

The petitioners, collectively known as “Ilocos Six”, noted that the CA has already issued three orders to the House of Representatives to present them to the court and release them but the House defied the court’s orders.

On June 1 the CA issued a resolution requiring Congress to file its comment on the case. A day after, the court issued a writ of habeas corpus and ordered the House of Representatives’s sergeant at arms, retired Lt. Gen. Roland Detabali, to produce the detained employees.

On June 9 the CA issued another resolution granting the petitioners request for provisional release pro-

para harangin ang pagpasok ng ganitong klaseng indibidwal [Last week we suggested that we should review the Human Security Act to strengthen the screening of these unwanted individuals],” he said.

Passed into law in 2007, RA 9372 deals with terrorism and is meant to “protect life, liberty and property from acts of terrorism, to condemn terrorism as inimical and dangerous to the national security of the country and to the welfare of the people, and to make terrorism a crime against the Filipino people, against humanity, and against the law of nations.”

A few days after President Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao, the government said five foreign terrorists were killed in a clash between government troops and Islamic State-inspired terror groups.

Gen. Eduardo Año, Armed Forces chief of staff, confirmed that three Malaysians, an Indonesian and possibly an Arab have been killed in Marawi City, as the military made advances in containing the siege in the city.

vided they post bail of P30,000 each.

The House has ignored all three orders—a move that observers said undermines the independence of the judiciary and may lead to a constitutional impasse.

“It should, likewise, be noted that in all attempts to serve the resolution and order of release, the Court of Appeals Process Server sought entrance at all gates of the House of Representatives, but in a clear sign of the deliberate and concerted effort of respondent and the leadership of the House of Representatives to subvert service, access to all gates were denied,” the petitioners said.

“The repeated refusal of respondent [Detabali] to appear before the court, the adamant refusal to receive service of the order of release of petitioners, and implicitly to comply with said order, reveals the lack of respect of respondent, and of his superiors, for the basic constitutional rights of petitioners. Moveover, such refusal to comply with lawful orders of the court reflect the repressive nature of the contempt order against petitioners and their consequent detention.”

The petitioners said there was no attempt on their part to refuse to answer the questions of the lawmakers, which resulted in their detention

after they were cited in contempt.

In their motion, the petitioners told the appellate court that Calajate, in particular, merely asked to be given more time to see the original documents, while Gaor and Jambaro admitted not remembering the transactions in question.

Tabulog told the House panel she was “not so sure” if she signed the documents, as the logbooks and registry being referred to have already been destroyed.

Agcaoili said he does not remember all the transactions as he has handled thousands of procurements, while Battulayan said she does not remember signing a voucher for the cash advance.

Nacionalista Party Rep. Rodolfo C. Fariñas of Ilocos Norte has repeatedly threatened the six employees that they may be held in detention until June 2019 or until the lawmakers are satisfied with their answers.

Mendoza insisted that “their continued detention was tantamount to mental torture.”

“The detainees are undergoing torture, which is barred by international conventions and barred explicitly under our laws, as well,” he said.

“We have already filed a writ of habeas corpus. That is more than

enough. The writ of habeas should be immediately executory,” Mendoza added.

Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez, in particular, has been vocal in rejecting the appellate court’s order, calling the CA justices “ignorant of the law”.

This led the CA’s Special Fourth Division to start its contempt of court proceedings against Alvarez and Detabali for disregarding its three orders.

Last week the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability issued a show cause order requiring the three CA justices handling the habeas corpus case of the six Ilocos Norte officials to explain why they should not be cited in contempt for ordering their release from detention.

This prompted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and CA Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. to express deep concern on the “implications on separation of powers and judicial independence” of the show cause order issued by the House committee against Associate Justices Stephen Cruz, Edwin Sorongon and Nina Antonio-Valenzuela of the appellate court’s Special Fourth Division.

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HE New Vois Association of the Philippines (NVAP) over the weekend called on the smoking public to give the Department of Health (DOH) ‘quitline’ a try.

The quitline is a phone- and mobile-centered support service to help Filipino smokers quit tobacco.

Nvap President Emer Rojas said the group hopes smokers will take advantage of the smoking cessation program recently launched by the department at the Lung Center in Quezon City.

“We should all value health as our primary concern. We, therefore, urge all smokers to avail [themselves] of the free DOH quitline and be on their way to enjoy life to the fullest,” Rojas said.

He said the program can help a lot in the goal to quit and a best chance to start living a smoke-free life.

He added that reluctance to try the program may result in the smokers’ developing noncommunicable diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, heart ailments, hypertension and diabetes, among others.

“If they don’t quit, then, they take the risk and may end up as victims, like me, or even worse, die,” said Rojas, who is a former smoker and a laryngeal cancer survivor.

The quitline can be accessed by calling 165364. Smokers can receive real-time counseling and support through the telephone.

On the other hand, the mobilebased cessation program, which can be done via texting ‘STOPSMOKE’ to (29290)165364, will provide clients with text messages of support and guidance to quit smoking.

“Tobacco smoking is one of the single leading cause of death and diseases in the world. The quitline is the final link to complete government support to the NCD [newcastle disease] prevention program of the country,” Rojas added.

For that, he lauded Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial for that well done accomplishment under her leadership in the health department.

Based on the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)-Philippines 2015, over 76 percent of the respondents are interested in quitting.

More than 56 percent of the GATS-Philippines 2015 respondents also said they have been advised to quit smoking by their health-care providers. PNA

Economy

A4 Tuesday, June 27, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

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LGUs urged to help protect No region should be left behind inland wetlands and caves in Duterte infra bonanza–solon he P8.4 trillion that President B Duterte plans to invest in new y helping protect the country’s inland wetlands, such as rivers and lakes, local government units (LGUs) can help ensure sustainable supply of freshwater throughout the country, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said.

Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim of the DENR-Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) said LGUs can help establish local management regimes of lakes to strengthen existing protection mechanisms in support of national government programs.

According to Lim, integrating the protection of inland wetlands that can be a viable source of freshwater, including rivers, lakes, marshes, peatlands and even underwater rivers, is important to ensure not only

water for domestic consumption, but also for food production.

“Local government units can help protect these inland wetlands by integrating it in their development agenda and their comprehensive land use plan,” Lim said.

In the face of climate change’s worst impacts, the official stressed that LGUs should allocate funds to keep inland wetlands healthy.

“Inland wetlands, like river systems, lakes, marshlands, peatlands and caves, have many potential benefits because of the ecosystem services they provide,” Lim said.

She said inland wetlands help mitigate the effects of climate change, foremost of which is sea-level rise, including storm surge in the event of intense typhoons. “ S ome l a k e s h ave out le t s

Inland wetlands, like river systems, lakes, marshlands, peatlands and caves, have many potential benefits because of the ecosystem services they provide.”—Lim

through which saltwater comes in during the high tide. This help prevent flood,” Lim said. Marshes and peats, she added, do the same thing.

The DENR-BMB recently announced the release of the first edition of the 2016 Atlas of Philippine Inland Wetlands and Classified Caves to aid stakeholders in coming up with development plans without jeopardizing wetlands and cave ecosystems. A total of 314 inland wetlands, 2,487 river systems and 416 classified caves are featured in the 172-page publication.

A first of its kind, the publication can now be downloaded from the official DENR-BMB web site.

According Lim, it is time to attend to all-important inland wetlands and caves, noting that much of government and private-sector initiatives are traditionally divided into two ecosystems—the forest or terrestrial and the coastal and marine ecosystems.

Inland wetlands, which include caves, are very unique ecosystems that are as important in protecting and conserving the country’s rich biodiversity, Lim added. Jonathan L. Mayuga

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public infrastructure should be distributed evenly countrywide to foster balanced economic growth across all regions, House Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said on Monday.

“Development planners should see to it that the money is spent prudently, and spread out as fairly as possible so that all Filipinos will enjoy the economic benefits. No region should be left behind,” Atienza said in a news statement.

“We really have to renew our aging infrastructure, so we are all behind the President’s highly aggressively strategy,” said Atienza, former three-term mayor of Manila.

He said the enormous spending should create new economic opportunities for less-developed areas and help stem resettlements in highly urbanized and congested districts.

P e o p l e will go to where the money is, and to where the jobs are,

so every region should get its fair share,” Atienza said.

He said the huge investment in new roads, bridges, railways and airport improvements is expected to spur a multitude of recurring construction-related jobs that would immediately benefit lowincome households.

“Construction workers come mostly from underprivileged families. They also tend to spend their money in a manner likely to benefit other disadvantaged households,” Atienza said.

“Chances are, they will buy their food and other basic necessities from the nearest street vendor, carinderia or sari-sari store, and not from Jollibee or 7-Eleven,” he said.

The administration’s push for a “Golden Age of Infrastructure” calls for big projects throughout Duterte’s six-year term, including the country’s first underground

₧8.4T The amount that the Duterte administration plans to invest in infrastructure projects under the “Build, Build, Build” program

electric railroad.

The proposed P227-billion Mega Manila Subway promises to take commuters from Quezon City to Taguig City in just half an hour.

Atienza favors the subway project “since we can no longer widen most roads in Metro Manila, we have to either build tunnels, or put up more elevated trains.”

Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are set to ink in November a deal that would pave the way for the construction of the subway system, which will be funded in part by official development assistance from Tokyo.

The administration plans to boost annual investments in infrastructure until it reaches an amount equal to 7.4 percent of the country’s GDP by the end of Duterte’s term in 2022.

At present, annual government spending for infrastructure amounts to just 5.4 percent of the total value of all goods and services produced by the country in a year.

Kidney care Topnotch nephrologist and kidney transplant specialist Dr. Romina A. Danguilan (fourth from

left) underscores the importance of kidney care during the Regalo Organ Donation Advocacy event last Thursday at the Atrium of the National Kidney Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City. With Danguilan are (from left) Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial; Dr. Enrique Ona, president and chairman of the Maria Corazon Torres Y. Javier Foundation; and NKTI Executive Director Dr. Rose Marie Rosete-Liquete. Nonoy Lacza

Local fireworks group seeks review of pyrotechnics ban

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OCAUE, Bulacan—While agreeing on the good intention of President Duterte’s signing of Executive Order (EO) 28, which limit the use of firecrackers to community fireworks display, the Philippine Pyrotechnics Manufacturers and Dealers Association Inc., (PPMDAI) is appealing to the Chief Executive to consider their proposals aimed at uplifting the local fireworks industry through science and technology (S&T).

“The pyrotechnic industry is more on S&T, and through science, injuries can be avoided.

Confining it to a designated zone is not a long term solution because lighting of fireworks is a centuries-old tradition of Filipinos,” said Celso C. Cruz, chairman emeritus of PPMDAI. The EO stated that because of the firecrackerrelated injuries and deaths, “the promulgation of stricter national standards, rules and regulations is warranted.” It was signed by Duterte on June 20.

The PPMDAI, however, said they are hoping that Duterte will review the EO which, the group said, is provided under Republic Act (RA) 7183, mandating that the “industry should be uplifted to enhance cultural heritage and tradition”.

“We understand the good intention of our President. However, there are things that should

be considered. The lightning of firecrackers is part of the traditions which cannot [be] stop[ped] immediately,” Cruz said.

He added that even before Duterte assumed presidency, previous administrations has already banned the deadly “picolo”, the major culprit in the number of firecracker-related injuries. “Picolo has long been banned, but until now it is still the cause of firecracker injuries,” Cruz added.

He said the government, through the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), is helping the PPMDAI and the local fireworks industry to be safer and on a par with global standards.

“The PNP, which is the administrator of RA 7183, has already came up with its implementing rules and regulations. In coordination with the PNP-Civil Security Group, the PPMDAI is regularly conducting safety training seminars on the manufacture and sale of fireworks and pyrotechnics. No safety seminar, no permit.

And the PNP is very strict on this. The DOST, on the other hand, is willing to fund the uplifting of local fireworks by making it on a par with international standards by producing safe and quality products,” Cruz said. PNA

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Tuesday, June 27, 2017

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China sustaining rise in per-capita-GDP rank

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hina’s transformation from rags to riches isn’t over quite yet.

Thanks to economic reforms put in place by Deng Xiaoping from the 1970s that set off rapid industrialization and urbanization, the China miracle is set to continue with its per-capita GDP seen rising to 64th out of 166 countries by 2022, up from being the 133rd-poorest in 1992—on par with Haiti and with over half its population living on less than $2 a day.

T he c u r rent $16,676 per c ap it a - GDP l e v e l i s a l re a d y higher than Brazil ’s when adjusted for purchasing power, according to a Bloomberg analysis of International Monetar y Fund (IMF) data.

Impor tant ly, t his r ise has translated into tangible benefits. The Chinese live six years longer on average and have full access to electricity, less than

$16,676 The amount of current percapita-GDP level in China

2 percent of the population live under the global poverty line and the average calorie deficit

A woman walks by an electronic stock board showing the Hang Seng Index at a bank in Hong Kong on June 16. AP/Kin Cheung

has been cut by more than half, according to World Bank data going back to 1992.

Over the next five years, China’s per-person economic growth will see it bypassing the likes of

Mexico and oil-rich Azerbaijan, putting it just shy of Argentina.

T he countr y’s ongoing shift f rom a manufact ur ing-based economy to a ser v ices-dr iven one w il l likely play a par t in

this, as may the recent end to China’s one-child policy. At the same time, additional progress could come at the cost of a widening income gap, as well as increased environmental strains

around the country’s pollutionplagued cities.

Like China, fellow Group of 20 members India, South Korea and Indonesia are expected to achieve double-digit improvements in their per capita GDP rankings between 1992 and 2022.

T he United States w il l remain unchanged in 10th place globally, while 10 members will see t hei r re l at ive st a nd i ngs deter iorate. China also stands out among its emerging market Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa peers, modestly closing the gap with Russia’s mid-40s rank position and passing South Africa and Brazil in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

Despite all this progress, China still hasn’t closed a yawning income gap between itself and the world ’s wealthiest economies, currently around $26,000 with Japan and nearly $43,000 with the US. Five years from now, this sizeable divide will remain.

Current-price purchasing power parity, used in this analysis, allows for a comparison of relative living standards by normalizing for pricing and currency differences across countries.

Bloomberg News

Italy commits $19B for Veneto Trump approves $2-B sale of drones to India W banks in largest state deal

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taly will commit as much as €17 billion ($19 billion) to clean up two failed banks in one of its wealthiest regions in the nation’s biggest rescue on record.

The intervention at Banca Popolare di Vicenza SpA and Veneto Banca SpA includes state support for Intesa Sanpaolo SpA to acquire their good assets for a token amount, Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said last Sunday after an emergency Cabinet meeting in Rome.

Milan-based Intesa can initially tap about €5.2 billion to take on some assets without hurting capital ratios, Padoan said. The European Commission said it approved the plan.

The lenders will be split into good and bad banks, and the firms will be open on Monday, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said.

Intervention was needed because depositors and savers were at risk, he said. The northern region where they operate “is one of the most important for our economy, above all for small- and mediumsize businesses”.

While an additional €12 billion will be available to cover potential further losses, Padoan said, the Italian Treasury estimates the fair value of the losses at about €400 million. That amount is already included in the funds provided to Intesa.

T he gover nment t r ied for months to find a way to keep the banks afloat, including an appeal to wealthy businessmen in the region to contribute to a rescue.

Those efforts ended last Friday when the European Central Bank (ECB) said the two banks are failing or were likely to fail and turned the matter over to the Single Resolution Board (SRB) in Brussels for disposal. The SRB, in turn, passed the issue back to Italian authorities to allow the banks to be wound down under local law.

Protecting savers

Intesa agreed to purchase the assets of the two banks, for €1, the lender said in a statement on Monday. The intervention will safeguard jobs at the banks as well as the savings of about 2 million households and the financial interests of 200,000 businesses, it said.

Intesa will allocate €60 million

as restitution to savers who hold subordinated bonds of the banks.

Since the ECB’s decision last Friday, Italy rushed to assemble the measures to carry out the plan because a local regulatory framework was required to allow the banks to open on Monday.

T he dea l craf ted over t he weekend is in l ine w it h t he bloc’s state-aid r u les. Shareholders of the t wo banks as well as holders of subordinated debt “ f u l ly contr ibuted ” to the plan, limiting costs of the Ita lian state, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

Different views

The solution will limit competition distortions because the two Veneto banks will exit the market, or be significantly downsized in the case of those activities that are transferred to Intesa, according to the commission.

Their liquidation with state support was hashed out less than three weeks after Spain organized an orderly sale of Banco Popular Espanol SA to Banco Santander SA without state aid, and amid talks to allow Italy to rescue Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, the world ’s oldest bank, through a so-called precautionary recapitalization.

In recent months, “bank intervention is specific to each troubled bank situation on its own conditions, with government and regulatory decisions on how to intervene influenced by multiple major macro factors”, said David Hendler, founder of Viola Risk Advisors, a credit analysis firm in New York state. “For global bank investors, the European banking sector and how to invest in it is very confusing, not uniform, and difficult to predict.”

Crucial decision

The decision to let Italy dispose of the two banks under national insolvency law was crucial in shielding senior debt from losses.

The EU’s bank-failure law, known as the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD), puts investors, including senior creditors, on the hook for losses if necessary to fund restructuring. The BRRD is part of the EU’s attempt to prevent

the public bailouts seen during the financial crisis.

It was “a very pragmatic decision” to interpret the BRRD leniently in this case and shouldn’t affect investor confidence in the European banking union, said Marina Brogi, a professor of international banking and capital markets at Sapienza University in Rome.

“To be effective and avoid sizeable unintended consequences it would have been better to give banks more time to modify their liabilities before” the new rules on banks resolutions came into force, she said.

The two banks were forced to seek government aid after they failed to raise capital from investors in 2016. After reviewing their books, the ECB in April said they needed about €6.4 billion of new capital, prompting a search for ways to bridge the gap.

Prev iously, Italy sought to rescue the lenders through a socalled precautionary recapitalization, using a mix of state and private funds, as well as debt and equity write-downs to finance the removal of bad debts. The private sector balked at the plan.

Intesa offer

Intesa earlier in the week offered to take on the assets of the two Veneto banks on the condition that it wouldn’t harm its own capital and dividends. The proposal excluded soured debt, higher-risk performing loans and subordinated bonds, along with shareholdings and other “legal relationships”. A purchase would only move forward if it didn’t lower Intesa’s common equity Tier-1 ratio, the bank said.

T he finance minister reiterated that the measures w ill ensu re t hat senior cred itors a nd depositors of Popol a re d i Vicenza and Veneto Banca wou ld be protected in the w ind-dow n under nationa l insolvenc y law, a nd c ustomers wou ld see no inter r upt ion in ser v ice. Reta i l junior bondholders involved in t he bu rden sha r ing—who ca n be reimbursed up to 80 percent accord ing to r u les—w i l l be to t a l ly ref u nded because Intesa sa id it ca n f i l l t he gap.

Bloomberg News

A S H I N G T O N —T h e Tr u mp ad m i n i s t r a tion has author ized the sale of unarmed surveillance drones to India, the manufacturer said last Friday, as the two nations’ leaders prepare for their first face-to-face meeting.

India initiated its request to buy 22 Guardian MQ -9B unmanned aircraft for maritime surveillance last year. The deal is estimated to be worth about $2 billion. The offer is still subject to congressional approval. The green light from the administration marks a further deepening in defense ties as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with President Donald J. Trump at the White House on Monday.

Modi’s two-day visit to Washington, which starts last Sunday, takes place amid uncertainty over the relationship because of differences on trade and other issues.

So far in his presidency, Trump has focused on outreach to China, India’s strategic rival, as he looks to Beijing to rein in North Korea.

But Washington and New Delhi share concerns about China’s rise as a military power.

India reportedly wants the drones for surveillance of the Indian Ocean—waters that China’s navy increasingly traverses after establishing its first overseas base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. India’s archrival Pakistan would also likely be opposed to the drone sale.

“We are pleased that the US government has cleared the way for the sale of the MQ-9B Guardian to the Indian government,” Linden Blue, CEO of the manufacturer, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said in a statement.

Blue added that it would “significantly enhance India’s sovereign maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific”.

A congressional staffer familiar with the matter confirmed the administration has approved the sale. The staffer was not authorized to discuss the potential deal and requested anonymity.

David McKeeby, spokesman for the State Department bureau of political-military affairs, said it does not comment on proposed defense sales before Congress is formally notified.

A senior White House official said last Friday the US is interested in providing India the kind of high technology it provides to its closest allies and defense partners.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa laugh as they walk together at the Necessidades Palace, the Portuguese Foreign Ministry in Lisbon, Portugal, on June 24. Modi is on a one-day visit to Portugal. AP/Armando Franca

That is important to the strategic partnership and for cooperation in areas like the Indian Ocean, and also creates US jobs, said the official, who requested anonymity to brief reporters on the preparations for Modi’s visit.

India does not have a formal alliance with the US, but defense ties have intensified in recent years with joint drills between the two militaries and defense sales.

The South Asian nation, which has traditionally bought most of its defense equipment from Russia, is looking to upgrade its capabilities. Since 2008, India has signed more than $15 billion in US defense contracts, including for C-130J and C-17 transport aircraft, P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, Harpoon missiles and Apache and Chinook helicopters.

A sh le y Te l l i s, a n e x per t on S out h A s i a at t he C a r ne g ie Endow ment for I nter n at ion a l Peace, s a id t he US dec i sion to of fe r t he Gu a rd i a n a i rc r a f t to I nd i a i s sig n i f ic a nt a s t he US h a s a st a nd i ng pol ic y of dec l i n i ng e x por t of suc h adv a nced d rones ot her t h a n to a l l ies i nvolve d i n combi ne d operat ion s w it h US forces. “ Muc h bu reauc rat ic c h i n a within the US government had to be broken to get to this decision,” he said.

There could still be pushback from Congress. While there is bipartisan support for closer USIndia security ties, some lawmakers remain wary of the export of US drone technology to non-allies.

Modi, a Hindu nationalist, will be making his fourth visit to the US since he took office in

2014. He forged a strong relationship with President Barack Obama, and on his last visit in June 2016, he addressed Congress and described the US as an “ indispensable partner”.

The visit is likely to be lower key and aimed at building a personal bond between the two leaders, who have spoken twice by phone since Trump took office.

Modi will be the first foreign dignitary to be hosted for dinner at the White House during Trump’s presidency.

They share a populist streak and a knack for using social media, and are likely to find common ground on combating Islamic extremism. Modi will be urging a tougher stance on Pakistan over militants that India blames for attacks on its territory.

But there could be increased strains on trade issues.

India is among nations singled out by the Trump administration for their trade surpluses with the US, which in India’s case totaled $30.8 billion in 2016.

Ne w De l h i i s a l so c lose ly watching the administration’s review of the H1B visa program, under which thousands of skilled Indian workers come to the US. New Delhi was irked by Tr ump’s decision to pu l l out of the Paris climate accord. In making the announcement, the US president said New Delhi had made its participation “contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid.” India denies that and says it will continue to be part of the accord, regardless of US participation. AP

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Takata files for bankruptcy protection

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OKYO—Takata, the Japanese auto parts maker crippled by vast air bag recalls, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States last Sunday evening and said it would sell its surviving operations to a Chinese-owned American rival, Key Safety Systems.

The deal seals the fate of the company at the center of the farthest-reaching auto safety crisis in history. Exploding Takata air bags have been linked to at least 14 deaths.

Carmakers have recalled nearly 70 million of the company’s air bags in the US, in 42 million vehicles, as well as millions overseas.

Takata said it would sell its factories and other assets to Key Safety Systems, which makes air-bags and other autosafety equipment.

Key Safety Systems said it would buy Takata’s factories and other assets for about $1.6 billion. Key Safety Systems is based in Michigan but is owned by a company in China, Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp.

The deal effectively means the end of Takata, which was established in 1933 and is still controlled by its founding family.

Shigehisa Takada, the company ’s chief executive, said a court-supervised restruc turing was the best way to ensure that Takata could keep supplying automakers.

“We needed to consider the impact on the global car industry, not just in Japan but also in the United States and Europe,” Takada said.

A new corporate entity established by Key Safety Systems will take over Takata’s production operations, which encompass seat belts and other equipment, as well as air bags. Despite its troubles, Takata has held on to about 20 percent of the global air bag market, which is dominated by just a handful of companies.

Takata will continue to exist on paper, at least for a while. But instead of making air bags, its work will be to pay off debts.

Takata owes billions of dollars to banks and automakers, which have been paying to replace tens of millions of potentially dangerous Takata air bag inflaters.

And it has promised the US government that it will pay $125 million in compensation to victims. Lawsuits could add to the burden.

Takata agreed in January to plead guilty in the US to wire fraud for providing false data to safety regulators. The recalled Takata air-bag inflaters can explode with too much force in a collision, sending shrapnel flying through a vehicle’s cabin.

Takata’s bankruptcy is thought to be the largest ever by a Japanese manufacturing company. The cost of the recalls continues to mount, and Takata said it could not yet estimate the scale of the liabilities it would ultimately face. But the figure is expected to be about $10 billion.

Bankruptcy will leave at least some of Takata’s creditors out in the cold. Even after selling its assets, the company will not have enough money to pay everyone it owes.

Among the biggest unsecured creditors of Takata’s US operation, according to a court filing, are virtually all of the major automakers, led by Honda, Toyota and Fiat Chrysler.

Once the last of Takata’s obligations are settled, the company will shut down.

Takata initially said it hoped to find a buyer for all or part of its business last year. But the question of who would be stuck with its liabilities has been a stumbling block in the complex negotiations over its fate.

The controlling Takada family initially appeared to be holding out hope that it could find a white-knight investor to save the company—perhaps by buying a minority stake—leaving Takata intact and out of bankruptcy. But no buyer wanted to share responsibility for the still unknown final cost of resolving the recalls and their aftermath.

The sale to an American-Chinese buyer is notable in Japan. Japanese politicians and government officials have often cajoled domestic businesses to save competitors rather than let them fail or be swooped up by foreigners.

The Japanese media had speculated that a “Rising Sun alliance” of Japanese carmakers—led by Honda, Takata’s largest customer—might bail out Takata. But carmakers pushed back against the idea, fearing ballooning liabilities and anger from their shareholders.

New York Times News Service

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

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Trump to call for US ‘dominance’ in global energy production

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onald J. Trump will tout surging US exports of oil and natural gas during a week of events aimed at highlighting the country’s growing energy dominance.

The president also plans to emphasize that after decades of relying on foreign energy supplies, the US is on the brink of becoming a net exporter of oil, gas, coal and other energy resources.

As with previous White House policy-themed weeks, such as a recent one focusing on infrastructure, the framing is designed to draw attention to Trump’s domestic priorities and away from more politically treacherous matters, such as multiple investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

With “Energy Week ”, Trump is returning to familiar territory—and to the coal, oil and gas industries on which he’s already lavished attention.

Tr ump’s first major polic y speech on the campaign trail, delivered in the oil-drilling hotbed of North Dakota in 2016, focused on his plans for unleashing domestic energy production.

The issue has also been a major focus during Trump’s first five months in office, as he set in motion the reversal of an array of Obama-era policies that discourage both the production and consumption of fossil fuels.

Plans for the week were described by senior White House officials speaking on condition of anonymity because the details hadn’t yet been formally announced.

Exports equal influence

Trump is set to deliver a speech at the Energy Department on Thursday focused almost entirely on energy exports—describing how the foreign sale of US natural gas, oil and coal helps strengthen the country’s influence globally, bolster international alliances and help stabilize global markets.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry may

ad m i n i s t r at ion r u le forc i n g states to slash greenhouse-gas emissions from electricity production. And the Trump administration is considering more auctions of oil and gas leases in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

Coal plants

157M The number of barrels of crude the US has exported to countries other than Canada since December 2015

touch on similar themes when he speaks on Tuesday with analysts and executives at the US Energy Information Administration conference in Washington.

“The fact that we’re no longer in the age of energy scarcity— that we’re in the age of energy abundance—positions the United States in a totally different place,” said Dave Banks, a special assistant to the president for international energy. “This gives access to affordable, reliable energy in the United States, and gives the US a major competitive advantage.”

The focus on exports dovetails with Trump’s policy prior it ies, i nc lud i ng i mprov i ng the balance of trade, rebuilding heavy manufacturing and moder nizing inf rastr ucture, said Benjamin Sa lisbur y, a senior energ y and natural resources analyst with FBR and Co. T he Trump administration seems to appreciate the synergy between extractive industries and manufacturing, Salisbur y said, with cheap energ y powering factories that are in turn c hur ning out t he equ ipment u sed to produce a nd e x por t those resources.

Crude ban lifted

With US oil production booming, former President Barack Obama

President Donald J. Trump speaks during a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on June 21. AP/Charlie Neibergall

signed a law lifting a decadesold ban on most crude exports in December 2015. Since then, the US has exported more than 157 million barrels of crude to countries other than Canada, which had been exempted from the export ban.

The federal government has also authorized 21 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas to be liquefied and sent to countries that don’t have free-trade agreements with the US. Since starting up last year, Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana—the first major facility sending shale gas overseas—has shipped more than 100 cargoes of liquefied natural gas to countries, including Mexico, China and Turkey.

Trump is set to talk about opportunities for growth, including in sales of coal to Europe and Asia.

A recent increase in the production of metallurgical coal used in steel manufacturing has helped East Coast terminals ship more of the resource overseas.

Wind, solar, nuclear

And the president is expected to describe openings for other energ y exports, including US technology that harnesses power from the wind and sun, and a new generation of advanced and modular nuclear reactors. Some nuclear-power advocates have

argued that the US government process of licensing advanced reactor designs is so lengthy that it discourages investment.

The administration could go further to expand opportunities for using the US energy abroad by seeking to undo an Obama-era ban on the Export-Import Bank financing coal plants overseas.

That could have special political resonance with coal miners who helped propel Trump to victory with wins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states that have seen jobs tied to the fossil fuel decline.

The Trump administration has begun reversing a slew of regulations and policies that have limited energy development or made it more expensive, such as by ending a moratorium blocking new coal leases on federal land and overturning a rule governing coal-mining pollution in streams.

The president has ordered agencies to remove regulatory barriers to producing domestic energy resources, kicking off a broad government-wide review. Even as that analysis continues, the Interior Department has begun repeals or revisions of Obama-era mandates governing hydraulic fracturing and discouraging methane leaks from oil wells.

A W hite House office is also vetting a proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama

“It’s about utilizing our abundance of resources at home to create jobs and grow the economy, and at the same time use those to strengthen America’s leadership and influence abroad,” said Michael Catanzaro, a special assistant to the president on domestic energy.

Ironically, some of Trump’s policies could exacerbate the market challenges facing oil, gas and coal, by spurring more domestic production at a time when a supply glut is already suppressing prices.

The US is on track to produce 10 million barrels of oil per day on average next year, according to a forecast from the Energy Information Administration—a milestone that would shatter a record set in 1970.

‘Dominance’ sought

T ru m p ’ s t he me o f “e ne r g y dominance” mark s an evolution. For years, the catch phrase of choice has been “energ y ind e p e n d e n c e ”, a s p o l it i c i a n s and industr y officials sought to highlight how a new era of abundance was helping the US wean itself from foreign sources of oil and natural gas.

That was in turn a dramatic change from the 1970s, when former President Jimmy Carter turned down the White House thermostats and used a televised address in February 1977 to urge consumers to conserve energy amid a permanent “shortage”.

After that, federal-energy policy became rooted in the view that oil and gas were in short supply. “ Tr ump is reor ienting our national rhetoric toward ‘dominance’,” said Kevin Book, analyst with ClearView Energy Partners Llc. “Captives crave independence; competitors strive to dominate. It’s a shift from getting by to getting ahead.” Bloomberg News

GOP scrambles to clinch votes for health bill W

A SH I NGT ON — S e n ate Republican leaders scrambled last Sunday to rally support for their healthcare bill as opposition continued to build inside and outside Congress, and as several Republican senators questioned whether it would be approved this week.

President Donald J. Trump expressed confidence that the bill to repeal the guts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would pass.

“Health care is a very, very tough thing to get,” Trump said in an interview shown last Sunday on Fox News. “But I think we’re going to get it. We don’t have too much of a choice, because the alternative is the dead carcass of Obamacare.”

With Democrats solidly opposed to the legislation, Senate Republicans must find the votes from w ithin. T hey can afford to lose only two votes, but five Republican senators have announced that they cannot support the health-care bill as drafted, and others have expressed concerns.

Senate leaders have been trying to lock down Republican votes by funneling money to red states, engineering a special deal for Alaska and arguing that they could insure more people at a lower cost than

Alice Jacobs, 90, at Dogwood Village, a nonprofit county-owned nursing home in Orange, Virginia, on June 23. Medicaid, targeted by Republicans’ health-care bill, pays for most of the 1.4 million elderly people in nursing homes, some of whom do not know they are on it. Khue Bui/The New York Times

the House, which passed a repeal bill last month.

But as more analysis of the bill reached state officials, especially in places that expanded Medicaid access under the ACA, misgivings grew. Sen. Bill Cassidy, Republican-Los Angeles, and a doctor who is considered a critical vote, said he remained undecided. Louisiana,

with its high levels of poverty, recently expanded Medicaid.

“There are things in this bill which adversely affect my state, that are peculiar to my state,” Cassidy said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

The bill was drafted in secret, mainly by the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who unveiled it last

Thursday. McConnell wants a vote this week, before lawmakers take a break for the Fourth of July holiday.

Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, usually a reliable vote for Senate Republican leaders, said on Fox News, “I just don’t know whether the votes will be there by the end of the week.”

Over the weekend, senators and their aides were poring over the bill, drafting possible amendments, preparing speeches and compiling personal stories from constituents whom they portrayed as either beneficiaries or victims of the ACA. But the bill’s supporters were battling an internal threat: reluctant Republicans. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said last Sunday that “there’s no way we should be voting” on the legislation this week. “No way”.

“I have a hard time believing Wisconsin constituents or even myself w il l have enough time to properly eva luate this for me to vote for a motion to proceed,” Johnson said on NBC ’s Meet the Press.

And Sen. Susan Collins, Republican-Maine, said on ABC’s This Week: “It’s hard for me to see the bill passing this week, but that’s

up to the majority leader. We could well be in all night a couple of nights.”

The US Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Retail Federation have all said they support the bill.

Thomas J. Donohue, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said it would “help stabilize crumbling insurance markets” and eliminate “ill-conceived Washington mandates and taxes”.

But much of the nation’s $3-trillion health-care industry opposes the bill. And McConnell has done little to woo the health-care stakeholders whom President Barack Obama courted assiduously from his first months in office.

The concerns expressed by outside groups also appear to be growing. Top lieutenants in Charles G. and David H. Koch’s political network sharply criticized the legislation over the weekend, saying it was insufficiently conservative and did not do enough to rein in the growth of Medicaid. And a number of Republican governors have joined doctors, hospitals and patient advocacy groups in opposing the bill, in part because of its cuts to Medicaid. New York Times News Service

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Tuesday, June 27, 2017

The World BusinessMirror

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

Trump eager to meet Putin; advisers wary

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin with full diplomatic bells and whistles when the two are in Germany for a multinational summit next month. But the idea is exposing deep divisions within the administration on the best way to approach Moscow in the midst of an ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the US elections.

Many administration officials believe the US needs to maintain its distance from Russia at such a sensitive time—and interact only with great caution.

But Trump and some others within his administration have been pressing for a full bilateral meeting. He’s calling for media access and all the typical protocol associated with such sessions, even as officials within the State Department and National Security Council urge more restraint, according to a current and a former administration official.

Some advisers have recommended that the president instead do either a quick, informal

“pull-aside” on the sidelines of the summit, or that the US and Russian delegations hold “strategic stability talks”, which typically don’t involve the presidents. The officials spoke anonymously to discuss private policy discussions.

The contrasting views underscore differing views within the administration on overall Russia policy, and Trump’s eagerness to develop a working relationship with Russia despite the ongoing investigations.

There are potential benefits to a meeting with Putin. A faceto-face meeting can humanize the two sides and often removes some of the intrigue involved in

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks during a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, on May 29. AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko

impersonal, telephone communication. Trump—the ultimate dealmaker—has repeatedly suggested that he can replace the Obama-era damage in the USRussia relationship with a partnership, particularly on issues like the ongoing Syria conflict.

There are big risks, though.

Trump is known to veer off-script, creating the possibility for a highstakes diplomatic blunder.

In a brief Oval Office meeting with top Russian diplomats last month, Trump revealed highly c l assif ied infor mat ion about an Islamic State group threat to airlines that was relayed to him by Israel, according to a senior administration official.

The W hite House defended the

disclosures as “wholly appropriate”. In addition, many obser vers warn that Putin is not to be trusted.

Oleg Kalugin, a former general with Russia’s main security agency, known as the KGB, said Putin, a shrewd and experienced politician, has “other priorities” than discussing the accusations that Russia hacked the US election with Trump, such as easing sanctions, raising oil prices, as well as next year’s presidential elections in Russia.

“Putin knows how to redirect a conversation in his favor,” Kalugin said. Nina Khrushcheva, a Russian affairs professor at the New School, said Trump is in an “impossible position”.

“He can’t be too nice to Putin because it’s going to be interpreted in a way that suggests he has a special relationship with Russia,” she said. “He can’t be too mean because Putin has long arms and KGB thinking. So Trump needs to have a good relationship with him but he also needs to fulfill his campaign promises of establishing better relations with Russia.”

The White House said no final decision has been made about whether a meeting will take place.

It did not respond to questions about the opposing views within the administration.

Bilateral meetings are common during summits like the Group of 20 (G20), where many world leaders and their advisers are gathered in one place. The meetings are ty pically highly choreographed affairs, with everything from the way the two leaders shake hands to the looks that they exchange and the actual words spoken offering glimpses into the state of affairs.

The last US-Russia bilateral meeting was a 2015 encounter between Putin and President Barack Obama that began with an awkward handshake and ended with progress on the brutal civil war in Syria.

That 2015 meeting, the first in two years, involved a 90-minute sit-down at United Nations headquarters. Putin and US officials later said the two leaders had made progress on issues related to Syria,

which had strained their already tense relationship.

For the Obama administration, cautious engagement was the name of the game, with the US working tirelessly to find middle ground with Moscow on Syria, Ukraine and other issues.

T he disconnect bet ween Trump and his advisers in the State Department and National Security Council over Russia runs deeper than the debate over a G20 bilateral.

A former administration official who spoke anonymously to discuss classified information said that frustration is growing among foreign policy advisers over the failure of the White House to embrace a more cautious and critical approach to Russia.

All 17 US intelligence agencies have agreed Russia was behind last year’s hack of Democratic e-mail systems and tried to influence the 2016 election to benefit Trump.

Trump has to directly “say to Putin, ‘We’re not happy about you interfering in our election,’” said Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine. “If you don’t say that, you are going to get hammered by the press and Congress and you can guarantee Congress will pass sanctions legislation against Russia.”

“They also need to keep their expectations very, very modest,” Pifer added. “If they aim for a homerun in Hamburg, my guess is they’ll strike out.” AP

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (third from right) prays on the first day of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, at the Nouri Mosque in Hama, Syria, last Sunday. Sana via AP

Assad leaves Damascus for Eid prayers

B

EIRUT—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has traveled to one of Syria’s core cities to attend Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of Ramadan, in a rare departure from his capital stronghold.

Syrian state media says Assad

traveled to Hama last Sunday for the first time since protests erupted against him in 2011 and Syria descended into war. Hama, in western Syria, saw some of the largest protests. Assad joined Muslim worshippers at the Nouri Mosque

for prayers on the first day of the three-day holiday.

Sy r i a n gover n ment forces have steadily advanced in recent months with help from Russia and Iran, and now control the country’s five largest cities. AP

briefs

Afghan official says Taliban kill 10 police

Pakistan raises death toll to 157 from fuel truck fire

Attention on SC as justice weigh Trump travel ban

WASHINGTON—The focus is on the Supreme Court as the high-stakes legal fight over President Donald J. Trump’s travel ban awaits action by the justices.

The court is expected to decide within days whether the Trump administration can enforce a ban on visitors to the US from six mostly Muslim countries—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Trump rolled out a travel ban just a week after his January 20 inauguration, but lower federal courts have blocked it and a revised version—and one court also has blocked a 120-day halt on refugee arrivals in the US. The president casts the travel ban as critical to deterring possible terrorist attacks in the US. Opponents say it targets Muslims in violation of federal law and the Constitution. AP

KABUL, Afghanistan—An Afghan official says the Taliban have attacked a security post in western Afghanistan, killing at least 10 police and wounding another three.

Jelani Farhad, spokesman for the governor of the western Herat province, said the Taliban attacked late last Saturday, setting off a gunbattle in which five insurgents were killed. No one immediately claimed the attack.

The Taliban have steadily expanded their reach across Afghanistan since US and international forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a support and counterterrorism role.

In an address last Sunday marking the start of Eid al-Fitr, a major Muslim holiday, President Ashraf Ghani reiterated his call for the Taliban to return to peace talks. AP

MULTAN, Pakistan—Pakistani officials say the death toll from a massive fuel truck fire the previous day has risen to 157, as four more of the victims died overnight.

The truck was traveling from the southern port city of Karachi to Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, when the driver lost control and crashed on a highway outside Bahawalpur early last Sunday.

Scores of villagers rushed to the scene to collect the spilled fuel when the blaze ignited.

Dr. Nahid Ahmed at the Nishter Hospital in Multan says the death toll has steadily been rising and reached 157 on Monday. He says 50 more severely burned victims are being treated at his hospital. The disaster struck on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that follows the holy month of Ramadan. AP

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The Regions BusinessMirror

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Tuesday, June 27, 2017

A9

Samar rep seeks protection of major tourist spots

A

MEMBER of the House of Representatives on Monday urged the government to strictly regulate the influx of tourists in some of the country’s major tourism spots to ensure their longterm sustainability.

Liberal Party Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento of Western Samar said that while the country’s popular tourism destinations, including Boracay Island, are bringing a lot of revenues for the people and the government, there is a need to protect these places from overdevelopment and overcapacity, which is the main cause of pollution and their deterioration.

Sarmiento said overdevelopment and overpopulation now cause too much stress on Boracay, which attracted 1.7 million visitors in 2016 alone and has long been considered as one of the best islands in the world.

When the members of the House of Representatives embarked on the so-called Western-Eastern National Highway Expedition, he said he noticed the rapid degradation of

Boracay Island, one of the country’s top tourism spots.

“Members of the House also observed there is an abundance of algal growth, which may be related to pollution and the presence of waste matter surrounding the island,” Sarmiento said.

Sarmiento added the Department of Tourism (DOT) should start setting up specific parameters in terms of capacity and limiting the number of resorts and inns coming out like mushrooms even in interior areas of Boracay Island.

To save Boracay from turning into a wasteland, the lawmaker said there is a need for DOT and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to immediately adopt policies and practices that would stop the island’s rapid environmental decline.

Sarmiento said Congress now needs to intervene and come up with a law that would clearly define policies in managing tourist destinations to promote tourism while ensuring the protection of the environment.

Sarmiento said he filed House Resolution 1087, which urges the House Committee on Tourism to conduct an inquiry “into the roadmap, programs, projects and action plans of the Department of Tourism that aim to regulate tourists spots in order to promote sustainability”.

“Several studies have shown the detrimental environmental impacts that tourism has cause Boracay, such as poor water quality, beach erosion and decrease in coral cover. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources also found out that some areas around Boracay are too dirty to swim on,” Sarmiento’s resolution said.

“The massive influx of tourists and the explosive population growth in the island places it at the risk of destruction. This is highly detrimental as our citizens are reaping numerous benefits from the thriving tourism industry in the area. Moreover, the environmental degradation is a proof of the State’s failure to preserve our natural resources,” Sarmiento added. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Roro transport boosted farm incomes by 7%

By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm

T

HE country’s roll-on, rolloff (Roro) transport system boosted agriculture-household incomes by 7 percent, allowing households to send more children to school, a government think tank said.

In a study, titled “The Impacts of Roll-On/Roll-Off Transport System in the Philippines”, stateowned Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) research analyst Kris Francisco said this was largely due to cheaper transport costs brought by the system.

“There was an increase in household income by about 7 percent in municipalities near the Roro ports.

This finding indicates the increase in financial capacity of households to send children to school; thus providing support to our previous results on increased school attendance,” Francisco said in her paper.

Francisco added this was due to the “reduced cost of interisland shipping and travel time”, which boosted agriculture and nonagriculture activities.

Citing a previous study of the Asian Development Bank, she said adopting a Roro policy cut the travel time between Mindanao and Luzon by 12 hours.

As a result, this lowered the cost of freight and passenger transport

by about 30 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

She said Roro systems were able to expand the scope of regional markets by introducing new interisland connections.

This led to 157,838 more Filipinos living in the vicinity of Roro systems nationwide to study. This composed of 83,201 male and 74,637 female students.

“The opportunities gained by households from the Roro port operation were reallocated to their children in the form of human-capital investment. Education is known to increase the quality of the work force.

Hence, a better educated future work force will benefit local economies in the longrun,” Francisco said.

Implemented in 2003, Francisco Roro’s were able to integrate roads with water transportation by allowing vehicles to directly board the ship without unloading their cargoes and be easily transferred from one island to another, through the Roro ferry terminal system (RRTS).

The RRTS is a network of Roro ferry terminals that link the country together through Roro ships. It is composed of three nautical highways, namely, Western, Central and Eastern Nautical Highway, which started operating in 2003, 2008 and 2009, respectively.

It also serves as an alternative option to the load-on, load-off (Lolo) system that was the dominant

mode of shipping before 2003.

Compared to roro, Lolo was too costly for small-scale shippers as its containerized method usually involves layers of fees for cargo handling and wharfage.

“The Roro policy was the government’s attempt to expand the country’s transport system with minimal investment. Instead of investing in new port infrastructure, [it] allowed the conversion of existing ports into Roro ports and encouraged private sector participation,” Francisco said.

This augurs well for the countr y’s efforts to attain the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or the 2030 Global Agenda, which were adopted by countries worldwide in 2015.

The Global Goals aim to end poverty and hunger, promote universal health, education for all and lifelong learning, achieve gender equality, sustainable water management, ensure sustainable energy for all, decent work for all, resilient infrastructure, and reduce income inequality between and among countries.

The goals also include creation of sustainable cities, ensure sustainable consumption and production, take action against climate change, conserve and sustainably use oceans and marine resources, reduce biodiversity loss, achieve peaceful and inclusive societies and revitalize global partnership for development.

FUND FOR MARAWI

A young boy peers into a donation box set outside a mosque in Baguio City last Sunday. After praying for peace, Muslims donate money for the victims of war in Marawi after the Eid al-Fitr celebration in the city. Many Catholic Churches also sought a second collection for the victims of the conflict in Marawi. MAU VICTA

Govt peace panel asks DOJ to review case of detained Aglipayan bishop

By Manuel T. Cayon

@awimailbox Mindanao Bureau Chief

D

AVAO CIT Y—T he government peace panel has asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review the case of an Aglipayan bishop arrested in Ozamis City, insisting the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), or the Aglipayan Church, official acted as an emissary and facilitator for the release of either guerrilla, or government military personnel captured by either side.

Government chief negotiator Silvestre H. Bello III and government panel members said their request to the DOJ was based on the important role of the priests and bishops of the IFI in “assisting the government in it its peace efforts and initiative,s especially in facilitating the release of captured government soldiers/military officers or members of law-enforcement agencies in the past.”

Bello urged the DOJ to look into the case and to expedite the release of the bishop on humanitarian ground.

The Aglipayan bishop, Bishop Carlos Morales, was arrested on May 11 in Barangay Gango, Ozamiz City, along with his wife and their driver.

Authorities said their big catch was one Rommel Salinas, an alleged high-ranking New People’s Army (NPA) commander, when his vehicle was flagged down in the checkpoint in the barangay. The Ozamiz City Police said it served Salinas five arrest warrants on different cases, including murder and frustrated murder.

An MK2 hand grenade, knife, communication gadgets, a map and P80,000 were found among Salinas’s belongings.

In the vehicle were the bishop, his wife Maria Teofilina and their driver Isadome Dalid.

The government panel cited the

claim of the IFI bishop he did not know Salinas, but that Morales’s vehicle was flagged down by Salinas to take him for a ride that day.

At that time, Morales told police investigators he just took pity on Salinas who was carrying several bags.

Bello said that aside from Morales, other IFI bishops have been active in helping in the release of soldiers from NPA captivity and for assisting in the peace negotiations. He cited IFI Bishop Felixberto Calang, who was actively participating in the government-National Democratic Front (NDF) negotiations in Europe as an independent observer.

“On several occasions, Calang served as third-party facilitator in the release of government soldiers and policemen captured by the NPA, the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The CPP and the NPA are two of the rebel organizations under the umbrella of the NDF.

Tourism groups in Cebu get aid from Capitol

C

CHRIST IN STEEL-BAS RELIEF National Artist for Painting Ben Cabrera (left)

donated this life -size steel bas relief of Jesus Christ to Ilocos Rep. Eric D. Singson for the chapel at the Singson Family-owned Vitalis Villas in Ilocos Sur. Titled “Crucifixion,” Ben Cab said the sculpture was based on a sketch out from a mill steel that was an inch-and-a-half thick. MAU VICTA

OMMUNITY-BASED organizations in five tourist destinations in southern Cebu province can now serve as food caterers, aside from being tour guides, as the Capitol allocated each of them with kitchen and cooking wares.

People’s organizations in Boljoon, Alcoy, Alegria, Argao and Aloguinsan towns each received a total of 454 cooking wares worth P48,272 through the provincial government’s Community Development Assistance (CDA) program.

In its first batch of engagement on June 20, acting Gov. Agnes Magpale turned over dinner sets, utensils, cooking pots, pans and various types of drinking glasses to a workers’ group in Boljoon, and a farmer’s group in Alcoy.

Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO) chief Marivic Garces and Provincial

Tourism Office (PTO) Head Boboi Costas assisted Magpale, as Boljoon Mayor Merlou Derama witnessed the activity.

Derama thanked Magpale and Gov. Hilario Davide III, through Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino, for supporting their tourism endeavor. Davide is still on vacation outside the country.

Nozzie Medida of Boljoon’s Asosasyon sa mga Boljoanong Mamumuo sa Turismo received cooking wares, including dining tables and gas ranges.

Fe Anore Villarta of Alcoy’s Kapunungunan sa mga Mag-uuma sa Yutang Lasangon sa Bulalacao received similar items.

Villarta, who acts as a guest guide and caretaker of Nug-as forest research station in Alcoy, said her organization used to depend on donations from guests, with no fix

amount for maintenance.

CDA, a PSWDO program, fills the financial gaps in the operational needs of existing community organizations, Garces said.

Costas said they chose these five since these people’s organizations are already “empowered” to manage their own tourist activities and already in existence for years.

He said Alcoy people’s organization has been operating since 1988 and Aloguinsan was organized in 2014.

Both have been active since then.

Magpale, who chairs the Provincial Board’s Committee on Tourism, said she will seek the help of multi-media members to put these tourist spots at the center to make these places more inviting and attractive to guests.

The next people’s organizations to receive aid are from Alegria, Aloguinsan and Argao towns. Charles R. Pepito

A10 Tuesday, June 27, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Baywatch

T

he sorry state of the 2-kilometer baywalk along Roxas Boulevard is bound to be hurting both the pocketbook and the spirit of the city of Manila, which just celebrated its 446th foundation day on June 24.

The baywalk, which stretches from the US Embassy all the way to the Cultural Center of the Philippines, has long been one of Manila’s most famous and most valuable tourist attractions.

It is a mecca for both Filipinos and foreigners, offering sea-breeze strolls along Manila Bay, photo opportunities with its world-famous golden sunset, and low-cost recreation for the masses of walkers, joggers and bikers who use the strip as their common exercise track.

When Lito Atienza was Manila mayor from 1998 to 2004, the baywalk’s tourism value was fully utilized. The strip and the seawall parallel to it were decorated with colorful cement bricks and street lamps, verdant ornamentals, benches and sculptures of famous people, including that of former Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson and Benigno Aquino Jr. It became a popular nightspot for promenaders and people-watchers after sundown as restaurants, retail shops, bars and open-air coffee shops sprouted on the strip, complementing the Old Manila attractions in nearby Malate and drawing in much-needed tourism revenue for the city government, local businesses and residents.

Sure, a lot of people found the street lamps tacky, some even called them ugly and overpriced. The succeeding mayor, Alfredo Lim, closed down Atienza’s project, complaining there were too many establishments crowding the baywalk, that they did not pay their taxes, were too noisy and help pollute Manila Bay. We do not contest the former mayor’s rationale. There is nothing wrong with cracking down on unrestricted commercial development, with taking a more careful, balanced approach to developing the Manila baywalk.

But there is also nothing wrong with preserving the things that make a unique attraction like Manila Bay conducive to businesses as long as the public interest is balanced against the expected private gain, and there is nothing wrong with keeping the competitive advantage upon which a city’s economic vitality can rely on.

The point is the city government at the time was able to capitalize on Manila Bay and the baywalk as a top tourist drawer, stimulating the economy and the local cultural scene.

Today, gone indeed are all the establishments and the hordes of promenaders. But the strip is also almost deserted after sundown. Even “PED XING”, or the pedestrian crossing, from the iconic Malate Church and Rajah Sulayman Park to the baywalk is no longer respected and people have to compromise their safety just to cross the boulevard.

The Manila baywalk has been relegated into a lifeless area. The bay itself is becoming more polluted. There are still piles of garbage littering the shoreline and it seems nothing has come out of the Supreme Court writ of kalikasan ordering the cleanup of Manila Bay by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and other government agencies.

Any city or municipality with a waterfront would love to have a Manila Bay and a baywalk that could be a top tourist drawer and could provide all the economic activity and aesthetic benefits that bring tremendous financial gain and other intangibles, like community pride.

The Villaba and Inopacan municipalities in Leyte have their own baywalk developments. So does Dapitan and Dipolog in Zamboanga del Norte and other cities like Davao, which has Quimpo Boulevard; Dumaguete, which has Rizal Boulevard; and Puerto Princesa, which has its own developed seafront strip where people can view the sunset and enjoy other leisure activities.

Perhaps Mayor Joseph E. Estrada can find a healthy marriage between a Manila baywalk that allows moments of peace, relaxation and leisure and one that allows businesses to cater to people’s needs for the same. Perhaps he could find a way to make Manila baywalk as lighted and as lively as before.

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Manny B. Villar

THE Entrepreneur Continued from A1

I

t scares me to think what would have happened if we had another chief executive, someone who is easily driven to doubt any move he would take, as commander in chief of the Armed Forces and leader of the whole nation, in Malacañang when members of the Maute Group attacked Marawi on May 23.

President Duterte, while visiting Russia in another mission to pursue his administration’s independent foreign policy, declared martial law in Mindanao to mobilize the Armed Forces and the police and frustrate the Maute Group’s goal of spreading terror and gaining recognition from the Islamic State of Syria and Libya (ISIS), which is being driven out of the Middle East.

With President Duterte, who has been traveling as close as possible to the scene of the fighting, at the helm, I have great hope that Marawi City will soon be freed and its residents allowed to return to rebuild their homes, their businesses and their lives.

I cannot but appreciate the President’s public apology to the Marawi

people, and his promise to help rebuilt the city—it was another reflection of the humble and compassionate nature of the man we put in Malacañang.

Having said that, government leaders have recognized the need to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and improve its capability to confront threats to national security. That is why we have the Armed Forces Modernization Act. I believe the Marawi siege is a compelling reason to speed up the modernization of the AFP. The armed forces modernization law was enacted three years ago, in 2013, yet, the Philippine military remains one of Asia’s weakest, according to the online version of The Diplomat.

In an article published on March 17, Prashanth Parameswaran noted that, while the country faces both internal and external challenges to security, it spends only about 1 percent of GDP on defense, compared to the average of more than 2 percent of GDP for other Southeast Asian countries.

This may have been a factor behind the reported efforts of the Maute Group to make Marawi the ISIS hub in Southeast Asia. US lawmakers have proposed increasing American assistance to the Philippines to defeat the terrorists and prevent ISIS from establishing a foothold in Southeast Asia.

In December 2016 Duterte signed into law the country’s P3.35-trillion national budget for 2017, which included P137.2 billion for the Department of National Defense (DND).

The President said his administration would pursue the armed forces modernization program with the maintenance and acquisition of major equipment, aircraft and ammunition.

The AFP has also announced a recruitment program to expand its troop strength. For this year, the AFP plans to recruit a total of 13,910 new soldiers, most of them will fill up the Army infantry, cavalry and artillery units, while others will fill up the engineering, communications, logistics and other administrative functions of the Army.

Who is pulling the strings?

John Mangun

Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Efleda P. Campos

Online Editor Social Media Editor

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

Why we need to accelerate military modernization

OUTSIDE THE BOX

H

istory has a habit of turning on an event not a process.

However, those turning points do create a process.

Newly declassified documents absolutely prove that the US government, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), staged a coup and overthrew the only almost-democratic government Iran has ever had. “Operation Ajax” was about keeping Iranian oil under control of the West, particularly the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., now British Petroleum (BP).

The Arabian-American Oil Co. in Saudi Arabia bowed to government pressure in late-1950 to share profits with Riyadh. Popularly elected Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh in 1951 nationalized Anglo-Iranian Oil. Great Britain refused payment and asked the US for help. On August 19, 1953, with the aid of crowds widely believed to have been gathered with CIA assistance, the coup succeeded. Iran’s national-

ist hero was jailed and the absolute power of a Western-friendly Shah of Iran was restored. The Iranian military was co-opted and the rest is history.

However, BP never got the oil back as the nationalistic feelings roused by Mossadegh were too strong even for the Shah to stop.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used that fervor against the Shah, who was exiled, and eventually returned

to power years later. Now we can say that the rest is history.

But part of the “history” involved Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, a cleric and leading political figure in the 1950s who died in 1967. Kashani has always been seen as a hero of Iranian nationalism, including this year, when we was again praised as being a leader for bringing the oil back to Iranians. He broke with Mossadegh because he felt the Prime Minister was too close to the communist Tudeh Party.

The recent CIA documents also revealed that suspicions about Kashani’s ties to the US were closer than previously thought, even asking the CIA for money. Abbas Milani, a professor of Iranian studies at Stanford University, wrote, “Kashani was critical. Kashani’s forces were out in full force to defeat Mossadegh.”

In August 2013, 60 years after the coup, the CIA did admit that it was in charge of both the planning and the execution, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and high-ranking military officials, as well as providing pro-

Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana recognizes the need to further increase the military’s budget, which he says has been underfunded for the past 50 years.

The DND’s budget for 2017 is significantly higher than the P117.5 billion appropriated for 2016, but is still equivalent to about 1 percent of GDP. Parameswaran, in another article, cited Lorenzana as saying he would like to see an increase in the DND’s budget to about 2.4 percent to 2.5 percent of GDP, or more than twice the current funding.

We really need to strengthen the military, including the recruitment of more soldiers and acquisition of modern equipment, and this should be reflected in next year’s budget.

If need be, based on what is happening now in Marawi and other areas of Mindanao, the government should look at adopting a supplemental budget to implement a radical modernization of the security forces, including the national police.

Based on latest reports, the military has said it was close to eliminating the terrorists from Marawi and gaining full control of the city. Accelerating the modernization program should help ensure that terrorists would not be able to mount another siege as they did in Marawi.

For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@gmail. com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.

coup propaganda. But what the recent documents reveal is that the CIA and the British tried to stop the coup believing that Mossadegh was winning.

The coup took all of four days from the first protest march to Mossadegh being removed and jailed by the military. While supposedly done “in the name of and for the benefit of the people”—according to retired General Fazlollah Zahedi—the people for the most part did not have a clue what was going on both in front of and behind the scenes.

The United States government has a similar record in Chile, Guatemala, Congo, Dominican Republic, South Vietnam and Brazil, and these are only the ones we positively know about. When events start going weird and people are asking the question “Who is pulling the strings?”, Uncle Sam’s name comes up far too often.

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

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

‘Frequency hoarding’

How America’s oil boom fueled the Qatar crisis

BusinessMirror

Ricardo Saludo

Ernesto M. Hilario

ABOUT TOWN

I

t was a move earlier described to possess surgical precision and haste. On May 30, 2016, or a month before President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office, the PLDT Group and Globe Telecom jointly announced they would acquire the telecommunications assets of food giant San Miguel Corp. (SMC) in a megadeal perceived to strengthen the duopoly of the two telecoms behemoths.

The deal involved the sale of SMC assets amounting to P70 billion, the acquisition of Vega Telecom Inc., which owns controlling interests in five telecom firms, the return to the government and eventual resale of the 700 megahertz (MHz) of radio spectrum, and assumption of P17 billion in unpaid debts and liabilities of the acquired firms. It was described to have come at the most inauspicious time.

Their announcement came four days beforethePhilippineCompetition Commission (PCC) would announce its implementing rules and regulations (IRRs) in pursuit of its mandate. In hindsight, which is always 20/20, the PLDT Group and Globe Telecom had virtually beaten the PCC to the draw.

It was on July 21, 2015, that then- President Benigno S. Aquino III signed into law Republic Act 10667, or the Philippine Competition Act, to pave the way for PCC’s creation.

The PCC has the following mandate: enhance market competition, liberalize key sectors, promote a spirit of entrepreneurship, encourage private investments, hasten technology development and transfer, and foster resource productivity.

It institutes a national competition policy, prevents economic concentration, penalizes anticompetitive pacts, and stops abuse of dominant position and anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions. The mandate is premised on consumer protection and enhancement of domestic and international trade.

It took a year for the PCC to work on its IRRs. Without the IRRs, the PCC is deemed toothless and powerless to deal with monopolies and other combinations in restraint of trade. Aquino, as the outgoing president, just signed the law creating the Department of Information and Communications. Its existence has become official after Duterte named Rodolfo A. Salalima as its first secretary.

Among his first official acts, Salalima sustained the deal and instructed the regulatory National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to do what is best to improve telecom services to the country. The NTC did not take long to give the returned 700-MHZ spectrum to the PLDT Group and Globe Telecom.

The PLDT Group and Globe Telecom described the transaction as a “done deal”, as they immediately signed the formal accords. It was presented as a “fait accompli” deal, as PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan was among the last to be notified of the single biggest transaction in the local telecoms industry.

Balisacan, a development economist who worked on poverty issues, earlier resigned his post as socioeconomic planning secretary and National Economic and Development Authority director general to become the first PCC chairman. Under Republic Act 10667, the PCC is a powerful agency which could issue cease and desist orders and deputize law-enforcement agencies to stop monopolies and other combinations in restraint of trade. He has a sevenyear term of office.

Although the two parties described the deal as a “win-win” transaction, it did not stop the PCC from looking into its legality and propriety. This is where the problem starts. The PCC, as the competition watchdog, has sought to look into the P70-billion deal because of perceived violations of the national competition policy and “cartel-like behavior”.

The PCC argued it was not prop-

The 700-MHZ spectrum used to be owned by Liberty Telecoms, which controversial businessman Raymond Moreno controlled until he sold the firm to SMC. Both Globe and the PLDT Group had coveted this spectrum before because it means enhanced flexibility for their operations.

Its acquisition has been so complex, raising various arguments to the point of absurdity. erly informed about the deal, an issue considered largely as procedural, not substantive, in nature. Moreover, it expressed fears the deal could violate the national competition policy, which promotes the healthy interplay of market forces in the country.

For their part, the two telecommunications giants said the transaction sought to meet the barest minimum requirement: the improvement of telecoms services to the more than 100 million Filipinos. The acquisition and use of the 700-MHZ spectrum, which is regarded as central to the deal, resolves the fundamental issue of “frequency hoarding” in the telecoms industry.

The 700-MHZ spectrum used to be owned by Liberty Telecoms, which controversial businessman Raymond Moreno controlled until he sold the firm to SMC. Both Globe and the PLDT Group had coveted this spectrum before because it means enhanced flexibility for their operations. Its acquisition has been so complex, raising various arguments to the point of absurdity.

For his part, Salalima could only take a swipe at Balisacan for questioning the decision of the NTC to allow the PLDT Group and Globe Telecom to use the spectrum they have acquired last year from the dormant SMC telecoms firms.

Salalima said the PCC should have looked at the NTC’s technical skills and administrative capacity to determine the assignment of frequencies for telecoms services. Moreover, the PCC should confer with the NTC before making public statements.

Taking a strong stand against frequency hoarding, Salalima argued that the acquisition and use of the 700-MHZ spectrum, regarded as the strongest radio frequencies, does not constitute anticompetitive behavior because it seeks its eventual use and stop the indecent hoarding of unused frequencies. There should be an end to frequency hoarding, he argued.

Said Salalima, whose expertise is on constitutional law: “The other side of the coin here is: ‘Is it anticompetitive if frequencies, which are being hoarded, are used for public service?

Is it anticompetitive for particular frequency to be used since there are still available frequencies under the 700 MHZ and in other frequencies?

Is it anticompetitive if NTC told me that there are still other frequencies other than the 700 MHZ, sufficient for a third-party player?’”

Consequently, Salalima said, Globe Telecom and the PLDT Group have only 66 percent of the total number of 700-MHZ spectrum frequencies available. “It would be better for the people to use the spectrum than allow a single firm to hoard the frequency,” he said.

E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.

DIPLOMASIA

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he Middle East has been the arena of empire-builders for millennia, and so it is in our time. The latest twist pits the West, led by the United States, and its Arab allies against Russia, Iran and, lately—though not clearly—one independentminded Arab state, Qatar.

The test of wills on Qatar and its Saudi-led Arab neighbors isolating it by land, sea and air looks set to drag on, with Doha all but rejecting the latter’s conditions for restoring transport and trade links.

This state of affairs would have been unthinkable a decade ago, with Washington sure to bang heads or broker compromises to keep its friends in harmony, and its hegemony over the Middle East largely unchallenged.

But with the United States now producing most of its oil and far less dependent on the Middle East, there is less reason for strong American arms holding the region together.

And that spurred geopolitical players big and small to try their luck in the power game.

Russia has made a comeback as a regional power broker, siding with longtime player Iran. Turkey, too, is asserting itself, looking beyond its border troubles with Kurdish tribes straddling its border with Syria. And now, the Saudi-led Arab monarchies are trying to pressure Qatar over its ties with Iran and its support of popular Islamist groups, including those with terrorist links.

The neighbors’ demands on Doha include closing a Turkish army base and Doha’s Al-Jazeera TV news network, and ending contacts and funding for blacklisted Islamist entities —the avowed reason for turning the screws on Qatar.

But food deliveries from Turkey and backing from Iran have stiffened Qatar’s resolve; so has Kuwait’s explicit statement the regime change in Doha was not the goal of isolation (Arab monarchies don’t want that kind of thing started anywhere).

Also keeping Qatar from caving in is US ambivalence in the dispute.

When the crisis erupted weeks ago, President Donald J. Trump allowed that his antiterrorism speech to the Gulf Cooperation Council of Arab nations precipitated the Qatar boycott.

Yet, last week, Washington signed a $12-billion deal to sell F-15 fighter jets to Doha, which hosts the sprawling US Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, America’s largest military facility in the Middle East, with 11,000 personnel, 120 aircraft, the region’s longest runways, and control of air operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and 17 other nations.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017 A11

With the United States now producing most of its oil and far less dependent on the Middle East, there is less reason for strong American arms holding the region together. And that spurred geopolitical players big and small to try their luck in the power game. Russia has made a comeback as a regional power broker, siding with longtime player Iran. Turkey, too, is asserting itself, looking beyond its border troubles with Kurdish tribes straddling its border with Syria.

All that looks set to keep Qatar standing up to its neighbors, and give the Islamist entities across the region, many with extremist links, more reason to assert themselves against conservative, pro-Western sheikhdoms. And that animosity, if not aggressiveness toward the region’s royals, means even more friction or confrontation.

That intensifying tussle between age-old, repressive monarchies and populist Islamists will likely ignite more agitation, if not full-blown uprisings like those tearing Iraq, Syria and Yemen apart. And that would, in turn, prod increasingly insecure Arab nations to bulk up with arms and repression, while also fueling extremist terrorism, including the savage depradations of Islamic State (IS).

Just in case one needed a reminder of IS’s destructive madness, it was on full display as Iraqi government forces closed in on the terrorists’ main base in Mosul, where it declared its caliphate in July 2014.

Last week IS blew up the landmark leaning minaret of the city’s 835-year-old Grand Mosque al-Nuri, then falsely accused Western forces of bombing it.

IS was also the suspect in a plot against Mecca’s Grand Mosque, which Saudi police said they had thwarted. The foiled attack on Islam’s holiest shrine drew condemnation from Arab and other Muslim leaders and nations.

And where’s Uncle Sam in all this?

In fact, apart from waging an air war against Islamic State and, occasionally, Syria’s dictatorship, Washington has dialed down its engagement in the Middle East as dependence on the region’s oil dwindled with the fracking-fuel surge in American petroleum output.

Speaking of oil, the abundance of the stuff in America has kept crude prices down, despite the best efforts of Saudi and other major oil producers to cut exports. And that downturn in Arab petrodollars will further squeeze economies and public spending, with predictable effects on popular discontent.

In sum, with the West less involved in overall Middle East security and geopolitics, focusing more on fighting Islamic State, Arab monarchies and other outside powers like Iran, Turkey and Russia are stirring the pot, intensifying unrest and frictions, even as falling oil revenues make despots less able to please or repress their subjects or the Islamist extremists battling for control of the Muslim masses.

Many in the Middle East have long hated America’s heavy-handed and often pro-Israel policing of the region. Now, the cop is taking a break, and the gangs are in play. Get ready for a lot more rumbles.

Why President Marcos declared martial law Cecilio T. Arillo

database Part Two

A

S ENRILE watched on television what was going on, he fully grasped the essence of what President Marcos said to him when he saw him in Malacañang in December 1969: that violence and disorder would escalate and threaten the country.

In the evening of January 30, 1970, a much bigger student rally was mounted again in front of Congress.

From there the students marched to Malacañang. On their way, they caused traffic jams, burned traffic police outposts, threw Molotov bombs, and boisterously shouted invectives against imperialism, feudalism and fascism.

When they reached Mendiola Street in front of the Palace, the marchers merged with a bigger crowd already there and stormed Malacañang. They rammed Gate 4. Many spilled into the Palace ground. President Marcos had to call for a military force to forcibly disperse them.

“I was in Malacañang that evening, and I could still remember the scene vividly. The place was enveloped with thick smoke from teargas containers thrown at the aggressive demonstrators by the law enforcers who dispersed and drove them away from the place,” Enrile said.

President Marcos unexpectedly reorganized his Cabinet: Alejandro Melchor was appointed Executive Secretary; Cesar Virata became secretary of finance; Placido Mapa was made chairman of the National Economic Council; Felix Makasiar succeeded me in the Department of Justice; and I was transferred to the Department of National Defense, Enrile said, adding: “The sudden changes in the Cabinet were, to me, a clear sign that President Marcos was getting terribly annoyed by the growing turmoil in the country.”

During that period, a cold war between the two superpowers—the

United States and the Soviet Union —intensified. The US stood for democracy of Thomas Jefferson, while the Soviet Union stood for the communism of Karl Marx. The competition between these two ideologies was bloody and deadly.

Enrile said Marxism had penetrated almost every human society on the planet. Its Utopian ideal attracted millions of adherents. Its core principle was “from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs.” It fed on the poverty, misery, frustration and hatred of humanity.

Apart from the countries that constituted the former Soviet Union, its social, political, economic and military pillars were China, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and the now rogue state of North Korea. It just lost in Indonesia and was busy trying to capture the Philippines. Its anointed saints, aside from Karl Marx, were Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Jose Daniel Ortega, Pol Pot and Kim Jung Un. In the Philippines communism under the banner of a newly organized communist party of Jose Ma. Sison spread rapidly with the assistance and support of its New People’s Army. From Central Luzon where it started, it crept northward to Cagayan Valley, and then southward to the Tagalog and Visayan regions.

Using the Leninist strategy of united front, it penetrated almost every sector of our society through its National Democratic Front: the media; the religious sector; the govern-

“As time went by with their growing united front organizations behind them, the CPP-NPA became bolder and more aggressive. Apart from their armed operations in the field against government forces, they exploited every opportunity to probe government weaknesses,” Enrile recalled. “In the transport sector, for instance, they launched lightning strikes. Drivers of cargo trucks, buses, taxis and jeepneys left their vehicles in the middle of roads and highways and paralyzed the flow of goods and individuals in heavily populated areas. Drivers who did not join the strikers were beaten up and their vehicles were burned,” he continued.

ment bureaucracy; the schools, colleges and universities; labor, farmer and fishermen organizations; social, economic, political, civic, professional, youth, women and student associations, and others.

“As time went by with their growing united front organizations behind them, the CPP-NPA became bolder and more aggressive. Apart from their armed operations in the field against government forces, they exploited every opportunity to probe government weaknesses,” Enrile recalled.

“In the transport sector, for instance, they launched lightning strikes. Drivers of cargo trucks, buses, taxis, and jeepneys left their vehicles in the middle of roads and highways and paralyzed the flow of goods and individuals in heavily populated areas. Drivers who did not join the strikers were beaten up and their vehicles were burned,” he continued.

In Los Baños, radical students from the Kabataang Makabayan left their classes and joined the transport strike. They took control of the strike and caused anarchy. They set up human barricades across the national highway and prevented vehicles from passing northward and southward.

They conducted teach-ins in the middle of the roadway. They abusively ripped wooden poles and planks from nearby houses and made bonfires out of them. They blocked the transport artery and traffic flow stood still for several days.

Enrile instructed the PC and the police to plead with the strikers to lift their human barricades voluntarily. But the radical students refused arrogantly. Instead, they poured gasoline on the highway, lobbed Molotov bombs and blocked other roads.

He ordered the constabulary and the police to remove the human barricades and restore the flow of vehicular traffic. Enrile also ordered the arrest of the troublemakers and charged them in court. The angered strikers and students burned his effigy and named him “Tuta ni Marcos”.

To show the boldness of their defiance of government authority and the militancy of their ideology, they set up a dictatorship in Diliman.

They called it the “Diliman Commune” and identified themselves as the “communards”. Erickson Baculinao was named their chairman. They installed barricades in all ingress and egress areas around the Diliman campus, guarded by student sentinels and outsiders. As a consequence, people of all sorts were trapped inside. They controlled the movements of persons and vehicles inside the campus, and they imposed a 10 o’clock curfew in the evening.

President Marcos was terribly upset with the way things are developing; especially with the way the university authorities handled the disorder. He felt that the Diliman leadership had leaned too far in accommodating the whimsical demands of the radical students.

Nevertheless, he left to the university authorities the responsibility to regain control of the situation and warned that he would use the military to restore order and maintain peace in the area if they fail.

After 11 days of excruciating impasse, the general public—especially those in Diliman who experienced and saw the rudeness, abrasiveness and arbitrariness of the communards—gave its full support to the government when it said, “Enough!”

(To be continued)

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

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Tuesday, June 27, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

UNWTO conference concludes with Manila ‘call for action’

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By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

HE Philippines will be among the countries that will pilot test specific ways to measure tourism’s impact on the environment.

This was disclosed by Tourism Undersecretary Rolando Cañizal, after delegates to the Sixth United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Conference on Tourism Statistics adopted last Saturday the “Manila Call For Action” on measuring sustainable tourism.

He told the BusinessMirror

that the document “is envisioned to mobilize countries to start the process of identifying indicators and methodology to assess the impact of tourism to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs], considering that tourism is the responsible for SDG 8, 12 and 14.”

SDGs refer to the targets of the

3

The number of Sustainable Development Goals related to tourism UN, which member-nations use to frame their government policies for a sustainable world by 2030.

These include ending poverty and hunger, gender equality and equal access to health and education, among others. Three of them, Cañizal said, are related to tourism: SDG 8 refers to Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG 12 is on

Responsible Consumption and Production and SDG 14 is Life Below Water. “The Philippines,” he stressed, “will also be part of the pilot areas in drafting a framework for measuring sustainable tourism.

The other pilot area is Fiji.”

According to the UNWTO, sustainable tourism is tourism that “takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities. Sustainable tourism should thus make optimal use of environmental resources, respect host communities and ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing benefits that are distributed fairly among stakeholders.”

The Department of Tourism (DOT) official said the conference was also successful in starting the

discussion “to link the tourism satellite account [TSA] with the environmental ecosystem account.” In linking the two accounts, particular focus will be made on four different environmental flows: water, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and solid waste.

At present, tourism statistics mainly measure visitor arrivals and tourism receipts, among others, without taking into consideration the industry’s impact on the environment and a traveler’s effect on the ecosystem of the destination he visits. The Philippines is regarded as one of the pioneers in developing the TSAs. Data from the Philippines TSA in 2016 indicated that the tourism sector contributed 8.6 percent to local economy, in terms of tourism direct gross value added. Employment in tourism was estimated at

5.2 million in 2016, up 5.1 percent from 2015. The data also showed tourism jobs accounted for 12.8 percent of total employment in the country in 2016.

About 1,000 delegates from some 60 countries discussed many key issues on measuring sustainable tourism, during the four-day conference at Marriott Hotel in Newport City, Pasay.

Igor Chernyshev, consultant for the International Labor Organization and UNWTO, in his paper, “Employment, Green Jobs and Sustainable Tourism”, said tourism jobs were one of the crucial pillars in measuring sustainable tourism (MST). He urged that tourism development should be handled carefully as it works to improve a country’s economy and social well-being.

See “UNWTO,” A2

PALACE MUST CERTIFY BILL REMOVING RICE QR AS URGENT–NEDA

By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm

T

WHAT HOLIDAY? Construction work on Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 (MMS-3) project continued even if the government had declared June 26 a regular holiday in observance of the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Fitr. The MMSS-3 project is an elevated expressway over its entire length from Buendia, Makati City, to Balintawak, Quezon City, with a distance of about 14.82 kilometers. It is designed to pull in and ease traffic and access through eight strategically located interchanges: these being at Buendia, President Quirino Avenue, Plaza Dilao and Nagtahan, Aurora Boulevard, E. Rodriguez Avenue, Quezon Avenue, Sgt. Rivera and Balintawak. ROY DOMINGO

Compliance professionals: What should they monitor in anticorruption?

Continued from a1

■ No bribes are offered, promised or given to a public official, political candidate, party or party official, or any private-sector employee (including a person who directs or works for a private-sector enterprise in any capacity; ■ No charitable contributions and sponsorships are used as an undue advantage; ■ No facilitation payments are made, as they are prohibited under the antibribery laws of most countries; ■ No gifts, hospitality or expenses are offered whenever such arrangements could improperly affect the outcome of a procurement or other business transactions; ■ No agents, advisers or other intermediaries are appointed without due diligence review; ■ No contractors, subcontractors and suppliers are chosen without proper evaluation and performance audit.

At the same time, the compliance

professionals should see to it that: ■ Managers, employees and agents receive specific training on Integrity principles, tailored to relevant needs and circumstances; ■ Processes are designed in the organization that encourage employees and others to raise concerns and report suspicious circumstances in confidence and without risk of reprisal; ■ Effective mechanisms for i nter n a l com mu n ic at ion a re made known to everybody in the organization; ■ The organization maintains accurate books and records and that the right taxes are paid.

As we in the Integrity Initiative are committed to convince 6,000 additional companies/organizations in the Philippines to sign up for clean and ethical business, allow me to highlight the “Process Flow for Signatories” of the Integrity Pledge of the Integrity Initiative:

a. Sign the Integrity Pledge and adopt a Unified Code of Conduct for Business ■ Tone from the top ■ Prohibit bribery ■ Adopt best practices ■ Implement control measures b. Integrity self-assessment ■ Using diagnostic tools ■ Monitoring the performance in critical areas ■ Needs assessment c. Validation d. Learning interventions to address gaps ■ External review ■ Address gaps through learning ■ Reinforce integrity habits e. Certification f. Global and local competitiveness One of the milestones in mov-

ing companies from signing the Integrity Pledge to obtaining certification is the development of the online self-assessment tool.

The online tool was designed for participating organizations to gauge the extent to which existing policies and practices are aligned with the Unified Code of Conduct for Business. Companies are also invited to use the tool to reflect on existing strengths, best practices and areas of improvement that can be used for planning and designing integrity improvement strategies.

Who should accomplish the assessment: senior management with the assistance of the compliance officer.

While the Integrity Initiative can also monitor the self-assessment of companies, rest assured that all responses are kept confidential by the Integrity Initiative.

Feedback would be appreciated; contact me under Schumacher@integrityinitiative.com.

he National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) will convince the President to certify as urgent measures amending a law that allows the Philippines to continue imposing the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice beyond June 30.

Neda Undersecretar y for Planning and Policy Rosemarie Edillon told the B usiness M irror over the weekend that the request will be made by the interagency Committee on Tariff and Related Matters (CTRM).

The CTRM recommends to the President, among others, a continuous rationalization program for the country’s tariff structure.

“The CTRM will issue the request,” Edillon said. “There is no definite schedule yet [when the CTRM will do this]. [The next meeting of the CTRM will happen] some time early July.”

The Agricultural Tarrification Act, or Republic Act (RA) 8178, did not indicate an end date for the QR on rice. The QR has allowed the government to limit the volume of rice that can be imported by the Philippines every year, preventing a possible influx of cheap rice imports.

RA 8178 was enacted in 1996 and specified the tariffs for imported farm products, except for rice, as the World Trade Organization (WTO) permitted Manila to continue imposing the rice QR until 2004.

The duties collected from imported farm products constituted the so-called Agricultul Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, which should have been used for irrigation, farm-to-market roads, postharvest equipment and facilities, and provision of credit.

However, the Philippines sought the extension of the waiver for the special treatment on rice twice, citing the need for more time to prepare the local rice sector.

The waiver will expire on June 30 this year but the Duterte administration has decided not to

RA 8178 The law that must be amended to scrap the quantitative restriction on rice

seek for another extension of the WTO waiver.

Senior government officials, however, said Manila could not yet convert the rice QR into a specific tariff rate because Congress has not amended RA 8178 to remove the rice import caps.

The Duterte administration vowed to allocate all the proceeds from tariffs collected from rice imports to cut farmers’ production cost, according to the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-2022.

The country’s medium-term macroeconomic blueprint said the amendment of RA 8178 is included in the priority legislative agenda of the Duterte administration. The government decided to allow the country’s QR to expire because of its potential to reduce rice prices nationwide.

Rice, according to the PDP, accounts for 30.6 percent of the total food expenditure of the poorest 20 percent of households based on the 2012 Family Income and Expenditure Survey.

The CTRM is composed of the secretary of trade and industry, as chairman; with the Secretary of Neda, as cochairman.

Its members are the executive secretary; the secretaries of foreign affairs, agriculture, transportation, information, environment and budget; the governor of the central bank; and the chairman of the Tariff Commission.

The CTRM advises the President and the Neda Board on tariff and related matters and on the effects on the country of various international developments.

It also coordinates agency positions and recommends national positions for international economic negotiations.