BusinessMirror March 26, 2020

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THE BROADER LOOK:

AP/AARON FAVILA

PANDEMIC, LOCKDOWNS TEST GLOBAL ENDURANCE OF OVERSEAS FILIPINOS’ SPIRIT A4-A5

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PSEi back in 5K points on BSP moves

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By VG Cabuag

HARE prices inched higher on Wednesday, with the main index returning to the 5,000-point level as markets in the United States soared overnight and investors had a delayed reaction to the local central bank’s more aggressive move to pour more money into the market. The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gained 253.49 points to close at 5,027.76 points. President Duterte also signed into law the Bayanihan bill, but analysts said it still had little impact on the market trading. “The local market’s rally was primarily due to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s 200-basis-point cut in banks’

reserve requirement ratio, which will inject more liquidity into the economy as it fights the impact of the Covid-19 spread,” Japhet Louis O. Tantiangco, senior research analyst at Philstocks Financials Inc., said. “The BSP has been utilizing its arsenal lately to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus on the economy, from the aggressive policy rate cut, to the buying of government securities, to the RRR reduction. Investors are appreciating this,” he said. Yet another market boost, per Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III: the state-run pension funds Social Security System (SSS) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) have already spent almost a billion pesos to support the stock market.

Meanwhile, Luis Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital and Development Corp., said the rise in prices was also a result of strong market rebound across countries as investors call it a “turnaround Tuesday.” “US markets rallied 8 percent to 11 percent, with Dow Jones having the biggest daily gain since 1933 and S&P [enjoying] its biggest single-day rally since October 2008,” he said. Foreign investors, however, are still dumping local shares as they were net sellers at P1.66 billion. Total value of trade reached P8.29 billion. Gainers led losers 158 to 44 and 29 shares were unchanged. All other sub-indices gained, led by the broader All Shares index that

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Thursday, March 26, 2020 Vol. 15 No. 168

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 16 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

OFWs WORRY OVER JOBS, KIN AT HOME; DFA LISTS 172 CASES

JOVITA BELLEZA attends to her sari-sari store in Barangay Vitas-Katuparan in Tondo, Manila on Tuesday. Before Covid-19 she used to wake up at 4 am and buy in Divisoria most of what she sells. With the curfew and lockdown, she lost half of her earnings from her store. “I hope this ends so our lives can go back to normal,” she sighs. BERNARD TESTA

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz & Recto L. Mercene

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By Bernadette D. Nicolas

HE Philippine government is in talks with multilateral agencies to secure up to $2-billion funding support as the state expects foregone revenue of as much as P318.9 billion should the economy contract by 1 percent this year due to the pandemic. Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said on Wednesday the government hopes to secure “soon” the funds, to come in the form of both grants and loans. The money, he said, will also be spent to support people who lost their livelihood, boost government’s capacity to combat the virus, as well as to protect the country’s frontliners. “We are currently in negotiations with multilateral agencies for $1 billion up to $2 billion for funding support for this. We have to

realize, we are looking at a drop in revenues. So we have to cover that gap somehow so that we maintain our pace of spending,” Dominguez told reporters via teleconference. “So we are talking to multilateral agencies at the moment to do that. We want to do it early because all the countries in the world are trying to do the same thing,” he added. He said these multilateral agencies include the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), as well as the Asian Infra-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 51.0760

MAKATI’S financial district (upper photo) looks like a ghost town as few vehicles pass on Wednesday, more than a week after the government declared a Luzon-wide lockdown to contain Covid-19. Above, a cleaner works at the departure area of Terminal 2, now empty except for some airport personnel. Philippine Airlines, which operated from this terminal, announced it is temporarily suspending remaining flights from March 26 to April 14, 2020. NONIE REYES

structure Investment Bank (AIIB). Aside from multilateral agencies, the government is talking to bilateral development partners while keeping in mind that other countries are also addressing their own domestic situations, the DOF chief said. Economic managers have also projected a revenue loss of P286.4

billion should the country record a zero-percent growth this year while a contraction of 1 percent would yield a P318.9-billion drop in revenues. Based on the initial estimates of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), the country’s economy could contract Continued on A2

ITH 172 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in 25 countries having been infected with the novel coronavirus disease and two deaths, President Duterte was asked on Wednesday to include displaced migrant workers in the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act that he signed into law later Tuesday. Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Rep. Raymond C. Mendoza, the chairman of the House Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs, made the call, saying, “Their families are sick with worry for their loved ones and have lost their income stream.” On Wednesday the Department of Foreign Affairs said two Filipinos have died and 172 were confirmed to have been infected with Covid-19; but 80 have recovered and 90 are undergoing treatment. The DFA said in some countries, identifying Covid-19 patients’ nationalities is prohibited “to avoid discrimination, and some Filipino patients have asked for strict confidentiality regarding their situations.” Thus, the DFA said, “you will also notice that the DOH IHR numbers are lower than ours because even they cannot get information from official health sources, whereas our posts get info also from the patients, their families and/or the Filipino communities.” At the same time, it noted that information sharing is now global “and what we release will eventually be known in these other countries; we do not want to negatively affect our nationals abroad.” The DFA acknowledged that, “It’s a dilemma we face because these restrictions are also not present in many other countries.” The DFA said they are discussing this issue continually and hope to find a balance between transparency and protection of the welfare of Filipino citizens abroad. “We are also working closely with the DOH to come up with coordinated data to help monitor the conditions of our patients abroad.” With reference to deaths, the DFA said they are very careful in releasing the data “because people also die of other causes, and we do not want to ascribe the cause of death to Covid-19 unless it is absolutely verifiable.” The Bayanihan to Heal As One Act provides a subsidy ranging from P5,000 to P8,000 per month to 18-million low-income households through the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) expanded 4Ps and through the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) Tulong sa Paghahanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (Tupad) and the Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP). Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4589 n UK 59.9990 n HK 6.5883 n CHINA 7.2325 n SINGAPORE 35.3076 n AUSTRALIA 30.4668 n EU 55.0957 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.6022

Source: BSP (March 25, 2020)


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