Businessmirror may 01, 2017

BMReports

The Labor Movement: Impact of Herrera law after 28 years

By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza @PsycheRoxas

Part One

H

E races against time and traffic every day.

From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., 30-year-old Lennie Pilito Maribojo needs to find some 10 to 15 passengers to earn as much as P3,000 a day as an Uber driver.

Uber is a transportation network vehicle service that allows a passenger to avail himself or herself of a taxi or car service for a prearranged fee. Maribojo is one of some 7,000 Uber drivers plying Metro Manila as of late-2016.

“If I make P3,000 a day, take away P1,200 for gasoline, the remaining P1,800 will be split between me and the owner of the car.

I get to take home P900 on good days and about P600 to P700 on heavy traffic days,” Maribojo said in the vernacular. Dark-complexioned and brawny at 5'4", home for this second-generation taxi driver is a 12 feet-by-12 feet ramshackle rented house in Meycauyan,

This file photo shows people commemorating Labor Day on May 1, 2016, at the historic park named after revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio. Filipino workers contesting labor issues have been governed by several regulations, notably the Herrera Law. ROY DOMINGO

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Continued on A2

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Monday, May 1, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 200

Asean to EU: Rethink bias vs palm-oil farming A

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

@alyasjah

sean leaders urged the European Union (EU) to review its recently approved resolution on palm oil and deforestation, arguing it puts to risk Southeast Asia’s large palm-oil industry.

In his statement as chairman of the Asean Summit, President Duterte said he and his fellow leaders are concerned over the approval of the Resolution on Palm Oil and Deforestation

of Rainforest by the EU early April.

Asean leaders said they were worried by the resolution, as it “discriminates against palm-oil cultivation by singling it out as being the largest

266,000 MT

The volume of palm oil imported by the Philippines in 2014 contributor to deforestation, to the detriment of the palm-oil industries in the region.”

The EU adopted a resolution calling on its Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety to honor the bloc’s commitment to several international treaties,

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LGUs can; 10 reasons why; and why they should PPP Lead Alberto C. Agra

B

y what authority can local government units (LGUs) undertake public-private partnerships (PPPs) in buildingbuilding-building at the community level? Here are the 10 reasons why: (1) LGUs enjoy local autonomy. LGUs have the freedom to adopt their own PPP frameworks, and determine the requirements and procedures for the selection of the private-sector proponent (PSP), provided, no law is violated. They can undertake projects based on their priorities. They cannot be compelled to pursue PPPs and undertake a particular PPP project.

Continued on A15

See “Asean,” A2

JAPAN, PHILIPPINES URGE PHL backs removal of nontariff barriers UNITED STATES, N. KOREA TO AVOID WAR BRINK

By Catherine N. Pillas @c_pillas29

& Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

P

resident Duterte joined China in pleading with the leaders of North Korea and the United States to tone down their nuclear brinksmanship, even as he agreed with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that negotiations to end the standoff would be useless.

“We have to caution everybody, including those who’d give the advice to the two players, because you have nuclear warheads to just show restraint,” Mr. Duterte said last Saturday after wrapping up a meeting of leaders of the Asean in Manila.

Abe, in London, said talks with North Korea shouldn’t be tried while the communist nation continues its “provocative acts”. He spoke as China’s official news agency, Xinhua, urged President

Donald J. Trump to “tread cautiously” with the US and North Korea locked in a “tit-for-tat” vicious cycle. Duterte compared the standoff to two countries playing with toys “and those toys are not to entertain”.

North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test early Saturday came hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson mounted an effort at the United Nations to rally pressure against Kim Jong Un’s regime.

Trump has stepped up pressure to prevent Kim from obtaining the capability to hit North America with a nuclear weapon. He has threatened to act unilaterally if China fails to do more to curb its neighbor’s activities.

“One miscalculation of a missile, Continued on A16

PESO exchange rates n US 49.6990

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@jearcalas

he Philippines supports the call of other Asean leaders to reduce nontariff barriers (NTBs), which have hindered the expansion of trade in Southeast Asia, according to the chief of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

Trade Sec ret a r y a nd 2017 A sean Economic Ministers Chairman Ramon M. Lopez said the reduction of both NTBs and nontariff measures (NTMs) were discussed during the recently concluded Asean Summit.

In an interview, Lopez affirmed the commitment of the Philippines to cut NTMs and NTBs, saying there should be guidelines or parameters in imposing these measures.

“In considering what could be the criteria justifying NTMs, in-

5,975

The total number of NTMs and NTBs in Asean

dustry protection has weight. The argument of protecting infant domestic industries has to be reassessed,” he said.

“It’s already part of the discussions but we’ll get deeper into it in an intersessional meeting after an Apec Trade Ministers Meeting in May. We could have an Asean caucus and discuss it further there,” Lopez added.

But, he said, there has to be a “balanced view” on which measures to remove.

Lopez noted that sanitary and phytosanitary measures—a type of NTM that is usually imposed by Asean countries—are necessary to

ensure the safety of consumers.

Last Friday Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called for the removal of NTBs and NTMs in Asean. “Nontariff barriers and measures— or NTBs and NTMs—must be reduced and ultimately removed. This is a stubborn worldwide problem, but it is in Asean’s own interests to lead the way in this endeavor,” Razak said during his keynote address in Go Negosyo’s Asean 2017 Prosperity for All summit.

“Here, there really is a lot to do.

Between 2000 and 2015, NTBs and NTMs in Asean actually rose— from 1,634 measures to 5,975. This cannot be tolerated, it has to be checked and reversed,” he added.

‘Preparation needed’

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the government must first prepare “vulnerable economic sectors” before considering the removal of NTBs, such

as import caps.

“I believe in fair trade [but] I also believe in empowering our agriculture and fisheries sector to prepare them for tough competition,” Piñol told the BusinessMirror.

The chief of the Department of Agriculture had wanted to ask the World Trade Organization to extend for another two years the Philippine waiver relating to the special treatment for rice.

In justifiying his request for an extension, Piñol said Filipino rice farmers are not ready to compete with their counterparts in other Asean countries, like Thailand and Vietnam, where rice is cheap.

Transparency in the implementation of NTBs and NTMs, according to economist Pablito M. Villegas, would help Filipino farmers become competitive.

“The transparency in NTMs will level the playing field for exporters and importers.

n japan 0.4474 n UK 63.8384 n HK 6.3881 n CHINA 7.2104 n singapore 35.6112 n australia 37.1450 n EU 54.2117 n SAUDI arabia 13.2534

See “PHL,” A2

Source: BSP (27 April 2017 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Monday, May 1, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The Labor Movement: Impact of Herrera law after 28 years Continued from A1

Bulacan, which he shares with his father, mother, youngest brother and three nieces.

“We rent the house for P3,500 a month. I set aside P150 a day for the rent. The rest goes to rice and other necessities,” Maribojo said.

“Kahit na walang ulam, basta may bigas, okay na ’yun sa amin [Even if there is no viand, for as long as we have rice, it is okay with us].”

Maribojo added he had dreamed of becoming a seaman but hard times forced him to quit as a firstyear student at the Philippine Maritime Institute (PMI) in Manila.

“Noong first semester ko sa PMI, tumigil na ako. Tinulungan ko na lang ang nanay ko magtinda ng banana cue sa Moriones, Tondo,” he said.

“Nakaka-15 stick kami ng saging mula ala-una hanggang ala-singko

ng hapon, pambili ng bigas at ulam [I stopped on my first semester at PMI. I just helped my mother sell banana cue in Moriones, Tondo. We are able to sell 15 sticks of bananas from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. We use the money to buy rice and viand].”

Illegal dismissal

MARIBOJO used to be employed at a Manila-based company selli ng c losed- c i rc u it telev ision (CCTV) units until he was illegally dismissed last year.

He said he worked as driver, installer and sold CCTVs to clients for P300 a day, at a time when the minimum wage was P466 a day.

Through his father, former Sulpicio Lines labor union leader Leovigildo Maribojo, he has sought legal assistance from the Federation of Free Workers (FFW) for his illegal termination case.

Lopez. . .

Continued from A16

improving PA management and operations while decreasing subsidy from the national government. The DENR is also eyeing a partnership with the Department of Agriculture in mainstreaming biodiversity-friendly agricultural practices in and around PAs. The move is expected to address issues, such as unregulated conversion of PAs to agricultural lands, and demonstrate how the environmental, social and economic components of social development can be harmonized.

Standard labeling

THE DENR has also identified several areas of improvement to protect and conserve the country’s watersheds for survival. It launched a control map as a standard for the use of the country’s environment and natural resources (ENR), and to promote evidence-based planning and decision making.

The map integrates all spatial information collected and produced by agency on forestland, PAs and mining tenements.

According to Lopez, the control map would contribute to a better prioritization of the agency’s programs and projects, ensure equitable allocation of resources, and

Providing free legal assistance is a service provided by many trade union federations and labor unions to workers. Illegal dismissals, according to FFW President and lawyer Sonny Matula, is a common issue among workers, especially since the rise in incidence of labor contractualization.

As defined, contractualization is the practice of replacing regular workers with temporary workers who receive lower wages, with little or no benefits. In labor parlance, temporary workers are also referred to as contractuals, trainees, apprentices, helpers, casuals, piece raters, agency hired, or project employees.

Labor contractualization

M AT U L A st ressed, however, the practice of labor-only contracting began during the time of the late-President Ferdinand E. Mar-

aid in disaster-risk reduction, mitigation and adaptation. The DENR is also establishing the Philippine Forest Certification System (PFCS), which adopts a standard labeling system to ensure all wood products come from so-called legal and sustainably managed forests. Lopez said the PFCS would result to “healthier forests, communities and workers” and help prevent illegal wood harvesting or logging while promoting employment that is “compliant with all fundamental International Labor Organization conventions”.

T he DENR’s Forest Ma n agement Bureau is also aiming to streamline woodprocessing plant permits by extending their validity from three to five years, she added. The scheme is expected to attract more investors, provide less transaction costs, improve security of tenure and help meet the domestic demand for wood-based products.

Sulfur oxide

TO improve air quality in Metro Manila, the DENR will designate Edsa in Metro Manila as a nonattainment area for exceeding pollution standards, Lopez said.

The DENR-Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) is set to revise emission standards for criteria pollutants, specifically sulfur oxide, from source-specific air pollutants to promote a safer, cleaner and

cos. “Labor contractualization was already a provision in Presidential Decree [PD] 442, or the Labor Code of the Philippines, which Marcos signed on May 1, 1974,” he said.

“Labor-only contracting shall he deemed unlawful where the person supplying workers to an employer dues not have substantial capital or investment in the form of tools, equipment, machineries and work premises, among others, and the workers recruited and placed by such person are performing activities, which are directly related to the principal business of such employer,” Article 104 of PD 442 said. “In such cases, the person or intermediary shall be considered merely as an agent of the employer who shall be responsible to the workers in the same manner and extent as if the latter were directly employed

healthier environment.

The standard will be lowered to 400 milligrams per normal cubic meter (mg/Ncm), compared to 1,500 mg/Ncm standard prior to the implementation of Republic Act 8749, also known as the Clean Air Act. Sulfur oxide has been found to be one of the leading causes of respiratory diseases. The standards have been patterned to international health standards.

T he DENR w il l a lso make use of technology to promote transparency and accountability. One of these is with the launch later this month of a mobile application that Lopez said will show the user the location of forestlands, ancestral domains, mining tenements, flood-prone areas, fault lines and PAs. The EMB will implement online submission of monitoring data as a strategy in “bringing quality service to our people” by providing an adequate and timely feedback mechanism.

The bureau also announced it now requires a programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS) for proponents of sand and gravel projects securing an environmental compliance certificate . Lopez also vowed to enhance public participation in the various stages of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) system or from its onset to the evaluation stage.

by him.” Matula, who has been practicing law for the past 20 years, said “since its enactment, the Labor Code has undergone several amendments”.

“The most notable amendment was brought about by Republic Act [RA] 6715, also known as the Herrera law, which took effect on March 21, 1989,” he added.

Balancing act

THE original bill was authored by the late-Sen. Ernesto Herrera in the Senate. Rep. Vicente Veloso was the author of a corresponding bill in the Lower House.

RA 6715 was passed under the administration of the late-President Corazon C. Aquino, during the year when future Sen. Franklin M. Drilon was the labor secretary (1987 to 1990).

Prior to his stint in the first

Controversies

LOPEZ is set to face the CA as the committee resumes on May 2 a public hearing for her interim appointment as a public official.

Twice bypassed by the CA, Lopez’s appointment as environment secretary would have to be approved or rejected when the members of the CA meet on Tuesday.

Lopez faces stiff opposition in the CA for her controversial decisions to close or suspend 28 operating mines, cancel 75 mineral-production sharing agreements (MPSAs) and impose a ban on open-pit mining on gold, silver, copper and complex ores. Still, she enjoys the support of some environmental groups.

The official is being criticized for her controversial policies, such as ordering a mine audit and audit criteria anchored on “social justice”, which prioritizes social, environmental and biodiversity over technical aspect of mining. She allegedly ignored “slap-in-wrist” penalty recommended by her own audit teams by going for mine closure or suspension, for bringing in her own team and putting 50 DENR career officials on floating status that is causing sweeping demoralization and for “forcing” several mining companies to cough out P2 million per hectare of disturbed area for rehabilitation beyond what is mandated by the mining law.

Aquino Cabinet, Drilon served as vice president and governor of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop).

T he He r re r a l aw, accord ing to Matula, “made substantial amendments to the Labor Code but did not touch Article 106 to 109 on contracting and subcontracting labor”.

He added that “Article 106 was intended to balance the interest of capital and labor but as the years go by it was used by capital to circumvent the worker’s constitutional right to security of tenure.” Employers contend, however, that contractualization or outsourcing is an employment strategy recognized by Article 106 of the Labor Code and that it is a valid exercise of management prerogative and business judgement. To be continued

Asean. . .

Continued from A1

such as those within the framework of COP 21, the United Nations Forum on Forests and the UN Convention on Biological Biodiversity.

Citing land-use conversion and numerous incidents of wildfire, these environmental agreements fingered palm-oil cultivation as the main contributor to deforestation. The EU resolution recommended the imposition of a tighter importation policy on palm oil, including the implementation of “different customs duty schemes that more accurately reflect the real costs associated with the environmental burden”.

Aside from this, it pushed for the introduction and application of “nondiscriminatory tariff and nontariff barriers” on palm oil based on its carbon footprint, and a “polluter pays” principle in relation to deforestation.

Such declaration served as a drawback to a number of Asean countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia, which are considered the top producers of palm oil in the world. The Philippines is also expected to bear the brunt of this resolution, given its interest in the palm-oil industry.

Late last year after Duterte visited Malaysia for talks with Prime Minister Najib Razak, Malaysian firm Alif Oil Trading Co. said it was keen on venturing into a $1-billion palm-oil plantation north of Mindanao, which would require 128,000 hectares of land.

T he President wa nted to inte grate the palm-oil cultivation under the administration’s efforts to close deals with the communist rebels in Mindanao, noting that vast areas of lands they occupied are suitable for palm plantations.

“We urged the European Union to recognize the certification of the sustainable palm-oil schemes in the countries concerned, which is a manifestation of our [Asean] commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” the statement read. The Philippines imported 266,000 metric tons of palm kernel olein from Malaysia in 2014, valued at $234.15 million, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The Philippines hosted the 30th Asean Summit, which concluded last Saturday.

PHL. . .

Continued from A1

With transparent NTMs, the Philippines will be able to adjust better in trading with other countries,” Villegas, who is president and CEO of agricultural think tank Meganomics Specialists Inc., told the BusinessMirror. “This would reduce the risks of trade in the business scheme in the Asean region,” he added.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defined NTMs as “measures other than normal tariffs which have the effect of restricting trade between nations.”

Asean leaders had agreed to become more transparent in implementing NTMs and to reduce technical barriers to trade. “We strongly encouraged Asean to continue strengthening public- and private-sector engagement, promoting transparency of nontariff measures, streamlining and simplifying customs procedures, trade regulatory regimes and reducing technical barriers to trade while ensuring quality and building confidence in Asean products,” their statement read.

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Food company denounces NPA attack, blames DAR

L

APANDAY Foods Corp. on Sunday denounced the attack and burning of its box- and plasticmanufacturing plants in Davao City and said an agrarian dispute may be behind the attack by armed men believed to be New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.

In a statement, the company said last week Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael V. Mariano, who failed in his attempt to install farmers belonging to a breakaway group of agrarian-reform beneficiaries on lands already registered with Hijo Employees Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative-1 (HEARBCO-1), threatened the company for prohibiting him from escorting these farmers and their supporters from various leftist organizations.

“This breakaway group and their supporters were coddled and abetted by the Department of Agrarian Reform’s [DAR] leadership to openly defy the final and executory order of the court that ruled there was no agrarian dispute and the DAR had no jurisdiction on the case, the company said.

The company added it was fortunate no employees who were working at the time of the incident were harmed or injured. All of the company’s personnel are safe.

It said the cellular telephones of employees, computers and other company properties were stolen by the intruders, who also ransacked the offices of the plant.

“As they were withdrawing from the plant, the unidentified intruders set paper and other flammable mate-

rials on fire that eventually engulfed the plant,” the statement said.

A few hours after the attack, t h e c o m mu n i s t N PA c l a i m e d responsibility.

The spokesman for the NPA- Southern Mindanao Regional (SMR) Operations Command, Rigoberto Sanchez said, “the First Pulang Bagani Battalion NPA-SMR victoriously launched three simultaneous tactical offensives in Davao City against the Lorenzoowned companies and ranch starting at around 2 a.m. today [Saturday].”

Sanchez said the rebels disarmed security guards at Lapanday’s two box plants in Barangay Mandug before setting on fire several equipment. The Macondray Plastic Plant in Barangay Bunawan was also attacked, and security guards were disarmed, while three high-powered firearms were seized from the Lorenzo Ranch in Barangay Pangyan, Calinan.

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte Carpio said the NPA attacks were acts of terrorism.

“I take what happened today [Saturday] as a personal insult, especially because the local government of Davao City has been supportive of the peace negotiations between the national government and the National Democratic Front, the political umbrella that covers the armed guerrilla movement. And because I have repeatedly offered to talk peace with the members of the NPA within Davao City,” Duterte-Carpio said in a press statement. Manuel T. Cayon

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Monday, May 1, 2017 A3

Senators wary of supporting death-penalty bill–legislator

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HE senior deputy minority leader of the House of Representatives on Sunday said fear of losing potential support from the Roman Catholic Church in elections would influence, in a big way, a greater number of senators to eventually vote against the return of the death penalty.

“The peril of denials of support, especially from Church-based groups, is there. And our sense is, members of the Senate are far more sensitive to withdrawals of support than members of the House of Representatives,” Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza of Buhay said.

Voting 217-54 with a lone abstention on March 7, the House approved on final reading House Bill (HB) 4727, which would impose death sentences on drugs-related offenses.

“Even a few hundred thousand votes lost could spell the difference between winning or losing in the Senate race, or spending a lot more just to get into the Magic 12,” Atienza said.

For highly popular senators, he said denials of support could

cost them their dreams to top future elections.

El Shaddai, the country’s largest Catholic Charismatic Renewal group, endorsed the 2016 candidacies of a number of sitting senators.

Atienza said he does not expect the Senate to put the death penalty to a vote in the near future.

“It could be that the pro-death penalty senators, mostly from the majority, are afraid they’ll lose the vote, and embarrass not only themselves, but also President Duterte,” Atienza said.

Duterte has been pushing for the reimposition of the death penalty.

“Restore it and I will execute criminals every day—five or six.

That’s for real,” Duterte said in Gen-

eral Santos City last December.

The House has voted for the restoration of death penalty, but only for drugs-related offenses.

Duterte told: Know drug menace to solve it.

In an impassioned plea made during the assembly of the relatives and friends of activists killed by state agents, and the families of those slain by the police and vigilantes in the course of Duterte’s anti-drugs war, the human-rights watchdog Karapatan said it is not the job of the administration to abet such murders.

“Extrajudicial killings, whether done in the name of the war against so-called enemies of the State or of the war on drugs, should stop. We reiterate our call to President Duterte to truly undertake long term and comprehensive socioeconomic and political reforms that address the roots of social unrest, as well as the prevalence of the illegal- drugs trade, instead of employing violent solutions,” Karapatan Deputy SecretaryGeneral Jigs Clamor said during the event held at the Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines-Diliman, on April 29, 2017.

Karapatan, along with victims’ organization Hustisya and the network of families and relatives of victims of drug-related killings, Rise Up for Life

and for Rights (RULR), held a gathering on the exchange of testimonies and calls for justice of relatives and friends of victims of summary executions in the country.

“This is an important gathering, as those foremost affected by repressive State policies to air their individual and collective grievances and stand together in condemnation in light of the spate of killings in the country,” Clamor said.

As of March 31, Karapatan has recorded 47 cases of political killings, while journalists and news outlets put the number of drug-related killings at around 8,000.

Among the 47 victims of summary executions, the majority were peasant leaders and activists.

“There is an abundance of legislation and safeguards to protect and uphold human rights, including the government-National Democratic Front’s Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, yet violations persist. Victims of rights violations, along with support groups and progressive organizations, must continue to demand accountabi lit y from the State, seeking justice for all the lives lost throughout continuing repressive regimes,” Clamor added.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz with Marvyn N. Benaning

Economy

A4 Monday, May 1, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

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‘Private sector must help govt solve housing mess’

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

he chairman of the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development said the government should now tap the help of private sector in addressing the country’s housing problems.

Rep. Alfredo B. Benitez of PDPLaban Party-list said the government alone cannot solve the worsening housing problems of the Philippines.

Benitez noted that there are idle lands or properties which could be used as sites for government and private-sector socialized housing programs.

“If the government will not act on it, the problem on housing will worsen,” Benitez said, following a recent Congress’s ocular inspection in housing projects in Bulacan.

“Affordable housing provides a more cost-effective solution to address homelessness in the Philippines,” he added.

He said the government can initiate land-sharing or buy it out, or have an agreement to be able to free that land, and establish decent housing for Filipinos.

Currently, at least 5,821.57 hectares of land in the National Capital Region are available for

public-private partnership (PPP) for the government’s socialized housing programs.

Of the 5,821.57 hectares, 1,234.85 hectare, are governmentowned and currently being occupied by informal-settler families (ISFs), while the 2,185 hectares are idle and ready for housing programs.

Benitez added the remaining 2,401.72-hectare private land are also being occupied by ISFs. The lawmaker said the housing programs could be done under the PPP scheme and that the private sector should follow the lead of the government.

“Both ISFs and low- and middleincome earners will benefit from this,” he added.

Earlier Benitez said the housing needs of Filipinos could balloon to 6.8 million before President Duterte’s stepped down from office in 2022.

The lawmaker, citing the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), said 2

A worker looks at the finished cluster of a housing project in Cavite. The row houses will be awarded to the informal settlers of Las Piñas City. FILE PHOTO

million of these 6.8 million backlog were recorded in 2016.

Benitez also said the 760,400 housings needs for this year are also part of these 6.8 housing backlogs.

He said there will be an esti-

Manufacturing sector’s output up 4.65% in 2014

By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

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he output of the country’s manufacturing sector in terms of value rose by 4.65 percent to 5.4 trillion in 2014, from P4.3 trillion in 2013, according to the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

“Value of output represents the sum of the sale of products and by-products, income from industrial services done for others, sale of goods, less cost of goods sold, fixed assets produced on own account and change in inventories of finished products and work in progress,” the PSA said.

The combined output value of the top 10 industries or groups of industries accounted for P1.9 trillion, or 43 percent of the total.

Refined petroleum products led the industries with P530.8 billion, or 11.8 percent of the total, while semiconductor devices and other electronic components ranked second, with P410.2 billion, or 9.1 percent.

Other top contributors are computers and peripheral equipment and

accessories, with P218 billion; motor vehicles, P176.9 billion; powdered milk and condensed or evaporated milk, P137.7 billion; cigarettes and cigars, P115.5 billion; and cement, P98.4 billion.

Completing the list of top contributors are parts and accessories for motor vehicles and their engines with P83.6 billion; electric ignition or starting equipment for internal combustion engines, P82.6 billion; and soap and detergents, P80.6 billion.

The PSA said the subsidies received by all manufacturing establishments amounted to P270.2 million during the period.

Subsidies include cash grants and tax privileges extended by the government to help in the development of various industries.

“A mong t he industr y sub classes that received subsidies in 2014, the top 3 industries received P171.8 million, or a combined share of 63.6 percent of the total,” the PSA said.

Spinning received the biggest subsidy, accounting for P83.9 million, or 31 percent. This was fol-

lowed by parts and accessories for motor vehicles and their engines, with P61.4 million, and cement, with P26.5 million.

In 2014 there were a total of 25,197 manufacturing firms in the formal sector of the economy. The top 10 manufacturing industries comprised more than half, or 57.8 percent, of all manufacturing establishments in the country.

The top 10 were led by those into bread, cakes, pastries, pies and similar “perishable” bakery product manufacturing, with 6,682 establishments, or 26.5 percent of the total.

Bottled water followed, with 2,434 establishments, or 9.7 percent of the total, while printing ranked third, with 1,472 establishments.

The data was obtained from the 2014 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, which is one of the designated statistical activities of the PSA. Data collected for the survey provide information on the levels, structure, performance and trends of economic activities of the formal sector in the entire country.

LTO collected P22.2B in various fees last year

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

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he Land Transportation Office (LTO) has surpassed its target and collection for 2016 by P1 billion, contributing a total of P22.2 billion to government coffers.

LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar C. Galvante said the agency issued more than 5.8 million driver’s license and permits in 2016, representing an increase of 4.44 percent, or 249,686, during the same period the year prior.

Registration of motor vehicles for 2016 reached 9.2 million compared to previous year of 8.7 million.

The LTO, likewise, apprehended 588,676 drivers who violated various traffic rules and regulations and collected fines in the amount of P971.1 million, or 5 percent higher compared to 2015’s P924 million.

To streamline the registration process, Galvante said, the agency is already considering the decentralization of the initial registration of brand new and other motor

vehicles by authorizing district and extension offices to process them.

It, likewise, formulated a do-it-yourself sales reporting, which allows dealers to upload their sales in the LTO’s information-technology system to do away with the bulk registration.

The LTO cut down the processing time for driver’s license transactions by almost half. From more than one hour to 30 minutes.

At the same time, additional Driver’s License Renewal Offices were set up in various malls in Metro Manila, which are open from Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., in order to cater to clients who are unable to renew their license during the regular operating hour of the licensing office and to accommodate those clients who are working from Monday to Friday.

In the fight against corruption, 40 employees were charged administratively for illegal activities. Nine were dismissed from the service; six were suspended while the rest are awaiting resolution of their cases.

mated 774,441 housing needs in 2018; 788,773 in 2019; 803,405 in 2020; 818,363 in 2021; and 833,619 in 2022.

To fill this gap, Benitez said at least 1 million units should be constructed every year. “Of these avail-

able lands, 700 hectares are needed to produce 600,000 housings units in four- to five-story buildings.”

In a separate statement, Benitez said Congress will exercise its oversight powers to review the government’s housing programs.

“Congress will exert its oversight power to review all government housing projects and to guarantee and come up with a new process on how we can better implement our housing programs,” he said.

Vietnam eyeing to expand trade with PHL–official

By Catherine N. Pillas @c_pillas29

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he exit of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement has prompted Vietnam to look at other trade partners, including the Philippines, which could absorb its excess textile output.

Trade Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo said Vietnam is in discussions with the Philippine government for the sourcing of textiles.

“Vietnam has ramped up its production capacity for textiles in anticipation of the TPP, but since [the trade deal] will now be without the US, we’re discussing sourcing possibilities,” Rodolfo, who is also managing head of the Board of Investments, told reporters after the recent convening of the Vietnam-Philippines Joint Trade Committee.

The Philippines was once regarded as among the “victims” of the TPP due to its failure to become a party to it. The country’s export receipts was expected to suffer cuts as TPP member Vietnam would expand its access to the US market,

particularly for electronics and garments.

Tariffs on Vietnamese garments exports to the US were expected to go down to zero, from the current 17 percent to 32 percent, if Washington had not withdrawn from the TPP. With the US exit from the trade arrangement, member-countries that had initially banked on reaping the benefits of wider access to the American market are now looking at other options to maximize investments already made in the textile manufacturing sector.

According to Rodolfo, the Philippine garments manufacturing sector is not competitive due to the scarcity in raw hides and other textiles in the country.

With Vietnam supplying this and other textiles, he said the Philippines can build up its garments manufacturing supply chain, create more jobs, and export more products to the US and the European Union (EU).

“In campaigning for investors, we could say, with the sourcing collaboration with Vietnam, textile companies investing may not just look to supply the domestic and ex-

port markets but also the 100-million consumer market of Vietnam,” Rodolfo added.

However, this would depend on Washington agreeing to expand the coverage of its preferential trade scheme, dubbed as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), as articles of clothing and apparel are heavily protected in the US. The US-GSP allows duty-free treatment of 3,500 tariff lines from beneficiary countries, such as the Philippines.

Rodolfo also said the Philippines can take advantage of the EU’s own GSP scheme.

“In the EU-GSP+, we can source from a free-trade agreement [FTA] partner of the EU. Vietnam is already in the legal scrubbing phase of their FTA with the EU so that’s ok when it comes into force,” he said.

Vietnam is the Philippines’s 12th trading partner, its 12th export market and 12th import supplier in 2016.

The Philippines has a trade deficit with Vietnam. Some Philippine firms have also invested in Vietnam, citing competitive production costs.

Philexport sees adverse impacts of proposed energy-efficiency law on MSMEs

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xporters are against a provision under a proposed energy efficiency and conservation (EE/EC) law due to lack of financing options to comply with required mechanism and additional businessrelated administrative procedures that can increase the cost of doing business.

The proposed legislation requires manufacturers, importers and dealers to comply with the minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) system and display an energy label showing the energy requirement and consumption efficiency of the products.

“However, MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises] particularly do not have the mechanism to measure their energy consumption. The MEPS, as suggested in the bill, may not be immediately affordable to them, noting the absence of financing options,” Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) said in a position paper.

It said companies lack the source data by which they can establish baseline

numbers for their target reduction of energy consumption.

The legislation also requires them to develop EE/EC plans and programs under MEPS system for equipment, appliances, vehicles and electronic devices to ensure the least energy consumption.

Philexport also cited the proposed law’s provision mandating the private sector to undertake a number of data monitoring and reporting, hire additional manpower with the technical capacity to undertake energy audit and implement EE/EC measures.

The local government units are also mandated to develop and implement their Local Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plans complicate. “[These] add up to the cost of doing business. These run counter to the current administration’s initiative of streamlining business-related administrative procedures and reducing the cost of doing business,” Philexport said.

It said EE and EC are best pursued at the enterprise/company level depending on its setup and capacities.

“Reduced costs because of lesser energy consumption is the incentive itself. Businesses are already reeling from so many regulations. Any additional regulatory costs and procedure will negatively impact on the competitiveness of enterprises in the country, particularly MSMEs,” Philexport added.

It further proposed to consider distribution utilities, electric cooperatives and professional organizations, such as the Institute of Integrated Electrical Engineers and the Philippine Society for Mechanical Engineers, which can initiate technically sound and practical conservation measures that are auditable and can be duplicated.

Nevertheless, Philexport believed that the EE technologies and EC programs “make good business sense”, especially for the MSMEs and energy-intensive industries.

Philexport News & Features

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The Regions BusinessMirror

Rehab of Yolanda-damaged fish sanctuaries gets PRDP funding

By Elmer V. Recuerdo Correspondent

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ACLOBAN CITY—Fish sanctuaries in Eastern Samar destroyed by Supertyphoon Yolanda in November 2013 will soon get funding for the rehabilitation, almost four years after storm hit the province.

The Philippine Rural Development Project’s (PRDP) Advisory Board in Eastern Visayas recently approved for funding support proposals to rehabilitate fish sanctuaries in some identified Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) of that coast. The Board’s approval was, however, subject to subsequent compliance by the proponents of certain requirements, particularly on ensuring availability of their financial equity.

The RPAB provides guidance, reviews and approves subprojects for funding under the PRDP. The exact amount of funding support for the project has yet to be determined.

DA Regional Field Office-8 Executive Director U-Nichols A. Manalo said the funds will give relief to local officials and fishing communities in several towns along Guiuan coast whose marine-sanctuary projects remains damaged due to lack of funds to rehabilitate them.

“Funds shall be taken from the Global Environmental Facility [GEF], part of the package under the PRDP. It is intended for the protection of coastal and marine resource base in preidentified priority areas by preserving biodiversity and promoting fisheries resource management,” Manalo said.

The GEF is backed by a financial grant from the World Bank in the amount of $7 million, or almost P350 million.

Among the Eastern Samar towns that will benefit from the funds include Guiuan, Mercedes, Quinapondan, Salcedo and Lawaan, all

of which were included within the so-called Yolanda corridor.

“Region 8 is one of the few regions prioritized to be supported under the GEF,” Manalo said. “We need to fully maximize this opportunity to promote sustainable MPAs, which will benefit primarily our fishing communities along that coast.”

Ulysses Triambulo, a specialist at the PRDP National Project Coordination Office, said the GEF support is aimed at preserving biodiversity and strengthening the coastal and marine resources of the areas covered by the project through enhanced institutional and planning capacities of local government units and communities, provision of support to MPAs and sharing of knowledge and practices.

Concesa Abuda, a fishery technician from Guiuan, said it is important for fishermen to reestablish marine sanctuaries in different municipalities because catch within the bay has already dwindled due to destructive fishing practices in the area.

“We aim at intensifying our marine resources conservation effort,” Abuda said. “When fish sanctuaries were established, along with certain local initiatives on marine protection, we have noticed significant improvements, most important of which is the increased fish catch, from fishing done only nearby.”

Abuda said the destructive fishing practices done before brought severe damage to the corals, resulting to dwindled fish catch and forcing small local fishermen to fish too far from the shoreline. She said this makes fishing a costly and risky livelihood source for small fishermen.

“The support we will be getting from the PRDP GEF will surely go a long way in terms of preserving our marine resources, and uplifting the living condition of our fishing people. Also, it will help boost our locality’s tourism potential,” she said.

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Monday, May 1, 2017 A5

Davao-Bitung sea lane is golden route, but hiccups expected on initial venture

By Manuel T. Cayon | Mindanao Bureau Chief

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AVAO CITY—Two countries would be closely watching how the first commercial sea route at the untapped Celebes Sea turns out to be as hoped for: The golden route.

Presidents Duterte of the Philippines and Joko Widodo of Indonesia believe the route would bring luster and global spotlight to this first bilateral sea—connectivity venture of the East Asean subregional cooperation trying to infuse economic activity to the poorer and far-flung regions of the four countries.

What the Davao City-General Santos City-Bitung roll-on, roll-off (Roro) cargo shipping route could promise is cutting the three weeks of travel time of cargo using the Manila-Jakarta route to only one day and a half, a direct route down south of Davao City.

Cost of shipping is also an additional come-on to use this route, from $2,200 per 20-feet dry con-

tainer using the old route, to only $700.

“It’s a golden route,” said Fernando Juan C. Perez, assistant secretary for maritime of the Department of Transportation who headed the task force on the Philippine side of the Roro cargo shipping venture with Indonesia.

With abbreviated time for preparation and the wait-and-see posturing of businessmen in both countries, Perez said, “We cannot expect a full load on its initial voyage.”

At least one corporation, Pilmico of the Aboitiz group, is sending its first shipment of flour and animal feeds and intimated to organizers it would be sending an average of 120 container vans on the

succeeding trips, said Trade and Industry Assistant Secretary Arturo Boncato Jr., also the senior Philippine official to the Brunei Darrusalam, Indonesia, Malaysia the Philippines-East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga).

Boncato said other major corporations, including millers and other food distributors, informed him of commissioning their respective market-feasibility studies, with attendant plan to develop contacts and partners in the Indonesian side.

Other manufacturers in Luzon have also floated the idea of sending their shipment to this city, rather than using the traditional ManilaJakarta route, and load them to this Roro ship.

Boncato said it would not be difficult anymore, given the esablished Roro routes connecting Luzon, the Visayas islands and Mindanao.

“It’s actually a starter, and for our maiden voyage, we would be looking at five runs to see how the market responds,” he said.

“But everybody is excited, actually. Many businesses would be taking the wait-and-see attitude here and if they see it is here to stay, then we expect them to

Cebgo to move main base of operations to Cebu

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

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Pinoy anglers top Siargao game fishing tilt

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ILIPINO anglers showed their skill in game fishing in their home waters as they almost shut out the rest of the competition during the 10th Siargao International Game Fishing Tournament held in Pilar town on Siargao Island, from April 7 to 9.

The annual three-day tilt was presented by the Department of Tourism, the province of Surigao del Norte, the municipality of Pilar and the House of Representatives Congressional Office of Siargao District.

Rico Gueco bested 72 other contestants from the Philippines, Japan, the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia, France, South Africa, Norway, Hong Kong and Hungary to net the highest aggregate overall haul of 93.2 kilograms.

The bounty consisted of a 23.15-kilogram and 25.1-kg sailfish, a 17.5-kg and 10.85-kg tuna, a 6.2-kg and 5-kg wahoo, and a 5.4 kg dorado. He also bagged a P30,000 cash prize.

First-timer Elmer Causing, vacationing from his work in Angola, topped the main Sailfish category, with a 7-foot 31.95-kg catch and

carted away with the champion’s trophy and a P60,000 cash prize.

His boatman, Rico Elimano, won a separate prize of P30,000.

In the Giant Trevally (talikitok) category, Leo Yosalina and boatman Juan Bosito shone with their 6.2-kg catch.

General Santos City-based fishing magnate Marfenio Tan and his boatman Lanie Blacanda bagged top place in the Giant Tanguige division, with their 12.95-kg haul.

A tournament pioneer, Tan also ruled the Biggest Dorado category, with a 12.3-kilo catch; followed by Richard Sharpe of Canada, with his 5.65-kilo fish.

Meanwhile, Jeaza Gonzales emerged as winner in the Biggest Others category, with his 17.9kg catch, which excluded shark, stingray, popper fish, dolphin, lumba, turtles and other endangered species.

Pilar Vice Mayor and tournament director Luis Gonzales said this year’s edition has been the biggest so far in terms of prizes, participation and attendance by national government officials.

ELMER Causing, winner of the 10th Siargao International Game Fishing, raises his winning catch. PHOTO COURTESY OF FRANCIS PELONIO

make their moves,” he said.

Perez said business groups in the Indonesian side were also doing their part to help the venture.

“There’s still a lot to be worked out, getting the permits, establishing connections. But there are business-to-business meetings going on in Manila and with their counterpart in Indonesia,” Perez said.

Some trade restrictions may have to be looked at also, said Dr. Malou Monteverde, past president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Eamarie M. Gilayo, development management officer under the international relations division of the Mindanao Development Authority.

Monteverde, who proposed the route during her tenure in 2012, and Gilayo said the export and import trade restrictions on the side of Indonesia include shoes and toys, housewares, electronics, pharmaceuticals and textiles.

With the lifting of the Indonesian Trade Ministry Order on restricted products, more items from Filipino exporters may be allowed entry and would entice local businessmen to tap the Roro cargo shipping.

OFFERING FLOWERS AT BAGUIO VETERANS PARK

Garcia Wakit, 94, and a World War II veteran, offers a bouquet at the Veterans Park in Baguio City to commemorate the 72nd Baguio Liberation Day with the theme “WWII Veterans: The Guiding Light of Our Mother Land”. MAU VICTA

MIIC warns vs ‘illegal’ deal on 1,500-ha reclamation work in Cordova, Cebu

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By Felix U. Basadre Jr. | Correspondent

HE Malayan Integrated Industries Corp. (MIIC) has cautioned Cebu Gov. Hilario P. Davide III, members of the Cebu provincial board, Cordova Mayor Adelino B. Sitoy and members of the Cordova municipal council against engaging in allegedly illegal transaction with SM Prime Holdings Inc. in connection with the proposed 1,500-hectare reclamation works in Cordova, Cebu.

Pablo C. Villaber, chairman, president and CEO of MIIC, in an exclusive interview with BusinessMirror, said the “unsolicited proposal offer of SM Prime Holdings, represented by Hans Sy and David Rafael, SMPHI [SM Prime Holdings Inc.] vice president, to undertake a reclamation work covering some 1,500 hectares of foreshore and offshore lands in Cordova, is “‘illegal and null and void ab initio.”’

While SM Prime Holdings’s intention to do some reclamation works in Cordova was only dated August 14, 2014, the right and privilege of MIIC as “principal proponent, sole grantee and awardee” of the Cordova Reclamation and Development Project has been in existence since August 21, 1992, Villaber said.

He said SM’s proposed reclamation project in Cordova is part of the Cordova Reclamation and Development Project, covering 3,500 hectares of foreshore and offshore areas, a project granted and awarded to the MIIC through a presidential decree (PD) issued by the late-President Ferdinand E. Marcos and strongly endorsed by then-President Fidel V. Ramos through his Executive Order (EO) 525.

MIIC is now equipped to push through with the reclamation project following a series of studies and consultations with experts not only in the country, but also abroad, Villaber said.

He said the alleged joint-venture contract agreement and undertaking entered into by the municipality of Cordova, Cebu, then represented by former Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy, now Presidential Legislative and Legal Office secretary and members of the municipal council during his term and SMPHI represented by its President Hans T. Sy, “has no basis in fact and in law and was a misrepresentation, unlawful, a fabrication and subject to perjury.”

The alleged reclamation project was reportedly signed by Davide, Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale and members of the Cebu provincial board. President Duterte himself led last month the ceremonial launching of the project.

The MIIC president said the reported joint venture between the municipality of Cordova and SMPHI “transgressed into the mandatory provisions and requirements of an earlier understanding between MIIC and the Public Estates Authority and the Office of the President during the administration of then-President Fidel V. Ramos”. The company said the agreement was for the undertaking of a reclamation project in Cordova, Cebu, with MIIC as the principal proponent.

Villaber enumerated the following violations allegedly committed by the municipality of Cordova and SMPHI, as: 1. Section 1 of the PD 3-A; 2. Section 1 of EO 525; 3. Memorandum of agreement, dated May 17, 1996, signed in behalf of the Office of the President by then-Executive Secretary Ruben Torres and later on May 22, 1996, was finally signed as final and approved for execution of the project by then Ramos; 4. PresidentialMemorandumDirectivedatedMay23,1996which was signed and issued in behalf of the President by then acting Executive Secretary Luis C. Liwanag by authority of the President; and 5. Memorandum Directive dated June 19, 1996, which was signed by then-Public Estates Authority Chairman Arsenio Yulo.

Villaber said he has written Davide, Sitoy and the members of their respective legislative bodies to manifest MIIC’s commitment to finally finish off the reclamation project.

Had previous Cebu local government units and the present ones cooperated with MIIC, the people would have seen already the fruition of the reclamation project in Cordova, Villaber said.

“Unless Governor Davide and Mayor Sitoy and the members of the Cebu provincial board and the municipal council support the giant reclamation project to be undertaken by the Malayan Integrated Industries Corp., all efforts to start and complete the project will go to naught,” Villaber said.

@lorenzmarasigan

ECAUSE the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) has already maxed out its capacity, low-cost carrier Cebgo plans to move out of Manila and transfer its operations base in Cebu.

Aviation think tank Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (Capa) said Cebu Pacific is planning to rationalize its operations in Manila in 2018, with subsidiary Cebgo on the verge of leaving the Naia to allow its parent to use its slots with bigger planes.

Cebgo operates a fleet of turboprop planes from ATR, while Cebu Pacific uses Airbus A320s and bigger aircraft.

“The decision not to operate ATR 72s at Manila any longer is part of an overall initiative by the group to maximize its Manila slots by upgauging,” Capa said, citing Cebu Pacific CEO Advisor Mike Szucs as its source.

It said as Manila slots are currently capped, the only way to increase capacity is to use larger aircraft.

“The overall strategy of shifting the entire Cebgo operation to secondary bases is sensible, given the constraints at Manila. The Cebu Pacific group could also potentially be convinced to keep a small turboprop base at Manila for services to small communities, if the Philippine government sets aside a special allocation of Manila slots for such services,” Capa said.

About half of Cebgo’s Manila routes are to airports that cannot accommodate jets. Currently, Cebgo has a fleet of 16 ATR aircraft.

“The recent decision to stop operating turboprops at Manila from 2018 explains the planned 2018 reduction in the turboprop fleet under the group’s newly revised fleet plan,” the research agency said.

The group plans to phase out six of its eight ATR 72-500s, while taking four more ATR 72-600s. As a result, Cebgo’s fleet is expected to shrink from 16 to 14 aircraft in 2018, offsetting some of the gains from 2017, before expanding back to 16 aircraft in 2019.

“If the group ends the Manila turboprop operation in 2018 as now planned, the non-Manila operation will still expand by two aircraft as the four ATR 72-600s based in Manila can be moved to other bases,” Capa said.

Hence, Cebgo will be able to continue expansion from Cebu, and potentially from new bases that could be opened in the second half of 2017 or in 2018.

“At the same time, shifting the turboprops from Manila will free up space for more of the A321neos due to be delivered in 2018,” Capa added.

Cebu Pacific has a standing order of more than two dozen aircraft from Airbus, due to be delivered completely by 2021.

“The priority obviously is to find slots and parking spaces for these new higher-gauge aircraft, enabling the group to increase capacity in Manila while using turboprops to add capacity in secondary markets,” Capa said.

A6

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

Monday, May 1, 2017 • Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Govt urged to hike buying price of palay Growing Cavendish bananas most profitable farming activity–PSA

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

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File photo

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

he National Food Authority (NFA) should increase its buying price of paddy rice by P2 per kilogram so it could beef up its buffer stock, according to the chairman of the House Committee on Economic Affairs.

Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Arthur Yap of Bohol said the NFA Council (NFAC) should permit the food agency to offer a “summer incentive fee” ranging from P1 to P2 per kg so the NFA could compete with local rice traders.

“If the NFA is not allowed to

import, then at least the [NFA] administrator should get an NFAC approval to offer a season-based summer incentive fee of at least P1 per kg so it can buy more local palay,” Yap told the BusinessMirror.

“That amount will at least go to local farmers and allow the NFA to

Perks for initiatives to boost development of Philippine bamboo industry pushed

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he Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) is pushing for incentives for research and development (R&D) activities and other initiatives to support the development of the country’s bamboo industry.

Philexport President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said the group fully supports the goals of Senate Bill (SB) 652, 665 and 716, or An Act Institutionalizing a Philippine Bamboo Industry Development Program (PBIDP).

“These bills [are] geared toward making the country’s bamboo industry competitive and sustainable in the local and global markets, while providing jobs and livelihood opportunities, particularly in the countryside,” he said in a letter to Sen. Juan Miguel F. Zubiri, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship.

The proposed legislations shall provide incentives for bamboo production and processing, including farmers, producers and investors, in bamboo-plantation development.

Apart from these activities, Ortiz-Luis proposed to include incentives, such as for R&D, productivity and long-term tenure in forest plantations and security of property rights.

He said simple and reduced administrative costs and procedures in both local and national government for business permitting and licensing, among others, may be also eligible for incentives.

Ortiz-Luis also pushed the addition of strengthening S and T intervention for innovation and commercialization of bamboo products to the objectives of the PBIDP stipulated under Section 4 of SB 716.

He said the legislation should also aim to institutionalize technical basis/reference for development of standards consistent with international bamboo standards.

SB 716 also needs to improve and increase the use of technology in bamboo harvest, postharvest and material preparation to increase productivity and ensure quality, he added.

Ortiz-Luis also proposed to include the Department of the Interior and Local Government in the Philippine Bamboo Industry Development Council.

He, likewise, underscored the need to consolidate the three bills to cover the details of the PBIDP and the administrative and management aspects of implementing it that includes provisions for the secretariat. Philexport News & Features

compete with local traders. The increase should be time-bound just to make the NFA competitive,” the former chief of the Department of Agriculture added.

Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate of Bayan Muna, a member of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food, backed Yap’s statement, saying the NFA should use its budget to buy farmers’ produce at a higher price.

“The present NFA leadership is now different from the previous ones. [But] the NFA then and now is still pursuing the policy of importation to the detriment, disservice and disadvantage of our farmers,” Zarate told the BusinessMirror.

“Instead of of fer ing lame excuses and buying the produce of other countries, the NFA will be doing the Filipino farmers a great service if its funds will be used to buy even at a higher and subsidized price the farmers’ produce during this harvest season,” he added.

Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the NFA said it could not purchase paddy rice from farmers as private traders were buying their crop for P18 to P20 per kg, higher than its support price of P17 per kg.

Data from the PSA showed that the average farm-gate price of palay in the first week of February was P18.15 per kg and continued to rise to P18.60 per kg in the last week of March.

Based on the prices monitored by the NFA field offices, as of March 31, 2017, ex-farm price of palay (clean and dry) was highest at P22.60 per kg and P22.50 per kg in Tagum, Davao del Norte, and Misamis Oriental, respectively.

The NFA buying price remains at P17.00 per kg for clean and dry.

The food agency gives an additional incentive of P0.20 to P0.50 per kg for delivery, P0.20 per kg for drying and P0.30 for cooperative development incentive fund for farmers’ organizations.

rowing Cavendish banana in the Philippines remained the most agricultural activity in 2014, registering a total output value of P46.51 billion, according to the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In its survey, titled “Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry” (ASPBI), the PSA said total output generated by all agriculture, forestry and fishing establishments reached P156.5 billion during the period.

“Industry wise, the Cavendish banana industry generated the highest value at P46.1 billion, or 29.5 percent of the total output,” the PSA said in the final results of its ASPBI survey.

“This was followed by hog farming and chicken-broiler production with respective value of output of P24.8 billion [15.8 percent] and P19.4 billion [12.4 percent],” the report read.

The PSA said the Cavendish banana industry also accounted for the highest earnings from valueadded products among all agrirelated industries at 35.6 percent.

“Total value added produced by all agriculture, forestry and fishing establishments in 2014 was estimated at P40.6 billion,” the report read.

“Among industries, growing of Cavendish banana generated the highest value added amounting to P14.4 billion, or 35.6 percent of the total. Commercial ocean fishing followed, with P4 billion. Hog farming ranked third, with P3.7 billion,” it added.

Despite being the highest-earning farming subsector, the PSA said only 180 establishments are into planting Cavendish bananas in the country. This represented only 6.7 percent of the total 2,690

Agricultural value chain development

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espite high levels of economic growth, the Philippine agriculture sector has shown consistently low growth and productivity rates. The lack of modernization, productivity and profitability of the agriculture sector is the result of an accumulation of factors across the value chain: Farmers, in the vast majority smallholders with an average age of 57 and five years of education, are often unable to turn agriculture into a profitable business as they lack the capacity or the funds to apply innovative methods and technologies to their farming methods.

Indeed, the small size of the farms, the lack of mechanization, use of high-productivity agricultural methods, such as inter-cropping, planting of new plant varieties and proper application of agricultural inputs, are some of the major barriers to increasing farmers’ productivity. Additionally, as farmers benefiting from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms are unable to use their land as collateral, access to finance is especially difficult.

The supply chain itself has handicapped the ability of the Philippines to guarantee food security and increase its agricultural

Henry J. Schumacher

europe Beat products’ competitiveness at an international level. Farm-to-market infrastructure, including roads and logistics services, is an important hindrance to the supply chain.

Indicatively, it is estimated that 20 percent to 50 percent of fresh goods are damaged during the journey from market to consumer (postharvest losses are estimated at 30 percent); this is compared to just 6 percent in Thailand. Additionally, the lack of a support framework, such as effective cooperatives, to ensure that farmers are able to access the market at competitive prices has meant that they are vulnerable to middle-men.

While there have been efforts at a national level to implement laws, policies and projects in support of agricultural development, often jointly with the private sector, the implementation of those is frequently challenged at the regional and local level. Specific examples where implementation has been challenged at the local level include the observance of

the national convergence initiative, good agricultural practices for coffee and the compliance to bidding requirements.

The European Union (EU) has supported initiatives that aim to empower the Philippine agriculture sector. Namely, since early 2015, the Philippines has benefitted from the EU GSP+ program, which allows tarifffree access to the EU market for over 6,200 Philippine products, many of which are agri-fishery products. Similarly, the development of geographical indications offers an excellent opportunity for farmers to incrementally increase the value of their products.

We look forward to the opportunity to join hands with relevant government authorities, including local government units, to establish a constructive public-private sector partnership with the objective to share expertise, create joint ventures between Philippine and foreign companies in the agri-food supply and value chain, and invest in a bankable, sustainable agriculture sector with the following aims: n Promote and support the utilization of GSP+ opportunities by the Philippine agriculture sector, including through the continuation and expansion of capacitybuilding and technical assistance

establishments engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing in 2014.

“Among the industry subclasses, the hog-farming sector had the most number of establishments, with 436, accounting for 16.2 percent of the total,” the report read.

Despite this, the banana industry generated the highest employment among all industries, accounting for 29.7 percent of the total employment in the sector, the PSA said.

“Total employment generated for all agriculture, forestry and fishing establishments reached 163,333 in 2014,” the report read.

“At the industry level, growing of Cavendish banana employed the most number of workers, with 48,442, or 29.7 percent of the total,” it added.

The PSA findings also showed that employers in the Cavendish banana industry gave the highest average annual compensation to its employees.

“By industry, growing of Cavendish banana spent the highest compensation of P11.2 billion. Commercial ocean fishing activities followed, with P2.3 billion, while growing of sugarcane, including muscovado sugar-making in the farm, ranked third, with P1.9 billion,” the report read.

The Cavendish banana industry incurred the biggest expenditure during the period at P46 billion, or 30 percent of the spending of firms in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector.

The total compensation paid by all establishments engaged in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector reached P26.6 billion, translating to an average annual compensation of P166,564 per employee, in 2014.

“Total expense, including compensation, for all agriculture, forestry and fishing establishments amounted to P153.3 billion,” the report read.

offered by the Department of Trade and Industry to small- and medium-sized enterprises around the country to support compliance with food standards; n Reform the land title regime to establish a system that allows farmers to be bankable; n Facilitate access to finance for smallholders and those benefiting from agrarian reform, with no collateral; n Establish professional, transparent cooperatives across the country to serve as agricultural hubs and support farmers with access to finance, capacity-building in agripreneurship and agribusiness skills, new agricultural techniques and value-added processing; n provide processing facilities, serve as a trading hub for agricultural goods to cut out the middle man and provide machinery and agricultural inputs to farmers at fair market prices; n Invest in transportation and storage infrastructure and facilities to reduce spoilage of products during the transportation/storage process from farm to market; n Ensure cooperation and alignment between national and local government, in support of the implementation of progrowth policies and projects for the agriculture sector.

The World BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • Monday, May 1, 2017 A7

First 100 days: The making of Trump’s legacy

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ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump has presided over an extraordinary first 100 days in office marked by the aggressive use of executive power and a freewheeling leadership style, shattering the norms of the presidency and the traditions of Washington.

While his attention-grabbing statements and actions have produced very few of the concrete policy changes he had promised as a candidate, there is little doubt that Trump has moved to set the nation on a radically different course. Here is a look at his record to date.

Jobs and the economy

n Released a proposal for deep tax cuts, including slashing the rate for large and small companies to 15 percent and collapsing the seven individual income-tax brackets into three: 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent. n Approved construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and reversed the Obama administration’s blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline. n Issued executive orders (EOs) to chisel away at Obama-era financial regulations, including a rule intended to protect consumers from bad investment advice. n Signed 13 bills to wipe out Obama-era regulations using the Congressional Review Act and ordered agency reviews of regulations across the government.

The regulatory reversals may have been Trump’s most concrete economic steps so far. He has offered few details on the tax package, which is at least months away from being drafted into legislative form.

The pipelines will take years to build.

The financial regulations targeted by executive orders will remain in place during a lengthy review process.

Trump has taken credit for job announcements by companies, including a plan by Carrier to retain 1,110 jobs in Indiana, but critics say they were in the works long before he took office, and that the economic trends that send jobs abroad remain in place.

Trump has done nothing to press the $1-trillion infrastructure-spending package he promised during the campaign. Still, the stock markets have reacted positively to his push to cut regulations and taxes.

Health care

n Signed an EO to scale back as many parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as possible. n Announced rule changes to

13

The number of bills US President Donald J. Trump has signed to wipe out Obamaera regulations cut the annual open enrollment period under the ACA. n Made a late pitch for passage of legislation to repeal and replace the health law.

Trump has made little progress on his promise to quickly repeal the ACA and replace it with a system that Republicans say would provide greater access to care and more affordable coverage. Divisions among the party scuttled one bill, and a vote on a revised version has been put off. Trump has failed to offer his own plan.

The president has made few changes to the ACA, despite the executive order. He has yet to follow through on a threat to withhold subsidies paid to insurance companies so they can reduce costs for lowincome consumers—a bargaining tactic to force Democrats to work with him on an overhaul.

Environment

n Signed EOs directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin the legal process of repealing President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. n Signed an EO directing the EPA to begin limiting the scope of the Waters of the United States rule, an Obama-era regulation intended to protect rivers, streams and wetlands. n Signed directives that aim to open parts of some national monuments to drilling, mining and logging, and to roll back Obama’s bans on future offshore drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. n Signed legislation to lift an Interior Department regulation completed in the last days of the Obama administration to block coal companies from dumping mining debris into streams.

of their choice.

Trump prioritized the swift selection and confirmation of Gorsuch, in line with his campaign promise to name a conservative who opposed abortion rights. Though he once called himself “pro-choice”, Trump has moved aggressively to clamp down on access to abortions.

Still, he has not followed through on threats to roll back workplace protections for gay men and lesbians.

Personnel

In this March 13 photo, President Donald J. Trump speaks before signing an executive order on “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch” in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. With him are his Cabinet secretaries and Vice President Mike Pence (center, right).

AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Trump has taken several actions, mostly in the form of EOs, aimed at reversing his predecessor’s environmental legacy and restoring jobs in coal mining and oil drilling. But efforts to dismantle most of Obama’s climate change and clean-water rules could take several years. And economists note that the decline in coal jobs and offshore oil drilling has been driven more by market forces than regulations.

The president’s proposal to slash the EPA’s budget by 31 percent, more than any other agency, has been met with resistance even by some Republicans in Congress.

Immigration

n Signed an EO to ban travel from six predominantly Muslim countries that are considered “terror prone” and to temporarily halt refugee resettlement. n Signed an order calling for the construction of a wall on the southern border and the addition of thousands of border agents.

Threatened to revoke federal funding from jurisdictions that decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. n Increased arrests of unauthorized immigrants, detaining 22,000 from January through mid-March, a 38-percent increase over the same period in 2016. Doubled the number of noncriminal immigrants arrested.

Trump has yet to accomplish any of the most ambitious goals he laid out on illegal immigration, including beginning construction of a border wall paid for by Mexico and defunding “sanctuary cities”, and he has not overhauled the refugeeadmission process. A revised travel ban and the sanctuary city order are tied up in the courts.

But amid the uptick in immigration arrests, especially of people who have not committed serious crimes,

the number of unauthorized immigrants caught along the Southwest border has fallen precipitously since the president took office.

Foreign policy

n Moved to reset the American approach to China, initially threatening to upend the decades-old “One China” policy. Tied the trade relationship with China to cooperation on North Korea. n Withdrew from the TransPacific Partnership and signed orders aimed at combating foreign trade abuses. Began inquiries into whether steel and aluminum imports were hurting US producers. n Imposed tariffs on Canadian lumber and criticized Canada’s high tariffs on dairy products, while threatening to withdraw from North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) if it could not be sufficiently renegotiated.

The White House has argued that Trump has strengthened the standing of the United States in the world, renewing relationships that Obama had allowed to languish and reasserting American power.

He has questioned long-held precepts of foreign policy, including the One China policy, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the usefulness of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), and the importance of multilateral trade agreements.

But Trump has not yet made big changes in most of those areas.

He reversed himself on Nato and dropped his reevaluation of the One China policy. A new strategy on the Middle East has yet to emerge.

Trump has taken a more personal approach to diplomacy with leaders like Shinzo Abe of Japan and Xi Jinping of China, but it is not yet clear whether the charm offensive will yield strong relationships or diplomatic gains.

Military and intelligence

n Fired 59 cruise missiles into Syria after the regime’s use of chemical weapons and imposed sanctions on 271 Syrian officials. n Approved a raid against alQaeda militants in Yemen during which a US commando was killed. n Delegated more authority to his combatant commanders to carry out military operations. n Dropped the “mother of all bombs”, the most powerful conventional weapon in the US arsenal, on an Islamic State cave in Afghanistan. n Imposed financial sanctions on 25 Iranians and companies that officials said had assisted in Tehran’s ballistic missile program and supported terrorist groups.

Trump in some ways has made good on his promise to be tougher than his predecessor, firing missiles into Syria when Obama had not, and empowering the military to act quickly abroad. But his budget request for a $54-billion increase in military spending is likely to go nowhere. And while he has used bombastic language toward Iran and North Korea, he has done almost nothing to shift the United States’s military posture toward those nations.

Social issues and the courts

n Nominated and won confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. n Reinstated the “global gag rule”, which bars US aid for familyplanning organizations around the world that counsel patients on abortion. n Signed legislation to allow states to deny funding to Planned Parenthood and other reproductivehealth organizations that offer abortion services. n Rescinded an Obama administration policy that said transgender students in public schools had to be allowed to use the bathroom

n Nominated 71 individuals to fill the top ranks of his administration. By the same date, Obama had named 190. n Promised a radical restructuring of the government, leaving positions in key agencies, including 200 at the State Department, unfilled or occupied by holdovers from the Obama administration. n Hired family members and people with no government experience to serve in several top roles.

Trump’s chaotic transition left him extraordinarily far behind in the process of staffing his administration. Of 556 crucial positions that require Senate confirmation, Trump has filled only 465, according to the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service. The result has been a lack of direction at crucial agencies and fewer officials to help execute Trump’s agenda.

Norms of the presidency

n Upended the way a president communicates with the public, using Twitter to talk directly to Americans. n Refused to release his tax returns and declined to divest from his multibillion-dollar realestate empire. n Imposed a five-year ban on lobbying by administration officials, but shut down disclosure of White House visitor logs. n Used his exclusive Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, as his “winter White House” and played golf frequently at clubs he owns.

Trump has shattered the protocols and customs of the presidency, with his unvarnished commentary on Twitter, his seat-of-the-pants approach to policy moves and statements, and his penchant for mixing the official with the commercial.

He has called the news media “the enemy of the people.”

But Trump has also made himself much more accessible than his predecessors, routinely popping his head into the press cabin on Air Force One for brief on-the-record chats and granting interviews with a wide range of reporters. He has made the White House, once a bastion of stiff decorum, into a more freewheeling place, where surprises are common and abrupt changes are the norm. New York Times News Service

Trump attacks news media at rally to mark his 100th day, snubs press corps dinner

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ARRISBURG, Pennsylvania— President Donald J. Trump came to a farm expo center here on Saturday to celebrate his first 100 days in office by bathing in the support of his bedrock supporters, reprising the populist themes of his campaign and savaging a familiar foe: the news media.

In a rally timed to coincide with an annual dinner of the White House press corps in Washington, which he declined to attend, Trump laced into what he referred to as “the failing New York Times”, as well as CNN and MSNBC, which he accused of incompetence and dishonesty.

“Their priorities are not my priorities, and not your priorities,” Trump said to a sea of supporters, many in familiar red “Make America Great Again” caps. “If the media’s job is to be honest and tell the truth, the media deserves a very, very big fat failing grade,” he said, adding that they were “very dishonest people.”

Trump reveled in his decision to skip the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, describing a scene in which Hollywood stars and reporters consoled themselves in a Washington hotel ballroom, while he mixed with a better class of people in the American heartland.

The crowd responded with a chorus of boos and chants of “CNN sucks”, some turning to jeer reporters. Trump was interrupted several times by protesters, who were escorted out of the arena by the police, under a rain of catcalls that recalled the most bitter days of the campaign.

Trump saved some of his most colorful vitriol for the Times, lampooning its sale of its headquarters near Times Square—a “cathedral to journalism”—to move into a “very ugly office building in a very crummy location”.

The new Times Tower, designed by architect Renzo Piano, sits across from the Port Authority bus terminal on the

West Side of Manhattan.

“They covered it so badly,” he said of the presidential campaign, “that they felt they were forced to apologize because their predictions were so bad.”

The Times did not apologize for its election coverage.

After a turbulent debut in the White House, Trump spent the past week celebrating the achievements of his first 100 days. But his rally on Saturday took on a darker hue, filled with anger and resentment. He touched on familiar themes of lawless immigrants, unfair trade deals and a corrupt Washington establishment. Yet, Trump reversed his hard line on another adversary: China.

Citing the support of President Xi Jinping in pressuring the rogue government in North Korea, he said it would have been counterproductive to label the Chinese as currency manipulators.

“I don’t think right now is the best time to call China a currency manipulator,” Trump said, adding the news

media had been wrong in saying that he had reversed a campaign promise on that issue.

Trump hailed his administration’s efforts to reduce illegal crossings into the United States, and he vowed to fulfill his promise to build a wall on the southern border.

“If the Democrats knew what the hell they were doing, they would approve it,” he said. “Obviously, they don’t mind the illegals pouring in, the drugs pouring in.

They don’t mind.”

To some extent, Trump’s red-meat tone may have been a political necessity to shore up his base after a week in which he vacillated in budget negotiations with Congress on immediately financing the wall. His wavering drew charges from conservative radio hosts that he was a flip-flopper.

The president’s attack on the news media started earlier in the day, when he said on Twitter that the “mainstream (FAKE) media refuses to state our long

list of achievements, including 28 legislative signings, strong borders & great optimism!”

The split-screen image that followed—journalists dining in black tie at what is normally one of the most fashionable events on the capital’s social calendar, while Trump spoke to the crowd at the farm show center and, before that, toured a factory that makes landscaping and gardening tools—clearly delighted the White House.

Still, Trump’s thumb in the eye to the press corps felt a bit manufactured. He spent much of the past week giving interviews to the same reporters he was to snub on Saturday night, including Jeff Mason of Reuters, who serves as president of the Correspondents’ Association.

White House officials had hoped to further vex the journalists by having Trump announce news in Harrisburg, which would spoil their evening, forcing them to set down their forks and knives and go to work.

But a plan for the president to announce in Harrisburg that the United States was pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement fell through when Trump decided, after urgent phone calls on Wednesday from the leaders of Canada and Mexico, not to do it—at least for now.

The White House then toyed with the idea of having Trump announce that he was ripping up the Korea Free Trade Agreement. But he stole his own thunder, telling The Washington Post on Thursday that the United States might terminate the five-year-old agreement.

“It’s a horrible deal. It was a Hillary Clinton disaster, a deal that should’ve never been made,” Trump said. In fact, President George W. Bush negotiated the agreement with South Korea in 2007, and President Barack Obama renegotiated it in 2010, which is effectively what Trump is now proposing to do.

New York Times News Service

The World BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Monday, May 1, 2017 A11

US economy expanded at weakest pace in 3 yrs

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ASHINGTON—The US economy turned in the weakest performance in three years in the January-March quarter as consumers sharply slowed their spending. The result fell far short of President Donald J. Trump’s ambitious growth targets and underscores the challenges of accelerating economic expansion.

The GDP, the total output of goods and services, grew by just 0.7 percent in the first quarter following a gain of 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported on Friday.

The slowdown primarily reflected slower consumer spending, which grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.3 percent after a growth rate of 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter. It was the poorest quarterly showing in more than seven years.

Despite the anemic first-quarter performance, the US economy’s prospects for the rest of the year appear solid. Growth is expected to be fueled by a revival in consumer spending, supported by continued strong job growth, accelerating wage gains and record stock levels.

Weakness in the first quarter followed by a stronger expansion in the spring has become a pattern in recent years. The government’s difficulty with seasonal adjustments for the first quarter has been a chronic problem and may have shaved as much as 1 percent-

0.7% The percentage growth of the US GDP in the first quarter of 2017

People walk near the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center under construction (middle) and the Comcast Center (center right) in Philadelphia on March 29. On April 28 the Commerce Department issues the first of three estimates of how the US economy performed in the January-March quarter. AP/Matt Rourke

age point off growth this year.

The sharp slowdown in consumer spending in the first quarter was attributed to a collection of temporary factors: warmer weather, which shrank spending on heating bills, a drop-off in auto sales after a strong fourth quarter and a delay in sending out tax-refund checks, which also dampened spending.

Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said he expected consumer and government spending to bounce back, leading to a much stronger second quarter.

“Still, the report will mark a rough start to the administration’s

high hopes of achieving 3 percent or better growth, not the kind of news it was looking for to cap its first 100 days in office,” Guatieri said in a note to clients.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, one of the administration’s top economic policymakers, said the weak first quarter performance showed the need for the new policies Trump is offering.

“We need the president’s tax plan, regulatory relief, trade negotiations and the unleashing of [the] American energy sector to overcome the dismal economy inherited by the Trump administration,” Ross said in a statement.

He said that strong business and consumer sentiment “must be released from the regulatory and tax shackles constraining economic growth”.

Averaging the two quarters, they forecast growth of around 2 percent for the first half of this year. That would be in line with the mediocre performance of the eight-year economic expansion, when growth has averaged just 2.1 percent, the poorest showing for any recovery in the post-World War II period.

Tr u mp h ad repeated ly at tacked the weak GDP rates during the campaign as an example

of the Obama administration’s failed economic policies. He said his program of tax cuts for individuals and businesses, deregulation and tougher enforcement of trade agreements would double growth to 4 percent or better.

In unveiling an outline of the administration’s tax proposals on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he believed growth above 3 percent would be achievable.

Many economists are more skeptica l. T hey are forecasting growth of this year around 2.2 percent. That would be an improvement from last year’s

1.6 percent, the weakest showing in five years, but far below Trump’s goal.

Many analysts believe the impacts of Trump’s economic program will not be felt until 2018, because they are not expecting Congress to approve some version of Trump’s tax program until late this year.

The GDP report released on Friday was the first of three estimates the government will make of first quarter growth.

The 0.7-percent increase was the worst showing since GDP contracted by 1.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014.

In addition to weaker consumer activity, the first quarter slowdown also reflected a cutback in restocking of store shelves. The slowdown in inventory rebuilding cut nearly a percentage point from growth in the first quarter.

Also acting as a drag was a reduction in government spending, which fell at a 1.7 percent annual rate with both the federal government and state and local governments seeing cuts.

On the positive side, business investment rose at a 9.4-percent rate, helped by a record surge in spending in the category that tracks spending in the energy sector. This category had seen sharp cutbacks in recent quarters, reflecting reductions in exploration and drilling as energy prices declined. Housing construction was also strong, growing at a 13.7-percent rate, the fastest pace in nearly two years.

Trump noted the weak 2016 GDP performance in a tweet on Wednesday and contended “trade deficits hurt the economy very badly”.

For the first quarter trade was actually a small positive after a major drag in the fourth quarter. AP

EU OKs tough Brexit nego stance Pope warns: Broad destruction if tensions as UK braces for confrontation E

uropean Union governments threw down the gauntlet to the UK ahead of Brexit talks, listing demands Prime Minister Theresa May must satisfy before they discuss the trade deal she wants, and urging her to be more realistic in her expectations.

Any doubts about the scale of the task facing Britain in withdrawing from the EU after four decades were laid to rest at a Brussels summit of the region’s leaders on Saturday. A tough negotiating stance was endorsed unanimously, within minutes, and to applause. The UK responded by saying it’s bracing for a confrontation.

The complexity comes down to the fact that a departure from the world’s biggest trading bloc has never been done and was never supposed to happen.

The EU is striving to ensure the UK is worse off outside it than inside, not least to avoid setting a precedent. After agreeing to the terms of separation, then it’s a matter of getting down to the business of what a future relationship might look like.

“Nobody has united here against the UK,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters as she left the meeting. “The British people have made a decision, which we will have to respect. But we remaining 27 now get together in order to speak with one voice.”

The Brexit discussions will begin soon after the UK’s June election, which May called in part to strengthen her mandate going into talks. The first orders of business will be guaranteeing the rights of 3 million EU citizens living in the Britain and calculating a financial settlement one leader said would be at least €40 billion ($44 billion).

Only once “sufficient progress” is made on those thorny topics and

reinforcing the border between the two Irelands will the EU’s attention turn to trade. That looks unlikely to happen before December.

Owning Brexit

Seeking to present a united stance in contrast to what they perceive to be muddled thinking and unrealistic ambitions on the British side, Merkel and her counterparts entered the European Council’s headquarters in Brussels declaring they stood as one. The message to Britain is that it’s they, not London, in control of what Brexit will look like.

“The UK is being confronted with reality now,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who estimated the bill for checking out would be between €40 billion and €60 billion said in an interview.

The British “can’t get any more favors than a nation that isn’t in the EU,” he said. “The fact remains that it was their decision to leave the EU.” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggested the UK government might not actually know that. He recalled when he dined with May last Wednesday, he detected a feeling that Britain’s future deal with the EU could still be discussed in parallel with arranging the divorce.

“That won’t happen,” said Juncker. He added later: “I sometimes have the impression that our British friends underestimate the technical difficulties we have to face.”

UK election

Responding to the summit’s decisions, British Brexit Secretary David Davis acknowledged the pending talks would be tough, complex and likely confrontational. As May has repeatedly done, he used the EU’s stance to argue voters should back their Conservative Party when they

go to the polls on June 8, rather than the opposition Labour Party.

“Both sides are clear—we want these negotiations to be conducted in the spirit of goodwill, sincere cooperation and with the aim of establishing a close partnership between the UK and the EU going forward,” Davis said. “There are already people in Europe who oppose these aims and people at home trying to undermine them.”

The guidelines rubber-stamped on Saturday have been repeatedly toughened over the past four weeks as the EU tries to make an example of Britain.

The final version demands the UK pay a bill that reflects what its already committed to the bloc’s accounts, including contributions through the end of 2020 when the current budget period ends. Juncker said it might be enough for the two sides to agree how to work out the bill and come up with a final sum later.

The EU also wants the British to agree to guarantee rights for European nationals living in the UK and eventually the right to remain there, including even those who arrive on the eve of Brexit.

London’s bank

The strategy also throws doubt over how soon any trade deal can be completed despite May maintaining one could be lined up before Britain’s March 2019 exit. While she has suggested finance be included in any pact, the guidelines imply that would only be possible if the UK agrees to let the EU have continued regulatory oversight over banking.

The EU sees room for transitional arrangements to smooth the exit and grant businesses time to prepare for the terms of the new relation-

ship. But it also says the UK would have to agree to accept its regulatory, legal and financial rules for the duration of it.

Such demands explain why May would like to discuss trade in concert so she can show her voters she is getting them something from the breakup they voted for last June.

Even then, every EU member must agree to move on to trade and EU negotiator Michel Barnier said the target for that is the end of this year, likely meaning a December 14 summit.

That would leave only around 12 months to work on a pact for tarifffree commerce in the knowledge it took Canada and the EU seven years to strike its recent accord.

All for one

Changing the guidelines and advancing the talks to the stage of trade negotiations both require unanimity, meaning Britain can’t rely on friendlier governments for swift progress. The rules also allow any country to stall negotiations should they choose to do so.

So unless all 27 leaders agree to an extension of talks, the UK will leave the EU in 2019 whether it has reached a deal or not. That gives the EU the leverage it needs on the assumption such a scenario would hurt Britain more.

“We now have unanimous support from all the 27 member states and the EU institutions, giving us a strong political mandate for these negotiations,” EU President Donald Tusk said.

Juncker, meanwhile, conceded cracks might emerge in the EU’s front at some point. “The negotiations will be difficult and it will even be difficult to retain the unity that we were able to have today,” he said. Bloomberg News

in Korea escalate

A

B O A R D T H E PA PA L PLANE—Pope Francis is warning that “a good part of humanity” will be destroyed if tensions with North Korea escalate, and he is calling for diplomacy and a revived UN to take the lead in negotiating a resolution.

Francis was asked as he traveled back to Rome from Egypt on Saturday about North Korean ballistic missile tests and US warnings of “catastrophic” consequences if the world fails to stop them.

He was asked specifically what he would tell US President Donald J. Trump, who has sent a US carrier to conduct drills near the Koreas, and other leaders to try to diffuse the tensions.

Francis says he would urge them to use diplomacy and negotiation “because it’s the future of humanity”.

“Today a wider war will destroy not a small part of humanity, but a good part of humanity and culture. Everything. Everything, no?

It would be terrible. I don’t think humanity today could bear it,” he told reporters.

His comments came at a moment of particularly high tension: Hours earlier a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed, the third flop in a month.

On Friday the UN Security Council held a ministerial meeting on Pyongyang’s escalating weapons program. North Korean officials boycotted the meeting, which was chaired by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the UN because they’re seen as part of

the North’s push for a nucleartipped missile that can hit the US mainland.

Francis said the UN should regain its leadership in conflict resolution, saying it had been “watered down” over time.

Trump has sent a nuclearpowered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft supercarrier to Korean waters, and North Korea this week conducted largescale, live-fire exercises on its eastern coast.

The US and South Korea also started installing a missile defense system that is supposed to be partially operational within days, and their navies began joint military drills on Saturday.

Tensions with the North presumably would be on the agenda of a Trump-Francis meeting.

The White House has said it would reach out to the Vatican to arrange an audience when Trump travels to Sicily at the end of May for a Group of Seven summit.

Francis said no official request for a meeting with Trump had been received, “but I welcome every head of state, who requests an audience”.

Francis recalled he has frequently lamented the “world war in pieces” that is raging in countries around the world. Now, he says, those pieces are getting bigger and more concentrated.

“This thing about North Korea missiles, it has been a long time that they’ve been doing this. Now it seems it has gotten too hot,” he told reporters on the papal plane.

“I always call for problems to be resolved via the diplomatic path, via negotiations.” AP

Green Monday BusinessMirror

A12 Monday, May 1, 2017

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

Firms hit Trump plan to remove program for energy efficiency

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ASHINGTON—More than 1,000 US companies, including some of the nation’s largest manufacturers, are urging Congress to preserve the 25-year-old Energy Star program to promote efficiency in home and business products.

$34B

The amount consumers save each year in reduced costs through the Energy Star program, which costs about $50 million per year to administer

President Donald J. Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for Energy Star, which encourages efficiency in major appliances, office equipment, lighting and home electronics.

Companies, including United Technologies Cor p., Ingersoll Rand and Staples, call the program a model for successful collaboration between the public and private sectors.

In a letter to the Trump administration and congressional leaders, the companies say Energy Star

“should be strengthened, not weakened” to encourage businesses and consumers to conserve energy.

United Technologies is the parent company of Carrier heating and cooling, Otis elevators and Pratt and Whitney engines, while Ingersoll Rand is the parent of Trane heating and cooling.

Other companies signing the letter include LG Electronics USA, Panasonic Corp. of North America, Samsung Electronics America and Nest thermostats, owned by Google.

Energy Star, begun in 1992, is known for its blue-and-white star logo that appears on hundreds of products from washing machines to furnaces and computers. The program costs about $50 million per year to administer, while saving consumers more than $34 billion per year in reduced energy costs.

The W hite House proposed eliminating the program, along with other programs at the Environmental Protection Agency, in its 2018 budget plan.

“I don’t know who recommended

shutting down this program to the president, but I can assure you it was bad advice that would hurt American businesses, consumers and our overall economy,” said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a Washingtonbased advocacy group. The alliance organized the business letter.

“This letter demonstrates the enormous business support for a venerable public-private partnership and sends a clear directive to Washington: Keep the Energy Star program going and growing,” Callahan said.

Steve Yurek, CEO of the AirConditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, said Energy Star encourages companies to “push the envelope with respect to energy efficiency” in order to claim the coveted star logo for their products. “ T he prog ram prov ides an easy way for consumers to identify the most efficient products on the market, and we feel that provides enough value to justify its continuation in some form,” he said. AP

Resort guides help foster appreciation to marine diversity in Bacuit Bay

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he creation of one of the best diving and snorkeling sites in the world began around 250 million years ago. Bacuit Bay, which hosts three of the four El Nido Resorts in Northern Palawan, was then part of the Asian mainland, the island-resort guides tell their guests.

Eventually, the Bacuit Bay reef and the rest of Palawan broke off from Asia drifting on the Sunda Plate immersed in seawater.

As the tectonic plate turned clockwise some 5 million years ago, Palawan was hurled toward is now known as the Philippine archipelago, which is mere 50 million years old, the El Nido Resorts guides report, citing Lee Goldman, Coral Triangle expert and author.

“Bacuit Bay is a huge slab of ancient reef. This distinguishes it from other snorkeling and diving sites in the Philippine archipelago,” Goldman said, who leads customized tours for snorkeling enthusiasts from Northern America to the Coral Triangle, a portion of Asia, including the Philippines, known for the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the world.

He observes that the guides of Miniloc, Lagen and Pangulasian in Bacuit Bay and those in Apulit, the fourth El Nido Resort in the Sulu Sea, are among the best trained in creating awareness and fostering appreciation for marine biodiversity in the Philippines. Their long hours of study and passion for underwater habitats is such that they often convince even nonswimmers to snorkel for the first time.

Their job is facilitated by the relative shallowness of the bay and the diversity of marine habitats it holds. This combination couldn’t be better for observing the various underwater destinations minutes away from the El Nido Resorts. It means that snorkeling, which is highly encouraged and is part of the El Nido Resorts package, and diving can be

done in a more leisurely manner than if one were constantly being tugged away by cross currents or if one had to dive deeper to see the corals and fish more clearly.

Moreover, the variety of habitats means there’s something new to observe every day.

Each type of habitat nurtures a unique set of marine species, Goldman explained.

Seagrass beds, for instance, are a great place to examine seahorses as they inhale tiny crustaceans through their long snouts and to observe a diversity of cardinal fishes— so called because their reddish hues are reminiscent of the hats worn by the princes of the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, coral reefs provide the best encounters with colorful damselfishes often found in large schools, as well as large parrotfishes, whose hues can range from dark blue to yellow to grey in eye-popping patterns that may combine greenish-purple or reddish spots superimposed on bright blue.

A s e a r l y a s 2 0 0 8 to 2 0 1 0 w h e n P h i l i p p i n e to u r i s m wa s s t i l l i n a n infantile stage, travel magazine Conde Naste Traveller and National Geographic h a d a l re a d y re co g n i ze d s n o r ke l i n g expeditions in Bacuit Bay as among the best tours available globally. Today, snorkeling has become a must-do activity

for those traveling to Bacuit Bay and to El Nido Resorts. Goldman rues that the mass media has done a better job in creating fear rather than appreciation for marine life even among Filipinos who are never more than a few hours away from highly rated snorkeling sites. Those donning snorkeling masks and breathing tubes for the first time are often fearful of jellyfish, of sharks, of drowning, and of the unknown in general.

By picking the right spots in shallow water, talking to them about what they will see, El Nido Resorts guides help first-timers to be comfortable in and eventually fascinated by the whole new world offered by the ocean.

Phoenix extends help to watersheds

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n its home city of Davao, the Phoenix Philippines Foundation, Phoenix Petroleum Philippines’s corporate social resp[onsibility arm, has extended support to the Davao City Water District by adopting a hectare of land in the Malagos Watershed Reservation. The facility enables water to be supplied in parts of the Third District of Davao City.

Through this partnership, the foundation has planted around 32,000 trees. Since its planting in 2011, the samplings have grown to about 2 feet. The foundation is one of the adopters, comprised of groups and organizations representing the private sector. Adopters are also actively engaged in the care of the plants.

“We intend to help save whatever is lef t in the watersheds,” Phoenix

Petroleum Manager Ben Sur said. The company has been helping water districts all over the country since 2009 through its Adopt-a-Watershed program.

“To date, its foundation has adopted nine watersheds nationwide, with the latest in Iloilo City,” Sur said.

The foundation partners with local water districts and provides plant samplings and financial support for the maintenance and upkeep of the sheds.

“Watersheds play a vital role in the community. They filter water from the rains and are responsible for the drinking water and agriculture use of nearby communities,” Sur said. The foundation has cited success in its efforts in helping conserve watersheds and hopes to widen its reach to other cities all over the Philippines.

Employees of Phoenix Petroleum Philippines plant trees within the adopted area in the Malagos Watershed Reservation in Davao City.

Visitors to a park gesture at each other near chimneys spewing smoke in Beijing, China. AP/Ng Han Guan

Converting coal would help China’s smog at climate’s expense

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EIJING—China’s conversion of coal into natural gas could prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths each year. But there’s a catch: As the country shifts its use of vast coal reserves to send less smog-inducing chemicals into the air, the move threatens to undermine efforts to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, researchers said on Tuesday.

The environmental trade-off points to the difficult choices confronting leaders of the world ’s second-largest economy as they struggle to balance public health and financial growth w it h i nt e r n at ion a l c l i m at e change commitments.

Between 20,000 and 41,000 premature deaths annually could be prevented by converting lowquality coal in the country’s western provinces into synthetic natural gas for residential use, according to the findings of researchers from the United States and China published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If the gas were used for industrial purposes, fewer deaths would be averted and they would carry a steeper price—a dramatic increase in carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the researchers and a separate report released on Tuesday by Greenpeace.

China’s immediate drive to clean up local air quality could be addressed by using coal-produced synthetic gas, said study co-author Denise Mauzerall, a professor of environmental engineering and international affairs at Princeton University.

Doing so, however, “would have an effect of increased carbon emissions, which would affect the world,” Mauzerall said.

Natural gas produces far fewer of the tiny particles of pollution that pour out of coal-fired power plants and the small coal burners that many Chinese use for heating and cooking. That smog, with particles a mere 2.5 microns in diameter, frequently blankets Beijing and major urban areas in China’s densely populated eastern provinces.

It endangers public health when the particles lodge in peoples’ lungs and could be most effectively dealt with by reducing coal use in households, according to Mauzerall.

Public outrage over smog and a desire to meet climate goals prompted Chinese officials to close down coal power plants around Beijing in recent years and suspend plans to construct new plants across the country.

Technology to turn coal into other fuels dates to Germany’s Nazi regime, which used it to bolster diesel supplies during World War II. South Africa used it to thwart sanctions against oil imports during the apartheid era.

Since then, the method has seldom been used because of its high cost.

China’s pursuit of synthetic gas

reflects in part the inability of its domestic oil-and-gas reserves to meet its national security and economic needs, said Ranping Song, a climate expert with the World Resources Institute. That’s despite the fact that China has the thirdlargest coal deposits in the world, an estimated 126 billion tons (114 metric tons), behind only the US and Russia.

Compared to burning coal directly for power, converting it into gas and then using that gas to produce electricity can produce almost twice as much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions blamed in climate change, Song said. Synthetic natural gas produces carbon dioxide first during the processing stage and again when the fuel is burned.

The coal-to-gas plants in China combined could emit as much as 158 million tons (143 million metric tons) of additional carbon dioxide annually, according to Mauzerall and her colleagues.

Greenpeace forecasts even more—up to 451 million tons (409 million metric tons) of extra carbon dioxide annually by 2020. That’s about 4 percent of China’s 2016 total emissions, making it more difficult to achieve the government’s planned greenhouse gas-reduction goals, said Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Gan Yiwei.

The environmental group’s tally includes projected emissions from the coal-to-gas fleet plus several dozen more plants that would turn coal into oil and various chemicals. Gan said China instead should invest more in wind and solar plants, which produce neither carbon nor smog.

With the coal-to-gas plants, China’s goal to stabilize its worldleading carbon emissions of about 10 billion tons (9.1 billion metric tons) annually by 2030 would remain achievable but more difficult, Song said. A driving factor will be whether the country can transform its economy away from energy-intensive manufacturing to more service-based industries, he said.

Not all proposed coal-to-gas plants will be put into operation by their original completion dates.

Competition from imported fuel transported by ship and pipeline from central Asia has squeezed the market, delaying plants proposed or under construction, said Zhouwei Diao, a coal-and-gas industry analyst with IHS Markit in Beijing.

Liquefied natural gas delivered to China’s coast is cheaper than producing the fuel from coal, a further disincentive for the new plants unless global gas prices increase, she said. Local environmental issues also come into play because of large volumes of water the plants need to operate and the wastewater they generate.

“The technology is doable but it’s currently not very reliable,” Diao added. AP

Biodiversity Monday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Monday, May 1, 2017 A13

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

1996 MARCOPPER MINING DISASTER–WORST IN THE PHILIPPINES

A nightmare that must never happen again

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Story & photo by Jonathan L. Mayuga

nboard a military helicopter, Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez showed journalists the damage caused by what is considered the worst mining disaster in the Philippines—and why she is against irresponsible mining.

L opez has repeated ly sa id she is not antimining but is definitely against irresponsible mining, which companies rake huge profit while people in the communities suffer.

Marinduque, once a host to a large-scale copper mine, changed the lives of its residents, who have since been waking up every day to a reminder of the nightmare that happened more than 21 years ago.

A fter the 1996 Marcopper Mining Corp. disaster, the Boac River, which used to support life in Marinduque, has yet to recover.

Considered a dead river, its water was no longer flowing.

The entire 27-kilometer Boac River showed no sign of life when a leak from one of the mine’s tailings pond dumped around 3 million tons to 4 million tons of mine waste into the Makulapnit Creek, leading to the river and burying corals and seagrass.

This prompted the government to stop the operation of the Marcopper and shut it down for good.

Although some portions of the Boac River have started to recover—with some fish miraculously reappearing—most of its parts along Mogpog and Santa Cruz towns appear to be nothing more than a body of mud. The once mighty river of life was turned into a small stream.

Today, water flowing in the river remains unsafe. The huge volume of water in the abandoned mine that have accumulated over the years created what appears to be man-made lake filled with acidic, bluish-green water.

Protecting water

Lopez, an environmental advocate before she took the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) post, had ordered the closure or suspension of 28 large-scale mining operations after a mine audit last year and canceled 75 mining contracts near or within watersheds to protect the country’s water supply.

She said what happened in Marinduque should never happen anywhere else, vowing not to allow irresponsible mining operations to cause irreversible environmental damage that will cause suffering to people in mining communities.

The entire country is basically a watershed. The Philippines has 412 principal river basins in 119 proclaimed watersheds. There are 19 major river basins.

Last year Lopez issued an order to stop all fish-cage and fish-pen operations within the Laguna de Bay, the country’s largest freshwater lake as the DENR and the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) move to restore its pristine state.

Lopez also canceled the environmental compliance certificates (ECC) of a real-estate and property developer for a housing project within the La Mesa Watershed to protect the integrity of the ecosystem, where water for 12 million residents of Metro Manila and nearby areas are stored and treated before distribution as tap water.

“Water is life. Profit is not important than water,” Lopez has said.

The policy against irresponsible and destructive mining and other development projects, she said, aims to protect the country’s precious water resources for the present and future generations.

Dead river

People in Marinduque used to depend on the Boac River for subsistence and livelihood. Children used to swim and bathe during summer, while women used to wash clothes because clean water used to flow in the river.

It provides fish, shrimps and shell-food, an unlimited supply of water for domestic use and irrigation for their farms and livestock.

Not anymore.

Tens of thousands of trees were killed near the riverbanks as the raging mudf low swept them away, Beth Manggol, executive director of the Marinduque Council for Environmental Concerns (MaCEC) told the BusinessMirror in Filipino.

The natural f low of the river was also altered as it expanded on both sides.

MaCEC was established, precisely because of the Marcopper mining disaster, to fight mining’s evil, Manggol said.

Livelihood lost

Even before the disastrous leak that also displaced an entire barangay and forced the evacuation in 21 others, people claimed to have been suffering because of the mining operation.

“Fish catch went down, our fishing ground were destroyed, and many of our neighbors fell ill because of exposure to toxic chemicals,” said Sabino Raginio, a resident of Barangay Ipil, Santa Cruz, Marinduque.

The president of the Samahan ng Maliliit na Mangingisda sa Barangay Ipil, Raginio said since the mining disaster, the living condition worsened.

“We had to fetch water by walking several kilometers to where water is not contaminated.

Our farms were destroyed and we had to go farther away to fish because we are afraid that we might catch contaminated ones,” he said. “It’s hard but we were able to survive.”

Before the disaster, he said, his fish trap, or baklad, can produce about 10 kilos of fish a day.

It means food on the table and a little extra for rice and other food items.

Health problems

More than 100 people have suffered from chronic diseases owing to exposure to toxic heavy metals.

Arsenic, lead, cadmium, copper and mercury were traced in the victims’ system.

In 1998 then-President Fidel V. Ramos declared a state of calamity in four barangays near the Calancan Bay, namely, Botilao, Ipil, Lusok and Camandugan, because of high incidence of heavy-metal poisoning among children. More

Bluish-green water buildup at the tailings dam atop the mine of Marcopper continue to pose grave danger to communities in Mogpoc, Santa Cruz and Boac in the province of Marinduque.

than 10 of those exposed to toxic heavy metals have died since.

According to Lopez, she received reports that 78 people are suffering from brain problems, while other v ictims continue to complain of spending huge amounts of money for treatment and medication of the health problems they had to endure.

A grim reminder

Manggol said the Marcopper mining disaster is a grim reminder of the risk of large-scale mining.

“Now that fish have reappeared in some portions of the Boac River, we are afraid of what may happen to those who have decided to catch and eat them,” she said.

Some residents are no longer afraid of catching and eating fish from the Boac River, thinking that it is already safe.

“We want the Department of Health [DOH] to visit and check the condition of the people because we are sure they will soon suffer the same fate [falling ill] others have experienced,” she said.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), she said, has yet to conduct tests on the fish caught in the Boac River, too.

Eating fish—whether from the river or the nearby fishing ground where Marcopper dumped its mineral-ore stockpile—is believed to be the source of toxic poisoning that caused

people in at least three towns in Marinduque near the mine to fall ill.

Escaping responsibility

Since Marcopper started operation in 1975—20 years before the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 became a law—the company is oblivious of its social responsibility, including implementing appropriate final mine closure and rehabilitation plan.

The Marcopper continues to dodge responsibility, according to Manggol, to compensate the victims of the disaster and to rehabilitate the areas it destroyed.

Under the mining Act, the government requires mining companies to create a special fund and deposit a certain amount for the company’s final mine closure and rehabilitation—to guarantee that they will not escape responsibility.

Mining companies are also required to set aside at least 1.5 percent of their total operating budget to help host communities under the Social Development Management Program (SDMP).

After being ordered to stop operations, Marcopper simply packed up, abandoned its mine and fled.

Reef to ridge damage

T h e d a m a ge c au s e d b y t he Marcopper mining disaster was enormous, said Imelda M. Diaz,

Marinduque Provincial Environment and Natural Resources officer. “W hen it happened, you can just imagine the damage it has caused. It was not just the trees [that were damaged], but an entire ecosystem. Even coastal and marine ecosystems were destroyed. The mangroves, seagrass and corals were destroyed,” Diaz said.

The damage caused by the leak, she said, was well documented, explaining why Marinduqueños were emotional about their tragic fate because of irresponsible mining.

Until now, even after it stopped operating, Marcopper continues to wreak havoc.

Restricted area

Even after the mine was already abandoned, it remains a restricted area that even DENR personnel are not allowed to enter the area, more so to rehabilitate it, Diaz said.

“Even if we wanted to do something, we are not allowed to enter the mines,” she said.

Marcopper, people in affected communities have lamented, has appeared to have no intention of cleaning up its mess in Marinduque.

She said unlike in other areas where the DENR can do reforestation work, the mining area remains idle. Like a ticking time bomb, it can explode anytime and cause yet another disaster.

Constant threat

Diaz said in 2011 samples in some portion of Boac River shows improved water quality.

However, she warned that the threat of water contamination remains because of the existence of three large dams filled with contaminated water atop nearby hills.

“Anytime, we fear that one of these dams may collapse. There is a move to analyze the integrity of the dams because it really scares people, especially during heavy rains,” she said.

A bluish-green water has been monitored flowing into the tributaries of the Boac River anew. The water is an acid-mine drain from mine tailings piled at the Bol River dam, one of three dams in the mine. The other two are the Makulapnit and Maguila-guila dams, which gave in in 1996.

Experts said an acid-mine drain is natural and occurs, especially in areas with large deposits of copper.

Copper ore, when submerged in water, becomes acidic. It turns water into bluish-green. “I really wouldn’t recommend eating fish from the river because it is not safe unless they are tested and declared as safe for human consumption by concerned authorities,” Diaz said.

She said unless the water in the tailings pond is removed and the area rehabilitated, the threat of disaster remains.

A14 Monday, May 1, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Why the Code of Conduct may never work

W

e are told that democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Now, imagine 10 animals voting about dinner and no one knows who the lambs are and who the wolves are. That is the Asean—with China, of course—trying to come up with a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea. The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, known as the DOC, was signed by all the members of the Asean and the People’s Republic of China on November 4, 2002. And every year since then—including this year’s Asean Summit—we hear that this time we are closer to the details being finalized. The reality is that no substantial progress has been made since 2002, unless that progress is measured by the number of words promising something will eventually get done.

Academics and diplomats assure that once the DOC is complete, peace and harmony will probably cover one of the most important ocean areas on the planet like beams of glorious sunlight. The problem is that one nation’s sunshine is another nation’s scorching sunburn.

An initial difficulty is that, in 2002, Taiwan was specifically excluded from the negotiations. Taiwan lays claim to a major island, Tai-Ping Island, in the South China Sea and also actively conducts maritime activities in the area. Taiwan has more reason to be involved than Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore, since none of those countries actually border the South China Sea. Yet, all have a vast vested interest in what happens there just as does Taiwan.

If vested interest is a valid reason for inclusion in the process, then it even becomes more complicated. Article Nine of the DOC reads: “The Parties encourage other countries to respect the principles contained in this Declaration.” Note that South Korea and Japan both have an enormous direct stake in the South China Sea. Perhaps they, too, should be part of the process, but we know that is not going to happen.

Territorial claims are not part of the DOC and that in and of itself is a major stumbling block. But the DOC does include “environmental protection, fishery regulation, search and rescue, scientific research, climate report, oceanographic survey, antipiracy and smuggling, nature preservation, sewage and waste process, and navigation aid”. Perhaps, the DOC should approach the larger issue by breaking it down into smaller manageable issues that could be agreed on one by one. That might be possible.

However, after nearly 15 years of talk, behind the scene, all Asean member-states know the discussion and negotiations on a final copy of a complete and thorough Code of Conduct is a waste of time until the claims of territory—not only with China but between member-states— is convincingly addressed.

Asean (and the United States and the European Union) to this point has been unwilling to unequivocally and forcefully push the fact of the decision in favor of the Philippines by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Calls for the Philippine government to push harder against Asean’s stagnation on this issue are fine. But the unfortunate truth is that, currently, it is a waste of time and effort. Expecting Asean to operate in the interests of the Philippines is, likewise, a useless effort. We are alone in this and need policies to reflect that situation.

Since 2005

Here’s to all the workers Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

W

hile it is true that the celebration of Labor Day every 1st of May has always been associated with demonstrations and calls for higher wages and better working conditions, it is also proper to spend this day paying tribute to our hardworking kababayan who offer hours of labor every single day.

We want to recognize the sacrifices of our farmers, our construction workers, fishermen, call-center agents, government employees, drivers, entrepreneurs, teachers, medical professionals, lawyers and employees from the private sector. We want to show appreciation toward mothers and grandmothers, sisters and house helpers who work hard, day in and day out, to make sure that the household is running and that

Ricardo Saludo

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Uno has been calling for a P750 minimum daily wage.

Aside from low salaries, 63 percent of Filipino workers have no job security, as they are currently employed on a contractual basis.

This is precisely why groups have been asking for a dialogue with the government to address the issues surrounding the problem of contractualization.

The government said it has lined up, together with partners, a series of job fairs to be held all over the country to open more job opportunities for more Filipinos.

Still, the celebration should not be lost behind all of these struggles.

Because the hardworking spirit of the Filipino persists, and we see this around us every day. Labor Day should be dedicated to hardworking individuals who work here and abroad to provide better lives for their families. This is the essence of our celebration today, and we must always seek to find the positive and to cherish it.

Who wins and who loses in the Asean Summit?

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business Publisher

workers are able to go to their place of work. We also recognize the work of fathers, of our grandfathers and uncles, brothers and sons—through the work of their hands they contribute in nation-building. n n n Today there are plenty of laborrelated issues and struggles: lack of job opportunities, low wages, labor contractualization, child labor and other unfair working conditions,

among others. The government had said it is doing its best to address these, especially the demand for increased minimum wages.

President Duterte has a special announcement for the workers on Labor Day. According to Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III, the workers are going to receive a special package of benefits from the government.

But as far as the increase in minimum wage is concerned, Bello said the petition will have to be studied further and the administration will consider, too, whether businesses could afford it.

Currently, the average wage in Metro Manila is P454 daily. According to IBON Foundation’s data, the current living wage has increased to P1,119 per day—more than double the minimum wage in the metropolis. This is why the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines has petitioned for an additional P157 in daily wages, and a P500 government subsidy for minimum-wage earners.

On the other hand, Kilusang Mayo

B

efore and during the 30th summit of the Asean last Saturday, pressures were aplenty. The objective: To include in or exclude from both the Chairman’s statement and the Summit Declaration statements taking China to task for its actions in the South China Sea.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila reportedly wanted the phrase “full respect for legal and diplomatic processes” removed from the final summit statement, seeing it as a reference to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling last July invalidating China’s “nine-dash” line claim to most of the South China Sea. As of Saturday, the draft statement had removed the phrase out of the South China Sea portion, and replaced it with “the supremacy of the law”. President Duterte, 2017 Asean chairman, also used the latter phrase in his address opening the summit.

On the other side of the geopolitical fence, former Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert I. del Rosario, whose ADR Institute held a forum on the South China Sea days before the summit, deplored Duterte’s refusal to include the PCA ruling in the Asean statement.

“The draft of the Chairman’s Statement is deeply disappointing

and, if not revisited, would manifest an absence of the desired leadership,” said del Rosario, who spearheaded the Philippines’s anti-China, pro-American stance under thenPresident Benigno S. Aquino III. Dr. Ha Anh Tuan, director for policy analysis of the Institute of South China Sea Studies of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, also wanted the PCA decision cited. “The spirit and decisions of the ruling will certainly be a legal reference for future negotiation and cooperation in the South China Sea,” he stressed. “The Arbitral ruling is final and binding for China and the Philippines. So it will still be there whether the Asean Summit refers to it or not.”

Duterte dismissed such prodding: “Nobody tells me what to do or what to say.” On the PCA ruling, he argued: “China said [it’s] completely ignoring the arbitral. So what more can you ask of it? Make noise? For what?....

Stop dreaming about arbitral, arbitral. You cannot.... Unless we are

prepared to go to war.”

Four other Asean members reportedly wanted the phrase “land reclamation and militarization” included in the summit document, as it was in last year’s Laos statement. And Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged in an interview before the summit that Asean should speedily resolve South China Sea issues.

As always, compromise won.

The statement included high up in Paragraph 7 the language China opposed about “legal and diplomatic processes”, and explicitly cited the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the PCA ruling affirmed in denying Beijing’s ninedash line claim: “We reaffirmed the shared commitment to maintaining and promoting peace, security and stability in the region, as well as to the peaceful resolution of disputes, including full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use of force, in accordance with the universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” But the South China Sea section (Paragraphs 120-121) dropped “land reclamation and militarization”, saying in the first paragraph: “We took note of concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments in the area. We reaffirmed the importance of the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercising selfrestraint in the conduct of activities and avoiding actions that may

further complicate the situation, and pursuing the peaceful resolution of disputes, without resorting to the threat or use of force.”

The next paragraph added: “We took note of the improving cooperation between Asean and China,” possibly referring to the Beijing visits by Duterte and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak last year.

Paragraph 121 also affirmed the push for a binding code to replace the 2002 Declaration on disputed maritime areas: “We welcomed the progress to complete a framework of the Code of Conduct [COC] in the South China Sea by middle of this year, in order to facilitate the early conclusion of an effective COC.” So who wins and who loses in all this?

Clearly, China got its wish to remove references to reclamation and militarization, and move “legal and diplomatic processes” out of the South China Sea portion, even though the phrase jumped higher to Paragraph 7.

Asean, too, gains in keeping amicable ties with Beijing at a time when Chinese trade, aid and investment may be needed to offset a possible falloff from the West, especially with America possibly turning protectionist under President Donald J. Trump. Plus: An amicable Asean makes Beijing more likely to conclude and comply with the COC. And the loser? Certain quarters want Asean to pressure Beijing with Washington’s help. It didn’t stop China during Aquino’s time, and it won’t happen in Duterte’s.

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

Impeachment 101

Accounting systems for start-ups: A hype or a need?

BusinessMirror

Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan

Filbert Tsai

legally speaking

O

N March 16 at 10 a.m., a verified complaint for the impeachment of President Duterte “under and pursuant to Sections 2 and 3, Article XI [Accountability of Public Officers] of the 1987 Philippine Constitution” was filed by Partylist Rep. Gary Alejano of Magdalo.

The complaint cites the President’s alleged involvement in the creation of the Davao Death Squad when he was mayor, “which is reported to be responsible for the murder and death of at least 1,424 individuals in Davao City from 1998 to 2015”; his war on drugs since he became President, which has led to the alleged summary killings of more than 8,000 individuals more or less; his hiring as mayor in 2014 of 11,000 contractual employees, which allegedly cost the coffers of Davao City some P708 million; and his supposed unexplained wealth in numerous alleged secret bank accounts, as well as properties, which, based on documents given to Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV, tallied to P2.207 billion more or less from 2006 to 2015; and bank accounts and transactions of the President’s children Sara (P121 million), Paolo (P104 million), Sebastian (P143 million), common-law wife Honeylet (P187 million) and campaign contributor/business partner Samuel Cang Uy (P118 million).

On March 20, four days after the Duterte impeachment complaint was filed, two known Marcos loyalists Oliver Lozano (chief legal counsel, Citizens Crime Watch) and Melchor Chavez (executive vice president, Partido Ng Manggagawa at Magsasaka), sought the endorsement of House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez for their complaint for impeachment against Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo for “acts of injustice prejudicial to the nation and public welfare, which constitutes culpable violation of the Constitution and Betrayal of Public Trust”. The alleged injustice and betrayal was Robredo’s “shaming the nation with her dishonest message to the United Nations” on Duterte’s alleged summary executions. In their endorsement letter to the Speaker, Lozano and Chavez (under the letterhead “Volunteers for Good Government”), referred to Robredo as the “Termite of the Government”.

Impeachment is a divisive, costly, tedious political exercise. The lower House has the sole power to initiate impeachment, while the Senate is the sole judge of such impeachment.

Section 2 and 3 of Article XI of the Constitution provides: “Section 2. The President, the Vice President, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the Constitutional Commissions and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.

All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.

Section 3. [1] The House of Representatives shall have the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment. [2] A verified complaint for impeachment may be filed by any member of the House of Representatives or by any citizen upon a resolution of endorsement by any member thereof, which shall be included in the Order of Business within 10 session days, and referred to the proper committee within three session days thereafter.

The committee, after hearing, and by a majority vote of all its members, shall submit its report to the House within 60 session days from such referral, together with the corresponding resolution. The resolution shall be calendared for consideration by the House within 10 session days from receipt thereof. [3] A vote of at least one-third of all the members of the House shall be necessary either to affirm a favorable resolution with the Articles of Impeachment of the Committee, or override its contrary resolution. The vote of each member shall be recorded.

[4] In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the

Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed. [5] No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.

[6] The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. When sitting for that purpose, the senators shall be on oath or affirmation.

When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, but shall not vote.

No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members of the Senate. [7] Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office and disqualification to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to prosecution, trial and punishment according to law.

[8] Congress shall promulgate its rules on impeachment to effectively carry out the purpose of this section.”

What constitutes an impeachable offense is a purely political question, which the Constitution has left to the sound discretion of the legislature. It is beyond the scope of judicial power under Section 1, Article VIII. In defining what an impeachable offense is, the Supreme Court (citing Committee Report 640 of the Constitutional Commission dated November 6, 1996) said: “From the exchange of views among the committee members and their respective explanations of votes, the consensus, which emerged, is that to constitute an impeachable offense [1] the act charged must directly relate to and affect the administration of the public office concerned and should be of a substantial nature directly affecting the rights and interests of the public, and [2] it should constitute a grave felony or a criminal offense which carries an afflictive penalty or of the same gravity or seriousness as such a felony or offense.” (Francisco, Jr. v. House of Representatives, 145 SCRA 44 [2003]).

It is expected that when Congress resumes session on May 2, the “circus” will begin. The two impeachment complaints will be referred to the Speaker, who shall include it in the Order of Business within 10 session days and then refer it within three session days to the Justice Committee headed by Rep. Reynaldo V. Umali of the Second District of Oriental Mindoro (erstwhile ally of for President Benigno S. Aquino III now a member of the House Majority). Will the Justice Committee resolve to report these out to the House? My fearless prediction is that the Duterte impeachment is dead or at the very least an “uphill battle” as conceded by the author, Alejano himself. It is a function of arithmetic—Duterte counts at least 267 allies in the House out of 292 members. Judging from the numbers on the controversial death-penalty vote and the loss of committee chairmanship for the congressmen who voted to reject the death penalty, it will not be a surprise if the Duterte impeachment will be eventually dismissed. As to the Robredo impeachment, apart from my view that the complaint itself on its face does not appear sufficient in form and substance, no less than the President himself has commanded “Stop it xxx Guys, lay off…. You can do other things but do not tinker with the structure of the government. I will not countenance it. Elected ’yang tao eh.” (Rappler.com published 9:56 a.m. March 23, 2017.)

And in classic Dutertism, the President sums it up: “You know, this is a democracy. Leaders are elected. Even if one is a son of a bitch, it’s still the people’s choice. Remember that!” (Ibid).

Unfortunately for the Filipino people, we keep on electing sons of bitches. It would be a sad day for our people if they become the majority, not the exception!

DEBIT CREDIT

D

O you really need an accounting software for your start-up?

The straight answer from a professional perspective is yes. That is the typical perspective of a professional software seller. Accounting software are usually sold in packages, which are called enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This is one good way to tie-in a client for a hefty amount of investment for a “forecasted” need of such system.

While I do not plan to go lengthy at this point (which might cause rage among our ERP-vendor friends), allow me to highlight a few circumstances when you might actually need one as discussed below.

is in a project-based business. Many people sell these shiny software for a good reason, including that this can be more efficient, this can provide fabulous graphs and charts, and this can be really costly for your start-up. Before you decide to go ERP, have a chat with a good accountant or even bookkeeper if you need one.

Just make sure they’re not selling the same (or you would just be more convinced to get one).

Inventory setups are complex

The key driver to employ an ERP system is when your start-up’s inventories are too complex to manage using simple spreadsheets or manual stock cards. There’s not much struggle when your start-up is doing simple retail, restaurant, fast food, more so if your start-up

Bookkeeping process is highly efficient

IF you want to focus doing your

Monday, May 1, 2017 A15

business while monitoring your financials on the go, then probably a cloud-based ERP systems will do wonders for you. But don’t expect magic. If you don’t update your financial records — such as scanning in your invoices, receipts and other documents — t hen don’t expect the system to magically generate an updated report.

At the end of the day, your bookkeeping speed won’t change just because of changing the system.

Now, do you think that your business can cope up with your expectation? Think not just once, not twice, but a lot of times. In most circumstances, a start-up can only afford a cheap stake accountant or bookkeeper. Moreover, your records are most likely not up to date since you are more focused on operating your business rather than exerting effort on scanning and taking picture of your receipts and invoices.

Just damned rich

And, of course, you might not be the typical start-up bootstrapping on limited cash. So feel free, indulge and spend all those capital for an ERP for the sake of beauty and pride.

There are a lot of reasons you don’t need an accounting system.

There are loads of free software available in the market. Most of the time, your good old Microsoft Excel can do the trick. Just make sure you keep your records ready when you need to move on.

Take time before making any investment decision on buying accounting software. At the end of the day, don’t you trust your accountant?

Or is your accountant moving his or her business into sales?

(Note: The Board of Accountancy will hold an “SMP Summit [Expanding the Horizons of SMPs]” on May 9 and 10 at the Metropolitan Club in Rockwell, Makati City. Details are posted in http://boa.com.ph/ join-the-smp-summit-on-may-9-10and-hear-the-major-pronouncementsaffecting-smps-from-the-board-ofaccountancy/ ) Filbert Tsai is a Filipino accounting advisor in the UK with global and public-sector experience. His key areas of interests are start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). His blog and page, Ask the Accounting Advisor, provide relevant insight for startups and MSMEs in the Philippines.

This column accepts contributions from accountants, especially articles that are of interest to the accountancy profession, in particular, and to the business community, in general. These can be e-mailed to boa.secretariat.@gmail.com.

LGUs can; 10 reasons why; and why they should

By Alberto Agra

PPP Lead (4) LGU’s dual agency-role.

LGUs as agents of the community and people must adequately provide for local necessities and promote the convenience for their respective communities. Addressing the needs of the community can be done through PPPs, among other financing and implementation options.

(5) All about the general welfare. Pursuant to the general welfare clause, LGUs can undertake infrastructure, development and social service-related projects via the PPP route for the preservation and enrichment of culture, promotion of health and safety, enhancement of

Continued from A1 (2) LGUs have fiscal autonomy. They have the discretion to source additional revenues using the PPP approach, and to create fiscal space for other projects and activities. They have the power to allocate these revenues based on their priorities. Revenues generated from PPPs can be used for general or specific purposes.

(3) For as long as not prohibited by law. Under the liberal view of local autonomy, LGUs can, for as long as no law is violated, pursue PPPs for the general welfare even if there is no express statutory grant of power.

Journeymen Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

A

bandoned by his father when he was a toddler, Charles Mammie left his house as a teenager to go look for basketball opportunities. From his native country Sierra Leone, Charles went to war-torn Liberia then to Ivory Coast until he was discovered by basketball scouts and played for some college teams (Arellano University and University of the East [UE]) in the Philippines. After exhausting his playing eligibility in college, he turned professional and has played in the Asean Basketball League.

Having played for quite a few teams, Charles understands the value of being in a team. During games, whenever he’s physically exhausted, he gets extra energy from his teammates. Akin to a pit stop in a gasoline station, Charles receives fuel every time he sees his teammates work hard for every basketball possession.

In our workplace, whenever we get tired, family is usually our gas station. During frustrating times when I was in the government, I remember I get recharged after a simple phone conversation with my best friend Raul or a Sunday brunch with my children.

In Charles’ case, he tried his best to see his mother in Sierra Leone despite complications with university obligations and visa issues.

But whenever our faith is tested through trials and hardships, the church appears to serve as our gas

station. Catholics hear mass, Christians attend a service, while others perform rituals to observe their faith and, perhaps, get that spiritual energy necessary to be recharged. Joshua Harris, author of Dug Down Deep, initially treated the church like a gas station. Joshua considered churches as pit stops where people go on Sundays to wherever most convenient and get filled up with the “spiritual fuel that comes from worship, teaching and relationships” with other churchgoers.

To a certain extent, Charles also saw the church the same way as Joshua Harris initially did, nothing but a tradition or a “habit, like sleeping, breathing and all the other things we can do without thinking”. In the case of Charles who was raised in an Anglican church, he considers church attendance as a big part of his childhood years. Having converted to

the right of the people to a balanced ecology, encourage and support the development of appropriate and self-reliant scientific and technological capabilities, improvement of public morals, enhancement of economic prosperity and social justice, promotion of full employment among the residents, maintenance of peace and order, and preservation of the comfort and convenience of their inhabitants.

(6) Obey the Constitution. Being subdivisions of the State, LGUs must operationalize the constitutional policy that “recognizes the indispensable role of the private sector, encourages private enterprise, and provides incentives to needed investments”. PPPs operationalize this mandate.

(7) LGUs private powers. LGUs have full autonomy in the exercise of their proprietary or private functions. Thus, local projects, which are proprietary in nature, can be implemented through PPPs.

(8) LGUs are public corporations. Having their own juridical personalities, LGUs can enter into contracts with PSPs for local projects.

(9) Local legislation. LGUs, in the exercise of their legislative power through their respective local legislative councils or sanggunians, can enact ordinances and issue resolutions for the adoption of their PPP frameworks and execution of PPP contracts.

(10) Being responsive. LGUs in order to be more responsive to the needs of the people, being their agents, may enter into PPPs. PPPs would enable LGUs to attain their fullest development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in the attainment of national goals. PPPs would also lessen the dependence of LGUs from the national government. PPPs entered into by LGUs also affirm the policy that local officials have superior competence in dealing with local matters.

be a born again Christian, Charles painfully witnessed quite a few acts of violence, with some killings done in his presence. As a member of the church choir, initially as treble then as an alto, Charles regularly received His Word as a means to hold on to his faith and to stay positive amid all the psychological trauma he experienced in his own journey.

In my case, as I have moved houses, I have also journeyed to different “spiritual” gas stations.

For the past 10 years, I lived in California and Chicago in the US, went back to the Philippines, and have stayed in Quezon City, Pasig City, Taguig City, all in Metro Manila, and in Silang, Cavite. As a journeyman, I have heard several homilies from more than a hundred parish priests and even attended Christian services in my quest to have divine nourishment. Parish-based masses somehow give you that sense of belongingness, that is, if you are truly a resident of that area. But for a nomad like me, attending church was truly like a pit stop. After I listen to God’s Word, sing songs of praises, say my prayers of thanksgiving, I will be off to my worldly ways. But just as Joshua Harris did, we have to somehow reorient our mind-set in terms of how we see places of worship. They are not pit stops; they are, in fact, buses. And the bus driver is the “indwelling Spirit” that resides in our hearts to help us understand and apply the Scripture to our daily lives and which Spirit intercedes for us in prayer. Whatever bus we

choose to take, the Spirit within us will always take us there, no pit stops necessary. In the words of Joshua Harris, “The church wasn’t merely a place to swing by for a fillup. The church isn’t a gas station, I realized. It’s the bus I’m supposed to be traveling on.”

Charles had his own share of fateful misfortunes and misconduct. He has misbehaved and got sidetracked in faith, just like most of us. He may have lost hope in his journey but, according to him, His Father never lost hope in Charles.

Motivational speaker Tasha Smith said, “Once you embrace that love and have that fellowship with God, all those things that you should not be doing will go away.” Charles is now happily married, has recently received a business degree from UE, and is looking forward to playing professional basketball in New Zealand. Some articles have come out depicting Charles as a “bad person” in the past. My instinct tells me that Charles will be grounded knowing that he is on the right bus despite and because of his very colorful past.

As for all of us who believe in a Supreme Being, whether God or Allah, we just have to stay on the bus. And in case you are in one of those “hop on, hop off” buses, typically used by journeymen, never forget to hop back on. Always remember that the bus driver is pure goodness and its fuel tank will never be empty.

For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A16 Monday, May 1, 2017

Lopez presents policy reforms before facing appointment crucible E

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

@jonlmayuga

NVIRONMENT Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez announced policy reforms related to forest, land, protected area and environmental management, days before facing again the Commission on Appointments (CA).

Lopez’s proposed policy reforms were presented on Thursday, as Lopez herself admits she is uncertain of her fate at the hands of the 25-member CA when she announced the ban on open-pit mining.

Noting that politics is unpredictable, Lopez said she wants to put in place policy reforms while she still heads the agency mandated to manage the country’s environment and natural resources.

Among the policy reforms is to make land titling service easier, more accessible and transparent to the public. Under this area, Lopez said barangay offices

will be allowed to accept public land-titling applications.

She said barangays will be provided with cadastral maps with ongoing titling operations. Offices would also be required to post the process involved in titling with corresponding requirements and fees for each step.

Potential beneficiaries of free, homestead and sales patents can also expect support on managing their land from the Land Management Bureau and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) corporate arm, the Natural Resources Development

Corp. (NRDC), according to her.

Also, the DENR chief promises that title holders can expect assistance in coordinating with other government offices on land development, payment of taxes and other fees and land preservation for climate-change resiliency.

Harmonization

LOPEZ pointed to the Land Management Bureau as having drafted guidelines regarding nonrequirement of tax declaration in filing, accepting and processing of agricultural and residential free patent applications, in lieu of which actual land occupants can present other

applicable proof. The DENR is also adopting a strategy to maximize benefits from protected areas (PAs) through a special use agreement (Suapa), Lopez said.

The Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), which oversees management of PAs, has proposed the imposition of development fees based on zonal value of the PA. Further, the proponent shall pay an administrative fee for every Suapa application filed.

Under the proposal, income from Suapa fees will be accrued to the Integrated PA Fund, which could increase income to be utilized for See “Lopez,” A2

The Philippine Forest Certification System would result to healthier forests, communities and workers and help prevent illegal wood harvesting or logging while promoting employment that is compliant with all fundamental International Labor Organization conventions.”—Lopez

EAGER ECONOMIC PARTNERS Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah (from left) of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and President Duterte prepare for a photo session following the East Asia Growth Area Meeting in the 30th Asean Leaders’ Summit on April 29 in Manila. AP/Noel Celis

www.businessmirror.com.ph

DUTERTE PHENOMENON SEEN LIFTING TOURIST ARRIVALS IN DAVAO

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

T

HE presidency of Davao’s favorite hometown boy, Rodrigo R. Duterte, has boosted the visitor arrivals of the region by 12 percent, hitting 3.1 million in 2016. This, along with conventions and conferences, will further raise visitor arrivals by as much as 18 percent to 3.7 million this year.

In an interview with Roberto P. Alabado III, regional director for the Department of Tourism-11 (DOTDavao region) on the sidelines of the recently concluded Madrid Fusión Manila 2017, he said: “With the push for MICE [meetings, incentives, conventions, exhibitions], and a lot of opportunities for [Duterte’s] presidency that we have seen, we’re checking if we could hit 18-percent [increase in arrivals].”

He added that the hotels alone are confident of surpassing their targets this year, after evaluating their first-quarter performance. “When talking to the hotels in Davao, they are saying for January, February and March, they have a lot of visitors and business coming in, and MICE participants. They have all hit their targets and even went beyond their targets vis-á-vis last year. So, at the rate we’re doing right now, everyone is confident they’ll be surpassing their targets this year.”

The bulk, or at most, 80 percent of the region’s visitor arrivals, is accounted for by Davao City and Samal Island. As such, for these two areas alone, the outlook for the year is about 2.96 million visitor arrivals from 2.48 million in 2016.

DOT Region 11 is currently holding its annual “Visit Davao Fun Sale [VDFS]”, now in its third year, which will last until May 30. Alabado told the BusinessMirror the regional office is promoting Davao Oriental, which will host an array of eco-adventure and sports activities this year.

He said, “We are bringing a beach volleyball competition, then a national skimboarding competition and also an invitational tournament for beach frisbee. We’re showcasing Dahican Beach through these activities.”

It takes about two-and-half to three hours to travel by land from Davao City to Mati, Davao Oriental, on well-paved roads, he said, emphasizing that accessibility to the popular white-sand beach is not a problem for tourists. The first VDFS promoted Samal Island, then in its second year, Mount Apo in Davao Del Sur. Aside from going skimboarding at Dahican Beach, tourists to Davao Oriental can also watch dolphins and see dugong (sea cow), and go surfing in the months of July and August, because the beach faces the Pacific Ocean, giving high surf waves. Tourists can also rent an ultralight plane for P1,500 and for 15 minutes, take a tour of the beach by air, he added.

“This summer, we’re more activity-oriented. We’re positioning Davao as a place where there are a lot of eco-adventures and eco-sports activities. Our Visit Davao Fun Sale is

When talking to the hotels in Davao, they are saying for January, February and March, they have a lot of visitors and business coming in, and MICE participants. They have all hit their targets and even went beyond their targets vis-á-vis last year. So, at the rate we’re doing right now, everyone is confident they’ll be surpassing their targets this year.”

—Alabado from April 16 to May 30, and during that period, we’ll have the Mount Apo Boulder Face Challenge and the Durian Man Triathlon, which is the only cross-channel triathlon competition in the Philippines. Participants will swim from Davao City to Samal Island, then on Samal will be the bike-and-run competition.

Then we’ll also have the activities in Dahican Beach,” Alabado said.

He also said there will be a showcase of visual arts in various malls in Davao City, along with performing arts, bands and street-dancing competition during the one-and-halfmonths VDFS promotion.

The VDFS, which was started in 2015, was patterned after the Great Singapore Sale. During the period, participating department stores, restaurants, shopping malls, spas, hotels and tour operators give tourists discounts as much as 40 percent on the their purchases.

He explained that with the discounts in Davao hotels and tours alone during this period, it would seem like tourists would be spending the amount for their vacation in a similar destination, despite the high airfare from, say, Manila to Davao City. “We’re doing this because we know the airfare is expensive. So when the tourists arrive in Davao, we offset this by giving them savings. It will seem like they’d be spending the same even if they go to another destination. At the same time, it’s always fun; ‘fun’ is discount, ‘fun’ is having a sale. So it’s a nice experience for them during summer.”

Alabado expressed confidence more tourists would be coming to Davao with Cebu Pacific and AirAsia bringing in international bloggers on familiarization tours of Davao during the VDFS. “We are expecting Koreans and Singaporeans during this period. Aside from the bloggers, there will be tour operators from the airlines’ feeder routes.”

JAPAN, PHILIPPINES URGE UNITED STATES, N. KOREA TO AVOID WAR BRINK Continued from A1

whether or not a nuclear warhead or an ordinary bomb, one explosion there that would hit somebody would cause a catastrophe,” Duterte said, adding he would tell Trump just that in a phone call later Saturday. Trump, in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on CBS’s Face The Nation, called the latest launch “a small missile” while declining to say whether he’d take military ac-

tion if Kim conducts a nuclear test.

“If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy,” Trump said, according to an excerpt provided

by CBS. “And I can tell you also, I don’t believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either.” Asked if “not happy” meant military action, he said, “I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see.”

China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately reply to phone and e-

mail messages last Saturday seeking comment on the test-firing, which occurred about 5:30 a.m. local time.

In a commentary distributed

by Xinhua, the official China news agency, said the US and North Korea “need to tread cautiously not to ignite another war in the region”. The US needs to “terminate the state of war” on the peninsula while North Korea needs to offer a “solid reason” for the US to change its policy, Xinhua said in the commentary.

In a briefing for reporters in London, Abe described the missile as a “grave threat” that “can absolutely not be tolerated”.

China pressed

China, which accounts for the vast majority of North Korean trade, has an important role to play, Abe added. Tillerson told the UN Security Council last Friday that countries that fail to implement economic sanctions on Kim’s

regime “fully discredit this body”.

Kim’s regime has test-fired ballistic missiles six times this year, including a failed test earlier this month following a high-profile military parade through Pyongyang. He’s launched dozens of projectiles and conducted three nuclear tests since coming to power after his father’s death in 2011, and claimed in January to be almost ready to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile that would threaten the US.

During the Security Council session, Tillerson said the US goal isn’t to overthrow Kim’s regime but ruled out talks unless the North Korean leader takes “concrete steps to reduce the threat that illegal weapons programs pose to the United States and our allies”.

As the meeting concluded, Tillerson reiterated that the US wouldn’t agree to talks unless North Korea abides by existing Security Council resolutions. Bloomberg News