BusinessMirror May 07, 2019

DESPITE SLOWING INFLATION, PRICES MAY STILL RISE AS PRODUCTION COSTS SPIKE

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

I AT a supermarket in Parañaque City, a shopper checks the items at the sweetened drinks area in this 2018 BusinessMirror file photo. According to Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, certain manufacturers, especially those of canned sardines, are groaning under the weight of production cost spikes, despite the slowing inflation data. Thus, he said, prices hikes are still possible. NONIE REYES

DEPT. OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

2018 BANTOG DATA MEDIA AWARDS CHAMPION

NFLATION may be settling within government target range, but the country’s trade chief on Monday warned that prices of basic goods could further surge due to the increasing costs of raw materials and logistic services.

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said prices of basic goods could further go up in spite of a moderating inflation rate, as manufacturers are struggling to cope with spikes in their cost of production. This, he added, is the reason prices of 26 goods

monitored by the government went up this month.

As reflected in the suggested retail price (SRP) list for May, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) approved price hikes for 26 brands of canned sardines, instant noodles, bottled water, toilet soaps and condiments.

Lopez said tamban, the main input for canned sardines, costs up to P34 per kilo, from P19 per kilo, forcing sardine makers to appeal for authority to increase prices. He added that cost adjustments in wheat flour, carton, wrappers and seasoning affected prices of instant noodles; raw vinegar, soy

See “Inflation,” A2

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

www.businessmirror.com.ph

n Tuesday, May 7, 2019 Vol. 14 No. 209

ERC meeting energy players on PSA ruling T

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

HE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) will convene industry stakeholders this week to discuss the implications of the Supreme Court ruling mandating a competitive selection process (CSP) for power-supply agreements (PSAs).

Although the commission has not received a copy of the decision, the agency said it will “take the necessary plans and measures to preempt and mitigate possible implications of the Supreme

Court decision.”

Meetings to jointly address the issues at hand will be scheduled with the Department of Energy (DOE), distribution utilities (DUs)—of which the Manila

In blow to Meralco, SC orders competitive bids for power-supply deals

By Joel R. San Juan

T

beans and fish extract on condiments; and storage and logistics on toilet soaps.

“This should be the last round of price hikes, until unless the situation worsens for the cost of their [inputs]. Hopefully, the tamban issue and all that [stabilizes].

The tamban fish is a commodity, so when catch is abundant, we expect its prices to go down,” Lopez told the BusinessMirror.

“That is the time we will ask [sardine makers] for a rollback. Watch out for the tamban prices. If that normalizes to about P20 per kilo, then we will definitely bring it [prices of canned sardines] down.

@jrsanjuan1573

HE Supreme Court, voting 9-2 with one abstention, has mandated the conduct of a competitive selection process (CSP) on all power-supply agreements (PSAs) submitted by distribution utilities on or after June 30, 2015.

The SC-Public Information Office (PIO) said the Court en banc granted the petition filed

by Alyansa Para Sa Bagong Pilipinas Inc. in a decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

In granting the petition, the Cour t en banc held that the Energ y R eg u l ator y Com m i s sion committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when it unilaterally postponed the effectivity of the CSP requirement by issuing ERC Resolution 13 and ERC Resolution 1.

The CSP rules require power distributors to get at least two offers for supply of electricity before awarding a PSA, ensuring the least cost for electricity consumers.

The Court pointed out that the authority of the ERC was limited only to the implementation of the

Electric Co. is the biggest—as well as gencos (generation companies) and other power industry stakeholders.

“We assure the public that the Commission will be doing every-

“We have no choice but to follow CSP rules, which are still to be issued by the ERC. This means further delays by six to nine months for investment decision for any new power plants.”— Singson

thing within its legal mandate to protect the consumers relative to the impact of the recent SC decision,” said the ERC. Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, in a text message, said the concerned agencies must respect the decision of the SC. “Projects can now move forward. These projects will be an addition to the capacity needed by the country.”

Voters have six more days to make an intelligent choice Manny F. Dooc

TELLTALES

W

E have a political system that we largely borrowed from the Americans. Our republican form of government gives power to the people to elect officials who will rule them for the next three to six years. This coming May 13, about 61 million Filipinos will troop to the polls to cast their votes. In theory, this is an ideal system. Persons with vision and program of government offer us their services to solve the problems that ail our society. In return, the people choose the most competent candidate on the basis of merits and qualifications. Subsequently, elective officials who failed to deliver their promises are voted out of office and those who performed well are reelected or elected to higher positions in the next election. It is a fair system of reward and punishment. But this is more illusory than real. The entire system is flawed and election is a mockery. We hardly have clean and honest elections in this country.

Continued on A11

See “ERC,” A2

‘BSP may cut key rate by 25 bps’

By Bianca Cuaresma

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 51.9300

@BcuaresmaBM

S

repeal this law to bring down the minimum threshold to just $250,000. The existing law protects our Filipino SME entrepreneurs,” the statement read. “We now see the proliferation of Chinese restaurants, Korean groceries, foreign operators in our tiangge [flea markets], even before the repeal of the existing law.

OFTENING inf lation and cooling growth may push the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to cut its main policy rate in its upcoming meeting this month, according to an economist.

Chidu Narayanan, Standard Chartered economist for Asia, said he expects a 25-basis-point (bps) cut in the BSP’s overnight reverse repurchase (RRP) rate in its meeting on May 9.

“The BSP is scheduled to meet on May 9, following April inflation data on May 7 and firstquarter GDP earlier in the day.

We expect the BSP to start its rate cut cycle with a moderate 25bps rate cut, driven by declining inflation and softening growth,” Narayanan said.

The economist forecasts inflation to fall below 3 percent and GDP growth in the first quarter to hit 6 percent. The projected rate of GDP expansion is slower than the 6.3 percent recorded in the fourth quarter of 2018.

For 2019, Narayanan said economic growth could reach 6.2 percent. “The budget delay likely shaved 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points off growth. Growth was likely driven by

See “Foreigners,” A3

Continued on A2

The power-supply agreements (PSAs) submitted for approval with the ERC for the period April 16, 2016, to April 29, 2016, with terms spanning more than 20 years

See “Meralco,” A2

BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR

P25.00 nationwide | 4 sections 26 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

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CSP, and that the ERC had no power and authority to postpone the CSP’s application.

As a consequence of the SC ruling, all PSA applications submitted by the DUs on or after June 30, 2015, were required to comply with the CSP in accordance with 2015 circular issued by the Department of Energy (DOE).

The 2015 DOE Circular, which became effective on June 30, 2015, mandated all DUs to undergo CSP in securing PSAs. Furthermore, the Court directed that the power purchase cost after compliance with the CSP shall retroact to the date of effectivity of the PSA, “but in no case earlier than June 30, 2015, for purposes of passing the purchase cost to the consumers.”

2017 EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

A LINEMAN from Meralco checks on electric cables in San Andres, Manila, in this 2018 BusinessMirror file photo. Meralco, the country’s biggest distribution utility (DU), has been greatly impacted by a Supreme Court decision mandating a competitive selection process for power-supply agreements. NONIE REYES

Keep foreigners out of SME retail biz–PRA

L

OCAL retailers on Monday asked the government to keep their foreign counterparts out of the small and medium enterprise (SME) competition by retaining the minimum paid-up capital for offshore investors at $2.5 million.

In a statement, the Philippine Retailers Association (PRA) said it rallies behind Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson in his appeal to keep foreign firms,

particularly those coming from China, out of the SME industry. It also demanded that the government give priority to the interests of small businesses by maintaining the minimum investment for foreign retailers at $2.5 million.

“This is exactly what PRA is fighting for: the retention of the $2.5-million minimum investment for foreign retailers. There [are] moves to

n JAPAN 0.4696 n UK 68.2828 n HK 6.6195 n CHINA 7.7105 n SINGAPORE 38.0830 n AUSTRALIA 36.1900 n EU 58.0370 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.8480

Source: BSP (6 May 2019 )

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Tuesday, May 7, 2019

‘Monetary officials exploring options to fix agri-agra law’

N

By Cai U. Ordinario

@caiordinario

ADI, Fiji—The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is mulling over the possibility of pushing for the repeal of the Agri-Agra Reform Credit Act due to its failure to expand farmers’ access to credit.

In an interview, BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said if the government wants to help farmers, this can be done through the national budget and government financial institutions (GFIs) and not through commercial banks.

Diokno said that, while the BSP does not yet have an official stand on the agri-agra law, “the Monetary Board members are in consensus” that something must be done to address problems in its implementation as the law was not able to achieve its

pur pose and even created “market distortions.”

“There’s a consensus among Monetary Board members that we have to fix [the law] because it did not achieve its objective,” Diokno said. “If you want to help [the farm] sector, then go through the budget, not through the banking system. To me that’s the first best solution.”

Under the Agri-Agra Reform Credit Act or Republic Act 10000, government and private banks should allocate 25 percent of their

“If you want to help [the farm] sector, then go through the budget, not through the banking system. To me that’s the first best solution.”—Diokno

total loanable funds to the agrifisheries sector, with 10 percent being distributed to agrarian-reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and the remaining 15 percent to the farm sector.

Due to the failure of the law to compel commercial banks to extend credit, Diokno said banks are penalized. This, he said, creates “market distortions” that limit their ability to provide financing for other clients.

He said asking the commercial banks to shoulder the burden of government is placing too much pressure on the financial sector.

Where are the fines?

DIOKNO said another issue with

‘BSP may cut key rate by 25 bps’ still-solid, though lower, domestic demand, while negative net exports, due to strong capital goods imports, subtracted from the headline again,” Narayanan said.

“We expect growth to pick up in the second half on better infrastructure investment, continuing the upward momentum since the fourth quarter of 2017,” he added.

The Standard Chartered economist said the BSP could implement more rate cuts due to lower inflation.

“We expect BSP to start cutting rates in May and forecast a total 100 basis points of rate cuts in consecutive meetings in 2019, as we expect inflation to drop sharply in the

Inflation. . .

Continued from A1

We will compel companies to bring it down,” he added.

However, Lopez said he cannot guarantee that prices of basic goods will stabilize anytime soon, as fuel price movements and cost adjustments dictate the production of manufacturers.

“We cannot assure [the public that prices will normalize anytime soon]. That will depend on the movement of costs. If tamban prices, say, go up to P50 per kilo, sardine makers will certainly ask for another round of adjustments. We cannot guarantee, we can just temper,” the trade chief argued.

Lopez also pointed out that some price hikes were carryovers from last year, when manufacturers entered into an agreement with the DTI to defer any increases to provide consumers some breathing space in the face of peaking inflation.

“Last year we asked for a hold off for three months despite inflation.

This is a delayed increase. If we hold off again, they might request for a bigger increase in the future.

Or worse, they might reduce employees that might affect Filipino workers,” Lopez said.

Rollback call

IN a statement on Monday, Laban Konsyumer Inc. urged the DTI to

Palay. . .

Continued from A12

Results of the PSA survey indicated that the lowest farm-gate price during April 17 to 23 was recorded in Caraga region at P16.33 per kg. The highest average palay quotation was observed

third quarter,” Narayanan said.

Standard Chartered’s expectation of a drop in inflation in the third quarter is due to a high base and one-off boosts from tax reforms and the end of poor weather.

The bank’s average inflation forecast is at 2.7 percent in 2019, down from 5.2 percent in 2018.

It also forecasts reserve requirement ratio (RRR) cuts of 200 basis points.

In the last monetary-policy meeting in March, the Monetary Board (MB) decided to keep the interest rate on the BSP’s RRP facility at 4.75 percent, with interest rates on the overnight lending and

the law is the fines and how these are used by the Department of Agriculture. He said the fines paid by banks are given to the DA. “I have been asking where the fines are and I learned that it’s with the Department of Agriculture. I don’t know how these funds are being used. You should ask Secretary [Emmanuel] Piñol. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to abolish that law,” Diokno said.

In end-September 2018, universal and commercial banks’ compliance with the 10 percent required lending to the agrarian-reform sector hit 0.79 percent; their compliance with the 15 percent required lending to the agricultural sector reached only 12.95 percent.

The thrift banking sector follows the universal and commercial banks’ trend, with a 1.2-percent compliance rate against the 10-percent mandate for the agrarianreform sector and 6.19 percent as against the 15-percent mandate for the agricultural sector.

Continued from A1

deposit facilities also kept steady.

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno said the MB’s decision is based on its assessment that prevailing monetary-policy settings remain appropriate as inflation forecasts show consumer price growth comfortably settling within the 2 to 4 percent target range for this year and the next.

“Given these considerations, the Monetary Board is of the view that the within-target inflation outlook and firm domestic growth support keeping monetary-policy settings steady at this time,” Diokno said in a statement.

“Looking ahead, the BSP will

Meralco. . .

continue to monitor developments affecting the inflation outlook to ensure that the monetarypolicy stance remains consistent with its price-stability objective,” he added.

BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo also said the Central Bank has revised downward its inflation forecast for the year on account of the slower-than-expected print in February this year.

The BSP expects inflation to hit 3 percent, lower than the forecast of 3.1 percent announced in the previous monetary-policy meeting.

For the 2020, the BSP retained its forecast at 3 percent.

implement a price rollback in basic goods to reflect the declining inflation rate.

Laban Konsyumer President Victorio Mario A. Dimagiba said the DTI should no longer approve price increases in light of inflation settling within government target range. Instead, the government should coordinate with manufacturers in rolling back the prices of basic goods, he added.

“The government has to get [its] act together. When can we expect a rollback in the prices of basic necessities and prime commodities from the DTI when there have already been four months of the declining inflation? I believe that by now, we should already be enjoying rollbacks in SRPs of [basic goods] because of the low inflation,” Dimagiba argued.

In its own assessment, Laban Konsyumer claimed 14 brands of canned sardines raised prices from P0.50 to P1.70 per 155 grams; four iodized salt brands, from P0.35 to P0.90 per pack; and six bottled water brands, from P1 to P4 per bottle. It also recorded price hikes in five brands of condiments at between P0.35 and P0.90 per piece; one toilet soap brand at P0.30 per pack; and one instant noodle brand at P0.45.

Inflation in March slowed to P3.3 percent, from 4.3 percent during the same month last year and 3.8 percent in February, according to figures from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

HOWEVER, on March 15, 2016, the ERC issued Resolution 1, which restated that the effectivity of the CSP requirement for PSAs is on April 30, 2016, instead of November 7, 2015, as previously set in ERC Resolution 13.

With the issuance of ERC Resolution 13 and ERC Resolution 1, the implementation of the CSP under the 2015 DOE Circular was effectively postponed for a total of 305 days, from June 30, 2015, to April 29, 2016.

“The delegated authority to implement CSP does not include the authority to postpone or suspend CSP for 20 years, beyond the seven-year terms of office of the ERC Commis-

sioners postponing or suspending the CSP, and beyond the seven-year terms of office of their next successors, as well as beyond the six-year terms of office of three Presidents of the Republic,” the Court said in ruling against the ERC. The Court noted that a total of 90 PSAs were submitted for approval with the ERC for the period April 16, 2016, to April 29, 2016, with terms spanning more than 20 years.

The Alyansa Para Sa Bagong Pilipinas along with intervenor Bayan Muna have claimed that the issuance of the assailed ERC resolutions was motivated by a desire to give more time to Meralco and respondent generation companies and other players to enter into self-negotiated PSAs, in violation of the CSP policy of the State.

They alleged that by extending the CSP deadline from November 2015 to April 2016, the ERC allowed Meralco to enter into seven PSAs with its affiliated power-generating companies, tying up 3,551 megawatts, or 90 percent of its supply, to 20-year contracts that would cost consumers P12.44 billion a year.

Concurring in the ruling were Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin, Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Mariano del Castillo, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, Jose Reyes Jr., Ramon Paul Hernando and Rosmari Carandang.

Those who dissented were Associate Justices Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa and Andres Reyes Jr. while Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza abstained.

in Central Visayas region at P21.96 per kilogram, PSA data showed.

However, the PSA did not say if this is due to speculation. The farm-gate price of unmilled rice usually declines during the harvest months of March and April.

The food agency has already shifted its focus to more aggressive palay procurement

after the President signed the rice trade liberalization law or Republic Act (RA) 11203, and the subsequent signing of its implementing rules and regulations.

The NFA said it is confident of hitting its paddy rice procurement goal of 14.46 million bags, or 723,000 MT, this year. It increased its palay procurement target for this year after

the rice trade liberalization law took effect on March 5.

The NFA’s new goal is nearly double its original procurement target of 7.78 million bags, or 389,000 MT, for 2019. It is also significantly higher than the 1.24 million bags, or 62,000 MT, purchased by the food agency from farmers last year.

Continued from A1

The implementation of the 2015 DOE Circular was set aside after the ERC issued on October 20, 2015, Resolution 13. Such stated that pending the issuance by the ERC of a prescribed CSP, a DU may adopt any accepted form of CSP, subject to certain minimum requirements or standards to be incorporated in the terms of reference.

It also allowed direct negotiation after at least two failed CSPs and set the cut-off date for the compliance of the CSP requirement to November 7, 2015, instead of June 30, 2015, effectively postponing the implementation of the DOE circular.

Battle over resolutions

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MMDA suspends dry run on Edsa ban vs provincial buses

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HE Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is temporarily suspending the dry run of the controversial ban on provincial buses along Edsa, an official announced on Monday, acknowledging that the scheme could do with a more thorough assessment.

MMDA General Manager Jojo Garcia said the agency has yet to meet with the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) on the scheme, which provincial bus operators are objecting to. They insist authorities are making them a scapegoat for the traffic on Edsa, when the fact is that their units account for only a small fraction of the vehicles plying Edsa.

“We will continue with the dry run once the guidelines and implementing rules have been ironed out by the three agencies involved,” Garcia said on Monday.

According to Garcia, the MMDA does not want the policy to be politicized at this time when the coming elections is generating a lot of heated debates.

Moreover, he said the suspension was decided to avoid commuters’ inconvenience during the May 13 polls.

“Well, we decided to suspend it because of the elections...so as not to delay commuters going to their provinces this coming election to vote...We will continue with this, maybe after the election when our all kababayan [who] will be voting in their provinces will come back ,” said Edison Nebrija, MMDA traffic manager for Edsa.

No loading, unloading in effect

MEANWHILE, Garcia clarified that the strict enforcement of the “no loading and unloading” rule along Edsa for provincial buses will remain in effect.

The provincial bus ban is a result

ERC. . .

Continued from A1

Semirara Mining and Power Corp. Chairman Isidro Consunji said the company would abide by the SC decision. “Of course, the perception when they applied prior to CSP is that they worked hard on the bilateral contract. Now, if it’s CSP, then we can’t do anything about it. We have to abide. If that’s the SC decision, then all must comply,” said Consunji after the annual stockholders’meeting of subsidiary Sem-Calaca Power Corp.

Aboitiz Power Corp. Chief Operating Officer Emmanuel Rubio said, in a text message, that the company is“carefully reviewing the nuances of the decision considering its far-reaching implications.” Laban Konsyumer Inc. (LKI) President Victor Dimagiba said the ERC must now act on the pending PSAs. “The rules are clear now and the ERC should fast-track all pending PSAs and reject or approve accordingly.

There is no more excuse for ERC for any delay in deciding all covered PSAs.” Meanwhile, the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms Inc. (Nasecore) welcomed the SC decision. “We hail the SC for its decision upholding consumer interest and for validating the great abuse committed by for the former ERC commissioners.”

Other concerned industry stakeholders have yet to comment on the SC ruling, which held that ERC committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when it unilaterally postponed the effectivity of the competitive selection process (CSP) requirement by issuing ERC Resolution 13 and ERC Resolution 1.

This postponement of the deadline for complying with CSP requirements, according to critics and the petitioners who filed the case at the SC, effectively gave due preference to Meralco, allowing it to deal bilaterally with power suppliers that have allied interests with it—thus, negating the principle of competition.

The ERC had reset the CSP’s effectivity date from November 6, 2015, to April 30, 2016, exempting the PSAs from undergoing transparent and public bidding ordained in the CSP.

47

Number of provincial bus terminals along Edsa that authorities are targeting to eventually close down by June of Metro Manila Council (MMC) Regulation Number 19-002 revoking /canceling the business permits of all provincial bus terminals along Edsa, as approved by the MMDA. The agency is targeting to close all 47 bus terminals along Edsa by June.

In an interview after the oversight meeting on the expenditures of the DOTr, Nebrija said the MMDA together with the LTFRB will first address the concerns in the implementation of MMC Regulation Number 19-002.

“We’re just suspending it, we’re not canceling it. We’re just suspending it until the [issuance of the] implementing rules and regulations [IRR] and guidelines that will be set up during the meeting with DOTr and LTFRB,” he said. He meant the guidelines for transferring the bus terminals to Valenzuela City for those plying the routes in Northern Luzon; and Santa Rosa City, Laguna, for the South destinations.

“That cancellation of provincial bus terminals on Edsa will not happen anytime soon,” added Nebrija.

For his part, LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra said the board is now studying the rerouting schemes for city and provincial buses going to the Valenzuela City, Parañaque and Santa Rosa terminals.

Earlier, Ako Bicol party-list filed a petition before the Supreme Court to stop the MMDA policy banning provincial buses on Edsa. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco, Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

ERC Chairman Agnes Devanadera said earlier that if no case had been filed at the High Tribunal, then the commission would have long issued a resolution on Meralco’s PSA applications. “Out of deference, both to Congress and to the Supreme Court, we have not acted on Meralco’s PSAs,” said the ERC chief.

“The commission is a collegial body so the consensus, right now, the sense of the commission is to wait because the case in the SC has been included in the calendar several times already. It’s moving so we are hoping SC will dispose of that,” she commented earlier.

Delays in investment decisions

MERALCO and its power-generation arm, Meralco PowerGen (MGen), have been awaiting the long-delayed approval by the ERC of seven PSAs filed three years ago and which have already undergone all the necessary ERC processes and public hearings.

In a text message, MGen President Rogelio Singson sees further delays in the power projects. “We have no choice but to follow CSP rules, which are still to be issued by the ERC. This means further delays by six to nine months for investment decision for any new power plants.”

The ERC is expected to come out with an amended CSP rules. This time, it will incorporate the views of the DOE on CSP. The CSP requires DUs to hold competitive bidding for their supply requirements as against securing power deals via bilateral contracts. One of the requirements is for a DU like Meralco to openly call for and receive at least two qualified bids from gencos. Direct negotiations with other power suppliers could be entered into only after at least two failed CSPs. The SC pointed out that the ERC’s authority was limited only to the implementation of the CSP, and that the ERC had no power and authority to postpone the CSP’s application.

As a consequence of the SC ruling, all PSA applications submitted by the DUs on or after June 30, 2015, were required to comply with the CSP in accordance with 2015 circular issued by the DOE. The 2015 DOE Circular, which became effective on June 30, 2015, mandated all DUs to undergo CSP in securing PSAs.

The Nation BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

DILG’s Año backs DOT proposal for govt takeover of tourism sites

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

@jonlmayuga

D

ISMAYED by noncooperation of some business establishments in El Nido, Palawan, Secretary Eduardo M. Año of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has expressed support behind the recommendation of Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat for a government takeover of tourism sites across the country similar to what was implemented in the worldrenowned Boracay Island last year.

“We support the proposal of DOT [Department of Tourism]. The campaign to restore, rehabilitate and preserve our natural wonders, as well as the effort to ensure compliance with existing laws is always a team effort by all government agencies particularly the DOT, DENR [Department of Environment and Natural Resources] and the DILG,” Año said in a news statement.

Individual beaches or resorts in El Nido, Palawan, that fail to comply with governmental regulations by the end of the six-month deadline on May 30 will have to be closed, he added.

“We have given them enough time to comply. We [have] explained to them why and how they can comply with regulations.

So far, they have failed to do so.

They still have a whole month to shape up, after that they will face closure,” he said.

Some resorts in El Nido, the DILG chief said, are fully compliant while others are partially compliant.

But he lamented that some establishments have zero-compliance.

“The local government unit (LGU) has to impose the regulations and revoke the permits of noncompliant establishments, otherwise the national government will take over,” he said.

In case the national government comes in, an inter-agency manage-

“We have given them enough time to comply. We [have] explained to them why and how they can comply with regulations. So far, they have failed to do so. They still have a whole month to shape up, after that they will face closure,” —Año

ment team will be created similar to what was done in Boracay.

“We already have existing protocols and best practices in place. All we need to do is determine if this action needs to be done,” Año said.

The DILG will also investigate reports that some local government officials are blocking efforts of the Duterte administration to clean up the known beach destinations of the country.

Año has given instructions to DILG field offices to immediately investigate such reports from the DOT and the DENR. “The DILG will commence appropriate legal action based on the results of the investigation. We will not hesitate to exercise our power of general supervision over LGUs should they be found to be blocking or opposing the directives of the President to clean up and rehabilitate our top tourist spots,” Interior Undersecretary and Spokesman Jonathan Malaya said for his part.

The DILG spokesman urged all LGUs to be proactive and take the lead in cleaning up their respective jurisdictions without prodding from the DILG since it’s their responsibility under the law in the first place.

Taking the cue from the DOT’s #MoreFunForever campaign, he said that LGUs have the serious task to be responsible stewards of our natural wonderful destinations. “It’s our job to ensure all our natural wonders stay more fun, forever.”

Gordon lauds Palace backing on drive vs influx of foreign doctors to PHL hospitals

S

EN. Richard J. Gordon has welcomed Malacañang’s support to his proposal to probe the reported influx of foreign doctors into the country through a syndicate that facilitates their entry and employment to practice medicine in some hospitals sans the necessary permits.

Gordon, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, also thanked the Department of Health (DOH) and the Bureau of Immigration (BI) for promptly responding to his call, adding that their immediate response would stop Filipinos from being exposed to foreign doctors who are not authorized to practice medicine here.

“I don’t want the public to be hurt by doctors who are not authorized, under our laws, to see to patients.

Hindi dapat ini-experimento ang mga tao, hindi in-expose sa mga di naman dapat humawak sa kanila. [Filipinos should not be exposed to these foreign doctors]. We really have to make sure that this illegal practice is stopped, that’s why I am glad that Malacañang is backing me up on this and that the DOH and the BI are taking immediate action,” he said.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has ordered the DOH-Human

In effect, they are operating in violation of the retail trade law,” it added. Consolidated House Bill (HB) 9057 and Senate Bill (SB) 1639, authored by Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian, seek to relax, if not eliminate, minimum capital and requirements in retail trade.

While HB 9057 only intends to bring down

Groups tagged as communist fronts seek protection from SC

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

S

EVERAL left-leaning causeoriented groups on Monday filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking for protection against alleged threats and denunciations by President Duterte and his officials amid allegations of being fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP).

Human-rights group Karapatan led the filing of the petition for the issuance of a writ of amparo and habeas data together with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) and Gabriela.

A writ of amparo is a remedy available to any person whose right to life, liberty and security is violated, or threatened, with violation by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or of a private individual or entity.

On the other hand, a writ of habeas data is a remedy available to any person person whose right to privacy in life, liberty or security is violated or threatened by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or of a private individual or entity, engaged in the gathering, collecting or storing of data or information The petitioners, through the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), are seeking the destruction

of all files or record on the petitioners gathered by the government.

Named respondents in the 45page petition were President Duterte, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Benjamin Madrigal, AFP Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., National Security Council Deputy Director General Vicente Agdamag, Philippine National Police (PNP) Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management Senior Supt. Omega Jireh Fidel, Palace Undersecretary and Executive Director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security Joel Sy Egco, Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat Undersecretary Severo Catura and Presidential Communication Operations Office (PCOO) Undersecretary for New Media and External Affairs Lorraine Marie Badoy; and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency Director General Alex Paul Monteagudo.

“Our filing of the petition for the writs of amparo and habeas data is a response to the worsening attacks, terrorist tagging by the Philippine military and the ongoing smear campaign against human-rights defenders,” the petitioners said.

“Human-rights advocacy is not a

By Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM

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ALAC AÑANG said on Monday it would not allow restaurants and other establishments to exclusively cater to Chinese nationals staying in the country, adding that the Palace will order the Department on the Labor and Employment (DOLE) to conduct an investigation over the issue.

This, after Sen. Panfilo Lacson urged the government to shutter restaurants and other businesses that bar Filipinos from entering.

However, Presidential Spokesman and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador S. Panelo said the government must first look into the veracity of the report.

“Well, we have to investigate that if that is true. We cannot allow that to happen. They cannot be discrimi-

nating against Filipinos. Public business and therefore should cater to all,” Panelo said.

Lacson also noted earlier that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), local governments and other state agencies should use their authority to keep Chinese investors out of small and medium enterprises.

The senator said he finds it “alarming” that Filipinos will be deprived of investment opportunities.

Sought for comment, Panelo said: “We will address that through the Secretary of Trade, through Secretary Mon Lopez.”

The Palace also reminded the public to file a complaint against these restaurants rather than instigating a street fight.

He also urged local government units (LGUs) concerned to implement the closure of these establish-

deliberations, while SB 1639 is pending committee discussions.

The PRA said in the statement that it is “speaking for the future of our small Filipino entrepreneurs” in calling for the retention of minimum investment for foreign retailers at $2.5 million. Large retailers apparently can hold their

eral officers and members of the groups have been subjected to various forms of threats, harassments and intimidations.

“Petitioners, who are legitimate organizations, recognized both here and abroad, including their officers and members, have become open targets of human-rights violations.

The glaringly numerous incidents of threats, harassments and killings are at curtailing their rights to freely exercise their advocacies,” the petition read.

Members of Karapatan’s National Executive Committee and National Council filed the petition on behalf of the alliance, which includes Elisa Tita Lubi, Cristina Palabay, Karapatan National Vice Chairman Reylan Vergara, Deputy Secretary-General Roneo Clamor, Treasurer Kiri Dalena, and members Dr. Edita Burgos, Fr. Wilfredo Ruazol and Jose Mari Callueng.

“We are appealing to the Supreme Court to see the merit of our petition, the dangers of our work, and eventually decide in favor of human-rights defenders who have courageously stood alongside marginalized sectors in the country. We call on the Supreme Court to recognize that our work and activism involves the full exercise of our civil and political rights, and is in no way tantamount to a crime,” Palabay said.

5.4-magnitude quake rattles Laoag City

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ments once the reports are validated.

“Yeah, if there is a complaint and they validate that it has violated the law, then it should. LGUs should do their job,” Panelo added.

L a c s o n h a s a l s o p o i nt e d out that government agencies should work closely together to look where the Chinese had made investments in the country and ensure that Chinese businesses are engaged in private enterprises that needed huge investments and not in small businesses.

From 2015 to 2017, DOLE said that roughly half of the 169,000 Alien Employment Permits issued by the agency went to Chinese nationals, a third of which are in support services, including offshore gaming.

The Senate labor committee has also investigated the influx of Chinese workers in the country.

5.4-MAGNITUDE earthquake shook Laoag City in Ilocos Norte on Monday, the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology (Phivolcs) reported.

The earthquake that occurred at exactly 10:48 a.m was tectonic in origin and with a depth of 15 kilometers.

According to Phivolcs Earthquake Bulletin No. 2, Intensity V was felt in Pasuquin, Bacarra and Laoag City, and in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan.

Meanwhile, Intensity IV was felt in Paoay, Ilocos Norte.

Intensity III was recorded in Sinait and Santa, Ilocos Sur, and in Sudipen, La Union, and Intensity II was reported in Baguio City.

The Phivolcs said it is not expecting serious damage but expects aftershocks to occur, advising the residents in affected areas to take precautions. Jonathan L. Mayuga

Funa said the insurance industry’s net worth last year expanded by 5.32 percent to P337.37 billion, from the previous year’s P320.30 billion.

The life-insurance sector recorded an increase of 8.61 percent in net worth amounting to P219.91 billion, from P202.48 billion in 2017, primarily due to the increase in investment fluctuation reserves, which represents the unrealized appreciation in market value of stock and bond investments.

The IC also said the nonlifeinsurance sector’s net worth fell by 5.66 percent to P82.33 billion,

from P87.27 billion in 2017.

The MBA sector’s fund balance, which represents the accumulated earning of the sector, went up by 14.99 percent to P35.13 billion in 2018, from P30.55 billion in 2017.

The industry reported a net income of P37.43 billion in 2018, or 3 percent higher than the P36.39 billion recorded in 2017. The IC said this may be attributed to the 5-percent hike in the net income of the lifeinsurance sector.

Funa said the insurance industry’s assets reached P1.58 trillion in 2018, 1.28 percent

higher than the P1.56 trillion recorded in 2017.

“Despite the year-on-year slight decrease in the total assets of the life-insurance sector, the industry’s overall assets reached an all-time high,” he said.

“The life-insurance sector maintains to hold bulk of the assets of the industry with P1.26 trillion in assets, or 79.75 percent of the total assets of the industry, while the nonlifeinsurance sector and MBA sectors shared the remaining 20.25 percent with P230 billion and P90 billion, respectively,” he added.

own against their foreign competitors, but not small retailers. The group added “it is a win-win situation” for the Philippines if the government keeps the existing investment cap.

“This will encourage foreign retailers to [jointly] venture with Filipino entrepreneurs to pursue if they want to do business in

the Philippines. It is a win-win situation to encourage more foreign investment, [while] at the same time, protecting our SME Filipino entrepreneurs,” the statement read.

In a radio interview over the weekend, Lacson called on the Department of Trade and Industry, and local governments to

use their authority in shutting China out of the SME industry. He said the government should prioritize the interests of local SMEs. Allowing Chinese SMEs to set up shops in the Philippines, Lacson argued, will deprive homegrown firms of investment and growth opportunities. Elijah Felice E. Rosales

Insurance sector. . . continued from a12

minimum capital to $200,000, SB 1639 aims to remove the investment threshold once and for all. In his explanatory note in the bill, Gatchalian argued that further opening up retail trade to foreign participants will create more employment opportunities.

HB 9057 is awaiting plenar y

crime, yet human-rights workers are being killed, threatened, harassed and jailed on trumped-up charges.

We have never taken all these attacks sitting down, as we continue to work to confront this perilous political climate with all available remedies,” they added.

The petitioners lamented that labeling them as fronts of the communist movement by the current administration has resulted to numerous killings and other humanrights violations against their human-rights workers.

“Moreover, the red tagging and labeling which emanated from the national task force to end local communist insurgency further aggravated the threats against the life, liberty and security of the petitioners because it is an expression of a government policy directed against legitimate civil-society organizations, activist and human-rights defenders in this case,” the petitioners pointed out.

The organization cited the killings of its human-rights workers and paralegals from 2002 up to the present administration.

The petitioners said that from 2001 to 2019, at least 48 humanrights defenders of Karapatan were allegedly killed by state forces.

They noted that since Duterte accused the petitioners of being fronts of the CPP-New People’s Army, sev-

Palace vows to close down restos ‘exclusive’ to Chinese customers

Resource for Health Development Bureau to look into the issue. Likewise, the Bureau of Immigration assured that it will delve into reports that a syndicate is allegedly behind the employment of foreign doctors in the country.

Gordon disclosed that reports reaching his office showed that the foreign doctors pay P100,000 per year in order to become a resident here and shell out additional P29,000 for room rental in some doctors’ houses.

This is in violation of the reciprocity requirement as stated in Motor cars Republic Act 2382, or the MediA S in the past, Funa said cal Act of 1959, and RA 8981, also the motor car business again known as the Professional Regulacompr ised more than ha lf of tory Commission Modernization the tota l premium income of Act of 2000. To date, Japan, Spain the nonlife-insurance sector. and the United States are the only T he premium income from countries where the Philippines has the motor car business went reciprocity principals. up by 8.55 percent to P26.90 After stumbling on the racket bil lion, from P24.72 bil lion right at the James L. Gordon Memoin 2017. rial Hospital, a government hospital The IC also reported that the in Olongapo City, wherein several Mutual Benefit Associations doctors of Pakistani or Nepalese citi(MBA) sector posted a zenships have been practicing medi22.42-percent expansion in its cine as medical consultants, Gordon total contributions/premium to has received numerous complaints P10.70 billion in 2018, from P8.74 against the said practice. billion

in 2017.

Foreigners. . . continued from a1

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Tuesday, May 7, 2019 A3

A4 Tuesday, May 7, 2019 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Economy BusinessMirror

Solon prods Congress to prioritize bill on microgrid power projects

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

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ONGRESS, set to resume regular sessions in two weeks, was asked to front-load the passage of remedial legislation that will pave the way for “total electrification” of the Philippines using the microgrid systems.

Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, earlier filed Senate Bill 2218 to be known as the Microgrid Systems Act once enacted into law.

Gatchalian said the bill was crafted to “spur microgrid development in unserved and underserved areas nationwide as the government targets 100-percent household electrification level by 2022.”

Once enacted into law, the senator added, the Microgrid System will “provide reliable electric services to every household in the country and accelerate total electrification in areas with no electricity access, no distribution system lines, no home power systems or no connection to any microgrid.”

In a news statement, Gatchalian cited government authorities’ earlier admission that total electrification in unserved areas cannot be done by traditional grid extension alone and that nontraditional means—such as microgrid systems—are needed.

Gatchalian pointed out the problem of energy access is also a concern

even in “electrified” areas with limited electricity service also referred to as “underserved areas.”

The lawmaker added: “What we will do is to allow proponents to put up microgrids. These microgrids will be self-sustaining, meaning they will be producing, as well as distributing power.” In filing SB 2218, Gatchalian said the remedial legislation was crafted to address the acceleration of total electrification and the provision of reliable electricity service in unserved and underserved areas, as it paves the way for the installation of microgrid systems by accredited microgrid service providers (MSP).

He added that the proposed Microgrid Systems Act, once enacted, will mandate the Department of Energy (DOE) to annually release and update the list of unserved and underserved areas for prospective MSPs. Moreover, the Gatchalian bill aims to install “a streamlined process for MSPs with clear timelines and stiff sanctions for bureaucratic red tape and delay,” and, at the same time, removes the requirement of obtaining waivers from incumbent franchised utilities for MSPs to provide electricity in unserved and underserved areas.

In addition, the proposed law will mandate the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to determine benchmark prices in lieu of its traditional review of contracts which, he

noted, has led to delay in the electrification efforts in these areas.

Gatchalian’s bill further provides that said generation companies, distribution utilities, retail electricity suppliers, or their respective subsidiaries or affiliates may engage in the business of MSP in unserved and underserved areas, provided that a separate account is maintained for such business undertaking.

Expecting Palace swift approval of the bill once it is passed by both chambers of Congress, Gatchalian pointed out that the remedial legislation “will help the Duterte administration’s goal of achieving 100-percent household electrification level by 2022.” He cited data from the DOE that as of 2018, an alarming number of 2,779,530 households, or 11.7 percent of the total number of households nationwide, still have no access to electricity.

At the same time, Gatchalian cited reports that at least 83—or 48.5 percent—of the 171 areas serviced by the National Power Cor p.—Sma l l Power Uti lities Group received only four to eight hours of electricity service in 2018, while 34 or 19.9 percent of areas received only nine to 16 hour of electricity service. “If we want to achieve 100-percent household electrification by 2022, we need to look for other technologies. Let’s improve the process of electrification,” the senator suggested.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Privacy and data-security mistakes to be avoided

By Henry J. Schumacher

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OSTcompanieslacktheexperience and resources needed to manage the plethora of security, privacy and compliance issues inherent in a growing technology-based business. Nevertheless, the legal and business implications of poorly managed privacy and data-security practices are too important to ignore. A single error can undermine the trust of investors and customers, attract unwanted regulatory attention or litigation. Here are eight common privacy and data-security mistakes that you must avoid: 1. Too frequently, company management and boards fail to pay sufficient attention to the significant problems that will arise from a company’s failure to provide adequate security or to comply with applicable privacy laws. Litigation involving privacy and security is becoming mainstream.

2. Too many pay little attention to the fact that businesses are governed by a wide range of laws and standards, and are expected to operate within commonly accepted practices. Among other things, they may ignore the fact that the collection, use and processing of most personal information is regulated here and abroad. Ignoring these laws may lead to significant errors and may in fact subject the company and its managers to legal and other action.

3. Some companies may elect to ignore their legal obligations because they are small and believe that they can easily fly under the radar. They might be able to escape notice as far as their procedures are concerned for a short time, but not for long.

4. Some companies may think that their ability to succeed requires that they be nimble. They may believe that policies and processes slow them down

and are not a business imperative.

In the absence of rules defining who is allowed to access certain information or what uses are restricted, employees, subcontractors or visitors might inadvertently access highly confidential or sensitive data and misuse it.

5. Some companies hire third parties, outsource some of their functions or locate their operations in the cloud because they do not have sufficient resources to hire personnel or to purchase equipment. In doing so, they may think that they have passed on to those third parties the responsibility for their data.

The company that initially collects the data remains primarily responsible for anything that happens to the data. The entity that the customers know—not the obscure service provider—will be the one that will be sued or investigated if data is illegally processed or inadequately protected. It will be the one whose reputation and trustworthiness will be at risk.

6. Security breaches are to be avoided by all means. They are significantly disruptive. A company that has implemented a well-thought-out and thorough written security program will be less exposed to potential security breaches and to the significant consequences of security breaches. A company that has suffered a breach of security is required to publicly disclose the occurrence of the breach. It has to send notices to affected parties and regulators, and offer credit monitoring or identity-theft insurance, which is usually a significant expense. When the National Privacy Commission becomes aware of the breach, a lengthy, invasive and grueling investigation of the company’s practices will follow, resulting in significant cost, disruptions and potentially ending with financial consequences, if not lawsuits.

7. Some companies tend to collect excessive data just because “we may need it later” and “storage is cheap.” The more data a company has in its custody, the more vulnerable it is to legal violations and security breaches. The more data a company has, the more time and data experts it will need to retrieve it. Collecting a massive amount of data also causes significant security risk. The larger the volume of data—the higher the probability that it will be stolen.

8. When discussing personal data protection, it is common to hear: “We don’t have any personal data, our data is anonymized and it cannot be tied to an individual.” This is a significant mistake. While it might have been true a long time ago, that anonymization prevented the association of a particular individual to a particular data set, this is no longer the case. In the world of data analytics, big data, semantics and other tools, there is no such thing as anonymity. Too often, a competent data scientist will be able to crack the anonymization shell in a short time.

The complexity of compliance management and understanding that the safe journey into data protection needs automation inspired me to create a cooperation with Straits Interactive, a company in Singapore that has developed the online Data Protection Management System, to equip professionals, managers and executives with the competencies to perform their jobs in data protection.

The DPMS is not only assisting in the compliance with the Philippine Data Privacy Act (DPA) but also with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Comments are welcome; e-mail me at Schumacher@eitsc.com.

In bid to ensure better farm yield, Piñol revises DA’s bidding process

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

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HE Department of Agriculture (DA) would start providing farmers with farm inputs they prefer and they find suitable in their area to ensure higher farm productivity after Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol ordered some changes in the department’s procurement process.

Piñol on Monday directed all DA’s bids and awards committee (BAC) nationwide to include the end-users’ preference in every terms of references (TOR) of biddings and procurements.

Piñol added that the change in the procurement system would ensure that farmers would receive the right farm inputs, especially the ones that they prefer and are proven to be effective in their respective regions.

He made the directive at the opening of the Farmers and Fisherfolks’ Month, which is celebrated annually every month of May. Piñol said he would issue an administrative order to formalize his directive.

“This is what the President wants: to change the procurement program and process wherein the government has always been the one deciding on the interventions to be given to farmers,” he said.

“This practice has to end now because the President would like to change the system. And this is a major policy [change],” Piñol added.

The agriculture chief explained that farmers tend to complain with the farm inputs provided by the government, saying these are either substandard or not suitable in their area.

Due to this, the intention of government interventions to improve farm productivity is delayed, as they have to repeat the procurement process all over again, he added.

“If we are going to buy seeds for them, then who are we to tell the farmers what seeds should they use? The farmers know what seeds are the best for them based on their experience,” Piñol said.

“That’s why we decided that once and for all, we will address this, and this is in compliance with the desire of the President to really come up with a procurement program that is responsive to the needs of the end users,” he added.

T he ag r ic u lt u re c h ief h a s floated changes in procurement system, particularly in seeds procurement, before.

However, he said, the change was not incorporated in the terms of reference, hence, it was not institutionalized.

Piñol said he doesn’t see any conflict with any existing laws with the procurement changes that he wants to implement in the DA. “The directive of the President is very clear: The procurement programs of the government should be effective in the context of providing

answers to the needs of the agencies conducting the procurement,” he said, adding that he is within his legal authority to make changes toward better governance.

Furthermore, Piñol said the proposed changes in procurement system would not cost the government more since some of the suppliers that offer high-quality farm inputs are winning bids in the current system.

More so, he added, it may even save the government expenses in the long run as they don’t have to redo biddings as the interventions given to the farmers are already the ones they prefer.

“It is not really right to say that we are willing to spend more, but we are willing to invest properly in equipment and goods that will ensure greater productivity,” he said.

“What if the goods are really cheap, but after sales, [such goods] do not have any durability at all.

Then in the end the government is at the losing end. In the long run, [the changes] will be great savings on the part of the government,” he added.

Furthermore, Piñol said he would also issue an administrative order that would mandate the participation of intended farmer beneficiaries in every bidding and procurement that the government would undertake.

Nonetheless, Piñol added, they would still study possible legal impediments that could hinder his proposed procurement changes, particularly in terms of limiting competition among bidders.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

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If you have any information / objection to the above mentioned application/s, please communicate with the Regional Director thru Employment Promotion and Workers Welfare (EPWW) Division with Telephone No. 400-6011.

ATTY. ANA C. DIONE, CPA REGIONAL DIRECTOR

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BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

In the ad material of Notice of filing of Application for Alien Employment Permits published on April 16, 2019, the Company name and Address of Mr. Kim, Jaehong should have been read as GOOD FRENDZ F&M CORP. (GOKIZIP; JOONGKOOKZIP; I'M PIZZA ZIP; GAL BI ZIP; AND BOBBY'S GRILL) located at 1776 M. Adriatico St., Brgy. 698, Malate, City of Manila, Metro Manila and not as published.

If you have any information/objection to the above mentioned application/s, please communicate with the Regional Director thru Employment Promotion and Workers Welfare (EPWW) Division with Telephone No. 400-6011.

ATTY. ANA C. DIONE, CPA REGIONAL DIRECTOR

www.businessmirror.com.ph | Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World

Trump’s trade tweets batter China’s stocks and currency

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HINESE stocks tumbled along with the yuan as a pair of tweets by President Donald J. Trump undermined confidence in a trade agreement.

The ChiNext Index of technology companies and small caps dropped the most since January 2016 as trading on mainland markets resumed after last week’s holiday. The yuan also weakened the most in three years before paring its drop. People familiar with the matter said Chinese state funds stepped in as they sought to stabilize the equity market, while at least one large bank offered to sell the dollar as the yuan fell, according to traders. State-backed giant PetroChina Co. suddenly erased its decline in afternoon trading before closing lower.

China is said to be considering delaying a trip by its top trade negotiators to Washington after Trump threatened the country with steeper tariffs over the pace of trade talks.

The news “distracts the market’s focus from a nascent economic recovery to short-term volatility. Risk assets will be under pressure for now,” said Hao Hong, chief strategist at Bocom International Holdings Co. “Because both parties want a deal, I continue to believe that the long-term uptrend trumps short-term volatility.”

If Chinese equities see significant selling pressure, authorities are likely to intervene to support the market, Hong said earlier.

Optimism that China and the US would reach a deal on trade helped make Shanghai equities the hottest in the world this year, although lackluster corporate earnings and concern Beijing is easing back on stimulus dragged the Shanghai Composite Index down nearly 6 percent from its April high before Monday. The benchmark has failed to hold above a number of key support levels as popular trades unraveled.

The offshore yuan fell as much as 1.3 percent to 6.8218 per dollar, its lowest since January 10, before trading at 6.7797 as of 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. The onshore rate slid 0.46 percent to 6.7659 per dollar.

“Investors will remain bearish on the yuan, as they reprice in trade war risks because the new developments are a reversal of previous positive progress,” said Ken Cheung, a senior foreignexchange strategist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Hong Kong. “The news was unexpected. Stop-loss

orders will push the yuan even lower.”

Trump previously delayed increasing tariffs on $200 billion in goods to 25 percent from 10 percent after agreeing to a December 1 truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping to give negotiators time to work out a comprehensive agreement.

“The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate,” Trump wrote in a tweet on Sunday. “No!” Trade-war proxy stocks tumbled on Monday, with ZTE Corp. down as much as 13 percent in Hong Kong and pork producer WH Group Ltd. falling 12 percent. Exporters including Lens Technology Co. and Luxshare Precision Industry Co. both declined by the 10 percent daily limit in Shenzhen, while airlines and port developers also dropped. Gold producers rose as investors sought haven stocks.

Oil giant PetroChina briefly climbed as much as 0.8 percent in a sudden late afternoon surge, erasing a loss of as much as 3.5 percent in Shanghai. A similar pattern was seen for China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. as with Shanghai Composite’s heavyweight Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. Chinese state-backed funds were active in selected stocks on Monday including two large oil companies, people familiar with the matter said.

Mainland authorities have a history of intervening to smooth swings in the country’s $7 trillion stock market, though their efforts have had mixed success in recent years.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slid 3 percent at the close in Hong Kong, while the Shanghai Composite Index retreated 5.6 percent. The CSI 300 Index sank as much as 6.8 percent, while the ChiNext at one point plunged 8.4 percent.

Foreign investors sold onshore equities, offloading net 5.6 billion yuan ($828 million) through trading links, while mainland investors sold HK$4.2 billion ($541 million), the most since February 2018.

W hile a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that a delegation was still preparing to travel to the US for talks, he didn’t answer a question about the date or whether the group would be led by the vice premier.

Sovereign bonds climbed, with the yield on 10-year government bonds falling 5 basis points to 3.35 percent. Bloomberg News

US warships challenge China sea claims for 3rd time in 2019

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WO US warships sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea on Monday, challenging Beijing’s claims for the third time this year amid simmering trade tensions.

The guided-missile destroyers USS Preble and USS Chung-Hoon passed within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson reefs, said Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet.

The China-occupied features are part of the Spratly chain, which are also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The move was intended to asser t international rights to “innocent passage” and “challenge excessive maritime claims,” Doss said. The US has conducted at least three so-called freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea this year, compared with five publicly reported trips in all of 2018.

“All operations are designed in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” Doss said. The operation was first reported by Reuters.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs later

said that the country’s navy “identified and warned off ” the vessels. “The relevant moves by the US warships have infringed on China’s sovereignty, and undermined peace and security in relevant waters. We firmly oppose that,” Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

Tense encounters

SUCH patrols have sometimes resulted in tense encounters at sea. During a similar operation near Gavin and Johnson reefs in September, a US destroyer was forced to maneuver to avoid a collision with a Chinese warship.

The disputed South China Sea is one of several potential strategic flash points between China and the US where tensions have flared during the ongoing trade war. Still, freedom-of-navigation operations require some advance planning and Monday’s transit was likely unrelated to US President Donald J. Trump’s latest tariff threat.

“Fonops are not about any one country, nor are they about making political statements,” Doss said. Bloomberg News

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Markets swoon after Trump threatens to hike China tariffs

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ANGKOK—World markets swooned on Monday after President Donald J. Trump threatened to increase tariffs on imports from China at a time when investors were expecting trade tensions to subside.

The C AC 40 in France lost 2.2 percent in early trading to 5,428.65, while Germany’s DAX skidded 2.1 percent to 12,150.16.

London’s markets were closed for a bank holiday. The future contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 2 percent to 25,981.00, while that for the S&P 500 lost 1.9 percent, to 2,892.50.

Markets opened sharply lower after Trump said via Twitter that he planned to raise tariffs on imports from China to 25 percent from 10 percent as of Friday.

Complaining that trade talks with China were moving too slowly, he also said he would impose tariffs on $325 billion worth of products from China, accounting for all of its exports.

Trump said: “The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!” The Shanghai Composite index closed 5.6 percent lower at 2,906.46 after plunging more than 6 percent earlier in the session.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sank 2.9 percent to 29,209.82.

Trump’s comments in tweets on Sunday came as a Chinese delegation was due to resume talks in Washington on Wednesday aimed at resolving a tariffs battle that has rattled world markets.

The Wall Street Journal, citing

unidentified sources, said China’s government was considering canceling this week’s talks. But a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said on Monday that the delegation was still planning to go. He would not say exactly who might attend the talks.

In other trading, the A-share index on China’s smaller market in Shenzhen plummeted 7.4 percent.

Japan’s markets were closed for a holiday, but the future contract for

the benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 2.4 percent.

Shares also fell sharply in Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and Indonesia.

Many market players had anticipated news of a possible deal as early as this week in the dispute over Chinese industrial policies and technology. Analysts said Trump’s comments might be a negotiating tactic, but might also make Beijing reluctant to appear as if it was giving in to US demands.

“He [Trump] is trying to show the Chinese a little color, maybe a little punishment. Of course, the effect is catastrophic,” said Francis Lun, a stock analyst based in Hong Kong.

Chris Weston of Pepperstone said markets had been treated to a “genuine shock.”

“However, today’s comments hit us at a time when most were

expecting some sort of marketfriendly resolution to be formally announced in the next two weeks,” he said.

The revived tensions over trade pulled oil prices lower. Benchmark US crude shed $1.26, or 2 percent, to $60.68 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 13 cents to $61.94 per barrel on Friday.

Brent crude, the international standard, gave up $1.19, or 1.7 percent, to $69.66 per barrel. It rose 10 cents on Friday to $70.85 per barrel.

In cur renc y trad ing , the Japa nese yen, v iewed as a safe haven for investors, advanced against the US dollar.

The greenback was trading at ¥110.74 by midday on Monday, down from ¥111.11 on Friday.

The euro weakened to $1.1185 from $1.1200 on Friday. AP

IN this file photo taken on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, (right), gestures as US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, (center), chats with his Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, before they proceed to their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. President Donald J. Trump turned up the pressure on China on Sunday, May 5, threatening to hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Trump’s comments, delivered on Twitter, came as a Chinese delegation was scheduled to resume talks in Washington on Wednesday aimed at resolving a trade war that has shaken financial markets and cast gloom over the world economy.AP/ANDY WONG

French telco giant Orange on trial over staff suicides M

Russia recovers 41 bodies from Moscow plane fire

P

ARIS—The toll is shocking: 19 suicides, 12 suicide attempts and eight cases of serious depression among employees over a three-year span at France’s main telephone and Internet company.

A Paris court on Monday begins a long-awaited trial accusing telecom giant Orange and seven former or current managers of moral harassment and related charges. The company— then called France Telecom— was undergoing job cuts and modernization efforts at the time of the suicides a decade ago.

On trial are the former president of France Telecom, Didier Lombard, former Human Resources Director Olivier Barberot and former Deputy Executive Director Louis-Pierre Wenes. It’s the largest trial to date in France for moral harassment on a company-wide scale, and is expected to last two months.

The defendants are suspected of having “degraded work conditions of personnel that risked hurting their rights and dignity, altering the physical or mental health [of personnel], or compromising their professional future.”

Four other officials are suspected of complicity in moral harassment.

In France, moral harassment can be punished by a year in prison and a fine of €15,000 ($16,790). Orange

itself is also on trial, and the court could order the company to grant additional damages to each civil party in the case.

An investigation into the wave of employee suicides between 2007 and 2010 was opened following a complaint from the Sud union. At the time, Lombard allegedly referred to the deaths as “the fashion.”

Lombard, who was replaced as France Telecom chief in 2010, has denied all the charges. He attributed the suicides, attempted suicides and cases of depression to “local difficulties with no links to each other” and no relation to the company’s job cuts at the time.

The indictment lists the employees who took their lives or tried, some on the job.

Michel, 50, left a note about his decision to end his life on July 29, 2009, according to the prosecutor’s report. Michel’s note denounced “the permanent sense of urgency, overwork, absence of training, the total disorganization of the company” plus “management by terror.”

“I’m taking my life because of my work at France Telecom. It’s the only reason,” the note said.

A month earlier, Christel, 37, slashed her veins in an apparent bid to kill herself in front of two superiors who told her hours earlier she would be transferred.

In March 2009, 52-year-old Herve

was preparing to jump from an office window but the noise he was making drew others to his rescue, who quoted him as saying that “I’m sick of this s----- job.”

Jean-Michel, a father of three children, was 53 when he threw himself in front of a train on July 2, 2008, while on the phone with two union delegates.

France Telecom, once a stateowned monopoly, transformed into a private company in the 2000s. Lombard launched a restructuring plan aimed at shedding 22,000 jobs, but most employees were still considered civil servants and so were protected from layoffs.

As it sought to reduce staff, the indictment says the company imposed “excessive and intrusive control” on employees, assigned workers to demoralizing tasks, failed to provide training, isolated staff and used “intimidation maneuvers or threats and pay cuts.”

Lombard’s lawyer, Jean Veil, says his client is innocent because he could not possibly know what was going on in France Telecom’s vast network of more than 100,000 employees.

“Mr. Didier Lombard is suspected of harassment of people he never saw,” Veil said in 2012, when Lombard was handed preliminary charges. “Now there’s a surprising accusation.” AP

OSCOW—Russia’s transportation minister says 41 bodies have been recovered from the burned wreckage of an Aeroflot plane at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Minister Yevgeny Dietrich also told reporters in a Monday briefing that six people who survived the disaster on Sunday night have been hospitalized.

The plane, a Sukhoi SSJ100, caught fire while making an emergency landing at the airport, after turning back on a flight to Murmansk for unspecified reasons.

Russia’s Investigative Committee says the flight recorders from the plane have been recovered and that investigators are looking into inexperienced pilots, equipment failure and bad weather as possible causes for the disaster.

Video on Russian TV showed the plane’s underside bursting into flames and spewing black smoke after making a hard landing on Sunday night. Those who escaped leapt out of the plane down inflatable emergency slides and ran across the tarmac.

Storms were passing through the Moscow area when the Aeroflot SSJ100 regional jet caught fire during the emergency landing, after it turned back for unspecified reasons en route to Murmansk.

AP

A10 Tuesday, May 7, 2019 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

Let’s learn proper garbage disposal

W

HILE the government is boosting efforts to rid the Manila Bay, the Pasig River and our other bodies of water of garbage, it cannot do the job on its own. Our people have to do their part.

In recent years, the reckless manner in which garbage is being disposed of in this country has come under close scrutiny, especially after causing massive flooding.

We have to learn lessons from past tragedies. Citizens must stop illegally dumping garbage and government authorities must strictly enforce anti-littering laws.

Our garbage and littering problems have become unbearable. This is why flooding in our cities has gone from bad to worse.

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and other government agencies conduct regular cleanups of creeks, waterways and drainage systems in flood-prone areas in Metro Manila, but citizens who keep dumping garbage around negate all these efforts.

The national government and local governments are spending billions to fight floods in Metro Manila, but no amount of dredging or drainage engineering will be enough to fight floods if citizens don’t help or cooperate.

Our people should stop their indiscriminate and irresponsible dumping of garbage along streets, esteros and other waterways.

Local governments should team up with the police and the MMDA to ensure that all the laws on littering and garbage disposal are enforced. They should have more anti-littering enforcers and develop a ticketing system both for individuals and businesses. Violators should be made to pay heavy fines, spend jail time or be made to do a reasonably lengthy period of community service. The Judiciary should have special environmental courts to toughen up the enforcement of antilittering laws.

Also essential is a successful recycling industry. The Philippines generates about 35,000 tons of garbage daily, more than 8,600 tons per day in Metro Manila alone, according to an Asian Development Bank expert, Aldrin Plaza of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department.

Only about 70 percent of these tons of garbage are collected. Those that are collected end up in open dumps and makeshift landfills, with only a small percentage of it getting recycled.

In contrast, our neighbor Taiwan has one of the highest recycling rates in the world, where more than 1,600 recycling companies in operation are able to recycle 55 percent of the trash collected from households and business establishments, as well as 77 percent of industrial waste, according to official studies. The recycling companies in Taiwan are able to generate at least $2 billion in annual revenues, proving yet again there is money in recycling garbage.

Taiwan’s largest charity group, the Tzu Chi Foundation, has hundreds of volunteers who sort and recycle plastic waste along with used glass bottles and electronic appliances.

Used plastic bottles, for instance, are treated and processed and through modern technology are made into textiles such as blankets, clothes and even shoes, bags and dolls.

Tzu Chi runs 5,400 recycling stations across Taiwan with the help of more than 76,000 volunteers and has distributed hundreds of thousands of blankets made from plastic bottles for relief use in Taiwan and other countries, including the Philippines.

It has been almost two decades since the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act was enacted in this country. By this time, all our cities and municipalities should have their own garbage control, waste handling and recycling programs.

We should be able to reduce our trash through proper recycling, which is also important in conserving resources.

These are only a few ways to arrest and reverse the undisciplined manner in which garbage is disposed of in this country. But the No. 1 concern should be discipline. Every decent-minded and patriotic citizen should appreciate and practice proper garbage disposal. A cleanliness campaign must simultaneously take place in our homes, schools, communities and workplaces.

We should realize that solving our pollution and flooding problems require the efforts of the entire society. It cannot be left only to the government.

We should also realize that tourists and investors also judge a country based on how clean it is, and that cleanliness is a reflection of the quality of a country’s citizens.

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business ✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Founder Publisher Editor in Chief Associate Editor News Editor Senior Editors

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

THE ENTREPRENEUR

T

HE Philippines just received another vote of confidence on the way the administration of President Duterte is handling the economy.

S&P Global Ratings last week raised the Philippines’s sovereign credit rating by a notch to “BBB+” from “BBB” with a stable outlook. The Philippines earned the higher debt rating despite a blip in the economy when the inflation rate acted up toward the latter part of 2018.

I personally believe we will receive more credit rating upgrades from respected foreign institutions in the medium-term period as long as the government sticks to the macroeconomic fundamentals. The Philippine economy has adjusted well to rising oil prices in the world market and the ongoing trade war between the United States and China.

S&P, in its latest rating upgrade, cited the country’s stable outlook, above-average economic growth, healthy external position and sustainable public finances. The rating agency is bullish on the Philippines

after it registered economic growth rates of over 6 percent annually for the past several years.

It said it might raise the ratings over the next two years “if the government makes significant further achievements in its fiscal reform program, or if the country’s external position improves such that its status as a net external creditor becomes more secure over the long term.”

A rating upgrade will essentially reduce the cost of foreign borrowings, as banks and lenders view the Philippines as a less risky debtor nation. The lower cost of money, in turn, will lower the production cost in the country, and serves as an incentive to companies to borrow more to finance their expansion.

The credit upgrade will also likely strengthen the peso in the near term

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on the assumption that more foreign investors place their bet on the Philippines. A more robust economic growth is, thus, expected when production costs are lowered and when more foreign investors come in and hire more Filipino workers.

The rating upgrade will make the Philippines more noticeable in the radar map of foreign investors.

It has put the Philippines on a par with Mexico, Peru, Thailand and Trinidad and Tobago, and higher by a notch than Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Panama and Uruguay. The BBB+ grade has also moved the Philippines near the coveted “A” territory rating.

S&P noted that the Philippine economy was among the fastest growing in the world on a 10-year weighted average, per-capita basis—a reflection of its supportive policy dynamics and improving investment climate.

“The country has a relatively diversified economy with an increasingly strong track record of high and stable growth. We estimate GDP per capita will rise to almost $3,400 in 2019 [we include nonresident nationals in our population data],” the agency in last week’s report. “The rating is also supported by solid government fiscal accounts, low public indebtedness and the economy’s sound external settings,” it added.

The ratings agency sees the GDP

Avoiding the speeding truck

Jennifer A. Ng Vittorio V. Vitug

Ruben M. Cruz Jr. Angel R. Calso

MEMBER OF

Manny B. Villar

Lourdes M. Fernandez

Online Editor Social Media Editor

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

Rating upgrade a vote of confidence

John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

W

E have all seen this in the movies. The heroes are racing down the road trying to catch the bad guys. Suddenly from the side, a truck unexpectedly slams into the good guys’ car and everything comes to a sudden stop. The same thing can happen to both new and experienced stock-market traders and investors.

On April 23, I wrote this: “I don’t want to go full ‘It’s the end of world!’

But if you do not know how to cut a position at the right time and price regardless of your profit or loss, the next two/three weeks could be extremely painful.” The Philippine Stock Exchange Composite Index (PSEi) closed at 7818. I guess I should get some credit for having seemingly picked the bottom. The market turned around and went back up strongly.

On May 2, I wrote: “My previous outlook was obviously too cautious...it’s great to be wrong.” The

PSEi closed at 8001.

As if the PSEi gods were having a good laugh at my expense, the following day the market turned down creating the potential of what is called a Triple Top pattern. This price movement has a high performance rank, is followed by a downtrend 60 percent of the time, and with a decline of about 20 percent. As of now, the PSEi is down about 135 points from the recent top.

Predicting what the stock market is going to do is an intellectual exercise and for “fun.” Unless you are trading an investment instrument

like an Exchange Traded Fund that tracks the movement of the PSEi, “stock market” movement means nothing. You should only care about the price changes of the individual issues in your portfolio.

Nonetheless, it is important to monitor PSEi movement as most issues move together at least in a general concurrent trend.

Watching the movie, you know from past experience that the hero being blindsided is always a possibility and it usually comes right around the time he or she says, “We got this!”

Stock-market investors face the same predicament.

But it is not enough to know that stock prices can go down suddenly just like that truck coming from the side street. It is not enough to have a plan to avoid the damage by cutting positions when prices start going in a negative trend.

Only the most foolish stock-market investor—and unfortunately there are many—believes that the sun is always going to shine. The overwhelming majority of investors are prepared and ready for a sudden and significant decline.

And the heroes in the movie are not dumb either.

per-capita growth averaging about 4.9 percent per year over 2019-2022, based on balanced contributions from private consumption and investment growth. The country’s unemployment rate, it said, has been declining for a few years, signaling the economy’s strengthening labor market even as the working-age population continues to grow.

The rating upgrade came at a perfect time as another Philippine delegation holds a road show in Europe in preparation for the issuance of euro-denominated bonds. The delegation, led by National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo, are visiting key European cities to discuss the strengths of the Philippine economy to investors.

De Leon, reacting to the rating up upgrade, says the government has kept its debt in check “even as we invest more on infrastructure and social services.”

“We are committed to fiscal discipline, and this makes the Philippines a truly creditworthy sovereign in the eyes of the international financial community,” she said.

The economic managers of President Duterte led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominuez III deserve kudos for the latest S&P upgrade.

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

However, the heroes do get whacked and investors still get caught in a “crashing” market.

The hero sees the truck at the last minute but there is not enough time to safely react. Stock traders and investors can see the price falling but here also they cannot react quickly enough when prices start falling through multiple fluctuations. Even the most disciplined trader can be caught.

The movie heroes do not have a “magic” button to push to get the car out of danger. Stock-market investors do.

Philippine Stock Exchange trading is not designed for investors to get out quickly. Entering an online order requires time and at least a couple of steps or physical procedures. Fortunately, there is one PSE stockbroker that gives the ability to enter a sell order at the speed of light, requiring no discipline or time constraints. That keeps the damage to a minimum.

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

Opinion BusinessMirror

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Enrile is determined to revive the Cagayan Valley Railway project Cecilio T. Arillo

DATABASE

T

RAVELING by bus through a grueling 12-hour road trip to Cagayan from Manila would be a breeze at less than six hours if only a railway connects them soon.

Expressing serious interest for a modern railway, Puwersa ng Masa senatorial bet Juan Ponce Enrile said the project to revive the Cagayan Valley Railway (CVR) will bring the Philippines, through Northern Luzon, much closer to five of the country’s leading trade partners—Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.

“It’s also where the two great oceans, the North China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, merge at Escarpada Point in the First District of Cagayan, where commerce with other countries would be an advantage to us as we can practice in our favor the economy of distance and time by air and by sea,” Enrile explained.

“The distance between Metro Manila and Santa Ana, Cagayan, is more than 600 kilometers of many actual turns, dips and raises the rail will take, but construction of the railway line will be doable because of modern technology and engineering,” Enrile said.

“The line’s highest elevation inside the proposed 10-kilometer Caraballo Mountain tunnel, for example, is estimated at 500 meters above sea level,” Enrile said.

As for other linking routes, it has been proposed that the abandoned North Line would be rehabilitated by the North Luzon Railways Corporation (North Rail). Its route south of San Jose would use abandoned lines: the Tarlac branch to Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, and the Balagtas-Cabanatuan link between Cabanatuan and Muñoz.

Because it bypasses Tarlac, this line brings Cagayan Valley 16 kilometers (km) closer to Metro Manila.

A Cagayan Valley Railways Authority (CVRA) has in fact been proposed to operate a Cagayan Valley-Metro Manila line.

The CVRA would operate a 467km main line with possibly four branch lines, plus the so-called Sierra Madre Line linking Cagayan with Ilocos and the Kalinga-Tabuk and Ifugao-Banawe lines.

The Conceptual Master Plan of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority under Republic Act 7922, masterfully prepared by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile himself, also provides for a railroad right of way linking the Port Irene seaport and air-cargo terminal in Santa Ana, Cagayan.

According to Gary L. Satre, writing in the Japan Railway & Transport Review, the proposed Cagayan Valley Railway Extension Project, started in the early 1880s, runs from San Jose, Nueva Ecija, through a tunnel at the Caraballo Mountain, down to Tuguegarao City in Cagayan.

Its modern versions was supposed to be completed in the mid-1960s but fell flat when the Tarlac line was ditched.

The first 196-kilometer line, which opened in 1892, started from Manila to Bulacan all the way to Dagupan. A Spanish royal decree in 1882 directed its extension from present-day Balagtas, Bulacan, to Tuguegarao, Cagayan, with another line going south to Bicol. The latter was completed by the Americans; the former wasn’t.

By 1906, four branch lines—long since abandoned—were added, including a 91.5-km line from Balagtas to Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, the closest the tracks got to the Cagayan Valley. By 1929, the line was extended to San Fernando, La Union, and 10 years later to San Jose, Nueva Ecija, in the

According to Gary L. Satre, writing in the Japan Railway & Transport Review, the proposed Cagayan Valley Railway Extension Project, started in the early 1880s, runs from San Jose, Nueva Ecija, through a tunnel at the Caraballo Mountain, down to Tuguegarao City in Cagayan. foothills of the Caraballo Mountain.

Then it was proposed to extend the line 270 km from Manila to Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, and up to Aparri to ferry passengers and farm produce, mostly tobacco, from the Cagayan provinces, especially Isabela.

During the Spanish colonial rule, according to Satre, the original concessionaire of the North Line was the English-owned Manila Railroad Co. (MRC) of London. After the Philippine-American War, the franchise was reclaimed by its British owners in 1900.

In 1950 the MRC was authorized to rehabilitate and extend the North Line by 108 km from San Jose, Nueva Ecija, to Echague, Isabela, and 440 km further to Aparri, Cagayan.

President Ramon Magsaysay was actually the MRC General Manager in the last three months of 1951 before his election in 1953. His firsthand knowledge on the importance of a modern railroad led to the acquisition of a new fleet of diesel locomotives from Japan in 1956.

During his term, the North Line was extended beyond San Fernando, La Union, to Bacnotan.

In 1957, P78 million was set aside for a four-year program to extend the line from San Jose to Tuguegarao. For a while then, 75 years after the first Spanish royal decree, it looked like the North Line was going to extend 306 km and finally reach Cagayan Valley.

Construction even started from Cordon to Tuguegarao in 1961, with provisions for a tunnel through the Caraballo Mountain.

Rail sections were built here and there between Cordon and Enrile town, Cagayan—with Tuguegarao less than 11 km away. But in 1965, work was grounded.

Other lines were to be built from San Jose to Maringalo, Maringalo to South Portal, South Portal to Bayombong and finally from Bayombong to Tuguegarao.

Then in 1962, for the first time since the peso was pegged at 2 to $1, President Diosdado Macapagal decontrolled the currency and the peso fell to 3.90 to the dollar. It was a big blow to the North Line Extension project.

By 1966, President Ferdinand Marcos went to Tokyo to seek more funding for the project. Never mind that the tunnel-boring machinery for cutting through the Caraballo Mountain had arrived, money was allocated instead to the Maharlika Highway, or the Japan-Philippine Friendship Highway.

Mr. Satre obtained a masters degree from the University of the Philippines after working as a US Navy journalist. He is an associate trainer at the South East Asia Speakers and Trainers Bureau of Makati City. He also writes and speaks on railroad issues in the Philippines.

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

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 A11

Voters have six more days to make an intelligent choice Manny F. Dooc

TELLTALES Continued from A1

O

UR election laws are ridden with loopholes that candidates take advantage of. Our election body, despite all its good intentions, is virtually powerless to enforce the laws. Every political party has its own “dirty tricks” department that adopts every devious means or unfair practice to make its candidates win.

After election, sore losers file endless electoral protests, initiate baseless impeachment or recall proceedings, or worse, eliminate their winning opponent or potential adversary in the next election. For those who luckily survive and are not hounded out of office, their opponents assassinate their character and destroy their reputation. Our social media is replete with character bashing and fake news. No wonder individuals in compos mentis do not join politics.

It’s worth recalling what a wise man has once counseled, “If you really hate a man’s guts, ask him to run for public office.” The most evil thing you can do to your enemy is to goad him to enter politics. He will be damned, win or lose. nnn

THE spectacular comeback of Tiger Woods, who is once again on top of the golfing world after an 11-year majors drought, should inspire our comebacking senatoriables. Definitely, Tiger’s comeback for the ages should not be lost on Enrile, Revilla, Estrada, Pia Cayetano, Osmeña and Lapid. For both Jinggoy and Bong

Revilla, it will be a vindication of sorts for them who served part of their terms under detention. If name recall will be a major factor in this midterm elections, these returnees will have better chances in the polls than the newcomers who have not figured in the public consciousness in the past. Bong Go and Bato, although newcomers in elections, do not have this handicap because of their previous prominent roles in the ruling government. Enrile seeking another term is really for the ages. No pun intended, but he would be the oldest person to serve in the Philippine Senate at age 95 if

he wins. He would be 101 years old by the time he would have completed his term in 2025, one year older than Senator Strom Thurmond who was 100 years old when he retired from the US Senate. If she gets elected, Pia will be only the second woman after Loren Legarda to be elected for a third term in the Senate. In this sense, she would eclipse the achievements of her father, Compañero Rene Cayetano, and sibling Alan Peter. A woman of substance and a champion of women, Pia fought tooth and nail to enhance the maternity benefits and get it enacted. nnn

BEFORE he left to attend the Belt and Road summit in Beijing, the President announced that he left letters ordering the dismissal of corrupt government officials. Speaking at a conference, the President warned: “If you asked me if I’m happy with my job, I am not, because of so [much] corruption, and I have to fire some officials. I’m leaving for China, and before that I will leave so many letters of dismissal.” He said that corruption has really seeped down to the core and that he has to do more than just give warnings.

We cannot agree with you more Mr. President. However, my word of advice is: Don’t entrust the mailing of the dismissal letters to the Department of Foreign Affairs. It may not have the budget.

There is little doubt that the President is serious in getting rid of venalities in our government. This is a commitment he made when he ran for President. One reason he enjoys a high trust rating is his unrelenting

Tax incentives for green jobs Atty. Rodel C. Unciano

TAX LAW FOR BUSINESS

T

HE blistering summer heat we are currently encountering reminds us of the importance of giving our share in protecting our environment as a responsible citizen.

In the Philippines, unknown to many, we have a law called the “Philippine Green Jobs Act of 2016” (Republic Act 10771), which recognizes the employment of green jobs as an important tool in preserving our environment by giving incentives to qualified business enterprises.

As defined under the law, green jobs refer to employment that contributes to preserving or restoring the quality of the environment, be it in the agriculture, industry or services sector. This includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity, reduce energy, materials and water consumption through high-efficiency strategies, decarbonize the economy and minimize, or altogether avoid, generation of all forms of waste and pollution. Green jobs are decent

jobs that are productive, respect the rights of workers, deliver a fair income, provide security in the workplace and social protection for families, and promote social dialogue.

Under the law, qualified business enterprises that promote green jobs are entitled to a special deduction from the taxable income equivalent to 50% of the total expense for skills training and research development expenses. This special deduction is over and above the allowable ordinary and necessary business deductions for said expenses under the Tax Code, as amended.

In addition, a qualified enterprise may avail itself of a tax- and duty-free importation of capital equipment, provided that the capital equipment is actually, directly and

exclusively used in the promotion of green jobs of the business enterprise.

In order to avail itself of the incentives, a qualified business enterprise has to register or update registration with the Bureau of Internal Revenue by submitting certification issued by the Climate Change Commission that the enterprise is qualified to avail itself of the incentives, pursuant to Revenue Regulations 5-2019 recently issued by the BIR. The registration has to be made with the BIR’s Revenue District Office (RDO) where the qualified business enterprise is registered.

Upon filing of the income tax returns/annual information returns, the availing enterprise shall furnish the RDO of a sworn list of the total expenses paid or incurred for skills training and research development during the year. Further, the enterprise is required to submit a sworn list of the activities and/ or projects undertaken by the institution and the cost of each undertaking indicating in particular where and how the expenses were paid or incurred. Also, the qualified enterprise has to submit a sworn declaration that the expenses paid or incurred for skills training research development has a direct connection or relation to the activities and/or projects of the business

pursuit of the government’s anticorruption campaign. Obviously, there is no failure of leadership on his part. There are definitely excesses or abuses being brazenly committed in some government offices.

Our people should report them to PRRD, whose decisive action and intolerance against any shape or form of corruption should encourage cooperation from them. So let us not despair. There is nothing wrong in our country that is beyond repair.

The first step to do that repair job, however, is to vote wisely. nnn

AFTER the earthquakes that hit the whole country, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology wants the structural integrity of all buildings constructed before 1992 audited. Authorities should test buildings, particularly those located along or near earthquake faults. Likewise, we need to locate hidden faults that may trigger killer quakes. It is heartening to know that Phivolcs has developed an application capable of searching active faults and measuring the distance between an active fault and the user’s location. But how do we ensure that our candidates have intellectual and moral integrity and are devoid of any character flaw to effectively and prudently lead our people? Candidates should have no hidden faults in their character, which can take our country to perdition. Choosing our public officials is a serious business that we cannot leave to chance. We need an integrity checker for the voters to make an intelligent choice. We only have six days left before the elections, and time is running out. Help!

enterprise that generate or sustain green jobs.

The deduction shall be availed of on the taxable year in which the expenses have been paid or incurred.

The expenses can be substantiated with sufficient evidence, such as official receipts, delivery receipts and other adequate records showing the amount of expenses being claimed as deduction and the direct connection or relation of the expenses incurred for skills training and research development of the business enterprise.

The grant of tax incentives on “green jobs” is consistent with the State’s objective of preserving the environment, conserve natural resources for the future generation and ensure the sustainable development of the country and its transition into a green economy.

The author is a partner of Du-Baladad and Associates Law Offices (BDB Law), a member-firm of WTS Global.

The article is for general information only and is not intended, nor should be construed as a substitute for tax, legal or financial advice on any specific matter. Applicability of this article to any actual or particular tax or legal issue should be supported therefore by a professional study or advice. If you have any comments or questions concerning the article, you may e-mail the author at rodel.unciano@ bdblaw.com.ph or call 403-2001 local 140.

I drank myself to the bottom of Luckin Coffee’s IPO

By Tim Culpan Bloomberg Opinion

T

HE pending Nasdaq debut of China’s Luckin Coffee Inc. begs the question of whether it’s a purveyor of beverages, or a technology company.

As I pore through its 286-page IPO filing, I find myself struggling to decide. It’s kind of like Starbucks Corp., I guess, but also a lot like food-delivery giant Meituan Dianping and ridehailing pioneer Uber Technologies Inc. Luckin splits the difference, deciding that it’s both: We are China’s second-largest and fastest-growing coffee network, in terms of number of stores and cups of coffee sold.

A coffee network, seriously?

The IPO prospectus is relatively light for such a document. Coffee appears 278 times outside of the “Luckin

Coffee” combo (110 times). App or apps features 51 times; technology and network 79 times apiece.

China, a nation of tea drinkers, is only just starting to get a taste for espressos and lattes. Coffee consumption was a mere 6.2 cups per capita last year, the prospectus states, citing consultants Frost & Sullivan. Germany guzzles 867.4 cups. Across the Strait, Taiwanese are downing 209.4 cups apiece.

So there’s a lot of upside potential, which is a big selling point for Luckin’s IPO. Still, there’s something not quite Starbucks about this company. My colleague Nisha Gopalan wrote a great explainer about Luckin a few months ago. “These days in China, no retailer can flourish without the two Ds— being delivery-friendly and digitally savvy,” she wrote. That’s an important and insightful observation.

Luckin is proud to have an app that offers a “100 percent cashier-less environment.” That’s no surprise to anyone in China, given the digitization of the country—to the point that even beggars have QR codes.

But it’s the income statement that provides the strongest clue to the company’s true identity.

Luckin posted 841 million yuan ($125 million) in revenue last year, exploding from 250,000 yuan the year prior. But its operating expenses were three times higher than sales at 2.4 billion yuan. And it wasn’t even materials, store rentals or admin expenses that blew out the bottom line.

Marketing costs were 746 million yuan last year. To make every 100 yuan from selling coffee, Luckin spent 152 yuan to produce and market that cup—not including rent and general expenses.

Spending three times more than

revenue makes Luckin a tech start-up, not an F&B company.

Following in the footsteps of compatriots such as e-commerce operator Pinduoduo Inc. and Meituan, Luckin spent glutinous amounts of VC cash to boost the top line, with little care for the bottom line.

Like any good purveyor of addictive substances, its twist on that model has been to hand out free coffee. The US listing of a Chinese company that gives away stuff makes for the perfect mashup of socialism and capitalism.

Luckin needs to remove those marketing subsidies to turn a profit, although doing so will probably see it lose sales. Unless it’s built some kind of loyalty among consumers that others haven’t, I don’t see how it can produce stable profits anytime soon.

But maybe I just need to wake up and smell the coffee.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Tuesday, May 7, 2019

‘2018 another banner year for PHL insurance sector’ T

By Rea Cu

@ReaCuBM

HE Philippine insurance sector marked 2018 as its new banner year after it posted new record highs in premiums, net income and assets, according to the Insurance Commission (IC).

Citing reports submitted to the regulator, Insurance Commissioner Dennis B. Funa said the industry collected P290.15 billion in pre-

miums in 2018, or 11.67 percent higher than the previous year’s P259.82 billion.

Broken down, the premium

₧290.15 billion The total amount of premiums collected by the insurance industry last year

income of the life-insurance sector grew by 12.89 percent to P228.61 billion last year, from the P202.50 billion reported in 2017. The lifeinsurance sector accounts for 78.79 percent of the total premium income of the industry.

“In 2018, 75 percent of the life-insurance sector’s premium

income or P170.22 billion was generated from the sale of variable life-insurance products, up by 14.33 percent from P148.88 billion in 2017; while premiums collected from traditional life-insurance products rose by 8.91 percent to P58.40 billion from P53.62 billion,” Funa said.

The nonlife-insurance sector reported a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 4.63 percent in net premiums written, amounting to P50.83 billion for 2018, from the previous year’s P48.58 billion.

See “Insurance sector,” A3

Farmers sold more palay to NFA in Jan-April

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

T

HE National Food Authority (NFA) on Monday said its purchases of local unhusked rice from January to April have already exceeded 3 million 50-kilogram bags as planters were enticed by its high buying price.

The food agency’s total palay purchases of 3.073 million bags, or 153,665.5 metric tons (MT), in the first four months of 2019 was 55 times higher than the

55,509 bags it bought a year ago.

The 5,436.59-percent increase in procurement was “not surprising” since the NFA is buying unmilled rice at a price that is higher than the offer of traders after the rice industry was liberalized, NFA OIC-Administrator Tomas R. Escarez said.

“This is not surprising because of the high price being offered by the food agency and the more farmer-friendly procedures we have adopted,” Escarez added. Despite the decline in the price

of unmilled rice, the NFA has maintained its effective buying price of P20.70 per kilogram as a way of shielding farmers from the detrimental effect of a more open domestic rice market.

The NFA said it would “aggressively” purchase local palay to beef up its buffer stock and cushion the impact of uncertainties that may be created by a new trade regime on the rice sector.

Based on the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the average farm-gate price of unhusked rice

in the third week of April fell by 10.85 percent year-on-year to P18.48 per kilogram (kg), the lowest since the last week of December 2018.

The PSA reported that the latest average quotation for palay was P2.25 lower than the P20.73 per kg recorded in the same period last year. The PSA also noted that the average farm-gate price was 1.12 percent lower than the P18.48 per kg recorded in the second week of April.

See “Palay,” A2

www.businessmirror.com.ph

MAN SAYS HE’S ‘BIKOY’ AND SEEKS I.B.P. HELP; D.O.J. INDICTS JAYME A MAN claiming to be “Bikoy,” the hooded whistle-blower in a video purporting to have the “real narcolist”surfaced on Monday and sought protection and help from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP).

Peter Joemel Advincula, who was reportedly accompanied “by nuns” when he went to the IBP offices in Pasig City, said he surfaced as he was getting death threats. IBP officials said they still have to assess his case to determine what action they can take.

Relatedly, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, said he is not rushing to provide witness sanctuary to Advincula, opting to first get his sworn statement and assess evidence to back his allegations that certain members of the First Family were protecting drug lords.

“First, I certainly hope the Integrated Bar of the Philippines will give the same amount of attention and assistance to anybody seeking legal assistance,” Lacson said. “Otherwise, they might be misunderstood as engaging in political partisanship, which could punch a hole and deflate their credibility.”

The senator added: “By their admission, they haven’t evaluated Bikoy’s accusations, yet they provided him their facility and a forum to air his accusations.”

In a brief statement, Lacson clarified that “as far as the Senate [is concerned], we will await his sworn statement and whatever supporting evidence he [Bikoy] has, after which we will evalu-

ate and proceed from there. If it merits a Senate inquiry, we definitely will conduct one to hear him and more, if any.”

Raps vs web site owner

THE Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday found probable cause to indict Roberto “Rodel” Jayme for the crime of inciting to sedition in connection with his role in the release of the “Bikoy” videos in his web site.

The 13-page resolution signed by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Anna Noreen Devanadera and Associate Prosecution Attorney II Mary Grace Arboladura, recommended the filing of an information for violation of Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) (inciting to sedition) in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012) against Jayme.

Article 142 of the RPC states that inciting to sedition can be done through speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, cartoons, banners or other representations “that tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing the functions of his office, or instigate others to conspire and meet together for unlawful purposes, or which suggests or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots, or which lead or tend to stir up the people against the lawful authorities or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the government, or who shall knowingly conceal such evil practices.”

Editor: Efleda P. Campos

Companies BusinessMirror

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Ayala Land ₧40-B capex this year ‘fully covered’

P

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

ROPERTY developer Ayala Land Inc. said its funding requirements for the year of about P40 billion has been fully covered, coming from various sources but mostly from bank loans.

Augusto Cesar D. Bengzon, the company’s chief finance officer, said the company was able to close two bilateral loans before it floated its P8-billion bonds at the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEx) on Monday.

“If I’m not mistaken, the team has two more bilateral loans they will execute in the next two months. All in all, our funding requirements will be close to P40 billion: P20-billion refinancing and another P20 billion to fund our capital expenditures,” Bengzon said at the side-

Robinsons Retail Q1 income plunges to P1B, weighed down by Rustan's supermarket

R

OBINSONS Retail Holdings Inc., the retail holding firm of the Gokongwei group, on Monday said its net income plunged 25 percent to P1 billion during the first quarter of the year from the previous year’s P1.35 billion, weighed down mainly by the consolidation of Rustan’s supermarket business.

Sales rose 29 percent to P37.4 billion for the first quarter ending March from last year’s P28.96 billion, driven by the full-quarter consolidation of the Rustan Supercenters Inc. and the blended same-store sales growth (SSSG) of 4.1 percent.

The supermarket business remains the biggest segment, accounting for 55.5 percent of consolidated sales with Robinsons Supermarket ending first quarter SSSG with 5.5 percent.

Drugstores posted the highest SSSG at 13.9 percent due to high incidence of flu, cough, colds and measles. Other segments also posted healthy SSSG with do-it-yourself stores at 3.8 percent and specialty stores at 2.1 percent.

Operating income declined by 6.1 percent to P1.2 billion, weighed down by Rustan. Excluding Rustan, operating income would have increased by 7.3 percent, it said.

Core net earnings, which exclude interest from bonds, equitized net earnings from the 40-percent stake in Robinsons Bank and unrealized foreign-exchange gains and losses, declined by 15.8 percent to P806.1 million. Excluding Rustans, core net earnings would have registered a positive growth of 8 percent to P1 billion.

The company spent a total of P650 million in capital expenditures for the quarter, it said.

“We are keeping our target to add 120 stores to 150 stores this year, but opening is skewed in the latter part of 2019,” it said.

Excluding the franchised stores of The Generics Pharmacy, Robinsons Retail ended the quarter with a total of 1,911 stores comprising 253 supermarkets, 50 department stores, 209 do-it-yourself stores, 512 convenience stores, 510 drugstores and 377 specialty stores, with 196 stores added year-on-year.

The group’s gross floor area expanded by 27 percent year-on-year to 1.46 million square meters. VG Cabuag

lines of the company’s listing ceremonies.

“ALI has always espoused having different sources of funding so the access to the debt-capital market remains unimpeded as shown by this issuance and we maintain excellent relationship with our creditor banks.

And so they continue to offer us term facilities,” he said.

Ayala Land becomes the first company to re-avail of the government’s shelf-registration program, a measure allowing a company to submit its application to sell bonds once and sell these in tranches

over the next three years.

On Monday, the country’s second-largest property company listed its seven-year P8billion fixed rate bonds in PDEx. Ayala Land earlier said it would spend P130 billion in capital expenditures this year, an 18-percent increase from last year’s P110 billion in actual spending.

Bengzon said 41 percent of this year’s capex will be for residential development, 23 percent for its leasing projects, 15 percent for land acquisition and the remaining will be for general corporate purposes.

Last year, the company launched P139.4 billion worth of residential and office for sale projects. Reservation sales reached P141.9 billion, 16 percent higher than the P122 billion made the previous year, driven by strong demand from local and overseas Filipinos which accounted for 82 percent of total sales.

Net booked sales grew 14 percent to P110.8 billion, from P96.9 billion in the previous year.

PSALM shortlists 5 companies vying to develop 5.1-ha Diliman property

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

T

HE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) has shortlisted five firms vying for a contract to design and redevelop the 5.1-hectare Diliman property of the state firm.

The shortlisted firms included the Casa Arkitektura, Concep Inc., GF and Partners Architects, Jonathan O. Gan & Associates and WTA Architecture and Design Studio. They are expected to design a development concept based on the highest and best use of the property.

The five firms will proceed to the second stage of the Architectural Conceptual Design Contest for the master planning and redevelopment of the property which includes the current locations of the National

Power Corp., National Transmission Corp. and National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

The entire property is centrally located in a long stretch of commercial establishments adjacent to Centris Walk and Vertis North in Quezon City.

A consultation meeting was conducted on May 2 at PSALM’s office in Quezon City to provide shortlisted firms an opportunity to clarify any concerns they may have on their deliverables. Aside from the consultation meeting, the firms are also entitled to conduct their own “due diligence” activities and ocular inspection on an agreed date.

They are scheduled to present their proposals from June 26 to 28. Announcement of results will be on July 31, 2019.

The design contest shall select the most energy-efficient conceptual design that could be used as basis for the master planning.

SM Prime income increases 16% to ₧8.8B in 1st 3 months

S

HOPPING mall operator SM Prime Holdings Inc. on Monday said its net income grew 16 percent during the first three months of the year to P8.8 billion from P7.6 billion last year.

Revenues rose 14 percent to P26.5 billion from P23.3 billion the previous year, while operating income increased by 17 percent to P13 billion from P11 billion.

“SM Prime continues to benefit from the overall growth of the Philippine economy that boosts the household income of most families. We are optimistic we will sustain this performance this year as we continuously expand our core businesses in developing provincial cities across the country,” SM Prime President Jeffrey Lim said.

SM Prime’s mall business, which accounts for 56 percent of the consolidated revenue, reported an 8-percent revenue growth to P15 billion for the period from P13.9 billion last year. Malls that opened in 2017 and 2018 helped deliver the company’s P12.9-billion mall rental revenues, an 8-percent increase from last year’s P11.9 billion. These malls include those in Cagayan de Oro, S Maison, Puerto Princesa, Tuguegarao, Urdaneta Central, Telabastagan, Legazpi and Ormoc.

SM Prime’s malls first-quarter operating income increased by 8 percent to P8.4 billion from P7.8 billion last year.

Meanwhile, cinema and event ticket sales increased by 5 percent to P1.2 billion from P1.1 billion last year, while mall’s other revenue streams—which include amusement, bowling, ice-skating and merchandise sales—also improved by 8 percent to P881

million from P819 million.

SM Prime is scheduled to open four new malls this year: SM Center Dagupan in Pangasinan, SM City Olongapo Central in Zambales, SM City Butuan in the Caraga region and SM Mindpro Citimall in Zamboanga.

SM Prime’s residential group, led by SM Development Corp., recorded a 23-percent increase in revenue in the first quarter of 2019 to P9.2 billion from P7.5 billion in the same period last year. This accounts for 35 percent of the consolidated revenues of the company. The group’s operating income improved by 41 percent to P3.35 billion from P2.38 billion.

SMDC’s reservation sales increased by 20 percent in terms of sales value to P17.8 billion in the first quarter of 2019, from P14.8 billion in the same period of 2018. In terms of units, this translates to a 19-percent growth to 4,585 units from 3,894 units last year.

SM Prime is scheduled to launch 15,000 to 20,000 residential units across the company’s high-rise building, mid-rise building and single-detached house and lot projects this year. SM Prime’s other businesses reported a consolidated revenue growth of 14 percent in the first quarter of the year to P2.3 billion from P2 billion in the same period last year.

Revenues from the Commercial Properties Group and Hotels and Convention Centers contributed 9 percent to the overall consolidated revenues of the company. Operating income of these businesses increased by 26 percent during the period to P1.2 billion, from P0.9 billion of the same period last year. VG Cabuag

B1

Globe Q1 service revenues hit P36B

By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28 Contributor

A

YALA-LED Globe Telecom Inc. disclosed on Monday it has sustained its growth momentum at the beginning of this year as combined service revenues reached P36 billion in the first quarter of 2019, up 13 percent in the same period in 2018 and 3 percent higher than the previous quarter.

This could be mainly attributed to continued strong usage across all data-related services and products, including different content offerings, via the company’s collaborative effort with international content providers.

The topline figure, Globe Telecom Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Albert de Larrazabal said, is “very strong for this particular industry.”

He credited this to the firm’s improved consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), which aggregated to P19.9 billion from January to March 2019, 24 percent greater than last year’s figures, bringing the margins up by 55 percent compared to 50 percent a year ago.

Globe’s profitability continued as net income significantly improved by 44 percent year-on-year (YoY) to P6.7 billion on the back of Ebitda growth, offsetting depreciation charges and nonoperating expenses booked for the period just ended.

Core net income that includes the impact of nonrecurring charges and foreign exchange and mark-to-market charge surged by 40 percent versus the same period last year.

“Breaking down our service revenues, we continue to see that data remain the main driver of growth,” he told reporters during their First Quarter 2019 Media Briefing held at The Globe Tower in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

Mobile revenues for the first three months of the year stood at P27 billion, 11 percent higher during the same period in 2018 and 4 percent over from the previous quarter, mostly coming from the prepaid brands.

Product-wise, the topline from mobile data closed to P16.5 billion during the first three months of the year because of strong consumer spending driven by the rising popularity of promos that give the best surfing deals to consumers. Mobile data kept on contributing a lot to Globe’s overall mobile business, which currently accounts for 61 percent of gross service revenues from 47 percent the prior year.

“With the pervasive reach of data and Internet of Things [IoT], we see its effects not just on the rapid acceleration of mobile-data revenues, but also in lower mobile voice and SMS [short message system] services—both posting double-digit declines of 15 percent and 22 percent to P6.3 billion and P4.2 billion YoY, respectively. Notwithstanding all of these, [they] still contributed to a very significant increase in revenues,” Larrazabal said.

Because of faster connectivity, mobile-data traffic for the first three months of 2019 stood at 370 petabytes, twice as high as the 180 petabytes recorded a year ago

and 17 percent greater than the 315 petabytes posted in the fourth quarter of 2018. Given this upgrade that allows customers to enjoy faster content downloads, smoother music and video streaming, and richer Web browsing experiences, mobile subscribers as of end March 2019 stood at 83.5 million.

“This figure remains elevated following the change in regulation of prepaid load expiry which we began reporting in the fourth quarter of 2018. So this will continue to accumulate until we hit the fourth quarter of this year,” the CCO noted.

Globe’s fixed line and home-broadband business as a whole rose by 17 percent during the two periods in review boosted by double-digit growth in the whole broadband and corporate data businesses, whose performance covered for the 8-percent decline in fixed line voice.

Home broadband grew by 21 percent YoY and 3 percent against the prior quarter to reach P5.2 billion, mostly driven by the total home-broadband subscriber base that now stands at over 1.7 million, representing a 22-percent hike from the previous year. So far, 63 percent of the firm’s home-broadband subscriber base is on the fixed wireless technology.

Corporate data revenues went up by 16 percent from P2.7 billion to P3.1 billion YoY. This was fueled by the sustained demand for connectivity, business application, cloud solutions, and cyber-security services, per Larrazabal.

As of March 31, 2019, data revenues accounted for 69 percent of Globe’s total service revenues with the largest contributor being mobile data at 46 percent, followed by home broadband at 14 percent, and corporate data at 9 percent. During the period, mobile-data user base is up 7 percent YoY from 34.8 million to 37.1 million.

“I am delighted to report another remarkable performance for the first three months of 2019 with revenues and margins growing beyond our expectations,” Globe Telecom President and CEO Ernest L. Cu said.

As the company continues to invest in its Long Term Evolution or LTE network, he said they are excited with the growth opportunities of their 5G commercial pilot launch next month to offer customers a whole new ecosystem of devices to improve the way they experience data at home.

“This is in line with our proven strategy of making our customers a priority, by providing them a superior digital and network experience, despite all the industry challenges that we face ahead,” he said.

Looking forward, Globe is bullish to maintain its strong business performance throughout the year as it keeps on investing in the network, coupled with the evolving lifestyle bundles that aim to strongly influence the digital life of Filipinos.

“We believe this would allow full year 2019 revenues to increase by high single digits from 2018 levels. Likewise, Ebitda margin is expected to end around 50 percent for 2019, as margins would be continuously impacted by the increasing contribution of the lower-margin data-related products, countered by our continued efforts in managing costs,” Cu said.

B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

May 6, 2019

Net Foreign Stocks Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Buy (Sell) FINANCIALS ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK CITYSTATE BANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PBCOM PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE COL FINANCIAL FIRST ABACUS FERRONOUX HLDG MEDCO HLDG MANULIFE NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH SUN LIFE VANTAGE

58.05 134.8 83 27.35 6.7 11.48 72.8 13.42 21.4 53.35 58 25.8 179.4 60.15 1.25 18.94 0.56 4.56 0.47 780 0.92 181 1800 1.12

58.5 135 83.1 27.45 8.49 11.5 72.85 13.7 21.95 53.4 58.85 25.85 180 60.4 1.28 18.96 0.57 4.75 0.495 785 0.94 182.5 1825 1.16

58.9 138.7 85.65 27.5 8.49 11.62 73.5 13.44 21.45 53.75 58.05 26 181.3 60.3 1.25 18.96 0.59 4.54 0.49 785 0.93 183 1800 1.13

58.9 138.7 85.65 27.55 8.49 11.66 73.65 13.44 21.45 54.4 58.85 26 182.9 60.4 1.25 19 0.59 4.75 0.5 785 0.93 183 1800 1.13

58.05 135 83 27.4 8.49 11.46 72.05 13.44 21.4 52.9 58.05 25.8 177.8 59.75 1.25 18.94 0.57 4.51 0.47 780 0.91 181 1800 1.13

58.5 135 83 27.45 8.49 11.5 72.85 13.44 21.4 53.35 58.85 25.8 180 60.15 1.25 18.96 0.57 4.75 0.495 780 0.92 182.5 1800 1.13

1250 1025170 1651630 120300 500 1782000 2946850 2200 1400 1111630 990 21300 606330 27700 6000 42300 118000 28000 610000 310 109000 220 160 16000

73055 140181166 139533368.5 3304835 4245 20589186 214927792 29568 29965 59436137 57829.5 551060 108707634 1661741 7500 802188 67760 130160 295750 242400 99930 40125 288000 18080

INDUSTRIAL ALSONS CONS ABOITIZ POWER BASIC ENERGY FIRST GEN FIRST PHIL HLDG MERALCO MANILA WATER PETRON PETROENERGY PHINMA ENERGY PHX PETROLEUM PILIPINAS SHELL SPC POWER AGRINURTURE CNTRL AZUCARERA CENTURY FOOD DEL MONTE DNL INDUS EMPERADOR SMC FOODANDBEV ALLIANCE SELECT GINEBRA JOLLIBEE MACAY HLDG MAXS GROUP MG HLDG PEPSI COLA SHAKEYS PIZZA ROXAS HLDG SWIFT FOODS UNIV ROBINA VITARICH VICTORIAS CEMEX HLDG DAVINCI CAPITAL EAGLE CEMENT EEI CORP HOLCIM MEGAWIDE TKC METALS VULCAN INDL CHEMPHIL CROWN ASIA MABUHAY VINYL PRYCE CORP CONCEPCION GREENERGY INTEGRATED MICR IONICS PANASONIC SFA SEMICON CIRTEK HLDG

1.39 35.6 0.24 21.35 76.55 382.6 22.25 6.28 4.6 1.67 11.82 45.6 6.82 15.18 16.4 15.26 5.82 10.98 7.55 116 0.8 34.3 301.8 9.7 15.08 0.19 1.23 13.16 2 0.129 163 1.37 2.5 2.31 5.5 15.92 9.2 13.5 22 0.95 1.11 110.8 1.88 3.33 4.89 45 2.58 10.42 1.74 5.67 1.25 27.9

ABACORE CAPITAL ASIABEST GROUP AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL ANSCOR ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A ATN HLDG B COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG FILINVEST DEV GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV JG SUMMIT LODESTAR LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP MABUHAY HLDG METRO PAC INV PACIFICA PRIME ORION PRIME MEDIA SOLID GROUP SYNERGY GRID SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP SOC RESOURCES TOP FRONTIER WELLEX INDUS ZEUS HLDG

0.62 17 898 52.55 15.08 6.45 0.73 1.37 1.37 7.45 11.26 14.94 885 6.2 64.5 0.49 4.57 16.62 0.55 4.25 0.039 3 1.11 1.33 430.2 938.5 180 0.85 270.2 0.238 0.335

1.43 36.05 0.245 21.45 77.4 382.8 22.4 6.3 4.62 1.68 11.98 45.7 6.84 15.38 16.9 15.3 5.98 11 7.56 116.5 0.81 34.35 302 9.9 15.2 0.198 1.24 13.18 2.11 0.132 163.2 1.38 2.51 2.32 5.87 16 9.22 13.56 22.05 0.96 1.12 120 1.92 3.48 4.9 45.45 2.6 10.48 1.79 6 1.27 28.4

1.43 36 0.246 21.7 78.3 386 22.5 6.38 4.6 1.7 11.98 45.85 6.9 15.68 16.4 15.34 5.98 11.3 7.56 115.8 0.85 30.5 301.8 10.08 15.86 0.191 1.28 13.3 2.11 0.133 166.6 1.38 2.5 2.31 5.5 16.1 9.2 13.46 22.6 0.96 1.18 118.9 1.93 3.35 4.88 45 2.67 10.98 1.74 6 1.28 28.1

1.43 36.5 0.246 21.85 78.35 386 22.55 6.45 4.64 1.7 11.98 45.95 7 15.68 16.98 15.38 5.98 11.3 7.56 117 0.86 36 306 10.08 15.86 0.191 1.28 13.3 2.11 0.133 166.6 1.41 2.5 2.4 5.55 16.16 9.47 13.56 22.8 0.97 1.18 118.9 1.93 3.48 5.05 45.5 2.68 10.98 1.79 6 1.28 28.4

1.38 35.5 0.24 21.3 76.5 381.4 22.25 6.28 4.52 1.61 11.82 45.5 6.81 15.1 16.4 15.26 5.98 11 7.5 114.9 0.76 30.5 301.8 9.6 14.76 0.19 1.23 13.16 2.11 0.133 160.4 1.37 2.5 2.3 5.5 15.9 9.2 12.7 21.95 0.94 1.12 118.9 1.86 3.29 4.84 45 2.53 10.3 1.74 6 1.24 27.9

1.38 36.05 0.245 21.35 76.55 382.6 22.25 6.28 4.6 1.68 11.98 45.7 6.84 15.4 16.98 15.3 5.98 11 7.56 116.5 0.8 34.35 302 9.9 15.2 0.19 1.24 13.16 2.11 0.133 163 1.38 2.5 2.32 5.55 16 9.22 13.5 22 0.95 1.12 118.9 1.88 3.48 4.9 45 2.6 10.42 1.79 6 1.24 28.4

60000 917500 960000 1009500 188280 147260 2363900 2893600 79000 16827000 120800 149500 482000 333700 2400 473100 200 2860300 680200 260270 6052000 1415300 628950 8700 1934900 600000 1271000 341700 1000 10000 1140880 3407000 60000 42008000 5800 698500 761100 4337800 810000 250000 3225000 140 227000 38000 107000 267800 6928000 1168900 15000 2000 94000 85000

85110 32814290 233200 21834545 14621473.5 56508438 53070545 18446812 363600 28084870 1438046 6847260 3301097 5148542 40114 7249144 1196 31946560 5110051 30195674 4858710 48245220 190782738 85320 29426588 114350 1576820 4516408 2110 1330 185353790 4706080 150000 97626790 32150 11179558 7017477 57342790 17987555 237480 3692400 16646 428440 126690 522010 12051500 18026360 12257578 26700 12000 118970 2398730

HOLDING & FRIMS 0.63 17.08 898.5 52.65 15.1 6.48 0.75 1.38 1.38 7.48 11.28 14.96 888 6.21 64.8 0.5 4.58 16.64 0.57 4.26 0.04 3.01 1.15 1.36 474 940 180.4 0.86 276 0.24 0.34

0.65 17.06 908 52 15.38 6.5 0.76 1.39 1.39 7.5 11.3 14.94 895 6.28 64.4 0.51 4.6 16.5 0.55 4.4 0.04 3 1.11 1.36 430 960 178.3 0.91 270 0.239 0.325

0.66 17.32 908 53 15.38 6.5 0.76 1.39 1.39 7.5 11.52 14.98 897.5 6.28 65.9 0.51 4.69 16.78 0.55 4.43 0.04 3.05 1.11 1.36 465 962 181 0.91 276 0.24 0.34

0.62 17.02 890 52 14.74 6.4 0.74 1.36 1.37 7.47 11.22 14.8 875 6.2 64.4 0.49 4.58 16.02 0.55 4.22 0.039 3 1.11 1.34 430 938 178.3 0.86 269 0.237 0.325

0.62 17.02 898 52.55 15.1 6.48 0.75 1.38 1.38 7.48 11.28 14.94 888 6.2 64.8 0.5 4.58 16.62 0.55 4.25 0.039 3 1.11 1.34 465 940 180 0.86 276 0.238 0.34

24275000 41500 369980 2323800 5671600 247300 282000 1627000 1544000 422000 1348200 313500 83810 80600 575640 156000 673000 2532000 60000 43601000 7200000 2976000 12000 99000 210 178970 378620 1046000 250 2290000 10870000

15397170 711996 331643690 122253047 84997302 1598378 209560 2228350 2131340 3156614 15223912 4683744 74680715 500250 37348505.5 76610 3092140 42084996 33000 187046910 281300 8958090 13320 133940 90934 168841315 68182065 903470 67830 545040 3653550

58500 22902903.0002 31466082 -98925 -423166 -28388860.5 -13525452 -535490 7556960 -743339 458872 -187450 920 7559445 122500 7320200 -5658148.5 -19121122 -43590670 -409460 899350 -845678 1534935 38042 -82880 -246340 -13020372 422211 2352238 8100 10771925 -65729154 -391566 3750 545864 22603099 -248730 150000 17167710 -302572 -183478 1214928 -5682865 13160 -133409.9999 -478110 121950 -1893800 4573482 -102690 34580 -33495665 -11507870 -29463128 -221538 1192569.9997 -100893 -8918442 683934 378020 43400 6488658 -335980 10876318 33000 861180 673359.9996 -35219035 10732415 -129000 -2720 -5000

PROPERTY

ARTHALAND CORP 0.76 0.78 0.78 0.79 0.76 0.76 1100000 841460 AYALA LAND 46.7 46.8 47.4 47.4 46.3 46.8 21637100 1009552820 12548325 ARANETA PROP 2.15 2.19 2.18 2.3 2.15 2.15 2466000 5520390 -489850 BELLE CORP 2.37 2.39 2.4 2.41 2.37 2.39 857000 2052150 -572720 A BROWN 0.75 0.76 0.77 0.77 0.75 0.76 439000 331520 CITYLAND DEVT 0.88 0.89 0.89 0.9 0.88 0.88 75000 66360 12460 CROWN EQUITIES 0.235 0.238 0.245 0.245 0.238 0.238 910000 218320 CEBU HLDG 6.32 6.4 6.4 6.4 6.32 6.32 5000 31760 CEB LANDMASTERS 4.76 4.8 4.7 4.8 4.63 4.8 2469000 11687440 823520 CENTURY PROP 0.52 0.53 0.54 0.54 0.52 0.52 21097000 11168090 153700 DOUBLEDRAGON 25.95 26 27 27.05 26 26 1630000 43001295 10276215 DM WENCESLAO 11.06 11.1 11.4 11.4 10.92 11.06 729300 8056750 4189852 EMPIRE EAST 0.485 0.49 0.49 0.49 0.485 0.485 620000 302200 EVER GOTESCO 0.125 0.13 0.125 0.125 0.125 0.125 500000 62500 FILINVEST LAND 1.58 1.59 1.62 1.62 1.59 1.59 6432000 10291790 -4917160 GLOBAL ESTATE 1.35 1.36 1.37 1.37 1.35 1.35 1676000 2273040 40700 8990 HLDG 14.24 14.36 14.8 14.8 14.22 14.36 393100 5668192 -722802 PHIL INFRADEV 1.65 1.67 1.69 1.71 1.65 1.65 1964000 3275820 -29950 CITY AND LAND 0.78 0.82 0.81 0.81 0.78 0.78 220000 172770 42900 MEGAWORLD 5.68 5.69 5.77 5.78 5.64 5.68 16547000 94414172 1043264.9996 MRC ALLIED 0.36 0.365 0.35 0.375 0.35 0.36 87520000 31940500 -2204550 PHIL ESTATES 0.5 0.51 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 636000 318000 PRIMEX CORP 2.83 2.87 2.76 2.88 2.65 2.87 989000 2761500 ROBINSONS LAND 23.25 24.05 24.3 24.5 23.25 23.25 993100 23763340 -4207165 PHIL REALTY 0.445 0.45 0.44 0.46 0.435 0.445 1420000 635500 ROCKWELL 1.98 2 2 2 2 2 1000 2000 SHANG PROP 2.97 3 3.02 3.02 2.98 3 71000 212220 -30000 STA LUCIA LAND 1.79 1.8 1.79 1.84 1.77 1.8 1029000 1847830 SM PRIME HLDG 40.05 40.1 40.9 40.9 39.75 40.1 6142900 246394810 -122116205 STARMALLS 6.78 6.83 6.84 6.92 6.78 6.83 98300 673324 248084 SUNTRUST HOME 0.73 0.76 0.72 0.72 0.72 0.72 1000 720 VISTA LAND 7.16 7.2 7.1 7.2 6.87 7.2 4850200 34335132 1494110

SERVICES ABS CBN 19.3 19.32 19.3 19.4 19.3 19.32 95000 1834816 GMA NETWORK 5.19 5.2 5.23 5.24 5.19 5.19 129200 671924 MANILA BULLETIN 0.55 0.56 0.59 0.59 0.56 0.57 634000 358420 MLA BRDCASTING 14.5 15 15 15 15 15 8100 121500 GLOBE TELECOM 1860 1865 1839 1865 1838 1865 60855 112833190 52307115 PLDT 1243 1245 1220 1250 1205 1245 83860 104243340 1509650 APOLLO GLOBAL 0.043 0.044 0.04 0.044 0.04 0.043 45200000 1912700 DFNN INC 6.6 6.94 6.85 6.94 6.6 6.94 41700 284322 -85434 IMPERIAL 1.75 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 7000 12600 1800 ISLAND INFO 0.123 0.124 0.124 0.124 0.122 0.123 4200000 516860 ISM COMM 5.49 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.42 5.49 1191100 6526312 29376 JACKSTONES 2.98 3.09 3.09 3.1 3.09 3.1 12000 37130 NOW CORP 2.16 2.18 2.24 2.24 2.16 2.18 2402000 5284330 406730 TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.345 0.35 0.36 0.365 0.34 0.35 8470000 2947950 -9649.9998 PHILWEB 3.05 3.06 3.12 3.16 3.01 3.06 3160000 9686980 6160 2GO GROUP 12.68 12.8 12.68 12.88 12.66 12.68 6600 84264 -1268 ASIAN TERMINALS 15.72 15.88 15.78 15.88 15.7 15.88 66900 1056098 -865678 CHELSEA 5.64 5.65 5.75 5.78 5.61 5.65 388300 2195776 48430 CEBU AIR 81 81.35 80.85 81.5 80.7 81.35 29720 2408170.5 943679 INTL CONTAINER 128 129.1 137 137 128 128 2261200 296362136 82490946 LORENZO SHIPPNG 0.78 0.81 0.83 0.83 0.78 0.81 819000 644040 -184690 MACROASIA 21.5 21.55 21.85 21.9 21.4 21.55 1055700 22749925 -1710230 METROALLIANCE A 1.68 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.68 1.68 42000 71380 PAL HLDG 9.6 9.8 10 10 9.5 9.6 115800 1105040 HARBOR STAR 2.76 2.77 2.8 2.81 2.76 2.77 926000 2569620 BOULEVARD HLDG 0.07 0.071 0.07 0.074 0.069 0.071 77480000 5627500 GRAND PLAZA 10.04 11.28 10.02 10.02 10.02 10.02 100 1002 WATERFRONT 0.71 0.72 0.75 0.75 0.71 0.71 3044000 2209660 FAR EASTERN U 890 895 895 895 890 890 40 35650 IPEOPLE 10.66 11.38 11.94 11.94 10.52 11.76 16600 188604 STI HLDG 0.67 0.68 0.68 0.69 0.66 0.67 3845000 2579810 -1691500 BERJAYA 2.63 2.64 2.63 2.7 2.6 2.64 569000 1501640 -26280 BLOOMBERRY 12 12.02 12.2 12.22 11.94 12 7922500 95346330 -52011472 PACIFIC ONLINE 3.58 3.65 3.78 3.8 3.58 3.58 291000 1059060 LEISURE AND RES 3.82 3.83 3.94 3.96 3.82 3.83 950000 3661120 -4640 MANILA JOCKEY 5 5.05 4.87 5 4.87 5 116000 576230 -53700 PH RESORTS GRP 4.3 4.43 4.45 4.45 4.44 4.44 13000 57730 PREMIUM LEISURE 0.73 0.74 0.75 0.75 0.73 0.73 6934000 5078370 208860 TRAVELLERS 5.63 5.66 5.65 5.66 5.59 5.63 2026400 11396508 -8572998 METRO RETAIL 3.33 3.35 3.41 3.43 3.22 3.35 3910000 13048140 -57270 PUREGOLD 44.3 44.5 43.5 44.5 43.5 44.5 885100 38943800 -11438295 ROBINSONS RTL 76.65 76.75 76.5 78 76.5 76.75 413900 32079471 11531806 PHIL SEVEN CORP 112 114 115.2 115.2 114 114 420 48036 -9120 SSI GROUP 3.1 3.11 3.2 3.2 3.05 3.11 24071000 74972050 12702210 WILCON DEPOT 16.6 16.68 16.6 16.8 16.6 16.6 176200 2937248 159990 APC GROUP 0.395 0.41 0.4 0.41 0.395 0.395 720000 286450 EASYCALL 10.88 10.9 11.5 11.5 10.9 10.9 140300 1548342 GOLDEN BRIA 400 403.4 398 410 392.6 403.4 940 379188 IPM HLDG 6.88 6.92 6.92 6.92 6.9 6.9 5500 37960 PRMIERE HORIZON 0.87 0.88 0.89 0.9 0.87 0.88 13567000 11949910 -2010290 SBS PHIL CORP 9.01 9.17 9.21 9.21 8.8 9.01 173800 1576526

MINING & OIL ATOK 11.8 12.28 12.26 12.3 11.7 12.3 15900 190484 -1180 APEX MINING 1.27 1.28 1.3 1.3 1.27 1.27 1266000 1622000 8960 ABRA MINING 0.0019 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.0019 0.0019 9000000 17200 ATLAS MINING 2.8 2.88 2.81 2.82 2.8 2.8 117000 327850 -280200 BENGUET A 1.26 1.29 1.26 1.26 1.26 1.26 151000 190260 BENGUET B 1.2 1.38 - - - - - - COAL ASIA HLDG 0.285 0.295 0.29 0.29 0.285 0.285 680000 196050 CENTURY PEAK 2.85 2.86 2.74 2.85 2.73 2.85 3404000 9572870 140500 DIZON MINES 7.83 8.03 8.01 8.04 7.81 8.03 24500 196155 FERRONICKEL 1.51 1.54 1.53 1.54 1.5 1.54 22869000 34989950 4500 GEOGRACE 0.238 0.24 0.249 0.249 0.238 0.243 1960000 470820 LEPANTO A 0.111 0.114 0.11 0.114 0.11 0.111 1350000 150050 LEPANTO B 0.112 0.117 0.113 0.113 0.112 0.112 500000 56300 MARCVENTURES 1.03 1.04 1.04 1.04 1.03 1.03 386000 401290 NIHAO 1 1.01 1.01 1.01 0.99 1.01 28000 28060 NICKEL ASIA 2.39 2.4 2.41 2.41 2.38 2.39 1503000 3593150 623910 OMICO CORP 0.56 0.57 0.56 0.57 0.56 0.57 62000 35020 ORNTL PENINSULA 0.89 0.91 0.91 0.91 0.89 0.89 12000 10700 PX MINING 3.1 3.12 3.1 3.12 3.1 3.12 174000 539830 -65130 SEMIRARA MINING 23.65 23.7 23.85 24.15 23.35 23.65 1385200 32862640 16128765 UNITED PARAGON 0.0068 0.0074 0.0075 0.0075 0.0068 0.0068 2000000 14300 ORNTL PETROL A 0.011 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.012 7900000 94800 PHILODRILL 0.011 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.011 0.011 3000000 34000 PHINMA PETRO 3.55 3.7 3.5 3.72 3.5 3.71 28000 100010 PXP ENERGY 7.88 7.89 7.82 7.92 7.7 7.88 594600 4652149 -381058

PREFFERED

HOUSE PREF A 95 96.5 96.5 96.5 96.45 96.5 6160 594435 AC PREF B1 467 474.8 474.8 475 467 467 590 279514 ALCO PREF B 99 101.7 99 99 99 99 500 49500 FGEN PREF G 101 102 101.1 101.1 101 101 4000 404020 GTCAP PREF B 960 970 958 960 958 960 2390 2292980 LR PREF 0.98 1 0.98 1 0.98 1 110000 109800 MWIDE PREF 100.1 102.9 100.1 100.1 100.1 100.1 1520 152152 PNX PREF 3A 100 100.5 100.5 100.5 100 100.5 10050 1008575 PCOR PREF 2A 950 970 970.5 970.5 905 950 4240 4059830 19350 SMC PREF 2B 75 75.5 75.95 75.95 75.5 75.5 490 37197.5 SMC PREF 2C 75.65 76.1 76 76 75.6 75.6 15430 1168568 SMC PREF 2D 71.05 71.2 71.2 71.2 71.2 71.2 10590 754008 SMC PREF 2F 73.7 74.65 73.65 73.65 73.65 73.65 34160 2515884 SMC PREF 2G 73.6 74.45 74.45 74.45 74.45 74.45 1420 105719 SMC PREF 2I 73.5 74.4 74.5 74.5 73.5 74.45 4730 347789.5 -

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR GMA HLDG PDR

18.7 5.1

19 5.29

19.1 5.2

19.1 5.2

19 5.1

19 5.1

14700 10000

279410 51010

WARRANTS LR WARRANT

1.9

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ITALPINAS 5.28 XURPAS 1.05

1.93

1.93

1.96

1.85

1.93

330000

621290

-

5.3 1.06

5.51 1.12

5.6 1.12

5.27 1.05

5.3 1.06

902700 16309000

4922333 17552790

4500 -3889800

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS FIRST METRO ETF

117.6

-38000 -

117.8

119.4

119.4

117.8

117.8

7910

938613

-

www.businessmirror.com.ph

COA orders PSALM to pay Sem-Calaca Power ₧477M

By Lenie Lectura

T

@llectura

HE Commission on Audit (COA) has ruled in favor of Consunji-led Sem-Calaca Power Corp. (SCPC), which demanded payment from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) in the amount of P477 million.

“Wherefore, premises considered, the Petition for Money Claim of SCPC against the PSALM, for payment of monetary award pursuant to the final and executory decision of the Energy Regulatory Commission in the amount of P476,703,077.96 plus interest at the rate of 6 percent per annum computed from the time of the extrajudicial demand up to the time

of payment, less the time when the ERC granted the Motion for Reconsideration of the PSALM and required the SCPC to file its money claim to the Commission on Audit up to its actual filing, is hereby granted,” COA’s decision read.

In November 2017, a petition for money claim against PSALM was filed with the COA for the enforcement of the ERC decision, which was

affirmed by the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

The COA in its April 22, 2019, decision stated it “agrees to uphold the ERC’s findings of fact as affirmed by the CA and SC.” The COA also ruled that interest shall be computed at the rate of 6 percent per annum computed from the date of extrajudicial demand on August 4, 2010.

The case stemmed from a petition filed by SCPC against the National Power Corp. and PSALM to declare NPC’s nomination for the supply of electricity to Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) beyond 169,000 kilowatts as invalid and to recover the amounts charged and withheld by PSALM for spot purchases cover the deficiency in connection with the NPC over nominations for Meralco for January to June 25, 2010.

PSALM argued the 169,000 kW of the Asset Purchase Agreement is not a cap to SCPC obligations but rather the 10.841 percent of Meralco’s re-

quirement at any given time. SCPC, therefore, claimed the amount of P476,703,077.96 plus interest at 6 percent per annum computed from extrajudicial demand until actual payment.

The ERC in July 2011 already ruled in favor of SCPC. A motion for reconsideration was filed by PSALM, but was denied by ERC. Thereafter, a petition was elevated by PSALM to the CA, whose petition was likewise denied in September 2012 and affirmed the ERC ruling. Its motion for reconsideration was also denied by the CA in November 2012.

PSALM then filed a petition before the SC in December 2012, and subsequently a motion for reconsideration, which were both denied by the high court.

Thereafter, SCPC moved for remittance of the amount above-stated before the ERC. PSALM, however, opposed that money claim may be executed against a government-owned and/or -controlled corporation, the same must be filed before the COA.

Concepcion Industrial Q1 income grows 14% to ₧187M

By VG Cabuag @villygc

C

ONCEPCION Industrial Corp. on Monday said it had a net income growth of 14 percent during the first quarter of the year to P187 million from last year’s P164.42 million, as sales rose.

Net sales were up 7 percent to P3.3 billion from last year’s P3.07 billion.

“The first three months of 2019 showed signs of a more stable outlook with steady commodity prices, less volatile foreign exchange and a more controlled inflation scenario,” company Chairman and CEO Raul Joseph A. Concepcion said.

“Highlights of our first-quarter top-line performance included strong sell-in offerings to counter the relatively slower consumer market, as well as a stronger pipeline and

order intake in the commercial segment. Profitability was enhanced by a favorable cost and foreign-exchange environment, and the impact of more favorable pricing, which has allowed us to continue to invest and explore avenues for future growth,” he said.

Last year, the company announced the majority acquisition by Cortex of Teko Solutions Asia Inc., a tech start-up that utilizes a proprietary platform for real-time access to service and repairs for home appliances such as air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and water heaters, using self-employed, qualified and screened entrepreneur technicians—a first in the Philippines.

The Teko platform handles all interaction between the consumer and technician, giving the consumer a seamless and hassle-free way of maintaining their appliances.

Occidental seeks edge over Chevron with more cash, Total agreement

O

CCIDENTAL Petroleum Corp. moved a step closer to sealing its proposed $38-billion acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. after it sweetened its offer and agreed to sell assets owned by the target company.

Occidental increased the cash portion of its bid to 78 percent from 50 percent on Sunday and pledged to cover the $1-billion breakup fee Anadarko would have to pay for abandoning an alreadyagreed to deal with Chevron Corp.

The heftier buyout proposal came just hours after French energy giant Total SA agreed to buy operations in four African nations for $8.8 billion, contingent upon Occidental completing a takeover of Texas-based Anadarko.

The Total agreement augments billionaire Warren Buffett’s $10-billion commitment to Occidental, which has faced investor criticism for its unsolicited April 24 offer to best Chevron’s takeover of Anadarko.

While Occidental is a storied name in American oil and operates across three continents, it’s just one-fifth of Chevron’s market value and its pursuit of Anadarko was seen by some as quixotic.

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub, who has been pursuing Anadarko for almost two years, has grown frustrated

at the company’s unwillingness to acquiesce to her advances.

“We remain perplexed at your apparent resistance to obtaining far more value for Anadarko shareholders which has been expressed clearly through our interactions over the last week,” Hollub said in a letter to Anadarko’s board dated Sunday.

Anadarko said in a statement it will review the revised offer and reaffirmed its existing recommendation to shareholders to accept the Chevron deal.

The Total agreement may ameliorate concerns that Occidental would take on too much debt and shorten the amount of time the company would be out of the market for share buybacks, said Bill Nygren, chief investment officer of Harris Associates LP, which manages $120 billion and owns about 3 percent of Anadarko.

An Occidental-Anadarko accord would be a stunning rebuff for Chevron CEO Mike Wirth just 15 months into his tenure at the head of the world’s third-largest oil explorer by market value. Sunday’s emergence of Total as an Occidental ally pits two of the world’s supermajor oil drillers on opposite sides of the industry’s biggest takeover battle in years. Bloomberg News

“We continue to be confident of our mid- to long-term growth prospects. As our core business grows on a consistent pace, we are excited to pursue strategic growth beyond our current offerings as we aim to offer solutions that are innovative and relevant to Filipino families

MUTUAL FUNDS

and businesses. Our key focus areas for this year include expanding our product and services not just through technology, but better customer experience and reach, as well as enabling our organization to pursue more synergies and innovation,” Concepcion said.

May 6, 2019

NAV ONE YEAR THREE YEAR FIVE YEAR Y-T-D

PER SHARE RETURN* RETURN STOCK FUNDS ALFM GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 264.87 2.57% 2.39% 1.22% 5.01% ATRAM ALPHA OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC. -A 1.6288 4.42% 11.7% 3.05% 13.05% ATRAM PHILIPPINE EQUITY OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC. -A 4.1435 0.49% 2.9% 0.21% 6.16% CLIMBS SHARE CAPITAL EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND CORP. -A 0.9393 3.24% N.A. N.A. 5.48% FIRST METRO CONSUMER FUND ON MSCI PHILS. IMI, INC. -A 0.8793 5.93% N.A. N.A. 7.14% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN EQUITY FUND,INC. -A 5.5388 4.24% 2.12% 1.01% 5.08% MBG EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND, INC. -A

126.68 10.43% N.A. N.A. 8.78% ONE WEALTHY NATION FUND, INC. -A 0.8847 3.05% -2.73% N.A. 6.28% PAMI EQUITY INDEX FUND, INC. -A 52.5765 5.65% 3.61% N.A. 6.85% PHILAM STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 547.16 4.45% 2.36% 0.95% 6.3% PHILEQUITY DIVIDEND YIELD FUND, INC. -A 1.3266 5.83% 4.09% 3.85% 5.79% PHILEQUITY FUND, INC. -A 39.0655 6% 4.98% 3.16% 6.64% PHILEQUITY MSCI PHILIPPINE INDEX FUND, INC. -A,3 1.05 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. PHILEQUITY PSE INDEX FUND INC. -A 5.3259 6.35% 4.63% 3.33% 7.4% PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND CORP. -A 889 6.45% 4.3% 3.28% 7.3% SOLDIVO STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 0.9441 7.95% 3.56% N.A. 9.63% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE EQUITY FUND, INC. -A 4.3674 7.13% 4.62% 2.49% 7.6% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND, INC. -A 1.0221 5.93% 4.29% N.A. 7.1% UNITED FUND, INC. -A 3.7601 6.96% 6.48% 3.03% 7.4% EXCHANGE TRADED FUND FIRST METRO PHIL. EQUITY EXCHANGE TRADED FUND, INC. -A,C,2 118.9284 6.76% 5.42% 4.34% 7.39% ATRAM ASIAPLUS EQUITY FUND, INC. -B $1.0314 -5.33% 7.68% 1.55% 11.01% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD VOYAGER FUND, INC. -A $1.2944 1.81% 9.16% N.A. 17.13% BALANCED FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES ATRAM DYNAMIC ALLOCATION FUND, INC. -A 1.7302 2.35% 0.21% -1.31% 4.78% ATRAM PHILIPPINE BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 2.3242 1.27% 1.84% 0.81% 5.21% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN BALANCED FUND INC. -A 2.6588 3.6% 0.09% -1.33% 4.52% GREPALIFE BALANCED FUND CORPORATION -A 1.3587 1.3% N.A. N.A. 4.17% NCM MUTUAL FUND OF THE PHILS., INC. -A 1.9269 4.35% 1.98% 1.32% 4.55% PAMI HORIZON FUND, INC. -A 3.6914 2.62% 0.62% 0.41% 4.59% PHILAM FUND, INC. -A 16.6804 3.69% 0.9% 0.49% 4.86% SOLIDARITAS FUND, INC. -A 2.1463 3.27% 2.17% 2.06% 3.57% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 3.8746 5.51% 2.23% 1.58% 6.11% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2028, INC. -A,D,4 1.0073 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2038, INC. -A,D,4 1.0081 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2048, INC. -A,D,4 1.0062 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DYNAMIC FUND, INC. -A 0.989 5.48% 2.21% N.A. 7.3% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES COCOLIFE DOLLAR FUND BUILDER, INC. -A $0.03626 3.54% 0.6% 1.52% 2.87% PAMI ASIA BALANCED FUND, INC. -A $0.9929 -5.64% 4.15% -0.25% 6.06% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ADVANTAGE FUND, INC. -A $3.7213 2.21% 6.61% 2.96% 12.48% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR WELLSPRING FUND, INC. -A $1.0928 1.5% 3.85% N.A. 8.2% BOND FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES ALFM PESO BOND FUND, INC. -A 348.05 2.94% 2.05% 2.17% 1.36% ATRAM CORPORATE BOND FUND, INC. -A,1 1.8866 1.35% -0.2% -0.09% 1.47% COCOLIFE FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. -A

3.0227 5.35% 5.24% 5.24% 1.75% EKKLESIA MUTUAL FUND INC. -A 2.1621 2.43% 1.17% 1.86% 1.48% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN FIXED INCOME FUND,INC. -A 2.2657 2.23% 0.56% 0.97% 2.55% GREPALIFE FIXED INCOME FUND CORP. -A P 1.6029 1.11% -0.74% 0.31% 2.46% PHILAM BOND FUND, INC. -A 4.0489 2.24% -0.47% 0.86% 3.29% PHILEQUITY PESO BOND FUND, INC. -A 3.6107 3.7% 1.01% 1.14% 2.66% SOLDIVO BOND FUND, INC. -A 0.9204 1.33% -0.64% N.A. 3.11% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BOND FUND, INC. -A 2.8931 5.15% 1.4% 1.86% 4.6% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY GS FUND, INC. -A

1.6043 4.73% 0.89% 1.39% 4.18% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES ALFM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $454.78 2.97% 1.9% 2.81% 1.45% ALFM EURO BOND FUND, INC. -A Є216.03 1.44% 1.45% 1.54% 1.59% ATRAM TOTAL RETURN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -B $1.1687 4.75% 1.64% 2.25% 3.81% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $0.0253 2.02% 0.8% N.A. 2.02% GREPALIFE DOLLAR BOND FUND CORP. -A $1.7135 0.43% -1.16% 0.84% 1.38% MAA PRIVILEGE DOLLAR FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. MAA PRIVILEGE EURO FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. ЄN.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. PAMI GLOBAL BOND FUND, INC -A $1.064 2.85% -0.6% -2.39% 2.54% PHILAM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $2.2678 5.13% 0.66% 2.71% 4.45% PHILEQUITY DOLLAR INCOME FUND INC. -A $0.0580495 2.58% 1.08% 1.65% 1.88% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ABUNDANCE FUND, INC. -A $2.9757 2.5% -0.01% 2.04% 3.61% MONEY MARKET FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES ALFM MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 122.69 3.55% 2.24% 1.81% 1.53% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A,5 1.0098 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. PHILAM MANAGED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 1.1988 2.89% 1.28% 0.81% 1.43% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 1.2363 3.35% 2.52% 1.89% 1.42% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR STARTER FUND, INC. -A $1.0245 2.09% N.A. N.A. 0.85%

* - NAVPS AS OF THE PREVIOUS BANKING DAY ** - NAVPS AS OF TWO BANKING DAYS AGO *** - LISTED IN THE PSE.

**** - RE-CLASSIFIED INTO A BALANCED FUND STARTING JANUARY 1, 2017 (FORMERLY GREPALIFE BOND FUND CORP.).

***** - LAUNCH DATE IS NOVEMBER 6, 2017 ****** - LAUNCH DATE IS JANUARY 08, 2018 ******** - RENAMING OF THE FUND WAS APPROVED BY THE SEC LAST APRIL 13, 2018.

********* - BECAME A MEMBER SINCE APRIL 20, 2018. ******* - ADJUSTED DUE TO CASH DIVIDEND ISSUANCE LAST JANUARY 29, 2018

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Security Bank posts soft revenue growth in Q1

S

ECURITY Bank Corp. reported on Monday a soft revenue growth in the first quarter of the year, owing largely to expansion of both core profit components and expense growth during the period.

The bank disclosed their net profit to have risen to P2.38 billion in the first three months of 2019. This is 1.5 percent higher compared to their net income in the same month last year.

The expansion of their revenues during the period was attributed largely to the net interest income from customer loans and deposits, which sustained its healthy trajectory of a 29-percent expansion to P4.7 billion this year.

The bank’s total loans during the period grew 12 percent to P412 billion, while total deposits increased 10 percent to P461 billion.

Total net interest income also grew by 15 percent to reach P5.8 billion during the period. Interest income from financial investments grew 11 percent while the net interest margin increased to 3.43 percent during the period.

Their income from service charges, fees and commissions also increased 26 percent to P857 million during the period. The major contributors to this component were credit cards, loan fees, bancassurance, deposit charges and stock brokerage.

Securities trading gains, meanwhile, amounted to P671 million, up from P416 million in the same quarter last year. Security Bank’s total noninterest income increased by 39 percent to P1.8 billion during the quarter.

What chipped their overall revenue growth for the year was the 22-percent expansion of their operating expense numbers during the period.

“Expense growth was driven mainly by gross receipts and documentary stamp taxes followed by manpower costs,” the bank said.

The bank added its headcount increased by 450 primarily to support growth of the retail banking business and transformation of the bank’s infrastructure, processes and culture.

Manpower now stands at 5,950, it added.

Their cost-to-income ratio, however, stood at 53.7 percent during the period. This was marginally better than 2018’s 53.9 percent despite a year-onyear operating expense growth.

The bank’s asset quality remained healthy during the period, as reflected by the gross nonperforming loan ratio of 0.75 percent. The bank also reported that they set aside P295 million for provision for credit losses during the period. Bianca Cuaresma

China ramps up credit aid to small firms as trade tensions with US rise

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HINA decided to cut the amount of cash some banks must hold as reserves, and timed its announcement of the decision to help shore up domestic markets as uncertainties in the trade talks with the US reemerged.

The required reserve ratio for rural commercial lenders serving companies in the county where the bank operates or with less than 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) of assets will be lowered to 8 percent, taking effect on May 15, the People’s Bank of China said on its web site early Monday.

The unusual timing of the announcement, as markets were opening, appeared to be in response to an escalation of the trade war by US President Donald Trump. If trade tensions do resurface, China’s monetary policy will “likely turn dovish again” in support of the domestic economy, economists led

by Song Yu at Beijing Gao Hua Securities Co. wrote in a note on Monday.

The cut will release 280 billion yuan of long-term liquidity, with about 1,000 county-level rural commercial banks qualified for the reduction, and all the newly released funding will be used in loans to private and small companies, the central bank said. Bloomberg News

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

BTr fully awards T-bills as govt expects inflation to remain low

By Rea Cu

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@ReaCuBM

HE Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) fully awarded P15 billion in its latest auction of Treasury bills (T-bills) as the downtrend in the pace of inflation is expected to continue.

National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said the rates received on Monday’s auction may be attributed to expectations by market investors that inflation would continue its downtrend.

De Leon added the recent credit rating upgrade from Standard and Poor’s (S&P) on the Philippine economy also partially affected market rates.

“I think because of the inflation, the median is 3.1 percent and [the credit ratings upgrade] slightly had an effect,” de Leon explained. “But it’s really more that [investors] see inflation is

Becoming debt-free begins in the mind Fitz Gerard Villafuerte

PERSONAL FINANCE

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VERYONE wants to be debt-free. Unfortunately, only a handful of people are able to do it. And even fewer are those who are able to sustain it for the long term.

So what’s the secret of these people who have successfully eliminated debt from their lives?

I could only guess. Perhaps because I believe that each one of us live in our own unique circumstances.

But speaking from experience, I can say that more than the conscious effort to spend less than what I earn, finding extra income and being consistent with debt payments, my success in the battle against debt really began with having the proper mindset.

Patience with the details

ONE of the reasons we get into financial trouble, especially with credit-card debt, is because we don’t take time to balance our actual income against our daily expenses.

To do personal accounting can be confusing, meticulous and even boring—but it’s the only way you can see if you’re living below your means.

Pragmatic outlook

BEING practical means appreciating things for their function. When we begin to buy things for their utility—we will start to discover our real necessities and learn to let go of the nonessentials.

For example, a shirt, pragmatically speaking, is just a piece of cloth that we need to cover our body.

Thus, there’s really no need to buy expensive brands when there are cheaper alternatives that are comfortable and sometimes, as fashionable. Moreover, there’s really no need to buy one if we have enough of them already.

Independent thinking

I BELIEVE that self-reliance is an important trait to have if one wants to become debt-free. It is because you know that, in the strictest sense, you only have yourself to depend on when life throws lemons at you.

Negative thinking such as blaming others, making excuses, waiting for help and self-pity—it all stops when you accept the fact that change can only come from within yourself. And that change can only happen when you become more responsible with your decisions and actions.

Healthy self-esteem

DON’T let your material possessions define you. More important, don’t let other people dictate how you should think and feel.

All debt-free individuals I know are self-confident, positive thinkers that live to acquire skills, values, and good deeds rather than short-lived happiness and comfort from material things.

Belief in delayed gratification

LAST, one’s journey toward debt freedom would not be possible if one doesn’t believe in delayed gratification.

Working with double efforts just to be able to save money for debt payments is hard and the end is usually far ahead. But keep your focus on the goal and know that when you finally make that last payment on your debt—that heavy feeling on your chest will be lifted, you will definitely sleep better at night and you’ll feel that anything is possible.

And indeed, anything is now possible for you— including financial freedom.

Fitz Villafuerte is a Registered Financial Planner of RFP Philippines. To learn more about personal financial planning, attend the 76th RFP program in June 2019. To inquire, e-mail info@rfp.ph or text <name><e-mail> <RFP> at 0917-9689774.

trending downward.”

The 91-day T-bill was fully awarded P4 billion with bids amounting to P15.724 billion.

The average annual rate settled at 5.438 percent, decreasing by 12.50 basis points from the previous auction rate of 5.563 percent.

Bids for the 182-day T-bill amounted to P14.893 billion with the auction committee

awarding the full P5 billion on offer.

The government security has an average annual rate of 5.825 percent, 15.30 basis points from the previous auction rate of 5.978 percent.

The 364-day tenor was also awarded the full offer of P6 billion with bids amounting to P20.565 billion.

The average annual rate for the security settled at 5.977 percent, decreasing by 10.80 basis points, from the previous rate of 6.085 percent. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) pegged the inflation in March at 3.3 percent from 3.8 percent in February. The PSA is set to report today, May 7, the country’s inflation rate for April.

Euro bonds

THE credit rating upgrade may have also helped the BTr during a road show in Europe in line with the country’s issuance of Euro bonds.

B3

“We started with Zurich, then London, Paris, Frankfurt, then Milan, we met with about 70 to 75 investors in five cities. Then midstream we got an upgrade [from S&P] so they [found] the narrative very impressive,” she said. “So it’s [credit upgrade] really opening new doors for the Philippines in terms of the investor base.”

De Leon said the Treasury will continue to monitor the markets to determine the right time to issue the bond, with the amount still seen at benchmark rates of $500 million at the minimum and a tenor of between seven to 10 years.

“We’ll see if the data released this week will be good, like that of the S&P upgrade; [but] that’s already a good factor for the issue,” she said.

Last week S&P Global Ratings upgraded the long-term sovereign credit rating of the Philippines to “BBB+” on the back of the country’s above-average economic growth.

B4 Tuesday, May 7, 2019

DUSITD2 DAVAO DELIGHTFULLY OPENS DOORS

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A SWEET CANVAS A trip to Baguio is never complete without a taste of ube and strawberry, two of the city’s best-known pasalubong. SM City Baguio marked another milestone with a twist to these two flavors of the north, showcasing 15x15 mosaic made of 8,000 ube- and strawberryflavored crinkles. Let’s all indulge with the tastiest treats of the City of Pines and #ExperienceUbeXStrawberryFün here at SM City Baguio!

Caring for the ‘Silent Hero’ in your body

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ERE is how the liver works in the body: It stores important vitamins, energy and minerals, and releases them to the blood.

It helps the body to resist infections by producing immune factors and removing bacteria from the blood. It converts the food you eat into energy and produces chemicals your brain needs and spinal cord needs. The liver also detoxifies by metabolizing and expelling drugs, alcohol and environmental toxins from your system. It also helps digest your food and absorb important nutrients through the bile it produces.

No wonder it called the “Silent Hero.” Sanofi Consumer Health Care country medical lead Dr. Allan Jay Domingo calls it a noble organ, probably one of the body’s most overworked organs, playing

a key role in the chemical processes of the body.

There is a misconception that alcohol drinkers are the most commonly affected by the liver disease—one that is called alcoholic fatty liver disease.

“The thing about certain liver diseases is that some of them have no manifestations or symptoms, particularly in the early stages,” Domingo said.

Symptoms can include bloating of the abdomen, fatigue, pain in the upper right abdomen, enlarged breasts in men, red palms and yellowing of the skin and eyes, a condition called jaundice.

Domingo said attention should be paid to fatigue, which is really one of the most obvious symptoms.

There is also a liver disease called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, in which a person has fatty liver

even with little or no alcohol consumption. What is alarming with NAFLD is that its symptoms usually have no physical manifestation.

Taking care of your liver and checking if it is fully functioning is your responsibility. Remember that the liver gives your body the energy for its dayto-day needs. It regulates and processes anything you eat and drink.

Aside from eating and drinking well, you can also take blood tests used to help diagnose and monitor liver disease or damage. The tests measure the levels of certain enzymes and proteins in your blood.

Foods like berries, oatmeal, dark chocolate, kale and garlic and drinks like coffee and green tea are good for your liver.

“Foods rich in antioxidants are liver-friendly.

They include fruits and vegetables,” Domingo added. Antioxidants help defend cells from damage caused by potentially harmful molecules known as free radicals.

Taking medicine also helps improve liver function. Essentiale Forte P contains purified essential phospholipids, which is extracted from natural food with precise technology from Germany.

It can be easily absorbed by liver cells. Essentiale, an over-the-counter medicine, is clinically proven to strengthen liver health by promoting the repairing function and regeneration of liver cells.

Don’t take your liver for granted. Be mindful of what you eat and drink. Your Silent Hero will thank you later on.

OISED to redefine standards of upscale hotel living in the city, dusitD2 Davao finally opens doors on a limited basis, to discerning local and international guests.

This move is held in anticipation of the hotel’s grand opening scheduled toward the end of this year.

Envisioned to be an iconic landmark of Thai graciousness and Filipino hospitality, the hotel is set to deliver premium accommodations, contemporary facilities and amenities, as well as fresh dining destinations, all in the new emerging business district of Lanang, Davao.

Birthed from a strong partnership between the industry-leading group Dusit Hotels and Resorts and specialist developer Torre Lorenzo Development Corp.

(TLDC), the cosmopolitan hotel is an engaging and relaxing setting for both business and leisure travelers, built most special for those who wish to unearth more of what the famous city has to offer.

Fashioned by renowned Philippine Architect Manny Samson of Emesaé Design to allude to “the vibrancy of life”, dusitD2 Davao carefully presents understated and elegant details that make one feel right at home. Recognizing the cultural richness of the region, the hotel also firmly embraces and takes real inspiration from the indigenous peoples of Davao.

“In dusitD2 Davao, there is life wherever you go. There is activity, there is movement. Each area celebrates interaction no matter where you are— you will surely feel genuine warmth and welcome,” Samson says. dusitD2 Davao’s guests will be able to choose from well-appointed deluxe guest rooms, suites and the Dusit club room, and will be able to savor delicious specialties in the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant Madayaw Café. The sophisticated Siam Lounge will also be open for both relaxed and formal socials.

Those staying will also be invited to avail themselves of selected signature pampering services soon to be made available in the upcoming Namm Spa, which is set to open along the D’Fit Gym, the hotel’s modern fitness center.

When the hotel holds its grand opening by the end of the year, more premium facilities will be available to guests, which include the prestigious Dusit grand ballroom, the premium Benjarong Thai restaurant, and the exciting Dusit Gourmet.

Visit https://www.dusit.com/ dusitd2/ and book direct to avail yourself of Dusit’s best rates.

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BusinessMirror

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 B5

B6 Tuesday, May 7, 2019

BusinessMirror

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IF NOT US, WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN? F

By Anne M. Peterson The Associated Press

OR women in many parts of the world, a level playing field in soccer can simply mean having a playable practice field.

Players in Latin America face clear political, cultural and even historical challenges when it comes to soccer and sports overall. Their struggle to close gender gaps is entirely different than that faced by a highprofile squad such as the defending world champion US team and its fight for equitable pay.

But with the approaching Women’s World Cup putting greater focus on their game, Latin American women are increasingly calling attention to their struggles and are starting to see at least incremental results.

Emboldened in part by the actions of the players fighting for equity in the US, Australia and other countries, Isabella Echeverri and Melissa Ortiz started a high-profile socialmedia campaign earlier this year to bring to light some of the issues faced by teammates on the Colombian women’s national team. It gained traction when players from the men’s national team, which went to last year’s World Cup in Russia, declared their support for the effort.

The pair was spurred to action when players stopped getting the $20 a day payment they had received for practice sessions, and other moves by the federation. Separate allegations of sexual harassment on Colombia’s under-17 team later emerged.

“It came to a point when both of us were like, if not us, who, and if not now, when?” Ortiz told The Associated Press.

Players scored a victory of sorts with the recent announcement that the women’s professional league in Colombia would continue, despite talk of its demise. Many of the national team players are part of the pro league, which has not yet begun to play. Colombia went to both the Women’s World Cup in 2015 and the Olympics in 2016 but the team did not make the field for the tournament that opens next month in France.

“We have different fights,” Camila Garcia, cofounder of the women’s player association in Chile and board member for FIFPro, the international player’s union, said about women’s soccer in Latin America. “When you see that most of these elite teams have collective-bargaining agreements that we would dream about having, we don’t have any mechanism to negotiate. We can’t be at the table. So we’re trying, for the first step, to raise our voice, to say what we need, and try and figure out how we can develop women’s football.”

Argentina recently announced that its women’s league would be granted professional status. Previously, players for the clubs were considered amateurs, something that’s common globally.

At least eight players on each of Argentina’s 16 club teams must now have pro contracts. The Argentine soccer federation will kick in $600,000 to help contribute to the salaries.

The move comes after Macarena Sánchez took legal action against her former club team and the federation seeking to be recognized as a professional.

Argentina’s national team, which went on strike in 2017 after daily stipends of about $10 were cut off, will play in the World Cup this summer for the first time in 12 years.

Brenda Elsey, an associate professor at Hofstra University and coauthor of the book Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin

Sports BusinessMirror

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| Tuesday, May 7, 2019 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

MACARENA SÁNCHEZ heads a ball before a mixed soccer match as part of the “I play for equality” event in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last month. AP

America, said some of the strides that have been made can be connected to the rise of the women’s rights movements in Latin America.

“Their situation, it’s better in terms that they’re fairly organized, they’ve got social-media audiences that really support them,” Elsey said. “They have connections to the feminist movement that they haven’t had in the past. A lot of this, I think, you could also chalk it up to the dynamism of the Ni Una Menos, and the feminist movements in Latin America that have changed the idea of what is feminism, and are including a lot more things like women’s sports. So, yes, I think they’re in better shape to challenge that patriarchal structure.”

In a friendly between Puerto Rico and Argentina last August, Puerto Rican players stopped after kickoff, gathered together and pointed to their ears in a gesture suggesting their complaints about funding for the women’s team weren’t being heard. Some players claimed they were never paid for World Cup qualifying matches.

Some of the players adopted the hashtag #fromnowon as video of their protest quickly spread on social media.

“We’re right now just asking for the basics,” Puerto Rico midfielder Nicole Rodriguez said. “Like fields to practice on that aren’t waterlogged, and that we’re not the secondchoice clubs to have priority. We want friendly games so we can continue to improve our Fifa ranking and be adequately prepared. And camps, like four camps a year. We don’t have any of that. So, yes, it would be really awesome to get paid, but right now our focus is being able to continue our development and have the respect we deserve.”

The US women’s national team took its high-profile pursuit for equitable pay to federal court earlier this year, alleging gender discrimination in a lawsuit filed against the US Soccer Federation. The US team is among several national teams, including those for Australia, Norway and Denmark, that have publicly fought for better pay and playing conditions.

But those teams come from federations that are far wealthier and have the political will to change.

Fifa, soccer’s international governing body, last fall released its ambitious global strategy to grow women’s soccer. Sarai Bareman, Fifa’s chief women’s football officer, said one of the goals is to emphasize the promotion and commercialization of the women’s game, something she hopes will show federations like those in Latin America that supporting women’s soccer is an area of untapped growth.

The World Cup, she said, is a great platform to drive that point home.

“I really believe that a lot of the issues that exist, especially in the more developing countries, if we are able to really commercialize the women’s game at the top end, a lot of those challenges and barriers will start to come away in the more developing countries, as well,” she said.” So we’re putting a big focus, particularly this summer in France, around promotion, proactive communication and raising the profile of our players, and really doing as much as we can to get as many eyeballs onto the games.”

Aiba threatens to sue IOC if stripped of recognition T

HE International Boxing Association (Aiba) has threatened to file a lawsuit against the International Olympic Committee (IOC) if it is stripped of its recognition as the Olympic governing body for the sport later this month.

Aiba Interim President Mohamed Moustahsane outlined the plan to sue the IOC in a letter sent to members of the world governing body’s Executive Committee.

In the letter, Moustahsane called for an Extraordinary Executive Committee meeting to vote on “Aiba preparing a lawsuit to go forward on May 23 should the IOC decision regarding Aiba not be favorable.”

The Moroccan, who took over from Gafur Rakhimov following the Uzbek’s decision to step aside as Aiba president in March, also called for a vote on “sending a brief of complaint to the IOC Ethics Commission against some IOC members.”

The group leading the IOC inquiry into Aiba, launched in December, is due to present its final report to the Executive Board at its next meeting in Lausanne on May 22.

It is believed the IOC is likely to sanction Aiba, with a removal of its recognition among the options.

This would mean Aiba would not be able to organize the boxing tournament at next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo or the qualification system.

The letter from Moustahsane, which insidethegames understands has been seen by senior members of the IOC administration, came after IOC President Thomas Bach sent his strongest signal yet that Aiba could be stripped of its recognition.

Speaking at the Australian Olympic Committee’s Annual General Meeting in Sydney, Bach admitted an organization other than Aiba could run the boxing competition at Tokyo 2020.

Shortly after the letter was distributed to Executive Committee members, Moustahsane sent a follow-up e-mail urging them to “ignore the content of the letter sent to you previously.”

He claimed the Extraordinary Executive Committee meeting, scheduled for May 18 in Lausanne, would inform members “regarding the current situation and to discuss the possibilities to solve them according to the situation” and that “no other points” would be discussed. insidethegames understands, however, that the lawsuit will still be debated and then voted on at the meeting in the Olympic capital.

It marks a dramatic escalation of the dispute between the IOC and Aiba since the former launched the investigation, mainly triggered by the election of Rakhimov—who remains on a United States Treasury Department sanctions list as “one of Uzbekistan’s leading criminals”—as president but also centered on Aiba’s finances, governance and refereeing and judging.

The lawsuit does not come as a surprise as Aiba members have privately vowed to fight any IOC sanctions.

It is likely the IOC has taken legal advice when conducting the inquiry to ensure it stands up to any challenge from Aiba at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Aiba is hopeful Rakhimov stepping aside, coupled with an offer from influential Russian Executive Committee member Umar Kremlev to write off the organization’s significant debts, will count in its favor

when the IOC delivers its verdict.

The IOC has stressed its problems with Aiba go far deeper than Rakhimov, however.

Recent developments, including a split between the European Boxing Confederation and Aiba after the continental body set up a working group and said it should be given direct access to the IOC to lobby to save the sport’s future, could also be considered by the Inquiry Committee before it hands its report to the Executive Board. Insidethegames

INTERNATIONAL Boxing Association Interim President Mohamed Moustahsane (left) outlines a plan to sue the International Olympic Committee headed by Thomas Bach.

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C2 Tuesday, May 7, 2019

‘A’ FOR PHL ATHLETES IN ARAFURA GAMES T HE Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) is satisfied with the performance of the athletes who competed in the recent Arafura Games in Darwin, Australia.

All 91 athletes who participated in the games, most of them top performers in different regions of the country, accounted for the 31 gold, 51 silver and 34 bronze medals the country scooped.

PSC National Training Director Marc Velasco said the competition allowed the regional athletes to gain the much-needed international exposure that will be beneficial for them as they look to become national athletes in the future.

Velasco said the country’s participation in the games is also part of grassroots development program of the PSC led by Chairman William Ramirez where top performers in the Batang Pinoy, Philippine National Games and Palarong Pambansa saw action.

“Overall, we are very happy, and I think the chairman is very satisfied with our performance,” Velasco said. “It goes to show

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ENEVA— Defending champion Primoz Roglic retained the Tour de Romandie title by winning the final-day time trial on Sunday to extend his decisive lead.

Roglic was the only rider to complete the 16.85-kilometer lakeside route in Geneva in under 20 minutes.

With his third-stage win, the Slovenian rider ended the six-day race 49 seconds ahead of former world champion Rui Costa, who was seventhfastest in the time trial.

Geraint Thomas, the 2018 Tour de France winner, finished one minute and 12 seconds back in third having been 10th in the time trial.

In blustery conditions on Sunday, Victor Campenaerts—who broke the one-hour world record in Mexico last month—was 13 seconds behind

PRIMOZ ROGLIC is the only rider to complete the 16.85-kilometer lakeside route in Geneva in under 20 minutes. AP

that [if] you give a chance to our regional athletes, it would pay dividends in the long run. The athletes really competed and did their best. They gave their all.”

Velasco also lauded the sportsmanship traits of the Filipino athletes, particularly athletics’ Abegail Manzano and muay’s Ariel Lee Lampacan.

Manzano, who captured the country’s first gold in the games after ruling the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, gave away her silver medal in the women’s 800-meter run to Makayla Siddons of Northern Territory after the Australian, who finished second in the race but was disqualified for lane infringement.

Because of the disqualification, Manzano, who finished third in the race, was elevated to the silver medal.

Lampacan, meanwhile, won the sportsmanship award in muay after capturing the silver medal.

“The Philippines was cited in the muay competition, and Athletes Australia recognized her [Manzano] unselfish attitude toward her fellow competitor,” Velasco said.

ROGLIC KEEPS ROMANDIE TOUR TITLE

No. 1 Osaka wins opener in Madrid

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ADRID—Naomi Osaka won her opening match at the Madrid Open, Caroline Wozniacki withdrew due to injury and Garbine Muguruza was upset by Petra Martic in straight sets on Sunday.

Top-ranked Osaka, the reigning US Open and Australian Open champion, hit 43 winners, including eight aces, on the outdoor red clay to beat 2016 finalist Dominika Cibulkova, 6-2, 7-6 (6).

“For me, I’m just happy to get through it,” Osaka said. “I feel the most nervous during the first round, and to play against Cibulkova was kind of tough for me, especially on clay.”

Osaka will face Sara Sorribes in the second round after she got past fellow Spanish wild card Lara Arruabarrena.

A lower-back injury forced Wozniacki to

retire from her match with Alizé Cornet when she was losing 0-3 in the first set.

Martic ousted two-time grand slam winner Muguruza 7-5, 7-6 (2), a week after the Croat won her first career title in Istanbul.

Martic will next face fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber, who broke Lesia Tsurenko six times to earn a 6-3, 6-2 victory.

Third-seeded Simona Halep, who has won twice in Madrid, brushed off Russian qualifier Margarita Gasparyan, 6-0, 6-4.

Fifth-seeded Karolina Pliskova had to fight back from a set down to fend off 18-year-old Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3.

Sloane Stephens and Victoria Azarenka also advanced, while Madison Keys lost to Sorana Cirstea in three sets. AP

Roglic. Filippo Ganna trailed by 15 seconds in third.

Romandie is Roglic’s third stagerace title this season after the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico.

Colombian cyclist Egan Bernal, meanwhile, has broken his collarbone in a training accident, ruling him out of the upcoming Giro d’Italia.

Bernal had been one of the prerace favorites and was expected to lead Team Ineos—which was formerly known as Team Sky—when the three-week Giro begins next weekend.

Late Saturday, Bernal posted a story on Instagram showing him wearing a hospital gown and giving a thumbs-up. The accompanying caption in Spanish read, “I’ll see you soon, my friends.

Don’t worry—this only gives me motivation to train hard for the rest of the season.”

The 22-year-old Bernal won the weeklong Paris-Nice race in March for Ineos’ only major win this season.

Bernal now could ride in support of defending champion Geraint Thomas and four-time winner Chris Froome at the Tour de France.

Pavel Sivakov of Russia, a 21-yearold who recently won the Tour of the Alps, will likely now be Ineos’ leader for the Giro.

Homa proves mettle with 67 at Quail Hollow

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MAX HOMA plays like he belongs. AP

HARLOTTE, North Carolina—Two years after Max Homa played only one Sunday in an entire PGA Tour season, he showed his mettle at Quail Hollow by closing with a four-under 67 to pull away from the field and win the Wells Fargo Championship.

Homa began the back nine with two birdies to build a four-shot lead and didn’t make any mistakes until it only affected the final margin.

Joel Dahmen saved par with a tough chip over the creek for a 70 and finished three shots behind.

Homa, who won the NCAA title at Cal in 2013, won for the first time in his 68th start as a pro.

The victory gets him into the Professional Golfers’

Duathlon races up in Clark Global City

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LARK Global City (CGC) will again be the center of multisport action as the Clark Global City Duathlon 2019 copresented by Smart fires off on Sunday.

Now on its second year, the event brings more than 400 aspiring and veteran duathletes, including celebrities, together on the sprawling CGC grounds.

Participants hailing from Batanes to Batangas will vie either in the 6-km run/60-km bike/4-km category or a shorter 3-km run/30-km bike/2-km run course which takes them on CGC’s well-paved roads and a stretch of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) from South Clark to Porac before returning to the finish line at CGC. At stake in the event supported by CGC, Smart, Nlex-SCTEx, Standard Insurance, Udenna Group, Royce Hotel and Casino, hydration partners Pocari Sweat and Sip Water, and official timer Garmin are especially designed trophies and gift items for all winners (age-group, relay and team competition).

The awarding ceremony is set at 11 a.m. after the race. The event expo on site features gear and other products from sponsors and multisport partners.

Forum on volleyball

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FFICIALS of the Philippine Super Liga (PSL) and reigning back-to-back Grand Prix champion Petron are coming over as guests in an all-volleyball session of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Forum on Tuesday at the Amelie Hotel-Manila.

Members of the Petron coaching staff as well as players Mika Reyes, Denden Lazaro and Rhea Dimaculangan, among others, are expected to talk about their successful title-retention campaign following their dramatic win over F2 Logistics in the deciding Game Three of their title series over the weekend.

They will be joined in the session presented

by San Miguel Corp., Tapa King and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. by PSL executives led

by President Philip Ella Juico.

Following the successful staging of the Grand Prix, Juico will discuss what’s next for the league.

He will be accompanied by chairman Dr. Ian Laurel, officials Ariel Paredes and Ginio Panganiban and Jed Montero of the Mariners Pilipina Lady Spikers.

Association (PGA) Championship in two weeks at Bethpage Black and the Masters next April.

But what a turnaround for the 28-year-old Californian.

Homa was at No. 829 in the world when he got his third crack at the PGA Tour in October.

Two seasons ago, he made only two cuts in 17 tournaments, missing the 54-hole cut in one of them and finishing last at an opposite-field event in the other.

But he made six of seven cuts coming into Quail Hollow, and played like he belonged. Homa never flinched, effectively sealing it with a long shot up the hill and onto the green at the par-five 15th for a two-putt birdie, saving par to keep a three-shot lead going to the final hole and drilling his tee shot down the fairway. He wrapped it up with a 10-foot par putt to finish at 15-under 269.

The victory was worth $1,422,000—about $454,000 more than he had made in his previous 67 starts—and gives him a two-year exemption, along with a tee time at Bethpage

Black in two weeks. The only other major Homa played was the 2013 US Open at Merion, a month after his NCAA title.

Dahmen held his own until costly bogeys around the turn. But that chip was on the 18th for par to finish alone in second meant a difference of $158,000.

Justin Rose (68) finished alone in third and moved ahead of Brooks Koepka to No. 2 in the world.

Sei Young Kim, meanwhile, overcame a rough start to win the Ladies PGA Mediheal Championship at cold and windy Lake Merced in Daly City, outlasting Bronte Law and Jeongeun Lee6 with a birdie on the first hole of a playoff.

Three strokes ahead entering the day, Kim opened with a double bogey and a bogey and dropped another stroke on No. 8. The 26-year-old South Korean birdied the par-five 15th to regain a share of the lead, dropped back with a bogey on the par-three 17th and birdied the par-five 18th for a three-over 75 and a spot in the playoff at seven-under 281. AP

NUGGETS, R TIE RESPECT P ORTLAND, Oregon—The Denver Nuggets have been good at bouncing back all season.

Not even a draining four-overtime defeat could keep this team down.

Nikola Jokic had 21 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists for his second straight triple-double and fourth of the playoffs, and the Nuggets evened their Western Conference semifinal series against the Portland Trail Blazers at 2-2 with a 116-112 victory on Sunday.

It was less than 48 hours after Portland’s epic 140-137 quadruple-overtime victory to take a 2-1 lead in the series. It was only the second game in playoff history that went to four OTs. The other was in 1953.

“I think it’s not quitting. We have a lot of competitive guys who don’t want to lose.

I think we don’t want to lose more than we like to win—which is weird,” Jokic said. “We just didn’t want to have the excuse that we lost because of four overtimes, because we were tired.”

Jamal Murray led all scorers with 34 points and made all 11 free throws for the Nuggets, who handed Portland its first postseason loss at home this season. The series now heads back to Denver for Game Five.

CJ McCollum had 29 points and Damian Lillard added 28 for the Blazers, who missed out on taking a 3-1 lead in a conference semifinals for the first time since 2000.

In Philadelphia, Kawhi Leonard scored 39 points, including a clutch 3-pointer with 1:01 left, to help the Toronto Raptors beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 101-96, also on Sunday and even the Eastern Conference semifinal series at 2-2.

Marc Gasol scored 16, Kyle Lowry had 14

PORTLAND’S Al-Farouq Aminu (center) shoots betw

and the Raptors rebounded after consecutive losses to reclaim home-court advantage.

Game Five is Tuesday night in Toronto.

Jimmy Butler scored 29, and JJ Redick had 19 for Philadelphia. The 76ers are trying to reach the conference finals for the first time since Allen Iverson led them to the NBA Finals in 2001.

“Our guys are tough. We’re resilient,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said. “I mean, to come in here and win this game 36 hours after losing in

orts

sMirror

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 C3

RELIABLES ARE BACK!

By Ramon Rafael Bonilla

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ARANGAY Ginebra San Miguel and San Miguel Beer bring back their reliable imports when the Philippine Basketball Association Commissioner’s Cup opens on May 19.

The winners of the past two editions of the Commissioner’s Cup, the sister-teams hope to ride the same fortune when they parade old faces in the mid-season tournament.

The Gin Kings, the reigning titlist, will play with Best Import Justin Brownlee as the team banks on the American’s vast experience in the league despite being undersized in the tournament that sets a ceiling of 6-foot-10 for imports.

Brownlee is expected to provide another all-around effort with Barangay Ginebra enjoying the luxury of having two big men, 7-foot Greg Slaughter and 6-foot-9 Japeth Aguilar.

The 6-foot-5 Brownlee averaged 28.07 points, 12.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists in the semifinals of the conference last year. They entered Finals and beat San Miguel in six games.

The Beermen again tapped 6-foot-8 and former Best Import Charles Rhodes.

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MAGNOLIA’S Rafi Reavis, 6-foot-8 and 41 years old, challenges San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo, 6-foot-11 and 29 years old, in Game Three of the Philippine Cup Finals series. The Hotshots won, 86-82, for a 2-1 lead at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Sunday night.

learning experience for the team.”

Without starting center Ben Adamos, Perpetual Help also drew solid games from Jefner Egan and Jielo Razon, who finished with 12 points each.

The Altas’ early flurry cooled down a bit in the second half as John Tayongtong and Bobby Balucanag brought CD14 Designs-Trinity back to within seven, 78-71, with 2:06 remaining, before Charcos doused that fightback with his own hot streak in the clutch.

Perpetual Help improved to a 2-5 win-loss record in the battle of Foundation Cup also-rans, while keeping CD14 Designs-Trinity at the bottom at 0-8.

Tayongtong led the White Stallions with 20 points, while Balucanag got 18 points and 12 boards for the cellar-dwellers.

RAPTORS TIVE SERIES

By Rick Olivares

HE post-CJ Perez era of the Lyceum of the Philippines University began with a big 7057 win over College of Saint Benilde in the second day of the Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup on Monday at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan.

However, it took Lyceum three quarters to wrest control of the game from the tough, pesky and suddenly deep Blazers.

Both sides battled through five lead changes and four deadlocks. From a slim 54-50 lead by Lyceum at the end of the third period, the Pirates got a bit more cushion following the straight points by Jeff Santos to make it 57-50.

After rookie Paolo Javillionar trimmed the deficit to two, Lyceum point guard Enzo Navarro drilled a triple from the left side of the arc, 60-52, with 7:42 to play.

Showing a bit of small ball with a threeguard rotation of Navarro at the point, and JC and JV Marcelino with Mike Nzeusseu at center and Enoch Valdez also at the point, Lyceum finally found the combination to put away the Blazers.

Three consecutive steals and lay-ups by JC Marcelino took the wind out of Saint Benilde’s sails as Lyceum went on a 10-5 run to end the game.

The Blazers minus Justin Gutang, Yanqui Haruna, Unique Naboa and Clement Leutcheu, who were rested for the Philippine Basketball Association Developmental League, showed plenty of promise with the talent they have

Rhodes helped San Miguel win the Commissioner’s Cup two seasons ago when he was named the Best Import.

Last year, the squad opted to insert Renaldo Balkman, but the Puerto Rican failed to steer the Beermen to a title defense.

The other imports are Terrence Jones of TNT, Denzel Bowles of Rain or Shine, Gani Lawal of Meralco, Tony Mitchell of NLEX, Alex Stepheson of Blackwater, Rob Dozier of Phoenix, Prince Ibeh of NorthPort and Kyle Barone of Columbian.

Magnolia has yet to name its reinforcement.

Among the imports, Jones flaunts one of the best credentials with his stint with the Houston Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans.

Perpetual Help Altas triumph in D-League

NIVERSITY of Perpetual Help leaned on the duo of Tonton Peralta and Edgar Charcos to score an 86-75 win over CD14 DesignsTrinity on Monday in the Philippine Basketball Association Developmental League at the JCSGO Gym in Cubao.

Peralta dropped 33 points, five rebounds and four assists as he ushered the Altas’ early breakaway to grab a 22-point lead in the third period.

Charcos, meanwhile, iced the game late, scoring seven of his side’s last eight points to finish with 15 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

“We are depleted but I’m still proud of the guys,” Perpetual Help Coach Frankie Lim said. “They’re given the playing time and they maximized on the chance. Good for them, good

PIRATES STORM PAST BLAZERS FOR HOT START IN FILOIL MEET

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UN AVECILLA’S Selma Star topped the elite International Rating Certificate (IRC) Class for the second straight year in the recent Punta Fuego to Busuanga Race.

Selma Star, sailing out of Subic Lighthouse Marina Resort, clocked 29:43.01, besting elite racers Bellatrix and Sabad, which completed the podium.

The regatta was organized by the Philippine Inter-Island Sailing Federation composed of homegrown sailors, a recipient of the Philippine Sports Tourism Award in 2016 for running the Philippine Hobie Challenge, the longest-running and most extreme sailing and adventure sports tournament.

The 135-nautical-mile regatta, which ran from Nasugbu to northern Palawan, attracted its largest fleet so far with 17 sailing and two motor yachts from yacht clubs of Punta Fuego, Manila, Puerto Galera and Subic Bay. The early starters benefitted from a 6-knot northeasterly rising to 15 knots as they crossed the Calavite Passage and fading again as they entered the wind shadow of Mindoro Occidental. The passage is known for merciless winds and steep waves which many sailors dread.

Captain Napoleon and Sole Leopard 40 Cariño mastered unpredictable wind conditions to share the spotlight with Selma Star.

Sailing two-handed, Captain Napoleon clocked an elapsed time of 32:16.13 to edge Makani Loa and Freewheler in the Cruising Class.

Sole Leopard 40 Cariño of Monchu Garcia triumphed in the Ocean Multihull Class with an elapsed time of 34:27.3, outracing runners-up Mi Rosa and Winbell.

Avecilla’s Selma Star tops 135-nm regatta

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SELMA STAR shares spotlight in the Punta Fuego to Busuanga Race.

P10,000 for a bronze.

The BARMM garnered three golds, 10 silvers and six bronzes for a total cash incentives of P270,000.

The Bangsamoro region ranked 16th among the 17 regions in the Palaro Davao City hosted from April 27 to May 4.

Education Minister Mohagher Iqbal, Assistant Executive Secretary Abdullah Cusain, and Director Taya Aplal of the region’s Bureau of Physical Education and Special

Events led the awarding ceremony.

“You have fought a great fight; you have surpassed the expectations,” Iqbal told the athletes.

“This region has been in the bottom rank in 2017 with nine medals in total. In 2018 we won just three medals, all bronze. This year you have brought home an amazing 19 medals,” Iqbal said. “You brought honor to BARMM. Thank you very much.”

Manuel Cayon

BANDOLIS, BANDALA, MVP IN SINDANGAN

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ween Denver’s Paul Millsap (right) and center Nikola Jokic. AP

four overtimes, speaks to just how tough we are.”

Malone cited regular-season statistics to back up his claims: Denver was 12-1 in the second game of back-to-backs, best in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Nuggets were good in close games, too: 13-3 in games decided by three points or less, he said.

“We just said to ourselves, ‘If we win today then the last game doesn’t really matter that much,’” Jokic said. “Yes we played a four-overtime game,

it was exhausting, but we won tonight so the last game doesn’t really matter.”

Denver outscored the Blazers 27-14 in the third quarter to take an 84-77 lead into the fourth. Malik Beasley kicked off the final period with a 3-pointer for the Nuggets.

Rodney Hood’s 3-pointer got the Blazers within 110-107 with 52 seconds left and Lillard’s lay-up got the Blazers even closer at 112-110 with 7.7 seconds to go. AP

UIA BANDOLIS flashed top form and came away with a rare three-title romp, while Pete Bandala extended his reign in 10-under unisex play as they shared the Most Valuable Player (MVP) honors in the Palawan Pawnshop-Palawan Express Pera Padala (PPS-PEPP) Sindangan national age-group tennis tournament in Zamboanga del Norte over the weekend.

The 14-year-old Bandolis toppled top seed Jalia Elumba, 6-0, 6-4, to rule her agegroup bracket then the rising Tubod, Lanao del Norte, star swept Angel Repaja twice, 6-1, 6-0, and 6-3, 6-3, to pocket the 16- and 1-U plums, respectively.

She later teamed up with sister Gwen Bandolis to thump Elumba and Christine Gulagula, 8-4, for the 14-U doubles diadem

SPORTS WITHOUT BORDERS VINCENT JUICO @VJuico Instagram vpjp_j vince.juico@gmail.com

Jean Van de Velde

Bangsamoro gives incentives for Palaro medalists AVAO CITY—Officials of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) shelled out cash incentives to their athletes who brought home a surprising haul of 19 medals in the recent Palarong Pambansa.

The Bangsamoro government recognized its athletes in the regular Monday convocation program in Cotabato City and handed out cash rewards to the medalists— P20,000 for a gold, P15,000 for a silver and

assembled. Jeremiah Pangalangan, who transferred to Saint Benilde from De La Salle showed moves in the paint and his defensive presence.

The 6-foot-10 center scored 12 points and grabbed four rebounds. Ladis Lepalam, out of La Salle Greenhills, was another revelation as he scored 10 points and eight rebounds. Javillionar, out of National University added five points.

Lyceum though showed promise with the addition of Navarro (six points, three steals and two assists), Jerwyn Guinto (four points and five rebounds) and Yancy Remulla (four points and two rebounds).

“I think without CJ [Perez], it forces us to really pass the ball around and to have more people step up,” Pirates Coach Topex Robinson said.

JC Marcelino led Lyceum with 15 points, while Mike Nzeusseu finished with a double double of 12 points and 12 rebounds.

Robi Nayve and Pangalangan each scored 12 points for the Blazers.

In other matches, San Beda defeated defending National Collegiate Athletic Association juniors champion Mapua, 86-68, in the high school division.

Veterans Justine Sanchez (19 points), Jay Ynot (17 points) and Rhayyan Amsali (16 points) led the way for San Beda.

Far Eastern University turned back tough La Salle Greenhills, 83-76 in the final quarter to join the Red Cubs as opening game winners.

In 11-under play, Don Bosco turned back San Sebastian, 59-49, while Colegio de San Benildo crushed their San Beda counterparts, 57-37.

in the Group 2 tournament presented by Dunlop and put up by PPS-PEPP. Bandala, meanwhile, picked up another victory in lopsided fashion, repeating over local bet and doubles partner Rose Mesiona, 4-1, 4-0, in the 32-player 10-under unisex field. He, however, fell short of his bid in the 12-under side, bowing to fellow Dipolog bet Andrei Tan, 3-6, 4-6, although his team-up with Mesiona netted them the doubles crown in the event sanctioned by the Unified Tennis Philippines made up of PPS-PEPP, Cebuana Lhuillier, Wilson, Toby’s, Dunlop, Slazenger and B-Meg. Other singles winners were Polanco’s Neo Maratas (boys’ 14-under), Liloy’s Russel Daarol (boys’ 16-under), Al Ritz Pan from Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur, and Cielo

Gonzales from Oroquieta City, while sharing the doubles honors were Marc Fernandez and Neo Maratas (boys’ 14-under), Jefferson Mallones and Aidree Pan (boys’ 18-under) and Yvonne Cuevas and Repaja (girls’ 18-U).

“It’s inspiring to see young players like Bandolis dominate even the higher divisions and it is through their exposure in the PPS-PEPP circuit that keeps them going and improving,” Palawan Pawnshop President and CEO Bobby Castro said.

Marlon Mesiona and Jerome Tecson dominated Bong Caparas and Zafero Montayre, 8-2, to notch the 50s title in the Legends division with Mateo Cabillo and Bong Matablan topping the 60s side with an 8-4 victory over Darius de la Cruz and Dino Omos.

I’M neither a golf fanatic nor an aficionado but one of the professional athletes featured on the Netflix documentary Losers is French professional golfer Jean Van de Velde. Van de Velde is one of eight professional athletes featured on the documentary and the last of my Losers series.

To say that Van de Velde was a heartbeat away from winning golf’s oldest major is an understatement. I’m not going to go into the technical aspects and specifics of how the Frenchman lost but according to ESPN Golf, “Leading by three strokes standing on the 18th tee at the 499-yard home hole, Van de Velde needed just a double-bogey six to claim the title and become the first player from France to win The Open since Arnaud Massy in 1907.

A comedy of errors ensued, with Van de Velde hitting a grandstand, knocking an approach in the Barry Burn, wading into the water to hit it before deciding against, and finally making a 6-footer for triple-bogey to join Lawrie and Justin Leonard in a four-hole playoff.”

There’s a saying that no lead is safe in sports whether amateur sports or professional sports, in my opinion, trying to get to the top is easier than trying to stay on it.

The CNN golf web site says, “Jean Van de Velde was one hole from winning golf’s famous Claret Jug at the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie in Scotland—only to go down in history as the victim of its biggest.

The 33-year-old journeyman led by three on the last tee. The prize was virtually his. Two or three smooth swings and a couple of putts—he could even afford a double-bogey six—would achieve his lifelong ambition and make him only the second Frenchman ever to win golf’s oldest major after Arnaud Massey in 1907.”

Despite the setback, Van de Velde still had a successful golf career as per ESPN golf, “He would play for Europe in the Ryder Cup later that year—playing just one match and losing to Davis Love III in singles six and five as the Americans rallied to victory. Van de Velde won twice on the European Tour, 13 years apart in 1993 and 2006.

At the 2005 Open de France, Van de Velde had a chance for a dramatic home victory. But he, again, found water on the 18th hole and lost to countryman JeanFrancois Remesy in a playoff.”

Despite the meltdown, Van de Velde saw the silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud, “It shook me, no doubt about it, “he told the Open.com “The two or three days following ‘99 I was a bit distraught. Why? Because you play to win, you play to have the cup, I had it in my hands and it slipped away but at the end of the day you realize you’re one of the lucky guys to walk inside the ropes.

“If you’re lucky enough you make a very healthy living doing what you love. Not many people have that luxury. I always felt very privileged so I have no right to complain, at all.”

Van de Velde still kept busy after the debacle and meltdown in Carnoustie, doing charity work for Unicef.

“Van de Velde made that year’s European Ryder Cup team and ended his career with two European Tour wins, and two further playoff defeats in Europe and America.

He has been heavily involved in the Ryder Cup going to France for the first time in September, and in 2012 became an ambassador for Unicef, using golf to raise funds for initiatives mainly in poverty-stricken Madagascar.”

In some ways, Van de Velde found victory, redemption and resurrection in charity work using the sport to raise money for poor countries like Madagascar.

Sports MAXIMUM BusinessMirror

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| Tuesday, May 7, 2019 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

SECURITY: STATUS UNCERTAIN

By Gary B. Graves

L MAXIMUM Security is walked off track unsure of what the future brings. AP

SPORTS PLUS

No skirt, no record LONDON—A British nurse who ran the London Marathon in her uniform says she has been denied a Guinness World Records listing because she wasn’t wearing a skirt.

Jessica Anderson ran last week’s marathon in a time of 3:08.22, half a minute faster than the existing marathon record for a woman in a nurse’s uniform.

Anderson says she was informed that her uniform of medical scrubs with trousers didn’t meet Guinness’s rules for a nurse’s uniform: a blue or white dress, apron and a traditional cap.

Anderson told Runner’s World magazine the rules were outdated and reinforced “old gender stereotypes.”

Guinness World Records said on Saturday “it is quite clear that this record title is long overdue a review, which we will conduct as a priority in the coming days.” AP

Phenom fatally shot VENICE, Illinois—A teen sports standout featured in a Sports Illustrated article about young athletes who would rule the future of sports has been fatally shot.

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch quoted police as saying that Jaylon McKenzie, an East Saint Louis eighth grader, was shot on Saturday night at a party in Venice, Illinois, about 5 miles northeast of Saint Louis.

Police say they found McKenzie with serious wounds and he died at a hospital. A 15-year-old girl was in critical condition at a hospital. No arrests have been made.

McKenzie drew national attention when he caught five passes for 161 yards and two touchdowns at the National Football League’s Eighth Grade All-American Game in Canton, Ohio, in August. He posted on social media that he had received football scholarship from the University of Missouri and University of Illinois. He told Sports Illustrated his dream was to play in the NFL and be a star in Los Angeles for the Chargers or Rams. AP

Rwandan triumphs TRIESTE, Italy—Noel Hitimana of Rwanda won the Trieste half marathon on Sunday, a week after the race revoked its ban on African runners following an outcry of racism accusations.

Hitimana clocked one hour, three minutes and 28 seconds.

Volha Mazuronak of Belarus won the women’s race in 1:13.56.

Race Manager Fabio Carini said the ban had been put in place because African athletes are often taken advantage of by their agents.

The ban was revoked after the Italian athletics federation opened an investigation into the race’s organization.

Organizers said that of the nearly 2,000 runners who took part in the race 34 percent were foreigners and that 46 countries were represented. AP

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OUISVILLE, Kentucky—Officials cited Maximum Security for interference and the colt became the first Kentucky Derby winner to be disqualified for violating a state regulation that penalizes horses for impeding the path of another in a race.

Stewards, who supervise the outcome of horse races, referenced Section 12 of rule 810 KAR1:016. The rule calls for disqualification if “a leading horse or any other horse in a race swerves or is ridden to either side so as to interfere with, intimidate, or impede any other horse or jockey.” Stewards determined that Maximum Security interfered with the path of several horses as the field of 19 rounded the final turn in Saturday’s race.

Maximum Security crossed the line first by 1 3/4 lengths before two jockeys filed objections against the horse for interference. Stewards took 22 minutes before overturning the finish and elevating Country House to first while dropping Maximum Security to 17th.

Kentucky Horse Racing Commission Chief Steward Barbara Borden said she and two other stewards interviewed riders and observed several video angles of the incident and determined that Maximum Security impeded the progress of War of Will and interfered with Long Range Toddy and Country House.

Maximum Security co-owner Gary West strongly disagreed with the ruling and said he is considering several options, which could include appealing the stewards’ decision. AP

Derby officials stress interference rule broken

The Associated Press

OUISVILLE, Kentucky—The next stop in the chase for the Triple Crown is the Preakness, though both Maximum Security and Country House remain noncommittal for the May 18 race following Maximum Security’s disqualification from the Kentucky Derby.

Owner Gary West said on Sunday he is unsure whether to enter Maximum Security in the Preakness as he ponders appealing the historic decision.

West also said he realizes the appeals process could extend well beyond the upcoming race at Pimlico in Baltimore. And with Kentucky racing stewards’ ruling that Maximum Security interfered with other horses that led to his disqualification, there might not be a point to racing the colt in the Triple Crown series’ middle jewel.

“When you’re not going for the Triple Crown, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to wheel the horse back in two weeks,” West said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

“If there’s going to be an appeal it will almost certainly be before the Preakness, but appeals historically take some time to sort out.

Win, lose or draw, we’re not going to know the outcome of that until probably months, if not years, down the road.”

Maximum Security was first to finish Saturday’s muddy Derby before becoming the marquee race’s first winner to be disqualified for interference. Stewards elevated runnerup Country House, a 65-1 long shot, to the winner’s circle after determining that Maximum Security impeded his path and two others’ exiting the final turn. Maximum Security was ultimately placed 17th of 19 horses after starting as the 9-2 second betting choice, ending his four-race winning streak.

Stewards cited a section of the rule that calls for disqualification if “a leading horse or any other horse in a race swerves or is ridden to either side so as to interfere with, intimidate, or impede any other horse or jockey.”

Chief Steward Barbara Borden said in a news conference that she and two other stewards interviewed riders and studied video replays of the incident during a 22-minute review after the finish. The stewards did not take questions from reporters.

West said the earliest he could see the stewards’ video evidence would be on Thursday, which could determine if he files an appeal in a process he was still trying to understand.

“We wanted to have the stewards explain to us what they saw and show us on their video the pictures of exactly what they saw, and they refused to allow us to do that,” he said.

“That was really pretty bush league, because there is no rule that they can’t show the film to the owner and trainer that got

disqualified for the first time in the history of the Kentucky Derby other than they aren’t working today, or Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The only other disqualification in the Derby occurred long after the race in 1968. First-place finisher Dancer’s Image tested positive for a prohibited medication, and Kentucky state racing officials ordered the purse money to be redistributed. Forward Pass got the winner’s share. A subsequent court challenge upheld the stewards’ decision.

President Donald J. Trump blasted Maximum Security’s disqualification, blaming the Derby outcome on “political correctness.”

“The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. “It was a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch.

“Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did not win the Kentucky Derby—not even close!”

The Derby finish will be debated for some time, and that’s not good for the beleaguered sport.

The lead-up to Triple Crown season and the week at Churchill Downs was not what horse racing officials had hoped for. And now, the focus during the run-up to the Preakness will be on what’s happening off the track.

A scary spill for a filly and jockey opened Friday’s Kentucky Oaks for fillies, and winner Serengeti Empress won her first start since pulling up in her previous race because of external bleeding. That followed medication and safety reforms by the industry after the deaths of 23 horses over three months at Santa Anita.

Now racing moves to the Preakness and Pimlico, where nearly 6,700 seats at the dilapidated track have been deemed unsafe and will be unavailable. The Canada-based Stronach Group that owns Pimlico and Santa Anita has also clashed with Baltimore officials over concerns that ownership may move the Preakness to Laurel Race Course.

And the best story on the track may not materialize: a Maximum Security-Country House rematch.

Country House trainer Bill Mott said the colt was in good shape after the Derby but remained noncommittal about the 1 1/8-mile Preakness, which is shorter than the Derby. It would mark his fourth race in eight weeks if he runs.

“It may compromise his chances a bit and it’s not a normal situation to run so often,” Mott said. “But the Triple Crown is not a normal situation.”

West also declared Maximum Security fine but will monitor him the next few days.

“The revenge motive doesn’t even enter into my mind,” West said. “The horse proved he was the best horse [on Saturday] by far. If he’s not 100 percent, we would not even think about taking this horse to the Preakness and then we won’t know that for a few days.”

BETTOR LOSES ABOUT $9 MILLION

L PEOPLE arrive at Churchill Downs on Saturday for the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky. AP

OUISVILLE, Kentucky—Bettors who wagered on Maximum Security in the Kentucky Derby only to see the colt get disqualified for interference will receive refunds.

Twinspires.com, Churchill Downs’s online wagering service, tweeted that it will give back up to $10 to anyone who bet on Maximum Security to win in Saturday’s Derby.

The company said $6,212,046 was bet on the colt to win. Maximum Security also had $1,495,408 bet to place and $1,272,082 wagered to show, so the disqualification cost those bettors about $9 million.

Country House, a 65-1 shot, was moved up to first place from second. The colt paid $132.40, $56.60 and $24.60.

Twinspires.com says $520,907 was wagered on Country House to win.

A $2 exacta wager—involving horses

finishing first and second—paid $3,009.60.

A $1 superfecta bet—involving the first four horses—returned $51,400.10.

Churchill Downs said wagering on the Kentucky Derby increased 10 percent to a record $165.5 million, surpassing the old mark of $149.9 million set last year. This year’s wagering included $4.1 million bet in Japan, the first time the Derby was offered for wagering in that country. Master Fencer, the first Japan-bred to run in the Derby, was sixth.

The track said wagering from all sources on the 14-race card totaled a record $250.9 million, up 11 percent over last year’s total of $225.7 million.

The attendance of 150,729 was down 4 percent compared with last year, with the forecast of all-day rain keeping fans away, although the heaviest rain didn’t fall until about an hour before the Derby was run. AP

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Almighty and ever-living God

EAR God, You are the praise and joy of our hearts. In the name of Christ, our risen Lord, we pray: May we live for You, oh God. For those who seek You, long for You and serve You. For young people, religious and priests.

For Pope Francis, bishops and the laity. For non-Christians and other religious denominations. May God be gracious to us, bless us, and bring the promise of new life to fulfillment in all the Church. Amen.

GIVE US THIS DAY SHARED BY LUISA LACSON, HFL Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Life

BOX OFFICE: ‘AVENGERS: ENDGAME’ NEARS GLOBAL RECORD WITH OVER $2 BILLION D3

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A HOME in Texas’s backyard area designed by Abbe Fenimore, founder of Studio Ten 25. The seating around backyard swimming pools is often located in direct sunlight, so Fenimore suggests using large, durable and easily positioned umbrellas to allow guests to control their sun exposure. HEATHER HAWKINS/ABBE FENIMORE VIA AP

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

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FENIMORE said that with the addition of an outdoor fireplace and a standing space heater, a backyard can be focused on the swimming pool during the summer but be enjoyed even in cooler weather. MELANIE JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPHY/ABBE FENIMORE VIA AP

How to design and decorate poolside A

By melissa rayWOrtH The Associated Press SK Elizabeth Stuart Design founder Muffie Faith about how to decorate around a backyard pool and she’ll answer you with a question of her own: How are you going

to use it?

“I know the obvious answer is ‘Swim and enjoy the cool water,’” says the South Carolina-based interior designer. But it’s worth diving deeper (yes, she says, pun intended) into that question to ensure you’ll create a backyard that really makes you happy.

Who will be spending time around this pool and what will they be doing?

Is dining poolside a priority? Then you’ll want to take time choosing a large enough table for guests and family, and you’ll need comfortable chairs that can get damp with pool water.

Do you wish to face the pool or be tucked in a side garden where you’ll glance over at your pool but not focus on it?

And do you love to garden and want the pool in a lush setting, or do you hate to garden and prefer hardscape and beautiful pots with less maintenance?

Taking your time with questions like these, Faith says, “will help you to design your area around the pool, which I would say is almost as critical as the pool design itself.”

Designers Jade Joyner, cofounder of Metal+Petal design in Athens, Georgia, and Abbe Fenimore, founder of Studio Ten 25 in Dallas, agree.

Fenimore has several clients who don’t have children or whose kids are out of the house, so the pool area is mainly used by adults coming over for cocktail parties or quiet afternoons. In those cases, sleek furnishings and an open fire pit are perfectly appropriate.

But Fenimore and Joyner point out that homeowners with small kids have different needs.

They might have lots of young houseguests using their pool, so they need plenty of comfortable seating.

And avoiding sharp corners is important if little kids may be running around with wet feet.

More advice for creating an appealing and safe backyard pool area: HANDLING SUN AND HEAT THE furniture around your pool will likely be in direct sunlight and will interact with plenty of water.

So it must be durable.

“Here in Texas, we get into the low 100’s for at least a month or a month and a half,” Fenimore says. “The sun is aggressive and damaging.”

Metals, especially in direct sunlight, “are very unforgiving here,” she says. “They will scald you.”

So she suggests wood furniture and resin-based material that resembles wood.

Joyner recommends outdoor pieces that are fully upholstered—no hot metal chair arms—and tough enough to be left outside or splashed with pool water.

Also, when you choose furniture and pillow fabrics, Fenimore says, keep animals in mind.

Squirrels and birds might try to pull out loose threads from nubby fabrics to make nests, so opt for durable and smooth upholstery.

And Fenimore recommends adding one or more large umbrellas that can be repositioned as the day wears on and the direct sunlight moves across the pool area.

BUILDING FROM SCRATCH IF you’re adding a pool to a yard that didn’t have one, take into account the location and root systems of nearby trees, Faith says.

“Some trees have invasive root systems that could harm the pool over time. Also, are there any deciduous trees close by that will make a huge mess in the fall? If so, I may want to vote for a pool cover,” she says.

Another consideration: What kind of equipment will the pool have?

“You must factor in where a good spot will be to disguise it, as well as the noise that inevitably comes

from the pool equipment,” Faith says.

One benefit to building a new pool or redesigning an old one: You can choose the color palette of the pool’s interior.

“I am currently designing a pool for an amazing mid-century home and the client wants it to be authentic,” Faith says. “The pool will have crystal-blue water, so it is necessary that the bottom of the pool be white to reflect blue. There will be a pale blue tile surround, so as not to distract but give a ‘Don Draper’ 1960s look. The hardscape around the pool needs to be light so as not to distract your eye from the focus: a beautiful pool.”

Faith designed a pool with a dark bottom for her own home, creating the feel of “an oversize pond that you could swim in.” She surrounded it with slate, for a natural appearance.

RESORT STYLE (AND SAFETY MEASURES, TOO) RULES vary, but for safety many towns require fencing around a yard with a pool.

Joyner suggests choosing a fence that complements your house’s exterior and blends in, with simple and clean lines. All three designers recommend softening a fence’s appearance with bushes, potted trees and other plants.

Fortunately, that same lush garden can also bring a bit of hotel resort-style glamour to your backyard.

Add small finishing touches like a throw pillow on each chaise and a basket of rolled-up fluffy towels in a cabana stripe or other pattern, Fenimore says.

An outdoor fireplace or fire pit can also elevate your pool area, Joyner says, making it a great gathering place for family and friends.

Make sure you have a small table between your chairs for coffee or a cocktail, Faith says, and put in plenty of electrical outlets for things like outdoor lamps and speakers.

Last detail, Faith says: A bar to serve refreshments, complete with pretty—but preferably plastic— glassware, because “‘glass’ and ‘pool’ are two words that don’t work very well together.” n

Property24 highlights real-estate technology and innovation ONE of the most powerful online enablers for property buyers and sellers, Property24 recently partnered with Urban Land Institute (ULI) to highlight the importance of technological transformation in the real-estate industry.

Titled “The FUTU/RE Summit: Real Estate Technology and Innovation,” the daylong conference brought together movers and game changers in the industry to discuss trends that impact the sector.

Photo shows (from left) Angkas

Regulatory and Public Affairs Head Goerge Royeca, Regus & Spaces by IWG Philippines Country Manager Lars Wittig, GMCI Founder and ULI Chairman for Public Engagement Amor Maclang, JLL Asia Pacific Proptech Director Jordan Kostelac, Property24 Head Tina Bautista, ULI Asia Pacific CEO John Fitzgerald, ULI Philippines Chairman and D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc. CEO Buds Wenceslao, and InvestaCrowd CEO Julian Kwan.

AMAIA’S NEW RESIDENTIAL PROJECT TO RISE IN BINANGONAN, RIZAL AFFORDABILITY and sustainability will come together once more in top-of-mind and affordable property developer Amaia Land Corp.’s soon-to-be launched exclusive residential project in Binangonan, Rizal, a development that is set to bring fine contemporary living to this former sleepy town east of Metro Manila.

Located in Barangay Tatala in Binangonan, the 35,900-square-meter project will offer a total of 309 spacious and masterfully designed units with the size of 50 sq m in a two-story single detached home that will cost P1.4 million to P1.5 million.

As in other Amaia developments, the soon-to-rise Amaia residential village will provide its prospective residents with access to functional amenities, such as a basketball court, a swimming pool, a village pavilion and a children’s play area.

“Amaia Land proposes yet another top-notch development for aspiring homeowners, this time right in the heart of Rizal. This shows that we are committed to sustaining our momentum in bringing quality and affordable living closer to more Filipinos,” says Raizel Matibag of Amaia Land, who notes that Rizalenos will appreciate an upbeat contemporary lifestyle in a serene, bucolic setting.

Amaia Land (www.amaialand.com) brings the dream of owning affordable and sustainable homes closer to hardworking Filipinos through easy payment options: cash, deferred cash and bank financing.

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‘The Mueller Report’ is officially a best seller

By Hillel Italie The Associated Press

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EW YORK—The Mueller Report is now officially a best seller.

A published edition of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged ties between Russian officials and Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign sold just under 42,000 copies last week, NPD BookScan reported on Wednesday.

Jointly edited by Scribner and The Washington Post, it sold more than any nonfiction book on the BookScan list, which tracks direct store sales and reflects around 85 percent of the print market. The Scribner-Washington Post, released as a paperback, also will top The New York Times’s combined print and ebook best-seller list that comes out on Sunday, May 12.

Like such previous government documents as the Starr Report and the 9-11 Commission analysis, the Mueller Report was so highly anticipated that it become a popular book even though anyone can read it for free. (Numerous

Today’s Horoscope

By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Alexander Ludwig, 27; Sydney Leroux, 29; Breckin Meyer, 45; Amy Heckerling, 65.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Look at every angle of a situation before making a decision this year. You can manufacture positive options using your intelligence, experience and the strong connections you’ve made with people who have something interesting and unique to offer. A financial gain or opportunity should not be overlooked. Being steadfast, strong and innovative will bring good results. Your lucky numbers are 3, 12, 21, 28, 34, 36, 40.

web sites, including The Washington Post’s, offer downloads.) Scribner’s edition has a list price of $15, while rival editions include a $12.99 book from Skyhorse and $9.99 from Melville House. The Scribner and Skyhorse books each offer additional material, such as introductory comments. Melville House is selling the report “as is,” wanting readers to encounter it “without someone digesting it for them.”

Preorders for the Skyhorse and Melville releases have placed them high at times on Amazon.com’s bestseller list, but they so far have much lower numbers on BookScan, likely because they took longer to reach stores. Publishers have hurried to prepare bound editions of the report since it was made public two weeks ago. Wednesday’s testimony by Attorney General William Barr, who faced sharp questions from Senate Democrats over whether he spun the report in Trump’s favor, helped raise the Scribner book to No. 1 on Amazon.

As of Wednesday night, Skyhorse was at 22 and Melville House at 130. n

a

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Use charm and enthusiasm to win favors. If you try to force others into seeing or doing things your way, you will end up working alone. Taking a simple approach and offering incentives will help you gain support. Romance is on the rise. HHHH

b

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Take the initiative and start a dialogue with someone with more experience to get the information you need to reset your attitude and achieve a goal. Your dogged approach to getting what you want will pay off.

HHH

c

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Plan for a trip, meeting or presentation. How you physically and mentally prepare will be important to the outcome. Having an up-to-date image and techsavvy lingo will be important. An opportunity to form a partnership looks promising. HHH

d

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Be careful not to make a mistake regarding your assets, taxes or other important documents. If you try to hide personal information, someone will notice and bring it to your attention. Being a straight shooter will help you avoid setbacks. HHH

e

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Stick to what you know and do best. If you appear to be procrastinating, you will miss out on an opportunity. Participation is in your best interest.

Personal physical improvements will turn out well and increase your chance to get ahead. HHHH

Molly Dektar takes writerly look at allure of cults FROM the very first few pages of her debut novel about a cult, The Ash Family (Simon & Schuster), author Molly Dektar’s substantial writing chops are abundantly clear.

“The house crouched in a whirl of leaves from the biggest hickory I’d ever seen. The wind spun the leaves in the air as thick and self-contained as the liquid in a snow globe.”

The house and its surrounding farm in rural North Carolina become as central to the plot as the residents themselves.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, 19-year-old Berie allows herself to be taken to the farm whenshe gets cold feet about starting college. She ditches her

scheduled flight to Virginia and, instead, heads to a bus station where she’s picked up by an attractive young man and soon christened “Harmony.” She’s told she can stay three days or the rest of her life.

On her third day on the farm, she decides to stay or, rather, she doesn’t decide to leave and readers are plunged into Harmony’s new life. She revels in the beauty of nature. She learns to start a fire, churn butter and cheese, slaughter animals. But, all the while, darker motivations within the cult leader and Bay, the man who picked up Harmony at the bus station, linger and grow.

Like other stories before it, The Ash Family tries to uncover the mindset of Harmony—what drew her to

the obviously dysfunctional cult and what keeps her there. No new ground is tread here, so plot-driven readers may find it disappointing.

But what raises this novel up several notches is the glorious writing, like Dektar’s description of an impending storm, “the clouds smeared into the ground as though by a giant’s thumb.” Or later, when Harmony describes her hopelessness: “All my thoughts had collapsed to a pinprick. I sat in the space between what happened and what I would say about it.”

All in all, it’s a compelling read about what motivates us as humans and the lengths to which we’ll go to satisfy our needs. AP

NOT interested in yet another memoir of moving to Italy, discovering great food and falling crazy in love with the man of your dreams? Me neither. But don’t let that stop you from picking up From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home by Tembi Locke.

Yes, the literary debut from the Houston-born actress is the no-longerunique combination of travelogue, recipe book and love story. And, yes, it’s primarily set in Sicily.

But From Scratch manages to elevate itself with a few key additional elements.

First, Locke is a black American

actress forging a career in Hollywood.

She meets Saro, a Sicilian chef, when she’s 20. Their interracial, intercultural relationship is shocking enough that his parents boycott the wedding. Then Saro is diagnosed with a rare cancer and dies early in the narrative.

Readers observe Locke attempting to work through her paralyzing grief while caring for a young daughter, Zoela, and providing them with a stable home in Los Angeles. They spend summers in Sicily where Zoela thrives and Locke gets to know her late husband’s family.

The writing in From Scratch is sublime. Locke allows her readers to revel in the sensory experiences of Sicily. She offers a peek into her

deeply satisfying relationship with her daughter, her husband and their family.

When she compares cheesemaking to grief, describing how both need “time, labor and attention,” she offers a new perspective on an age-old emotion. Even her description of the classic Los Angeles fog feels fresh: “A haze always hung over the city, separating the lives we led from the open sky.”

Because of her obvious writing skills, readers get lost in her prose, which leads to some confusion and unanswered questions. For example, the book glosses over Saro’s cancer diagnosis, lengthy treatments and Locke’s 10 years as his caregiver.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Play fair, but don’t lose sight of your purpose and what you are trying to achieve. Learn through observation in order to bypass a mistake others have made. A personal or emotional incident should not be revealed. HHH

g

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Live and learn. Participate in events or pursuits that will help build character and add to your qualifications. Positive personal gains, as well as connections with individuals can be made. HHHHH

h

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): A change to the way you use your skills, experience or knowledge will help catapult you into the limelight and up the ladder. Your subtle approach to the way you do things will be impressive. HHH

i

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): You’ll be drawn to people who share your enthusiasm, energy and choice of entertainment, interests and ethics. Physical improvements will give you added strength and the dexterity to accomplish your goals. HH

Tembi Locke’s ‘From Scratch’ is a gorgeous read

By Kim Curtis The Associated Press

f

And while readers understand that they were each other’s great love, we’re not sure how or why that became true.

Her characters, too, are presented in broad strokes and feel twodimensional. Zoela as a typical kid is whiny and impatient at times, but she’s also smart, kind and wise beyond her years. Saro is handsome, supportive, understanding and great in the bedroom, as well as the kitchen. And Locke herself, despite sharing stories of her love, family and grief, keeps a safe distance.

Despite its flaws, From Scratch, which ends, as this sort of book does, with a collection of recipes, is a gorgeous read.

j

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A change will do you good. Examine what others are doing, and you’ll come up with a new way to use your intelligence and skills to get ahead. Don’t trust anyone asking for money. HHH

k

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Do your own thing. If you follow someone else, you will miss getting the glory and the satisfaction of achievement. You have the skills and the desire, so get moving. HHHHH

l

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Be careful not to let your imagination run wild. A practical approach to helping others, handling money and living within your means and without being indulgent will help ward off misunderstandings and problems with friends and family. HH BIRTHDAY BABY: You are sensitive, changeable and ambitious.

You are perceptive and persuasive.

‘by the way’ BY WILL NEDIGER The Universal Crossword/Edited by David Steinberg

ACROSS 1 A dying art 6 Barre hops?

11 Chart-topping song 14 Big name in appliances 15 Siri relative 16 Timeline swath 17 Notifications on a certain dating app?

19 Upholstery issue 20 Really admire 21 They stain your fingers orange 23 Location in the stands, ironically 24 Bury 26 Longing feeling 28 Atwood’s writing skills, e.g.?

31 Opera solo 32 Boost the horsepower of 33 Remote possibility?

37 Passes quickly 39 Chaos 40 Lunch, e.g.

41 Operating room suggestion?

46 Ecko or Jacobs of fashion 47 Heavy lifting sound

8 Moby-Dick captain 4 51 “Who Let the Dogs Out?” band 53 Snub 55 Zig’s partner 56 Words added to letters, or a hint to the ends of 17-, 28- and 41-Across 58 Costa Brava “Brava!”

59 World-weary feeling 60 Feedback 61 Stale 62 Respects a red light 63 Docking points DOWN 1 Toyland visitors 2 Tickle pink 3 Big gong 4 Still buggy, maybe 5 Trendy salad green 6 Short punch 7 Aga-memnon’s daughter 8 Giggling sound 9 Beginner’s counterpart 10 M.S. enclosure 11 Decorated officers

2 Bar called O’Donnell’s, most likely 1 13 Dance style known for its shoes 18 New citizen, perhaps 22 Sierra Nevada lake 25 Pull off perfectly 27 Catch a glimpse of 29 Wing dip 30 Pablo Neruda’s country 33 Pal 34 Enjoys oneself immensely 35 Found the mean of 36 Lumberjack’s start 37 Plant with fronds 38 Acid type in sour milk 40 Get on a horse 42 Beethoven work based on a Goethe play 43 City in the San Joaquin Valley 44 Grilled sandwich 45 Antique store?

49 Pianist Rubinstein 50 Defeats 52 Orangutans and others 54 Golf lesson topic

5 Scene of utter bedlam 5 57 Bro’s counterpart

Solution to yesterday’s puzzle:

Show BusinessMirror

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Tuesday, May 7, 2019

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LIONSGATE and Point Grey’s Long Shot, a politically themed romantic comedy with Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron that was the best reviewed of the newcomers by far, finished third in the North American box office with an estimated $10-million haul. Word-ofmouth could help propel Long Shot to profits.

TURNING THE TIDE AT SM’S GREEN FILM FESTIVAL

HIGH school and college students took part in the annual Green Film Festival at the SM Mall of Asia, held recently in celebration of Earth Day 2019.

The Green Film Festival, a corporate social responsibility initiative of SM Cares, in partnership with the US Embassy and SM Cinema, reached out to young learners about environmental issues through a free film screening of the critically acclaimed documentary A Plastic Ocean.

The film highlighted alarming truths and the negative impact of plastic pollution in our oceans.

The event also had a post-screening discussion between the students and subject experts.

‘Avengers: Endgame’ nears global record with over $2 billion LUKÁS SOMMER

CZECH GUITARIST LUKÁS SOMMER SERENADES THE PHILIPPINES

THIS May, the Philippines will hear for the first time the serenade of renowned Czech guitarist and composer Lukás Sommer, as he brings to the country his music and artistry.

Displaying an innovative style of classical guitar combined with the philosophy of yoga and meditation, the Czech Embassy in Manila brings to the country one of the Czech Republic’s leading personalities in the generation of young musicians.

The Philippine tour commenced with a free concert open to the public on May 6 when he played at the National Museum of Natural History his 11 original compositions highlighting his genius style in music. Following this is a performance at the Euro-Pinoy concert organized jointly by the European Union delegation, EU embassies and cultural institutions at The Ruins, Poblacion, Makati City, on May 7.

Thereafter, Sommer will have a performance on May 8 at the Palm Grove Rockwell Center in Makati. The Philippine tour will culminate with a concert at Room Gallery in Puerto Galera on May 10 where Lukás Sommer will open the exhibition Merge of Filipino artists Anna Lumpas, Chressa Yee, Elisa Certeza, Janet Balecer, Japs Avelino, Pritz Samillano, Rodel Perez, Wilfredo Rufon and Zheann Caganan, and the glass sculptures of Czech artist Jiří Pačinek.

Aside from these performances, Sommer will also be conducting Master Classes at the University of the Philippines-Diliman College of Music and at the International School of Manila on May 6 and May 8, respectively.

Lukás Sommer studied guitar and composition in the Czech Republic under the mentorship of prominent Czech professors and musicians, such as Professors Věroslav Neumann, Ivan Kurz and Vilma Manová. Apart from composing music, Sommer is also a sought-after arranger of popular music in the film soundtracks of Ondrej Soukup, Michael Kocáb, Oh Yoon Suna and Johnny Mayer, and has worked with variety of Czech and international agencies.

L

By Lindsey Bahr The Associated Press

OS ANGELES—Avengers: Endgame continued its global domination at the box office in a second week victory lap that saw the blockbuster cross the $2-billion mark in record time and unseat Titanic as the second highest-grossing film ever worldwide. Domestically, newcomers, including thrillers (The Intruder), wellreviewed comedies (Long Shot) or animated family fare (Uglydolls) were left in the dust to pick up the scraps.

The Walt Disney Co. estimated on Sunday that Endgame added $145.8 million from North American theaters and $282.2 million internationally bringing its global total to $2.2 billion. Endgame is one of five movies to ever reach that threshold and, not accounting for inflation, is now second worldwide only to Avatar’s $2.8 billion. Avatar reached $2 billion in 47 days of release compared with 11 for Endgame, although in 2009 the theatrical landscape was different, most notably so in China.

“The sprint to $2 billion is unbelievable. We’re in uncharted territory,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for comScore. “Usually films like

this are marathoners.”

To reach Avatar’s global record, however, Endgame will have to turn into a marathoner itself and the summer movie season is only going to get more competitive. Still, “it’s got a real chance at getting there,” Dergarabedian said.

Domestically, Endgame, which is still playing on 4,662 screens, scored the second-biggest second weekend ever with a sum that would be impressive for any film on opening weekend. Even its 59-percent drop is notable considering how front-loaded it was.

Endgame has now grossed $619.7 million in North America, making it the ninth biggest of all time, behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

New films entering the marketplace hardly stood a chance, but some saw successes even in the shadow of Endgame.

In second place, The Intruder, a modestly budgeted ($8 million) thriller with Dennis Quaid and Meagan Good, survived poor reviews and did the best of the batch with $11 million in box-office receipts. The Sony/ Screen Gems film was released on 2,222 screens.

Although close behind on the charts in third place, Lionsgate and Point Grey’s Long Shot, a politicallythemed romantic comedy with Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, failed to make a significant dent against its pricier budget. The film, which was the best reviewed of the newcomers by far, grossed an estimated $10 million from 3,230 screens, against a reported $40-million budget.

But word-of-mouth could also help propel Long Shot to profits ultimately.

“Long Shot has a shot at staying power,” Dergarabedian said. “But there’s a lot of noise to rise above.”

The unluckiest of the new movies was Uglydolls, an animated film based on the toys featuring the voices of Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, Blake Shelton and Janelle Monae, which placed fourth with $8.5 million.

STXfilms’s first animated feature cost $45 million to produce after production rebates. It does, however,

still have a China release later this summer.

Industry-wide, the continued success of Endgame has also helped the box-office deficit, which went from down 13.2 percent last weekend to down 10.9 percent this weekend. And Dergarabedian said that the industry may be on its way to a record summer, still. “It’s not just about one movie this summer,” he said. “There’s a lot more to come from every studio.

Diversity of content will rule the day.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to comScore.

Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included.

1. Avengers: Endgame, $145.8 million ($282.2 million international).

2. The Intruder, $11 million 3. Long Shot, $10 million ($3.3 million international) 4. Uglydolls, $8.5 million ($955,000 international) 5. Captain Marvel, $4.3 million ($1.2 million international) 6. Breakthrough, $3.9 million 7. The Curse of La Llorona, $3.5 million ($5.8 million international) 8. Shazam!, $2.5 million ($2.3 million international) 9. Little, $1.5 million ($400,000 international) 10. Dumbo, $1.4 million ($4 million international).

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the US and Canada), according to comScore: 1. Avengers: Endgame, $282.2 million 2. Capernaum, $13.1 million 3. We’ll End Up Together, $7 million 4. The Curse of La Llorona, $5.8 million 5. Wonder Par and Always Miss You, $4.7 million 6. Dumbo, $4 million 7. Long Shot, $3.3 million 8. Inseparable Bros, $3.2 million 9. Shazam!, and “After,” $2.3 million 10. Queen’s Corgi, $1.7 million. n

Madonna gives emotional speech at GLAAD Awards

By Mesfin Fekadu The Associated Press NEW YORK—Madonna, a pioneer for gay rights, accepted the Advocate for Change Award at the 2019 GLAAD Media Awards with a rousing speech that went from playful to emotional, bringing the audience to its feet.

The 60-year-old pop icon turned heads as she walked to her table at the Hilton Midtown in New York on Saturday night, before taking the stage to celebrate her three decades of advocacy work in the LGBTQ community.

“Why have I always fought for change? That’s a hard question to answer. It’s like trying to explain the importance of reading or the need to love. Growing up I always felt like an outsider, like I didn’t fit in. It wasn’t because I didn’t shave under my armpits, I just didn’t fit in, OK,” she said. “The first gay man I ever met was named Christopher Flynn. He was my ballet teacher in high school and he was the first person that believed in me, that made me feel special as a dancer, as an artist and as a human being. I know this sounds trivial and superficial, but he was the first man to tell me I was beautiful.”

Madonna went on to say Flynn took her to her first gay club in Detroit, and that the evening changed her life.

“For the first time I saw men kissing men, girls dressed like boys, boys wearing hot pants, insane, incredible dancing, and a kind of freedom and joy and happiness that

I had never seen before,” she said. “I finally felt like I was not alone, that it was OK to be different and to not be like everybody else. And that after all, I was not a freak. I felt at home, and it gave me hope.”

Madonna also said Flynn pushed her to leave Michigan and go to New York to pursue her dreams. And when she arrived in the Big Apple in 1977, she was in awe with all New York had to offer—diversity, creativity—but she also learned about the AIDS epidemic.

“The plague that moved in like a black cloud over New York City and in a blink of an eye,” she said and snapped her fingers, “took out all of my friends.”

“After I lost my best friend and roommate Martin Burgoyne and then Keith Haring—happy birthday Keith—I decided to take up the bull horn and really fight back,” she added.

Madonna, teary-eyed from her seat, received the award from Anderson Cooper, Mykki Blanco and Rosie O’Donnell, who gave a powerful speech about how Madonna helped her become more comfortable in her own skin.

“So here I was—VG, very gay—dating a man and I went to Madonna for advice,” said O’Donnell, who costarred in 1992’s A League of Their Own with the singer. “I was questioning and unsure, my gay life was blossoming but I didn’t quite know what to do. And she told me, ‘Rosie, just follow your heart’—advice I still follow to this day.”

The multi-hour GLAAD event also gave awards to Andy Cohen, the FX series Pose and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Samantha Bee, the film Boy Erased, CNN’s Don Lemon and R&B singer Janelle Monae.

The event will air on Logo on May 12.

Despite winning seven Grammys, two Golden Globes and countless other honors, Madonna said getting GLAAD’s Advocate for Change Award has a special place in her heart.

“Because it’s recognition of years and years of work that I’ve done over three decades. It’s not anything superficial,” Madonna said in an interview with The Associated Press after receiving her honor. “It means something to me because I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into all the work that I’ve done over the years advocating for change.”

Madonna will release her 14th album, Madame X, on June 14. It was inspired from living in Lisbon, Portugal, for the last few years and includes collaborations with Colombian singer Maluma, Migos rapper Quavo, Brazilian singer Anitta, and singer-rapper-songwriter Swae Lee of the duo Rae Sremmurd.

The album also features the track “Batuka,” cowritten by Madonna’s 13-year-old son, David Banda.

“That was a family affair—the call and response song,” Madonna said. “[David] likes to take more of the credit than the rest of my children. It’s always fun to work with my kids, especially David.”

HONOREE Madonna accepts the Advocate for Change Award at the 30th annual GLAAD Media Awards at the New York Hilton Midtown on May 4, in New York. AP

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Art

BusinessMirror

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Looted art, gay rights merge in recovery of Polish painting ROSSCAPILI AT THE CRUCIBLE GALLERY VIA ‘BRAVURA: HOMAGE TO TREES’

PROLIFIC multimedia artist Rosscapili is shifting from his expertise in digital art, this time to metal and hard steel.

The artist continues to exude enthusiasm and creativity in his mission to commemorate nature’s beauty, no matter how fleeting, through flawless orchestration of color and execution. On show in Bravura: Homage to Trees are nine acrylic on canvases and five metal sculptures that mimic the fluidity of his style. “I dream someday to transform the sculpture in bigger spaces producing ‘tree art, environmental public pieces,’” shared Rosscapili. “In a way, those I’m going to show are just maquettes.”

Rosscapili had solo exhibits in Paris, the US, various Asian countries and Manila. His works are collected widely in Manila and abroad. He won First Prize in 1975 PMA Nationwide Poster Contest, Juror’s Choice in the Philip Morris Art Awards 1996, PATA Gold in Photography in 2008 and Ani Ng Dangal NCCA Presidential Awardee in 2009, to mention a few.

Bravura: Homage to Trees opens tonight, May 7, 6 pm, at The Crucible Gallery in SM Megamall.

For information, call the gallery at 635-6061 or e-mail studiorosscapili@yahoo.com.

TESSIE OJEDA LUZ

CCP BOARD MEMBER TESSIE OJEDA LUZ PASSES AWAY FORMER Cultural Center of the Philippines Board of Trustees member and art patron Teresita Ojeda Luz passed away on April 28. She joined the CCP Board in July 1999 and ended her term in 2007.

Tessie, as she was fondly called, acted in numerous plays directed by Fr. James Reuter during her heydays.

She was remembered for being a highly principled person and possessing the discipline of a performing artist. She, likewise, helped in managing the Luz Gallery in Manila, which she and husband National Artist for Visual Arts Arturo Luz established, featuring exhibits of up and coming Filipino artists.

“It is a feeling of great fondness and admiration that I have for Tessie Luz,” according to Chingay Lagdameo, former chairman of the 1995 CCP Board of Trustees. “We were casual friends when we were appointed to the Cultural Center Board of Trustees in 1995, and we became true friends as we bonded together to work on saving the land that we felt was rightfully owned by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Our work mandated addressing the charter of the CCP, and safeguarding its heritage, ownership and the protection of its work force as it was dangerously threatened for over 20 years by a contesting party.

“Together with other committed members of the Board of Trustees, we worked cohesively, from research to countless meetings with concerned artists and professionals in various areas, oftentimes assuring one another that this was a battle not for ourselves, but for the Filipino and his cultural heritage. Throughout all this, Tessie was always present, her heart and mind always in true spirit of courage and determination. To me, Tessie, is more than a friend. She will remain in memory as a noble patron and an icon, and defender of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, a major repository of the Filipino’s cultural heritage.”

Teresita Ojeda Luz is survived by her husband and their three children.

W

By Vanessa Gera The Associated Press

ARSAW, Poland—A same-sex Los Angeles couple was dumbfounded when Homeland Security agents showed up at their home in 2016 with the news that a beloved old portrait hanging in their kitchen had been looted by the Nazis from Poland’s National Museum during World War II. With heavy hearts, they relinquished the 17thcentury painting, Portrait of a Lady by the Flemish artist Melchior Geldorp, which they had bought unaware of its origins, donating along with it a 19thcentury frame that they had bought for it.

The portrait is now hanging again in the National Museum in Warsaw, nearly eight decades after its theft, its return welcomed in a ceremony last September attended by Poland’s culture minister, the American ambassador and the couple.

The two men, Craig Gilmore and David Crocker, were recently back in Poland using the connections they gained with their goodwill gesture to reach out to the local LGBT community, offering financial donations and messages of solidarity to a group that faces misunderstanding and discrimination.

Poland’s conservative ruling party leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, recently called the LGBT rights movement a foreign import that threatens Poland, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation where some see liberal Western values as eroding their own traditions. The National Museum has itself been a focus of the government’s conservative drive, with some officials seeking recently to remove erotic or feminist works.

In early April, with cameras rolling, Gilmore, an opera singer, dropped to one knee in a Warsaw park and proposed to Crocker, an artist, who said yes. Gilmore said while the two 55-year-olds have discussed marriage during their more than 20 years together, it felt right to do in a place where neither same-sex marriages nor civil unions are allowed.

Gilmore said they hoped with their gesture to “invite the Polish LGBTQ community to join in our joy. David and I are confident that very soon they will prevail in their struggles.”

The local LGBT community appreciated the show of solidarity but saw its limits.

“It was a nice and brave gesture to do it in Warsaw, the capital of one of the few remaining EU countries not to recognize any form of partnership between people of the same sex, but the problems are too massive and profound to be changed symbolically,” said Vyacheslav Melnyk, the director of Campaign Against Homophobia.

The men were deeply attached to the 1628 painting, which they bought at an art auction in New York about a decade ago for $5,000. They had no idea of its history but when they learned that it was looted during the

war, they knew that giving it up was the right thing to do, mindful of the tragedy that befell the Polish population during the German occupation.

They also wanted to show a gesture of solidarity to the Jewish community in Warsaw and had meetings and made a donation to the education department of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews during their recent visit.

“The US Embassy is very proud of them,” Dan Hastings, the US cultural attache, told The Associated Press at a private reception for them at the National Museum.

In a museum library, the couple’s old painting of a lady in a neck ruff was put out on display as the two mingled with US diplomats, LGBT activists and museum representatives.

“These are all organizations that the US diplomatic mission has supported or is supporting right now. So we love to see it when our own citizens get involved and pick up the baton of cooperation,” Hastings said.

“Craig Gilmore and David Crocker are truly admirable citizen ambassadors because of what they’ve done

HIROAKI NAKANISHI’S Mindscape 2007

with this relinquishing of looted art from Poland.”

For the United States, it was a welcome opportunity to highlight US efforts to help fellow Nato member Poland recover its lost cultural heritage.

Poland saw much of its cultural patrimony destroyed or looted during the country’s wartime occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and about 500,000 objects remain missing.

The country has been making efforts to recover as much as possible. The Culture Ministry has a Division for Looted Art that keeps a database of missing objects and scours foreign collections and auctions. When they locate a looted Polish painting, book or other object, they inform law enforcement officials of that country.

Polish authorities say no other government has done as much to help Poland on this as the United States. Culture Minister Piotr Glinski, while celebrating the return of another painting recovered with US help in 2017, praised the work of FBI agents, who he said “cooperated very effectively” with the Division for Looted Art. n

IZUMI KATO’S Untitled 2017

MOTOMASA KURITA’S Auspicious Sign 2017

Japanese ‘Netsuke’ exhibition in Manila and Bacolod THE Japan Foundation, Manila, in collaboration with Ayala Museum and Ayala Malls, with the support of the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines, presents Contemporary Wood-Carved Netsuke, a traveling exhibition that is on view at Ayala Malls Capitol Central, Bacolod City, until May 26. The show moves to Ayala Malls Greenbelt 5 from July 1 to 21.

Viewing is free.

As kimono culture flourished during the Edo period in Japan (1603-1868), netsuke (small carvings) were created as toggles to secure the small personal items, such as money pouches, inro (medicine containers), or tobacco containers worn suspended on cords from the obi (a sash

worn with kimono). What began as functional pieces to prevent those little containers from falling to the ground evolved into small but highly creative carvings. Today, classic netsuke have gained international acclaim as remarkably detailed carvings. In Japan, meanwhile, some netsuke enthusiasts and carvers have managed to keep the tradition alive.

“Netsuke is unique in that daily commodities [which] have evolved into art form in the course of time. I believe viewers can enjoy and appreciate the delicate work of art created by Japanese craftsmanship,” shares Hiroaki Uesugi, director of The Japan Foundation, Manila.

A LOS ANGELES couple, Craig Gilmore (right) and David Crocker, pose in front of a 17th-century painting, Portrait of a Lady by the Flemish artist Melchior Geldorp, at the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland, on April 5. AP

Contemporary Wood-Carved Netsuke is an innovative contemporary crafts exhibition presenting 65 works by contemporary Japanese netsuke carvers and artists.

A series of special events are also lined up to complement the netsuke exhibition. To celebrate Philippine-Japan Friendship Month in July, the foundation has also invited two renowned netsuke artists and experts from Japan, Tadamine Nakagawa and Asuka Kajiura, to give a lecture and demonstration about this distinct and historical art form.

More information and updates are available at www.jfmo.org.ph.