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Metro Retail allots ₧15B to fund store expansion

By Roderick L. Abad Contributor

C

EBU—Metro Retail Stores Group Inc. (MRSGI) is investing up to P15 billion to fund its five-year plan of doubling its network of establishments to 800,000 square meters in terms of gross floor area (GFA).

“We aim to build on our gains and bring our best-in-class products and services to more areas underserved by modern retail,” MRSGI Chairman and CEO Frank S. Gaisano said of the company’s 2021 retail-space goal, which is twice as its end-2015 GFA of approximately 400,000 sq m.

The company plans to bankroll its footprint expansion by tapping the equity market, using its internally generated funds and acquiring loans.

Initially, the retail chain was looking at capital expenditures in 2016 to between P1.7 billion and P2 billion, and P2 billion to P2.5 billion for 2017.

At present, MRSGI has around P2.2 billion to P2.3 billion as balance from its initial public offering Continued on A2

A SPIRIT OF PROFOUND RESPECT Loving God, we all rejoice because it is Mother’s Day! As a mother gives life and nourishment to her children, so You watch over Your Church.

Bless our mother. Bestow and give her good life in a healthy body, mind, heart and soul. Let the example of her faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, her family, may honor her always with a spirit of profound respect.

May the humility and obedience of Mother Mary reign in our mother, too. Amen!

Give Us This Day, Committee on Divine Worship.

Shared by Luisa M. Lacson, HFL

n

Sunday, May 8, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 211

P25.00 nationwide | 4 sections 22 pages | 7 days a week

PHL health care expected to register robust growth T

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

HE country’s health-care industry is poised for a huge growth in the coming years, given the increasing number of skilled medical practitioners and the growing health-care portfolio of the private companies engaged in this business.

“Acquisitions by major conglomerates of hospitals and healthservice providers, as well as business expansion of current players, all attest to bright prospects in the sector,” said Jose Victor Emmanuel

de Dios, GE Philippines CEO and former undersecretary of the Department of Energy (DOE).

The largest private health-care provider in the country, Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc., has ac-

quired 11 hospitals, with about 3,000 beds across the country.

These include Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Asian Hospital and De los Santos Medical Center in Metro Manila. Some of its hospitals in the provinces include Davao Doctors Hospital, Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod, Central Luzon Doctors Hospital in Tarlac and West Metro Medical Center in Zamboanga.

De Dios also cited a relatively new entrant into the health-care space known as the Qualimed Health Network, owned and operated by the Mercado Hospital Group, in partnership with Ayala Land.

PHL ELECTION COULD CAUSE HEARTBURN FOR STAUNCH U.S. ALLY

Continued on A2

presidential election front-runner Rodrigo R. Duterte, shown in photo answering questions from the media on April 29 in Manila, has not inspired confidence with his casual threats to shoot criminals and by joking about the gang rape and killing of a foreign missionary. AP/Bullit Marquez

W BOUQUET FOR MOTHER’S DAY Vivien, the youngest of three fatherless girls, drops by a flower shop in Santiago City to have a bouquet arranged for her single-parent mother Josephine. The world celebrates Mother’s Day today, May 8. LEONARDO PERANTE II

Tourism thriving in Aurora as number of visitors, hotels rises

By Joey Pavia Correspondent

B

ALER, Aurora—The number of tourists arriving in this province steadily rose since 2008, and the increase is expected to continue, thanks to the improved road networks and the establishment of new hotels, the Aurora tourism office said in a report released last week.

The tourism office, headed by Michael Palispis, said there were 778,917 local and international tourists in 2015, increasing by at least 7,121 percent compared to the 10,786 tourists in 2008.

PESO exchange rates n US 47.2050

The highest annual increase was recorded in 2014 during the full-year operation of Costa Pacifica, a three-star hotel and resort along the Sabang Beach in Baler.

The 106-room hotel was established in 2013. There were 272, 182 tourists in 2013, and the number rose to 684,977 in 2014.

In 2008 there were 27 hotels in the easternmost Central Luzon province. In 2015 there were 135 hotels, including the newly opened Seasta Beach Resort here. There are 1,307 hotel rooms in Aurora, with 925 of them air-conditioned.

Many tourists flock to Baler for its surfing activity at Sabang

Beach. The provincial government, headed by Gov. Gerardo A. Noveras, is promoting other destinations outside Baler.

One of these is the more than 20-kilometer-long Dinadiawan beach in Dipaculao town, 50 km north of Baler. There are 23 hotels and resorts in Dinadiawan, including the Dinadiawan Agri Development managed by Pat Avenido.

“This is not Boracay. This is Aurora. It’s worth visiting,” said Deng Pangilinan, president of the Pampanga Press Club (PPC). The PPC was invited for a familiarization tour by the Aurora government See “Aurora,” A2

ASHINGTON—The upcoming Philippine presidential election could cause some heartburn in Washington.

The winner of Monday’s vote will be hand-maiden to the most crucial US relationship in Southeast Asia, and the frontrunner has not inspired confidence with his casual threats to shoot criminals and by joking about the gang rape and killing of a foreign missionary.

The historically tumultuous relationship between the US and its former colony has thrived in recent years as the Philippines has turned to Washington for support against an assertive China. But there’s uncertainty about how the eventual election winner will navigate external relations during a period of high tensions with Beijing.

Front-running presidential candidate Rodrigo R. Duterte is known for his profanity-laden speeches and has been likened to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He made international headlines last month when he said that an Australian missionary who was gang raped and killed during a 1989 prison siege was so beautiful that he “should have been the first” to assault her. The Australian and US ambassadors criticized that comment, and Duterte told them to shut up.

On Friday President Aquino, who cannot run for reelection, made a desperate call for the trailing candidates to ally against Duterte, whom he described as a threat to democracy. The veteran city mayor has earned the nickname “Duterte Harry,” after a Clint Eastwood character with little regard for rules. He faces allegations that death squads committed extrajudicial killings to clean up the southern city of Davao that he’s run for 22 years.

As with any foreign election, US officials are reluctant to comment in case they are accused of trying to influence the result.

“We look forward to working with the next Philippine administration to build upon our strong and enduring relationship, whatever the outcome of elections may be,” said Katina Adams, a State Department spokesman for East Asia.

See “Heartburn,” A2

n japan 0.4402 n UK 68.4000 n HK 6.0822 n CHINA 7.2534 n singapore 34.7428 n australia 35.2338 n EU 53.8420 n SAUDI arabia 12.5914

Source: BSP (6 May 2016 )

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, May 8, 2016

Heartburn…

Still, they’ll be hoping for a successor who will follow the strategic path forged by President Aquino, who has doubled down on ties with Washington in the face of China’s aggressive pursuit of territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.

On Aquino’s watch, the Philippines has agreed to open up several of its military facilities in American forces—a quarter-century after nationalist sentiments forced the closure of US bases in the island nation. That’s an important boost to President Obama’s push to expand America’s presence in the Asia Pacific to counter China.

“The Philippines has adopted an adversarial posture with regard to China that is unique in the region,” said Marvin Ott, a former US intelligence analyst and now a lecturer on Southeast Asian studies.

President Aquino has been more circumspect with China than

Aurora…

Continued from a1

his predecessor, who was accused of cutting a corrupt deal with Beijing over joint exploitation of resources in the South China Sea. Mr. Aquino did reach out to Beijing after taking office in 2010, but relations tumbled after Chinese vessels occupied a shoal off the Philippine coast in 2012. Manila subsequently lodged a case with an international tribunal challenging the legal basis of Beijing’s claims to virtually all of the South China Sea. A ruling is expected within weeks.

That’s an approach that’s been supported by the Obama administration, but which could sharpen tensions with China if the tribunal rules in Manila’s favor, as many expect.

The contender most likely to follow President Aquino’s policies on the South China Sea is the one the president has endorsed: Manuel A. Roxas II, a US-educated investment banker who served in Mr. Aquino’s Cabinet. But

all of the candidates, including Roxas, have signaled a willingness to improve relations with China, the region’s dominant economy.

Vikram Singh, a former senior US defense official, said it was possible that as president, any of the candidates could slow the recent agreements on increased US military access to Philippine bases, but he expected “they’ll want to keep close ties with Washington when they see just how significant the pressure can be from Beijing.”

Duterte’s position on the South China Sea has been characteristically unconventional. He has said he would initiate talks with the Chinese, and if those fail, he’d go to one of the disputed Chinese-made islands by jet ski and plant a Philippine flag. He told a televised debate it would be up to the Chinese if they want to shoot him and make him a national hero. AP

Continued from a1

and the Department of Tourism (DOT) Central Luzon office.

“The sands in the beach are not as white as Boracay’s, but the waters and the surroundings are fresher and cleaner in Aurora,” Pangilinan said. “More important, the roads from Pampanga have vastly improved and all cemented.”

“The beaches in Dipaculao are ideal for the whole family and swimming unlike in Sabang which is popular for surfing,” Charlotte Madarang of the tourism office said.

“Dipaculao and its resorts are filled during the peak season,” she added.

The usual route to Baler is via the Subic Clark Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx). Motorists exit at the SCTEx-La Paz and pass by Tarlac, Nueva Ecija and parts of Nueva Vizcaya before reaching Maria Aurora, the first town of Aurora known for its giant balete tree believed to be between 400 years and 600 years old.

It takes less than four hours of land travel from Clark, Pampanga, to Baler.

According to the tourism office, the must-see places and activities are the historical trail from Baler Church to Quezon Park, eco-

strip from Ermita Hill to Dimadimalangat Islets in Baler, Dicasalarin Cove in Baler, Ditumabo Falls in San Luis, Amper Beach Scenic Highway in Dipaculao, Dibutunan Marine Protected, Bulawan Falls in Dinalungan, San Ildefonso Peninsula in Casiguran, Diniog Beach in Dilasag and Matawe Inter-Tidal in Dingalan.

The popular local products are the sabutan items, such as hats, fans, mats, slippers, table runner, place mats and bags, suman, Nanay Pacing’s peanut butter and coco jam, pako salad, bukayo and pakumbo, and banana chips.

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PHL health care expected to register robust growth Continued from a1

Qualimed currently has seven operational facilities, with two hospitals and two clinics scheduled to open this year.

“Business expansion and opportunities currently unfolding have caused major local and regional business groups to look more closely and expand their investment plans in the sector,” de Dios said.

Also, the country has a sizeable talent pool of medical practitioners. In 2014 de Dios said the Philippines had over 110,000 medical-course graduates.

“One competitive advantage the country has in this field is its skilled medical practitioners. Filipino medical professionals are renowned across the world for their skills and brand of care,” he said.

In some instances, where there are restrictions in the exercise of professions and the granting of work permits in some Asean countries, de Dios said this can enhance the value of medical professionals not only in the Philippines but also in countries where the practice of their trade is relatively easier.

“This could also raise the confidence of medical tourists as they contemplate destinations in the region that offer value yet quality medical care,” he said.

The Philippines has already developed an eHealth Strategic Framework and Plan until 2020, which aims to utilize information and communication technologies (ICT) in the health sector.

This would facilitate the delivery of health services and manage health systems for greater efficiency and effectivity.

“One only has to note the latest in medical technology to appreciate the direction that health-care providers need to be looking at, as practitioners and patients alike continue to look for ways to improve health-care services, diagnosis and treatment,” de Dios said.

One of the strategic goals of this framework is to establish unified and coherent health and management information systems, and also to capitalize on ICT to reach and provide better health services and support the attainment of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Department of Health (DOH) in Region 4B (Mimaropa), for instance, has launched the first interactive telemedicine system in the country at the Dr. Damian J. Reyes Provincial Hospital in Marinduque.

The system currently provides medical consultations and diagnostics through video calls.

“In an archipelago, such as the Philippines, the opportunities for tele-

medicine are endless. Even the delivery of simple medicines across inaccessible areas is now being piloted through the use of drones,” de Dios said.

In other countries, handheld devices are now being introduced, which allow consumers to measure temperature, heart rate and oxygen levels. These are even equipped with cameras that allow examination of the throat and inner ear in order to allow doctors to perform online examinations.

There are also new devices being introduced to the market, such as wrist-worn blood pressure sensors that deliver information to a smartphone.

De Dios said his company’s thrust to become a leading digital-industrial company has led to similar innovations in handheld ultrasound equipment, which is currently being deployed in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Equipped with Bluetooth capability, Vscan Access, a portable handheld ultrasound device, allows medical professionals to increasingly reach remote areas in the country. It can scan pregnant women and wirelessly transmit images of fetuses to doctors even in faraway hospitals, to help determine whether mothers need to proceed to a health center or hospital for appropriate care.

NCH unveils global brand relaunch

W

ITH the vision to deepen relationships with its customers in Asia, NCH Philippines, the local counterpart of US-based NCH Corp., transforms into a more integrated company under the unified brand name NCH, thereby reinforcing its strength in an increasingly competitive market.

NCH Corp. has been in business for almost 100 years and is a trusted provider of maintenance services and chemicals that focus on cleaning water, conserving energy and maintaining equipment for businesses.

“Many customers do not realize

we own and market all of the different brands: Chemsearch, Certified, ChemAqua and Mantek. The consolidation will give our customers greater ease and efficiency in utilizing our various products and services to help them with their water, energy and maintenance programs,” said David Weiss, president and CEO for NCH Asia.

Integral to the company is the unification of more than 1,000 associates in Asia. Doing this gives way to a more organized and productive approach in building and implementing marketing strategies.

“Moving forward, by focusing on just one brand, NCH, we know we can make NCH great,” Weiss said. “By doing this, over 1,000 NCH professionals in the Asian region will be assigned and given advanced training in one of our specialty groups, NCH Maintenance.”

He said customers would benefit from such a consolidation because each NCH professional will be better equipped to maintain their customers’ equipment and facilities—even provide training for their customers’ employees and workers.

“And as always, we will guarantee every product and service,” Weiss said.

Metro Retail allots ₧15B to fund store expansion Continued from a1

(IPO) at the Philippine Stock Exchange in November 2015.

It now has at least P1 billion to P1.2 billion of internally generated cash flows and another P1.5 billion to P2 billion by next year.

“So we’re good for the next two years with around P4 billion plus from our internally generated [funds] and available cash [from IPO proceeds], and possibly, beginning of year three, we will be considering debt,” MRSGI CFO and Treasurer Joselito G. Orense told reporters during the company’s news briefing here on Friday.

The group’s footprint expansion for the next five years would require an average of at least 80,000 sq m annually.

As of May, it has already secured 160,000 sq m of retail space, or 41 percent of its target, MRSGI VP for Investor Relations and Business Development Joseph Conrad M. Balatbat said.

“We’re happy to announce we’re ahead of schedule and we look forward to even adding on to doubling the GFA,” he said.

The newly acquired retail space is set to open in the next two to twoand-a-half years. Around 44,000 sq m to 8,000 sq m higher than the 36,000 sq m committed to the shareholders are slated for 2016 alone.

These include the inauguration of the Super Metro hypermarket in Calbayog City, Samar, in February and the recently opened store in UP Town Center in Quezon City. Another department store is soon to open in Fairview Terraces Mall.

The two latter outlets, which could bring MRSGI’s departmentstore network to 12, form part of the company’s acquisition of such store format assets from SIAL Spe-

cialty Retailers Inc., a joint venture between Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) and Store Specialists Inc.

“The priority is still to fill out the remaining spaces in the Visayas, but that will be less and less [in] Cebu and more in the Western and Eastern sides of Visayas. So if ever there will be an increase in the Cebu footprint, that would be 20 percent to 25 percent [only of the new inventory]. And then part of it will be in Luzon,” Balatbat said.

Location-wise, the executive said they are looking at opening a department store in an undisclosed area in Eastern Visayas, and another one in Bacolod City, in partnership with ALI.

There will be a supermarket to be inaugurated in Cebu, plus other retail spaces in surrounding towns in the Northern part of the city province, as well as in the areas of Mactan and Lapu-Lapu.

Since MRSGI has a tieup with Megaworld for its project in Iloilo, he said they will be opening a store there the following year.

Also in the pipeline of 160,000 sq m of retail space is the opening of one department store and one supermarket in Metro Manila, still in collaboration with ALI.

The company is also looking at building more smaller retail formats, either neighborhood stores or groceries, that could account for up to 7,500 sq m, or 5 percent of the 160,000-sq-m secured space to date.

“We feel that, with the busy lifestyle of a lot of people now and inner city convenient [requirement] with all the traffic there will be a clamor for stores within the area that provide a convenience, but not impulse items. [It’s] more on grocery items; so convenient location but not a convenient store,”

the VP for investor relations and business development said.

MRSGI is a publicly listed firm engaged in the buy, sell and trade of goods, wares and merchandise of every kind and description, and in general to carry on the business of a supermarket, hypermarket and department store operation.

The company’s portfolio of 48 stores across all formats are now present in key cities in Central, Western and Eastern Visayas, as well as in Central Luzon, Metro Manila and South Luzon.

“Our focus will be opening more stores in the Visayas and we will also continue our alliances in Luzon with our strategic partnerdevelopers,” Gaisano said. “We look to these exciting opportunities on the horizon, as our readiness to expand is underpinned by our strong financial performance last year.”

For the year 2015, MRSGI posted a net income after tax of P758.6 million, 20.6-percent higher than that recorded in 2014.

Net sales also grew by 13.9 percent to P32.3 billion, as same store sales increased by 8.8 percent on the back of strong performance of hypermarket, department store and supermarket formats.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or Ebitda rose by 18 percent to P1.49 billion from P1.26 billion in the same period two years ago, due to improved operating expenses.

“[Also] there are analysts who have made some forecasts and made them public,” MRSGI President and COO Arthur Emmanuel said, without divulging any figure.

“We feel comfortable in meeting their forecasts.”

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Sunday, May 8, 2016

A3

Govt sets review of Meralco’s power portfolio

T

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

HE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said on Friday it would closely review the Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) entire power portfolio, following the submission of its power-supply agreements (PSAs) for approval just a day before the controverisal Competitive Selection Process (CSP) took effect.

“The ERC, in evaluating Meralco’s PSA application, can always examine its entire portfolio, and not just the contract being evaluated, to ensure that Meralco does not violate the prohibition on DUs [distribution utilities] sourcing more than 50 percent of its total demand from an associated firm engaged in generation.

This is in accordance with Section 45 [b] of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act,” ERC Chairman Jose Vicente Salazar said in an interview.

Seven PSAs between Meralco and power producers, including two under its power-generation subsidiary, were submitted

to the ERC on April 29.

Under the PSAs, Meralco intends to source 3,551 megawatts (MW) of its power requirements from seven power producers.

Broken down, Meralco will source 225 MW from Redondo Peninsular Energy Inc. (RP Energy); 400 MW from Saint Raphael Power Generation Corp. (SRPGC); 1,200 MW from Atimonan One Energy Inc.; 528 MW from Central Luzon Premiere Power Corp.

(CLPPC); 528 MW from Mariveles Power Generation Cor p.

(MPGC); 70 MW from Panay Energy Development Corp.; and 600 MW from Global Luzon Energy Development Corp.

RP Energy and Atimonan One are subsidiaries of Meralco Powergen Corp. (MGen), the powergenerating arm of Meralco.

RP Energy is building a twounit coal-fired power plant each with 300-MW capacity in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.

The first unit is targeted for testing and commissioning in October 2018, while the second unit is targetted for completion in December 2018. Commercial operation is expected in 2019.

Atimonan One, meanwhile, is building two coal-powered generation plants with a capacity of 600 MW each in Quezon.

Testing and commissioning of the first unit is expected in December 2020, with commercial operation scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The second unit is scheduled for testing and commissioning in May 2021. It is targeted for commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2025.

SRPGC, meanwhile, is a new joint venture bet ween MGen and Semirara Mining and Power Corp. It is constructing two coalfired power-generating facilities with a capacity of 350 MW each in Calaca, Batangas. This is the second expansion of the existing Calaca power plant.

CLPPC and MPGC are power projects under San Miguel Corp.’s power business.

C L PP C w i l l c o n s t r u c t a 4x 150-MW coal plant in Pagbilao, Quezon, which is scheduled to become operational no later than 2021.

MPGC is also building four coal-powered generation plants with a capacity of 150 MW each and scheduled to become operational no later than 2020 in Bataan.

A l f redo Pa n l i l io, Mer a lco senior vice president and head of Customer Retail Services and Corporate Communications, said the PSAs were based on Meralco’s long-term load projections, with electricity sales in its service area expected to grow by a compounded average growth rate of 3.6 percent to 3.7 percent.

“In keeping with Meralco’s mandate to source electricity in the least cost manner and to ensure reliability and affordability of supply for all our customers, especially in light of the expected continuous increase in demand and number of customers, coupled with the impending expiration of Meralco’s existing PSAs from 2019 to 2020, there is a pressing need for Meralco to source additional capacity through bilateral power-supply contracts,” Panlilio said.

CSP is a policy meant to discourage negotiated power-supply contracts between a DU and a power producer.

MMDA’s 2,000 personnel keep traffic moving

By Claudette Mocon-Ciriaco Correspondent

T

HE Metropolitan Manila Development Aut hor it y (MMDA) started to deploy 2,000 personnel starting on Friday to keep traffic moving on roads near polling precincts.

MMDA Chairman Emerson Carlos said the agency will dispatch a total of 2,664 personnel as part of its traffic-management plan for the May 9 polls.

Aside from the polling centers and schools in Metro Manila, Carlos said traffic enforcers will also be deployed at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Intramuros, Manila, and the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City, where the National Board of Canvassers will canvass the votes for national candidates.

Carlos said traffic personnel

were deployed at political rallies in different parts of Metro Manila.

Traffic personnel were also deployed in the vicinity of the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, where another miting de avance was held late Saturday afternoon.

MMDA personnel were also deployed at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City for another rally early Saturday afternoon.

Carlos said the agency also sent personnel to bus terminals, sea ports and exit points to and from Metro Manila, including the North Luzon Expressway, South Luzon Expressway, Coastal Road, McArthur Highway, Marcos Highway, Mindanao Avenue and A. Bonifacio Drive.

He said MMDA personnel will, likewise, clean up the trash and refuse after the rallies. Similar cleanup operations will also be conducted around schools and polling centers after the elections.

Global

Business

A5 Sunday, May 8, 2016

First Muslim elected in the post

Labour’s Khan is new London mayor 1.3M

The number of votes Sadiq Khan garnered to win as London’s mayor

Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan, London’s newly elected mayor, arrives with his wife Saadiya to cast their votes at a polling station in Streatham, south west London, on May 5. Philip Gareth Fulller/PA via AP

S

adiq Khan of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party won election as London’s first Muslim mayor, beating the Conservatives’ Zac Goldsmith after a bitterly fought and divisive campaign.

Khan, who faced a Tory onslaught that questioned whether his links in the Muslim community made him a suitable person to keep the UK capital secure, won 1.3 million votes, compared with 995,000 for Goldsmith after second-preference votes from the other 10 candidates were reallocated.

“This election was not without controversy, and I’m so proud that London has today chosen hope over fear and unity over division,” a visibly emotional Khan said after the result was announced in London’s City Hall early on Saturday morning. “I hope that we will never be offered such a stark choice again. Fear

doesn’t make us safer, it only makes us weaker and the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city.”

Khan, who became the first Muslim to attend UK Cabinet meetings under Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009, becomes the most powerful member of that faith in elected office in Britain, in charge of an annual budget of £17 billion ($25 billion) and responsible for policing, the transport network, planning and the environment in the UK capital.

Khan, 45, distanced himself from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn during the campaign, even though he nominated the hard-line socialist for the leadership after Ed Miliband’s resignation last year.

He said he did so to encourage debate in the party and that it was “ludicrous” to claim he was a close

ally. Khan was helped when a leaked memo from Corbyn’s office referred to him as “hostile.”

The Tory campaign said Khan, a former human-rights lawyer, had “questions to answer” over Muslims he had shared platforms with and who, they alleged, had expressed extremist views.

Khan asked Labour activists not to rise to the Tory bait and to concentrate on his manifesto of providing affordable housing, freezing fares on buses and London’s underground rail network, known as the Tube, and promising to promote and support businesses.

Goldsmith’s campaign, which was run by colleagues of Prime Minister David Cameron’s campaign chief, Lynton Crosby, was publicly criticized by senior Conservatives.

A former party chairman, Say-

eeda Warsi, a Muslim who was promoted to the Cabinet by Cameron in part to show the Conservatives had modernized and were more in tune with 21st-century Britain, said the campaign had set back the Tories.

“Our appalling dog-whistle campaign for London mayor 2016 lost us the election, our reputation and credibility on issues of race and religion,” she tweeted before the result was announced.

Andrew Boff, leader of the Conservative group on the Greater London Assembly, told BBC Television that relationships with the Muslim community “have been blown up by this campaign. A lot of us on the ground are going to have to spend a lot of time on trying to reestablish those links.”

“It’s hard to think of a city or a part of the UK where dog-whistle

politics would work less well than London,” Tony Travers, who studies local elections at the London School of Economics, said in an interview.

“It’s so multinational, multiethnic and multireligious that most people hear this sort of negative messaging and think ‘We too are a minority,’ and they’re off-put by it.”

The Tories held five of their six constituency seats in the assembly, losing Merton and Wandsworth, Khan’s home patch in south London, to Labour.

The son of Pakistani immigrants, Khan grew up in social housing in Tooting, the district he represents in the House of Commons. He worked as a human-rights lawyer before becoming a lawmaker and a minister in Brown’s government.

Khan, who sought support from London’s financial-services industry during the campaign, has pledged to join the fight to keep Britain in the European Union in the referendum on June 23. Goldsmith, 41, is in favor of leaving the bloc.

Khan is now Labour’s most powerful politician outside of Wales and will appoint staff over the next few days who are likely to include advisers who have fled Labour’s headquarters since Corbyn became party leader.

He said during the campaign he would “be his own man” and will be free to establish an operation in City Hall that pursues probusiness centrist policies in contrast to Corbyn’s more hardline socialist agenda.

Being mayor is largely about delivering services competently, and Khan, who will be more hands-on than his predecessor Boris Johnson, will have to hit the ground running, LSE’s Travers said.

“You don’t run Tube trains in a right-wing or left-wing way,” Travers said. “Competence is the key. It’s only four years until the next election.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom Khan quoted during his campaign, was one of the first to recognize his victory. “Sending congratulations to London’s new mayor and fellow affordable housing advocate,” he said on Twitter. “Look forward to working together!” Bloomberg News

Experts predict economic disaster from Trump recovery idea W

ASHINGTON—In the event that the US economy crashed, Donald Trump has floated a recovery plan based on his own experience with corporate bankruptcy: Pay America’s creditors less than full value on the US Treasuries they hold.

Experts see it as a reckless idea that would send interest rates soaring, derail economic growth and undermine confidence in the world’s most trusted financial asset.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee suggested in a phone interview on Thursday with CNBC that he would stimulate growth through borrowing. If trouble arose, he added, he could get investors to accept reduced payments for their Treasury holdings.

Trump later clarified that comment to say he would offer to buy the bonds back at a discount from investors in hopes of refinancing them at lower rates.

“I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal,” Trump told CNBC. Such a move, never before attempted by the US government, would likely spook investors whose trust in Treasury notes keeps global financial markets operating.

The need to refinance would likely cause interest rates to spike as investors demanded a greater return for the perceived risks of nonpayment. More tax

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves as he greets supporters after speaking during a rally in Eugene, Oregon, on Friday. AP/Ted S. Warren dollars would have to go toward repaying the debt. Many investors would shift their money elsewhere. And the economy could endure a traumatic blow.

“It seems Trump is planning to try to run the country like one of his failed business ventures, and that does not bode

well,” said Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife. The move would also end a policy introduced during the presidency of George Washington—and celebrated in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical Hamilton—to pay full face value on the debts incurred by the country. The govern-

ment’s unfailing payments of its debt have long pleased investors and supported the economy because the country can borrow at lower rates than it otherwise could.

“Defaulting on our debt would cause creditors to rightly question the ‘full faith’ commitment we make,” said Tony Fratto,

a former Treasury Department official in George W. Bush’s administration. “This isn’t a serious idea—it’s an insane idea.”

Trump has touted his acumen for restructuring four of his companies under bankruptcy laws. When Trump Hotels and Casinos finished a 2004 bankruptcy reorganization, it cut $500 million off $1.8 billion in debt and reduced the interest rate to 8 percent from 15 percent.

“I don’t think it’s a failure’ it’s a success,” Trump told The Associated Press at the time.

But countries function differently from businesses. Nations usually print their own money and service their debt through taxes, unlike corporations that can sell off assets and equity stakes to manage debt or close up shop. Interest rates would spike if a government refused to pay what it owed as investors priced in the risk of default and became resistant toward lending.

“It would make a bad situation worse and increase US borrowing costs on its debt going forward because we would have lost our credit rating,” said Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Publicly held US debt is $13.8 trillion, and taxpayers will devote likely $255 billion to interest payments this year. The market largely sets interest rates on the debt, based in part on Federal Reserve policy.

The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is about 1.8 percent, a figure that would

shoot up if Trump pursued this strategy.

This would cause debt payments to climb at a precarious moment for the federal budget when Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs will likely increase the need to borrow.

“There is no upside,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and president of the conservative American Action Forum. “It’s a false hope.” The federal government flirted with default risks in 2011 and 2013 when President Barack Obama and the Republican-led House of Representatives reached an impasse over raising the government’s borrowing limit.

The government narrowly avoided defaulting on its debt payments in both instances. Still, these breakdowns did cause damage. The 2011 crisis led to a credit rating downgrade by Standard and Poor’s, while the 2013 crisis produced a government shutdown.

The statements by Trump reflect his often-conflicting statements on economic policy. Just as he floated a plan that experts say would raise interest rates, Trump separately discussed the need to be cautious about higher rates during the same CNBC interview in which he bragged about being “the king of debt.”

“It’s a real dilemma, and we have to be very, very careful,” he said. “I love debt. I love playing with it, but of course now you’re talking about something very, very fragile.” AP

Eye

sMirror

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • Sunday, May 8, 2016

A6

Kim champions nuke arms at N. Korean congress

N

orth Korean leader Kim Jong Un touted the success of his country’s nuclear program in a speech opening the first congress of the ruling party since 1980, while also asserting that the country is making economic progress under his rule.

Repeatedly interrupted by frenetic applause and shouts of “hurrah,” Kim said the ruling Workers’ Party had become “invincible and strong,” in a speech to the gathering in Pyongyang that deviated little from past rhetoric about North Korea’s might. Most surprising may have been his outfit: a dark Western-style suit and tie, rather than the Mao suits he’s worn in most public appearances.

“Our military and people achieved the great success of testing the first hydrogen bomb and launching the earth-observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4 in this year of the seventh congress,” Kim said, referring to the object that North Korea sent into orbit in February with a long-range rocket.

The launch drew condemnation from the United Nations Security Council, which viewed it as a test of ballistic missile technology.

The “thrilling explosion” of a nuclear bomb opened this year, Kim said, calling the January test a “sublime prelude to miracles” in improving the arms technology needed to defend the country and uphold its dignity.

North Korea may be preparing for another detonation, 38 North, a Johns Hopkins University-affiliated web site said. Commercial satellite imagery shows “low levels of activity” at the test site, with vehicles spotted on May 5 near the command center, it said.

The Security Council in March added to sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear program, including mandatory inspection of all cargo going into or out of the country. Still, Kim said he would continue development, pledging to detonate a nuclear warhead that could fit atop a ballistic missile.

In the speech, aired in a special broadcast on North Korean state television at 10 p.m. local time, Kim said North Korea has made “the biggest achievements and highest leaps” in all sectors of its economy, thanks to a nationwide campaign to boost production this year.

But he offered few details of his economic program and no indication of whether he would continue his state economy’s tiptoeing into the realm of private enterprise.

“He’s implemented some reforms that have paid off and he now feels he has to recalibrate the country’s principle ideology to explain those changes,” Koh Yu Hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said before the speech. “But drastically changing course won’t be easy because no matter how good change is, you don’t want to make it if it threatens your third-generation dynasty.”

Power to promote

Since becoming supreme commander with the death of his father in late 2011, Kim has built his grip on power with purges of senior offi-

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un addresses the congress in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Friday. North Korea opened the first full congress of its ruling party since 1980, a major political event intended to showcase the country’s stability and unity under young leader Kim, despite international criticism and tough new sanctions over the North’s recent nuclear test and a slew of missile launches. KRT via AP

cials and other provocative actions, including two nuclear tests.

Ordering the Workers’ Party to hold a full congress for the first time under his leadership gives him the chance to set out his agenda, as well as promote or demote officials to shore up his inner circle. What is said and done in Pyongyang during the rest of the gathering— the end date isn’t known—may indicate how serious he is about economic change and whether that may be trumped by his desire to preserve control.

While the meeting provides a peek at Kim’s standing domestically, the absence of foreign delegations highlights his increased diplomatic isolation. When his grandfather Kim Il Sung hosted the

last Congress, North Korea had a better-functioning economy and the event attracted officials from more than 100 nations. This year, no foreign officials were scheduled to attend, and the economy is a fraction of South Korea’s.

Kim said more than 3,000 delegates were attending the congress.

He was seated between Kim Yong Nam and Hwang Pyong So, the other two members of the Politburo Standing Committee.

Songs of praise

A group of about 130 foreign journalists allowed into the country for the event weren’t permitted to cover the Congress itself. The closest they got was about 300 yards from the building where it took place.

The congress, which opened on a cold and overcast day in Pyongyang, caps efforts to portray Kim as the inheritor of his father’s and grandfather’s mantle, with songs sung in praise of him and his exhortations to work harder posted on billboards around the city.

While Kim’s portrait isn’t featured alongside theirs on building façades or in classrooms, he appears in “numerous photographs, offering the on-site guidance” the previous leaders were known for— whether it be over a nuclear bomb, at a basketball court or in a computer classroom.

‘Great man’

“It is not easy to say in a few words, but our leader is a great man,” said

Kim Su Ryon, a 31-year-old whose job is to distribute state rations of food and other goods in her neighborhood. “From the founding of the Workers’ Party to now, our great leaders have always loved the people and improved their lives.”

The unofficial economy, known as “jangmadang,” has shared the burden of feeding the population of 25 million. Kim has allowed greater private investment and let farmers take away more surplus production, according to analysts with contacts in the country.

Having pledged to never let his people “tighten the belts again,” Kim, nonetheless, shares the paranoia of prior North Korean leaders that markets may be a conduit for outside information and help sow doubts among locals on the legitimacy of his rule.

“At the end of the day, what really matters is to maintain that grip on power,” said Lee Ji Sue, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul’s Myongji University. “Power in North Korea is private property, because it’s been inherited and Kim doesn’t want to risk losing it.”

Kim has purged officials, including his uncle and one-time Deputy Jang Song Thaek, who sought closer business ties with China. While mismanagement, graft and a lack of outside aid has added to the economic misery for North Koreans, dynastic rule has led the Kim family to tightly control information in a way that also restricts trade.

Illicit markets

As a result, hundreds of illicit markets have sprung up in North Korea and people rely on them for food, according to academic and government studies based on interviews with defectors. Goods shipped from China include memory sticks and CDs of South Korean and Western soap operas and movies, sought even by members of the elite.

It’s unclear whether officials will use this party congress to address major changes in the economy, but similar events were used

by Communist neighbors China and the then-Soviet Union to roll out major plans.

Deng Xiaoping announced an ambitious program of economic reform in 1978 and Mikhail Gorbachev detailed his policies of openness and restructuring in 1986.

They also grappled with how to open their economies without ceding control. China turned against liberalization in the first congress after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, with leaders concerned that Western democratic thoughts could spur the collapse of the party. But after growth slowed to less than 4 percent, Deng, who had recently retired, pushed at the 1992 congress for market reforms. Bloomberg News

www.businessmirror.com.ph

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

Sunday, May 8, 2016 • Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo

A7

Candidates told: Do not worsen garbage problem

T

HE National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) reminded politicians to take the lead in helping clean up election waste after the May 9 elections.

NSWMC Secretariat Executive Director Eli Ildefonso said politicians and their respective political parties should be responsible enough to clean up their mess after the elections, so as not to leave behind tons of election paraphernalia.

“We appeal to them to tell their supporters to dispose of their garbage properly,” Ildefonso said.

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has so far collected more than 20

truckloads of posters and other campaign paraphernalia that were illegally put up outside poster areas designated by the Commission on Elections. The MMDA is a member of the NSWMC. Meanwhile, Ildefonso urged national and local candidates to include environmental protection in their platforms in the government, reminding them of the importance of having a clean and green environment.

“They should integrate environmental protection in their programs. Whether they win or lose, candidates should help each other to address the garbage problem,” Ildefonso said.

“Win or lose, our candidates should work together to clean up their mess. The winners in the coming elections, and especially those seeking local elective posts, should help address the garbage problem,” he said.

Solid-waste management, he added, is not the sole responsibility of the government. “Everybody should help,” he said.

The NSWMC noted that solidwaste management is not on the priority agenda of most local government units.

“They should make sure to help put up materials-recovery facility

in every barangay or cluster of barangays, and come up with a solid waste-management plan,” he said.

The official noted the poor implementation of Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, which calls for proper waste segregation, recycling and composting to reduce waste.

Many local governments have yet to submit their 10-year solid waste-management plans, as well as cause the closure of open dumps.

There are at least 400 open dumps in various parts of the country that need to be closed down.

Early this year the NSWMC, together with the Ombudsman, caused the filing of cases against officials of 50 local governments for their alleged failure to implement the garbage law. Jonathan L. Mayuga

Bet promises to modernize northern Cebu

C

EBU CITY—Bogo City Mayor Celestino “Junie” Martinez has vowed to modernize the infrastructure and economic development of northern Cebu.

Martinez, a Liberal Party candidate, is perceived to be a sure winner in the Fourth District of Cebu, where he and wife lawyer Clavel Asas Martinez served for about 20 years as representatives.

He said it is time for him to push vigorously the development and expansion of tourism, sugar production, fishing and other vital industries to make the towns of San

Remegio, Medillin, Daan Bantayan, Bantayan Island, Tuburan, Santa Fe, Madridejos and Tabuelan key hubs of commerce and development.

Martinez was one of the authors of Republic Act 7160, or the Local Government Code, when he was still a congressman.

Meanwhile, reelectionist United Nationalist Alliance Rep. Gus Tambunting of Parañaque thanked his allies and supporters for their continuous help and support during the campaign, as the May 9 elections draw near.

“Let me thank my supporters

whose number still keeps on growing, even as we are about to end the campaign,” Tambunting said. He added, “Their support is truly overwhelming and inspiring, as it gives me hope that we will have another chance to serve the people of the Second District of Parañaque in the next three years as their representative in Congress,” Tambunting said.

He added that the strong support for him manifests the people’s appreciation and satisfaction for the effective services and numerous projects he initiated for them in the past three years.

Moreover, Tambunting thanked the leaders of religious groups, namely, El Shaddai leader and Buhay Partylist group founder Mike Velarde and Iglesia Ni Cristo Executive Minister Eduardo Manalo, for their support.

“If elected, my constituents in Parañaque can expect more projects and services from me during my second term. Through dedication, hard work and transparent public service, I have fulfilled my promises to help my constituents when I first ran as congressman in 2013. Those three years provided a solid foundation for my legislative work,” Tambunting said.

DOE seeks law to protect transmission towers

T

HE Department of Energy (DOE) is pushing for legislation that will, hopefully, put an end to the planting of trees and the illegal construction of permanent structures underneath the transmission lines and towers of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).

“The DOE strongly supports this.

We are pushing for legislation to impede the right-of-way [Row] transmission lines,” said Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada, who added that the passage of law criminalizing the planting of trees intentionally within the ROW corridor is considered a longterm solution to address the problem.

There is already a bill filed in Congress that prohibits the introduction of plants and structures within the ROW limit of power-transmission lines to ensure smooth and efficient delivery of power.

But Monsada said the passage of this bill could take a long time, but still this, she added, would put an end to these acts of sabotage. “Maybe it can be passed during the next administration. We just hope they can see the urgency in it,” she said.

House Bill 6450 is an act that prohibits the planting of plants and trees, and the construction of any structure under or within the ROW clearance of all power transmission lines and providing penalties for violation the law. The proposed bill took note of

the recurrence of obstructions yearly along the power transmission lines.

This, it said, is “exacting tremendous amount on government coffers” in terms of payments of damages caused on improvements during clearing operations of power-transmission lines, which is substantial enough to construct transmission-line projects. The agency has reiterated many times its appeal for the public’s cooperation and warns that ROW violations along transmission lines compromise not just the safety of the people, but also the security of the power grid.

It urged stakeholders to render support and assistance in safeguarding power facilities from any obstructions that would affect the continuous supply of electricity to all households and establishments.

“We appeal particularly to the local governments and land owners to cooperate with NGCP, the concessionaire of the national transmission lines, in resolving the transmission issues on right of way and easements,” Monsada said.

A special interagency task force is now addressing the growing concern on the transmission tower bombings and ROW issues posing economic impediment in Mindanao despite the additional 770 megawatts of power capacity coming in this year in the region. Lenie Lectura

A8 Sunday, May 8, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Remember the Bangladesh money?

An act worthy of emulation

B

EFORE the noise of the approaching elections dins it out completely from our consciousness, the issue of the $81-million Bangladesh money that entered our banking system must be resuscitated, and for a very good reason. A virtue, which we thought had long ago been pulverized by the dishonesty of our public officials, is alive and its reconstitution has been carried out by an unlikely personality.

We are referring to what we believe is the forthrightness of casino junket operator Kim Wong, one of those suspected of having received a part of the money. Not only did Wong acknowledge receiving some of the money, but he quickly returned it to the government, all of what he says he received—a total of $15 million. First, he returned $4.63 million. Over the succeeding days, he turned over a total of P488-million more, which is the equivalent of $10.37 million.

Perhaps, Wong was only trying to save his skin, as he is being accused by some government officials of having prior knowledge of the stolen money’s provenance.

But his behavior tells us what candor can do to speedily turn the wheels of justice in our society. If only we will learn from it. Think of how easy it will be to return to Bangladesh the full amount of the stolen money that came our way, if everyone concerned acted in the manner of Wong.

We cannot help but compare this behavior with that of our own officials, in our own banking sector and public offices. There, the norm of conduct is to deny any knowledge of the matter, then to disavow any involvement in it, then to shift responsibility. Return anything? That’s an admission of guilt. Et cetera.

In any case, Wong’s narration provides an insight into the solution of difficult problems when people trust each other. Wong was quoted as saying it was not easy to come up with the money. “But I have many friends who understood my predicament. Two hundred million pesos of the money came from Solaire to whom I had paid it earlier to settle a debt. They lent me the same amount again.”

Another quotable from Wong: “I want to prove that I have nothing to do with the money-laundering scheme and that I don’t know its origins. In the casinos, we don’t ask where the players’ money came from.”

Wong is also saying that Philippine Remittance Co.—the remittance company that distributed the money to the various recipients, in accordance with instructions from somewhere—is still in possession of $17 million of the stolen money. Let’s see how things develop from here.

Right now, Wong’s personal and corporate accounts are frozen, making doing business difficult.

We have no intention whatsoever of interfering in the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s performance of its duties. But we do sympathize with Wong, and hope his woes will be over before too many more days have passed.

Can we have a Lee Kuan Yew for coming generation in PHL? T

WO presidents—mother and son Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and Benigno Aquino III—curiously marked the beginning (1986) and the end (2016), respectively, of a generation that, together with three other presidents between them, had inordinately wasted the precious time and resources, creating and managing crisis, instead of shaping the country’s future.

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In that 30-year period, the country spent a whopping more than P31 trillion, accumulated by the five presidents at varying degrees, mostly in incremental national budgeting, from Mrs. Aquino, to Fidel V. Ramos, to Joseph Ejercito Estrada, to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and, finally, to Aquino.

Thirty-one trillion pesos is 63.7 times bigger than the P486.42 billion officially spent by the Marcos regime in 20 years and, yet, by any stretch of imagination, including inflationary adjustments, Marcos had more to show in terms of tangible and intangible accomplishments in infrastructure and social amelioration than any of the presidents after him, or all of them combined (See BusinessMirror, Opinion page, November 13, 2015).

Divided by 100 million (that’s the Philippine population), the P31 trillion equals P310,000 for every man, woman and child in this country in today’s currency rate.

Sad to note, this huge amount of budgets, supposedly meant to spur economic growth, failed to alleviate poverty and, worse, the country remained dismally and shamelessly the economic laggard of the five original members that organized the Asean in Bangkok on August 8, 1967.

The five are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Except for the latter, the four are now considered the newly industrialized countries in the region. Brunei Darussalam joined the Asean on January 8, 1984; Viet-

nam on July 28, 1995; Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar on July 23, 1997; and Cambodia on April 30, 1999.

The elections on Monday begin a new generation (one generation is 30 years), and it’s hoped that a new leader will finally emerge in this country, bearing in mind as a stark reminder the trial and error in governance; the economy that failed to employ its own people; the terrorism and insurgency that constantly threatened the country’s stability; and the corruption and plunder of every size, make and brand that daily occupied the headlines.

A hope, though must be much, with all due respect to the man, with the vision, leadership, tenacity and firmness of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), who guided Singapore, our neighbor, into an economic miracle, not a miracle made in heaven, mind you, but a miracle made here on Earth by brains and brawns.

Dr. Jose “Joey” P. Leviste Jr., a well-traveled visionary Filipino businessman-industrialist, provides us a wealth of anthology on LKY, which he turned into a bestselling book, titled If the Philippines had a Lee Kuan Yew, published in 2015 by Pacific Rim Innovation and Management Exponent Inc., hoping future leaders in this country can take a lesson from the experiences of Singapore.

Why an anthology?

“While I cannot help but extol the ideals of a great leader like LKY, my principal goal in coming up with this book is to initiate a discussion and a debate over the right way to lead and move forward a people in an archipelagic nation like the Philippines with the ideas, thoughts and commentaries of the contributors to this book, some of whom are personal and longtime friends of mine,” Leviste said.

“The book,” he said, “aims to start an intellectual discourse on what needs to be done so that the Philippines can achieve the social and economic progress and the national will that Singapore has achieved.”

Singapore has shown that a country in Southeast Asia could emulate, if not surpass, the economic progress achieved by Western countries. The city-state has topped nearly all global rankings, competitiveness indeces, businessfriendliness, infrastructure development, information technology, economic progress, quality of living education and health-care standards, Leviste said.

The World Bank in 2013 estimated Singapore’s GDP per-capita income at $55,182, making it one of the highest in the world, next to Luxembourg, Norway, Qatar, Macau, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark. In comparison, the percapita income of the Philippines in 2015 reached $3,000 only for the first time.

“We still have a long way to go to realize Singapore’s level of economic and social achievements. To do this, we all need to collectively raise the per-capita income in the Philippines to at least the per-capita income of Makati City as a start,” Leviste said.

“Over the next 50 years, the Philippines is poised to be one of the world’s 20 largest economies. We are likely to join the ranks of advanced nations. We are likely to be a regional, if not global, leader. But these will only be possible if we will have competent, strong, disciplined, decisive and principled leaders, like LKY, who can get things done,” Leviste said, articulating his optimism for the coming generation.

To contact this writer, e-mail at cecilio.arillo@ gmail.com.

If money prevails, good-bye, democracy

I

F money—meaning vote-buying, violence and other ways of cheating, with money as the sole consideration to get elected in the May 9 elections—prevails, then good-bye to democracy.

Echoes

By Johnny Dayang

However, in some provinces, there still exists hope for the elections of candidates who are truly peoples’ choices. They are candidates—from congressmen, governors down to councilors—

who are really loved, trusted and competent to faithfully and dutifully perform their mandates.

They are aspirants for three-year terms who are perceived and relied by Filipino citizens from all walks of life to serve them well through dedicated services and visionary leadership.

Although not many of them enjoy such possibilities of get-

ting elected without putting up so much money to win, there is hope for enlightened voters to support candidates with mission and vision determined to uplift the social conditions of the masses of our people, do justice to everyone, democratize opportunities, and liberate our people from ignorance, poverty and diseases.

Opinion BusinessMirror

Right to insult what I made C

ommission on Elections (Comelec) Spokesman James B. Jimenez and I worked together: I to get the automation law passed, and he, to explain it to a doubting public. I sponsored it, I insulted colleagues who questioned it, I went out on a limb for it, and when the boUGH broke, and proof of automated cheating was presented, I took the egg on my face. Therefore, in subsequent automated elections, I had earned the right to question my handiwork and insult it.

Free Fire

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

James and I had a Twitter exchange. And because Twitter limits responses to 140 characters every time, you are limited to short, sharp and swift statements that are brilliant and illuminating— like being hit with marbles of light.

On the subject of whether to keep extra ballots on hand, in case the voter changes his vote after filling out his ballot, James said, yes, because the right to vote is inviolable. If a voter changes his or her mind after filling out a ballot, he or she has the right to ask for another to register his or her fickleness. Equally, a voter has the right to ask for another ballot to replace the one he spoiled from clumsiness, like spilling ink on it.

But I said no. The right to vote is limited to the right to get your vote right the first time and not again.

Stick to your first choice and clumsiness is no excuse. You don’t use

ball pens that clot anymore. You just got to shade a small oval. You shade the wrong oval, overshade it or mess it up altogether—you can still get the remaining ovals right.

You do not deserve another ballot to get all your choices just right and your shading all neat. You are not a child in kindergarten.

The right to vote is either individual or universal. The individual right to vote is subordinate to the universal right of suffrage.

The universal right cannot be compromised, hampered or inconvenienced so as to be frustrated.

But the individual right to vote taken to excess, like allowing second choices, which delay the voting, can be properly denied for the sake of not denying it to those still awaiting their turn to vote.

We had a problem with voters’ receipts, which are mandatory in the automation law. But the Comelec said voters’ receipts would delay the voting process and might be used as a receipt to show the one to whom one sold one’s vote.

(This is an insult. Filipinos rarely, if ever, sell their votes, though members of the Comelec en banc may sometimes seem prepared to sell their mothers if the latter were at all merchantable, as we

say in Commercial law.)

In turn, delay subverts the universal right of suffrage. For example, delay can deny the right to vote of those who come late to the polls and find that the blank ballots have been used up by those who were earlier given the right to correct a ballot they had spoiled.

But, of course, voters should come early and not late—and so the right to receipts prevailed because, whatever, there must always be time for them if there is time for anything else, especially something as trivial as correcting a spoiled ballot.

Moreover, the right to receipts without the law is implied because the right to vote is meaningless if you have no proof that your vote was read and reckoned rightly, be it by man or machine.

You can’t walk away from voting, wondering what happened to your vote. It cannot be argued that machines make no mistakes; in fact,machines can be easily programmed to make mistakes or simply fail to operate correctly—unlike men who must think to make a mistake. Therefore, the right to vote is inviolable in the main—and to that larger purpose the individual right to vote must

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph • Sunday, May 8, 2016 A9

yield and may be curtailed.

Indeed, it must be curtailed to make it as simple as possible, but also as honest as can be. Hence, the voting receipts. Hence, taking photos of your vote on the machine screen and of the voting process are logical—and would have been mandatory. But I, as chairman of the Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, with typical arrogance shot down Sergio Osmeña III’s wise proposal for photos to be taken of the process as added security. My bad, as we say on Twitter.

And I apologized to him on radio on Friday so emphatically that I urged my listeners, all 32 million of them on DZRH to vote for him.

En summa total, the right to vote, which includes the right to get your vote read and reckoned rightly, may exclude as it should, the right to ask for another ballot out of fickleness or clumsiness; not least because extra ballots open the f loodgates to filling them out after the close of the polls, which was done in previous elections, manual and automated—as in Makati, where Board of Election Inspectors or BEIs were sticking in newly filled out ballots along with already counted ballots taken out of unsealed bal-

lot boxes way after the close of polls as late as 10 p.m. and even 3 the next morning.

The ballot boxes were then left outside beside the garbage dump of the City Hall until the rains came in June and stayed out there until the rains stopped in December; after which the soaking wet boxes were finally presented to the Philippine Supreme Court, if at all, where they were pointed to as evidence of mashed potatoes, which was their appearance.

Because the one thing the Comelec never tells you is that the procedure for challenging election results is completely ignored and firmly resisted by it; and in the celebrated instances were the Comelec is forced to take cognizance of a case or two; the Comelec and the Supreme Court find it too tedious to make the slightest effort to get at the truth. So ordered. In short, you can cheat; and if automated elections should have made it easier to prove cheating, it is still not so easy as to be worth the bother of looking into cheating with any measure of exertion.

Why? Because unlike Americans, we are Filipinos whether we are in barong or in a robe.

Turn the world successfully into a Christian place Conclusion

Speech delivered by the BusinessMirror columnist Teddy Locsin Jr. at the 41st Commencement Exercises of the New Era University in Quezon City.

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HE monastic orders were miniature Christian societies. The walls enclosing them were made of stone. But the walls that enclose the Iglesia Ni Cristo are not. Its walls are made up of the commitments of its members to a way of living. They are composed of beliefs that are as unshakeable as stones. And they are erected, not by paid masons, but freely by each member of the INC; a wall first around himself and herself by their manner of Christian living. And then a larger circumferential wall around the Church composed of their shared commitments—to each other and to the Church. This wall is immovable like stone, but its circumference widens with every new convert, every new child born into the INC. And so, with perfect spiritual safety, Christians of a particular church or order in the past walked, worked and communed with each other—and even with anyone outside it. And yet, nothing foreign penetrated the fortress of their faith, the citadel of their core Christianity.

For true churches, of which the INC seems the last example, do not live behind walls of stone, but ramparts of self-discipline and faith; and on the battlements stand the ministers of their religion, ever vigilant against dangers to their faith.

Within the walls that envelop each true Christian, and the best example is the INC, the INC lives Christian lives according to the teachings of their Church. So lived the Crusaders who held the Holy Land, the Puritans in England, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Calvinists in Geneva and the Lutherans in Scandinavia. They, in the distant past, achieved a similar totality of Christian life like the Iglesia Ni Cristo today. But there is one important difference.

These churches comprised a few thousand individuals; at best, tens of thousands in small townships; or hundreds of thousands in small kingdoms and tiny republics and colonies, such as those of New England.

Only the Iglesia Ni Cristo has achieved a degree of Christian cohesion, intimacy, commitment and geographic extent on a scale never before; and in so short a time; with millions upon millions of adherents, all living authentic and not pretended lives in the manner their shared beliefs prescribe. It is not just outward show, but innermost being. In thought, speech and deed; the same modesty of demeanor, the same moderation in speech and deed; the same circumspection in conduct; and the same courtesy in relationships; and ever and always the same devout Christianity in all

they do and forebear to do. For what a man does not do defines him as evidently as what he does.

No other church has achieved that degree of Christian living on such a scale as the INC without loss of ardor on the part of its members.

And it is that Church, which confers upon you the degrees of learning that attest to your fitness; not only to earn a living, or practice a trade, or pursue a profession; but armed with your new learning, to be of greater use and benefit to your families, to your communities, to others—be they of your or another church or no church at all. And to your country, for the INC is the preeminent Filipino church, like the first Christian church was Syrian.

Today’s graduates, like those in past years, and those in years to come, are not just accountants, medical technologists and doctors, physical therapists and entrepreneurs, information-technology experts, criminologists, astronomers, architects, real-estate managers, multimedia experts, public administrators—and whatever other new disciplines may be added as the need arises.

That is not all that are graduated today—but Christians of the Iglesia Ni Cristo.

Christians in thought, word and deed, in firm commitment and in ordinary living. These academic degrees attest to further empowerment for our brothers and sisters to live more, to do more—for others, for family, for community, for country and for the Church.

Above all, for the Church.

For know this. There is no learning you can acquire that will protect you from the evil in the world.

No individual has the strength to defeat the bad that is out there in the secular world; the malice in politics, business and society.

No individual can, on his own, resist the temptation to fall, or endure the hurt that awaits those who venture out into the world.

Only in a group is there hope of endurance and resistance. And only in the Church is there a certainty of victory. Some battles may be lost, but never the war of good against evil.

This day is an ending and, yet, it is a beginning.

This day marks a new you, yet, you will stand and receive the most important certification that is possible: That you have not changed with learning; that you are the Christian you were when you first

enrolled; only you leave empowered by new learning to better in helping your fellowmen and the Church that protects you all.

W hat goes around comes around, in this circle of felicity, within the protective walls of the INC; walls invisible to sight, but indestructible to assault, strengthened daily by your rectitude and your faith from the evil that tries to break them down.

Some will say: What freedom is that? To live behind walls of stone or faith? It is the freedom of free men holding their city against the enemy of their freedom.

What freedom is that which denies you the free choice to do anything you want, even against the Church? It is the freedom to protect and preserve, and not to tear it down.

What freedom is it that denies you the right to reject the author-

ity of the Church? It is the freedom to accept that authority. Freely, for the INC will take no less than freely given obedience. To obey is freedom; to submit is slavery. The INC believers never submit; they follow. That is why they are undefeatable.

The Iglesia does deny anyone’s freedom. It is the world out there; it is the politicians out there who deny all your freedom to be what you are—true Christians in the mold of the INC. They cannot abide a power that they cannot control.

They cannot abide a power that is accountable only to God and fears them not at all.

The politicians and their allies in society have repeatedly tried to destroy freedom to the Iglesia Ni Cristo by repeated harassments and slanders. The Iglesia cherishes freedom because freedom is its strength.

The Church never forces any-

one to join the Church. It makes no threats if you leave it. It never detains anyone who has lost faith. Its doors are closed for privacy, but they are easily opened for the exit of those who no longer believe; or no longer deserve to remain; those who, in their lives, have brought no honor, but rather shame to the Church.

At no time is one more free, than when they, with perfect freedom and perfect knowledge, choose what is best for them: The safety of numbers; the consolation of shared beliefs; the certainty of truths from no less than God and His prophets; the necessity of discipline to maintain the rank and formation of a fighting force; that yet calls itself no more than a church—for it serves a King With No Armies, our Lord.

God bless you all. God protect the Iglesia Ni Cristo. And God save our country.

Sports BusinessMirror

A10

| Sunday, May 8, 2016 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

HARD-EARNED WIN C

LYDE MONDILLA pulled through in a playoff with fellow former junior golfer Jobim Carlos, tapping in for birdie on No. 18 to foil the rookie pro’s breakthrough bid and capture the P3.5-million International Containter Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) Manila Masters crown at the Eastridge Golf Club on Saturday in Binangonan, Rizal.

Mondilla, who has scored three victories in a young pro career, including a careerbest one-shot triumph over Tony Lascuña in the season-ending Tournament Players’ Championship last year, hit a superb 3-iron second shot from 240 yards to the edge of the green on their second trip to par-5 closing hole and barely completed an eagle feat after his pitch stopped inches short off the cup.

“It was a hard-earned victory and I’m lucky I did it,” said the 23-year-old Mondilla, who rallied with a 70 to force a playoff at

Elasto Painters eye commanding 2-0 lead vs Aces

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AIN OR SHINE shoots for a commanding lead against Alaska in Game Two of their best-of-seven championship series for the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup on Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Coming off an impressive series opening win on Friday, the Elasto Painters will try to repeat their 105-95 victory in their 5 p.m. encounter.

“It’s nice to win Game One, but we need four wins and Alaska, for sure, will be back,” said Rain or Shine Head Coach Yeng Guiao, whose wards managed to pull off the win despite a career game from Aces import Rob Dozier, who exploded with a personal best of 41 points.

“It will be closer next time. But I hope I’m wrong.” Guiao added. Paul Lee shone brightest for the Elasto Painters in Game One, playing his best game yet in the conference after getting sidelined in the elimination and quarterfinal rounds due to an injury.

“I’m very, very happy and excited for Paul’s game,” said Guiao, who drew a team high 20 points from the former University of the East standout. “We knew Paul’s getting back his games. This is the right time—championship, game on the line.”

While Dozier delivered his best game for Head Coach Alex Compton, the locals were far from impressive, particularly Calvin Abueva, the leading candidate for the Best Player of the Conference award. The usually energetic forward out of San Sebastian College had a quiet nine-point performance on Friday and had a couple of ugly misses and crucial turnovers late in the game .Cyrus Baguio and Noy Baclao were the only locals to hit double figures for Alaska with 14 and 10 points, respectively. Joel Orellana

CLYDE MONDILLA lifts the third championship trophy in a young pro career.

283 and went on to match his previous career record winnings of P650,000.

Carlos, who earlier equaled Mondilla’s closing birdie to card a 72 and stay in the hunt for a breakthrough victory on his rookie year, failed to score a repeat, flubbing his birdie bid from 15 feet and enabling Mondilla to snare the victory. He rued his slip-up on No. 1 and his costly miscue on No. 15.

“I made mistakes. There were instances you cannot avoid committing lapses and it happened in the last round,” said Carlos, who double-bogeyed No. 1 and dropped two strokes on No. 15.

Still, the former national standout held on, coming through with clutch birdies at the finish to keep his title bid alive, only to fall short against the steady rising Del Monte star in the first event decided in a playoff after five legs of the circuit sponsored by International Container Terminal Services Inc. and organized

by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments Inc. “We fought many times during our jungolf days and this was the first time we played in sudden death. He played well and he deserved the honor,” said Carlos, who still banked P430,000 for his first earnings in the pros.

Carlos actually blew a one-stroke lead over Mondilla with four holes to play in regulation as he double-bogeyed the par-4 15th and trailed by one. But just when Mondilla thought the rookie pro has started to crack up in a pressure-packed finish, the 20-year-old shotmaker birdied the par-3 16th to draw level.

In the end, Mondilla prevailed over an upstart who took charge of a stellar field halfway through with a second 69 and held on to the lead with a scrambling 73 in the third round of the event backed by Custom Clubmakers, adidas, KZG, Summit Mineral Water, Srixon, Pacsports, TaylorMade, Sharp and Champion.

ALIDO, SASO BAG JR AMATEUR TITLES S

ECOND seed Ira Alido kept the momentum of a solid start and went on to clobber top-ranked Tom Kim of South Korea and fashion out a 9&7 romp for the boys’ crown in the 2016 Philippine Junior Amateur Match Play Golf Championship at the Alabang Country Club in Muntinlupa on Friday.

The 15-year-old Alido also rode the crest of his 5&4 victory over Aniceto Mandanas in the semifinals on Friday, as he came out strong and went 4-up in their morning duel then completely outplayed Kim with a more impressive stint in the afternoon to complete

the rout in their 36-hole finale.

It was the Manila Southwoods’s bet biggest win in the national tournament sponsored by the MVP Sports Foundation, PLDT, Smart, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and the Philippine Sports Commission, and held as part of the PLDT National Amateur Golf Tour.

He also thwarted Kim’s bid to sweep the national titles after the latter topped the stroke play championship last month.

While Alido cruised to a trouble-free win, Yuka Saso needed to toughen up in the

closing holes to hold off a rallying Hwang Min-jeong and capture the girls’ crown while foiling the Koreans’ bid to dominate one of the country’s premier junior tournaments organized and conducted by the National Golf Association of the Philippines.

Saso, a Queen Sirikit Cup veteran, also took charge early, going 3-up after 18 holes but the 14-year-old shotmaker from Tagaytay Midlands needed to come up with clutch shots on their return trip to the backside to hack out a 2-up victory.

SAN SEBASTIAN College’s Regile Ilagan (19) tries to crossover his way against College of Saint Benilde’s Yankee Haruna.

ROY DOMINGO

STAGS TRIUMPH S

By Rick Olivares

AN SEBASTIAN College found some good cheer in its second outing in the Filoil Flying V Premier Cup with a 59-46 victory over College of Saint Benilde at the Filoil Flying V Centre on Saturday.

After a week of bad luck, where they lost highscoring guard-forward Rhanzelle Yong to a season-ending knee injury during practice and their Filoil debut loss to Far Eastern University (FEU), the Golden Stags pounded on the woeful Blazers all match long.

The Stags pressed the Blazers into 22 turnovers of which they scored 16 points and harassed them into a woeful 29-percent field goal shooting, the worst in the 12 seniors matches played thus far.

Saint Benilde had more free throw attempts than San

CHERRY-PATTY DUO PREVAILS

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By Lance Agcaoili

OTON’S Cherry Rondina and Patty Orendain barged into the quarterfinals after winning their first two games in Bracket C of the Philippine Superliga (PSL) Challenge Cup beach volleyball tournament 2016 on Saturday at Sands SM By the Bay in Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

Rondina and Orendain jumpstarted their first game for a rousing 21-4, 21-7 victory over Aileen Abuel and Princess Listana of Accel Quantum Plus. They were supposed to play Mapúa late in the afternoon, but the pair of Shaira Hermano and Niella Ramilo withdrew, giving Foton a walkover victory.

“Sobrang blessed kasi trinabaho din naman namin ito at naniniwala naman ako na may magandang outcome,”said Rondina, who is playing her first PSL beach volleyball tourney. “Madami akong natutunan sa past beach volleyball tournaments na nasalihan

Pagcor, PCSO told to remit ‘real’ PSC funds

ko, malaking tulong kasi in every league may mga learnings akong nakuha sa iba’t ibang kalaban.”

Bang Pineda and Aiza MaizoPontillas of Petron XCS also benefited from Mapúa’s withdrawal. They battled Accel late Saturday, also in Bracket C. Jovelyn Gonzaga and Nene Bautista of RC Cola-Army A, meanwhile, escaped past gritty tandem of Bernadeth Pons and Kyla Atienza of Far Eastern University (FEU)-Petron, 19-21, 21-16, 15-13, to inch a win closer to the quarterfinals in Bracket D. FEU-Petron, on the other hand, split its two matches—posting a 21-14, 21-12 win over Meralco’s April Hingpit and Jonafer San Pedro, who earlier had a come-from-behind 13-21, 18-21, 15-10 victory over Cignal Team Awesome’s Vhima Condada and Mary Grace Berte.

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ALVAREZ-KHAN RING SHOWDOWN IN VEGAS

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AS VEGAS—Canelo Alvarez is fighting Amir Khan, though the chatter this week has mostly been about Gennady Golovkin.

But if Alvarez has learned one thing while becoming Mexico’s favorite fighter, it’s that boxing is one sport where the opponent in front of you can be far more dangerous than any you might face in the future.

“You get used to it with experience,” Alvarez said. “You can’t be thinking about what could happen. You have to focus on the fight.”

A showdown with the fearsome Triple G awaits, though possibly not as soon as Golovkin wants. Alvarez seems content to fight on his own terms, and the indication this week is that

he’s in no hurry to meet Golovkin, despite a mandate from the World Boxing Council to fight him next. Alvarez doesn’t even consider himself a middleweight like Golovkin, though he holds a 160-pound title that will be at stake against Khan. The two will meet on Saturday night at the new T-Mobile Arena at a catch weight of 155 pounds in an intriguing matchup of power versus speed. And while the red-headed Alvarez is a 5-1 favorite, he’s not taking anything for granted.

“He has speed and elusiveness, he moves very well,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “But let’s not forget about the courage he shows every time he’s been down he’s gotten up. We respect that.” AP

FAR Eastern University-Petron’s Bernadeth Pons (yellow) and Meralco’s April Ross Hingpit fight it out at the net.

FRYE, CAVALIERS TORCH HAWKS WITH BARRAGE OF 3-POINTERS A TLANTA—Channing Frye scored 27 points and the Cavaliers kept up their three-point barrage on Friday, dominating down the stretch for a 121-108 victory that gave Cleveland a commanding 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Two nights after setting a National Basketball Association record with 25 baskets beyond the arc, the Cavaliers were nearly as good in a 21-of-39 performance from long

range that moved them within one victory of their second playoff sweep over the Hawks in two years.

It was tighter in Oklahoma City as the San Antonio Spurs beat the Thunder, 100-96, to take a 2-1 lead in its Western Conference semifinal series. Kawhi Leonard had 31 points and 11 rebounds; LaMarcus Aldridge had 24 points and eight rebounds; and Tony Parker added 19 points and eight rebounds for the Spurs, who

regained the home-court advantage they had surrendered with a loss in Game Two. Russell Westbrook scored 31 points for the Thunder, but he made just 10 of 31 shots. He also had nine rebounds and eight assists. Kevin Durant scored 26 points, Serge Ibaka added 15 and Steven Adams had 11 rebounds for Oklahoma City.

The Thunder shot just 41.5 percent from the field.

Sebastian, 23-19, but the Blazers could only knock down 13 of them for a paltry 57-percent accuracy rate.

“We wanted to make a better effort, especially after the loss to FEU,” San Sebastian Head Coach Edgar Macaraya said. “The game plan was to press Benilde from the start. We aren’t particularly tall, so we have to turn what we can do defensively into a weapon.”

So bad was Saint Benilde’s shooting that during the first half, they shot a pitiful five of 24 for a 33-19 deficit. The Blazers somewhat started the second half on a better note as they cut the lead to 39-31 after a bucket from FilipinoAmerican forward Yankee Haruna.

But Alfren Gayosa, who returned to San Sebastian after playing for University of Santo Tomas (UST) in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines, struck for a four-point play and another triple to restore the Stags’s lead to double digits. Gayosa was a former San Sebastian Staglets star before he was recruited to play for UST by the Golden Tigers’ former Head Coach Bong dela Cruz. He returned to San Sebastian last season and sat out a year for his residency.

The Spurs ran out to a 35-20 lead after a three-pointer by David West, but the Thunder responded with a 9-2 run to creep back into the game. San Antonio led 47-42 at halftime after making seven of 11 three-pointers. Westbrook made just 6-of-17 shots before the break.

Back-to-back treys by Ibaka and Westbrook gave the Thunder an 81-77 lead with just over seven minutes to play. San Antonio regained the lead, 91-89, then Westbrook and Durant turned

the ball over on back-to-back possessions.

West’s bucket in close pushed the Spurs ahead 96-89 with 1:19 to play.

The Thunder trimmed San Antonio’s lead to 98-96 on a floater by Dion Waiters with 4.5 seconds remaining, but Leonard made two free throws with 2.7 seconds left.

Game Four will be on Sunday in Oklahoma City, while the Cleveland travels to Atlanta to try and complete a sweep of the Hawks. AP

ALACAÑANG found itself in the center of the funds remittance controversy from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

(Pagcor) to the government sports arm, the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).

Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero said the issue could have been avoided had President Aquino listened to the PSC’s clamor for its 5-percent share from the Pagcor.

Republic Act 6847, the law that created the PSC, tasks the Pagcor to remit 5 percent of revenues from casinos to the PSC. However, the sports body’s share was reduced to 2.5 percent in 1997.

Escudero said he is convinced that the Pagcor “may have unwittingly shortchanged athletes of their share of the funding.”

“The athletes deserve their full share of funding from the Pagcor,” Escudero stressed.

Escudero had since raised the issue and demanded that the Pagcor remit 5 percent—and not 2.5 percent.

But it took Pampanga Rep. Yeng Guiao to seek help from the Supreme Court to clarify the law and compel the Pagcor and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to remit their contributions in full to the PSC. The PCSO is tasked to remit 30 percent of its income from six sweepstakes or lottery draws annually to the PSC. “It should not have reached this far had the President gave sports concerns a bit of his time,” Escudero said.

Escudero added that the issue must be settled soon, as the country is looking forward to a fruitful campaign in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August and is gearing up for the coming 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.