BusinessMirror May 30, 2020

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Taking to the skies (again) Aviation industry gears up for ‘new normal’ amid raging pandemic

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By Recto Mercene & Ashley Manabat

F airline passengers are endlessly miffed by multiple security and body checks at airports adopted in the aftermath of 9/11, new intrusive layers of protocols have been added to our Calvary of woes, this time due to the deadly novel coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19).

We must accept out of necessity and survival the “new normal” as the words are being bandied about, and enter a world of inconveniences that we must endure until an effective vaccine comes along to slay this invisible enemy.

The debate on the future of air travel has focused on how to achieve physical distancing, disinfection, hygiene and operating economics, among others.

“For travelers, the entire journey is only as safe as its weakest link, between origin and destination the key ingredient of that jour-

ney is passing through at least two airports, on departure and arrival.

Ideally, that experience should be standard—and safe,” according to CAPA, or Centre for Aviation, one of the world’s most trusted sources of market intelligence for the aviation and travel industry. Airports are going to have to make extensive changes to the way passengers are handled, avoiding queues, social distancing, touch-less checkin, just to name a few.

The ‘crusade’

SURELY, this is not the world we

envisioned as we greeted the Year of the Rat, buoyed by the rosy predictions of crystal ball gazers and feng shui masters. Suddenly the world comes to a screeching standstill and we must learn how to deal with it.

Air travel as we know it will no longer be the same and the transformation has breached borders involving multisectoral institutions, including government, aviation industry, tourism agencies, destination management organizations, and the hospitality sector.

The current safety crusade

is led by the International Civil Aviation Authority (Icao), the International Air Transport Association (Iata), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

These guardians need to come up with aviation-specific guidelines with the objective of ensuring appropriate planning and execution at all levels in order to mitigate the effects of the outbreak and restore consumer confidence.

New airline and airport protocols will affect all travelers—from the time of booking for a flight unContinued on A2

Vanishing jobs for young could create ‘lockdown generation’

By Jamey Keaten & Qassim Abdul-Zahra

G

particular could face, from inability to get proper training, or gain access to jobs that could extend well beyond the pandemic and last far into their working careers.

The Associated Press

ENEVA—Bashar Ali Naim used to work in a perfume and accessories store in Baghdad, earning $480 per week on average. About three months ago, the coronavirus outbreak swept into Iraq, and the 28-year-old father of two has been out of work ever since.

“I am suffering a lot without work. I feel like a human with a body but no soul, especially when I look at the kids and wonder: How will I provide for them?” he said.

Naim is not alone: The UN labor agency reported Wednesday that more than one in every six young workers globally have stopped working during the pandemic, warning that long-term fallout could lead to a “lockdown generation” if steps aren’t taken to

ease the crisis.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), in a new look at the impact of the pandemic on jobs, says that work hours equivalent to 305 million full-time jobs have been lost due to the Covid-19 crisis. Many young workers face economic hardship and despair about the future.

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder warned of the “danger” that young workers aged 15 to 28 in

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.7270

’Ejected’

IN this March 17, 2020, file photo, people wait in line for help with unemployment benefits at the One-Stop Career Center in Las Vegas. The coronavirus pandemic has been particularly brutal to the tourism-dependent economies of Nevada and Hawaii, lifting the unemployment rate in both states to about one-quarter of the workforce. AP

IN a survey, ILO and its partners found that over one in six of such young workers were no longer working during the pandemic, many with their workplaces shuttered, or their usual clienteles stuck at home. Young people were already in a precarious position relative to other age categories, with work rates still below those before the 2008 economic crisis even before the pandemic hit.

“They have been basically ejected from their jobs,” Ryder said, referring to those who have stopped working. “There is a danger of long-term exclusion. The scarring of young people who are excluded from the labor market early in their careers is well attested by the literature.”

“So I don’t think it is giving Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4714 n UK 62.5210 n HK 6.5434 n CHINA 7.1000 n SINGAPORE 35.7989 n AUSTRALIA 33.5762 n EU 56.2055 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.5074

Source: BSP (May 29, 2020)

AP/CHARLIE RIEDEL

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Taking to the skies (again) Continued from A1

til one reaches one’s destination — and the BusinessMirror is tallying these new paradigms as a guide once regular flights resume.

“We advise our guests to check their travel eligibility as the very first step,” says Qatar Airways, adding different countries are imposing different regulations. “It would be wise to consult with the latest edicts from local governments on travel restrictions via the Internet.”

“Check in online before you leave home,” advises Philippine Airlines (PAL), telling guests to come as early as three hours before flights, for domestic, and four hours for international destinations, the same advice offered by Cebu Pacific and Philippines AirAsia.

The airline new normal may include:

1. Cabin crew required to wear disposable, full-body protective gear during flights

2. Passengers to wear face coverings which they have to provide themselves 3. Thermal scanning prior to boarding 4. Seating arrangement that would factor in social distancing

5. Prepacked meals 6. Hand sanitizers available in-flight

7. Online and digital booking and check-in

8. Regular disinfection of the aircraft’s cabin and restrooms

9. Use of high-efficiency air filters in aircraft

Cabin crew on PPE

QATAR Airways is also implementing several changes, including the introduction of personal protective equipment (PPE) suits for cabin crew while onboard, as well as a modified service that reduces interaction between the passengers and the cabin crew.

These precautions are also adopted by Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Philippines AirAsia.

Their cabin crew are told “to wear the PPE suit over their uniforms in addition to safety goggles, gloves and a mask to provide even greater reassurance to customers.”

Cebu’s response

IN preparation for the lifting of travel restrictions and the return of air services to Cebu, Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA), through its operator GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), released the following new normal measures: 1. Compulsory use of face masks for all passengers and airport employees 2. Mandatory body temperature checks for all passengers and airport employees at all airport entry points 3. Hand sanitizing and shoe disinfection for all passengers and

employees prior to terminal entry 4. Social distancing of three to six feet in queuing points and a one-seat-apart policy in waiting areas 5. Visible floor markings to guide the passengers while queuing at high-traffic areas 6. No-touch airport procedures, including security checks and check-in 7. Gradual aircraft boarding and disembarkation procedures to avoid any queue formation and congestion.

8. All passengers and employees to always keep right when traversing walkways and lanes.

9. Regular disinfection of passenger areas and terminal facilities 10. Protective clear shield in all check-in counters

11. Medical isolation room for the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) to conduct quarantine assessment

12. Posting of health information materials and safety reminders in strategic locations

GMCAC Chief Executive Advisor Andrew Harrison asked for the public’s cooperation in the implementation of the above measures at Cebu airport. In particular, he further asked for the public’s support in limiting the number of wellwishers for departing passengers to one companion per passenger.

“This will go a long way in helping us avoid close proximity crowding anywhere on the airport premises,” Harrison said.

‘F

or travelers, the entire journey is only as safe as its weakest link, between origin and destination the key ingredient of that journey is passing through at least two airports, on departure and arrival. Ideally, that experience should be standard–and safe.”—CAPA

Lipad at CRK

THE Luzon International Premiere Airport Development (Lipad), which is in charge of the operations and maintenance (O&M) of the Clark International Airport, is also preparing for the new normal.

“We did a series of meetings with all stakeholders [government agencies, airlines, locators and service providers] in order to align our preparations for the new normal while continuously following government directives,” said Teri Flores, Lipad spokesman.

Some of the “new normal” preparations at Clark that are being implemented right now are the following: 1. Installation of social-distancing floor markers and signage

2. Installation of acrylic partitions on check-in counters 3. General cleaning and disinfection 4. Provision and guidelines of the proper wearing of PPEs among airport employees “The key is we’re in constant communication with our partners and stakeholders,” she said.

Air filtration

AIRLINES have equipped their airplanes with high-efficiency particulate air filters, or HEPA filters. These remove over 99 percent of viral and bacterial contaminants from recirculated air, providing the most effective protection against infection. In other words, although the coronavirus is microscopically tiny, airplane cabin filters are fine enough to catch many kinds of virus, the novel coronavirus included.

These filtration systems then filter and recirculate the air from the cabin and mix it with fresh air, making it very clean. All modern aircraft, passengers and crew breathe a mixture of fresh and recirculated air. Using this combination rather than fresh air makes it easier to regulate temperature and

help maintain a bit of humidity.

Clean linen, ear buds

FOR Qatar Airways, onboard linen and blankets are washed, dried and pressed at microbial “lethal temperatures” (since it’s been known that hot water kills the coronavirus). Ear foams are removed after each use and rigorously sanitized after each flight.

These items are then sealed into individual packaging by staff wearing hygienic disposable gloves. Cabin crew have been trained how to minimize their chances of contracting or spreading the infection, and “are thermally screened before the departure of flights and after their arrival.”

They are quarantined and tested if any colleagues or passengers on a flight shows any symptoms of infection or tests positive for the virus.

PAL advertises its rigorous cabin cleaning and disinfection, such that crew are in full PPE, offering simplified meal, or snack service, social distancing cabin seating options and the HEPA filters to purify cabin air. “All pilots and cabin crew will undergo rapid antibody tests before they are assigned to operate flights. All operating crew will don PPE while on duty,” says PAL President Gilbert Santa Maria.

Meanwhile, Cebu Pacific (CEB) ground staff are likewise required to don PPEs while on duty. Cleaning and disinfection procedures have been ramped up for all CEB facilities and equipment such as self-check-in kiosks, check-in and bag-drop counters and shuttle buses. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers will be provided for all passengers and staff at the airport and inside the aircraft. The carrier is rolling out “contactless flights” that will minimize faceto-face contact between ground staff and passengers while physical distancing is observed.

“We are implementing these procedures to assure our passen-

gers and give them the confidence to travel again,” said Candice Iyog, vice president for marketing and customer experience at Cebu Pacific.

AirAsia Chief Operations Officer Javed Malik said their aircraft have adopted “contactless technology—use Web, or mobile check-in, to reduce surface and physical contact,” adding cabin crew are also updated with the latest safety information and guidelines before each flight.

Onboard meals are made in accordance with food safety standards.

Food and beverage service will be handled using gloves. Crew are well trained to assist with any medical situation inflight, including identification and isolation of anyone onboard who may feel unwell.

Naia welcomes returning OFWs

THESE days, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) requires that all arriving passengers will have to undergo a swab test for reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) Covid-19 testing administered by the BOQ. While awaiting test results, passengers must stay either in a governmentdesignated quarantine facility, or at a BOQ-approved quarantine hotel.

For overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), payment for accommodation in a government-designated quarantine facility shall be shouldered by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), for land-based, and by the Maritime Industry Authority, or by the local manning agency, for sea-based Filipino workers. All other travelers (Filipino or foreign national) will pay for the cost of their accommodation.

Travelers whose test results are positive will be transferred to a designated hospital for further medical management. Those found negative will be allowed to move out and undergo a 14-day quarantine “at home, or at an appropriate local monitoring facility.”

Not the same as it used to be

AIRLINES and airports all over the world are all preparing for the new normal. There will be variations in the technology and the processes.

Some may start earlier than the others, but one thing is certain: traveling will never be as it used to be. As travelers, we have to adjust to this new normal until the world is rid of the plague and until our liberty to travel wherever and whenever is restored.

Vanishing jobs for young could create ‘lockdown generation’ Continued from A1

way to hyperbole to talk about the danger of a lockdown generation,” Ryder said, noting the psychological distress that can quickly affect younger workers who worry about the future of their budding work lives.

Naim said he’s living off savings, but expects the money to run out in 6 to 7 months.

“I don’t know what I’ll do after that—the future is a big unknown,” he said. “I’m scared of the coming days. God forbid, if there is a health emergency with the family and I don’t have enough money for it because I don’t have a job, and the government is unable to help.”

State support needed

ILO says governments can help with measures like increasing state support for unemployed workers, taking steps to guarantee jobs and training, and rolling out testing and tracing measures that boost workplace safety and help workers and consumers get back out more quickly.

The Middle East is just one of

the world’s many regions struggling to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak. After first peaking in China, where it began, then Europe, now it’s the Americas that is seen as the main epicenter.

But it’s a global issue.

Sifiso Ditha from Soweto township, south of Johannesburg, had relied on part-time construction jobs to get by while attending a local college. The 25-year-old, who lives with his grandparents, used the money to buy toiletries, food and other essential items.

The pandemic has erased that income.

“The construction sector was closed during the lockdown, so there was absolutely nothing,” Ditha said.

There has been some easing of the lockdown since, but employment remains scarce.

“Many projects are either put on hold or they are not taking anymore people,” Ditha said.

Of those still working, nearly one in four—or 23 percent—have seen their working hours reduced, the ILO said, pointing to a “triple shock” faced by young work-

ers: Destruction of their work, disruption to their training and education, and obstacles moving in the work force or entering it in the first place.

Hard hit

OF the 178 million young workers employed around the world, more than 40 percent were in “hard hit sectors when the crisis began,” such as food services and hospitality industries, the ILO said. More than three-fourths are in “informal” jobs, including 94 percent of young workers in Africa alone.

“We run the risk of creating a situation—in this sort of snapshot of pandemic—which will have lasting effects,” Ryder told a virtual news conference from the ILO headquarters. “A lot of young people are simply going to be left behind in big numbers.

“And the danger is—and again, this is the lesson of past experience—that this initial shock to young people will last a decade or longer than a decade,” Ryder said.

“It will affect the trajectory of working people, young working people, throughout their working lives.”

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250K more jobless OFWs expected to fly, sail home in next few weeks

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By Recto Mercene

resh batches of OFWs continue to arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), part of the estimated 250,000 home-bound Filipino workers who lost their jobs en masse due to the pandemic.

In June alone, some 30,000 OFW’s are expected to be flown in by various charter flights, or brought in by their cruise ships to Manila Bay. On Thursday, 786 OFWs stranded in the United States, Germany, Portugal and Cambodia touched down at the Naia in four separate charter flights.

On hand to welcome them are representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), Department of Labor (DOLE), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ ) and the Manila International A ir port Authority (Miaa).

The new batch of returnees would undergo swab testing by trained quarantine personnel and then brought to designated quarantine sites. Their temporar y shelters for the next 14 days are either hotels, or sites arranged by their manning agencies, while waiting for the results of their virus test.

Those found negative will be sent home assisted by the PCG and OWWA while those positive of Covid-19 will spend the rest of their stay undergoing treatment.

The Media Affairs Division (MAD) said the first to arrive on Thursday were 124 stranded seafarers from San Francisco, California, on board Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight PR105.

It was followed by 375 seafarers from AIDA cruise ship from Germany onboard Evelop Airlines Flight EVE 594.

The next to arrive are 167 OFWs from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on board Cambodian Airlines, including the 120 seafarers from MV Star Pride. They boarded the sweeper flight from Lisbon, Portugal.

Also 16 cargo flights flew in Thursday bringing essential food, medical supplies and equipment.

Meanwhile, the cruise ship Diamond Princess, the first of its kind to have registered a Covid-19 infected patient onboard has dropped anchor in Manila Bay after coming from Yokohama, Japan. There are about 100 remaining Filipino seafarers onboard, some of them cooks and the majority are crew maintaining the engines. The first batch of 444 seafares aboard have gone home to the Philippines on second week of March.

The PCG was warned to take all necessary precautions in boarding the Diamond Princess and to test any remaining Filipinos for sign of infections.

Meanwhile, commercial airlines operating at Naia welcomed the possible resumption of flights in the coming days.

“Commercial domestic f lights will be allowed between areas under general community quarantine [GCQ ] and even expanding operations in international av iation gateways to include Clark and Davao,” Transportation Secretar y Arthur Tugade said. “W hile the mandate of the DOTr is to provide transportation, mobility and convenience, it is now also vested with the responsibility to help in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.... Our approach will be partial, gradual, calculated, and by phases,” the transportation chief said.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

A3

Senators eye ₧1.1-T stimulus as fiscal response to virus’ impact on economy

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By Butch Fernandez

enators are looking to peg a Covid-19 stimulus package at P1.1 trillion, at the least, in order to approximate the equivalent worth of liquidity injected into the economy by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) since the pandemic began.

At a joint hearing on the Covid-19 response packages held Friday by the Senate Committees on Finance and on Economic Affairs, senators heard inputs from BSP Deputy Governor Francisco G. Dakila Jr. on how the Central Bank has used monetary tools to shore up the economy ravaged by Covid-19-induced lockdowns.

Finance committee Chairman Sonny Angara and Economic Affairs panel chief Imee Marcos presided at the hours-long videoconference, called to draw inputs from the private sector and Covid-impacted sectors on the response measures that legislators are rushing before their June 5 adjournment.

On questioning by Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, the BSP official outlined the series of monetary tools resorted to by BSP, such as the series of policy rate cuts and the reduction in the banks reserve requirement ratio, among others, to mitigate the impact of the lockdowns that paralyzed industries and shuttered small businesses. This displaced—some permanently—at least 2 million workers.

Dakila was asked how much the series of moves by the monetary authorities have so far injected into the economy, and he agreed with Recto’s estimates that it’s about P1.1 trillion. Then, Recto said, any fiscal stimulus packages

should “more or less” approximate that amount, if the norm in other Covid-impacted countries were to be used as a gauge.

Recto cited several countries where the monetary measures unleashed by authorities were on a “1 is to 1” ratio with the fiscal stimulus packages, in order to have a “balanced” response to the pandemic’s impact.

Supply, demand side

Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon had earlier raised the question of whether the monetary and fiscal authorities were factoring in the need for a balanced response, noting that the monetary tools unleashed under BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno, while adequate, respond to the “supply side, by making it easier for businesses to get funds to produce more.”

“But as valid and as large an issue is the ability of people to purchase. Baka produce ka nang produce, wala namang bibili [You might be producing a lot, but there are no buyers]” because people have no money on hand, Drilon pointed out.

The question, Drilon added, is, whether authorities are stimulating the economy by putting

Only 5K OFWs remain in quarantine in Metro, Batangas, DOLE chief says

By Samuel P. Medenilla

T

here are now only about 5,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who remain under quarantine as of Friday noontime in Metro Manila and Batangas and waiting to be transported home by the government.

In a news conference, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) revealed that the government has already sent home 19,010 of the 24,000 OFWs, who underwent testing for novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

It was supposed to complete the task of sending home all of the said OFWs on Wednesday.

However, Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said because of the delays in the release of the testing and clearances of the OFWs, as well as the availability of enough transportation, the DOLE, through its attached agency, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), was unable to meet its self-imposed deadline.

“I wish to restate that the government did not intend to inconvenience the returning OFWs with their prolonged quarantine and delayed test results,” Bello said.

“We apologize for the anxiet y and discomfort that the unwarranted suffering may have caused our dear OFWs, all 24,000 or so of them,” he added.

Near completion

Some of the concerned OFWs have been under quarantine for over a month.

He said they are targeting to complete the transportation of the remaining 5,000 OFWs during the weekend in compliance to the directive issued by President Duterte.

Duterte gave the OWWA, an attached agency of DOLE, and other concerned government offices only until this week to bring home all the 24,000 OFWs. To prevent similar delays in sending home returning OFWs, Bello said the government is now considering testing them for Covid-19 before they return to the country, as well as profiling them so they will be grouped based on their province where they are headed.

He said there are at least 40,000 more OFWs who will be arriving in the country in the coming weeks who will also need to undergo testing.

Faster processing

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, however, said that even if the OFWs are tested abroad, they would still have to undergo reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) testing upon their arrival in the country in compliance with requirement of the InterAgency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

“This is because if they get the advance test, they could still be infected [with Covid-19] when they go to other places, or within the plane. So our guidelines remain, test for all before they are allowed to enter in the country,” Roque said in a previous interview.

Instead of advance testing, the Department of Transportation (DoTr) is recommending to increase the number of international airports, which have the capacity to provide testing for the returning Filipinos.

Currently, only the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Metro Manila is being used for returning OFWs. Because of the sheer number of OFWs in the region, the Philippine Red Cross, which was tasked to do their testing, faced delays in releasing their test results.

DOTr set to open Clark, Cebu, Davao airports to ease Naia passenger traffic

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he Department of Transportation (DOTr) will soon be reopening more airports to help restart local tourism and to ease the travel woes of returning overseas Filipino workers.

In a late night press briefing on Thursday, Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade said they are now planning to resume the operations of the international gateways in Clark, Cebu, and Davao starting next month.

The opening of the new airports aims to decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) in Metro Manila.

Testing capacities

Tugade said Clark and Cebu already have medical facilities that could process swab samples of suspected coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients.

He said this will ensure that all arriving passengers are Covid-free.

“Our intention is with the star t of the transition MECQ [modified enhanced community quarantine] to GCQ [general

co m m u n i t y q u a ra nt i n e ] to o p e n t wo international gateways,” Tugade said.

Aside from the three aforementioned airports, DoTr is also eyeing the reopening of the airports in Zamboanga, Iloilo, Bacolod and Bohol.

Once the additional airports are reopened, Tugade said it will also allow the resumption of domestic travel as well as domestic tourism.

Currently, air travel is only allowed between GCQ to GCQ areas, while tourism is only allowed in MGCQ areas.

As of Thursday, President Duterte said only the National Capital Region (NCR), Davao City, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Pangasinan province and Albay are under GCQ. “The rest of the country will be placed under modified general community quarantine. The rest of the country will be placed under modified general community quarantine,” Duterte said.

Going home

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said the

additional airports would also make the travel of returning overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to their home town much easier.

Currently, OFWs all arrive via Naia, where they will be required to undergo reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing.

As of last week, there were 24,000 OFWs, who were stranded in NCR and Batangas, while waiting for their test results.

Those who tested negative were sent to their hometown.

Año said 11,889 of the said OFWs have already been booked for flights back to their provinces.

The remaining 6,648 of the OFWs are also expected to be sent home by Saturday.

With the operations of the additional airports, Año said OFWs could arrive at a closer airport to their hometown instead of Naia and wait for the test result there before the are allowed to go home. Samuel P. Medenilla

money in the hands of people so they’ ll buy?

Sen. Risa Hontiveros weighed in, and said the implication of Recto’s point is that “the fiscal side” has to be stepped up, in order to approximate the liquidity injected into the system by the monetary actions.

For his part, Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) Chairman Cezar Consing said that while monetary actions are simpler to carry out as they involve only the BSP and the bankers, the “fiscal [side] is more challenging.”

Nonetheless, Consing noted, that the challenge is mitigated by the fact that pre-pandemic, the country enjoyed good fundamentals, such as its high credit rating.

Asked by Recto if, by taking advantage of a wider fiscal space the country risks a credit downgrade somewhere down the road, Consing said “every country is going to go to the capital markets; every country is going to risk a credit downgrade, but so what?”

His stance mirrors similar views

by BSP’s Diokno, who recently said the Philippines may well defer its dream of an “A” credit status while focusing on the more important task of ensuring the economy grows and people have jobs and don’t go hungry.

Which is the priority?

Meanwhile, Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri sought to know from House leaders which of three Covid-related measures is well advanced in the legislative pipeline, in order to synchronize the process in the two chambers, given the June 5 Congressional pause.

“We are being asked” to move quickly on three measures, Zubiri said, citing the Bayanihan Act extension bill, the Philippine Economic Stimulus Act (PESA) and the second tax reform bill, or Citira— now renamed CREATE, for Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises.

In reply to Zubiri, Rep. Stella Quimbo, co-chair man of the Defeat Covid-19 House Cluster said the House has been working on the PESA at length.

The Bayanihan 2, or the extension, is set for plenary discussion in the House next week.

The CREATE—the tweaked version of the Citira that the House approved in September 2019—is just awaiting the Senate’s actions, as House Ways and Means Chairman Joey Salceda had said earlier his chamber was willing to adopt the Senate version to avoid having to call a bicameral conference to speed things up, as long as the Senate’s CREATE version was fiscally responsible.

Duterte okays DepEd’s ‘blended’ learning program proposal for coming school year

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

P

r e sid e n t D u t e r t e h a s g i v e n t h e Department of Education (DepEd) the green light to proceed with the school year beginning August 24, 2020, using blended, or distance learning modality.

Speaking before the Inter-Agency Task Force, Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones assured Duterte that alternative ways of learning will be adopted “until physical attendance in school is determined to be safe.”

“What we are saying Mr. President is that, we fully and completely support your stand that our children should not be exposed to the dangers of Covid-19 physically but we are offering opportunities for them to continue their studies and learnings,” Briones stressed.

“We seek your approval of our alternative ways of learning,” Briones appealed to the President.

After the presentation of Briones, Duterte said, “I am impressed.” The Chief Executive also assured that he will give his full support the proposal, including financial, to the DepEd. “I’m impressed with the simplicity of the program, Ma’am. I believe that all you have shared is feasible. I believe you have a very workable program and I support you. Should you require any help from any of the departments, feel free to communicate with them,” President Duterte said.

As for the funding, the President quipped, ” We will scrape the bottom of the barrel.”

“We will have to forego many things along the way because of what happened,” Duterte said on a serious note as he underscored the importance of education.

“The future of the country depends on how we educate people nowadays.”

In seeking the approval of the President, Briones reiterated that DepEd is one with the President in his non-negotiable commitment for the health and safety of the learners, teachers and staff.

“It is the first and most important principle of our Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan [BE-LCP] which details learning opportunities in the time of Covid-19. We can still provide learning opportunities to our students, without requiring them to come to school, through blended and distance learning,” Briones added.

The blended/distance learning approach will be consistent with the President’s preference that we do not send our children to school until it is safe to do so.

Lessons will be delivered to the students in the comfort and safety of their homes, through the following methods: Printed or digital modules delivered to the homes of the students, or picked up by their parents at designated places, within coordinated schedules; Online learning resources such as the DepEd Commons; and, Television or radio-based instruction.

“Even in this time of crisis, DepEd can still fulfill its constitutional duty of delivering quality basic education, and this can be done in a manner consistent with the President’s directive,” Briones explained.

The DepEd chief also stressed that enrollment will be voluntary, and “we will respect the decision of parents if, despite being offered blended/distance learning, they still decide not to enroll their students in the coming school year by reason of Covid-19.”

Drilon moves to relax quarantine penal provisions in Bayanihan law

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enate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon moved Friday to repeal penal provisions in Section 3 of the Bayanihan law granting the Executive extra powers to deal with the virus contagion.

“I have no problem with granting the Executive leeway in realignment of funds in so far as medicines are concerned to expedite purchases of necessary goods and services,” he said.

Drilon added that, “conceptually,” he can even support passage of an enabling legislation extending the Bayanihan law even as he raised “reservations” on its criminal provisions.

“Conceptually, I can support the extension of the Bayanihan law,” which gave President Duterte special spending authority to deal with the Covid-19 contagion, Drilon said, even as he voiced serious reservations in reenacting Section 6 on its penal provision for criminal acts during the quarantine period.

This prompted Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara to assert that the Bayanihan 2 was not meant to be a criminal statute.

“But because it was meant as a special law, we

cannot claim lack of criminal intent,” Angara added.

At that point, one of the original author of the Bayanihan law, Sen. Pia Cayetano, felt compelled to specify particular criminal acts deemed so egregious, or heinous that the minimal penalties under the penal code would not suffice.

Cayetano cited as example the sale of fake quarantine passes on Recto Avenue in Manila and the sale of recycled personal protective equipment (PPEs), saying such acts“throw out the window all the measures done to protect the people from Covid-19.”

“I have extreme reservations about renewing Section 6 because of what we have seen as the way it is implemented by those who are in charge. We have seen how law enforcers have used this provision to arrest people for acts which otherwise would not justify arrest without warrants,” Drilon said during a Senate hearing on the possible extension of RA 11469.

The Heal as One law, or Bayanihan Act, provided for emergency powers in order to implement necessary public policies in response to the contagion. Butch Fernandez

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Saturday, May 30, 2020

The World BusinessMirror

HK’s business hub status imperiled by security law

H

ONG KONG—A national security law proposed by China could imperil Hong Kong’s status as one of the world’s best places to do business.

The law, approved Thursday in Beijing, led Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to say Washington will no longer treat Hong Kong, already reeling from anti-government protests and the pandemic, as autonomous from Beijing.

The Chinese government has not given details of the law, which is aimed at suppressing secessionist and subversive activity in the former British colony.

After 11 months of protests, Chinese leaders say it’s needed to combat unspecified threats in the semi-autonomous region of 7 million people. But business groups, law yers and financial analysts say potential repercussions range from loss of business for Hong Kong’s financial markets and law firms to a loss of professional talent in the city.

Hong Kong is highly regarded for its skilled work force, business-friendly legal system, Western-style free speech and ease of movement. But global companies already were shifting some operations out of Hong Kong due to rising costs and uncertainty after prolonged, sometimes violent clashes between police and prodemocracy protesters.

Scott Salandy-Defour, founder of clean-tech start-up Liquidstar, has been considering moving out of Hong Kong, and the security bill is the “last straw,” he said. “I don’t see how it gets any better from here.”

“When we say we’re a Hong Kong-based company when talking to investors, it’s just not as attractive as it was as a year ago,” said Salandy-Defour, whose company provides sustainable battery rental and charging services for developing countries. “ We’re potent ia l ly c utt ing

ourselves off from a lot of different f und ing avenues, l i ke grants from the US government,” he said.

Hong Kong’s leader Car r ie Lam has tried to reassure companies and the public that its civil liberties won’t be affected.

But the law shows Chinese President X i Jinping is determined to tighten control.

“Hong Kong is riskier than it used to be,” said Tara Joseph, president of AmCham Hong Kong.

“There is a big worry that there are two buses careening towards each other, and that’s the US and China, and that this could have a profound impact in Hong Kong,” Joseph said.

Critics say the law undermines the “high degree of autonomy” promised when Britain handed control to China in 1997. That autonomy meant Washington and other governments have treated the city as a separate territory for trade, travel and other affairs.

P o m p e o s a i d We d n e s d a y t hose c h a nges a re si g n i f ic a nt e nou g h t h at Wa s h i n g ton w i l l no lon ge r t re at Hon g K on g a s aut onomou s .

Washington could revoke its promise to exchange Hong Kong dollars for US dollars, potentially disrupting the city’s financial system, Deutsche Bank economist Michael Spencer said in a report.

The financial sector would take a big hit if companies such as MSCI reclassify Hong Kong as an emerging market like Shenzhen and Shanghai instead of a developed market, Spencer said.

“A very large share of capital invested in the Hong Kong market will have to leave,” he said.

Hong Kong’s u ncer t a in f ut u re is put t ing it at a d isad-

Riot police stand guard at Central during the second day of debate on a bill that would criminalize insulting or abusing the Chinese anthem in Hong Kong on May 28. AP/Vincent Yu

va nt age w it h ot her A si a n dest inat ions t hat a re compet ing to at t ract foreig n invest ment, suc h as Singapore a nd Tok yo.

“Over time, people get nervous, and think that this place may not be, my money may not be, as safe as it once was, and I’m going to think about going somewhere else,” said William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It sends a signal that Hong Kong is no longer a safe and reliable place to put your money or to do business.”

The national security law has added to worries that Hong Kong’s legal system is losing its independence. The Hong Kong Bar Association says the method for enacting it is a threat: China is circumventing the territory’s legislature by changing its mini-constitution, the Basic Law, to require its government and courts to enforce security measures, regardless of what local lawmakers decide.

Beijing has shown little regard for such considerations, said Reinsch.

“China is not a rule-of-law state, it’s a state where the party makes decisions about what’s going to happen, those are arbitrary decisions, and if that’s what’s going to happen in Hong Kong, it doesn’t bode well for the economy or for the people,” he said.

Bob Broadfoot, managing director of Hong Kong-based research

firm Political and Economic Risk Consu ltanc y, sa id companies might shift legal work to Singapore or other countries.

“Singapore’s going to get more business as a dispute resolution center,” said Broadfoot. “Its legal system, which is a bigger earner, will benefit from Hong Kong’s problems.”

Hong Kong’s troubles a nd broader global economic uncertainty due to the pandemic also may make it harder for businesses there to attract and retain talent.

Still, some experts believe the concerns over a possible loss of Hong Kong’s special status are overblown.

Many big companies have sizable operations in both the mainland and Hong Kong, and most of Hong Kong’s manufacturing base shifted to China years ago, said Nicholas Lardy, a fellow at the think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“The real economic consequences are fairly limited,” Lardy said.

Hong Kong is still an attractive base for many companies, said Andrew Bishop, a partner with Signum Global Advisors, a risk advisory firm.

Last year’s protests gave businesses time to think, he said.

“At this point, continuing operations in Hong Kong has become a matter of careful calculation rather than a gut reaction to a surprise shock.” AP

Hello and welcome: Robot waiters to the rescue amid virus outbreak

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ENESSE, Netherlands—You can always count on a robot for perfect timing.

When Shaosong Hu saw robotic waiters serving food in China last fall, he knew exactly what he wanted for his oriental restaurant in the Dutch beachside town of Renesse.

He just didn’t have a clue how useful they would prove.

The coronavirus pandemic has turned a whimsical idea into perhaps a window into a dystopian future where a human touch may make people cringe with fear, and a waiter clearing the table sends a customer tense with stress—only to be relieved by a soothing brush with plastic.

“They came in just ahead of that time,” said Hu’s daughter Leah, who also works at the restaurant, the Royal Palace.

Now, his two shiny white-andred robots glide across the dining area’s floor where, once the restaurant reopens, they will be serving Chinese and Indonesian specialties like Babi Pangang and Char Siu at 15.5 euros ($17) each.

“Hello and welcome” the robots say—in a voice best described as pre-programmed.

Robots, for serving purposes or for dirty dishes collection, advance as part of a tryout of measures to respect social distancing and help curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, at the Hu family’s Royal Palace restaurant in Renesse, southwestern Netherlandson May 27. AP/Peter Dejong

Their duties will include greeting customers, serving drinks and dishes and returning used glasses and crockery. It’s unclear whether diners will be expected to tip.

One thing the robots will certainly do is see that social distancing rules are respected. “We will use them to make sure the 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) we need during the corona crisis sticks,” Leah Hu said.

“I’ve had negative reactions,”

she said, “such as saying it makes it impersonal.” But it may prove just what customers crave when Dutch restaurants are allowed to reopen on Monday as lockdown restrictions are further eased.

In a stab at quasi-human panache, one robot wears a chiffon scarf around its neck. And the hunt is on to give the two human names, with a competition already under way on Instagram.

“We don’t have a favorite yet.

But the suggestion of Ro and Bot is out. We want to give them a normal name,” said Leah Hu. Dutch restaurants have been hard hit by the crisis and have been closed for over two months.

As of Monday, they will be allowed to reopen but with a maximum of 30 customers. That will force some layout adaptations in the Royal Palace where the robots’ programmed floor plan may have to be changed at the last moment.

And in the southern Zeeland province, the Hus don’t want to hear any complaints about the robots robbing young people of a job. They say it’s hard enough anyway to find staff in a rural region without any major city close by.

“They help us with the work we do,” said Leah Hu. “We are often busy and cleaning tables and the robots give us an extra hand.” It also frees up the human staff for some more personal contact.

“We are not disappearing. We are still here. They will always need people in this industry,” she said.

Adapting to the robots, even your own, remains a challenge.

“For us, it is still trying to see what works,” she said. AP

Editor: Angel R. Calso

India’s key growth engine grinds to a halt in sign of ‘worst slump’

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rom call centers to hotels to airlines, India’s key services industries have come to a standstill during the coronavirus outbreak, dragging the economy into possibly its worst recession on record.

Businesses providing ser vices of ever ything from technology to travel and trade were the first to be hit when the government took unprecedented steps to lock down a nation of 1.3 billion people to stem the pandemic’s spread. Unlike manufacturingheavy economies like China and South Korea, in India, the services sector accounts for 55 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)— and the slump in output has had ripple effects on jobs and economic growth.

GDP data on Friday will probably show growth cooled in the three months through March to 1.6 percent from 4.7 percent in the previous quarter. With services taking a knock, banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. see the economy contracting a record 5 percent in the current fiscal year that began April 1.

At 5.4, India’s main services index had the world’s worst reading in April, an “astonishingly low” figure, said Priyanka Kishore of Oxford Economics. “The hit to services might end up being similar to manufacturing, as opposed to previous episodes of demand shocks when services remained largely unscathed.”

The pandemic poses a challenge for companies such as Infosys Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., who are part of India’s $181-billion IT services industry that builds software and provides services to some of the world’s biggest banks and retailers. While Infosys and smaller rival Wipro Ltd. refrained from projecting full-year revenue, TCS reported a 1-percent slip in quarterly profit.

S o m e g l o b a l b a n k s a re s c r u t i n i z i n g their presence in India after the lockdown effectively closed call centers overnight and they struggled to provide infrastructure such as laptops to work remotely. JPMorgan Chase & Co, Barclays Plc and Nomura Holdings Inc. are among lenders that initially scrambled to keep their Indian operations running, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Most pain

K ish o r e sees sectors that rely more on social interactions, such as hospitality and entertainment, enduring the most pain.

Services emerged as the key employment growth engine before the crisis hit, with the sector even outperforming agriculture and

industrial expansion when the economy was slowing last year. The lockdown though has forced businesses offering services like ridehailing, food delivery, hotel bookings and real estate to cut jobs in recent weeks. About 122 million people were out of jobs in April alone, according to estimates by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. “The tourism industr y will witness an unprecedented scale of job losses,” said Patanjali Govind Keswani, chairman and managing director of Lemon Tree Hotels Ltd. “Currently 60 percent of branded hotels in India are shuttered while the remaining 40 percent are operating with less than 10 percent of revenues.”

Worst over?

While a new set of daily activity gauges from B loomberg Economics suggest the worst may be over as governments ease lockdowns, there’s no strong rebound yet.

I n d i a h a s a l l owe d b u s i n e s s e s to b e g i n gradually reopening since April 20, but a shortage of workers has made it difficult to resume operations fully. The lockdown left millions of migrant workers stranded around the country without access to incomes, while millions more fled to their villages and are reluctant to return to the cities.

Within the travel industry, the aviation sector is expected to lose $3.6 billion in the three months to June, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation. Restaurants will probably operate at 25 percent to 30 percent of their monthly service levels in the first 45 days after the lockdown is lifted, and are on course for a 40-percent to 50-percent drop in revenue this fiscal year, said Crisil Ltd. Care Ratings Ltd. estimates 5 trillion rupees of revenue losses in the travel and hospitality industry and 35 million to 40 million job cuts.

“All would be focused on the survival of their business rather than expansion,” said Vishal Vithal Kamat, chief executive officer of Kamat Group of Hotels.

The government has unveiled a support package worth 21 trillion rupees ($277 billion) to help cushion the blow, including easing access to credit for small businesses and offering cheap loans to workers and farmers. Many analysts see those measures as doing too little to revive demand in the economy in the near-term.

“Given the severity of April’s fall in economic activity, the recovery to pre-coronavirus levels of GDP is likely to be slow,” said Joe Hayes, an economist at IHS Markit. Bloomberg News

Illuminated signs are displayed on the exterior of commercial buildings at night in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Japan, on July 21, 2018. In parts of Asia, corporate men continue to openly drink with colleagues or business clients at venues where women escorts are paid to consume alcohol, sing karaoke and— often illegally—perform sexual favors, according to Bloomberg interviews. Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg

Thailand had no foreign tourists in April after closing borders

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hailand received no foreign tourists, or related spending in April, after closing its borders and banning most incoming inter nationa l flights to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Visitors stranded in the country because of lockdowns around the world weren’t counted in the numbers, the Tourism Ministry noted in data released Friday in Bangkok.

There were almost 3.2 million arrivals in the same month last year, generating receipts of 146 billion baht ($4.6 billion).

The latest report is the first to slump to zero in data compiled by Bloomberg stretching back to the 1990s. Incoming international flights are banned through June 30 and it remains unclear whether visitors will be willing, or able to rush

back, when curbs are lifted.

Tourism accounted for about a fifth of gross domestic product before the pandemic, as holidaymakers flocked to sample azure waters, sandy beaches, gastronomic delights and Bangkok’s sometimes infamous nightlife. Chinese visitors were the biggest source of foreign receipts.

The crash in the industry is one reason the economy is now on course for its worst contraction in about two decades.

The nation remains under a state of emergency but is loosening a partial lockdown in stages to kick-start its economy after virus cases dwindled. Some provinces have allowed hotels to open their doors again, though domestic tourism is sputtering because of Covid-19 restrictions.

Bloomberg News

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The World BusinessMirror

Trump heightens war on Twitter and other social-media companies

By Zeke Miller

The Associated Press

W

ASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump escalated his war on Twitter and other social-media companies Thursday, signing an executive order challenging the lawsuit protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the Internet.

Announced with fanfare, the president’s action yet appeared to be more about politics than substance. He aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact-checks to two of his tweets.

Trump said the fact-checks were “editorial decisions”by Twitter amounting to political activism and that such actions should cost social-media companies their liability protection for what is posted on their platforms.

Trump, who personally relies heavily on Twitter to verbally flog his foes, has long accused the tech giants in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley of targeting conservatives by fact-checking them or removing their posts.

“We’re fed up with it,”Trump said, claiming his order would uphold freedom of speech.

Technology industry groups disagreed, saying it would stifle innovation and speech on the Internet.

And the US Chamber of Commerce objected, “Regardless of the circumstances that led up to this, this is not how public policy is made in the United States.”

The executive order directs Executive branch agencies to ask independent rule-making agencies including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission to study whether they can place new regulations on the companies—though experts express doubts much can be done without an act of Congress.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement: “This debate is an important one. The Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce.”

Companies like Twitter and Facebook are granted liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because they are treated as “platforms,” rather than “publishers,” which can face lawsuits over content.

A similar executive order was previously considered by the administration but shelved over concerns it couldn’t pass legal muster and that it violated conservative principles on deregulation and free speech.

“They’ve had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences,”Trump said of social-media companies as he prepared to sign the order.“There is no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of human interaction.”

Trump and his campaign reacted after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted “mail boxes will be robbed.” Under the tweets, there’s now a link reading “Get the facts

about mail-in ballots” that guides users to a page with fact-checks and news stories about Trump’s unsubstantiated claims.

Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election” and declared “as president, I will not allow this to happen.” His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter’s “clear political bias” had led the campaign to pull “all our advertising from Twitter months ago.” In fact, Twitter has banned political advertising since last November.

Late Wednesday, Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey tweeted, “We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally.”

On the other hand, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News his platform has “a different policy, I think, than Twitter on this.”

“I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online,” he said.

The president’s critics, meanwhile, scolded the platforms for allowing him to put forth false, or misleading information, that could confuse voters.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat and advocate for Internet freedoms, said Trump was “desperately trying to steal for himself the power of the courts and Congress.... All for the ability to spread unfiltered lies.”

Trump’s proposal has multiple, serious legal problems and is unlikely to survive a challenge, according to Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a Washington-based organization that represents computer and Internet companies.

It would also seem to be an assault on the same online freedom that enabled social media platforms to flourish in the first place—and made them such an effective microphone for Trump and other politicians.

“The irony that is lost here is that if these protections were to go away social-media services would be far more aggressive in moderating content and terminating accounts,” Schruers said. “Our vibrant public sphere of discussion would devolve into nothing more than preapproved soundbites.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was “outrageous”that while Twitter had put a fact-check tag on Trump’s tweets asserting massive mail-in election fraud, it had not removed his tweets repeating a debunked conspiracy theory that a TV news host had murdered an aide years ago.

The president and fellow conservatives have been claiming, for years, that Silicon Valley tech companies are biased against them. But there is no evidence for this—and while the executives and many employees of Twitter, Facebook and Google may lean liberal, the companies have stressed they have no business interest in favoring one political party over the other.

The trouble began in 2016, two years after Facebook launched a section called “trending,”using editors to curate popular news stories. Zuckerberg met with prominent right-wing leaders at the time in an attempt at damage control, and in 2018, Facebook shut down the “trending” section.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

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Rising US job losses stir fears of lasting economic damage

W

ASHINGTON—The coronavirus crisis threw at least 2.1 million Americans out of work last week despite the gradual reopening of businesses around the country, stoking fears Thursday that the scourge is doing deep and potentially long-lasting damage to the US economy.

Despite a few glimmers of hope, most of the latest economic news from around the globe was likewise grim, as some of the world’s most populous countries reported rising infections and deaths. The confirmed US death toll has surpassed 100,000, the highest in the world.

The latest job-loss figures from the US labor department bring to 41 million the running total of Americans who have filed for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus shutdowns took hold in mid-March.

There were some encouraging signs: The overall number of Americans currently drawing jobless benefits dropped for the first time since the crisis began, from 25 million to 21 million. And firsttime applications for unemployment benefits have fallen for eight straight weeks, as states gradually let stores, restaurants and other businesses reopen and the auto industry starts up factories again.

But the number of US workers filing for unemployment benefits is still extraordinarily high by historical standards, and that suggests businesses are failing, or permanently downsizing, not just laying off people until the crisis can pass, economists warn. “ That is the kind of economic destruction you cannot quickly put back in the bottle,” said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork.

The US unemployment rate was 14.7 percent in April, a level not seen since the Depression, and many economists expect it will be near 20 percent in May. On Wall Street, stocks that climbed for much of the day fell by

the end of trading over concerns about rising US-China tensions.

After a plunge in February and much of March, the market has been recovering, most recently as investors move into stocks that would benefit most from a reopening economy.

The unemployment figures come amid an intensifying debate in Congress over whether to extend $600 in extra weekly federal unemployment benefits, provided under rescue legislation passed in March but set to expire July 31.

Democrats have proposed extending the payments, while Republicans have argued that the extra money could discourage laidoff workers from returning to jobs that pay less than they are getting on unemployment.

Kelly Kelso, a 30-year-old roadie from Nashville, Tennessee, for the rock group Foreigner, got her first unemployment check last week after more than eight weeks of waiting. She said she is still receiving far less in benefits than the $1,250 per week or more she made on tour.

Though Kelso is reluctant to leave the music industry, she said, “I have a cosmetology license. If all else fails, I could go back to doing hair.”

Another looming storm cloud: Economists say the sharp loss of tax revenue for state and local governments is likely to compound the damage from the shutdowns by forcing additional public-sector layoffs in the coming weeks.

Those layoffs have just recently started showing up in the weekly jobless claims report. Washington state, for example, reported layoffs of government employees.

Wearing masks to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, Thiago do Nascimento, right, and Keilla de Almeida kiss during their drive-thru wedding at the registry office in the neighborhood of Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 28, 2020. Couples have begun turning to this unconventional union at a notary in Santa Cruz since the Covid-19 started battering Brazil. AP

Job cuts also are appearing far beyond the initially hit industries such as restaurants and stores, a sign that the damage is spreading even as businesses reopen. Washington state said it saw layoffs in insurance, and New York state reported job cuts by information technology companies.

Economists say many of the jobs lost are never coming back, and double-digit unemployment could persist through 2021.

And as discouraging as the numbers are, the real picture may be worse. The government counts people as unemployed only if they’re actually looking for a job, and many Americans probably see no point in trying when so many businesses are shut down.

Airlines and aircraft manufacturers are struggling after air travel plummeted early in the outbreak. Boeing is cutting more than 12,000 US jobs through layoffs and buyouts, many expected to be in the Seattle area. European budget airline Easyjet said it will cut up to a third of its 15,000 employees.

American Airlines plans to eliminate about 5,100 jobs.

Amtrak likewise announced it will lay off about 20 percent of its 18,000 workers amid a collapse in train ridership.

A number of European countries have strong safety-net programs that are under w r iting the wages of millions of workers and keeping them on the payroll instead of adding them to the

ranks of the unemployed. But the economic damage is mounting there, too.

Nissan is rolling back production in Spain in a move the government said could lead to 3,000 direct job cuts and thousands more losses at the automaker’s suppliers. And French unemployment claims jumped 22 percent in April, with 843,000 more people seeking work.

Elsewhere around the world, India saw another record daily jump in coronavirus cases. Russia reported a steady increase in its caseload, even as Moscow and provinces across the vast country moved to ease restrictions in sync with the Kremlin’s political agenda.

And South Korea reported dozens of new cases, all in the densely populated Seoul metro area, as officials scramble to stem transmissions linked to a massive ecommerce warehouse and avoid losing some of the hard-won gains that made it a model for the rest of the world.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 5.8 million people and killed about 360,000, with the US having the most confirmed cases and deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Europe has recorded about 170,000 deaths.

The true dimensions of the disaster are widely believed to be significantly greater, with experts saying many victims died without ever being tested. AP

Group says ‘misinformation’ stops smokers from switching to e-cigs Your haircut after lockdown will

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regional tobacco harm reduction organization has warned that misleading and downright false information on e-cigarettes is stopping smokers from switching to the “better nicotine alternative.”

“The perception of harm from vaping is not consistent with the scientific evidence.

Local public health experts should take the lead in providing Filipino smokers who cannot or do not want to quit smoking by themselves or with currently approved methods with accurate scientific information on e-cigarettes and other better nicotine alternatives,” said.

Clarisse Virgino, Philippine representative to the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).

Misinformation on vaping harms

V irgino cited the latest Public Health England (PHE) evidence update on vaping, which revealed that perceptions of harm from vaping among smokers are increasingly out of line with the evidence. “The proportion [of smokers] who thought vaping was less harmful than cigarettes declined from 45 percent in 2014 to 34 percent in 2019. These misperceptions are par ticularly common among smokers who do not vape. Increasingly incorrec t perceptions among the public about the harms of vaping could prevent

some smokers using vaping products to quit smoking,” the report stated.

In its 2018 independent evidence review, the PHE concluded that “e - cigarettes are around 95 percent safer than combustible c i g a re t t e s .” P u b l i s h e d i n M a rc h 2 0 2 0 , t h e a g e n c y ’s l ate s t re p o r t s t ate d t h at, “Despite reductions in smoking prevalence, smoking remains the biggest single cause of preventable death and disease and a leading cause of health inequalities. So, alternative nicotine deliver y devices that are less harmful could play a crucial role in reducing this health burden.”

The PHE report found that vaping remains most common among smokers and former smokers in England, with less than 1 percent of people who have never smoked currently vaping. It noted that smoking among adults in England has continued to decline over the past 10 years and in 2019 was around 15 percent “The data presented...suggests that vaping has not undermined the declines in adult smoking.”

The report pointed out that while not risk-free, “vaping regulated nicotine products has a small fraction of the risks of smoking,” and that “smokers should be encouraged to try regulated nicotine vaping products along with smoking cessation medications and behavioral support”, as these would “greatly increase their

chances of successfully stopping smoking.” The PHE reminded people who have never smoked not to smoke and not to vape, while encouraging vapers to use regulated nicotine products only and stop smoking completely.

PHE is an executive agency of the UK Department of Health and Social Care, consisting of scientists, researchers and public health professionals who provide the UK Government, Parliament, National Health Service, industry and the public with evidence-based professional, scientific expertise and support.

DOH should broaden tobacco control strategy

There are an estimated 16 million Filipino smokers, with the country having a low 4 percent smoking cessation rate. Department of Health (DOH) data show that almost 88,000 Filipinos die from smoking-related diseases every year.

Health-care expenditures and lost income due to smoking-related sickness and premature death cost the country P188 billion ($ 4 billion) yearly.

These figures only cover four of more than 40 smoking-related diseases namely lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease and stroke.

“The DOH should broaden its tobacco control strategy,” said Virgino. “Combustion in cigarettes, not nicotine, is what is harmful to the health

of smokers. As such, Filipino smokers who would otherwise continue smoking should be encouraged to switch to less harmful nicotine alternatives such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Doing so would significantly reduce smoking-related sickness and deaths in the country.”

According to Virgino, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products such as IQOS are forms of tobacco harm reduction. “THR is a public health strategy that aims to provide safer alternatives to reduce harms caused by smoking and to provide nicotine to people who cannot or do not want to quit smoking by themselves or with currently approved methods. Instead of sticking with the myopic ‘quit or die’ approach of the World Health Organization, the DOH should look at the emerging science and consider adopting THR in the country’s tobacco control strategy.”

THR is the key advocacy of CAPHRA, a regional alliance committed to educating, advocating and representing the right of adult alternative nicotine consumers to access and use of products that reduce harm from tobacco use.

Its country representatives work with THR experts and advocates from around the world. CAPHRA members currently include Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

be unlike any you had before

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here are aspects of lockdown that are universal. Among them are overgrown bangs, split ends, unkempt beards and gray roots.

Months of confinement have left many around the world desperate for a haircut. They’ll have to wait a bit longer in places like the UK, where salons and barbers will remain shut until at least July 4 under current government plans. Such establishments have started to reopen in other parts of Europe, the US, Australia and Asia, and one thing is becoming clear: A trip to the local hairdresser will be very different in the era of social distancing.

Treatments such as facials, eyelash tinting and hot shaves may no longer be possible because of contagion risk. There are lingering questions about whether blow driers are safe. Amenities like complimentary beverages and magazines are likely to disappear. Fewer customers can be served at one time, while the cost of providing disposable gowns and masks for staff and customers could push up prices.

“To reopen, I think you have to forget everything you know and rewrite your business plan,” said Joe Mills, owner of the barbershop Joe & Co. and the unisex salon The Lounge, both in London’s Soho district.

At R ichard Ward Hair & Metrospa in London’s exclusive Chelsea neighborhood, there is already a waiting list of 800 people for appointments when the business reopens, and managing director Hellen Ward anticipates many challenges.

She noted that a lip wax is a 15-minute appointment in a closed treatment room, and involves close contact between customers and staff.

A full head of highlights requires less contact, but can take as long as two hours or more.

“How do you tick off all of these different factors safely for customers and staff?” she asked.

While the need for a trim, shave, or coloring, may seem insignificant in the face of a global pandemic, the hair, beauty and barber industry is a major employer worldwide. More than half a million people are employed as hairdressers in the US, according to Data USA. In Europe, more than a million work across about 400,000 salons and receive roughly 350 million customers a year, a report from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work showed.

In Britain, about 43,000 of such businesses generate more than 7.5 billion pounds ($9.2 billion) in revenue for the economy, according to the National Hair and Beauty Federation.

Bloomberg News

A6 Saturday, May 30, 2020

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

Recession-hit Japan’s exports, imports fall due to pandemic

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OKYO—Recession-hit Japan’s exports plunged nearly 22 percent in April, marking their worst drop in more than a decade, as the coronavirus pandemic slammed global demand for autos, machinery and chemicals.

Imports fell 7 percent from a year earlier, according to Finance Ministry data.

The drop in exports was the worst since October 2009—amid the fallout from the global financial crisis—as export-dependent Japan struggles to juggle the health risks of Covid-19 with the dire need to keep the economy going.

Exports to regions most badly affected by the pandemic took the biggest hits.

Shipments to the US plunged 38 percent, while imports rose 1.6 percent, causing the politically contentious trade surplus to decline by 75 percent from a year earlier, to 181 billion yen ($1.7 billion).

Japan’s exports to the European Union tumbled 28 percent in April, while imports from the region declined 7 percent.

Trade with China, which was the early epicenter of the virus outbreak and is now reviving its economy, was less affected. Exports slipped 4 percent and imports from China jumped

12 percent year-on-year.

Overall, exports totaled 5.2 trillion yen ($48 billion), down from nearly 6.7 trillion yen in the same month in 2019.

Imports dropped to 6.1 trillion yen ($57 billion) from 6.6 trillion yen.

By sector, exports of vehicles, machinery, chemicals and textiles fell most sharply.

Automakers, like Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which form a pillar of the economy, have reported nosediving profits as sales shrink around the world and plants in some parts of the world stop production.

“The drop in auto exports, reflecting the lockdowns in Europe and the US, is really working to drag down the numbers,” said SMBC Nikko Securities chief economist Junichi Makino, noting electronics exports had held up better.

Japan’s exports may start recovering after hitting bottom in the AprilJune quarter, though much depends on whether the pandemic can be curbed, he said.

IN this April 24, 2020, file photo, a man wearing a face mask to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus stands in a middle of a walking street in the Shinjuku ward in Tokyo. Recession-hit Japan’s exports plunged nearly 22 percent in April, the country’s worst drop in more than a decade as the coronavirus pandemic slammed global demand, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday, May 21, 2020. AP

Japan is in a technical recession after a contraction that began in the last quarter of last year deepened in January-March. Analysts say worse may lie ahead.

Like many other nations, Japan has asked people to work from home and do social distancing to curb the virus’ spread. Restrictions were eased this month in regions with few, or no new infections, though they remain in place

for Tokyo and some areas.

Tourism and travel have dwindled. Restaurants are closed, or allowing only takeouts, and those that have stayed open are seeing fewer customers.

Even before, the world’s third-largest economy barely eked out growth over some periods.

The recent trade conflict between China and the US has also hurt Japan. AP

Demand for Internet-enabled products and services seen rising amid pandemic

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NTERNET-ENABLED products and services worldwide are seeing massive spikes in demand particularly from consumers in countries under lockdowns due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

The pandemic is also seen likely to transform global consumer attitudes and behavior, and the way companies across a range of industries do business.

A Hodgson, head of income and expenditure research at Euromonitor International, said food and nonalcoholic beverages will be the fastest-growing category in 2020, as consumers stock up in response to lockdowns.

But she said hotels and catering, leisure and recreation, and transport will be among categories with real negative growth, while transport is expected to be particularly hard hit, as consumers stay home and cancel all their summer travel plans.

Being cooped up at home for a long period of time, consumers will buy and do more things online—from learning and exercising, socializing and even partying.

“Older consumers, previously reticent to e-commerce but now homebound, will have to resort to online grocer y shopping and would likely continue to embrace e-commerce in the future,” she added.

Hodgson identified home cleaning, hygiene, and healthy living will be “high on the agenda,” noting more consumers will prioritize self-care and self-prevention in the aftermath of the pandemic.

She said Covid-19 will be a catalyst for the permanent shift to a cashless world, adding retailers and consumers opt to go cashless and contactless due to concerns over infection.

“Brands and businesses successfully emerging out of this pandemic will most likely be those which are prepared for the ‘new normal’ of digital consumer engagement, ecommerce, and at-home consumption,” she added.

Media Eghbal, countries and consumers editor at Euromonitor International, said at home wellness trends are accelerating, especially with the Covid-19 pan-

demic forcing many to remain at home for protracted periods, and “cocooning” being further strengthened by quarantines and lockdowns.

“Many of today’s home well-being trends, from using digital appliances to researching wellness trends online and ordering goods via Internet retailers, are a result of digitization,” she said in a separate report.

Eghbal said more consumers are turning toward goods that can help with mental well lbeing amid rising anxiety levels during the pandemic.

This is creating demand for homebased over-the-counter (OTC) sleep aid devices, especially as many healthconscious consumers are avoiding sleep aids, she said.

“Nutrition has become a major influencing factor across household kitchens as consumer concerns over obesity and health rise throughout the pandemic.

In particular, demand for immunity boosting foods and vitamins to ward off pandemic symptoms is on the rise,” she added.

Eghbal also underscored the growing market for a variety of health focused sites, apps, and wearable’s, as older consumers particularly at-risk to the impact of Covid-19 turn to remote health care to gain health and diet information from their homes.

“These markets are lucrative due to the rapid growth of household heads aged over 60 years, set to account for around one-third of all household heads by 2040,” she added.

Eghbal also sees the transfer into longterm adoption across numerous wellness markets of quarantine measures being implemented due to coronavirus. She identified some segments, such as digital fitness and remote health devices, will receive the necessary push to move them from an early-adoption phase to mass-market appeal. Eghbal said products deemed as luxury, such as high-end supplements, expensive superfoods and home decor, will suffer amid expected global recession in 2020 as household purchasing power decreases.

Expert: Contagion to continue to roil food supply chains, shopping behavior

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HE Covid-19 pandemic will continue to disrupt the food supply chain and sway shoppers’ spending behavior, so enterprises should be prepared to face emerging challenges and seize new opportunities, according to an industry expert.

JJ Moreno, chief strategy officer of Metro Retail Stores Group Inc., in a webinar, said the Covid-19 outbreak has given rise to a number of challenges and new trends in the retail sector.

These challenges include changing customer behavior and preferences, labor issues (shortage, work arrangement, occupation safety and health), transport restrictions and quarantine measures, cash/liquidity concerns, regulatory changes/interventions, higher cost of doing business, inadequate infrastructure, reduced production and sourcing issues, inventory issues (shortage and excess), and economic slowdown.

Moreno also shared his observations on supply chain and retail trends, foremost of which is a growing emphasis on food security and public health in the years to come.

There is also a rise in consumer demand for essentials, particularly in the areas of food, health and hygiene. Other trends show the growth of e-commerce and “less contact” and “contactless” transactions. Increase in home-based activities (work, dine, study and entertain at home) has also been observed, said Moreno.

In addition, there will be fewer trips to the stores, bigger basket sizes due to less frequent visits, and demand for safety and hygiene measures in stores.

And because of the lockdowns, proximity and accessibility are key.

“We see also that there is lesser brand loyalty.

People are going to look into value for money.

They are going to look for what is available, mainly because they have few trips to the stores… and they will go for those that have longer shelf life because they are packing their pantries,” Moreno further said. He added that they also anticipate continued supply chain disruptions, something businesses must strive to prepare for.

But there are also opportunities brought about by the pandemic. Moreno urged retailers and businesses to take the opportunity to “build an ecosystem of partnerships” with partners, suppliers and others as they will be better off with a “more engaged partnership” as compared to a “transactional partnership.”

The rise of home brands also presents another opportunity, he said. As brand loyalty lessens, “quality home brands will now come to fore,” giving enterprises the chance to attract and retain more customers. Other opportunities for enterprises center on digitalization, not only for customer relationship but also for planning and program execution.

Government social amelioration programs can also be complemented as they can lead to increased sales, said Moreno. This is also the time to consider updating processes, store layouts, and business models, he added. To overcome Covid-19-driven challenges, Moreno urged businesses to address not just external issues such as supply chain disruptions but also internal ones like “organizational inertia,” and to work on reshaping their business models to effectively adapt to the demands of a new normal.

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Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, May 30, 2020 A7

Senior citizens can help boost the country’s economic growth

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By Cai U. Ordinario

EAPING the demographic dividend also means ensuring that seniors or the elderly in society are well taken cared of, according to the Commission on Population and Development (Popcom).

Popcom Executive Director Undersecretary Juan Antonio A. Perez III told the BusinessMirror that

seniors can unlock the second demographic dividend.

The second dividend is the genera-

tion of savings, which will entail that older populations have the means to invest and boost the country’s economic growth.

“All the additional investments in human capital will lead not only to more prosperous families but also longer lives such that people at or near retirement can invest their newfound prosperity in the economy, leading to a second demographic dividend,” Perez said.

Perez said there are three demographic dividends. The first is the low fertility rate, which can lead to improved household incomes while the third dividend is for families with two children to benefit from the first

and second dividends.

The third dividend, Perez said, will not have an immediate effect on the economy compared to the first two dividends.

Ensuring that the countr y achieves the first two dividends means paying attention to life expectancy rates by ensuring that Filipinos receive quality health-care services and secure decent jobs.

However, in a recent paper, the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) said the Philippines and Indonesia have the lowest life expectancy rates in Asia.

ADBI said the current pandemic poses a danger especially for older

people who still work in the informal sector. It said they face significant risks of developing severe symptoms and being harmed by Covid-19.

Perez said the current life expectancy in the Philippines is 72 years for women and 67 for men. There are also more women in the 50 and above age group.

“There should be a virtuous relationship between fertility and life expectancy for us to reap the highest dividends from a demographic dividend for the country,” Perez said.

The plight of the seniors in society has been highlighted during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Popcom earlier said many seniors

live alone while others dwell in small places with their families in Metro Manila, the epicenter of the pandemic in the Philippines.

Popcom said many senior citizens or elderly are living in homes that are less than 20 square meters, making it difficult to practice social distancing.

Around 84,726 of Metro Manila’s elderly live with other household members and are only able to enjoy an average size of 4.9 square meters of space.

Another 51,365 live alone in NCR, apart from any family member. As such, they are isolated and may be unable to move around in an enhanced community quarantine setting.

Dr. Rosa Carpio: Creating awareness, The Filipino as water moving people to help fight dementia

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

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R. Rosa Gandanghari-Carpio, founder of the Noli Alzheimer’s Center, is at the forefront of a nationwide campaign to raise awareness and concern about Alzheimer’s and move people to take action in the fight against the disease.

Dementia is one of the major problems among the elderly population in all countries around the world. Right now, there are around 50 million elderly people who are experiencing or suffering from dementia, and there are nearly 10 million new cases every year. Dementia is one of the major causes of disability and dependency among older people worldwide.

Dementia is manifested by the deterioration in memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to perform everyday activities. Although dementia mainly affects older people, it is not considered a normal part of aging.

“We have a growing population of elderly. Six to 8 percent of those 65 years old have Alzheimers or dementia and the incidence doubles every five years,” Carpio told the BusinessMirror in an e-mail interview.

Carpio said dementia has a huge impact not only on the patient but also to the whole family as well because those suffering from it require a 24/7 care, thus affecting manpower and finances.

Taking care of a person with dementia is a herculean challenge.

Time management is quite important, as the patient requires continuous care. Nevertheless, Carpio said it is important that the care provider in the family must be given time off to avoid physiological and psychological burnout.

The financial aspect is quite important as well because this will handle the medical aspects, such medicines and others.

By Nick Tayag

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH

I DR. Rosa Gandanghari-Carpio (left) and Alaska executives conduct an information campaign about the effects of dementia and how concerned citizens can help spread awareness about the disease.

“Taking care of an afflicted elderly will require huge financial resources, medicines, doctors, additional personnel to help take care of the patient, and institutional cost when the time comes to put the patient in a facility. It will result in lost earning for a family member involved in the care of the patient,” she said.

Carpio also said support from other members of the family is vital to cope with the challenge. “It is also important to ask for prayers for spiritual strength, and continuous reading of related literature to help understand the patient’s needs.”

To drum up support for this advocacy, Noli Alzheimer’s Center partnered with Alaska Milk Corp. in various information dissemination forays. Mika Tagle, senior brand manager for Alaska Milk Corp., said the project was worth promoting.

“Alaska Milk wants to be the brand that dares to talk about this hard truth. The truth about dementia is a heartwarming theme that revolves around our campaign idea of adding love to your dishes during special occasions,” she said.

To boost the campaign, Noli’s

Alzheimer’s and Elderly Care Center and Alaska Milk launched a long-format digital material dubbed “Paalala.”

“In the three-minute video, we unveiled a touching story of Beth and her grandmother who has dementia. This material was aired across multiple platforms online, aside from our short TVC material,” Carpio said.

Perla Adea, one of the popular teenage idols in the 1970s, played the role of the grandmother. In the late 1960s to the early 1970s, D Sensations, hosted by the late Ike Lozada, was the toast of television.

Together with Vilma Santos, Edgar Mortiz, Baby de Jesus, Janine Frias, Tony Santos Jr. and Angge, Adea was among the regulars in the TV show.

Together with Carpio, the two organizations also held events attended by media representatives where they talked about the effects of dementia and how concerned citizens can help spread awareness. “This initiative was supplemented by a series of PR articles and advertorials online and on print,” she said.

‘Didn’t give a damn’: Inside a ravaged Spanish nursing home

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ADRID—Zoilo Patiño was just one of more than 19,000 elderly people to die of coronavirus in Spain’s nursing homes but he has come to symbolize a system of caring for the country’s most vulnerable that critics say is desperately broken.

When the Alzheimer’s-stricken 84-year-old succumbed in March on the same day 200 others died across Madrid, funeral homes were too overwhelmed to take his body and he was instead left locked in the same room, in the same bed, where he died.

Spanish army disinfecting teams going through the Usera Center for the Elderly more than 24 hours later were stunned to come across Patiño's body and it made headlines around the world, with the country’s Defense Minister Margarita Robles describing “elderly abandoned, if not dead,

on their beds.”

“What else could we have done?

We didn’t even have protective gear to be able to put the body in a bag,” says José Manuel Martín, a staff member who took the soldiers through the home.

Thegrimfindtriggeredsoul-searching over Spain’s nursing homes, which have had more deaths than those in any other country in Europe. Much of the scrutiny has focused on governmentowned homes like the Usera center, whereday-to-dayoperationshavebeen contracted to companies often controlled by multinational private-equity firms that seek to turn profits quickly by cutting staff, expenses—and some say care—to the bone.

An Associated Press investigation into the 160-bed nursing home where Patiño and 41 others died found widespread cost-cutting for years leading

up to the pandemic and a series of questionable decisions at the height of the crisis. That included the facility allowing six crucial days to pass before complying with a government order to separate the sick from the well.

Dozens of interviews with workers, relatives and residents themselves, along with publicly available documents, painted a picture of a stripped-down version of elder care, with nurse’s assistants responsible for caring for 10 or more residents at a time, meals often cut short and some residents told to wear diapers to reduce trips to the bathroom.

The private company that operates Usera disputed AP’s reporting of poor care and declined to comment on calls by elder care watchdogs and others to reform a system that puts private-equity profit incentives on public nursing homes. AP

F there is one thing that keeps me hopeful about this pandemic, it’s the feeling that Filipinos will learn to live with it and eventually recover. Our race is gifted with the virtue of resilience.

One definition of resilience is “the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.”

Elasticity connotes pliability, flexibility and fluidity.

The Filipino has a very fluid nature. If one were to choose which of the five Chinese elements best represents the Filipino personality, it has to be water. Like water, he has that inherent cultural ability to adjust to the contours of whatever challenge is before him.

“Kung maliit and kumot, matutong mamaluktot,” is a native maxim inculcated into the mind of every Filipino child.

Water is part of his cultural DNA. After all, he is born surrounded by water. His country is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, floating like a strewn pearl necklace on vast waters. It is not only surrounded by seas, its inlands are penetrated by rivers and streams and lakes.

From the beginning, water becomes part of the life of the Filipino. Down south in the islands of Sulu and Zamboanga Sea, the ethnic Badjao infant is thrown into the sea the moment he is born and will spend the rest of his life in the sea. The Christian Filipino is baptized in water.

In childhood, he grows up to the ebb and flow of a fluid world.

The Filipino male undergoes the rites of manhood called tuli or circumcision beside a stream. A folk surgeon lets him chew guava leaves, which serve as disinfectant after the cutting of his foreskin. Then he plunges into the water together with the other binyagan. Immersing himself in the water after the cutting of the skin is the highlight of the ritual.

Water is the element that breaks the dry hardened parched soil of his fields marking the end of the dry season and the beginning of the rainy season, which brings forth abundance. From the waters around him he harvests his daily sustenance and the treasures of the deep.

His ancestors were r iverbased people, who branched out by groups into the various river mouths and established severa l communities on the deltas and their env irons— baybay ilog and baybay dagat.

Early coastal settlements were called balanghay meaning boat,

suggesting a highly elaborate water-borne culture.

This is why the Filipino language is full of words that denote a water culture. The syllable “ig” is the Maguindanaoan word for water. In other Filipino words, the inclusion of the syllable “ig” connects it with water as in tubig. Taguig means taga-ig. Pasig might have originally meant the fast flow of the waters or to the fast-f lowing river (paspas-ig) Bambang is a generic name for places standing beside a sea, a lake or river.

A product of water-borne culture, the Filipino by nature has a yielding disposition to the point of appearing to be submissive and obsequious.

When the Spanish colonizers came to claim their islands in the name of the Spanish king, most of the natives welcomed them with open arms and even acquiesced to being baptized as Catholics even if they probably did not even understand what the religion of the white men was all about. From the Americans, the Filipino accepted American education, democracy, English, Hollywood movies. He easily adopted and adapted to American ways of dressing, eating, and entertaining.

He easily mixes with other cultures. He never stands out in a foreign country. He becomes absorbed. Come to think of it, there are no Filipino equivalents of China Town or Korea Town or Vietnam Town or Little Italy in other countries.

Another trait of the Filipino that shows his yielding nature is his predisposition to beat around the bush. When faced with a hard choice or a problem, obstacle, or sensitive issue, he would go around it rather than meet it head-on. He will find ways to go around the law just to get what he wants. He shuns confrontation. Talking in your face is not the Filipino way. He will never say frankly what he thinks about you or your offer. He will not directly contradict you especially if you are a grade higher, status wise.

As a friend or your subordinate, he will never directly say no to you. He will say maybe or even yes to avoid displeasing you. He will never ask a favor directly, he will always use a tulay(bridge), a “padron” or a go-between to convey a request.

He is never stubborn in his opinion or steadfast in his beliefs.

He is very flexible and pliant. In politics, he will never stick to one party. He can and will change

party if and when it suits him.

There are no permanent friends only permanent interests. He is quick to forgive or forget slights or offenses, even if the offender is world-class tyrant or plunderer.

When confronted by insurmountable rock, water seeks a new path or will flow down to any hollow or empty space. Faced with a legal hurdle, he will instinctively look for a technicality or a loophole to go around the law, or even offer a bribe as a last resort. The Filipino driver caught in heavy traffic will go out of his lane and on to the opposite lane in counterflow fashion, seeking the shortest path to enable him to move faster toward the front end of the traffic. Never mind if his action will obstruct the vehicles coming from the opposite lane.

Again due to his fluidity, the Filipino is never at home in a hard, squarish, mechanistic world. For one, he does not think in linear way. He thinks in round terms.

He is more holistic, not dualistic.

He prefers the arts to science because he is innately an imagist.

He grew up on bugtongs, riddles that juxtapose two images in his mind. This taught him a different way of seeing the world. That’s why the Filipino is pictorial rather than logical or rational. The fluidity of his world is reflected in his dancing and in his florid art and poetry and in his songs.

But just as water is life, the Filipino also accepts that water is also a destroyer and bringer of death. He is resigned to the annual floods that destroy lives, crops and property during the rainy season.

For hundreds of years, he knows that after the dry season, stormy rains will come to fill the rivers and inundate the surrounding lands, sending thousands to watery graves. Annual floods and large-scale water calamities and disasters–Yoling, Ondoy, Yolanda—they are all just part of the cycle of his life.

At the beginning we said that the Filipino’s most distinctive trait is his fluid nature and yielding disposition. But like water, the Filipino conquers by yielding.

Water never attacks but always triumphs in the end. Embracing a spirit of life-giving purpose, like water, the Filipino will yield to the Covid-19 pandemic but he will never be vanquished by it.

Because of his fluid nature, he will accept it, adjust to it, live with it and eventually emerge out of this plague alive and kicking, the way he has always done in the past.

A8

Saturday, May 30, 2020

BusinessMirror

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Tech privacy firm warns contact tracing app violates policy

BY STEPHEN GROVES The Associated Press

How brands connect with the public on Twitter

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EOPLE always ask if Twitter is still around and as someone who’s there every day, I say “yes.” Twitter is very much alive. It’s not the same Twitter that we knew when Ashton Kutcher was the first celebrity to have 1 million followers on the platform.

I know that many netizens are intimidated by

SUMMER TECH SALE AND MUSIC FESTIVAL

TOUTED as the world’s No. 1 PC company, Lenovo recently launched its summerlong initiative live on Facebook. At the launch event, titled the “Lenovo Summer Sale Tech and Music Festival,” the company will be introducing a range of new PCs, smart devices, and smart solutions in a Philippines-first event. Viewers who tuned in were also be treated to a special performance by OPM icon Bamboo.

“Lenovo wants to make smarter devices more easily accessible to the public.

In our summer sale, we will be offering the latest PCs, smart devices and smart solutions, and bundling them with the perfect accessories that will make day-to-day life easier. We kicked off the summer sale with an unforgettable online event [on May 26],” said Lenovo Philippines President and General Manager Michael Ngan.

Along with the launch of premium devices like new models of the IdeaPad and Yoga lines built for today’s young workers, the world’s top PC maker also announced its biggest summer promotion yet. For a limited time, buyers will have the option to avail of Lenovo product bundles that come with up to a whopping P40,000 worth of premium gifts from retail partners, Lenovo accessories and licensed software. Plus, those living in Metro Manila will get their devices delivered for free via GrabExpress, courtesy of Lenovo.

Catch the best deals on PCs, tablets, smart devices and accessories by tuning in to the official Lenovo Philippines Facebook page. Those who missed the live event that featured Bamboo can tune in at www.lenovoph.com/LSSLiveStream.

Twitter and its users because of its cancel culture but when my friend Gianna was sick, I tweeted Carats (the name of Korean group Seventeen’s fandom) to pray for her and the tweet received an overwhelming response in the form of prayers, likes and retweets. It was very comforting.

I recently received a press release from Twitter’s PR agency and the article talked about how brands can connect with Filipinos on the platform with the hashtag #WhatsHappening.

Here are four ways on how brands are reaching out to connect with Filipinos on Twitter: 1. SHARE ACCURATE AND RELIABLE INFORMATION. Since a lot has been happening lately, new stories and developments usually come anytime. It is important to get the news while they are still fresh, so brands nowadays are helping in spreading accurate and reliable information to keep Filipinos updated. They also share tips and other practical advice on how to be safe and healthy at home.

According to the Global Web Index, 76 percent of Filipinos on Twitter believe that social-media companies should provide fact-checked content to help people cope with the outbreak. With this, Twitter launched a dedicated Covid-19 Events page and #COVID19 search prompt to bring credible information from official authorities and accounts. To use the Covid-19 Events page feature, go to the Explore tab if using a desktop, or see the top of the home timeline for mobile users. To see all of the latest steps Twitter is taking in response to Covid-19, visit covid19. twitter.com.

2. HELP FILIPINOS IN ANY WAY THEY CAN. There are various ways on how brands are providing customer service and support. About 90 percent of Filipinos on Twitter agree that the best way for brands and companies to respond to #COVID19 is to offer free services or make free versions of their platform. The sentiments apparently have been heard as some brands went to Twitter to announce their initiatives, such as Microsoft Philippines’ (@MicrosoftPH) Microsoft 365 free trial and Angkas’ (@angkas) food delivery service wherein 100 percent of the delivery fee will go to the bikers.

3. FIND WAYS TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE. We can still comfort and interact with one another through conversations on Twitter. As people spread messages of hope and inspiration, brands are using Twitter to make each other’s day a little bit brighter through entertaining and interactive Tweets. For example, Netflix Philippines (@Netflix_PH) and National Book Store (@nbsalert) provide amusing content such as these guessing games on movies and book titles.

4. KEEP FILIPINOS CONNECTED. Apart from Covid-19related information, brands lead the way in creating conversations that can connect and hopefully share optimism to people. For example, brands such as McDonald’s Philippines (@McDo_PH) and PLDT

Home (@PLDTHome) made sure to remember and celebrate Mother’s Day amid the pandemic.

I wish brands would even go beyond these things on Twitter. Now that social distancing is very real, I hope their Twitter accounts would serve as customer service or assistance channels where they would really actually assist you beyond asking for details.

In other news, singing prodigy Yessha dela Calzada shone during her stint at the Promil Four i-Shine Talent Camp.

Showing great potential at six years old, she joined the Promil Four i-Shine 4 Talent Camp and emerged as the season’s grand winner. Yessha, now 11, recalls her experience at the summer talent camp and how much it helped her shine not only on stage but also in life. “I was enrolled in Performing Arts and was mentored by ate Karylle Tatlonghari. I super enjoyed it because, in line with the lesson and workshop, we had a weekly video challenge.”

Yessha’s parents also played a huge role in making her videos: her mama is in charge of directing and her hair and makeup, while her papa is the videographer and editor. “The biggest lesson I learned from Promil Four i-Shine 4 Talent Camp, which I still apply up to now, was to own the stage with my own style.”

There is no doubt that these meaningful experiences she earned from the camp, along with her parents’ continuous nurturing and support, are paving the way to achieve her dream of becoming a professional singer here and abroad.

“Indeed, Promil Four i-Shine is the best summer talent camp out there because it helps in discovering every child’s gifts, and nurtures them through workshops with the country’s mentors, which is a very fun journey, and it developed a strong bond between parents and children,” Yessha encourages.

Further proving that i-Shine is not just any other talent camp, prominent i-Shiners also include “Little Picasso of the Philippines” Worth Lodriga, and “Little Broadway Diva” and fellow The Voice Kids Team Lea alumna Esang de Torres.

This year, unlocking gifts for life is the fully digital 8th season of PROMIL FOUR i-Shine Talent Camp which offers different camps—Art, Ballet, Dance, Music and Theater—with activities expertly-designed to nurture your child’s gifts.

Given the current situation where everyone is urged to stay home for safety reasons, parents can still continue to nurture the gifts through Promil Four’s i-Shine Talent Camp online classes for free. To register, visit www.promilnurturethegift.com.

Unlocking the new batch of i-Shiners’ gifts are no less than National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab, G-Force’s celebrity choreographer Georcelle DapatSy, Papemelroti’s Robert Alejandro and art director Kara Escay, prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, and seasoned thespian and Trumpets president Audie Gemora. ■

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota—A contact tracing app pushed by the governors of North Dakota and South Dakota as a tool to trace exposure to the coronavirus violated its own privacy policy by sharing location and user identification information with third-party businesses, according to a report from a tech privacy company.

The Care19 app, developed by ProudCrowd, of North Dakota, was one of the first contact tracing apps endorsed by state governments in response to the coronavirus. Governors from both states promoted it as a way to help health officials stop outbreaks and retrace the steps of people with infections, while assuring people that their data is protected.

But tech privacy company Jumbo Privacy reported this week that developers included lines of code that send users’ location and identification data to thirdparty companies, including Foursquare, BugFender and Google.

Concerned citizens have been eyeing the tradeoff between controlling outbreaks using apps and intrusions on privacy. Civil liberty groups and tech watchdogs have warned about contact tracing apps, saying governments and companies should not be able to access personal data.

The Care19 app shared location data with Foursquare, an advertising company that markets to people based on their location.

ProudCrowd CEO Tim Brookins said his company sends data to Foursquare to determine which businesses a user has visited, but the data is discarded and not used for commercial purposes.

“The simple overarching fact here is that we have stated, and Foursquare has confirmed, that they have not, nor will not, collect data from Care19 users.

Period,” Brookins said.

The app generates an anonymous code for every user. The Jumbo Privacy report noted that the code, along with the phone’s identification, was sent to BugFender, a Barcelona-based company that helps developers track malfunctions. The app also sent an advertising identifier linked with the user’s phone to Google’s Firebase service. That adds up to “serious privacy risks,” Jumbo said.

“It’s really an oversight from them,” said Jumbo Privacy CEO Pierre Valade. “It’s not a bad intention.

They were rushing to build this product.”

Until Friday, Care19’s privacy statement told users their location data would “not be shared with anyone, including government entities or third parties, unless you consent or ProudCrowd is compelled under federal regulations.”

A revised statement says third parties “may have temporary access to aspects of your data for their specific data processing tasks. However, they will not collect this data in a form that allows themselves or others to access or otherwise use this data.”

South Dakota Secretary of Health Kim MalsamRysdon said the Care19 app doesn’t violate the privacy statement and that users always had to grant permission for the app to use their data. The South Dakota version of the app has been downloaded more than 18,000 times, but hasn’t been used to trace an active infection yet.

“This is a voluntary, opt-in app,” she said.

North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum said in a statement that the app, which has over 33,000 downloads in his state, does not use names, addresses or other personal information.

“The anonymous information Care19 is gathering can save lives, and smartly and safely using technology is one more way to help us speed up our economy recovery,” he said.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

BusinessMirror

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Tech giants are embracing remote work. Others may follow

BY BARBARA O�TUTAY The Associated Press

DURING an employee town hall Thursday Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (shown here in a 2019 file foto) said, “We want to make sure we move forward in a measured way.” Facebook, which has nearly 45,000 employees, is looking five to 10 years down the line as it plans for more remote work, even when Covid-19 is no longer a threat that keeps its employees working from home. AP

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AKLAND, California—For a preview of the future of office work, watch how the biggest tech companies are preparing for a post-pandemic world.

Silicon Valley and Seattle giants—Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter—were the first to send their employees home as the virus spread to the US. Now they’re among the last to return them to the office.

Some of their employees might never go back.

The companies are studying what their highlypaid, highly valued employees want, using their own technology to make remote work easier and looking to hire new workers outside of big city hubs. It’s a potentially huge turnaround after years in which companies like Amazon and Google chased scarce tech talent by opening or expanding offices in hip urban locations such as San Francisco and New York.

Such a shift might also amount to a repudiation of the notion that creative work demands corporate campuses reminiscent of college, with free food, ping-pong tables and open office plans designed to encourage unplanned interactions.

The result could reimagine not just Silicon Valley but other cities as the companies expand hiring in places like Atlanta, Dallas and Denver, where Facebook plans to open new “hubs” for its new, mostly remote hires.

Change won’t happen quickly, though. “We want to make sure we move forward in a measured way,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an employee town hall Thursday that was broadcast live on his Facebook page.

Facebook, which has nearly 45,000 employees, is looking five to 10 years down the line as it plans for more remote work, even when Covid-19 is no longer a threat that requires most of its employees to work from home. Since the coronavirus has upended work and office life, even companies with fewer resources and slower-moving cultures are likely to follow.

“Many companies are learning that their workers are just as or even more productive working from home,” said Andy Challenger, senior vice president of staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Zuckerberg said a Facebook employee survey found that about 20 percent of workers were “extremely or very interested” in moving to full-time remote work after virus-related restrictions are lifted.

Another 20 percent were “somewhat” interested and the largest group wanted flexibility, with some remote and some in-office work. Eventually, Zuckerberg said, as many as half of Facebook’s workers could be working remotely. But he cautioned that this is years,

perhaps even a decade, away.

Twitter went even further, announcing last week that it will allow some employees to work from home on a permanent basis, a plan CEO Jack Dorsey hatched before the coronavirus. His other company, Square, which like Twitter is based in San Francisco, is doing the same. Some new US-based job listings for Twitter give the option for hires to work in cities like San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C., but also remotely full time anywhere in the country.

It’s too early to know whether remote work options will mean an exodus of highly-paid tech workers from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where they’ve contributed to skyrocketing rents and housing prices.

But Facebook’s employee survey suggests that at least some of its employees would leave the San Francisco Bay Area if given the option.

For companies that have built their empires on letting people communicate with far-flung friends and colleagues, moving toward remote work is not too hard of a sell. But there are many challenges.

Collaboration, spontaneity, face-to-face interactions that aren’t on a scheduled call—all look different when people are working alone from their homes.

There are also some jobs—in Facebook’s case, the toughest content reviewing that deals with suicides, child abuse and other traumatizing material; sales; building, upgrading and maintaining data centers; lawyers who have to be in court and so on—that can’t be done remotely.

Newer employees, especially recent college grads or those with little experience and lower performers might also fall into this group, Zuckerberg said. At Facebook, the CEO said employees will have to meet certain criteria to be considered for permanent remote work. This includes a level of seniority, strong performance and, naturally, being part of a team that supports remote work.

For now, workers at Facebook, Google, Twitter and elsewhere can work remotely through 2020.

At Microsoft, employees can work from home until October. But the company’s work-from-home

flexibility has fit with the software giant’s broader effort to capitalize on what CEO Satya Nadella calls a shift to “remote everything.”

“Every organization will increasingly need the ability at a moment’s notice to remote everything from manufacturing to sales, to customer support,” Nadella said this week at the company’s Build developer conference.

The company’s chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, had already been working a lot from home, in part because he is based in Silicon Valley and most of the rest of the leadership team is in Redmond, Washington.

“We are all on this accelerated timeline figuring out how to work from home.... It’s learning the culture and the rhythms of interacting with your colleagues by video conference and doing your work remotely,” he said, speaking not just of Microsoft but workplaces in general. “That is getting so much better so quickly that I don’t think I’m going to be commuting nearly as frequently as I was before.” ■

Vietnamese tech firm urges local MSMEs to migrate to the cloud

BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES FILIPINO micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) should tap cloud-based platforms to fill in the gap for their businesses that were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in major disruptions to their processes, transactions and networking, according to a seasoned Filipino technology executive.

Kiu Philippines President Junie Pama told BUSINESSMIRRO� in an e-mail interview there will be a major shift in how enterprises will conduct their transactions in the so-called new normal.

Pama said Kiu pioneered the idea of software in the cloud for the emerging markets and creating impact using their technology to help MSMEs in the Asean who are typically rejected by traditional financial institutions for loans and credit.

Kiu was first launched in Vietnam in 2015 and is used by more than 25,000 SMEs in other countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Thailand where Kiu also has local offices.

Kiu Philippines is the local subsidiary of Hanoi, Vietnam-based technology company Kiu. In Vietnamese, “kiu” means bridge. In response to the current business challenges, Pama said Kiu has been promoting to the local market the Business Management Platform (BMP).

It is a cloud-based system of integrated applications to manage business and automate backoffice functions for customer relations management,

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sales, purchases, inventory management, manufacturing, human resource and accounting.

“The BMP is designed to simplify daily work, automate processes, transfer data continuously across departments and ensure data security. Your data is secured and controlled only by you,” Pama explained.

Through the BMP, digitalizing business processes ensures an enterprise can achieve efficiency resulting to productivity and ultimately profitability.

Pama pointed out the BMP is also cost-efficient.

As a subscription-based model, a user will only pay a minimum amount on a monthly basis to maintain the Kiu services. He said the BMP can also be deployed in less than a month from the first day of engagement, compared to other platforms which will take months to implement and years for the service provider to integrate with existing system.

Kiu, Pama noted, is scalable, as it can start with

three to five users and expand up to thousands of users depending on requirement and needs of company. The total cost of ownership is minimal as a user will only need a personal computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

To protect against obsolescence, Pama said they will provide upgrades on a regular basis at no cost to the subscriber. Moreover, it has free automatic software updates as part of service to the client.

He said connectivity is not a problem as long as a user has the device and Internet connectivity.

Since it is cloud-based, Pama said Kiu is apt for disaster recovery because it’s not dependent on traditional IT infrastructure. He added cloud-based solutions ensure the sustainability of business with minimal cost impact to its implementation.

Meanwhile, the Kiu Credit Scoring platform analyzes fraud, transactional data and millions of historical loans over the past 14 years in conjunction with predictive analysis to create a credit score so banks or MFIs can loan money to MSME or SME instantly. Kiu mitigates risks by using the data collected through Kiu BMP and other data sources to develop data analytics that allows for a credit rating of SME clients.

Finally, Pama pointed out that using Kiu is as simple as “plug and play.” To ensure a smooth transition, to digital from manual processses, Pama said the business consultants will connect to the company for guidance to ensure businesses are on the right track.

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Saturday, May 30, 2020 A11

CELL SITE BUILDS BRING JOBS, GOOD EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

The good, the bad, and the gimmick “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”—NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

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AST week, we talked about the design, build, and performance of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, and true to its name and promise of being an ultra-premium flagship, it delivers—but is the device’s much-hyped 108MP camera and 100X space zoom just as good?

The Samsung Galaxy series has always been known for its great cameras.

It was even the king of the DXOMark Mobile Rankings once with the S7 Edge getting the highest score in 2016. While the Galaxy S9 and S10 still had fine cameras, they were overshadowed by what’s been offered by Huawei, Google, Xiaomi and the rest of the competition. Samsung knew it had to do something— and skip the S11.

According to the company, they chose Galaxy S20 because they wanted a name that kicks off the next 10 years of innovation. This year begins a whole new decade and marks Samsung as a pioneer of a mobile ecosystem powered by 5G, AI and IoT. “That’s why it’s not the Galaxy S11. It’s the dawn of the next generation of Galaxy—the Galaxy S20,” the company explained.

It’s quite a dramatic way of explaining why they packed all these new features and hardware into their Galaxy S flagships. But its also a subtle way of indicating that while it may be next gen, this new technology is also a work in progress.

EXPLORING THE CAMERA APP

BEFORE we discuss my thoughts about the Galaxy S20 Ultra cameras, I’d like to share some tips first to help you make the most out of its shooter.

■ ADD MORE MODES: When you first open the camera app you’ll only have a few modes available— Single Shot, Photo and Video. To add more modes tap on “More” and the pen icon to drag other modes like Night, Food, PRO, Panorama, Slow Motion, etc. to your main options.

■ A.I. GUIDE: Head over to the Settings menu (gear icon on the top) and make sure these options are turned on. First is Shot Suggestions. Using AI, this guides you to get the best shot composition for the scene. An opaque circle and a spirit level-style straight line will appear, which you need to line up to get the best position (it turns yellow when you get it right).

You don’t actually have to follow it all the time, but it’s a good way to help newbies and useful to make sure your phone is perfectly level.

Another way to help you better frame your photos is to turn on “Grid Lines” which provides a visual guide to help you stick to the rule of thirds. Since the S20 Ultra is quite big, you might find yourself struggling to reach the shutter button when taking shots of something you are holding in your other hand; when such is the case, go to shooting methods and activate “Floating Shutter Button”. This will add an extra shutter button that you can move anywhere on the screen. Another suggestion is to also turn on “Show Palm” for taking selfies.

■ HOW TO TAKE 108MP PHOTOS AND 8K VIDEOS: The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has a massive 108MP main

lens, but the camera defaults to taking 12MP photos.

So how do you switch to the max MP? On the top of the screen is an icon that’s likely marked 9:16—tap it and choose 3:4 108MP (or 4:3 for landscape) to take full-resolution photos. Take note that images with 12000 x 9000 pixels can take up a minimum of 10MB of storage space for each photo. It’s the same thing for videos: to shoot 8K resolution video, simply tap the icon marked 9:16, or 16:9 if you’re in landscape, and select the 9:16/16:9 8K option. Note that a one 60-second clip can take up at more than 500MB, and a screenshot from this mode will give you 33MP stills.

■ ZOOM: To use the zoom feature, you can either tap on the icons above the shutter button or use your fingers to pinch/expand the screen. But to get a more exact zoom magnification, it’s quicker to just tap the magnification icons and choose from all those extra zoom icons 4x, 10x, 30x all the way up to 100x zoom.

■ SINGLE TAKE: Perhaps the best addition to the S20 Ultra’s camera modes is Single Take. If you’re like me who can’t decide whether to take a quick video or snap a photo, Single Take takes the worry out of missing the moment by making use of the camera’s multiple modes and features. All you have to do is point the camera in the right direction and the camera creates shorter videos, stills, filtered images, and shots in different aspect ratios for you.

It’s easy to use and great for people who want to capture those one-shot moments with their babies and pets or anything that moves around.

HOW GOOD ARE THE CAMERAS?

REMEMBER when you were a kid and you got your first award or won first prize or something which gave you an overwhelming sense of pride and achievement that you wanted to wear that medal or ribbon and show it off to everyone—until you realized it wasn’t really such a big deal?

I guess that’s what Samsung felt about its new zoom feature: that it was going to be such a win they couldn’t restrain themselves from slapping the “SPACE ZOOM 100X” label on its camera module.

I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra for the past couple of months; unfortunately because of the ECQ, I wasn’t able to take a lot more photos as I would have wanted to, but it really does have an amazing camera—the best on a Samsung—well, except for its 100X Space Zoom.

The S20 Ultra introduces an all-new camera system, and that huge panel at the back houses Samsung’s quad-camera system: a large 108MP wide angle, 12MP ultra-wide angle, 48MP telephoto with periscopic 4x optical zoom and a depth sensor. It also

has a 40MP front-facing camera.

It’s an impressive mix of smartphone camera tech and is the most advanced on a Samsung smartphone, so it’s no surprise that it got a score of 122 overall points in the DXOMark and a photo score of 132. It’s also the only phone in the top five that isn’t from a Chinese company.

The 108MP sensor outputs 12MP images via a process called “Nona binning” which happens directly on the sensor hardware. This method has been used on other phones before, but Samsung went bigger by combining nine of them. The resulting photos are great, striking an excellent balance of detail and low noise. Although I found myself sticking to the default 12MP resolution most of the time.

In good lighting conditions, photos taken from both the front and main rear cameras are excellent.

Colors are typical of a Samsung phone with great details and wide dynamic range.

Outdoor and landscape shots come out vibrant with good detail and sharpness as well. The AI isn’t too aggressive and I prefer the more natural looking tones of the S20 Ultra than the oversaturated ones from other phones. The selfie camera is a substantial upgrade from previous generations and takes very detailed photos without too much beautification.

There’s also a wide angle so you could fit in a couple more people, and is useful for vloggers who want to capture more than just their face on screen.

The S20 Ultra also captures very good video and is the only smartphone that can currently shoot 8K videos. The downside is that it consumes a lot of space, which is why it would have been better had Samsung upped the default storage to 256GB. And now for the 100X Space Zoom.

Remember that quote we used at the start? It’s clear that Samsung was shooting for the moon, and was trying to one-up Huawei’s 50X Zoom, but it’s way off target.

Did it land on the stars?

Let’s just say it is up there among the stars, but it’s not shining as bright as it should have.

Is the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra a flagship we recommend?

The truth is it isn’t for everybody. If it’s value-formoney you are looking for, you might not even be the target of the S20 Ultra (the S20 and S20 Plus might be a better option). There’s a reason why Samsung threw everything on the S20 Ultra—because it’s meant for those whom money is no object, and they just want the best of what’s out there. It’s a statement phone to see and be seen with.

That’s why I called it the Boss’ Baby, both because it’s for the top executives, and also because its still a baby that needs to grow up and improve. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is priced at P69,990, and it’s best to get it through a Smart Signature plan to get the best deal and Internet service.

Speaking of Smart, the telco is launching a new campaign with none other than Crash Landing on You lead star Hyun Bin. MVP has already confirmed it and the TV and online ads will premiere on June 1. It’s the first time the telco has tapped an international star for its ad campaign, and it will be interesting to see what happens. ■

AMONG the hardest sectors hit by the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is the country’s workforce. The travel restrictions, health protocols and practically stoppage of thousands of companies and industries all over Luzon have resulted in many layoffs and changes on how people work as compared to the preCovid-19 period.

Companies like Globe are capable of becoming economic catalysts during these difficult times.

Keeping people connected requires a reliable network with capacity and coverage, and this is an area of opportunity to provide jobs.

Whenever a local government unit allows a telco to build one single cell site in its area, jobs can be created. While typically a company employs people to design, engineer and build a cell tower, it also needs outside help, usually done through vendors and outsourced parties to do actual deployment and later on continuing operation of the cell site. The limited movement of people from one municipality or city to another makes it practical for the company to enlist the services of skilled workers in the area where it will build the cell site.

From the very start of acquiring a site to build on, people are needed to look for the ideal site location, getting approval from lot owners and securing permits needed for the structure plus other concerns.

“There are a lot of skilled manpower resources needed to set up one cell site. Other than Globe’s own people, there are many others involved in a cell site build: civil engineers, construction people—masons, electricians, carpenters, welders, vertical construction workers, painters — and other workers,” said Joel Agustin, Globe SVP for Program Development, Network Technical Group.

A construction of a single cell tower may take from six to 22 weeks depending on its design and location.

For residents without a job, six to 22 weeks of a steady source of livelihood make a big difference in their desire to put food on the table for their loved ones.

Not only the residents will benefit if an LGU allows a telco to proceed with its expansion targets, but the whole municipality or city will also reap the rewards of having a reliable source of connectivity. Local economies are also expected to flourish because the community will be able to link up with prospective customers, investors and even business partners.

Local government units (LGUs) now play a crucial role in providing the right connectivity infrastructure for workers and business as they shift to work from home, online business and other transactions in the new normal.

“What happens in the rural areas is that once a cell site is built, economic activities usually follow.

Communities begin to thrive because so many opportunities have been opened to them. We have seen this in remote areas with poor signal before.

Because of this, it is becomes an essential part of an LGU’s governance agenda to ensure their community is enabled,” Agustin explained.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Globe underscored that it remains committed to bring the best possible service to its customers. Despite travel restrictions, the company has aggressively pushed for network expansion as people work from home and more companies rely on telcos for their Internet connections.

BusinessMirror

A10 Saturday, May 30, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Huawei CFO Meng to find out if her fraud case will proceed

Huawei CFO Meng to find out if her fraud case will proceed

Work from home forever?

Big tech is divided on that

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BY TAE KIM Bloomberg Opinion

HE work-from-home movement is gaining steam in Silicon Valley as a flurry of companies—big and small—are embracing remote-working policies beyond the pandemic. But even as some executives extol its virtues, other tech leaders aren’t so sure, opening a growing divide inside the industry over the future of work. It’s a worthy debate.

On Thursday, Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his company will start allowing some existing employees to work from home permanently.

He said Facebook will also “aggressively open up remote hiring” for engineering talent in areas it doesn’t have an office, saying as much as 50 percent of the company’s employees could eventually work remotely within 10 years.

In similar fashion, Shopify Inc. CEO Tobi Lutke said his e-commerce software company will allow its employees to work from home indefinitely, adding he expects that most of his staff will work remotely going forward. The days of “office centricity is over,” the executive posted on social media. The two companies join Twitter Inc., which said last week it

will let employees work from home as standard practice, as well.

Not everyone in technology is on board. Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. CEO Strauss Zelnick said on an investor call this week that he believes sustained strong productivity will get more difficult the longer people are forced to work from home, adding that “there is no substitute for in-person collaboration and connection.” That follows comments from Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella, who expressed concern in an interview with the New York Times last week that early positive remote-work productivity metrics may mask underlying deficiencies, in terms of managing and mentoring employees.

He also raised worries about potential burnout and mental-health issues. “Maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?,” he asked. There’s something to be said for this pushback. Sure, there are many pluses to offering off-site work flexibility—including better employee retention and the ability to hire from a more diverse talent base in other geographies—but corporations should realize the work-from-home trend isn’t a panacea. In fact, there are significant drawbacks and challenges that shouldn’t be overlooked.

As Zelnick pointed out, there are unquantifiable benefits derived from being in the same physical location. Scheduled videoconferencing meetings don’t engender the same spontaneous creativity compared to the many back-and-forth brief conversations during a typical day at an office. And nothing beats face-to-face interactions for building the relationships and trust required to persuade your colleagues on big decisions.

It’s notable that even as Facebook projects confidence and forward-looking thought leadership in its charge toward its new work-fromhome culture, it is implementing the change slowly.

Zuckerberg said only the company’s senior engineers with strong performance reviews will be initially allowed to apply for remote-work flexibility, adding it will be a measured transition before extending the policy to non-engineers.

To be frank, it wouldn’t surprise me to see many of these companies slow down their transitions to remote working. After all, the world is only a few months into this massive remote-work experiment. The initial productivity benefits may dissipate and significant negative consequences may well appear over time. Best not to rush into any drastic decisions. ■

Huawei partners with Kumu, Viu TECH giant Huawei partnered with two powerhouse app companies, Kumu and Viu, which share the same target audience with the new Huawei Y series—seeing opportunities to engage and capture the same Y series market through content, community engagements, and marketing.

Gen Zs and millennials know all the gimmicks on smartphones, they know all about what’s hot and what’s not. Undeniably, they are the most tech-savvy demographic out there.

Performance, cameras, big storage—these are all the features they look for a smartphone and the Huawei Y6p’s 64GB of ROM, 4GB of RAM, and the massive 5,000mAh battery hit the sweet spot of speed and endurance that’s required for the media-heavy lifestyles they have.

Throw in a triple rear camera system that handles a variety of shooting situations such as low-light environments, wide-angle scenes and bokeh photography, and the Y6p is suddenly a must-have. This recipe of performance and camera quality makes for incredibly fun Kumu

sessions, as more apps continue to push the envelope for lively selfexpression.

Kumu is a powerful social-media platform that brings the voices of Filipinos from all over the globe at the forefront. Aside from presenting users real-time earning opportunities as a live streamer, chances to win cash in various game shows and engagement in campaigns, Kumu also fosters communities that ignite relevant discussions among Filipinos.

“Gen Zs and millennials love expressing themselves and in an authentic way. That’s why Kumu, as a social livestreaming app, is perfect for them. With our partnership with

Huawei, we are positive that more and more people will be able to enjoy the Kumu experience via Huawei Y6p and other Huawei devices’ AppGallery,” says Irving Mendoza, head of E-Commerce. Check out and download the app to know more.

Young people are also all about the latest shows and movies these days, so they don’t miss out on the pop culture references online. What better way to catch up on all of them than with the Huawei Y6p?

This device has a dewdrop display and has more than enough power to last series-long marathons on apps like Viu, thanks to the 5000mAh battery.

“Viu will now be enjoyed by

millions of Huawei users including those using the newly launched Huawei Y6p and Y5p. With Viu, Huawei users can get the best of Asian entertainment, including Korean content, Asian films and series they would love to watch. Just download the app via Huawei’s AppGallery,” said Vinchi Sy-Quia, operations director of Viu Philippines.

Those who preorder the Y6p on or before May 31 will get a free Viu Premium subscription for three months—a must-have for all K-drama lovers.

More information about the Huawei Y6p can be found at consumer. huawei.com/ph.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia—A top executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei is scheduled to learn on Wednesday if a US extradition case against her can proceed. Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, at Vancouver’s airport in late 2018. The United States wants her extradited to face fraud charges. Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise.

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Heather Homes is scheduled to rule if the allegations against Meng in the US would also be a crime in Canada if committed here.

The US accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of US sanctions. It says Meng, 47, committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran. Meng’s lawyers argued during a hearing in January that the case is really about US sanctions against Iran, not a fraud case. They maintain since Canada does not have similar sanctions against Iran, no fraud occurred.

Ahead of the decision Meng, the company’s chief financial officer, posed for photos on the court steps this past the weekend, giving a thumbs up sign.

A negative ruling could continue to harm relations between Beijing and Ottawa for years. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday his government should not have to explain any court decision to China.

“We don’t need to apologize or explain for the decisions taken by our independent justice system,” Trudeau said. “We will continue to abide and defend that system.”

In apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest, China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor. China has also placed restrictions on various Canadian exports to China, including canola oil seed and meat. China also handed a death sentence to a convicted Canadian drug smuggler in a sudden retrial.

Huawei represents China’s progress in becoming a technological power and has been a subject of US security concerns. Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for phone and Internet companies, and some analysts say Chinese companies have flouted international rules and norms amid allegations of technology theft. Meng’s arrest also complicated high-stakes trade talks between the US and China. If the judge rules against Meng, her legal team is scheduled to be back in court in June and will argue that Canada Border Services, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI violated Meng’s rights while collecting evidence before she was actually arrested. Extradition cases typically take years in Canada.

If the court rules in Meng’s favor, she would be free to return home, said Gary Botting, a Vancouver defense lawyer who has written several books on extradition. The prosecution would have 30 days to appeal. AP

APPLE BUYS MACHINE-LEARNING START-UP TO IMPROVE DATA USED IN SIRI

BY MARK GURMAN Bloomberg News APPLE Inc. bought machine-learning start-up Inductiv Inc., adding to more than a dozen AI-related acquisitions by the technology giant in the past few years. The engineering team from Waterloo, Ontario-based Inductiv joined Apple in recent weeks to work on Siri, machine learning and data science.

Apple confirmed the deal, saying it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Inductiv developed technology that uses artificial intelligence to automate the task of identifying and correcting errors in data. Having clean data is important for machine learning, a popular and powerful type of AI that helps software improve with less human intervention. The work falls under the category of data science, a key element of Apple’s broader machine-learning strategy. In 2018, the company brought on several engineers from Silicon Valley Data Science, a consulting firm that focuses on this field.

John Giannandrea, the Apple executive in charge of Siri and machine learning, has been upgrading the underlying technology that goes into the Siri digital assistant and other AI-powered products from the company.

Inductiv was cofounded by machine-learning professors from Stanford University, the University of Waterloo and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The professor from Stanford, Christopher Ré, previously cofounded another AI company, Lattice Data, that was bought by Apple in 2017. It’s unclear if Ré, or the other Inductiv cofounders, Theodoros Rekatsinas and Ihab Ilyas, have joined Apple.

Apple has bought several other AI and data companies in recent years, including Xnor.ai, Tuplejump, Laserlike, Turi and Perceptio. This year, the company bought Voysis to boost speech recognition in Siri, virtual-reality start-up NextVR, and the popular iPhone weather app Dark Sky.

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PSA FORUM BACK ONLINE T

HE weekly Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Forum returns on Tuesday after a fourmonth break in a new platform.

The two-part session will feature the country’s top sports officials—Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez and Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino taking turns in discussing the current state and future of Philippine sports amid the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The 10 a.m. forum will be via Zoom

videoconferencing—a first in the more than 70 years of the PSA. PSA President Tito Talao of the Manila Bulletin said the program will be streamed live via the PSA Facebook page fb.com/ PhilippineSportswritersAssociation and simultaneously over the Facebook and audiostreaming of Radyo Pilipinas 2.

The session is presented by San Miguel Corp., Amelie Hotel, Braska Restaurant and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and powered by Smart and Go For Gold.

Italy’s Serie A gets government nod to resume play on June 20

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ILAN—Italy’s Serie A is set to resume on June 20.

Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora gave the league the all-clear to resume on Thursday, although it will have to wait a week longer than it had initially hoped.

Spadafora held a meeting with Italian soccer authorities by videoconference after a medical protocol for matches was approved earlier on Thursday.

“The meeting was very useful,” Spadafora said. “Now Italy is starting again and it is right that soccer starts again, too.

“If the curve changes and the league has to be stopped again, the Italian soccer federation has assured me that there exists a plan B— playoffs—and also a plan C—leaving the standings as they are.”

Serie A has been suspended since March 9, when the government ordered a nationwide lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The league’s 20 teams agreed earlier this month to resume competition on June 13 in empty stadiums. But, following a government decree days later banning sports until June 14, the Italian soccer federation swiftly announced that it would comply. However, it had hoped for special dispensation.

“The league will restart June 20,” Spadafora said. “There’s then the possibility that the Italian Cup semifinals and final can be played on June 13 and 17.”

The first legs of the semifinals had already been played before the lockdown, with AC Milan drawing 1-1 against Juventus and Napoli winning 1-0 at Inter Milan.

The rights for the cup matches are owned by Italy’s RAI state television.

“It would be a good signal because you could watch three important matches free-to-air on public channels,” Spadafora added.

The medical protocol is similar to that for team training, meaning that if one person within the group—player or staff—tests positive for Covid-19 the entire group must go into a retreat for 14 days.

There are 12 rounds remaining in Serie A, plus four matches that were postponed from the 25th round.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus, which is bidding for a record-extending ninth successive Serie A title, has a one-point advantage over Lazio. Third-place Inter Milan is nine points behind Juventus but has played a match less.

The Lega Serie A is set to have a meeting on Friday where it could formalize the calendar.

Serie B, Italy’s second division, also plans to resume June 20.

“Soccer restarting represents a message of hope for the entire country,” federation President

Premier League plans June 17 restart after 100-day shutdown

Gabriele Gravina said. “Our project is one of great responsibility, because it involves the entire professional world of Serie A, B, C and, hopefully, also the women’s Serie A.” In England, the Premier League announced plans on Thursday to resume on June 17. AP Cristiano Ronaldo and Juventus will be back in action. AP

hris Thompson is a National Football League (NFL) running back. He also is the father of a four-month-old daughter, Kali.

Guess which of those facts matters more to him when he ponders eventually returning to work amid a pandemic.

“If I go practice or play and I come back home with the virus...that’s my biggest worry,” said Thompson, who signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars this month after seven seasons with the Washington Redskins.

“We’re not robots out there,” he said. “People out there are saying, ‘Hey, with all that’s going on, we need sports back in our lives to get our minds off everything.’

That’s all good. But you’ve got to think about this, too: When we start back in training camp, you’re putting 90 guys from 90 different places all together...and it happens a lot that a lot of us get sick.”

These are the sorts of thoughts those who play the games that people love to watch, discuss and gamble on are grappling with as lockdowns brought about by the coronavirus outbreak begin to ease and various sports resume competition— Nascar and UFC, for example—or attempt to figure out how to, such as Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League.

Reporters from The Associated Press spoke to more than two dozen athletes from around the globe—representing seven countries and 11 sports—to get a sense of how concerned or confident they are about resuming competition.

What emerged, above all, was a sense that they are going through the very same sort of calculus that much of the rest of society is: What is safe nowadays? How do I, and my family, stay healthy, especially with no cure or vaccine yet?

“There’s certainly an element of the unknown,” New Jersey Devils defenseman Connor Carrick said.

“This has not been studied all that long still, even thought it feels like an eternity some days.”

Sports BusinessMirror

Or as Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who has won nine Grand Slam tennis doubles titles, explained: “It’s sort of even tough to gauge what I should be worried about.”

Mattek-Sands did say she thinks those in charge of her sport will do their best to protect participants, which matched the general consensus among those the AP interviewed.

They also consider the optics.

“You’d have these billionaire [team] owners that are probably social distancing in their boxes, while you have guys on the field playing a game with no fans,” said Kelvin Beachum, an NFL free agent. “I think that would be very, very awkward.”

Nearly unanimous was a wariness about enough Covid-19 testing—what types, how many, how often—and other precautions (contact tracing, for example) that leagues, unions and governing bodies might institute as they develop protocols.

Most echoed Thompson’s sentiment that “we should have constant testing,” but there was hesitation about too many nasal swabs or blood samples.

“If the tests don’t come back for a couple of days and whatnot, how does that really work?” said two-time Olympic champion ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin. “It’s good to know if you test positive or negative. But if we’re talking about being tested today so we can race tomorrow, but the results don’t come back for two days, it doesn’t really help.”

Ryan Zimmerman, a member of the World Series champion Washington Nationals, was adamant: “Someone is going to need to be able to assure us that the testing put forward will be able to catch this before it can cause some sort of outbreak among people in close quarters.”

Some wondered whether they would agree to get a seasonal flu shot if required, the way it was in Australian rugby. Two athletes said they never get seasonal flu vaccines—one also didn’t want recommended shots before a recent trip to Africa—and aren’t inclined to change that. AP

Editor: Jun Lomibao | mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Athletes wary about virus, testing upon return to action Mikaela Shiffrin: If the tests don’t come back for a couple of days and whatnot, how does that really work? AP

TOKYO STARTING FROM SCRATCH TOKYO Olympics organizers are just beginning the race to reset themselves. AP

By Stephen Wade The Associated Press

T

OKYO—Just two months after the unprecedented Olympic postponement, organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto was asked Thursday about progress toward next year’s rescheduled Tokyo Games.

“If you ask, are we just around the first corner of the 400-meter race, I cannot answer that question,” said Muto, speaking through an interpreter during an online news conference. “But I can tell you this much. I do not feel we are late in our preparations. I do not feel we are being delayed in any way.”

But from listening to the limited details that Muto provided, preparations seem to be barely

M

ANCHESTER, England—The Premier League plans to restart on June 17 after a 100-day shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, with new staggered kickoff times to make sure every game can be shown on TV as fans are prevented from attending games.

The clubs agreed Thursday that the competition should resume with a Wednesday night doubleheader featuring Manchester City playing Arsenal and Aston Villa hosting Sheffield United—two games that were postponed during earlier rounds.

However, the league still needs formal approval from the government as lockdown measures are gradually eased.

“This [June 17] date cannot be confirmed until we have met all the safety requirements

out of the starting blocks.

A former deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, Muto has spoken cautiously ever since the coronavirus pandemic caused the postponement and says little about progress. He said not to expect much solid news until planning reaches the “second phase” in the fall.

This includes who pays for the delay, which is estimated in Japan at $2 billion to $6 billion, how to keep fans, staff and athletes safe from the coronavirus, and deal-making to secure the same 43 venues and the same competition schedule.

“Right now we don’t have any details or specific items that we can talk about,” he said. “We all agree that in addition to heat countermeasures, we will have to have coronavirus measures.”

In the last week, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach and IOC member John Coates, who oversees preparations needed,” Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said, “as the health and welfare of all participants and supporters is our priority.”

After those makeup games are played, the 30th round will start on June 19 at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT)—if authorities approve safety plans. The government has been keen on bringing back sports, this week approving contact training between large groups of players.

“Positive to see further steps on the return of football today,” Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden

for Tokyo, have speculated more openly on how the games might be held.

In interviews, Bach has suggested a possible quarantine for athletes, floated the possibility of little fan access, and has not ruled out empty stadiums.

Coates, speaking last week at a News Corp Australia digital forum and reported in The Australian newspaper, was very frank.

“We’ve got real problems because we’ve got athletes having to come from 206 different nations,” Coates said.

He ran off the numbers: 11,000 Olympic athletes, 5,000 technical officials and coaches, 20,000 media and 60,000 volunteers.

“There’s a lot of people,” Coates said, without even adding 4,400 Paralympic athletes and staff.

Muto said October loomed—and Coates said the same thing—as a time when “many thing will come clear in the process.” tweeted. “We are still working on govt guidance before we green light sports’ return.”

Resuming the league has been keenly awaited at Liverpool, which is 25 points clear with nine games remaining in the quest to end a 30-year title drought.

It’s still unclear if Liverpool will have a chance to clinch the trophy at Anfield, which is in a busy residential area. Police have said only neutral venues should be used over concerns fans would congregate outside, but that plan

“October will be that point when we start the detailed discussions,” Muto said.

He said that they excluded any decision about “go or not to go” on with the Olympics.

Muto has always said the games are on, though Bach and Tokyo organizing committee President Yoshiro Mori agree they cannot be delayed again.

Another delay will mean a cancellation.

“This is a huge undertaking. This is a big job,” Muto said. “We have to do in one year and a few months something that had taken years of actual preparations to do. So there are so many things we have to review and decide in such a short time.”

Australian Olympic team medical director David Hughes, meanwhile, warned that next year’s Games in Tokyo “will not be business as usual.”

Speaking at the National Sport Integrity Forum, held virtually this year, Hughes suggested the assumption must be made that a coronavirus vaccine will not be available in time for the postponed Tokyo 2020.

“My advice is, in terms of planning for the Paralympics and Olympics next year in Tokyo, we need to make an assumption that there will not be vaccine,” he said.

“And that means it will not be business as usual and it will be a very different looking Olympics from what has been before.”

The coronavirus pandemic forced the rescheduling of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to July 23 to August 8, 2021.

They will be followed by the Paralympics from August 24 to September 5.

There are concerns a lack of vaccine will result in the complete cancellation of the Games, however, with Japan Medical Association President Yoshitake Yokokura one such figure to express these fears.

Australian Olympic Committee President and Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission chairman John Coates admitted organizers have “real problems” over the postponed Games as countries struggle to control the coronavirus crisis, while International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach acknowledged Tokyo 2020 would be canceled should it not be held in 2021.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the event, Hughes revealed the arrangements the Australian Olympic team were considering for the Games.

was opposed by the 20 clubs. The clubs did agree during Thursday’s conference call on a reworking of the usual schedule.

Saturdays will see an additional late game start at 8 p.m. after fixtures at 12:30 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. There will be a new early and late slot on Sundays of 12 p.m. and 7 p.m. between the usual 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. kickoffs. The Friday and Monday night games will be at usual at 8 p.m. Midweek rounds will now see an earlier set of games at 6 p.m. followed by 8 p.m. kickoffs. AP