Businessmirror november 19, 2016

CHAMPIONING GOLF IN PHL Stephen Reilly (second from left),

Resorts World Manila (RWM) COO; SSP Chawrasia, 2016 Resorts World Manila Masters champion; Robert John L. Sobrepeña, Manila Southwoods chairman; Jay Bayron and Miguel Tabuena, joint best Filipino players; Cho Minn Thant, Asian Tour director for tour and player affairs, pose for photos during the awarding rites of the recently concluded RWM Masters. Story on A6.

media partner of the year

United nations

2015 environmental Media Award leadership award 2008

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

A broader look at today’s business

n

Saturday, November 19, 2016 Vol. 12 No. 38

2016 ejap journalism awards

business news source of the year

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 20 pages | 7 days a week

FM laid to rest at heroes’ cemetery F

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

ormer President Ferdinand E. Marcos was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB), a cemetery dedicated for heroes as its name suggests, in Taguig City on November 18, Friday. The remains of the late strongman were flown via military helicopter from Batac, Ilocos Norte at the heavily guarded burial grounds for heroes, with a few sympathizers joining the family witnessing the event. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) rendered the traditional 21-gun salute, traditional burial respects given to soldiers and martyrs who fought and died for the country. The burial came “like a thief in the night,” critics say, as petitioners in the Supreme Court (SC) case stopping Marcos burial at the LNMB is not yet to be final and executory. Anti-Marcos movement leaders have condemned the burial, and announced a “Black Friday protest” in various locations, with one scheduled to be held at the People Power Monument on Epi-

RODRIGUEZ: “That is where the irony lies. While Marcos was allowed burial at the LNMB, the Bantayog ng mga Bayani will honor heroes and martyrs who fought the oppressive Marcos regime.”

fanio de los Santos Avenue (Edsa). On November 8 the SC, voting 9-5, junked petitions asking it to stop President Duterte from allowing Marcos’s burial at the LNMB. Supporters of Marcos are toeing Duterte’s line that a Marcos burial will heal the wounds, while victims of martial law said the decision is an insult to the heroism of those who fought the “dictatorship” that will continue to tear the nation apart. Continued on A2

In this September 11, 2005, file photo, former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos kisses the refrigerated crypt of her husband, the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos, as she observes his 88th birthday at a mausoleum in Batac, Ilocos Norte. Marcos was buried at a heroes’ cemetery on Friday in a secrecy-shrouded ceremony, police officials said, despite growing opposition after the Supreme Court ruled that one of Asia’s most infamous tyrants can be entombed in the hallowed grounds. AP/Aaron Favila

End ‘endo’ by year-end–PCCI

T

With immediate family members beside her, Gov. Imee Marcos reads her family’s statement after the late Ferdinand E. Marcos, her father, was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on Friday in Pasay City. AP/Bullit Marquez

PESO exchange rates n US 49.2190

he Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) is appealing to the government to settle the issue of illegal contractualization— known as endo—by the end of the year, as foreign investors it has talked to during President Duterte’s visits to China and Japan have raised this as a possible deterrent to future investments. The Department of Trade and Industry, meanwhile, stands firm on pushing its “win-win solution,” even as this may possibly raise the costs of employers, but assure workers’ security. For the business chamber, however, the present labor law already suffices, and better implementation is the key. “The labor law would suffice. The law already states that endo is really illegal, and we also know that there are different types of work that depend on the nature of the business. There’s

Barcelon: “That is the least they want to have a problem with, that they would come in without a clear labor law. We want this to be settled by year-end.”

seasonal, time-bound and project-oriented work; the law provides for that,” said George T. Barcelon, president of PCCI. Barcelon, who was among the business delegates who accompanied Duterte and his Cabinet in the recent trips to China and Japan, said this issue should be resolved quickly if potential investments are to be realized. “From my talks with businesses when I went to China and Japan, what they’re saying is that, yes, we’re on the radar and Continued on A2

n japan 0.4513 n UK 61.2087 n HK 6.3449 n CHINA 7.1580 n singapore 34.7862 n australia 36.7617 n EU 52.5905 n SAUDI arabia 13.1268

Source: BSP (18 November 2016 )

News

A2 Saturday, November 19, 2016

‘Endo’...

continued from A1

they’re looking at the Philippines as an investment area, but there are concerns—infrastructure and, of course, the labor issue,” he said. “Is it conducive for investors? Because that is the least they want to have a problem with, that they would come in without a clear labor law. We want this to be settled by yearend,” Barcelon added. Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez clarified that his win-win solution is an improvement of what is already in the law—essentially ensuring that workers employed by third-party contractors (or service providers) are given full benefits. “The win-win solution is the best solution. This is not illegal endo, which we are against. The solution is about legitimate contractualization, which provides stronger benefits for workers on top of what is provided by law,” Lopez said in a text message. The DTI chief explained that workers in service providing (SP) companies are deemed as regular and permanent workers, so even if the project of the SP is terminated by the principal, the workers will still be redeployed. Retirement benefits are also mandatory under the DTI’s proposal. The issue of endo gained traction during the run-up to the presidential elections when it was raised as a debate issue among the candidates. Duterte, in response to the issue, pledged to stop contractualization. Voters and citizens are often unaware of the difference between legitimate contractualization and the illegal endo. The practice of legitimate contracting, or subcontracting, is one where a principal company farms out with a contractor a specific service or job within a definite period. Endo is a distortion of the legitimate contracting/subcontracting; it is when there is a repeated hiring of employees under an employment contract of short duration or a service agreement of short duration with the same or different contractors. This endo is done by some principal employers to avoid paying more benefits to workers. Lopez clarified that per their win-win proposal, the contracting agency will accord both regular and permanent status to the workers they provide to their principals, and not coterminus with the contract with a principal company. Under the current practice, workers can lose their jobs if the contract between the companies and service providers is terminated. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), along with the DTI and concerned agencies, has yet to come up with a resolution on stamping out endo, but the trade department has instructed legal service providers early this week to “police their ranks” to comply with the “win-win” solution. “What is critical now is the compliance of legitimate SPS in giving full benefits to the workers,” Lopez told members of the Philippine Association of Legitimate Service Contractors early this week. Lopez said the resolution will come in the form of a DOLE department order that will revise the prevailing DOLE DAO 18-A S. 2011.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

FM laid to rest at heroes’ cemetery Continued from a1

Marcos, a native of Batac, Ilocos Norte, rose to power in 1965, and was ousted in 1986 during the bloodless People Power Revolution. He lived in exile in Hawaii with his family for three years and was tagged as a “dictator” and “thief” until his death on September 28, 1989. His body was flown to his hometown in Batac, Ilocos Norte, in 1993, on condition that it will be buried there, an arrangement made under the administration of President Fidel V. Ramos. However, his family kept the late President’s body in an air-conditioned glass crypt in the Marcos Museum and Mausoleum in Batac, waiting for an administration that will allow its burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Andres Bonifacio in Taguig City. Since their return, the Marcoses slowly returned to power. Imelda and children Imee and Bongbong were elected to public office, holding both local and national positions. Bongbong is still contesting the election for the second highest position of the land, while his mother Imelda is an elected member of the House of Representatives. Imee is currently the governor of Ilocos Norte. Three months into the presidency, Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City who is vocal about his admiration for Marcos, allowed Marcos’s burial at the LNMB. The order drew both praises and criticisms, with opposers elevating the case to the Supreme Court. Even as the opposers prepare an appeal to stop a hero’s burial for Marcos, the Court’s decision had already triggered howls of protests among those who fought the Marcos presidency.

Heroes and martyrs

Ironically, on November 30, the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Inc. is set to recognize the heroism and martyrdom of 19 individuals who fought against Marcos during the martial-law years. The foundation has recognized at least 270 heroes and martyrs since its inception, to honor those who gave their lives to fight the “dictatorship”.

One such hero and martyr was Jose Aquilino Tronco Tangente— a leader of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Western Visayas.

Who is Jose Tangente?

TANGENTE, Boy to his family, Joe to his friends and Ka Brando, Baran and Jess to his comrades, was on his way to becoming a priest when he decided to take a different path. He took up arms and joined the NPA to fight the Marcos dictatorship. Born on October 9, 1949, in Tigbauan, Iloilo, Joe was the sixth of seven children of Urbano Sr. and Paz Tronco, who are both public-school teachers. Joe was killed in action during an encounter with the military on August 28, 1987, more than a year after the Edsa People Power Revolution, which saw the fall of Marcos. Tangente was an educated man. He earned his college diploma in Philosophy in 1971 at the Saint Vincent Ferrer Seminary in Jaro, Iloilo City, and was in second year studying Theology at the Loyola School of Theology in Quezon City when martial law was declared on September 21, 1972. After the declaration of martial law, Joe went underground and later joined the NPA. Joe is a martyr and a hero in the underground movement. Even as a student activist, Joe fought against oppression, his younger brother, Orvillo said. Orvillo said his brother joined the NPA because he witnessed the sufferings of the farmers in the hands of their landlords. He saw the inequality, exploitation and oppression of the landless. “As a student activist during the time of Marcos, Joe joined the revolutionary movement. It is his own choice [in pursuing and upholding his principles],” he said. Joe was not the only martyr in the family. According to Orvillo, Joe’s wife Elma Villaron was also an NPA leader. Known as Ka Randa, Villaron was the daughter of a Tumandok tribal leader in the highlands of Tapaz, Capiz. She was killed in a military raid in Maayon, Capiz. Ka Randa was buried in Maayon, Capiz, along with four other NPA guerrillas in a common grave. Months later, Joe’s time came. He was

Protesters display placards and portraits of alleged victims of the martial-law period outside the Supreme Court as they oppose the burial of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on November 4 in Manila. AP/Bullit Marquez

ambushed in Sitio Maadios, Pandan, Antique, after visiting a farmer whose son was celebrating his birthday. Joe volunteered to cover the retreat of his companions. He would have succeeded in escaping had it not been for a 40mm rifle grenade fired by soldiers. The explosion tore Joe’s left abdomen, killing him instantly.

Selfless act

“When they were cornered, he decided to stay behind to cover the escape of his companions. He was hit while firing covering shots,” said Joe’s niece Lissa Aines Tangente Librodo. She said the soldiers took a picture of Joe before they buried him in a shallow grave on the hills in Aklan and brought the picture to the Constabulary Regional Command headquarters in Iloilo. With a bounty on his head, Joe was easily identified and the Constabulary Regional Headquarters informed the family about Joe’s fate. He was the lone casualty in that encounter. “A cease-fire had to be declared between the local NPA and

the soldiers for us to recover my uncle’s body. We got help from the [Roman Catholic] Archdiocese of Jaro and it was covered by the local media,” she said. Joe’s body was recovered 15 days after his death. The soldiers recovered from him the holster of a general officer, according to Librodo. “We are not ignorant of what my uncle was fighting for. That was the path that he chose. What I know is, he did it for the people who do not have a voice but needed to be heard. He did it for those who cannot fight for themselves and he was willing to shed his blood for them,” she added. Librodo said she was in grade school when her uncle joined the armed struggle. She has already graduated from the University of the Philippines when her uncle died. “In those 15 years, we did not live normal lives. We were under the scrutiny of the military. Thinking that they may be able to get information about my uncle, they raided our house several times at night or early mornings. There were also trips to the Constabulary detention center to visit my uncle. I cannot forget the anguish of my grandmother whenever she looks at my uncle being led to the courtroom during the hearings. We were not even allowed to speak with him.” “As a student in the seminary, my uncle helped the members of the Federation of Free Farmers. I can only surmise that it was seeing the poor conditions of the farmers that prompted him to join the NPA. Maybe, he thought there will always be priests who can help save their souls but only a few will choose to help them fight against the oppression,” she said. Librodo said her uncle died fighting the Marcos administration. Whether Marcos will be buried as a hero at the LNMB or anywhere else is irrelevant to the heroism of those who fought and died for what they believed in, she said. “Whether he [Marcos] is buried at the Libingan or in Batac, it doesn’t change anything. It will not change what happened,” Librodo said. On November 30 the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Inc. will honor Tangente and 18 other martyrs at the annual honoring of martyrs in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship, whether or not Marcos would be given a heroes burial, says May Rodriguez, Bantayog executive director. “That is where the irony lies. While Marcos was allowed burial at the LNMB, the Bantayog ng mga Bayani will honor heroes and martyrs who fought the oppressive Marcos regime,” she said. Rodriguez said Bantayog stands firm that Marcos does not deserve a hero’s burial. “Marcos was not ousted by the Supreme Court. It was the people who ousted Marcos. It was also not the people who decided that he be buried at the LNMB, but the Supreme Court. For that, and in fact, right now, people are already judging the SC,” she said in Tagalog. The foundation has so far recognized more than 270 individuals who participated in the nation’s struggles against the dictatorship.

The World BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Saturday, November 19, 2016

A3

Abe: Trump ‘is a leader we can trust’ J

apanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Donald Trump was a trustworthy leader in comments after his first meeting with the US presidentelect, whose statements on trade and security have sparked concern in Japan.

Abe told reporters in New York on Thursday night that he had frank discussions in a “warm atmosphere” at Trump Tower. He said he explained his views on a range of issues, but declined to comment on the substance of the talks in a meeting that lasted more than an hour. Abe gave Trump a golf club, and received a golf shirt from the real-estate mogul. “He made time for me, even though he is busy with personnel matters,” Abe said after the meeting. “I am convinced that Presidentelect Trump is a leader we can trust.” The pair agreed to meet again for broader and deeper talks when their schedules allow, he said. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to drop a Pacific trade deal and accused Japan of manipulating its currency. The president-elect has also stirred unease in Tokyo by threatening to pull US troops out of the country unless it pays more for their upkeep, and has suggested Ja-

pan might have to develop its own nuclear weapons. The US is Japan’s second-largest trading partner behind China, with two-way commerce reaching almost $200 billion last year. Japanese businesses provide upward of 800,000 jobs in America.

Military costs

Japan, whose own military is restricted by a pacifist constitution drafted by the US after World War II, relies heavily on America’s troops and nuclear weapons for deterrence against growing threats from North Korea and an increasingly powerful China. About 50,000 US military personnel are stationed in Japan. On a visit to Tokyo last month, Trump Security Adviser Michael Flynn said Japan and the US should discuss the cost-sharing arrangement for American troops in Japan. Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said last week that the country makes sufficient contributions to the upkeep of US forces in Japan. Bloomberg News

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (right, center) speaks to members of the media after meeting with President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday in New York. AP/Kathy Willens

A4

Saturday, November 19, 2016

The World BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Yellen affirms interest-rate hike likely next month By Don Lee | Tribune Washington Bureau

W

ASHINGTON—Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen gave a relatively upbeat assessment of the economy on Thursday, further signaling a likely interest-rate hike next month. But she also noted that there is a “great deal of uncertainty” following the election, and that she expected it would last for “some considerable time.”

Federal Reserve (the Fed) Chairman Janet Yellen testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday before the Joint Economic Committee. Yellen sketched a picture of an improving US economy, and said “the case for an increase” in interest rates has strengthened. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates when it meets in mid-December. AP

In her first public statements about the economy since Donald Trump’s victory last week, Yellen did not talk specifically about the president-elect. Nor did she say that uncertainty, or the risks associated with it, had changed the Fed’s outlook on the economy or its plan on raising interest rates, at least for now. With the labor market continuing to ma ke progress and sig ns of r ising inf lation and wage gains recently, Yellen said at a congressional hearing that an increase in shor t-ter m interest rates “could well become appropr iate relatively soon.”

“So we ind icated t hat t he case had strengthened for an increase in the federa l f unds rate and, to my mind, the ev idence we’ve seen si nce t h at time remains consistent w ith the judg ment the committee reached in November.” A n a l y s t s w id e l y e x p e c t a quar ter-point rate increase at the Fed ’s last schedu led meeting of the year, on December 13 and 14. Yellen reiterated on Thursday that future rate increases were likely to be gradual, but Trump’s election has raised market expectations for faster rate hikes in the months to come.

She said delaying a rate hike for too long could be detrimental for monetary policy and the economy. The Fed last raised its benchmark rate in December, and it stands at between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent. “Well, my own judgment is, looking at incoming economic d ata a nd developments t hus far...the evidence we have seen since we [Fed policy-makers] met in November is consistent with our expectation of strengthening growth and improving labor market, inf lation moving up,” she told members of the Joint Economic Committee.

Like the Fed, private economists are waiting for clarity on how many of Trump’s campaign promises will be carried out, particularly the protectionist trade and restrictive immigration policies that Trump has advocated. For now, many businesses and investors are looking for somewhat stronger economic growth in the near term, as well as higher inflation and interest rates, as Trump and the incoming Republican-controlled Congress have raised prospects for sizable tax cuts and investments on infrastructure. Stocks were up modestly on Thursday.

Yellen agreed that markets are anticipating that Congress w il l push through a pack age injecting more money into the economy. But the Fed chairman also cautioned lawmakers about the inf lation and debt implications of such fiscal stimulus. The economy today is operating near full employment, she said, meaning large expansions of fiscal policies could be particularly inf lationar y. She added that the “ longer-run deficit problem needs to be kept in mind.” Noting that the ratio of debt to gross domestic product is around 77 percent, she said, “there’s not a lot of fiscal space should a shock to the economy occur, an adverse shock, that did require fiscal stimulus.” Yellen, asked about statements from Trump’s camp to repeal the Dodd-Frank rules enacted after the financial crisis, said that would be a mistake. She said the law had made the financial system stronger and safer. “We lived through a devastating financial crisis. And a high priority, I think, for all Americans should be that we want to see put in place safeguards through supervision and regulation that result in a safer and sounder financial system,” she said, citing the law’s tougher requirements for banks and derivatives, among other rules. “I think Dodd-Frank was very

important in fostering those changes, and we should feel glad that our financial system is now operating on a safer and sounder footing.” Yellen also pushed back on another initiative that is likely to gain impetus under the Trump administration—greater scrutiny over the Fed. Over the years, there have been various efforts, led by Republican lawmakers, to “audit” the Fed or have the central bank follow a set of principles or rules for determining monetary policy. But Yellen and her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, have argued that such legislation would be counterproductive and hurt the independence of the central bank. “There is clear evidence of better outcomes in countries where central banks can take the long view, are not subject to short-term political pressures,” she said. “A n d s o m e t i m e s c e n t r a l banks need to do things that are not immediately popu lar for the health of the economy. And we’ve really seen terrible economic outcomes in countries where central banks have been subject to political pressure.” Yellen said she fully intended to serve out her four-year term as Fed chairman, through January 2018. During the campaign, Trump had shar ply criticized Yellen’s performance, indicating he would most likely replace her.

Fearless delivery men on bikes cater to India’s new class of ‘shopaholics’

A

bdul Sa leem heaves a 55-pound bag crammed with foot massagers, jeans, kitchen tools and sports shoes onto his shoulders. It’s late-October, just days before the annual shopping frenzy that coincides with the Diwali festival of lights. As he does every morning six days a week, Saleem straps on a helmet, straddles his Honda scooter and accelerates onto Bangalore’s gridlocked streets. Saleem delivers packages for Flipkart Online Services Pvt, India’s largest and most valuable e-commerce company. He and thousands of fellow delivery men are foot soldiers in a hard-fought battle pitting Flipkart against domestic rival Snapdeal.com and US leviathan Amazon.com Inc., all tussling for dominance in a market that Morgan Stanley expects to explode more than tenfold to $137 billion by 2020 from $11 billion in 2013. Flipkart is clinging to a narrow lead as Amazon pours billions of dollars into India. A rou nd t he world , on l i ne merchants are keen to close the

Navigating the chaos of India’s streets. Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

so-called last mile as they compete to deliver packages in a day or less. In the US and other developed markets, purchases are

typically delivered by truck, and there’s talk of using drones to get the job done. In the chaotic cities of India and other emerging markets, companies do whatever it takes to get packages to customer—by foot, bicycle, even boat. For the most part, they rely on people like Saleem, who has been weaving his scooter around Bangalore since closing a money-losing scrap metal business two years ago. During the Diwali shopping rush, Flipkart’s army of 20,000 deliverymen carried as many as 800,000 packages a day. Without deliverymen risking their lives to get the products to the front door, sales growth at Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon would grind to a halt—much like Bangalore traffic. “Who would want to brave the rush at the market when everything comes to the door?” Saleem’s title is Wishmaster. It’s a nod to his dual role as a kind of deliveryman-customer rep. Saleem almost always deals directly with shoppers because many belong to extended families where someone is almost invariably home. Sometimes they’re happy to see him. Other times, he finds them pacing impatiently outside awaiting their retail fix. Bangaloreans and other urban Indians have become just as addicted to online shopping as their counterparts in New

York, London or Hong Kong and are known to order multiple times a day—even if it’s a 250-rupee ($3.70) kitchen knife they could buy easily from a local shop. “Who would want to brave the rush at the market when everything comes to the door?” Saleem asks. At 6 a.m. on this sun-drenched Wednesday, Saleem is now standing amid thousands of packages sorted into neat rows in a teeming distribution center on a busy thoroughfare in Bangalore’s upscale JP Nagar residential neighborhood. On the walls are posters forbidding Wishmasters from sporting gelled hair, ripped jeans, open-toed footwear, mustaches that cover the upper lip and more than two rings on their fingers. Those who violate the code get a warning and a grooming kit. Wearing a orange-trimmed blue polo company shirt with blue jeans and well-worn black shoes, Saleem at 33 is the second-oldest deliveryman at the center. The assembled Wishmasters huddle, their manager recapping a zero-tolerance policy on misbehaving with women, talking rudely to customers and stealing goods or cash; reports of deliverymen dropping off bricks instead of iPhones and assaulting ladies home alone have cast a pall over the industry. Then the manager entreats them

to drive safely. The 59 men—it’s an all-male crew because going door-to-door is considered unsafe for women—throw back tiny cups of sweet milky coffee from a steel dispenser near a sign that reads “Do not Spit” and hit the road. Saleem has 36 packages to deliver, a relatively easy day. His first stop is a two-story home in a quiet lane where the man of the house is dusting a Volkswagen at the gate. He’s a pediatrician at a nearby hospital and the package is for his daughter, a 26-year-old software engineer with IT outsourcer, Infosys. “This customer gets several packages daily from Jabong,” says Saleem, referring to Flipkart’s fashion store. “She returns many of them, too.” Saleem knows the buying habits of people on each of his customary routes, as well as Flipkart’s algorithms and bots. “This customer bought a smartphone three months ago and it looks like he has just bought another one,” he says at his next halt. For many young men who migrate from small towns and villages into the big cities, whizzing around on a motorcycle in uniform with an ID card lanyard around the neck is coveted blue-collar work. Eager for a change, Saleem responded to Flipkart’s job ad in the newspaper. “It’s a fixed income and comes at the end of every month,” he said.

Saleem earns 13,800 rupees (just over $200), a median salary for a coveted job that pays about, as well as working at one of the country’s many call centers. Flipkart and its rivals, already spending heavily on discounts and setting up warehousing and payments infrastructure, are also being forced to pay up for experienced deliverymen. It’s harder than you might think to find people who possess a smattering of English (a common denominator in a nation with dozens of local languages), have a driving license, can use phone navigation and process credit-card payments. Poaching from pizza chains and courier companies is rampant, says Vir Kashyap, cofounder and COO at Babajob, India’s largest blue-collar job website. Companies were forced to raise wages for delivery personnel 15 percent last year. Online retailers are willing to boost pay because they understand that employees like Saleem are “their only touch point with the customer,” he says. “They are taking these roles very seriously.” It’s dangerous work. More than 146,000 people were killed in road crashes in the country last year. Del iver y men a lso brave sweltering heat and rain, breathing the polluted air as they dodge erratic drivers, potholes, vending carts, street dogs and the occasional stray cow. All the while carrying loads the size of a small refrigerator. On this particular day, Saleem’s scooter drives into streets too narrow for a car to enter. As three-wheel auto-rickshaws and recklessly piloted buses roar past, he leans on his horn every few seconds. Just days earlier, a new deliveryman was knocked off his motorcycle. Saleem, who says he maintains a sedate 25 miles per hour, has had several close calls. (He pays for his own insurance.) Many recruits quit while being trained, says Girish Jetty, a trainer at the JP Nagar center. “They complain that they can’t ride while balancing their bag.” Others quit after a few months, saying the routes are difficult. Technology constantly tracks the deliverymen as they go about their routes and can tell if someone has claimed to stop by a home when they haven’t. The pressure is relentless. Bloomberg News

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Sports BusinessMirror

Saturday, November 19, 2016 A5

FIL-AM CAGEBELLE BECKONS Erica Cray, younger sister of Rio 2016 Olympics hurdler Eric Cray, has reiterated her desire to play for the national team, known as Perlas Pilipinas, which has made a marked improvement in regional competitions.

ERICA CRAY offers her services to the national women’s basketball team.

A

FILIPINO-AMERICAN—this time a she and not a he—has offered her services to the national women’s basketball team. Erica Cray, younger sister of Rio 2016 Olympics hurdler Eric Cray, has reiterated her desire to play for the national team, known as Perlas Pilipinas, which has made a marked improvement in regional competitions. “As a basketball player, I want to play for a [professional team] and represent my country by playing for the national team,” Cray told the BusinessMirror. “My motivations for trying out for the national team is making my mother and family proud by being able to represent the Philippines team.” Just like his brother, Cray was born in Olongapo City and raised in San Antonio, Texas, to former US Serviceman Ellis Cray Jr. and Filipina Maria Teresa Brazas. “My brother represents the country on the track and field team. My brother knows how hard I’ve worked to become the good player I am today. I know I will be a great asset to the team in every category,” the 5-foot-5 point guard said. Cray is currently playing in the semiprofessional Women’s Blue-Chip Basketball League (WBCBL) in the US and saw action in the Austin Women’s Basketball League, where she averaged 12.7 points, five rebounds and 1.75 assists per game. She also received numerous individual awards, including the Offensive Player of the Season for two years. In the past season, she led the WBCBL in assists with 64. Cray also tied for second in total number of steals with 25 and led all point guards in total rebounds with 63. Cray is as athletic like his brother, the 100 meters and 400 meters hurdles champion of the Southeast Asian Games. Eric Cray also became the first Filipino to qualify in an Olympic 400 meters hurdles event at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last August.

Word about Cray’s desire to don the national colors first came out three years ago, when she made her intentions felt at a Philippine athletics web site. Cray was introduced to basketball by her father when she was 5. She was good at the sport then that she played with boys in her age bracket. She also tried athletics when she was a ninth grader. “I was good at it and pretty fast. I ran track in high school and was a sprinter. But I like basketball more,” she said. Cray said her versatility on the court makes her a unique player. “My main attributes as a player is being an all-around threat. I can penetrate and pass to find open players and shooters,” she said. “I’m deadly off the pick-and-roll because of my ability to consistently knock down the midrange jumper, or hit my big on the roll. I can also knock down the three, as well.” Cray idolizes Los Angeles Clippers’ explosive guard Chris Paul. “I’m explosive off the dribble and great at getting my teammates in positions to score. I can score at will with the ball in hand, but I am a pass-first-get-my-team-going type of player. I know when it’s my time to take over or keep feeding who’s hot.” San Antonio Crusaders Head Coach Eric Ennis attested to Cray’s abilities. “Erica Cray is a unique player. Her dedication and commitment are second to none. There is not one team function or event that she has missed. She has the type of character that I look for in an athlete with a competitive nature that rivals anyone,” Ennis said. Growing in the US, she knew several Filipino-Americans who are now playing in the country. “I know of current athletes, like Brian Heruela and Chris Ross, who is a native of San Antonio. Jordan Clarkson is also from San Antonio whom I’ve kept up with, as well. I’ve seen him play since high school up until now playing with the Lakers,” Cray said. Perlas Pilipinas has been making waves in the Southeast Asia Basketball Association, having won the 2016 crown at the expense of Malaysia in Malacca City. Before that, the Philippines also won gold in 2010, beating Thailand in the championship. Ramon Rafael Bonilla

Azkals buckle down to work T

HE Philippines may be the top-ranked team in the region, but all credentials get to be thrown out of the window in the Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup group stages, which simultaneously get going on Saturday at the Philippine Sports Stadium (PSS) in Bocaue, Bulacan. National men’s Coach Thomas Dooley is fully aware of this reality—although he remained confident of a positive result for the Azkals. Dooley said surpassing their previous Suzuki Cup finishes won’t be a walk because their Group A opponents are the best in the Southeast Asian region. “It would be very difficult. In general, we need to play our game, we need to respect the opponent and we need to acknowledge what they accomplished in the last two months,” Dooley said. The Philippines is hosting a group stage in the Suzuki Cup for the first time, this after the country has acknowledged the need for Fifa-standard pitches. Besides the PSS, the Rizal Memorial Stadium and Panaad pitch in Negros Occidental satisfy world standards. The Azkals, ranked No. 124 in the world, begin their Suzuki Cup campaign on Saturday against No. 171 Singapore. Kickoff is 8 p.m. The Azkals face the Indonesians on Tuesday before closing out their stint against defending champion Thailand on November 25. “We needed to analyze the games of our opponents, the players we might face, how they play, how they touch the ball,” Dolley said. “We even need to see how they smile and how they get angry—all that stuff.” The Azkals will be plunging into the competition, sans Javier Patiño and Daisuke Sato, who could not skip their commitments with their respective clubs overseas.

COACH Thomas Dooley and the Azkals have their hands full in the Suzuki Cup.

Patiño recently inked a two-year renewal with his club team in China, Henan Jianye, while Sato returned to Iasi in Romania, where he has a live contract with Romanina FC until December 17. But the team remains formidable with team captain Phil Younghusband, Misagh Bahadoran and Stephan Schrock. Younghusband, an Azkals since 2010, admitted the level of play in the Suzuki Cup has drastically changed and that they needed to make adjustments. “A lot has change from 2010 to 2016, and the expectations are a lot higher now,” Younghusband said. Younghusband’s brother, James, also a longtime Azkal, has revenge in his mind in the tournament, especially against Indonesia and Thailand. The Indonesians ousted the Filipinos in their semifinal debut six years ago, sweeping both matches at the Bung Karno National Stadium, after the Philippines was unable to put up a suitable venue for the home-andaway series. The Azkals also yielded to the Thai War Elephants, who eliminated them in the Final Four in 2014 en route to capturing their fourth championship. Lance Agcaoili

A6 Saturday, November 19, 2016

The Golf Geek

The Rulesman

By Jake P. Ayson

joaquinayson@yahoo.com

Know the rules and use them to your benefit IT was indeed an exciting moment in golf history when Rory McIlroy, one of the world’s Top 3, won the recent Professional Golfers’ Association Tour Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, in a come-from-behind fashion. To win, McIlroy scored an eagle on the 16th to tie for the lead, then outdueled Americans Ryan Moore and David Chappel in the playoff. He pocketed $1.5 million on top of $10 million as FedEx champ. With his $11.5-million winnings in four days, that is an average of $2.875 million daily earnings! Hey, guys, aren’t we in the wrong racket? Anyways, I salute Rory the Irish for that big win on American soil, beating two great American players in the process! Okay, this is a rules column so I would like to share with you a keen observation I saw on TV between Ryan Moore and David Chappel. In one of the playoff holes, Chappel’s ball was picked up by a spectator and Moore’s ball landed on a sprinkler head. Both Moore and Chappel are entitled to free relief. In the case of Chappel, a spectator is an outside agency so Chappel was allowed free relief under Rule 18-1 (by an outside agency). Moore had free relief, too, because a sprinkler head is an immovable obstruction and per definition of obstruction under the rules, it is an artificial object as it was permanently placed and constructed on the golf course. So under Rule 24-2a (interference by an immovable obstruction) Moore got his free drop. But here is the catch. Both placed their balls and not dropped them. Dropping the ball might have resulted in their balls either landing in bad lies or nearer to the hole. They skipped going through the motions. They were smart for they know their rules. American golfers can only turn pro after knowing their rules to the letter while still being an amateur. Lesson here? If you know your rules, you can use them to your advantage. TEED BITS: Boy, this piece was a struggle as I did it at the wee hours of the morning at Hotel Gracery in Shinjuku area in Tokyo. I was about to give up but as my mentor and rules partner Al S. Mendoza would always tell me, “Skipping writing your column can become a habit. Before you know it, you have totally quit doing it.” Thank you, Al, for being such a dear buddy ...Well, anyways, I am here in Tokyo on a pleasure trip with my “bitter” half of 50 years Mrs. Pat Manaois—Ayson and my daughter Joy Ayson—Sison, her husband Bell and their two pogi boys, 9-year-old Sebastian “Sean” and 5-year-old Sammie. For this trip, I wish to thank Ms. Eya Dumol and PAL President JJ Bautista for accommodating us at the Mabuhay Lounge and PAL Check-in counter. As always, Mabuhay ang Philippine Airlines, Asia’s oldest and best at 75!.. Wow! What a Campi Golf Cup! Imagine every participant receiving a minimum prize of P10k broken into P5k Mizuno gift check upon registration, plus another P5k if you don’t win any of the raffle prizes. I told Danny “Sir John” Isla, the president of Lexus Manila, after he said to me during the Awards Ceremonies, “Magdilang anghel ka sana, Sir John,“ when he predicted that your humble Rulesman will win a personal ref. I did! Praise God! Thanks to Campi for the invite through my dear neighbor ASM! Happy golfing and God bless!

Resorts World Manila Masters–A Retrospective F

our years on and the Resorts World Manila Masters has established itself as a tournament where the outcome is completely unpredictable and invariably exciting. We’ve had some great storylines here. In 2013 then-Chinese No. 1 Liang Wen Chong defeated Thai Prom Meesawat in a playoff then promptly donated half of his winnings to the victims of Supertyphoon Yolanda. The next year saw the resurgence of Mardan Mamat when, on the verge of quitting the game he so loved, he found inspiration on the Southwoods Golf and Country Club’s Masters Course and led wire to wire to gain a two-year exemption and jump-start his career yet again. Last year Natiphong Srithong, who had just turned professional months before the start of the Resorts World Manila Masters, took the plum after erstwhile leader Hung Chien Yao imploded on the last after making an ace on the long par 3 13th hole. This year S.S.P. Chawrasia, who had never won outside his native India before, broke through with a win in a three-man playoff against Nicholas Fung of Malasiya and American rookie Sam Chien on a day when low scores reigned and red covered the leaderboard. I’ve been following the Asian Tour for quite a while now and, if memory serves, there is no tournament in Asia that can match the drama that the Resorts World Manila Masters has served up these past four years. A good deal of this can be credited to the superb design of the Masters Course. The finishing holes encourage a fast, frantic finish. You have two par 5s in the last four holes. Both are legitimate scoring chances but put a foot wrong and there will be hell to pay. The sleeper here is the 17th. A medium length par 3, the green here is tiny and is heavily bunkered on the left. A mistake here almost invariably will cost a stroke and potentially a chance for the win. This year the course was softened by rain and rendered almost defenseless by absence of the stiff breeze that comes off Laguna de Bay and

whips through the golf course. Birdies were had in bunches and it became near impossible to figure out who would come out with the win in the end. Most of the credit for the success of the tournament must go to Resorts World Manila. Their presence has made the Resorts World Manila Masters the richest tournament in the history of professional golf in the Philippines; it’s grown into a halo event that puts the Philippines in full view of the world with live television coverage that beams the best players in Asia on one of the best golf courses in the land to over 600 million households worldwide. The Philippines is in full display at its best for all the world to see. We, the golfing community of the Philippines, cannot thank Resorts World Manila enough for hosting the Resorts World Manila Masters these last four years. It is therefore a shame that more Filipinos don’t trek to the Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club each November in droves. Despite the free admission to the tournament and the lavish spread the club prepares every year, precious few spectators can be found walking the fairways, following their favorite players. It’s a crying shame. Tournaments like this often charge hefty admission prices just to walk the grounds. No tickets are required to walk the grounds here and still the course was nearly devoid of spectators. We don’t know how good we have it and we might never find out until we lose it. Next year, come out and support this marvelous tournament. Show the sponsors how much we appreciate bringing the best golfers on the continent to the Philippines. Come down to the pristine links of the Masters Course and marvel at the skills of the men that compete on its fairways at the most exciting tournament in Asia. Hang out on the range and observe how hard they work at their craft. Don’t be shy about coming up to them for a few words or a selfie or two. They’re all approachable and most happy to share their time with you. So, make those plans for next November. Take a week out of your busy schedule and be a witness to the best golf in Asia. Let’s show the world how we love our golf. The best part of it all is that it won’t cost you a cent. Mike Besa

Mizuno JPX 900 Irons

Three times the charm M

izuno have always been revered for their irons. They are the irons that the professionals would pay to play if they had to and with good reason. Their feel and performance are legendary but forgiveness and playability meant sacrifices that the faithful weren’t willing to make. But the JPX 900 irons change all that. With the new product launch, Mizuno is offering us three different irons from three different golfing demographics using three different materials to give each the club that best suits their requirements. Introducing the JPX 900 Hot Metal, the JPX 900 Forged and the JPX 900 Tour. The JPX 900 Hot Metal and the JPX 900 Forged replace the JPX 850 and 850 forged. For the Hot Metal Mizuno turned to 4140M Chromoly, a common scientific name for the mixture of chromium and molybdenum. Mizuno found that the material, which is used in aircraft tubing, firearm parts, bicycle frames and race car roll cages, had a twofold benefit in iron design. The way Mizuno heat treats the Chromoly allows the irons to be built with thinner and stronger faces, while still maintaining their bendable, loft-and-lie adjustable hosels. We have eschewed the virtues of custom fitting all clubs so we at BusinessMirror Golf feel this is key to these clubs’ success. he Hot Metal irons also have a “cup face,” which makes the faces thinner and more flexible. What’s unique about Mizuno’s cup-face design is that it is created without the usual face weld. That works to raise coefficient of restitution (COR) to 0.828, just shy of the USGA’s legal limit. They are also equipped with a triple-cut sole for better turf interaction from a variety of lies and “sound ribs” behind the top cavity for improved acoustics. The ribs are similar to those used in metal woods, where they quiet the vibrations to improve the feel of the hollow, thin-faced clubs. The JPX 900 Hot Metal irons work best for golfers that have a lot of clubhead speed, allowing them to gain the distance they so sorely need. For the JPX 900 Forged irons, Mizuno knew that they needed to build more ball speed for a forged iron to stay competitive. They turned to a chemical trick to allow them to thin the faces of the irons enough to find the additional speed they needed without

compromising durability. The addition of boron to Mizuno’s famous blend of Grain Flow Forged 1025E carbon steel was just what the JPX 900 Forged needed. It allowed Mizuno to forge the faces of boron-infused thinner, leading to faster ball speeds without sacrificing durability. The process was far from straightforward. Although it added the requisite strength and durability, Mizuno soon discovered that it also compromised the feel their core market so desperately sought. After hitting dozens of golf balls with them at the launch, the JPX 900 irons are an unqualified success. They are long; the equal of any iron in this class. They retain the signature look and feel of a Mizuno Forged iron and are the crossover product of the three. If Mizuno could only build one iron with the JPX 900 name on it, this should be the one. The JPX 900 Tour irons is the biggest surprise of the three. This is an iron that could slot quite easily into the MP line but for the aggressive design in the cavity, which positions the center of gravity optimally in each iron, making the JPX 900 Tour the most forgiving forged cavity back in production today. For the Tour, Mizuno chose pure Grain Flow Forged 1025E carbon steel, and why not? Their irons are unanimously praised for the feel they’ve given golfers since inception so there was no need to reinvent the wheel. The science is in the head design. The addition of Mizuno’s angular “Power Frame” to the cavity increases moment of inertia (MOI), which makes the irons more forgiving. By using the company’s HIT (Harmonic Impact Technology) system, which measures and quantifies sound frequencies, Mizuno could mimic the sound and feel of the revered MP-64 blade irons. The Tour head is the smallest and possesses the thinnest soles ever to grace a JPX iron. It features the same geometries that Mizuno has been grinding on the MP irons so performance was the only consideration here. The JPX 900 Tour blurs the boundaries between the MP and JPX families and might even steal some interest from better players looking for the most playability in a tour-style irons. With this product introduction, Mizuno has a brace of winners. They represent excellent choices for golfers from a scratch to a beginner without compromising the performance and feel that define the brand. The new Mizuno JPX 900 irons are available at Mizuno concept stores throughout the country. Mike Besa

Camp John Hay Golf Club

The best gol in Baguio tu Text & photos by Mike Besa

H

aving grown to adolescence in the time that Camp John Hay was still the R&R center of the United States Armed Forces in the Western Pacific, I was a bit concerned when they left the country. Baguio City was my refuge from the city, the one place I could go when I needed to just get away and Camp John Hay was one of my favorite diversions. As teenagers we used to queue for day passes to the Camp. Success meant a day hanging around the mini-golf and the original Mile-Hi bowling alley and its hugely popular soda fountain. Get in on the weekend and the breakfast buffet at the 19th tee was an absolute must. It had everything; hash browns, eggs any way you wanted with tons of bacon, hot dogs and beans. Then, much later in my life, there was the golf. I only played the old course a couple of times so my memory of it is sketchy. But I distinctly remember putting off the green at the first after my approach missed the pin on the high side. I remember the dazzling elevation changes and how involved the rest of the Camp was in your game. The people were charming and polite to a fault. They were all extremely well trained and spoke proper American English. What would become of them? What would become of my beloved Camp John Hay? I didn’t want to see it bulldozed for a series of condominiums. Those anxieties were quickly put to rest when the Camp John Hay Development Corp. took on the job of transitioning the Camp from US military control to that of the Philippine private sector. Fil-Estate Land Chairman Robert John Sobrepeña and Alfredo “Boysie” Yñiguez are nothing but certified golf nuts. I felt then that the Camp would be in good hands. I wasn’t wrong. They are also men of taste and vision. The Manor and Forest Lodge were built to take Camp John Hay into the 21st century. A throwback to the more genteel time of the 1960s perhaps, but with every amenity conceivable. It has become my sanctuary. It is the place where worldly concerns cease to matter. Those breakfast buffets are alive and well. The one Le Chef hosts every morning at the Manor is better than any buffet I remember at the 19th tee. The ambiance in which you enjoy the meal are a cut above what they were before, as is the food. One of the truly celebrated chefs in the country, Billy King has taken up permanent residence here and continues to work his magic by dazzling us with his culinary works of art. I have nothing but praise for every meal I’ve enjoyed here. I look forward to enjoying many more. The standard of service here is beyond reproach. The staff at the golf club and at both hotels is brilliant. The people are so well trained and are every bit as polite as their predecessors. There is a genuine warmth about them all that sets Camp John Hay apart from other luxury properties. Then there’s the golf course. Any course in Baguio has an unfair advantage over any other golf course in the country. The course this replaces had a heritage, a history about it and it was a lot of fun to play. The new course at Club John Hay surpasses the old one in every respect. Mr. Sobrepeña visualized the new Club John Hay as the Augusta of Asia. The white coveralls the caddies wear harken to the hallowed fairways of Augusta National, as does the topography, but this is not a championship golf course. This course is a good time. A wonderful walk in the best weather in the country while you chase the little white ball. The view from the tee of the opening par 5 is perhaps the most beautiful in the country; it plays downhill all the way and is

Hole No. 15 at Camp John Hay

easily within the reach of those long off the tee. It is a spectacular hole and a wonderful way to start your round. The short par 4s here are beautiful. They offer the long hitters a chance at all kinds of birds; eagles and albatrosses included. The Philippine Golf Tour makes a stop here every year and a 59 is not uncommon. But to judge it to that standard is to do the course a disservice. The enjoyment a

round of golf here brings easily makes up for any complaints about its unsuitability to host the bes golfers in the country. The par 3s are glory or bust. In the rarefied air of Baguio City, the three pars are accessible. I’ve been witness to a few holes-in-one here and I’ve seen some disasters, too. The uphill 11th is easily the most difficult of the lot. The 15th easily the most beautiful.

www.pinoygolfer.com | Saturday, November 19, 2016 A7

b

lf course urns 20

y st

All Ways By Al S. Mendoza

Amid joy and pride, Fil-Am Golf set to go

Titleist master fitter Phil Dimmock fitting the 917 to Miguel Ochoa

The new Titleist 917 metals T

itleist club introductions are the most interesting to me. Titleist is so bound by the tastes and sensibilities of their core market that all their clubs are designed for the elite golfer in mind. That market segment has aesthetic tastes so defined that each generation of drivers looks very much like the last. The engineering solutions are obvious. Titleist renews its clubs biannually. A much more measured pace than the rest. It is the implementation of those technologies that endear Titleist to its market. The key to its success is subtlety. It needs to work with specific shapes so huge changes are out of the question. Integration and ingenuity are key. I thought that improving on the 915 might be difficult but Titleist has once again proved me wrong. The 917 is an evolution of the hugely successful 915 line, one this author called the best Titleist metalwoods of all time. The new 917 line of metalwoods was designed around the acronym F. A. S. T., which stands for Faster ball speeds, Adjustability, Sound that enhances feel and Trajectory control to better fit the golfer. To get faster ball speeds, Titleist thinned out the edges of the club face and the outer edges of the Active Recoil Channel (ARC). The result is increased ball speed on both center and off-center hits. This means less lost distance on mishits. Titleist may be a latecomer to having a fully adjustable driver. The Sure-Fit Hosel has been around for a few years now but having adjustable weights to influence trajectory is a new trick for them. They put a lot of thought into it. Each driver comes with two weights. One neutral and the other with the weight

THE Manor

The temperate climate in the mountaintop environs meant that Club John Hay could use cool season bent grass on their undulating greens. This is a very fine grass with almost microscopic sized blades which make for potentially punishing green speeds. They roll immaculately and add tremendously to the joy of the round. Like fine wine, Camp John Hay has gotten

better these last 20-years. Development in the camp is booming but the Camp still retains the look and feel that it always had. It is still the Camp of my youth and it’s gotten better with age. It has been well tended this last 20 years and it looks set for the next 20. Congratulations to the Camp John Hay Development Corp. and all the people involved for a job well done.

based to one side. Flipping the one-sided weight around alters trajectory from right to left. The orientation of the weight in the clubhead was well-thought out, as well. It’s set at a 30-degree angle to the clubface with the toe side of the weight set closer to the face. This moves the center of gravity of the head closer to the clubface when in the “fade” position. This reduces the amount of spin the head will deliver for better performance in the wind. Very clever. An accessory set of weights are optional and will allow you to change the swing weight of the club, as well as affect its trajectory. The unseen piece of technology at work with Titleist’s 917 line is the amount of work that went into making them sound good. Sound exerts much influence on the feel a club yields at impact. To that end, Titleist acoustically engineered the 917 line to be slightly quieter and denser feeling than the 915. They pulled it off, too. The 917 D3 I was

fitted for felt markedly better than my 915. According to Titleist fitting manager for Asia Phil Dimmock, the changes seem to have moved the 917 D2 closer to its slightly smaller sibling the D3 in terms of performance. A fitting demonstration with Dimmock and Titleist staff professional Migo Ochoa highlighted the effectivity of the new technology. The adjustable parameters of the new 917 metalwoods make it extremely easy to properly fit golfers of all skill levels a key to getting the ultimate performance from any club. Working with two complete sets of head styles, Titleist now can build you a driver that you’ll swear came off the Tour van. They’re worth the price of entry but the assistance of a good fitter is the key to getting the most out of these clubs. The new Titleist 917 D2 and D3 drivers and the F2 and F3 fairways are now at an Empire Golf proshop near you. Mike Besa

THE month of November is always associated with Baguio’s Fil-Am Invitational Golf, now perennially backstopped by San Miguel Corp. And, at about this time, both the Baguio Country Club (BCC) and Camp John Hay (CJH) have just about wrapped up their preparations for the tournament extending two weeks by tradition. I can almost see BCC General Manager Anthony de Leon heaving a huge sigh of relief after having seen the splendid preparations of his course. And do I see BCC Chairman Rico Agcaoili, watching from a distance, enormously satisfied himself by the performance of ADL’s staff, led by Andrew Pinero and Roanne Galicia? You bet. Every male amateur around the country is raring to be in the thick of action, when every round is fought tooth-and-nail in both divisions of seniors play and the men’s regular from November 23 to December 10. While it is not a money tournament, the competition is still as keen and as tremendously fought as joy and pride from every victory translate preciously like gold. In golf, it is not the money really that counts but the selffulfillment brought on by triumph. Even a P20 bill landing in your pocket at the end of a grueling five-hour grind at any course is reason enough to celebrate. Amid the euphoria of sinking a 10-footer on the final hole that could mean “only” a victory worth P20—still, it has no equal in bliss. The sight of seeing your ball disappear into the cup, what more if it is a curling putt, becomes so heavenly it dwarfs everything from lunacy to ecstasy. Golf is the only game that dissolves frustration in an instant: You score a double-par in one hole but you birdie the next, the past is just past. The present is the star. The future looks bright. That is the Fil-Am Invitational, the world’s biggest amateur golf event the last 66 years. Always, you see such wondrous people in multitude giving unadulterated premium to this tournament year in and year out. So that the Fil-Am Golf has become part and parcel of their calendar, for as long as they can swing that club. In short, golfers joining the Fil-Am Invitational treat the ritual a magical moment time and time again. This is not known to many, but Baguio seems to be the only mountain in the world that boasts of having two golf courses with such regal bearings that just to be in anyone of them—merely relaxing in their environs or having a round—is already almost a trip to paradise. With the city’s crisp air and flora and fauna now almost a-bloom at this time of the year— both BCC and CJH boast of that— every nook and cranny of this country’s summer capital becomes a feast to the eyes. No wonder it is not uncommon to see Fil-Am Golf participants already pleading, imploring even, to the tournament hosts to please invite them again in the next edition. Always, the Fil-Am Invitational attracts like no other.

OurTime

A8 Saturday, November 19, 2016 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

BusinessMirror

Albay elderly want active disaster preemptive response to return

L

By Manly M. Ugalde | Correspondent

EGAZPI CITY—For nine long years Albay province experienced a prompt and well-attended preemptive disaster-preparedness training. Today residents miss how they were pampered by the alertness adopted by former Gov. Joey S. Salceda. Residents said gone are the frequent text messages cell-phone owners in the province receive, warning them of coming disasters following typhoons Karen and Lawin that hit the country on October 14 and October 18. On November 8, the third anniversary of Supertyphoon Yolanda that devastated Tacloban and neighboring provinces and left close to 10,000 casualties, Albay senior citizens recalled how the provincial-disaster management in Albay exhausted efforts to evacuate residents, backed by frequent text messages reminding local cell-phone users about impending natural calamities. The senior-citizens group reg-

ularly gathers in a food chain inside the Gaisano Mall where they share and discuss issues of the day. They are one in saying they miss those days “when we were regularly given weather updates through radio and text messages from the capitol text brigade,” said Marcial Tuanqui, 70, former president of the Albay Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “I miss those news updates about the weather through text messages and the frequent news updates from radios about incoming disasters during the past nine years under Gov. Joey Sarte Salceda,” said Generoso Butial, 68, a resident of Tabaco City. He said during typhoons Karen

and Lawin, “I no longer received news through text messages and that even news from radio was no longer regular.” The seniors said if Yolanda pass through Albay as predicted by the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, Legazpi and nearby Daraga town could have suffered in terms of property and lives lost from the storm surge and floods from Mount Mayon with the low-lying city and Daraga. During Typhoon Reming in 2006, close to 2,000 people died in Legazpi, Daraga and Camalig towns due to floods rampaging down from Mount Mayon. Actually, three days before Yolanda was expected to hit Albay, “we already started the evacuation of more than 30,000 would-be affected residents,” said Cedric Daep, head of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office. He said all radio stations were tapped to air weather-bureau bulletin, with reminders from the capitol for all the residents to be prepared. Salceda was the first local government official to adopt a stringent preemptive response to prevent any casualty in the region. Then-President Benigno S. Aquino III hailed the governor’s preparedness, which earned for Albay the Galing Pook awards for three consecutive times. Salceda’s preemptive-disaster response, however, did not set well with his critics, who said too many typhoons had spared

Albay, with the capitol spending millions of pesos in an elaborate disasterpreparedness program. In October 2014 the Albay lawmakers called for a local congressional inquiry held at the National Economic and Development Authority regional office here, where the provincial disaster officials and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology lambasted over its alleged bloated reporting about Mayon’s status. The lawmakers—Reps. Fernando Gonzalez, Al Francis Bichara, Edcel Lagman Jr.—and the Ako Bicol Party-list with attendance from Bicol local government units and lawmakers from other provinces, claimed the capitol’s regular statements about Mayon’s active status were given prominent publicity in the national and international press to generate funds from relatives abroad. All the while, the more than 40,000 evacuees in crammed evacuation centers were getting sick due to the short supply of food and water. Salceda was not present during the inquiry. Asked if there was reduction in the capitol efforts on preemptive response under Gov. Al Francis Bichara, Daep said there was none. He said during Karen and Lawin, only those expected to be directly affected by the possible storm surge were evacuated, adding that Karen and Lawin were predicted not to hit the province directly.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

DU30 considers grant of presidential pardon to elderly prisoners

A

FTER granting actor Robin Padilla executive clemency, President Duterte is also considering giving similar presidential pardon to elderly prisoners “ if they still want to go home.” “I am contemplating. They are preparing it,” Duterte said, when asked if he will grant similar executive clemency to the aging detainees in the country. “All the elderly and those who have illness, those with rheumatism, they can no longer run, those 80-years-old above. If they still want, if they still have family to go, I will grant them pardon also so that they can return.” Duterte said the prisoners serving sentences for 40 years “deserve to be released.” The President said it is also one way to “decongest jails” in the country, amid his all-out war against illegal drugs and criminality. Duterte granted Padilla with absolute pardon following their meeting on Tuesday night at Malacañang. The President said the executive clemency would restore all the actor’s political and civil rights, including privilege to travel abroad. “The pardon is restoration of all of his political and civil rights...he has suffered enough,” the President said. Padilla was convicted for illegal possession of firearms in 1994, but was released three years later after former President Fidel V. Ramos granted the actor conditional pardon. With the executive clemency granted on Padilla, Palace Spokesman Ernesto C. Abella said the actor “may now run for any public office and may also exercise his right to vote. He is also eligible to be appointed to any public position or office.” Padilla wanted to travel to the United States to visit his wife, television host Mariel Rodriguez, who gave birth to a baby girl. PNA

House moves to provide free meds for the poor

P

EOPLE who have less in life will soon have more in medicine. The House Committee on Health has approved a substitute bill, which seeks to establish a free basic medicine-assistance program to address the health needs of the marginalized sectors, such as the poor, malnourished, the elderly, women, children and the disabled. The unnumbered substitute bill to House Bill Nos. 104, 233, 504, 1505 and 1968 authored by Reps. Angelina “Helen” DL Tan, MD (Fourth District, Quezon), Rodante D. Marcoleta (Party-list, Sagip), Victor A. Yap (Second District, Tarlac), Gary C. Alejano (Party-list, Magdalo) and Estrellita B. Suansing (First District, Nueva Ecija), respectively, aims to promote optimal health and well-being of every Filipino through improved access to medicines. Tan, panel chairman, said the bill is part of the important measures aligned with the administration’s health agenda of bringing health services closer to the people. “Based on the health agenda of our administration, it is very important that the Department of Health (DOH) should focus on providing the most basic needs of our constituencies,” Tan said. She added that the bill was approved by the House on third and final reading during the 16th Congress. Suansing said a huge faction of the population is in need of health-care services, especially those who are marginalized and underprivileged. “It is quite disheartening to note that, in our country, the poor can hardly afford the exorbitant costs of medicines,” said Suansing, chairman of the House Committee on Ecology. Suansing said as legislators, “we are mandated to protect the interest of our respective constituents and ensure that government support trickles down to all the communities throughout the country to benefit our countrymen.” The bill provides that the Free Basic Medicine Assistance Program, or the “Libreng Gamot Pro-

gram” shall be administered by the DOH through government district hospitals, local health units and barangay health centers in all cities and municipalities, in coordination with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The Libreng Gamot Program shall be restricted to qualified poor recipients as certified by the barangay and the DSWD officials. The measure further states the free basic medicines shall be made available in all government district hospitals, barangay health centers and local health units. During the deliberation of the bill, Rep. Romeo M. Acop (Second District, Antipolo City) voiced out his concerns regarding the amount of funds involved insofar as the bill is concerned. “How much funds will be involved insofar as this program is concerned and would the DOH accept the fact that they will be responsible in providing free basic medicines in all government facilities?” asked Acop, chairman of the House Committee on Public Order and Safety. He said that, under the bill, the amount to be used will be charged against the appropriations of the DOH. Section 7 of the bill states, “The amount needed for the initial implementation of this Act shall be charged against the appropriations for the DOH. Thereafter, such sums as may be necessary for the continued implementation of this Act shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.” Tan said the free-medicine assistance program is actually a program of the DOH and what they are doing is to institutionalize it. Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Francia Laxamana said that, currently, the DOH has a medical-assistance program, both from the central office and also to the regional offices. She said the DOH has expanded the amounts that have been downloaded to regional offices for the medical-assistance programs. “We have proposed in the Pagcor [Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.] budget an additional P500

Study: Natural disaster may up dementia risk for elderly

W

ELDERLY WIFE LEADS BLIND HUSBAND An elderly wife guides her blind husband while crossing a pedestrian lane near the

Baguio City Market. MAU VICTA

million for the medicines in the rural health units,” Laxamana said, adding that they are waiting for the money from Pagcor, which she believes will be approved as Pagcor has increased again the budget of the DOH. Laxamana assured Acop that in terms of implementation, the DOH has already developed guidelines under the regional health offices in providing assistance to the patients. “We developed certain criteria for patients who are really poor and they will get 100-percent subsistence

from our department in terms of medicine allocations,” she said. To the issue raised by Acop that there is not enough free basic medicines needed by his constituents in his district, Laxamana said the DOH is increasing its budget for the free medicines that will be available. She said based in her previous experiences, there is a lack of medicine because even those who can pay wanted to avail themselves of the free medicine. “We are putting a criteria that

only the poorest of the poor will be able to avail themselves of the 100percent free medicines from our district hospitals and health centers,” Laxamana said. Rep. Rogelio J. Espina (Lone District, Biliran) asked Laxamana if the DOH will also provide medicine assistance to provincial hospitals. Laxamana said regardless if it is a provincial hospital or a local government hospital, the DOH will provide free medicine for as long as it is for the poorest of the poor. PNA

ASHINGTON—Dementia should be considered a health risk for elderly survivors of natural disasters, a new study led by Harvard University researchers suggested. It found the number of elderly people with symptoms of dementia tripled after the 2011 tsunami in Japan, with those who were uprooted from damaged or destroyed homes and who lost touch with their neighbors at most risk. “In the aftermath of disasters, most people focus on mental-health issues like posttraumatic stress disorder,” Hiroyuki Hikichi, research fellow at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “But our study suggests that cognitive decline is also an important issue. It appears that relocation to a temporary shelter after a disaster may have the unintended effect of separating people not just from their homes but from their neighbors— and both may speed up cognitive decline among vulnerable people.” The study was published online by the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Harvard Chan researchers, working with colleagues in Japan, were able to conduct a “natural experiment” among a group of elderly residents of the coastal city of Iwanuma, located about 80 kilometers west of the earthquake epicenter, where nearly half the land area was inundated by the tsunami. Seven months before the disaster, elderly residents of Iwanuma had been sur veyed about their health as part of an ongoing study of aging, called the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. Two-anda-half years after the tsunami, the researchers conducted a follow-up survey among the same group. Out of 3,566 survivors of the tsunami disaster aged 65 or older—some who were able to remain in their homes and some who were forced out—38 percent said they lost relatives and/or friends and 58.9 percent reported property damage. PNA/Xinhua

news.businessmirror@gmail.com

The Millennials BusinessMirror

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Business, government bare highs, lows of Christmas lantern-makers

P

A9

Globe Telecom seeks to end Filipino millennials’ sense of self-entitlement

Story & photo by Danica Mae M. Lacson

AUL Paras was only 17 when he saw his future in the stars. That was after taking over and began managing the lantern business started in 1975 by his uncle, Francisco Castro. Now that business is well-known as P. Paras Lanterns and Handicrafts, standing tall among other businesses in one of the streets of Dolores, San Fernando, Pampanga. The country was still under martial law when Paras Lanterns began with a capital of P20,000, a hefty sum considering the peso’s devaluation and an economy in shambles. “We had eight workers that time, little competition and a large demand for the Filipino parol,” Paras said. The first lantern was made from Japanese paper, he explained in Filipino. Then plastic was used until capiz shells, Paras added. The smallest parol that time was 3 feet and the biggest was 5 feet, he said. Today there are lanterns that are 18 to 20 feet high.

Commercialization

LONG recognized as the Christmas Capital of the Philippines, San Fernando traces the history of its lantern-making in 1908 to Francisco Estanislao of Santa Lucia, who made lanterns from bamboo and coco cloth. The first lantern competition was organized in 1931. However, it was only 33 years after the first lantern competition that the “parul Sampernandu” became available for sale, giving birth to the commercial lantern industry in the city. The lanterns were manufactured initially for competition, that is why they were made big, Paras said in Filipino. Then smaller lanterns were produced, so these could be displayed at home, he added. “Ang daming nagtatanong kung saan gawa,” Paras said. “Doon nagsimula ang paggawa ng unti-unti, by order. [Many people asked where these lanterns were being made. Slowly, families began producing lanterns by order],” Paras said. To date, there are 28 recorded lantern-makers, according to the

City Investment Promotion Center (CIPC) of San Fernando. The P. Paras Lanterns and Handicrafts sells lanterns made of plastic and capiz shells in varying sizes and designs but following the basic five-pointed or double five-pointed frame structure. The months of November and December are the peak months of P. Paras Lanterns and Handicrafts. Its lean months are from February to August, he explained. During the off-season, the firm earns only between P5,000 and P10,000 a month. The firm earns hundreds of thousands during the peak season, Paras said.

Changes

THIRTY-three years into the industry, the 50-year-old Paras said he has witnessed a lot of changes in the parol making in Pampanga. No one uses Japanese paper today, since there has been no demand for such products, he said in Filipino. Paras added they use plastic from China and capiz shells from Bataan and the Visayas. “We are trying to create and develop alternatives, like fiberglass [but it smells bad] and [maybe] bad for the health,” said Jeffrey Yutuc, the product development officer of the CIPC. “We are still looking deeper into it.” Paras added there have also been changes in the design, color, shapes and materials in lanterns since the 1970s. The market of lanterns has also expanded to include provinces outside Pampanga and, although at a minimum, other countries. Today they also serve markets in Metro Manila, the Visayas and Mindanao, Paras said. The company has catered to local governments and clients around the country, specifically in Cavite, Pangasinan, Tarlac and Cebu. A large portion of our clients are tourists and balikbayan, or Filipinos returning from abroad

This November 11 photo shows Jil Bausa-Go posing after an interview with reporters.

This November 8 photo shows workers at the P. Paras Lanterns and Handicrafts, a company based in Pampanga manufacturing Christmas lanterns with lights

for vacation, he added. Despite the changes that lanternmaking has undergone in the past decades, the lantern industry has not significantly changed from Paras’s view. “Halos ganun pa rin. Hindi mahina. Hindi malakas. [Business remains the same: not weak, not strong],”

Festival

IF Paras will rate the lantern industry in San Fernando, Pampanga, he will give the Christmas Capital of the Philippines a passing grade of 7 out of 10. “May kita naman, kaya lang hindi fully utilized. [We do earn, but the revenue is underutilized],” Paras said. Still, Paras is optimistic the industry will reach a 100-percent revenue growth with government support. “[Currently], walang projects ang gobyerno for the lantern industry, aside [from the] Giant Lantern Festival.” The festival is an annual lantern competition participated in by different barangays in San Fernando, and held every third Saturday of December. Although Paras recognizes the help of the festival in promoting the lantern industry, he also believes there’s still a need to strengthen the industry beyond the event’s potentials for generating tourism revenues. He said the government should also look into lantern manufacturing as an industry that can boost

the local economy of San Fernando, especially since demand for the sector’s products is seasonal.

Diversification

YUTUC said the local government is doing its part to protect and support not only the industry, but the lantern-makers themselves through encouraging diversification. “We are diverting the lantern industry into the [lighting] industry, [because lanterns are becoming] decorative,” Yutuc said. “We are seeing to it [that it doesn’t only become] seasonal [and] that, instead of lantern industry, [it becomes an] industry [on lights], so we can cater to all the light-manufacturing products.” However, of the 28 registered lantern-makers here, only two or three have welcomed the proposed diversion to manufacture lightings. For Yutuc, the “okay na” mindset of lantern-makers hinders the large-scale expansion of the industry. Promoting our local culture is fine but if it boils down to business, we are getting left behind, he said. “Naiiwan tayo, which is nagiging negative impact sa economy natin.” Yutuc, however, admitted the government does not provide support for lantern-makers in acquiring raw materials, “because they have their own contacts.”

Support

HOWEVER, Yutuc said the local government has been supporting lantern-makers.

We bring them to Manila during trade fairs, he said. “We also support their marketing campaign.” The CIPC, according to him, is also tapping banking institutions for financial assistance to lanternmakers. We also provide training on product development, like packaging, and we include the lantern industry in investment priorities, he added. For Yutuc, the lantern industry is in its plateau stage. “Kung hindi tayo mag-go-go, hindi tayo susulong,” he added. “Kahit anong produkto ’yan, kahit anong personality ’yan, there’s always a room for improvement.” For Paras, he will continue running the business handed down to him by his uncle, whether government support exists or not. “Masaya kasi, lalo kapag sumasapit ang Pasko. Masaya dahil nakakapagbigay ka ng tuwa sa mga kababayan mo,” Paras said. “Masaya kasi nakikilala nila ’yung bayan mo, at kasama ka sa pagpapakilala sa kanya. [It’s very satisfying, especially when Christmas approaches. We’re happy because we know we make our compatriots happy when they see our lanterns. We’re happy because people get to know our place, and that we help in promoting our place],” Paras said. n Danica Mae M. Lacson is striving to secure a degree in journalism from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communications. Lacson’s edited article is reprinted here with permission from her lecturer.

Report hacks interests, buying patterns of hunting and shooting US millennials By John Hayes

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS

T

HEY’RE “indoorsmen” quick with a hash-tag quip and safely anonymous snark, demanding instant gratification, high pay and comfortable lifestyle; too tech-dependent to function without electricity, too fragile to tolerate a politically incorrect word or action or thought. That’s the millennial myth, as much a pejorative caricature as any stereotype of a large and complex social group. Born before 2000, young adults comprise the largest generation of Americans alive today, totaling 75 million in 2015. Whenever a population that big comes of age, it brings new ideas and preferences. It brings change. Afflicted with what best-selling author Richard Louv famously referred to as “nature deficit disorder,” the generation that grew up without outdoors mentors has started buying guns. Their purchases are generally used for hunting, shooting and self-defense, but in starkly different

proportions than their predecessors. A new report conducted by Southwick Associates, a market research firm specializing in outdoor products, analyses their firearm interests and buying habits. “Millennial hunters and shooters are often viewed as an elusive group, challenging conventional industry beliefs on how sportsmen respond to traditional marketing messages and make the purchase decisions they do,” said Southwick President Rob Southwick in a statement. “By identifying their motivations to participate in hunting and shooting, as well as how they make key purchases, companies and organizations can improve not only their messaging but also how and when they deliver those messages for maximum benefit to the bottom line.”

Report

SOUTHWICK Associates sells its custom and syndicated reports to trade associations and manufacturers of shooting, hunting, fishing and outdoor sporting products.

Without the guidance of a mentor, millennial gun owners may be at a disadvantage. Pavel Rodimov/Dreamstime/TNS

The data is used to inform businesses on branding, product development and retail placement, while government outdoor recreation agencies and media find other uses. Southwick ’s Nancy Bacon said details of the report are proprietary, but a summary released to media suggests that the inevitable impact of millennials on traditional hunting and

shooting sports may rock longheld conventional wisdom. “We’re getting a lot of questions about millennials,” she said. “In the industry, we know the market is changing. New people are coming in and the data is changing. We looked at our existing data and did a new online survey.” Cultural touchstones and motivations are clearly different for

baby boomers (born in the years following World War II), Generation X (born between the early 1960s and mid-1970s) and millennials. Bacon said the report found that two key differences are the ages at which the generations first fired a gun or went hunting, and the first animals they pursued. “The thing that struck me is that millennials were a little older—18 to 24—when introduced to hunting or shooting. Nonmillennials had a higher propensity to have been 13 to 17,” she said. “Also interesting to me is the first species pursued by millennials was deer, while research has shown that the older generations started with small game and worked their way up to deer.”

Influence

THE Southwick survey found that millennials are predictably likely to research firearms online, but less likely than their parents’ generation to purchase online, preferring to buy hunting and shooting gear at specialty shops. The report didn’t chart gender differences.

Story & photo by Rizal Raoul Reyes

M

ILLENNIALS have a negative reputation of being freeloaders, especially in downloading music and videos from popular web sites, so Globe Telecom Inc. believes. As far as the Ayala family-led telecommunications firm is concerned, this thinking must change, as an executive said this is not good for the development and protection of intellectual property. “Millennials think they are entitled and believe they can download almost anything for free. But it is not and they should pay for it,” Globe Telecom Content Consumer Business Vice President Jil Bausa-Go told the BusinessMirror. “Millennials also believe they are very self-entitled. That is the thing we want to change.” Bausa-Go spoke to the BusinessMirror on the launch of a campaign that aims to educate the millennial generation on the value and importance of intellectual property. She added these young people must be aware that producing content is very expensive. Economics is the reason a lot of millennials and other Filipinos love to download or buy pirated videos, according to her. The other root of the problem is the lack of outlets where they can download the materials they want. The tendency is to go to the illegal services. “But if you have services like Hooq, you can choose among the 10,000 movie titles for P149 per month. Moreover, you can share it with your family,” Bausa-Go explained. “With one account, you can use five devices. We are giving the consumer value for their money.” Hooq is the video-on-demand platform by eponymous Singaporebased partner firm of Globe Telecom, Hooq Digital Holdings Pte. Ltd. “You can stop viewing when it is needed. Nevertheless, you can continue watching it from where you stopped. That is the behavior we want to support,” Bausa-Go said. Through a production venture called “OTJ: The Series,” she said Globe Telecom and Hooq seek to jump-start a campaign to educate millennials that content with quality has a price because companies have invested a lot of money and effort in producing the film. “There is strength in the value proposition of the service,” she said. “Sometimes it is making the people pay attention because it is on the early stages.” Bausa-Go noted the antifreeloading campaign makes sense, because Globe Telecom generates huge income from the Internet services provided to the market. There is a disservice to the intellectual-property rights when people steal content, according to her. “A way to do that is conveniently use content legitimately, and this is one way Globe is using to do that.”

A10

BusinessMirror

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Facebook stays committed to user privacy, online safety

I

By Oliver Samson | Correspondent

N the wake of reported—and not reported—abuses on its platform, Facebook said it is staying committed to the privacy, safety and security of users.

W hile Facebook encourages public debates, it does not allow bullying, harassment, invasion of privacy, hate speech, and credible threats of violence, Mia Garlick, Facebook director of safety for Asia Pacific, said. Fake accounts that threaten the privacy, safety and security of users should be reported, Garlick said during a workshop with members of the Philippine media in Manila on November 16. Safeguarding users from similar threats, Facebook invests in concern areas, like technology, controls, community standards,

content reporting and education, Facebook said in a statement distributed during the workshop. The company said its security system runs “in the background millions of times per second to catch threats and remove them before they ever reach people.” The platform conducts a “privacy check” to ensure a user is allowed to view the object before a status update or a photo gets uploaded, Facebook said. “Facebook completes around 80 trillion object privacy checks each day,” the company’s official statement said. “Using Facebook

also means that people’s communications are protected by strong encryption.” The number of Filipinos accessing the web site daily rose to 30 million, according to Garlick sans citing the reference period. Some 27 million Filipino mobile device users access Facebook every day, she added. With the growing number, the website invests in community standards “designed to create an environment where people feel motivated and empowered to treat each other with empathy and respect.” “Not all disagreeable or disturbing content violates Facebook’s Community Standards,” Facebook said. “By blocking, unfollowing or unfriending the person or page that posted the content, what is seen on Facebook can be controlled.” According to Facebook, the website’s “authentic name” policy would scare users from misbehaving. The policy addresses bu l ly ing , impersonat ion a nd scams. With 54 million Filipinos accessing the website in a month,

Garlick encouraged users to report content that violates Facebook ’s “Community Standards”. “Global teams work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to review things people report and remove things that violate Facebook’s Community Standards,” Facebook said in a statement. With controls like Activity log, login approvals, built-in strength of friend connections, ad preferences, page-moderation tools and blocking, users could address threats and remain secure. Facebook has placed security measures to safeguard its users from other threats, Garlick said. “We have automatic system running to identify spam, malware and fake accounts.” Garlick added that no less than 49 million mobile-device users in the country access Facebook monthly and 27 million daily. According to Statista, the number of monthly active users of Facebook worldwide from 2008 to the third quarter of 2016 was 1.79 billion.

Whatever happened to bitcoin? Young capitalist has the answer

S

AN JOSE, California—Bitcoin, the virtual currency used by savvy techies and online black-market traders, has faded from the public eye in recent months. But investor and cryptocurrency expert Adam Draper says bitcoin still has the potential to play a major role in the financial market—once society figures out exactly what to use it for. Draper, son of high-profile venture capitalist Tim Draper, founded Boost VC in 2012 to fund startups working with bitcoin and the blockchain—the data structure that generates the digital coins. While it’s unlikely most people will be buying Starbucks with bitcoin in the near future, Draper said, the technology could revolutionize everything from banking to stock transactions to the art industry. Where else will bitcoin take off? Mars. When humans colonize the Red Planet, they won’t be using cash, he said. “Almost all of the smartest people I’ve ever met in finance are working to make the blockchain or digital currency happen,” Draper said. “Huge institutions, insurance companies, banks—ever yone is tr ying to figure out what to do with it.” Draper sat down with The Mercury News to share his thoughts on cryptocurrency.

What exactly is the blockchain?

T he b l o c k c h a i n d o e s o ne thing: It replaces third-party trust with mathematical proof that something happened. You trust your bank that they’re adding up all of the ledgers all over the world that they manage correctly to issue you the amount of money that’s in your bank account every day. You’re establishing a trust in your bank because they built a brand over hundreds of years. Blockchain: All it does, all day, is it logs transactions. And the reason that people are excited about it is that it sort of cuts out these middlemen who need the trust. So banks are excited by it. Nasdaq is experimenting with creating digital equity, where you can actually transact in a public ledger—the blockchain—instead of physically moving stock certificates.

Is the blockchain only useful in the financial sector?

Art, for instance: If I put something online, it’s owned by everyone, because that’s how the Internet works. But what if I only wanted 30 prints of this specific

What is bitcoin?

It works a lot like gold in that there is a limited supply. There are only going to be 21 million bitcoins, and right now there have been 14 million that have been released into the world. Basically, there is a network of computers, and they’re called miners. They’re trying to solve an algorithm faster than all the other ones. And the ones that solve it the fastest, first, get bitcoin.

What makes bitcoin better than cash? What bitcoin does better than the current financial system is it’s a better stored value globally. There are a lot of countries that really don’t trust their banks or their currency, and bitcoin is an alternative. It’s almost like gold. The transfer of money across

borders is the second thing it does better than the current system. Not only is it cheaper because it doesn’t have so many middlemen—it’s also faster. It doesn’t take five days, it clears in 10 minutes.

What does the future of bitcoin look like?

I don’t think bitcoin or blockchain are going to be consumer facing. It’s going to be the back-end for everything. I think that we will continue to use the US dollar. But the way that the world is moving is all digital, and there needs to be a huge ledger that keeps tally of all those transactions that are happening globally—and that’s what the blockchain is going to be doing.

What about long-term?

Let’s assume that we’re on a bunch of different planets. Are we going to be paying people in cash? No is the answer. That makes no sense. I’m not going to be bringing cash to space, probably.

So when we move to Mars, it will be bitcoin?

That is the only way. I think it’s feasible that if you invented currency today, it would not look like paper.

What problems do bitcoin and other digital currencies have from a consumer point of view?

Education is probably the biggest one. Bitcoin still has this stigma

T

HE number of malicious spams spiked to its highest in the last two years during the third quarter of 2016, Kaspersky Lab ZAO announced in a statement. According to the Russian cybersecurity firm, its products blocked in the third quarter nearly 73.1 million attempts to attacks users with malicious attachments. T he nu mb er of m a l ic iou s spams in the third quarter was the steepest climb since 2014 and 37 percent higher than the first quarter and second quarters figures, the firm said on November 15. Most of the attachments were ransomware Trojan downloaders. “After a few relatively stable months, the percentage of spam in the global e-mail traffic increased,” Kaspersky Lab said. “The average for the quarter was 59.19 percent, an increase of around two percentage points on the previous quarter.” Kaspersky Lab said this means that around six in ten of all e-mails received in the period are unsolicited spam, also called “junk electronic mail.” In September the number of spam in the global e-mail traffic struck the annual maximum and equaled 61.25 percent, according to Kaspersky Lab.

Dark side

“SPAM is often just unwanted advertising, but it has a darker side, too,” Daria Gudkova, acting head of Content Analysis and Research at Kaspersky Lab, was quoted in a statement as sayng. “Criminals use spam to distribute malware and exploit users’ vulnerability, convincing them to hand over their money and personal details,” Gudkova added. According to her, most of the malicious spam e-mails in the last quarter stormed Internet users with ransomware, confirming this exploit’s widespread rise. “We urge you not to open any suspicious attachments or click on unknown links—the web site could be compromised—because all of these can result in device infection,” she said.

Malicious spam e-mails also attempted to trick Internet users into fraud schemes, Kaspersky Lab said. Malicious spam e-mails in the third quarter offered “test products including expensive household appliances or cutting-edge electronics,” the firm said. “Fraudsters often use big new stories to trick people,” Gudkova added. “The iPhone 7 example is just one of the many that were used during the quarter. As the saying goes—free cheese is only found in the mousetrap.”

From India, with spam

ACCORDING to Kaspersky Lab, India generated the most number of spams (14.02 percent) in the third quarter, representing the 4.4 percent in the spike. Vietnam generated 11.01 percent and the US generated 8.88 percent of the total spam. Germany sustained the most number of e-mail spam attacks in the last quarter, the firm noted. No less than 13 percent of its Internet users were struck by spam mailshots. Japan came next with 8.76 percent, followed by China with 8.37 percent. Among target organizations, banks were hit the most by phishers (27.13 percent). “Banks were followed by Global Internet portals [21.73 percent], an increase of 0.8 pp and online-shops [12.21 percent], a 2.82-percentagepoint increase,” Kaspersky Lab said. More often, spam e-mails are spear phishing attacks aimed at victimizing Internet users by tricking them into accessing malicious sites doing their best to look legitimate, Isaac Sabas, CEO of Pandora Security Labs Inc., said. Spam e-mails also deceive users into installing malware via download of attachments, added the founder of the a homegrown cybersecurity provider. “If the e-mail is not relevant to you or seems too good to be true, do not click on any of the links indicated on the e-mail body, and do not download its attachment,” Sabas said. Oliver Samson

Kids’ dependency on Internet leads to behavioral changes

Adam Draper, founder and managing director of Boost VC, speaks to students on November 1 at Draper University in San Mateo, California. Gary Reyes/Bay Area News Group/TNS

painting, photoshopped thing that I made, to exist? And I wanted to prove that there were unique ones? You could tag them with blockchain, and actually prove that those pieces of artwork were unique. And then suddenly there is this whole new market of Internet art that can be created. We have a company called Sun Exchange that’s doing solar-power financing in Africa. Energy and bitcoin work really well together because you can pay out in microtransaction units. As the energy gets used, they pay out, and it’s by the kilowatt, rather than by the month.

Spike of spam e-mail in Q3 highest in 2 years

around it, where it’s like, “Oh, that was the illegal drugs, guns, whatever, currency.” The other thing is it’s very complicated.

Bitcoin got a ton of buzz when it first came out, but now, almost 10 years later, most consumers still aren’t using it. What is the state of the bitcoin market today?

I’d say publicly in the press, media, mass market—it’s boring. The media is over it. The story is not really there. But what’s really happening is that every bank in the country is experimenting with the blockchain and experimenting with bitcoin to figure out where the value is. For the first time ever, they’re working hand in hand with start-ups. Banks are asking start-ups for help to build products. And I’ve never heard of a time where that’s ever happened. It’s really exciting that that’s happening, but it’s happening on a lower level where no one’s really talking about it. So I think of it as the calm before awesome stuff.

Do you have money in bitcoin? Oh yeah.

What do you do with it?

Mostly I would say I use it to store value. But I buy things with it—I have a virtual reality (VR) setup at my house, and I used bitcoin to buy a VR video game. A significant percentage of my net worth is in cryptocurrency, which is a wild concept. Marisa Kendall/The Mercury News/TNS

R

ESEARCH conducted by Kaspersky Lab ZAO has uncovered the harsh impact of Internet over-dependency among children across the globe, the Russian cybersecurity firm said on November 17. Kaspersky Lab said 55 percent of children were qualified by the research as dependent on the Internet. “These children are twice as likely to conceal potentially risky online activities from their parents and use content, inappropriate for their age,” Kaspersky Lab said in a statement. The company said it surveyed 3,780 families with children aged 8 to 16, conducted across seven countries. The survey found that dependency on the Internet has a marked impact on children behavior and actions. “When asking children to score key aspects of their daily life between 1 and 10, their ability to learn and interact with peers and parents suffers as children get older,” Kaspersky said. “This trend was most notable in relationships with parents, with Internet-dependent children showing a steady worsening in their parental relationships as they get older.” The survey revealed that eight-year-old children dependent on the Internet scored themselves 8.4 (compared to a higher 8.7 for other children), reducing to just 7.9 out of 10 by the time they are 16 years old (with non-Internet-dependent children’s scores remaining at 8.7). A third (36 percent) of children dependent on the Internet freely share their home address details online, compared to just a quarter (25 percent) of those who are nondependent. They are also more likely to share information about the places they visit often (60 percent versus 41 percent), expensive purchases made (41 percent versus 27 percent) and where their parents work (36 percent versus 26 percent). Children at the younger end of the Internet-dependent

spectrum are more likely to share this information than older kids. “Internet usage among children today is the norm, but for those dependent on it, the risks and negative impacts could be twice as high or even more,” Andrei Mochola, head of Consumer Business at Kaspersky Lab, was quoted in a statement as saying. “Despite growing up with technology, children still need to be educated in how to use it properly and responsibly.” According to Mochola, the research has identified that younger children are more likely to share information and have the ability to bypass parental controls, making it vital that parents manage their kids’ Internet usage from a young age, to minimize the risks they face.” Family relationships are also at risk, with Internet-dependent children twice as likely (50 percent) to communicate less with their parents than those not dependent on the Internet (25 percent), as a result of their connected devices. A third (30 percent) also admit that their Internet usage has been the cause of family disputes (compared to 10 percent among nondependent children) and half (56 percent) conceal their potentially risky online activities from their parents (compared to 28 percent). The same group are also over twice as likely to view content that is inappropriate for children (28 percent versus 11 percent). Looking at actual threats faced online, the research found that almost half (48 percent) of Internet- dependent children have encountered a cyberthreat (compared to only 24 percent of nondependent kids), and dependent children are also more likely to become a victim of bullying offline (17 percent versus 6 percent), as well as cyber bullying (7 percent versus 1 percent). Oliver Samson

BusinessMirror

Lazada: Two million diapers ordered on sale’s first day

L

AZADA Group Inc. said on November 14 that nearly 2 million diapers were ordered on the first day of the company’s one-month online selling. In just 24 hours, consumers in Southeast Asia bought 1.944 million diapers and close to 74,000 smartphones and tablets, according to Lazada. The company added that in the week leading up to the first day of its one-month selling, which it calls “Online Revolution” (OR), there were close to 1.9 million app downloads and shoppers spent almost 10 minutes browsing through offers on November 11. Lazada CEO Ma ximilian Bittner said the result of the firm’s selling on the first day is “very encouraging”. Bittner was quoted in a statement as saying that since the firm

created its OR in 2012, “we see a larger pool of online shoppers [every year], with growing diversity across generations and geographical locations.” He added consumers ordered from Papua Barat in Indonesia, Huyen Nam Nhun in North Vietnam and Kudat in Sabah, Malaysia, “to purchase international and local brands not previously available to them.” Papua Barat is 2,970 kilometers away from Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, while Huyen Nam Nhun is 2,138 km away from Ho Chi Minh City. Kudat is 1,731 km away from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lazada said $40 million in gross merchandize value was recorded in the three-day finale in its OR last year.

Symantec’s new security solution powered by A.I.

S

YMANTEC Corp. recently launched its new security solution that the company said is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) on the endpoint and in the cloud. The company said the solution, called “Endpoint Protection 14” (EP14), fuses endpoint technologies with machine learning and memory exploit mitigation in a single agent. The security firm says EP14 “delivers a multilayered solution able to stop advanced threats and respond at the endpoint regardless of how the attack is launched.” Symantec said the solution is integrated with the security telemetry of Blue Coat Inc., a company Symantec bought in August. The solution, according to Symantec protects 175 million consumer and enterprise endpoints, 163 million e-mail users and 80 million web proxy users. EP14, according to Symantec, also processes nearly 8 billion security requests across these products every day.

Symantec said it launched EP14 as it sees the pace and sophistication of new threats facing organizations as “daunting”. Symantec said the more than 430 million new pieces of malicious software reported last year is expected to grow this year. According to Symantec executive Alan Lee, the company ranked the Philippines for malicious code at 12 globally. The Philippines ranks third in Asia Pacific and Japan, when it comes to social-media scams with a total 46,377 scams last year, said Lee, Symantec’s Advanced Threat Protection Group Global Product Management senior manager. The Philippines ranks 7th in the region for ransomware attacks, with a total of 6,356 attacks in 2015, he added. The rollout of EP14 also came a month after Symantec was named by International Data Corp. as one of the “leaders” in the Asia Pacific-managed security services market for 2016.

Twitter suspends ‘alt-right’ accounts

N

EW YORK—Twitter has suspended the accounts of several prominent members of the so-called “alt-right” in an apparent crack down on accounts tied to hate speech or threats of violence. Twitter declined comment, but noted that its policies forbid violent threats, hate speech or harassment and promise to take action against violators. The company also announced on Tuesday that it was expanding ways for users to report harassment and curb the amount of abuse they see, a reaction to a growing problem of abuse, bullying and harassment on the internet. The alt-right, short for alternative right, is a loose group espousing a provocative and reactionary strain of conservatism. It’s often associated with far right efforts to preserve “white identity,” oppose multiculturalism and defend “Western values.” The movement drew national attention during the presidential campaign, especially after Stephen Bannon of the Breitbart web site, considered by many to be the alt-right’s platform, joined Donald Trump’s campaign. Trump recently named Bannon as the White House chief strategist.

The alt-right feels wronged

RICHARD Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank, said in an interview that his personal Twitter account and accounts for the institute and his magazine were all suspended this week without notification. Spencer, who is credited with popularizing the term alt-right, says he has never called for violence and hasn’t tweeted anything recently that might provoke a suspension. He called the suspensions a coordinated attack against users with certain viewpoints. While he acknowledged that Twitter is a company and has a right to do as it pleases, he says it also needs to accept that it has evolved into something bigger and needs to

act accordingly. “This is 2016 and we live in a digital world,” he said. “Twitter is how the president releases press releases and it’s also how teenage girls talk about Justin Bieber. “Twitter is not just some web site. It’s a public space and we have to treat it that way.” Pax Dickinson, who was ousted as chief technology officer of the web site Business Insider in 2013 for sending offensive tweets, says he also wasn’t given a reason for his Twitter suspension. But he says it likely stemmed from a tweet he sent director Joss Whedon that included an antigay slur. Dickinson says he’s appealed the suspension, but has yet to hear back from Twitter. Spencer says he doesn’t plan on coming back to Twitter unless he gets an apology. The Twitter accounts of alt-right personalities Ricky Vaughn and John Rivers also were suspended as of Wednesday. Paul Town was also banned, although he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that his Twitter feed is a“combination of satire and performance art” that has been misconstrued as alt-right.

Background: Online harassment

ONLINE harassment has long been a problem for the Internet. But because Twitter allows most conversations to play out in public and allows for relative anonymity, it has been especially visible there. And it’s especially challenging because Twitter harassment often resembles online mob action, with numerous pseudonymous accounts ganging up to tweet vile messages at particular individuals. Actress Leslie Jones briefly quit Twitter in July after dealing with racial slurs, obscene photos and comments about her appearance. She called on the socialnetworking service to do more to curb harassment on the platform. Twitter ultimately banned several users, including conservative provocateur and Breitbart technology editor Milo Yiannopoulos. AP

Saturday, November 19, 2016

A11

Unctad chief: ICT can unlock potentials of global economy

M

UKHISA Kituyi, secretarygeneral of the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development (Unctad), said information and communications technology (ICT) can unlock the potentials of the global economy and may resolve poverty.

“ICT has a phenomenal ability to engage different pockets of production with the global economy and to raise productivity,” Kituyi said in a statement. “The Internet connects goods and markets, reduces overheads and cuts out

middlemen, too, so we see it as a great enabler to unbottle a lot of the energies that exist in different economic sectors.” A ccord i ng to t he Unc t ad , against a background of sluggish global growth, the value of

online trade accelerated upward, between 2013 and 2015, from $16 trillion to $22 trillion. The former chief executive of the Kenya Institute of Governance cited as example the world’s largest companies, which have an estimated more than $81 billion locked up in the financial supply chain in large part due to lack of digitization. “But this could change if all parties involved would accept digital versions of contracts and other documents, rather than paper copies.” Kituyi said that by boosting access to economic opportunities, ICT has major potential to support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also enables women and youth in particular. “If you look at new jobs in the

service industry, most of them are driven by ICT, and there is a greater participation—even without affirmative action—and enabling of women and young women in the ICT-driven service industry than in other industries,” he said. “And unlike traditional jobs, ICT-based jobs are gender-blind in remuneration.” For the digital revolution to fulfill its promise of poverty reduction, national governments and others will have to make more efforts, according to Kituyi. Fixed broadband penetration is still 30 times higher in Europe than in Africa; and mobile broadband penetration is almost five times higher, according to the Unctad. In most developing countries, average broadband speeds are lower, while costs are high.

Dan Shugar, CEO of NEXTracker, outside the company’s Fremont offices. Photo courtesy of NexTracker

Tracking the sun, from utility planner to new entrepreneur

F

REMONT, California—Dan Shugar was the kind of kid who hustled to earn a few bucks doing yard work and odd jobs for neighbors. Going to work for a large, public utility like the Pacific Gas and Electric Co., commonly ca l led PG&E, after college didn’t dampen his entrepreneurial spirit. Shugar discovered his passion for solar technology in the utility’s research and development department. He took up the solar cause even as the first hints of net metering—the structure and billing system used to integrate renewable energy onto the grid—were being proposed at actor Robin William’s wine country ranch. Shugar cofounded PowerLight, a solar power-system provider, and sold it to SunPower in late 2006. Trac ker tec h nolog y—t y pically frames with small motors to tilt solar panels at optimal angles toward the sun—became the focus of his next venture while CEO of solar manufacturer Solaria. A tracker can produce about 25 percent more energy than a similar, stationary panel. NEXTracker was spun out of Solaria in 2013, although the two still share an office building in the East Bay city of Fremont. T he trac ker market is e xpected to nearly triple this year, to 12.6 gigawatts of power installed in 2016, according to a forecast by GTM Research. NEXTracker focused on light, balanced systems with small motors and became a leader in the field, having delivered trackers

to solar projects generating a combined 4 gigawatts of energy on five continents. NEXTracker was purchased by Flextronics International for about $330 million in 2015. It now employs about 210 people in offices around the world.

How did you find an entrepreneurial path at a public utility like PG&E?

Well, I was always one of these kids that had a lemonade stand. I became very passionate about solar—I had this “aha” moment when I went out to the Altamont Pass, which at that time was the largest wind farm in the world. I stood up there on a really windy day, it was in 1988. The wind was blowing really hard. You cou ld just hea r t hose t u rbi nes rea l ly produc i ng. I looked at the farm, I was like, wow—there was 500 megawatts out there. I want to do this in solar, but I want to have it in a distributed fashion, not in just one big place. We had been doing work then, when I was a transmission planner, that basically said solar provides benefit to the grid. So I saw there was a really big opportunity. At that point in time, there was only about 30 megawatts a year, globally, of solar that was manufactured and installed. (A solar industry trade group estimates that major solar projects in the US now have at least 16 gigawatts of capacity.) I became completely fascinated by technology that had no moving parts and burned no fuel.

At one time, you worked as a lobbyist, an advocate for the solar industry. What role did Robin Williams play in net metering?

I was at PG&E in the early 1990s. We received a call from the ranch manager for Robin Williams’s estate in the North Bay. His objective was really simple—I’ve got this ranch, I’ve got all these meters out here, there were like seven or eight meters. He said, I just want to put in one big solar system and generate all my power. Mr. Williams would be able to offset his peak demand. We ran into a lot of roadblocks (on the project) within the company when I was there. To me, I kind of took a step back and underscored the need to really focus on policy. Together, with some colleagues in the industry, we really focused on explaining what the benefits of solar were to the grid. We were able to leverage a lot of the technical work at PG&E to then demonstrate the benefits were to the electric system. He did build the system. It was early, so there were a lot of issues to work out with PG&E. It did get built, and he was able to power his estate with solar.

What do you see as the future of utility-scale solar, both in the US and around the world?

I think solar will continue to be the fastest-growing new energy source in the world. It will become ultimately the single greatest source of energy. I’m very excited about utility scale. I’m very excited about community solar as a variant of utility—more

med ium-sized systems. T hey might be 5 to 20 MW. It’s an interesting model— where the utility receives a fee for transmitting the solar energy from the community solar to the customer. The customer is able to buy the solar power directly. If they live in an apartment building...they can still use solar without having to make the investment and worry about the details of the project. Utility is dominant. Community is emerging. Both of the these are growing very handsomely.

What’s the killer app for solar?

It depends what part of the value chain you’re in. We really thought the killer app for utility scale was the tracker. That’s why we re-imagined the tracker. The killer app is basically higher performance in the solar panel. That can take a lot of forms. I think there’s also a killer app around software.

Is there any market that has developed in the last couple of years that has surprised you?

Absolutely. I mean, Honduras? Are you kidding me? I was very surprised to learn how fast solar took off in Latin America. Once the rules were made more market-based and open access, you saw the fundamentals of solar, with outstanding production in that climate, particularly in high deserts, really kick in. And the markets took off. The thing I’ve consistently underestimated in my career is the growth in the solar market. Louis Hansen/The Mercury News/TNS

BusinessMirror

A12 Saturday, November 19, 2016

Coworking space growth seen good for start-ups

T

By Rizal Raoul Reyes

@brownindio

social events, such as wine nights for further interaction. Terence Woo, COO of Vende, finds Acceler8 very supportive in promoting the social commerce site. “Since networking is a big part of my business, I find it very useful working Acceler8 because it has marketing and public relations support,” Woo explained.

HE emergence of coworking spaces in the Philippines has been a welcome development for entrepreneurs particularly the startups, executives from one of the firms offering such service said. Coworking spaces have changed the working landscape that has given a fresh definition of the office setup, according to Mikko Barranda, one of the founders of Acceler8 Now Inc. Coworking space is a shared working environment designed to fully utilize the productivity of its tenants, Barranda explained. “It is quite different from the traditional office model as the coworking environment fosters interaction and collaboration between different professions.” Being exposed to currents trends in the workplace, Barranda and the other founders are aware that the current breed of entrepreneurs that collaboration is part of their game plan. This means it is important to being “connected because it will lead to bigger opportunities,” Barranda said.

Vision

WHEN we opened our Salcedo office,

our vision was to provide flexible workplace to start-ups, entrepreneurs and companies that have a lean work force, Barranda said. He said he and his business associates decided the coworking space would encourage interaction among locators in the Coworking space. “We wanted the locators to engage with their counterparts.” Lara Martirez, CEO of Launchspace Inc., is one satisfied tenant as far as the work setup in Acceler8 is concerned. “My company is more of a creative one,” Martirez said. “The location is an inspiration to my team. I find the place really cool. Everybody here are friends. The setup allows you to do networking and get clients here.” Martirez, who is an original tenant in the first branch of Acceler8, is also enjoying working in the firm’s second unit saying the location is convenient.

Enthusiasm

This undated photo courtesy of Acceler8 Now Inc. shows the company’s interiors.

A former equity funds manager in a leading bank, Martirez said another advantage locating in Acceler8 is that all locators are approachable. “This is a fresh thing for me,” Martirez said. “But I like both banking and marketing. I believe little by little my business will grow. The setup is more beneficial for me.”

Camaraderie

PETER Ing, who recently became

an investor in Acceler8, said the company promotes camaraderie in a business-centric environment. “There’s a lot of synergies, I have a lot support from the community for my business,” Ing said. “I can tap each other resources, such as the online sellers that I have made a connection. Through my [Kava] coffee, I have developed a network.” “Definitely, there is a strategy evolving with coffee. It goes hand in

hand very, very well,” Ing said. “I am very, very happy to have a store here and our partners have been working very good.” Ing said he relishes the experiences bonding with start-ups because this gives him the chance to exchange ideas and strategies with these budding entrepreneurs. “We’re developing ‘entreprenity’ here in Acceler8.” To foster the bonding with the locators, Acceler8 organizes several

BEING the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Philippines Inc. (CCIAP), Woo said Acceler8 enables the organization to liaise with different organizations in a cost-effective manner. A locator will not be required to put up a huge office space, he said, adding the company also provides support services. “This place helped a lot in building my business because of the connection [and] because of the enthusiasm of the people coming here,” Woo said. Acceler8 was able to secure commitments from locators even before it opened. After opening its first office in Salcedo Village, Acceler8 opened in less than a year its second office in Legazpi Village, also in Makati City. The new office sits on 100 square meters of floor area that has 20 fully equipped offices rented out for a minimum of three months. It also has a space for rent to clients who want to stage an event.

IDC: Data analytics use a boon for organizations

O This September 9, 2015, file photo shows the new Apple TV during a product display following an Apple event in San Francisco. AP

Choosing a streaming device sans overpaying

N

EW YORK—Your streaming TV options have gotten better and cheaper. Features that once required a $100 device can now be had for as little as $30. A cheap device is fine for getting TV shows and movies from most popular services onto a big-screen TV—as long as it’s a regular, high-definition set. Of course, it’s possible to simply watch video on a phone or tablet, but it’s not as satisfying from a living-room couch. Here’s a holiday buying guide for the TVstreamers in your life.

Streaming built-in

SMART TVs, game consoles and the TiVo digital video recorder all have streaming apps, and if all you watch is Netflix and Hulu, you’ll be fine with those. But apps for individual channels such as The CW and FX won’t work with every device. The exceptions are TVs running Roku software or that have Google’s Chromecast technology built in; they tend to have wider app selections.

Getting around

DEVICES vary in how easy it is to access apps and video. While many devices are getting voice features that let you search multiple services at once, you’ll still need to navigate on-screen menus with a remote. The exception is Chromecast, which has no menu or remote at all. Instead, you start video on an iPhone or Android phone and send it to the big screen with a tap of a cast button. With some video services, the phone is freed up for other things, though you’ll need to use the phone as a remote for pausing and rewinding. Devices running Google’s Android TV come with Chromecast features and pack their menus with video from Google’s YouTube service. Amazon’s Fire TV device has traditionally favored Amazon video over others, though that’s changing as Netflix, HBO and other leading services get prominence on the home screen. Roku is the most serviceagnostic of the bunch. Apple TV ships with Apple services, but it’s easy to replace those with your favorites.

App selection

ROKU has one of the most complete app libraries, though Apple’s iTunes service is notably missing. You’ll need an Apple TV to access iTunes. Apple TV also has a good app selection, though out of 25 leading services The Associated Press checked, it’s missing direct access to Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and PlayStation Vue. You can get the first three indirectly with a Chromecast-like feature called AirPlay if you have a companion iPhone or other Apple device. Amazon’s Fire TV device is missing iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, ABC, Freeform and the NFL (though some games are shown through Twitter’s app). The selection on Android TV is also limited, but you can supplement that with apps for Chromecast. With an Android phone, you can get all but iTunes, though getting Amazon video is tough, as it requires getting Amazon’s “Underground” app store first. With an iPhone, you’re missing iTunes, Amazon and USA Network, even with AirPlay. If you just have a Chromecast device with an iPhone, you’re also missing Freeform (formerly ABC Family) and CNN. You’ll still need individual subscriptions to these services. The streaming device merely enables playback on the big screen.

Entry-level devices

AMAZON’S Fire TV Stick stands out as a speedy, capable device for $40. It now comes with a voice remote for searches and Alexa assistant queries on weather, sports scores and other information. The Roku Express is cheaper at $30, though there’s no voice remote, and the interface is slower (which doesn’t matter as much once you sit back and watch the video). It’s a great choice considering its wider app selection, notwithstanding the lack of iTunes. Google’s entry-level Chromecast costs $35—affordable, though the gadget is clunky without its own remote. It’s slightly better with Android than iPhones.

Mid-range devices

XIAOMI’S Mi Box is a speedy Android TV device with a nice price tag, $69. It supports higherresolution video known as 4K, an option that once required more expensive devices. But you need a 4K TV and services that offer 4K video—so far, Netflix and YouTube do so for just some of their offerings. Mi Box also supports HDR picture quality. HDR, or high dynamic range, promises brighter whites, darker blacks and a richer range of colors—but you need an HDR TV and HDR video. Google’s new Chromecast Ultra also has 4K and HDR support for $69. Because Mi Box also does Chromecast, you get more overall for the same price. Mi Box also has a voice remote. The Roku Premiere also offers 4K for $80, but its remote lacks voice support. Amazon’s regular Fire TV has 4K and a voice remote for $90. Neither has HDR. For now, HDR sets are rarer than 4K, and even 4K sets aren’t that common.

Why pay more?

THE $100 Roku Premiere Plus and the $130 Roku Ultra offer both 4K and HDR. The remote for both also has a headphone jack for listening when everyone else is asleep. The Ultra also has a voice remote, something many cheaper devices offer. That remote also has gaming buttons and emits a sound when you lose it in a couch. For hard-core gamers, consider the $200 Nvidia Shield TV, an Android TV with both 4K and HDR support, plus faster processors for games with intensive graphics. Another premium choice is Apple TV, which starts at $149. You don’t get 4K or HDR, which won’t matter for regular sets. Instead, you get plenty of apps that do more than play video. You can browse Ikea’s catalog, order food from Grubhub and get the AccuWeather forecasts. For video, an upcoming app simply called TV promises to bring together all your viewing from various channels and services. An iPhone isn’t required, but helps. Sorry, no Android. And for iTunes, Apple TV is the only choice. AP

RGANIZATIONS that capitalize and analyze all relevant data and deliver actionable information could achieve an extra $430 billion (on a worldwide basis) in productivity benefits over their less analytically oriented peers by 2020, the International Data Corp. (IDC) said. “The measure of information in our reality has been blasting, and investigating substantial information sets—supposed enormous information will turn into a key premise of competition, supporting new influxes of efficiency development, advancement and customer surplus,” IDC executive Chwee Kan Chua said. Chua, IDC Asia-Pacific associate vice president for Big Data and Analytics and Cognitive Computing, spoke during the the Philippine leg of the market research firm’s conference on November 17. According to Chua, leaders in every sector, as well as some of dataoriented managers, need to grapple with the implications of Big Data. According to Jubert Daniel Alberto, IDC Philippines country head, “As more things and people connect,

vast amounts of data will be generated, creating opportunities to learn about customers, streamline business processes, flatten organizational structures and transform industries.” “To be competitive, organizations also need to be able to ‘know’ everything, understanding this deluge of data and put it into the context of the business,” Alberto said. “This requires a clear vision of the strategic goals of Big Data and Analytics [BDA], the right investments in powerful new technologies and a cultural shift toward analytically oriented decisions and processes.” IDC predicts that BDA technology investments will increase across Asia Pacific at 34 percent year-over-year (YoY) in the next few years. This rapid growth in investment is creating a divide between the organizations that “know” and the ones that do not. “The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media and the Internet of Things [IoT] will fuel exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future,” Alberto said. Another dimension

that we are entering is a new period of computing history — the Cognitive Computing era, according to IDC Philippines Associate Market Analyst Alon Anthony Rejano. IDC predicts by 2020, 50 percent of all business analytics software will incorporate prescriptive analytics built into cognitive systems functionality. “Cognitive systems offer fundamental differences in how systems are built and interact with humans. Cognitive-based systems are able to build knowledge and learn, understand natural language, and interact more naturally with human beings than traditional systems,” Rejano said. “Cognitive systems can quickly identify new patterns and insights.” He further explained that “over time, they will simulate even more closely how the brain actually works.” “In doing so, they could help us solve the world’s most perplexing problems by penetrating the complexity of Big Data and exploiting the power of natural language processing and machine learning,” Rejano added.

Oppo optimistic on sales pace with partner HCPI

O

Story & photo by Mia Rosienna Mallari

PPO is expecting to strengthen its ties with consumer finance company Home Credit Philippines Inc. (HCPI) following the success of its flagship selfie phones in the country. Now the second leading mobile brand in the Philippines, Oppo is looking forward to bigger sales as the holiday season rolls out. “The market share is really growing, even the brand performance and market standing are really growing,” Oppo Philippines Inc. Operations Manager Garrick Hung said. “Here in the Philippines we’re striving to outperform what we’ve already achieved.” A Germany-based market research organization reported that Oppo is currently the second to Samsung as the leading smartphone brand in the country with over 168-percent growth in sales since 2015. HCPI has been the brand’s partner since November of the previous year and has contributed to 30 percent of sales since. “In every campaign that we have, their average contribution is 30 percent for that particular product,” Hung told the BusinessMirror. “[HCPI] is actually one of our great partners.” Its F1s made waves in August selling over

This November 9 photo shows (from left) GMA Network Inc. Assistant Vice President for Talent Imaging and Marketing Simoun Ferrer, actor Alden Richards, Oppo Philippines Inc. Brand Marketing Manager Stephen Cheng and Oppo Philippines Inc. Operations Manager Garrick Hung posing during the presentation of Richards as the Chinese mobile manufacturer’s promotional talent.

19,000 units in the first three days, according to Hung. Nicknamed the “selfie expert”, Oppo F1s features a 16-megapixel front-facing camera with a large aperture that can snap crisp photos even in dimly lit settings. Through HCPI, F1s, along with other models, were made available for an installment package

with zero-percent interest. This, Hung believes, was one of the key selling points of the device. Hung said Oppo has projects lined up with HCPI until January next year. “[It] depends on what we have to offer. Definitely, HCPI is a valuable partner and we’re trying to build strategies with them until 2017,” he said.