BusinessMirror November 28, 2018

LOCAL CARRIERS MIGRATE ALL BOHOL FLIGHTS TO ‘1ST ECO-AIRPORT’ PANGLAO

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OCAL carriers have migrated their flights to Bohol from the old Tagbilaran Airport to the New Bohol Panglao Airport. Billed as the country’s first eco-airport for its green features, Panglao airport started commercial operations on Wednesday (November 28), according to separate advisories. AirAsia Philippines, which was the first airline to fly to the new airport on Tuesday via a special arrangement with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap), has moved all its Bohol flights coming from Manila to the new airport. “We feel strongly about supporting the growth and development of cities outside Metro Manila. We aim to better connect secondary cities or hubs and take Bohol to new heights and rise among the premier tourist

THE predeparture area of the Bohol Panglao International Airport is seen in this photo taken before the start of commercial operations. PHOTO COURTESY OF BPIA

DEPT. OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY

2018 BANTOG DATA MEDIA AWARDS CHAMPION

destinations not only in the Philippines but also in the whole of Asean, in greater Asia and beyond where the AirAsia Group has massive connectivity,” AirAsia Philippines CEO Dexter Comendador said. Cebu Pacific’s flights to Tagbilaran from Manila, Davao and Cagayan de Oro were likewise moved to Panglao. Philippine Airlines’s flights from Manila, Clark, Davao and Incheon going to Bohol will also now land at the new airport. The Department of Transportation officially closed the commercial operations of the Tagbilaran Airport today to pave the way for the opening of the New Bohol Panglao Airport. The government initially targeted to open the new airport in Bohol in 2021. Panglao airport, marketed as the “Green

Gateway to the World,” will be the country’s first eco-airport, employing the “highest standards of green and sustainable structures.” The airport, which will primarily use natural air ventilation and solar panels for a third of its power supply, is expected to accommodate 2 million passengers in its opening year, a huge jump from the 800,000 passenger count that is currently being accommodated by the Tagbilaran airport.

Iata tag retained

MEANWHILE, Cebu Pacific said the new airport will replace the existing Tagbilaran Airport but it will continue to use the existing Iata (International Air Transport Association) airport code “TAG.” See “1st eco-airport,” A2

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018 Vol. 14 No. 49

2017 EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS

BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR

P25.00 nationwide | 5 sections 28 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

‘Stalled budget to hurt Q1, Q2 GDP’ 7-8% C By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

ONGRESS’S failure to approve the proposed 2019 national budget of P3.757 trillion before the year-end will affect the country’s economic growth for the first and second quarters of 2019, as there will be a five-month implementation gap for the infrastructure projects, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said on Tuesday.

The government’s GDP growth target for next year

Diokno said the national budget for 2019 may not be signed into law before December 31, based on the new calendar transmitted by the Senate to the Department of

DBCC may retreat in backing fuel excise tax hike, says Diokno

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HE Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) may reconsider at its next meeting its earlier recommendation to the President to suspend the second tranche of oil excise tax hikes for 2019, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said. “There will be a DBCC meeting on Thursday. We will tackle that precisely because now.... The prices of oil in the world market have gone down to $60 [per barrel], so we will discuss it and make the announcement,” said Diokno, who is the chairman of DBCC. The budget chief’s statement came after Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said on the sidelines of the Sulong Pilipinas economic forum on Monday that the government is reviewing the plan to suspend the next tranche of oil excise taxes following the downtrend of oil prices in the global market. The recommendation to suspend the 2019 tranche of higher oil excise taxes, as provided under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, was spurred by rising inflation that breached 6.7 percent. Some sectors said the galloping inflation was substantially caused by the first wave of higher fuel excise

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 52.3940

See “DBCC,” A2

year, if possible, especially infrastructure projects,” he said. “The failure of the Congress to pass the GA A before December 31 will not allow us to do that. Add this to the election ban from March to May, and you have a five-month implementation gap for our infrastructure projects.” However, he clarified that this will mainly cover the small projects, such as roads and school buildings, and this development will not affect Continued on A2

Human rights need accused state’s power

“There will be a DBCC meeting on Thursday. We will tackle that precisely because now.... The prices of oil in the world market have gone down to $60 [per barrel], so we will discuss it and make the announcement.”—Diokno

taxes imposed with the TRAIN’s signing on January 1, which critics said compounded the steady rise in world petroleum prices. Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei B. Nograles said in a chance interview with reporters on Tuesday that the recommendation to suspend the increase in oil excise tax for next year will still be discussed in the Executive branch. “Obviously, we have to adjust with the circumstances to adjust with what’s happening,” Nograles said. Earlier this month, President Duterte approved the recommendation of economic managers to suspend the increase in fuel excise tax of P2 per liter in 2019, bringing the excise tax on diesel to P4.50 per liter.

Budget and Management. The earliest possible date for Congress ratification will be on January 25, 2019, and the latest possible date would be on February 7. If this is followed, this will be the first reenacted budget under the Duterte administration. Because of this, Diokno said no new projects can start until the 2019 General Appropriations Act (GAA) is approved. “We want to be able to frontload projects at the start of the

Teddy Locsin Jr.

FREE FIRE Statement prepared by Angela Ponce and delivered by H.E. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., Philippine Permanent Representative, Item 85: Strengthening and coordinating United Nations rule of law activities, 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, October 9, Trusteeship Council Chamber, UN Headquarters, New York. Continued on A10

Senate-House panel OKs updated Corporation Code By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

A RECYCLED CHRISTMAS TREE A boy named Nonie checks out the trunk of a oncetowering coconut tree devastated by Typhoon Rosita in front of the barangay hall of Naggasican Village in Santiago City, Isabela. Village residents and their officials transformed the ravaged coconut palm into a colorful Christmas tree, using recycled plastic bottles from their Materials Recovery Facility. Naggasican is a recipient of the Most Outstanding Barangay in Environmental Management in Santiago City. CEASAR M. PERANTE

CO N G R E S S I O N A L co n fe r ence committee on Tuesday endorsed final approval by Malacañang of the reconciled SenateHouse version of an updated Corporation Code crafted to “strengthen and simplify corporate governance standards for a more business-friendly environment.” Timely enactment of the enabling law is expected by its proponents to

reverse the decline in the country’s ranking in the latest Ease of Doing Business Report of the World Bank released earlier this month, where the Philippines dropped from 113th to 124th out of 190 economies. Among the approved reforms, the new code includes provisions removing the minimum number of incorporators, allows electronic filing of reportorial requirements and attendance in meetings via remote communication or in absentia—practices that were not See “Corporation Code,” A2

n JAPAN 0.4612 n UK 67.1324 n HK 6.6965 n CHINA 7.5490 n SINGAPORE 38.1269 n AUSTRALIA 37.8704 n EU 59.3938 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.9661

Source: BSP (27 November 2018 )

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Wednesday, November 28, 2018

2019 polls, BOL plebiscite preps bugged by fund lack

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By Samuel P. Medenilla

@sam_medenilla

UDGETARY woes continue to mar the preparations of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for next’s year national automated elections and plebiscite for the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). The poll body on Monday said voters should brace for longer lines in the next elections since they will forced to increase to 1,000 the number of assigned voters per vote counting machine (VCM) in the 2019 elections from just 800 in the 2016 polls. “I could just imagine this will lead to really long lines [come the elections],” Caloocan City Second District Rep. Edgar Erice said at the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Election System at the Senate. To offset the effects of the long lines, Comelec Executive Director Jose Tolentino said they will extend the voting period for the May 2019 polls. “From just 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., we are now considering holding the elections from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” Tolentino said. The Comelec said it was forced to raise the number of voters for each VCMs after they suffered a shortage

in the number of the contingency machines in the 2016 elections. In 2016 the poll body only had 1,500 VCMs for contingency for 85,000 voting precincts. The Comelec was unable to increase the number of its VCMs since it only received a limited budget to purchase the VCMs it leased from Smartmatic International. With only about six months before the next elections, it said it could no longer address the issue even if it gets enough funds to purchase additional machines since the process would have to go though bidding.

Training roadblock

THE Comelec is now also facing another challenge in providing the necessary two-day training for the 170,000 Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) on how to operate the automated election system (AES) for the 2019 elections. It said the Department of Budget

₧5B

the three BEIs per election precinct as done in previous polls, he said they are targeting to extend the training to all of the 255,000 BEIs for the 2019 elections. Aside from the handouts and practical training, Tolentino said they will also provide trainees with video materials. The Comelec is targeting to complete the BEI training from February 4, 2019, to March 30, 2019.

The budget Comelec sought from DBM to train the 170,000 Board of Election Inspectors for the 2019 elections. It got only P1.7 billion and Management (DBM) only granted P1.7 billion of the P5billion budget it requested for the said project. Comelec Chair man Sher iff Abas pointed out this was insufficient for them to effectively conduct the training. “The budget they granted us is roughly only P1,200 per participants. We already conducted a survey [for venues] and none of them agree with such a rate,” Abas disclosed. Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III expressed concern over this setback in the preparations of the Comelec since it could translate to more errors in the performance of their BEIs. In previous automated polls, Pimentel noted there were several cases wherein BEIs did not fill the right forms or correctly managed the VCMs. Abas appealed to the DBM or Congress to grant them an additional P3 billion so they can upgrade the BEIs’ training in time for the elections next year. Instead of training just two of

Unfunded plebiscite

MEANWHILE, yet another unfunded initiative of the Comelec is the upcoming plebiscite for the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). Abas said they are still awaiting word from the DBM on their requested P850-million budget for the plebiscite scheduled on January 21, 2019. “We asked [for] authority from DBM so we could source [funds] from our savings plus our preparatory [budget].... We hope we could get it by December,” Abas said. While waiting for the fund, the poll chief said they are currently finalizing the list of “contiguous areas” which will participate in the plebiscite. He said the hearing for the screening of the applicants is ongoing. “This will then be raffled to the commissioners, who will decide which will be included in the plebiscite,” Abas said. The Comelec is targeting to release the complete list of participants for the plebiscite in December.

‘Stalled budget to hurt Q1, Q2 GDP’ the big infrastructure projects most of which are covered by the Multi-Year Obligational Authority. Although Diokno stopped short of zeroing in on a figure, he said there will likely be a slowdown in the capital outlays for the first two quarters next year. However, he said they are still confident that the government can meet the GDP growth target of 7 to 8 percent for next year. “It will slow down by first and second [quarters] but it could still pick up by third and fourth,” he told reporters. Capital spending proposed for 2019 will have to wait until the 2019 budget is passed and becomes effective. The 2018 capital outlays cannot be reenacted be-

cause projects funded in 2018 are assured to have been obligated or done in 2018 and no new projects can be authorized to start without authority from Congress, with few exceptions, including large projects covered by Multi-Year Obligational Authority. Nonetheless, personnel services (salaries, wages, pension and retirement and the like) and other operating expenses are deemed reenacted and will based on the 2018 level. Meanwhile, salary adjustments for civilian and military personnel programmed for 2019 will also have to wait.

Change of heart

DIOKNO said it is still possible

Corporation Code. . . recognized in the old law.

Senate Bill 1280 updates the decades-old Corporation Code of the Philippines. In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon, principal author of SB 1280, said the amended Corporation Code was designed to “strengthen corporate governance standards and provide protection to minority stockholders” by requiring corporations vested with public interest to have independent directors, among others. Once signed into law by President Duterte, the remedial legislation is seen to enable a “business-friendly Philippines” to keep up with its neighboring countries. “We are proud to lead the chamber in passing this landmark legislation that will remove the barriers hindering the entry of both small and large enterprises into the market,” said Drilon. The Senate minority leader acknowledged that “one of our difficulties today is [that] our laws have not been updated.” As a result, he added, “in terms

Continued from A1

of our ranking in the ease of doing business we are lagging behind, especially in the areas of starting a business where the country was ranked 166th.” Drilon recalled how it was “too difficult” to open a business in the country under the old law, citing the “numerous and stringent” incorporation and regulatory requirements. These, he lamented, discouraged investors and Filipino entrepreneurs from entering the local market. The senator said “its immediate signing into law by the President is in order, so that we can change the atmosphere of conducting business in the country and make our economy more competitive.” At the same time, he voiced confidence that the new Corporation Code will improve ease of doing business in the country by allowing a one-person corporation, removing the minimum capital requirement and providing for perpetual existence of corporation. “With the new code allowing a oneperson corporation, local business owners and investors could already

t he l aw m a kers c a n c h a nge their mind about the schedule of passing the money measure “before Christmas and [it will] be their Christmas gift to the Filipino people.” This, as Diokno also scored the lawmakers for having long breaks even before passing the 2019 budget. “They marched to a different tune. Their time zone is different. How can you just work for just three days? Monday to Wednesday? What are they doing from Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? They have so many breaks,” he said. Diokno has since said the President has given Congress “more than enough time to scrutinize

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the budget.” “The reason we submitted the budget on the day of the State of the Nation Address [Sona] is to give them enough time so that this thing will not happen,” he said. “Under the Constitution, the President has 30 days after his Sona to deliver the budget to the House. We don’t do that. We delivered it on the day of the Sona itself to give them more time so they can’t blame us. That’s very clear. We have done our job,” he said. Incidentally, the government operated under a reenacted budget under the last years of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is now House Speaker.

stop the practice of naming their entire household as incorporators simply to comply with the stringent requirement of the law,” added Drilon. He noted that the current business environment makes it hard for corporations and individual business owners to access loans, resulting in the country scoring only 5 [184th place] in the “getting credit” indicator of the World Bank. The Philippine government, through the Departments of Finance and Trade and Industry, have disputed the WB’s Ease of Doing Business Report precisely because of this indicator, because, they said, the bank’s data gatherers had omitted some vital information. Meanwhile, Drilon assured the public that the new code will also allow a one-person corporation to access loans and grants, adding that “once enacted, all existing and future corporations are deemed to have perpetual lives.” In addition, Drilon expects the updated Corporation Code to “strengthen corporate governance standards and provide protection to minority stockholders by requiring, among others, corporations vested with public interest to have independent directors.

DBCC. . .

Continued from A1

The recommendation of the economic managers came at the time that world oil prices hovered around $80 per barrel. The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law provides that: “For the period covering 2018 to 2020, the scheduled increase in the excise tax on fuel as imposed in this section shall be suspended when the average Dubai crude oil price based on Mean of Platts Singapore [MOPS] for three months prior to the scheduled increase of the month reaches, or exceeds $80 per barrel.” The Department of Finance has said suspending the scheduled excise tax increase for fuel in 2019 may lead to an estimated revenue loss of P41 billion. However, the DOF also said the value-added tax collections pegged at P14 billion may help offset the losses. Bernadette D. Nicolas

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Malaysia constructors eager to do projects for ‘Build, Build, Build’

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NVESTMENTS from Malaysia could accelerate further in the next few months, as construction and engineering firms are here to explore opportunities in the “Build, Build, Build” program. Siti Azlina Mohd Ali Hanafiah of the Malaysia External Trade Development Corp. (Matrade) said Malaysian firms are keen on helping the Duterte administration finish some of its public infrastructure. “One of the sectors that we are really looking at in the Philippines is construction because of the Build, Build, Build policy by President Duterte, which Malaysia is very much interested to be part of,” she said on Tuesday. The Matrade Manila trade commissioner said a mission earlier this month composed of construction and engineering firms “aggressively promoted” their services to the Philippines. They pitched their underground infrastructure works, such as pipe jacking, and building information management offerings to potential Philippine partner firms. This, in turn, could boost Malaysian investments in the Philippines. According to Matrade, investments from Januar y to June amounted to $69.38 million, nearly sevenfold the $9.39 million recorded for the whole of last year. On the other hand, Matrade

1st eco-airport. . . T he IC AO four-letter code will be “RPSP” instead of the old “RPVT.” Cebu Pacific Flight 5J 619, from Manila, will be the first flight to land at the new Bohol Panglao International Airport when it opens for commercial operations. The flight is scheduled to depart Manila at 5:55am and land at the new airport in Bohol at 7:30am on November 28. The return flight, 5J 620, bound for Manila, will be the first to take off from the new airport. That flight is estimated to depart Bohol at 8:00am, with estimated time of arrival in Manila at 9:25am. CEB has been mounting flights to and from Tagbilaran since 2004, flying close to 3 million passengers over the past 18 years.

Notice to airmen

THE Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) said that starting November 28, 2018, all flights to and from Bohol will arrive at and depart from the new Bohol Panglao International Airport (BPIA), located in Barangay Tawala, municipality of Panglao, on Panglao Island. The old Tagbilaran Airport, located in Tagbilaran City proper, will be closed effective at 6:00 am on November 28. In a notice to airmen (Notam), the Caap said the new BPIA will be the sole commercial airport serving the province of Bohol, including the City of Tagbilaran and Panglao Island. Meanwhile, legacy carrier Phil-

Mislatel. . .

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“That’s our only concern.” Sen. Grace Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Services, expressed apprehension over the lawsuit to be filed by Singson’s group as it may delay the rollout of the third telco player. Poe urged the NTC and other related government agencies to take necessary steps to scrutinize the winning third telco player. “We do not want to make it longer. We already need the additional services. That’s why my appeal to

$69.38M Malaysian investments in the Philippines from January to June 2018, according to Matrade—nearly sevenfold the $9.39 million recorded for the entire 2018

Deputy CEO Sharimahton Mat Saleh said a market immersion mission visiting the country is expected to find partner-firms here. The trade delegation is part of Malaysia’s efforts to expand its trade with fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) economies. She claimed Malaysia’s intraAsean trade only made up 22.9 percent of its total trade last year. “We believe there is a lot more potential that we can explore within Asean member-states. We would like to see this number grow,” Sharimahton argued. The firms are mostly involved in the generation of power and manufacturing of car parts, industrial lubricants, building construction materials, and food and beverage. According to Sharimahton, these companies have a revenue size of $50 million annually. Elijah Felice E. Rosales

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ippine Airlines (PAL) said passengers departing from Bohol/Tagbilaran on the following PAL and PAL Express f lights on November 28 and beyond should proceed directly to the new Bohol Panglao airport: ■ PR 2774 to Manila ■ PR 2778 to Manila ■ PR 2872 to Clark ■ PR 2373 to Davao ■ PR 1482 (2P 1482) to Seoul Incheon Passengers f lying to Bohol/ Tagbilaran on the following PAL flights will arrive at the new Bohol Panglao airport. Passengers are advised to adjust pick up or transport arrangements accordingly: ■ PR 2773 from Manila ■ PR 2777 from Manila ■ PR 2871 from Clark ■ PR 2372 from Davao ■ PR 1483 (2P 1483) from Seoul Incheon The PAL ticket office at the decommissioned Tagbilaran Airport will remain open until December 15, to service passengers during a three-week transition period. The PAL Tagbilaran City ticket office, likewise, remains open. While the PAL ticket office at Panglao Airport is being set up, PAL check-in counters at the new airport will be able to issue tickets if necessary. Land travel from the Tagbilaran city center to Panglao Airport is approximately 40 minutes. There is no need to reissue or reroute tickets, as all currently issued tickets for travel to or from TAG remain valid. Lorenz S. Marasigan, Recto L. Mercene the agencies, I think NTC has a good intention, but I think before they accept the company, they should conduct a background check,” Poe said in an interview with reporters after the hearing. “First and foremost, check if the company has a legitimate franchise. That’s easy to check if they are compliant or not. They can also check the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] and check also the NTC,” Poe added. During the Senate hearing, disqualified bidder PT&T also brought up the validity of Mislatel’s legislative franchise. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

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The Nation BusinessMirror

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Wednesday, November 28, 2018 A3

‘Siege’ on Duterte turf triggers panic; tougher sanctions vs cyberterrorism eyed By Manuel T. Cayon

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@awimailbox Mindanao Bureau Chief & Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

AVAO CITY—A predawn raid on Monday on a New People’s Army (NPA) safehouse triggered a scare and sowed panic among residents here, as they reposted and shared supposed accounts of an encounter and labeled these as yet another attempt by the Maute Group to lay siege to the home turf of President Duterte reminiscent of what transpired in Marawi City last year.

At the Senate, the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugsismullingoverthepassage of remedial legislation imposing tougherpenaltiesnotjustagainst those who commit terrorist acts, but also expands its coverage to include “those who abuse social media and money transfer services” to further terrorist ends, according to the panel chairman, Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson Sr. He also confirmed members of his committee are “studying the inputs on the issues” raised at LACSON the committee hearing on antiterrorism legislation. Many schools in the southern suburbs in Davao suspended regular classes early afternoon and students were told to go straight home as parents milled outside the school gates to demand access to their children as Facebook posts popped up panic messages about the Maute Group staging a repeat of the violent and devastating siege of Marawi City a year ago. The police later posted an account of the predawn raid it jointly conducted with the military at a former beach resort turned slum area in Talomo, some 10 kilometers west of downtown. It said the raid was intended to serve an arrest warrant of a guerrilla leader bearing the nom de guerre Jeffrey, alleged commander of the NPA Pulang Bagani Command, which is known to operate in the northern hinterlands of the city. The Davao City Police Office said the target of the joint military and police operation was a house in Purok 10, Talomo Cemento, formerly the popular public Victorio Beach Resort. The raid was conducted at 1:30 a.m. but it said the raiding and arresting team appeared to have been detected. The police said the team of Jeffrey shot it out with the arresting team and hurled grenades as they fled the area. Police Chief Supt. Marcelo Morales, the regional police chief, said Jeffrey was wanted for murder, serious illegal detention, robbery in band, and attempted murder. He said the NPA guerrillas escaped in the dark through the cramped alleys and houses in what was once a beach resort. There was no casualty from the government side during the encounter. Police recovered an M16-A1 rifle with a magazine loaded with 20 bullets and another spare short magazine loaded with 16 bullets. Operatives also found five pieces of Claymore mines and two improvised explosives.

Police power vs. terror

“WE must be clear,” Lacson said. “The State must take immediate action in the exercise of its exercise of its police powers to address the threat of terrorism.” Lacson, however, affirmed that his committee will “make sure such provisions do not violate the constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.” He clarified that this is “in the context of the State dealing with terrorism, and as such it needs immediate action in the exercise of its police powers to abate terrorism.” This, even as Atty. Marwil Llasos of the Institute of International Legal Studies informed the committee during the hearing that social media has been used as a means of radicalization. Anything harmful to public safety and public order can be regulated by the state, he added. Moreover, Llasos noted law-enforcement agencies like the National Bureau of Investigation can take down social-media accounts for offenses such as cyberlibel. The committee, likewise, learned other countries also have the authority to shut down social-media accounts deemed inimical to the national interest. The Lacson committee indicated they are also keen to study another issue brought up during the hearing involving the potential “use of money transfer services to finance terrorist activities.” At the same time, Lacson asserted the need for a mechanism in the Executive department that would keep President Duterte updated on terrorist threats. “In the United States, the President receives a daily executive brief,” the senator said, adding: “There is need for a regular update to allow quick analysis, submitted on a regular basis. If not daily, at least weekly or monthly, to assist

in the decision-making process.” He explained that such a mechanism can also avoid repeat of the problems encountered by authorities in the 2001 Dos Palmas incident, where

the Abu Sayyaf abducted 20 hostages at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan. Lacson, who headed the Philippine National Police from 1999 to 2001, filed Senate Bill 1956 seeking to en-

hance the Human Security Act of 2007 with provisions on foreign terrorists and aditional predicate crimes, after noting that “gaps in the law prevented authorities from implementing it properly.”

A4 Wednesday, November 28, 2018 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Ordinance to freeze real-property tax hike in QC hurdles 3rd, final reading By Jonathan L Mayuga @jonlmayuga

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HE Quezon City Council has recently approved on third and final reading an ordinance proposing to suspend the increase in the fair market values (FMV) of real properties in Quezon City. The proposed measure aims to ease the burden on taxpayers who are still reeling from the brunt of inflation caused by the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law. Ordinance 20CC-497 was ratified by the city council following plenary debates and approval by the committees on Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Laws, Rules and Internal Government. Under the proposed measure, the council is seeking to suspend the FMV hike for two years—for 2018 and 2019 —to “temper the effect of a significant price increase of commodities, especially to residents of Quezon City.” The collection of real-property taxes for 2018 and 2019 will then be based on the 1996 Schedule of Fair Market Values. The FMV in Quezon City were last adjusted in December 1995, and the city really needs to raise market values since it’s long overdue. But Councilor Franz Pumaren, who serves as majority floor leader in the council, underscored the need to suspend the collection due to the consequences of inflation. In a news statement issued on Tuesday, Pumaren cited Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia’s announcement on the suspension of additional excise tax on oil under

the second tranche of the TRAIN law set to take effect in January 2019. “Our economic managers have agreed that the priority right now is to reduce, and not add to the burden of taxpayers and consumers. We’re following suit in the interest of Quezon City residents,” Pumaren pointed out. The proposed ordinance seeks to suspend the implementation of Ordinance SP-2556, which was passed in 2016 and that enacts an updated schedule of FMVs for land and basic unit construction costs for buildings and other structures in Quezon City. This, in turn, would marginally increase real-property taxes in the city. To cushion the increase, the city council moved for the adjustment of the assessment level as set by the City Assessor’s Office from 18 percent to 5 percent for residential properties, and from 45 percent to 14 percent for commercial and industrial properties. Ordinance SP-2556 was anchored on a 2010 joint memorandum from the Departments of Local Government and Finance that mandated local government units to revise property assessments and classifications. The Commission on Audit, likewise, pushed for a more up-todate assessment of real-property values in the city. The said ordinance was put on hold in 2016 on the strength of a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the Supreme Court following a petition filed by the Alliance of Quezon City Homeowner’s Association Inc. questioning the legality of the ordinance. The TRO was lifted by the SC on September 18 and ruled in favor of the city government.

Economy BusinessMirror

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PHL lands on top 10 list of ‘most attractive’ markets for clean energy

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By Cai U. Ordinario

@caiordinario

HE Philippines is one of the most attractive markets for clean energy investments, according to a recent study published by the Bloomberg NEF. This year’s Climatescope Emerging Market Outlook showed the country ranked 6th out of 103 economies with a score of 2.29. This is the first time the Philippines was included in the study. Only the Philippines and Thailand were included in the top 10 countries that are the most attractive for clean energy investment. Thailand was ranked 10th in the study. “There has been staggered renewables build, and the country plans to hit 15.3 gigawatts of renewableenergy [RE] capacity by 2030 and total generating capacity of about 65 GW by 2040,” the study stated. “With a large increase in forecast demand there is potential for renewables to grab part of the pie.” The study evaluated the presence of fundamentals, opportunities and experience in countries that will encourage the growth and development of clean energy investments. The Philippines scored 2.95 in

fundamentals, 1.54 in opportunities and 1.71 in experience. Fundamentals account for 50 percent of the score, while opportunities and experience account for 25 percent each. These fundamentals refer to clean energy policies, power sector structure and regulation, as well as any local barriers that might obstruct RE development. The study explained that a country with comprehensive and strong policies and a more liberalized power sector tends to be more welcoming to private investment than one with weaker frameworks and lesser degree of liberalization. “Two major laws, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act and Renewable Energy Act, have incentivized growth in the Philippines’s renewable sector,” the study explained. “The government has also opened more options for developers to sign power supply agreements directly

with customers with a large enough demand. It also mandated utilities to facilitate retail opportunities for customers wanting renewable power through a Green Energy Option program,” it added. Opportunities, meanwhile, referred to a country’s current and future electricity demand, its energy consumption, and its carbon-dioxide emissions from the power sector, along with overall price attractiveness, short- and medium-term opportunities for RE procurement, history of corporate commitment with sustainability and existing electrification rates. The study stated that this aims to seek to encapsulate the future opportunities for clean energy growth available in a country. In terms of experience, the study stated that this refers to a country’s volume of installed clean energy, historical levels of RE investment and the comprehensiveness of its nonmanufacturing clean energy value chains. The Climatescope report also said markets with greater experience deploying RE capacity typically offer lower risks, lower technology costs and lower costs of capital for investors. “A feed-in-tariff has spurred 1.052 GW of renewables growth, and behind-the-meter policies have achieved an impressive 50 megawatts of distributed resources. Over

the past two decades, the Philippines went through significant energy reform, including opening the power industry to the private sector,” the study read. Apart from the Philippines and Thailand, other countries that were included on the top 10 were Chile which ranked first overall followed by India, second; Jordan, third; Brazil, fourth; Rwanda, fifth; China, seventh; Mexico, eighth; and Peru, ninth. For 2018 the Climatescope project was expanded and updated by increasing the number of countries included to 103, aside from 100 nations classified by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as less developed. The survey also includes three countries—Chile, Mexico and Turkey—that are an important part of the developing-nation story but are not technically classified as non-OECD. As a result of this expansion, Climatescope now offers a comprehensive snapshot of virtually all developing nations. T h i s y e a r ’s C l i m at e s c o p e Emerging Market Outlook represents the collective effort of 42 BloombergNEF analysts who made 54 country visits to collect data and conduct inter views. The study was again supported by the UK Department for International Development.

Beijing seeks increased trade, Chinese firm to pour $100M into textile park economic ties with Manila at Cagayan ecozone By Leslie Gatpolintan | Philippines News Agency

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

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@alyasjah

CHINESE company is investing $100 million for the construction and development of a green textile industry park at the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport. In a news statement issued on Tuesday, the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority said China Zhejiang Guannan Group is finalizing the terms for its $100-million textileproduction facility in the economic zone. Officials of the firm were in Manila this week to prepare the memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Ceza. Ceza Administrator and Chief Executive Officer Raul L. Lambino said the new Chinese venture is a “bold [venture] since it will break new ground” in the economic zone. The Ceza is trying to diversify its industry portfolio currently dominated by financial technology firms. Once China Zhejiang enters the economic zone, it will be classified as a locator. Lambino said up to 10,000 hectares of land in Sta. Ana, and other towns in Cagayan could be developed to accommodate the requirements of the green textile industrial park. He added China Zhejiang will build its own power and water plants, sewerage-disposal facility and waste-processing plant, among other infrastructures needed to operate the industrial park. The project is now awaiting approval from the Ceza board of directors. China Zhejiang is engaged in textile production, as well as in real-estate development across Asia. Lambino also claimed the firm could diversify its investment portfolio in the country. After the textile production facility, he said, it might consider developing townships and real estate, following its successful projects in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shaoxing. Last Friday Lambino said growth in the economic zone will be investment-driven to ensure the Ceza’s diversified industry portfolio. He added the agency will not rely on cryptocurrency and blockchain operations for its revenue stream, as it expands its offering to industrial and tourism investments.

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HINA is keen to increase its trade and economic ties with the Philippines, as it stands ready to support the country’s sustained growth, according to officials of the Chinese Embassy. “We still have a lot more potential to boost our bilateral trade,” Chargé d’affaires Tan Qingsheng said at the China-Philippines Business Forum on Monday. Tan cited the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Philippines last week when China agreed to open the door for more fresh coconuts and frozen fruits from the country. “[This] will further increase the imports from the Philippines, and benefit the ordinary Filipino farmers,” he said. Tan pointed out that China has imported more than 2 million tons of tropical fruits worth $1.5 billion from the Philippines. In more than two years, China has become the Philippines’s largest trading partner, largest export market and largest source of imports, he added. Bilateral trade has reached $50 billion in 2017, Tan said. The Chinese Embassy official also considered economic cooperation a “win-win choice” for both countries and should be the “bedrock” of their relations. “Promoting sustainable economic growth and social development is the priority of President Duterte’s government. China is ready to provide our financial and technical support to the development of the Philippines,” Tan said. He, however, underscored the need for China and the Philippines to provide an enabling environment for their enterprises to invest in each other’s country. “Infrastructure is one of the key areas of cooperation. China attaches great importance to the Philippines’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ plan. We have made substantive progress in pressing ahead with some key infrastructure projects,” he added.

Customs operations yield ₧306M worth of smuggled rice, cigarettes in ARMM

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USTOMS authorities, backed by intelligence and Coast Guard operatives, recently seized suspected smuggled rice, sugar and cigarettes worth P306 million in several areas of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), as the government strengthens its antismuggling operations in the region. Authorities embarked on an antismuggling drive in Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, in line with the recent issuance of Customs Com-

missioner Rey Leonardo B. Guerrero of seven letters of Authority to curb hoarding and smuggling operations in the area. The warehouses that underwent inspection were Hadji Warid Warehouse 1, 2 and 3; Minham, Minham 2; Jundilan Warehouse 1 and 2; and Almali Marketing that yielded 100,000 bags of rice and 30,000 bags of sugar with an estimated value of P160 million. The inspection at the Baliwasan Warehouse 1, meanwhile, yielded

30,090 bags of rice and 20 bags of sugar worth P30 million; while Baliwasan Warehouse 2 yielded 28,000 bags of rice worth P56 million. A separate operation on board MV Maria Rebecca yielded 85 cartons of cigarettes worth P4.9 million. A similar inspection on board M/B RJ Express yielded 5,081 bags of rice worth around P5 million. A subsequent operation on board MV Hulk, meanwhile, yielded some 50,000 bags of rice worth P50 million. Rea Cu

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

The World BusinessMirror

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

Global trade at stake as Trump meets Xi at Group of 20 summit

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ASHINGTON—To hear President Donald J. Trump tell it, he was made for a moment like this: A high-stakes face-off. A ticking clock. A cagey adversary. MARS TOUCHDOWN This photo provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration shows an image on

Mars that its spacecraft called InSight acquired using its robotic arm-mounted Instrument Deployment Camera after it landed on the planet on Monday. The Nasa spacecraft designed to drill down into Mars’s interior landed on the planet on Monday after a perilous, supersonic plunge through its red skies, setting off jubilation among scientists who had waited in white-knuckle suspense for confirmation to arrive across 100 million miles of space. Story on page A11. NASA VIA AP

The man who calls himself a supreme dealmaker will have the opportunity this week to put himself to the test. The question is whether he can defuse a trade war with China that is shaking financial markets and threatening the global economy—and perhaps achieve something approximating a breakthrough. Trump is to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Friday and Saturday. Unless the two leaders can achieve a truce of sorts, their conf licts will likely escalate: On January 1, the tariffs Trump has imposed on many Chinese goods are set to rise from 10 percent to 25 percent, and Beijing would likely retaliate. Most analysts say they doubt Trump and Xi will reach any overarching deal that would settle the dispute for good. The optimistic view is that the two sides may agree to a cease-fire that would buy time for more substantive talks and postpone the scheduled escalation in US import taxes. Yet no one really knows. Each side seems prepared to wait out the other in a conflict that could persist indefinitely. In advance of the meeting, Trump has sounded his usual note of boastful confidence. Speaking to reporters on Thanksgiving Day, he said: “I’m very prepared. You know, it’s not like, ‘Oh, gee, I’m going to sit down and

study.’ I know every stat. I know it better than anybody knows it. And my gut has always been right.” Most trade analysts are skeptical that any significant agreement is likely this week. “Expectations should be very low,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Institute and a former US trade official who negotiated with China. “We need to be very clear-eyed. It’s going to be a very difficult negotiation. The issues at hand don’t lend themselves to quick solutions.” The trade war erupted last fall after Trump imposed import taxes on $250 billion of Chinese goods, and Beijing retaliated with tariffs on US exports. The justification for the US move, according to Trump, is that Beijing has long deployed predatory tactics in its drive to supplant America’s technological dominance. The administration alleges—and many trade experts agree—that Beijing hacks into US companies’ networks to steal trade secrets and forces American and other foreign companies to hand over sensitive technology as the price of access to China’s market. Beijing disputes those allegations and asserts that Trump’s sanctions are merely an effort to hinder an ambitious rival. Besides the scheduled escalation in US tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods—an additional $50 billion in Chinese imports already face the higher tax—another threat

MALAYSIAN RESORT FIRM SUES DISNEY, FOX OVER THEME PARK

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UALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Resort developer Genting Malaysia has filed a lawsuit in California seeking at least $1 billion in damages from Walt Disney Co. and Fox Entertainment Group for alleged breach of contract related to a theme park, the company said on Tuesday. The lawsuit filed Monday in the Central California District Court cites damages from Fox’s withdrawal from an agreement set in 2013 to license its intellectual property for a Fox World theme park in Resort World Genting, a sprawling facility perched on a mountain in Malaysia. The theme park would have been Fox’s first. According to Genting’s complaint, Fox issued a “notice of default” aimed at ending the agreement. Despite disagreements over the specific terms of the deal, Genting said in a statement that Fox had no grounds to pull out. The complaint also alleges that Disney and 21st Century Fox interfered with the contract and caused Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising, part of Fox Entertainment, to breach it. Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox raised issues because Genting’s resort includes a casino, which conflicts with Disney’s stance against gambling. Genting says it has invested nearly $180 million in the Fox project. Its most recent quarterly report said the group was focused on developing its resort and on preparing to roll out the “highly anticipated 20th Century Fox World Theme Park,” as well as another attraction, the Skytropolis indoor theme park. The opening of the Fox themed park had been planned for the first half of 2019. AP

looms: Trump has threatened to tax $267 billion more in Chinese imports. At that point, just about everything Beijing ships to the United States would face a higher import tax. Growing concerns that the trade war will increasingly hurt corporate earnings and the US economy are a key reason US stock prices have been sinking. As of Friday’s close, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has shed roughly 10 of its value since setting a record-high September 20. Joining other forecasters, economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last week downgraded their outlook for global economic growth next year to 3.5 percent, from a previous 3.7 percent. In doing so, they cited the trade conflict, as well as political uncertainty. Some big US companies, in reporting quarterly earnings in October, warned that they were absorbing higher costs from Trump’s increased tariffs, which have been imposed not only on Chinese goods but also on imported steel and other goods from other countries. “We need some certainty,” said Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council and a former American diplomat. “The US and China cannot go into a trade war and not affect global markets.... We need to resolve our differences.” Yet, as Trump and Xi prepare to meet, the backdrop is hardly encouraging. Acrimony between the two sides disrupted this month’s AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea. The 21 Apec countries, torn by differences between Beijing and Washington, failed to agree on a declaration on world trade for the first time in nearly three decades. Vice President Mike Pence and Xi sniped at each other in speeches.

Then last week, US Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer issued a report charging China’s efforts to steal US trade secrets have “ increased in f requenc y a nd soph i st ication” this year despite American sanctions. “China fundamentally has not altered its acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation, and indeed appears to have taken further unreasonable actions in recent months,” the report concluded. The tenor of the report suggested that the United States would take a hard line into this week’s talks. In the meantime, “the amount of uncertainty is unprecedented and very disquieting to the markets,” said Allen of the US-China Business Council. Tr ump himself sought Monday to increase the pressure on China. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said it was “ highly unlikely” that he would agree to Beijing’s request to suspend the tariff hikes that are set to take effect January 1. And he repeated his threat to target an additional $267 billion in Chinese imports with tariffs of 10 percent or 25 percent. Clouding the outlook are mixed messages from the Trump administration. The White House appears divided between hawks like Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, and free traders like the top White House economic adviser, Larry Kudlow. On November 9, Navarro delivered a combative speech suggesting that Trump didn’t care what Wall Street thought of his confrontational China policy. Four days later, Kudlow went on CNBC and dismissed Navarro’s remarks as “way off base.” “ They were not authorized by anybody,” Kudlow said. “I actually think he did the president a great disservice.” AP

G.M. TO LAY OFF 14,000 WORKERS, CLOSE AS MANY AS FIVE PLANTS

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ETROIT—General Motors (GM) will cut up to 14,000 workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it abandons many of its car models and restructures to focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles, the automaker announced on Monday. The reductions could amount to as much as 8 percent of GM’s global work force of 180,000 employees. The restructuring reflects changing North American auto markets as manufacturers continue to shift away from cars toward sportutility vehicles and trucks. In October almost 65 percent of new vehicles sold in the US were trucks or SUVs. That figure was about 50 percent cars just five years ago. GM is shedding cars largely because it doesn’t make money on them, Citi analyst Itay Michaeli wrote in a note to investors. “We estimate sedans operate at a significant loss, hence the need for classic restructuring,” he wrote. Hours after the announcement, President Donald J. Trump said his administration and lawmakers were exerting “a lot of pressure” on GM. He said he told the company that the US has done a lot for GM, and that if its cars aren’t selling, the company needs to produce ones that will. Trump, who has made bringing back auto jobs a big part of his appeal to Ohio and other Great Lakes states that are crucial to his reelection, also said he was being tough on General Motors CEO Mary Barra. At a rally near GM’s Lordstown, Ohio, plant last summer, Trump told people not to sell their

homes because the jobs are “all coming back.” The layoffs come amid the backdrop of a trade war between the US, China and Europe that likely will lead to higher prices for imported vehicles and those exported from the United States. Barra said the company faces challenges from tariffs, but she did not directly link the layoffs to them. The planned reduction includes about 8,000 white-collar employees, or 15 percent of GM’s North American white-collar workforce. Some will take buyouts, while others will be laid off. At the factories, around 3,300 blue-collar workers could lose jobs in the US and another 2,600 in Canada, but some US workers could transfer to truck or SUV factories that are increasing production. The cuts mark GM’s first major downsizing since shedding thousands of jobs in the Great Recession. The company also said it will stop operating two additional factories outside North America by the end of next year, in addition to a previously announced plant closure in Gunsan, South Korea. General Motors Co.’s preemptive strike to get leaner before the next downturn likely will be followed by Ford Motor Co., which has said it is restructuring and will lay off an unspecified number of white-collar workers. Toyota Motor Corp. also has discussed cutting costs, even though it’s building a new assembly plant in Alabama. GM isn’t the first to abandon much of the car market. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles got out of small and midsize cars two years ago, while Ford announced plans to shed all cars but the Mustang sports car in the US in the coming years. AP

A BusinessMirror Special Feature

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

A9

SUNTRUST AT 21: CONTINUOUSLY BUILDING

FILIPINO HOUSEHOLDS’ DREAMS

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By Roderick L. Abad

ISING from the test of time while building homes for every Juan, Suntrust Properties Inc. has just turned 21— steadfast and tenacious enough to face another chapter of its business, while covering a bigger scope of the market amid internal factors besetting the entire real estate industry at present. “Now on our third decade, we are starting to refocus more on going back to all existing buyers and see how we can take good care of them,” said Atty. Harrison M. Paltongan, president of Suntrust Properties. “That’s why we have this motto, which is ‘Inspire to Aspire.’” This new mantra, according to him, encourages their employees and the entire sales team to grow and long for something greater to better serve the company’s growing clientele. As for the latter, he added that it motivates prospective buyers to be desirous of owning a Suntrust home. “We want our existing buyers, who after getting a low-priced unit before, upgrade to higher value units” Paltongan said. Starting by just catering only to the lower-end market in 1997— the time when the Asian financial crisis crippled economies in the region—Suntrust has expanded a lot in the course of time. And just recently, the firm acquired property developer Stateland Inc., thus, enabling it to offer a diverse range of housing products that cut across market segments. This new addition is dedicated to socialized, economic and lowcost housing projects—all offering dwelling units priced below P3 million. Suntrust will stick to its domain that includes the middle, upper-middle and high-end markets. “We are telling our buyers that we have also these inventories for them to expand or invest in,” he said.

Milestone projects

AS expected from a daring developer that was brave enough to play in the housing industry—one of the affected sectors during the regional economic downturn 21 years ago— Suntrust boasts of robust residential projects in its portfolio, wheth-

er vertical or horizontal. “Many of our projects are huge projects. And if we are talking about subdivisions, they are done in phases; condominiums, they are done in towers,” Paltongan noted. Of late, the company has turned over a lot of condominium units in the metropolis. These were spread across Suntrust’s Adriatico Gardens, UN Gardens, and Park View—all located in Manila—and the Treetop Villas in Mandaluyong. In Quezon City, the firm also has delivered most of its inventories in Shanata in Novaliches and Capitol Plaza, which is the tallest building at the back of the City Hall. Dwelling units at the Asmara along E. Rodriguez are soon to be delivered to their respective owners. Outside of Metro Manila, the property developer already passed on to the buyers their purchased houses in subdivisions, namely, Sta. Rosa Heights, Sta. Rosa Hills, Verona, and The Mandara, all in Silang, Cavite, Governor Hills, The Gentri Heights in General Trias, Cavite, Cyberville and Sunrise Hills in Dasmarinas Cavite. “Those are the projects that we were able to turn over today,” the SPI president, while adding their expansion has gone as far as other areas of Luzon and even the mid and southern parts of the country. Suntrust has also begun developing projects in Baguio. It has just topped off its pioneering condo project there called the 88 Gibraltar situated at the Mines View Park. Target turnover will be by the first quarter of 2020. Construction of the Mist, another vertical project in the Summer Capital, is set to commence soon. In Central Luzon, Suntrust’s subsidiary, Stateland, Inc., has acquired a 22-hectare (ha) property in Porac, Pampanga. Within this

program of television giant ABSCBN to take advantage of its reach. “We also believe in their concept of encouraging people to dream that’s why we are proud to be the official home partner of Pinoy Big Brother Otso. Both parties believe in the Filipino’s power to dream, and we want to be part of that. We want their dreams to become their reality.”

Celebration for a cause

sprawling estate, the company plans to develop either a subdivision or a condo. Together with parent company Megaworld Corp., Suntrust is developing the North Hill Gateway, a township project in Bacolod. This 50-ha property will have a commercial space and residential communities, Megaworld’s Forbes Hill and Suntrust’s Fountain Grove. Apart from Talisay and Cadiz City in Negros Occidental, wherein the company recently bought a parcel of land for development, Suntrust is setting its sights on other areas in the Visayas region for its future undertakings. As far as Mindanao, the company has also established its presence in Davao City, again with the real estate giant led by business tycoon Andrew Tan. Both are developing the Davao Park District, also a township project comprised of

office, commercial and residential establishments. Right at this 11-ha property, 7 has. are devoted for the construction of condo towers. Meanwhile, the development of the 27-ha estate in Tagum City is almost complete, wherein the dwelling component will soon rise. Other residential projects of Suntrust, likewise, include those of the newly acquired Stateland, such as the Washington Place in Dasmariñas, Cavite; San Francisco Place and San Francisco Heights in Calamba, Laguna; and Gran Avila, among others. The real estate player is also involved in the industrial park segment though its subsidiary, Suntrust Ecotown Developers, with the Ecotown Tanza project in Cavite. The first portion of this Peza-registered initiative at 111 hectares is already sold out for export-oriented locators. “The buyers are now doing

their warehouses or factories there. And then the next one [has an area of] 46 hectares. We will expand further as we go along,” the top executive said of their plan to also build residential and commercial establishments. “So it will become a self-sustaining development… We have a very big captive market [there], which are the workers of the industrial park.”

Vibrant business

UNFAZED by the humongous housing backlog in the country and the challenges now being faced by the real estate industry, Suntrust has continued to perform well as evident in its robust financial indicators. He also cited their sponsorship of the country’s biggest reality show–Pinoy Big Brother. Now on its eighth edition, the company has decided to support this top-rating

FOLLOWING the success of its Foundation Day revelry last year, Suntrust continued the bash with a noble purpose as it held an Olympic-like event at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City on Thursday. With around 500 chosen participants by their contractors, Paltongan said that the 21st anniversary celebration was a fun-filled activity out of the benevolence of their employees. “Our tagline is ‘The happiest days of your life begin here.’ So we want to live with that. And who will deliver these products? These are the site construction workers,” he said. “So we wanted them to feel that they are a part of a bigger group, which is Suntrust.” This event, likewise, gave the company’s 500 employees and sales teams the opportunity to become a “giver” by voluntarily chipping in their resources in the form of food and non-food items as prizes for the games and raffle draws. “We were explaining to them that when we talk about family, it includes also our site construction workers. And we want to give them an opportunity, knowing that they are more blessed, to share a bit of those blessings,” Paltongan noted. “So if we have what we call ‘malasakit,’ we are hoping that each one of them will do their work very well [and] that there will be no complaints about their works so that the buyers will love what they do and we could have buyers who will come to purchase more.” Cliche it may be, but doing good unto others indeed has a “good” karma effect. That being said, success apparently has worked for Suntrust for more than two decades in the business.

A10 Wednesday, November 28, 2018 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

Protecting PHL farmers from cheap rice imports

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HE advent of the Internet appears to have changed the thought process of some government officials. Doing things on the fly—a trait that is common among heavy users of social media—has become the norm. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way the government is handling the massive shift in the country’s rice policy. In a few weeks, the Philippines will soon remove a measure that has allowed the government to prevent the influx of cheap rice imports. Dubbed “quantitative restriction,” the nontariff barrier has been in place for 23 years. Among all agricultural products, rice enjoyed protection for more than two decades. The protection will soon be gone after the bicameral conference committee approved the rice tariffication bill. President Duterte is expected to sign the measure into law soon. Removing the barrier this year was one of the commitments of the Philippines to the World Trade Organization and has been promised by the President. Economic managers pushed hard for the nontariff barrier, which made rice more expensive in recent years. Measures to help farmers cope with the lifting of the QR, however, would be rolled out after the law takes effect. The government is keeping its fingers crossed in the hope that cheap imports will not enter the country right after the removal of the nontariff barrier. One of the President’s economic managers said that there would be a lag in the effect of the shift in the country’s policy so rice prices will not go down immediately. The lag is just a temporary reprieve and the government is practically leaving the fate of rice farmers to chance. Initiatives that would cushion the impact of the scrapping of the QR should have been put in place even before the government firmed up its decision to do away with it. We are not sure if the government is aware of the serious effect of the shift in rice policy, considering that 2.4 million rice farmers and their families are in danger of losing their livelihood as a consequence. Many experts have projected a steep decline in farm-gate prices of palay once traders step up their import activities. Compounding the farmers’ problem is the uncertainty in the role of the National Food Authority (NFA) once the QR is lifted because the bicam-approved bill has removed its licensing power. It also remains to be seen whether the so-called Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund will serve its intended purpose. The bill includes a provision to set up this fund, which will consist of all tariffs collected from imports. On paper, as with all other statesponsored programs, the RCEF looks good. How the government will ensure that the funds will not be channeled to other initiatives is another matter. Previous administrations wasted more than two decades as they failed to prepare the rice sector for stiff competition while the QR was in place. As time has become the biggest challenge to prepare the sector for the massive shift, we hope that the safeguards instituted in the bill will be enough to shield 2.4 million farmers from the potential harmful effects brought about by the influx of cheap rice imports. Since 2005

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Human rights need accused state’s power Teddy Locsin Jr.

FREE FIRE Continued from A1

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HANK you, Mr. Chair. “We reaffirm that human rights, the rule of law and democracy are abiding and independent concerns; each to be imperatively observed in its own right but also mutually reinforcing. The fullest practical realization of each is accomplished with the indispensable help of the others. “Human rights need clearer legal definition; independent from a passing sense of grievance and outrage by well-meaning groups. The rule of law would be a selfmockery if it were not dependable, predictable and protective of human rights. And democracy would be mob rule—the worst kind—if its purpose were not the enforcement of human rights. “These three depend on essential attributes: the sovereignty and the equality of states; the integrity of national territory; and noninterference by foreign powers in domestic affairs. These requisites are as old as Mill; and go hand in hand with the democratic self-determination of peoples with regard to their respective national interest about which no one else has the competence to tell them. That determination cannot be made— unilaterally or multilaterally—by

any one but the people of that nation themselves. “There is also the practical consideration that only states have the wherewithal to guarantee human rights, preserve the rule of law and protect democracy. The United Nations is primarily about what states oblige themselves to do as members of the UN; and not whatever strikes the fancy of individuals and groups regarding grievances they find important. “Integral to the rule of law is the pacific settlement of disputes between states—and not between states and organized crime like the drug cartels. The 1982 Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes is the authoritative articulation of our collective duty under the UN Charter to peacefully resolve disputes in the international arena. “The declaration highlights

stronger international cooperation—not international interference—in dismantling illicit networks and countering the world drug problem, as well as suppressing transnational organized crime; which include money laundering, trafficking in persons, trafficking in arms and other forms of organized crimes which threaten human rights, the rule of law, democracy, the security of societies and nations—and undermine sustainable development by undermining these imperative concerns. “The secretary-general’s report notes the withdrawal of the Philippines from the ICC. The decision to withdraw is the Philippines’s principled stand against those who politicize human rights, even as our country’s independent and well-functioning organs and agencies continue to exercise jurisdiction over complaints, issues, problems and concerns arising from its efforts to protect its people. True, as in all democracies, the wheels of justice grind slowly and not always exceeding fine; but they turn. We wish we could but we cannot give assurances to well-intentioned critics [like the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, which is asking for more convictions] that we will shortcut justice to give them immediate retribution. But that would undermine the rule of law. “We affirm our commitment to fight against impunity for atrocity crimes, notwithstanding our withdrawal from the Rome Statute, especially since the Philippines has national legislation punishing atrocity crimes.

“The Philippines remains strongly committed to an internationally legally binding instrument under Unclos on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction; to the UNCITRAL Convention on the Enforcement of Mediation Settlement, soon to be the Singapore Convention on Mediation and the work of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and of the arbitral and conciliation commissions concerning maritime issues. “We appreciate the work of the Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group, but note that we continue to be besieged by, not crosscutting but projects at cross purposes from different agencies completely unaware of each other’s initiatives, and with marginal consideration of our national priorities. UN agencies must take their lead from memberstates and at the member-states’ request. The UN is a collection of sovereignties and not a sovereign collective. “Consistent with our commitment to both the rule of law and the 2030 Agenda, the Philippines is presenting—for the second time— its Voluntary National Report on its implementation of the 2030 Agenda at next year’s High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development “Finally, we welcome the inclusion of a new agenda item entitled “Strengthening and promoting the international treaty framework.” The rule of international law would welcome finally meaning something concrete. Thank you.”

Ghosn’s a victim of the Nissan world he made

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By Anjani Trivedi | Bloomberg Opinion

OU reap what you sow. As the auto world makes sense of Carlos Ghosn’s sudden fall from grace at Nissan Motor Co., one thing is clear: The legendary executive was a victim of dismal corporate governance at the company he sat atop for decades. Allegations against Ghosn include under-reporting his income in securities filings and making personal use of company assets. The deposed chief executive denies wrongdoing in connection with the allegations, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported on Sunday. Unlike most scandals at Japanese companies in recent years, this one centers on personal rather than corporate misconduct. Several theories have been floated on the reasons for Ghosn’s downfall: an internal coup, axes to grind, too much power concentrated in one person. But how does a board blame the chairman for misleading the company about his pay? Why are the other directors or auditors not held responsible for

incorrect filings? Such ambiguity is only possible when decision-making bodies aren’t in place. Nissan lacks a board compensation committee, for example, which reviews executive pay and incentive plans. Such committees help create accountability and responsibility, corporate governance experts say. They can also help with oversight of succession planning, audit functions and new directors. Nissan had no board committees as of 2017. Ghosn may have turned Nissan around financially, ruthlessly slashed costs, and vaulted himself to star status, but the company remains steeped in outmoded traditions of corporate Japan. Nissan’s record shows as much.

His remuneration has long been a point of controversy in a country where executive pay and disclosure is a contentious subject, as we’ve written. In an interview with the Financial Times in June this year, Ghosn was asked whether it had ever occurred to him that he was paid too much. He laughed and reportedly told the interviewer: “You won’t have a CEO say ‘I’m overly compensated.’” Ghosn then added: “It’s not up to me, the board is sovereign on this.” Compensation at Nissan typically consists of cash and share appreciation rights, according to the company’s financial reports. In theory, the amount to be paid is based on performance and executive pay of a peer group of other large companies, benchmarked by an outside compensation consultation. Pay packages are then approved by the chairman of the board, rather than the board itself. If executive pay wasn’t under the purview of the board, then what was? The company is vague about how the chairman’s pay is determined and whether there is a separate process

for this. Ghosn has spoken often about scorecards and metrics for judging the performance of executives. How was his own performance judged? After a data falsification scandal last year, Nissan did little to improve governance. The company resisted outside directors for two years after Japan introduced a corporate governance code in 2015, according to Jefferies analyst Zuhair Khan, who has done extensive work on the topic. Nissan was one of 11 companies that balked, according to Khan. It finally added two new independent directors in April this year: One was a former racing-car driver and the other a retired bureaucrat with a background in energy. They joined a former Renault SA executive, whose independence is questionable given Nissan’s alliance with the French carmaker. Nissan approved the establishment of an advisory committee composed of independent directors only last week, after the Ghosn scandal broke. Such committees have See “Ghosn,” A11

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Opinion

Beijing builds a smarter ground game in Taiwan

Nasa’s InSight mission has touched down on Mars to study the red planet’s deep secrets

BusinessMirror

Richard McGregor

BLOOMBERG

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T least one thing is clear from local elections in Taiwan over the weekend—President Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost badly. Less clear, however, is how well Beijing won. In a slew of polls and referendums on the self-governed island, Tsai’s DPP lost key races in the party’s longstanding local strongholds and saw its progressive agenda on gay marriage and a tougher line against Beijing repudiated. The results bode poorly for the independence-leaning DPP and mark an unexpectedly strong comeback for the Kuomintang, or KMT, which suffered a humiliating defeat in the presidential elections in 2016. Beijing, which favors the KMT as the party of reunification, was thrilled and announced publicly that the results reflected the “strong will of the Chinese public” for better relations with the mainland. Tsai will now be looking forward to the January 2020 presidential elections with dread, while the KMT— written off as a spent force only two years ago—has been rejuvenated and emboldened. The repudiation of Tsai by the electorate is, on the face of it, unambiguously good for Beijing, which has increased economic and political pressure on Taiwan over the refusal of the DPP to toe the line on the one-China policy. It is less clear, though, how much cross-strait issues had to do with the result. For outsiders and Taiwanese alike, it has always been difficult to disentangle ordinary domestic politics—about the economy and the environment and such issues —from the perennial debate about how to handle China. This election is no different. Take, for example, the biggest upset of the night—the KMT’s victory in the southern metropolis of Kaohsiung, a city that has been a bastion of DPP power for more than two decades. The DPP’s overconfidence about its prospects in the city, and the KMT’s quirky candidate, Han Kuo-yu, produced an upset. Older voters liked Kuo’s unabashed brand of KMT patriotism, while younger Taiwanese admired his taste in hip-hop music and straight talking. But there was another factor, more difficult to measure, that helped Kuo across the line: the role of Beijing and its backing of the KMT and its grassroots party organizations. Beijing’s so-called influence operations have been in the news around the world in western democracies, in countries like the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, with critics accusing China of using local ethnicChinese front groups to influence domestic politics. Such operations are conducted by the Communist Party through multiple bodies, ranging from the People’s Liberation Army to the United Front Work Department, a ministry-level body dedicated to bolstering the party’s friends and marginalizing its enemies. Although much of the high-decibel debate has been in the West lately, proBeijing activists have always been more focused on places closer to home, notably Hong Kong and Taiwan. In the past, Beijing has been rightly accused of being tone-deaf about how its aggressive rhetoric on

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become the norm in Japan Inc. under the corporate governance code but don’t have legal status. The company also said it would “study the creation” of a special committee to improve governance and handle director compensation. It smacks of too little, too late. In a sign of continued disregard for investors, Nissan’s auto-financing arm sold ¥60 billion ($532 million) of bonds last month, while it was already investigating Ghosn. Since the allegations came to light,

reunification plays out in Taiwan’s democratic politics—most notably when it lobbed shells near the island before elections in 1996. The Communist Party may be getting smarter though, digging in behind the lines in Taiwan and openly favoring grassroots KMT groups that are crucial in gathering votes, especially in the countryside. This is what we might call the Communist Party’s ground game in Taiwan: bolstering rural community organizations that had fallen on hard times in recent years as the KMT went backwards in successive elections. The Communist Party is nothing if not a learning organization. It has now accumulated, quietly, over a number of years, great details on Taiwanese voters at a county-by-county level, according to Taiwanese officials I’ve spoken to. Beijing’s support for rural groups was fortified by the distaste of these conservative voters for gay marriage, and a proposal to change the name used for the island internationally, from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan.” Beijing still issues periodic threats to Taiwan’s leaders about the need to stick with one-China policies, but it seems to have added to its arsenal by building an operation at the grassroots, as well. Not everybody thinks the election turned on Beijing’s tactics. “The elections were a poll on how the DPP government is performing,” Bruce Jacobs, a veteran Taiwan watcher, wrote in the Taipei Times on Monday. “The government has become so cautious that it appears paralyzed.” Local factors were no doubt important, including increasing questions about Tsai’s competence. But equally, after the setback of the 2016 presidential elections, there is little doubt that Beijing will think its new tactics are gaining ground. Some caution is needed. Beijing has learned the hard way that in democracies (in Taiwan and elsewhere) you can win one day, and lose the next. And just as the KMT hasn’t turned out to be a spent force, the independence-leaning DPP won’t be going away either. Taiwan’s next presidential election is in 2020. The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party is in 2021. Despite Beijing’s success on the weekend, we could still see sparks flying around those two events. In the view of both the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, both Taiwan and China are part of one unified country. The two sides differ, though, on whether Beijing or Taipei has sovereignty over that country. The DPP sees Mainland China and Taiwan as separate countries. Beijing supports “Chinese Taipei”, and opposes the use of “Taiwan”, because it suggests the island is an independent entity. There’s a similar dispute about whether to talk about “reunification”, as Beijing prefers, or “unification”, as some Taiwanese describe it.

Ghosn has hired lawyers and has told colleagues he acted appropriately when he didn’t report to regulators tens of millions of dollars of deferred compensation that was to be paid at his retirement, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The fact that there is even wiggle room over whether such payments should be reported is hugely problematic and shows the need for more robust checks and balances. Whatever the outcome of this case, investors should steer clear of companies that don’t adopt the most basic of governance structures. If a star like Ghosn can be brought down, others may not be far behind.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018 A11

By Kenneth Chang | New York Times News Service

HE InSight lander, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa) latest foray to the red planet, has landed.

Cheers erupted on Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which operates the spacecraft, when InSight sent back acknowledgment of its safe arrival on Mars. That was the end of a journey of more than six months and 300 million miles. As InSight descended and each milestone of the landing process was called out, “the hairs on the back of my neck would start rising a little bit higher, a little bit higher,” Tom Hoffman, the project manager for the mission, said at a news conference after the landing. “And then when we finally got the confirmation of touchdown, it was completely amazing. The whole room went crazy. My inner fouryear-old came out.” In the months ahead, InSight will begin its study of the Martian underworld, listening for tremors—marsquakes—and collect data that will be pieced together in a map of the interior of the red planet and would help scientists understand how Mars and other rocky planets formed. Those lessons could also shed light on Earth’s origins. “We can basically use Mars as a time machine to go look back at what the Earth must have looked like a few tens of millions of years after it formed,” said Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator of the mission. InSight set down at Elysium Planitia, near the Equator in the northern hemisphere. Mission scientists have described the region as resembling a parking lot or “Kansas without the corn.” Within minutes, the first photograph from InSight appeared on

the screen, eliciting another round of cheers. The image was partially obscured by dirt kicked up onto a protective but clear lens cover, but it was evident that the landscape was indeed flat. One rock could be seen in the foreground. “I’m very very happy that it looks like we have an incredibly safe and boring-looking landing location,” Hoffman said. Because the mission is not interested in rocky terrain or pretty sunsets, planners wanted a flat place with sandy soil. “There’s one rock, so I’m going to have to talk to them a little bit,” Hoffman joked. The main scientific part of the mission will not begin for a few months. Once the mission’s managers have confirmed the health of the spacecraft, including its robotic arm, the arm will lift the spacecraft’s primary instruments off the main deck of the lander and place them on the Martian ground. Elizabeth Barrett, a science system engineer, likened the process to a claw game where one tries to pull out a prize without it falling. “But you’re doing it with a really, really valuable prize,” she said. “And you’re doing it blindfolded where you can only take occasional pictures. And then you’re doing it via remote control on another planet.” That requires some additional care. “You need to make sure you actually have the grapple on the payload before you lift it up and it’s actually on the ground before you let it go,” Barrett said. InSight’s primary mission on the surface is to last nearly two years.

INSIGHT project manager Tom Hoffman points at an image sent from the InSight lander after the spacecraft landed on Mars in the mission support area of the space flight operation facility at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday, November 26, in Pasadena, California. AP

One simple thing Banerdt hopes to learn: How thick is the crust of Mars? He recalled a project he worked on as an intern in the 1970s where the thickness of Mars’ crust needed to be known. “We just had to fake it, because we had no idea,” he said. InSight should finally provide the answer. “That’s one measurement I would like to go back to the old paper, plug it in to see how close I was,” Banerdt said. Other questions the mission aims to answer: How often does the ground shake with marsquakes? How big is Mars’s molten core? How much heat is flowing up from the decay of radioactive elements at the core? To study these questions, InSight will use two main instruments: a dome-shape package containing seismometers and a heat probe that is to burrow about 16 feet down. Nasa has spent $814 million on InSight. In addition, France and Germany invested $180 million to build these main instruments. The seismometers, which are

Argentina considers charges against Saudi Crown Prince ahead of G-20 By Daniel Politi & David D. Kirkpatrick New York Times News Service

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UENOS AIRES, Argentina—Argentine authorities are looking into possible criminal charges against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia as he prepares to attend an international summit meeting of world leaders this week in Buenos Aires, officials involved in the inquiry said. The inquiry, centering on allegations of war crimes during the Saudi-led military intervention in neighboring Yemen, is the most significant test yet of Crown Prince Mohammed’s ability to move past the international uproar that has surrounded him since the killing of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist. The Khashoggi case, too, is expected to be part of the inquiry, as well as allegations of torture in Saudi Arabia. The investigation in Argentina, initiated by a complaint lodged by Human Rights Watch, the advocacy group, is in its early stages, and diplomatic or other kinds of immunity may ultimately shield the prince from any potential charges. Argentine officials called it extremely unlikely that the inquiry might produce an arrest warrant before the gathering, which is set to begin on Friday. But even a small risk of a messy dispute in the Argentine courts could overshadow a trip previously seen as a chance for Crown Prince Mohammed to show he remained welcome among world leaders even after the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that he had authorized the killing of Khashoggi. Any retreat from the Group of 20 (G-20) summit meeting, attended by the leaders of the world’s largest economies, could be a sign that the lingering stigma of the Khashoggi

killing could hamper the continued effectiveness of the 33-year-old crown prince as a regional leader—a role that officials of the Trump administration have cited as a main reason to stand by him. President Donald J. Trump last week pushed back against the conclusion of US intelligence services about Crown Prince Mohammed’s culpability while also acknowledging that he may have known about the killing: “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” Trump said in a statement. Trump insisted that Washington should nonetheless continue to back Crown Prince Mohammed, calculating that it was in the nation’s economic and strategic interest to do so: because Saudi Arabia is a valuable customer for US weapons, an important source of oil and a useful partner in containing Iran. Bolstered by Trump’s support, Crown Prince Mohammed recently embarked on a week of visits to Saudi allies in the region, where Saudi news organizations photographed him smiling and shaking hands with fellow Arab rulers, with no mention of the Khashoggi case. But the move by Argentine prosecutors now threatens to interrupt his victory lap just as it reaches its finish, at the summit meeting where he was set to mingle with Trump and other Western leaders of the G-20 countries. “Mohammed bin Salman should know that he may face a criminal

probe if he ventures to Argentina,” Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. The law in Argentina is unusually favorable for bringing international human-rights cases because of the legacy of the country’s transition from a military dictatorship. During the military’s rule from 1976 to 1983, some 30,000 people were killed or disappeared. Argentina’s own immunity laws were overturned in the early 2000s, and its prosecutors have since charged thousands with human-rights violations committed under military rule. Argentine law has incorporated a broad interpretation of universal jurisdiction, the doctrine that some serious rights violations constitute offenses against humanity and should be subject to prosecution anywhere. Although it is the killing and subsequent dismemberment of Khashoggi by Saudi agents in a consulate in Istanbul that has most damaged Crown Prince Mohammed’s international image, the Argentine inquiry appears to center on potential crimes committed during the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. Crown Prince Mohammed, who is the kingdom’s defense minister as well as its de facto day-to-day ruler, has led a three-and-a-half year bombing campaign and naval blockade of Yemen by a coalition of Arab allies seeking to dislodge from power a Yemeni faction allied with Iran. The conflict has resulted in widespread famine and disease, as well as thousands of civilian casualties. The United Nations has called the results of the Yemen conflict the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and UN experts have said that both sides in the conflict may be guilty of war crimes.

designed to measure surface movements less than the width of a hydrogen atom, will produce what are essentially sonograms of the planet’s insides. In particular, scientists are looking to record at least 10 to 12 marsquakes over two years. Temblors on Mars are not caused by plate tectonics, like on Earth. Instead they are generated when the planet’s crust cracks because of its interior’s cooling and shrinking. The seismometers could also detect other seismic vibrations from meteors hitting Mars. InSight’s landing wasn’t Nasa’s only success Monday. The agency used the mission to test new technology. Two identical spacecraft known as Mars Cube One, or MarCO for short, launched with InSight in May. MarCO A and B then separated from InSight’s cruise stage and have since been trailing behind it. Hundreds of miniature satellites known as CubeSats have launched into orbit around Earth in recent years, but this is the first time that CubeSats have been sent on an interplanetary voyage.

The Human Rights Watch petition, delivered to the Argentine judicial system on Monday, argues that Crown Prince Mohammed was responsible for multiple violations of international law in Yemen, including “indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes on civilians,” as well as the use of internationally prohibited munitions known as cluster bombs. By restricting critical food imports, the Saudi-led coalition “may also have violated the prohibition against using starvation as a method of warfare, which is a war crime,” the petition argued. UN officials have said that the Saudi-led blockade has put 14 million people at risk of starvation, and a UN panel of experts concluded earlier this year that, “with the requisite intent,” the blockade of Yemen “may amount to international crimes,” the petition noted. In addition, “the Saudi government under the authority of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in serious allegations of torture and other ill treatment of Saudi citizens,” the petition argued. Several recent reports, including in The New York Times and by Human Rights Watch, have recounted allegations that detained women activists were subjected to electrical shocks, beatings and sexual harassment. Crown Prince Mohammed is expected to continue his tour of the region on Tuesday in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings and the only Arab country with both freedom of expression and a history of peaceful rotation of power. Activists in Tunis demonstrated against his arrival on Monday with a banner depicting a chain saw, a reference to the dismemberment of Khashoggi.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Wednesday, November 28, 2018

China, PHL eyeing $8.4-B industrial park investments

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By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

@alyasjah

EIJING is penciled to deliver over $8.37 billion of investments in industrial park development as part of its program for cooperation with Manila signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit last week. In a program for cooperation, the Philippines and China agreed to focus on promoting six types of industrial parks and developing industries engaged in high-value adding activities. The projects will be located in the regions. “Both sides could explore to establish industr ia l parks in developed agglomeration areas, such as the special economic zones under the Philippine Economic Zone Author it y, Subic

B ay Met ropol it a n Aut hor it y and Clark Development Corp., or within existing special economic zones, which is referred to as the ‘zone in the park ’ or ‘sub-zone’ model, with a view to utilize available transportation and infrastructure to achieve rapid industrial agglomeration,” the document read. “Both sides will focus on developing export-oriented processing and manufacturing industrial

parks, which will attract Chinese enterprises to settle and operate,” it added. Capable Chinese fir ms are encouraged to undertake largescale industrial park development projects in the form of joint ventures to fully benefit from this cooperation. Contractual arrangements in the context of public-private partnerships are also supported for industrial park developments. The six areas for cooperation are processing- and manufacturing-oriented industrial parks; port-neighboring industrial parks; agricultural business and agroindustrial parks; resource-based processing parks; science and technology parks; and city-industry integration parks. The program will be effective until 2022. A mutual consent from both parties is necessary should there be a need to prolong the program. A mong the projects under

the program is the $0.65-billion Philippines-China International Techno-Industrial Park, which will cover 990 hectares in Tarlac and Subic Bay. The park is to be operated by China National Machinery Corp. Also listed is the PhilippinesChina New Clark City Industrial Park, valued at $1.5 billion, in a 500-hectare area in New Clark City, Pampanga. It is to be managed by China Gezhouba Group International Engineering Co. Ltd. A $2.6 billion agro-technology park development is also penciled in Santa Ana, Cagayan, and this will take up 1,247 hectares of land area. In the same location, an industrial city development will soon rise with a project cost of $1.3 billion. All in all, priority projects and those up for review amounted to $8.37 billion. However, most of these projects have yet to find an interested Chinese enterprise.

DOLE seeks tighter rules in granting aliens visas By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

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HE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Tuesday pushed for the inclusion of more stringent provisions concerning the grant of work permits to foreign workers in pending immigration bills in the Senate. In a hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Justice and

Human Rights, DOLE officials flagged provisions of the pending legislations for 9G Visas, or Prearranged employment, since it will be issued without going through a labor-market test. The published labor-market test, which is a requirement for applicants of Alien Employment Permit (AEP), ensures only foreigners with skills not possessed by Filipinos are allowed to work

NORTHEAST MONSOON AFFECTING NORTHERN AND CENTRAL LUZON LOW PRESSURE AREA 1,185 KM EAST NORTHEAST OF BASCO, BATANES as of 4:00 pm - November 27, 2018

in the country. Labor Assistant Secretary Joji V. Aragon urged the Senate to require 9G visa applicants to avail themselves of the AEP, which is issued to foreigners, who would like to work in the country for at least six months. Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) Director Dominique R. Tutay also expressed concern on the coverage of the 9G visa since

it includes the family members of the visa holder. “We would also want to qualify the visa status for prearranged work. Will they [family members] also be covered by the 9G visa which is a work visa?” Tutay said. Immigration officials clarified that family members will only have be given a 9G dependent visa, and will not be allowed to work in the country unless they upgrade it to a full-fledged 9G visa. Committee on Justice and Human Rights Chairman Sen. Richard J. Gordon said he will include the manifestations of Aragon and Tutay in his committee report. The committee report will consolidate Senate Bills 2071, 1556, 702, 501, 85 and 17, which deals with immigration policies.

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VIBRANCY WITHOUT A CITY’S PRESSURE: CLARK’S NEW BRAND

BCDA President and Chief Executive Officer Vivencio B. Dizon introduces the integrated Clark brand, which consists of four main districts: the Clark Freeport Zone, Clark Global City, New Clark City and Clark International Airport. PHOTO COURTESY OF P.I.A.-3

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By Ashley Manabat | Correspondent

LARK FREEPORT—An integrated brand for Clark was launched on Monday by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and Clark Development Corp. (CDC). “Everyone wants to move to the big city. Good money, good jobs, a place to be productive. But the paradox is that cities don’t work for people, even though they’re full of them. It’s a pressure cooker of congestion, pollution and rent you can’t afford,” BCDA President and CEO Vivencio B. Dizon said. “Clark is different. Because it was built from scratch, crafted, to be built for people. To have the vibrancy of a city without the pressure of city life. And the energy of a culture that is happy and inclusive. It’s amazing what you can do when you’re in the right place,” he added. “Clark is a city that works. It’s a perfect mix of business, lifestyle, leisure and modernity,” Dizon stressed. It consists of four main districts, namely the Clark Freeport Zone (CFZ), Clark Global City (CGC), New Clark City (NCC) and Clark International Airport (CRK). Managed by CDC, the CFZ is an existing mixed-use complex established in the 90s that has continued to fuel growth not just in Pampanga but in the whole Central Luzon. CGC, on the other hand, is a 177-hectare property being developed by the Udenna Corp., which will serve as the primary business district. The NCC in Tarlac will house satellite government offices and a first-class sports village that will serve as the main venue of the 30th Southeast Asian Games in 2019. Central to all of this is CRK, which will soon be expanded to accommodate up to 80 million passengers a year. This ensures that travel will be comfortable while trade is seamless. “Clark is a city unmatched in connectivity with access to worldclass highways and the service of high-speed railways,” Dizon said.

Chavit lawsuit hangs over Mislatel’s future

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HE government will revoke Mislatel Consortium’s third telco player status and conduct another bidding process if the court finds that one of the group’s member-firms violated its contract with a disqualified bidder. This was revealed on Tuesday during the Senate hearing, led by the Committee on Public Services, on the entry of the new telco player. During the Senate hearing, former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson, who leads one of two disqualified bidders, the Sear Telecom, said they will pursue filing a case against the consortium because, he said, Mislatel breached its exclusive contract with DigiPhil Technology Inc. (DigiPhil). DigiPhil is an affiliate of Sear Consortium member TierOne Communications International Inc. that partnered with Singson’s LCS Group of Cos. Singson said DigiPhil will be the one filing the case asking the court to order Mislatel to enforce its existing contract with the former. This prompted Sen. Francis G. Escudero to ask the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on their position if the court rules in favor of Singson’s group. “What if the Governor Singson [group] wins and the court says

they have the valid contract [with Mislatel]. And what Mislatel did with Udenna [Corp.] was invalid?” Escudero asked the regulators. NTC Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba responded that they will abide with what the court says. Escudero reiterated his question, asking this time how the NTC will interpret the court’s order if the court says that Mislatel’s rescission of its contract with DigiPhil was unlawful and invalid. “Will you cancel the award to Mislatel?” he asked. DICT Acting Secretary Eliseo M. Rio Jr. then replied that they will continue with the procedures, unless the court’s order would directly affect the bidding procedures, meaning, a restraining order is issued. “If there’s no decision from the court on whatever decision we are making based on the terms of reference then we will just continue,” Rio said. Citing the case of a condominium building that some people wanted torn down behind Rizal Park, Escudero asked Rio’s position again on what happens if the court’s resolution comes after two years and the court rules that Mislatel was disqualified from the bidding process from the beginning. “What if the court decides two years down the road, what will you do? I do not want the outcome [to] be

like the building behind Rizal Park [that had] already been built. and we cannot do anything anymore,” he said. “You have the final and executory decision. What if the court decision says that Mislatel is practically disqualified to begin with and the decision came out two years after?” Escudero added. Rio then said the government would have to disqualify Mislatel and restart the selection process for the country’s third telco player. “If that will be the decision of the court, then we will also disqualify Mislatel and come up with another bidding procedure,” he said. “As long as there is no temporary restraining order [TRO] from the court, we will proceed. If it takes two years or three years [for a court decision] then government will come up with another bidding process. That is the risk they [telco players] have to take,” he added. Rio explained that they drafted the terms of reference in such a way it would not be hindered by any TROs as the government seeks to fast-track the entry of a new telco player to break the existing duopoly in the industry. “You will see the way we made the terms of reference; it is so time-bound because it eliminated the possibility of coming up with a TRO,” he said. See “Mislatel,” A2

Editor: Efleda P. Campos

Companies BusinessMirror

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

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Aboitiz set to build ₧12.6-billion bulk-water facility in Davao City P

Vista Land secures highest rating from local credit-rating firm

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By Manuel T. Cayon | Mindanao Bureau Chief @awimailbox

AVAO CITY—An Aboitiz subsidiary will begin constructing its water-treatment facility in a northern outskirts village here, described as the country’s largest bulk-water supply facility. President Duterte was invited on Monday to mark the start of the construction of the facility in Barangay Gumalang in Baguio District. It would take three years to build at a cost of P12.6 billion. The water-treatment facility has a production capacity of 300 million liters per day, more than its current

production of 245 million liters, It would tap the still pristine waters of the Tamugan River, which flows out from the Lipadas watershed area. Apo Agua Infrastructura Inc., the Aboitiz subsidiary, is udertaking the project with the Davao City Water District (DCWD), which

Grab expands operations to 12 PHL cities

RAB Philippines has expanded its operations to now include Subic Bay Freeport Zone, bringing the total cities where it is present in the Philippines to 12, officials said on Tuesday. Brian P. Cu, who heads Grab Philippines, said his group is introducing the GrabTaxi service to

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would also be constructing the water reservoir in five barangays along the water route of the river. Ones C. Almario, general manager of Apo Agua, said the production capacity would be delivered to more than 1 million Davao City residents and may start to gradually begin supplying water by the first quarter of 2021. He said the company has complied with the licensing and permitting requirement and about 92 percent of the right-of-way acquisition. Lawyer Bernardo B. Delima Jr., water district spokesman, said the Apo Agua project would enable upland residents to access potable water not available to them at current DCWD operation. The two project proponents said the initial operation of the bulkwater facility would prioritize the upland communities of the city’s

District 2, such as the Buhangin and Cabantian areas, and up to to the interior communities going to the northeastern boundary barangays of Tibungco, Bunawan and Lasang. Delima said it has laid the new pipes required by the higher-pressured delivery of the water and assured that all the other facilities such as the main water reservoir in the five barangays lying along the path of the Tamugan River would be finished before the 2021 timetable of the Apo Agua. The Aboitiz group told Duterte the bulk-water facility would be “one of a kind in Asia.” Sabin M. Aboitiz, president and CEO of Aboitiz InfraCapital, appealed to the barangays hosting the water reservoir and the major water-system facilities to protect the pipelines.

Subic to support the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority’s (SBMA) vision of transforming Subic into a smart city. “As the everyday app, we at Grab believe in the smart cities of tomorrow, and introducing our technology to Subic brings it closer to its vision of building its very own smart city,” he said.

So far, Grab as has equipped 120 taxi drivers with the Grab application, which, according to the SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma, “will greatly help the hundreds and thousands of employees of over 1,600 business locators in the free port.” Lorenz S. Marasigan

ROPERTY developer Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. maintained the highest issuer rating by a local debt-rating firm. Credit Rating Investor’s Services Philippines Inc. (CRISP) reaffirmed its “AAA” rating on Vista Land with a stable outlook, on its leadership in the low-cost and affordable housing market, continuing national coverage and strategic land banking initiatives and strong financial performance. The local rating firm also cited Vista Land’s strong management team and the company’s operating model that enables it to replicate large-scale housing community projects. Its scalable, standardized processes and technologies allow the company to build and deliver high-quality houses and lot packages, it said. “We welcome the affirmation of our ‘AAA’ rating by CRISP. This affirmation fuels our drive to continuously deliver quality homes to an increasing number of Filipinos and provide them with a quality lifestyle through our integrated development,” Vista Land Chairman Manuel B. Villar said. “This is again proof that we have put in place a company with a strong management team and a business model that can withstand challenges such as the recent rise of inflation,”

he said. The company launched residential projects worth P38 billion during the first nine months of the year, most of which were in the low and affordable segment and outside Metro Manila. In its disclosure earlier this month, the company said it has already secured board approval to sell to the public P10 billion in fixed-rate retail bonds, half of which is its principal amount and the remaining is its oversubscription option. It will get the amount from its remaining P15-billion shelf-registered bonds with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Vista Land is present in 145 cities and municipalities across 47 provinces in the country. It is moving closer to its target of reaching 200 cities and municipalities. The company also increased its leasing portfolio to 1.16 million square meters of gross floor area. To date, the company has 26 malls, seven office buildings and over 50 commercial centers. “We are very glad that our efforts were noticed in CRISP’s latest pronouncement affirming our ‘AAA’ rating and hope that our work to provide quality homes and lifestyle would continue to be appreciated by our very own customers,” said Manuel Paolo Villar, the company’s president and CEO. VG Cabuag

B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

November 27, 2018

Net Foreign Stocks Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Buy (Sell) FINANCIALS

ASIA UNITED 58.6 59 59.7 59.7 59 59 20200 1193576 595880 BDO UNIBANK 129.9 130.2 128 130.2 126.5 130.2 2809050 362636018 85337189 BANK PH ISLANDS 93.85 93.95 93.85 93.95 93.1 93.95 1793140 168246636.5 38690194 CHINABANK 27.65 27.7 28 28 27.5 27.65 147500 4086650 -365735 EAST WEST BANK 11.46 11.5 11.48 11.5 11.36 11.46 706900 8102772 -1921076 METROBANK 76.65 76.95 74.3 76.95 74.25 76.95 11412650 864927295 590895762.5 PB BANK 10.8 11.34 11 11 10.5 10.5 80400 846874 PHIL NATL BANK 40.65 40.7 40.75 40.8 40.65 40.7 110700 4509035 89635 PSBANK 71.6 74.7 72 72 71.5 71.5 2230 159591.5 PHILTRUST 106 118 118 118 118 118 10 1180 RCBC 28.7 28.9 28.75 28.95 28.5 28.7 287400 8249010 SECURITY BANK 158.9 159 163.5 164.8 159 159 535370 85553502 -46917075 UNION BANK 65.9 65.95 65.95 65.95 65.9 65.9 14140 932336 -27681.5 BRIGHT KINDLE 1.51 1.56 1.5 1.56 1.5 1.56 37000 56660 BDO LEASING 2.31 2.34 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3 4000 9200 COL FINANCIAL 15.34 15.36 15.5 15.5 15.36 15.36 12100 186318 FERRONOUX HLDG 3.76 3.8 3.73 3.83 3.72 3.8 164000 619440 IREMIT 1.47 1.56 1.56 1.57 1.56 1.57 2000 3130 MEDCO HLDG 0.47 0.48 0.46 0.47 0.46 0.47 300000 140200 NTL REINSURANCE 0.76 0.78 0.76 0.8 0.76 0.78 493000 386060 39500 PHIL STOCK EXCH 172.6 178.3 172.8 180 172.8 172.8 3460 601237 -170420 VANTAGE 1.14 1.22 1.14 1.14 1.14 1.14 145000 165300 INDUSTRIAL ALSONS CONS 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.25 1.23 1.24 76000 94170 ABOITIZ POWER 33.25 33.4 33.3 33.5 33.05 33.4 1006300 33543615 12422190 BASIC ENERGY 0.249 0.25 0.25 0.265 0.249 0.25 10520000 2683790 302340 FIRST GEN 17.36 17.4 17.36 17.44 17.34 17.4 1179700 20529612 4933144 FIRST PHIL HLDG 62.15 62.25 63 63 62.1 62.25 49960 3113295 -2497834 PHIL H2O 4.75 4.89 4.96 4.96 4.69 4.8 78000 373670 4690 MERALCO 387.2 388 388.2 390 385.8 388 319670 123976544 25525352 MANILA WATER 25.5 25.55 25.45 25.75 25.45 25.55 58800 1500540 759975 PETRON 8.13 8.15 8.14 8.16 8.1 8.13 1207100 9806319 -3321086 PETROENERGY 3.92 4.03 3.92 3.94 3.92 3.94 18000 70710 PHINMA ENERGY 0.89 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.89 0.9 387000 348240 -171000 PHX PETROLEUM 11.12 11.16 11.3 11.3 11.1 11.12 105100 1174666 -201280 PILIPINAS SHELL 47.9 48 47.95 48.5 47.85 47.9 1444100 69304560 164820 SPC POWER 5.23 5.3 5.3 5.36 5.2 5.3 95500 502546 AGRINURTURE 17.66 17.7 17.7 17.82 17.64 17.76 608300 10,813,034( 2,324,565.9997) CNTRL AZUCARERA 17 17.4 15.54 17.7 15.54 17 9700 159198 CENTURY FOOD 14.44 14.52 14.52 14.52 14.04 14.44 5970600 85879790 -70026 DEL MONTE 6.6 6.89 6.98 7 6.8 6.89 41500 288882 6800 DNL INDUS 10.06 10.1 10.4 10.7 10 10.06 2722100 27627966 -13411234 EMPERADOR 6.95 6.96 6.96 6.99 6.92 6.96 63500 441589 -326750 SMC FOODANDBEV 82.95 83 83.5 83.55 82.9 83 4081740 339895994.5 159951861.5 ALLIANCE SELECT 1.17 1.18 1.08 1.17 1.06 1.17 29544000 33520760 -16180.0002 GINEBRA 23.05 23.5 23 23.5 23 23 8400 193725 JOLLIBEE 280.4 283 280.6 283 279.8 283 712330 200634732 -4099936 MACAY HLDG 8.37 9.9 9.9 9.9 9.9 9.9 100 990 -990 MAXS GROUP 10.2 10.22 10.3 10.3 10.02 10.2 236300 2410064 -1482314 MG HLDG 0.17 0.179 0.175 0.179 0.175 0.179 710000 125890 17500 PEPSI COLA 1.34 1.35 1.34 1.36 1.34 1.34 106000 143140 -89080 SHAKEYS PIZZA 10.72 10.78 10.66 10.78 10.36 10.78 55700 599022 -99176 ROXAS AND CO 1.84 1.9 1.83 1.95 1.83 1.9 181000 344010 38970 RFM CORP 4.7 4.75 4.75 4.75 4.7 4.75 22000 104220 -4700 ROXAS HLDG 2.77 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 4000 11200 SWIFT FOODS 0.122 0.124 0.123 0.123 0.123 0.123 110000 13530 UNIV ROBINA 130 130.8 135 135.1 129.3 130 871660 113847011 -42087037 VITARICH 1.55 1.56 1.53 1.57 1.53 1.55 7329000 11366890 -1391590 VICTORIAS 2.32 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 4000 9600 CEMEX HLDG 1.75 1.76 1.69 1.79 1.67 1.76 4624000 8018030 -1881620 DAVINCI CAPITAL 5.25 5.49 5.25 5.5 5.25 5.25 23200 122873 EAGLE CEMENT 15.44 15.5 15.6 15.68 15.44 15.5 10100 156452 EEI CORP 8.76 8.89 8.7 8.9 8.7 8.89 528300 4687067 2837881.9999 HOLCIM 5.89 5.9 5.97 6 5.9 5.9 323900 1920105 -1860545 MEGAWIDE 16.72 16.8 16.8 17.5 16.62 16.8 3369000 57850830 -7677914 PHINMA 8.5 8.78 8.6 8.78 8.6 8.78 500 4354 TKC METALS 0.81 0.82 0.8 0.82 0.8 0.82 44000 35220 VULCAN INDL 1.84 1.85 1.68 1.87 1.68 1.84 30735000 55282650 -1729090 CROWN ASIA 1.42 1.46 1.41 1.47 1.41 1.47 81000 115440 33010 PRYCE CORP 5.04 5.05 5.08 5.1 5.04 5.05 44800 227252 -50730 CONCEPCION 37 37.35 36.9 37 36.9 37 79600 2945040 66440 GREENERGY 2.04 2.05 2.1 2.17 2.02 2.04 33323000 69096440 1340360 INTEGRATED MICR 8.61 8.65 9 9.45 8.55 8.61 8367100 75157882 5118276 IONICS 1.66 1.67 1.71 1.71 1.64 1.67 800000 1328620 PANASONIC 5.95 6 6 6 6 6 1000 6000 SFA SEMICON 1.25 1.3 1.3 1.31 1.25 1.3 224000 283730 CIRTEK HLDG 35.3 35.35 35.35 35.4 35.3 35.35 25100 887770 HOLDING & FRIMS ABACORE CAPITAL 0.57 0.58 0.58 0.6 0.54 0.57 36591000 20797360 26010.0005 ASIABEST GROUP 19.6 19.86 20.2 20.25 19.46 19.86 3055800 60559009 59470100 AYALA CORP 939 945 941 945 930 945 186570 175049495 8854490 ABOITIZ EQUITY 55.55 55.65 53.5 56 52.15 55.55 1757940 94681964.5 12608228.5 ALLIANCE GLOBAL 11.2 11.24 11.22 11.4 11.22 11.24 4115500 46381750 4916370 ANSCOR 6.3 6.33 6.33 6.33 6.33 6.33 100 633 ATN HLDG A 1.48 1.49 1.44 1.48 1.43 1.48 15591000 22819190 ATN HLDG B 1.47 1.49 1.43 1.49 1.43 1.47 4617000 6739620 584000 COSCO CAPITAL 7 7.01 7.05 7.05 6.98 7 363200 2542813 1805334 DMCI HLDG 13.8 13.86 13.38 13.86 13.16 13.86 3880100 52677854 4861076 FILINVEST DEV 8.95 9 8.8 9.1 8.8 9 23822800 210385508 85997550 FJ PRINCE A 3.31 4.78 3.31 4.78 3.31 4.78 1600 5591 GT CAPITAL 879.5 880 867 884 867 879.5 187080 163793900 13393980 JG SUMMIT 48 48.15 48.15 48.85 47.55 48.15 773100 37127630 -6390570 LODESTAR 0.5 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.5 0.52 86000 43540 LOPEZ HLDG 3.98 3.99 3.9 4.01 3.9 3.99 17333000 68131160 -5850210 LT GROUP 15.2 15.24 15.32 15.9 15.24 15.24 1337700 20515532 -3108478 MABUHAY HLDG 0.63 0.64 0.61 0.63 0.59 0.63 1770000 1092960 416110 METRO PAC INV 4.6 4.61 4.66 4.68 4.59 4.6 28488000 131,274,470( 79,403,670.0004) PACIFICA 0.035 0.036 0.034 0.036 0.034 0.035 18900000 652700 PRIME ORION 2.3 2.33 2.3 2.31 2.29 2.3 197000 453080 PRIME MEDIA 1.17 1.2 1.17 1.2 1.17 1.2 24000 28410 REPUBLIC GLASS 2.51 2.69 2.51 2.51 2.51 2.51 5000 12550 SOLID GROUP 1.28 1.32 1.27 1.32 1.27 1.32 36000 45880 SYNERGY GRID 425 480 425.2 488 425 486.6 270 122796 SM INVESTMENTS 914.5 915 915.5 928 915 915 425440 390112810 -96946165 SAN MIGUEL CORP 171.5 171.6 171.8 172.5 171 171.5 141170 24232507 -5526200 TOP FRONTIER 274 280 269.6 280 269.6 280 501720 139978996 WELLEX INDUS 0.232 0.233 0.232 0.238 0.232 0.232 2820000 657100 11650 PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.56 0.57 0.56 0.59 0.55 0.56 810000 460970 AYALA LAND 40.9 41 41.45 41.5 40.5 40.9 10360500 422180155 -47832540 ARANETA PROP 1.8 1.87 1.74 1.87 1.74 1.87 13000 23970 BELLE CORP 2.19 2.2 2.24 2.24 2.18 2.19 629000 1385440 -825490 A BROWN 0.8 0.81 0.8 0.82 0.79 0.81 2634000 2115590 CITYLAND DEVT 0.85 0.87 0.87 0.87 0.87 0.87 12000 10440 CROWN EQUITIES 0.214 0.218 0.214 0.218 0.214 0.218 1440000 308860 64500 CEB LANDMASTERS 4.04 4.1 4.08 4.18 4 4.1 423000 1728040 8119.9999 CENTURY PROP 0.405 0.415 0.415 0.415 0.405 0.415 3190000 1314750 -82000 CYBER BAY 0.345 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.34 0.35 1190000 411900 DOUBLEDRAGON 17.98 18 17.98 18.02 17.92 18 119700 2153690 610240 DM WENCESLAO 7.62 7.63 7.62 7.65 7.61 7.63 342800 2617047 53420 EMPIRE EAST 0.49 0.54 0.53 0.54 0.49 0.54 15000 7800 EVER GOTESCO 0.11 0.122 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 100000 11000 FILINVEST LAND 1.43 1.45 1.44 1.45 1.43 1.43 1049000 1511430 -693730 GLOBAL ESTATE 1 1.01 1.01 1.02 1 1 3368000 3377000 8990 HLDG 7.54 7.55 7.55 7.56 7.54 7.55 2282500 17233560 545899 IRC PROP 2.64 2.69 2.68 2.72 2.61 2.69 16473000 43892140 481070 MEGAWORLD 4.75 4.76 4.77 4.77 4.72 4.76 7961000 37820720 12836000 MRC ALLIED 0.4 0.405 0.385 0.41 0.385 0.405 68640000 27438000 -497400 PHIL ESTATES 0.46 0.465 0.465 0.475 0.46 0.465 2710000 1267000 PRIMEX CORP 3.59 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.58 3.6 396000 1423260 -575300 ROBINSONS LAND 20.8 20.85 21.15 21.15 20.6 20.85 1117400 23302780 1399950 PHIL REALTY 0.375 0.39 0.38 0.39 0.37 0.39 1060000 401350 ROCKWELL 1.94 1.96 1.94 1.94 1.92 1.94 99000 191470 54170 SHANG PROP 3.1 3.12 3.06 3.12 3.06 3.12 7000 21720 STA LUCIA LAND 1.16 1.18 1.19 1.19 1.17 1.18 245000 288300 235000 SM PRIME HLDG 34.35 34.4 34.35 34.45 33.95 34.4 8634500 296184730 45736515 STARMALLS 6.85 6.9 4.83 7.05 4.83 6.85 11959000 76061890 -458310 SUNTRUST HOME 0.7 0.71 0.71 0.71 0.71 0.71 100000 71000 VISTA LAND 5.26 5.29 5.39 5.39 5.26 5.29 3424500 18121293 -9457253 SERVICES ABS CBN 19.6 19.7 19.7 19.7 19.6 19.7 29100 572790 GMA NETWORK 5.25 5.29 5.3 5.35 5.29 5.29 27700 146830 MANILA BULLETIN 0.34 0.36 0.355 0.36 0.35 0.36 340000 119900 GLOBE TELECOM 1996 2000 2002 2018 1988 2000 42860 85967430 23255595 PLDT 1175 1176 1188 1200 1160 1176 88765 104273800 -37102660 APOLLO GLOBAL 0.037 0.038 0.038 0.038 0.038 0.038 1100000 41800 DFNN INC 7.03 7.57 7.01 8.38 7 8 7100 52619 ISLAND INFO 0.11 0.113 0.097 0.122 0.097 0.11 55720000 6296060 20550 ISM COMM 6.25 6.26 6.44 6.6 6 6.26 39675500 247827885 5999338 JACKSTONES 3.33 3.46 3.45 3.46 3.42 3.46 40000 138230 NOW CORP 3.96 3.97 3.73 4.1 3.73 3.97 16832000 66283540 742350 TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.41 0.415 0.38 0.425 0.375 0.41 122660000 48838100 -71650 PHILWEB 3 3.05 3.06 3.06 2.96 3.02 861000 2581700 -1272250 2GO GROUP 9.95 9.98 9.95 9.98 9.82 9.98 18300 182044 -10992.9999 ASIAN TERMINALS 13.02 13.38 13.2 13.2 13.02 13.02 1300 17016 CEBU AIR 72.1 72.15 72.5 73.45 70.65 72.1 58680 4210379.5 203674.5 CHELSEA 7.14 7.15 7.51 7.51 7.02 7.15 7556300 54801066 -945954 INTL CONTAINER 96.6 97.95 98 98.05 96.6 96.6 2232580 218064789 -130345284 LBC EXPRESS 14 14.38 14.4 14.4 13.88 14 4100 58280 7000 LORENZO SHIPPNG 0.75 0.78 0.75 0.79 0.71 0.75 275000 207990 7900 MACROASIA 14.1 14.7 14.08 14.7 13.8 14.1 1612900 22981786 -26760 METROALLIANCE A 1.66 1.71 1.84 1.84 1.66 1.66 1413000 2425030 METROALLIANCE B 1.69 1.95 1.76 1.87 1.67 1.7 43000 74850 PAL HLDG 7.83 8 8 8 8 8 5500 44000 HARBOR STAR 3.45 3.47 3.55 3.6 3.46 3.47 2073000 7250650 124860 DISCOVERY WORLD 2.06 2.27 2.06 2.06 2.06 2.06 1000 2060 WATERFRONT 0.56 0.57 0.59 0.59 0.56 0.56 2723000 1557900 34800 CENTRO ESCOLAR 7.7 7.98 7.81 7.81 7.7 7.7 120300 938139 14058 IPEOPLE 10.2 10.22 10.2 10.2 10.2 10.2 2400 24480 STI HLDG 0.65 0.66 0.67 0.68 0.63 0.65 8990000 5900410 -3981670 BERJAYA 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.05 1.92 2.03 4215000 8415140 362690 BLOOMBERRY 8.28 8.29 8.3 8.39 8.18 8.29 13129800 108762508 -40094456 PACIFIC ONLINE 10.02 10.28 10.48 10.48 9.88 10.02 2700 27946 LEISURE AND RES 3.09 3.1 2.84 3.4 2.84 3.1 3074000 9519930 -1753330 MANILA JOCKEY 5.35 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 2500 13750 MELCO RESORTS 6.81 7.02 7.14 7.14 6.5 7.1 228900 1586010 PREMIUM LEISURE 0.65 0.66 0.66 0.67 0.65 0.65 8380000 5510370 -1498630 TRAVELLERS 5.3 5.35 5.24 5.31 5.22 5.3 2048100 10783371 -5692761 METRO RETAIL 2.03 2.05 2.08 2.1 2 2.05 2502000 5174150 -12770.0001 PUREGOLD 42.9 43.2 43 43.05 42.7 43 3477900 149523095 -130772530 ROBINSONS RTL 76.1 76.95 72.1 77 72.1 76.95 1685230 127612853.5 -71606863 PHIL SEVEN CORP 108 108.1 108.1 108.1 105.9 108 2810 302977 298656 SSI GROUP 2.45 2.46 2.56 2.59 2.46 2.46 10707000 26686840 3757580 WILCON DEPOT 12.18 12.3 12.18 12.3 11.94 12.18 3098100 37584122 -345096 APC GROUP 0.375 0.38 0.37 0.4 0.37 0.375 3750000 1447800 41800 EASYCALL 17.7 - 17.7 17.7 17.7 17.7 390300 6908310 GOLDEN BRIA 323 324 319 324 311 323 7180 2305736 -22600 IPM HLDG 7.18 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 10000 72000 PAXYS 3.06 3.49 3.49 3.5 3.45 3.49 43000 150070 -10500 PRMIERE HORIZON 0.33 0.345 0.33 0.345 0.325 0.345 420000 140900 SBS PHIL CORP 6.75 6.9 6.74 6.9 6.74 6.9 19600 133040 MINING & OIL ATOK 14 14.2 13.82 14.38 13 14 38700 532388 APEX MINING 1.65 1.66 1.69 1.69 1.64 1.66 2796000 4639610 -303400 ABRA MINING 0.0019 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.0018 0.002 271000000 512800 ATLAS MINING 2.4 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.39 2.5 12000 29890 -2390 COAL ASIA HLDG 0.285 0.29 0.29 0.29 0.285 0.29 790000 228450 CENTURY PEAK 1.91 1.92 1.94 1.94 1.91 1.91 61000 116660 DIZON MINES 7.01 7.02 7.07 7.07 7.02 7.02 2300 16151 FERRONICKEL 1.69 1.7 1.67 1.7 1.66 1.7 406000 683780 -109270 GEOGRACE 0.199 0.202 0.2 0.202 0.2 0.202 20000 4020 LEPANTO A 0.093 0.095 0.094 0.095 0.092 0.093 370000 34420 LEPANTO B 0.1 0.102 0.101 0.102 0.096 0.102 710000 68680 -60580 MANILA MINING A 0.0069 0.0073 0.0066 0.0066 0.0065 0.0066 10000000 65200 MANILA MINING B 0.007 0.0074 0.007 0.007 0.007 0.007 1000000 7000 MARCVENTURES 1 1.07 1.03 1.03 0.99 1 68000 68510 NIHAO 0.99 1.02 1.02 1.03 1.02 1.03 2000 2050 NICKEL ASIA 2.18 2.2 2.14 2.24 2.1 2.2 15442000 33291150 -14535140 OMICO CORP 0.52 0.6 0.52 0.52 0.52 0.52 211000 109720 ORNTL PENINSULA 0.88 0.92 0.91 0.92 0.89 0.92 265000 240140 PX MINING 2.58 2.6 2.58 2.6 2.58 2.58 901000 2337510 -1584920 SEMIRARA MINING 26.05 26.6 26.9 26.9 25.8 26.05 1298700 33925460 -378370 UNITED PARAGON 0.006 0.0065 0.0061 0.0061 0.0061 0.0061 2000000 12200 ORNTL PETROL A 0.012 0.013 0.012 0.013 0.012 0.012 31300000 382800 ORNTL PETROL B 0.012 0.013 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.012 200000 2400 PHILODRILL 0.012 0.013 0.012 0.012 0.012 0.012 500000 6000 PHINMA PETRO 3.2 3.21 3.35 3.45 3.21 3.21 107000 349960 PXP ENERGY 14.7 14.8 15.2 15.2 14.7 14.7 2990300 44228458 -8628546

PREFFERED HOUSE PREF A AC PREF B2 DD PREF FGEN PREF G FPH PREF C LR PREF SMC PREF 2B SMC PREF 2C SMC PREF 2D SMC PREF 2E SMC PREF 2F SMC PREF 2G SMC PREF 2H SMC PREF 2I

94 475 95.6 101 460 1 75.1 76.25 71.35 71.95 74.7 73 72.15 73.05

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR

19.1

95 489 97 102.5 480 1.03 75.95 76.6 71.4 74.9 74.8 74.4 74 73.5

95 475 96 101 480 1.03 75.95 76.2 72 72 74.9 73 72 73.5

95 489 96 102.5 480 1.03 75.95 76.2 72.95 74.9 74.9 73 74 73.5

95 475 95.6 101 480 1.03 75.95 76.2 71.4 72 74.9 73 72 73.05

95 489 95.6 102.5 480 1.03 75.95 76.2 71.4 74.9 74.9 73 74 73.5

600 50 23500 8230 200 2000 100 620 31300 20000 1000000 2800 17000 4480

57000 23890 2249680 832025 96000 2060 7595 47244 2242840 1451000 74900000 204400 1228000 329047.5

36250 21915

19.2

19.2

19.2

19.1

19.1

20400

391640

-384000

WARRANTS LR WARRANT

1.93

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ITALPINAS 4.46 MAKATI FINANCE 2.67 XURPAS 1.23

1.96

1.67

2.08

1.67

1.93

2351000

4545490

19000

4.48 2.99 1.24

4.56 - 1.11

4.67 - 1.27

4.41 - 1.1

4.48 - 1.24

347000 - 12336000

1561200 - 14805860

-35640 -3308830

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS FIRST METRO ETF

109.9

110.3

110.5

110.6

109.5

110.3

4730

521208

-

Editor: Efleda P. Campos

Beep-card manager to extend operations outside light rail

A

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

F Payments Inc., a joint venture between the Ayala and First Pacific groups, said it will further expand outside of Metro Manila’s light rail system next year in order to recoup its investments made on the country’s troubled transport system. Peter Maher, president and CEO of AF Payments, which operates the beep card system (a tap card) installed at the MRT 3 and LRT Lines 1 and 2, said it is now averaging 2 million transactions per month for nonrail and there

are more deals to further its use. “That’s how we recover the investments in the rail. Remember, we invested in the rail; we don’t get paid for that. The business case for this project was to extend the use of the beep card outside of the rail.

That’s where we get paid. That’s where we get the return on investments,” Maher told reporters. The nonrail transaction, however, pales in comparison with the rail transactions that reach an average of 1 million a day or about 30 million per month. “As a percentage [of nonrail], it’s low, but it’s a decent amount of transactions and it’s growing. The light rail is massive. Even though it has its problems, it still has a million riders a day. That’s the biggest mass transportation we have in the country. We want to grow the other side,” he said. There are, however, some delays such as the use of the card in South Luzon Expressway (Slex), operated by San Miguel Corp. “No, we’re not making progress

on Slex. There are some difficulties with the operator,” he said. Beep cards can be used in point-to-point buses plying key cities in the Metro, and recently, in public-utility vehicles (PUVs) such as modern jeepneys and e-trikes deployed in Intramuros. The system has recently been introduced in Mindanao via Husky Tours, which operates a fleet of buses between General Santos and Cotabato. St. Jude Catholic School became the first beep-integrated educational institution with beep-enabled ID cards that allow their students to purchase cash-free from merchants inside the campus and avail themselves of student discounts when they ride public buses and PUVs with beep acceptance. There are over 5 million beep cards currently in the market.

OpenSignal ranks PHL near bottom of Internet connectivity list By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

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HE Philippines once again found itself at the bottom portion of the list of OpenSignal’s latest report on Internet connectivity, which now compares the difference between mobile data and Wi-fi speeds. In a list of 43 countries surveyed in November, the Philippines ranked as the third country with the worst mobile data speed, only next to Cambodia and India, and the second worst in terms of Wi-fi speed. Average mobile data speed in the Philippines was at 6.3 Mbps, while average Wi-fi download speed is at 7.6 Mbps On the brighter side, the Philippines is among those that have faster 4G mobile data speeds versus Wi-fi, with OpenSignal noting a 2-Mbps difference in favor of 4G. OpenSignal said the disparity between Wi-fi and 4G speeds stems from the fact that cellular

deployments are easier and cheaper than laying out fiber-optic cables. “It’s easier and usually cheaper to roll out new cellular standards fast and improve cell site backhaul than it is to run fiber to every premise to enable faster Wi-fi Internet access,” it said. It added that smartphone designs are not focused on Wi-fi usage. “Smartphone Wi-fi antennas and other Wi-fi hardware has been a lower priority than almost all other parts of smartphone hardware designs, such as cellular modems, cellular atennas, display and audio,” OpenSignal said. The research agency recommended for telco operators to “reevaluate how to position mobile and Wi-fi.” “Now that mobile often offers a faster experience than Wi-fi , everyone must rethink when and how to use Wi-fi to complement the mobile experience. In countries where Wi-fi is slow, there will be one major less reason for consumers to choose Wi-fi over cellular for the best experience,” it said.

NGCP gets 3 BSI certifications

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HE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) received three certifications from the British Standard Institute (BSI), reflecting the grid operator’s commitment to be on a par with international quality management standards. The certifications awarded this month to NGCP are the ISO 9001:2015 for Quality Management and 14001:2015 for Environmental Management, and OHSAS 18001:2007 for Occupational Safety and Health. The three standards comprise an Integrated Management System (IMS) certification that integrates an organization’s processes and creates a unified system with a single goal of improving the performance, effectivity and efficiency of the entire organization. “Bestowing NGCP with these ISO certificates from a prestigious ISO Certification body such as BSI is not only a great honor, but it also comes with a responsibility to continually improve our systems, processes and services,” the NGCP said. As the sole transmission provider of the country, the NGCP places premium on the quality of service it provides the public, while minimizing the impact of its operations to the environment and retaining its commitment to zero harm for

all employees and external stakeholders. The NGCP is also embarking on a corporatewide quality assurance program, putting in place layers of quality assurance processes, such as Incoming QA, In Process QA and Final QA, which are systematically conducted and designed to meet or exceed the standards set by the company. The IMS certification comes after the company was awarded Employer of the Year by the People Management Association of the Philippines in October. “These EOY Award and ISO certifications are a recognition of our hard work and commitment to employee welfare and talent development for EOY and quality and efficiency of service for the ISO certifications,” the NGCP said. “There are big challenges still ahead of us. We need to sustain the changes we have done and continue to provide innovative solutions to our people and to our customers.” The NGCP is a Filipino-led, privately owned company in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the country’s power grid, led by majority shareholders Henry Sy Jr. and Robert Coyiuto Jr. Lenie Lectura

briefs PHL VIEWERS PAY MORE TO VIEW NETFLIX

FILIPINO consumers pay more than Americans to get NetFlix, said Comparitech Inc., a United Kingdom-based market research firm. Based on Comparitech’s findings, the average cost of NetFlix per title in the Philippines is $0.00182 while in the United States, it’s only $0.00137. Netflix’s library size in the Philippines was 3,835 shows and movies, still less than the 5,839 shows and movies in the US. Cai U. Ordinario

TORRE LORENZO EYES I.P.O. BY 2022

TORRE Lorenzo Development Corp. (TLDC) has set its sights on listing 30 percent of its business in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) by 2022, its chief financial officer Emmanuel Rapadas told reporters. Rapadas said this is part of the company’s plan to grow its business. “We’re borrowing money to build projects. So, via the IPO [initial public offering] we hope to eliminate majority of our debts. Proceeds of the IPO will be used to pay off our debts,” he said. PNA

MUTUAL FUNDS

November 27, 2018

NAV ONE YEAR THREE YEAR FIVE YEAR Y-T-D PER SHARE RETURN* RETURN STOCK FUNDS ALFM GROWTH FUND, INC * 248.28 -13.4% -0.27% 2.17% -15.32% ATRAM ALPHA OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC.* 1.3744 -13.89% 4.18% 2.86% -13.93% ATRAM PHILIPPINE EQUITY OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC.* 3.8611 -14.09% 0.67% 0.89% -15.93% CLIMBS SHARE CAPITAL EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND CORP.* 0.8936 -11.94% N.A. N.A. -12.13% FIRST METRO CONSUMER FUND ON MSCI PHILS. IMI, INC. * ********* 0.8217 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN EQUITY FUND,INC.* 5.1832 -12.15% -1.46% 1.77% -13.8% MBG EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND, INC. * ****** 111.97 N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. ONE WEALTHY NATION FUND, INC.* 0.8295 -15.44% N.A. N.A. -16.44% PAMI EQUITY INDEX FUND, INC.* 48.8373 -11.09% 0.95% N.A. -13.4% PHILAM STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC.* 510.27 -11.07% -0.21% 1.6% -13.29% PHILEQUITY DIVIDEND YIELD FUND, INC.* 1.2462 -10.04% 1.53% N.A. -11.26% PHILEQUITY FUND, INC.* 36.3666 -10.09% 1.96% 4.42% -11.51% PHILEQUITY PSE INDEX FUND INC.* 4.916 -11.39% 1.62% 4.07% -13.36% PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND CORP.* 821 -11.24% 1.37% 4.12% -13.19% SOLDIVO STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. * 0.8519 -9.9% -0.79% N.A. -11.91% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE EQUITY FUND, INC.* 4.0538 -9.99% 1.47% 2.61% -11.49% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND, INC.* 0.9461 -11.58% 1.42% N.A. -13.46% UNITED FUND, INC.* 3.4741 -8.15% 2.81% 3.07% -10.79% EXCHANGE TRADED FUND FIRST METRO PHIL. EQUITY EXCHANGE TRADED FUND, INC.* *** 109.706 -10.9% 2.52% N.A. -12.9% ATRAM ASIAPLUS EQUITY FUND, INC.** $0.9366 -17.33% 1.22% -0.72% -15.49% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD VOYAGER FUND, INC.* $1.1645 -6.65% N.A. N.A. -7.96% BALANCED FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES ATRAM DYNAMIC ALLOCATION FUND, INC.* 1.647 -10.16% -2.1% -1.23% -11.62% ATRAM PHILIPPINE BALANCED FUND, INC.* 2.1878 -9.73% 0.17% 0.71% -10.96% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN BALANCED FUND INC.* 2.5087 -8.26% -3.01% -1.46% -9.43% GREPALIFE BALANCED FUND CORPORATION* **** 1.2999 -9.81% N.A. N.A. -10.65% NCM MUTUAL FUND OF THE PHILS., INC* 1.8324 -6.47% 0.56% 1.73% -8.04% PAMI HORIZON FUND, INC.* 3.5043 -9.25% -0.84% 0.83% -10.56% PHILAM FUND, INC.* 15.7933 -8.76% -0.72% 0.77% -10.05% SOLIDARITAS FUND, INC.* ******** 2.0501 -7.57% 0.54% 2.45% -8.56% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BALANCED FUND, INC.* 3.645 -7.73% 0.22% 1.03% -8.79% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DYNAMIC FUND, INC.* 0.9279 -7.7% -0.24% N.A. -9.06% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES COCOLIFE DOLLAR FUND BUILDER, INC.* $0.03476 -3.92% -0.66% 1.25% -3.71% PAMI ASIA BALANCED FUND, INC.* $0.9347 -11.9% 1.29% -1.51% -10.73% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ADVANTAGE FUND, INC.* $3.424 -5.26% 2.81% 1.63% -6.26% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR WELLSPRING FUND, INC.* $1.0255 -7.42% N.A. N.A. -7.8% BOND FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES ALFM PESO BOND FUND, INC.* 342.53 1.82% 2.01% 1.65% 1.61% ATRAM CORPORATE BOND FUND, INC.* ******* 1.8442 -2.41% -0.96% -0.8% -2.54% COCOLIFE FIXED INCOME FUND, INC.* 2.9583 5.53% 5.34% 5.25% 4.83% EKKLESIA MUTUAL FUND INC.* 2.1266 1.03% 1.42% 1% 1.16% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN FIXED INCOME FUND,INC.* 2.2051 -0.43% -0.06% 0.13% -0.5% GREPALIFE FIXED INCOME FUND CORP.* P 1.5641 -3.01% -0.6% -1.43% -2.82% PHILAM BOND FUND, INC.* 3.8896 -4.38% -0.75% -0.84% -3.96% PHILEQUITY PESO BOND FUND, INC.* 3.4877 -0.21% 0.27% -0.35% -0.49% SOLDIVO BOND FUND, INC. * 0.8877 -3.96% -1% N.A. -3.85% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BOND FUND, INC.* 2.7591 -0.72% 0.85% 0.03% -0.64% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY GS FUND, INC.* 1.5333 -1.17% 0.35% -0.27% -1.06% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES ALFM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. * $446.9 0.32% 2.28% 2.99% 0.22% ALFM EURO BOND FUND, INC. * Є212.43 -0.48% 0.95% 1.51% -0.6% ATRAM TOTAL RETURN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC.** $1.1225 -1.01% 0.81% 1.84% -1.02% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC.* $0.0248 -0.8% 0.68% N.A. -0.8% GREPALIFE DOLLAR BOND FUND CORP.* $1.6874 -5.06% -0.45% 1.07% -4.75% MAA PRIVILEGE DOLLAR FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. MAA PRIVILEGE EURO FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. ЄN.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. PAMI GLOBAL BOND FUND, INC* $1.0246 -5.24% -0.71% -2.62% -4.56% PHILAM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC.* $2.1367 -4.9% 0.35% 2.34% -5.08% PHILEQUITY DOLLAR INCOME FUND INC.* $0.0569128 -0.97% 0.87% 1.79% -0.5% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ABUNDANCE FUND, INC.* $2.8696 -4.91% 0.52% 1.59% -4.75% MONEY MARKET FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES ALFM MONEY MARKET FUND, INC.* 120.38 2.59% 1.76% 1.5% 2.36% PHILAM MANAGED INCOME FUND, INC.* 1.1778 1.85% 0.49% 0.44% 1.76% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY MONEY MARKET FUND, INC.* 1.2149 2.56% 2.22% 1.5% 2.48% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR STARTER FUND, INC.* ***** $1.0144 1.53% N.A. N.A. 1.57% * - NAVPS AS OF THE PREVIOUS BANKING DAY ** - NAVPS AS OF TWO BANKING DAYS AGO *** - LISTED IN THE PSE. **** - RE-CLASSIFIED INTO A BALANCED FUND STARTING JANUARY 1, 2017 (FORMERLY GREPALIFE BOND FUND CORP.). ***** - LAUNCH DATE IS NOVEMBER 6, 2017 ****** - LAUNCH DATE IS JANUARY 08, 2018 ******** - RENAMING OF THE FUND WAS APPROVED BY THE SEC LAST APRIL 13, 2018. ********* - BECAME A MEMBER SINCE APRIL 20, 2018. ******* - ADJUSTED DUE TO CASH DIVIDEND ISSUANCE LAST JANUARY 29, 2018

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

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House panel okays bill hiking tobacco excise tax By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

HE House Committee on Ways and Means approved on Tuesday a measure increasing excise taxes on tobacco products, which was tagged as part of the Package 2 plus of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Package (CTRP). In an interview, Nueva Ecija Rep. Estrellita B. Suansing, chairman of the panel, said the substitute measure will restructure the excise tax on tobacco products by amending the National Internal Revenue Code as amended by Republic Act 10351, or the Sin Tax Reform Law. “We already finished the assignment [all the tax packages] of the committees of ways and means,” Suansing said. The new proposal, pushed by Deputy Speaker Sharon S. Garin of Aambis-OWA, provides that the excise tax rates for tobacco would

increase by P2.50 every year starting July 2019 until 2022. In 2019, under the TRAIN law, the new excise tax rate for tobacco will be P35, from P30 per pack this year. With the passage of this new bill, the new rate will increase to P37.50 per pack by July 2019 and additional P2.50 every year thereafter until 2022. Suansing said the tax rate shall be P40 for 2020; P42.50 for 2021 and P45 for 2022. “Also a 4-percent [tax] will be imposed every year thereafter, starting 2023,” Suansing said. For her part, Garin said the

lower chamber remians open for proposals and adjustments that it still may consider. Garin added the government is expecting P2.7 billion in revenue from the passage of these additional taxes for tobacco products. The approved proposal differs from Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda’s House Bill 4575 and Quezon Rep. Angelina Tan’s HB 6648, which are both proposing for a unitary excise tax rate of P60 for tobacco products. “I moved for the increase, very minimal [at P2.50] because personally, I didn’t want any increase yet, because we just did this year,” Garin said. “So I wanted a full assessment and then congressional oversight to check [if we] did the right thing. Did we increase enough or did we have a shortfall, because we wanted to increase the revenues [not only to] have more money for the universal health care [or UHC] but we also want curb the smoking.” She added she “was amenable to little increase [in the meantime].” “Then we can reassess next year if we see it’s not working,” Garin said. “Then we can adjust again.” The main authors of the bills said revenue from excise tax on

Treasury opens tap facility anew after bids for reissued 7-yr T-bonds oversubscribed

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NVESTORS flocked to park their funds in the reissued seven-year Treasury bond (T-bond) with bids more than four times oversubscribed at P62.227 billion, prompting the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) to open its tap facility anew. National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told reporters Treasury officials were “pleasantly surprised” at the turnout of the T-bonds auction on Tuesday. “We are pleasantly surprised. We are seeing a lot now also that the preference is going into the intermediate,” de Leon said. “They are going longer because they want to lock-in the rates right now.” The auction committee awarded the full P15 billion on offer at an average annual rate of 6.974 percent. The reissued seven-year T-bond has a remaining life of six years and four months. The rates posted a slight increase of 11.1 basis points compared to the previous rate of 7.085 percent. The average annual rate for the IOU is also lower compared to the rates under the Bloomberg Valuation Service (BVAL) of 7.101 percent. De Leon said the healthy demand for the security can also be attributed to expectations that inflation is now decelerating. She added there are also signs that global oil prices are stabilizing and the peso further appreciating. The healthy bid turnout pushed the BTr to open once again its tap facility.

“The expectation that the rates will be falling already given the inflation is expected to already trend downward,” de Leon said. “Now the bids are even higher than what we got last week for the fiveyear [T-bond], so we’ll see how much the tap [facility] will also generate.” The tap facility was opened for the Treasury’s 10 market makers from 2 to 4 p.m. last Tuesday, with the auction ending 5 p.m. the same day. The tap facility allows Government Securities Eligible Dealers (GSEDs) to access bonds after the initial auction. The last time the Treasury decided to utilize its tap facility was in January 2017. “We are opening the tap [facility],” she said. Another P15 billion will be offered under the tap facility with the same annual average rate of 6.974 percent. In December last year, the BTr named its market makers under its enhanced GSED program, with the financial institutions being selected based on their performance in the primary and secondary government security markets. The 10 market makers are: BDO Unibank Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands, China Banking Corp., Citibank Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines, First Metro Investment Corp., Land Bank of the Philippines, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and Security Bank Corp. Rea Cu

Mandated agri-agra lending losing its touch even among smaller banks

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VEN rural and cooperative banks— whose major market are the countryside farmers and fisherfolk—are finding it increasingly hard to comply with the mandatory lending to the agrarian reform and agricultural sector, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed. Five-year data trend from the BSP showed that while rural and cooperative banks are still the only banking group that is able to comply with the agri-agra lending quotas, their share in this sector has been shrinking over the years. The mandated lending to agriculure and agrarian reform—known as the Agri-Agra Reform Credit Act of 2009, requires banks to allocate 25 percent of their total loan portfolio to the two sectors—10 percent for the agrarian reform credit and 15 percent to other agricultural credit. Only rural and cooperative banks are known to be able to comply with this loan quota, with universal, commercial and thrift banks choosing to pay penalties instead of

allocating credit for these “risky” sectors. In end-2013 rural and cooperative banks were able to allocate 24.53 percent of their total loan portfolio to agrarian reform credit, way above the 10-percent mandate. For the agriculture sector, rural and cooperative banks set 44.59 percent of their loan portfolio to this sector, also exceeding the 15-percent quota. This, however, went down significantly in the last five years. In end-2014 rural and cooperative banks’ allocation to the agrarian reform sector went down to 18.47 percent, while their lending to the agricultural sector hit 34.21 percent. This went further down the next year, with lending to agrarian reform sector reaching only 17.99 percent of their portfolio and lending to agriculture sector to 34.03 percent. In end-2016 the share of agri-agra lending to the rural and cooperative banks’ total loan portfolio further shrank to 16.44 percent for the agrarian reform and 28.79 percent for the agricultural sector. Bianca Cuaresma

tobacco as well as alcohol products will fund the proposed UHC Act. It is currently going through the bicameral conference committee and expected to be signed into law by the end of the year. According to the Department of Health (DOH), around P164 billion in incremental funds still needs to be generated to ensure its proper implementation.

Support

NONGOVERNMENT Action for Economic Refor ms ex pressed its support for HB 6648 by Tan, which proposes to increase the excise tax on cigarettes to P60 per pack, which was similarly proposed in Senate Bill 1599 authored by Sen. Manny Pacquiao. SB 1605 written by Sen. JV Ejercito proposes to increase the cigarette excise tax to P90 per pack, which the AER said it also supports. “We hope the political leaders both in Congress and the Executive will exert utmost effort and use their political capital to have a good bill in both Houses passed,” AER fiscal policy team head, Jo-Ann L. Diosana said. The DOH has also publicly expressed its support for Ejer-

cito’s proposal. and Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III recently requested that President Duterte certify the measure as urgent. “Whatever issues raised by the legislators of the House of Representatives about the competence of PhilHealth and the Department of Health to judiciously spend the money coming from the tobacco tax increase should be addressed,” Diosana said. “However, raising tobacco tax is clearly urgent. Not only will the bill lower smoking

prevalence in the country; it will also generate a significant amount of funding for the UHC bill, which is expected to be signed into law by the end of the year.” AER also refuted claims that the tobacco industry will be negatively affected by the tobacco tax increase. The group cited the significant increase in cigarette prices this year, more than the increase stipulated by the TRAIN law, clearly showing that the cigarette companies can still absorb higher prices.

B4 Wednesday, November 28, 2018

SECOND HUNGARIAN FILM FESTIVAL RUNS ONSCREEN TODAY! LAMUDI GAINS INVESTMENT FROM TWO OF WORLD’S LARGEST CLASSIFIEDS COMPANIES

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A MUDI, one of t he lead ing rea l- est ate pl at for ms tod ay, ha s recent ly welcomed A xel Spr inger SE and R ing ier, t wo of t he world ’s l a rgest med i a- a nd on l ine classified companies, as new investors. Bot h compa n ies sha re a seat in the adv isor y board that w ill, for now, be t a ken over by R ing ier. T he f u nd ing a mou nt is not m ade publ ic, but K i a n Moin i, cofou nder and chief executive officer (CEO) of L amud i, stated t hat, “ T he major it y of f u nd ing c a n a nd w i l l be spent on g row t h, g iven t he compa ny ’s c o m f or t a b l e f i n a nc i a l s it u at io n a nd a c lea r pat h to brea keven.” Launched in late 2013 w it h Roc ket Inter net, L a mud i is a lead ing globa l rea l-estate platfor m focusing exclusively on emerg i ng m a rket s. T he f a st growing platform has active property portals available in A si a (t he Ph i l ippi nes, I ndonesi a , B a n g l ad e s h a nd Sr i L a n k a) a nd L at i n A mer ic a ( Me x ico, Colombi a a nd Pe r u). L a mud i cou nt s we l l k now n i nvestors, i nc lud i ng A si a Pac i f ic I nter net Group ( A pac ig ), a joi nt vent u re of R oc ket I nter net a nd Ooredoo, Holt zbr inc k a nd Tenge l m a n n vent u res.

“ We h ave proven to be of h ig h v a lue to con su mers a nd i ndu st r y players along the search and marketing of rea l estate. T he new funding round will help us accelerate that, as wel l as sig nif ica nt ly e x pa nd our ef for ts to add v a lue a long t he t ra n s ac t ion ,” Moi n i s a id . “ B e yond t he c apit a l , we look for w a rd to benef it f rom t he lear nings and k nowledge of t he m a r k e t pl a c e s a nd t r a n s a c t ion a l proper t y businesses, which are par t of the por tfolios of A xel Spr i nger a nd R i ng ier.” R i n g i e r A G , S w i t z e r l a n d ’s leading inter nationa l media enter pr i se, i s a prom i nent d ig it a lm a rket pl ace i nvestor i n emerg i ng ma rkets across Cent ra l a nd Easer n Europe, A fr ica and Southeast A si a . Sa id R obi n L i ng g , head of m a rket pl aces at R i ng ier, “ R i ng ier sta nds for invest ing in susta inable v a lue c reat ion. L a mud i ver y muc h matc hes our v ision, as wel l as ou r i nterest i n loc a l i z ed bu si ness mode l s a nd cou nt r y foot pr i nt . We h av e b e e n d e e p l y i mp re s s e d b y t he compa ny ’s operat ive le ve l of soph ist ic at ion, its globa l a nd loc a l m a n a ge me nt te a m’s c ap a bi l it ie s a nd ea ger ness to c reate v a lue. We

bel ieve t hat K ia n a nd his tea m w i l l d r ive sig nif icant c hange in t he rea l est ate i ndu st r y i n Sout hea st A si a a nd Me x ico.” A nd rea s W ie le, president of Classifieds Media A xel Springer SE, added that, “ The team of Lamudi has built, under the leadership of Kian Moini, a fast-growing business in attractive markets. A s one of the largest operators in the digital real-estate space, we are convinced that we can help to further this development w it h our k now-how and expertise.” “ With this latest round of f u n d i n g , w e ’r e p o s i t i v e t h a t Lamudi, which is already positioned a s t he No. 1 pl ayer i n t he m a rket , w i l l cont i nue it s more a g g ressive g row t h i n t he Ph i l ippi nes,” s ay s L a mud i Ph i l ippi nes C EO Bh av n a Su resh. “ It w i l l fa st-t rac k ou r development in t he prov inces and help br ing more industr y pract it ioners on l ine, t hus, ma k ing su re t hei r bu si nesses f lou r i sh. We a r e c o n ne c t o r s , a nd w e b e l i e v e t hat t hrough d ig it a l, we br ing t r a n s p a re nc y t o t he re a l - e s t at e m a rket . T h i s f u nd i ng i s goi ng to h e l p u s m o v e t h e n e e d l e mu c h f u r t her i n t h i s reg a rd .”

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HE Embassy of Hungary is proud to present the second Hungarian Film Festival (HUFF 2.0) running from today, November 28, until December 2. The festival, held in cooperation with the Film Development Council of the Philippines and Ayala Malls Cinemas, will present six Hungarian films this year. From an Academy-award winning classic to contemporary thrillers, comedies and animation films, HUFF has something in store for every one. Budapest Noir is a detective thriller set in the mid-1930s Budapest. A crime reporter thinks he has seen it all when a tip leads him to an unusual crime scene and an investigation of a young girl’s murder, which leads him to a world of pornographers, brothels and Communist cells leading to the highest echelons of power. In Ferenc Török’s drama 1945, a rural village prepares for the wedding of the town clerk’s son when two strangers arrive at the train station. The villagers are afraid that survivors will return, posing a threat to properties and possessions they acquired during the war. Lajkó, Gypsy in Space is a black comedy about the first living being in space who was not actually a dog called Laika, but a Hungarian cropsprayer by the name of Lajkó. In early 1957 the Soviet Union decides to give Hungary the honor of providing the first cosmonaut to orbit in space, and the most suitable candidate turns out to be none other than Lajkó, whose life as a pilot reflects his attraction to the stars. Final Cut by György Pálfi is a film like no other, telling the ultimate love story through the performances of hundreds of actors from the past hundred years of world cinema. This is a film everyone will connect with because we have all seen parts of it. The animation film The Legend of King Solomon (dubbed in English) is a epic adventure of romance, magic and mayhem. Based on a popular folk legend, in which animals, demons and humans meet, the film follows the adventures of the young King Solomon, the Arab Princess Nama and the African Queen of Sheba, as they as they struggle together

against Asmodeus, the king of demons, who is trying to seize their kingdoms. With a special screening for the opening night on November 28, Mephisto gets the big screen treatment again in Manila. The 1981 Academy-award winning classic shows a German stage actor who finds unexpected success and mixed blessings in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-World War 2 Germany. The popularity of his character supercedes his own existence until he finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons. The film is presented in its original German language version, subtitled in English. The screeenings are free and subtitled in English, but be sure to reserve your seets at Greenbelt 3 Cinemas or on sureseats.com.

VISTA CINEMAS BRINGS IMAX WITH LASER, FIRST IN SOUTHEAST ASIA Vista Land chairman Manny Villar leads the launch of Asia’s first Imax with laser at Vista Cinema in Evia Lifestyle Center. Joining Villar are Vista Land President and Chief Executive Officer Paolo Villar, managing director Camille Villar, former Starmall President Jerry Navarrete, Vista Cinemas general manager Christiana Caparas, Imax head of sales and marketing Walt Cho and other officers of Vista Cinemas.

ABOITIZ NOW OFFICIALLY I.S.O. 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

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HE Aboitiz Group, represented by Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. chief technology officer and Aboitiz Integrated Management System Steering Committee chairman Hoton Elicano (left), officially received its ISO 9001:2015 certification from Femelyn Lati, TUV Sud PSB Philippines Inc. general manager, in the turnover ceremony on November 9. It was simultaneously held at the Aboitiz Corporate Centers in Bonifacio Global City and Cebu City. This reflects the Aboitiz

Group’s outstanding quality management system highlighting improved customer focus and operational excellence. “We did not pursue this certification only because of compliance, but also because this is how we do things in Aboitiz. It is important that we recognize its value to make us more organized and, thereby, able to meet stakeholder, legal and statutory requirements, and mitigate quality-related risks in our operations,” Elicano said.

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

NOVAK DJOKOVIC wins Wimbledon and the US Open in 2018, while Roger Federer takes the Australian Open and Rafael Nadal earns the title at the French Open. In the women’s side, it’s Simona Halep who ends the season at No. 1 for the second consecutive year AP

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THE BIG 1-2-3! B H F The Associated Press

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HE Big Three is the year-end top 3, something that last happened in 2014. With Novak Djokovic at No. 1, Rafael Nadal at No. 2 and Roger Federer at No. 3 on Monday, that trio of tennis greats leads the season’s final Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings for the seventh time. This is the first time, though, that each of those three men spent some time at No. 1 during the same year. The seven changes there were the most since 1999, when there were eight. Djokovic won Wimbledon and the US Open in 2018, while Federer took the Australian Open, and Nadal earned the title at the French Open. They accounted for Nos. 1-3 in the final rankings in 2007-2011 and 2014, too. For Djokovic, it marks the fifth time he has closed a year in the top spot, following 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. Only Pete Sampras, with six year-end No. 1 finishes, did it more often. The 31-year-old from Serbia is also the oldest man to be No. 1 at season’s end and the first to finish atop the rankings after being outside the top 20 during the year—or outside the top 10 at the end of the previous year (he was No. 12 in 2017). Simona Halep ended the season at No. 1 in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings for the second consecutive year; she clinched that spot more than a month ago. Angelique Kerber was No. 2 among women, followed by Caroline Wozniacki, Elina Svitolina and Naomi Osaka. Djokovic overtook Nadal three weeks ago; the Spaniard did not compete anywhere after stopping because of a painful right knee during his US Open semifinal in September against Juan Martin del Potro. Nadal had arthroscopic surgery on his right ankle this month. Nadal concludes a season at No. 1 or No. 2 for the 10th time, trailing only Federer’s 11. Federer, meanwhile, is in the year-end top 3 for a record 14th time. The 37-year-old from Switzerland has won 20 Grand Slam singles championships, the most by a man, followed by Nadal with 17, then Djokovic and the retired Sampras with 14 apiece. The rest of the ATP top 10 for 2018:

No. 4 Alexander Zverev, No. 5 del Potro, No. 6 Kevin Anderson, No. 7 Marin Cilic, No. 8 Dominic Thiem, No. 9 Kei Nishikori and No. 10 John Isner. Del Potro was the runner-up at the US Open, Anderson at Wimbledon, Cilic at the Australian Open, and Thiem at the French Open. Neither Anderson nor Isner ever had finished a year in the top 10, while del Potro is back in that group for the first time since 2013. Two Italian players who previously were ranked in the top 50, meanwhile, have been banned for match-fixing at an ATP event in Barcelona in 2011. Daniele Bracciali, who is still an active player, was banned for life and fined $250,000. Potito Starace, who has retired, was banned from any future involvement in the sport for 10 years and fined $100,000. The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) announced the sanctions on

Wednesday, following a disciplinary hearing in September. The TIU says both players were found guilty of two breaches of anti-corruption rules. One relates to contriving the outcome of matches and the other relates to facilitating betting on matches. The 40-year-old Bracciali is currently ranked No. 100 in doubles and had a career-high singles ranking of No. 49 in 2006. The 37-yearold Starace reached a career-best singles ranking of No. 27 in 2007. As a doubles team, they reached the semifinals at the 2012 French Open.

WITH NOVAK DJOKOVIC AT NO. 1, RAFAEL NADAL AT NO. 2 AND ROGER FEDERER AT NO. 3 ON MONDAY, THAT TRIO OF TENNIS GREATS LEADS THE SEASON’S FINAL ASSOCIATION OF TENNIS PROFESSIONALS RANKINGS FOR THE SEVENTH TIME.

KOREAS WIN UNESCO NOD OF TRADITIONAL WRESTLING S

EOUL, South Korea—Divided for about seven decades, North and South Korea together won their first international recognition of Korean traditional wrestling as one of the world’s cultural treasures on Monday. The Koreas had earlier pushed separate bids for the sport’s Unesco recognition before merging their applications amid an easing of tensions this year. Local media reports said South Korea had first proposed the joint bid after a leaders’ summit at a Korean border village in April. On Monday, Unesco said Korean wrestling was added to a list of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” on the basis of an application by the two Koreas. “The joint inscription marks a highly symbolic step on the road to inter-Korean reconciliation,” Unesco Director General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement. “It reminds us of the peace-building power of cultural heritage, as a bridge between peoples. This marks a victory for the longstanding and profound ties between both sides of the inter-Korean border.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in hailed the Unesco inscription,

calling it a “result of recent South-North cooperation.” The South’s Cultural Heritage Administration said that the two Koreas have been given a new opportunity to further promote exchanges in the field of cultural heritage. It said in a statement the joint nomination is the “fruitful outcome of a meeting” between Moon and Azoulay in October. Unesco said during that meeting with Moon, Azoulay proposed a series of concrete projects involving Unesco that would facilitate inter-Korean reconciliation. It said similar discussions also took place with North Korea in recent weeks. “The commitment of Unesco to facilitate peace between the two parties has led to the joint inscription in a short time frame,” it said. The Koreas saw their ties improved greatly since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reached out to Moon and US President Donald J. Trump with a vague nuclear disarmament commitment early this year. They have since marched together during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, exchanged pop singer performances and taken steps toward easing a frontline military standoff. But it’s unclear how far their reconciliation moves would go as US-led diplomacy aimed at

stripping North Korea of its nuclear program has reported headway since Kim’s summit with Trump in June. The Koreas were a single country before their separation in 1945. Split along the world’s most heavily fortified border, the countries now have linguistic, cultural and other gaps. They use different English Romanization rules. The wrestling’s English spelling is ssirum in North Korea and ssireum in South Korea. The Koreas use both spellings for their combined bid for Unesco recognition. North Korea has won Unesco recognitions of two Korean cultural assets—the Korean folk tune “Airrang” and the making of kimchi. The two are among the 19 items that South Korea has received Unesco recognition for, according to South Korean officials. Korean wrestling is a national sport and a popular cultural practice in both Koreas. In the sport, participants with a belt around their waists and thighs use their hands, legs and other body parts to bring down their opponents. In South Korea, it gained wide popularity in the 1980s, threatening the long-running popularity of baseball and soccer. AP

QATAR 2022: WORK IN PROGRESS D

OHA, Qatar—Nasser al-Khater glances out his window across Doha Bay. The view is far different than it was eight years ago, when al-Khater served as part of the team that helped Qatar pull off a staggering upset to land the 2022 Fifa World Cup. In the distance the bare bones of Ras Abu Aboud Stadium are being laid, perhaps the most audacious and innovative of the eight venues that will play host to the biggest tournament on the planet. Four years out, everything appears to be running on schedule, from stadium construction—including at Ras Abu Aboud, which will incorporate 1,000 shipping containers while offering a sweeping view of Doha’s downtown skyline—to finding the right grass that can both meet Fifa’s exacting standards while also providing a long-term benefit to the Arabian Peninsula. Yet logistics are only a portion of Qatar’s story. The small country of 2.7 million—only 300,000 of them actual Qatari citizens—has spent the better part of a decade grappling with the white-hot spotlight landing the World Cup provides. The construction boom that accompanied the winning bid has been built on the backs of migrant laborers from India, Pakistan, Nepal and other Asian nations, much like it has in other oil-rich sheikhdoms in the region. As oil prices crashed below $30 a barrel in 2016, construction firms in Qatar and elsewhere in the region suffered. Some stopped paying staffers on time, if at all. Others seized workers’ passports or otherwise abused Qatar’s “kafala” system that ties expatriate workers to a single employer. In recent months, Qatar ended a requirement for some workers to seek their employers’ permission before leaving the country. It also required contractors who bring in workers from other nations to reimburse employees for any recruitment fee they paid to an outside agency to facilitate their placement. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other activists say more needs to be done. There have been two reported deaths at Qatar’s World Cup projects. While al-Khater, deputy secretary-general of the World Cup organizing committee, understands “this is an area we’re going to have to do a lot of work,” he points to the headway made since 2010 as proof the World Cup has already made a lasting impact. AP

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MAGNOLIA’S Ian Sangalang has begged off from the national pool to concentrate on his therapy for his injury and be at possible best form for the best-of-seven series.

GOVERNORS’ CUP FINALS

A TOUGH CALL L

IKE almost everybody else, Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) coaches themselves see the Governors’ Cup Finals between the Magnolia Hotshots and the Alaska Aces as a tough call. “It’s a toss-up. The two teams are almost even,” national coach Yeng Guiao said. Guiao and most of the PBA coaches foresee a grind-out battle in each game and a long series that may well reach the full distance. “I will not be surprised if all the games go down the wire, and I expect a Game Seven that would make the PBA fans very happy,” San Miguel Beer Coach Leo Austria said. “’Strength and weaknesses almost even. The team which commits less turnovers and gets more offensive rebounds will win,” Phoenix Petroleum Coach Louie Alas said. The Hotshots and the Aces are now about to step up their buildup for the series opener on December 5 at the MOA Arena in Pasay City. For Magnolia, center-forward Ian Sangalang has begged off from the national pool to concentrate on his therapy for his injury and be at possible best form for the best-of-seven series. “I can understand his case,” Guiao said. Guiao feels Magnolia has the slight edge in the frontcourt with Ian Sangalang, Rafi Reavis, Rodney Brondial, Aldrech

Ramos and Kyle Pascual. But Alaska, he said, has the advantage in the backcourt because of the defensive pressure put up by Chris Banchero, Jvee Casio, Ping Exciminiano and Simon Enciso. “They are even with their imports. Mike Harris’s averages are up there, Romeo Travis could score at will. He just defers to his teammates. He’s more effective in sharing the ball with his teammates,” Guiao said. Austria, meanwhile, feels Magnolia has the advantage in manpower but Alaska could compensate on whatever disadvantage it has on its tried and tested system. “We all know Alaska’s system. They just keep on improving every conference with it,” Austria said. The San Miguel Beer coach, however, thinks Magnolia is dangerous with the fact that anybody from its core could explode at any time. “The Aces are predictable. But for Magnolia, anybody could score anytime like Paul Lee, Mark Barroca, Jio Jalalon, Ian Sangalang and even PJ Simon,” he said. And he also acknowledges the capability of the Hotshots to play tough defense. “They stopped Justin Brownlee [in the Magnolia-Ginebra semis series]. So I think they can also find a way to stop Mike Harris,” Austria stressed. But putting all factors together, Guiao and Austria insist it’s a tough call.

FIL-AM GOLF TEES OFF

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AGUIO CITY—Four brand-new Toyota cars will be up for grabs in the 69th Fil-Am Invitational Golf Tournament at the Baguio Country Club (BCC) and Camp John Hay (CJH) courses that officially starts on Wednesday. Nos. 10 and 18 are the designated holes at BCC and CJH, respectively, that offer a Toyota Rush for the hole-in-one maker, cochairmen Anthony de Leon and Tim Allen told a press conference at the CJH golf club. Two Toyota Wigo cars, meanwhile, will be raffled off during the awards night on December 6 and 15 for the seniors and regular divisions, respectively. Practice rounds will start for the Regular F and G flights, as well as the seniors and new division super seniors on Wednesday. A captain’s meeting is also scheduled to finalize the lineup of teams, as well as to give each captain a rundown of the rules. Some 91 seniors team are ready for action on Saturday. Secretariat head Roanne Galicia said that the number went up from last year’s 69.

The super seniors is open to players aged 70 and older. Luisita will defend the crown in the premiere Fil Championship flight with Manila Southwoods and Megafiber as the biggest challengers. Luisita will be bannered by former pro Eddie Bagtas, while Tommy Manotoc is expected to anchor Southwoods in the five-to-play, four-to-count tournament backed by San Miguel Corp. Luisita is also defending champion in the Am Championship division. Practice rounds for the regular Championship and A to E divisions will be on December 7. The tournament proper starts on December 10. Southwoods will return to defend its crown, hoping, too, to earn the team’s 17th title since 1997, when the team debuted and became the tournament’s most dominant team. Yutu Katsuragawa is expected to return after a year’s absence but Southwoods will miss Joo Hyung-kim, last year’s individual champion, who turned pro.

Para games coaches receive

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HE Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) released on Tuesday cash incentives to seven national para athlete coaches at the PhilSports Complex in Pasig City. PSC Chairman William Ramirez awarded the checks to the coaches who steered their wards to medals in the Asian Para Games in October in Jakarta. He was joined by PSC Commissioner Arnold Agustin and Philippine Paralympic Committee President Mike Barredo. “We at the PSC value you, our coaches, as

much as we value our athletes. The endless preparations and trainings you put our athletes in are the reason why the Philippine team has succeeded in the last Asian Para Games,” Ramirez said. “The goal was achieved because of your efforts. Thank you for the sacrifice,” Agustin said. Swimming’s Antonio Ong and Maria Josefina Pulumbarit, bowling’s Benshir Layoso and George Manioso, chess’s Roel Abelgas, cycling’s Norberto Oconer and powerlifting’s Ramon

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FIERCE DUELS UP

IN OPEN SPIKEFEST

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XPECT a pair of fierce duels as Creamline faces PetroGazz and BanKo-Perlas collides with Ateneo-Motolite on Wednesday in what promises to be an explosive Final Four of the Premier Volleyball League Season 2 Open Conference at the Filoil Flying V Center in San Juan. Although the Cool Smashers and Perlas Spikers seem to have gained the momentum at the end of the double-round eliminations, the Angels and Lady Eagles have the materials to foil their powerhouse rivals in their respective best-of-three series. Creamline split its two-game eliminations series with PetroGazz, but its 3-0 thumping of the Angels last week to clinch the top seeding makes the Cool Smashers the slight favorites in their 4 p.m. showdown with the No. 4 squad. “We have to be confident because I think that’s one of the keys [to winning],” said Creamline star and leading MVP candidate Alyssas Valdez, whose 20-hit norm in the elims helped put the team on track for a second championship after the Cool Smashers ruled the Reinforced Conference in July. But PetroGazz Coach Jerry Yee is expected to have drawn up counter plays to neutralize Valdez’s power along with those of Michelle Gumabao, Jema Galanza, Risa Saso and Pau Soriano. He is also tipped to have firmed up the Angels’ offense anchored on Paneng Mercado, Cherry Nuñag, Alyssa Layug, Jonah Sabete and Jessey de Leon. The 6 p.m. clash between BanKo-Perlas and Ateneo-Motolite is also seen to go down-to-thewire, notwithstanding the Perlas Spikers’ sweep of the Lady Eagles in emphatic fashions in the elims. With the exuberance of Ateneo’s triple tower made up of Kat Tolentino, Bea de Leon and Maddie Madayag plus the gutsy plays of rookie Vanessa Gandler, Ponggay Gaston, Deanna Wong and Dani Ravena, the Lady Eagles are more than ready to redeem themselves against their veteran rivals, led by former Ateneo stars Dzi Gervacio and Amy Ahomiro, former University of the Philippines stalwarts Nicole Tiamzon and Kathy Bersola, along with Joy Dacoron, Amanda Villanueva and Sue Roces.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

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ABARING AHEAD BY TWO STROKES

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ICHARD ABARING rebounded from an early bogey mishap with a string of birdies as he turned in a three-under 69 to wrest a two-stroke lead over Charles Hong at the start of the 2019 Philippine Golf Tour (PGT) Qualifying School at Splendido Taal Golf Club in Laurel, Batangas, on Tuesday. Abaring hit a pair of back-to-back birdies in a seven-hole stretch from No. 4 to negate a bogey on the tough par-4 third of the challenging layout, then parred the rest of the holes to string a 34-35 round and set the pace in the 72-hole elims that offers 50-plus ties berths for next year’s PGT. Hong, a former leg winner but missed the top 40 ranking for automatic cards by five rungs, gunned down three birdies but fumbled with two bogeys, the last on the 18th that netted him the only other under-par card (71) produced in hot conditions at the rolling layout. Marvin Dumandan bogeyed the last two holes to drop to 74 in a tie with Rey Pagunsan and Erwin Arcillas, while Miko Alejandro blew a 34 frontside start with a closing 41 for a 75, the same output put in by Jet Mathay, Francis Morilla and Alfredo Repato Jr., who also squandered an impressive 35 with a backside 40. Nelson Huerva, Nico Evangelista and former Masters champion Rodrigo Cuello all scored 77s, while Chris de los Santos, Jelbert Gamolo, Benjie Magada and Jun Bernis groped for identical 78s. Half of the starting 90-player field were still playing at presstime with the top 70 players after 36 holes to advance to the final two rounds. The top 50 plus ties will earn Category 5 status and the rest settling for Category 7 of the 2019 PGT starting fields.

WILL Bright Akhuetie emerge hero once more for the Fighting Maroons?

Ramon Rafael Bonilla

SMART BACK ON TRACK S

MART regained its winning ways as it asserted its mastery of Sta. Lucia, 25-23, 25-19, 25-19, in the Philippine Superliga All-Filipino Conference on Tuesday at the Bacoor Strike Gym in Bacoor City. Skipper Aiko Urdas and Jerrili Malabanan provided the spark for the Giga Hitters to finally end their three-game skid in the women’s club tournament bankrolled by Isuzu, Sogo, Mueller, Senoh, Asics, Mikasa, Mueller, UCPB Gen and Bizooku with Genius Sports as technical provider. Urdas and Malabanan dropped 13 points apiece, while Joyce Sta. Rita chipped in seven hits for the Giga Hitters, who also drew five hits and 14 excellent receptions from national team member Grethcel Soltones. Despite improving to a 3-5 win-loss record in the tournament that has ESPN5, Hyper HD and Aksyon TV as broadcast partners, Smart Head

Coach Roger Gorayeb was still not convinced. “All wins are important to us right now because we’re not on top of the standings. I have yet to see the real game of my team,” Gorayeb said. The Giga Hitters nearly played without setters as Jasmine Nabor and Angel Cayuna had academic commitments at National University and Far Eastern University, respectively. Nabor, however, decided to suit up as she finished with 31 excellent sets on top of 16 digs and four points. “Jasmine sacrificed her [oral] defense for this game. But on Thursday, Angel will be back, while Jasmine will miss the game,” said Gorayeb, whose crew will face Foton at the same venue. Jeanette Villareal and Micmic Laborte led Sta. Lucia with 11 and nine points, respectively, while Jho Maraguinot and Souzan Raslan added seven markers each for the Lady Realtors, who absorbed their ninth consecutive setback.

AL MENDOZA alsol47@yahoo.com

THAT’S ALL

cash incentives B Debuque received the bonuses. Coaches of gold medal-winners received P500,000, silver P250,000 and bronze P200,000. The incentives are mandated in Section 9 of the Republic Act 10699 or the National Athletes and Coaches Benefits and Incentives Act. The coaches’ incentives are equivalent to 50 percent of the cash incentives for gold, silver and bronze medalists. Barredo thanked the PSC for recognizing the sacrifices of their coaches and hopes to produce more medals for the country at the 2020 Asean Paragames.

NIVERSITY of the Philippines (UP) has momentum on its side and Adamson University has its back against the wall in the Season 81 University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball no-tomorrow Final Four showdown on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. With both teams hoping to end long title spells—UP last won the title in 1986 with a team led by Benjie Paras, Ronnie Magsanoc and Eric Altamirano and Adamson University its last in 1977 with Hector Calma manning the point—the do-or-die semifinals set at 3 p.m. is expected to go down the wire. The winner will advance to the Finals against defending champion Ateneo, which cruised past Far Eastern University (FEU), 80-61, in the other Final Four pairing. Playing inspired basketball, the Fighting Maroons put the duel on even footing after scoring a 73-71 win last Saturday, putting to naught the Soaring Falcon’s twice-to-beat advantage as the No. 2 seeds in the semifinals. Bright Akhuetie scored the game-winner almost unmolested with 2.6 seconds left in the game. “Winning against Adamson University is not easy. Adamson is not No. 2 team for

nothing,” UP Head Coach Bo Perasol said. “They’re a very resilient team. I kept on telling the boys that no matter what happens, we have to go through these kind of games. We’re just blessed that we got out victorious [in Game One].” The Soaring Falcons would surely refuse to let their guards down easily. Unfazed by the huge momentum on UP’s side, Falcons Coach Franz Pumaren knew his boys showed their resiliency in the first game despite the loss. “Do I look concerned about it? I guess we should have gotten the victory in spite of us playing bad. That’s a very good sign,” Pumaren said. “We played well, but we were down the whole game. And when we started playing the right system, the right brand of game, we were able to get back the lead,” he added. Saturday’s game was nip-and-tuck all the way until the Nigerian big man Akhuetie, who was silent all day, nailed the inside stab from a perfect Juan Gomez de Liaño assist. Scoreless in the first half, Paul Desiderio was all fired up in the final 20 minutes to topscore for UP with 19 points he iced with eight rebounds and four assists. De Liaño added 19 points and nine boards. Ateneo, meanwhile, sustained its solid form in a 4-1 win over University of Santo Tomas in juniors football action on Sunday at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. Luard Abaa and Kendryx Soriano scored first-half goals, while Andy Roxas and Austin Basconcillio also put their names in the score sheet for the Blue Eaglets. Following up its season-opening 1-0 victory over De La Salle-Zobel, Ateneo solidified its hold of the top of the table with six points. Defending eight-time champion FEU-Diliman and National University battled to a goalless draw in the other match.

‘TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS’

RIGHT AKHUETIE was only good for six points in Game One, but his last basket of the game shone brightest as it gave the University of the Philippiines (UP) a 73-71 heartstopping victory over Adamson University in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Final Four series. The clincher was a result of a sky-high pass from the inbounding Juan Gomez de Liano from the left sideline with a mere under three ticks remaining, the score tied at 71-all on two pressure-packed free throws by Adamson’s Sean Manganti.

It was the riskiest assist of the day but Akhuetie, well-poisitioned left underneath the goal, caught Liano’s lob pass unmolested. With an assassin conviction etched in his heart, Akhuetie would next bank the short stab to extend the series to a winner-take-all today, smashing Adamson University’s lofty twice-to-beat incentive. Seconds earlier, Paul Desiderio made it 71-69 in UP’s favor, sinking an extra-tight step-back jumper from left quartercourt with 5.5 seconds left preceding Manganti’s game-tying charities. With the win, the overachieving Fighting Maroons have the outright momentum in the 2

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ATENEO’S Deputy Coach Sandy Arespacochaga (left), National University ace Jack Animam (center) and Coach Pat Aquino grace Tuesday’s forum.

Pressure builds for champions T

HE pressure to repeat as champions only serves as motivation for both Ateneo and National University (NU) heading to their respective University Athletic Association of the Philippines basketball championship series. Coaches Pat Aquino of the Lady Bulldogs and Sandy Arespacochaga of the Blue Eagles admitted that pressure is part of being on top and overcoming the burden is a way for one to be called a winner. “There’s a lot of pressure, especially if you are the defending champion. All of the teams want to dethrone you,” said Arespacochaga, the lead deputy of Coach Tab Baldwin. “But on the other hand, the advantage we have is experience. We’ve been here before. So we’re just trying to use these experiences to counter the pressure,” he added. “You just have to be ready,” said Aquino as his unbeaten Lady Bulldogs eye their fifth straight women’s championship. “We just have to practice well, talk to the kids and sacrifice, sacrifice a lot.” Together with NU stalwart and national team player Jack Animam, Aquino and Arespacochaga graced Tuesday’s weekly Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the Tapa King Restaurant at the Farmers Plaza in Cubao, Quezon City. Both teams are awaiting their Finals opponents with do-or-die games scheduled on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Ateneo will face the winner between No. 2 Adamson University and No. 3 University of the Philippines, while NU, currently on an amazing 78-game winning streak since 2014, battles the winner between Far Eastern University and University of Santo Tomas in the stepladder women’s semifinals. While both Aquino and Arespacochaga are very much interested on how the wheel of fortune will turn out for all four teams, preparations have already began for the Blue Eagles and Lady Bulldogs. “We are going down to details in our offense and execution. Coach Tab is very particular about details,” Arespacochaga told the forum presented by San Miguel Corp., Tapa King and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. “For us this is a very good opportunity to look at ourselves as we await our opponents,” he said. The Lady Bulldogs meanwhile, played some tuneup games against a visiting college team from Taiwan. “It’s a good thing we have friends from Taiwan. They were good practice games in preparation for the championship,” Aquino said. Animam, one of three NU players who are undefeated so far in their collegiate careers, celebrated her birthday on Tuesday. But that didn’t keep her from joining the team in practice. “I want to become champion again,” she said. Ateneo beat No. 4 Far Eastern University, 80-61, to advance to the finals for the third straight year, while NU completed another 14-game sweep of the eliminations to make it to the championship round outright for the fifth straight season.

DIONISIO WINS CONVINCINGLY

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SMART’S Jerrili Malabanan tries to break the defense put up by Sta. Lucia’s Jeanette Villareal and Pam Lastimosa.

p.m. game at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. But stats are history and, as happens virtually all the time, it’s a whole new ballgame altogether again today. And, if we go by pretournament predictions, UP can now actually rest assured with its laurels—its Final 4 dream duly accomplished, its third-place finish more than a bonus at that. But, hey, now that the Maroons are on the verge of a Finals stint that never even occurred in their wildest imagination long before the tournament started, they might as well make a go of it—with all their might, all their heart and all their soul. Was it 30 or so years ago when UP won its last UAAP crown—behind the terrific trio of Ronnie Magsanoc, Eric Altamirano and Benjie Paras? Disclosure: My elder brother Kuya Pepito, who had helped me through college, is an Adamson alumnus together with my bosom buddies Ramon Uy and Marvin Velayo. My two kids are UP graduates. I can’t stop humming, “Torn between two lovers, feelin’ like a fool, loving both of you, is breakin’ all the rules.” Ah, damn the rules.

PEE STOP

The Captains’ Meeting, an

integral part of the Fil-Am Golf Invitational at Baguio Country Country (BCC) and Camp John Hay designed to thresh out questions on rules an other salient issues pertinent to the two-week event from November 30 to December 15, will be held on Wednesday at the CJH Clubhouse. Fil-Am Cochairman Steve Allen of CJH and Anthony de Leon of BCC will preside over the gathering that will also include Committee officials Roanne Galicia and Andrew Pinero. My fellow Rules Man Jake P. Ayson and I will aso be in attendance to entertain queries on local rules as well as provisions in the USGA and Royal & Ancient.... Congratulations to Meggie Ochoa for becoming the first Filipino and Asian to win the recent jiujitsu world crown (49-kg) in Malmo, Sweden. Kudos, too, to the Philippine Azkals for entering the semifinals of the AFC Suzuki Cup after forcing Indonesia to a goalless draw in Jakarta on Sunday.... Good luck to Yeng Guiao and his Gilas squad in their November 30 Fiba World Cup games against Kazakhstan and Iran on December 3, both set at MOA Arena in Pasay. With the hometown crowd as the team’s so-called “sixth man” power, Gilas should feel extra inspired and emerge victorious against the invaders.

EENER Adrian Thomas Dionisio of Team Black Arrow Express led the winners in the men’s division, and Ian Banzon of Team Sante Barley topped the honor roll in the women’s contest of the recent MediCard Sprint Triathlon at the Fontana Leisure Park in Clark, Pampanga. Dionisio topped the sprint distance race (600-meter swim, 20-km bike and 5-km run) in one hour, seven minutes and 46 seconds to rule the 15 to 17 age group. Gianmarco Anton Sibayan clocked 1:11.38 to finish second overall and top the men’s 25-29 group, while Pierce Tan was third and at the same time ruled the 18-24 division. The other top performers were Polo Tri Team’s Levy Ang (45-4, 1:15:31), Rune Stroem (55-59, 1:16:39) and Paul Henry Tambasen (30-34, 1:16:36). Banzon emerged the fastest female and winner of the 35-39 group with her 1:19:53 finish. Ma. Lourdes Cabero (35-39) was second, followed by Alfie Yu (40-44) in the event supported by official timekeeper TAG Heuer, Assist America, Standard Insurance, Vittoria, Gardenia and partner hotels Fontana and Royce Hotel and Casino. The other age-group champions were Therese Malapad (15-17), Isabel Parco (18-24), Alessandra Castaneda (25-29), Ymelle Reyes (45-49), Julie Somoso (50-above), Angelo Leano (35-39), Brett Petrillo (40-44), Jerry Santos (50-54) and Chicho Mantaring (60-above). “Thank you everyone for joining the first MediCard Sprint Tri. We’d also like to thank our sponsors and partners for helping us advocate healthy lifestyle,” MediCard President Dr. Nicky Montoya said. “We are very happy with the reception of this event. It’s our first time to sponsor a triathlon race and it’s in line with our goal of promoting an active and healthy lifestyle,” MediCard Chief Operating Officer Atty. Jon Montoya said. The champions in the relay category were Team Fuego (all-female), Pukers (all-male and mixed), and ActiveHealth (family).

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Sports BusinessMirror

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SECURITY forces stand guard outside outside Antonio Vespucio Liberti Stadium where River Plate fans gather before the announcement that their team’s final Copa Libertadores match against Boca Juniors is suspended for a second day in a row in Buenos Aires. AP

THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE OF SOUTH AMERICAN SOCCER BODY CONMEBOL WILL DECIDE ON TUESDAY WHETHER TO DISQUALIFY RIVER PLATE, FORCE THE SECOND LEG WITH ARCHRIVAL BOCA JUNIORS TO BE PLAYED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, OR TRANSFER THE MATCH TO A NEUTRAL STADIUM. B D R The Associated Press

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UENOS AIRES, Argentina—The most anticipated Copa Libertadores final in years might not be decided on the pitch. The disciplinary committee of South American soccer body Conmebol will decide on Tuesday whether to disqualify River Plate, force the second leg with archrival Boca Juniors to be played behind closed doors, or transfer the match to a neutral stadium. The first leg was drawn, 2-2. River fans attacked the Boca team bus near River’s stadium on Saturday, pelting it with rocks, bottles and wood, and shattering windows. Several players were injured, and had trouble breathing because of tear gas and pepper spray used by police to quell the fan violence. Conmebol postponed the final from Saturday to Sunday, then postponed it on Sunday indefinitely when it was obvious the Boca team was in no fit state to play what Argentines have been hyping as “the final of the century.” The fate of the South American club title now rests with administrators. History doesn’t favor River. In 2015 Conmebol disqualified Boca in the round of 16 after River players were attacked with pepper spray on the pitch of Boca’s La Bombonera stadium. “Any sanction different from the one applied to Boca would bring a clear and unfair

TO PLAY OR NOT TO PLAY

discrepancy,” Boca wrote to Conmebol on Monday. Boca has threatened to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport if River is not sanctioned. River President Rodolfo D’Onofrio said his club can’t be blamed for public security breaches, and accused his Boca counterpart Daniel Angelici of breaking his word after promising to play. The chaotic final is a blow to Conmebol amid its attempt to clean up after several of its top executives were caught in corruption scandals, some associated with Copa Libertadores broadcasting rights. President Alejandro Dominguez says he wants to make the soccer body more transparent and open the Copa to teams from other confederations. But this Copa has been mired by controversial decisions. River Coach Marcelo Gallardo was suspended before the second leg of the semifinal against Brazil’s Gremio because of his team’s constant late return to the field after halftime. But he defied the ban and was in River’s dressing room in Porto Alegre. The Brazilian club wanted sanctions against River but Conmebol only extended Galllardo’s ban to the two final matches. River’s local rival, Racing, also complained about the illegal inclusion of midfielder Bruno Zuculini in their round-of-16 match. Conmebol said the complaint arrived too late. In a similar incident at the same stage of the tournament, Argentina’s Independiente was declared a default winner by 3-0 in the first leg against Santos because the Brazilian side fielded suspended midfielder Carlos Sanchez.

Conmebol also annulled a decision made on the pitch. Brazilian defender Dede of Cruzeiro was shockingly sent off in the first leg of the quarterfinal against Boca after an accidental collision witht goalkeeper Esteban Andrada. Dede was allowed to play in the second leg. Ex-South Korea international Jang Hak-yong, meanwhile, has received a lifetime ban from the Korea Football Association (KFA) after an attempt to fix a domestic league game. Jang, a left-back who played five times for South Korea and more than 300 domestic games before he retired in 2017, was arrested in September and sentenced to 10 months in jail. After Jang’s release, he will be barred from participating in any soccer-related activities. The 37-year-old Jang met Lee Han-saem, a player with Asan Mugunghwa in the second division of the K-League, in September. He was found guilty of offering Lee 50 million won ($44,300) to receive a red card within the first 20 minutes of a game against Busan I’Park on September 22. Lee refused, informed the authorities and Jang was subsequently arrested. Lee received a reward of 70 million won ($62,000) from the KFA, which announced the sanction for Jang on Monday. Korean soccer is still recovering from a damaging matchfixing scandal during the 2011 K-League season that involved more than 50 players or former players. Other sports have been caught up in corruption. In 2016 police charged 21 people, including two pitchers, involved in South Korea’s professional baseball league. There have also been issues in the volleyball league with four players banned for life in 2012.

KHABIB NURMAGOMEDOV says everything is possible. AP

Khabib-Conor reconciliation? M

OSCOW—UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov said on Monday he can imagine a reconciliation with Conor McGregor after the bitter feud around last month’s title fight. The two fighters traded verbal blows before the October 6 fight and Nurmagomedov sparked a brawl with McGregor’s team after winning by submission. “Everything is possible. Just as McGregor and I feuded, so we could reconcile,” Nurmagomedov said. He added he doesn’t know how he would react when he sees the Irish fighter next, saying “who are we not to forgive one another when the Almighty forgives us?” Nurmagomedov said he would prefer a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr.—without giving details of how it might be arranged— over the UFC’s preferred option of Tony Ferguson. “For legacy and in the sense of the money aspect, and in a sporting sense, I think the Mayweather fight is much more interesting,” Nurmagomedov said, adding that any negotiations have to wait for his scheduled hearing with the Nevada State Athletic Commission on December 10 regarding the aftermath of the McGregor fight. “The athletics commission needs to finish up first and then we’ll talk.” A devout Muslim, Nurmagomedov has increasingly become an influential conservative voice in Russia, criticizing aspects of nightlife in his home region of Dagestan. Numerous Russian athletes have moved into politics after retiring, including heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuev, now a member of parliament, but Nurmagomedov said he has no plans to join them. “I try to stay away from all that,” he said. “The main thing is to have the desire to help people and you don’t have to be a member of parliament to do that.” AP

DEPENDABLE AS EVER O

GOLDEN State’s Kevin Durant shoots over Orlando’s Terrence Ross. AP

AKLAND, California—Ever the perfectionist and competitor, Kevin Durant knows he should have scored well more than 50 points if a few more shots had fallen. “I’m pretty sure all my teammates felt that way,” the typically efficient Golden State star said. Durant scored a season-high 49 points, giving Golden State the lead on a three-point play with 1:19 left before hitting a three-pointer with 22 seconds remaining to send the Warriors past the Orlando Magic, 116-110, on Monday night. “I still missed 17 shots. I tricked off a 50-piece. I felt like I had some shots that I wish I could have made last game and this game,” Durant said. “I could be in a better groove I feel like. Just playing a lot of minutes and having the ball in your hands, especially with the way the game is, the flow of the game. Obviously if you can score a little bit, you’re going to score some points in this league.” Durant topped his 44-point performance two nights earlier with another brilliant outing on both ends, even if he didn’t like shooting 16 for 33. Klay Thompson was his scoring sidekick once more as the two-time defending National Basketball Association champions played without injured All-Stars Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. Thompson hit his sixth three of the night to tie it with 1:45 left and finished with 29 points. The past three games, Durant has scored 125 points and Thompson 91. “It was hard to stop them. That’s why they’re such great players,”

Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic said. “They made shot after shot at the end.” In Washington, John Wall scored a season-high 36 points, including six in overtime, and the Washington Wizards overcame James Harden’s season-best 54 points to outlast the Houston Rockets, 135-131. Wall had two baskets in the extra period and finished with 11 assists. Bradley Beal equaled his season high with 32 points for the Wizards. Otto Porter hit a runner with 4:37 to play for the first basket in overtime and the Wizards remained ahead from there. Wall followed with a jumper to make it 129-125, and later made another jumper that pushed the lead to five. Beal’s jumper extended it to 133-126 with 1:50 to play. Harden had 44 points through three quarters but missed five of his seven shots in the fourth. In overtime, Harden, whose career high is 60, was 1 of 2 from the field and had two free throws. He had 11 turnovers, three in overtime. Durant became the seventh player in Warriors history to post consecutive 40-point games—along with Rick Barry, Wilt Chamberlain, Curry, Antawn Jamison, Purvis Short and Thompson, according to Elias. Vucevic had 30 points, 12 rebounds and six assists for the Magic, who were coming off a victory at the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday. Durant also had nine assists, six rebounds, two steals and two blocks, having taken his defense to another level the past week. He and Thompson have carried the load as the Warriors won a third straight following a rare four-game losing streak.

Golden State closed the third on a 12-2 run to pull within, 83-79, heading into the final 12 minutes. Mo Bamba’s three with 10:35 to go gave the Magic an 88-79 lead before Thompson answered from deep the next two possessions. Quinn Cook, starting in place of Curry, contributed eight points, six rebounds and four assists as Golden State concluded a four-game homestand by beating the Magic for the 11th straight time—the Warriors’ second-longest active streak against an opponent after 16 wins in a row against Phoenix. The Warriors shot just 4 for 15 from three-point range in the first half and fell behind, 64-47, at the break. They hope two-time MVP Curry will return at some point during their upcoming five-game road trip. Curry missed his 11th straight game with a strained left groin, while Green sat out a sixth in a row and eighth in all with a sprained right toe. Evan Fournier made four of his first six shots then missed his final eight for Orlando. Curry scrimmaged on Monday and is scheduled to go through a full practice on Tuesday, making it possible he could play on Thursday at Toronto. “He might,” Coach Steve Kerr said. Curry was hurt on November 8 against the Bucks trying to contest a shot in transition by Eric Bledsoe. “Steph looked good today. Totally dominated the film crew,” Kerr quipped. “They couldn’t guard him. [Assistant] Willie Green put up a pretty good fight, but he’s a couple of years past his prime.” AP

Partial truths

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EAVENLY Father, it seems that it’s becoming increasingly acceptable to speak “partial truths,” especially to avoid offending others. But everything less than complete honesty offends You. Help and inspire us then to be persons of honesty. It takes courage and right attitude to do it. Amen. GIVE US THIS DAY SHARED BY LUISA LACSON, HFL Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Life BusinessMirror

OPPO TOUTS R17 PRO IMAGING WITH PHOTO CONTEST

SHOT on the Oppo R17 Pro in the Philippines

THE night offers some of the best experiences in life, and it’s a shame not every photo taken on these exciting evenings illuminate all the fun, inspiration and thrill to be had. Global smartphone brand Oppo touts that the latest addition to its flagship range, the R17 Pro, can capture the beauty and energy of the night in stunning ways. The Oppo R17 Pro has already launched in Europe and China. It debuts first in the Philippines among Southeast Asia with other much anticipated markets coming. With powerful low-light shooting performance, according to the company, it is the phone to

capture the night. The R17 Pro solves the challenges of mobile night shooting through optimizing hardware and software to deliver clarity, brilliant colors and high image quality even in low-light conditions. The technology used on the camera enhances the features of the photo which makes it stand out from the rest. To celebrate the unveiling of this new R Series flagship product, Oppo is launching its “Seize the Night” campaign to embrace the culture of urban youthfulness that basks under the dazzling lights and vibrant hum of the city. To discover how the world’s youth sees and seizes the night, Oppo is launching a global promo that calls for night-photography entries. Everyone can upload a photo taken by R17 Pro at night, using the hashtag #SeizeTheNight and tag OPPOPH (for Facebook) or @OPPOPhilippines (for Twitter and Instagram). Entries may be submitted on or before December 14 at 11:59 pm. The best photos will be showcased on the brand’s social-media channels and stand the chance earn 12 budding photographers a fivenight trip to Hong Kong for two. Apart from the chance to explore one of the world’s most exciting cities at night, young Filipino photographers participating in the campaign can win three Oppo R17 Pro units. Entries will be judged based on the story and visual beauty of the photo submission. More information is available at bit. ly/2PRWIBC.

NOAH CENTINEO IS HOT. IF ONLY HE COULD COOL OFF D4

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

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UK parliament seizes confidential Facebook documents

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By KelVin CHan The Associated Press

ONDON—Britain’s parliament has seized confidential Facebook documents from the developer of a now-defunct bikini photo searching app as it turns up the heat on the social-media company over its dataprotection policies. A British lawmaker took the unusually aggressive move of forcing a visiting tech executive to turn over the files ahead of an international hearing that parliament is hosting on Tuesday to look into disinformation and “fake news.” The parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has “received the documents it ordered from Six4Three relating to Facebook,” Committee Chairman Damian Collins tweeted on Sunday, adding that he had

already reviewed them. “Under UK law & parliamentary privilege we can publish papers if we choose to as part of our inquiry.” The app maker, Six4Three, had acquired the files, which date from 20132014, as part of a US lawsuit against the social-media giant. It’s suing Facebook over a change to the social network’s privacy policies in 2015 that led Six4Three to shut down its app, Pikinis, which let users find photos of their friends in bikinis and bathing suits by searching their friends list. Collins, a critic of social-media abuses and manipulation, is leading the committee’s look into the rise of fake news and how it is being used to influence political elections. Lawmakers from seven countries are preparing to grill a Facebook executive, Richard Allan, at the committee’s hearing in London. They had asked for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

to appear in person or by video, but he has refused. The UK committee used its powers to compel the chief executive of Six4Three, Theodore Kramer, who was on a business trip to London, to turn over the files, according to parliamentary records and news reports. The committee twice requested that Kramer turn over the documents. When he failed to do so, Kramer was escorted to parliament and told he risked imprisonment if he didn’t hand them over, the Observer newspaper reported. Facebook wants the files to be kept secret and a judge in California ordered them sealed earlier this year. The judge is expected to give guidance on the legal status of the documents as early as Monday, Allan wrote in a letter to Collins. “Six4Three’s claims are entirely meritless,” Facebook said in a statement. n

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Pet Corner BusinessMirror

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Today’s Horoscope

UNSPLASH.COM

By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Ryan Kwanten, 42; Jon Stewart, 56; Ed Harris, 68; Paul Shaffer, 69. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Put your time where it will count the most. The changes you make will make a difference to your relationship with a friend or lover. Talking over the details you would like to see happen will bring you one step closer to turning your dream into a reality. Do your own fact-checking to avoid being misled by someone manipulative. Your lucky numbers are 2, 16, 24, 26, 31, 38, 45.

a

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Take good care of your personal finances. Keep spending to a minimum. Update any documents to avoid a lapse of coverage or payments that could put you in jeopardy. A contract or commitment should be thought through carefully. Romance is highlighted. HHHHH

The ABCs of administering first aid to pets

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TAYING calm in the midst of an emergency is easier said than done. An owner’s calm demeanor is usually the first thing out the door the moment they lay eyes on their injured pet. Driven by fear, several owners would attempt to administer first aid on their furry companions. Though treatment must be left to the professionals, owners may provide basic first aid to their pets to alleviate some of the pain. Committed to educating the Filipino pet community on proper pet care, the Pet Food Institute (PFI) shares some tips on how to administer basic first aid to pets. ALWAYS BE READY WITH A FIRST-AID KIT A PET’S first-aid kit is like a superhero’s utility belt and much like any other superhero, pet owners must always have their utility belt on hand in case of an emergency. The following should be in their pet’s first-aid kit: n BANDAGES. These are very important because these help control the bleeding and will keep wounds clean until they can be treated by a veterinarian. Hence, this is a must-have in every pet’s first-aid kit. Some owners are hesitant to use bandages out of fear that this would stick to their pet’s fur and would hurt their beloved companion. If this is the case then owners may opt to use a non-adhesive wrap as it doesn’t stick to animal’s fur, thus eliminating the possibility of hurting one’s pet. n THERMOMETER. Like bandages, thermometers are a must in a pet’s first-aid kit. This tool will help owners determine if their pet has a fever. Experts recommend temperature to be taken rectally, as it is more accurate. n RESTRAINTS. Regardless of how friendly a pet may be, animals may still try to bite when in pain. Owners can slip in a leash or a muzzle inside their pet’s first-aid kit to avoid getting bitten when administering first aid. n WATER. This can be used to flush out wounds, sooth burns, or cool off an overheated pet. Owners must remember to have an abundance of this in their first-aid kit. BE CALM BUT ACT FAST DURING pet emergencies, owners must stay calm but act fast. The first thing owners must do is to assess their pet’s condition: Is their pet conscious? Is their pet bleeding? These are some questions owners can ask to assess their pet. This information is vital in order to properly tend to their pet’s need and they can

properly inform their vet of the situation. Bleeding, choking and heatstroke are some of the most common problems pets encounter. These are the following steps owners may do if their pet is faced with the following: n BLEEDING. One of the most common problems in pets is bleeding. If an animal is bleeding, owners must remember to apply direct pressure with a clean towel or cloth for at least 3 minutes before checking to see if the bleeding had stopped. If not, or in the cases of lifethreatening wounds, immediately take one’s pet to the veterinarian. n CHOKING. Pets have a tendency to put things inside their mouth and, though some owners may find this endearing, this is dangerous as it may lead to choking. If owners find their pet with items lodged down its throat, the first thing to do is to look inside their mouth to see if the foreign object is visible. If it is visible, owners must assess if they can remove the foreign object with tweezers. Owners must remember to be careful in order to avoid pushing the object further down their pet’s throat. However, if owners cannot remove the foreign object or if their pet collapses, it is advisable to take their pet to the nearest veterinarian to be treated. n HEATSTROKE. Heatstroke, especially in hot countries like the Philippines, is one of the most common ailments among animals. Veterinarians often remind owners to rush their furry pals to the clinic during the first signs of a heatstroke. However, if this is not possible, owners must move their pets to a shaded area away from the sun. A cold towel must be placed around their pet’s neck and head and the towel must be hydrated and wrapped after a few minutes. To further cool down one’s pet, owners can pour or use a hose to keep cool water running over their pet’s body. CALL YOUR VETERINARIAN OWNERS are reminded that though administering basic first aid to their pets may improve their chances at recovery, it may also cause damage if not administered properly, which is why veterinarians urge owners to immediately contact and bring their pets to the clinic at the first sign of trouble. PFI is committed in informing pet owners about pet nutrition and proper pet care to keep pets healthy and happy. Through its local initiative, the “Well-Fed, Well-Nurtured” campaign in partnership with the Veterinary Practitioners Association of the Philippines, PFI seeks to advocate responsible pet ownership to the ever-growing Filipino pet community. n

b

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Go over lastminute changes, or adjust something that could cost you at tax time. Steady progress can be made if you are diligent about what needs to be completed on time. Stick to simple, realistic plans that are within budget. HH

c

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Know what and who you are up against. It’s important to have the wherewithal to deal with sensitive matters accordingly. A personal change to the way you look or how you do your job will give you a competitive edge. HHHH

d

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Take a unique approach to whatever you do and you will drum up interest and the help you need to get things done. Show confidence and determination moving forward. Greater opportunities will come your way. Walk away from impulsive people. HHH

e

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Plan to have some fun. Attend networking or social events that will give you the chance to share your thoughts. You’ll click with someone you meet, but before you make a move, get a little background information. Looks can be deceiving. HHH

f

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Problems at home will surface if you’ve been too busy or have neglected personal responsibilities. Timing is everything, and balance between home and work will make a difference to the outcome of a matter that has been festering. HHH

g

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Embrace change and tighten up your spending habits. How you handle money matters will make a difference to an important relationship you have with someone. Joint ventures must be handled carefully to avoid criticism. Using charm trumps using force. HHHH

h

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): A trip is favored if it will help you seal a deal. Don’t let emotions come between you and the success you crave. Someone from your past will pry into your personal and business affairs. HH

A PAIR of small dogs are transported around PetCon in a Pet Gear stroller. While there are some cats and other creatures included in New York City’s PetCon convention, its main focus is the relationship between humans and their pet dogs. AP

PET LOVERS MEET PET STARS AT MANHATTAN’S PETCON

NEW YORK—Pet lovers got to meet some pet stars from social media at the recent PetCon in New York City, a convention dedicated to all things linked to beloved animals. While there are some cats and other creatures there, PetCon in Manhattan is mostly about dogs and their humans. Elaine Marzorati was in line to see a Chihuahua and dachshund mix named Tuna Melts My Heart who’s become famous on Instagram. Rick Hendrix brought his French bulldog, Izzy, wearing a Valentino-inspired dress. PetCon also has a dog adoption garden, plus panels on topics such as how dogs are treated under the law, and how much money is spent on pets. There’s even a manager for famous animals who explains the big business of animals on social media. AP

i

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Get moving. Physical activity and health-related changes will encourage you to avoid any sort of excess and indulgence. A discussion with someone you love will lead to future plans. HHHHH

j

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Be leery of anyone making impulsive decisions or promises that are unrealistic. Stick to what and who you know best, and check every detail personally to avoid an unwanted surprise. Keep an open mind and a close watch over your possessions. HHH

k

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Updating your image will give you a boost. Make your position clear when dealing with contracts, investments and legal matters. A change to the way you eat, drink and exercise will pay off. HHH

l

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Be careful of what you say and the promises you make. A sensitive situation will leave you questioning someone’s point of view. Stick to what feels most comfortable. Travel plans or dealing with authority figures should be put on hold. HHH BIRTHDAY BABY: You are adaptable, outspoken and spirited. You are helpful and youthful.

‘i give you the world’ BY TIMOTHY E. PARKER The Universal Crossword/Edited by Timothy E. Parker

ACROSS 1 Analyze text 6 One capital of Bolivia 11 Limited banker 14 Perfect 15 Albeniz or Hayes 16 P, in Greek 17 Atlas alternative 19 Blue billiards ball 20 Takes breaks 21 Not a schmoozer 23 Animal’s hideaway 25 Matter bit 27 Juno’s counterpart 28 Employ 29 Sci-fi alien’s destination 32 Sport with bamboo sticks 34 Choose, as a governor 35 Erode 38 De-mob? 42 Resell illegally, as tickets 44 Aleppo’s place 45 The feminine world? 50 Furnish with pellet guns

1 City of Pennsylvania 5 52 Code kind 53 Nights before big events 54 Type of dinner or strike 57 Long way from scanty 59 Very simple bed 60 Place that’s in-hobbit-ed 64 Maximum total 65 “...___ live nephew of my Uncle...” 66 Where some make waves? 67 Brandon or Bruce of films 68 Like Urkel’s persona 69 ___ over (faints) DOWN 1 Babe, for one 2 Noisy goings-on 3 Reposition or redirect 4 With more wisdom 5 Some additions 6 Afternoon catnap 7 Olympics chant 8 Some sweets 9 Many rodents 10 Bounced-back sound

1 More highfalutin 1 12 Prevent from happening 13 Bacon, cabbage or bread 18 Bibliog. space saver 22 Apt to yak 23 A Gospel writer 24 Dazed and confused 26 Lowly digit 29 Explorer de Leon 30 Private eye, etc. 31 Invisible money 33 Made with the gossip 36 Roadway material 37 Ornamental shrub 39 Cut through or cross piece 40 Ireland’s Ireland 41 Transplanted NFL team 43 Golfing standard 45 Peyote source 46 Brooks Robinson was one 47 Part of an i 48 “You don’t say?” 49 Broken on a ranch 53 Buoy one’s spirits

5 Arabian country 5 56 Down to the ___ 58 Pikes ___, Colorado 61 He’s got kids 62 ___ Aviv 63 Possesses

Solution to yesterday’s puzzle:

Image BusinessMirror

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Missing merit JUST THAT JT NISAY

jtnisay@gmail.com

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ATCHING two acclaimed shows about illegal drugs somehow left me thinking about effort and excellence. Last week one of Netflix’s most popular original series returned not with a new season, but a “companion series.” Narcos became an instant hit in 2015 for its commanding exploration of society’s dark alley, the drug trade. It gave the audience a look into a world where cash flows with the blood. Narcos: Mexico resupplies fans more of that action and drama, taking on a new story in a new country with new people. Retained are the signature storytelling and key elements. I managed to finish the series faster than all of El Chapo’s speaking lines combined. After watching a show predicated on an addictive product, I wanted more of it. My search led me to 2008’s Breaking Bad. Ten minutes into the pilot and I was already beating myself for not tuning in much earlier. I’m almost at the show’s halfway point, but I have yet to encounter a full dead minute of run time. A friend who makes the right choices in life followed the show in real time and told me every episode release was appointment viewing. He told me that he’s “excited” for me with regards to the rest of the journey, that he’s “jealous” of me for getting the thrill of watching the show for the first time, but I know he’s just being nice. Two perfectly executed television shows. Two examples of what happens when all the people involved commit to excellence. And then I came across one reminder when people don’t. Details are unimportant but I found myself watching a long-running prime-time program on local TV. I’ve been clean from putrid prime-time telenovalas for years. Somehow, there I was, looking at the direction of a TV screen when the show came on and I figured to stick around and watch a few scenes. Let’s just say it didn’t take long before regret crept in. Where I caught on started as a fairly tolerable scene. Around seven women were talking about love while crossing across a bridge en route to a river to handwash laundry. They reached their destination, took their positions, scrubbed fabric together on the

bottom of their palms and continued to chat. Then, the camera panned to a nearby bush. Behind it was a group of men who, given their mostly black ensemble, creepy smirks, and lip licking, were up to no good. Now this is where it goes downhill: the bad guys stayed licking and lurking for another two minutes of run time without any clear reason, and the girls went on laughing and washing for another five. Nothing was happening beyond that. It’s just painful to watch. The bad guys, after the producers finally decided that enough airtime had been filled with nonsense, made their move. Most of them came after one woman, pinning her against a rock while they laughed and the audience, at least myself, cringed. Another set of expensive airtime gets burned as the scene stretches to what feels like three hours, with nothing happening, just a bunch of damsels distressing and maniacs preying. At this point, I think I was already crying from the thought of the masses actually enjoying this piece of trash. Anyway, bad gets to worse when the protagonist, drinking with his men in broad daylight at some nearby hut, was told of the situation by the river. He stood up and rushed to the scene. Of course, there was some cheap hype music as he and his gang ran to save the day, and of course, there were drone shots, and of course, there were some sharp, pointless panning. Our heroes arrived at the scene and immediately threw punches at the bad guys who just stood there to take all of it. The show’s theme song played. The women were saved. Another good night for the audience. Lakas talaga ni idol! Where and how do I even start? I though we, as an advanced race in the 21st century, are over portraying women as weak and in need of saving? I thought we, as people capable of critical analysis, could see through shows and scenes for the hot garbage they truly are? Take note, all this crap happened for just half an episode. Imagine watching through all of it. Imagine being excited to watch it. Imagine thinking the show is good. Let me be clear: These views do not to compare the two American TV series with a local teleserye. These just contextualize what still passes as “entertainment” for our people. It’s hardly a new grievance, but it seems to be getting worse. As I write this, a comedian is delivering the opening monologue for his talk show. He promotes his upcoming movie right off the bat. “Kalimutan niyo muna ’yung mga problema niyo, papasiyahin ko kayo!” That made me think. As experts say, perhaps people really are watching these shows, consuming

Advice for managers from top Charles Schwab exec CARRIE SCHWAB-POMERANTZ is senior vice president of Charles Schwab & Co. and daughter of its founder. The bank and brokerage firm is one of the largest in the US. Schwab-Pomerantz is a seasoned financial planner and financial literacy leader, having advised two presidential administrations on financial capability and written several books on personal finance. She also oversees Schwab’s corporate philanthropy and employee volunteer programs. What advice would you give your younger self about managing people or running a business? What did you learn from your early mistakes? Never underestimate the power of a strong network. Early on in my career, I was timid about networking. But as I slowly built my confidence, I started to develop a strong group of peers to lean on and get advice from. Also, don’t be afraid to seek out a mentor. Not only will you grow, but people are flattered to be asked about their experiences, so it’s a win-win situation overall. What have you learned about problem-solving over the years? What are the keys to tackling your most difficult challenges? Never make a decision in a vacuum, and leverage your strong network of partners and colleagues. When I’m facing a challenge, I seek out people who might have a unique insight or different point of view from mine. If you start by listening, the path forward usually becomes pretty clear. How much do you pay attention to your competition, and what do you try to learn from them? If you follow the competition too closely, you can get bogged down in the weeds. I try to stay focused on my mission, along with the right intentions, and don’t pay too much attention to outside news. For me, that’s a winning formula. What key things can a manager do in terms of workplace culture that separate a mediocre business from a high-performing one? Something I’m proud of at Schwab is our workplace culture, which is centered around service—serving

our clients and serving our communities. It’s a purpose we all believe in and can be a part of, and that sense of purpose really does drive performance. I’m also a big believer in being inclusive. I want everyone—regardless of their background, role or level of seniority—to have a voice and feel heard. I hold a weekly informal staff meeting where everyone shares challenges or issues they’re dealing with, and we all chime in with ideas and solutions. It’s really empowering to know your opinion matters, and it makes people feel valued. What advice do you have for small business owners right now? Entrepreneurs have to be so focused on building their businesses that they often forget about their personal finances. So try to strike a balance between making your business and personal financial planning equally important. I say it a lot, but it’s important to remember you don’t get a second chance at saving for retirement. How do you manage work-life balance? I haven’t yet figured out how to add more hours to the day, but I do believe that focusing on what’s important to you, rather than just looking for an escape, can add dimension to your work that renews you. That’s why I focus less on work-life balance and more on work-life blend. AP

this crap, not for entertainment but for escape. Besides, prisoners aren’t choosy. In any case, it’s a sad state. And it’s not in the realm of showbiz. Demagogues reign; vanity rules social media.

The quality of being worthy, of someone reaching success from paying his or her dues, doesn’t seem to mean as much. Pwede na ’yung pwede na. It seems excellence in today’s world has taken the back seat. Don’t you miss the days of merit? n

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Show BusinessMirror

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

BLIND SPOT BRUCE C.

SHE FINALLY DID IT

SO the singer-actress and her actor-boyfriend are no longer together? Is this because she caught him acting inappropriately with staff members of their home network? According to rumors, the actor would stalk social-media accounts of the staff members and save photos of girls in bikinis and skimpy clothing. He would also text some of them, asking them out for dates. And here’s the weird part: He has been saying that he texts those he sees as gullible. Kibitzers are saying that the singer-actress has long been aware of what her boyfriend was doing. So why did she not break up with him earlier? Nobody knows except the two of them.

ON THE ROCKS

EVEN before they can get married, the celebrity and his longtime partner are said to be on the verge of breaking up. The reason is not because of infidelity but the celebrity’s family, who is dependent on him for their livelihood. The celebrity’s partner, who isn’t Filipino, is reportedly wondering why her boyfriend’s family members can’t work like normal people, and why they have to depend on others for their needs.

HIS KARMA?

JUST a year ago, the actor seemed to be on top of the world, with projects and endorsements galore. Unfortunately, he seemed to have thought his good fortune was neverending because while so many people looked at him as a role model, he really isn’t. The actor has a tendency to associate himself with sketchy characters and it was these people who are believed to be the cause of the decline of his popularity. Even his businesses and investments are reportedly suffering. Pretty soon, the actor might be forced to sell his designer bags and expensive watches, most of which he bought on installment.

HE WANTS TO BE SURE

PEOPLE are talking about this wannabe socialite, who made his own public announcement of his appointment. This announcement took place months before the company was supposed to make it. According to rumors, the wannabe socialite made the announcement just in case the company changed its mind about appointing him.

BIANCA UMALI and Jeric Gonzales are poised to expand their repertoire.

BIANCA UMALI, JERIC GONZALES INK DEALS WITH GMA RECORDS

TWO of GMA Artist Center’s brightest stars signed separate recording contracts with GMA Records on November 20. Bianca Umali expressed her excitement over the latest feat in her blossoming career. As she ventures into recording, the young actress feels grateful for the opportunity to share her passion for music and perform songs close to her heart. “Now that I’m with GMA Records, sobrang saya ko dahil pangarap ko talaga ito. It’s one of my dreams to have a single. I’m very happy to be part of the GMA Records family,” she said. Meanwhile, fast-rising heartthrob Jeric Gonzales is back to one of the things he loves—making music. As he enters the music industry, Jeric will surely captivate the hearts of his many listeners through his own compositions and heartfelt voice: “Mas makikilala nila ako. Makikita nilang kaya ko ring tumugtog ng gitara, piano at drums. May mga kanta akong gagawin based on personal experiences na may mga hugot. I’m sure makaka-relate rin ang listeners.” GMA Network CFO and GMA Records Executive Vice President Felipe S. Yalong is proud to welcome Bianca and Jeric as the newest artists of GMA Records. “I’m so happy. Finally, Bianca realized her love for music as she grows in the network. As she’s said, it’s her dream to become a singer, as well. Now, it’s turning into reality already. For Jeric, natutuwa kami dahil it’s long overdue. He’s really a good singer. I’m happy, together with GMA Records, that they finally signed with us,” said the GMA executive. Bianca and Jeric are set to release their individual singles under GMA Records soon. Present in the contract-signing were GMA Network CFO and GMA Records Executive Vice President Felipe S. Yalong, GMA Artist Center Assistant Vice President and Head for Talent Imaging and Marketing Unit Simoun Ferrer, GMA Records Managing Director Rene Salta, GMA Records A&R Manager Kedy Sanchez, Senior Talent Manager Tracy Garcia and Jeric’s comanager Archie Ilagan.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Noah Centineo is hot. If only he could cool off

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By Max Berlinger New York Times News Service

OAH CENTINEO was just two steps from By Chloe, a fast-casual vegan restaurant on Lafayette Street in Manhattan, when he was recognized. “You went to Boca High, right?” said a brunette woman in her 20s, wearing a tank top and skirt. “Yeah,” Centineo said cautiously, looking up. “So did I,” the woman said, pulling out her earbuds. Turns out they had an acquaintance in common from their high-school days in Florida. “You’re kidding me,” he said, using more colorful language. Centineo is used to being recognized these days, though not just for going to Boca High. As the 22-yearold star of the Netflix teen comedy To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, he sent the Internet into a collective swoon last month, playing Peter Kavinsky, the jock with a heart of gold. Suddenly, he seemed to be everywhere. BuzzFeed found “22 Tweets About Peter Kavinsky That Are Thirstier Than You.” W Magazine called him the “Internet’s newest boyfriend.” His Instagram following ballooned by millions in one month. Centineo swears it hasn’t gone to his head. “It’s on a two-dimensional screen. It’s not like it’s really happening in real life,” he said, drinking a kale and spinach cold-pressed juice. “You start noticing your numbers and people start reaching out to you.” “That’s really been the surreal part of it,” he continued, “random people who I haven’t spoken with in years or people that I’m close with who are like, ‘Oh my God, you’re on my Instagram feed, you’re on my Twitter, you’re all over Tumblr.’” Centineo was in town from Los Angeles, where he lives, to promote his latest project for Netflix: Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, a gender-swapped, digital-age retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac set in a high school. He had back-to-back interviews, and to get out some of his abundant boyish energy, he suggested a stroll around NoLIta, a neighborhood that he tries to check out whenever he is in New York. But he may not have been prepared for the tripledigit temperatures and sweat-inducing humidity. It wasn’t even noon and already his tangle of dreamy curls was starting to droop. Faint pools of sweat appeared on his striped t-shirt and button-down, which he wore with chunky sneakers by Valentino. “They’re so sick,” Centineo said. Sadly, they were just on loan from his stylist. What was supposed to be a leisurely stroll soon became a game of staying cool, something difficult for someone who describes himself as easily distracted. Up the block from By Chloe, he spotted a shaded fire station driveway and bounded across the street into oncoming traffic. “I just like climbing things and exploring,” he said, as sweat formed above his matinee-idol brows. While Centineo isn’t new to the small screen (his TV credits include a 53-episode run on the progressive family drama The Fosters), To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before has been a career breakthrough. What is it like becoming a verified celebrity overnight? “It’s all of the above: It’s humbling, it’s inspiring and it’s really motivating,” he said, as he popped into Carré d’artistes, an affordable art gallery on Prince Street, for some robust air-conditioning. “I’ve been working for this for 14-plus years.” Centineo grew up near Palm Beach, Florida, where he got his start in community theater. Local modeling gigs and commercials landed him an agent and bigger

DANIEL DORSA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

roles in Los Angeles. At a certain point, his agent said he had to move west if he wanted to continue. “That’s when I looked at my parents and was like, ‘Yo, I’m about it. If you move me there I’ll be successful. This is what I want to dedicate my life to,’” he said. While Los Angeles was great for Centineo’s career, it also offered temptations. “A year and a half ago I decided to cut the negative habits, things and people out, and dedicated myself to loving myself and my career,” he said. Instead of drinking and smoking weed, he began working out and eating better. “This feels like the fruits of the harvest coming to fruition,” he said. “What I found was, when I took care of my body, my mind and my emotions and my heart were way happier. When I wasn’t drinking, when I wasn’t smoking weed and partying, I was responsible for my actions and I could choose my actions from a more mindful place. And my life changed—drastically.” Outside the gallery, Centineo noticed the corner traffic light and took its very presence as a dare. “Should I climb it?” he said, with a mischievous grin. Before receiving an answer, his 6-foot-2 frame was already clambering on top of a trash can. Centineo hasn’t let fame dampen his wild, youthful charms. “Ever since I’ve been a kid, I’ve always been about running around, climbing trees, exploring,” he said, when he was earthbound again. He has done parkour in the past and recently took up MMA boxing, much to the chagrin of his agents and managers. “It’s crazy when you get rocked in the face for the first time,” he said. “I’ll be sparring, and someone will come down and nail me with a right hook and I’ll start

smiling. That’s when the adrenaline hits.” After his little stunt, he stumbled into the Elizabeth Street Garden, hoping to find shade. The collection of odd statues caught his interest, and he wound his way through overgrown pots of plants and circled a gazebo before spotting cover near a gardening shed. Shelter at last! Not once during two hours with a reporter did Centineo pull out his smartphone to check his Instagram or Snapchat, which is surprising for an actor who so convincingly plays a teenager living in a social-media-saturated world. He’s no Luddite but is consciously trying to manage his tech intake. “The other day I went up to some dunes in Malibu and just turned off my phone for, like, eight hours,” he said. “I leave my phone in the car when I go hiking or when I’m at the gym.” Still, he recognizes that his celebrity owes a debt to Instagram. “When you’re someone who is in the attention of the masses, you can’t help but become a sort of reality personality.” The shade turned out to provide little relief from the heat. It was getting close to 2 pm and he had more interviews in store. And he needed to freshen up again, as sweat was dripping down the side of his face. “I’ve got to embrace it,” Centineo said with a defeated laugh. “It’s just about being in the moment.” It was time to head back to his air-conditioned chariot, an Escalade, and head off to People magazine’s offices, which were presumably icebox cold. As he headed out of the garden, a timid young woman with dyed-blond hair stopped him and asked for a photo. Another Boca High alum? No, she had seen him on TV. n

COD returns to the Araneta Center A CHRISTMAS tradition comes alive again this Yuletide season and returns to the place it has called home since the mid-1960s. The Christmas On Display (COD), formerly known as Manila COD, will once again wow children and adults alike with a story of Christmas and coming home all told through an animatronics display at the Times Square Food Park, Araneta Center. The moving Christmas display has been attracting audiences of all ages since it became a fixture on the façade of the Manila COD Department Store in Araneta Center beginning 1966. This magical display of Yuletide lights with life-sized moving mannequins would tell of heart-warming Christmas stories. The brainchild of Alex Rosario Sr., the return of the animated Christmas display to its original home is welcomed by many for sentimental reasons. According to his son Rey Rosario, the CEO and president of Rosario Animated Display, his deceased father would be really happy to know that the COD has finally been able to return to its original home after closing in 2002. As such, this year’s COD theme of “Christmas Comes

Home” is truly appropriate. “Masaya ako na naibalik na dito sa Araneta Center ang Christmas on Display. It’s a very nice feeling. It has always been home to us,” the younger Rosario said. The COD recently launched on November 23 in its new area in Araneta Center, known as the Times Square Food Park, at the corner of Times Square and Gen. Roxas Avenues, a stone’s throw away from its original location. The food park, since 2017, has been the site of the iconic 100-foot giant Christmas tree that is at the center of yet another tradition within the bustling commercial district—the annual Giant Christmas Tree Lighting. “Araneta Center is really a destination for people from all walks of life celebrating Christmas in this part of Metro Manila. We have lots of activities and surprises to thrill our customers, starting of course with our iconic giant Christmas tree,” said Antonio T. Mardo, Araneta Center senior vice president for operations. The annual tree lighting this year was held on November 16. Free to the public, the COD can now be watched within the safe enclosure of the food park, where families

can also stay and have a meal. Slated to start each night at around 6 pm from November 23 until January 6, each show runs for about 20 minutes with 15-minute intervals. This year, the story revolves around a family who returns to the country to visit their loved ones. The family comes to revisit the Araneta Center and realizes that there is really no place like home.

Another centerpiece in Araneta Center’s Christmas celebration is the spectacular show Magic on Ice. Combining the thrills of magic and acrobatic tricks with the finesse of ice skating, Magic on Ice will run from December 25 until January 1 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Tickets are now available at www. ticketnet.com.ph.

BusinessMirror

E1 | Wednesday, November 28, 2018 • Editor : Tet Andolong

AVIDA Towers Cloverleaf Tower 2 façade

AVIDA LAUNCHES TOWER 2

IN CLOVERLEAF PROJECT By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio

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Contributor

HE Balintawak area in Caloocan City is entering a new chapter in the name of progress as Ayala Land Inc.’s (ALI) subsidiary Avida Land continues the development of Avida Towers Cloverleaf—a master planned, mixed-use estate in the northern part of Metro Manila. Cloverleaf is an 11-hectare property in historic Balintawak. The estate is comprised of residential areas, two phases of Ayala Malls with floors allocated for office spaces and a retail strip that serves as a landscape pedestrian promenade. Entry and exit points of the estate are along Epifanio de los Santos (Edsa), Andres Bonifacio Road and Balingasa Road. In a recent press briefing held in Makati City, Paula Cagampan of the Ayala Land Estates Inc. Project Development, Strategic Landbank Management Group, said the Cloverleaf area is a good investment because of its strategic location. “It is the best jump-off point coming from the Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela area [Camanava].” “Moreover, it is highly accessible with the availability of the Light Rail Transit [LRT] 1, public buses, jeepneys and the soon to be introduced point-to-point [P2P] buses, and the soon to open stage 3 of the Metro Manila Skyway ” she added. Cagampan noted the accessibility to mass transit and various forms of public transportation has Avida Cloverleaf a prevalent itinerary in the northern part of the Metro as far Bulacan and Pampanga with its

retail and dining choices. 24/7 security is also maintained in the estate. In the press briefing, Avida Land also introduced the Tower 2, a 36-story high structure with three floors for parking. It has over 800 units in studio, junior one bedroom, onebedroom and two-bedroom layouts. The junior one-bedroom layout is an Avida offering that includes a partition for added privacy. Ryla Czarina Durante, project development associate manager, corporate planning group of Avida, said investing in Tower is a sound option because it offers the buyer a harmonious environment within the hustle and bustle of the northern Metro Manila. “Cloverleaf is a transition that provides an orientation emphasizing connectivity in a master-planned community as it offers diverse activities and sustainable land use,” Durante explained. Durante said Avida also decided to develop Cloverleaf project to respond to the market for more affordable housing units. By capitalizing on ALI’s much vaunted synergy, Durante said Avida will carry the track record of building a sustainable community in Cloverleaf. Avida Towers Cloverleaf Tower

AVIDA Towers Cloverleaf Serenity Garden

AVIDA Towers Cloverleaf Podium

2 will have units ranging in price between P4.1 million and to P9.9 million. A one-bedroom unit ranging from 33 to 37 square meters will have a price range of P5.7 million to P6.7 million. Furthermore, a two-

bedroom unit will have a price range of P9.6 million to P9.9 million. As far as the buyers of Avida Cloverleaf are concerned, Raquel S. Cruz, said the profile of buyers in Tower 1 were mostly local businessmen and

foreign professionals. “We marketed toward urban professionals and entrepreneurs from the North, and early nesters and families who were looking for a place to live in the city,” she said. “Localbuyers weremostlyend users. We also had some foreign buyers from the US and China who bought units for investment purposes,” she added. Cruz said Avida is also bullish on Tower 2 since Cloverleaf presents a highly accessible location. She said the junior one-bedroom units are similar to studio layouts with the addition of a partition to offer added privacy for a bedroom. “Market preference has been for bedroom units so there are several choices for buyers of Tower 2. Realestate consumer decision leans toward economical purchases with optimized spaces that provide added value in living experiences,” Cruz pointed out. On the retail component, Cruz said the first phase of Ayala Malls has been completed with a 99-percent

lease out as of March this year. “The entire estate is only also open with completed road networks connecting the first and second phases of the project. Approximately 42 percent of the developable area has been completed,” she pointed out. ALI has invested P23 billion for the development of Cloverleaf. An estimated P15 billion has been earmarked for phase 1. Amenities for Avida Towers Cloverleaf includes a clubhouse, swimming pool with lap pool and children’s pool, children’s playground, indoor gym, and landscaped spaces and serenity gardens. To ensure a higher degree of sustainability, Tower 2 integrates green building design features. Window glass has been upgraded from clear tempered glass to low-emissivity glass. Low-E glass is designed to reflect heat, UV rays and IR wave rays back to its source while still allowing sunlight to pass through. This lets the home feel cooler even during summer days.

Business

E2 Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Welcome to the future of workspaces

COMMON Ground officially launched its first-ever coworking space in the country

POSITIONED at the penthouse of BGC’s new ultra-modern business building

also acquired Green Building Status from the Philippine Green Building Council, the ArthaLand Century Pacific Tower, Common Ground takes business to the next level.

Ambition lives here

Amor Maclang

FIRST DIBS IN REAL ESTATE

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HERE can you find a working space artistically designed to inspire creativity and innovation? Here comes Common Ground, the largest, fast-growing premier coworking space from Malaysia that fills in the gaps of the coworking lifestyle ecosystem with a passionate community. Going beyond its vibrant décor and vast work areas, this is a space where innovators and disruptors can focus on doing what they love and loving what they do. Common Ground officially launched its first-ever coworking

space in the country on November 23. The event was a full day filled with intimate gatherings and carnival ensemble launch party in the evening. Positioned at the penthouse of Bonifacio Global City’s new ultramodern business building, that has

EAGER to share about their story, they conducted an exclusive media roundtable and office warming in the morning. The roundtable was led by Erman Akinci and Juhn Teo who created Common Ground together in a shared dream to redefine workspaces. “We believe that coworking space is a booming concept in the Philippines,” said Akinci. “We have a market who is willing to pay and companies, such as SMEs, consider workspaces a more viable option than traditional offices.” Both Akinci and Teo have had their fair share of experience in handling business and real estate throughout their careers which they use to continuously develop the Common Ground ecosystem. Taking to heart his learnings from his master’s in Business Administration from the KelloggHKUST Executive MBA Program, Akinci has been involved in several start-ups over the past decade. He drew the idea of creating a coworking space from his time with the Catcha Group when it opened its doors as a communal workspace. He noticed that people kept coming back to be a part of the environment that was being fostered in the office and decided to recreate the experience. Teo, on the other hand, has an extensive background and expertise

in real estate defined by the various positions he has held across Australia, the United Kingdom and Malaysia. As a former CEO of Guocoland Tower REIT Management Sdn. Bhd, he draws inspiration from his experiences in managing the growth of Common Ground and management of its strategic operations. “The demand for flexible coworking spaces is rapidly growing by 30 percent yearly, and Common Ground is taking advantage of this opportunity,” stressed Teo. “[It’s because] this country is remarkably doing well in terms of economic growth with the rise in business and SME sectors.” Akinci and Teo were joined by Ana Lucia Aguila, Common Ground community manager, who shared how Common Ground goes beyond the space by creating a one-of-a-kind experience for their members. After the discussion, Aguila rounded up their media guests and headed a tour of the ArthaLand Century

Pacific Tower branch. Friends from the media were awestruck by Common Ground’s high ceilings and wide space, aesthetically designed to accommodate different people of different lifestyle and interpretations. The tour was capped off with a treat from their in-house café: St. Louis House of Fine Ice Cream & Dessert.

cony, which would allow residents to enjoy the warm morning sun, relaxing blue skies and romantic sunset without leaving their doorstep. A swimming pool area, clubhouse, an indoor basketball court, tennis court and a gazebo along with landscaped gardens are some of the premium amenities that one can find here. Finally,

Zadia’s location, which is right in the heart of Greenfield City, is just a stone’s throw away from Paseo de Santa Rosa, Laguna Central and Arcadia—three lifestyle hubs where restaurants, bars, cafés and outlet stores provide a suburban flavor to leisure. GDC has been fueling the progress of Santa Rosa City through Greenfield

City since the 1990s. It has since transformed the township from an agricultural land into an urban masterpiece. Its moniker, city within a park, encapsulates the developer’s vision of a modern, future-ready and sustainable homes and communities that complement the nature-rich landscape of Santa Rosa City.

ANA LUCIA AGUILA (from left), Common Ground community manager; Juhn Teo, CEO and cofounder; and Erman Akinci, CFO and cofounder

The circus is in town

AS the evening rolled in, Common Ground transformed their main area into a sea of bright lights and color as they brought in the most festive carnival in town. Exciting games and mouthwatering food and drinks awaited their guests to celebrate their grand launch. A ribbon-cutting ceremony headed by Akinci and Teo kicked off the party and exotically skilled street performers wowed their friends and family as the sound of upbeat carnival music carried them into the night.

Among the partygoers where several VIPs who were essential in bringing Common Ground into the country like: Enrique Gonzales, Filipino partner at MVP Global; Leo Po, executive vice president and treasurer of ArthaLand, alongside his brother Ricardo Po Jr. of the Century Pacific Group Inc.; and Brett Bayley of St. Louis House of Fine Ice Cream & Dessert. Industry shakers and disruptors were also present in welcoming the coworking space in the Philippines such as: Stephen Ku, one of the pioneers of the Philippine events industry; Tim Yap, a multi-hyphenate in events, social media and showbiz; and Ron Tucker, founder and president of the Australian Digital Commerce Association. The party was the embodiment of the spirited culture that Common Ground aims to share with the Philippines. As Aguila have said, “at Common Ground, coworking means more than a desk and Internet connection in a communal workspace but building an engaged community and vibrant ecosystem to help ambitious, fast-growing companies take business to the next level.”

The journey doesn’t end here

TWO new spaces are currently in the works at two of the biggest districts in Metro Manila, Makati and Ortigas, and are set to launch in the coming months. With more dreams and plans for the Philippines in the horizon, Akinci and Teo are both looking to further expand their community in Metro Manila before venturing to other parts of the country.

Green condo rises as a new suburban paradise

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ETERAN property developer Greenfield Development Corp. (GDC) puts a new twist to living in its “city within a park” by introducing a new residential paradise called Zadia in Greenfield City. The real-estate firm, which has been designing and building residential enclaves in its 450-hectare township in Laguna, envisions the 3.6-hectare condominium complex as one of its biggest brands this year that will help propel Santa Rosa’s continued development as a new growth center. Touted as the first upscale vertical community in Santa Rosa City, the fivebuilding Zadia development is emulating the success of Pramana Residential Park and Solen Residence with the sellout of its first tower in just under three months. The positive acceptance of an excited market has actually prompted Greenfield to set the launching of the second Zadia tower earlier than planned to meet the demand from property investors and homebuyers. “Launching project milestones like

Zadia at Greenfield City gains significance for us at Greenfield since they validate that we are on the right track in supporting the urbanization and progress of Santa Rosa, Laguna, which is already home to important Greenfield business parks and industrial zones that help steer economic momentum in Metro Manila,” explained Duane A.X. Santos, executive vice president and general manager of GDC. Zadia’s appeal comes from its unique design that caters to those on the look out for a quiet, nature-inspired lifestyle but also yearns for the convenience of urban living. The green architecture of each low-density condominium building allows residents to enjoy nature indoor and outdoor and turn away from everyday stress. From its lush landscapes and open spaces to its elegant clubhouse and home units, Zadia integrates green and sustainable living in the entire condo community. The floor layout is designed with units having its own bal-

With its unique green architecture concept anchored in the thriving Greenfield City development, Zadia is indeed on track to spearhead Santa Rosa City’s claim as the country’s new premier growth center. Once completed, Zadia is also seen to be a worthy complement to the now thriving neighborhood in Greenfield City.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018 E3

NEW LUXURY RESIDENTIAL ENCLAVE

TO RISE IN ASEANA CITY A

SEANA Residential Holdings Corp. (ARHC)—a subsidiary of publicly listed D.M. Wenceslao & Associates Inc. (DMWAI)—is launching its latest residential project, MidPark Towers, designed to meet the demand for convenient and comfortable living spaces at a prime master-planned community in the Bay Area.

TWO-BEDROOM unit

MidPark Towers is a four-tower residential project at DMWAI’s flagship project Aseana City—an emerging business and tourist destination in the Metro and is currently home to residential condominiums, international schools, dining and retail centers, and office spaces, among others. The newest luxury residential enclave shall stand between Aseana City’s Greenway Project and the company’s fourth office development, 8912 Aseana Avenue, which will have convenient access

to the Ayala Malls Bay Area through elevated walkways. Residents of MidPark Towers are expected to enjoy unparalleled connectivity with several transit points within the vicinity, such as the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway, LRT 1 extension and the newly launched Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange, altogether bringing places of interest much closer to home. “We are focusing on larger-format units in this project. We’ve noticed that the existing residential

MIDPARK Towers

spaces in Manila Bay area are limited to smaller studios and compact onebedroom options. We wish to widen such housing choices so we conceptualized MidPark Towers with balanced unit mix and sizes,” said DMWAI CEO Buds C. Wenceslao. In a November disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, DMWAI announced that ARHC has been issued a license-to-sell

(LTS) for MidPark Towers, and is now ready to offer its first two -towers, which will offer a livable mix of studios, one-bedroom, twobedroom and three-bedroom units ranging from 36 square meter to 105 sq m. The two towers will have 15 stories comprising 309 wellappointed living spaces. MidPark Towers residents will also enjoy an abundance of well-

8990 Holdings introduces ₧5-billion hotel

8990 Holdings Inc. Chairman Mariano Martinez, 8990 Holdings Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Willie J. Uy, and 8990 Leisure and Resorts President Lowell Yu By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28 Contributor

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EW hospitality player 8990 Leisure and Resorts is investing P5 billion to develop a diverse line of hotels, resorts and luxury establishments, with a total of 3,000 rooms by 2023. “The Philippine leisure and hospitality industry is on an upswing with the current administration focusing on tourism development. The launch of 8990 Leisure and Resorts definitely comes at a perfect time,” said Willie J. Uy, president and CEO of 8990 Holdings Inc.

Such an initiative is also driven by the success of the group’s two full-service hotel properties under the Azalea brand in Baguio and Boracay, each with a room inventory of 99 and 272 units, respectively. “The same people have bought from us that also use those hotels. And a lot of them really save a lot of money just so that they can use the hotels. So we realized that there’s an opportunity, without having to sacrifice a lot in terms of their cost for transportation, cost for the room itself, and the experience of the locality,” 8990 Holdings Inc. Chairman Mariano Martinez told reporters in

an interview during their launch event held recently at The Green Sun Hotel in Makati City. “Because we’ve built up on the expertise and because we have goodwill for our buyers, we felt that they would look to us for a trusted brand or for a trusted place where they can stay,” he added. Offering world-class accommodation services and amenities to professionals or vacationers, various brands in the pipeline include the five-star luxury family resort Adama, luxury hotel Kura and resident urban hotel Argo. “Urban Hotel Argo is really for the explorers—those that want a comfortable

room, but doesn’t want to splurge on amenities. They are there to explore the locality,” explained Lowell Yu, president of 8990 Leisure and Resorts. Kura targets those who want the finer things and comfort on a hotel setup, while Adama is designed as a luxurious type of resort, according to him. “But the difference of Adama compared to the rest of the resorts is all of its activities are toward a family interaction activities,” he pointed out. These exclusive hotels and resorts will open in different parts of the country: Cebu, Makati, Davao, Palawan, Boracay, Siquijor, Alabang, Manila, Iloilo, Legazpi, Clark, Lapu-Lapu, Siargao and Baguio. Yu said that a lot of which, particularly in Cebu, Siquijor and Alabang, will break the grounds in the first quarter of next year, as they plan to complete all their projects in 14 locations over the next five years. 8990 Leisure and Resorts is a subsidiary of publicly listed housing developer 8990 Holdings Inc. Its success, which has seen the company acquiring a record-high net income of P3.4 billion in the first three quarters of 2018, promises a bright future for the company’s foray into the leisure and hospitality industry. “This is a good recurring income for us,” Martinez said of 8990 Leisure and Resorts. “Moving forward over a five-year term, we want to grow it from what it is today to at least 20 to 25 percent in terms of [contribution to] gross revenues and in terms of income of the group.”

ness and leisure facilities that will include a gym, swimming pools, game room, library/lounge area, kids’ playroom and function room, as well as Aseana City’s world-class public security and safety services made possible by its advanced city management technology. “All of these developments are part of our vision to provide the community with convenient lifestyles

and to let them experience city life to the fullest,” Wenceslao added. MidPark Towers is DMWAI’s second foray into residential condominium development in Aseana City, following through the resounding success of Pixel Residences. It is just one among a number of projects that will breathe dynamic vibe into Aseana City as the “nextgeneration city.”

COMMUNITY

JDI donates waterproofing products to various schools and barangays in Northern Luzon, including Tamurong Elementary School in Barangay Tamurong, Candon, Ilocos Sur.

JDI reaches out to schools in Northern Luzon

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OR Jardine Distribution Inc. (JDI), being a trusted industry leader means more than just providing quality products and services. Through its corporate social responsibility efforts, JDI has, through the years, displayed good corporate citizenship by providing support for the country’s education sector. Recently, JDI went to Typhoon Ompong-hit areas of La Union, Ilocos Sur and Benguet to reach out to the schools destroyed by the storm and donated its elastomeric sealant, Sureseal, for the repairs of roofs. Among the schools that JDI visited were Bayugan Elementary School in La Trinidad, Benguet; Paringao Elementary School in Bauang, La Union; Tamurong Elementary School in Candon, Ilocos Sur; and Catbangen Central School in San

Fernando, La Union. In 2013, after the record-breaking Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) pummeled Leyte and Samar, JDI was also among the first to contribute to recovery efforts by donating tents and school supplies to affected schools and students. “Education has always been a huge part of our corporate social responsibility, because we believe that educating the youth and supporting educational institutions are key to our bigger purpose of nurturing and caring for the Filipino home,” said Peachy Tiu, assistant vice president of JDI. “By helping in building strong schools and strong minds, we are confident that our future is in good hands,” Tiu added. For more information, visit www. jardinedistribution.com.

Entrepreneur BusinessMirror

E4 Wednesday, November 28, 2018

www.businessmirror.com.ph

From salesman to country manager: Rod Arellano’s ascent to the corporate ladder

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By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

@brownindio

Contributor

S they say, Rome was not built in a day. For NCH Philippines Country Manager Rod Arellano, success was achieved through sweat, determination and hard work. In 1986 the former maintenance engineer from the Philippine Air Force and Philippine Air Lines decided to take a different path to pursue a career in the corporate world. The apex of his career came when he was appointed as the first Filipino country manager of the company in 2010. Arellano has mixed feelings of happiness, excitement and, at the same time, thinks also of the challenges ahead in his 32-year stint with the company, which he considers his own. “Challenges will be a normal thing for me, because I need to continue to perform my best in an era dominated by the younger generation and adopting myself to the new and modern technologies,” he said. “It was a big deal for me. I was always questioning myself as to why NCH Philippines was always managed by Americans and not Filipinos.

But it never came into my mind. I would say people have seen the growth of the company and nobody understands the Philippine market better than the Filipinos,” Arellano told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview at the NCH office in Cainta. Right now, Arellano and his team are busy preparing for the coming 100th anniversary of the parent company in 2019. Established in 1968 in the Philippines, NCH Philippines was formerly under the Jardine group until the British company sold its 60-percent equity to NCH Philippines in 1983. Arellano credits the 50-year-old NCH Philippines’s staying power on its consistent capability to deliver services and products needed by the manufacturing, transportation, electronics, mining, construction, malls and hotels. Furthermore, he recalled, the

company was not even affected by the Asia financial crisis in 1997 because NCH Philippines has been offering diverse products to the market. “We continued to rise during that time because…we were consistent in our performance,” he said. “I can say that NCH Philippines is a crisis-repellant company. I credit our stability to NCH’s fully owned subsidiary structure where the parent company just sends the raw materials to the subsidiaries. This allows the subsidiaries to produce and sell products in the local market,” Arellano explained.

The early years

ARELLANO had zero knowledge when he joined NCH as a salesman in 1986. But this challenge did not faze him and he immediately buckled down to work. His superiors told him that the top salesperson in the Northern Luzon unit was a lady producing sales of P35, 000 a month. The head of the Ilocos region unit dared Arellano that if he can sell P120,000 worth of products in four months, he will be regularized and be given a car as promised by its brand manager. He met the quota in three months and was given a new car for his exemplary performance. There were no secret strategies for Arellano as he just stuck with the format of speaking with the customers. If he has done that, he believes, everything else will follow. To be exact, he has to see eight customers a day

and demonstrate six products. “Assuming you meet the eight, chances are 50 percent of the market will see and buy your product,” Arellano said. He kept opening new accounts and continued to broaden his market reach. This has been cascaded today to the various members of the sales team in NCH. “I attribute my selling skills to a [regular] market vendor and I always ARELLANO buy from people they like and establish good relations with them,” he said. In 1987 he was promoted to district manager in Northern Luzon. The following year, Arellano’s rank rose to regional manager. In 2000 NCH promoted him to division manager of NCH Certified, one of the company’s main products.

Empowering the managers

RIGHT now, NCH Philippines is the most profitable subsidiary of the parent company. In October this year, NCH Philippines reported the highest sales growth in the history of the company. “We achieved 33 percent profitability for our stellar performance,” he said. The Philippine unit is now the most organized among all NCH subsidiaries in Asia, third biggest in sales

with the highest percentage in terms of operating income. “We became the business model in Asia and our managers are now helping other managers in other countries in training and development of people,” Arellano said. “In NCH, we believe that managers and leaders of the company should be a good model, somebody who started from the ranks because they grew and learned the business and the company culture from the start. Promoting people from within is a good way to show growth in their career and it is a ‘great motivator’ for success and productivity,” Arellano pointed out, Arellano said their manpower comprises the greatest asset of NCH Philippines. Moreover, the firm believes the foundation of their business is good relationship and trust. “People buy from people they like, so our foremost goal is to establish

a good and lasting relationship with an individual,” he said. “I am very proud with our achievement, especially in the past five year, from being one of the lowest in sales and income among the 10 countries in Asia, we became the most profitable and now the third biggest in terms of sales. I dedicate this success to our people, while we take good care of our employees, our customers and the environment,” he said. Moreover, Arellano acts as cheerleader to all sales representatives, managers and staff and spends time to listen to people, provide redirection and support the people to achieve their short- and longterm goals. As the parent company turns a century old in 2019, Arellano said it aims to sustain its growth centered on business and people development. For NCH Philippines, Arellano said they will continue developing people, continue to improve their benefits and develop a clear career path for everybody so that they will be encouraged to do their best and be able to achieve their dream career.

People buy from people they like, so our foremost goal is to establish a good and lasting relationship with an individual.”—Arellano

Factory worker’s son builds 7-Eleven opens 2nd store in Eastern Visayas $7-B start-up in Indonesia

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T Tokopedia, Indonesia’s largest online marketplace, has become the country’s most valuable start-up after raising $1 billion from existing investors including SoftBank, according to people familiar with the matter. The e-commerce operator is valued at about $7 billion after the round, the people said, asking not to be identified as the details are private. That would top the valuations for start-ups in Indonesia, according to the research firm CB Insights. While it wasn’t clear if the backing comes from SoftBank Group Corp. or its Vision Fund, the Tokyo-based company transferred prior holdings in Tokopedia to the fund earlier this year. William Tanuwijaya, the 37-year-old son of a factory worker, cofounded the company and has capitalized on the country’s rapid adoption of smartphones and increasing comfort in shopping online. Indonesia’s Internet economy is the largest and fastest growing in Southeast Asia with e-commerce poised to be worth $53 billion by 2025, according to a recent report by Google and Temasek Holdings Pte. A cashed-up Tokopedia, which was founded in 2009, will present more formidable competition for its rivals. China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is expanding its Lazada business in Southeast Asia, while PT Bukalapak.com is signing up hundreds of thousands of neighborhood stores as partners and Singapore’s Sea Ltd. is investing heavily to expand its e-commerce business. “Tokopedia has emerged as a major force in recent times,” said Usman Akhtar, a Jakarta-based partner at Bain & Co. “It has made

undoubted advances in scale and the fact that it is getting new and large funding suggests that some major investors see it as one of the potential leaders in future consolidated market.” A Tokopedia representative declined to comment. SoftBank didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Tokopedia was No. 1 in Indonesia in the third quarter, according to market researcher iPrice Group, which used monthly Web visits based on SimilarWeb’s data. It was followed by Bukalapak, Shopee and Lazada. Tanuwijaya has previously cited his first meeting with SoftBank’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son as a turning point for the company. That came in 2014 after he took 11 pitches to get funding for his idea to build Indonesia’s first online shopping hub. “The people who rejected me only asked me about my past, which I couldn’t change,” Tanuwijaya said in an interview in 2016, recalling his early days when potential investors turned down his pitch. “But Masayoshi Son was there, asking me what I thought of the future. He didn’t care about my past.” Tokopedia’s gross merchandise value, which refers to the total value of goods sold on is platform, has more than tripled this year, according to the people familiar with the matter. The company matches customers with merchants instead of selling products from its own shelves and offers electronics, clothing and health-care items. It also operates web sites for buying train tickets and topping up mobile-phone plans. Bloomberg News

LEADING convenience store chain 7-Eleven recently opened its second store in Eastern Visayas as part of its continuing expansion program in the VisMin region. The new store, located along Tacloban-Baybay Road in Poblacion, Palo, Leyte, is expected to cater mostly to residential, commercial and tourist areas in the vicinity. According to its exclusive local licensor, Philippine Seven Corp. (PSC), the increasing rate of tourism and commercialization, as well as the fast development of the province, paved way for the expansion of 7-Eleven in Eastern Visayas. Present at the opening were (first row, from left) Francisco R. Gayanilo Jr. (regional operations support manager), Dionardo B. Carlos (Philippine National Police chief superintendent for Region 8), Wilson S. Uy (lessor), Remedios L. Petilla (Palo, Leyte mayor), Leopoldo Dominico Petilla (governor), Eugene Tan (franchisee), Henry Y. Gosyco (store operator), (at the back, from left) Jimmy Yaokasin Jr. (franchisee), Fr. Danilo Pongos of Our Lady of Holy Rosary Church, with the store managers. Currently, PSC operates 350 stores in the Visayas, with 207 franchise-owned and 143 corporate-owned outlets. 7-Eleven offers suitable partners two ways to benefit from a proven system: Regular New Store Franchise (open a new 7-Eleven store), and Property Conversion (convert an established business or properties into a 7-Eleven franchise). For more details on 7-Eleven’s franchise opportunity offerings, call (02) 7269968, 0920-9508651, 0917-8711686, e-mail franchising@7-eleven.com.ph or visit www.7-eleven.com.ph.

‘Impakabsat’ fair features Cordillera items in Alabang

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AGUIO CITY—The Department of Trade and Industry in Cordillera (DTI CAR) opened its “Impakabsat,” a trade fair featuring various products of the region, at the Festival Mall in Alabang, Muntinlupa City. Freda Gawisan, DTI Benguet provincial officer, in a telephone interview on Friday evening, said the event, now on its 20th year, is a pre-Christmas sale of products produced by government-supported micro, small and medium enterprises in the region. “It is done in November because it is a pre-Christmas sale,” Gawisan said, noting that the trade fair will end on December 2.

She said the impakabsat, an Ilocano word meaning brotherhood, is a high-level trade fair conducted by the DTI regional office that allows the public to see and buy products made in the Cordillera without having to visit any part of the region. It is annually done prior to Christmas to give Metro Manila residents an alternative choice for their Christmas presents. She said the fair showcases selected Cordillera products coming from the six provinces and two cities of the region, such as processed food ranging from wines, jams, preserves and pastries; loom woven items sold by yard and their finished products like pouch bags, ladies

and men’s bags, shaw, table runners and wall décors; handicrafts made of wood, bamboo; key chains and other items that promote Baguio and the rest of the Cordillera. She added that exhibitors from nearby towns, whose products are not the same and not in competition with the Cordillera products sold, were also invited to the event. She explained that the DTI regional office opted to have the event in Alabang, which is a highly populated area. “Previously, we had it at Megamall but the sales generated in Alabang was higher, which made us do it there. This is the sixth year in Alabang,” Gawisan added. PNA