Businessmirror october 16, 2016

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‘Govt should be more enabler than regulator in telco industry’

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

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ECAUSE the development of the information and communications technology sector in the countryside will result in higher employment rates and increased economic activities, the government must put primary focus on investing in the sector.

CU: “There is no substitute for government support if we are to achieve social inclusion of all communities as we aspire for further economic growth.”

Dollar advances even as retail sales strengthen case for rate hike

Globe Telecom Inc. President Ernest L. Cu said the government and the private sector must collaborate to develop key telecommunications infrastructure to hasten See “Telco,” A2

Federal Reserve Chairman Janet L. Yellen smiles, as she is introduced at an address at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on October 14 in Boston. “Increased business sales would almost certainly raise the productive capacity of the economy by encouraging additional capital spending,” Yellen said in her speech. AP/Charles Krupa

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HE dollar advanced to near a seven-month high, after a report showing retail sales rose by the most in three months bolstered the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed) case to raise interest rates by year-end.

The greenback gained against most Group-of-10 peers, even after Fed Chairman Janet L. Yellen said there are “plausible ways” running the economy hot for a while could fix some of the damage caused to growth trends by the Great Recession.

Boston Fed Bank President Eric Rosengren said earlier the cen-

tral bank might have to raise rates faster than the market forecasts. Futures show the likelihood of a hike by year-end climbed to 69 percent, from 60 percent a month ago.

“It’s a gentle dollar-bull trend here,” said Chris Turner, London-based head of currency strategy at ING Groep NV. There may be “another 1 percent or 2 percent of dollar strength if the Fed does deliver a hike.”

The US currency has rallied for three straight weeks versus the yen in the longest stretch of gains since May. The See “Dollar,” A2

Peso will not hit 50:$1 this year

By Bianca Cuaresma

FLOWER POWER An enterprising flower vendor in Baguio City sells bouquets of colorful natural and dyed roses in her stall at the city public market. Prices remain at P150 a dozen per bouquet, but

are expected to jack up next week in anticipation of All Saints’ Day.

MAU VICTA

Legazpi, 2 Albay towns get ₧915-M calamity funds

By Manly M. Ugalde Correspondent

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EGAZPI CITY—At least two towns in Albay and this city received almost a billion pesos in calamity funds, as a result of a typhoon last year that was barely felt in the region.

In a letter dated August 15 to Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana, chairman of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea informed the provincial government of Albay that its request for calamity funds, totaling P915.11 million, for the province of Albay, had been approved and released to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region 5 Office in Legazpi for the implementation of 10 flood-control projects in Legazpi City and neighboring towns of Camalig and Da-

raga as a result of Typhoon Nona (international code name Melor) in December 2015.

The release of the P915 million for Albay was reportedly worked out before the election ban for the May 2016 election, a knowledgeable source told the BusinessMirror.

The calamity-fund release came after Nona, packing center winds of 150 kph, was supposed to hit Legazpi on December 13, 2015. The typhoon, however, broke before its landfall in Beri, Northern Samar, and hit Legazpi, with sustained winds of only 56 kph under Signal Nos. 2 and 3.

Sorsogon, Camarines Sur and Camarines Norte also were placed under Signal Nos. 2 and 3. Minimal damage was incurred in the area.

DPWH officials, however, were mum as to who was behind the release of the whopping P915-million calamity funds.

DPWH 5 Regional Director Reynaldo G. Tagudando could not

PESO exchange rates n US 48.4730

be reached for comment, but his legal officer Oliver Rodulfo confirmed the P915-million release for Albay, saying the funds could be from the efforts of former Albay Gov. and now Rep. Joey S. Salceda of the Second District.

Texted for comment, Salceda’s chief of staff Carolina Sabio denied the P915-million calamity funds for Albay resulted from the efforts of Salceda. She said the request merely passed the Regional Development Council (RDC) early in January, when Salceda was still the RDC chairman.

It was learned later the P915million calamity funds were worked out by then-Second District representative and now Gov. Al Francis Bichara and the city of Legazpi.

In his letter follow-up in April to then-Defense Secretary and NDRRMC Chairman Voltaire T. Gazmin, Bichara sought to facilitate the approval of his calamity-

fund request for P432 million for the towns of Camalig and Daraga for five flood-control projects as a result of the damage rendered by Nona. The Legazpi City government, under Mayor Noel Rosal, also sought for a fund release of P438 million for five damaged flood-control projects in the city.

Bichara and Rosal could not be reached for comment.

Documents showed the five Legazpi flood-control projects included the construction, rehabilitation of Arimbay River flood control, Legazpi, P96.37 million; construction, rehabilitation of Yawa reverse flood-control system, Barangay Mabinit Legazpi, P96,.4 million; construction, rehabilitation of Padang River flood control, Legazpi, P97.356 million; construction, rehabilitation of Pawa Burabod flood control, Legazpi, P94.91 million; and construction, rehabilitation of Yawa River flood control, Legazpi section, P93.93 million.

@BcuaresmaBM

D

ESPITE several bouts of weaknesses affecting the local currency, the peso is not seen to drop to the 50:$1 territory this year, a local economist said.

Bank of the Philippine Islands associate economist Nicholas Antonio T. Mapa forecasts the peso to hit his year-end projection of 49.02 to a dollar.

“There are several factors behind the peso’s recent performance, both local and global. Global developments center around major central-bank meetings mostly and US data reports. The Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are all still mired in their fight against deflation and, thus, most seen to be in easing mode,” Mapa told the BusinessMirror.

“The US is in the nascent stages of its rate-hike cycle and, thus, any comments or data that could point to an improving economy, would increase the chances for a rate hike, which, in turn, causes the dollar to strengthen,” he said.

The economist said, domestically, our local unit is affected by any shifts in foreign sentiment in the local stock-exchange, as a weakening of the stock exchange

index due to foreign selling drags on the peso.

“Last, it’s still difficult to say whether controversial remarks do affect the exchange rate, but I guess such remarks can still affect sentiment and psyche of some individuals, which can reflect in the foreign-exchange rate,” he added.

In recent weeks, the local currency has been seen to trade to fresh seven-year lows, as the local currency continues to lose value over the US dollar.

On Friday the peso ended the trading week at 48.44 to a dollar, slumping from the previous day’s 48.34 to a dollar. The total traded volume is at $573.1 million.

In terms of its effect on the real economy, Mapa said that, while remittances in dollar terms are expected to slow further this year, its purchasing will still not be affected due to the cushion a weaker currency provides.

“This may not be as much of a problem for as long as the growth of remittances in peso terms [which is Filipinos purchasing power] remains solid enough to drive our consumption economy,” Mapa said. “The weaker currency will feed into inflationary pressure and help elevate the path back into target.”

In a recent commentary on the movement of the local currency, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. See “Peso,” A2

n japan 0.4675 n UK 59.4231 n HK 6.2496 n CHINA 7.2073 n singapore 35.0999 n australia 36.6844 n EU 53.5966 n SAUDI arabia 12.9237

Source: BSP (14 October 2016 )

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, October 16, 2016

Another fuel-price hike expected this week

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

L

OCAL pump prices are expected to increase on Tuesday, an official of the Department of Energy (DOE) said.

Director Melita V. Obillo of the Oil Industry Management Bureau said in a text message on Saturday the prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene may go up between P0.50 and P0.60 per liter.

The price-increase estimate, she said, was based on a four-day trading period last week.

Oil companies will announce on Monday their respective price adjustments.

On Tuesday last week, prices of petroleum products increased for the second consecutive time this month, as prices in the world market soared during the past trading week.

Gasoline prices went up by P0.85 per liter; diesel by P1.55 per liter; and kerosene also by P1.55 per liter effective on October 11.

An announcement last month to freeze production was blamed for the continued increase in international oil prices. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) decided to slash production by up to 700,000 barrels a day from the current level of just over 33 million barrels a day. A meeting is set next month to finalize details of an agreement.

Energy Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella said a strong demand for oil products from the US and continued weakening of the peso against the US dollar are the main factors that led to the October 11 oil-price hike.

On October 4 oil companies effected increases of P0.35 per liter for gasoline and P0.60 per liter for diesel.

Meanwhile, Petron Corp. launched the first Euro 5 standard fuel in the country.

After successfully launching a full range of locally produced Euro 4 fuels almost a year ago, Petron marked another breakthrough in fuels technology with the introduction of the Blaze 100 Euro 5.

Blaze 100 Euro 5 contains significantly less sulfur, 10 parts per million (ppm) compared to other Euro 4 fuels (50 ppm). It also has less benzene (less than 1 percent of volume)—a known carcinogen— compared to the Philippine standard, which allows up to 2 percent by volume in gasoline. It is now available nationwide.

High sulfur levels in fuel, when combined with water vapor, can harm the environment and cause corrosive wear on valve guides and cylinder liners, leading to premature engine failure.

While Blaze 100 Euro 5 is recommended for high-end, highperformance vehicles, other vehicles will get the same power and improved fuel economy because of its special formulation.

“Petron is proud to introduce another revolutionary fuel especially formulated for Philippine driving conditions,” Petron President Ramon S. Ang said. “With the highest octane rating but the lowest sulfur content, Petron Blaze 100 Euro 5 is the best gasoline in the market by far in terms of power, efficiency and reduced emissions.”

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Network versus illicit trade launched in Subic Freeport

By Henry Empeño Correspondent

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UBIC BAY FREEPORT— Representatives of various community sectors here formed on Thursday a grassroots network of volunteers to help fight illegal business activities in support of the Duterte administration’s drive against smuggling and counterfeit goods.

The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) organized the network as a public-private partnership under the Fight Illicit Trade (Fight IT) Movement, which it had earlier established along its antiillicit trade advocacy.

FPI Chairman Jesus Arranza, who is also Fight IT lead convener, said the movement brings together volunteers from local government units, law-enforcement agencies, business chambers, educational institutions, civic organizations and other community groups to commit in the campaign against illicit trade.

“Through the Fight IT Warriors network, the movement will be able to provide reliable intelligence to law-enforcement groups that will help them in tackling the illicit-trade problem,” Arranza said.

A recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) commissioned by European Chamber of Commerce said Southeast Asian

“FIGHT IT Warriors” from the Lyceum of Subic signify their commitment to help combat illegal trade during the launch of the Fight Illicit Trade (Fight IT) Movement at the Subic Bay Freeport on Thursday. HENRY EMPEÑO

countries are at the bottom of the pack when it comes to the fight against illicit trade. Worse still, the problem could grow, the EIU added.

Arranza said the Subic Bay Freeport was chosen for the launch of the movement because of its “strong sense of volunteerism and civic spirit supporting the administration in its programs, especially in the enforcement of laws and regulations.”

Subic’s strategic location as a

Dollar…

Continued from a1

dollar pared its losses this year to about 2.2 percent, as the jobs market remains solid and traders grow more confident policy-makers will embark on a slow path to normalizing, or raising their rate target toward historical averages.

Bloomberg’s Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the currency against 10 major peers, rose 0.4 percent as of 5 p.m. New York time. It touched a seven-month high on Thursday.

The greenback added 0.5 percent to ¥104.18.

“Increased business sales would almost certainly raise the productive capacity of the economy by encouraging additional capital spending,” Yellen said in the text of a speech to a

Telco…

regional transshipment hub, with an active port that handles tons of shipments daily, also makes it an ideal site for the kickoff, he added.

Around 300 volunteers were sworn in as the movement’s Fight IT Warriors during the movement’s launching at the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center on Thursday.

Accordingly, the “warriors” pledged to report sightings of fake or smuggled goods, as well as suspected

illicit-trade practices in their communities to help authorities apprehend and prosecute illegal traders.

The volunteers were also tasked to join and actively participate in initiatives fostering illicittrade awareness and enforcement issues, trainings on counterfeit spotting and identification, and workshops to enforce actions against trademark violators.

Most important of all, network members pledged to promote the purchase of genuine products to show full support to the movement’s advocacy.

Meanwhile, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority Chairman Martin Diño, who welcomed participants to the launch, expressed his full support to the movement.

“The entire Subic community joins our administration’s relentless campaign against criminality and corruption. And among the steps we are about to take is to flag the presence of illegal activities and raise the problem of illicit trade to the fore,” Diño said.

In the same occasion, The Fight IT Movement unveiled its full-feature web site www.fightillicittrade. com, which features a reporting mechanism for warriors as well as the general public. The site ensures the confidentiality of the sources’ identity, movement leaders said.

The public can also report sightings of illicit products in local areas through the web site and its local hotline 722-3409.

Boston Fed conference.

“Her comments seem to be consistent with the gradual policy regarding higher rates—that means any potential for a stronger dollar will be limited,” said Minh Trang, a senior foreign-exchange trader at Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California.

Minutes released this week showed policy-makers in September were moving toward additional tightening amid stable employment growth and rising inflation. Commerce Department figures released on Friday showed retail sales climbed 0.6 percent last month, following a revised 0.2-percent decline in August.

The dollar will move “sideways to firmer” in the fourth quarter, said Win Thin, global head of emerging markets at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York.

“The run-up to the Fed rate hike should keep it firm.”

In an interview with CNBC, Rosengren said the market’s pricing on a December rate increase is about right, and he’s concerned about overshooting on unemployment and having to tighten faster. Rosengren was among three voters on the Federal Open Market Committee to dissent against the panel’s September 21 decision to leave the benchmark interest rate in a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent. Bloomberg News

Continued from a1

the development of the sector.

Currently, only the private sector invests billions of pesos in building the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.

“Time and again, we continue to call on the government to help develop broadband access in the Philippines by investing in Internet infrastructure in rural and far-flung areas of the country,” Cu said.

“There is no substitute for government support if we are to achieve social inclusion of all communities as we aspire for further economic growth.”

Cu said in 2015, mobile technologies and services generated 5.4 percent of GDP in the AsiaPacific region, a contribution that amounted to around $1.3 trillion of economic value, according to the 2016 GSMA Mobile Economy report on the Asia-Pacific area.

The sector, the report said, is expected to contribute $1.7 trillion to the region’s GDP this year, as countries benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by increased take-up of mobile services and the adoption of new mobile technologies, like machine to machine.

“In recent years, the use of digital technology has extensively enhanced the delivery of important government services. We hope that development of broadband

infrastructure will also redound to improved business competencies and capabilities and, in turn, create more employment opportunities for Filipinos,” Cu said.

He said development of broadband infrastructure is particularly essential in communities where even basic infrastructure services, such as roads and bridges, are lacking.

The Philippines was listed by Huawei Technologies as a “starter” with one of the highest scores in its Global Connectivity Index.

Starters are countries in the early stage of ICT infrastructure build-out with an average GDP of $3,000. They also focus on increasing ICT supply to give more people access to the digital world. To fully benefit from the digital economy, starter economies need faster broadband expansion to ensure most businesses and citizens have affordable broadband access.

However, business viability is a concern among telecommunications companies in most countries that keep them from deploying infrastructure in rural and far-flung areas, Cu said.

In addition to investments in “missionary routes,” telecommunication operators also need government support in minimizing, if not eliminating, bureaucracy in relation to the permitting process for cell sites and right-of-way for optics fiber deployment, Cu said,

noting the company needs to secure around 25 permits, spanning around eight months, to build a single cell site.

“We need the government not just as a regulator, but especially as an enabler of the telecommunications industry. Rationalization of permitting process would substantially enhance ICT development in the country,” he said.

Peso…

Continued from a1

Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said the peso’s movement in the previous week was affected by broad dollar strength as traders increased bets on a Fed rate hike this year.

Tetangco also vowed to “continue to monitor” foreign-exchange market moves and reiterated its readiness to step in to “prevent sharp changes in the exchange rate.”

Central Bank Deputy Governor for the Monetary Stability Sector Diwa C. Guinigundo said the local economic fundamentals have not changed and policies continue to be centered on high, sustainable and inclusive growth.

“Thus, in the medium term, we believe the peso will remain broadly stable and competitive,” Guinigundo said.

NewsSunday

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo

BusinessMirror

Carpio warns vs ‘joint development’ deals with China at contested areas

S

By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

UPREME Court (SC) Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio has cautioned President Duterte against entering into a “joint development” agreement with China over South China Sea, which may be interpreted as surrendering the country’s sovereign rights over its territories, which is against the Constitution.

Carpio, in an interview with reporters following his lecture at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), said there is a possibility that China would revive its offer for a 50-50 split in revenue from the South China Sea with the Philippines during Duterte’s state visit to China next week.

He pointed out that since the 1990s, China has been offering the 50-50 sharing in proceeds with the Philippine government, but the country’s previous leaders have rejected the offer.

He noted that based on China’s

Ministry of Foreign Affairs web site, that country set the definition for having a “ joint development,” wherein one of the four elements is “the sovereignty of the territories concerned belongs to China.”

“If we concede then we share with the bounty 50-50 and President Duterte is going there and ever y t hing t he Chinese says w ith the same condition. Of course we cannot do that because under the Constitution we cant concede sovereign rights or jurisdiction,” Carpio said.

clean energy

First Gen Energy Solutions Inc. (FGES), a subsidiary of Lopez-led First Gen Corp., recently signed a retail-supply contract with food-based conglomerate General Milling Corp. (GMC). Under the contract, FGES agreed to arrange for the supply to GMC of up to 6.5 megawatts of clean energy from a geothermal plant on Negros Island of Energy Development Corp. (EDC), another FirstGen subsidiary. Joselito Fausto Parco (left), GMC executive vice president, shakes hands with Victor B. Santos, FGES and FirstGen senior vice president, after they signed the contract. Also in photo are (from left) Edwin Bayan and Nick Lumain of GMC, as well as Ramon Corro and Carlos Lorenzo Vega of FirstGen.

“We cannot do that because the Constitution says that it is part of national territory and we should protect the EEZ [exclusive economic zone]. [It] is exclusive for the Filipinos and I know the President knows that,” he added.

Carpio believed that if any

agreements would be made with China, it should be limited on economic and trade deals.

“Economically, trade agreements, as long as we don’t concede the sovereign rights and jurisdiction, I don’t see any problem,” he added.

Sunday, October 16, 2016 A3

Duterte economic managers told: Be prepared for fallout

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

S

ENATE President Pro Tempore Franklin M. Drilon has prodded Malacañang’s economic managers to install adequate safety nets to maintain a stable economy in case of a fallout from President Duterte’s continuing diatribes against the Philippines’s allies and major trading partners.

In a statement, Drilon suggested the need for Duterte administration officials to “put in place mechanisms to cushion the negative effects on the economy, if the President’s tirades against the country’s long-term allies will remain unabated.”

“The country cannot afford to lose the support of its long-time ally countries, especially in the economic and development sectors,” Drilon warned.

He aired worries that the President’s penchant for antagonizing multilateral institutions and having poor relations with other countries “may have serious economic consequence.”

Drilon earlier cited, for instance, the possible reduction in the foreign-aid contributions to the Philippines, through official development assistance (ODA), amounting to over $3 billion in aid from Western countries, including the United States and the European Union (EU).

He advised Duterte administration officials to “take precau-

tionary measures to cushion the impact once foreign-aid contributions to the country are reduced, or should the United States and the European Union take the President’s challenge to withdraw foreign aid seriously.”

At the same time, Drilon voiced fears that the Philippines, likewise, risks losing trade preferences, including those covered by the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), particularly in the EU member countries, noting that GSP allows local producers to export their products at either zero tariff or at a preferential tariff rate.

Drilon expressed concern that “if the GSP is withdrawn, our products become expensive and noncompetitive in the areas where these products are exported.”

Such a scenario, he feared, “will hit hard Filipino exporters and ordinary workers alike.”

For instance, he cited the local tuna industry, noting that local producers in fishing communities in General Santos City currently export tuna products to EU markets at preferential tariff rates and will be hit hard. “It will badly affect our poor people who depend on our tuna industry.”

He added that poor relations with the EU might also affect around 25,000 Filipino seamen in EUregistered vessels, whose employment situation largely depends on the Philippines’s relations with EU member-countries.

SundayV

Busine

A4 Sunday, October 16, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

The next recession is coming. Big deal.

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By Barry Ritholtz | Bloomberg View

OU have to hand it to economists: They say the darndest things.

In a Wall Street Journal survey, a group of economists “put the odds of the next downturn happening within the next four years at nearly 60 percent.” Oh, no.

Today, we will make another entry in the catalog of how worthless predictions tend to be and, more specifically, why economists’ long-term forecasts are so uniquely useless.

Let’s start with the math: Saying a recession might occur within the next four years is a statement that contains almost no information. During the 20th century, there were 20 recessions, or one every five years on average. In other words, if you predict a recession within the next four years, you will be accurate on average about 80 percent of the time. It’s only slightly more useless than your local weather forecaster predicting that temperatures will fall this winter and rise next summer. This prediction is, of course, absolutely true and of no value whatsoever.

Why do economists have a penchant for extrapolating current data series, while ignoring the broader—and more important—context about economic cycles? Perhaps, it is because they don’t like admitting they don’t have any idea when the next recession will come. Almost without exception, economists failed to “anticipate the three most recent recessions of 1990, 2001 and 2007 [even after they had begun].” Don’t expect them to do any better the next time.

Instead, you might want to consider other ways to think about turns in the business cycle. I like the way Economic Cycle Research Institute (Ecri) describes it: Economists tend to use models that “reduce a complex economy to a rigid set of largely backward-looking relationships.” As Ecri notes, extrapolating from the recent past is a sure-fire recipe for being surprised by the next turn. Ecris’s approach is to use the leading economic indicators to provide some insight into when the economy is first slowing its expansion, then tipping into contraction.

Rather than merely playing the statistical odds, another more useful approach to recession forecasting is to look at various data points that, taken together, have a strong correlation with the start of earlier recessions.

Some forecasting models have done better than others. Researchers at the Federal Reserve look at “17 monthly variables chosen to describe different aspects of the economy.” The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland also looked at statistical models that estimate 12-month-ahead recession probabilities.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has developed its own model.

They all found that, while many models can be improved by tweaking the indicators or metrics tracked, the limits of the forecasting models drop off a lot at time horizons of 12 months or more. The reason for this is the standard economic measures they all use to predict recessions—the yield curve, corporate profits, credit spreads and consumer confidence surveys—change so much from month to month and quarter to quarter.

The present US economic cycle is a long, slow recovery from a deep recession that started in December 2007 and was aggravated by the credit crisis of 20082009. The Wall Street Journal said the expansion “has now continued for 88 months, making it the fourth-longest period of growth in records stretching to 1854.” But expansions don’t just get old and die; something fundamental has to happen to arrest the progress. And remember, records get broken all the time.

So forecasts of a recession arriving during the next four years are just a waste of print and pixels. The only thing these predictions do accomplish is to remind us that yes, there is always a storm somewhere off in the future.

But you can almost never know when it will strike.

For those of you born after 1970, this is a reference to Art Linkletter’s radio (and later television) interviews of children on his show Kids Say the Darndest Things.

In the 71 years since World War II ended, there have been 12 recessions.

That is a recession every 5.9 years.

President Duterte must deal with reality

T

HE reality is: The United States is the only military and economic power in the world today that can safeguard the freedom of navigation and enforce the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), particularly in the South China Sea (SCS) and the Pacific.

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By Cecilio T. Arillo

Without the US and Japan as military and economic allies, many small-country claimants, like the Philippines, in Southeast Asia will eventually lose to China through its gradual encroachments called “Cabbage Tactics” and bargaining positions in the Spratlys and other disputed islands.

Some security experts believe as China is successful in the Philippines and Vietnam, it will seek the same through maritime intrusion and normalization in other locations, a move called “Salami Tactics” by Thomas Schelling, a noted American economist and military theorist.

For brazenly intruding into parts of Philippine territory, China has obviously used “salami-slicing” and Cabbage Tactics to increase its power in the SCS, an expert from China’s Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University said.

History teaches us a lesson that in 1938, Hitler effectively used the tactic in Czechoslovakia, and fearing war with him, Italy, France and Britain appeased Germany and convinced Czechoslovakia to give up some territories. As a result, appeasement only encouraged Hitler to conquer more of Europe over the next few years.

China’s parallel encroachments in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) is no doubt arguably upsetting, as the threat appears not only limited to Scarborough Shoal, but extends to all of East Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

Although President Duterte’s antiforeign sentiment has driven some officials to adopt a hardline policy against the US, Philippine security interest does not actually conflict with the interest of the former, especially in securing the free passage of navigation in the SCS, where over $5 trillion in trades pass through, except in some areas of concern where some misguided American officials

continued to interfere in purely domestic affairs, such as the antidrug war and the handling of the Moro rebels in Mindanao.

It can be argued a genuine nationalist like President Duterte would certainly not want to be treated by misguided foreigners as a secondclass citizen in his own country, and further mistreated and insulted by giving his country military junks, including outdated navy and coastguard ships that are just waiting to be sunk by the Chinese navy, usually called security assistance. More so, he’s also chastised for using harsh words by people who are actually American flunkies, but pretend to be his own political allies.

Unknown to many people, the Philippines is the only country playing a unique and strategic role in securing and bridging the shores, air and inland strategic passages of navigation, as it is located at the center of the world’s two greats oceans, the SCS and the Pacific Ocean, six to 18 degrees above the equator.

Oil supplies, mostly for western countries, and other trade cargoes worth trillions of dollars in large containerized ships from the Middle East that pass through the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and on to the vital chokepoints of the Straights of Sunda, Lomboc, Makassar, Malacca must navigate through the Philippine seas before reaching the SCS to unload shipments for China, Japan and other East Asian countries.

Over 2,000 ships, including medium and large cargovessels, pass through the Philippine seas in the name of security and economic alliances without paying a single centavo for the passage, especially in the Surigao Straight where over 700 trump vessels carrying oil and other imported goods navigate every year.

To effectively contain China’s militaristic SCS expansion, the US needs a genuine and strong security and economic alliance with the Philippines, similar to what it has with Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

To do this, the US must help the Philippines rapidly arm and industrialize itself like what it did to Japan

and South Korea in the past decades so that any attempt by China to further encroach on its territory, fishing waters, energy resources, and air- and sea-transportation routes would be met with a credible defense system that will make it costly for China to bear in case of war with the US and Japan in the SCS and the Pacific.

For the Duterte government, halfmeasures, such as bilateral economic cooperation with either US or China, will not guarantee safety for the Philippines in case of armed conflict.

Because of the increasing security tension in the SCS, what the Philippines can do for the meantime is to increase vigilance against Chinese drug smuggling, corruption and intervention in Philippine politics; arrange a permanent code of conduct with non-Chinese claimants to the SCS; require the US and Japan to provide the Philippines with technology, transport facilities and industrial machines that can produce modern weapons, return the major strategic military bases, including Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base after revising the Constitution; joint patrols of the SCS with Asean countries; and joint military enforcement of Unclos in the WPS. In dealing with the US, it is advisable for the Duterte administration in particular to secure a commitment for: 1) job opportunities for Filipinos inside US bases; 2) Philippine regulatory oversight of off-base antisocial activities to combat drug smuggling, peddling and prostitution; 3) a judicious litigation of criminal violations committed by US troops; and 4) medical, educational and technological assistance in communities in and outside military bases.

Realistically, this is better, if not the best, than quarreling with the US. After all, there are 3.4 million Filipinos in America, comprising the second-biggest ethnic group after Asian Chinese, based on the 2010 US census, remitting dollars and helping the Philippine economy.

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

Voices

essMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph • Sunday, October 16, 2016 A5

No cure I

F I had to do it again, I would say it again: The drug threat grew gigantic. Indeed, in the past six years, it metastasized to Stage 3 cancer. It, therefore, demands preemptive surgery before it gets too big and hot to handle for a state as weak as ours.

Free Fire

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

The drug threat needs—and I apologize again for the original phrase I used—a radical solution or—as the American Founding Fathers said of slavery, it needs a set of measures that will put the drug trade, like slavery, well on the path of self-extinction without a war to end it swiftly.

A state as weak as ours, and a people as poor as we, cannot withstand the full-scale assault on humanity and sovereignty of a robust drug trade, with the reach and ruthlessness of the Mexican and Colombian cartels. The strike must be made before the threat achieves an existential scale. That threat was confirmed by indisputable statistics, gathered by the administration before last

preparatory to a feeble antidrugs campaign that people, like myself, made fun of, and which the succeeding regime: n resolutely ignored, n allowed to fester, n covered up, n or made light of.

These indisputable statistics are finally being consulted to the horror of those who hate drugs, and to the high anxiety of past officials who promoted drugs incognito.

It is true that one or two in the matrix of the drug trade are dead, but that does not mean the matrix is wrong in any particular. It only means that they are now dead. But when they were alive, they were drug dealers.

A state as weak as ours, and a people as poor as we, cannot withstand the full-scale assault on humanity and sovereignty of a robust drug trade, with the reach and ruthlessness of the Mexican and Colombian cartels.

In the face of mounting evidence, my mind believes, but my heart denies, that some politicians—the nicest people in the world—after all, they are popularly elected and do not just qualify for their jobs—are into drugs.

In my time in Congress, some of us cut corners and pocketed them.

Why not? Campaigns cost. But nobody ever crossed the line into drugs.

The Netherlands phases out animal tests

By Paula Moore

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta)/TNS Forum

I

N a groundbreaking move, the Dutch government recently announced it is working to end all experiments on animals. The Netherlands had already passed a motion in parliament to phase out experiments on nonhuman primates, and now its goal is to be using only human-relevant, nonanimal testing methods by 2025.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals United Kingdom scientists have met with government officials and provided a 70-page document outlining areas of experimentation that can be ended immediately and a strategy for moving forward. Now, the United States and other nations should follow suit.

The Dutch government’s bold decision promises great progress not only for the millions of animals who are intentionally infected with diseases, force-fed chemicals, blinded, burned, mutilated and left to suffer without veterinary care

inside laboratories every year, but also for human patients desperately waiting for therapies and cures for their illnesses. We’ve long known that mice are not just tiny human beings and that experimenters who cling to the archaic animal “model” as the gold standard of research are wasting precious time, resources and lives—both human and animal.

Although animals have the same capacity to feel fear and pain that we humans have, our physiology is vastly different, and results from animal studies are rarely relevant to human health. Multiple systematic reviews have documented the overwhelming failure of experiments on animals to benefit humans in the areas of neurodegenerative disease, neuropsychiatric disorders, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, obesity, inflammatory disease and more.

Nine out of 10 experimental drugs that pass animal studies fail in humans,

and the few that are approved often need to be relabeled or pulled from the market after they sicken or kill human patients.

Decades of HIV and AIDS experiments have failed to produce effective vaccines for humans, even though at least 85 were successful in primate studies.

And while “[w]e have cured mice of cancer for decades”—according to former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner—“it simply didn’t work in humans.”

No wonder John Ioannidis, professor of medicine and of health research and policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, said it is “nearly impossible to rely on most animal data to predict whether an intervention will have a favorable clinical benefit-risk ratio in human subjects.” There are better ways to conduct research than intentionally sickening and injuring animals. For example, scientists can replicate human organs on microchips

to test the impact of potential drugs.

Sophisticated computer models can simulate the progression of developing diseases and accurately predict drugs’ reactions in the human body.

Advanced brain-imaging techniques—which allow the human brain to be safely studied down to the level of a single neuron—can replace crude experiments in which animals are intentionally brain-damaged. In the field of toxicity testing, nonanimal methods harnessing scientific advances in molecular and cell biology, genetics, computational power and robotic testing systems can test more chemicals in a single day than have been tested in the past 20 years using animals.

These methods allow scientists to test mixtures of chemicals, assess chemical effects on vulnerable populations or life stages, and detect sensitive effects that animal tests cannot.

But setting aside the fact that experimenting on animals is bad science and

We had honor and we had limits to our greed. But things changed after I left. Some have crossed over and more have taken money to conceal the transition.

As I watch one testimony after another, drive one nail after another in the coffin of my political affections—for I love them all, those I fight and those I praise by turns—I do not delight in the discombobulating of passing opponents. Instead, I deeply grieve the “irredemptive” and irreparable damage to our country.

Drugs are a cancer, and we can talk about surgery all we want, or chemotherapy because we are squeamish, but the truth is there is no cure for cancer.

there are more relevant and efficient methods, it is morally wrong to poison, infect, burn and cut up animals in a laboratory. Just as our science has advanced, so has our understanding of the other beings with whom we share the planet.

Other animals, like us, are conscious beings who develop friendships, have complex social structures, use language and make tools, are capable of understanding cause-andeffect relationships, solve problems, form abstract thoughts and show empathy. Fortunately, this is not a case of us versus them. By embracing bold policy initiatives as the Netherlands has done and investing in exciting and progressive nonanimal methods, we will have far more promising treatments and cures for humans and more effective and reliable methods for toxicity assessment, while also sparing tens of millions of animals unimaginable suffering.

Negligent Central American leaders fuel refugee crisis M

By Erika Guevara-Rosas | Inter Press Service

EXICO CITY—One word could undoubtedly summarize the past year with painful precision: Refugees.

We all have seen the heartbreaking images of men, women and children desperately jumping on makeshift boats in the Mediterranean or the Andaman Seas, narrowly escaping death in search for a safer future. The bodies of lifeless toddlers washed ashore. The harrowing cries of mothers and fathers who lost everything trying to save their families, only to be denied a safe haven in other countries.

In an often-ignored corner of the world, equally tragic images abound, showing a dreadful and rapidly deteriorating refugee crisis that many do not even know about.

El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are not Syria. There is no official war there. But even in the absence of one, the alarming death toll in each one of these countries shows there might as well be.

More people are murdered in Central America’s “Northern Triangle”—as the three countries are jointly known—than in most conflict zones. El Salvador, for

example, with a homicide rate of 108 per 100,000 inhabitants, is currently more deadly than Iraq with 48.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Honduras and Guatemala are not far behind with homicide rates of 63.75 and 34.99 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. And it’s not only murders that make life in these small countries nearly impossible.

Most people struggle to survive under the merciless watch of criminal gangs that control what people do and can’t do, what they can talk about and even where they can walk. They

force bus drivers and shop owners, sex workers and anyone else to pay hefty fees for the “privilege” of not being killed.

And the authorities are doing very little to protect them—with police even abusing young teenagers and others to force them to “confess” to helping gangs in a desperate attempt to show they are taking action against this unbearable violence.

More people are murdered in Central America’s Northern Triangle—as the three countries are jointly known—than in most conflict zones.

It should come as no surprise that people feel they have no option but to flee home, often with little more than what they can carry with them.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from the Northern Triangle take one of the most perilous journeys on earth, traveling through Mexico with a view to seek safety in the US. Some make it all the way. But the journey is filled with dangers, ranging from kidnapping to rape and torture. A large number die along the way or are forcibly returned to the life-threatening

situations they were desperately fleeing in the first place.

Once back “home,” their governments welcome them with open arms but closed minds—either uncaring or oblivious to what prompted them to flee. Authorities in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have spoken to us with enormous pride about how quickly they are able to “process” hundreds of deportees each day.

The trouble is no one is taking the time to find out exactly why they were so desperate to leave home in the first place and why most prefer to make the perilous journey again and again rather than stay home.

José, a 16-year-old boy, is one of them.

We met him as he sat, visibly exhausted and looking lost as he gazed into the distance. He had left El Salvador a week earlier, with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. What spurred him to flee were the threats from the gang controling his neighborhood, which became dangerously real. But in Mexico he was caught by migration officials and deported. On his return to El Salvador, a social worker

merely tried to dissuade him from going back to Mexico, but José complains no one is listening when he lists the long catalogue of reasons going home is not an option.

Like most in his situation, after taking the pupusas (the Salvadorian traditional corn flour pastries) he is given, he sees no choice but to begin the dangerous journey northward again.

While Central American governments work hard to focus attention on the vast abuses people suffer while traveling through Mexico to the US, they conveniently look the other way when it comes to acknowledging their own role in the Americas’ worst refugee crisis.

They cynically argue most people flee El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras out of economic need, not because the sky-high homicide rates make their countries near no-go zones for millions.

They say this crisis has nothing to do with them. This argument is not just cynical, but wrong.

While the US and Mexico are utterly failing in their obligation to provide a safe haven to those forced to flee the

The cities that Uber and Lyft are changing U

By Justin Fox | Bloomberg View

BER now offers rides in more than 200 US cities. Rival Lyft does, too. But Uber gets an estimated 60 percent of its US revenue from just five metropolitan areas (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington), according to a new report from the research firm 7Park Data. You can see a similar regional concentration in ride-business data released this week by the Brookings Institution.

Ian Hathaway and Mark Muro gathered these numbers (and similar data on the lodging industry) to gauge the growth of the “gig economy” enabled by

platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb. Although there are multiple lawsuits in the works trying to change this, drivers for Uber, Lyft and their ilk are independent

contractors, not employees, so they don’t show up in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s monthly payroll employment numbers.

And though lots of the people who got paid for providing rides—cabbies, carservice drivers—were self-employed or worked as independent contractors even before Uber and Lyft came along, it does seem reasonable to attribute most of any recent increase in the nonemployee driver ranks to these companies.

Hathaway began dig ging last year into Census Bureau data on nonemployer businesses in the San Francisco area to see if it showed evidence of a boom in new sole-proprietor businesses

in rides and lodging (It did!). Now he and Muro have assembled data from all of the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Turns out it’s not just in the Bay Area that independent-contractor driver numbers have been skyrocketing.

If you want to see the employment changes in all 50 metro areas, Hathaway and Muro have them in their report. Also, Joe Cortright of City Observatory has used the data to assemble a list of the Metro areas with the largest concentrations of independent-contractor drivers, in case that’s what you’re interested in. But for now, here’s a closer look at one of those Metro areas, Los Angeles.

There were 14,543 more people earning money in the ride-providing sectors (to be specific, “taxi and limousine services” and “other transit and ground passenger transportation”) in the Los Angeles area in 2014 than in 2012. That’s not much in terms of overall employment (6.1 million jobs in 2014), but it does seem to indicate a profound change in how Angelenos get around—from driving their own cars everywhere to increasingly letting others drive them. This shift has been reported on in BuzzFeed and the New York Times, and described by Uber using proprietary data, but it’s interesting to see evidence

violence and not return them to danger, authorities in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala cannot afford to sit back.

They are the ones leading lambs to the slaughter—by failing to tackle the root causes of the endemic violence that is taking over their countries and ignoring their citizens’ desperate cries for help.

No matter how damaged these countries are, they could and should do more.

Resources available locally to kickstart protection programs might be scarce, but the $750 million recently made available by the US to halt migration, should go some way to start tackling the root causes of the violence that forces many people to leave. But for some, leaving will always be the only option.

There are no easy solutions and it will undoubtedly take a long time for any antiviolence and protection programs to bear fruit. But stubbornly focusing on giving out a hot meal and a welcome hug while neglecting to protect their citizens and pushing them back through the gates of hell is a sure-fire way to condemn future generations to no option but to leave home.

of it from an independent data source.

In New York the Metro area, with by far the most people working in the business of providing rides, there was a 15percent increase in rides employment from 2012 to 2014. But Uber and Lyft haven’t really transformed how people get around there because so many residents and visitors already relied on taxis and car services before the ride-hailing apps arrived. In California’s big metropolitan areas and a few other Metros, on the other hand, the spectacular growth in independent-contractor rides employment seems to indicate that Uber and Lyft have truly created a new market.

A6 Sunday, October 16, 2016

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Farmers’ group accuses Robredo of lawyering for land developers

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By Marvyn N. Benaning | Correspondent

HE Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has accused Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo of lawyering for big property developers associated with the Aquino administration by opposing the two-year ban on landuse conversion of farms.

KMP said the ban has already been approved by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), but property developers have apparently secured succor from Robredo.

“Government housing projects can be built on nonagricultural lands. It is plain senseless to pit the people’s right to housing and shelter

against the right to land and food security. Parehong karapatan iyan ng mamamayan na dapat tinutugunan ng gobyerno sa wastong pamamaraan,” the group said in a statement.

“Robredo is not at all concerned with the state of the homeless. She is protecting the business interests of real-estate companies that are

robredo

constructing overpriced, substandard and corruption-riddled housing units in government resettlement sites,” KMP Secretary-General Antonio Flores said.

Flores also accused Robredo of being “a fake agrarian-reform advocate” who is now trying to “use the so-called housing problem to

attack the land-use conversion moratorium in favor of real-estate corporations that have acquired hefty housing contracts under the Aquino administration.”

Robredo, citing a petition initiated by Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia, has urged President Duterte to reconsider the PARCapproved two-year land-conversion freeze, because it is “problematic” and would “hurt the homeless and worsen the housing backlog.”

Farmers and the urban poor do not buy condominiums and townhouses that large property developers have been selling, KMP explained, and the homeless would not be affected by the large firms that already cannot sell their condominiums.

Robredo is “pretending to protect the homeless, but her stance against land conversion is actually in chorus with the position of foreign chambers of commerce,” the KMP leader added. (Related story on A6)

PAL flies students to compete in Canada

P

HILIPPINE Airlines (PAL) recently flew outstanding students from the Mariano Marcos State University in Ilocos Norte to represent the country in the Enactus World Cup 2016 in Toronto, Canada.

Enactus is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to in-

spiring students and business leaders to improve the way of living of underprivileged communities through entrepreneurial action.

Now on its 41st year, Enactus is comprised of students, academic and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and make a more

sustainable world. It is composed of about 70,000 students from 36 countries who conduct about 5,000 projects that benefit about 2 million people worldwide yearly. The Philippines is presenting two entries to the competition—“Opening Gates” and “Breaking Waves.”

Opening Gates is an enterprise-

development project on mushroom production that aims to help prison inmates support their livelihood.

Breaking Waves, on the other hand, is a program that helps empower fishermen through seaweed production and value-added marketing.

The country is competing in the annual competition participated in by 35 other countries and over 400 corporate and organizational partners.

Last year PAL flew students from University of the Philippines Iloilo to represent the country and compete in the 2015 Enactus World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The team placed third in its league after host country South Africa and the United Kingdom, which was later declared champion of the 2016 Enactus World Cup. The UP-Iloilo team’s entry was “Arms to Farms,” a program that promotes a comprehensive training program for farmers, particularly former members of rebel groups from advance farming techniques to basic business skills, from packaging and marketing to increase their income and help uplift their lives.

PAL, through its flagship corporate social responsibility program Represent Pinoy, supports exceptional individuals chosen to represent the country and bring the best of the Philippines to the world. Recto L. Mercene

Philippines wants US to stay as top military ally–Yasay

By Andreo Calonzo & Cecilia Yap Bloomberg News

T

HE United States will remain the most important partner for the Philippines, even as President Duterte improves ties with China, his foreign secretary said ahead of the President’s trip to Beijing.

“We have a special relationship with the US,” Foreign Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr. said in an interview on Thursday in his office in Manila.

“They are our only military ally. You could not put the US, in that sense, in equal footing with China.”

The US has been the Philippines’s closest ally since independence in 1946, and the nations are linked by formal defense treaties. But those ties have been strained since Mr. Duterte took office three months ago, with the tough-talking leader frequently calling the relationship into question.

Yasay, 69, himself delivered a scathing attack on the US in an essay posted on his Facebook page last week, accusing the US of holding onto “invisible chains that reined us in toward dependency and submission as little brown brothers not capable of true independence and freedom.”

On Thursday Yasay backed President Duterte’s recent tirades, saying the President’s strong words and attacks had made the US take notice of the Philippines instead of taking the country for granted.

Yasay, who was Mr. Duterte’s roommate at university, is a newcomer to international diplomacy.

He is a lawyer by trade and served as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1995 to 2000. He is also relatively new to politics, having never held elected office, with an unsuccessful bid for the vice presidency in 2010.

While he has often supported President Duterte’s call for closer relations with China and his desire to hold direct talks with Beijing about territorial disputes in the South China Sea, he and other senior ministers have, at other times, sought to calm fears that overtures toward China will weaken the alliance with the US. Yasay said the Philippines was open to further military exercises with the US, “if these joint exercises are designed to help us build our own

capabilities in defense and in enforcement, disaster response and so on.” Mr. Duterte had said last month the latest joint maritime drills would be the last.

No strings

YASAY also sought to explain President Duterte’s call earlier this month for US President Barack Obama to “go to hell,” saying it was frustration with what the Philippine leader believed was Washington’s refusal to sell weapons to his nation, because it disapproved of the President’s deadly drug war.

According to police data, as many as 3,700 suspects may have been killed since July 1.

“If you want to help us,” Yasay added, referring to the US, “then you help us without strings attached.”

Yasay will accompany Mr. Duterte on next week’s state visit to China, along with up to 400 business leaders. The diplomat said the Philippines wanted better ties with China, after it had been neglected under the previous administration, led by Benigno S. Aquino III. “I’d like to let everyone know that this trip is not to engage China in bilateral negotiations with respect to our disputes in the South China Sea,” Yasay said, adding his nation would proceed with caution on pledges of business and investment from China.

“You don’t want to place your eggs in one basket when you engage any country for that matter, insofar as trade relationships are concerned,” he said. “You would always want to make sure that when you do something, decide on something, it is always be for the purpose of national interest.”

China angered the Aquino administration in 2012 when it seized the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcrop located around 240 kilometers off the coast of the Philippines. Aquino subsequently challenged China’s claims to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. The tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines in July, after China had already reclaimed some 1,290 hectares on rocks and reefs.

“I do not believe, at this point in time, that China is intending reclamation projects in the Scarborough Shoal,” Yasay said. “I could be wrong, but this is what I believe in.”

Duterte: Make life insurance accessible, understandable

DURING a recent discussion with top executives of AIA Group Ltd. and its local subsidiary Philam Life, President Duterte outlined his vision to increase awareness on life insurance and wealth management, and make them more accessible and understandable to the average Filipino through use of simple and easy-to-understand language.

AIA Group President Mark Tucker and AIA Regional Chief Executive Gordon Watson agreed with this strategic direction, and assured the President of their full support to carry out these initiatives. Philam Life CEO Aibee Cantos, likewise, affirmed the important role that Philam Life plays in providing the right plans and right solutions to address the real life needs of Filipinos.

Cantos said: “We are very happy to learn that we are perfectly aligned with the President in our objective to increase life-insurance awareness across the Philippines. At Philam Life, we remain committed to carry out our mission to deliver a Philam Life policy to every Filipino family by making life insurance more accessible to more Filipinos.

“We aim to meet the needs of our customers by assisting them with their protection and long-term savings goals, and helping them to live longer, healthier and better lives. We look forward to working together with government agencies to achieve this shared aspiration.”

In photo, Cantos (second from left) meets with President Duterte during a courtesy visit in Malacañang. Looking on are Philam Life Chief Agency Officer Jay Ledesma (center), Watson (partly hidden) and Tucker (foreground).

Sports PIERCY HANGS ON BusinessMirror

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

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APA, California—Scott Piercy keeps finding ways to score even when he’s not making a lot of putts.

Piercy pitched in from 40 yards for eagle on the par-5 ninth hole on Friday, helping him keep a two-shot cushion at the rain-delayed Safeway Open until it became too dark to continue.

A steady rain that fell on Silverado for most of the bleak day halted the second round for two hours and 36 minutes as water began to pool on the tee boxes and the corners of the greens. The delay meant the second round could not be completed until Saturday morning.

Bill Haas had a two-under 70 in the morning and finished 36 holes in eightunder 136.

Piercy, who opened with a course-record 62, made only one of his four birdie chances until his eagle at No. 9, and he followed with a 10-foot birdie on the next hole to reach 14-under par.

He missed a five-foot birdie on the 12th hole, his last of the day.

Johnson Wagner was at 12 under and had a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-three 15th hole when he decided to wait until morning. Paul Casey, who opened with a 64, recovered from two bogeys

late on his front nine with three birdies over his next four holes. He was 11 under through 12 holes, ending his day with a 35-foot birdie putt.

“In my mind, I wanted to shoot 3 under on the front,” Piercy said. “And luckily, I was able to do that.”

Piercy converted only one of four reasonable birdie chances, making a sevenfoot putt on the par-5 fifth hole. The next par 5 was into the wind, though he was mildly surprised that a 3-wood came up so short of the green in the first cut.

“I had a good angle, though, kind of shooting straight up the green,” he said. “When you make it from 40 yards, it’s luck. I hit a good shot. I landed it pretty much where I wanted to, and it reacted good. Whenever it goes in, that’s a bonus.”

No one from the afternoon starters finished the second round, which was to resume at 7:45 a.m. PDT. The third round was to be played in threesomes off both tees, though more rain was in the forecast for the weekend.

Haas was hopeful of at least staying close to the leaders. That depended on Piercy, Wagner and Casey, and perhaps a few others.

Haas was one of the “replacements” for Tiger Woods, in this case taking the spot that had been set aside for Woods in the early-round groups. Haas doesn’t know why he was chosen.

He just considered it a treat to be able to watch the exploits of Phil Mickelson and the rhythmic swing of defending Emiliano Grillo.

And they were able to watch Haas post the lowest score from the group.

Haas made it through the tough conditions brought on by rain on Friday morning at least got him into the mix going into the weekend of the PGA Tour season opener at Silverado.

Haas was at 8-under 136, the low score among those who finished 36 holes. Mickelson had another 69 and was at 6-under 138. Grillo played bogey-free after the delay for a 70 and was at 5-under 139.

Woods had planned to play at Silverado and even entered the tournament on Friday. The PGA Tour decided to arrange the groups so that Woods played with Mickelson and Grillo. Woods, however, withdrew on Monday, saying that his game was “vulnerable” and not where it needed to be. Haas took that spot in the group, and all three have put on a good show.

Grillo had a 35-foot birdie putt that he left 10 feet short on the 11th hole, his second of the round, when the rain was at its worse. He made it through the back nine without any more mistakes, and then ran off three straight birdies on the front nine.

Mickelson returned from the rain delay in much worse shape. The driver slipped out of his hands on his first shot at the par-four 13th and led to a snap-hook out-of-bounds. He managed to make a 10-foot putt to escape with bogey .

Lefty made another bogey on the par-3 seventh when he pushed his tee shot left of the green, left of the gallery and next to a beer concession. From rain-soaked pine bark, he hit a flop to 12 feet and narrowly missed the putt. There were plenty of good shots, too, however, and Mickelson had control of his irons, which was key. AP

Sunday, October 16, 2016 A7

PAK RETIRES Se Ri Pak ends her Hall-of-Fame career in tears on Thursday in front of her adoring home fans in the Ladies Professional Golf Association KEB HanaBank Championship.

Overcome at the end of the sunny afternoon at Sky 72, Pak cries nearly throughout a retirement ceremony on the 18th hole. The Little Angels children’s choir sang, players wore “SE RI” hats, and farewell messages were played in a video montage. AP

SPORTS PLUS COREY KLUBER pitches 6-1/3 spotless innings to help give the Indians the early advantage in the best-of-seven series. AP

KLUBER SILENCES BLUE JAYS C

LEVELAND—Cleveland ace Corey Kluber silenced Toronto’s booming bats and set up a 2-0 win for the Indians in Friday’s opening game of the American League Championship Series (ALCS).

Kluber pitched 6-1/3 spotless innings, and Francisco Lindor hit a two-run homer to give the Indians the early advantage in the best-of-seven series.

Lindor connected in the sixth inning off Marco Estrada as Cleveland won a fourth straight playoff game in this most unexpected season.

Kluber was replaced by Andrew Miller, who struck out five of the six batters he faced, and Cody Allen got the save with a perfect ninth inning.

Toronto slugger Jose Bautista struck out three times and Edwin Encarnacion lost his cool when he was fanned in the eighth, arguing with plate umpire Laz Diaz.

“It wasn’t like we faced the average Joe out there,” Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons said of Kluber. “He’s one of the elite pitchers in the game, as is Miller, as is Allen. We got

some guys on base early. We couldn’t get that big hit.”

After getting their first ALCS win since 2007—and tying their longest postseason win streak since 1920—the Indians will try to take a 2-0 lead on Saturday, with Josh Tomlin facing Toronto’s 20-game winner JA Happ.

Tomlin was originally scheduled to start Game Three, but was moved up when Trevor Bauer sustained an odd injury as he sliced open his right pinkie while repairing a drone.

Kluber has not allowed a run in 13-1/3 innings this October and he kept the Blue Jays inside Progressive Field after they teed off against the Texas Rangers in the Division Series.

Toronto had some early chances, putting six runners on base in the first three innings.

But the Blue Jays failed to come up with a timely hit and lost for the first time in the postseason.

The visitors had two on with one out in the first, but Kluber struck out Bautista and retired Russell Martin on an easy grounder. In the second, Kluber allowed a single and walk

before getting Devon Travis to ground into an inning-ending double play. In the third, he gave up a single and a walk with two outs before striking out Martin.

In the sixth, Estrada walked Jason Kipnis with one out. Lindor drove his homer over the wall in right-center, sparking wild celebrations among home fans.

“I thought [Kevin] Pillar was going to catch it,” Lindor said.

“As soon as it went out, I put my hands out. I looked at the dugout and everybody was going insane.”

Estrada pitched Toronto’s first complete game all year, but made one costly mistake.

“I was trying to bounce it, to be honest with you,” Estrada said. “Good hitters are going to hit it out, and he’s a good hitter.” AP

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WORLD CUP CONTENDERS

National Bowling World Cup champions Lara Posadas (second from right) and Raoul Miranda (second from left) are representing the Philippines in the 52nd Quibica AMF Bowling World Cup international finals, which started on Friday at Hao’s Bowling Center in Shanghai, China. They are shown receiving their plane tickets from Puyat Sports General Manager Engr. Gilbert Gavino (right) and Puyat Sports Vice President Joey Puyat III.

mixed-use development that straddles the cities of Santa Rosa, Cabuyao and Calamba in Laguna. It is Ayala Land’s largest estate development to date with approximately 50 percent of the whole development dedicated to green and open spaces.

The XCM course runs for 70 kilometers and is riddled with technical descents, as well as rocky paths and obstacles, designed to mimic a mountain terrain.

The UCI Cross Country Olympic (XCO) is similar to the XCM but shorter at 35 kilometers. The XCO is a “Registered Class 3” UCI race that lets elite riders earn UCI points.

The Four Cross Race is a gravity or downhill event that features four riders racing at the same time through a challenging BMX-like trail of jumps, drops and obstacles, with the top finisher proceeding to the next round.

WARRIORS STUGGLE VS NUGGETS; ORLANDO WINS

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NUVALI General Manager John Estacio expounds on the international mountain-bike race. NONOY LACZA

OLDEN State’s Stephen Curry scored 22 points in 27 minutes and new addition Kevin Durant added 19, as the Warriors edged Denver, 129-128, in overtime of their National Basketball Association (NBA) preseason game on Friday.

Patrick McCaw hit the tying shot that sent the game to overtime, and the winning shot on the buzzer as last season’s NBA runners-up showed they remain a cohesive unit, even with the addition of Durant.

“We have the same system, the same identity as a team when it comes to how we play,” Curry said. “[Durant] fits right into that. But there’s a transition period and a learning curve of

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LTHEA ROSE MARTIREZ and Louise Claire Clavaton emerged as double winners in the recent Dumalag leg of the Cebuana Lhuillier Age Group Tennis Championship Series in Capiz.

Martirez, of New Washington in Aklan, beat Santa Barbara’s (Iloilo) Avril Andrea Suace, 8-6, to win the girls’ 16-under title and local bet Wella Mae Fullo, 8-0, to bag the 12-under crown.

Roxas City’s Clavaton, on the other hand, defeated Iloilo City’s Joane Joy Alison, 8-1, in the girls’ 18-under finals; and Sauce, 8-2, in the 16-under championship of the tournament cosponsored by Dunlop Sports.

Kalibo City’s Lorenzo Angelo Legaspi edged Iloilo City’s Mark Crososto, 8-6, to snatch the boys’ 18-under crown of the leg supported by Dumalag Mayor Amado Eriberto Castro Jr. Justin Mart Alba, meanwhile, defeated Legaspi, 8-6, to win the boys’ 16-under trophy and give the host team a reason to rejoice.

Cabatuan’s (Iloilo) JJ Chrysler Gazo brought home the boys’ 14-under title at the expense of Dumalag’s Joshua Feca, 8-1.

Roxas City’s Dryxcin Jann Guillano topped the boys’ 12-under title with an easy 8-2 victory over Kalibo City’s Rafael Antonio Legaspi.

MAVERICKS SCORE

WORLD MTB QUALIFIER IN NUVALI HE Philippine qualifying leg of the International Cycling Union (UCI) Mountain Bike World Championship will be staged at Nuvali during the “Dirt Weekend” from November 6 to 8.

Started in 2009, Dirt Weekend is now recognized as one of the country’s top MTB events.

Dirt Weekend will feature four MTB races. The main event is the UCI Cross Country Marathon (XCM) World Series qualifying leg, which gives the top finishers the chance to move up to the 2016 Cross Country Marathon World Championship in France. “We are honored that Nuvali is hosting this prestigious international cycling event.

Biking is part of the environmentally responsible culture that we are cultivating in Nuvali,” said John Estacio, Nuvali general manager.

Nuvali is a 2,290-hectare master-planned,

DOUBLE WINNERS

terminology and different principles.”

Denver was led by Danilo Gallinari, who finished with 19 points. Rookie Jamal Murray hit a go-ahead, step-back three-pointer with 11.5 seconds left in regulation, only to have McCaw tie the game with 1.1 seconds remaining.

Jarnell Stokes scored on a lay-up with 3.5 seconds left in OT to give the Nuggets the lead but again McCaw responded.

In Orlando, Serge Ibaka had 19 points and 17 rebounds, as Orlando beat Indiana, 114-106, in new Magic Coach Frank Vogel’s first appearance against his former team.

Myles Turner led all five Pacers starters in double figures with 17 points.

Vogel spent the past five-plus seasons as coach of the Pacers after four years as an assistant.

Indiana made the playoffs in five of his six years.

His first visit to Indiana will be on November 14.

Rajon Rondo scored 20 points and Taj Gibson had 18 points and 11 rebounds to lead Chicago to a 118-108 victory over Cleveland in Chicago. LeBron James and Kyrie Irving sat out for Cleveland.

John Holland scored 23 points to lead a reserve-laden group for the Cavaliers, who earlier in the day agreed to terms on a contract that will bring back shooting guard JR Smith.

Dwyane Wade had 11 points along with Doug McDermott and Robin Lopez for the Bulls. AP

BRE Mavericks Rugby Club dominated round four of the JML 7s League by winning all its games recently at the Blue Pitch of the Circuit Makati.

The CBRE Mavericks, playing in the Plate, Bowl and Women’s divisions, won all of their six games, with national team members Bryan Tan, Rassiel Sales, Sylvia Tudoc and Lito Rameriz leading the team’s campaign.

La Liga Rugby Club shared the spotlight after winning its first match, beating Quezon City Polytechnic University, 12-0.

La Liga, playing for the first time in a Philippine Rugby Football Union domestic league, have the eyes of spectators with its players’ skill and pace. National Under 20s Volcano Jonel Madrona, playing for the Clark Jets, shook the Cup Division by scoring the first try in both meetings of the Cup Division. But it was the Alabang Eagles who responded with 27-5 and 17-5 victories over the Jets to stay on top of the Cup division.

CHARITY FOOTBALL

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ELLOW Cab Pizza Co. has partnered with Kaya Football Club for the Yellow Cab Football Cup, which got going on Saturday at the Blue Pitch of the Circuit Makati.

The event aims to reach the youth through sports. Teams of boys and girls below 18 took part in Saturday’s preliminary stage. The final round will be next Sunday also at the Blue Pitch.

The tournament is a corporate social responsibility event of Yellow Cab. Six winning teams will donate P20,000 each to their chosen charities. “We’ve been partnered with Kaya FC for a while now, because we share the same values of giving back, integrity, respect and perseverance. We want to impart these to the youth through sports, where they can put into practice these things,” Max’s Group Inc. (MGI) Chief Marketing Officer and Board of Director Jim Fuentebella said.

Teams from La Salle Greenhills, British School Manila and Southridge, along with squads from organizations such as Gawad Kalinga and Journey for Hope, and football clubs including JP Voltes FC and Forza FC, are playing for charity.

Sports

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unday, October 16, 2016 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

THE FAST. THE FURIOUS.

By Ramon Rafael Bonilla

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T was a game for the ages—but definitely a night to remember for die-hard Barangay Ginebra San Miguel fans.

Game Four of the Philippine Basketball Association Governors’ Cup championship series on Friday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum helped immortalize the Fast and Furious tandem of Jayjay Helterbrand and Mark Caguioa, the aging ace Kings who are staring at the twilight of their careers.

Helterbrand celebrated his 40th birthday with an 88-86 pulsating Ginebra victory over Meralco, leveling the series at 2-2 and reducing the duel to a mere race-to-two finale.

Ginebra Coach Tim Cone pulled Helterbrand and Caguioa from the bench when his team trailed, 5874, after an electrifying third quarter by Meralco.

And respond Helterbrand and Caguioa did, and the never-say-die Ginebra spirit overwhelmed the jam-packed Big Dome.

Helterbrand, looking different from his cleanshaven image early in his career with the Kings, scored all of his 11 points in the pivotal fourth period, highlighting his explosion with three threepointers that knocked the power off the Bolts.

Caguioa, who turns 37 on November 19, complemented his partner with eight points, four he made in a decisive 21-2 run in that same fourthquarter Ginebra uprising.

“That was a storybook game. It was amazing,” Cone said. “Jay and Mark went out and played with so much energy. They are great players and true champions.”

The Fast and Furious’s throwback performance lit up Ginebra’s hopes of winning its first title since the 2008 Fiesta Conference.

The Kings shoot for a 3-2 lead over the Bolts in Game Five at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday also at the Big Dome.

“We were down in the third quarter. Luckily, Jay and Mark went out. They started pushing and pressuring. It was a nice weapon, if you have those kinds of players who are ready to play anytime,” Cone said.

Game Four was a reflection of how the best-ofseven championship series is going so far. The match seesawed, with Ginebra staying in control at the half, 46-35, and Meralco, behind Best Import Allen Durham’s herculean effort, frustrating the Kings and their legions of fans after three quarters, 74-58.

Then came Cone’s magical move to let his most popular veterans take charge of the game.

The Bolts were still in the game at crunchtime, but Joe Devance buried a turnaround jumper in the final 25-second mark to break the deadlock, 88-86.

The Kings walked the tightrope after LA Tenorio missed both his free throws, but were relieved to see Meralco come up empty in the final play, with Rookie of the Year Chris Newsome dogging the ball too long as time expired.

Absent in the Bolts’ offense was their own veteran duo of Reynel Hugnatan and Jimmy Alapag, heroes of their 107-103 Game Three victory that gave them a 2-1 edge.

Hugnatan could only deliver eight points on Friday night, while Alapag played for only eight minutes—and never in the crucial stretch—and did not score. Meralco Coach Norman Black did

not gamble with Alapag, who continued to feel “tightness” in his legs. Alapag made 18 and Hugnatan 17 points in Game Three.

Japeth Aguilar led Ginebra with 19 points and six rebounds, but is doubtful for Game Five, after spraining his left ankle in a rebound battle in the final 2:56.

“We’ll see what will happen to him. I don’t know if 48 hours is enough to get him ready,” Cone said.

Durham scored 34 points and Newsome had 15 points in the game that was preceded by the Annual Leo Awards, where San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo hoisted his third-straight Most Valuable Player trophy.

DE LA SALLE’S Abu Tratter (5) and Prince Rivero (9) engage University of the Philippines’s Jerson Prado (20) and Javi Gomez de Liaño (22) in the rebound battle. STEPHANIE TUMAMPOS

ARCHERS UNSCATHED D E LA SALLE foiled University of the Philippines’s (UP) upset bid and escaped with a 78-72 victory to preserve its perfect 9-0 won-lost record in Season 79 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball action on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Ben Mbala had monstrous numbers of 17 points and 20 rebounds and Jeron Teng returned from injury bay and finished with 20 points—14 he made the first half—five rebounds, two assists and as many steals for the Green Archers, who moved a win shy of a Final Four berth.

Thomas Torres chipped in 13 points, four rebounds and two steals, while rookies Aljun Melecio and Ricci Rivero added nine points each for front-running De La Salle.

De La Salle’s Aldin Ayo, who celebrated his 39th birthday

THE Fast and Furious tandem of Jayjay Helterbrand and Mark Caguioa delivers when it matters most to help Ginebra level its series with Meralco to 2-2. NONOY LACZA

VALDEZ AND CO. SNAP UST STREAK

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LYSSA VALDEZ and Thai import Kanjana Kuthaisong put on a show on Saturday as Bureau of Customs (BoC) dealt University of Santo Tomas (UST) its first loss, 25-17, 26-24, 25-15, in the Shakey’s V-League Season 13 Collegiate Conference at the FilOil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.

Valdez scattered 19 points on 15 attacks and two service aces, two blocks and 11 digs, while Kuthaisong stood out with 16 points she highlighted with 15 spikes and seven excellent receptions.

Thai setter Natthanicha Jaisaen delivered 44 excellent sets as BoC spoiled UST’s streak in only 78 minutes. “’Hats off to my teammates who gave their all for the win today. Everyone really contributed and we needed it since UST is such a strong team,” skipper Valdez said. BOC improved to 3-1 won-lost to regain solo second place. Valdez and the Transformers bounced back from a 24-26, 21-25, 21-25 setback to Ateneo Lady Eagles-laden BaliPure on Wednesday at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.

“I can see that we are slowly developing the team chemistry we wanted,”Transformers Head Coach Sherwin Meneses said. “ The Transformers erupted with 42 attack points against UST, which was limited to 27 total won spikes.

Despite suffering their first loss in five matches, The Tigresses remained on top of the standings despite their first loss in five games. EJ Laure and returning Cherry Rondina had eight points each for UST. In Spikers’Turf, defending champion Cignal survived Champion Supra, 25-18, 37-35, 23-25, 17-25, 15-12, to improve to a 2-1 record.

Lorenzo Capate led Cignal with 27 points he highlighted with 25 attacks. Peter Torres and Herschel Ramos chipped in 16 and 14 points, respectively, while Edmar Bonono and Isay Marasigan delivered 11 points each and setter Vince Mangulabnan had 49 excellent sets for the winners.

Champion Supra, on the other hand, has yet to win after two outings. The loss spoiled Joven Camaganakan’s 28 hits he marked with 23 excellent receptions. Lance Agcaoili

ALYSSA VALDEZ (left) and Lilet Mabbayad man the net for Bureau of Customs. NONOY LACZA

OLYMPICS MVP BRINGS ACT TO MANILA

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IO DE JANEIRO Olympics Most Valuable Player Zhu Ting and other world-class players arrived on late Friday evening for the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Women’s Club World Championship that unwraps on Tuesday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

After powering China to the gold medal in Rio in August, Zhu will banner a rocksolid VakifBank Istanbul squad, which is returning after a three-year absence in the event organized by the Philippine Superliga and Eventcourt with TV5, Petron, Asics, BMW and F2 Logistics as sponsors, Diamond Hotel as official residence and Turkish Airlines as official airlines. Also in town are reigning champion Eczacibasi VitrA Istanbul, American powerhouse Rexona-Sesc Rio and European

title-holder Pomi Casalmaggiore, promising a slam-bang spectacle in this tournament also backed by the Philippine Sports Commission, Rexona, Mall of Asia Arena and Foton, Price Waterhouse Cooper.

Olympics silver medalist Tijana Boskovic, four-time World Grand Prix gold medalist Titiana Kosheleva and prolific American Jordan Larson lead Eczacibasi VitrA, while Gabi Guimaraes, Juicely Barreto and Anne Bujis banner the starstudded Brazilian side, which was on the same flight with Carli Lloyd, Valentina Tirrozi and the entire Pomi Casalmaggiore squad.

Gabi, a three-time World Grand Prix gold medalist, said she is looking forward to a tough battle, as well as to visit some famous tourists destinations in the country.

UAAP CANCELS SUNDAY’S GAMES BECAUSE OF KAREN

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HE University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) has canceled the men’s basketball match at the FilOil Flying V Centre between defending champion Far Eastern University and University of the East, and Adamson University and Ateneo because of the threat of Typhoon Karen.

The league also called off the table tennis matches at the Blue Eagle Gym, as well as high-school volleyball games at the Adamson University Gym. The matches will be rescheduled to a later date, according to UAAP president Fr. Ermito de Sagon of host University of Santo Tomas.

with the win, snubbed the compulsory post-game interview of winning coaches.

“I think, overall, Coach Aldin was fairly happy,” Paolo Sauler, one of Ayo’s assistants, said.

“The team played well. We wanted to work on execution and playing as a team. UP had a good game plan and pushed us.”

Paul Desiderio finished with 16 points and fellow veteran Jett Manuel added 13 markers and rookie Javi Gomez De Liano pumped in 11 points in the second half, where the Fighting Maroons charged back from a 16-point deficit and gave the Green Archers a scare in the stretch.

Three straight triples, two of them off Desiderio, followed by an missed three-point play by center Andrew Harris allowed UP to claw its way back from several double-digit deficits and threaten the Green Archers at 65-71. De La Salle refused to wilt, as veteran guard Torres sank two charities and Teng buried a leaning jumper from the 15-foot line to put off UP’s rally. Lance Agcaoili

Bernardino keys National U’s win

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EIGNING Most Valuable Player Afril Bernardino sparkled, as titleholder National University (NU) coasted to an 80-56 win over Ateneo and stay unbeaten in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 79 women’s basketball tournament on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

A national team standout, Bernardino tallied 27 points, 10 rebounds, six steals and five assists as the Lady Bulldogs improved to 9-0 won-lost. NU also extended its winning streak to 41 games since the 2014 season.

Adamson University, behind Jamie Alcoy’s 17 points, beat University of the Philippines, 67-60, for its fourth victory in nine starts for solo fourth.

Gemma Miranda added 22 points, while Jack Daniel Animam had 12 points and 12 rebounds for the Lady Bulldogs, who led by as many as 39 points.

The Lady Eagles, who drew a combined 21 points from Alyssa Villamor and Nicole Cancio, fell to 3-6 in sixth spot. Patricia Pesquera and Christine Aliermo scored 16 points apiece for the last-placed Lady Maroons (1-8).

‘3-PEAT’ COMPLETE FOR N.U., STATE U

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ATIONAL University (NU) fashioned out a masterful 3-0 win over Ateneo in Game Two on Saturday to claim the men’s title of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 79 badminton tournament at the Rizal Memorial Badminton Hall.

The Bulldogs swept the best-of-three series to complete a “three-peat.” NU also booked its fourth championship in the last five season.

Thanks to the superb season-long performance of Most Valuable Player (MVP) Leeward Pedrosa, NU was able to stretch its remarkable winning run to 27 ties dating back to 2014.

University of the Philippines (UP) also accomplished a “three-peat” in the women’s division, after subduing Ateneo in the Finals decider, 3-1.

Bouncing back big from a series-opening loss that ended a 25-tie winning streak, the Lady Maroons won, 2-1, on Saturday.

The Lady Eagles actually drew first blood with Bianca Carlos defeating Bea Bernardo, 21-16, 21-18, in a battle of former league MVPs in the first singles. But that was the best Ateneo could offer, as UP won the second singles and swept the two doubles matches to prevail.

Gelita Castilo bested Cassy Ramos, 21-13, 24-22, Poca Alcala and Jessie Francisco turned back Ramos and Trixie Malibiran, 21-15, 21-17, while Castilo and Lea Inlayo rallied from a first-set defeat to prevail over Geva de Vera and Carlos, 21-23, 21-12, 21-12.