Businessmirror october 19, 2016 by BusinessMirror

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Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Vol. 12 No. 7

20 more mine sites to lose MPSAs soon A 240 By Jonathan L. Mayuga

@jonlmayuga

t least 20 more mining sites are expected to lose their license to operate soon, not on the basis of the environment department’s mining audit, but for being in declared protected areas (PAs). See “Mine sites,” A2

inside

BusinessMirror

game for developers laid-back condo living in the south E1 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 • Editor: Tet Andolong

easT bay residences (artist’s perspective)

Laid-back condo living in the South By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28

OCKWELL Primaries Development Corp. (RPDC) is always attuned to what the market wants. RPDC now moves down under Metro Manila, where various economic and infrastructure developments take place, with the recent launch of East Bay Residences in Sucat, Muntinlupa—a soon-to-rise condominium that is close to nature amid the hustle and bustle of urban life.

According to RPDC Senior Vice President Malou Pineda, they are transforming the real-estate landscape in the South by making it into a thriving community where Filipino homeowners can have ease and contentment while enjoying a relaxed kind of a lifestyle. “We are creating an exciting fresh start, adding color and vibrancy to Southern living,” she said. “Our goal is to build a tightknit community that’s centered on comfort and convenience.” East Bay Residences is the biggest in RPDC’s portfolio nestled at 6.5-hectare property fronting the Tribeca Residences, which is also under its management. While its existing developments are confined

in key cities of the metropolis, this is its first housing project set in the suburb. Given its size, it is planned to house five midrise condos complete with top-notch amenities and an adjacent commercial area. In an interview during the recent launch of its two-bedroom pop-up unit at the North Court of Power Plant Mall last week, RPDC Assistant Vice President for Design and Construction Arch. Rochelle C. Baylon told the BusinessMirror that this vertical project is strategically located just near the Sucat Exit— making it more accessible for future residents to move in and out of the area. “[Apart from this property], the ones facing the actual service road

are mostly warehouses and industrial parks. So I think it’s now ripe for development when the industrialist-owners realize that maybe they should move somewhere further south,” she noted. The top executive added that the allure of laid-back living in the outskirts of a city will also entice starting families and young professionals or millennials to have their own space here. Set to break ground early next year, the first structure to be built is called the Fordham Tower. It has a total inventory of 294 units, ranging from 44 square meters to 98 sq m Standing 15-story high, each floor is not crowded with only 22 units. Well-designed and structured, they allow larger than usual areas that translate to flexible use of the interiors. Homebuyers who live on their own or empty-nesters, as well as newly weds, can opt for the one bedroom unit (44 sq m to 46 sq m), RPDC Senior Marketing Manager Cherrie Lyn V. Cruz suggested. “It comes with a den that can cater to hobbies and be converted into another room for your child or if ever in the future you’ll have a child,” Cruz cited. For families whose children are developing new interests and learning to be independent, on the other hand, the two-bedroom units (70 sq m to 73 sq m) can accommodate their growing needs, Cruz recommended. Meanwhile, the three-bedroom units can give ample space for grown families and even upgraders as this is like an actual house, along with a storage room and maid’s quarters provided, according to her. “Apparently, they lived in bigger houses. But they want to smart

downscale through a compact condo living, wherein you have all what you need—the functionality of the space is right there,” Cruz noted. Exuding a modern tropical architecture, East Bay Residences lends a soothing “resort” vibe to the dwellers. Not veering away from the homey residences in the South mostly accentuated by gardens and backyards, these green spaces, though not combined with the units, are widely available outside or downstairs of the midrise project. “We’re really hyping the ‘livability’ feature of this condo,” Baylon pointed out, while adding that the presence of garden atriums in every five floors that provide a charming touch of greenery in the building. Taking advantage of the outdoors, Rockwell Primaries incorporates its passive cooling technology by adding private bridgeways and floating corridors to the units. “You’ll feel the air here and you get a lot of life. That’s the essence of passive cooling technology, wherein you don’t really need much of the mechanical aircon to cool a space,” the assistant vice president explained. What’s more, the rooftop area of the tower has a skyline that allows for natural sunlight to pass through the building, thus, reducing the use of lights. It’s energy saving, especially during the day when the sun is up. Overall, the project distinctly comprises of more nature than structure in its 60:40 ratio of open spaces to residential ones. “We want it humanly scaled and appropriately designed in such a way that you can have a breathing space,” Baylon said. “The intent of the design is really what we want to achieve. It’s that open that you can hear the nature amidst the traffic

Fordham Tower

and honking of the cars outside.” Exclusivity and safety of the dwellers are at their best in such gated residences teeming with expansive on-ground amenities and impeccable services. Envisioned to become a vibrant and engaging community, East Bay Residences enables the dwellers to share with one another the 25-meter lap pool, gazebos, barbecue area, multipurpose court, playground, jogging path and Clubhouse with a gym and function halls. Giving premium to residents’ convenience, RPDC will integrate a three-level retail row adjacent to the property. It will house a supermarket, bank, cinema, restaurants and other vital establishments to serve the daily needs of the condo owners themselves and even outsiders. This commercial component of the project is set to be completed in 2018. “So it’s more than what our competition is offering,” Baylon said. “I just hope that the other infrastruc-

ture projects of this government that are in the pipeline will soon be finished alongside the completion of East Bay Residences.” The Fordham Tower will begin construction in the first quarter of 2017. Target completion of this first building is set by 2020. “It’s important for us to deliver livable spaces to our residents. East Bay maximizes form and function to capture the desirable ambiance of the south. East Bay will enrich the south with a community that guarantees a life lived better,” Pineda stressed. A subsidiary of Rockwell Land, RPDC develops residential projects mainly catered to mid-upper market, with its three ongoing properties: 53 Benitez in Quezon City, The Vantage at Kapitolyo in Pasig, and the newly launched East Bay Residences at Km 21 East Service Road, Sucat, Muntinlupa. Visit their pop-up model unit at the North Court of Power Plant Mall until October 27.

property Clubhouse

BMReports

PHL renewing initiatives to protect children online

BusinessMirror

The number of protected areas in the country that Lopez says should be off-limits to miners

reTail area

tech changing the game for developers

ned the use of location-

m LIfhack

dustry like real estate. Use hashtags and don’t be afraid to have fun. You are selling something personal—a home—and millennials are deeply emotive and experiential consumers. By posting content that shows “humanity” behind the company, you are effectively strengthening recall and interest.

Think before you click

property LaMUdi Philippines has an app that connects prospective buyers with available properties and brokers in one swipe. ScreenShot from LamudI

property sector continues to grow

r example, I came during the daytime. “You want to post erating partner at things that people can relate to. You want Oklahoma, Axay to post something genuine,” he said. BusinessMirror keeping the tone light and fresh is also that he posts asng the late “wine better than being too stuffy. Use your social ennial’s day, while media as a chance to be the “breath of fresh d outdoorsy shots air” in a seemingly stiff and traditional in-

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 E3

ProPerty sector continues to grow T

By Rizal Raoul Reyes

@brownindio

he Philippine property sector is expected to grow in the next six years, as economic indicators have shown that the country has solid macroeconomic fundamentals.

LEEChiu Property Consultants Director Philip Anonuevo (from left) and LPC chairman Fernando Camus

LPC CEO David Leechiu

“We are doing fundamentally well. The Asian Development [ADB] and the World Bank have been reminding us that we are going to continue to grow,” Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC) CEO David Leechiu said in a media briefing held on October 12 in Makati City. In its September 2016 outlo ok , t he A DB upg r ade d it s growth forecast for the Philippines to 6.4 percent from 6 percent in its earlier study. Furthermore, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported in its August 2016 update that the country’s GDP grew by 7 percent during the second quarter of 2016. Leechiu said 2018 w il l be a landmark year for the prop er t y sector, as major it y of the projects in the major business distr icts are going to be completed. “ There will be little land

development projects. In the Ortigas area the Ortigas CBD, Rockwell Business Center, Arcovia City, Silver City and Capital Commons are continuing to develop their respective projects. In BGC, construction is on a high level in Bonifacio Global City, McKinley West, McKinleyHill, Uptown and Veritown. Leechiu said the business-process outsourcing (BPO) industry is also on the growth path. The Information Technology Business Process Association of the Philippines (Ibpap) plans to double its work force to 2.6 million, from the current 1.3 million, in the next six years. He assured the property sector can handle the office-space requirements of the sector. At present, there are 46 business parks in Metro Manila’s cities, such as Quezon City, Mandaluyong, Muntinlupa, San

left for development,” he said. Moving forward, Leechiu said he expects Bonifacio Global City, Bay Area, Filinvest City and Arca South as the projects to watch, because of their huge impact not only to the property sector but to the economy, as well. He added there will be dramatic changes in the next six years, especially on Ayala’s Arca South and Gotianun’s Filinvest once the infrastructure projects, such as the Cavite-Laguna Expressway, in Alabang will be completed A s far as t he t hree major commercial business districts (CBD) are concerned, Leechiu said Makati, Ortigas and Bonifacio Global City will continue to grow with their array projects in the pipeline. In Makati City, the Makati CBD, Century City, Rockwell and Circuit Makati are currently implementing their

commuNity

Juan, Taguig, Las Piñas, Pasay, Parañaque and Manila. In response to the call of inclusive growth, more than 180 information-technology parks and business districts have been built in Laoag, Cagayan, Baguio, Tarlac, Bulacan, Urdaneta, Pampanga, Aklan, Iloilo, Bacolod and Dumaguete. Leechiu added that t he infor mat ion tec hnolog ybusiness process management companies (IT-BPM) industr y will continue to be a significant part of LPC’s business, as the ITBPM sector continues to expand. It is now second only to overseas Filipino workers remittances in terms of amount contributed to the country’s GDP, with a reported $22.25 billion in revenue as of 2016. “We are quite optimistic that 2017 will be good because of the scale of demand for office Shell’s Salcedo underpass project, done in partnership with the Makati Commercial Estate Association (MaCEA), energizes urbanites through its harmony of colors and interesting subjects that depict vibrant facets in the Makati way of life. Truly, for the winners of the art competition, getting recognition is just the beginning of their journey to share their craft with others. Motivated by this goal, Shell NSAC participants keep the spirit of the arts alive among the Filipino youth however they can. For one, many of the student-winners joined the mobile classroom-library-clinic organized by DZMM TLC (Teaching, Learning, Caring), the public service arm of ABS-CBN DZMM Radyo Patrol 630, where they taught their fellow youth some basic skills in drawing, illustration and coloring. Through the program, Shell NSAC student artists visited provinces to educate kids in the arts, such as the Santo Cristo Elementary School in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan. Through the art tilt’s workshops and art interaction programs in the community, values and insights are honed. These help propel young artists to take their artistry further and transform how people see art. The Shell National Students Ar t Competition is one of Shell’s innovative methods in contributing to nationbuilding, along with its many other projects reflecting its sociocivic advocacies, such as on environmental conservation, youth development, energy efficiency, and pioneering smarter products, smarter infrastructure, clean and efficient transport and many others. Now with almost 50 years in the country, aspiring young artists and the greater Filipino community can look forward to even greater heights that the annual competition will scale for more decades to come.

and BPO needs totaling 600,00 square meters,” Leechiu said. Leechiu added that the compa ny ’s invest ment-sa les a r m managed the acquisition and sale of properties worth P3.5 billion within five months. The firm has also transacted 81,000 sq m of office space in the same period, and is currently marketing 25 project buildings with a total space of 705,000 sq m. “ We are ver y proud of what we have accomplished in our f irst f ive mont hs. T his on ly proves that LPC has one of the deepest benches of ex per tise and ex per ience in the f ield of rea l estate. We want to maintain our mark as a bold, pioneer ing, homeg row n company w ith a team of seasoned and ta lented professiona ls who are eager to do more, as we continue w ith more projects and

OST of the time, art is meant to be seen and appreciated by many; its artist encouraged and recognized. This is one of the commitments of the Shell National Students Art Competition (NSAC) program—to take Philippine art and culture further by encouraging young artists to strive beyond the competition. As a legacy program of Shell, a leader in power, energy and gas technology in the country, Shell NSAC has, for 49 years, developed the youth’s skills and values. It is one of the ways the company powers a sustainable energy future by creating leaders that are well-versed in the meaning of life. “Shell does not only provide a bright future for the winners. We also teach them the importance of community work and

collaboration. We provide learning experience for the students and communities, wherein the participants can also make a positive difference through their talents. The Filipino potential is rich and Shell wants to enable these talents to succeed and be able to pioneer relevant innovations, now and in the long run,” said Melanie Bularan, social investment and social performance manager at Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. Shell NSAC continues to inspire artists and appreciation for the arts through collaborative projects that uplift peoples’ lives. In the company’s centenary year in 2014, for one, the program gathered its past winners in Pandacan, Manila, to color the walls of the Carlos P. Garcia High School with nationalistic and educational concepts

depicted through art. The murals served as tribute to Shell’s customers and partners who have shown support for the company for over 100 years. Moreover, the images illustrate the company’s achievements not just as an energy and gas technology leader in the fields of smarter mobility, clean and efficient transport, developing new energy sources and the like, but also as a contributor to nation-building with its various social investment programs concerning issues such as road safety, environmental management and many others. Moreover, Shell NSAC winners were also tasked to paint the underpasses of Makati City. The hustle and bustle of the central business district can add to the pressure felt by pedestrians in their daily lives. Hence,

Conclusion

New SaN JoSe BuilderS celeBrateS 30 yearS

property

ThE artworks made by previous national Students Art Competition student artists for the Makati Salcedo underpass last year.

KeepiNg the Spirit of art alive M

& Oliver Samson Correspondent

transactions in the pipeline,” Leechiu pointed out LPC’s investment-sales team is all set to transact P17.6 billion worth of deals in the next six to 12 months, to add to its portfolio of properties sold mostly in South of Manila: Makati, Alabang and Bonifacio Global City. On its occupier solutions front, the firm looks to further strengthen its capabilities in locating for IT-BPM, as this sector is one of the main drivers of the company’s portfolio. Of the 82,000 sq m of office space it has transacted since May, 76,000 sq m are for IT-BPM companies, while the remaining 6,500 sq m are spread across industries. “IT-BPM companies employ 1.3 million people, and the competency of the Philippines in handling ITBPM operations continues to improve, thanks to initiatives, such as Next Wave Cities by the DOSTICTO [Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology] and Ibpap. Thus, we expect this sector to still grow exponentially in the coming years, with LPC backing up IT-BPM companies looking for the best-suited locations for their business,” Leechiu added. In terms of live deals for occupier solutions, LPC already has 333,000 sq m in the pipeline, 41,000 sq m are coming from the IT-BPM sector, while the rest, at 292,000 sq m meters, will come from other industries. In addition, LPC has successfully completed the acquisition of Ver tex Land Development Management Consultancy Inc. The acquisition will allow LPC to offer its clients a full suite of consulting services that includes market research, project conceptualization and project feasibility—strengthening the firm’s capabilities in transacting P17.6 billion worth of deals over the coming months.

REQUENCY is a powerful product. Four years from now, more than half of the world’s 7 billion people today would be connected by frequency. According to Aurora A. Rubio of the International Telecommunications

business news source of the year

P25.00 nationwide | 5 sections 32 pages | 7 days a week

The king is dead Teddy Locsin Jr.

free fire

HAT is democratic rule? It is the spur of the moment making decisions for the long future.

What is monarchy? It is the safer rule of the present by a past that’s been pondered and sifted for wisdom, for the benefit of a future that might seem different but has been anticipated—because human nature does not change. Everything essential stays the same. Continued on A11

SENATORS SEE EARLY O.K. OF PHL’S ENTRY INTO CHINA-LED BANK

By Butch Fernandez

@butchfBM

enators see no major hitches in the early ratification of the Philippines’s entry into the Chinaled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), even as members of the treaty-ratifying chamber said they still need to conduct hearings to review the AIIB’s Articles of Agreement. “In principle, I do not see any problem in the Senate ratifying our membership in the AIIB,” Senate President Aquilino L. Pimentel III said on the eve of President Duterte’s official visit to China, during which potential funding from the AIIB for multibillion-peso Philippine infrastructure projects is likely to be taken up by administration officials with Beijing leaders.

The devil is in the details. We still need to define the commitments.” —Pimentel

rban developments through online and app-based portals. WIkIpedIa Image

TECHNOLOGY is powerful and effective, but can also be fickle and backfire if used callously. One bad review is sometimes all it takes to ruin a sterling reputation you’ve built for years. Avoid this by putting proper effort in your accounts. stay accessible and consistent. e2If you’re not easy to reach then, you are losing the chance to create a community with other like-minded professionals. Who knows? You may even get referrals. Brittany Barksy-Allison, team member Kids enjoy playing with Wydler Brothers, once shared in anwith in- computer games at an Internet terview that, rental “Technology strengthens our City. Experts say children are shop in Las Piñas industry, but people are at the core, and we cannot forget vulnerable that simple fact.” I agree,predators. Nonie Reyes toAnd online but while face-to-face interactions still hold a certain personality and effectiveness that shouldn’t be lost, being empowered with technological acumen is the best to By Dennis D.way Estopace @Dennis Estopace prosper in this Age Of The smartphone.

2016 ejap JOURNALISM awards

Union (ITU), these people would exchange 50 trillion gigabytes of data by 2020. More than 25 million applications would be used, Rubio, head of the ITU Area Office for Southeast Asia, said during a conference in September. Falling within the cracks are cybercriminals and online predators. “The rapid development of information technology [IT] opens up many

opportunities, but also entails several potential risks for users, especially for children,” Do Hai Anh of the Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) said during the conference on child online protection (COP). According to Hai Anh, the number of Vietnamese children using the Internet is “quite large”. “They are facing a lot of dangers,

But Pimentel admitted “the devil is in the details,” adding, “we still need to define the commitments.” The Senate President said senators still have to first review the treaty, “which defines our rights and obligations” in joining the AIIB. Pimentel and Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian also voiced confidence there would be no conflict in the Philippines joining the AIIB, even as it remains a member of the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a separate trade agreement between Pacific Rim countries, which excluded China. “The AIIB is a development bank, while the TPP is a multilateral organization for tariff reduction,” Gatchalian said. According to Gatchalian, the Duterte administration is looking to tap funding sources to bankroll about P8 billion worth of big-ticket infrastructure projects, including railways, airports and subways. “And the AIIB is attractive to us,” he told the BusinessMirror. Continued on A2

Continued on A2

JOining Jose Acuzar (second from left) in recognizing the long-serving employees are executive board member (left) Carol Ros and business development officer Jam Acuzar (fourth from left). The 30-year service awardees (from left) Construction Supt. Rodrigo galvez; Cochairman Dr. isagani germar; Vice Chairman Wilfrido Ayson; President Engr. Cesar Sanqui; and Executive Board Member Dante Cansino.

ROUD Filipino developer New San Jose Builders celebrated its 30 years in the business recently in an evening of merriment held at the Victoria Sports Club in Quezon City led by its Chairman and Founder Jose Acuzar. From its humble beginnings in 1986, New San

Jose Bui lders has since ventured into major construction, infrastructure and real-estate development projects, among which are various condominiums in Metro Manila under the Victoria brand, The Philippine Arena and Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar.

PESO exchange rates n US 48.5210

n japan 0.4671 n UK 59.1277 n HK 6.2543 n CHINA 7.2006 n singapore 34.9298 n australia 36.9973 n EU 53.3828 n SAUDI arabia 12.9410

Source: BSP (18 October 2016 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Wednesday, October 19, 2016

PHL renewing initiatives to protect children online Continued from A1

abuse [and] risks from this environment, such as personal information accidentally or intentionally disclosed that [an] abuser could take advantage,” said Hai Anh, deputy director of the Vietnam MIC Information Security Verification Center. It is no different in the Philippines.

DOJ cases

A report by the Philippines’s Department of Justice Office on Cybercrime (DOJ-OOC) noted two significant cases involving child exploitation online. One of these involves what the DOJ-OOC calls as “sextortion.” “Sextortion is a form of sexual exploitation that employs nonphysical forms of coercion to extort money from the victim in exchange of the nonposting of the victim’s sexual video online,” the DOJ-OOC 20152016 report said. In 2013 the Philippines was ranked as the top country with the highest recorded cases of sextortion. A year later, cooperation by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Interpol led to the arrest of 57 and the seizure of more than 200 digital evidence from 15 locations. Those arrested were part of a group operating more or less 9,000 suspected accounts related to sextortion activities worldwide, the DOJ-OOC report said. Of this number, 2,800 were traced to be from the Philippines. Another case, also in 2014, concerns a criminal who the United States Homeland Security Investigations (USHSI) Manila Attaché said produces child pornography online while in the Philippines. The DOJ-OOC said the criminal was identified based from results of computer forensic examination conducted by the USHSI in connection to an arrest of an online sexual predator in the US. “Several chats and electronic payments were revealed to be in relation to childpornography activities of the subject in the Philippines,” the DOJ-OOC report said. The police was able to catch the suspect “in flagrante delicto, in a room with four other female individuals who were all later confirmed to be of minor age, ranging from ages 9 to 14, in front of a laptop computer negotiating the price and cyber sexual shows they would perform.” The DOJ-OOC said the suspect was arrested and charged for violations of three laws, as well as Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code. The Inter-agency Council Against Child Pornography (ICACP) has recorded an increase in child-pornography cases reported

in centers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Amelia Gowa, an independent cybersecurity policy analyst specializing in child online-protection issues, said during the same conference the condition of children online in Vietnam and the Philippines are very similar across Asia. Social media has become the new school yard for bullies, Gowa said, citing cases of cyber bullying as cited by those surveyed in November 2015. She added that teens surveyed have said cruel behavior takes place on Twitter (23.8 percent), Myspace (17.7 percent) and Instant Messenger (15.2 percent). A majority experienced cyber bullying on Facebook (92.6 percent). In her presentation during the conference on COP, DSWD mid-level official Rosalie Dagulo said from 36 in 2011, the cases reported increased to 121 by 2014. “We receive an average report of one to three incidents in a week, which we forward to the PNP or the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] for surveillance or investigation,” Dagulo said.

Response

DATA from the Philippine Chamber of Telecommunications Operators (PCTO) said the basic challenge to addressing such issue is in the law itself. Telecommunication companies comply and cooperate with law-enforcement agencies to preserve evidence but release the information only upon a court order, PCTO President Enrico de los Reyes said in his presentation during the conference. De los Reyes said the law on antichild pornography and its implementing rules and regulation (IRR) requires telcos to report to the PNP or NBI within seven days from discovery that child pornography is being committed using its servers. Aside from that, telcos are also required to preserve evidence for purposes of investigation or prosecution and, upon request, furnish proper authorities of the particulars of users who gained or attempted to gain access to sites that contains any form of child pornography. Telcos are also mandated by law to install available technology, program or software to ensure that access to or transmittal of any form of child pornography will be blocked or filtered, de los Reyes said. However, he said there is a provision in Republic Act (RA) 9775 that ties the hands of a telco. Section 9 of RA 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, provides that “Nothing in this section may be construed

to require an ISP to engage in the monitoring of any user, subscriber or customer, or the content of any communication of any such person,” de los Reyes said. He explained that section effectively nullifies the telco’s obligation to block and filter a site. In addition, filtering software is expensive and ineffective, censorship and slows down the Internet, de los Reyes said.

Initiatives

RUBIO has noted the Philippines does not lack legal powers in its fight for child online protection. Aside from RA 9775, the Philippines is also a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Children (CRC), the optional protocol to the CRC on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, the International Labor Organization Worst Form of Child Labor protocol and the trafficking protocol. Rubio also noted the Philippines has a national strategic framework for plan development for children (2000 to 2025) and National Plan of Action (2011 to 2016), as well as a comprehensive plan on child protection (2012 to 2016). According to Angel Redoble, founding president of the Philippine Institute of Cyber Security Professionals (PICSPro), it also boils down to the individual and the child himself or herself. “Never talk to strangers online,” Redoble told the BusinessMirror. “Never access a malicious site.” He added that the social welfare should come in in cases where kids are forced by their parents to strip their cloths in front of camera. The government should also provide an alternative livelihood to victims of child pornography. Parents should also undergo awareness workshops on securing their children from online threats, he noted. “The workshops, which should be sustainable and inclusive, can be conducted down to the barangays.” For Edgar Marshall M. Brinas of the Department of Education, there is a need to make parents, teachers and students aware of the rights and current situation to promote child online protection. According to Brinas, DepEd Education Program Supervisor, the DepEd has ordered all elementary and secondary schools to create child protection committees to ensure that cases of child abuse are monitored closely at school level. These committees, he said, adheres to the goal of effective implementation of a zero tolerance policy for any act of child abuse, exploitation, violence, discrimination, bullying and other forms of abuse.

Senators see early OK of Phl’s entry into China-led bank Continued from A1

Interviewed on the sidelines of the Senate session on Monday, the lawmaker suggested that funding these projects would likely be

“a mix of loans and grants” and the so-called public-private partnership agreements. In separate interviews, other senators agreed there should be no major obstacles to the Senate ratifying treaty on Philip-

pine membership in the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) soon after President Duterte returns from his official visit to Beijing late this week. “We should always be open to all levels of engagement with our neighboring countries, especially in the region, including China, any political differences with any such neighboring country notwithstanding,” said Sen. Francis G. Escudero, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions. Escudero said he “does not see any real disadvantage compared to being part of an initiative that seeks to help develop the Asian and Asean region.” Sen. Miguel F. Zubiri, chairman of the Senate’s Trade and Commerce Committee, said that he also supports Philippine accession into AIIB and would vote for its early ratification by the Senate. “Yes I’m in favor of that,” Zubiri told the BusinessMirror. “Joining AIIB will open several opportunities for us in our quest for funding for all our railway, airports and infra projects. It’s another financial avenue for us.”

Mine sites. . .

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Continued from A1

Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim of the Biodviersity Management Bureau (BMB) said records show more than 20 Mineral Production and Sharing Agreement (MPSAs) issued to various mining companies are within or encompassing declared PAs, threatening ecosystems of unique and threatened wildlife species. These mining sites—according to the recent policy pronouncement of Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez—are likely to lose their MPSAs, as she said there will be “no more mining in any protected area.” The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said on Tuesday some of the PAs with active MPSAs are Mount Data National Park; Upper Agno River Basin Resources Reserve, Lower Agno Water Forest Reserve; Biak-na-Bato National Park Norwest Panay Peaninsula Natural Park; Palawan Mangrove Swamp Forest Reserve; Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape; Palawan Game Refuge and Bird Sanctuary covering the entire Province of Palawan; Tanon Strait Protected Seascape; Calabgan atershed Forest Reserve; Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape, Carac-an Watershed and Forest Reserve; Mainit Hotspring and Protected Landscape; and Mujada Bay Protected Landscape and Seascape. There are also MPSAs that engulf or cover protected areas on the Islands of Dinagat, Hikdop, Sibate and Hanigad; and the Island of Awasan. Most of the mining companies with MPSAs are in the exploration phase. One of the companies that stand to lose their MPSAs for being in PAs is Hinatuan Mining Corp., a subsidiary of Nickel Asia Corp., which has a nickel mine on Manicani Island in Guiuan, Eastern Samar. Recently, Lopez had ordered two mining operations on Homonhon Islands in Guiuan stopped. Mount Sinai Mining Exploration and Development Corp. and Emir Mineral Resources Corp. on Homonhon Islands both have mining tenements on the island. Manicani and Homonhon islands are both situated within the Guiuan Protected Landscape and Seascape, which was declared a PA in 1994, after mining permits for nickel-mining operations have been issued by the DENR in the areas. Meanwhile, Macro Asia Corp. has a 1,000 hectares mining tenement in Brooke’s Point, Palawan, which is within the Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape. Brookes’ Point is host to one of the 33 important watersheds in Palawan. The company has yet to start commercial operation because of permitting issues. Lim said most of these mining sites were granted MPSAs prior to the declaration of the PAs as wildlife sanctuaries, game refuge or natural parks covered by the National Integrated Protected Areas System (Nipas) Act. Lim said the recent policy pronouncement of Lopez to keep mining out of protected areas is a welcome development. “It would definitely boost our effort to protect and conserve the country’s key bioidversity areas against mining,” Lim said, underscoring the importance of strengthening the country’s PA system to prevent biodiversity loss. Lim also backed the passage of a proposed measure expanding the coverage of the Nipas Act, or House Bill 177, sponsored by Liberal Party Rep. Josephine Ramirez-Sato of Occidental Mindoro. While there are 240 PAs in the Philippines, only 13 are backed by legislative measures, while the rest are covered by presidential decrees and presidential proclamations. The proposed measure amending certain provisions of Republic Act 7586, or the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 1991, expands the coverage of the E-Nipas from current 13 PAs covered by legislative measure to a total of 101 PAs. With its passage, the 101 PAs would become an integral part of the proposed measure. In declaring PAs “off-limits” to mining, Lopez ordered DENR officials to conduct an inventory of PAs with mining permits. She wants a careful evaluation of the MPSAs, including the environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) issued for development projects within the protected areas. Mining companies with MPSAs within or encompassing protected areas insist that they have prior rights to mine over

the land because the Nipas Act only became a law only on June 1, 1992. Subsequent ly, for mer President Benigno S. Aquino III signed Executive Order 79 on July 6, 2012, declaring PAs as mining “no-go zones.” Lopez declared that under her watch, no mining activities would take place in PAs, insisting that protecting the country’s natural resources, which are habitats of unique and threatened species of wildlife, is more important, especially because the Philippines is highly vulnerable to climate-change impacts. So far, Lopez already ordered the suspension of the ECC of Austral-Asia Mining Corp. in Mati, Davao Oriental, upon the recommendation of the DENR’s BMB. The nickel mine of Austral-Asia lies in between two heritage sites—Pujada Bay and Mount Hamiguitan. Pujada Bay is host to 25 genera of hard and soft corals, while Mount Hamiguitan is host to a vast tract of pygmy or bonsai forest. It is also home to endemic species of plants and animals, including pitcher plants and the critically endangered Philippine Eagle. The DENR chief, a known environmental advocate, had earlier added biodiversity conservation to environmental and social aspect of mining among the the mining audit criteria on top of the usual technical audit. So far, the DENR chief had suspended 10 mining operations and issued show cause orders to 20 other companies. The DENR chief has been vocal against the destruction caused by irresponsible miners that cause people to suffer. Last week Lopez declared watersheds as off-limits to housing and other development projects that threaten the integrity of the forests that protect the country’s sources of water. The DENR said 20 mines are facing suspension on top of the 10 already halted for failing to meet the standards set by Lopez for “responsible mining.”

DENR, PNP officials charged

Meanwhile, several officials of the DENR, MGB, and the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Region 1 are now facing multiple carnapping charges before the Pangasinan Prosecutors Office, after 12 trucks of a mining firm in the area were reportedly forcible taken by the said agencies. Charged before the Prosecutors Office of 12 counts each of carnapping were DENR Region 1 Director Paquito Moreno Jr.; City Environment Officers Melchor Gonzales and Benjamin Abucay; MGB Region 1 Director Carlos Tayag; and his engineers, Renato Rimando and Romualdo Rosario; and Sr. Insp. Dennis Cabigat of Dansol, Pangasinan, PNP. The DENR did not respond to queries on the matter. Based on the statement issued by Golden Summit Mining Corp., over a month ago, their trucks were apprehended and seized by the said officials despite their presentation of proper ore-transport permits and valid vehicle registrations. The trucks, loaded with ores, were then reportedly taken to the police station and were impounded. Surprisingly, both the DENR and MGB offices of Region 1 have not issued a confiscation order to Golden Summit. To this day, however, the trucks and the precious cargoes are nowhere to be found, according to the same press statement. Likewise, the police in the area now reportedly denying having in their custody the trucks with plate numbers ABF 4020, ABF 4022, AFA 8117, NQS 279, 022808, ABF 4018, RHC 135, RMV 370, RMX 908, UQV 480, WLQ 143 and WTS 339. Officials of the said mining firm are asking Lopez to conduct an investigation against these officials in line with President Duterte’s anticorruption policy. They also called on PNP chief Director General Ronald de la Rosa to subject Cabigat to an investigation for allegedly allowing his office to be used to harass legitimate business operations. Just a few weeks ago, former Environment Undersecretary Leo L. Jasareno was fired by Malacañang following numerous complaints of irrregularites while he was still the MGB director during the time of Aquino. Jasareno was accused of issuing mining and expansion permits when there was a moratorium by the Aquino administration on the issuance of such permits by MGB to mining firms.

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Typhoon Karen destroys nearly ₧2.97 billion worth of crops–DA T By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

@jearcalas

yphoon Karen (international code name Sarika) destroyed P2.97 billion worth of rice, corn and high-value crops, according to the latest report from the Department of Agriculture (DA).

As of October 18, the DA said a total of 215,716 metric tons (MT) of crops planted in 260,002 hectares of agricultural lands in Regions 1, 3, 4A and 5 were affected by the typhoon. The DA said the rice sector suffered the brunt of Karen as it registered a production loss of 205,870 MT, valued at P2.81 billion. The typhoon also destroyed 5,195 MT of high-value crops with an estimated value of P106.43 million. Corn crops damaged by the typhoon reached 4,651 MT, worth P60.34 million. The DA said rice farmers in Region 3, or Central Luzon—considered the rice granary of the Philippines—incurred the biggest loss. The typhoon destroyed a total of 167,869 MT of rice, valued at P2.21 billion, planted in Region 3. Rice farmers in Tarlac were hardest hit, as they lost P1.04 billion worth of crops. Data from the DA showed that Region 5, or the Bicol region, recorded crop damages amounting to P465.12 million. Also hit were Regions 1 and 4A, which posted losses reaching P172.93 and P13.97 million, respectively. However, the DA expressed

205,870 MT The volume of rice destroyed by the typhoon confidence that crops planted in more than 98 percent of affected areas have chances of recovery. The agency is currently conducting field validation of the data it collected. Ty phoon K aren ex ited the Philippine area of responsibility on Monday. But another typhoon, which is stronger than Karen, is expected to hit the country this week. In a memorandum, the DA directed its regional offices that are in the pathway of Typhoon Lawin (international code name Haima) to take the necessary precautionary measures. “Activate immediately your respective quick-response center and prepare and secure seed buffer stocks,” the memo addressed to DA-Regional Field Office (RFO) heads in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4A, 5, and the Cordillera Administrative Region read. T he memo, sig ned by Roy

SHELL TO RAISE CAPITALIZATION VIA I.P.O.

Officials of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. (PSPC) lead the launch on Tuesday of its initial public offering seeking to raise its capitalization, making it the largest Philippine oil company in terms of capital. Leading the launch are (from left) Ramon del Rosario, PSPC vice president for external relations; Reginaldo Cariaso, managing director and chief operating officer, BPI Capital; Dennis Gamab, PSPC VP for trading and supply; Edgar Chua, current PSPC president and chairman; Cesar Romero, incoming PSPC president and chairman; Jose Romero Rivera Pascual III, PSPC treasurer and vice president for finance; and Oying Yam, PSPC VP for retail. See story on B1. ROY DOMINGO

Abaya, OIC undersecretary for Operations, asked RFOs to coordinate with affected neighboring regions to determine and provide their needed assistance. The RFOs were also directed

to closely monitor updates from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), secure their respective personnel and properties, and relocate

livestock in their jurisdiction to safer places. “Submit regular updates to the Office of Secretary and Office of the OIC Undersecretary for Operations daily ever y 9

a.m., including holidays,” the memorandum read. The Pagasa said Lawin is expected to make a landfall over Cagayan on Thursday and could even become a supertyphoon.

Robredo bares 6-point agenda for safe, Duterte’s Beijing visit seen sustainable PHL cities in Ecuador meet as chance to reset China ties By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm

mart and sustainable cities will be the key to sustaining the country’s strong economic growth, according to the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). This was emphasized by Vice President and HUDCC Chairman Maria Leonor G. Robredo in a speech delivered at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador. Robredo said Philippine cities account for as much as 80 percent of the country’s total output. However, the country’s urban challenges remain huge, particularly in reducing income inequ a l it y a nd creat ing jobs for millions. She added: “We seek to create better cities that are globally competitive, economically vibrant and sustainable; greener cities that are environmentally sustainable, climate resilient and safe; and smarter cities that are connected, physically, spatially and digitally. All of these in an inclusive Philippines that is equitable, participatory and provides access to quality services, especially for the vulnerable and disadvantaged.” Robredo said that, while the economy grew 7 percent in the second quarter of 2016 and is on track to meeting the govern-

29.3M

Manila’s estimated population by 2030, according to the EIU report “Asean cities: Stirring the melting pot”

ment’s full-year growth target of between 7 percent and 8 percent, more work needs to be done. She said there is a need to create millions of jobs, increase incomes and reduce the number of informal settlements. In order to address these concerns, Robredo bared a six-point agenda at the conference. The agenda includes the need to invest in human capital through education and skills, and capacitate local governments to plan for a rapidly urbanizing population. She said there is also a need to mainstream climate-change adaptation and disaster-risk reduction through land-use planning. Without these, the country faces the reduction or eradication of the gains of city-centered economic growth. “As one of the most vulnerable in the world to disasters and the effects of climate change, it is crucial that we build cities that are safer and more resilient, support the sustainable use and management of ecosystems, and address waste manage-

ment, pollution and emissions,” Robredo said. The HUDCC chairman also stressed the need to include “metropolitanization, clustering of urban centers, and multilevel governance” in the capacities of local governments. The fifth and sixth items on the agenda are the need to harmonize the country’s hard and soft infrastructure plans, ensuring that they promote urbanrural connectivity, as well as the provision of affordable and adequate housing, particularly for informal settlers. Over 6 million more Filipinos are expected to flock to Manila in 10 years, according to a report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). In the report titled “Asean cities: Stirring the melting pot,” the EIU said the population of Manila could balloon to 29.3 million by 2030, from an estimate of 23.2 million in 2015. Manila, as defined by the EIU, corresponds the Greater Manila area. It consists of Metro Manila or the National Capital Region and urbanized areas and neighboring provinces. EIU estimates showed that around 68 percent of the population of Manila by 2030 will be composed of 15- to 64-year-old Filipinos. The share of this age group to the total population has been increasing from 66.5 percent in 2005 to 67.6 percent in 2015.

t’s been a rough and tumble ride for Philippines watchers since the tough-talking Rod r igo R . Duter te wa s swor n in as the countr y’s president on June 30. In his first three months in office, the former Davao City mayor has made good on his key pledge to declare a war on drugs. According to police data released last week, the fight has claimed the lives of as many as 3,700 suspected drug pushers and users since July 1, including 1,573 people who have died in police operations. A ngere d b y i nter n at ion a l criticism of alleged extrajudicial killings, President Duterte, 71, flashed his middle finger at the European Union and told United States President Barack Obama he can “go to hell.” The spat has also driven him to seek a closer relationship with China, raising questions about his commitment to the Philippines’s long-standing military alliance with the US. The negative attention has unsettled overseas investors. Since the end of July, foreigners have withdrawn $388.36 million from Philippine stocks, while the peso has lost about 3 percent against the dollar—among Asia’s worst-performing currencies in that time. St a r t i ng on Tuesd ay, M r. Duterte leads more than 400 business leaders, including some of the Philippines’s wealthiest

tycoons on a four-day visit to Beijing. He’s looking for a muchneeded boost for infrastructure investment as the first Philippine leader invited to the capital by Chinese President Xi Jinping for one-on-one talks. The visit by the recently elected President Duterte, who was due to arrive in Beijing later in the day, will be a step toward ending years of estrangement between t he cou nt r ies, X i n hu a News Agency said. “Should he demonstrate his good faith, the trip will present a long overdue opportunity for the two nations, which enjoy longstanding friendship, to heal the wounds of the past few years and steer their relationship back to the right course,” Xinhua said in a commentary. Mr. Duterte’s visit will help define how far he wants to shift allegiance from the United States to an Asian superpower locked in a territorial standoff with his small, impoverished country, and the Philippines’s 65-year alliance with the US—a key pillar of Obama’s rebalance to Asia—could hang in the balance. The Xinhua editorial signals how China hopes to use the visit to regain lost ground in a Southeast Asian nation that won a major arbitration lawsuit against Beijing’s massive territorial claims in the South China Sea just three months ago. China refused to take part in

the litigation or accept the ruling, which said China’s historical claim to virtually the entire strategic waterbody wasn’t supported by international law. “ T he ve rd ic t i s s ue d b y a l aw-abusing t r ibu na l has no place in the negotiations at all,” Xinhua said. President Duterte is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials on Thursday. The Philippine draft of a proposed joint statement touches on the restoration of permits for Filipino agricultural exports, China’s support for Mr. Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs, boosting tourism and enhancing Coast Guard cooperation to avoid misunderstandings at sea. Details are still being worked out, officials say, and it remains unclear whether the thorny issue of the South China Sea territorial disputes will be reflected in the statement. China was to offer “assistance in personnel training and donation of equipment to aid in the fight against illegal drugs,” according to the Philippine draft seen by The Associated Press. President Duter te’s dead ly battle against drug dealers and abusers has been a defining issue of his political career, prompting him to lash out at Obama and other foreign critics and further propelling him toward rapprochement with an uncritical Beijing. Bloomberg News, AP

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Editor: Max V. de Leon • Wednesday, October 19, 2016 A5

Thai junta cracks down on royal family insults

hailand’s military government said it is stepping up efforts to stamp out criticism of senior members of the royal family— a crime punishable by years in prison —following the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

“The Justice Ministry has set up a team to oversee the breaching of Article 112,” junta member and Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya said on Tuesday, referring to the section of the criminal code that governs lèsemajesté. “We have worked on this issue all along, but we are obstructed by foreign laws.” Most governments refuse to fulfill Thailand’s requests to return suspects accused or convicted of lèse-majesté, with many Western countries, rights groups and the United Nations having condemned Thailand’s use of the law. Those found guilty of defaming, insulting or threatening the king, queen, heir apparent or regent face up to 15 years in prison, and the military government has vowed to show no mercy to offenders while also expanding the interpretation of what constitutes a violation. Bhumibol, who was 88, passed away on October 13 after years of illness, marking the end of a 70-year reign that saw Thailand transition from an agrarian backwater to Southeast Asia’s secondbiggest economy. Bhumibol is widely revered, with many Thais referring to him as “Father,” for his efforts to improve the lives of his subjects.

Media censorship

Violations of the lèse-majesté law increased in the twilight of Bhumibol’s reign as the monarchy’s role in

15 yrs

The maximum prison term for those found guilty of defaming, insulting or threatening the king, queen, heir apparent or regent society was increasingly scrutinized during the political unrest that unfolded over the past decade. Most media in the country—both local and international—self-censor to avoid running afoul of the law. Paiboon said the agencies involved will be the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Special Investigations, with the latter two monitoring international media coverage. The move comes a day after Thailand’s telecommunications regulator said it had sent letters to the local offices of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Line asking them to block access to web sites deemed insulting to the monarchy, according to local reports. The regulator said it set a special office that will be open

Mourners hold portraits of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej as they line up to buy commemorative banknotes in Bangkok. AP

around the clock to monitor radio and television broadcasts in addition to social-media networks. The government issued a statement on Saturday criticizing some foreign media for publishing what it said was “erroneous or false information and accusations that are of a manipulative and provocative nature.”

Commemorative currency

Thais waited patiently in long queues outside government banks on Tuesday to secure special commemorative 100 baht currency notes in honor of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The note was released five years

In this August 4, 2006, file photo, Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej holds a camera as he leaves Siriraj Hospital in a wheelchair after undergoing surgery in Bangkok. AP

ago by the Bank of Thailand, but interest in it was renewed after the king’s death. People began lining up in the early morning at banks around the country to purchase the note, which was available for twice its face value at 200 baht ($5.71). The banknote features images of the king visiting Thai people, planting grass and playing the saxophone. It is printed with metallic gold ink, instead of the red in the regular 100 baht bill. “I want to keep every single note that has a portrait of the king, because one day, they’ll be all gone since we’ll be living under a new monarch,” said Surinamon Rakkaew, a 24-year-old. Because of the huge demand, at least one bank, the Government Savings Bank that had a stock of 90,000 bills, said it will limit the sale to five bills per customer. “We believe that all 90,000 bills will be distributed today and we are in the process of requesting more bills from the Bank of Thailand,” said Vitai Ratanakorn, a top official of the bank. He said he expects a new stock of 200,000 bills will become available on Thursday. Bhumibol’s death after a reign of 70 years has triggered an intense outpouring of grief in Thailand, where the monarchy is revered. Since his death, Thais have been quick to purchase items or partake in activities, such as alms-giving, as ways to commemorate the memory of the late king. “I came to exchange my bills as a memento so that one day I can commemorate the late king Rama IX,” said 35-year-old Pawan Tomuean, using the king’s formal title, as he carefully inserted his newly acquired bill into a protective case. “One day I will be able to celebrate his goodness and all the great things he did for this nation.” Bloomberg News, AP

End to US sanctions a boon to Myanmar economy Thai King Bhumibol was also an artist, jazz musician, inventor

FC ’s grinning Colonel Sanders and his goatee are among the few prominent signs of United States brands or business in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon. That will likely change after President Barack Obama ended most remaining US sanctions against this fledgling democracy on October 7. But much hinges on how the government led by former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi revamps the country’s outdated laws and other policies. The US had earlier broad prohibitions on investment and trade imposed on this Southeast Asian country of about 60 million over the past two decades. The more targeted restrictions that ended earlier this month were mostly on dealings with army-owned companies and officials and associates of the former ruling junta. A ban on imports of jadeite and rubies from Myanmar also ended. Up to now, the rush to invest in Myanmar has been dominated by Asian countries, especially China, its main investor and trading partner during its years of isolation. Most US businesses and many other Western ones stayed away, mindful of fines potentially in the millions of dollars and jail terms of up to 20 years. Foreign investment slowed earlier this year, as companies awaited changes in the investment law, company law and other regulations. “Genuinely a lot of American business was extraordinarily wary of the sanctions, especially for financial services because of the massive fines,” said Sean Turnell, a Myanmar expert and adviser to Suu Kyi’s government. For many Western—not just US—firms, restrictions on financial transactions in US dollars, which are processed by banks doing business in the US, were the biggest constraint. “It was too hard, the market is too small and profits were pretty

small compared to the fines they could get,” Turnell said. “You had great difficulty just moving money in and out of the country.” The garment industry could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the end to sanctions. The United States stopped giving Myanmar special market access under the Generalized System of Preferences in 1989 due to worker rights concerns. When those benefits are restored on November 13, it will regain the right to export about 5,000 products to the United States duty-free. Nay Aung, whose travel services company Oway, has launched a carbooking app that is providing about 500 to 600 rides a day in Yangon, is hoping that will help drive an export boom. “If multinationals come in, we will benefit,” he said. “For us, if the country grows, we are the beneficiary of those investments.” Myanmar was governed by a military junta for more than a halfcentury. Nearly five years since it began its shift toward a civilian government and a year since Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide election, the country is still just beginning to develop a modern financial sector and rebuild its crumbling roads, ports and buildings, many of which date to Britain’s colonial rule. The new leadership is grappling with extreme poverty, civil war with several ethnic minorities, rampant corruption and narcotics and human trafficking. Massive illegal trade in goods, like jade and timber, continues. The sanctions were just part of the problems laid out in a report by the American Chamber of Commerce in July. Chief complaints included a decision by the city government in Yangon, the country’s commercial capital, to stop issuing the licenses for new parking spaces that are required to buy new vehicles. That was a blow to big foreign

5,000

The number of Myanmar’s products that will regain special market access to the US on November 13 automakers, like Chevy and Toyota, that want to sell new cars there, but a boon for the already thriving trade in used vehicles from Japan, lefthand cars and trucks widely used on Myanmar’s right-hand drive roads. Still, the country’s young, inexpensive work force and low living standards offer huge potential for growth. GE, on its web site, describes Myanmar as a “new sweet spot” for growth in Southeast Asia. Japanese and other Asian investors have been piling in. Aeon, Japan’s equivalent of Walmart, opened an office in Yangon in 2014 and has a thriving microfinance business. Its first supermarket in Myanmar, a joint venture with a local retailer, opened in the city’s Okalapa township in late September, offering thousands of products, most of them imported from Thailand. Even the KFC, which opened across the street from Yangon’s Bogyoke Market in 2015, is a franchise set up by Singaporelisted Myanmar conglomerate Yoma Strategic Holdings. Some other major US brands got a head start, including Coca-Cola, which has a factory producing for the local market. Ball Corp. has a factory in Yangon’s Thilawa Special Economic Zone making cans for Coca-Cola. MasterCard is expanding in the area of automated teller machine cards. GE is active in energy and other sectors and leases Boeing 737-800s

to the country’s national airlines. ConocoPhillips and Chevron have stakes in oil and gas exploration and development. Some US businesses, like Caterpillar, have distribution tie-ups in Myanmar with local or other foreign companies. But the total $248 million US companies have committed since 1988 amounts to less than 1 percent of total foreign investment of about $60 billion. China has invested more than $25 billion, according to Chinese figures. Trade with the US has also been modest. Myanmar’s imports from the US totaled $227 million in 2015, while exports from Myanmar to the US amounted to $142 million, mostly dried peas, rattan and wood products and travel goods, like backpacks, according to the US Trade Representatives web site. The lifting of sanctions is bound to benefit big players no longer on the sanctions lists, like the ex-junta chief, Than Shwe, and Stephen Law, founder of one of the nation’s largest conglomerates, whose late father was once described by treasury as one of the world’s key heroin traffickers. But at the other end of the spectrum, there likely will be little immediate impact, said Jes Kaliebe Petersen of Phandeeyar, a local nonprofit devoted to helping start-ups and entrepreneurship. Ending sanctions has a “signal value,” suggesting lower risks of doing business in Myanmar, says Petersen, who is Danish. What remains, though, are problems typical of a frontier economy, such as a dysfunctional financial system, bad roads and a legal system that has yet to catch up with the country’s political evolution. “It took three months to get money wired into Yangon just to pay my rent,” Petersen said when asked about the challenges of doing business in Myanmar. “But on a microlevel, I’ve never had a single conversation about the sanctions.” AP

side from his kingly duties— and they were immense— Thailand’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej took time during his 70-year reign to compose music (and jam with some of the world’s jazz legends), build sailing craft (and win an international yachting race), paint surrealistic oils and have some 20 patents registered for an assortment of inventions. Here’s a look at the many pursuits of Bhumibol, who died last week at the age of 88:

Musician

“HE is simply the coolest king in the land,” declared American jazz great Lionel Hampton of Bhumibol’s talent on the saxophone. He also played clarinet, trumpet and the piano, often with his own palace band, and one of the highlights of a 1960 visit to New York was a two-hour jam session with Benny Goodman. Largely self-taught, he is credited with nearly 50 compositions, including a three-movement ballet previewed in Vienna and songs that are still frequently heard in Thailand, including “Falling Rain” and “Candlelight Blues.” Six of his songs were included in a 1950 Broadway musical, “Peepshow,” with one, “Blue Night,” described by one critic as a “sensuous beguine.”

Inventor

Having tinkered since childhood and studied some science and engineering in Switzerland, the king came up with inventions throughout much of his reign, with 20 patents and 19 trademarks registered under his name and some garnering international awards. Most were related to rural development, although he also configured a new gun mount on helicopters and offered ideas on how to prevent the M-16, the standard US assault rifle in the Vietnam War, from jamming. Pondering how to prevent annual flooding in Bangkok, he recalled from

childhood pet monkeys munching on bananas, then retaining the food in their cheeks to later swallow. The king’s “monkey cheeks” initiative featured reservoirs on the peripheries of Bangkok into which onrushing water was diverted and later flushed into the sea or used for irrigation. His inventions included a biofuel from palm oil and the low-cost Chaipattana aerator, which resembles a paddle wheel on old steamers and can be inserted into rivers, canals and marshes to counter water pollution. The aerators can be seen across Thailand, including at the royal residence in Bangkok. A 2005 European patent, number 1491088, describes a technique for seeding clouds to induce rain over drought-stricken areas. Dubbed the “super sandwich,” pilots disperse environmentally friendly chemicals to form cool and warm clouds at different altitudes.

Artist, author, sailor

Bhumibol was 8 when he got hold of his first camera—a Coronet Midget given by his mother—and rarely was one out of reach through most of his life, capturing both domestic scenes and documenting his efforts to improve rural lives. The king’s more than 60 sculptures and paintings range from traditionally realistic to expressionistic and abstract. Some are starkly contemporary. “This is called ‘Subversion’—there is greed, anger and evil. I painted it with a knitting needle,” he said of one. The king also penned several books, including one about a beloved stray dog that he had adopted. A keen sportsman until hobbled by illnesses over the past decade, he teamed up with one of his daughters to win a yachting gold medal in the 1967 Southeast Asian Peninsular Games. A year later, he challenged another royal sailor, Britain’s visiting Prince Philip, to a race. AP

The World

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

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Russia sets brief cease-fire for Aleppo as strikes kill 36

UXEMBOURG—The leader of a small Belgian region who holds the key to the approval of a wide-ranging trade deal between the 28-nation European Union (EU) and Canada said he will need a few more days to study new proposals aimed at overcoming his objections.

Instead of EU approval on Tuesday, as first planned, the issue could well go to a two-day summit of government leaders starting on Thursday. Under the EU’s complicated approval system, the fate of the trans-Atlantic deal depends on all regions in Belgium approving the deal, leaving some local governments representing only a few million people with the power to scuttle a deal affecting over 500 million EU citizens and 35 million Canadians. Belgium’s national government, which strongly backs the

535M The number of European Union citizens and Canadians to be affected by a trade deal

deal, in consultation with EU officials, has been frantically looking to overturn the resistance by Wallonia, population 3.5 million, and the executive office of the capital, Brussels, to save a deal that took seven years

to negotiate and has backing from all the other EU nations. Wallonia’s Minister-President Paul Magnette told the RTL network he was studying new proposals to bring his region in line with the other nations. “I want to be constructive. If we are heard, if they put the bar higher and if they protect our social and environmental norms and our farmers, sure we will be happy to say we found a solution,” Magnette said. Tuesday’s initial deadline for the so-called Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta) was slipping fast out of reach. “It will be tough to do before tomorrow morning. We will need a few more days,” he said. International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters in Ottawa said she remained “cautiously optimistic” about the deal. “But at this point the ball is very much in the European court.” “We’re working hard with the Europeans.... Everyone I talked to today said: ‘Hang on in there, we believe this is going to happen.’“ Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of EU foreign trade

ministers that “the end of the week during the summit of EU leaders” looked likely to resolve the issue. The main discussion points at this week’s summit are Britain’s exit from the EU and relations with Russia. Late next week, on October 27, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to fly to Brussels to sign the Ceta agreement, but only if it has unanimous backing from all the EU nations. The deal is expected to yield billions in added trade through tariff cuts and other measures to lower barriers to commerce. At the same time, the EU says it will keep in place the strong safeguards on social, environmental and labor legislation, which have given Europe some of the toughest standards in the world. Wallonia said last Friday the guarantees were not good enough and urged more negotiations. Those concerns have now been talked about over the weekend and into Monday. “ There is always progress,” Reynders said of the talks, “but we have to make sure that progress leads to a deal.” AP

Mosul seen as more than climactic military battle

ASHINGTON—More is riding on the battle for Mosul than the recapture of the Islamic State (IS) group’s main stronghold in northern Iraq. Also on the line is the Obama administration’s theory that the extremists can be defeated in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere without American ground troops doing the fighting. For more than two years, the administration has stuck to its argument that the only path to a sustained victory over the Islamic State group is for locals, not Americans or other outsiders, to bear the main responsibility for the fighting and for governing after the extremists are removed. President Barack Obama has taken a lot of political heat for that approach, which critics say has allowed IS to expand its international reach and influence. The viability of Obama’s strategy has been widely doubted. In May 2015, after months of US bombings in Iraq and while in the midst of Americans training and advising Iraqi ground troops, the Iraqis lost the city of Ramadi. Defense Secretary Ash Carter publicly said he doubted the Iraqis’ will to fight. Since then, the US support role has grown and the Iraqi security forces have managed to retake key parts of western and northern Iraq, including Ramadi.

Significant test

MOSUL is different, not least because it is the place where Islamic State leaders in 2014 announced their intent to create an Islamic-run state after taking a large swath of Iraq and Syria in a lightning surge. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Monday called Mosul a new measure of Obama’s strategy. “And I think the president would be the first to acknowledge that this is a significant test,” he said, given the size of the city and its importance to IS. “Dislodging them from the city would be a significant strategic gain,” Earnest said. US airpower played a key role in the run-up to the fight for Mosul by taking out IS defenses, cash resources, supply routes and some of the group’s leaders. The US is now providing air cover, as Iraqi security forces and members of the Kurdish militia begin their attempt to retake the city over the next several weeks. American advisers are working with Iraqi troops, but the outcome will be determined largely by the Iraqis.

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter prays on the frontline during the battle against the Islamic State group, as Kurdish forces advance toward villages surrounding Mosul on October 17. AP

Answering questions

MOSUL may answer the question: If IS loses a crown jewel of its so-called caliphate, will that be a decisive and sustainable victory for Iraq? Or will Baghdad once again falter, allowing sectarian and political divisions to destabilize the country and permit a return of extremists? That likely won’t be known before Obama’s successor takes office. The next president also will inherit the broader problem of Syria—not just the IS presence there, including in its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, but also the civil war with its complications involving Russia, Iran and Turkey. Iraq remains deeply divided, and the grievances among the country’s Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations that allowed IS to rise to power in the first place have not been resolved. Even if the Mosul campaign is successful militarily, there is a risk of violence erupting again in the form of revenge killings or clashes between groups once allied against a common enemy.

‘Much easier’

SETH Jones, a defense and security expert at the RAND Corp., says the combat phase of the battle for Mosul, while difficult, will be “much easier” than the aftermath.

“I think there’s a strong possibility that a lot of the political grievances actually get accentuated,” he said in an interview on Friday. David Petraeus, the former Army general who commanded US and coalition forces in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, calls the Obama approach in Iraq and Syria “a new way of fighting.” “It’s much more sustainable in terms of blood and treasure than obviously having our forces have to do it,” Petraeus, who also served as Obama’s director, said on Sunday on ABC’s This Week.

Go-slow approach

OBAMA began sending small numbers of US military advisers to Iraq in the summer of 2014, after the IS had swept into Mosul and also captured much of western Iraq, including cities like Ramadi and Fallujah, where American ground troops had spilled much blood before all US troops left Iraq in 2011. The rise of IS in Iraq was a stinging blow to Obama, whom critics accused of giving up hardfought gains. He initia l ly insisted there would be no US “boots on the ground,” but he authorized a gradual ex pansion of the US training and advising effort to complement a US-led coalition

air campaign. He was supported in his cautious, go-slow approach by his top military adviser at the time, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when IS moved into Iraq and when Obama began returning US advisers to Baghdad.

Biggest test

DEMPSEY counselled patience. Give the Iraqis time to heal their internal divisions and fight their own battles, he argued. Resist the temptation to grab control of the contest against the Islamic State. Dempsey believed an enduring victory would require a unified Iraq supported by neighbors. “If we were to take control of this campaign, I mean literally seize control of the campaign, then there’s no doubt in my mind we would probably defeat ISIL [Islamic State in Iraq and Levant] on, let’s say, a faster timeline,” but it would not last, he said in June 2015. “Maybe ISIL goes away, maybe they’re defeated militarily, and two years from now another group with another name and another ideology... will just be back,” he said. In the Obama view, Iraq is more likely to regain, and retain, control of its territory if it is not relying on US troops to do the fighting. Mosul is the biggest test of that theory. AP

EIRUT—Russian and Syrian forces will halt hostilities for eight hours in the eastern districts of Aleppo, Russia’s military announced on Monday, a day on which opposition activists said their air strikes killed at least 36 people, including several children, in and around the divided city. The two militaries will observe a “humanitarian pause” between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on October 20 to allow civilians and militants safe passage out of the city, Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of Russia’s general staff said in Moscow. Militants, the wounded and sick would be allowed to evacuate to the neighboring rebel-held province of Idlib. United Nations humanitarian officials have pleaded with combatants to observe weekly 48-hour cease-fires to allow humanitarian relief into the city’s besieged eastern districts, but Russian and Syrian forces have only escalated their aerial and ground assault on the rebel-held areas in recent weeks. The air strikes have claimed hundreds of lives, wounded many, flattened apartment buildings and laid waste to the already crippled medical sector. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that the eighthour pause was a unilateral halt to fighting. A 48-hour or 72-hour cease-fire “will require some sort of mutual arrangement,” he said.

Two options

RUSSIAN and Syrian leaders are now capitalizing on a proposal made by the UN’s envoy earlier this month to allow al-Qaeda-linked militants to leave in exchange for peace and local administration for the eastern districts. Rebels in the east, along with many residents, spur ned the proposition, citing their distrust of the government side. And Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution mandating an immediate cease-fire. Russia’s Churkin said at a meeting on Saturday, cochaired by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry, foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar said they would work to separate moderate opposition groups from the former al-Qaeda affiliate once known as the Nusra Front in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Military experts from all these countries were scheduled to meet on Monday, he said. If the separation succeeds—which is a key Russian and Syrian demand—there are two options, Churkin said. Nusra fighters must leave Aleppo or they will be defeated, he said. Churkin said “the understanding” reached at Saturday’s meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, is that once Nusra is gone the moderate opposition and the Syrian government will agree on a cease-fire to end the bloodshed.

Too late

US State Department Spokesman Mark Toner, speaking to reporters in Washington, noted that the people of Aleppo “have been subjected to near constant bombardment and air strikes” that have killed many civilians and leveled much of the city’s infrastructure in an effort “to starve out and to drive out the opposition and civilians.” “If there is actually an eight-hour pause in the unremitting suffering of the people of Aleppo, that would be a good thing. But frankly, it’s a bit too little, too late,” Toner said. Monday’s Russian announcement did not include any promises of an extended cease-fire or local administration. It followed a bloody day of air strikes on rebelheld districts in and around Aleppo. At least 23 people were killed in air strike that also wounded dozens in the village of Oweijel, just west of Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for

Human Rights. Another monitoring group, the Local Coordination Committees, said the air raid was carried out by Russian warplanes and put the death toll at 30. More than a dozen people were also killed in the Marjeh neighborhood in eastern Aleppo. The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said those killed included 11 people with the same family name of Qabs, ranging from a 6-weekold baby girl to a 25-year-old man.

Diverted attention

THE Observatory said at least 50 civilians, including 18 children, were killed in air strikes on the eastern part of the city in the 24 hours before the Russian announcement. Monday’s air strikes coincided with the launch in neighboring Iraq of a major operation by Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by the US-led coalition, to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State group. There have been concerns the government in Damascus could use the timing of the Mosul offensive to press its onslaught in Aleppo while world attention is diverted to developments in Iraq. Also on Monday, Syrian state media claimed 49 rebels were killed and wounded in fighting in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Saeed and Shurfa on the southern edges of Aleppo. In the nearby province of Idlib, a US-led coalition drone struck a car in the provincial capital that carries the same name, killing all inside, according to The Observatory and a jihadi official. It was not immediately clear who was in the vehicle, but such attacks have previously targeted officials with al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, known as Fatah al-Sham Front.

Stark explanations

THE Observatory said the attack targeted a faction commander. An official with Fatah al-Sham Front, formerly known as Nusra Front, said all those in the car were “martyred.” The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said it was not clear if members of his group were targeted. Earlier this month, a drone attack killed top al-Qaeda official Ahmed Salama Mabrouk. The United States and Britain on Sunday acknowledged the Western world’s weak support for any military action against Syria’s government, as they seek ways to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his chief backer, Russia, to halt the deadly Aleppo offensive. After a meeting of 11 governments opposing Assad’s rule, Kerry and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson each insisted that all options were on the table. But their stark explanations about the danger of resorting to military force appeared to rule out such a move. The government in Damascus, meanwhile, appears to be trying to improve relations with Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, following the first public meeting between Egyptian and Syrian security chiefs.

Agreeing sides

MAJ. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, head of the National Security Bureau and one of Assad’s top aides, visited Cairo on Sunday at the head of a delegation to coordinate with Egypt in the fight against “terrorism” in the region, Syria’s state-run news agency Sana said. Sana said the Syrians met with top intelligence officials, including deputy chief of Egypt’s intelligence agency. It said both sides agreed on “coordinating political standpoints” and strengthening the “cooperation in fighting terrorism.” Egypt’s pro-government Sada al-Balad and other news web sites reported on Sunday that six Syrians arrived on a private jet from Damascus. AP

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Wednesday, October 19, 2016

US ignored rising-sea warnings at radar site

ELLINGTON, New Zealand—The US Air Force is spending nearly $1 billion to build a radar installation that will help keep astronauts and satellites safe by tracking pieces of space junk as small as a baseball. That is, if global warming doesn’t get in the way.

The Space Fence is being constructed on a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands that scientists say could be regularly swamped by rising seas within a couple of decades as a result of climate change. The saltwater could play havoc with the equipment, the scientists say. And The Associated Press found that neither the military nor its contractor, Lockheed Martin, gave serious consideration to that threat when designing the installation and choosing a site, despite warnings from the island-nation’s environmental agency. The future “does not look good for a lot of these islands,” said Curt Storlazzi, an oceanographer with the US Geological Survey who is leading a study at Kwajalein Atoll, where the Space Fence complex is being built. Dana Whalley, a civilian who is managing the Space Fence program, said the radar installation has a projected life span of 25 years and that he doesn’t expect sea levels to rise enough over that period to cause a problem. But if necessary, he said, the base could take steps to improve its seawalls.

Island connection

STILL, because of budget pressures, military equipment is often used well beyond its projected life span. In fact, a key part of the radar tracking system that the Space Fence replaces was built during the dawn of the space age and was badly outdated by the time it was shut down 50 years later in 2013. Midway between Hawaii and Australia, the Marshall Islands are specks of land that typically poke just a few feet above the Pacific Ocean, making them some of the world’s most vulnerable places to rising seas. The US military has a long-standing connection to the

200K

The number of objects that can be tracked by a US radar system when it becomes operational in late 2018

islands. Bikini Atoll was used as a nuclear test site after World War II. Kwajalein Atoll, a battle site during the war, is now an Army base, a ballistic missile test site and an important part of the military’s space surveillance network.

Hollywood film

THE growing problem of space debris was highlighted in 2009, when an old Russian satellite smashed into a commercial US satellite, creating hundreds of pieces of orbiting junk. The 2013 movie Gravity dramatized the threat to astronauts, who need to be safe from debris whether they’re traveling on the International Space Station or in a rocket. Lock heed Mar tin won the $915-million Space Fence contract in 2014 and broke ground last year. When the radar system becomes operational in late 2018, it should increase the number of objects that can be tracked tenfold to about 200,000 and provide more precise information on their orbits. The Space Fence installation will include digital transmitters and receivers, as well as power and cooling facilities. About 15 people will operate and maintain it around the clock. The military chose the Marshall Islands because the Space Fence works best near the equator. But it means the installation is being built

This November 6, 2015, photo shows people building a sea wall on Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands. Rising seas in the Marshall Islands can be seen on many of the atolls in the group, as more coastline disappears and vegetation is washed away. The US military ignored warnings about rising seas to build a space radar costing nearly a billion dollars on a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands. AP

just 10 feet above sea level, or the height of a basketball hoop.

Talking centuries

STORLAZZI said his study explored the point at which storms will cause the sea to wash clear across an island, completely submerging it, at least once a year. He said that’s when an island will no longer be able to sustain most plant or animal life. He examined one island within Kwajalein Atoll and found that it will probably reach its tipping point within a few decades. He said the island on which the Space Fence is being built faces a similar threat. The flooding there will probably damage power cables, sewer lines and other electronics and hardware, he said. The seawater will erode land, he said, and eat away at everything from concrete to cars. “When you get to the point where water is going over the top of the island annually, it will affect a lot of daily life, whether it’s related to the Space Fence or other operations, like moving food around,” he said. The study, funded primarily by the Defense Department, has not yet been peer-reviewed or

published. But it paints a much more dire future for the atoll than earlier studies. “We are talking the next couple of decades, not centuries, as previously thought,” Storlazzi said. He said his team studied the underwater contours of the islands and showed how coral reefs will become less effective as breakwaters when sea levels rise.

No mention

THE Marshall Islands base is among dozens of US military sites threatened by climate change. A July report by the Union of Concerned Scientists analyzed 18 military installations along the US East and Gulf coasts. It found that with just a moderate rise in sea levels, 16 could flood 100 times a year by 2050. Last October strong winds and waves battered Kwajalein Atoll. Ferries were canceled and a dock was damaged, forcing the base to take the unprecedented step of hosting 845 Marshallese day workers overnight. W halley said the militar y investigated threats, including ocean f looding, in an environmental

assessment of the site before beginning construction. “ The over wash threat, if you will, is built into the government requirements of the site,” he said. Yet, that 2014 assessment, which runs over 100 pages and addresses everything from sea turtles to the island’s archaeological history, makes no mention of climate change, noting only that the Space Fence would be able to withstand a small earthquakegenerated tsunami. A single line reads: “Based on historical data, there are no anticipated issues with ocean tide and/or wave flooding.”

Wholly inadequate

LOCKHEED Martin did not investigate the issue either. Bruce Schafhauser, Lockheed’s program director for the Space Fence, said the Air Force asked it to design the system to withstand earthquakes but not rising seas. “We don’t have any insight into that,” Schafhauser said. “It has not been something that has been required from the Air Force.” Schafhauser said the responsibility for

finding a suitable location for the installation fell to the military. The Marshall Islands Environmental Protection Authority wrote a response to the environmental assessment, describing the US military’s overall treatment of the climate change threat to Kwajalein as “wholly inadequate.” It questioned whether the military was overstating the atoll’s elevation and criticized its reliance on historical data when the problem is rising seas, a more recent phenomenon. The military responded in its final report: “Detailed study of sea-level rise risks are beyond the scope of this document.” Since then, leaders from the Marshall Islands say they have been working with the US to improve environmental standards and ensure climate effects are seriously addressed in future military projects. Whalley said he plans to find out more about the USGS research at Kwajalein. “It’s the first I’ve heard about the study,” he said. “When they give you a billion dollars, you tend to focus on getting the radar built.” AP

Shipbuilders worried about jobs That pilot in the cockpit may someday be a robot while US Navy celebrates ship M B

ATH, Maine—The stealthy USS Zumwalt joined the Navy during a weekend commissioning ceremony, another destroyer departed for builder trials on Monday and five other warships are under various stages of construction at shipbuilder Bath Iron Works. But many workers don’t see much cause for celebration. Rich Nolan, president of the yard’s biggest union, said workers are worried about future job cuts and that morale “is as low as I’ve ever seen it.” Shipbuilders approved concessions last December in hopes of winning a Coast Guard contract to preserve up to 1,200 jobs, but the shipyard was underbid. There’s currently enough of a backlog to limit job cuts in the short term, and the shipyard will refocus on winning the bulk of a 10-ship Navy contract next year. But without additional work, the shipyard’s 6,000-strong work force will become smaller through attrition and layoffs in coming years, and shipyard workers are frustrated. “The Coast Guard loss made

everyone feel discouraged. Losing that contract was a blow to the whole company,” welder Dana Richardson said on Monday. But, he added, “We’re going to make it. There’s too much at stake.” The shipyard is bustling for the time being.

Aiming for efficiency

THE future USS Rafael Peralta went to sea for the first time on Monday, two days after the Bath-built Zumwalt, the angular, futuristiclooking “stealth destroyer,” was commissioned into service in Baltimore. Also under construction are two more ships in the Zumwalt class, along with the Peralta and three other conventional destroyers. The backlog includes another three destroyers. The failure to win the Coast Guard contract, worth more than $10 billion, was a bitter pill after shipbuilders agreed to concessions aimed at making the yard more efficient. There will be no opportunity to bid on additional work until next year, when the Navy is expected

to submit a request for proposals for 10 more destroyers. Fred Harris, the shipyard president, told workers to focus for now on what they can control: Working efficiently and safely, and hitting deadlines. “It will take all of us working together, fully engaged, to move this company forward,” he wrote in an October newsletter to workers. W hile there’s some uncertainty about jobs, there’s little concer n t hat t hings w i l l get as bad as they were a decade ago when some Nav y leaders thought the shipyard was expendable because there were too few warships being built to support both Bath Iron Works and its chief competitor, the larger Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Focused on costs

BATH Iron Works’s parent corporation, General Dynamics, has invested heavily over the years in improvements. Also, Hurricane Katrina heavily damaged the Ingalls shipyard, underscoring to

Navy leaders the advantage of having two shipyards. “Bath Iron Works is a survivor. I don’t think there’s any chance at all that Bath is going to go away,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, who pointed out that the shipyard remains profitable and that the Navy needs it. But the shipyard faces challenges in a shrinking shipbuilding budget that’s been stretched even thinner by the Navy’s decision to builder smaller surface combatants at small shipyards in Alabama and Wisconsin instead of at Bath or Ingalls, he said. Because of the tight budget, cost is more important than Bath’s reputation for quality, he added. Nolan, president of Machinists Union Local S6, said it’s frustrating that the Navy is focused so heavily on costs rather than the best product for sailors. “The Navy used to be willing to pay a little bit more for the quality we gave them. Now it’s all about the bottom line, and the low bidder wins,” Nolan said. AP

ANASSAS, Virginia—From the outside, the single-engine Cessna Caravan that took off from a small airport here on Monday looked unremarkable. But inside the cockpit, in the right seat, a robot with spindly metal tubes and rods for arms and legs and a claw hand grasping the throttle, was doing the flying. In left seat, a human pilot tapped commands to his mute colleague using an electronic tablet. The demonstration was part of a government and industry collaboration that is attempting to replace the second human pilot in two-person flight crews with robot copilots that never tire, get bored, feel stressed out or become distracted. The program’s leaders even envision a day when planes and helicopters, large and small, will fly people and cargo without any human pilot onboard. Personal robot planes may become a common mode of travel. Consider it the aviation equivalent of the self-driving car. Th e p ro g ra m , kn ow n a s Ai rc re w Labor In-Cockpit Automation System or ALIAS, is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and run by Aurora Flight Sciences, a private contractor. With both the military and airlines struggling with shortages of trained pilots, defense officials say they see an advantage to reducing the number of pilots required to fly large planes or helicopters while, at the same time, making operations safer and more

efficient by having a robot step in to pick up the mundane tasks of flying.

Going further

THE idea is to have the robot augment the human pilot by taking over a lot of the workload, thus freeing the human pilot— especially in emergencies and demanding situations—to think strategically. “It’s really about a spec trum of increasing autonomy and how humans and robots work together so that each can be doing the thing that its best at,” said John Langford, Aurora chairman and CEO. Sophisticated computers flying planes aren’t new. In today’s airliners, the autopilot is on nearly the entire time the plane is in the air. Airline pilots do most of their flying for brief minutes during takeoffs and landings, and even those critical phases of flight could be handled by the autopilot. But the ALIAS robot goes steps further. For example, an array of cameras allows the robot to see all the cockpit instruments and read the gauges. It can recognize whether switches are in the on or off position, and can flip them to the desired position. And it learns not only from its experience flying the plane, but also from the entire history of flight in that type of plane. The robot “can do everything a human can do” except look out the window, Langford said. But give the program time and maybe the robot can be adapted to do that, too, he said. AP

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Wednesday, October 19, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

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Social Security recipients to get tiny hike in benefits

ASHINGTON—Millions of Social Security recipients and federal retirees will get only tiny increases in benefits next year, the fifth year in a row that older Americans will have to settle for historically low raises. There was no increase this year. Next year’s benefit hike will be small because inflation is low, driven in part by lower fuel prices. The Cola affects more than 70 million people—about one in five Americans. The federal government is scheduled to announce the cost-of-living adjustment, or Cola, on Tuesday morning. By law, the Cola is based on a government measure of consumer prices. Preliminary numbers suggest a Cola of less than 1 percent, according to analyses by experts and The Associated Press. The average monthly Social Security payment is $1,238. That adds up to a monthly increase of maybe $3 or $4 a month.

‘Hold harmless’ provision

Activists of ultra right-wing Hindu Sena, or Hindu Army, set a portrait of US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on fire, during a protest alleging her of maligning US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s name on false sexual-harassment charges, in New Delhi, India, on October 18. Trump has repeatedly warned of a “rigged” election. AP

Amid talk of ‘rigged’ polls, experts say fraud is rare

TLANTA—Donald Trump has repeatedly warned of a “rigged” election, saying large-scale voter fraud is happening in the United States and suggesting it will affect the outcome of this year’s presidential race. There is no evidence that such widespread fraud exists. Tr u m p ’s c o m m e nt s h a v e alarmed voting-rights experts and civil-rights groups, who say they threaten to undermine faith in the nation’s elections. Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans are expressing confidence in the voting systems, while state election officials are saying they are committed to conducting fair and impartial elections. It’s worth noting, too, that 29 of the nation’s secretaries of state are Republican. Here’s a look at what Trump has been saying, along with historical data about voter fraud and what this could mean for Election Day.

What Trump has said

IN recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly raised questions about the integrity of the nation’s voting systems and called for his supporters to monitor polling places in “certain areas” to guard against voter fraud. He’s made the comments during campaign stops in battleground states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, singling out Philadelphia as a city to watch. Recently, Trump sent a series of tweets in which he called Republican leaders “naïve” for dismissing his claims of widespread voter fraud and saying the election is being rigged “by the dishonest and distorted media” for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump’s supporters appear to share his concerns. A poll last

month by The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research found half of all those with a favorable opinion of Trump said they have little to no confidence in the integrity of the vote count.

Is voter fraud a widespread problem?

NO. While there have been isolated cases of voter fraud in the US, there is no evidence of it being a widespread problem as Trump suggests. The type of fraud that Trump appears to be talking about would involve people casting ballots who know they are not eligible to vote, as well as people impersonating others to cast ballots for their preferred candidate. Experts say this would be an inefficient way to rig an election, given the fraud would have to be conducted one voter at a time, and would only be effective in places where the race is close enough that the outcome could be swayed. Studies have shown voter impersonation to be quite rare. In one study, a Loyola Law School professor found 31 instances involving allegations of voter impersonation out of 1 billion votes cast in US elections between 2000 and 2014. Another study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found many reports of people voting twice or ballots being cast on behalf of dead people were largely the

result of clerical errors that suggested wrongdoing when none had occurred. “Voter fraud is so incredibly rare that it has no impact on the integrity of our elections,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center. “You are more likely to be struck by lightning, more likely to see a UFO, than to be a victim of voter fraud.” In Philadelphia on Monday Republican Election Commissioner Al Schmidt dismissed the idea that election fraud could take place in the nation’s fifth-largest city. “The real threat to the integrity of elections is irresponsible accusations that undermine confidence in the electoral process,” he said.

Voter fraud vs election fraud

OTHER types of fraud are possible, such as voting machines being intentionally manipulated to report false results. So-called ballot stuffing would be considered election fraud, rather than voter fraud, because it would be orchestrated by someone involved in administering the election or someone who has gained access to the election administration system. Experts say federal elections would be much more difficult to influence this way because of the broad, decentralized nature of the nation’s voting systems. There are more than 9,000 election jurisdictions and hundreds of thousands of polling places. That also holds true for any effort by hackers to influence this year’s presidential election. Experts say it’s unlikely a hacker could change votes, but one might be able to delete voters from registration files, triggering confusion and long lines at the polls.

What measures exist to guard against fraud?

STATE election officials have several measures in place to protect the integrity of their voting systems, and both political

parties have a vested interest in making sure the outcome is fair. Voting machines are not connected to the Internet, and the vast majority of ballots will be cast on systems that allow for a paper record to verify electronic results. The process of counting the votes is not done on systems connected to the Internet and tabulation systems are not connected to a single network, according to the National Association of Secretaries of State. As in past presidential elections, individual campaigns, political parties and special interest and civil-rights groups will have operations designed to assist voters and monitor for any problems at the polls.

Does voter id combat voter fraud?

THER E have been ef for ts in recent years, largely in Republican-led states, to pass laws requir ing voters to show photo identification at the pol ls. Suppor ters say such laws are needed to combat voter fraud, wh i le c r it ics a rg ue t he l aws dispropor tionately affect minor ities and the poor who may f ace c h a l le n ge s obt a i n i n g a gover nment-issued photo ID. Courts have recently agreed. In striking down parts of a voter ID law in North Carolina this year, a federal appeals court judge wrote they “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” The courts have also largely found there is little documented evidence of voter fraud. In a decision finding Texas’s photo ID law was discriminatory, a federal appeals court noted there were two convictions related to in-person voter fraud out of 20 million votes cast in the decade before the law was enacted. Experts note that fraud, when it occurs, usually involves absentee ballots or voter registration— problems that could not be solved by requiring an ID at the polls. AP

MORE bad news: Medicare Part B premiums, which are usually deducted from Social Security payments, are expected to increase next year to the point in which they will probably wipe out the entire Cola. By law, the dollar increase in Medicare’s Part B premium cannot exceed a beneficiary’s cost-of-living raise. That’s known as the “hold harmless” provision, and it protects the majority of Medicare recipients, who have their premiums deducted from their Social Security checks. But another federal law says the Part B premium must raise enough money to cover one-fourth of expected spending on doctors’ services. That means that a minority of beneficiaries, including new enrollees and higher-income people, have to shoulder the full increase. Their premiums would jump.

Lose and lose

MILLICENT Graves, a retired veterinary technician, says Medicare and supplemental insurance premiums eat up nearly a third of her $929 monthly Social Security payment. And don’t tell the 72-year-old from Williamsburg, Virginia, that consumer prices aren’t going up. She says her insurance

premiums went up by $46.50 this year, and her cable TV, Internet and phone bill went up, too. “I just lose and lose and lose and lose,” Graves said.

$1,238 The average monthly Social Security payment in the US

More than 60 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children get Social Security benefits. The Cola also affects benefits for about 4 million disabled veterans, 2.5 million federal retirees and their survivors, and more than 8 million people who get Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—the disability program for the poor. Many people who get SSI also receive Social Security.

Quickly than planned

SINCE 2008, the Cola has been above 2 percent only once, in 2011. It’s been zero three times. “This loss of anticipated retirement income compounds every year, causing people to spend through retirement savings far more quickly than planned,” said Mary Johnson of the Senior Citizens League. “Over the course of a 25-year or 30-year retirement, it reduces anticipated Social Security income by tens of thousands of dollars.” By law, the Cola is based on the Consumer Price Indexs for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education. The Cola is calculated using the average CPI-W for July, August and September. If prices go up, benefits go up. If prices drop or stay flat, benefits stay the same. The numbers for July and August suggest a Cola of just 0.3 percent. AP

Australian casino employee detained in gambling probe

EIJING—The major shareholder in Australia’s largest casino operator voiced concerns on Tuesday after the Chinese government announced that a senior executive and two other Australians had been detained in an investigation of suspected gambling crimes, in an apparent crackdown on overseas tours for high rollers. The head of Crown Resorts Ltd.’s VIP International team, Jason O’Connor, is believed to be one of 18 Crown employees being questioned by Chinese authorities, the company said in a statement on Monday to the Australian Securities Exchange. James Packer, an Australian gaming mogul with a personal fortune estimated by Forbes business magazine at $3.6 billion, said on Tuesday he had sought re g u l a r u p d ate s o n t h e d e te nt i o n s and had asked Crown to do everything possible to contact the employees and to support their families. “As the major shareholder of Crown Resorts, I am deeply concerned for the welfare of those Crown employees detained in China,” Packer said in a statement. “Crown will do whatever it can to support our employees and their families at this difficult time. Our No. 1 priority is to be able to make contact and to ensure they are all safe,” added Packer, who founded the Australian casino operator. Packer said he was respectful that the detentions had occurred outside Australia and were subject to Chinese rules and investigative processes. The Chinese foreign ministry said in a regular briefing on Monday that Australians have been detained in Shanghai for suspected involvement in gambling crimes, but did not provide further details.

Overseas marketing

FAIRFAX Media reported over the weekend that the police took the three Australians, who were visiting China on business, and local Chinese employees based in several Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, away from their homes late Thursday and detained them. O’Connor

was among the Australians.The raids were part of an apparent crackdown on the firm’s operations to lure high-worth Chinese gamblers to its Australian casinos, Fairfax said. Casino gambling is illegal on the mainland and Chinese law prohibits agents from organizing groups of more than 10 Chinese citizens to gamble abroad. The crime is punishable by up to three years’imprisonment. The industry has been known to skirt the ban by touting destination packages. Casino operators have sought to lure Chinese high-rollers who have avoided Macau since President Xi Jinping’s ongoing corruption crackdown deters visits to the offshore enclave that is the only place in China where casinos are legal. In 2015 the police arrested 13 South Korean casino managers and 34 Chinese agents for selling packages with free tours, free hotels and sexual services. Crown declined to say why O’Connor was in China. Crown has said in recent financial disclosures its “International VIP” business segment has surged in recent years thanks to ramped up overseas marketing. It was not clear whether any of the staff had been charged.

Usual occurrence

AUSTRALIA’S Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had been notified on Monday by China of the detentions and said consular officials were arranging visits. The department said the Australians had legal representation. Crown said it was supporting the Chinese and Australian families of the detained employees. Headquartered in Melbourne, Crown has gambling interests in Australia, Macau, Manila, Philippines; and London. Crown shares fell 14 percent to close on Monday at A$11.15 ($8.47), the biggest single-day decline in the company’s history. Grant Gover tsen, a Macau-based analyst at Union Gaming, a gamblingfocused investment bank and advisory firm, said such crackdowns are common in China. AP

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Electronics top exports in August By Kathleen Joyce D. Bondoc

Exports of other mineral products also grew with total sales of $120.16 million. Meanwhile, exports to East Asia, such as Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, grew by 22.4 percent 2.2 percent and 19.72 percent, respectively. According to the PSA, a large portion of the country’s merchandise went to countries in East Asia, accounting for 52.2-percent share of the total exports valued at $2.560 billion, which reflected a 2.5-percent increase from $2.497 billion of August 2015. Exports to some parts of Europe also grew, with France and Switzerland, reflecting double-digit growth rates, 78.08 percent and 68.55 percent, respectively. “Our traditional markets are there, such as Japan and the US, which are our top export destinations. But we are urging and encouraging exporters to maximize our free-trade agreements [FTAs] with other countries,” Perlada said. The DTI official noted the Philippines, as part of the Asean, has existing FTAs with other Asian countries, such as Japan, China and Korea and Australia and New Zealand, and India. Filipino entrepreneurs, especially exporters, can maximize the benefits they can avail themselves of via

Office of the Undersecretary for Industry Promotion Group, Department of Trade and Industry

LECTRONIC products remained the country’s top exports as the sector grew by 11.6 percent, from $2.359 billion in August 2015 to $2.633 billion, accounting for 53.7 percent of the total export revenues in August 2016, the most recent export report issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

Among the products in this sector, semiconductors continued to have the biggest share w it h 39 percent, post ing a n increase of 11.2 percent, from $1.719 billion in August 2015 to $1.912 billion in August 2016. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) noted electronic products are among the identified key Philippine exports under the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) 2015-2017, along with processed food and beverage, coconut oil, motor-

veh ic le pa r ts, a nd computer and information services, such as the information-technology and business-process management (IT-BPM). “As part of our strategy in the PEDP, we will continue to provide comprehensive support services to our key and emerging export sectors while we continue to strengthen our market presence and seek new trading partners,” DTI Export Marketing Bureau Director Senen M. Perlada said.

FTAs with these countries. Support services and assistance are all available with the DTI’s EMB. The DTI also plans to increase its presence abroad by opening up new trade posts in strategic cities. Recently, it opened its first Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Mexico and expects to open another center in Toronto, Canada, before the end of 2016. The DTI also plans to expand Philippine markets abroad and hire more trade representatives in order to seek new markets, strengthen the country’s economic presence abroad and further assist Philippine micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The PSA reported that for August 2016, total Philippine exports amounted to $4.904 billion, from $5.128 billion in the same month last year. The overall decline was brought by seven major commodities out of the top 10 export commodities for the month, which include machinery and transport equipment (-52.5 percent); met a l component s (-25.9 percent); chemicals (-16.2 percent); articles of apparel and clothing accessories (-11.3 percent); other manufactures (-9.3 percent); woodcrafts and furniture (-8.8 percent); and coconut oil (-6.9 percent).

Trade chief: Tourism helps MSMEs grow

ASAY CITY—Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez expressed strong support for the development of the Philippine tourism industry during the 42nd Philippine Business Conference and Expo on October 13. “We would like to push for tourism because it is an industry that has a great multiplier effect. It promotes micro, small and medium enterprises [MSMEs],” he said, citing the industry is a sector that can differentiate the Philippines from the rest of the world. A priority industry of the administration of President Duterte, the tourism sector is largely integrated to many livelihood sources, Lopez said, one of the plenary panelists, speaking before members of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI). “Tourists, from the time they take off and arrive in a destination, deal with logistics, resort, hotel and restaurant servers, food vendors, agri-based producers of many products within the area and makers of gifts and souvenirs, who are mostly from the MSME sector,” Lopez said. The trade chief shared the socalled convergence approach to uplift the lives of depressed economies in the countryside with promising agricultural and tourism potentials, aligned with the President’s socioeconomic agenda. In the convergence approach to boost the agricultural industry, the Department of Agriculture provides assistance for agro-production, the Department of Science and Technology for the integration of sciences in the operation and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for equipment provision, packaging and marketing of products. The DTI also continues to push initiatives that will foster a business environment suited for the development of innovative and globally competitive industries that sustainably generate more decent jobs. PCCI submitted to President Duterte a resolution requesting the national government to increase DTI’s budget so that it can fully and effectively perform its mandate to promote Philippine trade and to generate investments, thus creating more jobs for Filipinos. Another PCCI-adopted resolution urges the legislative department to provide flexibility to the Small Business Corp. on its policies and to allow the use of government funds for MSME lending.

MSMEs AS TRENDSETTERS OF PHL ECONOMY Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez is seen encouraging the government and

private sectors during the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Council (MSMEDC) Planning Workshop to have a vision of getting Filipino entrepreneurs become trendsetters or create a dynamic set of enterprises for the Philippine economy. The MSMEDC Planning Workshop aims to seek the council’s directions for the preparation of the MSME Development Plan 2017-2022 pursuant to Section 6 of Republic Act 9501, also known as the Magna Carta for MSMEs.

upcoming events Compiled by Louise Kaye G. Mendoza DTI-EMB Knowledge Processing Division

OCT 15-20

Time: 1-3 p.m. Event: Outbound Business Mission for Animation Sector

Marché International des Programmes de Communication (MIPCOM) International Market of Communications Programmes Attended by: Assistant Director Anthony Rivera Venue: Cannes, France

OCT 17-21

Event: National Export Profiling Program: Supply Capability Audit of Exporters from Iloilo

OCT 20-22

Event: Manila FAME Venue: World Trade Center Manila

OCT 25

Time: 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Event: Doing Business in New Zealand Seminar Venue: DTI International Building, 375 Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City

OCT 25

Time: 6-9 p.m. Event: QBO Open House Venue: QBO Innovation Hub, Ground Floor, DTI International Building, 375 Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City

Sydney Harbor Tall Ships to open call center in PHL

YDNEY, Australia—The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) welcomes Australia’s Sydney Harbor (SH) Tall Ships, a company operating cruises and private charters in Sydney Harbor as it opens its call center in the Philippines. During a meeting with DTI’s Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Sydney (PTIC-Sydney), Philippine Commercial Consul Kenneth Yap noted SH Tall Ships’s owners cited the talent in the Philippines as one of the main reasons for choosing to locate in the Philippines. “Filipinos share the same language and outlook as Australians,” said Marty Woods, owner of the SH Tall Ships. The Philippine operation is intended to support their business, offering day trips in Sydney Harbor and exclusive charters, specifically in handling customer queries, bookings and accounting. The Philippine office will be based in Pampanga and will be registered for incentives with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Yap said.

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Wednesday, October 19, 2016 A9

PHL halal-certified producers bet on global market potential GLENN G. PEÑARANDA

Asean Lead, Foreign Trade Service Corps Department of Trade and Industry

MARKET DEVELOPMENT UPDATES

O meet the rising demand from the country and abroad, a fast-growing number of Philippine companies seek the halal certification of their products from local certifying bodies recognized internationally. Halal means the product does not contain any derivatives not permitted by Shari’ah law. The accreditation confirms that the stringent halal-certification requirements are fulfilled. Philippine halal suppliers offer products under these food segments: Cereal, carrageenan and other food additives, beverage, bakery, grain, chemical, confectionary, beauty and cosmetic, egg, edible fungus, flour and starch, food supplement, gelatin, ice cream and dairy, ink and packaging material, noodle and pasta, nut, oil and coconut by-product, poultry, meat and meat shop, processed fruit, meat, vegetable and seafood, fresh and frozen food, sauce and condiment, candy, sugar product and sweetener, soya, syrup, toll packer and toll manufacturer, snack, processing aid, biscuit, pickled seaweed and drinking-water treatment. Among the companies with halal-certified products include Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative Rice Mill Complex, Del Monte Philippines, Universal Robina Corp., Zest-O Corp., Splash Corp., Max Bakeshop, Goldilocks, San Miguel Mills, Pampanga’s Best, Mekeni Food, Dole Philippines, Universal Canning and Chef Tony’s Snack Foods. Food Ingredients Global said Muslims will comprise 26.4 percent of the world’s total projected population of 8.3 billion by 2030. More than half of this global population lives in South Asia and Asia Pacific. The number of Muslims from these regions are expected to reach 1.3 billion by 2030. The demand for halal products has now reached about $200 billion worldwide. Data from International Trade Centre said the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations showed the youthful population of the Muslim world, with 60 percent under age 30. This indicates demand for halal products and services is likely to continue its upward growth curve and become an increasingly influential market over the next decade. The Philippines is making its bid to join this lucrative market by aligning its halal-accreditation systems and institutions. A Halal Board was recently established under the Philippines Halal Export Development and Promotion Act of 2016, which would be developing a comprehensive set of strategies on halal certification. Halal certification most often also goes hand in hand with food safety. Consumers perceive halal food to be safer because it follows more rigorous quality standards and during these times where scandals involving authenticity and contamination are rife, food safety and traceability have become a basic expectation. Requirement for nonfood products and services is expected to intensify as the Muslim population increases. Other categories produced by Philippine companies are pharmaceuticals and health care, logistics services and personal care. T h rou g h t he D e p a r t me nt

of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) foreign posts—the Philippine Trade and Investment Centers (PTIC), particularly in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangkok and Dubai—the government regularly engages in key halal-themed international conferences, trade fairs and business missions to promote the country’s halal export products and its strength of becoming a large halal supplier. The PTICs, together with the DTI’s Export Marketing Bureau and the PTIC, with their deep understanding of the regional and global markets, also provide trade and market intelligence to exporters, link them to supply chains, and connect the enterprises to new marketplaces. To raise halal export opportunities in Asean for Philippine producers, the PTICs, with the Philippines’s Asean partner-countries, collaborate with Islamic authorities and encourage joint-venture investments in halal food and personal-care products and trading in the region. Halal-certified food, products and services used to be scarce in the Philippines, where food was influenced by Chinese and American cultures. Halal may likewise be mysterious to most Filipinos, the country being predominantly Catholic but now is home to a number of ha la l-compliant kitchens and restaurants, offering Muslim Filipinos a choice of offerings and convenience. Examples are Husseins Kebab, Jerusalem Restaurant, Kashmir Indian Cuisine, Makati ShangriLa Hotel, Paradise Garden Hotel Boracay, Resorts World Manila, Swagat Indian Restaurant, The Halal Guys in SM Megamall and The Heritage Hotel. Over the years, the country has slowly beefed up facilities needed by Muslim travelers as well. Fairmont Makati Hotel, Raffles Makati Hotel and Boracay Island have Qurans, mosques, prayer spaces, and Arabic-language TV channels. Manila’s airport Terminals 1 and 3 have Muslim prayer rooms and foot washes. Earlier this year, the Department of Tourism-Halal Tourism Project certified more establishments in Manila, Boracay, Cebu, Davao and other cities in Mindanao. These include the Southern Philippines Medical Center, the first and only hospital in the countr y with a halalcertified kitchen; Pearl Farm Resort, Samal; Marco Polo Hotel, Davao; Park Inn-R adisson; Astoria Regency, Zamboanga; Grand Astoria Hotel, Zamboanga, among others. Local and foreign investors are invited to participate in the Zamboanga City Special Ecozone 100-hectare property project designed exclusively for halal processing and manufacturing. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 8, 2016. While the Philippines is not yet considered a major player in the halal market, its tropical climate and abundant natural resources make it a viable place to become a regional center for halal food.

A10 Wednesday, October 19, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

China’s bad credit

here is good news when it comes to China’s scary and stillgrowing pile of debt: At least the government recognizes the problem. Its attempts to mitigate those risks, however, seem doomed to fall short. The government’s recent decision to create a market for credit default swaps (CDS) is a case in point. The idea, as elsewhere, is to give banks and investors a means of pricing and trading the risk of Chinese companies defaulting on their debts. The need is obvious: Official measures of nonperforming loans are worsening, while unofficial estimates say their share may have reached anywhere from 8 percent to 20 percent. Anything that spreads that risk should improve financial stability. Yet, as envisioned, this new CDS market is unlikely to do much to improve the situation. For one thing, all but the largest companies already have to purchase credit insurance when taking out loans from giant state banks. There’s no pricing differential on this insurance, of course. But for the new system to function effectively, the government would have to let markets freely set the price of credit risk. China doesn’t exactly have a stellar record of allowing markets to set prices in any field, whether in stocks, real estate or currencies. If credit default swaps started to indicate a rising risk of default at a major state-owned company, it’s hard to imagine officials wouldn’t intervene to reverse that impression. This is dangerous on multiple levels. Already, several Chinese credit-insurance firms have collapsed because they underestimated credit risk, forcing government bailouts. Continuing to underprice risk will only encourage the overallocation of credit that’s gotten China into trouble thus far. There’s also little reason to think that creating a CDS market would shift risk away from the most vulnerable banks. In a heavily concentrated banking and lending market such as China, where major financial institutions all trade with each other, swaps are likely to produce no net change to risk levels. Think of a simple example. Assume that Bank A has loans totaling 100 billion yuan but wants to protect itself against the risk of default by buying a CDS from Bank B that covers these companies. Now, assume that Bank B does the same to cover its 100 billion yuan of loans, with A as the counterparty. If we assume these are similar baskets of loans—a reasonable assumption for major banks within a single country—then there’s been no net change in credit risk for either bank. All they’ve done is swap credit risk, convinced that, as outsiders, they can assess the health of loans better than the loan officers involved. Finally, unless major outside investors enter the market to relieve the burden on China’s banks, risks will remain concentrated. The likelihood of such an influx is slim; foreign investors are the ones most concerned about the explosion in Chinese credit. Even the Bank for International Settlements and International Monetary Fund, neither of which can be described as antiChina scaremongers, have raised major concerns about the blistering pace of credit growth. Given outsiders’ inability to invest at truly market-dictated prices—or to repatriate earnings at will or, at least, in sufficient quantity to fundamentally alter their risk calculations—there’s little reason to believe they’re going to assume the liability for China’s credit bubble. If China wants to avoid symbolic gestures, there are better ways to address credit worries. Despite the unveiling of its much anticipated debt for equity program last week, neither banks nor firms seem anxious to participate. As one banker noted, “If you’re a good company, you wouldn’t want to give banks any of your shares. And if you’re a bad company, we wouldn’t want any of your shares.” Shifting risks between the same group of banks and related financial institutions isn’t going to solve this problem. Banking regulators need to press actual deleveraging and what are expected to be significant recapitalizations. China should also introduce stricter rules on financial transparency, to produce higher-quality information for listed firms. Even though official data for major banks indicates nonperforming loans are only about 1.5 percent of the total, bank stocks are being priced as if all their equity will be required to cover loan losses. Since investors have no faith in the data, they latch onto worst-case scenarios, which itself creates greater risk. Bloomberg Editorial

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Can an employer be compelled to pay contributions for his 65-year-old employee? Susie G. Bugante

All About Social Security

onaldo Torres (not his real name) had been employed with a chemical company for seven years when he turned 65 years old in February 2015. Because of Torres’s age, the company stopped deducting and remitting his contributions to the Social Security System (SSS). While Torres had a date of coverage of November 1983, he only had 116 monthly contributions to his account at that time. In order to qualify to a retirement pension from the SSS, he should have contributed at least 120 monthly contributions. The issue at hand is whether an employer should automatically stop deducting and remitting the social security (SS) and employees’ compensation (EC) contributions for an employee who has reached the mandatory age of retirement of 65 while still employed. An employer cannot be compelled to pay the SSS contributions

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on the contrary

T. Anthony C. Cabangon Jun B. Vallecera

The mandatory retirement age is 65 and, with it, the legal obligation of the employer to pay SSS contributions of the member ends. At this age, the employer has every right, in fact, to sever the employment of a worker. This is so because continuous employment would mean not only SSS contributions, but also EC, Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and Pag-IBIG contributions, among other benefits that an employee is entitled to and the employer is obliged to give.

Moreover, at age 65, the SSS is mandated to pay the member his or her retirement benefit regardless of whether he is still employed. If the member does not have the required 120 months contributions, his retirement benefit can be paid out in lump sum. However, if the member wishes to avail himself or herself of a pension benefit, then he must pay the remaining required contributions on his own. Thus, in the case of Torres, he can opt to continue paying his contributions for four more months in order to qualify to a retirement pension from the SSS or he can seek his employer’s benevolence to continue paying on his behalf.

For more details on SSS programs, members can drop by the nearest SSS branch, visit the SSS web site (www.sss.gov.ph), or contact the SSS call center at 920-6446 to 55, which accepts calls from 7 a.m. on Monday all the way to 7 a.m. on Saturday. Susie G. Bugante is the vice president for public affairs and special events of the SSS. Send comments about this column to susiebugante.bmirror@gmail.com.

What’s right and wrong about ‘transpo modernization’

✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Publisher

of its employee who has reached the technical retirement age of 65. However, it may voluntarily do so as part of a mutual agreement or as a form of benefit or special concession for the employee, especially considering that the employee only has a few months to go before reaching the required 120 months contribution to be eligible to a retirement pension.

An employer cannot be compelled to pay the SSS contributions of its employee who has reached the technical retirement age of 65. However, it may voluntarily do so as part of a mutual agreement or as a form of benefit or special concession for the employee, especially considering that the employee only has a few months to go before reaching the required 120 months contribution to be eligible to a retirement pension.

here will always be pros and cons to any issue, like the government’s transport-modernization program, aimed mainly at jeepneys, buses, school buses and others, but allow me to focus on the jeepneys. Defining ‘modernization.’ The government is right to “modernize” the jeepneys, if it follows its own definition that a “modern transport” is “roadworthy, safe, reliable” and, above all, “prevents pollution” or has “emissions within acceptable standards.” This definition is extended by Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Resolution 2013, dated January 11, 2013, to mean a “strict 15-year age limit on public-utility vehicles, from the date of manufacture of the vehicle instead of the date of initial registration with the Land Transportation Office [LTO].” Vehicle dealers and manufacturers, along with the vehicle financiers, will rejoice at this new replacement market that could mean massive spurts in business, which is good for the industry. For the jeepney sector, however, this definition is highly flawed being n

a non sequitor, which means “it does not necessarily follow” that buying a new diesel vehicle or engine will result in cleaner emissions. While most jeepney groups just oppose a phaseout, the newly formed National Jeepney Federation for Environmental Sustainable Transport (NJFEST), headed by Ronald Baroidan, also opposes a phaseout, but seriously wants to comply with the Clean Air Act (CAA) and even names itself after the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) own program on National Environmental Sustainable Transport (NEST). While the debate goes on over the definition of “transpo modernization,” NJFEST grabs this chance as its “defining moment” to make its stand on why the government’s definition is also partly wrong. n Always a culprit, but not the cause. After 17 years now of the CAA, the antismoke-belching campaign has been limited to road

While most jeepney groups just oppose a phaseout, the newly formed National Jeepney Federation for Environmental Sustainable Transport also opposes a phaseout, but seriously wants to comply with the Clean Air Act and even names itself after the Department of Transportation’s own program on National Environmental Sustainable Transport.

apprehension, often implemented with apprehension owing to the reported corruption that is systematized and popularized with the rampant “nonappearance” emission clearance certificates. Forced to earn a living with his “boundary” obligation to his operator, and not knowing how to reduce emissions, a driver goes on driving only to be caught again for smokebelching, thus, his only remedial solution is to bribe his way. But no amount of penalties nor frequency of arrests will reduce his emissions, changing his vehicle or engine as defined by transpo modernization will add more burden on the driver as he shoulders mainly the amortizations, on top of his current “boundary” obligation of about P600 a day. Unfortunately, no one is telling him the right way, he just bears the burden after burden and is blamed

as the usual culprit, although he simply just drives and has nothing to do with the emissions. Under Section 46 of the CAA, penalties slapped must be accompanied with education on reducing emissions. Section 11 also mandates that, along with stricter emission standards, the government must make available all the information on pollution-control techniques, best practices on maintenance, technologies, etc., to allow motorists to make more intelligent choices that match their needs. After all, pollution is caused by many factors, like poor engine design, poor lubrication, poor air-fuel ratio and poor fuel quality, etc. n Few will know, fuel is ‘it’. As to fuel, there is increasing evidence poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the chemical compounds heavily present in light cycle oil (LCO), which is currently blended with diesel, is reportedly the main culprit behind emissions. LCOs or heavy cycle oils, on the other hand, are the waste by-products from refining crude oil into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc. Instead of storing them, which is costly, refiners worldwide find it more convenient to pass on this problem to consumers by mixing them with diesel to a maximum blend of 11 percent of total diesel weight. For so long, few will understand this fact in the fuel we consume. But with the information explosion See “Alunan,” A11

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

The king is dead

Insurers as administrators of Pera

BusinessMirror

Atty. Dennis B. Funa

Teddy Locsin Jr.

INSURANCE FORUM

Free fire Continued from A1

ircumstances change; this or that innovation is introduced, others become obsolete. The living die; children are born every day—each within the tiny circle of family, friends and narrow interest; each a captive of a very small world. They are perforce under necessity to be guided in their actions and their choices, not by a God so far above nor a Spirit too serene to care, but by men and women just like them—but who, in their persons, are embodied and, in their memories, are conserved the wisdom of their race by the unrelenting practice of baffling and vivid ceremonies that fill every hour of every day; every moment of sleep and waking—the unsleeping guardians of their race. Perhaps, someone out of the blue, a scholar, a general, a historian, a political analyst, might propound a seemingly wiser solution. But every solution creates a problem, which the finitude of an individual will not anticipate—but which for a king is mere remembering. For him it is the recollection of a time when the same problem was solved with the same or similar good or bad consequence. Democracy is the present choosing with the knowledge of only yesterday’s news, in the confusion of everyday problems that always seem new, yet are the same. Monarchy is rule by historic selection in the controlled conditions of a thousand-year tradition. And while democracy is rule by random election at best, involving a flicker of a voter’s attention, monarchy is the long-drawn consideration by a king, mulling the fate of his kingdom across centuries of the past, with a view to a future of equally long and dangerous duration. The king whose name I cannot pronounce with the royal precision it deserves—the man who never

Alunan. . .

continued from A10

ushered in by the Internet and the surge in environmentalism, oil companies can no longer proverbially “sweep their dirt under the rug.” Oil companies may say this is “a sweeping statement or accusation,” but the facts are all over the Internet, and that PAHs or LCOs are considered “unwanted oils”. n What’s behind, comes out behind? A study done by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland shows almost a direct correlation of the effects of PAHs or LCOs on emissions. By reducing PAH content in diesel by 80 percent from 5-percent weight content to only 1 percent, PAH-related emissions also dropped massively by a range to as much as 80 percent. Sweden A-1 diesel is now down to a PAH-content of 0.02 percent with Finland at 0.2 percent owing to a tax incentive to refiners, but average PAH content in diesel in Europe is still about 4.5 percent, with a few still high at 10 percent. Bringing it down to 6 percent costs the industry in Europe about €312 million, and will increase costs for every drop in PAH content to as high €2.249 billion at 1-percent content. In short, what we do not see how diesel is produced behind the scenes, somehow comes out now from behind from the tailpipe emissions. But science now tells us that when a vehicle farts from behind, these can still be measured, even if many toxic fumes, like carbon monoxide, are odorless and invisible. n Tax from polluters’ pay principle. For Finance Secretary Carlos D. Domingez III, perhaps, it is easier to justify his planned “carbon tax” on the polluters’ pay principle, rather

In a long era of war and war and more war, between and among four raging elephants in his vicinity—Russia, America, China and India—and three trapped tigers right next door—Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—this king steered his kingdom through a jungle of flashing claws and rampaging behemoths, in perfect safety and with a steadily improving progress that has made it, not just statistically, but in human terms, the richest nation in this part of the world. smiled, yet ruled a race that always smiles; the man is dead. In a long era of war and war and more war, between and among four raging elephants in his vicinity— Russia, America, China and India— and three trapped tigers right next door—Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—this king steered his kingdom through a jungle of flashing claws and rampaging behemoths, in perfect safety and with a steadily improving progress that has made it, not just statistically, but in human terms, the richest nation in this part of the world. That king is dead, God save the King. This is personal. We saw this man as children; our fathers knew him from a distance that felt as close as their skin; and before Southeast Asia lost the shield of America’s Free World wars, he was there to illumine the shadow of implicit submission to the necessity of a stern alliance—but with the royal dignity of a free and careful choice. Keep well. than insist on a massive add-on excise tax on oil, now that prices are prone to increase with peso devaluation. Another revenue-generating tax is a congestion tax on vehicles, which is captured through higher parking fees solely on private cars, thus reducing the volume of vehicles on the road. This will help solve traffic and reverse the trend toward the increasing share of vehicles out of total air pollution in Metro Manila from 70 percent over two to three decades ago to 88 percent and, finally, to 92 percent as of 2015. This is due to increasing volume of vehicles and the transfer of factories to the countryside. Both tax-reform ideas are worth deliberating in separate discussions. Another issue worth reviewing is the Special Vehicle Pollution Control Fund, which is a mere 7.5 percent of the road users’ tax, but remains untapped and has accumulated to about P8.5 billion. This must be used to fund many unimplemented provisions of the law, like Section 15 on Air Pollution Research, so as academic organizations, like Researchers for Clean Air, led by Mylene Cayetano, PhD, and others, need not spend their own personal money to fund research, and many more. Even without enough budget, EMB-NCR Director Minda Osorio, who has lumad Manobo roots from Mindanao, was decisive enough to approve instantly at first meeting NJFEST’s clean-air program, called Jeepney Environment & Energy Efficiency Program, that will also involve academe. Taking from President Duterte and Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez’s decisiveness, Osorio noted that “an action plan becomes more effective, if we can act soon.” E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com

epublic Act 9505, otherwise known as the Personal Equity and Retirement Account (Pera) Act of 2008, was enacted to create a provident personal savings and retirement plan to facilitate less reliance on, or to supplement, social pension benefits (Government Service Insurance System or Social Security System). It is the Philippine version of the United States’s 401 (k) retirement plan. With an increasing number of retirees, the project is attractive. It also seeks to contribute to capital-market development. Pera “refers to the voluntary retirement account established by and for the exclusive use and benefit of the contributor for the purpose of being invested solely in Pera investment products in the Philippines. The contributor shall retain the ownership, whether legal or beneficial, of funds placed therein, including earnings of such funds. Distribution shall be optional at the age of 55 years (presumed to be the retirement age), provided that contributions have been made for at least five years; otherwise, it shall be distributed upon the death of the contributor.

Among those that may qualify as administrators are insurance companies and insurance brokers. Insurance companies and brokers, as administrators, will have to be pre-qualified by the Insurance Commission (IC), and then accredited by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). The other administrators may be banks and trust entities, in which case they shall be prequalified by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Investment companies, investment houses and stock brokers may also be administrators, in which case they shall be prequalified by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The BSP issued Circular 860, dated November 28, 2014, re: Guidelines on the Qualification/ Accreditation Requirements of Pera Market Participants and Pera Investment Products. The BIR issued Revenue Regulation 17-2011, dated October 27, 2011, re: Implementing the Tax Provisions of Republic Act 9505, otherwise known as the Personal Equity and Retirement Account Act of 2008. But this has remained inoperative until the issuance of Revenue Memorandum Order 42-2016, dated July 21, 2016, re: Prescribing the Guidelines and Procedures in the Implementation of Republic Act 9505. The IC, for its part, issued CL 2013-23, dated September 4, 2013, re: Guidelines for the Approval of Personal Equity Retirement Account Investment Products. The accredited administrator oversees the Pera and maintains the records of the individual Pera. As such, it shall report on contributions

made to the account; compute the values of investments; educate the contributors; enforce Pera contributions and withdrawal limits; collect taxes and penalties for the government; secure BIR income-tax credit certificates for the contributor; and, most important, ensure that Pera contributions are invested according to the guidelines of the IC. The insurer-administrators are responsible for producing Pera investment products, which must first be approved by the IC before they are granted tax-exempt privileges by the BIR. The products may be in the form of “unit investment trust fund, mutual fund, annuity contract, insurance pension products, preneed pension plan, shares of stock and other securities listed and traded in a local exchange, exchange-traded bonds or any other investment product”. All risks relating to the product must be disclosed in a general risk disclosure statement. Every investment product must also be classified by the administrator according to investor-risk profile. The accreditation requirements for administrators are enumerated under Rule 4 of the Pera Rules. Among the requirements is a minimum net worth of P100 million. The investment manager, on the other hand, is authorized by the contributor to make investment decisions. He is bound by fiduciary duties and confidentiality over the Pera funds. An administrator may concurrently perform the functions of an investment manager only if it has a trust license. The investment manager shall be accredited by the IC and authorized by the contributor

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through a written investment-management agreement. Contributions are voluntary, and contributors are only required to have the capacity to contract and must possess a tax-identification number. A person above the age of 55 may still open a Pera. A contributor may have a maximum of five accounts, and he must only have one administrator. He can make the investment decision himself or through a designated investment manager. The maximum annual aggregate Pera contribution entitled to the 5-percent tax credit is P100,000. Any contribution beyond the maximum limit shall not be entitled to the 5-percent tax credit. The contributor shall have a tax credit equivalent to 5 percent of the total Pera contribution. The maximum amount may be adjusted by the secretary of finance. An employer may contribute to the employee’s Pera, if he so desires, and it shall be deductible from the employer’s gross income but it shall be entitled to the 5-percent tax credit. The 5-percent tax credit shall be credit only against their income-tax liabilities. The custodians of the funds invested by the contributors are required to be independent, and must be a separate and distinct entity from the administrator. They are required to be accredited by the BSP. The funds shall be considered as separate from the other assets of the custodian for purposes of insolvency. The custodian must make regular reports both to the contributor and to the IC. Pera custodians may be cash custodians or securities custodians. The cash custodian shall maintain custody of all funds in connection with the Pera, while the securities custodian shall maintain custody of all securities, evidence of deposits or other evidence of investment. An entity may act as cash and securities custodian and, at the same time, provided such entity is accredited by the BSP accordingly. Only banks may be accredited as cash custodians, and only banks with trust license may be accredited as securities custodian. An entity may be accredited as an administrator and a custodian, provided that such entity shall be prohibited from acting as both administrator and custodian with respect to the same particular Pera account. As for tax incentives under the Pera Act, all income earned from the investments and reinvestment of the maximum amount shall be tax exempt. Distributions upon retirement or death shall also be tax exempt. For

Why populists lose elections By Pankaj Mishra Bloomberg View

n a democracy, the “people” are the supreme arbiters, and their wisdom speaks through the electoral process. Such is the assumption on which the modern world has been built since God and monarchs began to fade from the scene. Lately, however, the wisdom of the people has felt a bit off-key. In one country after another, from the Philippines to the US, Hungary to India, the people have chosen to boost demagogues, not to mention serial gropers. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s faith in extrajudicial murder may have actually helped boost his approval ratings to nearly 90 percent. The brazen homophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party hasn’t dented its popularity in the slightest. In recent weeks, xenophobic sentiments have been amplified in Britain, the world’s oldest democracy, by a government borrowing from the playbook of the far-right UK Independence Party. It’s not surprising that most mainstream journalists neither anticipated nor can satisfactorily explain the startlingly worldwide rise in demagoguery—a kind of extreme democracy

that threatens to derail economic globalization and radicalize political life. Their worldview was shaped by the dominant ideology of the post-Cold War era: progress through technocratic capitalism and liberal-democratic trustees. As the Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau wrote last month, “many pundits, myself included, had their formative years from the 1980s onward.” The Soviet empire had imploded, discrediting not only communism but also a broad range of social-democratic ideals. In the 1990s major politicians of the center-left (Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder), as well as the conservative right, took to advocating greater deregulation and privatization. Their consensus found a responsive echo in the media. The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics, a short book by John B. Judis, shows why journalists who have a sense of history, and its irony, need not be bewildered by the astonishing revolt against globalized elites in our time. Judis’s ambit is broad: It includes Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece and the People’s Party in Denmark, as well as Trumpism in America. But he defines his subject precisely. Populists, for instance, should not be confused with authoritarians and despots; they embrace the “demo-

cratic competition for power,” instead of subverting it. Furthermore, populism “is not an ideology” but a political and moral rhetoric that pits ordinary people (noble victims) against elites (treacherously self-serving). Such a definition allows Judis to trace a genealogy of populism, from the American People’s Party of 1892 (which brought the term into circulation) to Marine Le Pen’s National Front of 2016. It allows him to make careful distinctions between left and right versions of populism, to distinguish between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. “Left-wing populists,” he writes, “champion the people against an elite or an establishment. Theirs is a vertical politics of the bottom and middle arrayed against the top.” On the other hand, “right-wing populists champion the people against an elite that they accuse of coddling a third group, which can consist, for instance, of immigrants, Islamists, or AfricanAmerican militants.” Populists of both kinds tend to enjoy limited success, and often fail to cross the electoral threshold. For one thing, their definition of the people is too vague: Trump’s, for instance, includes both Ivy League students burdened with debt and blue-collar workers suffering from extensive deindustrialization. Such a people, united

estate planning, beneficiaries of the Pera will be exempt from estate tax. Premature terminations are discouraged and heavy penalties are imposed, except in certain justified cases. As the penalty should not be lower than the tax incentives enjoyed by the contributor, the withdrawal penalties shall be: a) the 5-percent tax credit availed by the contributor for the entire period of the Pera; b) withholding tax on compensation/final withholding tax on fringe benefits due on the qualified employer’s contribution; c) income tax due on all income from investment and/or reinvestment; d) the final withholding tax on interest from any currency bank deposit, yield or any other monetary benefit from deposit substitutes and from trust funds and similar arrangements, including a depositary bank under the expanded foreign-currency deposit system; e) the 10-percent final tax on cash and/or property dividends actually or constructively received from a domestic corporation, including a mutual fund company; f) the capital gains tax on the sale, barter, exchange or other disposition of shares of stock in a domestic corporation; g) the stocktransaction tax on the sale, barter or exchange of shares of stock listed and traded through the local stock exchange or through initial public offering; h) the capital gains tax on the sale, exchange, retirement or maturity of binds, debentures; or other certificates of indebtedness; or i) regular income tax. Moreover, as added incentive, no portion of the Pera may be assigned, alienated, pledged, encumbered, attached, garnished, seized or levied upon. Added incentives are given for overseas Filipino workers. The Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Pera Act of 2008 (Pera Rules) was signed and approved on October 21, 2009. Signing for the IC was Commissioner Eduardo T. Malinis. In September 2016, BDO Unibank, through its Trust and Investment Group, became the first institution to be accredited as an administrator under the Pera Act. According to Ador Abrogena, BDO executive vice president and trust officer: “Implementing Pera is complex, as it involves efficient coordination with the various Pera participants, like the cash/ securities custodians, investment product providers and investment managers, as well as providing the required regulatory reports. More important, it involves education and inculcating financial literacy in the Pera contributors.”

by anger and disaffection, can be easy to mobilize but hard to consolidate, especially when populists find themselves making hard political choices. The populists don’t help their own cause by making demands that seem impossible in the present conditions, such as Sanders’s “Medicare for All.” They are better at devising catchy slogans: “One Percent Versus the 99 Percent.” Still, the impracticality of their schemes for taking back control doesn’t lessen the massive influence of populists. They are the symptoms of a crisis, an unmistakable sign that the old consensus has broken down and needs to be replaced with something politically more acceptable. As Judis writes, “Their demands may be coopted by the major parties or they may be thoroughly rejected. But the populists roil the waters.” In the US, he points out, populists from the 1890s to the segregationist George Wallace in the 1960s, “have had an outsized impact.” Certainly, Sanders and Trump have already forced Hillary Clinton out of many of her previously held positions on free trade. The UKIP leader Nigel Farage claimed accurately last week, as the British government stoked anti-foreigner passions, that his party has “changed the center of gravity of British politics.”

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Farm tourism attracts more visitors–Alegre By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@Pulitika2010 Special to the BusinessMirror

ARMS and wellness spas are luring more foreign visitors to the country, even as an increasing number of domestic tourists patronize these new attractions. In a news statement, Tourism Assistant Secretary Frederick M. Alegre said: “Farm tourism is relatively new but once developed, especially with the mandate of the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016, inclusive growth becomes achievable for the benefit of farmers, micro- to small-business entrepreneurs and other community stakeholders.” He added that more communities in the countr yside are learning to appreciate and interact with tourists who visit

their areas. “More important, we continue to deepen our brand of hospitality, giving more essence to the unique Filipino tourism experience,” he said. Alegre, along with travel and tour operators, industry stakeholders and media representatives, attended the launch of the Nurture Farmacy in Tagaytay on October 15. Nurture Farmacy is a natural offshoot of the Nurture Wellness Village, a 15-year-old resort and spa owned by Dr. Mike and Catherine Turvill. The farm is a source

We continue to deepen our brand of hospitality, giving more essence to the unique Filipino tourism experience.”—Alegre

of agricultural produce for the spa’s restaurant and catering services, and provides the raw ingredients for the spa’s natural applications and treatments. Nurture Farmacy is accredited by the Department of Tourism as an ecotourism wellness, heritage and farm destination, which provides a wide array of products, services and activities for its guests, including tours of its Phytotherapy garden, weaving and cooking demonstrations and interactive heritage activities, among others. Data from the DOT show it has accredited 23 farms and 14 spas nationwide. However, “accreditation is still voluntary, as these are secondary establishments,” Alegre stressed. The DOT requires certain standards in accrediting farms and agritourism sites, such as the location in a “generally safe and peaceful location;” knowledgeable farm guides that will accompany tour groups; 24-hour security personnel; safety signages; designated wash areas with clean water, soap and other amenities; and separate clean and well-maintained restrooms, to name a few. Accreditation certificates for such tourist facilities are valid for two years. The DOT also has guidelines in accrediting spas, while the De-

partment of Health accredits spa therapists who have to undergo skills exams every two years. An establishment’s certificate of accreditation is good for one year. Minimum requirements for a spa to be accredited are the location of the spa “in a safe and reputable location with clean, calm and relaxing environment; separate clean and adequate public washrooms for male and female provided with running water and adequate toiletries; separate unlocked public treatment rooms for males and females”; and the provision of spa services, such as Swedish, Shiatsu, reflexology or tui-na, Thai, aromatherapy/ Filipino healing modalities and/or other acceptable massage treatments, among others. Just an hour’s drive from Manila, the Nurture Wellness Village appeals to honeymooners, families, private firms that hold team-building retreats, and young professionals seeking a quick getaway from city life. According to its web site, by taking part in farm tourism, the Nurture Farmacy boosts the spa’s efforts in promoting wellness and mindful living. “Considered as a growing industry in the country, farm tourism allows individuals, families and groups of friends to get closer to nature and learn what the food goes through from farm to table. Hence, it makes way for a memorable bonding activity that helps raise awareness, at the same time,” the company said. At Nurture Farmacy, guests see a wide array of vegetables, fruits and medicinal plants. Throughout the tour, they are given useful information on how these plants are grown, as well as their practical uses and health benefits. “Through this, visitors are made aware of which plants or types of produce are good for certain organs of the body, as well as how they are used to cure ailments. There is also a demo on some traditional practices involving medicinal plants. Visitors are taught about vermiculture and fungiculture, too. They visit Nurture Farmacy’s own compost pits mushroom farm.” Nurture Farmacy participated in the Fourth Farm Tourism Conference and Farm Tourism Festival held from July 14 to16 at the Summit Ridge Hotel in Tagaytay. It was one of the farms the conference participants visited.

DOT seeks to lure more Chinese tourists to PHL

HE Philippines and China are slated to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on tourism cooperation during the visit of President Duterte in Beijing this week. In a news statement, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said it would also escalate its efforts to promote the Philippines as a visitors’ haven in China. Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo arrived in China on Tuesday as part of the official Philippine delegation for the state visit of Mr. Duterte. She said that, while in Beijing, she would be meeting with potential investors and Chinese tour operators. “We’d like them to rediscover the Philippines, the bountiful trade and industrial hub where the Chinese traders came to, long before the Spaniards colonized our islands,” Teo said. The DOT chief will be signing the memorandum of understanding with China on behalf of the Philippines, while the Beijing government will be represented by China National Tourism Administration Chairman Li Jinzao. The MOU- signing ceremony will take place on Thursday, and will be witnessed by President Duterte and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. “China’s invitation to President Duterte for a state visit in Beijing bodes well for Philippine tourism, as the Chinese comprise the third-largest visitor group to the country,” she said. In a recent news briefing, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua said 1 million Chinese tourists would visit the Philippines in 2017 af-

ter Mr. Duterte’s state visit to his country. From January to July this year, a total of 422,801 Chinese tourists visited the Philippines, up 64 percent from the same period last year. Chinese visitor arrivals accounted for 11.95 percent of the 3.5 million total arrivals for the period. China ranked third as the largest group of arrivals, after South Korea and the United States. Chinese arrivals to the Philippines peaked at 490,841 in 2015, at least 24.28 percent higher than the arrivals in 2014. An informal ban on Chinese travel to the Philippines due to past kidnappings of Chinese citizens, as well diplomatic differences over the South China Sea, has destabilized the growth of Chinese tourists in the Philippines. After the ruling on the South China Sea by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on July 12, for instance, thousands of potential Chinese tourists canceled their trips to the Philippines, resulting in millions of pesos in losses for hotels and resorts in Cebu, Bohol and Boracay. But Teo said more organized tours from mainland China are scheduled within the next two months, following the day trip of 2,300 tourists from Guangzhou to Boracay onboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Legend of the Seas. “We are targeting 12 million foreign visitor arrivals in 2022. Hopefully, we would no longer lag far behind our Asian neighbors in terms of tourism,” Teo said. Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

490,841

The number of Chinese tourists who visited the Philippines in 2015, up 24 percent from 2014

SC bides time in deciding on hero’s burial for Marcos By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

HE Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday extended anew the status quo ante order it issued last month that stopped the burial of the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. At a press briefing, SC Spokesman Theodore O. Te said the decision to extend the status quo ante order up to November was reached during Tuesday’s regular en banc session of the justices. Supporters of the Marcoses held a vigil outside the SC on Padre Faura Street in Manila in anticipation of a ruling, since the status quo ante order was supposed to laps on Tuesday. The first order was issued on August 23 and was effective for 20 days, or until September 12. At the conclusion of the oral arguments on September 7, the Court extended the order to October 17. The issue has been submitted for decision, after the Court heard the arguments of the Marcos camp and the petitioners, who were mostly victims of human-rights abuses during the imposition of martial law, last month.

The six petitions were filed by groups of martial-law victims, led by former Partylist Rep. Satur C. Ocampo of Bayan Muna, Liberal Party Rep. Edcel C. Lagman of Albay and former Commission on Human Rights Chairman Loretta Ann P. Rosales; a group led by former Sen. Heherson T. Alvarez; a group of University of the Philippines students; and former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Commission on Human Rights Chairman Algamar A. Latiph. The petitioners argued that the planned burial of the late dictator is “illegal and contrary to law, public policy, morals and justice.” They alleged that allowing the burial of the former leader would violate Republic Acts 289 and 10368, or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act. They also argued that the burial would also violate constitutional provision on state policies. Named respondents are officials of the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces. Former senator and losing vice-presidential candidate Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. took the decision of the magistrates to extend the status quo ante order positively.