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35% of Filipino employees: Trip to office ‘waste of time’

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

A

@lorenzmarasigan

THIRD of Filipino employees found traveling to work a complete waste of time, aside from contributing to stress at work, a study showed. Based on latest research from flexible workspace provider Regus, employees regard their daily trip to and out of the office a drain on productivity.

Wittig: “The vast majority of Filipino workers regard their daily travel to work and back home as a complete drain on their workday productivity.”

Isabela towns recovering from storms Karen, Lawin

Noted as a time in “limbo,” commuting is mainly seen as “neither productive work time nor enjoyable personal time, and is widely regarded as an obstacle to more useful or entertaining pursuits.”

Continued on A2

BSP not worried about peso exchange value versus dollar

A CAMPUS journalist from the School of Saint James the Apostle in Santiago City, Isabela, takes pictures of the towering waves rampaging from the Magat Hydroelectric Dam, source of power and irrigation in Ramon, Isabela. The excessive inflow of water brought about by Typhoon Karen and Supertyphoon Lawin compelled dam administrators to release water that inundated low-lying farms. LEONARDO PERANTE II

By Bianca Cuaresma

By Leonardo Perante II Correspondent

@BcuaresmaBM

I

LAGAN CITY, Isabela— Right after Typhoon Karen (international code name Sarika) devastated Isabela with severe crop damage, another more disastrous typhoon called Lawin (international code name Haima) followed.

The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council of this province, one of the most severely devastated up north by Karen and Lawin, continues to issue updates of damage and situation reports.

As of Friday, the water level of the Magat Dam has reached the critical level of 190.65 meters above sea level, with an inflow of 603 cubic meters per second and outflow of 431 m3/s, with one gate opened.

“The four towns of Isa-

T

HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is not worried about the recent movements of the peso against the US dollar, and expressed optimism for near-term relief for the local currency’s exchange value.

In a recent press briefing, Central Bank Deputy Governor for the Monetary Stability Sector Diwa C. Guinigundo told reporters markets may have somewhat “reconsidered” their negative sentiment toward the country that has caused them to be more risk averse in investing in the Philippines.

“We should not be bothered by the daily gyrations of the exchange rate. The exchange rate is driven by both fundamentals and sentiment. Fundamentals have not changed. It is the sentiment. And the sentiment happened to be negative in the last two weeks,” Guinigundo said.

“On that basis, it looks like the market has reconsidered; the stock market has rebounded very significantly; and the peso has recovered,” he said.

The local currency is still trading within the 48:$1 territory. At the end of this trading week, the peso hit 48.33 to a dollar, losing about 23 centavos of value from Thursday’s trade. The traded volume was at $779.35 million.

“These are market developments bound to change now and then, but the fundamentals have not changed. We continue to have one of the best fundamentals in the region, and that should not be lost among investors,” Guinigundo said.

While the country’s central monetary authority remains hopeful for the local currency’s value, a recent assessment from the private sector says otherwise.

In its monthly economic publication The Market Call, First Metro Investment Corp. and University of Asia and the Pacific said the local currency is seen to depreciate further toward the end of the year.

“We maintain that [the Philippine peso] will continue to be under pressure until the end of the year due to the consistent US economic recovery,” the economic publication said.

This, however, will not be all that bad for the economy, as a weaker peso could boost private consumption due to the effect it gives to cash remittances sent by Filipino migrant workers back home,

bela along the Pacific Coast, like Divilacan, have evacuated 269 families. Maconacon has 400 still at evacuation centers.

Palanan has 186 families, while Dinapigue reported 536 families evacuated,” Isabela Gov. Faustino G. Dy III informed the BusinessMirror.

To sum it up, Southern Isabela, with nine towns, has registered 1,320 families and Northern Isabela, with seven municipalities, has 1,275 families rescued, for a total of 3,986 families, or 11,611 individuals, who needed to leave their homes.

Prepositioned goods for the towns of Maconacon, Divilacan, Palanan, Dinapigue, Benito Soliven, San Agustin, Angadanan, Echague, Santo Tomas, Cabagan, Jones, Santa Maria, San Pablo, Tumauini, San Mariao, Cabatuan, Alicia, Cauyan, Reina Mercedes and Naguilian totaled 12,200 packs.

See “Isabela,” A2

Craft beer ‘revolution’ ready to break out in Angeles City

By Ashley Manabat

Correspondent

A

President Duterte attends a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. China and the Philippines have agreed to resume a dialogue on their dispute over the South China Sea, a senior Chinese diplomat said, following talks between the countries’ leaders.

See “BSP,” A2

PESO exchange rates n US 48.0410

Wu Hong/Pool Photo via AP

NGELES CITY—The Craft Beer Revolution is on, as the Angeles City Craft Beer Festival is set to sizzle at Marquee Mall’s Marquee Park from December 2 to 4.

With full backing from the Central Luzon Department of Tourism (DoT), the craft-beer festival aims to highlight local microbreweries that will showcase their latest beer creations, according to Regional Director Ronnie P. Tiotuico.

Beer lovers will have an opportunity to taste and enjoy a large number of the latest craft beers. But that’s only for starters, because what is beer without food, as a selection of gourmet international and local food provided by celebrity chefs will also be offered, Tiotuico said.

Continued on A2

MICHAEL Schittek, owner of Pinatubo Craft Beer, in his brewery in Angeles City.

See “Peso,” A2

n japan 0.4622 n UK 58.8694 n HK 6.1924 n CHINA 7.1217 n singapore 34.5172 n australia 36.6265 n EU 52.5184 n SAUDI arabia 12.8133

Source: BSP (21 October 2016 )

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, October 23, 2016

Gordon eyes Subic airport inclusion in restoration funding of E-Powers Act

By Butch Fernandez

S

@butchfBM

EN. Richard J. Gordon is proposing inclusion in the emergency powers bill of the funding needed to repair and upgrade the runway and terminal facilities of the Subic International Airport.

Gordon is also calling for the restoration of the full operations of vital equipment, like the radar and instrument landing system (ILS), so it can be used to decongest the four Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) terminals.

Per estimates derived from preliminary findings of the Senate blue-ribbon committee inquiry into the apparent failure by officials at Subic and Clark free ports to maximize what Gordon described as “prime facilities left at the former US bases,” the repairs and restoration at Subic airport will need anywhere from P600 million to P1 billion.

“We have to spend on it; otherwise, it will go to seed like Sangley,” he told the BusinessMirror, referring to the former US naval base in Cavite that was neglected for decades.

Gordon said the blue-ribbon committee was inquiring into the apparent neglect at Subic where he was the first chairman, after the US dismantled its bases when the Senate voted down the treaty

extension of the RP-US Military Bases Agreement in September 1991. He thought it wiser to “fix the problem first” and then look “for who to pin the blame later.”

The immediate concern, Gordon said, is to restore what was once “one of the best airport facilities” in the world, noting the superior runway, the radar and related equipment when the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority harnessed the former US military site for civilian purposes.

He recalled that among the big-ticket investors that first located operations at Subic Airport was global logistics giant FedEx.

Sadly, Gordon said, there was “omission on their [Subic authorities’] part, a dereliction of duty,” in “not fully utilizing this wonderful infrastructure that now belongs to us.”

The Senate Public Services Committee, chaired by Sen. Grace Poe, has conducted hearings on a proposal to arm the Executive department with emergency powers, in order to resolve the traffic crisis.

The long-standing debates over what to do with the four Naia terminals in Metro Manila drew attention once more, as experts pointed to the air-traffic problems at the Naia, as well as the traffic on the ground among tens of thousands of people going to and from the four terminals daily.

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35% of Filipino employees: Trip to office ‘waste of time’ Continued from a1

Of the almost 40,000 Regus survey respondents, 35 percent reported time spent commuting was a pointless, undefined time, while 26 percent positively said they hated their commute and branded it as a “waste” of their precious time.

This meant that for well over half of employees in the Philippines, commute time could be reinvested in more productive work time or in enjoying a few hours more sleep in the morning.

“As commute times continue to get longer and longer, it is devastating to find that the vast majority of Filipino workers regard their daily travel to work and back home as a complete drain on their

work-day productivity and they are equally unable to devote it to personal or leisure activities,” Regus Philippines Country Manager Lars Wittig said.

Traffic congestion in Metro Manila is born out of years of underinvestment and the lack of political will. It is also an offshoot of the increasing number of vehicles on the road, no thanks to the expanding Philippine economy.

“In the Philippines business people are expected to always be available and connected, but in reality, there is a much bigger and subtler drain on their productivity than not having a smartphone on hand, and that is the daily commute,” Wittig said.

Only 14 percent of the respon-

dents view daily commute as profitable work time, while 23 percent regarded it as personal time, perhaps as they are able to read and catch up on the latest news on their smartphone.

“Savvy businesses wanting to restore productivity and reward workers with more personal time or simply with a lie-in every once in a while would do well to allow employees to work closer to home at least some of the time,” Wittig added.

The government and the private sector recently concluded collaboration talks to address the traffic mess through tech-based solutions.

In a document obtained by the BusinessMirror, the information and communications technology (ICT) industry—led by the Department of Information and

Communications Technology and telecommunications giants Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc.—proposed the use of a technology-based traffic-management scheme that will provide synchronized traffic signal-prioritization schemes and real-time alternate-routes information.

Likewise, the industry committed to install “broadband connectivity in major highways, roads and thoroughfares to allow commuters to access e-mail and work while on the road.”

This, according to the document, will promote the culture of telecommuting, which, in simpler terms, is the method by which an employee does a task away from the office.

Craft beer ‘revolution’ ready to break out in Angeles City Local breweries

Continued from a1

And to create a unique ambiance for the festival are performances from live jazz bands and blues music led by top performing instrumentalist Conrad “Titus” del Rosario III, who spent 31 years in Germany in the pursuit of his love—music.

Craft beer

MICHAEL Schittek, a German national from southern Germany who now operates the Pinatubo Craft Beer Brewery in the Friendship area here, said he started brewing handcrafted beer two years ago, when he thought of retiring in the Philippines.

Schittek said he and his wife Mildred and their 10-year-old son were living in Switzerland for 15 years prior to moving here in the city.

“I will retire in the Philippine, but I will continue to make beer,” he said.

“We started with a very small shop [near the VFW restaurant in the Balibago area], but it became too small so we moved here and expanded,” he said.

Schittek, a chemical engineer, said his handcrafted beer is German knowledge but Filipino made.

“We did not import any materials,” he said, including the stainless-steel vats welded and fashioned in nearby Mabalacat City.

He said that, if the beer is Pilsen or Lager, it needs to mature for about four weeks, but ales don’t need much time to ferment and can be bottled immediately after only two days of carbonation.

Isabela…

Continued from a1

Relief operations in those towns are ongoing. Nine bridges in the province remain not passable as of press time, while clearing operations undergo.

Schools were closed due to trees falling on the rooftops. Some parts of the province remain in the dark due to power outages caused by collapsed and disconnected power lines due to offline telecommunications network.

Corn farms, which used to be dehydrated due to the recent dry spell, are now underwater.

“Our province is said to be the Corn Capital of the Philippines, but now our corn and rice farms are severely flooded. We need the help of the national government to recover from these massive agricultural catastrophes,” Dy said.

He said 500 years ago, water was contaminated in Germany that is why Germans drank beer, which has 5-percent alcohol that kills the microorganisms.

“That was how beer started in Germany. Water was not safe to drink; they did not know about boiling water, but knew that when you drink beer, you won’t get sick,” he said.

“The German government realized how important beer was and they put this purity law in place to make sure manufacturers are not spoiling beer, which is mainly made up of water, malt and hops,” he said. “They did not add yeast then because it was unknown.

They did not know until 1860 that yeast will do the job of transforming sugar into alcohol,” he said.

“That is why the German breweries are always close to bakeries because the baker makes the bread with yeast and then the brewer uses the yeast for beer,” he said.

German beer has been brewed in accordance with the purity law for 500 years. German brewers have created a diversity of beers unrivalled in the world.

Today, Germany has over 5,000 different beers.

BSP…

Continued from a1

especially during the holiday season.

“While the peso may further depreciate in the fourth quarter, this would provide an additional stimulus to the economy, as it gives additional purchasing power to overseas Filipino workers, exporters and related industries, and other domestic producers,” the Market Call read.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. earlier said they continue to allow market forces to dictate the movement of the local currency, hence, the recent weakness due to negative sentiment toward the country.

However, the governor has repeatedly said the BSP will remain vigilant and is ready to step in market operations should volatilities become “excessive” in their view.

ROBERT Palad, head brewer of Laughing Carabao Brewery in Tarlac that has been in operation only for the past four months, said what makes their beer different is: “We use local ingredients,” mainly from Tarlac.

“We incorporate local ingredients in our beer. For example, we have two beers for now—the white mango ale, which is derived from Bamban mangoes, and the Iniruban pale ale, from Camiling’s duman rice, roasted, but with sweet flavor,” he said.

Palad said they also try to help uplift the tourism of Tarlac with their handcrafted beers.

“I was an engineer in Japan, so during those days, I learned home brewing and then went on as an intern in a Japanese brewery where I learned about the business of handcrafted beer,” he said.

Cris Paras, sales and marketing head of Nipa Brew in Manila, said some beers are heavy in the belly.

“We treat beer so that with the heat of our climate in the Philippines, you can drink a lot and be comfortable,” he said. “We also incorporated local flavors, like local fruits and spices.”

Nipa Brewery started in 2014 in Metro Manila, he said.

“We do not copy recipes from abroad. We create handcrafted beers for Filipino beer drinkers and their taste preference is our focus,” he said.

The Crazy Carabao Brewing Co. from Santa Rosa, Laguna, was also present.

“This is what the Pinoys want, so we have beers that are traditionally bitter or heavy, but we customize it for the Filipino palate so that you can drink a lot and not feel bloated,” the brewer said.

US organizer

TED Lerner, organizer of the first-ever Angeles City Craft Beer Festival, said they aim to introduce handcrafted beer to people not familiar with craft beer.

“That is why we are bringing to Angeles this revolution that’s basically happening almost everywhere in the world,” he said.

“The idea is to get people to understand that beer doesn’t have to be just one thing. Beer can be made in many different varieties and in better quality with more fun drinking experience,” he said.

Lerner said the festival will bring together 17 different microbreweries from all over the Philippines. They will offer 100 different kinds of handcrafted beer.

“We have limited choices in the Philippines. The idea now is to introduce something better, something different. Handcrafted beer is the way to go,” he said.

Craft-beer breweries are small, independent and use traditional methods: Made by hand with no preservatives or chemicals.

NewsSunday

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

BusinessMirror

Anti-American rhetoric won’t affect top US investors in Clark

C

By Ashley Manabat

| Correspondent

LARK FREEPORT—The American CEO of the Global Gateways Development Corp.

(GGDC) has remained bullish with his company’s investments here, as well as investing in this free port despite the continuing anti-United States pronouncements of President Duterte.

“No, we’re not affected. If at all, we’ll double down putting more money in and e x panding our operations,” GGDC CEO Mark Williams told members of the media at the sidelines of the topping off ceremony for the One West and Two West buildings in the Aeropark Campus of Global Gateway Logistics City (GGLC) here last week.

He said he remained bullish with US investments in the Philippines, especially in this free port.

“We are just really excited about investing here in the Philippines. We think there’s a lot of opportunity here,” Williams said.

“We have been here since 2008 and we look forward to being here for a long time in the future,” he added.

Williams said his company has invested more than $200 million so far and will be investing another $200 million more within the next 12 months.

On September 30 American Chamber of Commerce Philip-

pines (AmCham) Executive Director Ebb Hinchlife said he is not worried by Duterte’s pronouncements and the AmCham remains strong and confident in doing business here.

“It’s business as usual,” he said.

GGDC is the same company that built The Medical City Clark—a 173-bed world-class medical center and the first locator in GGLC, a 177-hectare master-planned mixed-use aerotropolis that is the first of its kind in the country.

GGDC was originally founded

by The Port Fund, a private equity fund managed by Kuwait firm KGL Investment Co. (KGLI) whose investors largely consist of the shareholders of government entities of Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The GGDC project is directly adjacent to Clark International Airport and boasts of superior, world-class infrastructure constructed to internationally recognized standards and quality underground infrastructure (including pressurized water systems, electrical, telecommunications and fiber optic cabling, and

At full buildout, the city will create over 300,000 jobs translating to over $600 million in annual payroll.”

—Williams

oversized storm water drainage systems) that is unique in the country.

“At full build-out, the city will create over 300,000 jobs translating to over $600 million in annual payroll,” Williams said.

Officials of GGDC include another top American executive, Michael Russel, as its president.

Russel said GGDC plans to transform GGLC into a state-ofthe-art commercial and logistics aerotropolis built to the highest environment standards. GGDC has a lease on the property for a period of 50 years, with an option to renew for 25 years.

Sunday, October 23, 2016 A3

Duterte: Philippines not cutting ties with US

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

B

ACK from a five-day working visit to Brunei and China, President Duterte ended speculations that his administration was severing diplomatic ties with the United States, saying an estimated 4 million Filipinos living in the US “would kill me” if he did that.

“I meant separation of foreign policy [with the US],” Duterte told reporters upon arrival at Davao International Airport just before midnight on Friday, ending a long day of anxious second-guessing both by Philippine and US officials on what he actually meant in remarks made at a Beijing business forum on Thursday.

Duterte clarified he has no intention at all to cut ties with the US. “It is not severance of ties. I cannot do that,” he said. “It is best that we maintain our relationships because there are many Filipinos living in the US.” He, however, indicated that under his leadership, the Philippine government will no longer abide by the practice of previous administrations of automatically taking the cue from US foreign policy. “It is not severing diplomatic ties, the Filipinos in the US will kill me,” he said.

Instead, Duterte said his administration is looking at strengthening alliances with other countries.

“What is important is we should

LOPEZ: “Let me clarify. The President did not talk about separation.”

agree to work together [with other countries]. It could be an economic alliance separate from US foreign policy,” he added.

Meanwhile, Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said the Philippines will maintain its trade and economic ties with the US. “Let me clarify. The President did not talk about separation,” Lopez told CNN Philippines in Beijing.

In terms of economic [ties], we are not stopping trade, investment with America. The President specifically mentioned his desire to strengthen further the ties with China and the Asean region, which we have been trading with for centuries.”

Lopez said the Philippines was “breaking being too much dependent on one side.” “But we definitely won’t stop the trade and investment activities with the West, specifically the US.” With CNN Philippines

SundayV

Busine

A4 Sunday, October 23, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

PHL just blew up Obama’s Asia pivot

D

By Eli Lake | Bloomberg View

OES anyone remember President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia?

The plan was to focus diplomatic and military assets in East Asia to contain a rising China. It was one of the reasons Obama said he was shrinking the American footprint in the Middle East.

Well, the pivot is failing. On Thursday the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo R. Duterte, announced to an audience at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing a “separation” with the United States.

“America has lost now,” he said. “And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [Vladimir] Putin and tell him there are three of us against the world: China, the Philippines and Russia. It’s the only way.”

Two things should be said here.

First: President Duterte is a crude vulgarian. He has called Obama a “son of a whore,” and picked a fight with the pope. As a politician, he is often compared to Donald Trump. As a President, he has acted like an authoritarian, waging a paramilitary war against his nation’s drug users and drug dealers.

Second: Mr. Duterte’s own administration appears to have been kept out of the loop about this new alliance. On Friday President Duterte himself said he did not mean to imply he would cut diplomatic ties with the US, but he has not backed away from his pledge to end military cooperation with the US, though others in his administration have suggested he will back down.

Regardless, this is a big story. The Philippines has been an important US ally since the beginning of the Cold War. What’s more, the Obama administration has invested in the country as part of its pivot to Asia. In 2014 the two countries signed an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. When the Philippines brought a case against China at The Hague over China’s artificial islands in its territorial waters, the US supported the Philippines diplomatically.

In July The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of the Philippines. This would have been an opportunity for the US to turn the screws on China. But instead, the Obama White House encouraged China and the Philippines to resolve the matter themselves after the ruling of the international tribunal.

At the end of August, Secretary of State John F. Kerry told reporters the US was not interested in “fanning the flames of conflict, but rather trying to encourage the parties to resolve their disputes and claims through the legal process and through diplomacy.”

Mr. Duterte has now taken Kerry’s advice. After announcing his country’s new alignment with China, President Duterte signed a series of trade agreements worth $13.5 billion, along with a promise to continue bilateral negotiations over the South China Sea. Dan Blumenthal, the director of Asia studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told me on Friday the Obama administration had fumbled. “After the tribunal decision, our response was to tell Mr. Duterte to tamp down tensions and talk bilaterally with China, and there was no evidence of follow-up by us in terms of our own military exercises or diplomatic initiatives to enforce the findings of the tribunal,” he said. “There has been next to nothing on this. We still haven’t had a Freedom of Navigation mission that actually challenges the Chinese artificial islands.”

Is it any wonder then President Duterte concluded Obama wasn’t serious about defending the rule of law in the South China Sea? Close watchers of the Filipino leader could have predicted this kind of thing. Before his campaign for the presidency in August 2015, he told supporters, “If America cared, it would have sent aircraft carriers and missile frigates the moment China started reclaiming land in contested territory.”

Of course, America didn’t do that. It didn’t even send the Navy into Filipino territorial waters claimed by China in the South China Sea after an international tribunal ruled that those waters were Filipino. Instead, the Obama administration acted as if international law would implement itself.

But it never works that way.

The rule-based system Obama endorses requires a great power to defend it.

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Database

By Cecilio T. Arillo

Information relayed to Database by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) said its director, noted physicist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, has been appointed chair of the panel at its first meeting last Friday in Brussels.

The panel of nine renowned experts will deliver science-based, policy-relevant advice to the EC, in the form of intermediate policy briefs, and of a final report after three years, PIK said after a meeting with the experts hosted by Commissioner Carlos Moedas, European commissioner for research, science and innovation.

Moedas said research and innovation are essential to design technologies and policy trajectories, which will allow meeting the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“Our capacity to provide the best available science evidence will be instrumental for future decisions. This is what we expect of the high-level panel that starts working today,” Moedas said.

“Europe can and should pioneer the global movement toward a cleaner and greener future,” said Schellnhuber, while, at the same time, thanking Commissioner Moedas for asking him to participate in this venture that will identify viable trajectories based on the best scientific evidence.

PIK said 195 countries agreed

“Our capacity to provide the best available science evidence will be instrumental for future decisions. This is what we expect of the high-level panel that starts working today,” said Carlos Moedas, European commissioner for research, science and innovation.

in Paris to decarbonize production and consumption systems within just a few decades. This decision will require political, technological, economic and social action at an unprecedented scale. In fact, 2016 needs to be year one of the g reat transfor mation toward sustainability.

Other respected personalities from academia, business and society forming the panel are: 1. Peter Bakker, president and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and former CEO of TNT NV; 2. Catia Bastioli, CEO of Novamont, CEO of Mater-Biotech, CEO of Matrica, inventor of around 80 patent families in the sector of synthetic and natural polymers and transformation processes of renewable raw materials; 3. Paul Ekins, professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at and director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London; and deputy director of the UK Energy Research Centre;

4. Beata Jaczewska, executive director of International Visegrad Fund; former ministerial advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, the Ministry of Economy of Poland; and former undersecretary of state, Ministry of the Environment of Poland; 5. Barbara Kux, member of the Boards Firmenich, Groupe Engie, Henkel, Total and Umicore; and former member of the Managing Board and chief sustainability officer at Siemens; 6. Schellnhuber, director of the PIK; professor of Physics at Potsdam University; cochairman of the Advisory Council on Global Change for the German federal government; 7. Laurence Tubiana, ambassador of France for Climate Change Negotiations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development; special representative of France for 21st Conference of Parties; professor, Sciences Po Paris; and professor, Columbia University; director, Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations; 8. Maria Van Der Hoeven, senior associate fellow at Clingendael International Energy Program; member of the board of trustees of RWE and of Rocky Mountain Institute; nonexecutive member of Board of Total; former executive director of the International Energy Agency; and 9. Karin Wanngard, mayor of city of Stockholm; leader of the Social Democrats in Stockholm Municipality; aiming at making the Swedish capital fossil fuel free by 2040.

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

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essMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph • Sunday, October 23, 2016 A5

Keep an open mind (2) D

OING nothing about drugs (under Noynoy) spared us international condemnation. Doing something about it (under President Duterte) got us hell in the foreign press.

Free Fire

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

Doing nothing might disappoint families devastated by drugs. But you cannot please everybody. We have a country to think of and it is under siege from bad publicity abroad— and people who made their piles at home (daang matuwid veterans).

Sure, here at home, almost everybody, except friends of the drug trade, is ecstatic (about what Mr. Duterte is doing). But that only makes us look like savages abroad.

What then are our options?

Option No. 1: The same as in the past six years. We did nothing about it in the last six years. Did we suffer bad PR from it? No! Did drugs take control of our government? No! Now, you might say not yet. But quien sabe? (Who knows? To those

unfamiliar with Spanish.) The future is a mystery. What is clear is (draconian) drug laws were never relaxed to accommodate drug interests. They were just not enforced. And the 3.8 million people in the drug trade did not elect a drug-friendly president, but the opposite. Drugs, you might say, elected a drug-killing president.

So what’s the problem with leaving things the way we were, as Barbara Streisand sang?

So, No. 1 option: Leave the drug problem alone. For all we know, there is a natural saturation point after which nobody else takes drugs.

What about the criminality spawned by drugs? The rapes, assaults, house break-ins, massacred families. (I covered one in Baguio for ABS-CBN’s top-notch show,

Assignment.) What about it? The victims are not that many, although one victim is one too many for human society. But the West is talking about Philippine society. Our “democraphics,” so to speak, can afford to lose more to crime. Just put more cops on the beat.

No. 2 option: We are already deep in a bloody war against drugs. Already, 1,800 have been officially killed in the sort of police encounters where the US Supreme Court always sides with cops. (In ruling after ruling, the US Supreme Court upholds the cop’s side of the story.) But 2,000 plus are dead by vigilantes, which the government disowns. Why not invite United Nations rapporteurs to separate the wheat from the chaff—the cops killing those resisting arrest kuno from

vigilantes silencing witnesses and boyfriends changing girlfriends?

If the government can find a poor pusher in a small alley or street corner in a metropolis that is a maze of corners and alleys, it can surely find vigilantes.

And take them out…

Ooops! I mean take them on— like the Makati cops who planted evidence on the Australian. Why are these cops still alive? But that’s killing and bad PR. So what should we do to achieve the nonnegative effect of doing nothing as in the past six years? Tomorrow, the No. 3 solution.

Meanwhile, keep cool. I abhor these ideas. This is just a thought experiment. I, myself, am partial to religious conversion because Jesus saves.

Step up for gender equality, sustainable development

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By Lakshmi Puri | Inter Press Service

UITO, Ecvuador—Urban development ministers, mayors from all over the world, city planners, architects and municipal authorities, civil-society and private sector met in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, for Habitat III, the Third United Nations (UN) Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (October 17 to 20, 2016), to adopt the New Urban Agenda (NUA), as well as to strategize and agree on its implementation.

Women’s and grassroots women’s organizations, youth champions for gender equality and UN Women, have consistently supported UN Habitat, the UN entity responsible for this agenda, in the three-year preparatory process, and were at the conference, to ensure the historic gender equality and women’s empowerment compact agreed by the international community in 2015 is not only reflected in the outcome, but actually implemented where it matters most—on the ground at the local level, in communities and households.

Habitat III is critical for the effective, accelerated and full implementation of the 2030 agenda and its transformative and comprehensive gender-equality compact, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the outcome of the Financing for Development Conference and the Women, Peace and Security agenda in conflict and postconflict countries. It also comes at a time of unprecedented urbanization of the world with the large exodus of people from villages to haphazardly and rapidly growing cities in developing countries with inadequate infrastructure, services and social protection, transferring extreme rural poverty into vast city slums.

Studies indicate there is a higher proportion of women within the urban population overall, and a concentration

of women-headed households in urban centers. Also, the population is becoming younger, and women and youth will continue to make up the majority of people living in poverty, with limited control over assets and with unequal access to economic and income-generating opportunities and participation in public and private decision-making.

This population also faces greater vulnerability to gender inequalities, gender-based violence and multiple forms of discrimination. For cities and human settlements, it is increasingly more complex and challenging to meet the needs of women and young populations, including for housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy and employment, as well as for basic services, such as education and health care. Yet, for many the trend toward the “feminization of urbanization” creates new opportunities for escaping the inequality trap and realizing their human rights, but it also poses new challenges.

The NUA is a collective vision and a political commitment to promote and realize sustainable urban development. It provides a strategic opportunity to support the implementation of the Agenda 2030 by improving the spatial configuration of cities and human settlements in a gender-inclusive way and by recognizing the crucial dimensions of women’s rights.

In this regard, the “Quito Implementation Plan” envisions to develop cities that “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal rights in all fields and in leadership at all levels of decision-making, and by ensuring decent work and equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value for all women, as well as preventing and eliminating all forms of discrimination,

violence and harassment against women and girls in private and public spaces.”

In adopting “Leaving no one behind” and “Sustainable and inclusive urban economies” as part of its guiding principles, the NUA commits to ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all, end poverty and discrimination, and promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all. With the adoption of the NUA, member-states are pledging their commitment to adopt sustainable, people-centered, age- and gender-responsive and integrated approaches to urban and territorial development. Efforts have been made throughout the grounds up and consultative process leading up to Habitat III to reflect the imperative recognized in the 2030 Agenda and elsewhere that without realizing the human rights of half of humanity—that of women and girls—sustainable development, peace and security, or effective humanitarian action and resilience cannot be achieved.

In this case, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is both an end and a vital means to these ends.

Equally, it should be noted there is an inextricable link between the achievement of SDG 11 and its targets on making cities and human settlements sustainable, inclusive, safe and resilient, and SDG 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. This link has been emphatically recognized as critical to unlock the power of cities to empower women and girls, as well, to transform gender power relations within cities and human settlements.

In this regard, the NUA draws on SDG 5 and the gender-equality component of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, for example, by committing to

promoting safety and eliminating discrimination and all forms of violence; ensuring public participation providing safe and equal access for all (SDG 5.1); eliminating all forms of discrimination, violence and harassment against women and girls in private and public spaces (SDG 5.2); eliminating harmful practices against women and girls, including child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation (SDG 5.3); recognize the contribution of the working poor in the informal economy, particularly women, including the unpaid, domestic and migrant workers to the urban economies (SDG 5.4); ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal rights in all fields and at all levels of decision-making, including in local governments (SDG 5.5); promoting access to adequate, inclusive and quality public services, social infrastructure and facilities, such as health-care services, including universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services to reduce newborn child and maternal mortality (SDG 5.6).

To consolidate the transformative power of cities, the NUA promotes increased security of tenure for all with particular attention to security of land tenure for women as key to their empowerment; make information and communications technologies accessible to the public, including women and girls, children and youth; and promoting participatory age- and gender-responsive approaches at all stages of the urban and territorial policy and planning processes, from conceptualization to design, budgeting, implementation, evaluation.

The NUA also references age- and gender-responsive measures throughout, including in relation to sustainable,

safe and accessible urban mobility for all and resource efficient transport systems, goods, services and economic opportunities; housing policies, water and sanitation and climate change. It makes reference to paying special attention to the needs and rights of women in relation to services provision, full and productive employment, decent work and livelihood opportunities in cities and human settlements. It also commits to promote gender-responsive urban territorial development, budgeting and tenure security, among others.

We now have the strongest political commitment ever to embedding the gender equality and women’s rights agenda in the path-breaking 21st-century New Urban Agenda. All stakeholders of cities and of all human settlements—peri urban and rural areas—should implement this agenda without which we will not be able to localize and achieve the first-ever universal and ambitious sustainable development agenda; nor will we be able to make and build peace in fragile and war-torn countries; nor deal with the enormous migration and refugee crisis, humanitarian and climate change-related challenges effectively.

Now, we must remain vigilant to ensure, with a sense of urgency, the full and effective implementation of Habitat III. Strong accountability mechanisms are to be in place with clear responsibilities for all stakeholders while also providing avenues for women’s and grassroots’ and other civil-society organizations at all levels to hold decision-makers answerable for their actions, and seek redress when necessary.

Lakshmi Puri is UN assistant secretary-general and deputy executive director of UN Women.

Privatization the problem, rarely the solution

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram | Inter Press Service

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UALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Privatization has been one of the pillars of the counterrevolution against development economics and government activism from the 1980s.

Many developing countries were forced to accept privatization as a condition for support from the World Bank, while many other countries have embraced privatization, often on the pretext of fiscal and debt constraints.

Privatization generally refers to changing the status of a business, service or industry from state, government or public ownership to private control. It sometimes also refers to the use of private contractors to provide services previously delivered by the public sector.

Privatization can be strictly defined to include only cases of the sale of 100 percent, or at least a majority share of a public or state-owned enterprise (SOE), or its assets, to private shareholders. The definition of privatization in some contexts is so broad that it includes cases where private enterprises are awarded licences to participate in activities previously the exclusive preserve of the public sector.

Why the turn to privatization?

THE balance-of-payments problems arising from oil shocks in the 1970s and the United States Federal Reserve’s increase of the interest rate to well over 20-percent precipitated sovereign-debt crises in Latin America and elsewhere from the early 1980s, forcing many developing countries to seek credit support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The World Bank and IMF’s “neo-liberal” policy prescriptions involved liberalization, deregulation and privatization. Collectively, they later came to be known as the Washington Consensus to refer to the common position of three Washington, D.C.-based institutions—the US Treasury, the IMF and the World Bank.

Main arguments for privatization

PRIVATIZATION was advocated as an easy means to: 1) reduce the “financial and administrative burden of the government,” particularly in undertaking and maintaining services and infrastructure; 2) “promote competition, improve efficiency and increase productivity” in the delivery of public services; 3) “stimulate private entrepreneurship and investment,” and thus, accelerate economic growth; 4) help reduce “the presence and size of the public sector, with its monopolistic tendencies and bureaucratic support.”

Public or consumer welfare

SINCE a significant portion of state-run activities are public monopolies, privatization will hand over such monopoly powers to private interests likely to use them to maximize profits. The privatization of public services tends to burden the public, especially if charges are raised for privatized services, which may not improve with privatization.

Private interests are only interested in profitable or potentially profitable activities and enterprises. Thus, the government will be saddled with un-

profitable and less profitable activities, reinforcing the impression of SOE inefficiencies. Consequently, privatization may worsen overall enterprise performance. “Value for money” may go down, despite improvements used to justify higher user charges.

Privatization in many developing and transition economies has primarily enriched a few with strong political connections who “captured” lucrative opportunities associated with privatization, while the public interest has been increasingly sacrificed to such powerful private business interests.

This has, in turn, exacerbated problems of corruption, patronage and other related problems.

Adverse consequences

SOME other adverse consequences of privatization include: n The social and political implications of two types of services, i.e., one for those who can afford more costly, private—including privatized—services, and the other for those who cannot, and hence, have to continue to rely on subsidized public services, e.g., medical services and education. n The effects of minimal long-

term investments by private owners narrowly focused on maximizing short-term profits. n Increased living costs, as well as poorer services and utilities—especially in remote and rural areas—due to “economic costing” of services, e.g., telecommunications, water supply and electricity. n Reduced jobs, overtime work and real wages for employees of privatized concerns.

Flawed arguments

ARGUMENTS for privatization can be refuted on the following grounds: n The public sector can be more efficiently run, as demonstrated in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. n Greater public accountability and a more transparent public sector can ensure greater efficiency in achieving the public and national interest while limiting public-sector waste and borrowing. n Privatization may postpone a fiscal crisis by temporarily reducing fiscal deficits, but the public sector would lose income from profitable public-sector activities, and be stuck with financing and subsidizing unprofitable ones. As experience shows, the fiscal crisis may even

deepen if the new owners of profitable SOEs avoid paying taxes with creative accounting or due to the typically generous terms of privatization. n Privatization gives priority to profit maximization, typically at the expense of social welfare, equity and the public interest. It tends to adversely affect the interests of public-sector employees and the public, especially poorer consumers. n Public pressure to ensure the equitable distribution of share ownership (e.g., “voucher privatization”) may inadvertently undermine pressures to improve corporate performance since each shareholder would then only have small equity stakes, and would, therefore, be unlikely to incur the high costs of monitoring management and corporate performance. n By diverting private capital from productive new investments to buying over public-sector assets, economic growth would be retarded rather than enhanced.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram was United Nations assistant secretary-general for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.

A6 Sunday, October 23, 2016

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

‘Philippines-China statement ties hands of Duterte on WPS dispute’

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By Marvyn N. Benaning | Correspondent

MILITANT party-list legislator on Saturday pointed out red flags in the joint PhilippinesChina statement, saying that it may compromise the country’s claims at the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago of Kabataan noted that, while several points in the joint statement mention the settling of territorial disputes through “friendly consultations” by “sovereign states directly concerned” and “in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [Unclos], the statement left out the landmark decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration [PCA] at The Hague that favored the Philippines.”

In its 21-page ruling rendered in July, PCA decided that China’s claims in the South China Sea (SCS)

had no historical or legal basis, thus puncturing a big hole on the ninedash claim that the Kuomintang regime in China propounded in 1947.

Chairman Mao Zedong of the Communist Party of China (CPC) did not give any credence to the Kuomintang claim and opposed any expansionism that President Xi Jinping of China is advocating now.

Worse, the 11-dash line that China is now propagating extends beyond Philippine territory to include some Pacific islands, proving to one and all the imperial designs of Xi. “The joint statement may sound good at first reading, especially parts that describe the bilateral re-

lations with Beijing as ‘founded on mutual respect, sincerity, equality and mutual benefit.’ However, we must contextualize certain points.

For example, what will be the implication of the document’s insistence on the resolution of territorial disputes through bilateral means?

What is the implication of leaving out the decision of the PCA in July in the text of the joint statement?

These are red flags, and it poses serious concerns on our rightful claim on the WPS,” Elago said.

The “bilateral” resolution of disputes might prove to be disadvantageous for the Philippines in the long run, as it will be entering negotiations in the future without the upper hand, especially if future bilateral discussions on the WPS issue will not be grounded on the decision of the PCA that favors the Philippines.

Worse, the legal victory of the Philippines will be set aside by the Duterte administration, as it thinks that China will splurge billions of dollars out of generosity, noting that the $9 billion in loans to be extended by Beijing would come from private banks that do not charge “fraternal” rates.

“The text of the joint state-

ment might also preclude the Philippines from rallying fellow claimants in the SCS, and other nations, to aid in drumbeating our rightful claim in the sea dispute,” Elago added.

She stressed the joint statement’s strong preference for a “bilateral consultation mechanism” simply means a big nation like China would not treat a small nation as the Philippines as an equal.

Unless Duterte is not listening, China had emphasized for years that its sovereignty over a clump of outcrops in the middle of the sea is “nonnegotiable” and the Philippines, under Duterte, would only plead to be allowed to fish in its traditional fishing area in Panatag Shoal, which is more than 1,000 kilometers from China and within the country’s exclusive economic zone.

The implication is that the PCA verdict is meaningless and that from hereon, China would be a big brother to Duterte.

“Our worry is that the $24 billion in trade deals brought home

by President Duterte from his state visit in China might come at the cost of our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Elago also said.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Restoration of power facilities damaged by Lawin under way

By Lenie Lectura

@llectura

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HE Department of Energy (DOE) said on Friday night restoration of damaged power facilities in Northern Luzon is under way as Typhoon Lawin left the country.

“Restoration of power facilities is under way to bring back electricity service in the typhoon-hit areas in Northern Luzon. Public safety is the primary consideration when it comes to rehabilitation, so we have to first check and assess the effect of the typhoon to these facilities,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. said.

As of 7 p.m. on October 20, electric cooperatives (ECs) have pa r t i a l ly or tot a l ly restored electricity ser vice in 31 towns out of the 248 affected, or 12.5 percent of the typhoon-affected areas.

The typhoon-affected areas are covered by 14 ECs including the Cagayan I and II ECs, Isabela I and II ECs, Nueva Vizcaya EC, Quirino EC, Abra EC, Benguet EC, Mountain Province EC, Ifugao EC, Kalinga EC, Ilocos Norte EC, Ilocos Sur EC and La Union EC. The National Electrification Administration (NEA) was tasked to monitor and assess the status of ECs for rehabilitation.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), meanwhile, reported the progress of

‘Mining investors who are on the level need not worry’

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NVESTORS who play by the rules, do not destroy the environment and put the common good alongside their business interest have no reason to worry about investing in the Philippine mining industry, a broad coalition of environmentalist groups said on Saturday.

Reacting to the claim by an official of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) that the strong regulatory stance of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is “sending the wrong signal” to investors, the Green Thumb Coalition (GTC) said only mining companies that have no regard for the environment and people’s welfare will not find it worth investing in a country that takes care of its ecological balance and its people.

“The implementation of regulations are not the problem in this issue, but rather, these regulations have long been in place precisely in response to the destruction of our country’s environment and the livelihood of the people,” said Gerry Arances of the Center for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED), one of the conveners of the GTC. “A strong and strict execution of prevailing laws will only strike fear among those corporations which aim to cut costs by disregarding the welfare of affected communities and the country as a whole,” Arances said. “If investors make sure that the companies they fund follow the rules, they have nothing to be afraid of. Rather, they should

be glad that the playing field is being changed for the benefit of better investment prospects, which do not sacrifice sustainability and rights for the sake of profit.”

The GTC said mining has not been a significant contributor to economic development and jobs generation, contributing less than 1 percent to employment—and mostly contractual, seasonal, nonpermanent jobs.

On the other hand, the local mining industry basically exports raw ore to fuel the industrial needs of developed countries. “There is little national economic benefit from investments in mining, yet, the costs to environment and the hazards they pose are tremendous,” said Tina Pimentel of Bantay Kita, a member-group of the Green Thumb Coalition.

The GTC in a statement said responsible businessmen and investors should, in fact, support the DENR in its effort to make mining companies obey the rules because, in the end, it is the image of the business community, and that of the good and responsible businessmen that are destroyed.

The GTC said: “Assuming without granting that the country’s image to overseas investors is ‘destroyed’ as alleged by Jose Leviste, cochairman of the PCCI Committee on Mining, we’d rather have our image than our environment destroyed by irresponsible mining investors.

It would be far easier to repair our image than our environment. It is also less costly.” Jonathan L. Mayuga

Divers recover bodies of pilots in Vigan crash

By Recto L. Mercene @rectomercene

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HE Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) on Saturday said the bodies of Capt.

John Kaizan Estabillo and student pilot Paola Vianca Robles were recovered at 7:10 a.m. near a seaside resort in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. The two took off from Vigan Airport at 3:24 pm on Friday onboard a Cessna 172, on a training flight. They were reported to have crashed in the sea soon after they took off.

Divers from the Coast Guard substation in Candon, Ilocos Sur, conducted initial search in the area on Friday afternoon and reported seeing

the aircraft and its passengers, but discontinued the recovery effort, owing to failing light, as it was near sundown.

The recovery operations continued on Saturday morning, and Coast Guard divers eventually brought the bodies to shore. The Caap said the aircraft, a Cessna C-172 with registry number RPC7838, was practicing “touch-and-go” to hone Robles’s skill in landing and takeoff. The duo was to return to its home base in San Fernando Airport in La Union at 4:24 p.m.

Initial reports received by the Caap said the plane got entangled with the zipline cable and ditched near the seashore.

The Cessna plane is reportedly operated by Leading Edge Aviation.

the rehabilitation work on the transmission lines servicing the provinces of La Union, Kalinga, Apayao, Isabela, Cagayan, Abra, Benguet, Mountain Province, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur, Ifugao, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino.

The lines restored are GamuTuguegarao 230 -kilovolt line, Bau a ng- Sa n Fer na ndo 69 -kV l ine, Santiago -A gl ipay 69 -kV line, Bayombong-Lagawe 69-kV line, La Trinidad-Sablan 69-kV line, Bauang-Naguilian 69-kV line, La Trinidad-Ampucao 69kV line, Bacnotan-Bulala 69 kV lin, Bantay-Santo Domingo 69 -kV l i ne, Sa n Esteba nBang ued 69 -kV line, San Esteban- Candon 69-kV line and Sant iago -A l icia- Cabat uan-A lfonsolista 69-kV line.

The following lines, meanwhile, have yet to be restored as of Saturday: Currimao-Langayan 69-kV line, Currimao-San Nicolas 69-kV line, and Cauayan-Reina Mercedes 69-kV line.

Cusi directed concerned energy agencies to execute full and immediate restoration of power facilities damaged by the typhoon.

“I am also urging our kababayan to coordinate with their local officials and authorities on any incidents affecting these facilities and for their families to take extra caution in using t he i r e le c t r ic a l e qu ipme nt ,” Cusi added.

North Harbor improvement prompts firm to buy new ships

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

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SOLID Shipping Lines and Manila North Harbor Port Inc., executives are shown in photo with Solid Link, one of Solid Lines vessels, at the background. Shown in photo are (from left) Laia S. Galvan, MNHPI account manager; Quirimon A. Tan Jr., Solid Shipping Lines general manager; Richard D. Barclay, MNHPI CEO; Fausto C. Tiu, Solid Shipping Lines executive vice president; and Raul L. Quisumbing, MNHPI vice president for commercial services.

SY SCION URGES GLOBAL FIRMS: INCORPORATE DISASTER RESILIENCY INTO BUSINESS MODELS

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PEAKING recently in Washington, D.C., SM Prime President Hans Sy reiterated his pledge to incorporate disaster resiliency into business models in keeping with the call of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

Sy asked other global corporations to make the same commitment during the meeting of the UNISDR Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilience Societies in mid-October.

Sy, a scion of the family that is engaged in mall operations and housing development, is the only Filipino member in the international board of the UNISDR Private Sector Alliance, which is also known as Arise.

SM Prime is the secretariat of Arise Philippines.

“Our commitment to disaster resiliency has always been at the core of our business and we will further find ways to innovate in order to make business more re-

sponsive to the needs and demand of our times,” Sy said.

In the same meeting, UNISDR called on business leaders to make the risks posed by natural and man-made hazards to be right at the front and center of their investment choices.

This, UNISDR said, would lead to substantially reducing the economic damage wrought by natural calamities worldwide.

Taking note of the frequency and intensity of weather hazards, such as Supertyphoon Yolanda and Hurricane Matthew recently, UNISDR said disaster-risk reduction should be the principal consideration in all business decisions owing to the costly consequences of disasters instigated by climate change.

More than 100 private-sector representatives from var ious industries, like construction, insurance, retail, tourism, consulting and technology, attended the meeting.

The meeting was aimed at reviewing ongoing projects to build resilience and identify gaps in order to achieve the global goals set out in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Sendai framework, a 15year plan to curb disaster deaths, reduce the number of affected people and cut down the magnitude of economic losses, was adopted by the international community in March 2015.

It is intert w ined w ith the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN and the Pa r is A g reement on C l imate Change.

SM Prime has been propagating disaster resiliency and calamity management in the private sector through the annual Top Leaders Forum, which brings together the UNISDR, government officials and business leaders to discuss best practices in disaster-risk reduction and management.

Marvyn N. Benaning

MAJOR local cargo-shipping company on Saturday said it is continuing a refleeting program with newer and bigger capacity vessels.

The purchase of new ships was anchored on improved berth facilities at the Manila North Harbor.

Solid Shipping Lines, a member of Philippine Liner Shipping A ssociation (PLSA), has nine container cargo vessels that call mainly the Southern and Northern Mindanao ports.

Commissioning a reputable Japanese shipbuilder to build four brand-new ships, the latest in the fleet is set to arrive in the fourth quarter of next year. The new vessels are Solid Marine, Solid Gem and Solid Harbor, which each having a capacity of close to 300 twenty equivalent units (TEUs).

Quirimon A. Tan Jr., Solid Shipping general manager, said, “To maintain our position as the most reliable domestic shipping company, we offer consistently high standards of direct cargo services through our excellent customer service, connectivity, transparency and technology.”

Tan said its productivity at Manila North Harbor is about 21 berth moves or boxes per hour with the use of self-sustaining gears.

“Our efficient and high productivity is the result of our collaboration with the team of MNHPI, terminal operator of the port.”

He added: “MNHPI has, indeed, developed the terminal into a world-class port. It is a professionally run terminal and we continue to expect the efficiencies to be sustained and even improved.”

Raul L. Quisumbing, MNHPI vice president for commercial services, said the growth at the terminal is strongly on an upward trend. “We are seeing growth in volumes to and from the various provinces, a good indication of our country’s ever robust economy.”

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

TAMS

By Joel Orellana

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AR Eastern University (FEU) management insisted that Nash Racela’s coaching offer in the pro ranks won’t be a distraction in its campaign in Season 79 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).

But it showed in the first period, when the Tamaraws trailed 8-28 after the first quarter, before getting their acts together in the next three quarters and pulled off a come-from-behind 63-60 win over University of the Philippines (UP) on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Colisuem.

It was FEU’s seventh straight win to stay at No. 2 with 8-2 win-loss mark behind De La Salle’s 10-0 and clinch a playoff for a Final Four seat.

Racela rued the team’s lack of assists, only nine in the game, while Tamaraws Athletic Director Mark Molina accompanied his mentor in the post-game interview to clear things about Racela’s looming transfer to TNT Katropa in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

“Although there’s no official announcement yet from TNT, Nash and I are in touch at pinag-uusapan ‘yan. Our only concern is we have make sure he will finish

Jayjay shelves retirement plan, inks 1-yr extension

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HE celebration continues for Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, as the other half of the fantastic duo “The Fast and The Furious” will be dancing for one more year.

Jayjay Helterbrand will shoot for another mile as he is expected to sign a fresh one-year extension with the Kings, winner of the recent Governors’ Cup crown that ended their eight-year title drought since the 2008 Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Fiesta Cup. “He is ready to play. I think he is gonna help in the buildup,” Ginebra Head Coach Tim Cone told reporters, as the Grand Slam winning mentor steered the oncedominating franchise in the early 2000’s to yet another breathe of life after years of waiting and frustrations in a classic showdown against Meralco.

The 40-year-old Helterbrand, recipient of the 2009 Most Valuable Player plum, shared his thoughts in his Twitter account.

Few years back, the playmaker hinted his retirement plans due to the lacklusting performance of the Gin Kings that saw a series of failures to bag the elusive trophy.

“I’ve never said it was going to be my ‘one last ride.’ I just said I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I’m still not sure. In God’s will,” Helterbrand posted on his Twitter account.

Teammed up with prolific guard Mark Caguioa, the heart and soul of the team conspired to uplift the spirit of their teammates, evident to their contributions in Game Four, when the Gin Kings erased a 16-point hole early in the fourth period to win the pivotal match.

It will be his 15th season since joining the league through a direct hire in 2000.

Helterbrand and Caguioa led Ginebra to five championships since they became teammates in 2001. Helterbrand has a career averages of 9.5 points, 3.7 assists and 3.1 rebounds. He has a career high of 18.1 points and 4.7 boards during the 2007-2008 season. Ramon Rafael Bonilla

Sports BusinessMirror

Sunday, October 23, 2016 A7

TRIUMPH the season with FEU,” Molina said.

“We have no doubt that Nash would finish the season, we have a good record, we’re at second place. What will happen to Nash’s career afterwards, well it will be a blessing, but it will be confirmed soon,” Molina added.

Racela remained tight-lipped on the matter, except that he mentioned that it’s any coach’s dream to call the shots in the PBA, but he preferred to discuss FEU’s anemica start and how his team was able to recover.

University of the Philippines’s Jarell Lim (12) passes the ball to a teammate, as Kevin Ebona tries to block his attempt.

STEPHANIE TUMAMPOS

“We knew from the start it will be really hard to play a team like UP. They’re now really energized playing basketball in the second round. And Coach Bo [Perasol] is doing a great job in that team,” Racela said.

The Fighting Maroons started like a house on fire, hitting 11 of their 18

attempts in the first period to erect a 28-8 lead. But the Tamaraws regained their defensive tenacity and held UP to score just 32 points in the next three periods on 11-of-45 shooting “We started really passive, especially on the defensive end,” Racela said. “After the first half, I told them if they wanted to do it the hard way, we’ll do it the hard way. Good thing the players responded.”

The Fighting Maroons, who dropped to 3-8 with the loss, had a couple of opportunity to send the game in overtime, but Paul Desiderio and Jett Manuel’s threepoint attempts rimmed out.

Reymar Jose scored crucial baskets in the closing stretch when UP threatened at 54-59, sandwiching Paul Desiderio’s triple with back-to-back undergoal stabs, 63-57, 1:49 remaining.

Manuel’s triple trimmed the lead to 6063, 60 seconds left, but a key inbound error

by Dave Moralde cost UP a big possession.

Moralde redeemed himself in the next play by forcing a turnover, but Manuel’s game-tying trey missed the target.

Manuel led the Fighting Maroons with 16 points, while Desiderio added 13 markers.

Jerson Prado tallied 10 points for UP.

CARLOS-BARREDO TITLE CLASH

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TENEO’S Bianca Carlos outduelled Malvinne Ann Alcala of University of the Philippines (UP), while Sarah Joy Barredo trampled fellow Philippine Badminton Association (PBA) Smash Pilipinas mainstay Angelique Ramos with a superb all-around game, as they set up a showdown for the Open women’s singles crown in the P1.5 million Bingo Bonanza National Open Badminton Tournament on Saturday.

Carlos, a former National Open champion and many-time 19-U titlist, leaned on her power game, superb footwork and court coverage to foil Alcala, 21-15, 21-10, before a big weekend crowd, moving into a gold-medal match with the top-seeded bet, whom she upended in a recent big tournament.

Barredo, who romped off with easy victories on her way to the semis, sustained her form and overwhelmed Ramos, 21-17, 21-13, to gain another crack at the crown after nipping Nicole Albo in last year’s finale of the annual top-ranking tournament sponsored by Bingo Bonanza.

But the national team mainstay will be hard-pressed against Carlos, who thwarted her in three to clinch the FDG Cup title in June, when they dispute the crown and the top P100,000 purse in today’s finals of the annual event backed by official equipment Victor, exclusively distributed by PCOME Industrial Sales, Smash Pilipinas and the Philippine Olympic Committee.

Straight-set romps also marked the penultimate playdate of what had been a thrilling competition that saw a number of reversals, including the ouster of the fancied bets, led by No. 1 Alvin Morada and Alyssa Leonardo in the Open mixed doubles, top seed Kevin Cudiamat and No. 4 Orlan Ticala

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EAM Philippines sailed through the momentum of trouncing powerhouse Thailand in the semis and went on to win an epic come-from-behind beating of Myanmar, 12-21, 21-17, 21-17, in the finals to capture the title in the 31st King’s Cup Sepak Takraw World Championship on Friday in Bangkok, Thailand.

Rheyjey Ortouste led the attacks with 35 points to propel the team for their first championship crown in the prestigious tournmanent, salvaging the win despite a slow start that kept them at bay in the first set.

“This is a historical win for us.

We did the impossible. We beat Thailand and we won the title against Myanmar. We are truly blessed,” Philippine Amateur Sepak Takraw Association

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TENEO de Manila stamped its class early, taking the men’s and women’s division lead with plenty to spare, after Day One of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 79 swimming competitions on Friday.

The three-peat seeking Blue Eagles tallied 132 points to build a commanding 65-point lead over second-running De La Salle at the Rizal Memorial Swimming Pool.

Olympian Jessie Lacuna won his first gold in the men’s 200-meter freestyle, with a time of 2:09.04.

Also winning golds for Ateneo were Jethro Chua in the 100-meter freestyle (52.86) and the 4x200-meter medley relay team (1:46.91).

The Lady Eagles, also bidding for a thirdstraight crown, amassed 113 points, while University of the Philippines (UP) is at far second with 74.

Reigning Most Valuable Player Hannah Dato emerged victorious in the women’s 200-meter freestyle, clocking in at 2:27.06.

Other gold-medal winners for Ateneo were Romina Gavino in the 800-meter freestyle (9:44.89) and Andrea Ngui in the 100-meter freestyle (1:00.49).

Surviving the Eagles’ onslaught in the men’s division were the Fighting Maroons in the 4x800-meter freestyle (8:06.50) and Sacho Ilustre of the Green Archers in the 800-meter freestyle (8:37.92).

University of Santo Tomas is running third with 42 points, followed by La Salle, which has 35 points in fourth place.

UP swept the women’s relay events, ruling the 4x200-meter medley (2:05.04) and the 4x800-meter freestyle (9:18).

The Lady Maroons are running third with 34 points, followed by the Tigresses’ 26.

LADY TAMS SHOCK LADY ARCHERS

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Bianca Carlos sets up for a forehand return against Malvinne Ann Alcala during their semifinal showdown in the Bingo Bonanza National Open Badminton Tournament.

in the Open men’s singles, and fourth seed Mike Minuluan and Alem Palmares in the Open men’s doubles.

Ronel Estanislao and Indonesian Keshya Hanadia advanced to the mixed doubles finals with a 21-15, 21-16 victory over Hanz Bernardo and Chantelle Lunod, who stunned Morada and Leonardo in the quarters.

Estanislao and Hanadia will face the PBA Smash tandem of Peter Magnaye and

FILIPINOS RULE KING’S CUP TOURNEY

By Ramon Rafael Bonilla

ATENEO ASSERTS MIGHT IN SWIMMING

President Karen Caballero told the BusinessMirror.

Earlier that day, the team had an upset victory over perennial champion Thailand, 15-21, 22-20, 21-19, in the semifinals. They also beat Singapore, Australia, Taiwan and Indonesia in the elimination phase booked their ticket in the Final Four.

“We hope to get national and corporate attention that we are born and built for this sports. We can really excel in the world,” she added.

“We’d need all the help we can get, like a training court for the national team to really call our own.”

Caballero was also elected as the vice president of the Asian Sepak Takraw Federation, a big boost for the local sports association and the lady sport official who led the country’s delegation in the recent Asian Beach Games in Vietnam.

Indonesian Devi Permatasan, who routed Melvin Llanes and Eleanor Inlayo, 21-13, 21-14, for the crown and the top P120,000 prize in the event sanctioned by the PBA, headed by President Jejomar C. Binay and Secretary-General Rep. Alfredo Benitez of Negros Occidental.

Clarence Filart added No. 6 Solomon Padiz Jr. to his list of victims, scoring a 21-11, 21-17 triumph to seal a title duel with third

seed Ros Pedrosa in the Open men’s singles.

The win came on the heels of Filart’s stirring come-from-behind 9-21, 21-15, 22-20 victory over Cudiamat on Friday, putting the Ateneo ace closer to a dream title run in the country’s premiere badminton championship.

But standing in his way is Pedrosa, another PBA Smash Pilipinas stalwart, who upended second seed Frell Gabuelo, 21-9, 21-8, in their side of the semis duel.

AR Eastern University (FEU) stunned second-running De La Salle, 66-62, for only its third win of the season, overshadowing National University’s (NU) 71-49 rout of University of Santo Tomas (UST) that gave the defending champions an 11th consecutive University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 79 women’s basketball win on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Loraine Ventura had 13 points, while Maria Balleser and Princess Jumuad added 10 points apiece, as the Lady Tamaraws moved in a tie with the Tigresses in a tie in sixth place at 3-7.

The victory also rejuvenated FEU’s Final Four bid, as it only trails joint fourth placers Adamson University and Ateneo by a full game.

It was the Lady Archers’ only second loss of the tournament, as the Taft-based cagebelles trailed by 13 points at the break and fell short in the end, delaying their semis entry.

Camille Claro at Kat Nunez had 10 points apiece for 8-2 La Salle.

Reigning Most Valuable Player Afril Bernardino had 24 points and 14 rebounds, Gemma Miranda chipped in 14 points and 10 boards, while Jack Daniel Animam also had a double-double with 12 points and 16 rebounds for the Lady Bulldogs.

NU, which also extended its winning run to 43 games, is three wins away from securing an outright passage in the bestof-three championship series.

FAVORITE COACH

Pinoy ace shooter Grace Tan fires several rounds during a practice session with world practical shooting champion Jethro Dionisio (right) in a firing range in Metro Manila. Tan and Dionisio were among the country’s top shooters who raked 56 gold medals during the prestigious Australasia 2016 shooting competition held in Surabaya, Indonesia, in August. The Filipino contingent will be honored by the Association of Firearms and Ammunition Dealers at the opening of the 24th Defense and Sporting Arms Show Part two slated on November 10 at SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City. The gun show event will be open to gun enthusiasts until November 14.

Sports

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unday, October 23, 2016 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

BusinessMirror

HISTORIC MOMENT P

HILIPPINE Superliga (PSL)-F2 Logistics Manila has been struggling to get its first win in the 2016 International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Women’s Club World Championship.

But on Friday night, the home team made history after winning a set against the defending champion Eczacibasi VitrA Istanbul before surrendering a 25-17, 25-17, 23-25, 25-14 decision at the Mall of Asia Arena.

That third-set win by the squad will go down in the history books of Philippine volleyball.

“Normally, people will expect the PSL team will lose, and this is very important moment for Philippine volleyball,” PSL-F2 Logistics Manila Head Coach Moro Branislav said. “This is the first time the Philippine team won one set in a big competition and this was a very big important set, this set will go down in the history of Philippine volleyball.”

The Manila club team did not go down without a fight, even if the Serbian coach fielded in all-Filipina crew in the second set.

Eczacibasi VitrA was looking to end the match in straight sets pulling away with a commanding 21-17 third-set lead. But Jaja

Santiago, who has been impressive among the Pinay spikers, rose to the occasion when she unleashed a strong cross-court hit and three straight service aces to equalize the set at 22-all.

The match remained tied at 23-all before American imports Lindsay Stalzer and Stephanie Niemer provided the big kills that clinched the first-ever set that a Philippine club team won in the World stage.

“It felt that we won the match because fans were congratulating us after the game.

It feels so great because this is the first time in history to win a set in a world competition,” Jovelyn Gonzaga said.

“I just want to show to all the people watching that we are giving a good fight and I want prove to myself that I can play at this world level,” Gonzaga added.

What made the match more memorable was when Branislav decided to field the PSL’s Magnificent Seven—Santiago, skipper Rachel Anne Daquis, Gonzaga, Kim Fajardo, Mika Reyes, Frances Molina and libero Jen Reyes.

“My players are very happy, especially when all Filipino players came in,” Branislav said. “I prepared all filipino players before the start of the match, because for me, I’m

Eczacibasi Vitra Istanbul’s Gozde Yilmaz (center) challenges the defense of F2 Logistics Manila’s Ekaterina Krivets (left) and Lynda Morales. ALYSA SALEN

interested in promoting the Filipino players, and it’s important that they played against one big club.”

The Magnificent Seven rose to the challenge as they led 12-7 against the defending champs before losing steam in the end. “We’re happy we got the chance to play all filipino for the second set, so we’re lucky for that opportunity given by Coach Moro. After the game, we really thanked coach,” said Daquis, while holding back her tears.

PSL-F2 Logistics Manila was relegated to classification matches for fifth to eight places.

Regardless of their finish, Branislav said the experience the Filipina spikers got will definitely boost Philippine volleyball.

“This is very important experience for Filipino players, I guarantee you, after this competition, the players will be better in the Asian level. The level of volleyball will go up to 30 percent to 40 percent, this is very big,” the Serbian mentor said. Lance Agcaoili

BALIPURE RIPS STATE U

F2 Logistics Manila’s import Lindsay Stalzer celebrate after scoring against Hisamitsu Springs Kobe. ALYSA SALEN

Eczacibasi VitrA downs Vakifbank, returns to finals

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BaliPure’s Katharine Morrell (left) scores against Marian Alisa Buitre of University of the Philippines. NONOY LACZA

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MPORT Kate Morrell unleashed a 24-hit game as BaliPure rolled to its third straight victory, overpowering a young University of the Philippines (UP) side, 25-13, 25-23, 25-17, to bolster its semifinal drive in the Shakey’s V-League Season 13 Reinforced Conference at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig on Saturday.

Morrell, the 6-0, 25-year-old power-hitter from Alabama, imposed her will on the net and unloaded 19 attack points, powering the Purest Water Defenders to the 65-minute romp, their third straight-set win in a row after a four-set defeat to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Tigresses.

Amy Ahomiro came away with nine hits, setter Kay Manns and Sue Roces chipped in seven points apiece and Dzi Gervacio added five markers for BaliPure, which outplayed UP in spikes (42-25), blocks (7-2) and service (8-2).

“We’re really working hard together and it has been great,” said Morrell, who spiked her impressive outing with three blocks and two aces.

With a 3-1 slate, BaliPure moved to joint second with Customs, which is playing Pocari (2-1) at presstime with the Water Defenders, hoping to hurdle their last three assignments for a berth in the semifinal round of the season-ending conference of the league sponsored by Shakey’s.

“We’re finally gelling because we’re making an effort to bond not only on the court, but also outside of it,” BaliPure Assistant Coach Charo Soriano said.

The Lady Marooons, third placers in the last Collegiate Conference of the league backed by Mikasa as official ball and Accel as official outfitter, dropped to 2-4 and virtually bowed out of the Final Four race.

UP, behind Diana Carlos, Nicole Tiamzon, Kathy Bersola, Isa Molde, Marian Buitre, setter Rose Cailing

and liberos Princess Gaiser and Arielle Estranero, came out strong in the second set but wavered in the face of BaliPure’s strong fightback midway through before bouncing back to force the Water Defenders into a down-to-the-wire finish.

But miscues and mishits marred the Lady Maroons’ end-game stand and the Water Defenders converting them into points to go 2-0.

It was more of the same in the third with UP seizing the early initiative and BaliPure mounting a strong comeback, using their power and solid blocking to finish off its young rival.

Carlos finished with nine points, Tiamzon added six hits, Bersola and Molde had five markers each and Buitre ended up with four points.

Earlier, Champion Supra made short work of a slumping Army side, 25-13, 25-16, 25-22, to stay in the semifinal hunt in the Spikers’Turf Season 2 Third Conference, also at the PhilSports Arena.

Arjay Onia, Berlin Paglinawan and Joven Camagnanakan provided the firepower, while the rest, including libero Juvie Mangaring, backed them up with a gritty defense to overpower the erratic Troopers and post their second win against the same number of losses.

Army fell to 1-2.

Far removed from the team that challenged the fancied Air Force for every point before losing in three last Wednesday, the Troopers struggled an committed 24 errors more than their rivals’ 11 to lose the first two sets in lopsided fashions.

Army did come alive in the third but failed to match Champion Supra’s strong finishing kick, enabling the Supra Smashers’ to post their second straight win following a four-set victory over 100 Plus last week.

HE Eczacibasi VitrA Istanbul drew strength from its Olympians to prove that they were the better Turkish club team as they knocked out Vakifbank Istanbul, 25-23, 19-25, 25-17, 25-23, in a sudden-death semis match on Saturday to book their second straight finals appearance in 2016 International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Women’s Club World Championship at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Meanwhile, PSL-F2 Logistics Manila blew its chance for a decent fifth-place finish after losing to Hisamitsu Springs Kobe in straight sets, 15-25, 18-25, 21-25.

Japanese national team mainstays Yuki Ishii, Risa Shinnabe and Miyu Nagaoka combined for 40 points to lift Hisamitsu Springs Kobe and the chance to bag the fifth spot against Rexona-Sesc Rio on Sunday.

The Rio de Janeiro club team also won in straight sets earlier over the Bangkok Glass, 25-19, 25-15, 25-20.

Rio Olympics silver medalists Tijana Boskovic and Ogjenovic Maja of Serbia and bronze medalists Rachael Adams and Jordan Larson-Burbach joined forces with Russian Tatiana Kosheleva and Brazilian Thaisa Daher Pallesi in their crucial match to move closer for a title repeat.

The defending champions were holding a precarious 21-19 lead, but Vakifbank banked on Zhu Ting to tie the game at 22-all.

But the American players provided the clutch hits as Adams put Eczacibasi ahead, 23-22, while Larson nailed the last two points to clinch the finals berth.

“It was a wonderful match. I’m very happy that we won thanks to defense,” Eczacibasi Head Coach Massimo Barbolini said. “We have unbelievable plays in attacks, but if we want to win, you have to play good defense. Attack and block are not enough.”

Boskovic, a 19 year-old Serbian, unleashed 22 points built on 17 attacks, three service aces and two blocks. Kosheleva and Daher Pallesi chipped in 13 hits and 12 hits, respectively. Maja and Larson delivered 10 markers each, while Adams added eight.

Eczacibasi VitrA will face the winner of the other semifinal match featuring Volero Zurich and Pomi Casalmaggiore, which was being played as of press time.

Barbolini is looking forward for another run for a title.

“I don’t believe in what happened in the past.

Every season is a new season. Being in the finals is a great result, but it’s not enough,” Barbolini said.

“One ball can change everything. I don’t know what can happen. We have to do little things for the tactical point of view. We’ll be watching the opponent team closely.”

Zhu carried the loads finishing with 23 points. Lonneke Sloejtes delivered 10 hits, while Gozde Kirdar and Milena Rasic added nine markers apiece. Lance Agcaoili