Businessmirror september 01, 2016

“I voted for Marco only because I’ve been a long-standing supporter. It’s unfortunate he didn’t do his job fully in Washington this term. I do think he deserves another chance. He thought he was doing the right thing [by running for president]. That’s my only complaint against him. He’s a good man.”— Diane Martin-Johnson, 66, after voting for Marco Rubio, who won his Republican primary race in Florida to run for US Senate in November. AP

media partner of the year

“Y’all gonna stop playing with me like I’m the villain out here, like I’m going crazy. When you get the warrant or whatever you need to do, you’re going to walk right up in here and you’re going to see nothing. You idiots.”— R&B singer Chris Brown, in an Instagram video before he was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after a woman called for help from a gathering at his home. AP

BusinessMirror

United nations

2015 environmental Media Award leadership award 2008

www.businessmirror.com.ph

A broader look at today’s business

n

Thursday, September 1, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 327

Duterte admin backs creation of DHUD 6 T

By Cai U. Ordinario

Continued on A2

The number of housing agencies under the HUDCC

INSIDE

The presence of such streams

HEART OF JESUS, NEVER ENDING SOURCE OF ALL VIRTUES, FR. SAL PUTZU, SDB, SHARED BY LOUIE M. LACSON, HFL Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

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

❶

Life

Thursday, September 1, 2016

❶

HAWORTH, a village on the North Yorkshire moors, was home to the Brontë sisters.

THOMAS HEATON/ VISIT BRITAIN/TNS

❷

PURPLE heather blankets the moors, which Emily Brontë used as a setting for Wuthering Heights. THOMAS HEATON/VISIT ENGLAND/TNS

THE Priory Ruins on the banks of the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. LEE BEEL/TNS

D1

Y

BY PATTI NICKELL Lexington Herald-Leader

ORKSHIRE, England—Staring at the horizon, I might have been looking at a vast canvas where the technique of chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and dark, was used to create a specific mood. One minute sunshine dappled the landscape; the next misty rain enveloped it.

“Don’t worry about that,” said my hiking guide Johnnie Briggs, as one of the intermittent rain showers descended upon us. “Those are just Yorkshire kisses.” Actually, it was the rain rather than the sun that seemed a more fitting atmosphere for our hike.

We were walking on the bleak moors above the village of Haworth, home of the Brontë sisters, who, through their writing, created some of the most memorable characters in English fiction.

Of the three, it was Emily who most loved the wild moors, and made them the trysting place for Heathcliff and Cathy in her novel Wuthering Heights.

Our hike didn’t take us all the way to Top Withens, the abandoned farmhouse exposed to the fierce elements used as inspiration for the book’s remote farm. Considering the number of “Yorkshire kisses” we experienced along the way, it was probably a good thing that we opted not to do the entire six-and-a-half mile round-trip walk.

I would have liked to have seen Top Withens and I was about a month too early for the purple heather that blankets the moors in late summer, but I did marvel at a landscape stark in its beauty, and thrilled to the sight and sound of larks, lapwings and merlins circling above me.

For those who love the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne) and their most famous works (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall), this is a great time to travel to Yorkshire, the north English county where they spent their short lives (none lived past the age of 40).

For the next five years, Yorkshire will be celebrating the bicentenaries of the births of Charlotte (this year), their brother Branwell (2017), Emily (2018) and Anne (2020).

During that same period, the Brontë Society— whose president is acclaimed actress and Brontë fan Judi Dench—will also celebrate the Rev. Patrick Brontë, the siblings’ father, 200 years after he became the parson of Saint Michael’s Church.

All of which means over the next half decade, there will be a hot time in the hamlet of Haworth (population, 7,000).

Any visit to the charmingly cobbled village must start with the Brontë Parsonage. Once home to Patrick and his brood, it is now a museum containing the world’s largest collection of Brontë material.

My favorite room had to be the parlor where the sisters would sit together nightly and write, often contributing to each other’s works.

I also loved the upstairs gallery whose exhibits provided an illuminating look at the lives of the three sisters and their doomed brother. I learned that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights have been translated into 25 languages, and have inspired numerous films, radio and television adaptations, as well as operas, ballets and paintings.

I learned that England’s poet laureate Robert Southey once told the ambitious Charlotte that “literature is not the business of a woman’s life.”

W

free fire

HAT are we to make of foreign media accounts of extrajudicial killings?

Are they biased?

Philippine peso heads for best performance in Asia this month

❸

Hopefully, he later apologized and admitted his error. I especially loved discovering that the London publishers of Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell had no idea they were women, and for a while, even assumed they were all one man.

Writing about the Bells, one critic noted, “The Bells are of a hardy race. The air they breathe is not that of a hot house or of perfumed apartments, but it whistles through the rugged thorns that shoot out their prickly arms on barren moors or it ruffles the moss on mountaintops.” It’s probably safe to assume the hardy race he was referring to was Currer, Ellis and Acton, and not Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

Yorkshire is England’s largest county and one of its most historic, and in this part of it, punctuated by the stunning countryside of the Dales, there is much for the visitor to enjoy.

From a scenic ride on the Keighley and Worth Valley steam train to a stop in Rylstone, the tiny village where a group of remarkable women inspired the film Calendar Girls to a modest country pub where a Michelin-starred chef holds sway, the visitor will not lack for “Brontë-less” activities.

Yorkshire is the site of several of the magnificent monasteries left in ruins by Henry VIII after he broke with Rome over the pope’s refusal to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn.

One of the most magnificent is Bolton Abbey, often referred to as “the jewel in Yorkshire’s crown.”

Built in the 12th century on the banks of the River Wharfe—more a bubbling brook than an actual river—the romantic ruins of the Augustinian monastery have been a tourist attraction since Victorian times, and intrigued the poet William Wordsworth and painter J.M.W. Turner, who

depicted it in a series of watercolors.

Now maintained by the Duke of Devonshire, the spectacular grounds offer everything from walking trails to outdoor theater, and if you’re not afraid of the possibility of getting wet, you can attempt to cross the stepping stones, which connect both banks of the Wharfe.

Anyone who has been to London during the past 20 years knows that the culinary scene there has become one of the world’s best. This focus on food and the desire for local fare has enveloped the rest of Britain, as well, and Yorkshire is at the forefront.

Like France with its auberges where the emphasis is primarily on a Michelin-starred restaurant and secondarily on a few rooms for overnight guests too sated by their gourmet meal to do much moving, Britain has a growing number of pubs with rooms.

Such a spot is the five-room Clarendon Hotel in the tiny village of Hebden in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Recently voted England’s best rural pub, it’s home to Alsatian-born, Michelinstarred Chef Lionel Strub, who puts a French twist on such typically British dishes as oven roasted grouse (a moorland bird unique to Britain) and strawberries and elderflower trifle.

Another much lauded pub is the 350-year-old Shibden Mill Inn, a favorite of locals and visitors alike. Its rustic setting and traditional British fare is a perfect counterpoint to a lavish afternoon tea at imposing Ashmount Country House on a hill above Haworth. Also offering luxurious accommodations, Ashmount has a secret garden just begging to be discovered. I get the feeling that Charlotte, Emily and Anne would have loved it. ■

HII properties recognized as top choices by TripAdvisor Espana Residence Hotel in Alabang, the warm and cozy Harvest Hotel in Cabanatuan, the hip and environment-friendly Azumi Boutique Hotel in Alabang, the stylish and modern KL Tower Serviced Residences in Makati, the classy and artistic Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences, which is also ranked No. 5 of all Makati hotels, and elegantly minimalist Y2 Residence Hotel also in Makati.

The awards given to the said hotels are in big part, thanks to HII’s “innovision.”

Parque Espana, Harvest Hotel, Azumi Boutique Hotel, KL Tower Serviced Residences and Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences are all smaller boutique hotels that offer unique experiences, and a level of service on a par with brand hotel chains.

And this is because HII develops creative concepts for every hotel it manages, making every guest experience unforgettable.

The excellent service, provided by HII’s management, is key to the hotel’s success.

HII Founder and CEO Luis C. Monserrat says, “These recognitions are very meaningful

REAL, valuable advice come from friends.

Through the site TripAdvisor, millions of travelers around the world become your pals, giving you smart recommendations on what to eat or where to stay from their very own travel experiences.

The site is host to 350 million reviews and opinions covering more than 6.5 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions all over the world.

Over 340 million unique monthly visitors to the site look to TripAdvisor as a guide for exploring their dream destinations.

In the Philippines Hospitality Innovators Inc. (HII) properties have been voted by thousands of TripAdvisor users as some of the top hotels to stay in, and awarded the prestigious TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence, which accounts for quality, quantity and recency of reviews submitted by travelers and a bubble rating of at least four out of five.

HII’s six properties, which received the coveted certificate and travelers’ stamp of approval, include the unique and lavish Parque

for us, precisely, because they are based on actual feedback from our guests.” He adds, “Reading the reviews and receiving appreciation for what we do is quite humbling. We consider these a major source of inspiration, and something that drives us to consistently work on providing the best for all our guests.”

For 17 years, the company has been offering wonderful accommodations, superior service and great value through its managed properties. The recognition of these efforts is only going to propel HII’s vision of quality hospitality further.

As a testament to their continued growth, HII’s bankable portfolio now counts 12 properties that span the hotel, condominium and serviced residence categories, with another seven in the pipeline.

Since 1999, HII has been backed by a team of seasoned professionals whose personalities and perspectives genuinely share and feel a kinship with HII’s core values, and they continue their pursuit in providing the best and most innovative experiences for all their guests.

LIFE

LED by Hospitality Innovators Inc. (HII) Founder and CEO Luis Monserrat (fourth from left), HII team is composed of (from left) Executive Director Peter Stevens, Azumi Boutique Hotel and Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences General Manager John David Cruz, KL Tower General Manager Monica Punzalan, Parque Espana Residence Hotel General Manager and HII Vice President Agnes Luna, and Y2 Residence Hotel General Manager and Harvest Hotel Group Director Philippe Bartholomi.

D1

homework rules D4

Teddy Locsin Jr.

❷

In the footsteps of the Brontë Sisters

❸

REELING: ‘TUOS’: THE POWER AND THE PAINS OF THE KEPT WOMAN D3

BusinessMirror

Foreign media on native killings

Yes. They are biased for the truth—the truth so far as foreign journalists can find it.

But is there a larger truth they are missing, which only the government knows, but cannot reveal?

No. Whatever the government says it withholds does not exist.

I know. I worked in the government, at the very highest level. The ignorance there is breathtaking, and the pretention of knowing is equally so.

Again, is foreign media biased?

Yes. Biased in favor of good journalists with the talent to find the truth. And biased in favor of those with the talent to write or otherwise tell it well.

Continued on A11

in the footsteps of the brontË sisters EAR Lord, in the life of a person, virtues are like streams of freshwater that delight the eye and make the surrounding area lush and fertile. The life and prosperity of a certain region depend to a great extent on the presence of such streams. But it can happen that streams of material water may gradually or even abruptly dry up. The devastating consequences of such a loss are soon visible and terrible. They spell misery for vegetation, animals and people.

Therefore, we must be filled with the water of grace to feel the presence of God always. Amen.

P25.00 nationwide | 4 sections 28 pages | 7 days a week

@cuo_bm

he Duterte administration supports proposals to create a housing department to fast-track the implementation of programs aimed at wiping out the housing backlog, according to the country’s economic planners.

D

“Hopefully our roofs stay on, and our houses don’t float away or get blown away. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, are we going to get flattened or what?’”—Hawaii resident Mitzi Bettencourt, as a rare hurricane hurtled toward the Big Island. AP

Parentlife BusinessMirror

Thursday, September 1, 2016

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Homework rules

ISUZU DEALERSHIP Gencars Inc. on Wednesday opened its sixth dealership of Isuzu vehicles in Batangas City. Gracing the event are (from

MOMMY NO LIMITS

MAYE YAO CO SAY

mommynolimits@gmail.com

NANGKA Elementary School students enjoying the new books given by Citi through the Philippine Business for Social Progress.

I

T is the start of September, and not a few kids are just starting their school year. And, of course, homework.

How does your child see homework? I see some kids dread it, while others enjoy it. How about you, as a parent? How do you view your child’s homework and reviews for tests or exams? Do we view homework as the chance to get all As? Do we view it as too much work for our kids, and wish that schools would just let kids have more free time?

I admire parents who diligently supervise their kids. I also admire parents who home-school their kids. I’ve realized from conversations with friends, how our view of schoolwork greatly affects our kids view if it. I remember a story in which a dad would tell his kids that school was not important, because hard work was the key to success. That child grew up to be a hardworking and happy adult, but, at times, he’d wonder what his life would be like had he known the value of excelling in school earlier in life.

I remember my relatives would always tell us schoolwork was our way of practicing for real-life work. They told us good grades would give us good jobs one day. I remember asking, “But we have a family business?” And my aunt retorted, “What if the business is no longer there when you grow up?” That exchange stuck with me because I realized my future depended on my efforts.

I personally view homework as a critical part in my child’s lifelong-learning journey. When my kids were in preschool, I saw their homework as my chance to understand each of my kids’ learning style. I was very hands-on in their homework. I felt this was important so I would know how to help them in their gradeschool years. I realized my daughter is a more visual learner: When she had to learn songs, I would draw the words out and she would learn things faster. I also saw how I needed to improve on her auditory skills, because it was difficult for her to absorb information without visual boards. For my son, he was more tactile. It always helps that he writes or draws on his own, and then he identifies his own drawings.

Now that they’re in grade school, I view homework as a practice for discipline and a way to develop a work ethic. I teach them to value the opportunity to practice their skills. I value consistency and regimens. I know parents view structure in different ways. But even when my kids were enrolled in Montessori, there were still rules and schedules to follow. I’m going after that “study rhythm” they could gradually establish on their own.

I also utilize this stage to observe and challenge their standards. I want them to observe the cause and effect of the proportion of the work they put in to the quality of the output. I focus on trial and error and the value of knowing more. I discuss with them how they got they did grade and if they’re happy with it. I remind them that their grade is their achievement, not mine.

At Grade 3, I began to usher my daughter into doing her own homework. I suggested she could do

HERE is Meagan doing a test paper for Marcus when he was in kindergarten.

reviewers. She said she didn’t need to. When the exam results came, she got an average grade. I asked her how she felt about it. She said she wished she’d done better.

I said, “OK, mom would do a reviewer for you this time and let’s check if this would help.” She got a perfect score in the next exam. From then on, my daughter would do her own reviewer three days before a test.

My son is different. He is in Grade 1 now. He is very serious in his penmanship and conduct in school.

When I ask him about his test scores, he is usually OK with his results. I then drew a diagram which illustrated that A efforts result in A results, telling him that his school results lead to different options in university choices, and different universities lead to certain jobs in the future.

I believe my kids’ view of homework provides an arena in which they can learn to be accountable to themselves. Competing with other students to become the best is not the overarching motivation. (I will talk about my view on my children’s grades in the next piece.) For me, what is more important is seeing

my kids being happy with their efforts and the results they got from these, and in their knowing they’re working toward their future. If your child has siblings, it is also great that siblings help each other make homework fun and creative.

When my kids enter secondary school, I hope for them to experience enriched learning. I loved our individual works in Poveda. When we were learning Canterbury Tales in English, we were asked to make our own costume of our chosen character. When we were learning Shakespeare, we needed to make our own tune from a sonnet.

There was a valuable lesson I learned in my short time in Clarkstown North in New York. Schoolwork is about context and contentment. The value of my high grades was not in being better than other students. It was about enjoying learning itself.

As much as I graduated valedictorian, I found greater value in loving the work process and continuously seeking to learn new things in the most meaningful way possible. ■

EMPLOYEES of Citi Philippines recently worked as volunteers to support a book drive for the benefit of students of Nangka Elementary School in Marikina. The country’s largest foreign bank generously turned over 43 reading nooks, ensuring every student and every classroom will have access to ageappropriate and bilingual reading books.

Citi’s participation was made possible by the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), the largest corporateled social-development foundation in the country. The undertaking, which aims to provide for a set of children’s books in each public-school classroom, is part of PBSP’s Give a Gift of Change Initiative.

Citi is a founding member of the PBSP and has been supporting its endeavors through the years.

During the turnover ceremony, Citi Philippines Public Affairs and Corporate Citizenship Director Aneth Lim was delighted to see the excited faces among students ranging from Grades 1 to 6, eager to get their hands on the books. As soon as the turnover program was completed, the students asked teachers for permission to get the books. And when they saw their teachers’ heads nodding, they each grabbed a copy, sat down and began to flip the pages.

“Reading is a great habit to pick up, and I hope these children will get lost in the pages and discover new adventures, travel to new places and open their minds to new knowledge. Studies have shown that avid readers become better learners, too, as it improves comprehension, a welcome skill for a student to have in any subject,” Lim related.

On hand to receive the books for the Nangka Elementary School was Jovita Mani, acting principal. Representing his fellow students to thank both Citi and PBSP was John Mathew Lopez, Grade 6 student and vice president of the Nangka Elementary School student body.

PBSP’s Regional Center Manager for Luzon Kristine Rivadelo said: “Thank you, Citi employees, for giving the opportunity to the pupils of Nangka Elementary School to have access to new and colorful storybooks. Each reading nook placed in all the classrooms will be very helpful in promoting love for reading to our kids and eventually igniting important values, such as family, friendship, love and empathy.” Apart from the book donations, Citi volunteers were also recently mobilized at the Nangka Elementary School to help spruce up the classrooms, repair chairs, and cleanup the surroundings in time for the opening of the new school year as part of the Department of Education’s Brigada Eskwela program. Thanks to the volunteers, the school won third place in their district in a school competition promoted by the Department of Education.

“We were here then as part of our annual day of service, or Citi’s Global Community Day, during which our employees volunteer their time toward causes that support their interest.

At the time, we were committed to help create an environment more conducive to learning, as we painted chairs, cleaned the classrooms and more,” Lim recalled.

“Being back here today, nearly two months since, and armed with books for every classroom and every student, is a great way to show that volunteerism and giving back are year-round passions for Citi employees.”

Parentlife

How to talk to your teen about weight: Don’t

BY HEIDI STEVENS Chicago Tribune THE American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) just released new guidelines for talking to teens about their weight, and the main takeaway is pretty simple: Don’t.

“The focus should be on a healthy lifestyle, rather than on weight,” reads the report “Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents,” which will appear in the September issue of Pediatrics.

Roughly 34 percent of 12 to 19 year olds are now classified as overweight or obese, according to the report, but eating disorders are also a serious threat.

Disordered eating is, in fact, the third most common chronic condition in adolescents—after obesity and asthma.

How to tackle one without triggering the other?

Parents and health-care professionals should do the following, the report states: ■ Discourage dieting, skipping of meals or the use of diet pills; instead, encourage and support the implementation of healthy eating and physical activity behaviors that can be

left) Takashi Tomita, executive vice president of Isuzu Philippines Corp. (IPC); Alangilan Barangay Captain Guilberto Alea; Batangas City Rep. Marvey Marino; Batangas City Mayor Beverly Rose Dimacuha; D. Edgard Cabangon, managing director of Gencars Inc.; Hajime Koso, president of IPC; and Takashi Kikuchi, president of Isuzu Motors Corp.-Thailand. Story on A12. ROY DOMINGO

A PARTNERSHIP TO PROMOTE LOVE OF READING AMONG MARIKINA SCHOOLCHILDREN

maintained on an ongoing basis; ■ Promote a positive body image. Do not encourage body dissatisfaction or focus on body dissatisfaction as a reason for dieting; ■ Encourage more frequent family meals; ■ Encourage families not to talk about weight, but rather, to talk about healthy eating and being active to stay healthy; ■ Inquire about a history of mistreatment or bullying in overweight and obese teenagers; and ■ Carefully monitor weight loss in an adolescent who needs to lose weight to ensure the adolescent does not develop the medical complications of semistarvation.

“All of these need to start with the foundation of children understanding you love them, regardless of what they may or may not look like, and what they may or may not weigh,” said Jancey Wickstrom, site director at The Renfrew Center of Chicago, an eating-disorder treatment clinic in Northbrook.

“If you tell them they’re overweight, they’re certainly not going to bring to you that their peers are teasing them because

about what your body does for you and in what ways you can make your body feel better, so it does more for you. ‘Do you like to go skateboarding with your friends?

How can we make sure, your body feels good when you do that.’”

And resist the temptation to push diets in your household.

“Dieting is a risk factor for both obesity and eating disorders,” the AAP study states. Girls who dieted in ninth grade were three times more likely to be overweight in 12th grade, compared with nondieters, according to the report, and teens who restricted their food intake and skipped meals were 18 times more likely to develop eating disorders than those who didn’t diet.

Above all, Wickstrom said, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

“A registered dietitian or eatingdisorder specialist can help you make the right decisions,” Wickstrom said.

“Our society is so weight-obsessed and appearance-obsessed, and these are real topics parents have to deal with every day.

There are definitely resources available to help parents navigate those tricky situations.”

D4

screaming discomfort they’ll be afraid you agree,” Wickstrom added. “The first thing you have to establish is unconditional love, regardless of their size or appearance.”

That means avoiding frequent comments about your own weight and the weight of your friends and family, as well.

“When kids hear their parents talk about friends or family members gaining or losing weight, it sends a clear message that the most interesting thing about

those people is their physical size,” Wickstrom said. “We want our kids to know they’re interesting and important, no matter what they look like.”

If parents are worried about their kids’ weight, Wickstrom said, they can frame the conversation in terms that have nothing to do with the scale.

“You’re not talking about numbers,” she said. “Talk openly about the benefits of exercise and a variety of foods. Talk

C1

| Thursday, sepTember 1, 2016 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao Asst. Editor: Joel Orellana

TEN years after his last pro match, Andre Agassi visits US Open. AP

MOST ACES

N

EW YORK—Ivo Karlovic hit 61 aces, the most in a US Open match, during his five-set victory in the first round.

The 6-foot-11 Croatian broke the previous record of 49, established by Richard Krajicek in a 1999 quarterfinal loss.

Karlovic, who is seeded 21st, beat Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5), 7-5, on Tuesday, holding in 28 of his 29 service games.

Karlovic finished with 10 double-faults. He hit 22 aces in the second set alone—twice as many as Andy Murray produced in his entire three-set victory on Tuesday night.

The record for most aces in a match is 113, set by John Isner during the longest match in tennis history, his victory over Nicolas Mahut that ended 70-68 in the fifth set during Wimbledon’s first round in 2010. AP CROATIA’S Ivo Karlovic hits 61 aces to set a US Open record. AP

By Butch Fernandez

Sports BusinessMirror

Agassi: Ten years after N

EW YORK—For all of his victories during two decades on the tennis tour, including eight Grand Slam titles, Andre Agassi looks back most fondly these days on the aftermath of a loss.

During an interview on Tuesday in the city where he played his last professional match 10 years ago, Agassi called the way he walked away from the sport as good a moment as he had on court during his lengthy, successful always-in-the-spotlight career On September 3, 2006, Agassi lost a third-round match at the US Open against Benjamin Becker, then delivered an on-court speech in Arthur Ashe Stadium to an adoring crowd that gave him a lengthy standing ovation as he headed into retirement.

“It really brought together what it’s all been about from the beginning, which is people and connection. And it put everything into perspective: the ups, the downs, the successes, the failures, the triumphs, the comebacks. I not only grew up in New York, but New York helped me grow up,” the 46-year-old Agassi said.

“So when all of a sudden it was over, and there was that raw emotion—both on my end and 20,000 other people who were in the stadium—it made me realize how connected we’ve all been over the years,” he continued, thinking back on that occasion. “And I’ve got to say, I look back on that moment as probably the best moment I’ve ever had on a tennis court.”

He famously wrote in his book Open that he always hated tennis “with a dark and secret passion” because of his overbearing father, and so maybe it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Agassi said he rarely picks up a racket these days.

“I’ll give charity lessons,” he said, “but that’s about it.”

Becker, who is 35, was on court at the US Open on Tuesday, losing in the first round.

Asked what he recalls most from his long-ago match against Agassi, Becker replied: “It was a tough match, and I don’t remember that much.”

Then he paused, before adding with a grin: “But I remember I won. I hit an ace on the final point.”

P

SERENA WILLIAMS starts her bid for a record-breaking 23rd major title by showing zero signs of trouble from a right shoulder she’s said was sore. AP

Becker said that day is brought up to him by others “quite often, obviously, but I understand it,” and he referred to having “the honor of playing him in the last match.”

Agassi, who won the US Open in 1994 and 1999, planned to be at Ashe as a spectator for Tuesday’s night session, in connection with his new role as a spokesman for Lavazza coffee.

As part of the arrangement, $1 per coffee sold at the brand’s cafés at the twoweek tournament will go to the US Tennis Association Foundation to benefit the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education.

Between matches on Tuesday the stadium scoreboards were supposed to show an ad in which Agassi is seen having an espresso in an Italian piazza, leading to a series of flashback videos of him as a kid and a pro.

It’s capped by Agassi “transforming” into his long-haired, day-Glo-outfit persona of yesteryear and declaring, “I’m back!”

“Initially, when I read it on paper, I was like, ‘No way I’m doing it,’” Agassi said. “But then, when I talked to the director, and they sort of said: ‘Listen, here’s how it’s being filmed. It’s like this flashback. It won’t be a closeup.’...

Just putting on that outfit made me feel real old, let me assure you.” AP

SCREAMING DISCOMFORT A year ago at Flushing Meadows, Bouchard got a concussion from a fall at the facility and withdrew before playing in the fourth round, and then missed most of the rest of the season. She filed suit against the US Tennis Association in US District Court in Brooklyn in October, and that case is still pending, putting the 2014 Wimbledon runner-up in the odd position of competing this week at an event whose organizers she is suing.

By Howard Fendrich

N

Palace mulls over nuclear option as part of future PHL energy mix

The Associated Press

EW YORK—Eugenie Bouchard wrung her hands at her postmatch news conference.

She rubbed her lower lip. She squeezed her left arm.

While her body language screamed discomfort on Tuesday, when the main topic of discussion was Bouchard’s ongoing lawsuit against the US Open rather than her first-round loss, her words were measured. The once rising star answered every question.

A year ago at Flushing Meadows, Bouchard got a concussion from a fall at the facility and withdrew before playing in the fourth round, and then missed most of the rest of the season. She filed suit against the US Tennis Association (USTA) in US District Court in Brooklyn in October, and that case is still pending, putting the 2014 Wimbledon runnerup in the odd position of competing this week at an event whose organizers she is suing.

“If I sit down and think about it, yeah, it’s definitely a strange situation. But it’s something that’s so far in the back of my mind. I don’t think about it on a daily basis, at all. I have people, lawyers, working on that side of it,” Bouchard said. “So it’s really not something I think about much at all. Obviously, being here, it’s crossed my mind. But besides that, I mean, it has nothing to do with my day-to-day life.”

Her 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 exit against 72nd-ranked Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, a player who only once has been as far as the third round at a major tournament, was filled with 46 unforced errors by Bouchard, who also was treated for blisters on her feet. It represented the latest early loss for a 22-year-old Canadian who reached three Grand Slam semifinals two years ago—and none since.

In other first-round action on Day 2 at the year’s last Grand Slam tournament, Serena Williams started her bid for a record-breaking 23rd major title by showing zero signs of trouble from a right shoulder she’s said was sore, hitting 12 aces in a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Ekaterina Makarova. Also under the lights: Andy Murray got off to a similarly easy beginning to his attempt to become the fourth man in theOpen era to reach all four Grand Slam finals in a single season.

The 2012 champion at Flushing Meadows and seeded No. 2 this year, Murray beat Lukas Rosol, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.

Murray lost to No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the finals of the Australian Open in January and French Open in June, and then won his second Wimbledon title last month.

Earlier, Williams’s sister Venus got through a tougher-than-expected 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 win against Kateryna Kozlova.

“It was great to be challenged and to be pushed,” said the 36-year-old Venus, a two-time US Open champion, “because I had to get in those situations that you know you’re going to face in the tournament.”

There were various upsets around the grounds during the afternoon, including 19-year-old American Jared Donaldson’s 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-0 elimination of 12thseeded David Goffin, and a loss by No. 29 Sam Querrey, who stunned Djokovic at Wimbledon. Three seeded women departed, including former No. 1 and 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic.

When she was at her peak, and a seeded player, an early major loss by Bouchard was rather newsworthy. Her up-and-down 2015 and 2016 have changed that, in part because she is ranked only 39th now, after a best of No. 5.

She lost 14 of 17 matches leading into the 2015 US Open but, after working a bit with Jimmy Connors, appeared to be back on the upswing in New York by reaching the fourth round. Then came her slip-andtumble, and the concussion diagnosis, and she pulled out of what would have been a matchup against eventual runner-up Roberta Vinci.

It took her until January to return to the tour fulltime.

“I didn’t feel like, on the court, I was back to where I was,” Bouchard said on Tuesday, meaning that her level of play wasn’t at its peak at the start of 2016.

“But physically, since the beginning of the year, I’ve been feeling good.”

USTA Spokesman Chris Widmaier said the organization would not comment on the “substance” of litigation.

“However, it is truly unfortunate that a year after her accident, Genie’s focus is on matters other than playing to her best ability,” Widmaier said, noting that Bouchard’s lawyers asked for an extension of the case.

He said the USTA “has remained ready, willing and able to bring the litigation to a conclusion as expeditiously as is possible, whether through settlement discussions or a fully litigated process.”

Widmaier added that the lawsuit “had no impact on how Genie was treated at theUS Open in any manner.”

Bouchard’s coach, Nick Saviano, was asked whether her ability to play tennis on Tuesday had been affected at all by any possible distractions created by the lawsuit.

“I can’t really speak to that,” Saviano said. “She was in a good frame of mind coming in. She went out, she was ready to play, and the other girl played well.”

sports

c1

@butchfBM

ressed to look for new energy sources as economic growth pushes up demand, the Duterte administration is seen harnessing the long-idle $2-billion nuclear plant in Bataan.

Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi, appearing before the Senate’s Energy Committee, confirmed the government is studying options and will “consult the people” before giving the greenlight to tap

PESO exchange rates n US 46.4670

$1B

The initial estimate to put the 620-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant into operation

the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), even as senators voiced misgivings about the plan.

“We will have a national nuclear policy, we will have one; and we will go through the entire process, including legislation, since this is included on the legislative agenda presented to Congress,” Cusi told reporters after the hearing, adding that upon completion of the study, he will present it first to President Duterte.

He said initial estimate to put See “Nuclear,” A2

T

he Philippine peso is set for the best performance among Asian currencies this month, supported by rising remittances and record-high foreign-exchange reserves.

The peso was at 46.545 per dollar as of 12:47 p.m. in Manila, up 1.2 percent from end-July and headed for the biggest monthly gain since March, according to Bankers Association of the Philippines data compiled by Bloomberg.

The reason for the peso’s outperformance “remains the same— strong economic fundamentals,” said Alan Cayetano, head of foreignexchange trading at Bank of the Philippine Islands. “There seems to be some support near 46.70 to 46.80 per dollar, but once it’s gone, the peso has been seeking its own levels,” Cayetano said, forecasting a range of 46

to 47.50 over the near term.

The country’s foreign-exchange reserves were at a record high of $85.5 billion in July and remittances in June were up 4.8 percent, the fastest growth since February, according to central bank data released this month. Remittances have fueled consumer spending, which underpins economic growth.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas sees the peso supported by a healthy combination of strong growth and slow inflation, as the authority sticks to a flexible foreign-exchange policy. “We allow supply-and-demand conditions to determine the exchange rate,” Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said on Tuesday. “What we don’t want to see is too much volatility and sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate.” Bloomberg News

There seems to be some support near 46.70 to 46.80 per dollar, but once it’s gone, the peso has been seeking its own levels.”—Cayetano

n japan 0.4513 n UK 60.8021 n HK 5.9904 n CHINA 6.9541 n singapore 34.0517 n australia 34.8921 n EU 51.7875 n SAUDI arabia 12.3905

Source: BSP (31 August 2016 )

A2 Thursday, September 1, 2016

BMReports BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Duterte admin backs creation of DHUD Continued from A1

In a budget hearing at the Senate on Wednesday, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said the Cabinet has already decided to create the Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD).

Under the current setup, the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC)— which oversees the implementation of the government’s housing programs—does not have a budget. Six housing agencies under the HUDCC are given a budget, but the council does not have a say on how it is spent.

“In the recent Cabinet meeting, there was a decision to create the Department of Housing and, in fact, I’m working very closely with the Vice President to find out how

Nuclear. . .

Continued from A1

the 620-megawatt BNPP “into operation” was pegged at $1 billion.

“That is just an estimate, it’s still under study,” Cusi said.

The energy secretary said they were informed that reviving the mothballed nuclear plant in Morong, Bataan, could take two to four years. “At most, probably four years and the earliest is two years,” he said, adding that “from hereon until 2030, we will need to add around 1,100 mw per year, roughly that’s the number.”

Asked about safety issues, Cusi acknowledged concerns about

best to do this,” Diokno said. “I’m quite sure that this administration is supportive of the move.”

He also said the Cabinet has already tabled for discussion the creation of the DHUD in the next Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) meeting in September.

Various measures have been filed at the House of Representatives and at the Senate-calling for the setup of the DHUD. However, these bills were not enacted.

Sens. Franklin M. Drilon, Loren B. Legarda and Risa Hontiveros supported the plan of the Cabinet to create the DHUD and its inclusion on the Ledac agenda.

Legarda said the bill creating the DHUD has been languishing in the House and the Senate. She said these measures were filed as early as 2007.

In December 2015 the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading House Bill (HB) 6194, or the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act. In the Senate, Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. filed Senate Bill (SB) 423 in July 2013, while Sen. Jinggoy P. Ejercito-Estrada filed SB 2199 in May 2014.

In March 2015 Sen. Joseph Victor G. Ejercito filed SB 2691, or the Department of Human Settlement and Urban Development Act. “This [creation of the DHUD] is one of the legislative measures that we will push in the 17th Congress,” Diokno said.

Vice President Maria Leonor G. R obredo, who c h a i rs t he HUDCC, pushed for the establishment of the DHUD to make it easier for the government to

administer its housing programs.

The council is currently crafting a road map that will detail the government’s strategies to wipe out the housing backlog. While this is being done, Robredo called for a temporary moratorium on constructing socialized-housing units, after she found that relocation homes built by the previous administration were “poorly built”.

Apart from its poor design, Robredo noted that the relocation homes did not have utilities, such as water and electricity. While each house costs only P140,000, many units had cracks and the doors were already damaged.

“This is why I am in favor of declaring a moratorium in the next few months, stop building houses first. We want to build quality housing units,” she said.

During her recent visit to a government housing project in Barangay Batia in Bocaue, Bulacan, Robredo found that only 800 out of the 4,000 housing units built there were occupied.

The housing project of the National Housing Authority in Bocaue initially sought to address the housing needs of low-salaried military personnel. Government data showed six out of 10 policemen could not purchase their own home.

“When I assumed office, there was no comprehensive road map that charts the direction of the government’s housing program. The shelter agencies just built homes,” Robredo said.

“There is really a need to sit down and strategize. Actually, the President asked me if I’m content with the housing budget. Of course,

I am not content, but I don’t want to ask for additional funds without a plan,” she added.

Robredo said the countr y’s housing problem was most evident in Bulacan, where informal settlers from Metro Manila were usually relocated.

This, she said, has also compounded the woes of the local government of Bulacan as they were forced to provide for the needs of additional residents with their limited funds. The HUDCC chairman said she is open to adopting housing models in Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as other models in local governments that have been proven to work.

Robredo said the HUDCC will be meeting to discuss the problems and plans for the housing sector this week.

faultlines in the proximity of the BNPP. “Just like in Japan, we have been discussing the issue of faultlines for more than 40 years, and I cited the lost opportunity for the long time that we have not been using the BNPP,” he said, adding: “But having said that, these are the faultlines, and there is always an engineering solution to those kind of problems, and I am sure competent expert engineers will take those into account...I am confident on the studies being made, that they will come out with a good study.”

Senate Energy Committee Chairman Win Gatchalian earlier sought caution about plans to revive the “dilapidated” BNPP, citing safety concerns and lack of technologi-

cal capabilities as critical issues that come hand-in-hand with the controversial plant, which has yet to produce a single megawatt of electricity since it was completed in 1984.

Gatchalian aired his concerns after Cusi put forward the possibility of refurbishing the plant and adding nuclear power to the Philippine energy mix.

According to Gatchalian, “the BNPP is a rundown relic from an era long gone.”

“Over three decades of innovation in nuclear energy separate it from modern nuclear power plants,” he said, adding: “The $1-billion investment it would take to refurbish the plant would

be better spent on more feasible generation projects.”

The senator also noted the BNPP’s precarious location atop a geological fault line would make its revival a safety hazard for the entire Luzon island group, even as he pointed to the nuclear plant’s outdated technology as a source of concern, explaining that newer power plant designs have taken into consideration the structural failures of older plants and are thus sturdier and more resistant to environmental stresses.

At this point, he said, “our country simply has not developed the necessary technical expertise to operate the BNPP or any modern nuclear power plant in a safe and

cost-efficient manner.”

But Gatchalian admitted he was not ruling out nuclear energy as a future part of the country’s energy mix, provided that nuclear-energy advocates would be able to provide clear and detailed plans on how to develop nuclear energy in a safe and sustainable manner over the long term.

For his part, Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito welcomed the move of Cusi to consider options in looking for alternative sources of power supply, including the revival of the Bataan nuclear plant. “I must admire Cusi for considering nuclear energy. Now that yellow alerts and forced outages are recurring, it is time that we think outside

the box. Right now, nuclear is the cheapest source of power generation,” Ejercito said.

The senator said he had the opportunity to visit the BNPP, “and was surprised to see that it remains in good condition.”

Ejercito recalled that when President Cory Aquino assumed power in 1986, she was hesitant to use the BNPP, but nonetheless allotted an annual P50-million maintenance fund for it. “That is why up to this day, it can still be used.”

Ejercito added: “We had our last payment for the nuclear plant in 2007. It is now owned by taxpayers, by all Filipinos. Why don’t we reconsider utilizing it? It’s a $2-billion asset that is just sitting there.”

BMReports BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Thursday, September 1, 2016 A3

Asians are top visitors to PHL from January to June–DOT T

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo Special to the BusinessMirror

HE Philippines’s neighbors in Asia accounted for the largest number of visitor arrivals in the country in the first half of the year.

Data released by the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed visitor arrivals growing by 13.7 percent to some 2.98 million from January to June 2016. Of the total, visitors from Asia accounted for 59.22 percent at 1.76 million, among them from East Asia at 1.46 million, with the rest from the Association of Southeast Nations, 243,035 arrivals; and South Asia, 54,777.

North and South America contributed a total of 551,836 arrivals, representing an 18.53-percent share to the total, while visitors from Europe accounted for 10.84 percent equivalent to 322,930 a r r iv a l s. Au st ra l a si a / Pac i f ic contributed 160,118 arrivals, or

2.98M

Visitor arrivals to the Philippines from January to June 2016, representing a 13.7-percent hike, with South Korea again topping the list of source markets accounting for 686,118 visitors, or 23 percent of total arrivals 5.38 percent of total.

The DOT is trying to attract some 5.9 million foreign-visitor arrivals this year. Assistant Secretary for Tourism Development Planning

Rolando Cañizal said in a text message to the BusinessMirror that “we are on track to reach 6 million visitor arrivals by year-end.”

From January to June 2016, South Korea again topped the list of source markets for visitors in the Philippines, with 686,118 visitors, accounting for some 23 percent of total arrivals. The United States remained the second-biggest source of visitors, with 454,170 visitor arrivals (15.25 percent of total tourists).

China edged out Japan for the third place, with 340,958 arrivals (11.45 percent); followed by Japan, at 260,656 (8.75 percent); and Australia, at 126,209 (4.24 percent).

Rounding out the top source markets for visitor arrivals in the Philippines are Taiwan, 112,152; Singapore, 92,080; Canada, 91,412; the United Kingdom, 86,87; and Malaysia, 72,297.

Among the top 10 markets, China posted the highest growth in arrivals at 79.15 percent, followed by Taiwan at 31.3 percent.

The data has yet to reflect the expected slowdown of Chinese visitor arrivals after the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled

on July 12 against China in its dispute with the Philippines over the South China Sea. Since then, reports of cancellations by Chinese tourists of bookings in Cebu, Bohol and Boracay have been reported due to an in-

formal travel ban by the Beijing government. (Read, “Sea-row ruling driving Chinese tourists away,” in the BusinessMirror, July 20, 2016.)

Canizal, however, said the DOT “expects high [visitors] volume for July and in the last quarter” of 2016,

negating any possible slowdown in the Chinese market due to the searow ruling. “Yes, despite cancellations from China, based on initial data, July is still good,” he said.

Total visitor receipts in the first half of 2016, jumped by 14.7 percent to an estimated P127.37 billion, from P111.05 billion in the same period in 2015. The month of February registered the biggest earnings for the tourism industry at P27.5 billion, as well as the highest growth of 42.09 percent.

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport was the primary port of entry to the country, with visitor volume in the month of June alone reaching 307,447. This accounted for some 67 percent of total visitors to the Philippines that month of 459,138.

Other major ports of entry include the Mactan International Airport in Cebu, which welcomed 77,900 visitors (16.97 percent of total June arrivals); Kalibo International Airport in Aklan, at 52,401 (11.41 percent); and the Clark International Airport, Pampanga, at 14,437 (3.14 percent). Other airports received 3,162 visitors in June.

BMReports BusinessMirror

A4 Thursday, September 1, 2016

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Govt may force companies to provide ‘pro-rated’ benefits to casuals, temps

G

By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

OVERNMENT may force companies to extend “prorated” benefits to temporary employees as a compromise to employers’ hiring practice of “endo.”

In a budget hearing at the Senate on Wednesday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Director General Ernesto M. Pernia defined endo as the termination of an employee after only five months of working

for a particular firm. The practice allows companies not to extend benefits, such as Christmas bonus, to employees.

“That [extending regular employee benefits to temporar y workers] in itself would discourage employers, like in retail, like in de-

partment stores,” Pernia said. “It would discourage big players from practicing endo.”

“Contractualization is something that is universal [and] practiced all over the world, because many jobs are seasonal,” Pernia added. “We cannot make them [temps] permanent.”

During the hearing, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said hiring people on a contractual basis is practiced in agriculture and in the media.

Dominguez noted that temporary workers in the farm sector are needed to clear irrigation canals, while media agencies employ socalled talents, such as news writers, producers and others.

Sens. Loren B. Legarda and Risa

Hontiveros agreed, saying they, too, were contractual workers at one point in their lives as media workers.

Sen. Joel Villanueva, meanwhile, raised concerns about the government’s own contractual workers. He noted even the Department of Public Works and Highways has 20,000 job orders, which is equivalent to the number of temporary workers the government agency has.

Villanueva added that there are government workers who have been working in their respective departments and/or agencies for years performing regular jobs but remained contractual.

In response, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said the De-

partment of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC) are formulating guidelines on job orders.

Diokno also said the Duterte administration plans to push for the proposal of a “right sizing bill” that seeks to absorb deserving temporary workers in their respective agencies.

He explained the bill seeks to be a comprehensive proposal aiming to “right size” the entire government bureaucracy.

“The DBM will submit [the proposal] to the Senate and the House this week or the next,” Diokno said.

In 2014 Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data showed over a million Filipino workers did not hold regular positions in

their companies.

Based on the Statistics on NonRegular Workers, the PSA said 1.336 million workers were considered nonregular employees in 2014.

This represented some 29.9 percent of all 4.472 million workers employed in establishments with 20 or more workers.

Nonregular workers are composed of contractual or projectbased workers, probationary workers, casual employees, seasonal employees and apprentices and/ or learners.

Pernia told lawmakers that Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III shares his opinion that companies wanting to continue practicing endo should provide pro-rated benefits to these workers.

Decoding Duterte: Philippine leader’s flip-flops sow confusion

W

het her Ph i l ippi ne President Rodrigo R. Duterte aims to shock, inspire or just amuse, deciphering his blunt and often unpredictable rhetoric is a potential challenge for investors seeking policy clarity from the new leader.

When it comes to the war on illegal drugs, events have unfolded the way Mr. Duterte promised, with more than 800 people killed in police operations since he was sworn in on June 30. On his pledge to invest heavily in infrastructure, President Duterte has impressed overseas investors, who have pumped $1.1 billion into the nation’s shares over the last three months.

But on a range of other issues, Mr. Duterte has sent more confusing signals. Some have been as innocuous as his choice of residence.

Others have carried more weight, such as whether the Philippines intends to negotiate with China over territory in the South China Sea, or whether the country can live without mining, or if he really means to ban online gambling.

“We have to get used to the President—his ranting and his off-thecuff remarks—but we’ll see,” said Joey Cuyegkeng, an economist at ING Group in Manila. “Sometimes he recovers from those things.”

Either way, here are seven matters on which President Duterte has appeared to flip flop since he came to power.

Playing games

AT his first Cabinet meeting, Mr.

President Duterte responded first by sticking to his pledge not to “flaunt or taunt” the decision. On August 23 Mr. Duterte said he expected to have bilateral talks with China within the year. But the next day, he warned China against invading Philippine territory, saying “it will be bloody and we will not give it to them easily.” Duterte is due to meet senior Chinese officials at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Lao PDR the week of September 5.

Living without mining

DUTERTE

Duterte ordered a halt to online gambling. He followed up with a speech on August 3 singling out then-PhilWeb Corp. Chairman Roberto Ongpin as he promised to curb big business influence on the government. The Philippine gaming regulator decided not to renew PhilWeb’s contract supplying so-called e-games cafés, which offer patrons electronic casino games, such as baccarat, blackjack, slot machines and video poker.

Then on August 24 President Duterte said the Philippines would allow online gambling to resume,

provided operators paid proper taxes and electronic casinos were away from schools and churches.

Separating from UN

AT 3 a.m. on August 21, Mr. Duterte said he may withdraw the Philippines from the United Nations, after UN officials criticized his war on illegal drugs. “Take us out of your organization. You have done nothing anyway,” said President Duterte, 71. The following day, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr. issued a clarification, saying the Philippines remained committed to the international body.

“Can’t you take a joke?” Duterte asked on August 23.

“Similar to the extrajudicial killings, we regard the comments as having the potential to harm the business climate and investor sentiment,” said Kyran Curry, a sovereign analyst at S&P Global Inc., in an email commenting on Mr. Duterte’s threat to withdraw from the UN.

Navigating South China Sea

After China refused to acknowledge an international court ruling in favor of the Philippines that rejected China’s claims to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea,

Riffing on the subject of mining regulations in early August, President Duterte told the country’s miners, the world’s biggest suppliers of nickel, that the Philippines could live without them. “You obey or we will survive as a nation without you,” Mr. Duterte said. Three days later, in a televised speech in the southern city of Davao, President Duterte tweaked his threat. He suggested that further mining permits would still be granted, while stressing there must be a limit to mining activities, saying it was time to reconfigure wealth distribution in the Philippines.

Stance on Abu Sayyaf

“You’ve never heard me say that they are criminals,” Mr. Duterte said in a July 8 speech in Davao on the subject of Islamic insurgent group Abu Sayyaf, which operates in the southwestern Philippines.

With a history of bombings, extortion and targeted assassinations,

President Duterte said Abu Sayyaf “were driven to desperation” by failed promises made under previous governments.

Still, by the end of July he referred to Abu Sayyaf as “enemies that have to be destroyed,” and last week reiterated the bandits must be tackled: “Seek them out in their lairs and destroy them—the Abu Sayyaf.

Destroy them, period.”

Where to live

IN the run up to his inauguration, Mr. Duterte often said he planned to take a commercial flight each morning from his home in Davao to the capital Manila, and return every evening. “My bed is here.

My room is here. My home is my comfort zone. It’s important that I can sleep and take a shower comfortably,” he said in late May. Then in early July, President Duterte announced his decision to follow predecessor then-President Benigno S. Aquino III by making the palace in Malacañang his official residence.

Climate change

IN mid-July, Mr. Duterte said his administration would not honor the Paris pact on climate change that his country adopted along with 200 or so nations last December, arguing the Philippines wasn’t sufficiently industrialized and its requirements differed. Just days later President Duterte changed tack, saying the Philippines would be willing to talk about signing the pact if it took into account his plans for the economy. Bloomberg News

Mystery of oil held on Chinese islands puzzles crude markets

C

hina’s got the world puzzling over its oil hoard.

From underground caverns by the Yellow Sea to a scattering of islands in the Yangtze River delta, the government has been stockpiling crude for emergencies in a network of storage sites dotted around the country. Record purchases this year by the world’s biggest energy consumer have helped oil prices recover from the worst crash in a generation. What the country plans to do next could determine where they go from here.

The difficulty is that nobody outside China really knows for certain. The government won’t say how much it’s holding or when the tanks will be full. Energy Aspects Ltd. says the country will probably keep buying and fill up commercial tanks if it has to, while the likes of JPMorgan Chase & Co. say the purchases may soon stop. The difference in opinion is equivalent to about 1.1 million barrels a day, or more than the Asian country buys from Saudi Arabia.

“China seems to feel no obligation to report on its strategic stocks, and that might confer a genuine advantage in its favor,” said John Driscoll, the chief strategist at JTD Energy Services Pte., who has spent more than 30 years trading crude and petroleum in Singapore. “The scope of their purchases can dramatically affect fundamentals and prices.

However, since they will likely be shrouded in secrecy, it will remain challenging to quantify the impact.”

China outlined in 2009 its plans to build reserves equivalent to 100 days of net imports. But since then, it’s only provided sporadic scraps of detail on its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR). That stands in contrast to the US, where the Energy Department has been detailing data on American inventories for more than three decades.

The Asian country had about 191 million barrels of crude in its SPR as of the middle of last year, according to a statement on the web site of the

National Bureau of Statistics in December. But it also said at the time that total combined capacity of seven above-ground sites and one location with underground caverns was the equivalent of only 180 million barrels.

The figures haven’t been updated since.

The government also said at the time it has leased space in commercial sites, signaling it could buy additional oil while more of its own tanks are constructed. Nobody replied to a fax sent to the press office of the National Energy Administration asking for details about the SPR. “SPR has been a China mystery due to the lack of government data disclosure,” said Ying Wang, a Hong Kong-based analyst at JPMorgan.

The bank estimates the amount of crude China is putting into stockpiles by calculating how much more oil the country is buying and producing than it’s using.

Surplus crude

That amounted to about 1.2 mil-

lion barrels a day over the first half of the year, according to JPMorgan.

The bank estimates the country built up a total of about 400 million barrels by mid-2016 out of a targeted 511 million barrels. That means at the current rate of stockpiling, the storage would be filled up by August, leading to a potential drop in imports in September.

Energy Aspects looks at it differently. Because China can shift oil between commercial and strategic storage, the government may be able to increase purchases even if it runs out of its own space, said Michal Meidan, a London-based analyst for the industry consultant. Another 150 million barrels of commercial storage space is coming online by the end of next year that can be filled, she said. That means that, while reserve buying may slow, it won’t fall significantly.

“Even if SPR tanks only come online later in the year, more commercial tanks are starting up,”

Meidan said. Energy Aspects sees demand for the reserves dropping by only 100,000 barrels a day in the second half of the year to 300,000 barrels daily.

China’s oil imports have averaged an unprecedented 7.5 million barrels a day so far this year, government data show. The purchases, along with temporary production outages in Nigeria and Canada, helped rebalance supply and demand in the market, leading Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half the world’s oil, to jump almost 90 percent from midJanuary to June.

Brent crude futures in London traded 0.1 percent lower at $48.31 a barrel by 11:09 a.m. Singapore time.

They were at more than $115 a barrel in mid-2014.

In the US supplies in the strategic reserve were at 695 million as of August 26, enough to support 149 days of import protection, according to data from the Energy Department. The government regularly

reports how much oil is at each of its four sites and even breaks down the quantity of crude that’s held by sulfur level. When it purchased supplies for the reserve last year, it did so in a bidding system in which the sellers and even the price were publicly announced.

Deadline delay

China plans to build emergency reserves equivalent to 100 days of net imports by 2020, the nation’s top refiner said in 2009, citing a plan approved by the State Council. It pushed back completion of the stockpile to beyond the 2020 deadline, according to a Five Year Plan released in March 2016.

“The Chinese seem to embrace the concept of asymmetric information which holds that those in possession of proprietary information and data hold a critical, strategic advantage over the less-informed,” JTD Energy’s Driscoll said.

Bloomberg News

Asean

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Garbage–a challenge for every LGU Asean-EU Perspective

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Thursday, September 1, 2016 A5

Indonesians still keep pride in their link to Barack Obama

HENRY J. SCHUMACHER

W

e humans produce waste. The amount of our daily waste reflects the standard of living. As wealth and purchasing power increase, so does the consumption of goods, and ever more waste is generated. Waste is a by-product of urbanization. It is noteworthy, though, that the amount of municipal solid waste is growing faster than the urbanization rate.

Coping with rubbish is a huge challenge for every local government unit (LGU). Informal dumps are a big nuisance causing flooding, air pollution and many other public-health problems. Formal-waste management is needed. Typically, this is one of the most important municipal services, with great impacts on the functionality and sustainability of urban life.

Many workers are involved, but all too often, they lack formal employment and any kind of social security. Labor standards and occupational safety matter in this sector as in every other one.

At the same time, many small-scale initiatives that deal with the collection, separation and recycling of waste provide income to poor people living in the dump sites or, in cases were waste-management/waste-to-energy projects are running, being employed by the companies running the projects.

Reducing waste is important, and so is reusing waste. Recycling is the third best option. For organic waste, composting is the way forward. Soundwaste management provides win-win solutions, generating employment, recovering valuable resources and reducing the space needed for landfills.

Only what cannot be used or cannot be treated in waste-to-energy facilities at all anymore should be disposed of in landfills.

Industrial waste is more problematic than residential waste, since it often contains hazardous substances. Unless there is proper treatment, toxic waste pollutes the environment, contaminates water and harms human and livestock health. Responsible companies that are producing industrial waste are treating the waste before it is disposed off. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority management is watching its locators closely with regard to industrial waste handling.

Too often, digital devices that contain rare and precious earth metals are simply dumped, even though they need to be recycled. The imperative is to prevent waste, but the rich agglomerations basically excel at collecting it. The same goes for used batteries; they should be properly collected and treated, disposing of the dangerous acids and recovering the lead. The process of collection and treatment has also started for used cooking oil of thousands of restaurants, canteens and small eateries.

We, at the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, are supporting a more intense dialogue between LGUs and companies that can offer “waste-treatment/waste-segregation/waste-recycling and waste-toenergy” options that are in line with the rules set by the Clean Air Act, the interpretation of the Supreme Court when it comes to “incineration” and the emission values accepted under existing regulations.

Suu Kyi: Myanmar has unique opportunity to forge peace

N

AYPYITAW, Myanmar—Myanmar has a unique opportunity to end decades of ethnic rebellions in various parts of the country, leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Wednesday as she promised that her government will guarantee rebel groups equal rights and respect in historic peace talks.

Suu Kyi was speaking at the start of the five-day negotiations aimed at ending decades of separatist insurgencies that have claimed thousands of lives.

The talks are being attended by representatives of 17 of the 20 major ethnic groups, including the Karen, Kachin, Shan and Wa, who make up 40 percent of the country’s population.

“This is a unique opportunity for us to accomplish a great task that will stand as a landmark throughout our history,” said Suu Kyi, whose official title is state counsellor although she is the real power in the government, above the president. “Let us grasp this magnificent opportunity with wisdom, courage and perseverance and create a future infused with light.”

The peace talks are called Union Peace Conference—21st Century Panglong, a reference to the Panglong Agreement brokered in 1947 by Suu Kyi’s late father, independence hero Gen. Aung San, in the town of Panglong, when Myanmar was still ruled by Britain.

The deal granted ethnic minorities autonomy and the right to secede if they worked with the federal government to break away from Britain together. But Aung San was assassinated the following year and the deal fell apart. Since then, ethnic groups have accused successive, mostly military, governments of failing to honor the 1947 pact.

The first uprising—launched by

ethnic Karen insurgents—began shortly after independence. Since then, other ethnic groups have also taken up arms with roughly the same aim—to fight for autonomy while resisting “Burmanization,” a push by the Burman ethnic majority to propagate its language, religion and culture in ethnic minority regions.

The rebel armies control a patchwork of remote territories rich in jade and timber that are mostly in the north and east along the borders with China and Thailand.

Suu Kyi said her National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s aim has always been to hold political negotiations “based on the Panglong spirit and the principle of finding solutions through the guarantee of equal rights, mutual respect and mutual confidence between all ethnic nationalities.”

“The government that emerged after the 2015 elections is determined to uphold the same principles,” she said, referring to the landmark elections that brought the NLD to power after decades of military rule. The previous military-backed government brokered individual truces with various insurgent groups and oversaw a cease-fire covering eight minor insurgencies last year that fell short of a nationwide deal.

Skirmishes, particularly in northern zones where Kachin insurgents are fighting the army, have displaced more than 100,000 civilians since 2011 alone. At least 100,000 more have sought refuge in squalid camps in neighboring Thailand, and are unlikely to return home until true peace takes hold.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the head of armed forces Gen. Min Aung Hlaing are also attending the conference. AP

J

IN this November 10, 2010, file photo, President Barack Obama greets the crowd after he speaks at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia. AP

AKARTA, Indonesia—As Barack Obama’s presidency nears its end, Indonesians still speak with pride of the childhood years he spent in their country, though much of the enthusiasm has faded along with the impossibly high expectations of what the first African-American president would achieve.

A fan club, books, a statue, a café and even a movie were all part of the mania for Obama in the world’s most populous Muslim nation after he was elected president in 2008.

Many Indonesians believed he would change the world and their country, with its deep-seated problems of poverty, corruption and communal conflict.

Obama is still known here by his childhood nickname Barry and as the “Menteng Kid,” a reference to the upscale Jakarta neighborhood where he lived with his mother and Indonesian stepfather from ages 6 to 10.

“We had great expectations about him that were not realized,” said Sonni Gondokusumo, who was one of Obama’s classmates at Menteng 01 elementary school and a neighbor, and is now a lawyer in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.

Obama is set to travel to Asia for the last time as president, visiting China for a Group-of-20 meeting and Lao PDR for a regional summit, but not Indonesia. His first of two visits to the country as president was in 2010, taking Obama-mania to new heights that included an Indonesian lookalike becoming a

national celebrity.

Gondokusumo fondly recalled how a young Obama played at his house and joined him in Muslim prayers wearing a traditional Indonesian sarong that kept falling off, causing much laughter.

“Initially, we expected Barry will make a difference,” Gondokusumo said. “To be honest, there is no significant contribution to this country.”

Widiyanto Cahyono, another of Obama’s former classmates, nodded in agreement.

He said he initially had believed that Obama’s emotional connection to Islam through childhood friends and a Muslim stepfather would lead to a world of greater tolerance. But now he realizes he had naïvely projected all his hopes onto Obama.

“Obama has a better understanding of Islam and his religious tolerance is genuine,” said Cahyono, who sat next to Obama in fourth grade.

“But it is a pity nothing has changed,” he added, pointing to American policy in the Middle East.

He recalled Obama attending Islamic study class at the Menteng school, but said that, instead of listening to the teacher, the future president acted cool by doodling a

superhero in his notebook.

Even though the sky-high hopes for what Obama would achieve have faded, there is still a sense of connection in Indonesia to an important individual who helped shaped the world in the formative years of the 21st century.

“With Obama, there’s a sense of pride,” Cahyono said. “He is very special for us.”

A statue of Obama as a child now stands outside the Menteng school, intended as an enduring reminder of the school’s one-time pupil. Back in 2008, students watched the US election results on television and erupted into cheers when they learned Obama was headed to the White House.

Eight years later, students chatter enthusiastically about the pride they take in attending the school where Obama once studied.

Nine-year-old Mentari Malarangeng, a third-grade student, said Obama is her idol. “I heard from my grandmother that Obama was a good student, loud and confident when he talked,” she said.

Her classmate Abdilah Kurdi said the school became famous because of Obama and gets many visitors who want to see where he sat. “I want to be a president like him,” he said. “I’m so proud of him.”

The school’s principal, Edi Kusyanto, said about 40 to 60 mainly foreign tourists visit the school every month.

A picture of an adult Obama standing beside an American flag is displayed prominently in his former third-grade classroom, with current students pointing to a desk in the next-to-last row as Obama’s. Two big photos of the president adorn the school’s lobby. Kusyanto said the statue of a young Obama, erected in 2010, is a permanent fixture, because he is part of the school’s history.

“The statue inspires and motivates the children every day,” said Kusyanto, who has high hopes that Obama will visit the school after his presidency ends.

“He tried,” Kusyanto said, when asked of Obama’s legacy. “Unlike his predecessor’s legacy of war in Iraq, Obama tried to change the world to be a better place.” AP

Foreign investors turn sellers in Vietnam after 10-year spree

A

fter pumping in $3.4 billion since 2006, overseas traders are set to be net sellers of assets traded on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange this year for the first time in a decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the benchmark VN Index is near an eight-year high, MSCI Inc. hasn’t yet elevated the market to emerging status from frontier and government plans to remove foreign ownership limits have been enacted at just a few companies.

“The root cause is really the market access,” said Lai Yeu Huan, a Singapore-based senior fund manager at Nikko Asset Management Ltd., which has 10-percent allocated to Vietnam equities in a Southeast Asian fund it set up in November, and doesn’t plan to add to those holdings. “That triggers the low level of liquidity.” Ten years after the International Monetary Fund touted Vietnam as an “emerging China,” the nation’s $71.3-billion equity market remains one of the region’s smallest and an overhaul of the state-dominated banking system has stalled. The average daily value of shares changing hands on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange in 2016 is about $106 million, less than a quarter of the turnover in Malaysia or

Indonesia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The benchmark VN Index fell 0.2 percent to 671.66 as of 11:29 a.m. on Wednesday. The measure is poised for a seventh consecutive monthly advance.

Meeting criteria

All of MSCI’s criteria for emergingmarket classification are expected to be met as soon as the end of 2016, Nguyen Son, head of market development at the State Securities Commission, said in an interview in Hanoi in April. Still, the index compiler didn’t put the country on its watch list for emerging-market inclusion in June.

Overseas investors offloaded $106 million in Vietnamese investments this year, after being net buyers since the exchange began compiling such data in 2006.

“Foreign investors are very positive on Vietnam, but lagging bank reforms and limited liquidity keep money sidelined,” said Patrick Mitchell, Ho Chi Minh City-based director of institutional marketing at Maybank Kim Eng Securities Ltd., which met with about 30 foreign institutional investors already in Vietnam or keen to learn about the country’s economic potential on a recent marketing trip to Singapore

and Kuala Lumpur. The VN Index has increased 16 percent this year, versus an 8.7 percent gain for the MSCI Frontier Emerging Markets Index. Of the 309 stocks listed in Ho Chi Minh City, less than 20 have an average daily trading value of between $2 million and $5 million, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Buying, selling

“The ability to buy and sell without causing unusual price movements is very important,” said James Lau, a Kuala Lumpur-based investment director at Pheim Asset Management Sdn., who has invested in Vietnam.

“It is difficult to state a threshold, but certainly being able to trade $2 million to $3 million worth of a single stock a day would be useful, particularly for key stocks.”

Vietnam Dairy Product JSC, the country’s biggest company by market value, in July received approval to remove its 49-percent foreign ownership limit. The nation also plans to merge its two stock exchanges and start a derivatives market next year to offer investors a diversify of trading tools. Policy-makers set up an asset-management company to purchase soured loans from banks, though only 15 percent of the debt

it has purchased has been resolved.

Mark Mobius, the 80-year-old executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, is upbeat about the progress.

Expanding market

“The government is making some real good reforms, and we think that at the end of the day they will expand the market,” Mobius said in an interview on a recent visit to Tokyo.

“The market is not very liquid, but that market will be expanding with more privatizations. So I would say that’s the most exciting.”

James Bannan, which runs the $212-million Frontier Markets Fund at Coeli Asset Management SA in Sweden, says Vietnam is “one of the largest country exposures” in the portfolio. Bannan says he is “constantly adding money,” given the prospect for economic expansion. The government is targeting growth of 6.7 percent this year. Other investors say there’s more to be done.

Vietnam needs to speed up share sales in some big state-owned enterprises, as well as divestment in large companies, said Ho Chi Minh Citybased Alan Pham, chief economist at VinaCapital Group, the country’s largest fund manager. Bloomberg News

TheBroa

Business

A6 Thursday, September 1, 2016

Local invention m solution to PHL’s m

TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia (flickr.com/people/jlascar, CC BY-SA 2.0)

B

By Roger Pe

ELIEVE it or not, a Filipino rapidbus transit invention has become a worldwide phenomenon by easing up traffic congestion in 136 cities in 39 countries. The same Philippine-made system, copyrighted and patented 27 years ago, helped propel their respective economies to new heights.

But why is it not happening here? Filipinos always turn their back on things Filipino until they are recognized and proven abroad.

Most recently, the US Department of Transportation announced a budget of $77 million to expand rapid-bus transit service in Eugene, Oregon. This year, this service was also introduced in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, US, area.

And Perth, Australia, followed for a faster trip and improved citycommuting experience.

According to the University of the Philippines National Center for Transportation Studies (UP NCTS), the transport situation in Metro Manila and, perhaps, other major Philippine cities can be likened to a computer that has hanged.

“It is basically poorly configured [poorly planned], lacking capacity [lack of transport infrastructure, inefficient services] and having bad sectors [lack of discipline],” a UP NCTS report said.

“There is a need to reboot, reconfigure and rationalize in order to significantly and decisively improve our transport system.”

As we woefully endure long queues and mechanical break-

Francis Yuseco Jr., inventor of the global phenomenon Philippine Rapid Bus Transit System

downs in the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) system, more woes loom on the horizon. One of these is a businessdebilitating traffic that costs huge amount of money every day. Another is the foreign debt payments that continue to imprison generations of Filipinos for our LRT and MRT dues. It’s time to liberate the country from this madness.

Intel trackways and rapid transit

The Philippines came to the rescue of Xiamen, China, when the latter’s city officials, forced by heavy sub-

Transjakarta Zhongtong articulated buses at Harmoni Central Busway, Central Jakarta, Indonesia. Gunawan

sidies that its taxpayers shoulder, dismantled all rails, signaling systems and rolling coaches of an elevated LRT. They replaced it with a Philippine-made trackways system.

China had borrowed half-atrillion dollars to develop its own bullet train. Japan then accused China of infringing on its Shinkansen technology (the DNA of highspeed railway network built more than 35 years ago). Ironically, both countries’ railways are in deep financial trouble.

As a result, major Chinese cities like Ningbo, Chengdu, Chengong, Zhenghow and others now don’t have a choice. They have to heavily subsidize the billions of US dollars spent in building the rail systems because they pass through their cities.

Intel Track or PRT (Philippine Track Rapid Transit) is an invention by Filipino Francis Yuseco.

Yuseco also credits the gallant men and women engineers of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) for the invention.

The invention’s efficiency was corroborated by the Departments of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA). All agreed the Intel Track has the same operating efficiency and capacity of railways.

Ahead of Colombia

THIS country’s very own indigenous mass-transit system is way ahead of Colombia’s model, which started only in year 2000, or 11 years after Yuseco acquired the intellectual property rights for his invention.

The all-Filipino PRT technology has the capacity to design, manufacture and produce mediumspeed 80-kilometer-per-hour (kph) railways, (only the steel wheels and

bogies are needed to be imported).

Everything else, from coaches, hybrid diesel-electric engines and signaling systems, can be sourced and manufactured locally.

Intel Track is a system without the rails and simulates the operating characteristics of railways at a fraction of railways’ costs and construction time. It does not require subsidies of railways on foreign debts eternally passed on from one generation to another.

The UP NCTS concluded that if Intel Track will be implemented in Metro Manila and other cities, it could reach traffic decongestion as high as 96.8 percent per corridor.

Yuseco has been championing for the full development of the Philippine railways system since 1989. “It has already reached a healthy level and the DOST has spent more than P120 million for its research and development,” he said. Yuseco emphasized that the government should not simply write off that amount because, as Filipinos, “we owe it to our talented engineers and scientists our full, unconditional and undivided support.”

Paying loans

YUSECO knows what he is talking about. He was an investment banker who personally experienced the devastating effects of supposedly concessional loans provided by bilateral and multilateral export credit facilities (ECFs).

“I knew for a fact that there was absolutely no way we can ever repay ECF loans used to finance major infrastructure projects [railbased mass transits, tollways, power plants, etc.],” he said. “These ECF loans perpetually remain unpaid, as that is happening with all our three Light Rail Transit loans.”

Yuseco believes that President Duterte should protect the hapless Filipino taxpayers from

the toxic onslaught of sovereign guarantees (SG).

“These SGs were liberally granted by the past administration at the behest of oligarchs who want to corner the country’s infrastructure projects,” he said. “When they generate billions of revenues, they divide the profits by declaring dividends for themselves. When they run into financial trouble, they make the poorest of the poor Filipinos answerable for these ‘financial troubles.’”

According to Yuseco, one recent example is the P7.5-billion payment made to the LRT 1 Extension project. This was paid by the Aquino administration despite the fact that not a single column of the LRT 1 extension has been built.

Awash with liquidity

THE full development of the Philippine rail system can be financed essentially in Philippine pesos, Yuseco said.

“We need to patronize our domestic financial markets as it is currently awash with liquidity in excess of P8.3 trillion,” he explained.

According to Yuseco, engineers estimate that for the price of one 11-kilometer LRT system, “we can connect the entire Metro Manila with eight elevated PRTs within a shorter construction period of two years.”

He noted that an LRT is estimated to cost P60.7 billion with a construction period of four years.

“One short-haul LRT line alone requires P7 billion in subsidies,” Yuseco said. “An entire 1,079 rail line can practically bankrupt the National Treasury.”

No more debts

YUSECO is vehemently against the exorbitant amount of building a rail system with an interest rate of 200 percent to 300 percent per annum.

“Ordinary Filipinos, especially the youth, should be made aware that these foreign loans are structured in such a way that they can never be paid.”

According to Yuseco, foreign denominated loans, peddled by their local agents and patrons deeply embedded in various government agencies, will always assert that we need not develop our own indigenous rail systems in as much as these imported rail systems are being generously offered to us.

When the Philippines’s first Belgian LRT deal was closed in 1984 by a basket of Belgian francs and US dollars, the Philippine peso to the greenback was at 16.70 to $1.

The exchange rate for the LRT 2 was 24 to $1 in 1994, Yuseco noted. The MRT 3 was financially closed at 26 to $1 in 1996. The exchange rate now is 47.22 to $1.

Our cost of borrowing for all three is approximately 200 percent per annum, making them intrinsically impossible to pay, Yuseco said.

Taxpayers cornered

INCREDULOUS as it sounds, according to Yuseco, Filipino taxpayers have been cornered to this very date to pay private shareholders of Edsa MRT to $11 million a month, payment to guarantee return on investment of 15 percent per annum.

“Over and above, Filipino taxpayers have been and are still paying $90,000 a month for their administrative costs.

The $11 million does not even include the P56 billion that their shareholders are asking for the government to take over their rights to operate the Edsa MRT,” Yuseco says.

Yuseco proposed his idea to the first Aquino administration,

aderLook

sMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph | Thursday, September 1, 2016

may provide rapid mass-transit woes

Transfer station in Curitiba’s Linha Verde, Brazil

Kartapranata - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

but was rejected on the grounds that his was “unproven, merely theoretical and with only a limited systems capacity.” As there were no search engines during that year, no one in the Philippines knew that a similar system was already successfully operating in Curitiba, Brazil.

Ten years later, American Bus Association President George Wynn advised PhilTrak (the company that owned Intel Tracks) that the US was going “to reinvent” its bus service using the same features of the Philippine invention.

US Federal Transit Administrator Gordon Linton then finalized the American reinvented bus service with a catchy (but grammatically wrong) name, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

High-capacity PRTs

WITH the US taking the lead, there are now 136 cities in 39 major countries operating the Philippine-made RBT systems and long-haul capacities with amazing success. They include rich and powerful countries, such as the US, Canada, Australia, China, South Korea, Indonesia, France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom, among others. Their savings in subsidies amounting to billions of dollars are channeled to their more urgent needs.

Examples of long-haul PRTs are in Botswana and Cape Town, South Africa, which cover distances of 472 kilometers and 300 kilometers, respectively; Jakarta, Indonesia, which covers 108 kilometers, and Curitiba, Brazil, with a distance of 81 kilometers.

High-capacity PRTs include those in Guangzhou, China, which transports 1,000,000 million passengers daily; Jakarta, Indonesia, 1,200,000; Tehran, Iran, 1,600,000; Bogota, Colombia,

1,800,000; and Curitiba, Brazil, 2,300,000.

World-class, proudly Philippine-made

YUSECO thinks Filipinos should rally behind a Filipino invention that has helped many countries in the world improve their transportation infrastructure.

“It would be treasonous to import foreign-made railways while ignoring Filipino engineers, manufacturers, laborers and suppliers, among others,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the Filipino psyche has been tamed, abused and taken for granted over centuries of colonization that any idea or product, so long that it is Filipino, must not be good enough and hence, must be rejected,” Yuseco laments.

But even if the Filipinos rejected its own, World Bank Transport Expert Gerhard Menckhoff sought Yuseco out to learn more about the Philippines’s Intel Trackways.

On August 31, 1990, he wrote a memorandum urging global governments to seriously consider the Philippine invention. The same was distributed to different officials of World Bank offices assigned in different parts of the world.

Bankrupt railways in the world

BEYOND the seemingly modern infrastructure backdrop of some first-world countries, fact is, they pay huge subsidies to pay debts to sustain and operate them.

Except for Hong Kong’s Metro, which generates income from real estate and advertising revenues, all are miserably bankrupt. The following are the annual subsidies that private citizens around the world are literally forced by their governments to subsidize year in year out for their countries’ bankrupt railway operations:

COUNTRY SUBSIDIES (in billions)

Germany France Italy Spain UK Switzerland China Japan

€17.0 €13.2 €7.2 €5.1 €4.5 €4.3 $130 $300

Japan’s losses in 1980 forced its government to privatize their railways, which today are still subsidized by their citizens.

Thus, even if the above-listed countries are more economically powerful than the Philippines, their citizens are still literally forced to subsidize them without letup.

This is true even their currencies are on a par with the currencies of the loans, which finance railways.

FiIipino capability at its best

THE trackways being developed now by the DOST can run on a par with the US Amtrak of 50 mph (80 kph), decent enough without sinking the Philippines into deeper financial debt, according to Yuseco.

Yuseco doesn’t believe the Philippines lacks funds and brains to develop a top-caliber trackways system. Brazen corruption, red tape and politics have put our government to international shame according to him. “The Aquino administration underspent on infrastructure. So this is a Filipino solution,” he stresses.

The Intel Track plan is to cover the entire country with focus in addressing Metro Manila’s traffic headache that has spawned productivity losses amounting to roughly P2.4 billion a day.

The single-lane Edsa RBT would be on an elevated road stretching more than 50 kilometers. About 96 buses serving a million to 3 million passengers will pass through major thoroughfares daily.

a7

Mariordo (Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz), CC BY-SA 3.0

All air-conditioned buses will have a loading capacity of 200 passengers each and can transport 1,054,000 passengers a day at 15 seconds headways. Using a platoon dispatching system, it could transport 3,162,000 passengers per day. Passengers, too, wouldn’t wait no more than a minute to catch their next ride.

Features of the PRT

AN Intel Track will run on its own exclusive track that is completely controlled, therefore, completely programmable.

With a completely programmable environment, one has the absolute freedom to program all its systems operating activities.

Intel Track buses will have a length of 18 meters and width of 2.7 meters. When reconfigured, the PRT seating and standing arrangement will be the same as that of the LRT, with passenger capacity of 200 passengers per bus, simulating the operating characteristics of rail-based systems.

Other features include fixed headways, dwell times, average speed, top speed, loading and unloading stations. Doors open sideways and floor levels are on level with loading and unloading platforms. At an average speed of 60 kph, distance between each bus traveling on headways of 60 seconds is a generous distance of 1 kilometer.

Reverse migration

YUSECO said with these data, the PRT matches operating efficiency and systems capacities of any rail-based systems at a fraction of their costs.

Moreover, Intel Track coaches can be manufactured locally and they can be installed within a very short period of six to eight months.

Right-of-way, a perennial problem, would be minimized since posts supporting the elevated road could be built on sidewalks, which are

government property, Yuseco said.

Intel Track is also proposing to build a road using the 30-meter right-of-way of the Philippine National Railways (PNR) across 1,079 kilometers of train lines stretching across Luzon. Yuseco said this would help spur development in areas outside Manila.

Diametrically opposite are the LRT 1 and MRT 3, where taxpayers are forced to subsidize private consortium operations to at least P9 billion per line per year. The proposed operations of Intel Track on LRT 2 will net the taxpayers a positive reverse subsidy in the amount of P12.1 billion annually.

What will all these result to?

Informal settlers living in crime, drug-infested squalors of our cities will migrate back to their hometowns for exponential growth in income or a 96-percent wave of reverse migration.

Phase out dysfunctional buses

YUSECO said that, if we ever wonder “why the LRT is Belgian, the LRT 2 is Japanese, while the MRT 3 is Czechoslovakian, and now the coaches for the Edsa MRT will be made in China, we shouldn’t wonder no more.”

He said the answers are in the offshore accounts of various government officials sucking the life of every poor Filipino.

He recommends that, instead of having to import the exorbitantly priced and complex LRT, which Filipinos can never pay, we should spearhead the creation of a bus consortium to serve as the country’s first indigenous mass-transit project.

He also wants the government to gradually phase out dysfunctional and unscientific operations of conventional buses and convert them into our own mass transit.

A gilded past

YUSECO graduated with a Liberal Arts Commerce degree from the

De La Salle University and took up a Management Development Program at the Asian Institute of Management. He also finished one year of law at the University of the Philippines.

He started his career as systems analyst of the First Manila Management Corp. (FMMC). He said his first exposure to the rampant corruption was at the Land Transportation Office, when 10- to 15-year-old buses already condemned in other countries after mere cosmetic or superficial reconditioning in the country were being allowed to be registered as only one or two years old.

Yuseco later joined the Bancom Development Bank as a money market trader, the Philippine American Investment Corp. as head trader and assistant treasurer, then treasurer.

Later, he became one of the partners and executive director of the Philippine Investments Systems Organization, one of two conduit lending institutions in the Philippines for multilateral financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

As an investment banker, Yuseco became director and vice president of the Money Market Association of the Philippines. He led the capital market development committee of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines. He also has written published articles in international finance both here and abroad.

Yuseco is also a member of the Filipino Inventors Society, with three inventions to his name. One of these is the Karbrella, a portable car umbrella, and the Water Weeder, a garden device for extracting garden weeds. The third invention credited to him is the Philippine track passenger, agri and cargo rapid transit system, for which he was awarded a certificate for inventive excellence in solving the country’s horrendous transport and traffic problems.

A8

The World

Thursday, September 1, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Trump to make trip to Mexico before immigration speech

E

In this October 22, 2014, file photo, demonstrators march in protest for the disappearance of 43 students from the Isidro Burgos rural teachers college in Mexico City. Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration has been stung by a string of scandals, as well as reports of alleged torture and human-rights abuses by the police and troops. AP

Mexico president to deliver report on a troubled year

M

EXICO CITY—When President Enrique Peña Nieto delivers his annual report to Congress, he’ll reflect on a year that has seen rising homicide rates, a sluggish economy and a midterm electoral rout of his party.

His administration has also been stung by a string of scandals, as well as reports of alleged torture and human-rights abuses by police and troops. And protests by dissident teachers continue to challenge the educational reforms he claims as a major achievement nearly two-thirds of the way through his presidency.

“It’s been a very tough year for the administration,” said Shannon O’Neil, a Mexico and Latin America analyst at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations. “And I think he’s looking now toward the end of his term and to the choosing of the next potential candidate within [his party] and his own sort of lame-duck status. So it’s not an easy speech to give.”

Peña Nieto’s office did not respond to questions e-mailed by The Associated Press. He is expected to send the written report to Congress on Thursday and speak on Friday.

His report threatened to be overshadowed by Donald Trump’s surprise announcement via Twitter late on Tuesday that he had accepted an invitation to meet privately with Peña Nieto on Wednesday. The Republican presidential candidate has been widely criticized in Mexico for his promises to build a border wall and for his characterizations of immigrants as “rapists” bringing drugs and crime to the US.

Top concern

A survey published on August 11 by the newspaper Reforma put Peña Nieto’s approval rating at 23 percent, the lowest for any Mexican president since the paper began conducting the poll 21 years ago.

Seventy-four percent of respondents disapproved of his handling of the country. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

74 percent The number of respondents of survey by newspaper Reforma who disapproved of Peña Nieto’s handling of Mexico Insecurity is a top concern for many Mexicans. Homicide rates dropped during the early part of Peña Nieto’s administration, which began in late 2012 and runs through 2018, but killings are up 16 percent over the first five months of this year from the same period in 2015.

“It’s getting worse...and authorities don’t do anything,” said Alejandro Sanchez, 62, who runs a newsstand in central Mexico City.

Sanchez said he lives in the industrial and residential suburb of Naucalpan, northwest of the capital, and two friends there have had to close their businesses due to extortion threats from gangs.

“Besides the extortions there are robberies, there are always robberies, and even more in the neighborhoods,” he said.

Hit hard

MANY complain about rising prices and a lack of employment opportunities amid a slowed economy.

“I’m lucky to have a good job and everything, but I feel like other young people need more help and things like that,” said Angel Diaz Gonzalez, a 22-year-old graphic designer for a telemarketing firm.

Low prices for oil, a pillar of Mexico’s economy, and other external factors the government has little or no control over, have the country feeling the pinch. This month the Treasury Department

lowered its GDP growth forecast for 2016 yet again, to between 2 percent and 2.6 percent.

Sagging oil prices have also dampened the rollout of Peña Nieto’s much-touted opening of the energ y sector to private companies, a lthough ex per ts say it will likely reap rewards over the long term.

Analysts also credit Mexico w it h a conser vat ive hedg ing policy that has limited its vulnerability to oil market volatility and has helped keep the economy growing even as other commodities-dependent Latin American nations have been hit much harder.

But it’s been mostly bad news for the administration.

Plagiarism allegations

THIS month an investigation by Aristegui Noticias alleged that large parts of Peña Nieto’s law thesis from 25 years ago were copied from other sources without citation, something the university in question later corroborated. The revelation followed embarrassing reports in 2014 and 2015 linking the president, his wife and associates to questionable real-estate deals involving government contractors.

Congress approved anticorruption legislation last month, though it remains to be seen how it may be applied and opinions vary as to whether it passed because of or in spite of Peña Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

“In many ways corruption has dominated politics and the public agenda over the past year. Partially because of the many scandals, partially because of the debate in Congress,” said Alejandro Hope, a Mexico City-based analyst. “In some ways it has become the dominant narrative of the current administration, whether they like it or not.... It’s certainly not the legacy that they hope for, but that’s probably what is going to happen.”

Buffeted by popular discontent, in June the PRI won just five of 12 governorships at stake in midterm elections—including some in states where it had never lost since the party’s founding nearly nine decades ago.

Torture victims

ALSO this year an independent group of experts released a scathing report discrediting government investigators’ official account of what happened to 43 students who were abducted by police in Guerrero state in 2014 and have not been heard from since.

Several videos showing police and soldiers torturing detained suspects have surfaced, shining an uncomfortable spotlight on the behavior of security forces prosecuting the war against drug cartels.

And earlier this month, the National Human Rights Commission determined that 22 of 42 drug gang suspects killed during a raid at a ranch last year were “arbitrarily executed” by police, who then planted guns on some of them to make it look like they had died in the shootout.

Mex ico’s nationa l secur it y commissioner denied the accusations in the report, but on Monday the head of federal police was replaced in what analysts called tacit ack nowledgement there were too many controversies surrounding his force. The government points to the arrest or killing of about 100 high-value drug cartel targets as successes in its offensive against the gangs. But even the recapture in January of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was somewhat diminished by the fact that his most-recent prison escape came during Peña Nieto’s watch.

Positive side

ON the positive side, O’Neil said, Mexico continues to see high levels of foreign investment, is generally perceived as a stable place to do business and has found significant interest in deep-water oil contracts coming up for bid later this year. She noted Peña Nieto won’t have the stage all to himself much longer with the 2018 presidential campaign ramping up by this time next year.

“In many ways this speech is probably the last that Peña Nieto gives as the sort of undisputed head of the PRI and the country,” O’Neil said. “So this is his moment to put forward a vision and I think his challenge is that most of Mexico’s population just won’t believe him.” AP

VERETT, Washington—In a surprise move, Donald Trump will travel to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto, just hours before the Republican delivers a highly anticipated speech on immigration.

Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday night to say he looks “very much forward” to meeting with the Mexican leader. Peña Nieto’s office confirmed the meeting with its own tweet, saying the two men would meet privately.

The unexpected trip comes as Trump seeks to clarify his stand on illegal immigration, a contentious issue that has been a centerpiece of his Republican presidential campaign. Trump has long called for deporting people currently living in the US illegally and building a wall along the country’s border with Mexico.

But in meetings recently with Hispanic supporters, Trump has suggested he could be open to changing the hard-line approach he outlined during the GOP primaries. After one such roundtable this month, his new campaign manager said Trump’s stance on deportations was “to be determined.”

In the days since, Trump and his staff have broadcast varied and conflicting messages, with Trump himself saying one day he might be open to “softening” his stance, and days later saying he might, in fact, be “hardening.”

Sharply critical

PEñA Nieto has been sharply critical of Trump’s original immigration policy, particularly the Republican’s insistence that Mexico would pay for the border wall. In a March interview, Peña Nieto said that “there is no scenario” under which Mexico would do so.

In the same interview, Peña Nieto compared Trump’s language to that of dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, saying it had hurt US-Mexico relations. Former Mexican Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon have also alluded to Hitler in describing Trump.

Peña Nieto cast a different tone late Tuesday, writing on Twitter of the visit, “I believe in dialogue to promote Mexico’s interests in the world and, principally, to protect Mexicans wherever they are.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie,

a close Trump adviser, has been among those pushing Trump to make the trip to Mexico, according to a person familiar with their conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss them publicly. Christie made his own successful trip to Mexico City in September 2014, and has a warm relationship with the Mexican president.

Last week Peña Nieto extended invitations to visit Mexico to both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, who met with him in Mexico in 2014. The Washington Post first reported on Tuesday that Trump was considering making the trip to Mexico.

Big speech

THE The New Yorker didn’t mention the trip and didn’t spend much time discussing il lega l immigration during an evening rally outside Seattle, although he teased his scheduled speech on immigration that’s set for Wednesday evening in Phoenix.

“We are also going to secure our border and stop the drugs from pouring in and destroying our country,” he said. “And I’ll be talking about that tomorrow night in Arizona. Big speech on immigration. We’ll be talking about that in Arizona tomorrow night.”

Trump’s short stop in Mexico would mark his second visit to a foreign country during his campaign. Earlier this summer, Trump traveled to Scotland to attend the reopening of one of his golf resorts, but notably didn’t meet with any UK political leaders while there.

The Republican has faced a torrent of criticism from Clinton, a former secretary of state, about his preparedness to lead on the world stage. Several Republican foreign-policy experts have also warned that Trump is unprepared for the numerous international issues that land on a president’s desk.

Clinton’s campaign has urged voters to not “be fooled” by what it calls Trump’s attempts to disguise his immigration policies.

“What ultimately matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico, and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and deportation of millions,” said Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri. AP

9 elderly dead as typhoon hits Japan

T

OKYO—At least nine elderly people were killed when their nursing home was flooded in northern Japan after Typhoon Lionrock dumped heavy rains on the area.

The bodies of all nine residents were found at a nursing home in the town of Iwaizumi in Iwate prefecture, when police were checking another facility in the flooded neighborhood, said Takehiro Hayashijiri, an official at a prefectural disaster management division.

Hayashijiri said identity of the bodies or other details, including whereabouts of their caretakers, were not known. NHK said the nursing home was for residents with dementia.

Japan’s NHK national broadcaster said authorities have found two more bodies in another town in Iwate. Its footage showed the nursing home partially buried in mud, surrounded by debris apparently washed down from the mountains. A car by the home was turned upside down.

“We’re making a government-wide effort to assess the extent of damage,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. The government sent Self-Defense Forces to help in the rescue and cleanup of the damage caused by the typhoon.

At least two rivers swollen by the typhoon broke through their banks, flooding areas in northern Japan. The embankments gave way before dawn on Wednesday on the northern island of Hokkaido, said NHK, quoting Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Tourism.

Authorities in the town of Minami-furano are reporting many people trapped in houses and shelters by flooding from the Sorachi river, NHK said.

Aerial photos from Kyodo News service also showed serious flooding south of Hokkaido in Iwate prefecture on Honshu, Japan’s main island. Typhoon Lionrock slammed into northern Japan on Tuesday evening, hitting an area still recovering from the 2011 tsunami.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said at least three people were injured in three northern prefectures—Aomori, Akita and Miyagi—since Tuesday.

It made landfall near the city of Ofunato, 500 kilometers northeast of Tokyo late Tuesday before moving away from Japan. It’s the first time a typhoon has made landfall in the northern region since 1951, when the Japan Meteorological Agency started keeping records.

More than 170,000 people were subject to evacuation, including 38,000 in Ofunato, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. More than 10,000 homes in the northern region were without electricity, with power lines damaged from the winds.

The scene of large parts of northern Japan covered with muddy water was a shocking reminder of the tsunami disaster that struck the region five years ago. Iwate, hardest-hit by the typhoon, is one of the areas still recovering from the tsunami damage. AP

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The World BusinessMirror

Thursday, September 1, 2016

A9

Japanese Defense Ministry seeks record $51-B budget

T

OKYO—Japan’s Defense Ministry is seeking a recordhigh ¥5.17-trillion ($51-billion) budget for the 2017 fiscal year to bolster missile-defense capability amid an escalating North Korean threat and to better protect disputed islands also claimed by China in the East China Sea. If approved by parliament, the budget request submitted on Wednesday would be the fifth annual increase under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who ended a decade of defense budget cuts after taking office in late 2012. Military spending would rise 2.3 percent for the fiscal year beginning April 1.

Japan is particularly concerned about North Korea’s recent nuclear and missile development, saying it has increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula and poses a threat to regional and global security.

The budget request includes: n ¥105.6 billion ($1 billion) to upgrade a dozen of Japan’s PAC-3 surface-to-air missile-defense systems to increase range and accuracy for deployment in 2020. n ¥14.7 billion ($140 million) to acquire next-generation missile interceptors jointly developed by Japan and the US, and to upgrade the capabilities of the destroyers that would carry them. n ¥76 billion ($735 million) to develop a new submarine with advanced surveillance capabilities in the face of growing Chinese activity in the East China Sea. n ¥74.6 billion ($720 million) to station guard units on the

2.3 percent The increase in Japan’s military spending for the fiscal year beginning April 1

southern islands of Miyakojima and Amami Oshima.

The Defense Ministry is also seeking the development of a long-range ship-to-air missile and the purchase of F-35 fighter jets. It would also set up an amphibious unit to be stationed in Nagasaki on the southern main island of Kyushu.

Japan is bolstering surveillance and defense in the country’s southwestern seas amid intensifying tensions around the disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

Japan controls the remote, uninhabited islands.

Under Abe, parliament enacted security legislation last year to enhance the country’s military role, and revised its bilateral defense guidelines with the US, allowing broader cooperation between the two allies.

Japan’s annual defense report, released in early August, said North Korea may have achieved the capability to miniaturize atomic weapons so they can be mounted on warheads, as well as acquired a missile capable of reaching as far as 10,000 kilometers. AP

S. Korea says top North Korean official executed

S

EOUL, South Korea—North Korea has executed a vice premier and banished two other top officials to rural areas for reeducation, South Korean officials said on Wednesday.

If confir med, they wou ld be the latest in a ser ies of killings, purges and dismissa ls carr ied out since North Korean leader K im Jong Un took power in l ate 2 0 1 1 . North Korea is a closed, authoritarian countr y w ith a state-controlled press that often makes it difficult for outsiders, and even North Korean citizens, to know what’s happening in the government. Rival South Korea, which runs several intelligence orga ni zat ions ma in ly t asked

with spying on North Korea, has a mixed record on reporting developments across the border.

In May a former North Korean military chief, who Seoul said had been executed, was found to be alive and holding several new senior-level posts.

Jeong Joon Hee, a spokesman for Seoul’s Unification Ministry, told reporters on Wednesday that Kim Yong Jin, a vice premier in North Korea’s cabinet, had been executed.

Jeong said K im was in charge of education af fa irs, but re fused to disclose why and when South Korea believes he was executed. He a lso didn’t ex plain how his ministr y obtained the infor mation. AP

In this June 10 file photo, American Airlines and JetBlue Airways charter flights wait to depart from Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport. The first commercial flight between the United States and Cuba in more than half a century took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to the central city of Santa Clara on August 31, reestablishing regular air service severed at the height of the Cold War. AP

Historic commercial flight from US to Cuba takes off

F

ORT LAUDERDALE, Florida— The first commercial flight between the United States and Cuba in more than a half century flew from Fort Lauderdale to the central city of Santa Clara on Wednesday morning, reestablishing regular air service severed at the height of the Cold War.

JetBlue Flight 387 was set to take off at 9:45 a.m. EDT for a 72-minute journey that will open a new era of US-Cuba travel, with more than 400 f lights a week connecting the US with an island cut off from most Americans by the 55-year-old trade embargo on Cuba and formal ban on US citizens engaging in tourism on the island.

“Seeing the American airlines landing routinely around the island will drive a sense of openness, integration and normality. That has a huge psychological impact,” said Richard Feinberg, author of the new book Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy.

The restart of commercial travel between the two countries is

one of the most important steps in President Barack Obama’s two-year-old policy of normalizing relations with the island.

Historians disagree on the exact date of the last commercial flight, but it appears to have been after Cuba banned incoming f lights during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes and a specially selected f ive-member crew of CubanAmericans were slated to be onboard the 150-seat Airbus A320.

Positive step

CUBA’S Vice Minister of Transportation Eduardo Rodriguez said earlier this week that the

flight “will be a positive step and a concrete contribution to the process of improving relations between the countries.”

US travel to Cuba is on track to triple this year to more than 300,000 visitors in the wake of the 2014 declaration of detente.

Cuba’s cash-star ved centrally planned economy has been bolstered by the boom in US visitors, along with hundreds of thousands of travelers from other nations hoping to see Cuba before more Americans arrive.

Commercial f lights are expected to significantly increase the number of American visitors, although it’s not clear by how much. Many of the air routes are currently used by expensive charter flights that are largely expected to go out of business with the advent of regularly scheduled service from the US. Hundreds of thousands of Cuban-born Americans fly to the island each year with the chaotic, understaffed charter companies, which require four-hour check-in waits and charge high rates for any luggage in excess of restrictive baggage allowances.

Tidal wave

AMERICANS without ties to Cuba have found it hard to negotiate

the charters, most of which don’t accept online bookings or help travelers navigate the federal affidavit still required for US travelers to Cuba.

Cuban officials insist the continuing US ban on tourism will limit the impact of commercial flights to Cuba, but some experts believe the drastic reduction in the difficulty of flying to Cuba could turn the surge in US visitors into a tidal wave.

Americans are allowed to visit the island on “people-to-people” cultural and educational visits, among other reasons.

Americans who fit one of 12 categories will now be able to fill out a federal affidavit by clicking a box on an online form and, in many cases, buy their Cuban tourist visa near the check-in counters of US airports. Within weeks, Americans will be able to fly direct from cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, Miami and Fort Lauderdale to eight Cuban cities and two beach resorts.

The final announcement of routes to Havana, which could be announced on Wednesday and start before December, is slated to include flights from Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and Houston, among others. AP

Physical injuries leave behind mental scars in strife-torn Kashmir Valley

By Abhishek Saha

Hindustan Times, New Delhi/TNS

B

LINDED by pellets in one eye, a young Kashmiri protester recuperating in Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital vows to see through his revenge with the other.

Vengeance trembled through the lips of a 14-year-old girl, too. fired by security forces damaged both her eyes and she is undergoing treatment at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences. “I want to kill those responsible and die,” she said at the Srinagar hospital, where she was initially treated.

They are suffering from trauma and acute psychological stress.

There are hundreds like them, maimed in a massive security clampdow n to quel l protests over the death of militant leader Burhan Wani on July 8.

Kashmir was under curfew for 51 days. Seventy people died during the unrest, while thousands suffered pellet injuries. Principal of the government medical college here, Dr Kaiser Ahmad, has formed a crisis intervention team (CIT) to

offer psychological assistance to the wounded people. The eightmember team comprising four clinical psychologists, two counselors with expertise in conflictrelated trauma, and two psychiatrists was constituted soon after the wounded began pouring into Srinagar hospital in recent wave of unrest in the Valley.

“Patients are primarily dealing with their disability. Many can’t see; others can’t walk. Their eyes are blinded by pellets or their legs shattered by bullets. So there is anger and depression and some are worried about their future,” said Javid Jeelani Shah, a counselor.

The team has counseled over 200 patients so far. “Along with physical wounds, there is psychological suffering. So we needed a comprehensive crisis management,” Ahmad said. “Patients who lost their eyesight or vital organs might go into deep depression or

develop suicidal tendencies.” Initial symptoms are sleep disturbance, panic, fears over losing their eyesight permanently, clinical psychologist Aijaz Khan explained.

“There can be panic attacks, irritability and agitation, shortness of breath and palpitation in the first weeks.” He said such has been the trauma associated with pellet injuries that many doctors required debriefing after treating or counselling patients.

The team is worried about patients developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“If symptoms of psychological problems continue, perhaps, the patients will get scary flashbacks of the incident, like pellets or bullets hitting them,” Khan said.

The team has kept contact details of its patients to know how they are doing, and advised parents and guardians to report any signs of PTSD.

I want to kill those responsible and die.” –Kashmiri protester

A Kashmiri Muslim man shouts pro-freedom slogans while protesting against the killing of civilian Amir Mir, outside a local hospital in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir on August 24. Mir died of pellet injuries as severe protests continued in the valley with tens of thousands of Indian armed police and paramilitary soldiers patrolling the tense region after the killing of a popular rebel commander on July 8 sparked some of Kashmir’s largest protests against Indian rule in recent years. AP

A10 Thursday, September 1, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

A formidable problem

I

n the good old days, illicit drug use in the Philippines was mainly an indulgence of the rich, some artists and the sophisticated people in the entertainment world.

People in rural areas seemed far removed from the menace of illegal drugs. Unfortunately, with the introduction of shabu, the illicit drug market has successfully gained inroads into the deep bowels of Philippine rural life. Young and old alike were caught in its addictive allure. Poor people were not spared. With P50 or P100, they can experience ecstasy. The growing dependence of the poor and not so poor on shabu became a raging nationwide epidemic.

As the cancer of illegal drugs continued to spread in every barangay, the powers that be turned a blind eye. Government officials kept their silence, as drug syndicates cook shabu in small towns and gated communities all over the country. As long as the drug lords filled the coffers of the corrupt and powerful in government, these leeches remained untouchables.

Addiction to shabu trumps everything that matters to a decent individual.

Despite the person’s standing preference not to do anything offensive to society, once hooked, an addict would do anything illegal to sustain the habit. Official records show that 70 percent of heinous crimes in the country, such as murder, rape, armed robbery and kidnapping, are drug-related. This prompted pundits to say that the shabu problem is already past prevention, and containment is now next to impossible.

There was a general belief that a country whose government is mired in graft and corruption can easily fall under the power and influence of drug lords with bottomless coffers to buy political clout. President Duterte knows the seriousness of the problem when he launched his war against drugs. He knows that the drug lords who were apprehended, tried, found guilty and jailed can buy their liberty because of the tenuous justice system and irresolute antidrug campaigns under previous administrations.

Duterte’s war against drugs has so far seen thousands killed, including drug lords, drug pushers and drug users. Now, the puzzling question: Are those involved in the illegal-drugs trade so reckless and foolhardy that they continue to ignore Mr. Duterte’s warning?

Here’s the possible answer: A National Youth Commission survey showed that 1.2 million of the 1.7 million Filipino shabu users belonged to the young population, between 15 and 29 years old. Conservatively, each user consumed an average of 5 grams per month (or a total of 8.5 million grams if multiplied by 1.7 million users). Given the average street value of shabu at P2,000 per gram, this illegal business is raking in P17 billion per month, or a whopping P204 billion a year. No wonder shabu has become a formidable problem to solve.

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business ✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Founder Publisher Editor in Chief Managing Editor Associate Editor News Editor City & Assignments Editor Senior Editors

T. Anthony C. Cabangon Jun B. Vallecera Max V. de Leon Jennifer A. Ng Dionisio L. Pelayo Vittorio V. Vitug Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Efleda P. Campos

Online Editor Social Media Editor

Ruben M. Cruz Jr. Angel R. Calso

Creative Director Chief Photographer

Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes

Chairman of the Board & Ombudsman President VP-Finance VP-Corporate Affairs VP Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Manager Group Circulation Manager

Judge Pedro T. Santiago (Ret.) Benjamin V. Ramos Adebelo D. Gasmin Frederick M. Alegre Marvin Nisperos Estigoy Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Dante S. Castro

BusinessMirror is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror

HOM

Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines.

Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725. Fax line: 813-7025.

(Advertising Sales) 893-2019; 817-1351, 817-2807.

(Circulation) 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. E-mail: news@businessmirror.com.ph.

The Darwin Awards for governments John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

T

he Darwin Awards started out in 1985 on a Usenet discussion group to honor those individuals who “protect the human gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives” through their own stupidity. The idea was to find incidents of people doing such dumb things that the world was actually a better place because of their deaths.

These are people that you would hope would not have children to carry on their legacy of dangerous dumb. For example, in 1999, the state of Israel operated on Daylight Savings Time. Palestine did not. A group of Palestinians attempted to synchronize two car bombs. But the timers had been set on Palestinian time, while the drivers were running on Israeli time. The bombs exploded an hour “early”.

Then there is the robber who at-

tempted a disguise by spray painting his face. The label on the paint can was clear: “Do not allow to come in contact with skin or eyes.” Nobody recognized him; he stopped breathing and died soon after the robbery.

You get the idea.

Perhaps, the Darwin Awards should not be limited to individuals and that there also should be a “Darwin Award-In-Progress Award.”

This would apply to slow-motion death that we can all see coming

Solution to the traffic chaos

the predictable result. Traffic will be worse before it gets better.

Ariel F. Nepomuceno

DECISION TIME

T

he daily traffic congestion in Metro Manila results to huge opportunity losses, wasted productive time, extreme stress, smog, punctuality becoming a forgotten virtue and, in some instances, road rage. In an attempt to cure this chaos, we have consistently emphasized that we only need to instill discipline among drivers and for traffic enforcers to diligently do their job.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

regional offices n DXQR -93dot5 HOME RADIO CAGAYAN DE ORO E-MAIL ADDRESS: homecdo@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Archbishop Hayes corner Velez Street, Cagayan de Oro City CONTACT NOs.: (088) 227-2104/ 857-9350/ 0922-811-3997 n DYQC -106dot7 HOME RADIO CEBU E-MAIL ADDRESS: homecebu@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Ground Floor, Fortune Life Building, Jones Avenue, Cebu City CONTACT NOs.: (032) 253-2973/ 234-4252/ 416-1067/ 0922-811-3994 n DWQT -89dot3 HOME RADIO DAGUPAN E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeradiodagupan@ yahoo.com ADDRESS: 4th Floor, Orchids Hotel Building,

Rizal Street, Dagupan City CONTACT NOs.: (075) 522-8209/ 515-4663/ 0922-811-4001 n DXQM – 98dot7 HOME RADIO DAVAO E-MAIL ADDRESS: home98dot7@gmail.com ADDRESS: 4D 3rd Floor, ATU Plaza, Duterte Street, Davao City CONTACT NOs.: (082) 222-2337/ 221-7537/ 0922-811-3996 n DXQS -98dot3 HOME RADIO GENERAL SANTOS E-MAIL ADDRESS: homegensan@yahoo.com ADDRESS: 2nd Floor, Penamante Clinic Tiongson Street, General Santos City CONTACT NO.: 0922-811-3998 n DYQN -89dot5 HOME RADIO ILOILO E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeiloilo@yahoo.com

ADDRESS: 3rd Floor, Eternal Plans Building, Ortiz Street, Iloilo City CONTACT NOs.: (033) 337-2698/ 508-8102/ 0922-811-3995 n DWQA -92dot3 HOME RADIO LEGAZPI E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeradiolegazpi@ yahoo.com ADDRESS: 4th Floor, Fortune Building, Rizal Street, Brgy. Pigcale, Legazpi City CONTACT NOs.: (052) 480-4858/ 820-6880/ 0922-811-3992 n DWQJ -95dot1 HOME RADIO NAGA E-MAIL ADDRESS: homenaga@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Eternal Garden Compound, Balatas Road, Naga City CONTACT NOs.: (054) 473-3818/ 811-2951/ 0922-811-3993

Printed by brown madonna Press, Inc.–San Valley Drive KM-15, South Superhighway, Parañaque, Metro Manila MeMBer of

except for the government involved.

Actually, though there was one particular nation that did kill itself and the world is probably a better place for it. That is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The lighter side of the communist ideology is that if a nation could create a Worker’s Utopia, then everybody else would come onboard.

But, instead, the USSR spent all of its money on the military to help keep its own people and of the Eastern Warsaw Pact bloc inside the fences of the communist paradise. The USSR lasted about one generation.

Japan was the “killer economy” of the 1960s with years of 12-percent growth. The oil-price hikes in the 1970s took their toll but, even in 1987, the economy was growing at 7 percent. In 1989 an essay by the Japanese minister of transport— “The Japan That Can Say No”—said that basically no nation on earth could ever hope to equal Japan’s economic miracle.

But the boom/bust business cycle kicked in and the Japanese government took economic control,

The bad news is this: The regular traffic mess can only be solved with long-term painful solutions. Yes, discipline could alleviate our collective burden to a certain degree. Diligence of enforcers can also provide some relief, but only up to a limited level. However, these will not really permanently solve the traffic crisis for the long haul.

The numbers are clear

IN Edsa alone, the average daily number of vehicles that pass through this main access far exceeds its designed efficient capacity.

According to former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority General Manager Atty. Cris Saruca, Edsa must only accommodate around 280,000 vehicles every day.

However, the current daily average

of vehicles using Edsa is between 300,000 and 350,000. No wonder the new normal traveling time has worsened from the previous one hour to at least two hours from Makati to Quezon City.

And causing the continuous deterioration of the almost 24/7 monstrous traffic, at least 26 percent, or 197,000, additional vehicles were added to our country’s vehicle population from January to July this year.

And the number increases by at least 20 percent monthly. Meanwhile, the size and capacity of our roads remain almost constant. Yet, we don’t have a serious and effective vehicle-reduction program, such as systematically retiring old vehicles or imposing tax and registration disincentives for newly acquired ones.

It doesn’t take a genius to decipher

Long-term infrastructure projects urgent

WE have to embrace the long-term main solution and the cost it entails in terms of funds and the terrible traffic mess it will cause while building the needed infrastructure. The public must understand and support the necessary sacrifice if we intend to solve this daily crisis.

We need to construct elevated highways that will traverse Mega Manila and the nearby cities and provinces. These must run above the old road network that can no longer efficiently serve the commuting needs of the overgrown population.

Subways for trains must be built to prepare us for the future. This engineering super structure must be done if we plan to cope with the constantly increasing number of vehicles and people.

A mass-transit system must finally be provided by the government. We are among the few nations in the world that still don’t have a decent and dependable mass-transit system that would complement, if not replace, our penchant for private vehicles as our main mode of transportation.

Spread the economic progress

The current administration of President Duterte is accurately

which has led to a generation of near-zero economic growth.

Finally, the real winner of the “Global Darwin Award” is China.

In 1979 one of the top Chinese officials, Song Jian, started reading up on the overpopulation hysteria.

The one-child policy was adopted in spite that the Chinese birth rate had fallen by 50 percent in the previous 20 years. The total fertility rate in China is now at the lowest ever recorded, but no matter. The government has it all under control.

Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet decided to send a letter bomb in 2000. He forgot to put enough postage stamps on the letter and it was “returned to sender”. Khay was so happy to receive some mail that he tore the letter open. His career in terrorism and as a potential government official ended there.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stockmarket information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

pursuing the vision of spreading the economic progress outside the traditional Metro Manila-based development. The campaign to change our form of government to a federal system is one indication that, indeed, other regions must flourish by allowing resources to be freely utilized and managed by the regions where these resources come from in the first place.

We have to encourage the use of Batangas International Port, for example, as the main destination of our regular importations.

According to a research by Japan International Cooperation Agency, this move would significantly decongest the traffic in Metro Manila and save the shipment cost of many imports and manufactures.

This research also further suggests that we can also explore utilizing Cavite as another area for our international airport.

The price we have to pay is, indeed, extremely high if we want to finally solve our traffic problem.

The upward movement of our economy must no longer be hampered by the traffic that threatens us daily and traps us in an almost perpetual standstill. We have no other choice but to start the solution now if we hope to become a vibrant nation in the future.

For comments and suggestions, please e-mail at arielnepo.businessmirror@gmail.com.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Davao property market rises

The wise and true disciple Msgr. Sabino A. Vengco Jr.

Val A. Villanueva

Businesswise

T

he country’s property market is expected to perform way above and beyond all expectations, as it continues its spectacular growth during the first quarter of this year.

Records from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) show the sector’s price index soaring by 9.2 percent (8 percent, inflationadjusted). Quarter on quarter, the index was seen rising 1.9 percent during the same period.

Analysts also see the sector’s big growth potential in Davao City owing to the present government’s focus on spurring economic upturn in the country’s southern region.

Davao-based Yuson Comm Investments President and CEO Frederick Yuson told BusinessWise that the industry’s rosy prediction is based on the economy’s projected growth by 6 percent this year and 6.2 percent in 2017, from the GDP’s growth rates of 5.8 percent in 2015, 6.1 percent in 2014, 7 percent in 2013 and 6.7 percent in 2012.

“The ascension of former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte to the presidency has shifted investors’ interest from Manila to our province. With various infrastructure projects lined up to spur Davao’s growth, everyone here is very optimistic that our province will finally be in the forefront of the country’s economic progress,” Yuson said, adding that “the economic progress of the Philippines provides a foundation for further sustainable growth to fully realize the Philippines’s enormous potential.”

Yuson said the inclusion of Davao among the 10 Next Wave Cities in business process outsourcing (BPO) augurs well for the province. The BPO industry is mainly driven by the health-care sector that accounted for more than 100,000 employees.

According to Danilo Sebastian Reyes, chairman of the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines, the other cities in the list are: Baguio City, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Lipa, Metro Bulacan, Metro Cavite, Metro Laguna, Metro Naga, and Metro Rizal.

Yuson cited other economic factors that will propel the country to continued growth: “Last year, fixed capital investment grew 25.5 percent, and contributed 5.8 percentage points to real GDP growth; construction grew 12 percent, up from growth rates of 7.6 percent in the previous quarter, and 4.5 percent in a year earlier. In fact, public construction expanded by 39.9 percent, in sharp contrast to a 23 percent decline a year earlier; and exports rose by 6.6 percent, while imports grew by 15.9 percent. In addition, election-related spending buoyed domestic demand through May 2016, when the national and sub-national elections were held.

“All these factors give us confidence that the economy will continue to perform well in the succeeding quarters of the year and beyond.”

Today Cebu Landmasters will sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Yuson Comm Investments of the prominent Villa-Abrille clan in Davao City.

The three projects include a midmarket condo conveniently located at E. Jacinto that will be preselling by January 2017, as well as a Riverside Mixed-Use project along the McArthur Highway, and a Times Beach Lifestyle Mixed-Use project in Matina, which are both in the pipeline.

The E. Jacinto Mid-Market Condo will be a 15-story midrise structure with two buildings. It will offer an affordable pricing scheme for the midmarket, with a premium condominium concept similar to Cebu Landmasters’s Mesaverte Residences in Cagayan de Oro, and Midori Residences and Mivesa Garden Residences in Cebu.

Targeted for completion in 2018, Cebu Landmasters Mesaverte Residences in Cagayan de Oro is now 85 percent sold. Midori Residences in Cebu is now sold out, while the Mivesa Garden Residences holds the distinction for being the fastest-selling condo in Cebu.

The 1.9-hectare Riverside MixedUse Project in McArthur Highway will meanwhile feature BPO offices, a residential condo, serviced residences (or condotel) and retail commercial areas. Eyed as an exciting addition to Davao’s lifestyle scene is the four-hectare Times Beach project in Matina. The masterplan of the Times Beach and Riverside properties will be designed by globally renowned design consultancy firm CallisonRTKL, which has produced some of the world’s most memorable and thriving, living and commercial spaces in the past five decades.

“This is Cebu Landmasters’s very first venture in Davao, and we are very proud that these prime properties have been entrusted to us by the Yuson-Villa-Abille family. This will be a great collaboration and exciting venture for both of us,” CLI Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer Jose Franco B. Soberano added.

Yuson expressed full confidence in the success of each project. “We share the same values, passion and commitment to community development with Cebu Landmasters, which is one of the leading and multi-awarded real-estate developers in the Visayas and Mindanao regions,” he said.

For comments and suggestions, e-mail me at mvala.v@gmail.com

Alálaong Bagá

L

ord, teach us that we may gain wisdom of heart (Psalm 90:34, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17). Christians are called to be wise by their radical commitment to Jesus that admits of no half measures and distractions (Luke 14:25-33).

The wisdom of heart The passing nature of our human existence is underlined by the fact that we return back to dust whence we came from. But this also signifies that we are invited and awaited by the Creator to return back to Him at the end of this life. Hence it matters little how long one’s life may have been: we all return to dust, and for God “a thousand years are like one day” (2 Peter 3:8) that passes away with a watch in the night and fades into the past as yesterday. Life is swiftly done like a dream terminated by waking up, or a grass springing up and flourishing in the morning, but wilted and withered down in the evening.

The psalm asks that the people be given wisdom; only God can provide

BLOOMBERG VIEW

I

t’s been a tough summer for China’s movie business. In what’s usually blockbuster season, box-office sales declined for the first time in five years. In July alone, theater visits fell 15 percent.

Things are looking especially grim for Chinese films: They’ve been underperforming foreign competition so badly that the government suspended a long-standing moratorium on summer Hollywood flicks intended to give a boost to local studios.

That’s an abrupt turnabout for an industry that grew by 50 percent last year. Although it may prove temporary, it nonetheless illuminates some looming challenges for

China’s moviemakers—and for its culture business more broadly.

One immediate cause for the bust is that film authorities are attempting to crack down on falsified

the wisdom that lets anyone to make sense of human existence, short as it is and burdened by suffering and problems. “Numbering one’s days aright” means however short those days and years may be, if marked by righteous living, they spell a meaningful existence, a life in wisdom. To be able to return to God, the psalm pleads with God to return Himself

to His people and have compassion on them. How much longer must they suffer chastisement for their sins? In God-given wisdom, may the people reform their ways, and surely relief will come. May the Lord fill His people with kindness and gladness as in a new dawn that starts a new life. Their deliverance will be seen as proof of divine mercy, blessing their work and bringing them prosperity.

The cost of discipleship

The path we need to walk in this world to be saved and the truth of what pleases God is none other than following Jesus Christ. On His way to Jerusalem, where He would teach the ultimate lesson of discipleship, Jesus spells out the transcendent wisdom that salvation is in the total, unconditional, radical commitment to Him. To forego family ties, “to hate” (love less) one’s parents, wife and children does not mean to renounce family responsibilities. It is to be completely detached from them, even as one loves them in order to be bound to Jesus.

To love Jesus first and foremost, second to none, demands “hating” even one’s life. “Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

This cost of discipleship is so high one must enter into the process not blindly, but with a clear head and

Foreign media on native killings

Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, 5 to 6 a.m. on dwIZ 882, or by audio-streaming on www.dwiz882.com.

exclusive focus on the poor, and the random and reckless disregard evident in the victim selection.

Time is right: Percentage-wise, the crime problem of the United States, of the so-far-still United Kingdom, of Russia and of other major powers are far worse than our own. We have far less rapes; far fewer murders; far-less loose guns; far less drugs for the rich and far less shabu for the poor, than advanced countries do.

But the advanced countries have evolved into police states. The militarization of the police in the US has erased any distinction between cops who go after Americans (especially the swarthy ones) and soldiers who kill Afghans. If the drug problem there gets really out of hand, the problem can be erased overnight.

The police in advanced countries have given up all but one vice: the satisfaction of taking out bad elements. And their legal systems permit any way they choose to do it—or it looks the other way. These powers can eliminate their drug problems

subsidies and aggressive competition, but such discounts are starting to disappear. For many Chinese consumers, that adds up to a crimp on leisure spending, especially with economic growth slow and layoffs looming in many areas.

Some more fundamental cultural forces may also be at work.

One is that widespread piracy is putting a premium on filmgoing experiences that can’t be had at home. Although distributors had long relied on 3-D, IMAX and Hollywood films heavy on special effects to draw jaded consumers to the theater, the novelty of such experiences is beginning to wear off for more sophisticated audiences.

When Jason Bourne was released almost exclusively in 3-D in China, it prompted protests from customers who didn’t appreciate having to pay

extra to see a movie that would’ve been just as good (or bad) in two dimensions.

That also helps explain why China’s domestic films have done so poorly. Years of easy access to pirated foreign films have raised expectations for story-telling, acting and production values. Though today’s Chinese consume their share of mind candy, they are, on balance, much more discerning than earlier generations of filmgoers. The problem is that China lacks the professional class of screenwriters that would be needed to consistently produce quality film and television. One prominent film executive even said last year that his studio would rely on fan fiction and online forums for storylines.

Finally, history has given China’s filmmakers reason to be risk-averse.

The result has been a kind of cultural pasteurization that favors the tried and true, rather than the artistically adventurous. Historical epics (firmly grounded in the imperial past) and melodramas remain popular if uninspiring topics.

Although China’s government will doubtless continue to play a role in shaping culture, it could encourage some competition for staid filmmakers by loosening long-standing quotas on the number of foreign films that can be released every year (currently set at 34). There’s little evidence that such quotas work: In South Korea loosening quotas actually led to steady growth in the local film business and helped boost the influence of Korean film and television overseas (especially in China).

Not incidentally, box-office sales also surged.

Continued from A1

Y

es, but…

But…but what?

Are they paid off?

box-office data. The practice is longstanding: Distributors buy up millions of dollars’ worth of tickets for their own movies, give sales figures an artificial boost and create some buzz. Just how much this affected the bottom line for Chinese movies is difficult to say, but it was enough to draw the attention of the government, and it suggests that domestic filmmakers may have to get used to lackluster sales for a while.

If fraud were the only drag, though, China’s box office would probably still be booming. A more pervasive problem is shaky consumer confidence. In the first quarter of 2016, the average price of a ticket rose to $3.35, compared to $2.54 during the same period last year. Moviegoers had gotten used to online vendors driving down prices through

Alálaong bagá, as the psalmist has said, Lord “teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart”—living our transitory human existence well under the gracious care of God, so that we can return to Him in a new, endless dawn when the evening of life has come.

That wisdom is now available to us in the imitation of Christ, which consists exactly in the wholehearted commitment to Him. For the disciple, wisdom is in absolute fidelity and personal allegiance to Jesus, preferring nothing and nobody to Him and doing everything according to His ways. One must follow Him up to the very end; it is not some advocacy at one’s convenience and on one’s terms.

To be really a Christian means to give all to Jesus Christ; that is why there are so many nominal Christians only.

overnight. The Philippines cannot.

As early as Corazon C. Aquino— and, therefore, starting with Marcos high-ranking members of the military were involved in the drug trade. The timely intervention of a foreign power stopped its spread.

You recall the Magallanes incident.

Bang, bang.

They were dead.

But drug-trade spread, this time among the police—not as addicts, but protectors. Without police protection the drug trade cannot prosper. As a result, the ability of our state to cope with, let alone erase, the drug problem has been seriously compromised.

The Time piece reassures us that, crime-wise statistically, we are better off than rich countries. But the same piece shows us that we better do something about it while we can.

(Before it gets completely out of hand because we haven’t the native guts, the necessary training, and the logistical firepower of Central and Latin American security forces. We are just no good at peace and order. And the comparatively better peace and order we enjoy comes from a native inclination to decency and the native criminals’ lack of imagination.)

Free fire

This kind of story cannot be paid for. And nobody will pay for it; certainly not foreign governments, which do far worse than we do.

I know the foreign media and how hard, and professionally risky, it is for them to be dishonest—unless they cover business, where lying is the truth.

In the West you have to be the best.

Every other journalist worth his or her salt is out to get you: get you by writing better and getting it more right than you. Everyone wants a crack at Pulitzer.

I have read four foreign articles so far. The last one has nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with why we should have a bigger drug problem among the poor than we do.

I can dispute the first.

I am totally speechless about the last.

I am amazed at the brilliance of the second and third.

Time magazine describes the killings accurately; especially the

Time is right: Percentage-wise, the crime problem of the United States, of the so-far-still United Kingdom, of Russia and of other major powers are far worse than our own. We have far less rapes; far fewer murders; far less loose guns; far less drugs for the rich and far less shabu for the poor, than advanced countries do.

intent on carrying it through successfully, like in building a tower or in fighting an army. Following Jesus costs no less than everything. To calculate such outlay and to assess prudently the entire endeavor are indications that wisdom and foresight, indeed, must belong to Jesus’ true followers.

The next piece is by the LA Times.

It is a dark and poignant account of a woman killer for hire who will be the next victim of her profession.

Too poor to keep her own kids alive without her night job, she is making orphans of other children.

The LA Times piece shows us that our cops are not doing it alone. They have hired help. This is important because we have to know what the cops are doing, so that when all the wet jobs that are needed to be done are done, the same thing can be done to them. (Duterte has put up a P2million bounty for dirty cops. Nice.

There truly is no problem that cannot be solved permanently by homicide.)

Hitler did it that way. First, use whatever means that lie at hand, however dirty, and then clean up after yourself and throw the dirty rag away.

The last piece appears in the New Yorker. It is by Rachel Aviv. It is a long piece. About the hard, nearly impossible life of a Filipina, like that of many other Filipinas who went from poverty in the Philippines to poverty in the United States. This was an improvement. They had to raise enough money abroad to raise family back home. If that is not a good reason to get stoned, I don’t know what is. And yet, 100 percent of Filipino women working as domestic slaves abroad Face Each Empty Backbreaking workday, Stone Cold Sober.

Teddy Locsin Jr.

Is China’s movie boom doomed?

Adam Minter

The path we need to walk in this world to be saved and the truth of what pleases God is none other than following Jesus Christ. On His way to Jerusalem where He would teach the ultimate lesson of discipleship, Jesus spells out the transcendent wisdom that salvation is in the total, unconditional, radical commitment to Him.

Thursday, September 1, 2016 A11

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Govt eyes exclusive bank, capital lending for displaced Saudi OFWs

P

By David Cagahastian

may be able to follow up on their money claims.

Mr. Duterte told some of the repatriated OFWs to start up a business in the Philippines, instead of trying to look for work abroad.

“Now it’s just a matter of time and motion. We are not so bad, actually, our economy is okay. Just wait a while and give me some time, I will just fix the economy and there would be opportunities for you to work here,” the President said.

@davecaga

resident Duterte on Wednesday said the government intends to put up a bank exclusively for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), as he urged OFWs laid off from their jobs in Saudi Arabia to start small businesses here using capital to be borrowed from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

“Before I forget, I will put up a bank for overseas workers, exclusively for you,” Mr. Duterte told a group OFWs, who were repatriated from Saudi Arabia after losing their jobs there due to financial reverses of their employers.

“We will provide the capital so that it will go directly to you, so it’s easier,” he added.

Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III, who heads the government’s task force to repatriate the OFWs from Saudi Arabia, said the

“We are not really exceeding the expectations, but we are on target with our growth. We have hit a phenomenal 7-percent growth, but it’s not something to crow about. We have to do more,” he added.

Mr. Duterte said that, aside from the promised bank exclusively for OFWs, the DTI also has a program that will help Filipinos with the start-up capital and technical knowledge to be able to start a small business.

Before I forget, I will put up a bank for overseas workers, exclusively for you. We will provide the capital so that it will go directly to you, so it’s easier. Now it’s just a matter of time and motion. We are not so bad, actually, our economy is okay. Just wait a while and give me some time, I will just fix the economy and there would be opportunities for you to work here.”—President Duterte

goal is to bring back some 2,000 OFWs between August 20 and the first week of September. Bello said many of the OFWs were hesitant to be repatriated to the Philippines, because they still have yet to be paid their salaries and other money claims by their employers in Saudi after being laid off.

He added that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is trying to convince the OFWs to issue a special power of attorney, so that government representatives

www.businessmirror.com.ph

JAPAN DEFENSE MINISTRY SEEKS RECORD BUDGET AS CHINA THREAT GROWS

J

Apan’s Defense Ministry is seeking a record budget for the next financial year, as the nation seeks to cope with increasing pressure from China over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The ministry requested a spending increase for a fourth straight year—up 2.3 percent from this year’s budget—to more than ¥5 trillion ($49 billion). Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reversed a decadelong downward trend in defense spending after he took office in 2012.

The proposal includes funds for the development of a longerrange land-based antiship missile that could be used to defend the islands in the East China Sea. In recent months, China has stepped up the number of ship incursions into waters around the uninhabited islets to the highest level since 2012, prompting Tokyo to make a series of diplomatic protests.

While funds are limited as the aging country struggles with ballooning social-security costs, Abe has reinterpreted Japan’s pacifist constitution and passed laws expanding the role of the military.

Japanese armed forces began training last week to deal with their expanded remit under the

new security legislation.

As China grows increasingly assertive, Abe has sought to bolster military ties with the US—Japan’s main ally—and build defense relationships with Southeast Asian nations, several of of which have their own territorial disputes with China. The budget request includes funds for the maintenance of the TC-90 patrol aircraft Japan plans to lease to the Philippines.

Two of the biggest items on the ministry’s shopping list are a ¥106-billion upgrade of Japan’s network of Lockheed Martin Corp.

PAC-3 interceptors, which are used for missile defense, and almost ¥95 billion for six Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.

The new antiship missiles are likely to have a range of 300 kilometers (186 miles), compared with 200 kilometers currently, the Sankei newspaper reported earlier this month. That would put the disputed islands in range from a military base on the Okinawan island of Miyako.

The actual amount allocated to defense in the budget for the year starting in April will be decided by the end of the year after negotiations with the Finance Ministry.

Bloomberg News

Gencars inaugurates 6th, biggest Isuzu dealership in Batangas City

G

Join the Philippine Solar Power Alliance (PSPA), in partnership with the European Chamber of Commerce, in its 6th PHILIPPINE SOLAR SUMMIT AND EXHIBITION 2016: "COOLING THE EARTH WITH SOLAR" The event provides a discussion platform on how to clear the path, remove the barriers, and create the ecosystem for cleaner energy in the next 6 years.

Visit booths showcasing innovative practices.

new

technologies

REGISTER NOW!

and

For inquiries, please contact: Ms. Jenny Esmao of ECCP at (+632) 8451324 or email jenny.esmao@eccp.com

GUEST OF HONOR Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III Senate President Republic of the Philippines

TOPICS

Sustaining the Solar Momentum Is Solar a Good Investment in the Philippines?

Solar and Agriculture: Finding a Common Ground Moving to the Next Contracting Round Power Generation Mix & the Paris Agreement Addressing Grid Challenges Solar Competitiveness Roadmap Streamlining Permitting Process ORGANIZED BY: MEDIA PARTNER:

OFFICIAL TV PARTNER:

PLATINUM SPONSOR:

GOLD SPONSORS:

SILVER SPONSORS:

EXHIBITORS:

CO-LOCATED EVENT:

encars Inc. on Wednesday opened its dealership of Isuzu vehicles in Batangas City in line with the Japanese manufacturer’s strategy to expand its presence and market in the Philippines.

The Batangas outlet is Gencars’s sixth and the biggest Isuzu dealership in the Philippines.

Isuzu Batangas occupies about 5,250 square meters, which is part of a 6-hectare complex that now has the city’s main bus terminal. “ This facility can serve all types of Isuzu products, including trucks, because of its state-ofthe-art equipment. I would like to congratulate you [Gencars] on this for answering our call to expand the dealership,” said Hajime Koso, Isuzu Philippines president.

Koso last year took the helm of the presidency at Isuzu Philippines and called for the expansion of dealership in the country to maintain its status as the

briefs

➜DOE: 6,000 MW of power needed by 2030

The country would likely need over 6,000 megawatts (MW) of additional powergenerating capacity by 2030 in order to serve the growing demand for electricity.

Based on data shown during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) said the forecasted demand and reserve requirement of the country by 2030 will reach at least 30,189 MW. Of which, the agency identified 17,925 MW of existing dependable capacity; 6,178 MW of committed projects; and 6,086 MW of required capacity addition.

Of the 6,178 MW of committed projects, the DOE said 4,525 MW wtill be sourced from base-load plants, 1,100 MW is midmerit and 553 MW from peaking plants.

Meanwhile, some 5,094 MW of required capacity must come from baseload plants, 992 MW from midmerit and peaking plants. Midmerit plants adjust its power output as demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day. These are mostly gas plants. A base-load plant, meanwhile, provides a continuous sup-

30.4% The increase in Isuzu sales in the first six months of the year against last year’s performance

country’s fifth-largest overall vehicle dealer and fend off possible customer-switching to other brands.

“Our [Cabangon] family is very grateful to Batangas City and the least that we can do is to do good service on automotive, especially Isuzu,” said D. Edgard A. Cabangon, Gencars managing director.

“We won’t be here if not for the support and trust of Isuzu Philippines. We are expanding because of you,” Cabangon said.

The new dealership hopes to service Isuzu vehicle owners in Batangas City and nearby areas,

ply of electricity throughout the year.

These are mostly coal plants.

Peaking plants run only when there is a high demand for electricity.

The country’s power-generation mix as of end of 2015 is composed of 45-percent coal, 25-percent renewable, 23-percent natural gas and 7-percent oil. On the other hand, last year’s installed capacity mix is made up of 66-percent fossil fuels, 15 percent of which is in natural gas.

With intensified electrification programs, increasing population and strong GDP growth, demand for electricity is expected to grow by an average of 5 percent per year until 2030, or around 126 terra-watt hour (TWh) from the 2015 level of 82 TWh. Lenie Lectura

➜PSG tightens security around First Family DAVAO CITY—The Presidential Security Group (PSG) has tightened security around President Duterte and his family as the Chief Executive expands the list of drug personalities that includes a number of local officials and higher-ranking

who previously need to bring their vehicles to Santo Tomas, Batangas, for maintenance.

According to Arthur Balmadrid, Isuzu Philippines senior vice president, the market for the new Isuzu outlet is big, since it can service the vehicles that are going elsewhere in the Philippines due to its proximity to the Batangas Port, one of the country’s busiest ports.

“All trucks and buses going to the port can be serviced through this facility,” he said.

Total Isuzu sales in the first six months of the year reached 13,258 units, a 30.4-percent increase, from the 10,169 units sold last year, according to data from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. and the Truck Manufacturers Association.

Isuzu’s sales were faster than the 27.4-percent rate, or 167,481 units sold, posted by the country’s entire automotive industry for the said period. VG Cabuag

police officers.

The threat to the President’s life is also expected to notch a higher rung as the antinarcotics operations have also uncovered more shabu laboratories and strengthened the suspected connection and involvement among government officials in the illicit-drugs trade.

The Duterte camp here said it was this city’s vice mayor, Paolo Duterte, who confirmed the doubling of PSG personnel that ring around Mr. Duterte and the rest of the family members here.

The younger Duterte also disclosed that it was he who requested the PSG to tighten the security of their children.

He clarified, however, that the Duterte family is not new to threats in the course of the political work of his father, who left his prosecutorial job beginning in 1988 to accept the appointment by then-President Corazon C. Aquino to be the vice mayor of the city. The older Duterte vied for the mayoralty post in the next election and the post became uncontested since then, except in 1998, when he ran for Congress after the regulatory term limit of nine years for each elected position. Manuel T. Cayon