Businessmirror september 11, 2017

BMReports

State moves to hasten recovery of hospitals, health-care sector

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco Correspondent

T This file photo shows the façade of the East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City.

According to government health officials, the Philippines needs more than 1,000 government and private hospitals. NONOY LACZA

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Part One

HIS month the Philippine hea lt h sector wou ld commemorate one of its heroes who passed away seven days after the declaration of martial law: Anastasia Giron Tupas.

The dean of Philippine Nursing would not have the opportunity on how her sectoral peers would become the most-needed worker in the world.

According to the latest report by the Philippine Overseas Employment

Administration (POEA), a total of 12,082 professional nurses were deployed abroad in 2010. About 349 nursing personnel became overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), while 176 medical doctors left the country also that year.

Seventeen years later, the Department of Health (DOH) said the demand for nurses remain strong abroad. The demand has not helped the sector that, according to DOH chief Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial, is still witnessing a dearth in professional nurses.

According to Ubial, the publichealth sector lacks 21,000 nurses and Continued on A2

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Monday, September 11, 2017 Vol. 12 No. 333

Asean inches closer toward forging RCEP 16 M

By Catherine N. Pillas

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embers of Asean and their six trade partners are now in the process of identifying products that will be subjected to zeropercent duty under a regional freetrade agreement (FTA), according to Trade Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo.

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Alberto C. Agra

T

Even without a clear agreement on the target level of market access covering goods and services in the Regional Economic Comprehensive Partnership

his was the challenge posed to the participants of the most recent seminar organized by the Local Government Academy (LGA)-Department of Interior and Local Governments on public-private partnerships (PPPs).

Fourteen cities. Last week officials from 14 cities attended the “Enhancing Local Governance, Accountability and Reform through PPP-Technical, Financial and Environmental, Review of Policy and Legal Framework” offered by LGA. Elective and career officials from the Cities of Pasig, Malabon, Tabuk, San Fernando (La Union), San Carlos, Alaminos, Dagupan, Santiago, Muñoz, San Pablo, Santa Rosa, Puerto Princesa and Carcar actively participated in the three-day seminar from September 6 to 8.

See “Asean,” A2

Continued on A15

The number of RCEP negotiating parties

REFORMS IN TAX SYSTEM TV shows seen to boost Japanese tourists in PHL MUST BE FRIENDLY TO ENVIRONMENT–ICSC P ₧121.97B

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

By Rea Cu

T

@ReaCuBM

he Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) said rolling out two new tax schemes would reduce harmful carbon emissions in the country and help the Philippines cope with the ill effects of climate change.

The ICSC said the environment taxes—the carbon tax and coal tax— can be adopted by the Philippine government. Revenues from these tax schemes can be used to fund programs of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“ICSC is aware of the DOF’s [Department of Finance] initiative to tax coal based on an inflation-adjustment mechanism starting with the excise tax on coal as of 1997, as proposed by Sen. Loren B. Legarda,” it said.

The carbon-tax revenues that may be generated by the government, according to the NTRC

The group said the energy-tax scheme can be patterned after British Thermal Unit (BTU) tax in the United States, wherein a duty based on heat content is levied on all fossil fuels.

“This policy brief is in support of the efforts of the DOF in reforming the tax system toward a fairer and more sustainable one, especially in regard to fossil fuels,” it added.

The ICSC noted that the DOF

PESO exchange rates n US 51.0230

Continued on A16

OPULAR television shows in Japan have been featuring the Philippines throughout the year, which are expected to help the Department of Tourism (DOT) reach its targeted 600,000 Japanese visitor arrivals for 2017.

The DOT said in a statement the three TV shows were estimated to have reached 4 million Japanese viewers.

Tou r i sm Sec ret a r y Wa nd a Corazon T. Teo noted that the producers of these T V shows pushed through with their shooting schedules inspite of some concerns raised by some foreign governments about traveling to the Philippines due to the skirmishes between government troops and Islamist separatists in a remote village in Bohol and in Marawi City. The DOT earlier said some Japanese tourists opted to post-

pone their trips to a later date.

She added the TV shows have an estimated media va lue of P120 million, referring to the amount of free publicity or promotion for the country, which, otherwise, the DOT would have paid for through advertising.

Among the TV shows are Tabi Salad, a popular lifestyle and travel show every Saturday morning produced by the Asahi Broadcasting Corp., a regional network operating out of Osaka. The show featured Manila, Tagaytay, Boracay, Cebu and Bohol in four separate episodes.

Rare World Travel of Kansai Telecasting Corp. also produced a special episode focusing on Cebu, which was hosted by popular actress Sawa Suzuki and comedian Mitsunori Fukuda. Kansai TV is also headquartered in Osaka.

Another feature on Cebu was produced by the Mainichi Broadcasting System, also an Osaka TV network, for its talk show, Chichin

Puipui. The show promoted the Central Visayas province as an ideal holiday destination, as well as a venue to learn English as a Second Language (ESL).

“It truly is heartwarming to note that these broadcasting companies have trusted the DOT’s assurance of safety, and that they were able to capture the real tourism situation in the places visited,” Teo said during the recent Philippine Business Mission (PBM) in Osaka.

“I do hope that these TV shows serve as testimonials our prime tourist destinations. We need more media partners like these to push our message that it is still more fun in the Philippines,” she added.

Under the National Tourism Development Plan for 2016-2022, the Duterte administration is targeting an increase in Japanese visitor arrivals to 1 million by 2022, from the targeted 618,436 arrivals in 2017.

Japan is considered one of the

major tourism markets of the Philippines, constantly ranking either third or fourth place on the list. In the first half of 2017, there were 294,080 visitors from Japan, up 12.8 percent from the same period last year. The actual number of Japanese tourists in 2016 failed to hit the DOT’s target for that year of 575,390.

The PBM is an annual travel trade event organized by the DOT and its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board, providing a platform for suppliers of Philippine tourism products to conduct business with their Japanese counterparts.

During the PBM, there was a tourism seminar that updated participants on Philippine tourism developments, a travel mart for one-on-one business discussions with Japanese travel trade representatives, and a cocktail reception for additional networking. Aside from Osaka, the PBM also went to Nagoya and Tokyo.

n japan 0.4705 n UK 66.8554 n HK 6.5294 n CHINA 7.8678 n singapore 38.0797 n australia 41.0531 n EU 61.3552 n SAUDI arabia 13.6058

Source: BSP (8 September 2017 )

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A2 Monday, September 11, 2017

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State moves to hasten recovery of hospitals, health-care sector Continued from A1

health professionals to provide medical services to 105 million Filipinos across the country.

“But the Philippines has an oversupply of nurses and they prefer to work here if they are paid reasonably,” Ubial said.

Nursing numbers

CITING DOH data, the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) said from 18,000 nurses employed by the government and 9,000 in private sector 10 years ago, the number ballooned to 42,000 employed nurses by the end of 2014. The PNA said the increase in the figure occurred sans an “increase in the number of plantilla items in the government and main health centers [where nurses are usually deployed] or any substantial increase in bed capacities of our hospital system.”

The increase in the figure in terms of headcount has seen a related increase in the size of a nurse’s take-home pay.

Solon. . .

Continued from A16

“In fact, HB 5828 deleted the requisite Filipino-ownership requirement of public utilities under the Public Service Act, which is identical with Section 11 of Article XII of the Constitution,” he added.

In its definition of a public utility, Lagman said the bill deliberately deleted the concept of ownership and limited the definition to the operation, management and control of public utilities even as there can be no operation, management or control without an owner.

He added the bill also deletes from the enumeration of public utilities, traditional public utilities, like common carriers and

Urban slum. . .

Continued from A16

“The poor, who have limited opportunities and capabilities, ought to be provided with basic needs, amenities and social-protection benefits so that they can build resilience to withstand various shocks to livelihood and welfare, such as food price crises, armed conflict and natural hazards,” ADB said.

The same trend was observed using the international poverty line of $1.90 a day, using the 2011 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). This a means to determine the cost needed by

According to Ubial, the government is also trying its best to improve the salary and benefit packages for health professionals in the Philippines. The compensation package has increased “tremendously in the past five years,” she told the BusinessMirror.

Ubial’s statement was echoed by Health Assistant Secretary Elmer G. Punzalan.

“Of course, we give incentives to our graduates and, of course, our DOH hospitals,” Punzalan said. “That incentive is to give them higher pay rather than [force them to go] abroad.”

government and private hospitals.

“We are short by 44,000 to 45,000 beds for a ratio of one bed for every 800 people,” Ubial said. “For the rest of the country, the situation is one bed per 2,500 people. The situation in Metro Manila is better compared to other regions with the ratio of one bed per 590.”

Likewise, the government has a shortage of rural health units (RHU) and health centers, “For every 20,000 people, we need at least one RHU,” she added. “Currently, there are 2,600 RHUs so there is a shortfall of 5,200 RHUs and health centers.”

Beds, RHUs

Call-centered

U BI A L a l so ad m it ted t h at 45,0 0 0 additional hospital beds are need by the country, especially in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

There is also a need of more than 1,000 government and private hospitals.

Currently, there are 1,900 hospitals with a total of 82,000 beds in the

ACCORDING to PNA, about 200,000 registered nurses were without jobs in 2015.

PNA, which was organized by Tupas in 1922, added that two yeas ago about 300,000 nurses “are deskilled because they are forced to accept non-nursing jobs in order to provide support for their families.”

Punzalan said the situation hasn’t changed as nursing graduates are being hired to work in business process outsourcing firms.

“The hiring of nurses, especially in the US and other countries has lessened; most of our nursing students that have graduated are no longer admitted [to work in hospitals],” he explained. “So they go to call centers and other areas out of their specialization. But they have to earn their income so they prefer to go to call centers.” Punzalan said a nurse’s salary in a government hospital starts at P35,000 and P13,000 in private hospitals.

Compare that to the more than P20,000 they receive if they work in call centers, he said.

Supply, demand

PUNZALAN said the increase in demand for nurses followed the closure of nursing schools after the government applied changes in the basic education system.

telecommunications companies, which are operating with controlling Filipino ownership. Lagman said another problem with the bill is that traditional public utilities have been deleted from the enumeration of public utilities.

“Since time immemorial, common carriers were considered as public utilities and also telecommunications companies were also excluded if these companies are not included in the enumeration of public utilities. Again, they can be owned a n d o p e r a t e d b y f o r e i g n e r s ,” t h e lawmaker said.

For their part, Party-list Rep. Antonio L. Tinio of Act Teachers, Reps. Emmi de Jesus and Arlene Brosas of Gabriela, who voted “no” on the passage of the bill, said the

60-40 rule on foreign ownership is stated very clearly under the Constitution. Under the 1987 Constitution, the lawmakers said public utilities must be owned

by Filipino citizens or by corporations, partnerships or associations where not less than 60 percent of the capital stock is owned by Filipino citizens.

House Committee on Economic Affairs Chairman Arturo Yap and Rep. Joey S. Salceda of Albay said the 1987 Constitution only restricts operation and not ownership of public utilities.

Yap said this move will open competition in more areas of basic services in the country while improving the quality and lower the cost of services in the country.

Salceda, the House Committee on

Appropriations Vice Chairman, said the passage of the measure is a long-overdue initiative of Congress to perform its legislative function of defining a public utility.

He said the proposed measure aims to ensure the proper implementation of Section 11, Article XII of the Philippine Constitution, which states only companies, which are 60 percent owned by Filipinos may operate public utilities.

Salceda said the absence of a law defining a public utility has led to uncertainty, fewer investments, and limited consumer choices.

Under HB 5828, public utility refers to a person that operates, manages and controls public-use distribution of electricity as defined by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), transmission of electricity as defined

residents in one country to buy a certain amount of goods and services in the United States.

ADB data showed that, using 2012 data, around 13.1 percent of the country’s population were living below the $1.9 a day poverty line, lower than 18.4 percent in 2000.

The Philippines had the highest poverty rate in the Asean-5 and came second only to Laos in the whole of Southeast Asia.

Laos had a poverty rate of 16.7 percent in 2015. Data also showed that, using the PPP, around 8.6 percent of working Filipinos are living below the international poverty line of $1.9 a day.

ADB said there are more male workers

at 9.8 percent than female employees at 6.6 percent who are living under the $1.9 a day poverty line.

“Poverty reduction is at the heart of the sustainable-development agenda, and countries have committed to eradicating poverty in all its dimensions by 2030,” ADB added.

The SDGs or Global Goals is a set of 17 socioeconomic goals that 193 United Nations member-countries like the Philippines committed to meet by 2030. The goals are composed of around 169 targets and over 300 global indicators. The SDGs were adopted in September 2015.

The Global Goals aim to end poverty and

hunger, promote universal health, education for all and lifelong learning, achieve gender equality, sustainable water management, ensure sustainable energy for all, decent work for all, resilient infrastructure and reduce income inequality between and among countries.

The goals also include create sustainable cities, ensure sustainable consumption and production, take action against climate change, conserve and sustainably use oceans and marine resources, reduce biodiversity loss, achieve peaceful and inclusive societies and revitalize global partnership for development.

“So now is the time we need nurses but there are few enrollees and graduates. As a result of what happened [K to 12] there is a surplus of nurses,” he said. “But now, I agree most of these nursing schools have closed down and usually there are nursing schools everywhere [before] but now we need nurses but there are few.”

Meanwhile, Ubial said she appreciates the interest of legislators on the plight of health workers, particularly nurses, many of whom remain unemployed or underemployed. “We should address the genuine underlying causes of the country’s health work-force problems,” she said in a statement. “ This gives the DOH an excellent opportunity to draw attention to the whole picture of the current situation.”

Ubial was referring to the Nurses Deployment Program (NDP), a project that the Aquino administration started in 2011 to address the salary problems plaguing the nursing sector. To be continued

by Epira and water pipeline distribution system or sewerage pipeline system as defined by the act creating the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System.

Yap said these three sectors retained as public utility is based on a study that reexamined the legal and economic framework used to clarify businesses as public utility.

The bill also said no other person, business or service shall be deemed a public utility under this act unless otherwise provided by law.

The measure said the National Economic and Development Authority Secretariat with the Philippine Competition Commission shall recommend to Congress the classification of a person, business or service as a public utility.

Asean. . .

Continued from A1

(RCEP) agreement, all 16 parties have moved to the “request-andoffer” mode of negotiations.“Before, we are pegging a substantial conclusion in terms of getting the right numbers and modalities, now we are proceeding to the exchange and offer, which will provide an idea of the specific products that will be offered by the countries,” said Rodolfo, who is also the Phil-

It said with the exception of those enumerated in the this act, no public service shall operate in the Philippines without possessing a valid and subsisting franchise, certificate, or any other appropriate form of authorization for the operation of a public service as the case may be, to the effect that the operation of said service and the authorization to do business will promote the public interests in a proper and suitable manner.

The bill also addresses the weakness of the original Public Service Act regarding its penalty provision. With this proposed amendment, the imposed a penalty of just P200 a day will be adjusted to up to P5 million per day, which is indexed to the cost of money based on the cumulative 360-day Treasury bill rate. ippine lead for the Asean Economic Ministers Meeting (AEM). The Department of Trade and Industry, the agency that leads FTA negotiations, said RCEP members are targeting to slash to zero percent the tariff on 90 percent to 92 percent of goods trade among the parties to the FTA. However, one party is reportedly having a hard time committing to the figure, which has hampered progress on talks for the FTA. This has forced RCEP members to go to the “request-offer” mode of negotiations. At this stage, negotiating parties, on a bilateral basis, will identify and offer tariff lines for duty elimination and the schedule removing tariffs.

Parties to the RCEP will meet again in October. By year-end, Asean economic ministers are expected to finalize the RCEP “key elements for significant outcomes”—a document that outlines the negotiating areas that are “realistically achievable”.

The document is expected to pave the way for two main issues in concluding the RCEP—market access and trade rules.

“At this critical juncture when there is a general, global slowdown, and a rising protectionist mindset, it is important for RCEP to step up and set the example for the pursuit off freer trade. RCEP is the only game in given the current state of negotiations of TPP,” Rodolfo said.

The RCEP is a trade deal between the 10 countries of Asean, including the Philippines, and six other countries—Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand and India. When completed, the agreement will be between 16 countries, which make up 45 percent of the world population, and contribute a third of the world’s GDP. The Philippines last Thursday pressed its fellow Asean members to consider flexibilities that would allow them to achieve substantial progress in negotiations for the RCEP. In a speech delivered during the Asean Economic Ministers Meeting in Manila, Trade Secretary and AEM Chairman Ramon M. Lopez underscored the need for Asean economic ministers to agree on contentious issues.

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DOJ chief orders NBI to probe sabotage angle in youth killings

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

J

USTICE Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II has instructed the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to dig deeper into the possibility that the government’s war on drugs is being sabotaged through the spate of killings of male teenagers by police authorities.

Aguirre said the NBI would look into this angle as part of its ongoing investigations on the killings of Kian Loyd de los Santos, Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman alias “Kulot”.

“We have to determine if there are other motives other than killing of these teenagers because we can see a trend that is targeting teenagers. This has not happened before when the war on drugs started,” Aguirre said.

Aguirre echoed President Duterte’s earlier statement indicating a deliberate effort to sabotage and discredit the war on drugs.

“This appears to me as an effort to ultimately destroy our police force and, of course, the President,” he added.

Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) chief Persida Rueda-Acosta, who is providing legal assistance to the parents of the three slain teenagers, shares Aguirre’s opinion.

“It’s obvious already that there’s an agenda in these killings. They are sacrificing teenagers to pursue their agenda. How could they stand doing that?”

Acosta said.

In a speech last Friday, Duterte suggested that the spate of killings of de los

Santos, Arnaiz and de Guzman was intended to sabotage the police and its war on drugs.

The President also ordered the Philippine National Police leadership to investigate who could be behind such plot, which he attributed to narcopoliticians and drug lords.

Meanwhile, Aguirre announced that the parents of Carl have been placed under the coverage of the witness-protection program (WPP).

The parents of Kian have already been provisionally covered by the WPP earlier, while Aguire has also offered protection for the parents of Kulot.

Acosta, for her part, said her office is readying murder and torture charges against Caloocan policemen behind the killings of Carl and Kulot, who were together when they went missing on August 17 reportedly after being arrested for robbing a taxi driver.

The PAO chief said they were able to find a key witness to support the criminal complaint.

“This witness gave us very important information on what really happened to Carl and Kulot. So, together with the testimonial evidence and physicial evidence, like forensic tests, we find basis to pursue murder and torture charges against these policemen,” she said.

Earlier, the parents of Kian filed murder and torture charges before the DOJ against four Caloocan policemen involved in the killing—Chief Inspector Amor Cerillo, Police Officer 3 Arnel Oares and Police Officers 1 Jeremiah Pereda and Jerwin Cruz of Caloocan City police station 7.

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Monday, September 11, 2017 A3

Duterte to impose martial law in PHL if Left stages rebellion

L

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

@alyasjah

eftists be warned. President Duterte said he had enough of demonstrations, and any further clashes between activists and the police forces will result to the declaration of a nationwide martial law.

The President on Saturday accused legal activists of conniving with communist rebels, saying they are even holding their meetings in public. “Their meetings are in public, not underground anymore. I let them anyway,” Duterte said, referring to Leftists allegedly plotting with members of the New People’s Army.

The President added Leftists should not “commit the mistake of staging a rebellion”, or else “I will not hesitate to impose martial law throughout the country and order the arrest of everybody”.

“I don’t want bloodshed, but if you do that [stage a rebellion], I will arrest all of you. I’m not threatening anyone, I’m just saying this as a warning,” Duterte said.

The Chief Executive’s statement came days after the government’s alliance with the Left was laid to rest, following the rejection of the appointments of former Social Welfare Secretary Judy M. Taguiwalo and former Agrarian Secretary Rafael V. Mariano. Taguiwalo and

Mariano were nominated by the Left and appointed by the President as part of goodwill measures to revive the now suspended peace talks with communist rebels.

The rejection of Taguiwalo and Mariano prompted militant lawmakers to review their membership in the so-called supermajority in the House of Representatives. According to the Makabayan bloc, the seven-member coalition of militant lawmakers, the nonconfirmation of Taguiwalo and Mariano exposed the insincerity of the Duterte administration in its alliance with the Left.

“Do not resort to destruction and trouble because I will order the military and the police to go against you,” the President said, adding activists should stop burning effigies and vandalizing public properties because he “will not accept it” as forms of protest.

“And if you want something to happen, let it happen, so we will find out what really fits our nation. [If] you want to destroy it, fine, so we can start anew,” Duterte added.

DUTERTE: “I don’t want bloodshed, but if you do that [stage a rebellion], I will arrest all of you.

I’m not threatening anyone, I’m just saying this as a warning.”

The alliance between the government and the Left was severed since the beginning of the Duterte administration, mainly due to their opposing positions on many issues. Among others, the two camps are divided on the war on drugs, the hero’s burial for the late President Ferdinand Marcos and the martial-law declaration in Mindanao.

In spite of the damaged relations, Presidential Spokesman Ernesto C. Abella last Friday said the administration hopes the Makabayan bloc stays with the supermajority. “However, if they do decide to go, we wish them well and we hope that they will remain open to working together with others on issues of shared interest,” Abella added.

Economy

A4 Monday, September 11, 2017 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

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‘Funds for universal health care could come from 5 agencies’

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

A

@joveemarie

party-list lawmaker last Sunday urged the government to use the P177-billion unspent budget of five agencies to fund the implementation of the proposed Universal Health Coverage Act and the free college tuition law.

Deputy Minority Leader and Kabayan Party-list Rep. Harry L. Roque made the statement as the House of Representatives is expected to approve the 2018 P3.7-trillion national budget on Tuesday.

“If you look at the budget utilization of the DPWH [Department of Public Works and Highways], the DOTr [Department of Transportation], the DOH [Department of Health], the DSWD [Department of Social Welfare and Development] and the DICT [Department of Information and Communications Technology] going back to 2012, you will see they have a history of under-

spending,” Roque said.

“The unused budget of the five agencies should be put to good use and the best use of this would be to fund the Universal Health Coverage Act once it is signed to law, as well as to fund the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act,” he added.

“For 2016 the DPWH alone had an unused appropriation of some P105 billion. The DOTr had unused appropriations of P30.77 billion; the DSWD, P23.03 billion; the DOH, P16.21 billion; and the DICT, P2.73 billion. Imagine if all these unused budgets will, instead, be used to give

Photo shows the facade of the Pasig City General Hospital.

The House of Representatives passed on third and final reading last week a measure mandating the provision of universal health care for all Filipinos. NONOY LACZA

more medicines to the poor and send more students to college,” he added.

Also, Roque said using the un-

used portions of these and other agencies with low absorptive capacity instead of allocating additional

Congress urged to institutionalize ‘Balik Scientist’ program

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

T

O encourage Filipino scientists to come home, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations has asked Congress to prioritize the passage of a measure providing a package of incentives and privileges to these professionals.

Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte Jr. of Camarines Sur said now is the right time for the government to entice scientists to work again in the Philippines over the short or long term.

Villafuerte is one of the principal authors of House measure directing the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to institutionalize the over four-decade-old Balik Scientist program to encourage Filipino scientists and technicians based overseas to return to the Philippines and share their skills here.

The lower chamber has recently approved House Bill (HB) 5792 institutionalizing the Balik Scientist Program.

According to the lawmaker, the issue of brain drain in the country is nothing new and has been a longrunning concern as early as the 1960s, when the majority of Filipino young professionals started opting to work abroad.

“The almost double increase of Filipinos flying to foreign countries could be attributed to low salary, rising cost of living and the lack of incentives for our skilled professionals.

This outflow of human capital is discouraging progress on the country’s science and technology industry, and

there is a need to encourage advancement with science and technology as a priority,” he said.

A “Balik Scientist” refers to “a science or technology expert or professional, as certified by the DOST, who is currently or who was formerly a Filipino citizen, and is residing abroad.

The measure provides various benefits and incentives, such as medical and accident insurance, Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) registration and special non-immigrant visas for those who have already acquired foreign citizenship.

Under HB 6057, Balik Scientists are also given full subsidy on their round-trip airfare to and from the Philippines, relocation allowance and housing by predetermined host institutions.

“The government recognizes the need to retain highly skilled workers and by institutionalizing programs that aim to strengthen human resources of key industries in the country, such as science and technology, we help steer this nation in the direction of progress and not regression,” he said.

The government started implementing a Balik Scientist program in 1975 through Presidential Decree 819. The initiative was revived in 1993 through Executive Order 130 and has continued to be one of the DOST’s programs to entice the country’s science professionals to come home.

Moreover, the bill said the 190-day short-term Balik Scientist program, qualified experts and professionals are accorded the following privileges: fully subsidized round-trip airfare originating from a foreign country to

the Philippines; reimbursement of expenses for excess baggage allowance related to scientific project or activities; relocation allowance to be determined

by DOST; tax-exempt daily allowance to be determined by the DOST; and participation in grants-in-aid (GIA) research and development projects of the DOST, subject to guidelines to be provided in the implementing rules and regulations.

The bill also provided that the donation of instruments and materials related to the scientific program or activities shall be exempted from taxes and duties. Freight and storage expenses shall be borne by the host institution.

Participants in the short-term program must be completed within one year from the date of the award.

It said in the medium-term program covering a period of eight to 12 months, the participants get the same privileges with the additional benefits of exemption from payment of travel tax of the Balik Scientist, including his or her immediate family members as certified by the DOST; and exemption from submission of Immigration clearance certificate and payment of multiple entry fees.

The program must be completed by the participant within two to three years from the date of the award.

For the long-term program of 24 to 36 months, the Balik Scientist will be given the following privileges: a fully-subsidized one-way airfare from a foreign country to the Philippines, including airfare for the spouse and two minor dependents and one free return-trip airfare after completion of the award; reimbursement of ex-

Smokers group appeal for fair enforcement of EO 26

A

consumer advocacy group has bewailed the growing discrimination of smokers as they appealed to authorities for a more objective and fair enforcement of the new smoking rules under Executive Order (EO) 26.

“Smoking is not an illicit activity under our laws. And smokers have rights too,” Anton Israel, president of ProYosi, said as he decried what he described as exaggerated interpretation and enforcement of EO 26.

Israel said the EO, which is consistent with the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003, only restricts smoking in indoor or enclosed places while still allows smoking in open or outdoor areas, like sidewalks and parking lots.

“It is wrong and irresponsible to say that the EO imposes an absolute smoking ban. The restrictions are only for enclosed places,” Israel said.

“We recognize the responsibility of the state to protect nonsmokers and minors from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke but we also demand that the rights of smokers to enjoy a legal product in a nonobstructive environment be respected,” Israel added.

ProYosi lauded the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) for clarifying public confusion and stressing that although business establishments must have designated smoking areas, smoking in open spaces is also allowed.

In an interview, DILG Assistant Secretary Epimaco V. Densing III said “the definition under EO 26 of public places where smoking is not allowed is very specific like hospitals, schools, markets whether open or close.”

“But open spaces refer to sidewalks which are not covered, that’s

where they are allowed to smoke,” Densing added.

ProYosi expressed hopes that DILG can clarify the issue further with local government units which are tasked to enforce EO 26.

The group also appealed to owners of malls, bars and restaurants not to declare their entire establishment as a nonsmoking area. “The EO and the national law allows for the designation of smoking areas.”

They said smoking should still be allowed in al fresco areas or sidewalks outside bars or restaurants as these are open areas.

“At the moment, smokers are shying away from establishments which do not have designated smoking areas. They would rather dine at home where they can smoke after. The wrong interpretation of the EO is also bad for business,” they added.

penses for excess-baggage allowance related to scientific projects or activities; tax-exempt monthly allowance to be given by the DOST; relocation allowance to be determined by the DOST or housing may be arranged by pre-determined host institutions; and participation in GIA for research and development projects approved by the DOST secretary.

A long-term engagement must be completed within five years from the date of the award.

Long-term program participants will also have additional privileges that include duty and tax-free importation of personal effect and professional instruments and material in quantities and of class suitable to the profession, rank or position of the Balik Scientists importing them for their own use, subject to certain conditions and reimbursement of expenses for the surface shipment of personal household effects and professional instruments.

They are also exempted from payment of travel tax of the Balik Scientist, including his or her immediate family members as certified by the DOST. Balik Scientists could enjoy other privileges, such as exemption from submission of Immigration clearance certificate and payment of multiple entry fees and exemption from securing alien employment permit within the duration of their contract.

Donations of equipment, instruments and materials related to the scientific program or activities of the long-term Balik Scientist would also be exempted from the taxes and duties as long as the donation shall be on the account of the DOST.

funds would mean new taxes would be unnecessary.

Absorptive capacity refers to

the percentage of unused appropriations of the annual national budget divided by the total amount of appropriations available for any given year.

The initial allocation of the proposed Universal Health Coverage Act is pegged at least halfa-billion pesos. The proposal providing universal health care for all Filipinos is already pending before the Senate as the lower chamber already approved it on third and final reading last week.

Moreover, Roque said that, as long as the government can afford to spend on basic services and infrastructure, any additional tax imposed on the Filipino people is “oppressive and unjustifiable”.

“It is unclear whether the aim of these policies is necessary and reasonable, in light of the realities of government spending,” Roque said, referring to the government’s proposed tax-reform package.

During the first regular session of the 17th Congress, he filed House Bill 4755, a bill that seeks to prohibit the imposition of additional taxes unless a set threshold absorptive-capacity benchmark and tax-collection target are met by the concerned government agencies.

Senate sets probe into ‘prepaid-load anomalies’

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

T

he Senate Committee on Public Services is poised to open an inquiry into mounting complaints against telecommunications companies (telcos) from irate consumers victimized by “vanishing, expiring prepaid cell-phone loads”.

Sen. Grace Poe, committee chairman, confirmed over the weekend she is convening a public hearing on Wednesday to tackle the issue and invited representatives from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), as well as officials of telcos Globe and Smart and various consumer groups.

The upcoming hearing was set to also tackle Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto’s Senate Bill (SB) 848, to be known as the Prepaid Load Protection Act, which will prohibit telecommunication companies from imposing an expiration period on the validity of prepaid and the forfeiture of load credits.

Poe acknowledged that prepaid cell-phone users have long been complaining about vanishing loads even if they have not consumed the full amount they paid for telcos prepaid services.

“We need to protect consumers from being victimized by

vanishing loads because the money they paid to get in touch with their loved ones is no joke,” she added.

Recto’s SB 848, once enacted into law, will slap erring telcos with stiff penalties, including fines “up to P1-million and revocation of license” if they impose an expiration period on the validity of unused prepaid cell and text cards.

Moreover, the Recto bill also provides sanctions against telcos if they “forfeit load credits stored on an active prepaid-phone account via prepaid call and text card or electronic transfer; and refuse to give a refund to any prepaid subscriber whose load credits were forfeited without any valid cause.”

In endorsing early enactment of the Recto bill, Poe affirmed the proposed law “should deter telcos from unduly imposing additional burden on their subscribers”.

At the same time, the senator suggested that NTC should “broaden and strengthen their regulatory authority and oversight powers on telcos to protect Filipinos and improve telcos’ services.”

The Public Services Commitee chairman confirmed she has been receiving “a barrage of complaints about poor telco service and predatory pricing of services” in her official social-media accounts.

COMP’s appeal to Duterte: Visit rehabilitated mines

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

D

etermined to change President Duterte’s mind on the issue of open-pit mining method, the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) last Sunday reiterated the invitation for the country’s Chief Executive to visit rehabilitated mines that will showcase best practices by responsible mining companies.

“Before any decision on the matter is made by the President, I would just reiterate our offer for him to visit any of our member-mines, whether in Benguet, Palawan, Nueva Vizcaya, Cebu or Masbate,” Ronald Recidoro, executive director of COMP, said in a statement.

“We would like to show him that responsible mining does have a net positive contribution to the economy and to the environment. We replace whatever we displace, often leaving

the area better off than when we found it,” Recidoro added.

COMP issued the statement in reaction to Duterte’s speech during the 17th founding anniversary of Digos City, where he mention his plan to make permanent the ban on openpit mining, although he recognized to some extent such practice may be allowed because of existing law.

During his speech, Duterte again ranted about the destruction caused by irresponsible mining operations and that companies based in Manila are raking huge profit from their operations in Mindanao.

According to Recidoro, open-pit mining has been getting a lot of negative press lately, emphasizing its large environmental footprint.

However, he said “its impact can be mitigated, and its heavy footprint, minimized”.

“Open-pit mines can be rehabilitated and transformed into forests,

agricultural lands, nature parks and even ecotourism sites. It’s been done before in other countries and local miners are doing it now in Rapu-Rapu and Canatuan, where two open-pit mines have recently closed,” he said.

According to Recidoro, a distinction must be made between responsible miners that operate within the bounds of the law and those that operate illegally.

COMP Chairman Gerard H. Brimo, in an earlier interview with the BusinessMirror, said they consider the open-pit mining ban imposed by Regina Paz L. Lopez during her 10-month campaign, as the most pressing issue faced by mining investors.

Brimo said open-pit mining is the only way to do mining in the Philippines, especially because almost all mineral deposits are near the surface.

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng • Monday, September 11, 2017

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Milled-rice output seen hitting 12.6 MMT

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By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

he country’s milled-rice production this year could grow by 3.87 percent to 12.6 million metric tons (MMT), from 12.13 MMT in 2016, due to favorable weather conditions, according to the United Nation’s Food Agriculture Organization (FAO).

file photo

Food exporters urged to comply with EU labeling rules

P

hilippine food exporters should comply with the labeling requirements of the European Union (EU) so they can expand their access to the huge market, according to an official of the Philippine Trade Training Center (PTTC).

Engr. Menandro Ortego, officer in charge for PTTC’s Business Management Training Services Division, said mandatory label information include name of the food, list of ingredient, allergen labeling, net quantity, minimum durability date, storage condition,

and name and address of manufacturer, packer or distributor.

In a statement released by the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., Ortego said it is “imperative” that other information be available on country of origin or place of provenance, instructions for use, actual alcoholic strength and nutrition declaration.

He noted that mandatory food information must be easily visible, clearly legible and indelible.

“Allergens must be highlighted in the list of ingredients,” Ortego said, identifying some of them as

Postharvest losses

W

hen discussing farm productivity, we have to include postharvest losses as part of the new strategies required in agriculture. It is assumed that farmers in the Philippines lose 50 percent in postharvest. Given this super high percentage, it is worthwhile to focus on postharvest losses and what needs to be done to reduce them.

What are the main elements of the postharvest system?

Harvesting—The time of harvesting is determined by the degree of maturity.

Preharvest drying—Extended preharvest field drying ensures good preservation but also increases the risk of loss due to attacks by pests (birds, rodents and insects) and molds and theft. However, harvesting before maturity entails the risk of loss through mold development leading to the decay of seeds.

Transport—Much care is needed in transporting a really mature harvest, in order to prevent detached grain from falling on the road before reaching the storage or threshing place. Collection and initial transport of the harvest, thus, depend on the place and conditions where it is to be stored, especially with a view to threshing.

Postharvest drying—The length of time needed for full drying depends considerably on weather and atmospheric conditions. In structures for lengthy drying, such as cribs, or even unroofed threshing floors or terraces, the harvest is exposed to wandering livestock and the depredations of birds, rodents or small ruminants. Apart from the actual wastage, the droppings left by these “marauders” often result in higher losses than what they actu-

Henry J. Schumacher

europe Beat ally eat. If grain is not dry enough, it becomes vulnerable to mold and can rot during storage. Moreover, if grain is too dry it becomes brittle and can crack after threshing, during hulling or milling, especially for rice if milling takes place longer time (two to three months) after the grain has matured, thus, causing heavy losses. During winnowing, broken grain can be removed with the husks and is also more susceptible to certain insects (e.g. flour beetles and weevils). Last, if grain is too dry, this means a loss of weight and hence a loss of money at the time of sale.

Threshing—If a harvest is threshed before it is dry enough, this operation will most probably be incomplete. Furthermore, if grain is threshed when it is too damp and then immediately heaped up or stored (in a granary or bags), it will be much more susceptible to attack by microorganisms, thus limiting its conservation.

Storage is the art of keeping the quality of agricultural materials and preventing them from deterioration for specific period of time, beyond their normal shelf life. Different crops are harvested and stored by various means depending on the end utilization.

Whether the seed will be used for new plantings the following year, for forage being processed into

cereals containing gluten, crustaceans and crustacean products, eggs and egg products, fish and fish products except fish gelatin, nuts, and molluscs and molluscs products.

He added the presence of engineered nanomaterials must be also indicated in the label.

Otego said proteins added to meat products that are of a different animal origin, presence of added water on meat and fishery products if more than 5 percent of the finished product and vegetable origin of oils and fats must be in-

livestock feed, or even for crops to be developed for a special use, the grower must be aware of harvesting and storage requirements toward a quality product. After determining the prescribed use for the crop, timing for harvest and storage is of important consideration. Along with an assessment of when to harvest, the farmer needs to determine the method of harvesting.

Processing—Excessive hulling or threshing can also result in grain losses, particularly in the case of rice (hulling), which can suffer cracks and lesions. The grain is then not only worth less, but also becomes vulnerable to insects, such as the rice moth.

Marketing is the final and decisive element in the postharvest system, although it can occur at various points in the agro-food chain, particularly at some stage in processing. Moreover, it cannot be separated from transport, which is an essential link in the system.

In summary, there is a wide range of technologies available that, if adopted, would enable smallholders and large producers to improve the quality and quantity of food/ grains during postharvest handling and storage. The postharvest loss strategy should be better integrated into agricultural programs to provide technical advice and affordable solutions to farmers. For smallholders with few options to invest in improved postharvest practices and technologies, the simplest option and one with only minor financial implications is improvement in basic storage hygiene and good storage management.

Comments are welcome; contact me at hjschumacher59@gmail.com.

dicated in the list of ingredients.

He said lot marking is also required, except for agricultural products sold or delivered to temporary storage, preparation or packaging stations and transported to manufacturers; foodstuff sold in bulk to the consumer; packages or containers with the largest side of having an area less than 10 centimeters; and individual portions of ice cream.

The EU labeling requirements came into force in December 2014 and became compulsory in December 2016.

Through its marketing outlook arm, the Agricultural Market Information System (Amis), the FAO hiked its projection for Philippine milled-rice production in 2017 by 376,000 MT, or by 3.1 percent, from its earlier forecast of 12.22 MMT. “In the Philippines, wet-season rice harvest has begun under favourable conditions, despite heavy rainfall in Luzon and western areas from several tropical storms enhancing the southwest monsoon,” Amis said in its “September Market Monitor” report published recently.

Last month the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had also projected that Philippine milledrice production would expand this year. The USDA-FAS said output could go up to 11.5 MMT this year, from 11 MMT produced in 2016.

The USDA-FAS also attributed the production increase to the expansion in harvest area and average yield. Harvest area could expand to 4.6 million hectares this year, from 4.52 million hectares a year ago, while average yield would rise to 3.97 MT per hectare, from 3.86 MT.

Earlier, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the country’s paddy rice production this year would reach 19.223 MMT, 9.06 percent higher than the 17.627 MMT recorded in 2016.

The PSA attributed the hike in unmilled-rice output to the expansion in harvest area, as well as the increase in average yield.

According to the PSA, total palay harvest area would expand by 5.1 percent to 4.788 million hectares, from 4.556 million hectares last year. Also, average yield would improve by 3.77 percent to 4.01 MT per hectare, from 3.87 MT per hectare in 2016.

“Probable upturns in production are anticipated across regions except Mimaropa, Western Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Davao region, Caraga and ARMM,” the PSA said in its “Rice and Corn Situation Outlook, July Round” report published on August 15.

“Farmers are optimistic to have higher yield due to good weather condition and government interventions on seed and fertilizer support,” the PSA added.

The Department of Agriculture is targeting to produce 18.57 MMT of paddy rice this year, 5.33 percent higher than last year’s output of 17.63 MMT.

Thousands of Texas cattle may have died in wake of Harvey

H

OUSTON—Texas agricultural officials fear thousands of cattle may have died in the aftermath of Harvey, resulting in losses to ranchers of tens of millions of dollars.

The counties that sustained damage when Harvey first came ashore on August 25 were home to 1.2 million head of cattle, representing 1 in 4 of all beef cows in Texas, the nation’s largest producer.

Sales of beef cattle and calves in the state averaged $10.7 billion annually between 2011 and 2014, according to the Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension Service and Agri-Life Research.

Most ranchers don’t insure their herds because of the cost, so a rancher could be out hundreds of thousands of dollars if an entire herd drowned, the Houston Chronicle reported. The Oklahoma National Stockyards, branded as one of the world’s largest stocker and feeder cattle markets, sold beef cows for an average of $1,500 in May. Officials are still in the process of tallying the damages.

“We’re finding cattle in waistdeep water,” said Sid Miller, Texas agriculture commissioner. “But when we try to drive them to dry ground, many of them just collapse they’re so exhausted.”

Cattle standing in water will have weakened skin and hooves that are susceptible to infection, said Dr. Dan Posey, a veterinar-

A small herd of cows walk along high ground in the Hamshire area in Texas, on Monday, September 4. Several Chinook helicopters flown by the Michigan Army National Guard dropped bales of hay in the area to feed livestock stranded by Harvey floodwaters. Guiseppe Barranco/The Beaumont Enterprise via AP

ian and clinical professor at Texas A&M. Prolonged standing, lack of food and lack of drinkable water could make the cattle susceptible to respiratory disease, he added.

“Not all of them will recover even though they were rescued,” Posey said.

Texas A&M economists estimated that Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused about $13.3 million in cattle losses, with an additional $23.3 million in damages to fences, hay and other farm equipment.

Harvey may be more costly because it affected a larger area, said

David Anderson, an A&M professor and agriculture economist.

However, Anderson said he doesn’t expect the losses to affect meat prices, because the number of cattle lost in Harvey won’t be enough to impact the national beef market, which is expected to yield a record amount next year.

The beef cows in the coastal regions are mostly raised for breeding, so their loss won’t be immediately felt by meat packers.

Coastal region calves are sent to Texas Panhandle feedlots where they grow to full size before going to slaughterhouses. AP

A6

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Monday, September 11, 2017 • Editor: Jun B. Vallecera

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Households reported higher Q3 savings

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ore Filipinos set aside money as savings in the third quarter based on the latest Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) survey showing a higher percentage of households with rainy-day money during the period.

In its quarterly Consumer Expectation Survey, the BSP said the percentage of households with savings increased to 36.8 percent, from only 35.8 percent in the previous quarter.

This upbeat consumer sentiment developed despite weakened overall confidence in the economy and on financial conditions during the period, as consumers anticipate higher commodities prices, worry about peace and order in the country, experience low or no increase in income for the quarter and worry over an increase in the number of unemployed during the quarter.

The BSP said the higher savings rate was driven largely by households in areas outside the National Capital Regions (NCR), their savings rate increasing from 34.4 percent in the second quarter to 35.6 percent in the third quarter.

The increase in the household savings could have been larger if not for the decline in consumer savings residing in the NCR, from 44.4 percent in the second quarter to 44 percent in the third quarter.

The BSP said respondents saved

money primarily for emergencies, education, retirement, health and hospitalization, business capital and investment and purchase of real estate.

Of the savers, 65.8 percent had bankdeposit accounts, while 42.4 percent kept their savings at home and only 28.7 percent

put their money in cooperatives, paluwagan, other credit or loan associations, and as investment, such as insurance instruments in the Social Security System and Pag-IBIG. Paluwagan refers to organizations that pool participants’ money by means of daily, weekly, or monthly collections and collected by a leader. The participants cast lots to determine the order by which each will receive the pooled money.

The higher savings also developed despite consumer expectations of higher inflation over the coming months.

“The survey results showed that consumers anticipated inflation to increase but to remain within target, interest rates to go up and peso to depreciate in the next 12 months,” the BSP said in its report. Bianca Cuaresma

Case clippings

By Justice S J Ranada Jr.

LIBEL–exposing “alleged” shenanigans Where the accused writer, in a prosecution for libel, qualified as “alleged” the “shenanigans” of the complainant as referred to in the newspaper column, and stated that what he was exposing were “alleged shenanigans,” the accused unmistakably did not confirm the truth as to the specifics of the complaints made against the libel complainant, nor form a conclusion that said libel complainant had actually committed mischiefs or misbehaved in office, and should be acquitted.

Bulletin v. Domingo 05 Jul 2017

GR 170341 Martires, J

PCIA supports imports preshipment testing

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business group last Sunday rejected the idea that preshipment testing redounds to a diminution of the minimum standards of compliance for a commodity as important as cement, according to the Philippine Cement Importers Association (PCIA).

Group Executive Director Dani Enriquez said no one has the monopoly on consumer welfare and protection that should be top of mind for all industries “whether their products are included in the Department of Trade and Industry [DTI] list under mandatory conformance certification”.

The PCIA reiterated their collective stand in favor of preshipment testing.

Some local cement manufacturers claimed “preshipment testing is a diminution of the minimum requirements of the standards conformity of cement, thereby prejudicial to consumer’s safety and lives”.

Enriquez said these are those who may have misunderstood the content of the new department administrative or-

der presented by DTI-Bureau of Product Standards on August 8, which proposes processing of conformance certification using Scheme 5 of PNS/ISO17067 consistent with the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade administered by the World Trade Organization WTO. The scheme proposes an option for importers to apply for either a Product Standard License or a Batch Certificate (Import Commodity Clearance) via a preshipment-test report or product sampling upon arrival.

“Actually, what the PCIA is proposing is to have a preshipment test on top of the PS License,” Enriquez said.

“I don’t see the diminution there when we are, in fact, proposing to add another testing process or step in the already WTO- and ISO-compliant DTI-proposed certification procedures. In addition, we are also proposing that there be a 10-percent surety bond for all these cement importations to be released only once they passed the DTI product-verification test,” he added.

“[The] DTI has been very vigilant in conducting monitoring and enforcement against substandard products, particularly cement,” Enriquez said.

He brushed aside claims on the technical smuggling of cement, saying if anyone can prove it, “I shall be glad to sign the complaint-affidavits”.

“In the meantime, let us focus more on how the cement industry can help in the “Build, Build, Build” program of President Duterte,” he added.

The PCIA, in a meeting with Trade Undersecretary Teodoro C. Pascua, reiterated its proposal to assist the DTI in whatever way it can in the campaign against nonconforming cement products, subject to the approval of the DTI secretary.

T he PCI A, Enriquez said, has already activated its monitoring teams to police its own ranks and provide the DTI with information necessary in filing the charges against violators of DTI rules and regulations governing cement products.

Seven-month infra spending up 11% I

nfrastru ct u re a n d c a p it a l spending by the government in July reached P48.4 billion, expanding by 25 percent, from only P38.7 billion in the same month last year, based on data from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Infrastructure and other capital outlay for the month totaled P48.4 billion, an increase by P9.7 billion, or 25 percent. The expansion was traced to the implementation of various projects by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and Department of Transportation (DOTr), the purchase of assets by the Department of National Defense (DND) and the purchase of supplies and equipments for the Department of Health, among others.

“The growth in capital expenditures resulted from the implementation of floodcontrol, road-improvement and road-widening projects of the DPWH; acquisition of naval- and air-defense assets of the DND under the Armed Forces of the Philippines modernization program; purchase of equipment and other infrastructure outlays under the Health Facilities Enhancement

Program of the DOH; and payments for transport-infrastructure projects of the DOTr, such as the right-of-way acquisition for the Southwest Intregrated Transport System project and completed civil works for the LRT-2 East Extension project,” the DBM reported.

Month-on-month, this reflected a contraction by 6.7 percent, from the June 2017 level of P51.9 billion.

From January to July, the government disbursed P297.5 billion in infrastructure and capital outlays, an 11.1-percent increase compared to P267.7 billion spent in the same period in 2016.

“Also, based on historical trend, disbursements are usually higher in the fourth quarter, as the implementation of government programs and projects is accelerated or completed before the year ends and ahead of the closing of books,” the DBM reported.

Earlier, the agency said the government exceeded its target infrastructure-spending program in the first six months, with actual spending amounting to P249.1 billion. The target was only P236.6 billion, or an increase by 5.28 percent. Rea Cu

Minerals extractors get expert assistance T he Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) said it has partnered with the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) in reviewing the case of 26 mining firms ordered closed or suspended by former Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).

The DOF said 31 of the 35 experts shortlisted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) have confirmed their availability for the review process.

He also said the cost of procuring the experts was estimated at P13 million, with each technical review team member being paid P100,000 per mine site reviewed.

The duly screened experts will constitute the five technical review teams (TRTs) of the MICC that will assess the various aspects of mining operations, including the environmental, economic, social, legal and technical aspects of the operations.

According to DOF Undersecretary Bayani H. Agabin, the DAP will identify an overall team leader who will ensure the timely and efficient conduct of the review, as well as the consolidation of the final reports the TRTs will submit.

The secretaries of the DOF and the DENR cochair the MICC. Earlier, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez said the DOF and the DENR agreed to shell out an initial P10 million each to get the review processes started.

In February Lopez ordered a review on the operations of all operating metallic mines in the country. Following the audit, she announced that 23 mining operations would be shuttered and five more would be suspended, with 12 mining companies passing the audit review.

Lopez then announced the government would cancel the mining contracts of 75 mining projects that were found within or near watersheds. Lopez also ordered a ban on prospective open-pit mines. Rea Cu

Perspectives

The digital transformation of insurance: Getting fit for digital

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he insurer of the future will look drastically different than today’s incumbent model. Technology has the potential to fundamentally change not only the way that consumers perceive and interact with their insurers, but also the role of insurance in everyday life. Instead of being a back-end purchase in the wake of decisions surrounding home, health, travel and more, insurance could instead become a major part of the front-end ecosystem. And we are already seeing the first steps of this change—but significant challenges bar the way forward. How should an organization meaningfully pursue industry-changing digital innovation?

Understanding the potential depth of change

Customer needs are changing, with digital products and purchase options becoming more critical for the modern consumer.

Yet, the range of technologies used to enable digital services have varying business impacts. When we look at the potential of digital innovation, we can classify it into three levels: basic, transformative and disruptive.

Basic innovation can be defined as using digital means to replace or simplify existing processes. Examples seen today include

process automation, chatbots, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) triaging high-volume, low-value claims. These areas represent incremental improvements that can deliver benefits in the short term.

This is where most insurers are focusing much of their time and attention today.

In contrast, transformative innovation has the potential to change the way that insurers interact with their customers.

Key to this transformation is a shift from a product-centric to a customer-centric approach to insurance, in which AI, big data and analytics are used to understand customers and provide data to allow decision makers to act quickly. This approach not only helps insures understand how to better reach potential markets and through what channels but also provides the ability to design products for customers based on their needs. On-demand coverage is an important first step on this journey.

Another example is the way that some insurers are using technology to support a mindset shift from protection to prevention. One insurer in Singapore has introduced a program that provides affordable insurance to diabetics while assisting individuals in managing their condition.

Using portable monitors that track health

information, such as blood sugar, heart rate and weight, the insurer is able to lower their risk profile while providing coverage to an underserved market. Other examples range from mobile-risk alerts based on a consumer’s location to health trackers that notify a woman of potential issues with her pregnancy before the unborn child is at risk.

Disruptive innovation is both the most meaningful and most challenging to achieve.

Instead of looking at specific technologies, disruptive innovation is about creating a vision for a new insurance business model, supported by technology. Today’s business models will not survive in tomorrow’s digital landscape—insurers must evolve to survive.

To achieve the vision of an insurer being at the front end of a customer’s daily transactions, such as new purchases, travel or trips to the doctor, the way that an insurer operates needs to be reconsidered from the ground up. Use of technology, thus, becomes the means to achieving that clear and specific vision for the business rather than a goal in and of itself.

How should an insurer move forward?

Insurers are understandably mired in immediate issues. Challenges surrounding legacy information-technology systems,

changing regulations, rising competition and low consumer trust, all loom large in the traditional insurer’s windshield. As a result, many incumbents fail to create a clear digital vision to guide activities or to make day-to-day decisions to move the organization meaningfully toward the achievement of that vision. Creation of such a vision, as well as a road map of the way forward, is a critical first step.

Next, insurers need to address four key components of their business: 1. Shift product mind-set. Today, most insurers think in terms of specific product lines instead of the needs of the customer buying the product. Insurers should shift their focus to consumer needs and anticipate how changing behaviors will create opportunities for new products.

2. Seek technology partnerships.

Building or buying technology solutions may no longer be the best option. Instead of developing an in-house solution, companies should look to partner with insurtech and fintech companies who can provide immediate digital capabilities.

3. Address backend processes. Legacy processes can be a stumbling block to change. While more insurers are offering digital products, few have reengineered

their backend to match, creating inefficiencies and increasing the risk for error.

Insurers need to address these gaps and take advantage of the opportunities of improving digital processes.

4. Create a culture of innovation.

There is nothing that an insurer does today that cannot be innovated upon, transformed or entirely rethought using enabling technology. Yet, to seek and embrace this innovation requires organization-wide cultural change. From the C-suite to the mail clerk, insurers need to ask their employees to seek opportunities for innovation, with KPIs to measure performance and incentives to spur activity. Such a culture will also help insurers make considerable strides in attracting and retaining digital talent.

The article “The digital transformation of insurance: Getting fit for digital” by Chia Tek Yew, KPMG in Singapore was taken from KPMG’s publication, entitled The Digital Insurer. © 2017 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member-firm of the KPMG network of independent member-firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (KPMG International), a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.

For more information on KPMG in the Philippines, you may visit www.kpmg.com.ph.

The World BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • Monday, September 11, 2017 A7

Irma turns Caribbean paradise into nightmare

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AINT JOHN’S, Antigua—Strung like beads along the northeast edge of the Caribbean, the Leeward Islands are tiny, remote and beautiful, with azure waters and ocean breezes drawing tourists from around the world.

The wild isolation that made Saint Barts, Saint Martin, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands vacation paradises has turned them into cutoff, chaotic nightmares in the wake of Hurricane Irma, which left 22 people dead, mostly in the Leeward Islands.

Looting and lawlessness were reported last Saturday by both French and Dutch authorities, who were sending in extra troops to restore order.

The Category 5 storm snapped the islands’ fragile links to the outside world with a direct hit early last Wednesday, pounding their small airports, decapitating cell-phone towers, filling harbors with overturned, crushed boats and leaving thousands of tourists and locals desperate to escape.

The situation worsened last Saturday with the passage of Category 4 Hurricane Jose, which shuttered airports and halted emergency-boat traffic through the weekend.

Looting, gunshots and a lack of clean drinking water were reported on the French Caribbean territory of Saint Martin, home to five-star resorts and a multimillion estate owned by President Donald J. Trump.

Federal officials deployed C130s to evacuate US citizens from the French Caribbean island of Saint Martin to Puerto Rico. Nearly 160 were evacuated last Friday and approximately 700 more last Saturday.

The amphibious assault USS Wasp

22

The number of people who were left dead by Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean, mostly in the Leeward Islands

evacuated hospital patients from Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands to Saint Croix and Puerto Rico.

The Norwegian Cruise Line turned a cruise ship into an ad-hoc rescue boat, sending a ship with 10 restaurants, a spa and a casino to evacuate 2,000 tourists from Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

The Norwegian Sky cruise ship was due to arrive on Tuesday and take its charges to Miami.

More than 1,100 police, military officials and others were deployed to Saint Martin and the nearby French Caribbean territory of Saint Barts, where they used helicopters to identify the cars of people looting stores and homes.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced last Saturday night that France would be sending more Foreign Legion troops, paratroopers and other reinforcements to Saint Martin starting Sunday.

Philippe sa=id the several hundred gendarmes, soldiers and other security forces there were working in “difficult conditions” and

This September 7 photo shows storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in Saint Maarten. Irma cut a path of devastation across the northern Caribbean, leaving thousands homeless after destroying buildings and uprooting trees. Significant damage was reported on the island that is split between French and Dutch control. Gerben Van Es/Dutch Defense Ministry via AP

needed help. The government told all residents to stay inside and put the island and Saint Barts on its highest alert level as Hurricane Jose rolled through the area.

The island is divided between French Saint Martin and Dutch Saint Maarten, where the Dutch government estimated last Saturday that 70 percent of houses were badly damaged or destroyed, leaving much of the 40,000 population in public shelters as they braced for the arrival of Jose.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the situation remained “grim” on the island where widespread looting had broken out and a state of emergency was in force.

Rutte said some 230 Dutch troops and police were patrolling Saint Maarten to maintain order and deliver aid, and a further 200 would arrive in coming days. The

government evacuated 65 dialysis patients from Saint Maarten’s hospital, which also was hard hit by Irma.

The islands’ woes increased, as the airport on Saint Barts was closed, and those in Anguilla and Saint Martin were open only to the military, rescue crews and aid organizations. Others, including Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, banned flyovers.

Late Saturday, Saint Maarten Prime Minister William Marlin said about 1,600 tourists had been evacuated, and efforts are being made to move 1,200 more.

Marlin said many countries and people have offered help to Saint Maarten, but authorities are waiting on the weather conditions to see how this can be coordinated.

Before the hurricanes, Saint Maarten‘s Princess Juliana International Airport was one of the former Dutch colony‘s major tourist draws,

Irma regains strength to Category 4 as it nears Florida Keys

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AINT PETERSBURG, Florida—Hurricane Irma regained strength as it closed in on the Florida Keys early last Sunday as forecasters monitored a crucial shift in its trajectory—just a few more miles to the west—that could keep its ferocious eye off the southwest Florida coast and over warm gulf water.

The hurricane restrengthened to Category 4 status with maximum sustained winds near 130 miles per hour (210 kilometers per hour). The US National Hurricane Center said Irma was expected to gain a little more strength as it moved through the Straits of Florida, and remain a powerful hurricane as it approaches Florida.

Tens of thousands of people huddling in shelters watched for updates as the storm swung to the west, now potentially sparing Tampa, as well as Miami, the catastrophic head-on blow forecasters had been warning about for days.

But those few miles meant Saint Petersburg could get a direct hit, rather than its more populous twin across Tampa Bay. Neither city has suffered a major hurricane in nearly a century.

The leading edge of the immense storm bent palm trees and spit rain across South Florida, knocking out power to more than 170,000 homes and businesses, as the eye approached Key West.

“Tonight, I’m sweating. Tonight I’m scared to death,” said 60-yearold Carol Walterson Stroud, who sought refuge in a senior center in Florida’s southernmost city with her husband, granddaughter and dog. The streets emptied and shops were boarded up before the wind started to howl.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott had warned residents in the state’s evacuation zones last Saturday that “this

People stand next to palm trees as they look at churning waves and high winds along Hollywood Beach, Florida, on September 9. AP/Wilfredo Lee

is your last chance to make a good decision.” About 6.4 million people were told to flee.

But because the storm is 350 miles to 400 miles wide, the entire Florida peninsula was exposed. Forecasters said the greater Miami area of 6 million people could still get life-threatening hurricane winds and storm surge of 4 to 6 feet.

Irma was, at one time, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, with a peak wind speed of 185 mph (300 kph) last week.

It left more than 20 people dead across the Caribbean and, as it moved north over the Gulf of Mexico’s bathtubwarm water of nearly 90 degrees, it was expected to regain strength.

Meteorologists predicted Irma would plow into the Tampa Bay area on Monday morning. The area has not been struck by a major hurricane since 1921, when its population was

about 10,000, National Hurricane Center Spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. Now, around 3 million people live there. The latest course also still threatens Naples’s mansion- and yacht-lined canals, Sun City Center’s retirement homes and Sanibel Island’s shell-filled beaches.

Irma’s course change caught many off guard and triggered a major round of last-minute evacuations in the Tampa area. Many businesses had yet to protect windows with plywood or hurricane shutters. Some locals grumbled about the forecast, even though Florida’s west coast had long been included in the zone of probability.

“For five days, we were told it was going to be on the east coast, and then 24 hours before it hits, we’re now told it’s coming up the west coast,” said Jeff Beerbohm, a 52-year-old entrepreneur in Saint Petersburg. “As usual, the weatherman, I don’t know why

they’re paid.”

Nearly the entire Florida coastline remained under hurricane watches and warnings, and the latest projections could shift again, sparing or savaging other parts of the state.

Forecasters warned of storm surge as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters).

“This is going to sneak up on people,” said Jamie Rhome, head of the hurricane center’s storm-surge unit.

The westward shift prompted Pinellas County, home to Saint Petersburg, to order 260,000 people to leave, while Georgia scaled back evacuation orders for some coastal residents. Motorists heading inland from the Tampa area were allowed to drive on the shoulders.

At Germain Arena not far from Fort Myers, on Florida‘s southwestern corner, thousands waited in a snaking line for hours to gain a spot in the hockey venue-turned-shelter.

“We’ll never get in,” Jamilla Bartley lamented in the parking lot.

The governor activated all 7,000 members of the Florida National Guard, and 30,000 guardsmen from elsewhere were on standby.

In the Orlando area, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and Sea World all were closing last Saturday.

The Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando airports shut down.

Given its mammoth size and strength and its course up the peninsula, it could prove one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit Florida, and inflict damage on a scale not seen here in 25 years.

Hurricane Andrew smashed into suburban Miami in 1992 with winds topping 165 mph (265 kph), damaging or blowing apart over 125,000 homes. The damage in Florida totaled $26 billion, and at least 40 people died. AP

thanks to a runway that ended just a few meters from the sandy crescent of Maho Beach, where people could stand and watch as arriving jets skimmed low over their heads.

After Irma, aerial footage shot by Dutch marines showed that Maho Beach’s sands had washed away, and the airport was badly damaged. The Dutch military are using the runway, which was inundated by high tides during the hurricane, to ferry in aid supplies, but say it’s not yet open to civilian flights, as there are no runway lights or air-traffic control.

The Canadian low-cost airline and tour agency Sunwing evacuated some Canadian tourists from Saint Maarten to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic last Saturday.

Ports in Saint John, Saint Thomas and elsewhere remained closed.

As Jose neared, the last airplane flew in to Saint Martin‘s battered

Grande-Case airport last Friday carrying workers to help reestablish the island’s water supply and electricity.

French authorities said some 1,105 recovery workers were deployed on Saint Martin and Saint Barts. A tanker with 350 tons of fresh water was also on its way.

By Saturday, damage was estimated to have already reached €1.2 billion ($1.44 billion).

France said it hoped to allow commercial boats to go to and from Saint Martin and nearby Guadeloupe on Monday, when waters are expected to calm.

French President Emmanuel Macron came under criticism for his government‘s handling of the crisis.

Once known for pink, sandy beaches that attracted celebrities and royalty, the island of Barbuda is now a disaster zone. Virtually all of its 1,500 residents left for the sister island of Antigua, a 1.5-hour boat ride away, ahead of Jose.

“The biggest problem in Barbuda now is the fact that you have so many dead animals in the water and so on, that there is a threat of disease.

You could put all the people back in Barbuda today...but then you‘ll have a medical crisis on your hand,” Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Fernandez said.

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced a package of £42 million(about $55 million) for the relief effort in the British overseas territories of Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos “The UK government is doing everything it possibly can to help those affected by the hurricane,” he said.

But Anguilla’s former attorney general, Rupert Jones, criticized Britain’s response to the disaster.

“It is an insufficient drop in the Caribbean ocean for islands subject to devastation and inhabited by its own citizens,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“The rebuilding effort is bound to cost a vast amount more, and it is hard to see this making a real difference to the three islands.” AP

Cuba surveys toppled houses, flooded cities in wake of Irma

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AIBARIEN, Cuba—Hurricane Irma ripped roofs off houses and flooded hundreds of miles of coastline as it raked Cuba’s northern coast after devastating islands the length of the Caribbean in a trail of destruction that has left 22 people dead so far.

As Irma left Cuba late Saturday and directed its 120 miles per hour (195 kilometers per hour) winds toward Florida, authorities on the island were assessing the damage and warning of staggering damage to keys off the northern coast studded with all-inclusive resorts and cities, as well as farmland in central Cuba.

There were no immediate reports of deaths in Cuba—a country that prides itself on its disaster preparedness—but authorities were trying to restore power, clear roads and warning that people should stay off the streets of Havana because flooding could continue into Monday.

Residents of “the capital should know that the flooding is going to last more than 36 hours, in other words, it is going to persist,” Civil Defense Col. Luis Angel Macareno said late Saturday, adding that the waters had reach at about 2,000 feet (600 meters) into Havana.

As Irma rolled in, Cuban soldiers went through coastal towns to force residents to evacuate, taking people to shelters at government buildings and schools—and even caves.

Video images from northern and eastern Cuba showed uprooted utility poles and signs, many downed trees and extensive damage to roofs. Witnesses said a provincial museum near the eye of the storm was in ruins. And authorities in the city of Santa Clara said 39 buildings

collapsed. More than 5,000 tourists were evacuated from the keys off Cuba’s north-central coast, where the government has built dozens of resorts in recent years.

Civil Defense official Gregorio Torres said authorities were trying to tally the extent of the damage in eastern Cuba, home to hundreds of rural communities and farmland.

In Caibarien, a small coastal city about 200 miles (320 kilometers) east of Havana, winds downed power lines and a three-block area was under water. Many residents had stayed put, hoping to ride out the storm. Before slamming into Cuba, Irma had caused havoc in the Caribbean, where it ravaged such lush resort islands as Saint Martin, Saint Barts, Saint Thomas, Barbuda and Anguilla. Many of Irma’s victims fled their battered islands on ferries and fishing boats for fear Hurricane Jose would destroy or drench anything Irma left untouched, but Jose veered away before doing much more damage.

On the Dutch side of Saint Martin, an island divided between French and Dutch control, an estimated 70 percent of the homes were destroyed by Irma, according to the Dutch government.

Prime Minister William Marlin said about 1,600 tourists had been evacuated and efforts were being made to move 1,200 more.

Marlin said many countries and people have offered help to Saint Maarten, but authorities were waiting on the weather conditions to see how it could be coordinated. Authorities are still trying to determine the extent of damage to the island but he said 28 police officers lost homes during the storms. AP

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Monday, September 11, 2017

The World BusinessMirror

Leveled by earthquake, city in Mexico digs for survivors

People watch the search for a police officer thought to be buried in what remained of the city hall of Juchitan de Zaragoza, Mexico, after an 8.2-magnitude earthquake on September 8. This city of 100,000 people in Oaxaca State counted at least 36 dead and more than 300 wounded in the largest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century; across southern Mexico, at least 61 people were killed. Brett Gundlock/The New York Times

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UCHITÁN DE ZARAGOZA, Mexico—Under the glare of portable floodlights and the flashlights that some held, men in sweatsoaked jumpsuits dug into a hillock of rubble in this city, the night after the largest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century flattened buildings here and across southern Mexico.

Atop the mound of debris, the men at times moved like archaeologists, sifting with bare, dirt-encrusted hands, chunk by concrete chunk.

At other times, they powered up an excavator, which, with its own brutish precision, moved the workers closer to their goal.

There was a man under there— perhaps alive, perhaps dead.

Throughout last Friday, victims were pulled from the ruins of homes, shops and offices in Juchitán de Zaragoza, a city of 100,000 people in Oaxaca state: at least 36 dead, more than 300 injured.

The earthquake, which was felt as far north as Mexico City, more than 300 miles away, had killed at least 61 people across southern Mexico as of Saturday morning. But no place had lost more than Juchitán.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, seeking to soothe the nation, visited the city last Friday afternoon.

“Indeed, the strength of this earthquake was devastating, but we are also certain that the strength of unity, the strength of solidarity and the strength of shared responsibility will be greater,” Peña Nieto said in a statement. By nightfall, he and his entourage were gone.

Thursday’s earthquake was more powerful than the one in 1985 that

killed about 10,000 people, many in Mexico City. The earthquake, however, was farther away from Mexico City and more directly affected a far less populated region of Mexico, leading to a significantly lower casualty total.

But nearly a full day later, there was one last person to try to save in the city.

The rubble the rescue workers were digging through had once been the city hall, and trapped inside was a 36-year-old police officer, Juan Jiménez, who for 18 years had stood guard there.

He was now buried under a story of wreckage, on the ground where he last stood. Finding him would allow the city to move from the rescue phase to repair and recovery.

The search for him continued until close to midnight last Friday, then resumed at dawn last Saturday.

“This becomes part of our history,” said Scherezada Gómez, 45, a high-school teacher who was among about 150 residents who clustered behind yellow police tape late last Friday, watching the search unfold.

“With a lot of faith, we will overcome this.”

The night was hot and humid in the city, much of which was still without electricity or running water.

62

The number of dead at the national level in Mexico, while Oaxaca City counted 36 dead, owing to the 8.2-magnitude earthquake on September 8 Many residents, anxious about aftershocks and the possibility of another quake, hauled cushions and mattresses out of their damaged homes and settled down for the night under the open sky, on sidewalks and playgrounds, in parks and front patios. Many stayed close to their homes, vigilant for looters.

Oscar Cruz and his wife Noemí Jiménez and their three children, had found a place to rest on a parking lot. Growing up in Mexico, they had become accustomed to earthquakes.

But Thursday night’s episode, they said, was like nothing they had ever experienced.

“It was like we were thrown into a blender and someone pushed the Level 5 button,” Jiménez recalled.

The family’s house was destroyed, and they estimated that it would take two years to rebuild.

“It’s going to be very difficult to recover from this, and it’s going to take a long time,” Cruz said. “Little by little.”

Late into the night, the team of rescuers—marines, federal police officers and disaster specialists—kept digging, their dark jumpsuits stained gray with pulverized concrete.

Among the crowd that observed the operation were the wife and three sons of the missing man. They stood in a cocoon of relatives. They had been there since 6 a.m.

The residents watched in a kind of

silent vigil. Quiet was essential: The rescuers trained their ears for any sign of life in the wreckage.

“We are desperate,” whispered Rosa Jiménez, the missing police officer’s sister. “Please get him out of there. We’re waiting for a miracle.

I ask God to do this miracle for us, that he live.”

At one point a searcher leaned close to the rubble and yelled: “Is anyone alive? Please make a sound.

We’re coming for you, we’re coming for you.”

There was no response.

At times one of them would disappear into a hole in the pile—first his head, then his body—emerging a short time later with nothing new to report.

On Friday night a member of the search team pulled a black T-shirt from the rubble. The searcher carried it over to Jimenez’s sons.

“Is this your dad’s shirt?” he asked.

Yes, they said, and the searcher handed it to them.

Later, someone pulled a black baseball cap from the debris and took it over to the sons. They said they recognized that, too.

The supervisor of the national police unit involved in the search, Israel Ponce, put the cap on the head of the youngest of the sons, Wilhem, 12. Ponce was trying to be cheerful, to buoy the boys’ spirits.

“You look really handsome with that hat,” he said.

Wilhem forced a smile; he was trying to play along and was struggling. He looked up at Ponce. He had a question.

“But can you tell me if my dad’s OK?” Ponce was noncommittal, promising only that his team would continue to look for the boy’s father.

Wilhem’s question was answered last Saturday afternoon.

Hundreds of residents had gathered over the course of the morning to watch the rescue operation, though Jiménez’s two youngest sons, including Wilhem, had stayed home with their mother after spending Friday at the search site.

Suddenly, the missing officer’s relatives received word that Jiménez had been found. A group of them rushed forward but were stopped by police officers.

Jiménez was dead. The city’s death toll had climbed to 37, and the national death toll to 62.

As rescuers pulled Jiménez’s body from the rubble, three of his relatives collapsed to the ground, sobbing in anguish, and his eldest son, Victor Manuel, 14, rushed the police cordon but was restrained.

The rescuers wrapped the body in a cloth, slid it into the back of a police truck and drove it to the coroner’s office.

The relatives remained for a few minutes, hugging one another, as residents—many of them crying, too—surrounded them. Then they started walking toward the Jiménez house, to break the news to the officer’s wife and two youngest sons.

New York Times News Service

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Pope honors ‘slave of the slaves’ in Colombia’s port

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OGOTA, Colombia—Pope Francis is wrapping up his Colombia trip with a deeply personal final day honoring Saint Peter Claver, a fellow Jesuit who ministered to thousands of African slaves who passed through the port of Cartagena during Spanish colonial times.

Claver, the self-described “slave of the slaves forever,” has been revered

by Jesuits, popes and human-rights campaigners for centuries for having insisted on recognizing the dignity of slaves when others treated them as mere merchandise to be bought and sold.

On the eve of his visit to Cartagena, Francis celebrated Claver’s feast day by praising the 17th-century Spanish missionary for having “understood, as a disciple of Jesus, that he could not remain indifferent to the suffering of the most helpless and mistreated of his time, and that he had to do something to alleviate their suffering.”

History’s first Latin American pope has similarly insisted on ministering to society’s most marginal and making them the focus of the Catholic Church’s mission.

He takes special care of the homeless who live around the Vatican, makes regular phone calls to prisoners, brought a dozen Syrian refugees home with him from a Greek refugee camp, and embraces the sick, the maimed and the deformed every chance he gets.

He was set to pray at Claver’s tomb on Sunday after laying the foundation for new residences for homeless people in Cartagena, the city famous for its United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization-awarded historic center but also home to slums and shanties.

Francis is likely to hold Claver up as a model for today’s Catholic Church, someone who insisted on recognizing the inherent human rights of everyone.

It’s a message he referenced in Medellin last Saturday during a Mass on a rain-soaked airport tarmac that drew upward of 1 million people. Francis demanded that his church not hold fast to rigid doctrine but instead seek out the sinners and outcasts and welcome them in.

“My brothers, the church is not a customs post,” Francis said. “It wants its doors to be open.”

Francis returns to Rome from Cartagena last Sunday night, ending a fiveday visit highlighted by a huge prayer of reconciliation that brought together victims of Colombia’s long-running conflict and demobilized guerrillas and paramilitary fighters.

While in Colombia, Francis refrained from making any public comments about the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation next door in Venezuela, though he did meet briefly with a delegation of Venezuelan bishops.

He will most certainly be asked about it during his airborne press conference en route home.

Pope recalls Medellin’s bloody past, prays for drug victims

Pope Francis recalled the murderous past of this Colombian city once synonymous with drug-cartel violence during a rain-soaked visit last Saturday, lamenting the many lives lost to addiction and praying for dealers and traffickers to change their ways.

In a meeting in Medellin with priests, seminarians and nuns, Francis spoke of the “drug assassins” who converted Colombia’s second-largest city into the murder capital of the world during the heyday of the cocaine turf wars three decades ago.

Medellin “evokes for me the many young lives cut short, discarded and destroyed” by drugs, he said.

“I invite you to remember and accompany this mournful procession and ask forgiveness for those who destroyed the dreams of so many young people.”

It was an unscripted, deeply personal moment for Francis, who has frequently denounced the scourge of drug trafficking.

Before becoming pope, Francis was known for ministering to addicted youth in the slums of Buenos Aires.

Francis was tending to in-house church business on his penultimate day in Colombia, after spending the first half of his trip encouraging its fragile new peace process.

Heavy rain forced him into a lastminute change of plans to reach Medellin: Instead of taking a helicopter from the city’s international airport, Francis drove down the Andes, delaying by nearly an hour a Mass that drew as many as 1 million people.

Francis apologized to the crowd, thanking people for their “patience, perseverance and courage.” But neither the rain nor the delay seemed to dampen the spirits of the faithful who came out to see him, dressed in colorful plastic ponchos to guard against the drizzle.

They cheered wildly and waved white handkerchiefs and Colombian flags as Francis zipped around the grounds in his popemobile at an unusually fast clip to make up for lost time. AP

The relics of Madre Laura, Colombia’s only Roman Catholic saint, are on display as Pope Francis addresses seminarians, nuns and Catholic families during a meeting at La Macarena event center in Medellin, Colombia, last Saturday. Born in Colombia’s coffee-growing region in 1874, Madre Laura was a nun and teacher who devoted her life to protecting indigenous tribes from discrimination when not outright violence by the country’s white elite. Francis confirmed her sainthood in 2013. AP Photo/Luis Benavides

Danish official: No room for new refugees under UN quota system

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OPENHAGEN, Denmark—Denmark‘s minority center-right government doesn‘t want to accept any refugees this year that come in under a United Nations quota system, an official said last Saturday.

The UN refugee agency has made deals with countries, including Denmark, to take in a number of refugees each year.

Since 1989, Denmark has accepted about 500 such refugees every year.

But now Denmark “doesn’t want to commit ourselves,” said Integration Minister Inger Stoejberg, considered an immi-

gration hardliner. “I don’t believe we have room for quota refugees this year.”

Stoejberg said Denmark had received about 56,000 asylum-seekers since 2012 and many of them are expected to try to bring relatives in. She said those already in Denmark should be integrated first.

The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, which backs the government, supports the proposal.

Holger K. Nielsen, a senior member of the small opposition Socialist People’s Party, said it was “totally wrong of Stoejberg to close the door to quota refugees,”

saying she was letting down “the weakest refugees in the world.”

No date for a vote in the 179-seat Parliament was set. Denmark has received about 20,000 asylum-seekers in 2015, a small number compared with its Swedish and German neighbors.

Last year Stoejberg said the reception of refugees through the UN High Commission for Human Rights program had been postponed, saying Danish municipalities should have “a little breathing room to better take care of those who have already arrived.”

In other migrant developments: n Coast guard forces from Romania and Bulgaria intercepted 217 migrants in the Black Sea who are suspected of trying to illegally enter Romania. Romanian border police said last Saturday they spotted a tourist ship carrying 97 migrants from Iran and Iraq sailing close to Romanian waters late last Friday and sent it to the port of Mangalia.

Separately, a joint Romanian-Bulgarian effort blocked a fishing vessel carrying 120 migrants in the Black Sea near the northern Bulgarian town of Shabla. The ship and its

passengers were handed over to Turkey. n Germany’s interior minister called last Saturday for benefits for asylum-seekers to be standardized across the European Union, reducing his country’s attractiveness for would-be migrants.

Thomas de Maiziere also urged that legal procedures surrounding asylum and deportation to be standardized. More than 1 million people came to Germany as asylum-seekers in 2015 and 2016. n Turkish authorities said 40 Syrian migrants were stopped last Friday from illegally crossing to Greece from the western

province of Izmir. In footage filmed from a coast guard boat, the group is seen in a rubber dinghy.

As the coast guard vessel approaches, one man lifts and then briefly lowers a small child toward the sea, while another man raises his arms in prayer. The coast guard then pulls in the dinghy and transfers the migrants to its boat.

Turkey and the European Union signed a deal last year to curb the illegal flow of migrants to Greece. Turkey is hosting more than 3 million Syrians who have fled the war in their country. AP

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Monday, September 11, 2017

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UN experts: North Korea exported $270M illegally

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NITED NATIONS—North Korea illegally exported coal, iron and other commodities worth at least $270 million to China and other countries, including India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka in the sixmonth period ending in early-August in violation of UN sanctions, UN experts say.

The experts monitoring sanctions said in a report released last Saturday that Kim Jong Un’s government continues to flout sanctions on commodities, as well as an arms embargo and restrictions on shipping and financial activities.

They said North Korea is also reportedly continuing prohibited nuclear activities with weaponsgrade fissile material production at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, construction and maintenance at the Punggye-ri nuclear-test site, and at a uranium mine in Pyongsan.

The eight-member panel of experts said it is also investigating the widespread presence of North Koreans in Africa and the Middle East, particularly in Syria, “including their involvement in prohibited activities.”

The experts said one inquiry is into “reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation” between Syria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the country’s official name.

They said this includes activities on Syrian Scud missile programs and “maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles (SAM) air-defense systems.”

The panel noted that two unnamed countries reported intercepting shipments destined for Syria. It did not identify the contents and said Syria has yet to respond to its inquiries.

The 111-page report was written before North Korea’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3 and its latest launch of a powerful new intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan.

It was made public two days before the United States has called for a vote on a new sanctions resolution. The original US draft would impose the toughest-ever sanctions on North Korea, including banning

all oil and natural-gas exports to the country and freezing all foreign financial assets of the government and its leader Kim Jong Un. The experts said implementation of existing sanctions “lags far behind what is necessary to achieve the core goal of denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

They blamed “lax enforcement” of sanctions coupled North Korea’s “evolving evasion techniques” for undermining the achievement of this goal, which would see the North abandon all weapons of mass destruction.

On the export of commodities— a key source of foreign exchange for the DPRK—the experts said that following China’s suspension of coal imports from the North in February, the DPRK has been rerouting coal to other countries, including Malaysia and Vietnam.

“The panel’s investigations reveal that the DPRK is deliberately using indirect channels to export prohibited commodities, evading sanctions,” the report said.

The panel said imports of DPRK coal, iron and iron ore violate UN sanctions unless the countries have received an exemption.

Between December 2016 and May 2017, for example, the DPRK exported over $79 million of iron ore to China, the report said. And between October 2016 and May 2017, it exported iron and steel products to Egypt, China, France, India, Ireland and Mexico valued at $305,713.

There are no exemptions for importing silver, copper, zinc, nickel and gold from the DPRK. And since December 2016, the experts said China, Sri Lanka and India imported one or more of these minerals in violation of sanctions.

As for violations of the arms embargo, the panel said it was con-

North Korean soldiers salute at Munsu Hill in Pyongyang, North Korea, to mark the 69th anniversary of the country’s founding on September 9. Kyodo News via AP

$79M The estimated cost of iron ore North Korea between December 2016 and May 2017, the UN report said

ducting investigations in Angola, Congo, Eritrea, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda as well as Syria.

In Mozambique, for example, the experts said they are looking into the reported supply of shoulder-launched SAM, air-defense systems, other SAM and radar by a North Korean trading company.

They are also investigating reports that the same company is repairing and upgrading Tanzania’s SAM systems.

When it comes to financial sanctions, the panel said the DPRK continues to evade and violate them in a number of ways: Many DPRK financial institutions maintain representatives overseas who conduct transac-

tions that facilitate prohibited programs; many foreign financial institutions wittingly or unwittingly provide banking services to DPRK front companies and others engaged in prohibited activities; and foreign investments in DPRK banks or joint ventures give those banks access to funding and the international financial system.

In addition, the experts said, “DPRK officials and entities have engaged in deceptive financial practices, including opening multiple bank accounts in the same country and in neighboring countries in their own names, under family members’ names, and in the names of front companies.”

As for shipping, the experts said the number of foreign-flagged DPRK vessels has been “dramatically reduced” in response to UN sanctions. But they said North Korea “continued to hone its evasion tactics” by increasing the number of DPRK-flagged ships by a corresponding number.

Holiday with familiar routines

North Koreans last Saturday celebrated another public holi-

Japan backs US proposal to target N. Korea’s oil

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apan backed a United States push for the United Nations Security Council to vote on Monday on fresh sanctions against North Korea, saying that Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program poses the most serious threat since World War II. Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera last Sunday urged tougher sanctions, including curbing oil supplies to North Korea. He warned that the regime’s advances in missile technology are complicating Japan’s ability to intercept them.

“Japan’s security environment, including North Korea, is increasingly grave—perhaps, it’s the most serious state in the postwar period,” Onodera told public broadcaster NHK. “If North Korea-bound oil, mainly coming from China, decreases through pressure by the international community, it will be difficult for North Korea to operate its missile brigades.”

President Donald J. Trump’s administration is pushing the Security Council to adopt a united stance as Kim gets closer to being able to strike the US with a nuclear weapon.

China and Russia, which can veto any UN measures, have expressed skepticism that tough sanctions will stop North Korea’s nuclear push and have pushed for peace talks.

The US has warned that time

is running out to act. North Korea detonated its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb last Sunday, which it said was a hydrogen device. South Korea has detected moves that indicate it may soon launch another intercontinental ballistic missile.

Kim’s banquet

Kim, who has said he won’t negotiate unless the US drops its “hostile policies,” threw a banquet for nuclear scientists and technicians to celebrate the hydrogen bomb test, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported last Sunday.

North Korean state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial last Saturday that Pyongyang was now a nuclear power and praised Kim for strengthening “defenses to protect the Korean Peninsula from invasion.”

KCNA said in a commentary also last Saturday that the US was resorting to sanctions and pressure rather than seeking talks.

The US has circulated a draft resolution that would, aside from barring crude oil shipments to North Korea, ban the nation’s exports of textiles and prohibit employment of its guest workers by other countries, according to a diplomat at the world body.

The proposal, which also calls for freezing Kim’s assets, has been sent

to the 15 members of the Security Council, the diplomat said.

The US is willing to risk a veto of its proposal rather than see it watered down, according to a Security Council diplomat who asked not to be identified while negotiations are ongoing.

A halt to oil exports is far from certain. While China and Russia have condemned Kim’s actions, they have said the ultimate goal needs to be to coax him to the negotiating table and avoid a war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said more sanctions wouldn’t work, while China is wary about cutting off Kim’s economic lifeline to the point it risks collapsing his regime.

China is North Korea’s main ally and by far its biggest trading partner, including for oil shipments. Observers have said Beijing might agree to just a partial, or temporary, oil exports ban.

China will support further UN action if it helps restart dialogue with North Korea, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last Thursday.

Last Thursday Trump said it wasn’t inevitable that the US would end up in a war with North Korea, but that military action remained an option.

“I would prefer not going the route of the military, but it is something certainly that could happen,”

Trump said in a news conference at the White House.

He declined to say if he’d accept a nuclear-armed North Korea that can be successfully deterred from using such weapons. A senior administration official later told reporters the US won’t let North Korea extort or threaten the world with its nuclear program, and that the administration isn’t sure the country could be deterred.

The official said the danger of war is rising, and the US is also concerned about North Korea exporting its nuclear technology to other nations or to terrorist groups.

Onodera last Sunday called on Japanese lawmakers to agree to the government’s request for a record defense budget next fiscal year. Tracking North Korean missiles is getting harder due to the increasing use of mobile launchers and submarines, as well as solid fuel that doesn’t require fueling on site, he said.

Also, North Korea is shooting missiles to a higher altitude, making them harder to shoot them down.

Japan plans to adopt Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Aegis Ashore missile defense system to complement its Aegis ships. “If Japan can be properly protected as such, we should adopt such a system as soon as possible,” Onodera said. Bloomberg News

day with familiar routines, laying flowers and bowing in front of statues and portraits of past leaders while the outside world kept a close watch amid specul at ions t hat a not her m issi le test is near.

South Korea’s government earlier said North Korea could potentially mark the 69th founding anniversary with its third test of a developmental intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

But no weapons test was detected from North Korea as of Saturday afternoon, as people in capital Pyongyang went through customar y practices of showing loyalty to late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the father of third-generation leader Kim Jong Un. This year’s anniversary came just after North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date last weekend, which it claimed as a detonation of a thermonuclear weapon built for its ICBMs. The North flight-tested its developmental Hwasong-14 ICBMs twice in July, and analysis of flight data suggested that the missiles

could reach deep into the US mainland when perfected.

The North has a history of marking significant dates with show of military capability, but its recent tests have been seen as driven mainly by technological needs amid an accelerating effort to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal.

“Because we firmly support our respected supreme leader comrade Kim Jong Un, our country will become stronger as a self-reliant, nuclear power and we will have a great future,” said Pak Kum Hyang, a Pyongyang citizen who came up the city’s Mansu Hill to visit the bronze statues of the late leaders.

“This anniversary of the founding of our country is significant and comes just after we’ve had a successful H-bomb test,” said Choe Sol Ju, another Pyongyang citizen who planned to later go on a family picnic.

Nor t h K orea of ten m a rk s big a nn iversa r ies e ver y f ive yea rs w it h g i a nt publ ic ce lebrations. Last year it held a nuclear test on this September anniversary. AP

Merkel slams anti-immigration ‘rowdies’ for disrupting election

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erman Chancellor Angela Merkel called anti-immigration demonstrators “rowdies” driven by intolerance, her strongest reaction yet to protests that have disrupted many of her election rallies this summer.

Just over two weeks before the German ballot, Merkel addressed her increasingly aggressive enemies from the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) and the far-right National Democratic Party (NDP), head-on.

Threw tomatoes

A day earlier, protesters shouting “get out of here” threw tomatoes at the official car taking her to a rally on the Baltic seacoast.

“A lot of them, usually from the AfD and the NPD, come simply with goal of making it hard for others to listen,” Merkel said at an event at her party’s campaign headquarters in Berlin last Saturday. “So I hope that the people who come to listen will also have their say, not just those who are rowdies and show up to whistle and shout.”

While Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc leads challenger Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats by as many as 16 percentage points in polls, the small but steady protests underscore the well of discontent

over her liberal refugee policy that’s shifting Germany’s political landscape, even as she seeks a fourth term as chancellor on a platform of stability.

The AfD, which is in contention for third place in the September 24 election, is likely to become the first far-right party to win seats in Germany’s parliament since World War II. It wants Germany to leave the euro area and end “unregulated mass immigration,” for which it blames Merkel after a record influx of refugees on her watch in 2015. The party is polling as high as 11 percent in surveys of likely voters.

‘Very unpleasant’

Schulz, whose Social Democrats have been Merkel’s coalition partner for the past four years, met last Saturday with activists representing immigrants’ interests in the city of Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt.

To think that tough talk on immigration by mainstream parties will drive voters away from the far right “is a mistake—it strengthens them,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted him as saying.

Although she’s the front-runner, Merkel is warning her party against campaign complacency during the final stretch. Bloomberg News

A10 A4 Monday, September 11, 2017

The World BusinessMirror

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Iraq holding foreign IS family members

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OSUL, Iraq—Iraqi forces are holding more than 1,300 foreign women and children, the families of Islamic State (IS) fighters, at a camp for displaced people in northern Iraq.

The 1,333 individuals, from 14 countries, surrendered to Kurdish forces at the end of August after an Iraqi offensive drove the extremist group from the northern town of Tal Afar, near Mosul, Iraqi security officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with military protocol.

They say the women and children will not be charged with crimes and will likely be repatriated to their home countries.

Most hail from Central Asia, Russia and Turkey, but the group also includes people from as far away as Japan and South Korea.

Tens of thousands of foreigners traveled to Iraq and Syria to live in the IS group’s selfstyled Islamic caliphate. The territory under their control has rapidly shrunk over the past two years as Iraqi and Syrian forces have retaken several cities and towns.

“We couldn’t practice our religion in Azerbaijan. We couldn’t wear the niqab [a veil that covers the face] because there were intelligence officers everywhere,” said Feyruza, who is originally from Dagestan in Russia.

“We were told that in Iraq they had implemented Islam and we came here and it was true.

We lived our lives as Muslims and we were very happy until the warplanes came and destroyed everything,” she said.

She and other women said they had been living in Tal Afar since early 2015. They said they knew nothing about the group’s widely publicized atrocities.

“We didn’t see any killings. It didn’t happen. Everything was according to the Koran and the Sunna [teachings of the Prophet Muhammad]. What we saw was the implementation of Islamic rule,” said another woman named Aybenis, also from Azerbaijan. The women declined to give their last names out

1,300 The number of foreign women and children, the families of Islamic State fighters, at a camp for displaced people in northern Iraq

of security concerns.

The women said they lived well up until August, when Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake the town.

Their account of life under the militants is in sharp contrast to that offered by other residents of Tal Afar, who fled by the thousands in the months leading up to the operation because of severe shortages of food and other supplies.

The women and children are now living in tents and receiving aid from humanitarian groups. They are among hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced by fighting over the past year.

Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, in July following a grueling, nine-month campaign.

The women said they didn’t know the fate of their husbands, who surrendered to Kurdish forces separately. Brig. Gen. Kamel Harki, a Kurdish commander, said some of the captured fighters were handed over to Iraqi authorities while others were killed after faking their surrender and then attacking their captors. AP

This September 9 photo shows the camp where over 1,300 women and children, all foreign nationals and relatives of Islamic State (IS) militants, are kept on the outskirts of Mosul. Iraqi security officials said the women and their kids had surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga forces at the end of August after Tal Afar, one of the last strongholds of IS in northern Iraq, had been retaken by Iraqi troops. AP/Balint Szlanko

Syrian army in race with US fighters for eastern Syria

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EIRUT—United States-backed Syrian fighters launched an offensive against the Islamic State (IS) group in eastern Syria along the border with Iraq last Saturday, bringing them into a race with government forces marching in the same direction against the extremists in their last major holdout in the war-torn country.

The dueling battles for Deir el-Zour highlight the importance of the oil-rich eastern

province, which has become the latest focus of the international war against the IS group, raising concerns of an eventual clash between the two sides.

The US-trained Deir el-Zour Military Council said it was calling its operation Jazeera Storm, after the familiar name for northeast Syria.

The Military Council is a part of the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which enjoys broad US military support. The SDF are the US’s primary ally in the fight against IS in Syria.

The race to reach the Iraqi border will shape future regional dynamics, determining whether the United States or Russia and Iran will have more influence in the strategic area once the extremist group is defeated.

Iran has been one of President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest backers since the crisis began in March 2011 and has sent thousands of Iranian-backed fighters and advisers to fight against insurgent groups trying to remove him from power.

The US-backed fighters are up against a huge challenge to reach Deir el-Zour, especially while they are still fighting to liberate Raqqa from IS. Three months into the battle, they have liberated around 60 percent of the city, and much more difficult urban fighting still lies ahead.

This week Syrian troops and their Iranian-backed allies reached Deir el-Zour, breaking a nearly three-year-old IS siege on government-held parts of the city in a major breakthrough in their offensive against IS. In a victory statement, the Syrian military said Deir el-Zour will be used as a launching pad to liberate the remaining IS-held areas along the border with Iraq.

Pro-government forces broke the siege of the city’s airport last Saturday, state media reported.

The troops’ arrival to Deir el-Zour city brings Syrian forces and their allies a step closer to controlling the oil-rich eastern province and its capital bordering Iraq, a major boost for Tehran’s growing influence in the area. The region has some of Syria’s largest oil fields, whose revenue is vital to the state’s dried coffers.

Syria’s military command announced last Saturday they had captured the province’s Taym oil field from IS militants last Saturday.

Washington has been determined to block the formation of an “Iranian corridor”—of Shiite-controlled land stretching from Tehran to Damascus—and for months has been eyeing the area southeast of Raqqa near the Iraqi border.

US-backed Syrian rebels had been gathering in Tanf in southeastern Syria to march toward Deir el-Zour, but their plans were disrupted in June when Syrian troops reached the border with Iraq, obstructing their path.

The only way left for the SDF to enter the eastern province appears to be from the

northeastern province of Hassakeh, where Syrian activists say the US-backed fighters have been gathering and stepping up preparations for an attack.

SDF officials say the timing of Operation Jazeera Storm is not related to government forces reaching the Deir el-Zour earlier this week, and was planned months in advance.

“Deir el-Zour is a main connection point and a very important geographic area,” said Syrian Kurdish official Nawaf Khalil, who is in Germany but frequently visits northern Syria. He said the battle for Raqqa requires fewer fighters now than it did in its earlier stages.

The US-led coalition fighting IS said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the SDF “will decide when the conditions are right for an offensive.”

Asked about concerns of a possible clash between the SDF and Syrian troops, the coalition said: “We urge all forces to concentrate their efforts on our common enemy [IS].”

Washington has welcomed Syrian troops’ fight against IS. Both the US and Russia have an interest in avoiding a clash between the SDF and Syrian forces and may devise a strategy that will allow both sides to share control of the vast province.

US officials have suggested they are not seeking a confrontation with Assad's forces.

“We are in the killing-ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] business. That is what we want to do, and if the Syrian regime wants to do that...and show that they are doing just that in Abu Kamal or Deir el-Zour or elsewhere, that means that we don't have to do that in those places,” said coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon in June referring to a town on the Iraqi border, and using a different acronym for IS. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said last month during a visit to the Middle East that the Middle Euphrates River Valley will soon be liberated, as IS takes hits from both sides of the valley that bisects Iraq and Syria.

“You see, ISIS is now caught in between converging forces,” Mattis said.

Ahmed Abu Khawla, the commander of the Deir el-Zour Military Council, says he commands a force of 4,000 fighters, mostly from Deir el-Zour province.

“We are an organized army. We are not militias or separate brigades. We have a unified military leadership and an operations room to coordinate,” he told the AP. “The plans for the Deir el-Zour campaign have been in the works for over a year and half but Raqqa took precedence because of international considerations,” Abu Khawla said.

Abu Khawla added his group has already liberated 93 villages in northwestern rural Deir el-Zour including, more recently, the village of Abou Khashab. Asked about potential confrontations with government troops, he said: “If the regime wants a confrontation or directs one bullet at us we will respond.” AP

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AseanMonday BusinessMirror

What’s behind Rohingya exodus from Myanmar

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YANMAR’S Rohing ya Muslims have been called the world’s most persecuted minority, a people without a country.

In the last two weeks, in numbers estimated to be nearing 300,000, Rohingya have been fleeing for their lives into already-crowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

It is the third such mass exodus in four decades. A look at what’s behind it.

Stateless in own state

AN estimated 1 million to 1.2 million people in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine self-identify as Rohingya. The government of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, refuses to recognize them as one of the country’s 135 lawful ethnic minorities, instead calling them Bengalis, with the implication that their native land is in Bangladesh and they are illegally settled in Myanmar. They are similarly unwelcome in Bangladesh. What has made the situation particularly dire for the Rohingya was the passage in 1982 of a citizenship law that had the practical effect of making most of them stateless and depriving them of most of their civil rights along with economic opportunities.

They are legally restricted in their right to travel, to marry and in the number of children they can have.

In practical terms, access to decent education and health care, as well as employment, is also limited.

History of migration

THE legitimacy of the Rohingya claim to indigenous status is a matter of sharp debate inside Myanmar. But most historians agree that by the ninth century, there was an independent kingdom of Arakan in what is now Rakhine state, and thanks to contact with Arab traders who arrived by sea, Islam made increasing inroads among the local population. Over several centuries, an admixture of outsiders—Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mughals and Pathans—congealed with the local population to form what many scholars recognize as the Rohingya.

Arakan was conquered by a Burmese king in 1784, but natural barriers with the rest of Burma prevented Buddhist colonization in northern Arakan. Britain’s annexation of Arakan in 1824-1826, attaching it to its colony of India, was a fateful turning point. South Asians, including Bengali Muslims, moved into Arakan as cheap labor, many integrating into the established Muslim community.

Even the handful of Myanmar Buddhist nationalists willing to accept the idea of an indigenous Rohingya identity draw the line here: Descendants of settlers during the British colonial period, they believe, have no legitimate claim to be natives of the region.

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Monday, September 11, 2017 A11

Rohingya rebs declare truce as desperation hits camps

Rise of Buddhist nationalism

THE British followed the traditional but cynical colonial practice of placing minority people—in this case Indians—in midlevel administrative positions. In those jobs they were privileged but also resented by Burmese Buddhists. When Burmese nationalism, strongly supported by the Buddhist clergy, blossomed in the 1920s and the 1930s, the Rohingya, identified by many with the Indian influx, were put in an awkward position. Burma’s political separation from India in 1937 saw riots against them. World War II’s Japanese invaders, who fostered a tactical alliance with Burmese nationalists, had little patience for any friends of the British. In 1942, with the physical withdrawal of the British from Arakan, grisly massacres

by Buddhists against the Rohingya Muslims, and vice versa, established a blood feud.

Discrimination and flight

THE Rohingya, like the country’s other minorities, fought the post-war civilian government for greater autonomy and, in turn, were promised equal rights. But a military dictatorship that seized power in 1962 sought to deny the minorities’ demands and promoted strong nationalism favoring the majority Buddhist Burmans. Rohingya became targeted by security forces in the 1977 to 1978 crackdown, which sent some 200,000 fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. The junta’s renewed onslaught in 1991-1992 forced another 250,000 into Bangladesh. Most eventually returned, though with the same lack of legal rights as before and in many cases to find their land had been taken over.

Indignities large and small had become part of daily life, and tensions with the Buddhist Rakhine minority, dominant in southern Rakhine but seeking to expand north, resulted in bloody communal rioting in 2012, taking at least 200 lives and driving at least 120,000 Rohingya into displacement camps, where most subsist to this day. A wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, fanned by ultranationalist Buddhists taking advantage of a democratized political atmosphere, kept tension at a boil. AP

Newly arrived Rohingya try to get their tokens validated in order to collect a bag of rice distributed by aid agencies in Kutupalong, Bangladesh, on September 9. Many of the newly arrived were initially stunned and traumatized after fleeing the violence. AP

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OX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh— Rohingya insurgents, whose attack on Myanmar security forces last month triggered savage military reprisals, declared a monthlong truce last Sunday as refugees continued to flood across the border into Bangladesh only to face scant basic resources, hunger and illness.

The Muslim insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army issued the truce statement on its Twitter account and urged Myanmar’s government to reciprocate in order to assist all victims regardless of their background.

The government did not comment immediately.

The rebels, who say they’re fighting to protect their minority members against government-sponsored persecution, launched their first known attacks last October and again on August 25. According to Rohingya refugees, the military

responded with indiscriminate killings, burning entire villages and forcing tens of thousands to flee.

The government said most of the 400 dead were “terrorists”.

The UN said last Saturday that an estimated 290,000 Rohingya Muslims have arrived in the border district of Cox’s Bazar in just the last two weeks, joining at least 100,000 who were already there after fleeing earlier riots or persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. The number was expected to swell further, with thousands crossing the border each day.

Fights were erupting over food and water. Women and children were tapping on car windows or tugging at the clothes of passing reporters while rubbing their bellies and begging for food. Health experts warned of the potential for outbreaks of disease.

“More and more people are coming,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Spokesman Vivian Tan said.

With camps already “more than full”, the new arrivals were setting up spontaneous settlements along roadsides or on any available patches of land.

Within the camps “we are trying our best, but it is very difficult because every day we are seeing new arrivals” with nowhere to go, Tan said.

Many of the newly arrived were initially stunned and traumatized after fleeing the violence. They are now growing desperate in searching for food-distribution points that appeared only in recent days, passing out packets of biscuits and 25-kilogram bags of rice.

One aid worker who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media said “stocks are running out” with the refugees’ needs far greater than what they had imagined. “It is impossible to keep up,” she said.

Thailand prepares for cremation of late King Bhumibol

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HE Kingdom of Thailand will begin the five-day royal cremation ceremony next month for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose reign lasted seven decades.

The country’s military government has budgeted 3 billion baht ($91 million) for the funeral.

Huge crowds are expected near a vast crematorium being constructed at Sanam Luang, a park in the heart of Bangkok close to the Grand Palace. The cremation itself is scheduled for October 26. Thais believe the deceased monarch will ascend to heaven.

An ornate palanquin, seen through a window in Bangkok last Friday, is prepared for the royal funeral. Bhumibol died last October 13 at age 88.

The monarch, who took the throne in 1946, had come to symbolize continuity. During his reign, the country had more than two dozen prime ministers and 10 military coups. Bloomberg

Vietnam seizes over 1 ton of ivory smuggled in from Africa

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ANOI, Vietnam—Authorities have seized more than a ton of smuggled ivory at a Vietnamese port where some 6 tons were seized last year.

Chinese tourists spur Thai mall’s $330-M expansion bet

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The Bangkok National Museum has been turned into a site of funereal preparations. Bhumibol was the world’s longest-reigning monarch at the time of his death. He was the ninth king in the two-century-old Chakri Dynasty, one of the world’s wealthiest monarchies. Bloomberg

Customs official Le Dinh Loi in Ho Chi Minh City said the ivory seized on September 6 in Cat Lai port had been packed with sawdust and layers of plasters and asphalt to hide it. He

said last Thursday the container held 1,356 kilograms of ivory smuggled from Africa and was transiting through Vietnam to its destination in neighboring Cambodia. Vietnam bans hunting

of its own dwindling elephant population but is one of the world’s major transit points and consumers of ivory and rhino horn. Ivory is used as jewelry and home decoration. AP

At one food-distribution point, women were volunteering to help keep order by tapping people with bamboo sticks to gently urge them back in line. Weary women carried infants in their arms while clutching other children to their sides, afraid they might be separated in the crowds.

One 40-year-old man, faint with hunger, collapsed while waiting and could not stand again on his own strength when others tried to help him up. They drizzled water between his lips in an attempt to revive him, to no avail.

At one camp, a mobile clinic set up for the first time last Saturday had already seen 600 patients by the afternoon. Patients, mostly children, were coming in with severe diarrhea, fungal skin infections, ear infections and high fever, said Nasima Yasmin, the director of the clinic run by a well-known Bangladesh health group. Yasmin said their work was barely sufficient given the camp’s scale and requirements.

“We need deep tube wells so that there is clean water and people can clean themselves. Also toilets are needed,” she said, adding that the sheer number of newcomers raised fears of a serious outbreak of disease.

Refugee camps had already been filled to capacity before the influx.

Makeshift settlements were quickly appearing and expanding along roadsides, and the city of Cox’s Bazar—built to accommodate only 500,000—was bursting at its seams.

There was an urgent need for more temporary shelters, Tan said.

“We are seeing the mushrooming of these very flimsy shelters that will not be able to house people for too long,” she said.

The UN has asked Bangladesh authorities to make more land available so they can build new relief camps.

The US State Department said in a statement last Saturday that it was “very concerned” about the situation and praised Bangladesh for its “generosity in responding to this humanitarian crisis”.

It’s not known how many Rohingya remain in Rakhine state. Previously, the population had been thought to be roughly 1 million. Journalists in Rakhine state saw active fires in areas Rohingya had abandoned, adding to doubts over government claims that Rohingya themselves were responsible for setting them. AP

HE Platinum Group Pcl., whose wholesale fashion mall in Bangkok attracts about 15 million people yearly, expects booming Chinese tourism to support its retail shopping center due to open next year.

The firm is investing about 6 billion baht ($180 million) in the project and is banking on the deep pockets of Chinese visitors to woo retailers, according to President Chanchai Phansopha. Platinum’s shares have lagged behind peers this year, amid concern the new mall may take time to succeed.

“We want to transform the company from an operator of a wholesale fashion mall into a commercial property developer,” Chanchai said in an interview last Tuesday. The Bangkok project is part of a wider, 11-billion-baht ($330-million) investment plan that will also add hotel and office space over five years, he added.

Tourist arrivals in Thailand have surged in the past decade, powered by Chinese visitors who last year numbered almost 9 million and shelled out an aboveaverage $176 per head daily.

While their spending power offers hope, the domestic outlook is darker—consumers are burdened by elevated household debt and economic expansion lags behind Southeast Asian neighbors.

The mall may take longer to be successful than Platinum expects as it has a retail focus, unlike the popular wholesale center, Chaiyatorn Sricharoen, an analyst at Bualuang Securities Pcl., said in a note. Chaiyatorn rates the stock a sell with a 6.65-baht target price, about 15 percent below Thursday’s close.

Platinum’s Chanchai said he foresees double-digit percentage growth in 2017 sales and profit, adding the new mall—called The Market—will boost revenue at least 30 percent in 2019.

The stock advanced 2.6 percent last Thursday in Bangkok to a record 7.8 baht. It has climbed 7.6 percent this year, less than the 10.8 percent rise in the SET Property Development Index.

The shares trade at 26.6 times estimated 12-month earnings, higher than a five-year average of 24.9. Bloomberg

Green Monday BusinessMirror

A12 Monday, September 11, 2017

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Environment office exerting efforts vs illegal miners, banned chemicals

By Butch D. Enerio | Correspondent

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Turtle eats a plastic. Onegreeplanet.dot.org

Cig butts top list of coastal trash

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he oceans are the Earth’s largest life givers. They supply half of the air people breathe, most of the animal protein we eat and water we drink. Oceans help regulate climatechange impacts and support the greatest abundance of life in the planet.

Whether we live near the coastlines, the health of our oceans affects us. Unfortunately throughout the years, we have risked the largest ecosystem on which our survival depends.

According to the Ocean Conser vancy, almost 2 million cigarette butts were found in the world ’s shorelines in 2016, making it the most common coastal trash in the planet. Here in the Philippines, the International Coastal Cleanup Philippines reports more items on the list—

i n c lu d i n g p l a s t i c w r a p p e r s , bottle lids, straws and stirrers.

T h i s ye a r a lone, H a r ib on Foundation has collected at least 43 sacks of plastic waste (utensils, straws, plastic bags, wrappers, diapers, bottles), 22 sacks of Styrofoam waste and 21 sacks of rubber and cloth waste (shoes, slippers, bags).

Debris from recreational and commercial fishing also made up the ocean wastes—such as buoys, fishing nets, traps and ropes.

Many of the smaller wastes are

either thrown out to the shores or end up into the sewer drains on the streets, which lead to different bodies of water.

On the average, cigarette butts take at least 10 years to rot, while plastic products will need five centuries to a thousand years to decompose.

How trash affects marine life

Marine debris in the ocean can disrupt an entire food web.

Marine mammals, sea turtles and sea birds are either injured, entangled or killed due to discarded plastics, fishing nets and other marine debris. Bits of plastics are commonly mistaken for food, which kills turtles, birds and fish.

Fishing gears and other debris entangle or suffocate corals and many marine organisms, causing them physical damage or mortality.

Chemicals from tires, batteries, electronics and plastics harm marine life and may get absorbed into the fish and other food source that we take in daily.

Join a city coastal cleanup

In this National Cleanup Month, Haribon invites organizations and individuals to join thousands of volunteers around the country who love the ocean and want to protect it.

Since the early-1990s, the oldest environmental organization, Haribon Foundation, has joined the global call to conserve the Philippine shorelines, rivers and waterways.

Year-round, Har ibon organizes coastal cleanup drives with corporate partners and volunteers at the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Eco-Tourism Area, which is also globally esteemed as an important resting and feeding stop for almost 5,000 migratory birds.

But while the call for cleaner coasts gets louder this month, Haribon ultimately reminds the public that the first and most important step to keep our oceans clean is to reduce trash in our homes before it gets to the sewers and waterways.

Ocean cleanup at El Nido Resorts on sept. 15

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wide range of marine wildlife in Bacuit Bay in Northern Palawan, the last ecological frontier of the Philippines, has been harmed by tons of wantonly disposed garbage that end up in the oceans every year, according to Mariglo Laririt, director for sustainability at El Nido Resorts. Three of the 4 El Nido Resorts, which has won global awards for creating awareness for the area’s rich biodiversity, are in the bay.

Having been declared a protected area since 1998, the bay’s 855 species of fish, over 400 corals and 5 of 7 species of marine turtles have, to some extent, been shielded from overfishing and other aggressively harmful practices.

B a c u i t B a y ’s m a r i n e w i l d l i f e , never theless, “remains at high risk because of garbage—particularly plastics—that have mindlessly been strewn into the ocean,” Laririt said.

The bay had its fair share of the 18.4 million pounds of waste collected last year alone through the International Coastal Cleanup drive organized by global marinewildlife advocate Ocean Conservancy.

El Nido Resorts annually observes International Coastal Cleanup day in September by inviting local communities and its own employees, most of whom are from Palawan, to pick up trash along its beaches.

Joey Bernardino, group director of sales

and marketing, said the resorts’ goal is “to change behaviors that cause pollution and environmental degradation.”

This year it is also boosting participation by inviting eco-warriors all over the country to participate in a cleanup on September 15 and enjoy three-night’s stay at the island resorts of Miniloc or Lagen on twin-sharing basis for the price of two nights.

“One night is on us for free for those who will join the cleanup,” according to Bernardino. Travel period is from September 13 to 17 only.

The fee of P27,300 per person at Miniloc and P35,000 per person at Lagen includes full board meals, transfers, standard tours, like island hopping to Bacuit Bay’s postcard pretty destinations, a n d a c t i v i t i e s, i n c l u d i n g t re k k i n g, kayaking, snorkeling, paddle boarding and the like.

This year El Nido Resorts is taking the coastal cleanup drive to the 4-kilometer beachfront along Bacuit Bay that is part of Lio in El Nido mainland. This stretch of fine-sand coastline is part of the 325-hectare Lio Tourism Estate envisioned

by Ten Knots Development Corp.—owner of the El Nido Resorts chain—to be a fully integrated community that will maintain the ecological balance in the area through a sustainable masterplan.

The resor ts’ effor ts to share the values of respecting and protecting the environment has been lauded by global sustainability organizations like the World Travel and Tourism Council, a forum of business leaders in the global travel and tourism industry.

These ac tivities are in line with efforts to maintain the natural beauty of Palawan, named the “best island in the world” by travel magazine Travel + Leisure and to sustain the appeal of Pangulasian island resorts’ recognition as one of the best beach resorts in the planet by travel authority Conde Nast Traveller.

Pangulasian is the top-end destination of El Nido Resorts.

Bernardino said: “Empowering people to take an active role in the preservation and cleaning up of the ocean are important parts of helping in the conservation of the seas. We urge volunteers to come together to become a global force for good.”

Laririt pointed out that all El Nido Resorts employees help promote the impor tance and vulnerability of the marine ecosystem in Palawan. Mostly local hires, they are required to undergo environmental training programs.

U T UA N C I T Y—T he Env ironment Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natura l Resources in Caraga region said it would exert sustained efforts against illegal small miners and stop the use of banned and regulated chemicals in the mining areas in the region, particularly mercury.

This, as recent water contamination was reported in the Rosario, Agusan del Sur, mining fields, where the presence of regulated cyanide was found in Agsao Creek, Upper Consuelo, Bunanwan, on September 3.

Wilson L. Trajeco, EMB Caraga regional director, said reports received by his office have indicated the contamination came from small-scale miners operating under Mario Bacaron.

EMB identified Bacaron as the proprietor of the Consuelo Small Scale Mining Association (Cossma) Inc., which was already slapped with a cease and desist order (CDO) on May 31, 2016, from operating an ore processing plant without the necessary permit, since it has no environmental compliance certificate.

“This time, we will not hesitate to file criminal charges against Bacaron and Cossma for the blatant disregard of the CDO. We cannot tolerate violators who continue to undermine the safety of the community and environmental protection,” Trajeco said.

The EMB said in its investigation report that Bacaron has admitted the company is using cyanide and mercury in the whole cycle of its mining operation to hasten processing.

“Cossma, being illegal, their use of c yanide and mercur y, which is unreg u lated, wou ld result in poisoning our rivers and water ways and that would later be ingested by humans through contaminated fish and other animal food products,” Trajeco said.

He added the malpractices of illegal miners put the communities at risk of being poisoned, since they do not have the proper waste-disposal facilities or the mine-tailings pond where harmful chemicals are deposited.

This reporter repeatedly tried to contact Bacaron yesterday but failed.

Cyanide is used to dissolve and separate gold from ore. Cyanide leaching is considered to be

a much safer alternative to extraction—removing gold from ore—and mostly used by mining companies worldwide.

Small-scale miners, particularly the illegal ones, continue to use mercury in some areas in the world, including the Philippines.

Trajeco said mercury has been banned, making its use illegal, especially in mining operations.

“But because the supply of mercury can be sourced from the black market, illegal miners continue to use the substance in fast-tracking the processing at the mining site where they dispose of their chemical waste indiscriminately,” he said.

The World Health Organization reported that mercury, when inhaled, causes harmful effects on the nervous, digestive and immune systems, lungs and kidneys, and may be fatal.

Neurological and behavioral disorders may be observed after inhalation, ingestion or dermal application of different mercury compounds.

Trajeco explained that cyanide waste could become useful when processed correctly. “Mix with hydrated lime, the result would be the production of urea, a compound, to fertilize rice plantations.”

He said that with responsible mining companies, the use of cyanide is well regulated and they have tailing ponds to ensure that contamination would be absent, especially in bodies of water near and around the mining sites.

EMB, in regulating the use of cyanide in Caraga region, only allowed per volume 1,200 tons per year of sodium cyanide for Philsaga Mining Corp., and 1,500 tons per year for Greenstone Resource Corp.

Meanwhile, the indigenous people belonging to the Manobo tribe in Agusan del Sur, in a resolution, have asked the Provincial Mining and Regulator y Board and other government offices to close Cossma tunnels and to dismantle illegal ore-processing plant at upper Consuelo, Bunawan. “ We have this big cha l lenge to run after illegal miners. They a re a r med a nd t heir m ining operations are located most ly i n a rea s where rebel g roups are ta k ing ref uge. But we w il l not be cowed in enforcing env ironmenta l laws, consider ing that we have the cooperation f rom commu n it ies a nd loc a l gover nment units concer ned,” Trajeco said.

Small grants for social forestry project now open

A

pplications for a smallgrants facility that funds social-forestry projects is now open, the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) announced.

The Asean Working Group on Social Forestry (AWG-SF) Strategic Response Fund (ASRF) program administered by Searca is inviting Asean member-states (AMS), including the Philippines, to submit proposals that address problems or issues of strategic importance in the interrelated issues of food insecurity, poverty and climate change in the region.

The ASRF is supported under the A sean-Sw iss Par tnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change Phase 3. It is designed to provide AWG-SF Leaders and Focal Points with seed fund to enable them to respond to immediate needs or catalyze strategic

actions that will address emerging issues and opportunities to which response of the AMS and AWG-SF is critical.

Not to exceed one year, the proposed projects may be any one of t he fol low i ng : qu ic k “turn-around ” studies, explorator y reviews, meta-analysis/ ana ly tica l stud ies and t hink pieces, d i a log ues/rou ndt able discussions/national and local consultations and learning exchange activities.

Each A MS is a l located a ma ximum budget of $25,000 and has the option to propose one or t wo projects.

The Philippine governmenthosted Searca developed and circulated a Project Development Workshop Toolkit to assist the AMS in preparing more strategic proposals.

The closing date of proposal submission is October 16.

Biodiversity Monday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Monday, September 11, 2017 A13

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph

There’s opportunity in growing sea cucumber Story & photos by Jonathan L. Mayuga

D

@jonlmayuga

id you know that the Philippines hosts around 200 sea-cucumber species? About 40 of these are considered high value and are traded globally.

Sea cucumbers used to thrive in the coastal waters in the Philippines but because of habitat loss and overharvesting, from being a top producer of dried sea cucumber in the 1980s, production drastically went down pulling our ranking to No. 8 in terms of production.

According to the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOSTPCAARRD), the annual production of sea cucumber is declining by an average of 900 tons per year, citing a 2017 Food and Agriculture Office (FAO) report.

Worse, along with the dwindling volume of production, the quality also suffered setbacks, with smaller sea cucumbers found and the poor processing, the value also went down.

Sea-cucumber program

L ast ye a r t he gove r n me nt , through the DOST-PCA ARRD, launched a national program, entitled “Harnessing S&T for su st a i n able a nd compet it ive sea cucumber industry,” which aims to revive a once thriving economic activity.

T he prog ra m, i n pa r t ner ship w ith var ious institutions, aims to establish a sustainable and globa l ly competitive seacucumber industr y, provide equitable and economic benefits to var ious sta keholders, and maintain the productiv it y and biodiversit y of the sea cucumber fisher y in the Philippines.

According to the DOST-PCCAARD, the country is now able to culture sandfish, a species of sea cucumber, in the hatchery.

The improved processing developed by experts is now available for technology transfer.

To accelerate production of sandfish juveniles for grow-out, a partnership was forged with the Palawan Aquaculture Corp. and Alson’s Aquaculture Corp.,

to integrate sandfish culture in their hatchery and nursery production operations, with a little modification in its physical structures to fit the requirements for sandfish culture.

At present, the private companies are capable of producing up to 10,000 release-size (estimated bigger than 3 grams) sandfish juveniles per spawning batch.

DOST-PCAARRD partners under the program developed lowcost ocean nursery systems to reduce the cost and diversify the systems for juvenile production.

These are made of inexpensive and readily available materials not only to commercial hatcheries but to small-scale growers, as well. For example, floating hapas, or net cages, are used for mass rearing of postsettled juveniles.

As a result of the program, the Philippines is now able to produce high-quality sea cucumbers, providing better economic opportunities for enterprising farmers who may want to venture into sea cucumber production, whether individually, or collectively as a community.

T he technolog y pack age for posthar vest processing of sea cucumber to produce Class A premium grade or sea cucumb e r w it h re du c e d m i c ro b i a l content, i mproved shel f l i fe and no fou l odor commands a higher pr ice in both loca l and inter nationa l markets.

High-value seafood

Traditionally harvested by hand, sea cucumbers are marine animals belonging to the class Holothuroidea. Sea cucumbers are used both in fresh, but mostly in dried form in various cuisines and are very expensive.

According to Wikipedia, as food, sea cucumber has different names. It is referred to as bêchede-mer in French, bicho do mar or “sea worm” in Portugese, trepang (or tripang) in Indonesia,

Sea cucumber of Holothuria scabra species worldfishcenter.org

Prof. Ruth U. Gamboa of University of the Philippines Mindanao explains the lifecycle of a puti-an, a seacucumber species that is found to have commercial potential. Jonathan L. Mayuga

namako in Japanese, balatan in Tagalog, loli in Hawaiian.

A k i log ra m of h ig h- qu a l it y d r ied sea c uc u mber c a n reac h up to P3,0 0 0. Sea- c uc u mber dishes are often ser ved in C h i nese rest au ra nt s.

Small-scale hatchery

M an y sea- c uc u mbers spec ies a re a l ready t h reatened a nd , hence, ha r vest ing is supposed to be proh ibited.

However, Ruth U. Gamboa, a professor at Un iversit y of t he Phi l ippines Mind a nao, said there’s a way to save the species from extinction, and t hrough commerc i a l production in small-scale hatcheries, a business model was developed for coastal communities.

In her presentation during the recent “Sipag ni Juan Fiesta

sa Dabaw: Farms and Industry Encounters through Science and Technology Agenda” held at a mall in Davao City, Gamboa said there’s business opportunity in operating a small-scale hatchery for the production of Holothuria scabra, also known as sandfish or putian (whitish) because of its white color.

She noted that Vietnam is already into large-scale production of sandfish.

Small capital requirement

With a small capital of less than P200,000 and a monthly operating budget of P20,000, enterprising fishermen can venture into small-scale hatchery of sea cucumber to boost the production of cultured sandfish, she said.

Even with the country’s vulnerability to intensif ying ty-

phoons because of c l imate change, she said production of sea cucumber in the hatchery could be timed appropriately.

The first five months of the year or from January to May, she added, is the appropriate time to produce sea cucumbers.

Based on a recent study she conducted, the life cycle of the putian is four-and-a-half months. The stages include broodstock condition of about two to four weeks; larval rearing up to 5 mm during the juvenile period, which will take another two weeks; transfer to the nursery for another four weeks, sand-conditioning that will take two to four weeks.

With such life-cycle, farmers engaged in sea-cucumber production can safely produce at least once a year and produce 20,000 sea cucumber sold at P15 each—earning as much as P300,000 a year.

Postharvest processing

Engr. Mark Jude F. Trondillo, faculty-researcher at the Agricultural Engineering Department of the Institute of Computing, Engineering and Technology in Southern Philippines Agri-Business and Marine and Aquatic School of Technology Digos Campus, said there’s a way through postproduction and processing technologies.

He noted that there is already an established standard for dried sea cucumber developed by the Bureau of Ag r iculture and Fisheries Product Standards called Philippine Na-

tional Standard (PNS) for dried sea cucumber.

“In sea-cucumber trade, qualit y is t he ut most impor t a nt requirement. The postharvest handling of sea cucumber determines the quality of processed sea cucumber,” he said.

Under the PNS, a dried sea cucumber must be “stone hard, free from dirt, sand and other foreign matters, packed and labeled.”

Dried sea-cucumber processing includes cleaning; cooking in clean water with or without salt; removing of spicules; soaking in water with or without salt; dr ying; and packaging.

The product shall be packed in appropriate food-grade containers. The individual retail or bulk container shall contain only one species.

The package and label should provide information as to its expiration, the name and address of the manufacturer, packer, distributor, importer, exporter or vendor and country of origin.

According to Trondillo, depending on the quality of the product, the price ranges from P1,000 per kilogram (kg) to P4,000 per kg.

Comparing results from field testing they conducted in Barangay Victory in Bolinao, Pangasinan, he said the dried products using a dryer machine have better quality compared to the traditional drying method.

An archipelago composed of over 7,500 islands and islets, the Philippines is in a better position to venture into sea-cucumber production and start a viable industry

Davao engineer bats for commercialization of aquaponics C

all it symbiosis farming.

It’s a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by fish supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which, in turn, purify the water.

“It works. Fish eats, produce waste, and the waste fertilizes the vegetables, making them grow faster and better,” said Gerry Antonio, farm manager of Ragetimi Farm.

T he fa r m- c u m-aqu apon ic s school is in Bago Gallera, Davao C it y, where A ntonio teac hes aquaponics.

Antonio was one of the exhibitors and resource persons du r i ng t he recent “ Sipa g n i Juan: Fiesta sa Dabaw,” which showcased various science and technolog y innovations (S&T), and research and development (R & D) init iat ives of e x per ts in various fields in Mindanao.

Fiesta is short for Farms and Industr y Encounters through Science and Technology Agenda.

The recent event, which carried the theme “Celebrating Davao Region’s Science and Technology

Innovations,” coincided with the 30th founding anniversary of the Southern Mindanao Agriculture, Aquaculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development Consortium (Smaarrdec).

A member of the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources R e s e a rc h a nd D e ve lo pme nt , Smaarrdec promotes S&T innovations, and R&D initiatives of scientists, inventors and experts in science and technology to help boost agriculture and fisheries production in Mindanao.

An industrial engineer, Antonio is batting for the commercialization of aquaponics and said he is willing to help investors set up their own farm using his design and the technology for a minimum fee.

Aquaponics is used for backyard aquaculture and vegetable production. Using the technolog y, A ntonio said commercia l fish production and vegetable far ming, is feasible and economica l ly v iable.

Engr. Gerry Antonio shows a miniature model of aquaponics, one of the exhibits, during the “Sipag ni Juan Fiesta sa Dabaw” held recently at a mall in Davao City. Jonathan Mayuga

He said transferring the technology for adoption by enterprising farmers has become his mission when he started to promote aquaponics 20 years ago, with no patent or intellectual property involved.

“For me, food-production technique should not have a proprietary right,” he said, adding that he learned the technology from a Russian inventor who inspired

him to promote aquaponics by teaching others how to do it.

Antonio said he hopes to see the commercialization of aquaponics in Davao, first and foremost, the place where he was born and raised as a child.

A graduate of the University of the Philippines, Antonio said aquaponics is the most environment-friendly way to grow fish like tilapia, bangus, or even

cultured koi tilapia—a ver y expensive ornamental fish—while engaging in off-season vegetable production, growing highvalue vegetable crops, like red bell pepper, ampalaya, or even the lowly kangkong.

All it needs is a fish tank and a grow bed for the vegetables. He explained that once fed, fish produce ammonia-rich water.

The fish in the tank breaths in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants absorb the carbon, which leaves oxygen-rich water for the fish tank.

Water from the fish tank is pumped out to the grow bed to water the plant, and the excess water is filtered before going back to the fish tank.

For the grow bed, he said carbonized rice hull, which is sold at P30 per sack, is ideal. Gravel, which costs P180 per sack and pumice stone at P125 per sack are also possible options.

Plastic beads, which are more expensive at P2,500 per kilo, is for high-value fish and vegetable production.

“Aquaponics a l lows you to maximize production. It doesn’t need fertilizer and water is not wasted because of the recycling system that flushes out nutrientrich water into the grow bed, allowing vegetables to grow faster and brings back clean water for the fish to thrive,” he said.

The advantage of aquaponics, he said, is that the food produced is organic or natural. Plants and fishes are grown the way Mother Nature designed it to be.

“No chemicals, no pesticides.

Doing so will create an imbalance,” he said.

According to Antonio, growth rates of f ish a nd pl a nts a re faster when the equilibrium is established. Last, it saves precious water. “Freshwater is a carrier of nutrients and forever reused,” he said.

Aquaponics is ideal for backyard fish and vegetable production with limited space. It can also be a business venture for people living in the urban areas, where space is a problem.

Jonathan L. Mayuga

A14 Monday, September 11, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Sorry, govt is helpless

P

eople have turned to someone to make decisions, whether the tribal shaman in the jungle rainforest to Merlin the Magician in King Arthur’s court. It always helped if they could do some “supernatural”, acts like bringing the sun back from an eclipse.

The whole thing may have started with Moses parting the waters to escape from Pharaoh’s armies.

When their supreme wisdom does not work out well, the people have a tendency to turn nasty. Moses found out when he came down from Mount Sinai and saw the Israelites dancing around the golden calf.

Whether called a sorcerer or prophet, their tenure in office was only as good as the last promise or prediction. Most of the time, when you put your faith in someone, it comes down to “what have you done for me lately?”

These people that want to make the decisions are between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they would prefer not be made unemployed—or worse—if things go badly. On the other hand, they have to keep convincing the people to rely on them to keep their jobs. That is the dilemma that politicians face.

We have come a long way from sitting around the fire watching the witch doctor inhale the smoke from exotic herbs. We have learned from modern intelligence and experience that the people making the decisions are not all-powerful and all-knowing. But we would still like it to be true so we have shifted our faith from the individual to the institution of government.

Government is now omnipotent and omniscient. With those abilities come some relatively bizarre ideas. Some people “know” that government can control the weather. Just look it up on the Internet.

While government has acknowledged that it cannot control the movement of the stars, government has promoted the belief that it can control the economy. “You need us; otherwise, it’s going to be bugs for tomorrow’s breakfast”. With that kind of doomsday threat, the people have come to expect government to be in charge.

That becomes a two-edged sword cutting both ways for our oftenmisunderstood political leaders. Take inflation, for example.

Several reasons caused price inflation. Supply-and-demand imbalances push prices higher. The free market needs this, otherwise, artificially low prices cause shortages. Artificially high prices create wasteful overproduction.

“Cost push inflation” is inflation caused by an increase in prices of inputs, like labor, raw materials, utilities and even taxes. In the Philippines “cost push inflation” is what we experience except for short-term price hikes caused by demand/supply imbalances, such as for agriculture products.

When there is an increase in inflation, there is an immediate cry for the “Medicine man in Malacañang” to “Do Something!” After all, the government has repeatedly told us that it is in charge.

The problem is that our cost-push inflation is caused by changes in the global price of crude oil, both up and down. If anyone actually took the effort to do any research, she would find an absolute correlation to the price of oil and the rate of Philippine inflation.

The crude-oil price peaks in July 2008; Philippine inflation peaks in August 2008. Crude oil bottoms out in February 2009; Philippine inflation starts increasing in August 2009. The same cycle of high to low happened again in mid-2014 to mid-2015. Sometimes Philippine inflation overshoots the price of crude oil, both higher and lower. But the timing and link are unmistakable.

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

Education, economy and the environment Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

W

ith the signing into law of Republic Act 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Higher Education Act, many aspects and components in our local education landscape are going to be shifted around. For example, the existence of various student scholarships and grants, the family’s choice of colleges and universities, and even the curriculum being offered by private higher-education institutions.

The new law is a game changer. It will allow students from the poorest families to enter and finish college, which is sometimes the only hope out of poverty that some of these families may have. But while many laud the virtues of the new legislation, wisdom would dictate that there is always another side to a coin.

One concern is that operative word in the name of the new law: quality. Education may be free starting school year 2018-2019, but how

Compressed workweek scheme Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan

✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua

legally speaking

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T. Anthony C. Cabangon

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do we ensure that our college students are learning what they need to learn to earn a fighting chance in the changing world of work? How do we ensure that higher learning institutions are offering the courses that are relevant in the volatile career landscape?

In 1990 the environmental educator and founder of the Meadowcreek Project, David Orr, delivered a commencement address (What is Education For?) to the graduating class at

Arkansas College. The speech may be a few decades old but the message remains highly applicable to modern situations. In it, he pointed out six myths about the foundations of modern education, and enumerated six principles to replace these myths.

First of all, Orr said teachers must teach their students that they are all part of the natural world. He cited the teaching of economics, which should also include lessons on thermodynamics and ecology. Physics and ecology, he said, are strongly linked to economy. The interrelation of the practical courses to the natural and universal laws of environment cannot be ignored.

Orr’s second principle is all about the mastery of self. Modern schools teach students to become masters of subject matters, forgetting in the process that schools should also be molding the personhood of their students. Modern education is focused on the tools—facts, techniques, methods, information—yet, it is essentially more important to develop the user of these tools, for best results.

His third principle teaches that

H

ouse Bill (HB) 6152, or “An Act Increasing the Normal Work Hours Per Day Under a Compressed Work Week Scheme”, was unanimously passed by Congress on August 21 with 226 affirmative votes, with no dissents or abstentions.

“The concept of compressed work arrangement refers to alternative arrangements or schedules other than the traditional or standard work hours and workweek. Through this method, the normal workweek is reduced to less than six days but the total number of normal work hours per week shall remain at 48 hours. This concept can be adjusted accordingly in cases where the normal workweek of the company is five days.

“Currently, the Department of Labor and Employment has allowed some companies to go on a compressed workweek schemes. These arrangements give employers and employees flexibility in fixing hours of work compatible with business requirements and the employees’ need for balanced work-life.

“This proposed measure, which will amend Articles 83, 87 and 91 of the Labor Code, seeks to institutionalize the compressed workweek scheme to promote competitiveness, efficiency and productivity in busi-

ness and industries [explanatory notes of original author Rep. Mark D. Go of Baguio City].”

Hereunder quoted are the salient provisions of HB 6152.

Section 1. Article 83 of the Labor Code of the Philippines, as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows: Article 83. Normal hours of work. The normal hours of work of any employee shall not exceed eight hours a day[.] Except in cases where the enterprise adopts a compressed workweek scheme, but shall not exceed 48 hours a week. Employees shall be permitted to complete their working hours on a compressed workweek scheme whereby the normal workweek is reduced to less than six days but the total number of normal work hours per week shall remain at 48 hours.

Health personnel in cities and municipalities with a population of at least 1 million or in hospitals and clinics with a bed capacity of at least 100 shall hold regular office hours

for eight hours a day, for five days a week, exclusive of time for meals, except where the exigencies of the service require that such personnel work for six days or 48 hours, in which case, they shall be entitled to an additional compensation of at least 30 percent of their regular wage for work on the sixth day. For purposes of this Article, “health personnel” shall include resident physicians, nurses, nutritionists, dietitians, pharmacists, social workers, laboratory technicians, paramedical technicians, psychologists, midwives, attendants and all other hospital or clinic personnel.

Section 2. Article 87 of the Labor Code of the Philippines, as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows: Article 87. Overtime work.

Work may be performed beyond eight hours a day or 48 hours a week provided that the employee is paid for the overtime work an additional compensation equivalent to the regular wage plus at least 25 percent thereof. Work performed beyond eight hours or number of hours under a compressed workweek scheme on a holiday or rest day shall be paid an additional compensation equivalent to the rate of the first eight hours or number of hours under a compressed workweek scheme on a holiday or rest day, plus at least 30 percent thereof.”

Section 3. Article 91 of the Labor Code of the Philippines, as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows: Article 91. Right to weekly rest day. (a) It shall be the duty of every employer, whether operating

a student who earns knowledge from the institutions carries the responsibility of ensuring that this knowledge is well used in the world. He said, “Whose responsibility is Love Canal? Chernobyl?

Ozone depletion? The Valdez oil spill? Each of these tragedies were possible because of knowledge created for which no one was ultimately responsible.” Now I cannot help but think about North Korea and its nuclear tests.

David Orr’s fourth principle states that, “We cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge on real people and their communities.” What to say about those entrepreneurs trained in ivy league schools who end up destroying vast farm lands as they build modern villages, completely neglecting the effects of flooding, decreased food supply, unemployment, and uncertain futures for many families in the communities? People and communities, according to Orr, must always come first.

To be continued

for profit or not, to provide each of the employees a rest period of not less than 24 consecutive hours after every six consecutive normal work days. In the case of a compressed work week scheme, a rest period of not less than 48 hours but not more than 72 hours, as the case may be, shall be provided to the employees. (b) The employer shall determine and schedule the weekly rest day of the employees subject to collective bargaining agreement and to such rules and regulations as the secretary of labor may provide. However, the employer shall respect the preference of employees as to their weekly rest day when such preference is based on religious grounds.”

A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate 1571, by Sen. Joel Villanueva.

The Center for Trade Union and Human Right claims that HB 6152 is “retrogressive, pro-business and pro-capitalist while silent about the detrimental effects that extended hours have on workers health and well-being” (Inquirer.net). Gabriela Women’s Party, likewise, slams the bill saying that it may result to more contractual workers as “it will mean drastically shifting work schedule for workers as companies try to shuffle in more contractual workers into the production cycle xxx, which is already being done in many manufacturing firms in the country.

Whether this bill will pass the Senate, which prides itself in having a more macro perspective and larger constituency, is anyone’s guess!

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

Undivided attention

Walk the talk! Talk the walk!

BusinessMirror

By Alberto Agra

Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

PPP Lead

THE PATRIOT

V

ery recently, the Manila International Airport Authority prohibited the carrying of cell phones, electronic gadgets, jewelry and watches by all ramp personnel, except for those with supervisory function. Similarly, when he took over the leadership of the Police Regional Office 3 (PRO3), Chief Supt.

Amador Corpus implemented the no-text policy among police officers after observing officers playing with their phones while on duty.

In Ateneo Law School, students are given the liberty to use their laptops in class, subject to the discretion of their professor. Seeing that a few of my students were browsing the net during class discussions, I recently implemented a no gadget policy in class. The phenomenon of the wandering mind, aided by the presence of these devices and gadgets, distracts us from giving our full attention to daily activities.

Sometimes, in the midst of conversation, the other person might be easily distracted by text alerts from their phones. I am guilty of such practice at times. But, in many cases, the practice of not giving undivided attention has to do with the understandable reality that it is difficult to give our full attention to something for an extended period of time.

Human nature allows distractions from time to time. Compounded by the fact that the digital age helps shorten our attention spans during face-to-face conversations, most people want to make use of information swiftly. Psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University concluded that “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind”. Most Filipinos, especially millennials, would agree that mindwandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation.

Before joining, while in, and even after I left the Bureau of Immigration, I spent a lot of time contemplating events that happened during the past administrations and what might happen at the end of my administration. There were a few times that I failed to focus on what is currently on my plate as commissioner since I wanted to anticipate as much changes as I can foresee in the future. In retrospect, undivided attention is what we need whenever there is information to be relayed or discussed. Whenever critical decisions have to be made, focus is a must. Meditation sometimes helps.

Prayers always help a lot.

In Matthew 6:6, the Bible tells us, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” Whenever we are alone, we tend to be more focused and more reflective. My yoga teacher Maidee leads our Bikram practice with zero distractions. She teaches her students to “surrender to the moment”, in the same way she surrenders to every moment of her vacations in the beaches of Samar or in breathtaking Batanes. In a commanding and powerful voice, Maidee passionately encourages her students to focus on our posture by looking at one part of ourselves in the mirror. During the few times I fail to do that in practice, I lose my

Sometimes, in the midst of conversation, the other person might be easily distracted by text alerts from their phones. I am guilty of such practice at times.

But, in many cases, the practice of not giving undivided attention has to do with the understandable reality that it is difficult to give our full attention to something for an extended period of time. balance. Yoga, whether Yin (passive) or Bikram (active), has taught me to meditate and focus on one supposedly simple task—breathing to maintain a certain pose. Teacher Maidee always appears to be enjoying each and every moment during the entire 90-minute yoga class.

She practically “owns” the class as she goes around the studio with her pleasing aura and cheering presence.

When we do our daily activities, such as when security personnel protect our neighborhood, when students attend class, or when yoga practitioners execute their poses, we get full benefits whenever we give our undivided attention. We should do the same whenever we pray.

Book author Simon Weil said, “The quality of attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer.”

As I have been recently taught, He is ultimately the one who allows us to commune with Him through prayers. Yet, whenever most people pray, myself included, we fail to give Him our full attention. I know of one person who prays the rosary while stuck in traffic. While it is one way of spending your time productively, praying while driving, or while doing anything else, indicates that our conversations with Him are halfhearted and divided. I notice some of my law students reciting the Hail Mary mindlessly at the start or end of each class. In cadet lingo, we call it “for compliance” only. My Bible study mentor, however, told me that the more we practice focusing our attention on the ordinary tasks we have, the more we will be able to keep our attention fixed on the extraordinary task of listening to God in prayer.

On a side note, Killingsworth and Gilbert concluded that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation and least happy when resting, working, or using a computer. Thus, if we were to follow these Harvard psychologists, the secret to happiness, aside from meaningful and reflective praying, is to make love passionately, exercise more often, or regularly engage in meaningful conversation—all with undivided attention.

For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.

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adderized program. This module is second of the three-stage ladderized program developed by LGA in partnership with this columnist. The first module was focused on the policy and legal framework of PPPs. LGA has hosted five of this, to date. The seminar staged last week delved on the technical, financial and environmental aspects of PPPs. The third stage will touch on preparing PPP contracts and terms of reference.

Walk-the-talk. To ensure that PPP will not remain just a PowerPoint Presentation (the “Talk”), each module has concrete take-aways for the participating local government units.

These are: proposed PPP ordinance

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echnology has had a positive impact on our way of thinking in the 21st century. In academe, the role of technology in teaching, learning and instruction has long been acknowledged. Advances in technology have fostered great hopes of educational promise among educators. Teachers and students alike have to cope up with fast changing technology to ensure a successful life in the future.

Technology’s role in education is currently manifested through the use of computers, tablets and cell phones. These hi-tech gadgets help teachers to enhance their teaching skills and strategies and at the same time look “cool” and updated

in their classes.

Undoubtedly, hi-tech teaching tools are making their way into the classroom. Technical designers and engineers have noticed that teachers are always trying to find new ways to keep students

under this development strategy (the “Walk”).

Bundling approach. In the three-day seminar, which accommodated three workshops, the cities explored options on developing public markets, convention centers, solid-waste management facilities, ports, sports complexes, terminals and socialized-housing units. Most of them would want to pursue joint ventures under the “bundling” approach—waste-to-energy, sports complex with commercial spaces, or markets with terminals. This would mean, as emphasized by this columnist, more projects under one contract and single competitive process with greater revenues, therefore more share for the parties and more services for the people realized sooner rather than later.

PPP-ready. They are receptive to unsolicited proposals from the private sector. They will, likewise, conduct willingness-and-ability-to-pay

The Accounting Structural Framework Concordio S. Quisaot

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propose to define accounting as a body of knowledge that involves tools and processes of gathering relevant data from business or economic activities of an entity or group of entities and transforming them to accounting data, information and reports in accordance with established accounting standards.

The tools are the different kinds of gadgets, such as computers, cell phones, bar-code readers, scanners, etc., which are now being used to capture relevant data from business activities. The processes refer to accounting activities, which are the systems and procedures involved from the gathering of data to their transformation into accounting information and reports. These tools and processes are fast evolving and have changed the way accounting is done. The role of accountants today has shifted in providing high-value accounting and financial services because of the availability of tools and systems that assist them in analyzing of accounting and related business data.

Accounting as a body of knowledge continues to evolve. The developments in technology have redefined many things and accounting is not an

exception. Let us take note the definition of accounting from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). AICPA defines accounting as the art of recording, classifying and summarizing in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions and events, which are, in part, at least of a financial character, and interpreting the results thereof.

It also defines accounting as a service activity of providing quantitative information about economic activities that is intended to be useful in making economic decision.

In the highly revolutionized economic environment, the above definitions are unable to capture the new peculiarities of accounting introduced by the rapidly transforming technological advancements. The inclusion of the tools and processes, as well as accounting standard, as part of the definition is necessary to

Donald Trump’s Fed

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ven more than before, President Donald J. Trump now has the chance to entirely reshape the Federal Reserve (the Fed). Janet Yellen’s term as chairman ends early next year, and her deputy, Stanley Fischer, has just resigned, citing personal reasons. Soon Trump will be able to appoint a new person to the top job and three other positions on the sevenmember board—not counting the one he’s already given to Randy Quarles.

Fischer’s departure, coming months earlier than expected, is a serious loss.

Role of technology in education

By Sheryl T. Serrano

and general term sheet of a project; prefeasibility study in term sheet form; and draft contract and terms of reference, respectively. The organizers hope that projects geared for the public good will be implemented

Monday, September 11, 2017 A15

interested in lear ning. Many teachers are finding out that hitech education tools help get students involved more in classroom discussions, which also help improve the classroom environment.

In this day and age, a classroom can look very different from what most people expect. Digital tools are a must. Some tools are so comprehensive they completely change old methods. Instead of giving loads of homework, for example, teachers are using Google Classroom to transform the way they manage their students. To make it more interesting, Google Classroom uses Google Apps to create, edit

The inclusion of the tools and processes, as well as accounting standard, as part of the definition is necessary to reflect what accounting is all about today. The accounting definition that I propose describes the areas of knowledge as presented in an Accounting Structural Framework that outlines the structure and the interrelationship of the particular areas of accounting knowledge.

reflect what accounting is all about today. The accounting definition that I propose describes the areas of knowledge as presented in an Accounting Structural Framework (ASF) that outlines the structure and the interrelationship of the particular areas of accounting knowledge.

To illustrate this concept, let’s consider a transaction involving sales of a product by Company X. Accounting starts by identifying the relevant data to be captured using modern tools, such as bar-code reader. The capturing of the data involves computer systems that store these in the database. The sales data will be converted into accounting data by tagging them to their related accounting chart of accounts.

A journal entry is created in accordance with established accounting standards. The entry will form part of the accounting information that goes into the financial statements of Company X. Relating this to the ASF, the sales

surveys and market sounding activities as part of the consultative and participatory processes required under their respective PPP frameworks.

Talk-the-walk. Another challenge raised was for the participants to help promote PPP for the people and expand the PPP Learning Ecology. Learning entails responsibility and leadership. They are tasked to talk-the-walk. These cities are much more than their local delicacies, artistahin mayors, friendly smiles, and visionary and democratic leadership.

The future is bright for all of us.

Kudos to LGA. Kudos to the other resource persons—Engr. Rex Chan and Arch. Boie Alli. Kudos to the 14 cities that participated in the event.

Personal note. Just last Saturday, I learned a new rope-climbing technique in my pursuit of being better in obstacle course racing. Old dogs can learn new tricks. All it takes is humility, openness, perseverance and commitment.

transaction is the Business or Economic Activity. The process of identifying and capturing the sales data and creating the journal entry from such business activity are part of the Accounting Activities. The creation of journal entry involves the identification, definition and design of the data structure to form the Accounting Data. The process also involves the use of Accounting Elements (Chart of Accounts) and its reference to the Accounting Standards considering their definition, recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosures in the Accounting Reports.

While the ASF deals with the architectural structure and scope of accounting as a body of knowledge, it is different from the International Accounting Standard Board’s Conceptual Framework of Accounting, which basically deals with the theory of accounting against which practical accounting problems are tested objectively.

This ASF is a useful guide for accounting students and accountants in learning and having a grasp of the accounting knowledge as a whole.

Hon. Concordio Quisaot is a member of the Board of Accountancy. He has a consulting and auditing practice in Cebu and has electric cooperatives among his clients.

This column accepts contributions from accountants, especially articles that are of interest to the accountancy profession, in particular, and to the business community, in general. These can be e-mailed to boa.secretariat.@gmail.com.

His combination of intellect, experience and collegiality is virtually irreplaceable. One of the world’s most distinguished macroeconomists, he conducted influential research while a professor at MIT, co-authored standard texts, and was a revered teacher—among his former students are Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, and former Fed chief Ben Bernanke. He held the top economics jobs at both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, was a vice chairman of

Citigroup, and between 2005 and 2013 was the notably successful head of Israel’s central bank.

A luminary among central bankers, Fischer was amply qualified to run the Fed. That he was content to serve as No. 2, acting as Yellen’s close ally, attests to his lack of vanity. His hallmarks as a communicator of the Fed’s thinking, a role he recognized as crucial, were clarity and open-mindedness. All these traits will be sorely missed.

The case for reappointing Yellen, which Trump hasn’t yet ruled out, just

got stronger. Fischer’s exit raises the premium on continuity, expertise and experience, and the current Fed chairman embodies all three.

History’s verdict on presidents rests more than they might wish on the competence of the Fed during their time in the White House. When it comes to those other Fed appointments, the president would be smart to reflect on what made Fischer such a good choice and strive, for his own sake, as well as everybody else’s, to choose as wisely. Bloomberg View

and distribute curriculum.

Going hi-tech means better grades in school. Students can now learn on their own initiative, even without the assistance of their parents and teachers. They are just going to surf the Internet to look for the lessons they need to study.

Access to loads of information is now easier that heavy books are no longer needed. With new technology, e-books can now be downloaded and read from cell phones or tablets anytime of the day. Can you imagine the amount of paper and the number of trees that would be saved if every school in the country decided to introduce digital textbooks?

From apps to organizational platforms to e-textbooks and more, there are many amazing tools that can now help teachers and students.

One of the most popular app among students today is called Texthelp.

Texthelp has created a few different softwares to help teachers reach students who struggle from their traditional teaching methods. Their Read & Write software supports literacy, and their Fluency Tutor software helps non-native speakers develop the skills necessary for academic progress.

Both of these award-winning softwares have helped teachers by providing one-on-one instruction

to struggling students. For example, Read & Write helps students correct their writing efficiency. The software is designed to help students identify where they went wrong.

For these reasons, neither the teacher nor the students need to go back to 19th-century methods. They can now do away with the “chalk and talk” method. Using technology in the classroom can prepare students for a future deeply rooted in technology. The new shoutout for educators should be, “Let’s innovate!”

The author is a Teacher 3 at Buguey North Central School in Buguey, Cagayan.

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www.businessmirror.com.ph

DOF: Tax collection from ‘sin’ products to hit ₧150B in 2018

By Rea Cu

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@ReaCuBM

ax collection from “sin” products is seen expanding by 4.7 percent to P150.2 billion in 2018 against the 2017 target of P143.5 billion, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).

Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran said: “[The target is] P150.2 billion for 2018, the target for this year is P143.5 billion, growing at 4.7 percent.”

Beltran told financial reporters that sin tax collections for the first half of the year has already reached P60.04 billion, up 5.44 percent compared to the January to June 2016 level of P56.94 billion, based on Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) data.

“You know, when we made this [estimate], the issue with Mighty Corp. was not yet finished. We

made our estimate around January or February,” Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said.

According to BIR data, endJune collections from tobacco products contracted by 1.52 percent to P32.4 billion for this year, from P32.9 billion in 2016. The decrease can be attributed to the drop in sales of cigarette packs amounting to 1.081 billion packs this year, from the 1.224 billion packs a year ago.

Sin-tax collections from alcohol products expanded by 14.97 percent to P27.631 billion as of end-June,

17 The number of casinos being operated by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. that will be privatized

from the P24.033 billion recorded during the same period in 2016.

This year sin-tax rates merged under a unitary scheme, with the unitary rate for alcoholic beverages pegged at P23 per liter, from P21 for products priced P50.60 or less per liter and P23 for those priced higher, under Republic Act 10351 or the sin-tax reform law, which took effect this year.

The unitary rate for tobacco products is at P30 per pack this year. Under the previous

two-tiered system, cigarettes priced at P11.50 per pack were taxed P25, and those priced higher were taxed at P29 per pack.

Dominguez said the government will be reviewing the results coming from the sin-tax reform law merging tax rates under a unitary scheme, from the two-tiered system, to fully understand how it can be included under one of the packages of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program.

Meanwhile, the DOF bared that 17 casinos being operated by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) will be privatized.

Dominguez said the government is still working on how to specifically go about the privatization of the assets of the Pagcor, but added that the first step should be the privatization of the 17 casinos.

“We are working on the Pagcor deal, the first item will be those casinos being operated directly by the Pagcor. That’s the first step, so that is what we are working on at the moment. It’s around 17 [casinos],” Dominguez

Solon seeks to question HB defining public utilities

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@joveemarie

By Cai U. Ordinario

@cuo_bm

he Philippines has the highest urban-slum population among the founding members of Asean (Asean-5), according to report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In its “Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2017” report, the ADB said 38.3 percent of the Philippines’s urban population are living in slums in 2014. This figure, however, was lower than the 47.2 percent posted in 2000.

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See “Solon,” A2

others, they go into joint venture with the hotel, and they share their revenues. It’s not just one model,” he added.

Finance Undersecretary Karen G. Singson said it takes time to arrive at the valuation of the assets to be privatized, since different rates are imposed if a consortium runs the casino.

“For example, when they partner with the private sector, sometimes the private consortium is comprised of four different groups of companies. One would operate the hotel, another one will issue the license, another for the slot machines, which is different also for online gaming, and all of those have different rates. So we have to study now how do we privatize and review all of those fees,” Singson added.

Dominguez said the privatization of the Pagcor is being pushed so that it can focus on its regulatory functions. President Duterte had earlier ordered the Pagcor to privatize its assets to help generate more revenues for the government.

PHL’S URBAN-SLUM POPULATION BIGGEST IN ASEAN-5–REPORT

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz OLLOWING the approval of a measure defining what a public utility is in the House of Representatives, a member of the so-called Magnificent 7 is eyeing to question House Bill (HB) 5828 before the Supreme Court.

In a radio interview, Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay said HB 5828, which provides for a statutory definition of a public utility, is against the foreignownership provision of the 1987 Constitution. “[We approved on] third reading the bill defining the public utility, but the objective is to allow foreigners to own a public utility. That is against our Constitution, which provides that public utilities must be owned by Filipinos or by corporations or partnerships where the capital stock is at least 60-percent Filipino,” he added.

The lower chamber approved on its final reading HB 5828 last Friday.

The bill will be transmitted to the Senate for its own deliberations. The bill is one of the 13 legislative priorities endorsed by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac).

“Without waiting for an amendment to the economic provisions of the Constitution, either by a Constituent Assembly or Constitutional Convention, the House of Representatives has approved on third reading House Bill 5828, which ostensibly provides for a statutory definition of a public utility, but which is actually a subterfuge to allow foreigners to own public-utility enterprises without complying with the citizenship requirement imposed by the Constitution,” he added.

Earlier Lagman said, “Once the measure pass the Senate, it is the right [time] to question it before the Supreme Court.” The Constitution requires public utilities must be owned

by Filipino citizens or by corporations, partnerships or associations where not less than 60 percent of the capital stock is owned by Filipino citizens, he added.

told financial reporters.

The finance chief added that data in terms of the valuation is still being evaluated, since operational data are not robust. He stressed the importance of analyzing how much revenues come in through winnings and how much through fees.

“We don’t have a valuation yet, the valuation is very difficult because the data of the operations are not robust. I am saying that we should figure it by capacity, how many tables they have, or how many visitors did they have last year, what’s the projection, etc.,” he added.

The DOF is eyeing to complete the study of the privatization process of the 17 casinos by the end of the year to enable it to choose the best privatization method beneficial to the government.

T he DOF pointed out that schemes such as the leasing of the casinos and joint ventures are some models that are being studied. “ T here are different ways.

Sometimes they lease the facility,

LOW RISE This file photo shows a bird’s eye view of Metro Manila. Data by the Asian Development Bank revealed that, in 2016, 44.3 percent of the Philippines’s total population live in urban areas. This figure is lower among the founding member-countries of the Association of Asean. However, the country’s urbanization pace is faster than Vietnam’s. NONIE REYES

Reforms in tax system must be friendly to environment–icsc Continued from a1

intends to propose a coal tax to Congress before the end of the year in the fifth package of its Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP).

Based on data from the World Bank, as of May, more than 40 countries and subnational jurisdictions, which accounts for around 25 percent of global greenhouse-gas (GHG), emissions have levied a tax on carbon with the pricing initiatives covering 14 percent of emissions.

A carbon tax is excise tax imposed on the burning of carbon fuels, which contribute to climate change.

“Bunker and coal are used by industry for purposes other than electricity generation. Bunker is used by manufacturers and commercial establishments for boilers, providing process steam or heat. Coal is used for cement furnaces. But the most important end-use for consumer impacts are via power plants and electricity prices,” the World Bank added.

In March President Duterte signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which mandates membercountries to reduce their respective

carbon emissions. The climate agreement has to be ratified by the Senate before it becomes binding.

The ICSC said the departments of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Science and Technology (DOST) should be consulted in calculating the environment-tax rates.

“ICSC will provide the DOF all the relevant spreadsheets and walk the staff through all the calculations, so that they can change the assumptions as they see fit. The DOST and DTI, as well as the relevant industry associations, should be consulted as well,” the ICSC said.

In August 2016 a study conducted by the National Tax Research Center (NTRC) revealed that government revenues from the imposition of carbon taxes could reach an estimated P121.97 billion.

According to the government think tank, there is an “urgent” need to control the levels of CO2 emissions to address the distressing effects of climate change not only to the environment but also to human health.

Based on data from the Department

of Energy (DOE), an average annual rate of 69 million tons in CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2014 was recorded for the Philippines. The majority of these emissions came from electricity generation at 41 percent, followed by transportation and industries.

Under the DOE’s Philippine Energy Plan 2012-2030, CO2 emission of 39 million tons in 2015 will jump to around 106 million tons in 2030.

The NTRC study noted that, based on the type of fuel, 57 percent of CO2 emissions came from the use of coal, 33 percent from oil and 10 percent from natural gases.

For the Philippines to be on a par with its Asian neighbors, the NTRC said the government can consider imposing a carbon tax of P100 to P1,000 per ton of CO2 emissions.

“Later, if the proposed carbon tax pushes through, it may be set at progressive rates to reflect the ability to pay of taxpayers,” the NTRC added.

From 2015 to 2030 the government could generate P12.20 billion to P121.97 billion annually, based on the country’s CO2 emissions outlook

The rapid pace of urbanization can be partly attributed to high labor demand in urban areas due to growth in industrial activities and services.”—ADB “This rapid pace of urbanization can be partly attributed to high labor demand in urban areas due to growth in industrial activities and services. Cities offer economies of scale in providing consumer services, such as transport,” the report read.

“However, faster economic growth and increased labor mobility also pose challenges for planning affordable housing, making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable,” it added.

In the Asean-5, the country with the smallest portion of its urban population living in slums is Indonesia at 21.8 percent, followed by Thailand at 25 percent.

The Philippines even has a higher percentage of its urban residents living in slums compared to Vietnam, which initially had a higher slum population in 2000.

In 2000 around 48.8 percent of Vietnam’s urban population was living in slums. But in 2014 this number was almost halved to 27.2 percent.

“The Lao PDR has seen the largest decline in latest years at 47.9 percentage points, from its initial 2005 figure of 79.3 percent.

Cambodia [23.8], Bangladesh [22.7], Mongolia [22.2] and Vietnam [21.6], have done exceedingly well in reducing the share of their urban population living in slums by over 20 percentage points,” the ADB said.

The report noted that the lack of economic opportunities that drives in-city migration was evident in the country’s poverty rate compared to its Asean-5 and Southeast Asian neighbors.

ADB data showed that, while the country’s poverty rate slowed to 21.6 percent in 2015, from 26.6 percent in 2006, it remained the highest in the Asean-5 and the third highest in the whole of Southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia the country with the highest poverty rate in 2015 was Myanmar at 25.6 percent, followed by Laos at 23.2 percent.

See “Urban slum,” A2