BusinessMirror September 21, 2020

BIZ LEADERS ASK GOVT: KEEP EUROPE GSP PLUS

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Monday, September 21, 2020 Vol. 15 No. 347

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 16 pages |

BUSINESS as usual: Six months into what's been called the world's longest lockdown, Philippine business districts like Eastwood City are among the most affected by the strict quarantine measures. Despite the setbacks from the Covid-19 pandemic, commercial areas are banking on Filipino resiliency to help them bounce back. BERNARD TESTA

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By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

@alyasjah

NDUSTRY leaders are asking the Philippine government to negotiate with the European Union to avert the possible termination of the country’s trade privilege, saying trade should be improved—not decreased—in the time of a global pandemic.

The possible loss of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus status was floated by the European Parliament in a vote last week, seeking sanctions against the Philippines over its human-

rights record.

In interviews with the BusinessMirror, local and foreign industry leaders said the Philippines stand to lose should the EU revoke the country’s GSP Plus status. They argued this would also be the worst

time to squander any trade privilege, as the coronavirus pandemic is bleeding any remaining capital from exporters.

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), for one, pointed out the economic and diplomatic consequences of a lifting of the GSP Plus.

“Such a decision will result in massive social and economic repercussions to the Philippines, and will compromise the notable progress that the EU and the Philippines have built over the years.

The EU is among the largest trading partners of the Philippines,” the ECCP said in a statement sent to the BusinessMirror.

The chamber also stressed that thousands of workers may lose their jobs if the trade incentive is lifted,

as exporters who benefit from the GSP Plus generate employment opportunities mostly in agriculture and manufacturing.

“The removal of the GSP Plus will put at risk thousands of jobs generated in both the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Revoking the preferential trade arrangement in the midst of a pandemic will also exacerbate the economic situation of the country,” the ECCP added.

As one-fourth of the Philippine exports to Europe are covered by the GSP Plus, at least $2.07 billion worth of products benefited from the trade privilege in 2019.

The Associated Labor Unions has reported at least 200,000 workers may lose their jobs if the EU withdraws the country’s trade perks.

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PHL external debt position lowest in Asean 5

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

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HE Philippines had the lowest gross external debt position last year among the Asean-5 countries, the Department of Finance (DOF) said.

Citing World Bank data, the DOF said in an economic bulletin that the country’s external debt as a share of gross national income (GNI) was at 20.11 percent as of end-2019. This is

lower than Thailand’s 34.07 percent, Indonesia’s 36.85 percent, and Malaysia’s 64.59 percent.

Vietnam did not have available data for 2019, but recorded a 47.86-percent external debt ratio in 2018.

Nonetheless, it was only the Philippines that registered a year-on-year increase among the Southeast Asian countries with complete data for both 2018 and 2019.

In 2018, the Phi lippines’s

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 48.4540

external debt as a share of GNI was at 19.98 percent.

“In the case of the Philippines, the relatively low external debtto-GNI ratios attest to the government’s policy of sustaining its prudent borrowing activities,” said Finance Undersecretary and Chief Economist Gil Beltran. “ W hi le t he rea l it ies brought about by the health crisis have significantly changed the global economic and financial landscape, the government is stead-

fast in pursuing various reforms to raise much-needed revenues to stimulate the economy and at the same time enhance the fiscal space.”

A s a percentage of Ex ports of Goods and Ser v ices and Pr im a r y I ncome, t he cou nt r y ’s exter na l debt a lso fell to 54.4 percent in the first quarter this year from 54.8 percent in the same per iod last year, according to DOF.

PHL ENTERS GLOBAL TOURISM BODY’S ‘SAFE TRAVEL’ LIST

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

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HE Philippines has made it to the list of the World Tr ave l a nd Tou r i sm Council’s (WTTC’s) safe travel destinations, and was bestowed a stamp that makes it official as the 100th such destination.

In a news statement, the largest private sector organization of tourism and travel leaders and experts, said the Philippines was among the 100 destinations now using its “Safe Travels” stamp, which means the country has adopted health and safety protocols in keeping with global standards.

WTTC President and CEO Gloria Guevara, said: “The 100 destinations which now proudly use the stamp are working together to help rebuild consumer confidence worldwide. We welcome the Philippines, an incredible destination and home to some of the world’s most beautiful islands, as our 100th destination, as well as other

popular destinations around the globe such as Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and Kenya.”

This developed as the Department of Tourism (DOT) finally rolled out a list of open tourist sites in the country, on its Philippines Travel web site (https://bit.ly/32NxTf7).

A look through the list, however, showed that many of the sites were open only to tourists in the locality or region in which the site is located. No inbound travels are still allowed in the country except for overseas Filipino workers, returning overseas Filipinos, as well as members of the diplomatic corps and international humanitarian and relief organizations.

The only tourist sites “generally open to [the] public” were located in the Davao region e.g.

Davao Crocodile Park and Eden Nature Park (Davao City), Dahican Beach in Mati (Davao Oriental), Lake Leonard and Mt. Pattung/Sea of Clouds (Davao de Oro), and Samal Island and Tagum City (Davao del Norte).

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n JAPAN 0.4626 n UK 62.8836 n HK 6.2522 n CHINA 7.1633 n SINGAPORE 35.7041 n AUSTRALIA 35.4102 n EU 57.3938 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.9187

Source: BSP (September 18, 2020)

News A2 Monday, September 21, 2020

Sherwin: Replacement fuel to Malampaya needed now

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

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ITING the nearing depletion of gas output from the Malampaya natural gas field, the second-biggest source of electric power on Luzon island, the Senate Energy committee chief prodded government to secure replacement fuel to avert brownouts.

Sen. Win Gatchalian said the absence of replacement fuel could threaten energ y security and might lead to possible rotational brownouts.

Gatchalian also noted the need for a complementary law to cover requirements of the midstream natural gas industry, where several investors have forayed the past few years.

The Malampaya project has been supplying fuel to the Luzon electricity grid, servicing for nearly two decades about 21 percent of the national demand for electricity, he noted. It is expected to run dry by 2024.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy filed Senate Bill 1819 for the country to provide a national energy policy and framework for the development and regulation of the Philippine midstream natural gas industry.

“We’re racing against time. If we fail to act now, we could be experiencing anew a debilitating rotational brownout by 2024 once our power supply from the Malampaya gas field is depleted,” warned Gatchalian.

He cited the power crisis in the 1990s when Metro Manila and several provinces in the Luzon power

grid experienced rotating brownouts of up to four hours daily due to insufficient electrical generating capacity.

Gatchalian, meanwhile, noted the need for a complementary law to cover the aspects of the midstream natural gas industry, including the transportation, transmission, storage, and marketing of natural gas in its original or liquefied form or commonly known as liquefied natural gas or LNG. The midstream natural gas industry covers companies that specialize in operating tanker ships or marine vessels to deliver natural gas to LNG terminals, pipelines or transmission systems and storage facilities.

Several local and foreign companies have in the past expressed interest in putting up integrated LNG facilities in the country. Such facilities include storage, regasification, and transmission.

The LNG terminal projects should be in place before the anticipated depletion of gas output from Malampaya in 2024.

“The proposed Midstream Natural Gas Industry Development Act will encourage private capital and foster an open and fair competitive market while at the same time ensure safe, reliable and environmentally responsible operation of LNG terminals,” the senator said.

The proposed legal framework for the midstream natural gas industry will also ensure consumer protection as it will mandate a transparent and competitive pricing of services, Gatchalian said.

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Over 1K Pinoy nurses trained for German hospitals stranded in PHL

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By Recto Mercene

@rectomercene

ORE than a thousand Filipino skilled nurses who have been accepted to work in German hospitals remain stranded in the country since April due to the deployment ban on health workers, and risk losing those jobs altogether.

The ban was imposed by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Covid-19 and affirmed recently.

One of the requirements to be accepted in Germany is to be able to speak German. With lessons funded by German employers, these nurses studied the language in order to qualify. However, their proficiency to speak German has slowed down due to lack of practice, noted a veteran recruiter.

“Since these nurses have been out of work for the past two years and out of the national health-care system in preparation for their German job offers, finances of the nurses have also virtually dried up,” according to recruitment consultant Manny Geslani.

“Their German employers who funded their language studies and who sent them allowances to tide them over while waiting for the government to lift the deployment ban to Germany have grown tired of waiting,” he added.

The nurses took 10 to 12 months to study the language, with a few retakes, and have been issued visas for Germany.

“However, with the onset of the deployment ban for health-care workers [HCW], the nurses could no longer pursue their overseas travel.”

Right from the start, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. had opposed the deployment ban as unconstitutional, noting that those with already perfected contracts should not be held back from flying, as they have spent considerable effort and resources.

Moreover, he said, allowing nurses to honor their contracts boosts the country’s goodwill with other countries whose cooperation it has sought during the pandemic.

Senator JV Ejercito last week asked the IATF to lift the ban, noting, in a tweet, “Some facts regarding the issue on the ban on healthcare workers particularly nurses.”

He said there are more than half a million nurses in the country, but both public and private hospitals can only employ 89,000.

“It will be cruel not to let the 400 thousand nurses seek employment, currently idle, lift the ban,” Ejercito said.

In one of his tweets, Locsin revealed that nurses who have just graduated have to pay the hospital in order to gain experience.

The Filipino Nurses United on September 10 said that health-care workers had the right to pursue higher salaries overseas and that the Philippines would not have a shortage of nurses should it allow healthcare professionals to work abroad.

An article in The Diplomat said, “Nurses and medical technologists in the Philippines receive the lowest salaries in Southeast Asia,” quoting the data aggregator iPrice Group. The study found that experienced nurses make only around P40,381 ($831) per month.

The average monthly salary in local hospitals can be P10,000, or $206, according to the country’s labor department.

Policy decision

LABOR Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the overseas deployment ban on nurses hews to the government’s Covid-19 task force decision “to ensure that the country’s

health-care requirements are fully met.”

It was implemented by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) through its Governing Board Resolution No. 9 adopted in April, he said.

A netizen who said she belongs to a group of what they call Prisonurses tweeted Locsin: “Please help us, Sir, this deployment ban can ruin our dreams and our family’s future, and we did our application before the pandemic, there are jobs waiting for us abroad. I hope we would not get included in the list of unemployed.”

The Philippines and Germany have a government-to-government agreement for the deployment of skilled and qualified nurses to Germany, with the participation of the private sector.

Nurses in Germany earn at least €2 ,700 monthly or the equivalent of P160,000.

Geslani said there are more than 1,400 Filipino nurses currently working in Germany, “who are highly appreciated by their hospitals.”

Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (PASEI) President Raquel Bracero said there are about 2,000 nurses bound for Germany, the UK, Netherlands, US and Canada, “who are in the pipeline and ready to be deployed once the ban is lifted by the government.”

$37-M jet for govt command and control operations here

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HE brand-new Gulfstream G280 ordered by the military for its airborne command and control (C2) operations and for use by the government has been delivered and is awaiting its official turnover to the Philippine Air Force.

The high-speed business jet worth P1.9 billion flew in from the United States two days ago and landed at the Clark International Airport over the weekend, where it awaits a final inspection before it is officially accepted by the Air Force.

The jet, acquired by PAF under the Armed Forces of the Philippines Modernization Program, will serve as an airborne command and control post for both the military and

the civilian government in times of crisis. “[It] will primarily serve as a platform to carry our senior leaders and commanders in the event, for example, of a crisis situation,” Department of National Defense spokesman Arsenio Andolong had said in October last year after the contract for the acquisition of the jet was signed with Gulfstream Aerospace.

The G280, with an acquisition price of $36,999,916, including parts, tooling, and logistics support, was purchased by the Air Force under the foreign military sales program with the US government.

The jet can operate in short runways and can fly for eight con-

tinuous hours. It has a maximum range of 3,600 nautical miles at its long-range cruise speed of Mach 0.80 The Air Force earlier said that aside from C2, the G280 can be used for airborne early warning, medical evacuation, highaltitude atmospheric research and intelligence, sur veillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

As a command and control aircraft, it is equipped with extensive communications and monitoring equipment.

The new aircraft is seen to replace the ageing F-28 Fellowship jet VIP aircraft that is being operated by the Air Force’s 250th Presidential Airlift Wing. Rene Acosta

BIZ LEADERS ASK GOVT: KEEP EUROPE GSP PLUS Continued from A1

As such, the ECCP said the government should carry on with its dialogue with the EU for the continued grant of the GSP Plus. It is the hope of European investors here that through a negotiation, Manila and Brussels will arrive at an “optimal decision” to the benefit of workers and the economy of both parties.

Christopher Nelson, executive chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce Philippines, said this is not the right time for the country to surrender economic benefits such as the GSP Plus.

“Many countries are under pressure because of the Covid issue.

Every country is affected. Every country is trying to look at how they can deal with this. Trade is an important part of that. The government should try and work this for the Philippines to be able to keep those preferential arrangements,” Nelson said over the phone.

“I think it is a given that we should be looking at increasing trade, which is to the benefit of both parties, rather than decreasing it,” he emphasized.

Ortiz-Luis: Let DTI take over

AS for the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., its President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis Jr. said he hopes the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) takes over the issue from here. He lamented that the contrasting statements released by state officials and opposition figures only add fuel to the fire.

“Let DTI handle it. It’s a loss if the EU revokes our GSP Plus,” OrtizLuis argued.

The GSP Plus is a trade preference awarded by the European Union to developing economies, including the Philippines. The Philippines thereby enjoys exporting at least 6,274 products to Europe at zero tariff rate.

About 25 percent of the country’s exports to the EU are covered by the trade incentive. Last year Philippine shipments to EU nations declined 7 percent to $8.28 billion, from $8.9 billion in 2018, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Considering that a quarter of Philippine exports to EU is covered by the GSP Plus, this means some

$2.07 billion worth of products benefited from the trade privilege in 2019.

In exchange for the economic benefits, the Philippine government has to comply with 27 international core conventions on human rights, labor welfare, good governance and environmental protection.

The European Parliament last Thursday adopted a resolution to withdraw the Philippines’s trade benefits from the GSP Plus on the government’s alleged noncompliance w ith some of the protocols.

Aside from the longstanding concern on the war on drugs, EU parliamentarians raised issue against the nonrenewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise and the cyberlibel conviction of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa.

Philippine officials had earlier said the European parliamentarians’ demand smacks of intervention in Manila’s democratic processes—a stand that a senior diplomat, former ambassador to the UN Lauro Baja, reiterated at the weekend in a radio interview.

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BI to comply with COA directive on feeding detained foreigners

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

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HE Bureau of Immigration (BI) yesterday expressed its readiness to comply with the Commission on Audit’s (COA) directive for it to bid out the catering services for foreign nationals detained at the bureau’s holding facility at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig.

BI Spokesman Dana Sandoval made the statement after the COA flagged the agency’s spending last year of P5.816 million for the food supply of the detainees despite lack of a valid contract.

The COA also noted that the catering services were not part of the agency’s annual procurement plan for 2019.

Sandoval admitted that the basis of the accounting for paying the food is a memorandum of agreement executed between the caterer and the BI 10 years ago.

The cost of meals in the agreement is P60 per inmate per day.

Sandoval recounted that last year

COA issued an Audit Observation Memorandum directing the BI to terminate the MOA and have the service bid out instead.

The BI complied by including in the 2020 Annual Procurement Plan the budget for the food supply of its detainees “It has been included in the agenda for this year’s bids and awards committee but was delayed due to the pandemic. We are unable to discontinue the caterer’s service while nobody has been awarded the bid yet, because it would mean there would be no food served to the detainees, which would be inhumane,” Sandoval stressed.

“We respect the findings of the COA and we are already complying with its provisions. We believe that audits like this help provide the BI an opportunity to improve its systems and processes,” she added.

In its 2019 annual report on BI, the COA noted that payments to the caterer were not supported with necessary documents which made it difficult for the audit team to determine whether the expenses were aboveboard or not.

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Monday, September 21, 2020 A3

ADB chief: Globalization to return in another form

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

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SIAN Development Bank (ADB) President Masatsugu Asakawa said globalization is not dead given that recent border closures due to the pandemic are only temporary.

Asakawa said that with this, the ADB will promote regional cooperation and integration to help members seize the opportunity that “renewed globalization” can offer in a postpandemic “New Normal.”

He said the ADB will work with its member-countries “to secure more diversified value and supply chains, and to promote regional public goods for better collective prevention of disease outbreaks, mitigation of climate-change impacts and enhancement of the regional financial safety net.”

“While there are some who suggest that recent border closures and travel restrictions are signs that globalization has ground irreversibly to a halt, I do believe that globalization will return, but it will take a different shape,” Asakawa said.

Apart from this, the ADB chief said the multilateral development bank will increase its investments in health, education and social protection to address income inequality and poverty, which is expected to increase due to the pandemic.

The ADB said it will also increase efforts to tackle climate change in order to reach the goals established in its long-term Strategy 2030—to reach $80 billion in cumulative climate investments and 75 percent of the total number of committed operations by 2030.

The Manila-based lender also aims to invest in information technology and data for health; education; financing for micro, small, and medium enterprises; and remote work—while also addressing both the digital divide and cyber security.

The ADB said it will also help its members strengthen domestic resource mobilization through international tax cooperation, since all key areas of development require that governments improve their capacity to mobilize financial resources while managing debt sustainability.

The bank committed to support the efforts of its members to secure safe and effective vaccines, and to formulate strategies for equitable delivery.

In order to do this, the ADB said it will continue to strength-

en collaboration with the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Vaccine Alliance group GAVI, vaccine experts and pharmaceutical companies.

The ADB announced in April a $20-billion package to help its members address Covid-19. This included the following: rapid emergency grants and technical assistance to help governments meet urgent medical needs; a new Covid-19 Pandemic Response Option (CPRO), which is supporting countercyclical expenditure programs; and, assistance for the private sector.

The ADB has so far committed about $11.2 billion in financial and technical assistance to fight the pandemic. Working closely with development partners, ADB has also mobilized about $7.2 billion in cofinancing.

Carpio warns against Congress usurping SC authority House Committee on Energy

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio

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ET. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio warned of violation of the Constitution and national security risk if Congress enacts a law opening control and ownership of telecommunications companies (telcos) to foreigners.

“The Supreme Court is ‘supreme’ because it’s the final interpreter of words and phrases in the Constitution. But if Congress will pass a law interpreting and redefining these terms and phrases, you are taking away the power of the Supreme Court. This is a battle of turf between Congress and the Supreme Court. It is the Supreme Court that will decide and that Congress cannot reserve the power of the Supreme Court and to be the final arbiter of interpreting the constitution.”

Carpio said in a webinar organized by the Philippine Bar Association.

Moreover, he also stressed the

entry of local company Dito Telecommunity Corp. would be a threat to national security because of its partnership with Chinese state-owned China Telecommunications Corp, a parent company of China Telecom.

“Chinese law is mandating all Chinese companies, as citizens, to disclose to their intelligence services any information required by the intelligence service. That is a problem: that the Philippines is allowing ChinaTel to install telecom equipment in military camps and the fact that we have a conflict with China,” Carpio said.

“China is stealing territories such as the West Philippine Sea and our maritime zones. We do not have that problem with Globe, PLDT or with the Indonesians because we do not have territorial disputes with them, so this is unique to Dito and ChinaTel. We have to be very careful because we are fighting to preserve our territorial maritime zones in the West Philippine Sea and China is encroaching on our territory maritime

zones,” Carpio added.

However, Dito Chief Administrative Officer Adel A. Tamano recently downplayed apprehensions saying “the country is not at war with China.” Tamano added that the company’s equipment and devices are not security hazards.

Carpio also lamented the state of the country’s digital infrastructure stressing the main of challenge of telcos is “that they do not have enough towers because they cannot get permits from local governments.

But under the Bayanihan Act 2, all permits have been suspended except for the building permits.”

With the passage of Bayanihan Act 2, Carpio said the telcos can build all the towers that they want now to address the speed and connectivity issues.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) reported that 23 tower companies have been granted provisional certificates to participate in its accelerated tower program.

Del Rosario vows full rehab of Marawi within Duterte’s term

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HE Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) has committed that it will complete the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Marawi City within the term of the President.

In his Commission of Appointments hearing, DHSUD Secretary Eduardo D. del Rosario said the target completion dates for all Marawi projects is December 2021.

Del Rosario made a public declaration that by December 2021, 90 percent of all infrastructure projects in Marawi will be complete.

If there are slippages, he said the slippage could be made up for no later than March 2022.

“I reiterate that we will finish the rehabilitation of public infrastructures within the term of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. This is in compliance with the specific instruction of the President who said ‘I will see to it that Marawi will rise as a prosperous city again,’” del Rosario said.

In terms of funds, del Rosario said the Marawi rehabilitation funds for 2020, despite the pandem-

ic, were left intact. This assured the public that the work will be funded.

The funds, which were under the Office of Civil Defense, were not part of the DHSUD budget, which was cut in 2020.

Del Rosario said the agency was required by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to return 30 percent of its budget this year to help in the government’s antipandemic efforts.

With the reduction in budget, the DHSUD said the budget of the main office was reduced to P260 million from the P400 million that was granted for 2020.

Overall, when it came to Marawi rehabilitation funds, the total funding requirement for both Least Affected Area (LAA) and Most Affected Area (MAA) reached P60.506 billion.

Of this amount, P22.24 billion has already been released as of August 2020.

Government data showed that the total funding requirement for the LAA is P47.388 billion while the amount for the MAA reached P13.118 billion.

Of these amounts, the DHSUD

said P15.523 billion has been released for projects in the LAA and P6.718 billion for the MAA as of August 2020.

In a presentation, del Rosario said there are eight completed and ongoing projects in the LAA and two of these, the Philippine National Police Compac 1 center and the Marawi Fire Substation were completed in February 2018 and May 2019, respectively.

In the MAA, there are 10 projects and three have been completed. These are the Mapandi bridge completed in June 2019; Banggolo Bridge, September 2020; and Maritime outpost, July 2020.

Among the ongoing projects in the LAA, the Marawi Police Station has a completion rate of 69.41 percent; Correctional facility, 33 percent; and Salintubig Reservoir, 13.89 percent.

The ongoing projects in the MAA included the pumping bridge which is 79.9 percent complete; Marawi Museum, 24.28 percent; Peace Memorial Park, 17.01 percent; 24 barangay complexes, 16.87 percent; and Grand Padian Market, 16.42 percent, among others. Cai U. Ordinario

Moreover, the DICT said that the country needs over 50,000 towers to improve mobile connectivity in the whole country. Permitting timelines have also been limited to two weeks by drastic reforms in the permitting process.

University of the Philippines Professor Emeritus Gisela P. Concepcion said a robust cyber infrastructure is one of the paths to address the current environment dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

Meanwhile, Victor Andres C. Manhit, president of Stratbase ADR Institute, said government must prioritize and accelerate “the building of a robust and nationwide digital infrastructure to be accessible to all Filipinos.”

“A conducive policy environment that inspires confidence and boosts competitiveness will attract the right kind of investors who have the resources and technology to create long term positive impact to our economy and create the millions of jobs that our people need,” Manhit said.

OKs bill extending lifeline rates

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HE House Committee on Energy has endorsed for plenary approval a measure that would mandate the extension of the implementation of lifeline rates for lower-income consumers until 2021.

T his after the committee, chaired by Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco, approved the consolidated bill on House Bill (HB) 7059 and HB 7341 seeking to extend the implementation of the lifeline rate, amending for the purpose Section 73 of Republic Act 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).

Ve l a sco sa id t he proposa l would allow low-income Filipino households continued affordable access to electricity amid the pandemic.

“This is a welcome development for our lifeline consumers,” Velasco said. “Our poor households are the hardest hit during this time of the

pandemic and, with this measure, we hope to help them ease their financial burden.”

He said the amendments to the Epira law would extend until 2041 the lifeline rate for low-income Filipino households who are not capable of paying the full cost of electricity, as a form of relief assistance amid the ongoing public health crisis.

“This is a very significant form of assistance that we could provide to lifeline consumers since most of them are stay-at-home because of quarantine restrictions, and with that we expect the power consumption to go up. Many are working from home and children have online classes,” Velasco said.

“With the changes to Epira getting closer to being approved by Congress, we can assure low-income Filipino households of uninterrupted access to affordable electricity,” he added.

Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Popcom backs raising age of consent to 16

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HE Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) expressed support for legislation filed at the Senate to raise the age of consent to no less than 16 years old.

In the budget hearing of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), of which Popcom is one of seven attached agencies, Undersecretary Juan Antonio A. Perez III said raising the age of consent can help “scare off” older individuals from exploiting teenagers.

Perez said teenage pregnancy has been on the rise in the Philippines in the past few years and pregnancy among children aged 10 to 14 years old more than doubled in just over 10 years.

“We also noted that many of these pregnancies of these 10-year-old to 17-year-old girls, their partners are older than them; about 90 percent have partners that are older than them. So there is an element of power play, of exploitation here because it’s older men who are the partners of these young girls,” he said.

Perez added the Popcom is rec-

ommending that the Senate also look into including all minors who are giving birth, many of whom are part of the vulnerable population, to be given social protection.

He said when teenage girls become pregnant, they drop out from school. If their family receives a conditional cash transfer (CCT), this government assistance will stop with their pregnancy.

Pregnancy, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, is the fourth top reason why children from CCT families drop out from school.

The Popcom executive director said these children should then be given assistance not only during their pregnancy but until they reach the age of 25 to help them support themselves and their child.

“The study from the UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund] shows if you are a minor parent, it’s likely you will not complete high school and you will have lower wages because of your non-completion of school,” Perez said. “If they drop out of school out of pregnancy, then

they become even more vulnerable.”

He said their proposal is that once an adolescent has their own family, this family should be considered a different household and be given the full support of the CCT program.

Senate Finance Committee Chairperson Juan Edgardo M. Angara requested Perez to submit to the Senate a report on the number of teenage pregnancies in the country and their recommendations for future legislation.

Based on civil registry data, Perez said there were 62,000 teenage girls who gave birth in 2018. This was higher than the 60,000 recorded in 2017.

However, specifics such as reasons for the early pregnancy of these adolescents can only be found in the Young Adult Fertility Survey in 2013.

The data covered all regions nationwide and showed a doubling in terms of premarital sex among young adults, especially among the 15 to 19 years old. Between 2003 and 2013, premarital sex in this age group nearly doubled to 31 percent in 2013 from 20 percent in 2003. Cai U. Ordinario

Lawmaker urges SUCs to use ₧3 billion to integrate tech with education

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VICE chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations has urged the 112 state universities and colleges (SUCs) to use the P3-billion allocation under Republic Act 11494 to fast-track the integration of digital technologies

into their learning and administrative systems.

Makati City Rep. Luis Jose Angel N. Campos Jr., said Congress has earmarked that amount in fresh funding to enable “smart campuses” for the SUCs.

According to Campos, the new appropriations seek “to help SUCs quickly develop digitally connected campuses where devices and applications create new experiences that benefit students, faculty and their surrounding communities.”

“Students may soon be able t o at t e nd c l a s s ro om l e c t u re s remotely f rom t he comfor t of their dormitor y rooms and use their smartphones to access their grades, pay for meals in campus and borrow books from the li-

brar y,” the lawmaker said.

Campos also noted that in the National Expenditure Program for 2021, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is spending another P309 million to upgrade the password-free

Internet networks of SUCs. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) earlier said that only 20 percent of SUCs are equipped to conduct online classes. Some 1.3 million students are currently enrolled in all SUCs. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Agriculture/Commodities

A4 Monday, September 21, 2020 • Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

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Drop in 7-month banana exports worries DA

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

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HE Department of Agriculture (DA) has expressed concerns over the 10-percent decline in the country’s banana exports, saying international trade may be disrupted and Filipinos who depend on the crop could suffer losses if the slide in shipments continues.

Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said he was surprised by the decline in the Philippines’s exports to countries where consumers have disposable income and could purchase banana.

Dar said this may be due to the possibility that the Philippines is losing its share in traditional banana markets abroad.

During the general assembly of

the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) last Friday, Dar asked the group about the drop in exports.

“Given the current situation, our markets still have the disposable income to buy bananas, most especially [during the] pandemic. There is simply no reason for them not to buy. And yet, the Philippines is losing in the export war. What happened?”

Dar said in a statement.

“If left unchecked, this will reduce substantially the Philippines’s exports, disrupt trade in the international markets, and cause suffering on banana growers, farmers, workers and their families, which may lead to social unrest,” he added.

The BusinessMirror reported last Friday that the country’s banana exports from January to July fell by

10 percent to $1 billion from $1.1 billion, based on Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data (See, “PHL banana exports down 10 percent in 7 months,” in the BusinessMirror, September 18, 2020).

Total banana shipments during the seven-month period fell 4 percent to 2.439 million metric tons (MMT) from 2.541 MMT recorded last year, PSA data showed.

Dar also said the DA has allotted P100 million for the sustainable research and development (R&D) program to control Fusarium wilt and rehabilitate affected areas.

The R&D program will involve the establishment of a system to ensure the production via tissue culture of quality banana resistant varieties and distribute these to farmers to rehabilitate and replant disease-

damaged farms, according to the DA. “I challenge the [PBGEA] leadership to also put [up] a counterpart funding for the very research issues that you would like to pursue. I am not going to mention how much you will commit, but we will gladly welcome your share,” he said.

However, PBGEA, which accounts for about 50 percent of the country’s banana plantations, is lukewarm to the idea of matching the fund that the DA will allocate for the R&D program.

PBGEA Executive Director Stephen A. Antig told the BusinessMirror that it would be unfair to his group if only PBGEA would be asked to contribute to the R&D program, which is expected to benefit the entire local banana industry.

“If there are people that need the banana research institute, it would be

the small and medium growers. I did not mince words when I told [DA] for so long a time these growers have been piggy-backing on PBGEA,” Antig said.

“They are benefitting from the research and technology of PBGEA. Some of them are earning more than the members of PBGEA but they are not contributing even a little to that [banana research institute],” he added.

Antig said PBGEA member-companieshavetheirownlaboratoriesthatare attempting to a discover a Fusariumwilt banana variety as well as solutions against other banana diseases.

Contributing to the government’s R&D program for the banana sector, he said, would mean additional expenses for PBGEA members.

Antigsaidoneofthepossibleproposals his group is willing to consider is the imposition of an export levy for every

box of bananas that will be shipped out.

Part of the levy, he said, should fund the national R&D program.

“For example, all exporters shall give one peso or fifty centavos per box exported. Imagine, at a worst-case scenario wherein the industry will export 100 million boxes, then at P1 per box, that is already P100 million,” he said.

Antig said the DA could also consider shouldering the entire budgetary requirement for the Banana Research and Development Institute since it received additional funds under the Bayanihan 2 law.

He said the DA should consider pouring more money on industries where the country has competitive and comparative advantages, like banana, pineapple, and avocado, instead of commodities that do not have long-term economic benefit.

PHL enters global tourism body’s ‘safe travel’ list

Also “open for tourists” are El Kabayo Riding Stables, and the golf course at the Luisita Golf and Country Club in Tarlac.

Those open to tourists from general community quarantine (GCQ ) and modified GCQ areas are Las Casas de Acuzar in Bataan; several tourism establishments in the Clark free port and golf courses in Pampanga, along with the famous Bacolor Church.

Ocean Adventure in the Subic Bay free port in Zambales, made famous recently by the visit of Presidential

Spokesman Harry Roque’s “dolphin encounter,” is open to visitors from MGCQ areas who are going to its beaches, using its golf courses, and visiting the dolphin facility. Those staying more than three nights require a negative RT-PCR test results.

The web site’s tab on “Palawan” in the Mimaropa region, however, failed to list island destinations which are actually open to tourists on point-to-point travel. These include the islands where the El Nido Resorts Group operates, Pamalican Island which is managed

by Amanpulo, and Puerco Island, site of Banwa Resort.

A lphaland ’s Balesin Island Club on Polillo Island, Quezon, is open, based on social media posts of its guests. (See, “Leisure trips OK’d in playgrounds of the rich,” in the BusinessMirror, September 1, 2020.)

The site also fails to list requirements for those going to Tagaytay City in Cavite, which technically, is supposed to accept visitors from MGCQ areas only with health certificates or travel passes. Social media

was filled with photos of the traffic jam going to Tagaytay on September 13, causing a confusion as to who are allowed to do leisure travel.

Lawmakers hearing the 2021 budget proposal of the DOT last week requested that such a list of open travel destinations be published. The agency has been trying to get more tourist destinations to reopen, but local government chiefs have been hesitant and have requested for Covid-19 testing labs.

DOT chief thanks WTTC

MEANWHILE, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat was

pleased by WTTC’s recognition of the Philippines’s as a safe travel destination. “I wish to thank WTTC for recognizing our efforts of putting in place policies concerning health, safety and sanitation protocols, which we have benchmarked with global best practices and aligned with WTTC’s standards.”

She added, “The Safe Travels stamp will further encourage our stakeholders to adhere to health and safety standards, and will also help us rebuild traveller confidence, so we can restart tourism and preserve and sustain jobs.”

The DOT has a P1.44-billion

continued from a1

budget next year to promote the Philippines and develop a brand campaign, most of which will be spent in trying to persuade locals to travel around the country. (See, “DOT only has P1.4 billion to promote PHL as pandemic guts tourism,” in the BusinessMirror, September 18, 2020.)

“As the stamp continues to gain in popularity,” said Romulo Puyat, “travelers will more easily be able to recognize the destinations worldwide which have adopted the new set of global protocols, encouraging the return of ‘Safe Travels’ around the world.”

PHL external debt position lowest in Asean 5 “The decline is due primarily to public sector debt which dropped from $40.13 billion to $38.3 billion. Compared with two decades ago, when the country was recovering from the Asian financial crisis, the external debt ratio in 2020 was significantly lower at 51.2 percent of the debt-exports ratio in 2000,” Beltran said.

The country’s debt situation, he added, is “crucial” at a time when

countries scramble for funds to fuel economic recovery in the face of a slowing global economy and dampening of investment activities resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“While uncertainties abound, debt metrics are among the important indicators being watched by both domestic and international investors, along with credit rating agencies,” he said.

As the government ramps up its

continued from a1 borrowings to cover the budget deficit from increased spending amid revenue decline, the national government expects its outstanding debt to reach P10.16 trillion this year, up by 31.42 percent from last year’s amount.

The government also sees the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio this year rising to 53.91 percent of GDP—a level it has not seen in over a decade— from a record low of 39.6 percent of GDP last year.

Paolo Duterte sends signals of moving vs Alan Cayetano continued from a8 If the members of Congress will push for a change in House leadership, he said, “obviously I would be among the casualties because I am a deputy speaker. I am ready to accept the consequences.”

However, Duterte said he told his co-lawmakers that “I did not want to get involved.”

He continued: “As much as I am part of Congress with a duty to be involved in the goings on inside, I cannot discount the fact that I am a Duterte. Although I am an ex officio member being a Deputy Speaker, I have respectfully and clearly told them that their concern is something that I would rather stay away from — out of delicadeza because my father is the President.”

But as Congress “continues to be hounded by the issue of budget— something that finds its way up to

the current House leadership, how it treats its members, how it approves allocations and budgets with fairness or lack of it,” Duterte sought to reiterate his position. “I do not want to get involved; however, I wish to help my fellow lawmakers find answers to their questions or remedies to the budget that they proposed for their people.”

At last week’s Department of Public Works and Highways budget hearing, Negros Oriental Rep. Arnulfo Teves questioned the agency’s basis for the budget allocation per district of congressmen.

Teves also asked the agency to submit the list of districts with highest and lowest allocation next year, saying his district will only receive almost P2 billion while Taguig and Camarines Sur are getting P8 billion and P11.8 billion, respectively.

For his part, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte accused Teves Jr. of being a “blab” or rumormonger in denouncing supposedly disproportionate allocations of public works funds in certain congressional districts. He said this was part of a “sinister ploy” by a pro-Velasco bloc to “wreck” the House leadership’s target to wrap up deliberations on the 2021 budget plan by end-September.

Villafuerte, who represents CamSur’s second district, said Teves himself has betrayed the insidious agenda of theVelascocampincandidlyadmitting as “hearsay” the alleged information reaching him that CamSur, with five legislative districts; and Taguig City, which has two districts (one of which is represented by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano), have respective allocations of P11.8 billion and P8 billion in the proposed 2021 budget of the DPWH.

Red tape spurs new panel in Congress Cayetano also said the President was “very clear” that the enemy in this time of pandemic is not just the novel coronavirus but also “the heartless bureaucracy that has made life unbearable for many of our kababayans.”

Sotto affirms Duterte’s points

DISCUSSING what transpired at that meeting in an interview with DWIZ, Sotto recalled Duterte signalling an inclination to ease rules for investors. “He wanted a situation where, after applying for a permit, one could get it quickly, let’s say three days. and of the agency in question does not grant the permit, it is deemed

approved,” Sotto added, in a mix of English and Filipino.

The President was told, Sotto said, that certain investors want to enter the Philippines, but are looking at “either Vietnam, Thailand, or Philippines.”

Sotto recalled pointing out that those two Asean countries have “military rule law style,” which investors must rethink. “Ours is democratic so it’s really better for them to come here. Maybe that’s why the President wants to further ease the setup for investors,” Sotto added.

Meanwhile, Romualdez said the House is in full support of the marching orders from the Presi-

continued from a8

dent to go all out in helping curb red tape and corruption in all levels of governance.

“The leaders of the House of Representatives are in full agreement with President Duterte. We are ready to comply to with his orders to prioritize the passage of legislative measures that would cut red tape and corruption,” Romualdez, chairman of the powerful House Committee on Rules, said.

“We will also discuss what are the other pressing complaints from the public that the House may need to address through the exercise of our legislative function,” Romualdez added. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz, Butch Fernandez

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

US says UN sanctions on Iran are back as allies, rivals object

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he US said international sanctions on Iran are automatically “snapping back” in a move that most nations say the Trump administration doesn’t have the authority to demand since quitting a 2015 nuclear deal two years ago.

“Sanctions are being re-imposed on Iran,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a statement late on Saturday. “The United States expects all UN Member States to fully comply with their obligations to implement these measures.”

That’s unlikely to happen.

Since quitting the nuclear accord in 2018, the Trump administration has plowed ahead with efforts to undermine the deal, ratcheting up sanctions on the Islamic Republic and even threatening allies if they do business with Tehran.

Yet instead of rallying allies to its side, the US moves have united partners like the UK, France and Germany with Russia and China, all of whom have sought to salvage the accord. Their support for the deal has left the US isolated on the United Nations Security Council, and most nations say America has no authority to demand the return of international sanctions since it’s no longer a party to the deal.

The US asserts that all of the UN resolutions on Iran that were in place before the 2015 deal—from a ban on arm deals to restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile activity and its nuclear enrichment—should have gone back into effect as of 8 p.m. New York time on Saturday.

To enforce those measures, if countries like Russia and China disregard them, the US could use tools such as secondary sanctions on shippers, insurers and banks and may even threaten interdictions of ships at sea.

“In the coming days, the United States will announce a range of additional measures to strengthen implementation of UN sanctions and hold violators accountable,” Pompeo said in his statement. “Our maximum pressure campaign on the Iranian regime will continue

until Iran reaches a comprehensive agreement with us to rein in its proliferation threats and stops spreading chaos, violence, and bloodshed.” The US says that while it isn’t a party to the nuclear deal, the broader UN Security Council resolution that enshrined the accord doesn’t require it to still be in the agreement.

The dispute has paralyzed the UN Security Council and threatened lasting damage to the global body. Most Security Council nations appear to be trying to avoid any direct confrontation on the issue until after the US presidential elections in November. Democrat Joe Biden has said he would seek to return to the nuclear deal and build on it if elected as US president in November.

“I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy,” Biden wrote in an op-ed for CNN last week. “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.”

The US move comes ahead of Trump’s expected address on Tuesday to the UN General Assembly, which is being held virtually this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump may use that address to renew his past denunciations of Iran and vow to enforce the renewed sanctions.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump called the Iran nuclear accord the “worst deal ever,” saying it didn’t do enough to stop Tehran’s ambitions for nuclear weapons. But the president has also said Iran is eager to have talks with the US and will do so soon after the November election, a statement officials in Tehran have repeatedly rejected.

Instead, Iranian officials say, the US needs to lift existing sanctions before any talks begin.

Earlier on Saturday, Iran ridiculed the US bid to forcibly restore sanctions, and said it would set Washington’s military outposts in the Persian Gulf “on fire at once” if its adversary tried to start a war.

Bloomberg News

Trump backs proposed deal to keep TikTok US operations

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EW YORK—President Donald Trump said on Saturday he's given his "blessing" to a proposed deal that would see the popular video-sharing app TikTok partner with Oracle and Walmart and form a US company.

Trump has targeted Chinese-owned TikTok for national security and data privacy concerns in the latest flashpoint in the rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.

The president's support for a deal comes just a day after the Commerce Department announced restrictions that if put in place could eventually make it nearly impossible for TikTok's legions of younger fans to use the app.

Trump said if completed the deal would create a new company likely to be based in Texas.

“I have given the deal my blessing,” he said. “If they get it done, that's great. If they don't, that's OK too.”

Trump said the new company will be hiring at least 25,000 people and making a $5 billion contribution to a fund dedicated to education for Americans. "That's their contribution that I've been asking for," he said.

TikTok said Oracle and Walmart could acquire up to a cumulative 20 percent stake in the new company in a financing round to be held before an initial public offering of stock, which Walmart said could happen within the next year. Oracle's stake would be 12.5 percent, and Walmart's would be 7.5 percent, the companies said in separate statements.

The deal will make Oracle responsible for hosting all TikTok's US user data and securing computer systems to ensure US national security requirements are satisfied. Walmart said it will provide its e-commerce, fulfillment, payments and other services to the new company.

"We are pleased that the proposal by TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart will resolve the security concerns of the US administration and settle questions around TikTok's future

in the US," TikTok said in a statement.

Trump has been demanding that the US operations of TikTok be sold to a US company or else be shut down. He's also been targeting WeChat, another Chinese-owned app.

The administration contends that the user data collected by the two apps could be shared with the Chinese government. On Saturday, Trump said the US-based TikTok "will have nothing to do with China." TikTok says it has 100 million US users.

On Friday, the US Commerce Department said it would bar TikTok from US app stores as of late Sunday. Further restrictions that would prevent TikTok from accessing essential Internet services in the country would go into effect on November 12. Commerce said Saturday that it will delay the barring of TikTok from US app stores until September 27 at 11:59 p.m.

Commerce is imposing similar restrictions on WeChat, although all of the restrictions on that app are set to go into effect on Sunday night at 11:59 p.m.

Earlier Saturday, WeChat users asked a US judge to block the government's actions, saying they would restrict free speech. WeChat is an all-in-one app with instant-messaging, social media and other communication tools. The US government argued that it is not restricting free speech because WeChat users still "are free to speak on alternative platforms that do not pose a national security threat."

US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler asked lawyers for the government and WeChat users whether the prohibitions would cripple WeChat as soon as the clock ticked from Sunday night into Monday morning without a resolution. An attorney for the government said they would likely lead to a "degradation" of WeChat over time.

Judge Beeler did not rule immediately on the motion. AP

Monday, September 21, 2020

A5

US cases breach 6.7 million as deaths approach 200,000

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S coronavirus cases increased by 49,299 on Friday, a 0.7 percent increase that compares with a 0.6 percent daily average over the previous week. It was the secondhighest number of new infections on a single day in the last two weeks.

Another 932 people died of Covid-19.

Confirmed cases nationwide since the start of the pandemic rose to more than 6.7 million, whi le deaths nationw ide ap proached 200,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg.

California’s latest numbers climbed above the 14-day averages for both new cases and deaths, according to the health department’s website. The state reported 4,304 new coronavirus cases, versus the 14-day average of 3,350. The number of deaths increased by 100, compared with a 91 average. There have been 14,912 fatalities in all.

Florida reported the most new cases and the highest positive-test rate among residents since September 10, according to a state Department of Health report that reflects data received through Friday. Test positivity increased to 4.5 percent from 4.1 percent a day earlier.

Cases, including people diagnosed with Covid-19 who don’t reside in Florida, increased by 3,573 to 681,233. Virus-related deaths among residents declined for the second consecutive day to 67, bringing the total to 13,287.

Global update:

UK cases exceed 4,000 for second day

The UK reported 4,422 more cases

on Saturday, the second consecutive day with the most new infections since May 8. Another 27 people died within 28 days of testing positive.

UK cases have surged in the last two weeks, prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to warn that tighter restrictions on public life may be needed.

The country is facing a “perfect storm” after easing controls over the summer, former government adviser Neil Ferguson told the BBC on Saturday. The government needs to resume some nationwide measures “sooner rather than later” to prevent a new surge leading to more deaths, said Ferguson, an Imperial College London professor whose modeling led to the UK lockdown in March.

Meanwhile, the UK will introduce fines of as much as 10,000 pounds ($12,917) for those violating self-isolation rules, local media reported, as the government steps up efforts to contain the latest surge in coronavirus cases.

The Telegraph reported that fines for those who refuse to selfisolate after being asked to do so start at 1,000 pounds and can go up to 10,000 pounds for repeat offenders. Police will be ordered to patrol areas with the highest

infection to make sure people are complying with the new laws, the paper reported.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is also considering several proposals to ease the latest surge. Under consideration is a three-week national shutdown of pubs, bars and restaurants, The Telegraph said. Johnson is also considering raising the 100 pound fine for breaking the rule of six to as much as 1,000 pounds for firsttime offenders. Announcement of new curbs could come as early as Tuesday.

Cathay flight suspension after infections found

Cathay Pacific said in a statement that five passengers from India who were on a Cathay Dragon flight between Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong on Sept. 18 tested positive for Covid-19, even after they submitted negative nucleic acid tests before their trip. The passengers were earlier on an India Express flight.

Hong Kong authorities will bar passenger flights from Kuala Lumpur that are operated by the airline for two weeks, leading Cathay Dragon to suspend the service until Oct. 3, according to the statement.

South Korea cases decline

The country reported 82 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, below 100 for the first time since August 12. Total infections reached 22,975. Yonhap reported earlier that the government will announce whether it will maintain Level 2 distancing rules for regions outside the bigger Seoul area at 4:30 p.m.

Sunday local time.

Brazil cases steady

Brazil reported 33,057 cases, a 0.7 percent rise in line with the average daily increase in the pre-

vious seven days. Total cases are 4,528,240. The nation reported 739 more deaths, for a total of 136,532.

France hits another record since lockdown

Fr ance ’s d a i ly coron av i r u s cases surged to the highest since the national lockdown ended in May. Another 13,498 cases were reported on Saturday, the second straight day over 13,000.

The higher numbers ref lect to some degree increased testing, now five times the level performed in May to over one million a week. But the pace of infections is at its highest since the start of the outbreak, based on rolling 7-day data that smooths out reporting spikes.

Authorities have been calling on the population to step up social distancing measures as the number of clusters has been increasing in past weeks, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire became on Friday the country’s most senior official to become infected.

Italy deaths return to July level

Italy reported 24 new coronavirus deaths on Saturday, more than doubling the 10 recorded the day before to levels not seen since July.

While new cases declined by almost 300 to 1,638, the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care at hospitals rose by seven to 215, according to health authorities. That compares with a peak of more than 4,000 ICU patients in April.

Saudi Arabia has 28 more deaths, Kuwait cases rise

Saudi Arabia recorded 551 new Covid-19 cases and 28 deaths on Saturday, the health ministry said. Kuwait had 521 new infections and one death. Bloomberg News

Protesters in Thailand reinstall plaque symbolizing democracy

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ANGKOK—Anti-government demonstrators occupying a historic field in the Thai capital on Sunday installed a plaque symbolizing the country's transition to democracy to replace the original one that was mysteriously ripped and stolen three years ago, as they vowed to press on with calls for new elections and reform of the monarchy.

The mass student-led rally that began Saturday is the largest in a series of protests this year, with thousands camping overnight at Sanam Luang field near the royal palace. On Sunday, they began marching to an undisclosed location, saying they want to hand over a petition to the king's adviser.

A group of activists drilled a hole in front of a makeshift stage in Sanam Luang and laid down a round brass plaque, commemorating a 1932 revolution that changed Thailand from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

“At the dawn of September 20, here is where the people proclaim that this country belongs to the people,” read part of the inscription on the plaque. In April 2017, the original plaque vanished from Bangkok's Royal Plaza and was replaced by one praising the monarchy.

"The nation does not belong to only one person, but belongs to us all. Therefore, I would like to ask holy spirits to stay with us and bless the people's victory," student leader Parit "Penguin" Chirawak told the crowd.

Another activist, Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul, said their demands do not propose getting rid of the monarchy. "They are proposals with good intentions to make the institution of the monarchy remain graciously above the people under democratic rule."

Still, such calls took the nation by surprise.

Protesters' demands seek to limit the king's powers, establish tighter controls on palace finances and allow open discussion of the monarchy. Their boldness was unprecedented, as the monarchy is considered sacrosanct in Thailand with a harsh law that mandates a three- to 15-year prison term for defaming it.

Organizers had predicted that as many as

Pro-democracy student leaders install a plaque declaring “This country belongs to the people” at the Sanam Luang field during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand on Sunday, September 20, 2020. Thousands of demonstrators turned out Saturday for a rally to support the student-led protest movement's demands for new elections and reform of the monarchy. AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit

50,000 people would take part in the weekend's protest, but Associated Press reporters estimated that around 20,000 people were present by Saturday evening.

“By holding their protest on Sanam Luang—a long-time site of recreation and protest for the people, taken over in recent years by the monarchy—the protestors have won a significant victory,” said Tyrell Haberkorn, a Thai studies scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Their resounding message is that Sanam Luang, and the country, belong to the people.”

The crowds were a disparate batch. They included an LGBTQ contingent waving iconic rainbow banners while red flags sprouted across the area, representing Thailand's Red Shirt political movement, which battled the country's military in Bangkok's streets 10 years ago.

There were skits and music, and speakers gave fiery speeches late Saturday accusing the government of incompetence, corruption in the military and failing to protect women's rights.

At least 8,000 police officers were reportedly deployed for the event.

"The people who came here today came here peacefully and are really calling for democracy," said Panupong Jadnok, one of the protest leaders.

Their core demands were the dissolution of parliament with fresh elections, a new constitution and an end to intimidation of political activists.

They believe that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander led a 2014 coup toppling an elected government, was returned to power unfairly in last year's general election because the laws had been changed to favor a pro-military party. Protesters say a

constitution promulgated under military rule is undemocratic.

The students are too young to have been caught up in the sometimes violent partisan battles that roiled Thailand a decade ago, said Kevin Hewison, a University of North Carolina professor emeritus and a veteran Thai studies scholar.

"This is why they look and act differently and why they are so confounding for the regime," he said. "What the regime and its supporters see is relatively well-off kids turned against them and this confounds them."

The appearance of the Red Shirts, while boosting the protest numbers, links the new movement to mostly poor rural Thais, supporters of former populist billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a 2006 coup. Thaksin was opposed by the country's traditional royalist establishment. AP

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Monday, September 21, 2020 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

For a better Philippines

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ince the middle of March, we have all endured physical hardships that commonly only happen simultaneously during wartime. The list is long: restricted movement and travel, businesses shuttered, dwindling financial resources, goods shortages, illness, and death. The psychological pain has been just as great: fear, helplessness, confusion, frustration, stress and anger.

Emotionally we have seen our normal routine ripped away and replaced with a lack of direction and boredom. All the plans and resolutions we made for the year were smashed and we are still trying to figure out what to do next. It is as if we all have had six months of our lives ripped out. Perhaps the worst part is that we will never see a headline that reads: “It’s Official: War Is Over!”

In the face of all this adversity though, there is also another shared experience. We have probably spent more time with our families in the past six months than we have in the past six years. In the Burmese language there is a proverb: “In time of test, family is best.”

Today marks the beginning of the 28th National Family Week through the National Committee on the Filipino Family (NCFF), chaired by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

The theme this year is “Tungo sa Maginhawa, Matatag at Panatag na Pamilyang Pilipino.” For this year’s celebration, the NCFF adopted the sub-theme, “Mapagkalingang Pagtugon at Proteksyon sa Bawat Pamilyang Pilipino Mula sa Mga Suliranin sa Gitna ng Pandemyang Covid-19.”

The NCFF noted, “The theme emphasizes the importance of providing Filipino families with compassionate response on economic shocks and protection from violence in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also an appeal to strengthen Filipino families especially that the family sector faces many social problems amid this crisis, including unplanned pregnancies, loss of jobs and livelihood, mental-health problems, and gender-based violence, among others.”

Naturally, the usual commemorations will not be conducted in the face of restrictions on face-to-face activities. For 2020, the NCFF will use online platforms to promote and advocate for stronger protected Filipino families through the #ProtekadongPamilyaSaCovid-19 social-media campaign.

“We hope to remind all Filipino families nationwide to reflect on the importance of their families in their lives and to take the time and effort to strengthen family relationships and values so they can come out of this crisis as a stronger and more intact unit.”

National Family Week is an appeal to all government agencies and private organizations to be relentless in the work of strengthening and promoting the unity, solidarity, and stability of the Filipino family.

The national motto of the Philippines is “Maka-Diyos, Maka-tao, Makakalikasan at Makabansa.” But the reality is that we are not going to embody those ideas by way of our institutions. We are not going to move in that direction through government or our agenda-driven politics. Religion is helpful only as well as its tenets are practiced.

For too many, we are only a “people” and a “nation” as it serves our personal interests.

It is only a strong family that can provide the love, support and a framework of values to each of its members that then supports a strong people and nation. A “Better Philippines” starts with the Filipino family.

Since 2005

Allocation of Bayanihan 2 funds Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

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he long wait is over. President Duterte finally signed Bayanihan 2 (Bayanihan to Recover as One Act) into law on September 11. With this new law, P165.5 billion will be used to strengthen the country’s response to the pandemic, including a P25.5 billion standby fund. Here is how the money is being allocated.

A huge part of the Bayanihan 2 funds (P39.472 billion) will go to the capital infusion for government financial institutions. The agriculture sector will get around P24 billion, while P13.5 billion will be used for health-related responses, including the retroactive payment of the P100,000 hazard duty pay for health workers effective February 2020, continuous employment of existing emergency health personnel, augmentation of operations for DOH hospitals, and risk allowances for health workers attending to Covid-19 patients.

P13 billion will be used to implement a cash-for-work program and

Thomas M. Orbos

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tion of quarantine and isolation facilities, dormitories for frontliners, and the expansion of government hospital capacity, and P3 billion will be used to procure face masks, personal protective equipment, and face shields.

Around P4.5 billion has been set aside for the construction and maintenance of isolation facilities, including billing of hotels, food and transportation under the government’s Covid response program. P3 billion will be used to assist state universities and colleges in the development

Smart nationally equals smart city

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other support programs, and P9.5 billion was earmarked for the transportation sector. Like the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, the new law provides for an emergency subsidy of P5,000 to P8,000 for affected low-income households in areas under lockdown and those households with recently returned overseas Filipino workers.

At least P6 billion will go to Department of Social Welfare and Development programs, P4 billion for the Department of Education’s alternative learning program, and P4.10 billion will go to our tourism industry. Another P5 billion will be spent for the hiring of contact tracers, P4.5 billion for the construc-

A huge part of the Bayanihan 2 funds (P39.472 billion) will go to the capital infusion for government financial institutions. The agriculture sector will get around P24 billion, while P13.5 billion will be used for health-related responses, including the retroactive payment of the P100,000 hazard duty pay for health workers effective February 2020, continuous employment of existing emergency health personnel, augmentation of operations for DOH hospitals, and risk allowances for health workers attending to Covid-19 patients.

U

nfortunate is the recent news on the ranking of Manila in the 2020 Global Smart City Index. Conducted yearly by the Institute for Management and Development, this year saw Manila slipping to 104 out of 110 countries worldwide and last when compared to our Asian neighbors. Though unfairly that it was Manila the city that was surveyed, it would be right to assume that this would also reflect how other Metro Manila cities would fare. I am sure this survey would cause concern for all city administrators in the metropolis, but it is not entirely their fault. Rather than acting in haste to address the need to improve their smart city conditions, it would be more prudent for all of us to take a step back and reflect on the situation.

What makes a smart city? Smart city broadly refers to how a city, utilizing modern technology and proper governance, provides better rendering of services to its citizenry.

In this survey, five key areas were highlighted, namely—health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance. In addition, the cities were surveyed in light of the pandemic. With reference to Manila, road congestion was the top-of-mind concern with 54 percent, followed closely by the dispensation of services. Also highlighted were the low scores on air pollution, unemployment and health services.

Looking at the survey criteria, one can understand the reasons why Manila failed, as well as why our other cities in the metropolis would also fail. One, the indicated areas of city services such as transport and traffic management; utility management—energy, solid waste and water; health services as well as the availability of the needed technology to support such smart city applications are built in our national policy DNA and not within the control of the metro local governments.

No matter how our metro cities would like to advance themselves to become “smarter,” their latitude

What makes a smart city? Smart city broadly refers to how a city, utilizing modern technology and proper governance, provides better rendering of services to its citizenry.

In this survey, five key areas were highlighted, namely—health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance. In addition, the cities were surveyed in light of the pandemic.

in doing so is hampered by the national policies that govern such concerns. Just take a look at this: metro transport concerns are decided on the national level. Localities where such transport corridors will be built are not involved in the planning.

Whether it be the planned subway, the extension of the airports, or even just the regular granting of jeepney franchises, there is no requirement for prior approval of any city council, or even metro-wide in the case of the MMDA. And this is not limited to transport. We can very well see this in the granting of utility franchises—water, electricity as well as telcos. True, we understand that there are major concerns that needed to be resolved nationally especially in Metro Manila, but it would be more effective if the voice of the locality that is directly affected be primarily considered.

Second, what the national government can do is to provide guidance or the “roadmap” insofar as these

of smart campuses, P1 billion is being set aside as scholarship fund of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and P600 million will be forwarded as subsidies and allowances for qualified students in both public and private elementary schools, high schools, and colleges, whose families were affected by work stoppage due to the lockdowns. P300 million will be spent as subsidies and allowances of displaced teaching and non-teaching personnel (including a one-time cash aid for them), and P100 million has been earmarked for the training and subsidies of tourist guides.

At least P2 billion will be used to subsidize payment of interest on local government unit loans from Land Bank and Development Bank of the Philippines, P1.5 billion will be used to assist the LGUs, P820 million will go to affected overseas Filipino workers, and P180 million will serve as allowance of national athletes and coaches. P15 million will be used to establish a research facility in UP Diliman, P10 million was set aside to carry out Covid-19 research, and P2.5 million will enable the Professional Regulatory Commission to facilitate computerbased licensure exams.

concerns are charted out and applied locally. Yes, we have national masterplans for the longest time but we have yet to see them being implemented cohesively through succeeding administrations. In doing so, what we achieve is a continuous hodgepodge of improvements that are not part of a big picture, made worse as they become subjected to the ever-changing political winds every time a new administration comes in. In the meantime, we have a metro authority—the MMDA that we all know we need yet until now has only been the subject of legislative discussions in making it stronger.

Smart cities are needed and are the way forward in light of an unpredictable and uncertain world.

We, as a country, need to be “smart” in our national smart city policies; get our act together as they say.

Without touching on the subject of federalism, we need to re-engineer our national DNA, develop a master plan, adhere to such national master plan while allowing independence of our metro cities to grow and chart their own destinies guided by national policies.

We need to be “smart” nationally for smart cities to happen.

Thomas “Tim” Orbos was formerly with the DOTr and the MMDA. He has completed his graduate studies at the McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University and is an alumnus of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He can be reached via e-mail at thomas_orbos@sloan.mit.edu

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The bogusness and normalness of Covid-19 data

His eyes 24/7 Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

Luis F. Dumlao, Ph.D.

EAGLE WATCH

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he pandemic is terrible obviously because of the more than 4,000 deaths and over 275,000 infections, and the socioeconomic hurt it brings upon more than 100 million Filipinos (numbers as of September 17, 2020). However, the pandemic is as terrible as much as its statistics are important to scientists.

For example, knowing the number of new positives per day gives us the rate of infection, the number of recoveries per day gives us the rate in which patients heal, and the difference between the two gives us the number of current active patients of Covid-19. Knowing the daily statistics, the said numbers will then enable scientists to track long term trend, roughly conclude whether the numbers are picking up, reaching to peak of the wave, or declining.

But how reliable are the statistics on new positives? Bill Gates as early as May once talked on how reliable the US Covid-19 statistics is, to which he simply called it as “bogus.” He called it “bogus” because the time one is tested to the time one gets the result was three to four days which he argued as too long. The reasoning is that if one is tested on a Sunday, either a person infected can have easily spread the disease to others by Wednesday by the time one finds the positive result. Or alternatively, a person not infected can already capture the disease from others by Wednesday by the time one finds out the result is negative.

How reliable is the Department of Health statistics on new positives? The daily report typically explicitly states that for every 100 new positives, about 80 has been tested the past one to two weeks and that the rest were tested as way back as March. One to two weeks certainly is longer than Gates’ threshold of bogusness. The new positives whose tests were conducted months back must be beyond bogus.

How reliable are the statistics on new recoveries? While this author does not have a measure for bogusness on recoveries, statisticians have some general notion of what is “normal” data. Looking at the past 100 days, the average number of recoveries per day has been 1,816.

Some might think of it too big, while some too small. The reason why people’s opinions on the average number varies is because of the wide fluctuation of number of recoveries per day. For example, the smallest number of recoveries per day was 15 recorded on August 7 while the biggest number was 40,377 recorded on Sunday, August 16.

(Digressing in behalf of wonk statistics: calculating for the aver-

age which is 1,816 and the standard deviation which is 6,077 and one can say that there is only 2.5 percent chance that the number of recoveries per day can exceed 1,816 + 1.96 ´ 6,077 = 13,400).

What does wonk statistics say?

If data is to be described as normal, then the number of days that recoveries exceed 13,400 can be two-and-a-half per 100 days only.

It turned out to be double, that is, it exceeded in five over 100 days.

Taking out those five anomalous days from data, the average number of recoveries per day becomes 507 while the average for just the five anomalous days is 26,673.

Clearly, those five days must be so extreme to distort and push up the entire average to 1,816. This indicates that data, to begin with, is not normal. So, what if it is not “normal”? The fact that data is not normal deems most of the tools used in intermediate statistics textbooks useless. Hence, there will only be limited if any scientific methodologies to conclude whether the numbers are picking up, reaching to peak of the wave, or declining.

What if for some reason there are days that just randomly have excessive number of recoveries?

Consider the following. The last four of the five times that the number of recoveries per day exceed 13,400 occurred in the past four Sundays; 23,000 on September 6, 22,000 on August 30, 17,000 on August 23, and 40,000 on August 16. Urban legend says that Sunday is the best day to recover from all the hard work and partying from the rest of the week.

Could it be that Covid-19 patients are suddenly recovering on Sundays after getting sick from the rest of the week? That would be silly. The anomalous days falling on Sundays cannot be random.

The only non-Sunday that the number of recoveries exceed 13,400 was on a Friday, July 30. Does it have to do with it being on the eve of Eid al-Adha, the feast of St. Ignatius, or the beginning of weekend? Probably not. Maybe that day was the only legitimate “random” day to have bigger number of recoveries than usual.

The author is the Dean of the John Gokongwei School of Management, Ateneo de Manila University

I

asked students how they have managed online classes thus far. Short of saying revolutionary, most of them say that online learning is disruptive and extremely challenging! Aside from not being used to the virtual setup, the lack of a peer group support system makes it more difficult to absorb the topics discussed through a laptop or smartphone. Students need the theoretical education as well as the social experience in schools. An effective learning environment is not limited to just a professor-student interaction. It also needs some peer-to-peer relationships where students learn what teachers don’t teach them inside the classroom. The biggest challenge, I think, when it comes to online classes is the ability to test whether students truly understand the lesson. And that they learn life lessons not part of the regular curriculum or syllabus. Integrity is one of such lessons.

When I was a cadet at USMA, every time we are required to pass a written work, such as a thesis or long paper, we attest to a standard language that acknowledges everything is our own work except... (indicate attribution like proofreading). All work done without the presence of a professor are submitted with this acknowledgment, the falsity of which is punishable under the Cadet Honor Code. Similarly, Ateneo Law School recently came up with an Integrity Pledge in light of the possibility that students may not rely on their own abilities during online exams. It is quite lengthy and ends with a declaration, “All the work will be my own. I give my word. And my word will always be my bond.”

During online recitations, law students can get creative and help each other out through a variety of “cheat” schemes, like open notes or text messages from classmates.

Some smart gadgets can do more than just the usual aids. After all, some law professors are not as tech savvy to understand the power of online chats or asking Google. So, when I started online classes last month, I required all cameras to be on, microphones muted, and eyes looking straight at the camera, similar to the way they will look at me inside a regular classroom.

As some eyes gaze left and right, I eventually asked everyone to put on a sleep mask or eye cover whenever they are called for recitation.

While being in a blindfold is not

Monday, September 21, 2020

foolproof, it is my way of minimizing the opportunities for students to get outside help. The integrity of their performance in school, whether by way of an Integrity Pledge during exams or blindfold recitations, must be preserved. If only we can do the same thing in public service.

Integrity has been defined as doing the right thing even when nobody is watching. Regardless of any technical equipment in place, scalawags in government will come up with evil schemes to lie, cheat, or steal. Despite the Oath of Office they took upon assumption of office, the language of which does not necessarily assure integrity in the discharge of their duties or impose any liability therefrom, some can blatantly be dishonest. Even the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), the accomplishment of which is required and has led to punitive sanctions, dismissal from the service included, does not assure integrity.

While the process of submitting SALN can be revisited and revised, unscrupulous people will always try to beat any system. If only their fear of the Lord is great.

In the Bible, Proverbs 5:21 tells us, “For the Lord sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes.” Reorientation programs can be initiated by the Civil Service Commission to build or enhance integrity foundations among public servants. Those appointed by the President, prior to assumption of office, can also be required to attend such programs, one of which is called PIES—Patriotism, Integrity, Excellence, Spirituality. CSC

Regulatory compliance ecosystem Joel L. Tan-Torres

DEBIT CREDIT

Fourth of a series

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ith the changes in the CPA Licensure Examinations (CPALE) brought about in Boa Resolutions 274 and 275 Series of 2015, and 114 Series of 2016, this will instigate the training of accounting students and the qualification of CPAs to meet the exacting requirements of businesses and government. This includes compliance with regulatory rules and regulations.

For the accounting students and future CPAs, they have to be equipped with “entry level” knowledge of the multitude of compliance with government rules for business transactions. It should be emphasized that they need not have a complete mastery of the many topics included in the Regulatory Framework for Business Transactions and Taxation subjects of the CPALE. Likewise,

the students and aspiring CPAs need not know the purely legal and “lawyering” aspects of these two subjects.

The mandate of the accountant is to guide their clients or employers to navigate the accounting and regulatory compliance requirements of doing business.

As a result of these changes and expectations, accounting schools have to redo their curriculum and

syllabi and realign the teaching approaches. The era of teaching and memorizing of legal terms and concepts are now over. Accounting students need not anymore memorize the legal definitions and enumerations that are taught in the law school for the law students. Instead, they have to be exposed to the practical applications of complying with the various government rules affecting businesses. What should be learned are knowledge of accomplishing government forms and tax returns, competence in transacting with government regulators and offices, awareness of government requirements and processes for business transactions, and other real world or real business situations and experiences.

Boa Resolution 114-2016 also clarified that the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants is included in the coverage of the CPALE. This emphasizes the expectation that CPAs should always be discharging their responsibility as a professional, imbued with integrity and focused on governance.

The same resolution also provided

‘From ARMM to BARMM, from revolution to reformation: The struggle for peace and development’

By Enrico Gaveglia & Chetan Kumar

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he Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is one of the wealthiest in the Philippines in terms of natural resources. An “Eden” on Earth—the region boasts of hydroelectric power from Lake Lanao; plentiful banana, coconuts, mangosteen, and durian plantations; fish and seaweed from the oceans; and mineral treasures in the form of basalt, chromite, manganese, gold, silver and copper.

Unfortunately, people are historically more challenged in “Edenlike” environments. Violent conflict has, for decades, prevented the sustainable and inclusive utilization of these resources, and damaged businesses, the environment,

and the region’s export potential.

Nevertheless, the region has also had a taste of sustained growth since 2016 and has contributed to the positive economic performance of the Philippines until the Covid-19 outbreak.

The signing of a peace deal between the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2014, the subsequent approval of the Bangsamoro Organic Law by the Congress in 2018, and the establishment of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority in 2019 have aided growth.

However, the region’s full potential cannot be realized unless its current leaders—former revolutionaries from the major Moro armed groups—implement an inclusive vision for peace and sustainable development.

Experience from other peace

processes shows that revolutionary groups that have prepared for governance—the ANC in South Africa, the FMLN in El Salvador, and the GAM in Aceh—have done well in guiding post-conflict transitions.

Bearing this in mind, the United Nations Development Programme is supporting BARMM to implement the School for Peace and Democracy (SPD), modeled after a similar initiative in Aceh which was witnessed by the MILF leadership on an exchange visit to Indonesia.

The SPD, launched in 2020, is currently providing MILF commanders and community leaders an opportunity to play civilian leadership roles. SPD-BARMM is premised on a simple principle: The transformation from armed struggle to civilian leadership is ultimately that of the mind. And the mind responds

best to what it is familiar with and trusts.

SPD’s core faculty is therefore drawn from among MILF’s own leaders. Initially trained with the support of SPD-Aceh, they have led the development of the curriculum that they now impart to their peers, including skills in effective leadership, conflict management, the role of Islamic values in a pluralist society, and community development.

So far, 54 men and 5 women have been trained to in turn train their peers to be leaders. It is our vision to see these numbers increase in the future.

As indicated in testimonials, this cathartic experience equips participants to appreciate their past struggles for social justice and empowerment, and to see themselves as continuing these

struggles through peaceful means.

For those who were heroes to their communities but enemies of the state for the longest time, it provides a profound moment of transition. Instead of seeing themselves as being disarmed and left to drift, they now see themselves as being armed in a different way to continue a new struggle for peace and democracy.

The SPD will eventually be a program at the Development Academy of Bangsamoro. In the interim, visionaries among the BARMM government, especially the interim chief minister, and development partners—Australia in particular— have assisted with its inception and its initial work, as has the Office of the Presidential Advisor to the Peace Process.

The success of the SPD should es-

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may also require some kind of annual Integrity Pledge to be incorporated in the SALN, similar to what USMA and Ateneo Law have done, to appeal to the conscience of public servants.

Whether in school or at work, public or private, our integrity will be tested, all the time. Some can weasel their way out of any integrity preservation process, thru the use of technology, as some students do. Some scalawags get caught and punished, although it takes almost an eternity to get a guilty verdict in government. In the end, one can say his integrity is intact if he can do things pleasing in the eyes of the Lord and with his conscience unbothered. Our Almighty God, whether through the Holy Spirit within or that Man in the Glass, knows what we do. As Dale Wimbrow wrote centuries ago, “You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years, And get pats on the back as you pass, But the final reward will be heartache and tears, If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.” With or without an Integrity Pledge, someone watches us and knows whether we lie, cheat, or steal.

A former infantry and intelligence officer in the Army, Siegfred Mison showcased his servant leadership philosophy in organizations such as the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Malcolm Law Offices, Infogix Inc., University of the East, Bureau of Immigration, and Philippine Airlines. He is a graduate of West Point in New York, Ateneo Law School, and University of Southern California. A corporate lawyer by profession, he is an inspirational teacher and a Spirit-filled writer with a mission.

For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.

that “Effective Communication to Stakeholders” shall be incorporated in all the six CPALE subjects. This emphasizes the importance of CPAs being competent in their verbal and written skills.

I am a believer of the four Cs of learning. The important skills in Communication, Collaboration, Critical thinking, and Creativity should be taught, learned, and practiced to be able to survive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and post Covid pandemic era. With these changes brought about in the accountancy ecosystem, the profession and its stakeholders will be in a better position to move forward.

(To be continued)

Joel L. Tan-Torres is the Dean of the University of the Philippines Virata School of Business. Previously, he was the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the chairman of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy and partner of Reyes Tacandong & Co. and the SyCip Gorres and Velayo & Co. He is a Certified Public Accountant who garnered No. 1 in the CPA Board Examination of May 1979.

This column accepts contributions from the business community. Articles not exceeding 600 words can be e-mailed to boa.secretariat.@gmail.com.

tablish that intangibles such as selfworth, a deeper cause and meaning, empowerment, and greater social cohesion are as central to lasting peace and sustainable development as the more conventional measures of growth.

We often refer to “unicorns” when speaking of one-of-a-kind start-up businesses that hit the proverbial pot of gold. In many ways, the SPD is a “unicorn” experience; it is a unique experiment where former combatants, with their hands free of weapons and their minds freed from violence, find purpose in joining the message of peace, and savoring the richness of diversity in the first breeze of democracy.

Enrico Gaveglia is the UNDP Philippine Officerin-Charge and Chetan Kumar is the UNDP Philippines Peace Programme Team Leader.

A8 Monday, September 21, 2020

Sunken ship owner eyeing own S&R for missing crew

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HE owner of Gulf Livestock 1, which sank earlier this month near Japan, now plans to mount its own search and rescue operation to find its ship’s missing crew.

In a phone interview, Labor t Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III told BusinessMirror he got reports the owner is now getting expert divers abroad to conduct the search. “ This is a good development. So we are waiting for new information [on this],” Bello said.

The Panama-flagged vessel, which sank during a storm on September 3, 2020, has 39 Filipinos in its 43-man crew.

Two of the Filipinos, Jaynel Rosales and Eduardo Sareno, were rescued.

One Filipino crewman, Joel Canete Linao, died, however.

Government aid

ROSALES and Sareno finally arrived home on Saturday, while Linao’s remains was repatriated on Friday.

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) administrator Hans Cacdac said they will start providing aid to the Filipino sailors and their loved ones this week.

“Per Sec. Bello’s directive,

we sha l l prov ide f ina nc ia l and livelihood assistance and psychosocial counselling. The OW WA Board shall convene this Thursday to discuss further assistance measure,” Cacdac told BusinessMirror in a SMS. Bello said they will also offer Rosales and Sareno new employment opportunities in case they will opt to work abroad again.

Japanese coordination

LAST week, Bello said the family of the still missing 36 Filipino seafarers asked the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) to help in the search and rescue of their loved ones.

This, as the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) gave assurances that Japanese authorities had not let up in their search.

Bello noted the PCG had said its involvement in the search is problematic in terms of its logistical requirements and because they are not familiar with the location where Gulf Livestock 1 sunk.

PCG, however, said it is constant communication with the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) to get new information on its ongoing search.

Samuel P. Medenilla

Paolo Duterte sends signals of moving vs Alan Cayetano

A

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

@joveemarie

MID the budget row in the lower house, Deputy Speaker Paolo Duterte said members of the House of Representatives have the “power to change” in order to address the allocation issues and ensure that the programs and projects for their people are delivered and delivered expeditiously.

The President’s son made a statement following complaints on “unfair” distribution of funds among legislative districts, and weeks before the start of the 21-month term of Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco.

Under the term-sharing arrangement, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano was to lead the House for

15 months up to October this year while Velasco would serve the remaining 21 months of the Speaker’s three-year term of office.

The younger Duterte has also confirmed his coup threat against Cayetano, saying “the text message that I sent to another lawmaker— and is now making the rounds— was an expression of my personal dismay upon hearing the concerns of my fellow lawmakers.”

In the said text message, Rep. Duterte said he will ask the Mindanao Bloc to declare the seat of Speaker and Deputy Speakers vacant this Monday, September 21.

He also said that Mindanao will not die because of zero allocation.

Monday movements

A SOURCE from the House has also confirmed that there would be a move on Monday (today) to change the current leadership.

But according to Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, President Duterte is impressed with the House performance under Cayetano’s leadership.

Romualdez, following a meeting last week with the Senate President

Red tape spurs new panel in Congress

T

DEPUTY Speaker Duterte, however, said lawmakers are calling him to express their disappointment and consternation over the fate of their respective allocations and budgets in the hands of the current House leadership.

“Most of these concerns shrouded doubts over the process and mistrust of the lawmakers ruling the House, those who are acting as if they are bigger than their colleagues,” he added.

“The members of Congress have the power to correct everything that they perceive as wrong happening within the Lower House, or change leadership as they demand fair treatment and reforms,” the younger Duterte added.

HE House oft Representatives has created a high-powered committee to address red tape in the government, which affects the ease of doing business in the country.

The leadership of the lower chamber has formed the House Special Committee on Red Tape following Congress leaders’ meeting with President Duterte last week to discuss measures to fight corruption and red tape in government.

The committee will be composed of Majority Leader Martin Romualdez as chairman and House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Joey Sarte Salceda, House Committee on Economic Affairs Chairman Sharon Garin, House Committee on Public Accounts Chairman Mike Defensor and House Committee on Good Government Chairman Jonathan Sy-Alvarado as members.

Members of the committee said the special panel is expected to focus on issues involving paying taxes, ease of doing business, procurement, public services, delivery and trade. For his part, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano vowed to “fix this government from inside and out.”

Present during the hour-long meeting with the President were Cayetano, Romualdez, Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Sen. Bong Go. The Speaker said he could “feel the weight of burden on President Duterte’s shoulders” as they talked about the problem of red tape and how it is “choking the life of our economy and people.”

“He desperately want[s] to make life even just a little bit easier for all Filipinos,” he said.

“The President’s anger was palpable against those who make life harder for our kababayans through red tape and bureaucratic inefficiencies, or worse, those who take advantage and corrupt the system for their benefit,” he said.

Continued on A4

Continued on A4

and Speaker at the Malacañang Golf Clubhouse, said they personally reported to President Duterte the priority measures that the House of Representatives had completed the past year. “ The President was visibly pleased and had a brief huddle with that Speaker before leaving.

The President [was] nodding with approval and clearly wanting the Speaker to carry on with the priority legislative agenda of the Palace,” he added.

“A lso, the members of the House of Representatives are happy that under the leadership of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano so much legislation has been passed despite the limitations and challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.

The Majority Leader added that the success of the House may also be attributed to the excellent teamwork that the House leadership and its members had demonstrated in the performance of their duties.

‘Fate’

PRRD drops PhilHealth abolition, likely to back naming DOF chief

M

ALACAÑANG is inclined to adopt a Senate-backed option to tap Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez to head the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth instead of abolishing the graft-tainted agency.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said at the weekend that when he and other Congress leaders met President Duterte late last week, the latter said he is relying on Congress leaders to help firm up options to effectively reform the PhilHealth mess.

“He [Duterte] wanted the help of both the Senate and the House of Representatives,” Sotto said in an interview with DWIZ, recalling that “yung una, pag upo pa lang niya, pagtingin sa akin, ang unang banat sa akin, sabi niya abolish na natin ang PhilHealth, sabi sa akin [at first, as soon as he sat down, he looked at me and said, ‘let’s abolish PhilHealth].”

The Senate leader said he was agape at first. “Napanganga nga ako, or privatize, sabi niya, parang tinatanong niya sa akin... sabi ko pwede talaga, pero ‘ ika ko meron akong bill na palitan natin yung chairman, palitan natin ng Secretary of Finance ang Secretary of Health, kasi hindi naman health entity yan [I was open-mouthed, but then he added, ‘or let’s privatize it,’ as if he was asking me. I

said, ‘yes, in fact I have a bill to replace the Secretary of Health with the Secretary of Finance as chairman of PhilHealth].”

Sotto said he pointed out to the President that PhilHealth is an insurance company, so it may be better to have it led by someone else, even as he suggested to Duterte that new PhilHealth chief Dante Gierran be given until the yearend to effect reforms in the agency.

Duterte, he added, asked him, “DOF?” and the Senate leader replied, “Yes sir, Secretary of Finance.”

The President then said, “Okay ...good, I agree.”

Sotto surmised that “before the Finance Chief option, the President seemed inclined to privatize PhilHealth. That is his (Duterte) thinking. So, it was one of the reasons for the meeting, perhaps, I think.”

Gierran: Abolition not good

MEANWHILE, the new PhilHealth chief, CPA-lawyer Dante Gierran, believes the possible abolition of the embattled agency will not be a good idea as such move will prove to be “counterproductive” for the Filipino people.

Speaking to CNN Philippines on Sunday, PhilHealth President Gierran said abolishing the agency may only hurt the Filipino people

who look to the state health insurer for their health-care needs, said a report on CNN Philippines’s web site.

“Palagay ko [I think] it’s not good. It’s counterproductive to the Filipino people,” Gierran said in an interview with Newsroom Weekend.

“W hat will become of that [Universal Health Care] law if the President abolishes the PhilHealth? Saan pupunta ang mga tao natin? Wala na bang insurance corporation na in charge po doon sa ‘pag may kababayan tayo na nagkakasakit? Ang PhilHealth lang po,” [What will become of that law if the President abolishes PhilHealth?

Where will our people go? Are there any other insurance corporations in charge of those who are getting sick? It’s only PhilHealth],” he said.

Gierran, meanwhile welcomed the challenge to effect vital reforms by yearend.

His first priority will be to conduct a “very wide” reshuffle of the beleaguered organization, the retired National Bureau of Investigation director said,” he added.

He did not elaborate beyond saying the reshuffle will cover the agency’s offices nationwide. He asked the public to give PhilHealth’s new leadership a chance to prove itself. Butch Fernandez

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, September 21, 2020

B1

PLDT, Smart seek govt help to gain access to facilities

P

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

@lorenzmarasigan

LDT Inc. and its subsidiary, Smart Communications Inc., are appealing for government intervention to gain access to over 300 sites for installation and repairs.

The group has identified sites in Metro Manila and the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Quezon, Rizal, Ilocos Norte, Cagayan, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Palawan, Iloilo, Capiz, Samar, Misamis Oriental and Zamboanga del Norte that are in need of installations and repairs.

The group has sought the assistance of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to direct local

government units (LGUs) to allow the companies conduct repairs in the facilities in their locales.

“The PLDT Group would like to respectfully appeal to the DICT and DILG to direct LGUs and other concerned sectors to enjoin their immediate cooperation in granting the PLDT Group access to its facilities within their respective areas to conduct critical works,” the companies said in a letter addressed to the two national government agencies.

Some LGUs have imposed great-

er restrictions in their jurisdictions due to the ongoing health crisis. These restrictions have delayed critical activities such as service restoration, maintenance, installation works, capacity expansion, replacement and upgrade of critical facilities and other urgent work.

“Amid Covid-19, our services have become really essential to our countrymen. Many of our customers have been affected by the pandemic and the lockdowns, and we are here to help them get back on their feet by making sure that our quality services are always available to them. We can only do this if we can continue to broaden and improve our network infrastructure,” Smart President Alfredo S. Panlilio said.

He said the intervention of the national government will help hasten its initiatives to provide better services to customers. Telco services have become more crucial, as

companies and schools have implemented remote work and distance learning initiatives to cope with the pandemic.

“The initiative of government to make it easier for us to build more towers quicker will be a big help in terms of improving coverage,” Panlilio said, following the government’s issuance of 211 building and preconstruction permits to Smart since the Anti-Red Tape Authority issued its Joint Memorandum Circular in August.

He added that towers are “but one portion” of PLDT-Smart’s integrated network, which also includes 360,000 kilometers of fiber infrastructure, around 10,000 macro and micro-cellsites and over 20,000 LTE base stations, in addition to data centers and partners for international capacity.

“That’s the kind of large-scale network that you would need to build in order to offer a competitive service,” he said.

AirAsia, local hotels offer deals on SNAP

BusinessMirror file photo

By Recto L. Mercene

AC Energy: Business back on track T

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

A

C Energy, the energy platform of conglomerate Ayala Corp., said it has resumed operations and its business is back on track even as it continues to grapple with the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We took a pause when the crisis hit but now we are back on track. We are investing. We are very thankful that government is [striking a balance] between health and economic crisis and things are moving,” said AC Energy President Eric Francia during a Standard Chartered Asean country webinar titled "Philippine Investment Forum-The Rising Tiger of Asia."

Francia joined the panel with other industry leaders who shared their insights on how businesses can sustain growth in the Philippines

through the Covid-19 crisis.

He said AC Energy shifted investments to renewable energy (RE) because there were already many coal and gas investments in the country in the last decade.

“We needed time for all that capacity to be absorbed so we thought with the shift in renewables and the opening up of regional markets we thought it would be a good time to expand,” said Francia.

The company also decided to focus on overseas RE opportunities. “We decided to step out of the Philippines and invest in the region.

We expanded in Indonesia, Vietnam and recently in India and soon in Australia. We also have a small investment in Myanmar.”

“It’s good to have this regional diversified portfolio to allow us to invest. We think that it bodes well for us in terms of the diversification that we’ve done in the past few years.

It makes our portfolio relatively balanced and it gives us the confidence."

The power firm’s RE capacity is now at 1,300 megawatts (MW), 500MW of which is in the Philippines and 800MW in the regional markets.

It has lined up 330MW of RE and complementary peaking diesel power project, plus it expects to start another 150MW of diesel power facility in Pililla, Rizal, soon.

“There’s a strong liquidity in the market not only in the Philippines, thanks to the policies of the central bank, but also across the region.

We've seen a string of capital raising from Philippine corporates. We’ve been very active in the debt capital markets as well. And we’ve begun to take some of that capital back to the country,” he said.

Francia is confident that RE investments is critical for the country to recover from the pandemic, citing

the benefits of RE over fossil and thermal plants.

He said the advantage of renewables over large thermal plants is that a company does not need to make binary investments.

“For fossil fuel and thermal plants, you need to go big and building 300 to 600MW of machines is a large commitment.

With renewables, it’s manageable in terms of size. We can build 100, 200, 300 MW with a $100 million plus as opposed to a billion dollars being committed at one time. So, I think there’s a lot advantages for renewables.”

“Obviously we are not on the purist extreme philosophy; we think there has to be a balance that’s why we are still open to thermal power.

We are also looking at investments more as a complimentary technology, more as a transition fuel to complement renewables.”

MVP Group Makati-based suppliers urged to register online accelerates digital shift M

A

s the Philippines continues to shift to the digital space due to the inherent risks created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the MVP Group of Companies is accelerating contactless transactions across its businesses.

Manuel V. Pangilinan, who chairs the group, said his group is “encouraging” customers of PLDT, Smart, Meralco, Metro Pacific Tollways, and Maynilad to leverage digital technologies for their transactions.

Through digital services, he said, Filipinos can add a layer of safeguard against Covid-19, as they limit human interaction.

“As we help build the New Normal, we also continue to look for ways to serve our customers better. Minimizing face-to-face interactions, particularly in payments, not only helps curb the virus, but also facilitates smooth, seamless and convenient customer experience,” Pangilinan said. Already, Filipinos are adapting to this new normal in transacting with companies.

PLDT and Smart saw a threefold rise in payments through their digital channels compared to last year, as customers see the value of using their mobile phones and the Internet to settle accounts more conveniently and more safely.

Meralco, for its part, offers paperless billing and digital payments to its customers.

They may pay via Meralco Online, which is both accessible through the web and through mobile apps. Meralco customers may use their credit, debit, or prepaid cars to settle their accounts. Lorenz S. Marasigan

ayor Abby Binay has invited Makatibased suppliers of goods and services to register with the city Business Permit and Licensing Office (BPLO) to qualify as beneficiaries of incentives being rolled out by the city government to boost and promote local businesses.

The mayor said they may now register online via www.proudmakatizen.com and become legitimate “MASB Merchants” qualified to enjoy the benefits offered by the city government, including those under the Makati Assistance and Support for Businesses (MASB) Program.

“We urge suppliers of goods and services in Makati to register online now and take part in our efforts to reboot the local economy. Once accredited, you will gain access to our new programs and incentives aimed to help local businesses

recover from the pandemic and grow,” Binay said.

“We have put up an online accreditation system that makes it safer and more convenient to register. We hope to get an enthusiastic response from merchants in the city so that they can automatically participate in our comprehensive business recovery and resiliency plan,” she added.

Accredited MASB Merchants will be included in businesses that the city government will promote and link with potential customers. They will also be eligible as recipients of payments for goods and services supplied to clients that receive financial assistance through grants of up to P100,000 under the MASB Program.

Through the Maka-Tindahan e-commerce portal, they will also enjoy special rates and discounts. Since they will be on the database of accredited merchants, they will automati-

cally join all business-stimulating programs and initiatives of the city government.

To register, go to www.proudmakatizen. com and click the icon for “Register as MASB Merchant,” and fill out the registration form with all the needed information.

Applicants must be the President, Treasurer, Managing Partner or authorized representative of the business. If a sole proprietorship, it must be the owner.

Earlier, Binay announced the implementation of a P2.5-billion economic relief program aimed at pump-priming the local economy during the pandemic. The city has offered grants ranging from P10,000 to P100,000 to registered businesses in the city, which will pay for the salaries of their employees and also for payments to their BPLO-accredited suppliers.

SBMA to hold 3-day virtual job fair

S

UBIC BAY FREEPORT—After videoconferencing, online business meetings and web seminars, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) is launching on Monday a virtual job fair.

This job-hunting scheme will take the place of face-to-face interaction and do away with mass gathering, while allowing prospective employees to meet up with recruiters, fill up forms, and file application letters, said SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma.

The virtual job fair will be held from September 21 to 23, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., via Google Meet.

“Like in face-to-face job fairs, applicants must also prepare copies of their resume, recent

2'x2' pictures, birth certificate from the Philippine Statistics Authority, diploma or transcript of records, NBI and police clearances, and other certificates—only this time, these documents must be in digital form,” Eisma said.

The applicants must first register online at https://forms.gle/nWZ3Myy13vL63vgW9 to receive the link for the virtual job fair platform.

For the first virtual job fair in Subic, Eisma said 16 Subic Bay Freeport locators, as well as 18 other companies, and two government agencies—the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority in Zambales—have joined to roll out a total of 695 jobs.

Among the participating firms are: Tokiwa Subic Corp.; Subic Xin Hong Corp.; Sam's Group of Companies; Juan Fong Industrial Corp.; PA Support Subic Ltd. Inc./Play-Asia; Pactec Subic Bay Inc.; Materion Singapore Pte. Ltd. (Philippine Branch); Toyota Subic Inc.; Strategic Channel for Career Development (SCCD) Corporation; Subic Asia Pacific Marine Resources Inc.; Subic Bay Freeport Grain Terminal Services, Inc.; Uptimised Corporation; SBDMC, Inc.; Philippines Easepal Tech. Ltd Corp.; and FFP Concept Planning Solutions Corp.

SBMA said a total of 3,670 job applicants have already pre-registered for the virtual job fair as of Saturday. Henry Empeño

@rectomercene

o boost domestic tourism in the Philippines, AirAsia has partnered with local hotels to launch SNAP—a new flight + hotel combo platform on airasia. com which offers convenient and affordable fly and stay packages.

AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla said, “We are pleased to launch SNAP in the Philippines to be able to provide new and affordable offerings on airasia.com, especially for business travelers and those planning for their future getaways once leisure travel is permitted."

“Aside from developing airasia. com as Asia’s fastest-growing super app, this initiative has opened up opportunities to work with partner hotels, as we start to recover from the effects of the pandemic which have devastated the travel and tourism industry. We look forward to forming more partnerships with more hotels in the future.”

AirAsia is offering an introductory SNAP promotion of up to 50 percent off on flights when passengers book a flight + hotel via SNAP. This special promotional fare is available on airasia.com from September 21 to 27, for travel from September 2020 to March 25, 2021. Terms and conditions apply.

The carrier said the safety and well-being of its guests and Allstars is its top priority. AirAsia said it complies with advice and regulations from the local government, civil aviation authorities, global and local health agencies, including the World Health Organization.

Guests can expect enhanced safety measures throughout the entire journey, including preflight, in-flight, and arrival processes. These include the mandatory wearing of face masks to be permitted to travel. Guests are also advised to check and comply with measures implemented by local airport authorities for a smooth travel experience.

ECOP: Tripartism should still be the norm in new normal

T

he Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) vowed to continue espousing meaningful dialogues and multiparty consultations in confronting labor and other policy issues despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

In a statement released coinciding with its 45th anniversary celebration, ECOP President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said the group will remain steadfast to its commitment of representing and enhancing the Filipino employers’ interest in all levels of policy development and decision-making processes.

“We vow to continue to ensure the success of both bipartism and tripartism through the promotion of a harmonious social dialogue with our partners in order to shape an enabling policy and business environment for all,” Ortiz-Luis Jr. stressed.

ECOP also assured its members and pertinent stakeholders that it will persevere in fostering a culture of compliance, capacitating employers with the right tools and skills to cope with emerging trends, and encouraging good corporate citizenship and other voluntary practices.

The group noted that the current year has been extraordinarily challenging to both businesses and workers across the entire globe, with the uncertainty occasioned by the challenges unabated.

“With a seemingly pessimistic future, we all continue to find ways to survive and thrive in the middle

of this pandemic. COVID-19 did not only become a global health crisis but has also brought about an array of social and economic issues for the country and the world,” OrtizLuis Jr. said.

He added: “Life and work as we know them have changed dramatically and have been significantly different from the one we used to know. But know this, no pandemic or disruption will hinder ECOP from fulfilling its mandate as the official voice and representative of employers in the Philippines. The journey towards recovery will be grueling and difficult but ECOP will continue the call for employers to become digital, agile, and resilient.

We will also carry the theme and make it our mission to mold ECOP as a 21st century employer and business membership organization.”

B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, September 21, 2020

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

September 18, 2020

Net Foreign Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Stocks Buy (Sell) FINANCIALs

ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE COL FINANCIAL FIRST ABACUS FERRONOUX HLDG IREMIT MEDCO HLDG MANULIFE NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH

45.25 88.65 65.25 21.35 8.23 36.45 8.56 23.9 49.6 16.4 94.65 54 0.74 25.5 0.55 2.78 1.37 0.285 745 0.59 157

46.15 89 65.5 21.8 8.24 36.5 9.55 23.95 49.95 16.46 95 54.15 0.8 26.9 0.6 2.9 1.4 0.29 750 0.62 157.5

45.25 88 65.45 21.75 8.22 35.6 9.1 23.95 49.95 16.32 95.6 54 0.8 24.7 0.58 2.81 1.31 0.295 745 0.62 157.5

45.25 89.1 65.55 21.8 8.25 36.5 9.68 24 49.95 16.4 96.9 54.2 0.8 26.9 0.61 2.9 1.45 0.31 745 0.62 157.5

45.1 86.65 64.2 21.35 8.15 35.5 9.1 23.9 49.95 16.32 94 54 0.8 24.6 0.58 2.78 1.31 0.29 745 0.59 157

45.25 89 65.5 21.35 8.24 36.5 9.55 23.95 49.95 16.4 95 54.15 0.8 26.9 0.61 2.9 1.4 0.29 745 0.62 157.5

2400 3358490 2592470 132200 254800 5239200 19900 964100 400 6400 818470 22310 1000 61200 30000 46000 242000 510000 200 50000 600

108585 295075288 169507060.5 2857420 2094793 188782350 188549 23069580 19980 104710 77848359.5 1207299 800 1551630 17720 128800 339850 151850 149000 29990 94465

-49760 -95211663 -25959907.5 -1827995 -167605 69931215 -13526460 -98150 -12864569 -215433 -250000 -72500 -

INDUSTRIAL AC ENERGY 3.11 3.12 3.07 3.12 3.04 3.12 5840000 18072810 1.24 1.25 1.25 1.26 1.23 1.24 684000 854560 ALSONS CONS ABOITIZ POWER 25.9 26 25.8 26.2 25.8 26 1878900 48861810 BASIC ENERGY 0.163 0.164 0.168 0.172 0.16 0.164 4230000 682550 24.65 25.05 25.2 25.2 24.65 24.65 997100 24799910 FIRST GEN 60.65 61.6 60.7 61.6 60.7 60.7 740980 44980058 FIRST PHIL HLDG MERALCO 277.8 278.6 274.4 278.6 270 278.6 449340 124692296 MANILA WATER 14.34 14.36 14.2 14.58 14.06 14.34 2277200 32796052 3.06 3.08 3.05 3.09 3.04 3.08 1209000 3691370 PETRON 3.12 3.24 3.29 3.3 3.09 3.26 42000 134510 PETROENERGY PHX PETROLEUM 10.78 10.98 10.96 10.98 10.72 10.98 83200 911960 17.6 17.64 17.6 17.64 17.5 17.64 286500 5048708 PILIPINAS SHELL 9.29 9.3 9.25 9.3 9.23 9.29 191100 1768963 SPC POWER 7.8 7.95 7.95 7.95 7.9 7.95 4800 38117 AGRINURTURE AXELUM 2.54 2.57 2.43 2.57 2.39 2.57 3864000 9701220 17.28 18.1 17.4 18.1 17.02 18.1 1636600 28784702 CENTURY FOOD 4.7 4.77 4.79 4.79 4.75 4.75 21000 100140 DEL MONTE DNL INDUS 5.5 5.52 5.6 5.61 5.47 5.5 5224300 28901247 EMPERADOR 9.89 9.9 9.95 9.95 9.82 9.9 311200 3079745 64 64.25 64.25 64.25 63.9 64 240000 15360567.5 SMC FOODANDBEV 0.64 0.65 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 5000 3300 ALLIANCE SELECT FRUITAS HLDG 1.25 1.26 1.29 1.29 1.24 1.26 10047000 12692010 GINEBRA 50.3 51 50 51 48 51 35110 1768726 130.2 131.7 132 133 130.2 130.2 2676800 351331630 JOLLIBEE 39.15 43 39 39 39 39 300 11700 LIBERTY FLOUR MACAY HLDG 7.64 8.14 8.15 8.15 7.5 8.14 7500 60662 MAXS GROUP 4.93 4.96 5.15 5.17 4.85 4.93 342400 1697979 5.9 5.93 5.81 5.97 5.81 5.93 31600 187569 SHAKEYS PIZZA ROXAS AND CO 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.17 1.14 1.15 2196000 2527620 ROXAS HLDG 1.86 1.87 1.89 1.93 1.86 1.87 129000 246150 0.105 0.106 0.106 0.106 0.106 0.106 280000 29680 SWIFT FOODS 133.9 134 136.3 136.6 133.1 134 4082630 547197008 UNIV ROBINA VITARICH 0.79 0.8 0.81 0.81 0.79 0.8 7565000 6052990 VICTORIAS 2.24 2.35 2.24 2.24 2.23 2.23 14000 31350 52 53 54.9 54.9 52 53 1380 72696 CONCRETE A 52.2 56.5 51.5 59 51.5 53 640 35045 CONCRETE B CEMEX HLDG 1.52 1.53 1.55 1.57 1.52 1.52 12687000 19496940 EAGLE CEMENT 13.68 14 14 14 13.66 14 200800 2794220 6.61 6.62 6.61 6.61 6.5 6.61 159400 1047674 EEI CORP 5.71 5.78 5.65 5.78 5.6 5.78 1388600 7922451 HOLCIM MEGAWIDE 7.2 7.3 7.28 7.35 7.2 7.2 745600 5408284 PHINMA 8.48 8.77 8.74 8.85 8.49 8.49 57200 491858 0.75 0.77 0.7 0.77 0.69 0.75 1424000 1049260 TKC METALS VULCAN INDL 0.74 0.75 0.74 0.75 0.74 0.75 436000 323770 1.9 1.91 1.9 1.9 1.9 1.9 2000 3800 CROWN ASIA 1.88 1.89 1.93 2 1.88 1.88 543000 1041480 EUROMED 4.35 4.5 4.22 4.22 4.22 4.22 1000 4220 LMG CORP MABUHAY VINYL 4.42 4.49 4.45 4.6 4.41 4.5 8000 35820 4.07 4.16 4.09 4.09 4.05 4.07 11000 44680 PRYCE CORP 2.15 2.16 2.18 2.19 2.14 2.16 4182000 9071310 GREENERGY 6.05 6.08 6.06 6.14 5.9 6.05 801900 4842612 INTEGRATED MICR IONICS 0.99 1 1 1 0.97 1 282000 277860 SFA SEMICON 1.44 1.45 1.4 1.46 1.4 1.45 1689000 2416740 5.94 5.95 6.01 6.01 5.9 5.95 3115100 18539144 CIRTEK HLDG

5895230 34720 8983080 -7072535 -44958683 54565266 -1490448 -1294790 -16450 1417350.0003 -206275 3828570 2790926 -14300 -13135855 99018 -505738.5 -371940 1383300 -96014964 -40750 -68760 -29802 13840 -8480 -411032446 29600 -4636 -5603370 -215600 -121442 2503973 1594611 114200 -455670 -2623255 -2000 -62920 60902

HOLDING & FRIMS ABACORE CAPITAL 0.47 0.475 0.48 0.48 0.475 0.475 4340000 2063750 -1083100 7.73 8.07 8.09 8.09 7.7 8.08 1900 14935 ASIABEST GROUP AYALA CORP 717.5 720 715 720 702 720 280770 201007340 28199960 ABOITIZ EQUITY 47.6 48 47.6 48 47.15 48 844000 40464265 7087535 7.25 7.26 7.1 7.28 7.02 7.25 16659000 119660790 35601604 ALLIANCE GLOBAL 2.42 2.44 2.37 2.45 2.26 2.44 4199000 10075470 1555510 AYALA LAND LOG ANSCOR 6.36 6.74 6.36 6.36 6.36 6.36 5000 31800 0.54 0.56 0.54 0.56 0.54 0.56 68000 37730 ANGLO PHIL HLDG 0.56 0.57 0.57 0.58 0.56 0.58 466000 265860 ATN HLDG A 5.04 5.2 5.18 5.25 5.04 5.04 1029000 5268815 -3131588 COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG 4 4.05 4.1 4.14 4 4 8894000 35,933,480( 16,270,980.0004) FILINVEST DEV 8.5 8.67 8.72 8.72 8.5 8.67 600 5139 -1739 401.8 404.8 400 404.8 396.2 404.8 173890 70053358 15030318 GT CAPITAL 62.05 62.1 61.7 62.55 60.7 62.1 2636150 163335147.5 12072241 JG SUMMIT JOLLIVILLE HLDG 4.28 4.64 4.22 4.22 4.22 4.22 1000 4220 0.6 0.62 0.62 0.62 0.59 0.62 24000 14250 12390 LODESTAR 2.37 2.38 2.42 2.43 2.38 2.38 1312000 3153890 125150 LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP 8.84 8.89 8.89 8.89 8.75 8.89 527700 4687959 -851528 MABUHAY HLDG 0.49 0.495 0.53 0.53 0.43 0.495 639000 303415 3.44 3.45 3.42 3.47 3.4 3.44 19440000 66835270 20450170 METRO PAC INV 2.9 3.02 2.91 3.02 2.9 3.02 11000 32050 5800 PACIFICA HLDG PRIME MEDIA 0.78 0.8 0.84 0.84 0.78 0.8 450000 354610 -17940 REPUBLIC GLASS 2.48 2.61 2.48 2.6 2.45 2.6 34000 85580 0.98 1 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 6000 5880 SOLID GROUP 872 885 905 914 872 872 1149150 1019062235 200018195 SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP 99.85 100.1 100.5 100.9 99.85 99.85 267150 26693306 -18867818.5 SOC RESOURCES 0.64 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 5000 3350 124 131.8 128 131.8 128 131.8 2700 349246 -212700 TOP FRONTIER WELLEX INDUS 0.196 0.197 0.196 0.197 0.196 0.197 600000 117800 0.135 0.138 0.138 0.138 0.135 0.138 230000 31410 ZEUS HLDG

PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.54 0.55 0.53 0.54 0.53 0.54 505000 268030 7.52 8.3 8.3 8.3 8.3 8.3 100 830 ANCHOR LAND AYALA LAND 30.95 31 31.3 31.35 30.3 31 13833700 427577355 ARANETA PROP 0.99 1 0.98 1 0.98 1 144000 143960 25.9 25.95 25.85 26 25.85 25.95 607100 15742460 AREIT RT 1.36 1.37 1.35 1.36 1.35 1.36 185000 251520 BELLE CORP A BROWN 0.77 0.78 0.79 0.8 0.77 0.77 2383000 1858660 0.77 0.84 0.85 0.85 0.77 0.77 17000 13590 CITYLAND DEVT 0.13 0.131 0.13 0.131 0.128 0.131 640000 83150 CROWN EQUITIES 4.95 4.98 5 5 4.94 4.95 82200 408278 CEB LANDMASTERS CENTURY PROP 0.365 0.37 0.36 0.37 0.36 0.37 2070000 762600 DOUBLEDRAGON 14.26 14.28 13.98 15.5 13.98 14.28 1536200 22319382 5.54 5.82 5.9 5.9 5.54 5.54 959800 5383861 DM WENCESLAO 0.26 0.27 0.26 0.265 0.255 0.265 2860000 742400 EMPIRE EAST FILINVEST LAND 0.92 0.93 0.92 0.93 0.91 0.92 13249000 12202410 0.76 0.77 0.76 0.76 0.76 0.76 196000 148960 GLOBAL ESTATE 7.08 7.17 7.19 7.19 7.05 7.18 70700 502951 8990 HLDG PHIL INFRADEV 1.2 1.21 1.23 1.23 1.21 1.21 1261000 1533080 3.12 3.14 3.14 3.15 3.09 3.14 40660000 127294570 MEGAWORLD 0.24 0.242 0.25 0.25 0.237 0.24 50370000 12198040 MRC ALLIED 0.29 0.3 0.285 0.29 0.285 0.29 210000 59900 PHIL ESTATES PRIMEX CORP 1.14 1.15 1.14 1.14 1.12 1.14 44000 49940 14.66 14.94 14.66 14.94 14.6 14.94 3264200 48334320 ROBINSONS LAND 0.22 0.221 0.223 0.223 0.221 0.221 100000 22120 PHIL REALTY 1.51 1.52 1.52 1.52 1.52 1.52 302000 459040 ROCKWELL SHANG PROP 2.61 2.7 2.69 2.7 2.69 2.7 32000 86300 1.85 1.95 1.95 1.95 1.95 1.95 50000 97500 STA LUCIA LAND 28 28.05 28.45 28.6 28.05 28.05 20229300 568239515 SM PRIME HLDG VISTAMALLS 3.72 3.8 3.79 3.8 3.72 3.8 10000 37430 1.2 1.22 1.21 1.22 1.2 1.22 948000 1138980 SUNTRUST HOME 3.29 3.3 3.29 3.3 3.25 3.3 1098000 3613710 VISTA LAND

-17928960 -6307275 -5440 -14800 -15292828 -2187512 260000 -5522320 -38000 -189321 -36984920 -23930 -8884856 -219906595 2400 727830

SERVICES ABS CBN 7.02 7.05 6.96 7.05 6.96 7.05 380300 2658240 5.13 5.16 5.1 5.16 5.1 5.16 503300 2582209 GMA NETWORK MANILA BULLETIN 0.4 0.405 0.395 0.4 0.395 0.4 280000 111100 11.32 11.8 11.3 11.8 11.3 11.8 300 3440 MLA BRDCASTING 2110 2140 2098 2140 2080 2140 42110 89846590 GLOBE TELECOM 1382 1383 1390 1390 1382 1383 243020 336274745 PLDT APOLLO GLOBAL 0.057 0.058 0.058 0.058 0.056 0.058 40330000 2307670 DITO CME HLDG 3.76 3.77 3.73 3.77 3.72 3.76 63339000 237646320 1.59 1.64 1.59 1.62 1.59 1.62 13000 20790 JACKSTONES 2.38 2.39 2.38 2.42 2.38 2.39 4252000 10201870 NOW CORP TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.178 0.18 0.178 0.178 0.176 0.178 760000 134960 2.27 2.28 2.21 2.27 2.16 2.27 801000 1779790 PHILWEB 8.45 8.5 8.42 8.6 8.3 8.6 26600 222984 2GO GROUP 3.7 3.74 3.53 3.73 3.53 3.73 2594000 9462260 CHELSEA CEBU AIR 36.95 37 37.9 37.9 37 37 334400 12,471,560( 109.1 109.2 107 109.3 106.3 109.2 2091910 227232834 INTL CONTAINER 15.16 15.74 15.22 15.22 15.22 15.22 1700 25874 LBC EXPRESS MACROASIA 4.99 5 4.93 5.08 4.9 4.99 6700000 33467790 METROALLIANCE A 1.85 1.86 2.05 2.05 1.81 1.85 2502000 4793570 2.25 2.28 2.3 2.33 2.05 2.28 120000 268280 METROALLIANCE B 5.8 5.81 5.84 5.84 5.8 5.83 21900 127143 PAL HLDG HARBOR STAR 1.1 1.12 1.12 1.14 1.1 1.1 2287000 2544890 0.026 0.027 0.027 0.027 0.026 0.027 28300000 763700 BOULEVARD HLDG 0.385 0.39 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 530000 201400 WATERFRONT 530 574.5 550 550 550 550 10 5500 FAR EASTERN U IPEOPLE 7 7.74 7.05 7.74 7 7.74 22600 160403 0.35 0.355 0.35 0.35 0.345 0.35 3370000 1171800 STI HLDG 3.33 3.35 3.46 3.47 3.27 3.35 1474000 4964130 BERJAYA BLOOMBERRY 6.75 6.88 7 7 6.75 6.75 6853900 46515370 PACIFIC ONLINE 1.9 1.94 1.9 2 1.9 1.94 133000 254020 1.31 1.32 1.27 1.3 1.27 1.3 19000 24340 LEISURE AND RES 2.16 2.29 2.15 2.3 2.15 2.3 13000 29450 PH RESORTS GRP PREMIUM LEISURE 0.315 0.32 0.32 0.325 0.315 0.32 5000000 1587100 7.13 7.89 7.89 7.89 7.89 7.89 200 1578 PHIL RACING 5.87 5.88 5.86 5.92 5.78 5.88 1970400 11548697 ALLHOME 1.39 1.4 1.4 1.41 1.39 1.4 1103000 1538930 METRO RETAIL PUREGOLD 48.2 48.3 49.25 49.25 48 48.2 9738000 469770325 ROBINSONS RTL 67.95 68 67.9 68 67.8 68 359450 24440534 119 119.5 119.6 119.6 119.5 119.5 400 47810 PHIL SEVEN CORP 1.13 1.14 1.19 1.19 1.13 1.14 5425000 6265900 SSI GROUP WILCON DEPOT 15.6 15.8 15.84 15.84 15.6 15.8 1595500 25097918 APC GROUP 0.295 0.3 0.295 0.295 0.295 0.295 790000 233050 6.58 6.59 6.8 6.8 6.35 6.58 36500 242861 EASYCALL GOLDEN BRIA 290 309.6 287 309.8 281.2 309.6 3850 1124264 0.225 0.226 0.227 0.23 0.225 0.226 2360000 537090 PRMIERE HORIZON 4.2 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4000 16800 SBS PHIL CORP

36807830 -100424465 -171000 -129560 -169560 -300 -361390 6,117,880.0003) -37660405 98970 11500 76000 21000 -43220 -10353277 9100 -11399.9999 4213372 -82742165 -5149842 -13135 80979.9999 -251762 88500 9210 -

MINING & OIL ATOK 7.13 7.99 7.59 8 7.59 8 500 3956 APEX MINING 1.53 1.54 1.55 1.56 1.54 1.54 3887000 6001040 0.0008 0.0009 0.0009 0.0009 0.0008 0.0009 110000000 94400 ABRA MINING 4.11 4.12 3.9 4.11 3.89 4.11 1022000 4100330 -117700 ATLAS MINING 2.62 2.77 2.77 2.77 2.68 2.77 126000 346450 BENGUET A BENGUET B 2.68 2.8 2.7 2.81 2.68 2.68 24000 64510 0.22 0.228 0.226 0.235 0.226 0.23 1110000 254310 -11600 COAL ASIA HLDG 7.74 7.8 7.74 7.85 7.74 7.85 300 2343 DIZON MINES 1.27 1.28 1.27 1.3 1.26 1.28 6827000 8688670 -102570 FERRONICKEL GEOGRACE 0.229 0.23 0.231 0.231 0.229 0.231 30000 6910 0.143 0.145 0.142 0.145 0.142 0.143 11920000 1703890 LEPANTO A 0.144 0.145 0.145 0.145 0.142 0.144 1540000 220550 LEPANTO B 0.0095 0.0096 0.0096 0.0096 0.0096 0.0096 9000000 86400 MANILA MINING A MANILA MINING B 0.01 0.011 0.01 0.011 0.01 0.011 13500000 141000 0.92 0.93 0.91 0.94 0.9 0.93 1573000 1436140 36900 MARCVENTURES 2.04 2.05 2.07 2.11 2.05 2.05 499000 1027480 6149.9999 NIHAO NICKEL ASIA 3.08 3.11 3.08 3.12 3.08 3.08 2490000 7711940 -206870 OMICO CORP 0.37 0.385 0.37 0.37 0.37 0.37 10000 3700 0.54 0.56 0.57 0.57 0.55 0.56 139000 77040 ORNTL PENINSULA 4.3 4.31 4.26 4.34 4.26 4.3 875000 3765540 408630 PX MINING SEMIRARA MINING 9.8 9.92 9.9 9.96 9.8 9.8 1931000 19026884 -3945967 UNITED PARAGON 0.0048 0.005 0.0048 0.0048 0.0048 0.0048 1000000 4800 5.8 5.9 5.85 5.97 5.8 5.9 21800 129133 ACE ENEXOR 0.0082 0.0083 0.0083 0.0083 0.0083 0.0083 5000000 41500 ORNTL PETROL B PHILODRILL 0.0083 0.0085 0.0082 0.0084 0.0082 0.0083 23000000 192800 5.27 5.29 5.29 5.29 5.24 5.27 266600 1403452 65022 PXP ENERGY

PREFFERED AC PREF B1 512 515 515 515 515 515 20 10300 102 102.2 102 102 102 102 210 21420 21420 CPG PREF A DD PREF 100.7 101 100.9 101 100.9 101 69890 7058825 106.5 106.8 106.8 106.8 106.8 106.8 5720 610896 FGEN PREF G 1020 1030 1020 1020 1020 1020 1135 1157700 GTCAP PREF B 101.4 101.5 101.5 101.5 101.5 101.5 100 10150 MWIDE PREF PNX PREF 3A 96.8 98.25 98.25 98.25 98.25 98.25 500 49125 101.5 102.7 102.7 102.7 101.2 102.7 460 47227 PNX PREF 3B 940 946.5 945 945 940 940 7350 6909260 PNX PREF 4 1006 1050 1005 1005 1005 1005 715 718575 PCOR PREF 2B PCOR PREF 3A 1041 1061 1060 1061 1060 1060 2715 2877905 5305 SMC PREF 2C 78.2 78.5 78.2 78.5 78.2 78.5 13940 1093349 75.45 76 75.5 75.5 75.5 75.5 40000 3020000 SMC PREF 2E 77.1 77.5 77.95 77.95 77.1 77.1 2600 200880 -169700 SMC PREF 2F SMC PREF 2G 75.5 76 75.5 75.5 75.5 75.5 12010 906755 75.5 76 75.8 76 75.8 76 10200 773870 SMC PREF 2H

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR 6.66 6.8 6.66 6.8 6.66 6.66 155000 1033942 -734242 4.83 5 5 5 4.81 5 549600 2747050 -2720000 GMA HLDG PDR

WARRANTS LR WARRANT 0.61 0.64 0.64 0.64 0.64 0.64 20000 12800

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ALTUS PROP 10.52 10.58 10.48 10.94 10.32 10.52 509100 5464400 -384728 1.98 1.99 2.03 2.04 1.97 1.98 1362000 2714270 -8060 ITALPINAS KEPWEALTH 5.26 5.3 5.27 5.37 5.26 5.26 16000 84264 3.03 3.04 3.02 3.06 3.02 3.04 10023000 30467180 517390 MERRYMART 0.54 0.55 0.55 0.55 0.53 0.55 657000 354860 XURPAS

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS

FIRST METRO ETF 89.5 90 90.5 90.5 89.5 89.5 11390 1023295.5 564149

www.businessmirror.com.ph

DNL earnings may exceed target for July-December

C

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

hemical manufacturer D and L Industries Inc. (DNL) said its earnings in the second half may exceed P1 billion, slightly higher than its previous target for the period, as the company is recovering faster than expected.

DNL President Alvin D. Lao said indications point to the possibility that earnings will be better than what the company has previously expected, as customers are increasing orders, particularly in non-food manufacturing.

Previously, the company expected to register an income of between P900 million to P1 billion in the second half. DNL’s income declined in the January-to-June period.

Lao noted that despite the reimposition of the more stringent modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) for two weeks last month, most of their customers were better prepared and continued to operate. This was not the case during the first lockdown when most establishments were closed.

“The third quarter is definitely better than the second quarter when the operations of some [of our] customers were practically zero. For the fourth quarter, it will be hard to say because there may not be Christmas parties although new Covid-19 cases are not rising while there seems to be fewer serious cases,” he said.

During the second MECQ implementation in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, DNL’s customers were able to generate revenues by tapping online sales and delivery channels.

Its oleo-chemicals business is benefiting from increased mobility which is translating to biodiesel sales while its specialty plastics is benefiting from the reopening of

STOCK-MARKET OUTLOOK Last week

Share prices closed lower last week as the Philippines was among the Asian markets that were dragged down by the selloff in global equities.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) slid 59.06 points to close at 5,908.90 points.

The PSEi tried to break above the 6,000 level early in the week, but could not sustain momentum and ended near the 5,900 support level.

“Last week was the least volatile week that we have seen since May, right before the massive rally that we saw at the beginning of June. This tells us that buying and selling pressure are beginning to balance out and after the last couple of months of continuous selling may be coming to an end, signaling buyers to come back into the market,” Christopher Mangun, research head at AAA Securities Inc., said.

Average value of trade remained low at P4.85 billion, while foreign investors were still net sellers at P3.75 billion.

Other subindices ended mixed. The broader All Shares index fell 23.80 points to close at 3,553.58 points, the Financials index gained 3.67 to 1,154.57, the Industrial index dropped 225.57 to 7,844.97, the Holding Firms index declined 69.25 to 8,143.69, the Property index rose 9.58 to 2,743.25, the Services index fell 24.01 to 1,463.50 and the Mining and Oil index added 69.32 to 6,060.68.

For the week, losers slightly edged gainers 113 to 108 and 28 shares were unchanged.

Top gainers were I-Remit Inc., Metro Alliance and Equities Corp. A and B shares, Makati Finance Corp., Anchor Land Holdings Inc., COL Financial Group Inc. and Ayala Land Logistics Holdings Corp.

Top losers were Philodrill Corp., Jolliville Holdings Corp., Synergy Grid and Development Phils. Inc., Benguet Corp. B, Liberty Flour Mills Inc. and Philippine Trust Co.

This week

Share prices may remain low this week as investors are still waiting for some catalysts to trade. Analysts said the end of the Chinese Ghost month could increase the market’s chances of rising much higher.

“Last week’s performance tells us that the markets need to build momentum before it can move higher. The PSEi may continue to move sideways between 5,800 and 6,000 as investors monitor the pace of the economy’s recovery,” Mangun said.

“It may continue lower toward the 5,800 at the beginning of next week if selling pressure picks up. Despite the move lower, we continue to forecast a stronger move to the upside in the next few weeks. We encourage investors to pick up shares of battered issues as the market may move higher, correlating with the economy’s recovery,” he added.

Broker 2TradeAsia, meanwhile, said the next catalysts for investors to trade are the upcoming policy meeting of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the third quarter earnings season, which may begin as early as this month through mid-November.

“The next assessment will be whether they carry enough force to push the index nearer to 7,000 before year-end,” the broker said, advising investors to trade the range.

Stock picks

Broker Regina Capital Development Corp. advised investors to sell during rallies on the stock of Puregold Price Club Inc. as its trade volatility seems to simmering down after the volatile trading of its shares last week.

“By and large, Puregold will most likely continue its uptrend, but gains may be capped as it nears the week-long resistance at P50.50,” the broker said.

Puregold shares closed Friday at P48.20.

Meanwhile, it gave a cut-loss recommendation on the stock of Jollibee Foods Corp. after it sustained a whopping 7-day losing streak.

“At this point, the most reliable support we're seeing is at the P126.20 level, last reached in early August. All indicators support a continued downward bias,” the broker said.

Jollibee shares closed last week at P130.20 apiece. VG Cabuag

the global economy which is boosting sales to export-oriented automotive companies.

The pandemic also has accelerated the shift toward health and wellness and this has allowed sales of specialty products related to personal care, organic cleaning products and disinfectants to expand.

The company noted that demand for plastics used for packaging rose as consumers preferred using single use plastic over washable items for sanitation purposes.

He said the company is more optimistic about 2021 as it is generally expected that economies worldwide will continue to recover starting next year and 2020 has already been written off by many countries.

Lao said DNL is not reducing its capital expenditures. Some of the cash allocated this year may be spent through 2022 as it continues

mutual funds

the construction of new manufacturing plants in Batangas and is on track to completing the facilities by the end of next year.

DNL said the company is “fundamentally equipped” to weather the current crisis, given its strong balance sheet and the essential nature of its various businesses, which should see continued demand even in this challenging environment.

The company's recurring income in the first half fell 43 percent to P802 million, from last year's P1.41 billion, mainly due to the strict lockdown measures.

Sales were down by 8 percent to P10.17 billion from last year’s P11.03 billion.

For the second quarter alone, net income fell 57 percent to P287 million from last year’s P665 million, while revenues declined 13 percent to P4.5 billion from the previous year’s P5.16 billion.

September 18, 2020

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 195.62 -24.12% -11.5% -5.16% -22.32% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 1.0762 -30.85% -13.46% -3.18% -22.13% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 2.6258 -34.02% -16.02% -6.96% -28.61% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.6687 -30.98% -12.73% n.a. -25.53% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.678 -20.92% n.a. n.a. -20.17% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 4.2075 -22.73% -9.77% -4.73% -21.03% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,4 0.6569 -24.83% -12.25% n.a.

-23.04% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. - a 82.72 -29.98% n.a. n.a. -19.86% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 39.2038 -24.95% -10.19% -4.02% -23.55% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. - a 421.46 -22.36% -9.49% -4.15% -20.89% Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d,5 0.8702 n.a. n.a. n.a. -15.52% Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 1.0014 -23.73% -9.67% -3.71% -22.19% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 29.3368 -24.07% -9.25% -3.38% -22.59% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.7712 -25.6% n.a. n.a. -24.25% Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 4.0026 -24.57% -9.68% -3.31% -23.37% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. - a 669.18 -24.46% -9.68% -3.44% -23.26% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. - a 0.6057 -33.53% -13.46% -7.36% -28.86% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 3.091 -27.94% -11.19% -4.75% -26.56% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.7668 -24.68% -9.86% -3.5% -23.38% United Fund, Inc. -a 2.7999 -24.56% -8.79% -3.05% -23.36% Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 89.8676 -24.36% -9.24% -2.66% -23.16% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b

$1.0681 10.88% 0.43% 3.87% 3.86% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.5135 8.08% n.a.

9.78% 16.65% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.5665 -5.24% -4.84% -2.77% 0.24% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 2.0417 -10.94% -5.36% -1.32% -6.39% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.3881 -10.24% -3.97% -2.69% -9.25% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,1 0.1725 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-24.51% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a 1.828 -6.77% -1.87% 0.04% -6.81% PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.4493 -9.07% -3.51% -1.16% -8.97% Philam Fund, Inc. -a 15.3823 -9.51% -3.77% -1.3% -9.31% Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 1.9034 -11.51% -4.57% -1.33% -10.31% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.245 -16.5% -5.87% -2.51% -16.01% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d 0.9291 -9.05% n.a. n.a.

-8.53% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d 0.8274 -18.21% n.a. n.a. -16.96% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d 0.8033 -20.38% n.a. n.a. -19.12% Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.7957 -19.28% -7.14% -3.41% -18.37% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. - a $0.0391 2.01% 2.68% 2.04% 2.36% 3.66% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -b $1.0546 6.33% 1.17% 4.21% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $4.1496 10.34% 5.67% 5.9% 6.11% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,3 $1.1671 5.57% 3.01% n.a.

3.4% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 367.83 3.94% 3.07% 2.6% 2.76% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.9488 1.74% 0.89% 0.29% 2.46% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.1996 3.78% 4.82% 5.01% 2.62% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.2918 3.94% 2.64% 2.24% 3.08% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.4464 4.81% 3.32% 1.99% 3.7% 4.06% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.6231 7.84% 2.56% 5.72% Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a,6 1.309 5.86% 4.31% 2.43% 4.16% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a

3.9492 5.51% 4.25% 2.36% 4.25% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.0325 8.79% 3.39% 1.86% 7.07% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.1695 5.03% 4.68% 2.85% 3.05% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a

1.734 3.85% 3.94% 2.32% 1.93% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $478.58 3.02% 2.49% 2.84% 2.18% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a Є217.24 -1.29% 0.78% 1.21% -1.16% ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.2381 3.66% 2.99% 2.7% 2.56% 1.7% 1.67% 2.33% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0264 2.33% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -b $1.0896 -0.38% 0.19% 0.41% -0.37% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.4974 3.76% 3.53% 3.44% 3.91% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0612609 2.07% 2.18% 2.09% 1.59% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.21 2.05% 1.9% 2.56% 1.1% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 129.05 3.6% 3.3% 2.5% 2.56% First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.0446 2.29% n.a. n.a.

1.78% 2.85% 3.04% 2.62% 1.97% Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.2899 Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0486 1.57% n.a. n.a.

0.99% Feeder Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities Sun Life Prosperity World Equity Index Feeder Fund, Inc. -a,d,7 1.0323 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,2 $0.95 n.a. n.a. n.a.

-4.04%

a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day. b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago. c - Listed in the PSE. d - in Net Asset Value per Unit (NAVPU).

1 - Launch date is September 28, 2019. 2 - Launch date is November 15, 2019. 3 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019.

4 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last October 12, 2018 (formerly, One Wealthy Nation Fund, Inc.). 5 - Launch date is December 09, 2019.

6 - Re-classified into a Bond Fund starting February 21, 2020 (Formerly a Money Market Fund). 7 - Launch date is July 6, 2020.

"While we endeavor to keep the information accurate, the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) and its members make no warranties as to the correctness of the newspaper’s publication and assume no liability or responsibility for any error or omissions. You may visit http://www. pifa.com.ph to see the latest NAVPS/NAVPU."

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Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Govt seeks ₧152-B fund for environment projects

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

T

he Duterte administration is seeking a budget of P152.35 billion to implement its convergence program on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction next year.

The Cabinet Cluster on Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Disaster Risk Reduction (CCAMDRR), chaired by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), said the Duterte administration has allotted P152.35 billion for the government’s Risk Resiliency Program (RRP) under the 2021 National Expenditure Program it submitted to Congress.

The amount is roughly 30-percent higher than the P117 billion allocated for the program this year, it added.

The increase in the budget request was due to the alignment of programs and activities to the priority policies, strategies and projects of the InterAgency Task Force Technical Working Group on Anticipatory and Forward Plan for the “new normal” in the CCAM-DDR sector.

In a statement, DENR Undersecretary for Finance, Information Systems and Climate Change Analiza Rebuelta-Teh said the proposed funding will be used to build resilient and sustainable communities as the country continue to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

“We are still in the midst of a

health crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. The country needs programs that will strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacities of its communities, especially in climate-vulnerable provinces and major urban centers,” Rebuelta-Teh said.

The RRP has the following objectives: to increase the adaptive capacities of vulnerable communities; to ensure the adequate supply of clean air, water, and other natural resources; to increase the resilience of critical infrastructures; and, to enhance knowledge, access to information and institutional capacities of communities.

For next year, the RRP will prioritize 14 climate-vulnerable provinces, which vary in risk factors of rising sea levels, extreme rainfall and heating events, increased ocean temperature and disturbed natural resources supply.

The provinces are Masbate, Sorsogon, Negros Oriental, Western Samar, Eastern Samar, Sarangani, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Southern Leyte, Zamboanga del Norte, Bukidnon, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.

The program also covers four major urban centers—Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Metro Iloilo and Metro Davao.

The DENR has placed climate change a top priority for the government even if it is currently preoccupied on controlling the spread of Covid-19.

Asia’s finance execs buttress crises-cash pool, currencies

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By Cai U. Ordinario

Where do we go from here?

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ot only will the productive automation of tasks require that we reinvent the organization of work, but so will the lasting impacts of Covid-19. This, in turn, demands that leaders make the critical choices about what kind of future-focused workplace they want to create and now at a muchaccelerated rate.

Covid-19 is a tipping point between the integration of humans and automation. A new normal will set in as learned behaviors and empowering technologies tested during the pandemic become standard, or more boldly, become required. The challenges to future viability and existence in the digital era remain largely unchanged— but the timeline for success has sped up dramatically given today’s situation.

In responding to Covid-19, organizations are moving from “Reaction” (triage) to “Resilience” (managing) to “Recovery” (resetting/planning) to the “New Reality” (adapting to the new world) at different paces. There will be winners and there will be laggards through these transitions—not everyone will make it through. Those who move through these phases with purpose and intention are more likely to come out on top. The need for accurate workforce forecasting and planning had never been more critical amid the onset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics and Covid-19 has just fast-tracked this urgency and criticality. It is forcing organizations that want to continue to thrive to bring forward their strategic planning efforts and apply them to more immediate futures.

We hypothesize that future-ready organizations pursuing strategic change that bring humans and machines together in a productive environment will not only survive and thrive with AI but also shape a future fit for humans and machines to coexist, and ultimately be better suited to handle the level of disruption we find ourselves in today. With that said, productivity gains will not happen simply by automating current work tasks within current processes. Nor will forcing AI into legacy processes or technologies.

It needs to be reinvented and built.

The opportunity is to create a connected enterprise that fosters the productive collaboration and division of labor between humans and machines.

We must also be very mindful, more pronounced now by what’s happening with Covid-19 in our working (and personal) world, that AI is only as good as the strategy and design behind it

and that improper application of it can quickly lead to a dehumanizing version of scientific management coupled with extreme surveillance and micromanagement of our workforce.

For instance, if going forward more than 50 percent of our workforce is remote, how do we manage the fine line between overbearing monitoring and allowing for “breathing space” for the workforce?

We foresee that leaders who are seeking to create a balanced workforce of the future will take a strategic approach that applies a digital mindset to the reinvention of work. We are seeing organizations responding to the inevitable need to“build something”as AI and digital technology, and unforeseen disruption, demolish aging and soon-obsolete workplace structures while delivering modern new“building blocks” for heightened productivity, competitiveness, and success.

Success, as noted earlier, will require organizations to ensure that this approach reflects these attributes: n Connecting the enterprise endto-end and understanding along the way the impact of change on the enterprise and customer experience. n Ensuring that everyone in the organization has a productive role to play as an innovator regarding the breakdown of tasks between humans and machines. n Providing everyone an opportunity to be a“leader,”building autonomy and a growth mind-set to act while meeting business objectives. n An innovative and flexible culture with a growth mind-set that encourages experimentation, collaboration, and change.

While no one can predict entirely what will happen as the “New Reality” sets in, or when we will get there, but what organizations can control now (or as soon as they get out of crisis management) is to plan for various scenarios that may occur and prepare for that future makeup of the workforce accordingly, one that will most certainly include forms of automation.

The excerpt was taken from “KPMG Thought Leadership, Consumers and the New Reality.” © 2020 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member-firm of the KPMG network of independent member-firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity. All rights reserved. Printed in the Philippines.

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

@caiordinario

inance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member-states, plus China, Japan and South Korea (Asean+3) moved to further strengthen a regional cash pool, using local currencies at that, which they can use in times of crises, such as balance-of-payment difficulties.

In a recent statement, the Asean+3 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors agreed to increase the IMF de-linked portion of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) to 40 percent. Six years ago, the Asean+3 agreed to increase to 30 percent the IMF de-linked portion, which allows members to borrow

up to a certain percentage of their maximum drawing amount without being placed under a program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The region’s finance ministers and Central Bank governors also moved to institutionalize local currency contributions in the CMIM and clarify the conditionality frame-

work for the de-linked portion of the CMIM. “This is a milestone achievement that has enhanced the value of CMIM to its members and improved the CMIM’s operational readiness,” they said.

The CMIM has two facilities: the CMIM Precautionary Line (CMIMPL), which is a crisis-prevention facility, and the CMIM Stability Facility (CMIM-SF), which may be availed by members for crisis resolution.

Under both facilities, 30 percent of the maximum drawable amount by any member may be quickly disbursed, called the IMF de-linked portion (IDLP). A member that withdraws above 30 percent would be subjected to IMF scrutiny and control.

The finance officials also welcomed the completion of the CMIM conditionality framework, following the Deputies’ endorsement of the technical guidance. The framework, they said, will guide CMIM members with support from the Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) in formulating conditionality for the IMF De-Linked Portion.

“The technical guidance ensures an independent CMIM decisionmaking process with AMRO’s support while clarifying the operational mechanism for smooth and swift cooperation and coordination between AMRO and the IMF during times of crises, to avoid excessive burden on the requesting country,” the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors said.

With a total size of $240 billion, the CMIM is a multilateral currency swap arrangement among ASEAN+3 members that aims to also address short-term US dollar liquidity difficulties in the region.

The CMIM acts as an important actor in the global financial safety net, along with countries’ own reserves, bilateral swap agreements between central banks, other RFAs and the IMF. The Philippines, through the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), has a contribution of $9.104 billion to the CMIM. The Philippines may be able to borrow up to 2.5 times its contribution commitment to the CMIM, i.e., $22.76 billion.

CIC wants ₧90-M subsidy to build up credit database

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad @Tyronepiad

Perspectives

Monday, September 21, 2020 B3

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he country’s central credit registry is seeking a P90million government subsidy for the next year as it gears toward improving its database management further.

The Credit Information Corp.

(CIC) said that bulk or around P35 million of this requested financing will be earmarked to better the security and maintenance of its growing credit database.

“As our database expands, however, the need to tighten the secu-

rity of our system becomes all the more imperative, especially these days when potential cyber-attacks threaten businesses and organizations with the implementation of remote work amid the pandemic,” CIC OIC President and Chief Executive Officer Aileen L. Amor-Bautista said during a virtual hearing last week.

The credit registry shared that the database currently has financial credit data of more than 18.9 million Filipino borrowers, translating to 30 percent of the country’s adult population. This, in addition to 80 million contracts coming from over 500 financial institutions.

Fintech records surge in MSME loan filings

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he financial technology (fintech) arm of Union Bank of the Philippines Inc. saw a surge in loans application from the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) amid the lockdown measures against the pandemic.

UBX Philippines Corp. President John Januszczak said that the application volume in the firm’s multi-lender online marketplace for MSME loans—SeekCap—rose significantly in the past months.

“Since the pandemic started, application volumes are up over 300 percent,” he said.

The UBX chief emphasized the need to extend credit to MSMEs because they comprise 99.5 percent of the businesses in the country and over 60 percent of the employment.

To date, Januszczak said that SeekCap has received half-a-billion of loan applications.

“We originally thought that this will be relevant during the pandemic because it is digitally accessible but lenders will probably be tightening their credit policies,” he explained. “Maybe it is a little bit more difficult to lend under the circumstances.”

To recall, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Senior Bank Loan Officers’ Survey for the second quarter revealed that most of the banks tightened overall credit standards for borrowings availed by enterprises and households.

This, as most banks reported that the overall demand for loans declined during the period. BSP’s

findings attributed this to dampened business prospects, drop in working capital requirements and lower household consumption, among others.

Despite this, the UBX chief said that the firm was able to see demand for MSME loans.

“But offsetting that were lenders who themselves needed to connect with the people they wanted or still wanted to lend to but they needed to do it digitally,” he explained.

Januszczak added that fintech has been “achieving scale and client reach at this point that it exceeds those of traditional banks.”

Recently, the Aboitiz-led bank launched digital corporate social responsibility initiatives aimed at helping students with virtual learning and jeepney drivers amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In August, UnionBank announced that it has teamed up with financial service platform GoBear to create new digital loan products. The combined expertise of both firms was used to develop new loan products that are made available in Lazada, one of the leading e-commerce platforms in the Philippines.

The listed bank saw its net income drop by 6 percent to P4.5 billion in the first semester from P4.79 billion a year ago for the same period. Topline figures, meanwhile, surged 55 percent to P22.1 billion year-on-year on the back of improved net interest income and higher trading gains.

Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

It added that security is the highest expense being incurred by the firm aside from employee salaries.

System improvements will be continuously be in place as the credit registry onboard more submitting entities, load additional credit data and further broaden financial inclusivity, the CIC said.

With this, the firm said it is investing in third-party solutions provider to ensure cybersecurity all the time.

The CIC added it is earmarking funding for regular annual penetration testing of the Credit Information System (CIS) to discover potential gaps in security.

“Other security solutions that will protect the CIS are also in place and would therefore need budget for the annual subscriptions,” AmorBautista explained.

The CIC chief said it will be operating on a “fairly tight budget” next year in support of government initiatives for efficiency.

“We’re spending under five pesos per data subject at the current rate of subsidy which we feel is very efficient,” Amor-Bautista said. “We’re also hoping to improve our revenues over the years to slowly minimize our dependence on government subsidies.”

World’s central banks adjust to Fed 3-yr plan

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ore than a dozen central banks will this week confront a new reality where monetary policy in the world’s biggest economy is set to stay ultra-loose for the foreseeable future.

With the Federal Reserve’s recent signal that US interest rates should be kept low for at least three years, officials meeting from Sweden to New Zealand have one more assumption on which to base their decision-making, beyond the knowledge that the coronavirus remains untamed.

That guidance from the Fed incorporates a reimagined policy framework to allow inflation to overshoot after periods of underperformance, a stance that already startled global monetary authorities by weakening the dollar when it was unveiled last month.

While a cheaper US currency, entrenched by low rates, could affect the inflation outlooks of other central banks, few are likely to respond with immediate loosening themselves.

Of the 16 or so decisions scheduled for the next few days, most should show policy on hold at an already easy setting. Colombia and Mexico, both proximate to the US, may still each cut their benchmarks.

US and Canada

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before congressional committees for three straight days—on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday—to discuss the response to the coronavirus pandemic. He’ll likely face questions about the broader state of economy and fiscal stimulus.

Weekly data on Thursday will showcase the level of continuing unemployment-benefit claims for the week ended September 12, a key metric in econo-

mists’ estimates for the monthly jobs report that’s due October 2. August home sales and durable-goods orders are also coming out.

Europe, Middle East, Africa

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey will have a chance to clarify the BOE’s surprising comments on preparations for negative rates when he speaks on Tuesday. That same day, UK data will shed more light on the damage that the fallout from the pandemic has done to public finances.

Surveys in the UK and the euro area later in the week will give investors insight into whether the rebound from the pandemic has peaked, with a surge in new infections now threatening to put that recovery in jeopardy.

Switzerland’s central bank is set to keep its rate at -0.75 percent, while Norway and Sweden are forecast to stick with 0 percent, and Czech policy makers will probably stay at 0.25 percent. In Hungary, policy makers will decide on rates too, with inflation hovering around the top of their tolerance band and the forint near a record low.

Turkey holds its rate-setting meeting Thursday after the lira hit consecutive record lows in past weeks.

The monetary authority has so far resorted to backdoor tightening to avoid an outright rate hike, a move that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he’d oppose.

Nigeria will probably hold the key rate with inflation stuck above the target band of 6 percent to 9 percent since 2015 and showing no sign of easing. Egypt, one of the few economies in the region expected to expand this year, may also maintain policy as authorities seek to entice foreign investors with a relatively high yield. Bloomberg News

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BusinessMirror

Monday, September 21, 2020 • Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

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How frugal fashionistas can stay on trend

BY COU�TNEY JESPERSEN

NO MUSS NO FUSS AT a time when dressing codes are more relaxed, Singapore-based fashion label In Good Company’s Capsule 18 collection features versatile, effortless pieces perfect for virtual meetings, a day in the office, running errands, or day-to-day wear.

There are feminine dresses with soft shapes and pretty colors, sophisticated tops with stylish detailing, and jackets you can easily throw in for that added edge. Featuring modern tailoring with a dash of femininity, each piece can instantly upgrade a woman’s look as she navigates through the new normal.

With stores in SM Makati, Powerplant Mall and SM Aura Premier, In Good Company is a ready-towear brand offering well-designed pieces to build a modern wardrobe of functional looks. The brand creates timeless wardrobe essentials and classics silhouettes with a twist—made to last beyond seasonal trends, and to suit modern lifestyles. The style-ready pieces combine thoughtful design with a high technical finesse of tailoring and drape work.

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NerdWallet

OWADAYS, it’s not just celebrities who wear high-end clothing and accessories.

The influencers filling your social-media feed likely wear them, too.

Millennials love buying luxury names, according to Thomai Serdari, academic director of the Fashion & Luxury MBA at NYU Stern School of Business and brand strategist at Brand(x)Lux. Some younger people are environmentally or socially conscious and invest in higher-end labels, buying one quality item that lasts for years or spending more money for a brand with a mission they believe in. Others simply want to treat themselves to a premium handbag, watch or pair of shoes every once in a while. “They like to be seen and they like to be photographed on Instagram carrying all the big names,” Serdari says. “Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada and all these luxury brands.”

Here are a few ways to save money on products from some of the most sought-after labels. These tips can be applied to different levels of brand prestige and price points.

SHOP THE SECONDARY MARKET PERHAPS your best shot at savings is in the secondary market. The RealReal is a marketplace for consigned luxury goods, where you can get some items for a fraction of their retail price, according to Sasha Skoda, head of womens at The RealReal.

“If you were to purchase a current season Gucci sneaker, they’re probably going to be priced pretty close to retail because they’re so in-demand,” Skoda says. “But if you were to purchase maybe a past season Tory Burch dress, you could potentially get it for up to 90-percent off the original retail price.”

There are other places to shop for these types of savings, too. But if you’re not shopping at a trusted establishment, you could be vulnerable to phony goods. “The more brand awareness that exists about a specific brand, the more people try to counterfeit the product,” Serdari says. Stay safe by sticking to reputable sellers. The RealReal, for example, has a team of experts that authenticates the items it sells.

On the other hand, snagging what looks like a lowpriced Prada tote listed by a seller you don’t recognize on eBay can be much riskier.

CHECK OUT THE OUTLET OUTLET stores, where brands sell their products straight to consumers, can also be sources of savings, but they likely won’t offer the same items you would see from the brand elsewhere.

Serdari says products are often manufactured specifically for an outlet store. They’ll usually be the same quality but not the current collection from the brand. Despite this downside, outlets are still a good option if you want the social recognition and logo of a label without paying as much for it.

SCOUT OUT SEVERAL PLACES DO your due diligence by scoping out products in

person (when it’s safe to do so) and exploring your options. You may find a bargain on something at a boutique or department store that you hadn’t previously considered or wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, Serdari says.

But don’t count out online sales, either. Some designer brands, such as Coach and Michael Kors, occasionally host annual sales on their web sites.

(More expensive luxury brands typically don’t, Serdari says.)

You’ll save during these recurring promotions, but Serdari warns that sale sections are often more limited and may contain items that aren’t as desirable.

Check for a sale tab on the brand’s web site.

BUDGET FOR YOUR SPLURGE EVEN if you find a good deal on that leather wallet or those cat-eye sunglasses, it’s likely you’ll still be spending a good chunk of money for your purchase, depending on the original price.

Remember to account for your extravagant treat in your regular budget. According to the 50/30/20 budget, needs should take up no more than 50 percent of your monthly budget, wants get another 30 percent and savings encompass the remaining 20 percent.

A luxury item would fall in the 30 percent category. Ensure you have room for it along with the other expenses that are already in that group like your morning latte and weekly takeout dinners.

With your budget accounted for, go ahead and enjoy the feeling of looking like you paid much more for something than you actually did. AP

Feminine protection brand celebrates #TheNewBrave WHISPER honors women and their bravery in its new campaign.

THE Covid-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the world’s longest lockdown for our country and its citizens, has redefined what bravery is. Heroes don’t need to have X-ray vision or the ability to fly. Heroes, for me, are the people who go out everyday to do what they need to do to earn a living.

The doctor who I met on Instagram and who made a house call just to vaccinate me and my family members is a hero. The woman who has been doing our family’s laundry for 10 years is a hero. A single mom, she has raised her kids singlehandedly. The teacher who is tech-challenged but is bravely trying to make her online classes more interesting for students is a hero. The yoga instructor who conducts online classes in exchange for a donation to her favorite charity is a hero.

While there are many brave men and other individuals who are heroes, I am very proud of the women who have not only suffered but also shone and flourished in this pandemic.

Feminine protection brand Whisper recently launched its #TheNewBrave campaign to celebrate the brave women who have survived and even flourished

in this pandemic.

“Developing a new hobby, learning new skills to complement their work life demands, learning how to relax and gain new self-care practices, and reawakening older interests are just some of the things women are doing to step into #TheNewBrave,” said Whisper in a press release.

The campaign, in my opinion, does not romanticize resilience, which to me is just accepting bad things and situations. Rather, it is about women finding hope in situations that seem hopeless, like this pandemic and this lockdown.

I’ve always said women deserve medals because they have monthly periods. Back when I still had my periods, I would turn into a different person for 10 days every month. Sometimes, I couldn’t go to work because the pain was so bad.

Whisper’s “3x better protection” gives women comfort in uncomfortable moments like their periods. The Whisper Pink (Cottony Soft) variant comes with dermacare lotion which helps reduce skin allergy, moisturizes and reduces friction, and improves the skin barrier. Whisper helps women to still embrace #TheNewBrave and be the best that they can be even during even the most difficult times.

More than being the pad trusted by women all over the world, Whisper uses its platform to celebrate all manifestations of our womanhood.

For a glimpse at what #TheNewBrave means, watch the brand’s new video at bit.ly/2EgmoDq. EYEBROW GAME-CHANGER I RECENTLY received The Brow Artist Collection from Strokes Beauty Lab and I was so excited because

who doesn’t know Momoi Supe? Many of my friends have had their brows and lashes done at Strokes and I’ll bravely say that his work is the most naturallooking of the micro-bladed brows that I’ve seen.

A friend who survived cancer was thankful that she had her brows micro-bladed by Momoi before she started losing her hair as a side effect of chemotherapy. Because she still had on fleek brows, my friend was more confident even if she had to wear a wig or a scarf on her head.

The Brow Artist Collection includes a Microblade Pen Perfector, Brow Colorist, Brow Fixer, Brow Painter and Brow Sculptor Duo in different shades.

The products, which are available at www.strokes. ph, contain vitamin C, hydrolyzed rice proteins and hyaluronic compounds that hydrate the skin and stimulate hair growth. The ingredient list also includes squalene, which boosts collagen production and protects hair, and Inca Inchi to smoothen, strengthen, soften and volumize hair.

All five products are free from phthalates, parabens, mineral oil and fragrances. They are also vegan-friendly, cruelty-free and BPA-free.

I have so far tried the Microblade Pen Perfector, a pen which creates natural looking brows, and the Brow Sculptor Duo, a microfine brow pencil with a spool on the other end.

I have the Brow Sculptor Duo in Soft Brown and I must say I really enjoy using it. I’m not a big fan of Instagram brows and much prefer natural-looking ones and this thin pencil allows me to draw hair-like strokes.

I’m going to try the other products in the coming days, and I will attempt to do a more comprehensive review maybe two columns from today.

BusinessMirror

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Monday, July 13, 2020 B Monday, September 21, 2020 b5

5 principles to guide adaptive leadership

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By ben Ramalingam, David Nabarro, Arkebe Oqubuy, Dame Ruth Carnall & Leni Wild

he Covid-19 pandemic is constantly evolving, with leaders facing unpredictability, imperfect information, multiple unknowns and the need to identify responses quickly, all while recognizing the multidimensional (health-related, economic, social, political and cultural) nature of the crisis.

n Anticipation of likely future needs, trends and options; n Articulation of these needs to build collective understanding and support for action; n Adaptation so that there is continuous learning and the adjustment of responses as necessary; n Accountability, including maximum transparency in decision-making processes and openness to challenges and feedback.

How can we make sure that this kind of adaptive leadership is properly implemented as our communities and businesses confront the pandemic? We have identified five common principles to guide action:

evidence-based learning and 1Ensure adaptation.

Adaptive leadership means teams and organizations need to constantly assess their modus operandi, recognizing that they will have to iterate and adapt their interventions as they learn more about the outcomes of decisions. This requires clear processes for determining the best options; collecting, interpreting and acting on evidence, including defining a set of key measures for determining success or failure; ensuring ongoing collection of operationally relevant data; and setting out a clear process for how changes in data and trends will trigger changes in action.

Putting social learning and adaptation at the center of crisis response has been found to be crucial in recent disease out-

break management, most notably in dealing with Ebola in West Africa. An analysis of the successful eradication of smallpox has also shown that the success was attributable to processes of strategic adaptation and learning—more than any other single factor.

underlying theories, 2Stress-test assumptions and beliefs.

Just a s institutions such as banks regularly undergo stress testing to ensure they can deal with future crises, the assumptions and hypotheses guiding an adaptive response need to be subject to robust and rigorous reflection and examination, including through the simulation of different possible future scenarios.

One of the most systematic and rigorous approaches to Covid-19 scenario planning has been developed by Boston Consulting Group. Drawing on military approaches to strategic learning, they advocate that firms establish an integrated model of “anticipation, intelligence and response.” Using such an approach, different scenarios have been developed for use by the automotive, fashion and luxury goods sectors. These scenarios account for critical uncertainties in the public health situation, the impact of government measures, the wider economic environment and business-specific demand forecasts, and they make use of real-time monitoring as the basis for decision-making.

deliberative decision3Streamline making.

A major challenge faced by leaders is that the data on COVID-19 is changing all the time and is often contradictory. When decision-makers feel threatened, they are much more likely to revert to risk-averse and siloed responses

www.freepik.com

Responding to the crisis requires adaptive leadership, which involves what we refer to as the 4 A’s:

to ensure the degree of safety that results from narrowly defined targets.

To avoid that, leaders at different levels therefore need to be clear about what they are basing their assumptions and hypotheses on. They need to explain what is being done and why, and how a decision was made, so that if errors are identified, trust can still be maintained in the process.

transparency, inclusion and 4Strengthen accountability.

People around the world have been asked to make major behavioral changes, and this brings significant costs for society, businesses and governments.

Because the stakes are so high, there is a need to examine how early decisions were made, bearing in mind the information available at the time. Ongoing real-time assessment of the response is needed to maximize learning. Such assessments should include all relevant stakeholders— from professionals to affected populations.

The best adaptive leaders—from business leaders to policymakers to community organizers—recognize mistakes are likely to be made and actively use the information to identify shared learning opportunities. The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has advocated the use of after-action reviews and similar processes to assess how public health decisions were taken at different points and on what basis.

Given the fact that the pandemic response is increasingly being viewed as a marathon and not a sprint, it is vital to assess what has happened so far, to identify strategic priorities and to exchange lessons learned. This means leaders need to commit to sharing their thinking and soliciting feedback at every stage in the spirit of openness, candor and transparency.

5Mobilize collective action.

The Covid-19 crisis is not just a public health crisis;

it’s also an economic, social and political crisis. It is a “complex systems” problem that requires changes in behaviors, incentives and relationships between different groups and organizations. Effective responses therefore need to build on collaboration across different sectors, industries and professionals and between international, national and local levels.

Adaptive leadership has a crucial role to play in helping to identify shared alignment of objectives and scope for collective action across different silos and levels of the response. In the UK, shared awareness of the existing health care capacity underpinned a landmark deal to commission rapidly all private-sector hospitals for use by the National Health Service, leading to an accelerated scaling up of available beds and equipment.

Civil society and citizen groups have also played a central role in mobilizing inclusive approaches to the pandemic, especially in resource-constrained settings. Local responses have emerged in the form of community-led support for the most vulnerable in Bhopal, India; the repurposing of manufacturing capability to enable locally produced personal protective equipment across the U.S.; and the strengthening of “social economy” approaches to rebuild disrupted economies from the bottom up in Canada and numerous European countries.

What we do in this crisis response will have repercussions for years and decades to come. The five principles of adaptive leadership are not just vital to guide our immediate responses; they will also be crucial as we shape longer-term recovery and resilience plans. Our collective future may be uncertain, but uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.

Ben Ramalingam is a senior research associate at the Overseas Development Institute. David Nabarro is the special envoy of World Health Organization’s director general on Covid-19 and co-director of the Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. Arkebe Oqubuy is senior minister and special adviser to the prime minister of Ethiopia. Dame Ruth Carnall is managing partner of Carnall Farrar, a trustee of the Kings Fund and the former chief executive officer of the National Health Service London. Leni Wild is a senior research associates at the Overseas Development Institute.

Are you offering the mental health benefits your employees of color need?

‘I

By Andrea Holman & Joe Grasso

am not OK. But I know I have to be.

And I will be. But I’m not OK.” One of us, Andrea, shared these conflicted yet honest sentiments with a colleague after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery began to receive increased media attention in April. Andrea was experiencing psychological distress. She was nervous, mentally fatigued and continually distracted by the pain of yet another racially motivated murder and the fear that this could happen to someone she loved.

While she was not directly connected to Arbery, the tragedy felt personal due to a psychological phenomenon called shared racial fate.

Managing Andrea’s distress was further complicated by the need she felt to maintain exemplary performance at work, a burden made even heavier by the realization that her family’s finances and her professional reputation hinged on her ability to compartmentalize and suppress her emotions while working.

Even with her background in mental health, Andrea didn’t accurately label what she was experiencing—race-based traumatic stress—until she spoke with a therapist. Fortunately, her mental health care benefits allowed her to reach out to a professional who helped her process her reactions and develop strategies to manage her emotions and take care of herself.

Unfortunately, many Black Americans don’t have access to these same types of resources. Nor are Black Americans the only

ones who experience race-related stress.

Millions of people from racial minority groups carry the psychological weight of racism throughout their lives, and very few are able to reach out to culturally responsive mental health providers through their employee benefits.

Over the past several months, many companies have pledged to better support their employees of color, particularly when it comes to mental health. To do this well, these efforts must include the provision of services that meet the unique mental health needs of those employees.

At Lyra Health, Joe, the other author of this article, consults regularly with employer benefits teams that are increasingly recognizing the shortcomings of a one-size-fits-all mental health program.

So what do more effective programs look like? We believe they need to do two key things:

They offer mental health benefits that work

Most large employers offer mental health benefits via an employee assistance program, but these programs are often ill-suited to the specific needs of people of color.

While rates of mental illness among Black Americans are comparable to other racial groups, this community faces higher prevalence of severe symptoms that result in disability. The data is particularly troubling when coupled with the fact that people of color are often less likely to seek treatment than other groups because of stigma, cultural mistrust toward health care providers and a lack of access to culturally responsive care. Furthermore, stud-

ies show that even when they do obtain services, they often prematurely discontinue care and are less likely to receive a full course of treatment as recommended by clinical guidelines.

Traditional employee assistance programs exacerbate this issue by often offering six or fewer sessions to address an identified problem. Thus, treatment coverage often ends well before many evidence-based treatment protocols can be completed.

To make sure that your mental health benefits address these barriers companies should look at the following dimensions:

n Provider diversity: Does your mental health solution recruit and engage racially diverse providers? Ask about its initiatives to promote diversity within its provider network.

n Access: How easy is it to schedule an appointment with a provider? Does your mental health benefits solution offer online booking? The ideal average wait time for an appointment should be less than one week, with the ability to obtain a next-day appointment for urgent or severe issues.

n Flexibility: Are employees able to engage in care on their terms? That can mean being able to receive care in person, by phone or by video call.

n Cultural Responsiveness: Are providers in the network vetted for their use of culturally responsive approaches to care, such as an ability to assess cultural factors that impact clients’ lives, experience and training related to race-based stress?

What continuing education options does your mental health benefits solution offer to ensure that mental health-care providers have easy access to high quality, culturally informed training? Trainings should not only address issues related to race and ethnicity, but also promote culturally sensitive care related to other social identities, such as best practices for treating clients who identify as transgender.

n Effectiveness: Are providers assessed for use of evidence-based therapies that are shown to be effective for diverse populations? Does your benefits solution track clinical outcomes specific to your employee population? An employee assistance program should have data to show that most employees’ mental health symptoms reliably improve.

n Specialty coverage: Can your employees easily find providers who are trained to treat specific issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, or specific populations, such as children and adolescents?

They enhance utilization through education and partnership

Even the best benefits won’t be effective if they’re not utilized. Many employee assistance programs have incredibly low usage rates. Employers need to promote their mental health benefits using both data and storytelling to normalize mental health, challenge stigma and explain how evidence-based therapy can effectively treat a wide spectrum of mental health conditions.

Employers should also consider part-

nering with their companies’ employee resource groups or affinity groups. These groups can provide safe spaces for discussion around employees’ race-based traumatic stress and the intersection of mental health and cultural diversity. Ask the leaders of these groups if they’d be willing to have a human resources representative and possibly a clinician from your mental health benefit provider join a meeting to discuss barriers that are holding people of color back from seeking help. You can also use such meetings to highlight the benefits that are available to your employees.

Finally, we find that outreach efforts are much more effective if leaders champion them. When an executive who belongs to a minority group shares a personal story about mental health, it can help to destigmatize and encourage access to the company’s benefits.

As companies seek to support a more diverse and inclusive workforce, leaders need to understand that race-based stress can be a unique, pervasive burden for many of the employees they want to champion. Offering and promoting mental health benefits that are evidence-based, culturally responsive and supported by company leaders can lead to meaningful progress in prioritizing the mind, body and soul of employees of color.

Andrea Holman is an associate professor of psychology at Huston-Tillotson University. Joe Grasso is the clinical director for partnerships at Lyra Health and a clinical psychologist.

B6 Monday, September 21, 2020

Detect, Isolate, Trace, Treat: Malabon intensifies fight vs. COVID-19 with effective strategy

Globe is Employer of the Year in the 2020 Stevie Awards for Great Employers

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OR the third consecutive year, Globe Telecom bagged the Gold Stevie Awards for Employer of the Year in Telecommunications. The company also received four other recognitions primarily for its efforts to secure the workplace and take care of its employees during the pandemic.

The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.

“Globe is always committed to the creation of a workplace that can provide a holistic development for our employees – where they can learn, grow, and help in nation-building. Even in these trying times, we will continue to dedicate each day to enhance the lives of our employees so that together we can create innovative products and solutions and be of better service to our customers,” said Renato Jiao, Globe Chief Human Resource Officer.

To create a high-performing organization through a purpose-driven workforce, Globe continues to come up with programs and opportunities that empower its employees such as flexible work arrangement even before the work-from-home (WFH) setup became the norm, a one-stop app for human resource requirements, flexible benefits program, learning interventions to sharpen employees’ technical and leadership skills, and paid time off for volunteering activities, among others.

As a result of these programs, Globe’s employee-centric organizational culture has been recognized widely in the

industry in 2019. The organization has generated a 91% rating in the Sustainable Engagement Index, an above industry average rating in the Human Resource Asia Awards, and an 88% rating on the Organizational Health Index Score.

Globe also received two Silver Stevies for “Most Valuable HR Team” and the “Most Innovative Use of HR Technology During the Pandemic” for its WOW from Home: How Globe redefines working from home and DUDE Bot projects, respectively. The DUDE bot or Digital Usher for Disasters and Emergencies was created to monitor employees' health and respond to their COVID symptoms as well as provide them with links to official resources and tips on how to deal with the virus.

Globe provided WFH tools such as updated mobile data plan and partially subsidized broadband plans, a virtual Information Technology bar with remote support, vacation leave encashment for personal finances or availment of gadgets, employee discounts on laptops, accessories, and ergonomic chairs, and an in-house courier service that buys and delivers groceries and other necessities.

The company also has an employee wellness program that connects employees to consultation channels for physical or mental health concerns.

There are virtual wellness programs webinars, online workout sessions, and even quiz-show podcasts to keep employees healthy and happy.

Globe also received a Bronze award for “Most Valuable Employer” for its COVID-19 response. Aware of its crucial role as a telco, Globe has implemented measures and strategies as early as

February to ensure that customers are connected,while its employees remain safe from the virus. Members of the critical skeletal force are also provided additional support through food subsidy, free transportation, free accommodations, complete medical coverage, life insurance, personal protective equipment, and premium pay.

Globe’s Wonderful Employee Experience program also bagged a bronze for “Achievement in Employer Engagement.” The program’s purpose was to deliver a wonderful experience to employees, uplifting their lives, promoting their wellness, and engaging them to have their best Globe Life.

The awarding ceremonies will be held virtually on November 5, 2020.

To learn more about Globe, visit https://www.globe.com.ph/.

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OCAL government units, especially in the National Capital Region, face more challenges as the pandemic has not only affected the lives of citizens, it also drastically impacted businesses and livelihoods. As the elusive vaccine is still far from approval, LGUs such as Malabon are doing its best amid the current situation, balancing both the safety of people with the safe reopening of businesses.

One of the ways Malabon is doing it is by implementing an effective system for contact tracing, and presiding over a free mega swab testing done at the city’s sports stadium. To “Detect, Isolate, Trace, and Treat” patients is the only way that the city can have a semblance of normalcy, and allow the local economy to function amid the new normal.

The free mega swab testing started last August 8 at the Oreta Sports Center.

This was made possible with hand-inhand coordination of the City’s Health Department, Ospital ng Malabon, Philippine National Red Cross, Philippine Coast Guard, and the IATF. From an initial RT PCR (swab) testing of 600 a day, succeeding tests showed significant increase of target capacity to 1,000 a day. As of August 25, a total of almost 20,000 Malabonians were already tested.

Malabon implements its testing every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while contact tracing by the barangay health emergency response team (BHERTs) is done during Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Those who are tested, says Mayor Lenlen Oreta, are required to isolate themselves at their homes. While those proven to be infected based on the swab testing are required to go to one of Malabon’s three isolation centers,

where they would be “treated” – given regular nutritious food and vitamins, and provided a clean and safe environment where they could rest and recover.

As of press time, the number of positive cases is now taking up most of the rooms in the quarantine facilities, but Mayor Oreta says they are planning to add 200 to 300 more beds. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is also helping to create an isolation center that is bigger, which can soon accommodate 88 beds.

To avail of the free Covid-19 testing, Malabonians who feel they have symptoms need to schedule a visit with their barangay health centers first. The priority for testing are those who had close contact with a Covidpositive patient. The Malabon LGU is in the process of purchasing serology machines that would allow them to see immediate results from tests.

Malabon is also intensifying its information campaign called “#MaskSafe SaMalabon” to remind Malabo-nians of the “3Ps” – Paghugas ng Kamay, Pagsuot ng Face Mask/ Face Shield, and Physical Distancing.

“We should work hand-in-hand and do our part in keeping the virus from spreading.

The local government and medical frontliners alone wouldn’t be able to eliminate the problem if the rest of the population is not following the health protocols. We must live and act ‘like we have the virus’ so we would be responsible and conscious of others. It is only by cooperation that we would see the Covid infections go down,” says Mayor Oreta. “The earlier the infections go down, the earlier it is for us to bring back to normal our lives, livelihood, and the local economy.”

Placing sustainability at the heart of its operations, Meralco wins 2020 International Business Award The hardworking frontliners manning the registry of the swab testing center on Right Photo: Contact tracing done

by Malabon's barangay health emergency response team

Medical practitioners call for COVID-19 prophylaxis, early treatment

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HE International Business Awards (IBA), the world’s premier business awards program, recognized Meralco for its 2019 Sustainability Report (SR) entitled “Sustaining the Future” – a groundbreaking report which highlights the company’s commitment to place sustainability at the forefront while addressing the energy needs of a thriving nation, today and for generations to come.

It is a comprehensive discussion of Meralco’s sustainability agenda promoting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). IBA awarded Meralco a Bronze Stevie for its maiden SR under the Best Annual Report category, along with entries from Turkey, Indonesia, and Spain.

As the Philippines’ largest electric distribution utility, Meralco is distinctively positioned to contribute to UN SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy. Under the leadership of President and CEO Atty.

Ray C. Espinosa, Meralco also promotes and supports 10 other SDGs through its other businesses and initiatives. This holistic approach is reflected in Meralco’s sustainability agenda focused on four areas

– Power, Planet, People, and Prosperity. “‘Sustaining the Future’ provides bases for transparent reporting and lends credence to Meralco’s sustainability practices. It articulates how sustainability is core to corporate strategy and operations and how Meralco addresses governance, social, and environmental imperatives”, Atty. Espinosa said.

To achieve robust, material, and credible sustainability reporting, Meralco fulfilled Global Reporting Initiative’s Materiality Disclosures Service. Meralco also received third-party assurance that its Sustainability Report contained reasonable and balanced accounts of the company’s sustainability performance and that all disclosures made were in accordance with best practices.

“We are very happy that ‘Sustaining the Future’ has resonated with and has been well-received by our stakeholders— from our employees and investors to the customers and communities we serve,” added Meralco’s Chief Sustainability Officer Raymond B. Ravelo. “This milestone report is our primary platform for communicating Meralco’s overarching sustainability

program, ‘Powering the Good Life’.

Beyond providing information about our practices and projects, our aim is to influence and inspire as many as we can to join us on this sustainability journey.”

According to Atty. Espinosa, the award is a recognition of Meralco’s earnest efforts. “We are very honored that Meralco’s first-ever SR and our initiatives towards our sustainability agenda have been recognized on the global stage.

This achievement pushes the company to further focus our strategic direction towards sustainability, allowing us to provide affordable, accessible, reliable, and clean power, while protecting and preserving Mother Earth, cultivating a culture of excellence and stewardship in our organization, and fostering inclusive growth for a prosperous nation – truly powering the good life for all.”

The International Business Awards is the world’s premier business awards program. All individuals and organizations worldwide are eligible to submit nominations. The 2020 IBA received entries from organizations in 63 nations and territories with ovwr 3,800 nominations from organizations.

"The commitment we’ve seen through these nominations to maintaining the success, health, and safety of employees, customers, and communities is truly impressive,” said Stevie Awards president Maggie Gallagher. Winners will be celebrated instead during a virtual ceremony on Tuesday, 1 December.

‘W

E propose to the President that the Philippines adopt a national protocol for the prophylaxis and early treatment of COVID-19 that aims to reduce hospitalization and prevent loss of lives’.

In a unity statement, the PH Doctors and Friends for C19 Prophylaxis and Early Treatment cited the need to heed the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to assist in the fight against the pandemic and added there are now studies and researches that allow the scientific community to understand the virus better with more information compared to the previous months.

“For instance, various researches have confirmed that at least 93 percent of COVID deaths are people 55 years or older or those representing the high-risk groups,” the group said. They added, “The studies have also indicated that most of the deaths of having co-morbidities.

These two groups of people constitute COVID’s high-risk groups.”

In addition, the primary care physicians suggest that the treatment priority should focus on these vulnerable groups.

“As we have applied this protocol, we have seen an almost 100 percent success rate in treatment. Additionally, since we utilize homecare quarantine treatment to some of our patients, there was also a marked decrease in infection rates as well as easing the burden on the nation’s front liners and coffers. There was no need for hospital care too,” they went on to say.

According to the physicians, the medical protocols they are proposing could be easily scaled on a national level, besides being more cost-effective.

If adopted, the protocols will allow the national government to allocate its

limited resources to disease prevention and early treatment of flu-like illnesses, particularly on the vulnerable groups.

The group also suggested conducting training for the country’s primary care doctors to the barangay level to implement such protocols to eliminate the need to travel and work restrictions.

This will enable businesses to re-open and our markets moving again, thus saving jobs and prevent the further deterioration of our economy,” they said.

On the age vulnerability, the group noted several pieces of research showing zero deaths among the under 19 age group as well as zero cases of child-to-elderly transmission. This means, schools can allow students to report on a face-to-face education environment again, they said.

The group further suggested that the county adopts the HOPE strategy: Hospitalize less; Open up all businesses; Prevent illness. Don’t wait to cure it, and Educate all primary care physicians and the people on disease prevention. This can be achieved by implementing these two protocols: 1) Prevent Early. Treat Early; and 2) Quarantine the sick, not the healthy. The group further appeals to the President to immediately adopt a national protocol for the prophylaxis and early treatment of COVID-19 and to end all lockdowns and allow our people to begin to rebuild their lives.

The group is composed of Drs. Edwin A. Bien, MD, Friamd; Rodrigo Angelo Ong, MD, RCh , CMA, FICS; Joel Lopez; Homer Lim, MD; Roderick Tan; Benigno Agbayani Jr.; Rolando Aquino Balburias, MD; and Fidel Fernandez, MD. "Once these measures are adopted, Mr. President, we will truly begin to heal as one nation,” they concluded.

Marketing BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Monday, September 21, 2020 B7

The coronavirus chronicles: What kind of remote worker are you?

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n Awards: ABS-CBN’s COVID-19 response wins a Stevie at the 2020 International Business Awards

MANILA, PHILIPPINES—The international community has recognized ABS-CBN’s swift and compassionate initiatives to help Filipinos during the Covid-19 pandemic despite uncertainties over the renewal of its legislative franchise.

The network won a Silver Stevie for Most Valuable Corporate Response at the 17th International Business Awards (IBA), which will have its virtual awarding on December.

The judges commended the Kapamilya network’s various response strategies to serve Filipinos when the Covid-19 crisis hit the country.

“ABS-CBN nobly answered the call to respond to the pandemic through a variety of impactful initiatives. The network’s dedication to their community is noteworthy,” said one judge.

“This entry is astounding due to the fact that ABS-CBN invested in assistance where needed whilst continuing to employ and to operate as a vital news channel,” another judge commented.

With about 70 million Filipinos watching its programs on TV, ABSCBN kept Filipinos updated on the pandemic through its newscasts and entertained Filipinos with its inspiring entertainment programs on multiple media platforms. Its Ligtas Pilipinas sa Covid-19 information campaign, meanwhile, helped the government educate citizens about Covid-19.

Another effort that made a huge difference is ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN Foundation’s Pantawid ng Pag-ibig fund-raising campaign in cooperation with local governments and the private sector. The network donated P50 million as seed money to

n Don’t pick sides. “Neither integrators nor segmentors are better or more committed than the other,” Rothbard reminds managers. Your life will be easier if you remember that and allow everybody to pursue the strategy that’s best for them. n Rotate the pain. Even if you respect everyone’s preferences, “you will still have to work together.” And that means there will be adjustments to different workstyles and different ways of doing things. “Just make sure that you rotate the pain so it’s not always the segmentors or integrators who are losing out,” says Rothbard.

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By Millie F. Dizon

which advice will be useful for you, but also help you get more out of your team if you’re a leader.”

How can one balance work with both segmentors and integrators in a team? Rothbard offers the following actionable tips in her article:

n Utilize rituals. Segmentors want to draw a bright line between work and home, but in our current reality, that may be hard to achieve.

Rothbard suggests rituals can help.

Even if “you’re going across the corridor to start your day, taking a walk around the garden first or setting aside a few minutes to plug back into work can help you keep things separate mentally,” she says. n Set boundaries. On the opposite side, integrators often struggle to focus “as they allow different demands to pull them in different directions.

Rothbard says that for integrators, one can keep productivity on track by “thinking ahead about exactly what you will let distract you during different times of your workday.”

Are you a segmentor or integrator? Keep these guidelines in mind as you navigate working from home in the new normal.

PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier association for senior professionals around the world. Millie Dizon, the Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications of SM, is the former local chair.

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PR Matters

OU actually go to your office to work?” Many of my colleagues in public relations and marketing express surprise—and disbelief—when they learn that yes, I have been going to office regularly since May. On the other hand, I continue to be amazed on how many continue to work from home, and seem to have settled quite comfortably into it.

Having had the opportunity to work from home during the initial lockdown in March, I can say that like everything else it has its good and bad points. And as working remotely seems here to stay, we are getting to know more about it, and how to manage it better.

One of these is that working remotely is different for different people. In an Inc.com article, Jessica Stillman says that, “not only do we have different home situations and career trajectories, we have different personalities.”

With that, she believes that— as stated in her article, “There Are 2 Kinds of Remote Workers. You’ll Get More Done If You Know Which You Are.” Stillman cites what she calls a fascinating post by Wharton professor Nancy Rothbard on the school’s Knowledge@Wharton site.

According to Rothbard, “our individual preferences and quirks have a big impact on how we handle remote work and how successful we are at it.”

Rothbard divides people into two main groups—integrators and segmentors—and adds that, “understanding which approach comes more naturally to you and to your team can help you all get more done, faster, with less stress.

Indeed, how do you divide your time, space, and attention between competing demands? Segmentors and integrators answer that question very differently.

Segmentors “crave clear separation, spatially and temporally between work and home.” As such, “working at the kitchen table with the kids drifting in and out of zoom calls is definitely not for them. Give them a quiet garden shed and defined working hours any day.”

Integrators, on the other hand, “gravitate toward the opposite approach. They don’t mind answering emails in between helping the kids with their schoolwork. A late-night call doesn’t faze them, but then neither does closing the laptop for a lunchtime run.”

All in all, “understanding which you belong to will help you sort out

the cause that has raised over P448 million cash and in-kind donations as of August 14, and has delivered food and basic necessities to over 880,000 families affected by the community quarantine.

Part of this effort was a groundbreaking digital concert featuring more than 100 celebrities from ABSCBN that received 3.7 million views on Facebook, YouTube, and on ABS-CBN streaming services iWant and TFC.tv.

While it has gone the extra mile to look after the welfare of the Filipino people, ABS-CBN also ensured the well-being of its staff, crew, artists, and audiences by implementing safety protocols and work-from-home schemes while also continuing to pay salaries and numerous benefits to help them cope with the pandemic.

IBA or the Stevie Awards is considered as the world’s premiere business awards that confers recognition for achievement and impactful contributions of companies worldwide. This year’s competition attracted over 3,800 nominations

from 63 countries.

Prior to this award, ABS-CBN was also recognized by this prestigious award-giving for its business achievements and public service efforts in 2014, winning the Gold Stevie Award in the Company of the Year—Media & Entertainment category as well as the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Company. It also won a Grand Stevie Award and Gold Stevie Award in the Services Company of the Year category of the Asia Pacific Stevie Awards on the same year.

n Awards: Eastern Communications wins Stevie Awards at the 2020 International Business Awards MANILA, PHILIPPINES—Eastern Communications, one of the country’s premier telecommunications companies, wins a Silver and two Bronze Stevie Awards at the 2020 International Business Awards (IBA).

Presenting its holistic Covid-19 response, Eastern Communications bags a Silver Stevie Award for the

entry “Helping the Nation’s Battle with Our Strong Connection” under Most Valuable Corporate Response.

The company also takes home two Bronze Stevie Awards for the entries “Connected: Eastern Communications’ #SafeAndStrongAtHome social media initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic” under Best Use of Social Media-Covid-19 related; and “Nurturing Eastern Communications’ Employee Welfare” under Most Exemplary Employer.

Eastern Communications rolled out its Covid-19 response, consisting overall support to the public, businesses, employees, government, and frontliners through extending their innovative services and other forms of assistance. This includes pledging of Office 365 license to several government offices, personal protective equipment (PPEs) donated to hospitals, financial support for the Covid-19 related causes of partner associations and private sectors, engaging employee campaign, among others.

“Eastern Communications has always been true to our promise

We are devoting a special column each month to answer the reader’s questions about public relations. Please send your comments and questions to askipraphil@gmail.com.

to provide best practices to our stakeholders, most especially in time of difficulties like a pandemic. We are very honored that the company’s efforts have been recognized by the International Business Awards, giving us more motivation to continue on our Covid-19 response,” said Eastern Communications Head of Marketing Jedrek Estanislao.

The International Business Awards are the world’s premier business awards program. All individuals and organizations worldwide—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small are eligible to submit nominations.

The 2020 IBA received entries from organizations in 63 nations and territories.

As the ongoing Covid-19 crisis will prevent winners from receiving their awards on stage during a traditional gala IBA banquet, winners will be celebrated instead during a virtual ceremony on Tuesday, 1 December.

To learn more about Eastern Communications, visit eastern.com.ph

Sports BusinessMirror

B8 Monday, September 21, 2020

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

ROMERO

Rick Olivares bleachersbrew@gmail.com

Romero: PBA games relief to entire nation

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OUSE Deputy Speaker and NorthPort owner Mikee Romero said the resumption of the shuttered 45th season of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is exactly what Filipinos need—relief and entertainment during the extended quarantines.

“The resumption of the PBA will help the Filipinos cope with depression and Covid-19.

I am certain it will provide relief,” said Romero, one of the wealthiest lawmakers in the country. “We need to relax a bit after months of anguish.”

With all Filipinos still dealing with the pandemic—mentally and financially—Romero urged the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to allow the PBA to resume its season in a bubble in Clark, Pampanga.

Romero, who saw action for the national polo team in last year’s 30th Southeast Asian Games, is confident in the PBA leadership and the all-out support of the team owners.

“Under the leadership of Chairman Ricky Vargas and Commissioner Willie Marcial, the PBA has exhausted everything to make the bubble type concept safe for everyone,” said Romero, who was again included in Forbes’ 50 richest Filipinos.

Romero, who has an estimated worth of P6.5 billion, also noted that PBA players, including his Batang Pier, are already eager to get back into action after the league was halted in March due to the outbreak.

The 1Pacman congressman said even the league’s marquee players are supporting the government’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” campaign.

Being the president of the Partylist Coalition Foundation Inc., Romero has been very busy the past months as he oversees the organization’s distribution of relief assistance to frontliners and displaced workers.

If given the green light, the PBA will have a two-week scrimmages before resuming its games tentatively on October 9.

The PBA bubble, Romero said, could just become a catalyst as the country is trying to live under a new normal.

“The PBA bubble could just be the start of something good for Philippine sports. Even how hard it is, we have to move on and stay focused,” he said.

Bleachers’ Brew

Do you need to say it, LeBron?

POGACAR CHAMPION!

TADEJ POGACAR is simply amazing, stripping fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic of the yellow jersey. AP

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A PLANCHE DES BELLES FILLES, France—In an incredible climax to the Tour de France, Tadej Pogacar crushed fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic in the last stage Saturday before the finish in Paris, snatching away his race lead to all but guarantee that he will win cycling’s showpiece event at his first attempt.

Set, at one day shy of 22, to become the youngest post-World War II champion, Pogacar flew on the penultimate stage, a lung-burning uphill time trial, and devoured the 57-second lead that had made Roglic look impregnable before the showdown in the mountains of eastern France.

Equally amazing: This is Pogacar’s first Tour.

Among others who pulled off the feat of winning at their first attempt: the great Eddy Merckx. The Belgian also won his next four Tours after his first in 1969. Given his young age and breathtaking talent, Pogacar’s first also looks unlikely to be his last.

“Unbelievable, unbelievable,” Pogacar said.

“My head will explode.”

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Pogacar was sensational, not only ripping the iconic race leader’s yellow jersey from Roglic, but comfortably winning the time trial, too. He gobbled through the 36 kilometers, slicing through the air in an aerodynamic tuck on a slick time-trial bike and then switching to a road bike for the sharp finishing ascent to the Planches des Belles Filles ski station.

Roglic labored in comparison, looking taut where Pogacar glided fluidly. He, too, hopped onto a road bike for the climb, his with yellow tape on the handlebars to match the jersey that he was in the process of losing.

As Roglic ascended, what was left of his lead melted away. It then became a yawning deficit to Pogacar, who’d been second overall going into the time trial, which amply lived up to its nickname: “The race of truth.” The 30-yearold Roglic managed no better than fifth, a whopping 1 minute, 56 seconds slower than his younger and clearly fresher countryman. At the top, he sat slumped on the tarmac, the enormity of his collapse sinking in.

“I will cry. Or I did, already,” Roglic said. “I struggled with everything, eh? Just not enough power,” “I would want it to be a little different, but I cannot change it,” he added. “It is how it is.”

Not since British riders Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome finished 1-2 at the 2012 Tour has one nation taken the top two spots.

But almost everyone—even Pogacar—had expected that Roglic would roll into Paris with the yellow jersey on his shoulders, sipping Champagne in the saddle on the processional ride, on his way to becoming Slovenia’s first winner. Roglic had taken the race lead on Stage 9 and held it all the way to Saturday, Stage 20, the worst day to lose it. He

now trails Pogacar by 59 seconds overall.

“I cannot believe how hard it must be for him,” Pogacar said. “He must be devastated. But that’s bike racing.”

Only a major mishap Sunday—highly unlikely—will prevent Pogacar from taking over from 2019 winner Egan Bernal, who was 22, as the youngest post-war champion. So sure

is his victory that he was already introduced at the race organizers’ press conference Saturday evening as the Tour winner.

“I can’t wait to cross the line in Paris,” Pogacar said.

Australian Richie Porte will complete the podium, after he time-trialed brilliantly to hoist himself from fourth to third overall. Porte is a veteran of 10 Tours, but he’d only once finished in the top 10—a fifth place in 2016—in a career sometimes dogged by ill-fortune.

Aged 35, Porte wanted a picture of himself on the Tour podium before his career ends. He’ll get that Sunday.

“It really does feel like a victory,” Porte said.

He, too, said he felt for Roglic.

“It’s kind of brutal what happened,” he said.

The high drama was reminiscent of Frenchman Laurent Fignon’s collapse in 1989.

He had a lead of 50 seconds over Greg LeMond before the final stage, also a time trial, from Versailles to Paris. Fignon ended up losing to the American by just eight seconds—the smallest ever margin of victory.

Pogacar, who finished third at last year’s Spanish Vuelta won by Roglic, might have had an even bigger lead by now had he not suffered a major setback in the first week of the threeweek marathon, raced over more than 3,400 kilometers (2,100 miles) and all five of France’s mountain ranges. AP

3x3 league brass tells member-teams to ‘go hard’ on nationals

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HE Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3x3 professional league tentatively opens early next month with organizer Ronald Mascariñas putting up a unique incentive program aimed at harnessing the national 3x3 team that would vie in the Olympic qualifying tournament (OQT) in 2021.

Mascariñas’s marching offer to the 11 member teams? Go hard on the league’s 12th member, Family’s Brand Sardines-Zamboanga City Chooks composed of No. 1 Joshua Munzon, No. 2 Alvin Pasaol, nN. 5 Troy Rike, and No. 6 Santi Santillan in its roster.

“This inaugural season of Chooks-to-Go

Pilipinas 3x3 is really to help our national team get ready for the OQT in Graz, Austria, next year,” Mascariñas said. “We can’t just let them train without actually facing competition. It won’t make sense.”

The league offers a P100,000 top prize for the champion of each of the first four legs of the President’s Cup and on top of that—if Zamboanga City makes the Finals—the ultimate champion will get an extra P100,000, with the second- and third-placed squad pocketing P30,000 and P20,000, respectively.

“We also have to reward the teams that have taken the time and effort to face them

[Zamboanga]. That is why we raised the stakes for our first conference,” said Mascariñas, adding the tournament is owns a Level 7 ranking by the International Basketball Federation.

The OQT was originally set last March 18 to 22 in Bangalore, India, but was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Tokyo Olympics were also rescheduled for August next year.

The President’s Cup powered by TM is tentatively scheduled on October 2 at the Inspire Academy in Calamba, Laguna, while the second leg takes place on October 4. Legs 3 and 4 are penciled in on October 16 and 18, respectively.

The Grand Finals—which offers a

Filipino karateka closes in on No. 1 ranking in online series

F

ORMER national athlete James de los Santos closed in on becoming the world’s No. 1 kata practitioner after clinching his 10th gold medal in the Fourth SportData eTournament World Series that was staged online last Sunday.

De los Santos narrowly beat world No. 1, Portuguese Eduardo Garcia, 24.8-24.5, to start paving his way to the top of the series which started in March as the Covid-19 pandemic and shuttered all live sports competitions.

“After winning the SportData eTournament World Series, I’m much closer to the No. 1 spot,” de los Santos, 30, told BusinessMirror on Sunday. “The hard work really paid off, but I’m still continuing my journey to world No. 1. I’m much closer than I was before.”

It wasn’t the first time de los Santos competed in SportData E-Tournament World Series. He settled for silver last May in the second edition and then crashed to 17th place

in the third edition in July.

De los Santos bagged his ninth gold medal in the Hatamoto Kai Mitad Del Mundo E-Tournament after outlasting Murilo Alvez of Brazil, 24.6-23.6.

The Filipino amassed 5,655 points at No. 2 behind Garcia (7,075).

Japanese coach Masa Saito is all praises for his student.

“I’m just really happy. I am confident on our coach-athlete partnership. I appreciate the opportunity he gave me to be his coach,” Saito said.

De los Santos, a sixth time gold medalist in the Philippine National Games, also captured gold medals in the Palestine International Karate Cup, Korokotta Cup, Balkan Open, Athletes E-Tournament, E-Karate Games 2020, E-Champions Trophy World Series, Miyamoto Musashi-Five Rings E-Tournament and the Second Dutch Open E-Tournament.

P1,000,000 prize for the champion, P300,000 for the runner-up and P100,000 for the third placer—are set on November 7.

The other teams in the league are Uling Roasters-Butuan City, Bacolod-Masters Sardines, Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards, Palayan City Capitals, Zamboanga Peninsula Valientes MLV, Porac Big Boss Cement Green Gorillas, Bicol 3x3 Pro, Pasig Sta. Lucia Realtors, Saranggani Marlins, Pagadian City Rocky Sports Valientes and a squad backed by Petra Cement.

The teams of the league have been training since August 26 at the University of the

ORGANIZER Ronald Mascariñas has an incentive program to whip up the national 3x3 team members.

Philippines Epsilon Chi Gym in Quezon City.

The league is still waiting for the InterAgency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases’s approval to start scrimmages.

Saso fights back with 67, finishes tied for 8th spot

Y

UKA SASO played true to form on Sunday but her gallant effort of 67 fell short as the twotime winner on the current Japanese Ladies Professional Golf Association (JLPGA) Tour wound up tied for eighth in the Descente Tokai Classic topped by Ayaka Furue via playoff in Aichi.

Saso erased the bitter memory of her one-over 73 card in the second round and birdied three of the first five holes. She then toppled a bogey on No. 6 with three more birdies in the last 10 holes of the Shinminami Country Club’s Mihama course.

The 19-year-old Filipino-Japanese put together an eight-under 208 for a top 10 finish after struggling for joint 29th in the Golf5 Ladies and sharing 13th place in the Japan LPGA Championship following her sweep of the NEC Karuizawa and Nitori Ladies crowns.

Saso’s strong finish is bound to give her momentum for the circuit’s second major leg, the Japan Women’s Open set from October 1

to 4 in Fukuoka.

The International Container Terminal Services Inc.-backed Saso, who won the driving honors Saturday worth Y500,000, pocketed Y1.87 million (P870,000) and kept the No. 1 ranking in the money race with Y63.964 million after six legs.

Earth Mondahmin Cup winner Ayaka Watanabe regained the No. 2 spot with Y52.228 million while Japan LPGA Championship titlist Saki Nagamine improved to third with Y45.184 million.

Saso, who also firmed up her hold of the Mercedes Player of the Year top spot with 687.35 points, actually appeared headed for a big weekend after kicking off her campaign with a 68 despite a 31-putt performance Friday but failed to check her putting woes for the second straight day, ending up with 32 putts for a 73 Saturday.

The rest of the contenders, meanwhile, sustained their scoring binge with Furue and Hiroko

Azuma firing identical 68s to finish tied on top at 15-under 201. But the 20-year-old Furue, who actually topped the Fujitsu Ladies as an amateur last year, birdied the first playoff hole on No. 18 to claim her maiden pro victory worth Y14.4 million.

Taiwanese Pei-Ying Tsai placed third at 215 after a 69 while 16-time JLPGA winner Ai Suzuki carded a 71 to tie Saso at eighth with two others.

IN the US, Dottie Ardina blew a two-under card in a wobbly frontside windup, ending up with a 72 and slipping to joint 43rd in the Cambia Portland Classic of the LPGA Tour now paced by England’s Mel Reid in Oregon Friday.

The Canlubang pro checked a rollercoaster backside start with three birdies against a bogey in a 10-hole stretch from No. 15 to move to joint 21st. But she bogeyed the par-5 No. 7 and dropped another stroke on the par-4 ninth to tumble down the leaderboard with a 142, 10 strokes off Reid.

Steady off the mound for the second

MILWAUKEE Bucks ace Giannis Antetokounmpo was named the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Most Valuable Player for the second successive season.

The Greek star is only the third player after Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon to have won the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year Awards in the same season.

And yet, all the headlines seemed to have read: “LeBron James unhappy that the MVP Award went to Bucks’ star” or some such.

Giannis received 85 out of the possible 101 first place votes with 16 only going to James.

James—whether predictably or not— addressed it after his Los Angeles Lakers went up 1-0 in the Western Conference Finals versus the Denver Nuggets. “It pissed me off. That is my true answer.

That’s what pissed me off more than anything,” he said referring to his 16 first place votes.“ “Sometimes it’s the best player on the best team. Sometimes it’s the guy with the best season statistically. Giannis had a hell of a season, I can definitely say that.”

Whether James deserved to be MVP or not, I wish he should have not said anything and just take out his frustration on the Nuggets.

As Giannis paid tribute to Jordan and Olajuwon, I thought back to when the former was playing. He finished twice in the MVP voting...in 1992-93 to Charles Barkley and in 1996-97 to Karl Malone. While I—and many others—thought that Jordan should have won the MVP Award in those seasons as well, I can also see why Barkley and Malone would have won it too.

It happens every year—why this player is selected for an All-Star berth while another isn’t.

Unfortunately, there are few slots for an All-Star Game and infinitely fewer for the MVP Award. One to be exact.

Maybe it’s the age of social media today, but that certainly doesn’t mean Jordan can address the media about his dissatisfaction over the voting. Instead, he took it out on Barkley’s Phoenix Suns in 1993 and Malone’s Utah Jazz in both 1997 and 1998.

It was only recently, in the 10-part documentary, The Last Dance, where he divulged his unhappiness over not winning the award. Instead, it served as motivation to win the NBA title.

As a fan of James, I wish he would eschew talking and instead let his actions on the court speak for themselves.

Without a doubt, he is still putting up incredible numbers. And yet again I’d rather he not say things like this. Does anyone remember “The Decision?” How about his taking a shot at Houston Rockets’ General manager Daryl Morey who tweeted his support of Hong Kong protesters. He went on to address reporters by saying, “Yes, we all do have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself.”

And there he was leading a walk out in protest of the spate of African-American killings by police.

Weren’t his Lakers not supposed to continue the season?

What about the ramifications of by not thinking of others within the Lakers’ organization?

And yet, here they are—three wins away from an NBA Finals berth.

The fact that James is oft in the conversation as the GOAT should be good enough. I realize that winning another MVP Award helps bring him closer to that accolade. But if you ask me, it’s another championship that will do more.

Oh, well. He is outspoken and I guess that is both good and bad for the game. Now onto Game Two.

straight day, Ardina hit all but one fairway but groped with her irons and short game, failing to reach regulation six times although she made up for the struggle with splendid putting, finishing with 29 putts.

Bianca Pagdanganan also pooled a 142 after a similar 72 marred by three bogeys in the first five holes. But she fought back with four straight birdies from No. 9 although a bogey on the 18th stalled her charge.

Still, it was enough for her and Ardina to move to the final round of the 54-hole championship, marking the fourth straight time that the SEA Games double gold medalist has made the cut in her rookie season.

Reid, meanwhile, took charge with a solid 65 for a 132, two ahead of erstwhile joint leader Hannah Green of Australia, who shot a 68 for a 134 with Korean Amy Yang and American Amy Olson at joint third at 135 after a 66 and 68, respectively.