Businessmirror september 22, 2016

“He’s a very friendly guy. That’s what’s so scary.”—Ryan McCann, who frequented the fried-chicken restaurant owned by Ahmad Khan Rahami’s family, after Rahami, 28, was captured and suspected of planting bombs in New York and New Jersey. AP

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“If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful?”—Donald Trump Jr., in a message posted on Twitter likening Syrian refugees to a bowl of poisoned Skittles candy. AP

“He looked just blank in the eyes like he wasn’t even there.”—Minnesota mall stabbing victim Ryan Schliep, to WCCO-TV on Dahir Ahmed Adan, 20, who authorities say injured 10 people before he was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. AP

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Thursday, September 22, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 348

D.E.N.R. TO ANNOUNCE RESULT OF MINING AUDIT ON MONDAY

Over 10 big mine sites face closure

INSIDE

A

ENJOYING JAKARTA

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

@jonlmayuga

t least 10 more largescale miners operating in the Philippines are facing possible suspension of operations for failing to meet environmental standards, Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez revealed. life

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

In Our Time Teddy Locsin Jr.

$1B I The amount of fresh investments that Lopez seeks to attract in her New York trip

But while she is bent on closing down erring miners, Lopez also announced she is targeting to attract Continued on A2

d1

free fire

N Our Time, to borrow the name of a Hemingway book—in our time fun was truly interactive. It was an interaction of the commonplace cruel world around you and the world of your imagination.

In that world were small kingdoms, somewhat like 15thcentury Florence in mental energy and occasional talent—but squalid. It looked rundown even on opening night. But it was a lot of fun.

Continued on A11

TRANSFER OF FLIGHTS TO CLARK UNDER WAY

ANGELINA JOLIE FILES FOR DIVORCE FROM BRAD PITT

By Recto Mercene

T

SHOW

d3

NEYMAR’S late-game antics get him into trouble in the Spanish league

sports

DRUG PREVENTION THROUGH EDUCATION (From left) Monico V. Jacob, vice chairman and CEO of STI-ESG; Teodoro Locsin Jr., STI Holdings director and the new Philippine envoy to the United Nations; Eusebio H. Tanco, chairman of STI Holdings; and Andrew R. Hoad, Asian Terminals Inc. (ATI) executive vice president, display a replica of a P20-million check from ATI for STI’s drug-prevention program. The amount will fund antidrug programs and initiatives for 100,000 students in 85 STI schools. ATI, a Philippine Stock Exchange-listed port operator, supports the antidrug campaign of the Philippine government. ROY DOMINGO

@rectomercene

HE planned transfer to Clark of most domestic and lowcost carrier (LCC) flights to decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) is under way as part of the short- to medium-term plan of the government, Asean-Airline Operators Council Chairman Onnie Nakpil said.

“Clark can accommodate all the domestic and low-cost carriers that the Naia needs to transfer there,” Nakpil said, quoting Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) President Alexander Cauguiran.

Nakpil, who was in Clark for the past two weeks, told the

BusinessMirror the initial plan calls for the transfer of domestic flights of Philippine Airlines (PAL), Cebu Pacific (CEB), Air Asia and AirAsiaZest.

Currently, Pal Express flies out of Clark 28 times a week; CEB 24 times; AirAsiaZest, 32 times; and Jin Air, twice to Incheon, South Korea. PAL sources said the airline also plans to transfer one of its international flights, probably one serving Incheon, South Korea.

PAL Spokesman Cielo Villaluna confirmed the airline will be mounting new Clark flights.

“That’s the plan. However, this will only happen once logistical and manpower requirements are See “Flights,” A2

Number of illegal Pinoy immigrants in US rising Sources of Immigration to the US, 1965-2015 T c4

he number of immigrants in the US illegally has held steady since the Great Recession ended, totaling 11.1 million in 2014, 11.2 million in 2012 and 11.3 million in 2009, according to a study released on Tuesday by Pew Research Center.

The population peaked at 12.2 million in 2007. Pew, which reached conclusions by subtracting the estimated number of legal immigrants from census data on the foreign-

PESO exchange rates n US 47.8550

born, found that, while the overall number dropped by a statistically insignificant amount, a declining number of Mexicans have had a profound impact in parts of the country.

Where are they from?

The number of Mexicans in the US illegally has dropped sharply since the Great Recession began to 5.8 million in 2014, unchanged from 2012 but down from 6.3 million in 2009, and a peak of 6.9 million

in 2007. Last year Pew said more Mexicans were returning to Mexico than arriving.

The drop in Mexicans is nearly offset by an increase in Asians, Africans and Central Americans.

The number of Central Americans in the US illegally hit 1.7 million in 2014, up 110,000 from 2009. The number of Asians in the country illegally jumped by about 130,000 during the five-year period to Continued on A2

Country Total Mexico 16,275,000 China* 3,175,000 India 2,700,000 Philippines 2,350,000 Korea 1,725,000 Vietnam 1,500,000 Cuba 1,550,000 El Salvador 1,500,000 Former USSR 1,450,000 Dominican Republic 1,325,000

% 28 5 5 4 3 3 3 3 2 2

region totals

Country Total Latin America 29,750,000 South/East Asia 14,700,000 Europe, total 6,900,000 Africa/Middle East 4,550,000 Canada** 1,150,000 All other 1,450,000

* includes Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao ** includes other North America Source: Pew Research Center

n japan 0.4706 n UK 62.1589 n HK 6.1696 n CHINA 7.1730 n singapore 35.1436 n australia 36.1592 n EU 53.3918 n SAUDI arabia 12.7624

Source: BSP (21 September 2016 )

% 51 25 12 8 2 2

News BusinessMirror

A2 Thursday, September 22, 2016

Over10 big mine sites face closure Continued from A1

$1 billion worth of fresh investments when she meets with potential investors in New York.

Lopez made the disclosure to members of the media after the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the DENR and the provincial government of Lanao del Sur for the management of Lanao River Basin under the Integrated Natural Resources Management Project.

“There will be more; more than 10,” Lopez said when pressed on how many more mines face possible suspension.

Without elaborating, Lopez said she is off to a mission to New York to lure potential investors, hoping to bring in $1 billion worth of investment for Mindanao.

The DENR-Mines and Geosciences Bureau, headed by Senior Undersecretary Leo L. Jasareno, is now conducting a workshop to ensure uniformity of audit reports. He said the workshop will help ensure the audit results will be standardized.

The DENR’s 15 audit teams are

set to finish the individual reports of the audit, which covered all 40 operating metallic mines.

So far, the mine audit had already caused the suspension of 10 mining operations that failed the enhanced audit criteria, which includes environmental, social and biodiversity considerations, on top of the physical or technical audit.

T he mine audit is part of Lopez’s campaign to weed out “irresponsible” mining companies that cause environmental degradation and suffering to people in host communities. Lopez vowed to announce the result of the mine audit on Monday.

“I will be flying to New York for a meeting with investors after the budget hearing on Thursday. That’s a $1-billion investment we’re talking about. By Monday, we will announce the result of the audit,” she added.

Lopez said the investment for Mindanao is seen to boost peace and development efforts in the war-torn region.

It was lear ned that Lopez was invited by the international steering committee and universi-

ty-business alliance of the Global Action Platform and the United Nations to speak before a leadership forum for the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 23 at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Organized by the Global Action Platform, the forum takes off from a previous high-level dialogue held last year on strategic action for scalable, sustainable solutions for abundant food, health and prosperity.

During the forum, the UN will highlight Lopez’s leadership and environmental agenda in the DENR, with the new collaboration bet ween the Indigenous People’s Economic Union and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Solutions serving as a concrete model for scalable, sustainable rural solutions in developing tropical regions.

The audience for the event consists of 125 world leaders, corporate executives, investors, non-governmental organizations leaders and philanthropists. The forum will be part of the official agenda of the 2016 General Assembly.

Number of illegal Pinoy immigrants in US rising Continued from a1

1.4 million, with notable increases of people from India, China, the Philippines and South Korea.

Mexicans still account for 52 percent of people in the US illegally in 2014, down from 56 percent in 2009, but still the largest nationality by far.

Which states are seeing the biggest change?

The number of people in the US illegally dropped in seven states from 2009 to 2014 due to fewer Mexicans— Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Nevada and South Carolina. California had the biggest numerical drop, down 190,000 to 2.3 million.

The number of immigrants in the country illegally grew in six states during the same period—Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington. Louisiana saw an increase from Mexico. Increases in the five other states were due to higher numbers from countries other than Mexico. New Jersey and Pennsylvania had the biggest numerical increases, up by 50,000 each.

Mexico was still the leading birth country for people in the country illegally in at least 38 states. El Salvador is the leading birth country for those living illegally in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The Philippines is the leading source in Alaska and Hawaii. Brazil is the top sender for Massachusetts, India in New Hampshire, and Guatemala in Rhode Island.

Most people in the country illegally lived in six states—California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois—in that order. Nevada had the highest share of its population made up of people in the country illegally (7.2 percent), followed by Texas (6.1 percent), California (6 percent) and New Jersey (5.4 percent).

How long have they been here?

People in the country illegally are more likely to have been here a long time. That’s particularly true in western states with deeply established Mexican populations.

The median length of time in the country for those in the US illegally was 13.6 years in 2014, up from 7.1 years in 1995.

The median length of time in the US for residents there illegally was 15.6 years in California.

Only five states had a median length of stay shorter than 10 years—Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri and Ohio. AP

Flights. . .

Continued from A1

in place. While stakeholders in the aviation industry need to do their share, there is a preparation process involving catering, ground handling, passenger handling, refueling and transporting passengers between Clark and Manila,” she said.

General aviation

Nakpil said that, since it would take some time for the General Aviation (GenAv) planes to prepare the facilities in Sangley Point, Cavite, like hangars and groundhandling equipment, it was also decided by the Clark International Airport Corp. (Ciac) that GenAv’s executive jets should be transferred to Clark, as well.

“Ciac is preparing the expansion of the passenger terminal, although at present, they are using the relatively new terminal that could accommodate 800 passengers at a time. This is the number of passengers of two wide-body airplanes. They will also use the old terminal, designed for 400 passengers,” he added.

Nakpil said Ciac’s mediumterm plan is the expansion of the runway and taxiway.

Ciac is at the heart of Central Luzon, making it the most viable and convenient airport of choice for travelers from North-Central Luzon and the northern Metro Manila. It is easily accessible by shuttle bus from various points of Metro Manila and North Luzon.

The Clark airport is one of the biggest aviation complexes in Asia, with two runways in parallel configuration that can easily be extended to 4 kilometers to accommodate new generation widebodied aircraft.

The primary runway (Runway 02R/20L) has a length of 3,200 meters and a width of 61 meters.

It is fully equipped with all navigational aids and lighting facilities and has a Category 1 rating for precision approach.

The secondary runway (Runway 02L/20R) has a length of 3,200 meters and a width of 45

www.businessmirror.com.ph meters. It is not yet equipped with navigational aids and lighting facilities and is currently used for visual flight rules (VFR) only.

The airport is well-equipped with a terminal radar approach control, navigational aids, meteorological equipment, airfield ground lighting system and crash, rire and rescue facilities.

Dual-airport system

Early this year, former CIAC President Emigdio Tanjuatco III praised as a welcome development President Duterte’s declaration that Clark International Airport can be utilized for domestic and international flights.

He was then reacting to Mr. Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (Sona), where the Chief Executive mentioned that “Clark can be utilized to shift some operations of domestic and international flights of airlines.”

Tanjuatco was recently replaced

by Cauguiran, who is also pushing for a dual-airport system, wherein both Clark and the Naia can coexist to cater to the needs of the passengers. The plan involves the development of both airports.

As planned, the Clark airport will cater to the Central and North Luzon area, while the Naia can service the Southern areas of the Philippines. Presently, Clark has limited capability and could not accommodate all flights that are planned to be transferred there.

The Clark Passenger Terminal has a capacity of 4.2 million passengers per annum, as compared to the Naia’s 30-million capacity, he said.

The Clark vision

Nakpil said that, although Clark has enough infrastructure to accept the hundreds of tons of passenger and freight, the authorities here are inviting other stakeholders and new players to invest in additional ground-handling equipment and fuel-supply depot.

Caguiran, who used to be Ciac’s CEO, has a good vision for Clark, and part of his advocacy is to promote the twin-concept of having both the Naia and Ciac as major hubs, Nakpil said.

“By the time President Duterte leaves office six years from now, Ciac hopes that it’s five-year plan is fully operational and the focus then would be devoted to the longrange plan,” Nakpil added. “Clark is already here, what it needs is the air carriers’ and the government’s full support.”

When asked why the 28 aircraft that landed at Clark last September complained of poor service, Nakpil had this to say: “There’s not enough g round-hand ling equipment to meet the demands of 28 airplanes landing almost simultaneously; not even the Naia can do that.”

He added that providing fuel for the 28 aircraft would also be very difficult, “because most of them were asking to be refueled within two hours because they wanted to return to the Naia as soon as possible.”

PAL silent

Meanwhile, Philippine Airlines (PAL) is maintaining low profile on the planned transfer, not wanting to antagonize many of its passengers, who would feel that they are being abandoned in exchange for Clark.

Villaluna said they object to the use of the term “transferring” to Clark, because it would seem to appear that the airline is abandoning some flights at the Naia in exchange for Clark.

“We are mounting new flights to Clark,” she said, adding that PAL continues to support the government’s effort to improve its capabilities to reduce air congestion.

Villaluna said for PAL to help decongest the Naia, it has also reduced flights to some destinations that used to have 10 flights a day to seven flights a day.

In a recent speech, PAL President Jaime J. Bautista warned that even China, including Hong Kong, is complaining of air congestion and had asked PAL to reduce some flights to China, including Hong Kong.

PAL said this directive hurts the air carrier at a time when it wants to increase flights abroad as part of its new strategy and target of becoming a five-star airline in five years.

BMReports BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Thursday, September 22, 2016 A3

National govt spending increased 4.9 percent in July to ₧220.9 billion

By David Cagahastian

N

@ davecaga

ational government spending for July, the first month of the Duterte administration, amounted to P220.9 billion, or a growth of 4.9 percent from spending during the same month in 2015.

However, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said the pace of disbursement is still slow, considering that the growth in spending in July was merely due to the release of government subsidies to government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs).

The DBM said the growth in actual disbursements in July was due to the P35.3 billion in subsidies to GOCCs, a bulk of which went to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), which received P33.8 billion in subsidies in July to pay for the hea lth-insurance premiums of indigent citizens enrolled in the National Health Insurance Program.

T he i nc rea se i n d i sbu rse ments of government subsidies to GOCCs was tempered by a decrease in disbursements on salaries of government personnel and on maintenance expenditures.

In July expenditures for personnel ser v ices amounted to P42.6 billion, down by 8.4 percent from expenditures for this item

₧42.6B The expenditures for personnel services in July

during the same month in 2015.

Disbursements for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) amounted to only P28.4 billion in July, or down by 22.5 percent from the MOOE for the same month in 2015.

Grow t h i n i n f r a st r uc t u re spending, however, was only minimal, as total capital outlay for July amounted to P45.9 billion, or slightly higher than the P45.5 billion in capital outlay for the same period last year.

The DBM said that, despite the slow pace of disbursement of government funds for projects, which will stimulate the economy, it still expects a big surge in spending during the remaining months of the year, as construction projects go on a 24/7 basis in Metro Manila and

other key cities.

“Underspending remains a key challenge, but as agency heads devote more time in the operations of their respective offices, they will soon have a better grasp

of their programs and projects, which could, in the succeeding mont hs, accelerate d isbursements,” the DBM said in its explanation of the national government’s disbursement performance

With $80,000 cognac, Remy Cointreau defies China’s war on extravagance

as of July 2016.

“Nonetheless, the government is committed to deliver with its spending commitments hence ne w e x p e nd it u res me a s u res would be undertaken. In the com-

HUDCC to construct permanent homes in typhoon-hit Batanes

By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm

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Bloomberg Photo

I

f China’s thirst for luxury goods is on the wane, nobody’s told Remy Cointreau SA. The distiller has opened its first-ever store dedicated entirely to Louis XIII cognac, the most expensive variant of the company’s Remy Martin brand, which comprises 60 percent of its revenue.

It comes in crystal decanters ranging from tiny $600 5-centiliter miniatures to an $80,000 6-liter vessel dubbed a “methuselah.” The boutique in Beijing’s Shin Kong Place mall also offers pairings of cognac with caviar and iberico ham.

“It’s a changing landscape in China,” said Louis XIII Brand Director Ludovic du Plessis, who expects slower, but more sustainable, growth, after the government’s four-year campaign against graft-dented sales. “It’s now about selfindulgence, we need to reinvent the dialogue with our client and really get to

know who can afford our product.” He declined to provide specific sales projections or data for the 142-year-old brand.

The move comes as ebbing demand for luxury goods—particularly in China— has forced companies, such as Cartier owner Richemont, clothier Burberry and Kelly bag maker Hermes, to abandon sales and profit forecasts. A slump in pricey cognacs and Scotch has sent Remy’s peers going in the other direction: Pernod Ricard SA, the maker of Martell cognac, said this month that China’s growing middle class offers better opportunities for growth.

Shipments of cognac to China began to decline from a record high in 2012 after the government crackdown on extravagant gifting, data from trade body BNIC shows. Volumes recovered last year as distillers promoted lessexpensive variants.

“The high-end of the cognac business has been a flaming dumpster fire for the past four years,” Tony Bucalo, an analyst at HSBC, said in an interview.

In response, France’s Pernod has created two separate teams in China, one targeting well-heeled customers and one for mainstream drinkers, CEO Alexandre Ricard said in an interview this month.

The volume of spirits sold to China’s middle class will offset any profit shortfall from a slowdown in sales of high-end brands, he said.

It doesn’t get much more high-end than Louis XIII, a blend of 1,200 cognacs between 40 and 100 years old.

The 427-square-foot Louis XIII store, located near Fendi and Louis Vuitton boutiques in the Beijing mall, was designed by RDAI, a French architectural firm that’s worked with Yves Saint Laurent and Hermes. Bloomberg News

ing months, the implementation of major infrastructure projects in Metro Manila and major cities will go on a 24-hours [a day], seven-days-a-week basis,” the DBM added.

he Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) is looking for alternative measures to fast-track the provision of long-term shelter facilities to victims of Typhoon Ferdie (international code name Meranti) in Batanes.

One particular issue that HUDCC and the National Housing Authority (NHA) want to resolve is the need to require the victims to present land titles to prove their ownership of the houses that were damaged by the typhoon.

“Based on the VP’s [Vice President] request, HUDCC and NHA will study possible alternatives to solve the ownership issues.

This is due to the difficulty in requiring land titles from the victims of the typhoon,” Georgina Hernandez, spokesman of Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo, told the BusinessMirror on Wednesday.

In an emergency meeting on Monday, the HUDCC and six key shelter agencies (KSAs) decided to do away with the provision of temporary shelter facilities for the victims of the typhoon.

Robredo previously said the process for application of temporary housing relief is “too long,” with beneficiaries often receiving temporary aid years after a storm hits.

HUDCC had committed to ensure “well-coordinated” efforts in procuring construction materials, the transportation of goods and warehousing.

As Batanes is under a state of calamity and also a remote island region, there are no stores where housing materials may be bought, thus the need to procure materials.

“While there were no casualties in Batanes, many lost their homes and they are the ones we want to help as soon as possible,” Robredo said in a statement.

“We need to coordinate our efforts to send

900

The number of houses in Itbayat, Batanes, that were totally or partially damaged by Typhoon Ferdie

help to Batanes to hasten the delivery of construction materials for their homes,” she added.

Meanwhile, select KSAs, as well as the National Economic and Development Authority, will also conduct postdisaster needs assessments with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in Batanes.

Home Development Mutual Fund sent a roving team to Batanes on Tuesday to canvass the needs of its 2,000 members. They also brought generators to answer the electricity needs of affected families.

The NHA will also send a roving team to canvass the needs of victims in terms for housing materials.

NHA will review its current assistance program and streamlined requirements to prevent the delay experienced by the victims of the 2013 Supertyphoon Yolanda.

Earlier, Robredo said Itbayat suffered the brunt of the typhoon, as 900 houses on the island were totally or partially damaged.

According to the 2012 Small Area Estimates data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority, Itbayat is the poorest municipality in Batanes with a poverty incidence rate of 34.1 percent.

Batanes has five municipalities—Basco, Itbayat, Ivana, Mahatao, Sabtang and Uyugan. Based on the 2015 Census of Population, Batanes has 17,246 residents.

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Asean

BusinessMirror

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Leveling the playing field and building a culture of integrity Asean-EU Perspective

HENRY J. SCHUMACHER

W

ith these objectives in mind, the Makati Business Club (MBC) and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) formed the Integrity Initiative in 2010. What started as a project has, meanwhile, resulted in the creation of the Integrity Initiative Inc. (II Inc.). It is a nonprofit organization, with five founding shareholders: MBC, ECCP, American Chamber of Commerce, Management Association of the Philippines and Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines. It is primarily engaged in a long-term, private sectorled campaign to promote common ethical and acceptable integrity standards in the business community and among various sectors of society.

II Inc. aims to continue the activities that were initiated by the Siemens-funded Project SHINE, which developed an integrity certification and awards program where companies can be audited, accredited and certified based on compliance to ethical ways of doing business and strict integrity standards.

The following describes the key achievements of the II Inc. so far: n Created an “Integrity Pledge” for both the public and private sectors that provides key measures and control activities intended to ensure transparency and integrity in business transactions. Signatories to the pledge commit themselves to the performance of these measures and controls by adopting a “Unified Code of Conduct“ for doing business. The Integrity Pledge signatories today number over 3,000 and include 45 government agencies and 233 business and industry associations, and professional organizations nationwide. Five thousand new certified public accountants (CPAs) also recited and signed the Integrity Pledge as of July as part of a new partnership with the Board of Accountancy. n Developed an Online Integrity Assessment Tool for signatories to assess their level of compliance and gaps in their integrity-management systems, policies and practices. Out of more than 3,000 plus signatories to the Integrity Pledge, 256 have signed up for the online Integrity Self-Assessment tool, while 33 companies with self-assessment ratings have been validated by the Integrity Initiative, 16 of which have achieved the highest “advanced” rating. To help companies address gaps and achieve advanced status in their integrity assessment and validation, II Inc. has developed learning modules, conducted integrity-planning workshops, and developed a system for third-party validation of company self-assessment. n Established an Integrity Consortium (ICon) comprised of 233 organizations working with the private sector. These organizations encourage and/or require their members to sign the pledge and, together as a consortium for integrity, engage with other sectors of society to build a culture of integrity and promote the formation of Integrity Circles. The ICon is also tapped for the annual Integrity Nation Now Summit and Campaign to spread the advocacy across sectors and regions, including the Asean.

The II Inc. has also established partnerships with other international, regional and local organizations, as well as enterprises, to promote sharing of information and research capabilities, as well as sharing of financial and technical resources.

Since the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) issued Department Order 86 on September 24, 2013, requiring all its project contractors to sign their own version of the Integrity Pledge, more than 800 companies have been complying with the directive on an annual basis. This yearly renewal of commitment serves as an initial mechanism for screening out contractors that are not willing to engage in ethical business with the DPWH, and ensures that only compliant bidders join the procurement process. It is trusted that the new management of the DPWH will continue enforcing the Integrity Pledge for companies wishing to deal with the department.

In partnership with the Board of Accountancy (BOA), the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Association of Certified Public Accountants in Public Practice, II Inc. will provide a platform that will require accounting firms and professionals to declare a commitment to transparency and compliance to ethical business practices. The partnership will also enable CPAs to learn the integrity-compliance standards and align their continuing education with the help of ethics and compliance experts. The BOA will also incentivize the whole process to promote sustainability by giving Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits to CPAs who will participate in the validation of Integrity Initiative signatory companies.

In the Fourth Integrity Summit, September 2014, six private-sector networks signed a memorandum of understanding on regional cooperation on anticorruption in the Asean business community, paving the way for the establishment of the Regional Working Group on Business Integrity, with the purpose of creating a culture of integrity in the Asean business community, moving toward a corruptionfree Asean. Another regional campaign to combat corruption is the “Integrity Has No Borders”—an advocacy campaign that aims to create an enabling environment for companies to say “NO” to corruption and bribery, regardless of where they are in the Asean, to pave the way for shared growth and progress.

Further recognition of Project SHINE’s and II Inc.’s efforts is the inclusion of the II Program in the Third Country Action Plan of the Philippines to the Open Government Partnership. The plan includes a commitment by the Integrity Initiative to get 10,000 signatories from Philippine-based companies by 2017 and a commitment by the government to establish a public-sector framework that will promote the II validation and certification system through an executive order (EO).

Given these achievements and commitments, much needs to be done: The business sector, at large, has to understand that unethical business practices cannot remain the norm if we truly want the Philippines to compete globally, attract more investments and achieve inclusive growth. The private sector, in partnership with the government and other sectors, must do its part in ensuring that the anticorruption efforts and current progress are firmly anchored on the principles of fair competition, good corporate governance, and social responsibility. The private sector may support institutionalizing anticorruption efforts by emphasizing the need among businesspeople to conduct their business in an ethical manner.

Furthermore, we recommend that government incentivize compliance and recognize organizations that commit to improve their integrity systems. As part of the Open Government Partnership, the Integrity Initiative will best deliver on its committed 10,000 signatories by the end of 2017 if an EO, in support of ethical business practice, will be signed by the President.

The Integrity Initiative is a nonpartisan organization whose sole purpose is to level the playing field for businesses through employing ethical business standards and practices. Our efforts will not only complement and supplement, the current thrusts of the new administration to more aggressively address corruption but will also ensure that the private sector will do its part in cleaning up its own ranks and building a level playing field. These ideas have been widely accepted by the Duterte administration, which encourages us in the Integrity Initiative to drive these ideas forward, in the Philippines and in Asean.

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Thursday, September 22, 2016 A5

Less China, more India make Singapore funds Asia’s best

S

ingapore-based hedge funds outperformed Asian rivals during the first seven months of the year, thanks to a greater focus on India and global markets, according to data provider Eurekahedge Pte.

Funds headquartered in Singapore returned 2 percent through July, while Hong Kong-based funds declined an average 2.3 percent, Eurekahedge said in a report on Tuesday. Funds based in Australia rose 1.9 percent, while Japanbased funds declined 2.5 percent, the report said.

While the majority of funds based in Hong Kong and Japan invest in Chinese or Japanese stocks, where markets have posted steep losses this year, Singapore has more funds with a global mandate or an India focus, according to Eurekahedge. Australia-headquartered funds mainly invest in global equity long-short strategies, which didn’t do well until August.

India’s benchmark S&P BSE Sensex Index has rallied 9.4 percent this year, compared with a 13-percent decline in China’s CSI 300 Index and a 15-percent slump in Japan’s Topix index.

“Singapore has the most diversified hedge fund industry in Asia with regard to managers’ strategic and regional mandates,” said Mohammad Hassan, head of hedge fund research at Eurekahedge. “Diversification has helped the domestic industry post the best overall gains in Asia, while China and Japan equityfocused centers, such as Hong Kong and Japan, are in the red.”

India funds

Indi a-focused f unds have

Singapore has the most diversified hedge fund industry in Asia with regard to managers’ strategic and regional mandates.”

—Eurekahedge

returned 7.3 percent through the end of August, according to Eurekahedge, making them the third-best performers globally, behind only Taiwan and Latin America. Funds investing in China lost 1.6 percent and those betting on Japan declined 4.4 percent, the data show.

This year’s ranking reverses a multiyear trend of Hong Kong funds posting the best returns in Asia, the Eurekahedge data show. Funds based in the city have returned 379 percent since the end of 1999, followed by a

354-percent gain by Australian hedge funds. Singapore comes in third at 253 percent, and Japan-based funds lag with a 95-percent return.

Among Singapore-based hedge funds investing in India is the Progress India Opportunities Fund, started in December 2014. The $49-million equity fund with a long bias investing in consumer themes returned 13.8 percent this year through the end of August, according to a newsletter obtained by Bloomberg News.

The IPEplus Fund 1, also focused on India and started in 2014 by former 3i Group Plc. Asia head Anil Ahuja, returned 2.1 percent through August, according to data compiled

by Bloomberg.

The Singapore-based PruLev Global Macro Fund, managed by Norman Tang and August Li and investing mainly in global liquid developed markets, has gained 56 percent through August, according to the fund’s newsletter.

By contrast, the Hong Kongbased Springs China Opportunities Fund, a China-focused long-short equity fund, lost 8.7 percent this year through July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bloomberg News

Cambodia deports 63 Chinese, Taiwanese over Web scam

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ambodia has deported 50 Chinese and 13 Taiwanese citizens to China over an alleged Internet scam, complying with demands from Beijing, a senior police official said on Wednesday.

The suspects were flown out of Cambodia on Tuesday, said Gen. Ouk Haiseila, chief of the Cambodian Interior Ministry’s Immigration Investigation Bureau. He said the Chinese government sent a special plane from Beijing to take them back.

In June Taiwan protested after Cambodia deported 25 Taiwanese Internet-scam suspects to rival China in the latest snub of the self-ruled island. Cambodia regards Taiwan to be part of China.

The latest group of 63 suspects was arrested late last month in a rented house in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. They were accused of defrauding victims in China using phone calls made over the Internet.

Since 2012, at least 982 Chinese and Taiwanese accused of taking part in internet scams have been arrested and deported back to China, according to Ouk Haiseila.

Although Taiwan’s constitution formally decrees that it and the Chinese mainland are part of a single Chinese nation, Taiwan functions like an independent country and

In this photo released by the Cambodian police, a police officer stands by arrested Taiwanese and Chinese nationals in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on August 30.

Cambodian police arrested 63 people from mainland China and Taiwan on Tuesday, accusing them of taking part in an Internet scam. Cambodian Police via AP

does not acknowledge Beijing’s claim of authority over it.

Rights activists and Taiwanese authorities say such deportations reflect the great influence China exercises over Cambodia

through aid and investment.

China is a key ally and economic partner of impoverished Cambodia.

It has provided millions of dollars in aid and investment over the past decade, agreed to write off debts and

granted it tariff-free status for hundreds of items.

Kenya and Malaysia have also deported Taiwanese Internet scam suspects to China despite protests

by Taiwanese officials. AP

Report: 19 people dead Villagers unsatisfied with punishment in floods, landslides on for 7 convicted Myanmar soldiers Indonesia’s Java island P

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orrential rains have triggered floods and landslides on the Indonesian island of Java, killing at least 19 villagers.

National Disaster Management Mitigation Agency Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho says several people are still missing in West Java’s Garut and Sumedang districts.

The worst hit was Garut district, where 16 people were found dead and eight others are still missing after two rivers overflowed on Tuesday night.

Nugroho said on Wednesday that about 1,000 villagers were evacuated to army barracks and other temporary shelters. He said three villagers were killed in Sumedang and one person was still missing after landslides that buried two houses.

Rains frequently caused landslides and widespread flooding across much of Indonesia. AP

eople in a remote Myanmar community where soldiers killed at least five unarmed civilians said on Tuesday they are disappointed by the punishment, even though convictions of military personnel for human rights violations are virtually unprecedented.

A regional military tribunal last Thursday sentenced seven soldiers to five years’ imprisonment for killing villagers in Lashio district of Shan state.

“We don’t think it is fair for the families of the victims: no compensation to the families and light punishment for the murderers,” said Nan Kham Yone, a Shan human-rights activist.

The victims’ buried bodies were found in shallow graves close to the army camp where they had been detained in late June during a period of fighting with armed ethnic rebels. Civilians have frequently been detained for interrogations about suspected ties with ethnic rebels.

During decades of counterinsurgency warfare

against ethnic minority guerrillas, Myanmar’s army has been accused of countless human rights violations. An elected civilian government under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took power this year from an army-backed regime and is seeking a comprehensive peace agreement with the ethnic minority groups, which want greater autonomy, but fighting continues in several regions.

“I assume that the tribunal gave sentences of just five years’imprisonment to the soldiers because they are the military. It could have been higher,” said villager Sai Han, referring to the army’s reputation for impunity. Military tribunals in Myanmar are normally not public but activists said villagers, families of the victims and village chiefs were allowed to attend the recent trial. However, Sai Han said, they were not allowed to speak at the proceedings.

Some rights activists acknowledged that the tribunal represented an improvement over past practices. AP

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Advocates ponder present, future o

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By Roderick L. Abad | Contributor

NATION’S future does not depend only on the state and its people, but also to corporate citizens who, over time, have evolved from just being philanthropists to real “change-makers” of the society.

“Poverty and economic growth is not the responsibility of [the] government alone,” League of Corporate Foundations (LCF) Chairman Natalie Christine V. Jorge told the BusinessMirror.

Jorge said the business community has a pivotal role to play in effecting reforms with their plan of action and goals to create economic and social value.

Citing the success of their 20-year-old organization’s individual and collective programs, Jorge noted the potential that the private sector and the so-called corporate social responsibility (CSR) can bring to make the Philippines a great nation.

While work in the development sector has become a way of life for many of the practitioners, she conceded there are still foundations and corporations that continue to take a philanthropic view of CSR.

Philanthropy is defined as “the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money” to causes deemed “good” by a person or group.

Fund-raising

AN example of philanthropy is the results of Wells Fargo Enterprise Global Services (WF-EGS) Llc. Philippines’s fund-raising.

In May WF-EGS announced that nearly P100,000 was raised during the money-transfer firm’s Annual Fundraising Week. The company said the money “will be used to purchase supplies and materials for charitable organizations supported by Wells Fargo team members.”

According to WF-EGS, the fund-raising efforts were led by team members through the sale of homemade or preowned items, and by organizing games that allowed EGS team members to donate cash or provide in-kind support.

The company added the money will be donated to fund the outreach activities for the Bikes for the Philippines Foundation, Concordia Children’s Services, Cribs, Love Yourself Foundation, San Lorenzo Home for the Elderly, Saint Rita Orphanage, Saint Vincent de Paul Orphanage and the UP-PGH Cancer Institute.

“We have a robust annual cal-

endar of community-support programs and volunteer activities,” Nicole Tirona, head of corporate sustainability for WF EGS-Philippines, was quoted in a statement as saying.

“What makes the Fundraising Week unique is the fact that it gets our team members involved in supporting social causes in a fun way.”

The firm’s fundraising week began three years ago to raise money for a public elementary school the company supports.

Venue

ACCORDING to Jorge, doing philanthropy is okay.

Having a philanthropic view “does not mean it is wrong,” she added.

“As long as it provides a venue for business to behave ethically and responsibly, allows for interaction with the community and, most important, contributes to social development, it should be pursued,” Jorge said. “But it makes more business sense to align with core business practices and a company’s supply chain to allow for the sustainability of CSR programs.”

To stay relevant in today’s business world, companies should embrace latest trends, models and practices in corporate citizenship to continue to make a difference, she explained.

“The challenge now is bringing all these efforts to the next level— from the individual to the corporation, to the community and to our nation,” Jorge said.

Evolution

THE practice of CSR in the Philippines has gone a long way since its formative years in the 1960s.

“CSR began as part of the ‘hidden cultural force’ in the social and economic life of Filipinos,” said Jorge, who is also the executive director of the Bato-Balani Foundation Inc.

She traces the roots of CSR to philanthropic giving by individuals and large corporations to charitable institutions in light of the overall economic and social problems the country was facing then.

Since then, CSR has evolved in response to the growing demand for businesses to behave ethically and responsibly, Jorge explained.

Such transition, according to her, happened when companies designed their CSR initiatives as part of their strategy, management governance and corporate citizenship in the context of pursuing business objectives, while taking into account the economic, social and political condition of the Philippines.

CSR was further strengthened by an active and robust civil-society network that assists communities and leads social-development efforts aimed at elevating the economic status of Filipino families

and communities, she said.

“These civil-society organizations are further organized into networks and associations that work together to align programs and reach out to more communities,” she added.

LCF

THE LCF was established in 1991 by a handful of companies with charitable foundations, “which serves as a channel for distribution of a firm’s profits into nonprofit activities.”

The group officially registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission five years later, paving the way to the rapid increase of its member corporate foundations and business organizations.

“The [LCF] serves as its members’ arena for exchanging ideas, best practices, experience and technology, as well as other concerns relevant to its goals,” Vivant Foundation Inc. trustee Lydia Sarmiento-Enrile said.

According to Sarmiento-Enrile, the organization has been organized into committees, representing the major areas of develop-

ment that the entire membership is involved in: arts and culture, education, enterprise development, environment and health.

She claims the LCF has been instrumental in widening the business sector’s interest in corporate governance, social innovation and commitment to nation-building.

Its network was strengthened, as more strategic partnerships were formed to meet sustainable development goals, according to Jorge.

“As an organization, LCF channels private-sector social investments toward social development,” she added.

The business community’s CSR goals, according to her, form the social capital that LCF harnesses.

Collaborations

MARKING its 20th anniversary this year, LCF continues to promote the practice of CSR among its member-companies and the larger business community.

“LCF is currently the leading organization that advocates and promotes CSR in the country,” Jorge said.

To stay relevant in today’s business world, companies should embrace latest trends, models and practices in corporate citizenship to continue to make a difference.

“The challenge now is bringing all these efforts to the next level—from the individual to the corporation, to the community and to our nation.”

— Natalie Christine V. Jorge, chairman of the League of Corporate Foundations

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of corporate social responsibility

Now on its two decades of existence, the LCF network expands with over 80 member-corporate foundations and firms, whose parent firms are mostly among the Philippines’s top corporations.

“Their respective foundations serve as the arm of their CSR and related social development-oriented goals,” according to Jorge.

To date, LCF has poured billions of pesos in livelihood, human services development, training, and institution-building, among others, Jorge said.

Also, it has raised significant amounts of donations in response to calamities, and has provided support in the form of infrastructure and general aid to support communities.

Expansion

AS companies evolve, so does the corporate citizenship’s discipline, according to Jorge.

It is for this reason that LCF created its own educational arm and reach in Southeast Asia, she added, citing the group’s CSR Institute (CSRI). Jorge said it is at the CSRI where people are trained and go to field visits to help promote the understanding of CSR.

Jorge said many corporations that want to improve their corporate citizenship programs or eager to learn more about CSR management principles and ways of partnership enroll in CSRI programs.

‘Glocal’

ACCORDING to Jorge, the LCF, together with business networks in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam and the Asean Foundation Inc. established and organized the Asean CSR Network.

“This is a regional platform for promoting and advocating for responsible business and CSR, which is an integral strategy in ensuring inclusive and sustainable growth in Asean,” she said.

Such development, Jorge added, is timely and relevant since the economic integration of the 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), including the Philippines, has been already in place since late last year.

An example is what MiraMed Global Services Llc. subsidiary Ajuba International Llc. (Ajuba) is doing in India. About 25 employees were shortlisted to work in in the Thiruvanamalai District named Vadakupattu, a village with a population of about 150 people.

Stewardship

SINCE CSR comes with responsibility, the idea of stewardship is increasingly becoming relevant in today’s business environment, as it contributes to building sustainable relationships with stakeholders.

“They include employees, customers and society,” Stewardship Asia Centre (SAC) CEO Ong Boon Hwee told the BusinessMirror.

“Stewardship is about longer-term operations and having responsibility or a heart for the community.”

SAC is a Singapore-based “thought-leadership hub committed to fostering stewardship across organizations in Asia.”

From an enterprise standpoint, this concept is quite new, nonetheless, it is actually rooted in the Asian culture, especially among Filipinos, Hwee said.

When applied to an individual sense, he noted that stewardship is

how the members of a certain organization—whether a chairman, CEO or an employee—develop the duty entrusted to them before they pass it on to the next generation.

“Stewardship very much emphasizes doing the right thing, not just doing things right,” Hwee added. “It is doing the right things right. It is more of a spirit rather than a form.”

There are three effects of stewardship, with one being the brief existence of businesses due to lack of focus for long-term goals, he explained.

“If you look at [these businesses] today, they can be very successful companies but their lifespans are getting shorter and shorter,” Hwee said. “Today you see the top 50 companies, but in 50 years’ time, they may no longer exist.”

Second, prioritizing everybody involved and or being affected by the business is highly important, he added.

“When you are looking only after shareholders and neglecting the other stakeholders, over time, you would lose the loyalty and affinity with your employees.”

Last, if a company looks only after profit and does not realize its role in the society, it will also reflect on the environment, Hwee said.

Gaining ground

ACCORDING to Hwee, people are now beginning to see the need to emphasize the core values of stewardship. Likewise, there is a “growing conversation” among Asian countries, the United Kingdom and the United States, he added.

“I think, across Asia, people are beginning to understand that

stewardship was not there before.

But now, there are conversations to see how we can then put some of these stewardship concerns into petition, or when the board meets, they talk about it and not just corporate governance,” Hwee said. “This is something that is becoming more and more meaningful to countries.”

In the Philippines there is a “good” acceptance of Filipino corporations to the idea of stewardship since it’s already ingrained in the country’s culture.

Hwee noted stewardship is apparent among family-owned business, publicly listed companies and even government-owned and -controlled corporations. He, however, failed to cite examples.

On a personal note, he viewed stewardship as “what the mindset is supposed to do” and it is not necessary for a company to have a separate department to deal with stewardship and/or CSR.

“If a company says, ‘I want to do CSR, I want to do stewardship, I clear a department just to make sure we do CSR,’ then something is wrong,” he explained. “We need to develop commitment, but it is not like you need to devote or suffer departments or the employment of the people.”

Hwee said such commitment is needed “because every leader, every level should understand that stewardship matters, and also should have it among themselves.”

“It is a mind-set, a way of thinking, commitment and dedication,” he added. “It’s all about being engaged and being responsible.”

Nation-building

TO help keep the Philippines’s

growth trajectory, cooperation between the public and private sectors is called for to address the various concerns besetting the country today and ensure positive results of the economic policy of President Duterte.

“The government or no single entity can resolve all social problems our country is suffering from,” Roderick de Castro, vice chairman of LCF board of trustees and executive director of TeaM Energy Foundation Inc. (Tefi), said.

“Multisector collaboration is very important and the private sector will play a pivotal role in this,” de Castro added. “Their CSR programs are aligned with priority programs of the government.”

In the history of the Philippine government, change has been evident in every leadership in succession.

Jorge lauded the leadership of former President Benigno S. Aquino III for bringing significant changes and leaps in economic growth and starting the country’s war on corruption.

Meanwhile, she cited that the new administration is now making its own mark in the political landscape here and abroad, with Mr. Duterte’s zero-tolerance policies against crime and drugs, aggressive fight against graft and corruption, as well as cutting red tape to ensure the ease of doing business in the country.

Given the President’s mantra of “Change is Coming,” the business community is bullish that his economic initiatives as well as efforts to continue some notable projects of the previous administration will lead to constant pros-

perity and inclusive growth for the country, according to Jorge.

“It is our hope that government and business and the citizens can cocreate our country’s future and bring continued progress and resources for our country through corporate social responsibility,” she added.

Growth support

JORGE said the LCF tries to reinforce its commitment to develop its CSR thrusts to catalyze the country’s progress through collaborative efforts and use this as a platform toward sustaining national development.

“Over the years, the business sector has always continued its programs in support of national development regardless of changes in government or government priorities,” Jorge said. “What is important is that partnerships continue and that private sector, individuals and the government continue to work together, in harmony, in pursuit of nation-building.”

Jorge added that LCF would see “real change” come “when our citizens are led out of poverty through education, health services, job opportunities and proper delivery of government services.”

Currently, as with the previous presidents since its inception 20 years ago, the LCF still waits for the main priorities and agenda of Mr. Duterte.

As a show of support to the new administration, Castro said their baseline would have to be the basic services needs of the marginalized sector.

“There are available data to help us determine what should be our priority programs,” the executive director of Tefi stressed.

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Thursday, September 22, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

BusinessMirror

Watson, Ramirez lend glitz to UN gender-equality event

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NITED NATIONS—Emma Watson cheered the possibility of the US electing its first female president. Edgar Ramirez questioned a “macho” world that teaches boys to suppress emotions and dominate women.

The actors roused up a glitzy and high-powered crowd at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan on Tuesday night to promote United Nations Women’s HeForShe initiative to draw men into the fight for global gender equality.

The organization released a report detailing progress made by 10 universities around the world that have committed to red ressing gender inequa l it y in their institutions. It is part of a wider project convening 10 heads of state, 10 global corporate CEOs and 10 university presidents to take concrete action for gender parity.

64 The percentage of male tenured professors at Georgetown university

Wa t s o n , t h e U N Wo m e n Global Goodwill Ambassador,

drew whoops and cheers when she referenced the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the US presidential elections.

“I don’t know if I would have believed you if you had told me two years ago before I made my HeforShe speech that we might have the first female president of the United States,” said Watson, best known for her Harry Potter character Hermione Granger, the plucky bookworm whose wits frequently saved the day.

Watson also celebrated the fact that Britain has a woman prime minister in Theresa May. R amirez, a Venezuelan actor who starred in The Liberator and Joy, gave an impassioned indictment of a world where “male adolescents are taught to be dominant, tough and disrespect women.” He said teaching boys to suppress their emotions creates taboos around male mental health, leads to depression and even violence.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finish President Sauli Niinisto also spoke. The Daily

Show host Trevor Noah served as presenter. The report on the 10 universities detailed stark gender disparities within the participating institutions. At Georgetown university, 74 percent of its leadership and 64 percent of its tenured professors are men. At the University of Oxford, just 23 percent of tenured professors and 38 percent of senior leadership are women.

The report highlighted imbalances within certain academic tracks and in fields of study chosen by female students compared to their male counterparts.

Stony Brook University President Samuel Stanley told The Associated Press his school has star ted antibias training for senior leaders and search committees in an effort to redress gender imbalances. Nearly twothirds of tenured professors at the New York-based school are men, and a similar number make up its senior leadership.

Stanley said his own daughters have encountered difficulties while pursuing careers in sciences, including one who was asked by a colleague if she could bake cookies. AP

United Nations suspends Syria aid convoys after ‘savage’ attack

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EIRUT—The United States on Tuesday blamed Russia for an overnight attack on an aid convoy that killed 20 civilians as the United Nations announced it was suspending overland aid deliveries in Syria, jeopardizing food and medical security for millions of besieged and hard-to-reach civilians.

Confusion continued about who struck the convoy, but the White House insisted it was either Russia or Syria. White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said either way, the US held Russia responsible, because it was Russia’s job under the week-old cease-fire to prevent Syria’s air force from striking in areas where humanitarian aid was being transported.

“All of our information indicates clearly that this was an air strike,” Rhodes said, rejecting the claim by Russia’s Defense Ministry that a cargo fire caused the damage. Both Russia and Syria have denied carrying out the bombing.

Within one minute of the strike, the US tracked a Russian-made Su-24 directly over the region of the attack, US officials said. Even that revelation failed to definitively implicate Russia because both the Russian and Syrian air forces fly the Su-24, although the US officials said there were strong indications that the jet was flown by the Russian military.

The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the incident.

Completely destroyed

People ride their bicycles on a main boulevard during the yearly car-free day in Brussels on September 18. The United Nations said on Tuesday it expects 30 more countries to formally join the Paris Agreement on climate change this week. AP

UN says 30 more countries set to ratify climate deal

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TOCKHOLM—Thirty more countries are expected to formally join the Paris Agreement on climate change this week, greatly improving the pact’s chances of coming into force just a year after it was negotiated in the French capital, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

More than 170 world leaders have signed the deal, but it won’t take effect until 55 countries accounting for at least 55 percent of global emissions have ratified or accepted it through their domestic procedures. That was initially expected to take several years, but 28 countries accounting for 39 percent of emissions, including the world ’s two biggest emitters, the United States and China, have already ratified the deal.

The 30 ratifications expected to be handed to UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon at a special event at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday would bring the total to 58 countries—but many are small and their total emissions likely won’t reach the required 55 percent.

Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are the largest emitters on the list announced late on Tuesday by the United Nations. But the 30 countries will only bring the emissions total to 47 percent.

Defining challenge

AT least half a dozen small island nations, including Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Kiribati, are ex-

pected to ratify along with several countries from Central America, Africa, Asia and one from the Mideast—the United Arab Emirates.

“We are ready. We will announce it in New York,” Moroccan Environment Minister Hakima el-Haite told The Associated Press (AP).

In the world of international diplomacy, this is considered a blistering pace, reflecting a sense of urgency in the fight against global warming and a desire to seal the deal before Ban and US President Barack Obama leave office.

After years of negotiations, governments agreed in Paris last December to curb the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists say are warming the planet.

Ban, who has made climate change a top priority since he became secretary-general nearly 10 years ago, urged world leaders in his keynote speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to bring the Paris Agreement into force by the end of the year.

“The Earth assails us with rising seas, record heat and extreme storms,” Ban said. “With the Paris Agreement on climate change, we are tackling the defining challenge of our time.”

Move forward

U.S. diplomats are also pushing other countries to accelerate their ratification efforts so that the deal can enter into force this year. The White House says Obama and Secretary of State

John Kerry plan to corner foreign leaders in the hallways during the UN gathering to personally pressure them to join this week.

“We’re very anxious to have it move forward quickly,” US climate envoy Jonathan Pershing told the AP. “We are talking to everybody about the urgency.”

Pershing said the haste comes down to the fact that “this is a problem that can’t wait.”

Others say another factor is the potential of a shift in US climate policy depending on the outcome of the presidential election in November. Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton has said the US must implement the Paris Agreement, but Republican candidate Donald Trump has said he will cancel the deal.

“The Obama administration clearly would like to see this done before they leave office,” said Alden Meyer, a veteran observer of the UN climate talks at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“That doesn’t guarantee that the next president will fully implement Paris,” Meyer said. “But it would take at least four years for the US to formally withdraw.”

Technically possible

THE Paris Agreement asks both rich and poor countries to take action to curb the rise in global temperatures that is melting glaciers, raising sea levels and shifting rainfall patterns across the globe.

It requires governments to present national plans to reduce emissions,

though the targets themselves aren’t internationally binding.

The European Union (EU), which considers itself as one of the architects of the Paris deal, is trying to fast-track its ratification process to avoid the embarrassment of sitting on the sidelines when it comes into force. The EU, which accounts for 12 percent of global emissions, originally planned to wait for its 28 member-states to approve the deal domestically, but now wants to ratify it on their behalf.

“It’s technically possible,” said Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a spokesman for EU Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete. “But politically, it’s a decision of the member-states.”

Cannot wait

WITH or without the EU, there’s a chance that the deal can enter into force as early as the next UN climate conference, which starts on November 7 in Marrakech, Morocco.

For some the timing is mostly symbolic, because the first round of emissions targets doesn’t start until 2020. For others, like the island nations who face an existential risk from rising seas, it’s imperative that countries prepare to implement—and improve—their targets as soon as possible.

“We cannot wait,” said Maldives Environment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim, who chairs an alliance of small island states. “We are at the forefront of climate change and we are the people who will suffer if there is no action taken early.” AP

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WITNESSES described the Monday attack on a Syrian Arab Red Crescent warehouse and convoy in the rebel-held town of Uram al-Kubra in Aleppo province as prolonged and intense, saying the aerial bombardment continued as rescue workers rushed to pull the wounded from the flaming wreckage and rubble.

The convoy was part of a routine interagency dispatch operated by the Syrian Red Crescent, which UN officials said was delivering assistance to 78,000 people in Uram al-Kubra, west of Aleppo city. It was carrying food, medicines, emergency health kits, IV fluids and other essentials supplied by the UN and the World Health Organization.

Local paramedic and media activist Mohammad Rasoul, who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said over 100 tons of food, medicine and baby formula had gone up in flames. He said 18 of the convoy’s 31 trucks were completely destroyed.

Process of elimination

THE attack “erased the convoy from the face of the Earth,” Rasoul said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this attack,” he said. “If this had been a military position, it wouldn’t have been targeted with such intensity.”

He said the attack began around 20 minutes after sunset on Monday and continued for two hours.

Pointing to the fact that Syria’s rebels don’t possess an air force, the White House said process of elimination indicated that either Syria’s military or Russia’s launched the attack. Both Syrian and Russian aircraft operate over the province, while the US-led coalition targets the Islamic State group in other parts of the country.

At the same time, the attack took place on Uram al-Kubra, presumed Syrian or Russian jets launched a wave of attacks in and around the nearby city of Aleppo, minutes after Syria’s military announced a week long cease-fire had expired.

Crude, unguided weapons

A cargo fire would not explain the footage filmed by rescuers of torn flesh being picked from the wreckage, or the witness accounts of a sustained, two-hour barrage of missiles, rockets and barrel bombs—crude, unguided weapons that the Syrian government drops from helicopters.

Hussein Badawi, the head of the town’s Syrian Civil Defense search and rescue group—also known as the White Helmets— said that, on the night of the attack, he heard the sounds of overhead ballistic missiles, helicopters and fighter jets. He and other witnesses reported seeing a reconnaissance aircraft observing the convoy before the attack.

“There were reconnaissance f lights before the air strikes,” Badawi said. “They filmed and combed the area, and they knew there was a Red Crescent [facility]. The target was the Red Crescent, central and direct.” Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that a drone had followed the convoy from a warehouse in the government-side of Aleppo to its destination in Uram al-Kubra.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 20 civilians were killed in the attack, many of them killed as they were unloading the trucks. Syrian activists and paramedics had said earlier that the air strikes killed 12. Witnesses said some of the remains were charred beyond recognition.

Very dark day

AMONG those killed was Omar Barakat, 38, the local director for the Red Crescent and a father of nine. His brother, Ali Barakat, who was also present at the attack, said it took him three hours to reach Omar, who was trapped in his vehicle.

“I stayed with my face on the floor for about an hour because of the intensity of the strikes,” Barakat said.

Omar Barakat died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital.

The UN stressed that they had “deconflicted” the delivery with all parties before the operation, by obtaining the necessary permits from the government and supplying combatants with the relevant coordinates for the move.

UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon called it a “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate attack,” in his address to world leaders at the General Assembly on Tuesday.

“Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower,” he said, describing the bombers as “cowards” and those delivering aid as “heroes.”

The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, announced earlier in the day it had suspended relief convoys in Syria, pending a review of the security situation. OCHA Spokesman Jens Laerke called it “a very, very dark day...for humanitarians across the world.” But the UN appeared to carry on with air drops to government-held areas.

Images of starvation

WORLD Food Programme Spokesman Bettina Luescher said in a statement the UN food agency had airdropped aid to the besieged eastern city of Deir el-Zour earlier on Tuesday “as part of the planned schedule of deliveries.”

Reached for clarification, OCHA’s Damascus office said only interagency convoys had been suspended, without elaborating further.

A member of the Syrian Civil Defense criticized the UN humanitarian aid agency for suspending the convoys. Ibrahim Alhaj told the Associated Press (AP) that Syrian civilians will pay the price for the decision—and that the UN should have condemned the attacks on the convoy rather than suspending aid. The UN says over 6 million Syrians are living in besieged or hard-to-reach areas and require humanitarian aid.

Media activist Wassim al-Ahmad sent a text message to the AP from the besieged town of Madaya, outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, saying residents were asking whether the reports were true that the UN was suspending its aid convoys. The town, the scene of some of the most distressing images of starvation to emerge from Syria last winter, was expecting its first delivery since June. AP

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Thursday, September 22, 2016

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Report: Employee shortages hamper US wildlife refuges

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ORTLAND, Oregon—Hundreds of national wildlife refuges that provide critical habitat for migratory birds and other species are crippled by a staffing shortage that has curtailed educational programs, hampered the fight against invasive species and weakened security at facilities that attract nearly 50 million visitors annually, a group of public employees and law enforcement said on Wednesday.

Staffing at the nation’s 565 wildlife refuges and related properties shrank nearly 15 percent in the past decade, and more than one-third of those locations don’t have any staff on site, the Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said. More than half of the refuges no longer have their own manager and have been combined into massive “complexes” that are overseen by someone who might be hundreds of miles away, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the nonprofit alliance.

The report raises concerns about low staffing levels given the recent armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in remote southeast Oregon.

More than two dozen occupied the refuge’s headquarters in January, launching a 41-day standoff with authorities that ended two weeks after one of them was fatally shot.

The occupiers were protesting the prosecution of two ranchers who set fires on federal lands.

Seven of them are now on trial in federal court in Portland.

Shortened budget

THE crisis set off alarm bells and prompted officials to spend $6 million from an already tight budget to move law enforcement officers to preserves scattered in remote locations across the West, said David Houghton, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association. Many refuges are patrolled by a single officer who covers several states.

Some refuge managers have since sent their law enforcement officers to additional training or updated security plans.

“People are paying attention to that whole dynamic. I only have one law enforcement officer here and she covers the entire range of refuges, and she’s by herself,” said Michelle Potter, who manages seven refuges and three other habitats in and around Long Island, New York. “I worry about safety.”

Vanessa Kauffman, a spokesman for US Fish and Wildlife Service, declined to comment on the study but did acknowledge a tight

budget in a phone interview with the AP. The agency oversees the refuge system.

“The budget determines the staff, and if you have attrition and you have a shortened budget, you’re not going to be able to replace staff,” said Kauffman. “We do what we can.”

Remote areas

THE refuges, as well as 178 other federally protected areas dedicated to waterfowl habitat and wetland preservation, attract 47.5 million visitors a year for birdwatching, hunting, fishing and educational activities, but their primary mission is the preservation of critical habitat for fragile species. Many, but not all, are in remote areas.

Because they are focused on wildlife preservation, refuges are less well known by the public than their flashier, selfie-friendly cousins at the National Park Service, yet they have expanded rapidly in recent years as funding has shrunk.

Since 2010, the overall refuge budget dropped by $17 million to $486 million, while the system added more than 700 million acres, Houghton said.

Much of that expansion comes from the addition of two massive marine monuments, including one designated in the Atlantic Ocean last week by President Ba rac k Oba ma t hat inc ludes 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast.

Pared down

MEANWHILE, existing refuges are struggling to complete their mission with a staff so pared down that some can’t keep on volunteers because there’s no one to manage them.

In Rhode Island, for example, a refuge complex cut educational programs for school children by 20 percent, lost its visitor center manager and hasn’t been able to treat huge swaths of land for invasive species.

Charlie Vandemoer oversees five refuges in Rhode Island but has security from only one officer who also patrols refuges in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

He relies on more than 23,000 volunteer hours a year to get the most critical work done and recently sent his solitary law-enforcement officer for additional training.

“If it wasn’t for volunteers, they’d have to shut the doors,” said Marvin Plenart, a retired manager in Portland who used to oversee the Western region. “It’s pathetic, is what it is.” AP

Canadian firm helping Bahrain censor the Web–researchers

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ONDON—Researchers have identified a Canadian company at the center of a small Arab nation’s online censorship system—a finding that sits awkwardly with Ottawa officials’ public support for digital freedoms. Specialists from Internet watchdog Citizen Lab said in a report published on Wednesday that Web-filtering firm Netsweeper Inc. is helping block news and opposition websites in Bahrain, a Gulf Arab monarchy that has been wracked by unrest since prodemocracy protests were stifled there in 2011.

Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert said the discovery undermines Canadian leaders’ forceful condemnations of online censorship .

“Canadian policy-makers have been quite vocal about saying that this is wrong,” Deibert said in a phone call ahead of the report’s release. “Yet, here we have a Canadian company that’s doing precisely that.”

Netsweeper, based in the city of Guelph, about 100 kilometers west of Toronto, did not return a call and other messages. In 2011, a company spokesman was quoted as saying there was “no good conversation for us to have” about allegations of censorship.

Citizen Lab said the banned Bahraini

sites include ones run by opposition and human-rights groups, as well as sites critical of Islam. Gambling and pornography sites also were blocked.

Netsweeper’s suspected role as Bahrain’s censorship provider first came to light after the firm appeared to win a contract for a “national web-site filtering solution” earlier this year. Researchers at Citizen Lab said they confirmed the company’s role there by scouring Bahrain’s Internet space for Netsweeper installations and trying to access blocked sites from a server in the country.

The researchers drew on clues such as lines including the words “Netsweeper” or “netsw” returned during internet scans and a tell-tale line of code in the Web addresses thrown up by blocked sites.

Based at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, Citizen Lab has made a specialty of exposing the companies behind surveillance and censorship in the Middle East and beyond. Last month its discovery of Israeli-made spy software targeting an Arab dissident’s iPhone prompted Apple to issue a worldwide security update. Citizen Lab has been tracking Netsweeper’s work for years. AP

In this January 27, 2014, file photo, homeless men eat breakfast at a shelter for the homeless in Paramaribo, Suriname. Life has become exceedingly hard in Suriname in 2016, where the economy has been in free-fall amid the collapse of global commodity prices and the slide of the local currency relative to the US dollar. AP

Suriname slides into economic abyss, in shadow of Venezuela

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ARAMARIBO, Suriname—It is a South American nation in crisis: Businesses are closing, food prices are soaring and hospitals are running out of basic supplies, such as paper towels and bandages.

No, this isn’t Venezuela, but rather nearby Suriname, a multiethnic former Dutch colony where the economy is in free-fall amid collapsing global commodity prices and the local currency’s resulting slide against the US dollar.

Life has become exceedingly difficult in this isolated country of about 540,000 people on South America’s northeastern coast, which the World Bank says now has the world’s third-highest rate of inflation, behind Venezuela and South Sudan.

“I am absolutely worried my country is becoming another Venezuela,” said Umar Nazier, who closed his Texas-style grill restaurant in June because the cost of ingredients had doubled. “I had no other choice but to adjust the prices on my menu, but these new prices scared the customers away.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which authorized a $478-million loan to Suriname in May, expects the economy to contract 2 percent this year. Suriname’s Bureau of Statistics says inflation is running at an annualized 64 percent, up from an average 4 percent in 2013 to 2015.

Frozen fuel prices

THE main reason for the collapse is falling prices for Suriname’s

main exports, gold and oil, and last year’s closure of the Alcoa aluminum refinery, long a pillar of the economy. President Desi Bouterse likely also contributed by spending heavily before the May 2015 election, exhausting currency reserves.

Bouterse has frozen retail fuel prices and backed away from energy price increases, against the IMF’s budget-protecting recommendations. He has also vowed to stabilize the exchange rate of the Surinamese dollar, which has fallen by more than half against the US dollar over the past year.

The president said at a news conference on Tuesday that the I MF requ i rement s a re “ver y harsh” and that his government may move to withdraw from the loan agreement and seek support from other sources such as the Islamic Development Bank. “ The IMF is cold and only thinks about the numbers and the deadlines we had agreed to,” Bouterse said. “If the agreement with the IMF becomes too difficult to follow, if we risk becoming victims of the agreement ourselves, we will have to look for other options.”

Reduced government subsidies

AS in other import-dependent

countries, health care has been hit particularly hard. Doctors at the Academic Hospital Paramaribo, the country’s largest, recently posted a YouTube video pleading for help from Surinamese living abroad, saying they lacked such things as sterile tubes.

“We have reached the point that people will die an avoidable death,” one said.

Hospital officials and doctors declined interview requests but accounts of shortages are widespread. Amanda Palis said she visited four pharmacies seeking a medicine to treat nausea and vomiting for her 2-year-old daughter before giving up and trying something else recommended by a pharmacist.

“I eventually gave my daughter medication that was not prescribed for her,” she said. “What else could I do?”

Manodj Hindori, chairman of the National Hospital Council, said all of the country’s hospitals “are on the verge of bankruptcy” because of higher prices for supplies combined with reduced government subsidies. Most people live clustered in and around the capital, Paramaribo. More than 90 percent of the country is covered in rainforest, a rugged and beautiful landscape at the headwaters of the Amazon River.

Weak, divided opposition

BOUTERSE, who has expressed admiration for the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, ran Suriname as a military dictatorship from 1980 to 1987, then returned as president in a 2010 parliamentary election.

In 2000 Bouterse was convicted of drug trafficking in the Netherlands in absentia. He has been

charged in Suriname with orchestrating the killing of 15 political opponents in 1982, but as the economy crumbled this summer, he invoked a clause of the constitution to suspend the trial, citing national security.

Recent polls say Bouterse’s popularity rating is now around 17 percent, about that of President Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader in struggling Venezuela.

But that’s where the comparison to Venezuela ends. Antigovernment protests have been relatively small, attracting several thousand people at most. The opposition is weak and divided, with some leading figures saying they don’t see the point in marching.

Prospects look better

ECONOMY Minister Gillmore Hoefdraad says the economic crisis is temporary and will improve when gold and oil prices recover.

The government expects its budget will get a boost when US-based Newmont Mining Corp. starts production at a new mine in Suriname later this year.

The Association of Economists of Suriname says the government must better diversify economically and produce more than just oil and gold. Chairman Winston Ramautarsing suggests developing agriculture, tourism and fishing. “Sadly enough, we seem to be better at spending money than at developing strategies to earn money.”

The government insists it will pass. “The current situation, of course, is difficult. We still need to recover from this crisis,” Hoefdraad said in a video statement the government released last month.

“But the medium-term prospects look much, much better.” AP

Officials from 21 US states sue to block overtime-pay expansion

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AS VEGAS—Officials from 21 states sued the US Department of Labor on Tuesday over a new rule that would make about 4 million higherearning workers eligible for overtime pay, slamming the measure as inappropriate federal overreach by the Obama Administration.

Ne v ad a A t tor ne y G e ner a l Adam Laxalt, a Republican, filed the lawsuit in US District Court in Eastern Texas, urging it to block implementation before the regulation takes effect on December 1.

Laxalt, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama’s policies, said the rule would burden private and public sectors by straining budgets and forcing layoffs or cuts

in working hours.

“This rule, pushed by distant bureaucrats in D.C., tramples on state and local government budgets, forcing states to shift money from other important programs to balance their budgets, including programs intended to protect the very families that purportedly benefit from such federal overreach,” he said in a statement.

The lawsuit came the same day that the US Chamber of Commerce and more than 50 other business groups filed a legal challenge against the regulation.

US Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said he was confident in the legality of the rule, describing the lawsuits as partisan, obstructionist tactics. He noted that overtime

protections have receded over the years: they applied to 62 percent of full-time salaried workers in 1975 and just 7 percent today.

“The overtime rule is designed to restore the intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the crown jewel of worker protections in the United States,” Perez said in a statement. “I look forward to vigorously defending our efforts to give more hardworking people a meaningful chance to get by.”

The measure would shrink the so-called white-collar exemption that exempts workers who perform “executive, administrative or professional” duties from overtime and minimum wage requirements. It would more than double the salary threshold under which

employers must pay overtime to their white-collar workers. Overtime protections would apply to workers who make up to $913 a week, or $47,476 a year, and the threshold would readjust every three years to reflect changes in average wages.

“This long-awaited update will result in a meaningful boost to many workers’ wallets, and will go a long way toward realizing President Obama’s commitment to ensuring every worker is compensated fairly for their hard work,” the Labor Department said in May, when it announced the new rule.

Business groups say the changes are too much and too fast, especially as states continue to recover from the recession. AP

A10 Thursday, September 22, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Autopsy of an autopsy

T

HE roots of extrajudicial violence in the Philippines are the people who object to extrajudicial violence in the Philippines; which is to say the ex-officials of the previous regime (whose inanity, inactivity and incompetence created the situation that only extrajudicial violence can correct).

Extrajudicial violence, Amanda Taub wrote in the New York Times, will reach the point where it will be unstoppable. Random killings tend to take on a life of its own.

Amanda says clinical studies of drug-ridden societies show that, when lawlessness will not stop, extrajudicial violence against it will not stop either. The latter feeds on the former, and soon becomes unstoppable.

This is true when law-and-order elements, tasked to stop lawlessness, are incompetent and corrupt; or protective, instead of relentless, against lawless elements, like the previous regime was.

The public becomes grateful for any enforcement sufficiently lethal to make a deep dent or that cuts deep enough into lawlessness to carve a fat slice out of it.

This is true even if the elements used to achieve those ends are lawless; which is to say law-and-order elements were remiss in their duty, and even complicit with criminals. So that even extrajudicial killings by cops getting rid of witnesses is seen as still a good thing. The only good Injun is a dead Injun.

That is why at the funeral of a dead cop, people still say another one down.

In short, anything that gets the job done, so long as the job gets done.

The solution to a bad-people problem is getting rid of bad people.

Rehabilitation won’t do it. Death is the final solution.

But isn’t that senseless?

One day the only lawless elements remaining will be lawless security forces, which will prey on the society that tolerated their lawlessness.

Maybe yes, more likely no. Security forces know one thing. It is one thing to kill and another thing to govern. Gregorio B. Honasan II repeatedly recalls, “I have found myself in the Palace three times—armed to the teeth—and I never know what to do when I am there.”

Amanda Taub quotes Mexican Prof. Gema Santamaria as saying, “rule of law does not sell well.”

Gema is wrong.

Only rule of law in failed states does not sell well because it is not real rule of law. It is a cover-up for incompetence, like the Luneta Hostage Crisis and Mamasapano.

Real rule of law sells—in the United States, Singapore, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and other successful states. Rule of law there works better than extrajudicial violence.

It is cold, systematic, and the work is done clean. Think FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Alcohol Tobacco Firearms. They roll up hundreds, even thousands, of suspects, yet never break rules of engagement. Miranda rights are always read before throwing away the key to unending solitary confinement.

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business

Does the PSE have flu or dengue?

John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

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ike millions of other families, we have gone through facing the battle of a child contracting dengue fever. Yes, it is a battle.

The two eldest—who were 4 and 5 years old—both came down with the virus at the same time. What a nightmare.

Son No. 2 caught the disease again in 2015 and it is really no easier when your child is an adult and has to spend a week in the hospital.

The youngest had a fever a couple of weeks ago and, fortunately, was diagnosed with the flu and not dengue. When a young child gets dengue and has to be confined, it is a traumatic experience for him.

But for the parent, the worst part is waiting for the diagnosis.

Dengue is a nasty disease because the patient has a fever and it is only after the fever goes away and

Ariel F. Nepomuceno

DECISION TIME

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investors, you know exactly what I mean and how it feels, no matter how confident you might be about your investment decision.

Sure, you have your trading plan and “years” of experience have steeled your discipline. Yet, we all know that deep inside, it is as if this was your first trade, sort of like the first time you got behind the wheel of a car. No matter what your trading experience has been, each trade is unique and stands alone. Yesterday’s success or failure means nothing. In truth, that is one of the reasons trad-

Federalism 101: Positives and pitfalls

✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Publisher

you think all is good that then the problems start. It used to be that you had to worry for several days while having daily blood tests to finally come to a certain diagnosis. That period is the hard part for a parent because you do not know what you are up against and really cannot do much to help your child.

Investing in the stock market and pushing the “Buy” button to execute an order is exactly like having a fever and then waiting for the diagnosis.

No matter the brave face and strong words you might share with fellow

Investing in the stock market and pushing the “Buy” button to execute an order is exactly like having a fever and then waiting for the diagnosis. No matter the brave face and strong words you might share with fellow investors, you know exactly what I mean and how it feels, no matter how confident you might be about your investment decision.

T

he basic definition of federalism makes reference to a mixed form of government where there is a central government and side by side, regional governments, such as provinces or states, in one political infrastructure or system. It is dual sovereignty in action.

Specifically, Prof. Jose Abueva, quoting Mr. Ronald Watts, characterizes some of the common characteristics of federal governments as: 1) two kinds of governments each in direct contact with citizens; 2) sharing of legislative, executive powers and sources of revenue ; 3) designated representation of distinct regional interests and rights; 4) a constitution that is not modifiable and which requires consent of federation members; 5) use of courts or a referendum to resolve intergovernmental disputes; and 6) institutions which facilitate collaboration among government agencies when there are shared jurisdictions or responsibilities. Examples of countries with this type of government structure are Mexico, India, Canada, Germany, Malaysia, Brazil and the United States. Based on statistics, only 11 out of around 200 countries are federated.

On the other hand, a unitary

system is one where all powers are centralized in the hands of the central government and is the source of all state power. Although there are political subdivisions like states, the latter are administrative and are always under the control and supervision of the central government. Most countries around the world follow the unitary model. The debate whether to transform our political system into federal is currently raging, as President Duterte and most of his supporters in the present administration, including some members of the Senate and the House, are vouching for the Philippines as a country that is best fit to adopt the federal model.

End the centralized form of government

Several arguments have been put forward by political scientists, sociologists and economists in favor of federalism. Core reasons are that decentralization of powers will

result to greater empowerment on the part of the states or regions.

Central government ceases to be the sole dominant force and the states will not be considered to be inferior, subordinate or over-dependent. It is believed that popular sovereignty becomes real and visible in federalism. Self rule is actualized with the regions being able to manage its own resources and finances, and take charge of their economic agenda.

Furthermore, the common tao and their leaders can solve problems at their level without bothering the central government. The result?

More cooperation, smoother and stable relationships between the two units. And we may probably have an added bonus of decongesting Imperial Manila.

No to federalism

But some of the challenges hurled by unitary government advocates are valid, as well. They range from more divisiveness resulting from traditionally fragmented and sometimes myopic regional interests and institutionalization of reigning political families and dynasties.

Distribution of revenues may not necessarily be equalized because there may be some provinces that will eventually end up wealthier than the others, depending on how good their respective governance methodology works. More wealth in some quarters mean bigger dissonance at the regional level.

The most striking point against federalism is the reality that it may

ers trade because of the challenge and excitement. The profit or loss is only a way of keeping score.

In the last few years, being the parent of a child who potentially has dengue has dramatically changed.

No longer is there the need to wait days for a diagnosis with the relatively new NS1 antigen test for dengue introduced in 2006. Draw a blood sample and in less than an hour, the results are back and you can go home—maybe stopping for ice cream on the way—or gird your loins for war with the virus. But, at least, that period of nail-biting fear is eliminated.

You buy your stock and the price goes down before it reaches a level to take a profit. Is it the flu or dengue?

Is there an NS1 test for the stock market? Yes, this is shameless plug for the seminars I will be holding through the end of the year.

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

actually be more costly to rule and govern at the local level with the variety and number of functions that shall be performed—taxation, basic services, law making, etc. Sen. Ralph G. Recto, when interviewed, stated that “the mathematics for federalism are wrong and ugly because there will be a bigger bureaucracy, which would entail larger expenditure.”

Moreover, there is no assurance that this will solve civil unrest and separatist movements in the rest of the country. Truth is, there are some political movements, ideologically inspired or not, that will never be happy no matter how or what kind of power is shared.

Moving forward with the discourse

Both current Senate President Aquilino L. Pimentel III and Rep. Monico Puentevella filed bills proposing an amendment of the Constitution to establish a federal form of government way back in 2008. These bills are now being revisited in light of President Duterte’s open preference for federalism.

The robust conversations and exchange of ideas about this subject matter manifest that democracy is well and thriving in the country. A change in the form of government is an issue so pivotal to the fundamentals of a democratic state. Let us listen and talk about it. Then, soon, we shall decide as a nation.

For comments and suggestions: arielnepo.businessmirror@gmail.com

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

Trouble in ICTSI land

Caring for others while we can

BusinessMirror

Msgr. Sabino A. Vengco Jr.

Val A. Villanueva

Businesswise Conclusion

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ection 2 of Chapter 1 of the Philippine Securities Regulation Code (SRC) declares that it is the policy of the State to, among others, “establish a socially conscious, free market that regulates itself, encourage the widest participation of ownership in enterprises…promote the development of the capital market, protect investors, ensure full and fair disclosure about securities....”

This means publicly listed companies are mandated to disclose material information that could affect the value of their shares. The standard justification for such is that those who manage these firms have unlimited access to information about the financial health and future of the firm compared to those who currently own stocks; or those who are still evaluating whether to invest in these companies via the country’s equity market.

The suit lodged by Makiling Farms Inc. (MFI) against International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) before the City Prosecutor’s Office of Manila (Case Number XV-07-INV-16G-03550), under the SRC, should have been properly disclosed because the latter is a publicly listed transnational corporation.

MFI alleged that in 2004 its shares were illegally assigned by ICTSI President Enrique K. Razon Jr. in favor of his late father, Razon Sr. The younger Razon, Makiling alleged, made it appear that his late father entered into an agreement with the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) in behalf of E. Razon Inc. (ERI), in which Makiling is a stockholder, for the lifting of ERI’s sequestration; and the dismissal by Sandiganbayan of the case against ERI. Razon Sr. also had agreed to pay P9 million, “in consideration of the dismissal of the case by the Sandiganbayan.” Makiling’s 5-percent ERI shares, which were alleged to have been transferred to ICTSI, are now valued at P78.60 each, or P200 million in all.

ICTSI, in a letter to BusinessWise, flatly denies Makiling’s claim: “1. ERI was a sequestered company in 1986 and its arrastre contract was canceled by the PPA [Philippine Ports Authority], and its assets were seized and sold to pay for the separation pay of labor and claims of cargo owners for damaged cargo. ERI’s share in the establishment of ICTSI in 1987 was, therefore, funded and advanced by the Razon Group, headed by Mr. Razon Sr. The transfer of the ERI shares in ICTSI to the Razon Group was part of the payment by ERI of the advances of the Razon Group.

“2. The transaction that MFI is questioning [that is, the transfer of 7.7 million ICTSI shares from ERI to Mr. Razon Sr.] happened on 10 April 1990 and was duly filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] on 22 May 1990. That was 26 years ago! The SEC at that time had primary jurisdiction over complaints of minority shareholders on any abuse of management or majority shareholders. Yet, MFI never questioned that transfer, even if MFI knew of such transfer and had full access to SEC records.

“3. The consideration for the transfer of the 7.7 million ICTSI shares is fully documented in the notarized Deed of Assignment dated 10 April 1990 that MFI had obtained from the SEC. This consideration includes: “Razon, the controlling stockholder of ERI, aside from serving as Chairman of the Board of the Corporation for more than three years without receiving any compensation, paid from his own funds substantial amounts of fees and expenses for legal assistance” for: a) the sequestration cases; b) the suit against the PPA to recover the arrastre contract; c) counteracting various adverse publicity against ERI as member of the ICTSI consortium.

“With the prior authority from the Board of Directors of ERI, Razon successfully negotiated and concluded an Agreement with the PCGG for the lifting of the sequestration and the dismissal of Sandiganbayan case” as against ERI, and among the terms is the payment of P 9 million, of which P 2 million will be paid upon the signing of the agreement.

“4. MFI highlights the certification that it got from the Sandiganbayan. But it ignores the fact that the PCGG itself can lift the sequestration that it issues. This is shown by the PCGG Order dated May 22, 1990, which lifted the sequestration and freeze orders issued against ERI. [A copy of this order duly certified by the PCGG is attached here.]

“5. MFI concludes that there was no payment to the PCGG because Mr. Razon Jr. could not produce the proof of payment of the P9 million.

But who keeps an official receipt for 26 years? The fact is PCGG is satisfied that Mr. Razon Sr. had complied with his obligation under the Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines through the PCGG dated April 10, 1990, expressly referred to in the PCGG Order dated May 22, 1990, lifting the sequestration.

“6. It is not true that MFI had a 5-percent stake in ICTSI. MFI claims to be a stockholder of ERI. MFI was never a stockholder of ICTSI. “7. Whatever cause of action MFI had has long prescribed. Even assuming that it is a stockholder of ERI, MFI had no legal personality to claim the asset of ERI, a separate corporation.”

For its part, Makiling claims that this is the first time that a certified true copy of the May 22, 1990, order of the PCGG has surfaced: “We note that the certification bears the date “August 22, 2016,” and, as of the last hearing held on August 31, 2016, no such certified true copy of the PCGG order was submitted by the respondent with the investigating prosecutor.

Makiling expressed surprise that “if Mr. Razon was able to procure a certified true copy of the May 22, 1990, Order from the PCGG,” why then was he not able to get “a certified true copy of the alleged Agreement mentioned in the said Order and a written confirmation from the PCGG that Mr. Enrique Razon Sr. paid the PCGG the amount of P9 million when the 7.7 million ICTSI shares were assigned by way of reimbursement.”

During the preliminary investigation, Makiling pointed out that corporate assets of ERI, which included the 7.7 million ICTSI shares, could not have been “legally assigned to anyone without a valid consideration.

According to Makiling, it has repeatedly asked the respondent to show that Mr. Enrique Razon Sr. has, indeed, paid the PCGG the amount of P9 million to cover ERI’s obligation to the PCGG, and that the alleged agreement led not only to the lifting of the sequestration but the dismissal of the case against ERI before the Sandiganbayan. If the respondent could provide unassailable proof that ERI’s claims are true, Makiling would withdraw its criminal complaint.

“For the record,” Makiling says, their position “merely reiterates what were stated in its various filings during the preliminary investigation, and it will just let the administrative and judicial processes take its normal course.”

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

Alálaong Bagá

G

od is certainly to be praised, for He truly cares for the little ones, the oppressed and the suffering (Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10). To disregard others in this life, especially the needy, is to risk one’s own exclusion from the eternal union with God (Luke 16:19-31).

The Lord cares for those in need The Lord deserves our trust and our praise because of all He has done and is doing for us. The psalmist reminds himself to praise the Lord and offers a series of statements illustrating God’s amazing goodness and mercy. He is the “God of Jacob,” meaning He gave special protection to Jacob and to the entire people named after him. God is faithful to His covenant promises. He delivered the people from bondage in Egypt and took care of them during their sojourn in the desert. For anyone belonging to God’s people Israel, such faithfulness on God’s part is the reason to praise Him.

God’s mercy and compassion to those in every sort of need is extolled next. One can be bowed down in life due to many different situations, like physical disability as in blindness, mental or emotional affliction, economic or social tribulations. But whatever it is, God is there to raise up the needy, giving them confidence and their life back. Strangers or foreigners are sure of His protection as when He protected Israel when they were aliens in Egypt. Widows and orphans are sustained by the Lord who cares for them against those who would take advantage of them.

For the Lord thwarts the wicked in their evil ways, even as He loves

In Our Time Teddy Locsin Jr.

Free fire Continued from A1

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mong such dominions were Black Angel, Cocobanana for transgenders, and a place out of Tolkien, The Hobbit House.

In that house were little people, reaching no higher than tabletops, William Branigan writes in the Washington Post. They served customers under the kindly, knowing eyes of the proprietor, or prince, if you will—the light-haired, rubicund Jim Turner.

Jim was darkly rumored to be CIA. But if he was, he’d gone so deep under cover as a counterculture icon that it was impossible—however hard you searched among his many kind deeds, in the warmth he spread, and under the protection he extended to misfits; it was impossible to find anything, anything at all, that could set him apart from his cover as anti-establishment. Worse, he kept up this impenetrable cover for over 51 years.

Jim, of course, wasn’t CIA. He was what he was on the face of things— an Iowan from Notre Dame who’d done a brief stint in the Kennedy White House.

He arrived here with the first batch of Peace Corps volunteers. Call them The Kennedy Youth, spreaders of the paling American dream.

They followed a call, not to arms, but to open arms to those the Iron Lady in New York harbor once received: the oppressed, the neglected,

Thursday, September 22, 2016 A11

the just. Surely, the Lord will reign forever, the eternal ruler in Jerusalem, the glorious sovereign of Zion at the center of the lives of His own people. Alleluia! Praise the Lord!

Be responsibe for each other

The Gospel reading painstakingly details a narrative of extreme reversals. The man who enjoyed the pleasures life gives ends up in horrible torment in the hereafter, while the one who during life was treated like dirt enjoys heavenly bliss. The earthly wealth of the first man is given graphic detail: dressed in exclusive purple and with soft linen undergarments, dining sumptuously daily, and living in a palatial home, while by contrast the poor man Lazarus is utterly destitute, begging at the gate of the rich man’s house, hoping for some crumbs from his table, and his sores licked by scavenging dogs.

The second part of Jesus’ narrative describes the futile and belated concern of the rich man for his brothers. Both men in their diametrically opposed social conditions are nonetheless associated with Abraham as they belong to the people of Israel and have covenant responsibilities.

But the rich man was indifferent to

Hobbit House was, in Jim’s mind, Kennedy’s Camelot on the cheap, even if it carried an expensive price tag for him in running afoul of the martial-law regime. It was to his place that those eluding curfew found safety. A few weeks short of his 78th birthday, Jim Turner died. He was already emeritus king, for he had long ago turned over the reins of the kingdom to a small person. street-sleeping social rejects and seeming mistakes of nature.

From the first two midgets he picked to be doormen of a theme café he opened in ’73—calling it The Hobbit House, Turner’s small following grew, but never in size.

They came from slums, wandering circuses, and off the streets to join Turner’s diminutive kingdom. There they found not just a home, but a world of their own to which, for once, it was they who welcomed so-called normal people—the kind who’d not receive them in their homes. My editor Chuchay Fernandez, who always

his covenant duty to respond to the needs of Lazarus famished at his gate. And now he wants Lazarus to do something for him: first, to give him comfort immediately, and then to warn his brothers to change their way of life. The man is self-serving all the way. And his belated plan for the conversion of his brothers won’t work, because a resurrected Lazarus is not more effective than Moses and the prophets who have given them the religious tradition needed to live pleasing to God. Alálaong bagá, crucial is the way we manage our life and our resources and our opportunities. It is not wealth but complacency and disregard of others, particularly the needy, that must be denounced.

Concretely living the faith and our relationship with God means concretely being responsible for our brothers and sisters in the reality of their, and one’s own, conditions. In God’s mercy and compassion we are family, and we cannot allow neglect of our covenant and social responsibilities for others be the sins of omission to undo us.

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

leads with her heart, recalls Jim telling them, “You are not different so you can be made fun of; you are different because you are special.”

Hobbit House was, in Jim’s mind, Kennedy’s Camelot on the cheap, even if it carried an expensive price tag for him in running afoul of the martial-law regime. It was to his place that those eluding curfew found safety. A few weeks short of his 78th birthday, Jim Turner died.

He was already emeritus king, for he had long ago turned over the reins of the kingdom to a small person.

I am not sure where he is to be buried or his ashes to be scattered, but if anyone from the martial-law years truly deserves to be buried in Libingan, it is him, Jim, a kindly friend. It is him, Turner, to those with no one to turn to. First and last, he was Lord Jim to his diminutive companions— and to his loyal customers who were strictly limited to those with a heart so big, it could accommodate little people in equal esteem.

Good-bye, Mistah Turner, unfailing friend of the small Filipino. When you think of it, if Jim did it for these, the least of children, Jim did it for Him who said that. Keep well.

Computerized accounting-system accreditation and issuance of permit to use Atty. Filamer D. Miguel

Tax law for business

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n August 3, 2000, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) 21-2000, which basically prescribes the policies and procedures in the processing and approval of taxpayer’s application for permit to adopt Computerized Accounting System (CAS) and its components.

Two years thereafter, RMO 2902 was subsequently issued, which revised the procedures embodied in RMO 21-000. Both issuances mainly dealt with the issuance of a permit to adopt CAS/components thereof, as well as permit to use (PTU) the same. As of date, there are no existing rules governing the accreditation of CAS and/or other related software.

The bureau is aware of this predicament, that is why it is currently drafting a revenue regulation (RR) that will address the issue on the accreditation of CAS, Computerized Books of Accounts (CBA) and/ or its components, middleware and

Electronic Storage System (ESS) and issuance of the corresponding Certificate of Accreditation and/or PTU. In fact, on August 11, the BIR invited several panelists for an initial discussion on the salient provisions of the draft RR. As presented to us during the public hearing, the draft RR proposes that all developers/service providers/suppliers/distributors/ dealers/resellers, collectively referred to as “sellers” who intend to use and/or sell/distribute CAS and/ or its components, shall secure accreditation of the same from the National Accreditation Board (NAB) in the BIR-National Office prior to

sale or distribution. The accreditation shall be valid for a period of five years from the date of issuance of the Certificate of Accreditation.

Renewal shall be applied not later than 60 days prior to the expiration of its validity period.

Any enhancement/upgrade/ modification of an originally accredited CAS/CBA and/or its components/middleware/ESS shall be subject to accreditation prior to the sale/distribution of its new version and/or release number.

On the other hand, PTU shall be issued to the following: n Clients/buyers of accredited or customized CAS/CBA and/or its components/middleware/ESS; n Pseudosuppliers whose CAS/ CBA and/or its components/middleware/ESS has been accredited; n Franchisees/subsidiaries/affiliates who intend to use the same accredited CAS/CBA and/or its components/middleware/ESS. Unlike in accreditation, applications for PTU shall be filed with the Revenue District Office where the principal place of business of the applicant is registered, unless applicant is a large taxpayer. A duly approved PTU shall, likewise, be valid for five years subject to renewal. Unlike in

the previous RMOs, the draft RR explicitly provides that no temporary PTU shall be issued.

All taxpayers with existing PTU applications prior to the effectivity of the proposed RR, who have undergone proper evaluation and already compliant, shall be issued a PTU by the NAB based on the validation and recommendation report of the Technical Working Group. The proposed RR also provides that all previously issued PTUs on Loose-Leaf Books of Accounts of taxpayers under the LTS are revoked within one year upon effectivity of the RR. While it needs some refinement, it is undeniable that this draft RR is a promising development.

The author is a senior associate of Du-Baladad and Associates Law Offices, a member-firm of World Tax Services Alliance.

The article is for general information only and is not intended, nor should be construed, as a substitute for tax, legal or financial advice on any specific matter. Applicability of this article to any actual or particular tax or legal issue should be supported therefore by a professional study or advice. If you have any comments or questions concerning the article, you may e-mail the author at filamer.miguel@bdblaw.com.ph or call 4032001, local 360.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

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Thursday, September 22, 2016

Rationalizing fiscal perks to hike govt revenue by ₧33.8B–DOF

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By Catherine N. Pillas

@c_pillas29

he Department of Finance (DOF) said it expects a gain of P33.8 billion from rationalizing fiscal incentives, which would include putting in place a sunset clause on some fiscal perks being enjoyed by foreign and local investors.

While the loss from lowering corporate-income tax would be higher at P34.8 billion, the DOF said this projection has not taken into account the impact of full value-added tax refund in cash.

This is based on the agency’s four-part tax-reform package, which it presented to the House of Representatives recently. One of the tax reforms being proposed by the DOF is the reduction in corporate-income tax.

Based on the DOF’s initial assessment, the government would gain as much as P368 billion from the tax reforms by 2019. The figure has already factored in the offsetting measures.

Fiscal incentives rationalization was identified as a measure to offset revenue losses from lowering corporate-income tax to 25 percent, from the current 30 percent.

In particular, streamlining fiscal perks could add P33.8 billion to the government’s coffers but this could be eclipsed by the projected revenue loss of P34.8 billion from lowering the corporateincome tax.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said his department is currently working with the DOF to come up with a consolidated proposal to modernize fiscal incentives.

Additional perks, such as net operating loss carry over and accelerated depreciation or tax deduction for projects that undertake research and development; and additional labor and training expenses, were suggested by Lopez.

In return for granting extra perks, Lopez said he is amenable to capping certain perpetual incentives, like the special rate of 5 percent on gross income earned.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Duterte softens on US troops, then curses EU

₧34.8B

Airline companies deploy anti-Zika measures at Naia

By Recto Mercene

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@rectomercene

orty members of the Airline Operators Council (AOC) operating at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) terminals on Wednesday assured the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) of their full support to help prevent the entry into the country of mosquitoes carrying Zika virus through their aircraft.

Joanne Doromal, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines station manager and AOC treasurer, said their aircraft and those of the other AOC members are spraying insecticides approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) before taking off from their respective terminals or minutes before landing at the Naia terminals, as she assured the insecticides they use are safe to humans.

The AOC’s assurance came after a reported increase of patients afflicted with the virus in Iloilo, which reported seven cases, one in Cebu City and one in Laguna province.

The ages of the patients range from 9 years old to 49.

“On our part, we assure our clients, passengers that we are doing everything to keep our airplanes safe from mosquitoes or any flying or crawling insect,” Doromal said, adding that part of their service was to surrender the empty canisters to officials of BOQ upon landing at the airport as “proof” that they did their obligation.

Meanwhile, the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) hired a pest control service provider

to spray once a week all enclosed areas, from the ground floor up to the fourth level, where the airline offices are located. They use waterbased chemicals for “misting” to protect passengers and airport users from mosquito bites.

BOQ doctor on dut y Noel Ramirez said that women who are pregnant should not travel to Singapore. “If you like to travel you must consult your doctor first and strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites during your flight,” he said.

“If you have a partner who lives in or has traveled to Singapore, either use condom or other barriers to prevent infection or do not have sex,” he added.

According to WHO Country Representative Dr. Gundo Weiler, there are now 19 out of 37 countries in the Western Pacific region found with Zika virus. Weiler said it was only a matter of time before cases were found in the Philippines.

“The fact that we see Zika in the Philippines and we detect more is not surprising. We know there is a competent vector in the country; we know there’s a lot of travel. We were assuming there is a likelihood Zika will appear in the country and spread to a certain extent,” Weiler said.

Weiler commended the proactive testing of the department of health (DOH) against Zika. He said the increase in the number of cases reflects the efforts of the DOH to crack down on the virus.

He said this is a welcome development at a time when countries are on alert against the spread of the virus-carrying mosquitoes.

Bloomberg Photo

The projected revenue loss from lowering corporate-income tax

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n a pair of passionate speeches, President Duterte first acknowledged that his country needed American troops in the South China Sea, then assailed the US and the European Union (EU) over their criticism of his antidrug war.

A week after he called for the end of joint patrols with American troops in the South China Sea and the withdrawal of US forces from Mindanao, Duterte on Tuesday said that he only wanted the soldiers out to ensure the success of peace talks with Muslim rebels.

“I said there will be some time in the future when I’ll ask the special forces to leave,” Duterte said in a speech to soldiers stationed near his home in Davao. “I never said, ‘Go out of the Philippines.’ For, after all, we need them in China Sea,” he added. Duterte also main-

tained that the Philippines would not go to war with China over territories in the water, saying it will only result in a “massacre.”

The US military’s alliance with the Philippines has for decades been a bedrock of American influence in the region, where tensions run high over China’s claims to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea. Shortly after Duterte took office in late June, an international arbitration panel ruled that China’s claims had no legal basis—a win for the Philippines in a case brought by Mr. Duterte’s predecessor.

While President Duterte has said he’ll respect the alliance, he’s repeatedly stressed the need for an “independent foreign policy” and questioned America’s willingness to intervene if China were to seize territory in the South China Sea.

‘Middle finger’

L ater in the evening, in an obscenity-laced address to local leaders in Davao, Duterte rejected outside criticism of his calls for extrajudicial action to stamp out illegal-drugs use, which has seen more than 3,000 people killed in less than three months.

“I’ve read the European Union’s condemnation against me. I tell them, fuck you. You’re doing it in atonement for your sins,” Duterte said, referring to recent calls for an end to the extrajudicial killings by the European Parliament and a resolution directing its 28 member-countries represented in Manila to monitor humanrights abuses in the Philippines.

He spoke in a mixture of lan-

guages and switched to English for the expletive.

“They are strict now because there’s guilt,” Duterte said. “Who did I kill, assuming that it’s true?

1,700. Who are they? Criminals.

You call that genocide? How many have they killed?’’ Duterte added, before flashing a middle finger that was met by applause from the audience.

Duterte also accused the US of hypocrisy over its criticism of the drug war, claiming that America had “started the gross violations of human rights in this country” during clashes with the indigenous Moro people in 1906.

While running for office, Mr. Du-terte promised a ruthless campaign that would suppress illegal drugs within six months. He has lashed out at any criticism of his campaign, unleashing a tirade that prompted US President Barack Obama to cancel a meeting with him planned on the sidelines of an Asian leaders summit earlier this month. Bloomberg News

China’s Li confident in US ties no matter who wins vote

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hina’s Premier Li Keqiang said in New York that he was confident that ties with the US would remain positive regardless of which candidate wins November’s presidential election.

“No matter who gets elected, I believe China-US ties will grow steadily and in a positive direction,” Li told the Economic Club of New York while in town for the United Nations General Assembly. He didn’t elaborate, saying that the election was an internal affair for the US. Surveys show Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton running neck-and-neck in the US presidential campaign, with each garnering 42 percent in a CBS News survey of 13 swing states

conducted last week. Clinton held a two-point lead as recently as two weeks ago.

Clinton has vowed to “stand up” to China should it break trade rules.

Trump has threatened to slap a 45percent tariff on Chinese goods, promised to label the country a currency manipulator and “reclaim millions of American jobs and revive American manufacturing by putting an end to China’s illegal export subsidies.”

Li said China intends to be a constructive player in international relations, and needs a mutually beneficial relationship with the US. He added that there were no grounds for concern that China would devalue its currency to boost

exports.

The International Monetary Fund said in August that China’s currency “remains broadly in line with fundamentals.” China’s economy is forecast to expand at the slowest pace in more than a quarter century.

Li said there were many reasons for the slowdown and that the government was restructuring the economy to sustain growth and encourage entrepreneurs.

Earlier on Tuesday, Li attended an event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel with guests that included International Business Machines Corp. CEO Ginni Rometty, Blackstone Group Lp.’s Stephen Schwarzman, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

The meeting was led by Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg Lp., the parent company of Bloomberg

No matter who gets elected, I believe China-US ties will grow steadily and in a positive direction.”—Li