Govt debt payments down in May – BTr
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MONDAY, JULY 15, 2019
Trusted since 1898
Colossal blowback: PH arbitration suit prodded, justified China’s islandbuilding blitz
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HREE years after the five-man arbitral tribunal ruled almost entirely in favor of the Aquino government’s maritime claims against China that invoked the Unclos provisions, its real impact has become so crystal clear, yet hardly talked about by US as well as our mainstream media and academe. äTiglaoA5
RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO
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Locsin eyes pullout from UN rights panel T
BY BERNADETTE E. TAMAYO
WO days after the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution initiated by Iceland mandating a review of the Philippines’ war on illegal drugs, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. mulled the possibility of the country’s withdrawal from the panel. äPulloutA2
No letup in Duterte’s drug war
Why it is the world’s business
N the state university I serve, I am the designated vice president for Administration and Finance and in the full awareness that lapses in judgment, procedure
FR. RANHILIO CALLANGAN AQUINO
BY DANTE ‘KLINK’ ANG 2ND PRESIDENT AND CEO
There is “no need” for war to be declared to invoke the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the Philippines
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is set to remain firmly on course in his war on drugs, challenging human rights advocates to prove they have a better approach by solving the Philippine drug menace themselves. “No, no change,” Duterte said when asked if an impending United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings committed by his police forces would change anything in his anti-illegal drug campaign. “It will last until the final day of my term,” he told The Manila Times in an interview late Thursday that was organized to preview his next State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 22. He made the statement hours before the UNHRC in Geneva voted to approve the “Iceland resolution,” which called for the probe into what the international body claimed to be state-sponsored killings.
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FINAL SPARRING ROUND
Fighting Sen. Manny Pacquiao (right) jars his sparring partner with a jab during the final day of his two and-a-half months build up program that started in Manila and ended at the Wild Card Gym on Saturday. PHOTO BY WENDELL ALINEA
What’s inside GOVT TO CERTIFY AS URGENT BILL ON DEPT OF OFWS NewsA2 THE TRIPLE NEXUS: BACKGROUND ON PH TARGETING
Dan SteinbockA4
NO MORE ‘NG’ IN MUTYA NG PILIPINAS
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PACQUIAO’S FRUITFUL TRAINING CAMP ENDS
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MDT can be invoked to prevent war – Lacson SEN. Panfilo Lacson on Sunday said the Philippines could invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States even in the absence of war.
No reason to mount coup – Army chief ARMY chief Lt. Gen. Macairog Alberto is confident that no coup d’etat would be mounted because soldiers are “satisfied” with the leadership of President Rodrigo Duterte. Alberto said there was no reason for soldiers to move to oust the President. “We are more professional and we [are not] inclined or [have] no tendency to join this adventurism,”
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OLD ROAD, NEW NAME
Officials of the city of Manila, led by Rep. Manny Lopez, unveil a signage declaring part of Bonifacio Drive Mel Lopez Boulevard in honor of former mayor Gemiliano ‘Mel’ Lopez, who was the city’s chief executive from 1986 to 1992. PHOTO BY ENRIQUE AGCAOILI
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What’s inside BDO HITS 52-WK HIGH AS Q1 EARNINGS BUOY TRADING Stock WatchB2
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HYUNDAI SALES UP 9.1% IN H1
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ORTIGAS & CO. DENIES IPO, CAC RUMORS
»Corporate NewsB3
HEED WTO RULING, PH URGES THAILAND
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Govt debt payments down in May – BTr BY MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO
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EBTS paid by the government dropped to P27.407 billion in May on the back of lower interest payments and amortization, according to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).
Data released by the bureau over the weekend showed that the May amount
was an 82.7-percent decrease from P159.096 billion in the same month
last year. Interest payments, which accounted for 71.7 percent of the total, slid by 6.8 percent to P19.669 billion from P21.111 billion a year ago. Domestic interest payments fell to P15.775 billion, while foreign ones surged to P3.894 billion. Amortization expenses plunged by 94.3 percent to P7.738 billion from
POGO firm wants to hire more Filipinos AN offshore gaming operator wants to hire more Filipinos amid concerns that only foreign workers were given the opportunity to work in the fast-growing industry. “For us, we try to increase the number of Pinoys,” Oriental Group General Manager Kevin Wong told reporters on the sidelines of the Phil-Asian Gaming Expo in Pasay City last week. Oriental Group is the holding firm that owns the Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) Oriental Game. Although he did not disclose the number of Filipino employees in Oriental Game, Wong expects that a typical ratio of Filipino and foreign workers a POGO should have is 40:60.
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MONDAY JULY 15, 2019
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P4.674 billion a year ago. No domestic amortization were recorded during the month, while foreign amortization jumped by 5.2 percent to P7.738 billion. Year-to-date, debt payments dropped by 21.7 percent to P301.426 billion from P385.142 billion in the same period in 2018.
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‘Fed rate cuts give BSP more policy space’
NO SUGAR, ALL SPICE
Shoppers visit a shop selling various spices and other items inside the historic Spice Market at the Eminonu district of Istabul, Turkey, on Saturday. AFP PHOTO
SHARES OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK
PSEi to reach 8,200 territory ahead of firms’ Q2 earnings THE stock market is expected to break into the 8,200 level this week, with the boost predicted to come from firms’ second-quarter (Q2) corporate earnings and ahead of the so-called Ghost Month. “Investors may gain confidence as Q2 earnings start to come in [this] week, which are expected to come in better than what we have seen in the last few quarters due to lower costs and higher spending,” AAA Southeast Equities Inc. research head Christopher Mangun said. “We have another three weeks before trading slows due to the ‘Ghost Month,’ and I am hoping to see a rally before then,” he added.
To run from August 1 to 29 this year, Ghost Month stems from the enduring Chinese belief that the seventh lunar month is when the gates of hell open and release hungry spirits to visit the living, who must prepare food offerings for them. Failure to do so may bring bad luck. During Ghost Month, making important business transactions, such as investing in major endeavors, betting huge on capital markets or staring an enterprise, are avoided. Mangun noted, however, that the market needed a pick-up in trading volume to achieve and sustain the 8,200 level. Otherwise, it may
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SMC taps public as co-owners of Top Frontier P REFERRED shares, whether or not they carry the right to vote, should be classified as debts. If this is so, they should be added to the liabilities of a company. They should not be classified as part of equity along with common shares. The problem with issuances of preferred shares is they are made part of capitalization, or equity, when they should not be. If, say, the board favors the issuance of preferred shares, the public investors should ask if the listed common shares are not enough for majority stockholders to exercise their prerogative as business owners. Why, then, should a company with its outstanding common shares, already listed, or partially listed, on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), be allowed to issue preferred shares, which, in most cases, are even made voting stocks, which are then exclusively issued to business owners and to some loyal insiders? Business owners and insider executives enjoy such an advantage over public investors, who, in the first place made them listed. But listing alone does not necessarily make a company public.
If 10 percent of outstanding common shares would be enough as the minimum public ownership, the poser here is: what could happen when a company engages in buying back its own common shares? Doesn’t the buyback adversely affect the public ownership of common shares? It is now up to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to review what it mandates as 10-percent minimum public ownership rule. How does such buyback affect the regulatory rule on public ownership?
Another poser What happens to the preemptive rights of the public who are, at the same time, holders of common shares? As public stockholders of a listed company, they are entitled to own voting preferred shares under the stock market’s pre-emptive rights rule. The problem with the 10-percent public ownership rule is it is simply a rule. It seems the SEC
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AN expected interest rate cut in the United States would give the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) more space to ease its monetary policy settings in the third quarter, according to Governor Benjamin Diokno. “As it is, there are two options on the part of the Fed — [a] 25-basispoint (bps) cut or a 50-bps cut. Except the probability is low for [the] 50-bps (reduction), but definitely it will cut,” Diokno told reporters on Friday night, referring to the US Federal Reserve. Expectations of the cut emerged after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell placed the idea of a 50-bps reduction back on the table ahead of the American central bank’s two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on July 30 and 31. But whatever the results of the upcoming FOMC meeting would be, Diokno stressed that Philippine monetary authorities have decided to continue their easing bias this year.
“So even before the decision of the Fed, we are already committed to cutting at the moment. So that’s an additional input to our decision,” he said. “We decide independent of the decision of the US Fed. We already had a decision. We were just studying when is the right timing to implement it,” the Bangko Sentral chief added. The BSP started easing its monetary policy settings on May 9, but decided to take a “prudent pause” on June 20 by keeping its overnight borrowing, lending and deposit rates at 4.5 percent, 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Despite the pause, monetary authorities cut their 2019 inflation forecast to 2.7 percent from 2.9 percent, and their 2020 projection to 3 percent from 3.1 percent. Monetary authorities are set to convene again on August 8 for their fifth rate-setting meeting for 2019. MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO
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