Business
B3
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 extrastory2000@gmail.com
LONDON AWARD.
SM Supermalls receives the prestigious Brand of the Year Award under the National Tier 20162017, during the World Branding Awards ceremonies held in a gala dinner at the iconic Kensington Palace in London. Richard Rowles (left), chairman of the World Branding Forum, gives the award award to Steven Tan, senior vice president of SM Supermalls.
MetroPac speeds up P23-b toll road link By Alena Mae S. Flores
M
ETRO Pacific Investments Corp. and the Public Works and Highways Department agreed to speed up the construction of the P23-billion expressway linking North Luzon Expressway and South Luzon Expressway. Metro Pacific Group spokesman Mike Toledo said the company submitted Monday the post-award requirements to Public Works in compliance with the conditions to the construction and operation of the eight-kilometer NLEx-SLEx connector road.
Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corp. and unit Manila North Tollways Corp., the original proponent for NLEx-SLEx Connector Road Project, received the notice of award from Public Works on Sept. 19. The MPIC Group won the
Swiss Challenge for the project in July, after no company submitted comparative proposals. MPTDC reduced its internal rate of return for the project to 10.87 percent from 12.09 percent by lowering the opening tariff from P100 to P87. The Public Private Partnership Center earlier identified seven companies that purchased bid documents for the Swiss Challenge of NLEx-SLEx Connector Road, including San Miguel Holdings Corp., Obrascon Huarte Lain SA, Hunan Road and Bridge Corp. and four law firms. The project is an unsolicited proposal approved by the National
Economic and Development Authority under the buildoperate-transfer scheme for the design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of an eight-kilometer elevated toll expressway over the right of way of Philippine National Railways. The project starts at the junction of NLEx Segment 10 at C-3 Road/5th Ave. in Caloocan City and seamlessly connects to South Luzon Expressway though Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 Project in Manila. Metro Pacific Tollways president and chief executive Rodrigo Franco earlier said the first section of the project would start in 2018.
Pagcor orders reopening of twenty bingo outlets By Jenniffer B. Austria GAMING firm Leisure & Resorts World Corp. said Monday it obtained the approval of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to reopen 20 out of the 35 e-Bingo sites earlier closed down by the regulator. Pagcor ordered the 20 eBingo sites closed due to their non-compliance to the distance restrictions on sites such as schools. LRWC said in a disclosure to the stock exchange the board of Pagcor recalled the revocation to operate eBingo, which is operated by wholly-owned subsidiary
AB Leisure Exponent Inc. “The approval was based on the recommendation of Pagcor’s Gaming Licensing and Development Department and the legal opinion of its corporate and legal services department to honor the licenses of operators whose gaming sites are located inside malls, arcades and hotels and consider them exempted from distance requirements,” LRWC said. Sixteen other e-Bingo sites remain closed. LRWC said Pagcor allowed the resumption of eBingo operations until the respective expiration of the licenses of the sites. Pagcor is studying whether it
will permanently maintain the exemption of malls, arcades and hotels from the distance requirements. Pagcor on Sept. 9 ordered LRWC to close down 17 electronic gaming and 36 e-Bingo sites due to non-compliance with the distance restriction guidelines. LRWC said it would appeal the Pagcor the order. The gaming company earlier said the closure of the 53 sites would result in foregone revenues of P477 million and P65.2 million based on its financial performance in first seven months of 2016. President Rodrigo Duterte
earlier vowed to stop the proliferation of online gambling in the country. Pagcor did not renew the gaming license of another gaming firm, PhilWeb Corp., which is owned by businessman Roberto Ongpin. Pagcor rules state that an electric gaming or a bingo parlour should not be less than 200 meters from schools and places of worship. LRWC is a holding company that is engaged in the leisure business, which includes general amusement and recreation, bingo parlors, hotel and gaming facilities.
International goodwill belongs to the people AS I contemplate the many bad things that are happening to this country’s relations with the international community, I am reminded of a legal maxim of Roman origin. Translated from Latin, the maxim reads, “One must not destroy what one does not own.” The “what one does not own” that I have in mind is the goodwill that until recently the Philippines enjoyed vis-à-vis certain international institutions and world leaders. In recent weeks, the Filipino people have seen a sharp deterioration in this country’ relations with the United Nations, the European Union, the US government and the Roman Catholic Church and with world leaders like Pope Francis, US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Much goodwill toward the Philippines has been lost in the process. Like any group of individuals, the Filipino people have a balance sheet. On the left side of the balance sheet are listed the assets of the Filipino people and on the other side are their liabilities. Chief among the assets appearing in the balance sheet is the goodwill that the great majority of the world’s nations—almost all of the members of the UN—feel toward the Philippines. It is this asset of the Filipino people that is undergoing erosion. The international community’s goodwill toward and respect for the Philippines did not materialize overnight. Rather, they are the results of decades of exemplary Philippine precepts of international order and of steadfastness in the defense of libertarian principles. By 2015 the Philippines’ reputation as a respectable and responsible member of the international community had become firmly established. An original signatory of the organization’s charter, the Philippine relations with the United Nations has always been characterized by utmost goodwill and cordiality. The various agencies of the UN—including UNDP, WHO, FAO—have steadfastly supported this country’s economic development efforts, and the financial agencies of the UN (IMF and the World Bank Group) provided support to the Philippine economy during its recurrent financial crises. With every crisis resolution the bonds between the Philippines and the UN became stronger. The relationship of goodwill between the Philippines and the European Union, whose membership includes most of the countries that comprise the First World, has likewise become stronger over the years, with the EU providing financial and technical support for this country’s economic development programs. As with the UN, cordiality and mutual respect have been the hallmarks of the Philippine-EU relationship. Because of its being a country with one of the largest Roman Catholic populations in the world—and its being the only Catholic country in Asia—the Philippines enjoys pride of place in the world of Roman Catholicism. Pope Francis’s pastoral visit to this country in 2015 was one of the first of his Papacy. Since 1991 relations between the Philippines and the US, this country’s former colonial master, have undergone jarring. In that year the Philippine Senate voted to not renew the Philippines-US Bases Agreement, in the process demonstrating this country’s readiness and ability to display foreign-policy independence. But the underlying goodwill between the Philippines and the world’s only superpower was not badly shaken by the negative developments. Between the governments and peoples of the Philippines and the US there has always been a recognition of the value of maintaining a relationship that is now 145 years old. At this point I go back to the Latin maxim that I cited at the outset of this column. “One cannot destroy what one does not own.” The goodwill, respect and trust discussed above are the property of the Filipino people. The people of this country have worked long and hard to win the goodwill, respect and trust of the world. Only the Filipino people have the right to perform acts—acts of insolence, uncivility and insensitivity—that have the effect of destroying the goodwill, respect and trust that the international community has long accorded to the Filipino people. No single individual, whatever his station, has the right. No one person may destroy things that belong to the Filipino nation. E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
Boos for Yahoo JUST when we thought Yahoo could sink no lower, came the news last week of a massive data breach in which personal information was stolen from at least 500 million user accounts in 2014. As if the staggeringly huge number of people compromised wasn’t bad enough, it took Yahoo two years to detect the breach and to report it to its users. In a “Notice of Data Breach” sent to Yahoo users, the company said the account information stolen may have included names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. “The ongoing investigation suggests that stolen information did not include unprotected passwords, payment card data, or bank account information; payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system that the investigation has found to be affected,” Yahoo said. If you are a Yahoo account holder, you need to move swiftly. “We are asking potentially affected
users to promptly change their passwords and adopt alternate means of account verification,” the company said. “We are recommending that all users who haven’t changed their passwords since 2014 do so.” The company also encouraged all Yahoo users to follow these security recommendations: 1) Change your password and security questions and answers for any other accounts on which you use the same or similar credentials as the ones used for your Yahoo account. This means that if you have similarly named accounts in, say, on Google, you’d better change your password and security questions and answers on those accounts as well, to prevent hackers from using the information they stole from Yahoo to break into your non-Yahoo accounts. 2) Review your accounts for suspicious activity. 3) Be cautious of any unsolicited communications that ask for your
personal information or refer you to A separate FAQ on the data a web page asking for personal infor- breach said those who hacked mation. into Yahoo’s system were state-sponsored, but it did not 4) Avoid clicking on links or down- specify which government as inloading attachments from suspicious volved. Security experts, however, e-mails. In fact, there could be an up- suspect that Russian hackers were betick in phishing e-mails that capital- hind the largest known breach of user ize on the concern caused by Yahoo’s accounts. data breach. “The e-mail from Yahoo Symantec, in its 2016 Internet Seabout this issue does not ask you to curity Threat Report, said that more click on any links or contain attach- users were affected in this one inciments and does not request your per- dent than all of last year. sonal information,” the company said Since the breach was announced, on it security notice. “If an e-mail two lawsuits have been filed against you receive about this issue prompts Yahoo, both in California, alleging you to click on a link, download an that it was negligent in securing usattachment, or asks you for informa- ers’ personal information. One of the tion, the e-mail was not sent by Yahoo complaints alleges that Yahoo took an and may be an attempt to steal your “unusually long period of time” unpersonal information.” covering the breach, and in the two years since it was hacked and disAdditionally, the company sug- closed, people were at risk of identity gested that users consider using Ya- theft. hoo’s Account Key, an authentication News of the breach comes at a crutool that eliminates the need to use a cial time for the ailing internet piopassword altogether by asking you to neer, which agreed in July to sell its approve access on your smart phone. core business to telecommunications giant Verizon for $4.8 billion—much
lower than the $45 billion that Microsoft was willing to pay for it in 2008. While Yahoo said it learned about the breach in July, Verizon said it learned of the incident only “within the last two days” and would not say if it would push through with the purchase. While analysts don’t expect the breach to scuttle the sale, Verizon— which will now have to take into account the damages Yahoo might have to pay to affected users as a result of lawsuits--could use it as leverage to lower its purchase price for Yahoo. If Yahoo has to pay $10 per user in reparations, says Chris Bulger of the Boston-based financial consulting company Bulger Partners, this would come to $5 billion--more than the $4.8 billion Verizon was willing to pay—before the breach was announced. Column archives at: http://www.chinwong.com