Business
B3
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017 extrastory2000@gmail.com
Govt readies review of NGCP concession By Alena Mae S. Flores
UCPB-HARIBON ADVOCACY. United Coconut Planters Bank teams up with Haribon Foundation to donate seedlings that the non-government organization will plant in two protected areas in Nagcarlan, Laguna. UCPB president and CEO Higinio Macadaeg Jr. (third from left) signs the bank’s commitment to support the foundation’s Road to 2020 program, an initiative to restore the country’s rainforests using native tree species. With him are (from left) vice president and marketing group head Charina Balanquit, VP and human resources group head Stella Fulgencio, Haribon Foundation chief operating officer Maria Belinda de la Paz and Haribon’s constituency and resource development manager Arlie Jo Endonila.
THE newly-appointed president of National Transmission Corp. wants to review the government’s concession agreement with National Grid Corp. of the Philippines in a bid to create a stronger and smarter power grid and generate additional earnings to the government. “We have to review the concession agreement or the franchise agreement of NGCP so that we (can) take a closer look of compliance if it’s being done religiously... We have to ensure the development of our transmission grids so that it will be significant to the national development of the agenda of President Duterte,” Transco president Melvin Matibag told reporters. National Grid operates the country’s transmission network under a 25-year concession agreement signed in 2009. National Grid offered $3.95 billion for the TransCo concession when it was auctioned in 2007. National Grid under Republic Act 9511 obtained the franchise to operate, maintain, manage and to engage in the business of conveying or transmitting electricity through a high-voltage backbone system or interconnected transmission lines. The consortium is comprised of Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. led by Henry Sy Jr., Calaca High Power Corp. led by Robert Coyiuto Jr., and State Grid Corp. of China as technical partner. Matibag said the review would determine if the concession agreement was serving its purpose and how it could further help the government and the public. National Grid welcomed the appointment of Matibag and vowed to work with him to further improve the grid.
Megaworld sees P20-b rental income By Jenniffer B. Austria
M
egaworld Corp., a leading urban township developer and the biggest lessor of office spaces, expects rental income to reach P20 billion by 2020 as it adds close to 1 million square meters of leasable space in its portfolio. Megaworld said in a disclosure to the stock exchange the P20-billion rental income target was more than double the P9 billion profit generated in 2015.
IN BRIEF Salceda: Reform IT, computer sciences ALBAY Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda issued an urgent call for a congressional inquiry into the state of the country’s information technology and computer science education and its impact on the software industry, and the noted low quality graduates, by global standards, these courses have been churning out lately. Salceda recently filed House Resolution 772, urging the House committees on higher and technical education and information and communication technology to immediately formulate measures to improve the quality of learning in these fields. The lawmaker said enrollment in Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) have registered a disturbing downtrend and the quality of education tested dismally poor, affecting the state of the software industry in the country and its global competitiveness. Computer science and information technology are frontier development disciplines in which the Philippines should be able to develop at par, if not ahead, of other countries specially the Asean community, he said.
Aramco, Enactus launch challenge ARAMCO Asia, a full subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, and Enactus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving the world through entrepreneurial action, launched the “Aramco-Enactus Innovative Challenge.” The program aims to empower university students in Asia to develop innovative solutions addressing issues related to climate change, environmental sustainability, and energy efficiency in their respective communities. “At the heart of this citizenship program is our core belief in protecting and preserving the environment for the future generation, and effecting positive change on a global scale. Empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to come up with solutions that help their communities reinforces our belief and reaffirms our commitment to Asia where we have a strong presence,” said Nabil Al-Nuaim, president of Aramco Asia. The “Aramco-Enactus Innovative Challenge for Energy, Environment and Climate Sustainability” will run from December 2016 to September 2017 in five Asian countries, including China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the Philippines.
The property giant said the 1 million sq. m. of additional rental inventory to be completed over the next three years would come mostly from office, lifestyle malls and commercial
spaces that will be built within its 22 townships and integrated lifestyle communities across the country. The additional area will bring the company’s total rental space inventory to more than 2.5 million square meters by 2020. “While we remain strong in our residential condominium business, it is also imperative for us to also fortify our rental portfolio. This direction will not only allow us to become a stronger and more sustainable company, but at the same time, we address the increas-
ing demand for these spaces in our various townships,” Megaworld senior vice president Jericho Go said. Around 1.5 million sq. m. out of of the 2.5 million sq. m. leasable space by 2020 will come from office spaces and 1 million from malls and commercial centers. “By the end of this year, we will breach the 1-million square meters of office space inventory as we continue to experience a demand for office spaces,” Go said, Megaworld currently has over
130 companies in its office rental portfolio, occupying around 850,000 square meters of offices spaces, making it the biggest lessor of office spaces in the entire country. Its office spaces also enjoy a high occupancy rate of 99 percent, while pre-leasing rates of office buildings that are still under construction stand at an average of 80 percent. On the retail side, Megaworld plans to add 18 malls and commercial centers by 2020, covering close to 390,400 square meters of fresh retail spaces.
The company this year expects to complete 200,000 sq. m. of mall and retail spaces from various township projects. “We see a continuing rise in consumer spending especially on food. While each of our townships has its own growing population, we have experienced influx of people visiting our townships because our lifestyle malls also become leisure attractions like the Venice Grand Canal,” said Kevin Tan, senior vice president and head of Megaworld Lifestyle Malls.
Investors swarm BSP’s auction of P180-b term deposits By Julito G. Rada THE P180 billion worth of term deposits offered by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Wednesday remained highly oversubscribed as banks and trust entities swarmed the auction amid excess liquidity in the financial system. Data showed that the sevenday P30 billion deposits lured total bids of P59.172 billion and fetched a weighted average accepted yield of 3.03 percent, matching the policy rate of Bangko Sentral. The 28-day deposits worth P150 billion, meanwhile, attracted total tenders of P181.29 billion with a weighted average accepted yield of 3.43 percent. The P180-billion deposits offered were oversubscribed by over P60 billion. “Ahead of FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee meeting) tonight, there is market preference for the shorter tenor, even as it is widely expected that the Fed will keep rates steady,” Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said in a text message to reporters. “Just like the market, we will look out for the Fed’s assessment of labor conditions and outlook on inflation. We will take any relevant information
into consideration in our own assessment of domestic inflation dynamics at our policy meeting next week,” Tetangco said. Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo earlier said the weekly P180-billion volume would be kept for the meantime as 2017 was seen to be a tough year for financial markets. One thing to consider, he said, would be the expected three interest rates hike by the US Federal Reserve this year. The auction calendar for the first quarter 2017 showed that the P180billion weekly volume would be maintained during the auction set for the month of February. Previous over-subscriptions prompted the regulator to increase the weekly volume by P50 billion from the previous P130 billion to P180 billion starting Dec. 1, 2016 to more effectively siphon off excess liquidity in the financial system. The amount of week-long deposits was increased by P20 billion to P30 billion from P10 billion, while the month-long deposits were raised by P30 billion to P150 billion from P120 billion. The adjustment on Dec. 1 was the sixth time that Bangko Sentral increased the volume. From the original volume of P30
billion, it was increased to P50 billion, P70 billion, P90 billion, P110 billion and P130 billion. The US Fed in December raised interest rates for the first time in a year, and only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis on economic recovery and lower un-
employment. The previous rate increase occurred in December 2015 when the benchmark rate was lifted from near-zero for seven years since the crisis. Earlier, Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. ruled out the possibility of reducing
the current reserve requirements of banks despite siphoning off significant amount of liquidity previously parked at overnight facilities since the start of the interest rate corridor system in June 2016, saying it was “not the time to reduce the RR.”
GLOBE TAPS RITEMED. Globe
Telecom inc.s international business group partners with RiteMed Philippines Inc. to offer a service that allows Filipinos overseas to purchase RiteMED medicines while abroad and be able to deliver to their dependents in the Philippines. Globe Telecom senior vice president for international business Nikko Acosta (right) and RiteMED general manager Vincent Patrick Guerrero sign the partnership agreement.
Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J.: A tribute I have believed that Filipinos who have made outstanding contributions to the progress of their country and the welfare of their countrymen should be recognized and honored during their lifetimes, and I have long disfavored the practice of rewarding such Filipinos in posthumous fashion. An outstanding citizen of this country should, in my view, be afforded an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his life’s efforts while he is still on the ground, not six feet below it. It is with this belief in mind that I decided to devote this column to Fr. Joaquin Bernas of the Society of Jesus. Fr. Bernas, former head of the Philippine province of the Jesuit order and president emeritus of the Ateneo de Manila University Law School, is very much alive and kicking, though feeling the effects of incipient old
age. At the rate that he is going, Fr. Bernas may well outlive us all. He has his critics and naysayers, but it is probably correct to say that most Filipinos regard Joaquin G. Bernas as an icon. It is in the field of law—more specifically, the law of the Constitution—that Fr. Bernas has made his iconic contribution to Philippine society. Today, when the topic under discussion is constitutional law, the name Joaquin G. Bernas immediately comes to mind. The young man from Goa, Camarines Sur who rose to become head of the Society of Jesus in the Philippines is one of a handful of members of the Society who are lawyers. A member of the Ateneo Law School class of 1962, Joaquin G. Bernas is clearly the pre-eminent member of that special group of Philippine Jesuits. Fr. Bernas’s contribution to the development of Philippine law has come in two areas, constitutional interpretation and legal
education. He has devoted as much devotion to the first as to the second. As two-term president—the two terms were not consecutive—of the Ateneo Law School—Fr. Bernas sought to make ALS the leading law school in the nation and to produce a succession of lawyers who would personify St. Ignatius of Loyola’s concept of “(men) for others.” Without being a terror-dispensing professor, Fr. Bernas sought to make his students develop a healthy respect for the law, especially the Constitution. Everything that Joaquin G. Bernas feels and knows about constitutional law is contained in his masterful “Commentary and Cases on the 1973 Constitution.” It is a constitutional law text recommended to and used not only by ALS students but by students of other law schools as well. The recurring theme of Fr. Bernas’s book is the need for vigilance by the citizenry against violations, actual and per-
ceptible, of the Basic Law by the political departments of the government as well as the judiciary. Although he is a member of the Bar, Fr. Bernas has not, in his book, spared the judiciary from censure for its occasional intrusion into areas reserved by the Constitution to the Executive Department and the legislature. In his longrunning column in a major newspaper, Joaquin G. Bernas railed against—and received much credit for—instances of overreach on the part of various elements of the government of this country. This brings me back to the opening lines of this column. Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J. has made an enormous contribution to the progress of this country and the welfare and wellbeing of the Filipino people. Let us tell him so and give him the appropriate awards, while he is still able to savor them. E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com