Manila Standard - 2017 November 08 - Wednesday

P6.4-b shabu cargo probed

By Rio N. Araja THE Office of the Ombudsman has created a panel to conduct a fact-finding investigation into alleged anomalies in the release of P6.4 billion worth of shabu through the green lane of the Bureau of Customs.

“The order of the Ombudsman is in line with the President’s recent pronouncement for independent agencies to investigate the matter,” its official statement read.

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales issued Office Order No. 765 to create a panel that would submit its findings and recommendations within 90 days of their receipt of reports of the congressional hearings on the illegal drug shipment.

The drugs were later discovered and seized in a warehouse in Valenzuela City.

The P6.4 billion worth of shabu from China arrived at the Manila International Container Port in Tondo, Manila.

The importer, EMT Trading, owned by a certain Eirene Tatad, paid the taxes and duties amounting to P40,038 or $785.

The Bureau of Customs, through its online releasing system, approved the release of the container to the green lane.

Any shipment at the green lane does not pass through the X-ray machine.

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NATIVITY SCENE. Local and foreign tourists are invited to join the formal opening of the 10th Belenismo sa Tarlac Tuesday, with Isa Cojuangco Suntay, founder of the Tarlac Heritage Foundation and Lt. Gen. Rolando Joselito Bautista, Army Commanding General, during the rites, with the Nativity Spectacle a tribute to the Army troops who fought in the Marawi City siege held at Camp General Servillano Aquino in San Miguel, Tarlac City. Lino Santos

‘Drug queen’ foots jail’s power bill

By John Paolo Bencito

VOL. XXXI • NO. 267 • 3 SECTIONS 16 PAGES • P18 • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017 • www.manilastandard.net • editorial@manilastandard.net

A 72-YEAR-OLD “drug queen” who was selling shabu from her jail cell in the Correctional Institute for Women was footing the facility’s P1-million monthly power bill, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said Tuesday.

Yuk Lai Sze, 72, got her supply of

drugs from her daughter Diane Uy, who bought them from three convicted drug lords detained in the New Bilibid Prison, said PDEA chief Aaron Aquino.

“The drug trade is still booming inside Bilibid,” Aquino said in Filipino in an interview on radio dzMM. Uy smuggled the drugs into the women’s Next page

Drugs board chief quits Reports say ‘on President’s order, ‘ but Palace mum on issue

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HE chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board has resigned days after saying that President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to set up a large-scale drug rehabilitation center in Nueva Ecija was a mistake, sources said Tuesday.

They said board chairman Dionisio Santiago submitted his resignation to the Office of the President, after he talked with Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea

on Monday.

But Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque could not confirm the report, saying that Medialdea had told him that he had received no let-

ter from Santiago.

Sources said Duterte was displeased by Santiago’s statements made during an Oct. 30 press conference, in which he said the rehabilitation center, designed to house 10,000 patients, would be “ineffective” since it crowds suspects together while cutting their ties from support systems like their families.

In a television interview on Nov. 1, Santiago called the rehabilitation center “imprac-

tical.”

“That was a mistake,” he said.

“The problem is, the President got excited, but the money could have been spent on small community-based rehabilitation programs that can accommodate only between 150 to 200 people,” he had said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Santiago is the second drugs board official to be fired for remarks that contra-

dicted Duterte.

His predecessor, Benjamin Reyes, was also sacked for giving the “wrong” number of drug users in the country.

A DDB survey, conducted from Jan. 1, 2015 to Feb. 5, 2016, said there are 1.8 million drug users in the country, much lower than Duterte’s estimate of 4 million.

“You do not contradict your own government,” Duterte told Reyes at the time. John Paolo Bencito

SC approves plea bargain in drug raps

By Rey E. Requejo

SO HELP THEM GOD. President Rodrigo Duterte administers the oath of office to newly appointed officials during a ceremony in Malacañang on Monday. Those sworn in were Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Defense Undersecretary Reynaldo Mapagu, Interior Undersecretary Eduardo Año, and Interior Assistant Secretary Alexander Macario. Malacañang Photo

DDS score Roque for being softie

By John Paolo Bencito CALLING his appointment a “big mistake,” diehard supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte are asking Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque to resign for apparently not fulfilling his metaphor to throw hollow blocks against the President’s critics.

In a related development, Communications Next page

THE Supreme Court has ruled with finality to allow plea bargains in drug cases.

During its en banc session on Tuesday, the Court upheld its ruling last August that declared as unconstitutional the prohibition against plea bargaining in Republic Act No. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

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Yolanda victims call for justice in bungled rehab plan

By Ronald O. Reyes and Rio Araja TACLOBAN CITY--Four years after Super Typhoon “Yolanda” leveled the central Visayas and killed over 7,000 people, storm victims have called for the prosecution of government officials who are responsible for the bungled rehabilitation program.

“Four years. Too long a chance to complete the rehabilitation of Yolanda survivors. At this point, the focus should be on holding accountable erring government agencies, the people responsible for the anomalies twitter.com/ MlaStandard

in housing and the decadeslong issues in land rights,” said Dhon Daganasol, president of Katarungan-Eastern Visayas.

Out of the 205,128 housing units needed to be put up for the Yolanda victims, the National Housing Authority has completed only 78,291 units four years after the super typhoon battered and flattened the area on Nov. 8, 2013.

At a news conference at the NHA central office in Quezon City, engineer Grace Guevarra of the NHA-Visayas Management Office admitted the agency’s delay to Next page

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SANTIAGO

Sereno camp: Resign not an option, CJ to face music THE camp of embattled Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said Tuesday that resignation on her part, following the impeachment complaint, was a sign of cowardice and would not resign since she was not a coward.

Lawyer Carlo Cruz, one of Sereno’s spokespersons, said this as he maintained the country’s top magistrate would not resign as suggest-

ed by Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque.

According to Cruz, Sereno intended to fight to the end the impeachment case to preserve the judiciary’s integrity and independence. “[Resignation] is not an option. It has never been an option. It’s her [Sereno’s] duty to face the charges as Chief Justice to preserve the Next page

Poe eyes UST law dean’s liability in Atio hazing case

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN. A young girl carefully places flowers on small white crosses at Boy Scout Rotunda in Barangay San Jose in Tacloban City as surviving relatives of victims mark today the fourth anniversary of the deadliest typhoon to hit the Philippines. Ver Noveno manilastandard.net

SENATOR Grace Poe said Tuesday the Senate may look into the possible liability of University of Santo Tomas Civil Law Dean Nilo Divina in the fatal hazing of freshman student Horacio “Atio” Castillo III. Interviewed on News To Go, Poe said even if Divina had no direct involvement in

the hazing, his actions following the incident should be looked into.

“Unang-una, ano ang ginawa niya nu’ng nalaman niyang may nangyaring ganyan? Nagpadala ba siya agad ng alert sa buong school of law na hindi na dapat tangkilikin ang fraternity na ito?”

Next page Poe said.

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’Ensure smooth MRT-3 services’

By Maricel V. Cruz A HOUSE leader on Tuesday urged Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade to come up with measures to ensure that the services of Metro Rail Transit Line 3 will not deteriorate after he terminated the P3.8-billion maintenance contract of Busan Universal Railways Inc. or BURI. Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said the Transport Department must present to Congress a viable alternative to BURI. “DOTr should show and convince the public that MRT 3 will not further deteriorate its services without a maintenance provider,” Evardone said.

“Now that BURI has vowed to question the termination in court, the legal tussle between the two parties might drag on for months or years, which may put MRT 3 services in jeopardy.”

Evardone stressed the need for Congress to pass the bill sponsored by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez that seeks to establish a single regulatory body for all mass transit facilities.

“Hopefully, the termination is not designed to just ease out BURI and replace it with a favored maintenance provider,” Evardone said.

Evardone also raised questions over the fact that the government will, in the meantime, take over the maintenance of MRT 3.

“The question is: One, are there competent technical people that can immediately take over the maintenance of MRT 3?

Second, how long can the government procure all the necessary parts needed to maintain MRT 3 given the very tedious procurement process under Republic Act 9184, or the procurement law?” Evardone said.

“I hope that the DOTr will be able to allay these fears and convince the public that, with the termination of the maintenance contract, the MRT 3 services will substantially improve to alleviate the plight of the riding public. I still maintain that the best option is to totally privatize MRT 3 to make it more efficient.”

Rep. Jericho Nograles said BURI was lying through its teeth in claiming that the MRT 3 breakdowns and glitches were caused by the system’s old and dilapidated train rails.

“Don’t blame it on the rails! BURI should stop singing Milli Vanilli’s ‘Blame it on the Rain’ and admit their own incompetence,” Nograles said.

Sereno...

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integrity and independence of the Supreme Court,” Cruz stressed.

Cruz insisted the impeachment case was not only an attack against Sereno, but also an attack against the Office of the Chief Justice and the entire judiciary.

In Malacañang, the Palace said it would let the ax fall against Sereno, after rejecting calls for her to resign.

While they respect the decision of the Chief Justice, who expressed through her lawyers that she would be staying put and that resignation had never been an option, Roque said it would allow the process to continue against Sereno.

Sereno is facing similar charges as her late predecessor Renato Corona—on top of other allegations of

SC rejects Napoles’ bail request

By Rey E. Requejo

T

HE Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down the appeal of Janet Lim-Napoles to be granted bail in the plunder and other cases against her over her alleged misuse of the lawmakers’ multi-billion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel.

The high court dismissed Napoles’ petition assailing the Sandiganbayan’s decisions denying her bail application on the ground that the evidence against her was strong.

The high court upheld the rulings of the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division in October 2015 and March 2016.

“The Court found that the Sandiganbayan had not gravely abused its discre-

tion in denying the petition,” the high court said through its spokesman Theodore Te. In her petition in July, Napoles asked that she be granted bail in the plunder

case against her and former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile before the third division of the antigraft court.

She argued she should be allowed to post bail in her case—just like Enrile― because the prosecutors “failed to present strong evidence.”

She said the charge that she and the other defendants accumulated at least P50 million in ill-gotten wealth should “fall into pieces as the amount of money pilfered cannot be

exactly determined.”

Napoles also alleged that the Sandiganbayan committed grave abuse of discretion in denying her earlier plea for bail.

Her camp earlier claimed that her acquittal by the Court of Appeals in the serious illegal detention case had destroyed the credibility of Benhur Luy as witness in the pork barrel cases.

In August 2015, the high court granted the petition for bail of Enrile in the same plunder case with Napoles before the Sandigan-

SECURITY SAIL. Members of the Philippine Coast

Guard, led by Ensign Kate Desoyza, conduct a maritime patrol at Manila Bay near the shoreline as part of security preparations for the Nov. 13-17 Asean Summit at the bayside Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City. Norman Cruz

P6.4-b...

“The release was allegedly facilitated by public officials who were identified by Customs broker Mark Ruben Taguba II,” the Ombudsman statement read.

The Palace said Tuesday the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency is ready to file charg-

es against those involved in the shabu smuggling incident, including Customs officials.

“PDEA has concluded its investigation. They’re convinced of probable cause.

They will file the necessary and corresponding criminal charges before the Depart-

ment of Justice,” presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said.

Roque made these pronouncements after the Office of the Ombudsman announced that it has formed a fact-finding panel to investigate the smuggling.

With John Paolo Bencito

tion Group who was a former Special Action Force commando.

Uy had received a kidnapping threat and was given security but nobody in the PNP had vetted her, Aquino said.

PDEA agents arrested Uy after they found P10 million worth of suspected shabu in her condominium unit near Malacañang Palace on Monday. Hours earlier, agents seized about P5 million worth of drugs

from the correctional.

Yuk Lai had previously been in the news when she was caught visiting a casino two years after her conviction.

Aquino said PDEA would file new cases against her.

The agency will also set up a satellite office in Bilibid to curb the drug trade there.

Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque on Tuesday said no stone would be left unturned in the investigation of a shabu stash found at a

condominium unit near Malacañang.

“We recognize that this is alarming that drugs were seized from a house very near Malacañang. And I assure you it will be investigated fully and that the perpetrators will be brought to justice,” he added.

He did not address the continuing drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison or the women’s correctional facility, however.

The high court dismissed with finality for lack of merit the motion for reconsideration filed by prosecutors in the case involving Salvador Estipona versus Legaspi City Regional Trial Court Branch 3 Judge Frank Lobrigo.

The ruling means those accused in drug-related offenses may now plead guilty to a lesser offense, provided the prosecutor allows it.

Estipona was reportedly caught in possession of .084 grams of methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu. He was charged for violation of Section 11, Article 2 of RA 9165.

Estipona, represented by the Public Attorney’s Office, questioned Lobrigo’s decision to deny his motion for a plea

bargain agreement before the Supreme Court.

Last year, PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta said over 82,000 small-time drug offenders have been rotting in prisons.

Also on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the Philippine National Police to file its comment on two new petitions seeking to compel the Duterte administration to stop its war on drugs.

In an en banc session Tuesday, the Court resolved to require PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa and other respondents from the police force and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to comment on similar petitions filed last month by human rights groups Free Legal Assistance Group and Center for International Law. The Court gave them 10 days to comply with the order.

The order came as the tribunal consolidated the two petitions and set oral arguments on Nov. 21.

In its petition, FLAG asked the Court to issue a temporary restraining order stopping the implementation of PNP Command Memorandum Circular No. 16-2016 or “Oplan Double Barrel.”

The human rights group asked the tribunal to enjoin the PNP from further carrying out earlier instructions and pronouncements of President Duterte on the drug war, which were not formally put in a proper written executive order.

According to the group, the war on drugs “violates the right to life, to due process of law, to be presumed innocent and to a fair trial by expressly authorizing the summary killing of suspected drug offenders in the guise of “neutraliz-

ing” them.

The group also argued that the war on drugs, where over 7,000 individuals had been killed in both police operations and supposed vigilante killings, “violates the right to due process of law, to be presumed innocent, and to a fair trial by doing away with the basic police duty of evidencegathering and case build-up.”

FLAG said that house-tohouse visits being conducted

by PNP were unconstitutional because “they are not limited to drug suspects and based on furtive fingers of unknown informants.”

It also assailed the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s Memorandum Circular 2017-112, or the “Masa Masid” project, which allows citizens to report any person who may be involved in narcotics to drop boxes put up in some barangays.

mismanagement in the affairs of the high court.

“That’s fine. That’s her answer and we let it be from now on,” Roque told reporters in a regular Palace news briefing.

“Henceforth, that’s the call of the House and that’s the call of the Senate.”

“The suggestion to resign was made so that the constitutional process of impeachment will not have to continue. But since she refused, we will now let the constitutional process to proceed,” he added.

There is no need any more for the President to file an impeachment complaint against Sereno since “other individuals have done it for him,” Roque admitted, referring to previous complainants against the Chief Justice.

“We know that the impeachment against the Chief Justice is now being deliberated upon by the Committee on Justice,”

he said, adding “there can only be one impeachment complaint per year.”

“I expect the committee to resume its hearings on the existence of probable cause after they come back from their recess this 20th of November.”

On Monday, Malacañang made fresh calls for Sereno to resign to spare the judiciary from “further damage.”

Roque likewise admitted that Duterte wanted Sereno “to be removed altogether, by all means” and that her possible impeachment would be damaging for the judiciary.

The Palace spokesman called on the Chief Justice “to reexamine very carefully the effect of another removal to the institution itself.”

Earlier, Sereno alluded to a “resurgence of political forces” that have “threatened and harassed” the independence of the judicial system.

John Paolo Bencito

Poe...

several members of the Aegis Juris Fraternity--the same group blamed for Castillo’s death--were involved in a “riot” near The Manila Hotel in 2016.

“Nu’ng nagkaroon ng mga infractions ‘yung Aegis Juris... na nagkaroon ng parang riot diyan sa Manila Hotel [noong 2016], sinuspinde niya pero napakatagal ng proseso, patuloy pa rin ang pag-recruit ng fraternity na ito,” Poe said.

“Dapat malaman: Did he do enough or was he proactive enough as dean of UST to prevent such situations from happening? At saka dapat ding malaman natin, ano ba ang sagot talaga ng mismong head or prefect ng UST dahil napapailalim sa kanila ito.”

Poe said she and her fellow senators noticed negligence on the part of UST’s student office as it could have stopped recognizing the Aegis Juris as an official student organization.

Rey E. Requejo and Macon Ramos-Araneta

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Based on BoC regulations, a first-time importer and shipments from China are prohibited from going through the green lane.

'Drug...

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correctional by delivering them in sacks of rice through the facility’s back door, Aquino said.

At the same time, Uy enjoyed VIP police security before her arrest, the PDEA chief said. He identified the head of Uy’s security detail as PO3 Walter Vidal of the Police Security and Protec-

SC...

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She made the statement even as the Supreme Court on Tuesday required the Senate to submit its comment on the petition filed by Aegis Juris Fraternity leader Arvin Balag questioning the legality of his detention for contempt in the legislative inquiry on Castillo’s fatal hazing.

The high court ordered the Senate to file its comment on the habeas corpus petition filed

by Balag on Oct. 25 and gave it 10 days to comply with its order.

Meanwhile, Senator Win Gatchalian on Tuesday called for the imposition of strict penalties on fraternity members who participate in the cover-up of hazing incidents.

He cited the actions taken by the members of the Aegis Juris Fraternity in the wake of Castillo’s hazing death.

Poe also questioned Divina’s actions early this year when

bayan due to his “advanced age and poor health.”

The two other former senators indicted with Napoles in separate plunder cases before the anti-graft court― Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr.―also filed bail petitions, and the Sandiganbayan’s special fifth division granted Estrada’s plea in September.

Napoles had previously filed several petitions before the high court seeking to stop her indictment in the PDAF cases, but all were dismissed by the high court.

Yolanda...

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fulfill its target date to build homes for the affected families in 2018.

“When we advertise the opening of our bidding, it does not automatically mean there will be [interested] bidders to participate,” she said.

“Actually, there is no problem in the bidding [process], but the problem lies on the sites and the required [technical] documents,” she added.

In the House of representatives, as the nation commemorates today the 4th anniversary of Yolanda’s devastating wrath, Leyte Rep. Yedda Marie Kittilstvedt-Romualdez has vowed to push for permanent homes and sustainable livelihood for the super typhoon survivors.

At the same time, Kittilstvedt-Romualdez also welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s commitment to prosecute people behind alleged subhuman and substandard housing projects.

“Now we have seen so much progress that has been achieved in building back our communities even better, and we have to thank the help of our Filipino and foreign friends as well as our national and local government for their continued leadership and support in helping us,” Romualdez said.

Romualdez is scheduled to deliver her solidarity speech tonight during the Yolanda Sundown Me-

DDS...

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Assistant Secretary Ester Margaux Uson asked Communications Secretary Martin Andanar to take off digital news company Rappler from the roster of accredited news media covering the Palace and instead place it in her social media turf.

“UMALIS KA DIYAN. AT HUWAG KA NANG UMASA SA 2019,” Rey Joseph Nieto, the man behind Thinking Pinoy, said in a lengthy Facebook all caps post on Monday night (Get out of there. And don’t be hopeful about 2019.)

Calling Roque a coward for balking at his request to throw a “hollow block” against Pia Ranada, a reporter of online news portal Rappler, Nieto said the Palace spokesman had no right to “order” around pro-Duterte bloggers like himself.

The barrage of criticism against Roque came amid allegations he was curtailing the freedom of speech of Duterte supporters while siding with his “legitimate media friends,” when he vowed to lecture hordes of online supporters about the virtues of journalism and the role of mainstream media to constitutional freedoms.

Meanwhile, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Tuesday said he would file libel cases against Thinking Pinoy blogger RJ Nieto and for allegedly circulating “fake news” that he was a drug lord.

morial-Sky Lantern Ceremony at Balyuan Park in Tacloban City.

To date, close to 40 percent of the housing requirement in the typhoon devastated Eastern Visayas have been completed but only 13 percent or 26,256 units have been occupied.

“The local government units have [sometimes] the peculiarities,” NHA project implementation team (NPIT) head Susan Nonato told the conference.

According to Guevarra, the “reconstruction of homes [in the affected areas] came later after Nov. 8, 2013.”

“In any calamities, rehabilitation is not a priority of every LGU. On the first year, there was no reconstruction but only gathering of data. The people’s priority are food, first aid and temporary shelter,” she said.

“After the 2014 data gathering under the [defunct] Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery, on Sept. 30, 2014, the NHA started the bidding,” she added.

She partly blamed the late submission of the beneficiaries by some LGUs. One of the other causes of the delay in the full implementation of the government’s shelter program for the Yolanda victims was the retrieval of land titles, she said.

“We have to go through the reconstruction of titles,” Guevarra said.

With Maricel Cruz, Macon Ramos-Araneta He said his lawyers were already preparing the libel case for peddling the fake news like President (Donald) Trump allegedly called him “little narco.”

He did not say when he would file his complaint.

“It was clear in the US government website on the presidential pronouncements and interviews, it’s not there [that Pres. Trump called him little narco]. So that’s indeed a lie. It’s a propaganda operation that I will counter,” Trillanes told reporters during the “Kapihan sa Senado.”

Trillanes said he would also file a libel case against Manila Times columnist Yen Makabenta.

In a Palace news briefing, however, Roque seemed undeterred despite getting the ire of the so-called “Ka-DDS.” “I stated what I think is right, and I stated what I think is true. I am a spokesperson, I deal with the Malacañang Press Corps and I have long been an advocate of freedom of expression.

I leave it at that,” Roque said, adding he would address their concerns to the President.

“What I will do is I will facilitate receipt of this information by the President. I will tell the President that Mr. Nieto has said that I should be removed. I will relay that to the President,” he added.

The former lawmaker also addressed the perception of Duterte’s supporters that he was addressing the needs of the media. With Macon Ramos-Araneta

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Trillanes-Gordon tiff escalates S

By Macon Ramos-Araneta

ENATOR Antonio Trillanes IV on Tuesday said he will file a plunder case against Senator Richard Gordon before the Office of the Ombudsman on Wednesday regarding alleged anomalies at the Philippine Red Cross, of which Gordon is chairman.

“I will be filing the case tomorrow, plunder, against Senator Gordon, tomorrow morning. This is in relation to plundering government

funds and allocated them to the Red Cross,” he said.

Trillanes accused Gordon of channelling his Priority Development Assistance

Fund allocations to the Red Cross.

“He uses Red Cross for his own interest,” said Trillanes, who in September

filed an ethics complaint against Gordon with the Senate ethics committee.

“It’s more than the P50million threshold so it’s there. Tomorrow, it’s there in the attachments, the documentary evidence,” he added.

Trillanes said Gordon allocated his PDAF or pork barrel funds to the Red Cross during the latter’s first term as senator, while he was also chairman of the

humanitarian organization.

“That’s prohibited. It’s like the Napoles scam. If you will look at it, there’s no problem because it’s the Red Cross, but [Gordon] was the chairman and he disbursed the funds,” he said.

Trillanes said he would also write the Commission on Audit to start an investigation on the PRC funds, and to the International Federation of the Red Cross to conduct

an independent audit of its local arm.

“Once I already filed that [complaint] and the [Senate] session [is] opened [from recess], I will come out with this to our colleagues in the Senate, that we have a chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee to investigate acts of corruption, but he himself has a plunder case and had committed several anomalies,” he explained.

Trillanes said it was a shame he had to file charges, and as “a matter of delicadeza, which I don’t expect also from Senator Gordon.”

But Gordon remained unperturbed by the plunder charge, and said he is ready to answer it. The senator insisted he has never received any salary from his job at the Red Cross, which is billed as a volunteer organization.

In deals with China, PH relies on ‘good faith’ Duque vows to push

By John Paolo Bencito MALACAÑANG on Tuesday expressed that it will continue to rely on good faith in dealing with the Chinese, despite renewed concerns over Beijing’s testing of a massive dredging ship, designed to boost China’s land reclamation capability, at disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea. “Well, the President [Rodrigo Duterte] recognizes the principle of good faith

in international relations.

China has told the President they do not intend to reclaim Scarborough, and we leave it at that,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a briefing.

“We need to rely on good faith because otherwise there would be no predictability in international relations,” Roque added.

The Defense Department on Monday expressed its concerns after Beijing started testing its dredging ship—

with a warning that the Philippines would track its activities closely.

The ship, Tian Kun, has a deck the size of nine basketball courts, and would become Asia’s largest dredging vessel.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea or West Philippine Sea, through which more than $3 trillion of seaborne trade passes each year.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and

Vietnam also have conflicting claims in the area.

Roque also maintained the Philippines has already gained victory when an arbitral court ruled that the country has exclusive sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea and that China’s “nine-dash line” policy is invalid—a ruling repeatedly rejected by China.

“We’re not just trusting. We have a decision, the last time I checked. And that decision remains unchanged,” he said.

“It has said that the artificial islands are form part or built in our [EEZ, exclusive economic zone] and under the UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], only coastal states can build them,” Roque added.

Duterte’s renewed ties with China has led to “new heights” in terms of PhilippineChinese relations and has resulted in “very tangible results, particularly economic investments,” he said.

Solon: Fine-into-funding tack proves Du30 is ‘pro-people’

By Maricel V. Cruz PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has once again showed that human development remains the top priority of his administration by committing nearly P6 billion to the government’s free college education program, Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles said on Tuesday.

“The Filipinos are indeed the most important thing to President Duterte.

The same is claimed by a lot of politicians, but Duterte proves it with action,” Nograles, chairman of the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations, said.

Nograles made the statement following reports that the country’s flag carrier, Philippine

Airlines, turned over to the government two checks worth a combined P5.936 billion as payment for obligations that included navigation fees and taxes.

The Palace subsequently said the money will be used to fund Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which Duterte signed amid much fanfare last August.

“Turning PAL’s debt settlement into instant free tuition fund for local and state universities and colleges is just one of these acts. PAL’s settling of its longtime obligations under this administration shows that it knows the President doesn’t mess around,” Nograles said.

RA 10931’s beneficiaries include students from the country’s 114 State

Universities and Colleges, 16 Local Universities and Colleges accredited by Commission on Higher Education and 122 TechnicalVocational Institutions under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

“President Duterte’s gesture is not just propeople, it also proves that he is for human development,” Nograles said.

health care proposal HEALTH Secretary Francisco T. Duque III on Tuesday vowed to hit the ground running on the unfinished Universal Health Care bill, which has been pending in Congress.

In his first media briefing after returning to the Department of Health, Duque promised to prioritize the review of the UHC. He said reforms of both the DoH and the Philippine Health Corp. or PhilHealth “must be grounded on the reality of finite resources and funds to ensure that health spending brings the biggest impact and quality health care to majority of Filipinos and assure actuarial solvency for future generations.”

Duque also affirmed he would continue the priority health programs begun by his predecessor Paulynn Ubial under the Philippine Health Agenda.

“These elements will be merged with a strategic approach through the revitalization of our flagship program, the FOURmula

One, with a new tagline: Boosting Universal Health Care via FOURmula One Plus,” otherwise known as F1 Plus, he added.

The secretary also guaranteed to make the health reform agenda “much more transparent, inclusive, coordinative, and synergistic” with the efforts of both public and private sector partners, especially the local government units, enabling the DOH to hit the ground running by 2018 and make health services more felt by Filipinos, especially the poor.

Duque will likewise push public hospitals to improve their effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, and quality of health services to patients through enforcing theAnti-Red Tape Act and working with the Civil Service Commission— which he previously chaired— through the Contact Center ng Bayan (8888 Hotline) to address patient feedbacks and complaints on the services of public hospitals.

Macon Ramos-Araneta

A4

Opinion

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017

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EDITORIAL

Adelle Chua, Editor

The genie that got out

A

PALACE statement urging Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to resign before she is ousted by impeachment has triggered calls to insulate the judiciary against politics.

An opposition lawmaker, Akbayan Party-list Rep. Tom Villarin, said the call showed Malacañang’s “manipulative hand” in the impeachment case against Sereno.

Villarin criticized Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque for calling for Sereno’s resignation when the House committee on justice has yet to discuss the charges against her.

“Is Malacañang conditioning the public’s mind that CJ Sereno is guilty?”

“Now they are in a hurry to convict her

through public pressure and using even the Supreme Court’s standing to justify such call,” he added.

At a press br ief ing, Roque ad mitted that President Rod r igo Duter te wanted Sereno “ to be removed altogether, by any means,” and said her possible impeach ment would damage the judiciar y.

The Palace spokesman called on the Chief Justice “to reexamine very carefully the effect of another removal to the institution itself,” clearly referring to the impeachment trial and ouster of Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012, on the same grounds that Sereno is now being impeached—the failure to properly declare her assets.

Earlier, Sereno herself warned of a “resurgence of political forces” that have “threatened and harassed” the independence of the judicial system.

A pro-Sereno group, Pinoy Aksyon, also came to her defense.

“Impeachment is an extraordinary remedy to strengthen our democratic institutions,” the group said in a statement.

“It should not be used as [a] convenient tool to serve vested interests.”

In an ideal world, this should certainly be true.

But precedent teaches us that we do not live in an ideal world, and that the judiciary is vulnerable to political pressures.

No single case exemplifies this better than the ruthless and unrelenting manner in which President Benigno Aquino III used his political capital and public funds to pressure Congress into removing Corona, whom he perceived to be an obstacle to his own agenda.

The use of millions of pesos in pork barrel to reward those who voted in fa-

vor of Corona’s conviction at his impeachment trial is well documented, and clearly a perversion of the impeachment process.

Yet, we do not think Villarin or Pinoy Aksyon objected too vehemently to Mr. Aquino’s vicious campaign not only to oust Corona but to destroy his reputation with his constant attacks in the media. Nor do we remember that they objected too vociferously when Mr. Aquino’s allies in Congress pressured then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez into resigning by suggesting that her ouster through impeachment was inevitable.

It is true that politics should not intrude on the workings of the judiciary.

But sadly, that genie has already been let out of the bottle, and those complaining about it now did little to stop it when Mr. Aquino was yanking the cork loose.

VIRTUAL REALITY TONY LOPEZ

The rise of RSA

Lightning rod BACK CHANNEL ALEJANDRO DEL ROSARIO THIS early, it’s becoming clear why President Rodrigo Duterte picked former Kabayan PartyList Rep. Harry Roque as his presidential spokesman. The answer is becoming obvious. Aside from speaking the President’s same acerbic language, Roque has become Digong’s lightning rod. Harry has drawn more flak now than his boss. Smart move, Mr. President.

Roque upon his appointment came out swinging threatening to throw hollow blocks and adobe bricks at critics who cast stones at his boss. Well, here’s a list you can start throwing hollow blocks at, Mr. Secretary.

First was Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman who said Roque was actually Duterte’s mole in the House who supported all of

Malacañang’s moves in the lower chamber, including abolition of the Commission on Human Rights by voting for the CHR’s P1,000 budget. Roque also supported the move to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. Last Monday, Roque called on Sereno to resign to “spare the institutions from further damage.”

The camp of the chief magistrate issued a statement saying resigning is never an option.

Indeed, if Malacañang wants Sereno to resign, is it because it is not sure whether it has the numbers in the Senate if and when the House submits the articles of impeachment to the upper chamber? Although everyone knows the President wants Sereno out, was Roque in this instance speaking for himself or President Duterte?

The last time I checked, Roque was not yet president. Don’t be in a hurry, Harry!

A closer reading of the Roque

statement urging Sereno to “resign to spare the Supreme Court from further damage” gives us the impression it is the administration that Roque serves which wants to spare itself the tedious process of impeachment. That, and the prospect of possible defeat in the Senate, would be a setback—something Duterte cannot accept. I’m not saying the Senate is going to acquit Sereno for sure. But 2019 being an election year, seanators seeking reelection do not want the baggage of having ousted another chief magistrate after they did the late and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. 2017 is almost over and 2019 is just around the corner.

Rep. Tom Villarin also stepped up to say Roque is carrying a sinister and devious plot for Duterte’s extended hold on power. The President fueled speculation on his agenda to stay longer in power with statements of emergency rule and a

revolutionary government after abolishing Congress.

Although not explicitly, Kabayan Party-List Rep. Ron Salo said Roque might have his own long-term agenda and not just his ambition to run as senator in the 2019 elections. Please, Ron, don’t tell us he’s got his eye on the presidency!

Salo noted that Roque seems to be promoting himself with his mind-blowing statements that have nothing to do with his job as presidential spokesman.

There is, however, a soft side to Harry Roque’s toughguy approach. Last Monday, he brought not hollow blocks, but bags of pan de sal to Malacañang reporters. Di pala pusong mamon but pusong pan de sal.

Salo, the arch critic of Roque in the House, is asking why his former party mate in Kabayan still wants to keep his grip on the vacancy he created when he resigned to accept the post of presidential spokesman.

“Roque is already speaking from a more powerful podium.

Why does he want his own chief of staff Rommel Bagares to replace him as Kabayan Party-List candidate? Roque’s nominee is not even a Kabayan Party-List member,” said Salo whose own candidate is a certain Ciriaco Calalang that the party endorsed.

The Asean Summit is set to be held in Manila next week with no less than US President Donald Trump attending and meeting with President Duterte.

Other heads of state from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Dialogue Partners are also coming over. I promised to myself not to criticize President Duterte while he’s hosting this very important global event.

Politicians should observe a moratorium and refrain from engaging in toxic politics.

Let’s give President Duterte space so he can play the gracious host.

BETWEEN Nov. 7, 2016 and early November 2017, the share price of San Miguel Corp. has slowly but surely gone north, from a low of P79.05 to P115 per share on Nov. 7, 2017, a new 12-month high and an increase of 45.5 percent. In value, the surge has been P85.47 billion ($1.67 billion), from P188 billion in November 2016 to P273.47 billion in November 2017.

Since Ramon S. Ang owns 20.3 percent of the company, the vice chairman, president and chief operating officer of SMC gained $340.5 million in wealth, from $748 million last year to $1.088 billion this November.

Add the value of RSA’s 86.57 percent ownership of newly listed Eagle Cement Corp. (which had market capitalization as of Nov. 7, 2017 of P74.8 billion), and the entrepreneur-businessman is easily worth $2.357 billion, 3.15 times from $748 million a year ago.

RSA is now one of the 10 richest Filipinos.

The stock market has only recently begun to appreciate how profound has been the impact of Ang’s strategic moves and management of colossal San Miguel Corp. and Eagle Cement, today the single largest, most efficient, most modern and most profitable cement company in the Philippines.

RSA’s rise to enormous wealth seems to cap his nearly half century of entrepreneurship and deal making. Still, he doesn’t seem to have even begun.

Enormous prospects are clearly ahead.

He began doing business when as a teener in short pants in what is now upscale (for business) Jose Abad Santos in Tondo, Manila, helping manage his father’s auto parts shop.

His most valuable tool then was the once ubiquitous and ponderous PLDT Telephone Directory.

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An increasingly dangerous world

The rise...

From A4

Young Ramon would look for clients interested in buying parts and other supplies and he would scan the phone directory for suppliers who could provide him what the customer wanted. He would borrow the parts and sell them to his client, even at a small profit. But then, he did not employ capital because, in effect, he was selling by consigment.

Fast forward to January 1999. Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. dragoons his subaltern, friend and most trusted aide to join him in the management of SMC, with the title of vice chairman. Initially, Ramon was rather reticent exercising the prerogative of an executive given enormous mandate and leeway by the majority owner of SMC. When the company seemed to be going nowhere, Ramon took matters literally in his own hands. In 2002, he became San Miguel’s president and chief operating officer. Cojuangco told him to manage the behemoth as he deemed best.

“Ramon was a diamond in the raw,” says Danding with evident pride of his prized catch. The CEO says now he could not have found a better man to manage the company. And the rest is history.

Ramon Ang has transformed San Miguel in ways no one could imagine or have done better. No Philippine company or conglomerate has transformed itself so dramatically and radically in the last half decade as has San Miguel Corp..

Even while growing and strengthening its core businesses like beer, foods, and packaging, SMC went into petroleum refining and marketing, power generation, infrastructure, airports, mining, mass transit and airlines.

RSA disrupted the business of utilities, power generation and infrastructure building with SMC moving into these businesses far ahead of the others.

Remarkably, San Miguel began its reengineering in earnest in October 2008 at a time of the severest global recession and credit crunch in 80 years, amid the most unprecedented of challenges to any company’s existence, and amid the lingering shocks of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

The sea change was so revolutionary and successful it changed or disrupted the way business is done in the Philippines and in the region.

It also gave San Miguel size, scale and sustainability that will make it extremely difficult for its rivals to catch up.

Between 2008 and

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017

2013, the impact of San Miguel’s acquisitions and investments was spectacular.

San Miguel assets ballooned 3.45 times from P339.37 billion in 2008 to P1,170 billion (P1.17 trillion) in 2013, sales rose 4.32 times from P183.4 billion to P792.45 billion, equity expanded 2.2 times from P168 billion to P365.77 billion, and annual profits increased 2.6 times from P19.34 billion a year in 2008 to P50.72 billion last year. If reckoned from end-2007, profits actually expanded 5.8 times, from P8.63 billion to P50.7 billion in six years.

In six years, from 2008 to 2013, SMC sales increased by an average of 55.3 percent per year, assets by 41 percent and equity by 20 percent.

In contrast, during the same five years, Ayala Corp. increased revenues 16.8 percent per year, net income 9.6 percent, assets 26 percent, and equity 6.7 percent.

SM Investments Corp. grew revenues by an average of 12 percent per year, income 15.9 percent, assets 19.3 percent, and equity 16.6 percent.

In five years, JG Summit grew revenues 7.08 percent per year, income 1.03 percent, assets 7.06 percent, and equity 22.8 percent.

Under RSA, during those five years, SMC revenues were doubling every 24 months while assets were doubling every 2.5 years.

Today, San Miguel is the Philippines’ fastestgrowing conglomerate, the largest in annual revenues, profits, San Miguel has become No. 1 in beer (90 percent of the market), No. 1 in expressways and tollways (70 percent share), No. 1 in the world in gin, No. 1 in branded food products (through 85.37 percentowned San Miguel Pure Foods Co.), No. 1 in packaging (aluminum can is its latest business) and No. 1 in power generation with 22 percent of installed power generation in Luzon and 17 percent of the national grid.

SMC has become more relevant to the national economy and better able to meet the basic needs of the Filipino, even while raising the profile of the Philippine enterprise abroad as a world-class and excellent operation.

SMC sales are 5 percent of the Philippine gross domestic product (GDP).

The company employs 18,000 and operates more than 100 factories or production facilities in the Asia Pacific. biznewsasia@gmail.com

SO I SEE LITO BANAYO

LAST Sunday, a man discharged from the US Air Force for physically assaulting his wife and son went bonkers and shot down churchgoers of the First Baptist Church in the small town of Sutherland Springs in Texas. Twentysix people have been reported dead as of this writing, and many more are in the hospitals.

The American president, who is on an Asian tour, condemned the massacre but stopped short of advocating gun control in his country.

Recently too, another supposedly depressed or deranged American booked himself into an upper floor hotel room in Las Vegas, and went on a shooting spree directed at innocent persons enjoying an open-air concert. Fifty

six people were reported killed, and even as this is written, several others are still recuperating in Nevada hospitals.

Then and now, the American president would not want to curb the private ownership of guns.

In New York, London, Boston, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, in Nice, Istanbul and other capitals of the world, men who swear by distorted views of their religion have either run trucks or vans into crowds or exploded bombs at busy terminals, killing and maiming innocents.

Here at home, Maute terrorists swooped down on Marawi by the lake and virtually captured that citadel of Islam in Southern Mindanao.

Government efforts to retake the city took more than a hundred days of gunfire in the streets and rockets from the air that killed scores of Filipinos, both combatant and innocent civilians.

What is the whole world coming to?

Of course there is even greater peril that a “madman” in Pyongyang, chafing from the world’s condemnation of his nuclear build-up, would suddenly send his new “toys” exploding upon his own brothers and sisters in Seoul, his neighbors in Japan, and beyond.

Indeed, we are living in a world that has become increasingly dangerous to human life. *** Back home, the PDEA raided the “kubol” of the New Bilibid Prison occupied by a drug queen named Yu Yuk Lai who has been convicted five years ago for drug trafficking and pushing. They discovered shabu hidden in panty liners and other hiding places.

Immediately after, they raided a condominium unit in San Miguel, the same district where our presidential palace is located, and found even

more shabu. The occupant of the condominium unit is a certain Dianne Yu Uy, daughter of the incarcerated drug queen.

And yet our senators would not want to reimpose the death penalty, even for such heinous crimes as drug trafficking. And our bishops of the numerous church also protest.

The “simple-minded” common man says with full conviction: “Buti pa pinatay na lang ‘yan noon pa”.

There is a huge disconnect between the thinking of the “masa” and the “bleeding hearts” with their concepts of liberal democracy and upholding individual human rights.

Our President reads the minds of the common man well, as against his critics, both local and international, who recoil at violence against even the worst evildoers.

But the drug trade is so lucrative that both traffickers, whether from China or Taiwan or Macau or Hong

Kong, or Mexico or elsewhere, will always try to ply their nefarious commerce, recidivists whether outside or even inside jail cells.

But our political bishops would rather “heal the land” without first destroying the evil that in the first place has “killed the land.”

They exorcise “devils,” don’t they?

Why then should not the State extirpate “evil”? *** It is thus no wonder that a world weary of all kinds of violence, from terrorists to drug lords to even deranged men with easy access to guns are getting more and more drawn to “strong” leaders, be they a local Duterte or an “Emperor” Xi, or a “Tsar” Putin (as The Economist called him) or an Erdogan in Turkey.

It has become an increasingly dangerous world, and as the Castillians would reason, “grandes males; grandes remedios.”

On the natural selection of words

By Faye Flam WHICH would you choose, sneaked or snuck?

My first instinct when faced with this question was to worry about which was correct. While sneaked sounds vaguely more grammatically correct, snuck sounds natural.

The person who posed the question to me wasn’t a grammarian but a computational biologist named Joshua Plotkin. And he wasn’t concerned with right or wrong. To him, this was a nice example of language evolution in action—and if he’s right in a recent analysis, that process is like biological evolution in ways people hadn’t previously recognized.

Languages, like living things, were not designed, and yet in both cases, through their evolution, structure, utility and beauty emerge. In the 1860s, soon after Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was published, linguist August Schleicher defended it by pointing to the already known evolution of language.

“Analogies between language change and evolution literally go back to Darwin, though originally in the opposite direction—Darwin invoked language change to explain biological evolution,” Harvard linguistics and psychology professor Stephen Pinker told me, commenting on the study by email. “So

this paper is a debt repaid.”

This kind of analysis is likely to give grammatical purists food for thought, and may even help explain why today’s watered-down use of the word “awesome” refuses to die.

Plotkin said his analysis, published in the journal Nature, required several massive digitized databases of English writing, spanning the years from the 12th to the 21st centuries. To that, he applied the mathematical tools of population genetics—what he’s used to study how viruses and bacteria evolve.

These organisms can evolve through natural selection but also through random changes—a process called genetic drift. DNA copying errors lead to variations that are neither good nor bad for survival, but spread because more individuals with the mutation happened to survive and reproduce.

Plotkin says mutations that are known to have spread through this process of random drift increase their frequency with a different mathematical pattern than do mutations that spread through natural selection. For one thing, genes under the influence of random drift alone tend to oscillate in frequency—becoming more common and then less common and then more common again.

Plotkin suspected that

the same patterns would show up in language changes. Indeed, he found that a number of them followed the same pattern as genes increasing through genetic drift. Other changes in the way people use English showed a pattern similar to natural selection —survival of the fittest -said Plotkin, including the replacement of sneaked by snuck. (Sneaked was the predominant form before the 20th century but, love it or hate it, snuck is becoming dominant.)

With genes and word variations alike, math doesn’t necessarily tell scientists what advantage a new form has over the old.

What, exactly, makes one word “fitter” than another?

Simple, easy-to-remember terms usually win over irregular and complex ones, Plotkin says—but not always. Take the verb dove, which has gradually taken over from the older dived.

Dived is regular -- it follows the usual rule for making verbs past tense. But dove feels right to us now.

Plotkin said he believes dove benefited from the increasing use of the word drive, with its irregular pasttense form drove. The shift happened alongside the popularity of automobiles, after all. In a similar vein, he said, English speakers used to say quitted, but now we just say quit for both past

and present tense, as we say split and hit. In all these cases, rhyme may win out over reason.

Natural-selection-like patterns applied to several other kinds of changes, including the use of the word do, as in Do you want a drink? or Don’t say that, as opposed to the older Want you a drink? Or Say that not. There, said Plotkin, the change probably started because a few such uses of do snuck in at random, and people naturally started to regularize the general form.

Plotkin also looked at the history of double negatives, which are currently considered a no-no in English. (Or maybe that should just be a no.)

If you were to consider it with Spock-like logic, then someone saying they don’t have no bananas would mean they do have bananas. But Spock would likely be disappointed.

Double negatives often creep in to a language for emphasis, he said. The second negative doesn’t negate the first—it reinforces it. But once this becomes common, it loses its power of emphasis, and the usage may drift back to the single negative again. It made me wonder about the persistence of the world awesome to express what okay used to mean. Perhaps its loss of emphatic power will cause it to die—or perhaps it will

just replace okayand something else will replace the original awesome.

This leaves open the question of where our evolving language is headed. Is it decaying or improving? One of the big advances Darwin made was to show that biological evolution wasn’t a ladder ascending to perfection. He understood that “fitness” is a moving target.

Environments change, and living things keep adapting.

Despite more than 3 billion years of evolution behind us, no life form has yet achieved perfection (except, arguably, cats).

And likewise, English may be changing without getting better or worse overall. It’s tempting to think that Shakespeare had a more beautiful, unsullied version of English to work with, but that’s probably not the case. He just possessed great skill in using the language of his time.

But that doesn’t mean all styles are equally good.

Pinker’s recent book on writing, “The Sense of Style,” helps readers consider the most effective ways to use language for clear, vivid communication. Another favorite of mine is “The Zen of Writing” by Ray Bradbury.

If you haven’t yet snuck out to get these books, don’t hesitate. I dove right in, and never quit learning from them. Bloomberg

China reinvents literature (profitably)

By Adam Minter SMARTPHONES may be killing print in China, but they're revolutionizing literature. Last year, 333 million Chinese read fiction written for their phones and other devices, according to government data. Some is written by hobbyists and some by professionals. Increasingly, though, it's hard to tell the difference, as China's "online literature" morphs into a $1.3-billion industry.

Investors have taken note. On Wednesday, China Literature Ltd., the country's biggest online publisher, will go public in Hong Kong, with a market value expected to exceed $6 billion. Its success should put the rest of the publishing industry on notice that the future of the book is being written in China—and it looks nothing like the past.

For decades, China's publishing industry was dominated by government-

owned companies that steered clear of subject matter that might cause controversy. Politics was just the most obvious topic. But sex, romance and violence—the stuff of so much popular entertainment—were also generally discouraged. Good books still managed to get published, but formal and informal restrictions severely inhibited creative expression.

Then the Internet offered a back channel. In the late 1990s, authors began posting serialized novels to online forums and bulletin boards.

It was an informal and largely uncensored way to publish, and some of the early books—especially romances—became sensations.

Among other factors turning these early serials into hits were the online forums themselves. They were the social media of their time, and parallel commentaries and discussions organically sprung up around this new literature, becoming as much a

part of the experience of reading as the story itself. In many cases, these commentaries influenced how the authors wrote, and thereby drew in even more readers eager to be a part of the story-making process.

With the rise of social networks and the rapid proliferation of mobile phones in China, online serials became a full-blown phenomenon.

In 2011, two well-regarded serials, "Empress in the Palace," which recounts life in China's imperial harem, and "Scarlet Heart," a timetraveling drama, became national hits. Since 2012, the online literature market has been growing by more than 20 percent a year.

For all their popularity, though, the serials didn't immediately make much money. Some publishers tried paywalls. Others tried selling advertising and accepting micropayments. None were quite successful.

In recent years, though, some entre-

preneurs have hit on a new way of thinking about serials—as an entertainment industrial chain that happens to start online.

That chain now includes films, television, games ... and even printed books. In 2015, "The Journey of Flower," a martial-arts fantasy serial

by Fresh Guo Guo, was spun off into a hit video game and online TV series. Another serial, "The Ghouls," became the ninth highest-grossing film in Chinese history, having been read millions of times online and in print. Since then, storylines from the series have inspired other films and a popular TV mini-series. Zhang Wei, China's bestselling online author, made $16.8 million in 2015—only 2 or 3 percent of which came from people paying directly for his online literature.

Investors are betting on more successes ahead. China's biggest technology companies—including Ali-

baba Group Holding Ltd., Baidu Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd.—have all invested in platforms intended to attract talented writers and turn their work into multimedia franchises.

Zhang, who started out writing for free online, put it succinctly in an interview last year: "My goal is to make a big franchise like Disney.

Disney has a lot of characters whose popularity is reinforced through movies and cartoons."

China's entertainment companies are hoping that, sooner or later, someone now writing free stories for smartphones will become the Chinese J.K. Rowling. And with 6.4 million authors and 9.6 million works on offer, China Literature is a good place to start looking. That makes it the rare opportunity to bet on China's grassroots directly. For authors and investors alike, that's almost certainly a future bestseller.

Bloomberg

News

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017 mst.daydesk@gmail.com

P100m set aside for Benham study

By Maricel V. Cruz

T

HE leadership of the House of Representatives has supported the initiative in Congress to allocate P100 million for the survey mapping of Benham Rise and exploration of its mineral deposits as an alternative source of energy.

In House Resolution 45 adopted by the Lower House, Rep. Deogracias Victor Savellano of Ilocos Sur called for a P100-million funding for the survey and mapping of the physical dimension of the area, noting the exploration is of immense interest for the de-

velopment of the country.

Savellano’s resolution also sought to rename the region “Philippine Northeast Continental Shelf” to mark the proprietary right of the country over the area.

The resolution mandates the Departments of Science and Technology,

Energy, Environment and Natural Resources, Agriculture, and other government agencies to implement the necessary measures and related activities for the survey mapping of Benham Rise.

Benham Rise, also known as Benham Plateau, is a 13-million-hectare undersea plateau approximately 160 nautical miles east of Luzon and off the provinces of Isabela and Aurora. It is located in the Central Basin Fault under the West Philippine Sea. Scientific data on seismic, magnetic and other geological features of Benham Rise indicate that the

region is an extension of the country’s continental shelf.

The plateau is bigger than Luzon, or almost half the country’s total land area.

Savellano said in his resolution noted that Benham Rise was not included as territory of the Philippines despite the doctrine by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and provisions of Republic Act No. 9522 (Archipelagic Baselines Law) that Philippine territorial boundary extends beyond its territorial sea up to 200 hundred nautical mile exclusive economic zone from archipelagic baseline.

A full territorial claim

was lodged with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on April 9, 2009. In April 2012, Unclos recognized and officially approved the country's claim. In effect, the territory of the Philippines increased from 30 million hectares to 43 million hectares.

“Scientific surveys and initial marine exploration conducted after the July 16, 1990 earthquake show Benham Rise is rich in marine resources. Roughly 2,000 to 5,000 meters deep, Benham Rise has massive natural gas and oil deposits that can boost Philippine energy suffi-

ciency. It is also home to heavy metals and minerals used for the manufacture of high technology components,” Savellano said.

With the significant increase of Philippine territory and resources, he said the existing Philippine marine map should be amended accordingly.

Savellano also said the resolution said that information produced from the study of the region would serve as reference as well as raw data for the benefit of potential investors for the exploration, development and exploitation of the rich resources of Benham Rise.

Guidelines issued on child workers

By Vito Barcelo THE Department of Labor and Employment has issued a new working guidelines for children, limiting the working hours for minors engaged in public entertainment such as television shows to four hours in any given day and not more than 20 hours a week.

Under the new guidelines, a child is not also allowed to work between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said children below the age of 15 are not allowed to be employed in any public or private establishment except when they work directly under the sole responsibility of their parents or guardian or when their participation in public entertainment or public information is essential.

Department Order No. 65-04 defines public entertainment or information as “artistic, literary, and cultural performances for television show, radio program, cinema or film, theater, commercial advertisement, public relations activities or

campaigns, print materials, internet and other media.”

In any of the exceptions, the employer, parent or guardian should first secure working child permit from DoLE before engaging the services of the child.

“Working Child Permit is required if the child will be engaged in public entertainment or information, whether local or overseas, and regardless of the child’s role in a project,” the Labor chief said.

A permit is also needed if the child will be featured in documentary materials unless it is a school-related project; and will be engaged as regular extra as part of a crowd and is included in the script or storyboard.

The said permit is also required for a foreign-child national who will be engaged in public entertainment in the Philippines.

The work permit shall be filed by the employer, parent or legal guardian at the DoLE Field Offices having jurisdiction over the workplace of the child at least three days prior to the shooting, taping, and event.

THE Philippines on Tuesday expressed its sympathies to Vietnam after Typhoon “Damrey” struck the country over the weekend, leaving more than 60 people dead and thousands of others displaced.

JIHADIST? Russell Salic, a Filipino doctor (center), is escorted by National Bureau of Investigation agents following a court hearing in Manila on Nov. 7, 2017. Salic was accused of wiring money for a foiled plot targeting New York landmarks and concert sites but denied that he has links with jihadists, saying the Islamic State group hacked his social media accounts. AFP

“The Vietnamese people are in our thoughts and prayers as they recover from Typhoon Damrey,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said shortly before leaving for Da Nang to attend the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.

“Our hearts go out to the fami-

lies of those who lost their lives and their homes as a result of this disaster,” Cayetano, who will be assisting President Rodrigo Duterte in the summit, said.

The Philippine Embassy in Hanoi said no Filipinos have so far been reported to be among those affected by the typhoon

and the resulting floods which struck the central part of the country.

Ambassador Noel Servigon said the Embassy is in touch with leaders of the 4,000-strong Filipino Community to make sure all of them are safe and accounted for.

Vietnamese authorities said 61 people were killed and 28 were missing as a result of the typhoon and from the resulting floods and landslides.

More than 2,000 homes were also reported to have been destroyed and more than 80,000 were damaged.

Globe waves paper delivery fees for seniors

By Othel V. Campos and Darwin G. Amojelar

LIGHTNING RALLY. Members of Kabataang Makabayan and other underground revolutionary groups hold a lightning rally in Mendiola, Manila to celebrate 100 years of Russian Revolution and condemn Trump and other imperialist leaders set to visit the country for the Asean summit. Norman Cruz

GLOBE Telecom agreed to wave paper statement delivery fees for postpaid clients who are senior citizens and person with disabilities (PWDs), upon the prodding of Laban Konsyumer Inc. Laban Konsyumer president Victor Dimagiba said the National Telecommunications Commission and the Globe legal counsels discussed measures on how to resolve consumer issues specifically for the P50 charge imposed by Globe.

Globe earlier announced it will be charging postpaid subscribers who opt to receive paper billing statements to pay for the paper statement and the delivery cost, as well.

While the NTC cur-

rently drafts the guidelines for telecommunication’s e-billing, the regulatory agency and Globe were initially in agreement that Senior Citizens and PWDs will not be charged for any request for paper billing effective immediately.

In line with this, Globe mentioned that the company is now offering free courier service to senior citizens and PWDs and other persons on a case-to-case basis.

Globe shall study further the possibility on how to make the same charge-free option available for other postpaid subscribers.

Laban Konsyumer suggested that there should be no added charge to other postpaid subscribers, except those who, since October 2015, agreed in writing to pay P50 in lieu of paper-

less billing.

Globe initiated e-billing to improve timeliness of bill statement delivery to customers and in line with its sustainability practice of protecting the environment.

Globe’s total mobile subscribers stood at 59.33 million at end-September, lower by 9 percent compared to last year’s 65.36 million subscribers.

Of the total, Globe had 2.47 million postpaid subscribers and 56.86 million prepaid subscribers.

The company’s home broadband subscribers totaled 1.26 million, up 9 percent from last year’s 1.15 million subscribers.

Meanwhile, Citibank has also postponed the charging for paper statement delivery fee until further notice.

SSS president urged to inhibit self in probe of execs in stock trading issue

By Rio N. Araja SOCIAL Security System Commissioner Jose Gabriel “Pompee” La Viña on Tuesday called on SSS president Emmanuel Dooc to inhibit himself from the investigation into the stock trading controversy involving four agency officials.

At the Kamuning Bakery forum,

‘Greetings’ ban set at airports AIRPORT employees and law enforcers are prohibited from greeting air travelers “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” this holiday season.

The ban covers all employees of Manila International Airport Authority, Aviation Security Group, as well as Immigration and Customs personnel.

A memorandum issued during the time of then MIAA general manager Alfonso Cusi directed employees to refrain from greeting passengers, as this was observed to be their way of indirectly asking for tips.

MIAA media affairs division Jesus Martinez said Cusi’s memo is being circulated yearly at the four terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to remind employees of the policy against soliciting money from passengers. Joel E. Zurbano

Brgy execs warned on obstructions

PH govt extends sympathy to typhoon victims in Vietnam

By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan

IN BRIEF

La Viña said he wanted Dooc to inhibit since “I heard from news report that it appears, it seems he [Dooc] is lawyering for the four may be because he could be emotionally close to them since he is the president, and that they see one another every day.”

He, however, said that he “cannot order anyone to inhibit.”

“If he thinks based on his judgment [that] he could not be objective, then he must inhibit himself,” he said.

“To the others [commissioners] who have personal or business relationship with the involved organizations, I think they must inhibit themselves, too. Mature people must consider inhibiting,” he added.

He said he himself inhibited to sit as part of the nine-member commission “because I am the complainant.”

La Viña believes there was an attempt to tamper with the evidence in a bid to cover up the anomalous trading stocks for the personal accounts of Executive Vice President for Investments Rizaldy Capulong, Equities Investment Division Chief

Reginald Candelaria and Equities Product Development Head Ernesto Francisco Jr. . Chief Actuary George Ongkeko Jr. was accused of failing to keep complete records of the three officials’ stock trades.

“There are some information reaching me that there is a conspiracy to tamper with the evidence,” he said.

CHAIRMAN Danilo Lim of the Metro Manila Development Authority warned barangay officials that they will be suspended if they will not cooperate with the government in the campaign against illegal parking and other obstruction.

The agency, according to Lim, has the power to recommend to the Department of the Interior and Local Government to suspend irresponsible public officials, including barangay captains.

The MMDA is complaining the lack of cooperation from leaders in the community hampers the government’s campaign against illegally-parked vehicles and other obstructions that mainly contributed to the worsening traffic situation in Metro Manila.

Lim came up with the warning as the MMDA resumed its clearing operation in Pasay City where a barangay outpost was also demolished because the structure was built along the sidewalk of a busy corner of Cuneta and Taft Avenues. Joel E. Zurbano

Govt quizzed on ‘deposit’ bill THE government has been ordered to file its comment on the petition filed by an organization of private hospitals and clinics questioning the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 10932 or the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law. In its en banc session on Tuesday, the Supreme Court required Malacañang and the Department of Health to answer the petition filed recently by Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. (PHAPi) against RA 10932.

The SC gave the respondents a nonextendible period of 10 days to comply with the order. Rey E. Requejo

Lady lawmakers hold fundraiser THE Association of Women Legislators Foundation Inc., headed by Deputy Speaker Linabelle Ruth R. Villarica, will be holding another fundraiser billed as “PamasCONG Handog: Garage Sale for a Cause Part 2” on Nov. 22-23, 2017 at the Southwing Lobby, House of Representatives.

For the benefit of the families of the fallen troops in Marawi City, the event will feature pre-loved and pre-owned items from Members of Congress as well as bazaar exhibitors who will showcase and sell a variety of products.

“PamasCONG Handog: Garage Sale for a Cause Part 2” is chaired by Rep. Juliette Uy and Rep. Malou Acosta-Alba.

CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK

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Manila

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017 sports_mstandard@yahoo.com

Irving stars as Celtics nail 7th win

L

OS ANGELES—Kyrie Irving exploded for 35 points to steer the Boston Celtics to a ninth consecutive victory on Monday as Golden State extended their winning streak to four games.

Irving broke the 30-point barrier for the first time since his summer move to the Celtics as Boston overcame a battling Atlanta Hawks side to win 110-107 on the road.

Boston needed a threepointer from Irving with 1min 37sec remaining to finally subdue the Hawks, giving the Celtics a 104-103 lead.

It was the final twist of a game that saw no fewer than 25 lead changes.

“He made huge plays down the stretch,” coach Brad Stevens said of Irving.

“I thought he not only made the plays, but he made a lot of right reads, too.”

Stevens said he suspected Irving might be due a big performance after an 11-point outing in his previous game at Orlando on Sunday.

“When you’re coaching against people, I always look at the box score for the

game before,” Stevens said.

“If they really struggled but they’re really good, that’s just scary stuff. Guys like that don’t have quiet nights twice in a row.”

Jayson Tatum also weighed in with a double-digit tally, scoring 21 points while pulling down eight rebounds.

Al Horford added 15 points while Jaylen Brown chipped in with 11 points.

But Irving’s virtuoso display was the main talking point amongst his teammates after the win.

“It’s exciting to be out there on his side, watching him do all those incredible things,” said Celtics rookie

Tatum. “He’s a great player.”

Irving, meanwhile, was pleased with the way Boston held on to close out the win.

“We had to get our act together,” Irving said. “You could just tell that mentally and physically, we were dragging a little bit.”

Boston now lead the Eastern Conference with a 9-2 record.

Atlanta, who had stunned Cleveland on Sunday in an upset win, are bottom of the conference at 2-9.

Warriors down ‘scrappy’ Heat In the Western Conference, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green steered Golden State to a scrappy 97-80 victory over

the Miami Heat at the Oracle Arena.

Durant scored 21 points with eight rebounds while Green weighed in with 18 points and nine rebounds as the Warriors were made to work for victory by a physical Miami team at Oracle Arena.

The win saw the Warriors improve to 8-3 in the standings, putting them alongside leaders Houston.

Warriors duo Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry had a relatively quiet night, with Thompson scoring 13.

Curry added 16 but had an off night with his normally reliable three-point shooting, making just two

of nine attempts.

“That’s a scrappy team,” Green said afterwards. “We knew coming into this game it was going to be tough, they were going to grab, they were going to hold.

“It wasn’t pretty we couldn’t make our shots, so we knew we had to just stick to the basics, play physical and grind out a win.”

Miami’s top scorer was James Johnson with 21 points, followed by Goran Dragic who scored 19 and Kelly Olynk with 10.

The Warriors had opened up a 50-37 halftime lead but were never able to fully cut loose from a dogged Miami team.

Miami rallied to cut a 20-point deficit to just 10 points in the third quarter but the Warriors were able to keep their opponents at arm’s length for the remainder of the contest.

In Monday’s other game, the Brooklyn Nets held off a late Phoenix Suns rally to clinch their first road victory of the season.

D’Angelo Russell scored 13 of a 23-point haul in the final nine minutes to help the Nets close out the 98-92 win in Phoenix.

“I just didn’t want to lose and wanted to do whatever it took to win,” said Russell. AFP

Philracom holds fillies stakes race

Best NBA teams hoop it up on Sky

IT’S always interesting to watch races JENNY featuring elite ORTUOSTE horses, particularly those with a special twist, and that’s what racing fans are going to get this Sunday (Nov. 12) at Santa Ana Park in Naic, Cavite.

The Philippine Racing Commission’s 2nd leg 3YO Imported Fillies Stakes attracted five entries, among the best young female horses campaigning.

Entered in the 1,800-meter race are SC Stockfarm’s Already Feisty and Brilliance, Mark Anthonny A. Calixto’s Anino, Amado S. Bagatsing’s Shukriya, and Roberto Iñigo’s Smokin Saturday.

Aside from the fact that SC Stockfarm is running coupled entries, giving you two bangs for your buck, I really like Brilliance’s past performance although I would not discount Smokin Saturday either.

Total prize money is P500,000, with P300,000 going to the winner and corresponding purses up to fourth. *** Congratulations to the winners of the Breeders’ Cup Championships held Nov. 3 and 4 at Del Mar racetrack in California.

The $6 million BC Classic was won by Gun Runner, who ran wire-to-wire with Collected running off the pace. They picked up speed at the far turn and battled down the stretch, Gun Runner winning by 2-1/4 lengths. The favorite, Arrogate, placed 5th in this, the final race of his career. 2nd Collected, 3rd West Coast.

Here are some other races I was interested in: In the Turf, Talismanic’s jockey Mickael Barzalona guided his mount between Beach Patrol and Highland Reel to nip their chances and win his first Cup. 2nd Beach Patrol, 3rd Highland Reel.

In the Juvenile, Bolt d’Oro, the favorite, took the first and second turns much too wide, allowing Good Magic to get a good position behind US Navy Flag and Solomini and rally down the stretch to win by 4-1/4 lengths. 2nd Solomini, 3rd Bolt d’Oro. In the Mile, World Approval, the favorite, ran off the pace from Heart to Heart and rallied close to the wire, winning by 1-1/4 lengths. 2nd Lancaster Bomber, 3rd Blackjackcat. *** I must admit I had my heart set on Arrogate in the Classic and was disappointed when he failed to fire.

Arrogate’s jockey, Mike Smith, blamed the track for his mount’s poor start. “He just doesn’t like this track. For whatever reason, I hate to say it, he has shown it time and time again and showed it today.”

I believe this because horses have personalities of their own. Quirks like preferring one track to another do exist and it’s a factor that must be considered when deciding where to run a horse or whether to back one.

The 4YO Arrogate will now retire to stud.

He ends his career with 7 wins out of 11 races and more than $17 million in earnings.

Along with many other racing fans, I look forward to his future progeny with interest. *** Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer and researcher. Facebook: Gogirl Racing and Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @gogirlracing and @jennyortuoste

THE 72nd season of the National Basketball Association is well underway and fans can watch multiple games per week on three different channels on SKY along with official programs, “NBA Action” and “NBA Inside Stuff” for the complete NBA experience.

On Thursday (Nov. 9), watch the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics go up against each other at 9 a.m. on Fox Sports 1.

This is followed up by the Minnesota Timberwolves going up against the defending champs, the Golden State Warriors at 11:30 a.m., also on Fox Sports 1.

On Friday (Nov. 10), it’s an embattled Cleveland Cavaliers being hosted at the Toyota Center by the Houston Rockets at 8:30 a.m. on S+A.

THE HOARSE WHISPERER

LOTTO RESULTS 6/55 00-00-00-00-00-00 6/45 00-00-00-00-00-00 4 DIGITS 0-0-0-0 3 DIGITS 0-0-0 2 EZ2 0-0

P0 M+ P0 M

ATLANTA, GA - NOVEMBER 06: Kyrie Irving #11 of the Boston Celtics drives against Malcolm Delaney #5 and Dewayne Dedmon #14 of the Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena on November 6, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. AFP

Stay in on Saturday morning for another two-game day on SKY. ABS-CBN Channel 2 will air the Atlanta Hawks – Detroit Pistons game at 8:30 am. Meanwhile, Fox Sports 1 will broadcast Blake Griffin’s LA Clippers at the Chesapeake Energy Arena as they go head to head with the Oklahoma City Thunder at 10 a.m.

Then on Sunday, it’s the Los Angeles Lakers again this time against the Milwaukee Bucks at the Bucks’ home court at 9:30 a.m. on S+A. On Monday, the Oklahoma City Thunder will host the Dallas Mavericks at 8 a.m. on S+A. Round up the NBA experience by watching its official shows that feature highlights and recaps for the week.

Villamor seizes control VILLAMOR put on a pair of strong efforts in the first two legs of the three-stage WGAP Cup at Riviera and Summit Point courses and moved closer to achieving what it had failed to do in the WGAP Circuit.

The Villamor ladies topped the first leg at Riviera’s Langer layout, scoring three points in the high-low format for Classes A and B players then matched Forest Hills and Sta. Elena’s 2.5-point outputs in the second leg at Summit under the best-ball format for Classes B and C players.

With 5.5 points, the Villamor ladies took a one-point lead over Forest Hills heading to the final leg today (Wednesday, Nov. 8) at

Splendito Taal Golf Club in Tagaytay where play shifts to Greensome format for Classes A and C players.

Villamor fell by just one point to Tagaytay Highlands in their spirited battle for the 2017 WGAP Circuit last month. But the Pasay-based squad came up with a big start at Langer to beat Alabang and Forest Hills, which scored two points piece.

Defending WGAP Cup champion Tagaytay Highlands struggled with 1.5 points while Sta. Elena turned in a onepoint output in the event sponsored by Champion Infinity which features the top five teams in the WGAP circuit organized by the Women’s Golf Association of the Philippines.

TABLE TENNIS SEMINAR IN DAVAO. Certified Philippine Table Tennis Federation Inc. conductor/coach Karen Jaleco [center] of Ateneo de Manila University successfully conducted a coaching/seminar in Davao, hosted by Region 11 head Dr. Louie Meltran.

In photo are the selected students and coaches who finished the PTTFI program organized by table tennis President Ting Ledesma.

PH bowler Tabora 3rd in World Cup THE Philippines’ Krizziah Tabora got off to a good start in the 53rd Bowling World Cup International Finals Monday by finishing third with 1364 pinfalls after the first six games of the women’s 24-game qualifying series in Hermosillo, Mexico.

Tabora, who also represented the country in the international finals in Poland in 2012, shot a high game of 264 and averaged 227.33 to check behind Sweden’s Jenny Wegner, who posted 1445, and Germany’s Vanessa Timiter, who tallied 1389.

Manila

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TODAY

Wegner highlighted her opening round with a perfect game 300.

The Philippines’ men’s contender, Jomar Roland Jumapao, rolled 1237 pins in six games to rank 19th in the 64-man field.

Mexico’s Arturo Estrada showed the way with 1433, followed by Catalonia’s Luis Montfort (1394), Italy’s Nicola Pangolini (1315), Finland’s Niko Oksanen (1309), Colombia’s Oscar Rodriguez (1279), Macau’s Derek Lee (1271), England’s Ray Teece (1269), Belgium’s Matts Maggi (1268), Costa Rica’s Marco Moretti (1266) and

Hong Kong’s Siu Hong Wu (1263).

Mexico’s Maribel Orozco came in fourth in the women’s division with 1355, followed by Colombia’s Rocio Restrepo (1312), Australia’s Rebecca Whiting (1270), Malaysia’s Siti Safiyah Amirah Abdul Rahman (1270), Dominican Republic’s Aumi Guerra (1269), Norway’s Ase Jacobsen (1240) and Netherlands’ Ghislaine Stigter-Van der Tol (1231).

The men’s and women’s bowlers will play three more six-game series to determine the top 24 who will move to the next round.

Republic of the Philippies Department of Environment and Natural Resources

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT BUREAU

DENR Compound, Visayas Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City 1116 Telephone Nos.: (632) 927-15-17,928-37-25; Fax No.: (632) 920-22-58 website:http://www.emb.gov.ph Email:mail@emb.gov.ph

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING Notice is hereby given to all parties who wish to participate in the Public Hearing for the proposed BATANGAS PETROCHEMICAL COMPLEX EXPANSION PROJECT of JG SUMMIT HOLDINGS, INC. (JGSHI) on 15 NOVEMBER 2017 (WEDNESDAY) at the BATANGAS PROVINCIAL AUDITORIUM, BATANGAS PROVINCIAL CAPITOL, NATIONAL ROAD, BRGY. KUMINTANG IBABA, BATANGAS CITY. Onsite registration is at 8:00 AM and the Public Hearing proper will start at 9:00 AM. The Public Hearing aims to achieve efficient exchange of information and views between and among the project proponent, the EMB-DENR, relevant agencies, LGUs and other stakeholders on the environmental impacts of the proposed project currently applying for an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).

JGSHI proposes to consolidate all seven (7) issued ECCs for the Petrochemical Complex and increase the capacities of the existing Naptha Cracker Plant and Polymer Plants. It involves the introduction of Bimodal Polyethylene, Butadiene Extraction and Aromatics Extraction, the expansion of tank farm facilities, CYAN and possibly new/additional/upgrade of pier and other utilities facilities.

Project name

Batangas Petrochemical Complex Expansion Project Project location Brgys. Simlong and Pinamucan Ibaba, Batangas City and area Covering 83 hectares (existing) Nature of Petroleum and Petrochemical based Project project Naptha Cracker Plant, Polymer Plants.

Components Introduction of Bimodal Polyethylene, Butadiene Extraction and Aromatics Extraction, Expansion of tank farm facilities, and possibly new/additional/upgrade of pier and other utilities facilities

All interested parties who wish to participate and be prioritized in the open forum during the Public Hearing may pre-register in person with the EMB submit a position paper to the EMB Central Office with address at DENR Compound, Visayas Avenue, Diliman Quezon City or EMB VI on or before 12 November 2017.

The project`s EPRMP and Executive Summary for the Public (ESP) are downloadable at EMB website: www.emb.gov.ph For more details, please contact the EIA and Management Division of EMB through Engr. Regina Paula Eugenio or Engr.

Joel Paolo Aragoncillo at telephone numbers (02) 920-2240 or (02) 920-2241.

(MS-NOV. 8, 2017)

CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK

Riera U. Mallari, Editor Reuel Vidal, Assistant Editor sports@thestandard.com.ph sports_mstandard@yahoo.com

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017

Foton dominates Iriga in PSL meet

Sports

REIGNING champion Foton expectedly had an easy time bouncing off a Grethcel Soltones-less Iriga City, 25-10, 2523, 25-19, yesterday in the Chooks to-Go-Philippine Superliga Grand Prix at the Filoil Flying V Centre.

Sara Klisura of Serbia and skipper Jaja Santiago powered the Tornadoes to the win as they remained undefeated in four outings in this tourney bankrolled by Cignal, Mikasa, Senoh, Mueller, Grand Sport, Rebisco, Island Rose, Cloudfone, UCPB Gen and Asics.

Klisura paced the assault with 10 kills, a block and an ace for a total of 12 points, while Santiago contributed 11 points.

Foton head coach Moro Branislav admitted that the Tornadoes relaxed a bit in the second set before they went for the kill in the deciding set.

“We were a little easy in the second set. We relaxed which is very difficult. It was good thing the local and foreign players jelled in the deciding set to win the match,” Branislav said.

Serbian Tamara Kmezic, the tallest import in the league, fired 17 points off 15 kills and a pair of service aces while Japanese Saam Miyagawa had 11 markers for the Lady Oragons, who fell to a 1-1 win-loss card.

Ex-SMB cager Rivera dies FORMER Philippine Basketball Association player Norberto “Norby” Z. Rivera succumbed to cancer last Nov. 6, 2017. He was 65 years old.

Rivera played for the San Sebastian Stags in the NCAA and for the San Miguel Beermen in the PBA. He was part of the Philippine team that captured the 1972 Asian Youth crown.

His teammates were Ed Carvajal, Atoy Co, Philip Cezar, Joy Dionisio, Rey Franco, Miguel Bilbao, Fernandez, Rino Salazar, Jimmy Noblezada, Ompong Segura and Marcelino Diputado under coach Fely Fajardo.

He was the Vice Chairman of Manila Sports Council prior to his passing. His remains lie in state at the Loyola Memorial Park Chapel in Marikina City. Inurnment is on Nov. 11, Saturday.

Tamara Kmezic of Iriga is rejected by Foton’s Jaja Santiago and CJ Rosario. Roman Prospero

It’s Lions-Pirates in finals

By Peter Atencio

T

HE San Beda Red Lions showed composure and stayed in control all throughout, pulling off a 76-71 win over the San Sebastian College Stags on Tuesday to make a return trip to the finals for the 12th straight year in the 93rd NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Mall of Asia Arena.

points, made a three-pointer with 7:50 left allowing San Beda to move away, 63-55.

The Red Lions then forced two turnovers with their trapping defense, and with the Stags in foul trouble, led to charities from Bolick and Donald Tankoua, who sent SBC further ahead, 67-57, in the final 5:40.

“They (Stags) had a good run this year. Coach Egay (Macaraya) turned them into a fighting team,” said Red Lions coach Boyet Fernandez.

Mocon drilled in 23 points and hauled down 22 rebounds, keeping San Beda out of reach, 74-62, with his charities in the final 3:46.

Tankoua shot 13 points and shared the rebounding load with Mocon with 11.

Meanwhile, Joel Cagulangan fought off leg cramps as he fired 29 points, leading the La Salle Greenhills Greenies to a 110-108 upset of the multi-titled San Beda Red Cubs in triple overtime to advance to the finals.

The 17-year-old Cagulangan broke the game’s last deadlock in the last 59.2 seconds with a quick drive, 105-103.

After that, cramps took its toll on the Red Cubs, with the prolific Evan Nelle leaving the game with leg cramps as well. Nelle produced a teamhigh 26 points.

Game Friday (Game 1 Araneta Coliseum) 1 p.m. Malayan vs LSGH (jrs) 3:30 p.m. – SBC vs LPU (Srs)

With big man Germy Mahinay out on cramps also, the Greenies still padded their edge to four off Jacob Lao’s two charities in the remaining 26 seconds, 107-103.

“This is what they have been practicing for everyday at hangga’t hindi sumusuko ang katawan mo,” said LSGH coach Marvin Bienvenida.

Joshua Marcos had 16 points for LSGH, which returned to finals after last making it in Season 89.

The Greenies arranged a

best-of-three finals showdown with the defending champion Malayan High School of Science Red Robins, also starting this Friday.

The Red Cubs, who drew 22 points from Ain Obenza, missed the finals for the first time in nine years.

Greenies cager Mark Sangco drove with 10 seconds left, while Nelle missed a buzzer-beating triple sending the contest into its first overtime, 78-all.

Cagulangan, who had five treys, tied the match with a three-pointer in the last 1:25, while Nelle bungled another triple at the buzzer forcing the second extension, 89-all.

Drawing big points from Javee Mocon and Robert Bolick Jr., the Red Lions went on to arrange a championship showdown with the thrice-to-beat Lyceum Pirates starting on Friday at the Araneta Coliseum.

As the end of the game came near, the Stags did not have enough time to move

any closer after charging back from a 12-point deficit in the remaining three minutes.

Jayson David shot 16 points for the Stags, with his layup in the last 8:04 giving the Stags one of their last chances to catch up with the Red Lions at 55-60.

But Bolick, who had 21

Intact Gilas continues buildup for Fiba Asia tilt

Soltones sacking criticized; Superliga stands by it

By Jeric Lopez GILAS Pilipinas is very much intact as it continues to train for the upcoming FIBA Asia Qualifiers later this month.

Five days into training, the Nationals are slowly but surely gaining steam as most members of the pool are constantly taking part in the practice sessions thus far.

Usual Gilas suspects June Mar Fajardo, Gabe Norwood, Jayson Castro, Troy Rosario and Calvin Abueva, along with Matthew Wright, Raymund Almazan, Allein Maliksi, Mac Belo, Roger Pogoy, Carl Bryan Cruz, Kevin Alas and Kiefer Ravena are the regulars, while Japeth Aguilar was also in attendance to start the camp last Friday.

Naturalized star Andray Blatche is set to arrive early next week to join the team, while ace guard Terrence Romeo is likewise expected to join the team the soonest after his promotional obligations outside the country.

The Gilas quintet face Japan in Tokyo on Nov. 24 to start its campaign before heading back home on the 27th to take on Chinese Taipei in front of its home crowd at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

National coach Chot Reyes’ squad will continue its intensive training in the next two weeks to make sure it will be in the best possible shape heading to the all-important games.

The team is holding its practices at the Meralco Gym in Ortigas behind closed doors to prevent it from being scouted and exposed.

SPORTS Vision, which organizes the Premier Volleyball League, on Tuesday branded Philippine Superliga’s suspension of Grethcel Soltones as ridiculous, stressing that the PVL top player is not in any way under contract with the PSL and is only on loan to Iriga City team.

“The suspension and hefty fine on (Gretchel) Soltones by the PSL officials is absurd and totally uncalled for,” Sports Vision president Ricky Palou said in a statement. “In the first place, Soltones has no contract with the PSL. She is only on loan to the team of Iriga as her mother league is the PVL.”

Palou also pointed out that the PVL All Star Game is one-day charity event held for the benefit of HERO Foundation, a foundation established to raise scholarship funds for children of soldiers who gave up their lives in the line of duty.

“I don’t see anything wrong with what Gretchel did. In fact she should be commended for helping in this fund raising event by her participation,” said Palou.

He added that the All-Star event is an annual undertaking staged to benefit a charitable institution or victims of calamities. The PVL All

Star has been scheduled at the start of the 2017 PVL Season even before Soltones has been borrowed by Iriga to play for them.

Citing its one-league policy, the PSL on Monday suspended the former San Sebastian star and manytime NCAA MVP for one year and fined her P50,000 for suiting up in the PVL fund-raiser.

Meanwhile, PSL team owners, in an emergency meeting at 11 a.m.

Monday, unanimously voted to deny the appeal by Team Iriga for reconsideration of Soltones’ one-year ban and penalties for playing in an un-

sanctioned match outside of the PSL. The vote was 7-0, upholding the league’s decision to ban and fine Soltones, who should have been under contract with Team Iriga for one year.

Team Iriga, however, does not have a contract yet with Soltones, to the dismay of league officials, who have imposed a rule on all teams to sign their players to a minimum of one-year contract on a one-league policy, meaning players could not play outside of the PSL while they are under contract with their respective teams.

Team Iriga could not vote during the deliberation.

Younghusbands to lead PH Azkals again A 23-MAN squad will lead the Philippine Azkals in their quest for a slot in the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup UAE 2019.

The Younghusband brothers Phil and James will spearhead the the Azkals when they face Nepal in Match Day 5 of the qualifiers on Nov. 14 at the ANFA Complex in Kathmandu, Nepal.

This encounter is a crucial once since a win over Nepal will ensure the Philippines’ qualification to the final round for the very first time, with a game to spare.

The Philippines is on top of Group F

with eight (8) points, while Nepal is in last place with one (1) point.

The Azkals began their Asian Cup campaign with a convincing 4-1 win against Nepal last 28 March 2017 at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manila.

It was Phil Younghusband, who scored twice in the match while Iain Ramsay and Javier Patiño made a goal each.

Among the 23 players who have been called up for the Nepal match are Former Philippine Under-22 player and

Global Cebu forward Paolo Salenga and Ceres Negros forward Joshua Dutosme.

There’s Kaya FC Makati midfielder Marwin Angeles, who is back in the national team after last joining in 2014.

Misagh Bahadoran also returns to the squad after missing out in the draw against Yemen last Oct. 10.

Javier Patiño, Amani Aguinaldo, Manny Ott, and Luke Woodland are still out of the squad due to injuries Other players include Marwin Angeles, Fitch Arboleda, Dylan de Bruycker, Carlos de Murga and Patrick Deyto.

Phil Younghusband

1st of 2 must-win games for FEU today Games Today (at the Araneta Coliseum) 2 p.m. FEU vs NU 4 p.m. Ateneo vs UP

THE Far Eastern University Tamaraws have a great chance to reach the Final Four of the 80th University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball tournament.

And in order to make it, the Tams will need to win their last two games in the second round, including their 2 p.m. duel with the National University Bulldogs at the Araneta Coliseum.

Coach Nash Racela said a lot of improvements will have to happen to the Tams’ game if they want to hurdle the Bulldogs.

“One is our slow start, another is our turnovers. But as a coach, I take a look at the positives and that’s on our second half (performance),” said Racela after they stopped the University of the East Warriors, 79-63, last Sunday.

As the Tams seek their 7th win in 13 matches, Racela said their strong second-half performance against the Warriors helped them win the game.

And he is upbeat that the team will show that same intensity against the Bulldogs in the second half as well.

“I hope we carry that momentum we got in the second half against UE in our Wednesday game,” added Racela.

The Bulldogs are struggling to stay in contention with their 4-8 slate.

Later, the unbeaten Ateneo Blue Eagles will clash with the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons at 4 p.m.

The Blue Eagles own a 12-0 card, while the Maroons have a 4-8 slate in sixth. Peter Atencio

Filipinas, Thais clash as Ladies PH Golf Tour starts

Pauline Del Rosario shoots for a fourth crown in the last five legs of the ICTSI Ladies Philippine Golf Tour.

ANTIPOLO—The ICTSI Forest Hills Ladies Challenge gets going today (Wednesday) with in-form Pauline del Rosario and two Symetra Tour campaigners heading the locals’ charge against a crack Thailand crew at the Forest Hills Golf and Country Club here.

Del Rosario shoots for a fourth crown in the last five legs of the ICTSI Ladies Philippine Golf Tour with the talented 18-year-old rookie pro also looking for a follow-up to her stirring come-from-behind victory in Taiwan LPGA

Tour last month.

She kicks off her bid against Mia Piccio, the Symetra Tour veteran who is priming up for the LPGA Q-School Final Stage later this month, and Jaruporn P Naayutthawa, one of the six Thai aces raring to stamp their class in the eighth leg of the 10-stage circuit organized by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc. The troika tees off at 8:10 a.m. after which Cyna Rodriguez, the other Symetra Tour campaigner, opens her drive in the circuit, which she dominated in its first

three seasons. Rodriguez, who played one season in the LPGA Tour, will play alongside former LPGT leg winner Sarah Ababa and Thai Tiranan Yoopan.

Focus will also be on Wannarisi Sirisampant, who marked her LPGT debut with a runaway six-stroke victory over Chihiro Ikeda at Manila Southwoods in 2015. She starts at 7:50 a.m. in the company of Gretchen Villacencio and amateur Samantha Dizon.

Ikeda, on the other hand, will slug it out with Thai Su-

pakchaya Pattaranakrueang at 8 a.m. along with Mafy Singson, the other amateur seeing action in the event sponsored

by ICTSI and backed by Custom Clubmakers, BDO, Meralco, Sharp, KZG, PLDT, Champion, Summit Mineral Water and K&G Golf.

Amolkan Phalajivin is also making a comeback of sorts to the circuit where she won once at Splendido in 2014 with the comely Thai shotmaker hoping to put up a strong start on a windy, hazard-laden course that requires solid shotmaking and iron play.

Ayala Land ups profit to P17.8b B2

Business

Ray S. Eñano, Editor Roderick T. dela Cruz, Assistant Editor business@manilastandard.net extrastory2000@gmail.com WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017

B1

October inflation sped up to 3.5%

By Julito G. Rada

Meralco rates likely to rise in November

T

HE inflation rate in October accelerated to 3.5 percent from 3.4 percent a month ago, the fastest in almost three years, driven mainly by higher annual increases in the prices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco, utilities and fuel products, the Philippine Statistics Authority said Tuesday.

By Alena Mae S. Flores

GENERATION charges of Manila Electric Co. may go up this month due to higher rates at the Wholesale Electricity Electricity Spot Market and the impact of the peso depreciation.

Meralco spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said Tuesday the anticipated higher generation charges could push up November power rates. Meralco is set to announce this month’s generation charges this week.

“There are indications that generation charge will likely increase, which may push up total electricity rates up for the month of November, since gen charge accounts for more than 50 percent of the rate component,” Zaldarriaga said.

He attributed the higher generation charges to the higher WESM rates because of tight supply conditions last month when a number of plants went on unscheduled outages.

“Likewise, peso depreciation also strongly effects gen charge movement. In October, the peso weakened against the US dollar which may also influence generation prices,” Zaldarriaga said.

He said the exchange rate in October was also the highest since August 2006.

WINE FESTIVAL. The 17th Grand Wine Experience slated on Nov 24, 5 p.m. at the ballroom of Marriott Hotel, Resorts World is now on its final preparation. The festival “Degustation,” now the biggest wines and sprits event in Asia, is organized by Philippine Wine Merchants and Ralphs Wines and Spirits. PWM represented by Renzo Joseph (seated, center) hosts a dinner with a preview of wines and spirits conducted by some of their co-presentors for invited guests.

San Miguel Yamamura acquires Australia’s Best Bottlers

By Jenniffer B. Austria CONGLOMERATE San Miguel Corp. said Tuesday its international packaging business—San Miguel Yamamura Packaging International Ltd.— acquired Australia’s Best Bottlers Pty. Ltd. (Best Bottlers).

San Miguel said in a statement the acquisition would enable the company to further boost its packaging presence in the Australasian region.

Located in Victoria, Australia, Best Bottlers is a wine bottling and packaging facility specializing in various formats of contract filling, including still and sparkling wines, cider, ready-to-drink and non-alcoholic beverages, including fruit juices.

The acquisition was done through SMYPIL’s Australian subsidiary, San Miguel Yamamura Australasia Pty. Ltd. The conglomerate did not disclose other details of

the deal, including the acquisition cost.

This will be the fifth acquisition of SMYPIL in region and third for this year.

Earlier this year, San Miguel’s packaging arm acquired Barossa Bottling and Portavin, both in Australia.

It earlier acquired the assets of Endeavor Glass of New Zealand, and the cork and wine closures business of Vinocor and Cospak, another major packaging provider in Australia.

“As domestic and export demands grow, we continue to look for synergies and more opportunities for our packaging business,” San Miguel president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said.

Aside from overseas expansion, Ang said the group was also building a new glass plant in Cavite set to be operational by the end of 2018.

“Other than glass, we also see the potential to grow other packaging formats like

cans, plastics, and tolling businesses,” Ang said.

Ang in May said the conglomerate was spending $700 million to build the an integrated packaging facility in Davao City.

The facility to be located within the company’s 2,000 hectare industrial estate will have a glass manufacturing plant with a capacity of 800,000 metric tons, as well as a plastic and carton converting plant.

San Miguel expects to finish the project over the next two years.

The October rate brought the average inflation in the first 10 months to 3.1 percent, slightly higher than the midpoint of the government’s official target range of 2 percent to 4 percent this year.

The October inflation was the fastest since the 3.7-percent recorded in November 2014, confirming the earlier projection of the Finance Department that consumer prices likely peaked for the month. It was also significantly faster than 2.3 percent a year ago.

However, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said inflation would remain manageable over the policy horizon after taking into account the latest assessment of price levels in October.

“Inflation is projected to settle near the midpoint of the national government’s target range of 2 to 4 percent in 2017 to 2019. Firm domestic economic activity, ample liquidity, and well-anchored inflation expectations continue to support withintarget inflation,” Espenilla said.

He said the monetary authorities would remain vigi-

lant against any risks to the inflation outlook to ensure the monetary policy stance remains consistent with the mandate of preserving price stability conducive to economic growth.

National Economic and Development Authority director-general and Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said upside risks became more prominent as the holiday season approached.

“This warrants close monitoring of the rising prices in domestic petroleum as well as utility rates,” Pernia said.

Pernia added the government must be consistently on the watch for developments in climate conditions, considering that weather patterns and events had a direct impact on food supply and prices.

“We must also ensure a stable and sufficient level of the country’s rice stock.

This is an important policy concern given that rice comprises a sizable portion of the CPI basket. Deciding the appropriate timing of rice importation is vital to avoid supply disruptions. There is also a need to amend domestic laws to end the quantitative restrictions on rice,” Pernia said.

B2

Business

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017 extrastory2000@gmail.com

Ayala Land ups profit to P17.8b Exchange orders delisting of Calata THE Philippine Stock Exchange ordered the delisting of embattled Calata Corp. from the official registry of the exchange for committing multiple violations of the exchange’s disclosure rules.

The PSE in a memorandum also ordered Calata to conduct a tender offer to the minority shareholders of the company.

“Please be informed that, following the conclusion of the involuntary delisting involving the company, the exchange issued a decision dated November 3 ordering the delisting of the company’s shares from the official registry of the exchange and imposition of the concomitant penalties under the exchange’s delisting rules,” PSE president Ramon Monzon said.

The exchange has not yet set the actual delisting date pending the tender offer to be conducted by the company to minority shareholders as of June 2017.

The PSE said the tender offer would provide the minority shareholders an exit mechanism before the company is officially delisted. Trading of Calata shares will remain suspended.

Jenniffer B. Austria

By Jenniffer B. Austria

M

AJOR property developer Ayala Land Inc. registered a net income of P17.8 billion in the first nine months of the year, up 18 percent year-on-year, boosted by record-high sales and steady growth in leasing income.

Ayala Land’s nine-month consolidated revenues grew 16 percent to P98.9 billion, from P85.49 billion a year ago, as real estate revenues rose 15 percent to a record P96.4 billion from a year ago level.

Residential sales surged 28 percent to P60 billion, while office for sale climbed 44 percent to P6.7 billion.

Sales of commercial and industrial lots contributed P4.8 billion, up eight

percent from a year ago level .

“We have seen a marked increase in our residential property sales in the first three quarters of 2017. Together with the continued build-up of our leasing assets, this has led to a strong top and bottom line growth for the company. Moving forward, we remain committed to introducing market-responsive products that will better serve our customers and sustain the business results of the company,” Ayala Land president and chief executive Bernard Vincent Dy said Friday.

Reservation sales in the first nine months of the year amounted to P94.2 billion, which international sales accounting for 20 percent.

Revenues from commercial leasing business increased 10 percent in the first nine months of the year to P21.06 billion from P19.17 billion year ago, as shopping centers posted sales of P11.7 billion, up 11 percent on year.

The group’s mall business covered 1.7 million square meters of gross leasable space as of end September this year.

Office leasing contributed P4.4 billion in sales, an increase of 11 percent from last year’s level, while hotel and resorts added P4.8 billion, up six percent higher from 2016 level, after the sector expanded its number of rooms to 2,509 with the opening of new rooms in Sicogon.

It is also scheduled to open the 154room Seda Capitol Central in Bacolod and 20-room Hotel Covo in Lio this year.

Ayala Land said it spent P63.2 billion for project and capital expenditures by the end of September 2017, with 49 percent used on the completion of residential projects and 28 percent on commercial leasing projects.

Ayala Land spent the balance of 23 percent on land acquisition, new businesses, services and development of its estates.

MANILA STANDARD BUSINESS DAILY STOCKS REVIEW TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2017

VALUE

NET FOREIGN BUYING/(SELLING), PHP

FINANCIALS 4.8 139,000 59.95 1,610 98 2,180,380 3.9 21,000 145 1,509,880 2.04 3,150,000 33.55 163,600 15.92 67,600 31.75 398,600 1.75 8,000 940.5 40 0.64 503,000 94 4,071,730 0.79 1,880,000 12.5 87,800 25 13,600 57.8 10,600 244 1,360 100.4 90 90 1,440 56.6 248,170 253 95,370 1,930 15 86.8 162,220 1.3 66,000

653,420 96,449 213,639,880.50 81,900 217,135,362 6,436,090 5,485,220 1,075,840 12,683,960 14,020 37,620 323,050 379,638,595.50 1,492,040 1,106,090 340,000 612,327.50 326,732 9,026 128,860 14,066,385 24,055,440 28,950 14,075,987.50 87,430

78,900 29,375 -8,852,630 21,737,265 32,330 820,750 -5,266,915 229,846,203 159,000 -144,493.50 -237,644 -7,884,939.50 6,491,080 -10,723,214 -

41.2 11.98 0.74 1.35 19 0.217 103 4.1 14.72 44 18.6 1.86 5.7 11.3 10.2 14.88 12.22 7.15 5.83 1.63 18.34 63.05 20.2 12.06 18.9 1.75 250.6 58.5 4.01 3.02 20.85 30.5 18.84 17.52 292 0.201 10.5 2.8 6.52 9.8 7.4 9.5 1.67 11.6 61.2 6.52 455 4.86 4.8 2.12 12.8 4.72 0.138 1.2 139 2.97 2.1 0.92

INDUSTRIAL 41.4 742,100 12.14 573,900 0.75 525,000 1.36 264,000 19.1 11,100 0.217 1,660,000 103 10 4.37 34,719,000 15.2 2,318,500 44.9 693,400 20.8 113,600 1.9 229,000 5.93 87,500 11.3 3,800 10.22 3,602,600 14.96 413,600 12.28 52,200 7.25 710,300 5.86 7,934,100 1.63 533,000 18.44 579,800 63.3 81,300 20.2 4,090,500 12.06 3,053,100 19.06 1,050,300 1.76 308,000 253.4 790,140 63 200 4.01 1,265,000 3.02 57,000 22.35 600 31 81,400 18.9 167,300 17.9 8,761,900 294.6 389,970 0.204 1,030,000 10.8 23,300 2.8 76,000 6.78 1,046,600 10 5,020,000 7.7 331,600 9.55 3,800 1.68 1,950,000 11.7 704,000 61.2 750,670 6.53 34,600 455 915,700 5.02 758,000 4.9 174,000 2.14 378,000 13.02 713,600 4.78 215,000 0.138 520,000 1.2 27,000 139.5 2,410,400 2.97 13,000 2.11 8,503,000 0.92 378,000

30,810,750 6,947,972 388,590 356,680 214,266 361,530 1,030 150,019,490 34,863,718 31,036,520 2,393,338 432,380 499,325 42,940 36,819,310 6,178,736 639,608 5,153,343 46,456,159 870,380 10,667,446 5,141,980.50 93,928,500 36,941,274 20,261,282 541,710 199,219,888 11,970 5,095,420 174,700 13,260 2,513,050 3,159,342 1 156,345,798 114,322,568 208,200 247,200 212,910 7,046,427 50,170,890 2,529,947 36,165 3,279,410 8,270,680 46,353,217 225,748 494,145,937 3,793,430 852,130 804,760 9,194,634 1,026,640 71,760 32,400 339,411,359 38,880 18,067,290 352,140

5,694,000 9,696 2,720 73,780 -85,173,520 11,614,796 89,520 -79,800 1,541,162 1,469,098 -78,450 1,460,202 -5,737,122 5,031,584 -4,200,125 -399,900 346,142 -1,430,078 -123,000 99,328,082 -164,980 18,180 296,545 ,912,613.9997 74,604,704 -4,038,270 -4,020 -190,490 805,176 23,085,125 7,920 1,681,000 -1,239,936 -9,916,685 16,952 -231,450,176 574,740 9,800 2,060,568 -271,900 69,000 118,775,695 212,080 -

0.34 74.3 16 7.06 0.465 0.465 1,080 8.48 15.8 7.79 5.1 5.2 1,210 7.9 76.95 5.1 0.82 5.8 17.68 6.88 0.05 1.28 2.08 124.5 2.6 994 1.43 300 0.25 0.186

0.33 73.1 15.68 7.06 0.44 0.45 1,053 8.36 15.62 7.6 5 5.2 1,176 7.68 75.75 4.95 0.79 5.65 17.2 6.7 0.048 1.23 2.07 107 2.59 970 1.43 281 0.24 0.185

HOLDING FIRMS 0.34 1,940,000 74.3 412,050 15.96 5,388,700 7.06 7,600 0.45 9,570,000 0.45 930,000 1,075 296,965 8.48 433,100 15.7 9,364,800 7.6 5,000 5.1 10,000 5.2 400 1,194 133,135 7.9 456,200 76.95 549,390 5.05 9,600 0.82 424,000 5.7 2,033,200 17.54 3,612,000 6.75 16,148,600 0.049 24,330,000 1.28 1,583,000 2.08 29,000 114.8 1,647,330 2.59 10,000 975 298,510 1.43 2,178,000 281 4,190 0.245 3,040,000 0.185 170,000

644,950 30,571,698.50 85,075,904 53,656 4,278,750 422,100 318,275,610 3,639,194 1 147,129,368 38,342 50,610 2,080 159,039,125 3,603,461 42,117,718.50 48,035 337,110 11,600,088 62,989,138 109,287,064 1,192,330 1,986,680 60,140 189,430,251 25,950 291,478,300 3,114,540 1,229,846 754,400 31,570

33,000 18,044,409 -9,228,386 12,799,985 ,422,517.9999 -29,208,984 30,870,030 19,924,557.50 -16,000 7,454,969 -33,913,494 -31,569,581 48,000 12,700 32,720,289 -112,851,810 -900,900 -11,800 -352,500 -

5.45 1.03 2.47 0.98 45.8 3.9 5.1 5.44 0.52 1.22 1.27 0.206 0.48 40 0.142 1.96 1.62 0.87 5.72 0.34 0.415 0.53 6.85

5.36 1 2.43 0.95 44.7 3.83 5 5.35 0.51 1.22 1.23 0.2 0.465 39.6 0.14 1.92 1.54 0.8 5.61 0.32 0.395 0.51 6.7

1,055,703 9,076,660 196,470 1,798,280 376,156,130 1,735,540 6,943,452 330,591 5,716,310 143,960 161,920 1,049,780 213,650 13,313,700 317,220 10,254,700 13,547,570 699,480 107,217,494 8,492,650 2,436,850 2,787,490 10,601,030

8,000 -109,640 46,014,660 -486,310 -100,163 100,455 -3,149,760 46,500 1,188,325 -3,308,160 -201,700 5,021,804 12,000 102,000 184,977

NAME

OPEN

HIGH

LOW

CLOSE

AG FINANCE ASIA UNITED BANK PH ISLANDS BDO LEASING BDO UNIBANK BRIGHT KINDLE CHINABANK COL FINANCIAL EAST WEST BANK IREMIT MANULIFE MEDCO HLDG METROBANK NTL REINSURANCE PB BANK PBCOM PHIL NATL BANK PHIL STOCK EXCH PHILTRUST PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK SUN LIFE UNION BANK VANTAGE

4.7 59.95 98 3.9 145.2 2.12 33.5 15.9 32.35 1.78 940.5 0.64 91.15 0.81 12.6 25 57.8 240 100.2 89 57.15 251.8 1,930 87 1.34

4.88 59.95 98.5 3.9 145.7 2.13 33.6 15.92 32.35 1.78 940.5 0.65 94 0.81 12.62 25 58.2 244 100.4 90 57.15 254.2 1,930 87 1.34

4.57 59.5 97.5 3.9 141 1.97 33.45 15.22 31.65 1.68 940.5 0.64 91.1 0.79 12.5 25 57.7 240 100.2 89 56.4 250.2 1,930 86.5 1.3

ABOITIZ POWER AGRINURTURE ALLIANCE SELECT ALSONS CONS ASIABEST GROUP BASIC ENERGY BOGO MEDELLIN CEMEX HLDG CENTURY FOOD CIRTEK HLDG CNTRL AZUCARERA CROWN ASIA DAVINCI CAPITAL DEL MONTE DNL INDUS EAGLE CEMENT EEI CORP EMPERADOR ENERGY DEVT EUROMED FIRST GEN FIRST PHIL HLDG GINEBRA HOLCIM INTEGRATED MICR IONICS JOLLIBEE LIBERTY FLOUR LMG CHEMICALS MABUHAY VINYL MACAY HLDG MANILA WATER MAXS GROUP MEGAWIDE MERALCO MG HLDG PANASONIC PEPSI COLA PETROENERGY PETRON PHIL H2O PHINMA PHINMA ENERGY PHX PETROLEUM PILIPINAS SHELL PRYCE CORP PUREFOODS RFM CORP ROXAS HLDG SFA SEMICON SHAKEYS PIZZA SPC POWER SWIFT FOODS TKC METALS UNIV ROBINA VICTORIAS VITARICH VULCAN INDL

41.25 12.16 0.75 1.35 19.76 0.219 103 4.25 14.74 44.7 18.92 1.9 5.7 11.3 10.34 14.9 12.28 7.19 5.86 1.63 18.36 63.5 24.1 12.1 19.6 1.76 251.6 58.5 4.09 3.12 20.85 30.5 18.84 17.52 295.6 0.205 10.7 2.81 6.52 9.9 7.4 9.5 1.69 11.7 62.65 6.52 555 4.86 4.9 2.12 12.9 4.72 0.138 1.2 145.2 3 2.12 0.94

41.95 12.18 0.75 1.38 19.78 0.22 103 4.4 15.28 44.9 23 1.92 5.93 11.3 10.34 15 12.28 7.31 5.88 1.75 18.46 63.5 25.2 12.1 19.68 1.78 254 63 4.1 3.13 22.35 31 18.94 17.96 295.6 0.205 10.9 2.81 6.82 10.04 7.95 9.55 1.69 11.9 62.65 6.68 640 5.1 4.92 2.14 13.02 4.82 0.138 1.2 145.2 3.03 2.15 0.94

ABACORE CAPITAL ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL ANSCOR ATN HLDG A ATN HLDG B AYALA CORP COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG FILINVEST DEV FJ PRINCE A FJ PRINCE B GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV JG SUMMIT JOLLIVILLE HLDG LODESTAR LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP METRO PAC INV PACIFICA PRIME MEDIA PRIME ORION SAN MIGUEL CORP SEAFRONT RES SM INVESTMENTS SOLID GROUP TOP FRONTIER UNIOIL HLDG WELLEX INDUS

0.34 74.1 16 7.06 0.46 0.465 1,070 8.47 15.8 7.6 5 5.2 1,191 7.9 76.75 5 0.82 5.65 17.28 6.83 0.049 1.25 2.07 107 2.6 994 1.43 295 0.25 0.186

8990 HLDG A BROWN ARANETA PROP ARTHALAND CORP AYALA LAND BELLE CORP CEB LANDMASTERS CEBU HLDG CENTURY PROP CITY AND LAND CITYLAND DEVT CROWN EQUITIES CYBER BAY DOUBLEDRAGON EVER GOTESCO FILINVEST LAND GLOBAL ESTATE IRC PROP MEGAWORLD MRC ALLIED PHIL ESTATES PHIL REALTY PRIMEX CORP

5.45 1.02 2.47 0.97 45 3.88 5.09 5.4 0.52 1.22 1.23 0.2 0.465 39.8 0.142 1.95 1.6 0.87 5.7 0.34 0.41 0.51 6.84

VOLUME

NAME

OPEN

HIGH

LOW

CLOSE

VOLUME

VALUE

NET FOREIGN BUYING/(SELLING), PHP

ROBINSONS LAND ROCKWELL SHANG PROP SM PRIME HLDG STA LUCIA LAND STARMALLS SUNTRUST HOME VISTA LAND

25.15 1.81 3.17 37.1 1.01 6.67 0.85 6.06

25.7 1.82 3.18 37.65 1.02 7.27 0.87 6.11

25.15 1.81 3.17 36.5 1.01 6.67 0.85 6.03

25.7 1.82 3.17 37.15 1.02 7.27 0.85 6.1

801,400 405,000 28,000 3,919,800 519,000 2,100 12,000 8,275,000

20,400,280 733,150 88,780 145,840,135 525,500 15,207 10,220 50,147,450

3,635,695 52,490 -92,520,495 2,045,672

2GO GROUP ABS CBN ACESITE HOTEL APC GROUP APOLLO GLOBAL ASIAN TERMINALS BLOOMBERRY BOULEVARD HLDG CEBU AIR CENTRO ESCOLAR CHELSEA DFNN INC FAR EASTERN U GLOBE TELECOM GMA NETWORK GOLDEN HAVEN HARBOR STAR IMPERIAL INTL CONTAINER IPEOPLE IPM HLDG ISLAND INFO ISM COMM JACKSTONES LBC EXPRESS LEISURE AND RES LORENZO SHIPPNG MACROASIA MANILA BULLETIN MANILA JOCKEY MELCO RESORTS METRO RETAIL MLA BRDCASTING NOW CORP PACIFIC ONLINE PAL HLDG PAXYS PHIL RACING PHIL SEVEN CORP PHILWEB PLDT PREMIUM LEISURE PRMIERE HORIZON PUREGOLD ROBINSONS RTL SBS PHIL CORP SSI GROUP STI HLDG TRAVELLERS WATERFRONT WILCON DEPOT

19.12 39.2 1.63 0.51 0.049 11 10.28 0.066 107.1 8.91 9.37 7.08 970 2,040 5.96 18.1 3.2 2.55 102.7 12.48 8.36 0.155 1.37 3.06 15.4 4.18 1.29 21 0.55 2.75 7.01 4.04 17.2 2.45 11.18 5.08 3.03 7.81 179 8.51 1,714 1.39 0.385 51.4 95 6 3.7 1.9 3.9 1.04 8.26

19.4 39.2 1.63 0.52 0.049 11 10.44 0.068 107.1 8.91 9.45 7.6 970 2,070 6 18.1 3.25 2.78 104 12.48 8.38 0.156 1.39 3.14 15.8 4.3 1.29 21.3 0.55 2.79 7.1 4.04 17.2 2.46 11.18 5.1 3.03 7.81 179 8.67 1,721 1.39 0.385 52 95.45 6.04 3.7 1.92 3.9 1.05 8.31

19.1 38.55 1.6 0.5 0.048 11 10.22 0.066 101.9 8.91 9.31 7.08 970 2,020 5.95 18.04 3.06 2.55 102.7 12.48 8.33 0.153 1.33 3.06 15.4 4.12 1.26 20.55 0.54 2.74 6.91 3.97 17.2 2.32 10.96 5 3.03 7.7 179 8.45 1,684 1.37 0.385 51.15 93.65 5.95 3.5 1.78 3.8 1 8

SERVICES 19.12 38.9 1.6 0.52 0.049 11 10.36 0.067 103.1 8.91 9.38 7.6 970 2,050 6 18.04 3.16 2.7 103 12.48 8.34 0.154 1.39 3.14 15.8 4.2 1.27 21 0.54 2.79 6.96 3.97 17.2 2.44 10.96 5.08 3.03 7.7 179 8.49 1,721 1.37 0.385 51.25 94 6.03 3.52 1.81 3.85 1.01 8.2

38,300 136,400 102,000 3,651,000 72,400,000 1,500 20,144,900 5,870,000 425,470 500 1,477,700 24,400 10 73,965 134,300 15,800 10,156,000 49,000 897,230 1,000 355,000 2,260,000 1,075,000 42,000 5,300 1,142,000 1,237,000 2,352,400 218,000 41,000 2,290,000 1,327,000 200 6,294,000 20,600 23,300 5,000 4,000 210 1,386,000 57,235 2,780,000 1,800,000 564,360 1,981,970 52,600 2,867,000 25,271,000 387,000 7,898,000 4,229,700

732,848 5,266,565 163,820 1,863,450 3,491,500 16,500 208,598,370 388,520 44,162,250 4,455 13,841,666 182,704 9,700 151,410,960 802,286 285,566 32,274,810 134,180 92,363,189 12,480 2,972,230 346,470 1,453,600 128,700 83,460 4,770,250 1,569,300 49,091,255 118,500 113,160 16,026,138 5,312,030 3,440 15,118,750 227,126 118,140 15,150 31,092 37,590 11,767,714 98,032,180 3,814,050 693,000 28,958,659.50 186,532,086.50 315,726 10,129,000 46,303,230 1,487,120 8,036,770 34,365,871(5,

32,290.00 56,100,136 -941,195 80,371 172,718 -109,653,200 3,117,470 -35,578,087 -243,600 -1,015,500 127,000 5,070,915 -1,772,067 -1,373,820 -202,900 86,360 8,591 465,346 -9,035,005 -1,346,230 -2,537,845 -15,624,044 158,300 -9,966,570 412,800 -252,140 621,368.0004)

ABRA MINING APEX MINING ATLAS MINING BENGUET B CENTURY PEAK COAL ASIA HLDG DIZON MINES FERRONICKEL GEOGRACE LEPANTO A LEPANTO B MANILA MINING A MANILA MINING B MARCVENTURES NICKEL ASIA NIHAO OMICO CORP ORNTL PENINSULA ORNTL PETROL A PHILODRILL PHINMA PETRO PX MINING PXP ENERGY SEMIRARA MINING

0.0024 1.73 5.02 1.83 1.63 0.375 8.05 3.01 0.26 0.164 0.17 0.01 0.011 2.03 7.58 1.85 0.485 1.02 0.012 0.011 2.29 7.95 8.71 42

0.0024 1.73 5.13 1.83 1.64 0.39 8.09 3.13 0.26 0.167 0.172 0.011 0.011 2.03 7.78 1.85 0.485 1.02 0.013 0.012 2.3 7.95 9.13 42

0.0024 1.7 5 1.83 1.59 0.375 8.03 3.01 0.249 0.162 0.168 0.01 0.011 1.98 7.17 1.79 0.485 1.01 0.012 0.011 2.29 7.86 8.41 41.4

MINING & OIL 0.0024 125,000,000 1.71 7,863,000 5 495,000 1.83 51,000 1.64 5,195,000 0.39 60,000 8.03 4,600 3.09 28,287,000 0.249 1,190,000 0.163 19,420,000 0.169 6,940,000 0.01 77,300,000 0.011 10,000,000 2.01 983,000 7.17 13,228,300 1.85 88,000 0.485 20,000 1.02 431,000 0.012 1,500,000 0.012 7,400,000 2.3 6,000 7.9 1,080,100 8.8 9,072,200 41.95 1,435,200

300,000 13,478,350 2,483,540 93,330 8,404,250 23,250 36,999 87,034,720 6 299,140 3,191,340 1,181,010 781,500 110,000 1,970,710(1, 97,611,796 157,720 9,700 437,940 18,100 82,500 13,760 8,544,721 80,691,539 59,868,635

1,551,540 -30,000 153,800 ,124,749.9996 -42,220 542,459.9997) 16,117,368 -15,830 2,632,955 -1,834,530

ABS HLDG PDR AC PREF B1 AC PREF B2 DD PREF FGEN PREF F FGEN PREF G GLO PREF P GMA HLDG PDR LR PREF PCOR PREF 2A PF PREF 2 PNX PREF 3A PNX PREF 3B SMC PREF 2B SMC PREF 2C SMC PREF 2D SMC PREF 2F SMC PREF 2G SMC PREF 2H SMC PREF 2I

38.1 532 535 106 107 118.6 516 5.74 1.07 1,049 1,009 105.9 110.5 75.7 81.3 76.45 82.5 79.25 79 79.65

38.3 532 535 106.9 107 118.6 516 5.74 1.07 1,049 1,009 105.9 110.5 75.7 81.3 76.45 82.5 79.25 79 79.65

38 532 515.5 105.3 107 118.6 515.5 5.62 1.07 1,049 1,007 105.9 110.5 75.5 81.25 76.45 82.5 79.25 79 79.65

PREFERRED 38 153,300 532 9,750 515.5 1,330 105.3 6,020 107 610 118.6 1,680 515.5 730 5.64 5,300 1.07 31,000 1,049 1,540 1,007 115 105.9 50 110.5 160 75.7 900 81.25 55,000 76.45 5,000 82.5 260 79.25 1,500 79 5,000 79.65 100

5,856,500 5,187,000 687,885 634,554 65,270 199,248 376,320 29,928 33,170 1,615,460 115,955 5,295 17,680 68,100 4,469,452.50 382,250 21,450 118,875 395,000 7,965

-1,171,550 -24,248 -1,625,365 -

LR WARRANT

2.5

2.66

2.5

WARRANTS 2.55 1,578,000

4,066,620

-

36,586,443 639,860 17,913,454

3,022,400 364,728

135,178

5,155

MS

PROPERTY 5.39 1.03 2.45 0.98 45.6 3.83 5.03 5.44 0.52 1.22 1.26 0.205 0.48 39.6 0.14 1.93 1.55 0.83 5.69 0.325 0.405 0.52 6.75

196,300 9,024,000 80,000 1,871,000 8,278,800 449,000 1,381,100 61,000 11,198,000 118,000 130,000 5,160,000 450,000 334,600 2,260,000 5,316,000 8,606,000 846,000 18,875,000 25,920,000 6,060,000 5,385,000 1,564,700

ITALPINAS PHILAB HLDG XURPAS

9.97 3.6 5.31

10.02 3.6 5.31

9 3.42 5

FIRST METRO ETF

129.1

129.1

128.4

TRADING SUMMARY

SHARES

FINANCIAL

15,459,735

INDUSTRIAL

101,872,740

HOLDING FIRMS

89,987,401

PROPERTY

127,545,325

SERVICES

196,006,917

MINING & OIL

323,985,428

GRAND TOTAL

862,438,021

9.58 3.55 5.01

SME

3,871,700 180,000 3,525,600

EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS 129 1,050

VALUE 2,069.33 (up) 13.61 959,733,504.36 FINANCIAL INDUSTRIAL 10,971.31 (down) 55.53 1,991,355,430.45 HOLDING FIRMS 8,703.71 (down) 61.76 1,582,013,609.87 PROPERTY 4,054.42 (up) 25.95 SERVICES 1,703.59 (up) 3.89 792,692,592.525 MINING & OIL 13,259.81 (down) 1.26 1,227,453,537.898 PSEI 8,521.81 (down) 1.26 417,443,164.654 All Shares Index 4,966.60 (down) 2.00 7,025,974,507.68 Gainers: 87; Losers: 104; Unchanged: 53; Total: 244

IN BRIEF

IMF remains bullish on PH

THE International Monetary Fund on Tuesday maintained bright growth prospects for the Philippines this year and 2018 but warned that a combination of high credit expansion, buoyant private investment, and fiscal expansion without tax reform could lead to overheating of the economy.

The IMF Executive Board concluded its 2017 Article IV Consultation with the Philippines on Oct. 26, 2017 and released the results Monday night.

“The outlook for the Philippine economy is favorable despite external headwinds. Real GDP growth is projected at 6.6 percent in 2017 and 6.7 percent in 2018, owing to continued robust domestic demand,” it said.

It said inflation was expected to stay near the center of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s target band of 2 to 4 percent due to stable commodity prices and well-anchored inflation expectations.

The current account balance is also projected to record a small deficit in 2017, because of strong infrastructure-related import growth, while public debt is expected to fall further as percent of GDP. Julito G. Rada

PNB’s books lower income PHILIPPINE National Bank, the sixth-largest lender in terms of assets, said net income in the first nine months fell 21 percent to P4.5 billion from P5.7 billion a year ago due to the absence of one-time gains.

PNB, however, said in a statement to the stock exchange it sustained its momentum in core lending and fee-based activities, especially in the third quarter.

The bank’s nine-month net interest income increased by 10 percent year-on-year, driven by a 14-percent growth in interest income earned from loans and receivables on the back of an 11-percent expansion in loan portfolio and boosted by increases in loans to corporate, commercial and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Net interest income in the third quarter of the year rose 15 percent quarter-on-quarter after a 35-percent increase in net fees and commissions, and higher revenues from foreign exchange by 10 percent.

The bank also posted significantly higher net gains on disposal of repossessed properties during the period.

Julito G. Rada

NGCP trains technical staff JINAN, China—National Grid Corp. of the Philippines and technical partner State Grid of China Corporation are promoting technology transfer to ensure future employee readiness amid a fast-paced and growing power industry.

“Our company’s strategy to further develop our engineers who will not just be technical experts, but also be the change agents and movers in the NGCP organization as well as in the Philippines’ power sector,” NGCP internal audit head Edwin Natividad said during the opening ceremonies of the 3rd batch of the Trail Blazers Program here.

The program gathered 26 individuals who are not only high performers, but also with high potential for growth. It prepares these employees with bigger roles later on in their careers at the NGCP. NGCP operates and maintains the country’s transmission network around three power grids.

“The advantage of such a pool is that it provides flexibility and, eventually, organizational self-sufficiency around the current and future talent needs of NGCP,” Natividad said.

Alena Mae S. Flores

Forcepoint’s cybersecurity GLOBAL cybersecurity leader Forcepoint is slowly making its name in the local market as it introduces into the country several applications to run, protect and manage any type of business.

Led by software architect and engineer Nicolas Ficshbach, Forcepoint is reinventing cybersecurity by creating “Human Point” systems that enable customer to understand the rhythm of their people and flow of their data.

Fischbach, a master’s degree holder in Networking and Distributed Computing from Pierre and Marie Curie University, said Forcepoint’s security application and other products is now being used by top 1000 corporations around the globe and is now the preferred application by leading companies and government agencies in the country.

Forcepoint application is so advanced that employees cannot steal data from the company’s computer and can even detect employee’s unusual behavior and alert management of possible cyber threat from inside and out before it happens.

World Peru aims to double number of visitors LONDON―From backpacking in the Andes to luxury Amazon river cruises, Peru has positioned itself as one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world.

Peru has enjoyed a growing tourism industry with more and more people visiting the country year on year.

Now, the Peruvian government intends to build on this increase by launching a campaign to double the number of tourists visiting the country by 2021.

The campaign focuses on illustrating Peru’s cultural, natural and culinary riches, revolving around the idea that “Peru is the richest country in the world”.

The campaign was launched at this year’s World Travel Market event in London. “When you come to Peru, you will become more enriched by experiences” says Elisabeth Hakim, PROMPERÚ´s UK and North American markets coordinator.

PROMPERÚ is reacting to a new and redefined understanding of wealth, the focus is no longer purely on material wealth, but also on wealth of opportunities, connections and culture.

Peru fully meets this new landscape with a wealth of authentic and diverse experiences. Not only can visitors enjoy the breathtaking sights of one of the world’s seven wonders in Machu Picchu, but the country now offers a vast range of life enriching moments for each and every visitor.

“Peru is blessed with a rich diversity of landscapes, we have beaches, mountains, jungles and more” explains Katty VilchezMichie of Setours, one of the tour operators supporting the campaign. AFP

Smog blankets India’s capital NEW DELHI―A public health emergency was declared in New Delhi Tuesday as a choking blanket of smog descended on the world’s most polluted capital city.

The Indian Medical Association’s declaration came as the US embassy website said levels of the fine pollutants known as PM2.5 that are most harmful to health reached 703―well over double the threshold of 300 that authorities class as hazardous.

“We have declared a state of public health emergency in Delhi since pollution is at an alarming level,” the head of the Indian Medical Association Krishan Kumar Aggarwal told AFP. “Delhi authorities have to make every possible effort to curb this menace.”

The World Health Organization in 2014 classed New Delhi as the world’s most polluted capital, with air quality levels worse than Beijing.

Since then authorities have closed power plants temporarily and experimented with taking some cars off the road.

But on Tuesday many residents said too little was being done to tackle the scourge.

“It’s a recurring problem and we need to find a quick and permanent solution to it before it is too late,” said real estate agent Vipin Malhotra. AFP

B3

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017 Cesar Barrioquinto, Editor

Rohingya kids fill their parents’ shoes BALUKHALI, Bangladesh―Tahera Begum walks a mile alone at dawn to collect firewood for her ill parents and four siblings, an enormous burden for a 10-year-old thrust to the head of her family in the world’s largest refugee settlement.

“I do it because no one else in my family can. Both my parents are sick. They cannot move without assistance,” the Rohingya girl told AFP while chopping vegetables in her family’s tarpaulin shanty in Bangladesh.

An estimated 1,400 children are sole providers for their families in crowded refugee camps along the Bangladesh border, where more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have sought sanctuary from violence in Myanmar since August.

Charities fear they are especially vulnerable to illness and emotional stress from shouldering such re-

sponsibility, or exploitation as they struggle to provide for their families in the overstretched tent cities.

“This may lead them to child labor and explicit sex work. These families may also experience a spike in child marriages, which is very concerning,” said Save the Children International spokesman Rik Goverde.

For Tahera, who was caring for her infirm parents even before they made the difficult journey from Myanmar, the day starts at sunrise with a long trek into the forest to gather firewood for cooking.

It’s an arduous slog carrying the heavy load back to the family tent, a plastic sheet strung across a bamboo frame on a crowded hillside in Balukhali.

But she barely rests before embarking on her second early-morning chore -- jostling with other refugees to fill an

urn at the single water pump in her corner of the camps.

Later in the day, Tahera carries what’s left of the lumber to the local market to trade for basic supplies.

The refugee influx over the past two months has sent prices skyrocketing, so the little girl must barter hard alongside adults for food and other bare essentials to feed her family and earn money for medicine.

“All my siblings are younger than me. Being the eldest, I am just doing my part,” she said.

The sight of children carting water jugs, queueing at relief stations or dragging sacks of grain the size of their own bodies is not uncommon in the Rohingya camps.

More than half of the 607,000 new arrivals are children, and aid groups say they are bearing the brunt of Asia’s worst refugee crisis in decades.AFP

CHINA FASHION WEEK. A model displays a creation from the “Hu Sheguang” collection during China Fashion Week in Beijing on November 7, 2017. AFP

S. Koreans divided over Trump S

EOUL―On the divided Korean peninsula, Seoul has seen protests both for and against President Donald Trump, with Southerners split over his aggressive handling of Pyongyang’s provocations.

CONVOY. The convoy of US President Donald Trump makes its way toward the presidential Blue House through Gwanghwamun square in central Seoul on November 7, 2017. Trump’s marathon Asia tour moves to South Korea, another key ally in the struggle with nuclear-armed North Korea, but one with deep reservations about Trump’s strategy for dealing with the crisis. AFP

US in mourning after gunman kills 26 people SUTHERLAND SPRINGS―The United States was in mourning Monday after a gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire with an assault rifle on the congregation of a smalltown Texas church, killing 26 people and wounding 20 more in the nation’s latest shooting massacre.

President Donald Trump said the nation was living through “dark times” but guns were not to blame for Sunday’s carnage, which came just five weeks after the worst mass shooting in modern US history.

“I think that mental health is your problem here,” said the US president, speaking in Tokyo as part of his Asia tour. “This was a very―based on preliminary reports―a very deranged individual.”

“This isn’t a guns situation,” Trump insisted, calling it “a mental health problem at the highest level.”

The victims, who ranged in age from five to 72, were gunned down at First

Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, a rural community of some 400 people 50 kilometers southeast of San Antonio.

The gunman, widely identified as Devin Kelley, 26, was described by authorities as a young white male who was found dead in his vehicle after being confronted by a local resident.

The Air Force said Kelley served at a base in New Mexico starting in 2010 before being court-martialed in 2012 for allegedly assaulting his wife and child.

He was sentenced to 12 months in confinement and received a “bad conduct” discharge, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told AFP. He was discharged in 2014.

Dressed all in black, Kelley fired outside the church before entering the building and continuing to spray bullets, said Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Another foreign policy adviser admits to contacting Russians WASHINGTON―A second foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has admitted to contacts with Russian officials during last year’s election and to having proposed that Trump travel to Russia during the campaign.

Former investment banker and Russia expert Carter Page told the House Intelligence Committee last week that he had a “brief” contact with a Russian deputy prime minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, during a “private” trip to Moscow in July 2016, according to a transcript of his testimony released late Monday.

Page also said that he had proposed in May 2016 that Donald Trump travel to Russia to meet officials and make a speech.

That was the same month that another foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, also suggested a Trump Moscow visit, according to court documents last week.

The Page testimony added to the mounting evidence of numerous contacts between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia in 2016 just at the time Moscow was mounting a hacking and disinformation operation aimed at boosting Trump’s chances to win the White House.

The House committee and its Senate counterpart, along with a justice department special prosecutor, are investigating whether the campaign colluded with the Russians in any way to help defeat then-front-runner Hillary Clinton. AFP

“As he exited the church, a local resident grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect. The suspect dropped his rifle, which was a Ruger AR assault-type rifle, and fled from the church. Our local citizen pursued the suspect at that time,” Martin said.

Law enforcement later found Kelley dead in his car, which had crashed on the Wilson-Guadalupe county line. It was not clear if he had killed himself or was shot by the resident who had confronted him.

Multiple weapons were found in the car, which was processed by bomb technicians.

“We have multiple, multiple crime scenes. We have the church, outside the church. We have where the suspect’s vehicle was located,” said Martin.

“We have been following up on the suspect and where he’s from. We have Texas Rangers at all the hospitals locating those and interviewing those who were injured.” AFP

South Koreans are known for their indifference to decades of nearly daily threats of attack from their impoverished but nuclear-armed neighbor.

Even so, the recent war of words between the outspoken US leader and the isolated North’s ruthless young ruler has shaken their usual stoicism.

The South Korean capital―a city of 10 million people―would be on the front line of any conflict, with one study projecting 65,000 civilian fatalities on the first day of just a conventional war.

But one pro-Trump banner on display in the city at the weekend proclaimed: “Mr Trump, we are not afraid to die. We want you to strike North Korea now.”

Pro-Trump protesters are mostly politically conservative and over 60.

For 35-year-old office worker Park Gene, such views are “crazy”.

“These elderly protesters may think they have only a few years to live anyway,” he told AFP. “But I have a whole life ahead of me and don’t want to die.”

Tens of thousands of US troops were among the millions who died during the 1950-53 Korean War. The two countries have been in a security alliance ever since, with 28,500 US troops stationed in the country.

Their presence has deterred a Northern invasion for decades, and in a Korea Times opinion poll last week a clear majority of South Koreans―59.2 percent―named the US as the country they feel most favorably towards.

Almost half―48.6 percent―blamed Kim for the rising tensions, rather than Trump.

But at the same time, a Social Trends Institute poll last month showed most South Koreans did not believe the US leader was a force for peace on the peninsula.

At the weekend, thousands of South Koreans demonstrated against “war maniac” Trump, waving banners reading “No Trump, No War”, while rival pro-US activists held an event a few blocks away.

On Monday, dozens of activists including senior retired officials convened across the road to hail the US leader.

“We must strongly support President Trump’s policy towards North Korea!” said former South Korean ambassador to Russia Lee Jai-Chun.

Kim Suk-Woo, ex-vice minister of the unification ministry that handles relations with North Korea chanted: “Long Live President Donald Trump!”

Trump, who has warned of “fire and fury” against the North and mocked Kim as “Rocket Man”, said on Monday that the time for “strategic patience” with his regime was over.

But Seoul is only about 50 kilometers from the heavily fortified border, within range of the North’s massive artillery forces.

Irritation over Trump’s hostile rhetoric is higher among young South Koreans with no memories of the war, who often accuse their parents’ generation of “worshiping” the US as their country’s wartime savior. AFP

Japan’s ‘Black Widow’ to hang for killing lovers TOKYO―A one-time millionairess dubbed the “Black Widow”, who tricked elderly lovers into drinking cyanide and then pocketed millions in insurance payouts and inheritance, was sentenced to death in Japan on Tuesday.

Kyoto District Court condemned Chisako Kakehi, 70, to the gallows for the murder of three men―including a husband―and for the attempted murder of another, ending a highprofile case that has gripped the country.

Kakehi became notorious after using poison to dispatch a number of elderly men she was involved with, drawing comparisons with the spider that kills its

mate after copulation.

“The accused made the victims drink a cyanide compound with a murderous intention in all four cases,” Judge Ayako Nakagawa told the court, according to public broadcaster NHK. “The cases were well prepared in advance. They were cunning and malicious. I have no choice but to impose the ultimate penalty.”

Nakagawa rejected defense lawyers’ arguments that Kakehi was not criminally liable because she was suffering from dementia.

More than 560 people queued for 51 seats in the courtroom to witness the outcome of the marathon trial, which lasted 135 days.

It was the second-longest court case involving a jury since Japan

introduced a joint judge-jury system in 2009.

Gray-haired Kakehi, wearing a hearing aid headphone, asked the judge to speak loudly. She showed no emotion when the judge handed down the sentence.

The court said she killed the men after they made her the beneficiary of life assurance policies that reportedly ran into millions of dollars.

“For the love of money,” the accused poisoned the victims who fully trusted her, the judge said.

Kakehi reportedly amassed one billion yen ($8.8 million) in payouts over 10 years but subsequently lost most of the fortune through unsuccessful financial trading. AFP

LGUs

Jimbo Owen Gulle, Editor editor.lgustandard@gmail.com

B4

wednesday, november 8, 2017

LocaL government units

‘STRIKE’ OF HOPE. The first batch of college students under the ‘Tulong Dunong Program’ of the Commission on Higher Education in Region IV-A receive their financial assistance checks from Cavite Rep. Strike Revilla (third from left) inside his office at the Bacoor Government City.

Revilla also has an ongoing scholarship program for junior and senior high school and college students (inset). Also in photo are Bacoor City Vice Mayor Karen Evaristo (left) with Councilors Victorio Guerrero and Alex Gutierrez.

Davao donates P5m to Marawi, may add more

By F. Pearl A. Gajunera DAVAO CITY—The city government of Davao, through Mayor Sara Duterte, will give P5 million in assistance to the city government of Marawi for the development of the city after the fivemonth siege launched by the Islamic State-inspired Maute Group.

Duterte said the assistance will come from the city’s disaster funds.

“I asked the city council on Monday to allocate P5 million from the disaster funds to be given to Marawi City,” she said. “Last Saturday, I talked to the Mayor of Marawi [Majul Usman Gandamra] and he said that they already declared the city under a state of calamity.”

The City Council immediately approved the allocation during their regular session on Tuesday.

Davao City still has a total disaster fund of P91 million, disposable within the last two months of the year.

Duterte said she plans to give more next year.

“I initially planned to give P10 million, but we still have two months left (and) my priority is still Davao City.

Maybe mid next year or the same period, we will look on how they used the P5 million and we can give them more,” she said.

The mayor said that the check will be delivered to Mayor Gandamra as soon as possible for Marawi’s use and depending on its needs.

Duterte also encouraged other local government to extend help to Marawi City.

Makati job fair on Nov. 10

By Joel E. Zurbano

M

AkATI City Mayor Abigail Binay on Tuesday encouraged all jobseekers to come and take advantage of the city’s second job fair on Nov. 10, with over 4,500 job vacancies to be filled in during the one-day event.

The city’s Public Employment Services Office, in close coordination with the Department of Labor

and Employment, will be holding the mega job fair from 8 a.m. onwards at the Valenzuela Covered Court,

Hormiga corner Tanay Streets in Barangay Valenzuela.

“We advise applicants to bring many copies of their resumes with their 2x2 ID picture so they could have more chances of getting hired right away,” Binay said.

Binay said Business Process Outsourcing firms like Asia Premier One Source and MDS Call Solutions Inc. will be recruiting for qualified call center agents during the event.

Other participating companies for the mega job fair include Burlington Industries, EEI Corp., Fieldmen

Janitorial Services Corp., Goldilocks Bakeshop Inc., Hi-Precision Diagnostic, North Asia Central, Philippine Survey and Research Center, and Receivers and Liquidators.

SM Hypermarket, SM Supermarket, Luk Yuen, JTC Group of Companies, Asticom Technology, Absolute Sales Inc., and Robinson Retail Holdings Inc., among others.

Applicants can also choose among participating employment agencies, including EastWest Placement Center Inc. and YHMD International Manpower Services,

Inc., which offer jobs abroad.

Local manpower agencies that confirmed participation in the job fair include Ablebodies Manpower Services, Citiworks Manpower Resources, Dames International, Hernando Manpower Services, Mirof Resources Inc., Reliable Workforce and General Services, Topserve Manpower Service Solution, and Transorient Manpower Services Inc. Pre-employment offices like the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) and PhilHealth will also be present during the job fair

to assist applicants.

Job seekers can choose from the following job vacancies: Account Manager, Accounting Staff, Administrative Assistant, Audit Checker, Brand Ambassador, Building Painter, Cashier, Civil Engineer, Cloud Administrator, and Cloud Architect; Company Nurse, Data Encoder, Data Verifier, Database Administrator, Driver, Electrical Engineer, Electrician, Field Sales Representative, Food Attendant, and Forklift Operator;

Salceda welcomes P6b in added school budget LEGAZPI CITY―Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has welcomed the recent Malacañang announcement of an additional P6-billion fund for the celebrated Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, from a recent debt settlement by the Philippine Airlines with the government.

Republic Act 10931, the free tuition law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte, was principally authored in the House of Representatives by Salceda. Doubts on whether the government can fund the program were doused after Congress realigned and allotted some P41 billion from the 2018 budget, a month after the new law was enacted.

Malacañang announced that the P6-billion settle-

ment by PAL for debts the country’s flag carrier incurred from the 1970s to July 31, 2017 will fund the education of students in local and state universities and colleges under RA 10931.

“This shows us that the Duterte administration sincerely wants the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act to start off on the right foot next year,” said Salceda.

RA 10931 will usher in the Duterte administration’s “next wave social revolution in building a more egalitarian society” and “a most vital social legislation, second only to the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion bill in terms of significance and permanence,” he added.

Massive street cleanup set

By Bill Casas IN THE days leading to the country’s hosting of the 31st Asean Summit, Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada has ordered the extensive cleanup of major roads and center islands in the city.

Estrada has directed Task Force Manila Cleanup chief Che Borromeo to keep the city spick and span, noting the significance of the international gathering of world leaders not only to the country but also to the city government.

The Asean Summit, he added, is an opportunity for Manila to show to the world not only the beauty and culture of the city but also

the current efforts of the city government to bring back its lost image as Asia’s “Pearl of the Orient.”

“It is fortunate that we will be hosting Asean Summit at the time we are in the midst of our Urban Renewal Program,” Estrada said.

Estrada had reiterated his ongoing campaign to clean up, repair, and restore the city’s famous landmarks, including the cultural heritage sites.

As the country’s “show window” to the world, Estrada said that as the capital city, Manila has to look good to the eyes of the state leaders and thousands of foreign diplomats and delegates attending the international conference.

IN BrIef Plane crashes into mountain A CESSNA 152-type plane with two persons on board crash-landed at the mountains of Pantabang, Aurora, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines reported on Tuesday.

CAAP spokesperson Eric Apolonio said the agency’s Operation Rescue and Coordinating Center reported that the aircraft crashed around 12:30 p.m. with a still-unidentified instructor and a student pilot on board.

The plane was on a crosscountry flight that departed at Lingayen airstrip around 10:02 a.m., Apolonio added.

ORCC alerted the Aircraft Accident Investigators, National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, and Air Force Operations for a rescue mission. Joel E. Zurbano

700 tons of trash from cemeteries THE city government of Manila has collected over 700 tons or 119 truckloads of garbage from the two major public cemeteries in the city following the end of the All Saints´ Day and All Souls´ Day holidays, Mayor Joseph Estrada said.

While noting that the volume of garbage is lesser compared to last year, Estrada lamented that until now littering is still widespread inside the cemeteries despite government’s appeal to the public to be more responsible in disposing their trash.

“We respect the dead but we do not respect the environment,” Estrada said, citing the piles of trash strewn around the grounds of the city-run Manila North and Manila South cemeteries.

Bill Casas

By Ting Ting Cojuangco

E

LEgancE…Merriam Webster defines it as “refined grace or dignified propriety; tasteful richness of design or ornamentation; retrained beauty of style.” The Cambridge Dictionary writes “graceful and attractive in appearance or behavior.”

Life fashion & beauty

Isah V. Red, Editor Bernadette Lunas, Writer isahred@gmail.com

wednesday, noVemBeR 8, 2017

c1

Ting Ting Cojuangco’s picks as Most Elegant Filipinas this year include (from left) Mitzi Borromeo, Tweetie de Leon-Gonzales, Joanna Preysler, Ana Marie Lorenzana de Ocampo, and Heart Evangelista Escudero

When the idea of such a presentation came up as defined by Webster, I was hesitant to pursue it. I was shying away from my socialite years, and I worked hard at reinventing myself by completing two master degrees and progressing to another doctorate degree. after thinking about being what’s best and concentrating on dresses, we—Tina Ocampo, Chit Lijauco, Fortune Ledesma and later Zelda Kienle—all thought elegance is more than the physical. It embraces appropriateness resounding in good breeding. With elegance no one can miss being best dressers. In fact, elegance can be an instinct.

The physical… clothes on racks are aplenty but to select them according to the time, place and occasion is tedious.

That is why less style and ornaments on the body is preferred. Less means more.

Writing about less, it should not be dif-

The Elegant Filipina ficult for a woman to know the pitch of her voice for her purpose can be irritating.

Therefore her tone of voice should be soft and not abrupt neither her words to cause a loud attraction. Less noise of footsteps is elegant. Exposing less of the body leaves more for anyone’s imagination.

I was with a very elderly Muslim princess from Maguindanao who had never married and was attended by two ladiesin-waiting in a Sultan Kudarat municipality. With her tiny frame, she walked into the gym where a wedding was taking

place and caught the attention of everyone without shouting. Her gracefulness was slow and fluid. Head high, she sat straight, very regal. Everyone came to show their affections and respect to Bai kissing her hand or cheeks. She was royalty distinct and humble.

Humility is elegance. Determination is elegance.

In Boan, Tawi-Tawi I met a maybe 80-year-old woman. I had to guess her age, births and deaths being unregistered in Moroland.

The sarong she wears daily was beautifully wrapped around her waist. She spoke to me about prayers to attract men. Our interpreter was entertained and so were we – Peachie Prieto and me. She was serious about her incarnations performed during bathing time.

Her secrets would lead to being one wife and not one of four. She sat shoulders back never leaning on the tree behind her. Elegant. She spoke softly, smiling, and sharing her knowledge, with chants and rhyming prayers as her long hair

blew with the wind.

In South Ubian, Tawi-Tawi, a seer, standing five feet and seven inches and weighs 130 pounds and dressed in black, spread out her arms pointing her fingers upward like birds flying as she was dancing the pangalay slowly, flirtatiously, and inviting. Her eyes pierced through us. She was haunting and elegant.

You’ll know elegance when you see it. Remember didn’t I say elegance is an instinct? It’s also yours to develop.

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wednesday, november 8, 2017 isahred@gmail.com

Life

The Michaela Woman

Values the Fashionable and the Functional

T

He Michaela Woman is focused, driven, and knows what’s modern and what’s worth buying. Like Michaela, she opts for products she can be proud of. She prides herself with its range of trendy but practical, stylish but fashionable range of women’s products (apparel, bags and pouches, wallets, umbrellas, footwear, and more)—all of them of superior quality, but are reasonably priced, ecofriendly, and can compete with more expensive designer brands. now on its 12th year of success, Michaela perfectly caters to a woman’s need for simple, but dignified and reliable products.

Professional Italian designers conceptualize each bag so that they’re unique, exquisite, and of top-notch quality while promoting the use of natural leather and other high grade raw materials. It also takes into great consideration the brand’s preference for timeless look. each bag is a joy to look at and to hold, a blend of utility and taste. It is in this manner, which makes the bags appealing to buyers in europe, the United States, and Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and in the Philippines.

Also, Michaela knows the market has elegant tastes and learned from life experiences—hence the brand’s focus on a timeless, dignified design combined with utility and unmistakable quality Sarah Geronimo is the celebrity endorser of homegrown fashion brand Michaela just fits the shoe.

Since the company’s beginnings in 2005, with the first Michaela boutique on Juan Luna Street in Binondo, Manlila offering the first line of lady’s bags, Goldnines International Co., Ltd., the company behind Michaela, has expanded operations in the Visayas and Mindanao areas. A dozen years later, it is now among the staple choices for women’s bags and other women’s items.

“The ‘in’ thing will not always be

equal to value for money, and both the brand and the Michaela woman understand this. That’s why, over time, Michaela has become the standard for Filipina fashion—the product lines adapt to change but set the trend—and comes out with noticeably fashionable designs, but always highlighting the quality and durability alongside a dignified look,” Julie Yeo, vice president, Goldnines International Co., Ltd., said.

Just as the Michaela woman knows what she wants and will continue to thrive, so, too, with the Michaela brand.

Right now, Michaela can be found in 103 department stores in Metro Manila and in the provinces. Metro Manila alone has 25 Michaela boutiques.

Sarah Geronimo, who everyone knows, is the brand’s ambassador. The brand is also starting to expand into men’s products, starting with apparel and belts.

No needles, no downtime, only beautiful skin From left: Laurence Peña (COO), Sue Geminiano (Marketing Manager), Edmundo Las (Managing Director), Father Amado Arroyo, DOT Regional Director Roberto Alabado III, and Mark Christopher Pamintuan (President, Apo View)

Apo View Hotel grand relaunch to boost tourism in Davao City

DAVAO City gears for a boost in tourism as it sees the grand relaunch of the iconic Apo View Hotel.

Steeped in more than six decades of history, this well-loved Davao City landmark will be opening its doors to local and foreign guests.

The recent grand relaunch line-up of activities included a street parade and motorcade, press conference with national and local media, a grand tour of the revitalized Apo View Hotel, a fashion show, and a rave party music festival that extended well into the night.

The grand celebration kicks off with a motorcade and parade highlighted by street dancing and cultural presentations. This was followed by a Holy Mass and the Ribbon Cutting ceremonies led by Apo View Managing Director Mr. edmundo Las and Department of Tourism Regional Director Roberto Alabado III. The winners of the Apo Art Attack contest were also announced. The contest, which carried the theme: Kulturang Pamana ng Davao or Cultural Heritage of Davao City, was participated by students from various colleges and universities. The winning artworks are currently displayed at the Apo View Lobby.

The festivities continue with a oneof-a-kind fashion show featuring native fabric and Mindanao weave. The event also highlighted a cultural presentation that depicts the evolution of Davao’s cultural heritage. To show solidarity, the Deputy Mayors from 11 tribes in Davao City and the Mutya ng Kidapawan graced the catwalk.

The celebration was capped by a rave party and music festival.

Apo View is the second oldest hotel in the country and has always been considered as Davao’s premiere business hotel.

Boasting 156 smartly designed rooms, full service banquet facilities, and conveniently located at the central business district, Apo View Hotel cater to every price point. each room is equipped with air-conditioning unit, dual-temperature shower, LeD TV with access to cable channels, hypoallergenic pillows, chiropractic beds, free Wi-Fi, in-room safety deposit boxes and standby power generator for an uninterrupted power supply. Apo View has been the top choice of tourists visiting Mindanao since it first opened in 1948.

The Hotel also offers a wide selection of local and international cuisine available at the hotel’s all-day dining buffet restaurant located at the lobby, at Café Josefina, at the Blue Room, and at Davao’s oldest Casino, the Casino Filipino Players Club. Aside from our three restaurants and a casino, the hotel also offers a fullservice 24-hour in room dining. each of the restaurants features international comfort food classics served in a modern way alongside the best local dishes that Davao City has to offer.

Apo View offers guests a unique cultural and luxurious experience coupled with extraordinary service and hospitality. The majestic Apo View is the perfect venue for any special occasion, be it corporate functions, receptions, and possibly everything in between.

For more information on Apo View Hotel, log on to apoview.com.

IMAGIne a less-than-an-hour procedure that can tighten and lift sagging skin on the chin area, neckline, arms, tummy, and thighs; minimize pores; even out under eye lines or eye bags; and reduce fat, stretch marks, and age lines and wrinkles. Imagine healing your deep tissue without affecting the surface of your skin. Imagine getting a lifting and contouring effect and natural instant results. now imagine all these without needles, pain, downtime, and recuperation.

Imagine no more as one of the pioneers in aesthetic medicine YSA Skin and Body experts brings to the Philippines the Cellthione High Frequency Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) for Face and Body.

HIFU is the safest ultrasound treatment system applying proven ultrasound technology to tighten and actually lift skin tissue without disrupting the surface of skin.

“Our method uses ultrasound system, the most commonly used procedure to stimulate collagen production and strengthen the skin structure. HIFU enables skin tightening and improvement

HIFU instantly tightens and lifts skin tissue after one session

of the skin’s appearance painlessly without post-op downtime of classic surgery applications or other invasive methods,” says YSA Operations Director Sheila Nazal.

Results last for two to three months after only one session that is why YSA experts call it “instalift.”

“Transducers micro-focus ultrasound energy below the skin to noninvasively denature collagen. The heat creates triggers, the body’s natural re-

sponse mechanism which is to rejuvenate tired collagen and replace it with fresh, new collagen. After that, weak collagen is reorganized and strengthened by the growth of new collagen, which tightens and lifts the skin,” explains Dr. Olga Roque. experience Cellthione High Frequency Focused Ultrasound for Face and Body, only at YSA Skin and Body experts centers nationwide.. – Robbie Pangilinan

YSA Skin and Body Experts offers Cellthione High Frequency Focused Ultrasound, deemed as the safest ultrasound treatment system

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017

How leading telco welcomed

Filipino-American pop twin brothers Jesse and Christian Perkins

The Perkins twins are SM Youth’s new music ambassadors WHAT’S better than one talented singer?

Twin musical talents, that is.

Jesse and Christian Perkins are young revelations rapidly marking their territory on the local music scene, and as SM Youth’s newest musical ambassadors.

Twin talents in the industry aren’t often to come by, but don’t think their rarity stops there. The pair—born in the Philippines and raised in California—possesses a unique set of talents that make them a potential force to be reckoned with as local music savants. Now that they’ve set up their home base in the Philippines, they’re on a tour of the islands under the SM Youth banner.

Jesse and Christian Perkins were born in San Juan to an American father and Filipino mother. Settling in Menlo, California, the twins are athletic and academic superstars, even bagging college scholarships to one of the most prestigious universities in the United States.

It was after a Philippine TV interview that the twins decided to pursue their love for music in the country, as they were found to possess an unmistakable talent for singing and playing instruments. While singer-musicians aren’t uncommon in the country, the Perkins Twins are an even more complete package: as songwriters themselves, they pen their own music and even choreograph their own tunes. Talk about performance level—the Perkins Twins are the perfect duo to perform for and represent SM Youth’s thousands of followers.

The Perkins Twins, together with their family, have always championed social advocacies and choose to work with positive brands and organizations.

They are celebrity ambassadors of World Vision Philippines, tagged as The Voices of Human Trafficking for NGO Global Impact Philippines, and actively work with the Department of Education (DepEd) as Ambassadors for Anti-Drugs, Anti-Drinking, Anti-Smoking, AntiBullying and Purity. The twins have also volunteered at Smokey Mountain and worked with the Bob Tebow Foundation and Kids International.

SM Youth has always championed the vibrant Filipino youth culture. With the hottest young names as the brand’s key faces, a viral model search that revealed the best untapped modeling talent in the country, and a slew of musical ambassadors that preceded the Perkins Twins, the brand has proven to be the best platform where the Perkins twins could present their talent to the country. After all, SM Youth has proven that it is more than just a fashion brand: along with great style, the youth culture values creativity, talent and self-expression just as much.

Catch SM Youth and the Perkins Twins as they front the brand as its newest music ambassadors.

KRIS AQUINO

I

T WAS no ordinary event.

Looking from the outside, observers would already think something very big was happening. Everyone was in cocktail attire, and some recognizable faces were arriving at the venue one after another.

“This is just how we’re expecting the event to be – something fit for a queen,” one of the attendees remarked.

A few minutes more the venue was already packed. Women in high heels and men in business attire were shaking hands and exchanging small talks. Then the host for the night, Marc Nelson, took center stage and welcomed everyone who braved the traffic on Edsa and then in BGC just to be part of PLDT and Smart Communications’ big announcement.

“The person everyone is waiting for is here,” he told the crowd and Kris Aquino suddenly emerged from the entrance wearing a striking red gown stealing almost everyone’s attention. And just like her usual self, she immediately made her presence felt by talking to everyone making the event host simply just an embellishment.

“Sorry Marc, now you know why they got me as their endorser. I am not just a loyal subscriber, I also talk a lot about their service,” she said in jest while telling her story on how she thought she got the new deal as the new celebrity ambassador for the telco.

As the country’s leading residential

PLDT and Smart endorser Kris Aquino (second from left) with the telco’s bigwigs and other celebrity ambassadors

digital services provider PLDT HOME and leading LTE network Smart welcomed the celebrity host and multimedia personality as their newest brand ambassador, she was also welcomed by the telco’s top endorsers including Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach, celebrity moms Camille Pratts and Bettina Carlos, couple Isabel and John Prats, Vic Sotto, and Jericho Rosales, who all attended the “#PLDTSmartCelebrations” event at the Shangri-La at The Fort.

The woman dubbed as Queen of All Media has joined PLDT Home’s growing roster of celebrity brand ambassadors, particularly for its SmartHome suite of products and services.

“I can’t wait to share my own stories about how technology affects the way I raise my children and the way we communicate. I always want the best

Here’s your chance to catch Harry Styles live GLOBE, the no. 1 mobile brand in the country and the preferred digital brand of Filipinos, is behind many of the premier concerts featuring top international acts including Madonna, Coldplay, and The Chainsmokers. Once again, it continues to redefine the entertainment landscape of the Philippines by bringing Harry Styles to Manila!.

In June, Globe launched an exclusive ticket pre-sale for its customers giving them first access to reserve and purchase tickets, which immediately sold out in 52 seconds.

The anticipation doesn’t stop there as Globe is giving all its customers a chance to win tickets to the concert with the launch of the #GlobeHarryStyles Promo!

With the promo, all TM, Postpaid, Platinum, and Globe At Home customers are eligible to join as long as they are registered to any GoSURF or All Month Surf variant, or a Globe At Home plan until Dec.6. Every P5 of the prepaid offer or plan availed will earn one raffle entry.

To join, Prepaid and TM customers must send RAFFLE REG (Name)/(Address)/ (Email address)/(Age)/(Gender) to 2362, while Postpaid and Platinum customers need to send RAFFLE REG YES to 2362. Globe at Home customers are automatically registered to the raffle.

On Dec. 7, Globe will give a pair of tickets to three Platinum winners, three Gold winners, three Lower Box A winners, and three Lower Box B winners. Winners will be notified via text and announced on the Globe website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Since his album Harry Styles was released in May, it was well received by critics and fans,

debuting at no.1 on the US Billboard 200. The album’s lead single “Sign of the Times” was released to great acclaim, and its music video has reached more than 171 million views on YouTube.

The tour began in San Francisco in September, followed by more shows in North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and South America.

Styles’ Manila concert is presented by Globe, the no. 1 mobile brand in the country today and the preferred digital brand of Filipinos.

Harry Styles: Live on Tour is produced by Live Nation and is promoted by MMI Live.

For more information, visit the website at http://go.globe.com.ph/GlobeHarryStyles, call the Globe hotline at 730-1010, or visit any Globe Store.

Former 1D member Harry Styles is staging a solo show in Manila in December

CROSSWORD PUZZLE Wednesday, November 8, 2017

ACROSS 1 Trounces 6 October’s stone 10 Pet name 14 Wild West show 15 Wan 16 Shaft 17 Spouse’s brother (hyph.)

18 Keyboarding error 19 Disguise 20 Sock tips 21 Used incorrect letters 23 Unpredictable 25 Non-earthlings 26 Put the kibosh on 27 Open-air lobbies 29 Mount the soapbox 32 Trophy stand 36 Move jauntily 37 June honorees 39 By way of 40 Kind of design 43 Spill hot coffee on 45 Metal fastener 46 Big snake 47 Seven-veil dancer 50 From Maine 54 Lustrous in appearance 57 Quartet minus

for my family and being with PLDT is definitely one of those decisions,” Kris shared.

She added that PLDT’s integrated HOME technology is a perfect match for her own lifestyle, as she raises two digitally savvy sons and expands her personal brand into the realm of digital media.

“This is super exciting for me because PLDT is really a big part of our home and our family, so to be officially an ambassador is a huge honor,” she added.

When it comes to allowing her followers an intimate look at her travels, live blogs, and online contents, Kris will rely on Smart.

“Everything now is digital. You know how watching TV has shifted over to binge watching in gadgets? That’s the same pivot I see for my digital needs. With Smart’s reliable LTE speed, I know that

one 58 Ms. Morrison 59 Bireme movers 60 Difficult situations 61 Service ender 62 Herr’s wife 63 Light brown 64 Pushed the doorbell 65 Wine and dine 66 Belief DOWN 1 Jot down 2 Hold in high regard 3 Goof-off 4 Serf 5 Piglet’s mother 6 Eye nerve 7 Picks up the check 8 Mont Blanc’s range 9 Spotted cats 10 Showy flowers 11 Drive out 12 Pilgrim suitor 13 Sax mouthpieces 21 Stir 22 Nadelman or Ducommun 24 Standoff 27 By itself 28 Media mogul —

Turner 29 Kyoto sash 30 Jimmy’s successor 31 Suitable 33 Water-power org.

34 Feel awful 35 Aberdeen kid 37 Emits (2 wds.)

38 Unhatched fish 41 Blowing away 42 Coating of frost 43 “Titanic” message 44 More snide

46 Flying fox 47 Raga instrument 48 Bakery lure 49 Of flax 50 Come next 51 Sergeant Bilko 52 Long, narrow hilltop 53 Bottle- — dolphin 55 Feel concern 56 Was, to Ovid 60 U.K. broadcaster

reaching a broader audience, particularly the millennials, is now a lot easier.”

Kris hosts and produces several online video series on her official Facebook page including Wear Kris for fashion tips, The Kris List for her personal list of new experiences and conversations with people, Heart to Heart with Kris for a glimpse into her daily activities and adventures, and Kris Travels for fans who want to virtually join her as she travels the world with her loved ones.

“We’re honored to have Kris as part of the PLDT family. I am confident that, together, we can really empower and inspire more Filipino families to build the strongest connections at home through world-class internet and technology,” PLDT-Smar FVP and Head of Consumer Business for Market Development Oscar A. Reyes, Jr. said.

Isah V. Red, Editor Nickie Wang, Writer isahred@gmail.com WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017

“Nay” film director Kip Oebanda (second from right) with cast members (from left) Jameson Blake, Sylvia Sanchez and Enchong Dee

From left: “Changing Partners” stars Jojit Lorenzo, Sandino Martin, Anna Luna and director Dan Villegas

From left: Carlo Aquino, Cinema One Originals festival director Ronald Arguelles, Agot Isidro, Nathalie Hart and Rafa Siguion Reyna

Fearless Cinema One

Originals Festival in November

W

A L A N G Takot. That’s the tagline of the 13th Cinema One Originals and it’s fearless in English.

It is more than an apt descriptor for the festival’s programming ethos and its reputation, the way it has, year in and year out, shepherded unique, adventurous cinematic voices into the limelight.

But Walang Takot also exemplifies not only the way the festival is embracing the changing face and attitudes of cinema, from the paradigm shifts when it comes to new ways of watching films to the influx of a diverse new audience, with a deeper sense of cinematic history and new cinematic modes, but also the way it endeavors to ride the changes by closing the gaps, striving for a cinematic experience that allows for the co-existence of old and new platforms and the convergence of old and new audiences, where past and future cinema occupy the same evolutionary continuum, looking back by moving forward.

The two films that make up this year’s documentary section are both examinations of a past with uncanny present-day resonances but from diverse vantage points. Dempster Samarista’s Bundok Banahaw, Sacred and Profane is an exploration of the mystical mountain, referring to unpublished history and sacred knowledge as a way of piecing together our cultural psyche.

Phyllis Grande’s Haunted: A Visit to the Red House focuses on the atrocities of Japanese soldiers on Filipino during the JapaneseAmerican war in the Philippines, a horrendous collective memory that remains relevant and refuses

Cast members and directors of participating films in this year’s edition of Cinema One Originals

to be forgotten.

There are seven films in the full-length narrative section, including two returning alumni, two debuts and two muchawaited second features. In Paki, Dagitab director Giancarlo Abrahan casts actress Dexter Doria in her very first lead role as woman in her golden years whose children try to stop her from leaving her husband of 60 years to live the rest of her days out as an old maid. Shamaine Buencamino and Noel Trinidad co-star.

Nervous Translation, about a shy girl who discovers a pen that can translate the thoughts and

feelings of people when they get nervous, is written and directed

by Cinema One alumna Shireen Seno, whose Big Boy was part of Cinema One Originals 2013, itself a slightly odd, often magical childhood reverie. Jana Agoncillo and Sid Lucero star.

Richard Somes, of Yanggaw, Ishmael and Mariposa fame, returns to Cinema One for his fourth outing in the festival, with Historiographika Errata, an elaborate historical mosaic that attempts to figure out why we are what we are, throwing in the mix a suicidal Rizal, a cross-dressing Bonifacio and the widow who became the first Makapili.

The sprawling, ambitious film features Joem Bascon, Alex Medina, Maxine Eigenmann, and Nathalie Hart.

For his first outing with Cinema One, Walang Forever director Dan Villegas adapts Vincent de Jesus’ much-loved stage musical Changing Partners, a bittersweet exploration of relationships told in the perspectives of various genders, starring Agot Isidro, Anna Luna, Jojit Lorenzo, and Sandino Martin.

Kip Oebanda, fresh off the success of Bar Boys, is directing the aswang inversion Nay, about a man suffering from a terminal disease who uncovers a dark

family secret. Enchong Dee, Sylvia Sanchez, and Jameson Blake star.

The two first features this year are Fatrick Tabada and Rae Red’s Si Chedeng At Si Apple, a dark comedy where Elizabeth Oropesa and Gloria Diaz play two old girl friends who become accidental criminals and embark on a road trip with a severed head in a fake Louis Vuitton bag, and Joseph Teoxon’s timejumping Throwback Today, in which Carlo Aquino plays a disgruntled young man at the end of his rope who stumbles on an impossible way to rewrite his own history. Annicka Dolonius,

Empress Shuck and Allan Paule co-star.

The year’s world cinema highlights also grace this year’s foreign film line-up, a 13 – strong program that includes Robin Campillo’s Beats Per Minute, Claire Denis’ Let The Sun Shine In, Francois Ozon’s L’Amant Double, Ildiko Enyedi’s On Body And Soul, Joachim Trier’s Thelma, Hirokazu Koreeda’s The Third Murder, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Before We Vanish, Sebastian Leilo’s A Fantastic Woman, Amit Masurkar’s Newton, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, The Safdie Brothers’ Good Time, Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, and the 4K restoration of Steven Spielberg’s science-fiction classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Among the restored classics to be showcased this year include Marilou Diaz Abaya’s Moral,” Jeffrey Sonora’s Asedillo, Celso Ad Castillo’s Tag Ulan Tag Araw and Danny Zialcita’s Langis At Tubig.

Restored versions Zialcita’s Karma, Abaya’s Karnal and Lino Brocka’s Cain at Abel will also be screened.

Lastly, Sari Dalena’s documentary on Ishmael Bernal, Ishma, will be screened to coincide with the launch of the new Ishmael Bernal book, ProBernal Anti Bio, written

by Bernal himself with Jorge Arago and Angela StuartSantiago.

The 13th Cinema One Originals runs on Nov. 13-21 at Trinoma, Glorietta, Gateway, UP Cine Adarna, Cinema 76 and Cinematheque with an extended run on Nov. 22-28 at the Power Plant Mall.

Gabbi Garcia sings about empowering women

The cast of “Pepito Manaloto”

Pepito Manaloto elevated CMMA Hall of Fame GMA Network’s hit family sitcom Pepito Manaloto once again proves that it is the country’s number one comedy program after it received another recognition.

The program has been elevated to the Hall of Fame during the recently concluded 39th Catholic Mass Media Awards.

Michael V., in his Instagram post, dedicated the award to all the avid viewers and supporters of their program.

“Lahat kami sa cast at sa production, hindi tumitigil hangga’t hindi namin nasisigurong mag-e-enjoy kayo sa bawat episode. Hindi namin alam kung ilang taon pa magtatagal ang #PepitoManaloto pero hangga’t tinatangkilik n’yo kami, hindi kami magsasawang magbigay ng saya sa inyo,” he said.

Pepito Manaloto airs Saturdays after 24 Oras Weekend.

GMA Artist Center star Gabbi Garcia is in her element, releasing her selfproduced debut single entitled, “All I Need.”

The song, which is about overcoming personal struggles and believing in one’s capabilities, is a passion project that Gabbi is very proud of.

“The song kasi is very special for me because I’ve become very hands on with its production. From the music to the visual element of the track, my friends and I collaborated on it para mas buo yung identity nung kanta,” Gabbi explains.

Ever since she started in showbiz, Gabbi wanted singing to be part of her identity as an artist. Now that she has finally released her own track, she feels a step closer to reaching that goal.

“It is very fulfilling for me to have accomplished this in my job, because singing is really my passion. Kahit before pa, you can always see me with a guitar na ready sa jamming. I’m very excited about this and I hope people would appreciate it.”

“All I Need” is available for streaming and downloading in over 180 digital stores nationwide including iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, Amazon, and Google Play Music.

Apart from her music, Gabbi’s fans will also see more of her this November as she graces the cover of Mega Style PH.

"All-Star Videoke" hosts Solenn Heussaff and Betong Sumaya