The Standard - 2016 March 30 - Wednesday

VOL. XXX NO. 46 3 Sections 32 Pages P18 WEDNESDAY : MARCH 30, 2016 www.thestandard.com.ph editorial@thestandard.com.ph

Aquino signs law on PWD benefits

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‘RIVALS’ BASHING COMIC, SAYS MAR

By John Paolo Bencito and Christine F. Herrera

GENERAL NAKAR, Quezon—Administration standard bearer Manuel Roxas II said Tuesday that those criticizing a comic book depicting him as the hero and savior of survivors of Super Typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013 were allies of his political rivals.

At a campaign stop, Roxas shrugged off suggestions that the comic book was inappropriate and an inaccurate account of what really happened, and said people who criticized it were merely trying to weaken his bid for the presidency. “[To] those who are happy [with the comic], thank you very much.

But to those who are reacting negatively, maybe they’re allies [of] my rivals. Maybe they can see that [the comic book] is effective. That’s why they’re reacting negatively.”

“I thank my supporters for making these [comic books] to explain what happened during that time,” Roxas said.

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Kidnappers demand ransom for 10 sailors

Campaigning in Manila. Administration presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II campaigns on Carlos Palanca Street in Quiapo, Manila, on Tuesday.

JOHN PAOLO BENCITO

JAKARTA—Ten Indonesian sailors have been kidnapped in Philippine waters by Islamic militants who have demanded a ransom for their release, an official said Tuesday.

The crew were traveling on two boats that were transporting coal from Borneo island to the Philippines when they were hijacked, said Indonesia’s foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir.

It is not clear when the vessels—a tugboat and a barge—were hijacked but the boats’ owners received a ransom call from someone claiming to be from the Abu Sayyaf militant group on Saturday, Nasir said.

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From A1 “The hijackers demanded a ransom from the owners of the boat. Since March 26, the hijackers have contacted the owners twice,” Nasir told reporters, without elaborating on how much had been demanded for the crew’s release.

It is unclear where the barge Anand 12 and the crew are being held by the kidnappers but the tugboat Brahma 12 had been released to the Philippine authorities, he added.

The Indonesian foreign ministry is working with the Philippines foreign ministry on the case, Nasir said.

“Our current priority is the safety of the 10 citizens who were taken hostage,” he said, adding their families had been informed.

Armed Forces chief Gen. Hernando Iriberri flew to the main army base in the south of the country to check on the situation and discuss what steps should be taken, his spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said.

The Philippine government has repeatedly said it has a no-ransom policy. But parties linked to foreigners held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf often pay to win their release.

Reports from Manila said local authorities found one of the tugboats abandoned at Languyan island, Tawitawi province on Monday afternoon.

Arrmanatha said Brahma 12 was already in the custody of officials in the Philippines while the other vessel and crewmen were still held hostage.

A report said authorities in the Philippines have received a demand for ransom equivalent to at least $1 million for the crew’s release.

The military confirmed the abduction of the 10 Indonesians Tuesday but could not confirm they were taken by the Abu Sayyaf.

Brig. Gen. Demy Tejares, commander of the joint task force on Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, said naval, air and ground assets are conducting a search for the victims.

Tejares also confirmed reports that the tugboat was found in Languyan, TawiTawi, without its crew.

Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said the abductors took the navigational equipment attached to the vessel and the personal belongings of the entire crew.

The military announced Tuesday that government forces arrested an Abu Sayyaf Group sub-leader who was involved in a string of kidnappings in Zamboanga Peninsula.

Maj. Filemon Tan, spokesman of the Western Mindanao Command, identified the suspected kidnapper as Esmael Pingli alias Tago Pingli. AFP, Florante S. Solmerin, Francisco Tuyay

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Kim Wong points to two Chinese in laundry scam ‘Rivals’...

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The 28-page comic book, “Sa Gitna ng Unos (In the Midst of Disaster),” featured the life and times of the administration bet, and highlighted his actions in Tacloban City when the killer typhoon struck.

“Comics are such a part of our culture, [they’re] already a part of any regular or conventional campaign,” Roxas said.

The comic book drew strong criticism from typhoon survivors who suffered through the government’s slow response to food, shelter and health services in the aftermath of Yolanda. It also drew ridicule from administration critics and political opponents.

In a statement Monday, his spokesman Rep. Barry Gutierrez said Roxas needed the comic book to counteract “the continued spread of lies about his deeds.”

Veteran illustrator Karl Comendador, who drew the comic book portraying the “heroism” of Roxas during the aftermath of the disaster on Tuesday, said he was commissioned by supporters of the Liberal Party.

He had drawn a similar comic book for then Senator Benigno Aquino III, only to regret it afterwards because of his poor performance as President, the artists said on his Facebook page.

Comendador said that he actually supports Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, and apologized to those who may have been offended by the Roxas comic book.

Roxas tried to make light of the criticism.

“Is that the biggest issue of the day?” he said. “The issue of the day is the antimoney laundering. Every central bank, every money laundering authority in the world is watching what the country will do.”

Yolanda survivors vowed Tuesday to deliver “zero votes” to Roxas for “shamelessly peddling lies” through his comic book.

“Roxas should stop revising history by exploiting the Yolanda victims to advance his presidential bid. The die has been cast long before the comic book came out. There will be zero votes for Mar Roxas in Tacloban and the entire Eastern Visayas come May 9,” said Efleda Bautista, chairperson of People Surge, an organization of Yolanda survivors.

“We cannot tolerate another big insult and a big lie from Mar Roxas and his ilk in the LP, led by President Aquino. They are all guilty of criminal neglect. We’ve been insulted enough,” said Bautista, a Taclobanon.

Public outrage mounted over the 28-page comic book.

Bautista, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr., and militant lawmakers demanded that Roxas issue a public apology to Yolanda survivors.

Roxas’ rival Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan reiterated his position that “Roxas is a failed leader as evidenced by how he mishandled the Yolanda crisis.”

The presidential candidate from Mindanao has also said that Roxas cannot handle stress, noting that Roxas did not know what to do in the face of the massive death and destruction left by Yolanda.

Bautista confirmed that Roxas was in Tacloban before, during and after Yolanda, but said he was more concerned with politicking.

“We will never forget Roxas’ statement such as ‘Bahala na kayo sa buhay niyo,’ and President Aquino’s ‘Buhay ka pa naman di ba?’ when a businessman was pleading that emergency powers be granted to stop people from looting and rioting due to hunger,” Bautista said.

Worse, she said, Roxas met with Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez demanding that the mayor give up his powers to allow Roxas a free hand to make things move. “‘You must understand that you are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino,’ still reverberates to us to this day and Roxas was doing this while we were looking for and gathering dead bodies of our loved ones and were finding ways to find something to feed our families because (Social Welfare Secretary) Dinky Soliman was busy identifying and prioritizing their allies for the relief goods that were found rotting because of their slow response to the tragedy,” Bautista said.

Sought for comment on the comic book, the mayor said: “MAR stands for Mayor Alfred Romualdez.”

Bayan’s Reyes said Roxas should apologize to all Yolanda victims for trying to capitalize on their suffering to further his political ambitions.

“His comic book is quite a work of fiction but storm victims find it neither funny nor entertaining,” Reyes said.

Bautista said contrary to Roxas’ delusions, the people from Eastern Visayas continued to demand that the government account for the billions in local and foreign donations that never reached them.

She said several families were still living in unsafe and substandard bunkhouses that did not have water and power.

“Roxas and Aquino never

cared for us and never will.

They are a bunch of arrogant aristocrats that acted like spoiled brats before, during and after the Yolanda onslaught. They still behave like that to this day,” Bautista said. “Matapobre sila. They are heartless.”

“Mar should stop portraying himself as a Yolanda hero. He should stop claiming that the government’s response was adequate. Yolanda victims know this to be false. Even the international media reported on this. It is only the delusional Mar who sees it fit to pat himself on the back for the colossal failure of the Aquino government to prepare for and respond to Yolanda. Even Mar was caught unprepared as he was in a hotel in the aftermath of the storm, without a satellite phone and cut off from Malacañang. Mar’s tasteless use of a tragedy to advance his candidacy is beyond justification and should be roundly condemned,” Reyes said.

Duterte’s spokesman Peter Laviña said the Liberal Party was again caught lying through its teeth amidst the deluge of criticisms generated by the comic book.

Laviña called LP spokesperson Barry Gutierrez a pathological liar when he said the comics was courtesy of Roxas supporters.

“How could this administration tell lies straight faced?” said Laviña in a statement.

Gutierrez said the comic book was a dramatic depiction of what Roxas has done to help victims of Yolanda in Tacloban and would “set the record straight.”

But Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, who is running for senator, said Roxas was trying to revise history.

“Let this be a lesson to us all to always learn our history and to always stand up for the truth so that those who want to revise history for their own gain will not succeed. Filipinos should not vote for these candidates,” Colmenares said.

The depiction of Roxas as a hero during Yolanda’s onslaught was a lie that no Filipino believes, added Kilusang Mayo Uno chairperson Elmer Labog.

“Roxas, together with Aquino, should in fact be held accountable for their criminal neglect when Yolanda struck,” Labog added.

Bautista said Roxas could no longer fool the Yolanda survivors and that the LP presidential bet should stop using taxpayers’ money and sell the comic books to the junk shop to have them recycled and put to good use.

With Maricel V. Cruz, Sandy Araneta and Rio N. Araja

By Macon Ramos-Araneta and Rey E. Requejo

TWO Chinese nationals brought the $81 million stolen from Bangladesh Bank into the country in cahoots with dismissed RCBC Jupiter branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito and remittance firm Philrem Service Corp., a casino junket operator Kam Sin Wong a.k.a. Kim Wong said Tuesday.

Testifying in the third Senate hearing on money laundering in banks and casinos, Wong named the Chinese nationals as Shuhua Gao, a junket agent from Beijing, China, and Zhize Ding, a businessman from Macau. He said the two were the “big players” in the cyber bank heist and the subsequent laundering of the money through RCBC and the casinos.

Wong had earlier said he would put the names of the supposed masterminds in a sealed envelope that would be submitted to the authorities, but upon prodding from Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, he was compelled to divulge their identities at the hearing.

Wong also tagged Deguito as the one who opened the five bank accounts using fictitious names to accept the $81 million. He said it was also Deguito who facilitated the release of the stolen funds from her branch, where it later ended up in casinos at Solaire and Midas, with the help of PhilRem. Deguito had earlier testified before the Senate panel that four of the said accounts were referred to her by Wong.

She admitted facilitating the dollar accounts under the names of Michael Cruz, Jessie Lagrosas, Alfred Vergara and Enrico Vasquez.

The total amount of $81 million was deposited in these accounts on Feb. 5, 2016 after an initial deposit of $500 in each account.

The stolen money, remitted in five tranches, was later on consolidated in an account under the name of businessman Wiliam So Go. In the first Senate hearing, Go testified he never opened such an account at the Jupiter branch and has never even set foot in that bank.

Go also told senators that Deguito met with him in a restaurant in Global City, Taguig, and admitted she had opened a dollar account under his name, and then offered him P10 million for his silence.

He reiterated Tuesday that his signatures on the bank opening forms and withdrawal slips were forgeries.

All the funds that were credited into Go’s account were later transferred to the account of PhilRem, maintained at RCBC-Unimart Greenhills.

Senator Vicente Sotto III demanded that PhilRem pro-

duce records of the transaction and show how much it earned from it.

“It seemed thaf PhilRem has a starring role here,” Sotto said, dismissing the statement of PhilRem president Salud Bautista that they were not a major player in the irregular transaction.

“All these funds passed through you,” Sotto told the PhilRem president.

Under questioning by Senator Teofisto Guingona III, Wong denied referring the four account holders to Deguito, insisting that he only introduced Gao to Deguito as he owed him P450 million from casino losses at Solaire.

He said Deguito, along with three companions, went to his office at Midas Hotel in Pasay City sometime in May 2015. But it was only Deguito who entered his office. He was then with Gao. When Gao said he was interested in opening a dollar account to facilitate the transfer of money for his casino operations, Wong recalled Deguito answered “I’ll take charge of this.”

He remembered Deguito also told Gao she needs his cooperation.

“Maia also said she needed five persons to make a corporation,” Wong said.

He said Gao even complained about the difficulty of opening an account, but Deguito assured him that she would take care of everything.

After two or three days, Wong said Deguito called Gao asking for $2,500 to open the five dollar accounts.

On Feb. 5, Wong said Deguito called him several times the whole day to inform him about the entry of $81 million—in five tranches consisting of $6 million, $25 million, $30 million and $20 million— in the four accounts.

Wong then requested that a part of the money be sent to Gao at the Solaire Casino, to which Deguito complied by delivering P100 million in cash.

He presented to the committee a CCTV photo of Deguito’s vehicle entering Solaire that night to deliver P100 million converted from the dollar account by PhilRem and his own photo of the cash being delivered to the casino. He then got a total of $5 million and P300 million from the house of PhilRem executive Michael Bautista. With Gabrielle Binaday and Julito G. Rada

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Duterte camp: Roxas distorting federalism idea

Pampanga sortie. Vice presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is joined by his sons William, Vincent and Joseph during a sortie in Pampanga. EY ACASIO

UNA says it respects Erap decision on Poe THE United Nationalist Alliance said Tuesday it respected the decision of former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada to support Senator Grace Poe’s presidential bid in the May national elections.

The group said it did not really expect Estrada to endorse Vice President Jejomar Binay.

UNA interim president and Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco said it had been expected of Estrada to support Poe especially after the Supreme Court cleared her to run for president after finding her to be a natural-born citizen.

“It was expected because

Erap said he would be for Poe if she was not disqualified, but if she was disqualified he would go for Binay,” Tiangco said.

“We respect his decision and we wish him luck in his campaign for mayor.”

Estrada on Tuesday said the political old guards must give way to a new generation of leaders, a statement he made when asked if his support of

Poe might cause Binay to harbor ill-feelings against him.

“I can’t do anything about it. That’s what my heart tells me,” he said.

Binay was the running mate of Estrada when the actor turned politician ran but lost to then Senator Benigno Aquino III in the 2010 presidential race.

Poe, meanwhile, said she and Estrada had not been talking about the case of his son Senator Jinggoy Estrada, who is facing a plunder charges over the P10billion pork barrel scam.

Estrada’s endorsement finally ended the months-long speculation over his pre-

ferred presidential candidate.

Binay’s daughter, Makati Rep. Abigail Binay, said the relationship between the Estradas and Binays would likely remain intact.

“We think that with the long time we’ve spent together with the Estrada family, this will not be a reason for us to stop being friends again,” she said.

Estrada’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino and Binay’s Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan joined forces to form UNA for the 2013 elections. It was relaunched as a political party in 2015. Vito Barcelo, Joel E. Zurbano and Macon Ramos-Araneta

THE camp of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday accused administration bet Manuel Roxas II of twisting information about federalism, a form of government seen to put an end to the armed conflict and underdevelopment besieging Mindanao for decades.

Peter Laviña, spokesman and head of Duterte’s media team, said Roxas had only exposed his lack of knowledge on Mindanao when he attempted but failed to demolish the wisdom behind the federalism being pushed by Duterte.

He made his statement even as Duterte on Tuesday promised to build an airport in the extreme north if he becomes president.

Speaking to a crowd of 3,500 at the Dolores Civic Center in Dolores, Abra, Duterte noted that it takes around eight hours to travel to this province by land.

“Don’t you have an airport here?” he said.

“I will build an airport in the extreme north plus a feeder road so the trip becomes faster.”

Media reports had quoted Roxas as saying federalism meant another layer of taxes. He also said federalism would not solve the Mindanao problem.

Grace Poe, another presidential candidate, is opposed to federalism and last year said federalism would perpetuate dynasties.

Laviña said, “Poe should know better.”

“She only needs to look at governments that are federal in form—like the US. She should have known better. After all, she

once lived the American Dream.”

Before he announced his presidential bid, Duterte had been moving around the country conducting a series of consultations on federalism.

He said federalism would ensure the equal distribution of power and wealth, and that it would be the best alternative to the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law. Duterte believes that federalism will end graft and corruption in the government and usher in meaningful development in the Philippines.

Laviña said Roxas was clearly trying to use scare tactics and misleading the public by destroying federalism.

“He is wrong and his statement is misleading,” Laviña said.

“It is not about imposing taxes. It is about how taxes are shared and spent.”

Laviña said Roxas clearly wanted to protect the interest of the Aquino administration and those who wanted to control power.

“The current system is the source of the problem,” Laviña said.

“It is a form of government that controls power and dictates the pace of the nation. This is a form of government that is a breeding ground for corruption.

This is what Roxas wants to protect.”

Laviña said federalism was also “about solving the Mindanao problem.”

Duterte has repeatedly been saying that the Mindanao problem is the reason behind the slow growth of the Philippines.

Comelec has no case yet, won’t stop fight broadcast THE Commission on Elections on Tuesday decided not to stop the broadcast of senatorial candidate Manny Pacquiao’s boxing match against Timothy Bradley on April 9 in Las Vegas.

Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista told reporters there was no “justiciable controversy” in Pacquiao’s case because the fight had yet to happen.

“The Comelec en banc believes that, as of this point, there is still no justiciable controversy,” Bautista said.

He said the case was presumptive and that there were no formal complaints filed in accordance with Comelec rules and procedures.

“We are supposed to rule on actual controversies involving rights, which are legally demandable,” Bautista said.

“We cannot operate in terms of possibilities. We do not give hypothetical opinions. We do not give advisory

opinions as a quasi-judicial body.”

Bautista said the coming boxing match was not within the Comelec’s control, and that it did not have the power to stop its airing over radio and television.

He said once a formal petition was filed before the Comelec, that would be the time they would decide on Pacquiao’s fight.

“We will act on it if and when the complaint is filed,” he said.

In February, senatorial candidate Walden Bello filed a petition urging the Comelec to decide if Pacquiao’s coming match would violate election rules.

He also asked the Comelec to determine if the extensive media coverage might give Pacquiao a “distinct advantage” over the other candidates.

But Bello did not file a disqualification petition against the boxer. Sara Susanne D. Fabunan

Proclamation rally. Presidential candidate Jejomar Binay is joined by his daughter, Rep. Abigail Binay, and Makati Vice Mayor Monique Lagdameo during a proclamation rally in Makati on Monday night. LINO SANTOS

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Fishers hail failed bidding

By Sandy Araneta PROTESTING fishermen said the failure of the bidding for the P123-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike project was a small victory, but said President Benigno Aquino III was trying desperately to close the deal before he steps down from office.

“President Aquino is making sure it’s all systems go for the LLEDP before leaving Malacañang. He is making sure, he is fully paid to these giant businesses who funded his election campaign last 2010,” said Save Laguna Lake Movement spokesperson Ronnie Molera.

“But also this time, he is begging for funding and political support for his heir apparent Mar Roxas in the coming presidential race,” Molera added.

Molera said they will continue to oppose the LLEDP, a 47-kilometer dike project with an expressway on top that will run from Taguig City to Los Baños in Laguna. It also includes a “deal sweetener” comprised of 700 hectares of land reclaimed from the lake.

“The LLEDP is a serious threat to our lives and livelihoods,” Molera said, noting that Laguna de Bay used to be a rich fishing ground, sustaining the everyday lives of the people living along the lake.

“But because of the various destructive projects implemented by the past and current administration, the lake is now on its deathbed,” he said.

On March 22, Aquino issued Executive Order No. 202, creating an inter-agency technical committee on the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike Project, which will be composed of technical representatives of the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Laguna

Lake Development Authority, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Philippine Reclamation Authority.

The IATC will assist the DPWH and LLDA in the implementation of the LLEDP and in resolving issues arising from the implementation of the LLEDP, the EO provides.

The committee shall also ensure all aspects of the LLEDP, including the relocation of the LLEDPaffected inhabitants, waste management, reclamation, environmental protection, property development, and construction, are consistent with the requirements of all applicable laws, rules and regulations, it adds.

The National Economic and Development Authority Board, which the President headed, earlier approved the LLEDP to be implemented by the DPWH as the implementing agency, and the LLDA as the cooperating agency, under a public-private partnership scheme pursuant to the Build-Operateand-Transfer Law. But Molera said “rehabilitation is our solution to the Laguna Lake woes, not LLEDP. We will continue to expose and oppose this wholesale destruction on Laguna de Bay until it is totally scrapped.”

Salvador France of the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas urged local candidates in the affected municipalities to expose and oppose the LLEDP.

Reds in the city. Supporters of the communist New Peoples Army march with an urn containing the remains of longtime rebel Gregorio ‘Ka Roger’ Rosal to mark the anniversary of the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

MANNY PALMERO

Same-sex marriage plea disputed

By Rey E. Requejo THE solicitor general asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to dismiss a petition seeking to allow same-sex marriage in the country because he failed to prove that he had suffered injury from the state policy, erroneously impleaded the wrong parties and raised a matter lacking importance.

Commenting on the petition of lawyer Jesus Nicardo Falcis III last year, Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said Falcis’ admission of his homosexuality was not enough to prove that he was legally a party of interest in questioning the constitutionality of the Family Code.

In his petition, Falcis argued that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the rights of homosexuals and lesbians to due process and equal protection, to decisional and marital privacy, and to found a family in accordance with their religious or irreligious convictions.

The Family Code defines marriage as “a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life” and “the foundation of the family and inviolable social institution.” “[But] in the language of doctrine, [Falcis] has not demonstrated any ‘injury in

fact’ from the operation of the Family Code… Whatever injury petitioner feels is non-particularized for the reason that his interest is shared with the entire universe of people who agree with his advocacy,” Hilbay said.

He disputed Falcis’ assertion that his ability to find long-term and monogamous same-sex relationship “is impaired because of the absence of a legal incentive for gay individuals to seek such relationship.”

Hilbay said such a claim “demeans the capacity of homosexuals to enter into committed relationship,” adding that no evidence was presented to prove that an across-the-board, systematic incentive “will lead

gay individuals to choose petitioner over any other homosexual.”

The chief state lawyer also said Falcis erred in impleading Civil RegistrarGeneral instead of naming the Congress as respondent in this case.

“The Congress is an indispensable party in this case because the petition’s cause of action is directed against a legislative policy, not an administrative concern that the respondent Civil Registrar-General can act upon,” the OSG pointed out.

“Petitioner does not show how the Civil RegistrarGeneral could have acted in grave abuse of discretion in relation to applications for a marriage license,” it said.

Ex-BSP head Singson dies, 87

Women vs K-12. Women picket the Supreme Court on Padre Faura Street in Ermita, Manila on Tuesday to urge the high court to junk the government’s K-12 education program. DANNY PATA

RENOWNED central banker Gabriel C. Singson, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 87, spent the last years of his career preparing the country to exit the controversial “guidance” of the International Monetary Fund and assert Philippine economic independence.

Singson, who was the first governor of the restructured Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas from 1993 to 1999, finally signed off on the completion of the country’s last IMF extended funding facility in 1997 after 35 years under the fund’s tutelage. ‘’This is what we’ve been waiting for and what we’ve been working for during

the last three years,’’ Singson said in 1997. ‘’This will give the international community more confidence on the Philippines.’’

For the policies and reforms he implemented toward the country’s exit from the IMF, Singson was twice selected by Asiamoney as Central Bank Governor of the Year.

He is also credited for the relatively mild impact of the 1997 Asian financial crisis on the Philippines.

After retiring from government service, Singson served as president of JG Summit Capital Markets Corp. and senior adviser of JG Summit Holdings Inc. Singson graduated valedictorian and magna cum

laude from the College of Liberal Arts, Ateneo de Manila University. He earned his Master of Law Degree from the University of Michigan Law School as Dewitt Fellow and Fulbright scholar.

Upon learning of his death before dawn Tuesday, Malacañang mourned the death of Singson and again praised the central banker as having “served the nation exemplarily... He laid the foundations for a more stable banking and financial system.”

The BSP will hold a requiem mass and necrological service at 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. of Wednesday at the BSP Complex in Malate, Manila.

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UNA’s bet. Senatorial candidate and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez (left photo) waves at thousands of supporters as he is endorsed by UNA Party as one of its senatorial candidates during the proclamation rally of Makati’s mayoralty bet Abby Binay at Pasong Tamo, Makati City. VER NOVENO

Plaridel statue’s removal blasted

BUHAY Party-list Representative Lito Atienza criticized the unceremonious removal of the statue of Filipino hero Marcelo H. Del Pilar from the Remedios Circle in Malate by the City Government of Manila without consulting the group samahang Plaridel.

“I fully support the position of the samahang Plaridel in condemning the removal of Del Pilar’s statue from Remedios Circle which we collaborated on during our time as mayor. The City Government should have shown more respect for this monument and its historical significance as well as the association of veteran journalists whose project it was in the first place,” Atienza said during the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel.

In 2004, Atienza who was then Mayor of Manila, helped samahang Plaridel in raising funds and commissioned renowned sculptor Julie Lluch to make the seven-foot bronze statue of propagandist-journalist Marcelo H. Del Pilar, also known by his pen name Plaridel. The statue was originally erected in 2005 at the Paraiso ng Batang Maynila in front of Manila Zoo but was subsequently transferred to Remedios Circle in 2009.

“This is exactly what we have been fighting for—proper respect and recognition of the significance of our historical monuments such as that of modern day heroes Ninoy Aquino and Evelio Javier whose statues were removed by the Department of Public Work and Highways from the central area of the Baywalk along Roxas Boulevard almost a year ago. We had written DPWH sec. Rogelio singson last June 1, 2015 calling his attention on the disappearance of the two statues of our heroes,” Atienza added.

Romualdez’s PWD bill signed into law

By Sandy Araneta President Benigno Aquino iii has signed into law the bill that exempts people with disability from paying the 12-percent value added tax on certain goods and services, Malacañang said on tuesday.

Communications secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. confirmed that Aquino signed the law after two-and-a half months since it was ratified by Congress.

The PWD bill was authored in the House of Representatives by senatorial candidate Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez .

House secretary-General Marilyn BaruaYap said the House Records Management service has sent to the Palace House Bill 1039 which Romualdez describes as an equalizing measure that would accord PWDs exactly the same privilege as that being enjoyed by senior citizens.

Romualdez, a lawyer and president of the Philippine Constitution Association, said: “The proposed law grants 12-percent VAT exemption to PWDs on certain goods and services. My bill will put PWDs on equal footing with senior citizens who are already exempted from VAT payment on top of their 20-percent discount.”

Romualdez, former chairman of the House committee on ethics and privileges, was joined by Marikina City Rep. Miro Quimbo, who chairs the House committee on ways and means, in pushing for the proposal while the senate authors include Juan Edgardo Angara who is the chairman of the senate committee on ways and means that deliberated the measure, senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto who is a reelectionist, senators Bam Aquino and Nancy Binay.

When the bill remained unacted in the House, officers of PWD groups such as Manuel Agcaoili, president/chief operating officer of Tahanang Walang Hagdanan Inc., and Emer Rojas, Cancer Alleviation Network on Care Education and Rehabilitation partylist nominee, said House leaders had no good

Honorary Consul of Luxembourg.

Manila Overseas Press Club president and PeopleAsia magazine publisher Jose Manuel ‘Babe’ Romualdez was recently appointed as the new Honorary Consul of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg during ceremonies held at the Embassy of Luxembourg in Tokyo, Japan. Shown in photo is Romualdez (right) accepting the appointment from Ambassador Beatrice Kirsch. Luxembourg was one of the countries that immediately responded during the onslaught of Typhoon ‘Yolanda’ in November 2013 by sending an emergency team to Tacloban that installed a satellite-based communication platform, designed for emergency and relief operations. The Luxembourg team brought its own power generators and in 40 minutes, set up a telecommunications network that served as communications provider which enabled more than 300 aid agencies and over 5,000 aid and relief volunteers across Leyte to stay connected—helping save thousands of lives in the process.

reason to hold Romualdez’s HB No. 1039 .

Agcaoili maintained that there are almost 10 million PWDs in the country or 10 percent of the country’s 100-million population based on the estimates by the World Health Organization.

The Philippine statistics Authority only pegged the number of PWDs in the country at almost 1.5 million.

The PWD law would also allow the relatives, up to the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity, taking care of handicapped , to claim a tax deduction of P25,000 in their annual income tax.

“Persons with disability effectively enjoy only P12 for every P100 worth of good or service because the law does not exempt them from VAT, which is imposed on the net value of the good or service or 10 percent of the P80 after deducting P20, representing the 20-percent discount granted in RA 9442, for every P100 worth of good or service purchased,” said Romualdez, head of the House Independent Bloc and a three-term congressman who is running for the senate under a platform anchored on compassionate governance.

4 Aeta groups root for Marcos

By Macon Ramos Araneta As A show of gratitude to the late President Ferdinand Marcos, four Aeta tribes associations living in Pampanga on Tuesday vowed solid support for his son and namesake, vice presidential candidate senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. During his campaign sortie in Pampanga, Marcos was warmly received by the villagers who are mostly members of either samahan Angkan ng Katutubo (saka), Mabalacat Aeta Tribal Association (Mata), Bamban Aeta Tribal Association (Bata), and Tribal Elders.

Edgar Palo, a member of the board of trustees of saka, said they will vote for Marcos to ensure that the projects initiated by his father will be continued.

Palo said they trust that the senator like his father, the late president who had a soft spot for the native Aetas.

The same confidence was echoed by other tribal leaders in separate interviews who said they have found in Marcos the kind of leader that tribal and indigenous peoples can depend on.

“We know that we can depend on him so we will vote for him,” said Manuel de Vera, vice president of Bata.

Marcelo sumilang, president of Tribal Leaders, said he had been an Aeta community leader since the Marcos administration.

“This place was formerly known a Negrito village. But the late President Marcos helped us so we will repay him by helping his son.

We will vote for Bongbong,” he said.

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A6 2 bus firms penalized for illegal operation

By Rio N. Araja THE Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board on Tuesday imposed on two bus companies a fine of P1 million each for operating without permit during the December holiday break in 2015.

Ariel Enrile Inton Jr., one of the LTFRB board members, said apart from the fine, the franchises of Dimple Star Transport’s 10 units and CUL Transport’s six units have also been cancelled.

“Indeed, LTFRB marked its words when it gave warnings to those who would violate its orders, memorandum circular and others,” he said.

“In its action against outof-line operation of buses, LTFRB recently meted out a penalty of P1 million and the cancellation of franchise against Dimple Star Transport, and CUL Transport, respectively,” the agency’s statement read.

“The bus companies’ violation was discovered when the LTFRB inspected bus terminals during its Oplan Krismas operation,” Inton said.

According to Inton, one unit of Dimple Star (TYR-393) and one unit of CUL Transport (HVP746) operated without securing special permits from LTFRB. “Thus operating outof-line and considered as doing colorum operations, defined and penalized under the Joint Administrative Order 2014-00,” he said.

NEWS

editorial@thestandard.com.ph

Academe hails passage of anti-agri smuggle act Some of the biggest state universities in Luzon offering agriculture courses have welcomed the passage in Congress of a measure meant to eradicate large-scale smuggling of agricultural products by declaring this as a form of economic sabotage.

Abono Party-list Rep. Conrado Estrella III, the principal author of Anti-Large-Scale Smuggling Law in the House of Representatives, stressed that unabated smuggling has caused not only local farmers to lose their jobs, but has also discouraged students from taking up agriculture courses.

Under the Anti-Large-Scale Agricultural Smuggling Act, the amount of smuggled agricultural products classified as economic sabotage should be worth equal to or more than

P10 million for rice, and equal to or more than P1 million for other agricultural products such as sugar, corn, pork, poultry, garlic, onions, carrots, fish, and cruciferous vegetables.

“Smuggling distorts the forces of supply and demand.

Left unchecked, it will unjustly lower the market price, making it almost impossible for locally-produced goods to compete,” the lawmaker said. “Rampant smuggling will result in diminished employment and higher poverty

levels, particularly in the agricultural sector.”

In separate letters to Estrella, officials of three Luzon state universities, all of which offer agricultural courses, hailed the passage of the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Law and expressed their profound gratitude to the legislator for spearheading its approval in Congress.

According to Dr. Dexter Buted, president of Pangasinan State University, the measure “would level the playing field for the Filipino farmer in the domestic market, enabling him to be more competitive.”

Nueva Vizcaya State University president Dr. Andres Taguiam said the measure is “very crucial” for the country’s food security program.

“The illegal presence of smuggled agricultural products has

greatly affected our farmers’ income-generating capacity. It reduced their purchasing power and is detrimental to both the agricultural sector and the whole country,” Taguiam said, “Through this bill, you have given back confidence and hope to our farmers.”

Dr. Tereso Abella, president of Central Luzon State University, said, “This legislation will make agricultural endeavors a more viable source of income and encourage our students to pursue them, thus making food production more sustainable for our people.”

In line with the academe’s stance on the importance of agriculture courses, Estrella also highlighted the necessity for adapting new agricultural technologies in academic and training institutions.

“We have to convince the next generation that there is money in agriculture so that more of them will enroll in agricultural courses,” the Abono Party-List representative said.

“Farming is not guesswork. It is a science, and solely relying on luck for our food security is very dangerous.”

“By enrolling in agriculture courses, the next generation of farmers will have access to new technology and data from the research programs of other countries who have achieved scientific advances in the industry,” he explained.

“By updating their knowledge of the latest agricultural practices and technology, our next generation of farmers will be able to lessen expenses and input while increasing their yield and earnings.”

Parade of beauties. About

40 candidates of the Binibining Pilipinas beauty contest are presented before the media on Tuesday, March 29 at the Novotel in Quezon City. DANNY PATA

Sandigan reverses order on Padilla

RH advocates. Members of the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development, saying that eight out of 10 Filipinos hold the belief that presidential candidates include family planning in their programs of action, present a signage during a press conference in Quezon City. mANNY PAlmeRo

THE Sandiganbayan on Tuesday reversed its previous commitment order to transfer former Camarines Norte governor Casimiro “Roy” Padilla from the provincial jail to the National Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City.

In a March 28 resolution, the anti-graft court’s First Division granted Padilla’s plea to stay at the provincial jail, and not at the NBP. The anti-graft court anchored its reversal on a May 13, 2013 decision of the Supreme Court citing Padilla’s “voluntary surrender.”

“Having considered the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender under Article 13 Paragraph 7 of the Revised Penal Code, the Court modifies the penalty stated in its

[Sandiganbayan] decision dated November 27, 2012,” the high court’s resolution read.

In 2012, the Sandiganbayan sentenced Padilla to a minimum of four months and one day to a maximum of four years and two months of imprisonment.

But the Supreme Court reduced Padilla’s sentence to a minimum of four months to a maximum of two years of imprisonment for his failure to return to the provincial government a .45 caliber pistol and ammunition.

In a motion, Padilla, the brother of action star and television host Robin Padilla, invoked the Revised Administrative Code that a convicted person sentenced to a maximum of three years of impris-

onment or a fine of not more than P1,000 shall be considered a provincial prisoner, and not a national prisoner.

The First Division on Tuesday issued a supplemental mittimus, directing the transfer of Padilla to the provincial jail from Muntinlupa City.

“Wherefore, in view of the foregoing, the Court issues this Supplemental Mittimus directing the Bureau of Corrections to turn over the person of accused Casimiro ‘Roy’ Padilla to the custody of the Provincial Jail in Camarines Norte for the continuation of the service of the sentence imposed upon the accused, which started to run on March 21, 2016,” the First Division said.

Rio N. Araja

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NEWS

editorial@thestandard.com.ph

Cops nab drug gang members URDANETA CITY— Members of the City Anti-Illegal Drug Special Operations Task Group and the Intelligence Section of the Urdaneta City Police Station, in coordination with elements of the Philippine Drug Enforcement AgencyRegion 1, arrested a member of the notorious Andrada group and his cohort Monday afternoon at Del Prado Village, Barangay Poblacion.

Authorities identified the suspects as Alexis Cerezo, 43, a resident of Del Prado Village, and as Eric Cerezo, 35, a cook from Pangon Street in Urdaneta City.

Confiscated from their possession were three heat-sealed transparent plastic sachets containing white crystalline substance suspected to be shabu and marked money of still undetermined amount, two pieces of aluminum foil strips, two disposable lighters, two pieces of plastic straw, one stainless small scissors, and one mobile phone.

Cases of illegal sale of dangerous drugs, illegal possession of dangerous drugs, and illegal possession of drug paraphernalia are now being readied against the suspects.

The suspects were arrested as a result of the intensified implementation of “Coplan Bagwis” which targets top drug personalities. PNA

Best friends. A man from Ormoc City goes out to the street with his five dogs in tow. MEL CASPE

Residents protest local exec’s hiring of ‘goon’

By Robert A. Evora

ROXAS, Oriental Mindoro—Town officials and residents here have asked the Commission on Elections and the Philippine National Police to look into allegations that the acting town mayor has employed a “goon” at the municipal hall prior to the elections.

A municipal watchman, Eliezer Bello, 50, was caught possessing a .9-millimeter caliber pistol, a magazine and 17 live bullets inside the municipal hall this week. Police have filed two criminal cases against him.

But Bello showed authorities a memorandum receipt for the .9 mm pistol and a high-powered M-16 auto-

matic rifle issued by Roxas acting Mayor Violeta L. Dimapilis on March 10, 2016.

Regional Police Director Ramon C. Apolinario, Mimaropa PNP chief, said, in a press conference, that local government officials have no authority to issue MRs to employees for firearms except office supplies.

Presiding Judge Edralin C. Reyes ordered the com-

mitment of Bello, of Barangay Libtong, this town, who was charged for violating the Comelec gun ban law covered under Omnibus Election Code and provisions of Republic Act No. 10591 for having no legal authority to own and possess firearms.

The two criminal cases against Bello, who was hired by acting Mayor Dimapilis, emanated from an incident this week when the respondent figured in a heated altercation with suspended Roxas Mayor Jackson Cinco Dy in the second-floor corridor of the municipal hall building.

Dy noticed something bulging on the right side of Bello’s waist. He thought it was a gun. Bello resisted Mayor Dy’s frisking of his

waist and about to draw his gun. In front of witnesses, and after a brief struggle, Dy disarmed Bello of his pistol.

Dy brought Bello to the police station and surrendered to acting Police Chief Henry D. Malitao the loaded pistol and the live ammunitions.

Mayor Dy, however, said when police authorities filed the complaint at the office of the provincial prosecutor, the MR was changed into a new one.

Instead of containing in the MR two firearms, one .9-mm pistol and an M-16 Armalite rifle, only the .9-millimeter pistol was indicated in the new MR with the same date.

The incensed Mayor Dy showed to newsmen two conflicting MRs with the same date and same signatures of

Mrs. Dimapilis.

“There seems to be a coverup to protect the involved local official,” Dy said, as he alleged that some police officials are in cahoots with some local politicians to whitewash the case.

Acting Mayor Dimapilis is running against Mayor Dy’s daughter, Samantha Jade Dy, in the Roxas mayoral race. The suspended mayor is the running mate of Samantha Jade.

The regional police director also showed to local newsmen a total of 99 firearms, 80 short and 19 long firearms, which were either seized, confiscated or voluntarily surrendered to Oriental Mindoro provincial police authorities under the PNP’s “Oplan Katok” and “One Time, Big Time” operations.

Advocate wants climate change center in Eastern Visayas using survival fund

Zumba fever. Students and parents from Sero Central School in Cotabato City take part in a zumba dance number during the school’s foundation and stakeholders’ day earlier this month. OMAR MANGORSI

TACLOBAN CITY—An environmental planner is pushing for the establishment of an Eastern Visayas Regional Climate Change Center and Information Network utilizing the Peoples Survival Fund.

Nestor Tabungar, private sector representative of the regional land use committee and owner of environmental planning firm, Phil-World Gateway said the proposed center needs an initial investment of P20 million.

The project cost will cover site development, multistory building construction, office furniture and fixtures, audio-visual equipments, information technology hardware and soft ware,

computers and printers, loaded vehicles, and power generation facilities.

“Under Republic Act 10174, the PSF can be used to support adaptation activities of local governments and communities such as establishment of regional centers and information networks,” Tabungar said.

The proposed location for the center is a vacant lot at the Eastern Visayas State University main campus in this city.

The center will provide information on water resources management, land management, agriculture and fisheries, health, infrastructure development, natural ecosystems.

The facility will also improve forecasting and early

warning systems as part of preparedness for climate-related hazards, help local government boost their disaster preparedness.

“The center will support institutional development, for local governments, in partnership with local communities and civil society groups, for preventive measures, planning, preparedness and management of impacts relating to climate change, including contingency planning in areas prone to extreme climate events,” Tabungar explained.

The proponent is seeking a resolution from the Regional Development Council endorsing the project for funding by the Climate Change Commission. PNA

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A8

OPINION

ADELLE CHUA EDITOR

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

OPINION

VIRTUAL REALITY TONY LOPEZ

CENTRAL BANK ROBBERY, PH STYLE

[ EDI TORI A L ]

ALTERED STATES DERISION and outrage have greeted the distribution of a comic book depicting the administration’s presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II as the savior of Typhoon “Yolanda” survivors.

For those who lived through the killer typhoon and its aftermath in 2013, the graphic retelling of their ordeal to recast Roxas as the hero was a blatant lie and an insult to the thousands that died.

“That is far from the truth and reality that what he did and did not do resulted in the death of thousands of people. This was criminal negligence. He is cleaning his name and washing his hands of the tragedy,” said Yolanda survivor Marissa Cabaljao.

Contrary to the glowing account in the comic book, the administration—and Roxas, who was then Interior and Local Government secretary—came under fierce criticism for their slow response to the typhoon, which killed more than 6,000 people, left 1.9 million homeless and destroyed 90 percent of the structures in Tacloban and other towns and cities in the Visayas. Five days after the typhoon struck, survivors continued to struggle with basic necessities such as food, water and shelter, while remote towns in Leyte and Samar had yet to receive any aid at all—a condition documented at the time by live reporting by CNN. In Tacloban City, corpses were still being found four months after the disaster.

In the face of these harsh realities, there are two ways we can view the Roxas comic book.

The most facile is to believe that the Roxas camp and its Liberal Party allies are cynical liars and are so desperate to win election that they will lie about a human tragedy to claw their way out of the bottom of the polls.

Another possibility is that Roxas actually believes his revision of history, twisted as it might seem to anyone familiar with the administration’s dismal record in Yolanda.

This separation from reality might explain how he can claim with a straight face to have performed heroic feats, even though any preparations he might have put in place in his meetings in Tacloban City before the storm were clearly inadequate—leading to more, not fewer deaths.

It is this same disconnect from the lives of ordinary Filipinos that gave one government official the impetus to declare that the country’s economic managers were “happy” about official statistics showing that more than one in four Filipinos is poor, and that there were 26.4 million people living below the poverty line—simply because this was an improvement over the 27.9 percent poverty rate in 2012.

It is the same alternate view of reality that enables a callous President to veto a bill that would have raised pensions to millions of retirees with the shrug of the shoulder, while defending fat bonuses for the administrators of the Social Security System.

In the 1980 film Altered States, American playwright Paddy Chayefsky wrote about a scientist who experimented with sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic drugs to unlock different states of consciousness. While the combination seemed to work at first, the scientist’s grip on reality gradually slipped away as his sensory deprivation increased.

There seems to be a striking parallel here—sans the hallucinogenic drugs, we trust— between the scientist who eventually loses his grip on reality, and Roxas, who thinks of himself as the hero of Yolanda. Long deprived of interaction with real people—perhaps by personal choice or preference—Roxas has achieved an altered state of reality from which there may be no return.

‘YOLANDA’ AND MAR LOWDOWN JOJO A. ROBLES THE tragedy that was “Yolanda” did not only kill thousands of innocent people in Tacloban City and other hard-hit areas. It also virtually washed away the chances of Mar Roxas of ever becoming the next president of the Philippines.

The buzzword of the Aquino administration immediately before the super typhoon hit could also have been Roxas’ battlecry in Tacloban. The word is “prep-

ositioned,” as in, Roxas, the Interior and Local Government secretary, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and other top officials of the government were prepositioned in the city as part of the government’s preparations ahead of the typhoon’s expected disastrous arrival.

President Noynoy Aquino, who once promised that 80 percent of his government would be run by his defeated former running mate, had given Roxas his biggest opportunity to shine nearly three years ago. Instead, as everyone from CNN’s Anderson Cooper to the Tacloban People Surge movement now knows,

Mar dropped the ball and even aggravated a situation he had been asked to save.

By the time the Mamasapano massacre happened early in 2015, Mar was no longer even “in the loop,” as he described it, even he was still tagging along as some kind of Aquino administration eunuch. And yes, possibly because he was aware of his abject failure in Tacloban, Roxas was fine with being a high-ranking non-entity in Zamboanga, where Aquino decided to monitor the operation to get terrorist bomber Marwan.

Roxas, of course, has always held a different, reality-chal-

Mar had his one big opportunity to prove his worth and he blew it away completely.

A9

lenged version of what happened in Tacloban. This unfounded belief in the efficacy of his own efforts on the ground is the basis for that much-maligned comic book “Sa Gitna ng Unos” (In the Middle of the Tempest) starring Mar as the hero and savior of a city lashed by the powerful typhoon.

Mar really could have become the savior of Tacloban, just like his comic-book avatar. But he only succeeded in proving how ill-suited he was to the job of taking command in a real crisis situation and, yes, in sabotaging his own plans for higher office.

When it really mattered, Roxas displayed his lack of executive ability, his penchant for holding long, unnecessary

meetings and his insistence on putting political considerations ahead of everything else. When Yolanda hit, Mar was as shell-shocked as any Taclobanon; in the end, he could only pose for that forgettable magazine cover, smiling wanly and waving ineffectually at the camera, possibly wondering why he allowed himself to be sent to do a job that he knew he could not possibly perform.

Cooper decried the lack of a real government presence in Tacloban postYolanda, as the unnamed bodies piled up on either side of the city’s roads.

Published Monday to Sunday by Philippine Manila Standard Publishing Inc. at 6/F Universal Re Building, 106 Paseo de Roxas, corner Perea St., Legaspi Village, Makati City.

Telephone numbers 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558 (connecting all departments), (Editorial), 832-5546, (Advertising), 832-

Among the dead was Roxas’ ambition —and no amount of historical revisionism, through official pronouncements or hurriedly made comic books, is going to change that.

As Roxas himself kept saying recently: “Oras ko po ito.” Well, Mar had his one big opportunity to prove his worth and he blew it away completely.

Roxas could have been a leading contender instead of just a tail-ender given an outside chance simply because of the gargantuan resources at his disposal.

That’s not Yolanda’s fault but Mar’s own.

5550. P.O. Box 2933, Manila Central Post Office, Manila. Website: www. manilastandardtoday.com E-mail: contact@thestandard.com.ph

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*** April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote. And as the entire country braces for the May 9 elections, the month that is just about to start will surely prove the poet right.

This is the homestretch of what promises to be one of the wildest, most hardfought campaigns for the presidency that this country has ever known. With no one candidate holding a really big advantage over the rest of the field, expect the final push to be really big, costly and increasingly desperate.

Continued on A11

MST Management, Inc. Philip G. Romualdez Arnold C. Liong Former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno Jocelyn F. Domingo Ron Ryan S. Buguis Anita F. Grefal Treasury Manager

Chairman President & Chief Executive Officer Board Member & Chief Legal Adviser Director of Operations Finance Officer Edgar M. Valmorida Circulation Manager

IT IS not every day that a country’s central bank is robbed, the new-fashioned way— by software and computer hacking.

It all started with a wily businessman named Kim Wong. He has plenty of connections, here and abroad. His network includes high-level politicians, well-heeled businessmen like bankers, and even characters one regularly does not do business with—like murky shadows lurking in dimly lit high-roller casinos, denizens of wharves, gnomes of currency trading, and aliens masquerading as foreign investors with oodles of unexplained money.

Kim Wong has willing partners, otherwise innocent guys named William So Go and Weikang Xu. Add a couple of willing and able bank branch managers eager to do any and all of these things —boost business for their bank, expand their own network of connections, and make money to assure themselves a bright future—Maia Santos Deguito, manager of RCBC branch in Jupiter Makati, and Angela Torres, her assistant.

A common thread binds them— money. Or what other people enviously call greed. To satisfy their profit motive, the cabal employed a generous supply of planning, cunning and subterfuge.

And punched loopholes into two of the Philippines’ supposedly strict but arcane laws—the Marcos-era Bank Deposit Secrecy Law and the 21st century AntiMoney Laundering Law. Both laws are silly. Bank deposits are so secret our central bank or anyone interested must secure the consent of the depositor and the court to inquire into his deposit. Enacted in 2001 and amended three times (in 2003, 2012 and 2013), the AML law requires the Anti-Money Laundering Council to get a court order to inquire into the deposits of people suspected of laundering money. And the council must prove so-called predicate crimes before it could seek such an order. And of course, casinos and real estate sales are beyond the reach of the anti-money laundering law.

However, on certain occasions, such as when you are the chief justice and the vice president and the president of the Philippines does not like your face or Continued on A11

BACK CHANNEL ALEJANDRO DEL ROSARIO Mr. Del Rosario’s column will resume soon.

Rolando G. Estabillo Jojo A. Robles Ramonchito L. Tomeldan Chin Wong/Ray S. Eñano Francis Lagniton Joyce Pangco Pañares Adelle Chua Romel J. Mendez Roberto Cabrera

Publisher Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Associate Editors News Editor City Editor Senior Deskman Art Director Chief Photographer

Emil P. Jurado Chairman Emeritus, Editiorial Board

W E D N E S D AY: M A R C H 3 0 , 2 0 1 6

A8

OPINION

ADELLE CHUA EDITOR

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

OPINION

VIRTUAL REALITY TONY LOPEZ

CENTRAL BANK ROBBERY, PH STYLE

[ EDI TORI A L ]

ALTERED STATES DERISION and outrage have greeted the distribution of a comic book depicting the administration’s presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II as the savior of Typhoon “Yolanda” survivors.

For those who lived through the killer typhoon and its aftermath in 2013, the graphic retelling of their ordeal to recast Roxas as the hero was a blatant lie and an insult to the thousands that died.

“That is far from the truth and reality that what he did and did not do resulted in the death of thousands of people. This was criminal negligence. He is cleaning his name and washing his hands of the tragedy,” said Yolanda survivor Marissa Cabaljao.

Contrary to the glowing account in the comic book, the administration—and Roxas, who was then Interior and Local Government secretary—came under fierce criticism for their slow response to the typhoon, which killed more than 6,000 people, left 1.9 million homeless and destroyed 90 percent of the structures in Tacloban and other towns and cities in the Visayas. Five days after the typhoon struck, survivors continued to struggle with basic necessities such as food, water and shelter, while remote towns in Leyte and Samar had yet to receive any aid at all—a condition documented at the time by live reporting by CNN. In Tacloban City, corpses were still being found four months after the disaster.

In the face of these harsh realities, there are two ways we can view the Roxas comic book.

The most facile is to believe that the Roxas camp and its Liberal Party allies are cynical liars and are so desperate to win election that they will lie about a human tragedy to claw their way out of the bottom of the polls.

Another possibility is that Roxas actually believes his revision of history, twisted as it might seem to anyone familiar with the administration’s dismal record in Yolanda.

This separation from reality might explain how he can claim with a straight face to have performed heroic feats, even though any preparations he might have put in place in his meetings in Tacloban City before the storm were clearly inadequate—leading to more, not fewer deaths.

It is this same disconnect from the lives of ordinary Filipinos that gave one government official the impetus to declare that the country’s economic managers were “happy” about official statistics showing that more than one in four Filipinos is poor, and that there were 26.4 million people living below the poverty line—simply because this was an improvement over the 27.9 percent poverty rate in 2012.

It is the same alternate view of reality that enables a callous President to veto a bill that would have raised pensions to millions of retirees with the shrug of the shoulder, while defending fat bonuses for the administrators of the Social Security System.

In the 1980 film Altered States, American playwright Paddy Chayefsky wrote about a scientist who experimented with sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic drugs to unlock different states of consciousness. While the combination seemed to work at first, the scientist’s grip on reality gradually slipped away as his sensory deprivation increased.

There seems to be a striking parallel here—sans the hallucinogenic drugs, we trust— between the scientist who eventually loses his grip on reality, and Roxas, who thinks of himself as the hero of Yolanda. Long deprived of interaction with real people—perhaps by personal choice or preference—Roxas has achieved an altered state of reality from which there may be no return.

‘YOLANDA’ AND MAR LOWDOWN JOJO A. ROBLES THE tragedy that was “Yolanda” did not only kill thousands of innocent people in Tacloban City and other hard-hit areas. It also virtually washed away the chances of Mar Roxas of ever becoming the next president of the Philippines.

The buzzword of the Aquino administration immediately before the super typhoon hit could also have been Roxas’ battlecry in Tacloban. The word is “prep-

ositioned,” as in, Roxas, the Interior and Local Government secretary, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and other top officials of the government were prepositioned in the city as part of the government’s preparations ahead of the typhoon’s expected disastrous arrival.

President Noynoy Aquino, who once promised that 80 percent of his government would be run by his defeated former running mate, had given Roxas his biggest opportunity to shine nearly three years ago. Instead, as everyone from CNN’s Anderson Cooper to the Tacloban People Surge movement now knows,

Mar dropped the ball and even aggravated a situation he had been asked to save.

By the time the Mamasapano massacre happened early in 2015, Mar was no longer even “in the loop,” as he described it, even he was still tagging along as some kind of Aquino administration eunuch. And yes, possibly because he was aware of his abject failure in Tacloban, Roxas was fine with being a high-ranking non-entity in Zamboanga, where Aquino decided to monitor the operation to get terrorist bomber Marwan.

Roxas, of course, has always held a different, reality-chal-

Mar had his one big opportunity to prove his worth and he blew it away completely.

A9

lenged version of what happened in Tacloban. This unfounded belief in the efficacy of his own efforts on the ground is the basis for that much-maligned comic book “Sa Gitna ng Unos” (In the Middle of the Tempest) starring Mar as the hero and savior of a city lashed by the powerful typhoon.

Mar really could have become the savior of Tacloban, just like his comic-book avatar. But he only succeeded in proving how ill-suited he was to the job of taking command in a real crisis situation and, yes, in sabotaging his own plans for higher office.

When it really mattered, Roxas displayed his lack of executive ability, his penchant for holding long, unnecessary

meetings and his insistence on putting political considerations ahead of everything else. When Yolanda hit, Mar was as shell-shocked as any Taclobanon; in the end, he could only pose for that forgettable magazine cover, smiling wanly and waving ineffectually at the camera, possibly wondering why he allowed himself to be sent to do a job that he knew he could not possibly perform.

Cooper decried the lack of a real government presence in Tacloban postYolanda, as the unnamed bodies piled up on either side of the city’s roads.

Published Monday to Sunday by Philippine Manila Standard Publishing Inc. at 6/F Universal Re Building, 106 Paseo de Roxas, corner Perea St., Legaspi Village, Makati City.

Telephone numbers 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558 (connecting all departments), (Editorial), 832-5546, (Advertising), 832-

Among the dead was Roxas’ ambition —and no amount of historical revisionism, through official pronouncements or hurriedly made comic books, is going to change that.

As Roxas himself kept saying recently: “Oras ko po ito.” Well, Mar had his one big opportunity to prove his worth and he blew it away completely.

Roxas could have been a leading contender instead of just a tail-ender given an outside chance simply because of the gargantuan resources at his disposal.

That’s not Yolanda’s fault but Mar’s own.

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*** April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote. And as the entire country braces for the May 9 elections, the month that is just about to start will surely prove the poet right.

This is the homestretch of what promises to be one of the wildest, most hardfought campaigns for the presidency that this country has ever known. With no one candidate holding a really big advantage over the rest of the field, expect the final push to be really big, costly and increasingly desperate.

Continued on A11

MST Management, Inc. Philip G. Romualdez Arnold C. Liong Former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno Jocelyn F. Domingo Ron Ryan S. Buguis Anita F. Grefal Treasury Manager

Chairman President & Chief Executive Officer Board Member & Chief Legal Adviser Director of Operations Finance Officer Edgar M. Valmorida Circulation Manager

IT IS not every day that a country’s central bank is robbed, the new-fashioned way— by software and computer hacking.

It all started with a wily businessman named Kim Wong. He has plenty of connections, here and abroad. His network includes high-level politicians, well-heeled businessmen like bankers, and even characters one regularly does not do business with—like murky shadows lurking in dimly lit high-roller casinos, denizens of wharves, gnomes of currency trading, and aliens masquerading as foreign investors with oodles of unexplained money.

Kim Wong has willing partners, otherwise innocent guys named William So Go and Weikang Xu. Add a couple of willing and able bank branch managers eager to do any and all of these things —boost business for their bank, expand their own network of connections, and make money to assure themselves a bright future—Maia Santos Deguito, manager of RCBC branch in Jupiter Makati, and Angela Torres, her assistant.

A common thread binds them— money. Or what other people enviously call greed. To satisfy their profit motive, the cabal employed a generous supply of planning, cunning and subterfuge.

And punched loopholes into two of the Philippines’ supposedly strict but arcane laws—the Marcos-era Bank Deposit Secrecy Law and the 21st century AntiMoney Laundering Law. Both laws are silly. Bank deposits are so secret our central bank or anyone interested must secure the consent of the depositor and the court to inquire into his deposit. Enacted in 2001 and amended three times (in 2003, 2012 and 2013), the AML law requires the Anti-Money Laundering Council to get a court order to inquire into the deposits of people suspected of laundering money. And the council must prove so-called predicate crimes before it could seek such an order. And of course, casinos and real estate sales are beyond the reach of the anti-money laundering law.

However, on certain occasions, such as when you are the chief justice and the vice president and the president of the Philippines does not like your face or Continued on A11

BACK CHANNEL ALEJANDRO DEL ROSARIO Mr. Del Rosario’s column will resume soon.

Rolando G. Estabillo Jojo A. Robles Ramonchito L. Tomeldan Chin Wong/Ray S. Eñano Francis Lagniton Joyce Pangco Pañares Adelle Chua Romel J. Mendez Roberto Cabrera

Publisher Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Associate Editors News Editor City Editor Senior Deskman Art Director Chief Photographer

Emil P. Jurado Chairman Emeritus, Editiorial Board

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A10

OPINION

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

I SAW HISTORY IN THE MAKING (2) TO THE POINT EMIL P. JURADO DURING my early years at the Herald, I witnessed events that made history for the Philippines. These were the importation of jeep surplus from Guam, Saipan and the Marianas islands, protectorates of the United States.

The importation was made by a Leyte businessman—Emilio Yap—who later on bought the Manila Bulletin, the largest newspaper at that time, from a Swiss national, Hans Menzi. Menzi had earlier bought the paper from the Americans who controlled it.

Since Emilio Yap was close to then-speaker Daniel Romualdez, who was also from Leyte, many members of Congress suspected Yap of smuggling.

I believed this to be furthest from the truth. In fact, when my friend, economic coordinator Peding Montelibano, sought me out to defend Yap, upon being convinced that all Yap’s transactions were above board, I wrote a series of articles for the Herald defending Yap as well.

Yap had his US automative firm to do the importation. These jeep surplus imports gave birth to the now-iconic jeepney: one of its kind, a testament to Philippine ingenuity.

Another aspect of Philippine history that I witnessed was the start of television in the early 1950s. A young American entrepreneur, Jimmy Linderberg, brought television to the Philippines.

Together with Tony Quirino, the brother of the late Elpidio Quirino, Linderberg put up the Alto Broadcasting System to introduce TV to Filipinos.

Since they did not have enough funds to start the business, they teamed up with the Lopezes who were then publishing the Manila Chronicle. Thus, the name ABS-CBN came up at the old Chronicle building.

Thus, I would credit Jimmy and Tony as the fathers of Philippine television which started airing in black and white. Color television came in much later.

Several other TV-radio networks came, like Bob Stewart’s Channel 7, the

Manila Times’ Channel 5 and the Sorianos, in partnership with Radio Mindanao Network of Cagayan de Oro’s Henry Canoy, for Intercontinental Broadcasting Channel 13.

There were only two television commentators at that time, Teodoro F. Valencia, who was then writing his column “Over a cup of coffee,”—and me. I was also writing my column at the Herald, called “My opinion.” Ka Doroy had his over Channel 5; I had mine on Channel 13. I had Dick taylor as my director.

For these, the Citizens Award for Television of the Catholic Mass Media Council gave Ka Doroy and me the “Television Commentators of the Year” award. Ka Doroy was not very happy because the protegé (I) and the mentor (he) were now on the same level.

My program was unique in a sense because I brought my interview with personalities from coffee shops like the Botica Boie in Escolta, Country Bake Shop in Ermita, and Taza de Oro along Roxas Boulevard.

For this, I was also named “Radio Commentator of the Year” in 1957.

Those were my golden years at the Herald, but because of my columns against a big bank that had closed shop because it lent to politicians without collaterals, I was sued for libel and damages for P50 million by former Central Bank governor Mike Cuaderno who was then the bank’s consultant.

For the Sorianos, it was a big case since the management and the editors were included in the suit I still recall that Don Andres Soriano, living in Spain but on a business trip to Switzerland, flew all the way to Manila to talk to me (with the lawyers and Cuaderno). Soriano talked about a compromise with the bank owners with Cuaderno representing the bank.

Soriano and the bank officials wanted me to apologize, but I refused. I showed them papers proving the anomalies. I recall Don Andres saying to my face: “Jurado, you are fired!” But when I returned to the Heraldi office, a top manager told me I was not fired, after all.

INVESTORS ARE IN DENIAL ABOUT CHINA

By Christopher Balding AS YOU’VE no doubt noticed, companies and investors around the world are feeling the pain of China’s economic slowdown. They’re worried about all the layoffs, cuts to surplus capacity and deleveraging to come on the mainland, which will further depress demand. The natural temptation is to blame China for the world’s woes. But outsiders should focus just as much on their own missteps—starting with the widespread misperception that “this time” would be different.

Back in 2009, as China unleashed a massive fiscal stimulus and investment spree in response to the global financial crisis, the rest of the world was all too willing to believe the impossible. Aided byconsultant research predicting decades of explosive growth, companies placed huge bets on China and expected to ride the never-ending boom to riches.

Amid the gold rush, they bulked up to sell China t-shirts or tons of iron ore. They urged their governments to sign free-trade deals with Beijing.

Commodity producers heedlessly expanded capacity, believing that 10percent growth would continue indefinitely. Consumer brands rushed to set up flagships in third-tier Chinese cities. Shipping companies scrambled to build new fleets to meet an expected explosion in global trade.

However, as with so many previous bouts of irrational exuberance, this time wasn’t really different. The ruthless rules of supply and demand When the Garcia administration came after the death of Ramon Magsaysay, one scandal after another fed newspaper headlines. Reporting on import quota allocation anomalies made journalists busy. People close to Garcia took advantage of their closeness to him.

Then came the reparations scandal. I recall businessmen lining up at the suite of a well-known congressman from one of the Visayan islands to get their reparations in the form of inter-island boats, cargo and bulk carriers. This legislator was the conduit of the reparations commissioners who were raking in millions of Japanese yen converted into dollars.

Those were the days when luxury jewelry and even diamonds were being smuggled from Bangkok and Hong Kong. Thus, when Garcia ran for reelection (at that time the Constitution provided a four-year term for the president, who may be reelected). That also gave birth to the Grand Alliance of Senator Raul Manglapus and Senator Manuel Manahan, he lost to the

still applied. And now, the longer that painful decisions are delayed, the harder they’ll become.

Commodities firms, in particular, are learning that lesson the hard way. As prices rose with Chinese demand, they made large upfront investments financed by borrowing— often on a 20-year timeline, in the expectation that growth would last and last. Now, with China’s economy slowing and the prices of everything from oil to metals plummeting, the bills are coming due.

Major iron ore firms, which had predicted that Chinese steel demand would keep rising until about 2030, are now looking at substantial overinvestment and deteriorating credit.

Dairy farmers, who increased their herds with future Chinese consumer demand in mind, are feeling the pinch as milk prices plunge.

After years of ramping up production to fuel China’s expected growth, oil-producing countries from Saudi Arabia to Norway are facing grim decisions about their public finances. Russia is rapidly draining its sovereign wealth fund.

Venezuela is pleading with China for loans—on top of the nearly $60 billion already doled out—to stave off collapse. Pundits are warning that the large debt load of US shalegas and oil producers could pose greater risks than sub-prime lending did a decade ago.

No less so than China, the rest of the world needs to face up to some new realities.

First, the golden age of Chinese

These were my golden years.

“poor boy from Lubao, Pampanga,” President Diosdado Macapagal. The only threat then against Macapagal was movie icon Rogelio Dela Rosa, who ironically was his brotherin-law by his first wife.

Roger eventually backed out. That was also another story.

To his credit, President Macapagal put up the Emergency Employment Administration to provide jobs to the jobless and a land reform program which eventually broke many rice, sugar, and coconut lands, making the landless tenants landowners. The land reform program broke the backbone of many landed estates. Strangely, Hacienda Luisita was never included

construction is over. There’s now enormous surplus capacity in virtually every industry that requires fixed-asset investment. Companies can no longer rely on the “Beijing put” of new government stimulus to boost growth. Iron ore producers and copper miners all need to begin a painful process of downsizingand deleveraging—just as China’s bloated state-owned enterprises do.

Producers around the world haven’t faced up to the new normal.

Second, companies of all stripes have to put in the effort to understand China better. Expectations of double-digit growth, regardless of how poor the performance, have vanished. Luxury brands that once hoped their Beijing flagships would smooth the balance sheets at European headquarters need to recognize that different markets require different strategies, and that shops in China won’t run on autopilot. They need to compete.

Third, companies and countries alike need to face up to their own irrational exuberance. Whether it’s failing to diversify, spending recklessly on the back of high prices, or taking on too much debt, fundamental mistakes can’t be blamed on China. Doing so only delays the inevitable.

Few investors seem to fully appreciate the balance-sheet reckoning that is coming. Failing to address the global supply glut only increases the risk of a larger correction. We know that because this time isn’t different: The bill always comes due. Bloomberg

in land reform. That gave birth to the “new poor” of Negros.

My 17 years at the Herald gave me the opportunity to meet many businessmen, who have become taipans and heads of conglomerates. My being twice president of the Business Writers Association of the Philippines which handed out awards annually to successful businesses also helped.

Lest I forget, during the Garcia-administration, the so-called “new and necessary industries”—textiles, cement, car assembly, home appliances, to cite a few—flourished. It was also a time for the rise of lumber and veneer industries, sand log exports and many more. I also became vice president of the Misamis Lumber Corp. owned by my wife’s family, managed by Nicolas Capistrano Jr. It gave me the opportunity to go to Japan as a journalist.

Through the years, assembly of cars was the name of the game.

Though the Garcia administration was buffeted with anomalies in dollar allocations and preparations,

it also gave rise to big business going into logging operations. The Aguinaldos, the Sanvictores and the Alcantaras were famous names at the time. But the cost of illegal and destructive logging cost the country a lot.

During the Macapagal administration, I acted as palace reporter every now and then. And I admired the President for his simple ways and his closeness to the press. I recall that one time when the President invited my wife and me at a Palace dinner with some journalists. I met a 13-year-old girl who was studying at Assumption College. This girl turned out later to become, in 2001, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

I was also a close friend of the late Fenny Hechanova, former press secretary and former finance secretary.

Fenny was then the closest member of the cabinet to “Cong Dadong.”

During the Macapagal years, two events shaped the nation—the deportation of Harry S. Stonehill and the peso devaluation, which I will write in my Part 3.

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OPINION lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

THE CLEAN-ENERGY DEADLINE IS SOONER THAN WE THINK see as dangerous.

Even so, trends globally aren’t EVERYONE knows that at some so encouraging. Developing napoint, if we want to contain cli- tions plan to build a lot more mate change, we’ll have to stop fossil-fuel generating stations, building polluting power plants. and global carbon emissions New research suggests that mo- are still increasing. Electricity ment may come much sooner generation still contributes about one-fourth of all humanthan we realize.

In some areas, the world is created greenhouse gas emismaking progress toward reduc- sions. The crucial question, ing harmful emissions. Earlier then, is whether we will manage this year, the Business Council the transition to zero carbon for Sustainable Energy reported production in time—and how that the use of coal-fired plants much time we have.

A new study by researchfor electricity generation in the US fell to the lowest level in 60 ers from Oxford University’s years. Some of the biggest US Institute for New Economic coal mining outfits have filed Thinking offers an answer. In for bankruptcy. Electricity from short, we have only a year or so coal looks set to become in- to stop investing in new fossilcreasingly rare in China as well. fuel power stations. After that, That’s good news for anyone the expected emissions from hoping that humanity might still those plants over their ecomanage to reduce carbon emis- nomic lifetime will commit sions enough to avoid warming us—barring other exceptional the Earth’s climate past the two changes—to shoot past the two degrees Celsius that scientists degree limit. This means we face

crucial choices right now.

The trouble, as Alexander Pfeiffer and colleagues point out, is the amount of emissions already built into the system.

Electricity infrastructure lasts a long time: Some thermal plants in the European Union are as much as 50 years old, and we should expect new plants to be used over a similar period of time. So the stock of existing plants, and any new construction, has repercussions for emissions decades into the future.

Climate dynamics add to the inertia. Once put into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide lasts for centuries, contributing to warming all the while. It’s the total stock of carbon in the atmosphere, not what we happen to be emitting now, that matters most. Even if we reduce emissions quickly, the stock will decline much more slowly.

Taking these inertias into account, and using data from the

IPCC on global carbon budgets and various scenarios for plausible future emissions and technology changes, Pfeiffer and colleagues analyzed how long we can go on building new fossil fuel power plants if we want to have a decent chance—say, 50 percent—of staying within the two degree limit. To that end, they introduced the concept of the “two degree capital stock”— the total amount of electricity generating capital we can create before we’ve locked ourselves into dangerous warming.

By their estimate, if we don’t shift all new electricity generation investment to zero-carbon technology by the end of 2017, we will face a number of unpalatable alternatives. They include accepting the likelihood of warming beyond the two degree limit, shutting down and writing off lots of the world’s energy assets or putting our hopes on carbon-capture technology that

Central... From A9

favor of Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co. in the amount of $21,245,500. And also, we learned that Philrem made cash deliveries, several instances to a certain Weikang Xu. These were cash delivers, amounting to around $30,639,141.63. We learned that Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co. is a casino operating at CEZA and one of the signatories to the account is a certain Kam Sin Wong. And we also learned that CenturyTex Trading is the business name of Mr. William So Go.” On Feb. 29, 2016, Abad disclosed, “the AMLC secretariat filed a freeze order petition with the Court of Appeals against the bank accounts of Mr. Michael Francisco Cruz, Mr. Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, Mr. Alfredo Santos Vergara, Mr. Enrico Teodoro Vasquez, Mr. William So Go, Centurytex Trading, Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company and Mr. Kam Sin Wong.” The Court of Appeals issued the freeze order on March 1, 2016. Accordingly, the AMLC began a full-blown investigation.

Senator Guingona was aghast that “the four account holders were found to have fake addresses.

The account holders’ identification documents, for example, the LTO driver’s license cards, were found to be fake as reported by AMLC after they verified with the Land Transportation Office.”

Also aghast is RCBC president Lorenzo V. Tan. At the March

15, 2016 hearing, he told the Blue Ribbon Committee: “On behalf of the bank, we vehemently deny and disavow any and all knowledge, complicity or participation in the alleged money laundering of US$100 million in the Philippines.”

Tan asserted “RCBC has always been and continues to be cognizant of the significant public interest that underlies its business and services. The bank views this county’s laws and policies against money laundering as a defining and sacred part of the bank’s corporate policies and governance culture.”

RCBC, he added, “has put in place systems, measures and policies that ensure and monitor compliance and consistency with prevailing laws and applicable rules and regulations of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, including those necessary to curb money laundering. Among others, the bank has a board-approved and updated money laundering prevention program manual, has a department dedicated to anti-money laundering matters, and has an anti-money laundering committee composed of no less than its senior group and committee heads, and has from 2011 to 2015 doubled its compliance complement to strengthen its AML department, testing and monitoring units.” To be continued

By Mark Buchanan

your political leanings, the public

somehow comes to know about the innards of your bank deposits. But we are digressing.

On Feb. 11, 2016, the governor of the Bangladesh central bank phoned Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. He sought the latter’s assistance to trace, freeze and return some $100 million stolen from the Bangladesh central bank.

The BSP, thru its Anti-Money Laundering Council, located some of the missing funds, only $81 million, at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.’s Jupiter branch.

They were parked in the name of four people—1. Michael Francis Cruz $6,029,000.12; 2. Alfred Santos Vergara $19,999,990; 3.

Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, $30,000,028.79; and 4. Enrico Teodoro Vasquez $25,001,573.88.

Total amount received in the four accounts: $81 million. All four accounts were opened on a single day, on May 15, 2015, with an initial deposit of $500. No transactions were done with them until Feb. 5, 2016, when the $81 million in remittances started coming.

Also on Feb. 5, 2016, the $81 million was transferred to the account of businessman William So Go of CenturyTex Trading which account is also with RCBC Jupiter.

Promptly, Go converted the $81

million into pesos, with one single money exchange trader, Philrem Service Corp. About $66 million of the dollars were exchanged into pesos with RCBC. Go had opened his dollar account only on Feb. 1, 2016, four days before he received the $81 million.

Notes Sen. Teofisto L. Guingona III, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigating the what possibly is the biggest bank cyber heist in history so far: “Basically, what happened was some hackers from somewhere hacked the Central Bank of Bangladesh funds lodged in New York and they were sent to RCBC. And from RCBC, they were transferred via Philrem to several accounts, several casinos. That’ s the general flow.”

According to Julia Bacay-Abad, AMLC executive director, “Go wanted to take advantage of the influx of Chinese casino players and junkets that’s why he was changing US dollars to Philippine pesos.”

Related Abad to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee at its March 15, 2016 hearing: “Upon the instructions of the said Mr. William So Go, Philrem made the following transactions: interbank fund transfers were made to the account of Solaire or Bloomberry and Hotels Inc. in the amount of $29 million.”

“Also, it appears that an interbank fund transfers were made in

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does not yet exist.

Pfeiffer and colleagues don’t mean to be doomsayers. Their aim is to help policy makers get a more realistic view of the time available for making the shift to clean energy. National commitments to phase out fossil fuel power generation tend to focus on targets for emissions reductions. The EU, for example, aims to cut 40 percent by 2030. But emissions at any moment aren’t directly linked to the atmospheric carbon stock that causes warming, nor do they reflect the future trajectory of carbon emissions implied by existing infrastructure.

Policy makers need to think a lot more about the repercussions of the fossil fuel power plants currently being planned, as well as associated coal mines and oil and gas fields. What we do today will affect the options available to us for decades to come. Bloomberg

Yolanda... From A9 And now that the official campaign period for local positions has also started, expect the din to get even louder and more incessant than it already is. There has got to be a better way to choose leaders, if only we can find it.

Of course, they say that election years invariably cause an uptick in the national economy.

The one that’s going to happen in May is probably going to set a new record in improving the overall economy, but you have to wonder how those underwriting the expense will get their money back.

It’s stupid to attribute the desire to hold elective public office to a hankering to serve the people, naturally. At the rate candidates and their fat-cat backers are throwing money around, you just know that they’re angling for equally big returns on their investment.

In the end, the real cruelty is inflicted on all of us who are now being cajoled, entertained and stampeded into electing these “public servants,” when the winners start looking for payback in the form of government contracts and suchlike. If elections didn’t promise such huge returns, after all, nobody would seek office.

CHONG ARDIVILLA

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sports sports@thestandard.com.ph

Problems mount for Bulls after loss Jeff Teague scored 26 points as the Atlanta Hawks inflicted a fourth straight defeat on the Chicago Bulls on Monday, nudging the iconic franchise closer to a first missed postseason since 2008.

Teague also notched seven assists in a 102-100 victory for the visitors as Chicago’s record dipped below .500 for the first time this season, leaving them at 36-37 and further adrift of the Eastern Conference playoff positions.

The Bulls’ season has gone into a nosedive in recent weeks, with the team losing 11 of their

last 17 matches to plummet down the standings.

The team held a clear-theair meeting at the weekend after a damaging defeat to the Orlando Magic on Saturday but were always chasing the game against the Hawks, who opened up a 15-point lead in the second half.

A sustained Chicago

rally saw them claw back the scoreline to 93-93 with 1:40 remaining. But Atlanta regrouped and regained the lead with free throws from Kent Bazemore, Thabo Sefolosha and Teague.

Jimmy Butler scored a four-point play to take the Bulls back to 98-97 with 19.6 seconds to go, but the Hawks held firm and four more free throws from Kyle Korver and Teague sealed the win.

The win saw Atlanta improve to 45-30, with nine wins in their last 10 games.

Chicago coach Fred Hoiberg drew encouragement

from his team’s late rally, even though it ended in vain.

“I was proud of them for fighting back from a doubledigit deficit,” Hoiberg said.

“We were able to recover from our poor second quarter and give ourselves a chance to win. We went down swinging, and that is something that we talked about. Stick together and keep fighting.”

Bulls star Derrick Rose, who top-scored with 20 points on 8-for-25 shooting, insisted Chicago were not ready to write off their season.

“We are still fighting, still trying to find our rhythm,”

Rose said. “(We need to) be mentally strong. Even though we are going through a rough time, (we need to) stay together and make sure everyone is on the same page.”

Elsewhere Monday, LaMarcus Aldridge scored 31 points and 13 rebounds as an under-strength San Antonio Spurs cruised to a 101-87 win over the Memphis Grizzlies in Tennessee.

San Antonio, who have the second best season record in the league at 62-12, could afford to rest Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili.

Kawhi Leonard was also

missing with a bruised quadricep. But the Spurs’ effective second string was still way too powerful for the Grizzlies, who lost their third straight game.

In Toronto, Kevin Durant poured in 34 points while Russell Westbrook added an incredible eighth tripledouble in his last 15 games as the Oklahoma City Thunder romped to a 119-100 victory over the Raptors.

Westbrook finished with 26 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds while Durant chipped in with eight rebounds and eight assists.

Freedom Run 2016 to support historical markers

Jeff Teague #0 of the Atlanta Hawks goes for the lay up against Pau Gasol (no. 16) of the Chicago Bulls during the game at on March 28, 2016 at United Center in Chicago, Illinois. AFP

Serena, Murray ousted in Miami WORLD number one and three-time defending champion Serena Williams and second-ranked Andy Murray both crashed out of the ATP and WTA Miami Open on a day filled with upsets.

Russian 15th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova stunned 21-time Grand Slam champion Williams 6-7 (3/7), 6-1, 6-2 while British world number two Murray dropped a third-round match to Bulgarian 26th seed Grigor Dimitrov 6-7 (1/7), 6-4, 6-3.

Williams and Murray each made 55 unforced errors, fading in the third set when it mattered most.

“A lot of unforced errors crept in and he was a lot more solid than me,” said Murray, who had 22 unforced errors in the last set alone.

“I made many more mistakes than usual, especially in the third set.”

Williams’ struggles prompted questions about her fitness and movement, irking the 21-time Grand Slam champion.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to criticize my movement right now,” Williams said. “I did the best I could. I can’t win every match. These players come out and give their best. I have to give 300 percent every match.”

The 34-year-old American was seeking her ninth Miami crown but instead matched her earliest-ever exit from 2000 with a fourth-round departure.

“It’s obviously disappointing, but I have won here a lot, so it’s OK,” Williams said.

There they go. Victor Espinoza (center) leads California Chrome to win the Dubai

World Cup race, during the Dubai World Cup horse racing event at the Meydan racecourse in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai. AFP

BALANGA—It’s all systems go for this year’s Bataan Freedom Run on April 10, tracing the historic Bataan Death March route.

Now on its third year, the Bataan Freedom Run still has the punishing ultra-marathon at 68.9 kms for serious marathon runners, plus the 10k, 5k for the running enthusiasts, and the 1km run for kids and 500m for pets.

All winners will receive cash prizes and medals from the organizers, but finishers of the ultra-marathon leg of the run will have a finisher’s medal and a Bataan Freedom Run Finisher shirt.

“It’s one of those few race events that caters to a wide spectrum of runners, from the serious ultramarathoners, to the enthusiasts and even to the kids and the families’ pets.

Our aim is to bring the whole family together in a meaningful event that remembers and honors our Filipino and American Heroes who fought for freedom during the Battle for Bataan,” said Mike Villa-Real, Head of Veterans Bank’s Corporate and Consumer Relations Division.

The race is one of the key events of the 2016 Philippine Veterans Week which falls around April 9, the 74th anniversary of the Bataan Death March.

Proceeds from the run will be used to fund the restoration of World War II Historical Markers in the province.

Bataan Freedom Run Presented

by Philippine Veterans Bank and copresented by History Channel Asia; in coordination with the Provincial Government of Bataan, the City Government of Balanga, the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, and with Without Limits as race consultant.

The success of this year’s Bataan Freedom Run has buoyed the optimism of PVB and its partners and sponsors in the holding of bigger and better runs in the future especially in 2017 when the Philippines celebrates the 75th Anniversary of the Fall of Bataan.

For more information, please visit the Bataan Freedom Run Facebook page or contact (02) 2637768.

Online registration for the run is at http://regonline.activeglobal.com/ bataanfreedomrun2016

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sports sports@thestandard.com.ph

Beach Volleyball Tour set

On to the finals. Carl Cruz of Cafe France loses the ball to the pesky defense of two Tanduay defenders in a Philippine Basketball Association D-League game won by the Bakers, 72-63, to barge into the finals.

By Peter Atencio

‘PSC funds must go to athletes, not cronies’ SENATOR Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero yesterday said sports, like in all other government agencies, should be spared of corruption even as he lamented reports that funds for the Philippine Sports Commission have been diverted by a Pagcor franchisee to a former top police official.

These funds, representing five percent of earnings by the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corp., were supposedly remitted to the PSC as mandated by Republic Act 6847 of 1990 as part of the National Sports Development Fund.

But PSC officials have denied giving authorization for the release of the NSDF and were, in fact, limiting their expenses to priority projects, which resulted in the PSC having saved at least P1 billion, so far.

“That is if those savings have not been released by the First Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corp., to and in the name of Alan La Madrid Purisima, supposedly the former Philip-

pine National Police Director General, who was named in an expose by a well-known columnist as recipient of nearly a billion pesos from the Pagcor,” Escudero narrated.

Escudero said RA 6847 requires the PSC as the sole recipient of its five percent share from Pagcor’s income, but it is now being accused of releasing a total P937,424,003.85 to Purisima.

Purisima was sacked by the Ombudsman for graft in June last year for his illegal dealings with a shell company allegedly owned by his cronies and the construction of a “White House,” which he envisioned to serve as the PNP Chief’s

home in Camp Crame.

Purisima again came into the limelight when he was named as a leading participant in the botched Mamasapano raid on the international terrorist Marwan’s lair, which resulted in the death of 44 Special Action Forces operatives.

He was serving a suspension at the time of the Mamasapano raid, and subsequent Senate investigations revealed he and several other government and police officials have bypassed the authority of the then SPSecretary of Interior and Local Government Mar Roxas, who later confessed to knowing nothing about the January 2015 operation.

“Madalas na nagmamakaawa sa Kongreso at sa Senado ang mga opisyal ng PSC para sa dagdag na budget, taon-taon. Ibinibigay naman natin ‘yan, pero hindi ibig sabihin ay pwedeng galawin ng kung sino-sino lang ang pera para sa sports,” Escudero said.

“No wonder, palaging palpak ang

resulta ng pakikibaka natin sa international competitions dahil hindi nagagastos ang pera ng tama para sa mga atleta,” Escudero added.

Graft charges are said to be being readied against Purisima, and Escudero said he will help pursue “not only the paper trail, but on whose hands these money have fallen.”

“At one time, problema natin ang nutrisyon ng atleta. At another, problema natin kung saan kukuha ng pondo para sa training nila. Papano magkakaroon ng sapat na pondo ang mga atleta ng bayan kung sa iba naman pala napupunta?” lamented Escudero.

Pagcor must also be made to account for all the funds it has released to its different beneficiaries, Escudero said.

“Hindi puwedeng nagma-magic lang,” said Escudero. “Kung may dapat managot, panagutin. Hindi pwedeng nakaupo lang tayo habang nalulustay ang kaban ng bayan sa hindi tamang paraan.”

Phoenix national slalom 2nd leg slated Sunday REV and gear up for the second leg of the Race Motorsports Club 2016 Phoenix National Slalom Series on Sunday, to be held for the first time at the Robinsons Antipolo parking lot.

The slalom event, considered as the grassroots of motorsports, is powered by Phoenix Premium 98 and Phoenix Accelerate fully synthetic oil.

Listup is set from 8 a.m. onwards.

The open and unlimited practice sessions are scheduled from 8 to 10 a.m., while the official practice runs begin at 11 a.m., but only one session is allowed per driver regardless of how many classes the participant is entered.

Each participating driver will receive 4 liters (1 gallon) of Phoenix Accelerate Fully Synthetic Oil. To accumulate points for the

Tough Gear Racing’s Milo Rivera is one of the favorites in the Phoenix National Slalom Series on Sunday at the Robinsons Antipolo Parking Lot.

Overall and Class Champions, contenders must use the specified Federal Tyres for at least nine or 75% of the series and possess the Automobile Association of the Philippines

Clubman license. All drivers will be charged an additional one-time P300 per leg for the AAP Clubman License.

The event is affiliated with the

AAP and FIA and is the longestrunning national motorsport discipline in the country.

Expected to participate are the Club Slalom Series Champions headed by Milo, Noel and Estefano Rivera of Tough Gear, Dr. Peewee Mendiola of Team Big Chill, MSM Motorsports, AF Racing Team, Orthodox Racing Team and Comet, among others.

The 2016 National Slalom Grand Series Series is presented

by Phoenix Premium 98 and Phoenix Accelerate Fully Synthetic Oil, backed by major sponsors Federal Tyres, Outlast Battery , Robinsons Antipolo and supported by Starbright Body Kits, Auto Transporter, Aeromed; and media partners Stoplight TV and C! Magazine, Auto Industriya, Ride and Drive Philippines, and Targa Pilipinas.

COLLEGIATE standouts from the National Collegiate Athletic Association are among those initially expected to show up in the coming legs of the 2016 Beach Volleyball Republic Tour.

Charo Soriano, one of the founding members and stakeholders of BVR Tour, said this with a month to go before the first leg gets going in Boracay from April 2 to 28.

She said San Sebastian bets Grethcel Soltones, back-toback champion of the NCAA spikefest, and her teammate Alyssa Eroa will also join.

Interest from former Ateneo Lady Eagles spiker Denden Lazaro is also there, added Soriano during the launching of the volleyball tour Tuesday at the ELJ Bldg. inside the ABS-CBN compound in Quezon City.

“They have shown interest in playing in the tournament.

We expect others to come from the Visayas region, like in Iloilo and Bacolod,” stated Soriano.

Soriano talked about the tournament following a contract signing with ABS-CBN executives led by Dino Laurena, head of ABS-CBN Integrated Sports, along with other stakeholders Bea Tan, Dzi Gervacio, Fille Cayetano and Gretchen Ho.

PSL All-Stars get invite from Croatia BANGKOK—A couple of opportunities are being dangled before the Petron-PSL All-Star squad after displaying a gallant stand in the Thai-Denmark Super League here.

PSL president Ramon Suzara said organizers of a prestigious tournament in Croatia have expressed intention to invite the PSL stars to compete against the best volleyball players in Europe after witnessing them putting up a good fight against the best teams in Thailand.

Suzara, however, couldn’t cement his commitment as the tournament will coincide with the crucial stretch of the PSL AllFilipino Conference in July.

“The invitation is already up there, it’s now up to us to grab it,” said Suzara, who is also a ranking executive of the Asian Volleyball Confederation and International Volleyball Federation.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t commit right away because the tournament will run smack with the All-Filipino. It would have been a perfect opportunity to give our players a very good exposure against top European players.”

Suzara, however, said he may reconsider the European tourney.

“Who knows, it might fit to our calendar,” he said. “Or maybe the organizers can do something with the schedule. We may never know. We’ll just wait and see.”

Prior to that, the PSL is also being invited to compete against the Hong Kong national team on June 12.

Gate 2 Karangalan Drive, Cainta, Rizal

INVITATION TO BID The DepEd Region IV-A, through the 2016 GAA intends to apply the sum of Two Hundred Forty Three Million Seven Hundred Thirty Thousand Six Hundred Two and 11/100 (243,730,602.11) being the Approved Budget for the Contract (ABC) to eligible payments under the contract for the Supply and Door-to-Door Delivery of Technical, Vocational and Livelihood Materials, Tools and Equipment for 39 Subject-Specializations to various Public Senior High Schools in Deped Region IV-A (inclusive of installation and testing of such Goods at Delivery Sites). Bids received in excess of the ABC [per item/lot] shall be automatically rejected in accordance with Sec. 31.1 of the Revised IRR of RA 9184 at bid opening.

Lot No.

G e n e r a l D e s c r i p t i o n : M a t e r i a l s , To o l s a n d E q u i p m e n t f o r the f t. subject- s ecializations

Approved Budget for the Contract ( A B C) ( i n P h P)

1

I n f o r m a t i o n a n d C o m m u n i c a t i o n Te c h n o l o g y

2

Agriculture & Fisher y

5 0 , 6 5 5 ,7 3 4 . 8 5

3

Industrial Ar ts

56,879.0 65.68

4

Home Economic s

10 7.7 9 5 . 9 15 . 5 8

28,399,885.45

TOTA L

2 4 3 ,7 3 0 , 6 0 2 .11

C o n t r a c t D u r a t i o n: D e l i v e r y S i t e (s) :

W E D N E S D AY : M A R C H 3 0 , 2 0 1 6

A14

Republic of the Philippines DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION REGION IV-A CALABARZON

75 C a l e n d a r D a y s Va r i o u s P u b l i c S e n i o r H i g h S c h o o l s i n D e p e d R e g i o n I V - A e n u m e r a t e d i n the Allocation List contained in Section VI of the Bidding Documents

T h e D e p E D I V - A , t h r o u g h i t s B i d s a n d A w a r d s C o m m i t t e e ( B A C) , n o w i n v i t e s b i d s f o r t h e h e r e i n Goods. Deliver y of the Goods is required to be delivered on the recipient public high schools w i t h i n 75 c a l e n d a r d a y s u p o n r e c e i p t o f t h e N o t i c e t o P r o c e e d . B i d d e r s m u s t h a v e c o m p l e t e d , within five (5) years from the date of submission and receipt of bids, a contract similar to the Project. The amount of the similar completed contract must be at least 50% of the ABC to be bid. { The prospec tive bidder should have completed at least t wo (2) similar cont rac t s and the aggregate contract amounts should be equivalent to at least 50% of the ABC to be bid]; and the largest of these similar contracts must be equivalent to at least 25% of the A B C t o b e b i d . [ S e c . 2 3 . 5 .1. 3 r I R R ] } T h e d e s c r i p t i o n o f a n e l i g i b l e b i d d e r i s c o n t a i n e d i n t h e B i d d i n g D o c u m e n t s , i . e ., i n S e c t i o n I I , I n s t r u c t i o n s t o B i d d e r s . B i d d e r m a y b i d f o r o n e , m o r e t h a n o n e o r a l l o f t h e i t e m s i n o n e , m o r e t h a n o n e o r a l l o f t h e l o t s . Ev a l u a t i o n a n d a w a r d s h a l l be made on a per item/lot basis.

B i d din g w ill b e c o n duc te d t hr o u gh o p e n c o mp et it i ve b i d din g p r o c e dure s us in g a n o n - di s c r et i o nar y “ pas s / f ail ” c r ite r i o n as sp e c i f i e d in t h e I mp l e m e nt in g Rul e s an d Re g ulat i o ns (I R R) of Re p ub li c Ac t (R A) 918 4, ot h e r w i s e k n ow n as t h e “ G ove r nm e nt Pr o c ur e m e nt Refo r m Ac t .”

Bidding is restricted to Filipino citizens/sole proprietorships, par tnerships, or organizations w i t h a t l e a s t s i x t y p e r c e n t ( 6 0 %) i n t e r e s t o r o u t s t a n d i n g c a p i t a l s t o c k b e l o n g i n g t o c i t i z e n s of the Philippines, and to citizens or organizations of a countr y the laws or regulations of w h i c h g r a n t s i m i l a r r i g h t s o r p r i v i l e g e s t o F i l i p i n o c i t i z e n s , p u r s u a n t t o R A 518 3 a n d s u b j e c t t o C o m m o n w e a l t h A c t 13 8 .

A c omplete set of Bidding Documents may be purchased from the Deped Region IV- A BAC Secretar iat, loc ated at DepED IV- A , Supply O f f ic e, 2nd f loor loc ated at Gate 2 Karangalan D r i v e , C a i n t a , R i z a l , u p o n a c c o m p l i s h i n g a b i d d e r ’s i n f o r m a t i o n s h e e t a n d p a y m e n t i n c a s h o f a non - refundable fee by interested bidders in the amount stated below to the Deped Region IV- A C a s h i e r. O n l y b i d d e r s w h o p u r c h a s e d t h e B i d d i n g D o c u m e n t s w i l l b e a l l o w e d t o s u b m i t b i d s .

Amount of Bid Docs

L O T 1 - I n f o r m a t i o n & C o m m u n i c a t i o n Te c h n o l o g y A1 - C o m p u t e r A n i m a t i o n To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s B1 - C o m p u t e r H a r d w a r e S e r v i c i n g t o o l s & e q u i p m e n t s C1 - C o n t a c t C e n t e r S e r v i c e s To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s D1 - M e d i c a l Tr a n s c r i p t i o n To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s E1 - C o m p u t e r P r o g r a m m i n g To o l s E2 - Computer Programming Equipments F1 - Te c h n i c a l D r a f t i n g To o l s & Fu r n i t u r e F 2 - Te c h n i c a l D r a f t i n g E q u i p m e n t s

Php3,000.00 3,000.00 2,000.00 500.00 4,000.00 5,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00

L O T I I - A g r i c u l t u r e & F i s h e r y A r t s ( A FA ) A1 - A n i m a l P r o d u c c t i o n To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s B1 F i s h e r i e s To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s C1 F o o d P r o c e s s i n g To o l s C 2 - F o o d P r o c e s s i n g E q u i p m e n t s (c a n n i n g) C 3 - F o o d P r o c e s s i n g E q u i p m e n t s (c o o k i n g) C 4 F o o d P r o c e s s i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s (c o l d s t o r a g e & p a c k i n g M a c h i n e) C 5 - F o o d P r o c e s s i n g E q u i p m e n t (t e n d e r i z i n g) D1 - P l a n t P r o d u c t i o n To o l s D2 - Plant Production - Cultivating Equipments D3 - Plant Production - Har vesting Equipments D4 - Plant Production - Nurser y Equipments D5 - Plant Production - Soil Preparation Equipment D 6 - Plant Production -Water ing Equipments

SPORTS sports@thestandard.com.ph

Highland boxers promise KO wins HIGHLAND boxers Carlo Magali and Rey Singwangcha Megrino vowed to go for the knockout when they face separate opponents in the triple championship card that serves as the highlight of the Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation convention slated March 30 to April 1 at the El Fisher Hotel in Bacolod City.

Magali, whose last fight was a masterful KO win over a highly rated Australian, will dispute the superfeatherweight interim title with Bacolod pride Mark Gil Melligen.

Megrino will contest the OPBF interim bantamweight jewel with Japan-based Filipino Jonathan Baat. “‘Pag may pagkakataon po, I will go for a knockout. Magaling din po ang kalaban so kailangan talaga ingat. Pero dadaanin po natin sa lakas ‘yan at bilis,” said Megrino Tuesday during the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the Shakey’s Restaurant in Malate.

3,000.00 3,000.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 2,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 4,000.00 6,000.00 3,000.00

LOT III - Industrial Ar ts A1 - C o n s u m e r E l e c t r o n i c s S e r v i c i n g E q u i p m e n t s B1 - C N C M i l l i n g & M a c h i n i n g M a c h i n e O p e r a t i o n To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s C1 - a - C a r p e n t r y To o l s b - Carpentr y Equipments c - M a s o n r y &T i l e S e t t i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s d - P l u m b i n g &T i l e S e t t i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s D1 - R e f r i g e r a t i o n & A i r c o n d i t i o n i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s E1 - B r o a d b a n d I n s t a l l a t i o n ( F i x e d W i r e l e s s S y s t e m) To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s F1 - M e c h a t r o n i c s To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s G1 -Tr a n s m i s s i o n L i n e I n s t a l l a t i o n & M a i n t e n a n c e To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s H1 - E l e c t r i c a l I n s t a l l a t i o n & M a i n t e n a n c e To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s I -1 - S M AW, G M AW, G TAW To o l s I - 2 - S M AW E q u i p m e n t s I - 3 - G M AW, M I G , T I G E q u i p m e n t s I - 4 - G TAW, T I G E q u i p m e n t s I - 5 - Ox y- Acet ylene Equipments J1 - A u t o m o t i v e S e r v i c i n g To o l s a n d E q u i p m e n t s M e a s u r i n g &Te s t i n g E q u i p m e n t s K1 - W o r k s h o p E q u i p m e n t s & I n s t r u c t i o n a l M o d e l s L1 - H y d r a u l i c & P n e u m a t i c E q u i p m e n t s LOT IV Home Economics A1 - A t t r a c t i o n &T h e m e P a r k s , To u r G u i d i n g , To u r i s m P r o m o t i o n To o l s & E q u i p m e n t B1 - H a i r d r e s s i n g & B a r b e r i n g To o l s B2 Hairdressing Salon Essentials equipments B 3 H a i r d r e s s i n g S a l o n Fu r n i t u r e s To o l s & E q u i p m e n t C l - B e a u t y C a r e To o l s & E q u i p m e n t D l - B a r t e n d i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t E l B r e a d a n d P a s t r y To o l s E 2 B re ad & Past r y Equip m e nt s (c o mm e rc ial mi xe r s w it h c o mp l ete at t ac hm e nt s & m e c hani c al d o u gh r o ll e r, d o u gh c ut te r, e l e c t r i c han d mi xe r, st ainl e s s wo r k ing t ab l e) E 3 B r e a d & P a s t r y ( D e c k O v e n & D e m o n s t r a t i o n Ta b l e w / m i r r o r) E q u i p m e n t E 4 B r e a d & P a s t r y (g a s r a n g e & e l e c t r i c t o p o v e n) E q u i p m e n t E 5 B r e a d & P a s t r y E q u i p m e n t s (u p r i g h t f r e e z e r & - r e f r i g e r a t o r) F -1 C a r e g i v i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s G1 - C o o ke r y To o l s G 2 - C o o ke r y E q u i p m e n t s (C l e a n i n g & O S H e q u i p m e n t s) G 3 - C o o ke r y E q u i p m e n t s ( k i t c h e n f u r n i t u r e s & m a c h i n e s) G 4 - C o o ke r y E q u i p m e n t s (c o l d s t o r a g e & c o o k i n g e q u i p m e n t s) G 5 - C o o ke r y E q u i p m e n t s ( k i t c h e n f u r n i t u r e & k i t c h e n s t o r a g e) H1 - D r e s s m a k i n g To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s (t o o l s & s e w i n g e q u i p m e n t s) H 2 - D r e s s m a k i n g E q u i p m e n t s (s i n g l e t h r e a d s e w i n g ( m a c h i n e s & 3 t h r e a d s o v e r l o c k M a c h i n e s) I -1 - F o o d & B e v e r a g e S e r v i c e s To o l s & E q u i p m e n t J1 - H a n d i c r a f t s To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s K1 - H o u s e ke e p i n g To o l s K 2 - H o u s e ke e p i n g E q u i p m e n t s L1 - W e l l n e s s & M a s s a g e To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s M1 - B a r i s t a To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s N1 - Fr o n t O f f i c e To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s O1 - N a i l C a r e To o l s & E q u i p m e n t s

Php3,000.00 3,000.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 500.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 500.00 500.00 5,000.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 3,000.00 6,000.00 4,000.00 4,000.00 3,000.00 4,000.00 3,000.00

500.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 2,000.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 3,000.00 6,000.00 6,000.00 7, 0 0 0 . 0 0 3,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 3,000.00 7, 0 0 0 . 0 0 10 , 0 0 0 . 0 0 6,000.00 3,000.00 4,000.00 3,000.00 500.00 3,000.00 4,000.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0 4,000.00 1, 0 0 0 . 0 0

It may be viewed or downloaded free of charge from the website of the Philippine Gover nment E l e c t r o n i c P r o c u r e m e n t S y s t e m ( P h i I G E P S) , w w w. p h i l g e p s . n e t . a n d t h e w e b s i t e o f t h e P r o c u r i n g E n t i t y, ( i n s e r t w e b s i t e ). p r o v i d e d t h a t b i d d e r s s h a l l p a y t h e f e e f o r t h e B i d d i n g Documents not later than the submission of their bids. The schedule and venue of the procurement activities are as follows: Ac t i vi t y

Da t e a nd Ti m e

Venu e

Issuance of Bidding Documents

From M arc h 2 9, 2016 to A pr il 19, 2016 M onday to Fr iday 8:0 0 a.m. to 5:0 0 p.m.

DepED IV-A Director’s Office Conference Room

Pre - Bid C onferenc e

A pr il 4, 2016 at 10:0 0 a.m.

DepED IV-A RD’s Conference Room

Submission and Opening of Bids

A pr il 19, 2016 at 10:0 0 a.m.

D e p E D I V- A R D ’s C o n f e r e n c e R o o m

A legacy that lives on. Nigerien jockeys compete during a horse race at the hippodrome of Niamey.

Niamey’s dusty racing track is a far cry from the nation’s equine glory days when horses bred in Niger enjoyed international fame. But the legacy of its most famous stallion, Dokin Iska Dan Filingue, that raced in front of Queen Elizabeth II in 1956 lives on in a neglected corner of the capital. AFP

ERRORS & OMISSIONS In Classified Ads section must be brought to our attention the very day the advertisement is published. We will not be responsible for any incorrect ads not reported to us immediately.

LEGAL NOTICE Notice is hereby given that the estate of the late JOSE P. ABEJERO who died intestate has been extrajudicially settled among his heirs as per Doc. No. 31, Page No. 8, Book No. VII, Series of 2015 by Notary Public Atty. Rogelia J.Bolivar of Quezon City.

( T S - M A R . 16 , 2 3 , 3 0 , 2 016)

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES REGIONAL CAPITAL JUDICIAL REGION REGIONAL TRIAL COURT BRANCH 212 MANDALUYONG CITY IN RE: PETITION FOR CORRECTION OF ENTRY IN THE CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH OF VAUGHN JOSEPH PUNONGBAYAN SALAZAR AND CANCELLATION OF THE FIRST CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH OF VAUGHN JOSEPH PUNONGBAYAN SALAZAR, JOSEPH TAWATAO LISING, JR., Petitioner, -versus-

Prospective bidders are strongly enc ouraged to order or download the electronic c opy of the B i d d i n g D o c u m e n t s f r o m t h e P h i l G E P S w e b s i t e: w w w. p h i l g e p s . n e t . f o r t h e m t o b e i n c l u d e d i n the Document Request List of the project. The pre -bid conference is open to all interested par ties who may have or have not bought the bidding documents.

Bids must be delivered to the address and on the date and time stated herein. All bids must be ac c ompanied by a bid secur it y in any of the ac c eptable for ms and in the amount stated in S e c t i o n I I I , B i d D a t a S h e e t I T B C l a u s e 18 .1. A v a l i d B i d S e c u r i n g D e c l a r a t i o n m u s t a c c o m p a n y t h e b i d (s) i n l i e u o f a b i d s e c u r i t y. B i d s w i l l b e o p e n e d i n t h e p r e s e n c e o f t h e b i d d e r s ’ representatives who choose to at tend the opening of bids at the address, date and time stated herein. Late bids shall not be accepted.

The Deped Region IV- A reser ves the r ight to reject any and all bids, declare a failure of b i d d i n g , n o t a w a r d t h e c o n t r a c t (s) , o r a n n u l t h e b i d d i n g p r o c e s s w i t h o u t t h e r e b y i n c u r r i n g a n y liability to the af fected bidder or bidders.

F o r f u r t h e r i n f o r m a t i o n , p l e a s e r e f e r t o: A n n G e r a l y n T. P e l i a s - B A C C h a i r m a n V i r g i n i a O. B a g a c a y - B A C S e c r e t a r i a t Gate 2 Karangalan Drive, Cainta, Rizal Te l e f a x N o . 6 4 5 8 4 0 6 a n d 6 47 6 2 0 4 W e b s i t e: d e p e d c a l a b a r z o n . p h ( S G D .) A N N G E R A LY N T. P E L I A S BAC Chair man ( T S - M A R . 3 0 , 2 016)

Magali, who is coming off a masterful knockout win over a highly rated Australian, shared the same plan.

“Ganu’n din po ako, ‘pag kayang tapusin sa knockout mas maganda pong panalo,” said Magali.

The two boxers, who both train in La Trinidad, Benguet, were accompanied by their coach Joven Jorda in the weekly forum sponsored by San Miguel Corporation, Accel and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

The third championship showdown is between Rene Dacquel (16W-6L-1D) and undefeated Thai Lucky Tor Buamas for the interim superflyweight crown.

A lone supporting event will feature Gerry Pateno taking on Omri Bolibar of Kashimi Boxing Gym of Japan in an eight-round bantamweight tussle.

“Malaki po ang tiwala ko sa dalawang ito. Makuha lang po nila ito ay hinog na po sila for world championship,” said Jorda, who also mentors Women’s International Boxing Association strawweight champ Jujeath Nagaowa and International Boxing Organization lighflyweight king Rey Loreto.

The boxing event will take place on the final day of the convention, which has WBC president Jose Sulaiman as guest of honor, at the grand ballroom of the Fisher Hotel. Randy Caluag

SP. PROC. NO. MC16-9813

OFFICE OF THE CIVIL REGISTRAR OF THE CITY OF MANDALUYONG AND THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE, Respondents x-----------------------------------------------------------x

ORDER Raffled to this court on February 23, 2016 is the instant Petition instituted by Joseph Tawatao Lising, Jr. seeking for, (a) the cancellation of the Certificate of Live Birth registered on June 6, 2003, with Registry No. 2003 3437 under the name of Vaughn Joseph Punongbayan Salazar; and (b) retention and correction of the Certificate of Live Birth registered on June 25, 2003, with Registry No. 2003 3809 under the name of Vaughn Joseph Punongbayan Salazar by causing the complete name of the latter to appear as ‘Vaughn Joseph Salazar Lising”, the first name being “Vaughn Joseph”, the middle name being “Salazar” and the last name being “Lising”.

Finding the instant Petition and all the annexes attached in support of its allegations to be sufficient both in form and substance, let the Petition be heard on May 16, 2016 at 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon before this court located at the 2nd Floor, Old Building, Mandaluyong City Hall, Mandaluyong City.

Notice is hereby given to anyone who has objection relative to this Petition to state his/her grounds thereto.

Accordingly, let this Order be published at the expense of the Petitioner in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines to be raffled at the Office of the Clerk of Court, Regional Trial Court, Mandaluyong City, once a week for three (3) consecutive weeks.

Finally, Petitioner is hereby directed to cause service of this Order together with a copy of the Petition and its annexes upon the National Statistics Office, the Office of the Civil Registrar of Mandaluyong City, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Office of the City Prosecutor of Mandaluyong City.

SO ORDERED. Mandaluyong City, Philippines February 24, 2016.

(Sgd.)RIZALINA T. CAPCO-UMALI Judge COPY FURNISHED: ATTY. TIBERIO U. PRADO OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL NATIONAL STATISTIC OFFICE Counsel for the Petitioner 3/F Vibal Building, Times Street, 98 H. Bautista Street, RTC-OCC Corner EDSA, Quezon City Concepcion Uno, Marikina City Mandaluyong City OFFICE OF THE CITY PROSECUTOR Mandaluyong City

THE LOCAL CIVIL REGISTRAR Mandaluyong City

(TS - MAR. 16,23, & 30, 2016)

Tabuena...

From A16

“I hope to play in form here at Luisita,” said Tabuena, vowing to bounce back from a so-so joint 57th at Thailand Classic and a share of 58th at Indian Open the last four weeks. “I enjoy the course and it’s been very good to me. I hope to be able to win again this week.”

But the rest of the 102-player starting field have also set their sights on the top P650,000 purse, guaranteeing four days of top-notch shotmaking in the event organized by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc. and backed

by Custom Clubmakers, adidas, KZG, Summit Mineral Water, Pacsports, TaylorMade, Sharp and Champion.

“I hope people can come out to watch, For sure, there will be a lot of good golf from the guys,” said Tabuena, who has pal Mia Piccio on the bag when he starts at 7:20 a.m. on No. 1 with Mondilla and Nakajima.

Que, hoping to ride the momentum of his final round rally of 65 and a joint fourth finish in India, tees off at 7:15 a.m. at the back with Cassius Casas and Jhonnel Ababa while defending champion Charles Hong drew Korean Chang Chang Guo and Miko Alejandro on No. 1 in the 8 a.m. flight.

Van der Valk will be with Mhark Fernando and Rufino Bayron in the 10:55 a.m. flight, also on No. 1, while Lascuña will play alongside Salvador and the big-hitting Orlan Sumcad at 11:10 a.m. at the back.

Meanwhile, Jobim Carlos finally makes his pro debut after a couple of delays, hoping to start out strong in the company of Dante Becierra and Michael Bibat, while Park, who placed ninth at Anvaya, tees off at 7:55 a.m. at the back with Ferdie Aunzo and Daniel (TS-DEC. 1, 2015) Inocencio of the US.

W E D N E S D AY : M A R C H 3 0 , 2 0 1 6

A15

SPORTS sports@thestandard.com.ph

Young netters stamp class in Cebuana meet PALARONG Pambansa-bound tennis players from different provinces in Mindanao showed why they have been selected to represent their regions as they dominated the recently concluded Cebuana Lhuillier Age-Group Tennis Championship Series leg in Valencia, Bukidnon that attracted close to a hundred entries.

Led by Zamboanga, Sibugay bet Jose Ma. Pague, who likewise emerged a double winner in

previous legs in Cagayan de Oro and Lanao del Norte, the champion players used the Valencia leg as their tune-up games in the Cebuana age-group tennis series supported by Dunlop as official ball in preparation for the Palarong Pambansa in Albay.

“This will be a good opportunity for these young players to test the mettle of other top players in different regions all over the country.

We are confident that the players

who play regularly in the Cebuana Lhuillier tennis series will give a good account of themselves,” said Jean Henri Lhuillier, President and CEO of the sponsoring company and current Philippine Tennis Association Chairman.

Once again, it was Pague, who ruled both the 16-under and 18-under boys’ divisions after he posted easy victories over different opponents. He beat Koronadal’s Janus Al-Najeeb Ringia, 6-4, 6-1,

in the 18-under finals, after earlier defeating the same foe, 6-2, 6-3, in the 16-under championship finale.

In the same age-groups for the girls’ side, Janmarie Anghag from Ozamis City and citymate Carmeville Gervacio split the two groups between them. Anghag beat Gervacio, 6-2, 6-1, for the 18-under crown preventing a double victory for Gervacio who won earlier, 6-2, 6-3, over Anghag in the 16-under.

LOTTO RESULTS

6/49 00-00-00-00-00-00 6/42 00-00-00-00-00-00 6 DIGITS 0-0-0-0-0-0 3 DIGITS 0-0-0 2 EZ2 0-0

P0.0 M+ P0.0 M+

Suarez mauls foe; Petecio falls

By Ronnie Nathanielsz

VETERAN Charly Suarez lived up to his top-seeded billing as he fashioned out a unanimous-decision win over Indian Dheeraj Rani in the Asian-Oceania Olympic Qualifying Event on Tuesday at the massive Tangshan Jiujiang Sports Center in Qian’An, Hebei Province, China.

Members of the PH national boxing team, led by veteran Charlie Suarez and Nesthy Petecio, are shown prior to their bouts in the Asian-Oceania Olympic Qualifying Event at the Tangshan Jiujiang Sports Center in Qian’An, Hebei Province, China.

New generation of Azkals to emerge

By Peter Atencio A NEW generation of players are expected to emerge following the retirement of another veteran member of the Philippine Azkals national men’s football team.

Team skipper Juan Luis Guirado said this after he announced his retirement from the national squad on the eve of their last game with North Korea in the third round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Asian

Qualifiers at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

“A lot of young players are coming and learning. Many young players are playing the game now,” said the 36-yearold Guirado.

He believes that younger players are good and will prove their worth with the Azkals in the coming years.

Guirado said midfielder Amani Aguinaldo and University of the Philippines teammate Daniel Gadia are rising

up, along with goalkeeper Patrick Deyto.

The 6’3” Guirado is the fourth player to quit and follow the footsteps of Rob Gier, Jerry Lucena and Paul Mulders.

Guirado said injuries have been bothering him for months.

He said he would be all right after one game or two, but would be out of commission for the next three games and this became a reason for him to

think of retirement.

He has played over 30 matches, scoring one goal for the Azkals since 2012.

Meanwhile, coach Thomas Dooley said members of the national team need to be consistently at the top level.

“It’s all about speed. In the future, it’s all about the speed of play and the speed of making decisions. If not, you don’t have a chance. You have to move forward,” added Dooley.

The 28-year-old Suarez thus advanced to the semifinals, where he will need just a victory more to clinch a berth to the Rio Olympic Games in August.

“Suarez is technically superior and strength-wise, has got it,” said ABAP executive director Ed Picson.

The top three boxers in the men’s division and the top two in the women’s class will book a ticket each to the Summer Olympiad.

Meanwhile, Nesthy Petecio was not as lucky, as she fell to five-time world champion Mary Kom of India in a game Picson thought the Filipina boxer won.

Other Filipino boxers were slated to face different foes late Tuesday.

One of them is Mario Fernandez, who may not have a power punch, but is a sound tactician and should be able to overcome his Jordanian opponent, who Picson saw in action on Monday.

“He’s (Jordanian) not much, an average fighter who is not in the same class as Fernandez,” said Picson.

A back-to-back SEA Games gold medalist, Fernandez proved too much for Yakub Meredov of Turkmenistan, jolting him several

times with left-right combinations to score a 30-27 sweep on the scorecards of all three judges on Monday.

Rogen Ladon, a bronze medalist in the World Championships in Doha last year, was somewhat disappointing in his last fight against his Japanese opponent Tosho Kashiwasaki and allowed the Japanese to set the tempo before eking out a 29-28 decision on the scorecards of two judges and a lopsided 30-27 on the third judge’s tally.

Ladon, who is seeded No. 1 in the light flyweight division, was instructed to “not take his Iraqi opponent lightly and not to get it into his head that he is a pushover. Bring the fight to him and bludgeon him.”

Lastly, power-punching No. 1 welterweight Eumir Felix Marcial was to face Iran’s Kazemzadehposhtiri and is likely to prevail following his TKO win over Australia’s Kori Istafanos, whom he hammered into submission in the third and last round when Hungarian lady referee Veronika Szuchs gave the Aussie two standing-eight counts as he was in trouble and stopped the fight after the second standingeight count.

Gentle Strength tops Philracom 4YO stakes THE HOARSE WHISPERER JENNY ORTUOSTE

ONCE more, an entry from the mighty Abalos racing stable dominated a major race, with their filly Gentle Strength handily winning the Philippine Racing Commission 4YO and Older stakes race.

The 1,500-meter contest was held Easter Sunday

(Mar. 27) at the Manila Jockey Club’s San Lazaro Leisure Park in Carmona, Cavite.

Gentle Strength, ridden

by Jonathan B. Hernandez, negotiated the course with ease, finishing three lengths ahead of secondplacer Kanlaon with Patricio R. Dilema aboard.

Trainer Ruben S. Tupas received the trophies in behalf of horseowner Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur C. Abalos.

Gentle Strength was bred by Abalos from US

sire-dam tandem Ultimate Goal and Shadow of the Moon.

Tap Dance 3rd, Manalig Ka 4th. Time: 1:33 (18.224.8-24-26). *** Upcoming events: the next Philracom race is the 3YO Fillies and Colts stakes on Apr. 17 at SLLP, with the declaration to be held on Apr. 11.

PCSO will be staging a 3YO maiden open on Apr. 30 at Metroturf; declaration is on Mar. 31.

The New Philippine

Jockeys Association is running the 2nd NPJA Jockeys Charity Footrace on Apr. 24 at Santa Ana Park to raise money for the Disabled Jockeys Fund. Sponsor a jockey to run in the footrace for P5,000. Learn more at the group’s Facebook page. *** Last March 9, Philracom approved the curriculum for a two-year training course that provides basic knowledge on horsemanship and horse conditioning through

classroom lectures and hands-on training.

The course teaches equine anatomy and conformation, equine health and disease management, equine nutrition, stable management, horse fitness and development, the legal aspects of animal welfare, and rules and regulations of horseracing (licensing and stud book).

Hands-on practice is provided through mandatory apprenticeship, which requires daily involvement—trainers

through observation and practice, and jockeys through riding.

Philracom is coordinating with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority for official accreditation of the course to allow graduates to work abroad, useful in the light of ASEAN integration. Call 8430971 or visit philracom. gov.ph. *** Facebook: Gogirl Racing, Twitter: @gogirlracing, Instagram: @jensdecember

A16

W E D N E S DAY : M A R C H 3 0 , 2 0 16 RIERA U. MALL ARI EDITOR

REUEL VIDAL A S S I S TA N T E D I T O R

sports@thestandard.com.ph

SPORTS

Tabuena shoots for 2nd win

TARLAC—Miguel Tabuena brims with confidence as he sets out for the ICTSI Luisita Championship beginning Wednesday, eager to re-assert his mastery over the field he has beaten twice over at the Luisita Golf and Country Club here.

The six-week lull on the ICTSI Philippine Golf Tour has only made the young gun hungrier for another shot at the crown after romping off with a three-shot win over Clyde Mondilla in the circuit’s kickoff leg at Anvaya Cove Invitational in Bataan last month.

“It’s been quite a while since Anvaya. I really looked forward to the next PGT leg and it’s good to be playing here at home,” said Tabuena, who racked up four PGT victories, including the Central Azucarera de Tarlac here, to claim the Order of Merit crown last year then capped his breakthrough season by winning the Philippine Open, also at Luisita.

That makes him the player to beat in the P3.5 million championship sponsored by International Container Terminal Services, Inc. although a slew of other local and foreign shotmakers are raring to spoil his bid, including Angelo Que, Tony Lascuña, Jay Bayron, Clyde Mondilla and Elmer Salvador and Dutch Guido Van der Valk, Japanese Toru Nakajima and Korean Park Min Ung. But Tabuena said he’s ready for the challenge, hoping to bank on his impressive record at the tight, par-72 layout, which he has seemed to have mastered in two times it hosted bigtime tournaments. Turn to A14

Miguel Tabuena wears shorts during Tuesday’s pro-am, a practice now allowed on the European Tour during the EurAsia Cup in steamy Malaysia early this year.

Hot teams Ginebra, TNT clash

By Jeric Lopez

A CLASH of titans is set to take place as streaking powerhouses Barangay Ginebra and Talk ‘N Text cross paths in the resumption of the 2016 Philippine Basketball Association Commissioner’s Cup. The two surging squads face off at 7 p.m. today at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, with both squads needing a win that can boost their chances of making it to the quarterfinals and having a better placing.

In the appetizer at 4:15 p.m., two

Problems mount for Bulls TURN TO A12

ailing squads Blackwater (3-6) and Phoenix (2-5) battle for survival at the bottom half.

As the tournament approaches its homestretch, the games become more and more crucial and this one between the Gin Kings (5-3) and the Texters (4-4) is certainly one that

has important implications.

The Gin Kings have won five of At the moment, Ginebra is look- their last six games to get to where ing good in terms of cracking a they are now following a 1-2 start, spot in the top eight as it is cur- while the Texters, who started 1-3, rently tied for third have won three of Games Wednesday place with Alaska. their last four and (Smart Araneta Coliseum): Also, it still has a 4:15 p.m. - Blackwater vs. Phoenix their last two out7 p.m. - Barangay Ginebra fair shot of possibly ings as well. vs. Tropang TNT finishing in the Top But Ginebra 2, where a twice-tocoach Tim Cone still beat incentive awaits. wants his players to up their level As for Talk ‘N Text, it seems of play, especially against defendto finally be getting its groove as ing champion Talk ‘N Text. it is now tied for fifth place with “I didn’t like how we played in three other teams, Rain or Shine, our last game and I don’t know NLEX and Mahindra, after a how we won,” said Cone, refersluggish start to the conference. ring to his team’s 102-101 squeak-

Suarez wins; Petecio falls TURN TO A15

er over Phoenix in its last win in Panabo City. “We have Talk ‘N Text next and we have to play better than that.”

On the other hand, Talk ‘N Text coach Jong Uichico wants his team to prolong its recent success.

“I hope we can keep our energy up and keep going,” said Uichico.

“I’m hoping we can keep the way we’re playing recently.”

Meanwhile, Star suffered a huge blow as veteran star James Yap will miss the rest of the conference after sustaining a calf strain in the Hotshots’ last game against San Miguel.

B1

WEDNESDAY: MARCH 30, 2016

RAY S. EÑANO EDITOR

RODERICK T. DELA CRUZ ASSISTANT EDITOR

business@thestandardtoday.com.ph extrastory2000@gmail.com

BUSINESS

Globe investing at least $750m

By Darwin G. Amojelar

GLOBE Telecom Inc. said it may raise capital spending this year to deploy network infrastructure nationwide as a part of its “aggressive” expansion to meet subscribers’ rising mobile and fixed-line data usage.

Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu told reporters the company initially set the 2016 capital expenditures at $750 million to finance the rollout of longterm evolution networks and deploy fiber optic cables in 20,000 barangays.

He said the actual amount could be higher, if government

agencies would issue the necessary permits on time.

Cu said the goal was to provide faster and more reliable Internet access to about 2 million homes nationwide by 2020.

He said the infrastructure buildup was expected to take five years and would extend network coverage to more areas that had

no connection or spotty service.

Cu said the company also aimed to increase capacity by 70 percent for both mobile and wireline businesses.

“It is important for us to be aggressive because subscribers are coming our way. If we don’t deliver the right experience, they’re gonna move, so we need to satisfy their needs right? The network is the basic product. Without the network, there is nothing so we want to make sure our network superiority is maintained,” Cu said.

Globe’s mobile subscriber base reached 52.9 million as of end2015, up by 20 percent from 44 million subscribers in 2014. Total

broadband subscriber base stood at 4.3 million.

Cu said the capital expenditures would depend on the issuance of permits by government agencies.

“We’ll see. Our limitation is not us. Our limitation is the permits, the right-of-way, the site acquisition, right? If we can get that, we’ll go as far as it takes to make the experience great for the Filipino public,” he said.

“But then again, we can’t do it alone. We need the help from local governments. We need the help from the national government and maybe even the lawmakers to ensure this becomes a priority for our country,” Cu said.

Globe was pushing for an open access law for telecom industry to expedite the deployment of broadband infrastructure and improve Internet speed in the country.

An open access law for the telco industry would expedite the issuance of all relevant permits for all telecommunications facilities at the local government level.

Cu earlier said telecom companies were required to secure several permits, with Globe alone having 500 cell sites waiting to be built at any given time.

Globe saw its net income jump 23 percent in 2015 to P16.5 billion from P13.4 billion it booked in 2014.

PSe comPoSite index Closing March 29, 2016

8300 7840 7380 6920 6460 6000

7,274.40 60.12

PeSo-dollar rate

Closing March 29, 2016 48.00 46.00 45.00

P46.355

44.00

CLOSE

43.00

HIGH P46.250 LOW P46.440 AVERAGE P46.329 VOLUME 584.800M

P400.00-P620.00 LPG/11-kg tank

PAL flies to Doha. Philippine Airlines launches its inaugural flight to Doha (via Abu Dhabi) on March 28, 2016. Shown during a send off ceremony at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 are (front row, from left) PAL consultant for corporate communications Shirley HoVicario, Qatar Embassy second secretary Hamad Yousef Admed Al-Malki. PAL senior vice president for commercial group David Lim, Qatar Ambassador Ali Ibrahim Ahmad Al-Malki, PAL senior vice president for airline operations Ismael Gozon and NAIA Terminal 2 manager Rico Gonzale.

SEC prefers equal merger of bourses, not buyout

By Jenniffer B. Austria THE Securities and Exchange Commission said it prefers an equal merger of the equities and fixed income exchanges, instead of a buyout proposed by the Philippine Stock Exchange.

SEC commissioner Ephyro Luis Amatong said in a news briefing the government envisioned the unification of the Philippine Stock Exchange and the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. where all shareholders of both exchanges would remain shareholders of the merged entity.

“What was discussed in the past with secretary of Finance and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was a

merger of equals or direct combination of PSE and PDS and the ownership would have distributed to all existing shareholders and no one would have sold out,” Amatong said.

Amatong said under this structure, the resulting ownership would not have required exemptive relief, as the ownership of shareholders of combined entity would be below the 5-percent maximum limit for individuals and also below the 20-percent limit for an industry group.

“The idea was ownership of the combined entity would have been distributed among all stakeholders,” he said.

PSE earlier offered to buy out all existing shareholders of PDS Holdings, after which PDS Holdings would become one of the existing subsidiaries of the local bourse. SEC rejected the PSE’s planned acquisition of additional shares in PDS Holdings.

The buyout requires an approval from the SEC because the Securities Regulation Code set a mandatory ownership limit in an exchange of 5 percent for an individual investor and 20 percent for an industry group.

Amatong said the SEC also rejected the PSE’s petition to acquire more shares in PDS Holdings because it failed to substantiate claims that the acquisition

would result in operating and cost efficiencies.

PSE also failed to demonstrate that the consolidation would result in meaningful benefits for the investing public, he said.

Amatong said PSE only committed to a marginal decrease of 0.001 to depository fees and did not even commit to keep present fees that both exchanges were currently charging.

He said documents filed by PSE with SEC also failed to present a clear vision for the fixed-income market and did not show any capital investment plan to improve the quality of its own infrastructure in case of repeated trading glitches.

P30.00-P39.32 Unleaded Gasoline

oPriceS il P today

P19.25-P22.75 Diesel P34.55-P39.15 Kerosene Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Tuesday, March 29, 2016

F oreign e xchange r ate Currency

Unit

US Dollar

Peso

United States

Dollar

1.000000

46.4540

Japan

Yen

0.008820

0.4097

UK

Pound

1.425900

66.2388

Hong Kong

Dollar

0.128922

5.9889

Switzerland

Franc

1.027432

47.7283

Canada

Dollar

0.758438

35.2325

Singapore

Dollar

0.730353

33.9278

Australia

Dollar

0.754000

35.0263

Bahrain

Dinar

2.655760

123.3707

Saudi Arabia

Rial

0.266716

12.3900

Brunei

Dollar

0.727696

33.8044

Indonesia

Rupiah

0.000075

0.0035

Thailand

Baht

0.028285

1.3140

UAE

Dirham

0.272301

12.6495

Euro

Euro

1.120000

52.0285

Korea

Won

0.000859

0.0399

China

Yuan

0.153586

7.1347

India

Rupee

0.015016

0.6976

Malaysia

Ringgit

0.249314

11.5816

New Zealand

Dollar

0.672500

31.2403

Taiwan

Dollar

0.030737

1.4279 Source: PDS Bridge

WEDNESDAY: MARCH 30, 2016

B2

BUSINESS business@thestandard.com.ph extrastory2000@gmail.com

The STandard BuSineSS daily STockS review Tuesday, March 29, 2016

52 Weeks

Previous

High Low 7.88 75.3 124.4 107 56.5 2.49 4.2 17 30.45 10.4 2.6 1.01 100 30.5 91.5 137 361.2 57 180 124 3.26

2.5 66 88.05 88.1 45.45 1.97 1.68 12.02 19.6 6.12 1.02 0.225 78 17.8 62 88.35 276 41 118.2 59 2.65

47 5 1.46 2.36 15.3 89 148 20.6 125 85 36 65.8 2.97 4.14 21.5 21.6 11.96 9.13 11.8 31.8 109 20.75 15.3 9.4 0.98 241

35.9 1.11 1.01 1.86 7.92 40.3 32 15.32 62.5 20.2 10.08 29.15 1.5 1.5 10.72 9.55 9.04 6.02 8.86 20.2 71.5 13.86 13.24 5.34 0.395 173

79 3.95 4 33.9 90 13.26 293 5 5.25 12.98 6.75 15 7.03 3.4 4.5 6.3 1450 3.28 0.315 2.18 2.65 234 5.28 1.3 26 2.17

34.1 2.3 1.63 23.35 17.3 5.88 250.2 3.37 3.87 8.45 3 10.04 3.03 1.95 1 4.02 801 1.55 0.138 1.02 2.09 152 4.28 0.640 10.02 1.2

0.59 59.2 30.05 7.39 3.4 3.35 823.5 10.2 84 3.35 4.92 0.66 1455 7.5

0.44 48.1 20.85 6.62 0.23 0.23 634.5 7.390 12.8 2.6 2.26 0.152 837 5.3

76 6.5 5.29 9.25 0.85 17.3 0.71 5.53 9.66 0.0670 1.61 2.99 84.9 3.5 974 1.66 1.39 390 156 0.710 0.435 0.510

49.55 3.43 3 4.84 0.59 12 0.580 4.2 3 0.030 0.550 2.26 59.3 1.5 751 1.13 0.93 170 80 0.211 0.179 0.310

10.5 1.99 1.75 0.375 41.4 5.6 5.59 1.44 1.97 1.48 0.201

6.74 0.65 1.2 0.192 30.05 3.36 4.96 0.79 1.1 0.97 0.083

STOCKS

High

Low

FINANCIAL 2.96 2.9 46.3 44.35 105.00 104.20 91.05 89.90 39.5 39 2.84 2.84 1.40 1.34 14.1 14.04 15.3 15.1 7.52 7.30 1.72 1.72 0.620 0.590 85.95 84 14.70 14.40 53.55 53.00 104.8 97.05 287 285 29.8 29.6 162.3 160.1 58.00 57.30 1.59 1.53 INDUSTRIAL Aboitiz Power Corp.

43.85 44 43.5 Agrinurture Inc. 5.31 5.39 5.23 Alliance Tuna Intl Inc. 0.72 0.72 0.72 Alsons Cons.

1.53 1.56 1.5 Asiabest Group 10.6 10.98 10.6 Bogo Medelin 64 86 59 C. Azuc De Tarlac 190.00 230.00 200.00 Century Food 18.62 19 18.5 Chemphil 135 202 161.9 Conc. Aggr. ‘A’ 100.5 150.7 106 Cirtek Holdings (Chips) 18.18 18.32 18 Concepcion 43 44 43.45 Crown Asia 2.48 2.53 2.46 Da Vinci Capital 6 6.03 5.9 Del Monte 11.4 11.64 11.4 DNL Industries Inc. 9.450 9.660 9.500 Emperador 7.55 7.74 7.57 Energy Devt. Corp. (EDC) 6.04 6.14 5.99 EEI 7.69 7.71 7.55 First Gen Corp.

21.4 22.2 21.5 First Holdings ‘A’ 64.4 65.5 64.5 Ginebra San Miguel Inc. 12.00 12.50 12.38 Holcim Philippines Inc. 13.84 13.80 13.78 Integ. Micro-Electronics 5.65 5.75 5.72 Ionics Inc 2.830 2.870 2.800 Jollibee Foods Corp.

234.00 234.00 228.00 LBC Express 12.06 12.06 11.3 Liberty Flour 35.00 35.50 34.90 LMG Chemicals 1.9 2.5 1.92 Mabuhay Vinyl 3.4 3.32 3.21 Manila Water Co. Inc. 26.85 26.85 26.2 Maxs Group 21.8 23.5 21.5 Megawide 6.35 6.39 6.23 Mla. Elect. Co `A’ 320.00 326.00 320.00 Panasonic Mfg Phil. Corp. 4.35 4.49 4.40 Pepsi-Cola Products Phil. 3.79 3.8 3.76 Petron Corporation 10.60 10.70 10.50 Phil H2O 3.5 3.5 3.01 Phinma Corporation 11.50 11.52 11.48 Phoenix Petroleum Phils. 4.30 4.42 4.20 Phoenix Semiconductor 1.71 1.84 1.71 Pryce Corp. `A’ 2.7 2.97 2.65 RFM Corporation 4.14 4.16 4.14 San Miguel ‘Pure Foods `A’ 167 165 164 Splash Corporation 2.56 2.56 2.49 Swift Foods, Inc. 0.158 0.159 0.157 TKC Steel Corp.

1.24 1.39 1.24 Trans-Asia Oil 2.79 2.89 2.75 Universal Robina 210 211 209 Victorias Milling 4.64 4.6 4.6 Vitarich Corp.

0.74 0.79 0.74 Vivant Corp.

22.50 22.50 22.50 Vulcan Ind’l.

1.18 1.18 1.18 HOLDING FIRMS Abacus Cons. `A’ 0.365 0.365 0.355 Aboitiz Equity 65.00 65.00 63.95 Alliance Global Inc. 17.22 17.42 16.88 Anscor `A’ 6.12 6.11 6.11 ATN Holdings A 0.305 0.300 0.290 ATN Holdings B 0.305 0.290 0.290 Ayala Corp `A’ 755 755 740 Cosco Capital 7.37 7.4 7.33 DMCI Holdings 13.54 13.50 13.38 F&J Prince ‘A’ 5.05 5.08 5.03 Filinvest Dev. Corp.

4.90 4.99 4.90 Forum Pacific 0.213 0.245 0.227 GT Capital 1456 1446 1412 House of Inv. 6.09 6.14 6.12 IPM Holdings 9.75 9.75 9.59 JG Summit Holdings 80.50 80.50 78.60 Jolliville Holdings 6.2 6.45 5.4 Keppel Holdings `A’ 5.99 5.99 5.99 Lopez Holdings Corp.

6.95 7.12 6.95 Lodestar Invt. Holdg.Corp. 0.7 0.74 0.7 LT Group 15.7 15.7 15.64 Mabuhay Holdings `A’ 0.500 0.510 0.495 Metro Pacific Inv. Corp. 5.85 5.95 5.8 MJCI Investments Inc. 2.3 3.44 3.44 Pacifica `A’ 0.0330 0.0330 0.0320 Prime Orion 2.000 2.040 1.980 Republic Glass ‘A’ 2.75 2.75 2.65 San Miguel Corp `A’ 76.80 77.50 76.20 Seafront `A’ 2.3 2.45 2.20 SM Investments Inc. 970.00 970.00 954.50 Solid Group Inc. 1.13 1.14 1.09 South China Res. Inc. 0.76 0.80 0.80 Transgrid 133.00 199.50 154.90 Top Frontier 180.000 182.000 176.600 Unioil Res. & Hldgs 0.3100 0.3250 0.3050 Wellex Industries 0.1960 0.2190 0.1920 Zeus Holdings 0.295 0.325 0.300 PROPERTY 8990 HLDG 7.780 7.880 7.780 A. Brown Co., Inc. 1.05 1.08 0.98 Araneta Prop `A’ 1.630 1.620 1.600 Arthaland Corp.

0.224 0.225 0.225 Ayala Land `B’ 35.000 35.100 34.650 Belle Corp. `A’ 2.95 2.99 2.92 Cebu Holdings 5.16 5.16 5.15 Century Property 0.580 0.59 0.560 City & Land Dev. 0.94 0.94 0.94 Cityland Dev. `A’ 1.000 0.990 0.990 Crown Equities Inc. 0.128 0.130 0.126 AG Finance Asia United Bank Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. Bank of PI China Bank BDO Leasing & Fin. INc. Bright Kindle Resources COL Financial Eastwest Bank Filipino Fund Inc. I-Remit Inc. MEDCO Holdings Metrobank PB Bank Phil. National Bank Phil. Savings Bank PSE Inc. RCBC `A’ Security Bank Union Bank Vantage Equities

Trading Summary FINANCIAL INDUSTRIAL HOLDING FIRMS PROPERTY SERVICES MINING & OIL GRAND TOTAL

Close

SHARES 12,667,421 95,028,252 125,697,601 164,059,973 270,811,763 346,429,213 1,017,136,343

2.96 46.2 105.00 91.40 39 2.96 1.38 14.1 15.24 7.29 1.81 0.590 86 14.50 53.55 104 287 29.8 160.5 57.50 1.54

Close

%

Net Foreign

Change Volume

Trade/Buying

2.95 46.25 104.30 90.30 39.3 2.84 1.40 14.1 15.22 7.50 1.72 0.610 84.5 14.52 53.45 104 285 29.65 161.4 57.50 1.55

-0.34 0.11 -0.67 -1.20 0.77 -4.05 1.45 0.00 -0.13 2.88 -4.97 3.39 -1.74 0.14 -0.19 0.00 -0.70 -0.50 0.56 0.00 0.65

32,000 6,200 2,179,320 1,118,120 269,800 5,000 93,000 3,000 82,700 42,700 10,000 6,356,000 1,025,530 2,300 40,050 140 11,630 210,200 1,040,630 6,740 131,000

43.75 5.31 0.72 1.54 10.98 72 220.00 18.6 202 150.7 18.2 44 2.5 5.94 11.46 9.600 7.64 6.05 7.60 21.8 65.25 12.50 13.80 5.75 2.800 228.00 11.48 35.50 2.2 3.21 26.5 22 6.38 326.00 4.49 3.76 10.52 3.43 11.50 4.40 1.72 2.9 4.15 164 2.5 0.157 1.27 2.80 209.4 4.6 0.75 22.50 1.18

-0.23 0.00 0.00 0.65 3.58 12.50 15.79 -0.11 49.63 49.95 0.11 2.33 0.81 -1.00 0.53 1.59 1.19 0.17 -1.17 1.87 1.32 4.17 -0.29 1.77 -1.06 -2.56 -4.81 1.43 15.79 -5.59 -1.30 0.92 0.47 1.88 3.22 -0.79 -0.75 -2.00 0.00 2.33 0.58 7.41 0.24 -1.80 -2.34 -0.63 2.42 0.36 -0.29 -0.86 1.35 0.00 0.00

985,500 1,786,500 4,000 1,102,000 200 9,740 1,380 1,389,400 2,610 6,180 650,300 6,800 1,230,000 692,200 84,700 7,582,600 15,586,800 7,686,300 143,500 4,308,500 145,580 136,000 24,200 170,700 3,331,000 288,320 106,600 2,400 289,000 14,000 680,400 3,630,700 258,200 231,950 12,000 620,000 1,386,600 41,000 5,600 448,000 1,063,000 1,059,000 145,000 3,990 314,000 2,070,000 494,000 19,029,000 2,235,490 10,000 13,443,000 1,200 36,000

0.365 64.05 16.90 6.11 0.290 0.290 742 7.37 13.50 5.03 4.90 0.234 1417 6.12 9.73 79.80 5.4 5.99 7.05 0.72 15.64 0.495 5.88 3.44 0.0330 1.990 2.75 77.50 2.45 959.00 1.11 0.80 199.50 182.000 0.3100 0.2160 0.300

0.00 -1.46 -1.86 -0.16 -4.92 -4.92 -1.72 0.00 -0.30 -0.40 0.00 9.86 -2.68 0.49 -0.21 -0.87 -12.90 0.00 1.44 2.86 -0.38 -1.00 0.51 49.57 0.00 -0.50 0.00 0.91 6.52 -1.13 -1.77 5.26 50.00 1.11 0.00 10.20 1.69

190,000 1,933,140 6,539,200 6,000 1,370,000 250,000 183,170 7,028,500 1,393,200 43,000 44,000 2,050,000 207,905 2,600 1,973,000 1,394,050 67,400 1,800 4,902,500 365,000 2,025,000 55,000 39,956,500 4,000 27,700,000 423,000 11,000 267,530 82,000 207,070 1,433,000 1,000 2,690 62,770 5,030,000 5,070,000 2,360,000

7.850 1.03 1.610 0.225 34.750 2.97 5.15 0.570 0.94 0.990 0.128

0.90 -1.90 -1.23 0.45 -0.71 0.68 -0.19 -1.72 0.00 -1.00 0.00

41,300 11,784,000 60,000 100,000 10,741,000 -75,227,835.00 730,000 93,350.00 26,900 17,169,000 1,000 10,000 2,480,000

272,815.00 -54,335,811 -33,044,550.00

-176,758.00 -22,440 -3,480.00 -73,628,151.00 -463,702.00 949,050.00 -5,760,690 14,404,751.00

13,533,085.00 -201,064.00 405,500.00 2,791,818.00 -2,020.00 -390,000.00 -899,478.00 47,851,673.00 13,553,903.00 -4,894,946.00 -6,827.00 2,915,665.00 2,205,904.00 -951,250.00 -179,400.00 496,419.00 -344,780.00 -34,935,050.00

-828,765.00 -8,698,175.00 11,771,256.00 -57,680.00 561,342.00 364,110.00 -72,950.00 395,730.00 -752,920.00 77,859,576.00 46,000.00 -2,459,680.00 27,000.00

-7,376,094.50 27,997,768.00 -37,700.00 -57,811,740.00 5,182,272.00 -1,628,240.00 196,000.00 -22,800.00 -170,520,275.00 74,123,483.50 -1,219,407.00 6,590,980.00 -69,881,171.00 -32,000.00 20,000.00 11,900,385.00 -33,501,270.00 -23,100.00 -3,122.00

52 Weeks

STOCKS

Close

0.69 10.96 0.97 0.305 2.22 2.1 1.8 8.4 5.94 0.180 0.470 8.54 31.8 2.29 4.9 21.35 1.06 7.56 1.62 8.59

0.415 2.4 0.83 0.188 1.15 1.42 1.27 3.1 4.13 0.090 0.290 2.69 22.15 1.6 3.1 15.08 0.69 3.38 0.83 5.73

Cyber Bay Corp.

Double Dragon Empire East Land Ever Gotesco Global-Estate Filinvest Land,Inc. Interport `A’ Keppel Properties Megaworld MRC Allied Ind. Phil. Estates Corp.

Primex Corp.

Robinson’s Land `B’ Rockwell Shang Properties Inc. SM Prime Holdings Sta. Lucia Land Inc. Starmalls Suntrust Home Dev. Inc. Vista Land & Lifescapes

10.5 66 1.44 1.09 14.88 28.5 15.82 0.1430 5.06 99.1 2.6 7.67 4 1700 2720 8.41 70.5 1.97 119.5 7 5.8 0.017 0.8200 2.2800 5.93 12.28 3.32 2.53 3.2 95.5 1 2.46 15.2

1.97 35.2 1 0.63 10.5 18.2 8.6 0.0770 2.95 56.1 1.6 4.8 2.58 830 1600 5.95 17.02 1.23 102.6 3.01 4 0.011 0.041 1.200 2.34 6.5 1.91 1.01 1.95 3.1 0.650 1.8 6

0.62 1.040 22.8 6.41 4 18 185 22.9 3486 0.760 2.28 46.05 90.1

0.335 0.37 14.54 3 2.28 8.8 79 4.39 2748 0.435 1.2 31.45 60.55

11.6 0.85 10 0.490 1.9

7.59 0.63 5 0.315 1.14

2GO Group’ ABS-CBN Acesite Hotel APC Group, Inc. Asian Terminals Inc. Berjaya Phils. Inc. Bloomberry Boulevard Holdings Calata Corp.

Cebu Air Inc. (5J) Discovery World DFNN Inc. Easy Call “Common” FEUI Globe Telecom GMA Network Inc. Grand Plaza Hotel Harbor Star I.C.T.S.I. Imperial Res. `A’ Imperial Res. `B’ IP E-Game Ventures Inc. Island Info ISM Communications Jackstones Leisure & Resorts Liberty Telecom Lorenzo Shipping Macroasia Corp.

Manila Broadcasting Manila Bulletin Manila Jockey Melco Crown Metro Retail MG Holdings NOW Corp.

Pacific Online Sys. Corp.

PAL Holdings Inc. Paxys Inc. Phil. Racing Club Phil. Seven Corp.

Philweb.Com Inc. PLDT Common PremiereHorizon Premium Leisure Puregold Robinsons RTL SBS Phil. Corp.

SSI Group STI Holdings Travellers Waterfront Phils.

Yehey

0.0098 5.45 17.24 0.330 12.7 12.8 1.19 1.62 9.5 4.2 0.48 0.420 0.440 0.022 0.023 8.2 49.2 4.27 3.06 0.020 7.67 12.88 10.42 0.040 420 9 0.016

0.0043 1.72 6.47 0.236 6.5 5.11 0.85 0.77 5.99 1.17 0.305 0.2130 0.2160 0.013 0.014 3.240 18.96 2.11 1.54 0.012 5.4 7.26 2.27 0.015 115.9 3.67 0.0100

Abra Mining Apex `A’ Atlas Cons. `A’ Basic Energy Corp.

Benguet Corp `A’ Benguet Corp `B’ Century Peak Metals Hldgs Coal Asia Dizon Ferronickel Geograce Res. Phil. Inc. Lepanto `A’ Lepanto `B’ Manila Mining `A’ Manila Mining `B’ Marcventures Hldgs., Inc. Nickelasia Nihao Mineral Resources Oriental Peninsula Res. Oriental Pet. `A’ Petroenergy Res. Corp.

Philex `A’ PhilexPetroleum Philodrill Corp. `A’ Semirara Corp.

TA Petroleum United Paragon

70 553

33 490

118 120 8.21 111 1047

141,450.00

Previous

High Low

84.8

6.98

ABS-CBN Holdings Corp.

Ayala Corp. Pref `B1’ BC Pref A 101 First Gen F 101.5 First Gen G 5.88 GMA Holdings Inc. 101 MWIDE PREF PCOR-Preferred B 1011 PF Pref 2 PNX PREF 3A 75 SMC Preferred C SMC Preferred E SMC Preferred F 0.8900 LR Warrant Alterra Capital Makati Fin. Corp.

Italpinas Xurpas

15

3.5

12.88

5.95

130.7

105.6 First Metro ETF

High

VALUE 612,166,589.50 1,273,307,458.65 1,476,940,600.39 842,122,216.12 1,054,829,111.85 226,916,542.43 5,519,902,091.94

FINANCIAL 1,616.04 (DOWN) 12.46 INDUSTRIAL 11,739.72 (DOWN) 15.07 HOLDING FIRMS 7,135.07 (DOWN) 81.88 PROPERTY 2,948.04 (DOWN) 21.43 SERVICES 1,548.29 (UP) 1.45 MINING & OIL 11,138.37 (UP) 105.92 PSEI 7,274.40 (DOWN) 60.12 All Shares Index 4,202.10 (DOWN) 15.73 Gainers: 115; Losers: 97; Unchanged: 29; Total: 241

Close

0.510 39.45 0.870 0.153 1.08 1.77 1.39 3.65 4.13 0.089 0.2370 8.67 28.20 1.51 3.11 22.45 0.89 6.05 1.080 4.600

%

Net Foreign

Change Volume

Trade/Buying

0.570 0.510 0.520 39.5 39 39.1 0.880 0.860 0.860 0.155 0.154 0.154 1.08 1.03 1.05 1.79 1.76 1.79 1.41 1.38 1.40 4.49 4.19 4.49 4.14 4.08 4.1 0.093 0.086 0.090 0.3050 0.2400 0.2600 8.65 8.6 8.6 29.00 28.00 28.25 1.52 1.48 1.5 3.08 3.06 3.07 22.80 22.00 22.15 0.91 0.87 0.88 6.3 6.04 6.3 1.100 1.070 1.090 4.670 4.620 4.620 SERVICES 7.36 7.57 7.36 7.54 59 59.6 58.6 58.8 1.22 1.55 1.32 1.38 0.590 0.610 0.560 0.610 10.7 10.62 10.62 10.62 28.45 28.4 28.4 28.4 5.18 5.25 5.15 5.15 0.0700 0.0720 0.0700 0.0710 3.35 3.39 3.3 3.3 90 90 89.45 89.7 1.49 1.55 1.53 1.55 6.80 6.80 6.58 6.77 3.18 3.20 3.20 3.20 960 961 960 960 2130 2180 2130 2148 6.97 6.99 6.95 6.98 23.50 35.25 28.95 35.25 1.23 1.23 1.23 1.23 67 66.9 65.6 65.65 22.50 33.75 27.00 33.75 155 232.4 185 232.4 0.0100 0.0110 0.0100 0.0110 0.285 0.295 0.275 0.280 1.2700 1.3100 1.2500 1.2800 2.1 2.2 2.1 2.1 8.00 7.95 7.80 7.80 3.52 3.62 3.50 3.58 1.26 1.25 1.25 1.25 2.80 2.80 2.70 2.80 22.00 24.95 24.95 24.95 0.540 0.570 0.550 0.570 1.94 1.94 1.94 1.94 2.58 2.68 2.5 2.5 3.93 3.95 3.90 3.90 0.275 0.280 0.270 0.280 1.030 1.090 0.990 1.000 17.6 17.5 17.5 17.5 5.01 5.04 4.70 4.70 2.6 2.55 2.55 2.55 8.99 8.56 8.56 8.56 100.00 101.00 100.00 100.00 22.15 22.15 21.60 22.05 1953.00 1975.00 1956.00 1967.00 0.445 0.440 0.430 0.435 0.950 0.950 0.930 0.950 36.95 37.20 36.70 37.00 71.80 72.10 71.65 72.00 6.43 6.63 6.45 6.50 3.30 3.50 3.30 3.46 0.530 0.580 0.530 0.560 3.9 3.92 3.82 3.82 0.330 0.360 0.340 0.360 4.710 4.910 4.600 4.880 MINING & OIL 0.0046 0.0045 0.0044 0.0045 2.05 2.10 2.05 2.10 4.36 4.36 4.27 4.29 0.245 0.265 0.245 0.245 7.2900 10.92 9 10.9200 7.6000 11.4000 8.0000 11.4000 0.61 0.66 0.61 0.62 0.475 0.480 0.475 0.480 8.01 8.30 7.91 8.20 0.810 0.920 0.850 0.860 0.285 0.300 0.290 0.290 0.280 0.290 0.275 0.290 0.295 0.305 0.295 0.305 0.0120 0.0130 0.0120 0.0130 0.012 0.0130 0.0130 0.0130 2.09 2.24 2.06 2.1 5.47 5.51 5.41 5.46 2.49 2.59 2.5 2.5 1.2600 1.2600 1.2500 1.2500 0.0099 0.0097 0.0097 0.0097 3.67 3.88 3.88 3.88 5.62 5.70 5.65 5.68 2.33 2.31 2.25 2.30 0.0120 0.0130 0.0120 0.0120 131.40 132.00 130.80 131.00 2.46 2.6 2.44 2.6 0.0085 0.0093 0.0090 0.0093 PREFERRED 58.7 58.7 58.4 58.7 526 533 520 520 19.8 29.7 29.7 29.7 109.1 108.3 108.1 108.1 113 112.1 112 112 6.95 6.9 6.7 6.71 106 107.5 106.1 107.5 1100 1090 1090 1090 1008 1015 1008 1015 105 105 103.6 103.6 81.95 82 82 82 75.7 76.5 76.5 76.5 76.6 77.1 76.6 76.6 WARRANTS & BONDS 3.390 3.510 3.350 3.380 SME 3.74 3.79 3.34 3.79 3.5 3.83 3.6 3.7 3.48 3.51 3.34 3.35 17.42 17.66 17.42 17.42 EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS 120 120.9 119.4 119.5

T op g ainerS STOCKS

Low

1.96 -0.89 -1.15 0.65 -2.78 1.13 0.72 23.01 -0.73 1.12 9.70 -0.81 0.18 -0.66 -1.29 -1.34 -1.12 4.13 0.93 0.43

46,844,000 955,100 77,000 550,000 4,808,000 6,465,000 2,017,000 53,000 21,583,000 7,100,000 7,330,000 13,500,000 1,304,100 245,000 52,000 8,842,800 4,933,000 10,900 1,387,000 6,335,000

45,380.00 3,755,430.00

2.45 -0.34 13.11 3.39 -0.75 -0.18 -0.58 1.43 -1.49 -0.33 4.03 -0.44 0.63 0.00 0.85 0.14 50.00 0.00 -2.01 50.00 49.94 10.00 -1.75 0.79 0.00 -2.50 1.70 -0.79 0.00 13.41 5.56 0.00 -3.10 -0.76 1.82 -2.91 -0.57 -6.19 -1.92 -4.78 0.00 -0.45 0.72 -2.25 0.00 0.14 0.28 1.09 4.85 5.66 -2.05 9.09 3.61

215,800 164,710.00 32,430 2,944,000 -55,870.00 2,742,000 200 100 2,196,300 246,490.00 63,460,000 133,000 142,830 1,656,431.00 19,000 129,200 -27,200.00 5,000 800 158,415 94,022,340.00 99,500 7,600 56,000 47,970.00 683,720 -12,492,105.50 430,000 2,090 -77,020.00 4,700,000 102,210,000 -5,729,450.00 3,365,000 27,000 174,800 -220.00 275,000 1,000 35,000 100 123,000 2,000 11,504,000 -8,329,610.00 1,750,000 1,249,900.00 320,000 44,534,000 -7,110.00 700 21,000 -34,000.00 3,000 300 233,380 -1,010.00 96,200 719,690.00 41,115 33,971,725.00 440,000 4,925,000 470,000.00 2,496,800 -20,199,390.00 3,270,010 -5,253,102.50 2,526,100 -98,200.00 4,382,000 -808,150.00 6,070,000 1,735,450.00 1,897,000 -1,115,520.00 1,320,000 89,000

-2.17 2.44 -1.61 0.00 49.79 50.00 1.64 1.05 2.37 6.17 1.75 3.57 3.39 8.33 8.33 0.48 -0.18 0.40 -0.79 -2.02 5.72 1.07 -1.29 0.00 -0.30 5.69 9.41

51,000,000 15,000 617,000 2,980,000 631,300 580,000 578,000 210,000 92,700 65,534,000 420,000 14,480,000 320,000 45,000,000 94,000,000 466,000 7,465,600 143,000 33,000 21,000,000 3,000 449,100 1,882,000 28,900,000 725,600 369,000 8,000,000

0.00 -1.14 50.00 -0.92 -0.88 -3.45 1.42 -0.91 0.69 -1.33 0.06 1.06 0.00

162,010 1,010 100 2,800 27,000 74,300 100 5 5,335 1,030 9,560 230 19,400

-0.29

267,000

1.34 5.71 -3.74 0.00

3,000 68,000 878,000 1,452,500

69,000.00 6,572,018.00

-0.42

40,620

4,560,350.00

-42,800.00 789,160.00 -604,600.00 -56,330,390.00 16,503,145.00 94,500.00 1,091,680.00 -26,700.00 32,400.00 -6,505,170.00

-150,090.00 258,076.00 -212,700.00 -9,649,910.00 9,000.00 -33,698,813.00

-876,104.00 -32,767,030.00 -18,200.00 -7,274,688.00

-483,962.00

T op L oSerS Close (P)

Change (%)

STOCKS

Close (P)

Change (%)

Benguet Corp `B'

11.4000

50.00

Jolliville Holdings

5.4

-12.90

Transgrid

199.50

50.00

PAL Holdings Inc.

4.70

-6.19

Imperial Res. `A'

33.75

50.00

Mabuhay Vinyl

3.21

-5.59

Grand Plaza Hotel

35.25

50.00

I-Remit Inc.

1.72

-4.97

BC Pref A

29.7

50.00

ATN Holdings B

0.290

-4.92

Conc. Aggr. 'A'

150.7

49.95

ATN Holdings A

0.290

-4.92

Imperial Res. `B'

232.4

49.94

LBC Express

11.48

-4.81

Benguet Corp `A'

10.9200

49.79

Phil. Racing Club

8.56

-4.78

Chemphil

202

49.63

BDO Leasing & Fin. INc.

2.84

-4.05

MJCI Investments Inc.

3.44

49.57

Italpinas

3.35

-3.74

WEDNESDAY: MARCH 30, 2016

B3

BUSINESS business@thestandard.com.ph extrastory2000@gmail.com

Robinsons’ profit jumps 22%

By Jenniffer B. Austria

ROBINSONS Retail Holdings Inc. said Tuesday net income jumped 21.9 percent in 2015 to P4.34 billion from P3.56 billion in 2014, on positive same-store sales growth and contribution from newly opened stores.

Robinsons Retail said in a disclosure to the stock exchange consolidated net sales hit P90.88 billion last year, up 13 percent from P80.40 billion in 2014.

The retail holding firm of the Gokongwei group said it opened 179 new stores in 2015 to end the

year with a total of 1,506 stores.

The opening of new stores expanded the company’s gross floor area by 9.7 percent year-on-year, it said.

The company said it registered same-store sales growth of 4.1 percent in 2015, higher than the

3-percent consolidated samestore sales growth target for the year.

Robinsons Retail said in the fourth quarter, consolidated net income attributable to equity holders of the parent company grew 12.7 percent to P1.37 billion from P1.22 billion last year.

Core net earnings, which exclude interest income on bond investments, equitized net earnings from its 40-percent stake in Robinsons Bank and foreign exchange gains or losses, increased 5.8 percent to P3.63 billion from P3.43 billion last year.

“I am heartened by the strong

same-store sales growth performance of all our retail formats in 2015, despite the intensifying competition,” Robinsons Retail president and chief operating officer Robina Gokongwei-Pe said.

“We have also gotten into a good start this 2016 with solid same-store sales growth for the first two months of the year as we benefited from increased consumer spending from a still robust domestic economy. We will continue with our footprint expansion, with focus on areas outside Metro Manila. Looking for potential mergers and acqui-

sition continues to be part of our strategy in growing the business,” Gokongwei-Pe said.

Blended gross profit increased 13.3 percent to P19.75 billion in 2015 from P17.43 billion in 2014.

Operating income improved 5.4 percent to P4.73 billion while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization grew 10.6 percent to P6.38 billion.

Robinsons Retail currently operates 10 retail formats under six business segments, including department stores, supermarkets, home improvement stores, convenience stores, drug stores and specialty stores.

Market declines; First Gen advances STOCKS fell for a second day, as investors chose to cash in before closing their positions in the first quarter and waited for the next action of the US Federal Reserve.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index, the 30-company benchmark, shed 60 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 7,274.40 on Tuesday. The bellwether was still up 4.6 percent since the start of the year.

The heavier index, representing all shares, also dropped 15 points, or 0.4 percent, to settle at 4,202.10, on a value turnover of P5.5 billion. Advancers outnumbered losers, 115 to 97, while 29 issues were unchanged.

Seven of the 20 most active stocks ended in the green, led by First Gen Corp., which climbed 1.9 percent to P21.80. Liquor market Emperador Inc. rose 1.2 percent to P7.64, while Globe Telecom Inc. added 0.9 percent to close at P2,148.

Meanwhile, investors were hoping that Fed Chair Janet Yellen would shed some light on the Fed’s thinking on its interest rate policy in her speech in New York Tuesday.

A recent series of strong US data—including Friday’s better than forecast fourth-quarter growth—raised the prospect of a lift sometime soon, although disappointing inflation and consumer spending figures Monday dampened expectations again.

Tokyo’s Nikkei closed 0.2 percent down, while Hong Kong gave up 0.3 percent in the afternoon and Shanghai finished 1.3 percent lower. Sydney shed 1.6 percent and Singapore was also lower.

The uneasy start to the week came after a largely positive but soft lead from Wall Street.

“Much of Wall Street’s rebound, and indeed that of global markets, over the last five weeks has been driven by expectations for continued policy accommodation from the world’s central banks,” Matthew Sherwood, head of investment strategy at Perpetual in Sydney, told Bloomberg News. With AFP

LBC support. Impact Hub Manila and LBC Express Inc. provide a nine-month start-up support worth P750,000 to SkyEye Inc., the winning

team of the Impact Hub fellowship on innovation and mobility. SkyEye, which uses a drone technology for land surveying, won the grand prize in the three-month cohort phase of the fellowship, topping two other finalists—Food Planner Inc. and Wave Inc. Shown during the awarding ceremony in Makati City are (from left) Impact Hub Manila co-founder Ces Rondario, LBC chief strategy and innovation officer Fernando Araneta, SkyEye founder and chief executive Matthew Cua, Manila Hub co-founder Mathias Jaeggi, Wave co-founders Nikolas Escobal and John Ching, Food Planner co-founders Gerissa Ranieses and Rogine Ceballos and Impact Hub Manila co-founder Lizan Kuster. RODERICK T. DELA CRUZ

French game developer to open studio in Laguna

By Othel V. Campos Game developer and publisher Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. of France said it will open a studio in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, its second production hub in Southeast Asia, in the second quarter.

Ubisoft Philippines studio manager Chip Go said the country was chosen as the company’s new production hub in Southeast Asia because of the wealth of Filipino talents.

“It’s been about seven years now since we opened in Singapore.

We’ve been eyeing the Philippines for possible collaboration since then. Our success in Singapore made the group decide to set up another hub in the Philippines,” he said.

Go said investments needed to set up a studio would be quite significant, not only in monetary terms but also because “we are bringing in 30 years of experience and expertise.”

The Philippine hub would employ 50 people in its first year to man production and teach new hires. Ubisoft Philippines said over the next five years, the plan was to build a 200-man strong production house.

Ubisoft Philippines, which is building the new studio at De La Salle University in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, the emerging central business district south of Manila, will collaborate on the development of Ubisoft’s AAA console games.

“We signed the agreement only recently. And we got as-

surance that we can use the innovation center which De La Salle is currently building. It is 2,000-square-meter space that we will use as our base in the Philippines,” said Go. The new studio will be closely linked to Ubisoft’s existing Southeast Asian hub in Singapore, with a number of founding team members moving from the Singapore studio to train the new team in the Philippines.

The company will hire artists, programmers and production staff for the new studio.

“We have huge ambition for this team, who will play a part in creating some of Ubisoft’s biggest and most beloved games. We are confident with our ability to build a strong team to take up these

challenges,” said Go. Ubisoft, known for its popular brands such as Assassin’s Creed, Just Dance, Tom Clancy’s video game series, Rayman, Far Cry and Watch Dogs, also signed an agreement with De La Salle University to offer four-year courses on arts and technology.

It also plans to offer special one-year certificate course on game software development.

“Working with the academe is not new to Ubisoft. We’ve had several partnerships for agreements like this in some of our hubs across the globe. To date, we have more than 30 hubs globally,” said Go. Go said De La Salle would issue its own announcement on the new courses soon.

B4 Habito says TPP to benefit Manila

By Othel V. Campos FORMER National Economic and Development Authority director general Cielito Habito said the Philippines is equipped with the right tools to join the new emerging trade bloc in the Pacific.

“The Philippines is well-positioned to seize opportunities in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, given our experience and commitment to participate in various international fora and our pursuit of mutually beneficial trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe,” said Habito in a forum on TPP held recently at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City.

Habito also heads the USAIDfunded Trade-Related Assistance for Development project.

Habito said a study made by economist and former dean of the University of the Philippines School of Economics Ramon Clarete had projected that a TPP membership could increase the country’s exports by up to 42 percent and the gross domestic product by up to 59 percent.

Habito stressed the country’s membership in TPP would present substantial opportunities for broad-based growth and diversification of the economy. Nonmembership, meanwhile, will lead to significant job losses as trade and investments are diverted away from the Philippines to other similar neighbors which are already part of the agreement.

The business sector maintains a confident perspective on the Philippines’ ability to seize the opportunities and address the challenges when the country decides to join the TPP. Signed in early February, the TPP is an ambitious and balanced agreement that inlcudes 12 member countries—Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam.

Its members have a combined population of 800 million, a gross domestic product of $28 trillion, about 40 percent of the global GDP, $9 trillion in merchandise trade and $2 trillion in trade of services, or 30 percent of the world trade.

Agri-fishery projects. Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala (left) turns over a P1.28-million check to the local government of Sta. Fe in Bantayan Island, Cebu, represented by municipal agriculturist Romeo Pacilan, during the Farmers and Fisherfolk Forum held on March 8, 2016. The fund is geared to various agri-fishery initiatives under the bottom-up budgeting program of the government. Agriculture will also provide training on the latest agri-fishery technology.

PH banks resilient and sound in 2015

By Julito G. Rada

DOMESTIC banks remained sound and resilient in 2015, with savings and time deposits as the primary sources of funds for the banking system, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in a report.

The Report on Economic and Financial Developments for the fourth quarter showed that banks’ total deposits as of end-December amounted to P7.3 trillion, a year-on-year growth of 8.9 percent or P0.6 trillion, outpacing slightly the 7.5 percent increase posted in the previous quarter.

“Savings and demand deposits expanded by 12.4 percent and 17.1 percent from the yearand quarter-ago rates, respectively. Meanwhile, time deposits declined by 3.9 percent during the review period which is equivalent

to P72.9 billion. On the other hand, foreign currency deposits owned by residents grew by 8.3 percent, y-o-y, to P1.5 trillion,” the report said.

Outstanding loans of commercial banks as of end-December 2015, net of banks’ RRP placements with Bangko Sentral, rose 13.6 percent on year, higher than the 12.6 percent posted a quarter ago.

Bank lending, inclusive of RRPs, increased also 12.7 percent relative to the level posted in end-2014.

“Commercial banks’ loans have been increasing steadily at a double-digit pace since January 2011. The continued broad-based growth in bank lending supported the sustained expansion of the productive sectors of the economy in the fourth quarter 2015,” Bangko Sentral said.

Loans for production activities, which comprised more than 80 percent of banks’ aggregate loan portfolio, expanded 13.7 percent in December on year. The growth in production loans was driven primar-

Local corn producers bat for exports LOCAL corn farmers are confident that they could tap the export market in the medium term and be very competitive in the forthcoming Asean economic community.

Philippine Maize Federation Inc. president Roger Navarro said corn producers could be assured of better yields and allowed to export at the proper time.

“With the new JDC (joint department circular) for biotechnology, local corn farmers have better chances of tapping the export market because we will

continue reaping higher yields with Bt corn,” Navarro said in an interview.

The country’s corn production stood at 7.553 million metric tons in crop year 2014-2015, which is slightly lower than 7.671 MMT recorded in the previous crop year, according to the US Department of Agriculture data.

The decline in corn yields, Navarro said, could be attributed to the El Niño dry spell as some areas, especially in Northern Mindanao, had been badly hit by the drought.

Northern Mindanao is the second biggest corn producing region next to Luzon’s Region 2, while Region 12 ranks third.

The corn producing industry covers 2.5 million hectares with an average yield of 4 MT per hectare. The direct beneficiaries are the 11 million Filipino farmers, farm workers and those in the food manufacturing.

The Philippines produces mostly yellow corn, where 70 percent goes to feed mills, while the 30 percent are used for food, such as oil and starch, among others.

ily by increased lending to real estate activities, 19.5 percent; electricity, gas, steam and air-conditioning supply, 27.5 percent; wholesale and retail trade, and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, 12.6 percent; financial and insurance activities, 12.3 percent; and information and communication, 27 percent.

Bank lending to other sectors expanded during the month, except for administrative and support services activities, and other community, social and personal activities, which declined 5.2 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.

Loans for household consumption grew 15.1 percent in December due to sustained growth in credit card loans, motor vehicle loans, salary-based general purpose loans, and other types of loans The resources of the banking system rose 7.9 percent to P12.4 trillion as of end-December 2015 from the year-ago level of P11.5 trillion. Total resources stood at 93.7 percent as a percent of GDP.

MB shuts down Aklan’s Rural Bank of Malinao THE Monetary Board, the policy making body of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, closed another rural bank due to unsound financial status, the sixth lender closed this year by the board.

The Monetary Board placed Rural Bank of Malinao (Aklan) Inc. under the receivership of Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. following MB Resolution No. 510 dated March 22, 2016. PDIC as receiver took over the bank on March 23, 2016.

Rural Bank of Malinao is a six-unit rural bank with head office located at San Juan St., Brgy. Poblacion, Malinao, Aklan. Its branch is located in Cabatuan, Iloilo, while four Offsite Banking Offices

are in Kalibo, Madalag, Malay and Tangalan, all in Aklan.

Based on the bank information sheet filed by the bank with PDIC as of Dec. 31, 2015, Rural Bank of Malinao is owned

by John Guidon Icamina Dela Cruz (39 percent), Gualterio Icamina Dela Cruz (26 percent), Grazia Athena Dela Cruz Zaulda (13 percent), Filbake Food Corporation (5 percent), Cynthia Cerrada Dela Cruz (3 percent), Bakers Dream Franchise (3 percent), and Aida Dela Cruz Constantino (2 percent). John Guidon Icamina Dela Cruz while Gualterio Icamina Dela Cruz is chairman.

Julito G. Rada

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BUSINESS business@thestandard.com.ph extrastory2000@gmail.com

Trade launches industrial strategy

By Othel V. Campos THE Trade Department launched Tuesday the Comprehensive National Industry Strategy, a program the will link the manufacturing sector with agricultural and services to create a globally competitive supply chain for Philippine products.

Trade Secretary Adrian Cristobal Jr. said the CNIS would initially focus on manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics, tourism, information technology-business process management and agribusiness.

“While the growth in agriculture has been quite challenging in the past years and growth in services has been limited to a few sectors, we should be able to lift these sectors—with agriculture as source of inputs and services as the enabling element—to support broad-based and sustained growth in manufacturing,” he said during the launch of CNIS at the Crowne Hotel in the Ortigas business district.

He said forward and backward linkages would be strengthened, while supply chain gaps would be addressed and the industries’ participation in the global and regional value chains deepened.

The CNIS involves human resource development, SME development, innovation and R&D activities, green industries, aggressive promotion and marketing programs, infrastructure investments to address the high cost of power, logistics and shipping, and streamlining and automation of government procedures and regulations affecting business operations.

Cristobal noted that through the strategic actions, the government could create an enabling environment that would allow industries to further develop, become globally competitive and seize the opportunities of an integrated regional economy.

“Eventually, we would like to see a Philippine manufacturing sector that is inclusive, with micro, small, and medium enterprises at the front and center of the Philippine business activities; a manufacturing sector that is likewise expansive to conquer not just the local markets but also strategic markets beyond our borders,” he said.

“This we believe is the path that HSBC considered when it predicted in its earlier study that the Philippines would be the 16th largest economy in the world by 2050,” he said.

Cristobal cited the benefits of having a young workforce and the need to ensure that young people had the right skills and that the government would be able to generate the jobs for them.

The Trade Department is focusing on strengthening partnerships necessary to develop talent and skills capacity to support local industries with partner-agencies— the Science Department through the Metals Industries Research and Development Council and the Labor Department through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

B5

Bond rates decrease as tenders hit P76.8b

By Gabrielle H. Binaday

THE government sold P25 billion worth of debt papers on Tuesday’s auction as rates fell across the board, the Bureau of Treasury said.

Rates for the re-issued treasury bonds settled at 3.25 percent, down from 3.647 percent in the previous auction of the same tenor in February.

“The auction committee decided for a full award of the re-issued Treasury Bonds with remaining life of 3 years and 7 months on the back of strong demand for the security,” the Treasury said in a statement after the auction.

The BTr attributed the lower rates to the big participation of competitive and non-competitive bidders.

Tenders for the government’s P25-billion re-issued seven-year IOUs offer was thrice oversub-

scribed at P76.842 billion. The bonds have a remaining life of four years and will mature on November 22, 2019.

Meanwhile, the Treasury is set to sell P135 worth of government debt paper in the second quarter.

The agency said in a notice posted in its Web site it would keep a domestic borrowing cap of P135 billion for the April-to-June period in 2016 through the auction of treasury bills and bonds in the period.

The government plans to sell P20 billion worth of 91-, 182-, and 364-day debt papers on April 6, May 4 and June 8. It will also

sell P25 billion worth of treasury bonds through auctions on April 21, May 19 and June 30.

The auction of the various debt paper with short and long tenors were the same as programmed in the four quarters of this year.

The outlook for 2016 reflects a borrowing mix of 85 percent from domestic sources and 15 percent from the external market.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. earlier said inflation in March likely decelerated further to as low as 0.6 percent from 0.9 percent in February mainly due to lower power rates.

The manageable inflation environment prompted the policy-setting Monetary Board to keep the benchmark interest rates steady during its meeting Wednesday last week. It was the 12th consecutive time that the board kept the rates steady since

October 2014.

The board maintained the key policy rates at 4 percent for the overnight borrowing or reverse repurchase facility and 6 percent for the overnight lending or repurchase facility. The interest rates on term RRPs, RPs and special deposit accounts were also kept steady. The reserve requirement ratios were likewise left unchanged.

Latest forecasts showed that average inflation was likely to settle within the target range of 2 percent to 4 percent for 20162017.

The Monetary Board noted that the risks surrounding the inflation outlook had remained tilted to the downside, as downward price pressures could arise from slower-than-expected global economic activity and potential second-round effects from lower international oil prices.

Women entrepreneurs. The move to procuring and sourcing from women enterprises is the focus of the Great Women Forum held on

March 11, 2016 at the Yuchengco Museum as part of the celebration of women’s month. Shown are women supporters (from left) Luzviminda Villanueva, program lead for the Philippine Commission on Women; Canadian Ambassador Neil Reeder; Trade Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya, ECHOsi Foundation director Jeannie Javelosa, Canadian Embassy officer Myrna Jarilles and ECHOstore’s Chit Juan. Great is the acronym for Gender Responsive Economic Action for the Transformation of Women.

Henares allows tax payments through credit cards THE Bureau of Internal Revenue on Tuesday said it will allow credit and debit cards as form of payment on the income tax starting next month.

BIR Commissioner Kim Henares, under revenue regulation no.

3, the public can now pay taxes by credit, debit or prepaid card, aside from cash and checks.

Henares said the taxpayer could choose from available online payment facilities provided an electronic payment service provider.

The regulation, however, limits authorized agent banks to those

who complied with the criteria set by the tax-collecting agency and to Philippine-issued credit and debit cards.

The card payment information system of the authorized banks should have been tested and approved by the BIR. The BIR said it would not take responsibility if the taxpayer or the cardholder made an error in filing and paying the tax returns’ information.

“In case the taxpayer-cardholder made erroneous tax payment transactions through this prescribed payment mode, the

same shall not give rise to any automatic ‘charge back’ to the taxpayer-cardholder’s account. In meritorious cases, the taxpayer shall apply for refund/tax credit with the BIR in accordance with existing revenue issuances,” the BIR said.

The authorized banks are responsbile for ensuring all payment transactions, through credit/debit/prepaid cards, are accurately and timely reported and remitted to the BIR and the Bureau of Treasury.

The issuance of the regulation is considered timely as the deadline

for the filing of the annual income tax returns is set on April 15.

BIR tax collections hit P1.44 trillion in 2015, up 8 percent from a year ago. They are expected to reach P2.02 trillion this year.

The government expects to collect P1.243 trillion from income taxes, P405.11 billion from valueadded tax, P170.72 billion from excise taxes, P82.90 billion from percentage tax, and P123.54 billion from other taxes.

The BIR said the collections will cover 67 percent of the P3.002-trillion budget this year.

Gabrielle H. Binaday

B6

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WORLD

CESAR BARRIOQUINTO EDITOR

editorial@thestandard.com.ph

UN judges to deliver verdict on defiant Serb THE HAGUE—UN war crimes judges will deliver another landmark verdict Thursday, this time against firebrand radical Serb leader Vojislav Seselj—but in the absence of the defiant defendant, who has refused to return to The Hague Exactly a week after former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in jail for genocide and nine other charges, the judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will pronounce judgment on Seselj in the same courtroom.

Seselj faces nine charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It will be the first time that judges at the ICTY return an initial verdict without the accused in court—although defendants have been absent for appeals judgments.

The court has excused him from attending on medical grounds.

Seselj, 61, was allowed to return to Serbia in 2014 for treatment for colon cancer, and the judges said earlier this month his medical care “cannot be interrupted or stopped for him to be prosecuted in The Hague”.

While he has maintained he is in poor health, earlier this month he was seen at a rally in Belgrade setting fire on EU and Nato flags.

A day later he was seen paying his respects at the grave of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic—who died in his cell in The Hague in 2006 while on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As leader of the far-right Serbian Radical Party, Seselj also intends to run for parliament in elections next month.

According to the charge sheet, Seselj “is alleged to have propagated a policy of uniting ‘all Serbian lands’ in a homogeneous Serbian state, which he referred to as ‘Greater Serbia’,” set to include Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Croatia and parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A former law student, he is alleged to have been criminally responsible for murder, torture and cruel treatment, persecution, deportation and “wanton destruction” of institutions on religious grounds during the 1990s conflicts.

Through his actions and “inflammatory speeches,” he allegedly “instigated Serb forces to commit crimes” and “participated in war propaganda and incitement of hatred towards nonSerb people”. AFP

Syria’s forces renew attacks on jihadists DAMASCUS—Syrian forces pressed their offensive against the Islamic State group on Monday, the day after seizing control of the ancient city of Palmyra in a major blow against the jihadists.

Awarding ceremony. Models parade creations from the Beijing Institute of

FashionTechnology during the “BIFT∑ELLASSAY” Scholarship Awarding Ceremony at the China Fashion Week in Beijing on March 29, 2016. AFP

Regime troops pushed on towards Deir Ezzor province, an IS bastion, the day after wresting control of the desert ruins with the help of Russian air strikes.

Analysts said the government’s seizure of Palmyra was the biggest blow so far in the war against IS and a major coup both for Damascus and Moscow.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hailed the victory as “fresh proof of the efficiency of the Syrian army and its allies in fighting terrorism”.

IS destroyed more than a dozen tombs and temples during its 10-month occupation of the Unesco World Heritage site, known as the “Pearl of the Desert”.

Syria’s antiquities chief said the monuments could be restored in five years, although a UN expert cast doubt on the time-frame.

Inside the city, army sappers worked to defuse bombs and mines planted by IS before they retreated on Monday. One soldier said more than 50 had been disarmed.

Outside, Syria’s military turned their attention to other IS-held towns as they pushed towards Raqa, the jihadists’ de facto capital.

“The army was concentrated around Al-Qaryatain, and today the military operations began there,” said a military source in Palmyra.

“That is the next goal for the Syrian army. They also have their eyes on Sukhnah,” he added, referring to a town northeast of Palmyra.

The United States cautiously welcomed the victory for Assad, but warned against allowing him to expand his “ability to tyrannize the Syrian people”.

Concern has been mounting for the ancient city since IS overran it in May 2015 and began a campaign to destroy tombs and shrines it considers idolatrous.

In September, they demolished the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel and a month later blew up the Arch of Triumph, from around 200 AD. The jihadists also used Palmyra’s ancient theater as a venue for public executions and murdered the city’s 82-year-old former antiquities chief, Khaled al-Assaad.

Syria’s head of antiquities, Maamoun Abdulkarim, told AFP that 80 percent of the site was still “in good shape” and the ancient ruins could be restored in five years with UNESCO’s help.

But UN expert Annie Sartre-Fauriat said she was “very doubtful” that would be possible.

“Everyone is excited because Palmyra has been ‘liberated’, but we should not forget everything that has been destroyed,” said Sartre-Fauriat, who belongs to a group of experts on Syrian heritage set up by UNESCO in 2013. AFP

China’s Xi faces fresh protests in Prague PRAGUE—Chinese President Xi Jinping Tuesday faced a turbulent second day of a visit to Prague aimed at boosting trade ties, as demonstrators planned new protests against Beijing’s policies on Tibet.

Police arrested 12 people on Monday after pro-Tibetan demonstrators scuffled with crowds who had turned out to welcome Xi on the first visit by a Chinese head of state to the Czech Republic.

Chinese flags hung on Prague’s streets were defaced, and protesters displayed a huge billboard of the Dalai Lama with the late Czech president Vaclav Havel along the road from the airport.

Another rally against Beijing’s policy on Tibet is scheduled for

Tuesday outside the Czech presidential seat, the Prague Castle.

The demonstrations highlight the tensions around Xi’s visit, which is designed to boost trade but which has seen Czech President Milos Zeman come under fire for his pro-China policies.

He hosted Xi at his official residence on Monday, when the two planted a ginkgo biloba tree, holding watering cans with their national flags, Czech and Chinese media reported.

The two are to address a joint press conference on Tuesday morning.

Zeman has hailed the visit as a watershed in Prague’s relations with Beijing, forecasting that China could invest up to 45 billion

koruna (1.66 billion euros, $1.86 billion).

Chinese group CEFC has recently spent about 20 billion koruna in the country, buying stakes in a charter airline, a brewery, two media groups and a top football team.

“It’s a new start since we used to have terrible relations with China and the previous government gave in to pressure from the United States and the EU,” Zeman told China’s CCTV channel, according to Czech media.

“Right now we are once again an independent country and we formulate our foreign policy based on our own interests. We do not meddle in the interests of any other country.” AFP

Hijacking. Passengers of an EgyptAir Airbus A-320, which was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus stand at Larnaca airport after disembarking the plane on March 29, 2016. A hijacker seized the Egyptian airliner and diverted it to Cyprus before releasing all the passengers except for four foreigners and the crew, officials and the airline said. AFP

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MACRO AND MICRO INVESTMENT TRENDS editorial@thestandard.com.ph

From B8 2016 Banking Predicitions Before The Heist Before the heist blew up, financial analysts believed that the Filipino economy will continue to grow despite the many challenges posted by the elections. The uncertainty will defintiely go away as investments from overseas continue to ring in and this will further solidify the growth of the Filipino market. Investments from foreign investors will further fuel the development of the country as well.

The Fitch Rating and Its Effect Despite all that has happened, the Philippines continues to have a positive Fitch Rating which was awarded to the country at the end of last year. This proves that there will be continuous growth in the area.

The Fitch Rating is a positive push for the country especially since financial systems in the Asia and the Pacific or APAC are expecting a tough year ahead.

The positive Fitch Rating makes a major difference in Asia because the Philippines was the only country awarded a positive rating. The Philippines was given this to due to a generally healthy profile of local lenders, sound operating environment, and the Philippines’ strong economic fundamentals.

More Institutions to Choose From More and more banking institutions are going up everywhere. At the beginning of 2015, the BSP boasted a presence of 648 different banks, which built 9,700 branches, 15, 695 automated teller machines (ATM), 517 offices of microfinance institutions and 251 banks with e-banking facilities which includes online services and mobile banking.

This is to cater to the ever growing need of the country including a bigger audience who may have two more bank accounts per individual.

Another credit-ratings agency, Moody’s, once credited the success of the banking sector to the following factors: consistent robust economic growth despite the slowing global demand, moderate inflation, and an improved standard of the banking sector’s asset quality which led to the prevention of the overheating of domestic asset markets.

Wiser Filipino Spendings Today as millenials, who comprise the bulk of the population, crowd the financial market, one is pleasantly surprised when they hear that millenials are actually responsible in their spending. More and more millenials are investing in their future. While some may tag them as the carefree generation, they are actually very smart about their spending.

They are more in tuned to think about the future and this is why they are open to investments. More and more millenials are also picking up financial advisor posts and this spilling over into the older generation.

Since the older generation was not more careful in their investments, today’s technology is lessening that trend by presenting different options on investment.

Spearheaded by the millenial generation, today’s young people are more attuned to what they need to invest on in order to create a comfortable life in the future.

Today, financial institutions are taking better care of their customers as well by providing ways to take care of the money that Filipinos are enjoying these days.

Increasing wealth is everyone’s goal. Investment advice for the young often begins with what they would like to achieve in a few years. Investment has also become highly customized in nature and depending if the person is a risk taker or not. If the person is a risk taker, it’s imperative for them to invest in stocks and bonds that will help them in the future.

From here on, they are given several options that will help them gain returns in the future. Fund managers are the ones who are in charge of helping steer someone in the right investment solutions. Tody, it’s not just insurance options but investment options as well.

More and more financial institutions are becoming increasingly creative with the way they present their investment options. Diversification is also becoming an increasingly important factor for people who want to invest. Profits and return may be smaller but this allows people to have different gains from it as well.

Because of this more and more Filipinos are moving forward with a chance of a brighter life with better options. If all goes well despite the scandals and the elections, the Philippines is looking for yet again another bright, prosperous year ahead.

For now, we can only hope for a peaceful and permanent solution to problems like the Bangladesh heist.

B7

Millennials are getting money-savvy

By Carla Bianca V. Ravanes THIS year will mark my eighth year in the work force (yes, eight years, where has all the time gone?). Graduating and starting working at 20 has allowed me to experience the joys, pains, and yes, regrets in learning how to handle my money. I recall starting off with a measly salary barely enough for my gas, food and other things I wanted to buy. As any fresh graduate would understand, the first few years you are paid in experience and for a time that was okay. Thankfully, I lived with my parents and got to keep most of my money to myself. Unfortunately, this wasn’t such a good idea since I spent it on unnecessaries and I ended up with no discipline with regards to my finances.

Fortunately, my dad put a stop to it by giving me responsibilities at home and by God’s grace, at 27, I am slowly beginning to save and invest wisely. Now, we look back on the purchases I wish I didn’t spend so much money on.

Branded Bags My parents constantly reminded me that branded bags are not an investment. And while they encouraged me to invest on a few classic pieces, they also told me to do so when I had extra. However, my persistent 22-year-old mind insisted on buying bags first before anything else (like savings) on installment. This was insane on my part because it simply meant that a) I didn’t have the money to pay for it, and b) I would still be paying for it even though I no longer liked it. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t buy branded bags but it would be wise to buy it when you can fully afford it and by that time, you can also choose the ones you really like instead of settling for something that’s cheap. Believe me, like in life and love, patience is also a virtue when it comes to buying stuff we really want.

Clothes on Installment I had my first credit card when I was 23 and I immediately activated it because my favorite cloth-

ing store offered a six-month, zero-interest deal for a minimum purchase of P5,000. Thinking that the clothes in my closet were not enough, I went crazy in the store and continued paying for those clothes even though they were already faded, ripped apart, or no longer fit. The lesson learned here is to only but what I currently had the money to pay for, that way I don’t feel guilty wearing clothes that I didn’t fully pay for yet or feel bad when they no longer fit or went out of style. (Another tip: buy classic go to pieces!).

Weekly Gimmicks I’m not saying this to be a Tita or a KJ Lola but one of the biggest money wasters for me was all the weekends out with my friends. To be clear, I have never been the party animal so what I spent on these night outs were probably mediocre compared to what other people my age have spent. Some of my former friends and I used to go around our village in the South for food, a few drinks, dessert,

and coffee. I didn’t realize how much money I was spending to hang out with friends (because let’s admit it, we’re never paying just for our own food, we’re splitting the bill, period). And while being with friends is always a good thing, it’s wise to not keep up with Joneses and pretend we have a thousand bucks or more to burn every night in a new restaurant. Always find the perfect balance so you don’t eat like a peasant during the day in order to party like a king at night.

To end, spending really isn’t bad but it’s important to always be responsible. There is so much freedom in having a little money saved up every month and to not have your back against the wall. By not spending on stuff that you don’t need, you also have more room to be generous and help others who are in need. For me, sharing with others have been more meaningful than any food, branded bags, or clothing.

It is truly by God’s grace and wisdom that I can now enjoy that freedom and no longer have any Yuppie-Gets.

B8

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EDGARDO S. TUGADE SUPPLEMENT EDITOR

editorial@thestandard.com.ph

The banking industry in interesting times

By Cosette Velasquez The Chinese are fond of wishing their friends well by saying “may you live in interesting times.” The banking industry is now at the crossroads due to the recent Bangladesh scandal and the coming elections.

It was as if it was written for the movies.

It was the story that put Ocean’s 11 to shame, the story that told of millions of dollars being illegally rerouted from Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves into the country’s highly active casino scene. With the country’s fairly good image in the international scene, no one expected the Philippines to be the setting for such a crime and provoke universal indignation.

As soon as the story broke out, what followed were hours of different stories being told. Through mainstream and social media, everyone was soon aware of the name of a specific bank in the middle of the scandal.

Their eyes were opened to the lax Philippine banking laws dating back to regime of the late President Ferdinand Marcos and the shady doings allowed in casinos. Filipinos suddenly took a closer look at the workings of personal banking and how an everyday transaction could actually affect the financial stability of the country and the world.

Through this scandal, Filipinos learned more about how remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) affected the Filipino peso and its ramifications in the whole economy.

Suddenly everyone became interested if this heist that shocked the entire world would

impact on what is touted to be a good financial year for the country.

Just a few weeks ago, The Standard reported on the optimistic future of the banking industry in 2016. Now, its readers may be worrying if the scandal would result in a slide

Switzerland. This has then led to cases prodding on the law to avoid further problems in the future.

Tetangco, just like most decision makers in the country, naturally wished to solve this problem as quickly as possible, especially

Highlights of the National Baseline Survey on Financial Inclusion, 2015 • • • • •

25% of Filipino adults (those aged 15 years and above) have never saved, 32% used to save, and only 43 % presently have savings.

Of those who save, only 33% keep it in banks; the rest keep their savings at home.

About 47 % of adults have outstanding loans. The main source of borrowing is informal – from family, relatives, friends and informal lenders. The share of bank loans is only 4.4% of the total.

Only 3.2 percent of adults have microinsurance coverage.

Clients rated themselves as only “somewhat satisfied” with how issues were resolved in most financial service access points.

(From the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas website) in peso value and other economic horrors.

A report by Reuters delved deep into the matter, and while Bangkok Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco confidently told reporters that the financial system wasn’t immediately affected negatively from the moment the reports came out, he did not discount such a possibility.

And while it might be too early to see its effects, Tetangco admitted that this should spur an investigation in the legal loopholes that were instigated during the Marcos regime in the hopes of making the Philippines Asia’s

since the Philippines has significantly improved financially and this is something politicians would like to sustain.

The Philippines maintains a good standing, thanks to the remittances of OFWs, thus, fiscal authorities are working overtime to prevent the Bangladesh issue from affecting what Filipinos have long worked for: a taste of financial freedom.

The Philippines’ gross domestic product has grown by six percent annually and it is seen to expand even further in the coming year. The government’s poll bets are claiming

credit for this as a part of their campaign publicity. Now, they have to work doubly hard to wash their hands of the Bangladesh scandal.

Elections and their Effect on the Economy Local and national elections have always pumped prime the the economy mainly through increased spending during the campaign. This increased spending brings much business to government and private banks. As the the candidates intensify their campaign through the media, the Internet and sorties in different parts of the country, they create, at least temporarily, jobs and small businesses related to their campaign that (whether negatively or positively) affect the short-to-medium-term growth of the country.

Despite this, leadership change is a period of some instability. However, market confidence is highly connected with the government and in recent years, President Benigno Aquino has gained that confidence.

As the country nears the elections, more light will be shed on the platform of each candidate.

This way there will be clarity about their stance and so forth.

Whoever the country decides to vote for will decide how to sustain the growth achieved by the Aquino government. Financial analysts are quick to say that Aquino has done the country good.

Aquino in his six year term was able to shrink the budget deficit and made tremendous progress in tackling corruption. The confidence invested in Aquino has helped propel the country into the growth that it is fully enjoying now.

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TATUM ANCHETA EDITOR

BING PAREL

A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R

BERNADETTE LUNAS

life @ thestandard.com .ph

WRITER

@LIFEatStandard

H oME & L I v ING

LIFE

The unique designs of the mandala mats make them a stylish wall decor option

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The dual-purpose mats are perfect for both indoors and outdoors

QuIvER: SummER’S ulTImATE ACCESSORy CaleidosCope World

by CAl TAvERA

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ummer is here! If you are a parent like me, that’s a load off our backs because that means exams are over and we can move on to planning something more fun… vacations! My daughter and I usually travel during the summer but I’ve been quite busy this year so we might explore somewhere local. Perhaps, we may do a trip to the beach and if all plans fail, we’ll console ourselves with a picnic which we often do anyway and enjoy. Like everything else, I can’t do things by the bare minimum especially when it comes to styling. Since I’m often online and posting pictures on Instagram, things have to look pretty. Guilty! Even our casual Sunday picnic in the park or backyard has to have a pretty mat. That was how the brand Quiver caught my eye.

Beach lovers Kristine Matic, Viva Guzman and Kitzi Purugganan Roxas created Quiver which started operations only two years ago. Kitzi shares, “We wanted to create a platform that can promote and propel the merry, laid-back beach culture through the retail of apparel and accessories.”

The word “quiver” refers to the surfboards a surfer owns to cater towards the different waves and conditions. They thought the name is apt for their brand because they offer a variety of beach wear and accessories for the different kinds of beach enthusiasts. Kitzi shares, “We get our inspiration from the beach – sun, sand and sea.

We stay true to our vision by utilizing the beauty of the beach lifestyle as our guiding principle in design and conception. Thus, most of our items are really a reflection of a beach babe’s lifestyle. It is for the fun-loving, free-spirited, adventurous personality in all of us.”

They have several items for sale on their online store but I was especially intrigued with their accessories that I found to be multifunctional for Continued on C3

Quiver offers a variety of beach accessories such as these multifunctional roundie towels, mandala mats, dual-purpose mats and regular tapestries

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LIFE life @ thestandard.com .ph

Continuous and unbroken sleep at night helps restore the body's functions and repair broken or impaired tissue

@LIFEatStandard

It is important to have a fixed bedtime and waking up time

URAtEx AND PHILIPPINE SoCIEtY oF SLEEP MEDICINE CELEbRAtE WoRLD SLEEP DAY 2016

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umans spend one third of their lives sleeping – roughly equivalent to 33 percent in a lifetime or an average of 25 years. Since 2008, the World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM), through its World Sleep Day Committee, has been organizing a World Sleep Day that falls on the Friday of the second week of March to highlight and celebrate the benefits of good and healthy sleep. Likewise, the aim is to raise awareness on sleep disorders, sleep problems, its solutions, developments, and education on “sleep.” Society’s sleep problems are already considered a global epidemic, threatening as much as 45 percent of the world’s population.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society in the United States, adults should sleep seven or more hours per night on a regular basis while young adults would benefit more if they have more than nine hours of sleep per night. Sleep deprivation is associated with weight gain and obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke, depression, as well as impaired immune function, impaired performance, increased errors, and greater risk of accidents and increased risk of death.

In the Philippines, the Philippine Society of Sleep Medicine (PSSM) led the World Sleep Day 2016 celebration under the theme “Good Sleep is a Reachable Dream,” with support from Multiflex RNC Philippines, Inc., makers of Uratex foam and mattress products. With the aim to promote the benefits of sleep and to address underlying sleep problems for the Filipinos, the celebration also held its 10th annual symposium entitled “Sleep Matters: Discovering the Importance of Sleep” last March 17 to 19 at the EMG Auditorium of the Lung Center of the Philippines where workshops and lectures commenced.

In the Philippines, the practice of sleep medicine is still relatively young compared to other countries, which is why PSSM tries to fill the gap and promote the continued education and development on the science of sleep to address sleep disorders among Filipinos. The organization is composed of highly trained Pulmonologists, Neurologists, Ear, Nose and Throat specialists, Psychiatrists and Pediatricians.

“The best time to sleep is when your body needs to go to sleep,” says Dr. Tripat Singh, international sleep specialist from Singapore.

“Listen to your body if it needs to sleep, then you should lie on your bed. Our bodies follow a biological mechanism that actually follows the sun. So, when the sun sets it

night is of utmost importance as it helps you reach “deep sleep,” the time when your body restores and regains bodily functions and repairs any broken or impaired tissue.

During the event, PSSM also cited the 10 Commandments of Sleep Hygiene as recommended by the World Association of Sleep Medicine: 1. Have a fixed bedtime and waking up time 2. No daytime sleeping in excess of 45 minutes 3. Avoid excessive alcohol intake or smoking four hours before bedtime 4. Avoid intake of caffeine such as those in coffee, tea, most sodas, including chocolate six hours before bedtime 5. Avoid heavy or spicy food or sweets four hours before bedtime. A light snack is acceptable 6. Exercise regularly but not before bedtime 7. Use comfortable bedding 8. Find comfortable temperature when sleeping inside a well-ventilated room 9. Block out distracting noise and use less light as much as possible 10. Limit the use of the bed to just sleeping

Invest on a good bed to maximize the benefits of sleep

sends a signal to you that the body will slow down and initiate the body mechanism that you need to sleep,” Dr. Singh adds.

According to Dr. Agnes T. Remulla, PSSM vice president, humans naturally prefer to sleep when the sun goes down. While the time of sunset varies and is different in many parts of the world, in the Philippines, we usually have more consistent sunset patterns.

But due to some erratic work hours and the

need for night shift or graveyard shift, more and more Filipinos survive by sleeping in the day and working at night. With the rate that the city life is going, many people disregard the value of good sleep. PSSM advocates the importance of a good night’s sleep and highlights the elements that comprise healthy sleep – duration, continuity, and depth.

While adults and children’s need for sleep hours vary, continuous and unbroken sleep at

They say invest on a good bed because you spend most of your life there anyway – we sleep to recharge, rejuvenate, and to grow and repair our bodily organs and tissues.

For its part, Uratex supports the PSSM through its own advocacies in promoting good sleep in the Philippines. Choosing the correct mattress is important for a restful sleep and this is where Uratex can help as the company continuously develops and brings forth innovative mattresses and other sleep solutions especially for the Filipino families.

By 2017, the Philippines will serve as host for the 4th ASEAN Sleep Medicine Congress, this collaborative meeting will help determine how the different cultures of other countries can impact their actions with regard to sleep concerns and likewise, the Philippines will be sharing vital knowledge of sleep based on our country's culture amd practices. – Karla Mae Manalo For more information about the value of good sleep in promoting health, visit the PSSM website, thepssmi.org. To find out more about the Uratex mattress and other sleep solutions, call the Uratex Consumer Hotline, 888-6800 or visit www.uratex.com.ph.

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LIFE life @ thestandard.com .ph

@LIFEatStandard

DENR-EMB assistant director Dr. Eva S. Ocfemia talks about the current state of the environment and current government initiatives in line with international agreements

CIC chief executive officer Raul Joseph A. Concepcion discusses how collective action can make a significant impact towards creating a better, safer environment for future generations

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Concepcion-Carrier Air Conditioning Company (CCAC) recently launched the Green Footprints Movement, the company’s advocacy to create greater awareness of environmental footprint reduction. Joining the event are (from left) Manila Fashion Observer blogger Christine Dychiao; Department of Environment and Natural Resources - Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) assistant director Dr. Eva S. Ocfemia; celebrity host and World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature - Philippines National Ambassador Marc Nelson; Concepcion Industrial Corporation (CIC) chief executive officer Raul Joseph A. Concepcion; CIC executive vice president for Business Development Rafael C. Hechanova, Jr.; and CCAC director of consumer Solutions Group Harold Pernikar, Jr.

CCAC lAunChes Green Footprints MoveMent

n a bid to strengthen its commitment to leading a sustainable future, air conditioning and refrigeration solutions provider ConcepcionCarrier Air Conditioning Company recently launched the Green Footprints Movement.

The Green Footprints Movement serves as CCAC’s clarion call to the public to become green advocates. It seeks to galvanize the general population into taking action towards reducing their environment footprint.

“As the most encompassing issue facing us today, climate change must be everyone’s agenda,” stressed Concepcion Industrial Corporation chief executive officer Raul Joseph Concepcion. “We aim to strengthen our commitment to a sustainable future by driving greater awareness and understanding of climate change and global warming among our consumers and other stakeholders,” he added.

With the Green Footprints Movement, the company creates awareness through consumer education that is focused on making information on environmental impact reduction available to a wider audience.

“Our goal is to provide the public with the knowledge of how they can make small, practical changes that will have significant effect on their own footprints, such as the responsible use of electricity,” said CCAC director and head of Consumer Solutions Group Harold Pernikar Jr. “This consciousness, we believe, will lead them to make environmental impact an important consideration in everything they do or use,” Pernikar continued.

Aside from information dissemination, CCAC also recognizes that the public must have access to environmentfriendly products – something that the company has been striving to provide for years.

CCAC was the first Philippine cooling manufacturer that converted its refrigerators into using environment-friendly refrigerants back in 1995. And it is once again leading the industry through its “greener” air conditioners.

“Ninety-six percent of our air conditioning products have already been converted to using environmentally responsive refrigerants, and we expect to make a 100 percent product

QuIvER: SuMMER’S...

From C1

both indoors and outdoors. In this category, they offer roundie towels, mandala and the dual-purpose mats and regular tapestries.

They all make wonderful beach or picnic mats. They can also add color to a room as a throw on a sofa or a piece of furniture.

The unique designs also make them an option as wall décor. As soon as you are back from your trip or picnic, no need to hide them in storage. Display them on those blank walls for some character. The tapestries and mandalas can also be used

CCAC aims to strengthen their commitment to a sustainable future by driving greater awareness and understanding of climate change and global warming among their consumers

conversion within the year,” informed Pernikar.

He also shared that the switch is being made ahead of the global deadlines set by the Montreal Protocol, which established a timeline for the eventual elimination of ozone-depleting substances.

“Part of the private sector’s responsibility goes beyond compliance with standards and

as a tablecloth. The roundie towels are 60 inches in diameter while the mandalas have a diameter of 80 inches.

The products come from different parts of the world. While the dual-purpose mats are produced here in the Philippines, the roundie towels are from China and the mandala mats and rectangular tapestries are imported from India. The roundie towels and dual-purpose mats are low maintenance and machine washable. The roundie towels are 100 percent terry cotton and the dual-purpose mats have one side made out of terrycloth and the other side is cotton. For the mandalas and tapestries, some sellers would suggest

regulations. It’s rising to the challenge of offering practical, green products through constant innovation and investment,” adds Pernikar.

By enabling the public to become more aware that each and every action they make today can have lasting effects on the planet’s future, CIC and its subsidiary CCAC aspire to empower the public to make

handwashing them. The owners strongly recommend dry cleaning them. Since these products are 100 percent hand-blocked and hand-dyed cotton from India, the prints may fade if washed frequently. Kitzi also mentioned that the tassles of the mandalas are dyed so they may bleed.

This summer, expect a new vibrant collection of roundie towels and mandala mats. They make up their bestsellers and are cute options to gift someone. Aside from their online store, you can shop for their items in Rustan’s Makati and Shangrila next month and in another online store called South Sartorial. The prices of apparel range

smarter and greener choices.

“As we enjoin people to commit to reducing their collective environmental footprint through the Green Footprints Movement, we believe we can create a significant impact towards creating a better, safer environment for the next generations,” enthused Concepcion.

-Charmaine Loveria

anywhere from P850 to more than P2,000.

The roundies, mandalas, dual-purpose mats and tapestries range from P1,950 to P2,400.

Check them out and bring a bit of summer fun into your homes, picnics or on your trip!

Happy Summer!

For more inquiries, feel free to email them at beachshackinc@gmail.com or visit their website: www.quiver.com.ph and Instagram @Quiver.ph For my personal adventures, follow my Instagram @cal_tavera. You can reach me at caltavera@gmail.com.

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@LIFEatStandard

Paint bathroom walls with a softer color of Rose Quartz from Clark and Kensington’s Paint and Primer in One line

Peaceful blue colors that soothe

Ace HArdwAre brigHtens tHe Home witH colors of tHe yeAr

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ummer is the pefect time to give your home a makeover – and all it takes is a fresh coat of paint to make everything look warm and refreshing.

If you’re stumped and don’t quite know how to start, take a leaf from Pantone’s colors of the year – Rose Quartz and Serenity Blue. The warm tones of Rose Quartz brings an elegant femininity to living spaces, while Serenity blue, on the other hand, evokes a tranquil and cooler tone, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of inner peace.

Helping you out in your home makeover project is Ace Hardware, which has a wide selection of branded paints and painting essentials to highlight the

new colors you want for your home.

Ace Essence Acrylic Interior Paints are odorless and non-toxic, and provide a versatile finish in any room. You can choose from Ace Essence Flat Wall Paint Acrylic Latex, Satin Wall and Trim Paint Acrylic Latex Enamel, and SemiGloss Wall and Trim Paint Acrylic Latex Enamel for your painting requirements.

Paints, brushes and other essential items are available at selected branches of Ace Hardware, Ace Express and Ace Builders stores nationwide. You may also visit www.acehardware.ph or like it on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ acehardwarephilippines or follow on Twitter and Instagram at acehardware_ph.

Serenity in baby blue with Clark and Kensington Paints

pet pulse

AND tHEY CALL It PuPPY LovE

Pets are important members of the family, and their happiness and wellbeing should also be the concern of owners.

At the recent Pet Express annual Puppy Seminar held in partnership with Pedigree at the SM City Fairview Annex, dog lovers had the opportunity to learn how they can make their furry friends happier and healthier.

Owners received valuable tips from Dr. Ray Madrona, a Pet Specialist from Pedigree, not only on how to take care of their pets but also to turn them into happy puppies. Here’s a few of the tips and guidelines that Doctor Madrona shared about taking care of your fur babies, keeping them happy and showing them puppy love: Know your fur baby. What are your dog’s needs? Is he very active? Does he require a lot of playtime? How can he get restful sleep? These are some of the things per owners should be asking. It also helps to know that every puppy requires 30° C body temperature, so choosing the right dog bed with soft padding and keep it on the same spot is important.

Choose high quality dog food. Proper nutrition is important for puppies especially because they are in that stage of rapid growth, and their requirements may be more than that of mature dogs. While there are a lot of brands out there, owners have to be discerning and make sure that they only get those that have been especially developed for their furry baby’s nutritional needs.

Have your puppy checked by a veterinarian regularly. Just like babies, puppies must be protected from possible illnesses, so regular visits to the vet should be made for vaccinations. Vaccines are a must when the pup is about six to eight weeks, and should be repeated every three to four weeks until about the puppy is four months of age.

Find the right grooming tools. They say different strokes for different folks, and the same goes for the grooming requirements of puppies. Choose combs, brushes and shampoos based on your dog’s coat type.

Housetrain your puppy. Bonding with fur babies will be easier to accomplish if they are properly house broken and trained, because it will let them know boundaries as they grow older and it will be easier to train them into becoming well behaved pets.

A key to house training is keeping a solid routine to keep the pup’s progress steady as any break could set him back. Also, don’t forget to give him praise when he behaves, and never punish him physically. Place training pads on one side of the room, and his bed and toys at the other.

For you fur baby’s needs, check out Pet Express stores in SM City Dasmariñas, SM City Fairview, SM City Masinag, SM City North EDSA, SM Cubao, SM Mall of Asia, SM Megamall, SM Hypermarket Makati and Pet Express store in Greenhills.

Zyrene Ocampo and her best bud Chippy

KC Esguerra with Fergus

Plush and Pull toy for playful pups

Doggyman grooming essentials with dematting comb, soft slicker brush and shedding and brushing comb

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SHOWBITZ isahred @ gmail.com

Binibining pilipinas candidate with a young cancer patient

ISAH V. RED EDITOR

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candidates to the most prestigious beauty pageant in the country join young cancer patients at the philippine children’s medical center

BB. PIlIPInas 2016 canDIDaTEs chEER uP cancER-sTRIckEn chIlDREn

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he 40 official candidates of the 2016 Bb. Pilipinas pageant recently trooped to the Philippine Children’s Medical Center in Quezon City to fulfill one their charity functions-activities, a yearly tradition of the Bb. Pilipinas Charities, Inc. (BPCI) foundation.

A cancer ward supervisor welcomed the girls at the entrance lobby of the hospital and each one was assigned a child to be under their care during the short event.

It was obviously a memorable and touching affair for some of the beauties some of whom shed tears at the sight of the headshaven and mask-wearing children still very young to experience suffering from the life-threatening disease.

The Binibini candidates vying for one of several titles at stake in the April 17 grand coronation night, led or carried the kids in front of the stage to take their gifts of toys and school supplies.

Back in their seats, the girls forgot about their poise and regal bearing to play with and put a smile on the faces of the small cancer patients.

Binibini Dindi pajares is all smiles with a brave girl

The children were also treated to story telling and magic show and were served with their favorite ice cream from Dairy Queen (DQ) and snacks from Taco Bell, the generous sponsors of the social event.

“We are glad to see the Bb. Pilipinas candidates bond and share fun with the kids.

This is what ‘beauty with a purpose’ really meant which is the charity program of the BPCI,” DQ manager Lorent Martin Adrias said. The winners of this year’s search will be named the new faces of the top-selling DQ ice cream. – Eton B. Concepcion

Beauty with a purpose: Bb. pilipinas candidate Apriel Smith in a memorable moment with a kid at the the philippine children’s medical center in Quezon city

non-STop BREAknEck AcTIon In ‘BASTIllE DAy’ From David Kanter, executive producer of The Revenant, comes the nonstop blistering action thriller Bastille Day starring Idris Elba and Richard Madden.

The film is set in Paris. This is the story of an unlikely pair – a reckless CIA agent and a brilliant pickpocket – who must work together to uncover and take down a conspiracy.

Bastille Day tracks Michael Mason (Madden), an American pickpocket living in Paris, who finds himself in the hands of the CIA when he steals a bag that contains more than just a wallet. Sean Briar ( Elba) is a field agent on the case, who soon realizes that Michael is just a pawn in a much bigger game and is also his best asset to uncover a large-scale criminal conspiracy.

Going against commands, Briar recruits Michael to use his expert skills to help quickly track down the source of the corruption. As a 24-hour thrill ride ensues, the unlikely duo discovers they are both targets and must rely upon each other in order to take down a common enemy.

British actor Idris Elba as a field agent in the James watkins film “Bastille Day”

Directed by James Watkins and written by Andrew Baldwin and Watkins, the original idea for Bastille Day was Baldwin wanted to create a movie that combined the taut action of the Bourne movies with the character-rich experiences of watching movies like Frantic and even The French Connection.

“Briar’s character - uncompromising, brutal, reckless – had shades of Popeye Doyle, Dirty Harry or Walker from John Boorman’s Point Blank. The notion of Idris Elba playing this role was irresistible to

me. His combustible relationship with the streetwise Michael struck me immediately as the beating heart of the film and I liked the opportunities this relationship gave for lighter moments. It reminded me of the gruff, salty humor of early Don Siegel/ Clint Eastwood collaborations or classics like Midnight Run and 48 Hours where the tone shift gears from gritty action to more playful moments whilst never breaking character,” recalls director Watkins.

Kanter also points out that it’s the way the characters have been developed that makes Bastille Day special. “The characters are not conventional heroes; rather, they are all flawed and forced by circumstance to discover who they really are.

One key to the success of the film is that they are believable and realistic.

“It feels like a movie from the 1970s, where the characters are all carrying something heavy in their psyches. They are thrown together by fate and come to realize that the bombing isn’t what it appears to be, so they are forced to depend on each other.”

“I wanted to make a big Friday night out film” exclaims James Watkins. The director’s ambitions for Bastille Day were one of the reasons the producers approached him.

This was to marry big budget commercial thrills with kinetic, in-your-face shooting style with handheld cameras up close and personal with the actors, to get right in the middle of the action. “We wanted to be close enough to feel them, to feel their breathing, to be right in their eyes. A lot of the actions shots are from a subjective point of view, so as a viewer you feel completely in the moment. I’m not interested in CGI which creates scenes that defeat the laws of physics! So, however large the story is, everything should always have an emotional sense of truth. Ultimately, you go to the movies to see people and so the closer you are to those people, the more you’ll enjoy the experience,” Watkins concludes on shooting the movie.

Prepare for breathless, high-octane action thrill when Bastille Day opens in cinemas this April 20 from Axinite Digicinema.

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ISAH V. RED EDITOR

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saRah g. OpEns OppO musIc fEsT

elieving that music and techgence of technology and music nology are an integral part of attracting more than a thousand the youth’s culture and digital millennials trooping to the venue. wIThOuT lives, global technology comAttendees were treated to pany OPPO has recently staged the an explosive opening number wang2 what it called “the first Phone x Muby pop star and OPPO brand nIckIE wang sic” festival in the country. ambassador Sarah GeroniHeld on March 18 at the Globe mo. The 27-year-old singer Circuit Event Grounds in Makati set the stage ablaze performCity, the festival offered a unique conver- ing “Perfectly Imperfect,” a song culled from her platinum-selling album of the same name. She also sang her new album’s carrier single “Tala” before joining the program hosts in a selfie with the audience in the background.

The remarkable gathering of tech and music lovers witnessed more performances from other local acts including Marc Marasigan, Victor Pring, Marga on Mic, Kat DJ, and Deuce Manila’s Patty Tiu. College bands were also given a few minutes on the stage to do their sets to the delight of college students who arrived at the venue.

Meanwhile, the most applauded performance of the night was that of Up Dharma Down that dished out a full set entertaining the crowd with its recognizable hits and signature sound. The popular indie act rocked the stage with its powerful and emotional songs “Tayong Dalawa,” “Oo,” Pop star and OPPO brand ambassador Sarah “Sana,” the upbeat “Park” and records used Geronimo at the opening of “Phone x music” fest

as soundtracks for movies and television series namely “Tadhana,” and “Indak,” to name a few.

House and party music followed suit with DJs taking center stage turning the venue into a large rave party. The fest culminated in a firework show that illuminated the entire venue.

Registration started at 5 p.m. and activities lasted up until 3 a.m. Some of the activities attendees were able to participate in were OPPO Amazing Race, Caught on Cam, and Photo Scavenger Hunt. During the concert, prizes were raffled off in between sets.

The OPPO Music Festival also witnessed the unveiling of the global technology company’s latest mobile phone called F1.

The latest variant of OPPO’s F Series is tagged as the “selfie expert,” which boasts an 8-megapixel front shooter.

“Majority of our users comprise the youth. Technology and music are an integral part of their culture and digital lives.

And what better way to celebrate both is by organizing a phone-slash-music festival,” says OPPO Philippines’ brand marketing manager Stephen Cheng.

The executive also highlighted that OPPO Music Festival is the company’s way of showing support to upcoming bands and to the local music scene in general.

One of the college bands that performed at the OPPO music Fest

Band Up Dharma Down bringing the house down

The crowd at the OPPO music Fest held at the Globe Event Grounds (phOTOs BY TEDDY pElaEz)

Urbandub breaks up with a concert

Your favorite band from the south is no longer around. Urbandub from Cebu, the queen city of the south, have always been dubbed as the giant sound of the south capturing a massive following not only in Cebu but also in Manila and other parts of the country. The band is known to be one of the most iconic rock bands in the Philippines.

Urbandub has been around since 2000 with six albums spanning 15 years ion the industry. Making up the band were Gabby Alipe on guitars and vocals, John Dinopol on guitars and backing vocals, Lalay Lim on bass and backing vocals, and Janjan Mendoza on drums.

On the day (April 1, 2015) Urbandub announced they are breaking up to take a break from making and performing music together, many thought it was a just a bad April Fool’s Day joke.

The band announced through Facebook that they are indeed taking a break.

On May 9, 2015, Urbandub performed with the original line up for one last time at Metrotent, Pasig City. With the venue filled to the brim with ecstatic fans, the sold out concert entitled Endless was a bitter-sweet success. Sweet because the band was able to perform all their hits for thier more than 2000 strong fans who braved a storm just to watch their favorite rock band perform with the original line up for the last time.

It was also bitter and sad, because one of the best rock bands of this generation had to bid farewell on such an amazing event.

It was certainly a glorious event not only for the fans but the band as well. Luckily the band decided to have the whole event covered and filmed. The captured on film event would go straight to DVD, with the same title, Endless. The DVD also contains

cROsswORD puzzlE 39 40 42 43 45 47 49 50 51 54

answer PreVIOUs PUZZLe

ACROSS 1 Poker pair 5 In force 10 Wacky 14 Tough fiber 15 Give a lift 16 Opera tune 17 Ms. McClurg 18 Marquis’s inferiors 19 Hunt’s partner 20 Inconstant

22 Basilica parts 23 Zamboni’s place 24 Foreman foe 25 Baroque composer 29 Willowy 33 St. Teresa’s town 34 Arlene of old films 36 Lavish party 37 Tip of a pen 38 Broncos great John —

2001, to Ovid Sine qua non Warn loudly Illustrious Took for granted Summit attendees Fleur-de- — Zoologist’s eggs Pint-sized Ceremonial object (2 wds.)

60 Prepare apples 61 Cattle country 62 Steel- — boots 63 Makes choices 64 — rings 65 Bond’s alma mater 66 Dry run 67 Pie slice 68 Wynter or Carvey DOWN 1 Excuse me!

2 Yield territory 3 Bahrain VIP 4 Not ordinary 5 Swerved 6 Jai — 7 Zhivago’s love 8 — do you good!

9 Some, to Pierre 10 Shocking 11 Greek war god 12 Warm-hearted 13 Talks on and on 21 NCAA’s Bruins

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2016

22 Stein filler 24 Ms. McBeal 25 “Wheel of Fortune” name 26 Wall climbers 27 Intuitions 28 Ran in neutral 29 “— We Dance?”

30 Kickboxer JeanClaude Van — 31 Big name in glue 32 Attacks 35 Cobbler’s tool 38 Hurricane centers 41 Most boring 43 The one you dig the most 44 Got used to 46 Thousand gees 48 When mammals became dominant 51 Kilt sporter 52 Have the blues 53 Martial — 54 Square of glass 55 Oklahoma town 56 Psyched up 57 Modicum 58 Lowly laborer 59 Ms. Ferber 61 Noisy dispute

a documentary about the band’s history and their build up to success. The DVD is definitely for the fans, the fans that were not able to see them perform and wants to witness the epic event and, also for the fans that were able to attend and wants to hold dear the moment they shared with the band over and over again.

What’s next for Gabby Alipe and the rest of the band? Only time can tell, but for now this DVD is something the fans can hold on to, a memento for keeps that will forever hold the band’s legacy and the fans’ undying passion and support for their favorite Cebuano rock band.

Endless, DVD by Urbandub is available in stores at all Astrovision, Astroplus, and Odyssey stores nationwide under MCA Music, Inc. For more information on Urbandub and Gabby Alipe, log on to www.facebook.

The pride of South: “Endless” is a DVD of the band’s recent biggest performance

com/mcamusic, Instagram- mca_music or Twitter- mca_music.

wEDnES DAy : m A RcH 3 0, 2016

SHOWBITZ isahred @ gmail.com

ISAH V. RED EDITOR

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HEaRT sERIOus In bEIng MRs. EscuDERO

y

ou have to make an effort to make your marriage work. That is the message of the new drama series, Juan Happy Love Story, starring Heart Evangelista and Dennis Trillo on GMA Network.

The series has a different theme from the others Heart had worked in previously. This is the first time that she will be in a romantic comedy and a bit racy.

Heart said she believes in what the series would like to tell the audience because she knows for a marriage to work both of the partners should work on it together.

“Syempre pag mahal mo ang isang tao kailangan talaga kahit pagod na pagod ka, gustong– gusto mo syang makita. Excited kang makita, makipagkwentuhan,” the star of the series said.

With the campaign now in full blast, the couple is busy either together or separately. Heart’s husband, Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, as everyone knows, is running for vice president.

If in the past, Sen. Chiz Esudero would wait for Heart to come home from her TV and commercial engagements, their roles have been reversed now.

Even if Heart is saddled with work on TV and other commitments, she said she tries her best as the wife to give her husband a tender loving care.

“Lagi nyang sinasabi basta mainit ang pagkain, masarap. So pagdating ko minsan kahit ‘di ako makapagluto, kailangan, iinitin yung pagkain. Ganon lang,” Heart said.

While she admits that her husband cooks better than she does, she is trying her best to do better in the kitchen because she only has her mother to emulate. Mrs. Cecille Ongpauco is known in the household as “kitchen goddess.”

Part of her duties as housewife is to join the Senator in his campaign sorties, although he doesn’t require her to do so. But, Heart wants to help campaign for him so she insists on going when her schedule permits.

Heart Evangelista with “Juan Happy Love Story” co-star Dennis Trillo

TOm JOnES: A LIVIng LEgEnD

welsh singer and actor Tom Jones will stage a concert at the Smart Araneta coliseum on April 2

Few musical artists of the modern era has enjoyed a more brilliant and enduring career than Tom Jones, the singer behind “It’s Not Unusual,” “Help Yourself,” “Delilah” and many other hits. In the last 50 years, he has thrilled and entertained people worldwide with his powerful, captivating voice through his countless records and numerous live performances.

Up to this very day, Tom still has the same vocal quality, talent and personal appeal that have endeared him to hundreds of millions all over the world and catapulted him to the top as a true icon, a living legend for all generations to admire and adulate.

Filipino fans will get the chance to experience the power of the song and the power of the voice behind the extraordinary success of this musical legend when Tom Jones hits Manila for his highly-anticipated con-

cert on April 2 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City..

Tom Jones Live in Manila will showcase a fabulous range of genres from pop to rock to country to rhythm and blues through an array of songs popularized by one of the bestselling male singers and artists of all time during a successful musical and entertainment career spanning more than 50 years.

The one-night-only musical event from Live Nation and Ovation Productions will spotlight the outstanding talent and skill of a music legend that, at 75, still oozes with amazing appeal and charm as he wows audiences with his songs in his strong and perfect-pitch voice that can effortlessly shift from baritone to tenor.

Tickets are priced at P8,185, P6,075, P5,020, P2,960, P1,750 and P930 and are available through www.Ticketnet.com.

School trains youth to be entrepreneurs Multiple Intelligence International School (MIIS) goes beyond being the first educational institution in the Philippines that has based its approach on the multiple intelligence framework implemented in the United States and other countries. Another sterling milestone in the MIIS 20-yearhistory is its being the first and only school in the country to have an entrepreneurship strand in the belief that young people should be taught to become businessmen and global leaders who will use their intelligences to make a difference.

With this goal in mind, the M.I. Kids Can: For Kids, By Kids! Movement was launched in 2005 to empower children

with the understanding that with their intelligences, they can bring about a future with self-reliant, globally minded citizens.

The annual Kids Can! For a Cause bazaar was pioneered by MIIS in the Philippines in 2000 as the first For Kids, By Kids bazaar in the country. This year, MIIS also launches the MIIS Teens Can! Bazaar. There are currently 5,000 Kids Can and Teens an projects.

Multiple Intelligence International School’s commitment to provide programs that foster the entrepreneurial mindset is embedded in the curriculum from Grade 1 to 12. The MI High School provides students unique opportunities to gain real-

young participants at the annual kids bazaar that teaches children to be entrepreneur and global leaders

world skills through internship and mentorship. This enables students to discover and develop their purpose, interest, and passion.

“The entrepreneurial mind is not just for the child who would eventually venture into business, but is a mindset that everyone would need whether they go into medicine, politics, or architecture,” points out Joy Abaquin, founding directress of Multiple Intelligence International School.

To learn more about the Multiple Intelligence International School, visit www.mischool.edu.ph or join them on Facebook: Multiple Intelligence International School or on Twitter: @MIISchool

Footballer Phil younghusband joins the kids at mIIS Teens can! Bazaar

Industry recognizes Letran’s IcOmm Proving that excellence is their passion, Colegio de San Juan de Letran’s Institute of Communication continues to regain its glory. Over the past years, The Institute of Communication, collectively known as ICOMM continues to unfold and spread its capabilities towards the boundary of greatness. Unfolding truths and telling stories in every angle of day-to-day experience in the real world and the world of fiction by touching people’s lives through the Institute’s creative masterpieces in the field of documentaries and short films.

The institute proves that in whatever condition, it doesn’t affect anything as long as you’re willing to work hard for it and through this comes your glory. Recently, Plan Z Productions’ Sukat was named Best Documentary and The Most Gender-Sensitive Film at the International Category in the 3rd Singkwento International Film Festival at Tanghalang Leandro Locsin of National Commission for Culture and the Arts in Intramuros Manila lon Feb. 21. The documentary tackles the story of a mother who is a midget with a disability but still continues to provide everything and do anything she can for her granddaughter despite the trials.

It also won 2nd place at the recent Cinemalaya in August 2015 and was ranked 6th at The Global Forum on Research and Innovation for Health 2015 Film Festival on Aug. 15.

Another world-class masterpiece from the institute is the documentary entitled Hataw Katahimikan by Kwadro Alas Productions that won Best in TV Production in one of the most prestigious award- giving bodies in the country, The Catholic Mass Media Awards or CMMA, in Nov. 2015. The documentary tells the story of a group of dancers that doesn’t let their deafness affect their passion in dancing and in doing what they want to do to pursue in life.

Students from ICOMM continue to give honor not only to the College of Liberal Arts but also to the Colegio. Concepts of short films such as Rainbow X, a story about an actor who is asked to play a role of a hate crime victim while there are rising cases of hate crimes towards the Lesbians, Gays, Bi-Sexual, Transgenders, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) has won the Top Award in the Student Division of The Philippine Quill Awards in 2014.

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w ednes day : m a rch 3 0, 2016

Isah V. red EDITOR nIcKIe wanG WRITER

isahred @ gmail.com

SHOWBITZ

“The young messiah” is an american biblical drama film starring young actor adam Greaves-neal as Jesus

I

LIfE Of sEvEn-yEaR OLD JEsus ChRIsT In ‘ThE yOung MEssIah’

nspired by Scripture and rooted in history, The Young Messiah is a story that imagines a year in the boyhood of Jesus, directed by award-winning filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh, who also developed and wrote the pilot episode of the USA Network hit show La Femme Nikita.

The movie is also produced by Hollywood’s blockbuster maker Chris Columbus who launched one of the biggest series in the history of film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, where he cast completely unknown youngsters Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint in the lead roles - once again demonstrating his acumen for nurturing and cultivating young talent. He reunited then with the young actors to direct the second movie in the saga, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

In The Young Messiah, up and coming young actor Adam Greaves-Neal who stars as Jesus in the movie, has also appeared in the Sherlock television series alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and has a starring role on the hit series All At Sea. The Young Messiah follows the inspiring and unique story of sevenyear-old Jesus Christ and His family as they come to a fuller understanding of His divine nature and purpose. Remaining true to the character of Jesus revealed in the Bible, The Young Messiah is an inspirational story about the childhood of the Savior for the whole family.

“There is a rich history of Jesus movies that have dramatized Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion, but none have ever glimpsed into his life as a boy. What kind of child was he? What was his family like? What kind of parents were Joseph and Mary? How could they guide and protect this spe-

cial child?” says director Nowrasteh on developing the story.

Nowrasteh further explains that, “Obviously there are great challenges in depicting this because we know very little about Jesus’ childhood. This movie seeks to present a realistic portrait of Jesus rooted in faith. Scripture is the inspiration for the emotions and actions of the boy Jesus as they are envisioned in our story. We do this with respect and reverence in order to imagine a child consistent with Jesus as revealed in the Bible.”

The story takes place during one year in Jesus’ life when he was seven. With the Holy Land in turmoil, young Jesus and his family leave Egypt for their home in Israel. Joseph and Mary are fully aware of the dangers of their world: a corrupt King Herod, civil unrest, and a brutal occupying Roman force.

“While we hope that our film finds a place alongside other Jesus classics, it’s more important to us that it inspires people to visit, or revisit, the Jesus story from a fresh new angle.

As believers, we hope that children will be attracted by another child’s story — Jesus’ story — and that this can be a “Passion of the Christ” for the entire family. We even hope that, in some small way, our film leads viewers to the transformation and grace that Jesus extends to us all,” concludes Nowrasteh.

Opening in cinemas nationwide on April 20 from Pioneer Films, follow “The young Messiah” as He and His family take the extraordinary journey from Egypt to Nazareth and on to Jerusalem – where His true identity and profound destiny are revealed.

Check the film’s trailer here: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OIcCjT T63I&feature=youtu.be

young Jesus christ and his family return from egypt to their home in nazareth

a scene from the biblical drama directed by cyrus nowrasteh

adam Greaves-neal as seven-year-old Jesus who’s coming to terms with his own powers and special abilities