BusinessMirror October 12, 2015

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A broader look at today’s business Thursday 2014 Vol. No. 40 Vol. 11 No. 4 Monday,18, October 12,102015

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‘COA ruling threatens viability of Malampaya power project’

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HE Petroleum Association of the Philippines (PAP) has expressed concern over the ruling of the Commission on Audit (COA) mandating the Department of Energy (DOE) to collect P53.14 billion in unpaid taxes from contractors of the Malampaya deepwater gas-to-power project.

INSIDE

UNIQLO’S CLASSICS Turning diamond age (70)

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EAR God, who among my DIAMOND AGE (70) would come out and tell the whole world that they are TURNING DIAMOND AGE (70) this blessed day and in year 2015. I suppose, I am the only woman who can say it! Why? Because I am feeling forever 21! Please, God, bless and shower more graces, love, peace and joy to my former classmates at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Batch October 1965, Normal College of Education ducation and colleagues at Don Bosco Makati. La Salle Greenhills. De La Salle University Manila, School of St. Bro. Benilde and College of San Benildo Rizal. izal. Sweet memories of teaching for 48 years that ended on October 14, 2013, from June 1965. Father in Heaven, I gave my all in promoting Your Word. Special birthday greetings to Fr. Sal Putzu, SDB. Amen!

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Editor: Gerard S. Ramos | lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Life

ALL ACCESS:

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PAP President Sebastian C. Quiniones Jr. said the mandate has impact on the Malampaya consortium, whose fiscal stability is of utmost importance.

“The PAP wants us to have fiscal stability. So, it is the desire of our service contractors that are here already operating that there’s fiscal stability,” Quiniones, who is also the president of Shell Philippines Exploration BV (SPEX), operator of the Malampaya project, said. The COA ordered the DOE to collect the unpaid taxes from the consortium members, such as

SPEX, which holds a 45-percent stake in the project; Chevron Malampaya Llc., with another 45 percent; and Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC), which holds the remaining 10 percent.

Previously, the COA overruled the petition of the Malampaya consortium that income tax was already imputed in the government’s 60-percent share in the Malampaya royalties. The tax, they argued, was deductible from the government’s share of the Malampaya earnings.

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SPECIAL REPORT

UNIQLO’S MIX OF CLASSICS AND A NEW LADY AT LEVI’S Twitter: @misscharlize

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APANESE global clothing brand Uniqlo collaborates with former Hermès Creative Director Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran, the duo behind French label Lemaire, for a special Fall collection that will only be available at its four large stores in Metro Manila: SM North Edsa, SM Megamall, SM Mall of Asia and SM Aura.

A Meanwhile, the world’s oldest jeans company, Levi’s, tapped music superstar Alicia licia Keys to front its Fall 2015 campaign: ““A transformative women’s jeans collection, rooted in the key fits, styles and details women want.”

LEVI’S

“ “ALL women are naturally badass. All women are so powerful and so incredible and so unique,” Keys crooned in the video, a marketing campaign that is said to be the company’s biggest effort specifically aimed at women. “I find that when I see women who are comfortable in their skin, wherever that is, however that is, and whatever way it manifests itself, it’s beautiful.”

In one of the campaign materials, the Grammy A Award-winning singer-songwriter, producer and activist, 34, wore black skin-tight jeans, a leather moto jacket, asymmetricnecklined top, black-heeled boots, hoop earrings, braided hair and rock-goddess makeup.

“When you are authentically yourself, you are so gorgeous and powerful. I’ve come to the revelation that I’m just a jeans girl at heart. I feel the most confident, comfortable, sexy and strong in my jeans,” the curvy Keys shared in a statement.

“Levi’s is for every woman…there is something for everyone…much like music, Levi’s brings people together from all walks of life and cultures.”

Since 1934, when it created the first-ever blue jean for women, global brand Levi’s has

THE global Japanese brand Uniqlo’s latest designer collaboration boasts of the French label Lemaire’s uncluttered aesthetic— “beautiful garment(s) that you can wear every day and fall in love with over and over again.” obsessively believed that “behind every great woman is a great pair of jeans.”

The new women’s jeans collection is a “comprehensive rethinking of its female-centric styles since 1934,” the New York Times reported, saying that is the result of two years of research and “hundreds of interviews with women of different ages [20 to 50], body types and ethnicities.”

“The one comment that came up in every interview was that fabric and feeling is now as important as fit,” Karyn Hillman, the chief product officer of Levi Strauss & Co., told the NYT. She also stated that the sentiment is “a possible side effect of the rise of activewear, with its related emphasis on nonconstricting but formfitting materials,” such that “the new Levi’s Lot 711 to 721 is 20-percent to 40-percent stretch, and the new 710s are 50-percent to 90-percent stretch. That’s almost yoga-worthy flexibility.”

“People have been living in their Levi’s since we invented the blue jean. Experiencing all the adventures the world has to offer, expressing their own brand of authenticity and unique personal style,” Jen Sey, chief marketing officer, said on levistrauss.com.. ““Alicia Keys embodies that spirit of the brand and brings it to life in

such an inspiring and resonant way for women everywhere. We are so proud to launch our new women’s denim collection with Alicia. She truly represents what the Levi’s brand is all about.”

UNIQ O X LEMAIRE UNIQL

“LEMAIRE for Uniqlo might be the best collab ever,” screamed one enthusiastic headline at nymag.com. “The sleek pieces aren’t pitching themselves as ‘more affordable’ versions of more luxurious styles—instead, they’re simply good, trendless basics you’ll want to wear this fall and beyond,” the fashion site wrote.

“The clothes themselves are a mix of classics every man needs and more trend-ticking items, across coats, shirts, trousers, jackets and joggers,” gq-magazine.co.uk joined in on the chorus of positive responses to Uniqlo’s latest collaboration.

While I lean more on the Ines de la Fressange collection and pieces emblazoned with Keith Haring artwork and Snoopy, I can appreciate Lemaire’s understated, uncluttered aesthetic.

The clothes come in trademark Lemaire colorblocking (army green, navy, black, dark gray and cream) perfect for Manila’s New York and Paris sartorial pretensions.

“So o why isn’t Uniqlo [which prefers underthe-radar past collabs with fashion figures like Jil Sander ander and the upcoming one with Carine Roitfeld] pursuing the Balmains and Karl Lagerfelds [both collaborated with H&M] of the world like some of its competitors?” asked fashionista.com.

Uniqlo USA SA CMO and Director of Brand Marketing Justin Kerr replied: “We don’t have a checklist or any specific way we go about it. We’re just looking for like-minded people that want to improve people’s lives through clothing. We’re a global brand, we meet a lot of designers and talented people, and when we meet someone we feel we share a lot of the same values with, we open up a conversation to figure out if we can work together. [Lemaire’s clothes] really aren’t about occasion wear; they are about: Let me make a beautiful garment that you can wear every day and fall in love with over and over again.”

This latest collaboration is so successful at the fashion capitals that Uniqlo confirmed that a second collection will be unveiled come Spring 2016. If Manila’s style-setters are, indeed, in sync with their global counterparts like they fancy themselves to be, then Uniqlo should start stockpiling on the cashmeres.

LIFE

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ALICIA KEYS fronts Levi’s new collection for women that packs stretchiness to “yogaworthy flexibility.”

STUDENT DEBT TRAPS FAMILIES Perspective BusinessMirror

E4 Monday, October 12, 2015

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A MULTIGENERATIONAL HIT

Student debt traps parents and kids B J B | The Associated Press

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ASHINGTON—A college degree practically stamped Andres Aguirre’s ticket to the middle class. Yet at age 40, he’s still paying the price of admission.

After a decade of repayments, Aguirre still diverts $512 a month to loans and owes $20,000.

The expense requires his family to rent an apartment in Campbell, California, because buying a home in a decent school district would cost too much. His daughter has excelled in high school, but Aguirre has urged her to attend community college to avoid the debt that ensnared him.

“I didn’t get the warmest reception on that,” said Aguirre, a health-care manager. “But she understands the choice.”

America’s crushing surge of student debt, now at $1.2 trillion, has bred a disturbing new phenomenon: School loans that span multiple generations within families. Weighed down by their own loans, many parents lack the means to fund their children’s educations without sinking even deeper into debt.

Data analyzed exclusively by The Associated Press, along with surveys about families and rising student debt loads, show that: ■ School loans increasingly belong to Americans over 40. This group accounts for 35 percent of education debt, up from 25 percent in 2004, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Contributing to this surge: Longer repayment schedules, more midcareer workers returning to school and additional borrowing for children’s education.

■ Generation X adults—those from 35 to 50 years old—owe about as much as people fresh out of college do. Student loan balances average $20,000 for Generation X. Millennials, who are 34 and younger, have roughly the same average debt, according to a report by Pew Charitable Trusts.

■ Gen-X parents who carry student debt and have teenage children have struggled to save for their children’s educations.

The average they have in college savings plans is just $4,000, compared with a $20,000 average for teenagers’ parents who aren’t still repaying their own school loans, Pew found. A result is that many of their children will need to borrow heavily for college or pursue cheaper alternatives, thereby perpetuating a cycle of family debt.

■ Student debt is surpassing groceries as a primary expense for many borrowers, with the gap

widening most for younger families. The average college-educated head of household under 40 owes $404 a month in student debt payments, according to an AP analysis of Fed data. That’s slightly more than what the government says the average college-educated family spends at the supermarket.

The multigenerational debt cycle reflects a rush to pursue college as a path to middle-class security.

Roughly 25 years ago, federal policies began to encourage borrowing on a mass scale to cover soaring college costs. Policymakers figured that borrowers could afford the debt because college degrees would all but guarantee comfortable incomes.

The reality played out somewhat differently.

Roughly 6 million Gen-X households still owe student debt.

Some, like Aguirre, are forgoing home ownership. Others have moved to remote stretches of the country to qualify for loan-forgiveness programs.

Repayment has increasingly required financial sacrifices because as college borrowing has climbed, earnings have stagnated for people with only bachelor’s degrees, according to data provided

by Georgetown University. Successful careers increasingly require graduate degrees—and thus, ever larger debt loads that take longer to repay. At no point in the past, experts say, has such a large share of the US population begun their careers indebted.

“We’ve never had a historical era where so much debt was taken out at an early age,” said Diana Elliott, research manager for financial security and mobility at Pew.

DIFFERENT PATHS

NATHAN ANDERSON received his first student loan in 1991. His time at Johns Hopkins University overlapped with the start of the lending boom: The government was raising borrowing limits, introducing unsubsidized Stafford loans and incentivizing private lenders.

Such policy moves were supposed to make college affordable for students regardless of their parents’ incomes. But the wider availability of debt instead helped fuel rising tuitions, according to research this year by the New York Fed. Majoring in psychology, An-

JULIE ARMSTRONG, Amelia Anderson, Nathan Anderson and Dean Anderson sit on a couch at their home in Tucson, Arizona. Majoring in psychology, Anderson hoped to become a child psychologist. But after suffering a shoulder injury while playing soccer, he found relief only from an acupuncturist. Eventually he became a licensed acupuncturist himself in 2004. He had already racked up $45,000 in college debt; acupuncture school required more. AP/RICK SCUTERI

derson hoped to become a child psychologist. But after suffering a shoulder injury while playing soccer, he found relief only from an acupuncturist. The treatment led him to study Chinese medicine after graduation and become a licensed acupuncturist himself in 2004. He had already racked up $45,000 in college debt; acupuncture school required more.

Now 42 with a blended family of five, he runs an acupuncture clinic in Tucson, Arizona, with his wife, Julie, also an acupuncturist.

Combined, their monthly student loans bills approach $1,700.

“More than we spend on groceries and kind of like having a second mortgage,” Anderson said.

The push to borrow that began in the 1990s was premised on the notion that virtually every degree—regardless of the school or the major—could more than pay for itself because college graduates would command premium incomes, explained Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Will College Pay Off ?

That’s not necessarily how it turned out.

Many students, like Anderson, recast their career goals—a shift that compelled them to take on more debt.

And even as the debt loads climbed, median income for college graduates has stagnated. Recent college graduates in their 20s earned about $41,000 in 2013, or $2,000 less in current dollars than in 1970, according to figures from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

That same pattern continues for workers with only a college degree in their 30s and 40s.

“If the debt is not paying off for the parents,” Cappelli said, “they don’t have the money to support their kids.”

Indeed, Anderson says his family’s debt loads have inhibited their college savings. For his two teenage stepsons, he and his wife have discussed more affordable college options, such as starting at a two-year school. It’s a prospect that leaves Anderson conflicted because it means limiting their child’s education and career options.

“It’s not only going to affect the next four years but the next 34 years,” he said.

NO CHOICE

UNTIL recently, few researchers had explored the relationship between parents’ student debt and meager college savings for their children.

In July, Pew Charitable Trusts provided a glimpse.

Gen X parents with student debt managed to set aside just $4,000 in college savings plans.

That would cover less than half a semester’s tuition at a typical public university. Pew’s report warned that parents’ student debt loads “could fuel an intergenerational legacy of debt” within families.

The survey found that loan balances averaged $20,000 for both Generation X and younger millennials—a surprising finding given that many Gen X-ers have worked for more than a decade and might be expected to have repaid much of their debt. Yet many Gen X-ers have felt compelled to return to college or attend graduate school to improve their earnings prospects. To do so, they’ve had to borrow at a time in life when savings traditionally became a priority.

Consider Ernie Rosales, who returned to college in his 30s. He felt he had maxed out his potential income in California’s aerospace industry with a pair of associate degrees.

Earning a bachelor’s degree at Azusa Pacific University in 1999 enabled him to pivot into information technology. Two years later, Rosales returned to school and obtained a master’s degree to further enhance his earnings power.

“You reach a certain level in the corporate world you cannot go above without a bachelor’s or master’s,” explained Rosales, 52, wearing his college class ring.

But the combined debt left him with a shortage of savings for his three daughters’ educations.

Two are on the verge of graduating college with debt. A third, in high school, excels at ballet and is starting to look at universities.

Each month, $1,500 is deducted from the family bank account for student loans. It’s more than their mortgage. The withdrawals include about $500 a month to repay his college and grad-school debt—debt that felt unavoidable if he wanted to provide enough for his family.

“Neither of us really likes debt,” said Rosales’s wife, Jill.

“But to some degree in the United States, it’s just a part of living here.

There’s some debt that you have to take on to get ahead.”

HIGHER DEBT, FALLING PAY

MUCH of the problem is that student loans are essentially bets on future income, secured on the faith of a lucrative career ahead. But as a group, only workers with advanced degrees have enjoyed inflation-adjusted pay increases.

The median income for a 30-something with a graduate degree is $70,000. This marks a decent jump from an inflation-adjusted salary of $66,921 in 1970, according to Georgetown figures.

That said, a master’s degree requires an average debt load of $41,400, according to the Education Department—in addition to the average of $27,300 borrowed separately for a bachelor’s.

“This is one of those Catch22’s,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the

Workforce. “If you don’t take out the debt, you don’t get the earnings. And you need the earnings to repay the debt.”

Back in 2001, the Fed studied the student debt of college-educated households younger than 40.

These were largely the Generation X-ers, many still managing college bills. At the time, this group owed an inflation-adjusted $3,760 a year in payments.

By 2013, when the Fed examined millennials and the tail end of Generation X, the borrowing cycle had worsened: More was owed.

The survey suggested that the debt burden would likely be magnified for millennials and their children.

The average sum owed in 2013— $4,850—exceeded what college graduates spent that year on autoloan bills or groceries, according to government data.

ECONOMIC SECURITY FADES

MANY parents with debt have made extreme sacrifices to contain their loans and their children’s.

In Kansas, Jonathan Bigler, 54, decided to leave teaching to become a physician’s assistant in 2001. It meant taking on loans shortly before his three children would enter college.

After graduating, Jonathan and his wife, Lori, 51, also a teacher, had to move to the remote town of Ashland as part of a government-backed program to forgive the debt. With a population of 853, Ashland is 50 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart and an hour from hamburgers at the closest Sonic Drive-In. After a decade and a sizable consolidation, the Biglers write checks totaling $2,531 each month to repay student debts for the physician assistant’s degree, her teaching credentials and the college degrees of their daughters, ranging in age from 22 to 27. They are happy with their lives. Yet they feel stressed to know they are on track to be repaying debts until Jonathan turns 72.

“We don’t have the security that we would like to have,” said Lori Bigler. “We feel like we are in servitude and would be living a complete different life without the games that came along with the student loans.”

PERSPECTIVE

ERNIE ROSALES, 53, looks under the hood of his classic car in front of his home in Temecula, California. He returned to college in his 30s after he felt he had maxed out his potential income in California’s aerospace industry with a pair of associate degrees. AP/CHRIS CARLSON

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TELSTRA IN PHL: A THREAT TO TELCO GIANTS?

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First of three parts

OR more than half a century, multimedia conglomerate Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) was the sole provider of the telecommunication needs of Filipinos. People were forced to subscribe to PLDT’s services or endure the pain of not having a faster form of communication other than the telegram.

“If you trace the history, we started with monopoly, just like any other nation in the world,” National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Director Edgardo V. Cabarios said.

“There was PLDT and a few small American companies, until it became a natural monopoly as a service.”

PLDT dominated Philippine telecommunications until 1987, when the government decided to “partially open” the market.

“We opened the market in 1987, when we introduced the so-called regulated competition, which simply means that there was limited competition within the profitable services. At that time, the services that were very profitable were the national long-distance and the international long-distance services,” Cabarios said.

The use of mobile phones was already gaining traction around the same time. Dubbed as the national voice carrier, PLDT was the

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 46.1250

first to secure the franchise to operate mobile-phone services.

“Finally, in 1995, we opened the competition to all. Bayan Telecommunications Inc. [Bayantel] then came in, burning a lot of money to roll out international long-distance services, until the United States decided to lower the accounting rate settlement, leading to their current downfall,” Cabarios said.

Birth of giants

THREE years after opening the market to other

competitors, Globe Telecom Inc. came in after securing the permission to operate mobile services in the country.

“Mobile picked up in 1998, when text became a fad. A year after, there were more than 3 million mobile subscribers, outpacing the fixed-line telephone subscriber base at that time,” the telecom regulator said. “Every year the growth was at double digits.”

Globe and Bayantel posed a threat to the market leader, as the two companies began to C  A

APEC MINISTERS OK INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION

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R ANSPORTATION ministers of countries belonging to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) have agreed to adopt technological advances and public-private partnership initiatives to hasten the development of a commuter-friendly transportation system in the region.

In their joint statement released last week, leaders across the region have formalized their commitment to developing a regional transport sector that supports the growth of each nation’s economy.

Underscoring that there is a need to promote inclusive mobility and sustainable transport systems across the region, where trade and investment are seen to grow more rapidly, the ministers said they pledge to work hand in hand in order to achieve a better transport sector by the year 2020.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya chaired this year’s Apec Transportation Ministerial Meeting held in Cebu.

“It is our intention to ensure that the Apec transportation sector reinforces this shared vision, as articulated by our economic leaders, such that Apec efforts will tangibly improve the lives of all our citizens as we move toward our common goals built through trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, as well as economic and technical cooperation, in accordance with domestic economic circumstances,” the joint statement read.

Coming from the 2013 ministerial meeting, this year’s transportation leaders agreed to focus on three key areas: promotion of inclusive mobility, development of sustainable transportation system and encouragement of innovation in the transport sector.

“Recognizing that improving mobility increases people’s productivity, and, results to the acceleration of economic growth, we endorse the initiative on creating an inclusive mobility framework C  A

n JAPAN 0.3847 n UK 70.8019 n HK 5.9517 n CHINA 7.2596 n SINGAPORE 32.8456 n AUSTRALIA 33.2744 n EU 52.0106 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.3000 Source: BSP (9

October 2015)

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The Nation BusinessMirror

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Monday, October 12, 2015 A3

Comelec asks for sobriety in candidacy-filing process

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HE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has appealed to all those seeking an elective position in 2016 to respect the sanctity of the election process starting with the filing of their certificate of candidacy (COC) on Monday.

In separate interviews, Comelec Chairman Andres D. Bautista and Commissioner Luie Tito F. Guia reminded the prospective candidates that a festive mood is allowed during the filing of COCs, the sanctity of the process should also be observed.

“Dapat masaya pero ’yung masaya na maayos. At kahit papano, ’yung solemnity ng ginagawa natin dito ay hindi mawala. We want it orderly, solemn but, at the same time, also fun. To me, it’s a happy occasion. It celebrates our democracy,” Bautista said.

“Consider the filing of COC as a sacred process in a sense that you are putting yourselves before the people and presenting yourself as someone capable of leading the country, so make it a bit more solemn, lagyan ng konting solemnity rather than puro fiesta,” Guia added.

The Comelec will officially open the period for the filing of the COCs today (Monday) until Friday.

A total of18,069 positions, including president and vice president, are to be contested next year.

Other positions to be filled up are 12 senatorial seats; 81 gubernatorial posts ; 81 vice governors; 772 members of Sangguniang Panlalawigan; 144 city mayors; 144 city vice mayors; 1,610 city councilors; 1,490 municipal mayors; 1,490 municipal vice mayors; 11,924 municipal councilors; one Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor; ARMM vice governor; and 24 ARMM assemblymen.

Comelec Resolution 9984 allows those running for president, vice president and senators to file their COCs at the Comelec Main Office in Manila.

Those who will run for members of the House of Representatives in Metro Manila will file their COCs at the Comelec-National Capital Region office. Those in the provinces and independent cities can do so at the concerned Office of the Provincial Election Supervisor and Office of the City Election Officer, respectively.

Governors, vice governors, members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan will file theirs at the Office of the Provincial Election Supervisor, while city/municipal mayors, vice mayors, and councilors will do so in the Office of the City/Municipal Election Officer.

COCs for ARMM governor and vice governor shall be filed at the Office of the ARMM Regional Election Director, while those who will run for members of the ARMM regional legislative assembly will file theirs at the Office of the ARMM Provincial Election Supervisor concerned.

The Comelec warned civil servants against participating in any partisan political activity, including the filing of COCs, as

DSWD chief to continue cash transfer tack during Apec meeting

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HE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has clarified that the conduct of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit in the country next month is not a reason to affect the agency’s regular activity of ensuring that street families and children are taken to an environment conducive to children’s growth and development.

“With or without the Apec meeting, we continue the implementation of the MCCT [modified conditional-cash transfer] program among street-dwellers since the past years,” Social Welfare Secretary Corazon J. Soliman said on Saturday in reaction to a question of Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon of Kabataan if the DSWD would “again be hiding the street children,” just like during the papal visit to the Philippines in January this year.

According to Soliman, since the activities they implement for the MCCT are part of their regular outreach program for the homeless families, such is not dependent on the Apec meeting or any other important events in the country.

She explained that the homeless street families are not being hidden but are just taking part in the regular program to protect them from harm and abuse, which are common on the streets.

Under the MCCT program, homeless street families are assessed and scheduled for orientation so that they can understand why the government is taking them away from the streets and that there are programs in store for them if they will be living in a safe environment.

As street families become beneficiaries of the MCCT program, the DSWD transfers them to an apartment or place where they can live safely and experience the comforting feeling of living in an environment suitable for the children.

The rent for the apartment is paid by the DSWD for a period of one year.

Aside from this, the families also receive cash grants under conditions that the children go to school and receive regular consultation in health centers, while the parents attend family development sessions similar to the requirements under the regular Conditional Cash-Transfer Program of the DSWD. They are also provided with skills training to prepare them for different work opportunities as a way of helping them to develop sustainable income that will prevent them from going back to street-dwelling.

The DSWD partners with different civil-society organizations, local government units and government agencies in carrying out this endeavor, the agency said. PNA

they are barred by existing laws from doing so.

Meanwhile, Comelec Spokesman James Jimenez also reminded civil servants that under existing laws they are prohibited from participating in any political activity, including campaigning.

“Civil servants are not allowed to participate in partisan politics, cannot engage in partisan political activities, which means that they cannot come out to support a particular candidate,” Jimenez said.

A group called the Legal Network for Truthful

Elections (Lente) also backed the Comelec’s call, saying it would be better if civil servants will keep away from those filing their COCs. “They are not allowed to join filing of COCs kasi that’s a partisan activity. So bawal po sila mag-engage sa partisan activities,” Lente Executive Director Rona Ann Caritos said.

Menwhile, Philippine National Police Chief Supt. Joel Pagdilao, regional director of National Capital Region Police Office, on Sunday ordered

all district directors in Metro Manila to beef up security operations within vicinities of the Comelec offices to ensure peace and order during the filing of the COC. Pagdilao ordered the deployment of policemen on Comelec offices from October 12 to 16. He declined to give the exact number of cops he assigned.

He said policemen will help direct traffic in roads leading to the main Comelec office in Intramuros, Manila. Joel R. San Juan with PNA

Economy

A4 Monday, October 12, 2015 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

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Investment pledges plunge in first half

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NVESTMENT pledges registered by the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza), the country’s two largest investment promotion agencies, plunged in the first half of 2015.

The decline in approved investments by the two agencies also pointed to a 9.6-percent decrease in the jobs generated during the same period.

According to data from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), first half pledges of both Peza and BOI amounted to only P170.89 billion, a decrease of 33.4 percent from the same period last year when the two agencies hauled in P256.83 billion.

The BOI recorded a more significant drop of 38.4 percent from P149.45 billion in the first half of 2014 as against only P92.02 billion this year.

The Peza saw a decline of 26.3 percent as it only brought in P78.8 billion in the first half compared to the P106.98-billion worth of investments generated in the same period last year.

Nonetheless the BOI data showed a marked increase of 23.7 percent in jobs generated as the agency approved labor-intensive projects.

The BOI forecast 31,912 jobs were

generated by investm e nt s it gave the go-ahead in the first half of t he yea r.

During t he sa me per iod in 2014, the BOI-approved incristobal vestments generated only 25,805 jobs.

The Peza’s projected employment numbers from January to June came to 73,369 jobs compared to the 81,123 jobs generated from the investments it approved in the same period last year.

Taken together, Peza’s decline of almost 25.1 percent in projected employment this year pulled down the combined job generation forecast to 73,369 this year.

In a recent interview, BOI Managing Head and Trade Undersecretary

Adrian S. Cristobal Jr. acknowledged the decline and blamed the energy sector. Cristobal also pointed to other sectors like services, tourism and manufacturing. “[Investments in these sectors] are increasing and these are the kind of investments that have more jobs.

These [increases] are more consistent with the inclusive growth agenda.”

Cristobal said he expects investments to pick up in the next months as most businesses already see the energy supply coming online as sufficient to meet demand.

According to DTI data, the five sectors that pulled in the largest pledges were real-estate activities, manufacturing, electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, transportation and storage, and construction. In terms of share, only the manufacturing and transportation and storage sectors saw an improvement in numbers from year-ago levels.

Cristobal said electricity, gas, steam and air-conditioning supply sector suffered a 78.7-percent decline in investment value from P92.67 billion in the first half of 2014 to a measly P19.7 billion this year.

The manufacturing sector’s approved investments in the first half of 2015 amounted to P47.01 billion, compared to P42.38 billion last year—a 10.9-percent increase.

Transportation and storage investments ballooned by 68.4 percent in the first half, pulling in P11.69 billion compared to P6.95 billion last year. Catherine N. Pillas

Escudero seeks expansion of rail network outside Manila

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HERE is a need to expand the Philippines’s train system up to the provinces around Metro Manila, as part of the long-term solution to the worsening traffic in the country and the increasing number of daily commuters.

Sen. Francis G. Escudero pointed out that the total length of the three existing main passenger railway networks in Metro Manila is only 50.35 kilometers (km), and yet it provides transportation to over 1 million riders daily.

“The Philippines lags behind other Asian countries in terms of a functional train system—we see and feel that every single day. Riding the Metro Rail Transit [MRT] Line 3 or Light Rail Transit [LRT] Lines 1 and 2 has become a dehumanizing experience for Filipinos, but it’s a choice between that or taking the bus and being stuck on the road for hours,” he said.

Escudero said the Philippines can study the mass-transport system of its Asian neighbors, who have developed efficient rail-transit systems, as models for future infrastructure development.

Hong Kong, for example, has a population of over 7 million people, and a 218-km Mass Transit Railway network caters to around 5 million passengers daily.

Singapore has a total population

of only 5.47 million, but is serviced by a 360-km Mass Rapid Transit and LRT system, with an average ridership of 2.6 million every day.

According to World Bank, the population of Thailand’s capital and urban center, Bangkok, grew from 7.8 million people in 2000 to 9.6 million in 2010. It has a 100.1-km Bangkok Mass Train System, carrying 580,000 riders daily.

The Philippines has a total population of about 100 million, of which 12 million are in Metro Manila.

Despite the concentration of political and economic activities in this area, the Philippines only provides its riding public a 16.9-km MRT 3, with a maximum design capacity of 350,000 passengers.

At the start of the year, the MRT 3 had an average ridership of 540,000 daily, but this dropped to 330,000 because many of the trains had fallen into disrepair. The number of operational trains went down from around 15 to 20 trains daily to only eight, as of September, according to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

The LRT have two operational lines: LRT 1 has a 19.8-km train system, with an average daily ridership of 500,000 people, while LRT 2 has a 13.65-km train network and an average of 240,000 passengers daily.

Escudero, who is running as the

vice president of presidential bet Sen. Grace Poe, said the next government should focus on infrastructure development if it wants to sustain the country’s economic growth and make it truly inclusive.

The senator said the focus should be on the train system since this is the most efficient and most economical mode of transportation.

Its expansion will ease the traffic in Metro Manila by integrating the urban center with the provinces around the metropolis.

“We have to start dispersing the city center away from Metro Manila, and the only way to do that is via an efficient train system connecting the metropolis to Bulacan, Pampanga up to Tarlac in the north, and then Laguna, Batangas, down to Quezon in the south,” Escudero said.

“With that, it is possible to actually live in Laguna and work in Makati, or live in Tarlac and work in Quezon City,” he said.

According to a study by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and Japan International Cooperation Agency, the traffic in Metro Manila costs the Philippines as much as P2.4 billion a day due to the lost productivity and potential income of people stuck in congested roads. This will balloon to P6 billion a day by 2030 if nothing is done to solve the problem, the Neda said. Recto Mercene

Govt acts to address concerns of foreign businessmen’s group

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ALACAÑANG assured over the weekend it is moving to address key concerns raised by the Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) last week over the sharp decline in net foreign direct investment (FDI) flows for the first semester.

“The concerns they raised involved Executive and Legislative actions,” Secretary Edwin Lacierda said on Sunday.

The foreign chambers had cited a Bangko Sentral report that net FDI inflow for the first half of 2015 stood at $2 billion, or 40 percent lower than $3.4 billion in 2014 comparable period.

Lacierda told the BusinessMirror that “insofar as the Executive Department is concerned, we are addressing the concerns they have raised and we continue to monitor the developments in the areas they have mentioned.”

He noted that more road infrastructure are simultaneously being constructed to alleviate traffic congestion, citing the North Luzon ExpresswaySouth Luzon Expressway connector road, referring to the skyway connecting the terminals.

Lacierda confirmed that new coaches are arriving for the overcrowded and ill-maintained Metro Rail Transit, adding that, “We are [also] expanding the Light Rail Transit lines.”

“Our airports are also being improved to minimize flight delays,” he added.

President Aquino’s chief spokesman, however, clarified that the Palace will “defer to the Legislature for their response” as to the Legislative actions that are needed to be done to address other JFC concerns.

Reacting to the JFC concerns, Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr., for his part, pointed out that for the past five years, the Philippines has been “a favored investment destination by dint of sound macroeconomic management anchored upon good governance.”

Still, Coloma assured that the Aquino government “continues to work on further improving the country’s competitiveness.” “Perhaps it is best to await the full-year results on the investment front,” he added.

The two officials issued the clarification after the JFC listed 10 “actions that can be taken in months ahead” to boost investor confidence, and among the top ones are: avoid recurrence of port congestion caused by truck bans; enact speedily pending measures such as Build-Operate-Transfer Act amendments and Customs modernization, as well as the passage of the Freedom of Information Act and the creation of a Department of Information and Communication Technology. It also aired concerns on the need to reduce metro traffic congestion and flight delays at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and increase flights at the former Clark Air Base in Pampanga.

Butch Fernandez

Ty says DOTC to spend ₧9.1B for airports devt

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party-list lawmaker said on Sunday the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) is set to spend a total of P9.1 billion next year to upgrade 31 international and domestic airports.

House Deputy Minority Leader and LPG-MA Rep. Arnel Ty said the bulk of the DOTC’s 2016 budget for aviation-related development projects will go to Panglao International Airport (P2.136 billion); Clark International Airport (P2.093 billion); and Naga Airport (P1.002 billion).

“Some of the money will be for new construction and facilities, and some for continuing projects,” said Ty, a member of the House transportation committee.

Moreover, the lawmaker said that domestic and international air-travel explosions due to falling aviation jet fuel prices would benefit the national economy.

Buoyed by lower fuel costs, the country’s two dominant carriers—Cebu Pacific Air and Philippine Airlines—now offer new promotional fares for domestic, as well as international destinations.

“Last year higher fuel prices accounted for 40 percent to 49 percent of the operating costs of Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific Air. This year lower fuel prices represent just 30 percent to 39 percent of their operating costs,” Ty said.

“If we look at how Filipinos are spending their savings from cheaper air fares, the money appears to be going mainly to travel-related expenses, including increased food consumption in airport terminals,” he said.

The higher consumption spending spurred by the drop in fuel prices contributes to overall economic growth, according to the lawmaker.

Airports getting fresh development funding: Antique Airport-P10 million Bagabag Airport-P11.8 million Basco Airport-P33.2 million Bicol International Airport-P747.4 million Butuan Airport-P2 million Calbayog Airport-P203.6 million Cauayan Airport-P198.0 million Cotabato Airport-P51.5 million Dipolog Airport-P25.4 million Laoag International Airport-P13.5 million Ozamiz Airport-P20 million Puerto Princesa International Airport-P68.1 million Roxas Airport-P95.4 million San Jose Airport-P185.7 million San Vicente Airport-P34 million Sanga-Sanga Airport-P577.7 million Siargao Airport-P264.1 million Siquijor Airport-P40.8 million Taytay Airport-P8.8 million Tuguegarao Airport-P194.6 million Virac Airport-P32.6 million Zamboanga International Airport-P160.1 million.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Economy BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Agri firms with labor unions nearly doubled in 2014—PSA

By Cai U. Ordinario

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he number of establishments in the food and agriculture sector with labor unions nearly doubled last year, compared to other sectors where membership in unions declined, according to the latest data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

PSA data showed that the share of establishments in the agriculture sector that had unions increased to 10.1 percent from 5.7 percent in 2012.

Overall, some 5.8 percent of establishments with 20 or more workers (2,059 out of 35,209) had unions in 2014. The figure registered a decline of 3.1 percentage points from 8.9 percent in 2012.

“The decline was brought about by the 3.3-percentage-point decrease [from 9 percent in 2012 to 5.7 percent in 2014] in unionized establishments in the nonagricultural sector,” the PSA said.

Ateneo de Manila University Social Science Dean Fernando T. Aldaba attributed this to the flourishing food manufacturing sector in the country.

Data from the PSA showed that 1,536 establishments are engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing in the formal sector of the economy in 2010. In manufacturing, Aldaba said processed food account for around 60 percent of the sector.

The country’s GDP data showed that food manufactures consistently top the production of all industries in the country. In the second quarter of 2014, food

manufactures was cited as one of the biggest contributors to the manufacturing sector’s growth.

PSA data showed that food manufactures posted a growth of 10.7 percent in the second quarter. This was the highest growth the sector attained in seven quarters.

Data showed that the prior to the 10.7-percent growth, the highest growth attained by food manufactures, was in the third quarter of 2012 when it posted an 11.1-percent growth.

PSA data showed that in 2014, the value added of food manufactures to the manufacturing sector reached P593.58 billion.

The manufacturing sector’s total gross value added to the country’s GDP at that time was P1.67 trillion in that year.

Meanwhile, PSA data showed that in terms of ownership type, some 16.1 percent, or 156 out of 968 of multinational establishments, had unions.

The shares were relatively lower in joint venture at 9.1 percent and foreign-owned establishments, 9 percent. Filipino-owned establishments posted the lowest at 5.2 percent.

By employment size, one out of every five, or 19.2 percent of establishments with 200 or more workers, had unions. It was far lower at 11.6 percent in establishments with 100 to 199 workers and only 2.9 percent in establishments with 20 to 99 workers.

The data was based on the results of the the 2013/2014 Integrated Sur vey on Labor and Employment.

Monday, October 12, 2015 A5

‘BIR may handle projection of tax perks’

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he task of forecasting the tax incentives that the government will extend to investors may fall on the shoulders of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), according to an official of the Board of Investments (BOI).

The proposed Tax Incentives Management and Transparency Act (Timta) did not specify the agency responsible for projecting tax perks, but the BOI official said this could be rectified in the implementing rules and regulations (IRR).

“It appears that forecasting tax incentives may no longer be han-

dled by the investment-promotion agencies [IPAs]. The mechanics of projecting should be clarified by the agencies involved in the crafting of the IRR,” said the BOI official, who requested anonymity.

Timta has recently been approved by Congress and is now awaiting Malacañang’s approval.

The proposed measure includes the projection of tax perks for the following taxable year, a provision being pushed by the Department of Finance (DOF).

The DOF said forecasting tax perks would give the government a better picture of the so-called revenue leak, which it seeks to plug.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said, however, that this is an “unnecessary exercise” as the number of projects eligible for incentives that would come in cannot be predicted beforehand.

IPAs and the DTI wanted to scrap the provision as the agencies were lukewarm to the idea of projecting fiscal perks. The agencies were also against giving the BIR the task of projecting tax incentives as it could lead to “inaccurate projections.”

The BOI official said the mechanics on how the forecasting of incentives should be done need to be clearly spelled out in the IRR. The Timta aims to ensure transparency in the government’s tax system. The measure seeks to keep track of incentives availed of by registered enterprises through a reportorial requirement.

Earlier, the BIR wanted to impose stiff penalties on businesses, such as the suspension of their incentives for one taxable year should they fail to comply with Timta’s requirements.

In the version of Timta approved by the bicameral committee of Congress, the suspension of incentives was replaced with administrative fines and possible cancellation of business registration. Catherine N. Pillas

Lawmaker wants cash gift for octogenarians

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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measure granting additional monetary incentives for 80-year-old citizens has been filed at the House of Representatives.

House Bill 6137, principally authored by Liberal Party Rep. Winston Castelo of Quezon City, seeks to provide elderly people a cash gift of P80,000 upon their 80th birthday.

At present, Castelo, chairman of the House Committee on Metro Manila Development, said that there are more than 6 million Filipinos who are 60

years old and above.

Under the present law, senior citizens enjoy benefits and privileges, such as the grant of 20percent discount and exemption from the value-added tax on the sale of goods and services from all establishments.

They also enjoy exemption from the payment of individual income taxes of senior citizens, who are considered minimum- wage earners as provided under Republic Act (R A) 9504.

Likewise, senior citizens can avail themselves of the grant of a minimum 5-percent discount

on the monthly utilization of water and electricity supplied by public utilities, and free medical and dental services, among others.

Another law, RA 10645, or “An Act Providing for the Mandatory PhilHealth Coverage for All Senior Citizens,” which was signed by President Aquino in November last year, grants all citizens who are 60 years old and above of benefits and discounts extended to ordinary Philippine Health Insurance Corp. members by just presenting a valid identification card that proves their real age.

Castelo said the cash gift for octogenarians is a way of honoring senior citizens for their “veritable contributions to nation building.”

“A community that cares for its elderly is one that is dynamic and abounding with blessings,” he said.

The lawmaker added that it is only fitting and wise to give back to the elderly who have offered so much and dedicated their lives’ work, not only for the benefit of their loved ones but also practically for the general welfare of the community.

Tourism

A6 Monday, October 12, 2015 • Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

AN AFTERNOON

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S    K A

HAVE a deep affection for heritage towns. Maybe this is borne out of this appreciation of mine for history and culture, especially that of our country. Or maybe I’m one of those “old souls” out there who has a thing for the old, at least in some aspects. Whatever the case may be, I relish the experiences of witnessing those sights of preserved edifices and elements, as well as the feeling of traveling back in time whenever I find myself in a heritage town.

Thus, when I found myself in one of those unplanned adventures at the eastern loop of Rizal and Laguna, with some time in the afternoon to spare, I thought it was an opportunity for me to go to a heritage town I've long wanted to visit, the heritage town of Pila in Laguna.

A glorious past

THE town of Pila, in the central part of Laguna along the shores of the Laguna de Bay, takes pride in its rich and longspanning history, a history that predates even the coming of the Spaniards to the country in the 16th century. It is actually considered as one of the oldest settlements in the Philippines, as archaeological diggings revealed that this settlement dates back to around

the 1st century AD. Pila was noted as one of the biggest and most influential of the pre-Hispanic barangays; its territory extended to the land across the lake where Talim Island and the lakeside towns of Rizal province starting from Morong to Jala-Jala.

The Spanish forces under the command of Juan de Salcedo, nephew of conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, conquered the town in 1571. The Franciscan friars would arrive soon after to bring Christianity to the town. Apart from the faith, the Franciscans would also bring in to the town a new technology: the printing press. Pila would eventually become the home of the second printing press in the country. There, Tomas

SAN Antonio de Padua Church

Pinpin would print in 1613 the oldest dictionary in the Philippines, the Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala.

With such a colorful past, Pila is an underrated gem of a town in the midst of the developments going on in Laguna these days. Then again, it has somehow helped preserve the town’s old charm and beauty that never fails to mesmerize visitors, even those who just pass by the town.

The afternoon trip

FROM Santa Cruz, Laguna’s provincial capital, I planned to take a jeepney or

Visit Korea Travel Mart 2015 this October

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HINKING of taking a break before the full-force holiday season hits? Or, are you shopping around for Christmas vacation destinations? Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), with support from the Korean Cultural Center and Philippine Kpop Committee Inc. is presenting Korea Travel Mart 2015 on October 24 and 25 at the Activity Center, Glorietta, Makati City.

Participating airlines include Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Jeju Air, Cebu Pacific Air and AirAsia Zest and travel agencies. The Korea Travel Mart will be featuring booths showing the best of what Korea has to offer. It’s the perfect opportunity to check out the three travel zones, the best deals, and the most interesting tours in and around Korea.

Travel agents will be on hand to assist you in your tour requirements.

In Travel to Korea Zone, you will find autumn and winter packages as prepared by airlines and travel agencies. If you have a specific destination in mind, they can also customize a tour for you and give free consultation. The autumn season (September to November) is the perfect

time to visit because of the mild climate.

However, should you want to experience freezing weather, visit Korea during winter (November to February) and you will enjoy visiting the Ski Resorts where you can enjoy skiing, snowboarding, ice skating and simply playing with the heavenly snow. In Imagine your Korea Zone, KTO will provide Korea travel information you need for your grand vacation. KTO will be having a Facebook event in which you can get Korea travel kit and other freebies if you like its page. You can also ask about the visa guidelines and tips on how to make your trip a memorable one. In this zone, you can also redeem your special gift from KTO if you purchase air tickets or packages from the participating airlines or travel agencies during the Korea Travel Mart 2015.

Are you a fan of K-pop? Do you know some of the famous K-pop groups like Girls Generation and Super Junior?

In K-Culture: Hallyu Zone, you will surely enjoy this zone because we will feature various display of K-pop star standees perfect for selfies or groufies. You can begin experiencing your Korean cultural experience

right at the travel mart by donning the traditional costume, hanbok, and prepare your taste buds to Korean cuisines like bibimbap and kimbap.

K-performances

CATCH The Painters Hero as they will be performing in this event. The Painters Hero is an innovative art performance that stages the mind-blowing skills of live drawing with incredible visual effects filled with a witty blend of mime, dance and comedy right before your eyes. In addition, the K-pop idol group NOM, or also known as “No Other Man,” will perform for everyone. You will also get a chance to be close with your idols as they will also be having a fansign event.

Feel the K-pop vibe with the hottest K-pop cover dance group that will hype up the event and get ready with your best K-pop outfit as there will be a K-pop dance lessons. Also, don’t forget to watch the breathtaking performance of the taekwondo team. This event offers an opportunity for Filipinos to make their Korea tour a truly memorable one. So, save the dates and shop for your dream vacation at Korea Travel Mart 2015.

Villains at F1 Hotel Manila this Halloween

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ILLAINS will conquer the town to spread fun and excitement this Halloween season. It’s the gathering of the most notorious villains at F1 Hotel House of Villains.

Follow the path of darkness and head your way to Infinity Ballroom on October 31 from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m. to join the Villains Council in crafting magic spells that are sure to bestow everybody with and enchantingly wicked Halloween!

There’s not a minute to spare as all villains are requested to convene at the mighty Dragon’s lair to enjoy some merriments that include

trick-or-treat, balloon twisting, kids’ salon, glitter tattoo, donut decorating, games, face painting and more. Wear your finest robes and put on your best shoes as the best dressed villain shall be generously rewarded. Reign supreme and you may instantly win an overnight stay!

Strong tourist influx, economic growth spur serviced apartment developments T

HE recent years have witnessed an upswing in the tourism industry. According to Colliers International’s Second Quarter 2015 Research and Forecast Report on the Philippines, the number of foreign arrivals to the country improved in the first five months of 2015, with year-to-date 2015 figures representing an 8.15-percent rise from the same period in 2014.

With this trend is the growing need to improve the quality of destinations and the availability of more accommodations in more parts of the country. Of particular note is the entry of a new kind of accommodation: the serviced apartment—a fully furnished

apartment with amenities usually available in hotels. It is a cheaper alternative to hotels, making it ideal for both short- and long-term stays. “The booming economy equals new businesses, which equals to more executives looking for efficient places to live in the central business districts in the Philippines,” said Andrew Sparrow, development director for Dusit Thani Residences Davao.

Dusit Thani Residences Davao is Dusit International’s bid to add to the serviced residences options in the Philippines. The international hotel brand has recently opened its showroom for Dusit Thani Residences Davao. This is the first Dusit Thani Residences

in Asia Pacific, as the company’s other serviced apartments are in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The property is scheduled for turnover in 2018.

He explained that the international executive traveler will most likely stay for a duration of at least a week to a few months, and tends to prefer accommodations that provide the comforts of home, easy access to luxurious amenities and are ideally located near their workplace.

For such sector of the tourism market, serviced apartments are fast becoming a viable alternative.

The services and amenities of high-end serviced apartments are comparable to those of the hotel counterparts, with the added feature of being able to accommodate long-term stays.

m&Entertainment

tourism@businessmirror.com.ph • Monday, October 12, 2015 A7

AT THE HERITAGE TOWN OF PILA

PILA Municipal Hall

a bus that would at least pass by Pila.

Unfortunately, it rained hard while I was waiting for the ride, not even my umbrella could handle the torrential rain that poured down. By the time the bus arrived, I was soaking wet and feared I might be stricken by a fever by the time I get home. Still, I carried on with my plan to visit Pila, with the hope there is a drugstore there for me to buy needed medication to ward off the sickness that may hit me.

As I learned along the way, buses from Santa Cruz passing through Pila either use the main road, which passes

by the town proper, or the highway outside the town proper. The bus I rode used the highway so I had to get off at the merging of the main road and the highway, and walk along the main road.

In hindsight, it was a good thing that the bus went that route as I was able to explore the town proper better, walking along the whole length of the main town road. The view along the road does not disappoint, with rows of preserved heritage houses in sight to appreciate by today’s generation.

Some of them have been adaptively reused as commercial establishments,

INTERIOR of San Antonio de Padua Church

SAN Antonio de Padua Church marker

blending old architecture with modern commerce in a harmonious manner.

The historic town center

PILA is fortunate to be one of the few towns in the country that has an active

heritage community, the Pila Historical Society, which has worked in the preservation of the town’s heritage.

As a result of these efforts, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines declared the town center

of Pila as a National Historical Landmark on May 17, 2000, one of the few towns in the Philippines bearing this distinction.

With this declaration, the town center became known as the Pila Historic Town Center, a historic district within the town wherein lies about 35 heritage structures, most of them houses built during the Spanish and American periods. As such, these houses you see in this town are historical landmarks that are given the same degree of importance and protection as other historic sites in the country. These houses were built in various architectural styles and periods, providing a rich, visual architectural variety that can rival Vigan.

As it was during the Spanish colonial period, the town’s center of activity is still the town plaza, a wide green space surrounded by towering trees. Most important, the plaza layout, including the structures that surround it, has remained unchanged, preserving

the Spanish colonial town-planning system many towns in the country used to have. Thus, on one end of the plaza can be found the Pila Municipal Hall, which was built in 1931, and on the other end the Baroque-inspired Church of San Antonio de Padua that was completed in 1849.

After an hour or so roaming the town, it was time for me to head back home. Luckily, I managed to find a drugstore in the town to buy some needed medicine. Admittedly, it was too short of a trip for me. Nevertheless, it was a fulfilling trip that I was glad to have taken, despite the weather along the way and the threat of fever. I hope to go back to this town soon and explore it a bit more. But until then, the memory and charm of Pila will serve to inspire me and my love for Philippine heritage. May the example of Pila be emulated in other parts of the country as a way to preserve and promote our rich, yet endangered, heritage.

A8 Monday, October 12, 2015 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

OurTime BusinessMirror

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Seniors feted in games, ballroom in Davao del Norte

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By Manuel T. Cayon | Mindanao Bureau Chief

AVAO CITY—Older people in Davao del Norte were feted to indoor games and ballroom dancing as the provincial government focused on its bid to foster respect among youngsters to the elders and the rest of the senior citizens.

On Wednesday Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario said the provincial government “should ensure that everybody, especially the young, know that our elders deserve the respect, courtesy and the recognition of their rights in society.”

As senior citizens, they have the long experience in life that should guide the youth,” he said.

Del Rosario issued the clos-

ing speech during the annual Senior Citizens’ Week held in Tagum City, where the elderly were feted to a day of games of chess, dart and other mild sports and to a competition on rondalla and ballroom dancing.

The daylong senior citizens’ activities ended the weeklong event with the theme “Tahora ang Katungod sa mga Tigulang (Respect

the Rights of Elders).” The event is held every first week of October.

“And here in our province, we acknowledged our role, that role of the senior citizens, and I believe, as a senior citizen myself, our experience will serve as reminders and examples for the younger generation to learn,” del Rosario said.

He commended the Provincial Social Welfare Development Office and its head, Arlene Semblante, “for sustaining the program of the elderly and seeing to it that our elderly are given the importance that they deserve.”

“And I will see to that before I left this province as governor. Davao del Norte is here to support you, your welfare shall always be upheld. For as long as I am governor of this province, all benefits due for the elderly will be given,” he assured.

There are 60,000 registered senior citizens in Davao del Norte.

DAVAO del Norte elders pit brains and tact in a game of chess. Provincial Information Office

Additional monetary incentives for 80-year-old senior citizens pushed

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EP. Winston T. Castelo of the Second District of Quezon City has filed House Bill 6137, which seeks to provide elderly people a cash gift of P80,000 upon their 80th birthday.

Castelo pushed for the proposed additional monetary incentive, saying it is a way to honor and praise the senior citizens for their veritable contributions to nation building.

“A community that cares for its elderly is one that is dynamic and abounding with blessings,” he said.

Castelo added that it is only fitting and wise to give back to the elderly who have offered so much and dedicated their lives’ work not only for the benefit of their loved ones but also practically for the general welfare of the community. At present, there are more than 6 million Filipinos who are 60 years old and above.

Under the present law, senior citizens enjoy benefits and privileges, such as the grant of 20-percent discount and exemption from the value-added tax on the sale of goods and services from all establishments. They also enjoy exemption from the payment of individual income taxes of senior citizens who are considered minimum-wage earners as provided under Republic Act 9504.

Senior citizens can avail themselves of the grant of a minimum 5-percent discount on the monthly utilization of water and electricity supplied by public utilities, and free medical and dental services, among others. PNA

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WAITING FOR THE PARADE Diocese nuns, called The Sisters of Baguio, join the young and old alike along the city’s central business district, waiting for a parade celebrating the city’s Liberation Day from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. MAU VICTA

10 Outstanding Elders for 2015 get awards

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HE Coalition of Services of the Elderly Inc. (Cose) conducted on October 4 its 25th “Sampung Ulirang Nakatatanda” (SUN) or 10 Outstanding Elders awards to give recognition to the exemplary services of older people in their communities.

The 10 awardees came from Metro Manila, Rizal, Bulacan, Camarines Norte, Cebu, Ormoc City in Leyte, Agusan del Sur and Negros Occidental.

They are Alfonso D. Cubelo, Ju-

DSWD, partners acquaint senior citizens on disaster preparedness

lita de la Seda de la Cruz, Ruben B. España, Lilia Flores, Pedrito S. Getizo, Leticia M. Jacinto, Rosita Y. Lacson, Luzviminda M. Latigay, Angelina C. Mangubat and Lucipina O. Tamon.

The awarding ceremony was held at Dr. Aventura Hall of the Philippine Heart Center, East Avenue, Quezon City.

The winners were nominated by organizations and individuals based on the outstanding contributions they are doing in terms of serving

as leaders with emphasis on the common good of their communities, especially concerning welfare and programs for the elders.

T hey were chosen from different sectors, such as farmers, retired teachers, health workers, persons with disability and tribal members.

The awardees were all ordinary persons.

“This awarding started in 1991 to demonstrate how important older people are for the life of the

nation, and to inspire us all growing older to follow the examples of the people honored in this event,” said Edward Gerlock, first executive director of Cose.

The winners were awarded with cash and trophies.

They were serenaded by Charlie Pagaran, the 2014 winner of World Champion of Performing Arts.

The awarding of SUN is a part of the activities during the celebration of Elderly Filipino Week every month of October. PNA

HE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), together with the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) and Coalition of Services of the Elderly Inc. (Cose) conducted a seminar on disaster preparedness for senior citizens on Tuesday.

The seminar was held at the Bulwagang Amoranto of the Quezon City Hall from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

During the morning session, Darius Vallejos, civil defense officer of OCD tackled salient points of Republic Act 10121, or Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Management Act, among the elders who attended the seminar.

In the afternoon session, Jefferson Balistoy, coordinator of aging and disability task force of Cose, discussed the mainstreaming of older persons in disaster preparedness.

Balistoy told the elders who attended the forum that it is important for them to have close coordination and attending disaster preparedness meeting on their areas so that they will be aware on what to do, plan and do in case a disaster happens and succeeding events afterward.

He cited that involvement of elders, who know a lot about the community for a long time and the possible risks that will happen in case of disaster, will be included in the committee on disaster preparedness.

He also emphasized the importance of identifying the vulnerable sectors, like senior citizens, children and persons with disability, and their whereabouts so that rescuing them can be managed and well-planned.

He added that these sectors should have someone younger than them who will help them evacuate when necessary.

He also shared that it is important for elders to listen to radios and to the announcement or advice of their community leaders.

“It will also be a good practice if someone will be watching over in case there is a possible rise of the water level, especially in low-lying areas or those residing near bodies

of water,” he added.

He also said that it is equally important that elders will know the exact code of warning that will prompt them to seek ways for evacuation.

He added that it is important that they know alternative routes in case there will be impassable roads due to fallen trees and debris.

He also added that it is important that elders prepare their emergency bags containing their medicine, oatmeal, biscuit, water, clothes and some important documents in case there is a need to evacuate.

When in evacuation centers, he reminded the elders to be cautious in drinking water for them to avoid having health problems.

He shared that in case of returning home after disaster, elders should check first the safety of their houses to avoid deadly bites from stray animals, such as snakes.

Jorge Banal, president of the Quezon City Federation of the Senior Citizens of the Philippines, said that it is important that senior citizens are also given “voice” in the disaster preparedness in minimizing the damage and hazards.

In her keynote message, Ester Geraldoy, division chief of DSWD Disaster Preparedness, said that the activity is important since the country lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and therefore, prone to occurrence of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

She cited that since it is possible that the country will be facing the new normal phenomenon, the risks on vulnerable sectors are prevented and minimized.

“However, this challenge of coping with the ‘new normal’ phenomenon is not DSWD’s alone. We, in government and the private sector, must all work toward increasing our people’s resiliency to cope with the challenges brought about by climate change,” Geraldoy added.

The seminar is a part of the weeklong activity for the senior citizens in the country in line with this year’s celebration of Elderly Filipino Week from October 1 to 7. PNA

Abe appoints demographics minister to slow Japan’s population slide

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APAN’S Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appointed a minister charged with spearheading his effort to halt the slide in Japan’s population, which the premier has made the centerpiece of his new plan to revive the world’s third-largest economy.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, a former finance ministry bureaucrat, is charged with implementing policies to boost the

birthrate and expand spending on elderly and child care. In a cabinet reshuffle announced last week, Abe kept his core team, retaining Economy Minister Akira Amari, Finance Minister Taro Aso, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga in their posts.

Japan is threatened with both labor shortages and an explosion in welfare costs, as one of the world’s lowest birth rates and grayest popu-

lations is set to slash the work force by almost half by 2060. Abe’s new plan seeks to prevent the 127 million population from sliding below 100 million within half a century by encouraging people to have more children, and implementing measures to ease the burden on workers having to care for elderly relatives.

“This is not a simple problem with a preset blueprint,” Abe told

reporters. The new minister must “destroy barriers between ministries and agencies; must have the imagination to put together bold policies and the ability to break through difficulties to put them into practice,” he said.

Abe was last month reappointed unopposed as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, putting him on track to become the longest-serving prime

minister in four decades. Still, he is seeking to fine-tune his team to bolster voter support ahead of an upper house election next summer. Widespread public opposition to his policies to expand the role of the military has sapped popular backing for his government.

Most Japanese say they are not feeling any benefit from his Abenomics policies of unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus that

led to a surge in stock prices and exports since he came to power in December 2012. A poll published by Japan News Network this week found 86 percent of respondents said they were not experiencing positive effects, such as higher incomes. About 47 percent of respondents said they approved of Abe’s cabinet, less than the almost 51 percent who said they did not. Bloomberg News

BMReports BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Monday, October 12, 2015 A9

Telstra in Phl: A threat to telco giants?

Continued from A1

eat into PLDT’s customer base. Cabarios said this resulted in better telecommunications services. “When a new player comes in, the landscape changes,” Cabarios said, noting that one major market changer was Sun Cellular—now simply called Sun—which used to be owned by the Gokongwei family’s Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc. Sun Cellular pioneered the “unlimited” services in the Philippines, which allowed the company to attract Smart and Globe subscribers. The two telcos tried to fend off the new entrant, but Sun was unfazed.

In 2011 the Gokongwei family sold Sun Cellular to Smart, which is part of the PLDT Group of Companies.

Meanwhile, Globe recently acquired Bayantel through a debt-to-equity transaction following years of negotiations.

New challenger

Recently, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) announced its plan to launch telecommunications services in the Philippines, saying it continues to be in talks with Australia’s largest telecom player, Telstra Corp. Ltd. The food-to-infrastructure firm’s chief

said his company will soon launch the new network player, vowing to the provide better services than the two incumbents. The telco regulator frequently receives complaints about the services of the network providers.

“We are building a network that will provide our countrymen a good network that will at least work. It will be a better network than the two current networks,” SMC President and COO Ramon S. Ang said.

He did not disclose any specific plans for the company. Sources even said that nothing has been signed between the two parties but he promised to deliver better telecommunication services versus the ones being offered by the two network players.

“The moment that our telco will be operational, it will give a better service to everyone,” he said. “We hope to build more infrastructure projects for our country and hope to provide a good telecom or a working telecom network.”

Industry observers said that the soonto-be third player will focus on developing 4G or high-speed Internet products as the market has shifted from the traditional services to data.

NTC welcomes the possibility of having another player in Philippine telecommuni-

Visitor markets. . .

Continued from A12

(up 9.3 percent to 153,097); Singapore (up 3 percent to 121,197); Malaysia (up 17.24 percent to 103,995); the United Kingdom (up 14.32 percent to 103,577); and Canada (up 9.24 percent to 102,293). Visitor receipts were, likewise, on a further upswing, reaching P152.2 billion in the first eight months of the year, up 5.4 percent from the same period in 2014.

The DOT chief said, “July and August posted double-digit growth vis-à-vis the other months demonstrating the high seasonality for the said period.”

Data from the DOT showed for August alone, visitor receipts jumped by 21.6 percent to P22 billion. Of this amount, Korean tourists accounted for the largest contribution at P8.85 billion, followed by visitors from the US at P2.72 billion.

Tourists from mainland China spent P1.45 billion in August, while those from Japan spent P1.44 billion, coming in third and fourth place among the top spenders in the Philippines. Australia, with an accumulated spending of P1.08 billion was the fifth-biggest contributor of visitor earnings for the country.

Among the top 10 big spenders in the country, visitors from Saudi Arabia recorded the highest percapita spending at P80,826.15; followed by Australia at P68,442.94. On the other hand, Korean tourists spent P63,484.70 per person, while visitors from the US and the UK recorded per-capita expenditures of P54,361.44 and P47,735.26, respectively.

cations, saying this encourages economic growth and intensifies competition.

“If it is now sure, then this is a positive development because this encourages foreign investors to enter the market,” Cabarios said.

Telstra’s entry, NTC said, comes at a time when the Philippines still has an open door for another network player.

“There is still room for a third player. To my analysis, another player can still compete in the market, but a fourth one will find it hard to survive. It can even expand the market, as demand picks up. It can get a sizable consumer base, and if it has the critical mass, then I’m pretty sure it will not fold up,” he said.

Telstra’s entry, therefore, will entail two possibilities: it could eat into the subscriber base of the two incumbents or it will create a market of its own. NTC, however, said the likelihood of creating a new market would be more difficult.

“Telstra will eat into their market. As a newcomer, either you create your own or eat into the existing market. Your entry to the market is easier when you eat. Creating a new market on your own is harder,” Cabarios said.

As of December 2014, there were 115 million active SIM cards in the Philippines.

“These existing subscribers are multisim, meaning a subscriber has more than one sim card. Telstra can market its product in such a way that existing subscribers can subscribe to it,” he added.

No walk in the park

While Telstra’s entry in the Southeast Asian nations seems like a done deal, with SMC already owning companies with licenses to operate telecom services in the country, its entry into the Philippines will not be smooth sailing.

“San Miguel has existing companies that are authorized to operate telecoms services such as Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc., Bell Telecommunications Philippines Inc., Liberty Telecoms Holdings Inc. and Express Telecommunications Inc.,” Cabarios said. “It’s just a matter of building a network, developing it and starting commercial operations.”

This, he said, will force the new entrant to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure alone to roll out mobile and data services.

“It may reach up to $2.5 billion in investment—a huge amount—to build an access network and connect it to a national network. If you rely on the competitor’s national

network, there will be problems with your backhaul requirements,” he said.

The figure is just an initial requirement, he said, as the company needs to continue investing in new technologies to be more competitive. “You can never stop expanding and adopting new technologies, which are more efficient than the older ones as they are more cost-efficient,” he said.

Ang said his company and Telstra are ready to implement a massive capital program to launch the third player.

“Whatever contribution that Telstra will put in is nothing to them because they are a very big company.”

The diversified conglomerate has a market capitalization of P118.93 billion as of Friday.

Currently, SMC’s telecom units have procured equipment and software to construct, operate and maintain a mobile telecommunications network. It has integrated 197 base transceiver stations in the National Capital Region to its mobile telecommunication network.

The regulator has issued 191 radio station licenses to the food-to-infrastructure firm’s unit, Bell Telecommunications.

To be continued

‘COA ruling threatens viability of Malampaya power project’…

However, the COA said there is no provision in the law stating that the income tax of the contractors forms part of the share of the government. Quiniones, however, could not stress enough the importance of honoring the contracts entered into between the private sector and the government. “Whatever was written, whatever was agreed upon, we hope that these will be continuously recognized,” he said.

SPEX, the parent firm of Royal Dutch Shell Plc., is seeking international arbitration of the COA ruling. Quiniones said SPEX has also discussed this with the DOE. “We verbalized what we are aiming for and we’re working with the DOE,” he said.

In a 30-page motion for reconsideration filed before the COA, the DOE wants the COA decision reconsidered, reversed and set aside.

But this was thumbed down.

In its appeal, the DOE said investor confidence in the stability and certainty of local investment laws has been severely damaged by the COA ruling.

The COA decision, according to the DOE, “has totally brought havoc to the representation of the government to these investors.”

“The assailed decision has sent a very wrong signal to the existing and future petroleum exploration investors in the country,” according to the energy agency.

TAIL-END OF A COLD FRONT AFFECTING EXTREME NORTHERN LUZON (OCTOBER 11, 5:00 AM)

The DOE warned that the decision “will cause enormous harm to the country’s longterm interest as it will further erode the confidence of investors in the stability and certainty of our rules and regulations.”

The DOE and the COA are both government agencies. However, the DOE fears that if the COA decision is not set aside, it will send shockwaves to the international community because this will definitely result in a “very dire repercussions and consequences to the ability of the country to attract foreign capital as far as petroleum exploration is concerned.”

The DOE further said the COA decision will, in the long term, do more harm than good for the country. “Right now, it has created anxiety, uncertainty and overall negative attitude toward the country not only in SC [Service Contract] 38 contractors and stakeholders but in other existing and prospective investors,” the DOE added.

Former Energy Secretary Carlos L. Jericho Petilla had said if the decision is carried out, this may set a precedent for other petroleum contracts entered into by the government with the private sector. He cited the Galoc oil field under SC 14C1 in waters northwest of Palawan.

The Galoc field is the country’s only oil producer of commercial scale with an output of over 10,000 barrels per day.

The stakeholders in SC 14C1 include Galoc Production Co., 33 percent; Galoc Production Co. No. 2 Pte. Ltd., 26.84 percent; Oriental Petroleum & Minerals Corp. and Linapacan Oil & Gas Power Corp., 7.79 percent; Philodrill Corp., 7.21 percent; and Forum Energy Philippine Corp., 2.28 percent.

“The implication of this is that it will not only affect the Malampaya project but affect other petroleum drillings, including Galoc,” he said. DOE Officer in Charge Zenaida Monsada said shared the same view. “It could negatively impact on other contracts, both existing and future ones,” she said when sought for comment.

The Malampaya consortium remitted $900 million as royalty payment to the national government in 2014. This brought to $8.5 billion the total payment turned over to the government since the successful commissioning of the project in 2001.

This year the royalty payment was estimated at only half of last year’s haul on account of lower oil prices. “Oil prices have dropped by half so roughly speaking it will probably be half also,” Quiniones said.

A basket of indexes, including oil prices, dictates the price of gas that is sold by the consortium to power produces utilizing the natural gas to fire up their power plants.

Continued from a1

The Malampaya gas project supplies 40 percent of Luzon’s energy needs by fueling three natural-gas power plants with a combined capacity of 2,700 megawatts (MW).

These are the Santa Rita and San Lorenzo power plants of First Gen Corp. and Ilijan power plant of Kepco Philippines.

Quiniones said last year’s payment was lower than the previous years’ remittances because of the decline in the price of oil and gas, which had an impact on pricing.

In 2012 for instance, the Malampaya project proponents turned over $1.1 billion to the national government. The amount represents the government’s 2012 revenue from the natural-gas project. “If we follow more or less international prices to a certain formula, and since Malampaya pricing is six months delayed, yes, the amount will be roughly half of last year,” the SPEX official said.

Quiniones said the DOE, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Department of Finance (DOF) recently asked SPEX on how much will be remitted as royalty fees to the government this year. “The DOE, BIR and DOF asked us already. They are trying to plan the revenues that are coming in. So, we have to give them a projection based on the price of oil are at the moment and how the pricing of Malapaya goes,” he said.

Apec ministers ok initiatives to improve transportation Continued from A1

for the Apec region,” the statement read. The road map is envisioned to pave the way for the development of projects, programs, activities and transport planning mechanisms to address the transport needs of all individuals, especially those of the most vulnerable members of society, including persons with disabilities, older people, women, children and students, and other such groups.

‘Safety is priority’

Safety and security in the region’s transportation sector will also be developed, as both are “fundamental elements in a viable transportation system that is able to facilitate the effective movement of passengers and goods.”

In line with this, the ministers instructed the Apec Transportation Working Group to continue to collaborate with the public and private sectors from all modes of transportation, as well as other Apec fora and international organizations, like the International

Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

“We stress that adhering to recognized international safety and security measures for all modes of transport standards is a priority.

These standards must be complementary and aligned to ensure safety and security objectives are pursued in the most efficient way, and without compromise on facilitation to movement of passengers and goods,” the ministers said.

Economies are encouraged to utilize the latest transportation security technology and give a high priority to providing comprehensive training to transportation security personnel.

“In support of relevant international agreements, we encourage economies to push forward with the implementation of relevant activities to raise awareness on road safety issues to reduce road deaths and serious injuries,” the statement read. “We also encourage economies to share their best practices and research on road safety policies and programs.” Lorenz S. Marasigan

Opinion BusinessMirror

A10 Monday, October 12, 2015 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

editorial

The genuine ‘superficial’ Filipinos

A

nation is not its economy, its politics, or its arts and culture. Those factors both help form a country and reflect the country. But it is the people that make the nation.

We asked the question: “Are Filipinos shallow and superficial?” And we answered, “Of course not”. We added, “But we have been conditioned in the last decades to think of little outside of our own small ‘province.’” We are still concerned that Filipinos, in general, and our political class, in particular, are not as knowledgeable and fluent about global events and conditions as they should be. We do believe that the local press and media have not fulfilled all their obligations.

The press has a duty to make a conscious decision to inform the public about issues that the public may be ignorant about. But as one student observed, half of a local television news broadcast is just a summary, with video, of what is trending on social media.

However, we may have been wrong about Filipinos being shallow. From the comments about our editorial, it is the “intellectual elite” that in our opinion may be superficial.

The woman tending her sari-sari store along a dusty path that turns to mud in the rain, trying to make a few extra pesos to make sure her children stay in school, is not shallow or superficial for watching noontime television.

Perhaps, she should be reading Noli Me Tángere in the original Spanish, but she already is an expert on the inequities of society.

Which is more superficial and shallow—the office workers watching and discussing the multimillion-peso paradise-island wedding of a prominent politician or the media that covers that wedding like they did the last natural disaster? Or, perhaps, it is the politician who welcomes the publicity.

It is easy for someone living in a big house or fancy condominium who can board an airplane to any place in the world to criticize someone watching a telenovela about people living in a big house or fancy condominium who can board an airplane to any place in the world.

The media justifies its choice of presenting “uncultured” entertainment as that being what the public wants. But the success of the movie Heneral Luna contradicts that claim. If the intellectual elites want to change our “shallow” cultural pursuits, start by buying the rights to Heneral Luna, buy the television airtime, and show the movie on free television, maybe at noontime.

Some people really care about uplifting the Filipinos and they put their money where their mouth is. The ALC Media Group, owned by Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua, publishes a tabloid-sized newspaper in Filipino, Pilipino Mirror, which brings genuine news to the supposedly “shallow and superficial.” As Abraham Lincoln once wrote, “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”

PCSO’s faster procedure for assistance requests Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

T

RISING SUN

he Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office launches today, October 12, a streamlined procedure for the Individual Medical Assistance Program (Imap) that will eliminate the interview portion of requests for assistance.

Under the Imap, patients requesting financial assistance will no longer be required to have faceto-face interviews with PCSO social workers. A revised Imap form will gather the data necessary for a socioeconomic evaluation of patients.

The revised Imap forms will be available at hospitals partnering with the PCSO under the ASAP (At Source Ang Processing) Program, and at the PCSO’s Charity Assistance Department at its extension office at the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) in Quezon City.

The elimination of interviews will significantly cut processing time for applicants to the agency’s Imap that provides financial assistance for hospitalizations and surgery; treatments including dialysis and chemotherapy; prosthetics and implants; and other medical- and health care-related concerns. It will also reduce the long queues of patients at the PCSO’s LCP office.

The streamlined procedure falls under the agency’s ASAP Program that establishes PCSO help desks in

private and public hospitals. The first to sign up for ASAP was St. Luke’s Medical Center in April, joined in July by 13 public hospitals. Other hospitals have signified their interest to participate in the program.

The PCSO Desk at partnerhospitals is manned by a social worker of the hospital who is trained by the PCSO in request evaluation and recommendation.

The papers are then forwarded to the PCSO for processing. This arrangement makes it easier and more convenient for applicants to submit their paperwork, and makes it faster for PCSO personnel to process the requests.

We invite other hospitals to join the PCSO in providing medical and health care to all Filipinos by signing up for the ASAP Program. nnn

The PCSO continues to fulfill its commitment to deliver services to underserved and remote areas in Mindanao by delivering 11 ambulances to three provinces

there on October 7. The recipients were Kitcharao, Carmen, Jabonga, Buenavista and Nasipit in Agusan del Norte; Trento, Sibagat and Loreto in Agusan del Sur; and Tubob, Alegria and Mainit in Surigao del Norte.

The brand-new emergency vehicles were handed out under the PCSO Ambulance Donation Program, guided by the “Universal Health Care for All Filipinos” policy of President Aquino.

My fellow PCSO Directors Mabel V. Mamba and Francisco G. Joaquin III and I met in Butuan City the various local government officials who received the vehicles from the PCSO. We also turned over checks totaling over P146,000 for the Lotto shares of La Paz, Prosperidad, Talacogon, Remedios T. Romualdez, Santiago and Bayugan City.

Provinces, cities and municipalities that are host to PCSO Lotto outlets are entitled to a percentage share from the sales of Lotto and other PCSO products in their areas. The amounts may be used for the local government units’ (LGUs) social-welfare projects, particularly those that are medical- and health care-related, in line with the PCSO’s mandate.

During our visit to Dipolog two weeks ago to deliver 15 ambulances to Zamboanga Sibugay and Zamboanga del Norte, we also gave a total of P3.46 milllion in Lotto share checks to 17 LGUs: The province of Zamboanga del Norte, Dipolog

City, Dapitan City, and the towns of Katipunan, Manucan, Polanco, Rojas, Rizal, Salug, Osmeña, Simbangan, Siocon, Jose Dalman, Labason, Leon Postigo, Liloy and Piñan. nnn

Congratulations to my chief of staff Jenny Ortuoste for bagging a Nick Joaquin Literary Award (NJLA) this year for the third year in a row.

The NJLA are given for short fiction in English published in Philippines Graphic magazine within a one-year period. A story is published almost every week, thus 45 to 50 stories each year are considered for the NJLA. Each published story is further selected from an average of 50 stories submitted to the Graphic every week.

Jenny has been consistently in the top 3 of the NJLA ever since first submitting to Graphic in 2012. She has also won a Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, first place, for essay in English in 2011. Keep it up, Jenny!

Kudos also to the Graphic team, including Editor in Chief Joel Pablo Salud and Literary Editor Alma Anonas-Carpio, and to Aliw Media Group Chairman Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua for their support and promotion of Philippine literature in Graphic for the past 25 years.

Atty. Rojas is vice chairman and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

What’s it like to attend a big Apple event?

S

AN JOSE, California—Nobody does “event” like Apple. Sure, there’s Google’s I/O and Microsoft’s Build, jamming downtown San Francisco streets. But they’re all Apple wannabes. Ever since cofounder Steve Jobs got all P.T. Barnum on us nearly 40 years ago, taking the stage to pitch, Apple has uppercased things and made them special.

As in this web site tease: “Apple Special Event. September 9, 2015.”

The problem for the vast majority of lovers of personal tech: they don’t get the invite.

But I do.

“Please join us for an invitation-only event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium,” read the e-mail I received from Apple before last month’s big event.

Having the chance to be beckoned repeatedly into Apple’s high altar of hype, starting with Jobs’s unveiling of the first iPad five years ago and CEO Tim Cook pulling out the Apple Pencil at September’s event, I’ve enjoyed a visceral and intimate relationship with the event. And I’m sorry, but the live-streaming version just ain’t the same thing.

So, serving as your humble emissary, allow me to share a few observations:

The first time is always special

I’ll never forget the day in early 2010 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco when Jobs showed us

the world’s first iPad. It sounds a little silly now, but that day it truly felt as if we were experiencing history. As Jobs took a seat in a big chair on stage and started to play with the thing, I felt like the several hundred of us in the room were all sharing an intimate moment, just us and Steve in this high-tech version of an 18th-century literary salon.

Yet, an even more magical moment came after the lights went on and we walked from the auditorium into an adjacent building for the hands-on demo.

(This was after I’d started to approach Jobs, who was sitting 20 feet from me in the front row, before I was abruptly repelled by security.) But now came the talisman moment: laying hands on the impossibly smooth surfaces of this brand-new device as if the iPad were oozing magic, gently poking at the shimmering screen like you’d poke a baby’s tummy. Yes, the famous RDF or “reality distortion field,” the term used to describe Jobs’s legendary charisma, was turned on high. But that was OK. Because I also realized at that moment

that the RDF was as much an Apple product as the iPad. The two, in fact, were indistinguishable.

Come here and touch this tech!

These hands-on demos that follow Apple product launches serve up all sorts of kid-in-a-candy-store moments.

At the most recent event, journalists and analysts were able to pick up and play with the new iPad Pro and the two new iPhone models, the 6S and 6S Plus, all in the quiet comfort of several especially built rooms cordoned off by curtains and guarded by Apple security.

I loved the new 3D Touch feature, which lets you “peek” deep into an email and other apps just by pushing harder on the screen. And as I watched the new Siri-enabled Apple TV being put through its paces, I felt as if I were looking through a peephole into the future of television, the future of all of our living rooms. Adding a touch screen to the remote was brilliant as well and I knew immediately that it would completely transform my own Apple TV experience, which has been curtailed by the old and extremely limited remote control.

Apple invites attendees into the demo rooms, which they keep under wraps until the last possible moment, another example of the company’s infamous secrecy laced with arrogance.

I asked before the event if there’d be any demos, and one of the legions of Apple PR cadets said, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

Again, at the event, everyone stays on message and the distortion field keeps reality nicely distorted.

I usually wait a bit until after Cook has finished his presentation on stage so I can avoid the demo-room crush, giving me more time to chat with experts who help you test-drive the devices. At the latest event, guests could pick up and play with the new larger iPad Pro for the first time and wield the Pencil, a peripheral that Jobs would never have approved. And yet, here it was, the Pencil, and an historic moment, Apple style, right in your hands.

Better than ever! Smooth as silk Most of the dozen or so Apple events I’ve attended, either at the Civic Center, Yerba Buena, the Moscone Center or the Apple campus in Cupertino, have featured guys (more women presenters have been included under Cook’s reign) on stage, largely skinny with shirts untucked, dishing out superlatives as if their lives depended on it. I’m convinced that executives up there get bonuses based on the number of words like “incredible” and “extraordinary” and “amazingly” they can cram into their pitches. TNS

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Opinion

Settlement of estate

Expanding the horizons of the accountant

BusinessMirror

cannot be underestimated, because it is a key factor in the performance of students.

Dr. Eliseo A. Aurellado

Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan

L

legally speaking

osing a loved one is difficult. Aside from the physical, mental, emotional and financial exhaustion, one has to face taxes and/or debts. It is a common occurrence in our country that the heirs do not settle the estate of a decedent until such time that settlement has become inevitable, like when the heirs need to dispose of the assets left behind by their loved ones or when an insurance claim cannot be processed. This may be due to the fact that the subject of death is taboo in our culture, or the lack of awareness of the heirs, or they simply do not care.

To make settlement of estate more understandable to you, my dear readers, and to make sure that you are given basic knowledge to prevent penalties being imposed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for late payments, let me give you a brief background and an introduction of some legal jargons. First, let me define what an estate is. An estate is comprised of the real and personal properties of the deceased. It should be remembered that once a person dies, a Notice of Death should be filed with the Register of Deeds (RD) having jurisdiction over the place of residence of the deceased at the time of his death within two months after the date of death when the gross value of the estate exceeds P20,000, while the payment and filing of the estate tax return should be done within six months from the deceased’s death, unless an extension of time is requested in cases where the payment of the tax will result in undue hardship on the heirs, but such extension is not to exceed five years, in case the estate is settled through the courts, or two years in case the estate is settled extrajudicially. If an extension is granted, the BIR commissioner may require a bond in such amount, not exceeding double the amount of tax, as it deems necessary.

Estate tax is a tax imposed on the right of the deceased person to transmit his estate to his lawful heirs. It is not a tax on property.

The Estate Tax Return is filed in the Revenue District Office (RDO) having jurisdiction over the place of residence of the deceased at the time of his death. If the deceased has no legal residence in the Philippines, then the return can be filed with the Office of the Revenue District Officer, Revenue District Office No. 39, South Quezon City, or the Philippine Embassy or consulate in the country where the deceased is residing at the time of his death.

As already mentioned, there are two ways of settling an estate. It may be settled judicially or extrajudicially. Extrajudicial settlement means settlement of the estate outside of court. This means that the heirs do not have to go to court to partition the properties left by the deceased. If the deceased left no will and no debts, and the heirs are all of age, or the minors are represented by their judicial or legal representatives duly authorized for the purpose, the parties may, without securing letters of administration, divide the estate among themselves as they see fit by means of a public instrument filed in the office of the RD where the land is located after the estate taxes are paid. If there is only one heir, he may adjudicate to himself the entire estate by means of an affidavit filed in the office of the RD. The parties to an extrajudicial settlement or the sole heir who adjudicates the entire estate to himself, by means of an affidavit shall file, simultaneously with, and as a condition precedent to, the filing of the public instrument or of the affidavit in the office of the RD, a bond with the said RD in an amount equivalent to the value of the personal property involved as certified to under oath by the parties concerned. It shall be presumed that the deceased left no debts if no creditor files a petition for letters of administration within two years after the death of the deceased.

Estate tax is a tax imposed on the right of the deceased person to transmit his estate to his lawful heirs. It is not a tax on property. The Estate Tax Return is filed in the Revenue District Office having jurisdiction over the place of residence of the deceased at the time of his death.

However, if on the date of the expiration of the period of two years herein prescribed, and the person authorized to file a claim is a minor or mentally incapacitated or is in prison or outside the Philippines, he may present his claim within one year after such disability is removed.

The fact of the extrajudicial settlement or administration shall then be published in a newspaper of general circulation once a week for three consecutive weeks.

When the deceased left a will or debts and/or the heirs are in dispute, the heirs would have no choice but to resort to judicial settlement.

Judicial settlement is initiated by filing an appropriate petition in court. If the deceased was a resident of the Philippines at the time of his death, the petition must be filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in the place where he resided at the time of his death. If the deceased was a resident of a foreign country at the time of his death, the petition must be filed in any RTC in the province where he had estate. The notice of the filing of the petition for settlement of estate and the proceedings thereof are required to be published in a newspaper of general circulation once a week for three consecutive weeks.

If the value of the estate left by the deceased is worth P10,000 or less, regardless of whether the deceased left a will, the heirs should file a petition in court alleging that the estate is of small value and publish a notice of the settlement proceedings in a newspaper of general circulation once a week for three consecutive weeks. After completion of publication, the court may set the case for hearing and proceed summarily to settle the estate.

If the deceased left a will, such must be probated, meaning a proceeding should be conducted to determine if the will will be allowed or disallowed by filing a petition in court praying for the probate of the will and settlement of estate of the deceased. The court will set a time and place for the probate and shall cause notice of such to be published in a newspaper of general circulation once a week for three consecutive weeks. On the hearing date, the court will proceed with the probate of the will and distribute the estate to the heirs/legatees accordingly.

If the deceased left no will, the steps are the same as the above, except that the petition will pray for the settlement of the estate of the deceased.

In sum, no matter how painful it is to lose a loved one, the fact of death and the payment of taxes cannot be avoided. As the great Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “[In] this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Monday, October 12, 2015 A11

DEBIT CREDIT

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he Board of Accountancy (BOA), under the chairmanship of Joel Tan Torres, has adopted Expanding Horizons’ as its theme to engage all stakeholders in crafting an appropriate program of education and continuing professional development for the accountants. We believe that the current developments in the Asean region and in our own country have raised the need for greater competitiveness and collaboration. There is also clamor for good governance, transparency and accountability. The accountant of today has to be equipped with the right mind-set and the proper tools for him or her to be a relevant force in a dynamic and challenging business environment.

Our chairman has presented a BOA road map that lists down certain projects—strategies, if you will, that are important to the development of the accountancy profession in all sectors—public practice, commerce and industry, education and government. The proposed projects/ strategies in the Education sector address four categories, which I have freely labeled: Blueprint (for the curriculum); Production (for the twin factors of accounting school and accounting teachers); Product (for the student); and Certification (for the Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, licensure examination).

In the Education sector, it is worth defining the goal and objective in terms of the desired product that comes out of our accountancy program. I believe we should graduate a competent, ethically grounded and globally competitive accounting professional. Competence is something that is basic for a professional.

However, there could be a mismatch between what we think he or she should be good at versus what the business community demands. Ethical behavior is the buzzword of today, given all the scams and scandals in our society. But how do we inculcate ethical behavior so that even in the face of temptation our professionals are expected to do what is right? With the advent of a borderless economy, where goods and services are beginning to enjoy free flow across international boundaries, such as what the Asean integration is envisioned to bring about, how do we stand in the face of such competition? Are our graduates prepared for the competition to follow? Or do we resort to protective mechanisms to shield our future professionals? I think we have to engage in a dialogue on what we want the product of our accountancy program will be and the kind of accountant he or she will become.

Blueprint strategy

The first project or strategy indicated in the road map concerns the Blueprint, which is a review of the accounting curriculum. For compari-

son, the typical accountancy curriculum in the US has 120 unit credits.

But 150 unit credits are needed for graduates to qualify for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants exams. Our present accountancy curriculum features 210 units as a minimum requirement, but some schools offer programs that reach up to 265 units. As of this writing, the Commission on Higher Education Technical Council has crafted a proposed accountancy curriculum that has 165 units, since some business subjects have been transferred to the senior high school under the K to 12 Program.

Production strategies

The first Production strategy is conducting regular assessments of accounting schools. We, in the BOA, have an obligation to regulate the conduct and to monitor the performance of accounting schools. The yardstick that we have been using all these years to gauge the performance of accounting schools is their passing rate in the CPA licensure examination. The CPA license has been the accepted mark of quality.

However, given a scenario where not all accountants go for public practice, are there other criteria that can be considered to gauge the performance of accounting schools?

How about the number of graduates who land jobs in other sectors of accountancy services? What positions of responsibility are they holding?

The second Production strategy is the posting of performance metrics of accounting schools. A public posting is designed to inform the hopeful student which school would be the best for him or her. But how will academe react to this move?

What performance metrics would be relevant?

The third Production strategy is the accreditation of accounting teachers. How do we enhance the accreditation of accounting teachers? What criteria should be followed? What kind of support is needed for accreditation? The value of having good accounting teachers

Product strategies

The first Product strategy is instilling in our accounting students the skills and values of ethical conduct, analytical thinking, effective communication and use of technology.

While this strategy addresses the student, his or her growth and development is, in fact, a function of the curriculum and the teacher.

Ethical conduct normally has its roots in kindergarten and in the elementary grades. We grew up with such slogans as “Honesty is the best policy” and “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” These values are normally carried over into our later years. Nowadays we talk a lot about good governance and accountability. But there may be a “disconnect” between what we say and what we do. So how do we train our future accountants to behave ethically? How are these ethical values reinforced at the undergraduate level?

Critical thinking is another desirable skill. While the accountancy profession lives by standards, there are gray areas that beg for critical thinking and interpretation. How do we ensure that our future accountants are equipped with the skill to analyze something objectively and come up with a reasonable response?

Good communication skills, both written and oral, are important in our profession. English is still the business language spoken, and some schools have put up “English-only” zones on their campuses to force their students to speak the language in clear and grammatically correct sentences. Likewise, English composition is a desirable output and school curricula still retain courses on this subject. But sometimes the intended communication skill is not apparent in the workplace when the accountant finds himself or herself preparing accounting reports. How do we train our accounting students to speak and write effectively in English, our second language?

Finally, on the technology aspect, it may be a crying need now for the future accountant to have a practical or working knowledge of specific accounting software products and solutions, which are regularly being used by commerce and industry. Also, knowledge in auditing software might be helpful, especially when the future accountant chooses a career in public practice. Perhaps, it may be timely for schools to include these software products and solutions in their curriculum or tie up with independent training schools to provide this working knowledge. Certainly, the future job prospects would be better if they are already skilled in the use of accounting software.

The next strategic area is the

engagement of students in accountancy-related issues. The Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants student organization appears to be a logical vehicle for the advancement of accounting knowledge and practices to benefit future accountants.

Perhaps, the most important aspect of student engagement should be his or her apprenticeship in an accredited institution. How should this apprenticeship be institutionalized? How should commerce and industry be engaged to provide this valuable experience? In some professions, a two-year work experience is required to be able to take a licensure examination. Perhaps, in the accounting curriculum leading to public practice, the final year may include a more lengthy on-the-job training to complement the review for the licensure examination.

Certification strategies

The formulation of the CPA licensure examination and its administration have been a big part of the job of the BOA. The strategies proposed are the regular review of the syllabus and the subjects to be included in the examination, and the enhancement of the administration of the examination. Understandably, many schools are dependent on the CPA licensure examination results to bolster their credibility as a learning institution. This fixation has led to scandals in the past, which hopefully has been eliminated by this time with more controls exercised at the Professional Regulation Commission.

However, there are still ways of improving the conduct of the licensure examination in terms of content, technology and administration.

Conclusion

The current BOA has adopted a consultative stance in its approach to educating the future accountant. There may be a need to explore new methods of learning accountancy, given the technological developments and requirements of business enterprises. The old ways may no longer suffice. The accountancy profession may need to evolve from its traditional role of financial information processing and reporting into one that is more responsive to addressing the wider functional demands of business. We encourage all accountants in the education sector to partner with us in addressing the concerns that face us as we endeavor to raise the bar in response to the evolving challenges to the profession.

Eliseo A. Aurellado, MBA, PhD, is a CPA who is the former head of finance faculty at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. He is the vice chairman of the board and COO of Metro Stonerich Corp., a Triple A, ISO-certified construction company.

He can be reached through his e-mail address: taxmanely@yahoo.com.

New findings from war on poverty: Just give cash

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By Noah Smith | Bloomberg View

here is a typical debate that tends to happen whenever people start talking about poverty. Conservatives try to blame poverty on the bad behavior of the poor. If lower-income people would just get married, stay married, avoid drugs, work hard and not commit crimes, say the conservatives, the poor would make a lot more money. Liberals typically assert that it’s the structures of society that cause poverty, not individual failings. Poor kids start with a disadvantage because of residential segregation and bad schools. Powerful bosses hold down the wages of unskilled workers, making it difficult for them to escape poverty. Even good behavior, liberals say, wouldn’t help the poor get ahead.

This is a tired and familiar argument, and I’m sure that the truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.

But I’ve been seeing some recent research that tends to shift my view toward the liberal side of the debate.

Basically, we’re starting to learn that what conservatives label “bad behavior” is often a result of growing up poor.

First, there is a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Randall Akee, Emilia Simeonova, E. Jane Costello and William Copeland. The authors find that giving poor families money, on top of the benefits they already receive,

improves their children’s behavior.

We examine how a positive change in unearned household income affects children’s emotional and behavioral health and personality traits. Our results indicate that there are large beneficial effects of improved household financial wellbeing on children’s emotional and behavioral health and positive personality trait development.... Parenting and relationships within the family appear to be an important mechanism. We also find evidence that a subsample of the population moves to census tracts with better income levels and educational attainment.

Like so many economists these days, the authors find a natural experiment to test their hypothesis. They realized that the opening of a casino in western North Carolina would provide a sudden flood of cash to members of the local Native American tribe, the Eastern Cherokee -- about $4,000 a year for every adult. The researchers found that in the wake of this sudden windfall, poor Native American children suddenly started doing better on various psychological measures of emotional well-being.

Because the authors’data is longitudinal, with repeated observations made over time, they confirmed that the change wasn’t ephemeral. Children whose families got the money ended up having better job outcomes at age 25. Examining surveys of these families, Akee et al. hypothesize that much of the improvement comes from more harmonious family relations. Parents are happier because they have more money, leading to less fighting within the family.

This lowers stress on kids, making them healthier, happier and betterbehaved, and leading to a more productive adulthood.

This, of course, flies in the face of conservative claims that welfare encourages bad behavior and destroys families. The second-big new piece of evidence comes not from economics, but from neuroscience.

In a study published this year in Nature Neuroscience, a large team of neurologists led by Kimberly Noble, found a correlation between child brain structure and family income.

Simply put, family income is correlated with children’s brain surface area, especially among poor children.

More money, bigger-brained kids.

Now as we all know, correlation doesn’t equal causation, so it’s important to establish that income differences are actually causing brain development to change. That’s why Noble and a team of social scientists are planning an experiment. They are going to randomly dispense cash to a number of poor families, and observe whether the brain structure of their children changes over time.

Noble points out that cash-transfer experiments have shown encouraging results in developing countries, in terms of boosting kids’ long-term economic outcomes.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Monday, October 12, 2015

Top visitor markets ‘back on track,’ boosting arrivals by 10% in Jan-Aug 2015

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

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Special to the BusinessMirror

OREIGN visitor arrivals increased almost 10 percent to 3.6 million from January to August 2015, boosted by double-digit spikes in the Philippines’s traditional source markets, such as Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.

“For the first time, all top 10 markets breached the 100,000-mark in arrivals, all marked by positive growths. All key markets are back on track,” said Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez Jr. in an interview with the BusinessMirror.

Even arrivals from China, he noted, marked a turnaround and were up 4.6 percent, hitting 322,417 visitors during the period of review.

From January to July 2015, China arrivals dipped by 4.11 percent.

(See “Saudis, Americans are biggest spenders in the PHL,” in the

JIMENEZ: “For the first time, all top 10 markets breached the 100,000mark in arrivals, all marked by positive growths. All key markets are back on track.”

BusinessMirror, September 17, 2015.)

In August alone, China arrivals jumped 62 percent to 65,403. Main-

land Chinese have been staying close to home, after the Beijing government cracked down on opulent lifestyles and corruption. This, plus the Philippines’s diplomatic issues with China, had slowed down the arrivals of Chinese tourists since late last year.

“We had the most spectacular August in tourism history,” Jimenez enthused, as arrivals that month alone hit 481,000. “This has never happened before.” In the first eight months of the year, South Korean tourists in the Philippines grew by 15.04 percent to 901,749.

Taiwan remained bullish, with a 24.4-percent bump in arrivals to 120,917. “This market is now in full recovery, after almost a year or more of decline,” he added Jimenez also pointed out that there were “strong indications” that arrivals from India, which grew by 22.5 percent to 48,495 in the eightmonth period, “might dislodge Germany in the 12th rank by year-end.”

Hong Kong, as well, continued to show marked improvement, with a 10-percent growth to 83,648 arrivals during the period.

“We were right to declare it Visit

the Philippines Year this 2015,” Jimenez said, when asked to explain the substantial increase in arrivals, especially from China.

“We stepped up our game, we had more activities and more promos.

Everyone was energized. And the industry and the market responded accordingly. It proves precisely that marketing efforts do work; and the more visible you are, assuming you have a good product, it will attract the business.”

He expressed confidence that the arrivals of foreign tourists would further accelerate toward the end of the year. “We will likely end 2015 a bit north of 5.2 million [arrivals],” he said, although this was much less than the 8.2 million arrivals the Department of Tourism (DOT) had forecasted in 2011, when it crafted its National Tourism Development Plan for 2012-2016.

The Philippines’s top 10 source markets for tourists from January to August 2015 were South Korea; the United States (up 7.7 percent to 14.8 percent); Japan (up 7.7 percent to 334,881); China; Australia See “Visitor markets,” A9

www.businessmirror.com.ph

FILIPINOS CAN’T STICK TO BUDGET DUE TO ‘MYSTERY SPENDING’–SURVEY F

ilipinos have difficulty keeping their budgets and lose a significant amount of their weekly budget to “mystery spending”, a study conducted by a creditcard giant revealed.

In particular, Filipinos lose 42 percent of their weekly estimated expenses to unexplained spending, or cash spent without knowing where it went, an online survey conducted by Visa showed.

Such are the unconscious, unplanned and unaccounted for bouts of expenditure in a consumer’s daily life.

“It is revealed that Filipinos spend an average of P2,416 weekly, but lose track of an average of P1,010 [42 percent], which amounts to more than P54,000 of money unaccounted for in a year,” Visa said.

Visa differentiates the concept of mystery spending from misplaced or stolen cash, saying that this is cash spent, but the consumer is unsure where it went.

“The survey highlights how mystery spending can cause financial setbacks for Filipinos in the long run. It also tells us that Filipino consumers need to

closely monitor their budget to better manage their finances,” said Stuart Tomlinson, Visa country manager for the Philippines and Guam.

Seven out of 10 Filipinos believe their mystery spending went into the purchase of snacks. The number is above the regional average of only 45 percent.

Among other “distractions,” Filipinos say their mystery expense also went to shopping for nonessential items at 49 percent; shopping for food and groceries, 46 percent; dining out with family and friends, 33 percent; paying for entertainment, such as nightouts, movies, parties, daily lunch and coffee breaks, 30 percent each; and paying for taxis, toll and parking fees, 24 percent.

“One of the ways Filipinos can closely monitor their expenses is through using electronic payment cards, such as debit and credit cards,” Tomlinson said.

“Filipinos can stick to their budget and keep their mystery spending to a minimum when they use electronic cards in their transactions,” he said.

Bianca Cuaresma