BusinessMirror October 26, 2015

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GIORGIO ARMANI, FILM DIRECTOR? THE FASHION ICON DISCUSSES HIS CINEMATIC SIDE »D2

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Monday, October 26, 2015

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Lesley Mobo’s stardust memories TOTA PULCHRA MISS CHARLIZE

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EFORE entering the Rizal Ballroom of the Shangri-La Makati for the Red Charity Gala, some couture-clad socialites were shocked to find men, in a Last Supper tableau, covered only in Bench underwear. It was then that they knew what they were about to witness will be a trippy, heady, hypnotic stage spectacle.

The gala is the eighth annual show organized by society stalwart Tessa Prieto-Valdes and philanthropist Kaye Tinga to raise funds for the Philippine Red Cross and the Assumption High School Batch 1981

Foundation. The show started with a parade of male models scantily clad in underwear by Bench, the presenter. Before the beefy hunks could establish their poses onstage—all rippling muscles and near-naked glory—reelectionist Sen. Dick Gordon stood up, and hopped to the next table where the dazzling Dawn Zulueta was seated.

This year’s edition featured Aklan-raised, Londonbased designer Lesley Mobo. He finished with a First Class BA Honours Degree in Fashion at Central Saint Martins, with his graduate collection, called “Maniac,” using luxurious tailoring fabrics from Lanifico Fratelli Cerruti Italy. That early recognition of his remarkable creative skills continued with collaborations with Harrod’s, Diesel, Absolut Vodka, Uniqlo and Bench, as well as productive encounters with John Galliano, L’Wren Scott, Raf Simons, Renzo Rosso and the Ayalas.

Mobo studied under the wing of British professor of fashion design Louise Janet Wilson, whose former students include Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders, Sophia Kokosalaki, Marios Schwab and Christopher Kane at CSM. Even with all these credentials, Mobo remains

modest, almost refreshingly sheepish. “The show was for a cause, so we just wanted the collection to be fun, very party. I didn’t want it to be too intellectual. I wanted it to be inclusive, because people are actually donating and paying to watch it. I wanted to make it easy for people who are not fashionista, or not into fashion,” the acclaimed designer explained backstage after the show.

Any discerning fashion observer will know that pieces that look deceptively simple are the most painstaking to create. Mobo, an expert technician, used traditional techniques on some of the knitted ensembles, and embellished more with paillettes overlay, faux leather, bugle beads, real fur trims and marabou feathers.

“The truth about it is that every piece uses techniques that I’ve used before. You can see the paillettes in the pantaloons; they are really welltailored. Also the jackets, and you can wear them separately with denim or anything. I think you can see all the elements that I’ve used before—the paillettes, the sequins, the beadings, the drapings. I guess it’s more like playing with surface texture,” said Mobo, 32, breaking the collection down.

“If you look at [the clothes] from a distance, if you don’t know fashion very well, pwede maging costume,” Mobo said. “[But, for example], with the Tudors as a starting point, we just took the reference very slightly, such as the color—crimson—and the tulles. There are the silhouettes of the Tudors and stuff like that, but the [collection] was more ’70s and Dynasty and Studio 54.” It must have been nostalgic for the socialite crowd who came of age during the hedonism of the ’70s and the debauchery of ’80s Excess. Valdes was dressed as Alexis Carrington (Joan Collins) and Tinga as Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans). The vibe was urban funk, punk rock, disco wear, psychedelic/hippie. The mindaltering, time-traveling, intoxicating show was directed by the singular Ariel Lozada and deftly styled by Noel Manapat. This year the fantastic hair and makeup were

by Henry Calayag and his team. The runway looks can be translated more expressively at rock shows. David Bowie’s outlandish alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, would have flipped out. Indeed, the models’ faces, especially finale girl Jasmine Maierhofer’s, painted by the exceptional

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LESLEY MOBO flanked by (from left) Kaye Tinga, Ben Chan and Tessa PrietoValdes. PHOTOS BY ALEX VAN HAGEN

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north korea Perspective BusinessMirror

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DAWN breaks over Pyongyang, North Korea, as buildings poke through the mist. The Juche Tower (left) stands by the Taedong riverbank on October 13. AP/WONG MAYE-E

An obsessive bunch penetrates North Korea’s totalitarian fog

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B T S | The Associated Press

ONGMONT, Colorado—In an anonymous office building in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, in a part of Colorado where cattle ranches fade into strip malls, a gravel-voiced man with a Brooklyn accent is moving through the streets of Pyongyang.

Joe Bermudez is staring into a computer screen at a detailed satellite image, maneuvering his cursor past guarded checkpoints and into restricted neighborhoods where the North Korean elite live behind high concrete walls. Looking down on the city from more than 250 miles up, he lingers over what he believes is the private airport of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s young leader, pointing out a pair of VIP helicopters and a Soviet-era biplane. He moves north, jumping across the countryside and picking out hidden tunnels, walled compounds and a small flotilla of military hovercraft designed to storm South Korea’s beaches.

“Driving around,” he calls it when he follows roads in search of something new, humming absentmindedly as his eyes flick across the screen.

Bermudez is a watcher, one of the largely anonymous tribe of researchers who study North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated nations. There’s Michael Madden, a largely self-taught analyst with an encyclopedic knowledge of the government elite, and Curtis Melvin, whose research ranges from monetary policy to electricity grids and who shambles through the buttoned-down Washington think tank where he works in jeans

and a frayed T-shirt. There’s Adam Cathcart at Britain’s University of Leeds and Cheong Seong-Chang at the Sejong Institute outside Seoul.

There’s the longtime US intelligence officer, a man quietly revered by many in these circles, who now writes Pyongyang crime novels under the pseudonym James Church.

They are university professors, think-tank analysts and writers for a string of North Korea-centric websites. They are collaborators and competitors. They are the Kremlinologists of Pyongyang.

And they insist North Korea is nowhere near as mysterious as you think it is. At least not always.

“North Korea is a very secretive place. But it’s not as secretive as many people believe,” says Andrei Lankov, a Russian-born professor at Kookmin University in Seoul. “It’s much, much easier now to get information.”

The chaos that swept North Korea during a mid-1990s famine dramatically changed how information flows in and out of the country, while policy changes have eased restrictions on visitors.

Still, North Korea remains like nowhere else. It is a repressive and deeply isolated nation where the Internet is limited to a tiny elite and most outsiders are under nearconstant government surveillance.

It has been ruled by one family for more than six decades, with the founder worshipped as a near-deity. It has no political opposition, no free press and no freedom of movement. It has an archipelago of political prison camps that rights groups estimate hold at least 80,000 people.

Major news—like the collapse last year of a 23-story Pyongyang apartment building—can go officially unreported for days, if ever.

The inner workings of the country’s top leadership, meanwhile, are so opaque that some watchers remain unsure if Kim Jong Un is truly in charge of the country. He may, they say, be only a figurehead, with real power resting with a cabal of powerful bureaucrats.

Secrecy is deeply rooted.

“When the enemies peek into our republic, they see only a fog,” Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un and the country’s ruler until his death in 2011, once said.

And yet North Korea is not an impenetrable bubble, say the watchers, who have spent years refining methods of peering inside.

They do it by poring over strings of digitized satellite images, and by talking to North Korean refugees who have fled to China and South Korea. They parse North Korean news reports for what is, and is not, reported. They talk to diplomats, business people and, when they can, to North Koreans. They read obscure Chinese journals for political clues and gauge economic changes by measuring how much North Korean light can be seen from space. They forge relationships with secretive government agencies that track North Korea.

The watchers search everywhere for clues: What does it mean that Kim Jong Un has put on weight? How significant is it that he used the word “people” 90 times in a recent major speech, but didn’t say “nuclear” once? Do a handful of phrases in government statements, innocuous to anyone but a watcher, reflect a late 1990s power struggle?

Sometimes researchers are lucky—like the propaganda poster, photographed by a tourist in 2009, that signaled the rise of Kim Jong Un. But most of their work must be slowly knitted together, a series of threads that eventually reveal something larger.

Take satellite imagery. At first, Bermudez says, satellites seem to offer seductively easy answers: How many political prisoners are being held? Is Pyongyang close to developing a nuclear-capable longrange missile? Are more exports flowing to China?

Finding answers, though, requires diving deeply into the image. The analysis begins with sophisticated software that reveals hundreds of shades of light, including some infrared wavelengths, and a vast range of colors. Analysts merge separate images to make them clearer and use software to lessen distortion. That analysis is then woven together with other information: historical data, other imagery, research reports.

It’s easy to be fooled.

To demonstrate this, Bermudez pulls up an image of a complex outside the North Korean city of Chongjin. Look at it from directly overhead, and it’s just a cluster of buildings with some agricultural fields off to one side. But look from an angle—“off-nadir” in the analyst’s lexicon—and things jump into view, and that cluster of buildings becomes the political prison known as Camp 25.

“If I was looking straight down, I wouldn’t see the barbed wire. I would have trouble seeing the shadow of the guard tower,” says Bermudez, chief analytics officer at the AllSource Analysis, a commercial intelligence firm based in Longmont. From an angle: “All of a sudden it becomes more real.”

For decades, it was hard to see anything in North Korea.

Until the 1990s, few foreigners traveled there, and few North Koreans traveled abroad. The country was trapped in a Stalinist time

warp, with control of information so absolute that many North Koreans knew nothing beyond government propaganda. In some years, fewer than a dozen North Koreans managed to flee the country.

That began changing when the end of Soviet aid and then a series of floods caused a 1990s famine that outside researchers believe killed hundreds of thousands of people. Government control broke down for a time as Pyongyang struggled to keep the country functioning. Tens of thousands of North Koreans fled their homeland, and foreign aid and aid workers began to flow in.

While the government soon reasserted its control, things had changed immensely. Thousands of tourists now visit North Korea every year. Foreign businesses, from Chinese mining companies to French clothing manufacturers, make deals with North Korean partners. About 27,000 North Korean refugees now live in South Korea and thousands of North Koreans legally travel abroad every year, most often to China.

North Korea’s own official data, long derided as a meaningless fog, is—at least occasionally—now helpful to researchers.

The ranks of the watchers grew with the spread of information, including drawing in people who might have been dismissed a few years earlier. They are not university professors, retired spies or former diplomats.

They are people like Michael Madden.

Madden is a friendly, foulmouthed former academic with a Star Wars tattoo on his forearm (of the mysterious bounty hunter Boba Fett) and an exhaustive knowledge of North Korea’s leadership. A decade ago, the 33-year-old stumbled into North Korea research and found himself addicted.

Discussions with him range across Korean history, sentences spilling over one another as he jumps across ministries and departments. He watches officials

through their appearances in state media, by talking with visitors to North Korea, and through a string of contacts around the world. He can reel off the biographies of dozens of officials from memory.

He is a master of North Korean minutiae—“I do inside-baseball.

I’m proud to do inside-baseball”— whose obsessive tracking of the country’s leadership soon earned him respect.

His conclusion, after watching the country’s new leader for four years now, and seeing so many top officials drop from view?

“Kim Jong Un is in the process of basically eliminating all alternate power centers,” he says, speaking outside a coffee shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “That’s what we’re seeing.”

Curtis Melvin is another of the new generation of watchers, a one-time graduate student who left school to study North Korea full time. He remembers when, just a few years ago, he could read nearly everything written about North Korea.

“Now I’m just bombarded with stuff,” says Melvin, a researcher at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and a writer for 38north.org, the institute’s influential North Koreaoriented website. “It’s already not so much fun.”

Melvin has spent years studying North Korea’s economy and infrastructure. His databases include everything from the precise location of small-town stores to the electricity grid in industrial cities.

They are massive projects, with tens of thousands of locations tagged in satellite images. It is North Korean pointillism, with Melvin using small details to create an amazingly comprehensive picture.

“I go over the entire country methodically, by myself,” he says.

And when he finishes—when he’s examined the entire country— fresh satellite images are available and it’s time to start all over again.

“It never ends.”

perspective

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Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan told the BusinessMirror the rains brought by Lando in many places in Luzon filled many of the dams that supplied water, including those needed for irrigation.

This is a key part of the road map since the Neda recommended the importation of an additional 1 million metric tons of rice in the first semester of 2016 due to the ill effects of El Niño on rice farms.

“Baka may mga areas na nabawasan ’yung probability ’yung pag-drought baka [in some areas it’s] not as bad as initially expected, [so] we are revising our road map for [El Niño] mitigation,” Balisacan said. “We [first] have to do a more intensive examination

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he fourth round of negotiations for a free-trade agreement (FTA) between the Philippines and the European Free Trade Association (Efta) will be held from November 24 to 27 in Geneva, according to an official of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

Trade Assistant Secretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo said the Philippines is seeking to expand market access in the

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MRT BUYOUT: DEAL OR NO DEAL?

Balisacan told the BusinessMirror the rains brought

by Typhoon Lando in many places in Luzon filled many of the dams that supplied water, including those needed for irrigation.

or assessment.”

Balisacan said there is also a need to assess the impact of the rains on farms in Central Luzon, the country’s rice bowl. He said there is a See “Lando,” A12

Efta, PHL to hold fourth round of negotiations

T BusinessMirror

By Cai U. Ordinario & Mary Grace Padin

he National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) will review the El Niño road map it recently submitted to the President in light of the devastation caused by Typhoon Lando (international code name Koppu).

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Lando forces govt to review 2016 rice import, El Niño plan

INSIDE

EAR God, in Your strong, loving hands, we place our life today and every day. Choosing to know, love and serve You and to depend on You to light and guide our way and life to reach Your kingdom. You have promised to us saying, “I shall never leave you nor forsake you.” Amen.

A broader look at today’s business

Efta’s services and agriculture sectors.

“We would like to gain market access for agricultural products and market access for services, particularly for skilled workers and professionals,” Rodolfo said in an interview last week.

Rodolfo added that there is a big opportunity for Filipino workers in the Efta, which consists of Switzerland,

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

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First of three parts

he key to effectively ferry vast numbers of people from one place to another is through mass-transit systems, such as railways. In Asia, the Philippines is proud to have been the first country to have developed such a light-rail transit system in the early 1980s. Its neighbors soon followed its footsteps, and started their own journey into building massive train lines to improve mobility and lessen traffic congestion.

But more than three decades into the inauguration of the first overhead train system in the continent, the Philippines now lags behind its Asian peers with only four working train systems—a heavy rail, two light rails and a commuter line.

Experts and business leaders agree that the government failed to keep up with the times. Underspending, underinvestment and under-the-table deals were tagged as culprits behind the deterioration of the rail sector in the Philippines.

Jose Regin F. Regidor, a transportation expert, lamented the “lousy service” provided by local railways systems.

“The overall state of railways in the Philippines is

poor, since we have rail only in Luzon and much of it is in Metro Manila. The Philippine National Railways is still in a sorry state despite efforts within the agency and, so far, it has gotten only little support from the national government, especially from the transport department,” Regidor said.

Regidor, a research fellow at the University of the Philippines-Diliman National Center for Transportation Studies, noted that there have been proposals in Cebu and Davao for urban rail lines, and then there were the proposals to revive Panay Railways and construct Mindanao Railways.

“But, these all have not progressed since the last administration and has gotten little support from the present,” he said.

‘Worst in Asean’

Businessmen echoed the pundit’s observation, frowning at how the government had failed to improve the train systems despite having the money and time to do so.

“Philippine rail system has been left behind by the rest of Asia despite us, historically, having pioneered the light-rail transit in the region. While our neighbors followed our lead, they continued with Continued on A2

Continued on A12

n japan 0.3855 n UK 71.6392 n HK 6.0036 n CHINA 7.3187 n singapore 33.3821 n australia 33.5555 n EU 51.7066 n SAUDI arabia 12.4111

Source: BSP (23 October 2015)

A2 Monday, October 26, 2015

BMReports BusinessMirror

Mrt buyout: Deal or no deal?. . . their programs and ours was left to stagnate, resulting in the deteriorated state of rail today,” Makati Business Club (MBC) Executive Director Peter Angelo B. Perfecto lamented.

In terms of connectivity among different cities, the Philippines is considered as one of the worst not only in Asia, but in the world.

“Intercity is probably the worst in the world; of four Asean capitals with light rail lines— Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Singapore—Manila is the slowest to expand and has the poorest maintenance and most overcrowding,” American Chamber of Commerce Senior Advisor John D. Forbes observed.

Filipinos living in the capital are the patrons of the train lines; after all, these masstransit systems still are the fastest means to go from one part of the city to another.

“The train systems are in bad shape and are in need of upgrades and expansions with urgency,” European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) External Vice President Henry J. Schumacher noted.

The worst of them all, however, is the “middle child,” the 16-year-old Metrostar Line, more commonly known to the masses as the MRT.

‘Inappropriate’

Manila gave birth to the 17-kilometer mass-transit system in 1999—almost a decade after it was first conceived—with the primary purpose of decongesting the capital’s main artery, the iconic Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (Edsa).

The build-lease-transfer contract was awarded to Metro Rail Transit Corp.

(MRTC) two decades ago, when it acquired

the company’s original contractor due to its botched agreement with the government.

The 25-year contract essentially provides that the private partner builds the line, the government leases the transport system, and the infrastructure will be transferred to the state at the end of the concession period.

When it was built, observers, at first, thought it was a flop, as its average daily ridership only hit the 40,000-passenger mark.

Despite this, the private company that built the train system still insisted on major expansion programs to prevent congestion in the railway line.

The government, however, refused, saying that the train system must first hit the 350,000-passenger mark before it does anything as drastic as an expansion of the line.

It hit its rated capacity in four year’s time, but still, the government failed to approve proposals to add capacity to the train system.

As the years went by and the Philippine economy grew faster and faster, the train line’s passengers increased until it hit its crush load, which in layman’s term, is it’s maximum capacity. Still, the government failed to hear the cries of both the consumers and the private partner for modernization.

This led to worse situations along Edsa, as the train line snakes through the middle of the thoroughfare, eating up at least three lanes in the process.

“We now know that a light rail system along Edsa was not appropriate, despite studies back in the 1990s that purportedly supported this. We should have built a heavy rail system along this corridor together with other rail lines proposed in the past that

could have formed a good network of transit lines,” Regidor said. But it seems that it is too late to lament over this fact, and the government is now moving toward the improvement of the line, or so its officials claim.

‘There’s still time’

Aside from procuring P9.7 billion worth of improvement projects, the government is also moving toward the acquisition of the train line to end its obligations to the private partner and essentially improve the hellish ride that commuters have to face on a daily basis.

The takeover is enshrined in Executive Order 126 that was issued by President Aquino in February 2013. The order stipulates that the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Department of Finance (DOF) must execute an equity value buyout of the private company that owns the MRT to free the government from paying billions of pesos in equity rental payments (ERPs) to MRTC per year.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya said the takeover will be instrumental to the modernization of the railway system that ferries more than 540,000 passengers daily.

Before the government can actually buy the private partner out, several steps must be undertaken to ensure that the takeover will be smooth sailing and is within the bounds of international laws.

To fully take over the line, the government must purchase all the shares and the bonds in the railway company. Another requirement of the buyout deal is for the government and

RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE AREA (HPA) AFFECTING VISAYAS AND MINDANAO (OCTOBER. 25, 5:00 AM)

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the private partner to strike up a compromise deal to end the ongoing arbitration case in Singapore that was lodged against the state in 2008 due to its failure, as the operator of the line, to pay billions of ERPs to the owner of the rail system.

But more than two years into the issuance of the President’s order, the DOF and DOTC have not moved an inch toward the implementation of a buyout. They encountered a number of roadblocks in the not-so-distant past—including a thumbing down of the takeover’s budget by lawmakers—that prevented them from moving forward with the transaction.

The government agencies are trying to get back on their feet and find “creative” ways on how to execute the buyout.

With only a few months left before the President bows out from office in June 2016, the transport chief expressed optimism that his camp can execute the transaction within the term of Mr. Aquino.

“We are keen on pursuing the buyout of MRT 3 from the private-sector owner,” Abaya said. “I think there’s still time.”

But the chairman of the majority shareholder in the private company that owns the train line just laughed the idea off.

‘Nonsense’

MRT Holdings II Inc. (MRTH-II) Chairman Robert John L. Sobrepeña said that he is “amazed” at the persistence of the government—particularly Abaya—in undertaking the multibillion-peso takeover.

“I’m amazed that Abaya is still pursuing the so called buyout when he has failed to do

this over the last several years. The reason he has failed, and will fail again, is that it just doesn’t make sense to spend P54 billion to buy the MRT bonds, which are already owned by the government through the Development Bank of the Philippines [DBP] and Land Bank [LandBank] of the Philippines,” he said.

The two government banks together hold roughly 80-percent economic interest in the MRTC by virtue of the bonds they purchased in 2009. “In short, they are spending P54 billion to buy something which they already own, so that they can control MRTC, which they already have complete control of via the DBP-Landbank nominees in the board,” Sobrepeña said. LandBank National Director Tomas T. de Leon Jr. currently sits as the chairman of MRTC. “The worst is to spend all that money without a single peso going to much needed rehab and repair of the MRT 3,” the businessman said.

But for the transport chief, a close friend of President Aquino, the government is better left with the complete ownership of public utility instead of allowing the private sector own the facility.

He cited, for example, the current structure of the LRT Line 1 and the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, both of which are currently being managed and maintained by private proponents, but are still owned by the state.

“Managing the train system is really best left to private sector, then the government is regulator,” Abaya said. “Leaving the operations and maintenance to the private sector is the right solution for us.” To be continued

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Police, military pursue suspects in Otaza slay

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OLICE and military teams continue to pursue the group that was behind the killing of Loreto, Agusan del Sur, Mayor Dario Otaza and his son, Daryl, last week, even as murder charges have been filed against those who have been identified behind the killing.

Col. Alexander Macario, commander of the Army’s 401st Infantry Brigade, said joint teams were conducting operations in Agusan provinces against the rebel group, headed

by Rene Catarata, alias Commander Rene and Dodong.

Catarata, secretary of New People’s Army (NPA) Guerrilla Front 34 of the North Eastern Mindanao Regional Committee, led 18 of his men in barging into the residence of the Otazas in Butuan City last week and snatched them. The body of his son was found hours later riddled with bullet wounds.

Macario said members of the 23rd Infantry Battalion caught up on Saturday with the group of Catarata at Sitio Afga, Lower Olave, Buenavista, Agusan del Norte, and engaged them in a brief firefight, resulting in the killing of at least four rebels.

“Information was received from the civilians in the area that the NPA group responsible for the killing are hiding in the area. This prompted the troops to proceed [to] the area and check the veracity of the information,” Macario said.

“Troops outmaneuvered the said NPA [prompting the rebels] to disengage. [Witnesses said they] saw the NPA [carrying and dragging] four of their wounded comrades out of the engagement area. One soldier was also wounded during the first burst of fire from the NPA,” Macario added.

Charges of robbery and kidnapping with murder have been filed before the Prosecutor’s Office in

Butuan City against Catarata and 18 other unidentified rebels.

Based from the affidavits of witnesses, Catarata and his men were identified as the ones who entered the house of the Otazas wearing National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) uniforms before they abducted the two victims.

Catarata and his men operate in the Caraga region, according to him.

“There will be no letup on our efforts to bring these suspects to the folds of law. We shall intensify our efforts to support the conduct of PNP’s [Philippine National Police] law-enforcement operation,” Macario said.

In Loreto, Agusan del Sur, hundreds of residents lined up the streets on Saturday to pay respects to the slain mayor, whose body was brought back to his municipality from Butuan City.

Mayor Edwin Cox Elorde, Bunawan town’s chief executive, said Otaza was one of the best leaders in the province.

“He has accomplished so much in his two-year stint as town mayor.

Aside from his successful implementation of badly needed infrastructure projects, he was also able to convince at least 250 NPA members to lay down their arms and go back to mainstream society,” said Elorde, a close relative of Otaza.

Mayor Salimar Mondejar of Veruela town said Otaza was a big loss for the Manobo tribe and the indigenous people as a whole. He said that it is time for the lumads to be united for peace.

“We are all brothers. We should not kill each other to push our own beliefs and purposes,” said Mondejar, who is himself a lumad.

Otaza, a lumad, was a former rebel leader before he surrendered to the government and soon served as the mayor of his town. Rene Acosta

Firm rolls out breast cancer screening kit

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HILAB Industries Inc. recently launched its Breast Cancer (BrCa) Gene 1 and 2 testing kits, which are used for screening breastand ovarian-cancer markers, as the company said early detection is still the best method to mitigate the disease.

“Early detection may just be the key to keeping our body healthy.

Nipping it in the bud before it grows too complicated [is a good option],” Philab Chairman Tom Navasero said.

Navasero said his company rolled out the kits to support the government’s breast-cancer awareness campaign. The firm’s kits test BrCa 1 and BrCa 2, which are tumorsuppressing genes. Navasero explained hereditary genetic mutations affecting these genes show higher risks of breast and ovarian cancer.

“We’re providing lower-cost, faster turnaround time for these tests,” Navasero said, adding that Philab is currently offering an accelerated version of breast-cancerdiagnosticspreviously conducted by a foreign firm.

The tests run by Philab cut medical expenses by more than half and reduce patients’ waiting period to seven days from the 30 days compared to the test provided by the foreign firm, according to Navasero. He, likewise, noted Philab’s speedy proc-

ess in conducting confirmation tests and mandatory follow-up exams after the detection of breast cancer.

“Because the entire test is done in the Philippines, waiting time is cut short and patients can get their results within the next 24 hours.”

The tests are part of Philab’s genomics program, which now utilizes next-generation sequencing (NGS) genetics diagnostics, Navasero said.

The NGS is an accelerated method in detecting predisposed diseases in each patient.

Philab is currently using the innovation to shift health-care focus to a preventive approach, seen by the company as another effective way other than the curative model utilized by most medical facilities in the country. In light of this, Navasero extends his support for breast-cancer awareness even beyond October, stressing the need to get tests and regularly visit the doctor for checkups.

He said the detection and treatment of the disease is a personal mission after his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago.

“Genomic testing played a big role in saving my mom. We’re hoping to do the same for many other women and even men out there.” Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Monday, October 26, 2015 A3

Palace says stepping up haze watch

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ALACAÑANG over the weekend said it is intensifying efforts to track a deadly equatorial haze sweeping southern Philippine islands.

Communications Secretar y Her minio B. Coloma Jr. said government health facilities are ready to treat those sickened by

the haze coming from Indonesian forest fires and now afflicting parts of Mindanao.

“Yes, DOH [Department of

Health] people are adequately p re p a re d ,” C ol o m a t ol d t he BusinessMirror on Sunday.

The Palace official also reported over state-run radio that based on latest updates provided by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) monitoring team, ambient air quality remains within acceptable levels.

But Coloma added that the DOH has advised people to use face masks, especially those suffering from respiratory and cardiopul-

GLOBAL MISSES

This October 23 photo shows Miss Global 2015 Jessica Peart of Australia (center) between (from left) Miss Global third runner-up Gergana Doncheva of Bulgaria, second runner-up Lorna Murphy of Ireland, first runner-up Virginia Prak of Cambodia and fourth runner-up Candice Ramos of the Philippines. Peart was named Miss Global 2015 during the beauty pageant awards night held at Resorts World. Nonie Reyes

Lawmaker seeks new system in numbering houses, buildings

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House of Representatives member is seeking a more systematic numbering of all houses and buildings in the country, with the numbers to serve as the postal addresses of the residential units and business establishments.

Rep. Lucy T. Gomez of the Fourth District of Leyte said her proposal will promote orderliness and convenience in a contemporary social life. It will also promote security since the identification of the owners or occupants of a unit and their activities undertaken thereat will be facilitated for peace and order.

Gomez noted that presently, the numbers of residences and establishments in Metro Manila alone are sometimes hard to find.

Meanwhile, houses and business firms in the provinces, especially in remote areas, do not fare any better inasmuch as in many cases, the numbers are entirely missing, according to Gomez, an assistant majority leader.

In House Bill 6149, or the proposed

Philippine Numbering of Houses and Buildings Act of 2015, now pending at the Committee on Local Government, Gomez proposed that all dwelling houses and other buildings erected or to be erected on any street, alley, lane or any other place within the limits of every barangay in the country shall be numbered in accordance with the plan provided.

Churches, chapels, government buildings, such as municipal buildings, administrative buildings, schoolhouses, hospitals, clinics, public markets, fire stations and barracks, shall be exempt from the act.

To ensure systematic and accurate numbering of houses and buildings, the bill authorizes the municipal or city engineer to cause the numbering and renumbering of houses or buildings within the territorial jurisdiction of the local government unit.

Moreover, it shall be the duty of the municipal or city engineer to assign a number to each and every house or building based on a system and plan

duly adopted by his office.

The owner or occupant of a house or building may purchase or cause the manufacture of the plate number from any store or hardware of his choice and following the class, form, shape, design and location of the plate of his or her preference, provided he or she adopts or utilizes the specific number so assigned to his or her house or building unit by the municipal or city engineer.

The municipal or city engineer shall send appropriate notices to the concerned house or building owner or occupant. Owners or occupants shall not be issued a certificate of occupancy unless they comply with the act.

It shall be the duty of every owner, or in his or her absence or prolonged unavailability, the occupant or occupants, of the house or building erected or to be erected in every barangay of the country to place the corresponding license plate assigned to the said house or building within a period of 15 days from the date he or she receives the notice. PNA

Navy interested to acquire another Hamilton-class cutter–DND official

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HE Philippine Navy is interested in acquiring another decommissioned Hamiltonclass cutter from the United States Coast Guard (USCG).

This was disclosed by Department of National Defense (DND) Undersecretary for Finance, Modernization and Materiel Fernando Manalo in a text message to the Philippine News Agency.

He made the statement when queried if the Philippines is interested in acquiring the services of the USCG Cutter (USCGC) Boutwell, one of the 12 Hamilton-class cutters the USCG is phasing out in favor of the heavier and more modern National Security Council cutters of which five now are in service.

“I don’t know if Boutwell is the cutter the DND

monary ailments. According to Coloma, “the baseline is ambient air quality level.”

He explained that “whenever the PM 2.5 microns [particulate matter-very fine] level is breached, the DENR alerts the DOH and local officials.”

The Palace official did not readily rule out the possibility the haze is coming from Indonesian forest fires but said authorities are continuing to monitor the situation round-theclock. Butch Fernandez

is proposing to acquire. What I know is the Navy is interested in acquiring [an] additional cutter,” Manalo said. The Navy presently operates two exHamilton-class cutters, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar (PF-15 and ex-USCGC Hamilton) and BRP Ramon Alcaraz (PF-16 and formerly the USCGC Dallas).

These two ships are the Navy’s most up-todate surface combatants and capable of patrol-

ling the vast expanses of the West Philippine Sea. Despite being armed with only a 76 millimeter Oto Melara auto-cannon and small caliber weaponry, the Hamilton-class cutters are ideal for the Navy since these are capable of sailing even in adverse weather condition and capable of housing naval helicopters aside from serving as a training platform for Filipino naval officers

and crewmen expected to man the new SSVs and missile-armed frigates coming within the next two years. A Hamilton-class cutter has a gross tonnage of 3,250 tons, a length of 378 feet, beam of 43 feet and draft of 15 feet.

Its propulsion systems consist of two diesel engines and two gas turbine engines, giving it a top speed of 29 knots. PNA

Comelec mulls extending voter registration in Lando-hit areas

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HE Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Sunday it may extend voter registration period in areas devastated

by Typhoon Lando, particularly in Northern Luzon.

However, Comelec Chairman Andres D. Bautista said there will be no extension of registration after October 31 in areas not affected by the typhoon.

Bautista added that the poll body has given the public enough period to register for the coming elections, thus, it is not entertaining the possibility of extending the activity, which started on May 6 last year.

“Basta magparehistro na lang po tayo agad dahil ilang araw na lang,” Bautista said.

The Comelec has embarked on a 12-hour, seven-days-a-week operations during the final two weeks of voter registration.

The poll chief said they have also formed 40 augmentation teams with each team composed of two personnel and a Voter Registration Machine and are on call whenever a particular registration center requires support due to a deluge of applicants.

Aside from local Comelec offices, voter registration has also been made available by the Comelec in several malls nationwide, as well as in other establishments like gymnasiums, convention centers, schools and town plazas. Joel R. San Juan

Economy

A4 Monday, October 26, 2015 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

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COA report prompts Shell to mull Batangas future

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By Lenie Lectura

Commission on Audit (COA) decision has prompted Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. (Spex) to review its plan to put up an ambitious LNG (liquefied natural gas) import facility near its Batangas refinery.

A SPEX official said energy giant Royal Ditch Shell Plc. expressed concern over the legal issues that led the operators of the Malampaya deepwater gas-to-power project to seek international arbitration on the issue.

The concern was expressed after the decision of the COA on the P50 billion worth of tax underpayments of the Malampaya consortium.

Spex, the upstream oil-development subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, leads the consortium.

“Oh, yes definitely,” SPEX Managing Director Sebastian Quiniones said when asked if the parent firm raised concern over Shell’s other capital-intensive planned projects, particularly its multibillion-peso LNG terminal.

“Of course, it was obviously a concern, because if you have differences on how you do fiscal things then that causes a concern of our principals,” Quiniones said in an interview.

LNG is natural gas that has been converted into a liquid state for easier storage and transportation.

Upon reaching its destination, LNG is regasified so it can be distributed through pipelines as natural gas. The company’s planned terminal, which will consist of a floating storage and regasifying unit, could power up to 2,000 megawatts (MW) of naturalgas plants.

For the Department of Energy’s (DOE) part, newly appointed Secretary Zenaida Monsada said any uncertainty, when doing business, is normal. Monsada added that the company, as well as its parent firm, is “just cautious. They are businessmen.”

“They are looking at the business environment. They still have not indicated to us if they will back out or not,” Monsada said.

It can be recalled that the DOE was ordered by the COA to collect P53.14 billion in unpaid taxes from the consortium members: SPEX, which holds a 45-percent stake in the project; Chevron Malampaya Llc. with another 45 percent; and Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp., which holds the

remaining 10 percent.

The COA overruled the petition of the Malampaya consortium, together with the DOE, that the income tax was already included in the government’s 60-percent share in the Malampaya royalties from 2002 to 2009. The said tax, they argued, was deductible from the government’s share of Malampaya earnings.

However, the COA said there is no provision in the law that states that income taxes of the contractors will be part of the share of the government.

Shell, however, remains optimistic despite the legal hurdles. “We are discussing things with the government that’s why we are looking for an amicable settlement. We want to settle amicably. We are also looking at all the legal remedies and obviously, the consortium will go through the legal remedies,” Quiniones added.

No final decision yet

SHELL has tapped Technology Centre Banglore in 2013 to undertake the front-end engineering and design (Feed) stage of the LNG project, Edgar Chua, chairman of Shell Companies in the Philippines, said. However, Chua said the company has yet to come up with the final investment decision (FID).

This Feed work was expected to last for about 12 months as to lead to an FID, he added. “No, there’s no FID yet,” Chua said, while recognizing the fact that the planned LNG could not proceed unless there is a an FID. The COA decision, however, is not

the only setback that could affect its LNG project. “There are no off-takers yet and LNG is a capital-intensive project. Thus, the company could not advance to the FID stage yet. It is stuck with the Feed stage,” noted a highly placed source. There are talks which noted that the company’s work force involved in the LNG project had been trimmed, but this was denied

by Chua. “No, that’s not true.”

Nonetheless, Chua assured that the company “continues to look for opportunities, especially in the LNG.” Chua has been saying that the FID is dependent on whether it can secure contracts for off-takers of the gas. If successful, Shell can then proceed to securing the FID. Aside from the FID, the company also awaits a firm stand from the government as to the direction of the LNG business in the power sector.

“We are working with the government on a number of policies that we hope to achieve,” Chua commented.

When asked to elaborate, Chua said these policies should come from the DOE and the Energy Regulatory Commission. “There must be an encouraging energy policy mix on fuel and the government should encourage the private sector from investing in the LNG.”

Putting things together

THE FID and the government’s role in LNG are two crucial steps in determining whether the company’s LNG plans will move on.

“We’re still in the process of getting approvals so I can not say that we are definitive,” Quiniones commented. “Let’s put it this way, within next year or so there may already be some indication of how it’s going to go forward. We are still in commercial discussions with potential customers and the like. It’s putting all these things together,” the SPEX official explained.

Shell has been pushing for an energy mix policy to ensure that there is market, or off-takers, for the imported LNG. It has also been batting for the grant of incentives to the private sector that will be involved in the development of an LNG facility because

such investment is capital intensive.

The government has received unsolicited proposals from the private sector, including Shell, to boost natural-gas investments in the country, such as developing a favorable investment climate through the elimination of bottlenecks, more fiscal incentives, consistency in policy and regulations, improved infrastructure and strengthened government interagency collaboration through the Executive Order 60, or the Philippine Upstream Petroleum Task Force.

More players

ASIDE from Shell, other industry players that are interested to invest in LNG projects include Meralco Powergen Corp., the power arm of distribution utility firm Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), and First Gen Corp. of the Lopez group.

Meralco and Osaka Gas Co. Ltd. are in talks for a 60:40 venture, in favor of Meralco, for a LNG project that is estimated to cost over $2 billion.

Initially, the two are planning to build a 1,500-MW gas-fired power plant that will include a terminal for the LNG. Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan earlier said the plant is likely to be built in Luzon where the demand for power is expected to increase, adding that the ambitious project will be built in several phases.

However, the plan is dependent on an ongoing feasibility study. The results of which would be released by end of this year.

Earlier, Pangilinan stressed the need for the government to provide a well-crafted study on LNG, particularly on a plan to bid out the construction of a 105-kilometer gas pipeline that will run from Batangas to Manila, in a bid to boost gasrelated investments in the country.

The project, more known as “BatMan” gas pipeline, had been proposed in previous administrations, but failed to kick off primarily on concerns regarding supply of gas and sufficient demand.

Off-takers

ONE concern that the government should focus on is off-takers of LNG,

Pangilinan said.

“Who will be the consumers? Why will you build it when there is no sure market? It could be the industrial customers and the power plants but then you have got to import the gas eventually,” he said when asked if his group is interested to join the auction should it push through this year.

“You have to build a regas facility somewhere in Bataan, Batangas, Cavite or whatever. You will import LNG so you have to regas it and push it to the pipeline. And then, of course, who buys the gas?

As I said, it could be industrial customers but then eventually when you satisfy the demand who else?

Also, you have to pipe the gas. That’s expensive,” Pangilinan explained.

All these factors, Pangilinan said, must be thoroughly planned.

“So, we really need to plan everything. Why build something in the first place if there is no market? Importation of gas is also another factor.

The regas facility and the pipeline are also needed,” the businessman emphasized. These were the same concerns earlier raised by Chua who said that the gas pipeline project should have off-takers or buyers of electricity.

“If you have a pipeline, you have a start and end, so where is your starting point? You should have an import facility or if there is additional gas from Malampaya or another Malampaya, you have a source. Now, who is the customer?” the Shell official said.

First Gen, meanwhile, intends to select a partner for its planned LNG regasification terminal by year-end.

“We hope to announce a partner by end of the year. It could be multiple partners, both local and foreign.

We are talking to a number of them,” said First Gen President Francis Giles Puno, who added that the planned LNG terminal is estimated to cost around $1 billion.

In particular, First Gen is planning to develop an LNG receiving, storage and regasification terminal using LNG imported from abroad, in order to address the expected depletion of Malampaya gas starting as early as 2022.

Lawmaker alarmed over poaching in energy dept

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party-list lawmaker expressed alarm over the poaching of Department of Energy (DOE) executives by private companies being supervised by the agency.

Party-list Rep. Arnel Ty of LPG Marketers’ Association (LPG-MA) made the statement on Sunday after President Aquino formally swore in Zenaida Monsada, as the new secretary of energy, replacing Carlos Jericho L. Petilla, who is running for the Senate under the administration Liberal Party.

“The DOE has been losing managers who are now working for private corporations whose business activities are being regulated by the department,” Ty, a House deputy minority leader, said.

According to Ty, a number of undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and directors have left their DOE jobs to work for private petroleum firms, power producers and distribution utilities.

“The poaching has somewhat weakened the DOE as a regulator. Our sense is, the individuals in charge of enforcing our energy laws have become reluctant to reprimand or warn violators who could be their future employers,” Ty said.

To discourage the poaching, the lawmaker said he is eyeing amendments to the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, or Republic Act 6713.

Unenforced

IN a related development, Ty complained about the inadequate enforcement of a DOE circular that requires liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) importers to maintain at all times at least seven days of in-country, ready-to-market inventory, plus 45 days of inbound shipments.

“Enforcement of the circular is absolutely imperative because we, as a country, import more than 80 percent of our LPG requirements,” Ty said.

The lawmaker reported that parts of Metro Manila had insufficient LPG supplies on the week that Typhoon Lando (international code name Koppu) hit Luzon.

“If the DOE does not properly manage our supply of the cooking gas, the risk of a temporary shortage and profiteering by abusive suppliers is always there—to the detriment of consumers,” Ty said.

He said Liquigaz Philippines Corp., a big importer of the cooking fuel, ran out of ready-to-market supplies because the arrival of a shipment was delayed by the storm.

“This would not have happened if the DOE is rigorously enforcing the circular on mandatory inventory levels at all times,” Ty said. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Lawmaker seeks review of air-traffic controllers’ pay rates

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HE leader of the House of Representatives Independent Minority bloc on Sunday urged the government to review the salary structure of the country’s air-traffic controllers.

Lakas Rep. Martin Romualdez of Leyte said increasing the salary of Philippines’s traffic controllers would effectively prevent their continued “departure” for greener pastures abroad.

“Philippines’s traffic controllers is one of the world’s lowest-paid. Now is the time to review their salary structure and package of benefits to prevent them from leaving their work for greener pastures abroad. We have to do something to retain the most skilled personnel by giving them the best compensation at par with their competence,” Romualdez said.

According to the lawmaker, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines Spokesman Eric Apolonio confirmed their “exit flight” for better pay abroad.

Meanwhile, in a radio interview, Apolonio admitted that the country is losing 3 percent annually out of the 450 regular air-traffic controllers because of better compensation abroad.

“Mga 3 percent lamang po ang umaalis every year sa data namin. We have about 450 regular traffic controllers,” Apolonio said.

But Apolonio admitted the country’s airtraffic controllers are among the lowest-paid in the world, making them vulnerable to work with better package of compensation abroad.

“Unfortunately nga po, dahil sa offer ng ibang bansa lalo na sa Qatar, Middle East, napakalaki po talaga ng temptation. Dito po ang air-traffic controller ang average [na kinikita ay $1,000 monthly, tayo po ang pinakamababa.

Sa Hong Kong po, $10,000 monthly,” Apolonio said. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Economy BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

PCCI bats for more reforms to make PHL investor-friendly

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HE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) said it will push for the creation of a Cabinetlevel, interagency task force that would focus on making the country more friendly to investors.

The task force, PCCI said, will be tasked to harmonize regulations and programs related to doing businesses in the country. The group wants the task force to be headed by a Cabinet official.

PCCI said it will also push for measures to make industries competitive. These include the rollout of the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) system and a risk management system.

The risk management system, which the Bureau of Customs would implement, would identify supply chain risks for importers to make customs control more efficient.

Meanwhile, the AEO is an incentive program meant to reward traders that are compliant with supply chain security standards.

The proposal was made following reports that the pre-shipment inspection scheme is being revived by certain groups.

Exporters and the Makati Business Group have resisted moves for the PSI to be implemented, and warned that businesses will shoulder its cost.

Meanwhile, PCCI said it is still backing a comprehensive tax reform and the reduction in the cost of compliance to tax rules and regulations.

These reforms are part of the group’s “wish list,” which it would unveil during the 41st Philippine Business Conference (PBC). Organized by PCCI, the PBC will kick off today.

The PBC is expected to highlight a number of issues, including investment opportunities here in the Philippines and other parts of the world and international trade partnerships.

Earlier, the World Bank said the Philippines continues to be a difficult place to do business in, especially for small and medium enterprises.

The World Bank estimated that small businesses are slapped with legitimate fees equivalent to 17 percent to 36 percent of per-capita income, or around P21,000 to P45,000, when starting a business.

Monday, October 26, 2015 A5

Senate to okay ‘Balikbayan’ box bill

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By Recto Mercene

MEASURE seeking to raise to P150,000 the tax-exempt value of cargo brought in or sent by overseas Filipinos is up for Senate approval, it was consolidated with a Customs reform bill.

The proposed balikbayan box law (BBL) is now a section in the proposed Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA), Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto said over the weekend.

“Iyan ang naging agreement na ang balikbayan box bill ay isama na lang sa CMTA,” Recto said.

The CMTA bill was sponsored on the floor by Sen. Juan Edgardo M. Angara, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, last month.

Recto filed Senate Bill 2913, or the balikbayan box law, in August, after a public outcry over a Bureau of Customs (BOC) plan to open and inspect balikbayan boxes revealed outdated regulations, one of which taxes any box with content worth

more than P10,000.

BOC Commissioner Alberto D. Lina announced the opening of balikbayan boxes, which he later apologized for, after he revealed a shortfall in Customs collections, partly attributed to the alleged smuggling in the ports using a balikbayan box.

O verseas Fi l ipino workers (OFWs) worldwide opposed the random opening of the boxes, saying that it was another way of mulcting the country’s “modern-day heroes.”

They also said they will not vote for any administration candidate if the government pushes through with its plan.

In the wake of this brouhaha, the Senate came up with the proposal to increase the balikbayan

box’s exemption, because it appears that the original OFW exemptions are outdated.

Recto said the balikbayan box measure is now a part of a section of the proposed CMTA, which defines “conditionally free and dutyexempt importation.”

Under this section, “residents of the Philippines, OFWs, other Filipinos while residing abroad or in their return to the Philippines shall be allowed to bring in or send to their families or relatives in the Philippines balikbayan boxes which shall be exempt from duties and taxes.”

The “total dutiable value” of the boxes shall not exceed P150,000.

The privilege can only be enjoyed “up to three times in a calendar year,” Recto said, quoting the proposed law.

“This means that an OFW can send two boxes at the same time provided that their total worth is not more than P150,000. That will be counted as one shipment,” Recto said.

The boxes, however, must contain “personal and household effects only, and shall neither be in commercial quantities, nor intended for barter, sale or for hire,” the

section further reads.

“This is to prevent senders from abusing this privilege. With this privilege comes the duty to observe the law. And it also comes with penalties so that smugglers won’t take advantage of it,” Recto explained.

The law also includes a provision indexing rates to inflation, “so that it will not take another quarter-of-a-century to adjust the tax-exempt ceiling for balikbayan boxes,” Recto said.

“Every three years after the effectivity of this Act, the secretary of finance, upon recommendation of the commissioner [of Customs], shall review the value herein stated and shall adjust its present value using the Consumer Price Index, as published by the Philippine Statistics Authority,” Recto quoted the provision.

Recto said the “antiquated provision” of slapping a 50-percent duty on the value of a balikbayan box in excess of P10,000 was set 28 years ago through President Corazon Aquino’s Executive Order 206.

Even BOC Memorandum Circular 7990, which ups the maximum value of a tax-exempt balikbayan box to $500, is more than 25 years

Tripartite deal seen benefiting 35 ARBOs in N. Occidental

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SHORT BREAK Construction workers take a break from building another skyscraper at The Fort in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. NONIE REYES

Firms urge govt to extend temporary import permit for regulated chemicals

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old, he said.

Recto added that the proposed CMTA also increases to P350,000 the tax-exempt ceiling of “personal and household effects” that a returning resident who had lived abroad for 10 years may ship to the Philippines.

Meanwhile, recruiting consultant Manny Geslani said fewer OFWs and balikbayan are expected to arrive at the airport this year to visit their families in time for the Christmas holidays due to many domestic and international flight cancellations at the premier airport brought about by the scheduled Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit from November 16 to 20.

Geslani said most of the OFWs and balikbayan, who are scheduled to arrive in Manila this November, have rebooked for next year.

He said some airlines flying out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport have stopped selling seats, after they were informed of the dates of arrival of Apec participants.

The airlines said they foresee many flights that would be canceled and have announced them in advance, so as not to inconvenience passengers.

ILIPINO manufacturers and exporters are asking the government to put in place a more “efficient, orderly and transparent” way of securing from the Philippine National Police (PNP) an import permit for bringing in regulated chemicals.

They also appealed for an extension of the validity of their temporary import permits, which will expire on October 31, until the licensing process has been straightened out.

In a public-private meeting, business leaders asked agencies involved in national economic development to extend for three more months the validity of the temporary permits issued to enterprises and to sort out the process for licensing the purchase of regulated chemicals from overseas.

Donald Dee, chief operating officer of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in a recent dialogue between the government’s Economic Development Cluster and the Philippine Business Groups and Joint Foreign Chambers that this lack of procedural clarity has caused “extreme difficulties” for entrepreneurs.

When the PNP recently started to seriously implement Republic Act 9516, or the law on explosives, Dee said it subsequently issued a list of regulated chemical substances that are used to manufacture explosives.

It added to the list 41 substances that are commonly used by manufacturers.

These include hydrochloric/muriatic acid, sulphuric acid, lacquer thinner, adhesives, glues, pastes, mineral spirits and nitric acids, which are used by the electronics and handicraft sectors for polishing and cleaning. Also regulated is sodium sulfate, used in soaps and detergents.

“As a result, suppliers and users must apply for separate licenses and permits to purchase, unload, move and possess such chemicals; plant/factory inspections; and PNP escort to transport the chemicals,” said Dee, who is also vice chairman of the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport).

He also said the police escort fee was “P2,500 per container, plus services that include transportation, meals and accommodation. The escort fee cannot be accounted

for as it is unreceipted.”

And as the temporary permits lose their validity by the end of this month, “a number of companies face the risk of closure. Meanwhile, there have been reports of black markets selling said chemical substances at 100 percent to 300 percent higher than regular rate,” Dee said in a statement.

“The inefficient coordination process of the PNP national and local offices in processing applications has resulted [in] delays in the granting of permits,” he added.

He said several members of the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. closed shop in July due to difficulty in obtaining some of the 41 chemicals regulated by the PNP’s Firearms and Explosives Office (FEO).

Dee said this requirement have also made it difficult for farmers to buy fertilizers and resulted in the shutdown of one production line by a beverage company due to delays in raw-material delivery that were allegedly caused by the late arrival of the required police escort. He said some foreign investors in the Philippines are mulling over the transfer of

the production of some products due to the FEO regulations.

“The expiration of the temporary permit must be extended for another six months. In the meantime, the implementing rules and regulations must be put in place by the PNP,” Dee said.

On September 15 this year, representatives from the Export Development Council, Philexport and other concerned industry associations also met with police officials to ask for transparency in the process of securing police permits for the importation and distribution of regulated chemicals.

Francis Ferrer, a Philexport trustee, asked for the complete process flow from Maj. Soledad Arciso, chief of the PNP’s licensing and permits section, saying stakeholders had “broad knowledge gaps” on the matter.

The PNP is the latest of many agencies that companies must approach to secure permits to handle regulated materials, aside from the Food and Drug Administration, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

ACOLOD CITY —Thirty-five agrarian-reform beneficiaries organizations (ARBOs) in Negros Occidental will benefit from the tripartite agreement signed between three government agencies for the implementation of sugar block farming (SBF).

A memorandum of agreement (MOA) was signed by officials of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) in rites held on Friday in Barangay Robles, La Castellana town.

It is the location of Hacienda Malaga Cuenca Agrarian Reform Cooperative, one of the 35 ARBOs covered by the SBF project.

The signing site has also a history of successful land-reform struggle.

The signatories were DAR Region 6 Director Stephen Leonidas, DA-18 Regional Executive Director Renato Manantan, SRA Manager III Doreta de los Santos. The signing was witnessed by La Castellana Mayor Alberto Nicor and Barangay Robles village chief Triffon Joefred Zapanta.

Leonidas said the SBF project, which is under the Accelerated and Sustainable Anti-Poverty Program of the government, aims to ensure economic growth benefits for the poor and deliberately addresses the key factors that limit their participation in the development process.

The SRA will take charge of the technical assistance, like trainings and farm materials, while the DA will be mainly involved in the funding and technical support, as well. The DAR will focus on the total and institutional aspects, and will be in charge of organizing the farmers.

“The sugar block farm project will improve the productivity of sugarcane farms collectively managed by the ARBOs by mainly increasing their production income,” Leonidas said, adding that it is aligned with the purpose of addressing issue on high poverty incidence in the province.

SBF is done by consolidating small farms of ARBs into a plantation farm with a minimum area of 30 hectares within a 2-kilometer radius.

Such activities are aligned and implemented to ensure the efficient use of farm machineries and equipment, volume purchase of inputs, financing and other operational advantages.

At present, Negros Occidental leads in terms of SBF implementation.

The 35 sugar block farms managed by different ARBOs in the province include 19 in the north and 16 in six local government units in the south.

DAR records showed these sugar block farms cover a total area of 2,710 hectares comprised of about 3,000 farmer-beneficiaries.

A portion of the P44-million allocation was already released to various farms, which have been implementing SBF since the previous years, Leonidas said. PNA

Tourism&E

Busines

A6 Monday, October 26, 2015 • Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

THE ENCHANTED AGUSAN MARSH S    H D. T

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GUSAN Marsh is one of the most ecologically significant wetlands in the Philippines. Found in the heart of Mindanao’s Agusan Basin, this vast expanse of marsh covers an area roughly the size of Metro Manila.

It contains nearly 15 percent of the nation’s freshwater resources in the form of swamp forests.”

FLOATING community

That’s how the web site of the Society for the Conservation of the Philippine Wetlands (SCPW) describes Agusan Marsh, which covers an area of 14,835.989 hectares.

It was declared as a protected area by the former President Fidel V. Ramos and was listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention (site No. 1009, effective November 12, 1999).

The area—which covers eight Agusan del Sur municipalities,

of reptiles and amphibians and supports the largest remaining population of the estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) and the endangered Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis).

The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has declared some 42,000 hectares of the marshlands as a “world heritage center” due to “its floral and faunal diversity with seven habitat types.”

I had been to the place twice. The first time was in 2010. The perilous

namely, Talacogon, San Francisco, Rosario, Bunawan, Santa Josefa, Veruela, Loreto and La Paz—harbors unique and pristine habitats like the sago and “peat swamp forest.” In the very heart of the marsh is a semi-permanent lake, where many square kilometers of lily pads, hyacinths and other aquatic plants spread out like an enormous green quilt.

More important, Agusan Marsh harbors the most diverse assemblage

boat trip—as crocodiles abound in the area—following the chocolateladen Cebulao River to Agusan Marsh took us about one hour and 45 minutes. The voyage was boring but I tried to marvel myself at the floating houses built along the riverbanks and alluvial junctions. It was also on this trip that I got a closer glimpse of the first hoard of exotic and migratory birds gracefully flapping their wings as they transferred from one tree to another in search for their food.

The most recent visit took place in June. I was part of the group of journalists who was tapped to cover the event of turning over 10 brandnew computers donated by Aboitiz Foundation to Sabang Gibong Elementary School.

Instead of following the Cebulao River, this time we trailed the river that flows in Talacogon. If I remember it right, it was the same town which Harold Ray Watson, the 1985 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for peace and international understanding, used to visit when he was still working in the country.

“Sabang” means “juncture” or “crossroad,” and we were to visit the place where a tributary river called Gibong joins the main Agusan River.

Our invitation said that the travel time from Talacogon to Barangay Sabang Gibong was two hours. But one of the teachers who accompanied us told that it’s actually three hours to reach the place.

It was an exhausting trip. There were 14 of us in the boat. There were no seats available so we had to sit at the sides of the boat. We didn’t have the luxury of stretching ourselves since there was no enough space.

You can’t even stand or answer the call of nature.

To make ourselves survived the ordeal, we had to divert our attention to the beauty that surround

us during the travel. We took photos of floating houses which caught our fancy. One interesting thing we found out is that people have comfort rooms a few meters away from the houses. “I am sure the excreta go to the river,” someone commented.

We laughed.

As stated earlier, the houses are built on top of a raft. We saw some women washing clothes while there were others who took a bath. We really don’t know how deep the river is because no one knows.

Other things that caught our attention: water hyacinth, man bathing his carabao, crops (corn and cassava) growing near the river bank, gully erosion, some floating logs and boats that were carrying some passengers.

Exactly three hours after we left Talacogon, we arrived at barangay Sabang Gibong. What welcomed was a totally different world. We were surprised that there is a community, mostly ethnic Manobos, thriving in the area. These people have made their permanent homes deep within the marsh, living on floating homes.

The small houses, which are linked to each other with a few ropes, are made of bamboo and nipa lashed to hard wood logs.

These freely rise or fall with the level of the marsh itself. Here, extreme weather is the norm.

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THE river trail has chocolate-laden water.

A SMALL banca like this is used by pupils in going to school.

“For four months—from September to December—this barangay is under water,” said Emely D. Sumipao, the teacher in charge of Sabang Gibong Elementary School. “But despite this, classes continue.”

A father or mother usually brings their children to the school via a small banca (outrigger). In some instances, children themselves paddle the banca in going to school. That’s what nine-year-old Carlo Curato is doing.

The fourth-grade pupil brings with him his sister, who is still in kinder.

According to Sumipao, there are only three teachers and one volunteer doing the task of educating the almost 100 pupils in a limited space.

One teacher teaches two grades in each classroom. Despite of the lack of school supplies and a classroom shared between different ages, students were eager to learn.

The teachers consider the hardships they are facing as challenges.

But the biggest problem they encounter is coming to the place. “It’s about 40 kilometers away from the

tourism@businessmirror.com.ph • Monday, October 26, 2015 A7

town proper,” Sumipao said. “The boat fare is about P100.”

Sumipao is not a resident of the place. She comes to the place on Sunday afternoon and leaves every Friday afternoon. “At first, it was hard,” she said. “But I learned to love the place, especially the children who are willing to learn.”

For several years, residents living in floating houses this barangay have been groping in the dark every night.

Thanks to the Barangay Line

Enhancement Program (BLEP) and Sitio Electrification Program (SEP) implemented by Agusan del Sur Electric Cooperative Inc., the marshland barangay finally has electricity.

“We are very happy that finally, we have electricity which, we had been wanting through the years,” said Felipa S. Goloran, the barangay captain.

As part of the corporate social responsibility of Aboitiz Power Corp., it donated 10 units of brandnew computer. “We want the pu-

pils of this barangay to be at par with those growing up in the town proper,” says Roy M. Renconada, Aboitiz senior account officer.

Meanwhile, the unique ecosystem of Agusan Marsh is being threatened by a wide range of issues and problems to wit: pollution from mining upstream, wildlife and timber poaching and unregulated in-migration.

“Exotic and invasive species have been introduced [intentionally and unintentionally],” SCPW

deplored. “Erosion and siltation due to mining operations and deforestation occurring largely upstream adversely affect organisms in the marsh and even the coastal areas downstream of Agusan River. In-migration has also increased, adding more pressure to the marsh ecosystem. Poor management of solid wastes, lack of proper sanitation facilities and lack of potable water supply are also critical concerns as they add to the pressure on the marsh.”

A8 Monday, October 26, 2015 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

OurTime BusinessMirror

Dr. Pineda: Believe, be aggressive to remain ahead of competition

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By Rizal Raoul Reyes | Contributor

ERMCLINIC President and founder Dr. Vinson Pineda, 79, still possesses the spirit of a warrior ready to compete on the business battlefield. Perhaps inspired by the great Roman leader Julius Caesar’s maxim “fortune favors the bold,” the energetic and vibrant dermatologist believes it is important for an entrepreneur to have an intrepid mind-set to withstand the competition.

“To be ahead of your competitors, you have to be bold and aggressive.

With this kind of mind-set, I believe the battle is half won. Having a defeatist attitude will just bring you grief and agony,” said Pineda, president and chairman of the Dermatology Institute Foundation of the Philippines, in a recent interview in his office in Makati City.

Pineda acknowledges competition is a fact of life in the well-

ness and other businesses. As far as Dermclinic is concerned, Pineda tells his managers to introduce innovative ideas and services, as well as aggressive marketing campaigns and deploy trained specialists in every branch. By coming out with these measures, Pineda said Dermclinic has developed the “stamina” to stand up against its competitors.

Regarded as the Father of Philip-

pine Dermatology, Pineda started his first Dermclinic in 1971 on a trifling commercial space in front of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. Later, when his reputation as a top dermatologist became widespread, he opened another branch at the Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City to accommodate the growing demand for his services.

At present, Dermclinic has 16 branches operating from Metro Manila to Pampanga.

Pineda pursues a healthy lifestyle through daily exercise, a balanced diet, reading and praying.

Adequate rest is also important.

“I am a believer in the Latin saying mens sana in corpore sano [a sound mind in a sound body],” said Pineda, whose daily routine consists of engaging in a one-hour workout in his private gym by lifting light weights with his security personnel in the morning before going to work. When he has the time, he jogs in the evening, with his driver and security around the village where he lives, for one hour. “I always bring my driver and security in my physical-fitness programs so they can also be physically fit.”

Pineda supplements his physical regimen by practicing eating

PINEDA

habits which include fish, fruits and vegetables. He also stresses the importance of having an eight-hour sleep to enable the body and mind to have a complete rest.

“I am now more conscious of eating sweets, such as chocolates,” Pineda chuckled.

For his mental exercise, Pineda

reads a lot of books about biographies of great men, philosophy and history and watches documentaries, news on the cable channels and National Geographic.

“I avoid reading books dwelling on the negatives because it gives me a negative outlook,” he said.

On the spiritual side, Pineda stresses the importance of communicating with the Lord because this gives an individual peace and joy.

“It involves reading the Bible and doing good things to people,” he said. “I also meditate, so the alpha wave of the brain can develop serenity and calmness.”

Pineda is also the senior pastor of MM Light of the World Christian Ministries. He has 16 pastors under his tutelage in spreading the word of God. By acting as their patron, Pineda handles all their needs. Nevertheless, he is satisfied with this spiritual task.

“You find peace, joy and success when you are committed to the Lord,” he said.

Pineda looks forward becoming an octogenarian in 2016. “I feel great turning 80 next year.

Through God’s love, I have retained my vitality to watch Dermclinic succeed and continue to grow.”

D.O.H. in North Mindanao targets vulnerable sectors in sustainable-health program

By Butch D. Enerio Correspondent

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AHINOG, Camiguin—The Department of Health (DOH) in Northern Mindanao engaged the women, children, senior citizens, adolescents and the local government units (LGUs) in the province, particularly those from this town, to a sustainable health program during the Safe Motherhood Congress last Friday.

The program which is in line with the DOH’s “Kalusugan Pangkalahatan” aims to bring awareness of the importance of health care among women, especially those who are pregnant, and to the children, the senior citizens and the teens, especially the disadvantageous circumstances of teen pregnancy, among others.

Dr. Nimfa B. Torrizo, DOH Northern Mindanao regional director, said women’s health is paramount to the development of a community and their welfare must be looked into and their role in nation-building strengthened.

“If we want to have a healthy nation, women who are primarily responsible in bringing human population in this country, should be given the attention they deserve, particularly on health matters,” Torrizo said.

She said the congress is part of an ongoing effort of the DOH to educate local communities of the available health services, as

well as encourage and inform the LGUs of the importance of establishing facilities for a sustainable health care.

The congress is one of the schemes of the DOH to establish in every province mapping and profiling of available resources to include perinatologists and neonatalogists, equipped neonatal intensive care unit, equipped maternal-fetal intensive care unit, blood-services network, human immunodeficiency virus treatment hubs, and testing and counseling units.

“During the congress, we will also be doing blood typing for both women and men to establish a blood-type registry in every town so that when the need arises, the local health office could easily source blood donors among the residents,” said Dr. Ellenietta HMV Gamolo, chief of DOH-10 Local Health Support Division.

She said pregnant women will be assessed to determine the possibility of medical complications during child birth and right away counsel the patient and refer those pregnancies to specialists.

Gamolo said one of the important points of the DOH’s Service Delivery Network is to possibly assign or deploy obstetricians and pedia residents in rural health units with high maternal and infant mortalities. “In this way we will be able to achieve a lower maternal and infant mortality rates.”

shelf sitters Mary Cadiente, owner of the Eclectibles Shop in Baguio City, shows part of her sweet elderly figurine collection that she is selling in her shop. MAU VICTA

GRANNY QUEUE Members of the Senior Citizens of Quezon, Nueva Vizcaya, form a long queue as they take their turns receiving their respective tokens from organizers and the local Office of Senior Citizen Affairs. Others take refuge under the shade of a mango tree. LEONARDO PERANTE II

Migration adds to China’s elderly care woes

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EIJING—A Chinese proverb advises, “rear children to provide for old age.” Despite this, many parents are finding themselves living alone, without the companionship and care of their offspring.

Wang Zirong, 78, is a widow and mother of four, yet, she lives alone, a victim of the migration of hundreds of millions from the countryside to the cities.

None of Wang Zirong’s children remained in Shishan Village, Jiangxi Province, to care for her. In fact, like many grandparents in rural China, she cares for her “left-behind” grandchildren, two teenage boys.

In a few years, these boys will also leave Wang Zirong.

“I have not dared think about what will happen to me when the boys go,” she said. This a common concern for the rural-elderly population.

For rural migrants, few can host their elderly parents in what

are often small rented rooms, and most public nursing homes in the countryside will only accept people without offspring.

In response to t his situation, the central government has pledged to build more nursing homes across the country.

Minister of Civil Affairs Li Liguo said in March that the government was planning to increase the number of nursing beds for the elderly from 26:1,000 to 40:1,000 in the years up to 2020.

Seeing the potential, private capital is also beginning to flow into the geriatric-care sector.

Compared with Wang Zirong’s uncertain future, those that have the opportunity to live with their children in other cities count themselves lucky. But this arrangement is not without issues either.

Wang Xiuqin, 64, lives with her daughter in Jinan, capital of the

eastern province of Shandong, hundreds of kilometers away from her hometown of rural Binzhou. She is responsible for the day-to-day care of her grandson. For her, she finds babysitting as hard-going as farm work and she often feels isolated.

“I have no friends and nothing to do,” she said. “Not only that but I find myself stepping on egg shells at home, afraid of saying something that will impact on my daughter’s relationship with her husband.”

The medical system has also yet to adjust to this “silver-haired” migration. Although they can receive treatment in their new regions, medical expenses can only be reimbursed in their hometown, meaning extra expenses, and inconvenience.

“This has brought us a lot of trouble and I hope the system is fixed soon,” said Zhang Yongfeng, a native of Xinxiang, Henan Province, who is currently living in Jinan. PNA

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The Sunshine Place relaunched

By Rea Cu

Special to the BusinessMirror

A

HAVEN where the elderly can relax, recharge, reminisce and create new friendships is what the Sunshine Place aims to provide.

Formerly known as the Senior Hub, a business owned by the SM Foundation, the Sunshine Place is a venue where senior citizens can immerse themselves in a slew of recreational activities or just spend their time relaxing. Located at 56 Jupiter Street, Bel-Air Village, Makati City, across the street from the Department of Trade and Industry International building, the five-story building houses everything that senior citizens need.

The first floor is a restaurant operated by Earth Kitchen that provides healthy and sumptuous dishes for customers to enjoy.

The second floor is called Club 65, where members can play mahjong, poker or just enjoy the hometheater system.

The third floor is the fitness section where older people can join classes teaching flamenco, zumba, yeba (a Filipino-inspired dance workout) and social dancing.

The fourth floor is all about wellness where the elderly can seek medical assistance. They can also recharge by getting massage therapies or a full-blown makeover as it has a salon, as well.

The fifth floor is the social area as it is like the auditorium of the Sunshine Place, where the elderly can have a grand time chatting with their friends, utilizing the karaoke machine or the grand piano.

The senior recreation and wellness center is a first of its kind in the country since opening on October 1, 2014.

Teresita Sy-Coson, vice chairman of SM Investments Corp., came up with the idea that senior citizens should have a place where they can participate in social activities, as well as programs that actively enrich their health. It is not only a venue but a second home that senior citizens can go to when they want to recharge both their minds and bodies.

Flamenco classes runs from 10 to 11 a.m. and is conducted by Cecile de Joya of Fundacion Centro Flamenco.

Attendees of this class should wear leather-soled shoes.

Zumba Gold runs from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and is conducted by Zoom to the Beat.

Yeba classes are from 2 to 3 p.m., while social ballroom runs from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Both classes are instructed and designed by Danny Vinculado of Arts in Makati.

Poe-Escudero tandem endorses senatorial bid of veteran rights lawyer

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NDEPENDENT presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe and her running mate Francis G. Escudero on Friday night endorsed the senatorial bid of women’s rights lawyer Lorna Capunan.

In front of more than 300 supporters that packed the Ikeda Hall of Balay Kalinaw, Poe and Escudero raised the hands of Capunan, the third senatorial aspirant the PoeChiz tandem endorsed.

“We need a brave woman who knows the law because many laws need to be corrected so that more of our people will benefit,” Poe said.

Capunan said she accepted the invitation of Poe and Escudero because of their common advocacies on women, youth and senior citizens.

Poe and Escudero have earlier endorsed the senatorial bids of Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares and Manila Vice Mayor Isko Moreno.

Poe said they will announce next week their complete senatorial lineup which she described as a “unifying ticket.” PNA

News BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Monday, October 26, 2015 A9

Legislators propose to shield police, military from unreasonable suits

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measure providing members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Polyice (PNP) free legal assistance has been filed at the House of Representatives.

House Bill 6026 or “an act providing free legal assistance to any officer or enlisted personnel of the AFP and

the PNP on any charge before the prosecutor’s office, court, administrative or any competent body aris-

ing from an incident or incidents related to the performance of official duty and appropriating funds therefor,” authored by Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Felix William B. Fuentebella of Camarines Sur, had been referred to the Committee on National Defense for appropriate action.

Under HB 6026, the Secretary of Department of Justice (DOJ), the chief of staff of the AFP, the chairperson of the National Police Commission (Napolcom) or the chief of

the PNP shall authorize any lawyer or lawyers of their respective agencies to provide free legal assistance to any officer or enlisted personnel,” Fuentebella said.

The proposal also provides the cost of implementing the measure shall be charged against the appropriation of the DOJ, AFP, Napolcom and PNP the year following its enactment into law and thereafter.

The DOJ, in coordination with the AFP, Napolcom and the PNP, shall issue the necessary rules and

are often unable to engage the services of a lawyer due to the prohibitive cost of legal services and defend themselves against charges related to the performance of their official duties.

“Without justice, no one can feel secure. Without security, there can be no faith. Without faith, there can be no peace. And without peace, this nation may perish,” said Fuentebella, quoting former Vice President Salvador P. Laurel.

Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Tesda executive gets ex-President’s support

MMDA set in motion Oplan Kaluluwa

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he Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will start today its clean-up drive in some public and private cemeteries and memorial parks in the metropolis in preparation for the observance of the All Saints’ Day on November 1.

Scores of the agency’s Metro Parkway Clearing Group (MPCG) personnel will be deployed in various cemeteries in the metropolis to spruce up the tombs and immediate areas of the burial grounds in time for the annual commemoration of the All Saints’ Day when majority of Filipinos pay respect and flock to the graves of their loved ones.

MMDA’s yearly clean-up campaign is part of the yearly “Oplan Kaluluwa” program, which will run from October 23 until November 3.

Aside from the clean-up campaign, MMDA will also deploy numerous personnel to manage the flow of traffic in critical areas in the metropolis, such as bus terminals, as people will rush to go to the provinces during All Saints Day observance.

MPCG personnel will be deployed the following cemeteries in Metro Manila during the clean up drive: Caloocan City – La Loma Cemetery Mandaluyong City – Mandaluyong Cemetery (Aglipay), San Felipe Neri Catholic Cemetery (semi-public) Manila City – North Cemetery, South Cemetery Marikina City – Barangka Cemetery Paranaque City – Loyola Memorial Park, Manila Memorial Park, Palanyag Public Cemetery Pasay City – Sargento Mariano Public Cemetery Pasig City – Baraks, Roman Catholic Cemetery Pateros – Aglipay Cemetery (M. Lozada Street), San Joaquin Cemetery (M. Almeda Street), San Roque Cemetery (E. Hermosa Street) Quezon City – Bagbag, Baesa San Juan City – San Juan Cemetery Taguig City – Hagonoy Cemetery, Libingan ng mga Bayani Valuenzuela City – Arkong Bato, Palasan Cemetery, Karuhatan Cemetery Muntinlupa City – Soldiers Hill Cemetery Las Pinas City – Saint Joseph Public Cemetery Malabon City – Tugatog Cemetery.

The MMDA will dispatch traffic personnel as well as members of the Anti-Jaywalking Unit and Sidewalk Clearing Operations Group at Araneta-Cubao bus terminal, EDSA Cubao bus terminals, EDSA Pasay-Taft bus terminals, Sampaloc bus terminals, Dangwa and Mindanao Avenue.

Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

regulations to implement the proposed statute.

In filing the bill, Fuentebella said that like any other sector of society, the ordinary members of the military and police, officers and enlisted personnel, should not be denied access to legal assistance.

“In our country, most people may construe the law as favoring the rich over the poor,” he said.

The author also said ordinary citizens, like some officers and enlisted personnel of the AFP and the PNP,

Sustainable tomorrow Former Jordan Ministry of Water and Irrigation Secretary-General Maysoon Zoubi (from left), Alliance for Water CEO Mary Ann Dickinson and University of Technology Sydney Institute for Sustainable Futures Director Dr. Stuart White answer questions at the forum on Philippine business’ response to climate change and El Niño weather disruptions held at an hotel in Makati City. The event was organized

by USAID and several local business organizations. ALYSA SALEN

Searca holds Gis seminar to show profs, Ngos how climate-change ruins farming

By Marvyn N. Benaning

Correspondent

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OS BAÑOS, Lagun—A two-day training course on the Geographic Information System (GIS) and how it shows the impact of climate change on agriculture was conducted here by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) just as Typhoon Lando was battering Luzon.

GIS, said Searca director Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., is a graphic system that shows the direct effects of typhoons and the El Niño and La Niña episodes for the benefit of farmers.

The short course was organized and conducted

by Searca from October 19 to 20.

Thirteen participants from state universities and international organizations joined the course conducted by Ms. Colleen Curran, project officer of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation (PRDF.) “Recent events have shown that extreme weather conditions and climate change do much damage to agriculture and pose a big challenge to food security,” added Saguiguit in his message during the opening of the course.

“I hope that this training will help enhance your research, extension projects and study programs, to benefit more people in your communities,” he concluded.

The short course covered fundamentals of the GIS application—QGIS, an open source application for GIS and how it can be used for research.

Discussion also centered on the status of GIS/ Geospatial Data in the Philippines, which was rendered more important due to the hands-on map making as well as data management.

The course also the following: creating data from Google Earth; importing KML files to QGIS;

SAGUIGUIT geo-referencing; building rasters from point data; projecting climate grids using raster calculator, and; and uploading and revising GPS data.

Participants also went on a field trip to the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) station in Los Banos, Laguna and two private rice farms in Victoria, Laguna, where the participants went hands-on in collecting soil samples, tracking GPS points and determining GPS coordinates.

This short course was the fourth of the series of short courses sponsored by the Food Security Center (FSC) of the University of Hohenheim.

FSC is one of the five excellence centers of the program “Exceed- Higher Education Excellence in Development Cooperation” supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany.

Former Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (Tesda) Director General and senatorial aspirant Joel Villanueva on Sunday expressed gratitude over the endorsement of former President now Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada.

Villanueva, who is running under the banner of Liberal Party, said he is deeply honored to receive the endorsement from Estrada on his senatorial bid. “Mayor Erap’s blessings come with the nod of the masses, whom he dearly loved and served in his long years as a public servant,” he said.

He added that as the people’s TESDAman, it is his “commitment to pursue relevant education for the youth and quality jobs.”

“Having decent jobs will make every Filipino family prosperous, and will contribute to the progress of the community and the entire country.”

He concluded that he and Estrada share the belief that the “Filipino talent and skill are the country’s best resources.

I look forward to being their voice in the Senate. “ Estrada earlier revealed

estrada his own 12 senatorial candidates that he is endorsing in next year’s elections namely: vice Mayor Isko Moreno, former senators Panfilo Lacson, Migs Zubiri Philippine Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon, senator Serge Osmena, forme MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino, Representaives Manny Pacquaio , Martin Romualdez, Sherwin Gatchalian and Neri Colmenares and former SAf Chief Supt.

Getulio Napeñas. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

A10 Monday, October 26, 2015 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

The Philippines: Still unrealized potential

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t has been almost impossible to pick up a newspaper in the last few weeks and not read how wonderful the Philippines is in comparison to the rest of the world. Look at these various headlines. “PHL insulated from external shocks”; “HSBC says Philippines immune from China slowdown”; “Infrastructure, transport projects make the Philippines ripe for investment”; “Philippines could be next property ‘blockbuster.’”

We are reminded of that saying, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

For many global analysts, it would seem that the world economy only started with the current financial crisis in mid-2007. For many local commentators, the Philippine economy only started in 2010. Those headlines we cited above—with some slight variation—could have been written 10 years ago.

The total Philippine GDP was flat, showing no growth—and with population increases actually shrinking on a per capita basis—between 1996 and 2004. In 1996 the value was $82.8 billion, and in 2004 it was $83.9 billion.

However, between 2005 and 2010, Philippine economic output grew by 90 percent and per-capita GDP was up 13 percent.

Total GDP increase between 2009 and 2014 was 62 percent and per-capita GDP was up 19 percent. The data shows that the economy actually grew faster in the five years prior to 2010, but the per-capita growth has been larger since 2010. Part of the reason is that Philippine population growth has decreased from 1.9 percent in 2005 to the current 1.7 percent, and some better government policies to “spread the economic growth wealth.”

But the question today is the same that it has been every day for the last 25 years: “Why can’t the Philippines fulfill its economic potential?”

The answer today is the same as it has always been: The Philippine government.

The excuse that successive governments use is to put the blame on external factors. But every past government is going to face “external factors” and every future government until the end of time will also face more of the same. The government started taking off in the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, when the government’s financial house was put in order. The Aquino administration continued those polices and went even farther by significantly reducing government debt and foreign borrowing.

But then, this current administration stopped a potentially prosperous industry by killing mining. New foreign direct investment is still virtually nonexistent in large measure because of overregulation and overtaxation.

The Public-Private Partnership Program has been nearly useless in increasing economic activity.

The lesson is obvious. When the government properly takes care of its own business and gets out of the way of the private sector, the economy grows. It is difficult for the economy to run faster when the government is holding it back.

PCSO at 81: Calamity assistance and other programs Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

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he 81-year-old Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) will assist Typhoon Lando (international code name Koppu) victims through hospitalization assistance in areas hit by the storm.

The present PCSO board of directors made it a policy of the agency to subsidize the bills of patients directly affected by national emergencies and calamities who are being treated at government hospitals and health-care facilities. The PCSO will therefore shoulder the bills of those confined or treated in public hospitals as a result of the wrath of Lando.

The PCSO’s charity and branch operations sectors, particularly the Northern and Central Luzon departments, are closely monitoring the situation in Aurora province and surrounding areas.

This calamity-assistance policy is applied during occasions of natural disasters and national emergencies; in the past, these included typhoons Yolanda, Glenda, Milenyo, Sendong, Habagat; the conflict in Zamboanga; earthquake in Bohol and Cebu; landslide in Compostela

Valley; and many other incidents.

This is in line with the agency’s charter, Republic Act 1169, which mandates that the PCSO provides assistance to “charities of national character.”

The PCSO is also coordinating with other government agencies about the other ways it can contribute to relief efforts in the stricken areas. Among the goods it has provided in the past are family emergency medicine kits; relief goods, such as food, water and clothing (some of it personally donated by PCSO employees); water-treatment plants and power generators, and other items requested by local government units (LGUs). As for services, the PCSO has also sent medical and dental teams.

The charity agency, which is celebrating its 81st anniversary on October 30, is always on standby in times of emergency and natural

disasters, fulfilling its role to step in with the required aid when needed.

Calamity assistance is only one of the PCSO’s many social-welfare programs. The agency also conducts medical and dental missions upon request, fielding teams of physicians, dentists and nurses with medical supplies and medicines. One such mission was held on October 7 at Towerville, San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, with 371 individuals benefiting from the outreach activity.

A nother PCSO prog ram that has helped thousands of our kababayan nationwide is the ambulance-donation program, which provides free ambulances to LGUs; government hospitals and health-care facilities, charitable associations, and state colleges and universities, either on a 60-to-40 percent sharing scheme, or 100-percent outright donation, depending on certain established criteria.

Eight provinces in Mindanao— Bukidnon, Camiguin, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Misamis Occidental and Maguindanao— will receive 38 ambulances early next month, with the turnover ceremony to be held in General Santos City. Handovers are also held at the PCSO Head Office in Mandaluyong City, with Quezon, Nueva Vizcaya; Duero, Bohol; and New Washington, Aklan, as the

recipients on October 9.

The PCSO also extends assistance to other government agencies via contributions mandated by law. On September 30 checks were released to the Philippine Sports Commission (P10 million); Commission on Higher Education (P100 million); the Dangerous Drugs Board (P12 million), and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (P3 million), for a total of P125 million released on that day alone.

Tonight, the PCSO family will celebrate the 81st year of its founding. As it looks back on over eight decades of service and charity, it also looks forward to the future, planning strategic directions for the agency to grow and strengthen so that it may continue providing help and hope to those who need it, when they need it.

The PCSO also lives in the present moment, its officials and employees taking each day as an opportunity to improve others’ health and quality of life, relieve suffering and worries, soothe and comfort, support and aid.

As a wise bishop once said, “Let it be so that when people think of the PCSO, it will be as the Philippine ‘Charity Service’ Office.”

Happy 81st anniversary, PCSO! Atty. Rojas is vice chairman and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

Jeb Bush: More conservative than you think

By Ramesh Ponnuru Bloomberg View

J

eb Bush has lately been defending his brother George—the former president—against Donald Trump’s criticism, and George is raising funds for Jeb’s presidential campaign.

What all this fraternal support obscures is the extent of the policy differences between the two. Despite his reputation for moderation, on issue after issue Jeb has taken positions that are significantly to the right of his brother’s—and of every other president in recent memory.

Star t w ith ta xes. Li ke his brother in 2000, Jeb Bush is running at a time when the top statutory income-tax rate is 39.6 percent. George W. Bush proposed reducing that to 33 percent. Jeb wants to cut it to 28 percent.

George left taxes on businesses largely alone. Jeb wants to reduce the corporate-tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, and let businesses write off the costs of their investments immediately.

George kept the alternative minimum tax in place, too, where Jeb wants to eliminate it. All in all, Jeb’s plan is far more oriented toward supply-side economics than George’s was.

On spending, too, Jeb has tried to stake out a position to the right of his brother, without d i rect ly c r it ic i zing h i m.

He said in May that “ during my brother’s time, Republicans

spent too much money.” One of George’s major promises in 2000 was to create a new subsidy for prescription-drug purchases by the elderly, which eventually became Medicare Part D. Jeb has no comparable initiative.

H e s a y s h i s b r o t h e r ’s plan should have been paid for, and has spoken positively about Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to restrain Medicare spending.

In important respects, Jeb’s health-care positions are also more con ser v at ive t h a n h i s brother’s.

For years, conservative thinkt a n kers pu shed R e publ ic a n s to change the tax treatment of health insurance so that people who buy coverage for themselves can get an equivalent tax break to those who get it through their employers—and without having to obey highly prescriptive

federal regulations on what kind they can buy. George Bush’s administration made only a halfhearted effort to do so, too late in his term to make a difference.

Jeb has advanced a plan to create a much more competitive individual market.

Even on education—where he has sustained criticism from conser vatives for his support of Common Core standards— Jeb is running to the right of his brother. George ran on “No Child Left Behind,” an ambitious plan to leverage federal dollars to reform schools in every state.

Jeb says that Washington’s role in education should be limited, that it shouldn’t interfere in state standard-setting, and that it should offer more flexibility in using federal funds.

Jeb also thinks families should be able to use their share of federal aid for poor students to pay for private school. George never called for boosting school choice that way.

T he brothers have simi lar views on immigration. But Jeb goes further than George in siding with the critics, mostly conservative, who think reuniting extended families should not be a priority. He’d prefer more skillsbased immigration.

This pattern holds on a range of lower-profile issues, too. Jeb wants to reimpose what he calls the “Reagan rule,” which would prevent organizations that perform abortions, notably Planned Parenthood, from receiving federal money. That’s a step that his brother declined to take. George supported the Export-Import Bank and the renewable fuel standard. Jeb opposes both, treating them as unwarranted government interference in free markets.

George favored renewing the ban on “assault weapons” that President Bill Clinton had signed, and which every president since Gerald Ford has supported. Jeb opposes that, too.

This column isn’t an endorsement of Jeb Bush. Although my wife works for him, I’m neutral in the race. But Jeb’s reputation for being a moderate has a larger significance: It’s a sign of just how successful conser vatives have been at moving the Republican Party rightward. If he wins the nomination, notwithstanding his low poll numbers today, it will be taken as a defeat for conservatives.

Yet, Jeb Bush has given every indication that he’d be the most conservative president we’ve had in a long time.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

E-commerce consumer protection

A simple choice Anthony Alden S. Aguilar

Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan

T

legally speaking

he advent of the Internet marketplace came with the emergence of the World Wide Web. Eventually, a revolutionary change in culture and thinking transpired.Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, started a major change in business, turning it from real-time market to digital market. Now, companies have far more reach over their customers, no matter where they are in the world.

Almost everything in business today is done over the Internet, from advertising and launching of products, to talking with sales agents or customer service, to discussing with fellow consumers, to the delivery of the product. E-commerce literally wiped out political and physical barriers, giving everyone an equal playing ground.

Most businesses nowadays have addressed the trends and demands of their consumers in having a more convenient way of shopping by setting up their web sites, where customers do not only get to see the products, but could also order it right there and just wait for the products to be delivered at their doorstep. Customers only need to see pictures, descriptions and prices of the products, and with just a click of a button, a sale is instantly closed.

The e-commerce industry is fast becoming a booming industry all over the world. Many expect it to be a very lucrative business to jump into. These days, a lot of online shopping sites have become household names, such as Amazon, eBay, BestBuy, Costco, iTunes Store and Netflix. Recently, social-media sites, like Instagram and Facebook, have been utilized as well for online selling. Users have found a way to connect with markets and, at the same time, engage in selling.

As attractive as this industry appears, in this new marketplace, consumer protection is more complex.

E-commerce has challenged the established rules for consumer protection in the country. It also created the need for a framework that provides consumers with effective protection and, at the same time, a stable legal environment for businesses.

The Philippines took the initiative in addressing this facet by passing the E-Commerce Act in 2000, the Rules on Electronic Devices in 2001, and most recent, the Cybercrime Prevention Act in 2012. These laws serve as protection for online consumers, in addition to the Consumer Act passed in 1992 and the Access Devices Regulation Act in 1998.

However, it is often stated that the law lags behind technology. As technology changes and creates new possibilities, lawyers and legal scholars struggle to deal with the implications. Technology is not enough.

An empowering legal environment to protect consumers is necessary.

There is much discussion on why

Filipino online consumer protection needs to be strengthened. With Filipinos being among Asia Pacific’s most active in terms of conducting product research, reading consumer reviews and searching for online deals, this trend provides a fitting environment for e-commerce to grow in the country.

Despite the movements made in establishing a legal framework for e-commerce, pushing for a stable online trade infrastructure, and raising Internet penetration in the country, local e-commerce has yet to step out of its nascent stages. In an estimation of the size of the Philippine e-commerce industry, it is gathered that with almost a million Internet users engaging in online transactions, the total industry size could be around P4.3 billion. Still, this figure is just less than 1 percent of the total local retail market.

While the growth of e-commerce in the Philippines is surging, it cannot be denied that a greater number of Filipinos are still reluctant to engage in online transactions. While they use the Internet to check out items, they prefer to personally purchase and pay cash. It is about time that the negative feeling of being unsecured in online transactions must be removed. One way of doing this is for our laws to assure consumer protection.

It may be said that the Philippines has an abundance of laws that provide consumer protection.

Unfortunately, majority of Filipino consumers are not aware of these laws. Their lack of knowledge about these laws affects their confidence in engaging in online transactions.

Hence, having the awareness will create a more trusting environment for e-commerce to flourish in the country, which, in turn, will influence Filipino consumers to feel more comfortable transacting business online.

Many experts also believe that despite the enactment of laws to help online consumers, the Philippines still lack the infrastructure or the means by which to implement its consumer protection laws to prevent e-commerce related consumer issues and to create a more trusting legal environment for Philippine e-commerce. Something must be done about this, and fast.

For comments, you may e-mail me at lpkapunan@kapunanlaw.com.

DEBIT CREDIT

I

’ve been sitting in traffic more often lately. It’s not exactly my favorite way to spend the afternoon, but it does give me more time to chat with my driver, and catch up on the news on the street. Lately, he’s been saying how life’s not getting any easier, and I have to say that I can see where he’s coming from.

For many “ordinary” Pinoys, the rising cost of living has become even more of a burden, and it’s definitely not going down anytime soon. The unpleasant truth is that the purchasing power of the “man-on-the-street” takes a beating year in and year out, and with it, the quality of life of countless families across the country.

Translated into everyday realities, that means it’s getting harder and harder to do such things as send children to school, pay medical bills, put food on the table—the basic necessities of human existence. And when people feel that it’s becoming ever more of a challenge to meet even the simplest of daily needs, the question inevitably arises: What has the government done to make life better for the people?

That’s a question many are now asking as we move ever closer to the national elections in May next year, and the answer to it may well decide how the Filipino will vote when he takes up his pen and studies his ballot. Bearing that in mind, not a few people are saying that it’s high time the administration considered what legacy it will leave behind to the nation. Six years have seen a raft of programs and projects touted as the means to uplift the lives of the people. I’m not about to thumb my nose at those endeav-

O

ctober has been a clarifying month. The first Democratic debate exhibited Hillary Clinton’s competence and reassured the Democratic Party elite that she remains a formidable candidate. In addition, it helped chase two also-rans—Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee—from the primary and appears to have breached the porous borders of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s support.

This week, Vice President Joe Biden’s retreat from the field ratified Clinton’s commanding position, freeing up funds and quashing a distraction in the news media. Then the much-anticipated House Benghazi hearing unfolded.

After two Republicans recently acknowledged the Benghazi committee’s partisan agenda—roughing up Clinton —the Republicans on the panel had extra incentive to appear decorous and sober. A couple managed. Others played the role of barking seals at

a dystopic Sea World, spinning bright conspiracies on their noses in hopes of being tossed a kipper from the fringe. If the goal was to soften the hard feelings some Democrats hold against Clinton, Republican pride must be swelling at the committee’s resourcefulness.

With a month of drama behind us, Clinton’s status is back to where it was many months ago: She is on track to win her party’s nomination without enormous difficulty. Republicans still hope to derail her candidacy, with high hopes that scandalous e-mails will be

The truth of the matter is that the greater majority of our people don’t have the luxury of time to wait until one economic program or another finally fulfills the expectations of the “trickle-down” effect. Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, the sad reality is that often, economic gains take a long time to reach the more underprivileged sectors of society— the “peripheries,” so to speak. In the meantime, the “brain drain” gets worse every year as more and more of the middle class seek better opportunities abroad, and the poor are mired deeper in illiteracy, poverty and crime. Hope becomes nothing more than an elusive dream on fading shore, drawing further and further away with each year that the quality of life in the country moves one notch lower down the economic ladder.

As a tax professional, I’m not about to dispute the need to impose income taxes. But as a private citizen and an observer of social development, I do subscribe to the notion that taxing the population to the point where their disposable income makes it a challenge to sustain a decent standard of living is both counterproductive for the economy, and more important, burdensome to the people.

If an economy grows through the consumption of the citizenry, how can we really expect the Philippine economy to develop if the Filipinos themselves barely have enough to spend on the things they need for their daily existence?

It goes without saying that taxes have to be imposed so that the government can have the resources to deliver basic services to the people. But a tax should not be so burdensome that it becomes far more of an affliction than an “investment” in the future of our country. Reforming the incometax system and adjusting income-

tax rates to less onerous levels can only help to uplift the standard of living of millions of Filipinos. At a time when everything from food prices to tuition are perpetually on the upswing, allowing people more money to spend on the basic necessities is definitely one very sure way that the government can help someone like the ordinary salaried worker improve his lot in life—and he won’t have to wait until a particular “development project” finally gets started after miles of red tape, endless issues over funding and a host of other conditions have been settled.

(Let’s not even talk about the possibility that the project could be shelved for one reason or another!)

There’s never any shortage of grandiose plans to transform the national economy and bring prosperity to the country. But, as the saying goes, talk is cheap, and sometimes, all it really takes is the political will to make a change whose impact is immediate and direct. As we move inexorably toward the campaign season and the national elections, perhaps it’s time for our political leaders to consider this thought. What legacy do they really want to leave to the people? Yet, another litany of broken promises, or a single, direct act that immediately allows the people more resources to improve their everyday lives?

A simple choice, really. But a choice that will surely be at the back of people’s minds in May 2016.

Because in the end, it’s the simple choices that really count.

The author is a senior partner of The Tax Offices of Romero, Aguilar & Associates and a former commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government. He is a member of the MAP National Issues Committee and MAP Task Force for Taxation.

Human fist evolved to punch, new study says

H

uman hands may have developed the ideal shape over time for punching, according to a new study using male cadaver arms.

By using the arms to punch a dumbbell while in different positions—a clenched fist, a relaxed fist and an open-palmed slap—scientists were able to determine that the clenched fist made it much safer to serve someone a knuckle sandwich without getting hurt.

The findings, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, bolsters a controversial theory that ties human physiology to a violent past.

Compared with nonhominin primates such as chimpanzees, humans have developed a very different hand structure, with a shorter palm, shorter fingers and a relatively longer thumb. This is thought to be a result of hands evolving for more dexterity, allowing our predecessors to wield and manipulate tools.

“That’s the standard argument, it makes all kinds of sense.… There’s

Hillary Clinton is Mrs. October

By Francis Wilkinson | Bloomberg View

ors, but maybe, with just over seven months to go until May 2016, it’s time to consider simple—and above all, direct—ways to make life a little easier, a little better, a little more optimistic, for the man-on-the-street.

This is where a joint Senate and House bill proposed by Sen. Sonny Angara and Rep. Milo Quimbo for the reform of the income-tax system comes in. The bill, which is being championed by Sen. Ralph Recto and endorsed by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) through the MAP Unity Statement, is legislation that should be brought to the attention of as many people as possible because the first person who will benefit from it is the man-onthe-street. In a nutshell, if this bill is signed into law, millions of ordinary Pinoys will pay less in income taxes. That means they’ll have more in their “take-home” pay envelopes, and that translates into such things as better food on the table, vitamins in the medicine cabinet, a little extra cash to fix a leaky roof (absolutely essential, now that it rains almost every evening), a few more pesos for the kids’ allowances. Simple things, it’s true, but more often than not, it’s the basic, everyday things that help make life just a little better, just a little easier, just a little more optimistic.

Monday, October 26, 2015 A11

the new deus ex machina. Barring that, they hope that those Democrats and Independents who’ve never warmed to Team Hillary will remain resistant right through November 2016.

Perhaps the e-mails, which are trickling out in regular intervals, will fatally damage Clinton some way, somehow.

But it seems unlikely. In which case Clinton will simply be a competent Democrat running for president in the mainstream of her party, supported by an incumbent president who is very popular with Democrats and sustaining credible overall favorable ratings in an angry, polarized environment. In other words, Clinton will be running with all the structural advantages that would accrue to any competent mainstream Democrat in 2016.

As each month passes without GOP inroads to Hispanic or Asian voters, the Republican demographic conundrum looms. The party seems incapable of

every reason to believe that,” said lead author David Carrier, a comparative physiologist at the University of Utah.

But Carrier and colleagues have put forth a different, perhaps complementary idea: that as the human hand was becoming more delicate, it may have evolved into just the right shape to fit into a fist—all the better for punching opponents without accidentally breaking one’s own bones.

It’s a controversial idea, and one that Carrier has been building upon for some time: Last year he and colleagues released a paper showing that the male human face may have evolved to withstand more impacts from being punched—presumably during competitions for mates.

For this study, Carrier focused on the fist. He obtained nine male arms from body donor programs

and, by attaching fishing line to the tendons connected to muscles in the forearm, researchers could control the wrist, thumb and forefingers.

They attached strain gauges to the delicate bones in the palm known as the metacarpals, which would be at a high risk of being damaged or broken during a fight.

The researchers mounted each hand to a platform that swung like a pendulum, bringing the fist into contact with a padded dumbbell with an accelerometer embedded in it. This allowed them to measure the force that the fist was experiencing on contact.

One arm ended up being too arthritic, but the scientists used the other eight to wail on the padded weight in three different positions— a clenched fist, an unclenched fist (without the protection of a thumb and fully curled fingers), as well as an open hand slap.

As expected, they found that the clenched fist, with the fingers tightly curled into the palm and the thumb

providing reinforcement across the knuckles, reduced deformation in the metacarpals, lowering the risk of breakage.

As hands grew more dexterous and delicate, the first shape allowed male humans to keep using it as a weapon, presumably to compete for access to potential mates—a behavior that’s seen in many other primates, Carrier said.

Carrier’s line of research has its critics and has attracted controversy.

The comparative biomechanist says it’s because some might (incorrectly) come to the conclusion that such findings could be used to sanction violent behavior.

“I think some of that’s understandable. There’s a fear that if there is evidence that we are anatomically specialized for aggressive behavior, that might, in some way, justify violence, might justify aggression, might justify bad behavior,” Carrier said. “And the way I respond to that is by saying understanding is not justification.” TNS

attracting new nonwhite voters without alienating old white ones. Jeb Bush is arguably the only viable Republican who can make a credible appeal to Hispanic votes, and he has a rough path ahead. (How easy would it be for Marco Rubio to switch his stand on immigration for a second time, with political expediency again being the obvious, overriding motivation? Not very.)

Obama won a 5-million-vote margin of victory in 2012 with the same share of the white vote, 39 percent, that condemned Michael Dukakis to defeat in 1988. The 2012 electorate was 72-percent white; in 2016 it will be closer to 70 percent. (Rubio pollster White Ayres predicts it will be 69 percent.) Clinton can fall short of Obama’s share of black or Hispanic votes and still win the presidency. If she falls a bit short on both—and right now there’s no particular reason to believe she will—and yet does better than Obama

with white women, which seems eminently plausible, she can replicate or exceed Obama’s victory.

Republicans are hoping that demography is not destiny. An economic downturn would help their cause. Barring that, however, it will likely require more than generic resistance to giving one party a third term in the White House, or liberal unease over Clinton, to alter the dynamics. When the partisan lines of the election are drawn, liberals will almost certainly vote for the Democrat.

Without a downturn, one of three conditions would have to prevail: 1. A Republican nominee of extraordinary talent and reach—a conservative Obama.

2. A Clinton implosion due to scandal or health or unforeseen events.

3. A Republican campaign of such relentless negativity that it drives down turnout, enabling the GOP’s older white base to outperform

and tilt the election.

There is no Republican Obama on the horizon, though Rubio might approximate one. A Clinton implosion is surely possible, but doesn’t seem especially likely. And there are real risks, for a party increasingly defined by anger, negativity and intemperate attacks, to running a scorched earth campaign for the White House.

So not only is Clinton back where she started, so is the GOP. The party is no closer to gaining Hispanic, Asian or black votes than it was in 2012. (Spanish media has been highlighting Republican anti-immigrant tirades for months.) Meanwhile, the elderly white share of the electorate—the Republican base—continues to shrink.

Bernie, Biden and Benghazi have been fun, but they’ve done nothing to alter the demographic dynamic of 2016. And Republicans appear no more prepared to answer the challenge.

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Monday, October 26, 2015

‘Farm sector not ready for Asean integration’ T

By David Cagahastian

he agriculture sector’s persistent low growth performance continues to drag the economy’s local output, measured as the GDP, and it appears to economists and business leaders to be an arena where the Philippines has the littlest hope of competing well as the economic fusion of nations under the Asean happens.

This dim view, as indicated by actual historical data, is in stark contrast to a fearless forecast made

by Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala some five years ago that the Philippines should no longer be importing rice by the end of the Aquino administration that is even now winding down its affairs in preparation for an exit some eight months hence.

According to figures presented

by Ateneo economics professor Cielito Habito, also the head of the United States Agency for International Development Trade-

Related Assistance for Development Project, the agricultural sector very nearly contracted in the second quarter this year by growing at a rate of 0.5 percent. Prior to that, the sector posted an expansion averaging only 1.1 percent in the first quarter. In contrast to the disappointing performance, the $285-billion Philippine economy reported a modest 5.6-percent GDP expansion in the second quarter this year.

In terms of job creation, the countr y’s unemployment rate actually moderated to 6.5 percent

Luz said one of the measures that could help the country compete in agricultural production is to revisit the agrarian-reform program.

in July from 6.7 percent a year earlier. The 768,000 new jobs created in the industry and services sector thus far have proven insufficient to compensate for the loss of 877,000 jobs in the agricultural sector the past year alone.

This moderating trend in almost all aspects of the agricultural sector has been noticed also by business leaders like Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) COO Summit COO Guillermo Luz. Luz said in an earlier exclusive forum with Apec CEO Summit media partner the BusinessMirrror that the government should start rethinking it’s strategy to win back the Philippines’s former position as the foremost agricultural producer in the region.

Luz said one of the measures that could help the country compete in agricultural production is

to revisit the agrarian-reform program, which, according to him, has not worked to the country’s advantage because the resulting smaller farmer landholdings do not produce as much agricultural output as the large landholdings have.

The country’s foremost economist and Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran has recommended that the Philippines import more rice on top of what it already regularly imports to ward off inf lationary pressures on food anticipated in the wake of the devastation wrought by Typhoon L ando on t he r ice-producing provinces of the country.

According to Beltran, rice production in the so-called food basket of Central Luzon would likely contract by 8.2 percent for the whole year, bringing the total rice production forecast to negative 2.5 percent.

“As of October 20, 2015, the Department of Agriculture has estimated that 360,00 metric tons of palay has been damaged due to Typhoon Lando, of which, 326,000 tons was borne by Central Luzon. Assuming 0.65 conversion rate, total palay loss translates into 234,000 tons of rice, or roughly seven days of annual rice consumption,” Beltran said in the economic bulletin.

Efta, PHL to hold fourth round of negotiations

Construction materials cheaper in September–Psa

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

he retail price of construction materials in Metro Manila continued to decline in September, according to data captured by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA said the construction materials retail price index (CMRPI) in the National Capital Region (NCR) posted a contraction of 0.4 percent in September this year from 1.3 percent a year ago. This was the third consecutive month since July that the CMRPI in Metro Manila reported a contraction.

“Negative annual rates were still posted in the indices of electrical materials at -1.5 percent; tinsmithry materials, -1.1 percent; and miscellaneous construction materials, -9.2 percent,” the PSA said.

Apart from construction materials that posted contractions, there were also construction materials that posted more moderate retail price increases.

These were carpentry materials and masonry materials posting 1.2 percent and 3.9-percent price increases, respectively.

On a monthly basis, the PSA said the CMRPI in NCR contracted 0.2 percent in September.

“Prices of nails, cement, corrugated GI sheets and steel bars went down during the month. The other construction materials group generally remained stable this month as they registered a zero growth,” the PSA said. The PSA added that the CMRPI is a variant of the general retail price index measures changes in the average retail price of construction materials.

The CMRPI basket is composed of 102 commodities classified into seven major groups including carpentry materials; electrical materials; masonry materials; and painting materials and related compounds. The list of classifications also include plumbing materials; tinsmithry materials; and miscellaneous construction materials.

FACEBOOK WINS DISMISSAL OF $15-B USERS’PRIVACY SUIT

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Continued from A1

Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein.

“This is a good opportunity, especially for small and medium enterprises [SMEs]. Ang parang nakikita nating model is not laborers seeking employment as individuals but through companies na either mag-i-invest or Filipino companies forming joint ventures,” he added.

A more sensitive area for both sides and in every FTA, however, is the access for agricultural goods. He said the list of farm goods that may enjoy preferential trade access may be limited.

“Both the Philippines and Efta recognize that both parties have sensitivities particularly in agriculture.

For this reason, we do not foresee 100-percent coverage for agriculture.

Coverage will definitely be lower for agriculture,” Rodolfo said.

The Philippines is keen on pushing more market access for local tuna.

Rodolfo, however, assured that the government will pursue the country’s export interests in negotiating for the FTA. “Export interests to us include electronics, dentures, optical lenses, garments, processed fruits, highvalue coco-based products,” he said. “[Philippine] products, including agriculture, are very complementary in terms of types of products and even price points—they don’t produce the same products as we do and vice versa,” Rodolfo added.

The FTA is seen to prop up bilateral trade between Efta and the Philippines. Data from the DTI showed that the Philippines imported $400 million worth of goods from Efta countries in 2013. Exports for the same year amounted to $300 million.

Investments of Efta countries in the Philippines plunged to P37.8 billion in 2013 from P13.81 billion in 2010.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

journalism awards The BusinessMirror Baguio reporter Marilou Guieb (left photo) receives her trophy and citation at the Holcim-PPI Journalism Awards for Sustainable Construction Reporting, National Newspaper Category. The award rites were held at the Hotel InterContinental Manila in Makati City. Right photo shows BusinessMirror Energy reporter Lenie Lectura, whose body of work in 2014 was recognized as the best in the power sector at the 24th Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines Journalism Awards held at the Ayala Museum on November 23. ROY DOMINGO

Lando. . .

Continued from A1

possibility that the rich top soil of the rice farms in the area may have been washed out by the typhoon.

He said this kind of data, as well as the planting intentions of farmers in the last two months of 2015 and the first quarter next year will be critical in making a decision on how much rice the Philippines needs to import next year.

“Gaano kadami ’yung land na hindi agad na-replantan [such as those farms where] the top soil has been washed out and to what extent made—delay ’yung replanting.

But that kind of information will be made available in the next couple of weeks when we assess the situation,” Balisacan said. In terms of impact on the country’s overall economic growth, Balisacan said the damage caused by the typhoon would not put a dent in the P13trillion Philippine economy.

However, Balisacan said there is a need to obtain additional data on the damage, as well as the performance of the various sectors of the economy to assess how much impact the typhoon will have on the country’s GDP. Recently, Balisacan said the government completed a road map to address the impact of the El Niño particu-

larly on farmer’s incomes, power and health.

Balisacan said interventions to mitigate the impact of El Niño on 66 provinces will require P19.2 billion. Of this amount, some P7.5 billion is required for the remainder of this year and P11.7 billion is needed next year.

The road map interventions include cash-for-work programs; water-management interventions, particularly for irrigation; and other interventions.

The latest data from the Department of Agriculture (DA) showed that the damage caused by Lando in the agriculture sector as of October 23 has reached 510,438 metric tons (MT) valued at P8.62 billion.

The volume of crops damaged by Lando has reached 510,438 MT, valued at P8.62 billion as of October 23, according to the latest report from the DA. The DA said a total of 356,598 hectares of farmlands in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4A and the Cordillera Administrative Region were affected by the typhoon, with 93.48 percent, or 333,357 hectares, having a chance of recovery.

The rice sector suffered the most damage, registering a total production loss of 463,692 MT pegged at P7.09 billion. Rice farms in Region 3 were severely devastated, losing 393,440 MT of crops valued at almost P6 billion in terms of production loss.

acebook Inc. won dismissal of a $15-billion lawsuit accusing the company of secretly tracking the Internet activity of its users after they log off.

US District Judge Edward J. Davila in San Jose, California, on Friday agreed with Facebook’s argument that case should be dismissed because subscribers didn’t specify how they were harmed. The judge, who took more than three years to issue his ruling after hearing arguments in the case, said the users could refile most of their claims in a revised lawsuit.

Facebook users alleged in a 2012 complaint that while they may have agreed to the company’s installation of “cookie” files on their computers to track and transmit their Web browsing, they didn’t consent to such monitoring after logging out of the social network.

The lawsuit consolidated similar complaints filed on behalf of US residents who subscribed to Facebook from May 2010 to September 2011 in 10 states, including California, Texas and Alabama.

Facebook, the world’s most popular social-networking service, has been scrutinized by regulators in the US and Europe over how it uses subscribers’ private information. The company has also been hit with multiple privacy lawsuits, from a complaint that it scans users’ private e-mail messages for targeted advertising to a claim that its use of facial- recognition technology has “amassed the world’s largest privately held database of consumer biometric data.”

In the San Jose case, the plaintiffs accused Facebook of violating the US Wiretap Act by monitoring their online activity while they weren’t logged on. They also accused Facebook of improperly profiting from their information.

‘Realistic’ harm

The judge said the users failed to “adequately connect” the value of the data collected by Facebook “to a realistic economic harm or loss.” Specifically, the plaintiffs failed to show “they personally lost the opportunity to sell their information or that the value of their information was somehow diminished after it was collected by Facebook,” Davila said.

Davila gave the plaintiffs until November 30 to revise their claims, including invasion of privacy and alleged violations of the Wiretap Act. That law provides for damages of as much as $100 a violation per day for each Facebook user, according to the complaint. Based on an estimate of 150 million affected users, the plaintiffs calculated potential damages of $15 billion.

A representative of Menlo Park, California-based Facebook didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail after regular business hours on Friday seeking comment on the ruling. Three lawyers for the plaintiffs also didn’t respond to phone and e-mail messages.

Matthew Brown, a lawyer who represented Facebook at a 2012 hearing before Davila, told the judge that the users’ complaint suffers from an “utter lack of allegations of any injury to these particular named plaintiffs.”

Brown argued that the plaintiffs failed to identify what web sites they visited, what kind of data or information was collected or whether Facebook used it or disclosed it to anyone else.

Bloomberg News