BusinessMirror August 8, 2015

BY THE NUMBERS

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima THURSDAY marked the 70th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. The US has said the bombings hastened Japan’s surrender and eliminated the need for a US invasion that would have cost many more lives. The toll on the two Japanese cities was heavy. Here’s a look, by the numbers, at that day 70 years ago: n 350,000: Population of Hiroshima before the bombing, of which 40,000 were military personnel. n 300,000: Total death toll to date, including those who have died from radiation-related cancers. n 31,500: Height in feet (9,600 meters) from which the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the “Little Boy” bomb. n 2,000: Height in feet (600 meters) at which the bomb exploded 43 seconds after it was dropped. n 3,000-4,000: The estimated temperature in Celsius at ground zero seconds after the detonation. n 1,600: Radius in feet (500 meters) from ground zero in which the entire population died that day. n 90: Percent of Hiroshima that was destroyed. n 3-6: Weeks after the bombing during which most of the victims with severe radiation symptoms died. n 10 million: Folded paper (origami) cranes that decorate the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima each year. AP

THIS August 6, 1945, file photo shows the destruction from the explosion of an atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. AP

Looking back at Hiroshima Seventy yyears ago o, the U. U S. dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan.

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Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945

JAP PAN P AN

Uranium bomb dubbed “Little Boy” detonates 1,890 ft.

(576 m) above the city at 8:15 a.m.

Tokyo T okyo Hiroshima

Explosion by gun-barrel method 1. Pressure sensors activate detonation device . . .

Hiroshima

Little Boy

2. . . . triggering a 3. Explosion conventional drives explosion uranium wedge into uranium target

Nagasaki

4. Chain reaction sets off nuclear blast

Nagasaki, Aug. 9, 1945 Plutonium bomb dubbed “Fat Man” detonates 1,800 ft. (549 m) above the city at 11:02 a.m.

Explosion by implosion 1. Numerous detonators located on conventional explosives fire simultaneously . . .

2. . . . creating powerful inward pressure on plutonium core, squeezing it, increasing Fat Man its density 3. Chain reaction sets off nuclear blast

Nagasaki

Core Uranium 235

Destruction Hiroshima

Source: Hiroshima Museum, NASA, U.S. Air Force Museum

Core Plutonium 239

Nagasaki

BusinessMirror Source: Hiroshima Museum, NASA, U.S. Air Force Museum

THREETIME ROTARY CLUBB OF MANILA M JOURNALISM AWARDEE 2006, 2010, 2012

U.N. MEDIA AWARD 2008

A broader look at today’s business Saturday 18,August 2014 Vol. No. 40Vol. 10 No. 303 Saturday, 8, 102015

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FOREIGN DEBT PAYMENTS, DECLINE IN VALUE OF GOLD HOLDINGS PULL DOWN FOREX RESERVES

July GIR dropped to $80.43B T

HE country’s front-line foreigncurrency reserves dipped in July to $80.43 billion, as the gold holdings of the central bank declined in value and the national government had to pay down maturing foreign obligations.

INSIDE

THE PORN PROBLEM D

Let us be free

EAR Lord, help us to be free people so that we are able to think what we do, being able to assess what is good and what is bad. These are the types of conduct that lead to development: it means always opting to be good.

Let us be free for goodness. And in things we do, are not afraid to go against the tide even it is not easy.

Always being free to choose goodness is demanding but it will make us into people with a backbone who can face life with patience and unending service for others. Amen.

MAGNIFICAT AND LOUIE M. LACSON Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

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

Life

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Friday the country’s gross international reserves (GIR) stood $200 million lower than in June, also as a result of so-called revaluation adjustments on the foreign-currency holdings of one of Asia’s vibrant economies.

Just a month earlier, the country’s foreign-currency reserves aggregated $80.64 billion. It may yet prove useful again later this year, or soon after when the monetary authorities

A SON’S IDENTITY CRISIS OPENS A FEW NEW DOORS »D3

BusinessMirror

Saturday, August 8, 2015

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The porn problem

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B H S RedEye

OR nearly four years, David’s days typically started and ended the same way. Around 6 am, he’d wake up, grab his phone or tablet from next to his bed and begin watching porn. Leaving little time to get ready and have breakfast, he’d head off to work around 8 am, where he would keep himself heavily caffeinated, anxiously waiting to leave. After work, he would head home, “literally running,” and sometimes skip dinner to spend the rest of the evening fully engrossed in the clicks and hits of Internet pornography.

“I’d go until 11:30, 12, sometimes 1 [am], until my eyes literally hurt,” said David, 33, from Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood.

If it was a weekend, he’d spend it entirely at home watching porn. “I had no life. It was as if the whole world didn’t exist. That’s how I lived for many years,” said David, who didn’t want his real name used for this article. (While RedEye’s typical standard is to include a source’s first and last name, we are allowing some anonymity in stories dealing with addiction because of the sensitive nature of the topic.)

There’s an ongoing debate over whether Internet pornography is addictive, but David’s days depended on it. Not only are the statistics hard to track, but also a clinical definition of pornography addiction has yet to be agreed on by experts. Although a proposed hypersexual disorder category was considered for inclusion in the American Psychiatric Association’s 2013 fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard for the mental health industry, reviewers decided in 2012 that there was not enough research and evidence to include the category.

Gary Wilson, author of Your Brain on Porn: Internet

Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction, said there are no official statistics or surveys on porn addicts because the addiction hasn’t been acknowledged, yet. But a few polls on the subject were taken by organizations last year, including one by Proven Men Ministries, a Christian-focused organization that offers help to those who identify as porn and sex addicts. The nonprofit surveyed 1,000 adults, both men and women of various ages, races and geographical locations; a breakdown of those demographics, including religious backgrounds, could not be provided. It found that 33 percent of men ages 18 to 30 think they are addicted to pornography or are unsure if they’re addicted. Overall, 18 percent of all men said the same.

Whether it is recognized as an addiction, people are talking about the trouble with porn. It’s interfering with users’ lives, and Chicago psychotherapist Jens Hussey believes that it is “the fastest-growing addiction that’s out there right now,” particularly in younger men.

TRAINED TO NEED PORN BEFORE Internet porn, users were limited to the analog stuff, consuming magazines and videos in lesser quantity. But today, the Internet has helped put porn into the hands of anyone who wants it, as much as they want it.

With Internet access and a viewing device, anyone has the ability to watch thousands of naked strangers anywhere at any time—in the car, in the bathroom at work, before even getting out of bed in the morning.

“Back then I could only look at a picture of a naked girl, and what did I know about sex, when I was 12 or 13?” said Wilson, who also runs the web site www. yourbrainonporn.com.

“But now...imagination has been replaced by what’s on the screen. You become a voyeur to watch and click and surf, conditioning sexuality—that this is the way

you do sex, this is how you have it...because it’s real people having what you think is real sex.”

Wilson’s site references several studies that show how the brain is affected by porn, suggesting that too much Internet porn could be rewiring the brain, even if you’re not addicted, by “taking advantage of these innate types of reward circuit responses,” he said, that keep dopamine—the feel-good chemical in the brain—surging. Although what’s onscreen isn’t real sex, the brain naturally finds voyeurism, novelty, shock and surprise, seeking and searching and other aspects sexually stimulating.

Every time a person watching porn clicks to a new video with new naked people and new surprises, his dopamine shoots up. David said that while he was watching porn six hours a day, he’d only watch each video for about 10 seconds and then move on to the next. Not everyone who watches porn uses it compulsively. But those who do crave it say it’s affecting their sex lives, causing erectile dysfunction, changing how they view real partners and their own body image and, in some cases, ruining relationships and careers.

Hussey, who specializes in addiction, said access is a key component in the problem with porn. “When most people go to their jobs, alcohol is not there, cocaine is not on the job, but porn could be on the job,” he said.

“Because of access, it becomes very difficult to get away from it.”

Because it’s so accessible, young people are growing up with it, meaning that their brains are too: “Your brain keeps developing until about age 24,” Hussey said. “So if you start masturbating and watching porn at age 12 or 13, and you have 10 years of brain development, and let’s say you have a guy, who every time he masturbates he watches porn...he is now developing sexuality to be

Whether it is recognized as an addiction, people are talking about the trouble with porn. It’s interfering with users’ lives, and Chicago psychotherapist Jens Hussey believes that it is “the fastest-growing addiction that’s out there right now,” particularly in younger men.

Operations and Program Director of Disability Affairs Bien Mateo.

In his inspirational message, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara admitted that persons with disabilities (PWDs) laws in the country are works in progress and much needs to be done starting with the public’s awareness level specifically on the Accessibility Law and the Magna Carta of Disabled Persons.

Angara promised that he will further push for bills that will make a difference in the lives of the PWDs, such as the value-added tax exemption for PWDs, the Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Bill, the Inclusive Education Act, and the Paralympic Athletes’ incentives and benefits from the Philippine Sports Commission.

However, Angara strongly appealed for the Filipinos’ support in order to overcome the hurdles and challenges of the passage of

ASSISTANT Cultural Affairs Officer Elizabeth Liu (standing, from left); SM Vice President for Operations and Program Director of Disability Affairs Bien Mateo; US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip S. Goldberg; Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara and Cultural Affairs Specialist Pong Aureus; (seated from left) National Council on Disability Affairs Executive Director Carmen Zubiaga, Executive Vice President and CEO of Tahanang Walang Hagdanan Joy Cevallos-Garcia; and Paralympian powerlifter Adeline Dumapong

the bills.

US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip S. Goldberg highlighted that the US government is a strong advocate for equal access to education, employment and other social services for PWDs. He said that ADA prohibits discrimination against PWDs and ensures disabled students’ full participation in the educational system.

Goldberg recalled several activities of the US Embassy that started last year, to raise awareness on the importance of inclusion of PWDs, such as a forum on disabilities with Miriam College, wheelchair basketball clinic with National Basketball Association legends, and promotion of PWD skills and music during the July 4 celebration in which blind singers and rondalla on wheels were honored. He further encouraged everyone to be advocates for the rights of the disabled.

LIFE

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IDENTITY CRISIS Parentlife BusinessMirror

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B M J F | The Orange County Register

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and send it to you, after which you fill it out and mail it back in. Then you wait for permission from the state.

We waited to see if the dad would respond.

And the letter came a few days ago.

“I never forgot about you,” the letter read, in part. “I always wondered if you forgot about me.... There’s a lot I want to say to you, but I’m emotional right now. I love you, son, and I hope to see you soon...”

I’m getting a little teary eyed just writing these words. I’m hoping that the prison bureaucracy will soon approve our visit so we can go up and see him. And Cheetah Boy can get the answers he seeks.

Meanwhile, he and I are getting along better than we have in a long time. He apologized for being a (expletive deleted) to me during the worst of our arguments. And for other incidents I won’t repeat here.

It’s making me think I might live through this whole teenage thing. Meanwhile, his 16-year-old sister, who was always the sunny, funny, friendly, academically gifted one with the good grades is doing her own version of acting out. I always hoped she’d get a scholarship to a top university. But that’s probably not going to happen now. It’s looking like she’ll be joining her brother in community college, which is fine, just not what I was hoping for.

This time around, I hope I’ve learned enough to do a little less yelling and a little more understanding. n

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stopped grounding.

One of the books I read, Yes, Your Teen Is Crazy! Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind, recommends treating teenagers as if they were mental patients. Because their brains are so undeveloped as to be positively psycho. The author advises parents to go out of their way to be kind to their children and understand that they aren’t acting out to punish them, even if it seems that way.

I decided to start being kind, as I would if I visited someone in the hospital.

When my son was doing something of which I disapproved, I sat him down and talked to him about it.

Not lectured. Not reproved. Just talked.

I explained why I thought his actions would not lead to his future happiness and success. I asked him what he thought. Usually, he agreed.

I told him I was worried and asked him to consider his future, not just the present.

And sometimes, when he was being particularly annoying, I asked him what was going on with him.

Why he was so upset. In the past, I would have just griped at him to cut it out and improve his attitude.

Now, I was actually asking him what was going on.

He didn’t always tell me. But sometimes he did.

And, greatly to my surprise, it started working.

He turned 18 back in February—a big date for former foster kids. That’s the age of majority when former foster children “age out” of the system and their foster parents no longer get paid to care for them.

Many kids have no safety net when this happens.

They are alienated from any birth family that still exists intact and have been moved around enough to lack

permanent friends who might take them in.

If they aren’t lucky enough to find a college program to help them, these kids often end up homeless or in jail.

A friend of mine who aged out of the system, now a success, told me he and his brother ended up in a weird religious cult because they were the only ones willing to take them in.

My son and I had conflicts over what it meant for him to turn 18 and how much liberty he should be allowed, just like average parents and kids.

But it also triggered something in him connected to his past. For the first time, he wanted to seek out his birth mother and father and get some answers as to why they didn’t care for him as they should have.

Since I adopted him at age 5, he’d always steadfastly refused to talk about anything in his past, or to have any contact with his birth family.

I always thought it would be healing for him, because I know his birth mom is remorseful about how her drug addiction hurt her kids and would like the chance to tell him so, but he always refused to talk to her.

Suddenly, now he does want to see her and get answers to his questions. And he also wants to talk to his birth father, who is in prison for a long time.

A few weeks ago, I helped him write a terse letter to his birth father, whom he last saw when he was 4 years old. He told him he didn’t know if he remembered him, but he was his son and had some questions for him.

So please put him on his visitors list.

To visit someone in state prison, the inmate must sign a visitation form

MAGICAL FREEBIES AT ENCHANTED KINGDOM

THE newest lifestyle rewards program in the country, GetGo, not only offers its members free Cebu Pacific flights but also takes them to a whole new magical adventure via an exclusive promo with Enchanted Kingdom.

A minimum purchase of three park tickets (maximum of 10) to the world-class theme park in Santa Rosa, Laguna, entitles GetGo members and their friends to free P100 Wizard Money each. All they have to do is present their GetGo card at the Enchanted Kingdom’s ticketing office.

The Wizard Money can be used to buy food and souvenir items inside the park. It can also be used to purchase tickets on their next park visit.

To avail yourselves of the GetGo card, simply visit www.GetGo.com.ph, click JOIN, fill out the application form and for only a P150 membership fee, have your personalized GetGo card delivered to your doorstep.

Art, for the enjoyment of kids B E C L LOOKING to promote museum visits to the youth as a fun, family-bonding activity, every Jollibee Kids Party celebrant can visit five participating museums for free starting this month by way of “Newseum,” a joint project

by Jollibee and the Museum Foundation of the Philippines Inc. (MFPI).

“Just imagine Jollibee posing beside a prized work of Juan Luna, encouraging children and parents to visit museums,” Maritess Pineda, MFPI president said in a recent news conference. “We aim to develop a museum-going Filipino society by educating our young children. It is the common goal of both [Jollibee and MFPI] to make museum visits a strong option when deciding where to go during one’s free time or spend weekend dates with family.”

The museums participating in the project are Museo Pambata, A Ayala Museum, Lopez Museum and Library, as well as the Ateneo Art Gallery and Art Collection of the Far Eastern University of Manila.

Aside from the free entrance along with a guardian, the project also includes activity sheets for Jollibee Kids Party guests, who will have the chance to recreate Filipino art masterpieces by acclaimed artists by coloring their replicated works in special activity sheets that feature one of five masterpieces from the participating museums.

Some of the obra maestras featured are National Artist Arturo Luz’s Bagong Taon contributed by the Ateneo Art Gallery,

PARENTLIFE

THE leading fast-food chain in the Philippines, Jollibee recently launched its Newseum project in cooperation with the Museum Foundation of the Philippines Inc. (MFPI). Present during the launch were Jollibee Marketing Vice President Harvey Ong, Jollibee PR Director and Head of Kids Marketing Arline Adeva, MFPI President Maritess Pineda and MFPI Trustee Weng Domingo.

showing three men riding a bike to underscore the high spirits every time a new year comes around. Meanwhile, Lopez Museum and Library chose Malang Santos’s Rural Scene/ Fiesta to showcase the festive atmosphere of local fiestas.

On top of the free entrance and the exercise on creativity, every activity sheets also serve as the kids’ entries to a special raffle with a Jollibee Kids Party worth P6,000

C  A

as the main prize.

Harvey Ong, Jollibee’s marketing head, shared the importance of exposing children to a world beyond the Internet, particularly to the wonders of art. “In immersing [our children] in our world-class art and heritage, I believe they will become more creative, they will learn to think outside the box, appreciate diversity and, more important, gain a deeper appreciation of our identity as a nation.”

AYALA LAND INC. INCOME ROSE 19 PERCENT TO P8.39B IN H1 B VG C

A son’s identity crisis opens a few new doors ARNING: This article isn’t funny, so if you’re looking for a laugh, maybe you should turn to the comics and come back another time.

I want to talk about an issue facing my children, and thousands of other adopted kids when they hit their teenage years—the feeling that their birth parents abandoned them, in some cases, literally. In others, metaphysically, by choosing drugs or crime over them.

This hits many of them hard in their teenage years, regardless of how happy they are in their adoptive home.

Kids feel angry and unloveable and act out righteously.

We’ve been going through that in our house for years.

You can ask our neighbors, who have to listen to the yelling. Psychologists will tell you that a teenager’s most important job during those years is to form his or her own identity, separate from the parents.

Typically, a kid looks to his parents for inspiration, then models a new identity similar to theirs—or opposite of theirs—depending on the circumstances.

But what if a child’s birth parents are drug addicts?

Or in prison?

Yes, the adopted kids live happily with adoptive parents, who don’t look like them and don’t share any of their DNA, but that doesn’t help much with their identity crisis, when they try to sort out who they are.

This is made more difficult by their classmates, who ask charming questions like, “Why didn’t your mom want you? Why don’t you have a dad? Why did your mom abandon you?” My children have been asked all those questions many times. They are still being asked today. In the adopted child’s mind, she was abandoned because her birth mom preferred to continue using drugs to parenting her. Meaning that she isn’t worth more than a crack pipe or a needle.

And she has no easy explanations when classmates ask these crass questions.

This is the age when adoptive kids are most likely to become angry—yet, they don’t always even know what they’re angry about.

Everyone around them knows something’s going on when the teen starts thrashing around, yelling, withdrawing, becomes depressed, when school grades plummet and other forms of acting out start happening.

This is a hard time for adoptive parents, who worry obsessively and become exhausted by all the drama and stress. It’s awful to feel helpless to guide your child and steer him in the right direction when he seems determined to self-destruct.

There have been times over the past few years when I would sit down with Cheetah Boy and say, “Why do you keep sabotaging yourself? The path you’re going down leads nowhere. Yet, you won’t turn around.”

I read book after book and visited therapist after therapist looking for answers to help my kids, who were obviously suffering.

One thing you quickly learn as the parent of a teenager is—you can’t stop your kid from doing whatever he wants. You can discourage him. You can punish him. But he will find a way to do as he pleases, regardless of what you say. If you disagree with this, then you’re being duped.

After what seemed like eons of yelling and disruption in our household, I finally learned that I could effect some change—by changing myself.

I stopped yelling. I stopped being passive aggressive. I

have to dip into these resources to try to smoothen fluctuations in the exchange rate.

The central bank attributed the decrease in reserves to payments made by the national government to settle maturing foreignexchange obligations.

More evident in the data set was the decline in value of the BSP’s gold holdings due to revaluation adjustments. The value of the

C  D

US Embassy hosts forum on PWD Rights THE US Embassy Manila hosted a forum titled PWD Rights: Diversity and Social Inclusion, on July 31 in the Charles Parsons Ballroom of the US Embassy.

The forum, conducted in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), was attended by almost 250 participants from the Philippine government, students from schools with special education, Philippine National School for the Blind, Philippine School for the Deaf, non-governmental organizations, and Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative members.

They had engaging interaction with the panelists composed of National Council on Disability Affairs Executive Director Carmen Zubiaga, Executive Vice President and CEO of Tahanang Walang Hagdanan Joy CevallosGarcia, Paralympian powerlifter Adeline Dumapong, and SM’s Vice President for

B B C

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REMIUM property developer Ayala Land Inc. on Friday reported net income of P8.39 billion in the first six months, some 19 percent higher than last year’s P7.05 billion.

Consolidated revenues amounted to P50.61 billion, an increase of 10 percent, driven by sustained momentum of its real-estate businesses.

“Development continues in all our estates, with products in residential, shopping centers, offices and hotels on the rise. We are on track relative to our annual target, and we plan to sustain the momentum with new launches in the com-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 45.7820

ing months,” Ayala Land President Bernard Vincent Dy said.

The company has thus far spent a total of P41.1 billion in capital expenditures, less than half of its budget for the year, for project construction and land acquisition.

Property development, which includes the sale of residential lots and units, and office spaces, as well as commercial and industrial lots, generated revenues of P31.85 billion in the first six months, 9 percent higher than the P29.30 billion reported in the same period last year.

Commercial leasing, which covers the operation of shopping centers, offices, hotels and resorts, C  A

GOLD EXHIBITION Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. (from left) and Philippine Gold Exhibition Gala Benefit Committee Chairmen Doris Magsaysay-Ho and Fernando Zobel de Ayala at the media briefing for the Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdom exhibit. The Philippine Gold exhibition in New York between September 11, 2015, and early January 2016 will bring to the world stage a truly fascinating, yet little-known, aspect about the Philippines’s rich heritage. NONIE REYES

Abaya to Uber: Follow PHL laws B L S. M

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T would be a pity. This was how Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya described Uber’s fate, once the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board starts apprehending its drivers’ operations.

The transport network company’s (TNC) operations are still considered illegal, as it has yet to receive its license to operate taxilike services in Metro Manila.

“If they are not complying, then they are colorum; so we will need to go after them. But we cannot impose a deadline on when they should apply for a license,” the transport chief said.

When worst comes to worst, Abaya said in the vernacular, “Pasensyahan na lang. It’s a fair game.”

ABAYA: “If they are not complying, then they are colorum; so we will need to go after them. But we cannot impose a deadline on when they should apply for a license.”

He seemed puzzled at how Uber took his agency’s decision to legalize the operations of ride-hailing application operators, and its delayed response to the ruling.

“They brag that the Philippines is forward-looking; saying that we have the right framework, and yet they cannot comply,” he said.

The Philippines is the first country to legally recognize ride-

hailing services. The Department of Transportation and Communications in May issued a department order, acknowledging the need for such innovation.

A TNC is an organization that provides prearranged transportation services for compensation using an Internet-based technology application or a digital-platform technology to connect passengers with drivers using their personal vehicles.

They will provide the public with online-enabled transportation services, which is known as Transportation Network Vehicle Service, which will connect drivers with ride-seekers through an app. In a nutshell, TNCs are companies that partner with private-vehicle owners or even fleet managers to provide private taxi services to consumers.

n JAPAN 0.3670 n UK 71.0445 n HK 5.9067 n CHINA 7.3726 n SINGAPORE 33.0914 n AUSTRALIA 33.6360 n EU 50.0351 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.2082 Source: BSP (7 August 2015)

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news@businessmirror.com.ph

July GIR dropped P-Noy orders Pnp to rid ranks of scalawags, prepare for elections. . . to $80.43B Continued from A8

Continued from A1

central bank’s gold holdings fell to only $6.86 billion in July, from the $7.37 billion in June.

But no matter the decline, the central bank said the July reserves level should still be enough to cover 10.6 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income.

It should also equal 6.3 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.5 times based on residual maturity.

Data from the BSP further show the GIR could have proven lower in July were it not partially offset by an increase in foreign investments

Job growth. . .

income generated by the BSP during the period. The government projects the GIR to end the year at more or less $81.6 billion.

A portion of the reserves has since been made available to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the country’s macroeconomic underpinnings have since firmed to the point that it is now able to deploy a part of its resources in overseas undertakings such as funding the balance of payments deficit of foreign jurisdictions.

It has only been in recent years that Manila has effectively become a net exporter of capital after decades as a net borrower of funds from the IMF.

Continued from A8

benefits last week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was up 3,000 from the previous week but still near a 40-year low and consistent with solid job growth. The new reports from ADP and Challenger, however, raise concerns about the strength of the labor market.

Employers last month announced plans to lay off 105,696 workers, up sharply from 44,842 in June, Challenger said. The July figure was the most since September 2011.

In the first seven months of the year, private and public employers announced 393,368 layoffs,

Challenger reported. That’s the most since 2009, when planned job cuts surged to 978,048 during the same period.

In contrast, employers in 2014 announced the fewest job cuts in 17 years, according to Challenger.

Federa l Reser ve (the Fed) policy-makers are considering the first increase in the central bank’s benchmark interest rate since 2006.

Many analysts expect a small hike in September if the next two Labor Department jobs reports are solid. But a weaker-than-expected July report could give Fed policyma-kers pause and delay a rate hike. TNS

hatid ng Oplan Lambat-Sibat, pinalawak na rin natin ang saklaw nito; inilunsad na rin natin ito sa Region 3 at 4,” he added.

According to President Aquino, Oplan Lambat-Sibat is but a part of the PNP’s comprehensive strategy to neutralize and nab criminal elements.

“Mula 2010 hanggang nitong Hunyo, halos 163,000 wanted na ang nahuli; mahigit 1,000 na gang ang na-neutralize, at 29,294 na baril na walang lisensiya ang nakumpiska sa buong bansa.”

The President also said he was giving newly installed PNP Chief Police Director General Ricardo C. Marquez a free hand to pick the officers who will help him accomplish

their mission to serve the people.

“Malaya kang pumili ng mga nais mong makasama sa trabaho. Gayumpaman, alam kong batid mo ang kaakibat nitong obligasyon, na siguruhin sa aking nagagawa nila ang sinumpaang tungkulin sa ating mga boss.”

Without directly mentioning the heroism of the 44 PNP officers killed

by Moro rebels in the January 25 Mamasapano massacre, Mr. Aquino admitted he could not bring back the past and, instead advised police officers to look forward to and strive for a better future.

“Sa kabila ng maraming problemang minana at tinutugunan natin, alam din nating marami pang pagsubok na

darating. Totoo: Hindi na natin maibabalik ang nakalipas, pero ’di hamak na mas maganda kung ayusin na natin ang kasalukuyan, upang talagang mapaganda ang ating kinabukasan. Ang tanong ko nga: Sino sa inyo ang gustong magpahirap sa trabaho? Palagay ko po’y wala,” the President said.

At the same time, Mr. Aquino assured he was open to suggestions on how Malacañang could help in further providing the needs of uniformed personnel to so they can fulfill their mission, even as he listed his administration’s accomplishment in attaining the “1:1 police-to-pistol ratio” for the first time.

He also cited the ongoing PNP

modernization program following approval of the procurement of 2,523 patrol jeeps, 577 utility vehicles, 5,736 motorcycles, 29,266 handheld radios and 3,328 investigative kits.

“Bukod sa pagpapalakas pa ng puwersa at pagpapaunlad sa kakayahan ng inyong hanay, tinututukan din natin ang inyong mga personal na pangangailangan,” he said. “Halos 25,000 na ang inilaan nating housing units para sa mga kuwalipikadong kawani ng PNP. Gayundin, inaasikaso natin ang mga hakbang, gaya ng pagsasaayos sa inyong pensyon, upang masiguro ang kapakanan ninyo kahit sa panahong wala na kayo sa serbisyo.”

Oil poised for sixth weekly drop . . .

US production in coming quarters.”

Crude inventories in the US fell 4.4 million barrels to 455.3 million last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. Output expanded by 52,000 barrels a day to 9.47 million, the first gain in four weeks.

US lawmaker Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he will oppose last month’s nuclear agreement with Iran, a deal that is set to boost supply in an already oversupplied market. Congress has until September 17 to review the accord between the US, Iran and five other world powers.

Obama veto

If lawmakers pass a resolution of

disapproval—the likely outcome in the Republican-led House and Senate— President Barack Obama has said he will veto it.

A technical indicator shows prices have probably dropped too quickly to sustain further losses. WTI’s 14-day relative strength index is about 26, below 30 for the sixth straight day, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

A reading below 30 typically signals the market is oversold.

“We are close to a local bottom as a lot of bearish data and sentiment is now probably priced in,”Torbjoern Kjus, an analyst at DNB ASA in Oslo, said by e-mail. “If people start seeing that US oil production is on its way down, that

could become a catalyst for somewhat higher prices again.”

European coal

European thermal coal plunged to the lowest in almost eight years, as declining oil prices cut operating costs and lower river levels restricted shipments to inland power stations.

Coal for delivery to the AmsterdamRotterdam-Antwerp area next year fell as much as 1.6 percent to $54.90 a metric ton, the lowest in broker data compiled

by Bloomberg that goes back to September 2007. It’s dropped more than 16 percent this year as imports to the UK declined to their lowest in five years.

Falling global prices have driven min-

Continued from A8

ing companies from Alpha Natural Resources Inc. to Walter Energy Inc. to declare bankruptcy in the US, while Glencore Plc., Australia’s largest exporter, has shut mines amid shrinking demand from China, the world’s largest consumer. Governments are boosting support for renewable energy and tightening pollution rules for coal-fired power plants across the European Union.

“Brent crude oil below $50 a barrel is bearish for Europe, because it’s a cost for miners,” Diana Bacila, an analyst in Oslo at Nena AS, said by phone on Saturday.

“Drier weather has impacted river levels in continental Europe, and this is negative for coal prices as it leaves high stocks at ports.” Bloomberg News

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Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Saturday, August 8, 2015 A3

CA affirms ruling vs Ginebra Kapitan

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By Joel R. San Juan

HE Court of Appeals (CA) has junked the plea of tycoon Lucio C. Tan’s beverage company Tanduay Distillers Inc. (TDI) to reverse its ruling, which found the latter liable for unfair competition and infringement for using San Miguel Corp.’s “Ginebra” mark in manufacturing and selling its gin product Ginebra Kapitan.

In a five-page resolution penned

by Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, the CA’s Special Sixteenth Division held that TDI’s motion for reconsideration failed to raise new issues that would warrant the reversal of its decision issued on November 7, 2014.

“Anent the other matters raised

by Tanduay in its motion for reconsideration, e.g., the doctrine of

secondary meaning and trademark infringement, clearly, these issues were already exhaustively dissected, analyzed and discussed in our decision. Thus, the very same issues, being mere repetitions, need not be revisited,” the CA ruled.

The CA also did not give weight to the argument of Tanduay that it should have dismissed outright Ginebra San Miguel Inc.’s (GSMI)

appeal for being improper and on the ground of forum shopping.

The appellate court noted that Tanduay never moved for the dismissal of the appeal pending before it, despite knowledge that a petition review was earlier filed by Ginebra before another division.

“And even after a decision was rendered in the said petition, Tanduay never raised the issues on the impropriety of the mode of appeal and of forum shopping....In any event, we find the absence of forum shopping in the instant case,” the CA ruled.

In its November 2014 decision, the CA Special Sixteenth Division reversed and set aside the October 5, 2012, ruling issued by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Mandaluyong City, which dismissed Ginebra’s complaint for unfair competition, infringement and damages against TDI. The appellate court declared that “the mere use of Ginebra by Tanduay in its Ginebra Kapitan gin products is trademark infringement by itself.”

The appellate court noted that its findings on TDI liability for trademark infringement and unfair competition are consistent with the

decision dated August 15, 2013, rendered by the Special Former Thirteenth Division on a similar case involving the same parties.

In addition, the CA ordered TDI to remove from the market all its gin products bearing the mark Ginebra, including all bottles, labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptables and advertisements bearing the mark.

TDI was also directed to cease and desit from using Ginebra in any of its gin product.

The CA ruled that, through its long use in the country, Ginebra has become “singularly synonymous” with GSMI’s gin products and GSMI itself as the manufaturer, thus, the mark has already acquired a secondary meaning in trademark laws.

But, the CA Special Sixteenth Division noted that it kept its silence on the award made by Special Former Thirteenth Division, after noting that, indeed, GSMI failed to present evidence before the trial court to support its claim for payment of the damages.

The Special Former Thirteenth Division, in its own ruling, directed TDI to pay GSMI 50 per-

cent of the total gross sales of its Ginebra Kapitan products, from the time of the filing of the case before the RTC in Mandaluyong City in 2003 up to the finality of the judgment.

It also ordered TDI to pay GSMI the amount of P2 million as exemplary damages and P500,000 as attorney’s fees, and remanded the case to the RTC in Mandaluyong for purpose only of the accounting of the gross sales of TDI’s Ginebra Kapitan and for the determination of the amount of actual and compensatory damages to be awarded to GSMI. It can be recalled that in another case, the CA Eleventh Division ruled on August 2, 2014, in favor of GSMI’s petition seeking the nullification of the approval of Tanduay’s registration of the mark Ginebra Kapitan by the Office of the Director General of the Intellectual Property Office.

In its application for registration, Tanduay insisted that Ginebra is a generic word, which means gin, thus, could not function as a trademark and cannot be registered for exclusive use of any company.

It added that GSMI would not be

damaged by its registration and use of the mark Ginebra Kapitan on its gin product, since the dominant portion of the mark would be Kapitan, which is not identical to the San Miguel trademark of the petitioner.

But, the CA Eleventh Division held that the term Ginebra had long become an iconic trademark, which is exclusively associated by the Filipino-drinking public with its gin products.

The CA also gave weight to surveys conducted by GSM,I which showed 90 percent of gin drinkers in Luzon gave the top of minds responses “Ginebra San Miguel,” “San Miguel,” “Ginebra Blue” and “La Tondeña” when shown a flashcard with the word Ginebra, and at least half of those surveyed wrongly identified Ginebra Kapitan to the product of the petitioner.

In addition, the CA said it agrees with the petitioner that the term Ginebra had already acquired a secondary meaning under Section 123.2 of the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, since it has become associated with the source of goods rather than with the goods themselves.

Legislators question grant of franchise to LTFRB ‘favorite’ Business as usual

for Taguig’s Cayetano

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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EMBERS of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Metro Manila Development on Friday questioned the franchises granted by the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to an allegedly “favored” bus company without compliance with its rules and rationalization policy.

Party-list Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz of Abakada presented during the panel’s recent hearing a letter dated June 25, 2015, written by Board Member Ariel Inton, asking LTFRB Chairman Winston Ginez to recall the franchises granted to Pangasinan Solid North Transit Inc. (PSNTI) on April 16, 2015.

De la Cruz said that, in the letter of Inton, Ginez was asked to explain why he released the decision of the LTFRB without asking PSNTI to comply first with a number of requirements, including the compliance with the rationalization policy; securing the approval of the local governments of its application for new routes; and the establishment of bus terminals in all its stops before being granted the franchises.

In the same hearing, Nida Quibic, the chief of the releasing section of the LTFRB, admitted that Ginez ordered her to release all the franchises of all bus companies, including the still-undetermined number of

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco Correspondent

I

YOUTH’S DEMAND Students pass by a mural calling for more government support for education on a street near the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Santa Mesa, Manila. The mural also shows tribal children who deserve good education. ALYSA SALEN

franchises to PSNTI. Quibic said that the action of Ginez ordering her to release all franchises is unprecedented and irregular, saying that “the order coming from the chairman to release [the franchises] never happened before.”

For his part, Party-list Rep. Jess Manalo of Angkla questioned the new buses that transport commuters on

Consumer group welcomes appointment of new ERC chief

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HE Action for Consumerism and Transparency in Nation Building (Action) has lauded President Aquino for choosing former Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar as chairman of the Energy Regulatory (ERC) Board.

Vito Gaspar, Action spokesman, said a quick reading of Salazar’s résumé would show that he is an excellent choice for the position.

“Salazar studied Electrical Engineering at the University of the Philippines, Law at the Ateneo de Manila University, Masters in Public Administration at Harvard University, and has an unblemished reputation in government service as the most senior undersecretary of the justice department serving for eight years,” Gaspar said. Likewise, Salazar is a careerservice government officer.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, in her endorsement of Salazar, said his “public-

service track record speaks well of the integrity of his character and of his ability to take uncompromising stand and champion the national government’s position while advancing the interest and welfare of the constituents we serve.”

“I firmly believe that Undersecretary Salazar’s broad and extensive understanding of the energy sector, his sterling professional background and capabilities, and his unblemished track record provide sound and compelling bases for his appointment as chairman of the ERC.” De Lima also said Salazar is familiar with the crucial issues in the energy industry and the key steps that must be undertaken in order to ensure that the power sector can contribute positively to national development goals and to the advancement of public interest. J. San Juan

Epifanio de los Santos Avenue lining up in Metro Rail Transit stations, saying that allowing more buses in Metro Manila without any study to back it up will only worsen the traffic situation in the metropolis.

“You have to undertake a scientific study on how to ease traffic in Metro Manila,” Manalo told Ginez, as he stressed that “regulatory

agencies cannot experiment with the lives of the people.”

Upon hearing of the LTFRB’s action on applications for bus franchises, commuters and consumers-rights advocate RJay Javellana asked the panel to file charges against those responsible.

“Heads must roll. Those responsible must be charged in court,” Javellana said.

T is business as usual for Taguig City Mayor Lani Cayetano, a day after she and her administrator were charged by the Ombudsman of violating Article 143 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) for allegedly padlocking the Session Hall and preventing members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) to hold regular sessions in 2010.

Cayetano also assured her constituents that the city government will continue to deliver services for the people, as well as the business community, to stay calm, “for there is nothing that should change” despite the charges against her and Jose Montales, officer in charge of the Office of the City Administrator.

“Kami po ay tuloy lang ang trabaho para mas maibigay namin ang mas marami at mas magandang serbisyo sa aming mga kababayan sa Taguig,” Cayetano assured.

“But, for the record, what we did was transfer the venue of the Sanggunian meetings to another venue inside City Hall premises,” Cayetano said, adding that, as mayor, she has the power to do so under the Local Government Code.

“This case had been dismissed and revived, even after 13 of the original 16 complainants, including the former vice mayor, had distanced themselves from pursuing the case,” she said, adding that, in the interest of justice and fair play, “we are ready to answer all these allegations, and we are confident we will prevail in the end.”

She added that the city council since then had been harmoniously working

with her administration, after some members of the city council in 2010 crossed party lines and set aside differences in order to work for the greater welfare of Taguigeños.

“The resulting harmony and unity in Taguig City allowed this administration to implement programs that benefited all Taguigeños, including the now P800-million scholarship program and our medical-assistance projects. We have been awarded for this by the DOH [Department of Health], DepEd [Department of Education], DILG [Department of the Interior and Local Government] and several private institutions. Even the World Bank recognized our city as one of the best places to do business in all over the country,” she said.

Cayetano and other city officials were charged with violation of Article 143 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), which penalizes persons who, by force or fraud, prevent or tend to prevent the meetings of local legislative bodies.

Penalties include a jail term of six to eight years and fine of not exceeding P10,000 on first conviction. Secondtime offenders will be jailed for at least 12 years and fined P20,000.

The case stemmed from the eviction of the SP from its traditional venue and its transfer to a small room at the city auditorium in August 2010.

Owing to limited space, the SP was constrained to hold its proceedings on the staircase of the City Hall on its maiden session and in various venues inside and outside the City Hall for the next 14 sessions

Binay cites Aquino’s ‘dictatorial tendencies’

By Recto Mercene

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HE administration showed its “dictatorial tendencies,” when its leaders said they want the daang matuwid to continue for the next 20 years, Vice President Jejomar C. Binay said.

In an interview during his visit to Gerona, Tarlac, Binay said the administration’s statement that it needs 18 to 20 years for President Aquino’s programs to bear fruit reveals its leaders’ desperation to stay in power.

“Talagang kapit-tuko. Malalaman natin, hahatulan na ng bayan kung talagang naniniwala sila doon sa tuwid na daan. ’Pag 20 years, eh talagang diktador na talaga, inaasam-asam ’yan,” the Vice President said.

Binay said in a previous interview that the administration has hatched a three-phased plan to install a dictatorial government.

“Itong panahon ni President Aquino, sirain ang institusyon ng hukuman, sirain ang institusyon ng Pangalawang Pangulo, hanggang sa matapos. On the third phase, maglalagay sila ng dictatorial government. Meron silang position doon,” he said.

Binay also brushed off Palace Spokesman Edwin Lacierda’s gibe that his True State of the Nation (TSONA) was charot.

“Puwede ba sagutin na ninyo ang mga sinabi ko? Hindi iyong ibinabalik ninyo mga paninira at pag-iwas doon sa aking mga sinabi. Iyon ang ating pag-usapan,” he said.

Meanwhile, Joey Salgado, head of the media affairs division of the Office of the Vice President, said Lacierda has finally confessed something truthful.

“The cat is finally out of the bag. For once, Secretary Lacierda said something true. The LP’s [Liberal Party] grand plan is to impose one-party dictatorship,” Salgado said.

“Hindi lang six years but 20 years of manhid at palpak governance. And 20 years of large-scale corruption involving allies and partymates and suppression of the opposition,” he added.

In his TSONA, Binay pointed out that the administration’s response to the Luneta hostagetaking incident, the Tacloban

devastation caused by Typhoon Yolanda, the Zamboanga siege and the Mamasapano Massacre highlighted its insensitivity to the needs of the Filipino people.

Binay also mentioned the three acronyms that symbolized the administration’s incompetence: Metro Rail Transit (MRT), Bangsamoro basic law and Disbursement Acceleration Program.

He questioned why the Department of Transportation and Communication replaced an experienced Sumitomo Corp. as maintenance MRT provider in favor of a fledgling and undercapitalized PH Trams.

He also noted that PH Trams has direct links to some members of the LP.

Economy

A4 Saturday, August 8, 2015 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

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NBI tosses to Ombudsman filing of PDAF misuse raps vs Honasan, Villanueva, others

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By Joel San Juan

fter almost two years, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) decided to toss to the Office of the Ombudsman the conduct of further fact-finding investigation, or a preliminary investigation, against Sen. Gregorio B. Honasan II and administration ally and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) chief Joel J. Villanueva and 38 others, who allegedly used their pork-barrel funds in illegal transactions.

In an executive summary released by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the NBI said it found sufficient evidence for the “referral” to the Ombudsman of the cases of malversation, direct bribery and graft and corrupt practices against Honasan; Villanueva; Rep. Amado S. Bagatsing of the Fifth District of Manila; former Rep. Conrado M. Estrella III of Sixth District of Pangasinan; former Party-list Rep. Robert Raymund Estrella of Abono; former Rep. Manuel C. Ortega of the First District of La Union; Rep. Victor Francisco F. Ortega of the First District of La Union; former Rep. Isidro E. Real Jr. of the First District of Zamboanga del Sur; and Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez of the Second District of Cagayan de Oro City.

Based on the complaint filed by the NBI, the former and incumbent lawmakers violated Section 3 (e) of Republic Act (RA) 3019, or the AntiGraft and Corrupt Practices Act, for getting kickbacks from their Priority Development Assistance Fund (Pdaf), or pork-barrel fund, through the implementation of ghost projects by non-governmental organizations

(NGOs) created by alleged pork-barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.

Estrella III, according to the NBI, got the highest commission from his Pdaf allocations, totalling to P45.03 million; followed by his brother Robert with P22.675 million; Honasan allegedly pocketed P1.75 million from his Pdaf allocations; Bagatsing, P600,000; Manuel Ortega, P14.35 million; Victor Francisco Ortega, P9,587,500; Real, P3.25 million; Rodriguez, P2.099 million; and Villanueva, P2.33 million Specifically, the NBI charged the respondents with malversation of public funds, which can be committed through gross negligence under Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), direct bribery under Article 210; manifest partiality and bad faith in granting unwarranted benefits and advantage to the injury of the government (Section 3 [e], RA 3019); requesting a share or percentage from a government contract (Section 3 [b], RA 3019); entering into a transaction grossly disadvantageous to the government (Section 3 [g], RA 3019); and granting license or privilege to a person

not qualified (Section 3 [j], RA 3019).

“The NBI recommends to the Office of the Ombudsman that the respondents named in the transmittal letter-complaints be subjected to further fact-finding investigation or the corresponding preliminary investigation for the eventual filing of the corresponding charges before the Sandiganbayan,” the NBI said.

“After the fact-finding investigation, the Ombudsman will either proceed with the prelimiinary investigation or decide to dismiss the complaints if it finds the NBI and its own investigation insufficient to establish probable cause against the respondents,” it added.

Th NBI noted that Estrella, Bagatsing, Rodriguez, Ortega and Villanueva all requested the NBI-Questioned Documents Division (QDD) to examine their alleged signatures in the documents pertaining to the release of their pork-barrel funds to Napoles’s NGOs. After examination, the QDD found that in several of the questioned documents, the signatures did not match the lawmakers’ specimen signture, while it was unable to arrive at a finding on the other questioned documents.

Thus, the NBI said the QDD concluded that there were documents where the signatures of the lawmakers were forged.

“However, the findings of the QDD are not conclusive and binding upon the results of this investigation. This will still be subject to the scrutiny of the Sandiganbayan in the event that the Ombudsman decides to file the criminal cases with the said court,” the NBI said.

“In any event, malversation is also committed through negligence, in which case the signatures of the lawmakers are not necessary to prove that they allowed, through their negligence, the misappropriation and misuse of public funds entrusted to them,” it stressed.

Aside from the lawmakers, the NBI also included Napoles, who has been convicted for serious illegal detention, as one of the respondents in the complaint filed before the Ombudsman.

Also charged were representatives of the lawmakers, Michael Benjamin (Honasan) Anthony Dequina; Valentino Limchu; Manuel Jarmin; Celia Cuasay; Lourd Dexter Manalo; Ronald Casareno; a certain “Irma”; Zenaida Grace-Ducut; Jenny Quero, Ronald Francisco Lim; Maximo Bautista Rodriguez; and Ma. Theresa Defensor-Asuncion.

Also charged were heads of agencies, including Alan Javellan, former president of the National Agribusiness Corp.; Gondelina Amata, president of the National Livelihood Development Corp.; Antonio Ortiz, former director general of the Technology Resource Center; Dennis Cunanan, former deputy director general (now director general) of TRC; Mylene Encarnacion of Countrywide Agri and Rural Economic and Development Foundation Inc (Cared); and Evelyn Ditchon-De Leon of the Philippine Social Development Foundation Inc. (PSDFI), who are both presidents of Napoles NGOs, were also charged.

Other individuals charged were Victor Cacal; Romulo Relevo; Ma. Ninez Guanizo; Ma. Julie VillaralvoJohnson; Rhodora Mendoza; Francisco Figura; Marivic Jover; Gregoria Buenaventura; Emmanuel Alexis Sevidal; Sofia Cruz; and Chita Jalandoni.

The NBI said the lawmakers used their pork-barrel funds in illegal transactions with Napoles to enable themselves to profit from the simulated disbursements and utilization of their Pdaf.

“The release of the lawmaker’s Pdaf to Napoles would not have been made possible without the requests and representations made by the lawmaker to the Senate President [in the case of a senator] or Speaker of the House [in the case of Congressmen], the Department of Budget and Management and the implementing agencies, to release his Pdaf to the Napoles NGOs, as implementing and contracting NGOs of his Pdaf,” the NBI report said

Knee-jerk reaction

“I vehemently deny the allegation

of anomaly in the implementation of my Pdaf projects, proper execution of which should have been the primary responsibility of the implementing agencies,” Estralla said.

Estrella stressed that the DOJ’s decision to recommend the filing of charges against him and his brother before the Office of the Ombudsman is apparently a knee-jerk reaction to opposition’s generated criticism that the DOJ is delaying the Pdaf scam cases when, in fact, there is no solid evidence against us.

“Clearly, there is lack of due process here because when the whistleblowers were called to get their statements, we were never given a chance to air our side and to dispute their allegation against us. Definitely, there is injustice here,” he added Estrella insisted that the recommendation to file charges against them has no basis, since the NBI itself already came with findings that his signatures were forged.

“It is very ironic that the findings of the NBI, which is under the DOJ, would be contradicted by the mother agency. Second, a whistle-blower already issued affidavit that my Pdaf projects were properly implemented, as repeatedly stated by the whistleblower,” he pointed out.

Affirmation of justice?

Malacañang said on Friday the fate of former and incumbent lawmakers linked to the alleged multibillion-peso pork-barrel scandal is now up to the Ombudsman.

Now that the NBI has filed charges against incumbent and former members of Congress for alleged misuse of Pdaf allocations, it is the task of the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate and assess the merits of such allegations,” Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. said.

Coloma explained that “public interest requires that the ends of justice are served, while affording due process to the respondents.”

At the same time, the Palace official said the Aquino administration “reaffirms our commitment to the principles of good governance and impartial justice.”

23 RE projects may qualify for FiT–DOE data

By Lenie Lectura

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wenty-three renewable energy (RE) projects, with combined capacity of 561.05 megawatts, have been endorsed as qualified for the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme.

Based on Department of Energy (DOE) data as of June 30, the agency has issued certificates of endorsement to three hydro, six wind, six solar and eight biomass projects.

The DOE will nominate the eligibility of the said projects under the FiT system to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), which will then process the application for certificate of compliance (COC).

Once the project receives a COC under the FiT program, the capacity of said project will be dispatched to the grid at a fixed rate over a period of 20 years.

A COC is a prerequisite to the commencement of the commercial operations of a power-generation plant. It is valid for five years and must be renewed six months prior to its expiration. A COC also helps ensure that power plant operators will deliver electricity in a clean, safe, dependable and sustainable manner.

The FiT rates approved by the ERC last July 2012 are as follows: P5.90 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for hydro; P6.63 per kWh for biomass; P8.53 per kWh for wind; and P9.68 per kWh for solar. The said rates, explained the DOE, were based on the installation allocations, which limit the capacity of RE projects, set by the agency.

The FiT rate will be divided to all electricity users as a P0.0406 per kWh uniform charge known as FiTAllowance (FiT-All). The said rate will be reflected in the consumers’ electricity bills as a separate item, as mandated by the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (Republic Act 9513).

The FiT-All will serve as an incentive to RE developments, such as those on wind, run-of-river hydro, solar and biomass facilities.

briefs Lawmaker seeks P2,000 pension hike for SSS retirees Sen. Teofisto D. Guingona III has filed a bill raising the monthly pension of Social Security System (SSS) pensioners

by P2,000 across-the-board.

“The current pension system is insufficient in meeting rising costs of basic goods,” Guingona said.

The bill brings a sigh of relief to an estimated two million SSS pensioners who last enjoyed a 10-percent raise in their monthly pension some 18 years ago.

Under Senate Bill (SB) 2888 he filed on Tuesday, Guingona seeks to amend Section 12 of Republic Act (RA) 1161 (as amended by RA 8282, known as the Social Security Act of 1997) by raising the minimum pension amounts to be received by retiring SSS members.

“So that needs of the SSS pensioners are better met, this bill seeks to provide an across-the-board P2,000 increase in the monthly pension with corresponding adjustment of the minimum monthly pension system,” Guingona said.

From P2,400, SB 2888 proposes a monthly pension of at least P4,400 for members with 20 credited years of service. Also, the monthly pension of those with a minimum 10 credited years of service is increased from P1,200 to P3,200. Guingona is hopeful that the proposed legislation raising the monthly pension of SSS retirees will be passed into law since a similar measure, House Bill 5842, has already hurdled the House of Representatives. PNA

repair works at C-5 road The Department of Public Works and Highways–National Capital Region (DPWH-NCR) will undertake road reblocking and repair starting at 10 p.m. on Friday along C-5 Road in Pasig City.

DPWH-NCR has secured clearance from Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to undertake concrete reblocking at the innermost lane, north bound direction of C-5 Road, from between Petron Gas Station going to Lanuza Street.

Motorists are advised of the expected traffic slowdown and buildup brought about by the reduction in road lane. Repair works will be completed and road lane will be passable by 5 a.m. on Monday next week.

Meanwhile, Public Works Secretary Rogelio L. Singson has directed NCR Director Reynaldo G. Tagudando to direct the contractor Northern Builders of the Blumentritt interceptor to deploy more resources and complete the project before October.

Singson ordered Tagudando that as soon as Maynilad completes realigning its seven-foot-tall water pipeline along Juan Luna Street and Hermosa Street in Tondo, Manila, starting on August 10, which will take almost five days to complete, the contractor has to mobilize all working equipment and personnel to finish the project soonest.

The P560-million Blumentritt floodwater interceptor project, which has an overall accomplishment of 82.57 percent to date, alongside with the MMDA and local government units’ efforts to upgrade pumping stations, unclog drainage and clear waterways of informal settlers are expected to provide an improvement to the perennial flooding problem in Metro Manila. PNA

DPWH releases P27.5M for infra repair in S. Cotabato

For show? Operatives of the Antismoke-Belching Unit (Asbu) of Pasay City conduct random inspection of vehicles on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City on Friday, as part of the

strengthening of the government’s antismoke-belching campaign. Motorists and pedestrians alike, however, are skeptical of the success of the drive with the proliferation of smokebelching vehicles in Metro Manila roads. PNA

‘Asean traders still in the dark about AEC’

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nterprises in Southeast Asia need to be more informed about the benefits of Asean Economic Community (AEC) to increase intra-regional trade.

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Asean Studies Center Fellow and Lead Researcher Moe Thuzar, during the two-day Leadership Conference of the Public Management Development Program at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), has attributed the low intraAsean trade to the lack of information of the stakeholders about AEC. AEC aims Asean to be a single market and production base. The economic integration also targets to eliminate tariff on goods when trading across the 10 Asean member-states.

Thuzar mentioned that the share of intraregional trade to Asean’s total trade was registered at only 25 percent.

The Philippines is among the Southeast Asian countries which has lowest amount of trade with other Asean members.

Asean members which are more dependent to intra-regional trade are Myanmar, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Singapore.

The lack of information among Asean traders has led to low utilization rate of the preferential tariff from the AEC, Thuzar stressed.

She added that a more open economy gets lion’s share on trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows.

Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and

Thailand are among the nations with highest trade value in the region.

Vietnam even surpassed the Philippines.

The two countries were followed by Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei Darussalam and Laos in terms of total trade value.

In terms of FDI inflows, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia attracted largest amount of FDI. Thuzar noted that Vietnam is now becoming an FDI destination in Asean.

The Asean integration will take place on the last day of the year after the 10 membernations agreed for early implementation of the AEC during the Asean summit in the Philippines in 2007.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has released an initial P27.5 million for the repair of various infrastructure in South Cotabato that were damaged by the severe floods in the area in June.

Reynaldo Tamayo, DPWH Region 12 director, said on Friday that the funding is mainly intended for the immediate repair of two vital bridges in Norala town and the reconstruction of a riverside dike in Banga town that was destroyed during the floods. He said around P10 million was set aside for the damaged dike along the Banga River, while the remaining P17.5 million will be utilized for the major repairs on the two bridges in Norala. “These were among the priority structures that need immediate attention based on our evaluation,” Tamayo said in a radio interview.

Citing their assessment, he said the main structure and the approaches of the bridges in Norala were severely damaged as a result of the previous floods. PNA

Economy BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

briefs

CSUN-Solar Intl bags EPC contract for 14.5-MW solar project

CSUN-Solar International Ltd., a subsidiary of China Sunergy Co. Ltd., bagged the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for local-firm YH Green Energy Inc.’s 14.5-megawatt (MW) solar project.

In a news statement from its web site, China Sunergy said “its subsidiary, CSUN-Solar International Ltd., specialized in EPC service and project development, has entered into an EPC agreement with YH Green Energy Inc., a Philippine-based green-energy developer for the construction of a 14.5MW solar-power project.”

China Sunergy noted the construction of the solar project will start by the third quarter of 2015, adding that it expects the project will be fully operational by the first quarter of 2016, which is the deadline for the investors who will qualify for the P8.69 feed-intariff allowance.

Tingxiu Lu, chairman and chief executive officer of CSUN, said the firm is “delighted to cooperate with YH Green Energy on the construction of the solar-power project.”

Lu added the transaction demonstrates its expansion in the Southeast Asia market that positions it well for the steady growth of the energy industry in the coming years.

According to Department of Energy data, as of April 2015, YH Green Energy Inc. has one pending solar application for a 12-MW project in Hermosa, Bataan.

Nasdaq-listed China Sunergy designs, manufactures and delivers solar cells and modules to global markets from its production centers in China and Turkey. PNA

Saturday, August 8, 2015 A5

Poorest PHL households bore brunt of inflation in H1–PSA

T

By Cai U. Ordinario

he poorest households in the Philippines saw inflation increasing by 2.6 percent in the first six months of the year, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA said this was due to slower inflation experienced by the bottom 30 percent of income households. In the second quarter, inflation only averaged 2.1 percent.

This was the lowest since the third

quarter of 2009, when inflation experienced by the poorest households only averaged 0.2 percent.

“This was primarily brought about by the negative annual rate recorded in the fuel, light and

water (FLW) index. Slower annual increases in the food, beverages and tobacco (FBT), clothing, housing and repairs (H&R) and miscellaneous indices registered during the quarter also contributed to the downtrend,” the PSA explained. Data showed that the FLW index went down by 6.2 percent in the second quarter of the year as well, as the heavily weighted FBT index and H&R index slowed down to 3.1 percent.

The country’s annual increase in the food prices alone index eased to 3.1 percent during the period. Last quarter it was posted at 4.6 percent.

The PSA said there were year-onyear slowdowns in most food groups such as rice and corn, which were considered local staples.

The prices of meat and dairy

products, as well as eggs, also posted slower year-on-year increases during the April-to-June period.

On a monthly basis, however, prices for the bottom 30 percent income households increased by 0.3 percent during the second quarter of the year, from a contraction of 0.1 percent in the first quarter of the year.

“This was effected by higher prices in selected food items such as calamansi, ginger, corn, fish, shrimps and crabs in many regions.

Likewise, price hikes in kerosene and higher rental rates of dwellings were observed in many provinces,” the PSA said.

In terms of region, the poorest Filipinos living in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region saw inflation contracting 0.1 percent in the

DOE bares 2016 electrification goal

T

SUCs’ 2015 budget all-time high–CHED The Commission on Higher Education (CHED), headed by Dr. Patricia Licuanan, on Thursday denied that the budget for state colleges and universities (SUCs) has been considerably chopped down.

In a news statement, Licuanan said President Aquino’s administration recognized the strategic role of SUCs in national development, contrary to Vice President Jejomar C. Binay’s recent True State of the Nation Address in Cavite. The Aquino administration considerably increased the budget of SUCs from P22.03 billion in 2011 to P42.28 billion in 2015, almost doubling the amount in five years, said the statement.

Contrary toBinay’s claim, the SUCs’ budget in 2014 was P35.93 billion.

In the same year, the University of the Philippines System and Mindanao State University received P9.37 billion and P1.97 billion, respectively, the CHED said. PNA

LAWMAKER SEEKS Probe on status of LGU hospitals A lawmaker has called for a congressional inquiry into the status of provincial hospitals placed under the management of the local government units (LGUs).

In House Resolution 2030, Deputy Speaker Carlos M. Padilla of the Lone District of Nueva Vizcaya said Congress should determine if the law devolving the public hospital to the LGUs has been effective.

“Congress should conduct an oversight function to determine if the decision to devolve the health-care system to local government units is the right decision,” Padilla said.

In 1991 Republic Act 7160, or the Local Government Code, devolved the support and supervision of hospitals from the national government to LGUs. Padilla said there are reports that the quality of health services has slowly depreciated despite the devolution of the health-care system to the LGUs. “Congress should look into the result of such management in order to evaluate the needs and requirements for a more efficient operational control and more effective delivery of services,” Padilla said.

Some lawmakers have urged Congress to enact a law mandating the Department of Health to take over the operation of the provincial hospitals. PNA

second quarter of 2015.

It was pegged at 1.5 percent in the previous quarter and 6.1 percent in the second quarter of 2014.

The PSA said this was due to double-digit annual decreases in the FLW index during the quarter and slower growths in prices of other commodity groups.

The poor living in Areas Outside the National Capital Region saw inflation slow to 2.1 percent in the second quarter of 2015.

In the previous quarter, the annual growth was 3.1 percent and in the second quarter of 2014, 6.5 percent.

Data showed that this was due to the decline in the FLW index and slower annual increments in other commodity groups, except in the services index.

serve it STEAMING hot A lady vendor satisfies the craving of passersby and pedestrians for steaming-hot balut and penoy at a sidewalk near the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan City. The balut and penoy industry in the Philippines continue to thrive with the Filipinos’ insatiable appetite for the traditional delicacy. Kevin de la Cruz

EDC, GNS renews partnership for devt of geothermal projects

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By Lenie Lectura

he Lopez-led Energy Development Corp. (EDC) and research institute GNS Science of New Zealand have renewed their partnership in developing geothermal projects in several countries.

In a signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) during the visit of New Zealand Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce early this week, both parties said the objective of the MOU is to strengthen their current relationship, and to expand the scope of the work to include new research initiatives in geothermal energy.

Areas where increased cooperation is likely to occur include modelling of geothermal reservoirs, management of databases and assessment of new geothermal fields in both countries.

EDC has indicated it will support GNS Science’s bid to set up a regional research institute based at Taupo, New Zealand, that would draw funding and expertise from numerous countries and focus on geothermal development in New Zealand and throughout the Pacific.

The two organizations have worked closely under an existing MOU for the past three years, with GNS Science providing specialist advice for geothermal developments in the Philippines and other countries. EDC is one of the largest geothermal companies in the world with 1,130 megawatts (MW) of installed geothermal capacity.

The MOU was signed by GNS Science

Chief Executive Dr. Mike McWilliams and Richard Tantoco, President and chief operating officer of EDC. GNS Science Geothermal Department head Greg Bignall said collaboration between the two companies dated back to the 1970s and both organizations had found it rewarding to work together.

GNS Science specialists had been involved in the discovery and development of several major fields in the Philippines

that had helped to make the country into one of the world’s top geothermal-energy producers, Bignall said.

“We have mutual interests in a wide range of areas, and we respect each other’s expertise. EDC provides our staff with experiences that are not available in New Zealand’s geothermal environment. Some of this new knowledge can be applied at home to enhance New Zealand’s energy production,” he said.

Rip-rapping Workers of a construction company rush the dredging and rip-rapping of the Tumana

Creek along A. Santos Street, Barangay Tumana, Marikina City, on Thursday to prevent flooding in the area during heavy rains. PNA

he Department of Energy (DOE) said it targets to achieve 86.20-percent household electrification by 2016, from 14.54 million households electrified in 2010 to 19.55 million by next year. ”Households to reach 19,545,183 in 2016 from 14,536,372 energized in 2010 [34-percent increase]. This is equivalent to a household electrification level of 86.20 percent by 2016,” the DOE said in its 2016 budget proposal.

Data from the Electric Power Industry Reform Act 26th status report showed that the household electrification stands at 79.9 percent as of November 2014.

The DOE noted the 79.9 percent corresponds to 17.4 million energized households out of the estimated total 21.8 million households. It added that the remaining 4.4 million unelectrified households were mostly in rural and remote areas of the country, but the DOE cited some unelectrified households are also found in the urban outskirts of Metro Manila and Davao City.

The report further revealed Luzon has the highest household electrification level at 89.3 percent, while Mindanao still has the lowest electrification level at 56.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the DOE added that it targets to reach 90percent household electrification by 2017.

The projects that support the household electrification initiative are the National Electrification Administration’s (NEA) Sitio Electrification Program, NEA’s Barangay Line Enhancement Program, rationalization of implementation of Energy Regulations 1-94 Electrification Funds, DOE LFP Nationwide Intensification of Household Electrification 2015-2017, Solar PV Mainstreaming Program, Qualified Third Party Approach, Philippine Rural Electrification Service Project and initiatives by non-government organizations and other partners. PNA

Independent power producers group lauds Salazar’s appointment as ERC chairman

T

he Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (Pippa) welcomed the appointment of former Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar as the new chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

Pippa Managing Director lawyer Anne Estorco Macias said Salazar’s appointment is expected to stabilize the country’s energy SALAZAR policies for the benefit of consumers and investors.

“Being a lawyer and an electrical engineer is a rare combination that would help him well in understanding and navigating complex energy issues. His stint at the Department of Justice [DOJ] and postgraduate studies at Harvard University are equally impressive,” Macias said.

By serving a full seven-year term until 2022, the new ERC chairman assures continuity and smooth flow of policies and programs. “This is what the energy sector urgently needs,” the Pippa official added.

The group, said Macias, looks forward to working with Salazar. “He can be assured of the individual and collective support of Pippa’s members,” Macias added.

As justice undersecretary, Salazar was in charge of energy matters that require the DOJ’s attention. He was the chairman of the DOE-DOJ Task Force on the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998. He was also part of the board of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. Lenie Lectura

A6 Saturday, August 8, 2015

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Keeping the financial house in order

W

e agree with many of the Aquino administration’s economic policies. We disagree with many of the other policies. However, there are two genuine legacies of this presidency.

The first is the lowering of the perception of institutional and systemic corruption in the government. This is certainly subject to debate, whether corruption has been significantly reduced. But the perception is there, that corruption is much less prevalent now than in the past.

The second legacy is the effort to continue the policies of the Arroyo administration that put the government’s financial house in order.

In 2004 the government debt, as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), was 69.7 percent. By the end of 2009, debt was reduced by 22 percent, down to 54.7 percent of GDP. Under Mr. Aquino, it is now 45.4 percent, for a further reduction of 17 percent.

By comparison, Canada’s debt to GDP is 86 percent and Germany’s is almost 75 percent.

The Aquino administration did make greater strides in reducing government dependence on foreign borrowing than any other previous administration. Its economic policy-makers determined that the economy had enough surplus liquidity so that the government could borrow domestically without squeezing out the private sector. It is much better for the government’s interest payments to stay home rather than being sent abroad.

Under President Aquino, the external debt owed to foreign lenders has peaked and is in a slight decline.

This administration has also done a better job reducing the government budget deficit, although part of this is due to underspending for infrastructure projects, and that is not good.

The credit rating of Philippine government debt has improved significantly under this administration. This fact has been used to accuse the government of having paid the rating agencies to have the rating improved. Credit-rating agencies do have too much power and influence and, maybe, have been bribed in the past. But the reality is that these ratings determine the cost of government borrowing, and ours is lower today because of the improvement.

Speaking of ratings, it is still the free market that determines risk and, therefore, the quality of debt. This is done through “credit default swap” (CDS), which is basically an insurance policy against a government failing to pay its debt. Philippine debt carries a very low cost insurance against default.

To insure against a default on $10 million of Philippine debt, it would cost about $100,000. Thailand debt insurance would be $130,000, with Indonesia’s costing $238,000 and Vietnam’s at $265,000.

Philippine CDS cost is better than China’s and slightly worse than Spain’s.

Just a very small nominal drop in the cost of Philippine CDS would put the country in the top tier of all nations.

There are many economic problems that have not been properly addressed and need solutions now, not later. But maintaining a sound financial condition for the government is very important and a good place to start.

Income taxes create kings and peasants John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

T

he United States Constitution reads in Article 1, Section 9: “No Capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”

This section has been subject to intense debate and interpretation since it was first ratified in 1788. The meaning of “capitation” at that time meant simply a head-tax of a fixed amount levied on each individual.

The king’s tax collector would ride into the village and everyone would be required to pay the same amount.

Capitation and all other direct taxes placed on individuals were forbidden by the US Constitution. Therefore, the government could not impose a tax on a person’s income as that would be a direct tax.

A tax could be placed on a person’s horse-drawn carriage, as affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1796, because that was an excise tax. An excise tax is not a direct tax as it requires a person to first own the carriage. This is similar to the “road user’s tax” paid by people registering an automobile.

Even at the time of writing the US Constitution, there was confusion as to the legal definition of “direct tax.”

One of the authors, delegate Rufus King, asked for a precise meaning, and no one could answer clearly and definitively. But these men knew exactly from experience and history what it meant.

The King of England’s tax collector would ride into a village, accompanied by armed soldiers, of course, and demand 30 percent of everyone’s crop. A family farming 1 hectare or 10 hectares paid the same “flat tax” percentage. During a time of a bountiful harvest, it was 30 percent. When the crop was poor, it was still 30 percent.

Everyone paid the same tax rate and many people today would call that system “fair.”

It was considered fair also because during lean times, the King did not make as much in tax revenues and benefited just like the farmers when the harvest was good.

However, during times of poor harvest, the family might not have enough food because their remaining

share of 70 percent was not enough to feed everyone. Because the abundance of good harvests could never really offset the devastation from a series of bad harvests, the people would always remain peasants, never being able to accumulate enough to become “rich.” And, of course, after a particularly abundant harvest, the King would find a reason to levy a “special tax” to fund critical expenditures—usually a war.

Nothing much has changed in the last 1,000 years.

The US Constitution had to be amended to allow the government to tax income on a regular and permanent basis. Before that change, a tax on income was a special tax, not surprisingly to fund the government’s War of 1812 and during the American civil war. When the constitution was changed, the people were sold on this idea because it would only be 1 percent of incomes—in today’s dollars—of $1.7 million and more.

There is little significant difference with today’s income-tax schemes than when the King’s guard came to the village after the harvest.

The government always gets their share first and you have to manage what is left.

Since 2006, the personal incometax rate has been 20 percent for those earning over P20,000 per month and 25 percent for those making over P40,000. During that period, the monthly economic-growth rate of the country varied from 0.5 percent

to 8.9 percent. The annual inflation rate also varied from 8.3 percent to 2.9 percent, not counting 2015.

Good times or bad, you will spend about three months out of every year just to pay your income tax. And if you happen to increase your income, every peso you make over P42,000 a month, 32 percent of that peso goes to the government. There can only be one king and that is the government.

Studies have shown that up to 50 percent of businesses’ labor costs are taxes. It is not that high in the Philippines but is still significant. Wages are higher than should be to offset the personal income-tax burden.

A person making P41,666 a month pays P10,416 in taxes, netting an after-tax income of P31,250. If a company would pay the net after tax amount of P31,250 in salary, it would have an additional P104,160 a month, which could be used to hire three more employees at P31,250. Maybe that is the way to create more jobs, but, then again, I’m not an economic expert. But how could the government possibly operate without income-tax revenue and do all the good things that it does?

We, economic nonexperts, have ideas on that also.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com.

Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

Indonesia’s economy has stopped emerging William Pesek

I

BLOOMBERG VIEW

ndonesia has come a long way since October 20, when Joko Widodo was sworn in as president. Unfortunately, the distance the country has traveled has been in the wrong direction.

Expectations were that Widodo, known as Jokowi, would accelerate the reforms of predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono—upgrading infrastructure, reducing red tape, curbing corruption.

Who better to do so than Indonesia’s first leader independent of dynastic families and the military?

In 10 years at the helm, Yudhoyono dragged the economy from failed-state candidate to investment-grade growth star. Jokowi’s mandate was to take Indonesia to the next level, honing its global competitiveness, creating new jobs, preparing one of the world’s youngest workforces to thrive and combating the remnants of the powerful political machine built by Suharto, the dictator deposed in 1998. After 291 days, however, Jokowi seems no match for an Indonesian establishment bent on protecting the status quo.

Growth was just 4.67 percent in the second quarter, the slowest pace in six

years. What’s more, a recent MasterCard survey detected an “extreme deterioration” in consumer sentiment, which had plummeted to the worst levels in Asia.

Investors are already voting with their feet. The Jakarta Composite Index has fallen 13 percent from its April 7 record high, one of Asia’s biggest plunges in that time. And foreign direct investment underwhelmed last quarter, coming in at $7.4 billion, little changed from a year earlier in dollar terms. Jokowi has plenty of time to turn things around; 1,535 days remain in his five-year term. But the “halo effect” MasterCard’s Matthew Driver says Jokowi carried into office is fast fading as Indonesia’s 250 million people flirt with buyer’s remorse.

First, Jokowi must step up efforts to battle weakening exports. Indonesia’s weak government spending, stifling bureaucracy and conflicting regulations would be impediment enough; slowing world growth makes matters

much worse. Jokowi must greenlight infrastructure projects to boost competitiveness and increase the number and quality of jobs.

Next, Jokowi must decide what kind of leader he wants to be: a craven populist or the modernizer Indonesia needs. He has too often resorted to nationalistic rhetoric that hearkens to the Indonesian backwater of old—a turnoff for the multinational executives Jakarta should be courting. Last month Jokowi raised import tariffs, while asking visiting UK Prime Minister David Cameron to do the opposite by cutting UK duties for Indonesian goods. Jokowi isn’t helping his constituents by driving up prices for goods while their currency is weakening.

“Rather than pursuing interventionist policies, the Indonesian government needs to return to the basics: infrastructure, logistics, and consistency of rules and regulations,” economists Arianto Patunru and Sjamsu Rahardja wrote in a report for the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

That means taking on entrenched interests and thinking bigger. Take Jokowi’s industrialization push. Understandably, he wants to support the development of manufacturing to boost exports and cut a persistent currentaccount deficit. But Jokowi needs to complement that policy with investments in education and training. With more than 26 percent of its population

under 15 (versus 17 percent in China), Indonesia must prepare for the information economy of the future, too.

While it’s still early for Jokowi, Indonesia is already paying a price for his mismanagement. The rupiah is down 13 percent over the past 12 months—and the Federal Reserve’s first post-quantitative-easing rate hike is still looming on the horizon. It’s not an accident that economists now include Indonesia among the emerging markets now due for a lost decade. The problem, for countries like Brazil, Russia, China and Indonesia, is their governments grew complacent after multiyear investment booms.

“Very few emerging markets historically have ever been able to make it to the developed countries,” Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma told Bloomberg News.

“This is a return to normalcy.”

It’s also a moment to question how far the entire Southeast Asia region has come in recent decades. Thailand is fastlosing steam, as the latest military junta to rule the nation neglects the economy.

Malaysia’s currency is at 17-year lows, as Prime Minister Najib Razak tries to explain $700 million that allegedly made its way into a bank account he controls.

And now Indonesia is losing the investment it worked so hard to win back since Suharto’s ouster. Jokowi can still turn things around, but he’s got a lot of convincing to do—both inside Indonesia and out.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

An illustration of the ‘blame game’ database

I

N his best-selling book, The Blame Game (published in 2011 by Simon & Schuster), world-renowned psychologist Ben Dattner said, “too often, people and organizations get caught up in ‘the blame game’ and the wrong people get blamed for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.”

“The result can be that people are demotivated and demoralized, focus more on organizational politics than on getting the job done, and are too afraid to speak up or experiment with new approaches,” the organizational Harvard author said.

“Those in the current administration continued to pave their daang matuwid with a bulldozer of blame, running over every one who crosses its path,” said Dr. Ernie Gonzales, a fellow environmental economist of the London School of Economics and previous chairman of the Economics National Research Council of the Philippines.

Gonzales said: Although it was not explicitly stated, everyone believes now that President Aquino is referring to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) when he passed the buck as to who is to blame for the flooding of Metro Manila.

“This is a gross show of the management style of the President, which is unwanted and unbecoming for a leader blaming anyone except himself who makes the decision in the first instance but avoids taking responsibility for the unwarranted consequences of his decision,” Gonzales added.

According to him, spokesman Edwin Lacierda, a member of the “President’s cordon sanitaire,” must be lying in his talk on Tuesday to Lynda Jumilla of ANC’s Beyond Politics when he defended the plan of the government to use UST’s open grounds as a catchment basin for Metro Manila flooding.

“Why is Attorney Lacierda surprisingly not aware that the current plan now is no longer a UST catchment basin but merely a flood interceptor system so that floodwaters can be diverted directly toward the pumping stations of Metro Manila with the new designs to make all the drainage systems of Metro Manila work?” Gonzales asked.

Gonzales also asked: “If he is not aware of this, together with the President, why is it possible that one of his best Cabinet Secretary Babes Singson had not told them about this flood interceptor, which is highly doubtful?”

“Otherwise, if this is correct, then the two are not lying, but simply ignorant of what is happening around them. And, this is even far worse than lying and gross inefficiency

over the millions worth of decisions entrusted to them by the ‘impoverished 100 Million Free People of God,’” he said.

Gonzales said the scientific implication herewith is that the 21.5 hectare equivalent of the underground catchment of UST is simply not enough to contain, for instance, the expected volume of climatechange flood like Typhoon Ondoy [international code name Ketsana].

“If another Ondoy strikes Manila, which is likely in the near future, this underground flood containment in UST could even inundate the whole UST, a precious 400-year-old national treasure,” Gonzales warned.

“Moreover,” he said, “the estimated losses of P2 billion due to floods cannot refer to this limited fraction of UST flooding effect.

Therefore, this decision to create a flood basin directly under the ground of UST is tantamount to “institutional suicide.”

“The President’s much vaunted daang matuwid must build and not destroy, especially the most precious depository of priceless cultural artifacts and not to mention the whole of UST as a pontifical and royal institution,” Gonzales stressed.

“It is also ironic that, while the public clamor for the removal of a visual obstruction to the historic Rizal monument, our President is blaming a historical institution for causing inconvenience to the public,” he said.

Gonzales said the truth magnified the lies beneath it. “What is truthful herewith is how the President’s P354-billion Flood Control Program is spent, and why a simple Flood Control Study of this Department of Public Works and Highways Portfolio already amounted to more than P200 million?”

“For instance,” he said, “a simple study like the VOM [ValenzuelaObando-Meycauayan] Area had already incurred a total cost of P60 million just to validate the economic feasibility of this project.”

In concluding his statement to this writer, Gonzales said: “The public must closely take a look at these huge expenditures in flood control studies undertaken, in particular, and the whole project, in general.

This is where the “truth” of daang matuwid in flood control can be more than relevant than simply passing the buck to UST.”

SERVANT LEADER

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adio Veritas 846, the No. 1 faith-based radio station in the Philippines, is inviting the public to visit and take part in its 12th Marian exhibit. Originally set to run from August 1 to 8 at the third floor of SM North Edsa, the exhibit is now extended up to August 16 to allow more Catholic faithful to visit and view the various images of the Blessed Mother and the saints. This is also in line with the celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15.

Dubbed as “Mary and the Saints in the Year of the Poor,” the exhibit features canonically crowned and popularly venerated images of Mary from various parts of the country.

The exhibit features images and sacred relics of saints whose apostolate were focused on the poor and needy, such as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Saint

John Bosco, Saint Dominic Savio, and many others.

Radio Veritas has been continuously propagating the devotion to our Blessed Mother through its Marian exhibits. Last year a similar Mary and the Saints, as well as Mary and the Popes exhibits were held at the SM Mall of Asia.

S

AN JOSE, California—Jeremy Bailenson may be one of the foremost experts on virtual reality (VR). But, as he puts it, he’s no evangelist.

A Stanford professor and the founder of its Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Bailenson has studied VR for 20 years, conducting some of the most extensive research on the technology. He has a good sense of how VR can be used and what works well in virtual environments.

Bailenson is excited about how far the technology has progressed and sees great potential for it to be used as a more realistic simulator or as a therapeutic tool for people with disabilities. But he’s worried about how it could be abused. And he thinks the use to which VR will be put in the near future — games — isn’t appropriate for the technology.

Bailenson spoke with the San

Jose Mercury News about the state of virtual reality, his hopes and worries for it, and what he thinks will be the killer app. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What’s the state of VR today?

A: The ability to track movements has gotten much easier than it’s ever been. And the ability to display using cheap, nonspecialized optics has changed pretty drastically.

Where it is right now more conceptually is there’s all this money behind it, and it’s crazy. But there’s so much energy. I gave a keynote address at the Tribeca Film Festival, and I brought a version of my lab to New York City, and New York is not the Valley, right? When those folks start caring about VR, it’s interesting.

Q: What kinds of experiences are VR good for, and for what is it inappropriate?

A: When Commissioner Adam Silver of the National Basketball

The exhibit is free and open to the public during mall hours, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, Caritas Manila recently reopened its Segunda Mana outlet in Victory Mall in Caloocan City.

Segunda Mana, the donationsin-kind program of Caritas Manila under the Social Entrepreneurship Division, is inspired by the spirituality of stewardship as a way of life.

It is the mission of Caritas Manila to instil the value of giving as a way of life. Through its pro-poor programs and efforts, they help sustain and uphold the organization’s mission to develop and empower the disadvantaged and the vulnerable.

Segunda Mana are preloved items, such as clothes, shoes, bags, toys, home and fashion accessories donated by generous companies, organizations and individuals. These are offered at friendly prices in stalls. Proceeds help sustain Caritas Manila’s flagship program, Youth Servant Leadership and Education

Program, which focuses on education for the underprivileged youth, supporting 5,000 scholars nationwide.

Other Segunda Mana outlets are at 2002 Pandacan Manila, Makati Square, Harrison Plaza, Starmall Edsa, Santa Lucia, Isetan Recto, Victory Mall Alabang, Star Mall Alabang, San Roque Cathedral, Farmers Plaza, Victory Pasay, River Banks Marikina, Metro Point Pasay, Victory Lacson Underpass Quiapo, Greenfield District, Comoda Ville Antipolo, Sanctif Josef Commercial Stall Tugatog Malabon, Ang Palengke Natin Cooperative Longos Malabon and Starmall Las Piñas.

To know more about the programs of Caritas Manila, visit www.caritas. org.ph. For donations, call 563-9311.

For inquiries, call 563-9308 or 5639298. Make it a habit to listen to Radio Veritas 846 in the AM band, or through live streaming at www.veritas846.ph.

For comments, e-mail veritas846pr@ gmail.com.

The world hates Russia. Russia hates it back Leonid Bershidsky

BLOOMBERG VIEW

R

ussian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda targeted at audiences outside Russia doesn’t work, but neither will any Western counterefforts directed at Russians. A new report from the Pew Research Center explains why.

Pew surveyed public opinion among 45,435 respondents in 40 nations between March and May and found that almost everywhere, people had an unfavorable opinion of Russia.

Europeans, whom the Kremlin would like to consider deluded US followers, are often even more negative about Russia than Americans are—and that’s not just Poles, more exposed than others to the conflict in Ukraine, but also previously Russia-friendly Germans and French. Russia has few friends in the Middle East and Latin America.

More Turks dislike it than view it favorably despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s warm relationship with Putin, and Venezuelans are no Russophiles despite their government’s anti-American consensus with Moscow. Jordanians apparently have little patience with Russia’s support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose war-torn country has flooded the kingdom with refugees.

Russia fares relatively well in Asia and Africa, but that’s probably, at least in part, the legacy of the Soviet Union’s past standing in those regions. Elsewhere, attitudes toward Russia have deteriorated in recent years, sliding down even before the Crimea invasion. In 2011

49 percent of Americans viewed Russia favorably, compared with just 22 percent now.

Putin is doing even worse than his country in the court of global public opinion. According to Pew, confidence in him is highest in Africa, at 32 percent, and lowest in Europe, at 15 percent. The Russian leader’s negative ratings often exceed 75 percent: He’s an indubitable villain in the world’s eyes. US President Barack Obama beats him everywhere, even in the Middle East, where he is the least popular.

In February US Secretary of State John Kerry testified before Congress that “Russia has engaged in a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I’ve seen since the very height of the Cold War.” He also said the propaganda effort was succeeding “because there’s nothing countering it.” Representative Ed Royce told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “Russia is spending more than half-a-billion dollars annually to mislead audiences, to sow divisions, to push conspiracy theories out over RT television.”

Though RT, the Kremlin’s foreignlanguage propaganda TV channel, says it actually spends half that much, the total budget, including organizations, such as Russia Today

The promise and limitations of virtual reality

By Troy Wolverton

A7

‘Mary and the Saints in the Year of the Poor’ exhibit Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

Cecilio T. Arillo

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Association (NBA) came to my lab, he thought that I was going to try to convince him that one should watch an NBA game from VR. And I can’t imagine what would be worse than that.

I’ve never worn an HMD (headmounted device) for more than a half an hour in my life, and nowadays, I rarely wear one for more than five or 10 minutes. And a two-hour NBA game would be pretty brutal on the perceptual system. I believe VR’s really good for these very intense experiences, but it’s not a 12-hour-day thing.

Q: Why wouldn’t you wear a VR system for more than 30 minutes at a time?

A: Even though the newer HMDs like the Rift and the Vive and Morpheus are much lighter and really comfortable, think about how much time you spend on your device a day.

It’s more than six to eight hours, and that’s a long time to be wearing a pair of goggles. But, even if that

wasn’t the case, the real problem is that the visual experience with an HMD necessarily produces some eyestrain, and that gets fatiguing over time.

Q: But all the new VR systems are being pitched primarily as game machines, and gamers tend to play for hours at a time. Isn’t that a big concern?

A: I don’t believe that video games are an appropriate market for this.

Especially when you get into the highly violent games — do you really want to feel that blood splatter on you? I don’t think it’s the right use.

I don’t believe VR should be used for hours a day. I think VR’s great for really particular and specific moments that you try to learn about yourself and learn about others.

Maybe I’m in a minority, but when these games come out, I don’t think people are going to want to play them for eight hours.

Q: The research you’ve done in

Information Agency and Rossotrudnichestvo, charged with spreading information about Russia overseas, is close to Royce’s figure. If the Pew survey results are anything to go by, though, that’s half-a-billion dollars a year down the drain: The propaganda effort is concentrated on Europe and the US, where it’s failing the most miserably, not Asia and Africa. If it’s working in countries with large Russian-speaking communities, such as Germany and Israel, poll data give no indication of that.

The money might be spent just as wisely buying more $600,000 watches for Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov.

Where Putin is winning his propaganda war is inside Russia, where he’s also spending more money on the effort and where he largely controls wide-reaching media. Russian media are to receive 72.1 billion rubles ($1.1 billion) from the federal budget this year. That’s one of the reasons so many Russians believe Ukraine—or even the US—shot down a Malaysian passenger plane over eastern Ukraine last summer or that Russia is fighting a vast global conspiracy.

Kerry and his underlings have used that to drum up funding for efforts to counter the Russian propaganda. There are also amorphous European plans to fight Russian disinformation. Celebrity Russian expert Peter Pomerantsev, who wrote a book about working in the Russian propaganda machine, is constantly calling on Western powers to do more to fight Putin in the “battle for hearts and eyeballs,” especially in the former Soviet Union, where many people watch Moscow TV channels. “High-quality shows are not cheap,” he wrote in the Financial Times on Thursday. “A channel such as a BBC Russia would cost more than €20 million a year. This

may seem like a lot—but take into account a single Eurofighter jet costs €90 million.”

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs news outlets such as Radio Liberty, is already spending $23 million on Russian-language programming this year. I doubt, however, that the investment is going to pay off. For one thing, Western-financed propaganda outlets are as weak compared with Kremlin-funded Russian media as RT is against Western organizations that produce real news.

Building a machine capable of countering the mind-numbing effect of Kremlin brainwashing would be prohibitively expensive.

And even if the political will to spend that kind of money existed, there would be another obstacle. Russians’ attitudes toward Western countries have deteriorated even more lately than have Western perceptions of Russia. In 2013 51 percent of Russians viewed the US favorably; now only 15 percent do. In 2011 78 percent of Russians thought well of Germany.

Now that’s down to 35 percent.

In such a climate, there’s no way for any media effort funded from Washington, Berlin or any Western capital to break through to Russians.

It will just be seen as enemy attempts to undermine the Motherland and the president. Given that the counter-propaganda projects are openly discussed in the West and these discussions are passed on with relish to the Russian audience by Kremlin media, there’s no way the majority of Russians is going to listen. And broadcasting to the anti-Putin minority is just preaching to the choir.

Pew’s numbers show how effectively Putin has managed to isolate his country and breed a siege mentality within it. His abortive attempts to improve his image overseas have ultimately served that same purpose.

the lab seems to focus on how VR could be used to impart things such as empathy or concern for the environment that many people would consider to be positive. But assuming the effects are as strong as they seem to be, how concerned are you that VR might be used to encourage thoughts or behavior that are less beneficial or even dangerous?

A: VR experience changes the way you think of yourself and others and changes your behavior. And when VR’s done well, it’s a proxy for a natural experience, and we know experiences physically change us.

I’ve chosen to focus on the prosocial ones in this lab. I can’t look you in the eye and claim that it only works for the good stuff. I can’t.

Am I terrified of the world where anyone can create really horrible experiences? Yes, it does worry me.

I worry what happens when a violent video game feels like murder. And when pornography feels

like sex. How does that change the way humans interact, function as a society?

I’m not a VR evangelist. The technology is powerful. It’s like uranium.

It can heat homes and destroy nations. I’m choosing to work on things that I believe are good for us. But that’s my choice.

Q: What’s going to be the killer app for VR? A: I actually think the perfect fit for VR is the quarterback simulator. Most of the time when I show someone VR, they say, “Oh, I can see how this is going to be really cool in a year. I can see how I might use that.” When Stanford Coach David Shaw put that on, he said, “We want this on Thursday.”

But what I want to be the killer app is communication. If I could do really good avatar communication systems, then we can reduce travel.

When I want to do it, I can, but I shouldn’t have to. TNS

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A8 Saturday, August 8, 2015

Malaysia eyes Philippine investments in Selangor

K

By Catherine N. Pillas

uala Lumpur is aiming to attract Philippine investments in Selangor, considered the “Golden State” of Malaysia, the Malaysian Trade Office in Manila (Matrade) said.

“We want to promote the investment opportunities in Malaysia and, at the same time, we are helping Malaysian companies to explore business opportunities in the Philippines,” Matrade Trade Commissioner Nyaee Ayup said in a statement.

“We want to increase intra-Asean

trade, which will be boosted by investments from the Philippines,” Ayup added.

Dato’ Teng Chang Khim, Selangor state executive councilor, has recently organized a meeting involving Malaysian and Philippine firms in Manila on Tuesday.

“Selangor is now the most robust and healthy economic and commercial state in Malaysia,” Khim said.

Malaysian businessmen from the transport equipment, life sciences, electrical and electronics, food and beverage, and the machinery and equipment industries sought partnerships with Philippine companies.

“Selangor is poised to offer the most competitive terms and opportunities for those keen to set up business in Malaysia,” Khim said.

Malaysian palm-oil investors are also exploring opportunities in the Philippine oil and fats supply chain, Matrade said. Stakeholders in Malaysian and Philippine oil and fats industry gathered during the Malaysia-Philippines Palm Oil Trade Fair and Seminar, which concluded on Friday.

“The Philippines is seen grow-

ing by 7 percent to 8 percent by year-end. Malaysia’s GDP growth rate over the last eight years has been in the 6.5 percent level. Both economies are doing well, and this has trickle-down effects on foreign direct investments,” Ayup said.

Figures from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority showed that Malaysia recorded RM57.4 billion of approved investments in the primary, services and manufacturing sectors for the first quarter of 2015. This is 18.8 percent higher than the figure posted in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority disclosed that total foreign investments approved by investment-promotion agencies in January to March this year declined by 41.7 percent to P21.8 billion, from the P37.4 billion recorded a year ago.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

P-NOY ORDERS PNP TO RID RANKS OF SCALAWAGS, PREPARE FOR ELECTIONS

By Butch Fernandez

P

resident Aquino on Friday directed the Philippine National Police (PNP) to rid its ranks of scalawags, even as he issued marching orders to the PNP leadership to start early preparations to ensure peaceful and orderly elections in 2016.

Speaking at the 114th Police Service Anniversary rites yesterday, Mr. Aquino, in turn, promised rewards and recognition for deserving PNP officers.

“Sa huli ko pong Sona [State of the Nation Address], napansin po siguro ninyo: Isa sa mga ibinida ko ay ang transpormasyong tinatamasa ng ating pambansang pulisya.

Tunay pong umaarangkada ang serbisyong itinataguyod ng estado para sa kapulisan, na sinusuklian naman ninyo ng ibayong pagpapakitang-gilas,” he told PNP officers at Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Mr. Aquino cited Oplan Lambat-Sibat, a PNP initiative that, he said, effectively brought down crime rate in the National Capital Region. “Ang maganda, halos dalawang linggo pa lang ang nakakalipas, muling nabawasan ang krimen sa Kamaynilaan. Ayon sa pinakahuling datos: Mula sa 37 na kaso ng murder at homicide kada linggo sa National Capital Region mula Enero hanggang Hunyo 2014, bumaba ito sa 21 nitong Hulyo.”

For instance, he noted that robbery, theft and carnapping incidence went down during the same period, from 919 cases to a weekly average of 340 by July.

“Kamakailan lang, sa ilalim din ng programang ito, naaresto ang 23 kataong sangkot sa gun-for-hire activities, drug trafficking at carnapping sa lungsod ng Caloocan.

Dahil nga sa positibong resultang Continued on A2

Ayala Land Inc. income rose 19 percent to ₧8.39B in H1. . . generated total revenues of P11.40 billion, 10 percent higher than the P10.36 billion last year.

Ayala Land’s wholly owned construction and property management units generated combined revenues of P19.9 billion, 37 percent higher than the P14.57 billion posted in the same period in 2014. “Building largescale mixed-use developments that are strategically located in the country’s emerging growth centers will continue to be our focus,” the company said.

During the period, Ayala Land launched P54.85 billion worth of residential projects, even as its

reservation sales grew by 8 percent, reaching a total of P52.47 billion.

Revenues from the residential segment reached P26.93 billion, 10 percent higher yearon-year, and driven by sustained bookings and project completion across all residential brands.

Ayala Land Premier, the brand that caters to the higher segment of the market, posted revenues of P10.82 billion, 16 percent higher than the P9.30 billion posted in the same period in 2014, driven by bookings from its high-value horizontal projects.

Alveo contributed revenues of P6.9 billion,

22 percent higher year-on-year, driven by sales from Nuvali and higher bookings from residential building projects in Bonifacio Global City and in Makati City.

Avida posted revenues of P6.6 billion, 14 percent higher than the P5.78 billion posted last year, while Amaia generated revenues of P1.77 billion, 23 percent higher than the P1.44 billion generated last year.

BellaVita, the brand for the low-income segment, more than tripled its revenues to P167 million from P47 million in the same period last year, due to solid bookings

generated by existing and new projects in Tayabas, Quezon; General Trias, Cavite; and Alaminos, Laguna.

Revenues from shopping centers reached P6.01 billion, 9 percent higher year-on-year from P5.52 billion, due to the increased contributions of its mall in Fairview in Quezon City.

Revenues from office leasing reached P2.43 billion, 16 percent higher year-on-year from P2.1 billion, due to the contribution of new offices and the higher occupancy and average rental rates of existing offices. Revenues from hotels and resorts reached P2.96 bil-

lion, 8 percent higher year-on-year from P2.75 billion, due to improved revenue per available room performance of internationally branded hotels, its own Seda hotels, and El Nido Resorts in Palawan.

Revenues from construction reached P19.21 billion, 36 percent higher year-on-year from P14.1 billion, due to the increase in projects within the Ayala Land group. Revenues from property management reached P688 million, 45 percent higher year-on-year from P474 million, due to the increase in managed properties from completed projects.

Is job growth slowing?

Planned layoffs in US hit nearly 4-year high in July

E

mployers announced more layoffs in July than any month in nearly four years and the pace of planned job cuts this year is the most since the Great Recession, career counseling firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said on Thursday.

More than half of the cuts announced last month were from the US Army, which plans to eliminate 57,000 positions over the next two years, Challenger said.

T he report followed one Wednesday from payroll firm Automatic Data Processing that showed the private-sector added 185,000 net new positions last month, down from

229,000 in June.

The new data indicate the pace of job growth could be slowing, but a more definitive assessment will come on Friday.

Analysts expect the Labor Department to report that the economy added about 212,000 net new jobs last month, a solid figure though down from 223,000 in June.

The unemployment rate is forecast to have held steady at 5.3 percent, the lowest in seven years.

Initial jobless claims are consistent with those forecasts.

About 270,000 people filed for first-time unemployment See “Job growth,” A2

Continued from A1

OIL POISED FOR SIXTH WEEKLY DROP

O

il was poised for a sixth week of losses on concern that a continuing oversupply will keep pressure Crude futures reversed an earlier gain to fall 0.6 percent in London, taking the weekly loss to 5.7 percent. The largest members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) have sustained record output, while US inventories remain more than 90 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average. Iran could export an extra 500,000 barrels a day of oil within a week of sanctions being lifted, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said this week.

“Even during the high demand months, we are not seeing global and, in particular, US crude stocks fall that much,”Abhishek Deshpande, a Londonbased analyst at Natixis SA, said by email. “As we move into the seasonal refinery maintenance, we will see further slowdown in crude demand.”

Brent for September settlement declined 28 cents to $49.24 a barrel at 12:48 p.m. local time on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It slid 7 cents to $49.52 on Thursday. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $4.66 to West Texas Intermediate (WTI).

WTI for September delivery was little changed at $44.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 49 cents to $44.66 on Thursday, the lowest close since March 19. Prices have decreased 5.2 percent this week.

‘Unsustainable’ prices

CURRENT oil prices are unsustainable and the market will rebalance in the next six to 12 months, as US output declines, UBS Group AG said in a note.

“Oil production in key shale plays in the US is already declining,” the bank said.“This decline will become more visible and a more powerful drag on overall Continued on A2