BusinessMirror January 23, 2015

BusinessMirror

three-time rotary club of manila journalism awardee 2006, 2010, 2012

U.N. Media Award 2008

www.businessmirror.com.ph INSIDE

Let the children come to me

EAR Lord, the greatest manifestation of your message, let the children come to me was evidently shown during Pope Francis visit to our country. He has shown his true love, mercy and compassion to the children. It is noteworthy that special attention was given to abandoned children by their parents when these children do not know yet what is going on around them. Were they abandoned for a better tomorrow? If they were left with their own unloving parents, would they have a chance to be embraced by the pope? I have worked with poor children and when I embrace them, many thoughts I always ponder. Amen.

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

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

Life

Friday, January 23, 2015

By Cai U. Ordinario & Genivi Factao

he Philippines could miss its target of growing gross domestic product (GDP) by 7 percent to 8 percent in 2015—and could even see growth slowing to 5.4 percent— especially if the government would not increase its spending and the output of the local manufacturing sector would slump this year, economists said on Thursday.

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CLINT EASTWOOD & BRADLEY COOPER TAKE AIM F

ROM Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood comes American Sniper, starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, whose skills as a sniper made him a hero on the battlefield. But there was much more to him than his skill as a sharpshooter.

Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is sent to Iraq with only one mission: to protect his brothers-in-arms. His pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives in the battlefield and, as stories of his courageous exploits spread, he earns the nickname “Legend.” However, his reputation is also growing behind enemy lines, putting a price on his head and making him a prime target of insurgents. He is also facing a different kind of battle on the home front: striving to be a good husband and father from halfway around the world.

Despite the danger, as well as the toll on his family at home, Chris serves through four harrowing tours of duty in Iraq, personifying the spirit of the SEAL creed to “leave no one behind.” But upon returning to his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), and their kids, Chris finds that it is the war he can’t leave behind.

A two-time Oscar nominee for his work in Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Cooper heads the cast which also includes Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Cory Hardrict, Kevin Lacz, Navid Negahban and Keir O’Donnell.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven) directed American Sniper from a screenplay written by Jason Hall, based on the book by Chris Kyle.

What was it about Chris Kyle’s story that resonated with you and made you so passionate about wanting to bring it to the screen?

Cooper: I liked the fact that it’s not really a movie about war so much as a character study. Chris’s story is a universal one about what veterans have to go through, really—the idea of dealing with the emotional seesaw of going into a warzone to fight and then coming

home, back to your family life, and the challenges that experience presents to all our soldiers. That was very moving to me.

Eastwood: When the studio called me and asked me if I’d be interested in doing it, I was doing another picture and I was reading the book (American Sniper) just for fun. And I was curious about the story and the guy. So, they called me about it, and I said, “Well, gee, let me finish the next 30 pages and I’ll call you back.” It was interesting, ironic, a good story. So I said, “I’d love to see the script.” We met them and Bradley called and said, “They’d like to have you do it.” And that was the end of it.

When you were developing the movie, you met Chris and his wife, Taya. What was that experience like and what did you learn about him beyond what was already in the book?

Cooper: Well, I don’t want to speak for Clint, but I feel like the most of what we gleaned from Chris wasn’t even from the book. It was much more about the weekend we spent in Midlothian, Texas, with Taya Kyle, their children McKenna and Colton, his brother Jeff, and (his parents) Wayne and Debbie. We got to spend a full weekend, which happened to be the same weekend that was the anniversary of his murder. So, it was a pretty heavy time to be there. We went there sort of curious and as we were flying back, (Clint and I) were looking at each other like, “Wow, we got a lot from that.”

Eastwood: Pretty heavy stuff. It turned out that the second day we were there was the first anniversary. So, Taya was not in a great state then, needless to say. But we rode in a car with her, and she was great. We all just talked pretty frankly about what we thought about stuff.

Cooper: No book could ever really give you what you get from meeting people in the flesh. You just watch somebody move through the house that Chris lived in and it tells you a thousand things—to sit at the dining room table or on the couch, or go into his backyard.

Taya really opened up her life to us. She let us look through all of his clothes. She was a major reason we were able to take so many specific things about him that actually made it into the movie. There are a handful of scenes that came out of that weekend we spent in Texas where she was just telling us stories about their relationship.

Eastwood: It was also important casting-wise, because we wanted to get somebody to play Taya that we felt would not just do an imitation, but have that same spirit, which Sienna (Miller) did have. She came in to read for the part, and did a splendid job. It was surprising—she has this great American accent, so you don’t even know she’s British.

Was it important for you to get the truth up on the screen, to shape what actually happened in this man’s life into a narrative story?

Cooper: Well, the movie is based on the source material, and the source material is the book called American Sniper. Jason Hall wrote a script based on that book, which Clint and I both found ourselves, at separate times, compelled by, and it just starts from there.

Eastwood: Where there weren’t actual incidents, all these various people that were hands-on or had lived this experience with Chris said, “Well, that could have been”—because it all seemed to fit into this guy’s MO There were other sequences, too, which we shot and could have put in. But we ended with something that we thought would be realistic, and something that Chris would like.

What do you think drove Chris to this absolute extreme of the experience of fighting a war?

Cooper: I think it’s those things that may seem saccharine in this day and age, but in the movie, he says to Taya in the bar, “I’d lay down my life for my country.

I want to be of service.” Those aren’t just words to him.

He meant that. He wanted to be a cowboy and a soldier,

period. And he lived his life that way since he was a kid, taking care of his younger brother and growing up to be the man that he was. That’s the guy that I got to know, and that’s the guy in the movie. It’s really kind of nuts and bolts. That’s just the way it is. It doesn’t make him a martyr; it doesn’t make him anything other than just a man, but that’s the kind of man that he was.

Eastwood: But he liked taking care of people.

He liked the leadership aspect of it. I guess he felt that was his calling. He worked hard to become a great Navy SEAL, and a great shot, and he had to work hard, because those guys are all really solid citizens as far as their physical abilities, but they have to have the mental ability, too. He went back for four tours with his wonderful family back home, so he could have easily taken the other direction and said, “Well, I’ve done a tour. What the hell?” But he felt that he had to go back, because he lost people and he wanted to avenge that. He felt that we should complete the mission there.

What it was like to work with each other?

Cooper: Well, he’s one of the reasons I wanted to be an actor. The truth is when I was growing up, I always thought there were two guys I wanted to work with: Robert de Niro and Clint Eastwood. And the fact that I’ve gotten to do both is incredible. (De diro costarred with Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook.)

I first started auditioning for Clint’s movies on Flags of Our Fathers and put myself on tape for all of them.

There was one thing that looked like it was maybe going to happen, and then, when that fell through, I thought, “Oh, wow, I can’t believe it.” Then this project happened, and it was the perfect match.

He met every thought I had and surpassed it, and the truth is, we just get along great. We laughed a hell of a lot in the movie, and it’s important to have that kind of levity, I think, especially when the content is so heavy.

Making this movie with Clint was just an utter joy and I

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life

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china’s pm tells davos: Dont worry about china’s slowdown The World BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Friday, January 23, 2015 B3-3

China’s PM tells Davos: Don’t worry about China’s slowdown

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HINA will avoid a hard landing and is focused on ensuring long-term medium-to-fast growth, Premier Li Keqiang told global leaders in Davos.

While the economy will still face large downward pressures in 2015, China won’t have systemic financial risks and will seek to improve the quality of growth to ensure an “appropriate” pace of expansion, Li said on Wednesday in a speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski town.

A few hours earlier, the central bank governor said on a panel that a slower expansion is “good news” if it’s more sustainable.

The comments and the first reverse-repurchase agreements in a year on Thursday follow data this week, showing 7.4 economic percent growth for 2014, the slowest in 24 years and the first failure to meet government targets this century.

“For now, the Chinese leaders are trying to hold off broad-based policy easing,” said Liu Li-Gang, head of Greater China economics at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Hong Kong. “But, if economic indicators in the coming months point to further weakness, China has to act.”

Liu said investors aren’t fully convinced that the world’s second-largest economy can engineer a smooth “soft-landing” into the “New Normal” era of steadier growth.

He cited risks in local government debt and shadow banking.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., a property developer based in Shenzhen, missed

HISTORIC IMPROVEMENT IN LIVES OF WORLD’S POOREST IN 15 YEARSBILL GATES

Risks contained?

Prudent policy

LI reiterated that China would pursue a

Bloomberg

prudent monetary policy and proactive fiscal policy. Leaders are using effective methods to prevent potential risks in finance, and the nation’s savings ratio of as high as 50 percent provides “strong support” to growth, he said.

Li was the first Chinese premier to speak at the annual Alps gathering since 2009. China sent its first official delegation there in 1979, when former supreme leader Deng Xiaoping was starting to open China to the outside world.

In 1992, when relations with western nations were thawing after the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen

Square democracy movement, thenPremier Li Peng told the Davos audience that China would continue its economic reforms.

In 2009 Wen Jiabao expressed confidence in maintaining stable growth even as the US and Europe were roiled by the global financial crisis and outlined his massive stimulus response.

China’s industrial output and retail sales for December increased at higherthan-anticipated rates, reflecting the initial effects of pro-investment efforts and the central bank’s first interest-rate cut in two years. Bloomberg News

Fighting extremism with schools, not guns B Z E

($148,000) to build and equip each new school, so the total bill for all 141 institutions stands at some 21 million dollars.

With a track record of building 40-50 schools a year, however, the NGO is confident that it will honor its pledge within three years.

Inter Press Service

Combating extremism

THE Pakistan Taliban has destroyed over 838 schools between 2009 and 2012. KULSUM EBRAHIM/IPS

same, the citizens who comprise TCF want to shift focus away from bloodshed and onto longer-term solutions for the future of this deeply troubled country.

The charity, which began in 1995, has completed 1,000 school “units,” typically a primary or secondary institution capable of accommodating up to 180 pupils, all built from scratch in the most impoverished areas of some 100 towns and cities across Pakistan.

The 7,700 teachers employed by the nongovernment organization (NGO) go through a rigorous training program before placement, and the organization maintains a strict 50:50 male-female ratio for the 145,000 students who are now benefiting from a free education, according to TCF Vice President Zia Akhter Abbas.

In a country where 25.02 million school-aged children—of which 13.7 million (55 percent) are girls—do not receive any form of education, experts say TCF’s initiative may well act as a game changer in the years to come, especially given that

the government spends just 2.1 percent of its gross domestic product on education.

“Our job is to ensure that, wherever we have our schools, there are no out-ofschool children, especially girls,” Abbas told Inter Press Service (IPS). “We believe the change in society will come automatically once these educated and enlightened children grow up into responsible adults.”

He added that the schools are designed to “serve as a beacon of light restricting the advance of extremism in our society.”

The project has received widespread support from a broad spectrum of Pakistani society.

Twenty-four-year-old Usman Riaz, a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston who recently donated the proceeds of his jam-packed concerts in Karachi to TCF’s efforts, says the Schools for Peace are a “wonderful way to honor the innocent victims”.

But it will take more than one-off charitable donations to make the scheme a reality. It costs about 15 million rupees

BESIDES immortalizing the victims of the Taliban’s attack, experts here say that shifting the focus away from terrorism and onto education will help combat a growing pulse of religious extremism.

The prominent Pakistani educator and rights activist A.H. Nayyar told IPS that it is crucial for the country to begin educating children who would otherwise be turned into “fodder for extremists”.

In fact, part of the government’s 20-point National Action Plan—agreed upon by all political parties dedicated to completely eradicating terrorism—includes plans to register and regulate all seminaries, known here as madrassas, in a bid to combat extremism at its root.

With thousands of such religious institutions springing up across the country to fill a void in the school systems, policymakers are concerned about the indoctrination of children at a young age, with distorted interpretations of religious texts and the teaching of intolerance playing a major role in these schools.

Some sources say that between 2 million and 3 million students are enrolled at the nearly 20,000 madrassas spread across Pakistan; others say this is a conservative estimate.

While there is some talk about bringing these institutions under the umbrella of the public school system, experts like Nayyar believe this will do little to combat the “forcible teaching of … false and distorted history, excessive emphasis on Islamic teachings to the extent of including them in textbooks of all the subjects, explicit teaching of jihad and militancy, hate material against other nations, peoples of other faiths, etc, [and] excessive glorification of the military and wars.”

Nayyar and other independent scholars have been at the forefront of calling for an overhaul of the public school curriculum, which they believe is at odds with the goals of a modern, progressive nation.

But until policy-makers and politicians jump on the bandwagon, independent efforts like the work of TCF will lead the way.

ILL GATES, the world’s richest man, and his wife Melinda said conditions for the world’s poorest people will improve more dramatically in the coming 15 years than at any other time in history.

Advancements in medical care and illness prevention for children, efforts to eradicate polio and other diseases and new farming techniques in Africa will drive “major breakthroughs” for most people in poor countries, according to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation annual letter published on Wednesday night in Seattle.

Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, formed the foundation in 2000 with Melinda Gates. The charity focuses on poverty and health in developing countries and education and equal opportunity in the US. It had given $31.6 billion in grants as of September 30, according to its web site.

The poor “will be living longer and in better health,” according to the letter. “They will have unprecedented opportunities to get an education, eat nutritious food and benefit from mobile banking. These breakthroughs will be driven by innovation in technology—ranging from new vaccines and hardier crops to much cheaper smartphones and tablets—and by innovations that help deliver those things to more people.”

Gates predicted in the previous annual letter that by 2035, almost no country would be as poor as the 35-nation the World Bank classified as low-income as of 2014.

He and Melinda Gates sought to puncture what they called myths about poverty, including the ideas that foreign aid is a waste and that saving lives leads to overpopulation.

Gates, 59, owns a fortune valued at more than $85 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Microsoft’s CEO from 1981 to 2000, Gates stepped down as chairman last year and is a board member and technology adviser.

Warren Buffett, the second-richest man in the US and a foundation trustee, has given about $15.1 billion of stock in his Berkshire Hathaway Inc., including a record $2.1 billion last year.

Buffett pledged in 2006 to donate shares to the foundation every year. Bill Gates has been a Berkshire director since 2005.

Bill and Melinda Gates, along with Buffett, helped found the Giving Pledge, which asks billionaires to give the bulk of their wealth to charity. More than 120 have committed, including Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla Motors Inc. founder Elon Musk.

HILLARY CLINTON DECLINES TO COMMENT ON KEYSTONE

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INNIPEG, Manitoba—Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday declined again to take a position on the Keystone XL pipeline, telling an audience in Canada that she would not express her views because of an ongoing review by the State Department.

Clinton, a potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, was asked about US-Canadian relations during a wideranging question-and-answer session in Winnipeg as Congress considers approving construction of the contentious, Canada-backed project.

Making her first public remarks in a month, Clinton also touched upon the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and the debate in Congress over Iran.

“We have differences and you won’t get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I’m not going to express an opinion,” she said. “It is in our process and that’s where it belongs.”

Her views on Keystone have been closely watched in Canada. She has said it would be inappropriate for her to comment on whether the pipeline project should move ahead, given her past role as Obama’s top diplomat and the State Department’s ongoing assessment.

Obama has vowed to veto the congressional legislation as long as the State Department is still conducting a formal review of the project.

The TransCanada Corp. pipeline would carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta and the US Bakken oil field across six US states to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The House authorized construction of the pipeline last week, and the Senate is now considering the legislation.

Republican and Democratic supporters hope to win final approval on the measure and send it to the White House by the end of the week. Republicans, the Canadian government and business and labor groups have pressured the Obama administration to approve the pipeline, arguing it would create jobs and move North America toward energy independence. AP

World

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favorites advance Sports

Aussie Open: Forget tennis, let’s talk twirling

BusinessMirror

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| FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

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ELBOURNE, Australia—To twirl or not to twirl? This is now a question at the Australian Open.

Social media erupted overnight with reaction to Eugenie Bouchard being asked by an on-court interviewer to “give us a twirl” and show off her tennis dress after winning her second-round match.

Some called the request by a male presenter sexist. Many on Twitter wondered if a man would be asked to twirl after winning a match.

Serena Williams suspects not.

“I wouldn’t ask Rafa or Roger to twirl,” Williams said on Thursday, referring to Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Williams was asked to twirl, too, by the same presenter a day earlier.

“I didn’t really want to twirl because I was just like, you know, I don’t need all the extra attention,” said the No. 1-ranked player who is aiming to win her 19th Grand Slam singles title.

She preferred not to enter the debate of whether the request was sexist.

“Life is far too short to focus on that,” she said. “Whether I twirl or not, it’s not the end of the world.”

Anyway, Williams said she always twirls.

After winning matches, she walks back to court and twirls with a wave to thank the crowd. She’s taking dance class, too.

“I twirl all the time in dance class,” she said. “I really have to work on my spotting. My coach tells me to whip my head around.”

On Wednesday Bouchard told her post-match news conference the twirl request was “very unexpected.”

“I don’t know, an old guy asking you to twirl. It was funny,” Bouchard said.

SERENA WILLIAMS yells in frustration during her second round match against Vera Zvonareva. (Below) Defending champion Stan Wawrinka made a forehand return to Marsel Ilhan. AP

FAVORITES ADVANCE DJOKOVIC, WAWRINKA JOIN WILLIAMS IN 3RD ROUND IN AUSTRALIA

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The Associated Press

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ELBOURNE, Australia—Topranked Serena Williams fended off three set points before going on a 10-game roll to beat Vera Zvonareva, 7-5, 6-0, and move into the third round of the Australian Open.

Men’s No. 1 Novak Djokovic had an easier run, spending a minute less than Williams on Rod Laver Arena in his 84-minute, 6-0, 6-1, 6-4 win over No. 88-ranked Andrey Kuznetsov on Thursday.

Defending champion Stan Wawrinka, who ended four-time champion Djokovic’s 25-match winning streak at Melbourne Park in the quarterfinals last year, advanced to the third round for the seventh consecutive

year with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-3 win over No. 194-ranked qualifier Marius Copil.

Williams, seeking a sixth Australian and 19th Grand Slam title, saved three set points in the ninth game before holding to swing the momentum of her match against Zvonareva, a two-time Grand Slam finalist who played only five tournaments in 2014.

That’s when she told herself: “’You know Serena, you’ve done so well here, you have nothing to lose.’”

“Things really clicked. I had no other option but for things to click,” she added.

“Yeah, I just had to start playing better.”

Williams said she had to transition quickly to get past such an experienced player in the second round.

“Playing Vera is like, I had to get my mind like, ‘Serena, this girl has been ranked as high

even by 10 percent, possibly,” ADMU Economic Department Chairman Luis Dumlao said in his presentation.

“Construction is already growing by 9 percent and [for] manufacturing, we hope that Calabarzon continues its contribution to the entire economy’s growth,” Dumlao added. In the first three quarters of 2014, the economy grew by an average of 5.8 percent.

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POWER OUTAGES SURE TO HAPPEN IF I.L.P. STAYS VOLUNTARY–D.O.E.

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CHINA’S Prime Minister Li Keqiang speaks during a session on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 21. BLOOMBERG

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ARACHI—As a wave of outrage crossing Pakistan’s national borders continues a month after the December 16 attack on a school in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, some citizens are turning away from collective expressions of anger and beginning the hard work of building grassroots alternatives to terrorism and militancy.

While many millions of people are lashing out at the Taliban for going on a bloody rampage in a school in the province’s capital, Peshawar, killing 141 people including 132 uniformed children in what is being billed as the group’s single deadliest attack to date, The Citizens Foundation (TFC), a local nonprofit, has reacted quite differently.

Rather than join the chorus calling for stiff penalties for the attackers, it busied itself with a pledge to build 141 Schools for Peace, one in the name of each person who lost their life on that terrible day.

“We dedicate this effort to the children of Pakistan, their right to education and their dreams of a peaceful future,” Syed Asaad Ayub Ahmad, CEO of TCF, said in an e-mail launching the campaign.

“With the formidable challenges facing the nation, we passionately believe that only education has the power to enlighten minds, instill citizenship and unleash the potential of every Pakistani,” he added.

In their war against western, secular education, which the group has denounced as “un-Islamic”, the Pakistan Taliban have destroyed over 838 schools between 2009 and 2012, claimed responsibility for the near-fatal shooting of teenaged education advocate Malala Yousafzai and issued numerous edicts against the right of women and girls to receive proper schooling.

In their latest assault on education, nine militants went on an eight-hourlong killing spree, throwing hand grenades into the teeming school premises and firing indiscriminately at any moving target. They claim the attack was a response to the military operation aimed at rooting out the Taliban currently underway in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

While armed groups and government forces answer violence with more of the

In the Ateneo Eagle Watch forum on Thursday, economists from the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) projected GDP growth to fall within a range of 5.7 percent to 6.3 percent this year.

“What we see for 2015 is the economy will grow by 5.7 percent to 6.3 percent. Supply drivers would be… we expectmanufacturingandconstruction growth by about 7 percent, construction

WARREN BUFFETT (right), chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway watches Bill Gates use an oversize paddle as they play doubles against table-tennis prodigy Ariel Hsing in Omaha, Nebraska, in this May 2012 photo. AP/NATI HARNIK

debt payments this month, highlighting stresses in the industry as a housing downturn weighs on growth.

FOR Li, the risks are under control.

“China has much room for urban, suburban and regional development, and domestic demand has huge potential,” he said. “China’s condition will continue to improve and China will bring more opportunities to the world if China’s economy keeps growing at medium-to-fast speed for 10 to 20 years.”

At an earlier panel in Davos on Wednesday, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), expressed willingness to sacrifice growth for stability.

“If China’s economy slows down a bit, but, meanwhile, is more sustainable for the medium and long-term, I think that’s good news,” he said.

Zhou said the PBOC would keep money supply stable and not inject “too much liquidity” into the economy. The central bank, on Thursday, conducted reverse-repurchase agreements for the first time in a year, helping to meet a seasonal pickup in demand for cash before the Lunar New Year holidays.

P25.00 nationwide | 7 sections 32 pages | 7 days a week

2015 growth could slump to 5.4% T

‘FIFTY SHADES OF GREY’: FIVE THINGS TO EXPECT... »D4

BusinessMirror

TfridayNovember 18, 2015 2014 Vol. 10 No. 106 40 Friday, January 23,

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ECONOMISTS HOPE GOVT UNDERSPENDING, SLOWER MANUFACTURING EXPANSION WILL NOT PERSIST

clint eastwood & bradley cooper take aim D

A broader look at today’s business

as No. 2 in the world...she’s a very quality player, she knows what to do,”’ Williams said.

After breaking Williams’s serve twice in the first set, Zvonareva only won eight points in the second set and didn’t get close to another break-point chance.

Williams will next play No. 26 Elina Svitolina, who beat Nicole Gibbs, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (6).

Venus Williams had a 6-2, 6-3 win against fellow American Lauren Davis. The elder of the Williams sisters, a seven-time major winner, hasn’t been beyond the third round at a major since reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2011.

Sixth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska needed only 44 minutes to race through her 6-0, 6-1 win over Johanna Larsson, continuing her run of reaching the third round or better at every Australian Open since 2010. In the next

round, she’ll face No. 30 Varvara Lepchenko, a 6-1, 7-6 (1) winner over Ajla Tomljanovic.

No. 11 Dominika Cibulkova, the 2014 finalist, beat Tsvetana Pironkova, 6-2, 6-0; No. 24 Garbine Muguruza beat veteran Daniela Hantuchova, 6-1, 1-6, 6-0; and Madison Keys beat No. 29 Casey Dellacqua, 2-6, 6-1, 6-1.

On the men’s side, US Open finalist Kei Nishikori beat Ivan Dodig, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, 7-6 (0), getting a crucial service break in the 10th game of the fourth set when Dodig was serving for the set and then dominating in the tiebreaker.

He will next face Steve Johnson, who beat No. 30 Santiago Giraldo, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

No. 12 Feliciano Lopez was leading, 4-6, 4-6, 7-6 (3), 4-0, when Adrian Mannarino retired from their second-round match and No. 19 John Isner beat Andreas Haider-Maurer, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-4.

THE WILLIAMS DOUBLES MYSTERY VENUS and Serena Williams prefer not to say why they pulled out of the doubles competition at the Australian Open.

“According to the rules, you don’t have to give a reason. I think we’ll stick with that,” Venus said on Thursday after winning her secondround singles match.

The Williams sisters have won 13 Grand Slam doubles titles together, including four at the Australian Open. They were scheduled to play their first-round match on Wednesday but withdrew before it started without explaining why.

The mystery continued on Thursday, with Venus saying she was allowed to be coy, which naturally prompted a string of questions.

Was it the heat?

“It was warm,” the 34-year-old American said. “I don’ think it was as warm as it could have been. But, no, that wasn’t it.”

Was there a medical reason? Were doctors consulted?

“No further questions on that,” Venus said. “I object. Sustained. Thank you.”

But the questions continued at Serena’s postmatch news conference.

“I don’t think we have to give a reason,” reiterated Serena, who also advanced to the third round. “I think Venus answered that already.” AP

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EUGENIE BOUCHARD finds the “twirl request” unexpected but funny. AP

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By Lenie Lectura

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nergy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla could not stress enough how important it is for Congress to pass the joint resolution that will grant President Aquino special powers to address the projected power deficit in Luzon this summer.

He said—without hesitation—the feared power outages are imminent.

“Without the Congress and Senate [resolution], the Interruptible Load Program [ILP] will run on red alert rather than on yellow, which means brownout muna before ILP runs,” Petilla said in a text message on Thursday. A red alert means there is a supply deficiency and a brownout is sure to occur.

The House of Representatives has already passed its version of a joint resolution, but the Senate has yet to pass its own.

For now, the ILP is still the government’s solution to address Lu-

PESO exchange rates n US 44.4960

zon’s power woes. However, it is voluntary for now, until the joint resolution is passed.

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, said in a recent hearing that the ILP should be implemented voluntarily.

“The ILP works better when it’s not mandatory; when it’s voluntary.”

The ILP works by calling on business customers with loads of at least 1 megawatt (MW) to run their own generator sets, if needed, instead of drawing power from the grid.

With the ILP, power supply from the grid that will not be consumed by participating customers will be available for use by other customers within the franchise area. Through this, the aggregate demand for power from the system will be reduced to a more manageable level, helping ensure the availability of supply during the anticipated power crisis this year.

See “Power,” A2

The Ateneo Eagle Watch holds a forum, titled “Philippine Economic Outlook 2015,” at the Ateneo Graduate School in Makati City. Speakers (from left) Dr. Luis Dumlao, chairman of the Economics Department of the Ateneo de Manila University; Dr. Alvin Ang, former president of the Philippine Economic Society; and former National Economic and Development Authority Director General Cielito Habito answer questions from attendees. NONIE REYES

‘Non-Opec members to be $310-M ‘HOT’ first to blink in output war’ MONEY LEFT

O

il prices will rebound, rather than extend, their decline to as low as $20 a barrel because a collapse since June isn’t merited by global supply and demand, the secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) said.

Producers outside the Opec should be first to reduce their output amid a surplus that has pushed crude below $50 a barrel, Abdalla El-Badri said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday. Iraq, Opec’s fastest-growing supplier, said it needs to boost output to compensate for revenues eroded by the price slump.

“The price will not go to $20 or

$25, I think the price will stay at where we are now,” El-Badri said.

“We have seen this before—prices coming down very fast and go up very slow. But prices will rebound.”

Oil slumped almost 60 percent since June, as Opec nations continued pumping amid the highest US production in more than three decades. The 12-nation group’s decision last November 27 to maintain output was based on economics, and wasn’t intended to target US shale drillers, Russia or any other country, El-Badri said.

Brent slid 16 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $48.87 a barrel on the Londonbased ICE Futures Europe exchange at 12:28 p.m. Singapore time.

See “Non-Opec,” A2

PHL IN 2014

By Bianca Cuaresma

S

hort-term foreign capital aggregating $310.21 million flowed out on net basis from the Philippines in 2014, a reversal from net inflows totaling $4.22 billion reported in 2013, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The outmigration of foreign capital came on the heels of the inward flow of opportunistic foreign funds, also known as “hot” or speculative money, totaling $397.02 million last December, and an indication of the sentiment among fund managers to invest in markets much more See “Hot money,” A2

n japan 0.3777 n UK 67.3847 n HK 5.7389 n CHINA 7.1635 n singapore 33.3253 n australia 36.3946 n EU 51.6554 n SAUDI arabia 11.8495 Source: BSP (22 January 2015)

News BusinessMirror

Friday, January 23, 2015

A2

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Manila, Washington officials uneasy over new China reclamation in West PHL Sea US counterparts in Manila early this week.

“Senior officials of the DFA and DND met with their counterparts from the United States for the fifth bilateral strategic dialogue held in Manila on January 20 and 21, 2015,” Coloma told Palace reporters.

At a new briefing on Thursday, the Palace official quoted a joint statement issued by US and Philippine officials “regarding [the new] reclamation project by China.”

“The two countries expressed concern over developments in the South China Sea that are inconsistent with the 2002 Asean-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and international law and emphasized the

By Butch Fernandez

C

oncerned officials in Manila and Washington are uneasy over a new reclamation project by China well within the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) in defiance of international laws and a 2002 Asean-China Declaration covering the conduct of claimants involved in territorial disputes in the region.

Communications Secretar y Herminio B. Coloma Jr. confirmed on Thursday that visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel shared the

concerns aired by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of National Defense (DND) officials during a “bilateral strategic dialogue” with their

2015 growth could slump to 5.4% . . . Continued from A1 Under a “business-as-usual” scenario where government spending continues and the manufacturing sector’s output grows by only a single digit, ADMU economists said Philippine GDP growth for 2015 could only reach 5.4 percent. “A GDP growth of 5.4 percent is still a very good number because it is higher than the Asean-5 expectations,” Dumlao said.

Despite this, ADMU economists said they expect unemployment rate to average 5.5 percent to 6 percent, which is almost the same as the 6 percent recorded in the October 2014 Labor Force Survey. The construction and

wholesale sector, which will be boosted by remittances from overseas Filipino workers, will increase the number of available jobs this year.

Sun Life of Canada Philippines Inc. has a more sanguine outlook for the country’s economy this year. The insurer expects GDP growth for 2015 to grow by 6.5 percent on better domestic consumption, higher government spending and more inflows of funds from abroad.

Michael D. Enriquez, Sun Life Philippines chief investments officer, said the company is “very bullish” this year as all “headwinds” are gone.

“Investors should start coming in, when

there’s less headwinds that can create uncertainties in the market, except for interest rate hike in US. But, having hurdled that, there’s more to look at domestically, that can drive demand for domestic equities both from the local and foreign funds,” Enriquez said.

The company said “positive surprises” such as lower oil prices would also boost the country’s GDP growth for 2015. Meanwhile, former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cielito Habito discussed the impact of the upcoming 2016 elections on the economy and reforms that President Aquino can pursue in the remaining

importance of upholding peace and stability, respect for international law, unimpeded lawful commerce, and freedom of navigation and over flight,” Coloma said quoting from the joint statement.

He added that “the two sides reiterated that international disputes in the South China Sea should be settled in accordance with international law, and through diplomatic and other peaceful means, including the use of international arbitration.”

According to Coloma, the two panels also tackled the legal issues involving the PHL-US Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that the two allies earlier forged to update the 1951 Philippine-US Mutual Defense Treaty.

months of his term. Habito updated the findings of a recent study made by staff members of the National Economic and Development Authority on the economic impact of elections.

In the study, elections add P13.5 billion, or 0.34 percentage point to the country’s GDP every election year. However, Habito said this was based on mid-2000 prices. In his updated computation using 2013 prices, Habito said the government directly spends P28.5 billion for elections.

Assuming a multiplier effect of five, this could translate to P142.5 billion, or a 1.3-percentage point addition to the country’s GDP.

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST JANUARY 23, 2015 | FRIDAY

TODAY’S WEATHER

Northeast Monsoon locally known as “Amihan”. It affects the eastern portions of the country. It is cold and dry; characterized by widespread cloudiness with rain showers.

JAN 24 SATURDAY

JAN 25 SUNDAY

Power. . . Continued from A1 Based on latest ILP figures, the program is still not enough to cover for the projected power-supply gap. Still, the DOE continues to hold negotiations with prospective ILP participants.

“We have 600 MW of ILP and we simply have to maximize this,”

Non-Opec. . . Continued from A1 West Texas Intermediate lost 33 cents to $47.45.

First movers

Non-Opec nations, some of which require prices of $100 a barrel to sustain output, should be first to pull back as their production has expanded over the past decade, while Opec’s remained stable, El-Badri said. Opec decided in November that, if it cut supply, rising non-Opec output would have required

‘Hot’ money. . . Continued from A1 rewarding than the Philippines had been during the period.

Still, the inward flow of foreign funds in December last year proved the second-largest monthly net inflow in 2014.

The central bank traced the outmigration of foreign funds to market apprehnesion over the end of the socalled quantitative easing program of the US Federal Reserve as the world’s largest economy started the groundwork for the normalization

JAN 26 MONDAY

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

of interest rates to support what some economists call nascent growth. Capital flight was first seen in the early months of 2014 as markets reacted to the recovering US economy and its decision to put a stop to its bond-buying program.

A largest net capital outflow was reported in January last year totaling $1.84 billion. A breakdown of FPI data show the bulk of outflows were for purposes of capital repatriation and remittance of earnings.

JAN 24 SATURDAY

JAN 25 SUNDAY

JAN 26 MONDAY

23 – 30°C

23 – 30°C

23 – 30°C

METRO MANILA

21 – 32°C

22 – 32°C

22 – 31°C

METRO CEBU

(AS OF JANUARY 22, 5:00 PM)

TUGUEGARAO

19 – 27°C

20 – 28°C

20 – 29°C

TACLOBAN

23 – 31°C

23 – 30°C

23 – 31°C

22 – 30°C

CAGAYAN DE ORO

22 – 32°C

24 – 32°C

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METRO DAVAO

25 – 33°C

24 – 33°C

23 – 33°C

24 – 33°C

LAOAG

BAGUIO

LAOAG CITY 21 – 29°C

TUGUEGARAO CITY 19 – 27°C

BAGUIO CITY 12 – 21°C

SBMA/ CLARK

SBMA/CLARK 22 – 30°C METRO MANILA 21 – 31°C

TAGAYTAY CITY 18 – 28°C

TAGAYTAY

21 – 28°C

12 – 21°C

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18 – 28°C

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13 – 21°C

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LEGAZPI ILOILO/ BACOLOD 24 – 30°C METRO CEBU 24 – 31°C

TACLOBAN CITY 23 – 31°C

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 22 – 31°C

ZAMBOANGA CITY 23 – 33°C

PUERTO PRINCESA

ILOILO/ BACOLOD

22 – 30°C

22 – 30°C

ZAMBOANGA

SUNSET

MOONSET

MOONRISE

6:25 AM

5:50 PM

8:42 PM

8:27 AM

22 – 29°C

NEW MOON HALF MOON

24 – 32°C

JAN 27

12:48 PM

CELEBES SEA

1:20 PM

0.38 METER

Partly cloudy to at times cloudy with rainshowers

23 – 30°C

23 – 30°C

24 – 31°C

Cloudy skies with rain showers and/or thunderstorms

Weekday hourly updates: 6:00 AM on Balitaan, 7:00 AM & 8:00 AM on Good Morning Boss!, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 1:00 PM on News@1, 3:00 PM, 4:30 PM, and 6:00 PM on News@6

www.panahon.tv

SABAH

7:10 AM

-0.17 METER

Partly cloudy to at times cloudy with rain showers and/or thunderstorms

Watch PANAHON.TV everyday at 5:00 AM on PTV (Channel 4).

METRO DAVAO 24 – 32°C

LOW TIDEMANILA HIGH TIDE SOUTH HARBOR

JAN 20

23 – 31°C

23 – 32°C

SUNRISE

9:14 PM

23 – 31°C

25 – 33°C

19 – 29°C

LEGAZPI CITY 22 – 29°C

PHILIPPINE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (PAR)

it to make successive reductions through to 2016, he said.

Iraq, Opec’s second-biggest member, has lost about 50 percent of its revenues because of the slump in oil and consequently needs to bolster output, Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nuri Shaways said on Wednesday at the WEF in Davos.

“Because of the new challenges, especially the price of oil, Iraq has to try its best to raise it oil production and exports,” Shaways said. Bloomberg News

NORTHEAST MONSOON AFFECTING NORTHERN LUZON. TAIL-END OF A COLD FRONT AFFECTING THE EASTERN SECTION OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN LUZON.

Tail-end of a cold front is the extended part of the boundary, which happens when the cold air and warm air meet. This may bring rainfall and cloudiness over affected areas. It is felt at the northern hemisphere winter season.

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY 23 – 30°C

Petilla said.

Latest data from the DOE states that Luzon needs 782 MW, of which 135 MW are needed to meet the required regulating reserve, and the 647 MW for the required contingency reserve.

@PanahonTV

Light rains

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The Nation BusinessMirror

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Friday, January 23, 2015 A3

US to give PHL $40M in military aid for 2015

F

OREIGN Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario said on Thursday the United States has lifted its cap on Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which was withheld during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo due to alleged human rights violations.

The FMF was $3 million a year during Arroyo’s term.

Del Rosario added that the US would no longer give the $15 million withheld in five years and that

last year’s $50 million had already been given to the government of President Aquino.

During a bilateral strategic dialogue on Thursday, Assistant Sec-

retary for East Asia and Pacific David Shear said the US will give the Philippines $40 million this year.

“We will do everything we can to give the best assistance we can provide,” Shear said.

The announcement of continuing military aid came after reports the People’s Republic of China has put up structures on areas the Philippines claim sovereignty called the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

But del Rosario said, during a news briefing, that “Manila and Beijing are trying to see the normalization of their relationship.”

“We will see if constructive engagement can be had in accordance with [the West Philippine Sea issue],” del Rosario said, adding that

La Salle University elects Suplido president

T

HE De La Salle University (DLSU) announced on Thursday its board of trustees elected Raymundo Suplido of the Fratres Scholarum Christianarum (FSC) religious community as DLSU’s incoming president. He is slated to assume his presidency on May 16.

Suplido will succeed FSC confreres Ricardo Laguda and Dennis Magbanua.

Laguda was recently appointed Pacific-Asia Regional Conference general councilor of the Institute

of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, while Magbanua is interim president and chancellor.

The Brothers of the Christian Schools, also known as the “De La Salle Brothers,” is a Roman Catholic religious-teaching congregation founded in France

by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle and approved by Pope Benedict XIII in 1724.

Suplido received his primary education in La Salle CollegeBacolod. In high school, he attended De La Salle College

Manila and later pursued a college degree in General Science (major) and Mathematics (minor) in the same institution. He graduated magna cum laude in 1969.

He also graduated magna cum laude in the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and licentiate in Clinical Psychology.

He taught in high school at the La Salle Academy, Iligan City, and became grade-school principal in De La Salle College-Manila.

“the issue is not the sum total of our relationship with China.”

Following the successful meeting between President Aquino and Chinese President Xi Jin Ping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing, del Rosario said there has been a perceived improvement in the relations between the two world leaders.

He said he hopes that Mr. Aquino and Mr. Xi will have another meeting in Manila this year.

“We would like that very much,” he said of the proposed meeting, adding: “We believe this improvement in relations will not adversely affect the advocacies we are seeking in regards to our maritime claims and in accordance with Unclos [United Nations

Convention on the Law of the Sea].”

Despite the apparent warming of relations between Manila and Beijing, del Rosario said the Philippines has no plan of dropping its arbitration case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague.

“Win or lose, we will accept the decision. We expect China to do the same.”

Del Rosario added that the Philippines will submit in March its reply to queries handed down by the arbitral tribunal, while China will submit its reply until June.

By July the Philippines will present its oral arguments at The Hague, The Netherlands.

Del Rosario hopes six months after, or by December, the PCA will

hand down its ruling.

The Philippines had expressed apprehensions over the massive reclamations by China in four islands in the contested areas of the West Philippine Sea. Del Rosario said reclamation activities had changed the character and features of the islands, which are significant threats to freedom of navigation and causes tension to rise in the region.

These islands are Cuarteron, Gavin, Johnson South Reef (Mabini) and McKennan Reef, including Fiery Cross Reef (Kagitingan).

The Philippines and China are locked in disputes in the West Philippine Sea, which China claims it has “indisputable sovereignty.” RectoMercene

Sandiganbayan acquits celebrity-mayor in graft case

T

HE Sa nd iga nbay a n, on Thursday, acquitted actor and former Parañaque City Mayor Joey Marquez in the graft charges filed against him over the purchased of allegedly overpriced ammunitions.

Marquez was charged by the Office of the Ombudsman with three counts of plunder as a result of a Commission on Audit (COA) report. That report said Marquez, during his term as mayor, purchased 2,000 rounds of ammunition from an unaccredited company from 1996 to 1998. The

Ombudsman said the contract was overpriced by P1.2 million.

The Ombudsman added that the purchase was conducted without public bidding and did not comply with COA rules on procurement and bidding. The latter, according to the Ombudsman, gave unwarranted benefit to supplier VMY Trading Inc. and caused damages to government.

The supplier was also said to be not accredited by the police firearms unit.

However, the Sandiganbayan

found that Marquez’s signatures on the transactions were forged.

“The Court believes that the signatures...on the douments covering the questioned transactions were not really his, thus, warranting the inevitable conclusion that he had no participation in the transactions,” the decision read.

On allegations of overpricing, the Court said the audit report failed to pin down Marquez for overpricing because the audit team failed to get a price quotation from registered ammunition suppliers. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Economy

A4 Friday, January 23, 2015 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

BusinessMirror

DOH to seek private partners for P40-B upgrade of hospitals

T

he modernization of hospitals and medical facilities under the Department of Health (DOH) that are set to be offered to investors through the government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program will cost at least P40 billion.

According to Health Undersecretary Teodoro J. Herbosa, the broadening infrastructure gap in the health system—a ratio of five beds to 10,000 population —warrants the expansion, modernization and improvement of health-services facilities.

“The modernization of all govern-

ment-owned hospitals, of which we targeted around 20 with strategic business case and plan, off the bat, is around P2 billion to P5 billion per hospital. So if you have 20, you need to have P40 billion to P50 billion to modernize,” Herbosa said.

Among the hospitals identified by Herbosa that will undergo modern-

ization and are currently in different stages of the PPP process are the TriMedical Complex in the Tayuman Compound of the DOH; the Cotabato Regional Medical Center; the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center; and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

Four modernization projects have already been awarded, said Herbosa, including the Philippine Orthopedic Center and the East Avenue Medical Center.

According to the build-operatetransfer (BOT) arrangement between the DOH and the private companies making up the consortium that won the contract for the modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center, the private group will design, build, finance, operate and maintain the facility for 25 years.

At the end of the 25-year concession

period, the hospital will be returned to the DOH. Projects undergoing construction, meanwhile, are the modernization of the Bicol Medical Center, Cagayan Valley Medical Center and the Cotabato Regional Medical Center.

The budget of the health department has grown by five times since the Aquino administration began— from a budget of P20 billion in 2010 to the current year’s approved budget of around P100 billion.

According to former Health Secretary Enrique Ona, all the DOH hospitals are eligible for PPP and there are options on how to subject the updating of DOH hospitals for the PPP process.

There are 72 DOH-run hospitals and more than 700 district and provincial hospitals across the country.

Catherine N. Pillas

Bayan confident of getting NTC nod on ownership change

T

he telecommunications arm of Lopez Holdings Inc. is bullish that its petition with Globe Telecom Inc. for the change in ownership of Bayan Telecommunications Inc. will soon be approved by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

In a statement, Bayantel COO Rafael T. Aguado said his company “is confident in the wisdom of NTC’s decision-making process to allow the

change in the majority shareholder of Bayantel for the greater benefit of the consumers.”

“We stand behind every part of our rehabilitation plan in our aim to build a stronger Bayantel,” he said.

In September 2013, the Regional Trial Court in Pasig approved the rehab plan which seeks to significantly reduce the debt burden of the Lopez-led firm through a conversion of up to 69 percent of

debt to equity, which translates to $131 million in two separate tranches of conversion.

The first phase of conversion was completed in October 2013, after Bayan issued common shares for a 39-percent equity stake in the company to Globe and its other creditors.

The second tranche of conversion involves 40 percent of the debt to be converted to equity.

Once completed, Globe would ef-

fectively hold a 57-percent stake in Bayan. The Lopez family is looking at divesting its entire shareholding in its telco business, pending the approval of the NTC. “The approval of the NTC of the transaction will strengthen Bayantel’s company’s position as a viable player in the rapidly evolving telecommunications industry, making the environment more competitive in the process,” Aguado said.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Average cost of construction goods in MM down 1.2 percent in 2014

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

he average retail prices of construction materials in Metro Manila contracted by 1.2 percent in 2014, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

T he Const r uc t ion Mater ials Retail Price Index (CMRPI) showed retail pr ices of most construction materials in Metro Manila posted slowdowns and minimal growth in 2014.

“Indices of plumbing materials and miscellaneous construction materials in 2014 dropped by 0.4 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively.

Moreover, the annual average rate in electrical materials index eased to 1 percent in 2014, masonry materials index, 3.2 percent; and tinsmithry materials index, 3.3 percent,” the PSA said.

“The indices of carpentry materials and painting materials and related compounds posted correspondingly higher annual average growths of 1.5 percent and 1.6 percent,” it added.

In December the CMRPI posted a year-on-year growth of 1.6 percent, slightly higher than the 1.5 percent posted in November and 1.4 percent in December 2013.

The uptick was largely due to the increase in the carpentry materials index at 2.7 percent; masonry materials index, 7.7 percent; painting materials and related compounds index, 2.4 percent; and plumbing materials index, 0.2 percent.

However, the PSA said, a slower annual increase was posted in the tinsmithry materials index at

2.2 percent. The indices of electrical materials and miscellaneous construction materials registered contractions of 0.3 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

On a monthly basis the CMRPI in Metro Manila increased 0.1 percent in December, compared to its November level.

“Price hikes were generally noticed in plywood, common wire nails, select paints, sand paper, GI pipes, faucet and steel bars. Lower prices were, however, observed in the prices of electrical wires, cement and GI corrugated sheet,” the PSA said.

The index of carpentry materials in December increased by 0.5 percent; masonry materials index, 1.5 percent; painting materials and related compounds index, 0.1 percent; plumbing materials index, 0.4 percent; and miscellaneous construction materials index, 0.7 percent.

On the other hand, declines were correspondingly seen in the indices of electrical materials and tinsmithry materials at -0.8 percent and -0.3 percent.

The CMRPI is a variant of the General Retail Price Index that measures the changes in the average retail prices of construction materials.

The market basket of the CMRPI is composed of 102 commodities and classified into seven major commodity groups.

These groups are carpentry materials; electrical materials; masonry materials; painting materials and related compounds; plumbing materials; tinsmithry materials; and miscellaneous construction.

LTFRB set to hear Iway’s petition on bus-fare rollback in February

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

C

USTOMERS may soon enjoy lower bus fares nationwide as the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) is set to hear a petition for the nationwide rollback in bus fares on February 11.

Rep. Manuel M. Iway of the First District of Negros Oriental filed a petition on January 12 for the reduction of fares for regular and air-conditioned bus services

around the Philippines due to the continuous decline of oil prices in the world market.

In his petition, Iway requested for a P2 reduction in regular bus fares in Metro Manila, or from P10 to P8 for the first 5 kilometers, and from P1.85 to P1.50 for every succeeding kilometer.

For air-conditioned service, the Solon requested for the reduction of fare rate from the existing P12 to P10 for the first 5 kilometers, and from P2.20 to P1.80 for every

succeeding kilometer.

Iway also requested for the reduction of provincial bus regular service fare rate from P8.50 to P8 for the first 5 kilometers, and from P1.35 to P1.25 for every succeeding kilometer. For provincial airconditioned bus service a reduction of P0.25 for regular (from P1.55 to P1.30); deluxe (from P1.65 to P1.40); and super deluxe (from P1.75 to P1.50), and P0.20 reduction for

luxury (from P2.20 to P2) for every kilometer.

The lawmaker is a former board member of LTFRB. “Sa patuloy na paggalaw ng presyo ng krudo sa pandaigdigang merkado, kailangan ding maramdaman ng publiko na sumasakay sa mga pampasaherong bus ang epekto nito kaya naman nagpapatawag ang board ng public hearing upang matugunan ang petition ng ating mangbabatas at consumer group,” LTFRB

Chairman Winston M. Ginez said.

Iway based his petition on the most recent oil price rollback, which could effectively reduce average pump price of diesel fuel per liter between P26.70 and P28.90. He stressed that average pump price of diesel today is much lower than in December 2008 when it was pegged at P34.95 per liter.

Earlier this week, major oil companies implemented a P1.45 per liter rollback in diesel prices, the third consecutive

price cut this year.

The LTFRB will allow parties contesting or opposing the approval of the proposed fare reduction to file in written form their position prior to the hearing date. Both parties must also appear to submit their position papers on the said date.

The regulator has ordered jeepney operators to reduce the minimum fares in different parts of the country due to declining diesel prices. Lorenz S. Marasigan

Iglesia Ni Cristo to inaugurate housing and livelihood projects for Yolanda survivors

T

he Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) is scheduled to inaugurate today, January 23, its housing and livelihood projects for survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in Alangalang, Leyte, a few kilometers from Tacloban City.

Barely 10 months since the groundbreaking of Sitio New Era, envisioned as a model community nestled on top of a mountain aptly called Barangay Langit, it now has some 500 concrete housing units completed and ready for occupancy.

Another 500 housing units are also set to be built in the area, where livelihood facilities have also been set up for the benefit of the survivors of the strongest typhoon on record in the Philippines.

It was only on March 14 last year that INC Executive Minister Eduardo V. Manalo came to the site itself to lead the groundbreaking ceremonies for Sitio New Era, which was aptly named to embody the hopes for a new beginning for survivors of the typhoon, who want to get back on their own feet in rebuilding their lives.

This happened just a month after the February 15, 2014, Worldwide Walk for Yolanda survivors of the INC, a walk-fora-cause participated in by more than half a million of its members from all over the world, set in multiple venues, including Roxas Boulevard in Manila.

The charity walk also set two Guinness records. One was for the largest

charity walk in a single venue, which was in its Manila site, along the scenic Roxas Boulevard where 175,509 participants made it to the finish line.

The second was for the largest charity walk done within 24 hours in multiple venues with 519,221 participants that set a new Guinness record category.

All the participants, who registered and donated money, were members of the church.

The funds generated by the activity coming from the INC brethren themselves were used primarily for the construction of the housing facilities in Sitio New Era, aside from the donations of INC brethren from different parts of the world, as well as in the acquisition of equipment for the ecofarming community.

Phase 2 of the housing project will also benefit Yolanda survivors, even those who are not yet members of the INC, said INC general auditor, minister Glicerio B. Santos Jr., who also spearheads the Felix Y. Manalo foundation, a nonprofit organization that handles the relief-giving and other charitable works of the INC worldwide.

One of its signature projects called “My Countrymen, My Brethren” or “Kabayan Ko, Kapatid Ko” involves medical and relief missions for the poor and the needy, including those affected by calamities all over the world.

Such activities were conducted by the INC, through the FYM Foundation, in the Yolanda-affected areas immediately after

the typhoon hit central Philippines.

But, more than the giving of food aid to typhoon survivors, Santos said the INC church administration led by Manalo, wanted to help their brethren by providing them permanent housing in a safe place and jobs to help them to recover from the tragedy.

“This was initiated by Bro. Eduardo because he wanted the brethren with no jobs to have their own means of livelihood. Because that is the main problem of people not just here, but all over the world. That is why the church administration is helping members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo to have a stable and reliable source of income, so they would have their own livelihood,” Santos said during the initial groundbreaking ceremonies last year.

“This is why explains we are to build resettlements like these,” he said, noting that there are now a total of eight model eco-farming communities, which the INC had already set up throughout the country. These are in Agusan del Sur, Cavite, Rizal, San Miguel and Obando in Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Isabela.

Santos clarified that the Church is not accepting cash donations from non-INC members, and they have in fact, turned down several offers of cash donations from outside sources.

“All these are being realized because of God’s help. God is guiding the church administration, and He is the One making all these happen,” he concluded.

Eagle News Service

Economy BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

PAL, Airbus agree on deferment of $3-B aircraft ordered by SMC

F

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

ILIPINO legacy carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) and French aircraft maker Airbus have agreed, in principle, to defer the delivery of the multibillion-dollar purchase orders transacted by the previous management of the locally listed airline three years ago.

The formal contract will soon be struck, said PAL President Jaime J. Bautista, paving the way for the deferment of the delivery of 38 aircraft to 2024.

“We are working with the Airbus on the deferment of orders. This year we should take delivery of 10, but we are working on a delivery of only five so [the other] five will be deferred to sometime in 2020.

There should be 38 more, including the five this year,” he said in an interview on Thursday afternoon.

He said based on published prices, the 38 aircraft cost around $3 billion.

The total order, which was placed in 2012, involves 67 brand-new aircraft.

Currently, the flag carrier has a 73-strong fleet comprising of a mix of Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier aircraft.

Thankfully, Bautista said, the proposal to defer the delivery of aircraft carried no penalty or interest.

“Our negotiation with Airbus is without penalty and there is no interest,” he explained. “It is already agreed in principle.”

The massive refleeting plan was launched by San Miguel Corp. (SMC) three years ago, as part of its initiative to expand PAL’s route network and improve its services. The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation criticized the decision in a 2014 report, saying the overambitious order will lead the flag carrier back to the red due to oversupply.

SMC President Ramon S. Ang passed the baton to taipan Lucio C. Tan late last year, after the latter launched a $1-billion buyback transaction in September 2013.

PAL Holdings Inc., the operator of the carrier, has been struggling to get back on its feet after years of bleeding.

It saw losses narrowing in the third quarter of the year, driven by a spike in revenues that slightly offset an increase in expenses.

The company trimmed its losses significantly to P322.16 million in the third quarter of 2014, from P1.16 billion in the same three months the year prior.

In the same comparative periods, the firm’s revenues increased to P25.03 billion from P18.02 billion, while expenses surged to P25.16 billion from P20.07 billion.

Friday, January 23, 2015 A5

BIR outlines ways to achieve 2015 collection goal

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ommissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares has outlined the 27 priority programs of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to attain the P1.703-trillion collection target in 2015.

Henares issued Revenue Memorandum Circular 3-2015 enjoining the BIR to align their activities, projects and other undertakings with the priority projects to sustain the positive trend of improved collection efficiency during the past three years.

“The revenues generated by the bureau support the national development initiatives of the government. The Philippines was recently recognized as the fastest-growing economy in Southeast Asia and to maintain such distinction, the bureau’s revenue performance is crucial. It shall support the country’s efforts in the 2015 Asean integration,” the circular said.

Among the priority projects are: the online system for accreditation of importers and customs brokers; the internal revenue stamps integrated system for alcohol products; and the enhanced

Mobile Revenue Collection Officers System.

Many of the priority projects take advantage of advances in technology in keeping track of possible sources of additional revenues, such as the Forfeited Asset Management program that aims to create and update a database of forfeited properties, or in making sure that tax leakages are plugged, such as the Electronic Certificate Authorizing Registration (eCAR) program, which aims to eliminate or reduce revenue losses from all types of tax transfer transactions.

The total collection of the BIR from January to November 2014 amounted to P1.22 trillion.

This is already higher than the BIR’s full-year collection in 2013, which amounted to only P1.217 trillion.

For this year the BIR revised its collection target from P1.721 trillion to P1.703 trillion, considering the P16.9 billion in foregone revenues that are expected from the recent increase in the allowable de minimis benefits, which are tax-exempt. David Cagahastian

BOC gives in to exporters’ lobby vs stuffing policy

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he Bureau of Customs (BOC) has stopped the implementation of a policy that requires the presence of a Customs personnel during the stuffing of export containers, the Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport) reported.

Commissioner John Phillip P. Sevilla, according to the Philexport, signed Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) 4-2015 dated January 21, 2015 repealing Section 16.B.1.1 in its entirety.

The revocation of section 16.B.1.1 means that there is no longer any requirement for exporters or their brokers to submit a Notice of Stuffing form, nor any requirement for a stuffing inspector to be present during the stuffing of a container. The issuance of an Authority to Load by the agency’s Export Division shall be sufficient basis for an export container to be loaded.

Opinion BusinessMirror

A6 Friday, January 23, 2015

editorial

Chicken or the egg

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HE World Bank released its latest Philippine Economic Update (PEU), with the theme “Making Growth Work for the Poor.” While the World Bank has reduced its estimate for the Philippines’s 2014 economic growth from 6.4 percent to 6 percent, for 2015 and 2016 our growth is expected to be 6.5 percent or higher.

World Bank Country Director Motoo Konishi said this about the Philippines: “The country is benefiting from low and stable inflation, its finances are healthy, and debt levels are declining. It has a dynamic private sector that is seizing global opportunities. Now is the time to move the economy decisively onto a path that reduces poverty and creates more and better jobs.”

But what exactly is the path that we need to follow?

Karl Kendrick Chua, World Bank Senior Country Economist talked about tax administration and tax policy reforms, needed to generate the amount of revenues needed to pay for the “decades-old investment deficit” in infrastructure, health and education.

That is old news but maybe if it is said enough times, something might progress. The Aquino administration’s centerpiece Public Private Partnership program has too many gaping holes in its success picture.

The PEU talks extensively about the need for structural reforms and while wrapped in diplomatic and somewhat bureaucratic language, it calls for Filipinos to pay their proper taxes.

“For these reforms to succeed, strengthening tax administration and improving transparency and accountability of government spending are essential,” Chua said. “These would allow the Filipino people to see a better link between taxes and services and convince them that the taxes they are paying are being spent wisely.”

But after that the theme gets a little twisted.

Chua goes on to say: “Only when revenues improve should policy makers consider further reforms, such as lowering the top marginal income tax rate to 25 percent, reducing the gap between regular and special corporate income tax rates, and simplifying the tax system for micro and small enterprises.”

That last paragraph is the structural reforms in our tax system that is needed to increase economic growth to levels that will finally create enough self-sustaining wealth to make poverty reduction a reality rather than a political slogan.

What the PEU is saying then is that the government needs to take in much more revenue under a system that is not the most beneficial and effective before that same system should be changed to be beneficial and effective. Give the government more money under a poor taxation regime so that they can eventually make it a good taxation system, Maybe we should change the system with these structural reforms first and then the government can take in more revenue to do all the things that it has failed to do. A better chicken might just lay better eggs.

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It’s all good James Jimenez

S

spox

O it seems the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has been corrected by the Supreme Court again, this time, on the question of electoral management body’s authority to regulate political campaign materials–such as posters, for instance–put up by private citizens on their private property.

According to the Supreme Court’s Spokesperson–the highly esteemed lawyer Theodore Te–the Court voted 9-5, that the Comelec had no power to regulate the free expression of private citizens who are neither candidates nor members of political parties; that the Comelec’s act of calling upon the San Sebastian Cathedral to take down its “Team Patay/Team Buhay” tarpaulin posters, ran afoul of free speech and expression, as well as the right to property; and that the content of the tarps was not religious speech, even if it was written or was been caused to be written by Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra.

I emphasize that these statements were made by the Spokesperson to underscore that the Court has not actually promulgated the Decision itself. This is important for two reasons: first, it means that apart from the summary delivered

by Te, we really have no idea of the detailed reasoning behind the ruling nor of the nuances that are necessary for a thorough comprehension of the Court’s decision. And second, any opinion on this matter should not be considered commentary on the decisions themselves but mere reactions to what little is known.

With that caveat I must say that as a matter of first principles, the Supreme Court’s ruling is a welcome one. It will certainly become a critical guidepost for the Comelec in future elections. However, and this is why we need to see the actual decision, some questions bear asking.

First, when the Court says the Comelec has no power to regulate the free expression of private citizens who are neither candidates nor members of political parties, does it mean that anyone can now crank out and distribute himself, thousands and thousands of hand-

bills for a candidate and still fall outside the purview of the Comelec’s regulatory power simply by not affiliating himself with the political party of the candidate he is supporting? And what if the candidate is an independent and belongs to no party in the first place?

I must point out this scenario is neither hyperbolic nor absurd, and actually represents a very probable outcome. So I am very eager to see how the Supreme Court’s ruling will affect the Comelec’s ability to address a situation like this, especially since this state of affairs might be used to facilitate the concealment of campaign expenditures.

Second, when the Court says the Comelec’s act of calling upon the San Sebastian Cathedral to take down its “Team Patay/Team Buhay” tarpaulin posters, ran afoul of free speech and expression, as well as the right to property, should this be taken to mean that private individuals and entities can now post partisan posters and the like, without any form of regulation?

What some may not recall is that when the Comelec challenged those “Team Patay/Team Buhay” posters, it was not on the basis of the Church not having any right to put up posters like that, but on the fact that those posters greatly exceeded the allowable size.

The Comelec argued that even if private citizens had the right to display partisan posters on their private property, they still had to do so with due regard for the size requirements mandated by law.

This represented, the Comelec believed, a reasonable middle ground between private rights and the public interest in ensuring that elections are conducted on a level playing field.

If it were otherwise, the Comelec believed, what would stop entire buildings being draped with the image of the building owner’s candidate friend? And knowing that those tarps aren’t cheap, we can again see how simple it would be to use this freedom to both tilt the playing field in favour of the candidate with the wealthiest friends and as a means of hiding campaign expenditures.

And third, when the Court says that the content of the tarps was not religious speech, even if it was written or was been caused to be written by Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra–well, I don’t think the Comelec has ever tried to characterize the contents of those tarp as religious speech.

These are just some of the questions that need to be clarified in the aftermath of the Court’s announcement. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait until the decision itself is finally promulgated. In the meantime, what can be immediately clarified, is that this is not considered by the Comelec as anything other than the further fine-tuning of the Comelec’s authority to enforce and administer all election laws.

In other words, it’s all good.

James Jimenez is the spokesman of the Commission on Elections.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Philippine financial markets in 2015: A papal bull run?

Alvin P. Ang

EAGLE WATCH

A

T the onset of the Papal visit last week, a major event occurred in Europe that rattled world financial markets.

The Swiss Franc was effectively de-linked from the Euro in a surprise move by the European Central Bank. The delinking caused significant negative movements across financial markets around the world. It was fortunate that the Philippine markets were closed for the Papal visit and was spared the impact of the shock.

The Swiss Franc has been capped at 1.20 per euro in the last three years as it has been appreciating sharply after the global financial crisis. The capping was to prevent its further appreciation which is hurting its exports. A week after, the markets around the world remain jittery. What does this event tell about the performance of the Philippine financial markets in 2015?

Firstly, it is critical to note that with the integration of the financial economy through the internet, markets are uniquely connected to each other almost in real time. Under this condition, the action of one economy, whether big or small, can cause ripples or shocks as the case maybe. Second, this recent action of the Swiss Central Bank and the corresponding responses of other central banks in the world show that the central banks are no longer aligned.

This means that each one is on the lookout for opposing currents resulting to divergence among countries.

Finally, it had to be recognized that with this recent event, short term volatilities will be the order of the markets. Under these conditions, our own financial markets are exposed to differing risks and therefore require that market players are well-abreast of fast changing events.

For the Philippines, there are areas where the economy has distinct advantages that may help cushion and compensate for any ripples and shocks. These advantages are uniquely present for the Philippines.

For instance, we see that the investment grade euphoria will start to add more expected foreign investments. Foreign direct investment (FDI) most likely reached $6 billion in 2014 and at base scenario would remain the same. Supporting FDI for inflows will be the remittances and business process outsourcing (BPO) contribution. While remittances are reaching maturities of about 4 percent to 6 percent growth per year, the BPO sector is strongly testing 2/3 of total remittances.

All of these combined will already add a steady stream of close to $50 billion per year. During the 2009 crisis, we were shielded mainly by the wide distribution of overseas Filipino workers around the world compensating for the weakness in Taiwan and the Middle East. Hence, the economy held on despite massive shocks. This time, the Philippines is in a better position structurally because of the underlying economy and the contributions of the investment grade status and BPO companies.

Furthermore, monetary policy has been prudent with liquidity growth back to single digit levels and the loan growth at 20 percent.

What is more encouraging is that loans to production have diversified to more sectors than before assuring a more balanced production growth.

With these conditions, it is very likely that local interest rates will be hovering lower than their current

It is very likely that local interest rates will be hovering lower than their current levels. This is more so because we see inflation weakening to even below 2 percent at best scenario.

Best scenario assumes that the current oil price levels continue to weaken by one half percent per month and that the port congestion is responded at a much faster rate than current. levels. This is more so because we see inflation weakening to even below 2 percent at best scenario. Best scenario assumes that the current oil price levels continue to weaken by one half percent per month and that the port congestion is responded at a much faster rate than current.

As regards the peso-dollar rate, the short term will see volatilities but the general direction is that of a weakening considering that the US economy has been rebounding at a sustained pace. This will most likely lead to a tightening of US interest rates within the year. A higher US interest rates may attract funds back to the US. But this is a question of flight to quality. The Philippines is no longer a junk grade economy so it will not necessarily lead to a lot of funds moving out. Besides, the strong compensatory effect of the unique feature of our economy will ensure that any depreciation will be mild and will be helpful to make our exports competitive—this will be a movement between 1 percent to 2.5 percent.

As regards the equities, 2014 saw a banner year with the PSEi hitting more than the 20-percent return.

The concern is that if earnings will remain at their current levels, we will be expensive compared with our neighbours. For the last three years (2011-2014), the Philippines is the 13th best performing equities market in the world. There is still room to go up considering that current PE levels of 20 percent is well within the 20 year average. Hence, we see the PSEi moving up by 5 percent at base scenario to 7,600 and a maximum of 10 percent at 8,000. There maybe still room for a Papal Bull Run! Alvin P. Ang, PhD, is professor of Economics and senior fellow of Eagle Watch, Ateneo de Manila University’s macroeconomic forecasting unit.

Post-op/post-pope Tito Genova Valiente

annotations

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HEY called it the “Pope fever.” It was as if the whole nation, or at least the area visited by him, had its corpus dissected and operated on. We let our defences down and it is now to look back, perhaps recover and assess what was that all about.

As a crowd, we were everything short of magnificent. Epic. From afar, the designated site for the assembly looked like a swarm of penguins or a colony of ants let loose by nature.

One million or six million—it does not matter. We have shown ourselves that we can be one massive, monumental community, gathered under one banner, one sign. The number kept going up as if the entire Filipino Christendom was proving itself to be the force that it is. It is a force that has never been tapped in its glorious entirety. It was displaying again the same power, the same force that the institutional Church has never found the wisdom to engage.

We were great.

With cellphones and devices hoisted up to the direction of the visiting pope and the heavens, we could have swung at them at any legion of devils with the means to interrupt our festive proceedings.

On the second day of the visit, I was missing the candles that were lighted when processions took place or when a holy person passed by.

Something had replaced, it seemed, the candles; these were the blue and white lights of mobile phones and tablets. They looked like candles from afar. And they seem to light the papal entourage. Magical.

Even as the papal visit was yet to wind up, there were bickerings already in the Internet. There were articles posted explaining why they did not like this pope. There were expressions of disbelief about how in the Palace, members of the Cabinet or their relatives had monopolized the audience with the Pope.

Together with the complaints were photos showing Pope Francis at the palace ground. There was no time to check but disgust and frustration were expressed.

Did we know everything that was

happening then?

Were our media practitioners up to the task of covering the Pope?

Well, if you are in the school of media thought that newscasters are supposed to say what we could see already, then the blitzkrieg of reporting that took place in a week could have satisfied you. But if you are the type that asks for more from these vastly overpaid celebrity-newscasters and hosts and hostesses, then you rate the reporting and documenting as dismal.

Here is a sampler: Why are you staying out here to wait for the Pope?

Tell me how do you respond to that demented question? Because we want to see him.

At the airport, a field reporter comments on the many people

Ailene Co

Women Stepping UP

T’S a quote often heard and used but it could not be any less true: “A woman is like a teabag. You’ll never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”

While it may be argued that being in hot water, including trials and tribulations, do not choose genders; equality is indeed universal since women are also not exempted from life’s challenges.

Just as life’s hardship is the great equalizer, there is a certain grace as to how women handle it. Society expects men to toughen up but when women rise above hard times, people are in awe of us. We are seemingly delicate figures who grow stronger and survive the odds.

I’m no stranger to crisis. Nobody is. One of my most notable challenges is when I lost my business and started working for other companies.

I started rebuilding myself in my career as a PR and Marketing Executive.

It was a highly competitive industry.

Cutthroat even. There were many circumstances where I have to make choices and compromise. It takes a lot of guts, patience and confidence to make it in this industry. Closing deals seem easy to some but you have to be careful how you make them.

There are a lot of circumstances that needs to be considered, especially if they involve people who depend on

waiting people and, with their old tricks, got hold of a group. He proceeded to ask the same, tired question: Why are you here at the airport?

Of course, to welcome the Pope.

There must be other answers, At the back of my mind even if I was already on a repentance mode, I could have said: Because I am going to Sri Lanka and I want a free ride in that plane.

There was no attempt to expand at all the discourse that was taking place, no research undertaken to widen the window for the viewers.

Many people like me had so many questions: How many reporters were there in the plane? How were they chosen? What food was served? God, was wine served?

On stage during the Mass, where were the stole made in Bulacan?

Was the Pope using one of them?

Who were the personalities on stage with him?

On the second day, I asked a Jesuit if there were Jesuits with the Pope. He wasn’t sure but, he added, Chito Tagle was there with the Pope. I clarified: But Cardinal Tagle is not a Jesuit, right? The good Jesuit responded: Very Jesuit-trained. Well, there was one tact to explore and explain.

What does it mean to be trained in the Jesuit ways? Who are the Jesuits?

Pope Francis belong to the Order

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that was suppressed in 1700s. The Jesuits were pushed out of churches and convents. In the Philippines, the Jesuit churches were occupied by other orders. Banished from the face of colonial earth were the Jesuits. Some of them died because no country would admit them and no convent was there to shelter them.

The documents on the notorious (depends on whose side you are) suppression of the Jesuits is already out. The Society of Jesus in fact commemorated the 200th anniversary of the Jesuit Restoration. The Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, is quoted as calling the year a year of reflecting on the “good and the bad in our behaviour.” Candid remarks in the Jesuit way.

Didn’t you wonder who was the Pope’s interpreter? Report says he belongs to the Opus Dei. The tandem was a piece of news waiting to be excavated. After all, the Jesuits are said to be ideologically the opposite of Opus Dei. At the end of the week, the social media and the bloggers proved to be more informative, more critical and more intellectual. Worthy of the Pope that came to visit us in January.

The writer can be reached via titovaliente@yahoo.com

Photos by Alysa Salen

Rising amid challenges

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Friday, January 23, 2015

you. My suggestion is to pray for it and weigh the conditions.

As a girl growing up in a patriarchal society, I cannot help but buy into the “damsel in distress” and a “princess-waiting-for-her-prince” ideals. I thought back then that for a problem to be solved, I needed a hero.

Now that I am a woman, I learned to be my own heroine. It is important for women to be independent, and at the same time rely on God and be surrounded by inspiring women especially during troubling times.

Before learning all the important lessons in life, I have made mistakes and stumbled. The trick is to get up, dust yourself off and think that your situation is not that unique. Everyone makes mistakes and I am human enough to err. It’s the aftermath of that mistake that matters—should I stay down in the dumps and continue to berate myself? Or should I move forward and act on it and clean up the mess?

I made the decision to live a full life. I initiated the “moving forward” plan by getting to know myself better, knowing my identity and nurturing my spirituality by establishing a

relationship with God. It is in knowing Him that I got to know myself better—what I can accept and what I simply cannot. It was such a powerful revelation to know that in my weakness, He will be strong for me.

In those moments when I cannot help but condemn myself with the mistakes I have made, He would remind me through His Words that there is no condemnation in Him. Only love.

It was also in these transition moments that God blessed and surrounded me with women who served as listeners and inspirations. They have eagerly encouraged and lifted me up without any agenda, but simply to share their own experiences and life lessons so that I, too, could be strengthened in my faith and as a woman.

Having survived my personal ordeals through these friends, I found myself paying the generous act of sharing and enriching the lives of other people forward by encouraging other women in dire need of advice and guidance as well. I found a real sense of purpose in this. The Bible says, “He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” Helping other people who are going through the tough times you have survived is rewarding. I learned from this experience that it is highly important to have accountability and people to look up to.

Stepping up and stepping out of the rut meant that I would have to consciously face my problems and independently plan my solutions. I do not have to be so reliant on others but channel my dependence on God instead.

Since my problem revolved around my career, one of the biggest lessons I have learned is to passionately love what you do and success will inevitably follow—it’s infinitely much sweeter and much appreciated.

When I decided to let go of my fears and pursued the desires of my heart, which are in accordance to God’s will, opportunities upon opportunities came knocking in. It’s as if God was just waiting for me to forgive myself, accept Him and share His dreams and vision for my life.

I became focused and driven and is now enjoying the sweet success of my so-called failure. In hindsight, the problem that I have previously thought of as a setback was actually a setup for me to have a blossoming relationship with Christ, a renewed passion to do what I am currently doing and to enjoy success without worrying about compromises.

I have come to learn and understand that true success means being content and happy with where you are in the present no matter what your past was.

Ailene Co is a member of BPW Makati. She is a seasoned marketing professional with close to two decades of experience in PR and marketing. She is also the co-founder of online magazine www.trend-hotspot.com. Falling twice and rising three times! This article reflects the author’s opinion and is not the official stand of BPW Makati.

Women Stepping Up is a rotating column of members of BPW Makati and comes out twice a month. For more information on BPW Makati, visit www.womensteppingup.org.