Businessmirror 10 12 2014

KIM’S ABSENCE FUELING UNEASE AMONG NORTH KOREA ELITE

K

North Korea and South Korea exchange gunfire at the DMZ after South Korean activists launched balloons containing leaflets condemning Kim Juon-Un

IM JONG UN hasn’t been seen in public for five weeks, with his absence potentially unnerving the North Korean elite, whose loyalty he needs to stay in power, and making an erratic regime even more unpredictable.

2006, 2010, 2012

U.N. MEDIA AWARD 2008

Demilitarized Zone

SOUTH KOREA

GlobalEye»C2

IN this July 27, 2013, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to war veterans during a mass military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP/WONG MAYE-E

THREE-TIME ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDEE

NORTH KOREA

Source: BBC, Reuters

BusinessMirror

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WEEK AHEAD

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

■ Previous week: The local currency corrected during the week and veered away from the 45 territory. After Monday’s trading holiday, the peso strengthened to 44.635 to a dollar, the strongest the peso has been in about two weeks. It, however, slipped on Wednesday to its weakest for the week at 44.805. The local currency then rallied further on Thursday to appreciate back to 44.625 before ending the trading week at 44.77 against the US dollar. The total traded volume is at $2.87 billion, lower than the previous week’s $3.635 billion.

■ Week ahead: The local currency is expected to continue its rally against the dollar as worries of weaker global trade offset optimism in investor sentiment abroad.

Economic data releases from the US this week will largely be one of the foreign-exchange traders’ lead in trading the peso against the dollar for the week.

OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKERS’ REMITTANCES (August 2014)

A broader look at today’s business ■

P.  |     | 7 DAYS A WEEK

IMF expects BSP to focus on medium-term inflation T

B B C

HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), on whether the interest-rate weapon is to be used against price pressures, was seen to focus on medium-term inflation issues, rather than on each dip and surge in commodity prices, when the policy-making Monetary Board meets on the 23rd day of the month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said.

In an e-mailed response to the BusinessMirror, Shanaka Jayanath Peiris, IMF resident representative in Manila, said that, while the next policy decision will depend on infl ation prints a few months back, the BSP will also have to consider the infl ation path going forward when determining whether a further tightening of monetary policy is warranted.

S “IMF,” A

PEIRIS: “Monetary policy is datadependent but also forward-looking, so one month’s outcome alone would not be the sole criterion for policy actions.”

GOVT TO ROLL OUT P11.6-B

PPP PROJECTS IN 2015

Wednesday, October 15

July’s OFW remittances: Cash sent by Filipino migrant workers sustained its growth at the beginning of the second half of the year. Money from overseas Filipino workers that reached the Philippines through banks and other registered financial institutions hit $2.063 billion in July this year. This is the largest monthly remittance flow for the country in 2014.

July’s remittance inflow was S “O,” A

Sunday, October 12, 2014 Vol. 10 No. 4

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B L S. M

HE government will launch more than a dozen public-private partnership (PPP) deals amounting to P11.6 billion throughout 2015, a senior official revealed.

“There are 16 projects that we are planning to roll out by next year,” PPP Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao said.

The bulk of the projects to be auctioned off are under the transportation department, which also accounts for most of the key infrastructure deals of the Aquino administration.

Canilao said the government will bid out the operations and maintenance contract of the following airports next year:

PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 44.6240

S “PPP,” A

G-20 SUMMIT Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 (G-20) nations gather for photo at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington on Friday. From left, front row, are Erdem Basci, governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey; Glenn Stevens, Australia’s central bank governor; Australia’s Treasurer Joe Hockey, chairman of the G-20; and Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov. Story on A8. AP/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

■ JAPAN 0.4135 ■ UK 71.9339 ■ HK 5.7535 ■ CHINA 7.2790 ■ SINGAPORE 35.1121 ■ AUSTRALIA 39.2644 ■ EU 56.6234 ■ SAUDI ARABIA 11.8972 Source: BSP (10 October 2014)

News BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, October 12, 2014

Outlook...

Historic warship visits Subic Bay for last time

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C  A

6 percent larger than the remittances flows seen in the same month last year.

It also brought the total remittances for the first seven months of the year to $13.49 billion.

■ August OFW remittances: Central bank WEEK AHEAD governor, in a recent speaking engagement, said that remittance flows will continue to course toward the country and remain to be one of the Philippines’ “anchor of stability” in this period of volatility in external markets. The government’s target for the year is a 5-percent growth from the overall remittances seen in 2013.

IMF...

Peleliu, which has 262 officers and about 2,543 enlisted men, is touted to be one of the Navy’s finest amphibious assault ships. It is armed with two rolling airframe missile launchers; four 25 mm Mk-38 Bushmaster gun mounts; two Phalanx CIWS for self-defense; and five 0.50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns.

It was also built with an offensive armament of three 5-inch rapid-fire naval guns and a defensive system of two Mk-115 Basic Point Defense guided missile units.

Above all, it typically carries six AV-8B Harrier attack planes; four AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters; 12 CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters; nine CH-53 Sea Stallion heavy helicopters; and four UH-1N Iroquois helicopters.

After it was commissioned for service in 1980, Peleliu has been deployed to the Persian Gulf on several missions, operated with the Interfret peacekeeping task force, participated in Pacific partnership deployments, and provided assistance following the massive floods in Pakistan in 2010.

  A

Earlier this week, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said infl ation slowed to only 4.4 percent in September, from 4.9 percent in July and then in August this year.

The deceleration helped foster the view that the central bank will keep the current interestrate settings on hold when they meet later in the month, which is a view not shared by the IMF resident representative.

“The BSP appropriately tightened monetary conditions and [adopted] macroprudential policies earlier in the year,” Peiris said.

“Monetary policy is data-dependent but also forward-looking, so one month’s outcome alone would not be the sole criterion for policy actions,” he quickly added.

The IMF official lauded the central bank’s readiness to act against the continued buildup of prices, as BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. himself indicated just last week, when the latest inflation survey was announced.

The central bank’s anti-inflation macroprudential measures

already include hikes in the banks’ deposit reserve requirement and two 25-basis-point increases in the BSP’s liquidity-sapping special deposits account (SDA) facility.

The central bank also implemented two 25-basis-point increments that brought the reverse repurchase or borrowing rate higher to 4 percent.

The BSP has moved to tighten monetary conditions in the country through both the macroprudential and policy-rate approaches.

Macroprudential measures, such as the banks’ reserve requirement ratio and the SDA hikes, are targeted-specific measures implemented by the central bank against excessive money-supply growth that spikes inflation.

The central bank governor said that all other policy measures remain on the table should financial conditions in the country warrant a further tightening.

The BSP will have its next policy meeting on October 23.

Th is will be the second to the last such meeting of the BSP’s Monetary Board for 2014.

PPP...

THE amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu lies on anchor at the Alava Wharf in the Subic Bay Freeport on Saturday, as US servicemen loaded equipment used in the recently concluded Phiblex 2015.

  A

Bohol, Laguindingan, Puerto Princesa, Davao, Bacolod and Iloilo. The deals will also entail the construction and rehabilitation of the current aviation hubs.

“These airport projects have an estimated cost of around $2.54 billion in total, and they are also included on our list of possible investment opportunities,” she said.

Canilao also mentioned the San Fernando Airport project, which involves the construction of an airport terminal with a mall complex in Barangay Poro, San Fernando City in La Union. The project has an indicative cost of $180 million.

Another project under the

transport agency involves the construction and the modernization of the Davao Sasa port, a venture which costs $388 million.

“This project will ultimately benefit the import and export industry of the country, specifically the island of Mindanao through transforming its facilities into a modern, international-standard container port,” Canilao said.

Other projects under the supervision of Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya are the $428.89-million Motor Vehicle Inspection System; the $3.70-billion North-South Railway Project-South Line; the $3-billion Mass Transit System

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST OCTOBER 12, 2014 | SUNDAY

TODAY’S WEATHER Typhoon is a cyclone category with winds of up to 181 kph while, Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is the result of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere tradewind convergence; widespread cloudiness, occasional thunderstorms, precipitation and moderate to strong surface winds are associated weather conditions.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

TYPHOON “OMPONG” (VONGFONG) WAS LOCATED AT 811 KM NORTHEAST OF ITBAYAT, BATANES. MEANWHILE, ITCZ AFFECTING VISAYAS AND MINDANAO.

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Loop; the Manila Bay-Pasig River-Laguna Lake Ferry System; and the Light Rail Transit Line 1 Dasmariñas Extension.

Other PPP deals to be auctioned off are the P1.12-billion Regional Prison Facilities; the $416-million Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System’s New Centennial Water Supply Project; and the BatangasManila (BatMan) Natural Gas Pipeline Project.

“The New Centennial Water Supply Project will ensure water security for the residents of Metro Manila,” Canilao said.

Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System is currently invit-

OCT 15

WEDNESDAY

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

ing interested companies to apply for prequalification and bid for the project.

The BatMan project, meanwhile, involves the construction of an approximately 110-kilometers natural-gas transmission and distribution pipeline facilities from the province of Batangas to transport and supply natural gas to Batangas, Laguna, Cavite and Metro Manila.

The government has awarded eight PPP contracts since the flagship infrastructure program was launched in late 2010.

It aims to sign at least 15 contracts by the time President Aquino steps down from office in 2016.

OCT 13

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TACLOBAN

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(AS OF OCTOBER 11, 5:00 AM)

LAOAG

LAOAG CITY 24 – 30°C

SBMA/CLARK 24 – 32°C METRO MANILA 24 – 32°C

TAGAYTAY CITY 21 – 28°C

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BAGUIO

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TUGUEGARAO CITY 24 – 32°C BAGUIO CITY 16 – 24°C

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TAGAYTAY

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PHILIPPINE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (PAR)

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY 24 – 29°C

ILOILO/ BACOLOD 24 – 30°C

TACLOBAN CITY 24 – 31°C

METRO CEBU 23 – 31°C CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 24 – 33°C ZAMBOANGA CITY 24 – 31°C

PUERTO PRINCESA

ILOILO/ BACOLOD

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SUNSET

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MOONRISE

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LEGAZPI CITY 23 – 31°C

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MANILA BAY

OCT 08

6:51 PM

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OCT 16

3:12 PM

Cloudy skies with rainshowers 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

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SABAH CELEBES SEA

1:36 AM

0.48 METER

Partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers and/or thunderstorms

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

METRO DAVAO 25 – 32°C

4:43 PM

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EconomySunday

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

BusinessMirror

Sunday, October 12, 2014 A3

PNR decreases trips due to breakdowns

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By Lorenz S. Marasigan

HE Philippine National Railways (PNR) has been operating fewer trips per day owing to the decrease in the number of trains. More than a third of the fleet that the stateowned company operates is grounded due to breakdowns.

This forced the railway company to reconfigure its rolling stocks to accommodate the growing number of passengers who use the train system that connects Manila to Laguna.

However, the augmentation resulted in another problem: the coupled trains do not match with the design capacity of the platforms.

“We used to have 11 trains running, with one reserve. But now, we are down to seven trains, plus one reserve. To mitigate the lack of trains, we added coaches to the current train sets, meaning we coupled another coach to one train set,” PNR Spokesman Paul de Quiros told the BusinessMirror.

The mitigating measure, however, placed the lives of the commuters in peril, since the platforms at the PNR end at the current trainplatform configuration. What happens at the tail of the coupled coach is this: Riders have to assist one

another to get on the train, literally lifting entering passengers to the door, while alighting ones jump off the car. The jump is about a meter-high to the ground. Some of the stations have unpaved roads.

The decline in operations—from 78 trips a day to 52—started back in August.

“We tell our passengers to alight from the other coach, where the door meets the platform,” de Quiros noted, explaining that the lack of trains would result in further congestion in the dilapidated line and a disservice to the riding public. “We are just waiting for the spare parts to repair the trains.”

He lamented over the lack of budget of the rail company, which has been crying out for higher annual allocations from the national government to overhaul the line.

“Our budget is small. We find it hard to immediately repair broken

Flag carrier optimistic on gains

F

LAG carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) hopes to continue the upward trend on its bottom line that started in the second quarter this year, aiming to end its two-year bleeding by the end of 2014.

Jaime J. Bautista, the general manager of the flag carrier, said PAL wants to end the year with profitability, as reflected during the April-toJune period this year.

He noted, however, that the company managed to book net profits in the second quarter owing to its seasonality.

“PAL reported profit for the second quarter, whose months fall to the peak season. The challenge for us now is when we enter the lean season, which has already started in September,” Bautista explained.

The executive said the airline’s new management is studying “very carefully” its strategy to remain profitable in the next quarters, despite being a lean season for airline operations.

“We are studying very carefully which routes would be added to our network, since winter season will start on October 26. We will see to it that we will mount flights that are required by the market, and we will not fly just because we want to fly, we have to consider the requirement of the market and our capacity to operate,” Bautista stressed.

PAL Chairman and CEO Lucio C. Tan, Bautista said, ordered the management team to make the airline more profitable.

“The marching order is to generate more revenues and reduce cost. We can do that if we maintain efficiency. Of course, we have to control the cost without sacrificing safety and customer service,” the executive noted.

“We hope we could be profitable this year,” Bautista, who is set to be reinstated as the airline’s president, stressed.

Bautista’s reentry in the management of the airline came after Tan bought back the shares held by San Miguel Corp. in the airline’s holding company.

PAL Holdings Inc., the operator of the flag carrier, successfully dished out an income backflip, after it posted a net profit of P1.49 billion in the second quarter of 2014, from a net loss of P1.08 billion in the same three-month period in 2013.

In the same comparative periods, revenues of the airline operator rose by 47.4 percent to P27.30 billion, from P18.52 billion; while operating expenses climbed by a slower P31 percent to P6.04 billion, from P19.47 billion.

The firm attributed the growth in earnings last quarter to the favorable passenger-revenue performance during the said period, driven mainly by the introduction of new routes, such as London, Abu Dhabi, Damman, Riyadh, Canton and Haneda in Japan.

As of end-June its fleet is composed of 85 aircraft, composed of six Boeing 777-300ER, four Boeing 747-400, five Bombardier DHC 8-400, four Bombardier DHC 8-300, 10 Airbus A340-300, 18 Airbus A330-300, 7 A321-231, 28 Airbus A320-200 and three Airbus A319-100. Lorenz S. Marasigan

IT-BPM Summit to highlight future growth

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By Roderick L. Abad

ITH the continued growth of the information technology and business-process management (IT-BPM) industry in the country that is seen to generate $25 billion in revenue and create 1.3 million direct jobs over the next two years, the realization of such expectations will be highlighted in the sixth annual International IT-BPM Summit to be held at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel on October 13 and 14.

Themed “Drive Change. Shape the Future,” the first session will provide participants with new insights on the industry’s development, in line with the 2012 to 2016 IT-BPM Road Map. The summit will also delve on the different aspects that have contributed to the progress of the industry, including the global technological breakthroughs that continue to revolutionize the IT-BPM landscape.

Among these innovations is cloud computing, paving the way for the

transition from hardware to software that businesses of all sizes ought to consider. As social media change how the people communicate, a discussion on how they also transform the way businesses communicate with their customers is lined up.

Summiteers will also discuss how businesses can offer and use social media in their customer relations management strategy.

When it comes to branding strategies, the conclave aims to impart the ways that countries or cities have done to draw positive attention as a destination for IT-BPM operations. Updates on the Next Wave Cities will also be delivered at the conference.

It will also put in a good light the Philippines’s largest market for IT-BPM services—the United States––with executives of top American outsourcing companies based here talking on the country’s economic outlook, government and compliance concerns relevant to the industry, and other pertinent issues.

trains. Hopefully, we could address this problem before the year ends, as the people are flocking to the PNR, and it’s kind of hard to operate with that condition,” de Quiros said.

The national government earmarked P344 million for the train system this year. PNR General Manager Joseph Allan C. Dilay asked both the two houses of Congress for a higher budget allocation. He asked for an outlay of P12 billion.

“I have asked for P12 billion, but I guess, I will get about P2 billion plus,” he said, explaining that a lower budget would result in “fewer running trains, less spare parts, less maintenance equipment and uncomfortable, yet safe, ride.”

At present, the PNR commuter line operates from Tutuban to Santa Rosa, Laguna, covering 23 stations over a stretch of 50 kilometers and from the 35-km Nagato-Sipocot line.

Last year about 20 million passengers, or 55,400 commuters, daily were served by the railways.

This year between 80,000 and 100,000 passengers per day use the PNR trains.

The government has ensured that the railway system will soon see improvements, as it plans to develop the dilapidated line by connecting the city of Malolos in Bulacan to Calamba in Laguna. It has set a P166.63-billion price tag for the North-South Commuter Rail project.

SundayV

Busine

A4 Sunday, October 12, 2014 • Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay

editorial

GNI per capita deserves more attention

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HE World Bank and other international institutions use gross national income (GNI, formerly known as gross national product) per capita as an indicator of development. The higher the country’s GNI per capita, the more developed that country is. When expressed in the same currency—the United States dollar—the indicator also permits a comparison between countries. For instance, in 2013 the Philippines’s GNI per capita was $3,270; Thailand’s, $5,370; and Malaysia’s, $10,406.

The indicator is simple and easy to understand. The faster the GNI is growing and/or the slower the population is growing, the faster the country will develop. Also, the lower an economy’s rank is when compared to other economies, the greater the need for it to develop further and the faster it must go to catch up with—or, at least, not fall farther behind—those other economies.

For various reasons, Filipinos have not been able to enjoy the benefits of this indicator. For one thing, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) has not been highlighting GNI per capita in its reports, preferring, instead, to focus on the annual growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP), which, of course, is not a bad thing.

For another reason, some people, either with good or ill intentions, immediately take over the lead in the debate on the GDP growth rate and then shift to another subject—poverty—saying that, no matter how high the GNI growth rate is, it is not reducing the number of the country’s poor people. Suddenly, instead of rejoicing over good economic performance or brooding over a poor one, we are all bemoaning how far too many of our people are poor.

Incidentally, subjective-perception surveys that call on respondents to rate themselves poor or not poor on the basis of descriptive words report a steady increase in the number of self-rated poor. We are jolted back to reality when scientific surveys that classify people according to objective criteria report that the poverty-incidence rate in our country has remained, more or less, the same in the last three or four years.

To be clear, we are all determined to reduce, if not eliminate, poverty in the country, but that is a “distribution” issue, not a “development” one. Let us concentrate on how to boost the growth of our GNI per capita and devote another time and space to how to speed up poverty reduction.

That means concentrating on investment, both public and private. What has been delaying the construction of hundreds of billions of pesos worth of highways, seaports and airports? Shall we amend the antiforeign-investment provisions of the 1987 Constitution? Can we, perhaps, also discuss population policy without any bias or blame?

Though poverty and economic growth are two completely separate issues, they are, nevertheless, connected by employment. That is the meaning of inclusive growth: The participation of all working members of society in the expansion of the economy. Even as we wait for the report on the effectiveness of the government’s conditional cash-transfer program, let us pay serious attention to employment creation, which is the most effective means to reduce or eliminate poverty.

In the meantime, let’s call on the NSCB to give more prominence to GNI per capita in future reports.

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Economic renaissance

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Gospel

Sunday, October 12, 2014

KEPTICAL Filipinos may continue to delude themselves into believing that the Philippines is still a backwater nation plagued by traffic problems, Metro Rail Transit Line 3 breakdowns and heavy rains that caused even the famous Ayala Avenue-Makati Avenue intersection to be inundated, but economic figures continue to show that the country’s economy is still vibrant.

This was what Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan impressed upon Japanese businessmen several days ago during a talk held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. In the talk, the Philippines’s economic renaissance is seen to involve receiving huge investments in 952 infrastructure projects worth $45.69 billion until 2016 to address not only poverty incidence, but also the Filipinos’ quality of life.

The addition of quality of life as an indicator is meant to ensure that economic growth will be inclusive. This is different from the other indicator, poverty, which is loosely defined as a state in which income is lacking.

“By monitoring these two indicators, we demonstrate our commitment to ensuring that economic growth will benefit all, and that a better quality of life will be experienced by the poor,” Balisacan told his Japanese audience.

To explain how robust the Philippines and its economy are, in spite of what the skeptics say, Balisacan said that, from 1991 to 2001, the economy climbed an average of 2.9 percent, which increased to 4.8 percent between 2001 and 2010. Under the Aquino administration, the economy even grew an average of 6.3 percent, indicating that the country is progressing on a more sustainable growth path.

In fact, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6 percent, in real terms, in the first semester of 2014, despite the destruction wreaked by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) last November. For this year, the economy is expected to grow by 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent, 7 percent to 8 percent in 2015 and 7.5 percent to

‘A

8.5 percent in 2016. This means lifting more of the poor out of poverty.

Mediocre construction

THERE is a lengthening Facebook thread about the problems a media personality is having that stemmed from a longtime housing-industry player’s mediocre construction of a row of low-rise townhouses in Santa Mesa district, Manila. This media personality recently discovered that the unit above the one she owned could cave in on hers because the incorrect pouring of cement on the structure has allowed rainwater to seep through.

This problem manifested itself to her when her unit was flooded last week, soaking her prized possessions, including lots of books. It is not hard to imagine that the owners of the other units in her building— and that of other buildings on the row—would deal with this problem, too, once they move in.

Clearly, a mechanism that would allow a third party to sort out problems relating to the buildings’ construction and other matters is needed, so that condo-unit buyers can air their grievances and have a solution to their problems.

Bank earnings to rise

BANKS have their own pass-on rates when it comes to the interest rate that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

nd, again, Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, ‘Behold, I have made ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready; come to the marriage feast.’

But they made light of it and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully and killed them.

The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but

(BSP) officially stamps. Now the average lending rates of the banking system have risen from 5.391 percent in June to 5.604 percent in August, which could mean additional millions reflected in the banks’ income statements. When the BSP raised its interest rates to temper inflation, the banks also raised theirs for bank borrowers.

Somehow, the inflation rate, which robs Juan de la Cruz of his purchasing power, has eased from 4.9 percent in August to 4.4 percent in September, which the Department of Finance (DOF) is happy about, since it could indicate that the BSP would take it easy when raising its policy rates. Why? Because the DOF is relying on the status quo, as far as rates are concerned, so that the Philippines can boast of higher GDP growth.

The rise in prices was key to the BSP’s move to hike the rates that it charges banks and even for the 50-basis-point rise in special deposit accounts, or money that banks are forced to put in the central bank’s vault in order not to chase prices higher. Unless another calamity emerges that disturbs the equilibrium, the DOF sees the higher end of the growth rate to be achieved by year-end. This could mean good news for President Aquino, who has expressed openness to running for a second term.

those invited were not worthy.

Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’

And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there, men will weep and gnash their teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”—Matthew 22:1-14

Voices

essMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph • Sunday, October 12, 2014 A5

Living their victory T

Free Fire

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

HE young people of Hong Kong are demanding for the dignity to have their own electoral slate of their own making and not for a political party in Beijing to make it for them. This is an abstract right that even Americans do not enjoy. Ordinary Americans do not decide on the list of candidates from which they can choose on Election Day. Two political parties and billionaires do that for them.

The Occupy Central movement is unique. It is, self-consciously, the model of the future it seeks to achieve. For one, it is composed of the future: the hope-filled young, not the hopebereft old. They are neat, well-groomed and clean, and, thus, self-respecting. They made provisions to spray the air with water and deodorants to relieve themselves from the heat and subdue the odor from exposure and exertion. They were well-behaved. Hundreds of thousands of protesters left not a scrap of litter in the places they occupied, and even sorted out recyclable materials, Reuters said.

They did not sacrifice schoolwork for social action; this was not an excuse to goof off, as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggested when it reported that Hong Kong was going back to work. They did their schoolwork while doing social action: on their butts or on their feet, day and night, on cold and wet or hot and dry pavement, so as not to fall back on their studies.

They wielded umbrellas against the rain and the tear gas, and not placards for the public to read, because they are the public and they will not let anything rain on their parade.

They passed around food donations so that none would go hungry, like in the Hong Kong they hope for one day. By protesting in a brave and gentle manner, they prefigured the society they want to have. Show it, don’t say it, as Ernest Hemingway had advised to aspiring writers.

Beijing was worried; so were its acolytes on

Wall Street and Lombard Street. Protesters getting in the way of their business as usual have discredited, by their sterling example on the streets, the usual excuse dredged up by business and the government to suppress them: that demonstrations dirty the streets and cause traffic. These young people left no dirt behind, and they did not get in the way of working people. They occupied mostly the smartest and, therefore, the “baddest” parts of Hong Kong—the central district of government and finance—so that the people most inconvenienced were not those who work, but those who plunder.

The young had come out in the hundreds of thousands. When gassed, they choked, but they stood their ground. Roughed up by triads, they called the media to witness; and when the government gave the ultimatum for the crowd to clear out by Monday, they turned out in the hundreds of thousands last Saturday.

Among social-media sites, Instagram was singled out and banned because that’s how the young were sending out the message: through pictures, showing how they stand and not by the sounds of what they say. You can see what they wanted by looking at them: a Hong Kong that is clean and polite, with teeth straight (unlike those of British bankers—“nice suits, bad teeth,” a Twitter friend once summed them up) and not tobacco-stained (like those of the triads sent by the government to stab the boys and grope the girls).

They showed, in their persons and by their conduct, the Hong Kong they want to have: clean, polite, loving, caring and, above all, equal—really equal, without some more equal than others, like the pigs in Animal Farm.

Equal means not the China with which the West is so enamored—the China of billionaires hiding loot in British and American

banks—but the Hong Kong of the young who are living by their example of hard work, consistent academic application, and a placid but indomitable will on the streets, which is a victory in itself. Last Monday a student stood up and shook the hand of a policeman as a signal to let go a group of policemen who were holed up in their station, so they could go back to their homes. The most powerful government on earth—like Josef Stalin was the most powerful man on Earth, according to those on the postwar French intellectual scene—had asked for some concessions, which the students had graciously given. Given the disparity in power, that is already a victory.

Sure, they went, as the WSJ gleefully announced, back to work. What do you do after winning a battle? Press on a redundant advantage? The message was successfully delivered.

Beijing dared not use the force it commands, which is like saying the United States dares not bomb its rogue assets in Syria, lest one of those in the Islamic State survives to tell the truth of its connection.

My bet: Beijing will pick mostly, if not exclusively, Hong Kong candidates who are vocally partial to Hong Kong autonomy for the electoral slate from which Hong Kong will pick its next leader. The Occupy Central movement achieved its objective: to draw the line that Beijing would not dare cross. Up to here for now, and no more; later on, pushing the line back farther. Back to a British Hong Kong?

Never.

The Chinese will never return to the ignominy, neglect, corruption and the sheer, mindboggling incompetence of fat, drunken white men and, if you will, the benign brutality of British rule, in the crooked teeth of which Chinese refugees made Hong Kong the leading manufacturing and commercial power in Asia.

“It is not a scandal.

It is a sex crime.”

—Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, referring to the theft of her nude photos from her Apple iCloud account and their publication on the Internet by hackers, in an interview that will come out in the November issue of Vanity Fair magazine. The comment came out on various websites on Wednesday. It was the first time she had spoken publicly about the theft, which happened in August.

I may be out of order, but that could be a plus

By Gina Barreca

The Hartford Courant (TNS)

I

HAVE two weird habits that went unrecognized as I was growing up. I’m trying to decide whether that laissez-faire approach was a loss or a bonus.

When I was a child, neither schools nor families spent all that much time observing our eccentricities. Kids did strange things, but the adults shrugged and didn’t pay attention, unless cops or emergency medical personnel were involved.

In second grade, I shared a desk with a kid who chewed pencils as rhythmically as somebody trying to win a corn-on-the-cob eating contest. It was no big deal. I grew to find the sound of his crunching mildly soothing.

The teacher had to react, of course, and here’s what she did: She told him he had to start bringing his own

supplies because she was running out. It sounded like what teachers said about chewing gum: “I hope you brought enough for the rest of the class.”

The kid had an oral fixation significant enough to occupy both Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein for years—or maybe he just had teeth of steel—but either way, the school’s only official advice was to bring his own Ticonderoga No. 2s to class because his habit was becoming too expensive.

Nobody even thought to send him to a counselor. He’s probably either a dentist or a carpenter now, or else he’s working at Staples. No girl who knew him in elementary school wanted to kiss him, but otherwise he seemed to grow up just fine.

My problems, both emotional and cognitive, had to do with getting stuff in the right order: I couldn’t do it.

I would start writing words but

often I’d begin with the second letter. I’d write, “tree” but begin with the letter “r” and then fill in the “t” in after the word was complete—if I noticed it. Lots of times I didn’t notice it.

My mother was not a saver of childhood documents, so I can’t offer evidence, but I remember my little papers all too well, with their big red circles at the beginning of things.

Apart from that quirk, I loved to write. I liked to think I was merely getting ahead of myself but, if the particular teacher were a stickler for niceties and not one to offer the benefit of the doubt, I would discover that my grades were falling.

I learned to compensate and make sure I checked my work.

I’d do a similar thing with arithmetic, except it was more systematic: I would transpose numbers, always reversing the last two in any sequence.

I mastered the section on multiplication only because I memorized the times-tables. My teacher felt it was a form of cheating, since it didn’t reflect any understanding of the principle behind the exercise.

She was correct.

She was proved even more correct concerning my total inability to perform even the most basic tasks in her class when I could not—not for praise, failing grades or the misery of being kept after school on Halloween—complete the most simple problems in long division.

I felt silly when I mixed up my letters, because I knew what I meant to say and so did the teacher, even when the words were fumbled. But I felt like an idiot in math, because numbers, unlike letters, made no sense if they weren’t in the perfect order.

Only as an adult have I come to understand that these are oddly wired parts of my brain. My reversal

of figures is so pronounced that anybody who has ever lived or worked with me will automatically adjust the last two digits if I’m taking down a phone number. The fact that I start words with the second letter is obvious as I glance at 40 years of journals I have kept, the first letters always squeeze into each other like commuters at rush hour.

Yet, learning how to work within the boundaries of my own limitations, (especially once calculators became cheap) has had its own benefits.

While tutoring and therapeutic intervention can work wonders, so can a child discovering her own way of negotiating the world work wonderfully. She might invent ways that, at least for her, make it all add up.

Gina Barreca is an English professor at the University of Connecticut and a feminist scholar who has written eight books.

Want to know a secret? The Beatles are better in mono

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HE world is full of geeks and snobs ready to talk too much about their personal passion for wine, for scuba diving, for vampire literature. You know the type.

This is nothing like that.

This is an exploration of the Beatles, and why the rerelease this month of their albums in the mono format on vinyl, the way many fans heard the records in the 1960s, is worth celebrating.

OK, so maybe there is some obsessiveness to this tale, but there is broader cultural significance, too.

The music of the Beatles is timeless. Not only were they master songwriters, they were also visionary artists who pushed the era’s recording technology and hidebound engineers to create new sounds.

The result is music that is still vital and interesting more than 40 years later. Consider the elegiac beauty of “Eleanor Rigby,” or the psychedelic

drone of “Tomorrow Never Knows” with its tape loops that sound like sea gulls. Play a Beatles CD, especially one from their mid- or later-period, starting with 1965’s “Rubber Soul,” and, when compared to today’s artists, you’ll find that their music is still relevant, still influential.

But if you play that Beatles CD, or dust off an album purchased after about 1968, what version of the Beatles are you hearing? Probably the stereo version. And it’s great, until you understand the history of the Beatles and the recording industry. Then, you realize what your inner Beatlemaniac might be missing.

Back in the 1960s, most fans had record players with one speaker. So most of the audience bought LPs in the mono format, in which all the music was pumped out on one channel. Stereos were mainly for audiophiles. When WLS played “Please Please Me” in March 1963, becoming

one of the first American stations to embrace the Beatles, that audience heard it on transistor radios or in the car, in mono.

Since most of the audience was listening in mono, that’s the version of the music that preoccupied John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in the studio. When songs are produced, recording is the first step. The song is then mixed, meaning the instruments and vocals are blended and adjusted into a final soundscape.

According to all the Beatles literature, the band labored over the mono mixes and showed little interest in the stereo versions.

“In the band’s official recording history, reference upon reference piles up: long toil into the night on the mono with all four present, stereo mixed with ‘not a solitary Beatle’ in sight,” writes Britain’s Uncut magazine.

This is a fascinating revelation.

Art lovers value original works because they want to experience exactly what the artist intended. It turns out that most of us have been appreciating Beatles copies—the stereo versions, completed mainly by anonymous engineers wearing laboratory coats, shirts and ties at London’s Abbey Road Studios. That was true until the Abbey Road and Let It Be albums, which were released in stereo.

The Beatles music you hear today on CD represents a further, digital reproduction. Audio geeks will tell you vinyl produces a “warmer” quality sound. Certainly, listening to an LP is the most authentic way to experience the Beatles. The new vinyl collection, The Beatles in Mono, was produced using the original master tapes and pressed in Germany on premium vinyl. No digital technology.

So what do Beatles records sound like in mono? Different and mostly

better: more gripping and exciting.

There is an intensity to mono, because it was mixed to blast straight into you from that one speaker. By contrast, the stereo separation diffuses the atmosphere in some songs and distracts in others. “Paperback Writer” jolts in mono, but collapses into an echo chamber in stereo. As Chicago Tribune writer Mark Caro noted in a critique last week, Lennon complained of “Revolution” in stereo: “They took a heavy record and turned it into a piece of ice cream.”

Songs were tweaked in many ways, Caro wrote. In mono, “Eleanor Rigby” sounds more intimate. “She’s Leaving Home” is speeded up. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” has cool phasing effects on the vocals. “Blackbird” has alternate bird chirps!

OK, now we’re really geeking out.

But as Lennon once sang, “the deeper you go, the higher you fly.”

Chicago Tribune/TNS

News BusinessMirror

A6 Sunday, October 12, 2014

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Legislator urges tight screening at airports

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

LAWMAKER on Saturday urged the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Transportation and Communications to tighten the screening of arriving passengers in all international airports in the country amid the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in other countries.

Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian of Valenzuela City said it is already alarming that Ebola has already spread to countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Australia and it is not remote that the deadly virus can also find its way to the Philippines.

“The DOH and DOTC, which have operational control over airports, should immediately enforce tighter screening for all arriving passengers from abroad like what they are doing now in the US,” Gatchalian said.

There are 12 international airports nationwide, which include the three terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and the airports in Clark-Pampanga, Mactan-

Cebu, Davao, General Santos, Iloilo, Kalibo, Laoag, Bacolod-Silay, Puerto Princesa, Subic and Zamboanga.

The lawmaker said the government should also be setting up protocols in the event that a suspected Ebola victim gets in the country even as he questioned the wisdom behind the plan to send Filipino nurses to Liberia, where the deadly Ebola originated.

“I think the government should act fast and should act now before the deadly Ebola virus enters our country,” the lawmaker said.

Ebola is a severe, infectious, often fatal disease in humans and primates (monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees) caused by infection from the Ebola virus.

PHILIPPINE Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon affixes his signature on the Pledge of Commitment wall at the National Ebola Virus Disease Summit, as Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona looks on.

Ebola can be transmitted through close contact with blood secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals, body fluids and stools of an infected person, through contaminated needles and soiled linen used by infected patients, or direct contact with an Ebola-infected corpse.

Signs and symptoms of infection with Ebola virus include fever, headache, intense weakness, joint and muscle pains and sore throat. These are followed by vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, rash, impaired kidney

and liver function and, in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

Sometimes rash, red eyes, hiccups, and bleeding from body openings may be seen in patients.

However, Ludovico Jurao, president of the Philippine Society for Microbiolog y and Infectious Diseases, said the infection control committees in the local primary and secondary hospitals were not fully capable of managing such a highly contagious disease and, without the help of experts, they may even contribute to an outbreak.

Jurao had said the key to preventing Ebola from entering the country was for those who come from Ebolahit countries in West Africa, especially returning Filipino migrant

workers, to fully disclose their health condition and their whereabouts upon arrival in the Philippines.

The DOH said the Philippines is still Ebola-free but strictly urged any returning Filipino manifesting fever, headache, intense weakness, joint and muscle pains and sore throat to seek clearance with local health authorities from the country of employment before being allowed to embark in order to prevent the entry of Ebola virus in the country.

Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona said health authorities in the country are alert on the possible entry of any emerging infectious disease.

Meanwhile, Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Chairman Richard Gordon

House okays bill establishing Owwa charter on 2nd reading

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MEASURE seeking to provide a charter that will govern the operations and administration of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) has been approved on second reading at the House of Representatives.

House Bill (HB) 4990, to be known as the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration Act, provides guidelines on matters concerning the Owwa, its mandate, purposes and objectives, membership, collection of contributions, and availment of benefits and services.

HB 4990, which was defended

by House Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs Chairman Rep. Walden F. Bello of Akbayan, substituted HB 156, 2053 and 3254 of Nationalist People’s Coalition representatives Susan Yap of Tarlac and Sherwin Gatchalian of Valenzuela City and Liberal Party Rep. Joseph Gilbert F. Violago of Nueva Ecija, respectively.

Under the measure, Owwa, an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment, shall be vested with a special function of developing and implementing welfare programs and services that respond to the needs of its members and their families.

It added that in recognition of the contribution of longtime members to the Owwa Fund, the agency shall develop and implement a program for the grant of rebates or some form of financial assistance to overseas workers who have been members for at least five years and have not availed of any service or benefit from the agency. The measure also provides for the reintegration of migrant workers as one of the core programs of Owwa, and creates the National Reintegration Center for overseas Filipino workers as an attached agency of Owwa.

The agency shall also grant benefits and services to members, such as repatriation assistance, loan and credit assistance, workers assistance and on-site services, social benefits—death and disability, as well as

health-care benefits, educational and training benefits, the bill provides.

It said the Owwa shall maintain a comprehensive database of members to be updated regularly.

No Filipino migrant worker shall be denied membership to the Owwa by reason of age, gender, nationality, religious belief, or political opinion or affiliation.

The measure also mandates that Owwa should have sufficient operative budget to support full protection of the overseas workers’ welfare, which shall be reviewed annually by the Owwa Board with emphasis on adequate funding for services and agency efficiency.

The measure creates the Owwa Board of Trustees, a policy-making body composed of 12 members and chaired by the labor secretary. The Owwa Secretariat, the implementing arm of the agency, shall be established with the administrator acting as the CEO and two deputy administrators assisting in the administration and supervision of operations of the agency.

The measure, likewise, establishes Owwa Fund, a private fund held in trust by the agency and sourced from the sum of the amounts under the management and fiscal administration of the board, including the $25 contributions and other amounts that shall accrue to the fund as fees, investment and interest income.

In accordance with the purpose stipulated in the proposed act, the Owwa Fund shall be managed with full transparency and full public disclosure by the board, the designated trustee, bound by a fiduciary duty to manage with extraordinary diligence and utmost skill, care and judiciousness.

The Owwa shall ensure an appropriate growth rate in the fund sufficient to sustain the growing needs of members. It shall periodically conduct an inventory of its investment instruments and ensure that they are properly kept at a government bank under a custodianship agreement.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

said the Philippines must join the international community in stopping the Ebola virus on its tracks by sending volunteers to areas affected by the current outbreak in West Africa.

“We have to contain the Ebola virus in those areas, so as to protect our borders. In this day and age of air travel, we have to make sure that we have the necessary mechanisms in place to detect the Ebola virus at our airports, and have prepared isolation facilities when necessary.

Ebola will come to the Philippines so the fight against Ebola must be waged in West Africa, and we must join the battle now so we can learn more about the pandemic. That is our humanitarian duty as Filipinos, [for] which we are well-known throughout the globe,” he said.

Gordon, who had just come from a meeting of the International Federation of the Red Cross in Geneva, said the PRC is ready to deploy staff members and volunteers to West Africa, after they had undergone intensive training and provided with equipment, which will be done in cooperation with the Canadian Red Cross and the International Federation of the Red Cross.

He added that the volunteers be deployed only for a month, and then quarantined for 21 days after completing their tour of duty.

He also called for volunteer doctors, nurses, medical technologists, logistical experts and other professionals necessary in the response of the Red Cross to contain the spread of Ebola virus. He said Mattea Bandol, a former financial manager of the PRC, is now active in Sierra Leone as part of the Red Cross response.

House panel grants DFA higher budget

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HE special panel, under the House Committee on Appropriations, has recently adopted two amendments to the proposed 2015 P2.606trillion budget.

Liberal Party Rep. Isidro Ungab of Davao, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations and head of the special committee tasked to accommodate amendments to “the proposed budget,” said the amendments include a provision that would empower the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to extend legal assistance even to undocumented overseas workers who are in distress and the strict compliance to the findings and recommendations of the Commission on Audit (COA) in the utilization of funds.

“So far, the amendments adopted by the committee are the inclusion of a special provision in the DFA budget expanding the coverage of legal-assistance funds to include all migrant workers in distress, whether documented or undocumented and a provision providing for a prescribed format on the compliance report with the COA findings and recommendations,” Ungab said. According to Ungab, all the proposed amendments to the 2015 General Appropriations Bill will still be subject to thorough scrutiny and deliberation.

“The committee will continue to subject all proposed amendments to thorough and meticulous review and study and ensure that any adoption thereof shall be in accordance with laws and rules,” he said.

The lawmaker said the next year’s budget will be approved on third and final reading when session resumes on October 20.

“We are following the budget calendar and we are still on time. We intend to pass the 2015 budget when Congress resumes [session],” Ungab said.

Congress takes a three-week break from September 27 to October 19.

Earlier, Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said there is nothing wrong with the submission of amendments, adding that [It] is not something new—the submission of corrections to errors that are typographical, textual or numerical. Nothing substantial is involved. You cannot avoid making these errors during inputting of data, printing of the material or aligning text and numbers.” Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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Luisita farmers file criminal complaints vs members of Cojuangco-Aquino clan

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By Joel R. San Juan

RANDING the distribution of the 4,915-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac as a sham, various farmers’ groups on Friday filed 41 criminal complaints before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against some members of the Cojuangco-Aquino clan for alleged atrocities committed against supposed farmer-beneficiaries.

Charged were President Aquino’s uncle Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr., sister Maria Elena “Ballsy” AquinoCruz and other board members of the Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco), former Land Transportation Office chief Virginia Torres, the National Police commander in Tarlac, Senior Supt. Alex Sintin and former Tarlac City police chief Supt. Bayani Razalan.

Among the complainants were farmer-beneficiaries belonging to Alyansa ng mga Mangagawang Bukid sa Hacienda Luisita (Ambala), lawyers from the Sentro Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo, National Union of People’s Lawyers, Public Interest Law Center and the

Pro-Labor Legal Assistance Center.

The farmers accused the Aquino-Cojuangco clan members of attempted murder, arson, child abuse, physical injuries, illegal arrest and arbitrary detention, theft, robbery and malicious mischief.

The complainants disclosed that they held a dialogue with Justice Undersecretary Francisco Baraan in January and the latter promised to create a special panel to look into their claims of atrocities happening in Hacienda Luisita.

But they lamented that until now the DOJ has yet to fulfill its promise.

“With the local courts in Tarlac City, harassment suits lodged by the

Cojuangcos are piling up against us farmers. Meanwhile, we still wait in vain for the DOJ to act out on legitimate complaints,” Ambala Chairman Florida Sibayan said.

Siyaban also dared the DOJ to investigate Torres, a known ally of Aquino, who is reportedly leasing lands from some beneficiaries who have received copies of titles to lots in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, but have yet to be cleared by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

The report has triggered speculations that the Aquino-Cojuangco clan has employed a scheme to retain control of the vast property.

Sibayan also challenged the Senate, particularly Senators Antonio Trillanes, Alan Peter Cayetano and Aquilino Pimentel III, to also investigate the “crimes” committed against Hacienda Luisita farmers.

She said the said senators should conduct the investigation with the same level of passion shown in the investigation of the alleged ill-gotten wealth of Vice President Jejomar C. Binay.

“Hacienda Binay and Hacienda Purisima pale in comparison with Hacienda Luisita—not only with regard to the land area but with gravity and obscenity by which the first family commits scandalous crimes against the farmers and the public,” Sibayan said.

The complainants recounted that Tadeco ordered the bulldozing of crops, demolition of huts, mauling and illegal arrests even when they were reeling from effects of Typhoon Santi and even during Christmas season in 2013.

They further claimed that another bulldozing of crops and burning of homes happened during President Aquino’s birthday on February 8, which was followed by the alleged mauling and attempted killing of farmers and leaders of the Ambala by unidentified men in March.

“The public must be made aware that the worst atrocities are being committed by no less than the presidential family against hapless farmers despite—or as cruel retribution for—the Supreme Court ruling for total land distribution in Hacienda Luisita. They must be made to answer for those atrocities,” the complainants said.

It can be recalled that the Court, in a final ruling in 2011, ordered the distribution of the 4,915-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac to its 6,296 farmers.

The estate is owned by the family and relatives of President Aquino and managed by Hacienda Luisita Inc. In exchange, the farmers were ordered to pay just compensation to the Hacienda Luisita owners based on the 1989 land valuation.

Angeles’s ‘culiat’ vines: Then vanishing, now nurtured

By Joey Pavia Correspondent

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NGELES CITY—It is the first celebration of the so-called twin fiesta of this city on October 12, and the residents and their visitors will again take note of the name “Culiat.”

The last of the twin celebrations will be held on the last Friday of October.

The celebration, held to honor the city’s patron saint and the holy image of Jesus, has been dubbed over the years as “Fiestang Culiat”.

Culiat are coarse woody vines. The indigenous vines flourished in several areas of the then-barangay of San Fernando that later became the town of Angeles.

Hence, it was called “Barrio Culiat” until it became an independent town on December 8, 1892. Culiat was then the northernmost village of San Fernando.

It was noted during the heyday of Don Angel Pantaleon de Miranda that the area was cleared of culiat vines and became a settlement. Miranda pushed the separation of Culia—or Angeles—from San Fernando.

“In 1796 the town head of San Fernando, Don Angel Panteleon de Miranda, along with some followers, staked out a new settlement, which they named Culiat because of the abundance of vines of that name in the area. The settlers cleared and cultivated the area for rice and sugar cane,” said the history of Angeles City obtained by the BusinessMirror.

“Mariano Henson wrote that the origin of Angeles’s former name is the plant culiat [Gnetum indicum Lour. Merr], a woody vine that abound in the place then. Today this vine is said to be an endangered species. The few surviving culiat can be found in Palawan and in the botanical garden of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna. Recent botanical researchers done by the Capampangan Archaeological Volunteers of Holy Angel University show, however, that some of the Gnetum species still thrive in the thin forests of Sapang Bato in Angeles City,” said a recent study by local historians Joel Pabustan Mallari and Arnel D. Garcia, indicating that the culiat vines are vanishing.

In 1994 a group led by the late businessman Tony Angeles formed a chapter of the Rotary Club of Angeles City. It was named Rotary Angeles Culiat.

“We named our Rotary Club from the original name of Angeles City.

Our members wear uniforms having the image of the culiat vines,” said Salapungan Barangay Chairman Reynaldo “Rey” Malig, who was a pioneer member of the Rotary Angeles Culiat.

Malig said that he, Angeles and members of the club were curious about the real story behind culiat. Then they found that “culiat were vanishing, and the vines could no longer be found in Angeles.”

Malig said that the Rotary Club and the volunteers decided to save and nurture the culiat vine once they locate it. He added that Aytas based in Sitio Target, Sapang Bato, informed his group that there were culiat vines in a mountain near the village.

“For the Aytas, the mountain was just near Sapang Bato. But it was far because they had to walk to locate the vines,” Malig said. He added that a group of four Aytas and a member of the Rotary found the vines sometime in 1999.

Malig and the Rotary Club later invited then-Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez to witness the “rediscovery of the culiat vines.”

He disclosed that Alvarez had given him P10,000, and the fund will be used to preserve and nurture the vines.

Malig started donating culiat seedlings to public schools in Angeles City beginning in 2000.

Today the culiat vines “are safe and thriving” at the house of Malig in Salapungan. His fence is filled with the old vines, and seedlings are ready for donations to those who are interested to grow it.”

Malig recently planted culiat seedlings on Santo Rosario Street.

Editor: Efleda P. Campos • Sunday, October 12, 2014 A7

UCCP leaders hold services in grenade-blasted church

By Marvyn N. Benaning Correspondent

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HE United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) will hold Sunday services at the church attacked by grenade-wielding assailants on Wednesday, killing two and wounding three.

Bishop Hamuel Tequis of the Southeast Mindanao Jurisdictional Area will lead the delegation of indignant UCCP leaders who vowed never to be terrorized by the actions of the attackers, whom many believe to be operating against activists and church leaders working among farmers and minority groups.

“The UCCP condemns the dastardly act of bombing the UCCP Pikit worship service. We journey to Pikit with the most important intention, to comfort the bereaved and join as a presence of solidarity and support to our Church members,” Tequis said.

Rev. Ely Española, conference minister of Cotabato Annual Conference, will also lead members of the group in attending the services.

The United Methodist Church (UMC) in the Philippines and all over the world also condemned the attack and demanded that the Aquino government bring the perpetrators of the dastardly act to the bar of justice.

The UMC had also lost ministers and members to summary executions by suspected military agents, as in the case of Pastor Isaias Santa Rosa of Albay, who was fetched by soldiers several years ago and killed.

One of the attackers, a Corporal Pastrana, was also myseriously killed during the incident, with a list of targets found in his pocket, along with two caliber .45 pistols.

“We will be reading messages that have been sent to the UCCP from around the world

during Sunday’s Worship Service in Pikit. Nearby UCCP local churches will join us in Pikit, while UCCP local churches across the Philippines will also pray for the community during their worship services. We want to make sure that the members know that many are thinking of them and praying for them during this difficult time,” Tequis said.

Church leaders will also seek further information on the motive or identities of the perpetrators of the grenade bombing, as well as documentation of the incident.

“We will visit the injured and express our condolences to the families of Felomena NacarioFerolin and Gina Cabiluna. We also hope to support the community in gathering data and documenting accounts of what transpired in Pikit last Wednesday,” Tequis said.

“Our general secretary has called for sober-minded vigilance and has cautioned us not to rush toward hasty judgment when we do not have evidence of the motive of the bombing.

We will do our part to seek justice and build peace,” said Rev. Jerome Baris, national program coordinator for Justice, Peace and Human Rights.

UCCP has encouraged interfaith, tri-people efforts to build unity, justice and peace, in response to the worship-service bombing at UCCP Pikit.

“Many UCCP members have expressed feelings of fear, grief, and disbelief that this happened during a worship service. We must provide counsel, care, and spiritual guidance for our members. This is a moment in our faith journey, where we must choose to act for peace. And by choosing to continue to work together as Christians, Muslims and Lumads, we will seek peace based on justice in our land,” Tequis added.

Boracay Water signs P650-M loan agreement with SBC

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Barangay Chairman Rey Malig ensures that culiat vines are nurtured at his residence in Salapungan, Angeles City. He has grown the once-vanishing vines for over 14 years. Leo Villacarlos

HE Aklan-based unit of Manila Water Co. Inc. has struck a P650-million loan deal with a local bank for capitalization.

The East Zone water concessionaire said in a regulatory filing over the weekend that Boracay Island Water Co. Inc. executed a Third Omnibus Loan and Security Agreement with Security Bank Corp. (SBC).

“The loan will be used to finance the capital expenditures of Boracay Water in fulfillment of its service obligations in the island of Boracay in Malay, Aklan,” said Jhoel P. Raquedan, Manila Water chief legal counsel and assistant corporate secretary.

Boracay Water General Manager Ben Manosca said the amount would bankroll major water-infrastructure in the island.

Manosca said that this would include a 5.5-kilometer transmission line to the water-treatment facility in Caticlan from the water source in Nabaoy River.

He added that the installation of the transmission line would help

increase the supply of water in the company’s service area in time for the summer season and the coming Asia-Pacific Economic Conference 2015 in Boracay.

The Ayala-led water supplier entered into a joint-venture agreement with the Tourism Infrastructure Authority and Enterprise Zone Authority in 2009. This partnership led to the establishment of Boracay Water to serve the communities of Manoc-Manoc, Balabag and Yapak with around 5,600 water connections at present.

Considering its full coverage of the concession area, the company is preparing for the P298-million sewer network project to be construction in three years time.

Spanning 12 km, it will cover Barangay Manoc-Manoc and surrounding areas.

Boracay Water, likewise, has awarded the contract for the design and construction of a new sewage-treatment plant in the same community, with a daily capacity of at most 5 million liters of wastewater. Roderick L. Abad

Nickel Asia adds P4 million for exploration activities

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By Roderick L. Abad

ISTED mining company Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC) has infused an additional investment of P4 million for the exploration activities of its subsidiary Cordillera Exploration Co. Inc. (CExCI) as part of its expenditures in the third quarter of the year.

The company disclosed on Friday that it withdrew such amount from the remaining P52.82million proceeds of its initial public offering (IPO) four years ago deposited in an escrow account in Security Bank Corp.

The balance of P48.82 million is placed in a 88-

day Peso Time Deposit at a rate of 1.3125 percent per annum.

Prior to this, the country’s biggest nickel miner had withdrawn a total of P4.5 million in the second quarter of this year—of which, the first was done on May 7 amounting to P3 million and another P1.5 million on June 23.

With an annual rate of 1.1875 percent, the remaining proceeds worth P52.82 million was held in a 63-day Peso Time Deposit.

Nevertheless, the mining company did not made disbursements for the first three months of this year, hence, the P57.32-million balance as of

end-2013 was put in the same term as the latter at a rate of 1 percent yearly.

On November 22, 2010, the NAC debuted in the Philippine Stock Exchange and raised P4.57 billion from the 304.5 million shares sold.

As planned, a part of the IPO proceeds was used to bankroll the exploration activities, including those of CExCI, and the acquisition of new mining properties.

Originally established in 2006, NAC is a global supplier of lateritic nickel ore, and operates as a nickel mining company in the country, with four operating mines: Rio Tuba, Taganito, Cagdianao and Taganaan sites.

ApartfromCExCI,it’ssubsidiariesincludeHinatuan Mining Corp., Cagdianao Mining Corp., Taganito Mining Corp., Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corp., Samar Nickel Mining Resources, Taganito HPAL Nickel Corp., La Costa Shipping and Lighterage Corp. and Falck Exp Inc. For the first half of 2014, the NAC’s attributable net income(netofminorityinterests)roseby419percentto P3.30 billion from P636 million in the same period last year due to higher shipment volume and nickel prices.

Core income stood at P2.88 billion as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization grew to P5.83 billion from P1.83 billion in the first six months of 2013.

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Sunday, October 12, 2014

www.businessmirror.com.ph

DBM increases Aquino’s SPF to ₧379B

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B E T

HE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has increased by close to P100 billion the annual allocation for President Aquino’s special-purpose funds (SPF) to P379 billion, but reduced the budget for agriculture by P20 billion despite pressing needs for farmers and fisherfolk to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Former National Treasurer and Social Watch convener Prof.

Leonor Magtolis-Briones raised the alarm that next year’s budget is really intended for the 2016 presidential elections, saying the SPF are lump sums that can only be released based on President Aquino’s approval.

In the proposed 2015 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the allocation for the President’s SPF was increased to P379 billion from the current P282.5 billion, according to DBM documents.

Increases in the SPF were made in the critical sectors, such as the benefits fund for the 14 million government employees, which was raised to P118.14 billion, from the current P53.5 billion.

The DBM has also increased

the allocation for the budgetary support to government corporations to P61.3 billion for 2015, from the current P46.2 billion.

The allocation for local government units (LGUs), according to the 2015 proposed GAA, has also been increased to P33.1 billion, from the current P19.5 billion.

Briones, who once headed the Bureau of the Treasury, warned that since only half of the proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015 will be up for congressional scrutiny, the rest of the allocation might be used for the 2016 elections, particularly President Aquino’s SPF or lump sum.

“In Philippine politics, elections are all about money. Government spending places incumbent politicians and their parties at an advantage over their opponents

for the upcoming elections. Projects are credited to officials as part of their track record as the ruling parties would spend for projects in their allies’ jurisdictions. Opposing parties can be deprived of this spending, putting them at a disadvantage,” Briones said.

Briones also criticized the DBM’s move to slash by as much as P20 billion the budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) from the current P68.5 billion to P48.4 billion in 2015.

She said there is even a need to increase the organic budget of the DA. Briones added that the allocation has not even reached the mandated 2 percent of the DA budget.

“Local governments have to be capacitated to provide local earlywarning services, especially among

vulnerable communities. High deaths are recorded among fisherfolk or coastal communities, in general. Many are lost at sea during typhoons,” Briones said.

She said LGUs should have access to standby support services to assist them before, during and after extreme events.

Some of the measures that must be funded under the DA include El Niño impact-mitigation programs, distribution of more drought-resilient crop varieties and distribution of different varieties; planting materials for trials not just rice and other traditional crops, but also for seaweeds.

Briones said the government needs to fund a massive information and education program on alternative crops that are resistant to drought conditions.

AIM: Local SMEs need to forge tie-ups to compete effectively in AEC 2015

TOP GLOBAL FINANCIAL OFFICIALS GRAPPLE WITH WEAK GROWTH

ASHINGTON—Finance ministers from the world’s largest economies said on Friday they are determined to prevent a slide into another global recession, but a top US official expressed frustration that a number of major economies were not doing enough to bolster growth.

After two days of discussions, finance officials from the Group of 20 (G-20) nations unveiled plans for a global initiative to build roads and other infrastructure projects to help boost world growth by $2 trillion over the next five years and create millions of jobs.

But officials conceded that this longer-run effort will not help with the pressing problems of weak growth in Europe and a number of other parts of the world. And US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew complained that governments in Europe, Japan and China were failing to deliver needed support.

“European leaders should focus on recalibrating policies to address persistent demand weaknesses,” Lew said in comments prepared for a session of the policy-setting committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Weak reports on industrial production and trade out of Germany, Europe’s largest economy, jolted financial markets and raised worries that Europe could be headed for another recession. US stocks endured their worst week since May 2012, with the losses continuing on Friday, when the Dow Jones industrial average slid 115 points.

It was against this backdrop that G-20 finance ministers and central bank presidents met for two days of talks that wrapped up on Friday in advance of the annual meetings of the 188-nation IMF and its sister lending institution, the World Bank.

Lew did not mention Germany by name, but it was clear that his remarks on Europe focused on that nation’s reluctance to do more to stimulate growth. He said that “countries with external surpluses and fiscal flexibility” needed to bolster their efforts to promote stronger growth. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, ran a large trade surplus last year.

B G F

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HE Asian Institute of Management (AIM) said Filipino small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must strengthen their collaborations and seek various expertise to be able to compete well under an integrated Asean.

AIM Prof. Maoi Arroyo said SMEs need to collaborate to move forward.

“SMEs must be working together, having business alliances, solidifying supplier network. Collaboration does not mean consolidation or acquisition. It means working together to attack the SME opportunity and become solid as a company,” she said at the sidelines of the Accelerate, a two-day business competition at AIM campus.

“Accelerate is about building enough speed to launch the business and grow the business,” Arroyo said.

Six teams of students from business schools in the Philippines, India, Mexico, Malaysia and Singapore compete for the best business model study, to be judged by leaders of industry.

Some of the students made short-, medium- and long-term strategies for their chosen SMEs. “They practice the things they learn in classroom.

They had mentorship with business-school professors and experts in the industry,” she said.

“SMEs have to collaborate. It’s important to get different kinds of expertise, talk to people in the industry and partner with each other. If there are many Davids working together, you can be the Goliath…it’s cooperating to compete,” Arroyo told the BusinessMirror.

“By collaborating, you can move forward. You tailor your business model. The different industries need to cope or take advantage of the Asean opportunities,” she added.

Accelerate project leader Tin Kempeneers said issues raised by SMEs were about money and resources, and how to grow an integrated Asean.

Kempeneers said industries presented were in construction, sports apparel, advertising, and marketing and technology.

“One SME said they were very happy working with the participants.

They got to talk to mentors and have access to great minds for free. They got insights which blew their mind,” Kempeneers said.

She added that it was up to the SMEs whether to implement the business model.

Accelerate marketing head RJ Paguyo said there was no solid business model as the integration process depends on the nature of the company.

“SMEs should consider dynamism, flexibility and adaptability [under the coming] Asean integration because of the many changes,” Paguyo said.

“Whatever industry it is, [they] learn to adapt to the coming changes because in the Asean integration, many companies are coming which might affect the market and the number of competitors will increase,” he said.

The 24 student-participants came from Nanyang Technological University, Indian School of Business, National University of Singapore, IPADE Business School, Putra Business School and AIM. The winner will receive $2,000.

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WORLD Bank President Jim Yong Kim pauses during a news conference at the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington on Thursday. AP/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

The G-20 group is led this year by Australia, which will host a leader’s summit next month in Brisbane. Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey, who chaired the finance discussions, told reporters that the plan the G-20 group has developed involved more than 900 individual projects with the potential to lift growth by 1.8 percent over the next five years. He said all the details would be revealed at the leaders’ summit.

While developing the five-year plan for infrastructure projects, the G-20 finance officials were less successful in their efforts to deal with the immediate threats from the slowdowns in Europe, Latin America and China. The group did not issue a communiqué, but individual finance ministers said the economic problems were discussed in the sessions.

“We as a group do not want to settle for mediocre growth,” Canadian Finance Minis-

ter Joe Oliver told reporters after the G-20 discussions ended on Friday. “We don’t think we have to.”

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that while the problems facing the global economy were well-known “action in the past has lacked. This time the challenge is for real. We must aim higher, try harder and work better together to achieve higher growth outcomes.”

In addition to the dangers of weak growth, the finance officials also addressed a growing health crisis from the Ebola virus.

In his remarks to the finance officials, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, an infectious diseases and public-health expert, called for the creation of a new pandemic emergency facility that would rapidly respond to future health emergencies by delivering money to countries in crisis. AP

Historic warship visits Subic Bay for last time T    H E Correspondent

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UBIC BAY FREEPORT—One of the warships that participated in the recently concluded Philippines-US Amphibious Landing Exercise (Phiblex) 2015 will not be coming back to this free port anymore.

The amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu (LHA 5), which evacuated personnel from the then US Naval Base Subic Bay following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, has been scheduled for decommissioning on March 31, 2015.

Capt. Paul Spedero, commanding officer of the Peleliu, said in a statement

on the US Navy’s official web site that Peleliu’s participation in Phiblex 2015 was Peleliu’s final mission before it is removed from active service.

“As this is Peleliu’s final deployment before decommissioning, we are honored to participate in the 31st iteration of Phiblex,” said Spedero in a statement issued on September 27.

Peleliu, which is the lead ship in the Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group, docked here on September 27 for Phiblex 2015 along with other ships in the Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 7, Amphibious Squadron 11 and embarked Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) based in Okinawa, Japan.

Phiblex is an annual, bilateral training exercise conducted by the Armed Forces of

U.S. Marines return to the US Navy dock landing ship USS Germantown on anchor at the Subic Bay Freeport after participating in the recently concluded Phiblex 2015.

the Philippines and US Navy and Marines to strengthen command interoperability and increase capabilities, including disaster relief and maritime security operations.

This year’s Phiblex focused on the 31st MEU Certification Exercise, command postexercise, field training exercise and humanitarian-assistance operations. The exercise involved some 3,500 US sailors and Marines, and 1,200 of their counterparts from the Philippine Navy and Marines.

For Peleliu, Phiblex 2015 gave it time to visit Subic once again after nearly four years, when it docked here during its 2010 deployment and more than 13 years when it made its historic visit for the Pinatubo evacuation.

Peleliu was said to be en route to a mission in the Persian Gulf in June 1991, when it was diverted from a scheduled port

call in Hong Kong to help evacuate American navy personnel and their dependents in Subic after Mount Pinatubo erupted and laid waste to Subic and neighboring Clark Air Base.

The evacuees included patients from the maternity ward at the Subic Bay naval hospital, and ship’s lore had it that there were several births that happened aboard the Peleliu as it steamed home to the US.

As the latest of the US Navy’s Tarawaclass amphibious assault ship, Peleliu has been designated as the flagship of the Commander of Amphibious Squadron Three. Its primary mission is to embark, transport, land and support the Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

S “W,” A