Businessmirror 10 17 2014

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luke evans sinks teeth into latest legendary character D

EAR God, we read, study and meditate Your word in the Bible.

It is the core of our work in the New Evangelization. We read the Bible to help us grow in holiness and discipleship.

We commit ourselves to live the word in thoughts, words and actions. We try to focus on the methodology of liturgical Bible Study.

By the help of the Holy Spirit we can claim the Good News of salvation in Christ and may the New Evangelization lead us to the greatest height of knowing, serving and loving God all our life. Amen.

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LUKE EVANS SINKS TEETH

Friday, October 17, 2014

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INTO LATEST LEGENDARY CHARACTER B G M Los Angeles Times

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ELFAST, Northern Ireland— Welsh actor Luke Evans has a penchant for larger-than-life characters. He’s twice played Greek gods—Apollo in Clash of the Titans, Zeus in Immortals—and he’s portrayed literary icons—Aramis in the most recent big-screen adaptation of The Three Musketeers, and the brave human Bard the Bowman in the Hobbit movies.

For his first real leading-man turn in a Hollywood epic, he’s revisiting legends and literature in a new way, tackling his biggest character yet. In Dracula Untold, he plays Vlad Tepes, the fearsome Eastern European warrior known for impaling his enemies.

The character famously served as a key inspiration for Bram Stoker’s aristocratic vampire, but the big-budget Universal Pictures film that is now in theaters transports Dracula from Victorian England to the 15th century and sets out to present a more complex portrait of the bloodthirsty prince.

“We’re almost turning the monster on its head in a way and allowing people to see Dracula in a different light,” Evans said on the Belfast set of the film last year. “When you think of the word ‘Dracula,’ you think of this pale-faced, fanged man floating through an ancient house on top of a mountain. We are trying to slightly pull away from that and give it that punch of reality.”

Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Gary Shore and written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, Dracula Untold opens in 1462 Transylvania: Prince Vlad is a respected ruler, a doting husband and father to a young son. But the peace is threatened when the neighboring Turks, led by the sultan Mehmed (Dominic Cooper), demand that Vlad surrender 1,000 boys to serve in their army.

After the Turks reject Vlad’s offer to fight in the place of the inexperienced children, he travels to Broken Tooth Mountain, a haunted site shrouded in red mist. What he encounters there robs him of his humanity, and he is forced to wrestle with new, dark urges while simultaneously protecting his people using surprising and unexpected powers.

“He has to keep it to himself for a majority of the film that he’s battling this awful sort of addiction, but he knows this addiction comes with a positive side—which is this power and strength that he’s able to [use to combat] the Turks’ invasion of his country,” Evans said.

Dracula, as a character, has captivated filmmakers since the dawn of cinema.

Stoker’s book was first adapted by F.W. Murnau in 1922 as Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, and roughly two dozen movie actors have interpreted the role in various productions, though it’s typically Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman who are most associated

with the immortal caped fiend. (Evans cites a particular fondness for Oldman’s performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 telling.)

For his Dracula, Evans was pleased to deviate from the usual script and dive into historical research about Vlad Tepes—and he was excited to bring more personality to a legendary figure remembered almost exclusively for sadism on the battlefield.

“There’s lots of contrasting stories about how dark he was, how vicious he was, how bloodthirsty he was,” Evans said. “But then in the same breath, you hear about how great a leader he was and how loved by his people he was and respected by his enemies he was. Even on his tombstone in Romania, it says he was respected by his enemies....

“When you take those things into account, you think, ‘Well, as much as he’s remembered for impaling thousands of people on poles in a field, there was much more to the man.’”

His studious approach was born out of his work in the theater. Evans, 35, began acting professionally on the London stage and had worked successfully for about a decade before landing his first studio feature, the remake of Clash of the Titans, which, in turn, led to other outsized parts in subsequent Hollywood productions.

Director Peter Jackson said he cast Evans in The Hobbit films based not only on his previous performances but also in part on his winning personality: He described Evans as the kind of guy you could grab a drink with at a pub.

“No one else would step in and play Bard the way Luke has, which is terrific when an actor really owns a role like that,” Jackson said, speaking by phone from New Zealand.

“He’s a dream actor to work with,” Shore added. “He’s the most committed person I’ve ever worked with. He’s a brilliant team player, and he’s been a great comrade to me. He’s someone who can always collaborate.”

Although he never set out to forge a career based on action-packed blockbusters, Evans said he’s comfortable with the path he’s found himself traveling (though he did recently wrap Ben Wheatley’s indie thriller High-Rise, due out next year). It seems fantastic cinema affords far more unusual opportunities than kitchen-sink dramas ever could.

With Dracula Untold, for example, Evans shot transporting scenes not only on grandiose palace sets but also in such startling natural locations as Giant’s Causeway, a series of dramatic cliffs on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland.

“When they say, ‘Action!’ I’m in 1483, and I love that idea—it’s like time travel for 10 minutes,” Evans said. “You can’t draw on anything that you have in your normal life. You can be on top of a mountain and kill 15 Turks and then jump on the back of a horse and gallop down a highway. That’s what I did a couple of weeks ago.” ■

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recognizing outstanding citizens and lgus BusinessMirror

Friday, October 17, 2014 F1

SECOND‘BUSINESSMIRROR’DANGAL AWARDS

Recognizing outstanding elderly citizens and LGUs U

OUTSTANDING ELDERLY CITIZENS

By Janica Monick Riego and Roderick Abad

THE BusinessMirror, in partnership with the United Bayanihan Foundation, RiteMed and CDOFoodsphere, holds its Second Dangal (Dakilang Adhikain ng Ating Lahi) Awards for Elderly Care in recognition of the noble effort of the elderly who still choose to serve, despite their age, by making the lives of our seniorcitizen community easier through different initiatives.

The awarding ceremony will be held on October 17 at the Genting Club in Resorts World Manila, coinciding with the BusinessMirror’s celebration of its ninth anniversary.

PON retirement, many people would usually choose to leisurely spend their time and do things they could not do during their working years, such as going on long vacations, do gardening and quilting, and playing with their grandchildren.

Some, however, choose to continue serving others even in their senior years.

These people never seem to tire of making the world a better place, even at an age when they are supposed to be resting at the comforts

of their own homes. Some would take responsibility in taking care of their grandchildren, while others join the associations of elderly citizens in their barangays and help implement programs of their local government units (LGUs).

RICARDO A. CARPIO

AT the age of 83, Ricardo “Carding” A. Carpio of San Mateo, Rizal, could not have done more for his fellow elderly citizens as he already has served them for almost two decades. Cliché Continued on F2

Friday, October 17, 2014 Vol. 10 No. 9

P25.00 nationwide | 8 sections 36 pages | 7 days a week

By Catherine N. Pillas

he Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) sees the possibility of hitting the 300,000-unit sales mark as early as next year, given the current growth rate of the industry.

Campi President Rommel Gutierrez said if the industry can sell more than 260,000 units this year, they would likely make a “bolder projection” for 2015— 300,000 units.

“We have yet to see the realization of the 250,000unit revised projection so, I think, if we achieve that, we will be more confident in making a bolder projection. If we can hit 260,000 this year, that 300,000 is possible for next year,” Gutierrez told reporters on Wednesday evening.

2nd BusinessMirror Dangal Awards news@businessmirror.com.ph

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Campi’s sanguine outlook: 300,000 units sold in 2015

INSIDE

Live the word

A broader look at today’s business

RICARDO CARPIO (left) and Rodrigo Evano

See “Campi,” A2

elderly supplement

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unhealthy sponsorship

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

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Sports BusinessMirror

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| Friday, OCtOber 17, 2014 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

MOTORCYCLE AND SURF BOARD Moto2 rider Anthony West of Australia falls off a surfboard during a surf lesson ahead of the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix near Melbourne on Thursday. AP

UNHEALTHY

SPONSORSHIP Companies promoting unhealthy food and drink are the most prevalent, sponsoring nearly 50 percent of Australia’s main sporting groups, followed by alcohol and gambling companies.

By Dennis Passa

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The Associated Press

RISBANE, Australia—The biggest and most influential sporting groups in Australia are being criticized for signing “unhealthy” and high-profile sponsorship deals with beer and liquor companies, gambling agencies and fastfood chains.

A study by the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health reveals nearly threequarters of national and state governmentfunded sporting bodies are sponsored by companies promoting “harmful” products.

In a sports-mad country, that’s not the best of news. Companies promoting unhealthy food and drink were the most prevalent, sponsoring nearly 50 percent of Australia’s main sporting groups, followed by alcohol and gambling companies.

“Our research revealed a pervasive level of unhealthy sponsorship across our sporting codes,” study researcher Rona Macniven said. “Associating these harmful products with positive aspects of sport normalizes associated activities.”

The findings of the study were released a day after A-League football’s Western Sydney Wanderers were criticized over a sponsorship deal with a fast-food company, which will see a meal named after the club served in dozens of

FATAL RIDES A

PPRENTICE jockey Caitlin Forrest died on Wednesday after a fall at Murray Bridge race course near Adelaide, the second female jockey to die this week in Australia.

Forrest’s mount Colla Voce fell, bringing down three other horses, and she was flung to the ground ahead of

locations in the western Sydney region.

The “Wanderers Meal” will include chicken nuggets, a large hamburger, large french fries and a large sugary drink. Food experts said the meal accounts for 70 percent to 75 percent of an average person’s recommended daily calorie intake, and twice the amount of salt.

The critics said a 10-year-old child would have to play football or another similarly active sport for 10 hours to burn off the calories from that meal.

Despite an international reputation for its sporting success and outdoor lifestyle, Australia has experienced a surge in the rate of obesity.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that three in five adults in Australia are overweight or obese, and the overall number of obese or overweight people has increased by 5 percent since 1995. The institute said one in four Australian children were overweight or obese.

Macniven said the University of Sydney-funded study into sports sponsorship used a set of criteria developed by 12 health experts from government and non-governmental organizations to determine what constituted an unhealthy food or drink.

“It included representatives from the cancer council and heart foundation who were looking at the main nutritional content of the foods that were prominently produced by the company,” Macniven said in a telephone interview Thursday with the Associated Press (AP). “In some cases, the companies involved

the trailing pack. Forrest, 19, was airlifted to Royal Adelaide Hospital but died from her injuries.

Carly-Mae Pye, 26, died on Tuesday from injuries sustained when the horse she was riding broke its front legs during a training run, throwing her headfirst into the track.

Pye was riding on Monday in a jump-out, which simulates the start of a race in barriers in non-race conditions, at

did produce healthy mineral water, but their main product streams were unhealthy.”

Macniven said there were 14 mainstream Australian sports groups which had no unhealthy sponsorship tie-ins, including cycling, swimming and triathlon.

Cricket Australia, which features a large beer company logo on the shirts of its limited-overs international team, was considered by the study to be the worst offender.

A check of major Australian sports web sites backs up the study. Cricket Australia’s web site has a prominent beer company logo as one of its “platinum” sponsors, while smaller logos of companies representing a gambling agency, fastfood fried chicken and sugary drinks also appear.

The fast-food fried chicken company is the major naming-rights sponsor for the domestic Twenty20 cricket league.

Cricket Australia (CA) said in an e-mailed statement to the AP that its commercial sponsors “provide critical financial support for the game at all levels, from the grassroots to elite competition.”

It defended its association with an alcohol sponsors by saying it has a responsible drinking campaign called “Know When to Declare.”

“Our research shows that it is better to engage with the reality that most fans enjoy a responsible drink than it is to turn them off with a prohibition message that they don’t believe,” CA said in its statement. “We believe

that this is a pragmatic approach.”

It also said its fast-food sponsor helped spread the game to a wider range of the Australian public, and said Cricket Australia has a range of programs in place to encourage children “to get off the couch and be active, from school education resources through to the development of our Milo in2CRICKET participation program.”

The National Rugby League has logos from companies, which manufacture beer, bourbon, soft drinks and the fast-food fried chicken company on its web,site, and the Australian Football League has beer and a soft drink company featured in its online marketing.

The A-League is sponsored by a car company and has none of the so-called unhealthy sponsors on its web site. But that

was counteracted when one of its 10 teams aligned itself with the fast-food burger chain that is packaging the Wanderers Meal.

“I despair at the way some sports seem willing to sell themselves to anyone, and to promote unhealthy messages, regardless of the consequences,” Mike Daube, professor of health policy at the Curtin University in Perth, Australia, told Fairfax Media. “This is rampant promotion for the obesity epidemic.”

Macniven sounded exasperated at the thought of the Wanderers Meal.

“Sports is supposed to be linked with health, but here we have unhealthy options under the guise of health,” she told the AP. “Children, of course, are heavily influenced by this kind of material in a negative way.”

JUAN SAEZ rides Lady ZuZu at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky, in an October 9 race. AP

Callaghan Park at Rockhampton in Queensland state.

A 17-year-old apprentice jockey from Panama, Juan Saez, also died in a race fall at a track in the US state of Indiana on Wednesday.

The Jockeys’ Guild said on Wednesday that Saez died on Tuesday night at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where the Panamanian was airlifted after the accident at Indiana

Grand Racing & Casino.

Saez was aboard Montezuma Express when his mount clipped heels with the horse in front of him, Paddy’s Note.

Saez’s mount fell, causing him to be unseated. A trailing horse, Masaru ridden by Ricardo Santana Jr., was unable to avoid Saez’s horse and also fell, unseating Santana Jr., who wasn’t seriously injured.

Saez began his US career in

June, winning the riding title at Ellis Park, Kentucky with 51 wins from 194 starts.

Australian Racing Board Chief Executive Peter McGauran said on Thursday that authorities will continue to research improved safety equipment, but that racing has become safer in recent years, despite the two deaths this week.

DOTC confident of effecting MRT buyout in January

“Tracks have never been safer with plastic running rails...but we still have catastrophic injuries and losses of life,” McGauran told a Sydney radio station. “Safety equipment is better than it has ever been but with 500 [kilogram] to 600 kilogram [approximately 1,100 pounds to 1,300 pounds] horses going that fast, the jockeys are always at risk.” AP

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he Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) will welcome 2015 with the implementation of the buyout of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3, a Cabinet official revealed.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya said the government is gearing up for the implementation of the planned buyout, as the House of Representatives infused the P54-billion budget for the takeover into the agency’s P595-billion 2015 allocation.

“The controlling factor would be the budget. What is critical is the 2015 budget, because the P54 billion is earmarked for 2015. If the budget is passed, we could expect the takeover to roll in the first week of January,” he said in a chance interview.

But to effect the buyout, the government and MRT Corp. (MRTC), the private concessionaire of the train system, must enter into a compromise agreement first.

Continued on A2

PESO exchange rates n US 44.8690

CNN-NINE MEDIA PARTNERSHIP Nine Media Corp. Chairman Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua (third from left) leads a toast with (from left) Nine Media Corp.

President Reggie Galura, CNN Global Content and Partnerships Senior Vice President Greg Beitchman, and Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. during the trade launch of CNN Philippines at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City on Wednesday night. ALYSA SALEN

AUDI MOTORCARS RESPONDS TO LEMON LAW COMPLAINT

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n light of a recent complaint filed by retired Air Force Col. Ricardo L. Nolasco regarding an allegedly defective Audi A6 TDI he purchased on May 30, 2014, Audi Motorcars emphasized that Republic Act 10642—otherwise known as “The Philippine Lemon Law”—is completely not applicable in this case.

“In the first place, the car is not defective; the Lemon Law protects consumers against ‘lemons’, or substandard cars. The vehicle is most assuredly not a lemon,” stressed Lito Jose, sales and marketing director of Audi Motorcars Inc. “Audi is one of the leading and most respected luxury automotive brands in the world, and we make sure to uphold this proud heritage in the Philippines.”

It was confirmed that the Audi A6 TDI was given full clearance to be released on September 2, 2014, after passing comprehensive diagnostic testing, but the owner has thus declined See “Audi,” A2

China’s reserves dropped below $4-T mark in Q3

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hina’s foreign-exchange reserves unexpectedly fell by the most on record in the third quarter, a sign speculative capital is being pulled from the country amid concern about a deepening economic slowdown.

The holdings, which are more than triple the size of any other nation’s, declined by $103 billion to $3.89 trillion, according to figures released on Thursday. The median projection of economists surveyed

by Bloomberg was for an increase to $4.01 trillion from $3.99 trillion, after a $172-billion advance in the first half of the year. Reports last month showed China’s imports unexpect-

edly contracted in August, while aggregate financing and industrial production fell short of estimates.

“Today’s data show some hotmoney outflows as people were concerned about the economy with the not-so-great data for August,” said Nathan Chow, Hong Kong-based economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. “This isn’t necessarily bad news for China, as the government prefers more two-way flows of capital.”

The People’s Bank of China engineered a decline in the yuan in the January-to-April period to deter speculation that the currency was a one-way appreciation bet, following Continued on A8

n japan 0.4238 n UK 71.8846 n HK 5.7844 n CHINA 7.3245 n singapore 35.2910 n australia 39.4591 n EU 57.6387 n SAUDI arabia 11.9619 Source: BSP (16 October 2014)

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News BusinessMirror

Friday, October 17, 2014

Ports. . . continued from a8

news@businessmirror.com.ph

DOTC confident of effecting MRT buyout in January

shipping companies to attend the next committee hearing at the Senate. He said the DTI, after gathering together the shipping lines, will analyze all the charges to find out if they are justifiable.

He added that since the port operations had returned to normal, there should no longer be bribes being asked, or that bribery simply continues to exist because the persons involved have gotten used to corruption. Aquino’s committee, along with the Committees on Finance, Economic Affairs, and Ways and Means, was formed to inquire, in aid of legislation, on the alarming disturbance on the operations of local business, importers and exporters due to the congestion at the ports of Manila.

The committee is disturbed by reports that the persistent congestion severely disrupts the flow of goods “in and out of the country.”

Aquino said he will find out if the charges being leveled by the shipping lines are justifiable.

“We have to see if the charges are justifiable or not because there are official and unofficial charges [raised during the hearing], which is called ‘under-the-table,’ which must be stopped so that the situation at the ports would return to normal,” he said.

He added that the charges go down the line, from the truckers to the importers, and eventually to the consumers.

According to Aquino, the corruption starts when a trucker goes to a specific container yard to deliver his container van, only to be told that there is no more space available for him. Since there is partnership between the container yard and the shipping line, the absence of space for a particular trucker means there is no coordination between the yard and the shipping line.

Aquino said this will give the trucker more opportunity to be hired, which, in turn, would lead the trucker to increase their fee, which is passed on to the importers and eventually to the consuming public. Christian Gonzales, president of the International Container Terminal Services Inc., told the port-industry players that to totally eliminate corruption, the government should adopt the “no human contact, no paper” transactions. Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras agrees to the “ban all bans” proposal, but said it can only happen if the authorities have the truckdispatch system.

Continued from A1

Entering into a compromise contract would effectively end the ongoing arbitration case in Singapore. The case was lodged against the government in 2008 due to its failure, as the operator of the line, to pay billions of rentals payment to the owner of the rail system.

“A compromise agreement could be done within the year,” the transport chief noted, even as the government missed its third-quarter target of signing the compromise contract.

However, the two parties must agree

with the terms of the acquisition, which includes the price of the takeover.

“Our position is that the P54-billion budget is not enough,” MRT Holdings Inc. Vice President Frederick C. Parayno replied via phone when asked for comment.

He explained that back in 2009, the price of the line was already pegged at $2.5 billion (roughly P110 billion), and given inflation and other factors, this could have ballooned by this time. “We haven’t been approached by the DOTC. The MRTC had a board meeting last week, but there was no mention of the buyout,” Parayno said.

Campi. . . continued from a1

Campi originally targeted to hit the 300,000-unit sales mark in 2016.

This is achievable with the robust growth that the industry is experiencing this year, punctuated by the 41-percent sales jump it posted in September.

Gutierrez said sustaining a double-digit growth in the next two years would be easy for the auto industry.

The automakers are also particularly upbeat on their prospects for 2016, an election year.

Gutierrez added that the industry’s growth is being propelled by the rising purchasing power of the growing middle class, as well as the popularity of smaller-type offerings of the automotive firms.

Also, exhibits such as the recently concluded Philippine International Motor Show, which drew 90,000 visitors this year to double the 2013

attendance, also aids in building consumer appetite for the offerings of local auto assemblers.

Campi has crafted a “Vision 2020,” wherein the industry envisions hitting the 500,000-unit sales mark in six years, driven by domestic vehicle demand and the rising per-capita income.

According to studies, a country can be said to have reached the motorization stage if the economy has achieved a per-capita income of $2,500. The Philippines’s percapita income has already reached $2,790 in 2013.

Campi earlier said the Philippines, with a population of 100 million, has a vehicle ownership ratio of only 35 per 1,000, much lower than those of its Asean neighbors, thus showing a strong domestic-market potential for increased consumption.

With the two factors taken

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST OCTOBER 17, 2014 | FRIDAY

TODAY’S WEATHER Low Pressure Area (LPA) develops when warm and moist air rises from the Earth’s surface.

LOW PRESSURE AREA (LPA) WAS ESTIMATED AT 190 KM EAST OF BORONGAN, EASTERN SAMAR. (AS OF OCTOBER 16, 5:00 PM)

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to retrieve his vehicle, have it delivered, or even test-drive it.

“Based on our records and probably that of the Land Transportation Office [LTO], it is Mr. Reynaldo Anonuevo who is the registered owner of the vehicle, thus, we are doubly perplexed why it is Mr. Nolasco who filed this misplaced complaint, and not Mr. Anonuevo,” Jose emphasized. “Nevertheless, we are committed to provide the best after-sales service within our abilities.”

While the vehicle was indeed brought in for servicing, Jose clarified that these involved minor issues and were readily resolved. “There are absolutely no more concerns, and any capable mechanic will attest that it is in perfect running condition,” he noted. “In fact, one of the owner’s first complaints was that the CD player was supposedly defective. We found out that there was nothing wrong with the player, but the pirated CD he inserted could not be read”.

At present, the vehicle still remains unclaimed in the Audi Service Center on Epifanio delos Santos Avenue.

“Frankly, we are at a loss why he filed this complaint, when the vehicle has been sitting here for over a month now, ready for retrieval,” Jose stated. “He has an Audi here that is as good as new, ready to be driven at any time.”

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virtue of the bonds that the state bought from the private concessionaire.

Parayno pointed out that the P54 billion is just enough for the state-owned bonds.

The Cabinet official noted, however, that the government is acquiring the whole line, as stipulated in President Aquino’s Executive Order 126 in 2013.

“We are buying everything out, including the bonds and the remaining equity interest in private hands,” Abaya clarified. “The objective, at the end of the day, is for the government to own 100 percent of the line.”

Audi. . . continued from a1

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together, Campi is hopeful its target under Vision 2020 can be achieved, coupled with the policy direction to be given by the much-awaited auto industry road map.

Corazon Halili-Dichosa, director of the Board of Investment Industrial Policy Service, said the auto industry road map is still being reviewed by Malacañang. It is also undergoing “fine-tuning.”

Car sales by local manufacturers hit a record high of 41.7 percent year-on-year in September to 20,924 units. Year-to-date sales as of September reached 168,727 units, higher by 29.2 percent over the same period in 2013. Last year the industry sold 212,682 units.

The industry originally sought to sell 230,000 units this year, but later upgraded the target to 250,000 units.

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But for the government, the acquisition budget is the rightful price for the takeover, as computed through the formula provided in the 25-year buildlease-transfer (BLT) contract.

“There is a fixed formula in the BLT, which also provides how to execute the buyout; so there is no room for negotiations,” Abaya pointed out. “There is no room for haggling; it’s not as if we are in a drinking spree.”

MRTC is owned by MRT Holdings II Inc., which, in turn, is owned by MRT Holdings Inc. The government, meanwhile, holds an 80-percent economic interest in MRTC, by

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Borrowers tell Pag-IBIG: Comply with loan obligations

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By Joel R. San Juan

OME 1,400 Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) borrowers in Pampanga are urging its officials to comply with the agency’s obligations to its members, specifically on the status of their housing loans in the controversial Globe Asiatique’s Xevera projects in Mabalacat and Bacolor towns.

In a letter of appeal to PagIbig Fund President and CEO Darlene Berberabe, the PagIBIG members also asked the agency to “stop complicating matters” concerning their respective housing acquisitions and to proceed either with the transfer of their fully paid units in their names or start servicing the residents and legitimate buyers in the two Globe Asiatique housing projects in Pampanga.

They noted that it has been berberabe more than four years since the agency started the prosecution of Globe Asiatique, headed by Delfin Lee, for the alleged P6.6-billion housing-loan scam, but the fate of the legitimate borrowers and buyers has remained in limbo until now.

“As legitimate members of the people’s fund, we are currently burdened by the same agency that we have entrusted to provide us the benefit of owning a house we can call our own. We are deeply troubled by your continued disregard of the decisions of courts of justice,” the group, led

by Jose Quiambao Jr. and Rolando Santos, said in a letter to Berberabe.

“Your agency’s approval of our housing-loan application and the completed housing units, including the ideal housing communities being offered to us by Globe Asiatique, are more than enough guarantees that led us to acquire our dream homes in the two housing enclaves,” they added.

They noted that over the past years, the idea of the supposed double-sale of the housing units in Xevera projects in actuality “remains unproven as we have yet to see or experience any actual claimants in all our respective abodes.”

The group insisted that they are not ghost buyers, contrary to claims of the agency.

In contrast, homeowners also noted the titles of ownership of a number of fully paid members were quietly transferred to Pag-IBIG, resulting in the need for them to spend additionally and unnecessarily through a civil case against Pag-IBIG at the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Angeles City.

The Court of Appeals last year sustained a ruling issued by the RTC in Makati City allowing the damage suit filed

by Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. against the PagIBIG Fund.

The Court of Appeals’ Special 11th Division rejected on a technicality the petition filed by Pag-IBIG seeking the reversal of the decision issued by Judge Eugene Paras of Branch 58 of the RTC in Makati, on January 30, 2012.

Paras ruled that Pag-IBIG, and its board of trustees, was guilty of breaching the provisions of the memorandum of agreement and the funding commitment agreements it signed with Globe Asiatique.

Paras said Pag-IBIG should not be allowed to escape liability by simply alleging that the defaulting buyer-borrowers were fictitious, considering that it was the agency that approved all its fund membership and the loan applications of the buyers borrowers.

The homeowners and borrowers said the current temporary restraining order issued by the Supreme Court against the decision of the appellate court favoring the legitimacy of Globe Asiatique’s legal claims should not in any way affect Pag-IBIG’s decision to honor its agreements with them and the developer.

The Nation BusinessMirror

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Friday, October 17, 2014 A3

Economy

A4 Friday, October 17, 2014 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

Aug wholesale prices slowest in 10 months

T

he increase in August wholesale prices of various commodities nationwide was at its slowest in 10 months, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA’s preliminary data showed that the General Wholesale Price Index (GWPI) slowed to 3.3 percent in August, the slowest since October when the GWPI posted an increase of 2.9 percent.

The GWPI in August was slower than the 3.6 percent posted in July but still higher than the 1.5 percent recorded in August 2013.

“During the month, a negative annual rate of 2.2 percent was posted in mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials index,” the PSA said.

Further, data showed the annual gains decelerated in the indices of crude materials, inedible except fuels at 15.9 percent; chemicals, including animal and vegetable oils and fats, 5.2 percent; and miscellaneous manufactured articles, 0.1 percent.

However, the annual growth in the food index was higher at 8.1 percent; beverages and tobacco index, 2 percent; and manufactured goods classified chiefly by materials index, 1.4 percent.

“The machinery and transport equipment index moved at its last month’s rate of 3.3 percent,” the PSA added.

The GWPI in Luzon and the Visayas were both at 3.3 percent, while it was even lower in Mindanao at 3 percent.

In Luzon there was a contraction of 2.6 percent in the mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials index and slower increases in the GWPI in other commodities.

Commodities that posted slower GWPI growth in August were posted in crude materials, inedible, except fuels index, at 15.9 percent and in chemicals including animal

and vegetable oils and fats index with 5.9 percent.

The GWPI in the Visayas slowed on the back of a 1.2 percent contraction in the GWPI of mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials index, and commodities that had the same GWPI growth posted in July.

The annual movements in the indices of manufactured goods classified chiefly by materials; machinery and transport equipment and miscellaneous manufactured articles remained at their respective July rates of 3.1 percent, 1.9 percent and 1 percent.

T he GW PI i n M i nd a n ao slowed due to the 0.1-percent contraction in the machinery and transport equipment index as well as lower annual rates observed in the indices of other commodity groups.

These included the heavily weighted food index which slowed to 4.9 percent; crude materials, inedible except fuels, 1.8 percent; mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials, 3.1 percent; chemicals including animal and vegetable oils and fats, 1.4 percent; manufactured goods classified chiefly by materials, 1.8 percent; and miscellaneous manufactured articles, 0.5 percent.

The GWPI is an indicator designed to measure the changes in the price levels of commodities that flow into the wholesale trade intermediaries.

Wholesale price refers to the price of commodity transacted in bulk for further resale or processing. It is the actual “spot” transaction price received usually by the wholesalers, distributors or marketing agents for large lots but net of discounts, allowances and rebates.

It is also the sum of the producer price, wholesale trade margin, tax mark-ups and distribution cost of the wholesaler. Cai U. Ordinario

BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Despite rising labor-productivity growth

Majority of private-sector workers still live below poverty threshold

L

By Estrella Torres

abor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz said that despite rising labor productivity growth at 5.7 percent in 2013 and a positive growth outlook, the majority of private-sector workers still live below poverty threshold due to declining real wage rate stuck at less than 2 percent annual growth rate.

Addressing labor officials and private-sector leaders at the National Productivity Convention on Thursday, Baldoz said there is a pressing need to “link wages with productivity” not only for the improvement of the minimum wage but more so on the total compensation that combines minimum wage and workers’ productivity incentives and salary increase.

She said leveling off the country’s labor-productivity and real wages growth is a serious challenge for the Philippines as it joins the 2015 Asean integration.

“Amid robust economic growth despite natural disasters, sound macroeconomic fundamentals and high level of confidence of the international community brought by the series of credit upgrades,

the challenge of decent work to achieve inclusive, sustainable and equitable growth remains a serious concern,” Baldoz said in her keynote speech.

The critical challenge, she said, is “to increase the level of productivity, the output per worker, and translate it into wage gains and how to compete not on the basis of low wages, but on higher labor productivity.”

The labor department has embarked on a two-track approach to promote inclusive growth by increasing productivity. Under Tier 1, minimum wages in all 16 regions are targeted to meet above poverty threshold.

Under Tier 2, wages are linked to productivity that combines the minimum wage plus productivity wage or pay increases.

She said the Philippines has outpaced its neighbors in the Asean with labor-productivity growth from 4.7 percent in 2010 to 5.7 percent in 2013.

“Compare these productivity increases with real wage and we see that there remains gaps that need to be addressed,” Baldoz said.

The labor chief said despite the labor-productivity growth, decent work indicators from 2010 to 2013 showed that “ real wages grew by less than 2 percent per year.”

Baldoz said decent work indicators from 2010 to 2013 showed that real wages grew by less than 2 percent a year.

“Across sectors, real wages grew relatively faster in services than in industry and agriculture. Meanwhile, labor productivity grew by 4.7 percent in 2010, dipped to -1.0 percent in 2011, and continued its upward trajectory to 5.6 percent in 2012 and 5.7 percent in 2013,” Baldoz said.

She said across major industries, these gaps have been observed in manufacturing, construction, utilities and financial services.

Baldoz urged the National Wages and Productivity Commission, an attached agency of the Labor department, “to address real wage and labor-productivity gaps by aiming to zero in on very specific sectors where real wages lag behind productivity growth and tailor-fit policy and program intervention.”

WB, IMF aim to eradicate poverty by 2030

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

he World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have projected that the number of extremely poor in the East Asia and the Pacific region could drop to 2.5 million in less than two decades.

In its Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2014/2015, titled “Ending Poverty and Sharing Prosperity,” extreme poverty in East Asia and the Pacific could decline to 0.11 percent of the population by 2030.

The World Bank and IMF estimate that the number of extremely poor in East and the Asia-Pacific region will decline to 31.3 million, or to 1.5 percent, of the population by 2020 from 86.4 million, or 4.1 percent, of the population in 2015.

“The world has made great progress in the last quarter-century in reducing extreme poverty—it was cut by a stunning two-thirds—and now we have the opportunity to end poverty in less than a generation,” World Bank Group (WBG) President Jim Yong Kim said.

“But we will not finish the job unless we find ways to reduce inequality, which stubbornly persists all over the world. This vision of a more equal world means we must find ways to spread wealth to the billions who have almost nothing,” Kim added.

In 2011 around 160.8 million are living in extreme poverty in East Asia and the Pacific. This accounts for 7.9 percent

of the population of the region.

Extreme poverty, as defined in the report, covers those living below $1.25 a day, or less than P53 daily (at an exchange rate of P43 to a dollar).

“If it is shocking to have a poverty line as low as $1.25 per day, it is even more shocking that 1/7th of the world’s population lives below this line,” World Bank Group Senior Vice President and chief economist Kaushik Basu said.

“The levels of inequality and poverty that prevail in the world today are totally unacceptable. This year’s GMR, which brings together in one volume a statistical picture of where the world stands in terms of these goals, is essential fodder for anyone wishing to take on these major challenges of our time,” he added.

The report also detailed the WBG’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity, measured as income growth of the bottom 40 percent.

The World Bank said this will be attained by giving special attention to the living standards of the poorer segments of the population.

These, the bank said, should be pursued alongside efforts to secure the future of the planet in order to ensure that the world’s prosperity does not cost the future of the next generation. “While the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] are focused on the developing world, the WBG’s goal of shared prosperity is universal and signals a shift toward the post-2015 development goals. Shared prosperity is as much a concern in high-income countries as in developing economies,” the report stated.

Forecasts in the report show that poverty will remain stubbornly high in the South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, where an estimated 377 million of the world’s 412 million poor will likely reside in 2030.

Palace says options being pursued to get rid of 50 vans of toxic cargo from Canada

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By Butch Fernandez

alacañang has assured that the Aquino administration is pursuing all possible options to expel from Philippine territory 50 vans of toxic trash from Canada, including parallel negotiations between the two governments and between the private parties involved in what officials called a “commercial transaction.”

Asked if the Palace is taking action to pinpoint liabilities against those responsible for allowing the 50 vans of Canadian trash to be dumped here, Palace’s Spokesman Edwin Lacierda confirmed the government had already set in motion an interagency effort to look into the matter, verify violations of Philippine laws and return the shipment to its port of origin.

In a text message to the BusinessMirror, Lacierda cited a statement from his counterpart at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), who said the private transaction “may have violated Philippine laws,” meaning sanctions can be imposed against erring

parties involved. Lacierda said that according to Foreign Affairs Spokesman Charles Jose, “this is a commercial transaction between a Philippine importer and a Canadian exporter, a transaction that may have violated Philippine laws.”

Jose reported to the Palace official that “the matter is being dealt with through an inter-agency effort with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources as the lead.”

The DFA spokesman also informed Lacierda that a case had already been filed with the Department of Justice against the Philippine importer who is now the subject of a preliminary investigation by DOJ probers. “While the legal case runs its course, the practical problems arising from the presence of these unwanted containers at the port area are being dealt with through anb interagency effort,” Jose added.

He assured that the DFA was also giving its full support to the interagency process, “particularly in coordinating with the Canadian government” to facilitate final disposition of the unwanted shipment from Canada.

briefs all set for san fernando, pampanga’s giant lantern festival on dec. 13 CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—All is set for the annual Giant Lantern Festival (GLF) or “Ligligan Parul” here on December 13.

The Giant Lantern Festival Foundation (GLFF) and the GLF executive committee, chaired

by Alfrito “Bong Ma” Mah and Maria Theresa Laus, respectively, launched this year’s event on Wednesday at a mall here with the symbolic lighting of a multicolored Christmas lantern.

The GLFF and the GLF also signed a memorandum of agreement with officials of the mall for again hosting this year’s festival.

“This year’s festival will be unique,” assured Laus without going into the details, since 10 barangays will be participating with a budget of P2.426 million.

“We are very grateful for the support for this year’s event,” she added. The mall has hosted the GLF Parul since 2008.

The mall management also gave an assistance of P2.426 million for the world-renowned competition of Christmas lights and music.

The participating barangays for this year’s event include barangays San Jose, Calulut, Santo Niño, Santa Lucia, San Nicolas, del Pilar, Dolores, San Juan, del Carmen and champion Telabastagan.

Each of the competing barangays were given a P170,000 subsidy by the city government to help in the creation of their lanterns.

A giant lantern, measuring up to 20 feet in diameter with more than 10,000 bulbs, could cost as much as P500,000. Ashley Manabat

dpwh completes replacement of bridge 10 in lemery, batangas A NEW bridge completed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Lemery, Batangas, is now serving thousands of commuters and facilitating better transport of products to market centers.

The DPWH completed Bridge 10, a 28.8-meter single span, double-lane concrete bridge in Barangay Bagong Pook, Lemery, Batangas, at a cost of P31.7 million under the Mega Bridge for Urban and Rural Development Project (MBURDP).

Prior to the construction of the new bridge, residents of Barangay Pook utilized an old single-lane bridge made of timber and steel components.

Public Works Secretary Rogelio L. Singson said the works to demolish and replace the old structure began in the first quarter of the year, after the department inspection deemed it unsafe for public use due to old age.

“Unlike the old bridge, the newly completed Bridge 10 will be able to handle more vehicles through its wider carriageway, linking the municipality of Lemery to Palico-Balayan-Batangas City Road,” Singson added.

Some 2,000 residents of Barangay Pook in Lemery, Batangas, are now directly benefiting from the newly built bridge and more of these projects will be built and completed across the country by the DPWH. While the government continues to develop modern urban structures in the cities, some others, especially those which are in the outlying areas of the country, remain rural and in need of better roads and bridges to facilitate livelihood and economic development.

The DPWH chief said rehabilitation and replacement of bridges in areas where the majority of residents are dependent on agriculture is one of the objectives of the DPWH convergence program with different agencies.

Economy

Friday, October 17, 2014

BusinessMirror

A5

DOF’s Purisima pushes for creation of ‘passport of funds’ in Asean region

F

By David Cagahastian

inance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima on Thursday pushed for a so-called passport for funds that will make it easier to move capital across borders within the Asean region.

Purisima made the statement at the 44th International Association of Financial Executives Institutes (IAFEI) World Congress in Makati City.

“Another reform that’s close to my heart that for me would make global recovery more sustainable and would make the Philippines’s own financial sustainability more of a reality for a longer time is what we refer to as the creation for a “passport for funds,” Purisima said in his speech at the event.

Purisima explained that the passport for funds will make it easier to move money across financial markets, and will allow for better cooperation between jurisdictions in tax-related issues.

“When people started moving across their own national boundaries, they created passports so there is an orderly movement of people. When we open up our financial markets, we did not create the passport. So what is the passport for funds? The first part of that is a convention of tax ID numbers,” Purisima said.

He said that just like mobile phones, tax identification numbers should be applicable anywhere in Asean so that it would be easier to share data regarding the tax history and information of entities doing business in Asean.

“Right now when you travel, you have a mobile number. You don’t apply for a mobile phone line. 63 is for the Philippines, 1 is for the US, 81 is for Japan.

The same should be true for tax ID numbers. I don’t

have to apply for a tax ID anywhere else in the world, I just bring my Philippine tax ID and automatically they know I’m from the Philippines, from this city and I am this person,” Purisima said.

He said that this greater coordination on tax-related issues will curb money laundering, smuggling, tax evasion and corruption. On the issue of lowering the tax rates, Purisima said that he’s not against such moves in Congress, but he said that certain measures must also be enacted so that tax administration can be improved.

Such measures include the lifting of bank secrecy laws in cases of tax evasion, the requiring of all Filipinos to have a tax identification number, and the exercise of judicial restraint by the courts.

“I am an advocate for lower taxes or lowering tax rates.

The problem with the Philippines is that we have high tax rates and low tax to GDP [gross domestic product.]

Why? Because we have difficulty administering taxes.

It’s okay to lower taxes so long as we lift bank secrecies.

So long as they require a tax account number of every Filipino. So long as they limit the ability of courts to intervene in taxation. We empower them so long as they remove Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and BOC [Bureau of Customs] from civil service protection and allow us to pay them properly and hold them accountable. And create a meritocracy similar to what your organizations have in your respective countries,” he said.

New PCG assets to defend PHL Government lays claim on P60-B territory, fight criminals unveiled proceeds from coconut-levy fund

By Joel R. San Juan

T

HE Aquino administration is now eying to get hold of the more than P60-billion proceeds from the 24-percent block of shares, or 753,848,312 in San Miguel Corp. (SMC) that the Supreme Court (SC) earlier awarded to the government.

In an eight-page motion, Solicitor General Florin Hilbay asked the Court to issue an entry of judgment on its decision handed down in January 2012.

Hilbay stated that although the government was still contesting ownership of 4 percent of treasury shares, which was “inadvertently excluded” from the ruling in 2012, the government’s ownership of the 753,848,312 SMC Series 1 preferred shares is no longer being disputed.

He noted that the government’s ownership over the 753,848,312 SMC Series 1 preferred shares is already final since September 4.

“If granted, the government’s motion will translate decades of litigation into public funds amounting to around P60 billion that can be used to support the country’s coconut farmers and their industry,” Hilbay said.

In its January 2012 decision, the High Tribunal unanimously affirmed the decision issued by the Sandiganbayan in May 2004 that awarded the subject shares

in SMC registered in the names of Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) and its holding companies to the government, which holds it in trust for the country’s coconut farmers.

The said 24-percent SMC shares which is estimated to value between P50 to P100 billion, has earlier been ordered by the Court, through its ruling last September 17, 2009, to be converted from common shares into preferred shares.

The conversion, the SC added is necessary to preserve the value of the 753,848,312 sequestered CIIF SMC common shares.

It can be recalled that in 1986 the government seized the 24 percent of SMC shares on suspicion that these were acquired illegally through the dummies of then President Ferdinand Marcos using coco-levy funds.

This 24-percent share (originally 27 percent, but was diluted with the investment of Japanese brewer Kirin in SMC) was part of the 47-percent bloc of San Miguel shares sequestered by the PCGG in 1986.

In a resolution issued in 2011, the Court declared final its decision declaring that the 20-percent shares of businessman Eduardo “Danding” in SMC were legally acquired contrary to the government’s claim that it is ill-gotten, being part of the coco-levy funds of the farmers.

By Butch Fernandez

P

raising the vital role played by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in defending national territory and marine resources against external threats and halting smugglers and human traffickers, as well as in disaster response and rescue, President Aquino on Thursday unveiled new assets for the PCG as he keynoted its 113th anniversary.

Among others, the new assets list for the PCG includes: 40 additional rubber boats and 300 aluminum boats; and 10 new 40-meter Multirole Responsive Vessels under the Maritime Safety Capability Improvement Project covered by a P9.27-billion loan agreement signed in December last year.

Part of the capacity upgrade is the purchase of two new medium helicopters by 2015.

At the same time, the construction of a targetted 113 lighthouses has already begun, said Mr. Aquino,

adding that there is a plan to add 109 more lighthouses as soon as the government procures the lots on which to place them in compliance with the guidelines of the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities.

President Aquino said he was looking forward to the completion, by April of 2015, of the National Coast Watch Center that is envisioned to be the focal point of cooperation of various agencies involved in the effective monitoring of the country’s long coastline.

He underscored the big challenge to the PCG posed by the country’s 36,289 kilometers, considered the fourth longest in the world.

Besides this, the PCG is a frontliner in protecting the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone—all 135,783 square kilometers of it.

He praised the PCG’s leadership under Vice Admiral Rodolfo Isorena for being able to make the command perform all its tasks despite the paucity of resources. In recent years, he stressed

the challenges to the PCG have grown even more, citing among the evolving problems the dangers posed by an increasing number of extreme storms, which, in turn, increases the frequency with which the PCG is summoned for disaster response and rescue.

Then there are the increased threats posed by smugglers and poachers, as well as human traffickers, Mr. Aquino said.

Present at the 113th PCG anniversary were members of the diplomatic corps; Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya; Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Gregorio Catapang; Lt. General Jeffrey Delgado;ViceAdmiralJesusMillan,Fire Chief Superintendent Carlito Romero; andformercurrentPCGcommandants.

Mr. Aquino later presided at the giving of awards to outstanding performers of the command, including a Labrador retriever that proved most helpful in searching for victims of the Visayas earthquake in Bohol one year ago.

Opinion BusinessMirror

A6 Friday, October 17, 2014

Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay

editorial

Attracting foreign direct investments the right way

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T’S not often that the Philippines gets genuinely good news about foreign direct investments (FDI).

The best we can usually hope for is raw data that are made to look like all is well.

A recent newspaper headline read, “7-month FDI inflows up 56.1% to $4 billion.” But the report on that did not fully discuss the quality of the FDI. The kind of report that we want is like this one in The Jakarta Post: “Samsung is reportedly mulling [over] whether to invest $1 billion in a third cell-phone factory in Vietnam.”

However, it’s very good to see a headline like this: “Philippine BPO [businessprocess outsourcing] jobs hit 1-million mark.” This is a great accomplishment, considering that the BPO industry was still in its infancy 10 years ago. What helped bring 1 million new jobs to the Philippines?

Obviously, it was a combination of several factors. BPO firms, particularly call centers, were almost a perfect match for Filipinos’ customer-service skills.

But none of this would have happened without the tens of millions of dollars in FDI. Of course, foreign investors are looking to make a profit, otherwise, they would have put their investments in another country, no matter how good our workforce is.

A major key was the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza). Peza may be established in 1995 during the Ramos administration, but it was under the Arroyo administration that it made things happen.

Originally conceived as a vehicle for large industrial estates, Peza moved into designating even individual buildings as economic zones and offering incentives to foreign investors. Make no mistake, there was strong opposition to extending the Peza setup and the incentives offered to call centers. But, with former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s support, economic common sense prevailed.

As important as the financial incentives were to the FDI coming in, maybe even more so was the one-stop business environment that is often talked about, but rarely successfully implemented by the government. Peza did that and set up a globally competitive environment for FDI under the impressive leadership of Director General Lilia de Lima.

That brings us to the next good news. “fDi Intelligence”, a division of the Financial Times Group, recently held its FDI Global Free Zones of the Year 2014 awards. Commended for its reduction in red tape was the Clark Freeport Zone, under the Clark Development Corp.

The commendation read: “There was a shift in [the] Clark Freeport Zone from a ‘regulatory’ to a ‘business enhancement’ mindset in 2013, which led to a reduction in regulatory processes of between 30 percent and 50 percent of the levels seen in 2012.”

That is how you attract foreign investments and create 1 million jobs for Filipinos.

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Founder Publisher Associate Editor

T. Anthony C. Cabangon Jun B. Vallecera

News Editor City & Assignments Editor Special Projects Editor

Dionisio L. Pelayo Vittorio V. Vitug Max V. de Leon

Online Editor

Ruben M. Cruz Jr.

Research Bureau Head Creative Director Chief Photographer Editorial Consultant Chairman of the Board & Ombudsman President VP-Finance VP-Corporate Affairs VP Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Manager Circulation Manager

Dennis D. Estopace Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes Romeo M. del Castillo Judge Pedro T. Santiago (Ret.) Benjamin V. Ramos Adebelo D. Gasmin Frederick M. Alegre Marvin Nisperos Estigoy Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Rolando M. Manangan

Top 5 campaign-expenditure facts James Jimenez

I

N this age of Top 5 lists, here’s one that would probably be useful: “The Top 5 List of Facts About Campaign Expenditures That You Were Afraid to Ask, But Probably Should Have.” That title might be a bit unwieldy, though.

No. 5: The aggregate amount that a candidate may spend for an election campaign is as follows: For candidates for president and vice president, P10 per voter; for independent candidates running for all other positions, P5 for every voter currently registered in the place where they are running for office; for candidates running under the banner of a political party, P3 for every voter currently registered in the place where they are running for office.

Thus, a presidential candidate in 2016 would have a spending limit of P560 million, assuming that we have a voting population of 56 million. An independent candidate for senator would have a spending limit of P280 million, while a candidate running under a political party’s banner would be able to spend only up to P168 million.

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Remember that these three positions are voted for nationwide.

In determining the spending limit for a candidate for local office, on the other hand, the multiplier is equal to the number of voters in the place where he or she is running for office. Thus, if a candidate ran for a congressional seat in a district that only had 90,361 voters, then he or she would have had a spending cap of P271,083.

No. 4: The word “expenditure” is technically defined as including “the payment or delivery of money or anything of value, or a contract, promise or agreement to make expenditure, for the purpose of influencing the results of the election. It shall also include the use of facilities personally owned by the candidate, the money value of the use of which can be assessed based on the rates prevailing in the area.”

China needs cleaner plates Adam Minter

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spox

BLOOMBERG VIEW

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HE next time you wipe the uneaten remains of your dinner into a trash bin, pause a moment and think of China. Despite the fact that 11.5 percent of the mainland’s population was undernourished between 2010 and 2012, the Chinese still manage to waste more food than Americans on an annual basis.

A lot more, in fact, according to data presented earlier this week by Wu Zidan, China’s deputy director of the State Administration of Grain (SAG). Wu noted that the Chinese waste more than 77 million tons of grains—mostly rice and wheat—every year. (There’s no good data on total Chinese food waste, unfortunately.) By contrast, in 2012 Americans tossed a total of 36.43 million tons of food, according to data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Of course, the disparity shouldn’t come as a total surprise. There are four times as many Chinese as Americans, and many of them have

entered the middle class over the last 30 years. On a per capita basis, the Chinese still waste far less than their US counterparts.

That won’t be true forever, though: As China grows richer, its citizens are unsurprisingly wasting more food. In 2011 a senior Chinese official estimated that 10 percent of China’s grain output—which, at the time, amounted to approximately 55 million tons—was wasted. Anecdotal evidence of the problem is plentiful. A study cited by China Daily in 2011 revealed that 28.3 percent of the food served in one university canteen in Wuhan was shoveled into the trash. The situation has become

No. 3: Every candidate, regardless of whether he or she wins or loses, must file a full, true and itemized statement of all contributions and expenditures (Soce) in connection with the election.

No. 2: These expenditures include those incurred or caused to be incurred by the candidate, whether in cash or in kind, like the use, rental or hiring of land, water or aircraft; equipment; facilities; and paraphernalia used in the campaign.

So, basically, we’re talking about the traveling expenses of the candidate and campaign personnel, plus incidental expenses; compensation of persons employed by the campaign; communication expenses, including Internet access, freight and expressdelivery charges; stationery and printing charges, including distribution expenses for campaign paraphernalia; employment of watchers at the polls; political advertising; lawyers’ fees; for copying of lists of voters, including expenses for investigating and challenging the right to vote of persons registered on the lists; and for the printing of sample ballots.

That’s practically everything that goes on during a campaign. Unless the candidate truly did nothing to promote himself or herself, at the very least, inform voters that he or she was running for office, then the expenditures are inevitably going to add up.

In any case, the amount reflected in the bottom line of the Soce reflects the amount of money the candidate himself or herself claims to have spent. The question of why he or she spent that amount—even when he or she, theoretically, didn’t actually have to spend so much—is totally irrelevant.

And, No. 1: Spending more for the campaign than what is allowed by law is called overspending. Not surprisingly, it is also considered an election offense.

Since we’re already on the topic of campaign expenditures, these two additional items ought to be enlightening.

Campaign expenditures, whether paid for by the candidates of political parties, their authorized representatives or contributors, are subject to creditable income tax to be withheld by the payor from the income payments made to election contractors, suppliers and other service providers. And that’s according to the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Revenue Regulation (RR) 2-98, as amended by RR 8-2009.

And, just in case people start thinking that it’s better not to submit a Soce at all, here’s a gentle reminder: Failure to file it for the second or subsequent time is a ground for perpetual disqualification.

so bad—and so linked in people’s minds with corrupt officials and their lavish banquets—that Chinese President Xi Jinping made a “Clean Your Plate” campaign one of his signature initiatives in 2013.

China’s problems don’t only have to do with rising wealth. Despite vast improvements in the country’s agricultural infrastructure, some areas continue to resemble India’s farm sector, where small, independentlyowned family farms dominate and food wastage is common. Producers often lack decent, clean and dry storage facilities (including refrigerators and driers), not to mention an efficient way of getting food to the market before it spoils. In India an estimated 40 percent of all produce is wasted before it reaches the table.

No similar figure exists for China. But, in 2013, the director of the SAG estimated that the country lost as much as 16.53 million tons of grain annually due to poor storage facilities and transportation methods (like sacks) that were vulnerable to pests, moisture, and mildew.

The impact of all of this waste goes well beyond empty stomachs. (According to Wu, China’s uneaten grain could feed as many as 200 million

people.) One peer-reviewed source estimates that producing all that wasted food consumes roughly as much water as the entire agricultural sector of Canada or Australia. Likewise, the same source points out that the land used to cultivate wasted food in China is comparable to the total arable land of Mexico. For the mainland, which is facing water shortages so severe that authorities are diverting entire rivers to cities thousands of miles away, such data should earn the attention of policymakers, environmentalists and consumers alike.

To their credit, Chinese officials seem to understand the dangers of letting this problem swell. This week China’s state media are launching a new campaign against food waste, carrying forward Xi’s campaign from 18 months ago. Though public education won’t solve the problem, it’s a good start that should be followed with greater investment in rural infrastructure that can speed food to market. Already, according to one estimate, food buried in airless landfills globally emits more greenhouse gases (primarily methane) than any country other than, well, the US and China. Neither they nor the world can afford to let that continue.

James Jimenez is the spokesman of the Commission on Elections.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

The best forecast of next year’s interest rate

Dayaw: A season for the indigenes Tito Genova Valiente

Dr. Luis F. Dumlao

EAGLE WATCH

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ERHAPS, one of the most boring economic variables to forecast is the annual average interest rate. Why? Because there is no need for sophistication in the needed mathematics and no challenge of any sort in terms of economic modeling.

Consider the 91-day Treasury bill (T-bill), the interest rate on which is the one that most, if not all, market-determined rates go with.

What would be the best forecast for next year? Simply look at the newspaper and look at its current rate, and there you have it. The best forecast of the future interest rate is the present one.

In economics jargon, the time-series process of the interest rate is characteristic of a “random walk”. A metaphorical version of random walk goes along with the story of an ambidextrous adult whose feet are of the same length. If a man is right-handed (or lefthanded), any time he puts his feet together and then makes a step forward, he will tend to use one foot more than the other. But, if he happens to be ambidextrous, he will use one foot as often as the other. Whether the man will use the left or right foot the next time has nothing to do with what he currently uses. Because the right foot is as long as the left, the distance leaning to the right is as long as that to the left. And because the man does not grow any taller, the distance on either direction is constant forever.

Consider the scatter diagram above, where the interest this year is plotted against next year’s. The data, taken from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas website, cover the average annual interest on the 91-day T-bill from 1970 to 2010. The crisis years, when interest reached over 20 percent, are not included for “cosmetic purposes,” though the trend observation would still be basically the same. Any point below the line represents a scenario where interest this year (say, 2009) is greater than interest next year (say, 2010). Any point above is the opposite. Behaving like a random walk, interest next year increases over this year’s interest as much as it decreases under the line. Whether it will increase or decrease next year has nothing to do with what happens this year.

It is as if interest is an ambidextrous adult. If any dot above the line is a positive distance and any point below the line is a negative one, the distances of the dots to the line average out to zero. It is similar to the person whose feet have the same length.

The distances above the line are as far as those below it. It is as if the adult does not grow any taller in walking from zero to 16.

This implies that market players incorporate all past, present and probable future outcomes into the interest rate. The only thing that will change it are some news.

Because news is random, the interest rate can be forecast to be random. If people are pessimistic and expect bad news to come more often, there is no reason for them to evaluate the interest rate optimistically. Rather, they will incorporate their pessimism into it, so that the interest rate adjusts to their pessimistic view of a situation, in which, once again, the weighted impact of pessimism equals that of optimism.

As of the latest data, the 91-day T-bill has an interest rate of 1.14 percent. The only thing that will change this will be good or bad news. If people think optimistically and expect a credit upgrade or a stable evaluation from credit-rating agencies, there is no reason for them to evaluate that there would be a credit downgrade or an unstable evaluation, as if the interest rate would increase to, say, 2 percent. Rather, they have incorporated their optimism into it, so that the interest rate is the current 1.14 percent. Going further, anything that can be anticipated, from politics and the weather to anything in the universe, has already been incorporated to make it 1.14 percent.

The only things left unanticipated are sudden news events. The process of forecasting begins at 1.14 percent. With positive news and negative news balancing, it becomes like tossing a coin: It may be less or more next year. But, still, the best forecast is the average that is represented by the current interest rate.

Luis F. Dumlao, PhD, is the chairman of the Economics Department of the Ateneo de Manila University and a senior fellow of Eagle Watch, the school’s macroeconomic and forecasting unit.

Too little, too late

T

HE international coalition that was assembled to confront the Islamic State (IS) has certainly made its mark, but as an example of tragicomedy.

Following weeks of air strikes and related antijihadist efforts in Iraq and Syria, IS militants are moving steadily closer toward Baghdad, and toward the Syrian-Turkish border in Ain al-Arab.

Nearly 200,000 people have fled Anbar province, and the coalition continues to struggle to convince Turkey to play a meaningful role against a group of fighters lacking air power and significant military assets.

Perhaps, certain Western politicians feel good about themselves when they make candid remarks about the effort.

Perhaps, they think it’s refreshing to call the anti-IS coalition a work in progress, with “assignments” still to be handed out, as United States Secretary of State John F. Kerry recently put

it, or, as his British counterpart Philip Hammond said on Monday, to predict that the air campaign won’t be enough to stop the IS. Officials from the 40-plus member coalition appear adept only at offering lectures and theories on what needs to be done, and how others must “step up.”

What they have failed to do themselves is step up and offer a viable solution in Iraq, after their countries oversaw the dismantling of the Iraqi army, laying the groundwork for the current mess.

They should also take responsibility for delaying a decision to assist mainstream rebels in Syria over the past several years, as the IS steadily organized itself and seized territory.

The best course of action for coalition officials is silence, until they can offer rhetoric and policies that convince people in the region to take them seriously and risk their lives for the cause.

The Daily Star (Beirut, Lebanon)/TNS

Friday, October 17, 2014

annotations

I

MAGINE a space where many of the clearly identified ethnic groups of this nation are gathered. Imagine tribes and bands looking at themselves and at the “other” in their ethnic finery.

Imagine the Ifugao conversing with dancers from Leyte province.

Imagine the Badjao dancing in some distant barangay up north, where mountains replace the wide seas as the grand backdrop to a cultural performance.

These scenarios are made possible in the yearly Dayaw Festival, where different, recognizable ethnic groups from many parts of the country come together. This year, three cities have been selected for this grand convention of cultural groups: Baguio for Luzon, Bacolod for the Visayas and Zamboanga for Mindanao.

My first experience of Dayaw happened in Davao del Norte province, before the big typhoons ravaged its villages and towns. The event that year was held in Tagum City. I was not prepared for the colors of the plumages, brass buttons, beaten silvers and various weavings on the bodies of men and women. It was like one of those costume events we did in elementary and high school, where we were compelled to interpret the ethnic groups—we called them “tribes” in ignorance—whose lives were taught as an afterthought in a classroom dealing with Western ideas. This time, they were not mere costumes, but embodiments of their culture.

Dayaw is a festival organized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), through its Subcommission on Cultural Communities and Traditional Arts, led

by Commissioner Al-Anwar Anzar.

According to the NCCA, Dayaw 2014 will “showcase the different indigenous cultural groups of the country and an enriching and interesting array of activities, including performances, rituals, forums, traditional cuisine [demonstrations], traditional games, [an] arts and crafts exhibit,

and cultural tours....”

The festival is interesting and significant on many levels. The notion of an indigenous group proposes that there are nonindigenous ones. Together with the notion of the indigenes is the notion of the “original”, the “local”, the “true” or the “truer”. This festival presents the kind of problematizing that accompanies colonized states, which, after their occupation, feel they have lost their original culture. The irony in this kind of discourse is that the dominant culture—in the case of the Philippines, the lowland Christian culture—is the one initiating

the search for that elusive culture, because it is in the lowlands where its loss is most felt.

In Dayaw the notion of authenticity is questioned, subverted and affirmed. There are many questions we have to ask in the midst of this celebration: Can cultures be abbreviated so as to be able to capture them in capsule form, as when a weaver from a particular community presents indigenous designs for the delectation of consumers and tourists?

As when a group—let’s say, from the Bikol region—brings a replica of the tiny image of Our Lady of Peñafrancia as they march to the rhythm of a Bikol folk song? As when a dancer from the Leyte-Samar area performs the curacha or kuratsa in the same space used by a performer from the southernmost island of Bongao in Tawi-Twi province dancing the igal?

Can one ever simplify the splendor of cultures in our numerous islands?

The debate could go on. Presently, however, we can commend the NCCA for venturing into a contestation of culture. Also, as mentioned before, Dayaw, for the first time, will be held in three different places.

The aim of Dayaw is to “highlight the importance and richness of indig-

enous cultures.” Where there are indigenous cultures, there are concerns and issues. Dayaw looks to provide a forum for people to discuss these issues, with the cultural communities finding commonality in problems that touch not only on the geocultural, like the issue of ancestral lands, but also on the ecological. It is characteristic of indigenous communities to live near or in mountainous and forested areas. They straddle spaces where exploitation and exploration take place for development and, in effect, underdevelopment.

In Luzon Dayaw will be held in Baguio, in partnership with the Negros Cultural Foundation Inc., on October 22 and 23. It will be participated in by the indigenous peoples of northern Philippines, which include the Isneg, Gaddang, Ibanag, Ivatan, Ifugao, Ibaloi and Kankanay. The Tagalog and Bikol groups that do not belong to the country’s north will also participate. From November 9 to 11 Dayaw will be held in Bacolod, also in partnership with the Negros Cultural Foundation. Participating are indigenous groups from central Philippines, which would include the Ati, Panay Bukidnon, Waray, Hiligaynon and Cebuano.

From November 20 to 22 Dayaw will be held in Zamboanga in partnership with the Zamboanga City Indigenous Council of Leaders. The indigenous groups of southern Philippines will participate, including the Yakan, Subanen, Manobo, Higaonon, Bagobo, Mandaya, Mansaka, B’laan, Sangir, Ata Manobo, T’boli, Teduray, Arumanen, Mamanwa, Maranao, Maguindanao, Iranun and Tausug.

Last year the NCCA decided not to continue with the Dayaw, which was to be held in Tacloban City. Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) had destroyed the towns and villages in the area.

According to the NCCA, it opted to reprogram last year’s festival as psychosocial sessions, using arts for healing, for the provinces of Cebu, Bohol, Aklan and Leyte.

E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com.

In wake of Gaza war, hints of change

By Dan Perry The Associated Press

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HE wars between Israel and Hamas tend to be futile and frustrating for all. Each side ends up, more or less, where it began, having learned little, entrenched in its position and preparing for the next pointless, deadly round.

Cynicism seems reasonable in the Middle East, but this summer’s Gaza war may prove to be an exception.

Neither side seems able to dislodge the other, yet, the situation is even more unbearable than before.

The shared need for change has nudged along a series of compromises that set the stage for a conference on Sunday in Cairo, where world donors are expected to fork over billions of dollars for reconstruction in Gaza.

Hamas seems concerned about its standing with the people in Gaza, however cowed by authoritarian rule they might be. Thousands died in a war that started with the usual cycle of violent escalation and mutual recrimination, but was certainly prolonged by the militant rulers of Gaza—and there is little to show for the sacrifice.

For Israel, it’s about world opinion, where a storm is brewing. Beyond the horror at the devastation in Gaza, there is growing impatience with the wider Israeli-Palestinian wrangle, a vexation made worse by Israel’s continued settlement-building in the West Bank, in stark defiance of global opposition.

It’s a rare confluence of interests that also draws in Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who needs to reverse the humiliating 2007 loss of the Gaza Strip, where his forces were expelled

by Hamas militants with unbecoming ease.

After nine months of United States-led peace talks with Israel

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collapsed earlier this year, Abbas set up a “unity government” with Hamas, linking Gaza with the West Bank autonomy enclaves set up in the 1990s. A nimbler Israeli leadership might have welcomed that move: Many had argued, logically enough, that concessions to Abbas were dangerous, since he didn’t speak for all Palestinians. Instead, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airwaves, calling on world leaders to shun the moderate Abbas for having allied himself with terrorists.

With the unity government blocked by Israel, its members unable to travel to Gaza, frustration grew. After a series of violent events in the West Bank and an Israeli arrest sweep of Hamas activists there, Hamas launched rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza. And, despite several cease-fires, these did not stop until Israeli strikes left more than 2,100 Gazans dead, at least half—and maybe more—of them civilians. The seaside strip was in smoldering ruins.

Both sides claimed victory: Israel got the rockets to stop, and Hamas survived in power against an enemy whose army is one of the top forces in the world.

But no one is content with the situation.

Facing many challenges

HAMAS is running out of money, has tens of thousands of homeless on its hands, and runs a territory not only blockaded by Israel from the land, sea and air, but also on

the south by Egypt, whose new president, Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi, abhors the Muslim Brotherhood that spawned Hamas.

Indeed, Hamas seems lucky to be in power at all: The first Brotherhood offshoot to gain any power, it has seen sister movements rise all over the region during the Arab Spring, only to be undone by a backlash.

Israel, its economy slowed by the war, faces possible war-crime investigations. It says the military was as careful as possible, given the need to stop rockets being fired from civilian areas. But that logic has trouble competing with the predicament of Gazans ruled by Islamic extremists they can hardly overthrow, under blistering air attacks.

Chastened, Netanyahu has unofficially, but rather clearly, backed off his opposition to the “unity government.” After all, Israel itself negotiated indirectly with Hamas in Cairo for weeks leading up to the cease-fire that finally took hold in late August.

Hamas, for its part, has understood that the world will not let it run the Gaza reconstruction. Too great is the fear that money will be diverted to line pockets and purchase more rockets. Hamas has agreed to give Abbas’s West Bank-based government a real say in running the border crossings with the outside world and in seeing the aid to its ultimate destination.

The startling image of the week was of Abbas’s appointed prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues being allowed by Israel to travel from the West Bank to Gaza, touring areas where once they dared not tread, surrounded by Hamas security men linking arms to protect them. It was symbolic, but somehow convincing: Last Thursday’s inaugural meeting of the Palestinian unity government in Gaza.

Donors needed to see such images ahead of last Sunday’s aid conference in Cairo, where the Palestinians were hoping to raise $4 billion—the price tag that Abbas’s government has set on even minimally setting things right. There is a sense that world donors, from the West and from the Gulf, will largely come through.

Reasons for skepticism certainly remain: Hamas refuses to give up its militia and, in effect, its security control in Gaza. Abbas will share rule only in a sense, and only at its pleasure. But money talks, and it does look as though Hamas will receive funds to pay tens of thousands of loyal civil servants.

In theory, new elections for the Palestinian Authority lie down the road. Constitutionally, they are long overdue. Abbas is in the ninth year of a four-year presidential term.

Hamas has some legitimacy derived from its victory in the 2006 elections for a parliament whose term has long expired.

Those elections may be held, or not. But, then again, the very existence of the Palestinian Authority is hardly well-rooted. It stems from a 1994 interim agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that was meant to lead to a final status agreement in 1999.

Fifteen years and much violence later, the sides are surlier, by far and no closer to a real deal.

The Gaza reconstruction effort may focus attention for a while.

But down the pike lies a question that won’t go away: Will the Holy Land ultimately be divided into an Israel and a truly independent Palestine—or will it continue to meld slowly into a single angry place, its component parts struggling to fit together, yet, also straining to break free?

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A8 Friday, October 17, 2014

‘Hot’ money returned to net outflow in Sept

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By Bianca Cuaresma

he promise of greater rewards in the US and elsewhere compelled foreign fund managers to pull out portfolio investments in Manila in September, aggregating $324 million, reversing a five-month period when so-called hot, or speculative, money flowed inward on net basis.

Regulators hesitate to call such outflows as capital flight, the term having been associated with economies that lack solid macroeconomic fundamentals. But analysts said the fund managers were driven by the prospect of greater returns in the US as the US Federal Reserve (the Fed), on whether or not it was time to apply the brakes and raise interest rates, started the flights to quality presented by markets in the developed economies.

In a report on Thursday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said foreign

portfolio investments (FPI) slumped back and flowed out again in September. In particular, FPI in September snapped five months of net inflows when hot money aggregating $2.47 billion took flight instead, far more than gross inflows of only $2.146 billion.

This represented a reversal from net inflows totaling $483.45 million in August and inflows of another $115.5 million in September 2013.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) traced the out-migration of foreign funds to profit-taking

fund managers.

The BSP particularly said the outflows posted in September were the “effects of the tapering of the quantitative easing program of the United States.” This relates to the US Fed, the central monetary authority of the world’s largest economy, having been seen to put an end to its monetary-stimulus program and begin a new cycle of interest-rates hikes as early as next year.

It was also around mid-September when the peso started to weaken to more or less 44 per dollar, as the greenback gained strength during the period. FPI are investments from nonresidents in the Philippines.

These are also hot or speculative money, as they are very volatile or easily pulled out of the market on the merest change of market sentiment.

September’s FPI net outflow brought the total nine-month FPI to a netoutflowof$852.62millionfor2014.

This is a steep reversal of the $2.74billion net inflow in the same Januaryto-September period last year.

‘UNDER-THE-TABLE TRANSACTIONS AT PORTS PREVALENT’

By Recto Mercene

A

s much as 56,000 cargo containers classified as “empties” are now waiting to be brought out of the Manila ports, but shipping companies have shown no inclination to ship them out because they earn more through fees and penalties.

Sen. Bam Aquino, chairman of the Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship, was also told of “under-the-table transactions” going on at the ports during a public hearing at the Senate on Thursday.

Melissa Chua, a member of the Federation of FilipinoChinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc., told the committee that from the $150 fee to bring out the empties, some shipping companies are now charging as much as $1,000 for each container inside the port.

“Before there was congestion at the port, the fee was $150; then it went up to $400, then to $600. But now the shipping lines have increased the charges to $1,000,” Chua said.

Although invited to attend the hearing, no one from the shipping companies were present to air their side or deny the accusations.

However, Aquino said after the meeting adjourned that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) had volunteered to gather together some of the big See “Ports,” A2

www.businessmirror.com.ph

China’s reserves dropped below $4-T mark in Q3 Continued from A1

gains in all but one year since a peg ended in 2005. Economists predict the world’s second-largest economy will expand 7.3 percent in 2014, the slowest pace since 1990, as the government cracks down on corruption and diffuses a property bubble.

China’s industrial production grew 6.9 percent from a year earlier in August, the weakest pace since the global financial crisis. Aggregate financing, the broadest measure of credit, was 957.4 billion yuan ($156 billion), trailing a 1.14-trillion yuan forecast. Yuan positions at Chinese financial institutions from foreign-exchange purchases, a barometer of capital flows, fell 31 billion yuan in August in their second monthly drop this year.

The decrease in foreign-exchange reserves “has a negative psychological impact on the yuan,” according to Dariusz Kowalczyk, a Hong Kong-based strategist at Credit Agricole CIB. The currency was 0.03 percent stronger on Thursday at 6.1240 per dollar as of 12:43 p.m. in Shanghai, having climbed to a sevenmonth high of 6.1209 before the reserves data. September’s 0.06-percent advance was the smallest in five months.

There “was a flight-to-safety for investors in September,” said Tim Condon, head of Asia research at ING Groep NV in Singapore. “If there’s no panic, then I suspect China’s foreign reserves will stabilize and go up a little bit by the end of the year.”

China’s reserves are now more than 50 times bigger than they were at the start of 1996, the year of the earliest available readings in data compiled by Bloomberg. The holdings surged as the country became the world’s largest exporter, assisted by the central bank’s dollar purchases that helped limit gains in the currency. China has shown “some renewed willingness” to allow appreciation, the US Treasury said on Wednesday in a report, while adding that the yuan “remains significantly undervalued.” Bloomberg News