Businessmirror 10 24 2014

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U.N. Media Award 2008

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SWEET GHOUL OF MINE »D3 D3

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Friday, October 24, 2014

ROBERT DOWNEY JR.

B S Z Los Angeles Times

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SHEDS THE SUPERHERO

HERE are worse descriptions, as actor typecasting goes, than “wisecracking superhero.”

Then again, if you’re Robert Downey Jr. and colorful descriptions are what you trade in, it could start to feel a little bit limiting.

The wheel turns quickly in Hollywood. What barely six years ago was talk of “Can Downey really pull off a superhero?” has slowly changed into “How much longer is Downey going to keep doing this superhero thing?” Four times out as Iron Man (with a fifth such tentpole, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, on the way in May) and a couple of superherolike Sherlock Holmes pictures, and that can start to happen.

So an actor who’s morphed from wunderkind to cautionary tale to comeback story to (in some minds) a cliché, all seemingly before our eyes, is seeking a new phase, something less describable, though that doesn’t mean Downey won’t try.

“The first [Iron Man] was heart, heart, heart,” he said. “Now the Tony Stark persona is eating itself. It hasn’t gotten away from me.

But I realize I’m on the wheel.”

The actor has a don’t-call-it-a-plan plan, an idea for another act, one in which he essentially aims to combine the freshness and intimacy of his early chapter with the clout and bankability of his recent one.

Step one in that process is The Judge (currently in Philippine theaters from Warner Bros.—Ed.). The first movie to come from Team Downey—both a state of mind and, as a production company he founded with his wife Susan four years ago, a legal entity—The Judge is a throwback courtroom and family melodrama that tries to have it both ways, in a good way.

It’s directed by a Hollywood comedy mainstay in David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and contains a big John Grisham-style hook— but is also, in the manner of a bona fide drama, driven by a father-son blood feud, interested in emo-soundtrack melancholy and full of intense moments with Robert Duvall.

When Downey’s slick Chicago lawyer Hank returns to his small-town Indiana home upon the death of his mother, he finds himself in a complicated dance with his estranged dad, the titular judge (Duvall), who has been accused of murder and eventually reluctantly hires Hank to defend him. The Judge doesn’t entirely tone down Downey’s more gregarious, Tony Starkian instincts (your “hyper-verbal vocabulary vomit,” as the love interest played by Vera Farmiga says of his character in the film). But it doesn’t always use them as a crutch either.

Susan Downey described the viewer experience of the film as “watching the Robert they think they know, who’s quick-witted and fast-talking and very smart, but he’s on an emotional journey where those tricks won’t work.” Or in the patois that could be called Downey-speak, he said, “I think what you can tell is if you feel like you’re hitting the same note you need to flex, and the funny thing is I would find myself weeping not really for my own catharsis because the effective story, A to Z, is laid out, and it ceases to be what it’s talking about, but how these themes and algorithms unfold for me.”

Downey is restless on a couch at the Toronto International Film Festival—lying one way feet out; lying another, feet up—just hours before The Judge will open the annual prestige-cinema gathering. In that interview and another somewhat more relaxed phone conversation from his home in Los Angeles, the actor comes off as highly aware of his own image, the divisions it has caused fans, the restlessness it has stirred in him.

In person he can seem both larger than life and child-like, especially given his enthusiasm. Farmiga describes it as “I love him like I love a puppy. He comes at you with a hundred ideas, bounds off you and lands in your lap. He’s a border collie.”

He has a manner of speaking that can seem at once direct and circuitous. Downey is a rare beast, an actor who, thanks to a personality he deploys to unique effect on the screen, makes it harder than most for us to distinguish between public persona and private life.

Susan Said: “He’s one of the most grounded people you’ll ever meet, and you’ll be able to have that conversation with him. And as soon as you feel that

MASK

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Forecast inflation for next year and in 2016 was also scaled down even lower to 3.7 percent from 3.8 percent, and to 2.8 percent from 3.0 percent, respectively.

The moderating inflation outlook allowed the monetary authorities to pause and refrain from changing the current monetary settings for the second time this year and in this manner ensure the target growth, measured as the gross domestic product (GDP), is attained.

“Latest forecasts show a lower inflation path for 2014 to 2016, reflecting easing pressures on

BusinessMirror

World B3-1 | Friday, October 24, 2014 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Police converge on Parliament Hill in ottawa on Wednesday. A soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial was shot by a gunman and people reported hearing gunfire inside the halls of Parliament. AP/The CAnAdiAn Press, AdriAn Wyld

Canada’s PM: Shooting rampage was terrorism TTAWA, Ontario—A masked gunman killed a soldier standing guard at Canada’s war memorial on Wednesday, then stormed Parliament in an attack that was stopped cold when he was shot to death by the ceremonial sergeant-at-arms.

Canada’s prime minister called it the country’s second terrorist attack in three days.

“We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed in an address to the nation.

Unfolding just before 10 a.m., while lawmakers were meeting in caucus rooms, the assault rocked Parliament over and over with the boom of gunfire, led Members of Parliament to barricade doors with

chairs and sent people streaming from the building in fear.

Harper was addressing a caucus when the attack began outside the door, but he safely escaped.

Investigators offered little information about the gunman, identified as 32-year-old petty criminal Michael Zehaf-Bibeau.

But Harper said: “In the days to come we will learn about the terrorist and any accomplices he may have had.”

A government official told the Associated Press (AP) that ZehafBibeau was a recent convert to Islam.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Canada was already on alert because of a deadly hit-and-run assault on Monday against two Canadian soldiers by a man Harper described as an “ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]-inspired terrorist.”

ISIL has called for reprisals against Canada and other Western countries that have joined the US-led air campaign against the extremist group in Iraq and Syria.

Witnesses said the soldier posted at the National War Memorial, identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, was gunned down at point-blank range by a man carrying a rifle and dressed all in black, his face half-covered with a scarf.

The gunman appeared to raise his arms in triumph, then entered Parliament, a few hundred yards away, where dozens of shots soon

rang out, according to witnesses.

People fled the complex by scrambling down scaffolding erected for renovations, while others took cover inside as police with rifles and body armor took up positions outside and cordoned off the normally bustling streets around Parliament.

On Twitter, Canada’s justice minister and other government officials credited 58-year-old sergeant-atarms Kevin Vickers with shooting the attacker just outside the MPs’ caucus rooms.

Vickers serves a largely ceremonial role at the House of Commons, carrying a scepter and wearing rich green robes, white gloves and a tall imperial hat.

At least three people were treated for minor injuries. In Washington, President Barack Obama condemned the shootings as “outrageous” and said: “We have to remain vigilant.”

The US Embassy in Ottawa was locked down as a precaution, and security was tightened at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery just outside

Washington. The US military increased security on Wednesday at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery after fatal shootings at a Canadian war memorial and Parliament, even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Homeland Security Department said there was no specific threat against the US. “Obviously the situation there is tragic,” Obama said, adding, “we’re all shaken by it.”

The White House said Obama spoke by telephone with Harper.

The US has offered to help the US ally with its response, and Obama expressed the American people’s solidarity with Canada.

In a statement, the FBI said it had reminded field offices and government partners to remain vigilant in light of recent calls for attacks against government personnel by what it described as terrorist groups and like-minded individuals.

“We stand ready to assist our Canadian partners as they deal with

the ongoing situation in their capital,” it said.

The agency and Homeland Security said there was no specific threat against this country.

A US Capitol police spokesman said the force remained at a post-9/11 “heightened level of awareness,” but did not make any significant modifications as a result of the shootings in Canada.

Harper vowed that the attacks will “lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts” to keep the country safe and work with Canada’s allies to fight terrorists.

Police said in the initial hours that as many as two other gunmen may have taken part in the attacks. But by late in the evening, the cordon around Parliament was lifted and police said there was no longer any threat to the public in the area.

Court records that appear to be the gunman’s show that he had a long rap sheet, with a string of convictions for assault, robbery, drug and weapons offenses, and other crimes. AP

US to track everyone coming from Ebola nations Survey: Local support for HK protesters grows A

TLANTA—All travelers who come into the US from three Ebola-stricken West African nations will now be monitored for three weeks, the latest step by federal officials to keep the disease from spreading into the country.

Starting on Monday, anyone traveling from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will have to report with health officials daily and take their temperature twice a day.

The measure applies not only to visitors from those countries but also returning American aid workers, federal health employees and journalists. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the new step on Wednesday.

The virus has killed more than 4,800 people in West Africa, nearly all in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. CDC Director Tom Frieden said monitoring would provide an extra level of safety. Passengers already get screened and temperature checks before they leave West Africa and again when they arrive in the US. “We have to keep our guard up,” Frieden told reporters on a conference call.

The Obama administration has resisted increasing pressure to turn away any visitors from the three countries at the center of the Ebola outbreak, especially after a Liberian visitor to Dallas came down with the

AMber Vinson at emory University Hospital in Atlanta. AP

AMericAN video journalist Ashoka Mukpo at an iron ore mining camp in bong county, liberia. AP

infectious disease days after he arrived and later died.

Instead, passenger screening was put in place at five key US airports.

That was tightened on Tuesday to funnel everyone coming from those countries through those airports so all are checked.

The monitoring program will start in six states—New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia—the destination for the bulk of the travelers from the outbreak region. It will later extend to other states.

Each passenger will be required to provide contact information for themselves, as well as a friend or relative. They will be instructed to check for a fever twice a day and

report their temperature and any symptoms to health officials daily for 21 days.

How the checks are done—in person, by phone or Skype—will be decided by the states, Frieden said. If a traveler does not report in, public health officials can track them down.

How far they can go to get them to cooperate is up to those officials, CDC officials said.

They will also receive Check and Report Ebola kits. The kits include a thermometer and instructions on what to do if symptoms occur. Also included is a card to present to health care providers if they seek care.

CDC already was telling its own employees and other health professionals returning from the outbreak

zone to monitor their temperature.

Meanwhile, doctors no longer detect Ebola in a Texas nurse who flew to Ohio and back before she was diagnosed with the virus, her family said on Wednesday.

Officials at Emory University Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention couldn’t detect Ebola in Amber Vinson as of Tuesday evening, her family said in a statement released through a media consultant. Doctors usually do two tests a day apart before saying they can’t detect the virus. It’s unclear how many tests Vinson has had.

Vinson’s mother, Debra Berry, spoke to her Wednesday, and Vinson has been approved for transfer from isolation, the statement said.

At the same time, an American video journalist, who recovered from Ebola at a Nebraska hospital, left the facility on Wednesday afternoon and is heading home to Rhode Island, a hospital spokesman said.

Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted the virus while working in Liberia as a freelance cameraman for NBC and other media outlets, was released from the Nebraska Medical Center’s biocontainment unit around 9 a.m.

He spent several hours meeting with staff members who treated him and left the hospital complex in the afternoon, spokesman Taylor Wilson said. AP

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UBLIC support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters has grown, particularly among younger people, a survey shows, underlining the difficulty for the government to resolve four weeks of demonstrations.

A public opinion poll conducted from October 8 to 15 by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and released on Wednesday showed 37.8 percent of respondents support the Occupy movement, an increase from 31.3 percent in mid-September.

“This is not surprising because the government has so mishandled the protest with police using tear gas and a sense that the government doesn’t represent Hong Kong,” said Michael Davis, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong.

The results come after Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chunying said that public patience for the demonstrations, which have blocked buildings and roads and snarled traffic, is wearing thin.

Student leaders have pledged to continue their street occupation after a first round of talks this week failed to address their demands for a freer election in 2017.

The proportion of people surveyed opposing the movement fell to 35.5 percent from 46.3 percent,

according to the poll.

Much of the movement’s support comes from the young, with 62.1 percent of respondents 15 years to 24 years of age backing the protests, compared with 28.4 percent of people in the 40 to 59 age bracket, according to the poll. In the September survey, 46.7 percent of those aged 15 to 24 supported the protests.

“The purpose of the movement is to occupy with peace and nonviolence, and this will encourage support,” 18-year-old student leader Joshua Wong said in a telephone interview when asked for his response to the poll.

Student leaders met with government officials led by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam in televised talks on October 21 that failed to produce a solution to the biggest challenge to Chinese sovereignty of Hong Kong since the end of colonial rule in 1997.

The protesters are demanding that China reverse a decision to vet candidates for the city’s leadership election in 2017 through a nominating committee. While gaining support from young people, the protesters are facing opposition from truck and cab drivers, as the roadblocks at the three protest sites have disrupted as much as 40 percent of bus routes and affected daily takings. Bloomberg

World

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series tied GIANTS SLAIN LIKE GOLIATH K

Sports BusinessMirror

ANSAS CITY, Missouri—Giants Manager Bruce Bochy signaled to his bullpen and got no relief. Over and over.

While the Kansas City Royals showed off their late-inning heat, San Francisco’s relievers melted down.

Given a sixth-inning tie to preserve, Jean Machi allowed Billy Butler’s go-ahead single. Rookie Hunter Strickland then yielded Salvador Perez’s tworun double and Omar Infante’s two-run homer in the Giants’ 7-2 loss to Kansas City on Wednesday night, which tied the World Series at one game apiece.

“Those are the matchups that we were trying to get,” Bochy said. “It just didn’t work out. It was a tough inning for us. The bullpen had a hard time.”

The lasting image of the night for the Giants was of Strickland shouting and getting into a confrontation with Perez, then being removed from the game.

“I was just frustrated with myself. I let the team down,” said Strickland, who has allowed five postseason homers after giving up three during the regular season—all at Double-A. “My emotions got to me.”

San Francisco’s bullpen had the fifth-best ERA in the majors during the regular season at 3.01, while Kansas City was 10th at 3.30. And while Santiago Casilla, Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez and Sergio Romo are among the seven players who have played in all three of the Giants’ postseason runs since 2010, there have

been signs of unsteadiness.

Jake Peavy had retired 10 in a row before Lorenzo Cain’s soft single to center leading off the sixth. Peavy walked Eric Hosmer before Machi came in, fell behind Butler 2-0 and allowed a go-ahead single to left.

Lopez retired Alex Gordon on a flyout, and Bochy brought in Strickland, who gave up Bryce Harper’s third-deck home run in the NL Division Series opener at Washington and a splash shot to Harper that landed between kayaks in McCovey Cove during Game Four. Harper shouted at Strickland that afternoon. This time, the pitcher did the yelling.

He threw a wild pitch that advanced the runners to second and third, then followed with a 97-mph fastball that Perez sent to the wall in left-center on three hops.

Two pitches later, Infante turned on a 98 mph fastball that ran back over the plate, and Perez deposited it into the left-field bullpen. Strickland shouted at himself, which caught Perez’s attention and caused him to shout back.

“I’m not going to back down from anything,” Strickland said, explaining why he in turn screamed at Perez.

The benches emptied. No punches were thrown.

Strickland was replaced by Jeremy Affeldt, making the Giants the third team to use five pitchers in a Series inning after a pair of teams in Game Sevens, Baltimore in 1979 and Saint Louis in 1985.

“I think it was just frustration on his part,” Bochy

said. “It’s intense out there. He’s an intense kid, and it probably got away from him a little bit.... It’s a big stage. A lot of emotions are going to be shown in these games, and the kid was frustrated. He’ll be back out there.”

By that time, the game had gotten away from San Francisco, along with the chance to become the first World Series team since the 1999 New York Yankees to open with a pair of road wins.

Tim Lincecum—remember him?—got in the game in the seventh and left with tightness in his left lower back while pitching to Perez with two outs in the eighth. The two-time NL Cy Young Award winner was demoted to the bullpen in August because of ineffectiveness and hadn’t pitched since the regular-season finale on September 28.

“We’re just going to treat it, see how it feels tomorrow,” Lincecum said. “But right now it feels pretty stiff.”

Unlike two years ago against Detroit, the Giants won’t sweep.

Now the Series is even as San Francisco returns home for the weekend.

“We knew coming in,” Michael Morse said, “it wasn’t going to be easy.” AP Giants’ (from left) Buster Posey, Brandon Belt »andTHEHunter Pence watch helplessly from the dugout

SERIES TIED »

KANSAS City Royals’ Alcides Escobar (2), Jarrod Dyson, Omar Infante and Lorenzo Cain (6) celebrate their Game Two victory. AP

By Dave Skretta The Associated Press

ANSAS CITY, Missouri—Salvador Perez shouted at Hunter Strickland, who shouted right back. The Kansas City Royals streamed from their dugout, the San Francisco Giants from their own. And for a tense moment in the sixth inning on Wednesday night, Kauffman Stadium was consumed by chaos.

The one thing that was clear? The World Series suddenly had some life.

Perez broke open Game Two with a two-run double in a five-run sixth, and the Royals’ cast of clutch relievers kept the Giants in check for a 7-2 victory that leveled the Series and spiced things up as it shifts to San Francisco for three games.

“We showed them that we have fight in us, and I think they knew that already,” said Billy Butler, whose RBI single in the sixth inning gave the Royals a 3-2 lead.

“But we stepped up big there as a team, and that gave us some confidence.”

Jeremy Guthrie will be on the mound on Friday night for the Royals, who had won eight straight playoff games before a 7-1 loss in the opener. Tim Hudson will start for San Francisco.

“With their pitching and our pitching, and the way both teams play, we’re going

to have a fight, I think, every game,” Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said.

So much talk of fighting after the two teams nearly came to blows on Wednesday.

The Royals had surged ahead on Butler’s single when Perez followed with a double off Strickland into the leftfield gap. Omar Infante then scorched a pitch into the bullpen in left, the fifth homer that Strickland had allowed to 23 postseason batters.

Boiling over with anger, Strickland yelled into his glove then got into a shouting match with Perez as the big, burly catcher headed for home. Players spilled out of both dugouts, and several Royals streamed in from the outfield bullpen before the umpires finally restored order.

“He started to look at me, so I asked him like, ‘Hey, why you look at me?’” Perez said. “So he was telling me, ‘Get out of here, whatever.’ So I don’t know. ‘You don’t have to treat me like that. Look at Omar. Omar hit a bomb. I didn’t hit a bomb. I hit a double.’”

Strickland said he simply let his frustration get to him.

“I let the team down,” he said. “My emotions got to me.”

With his 100 mph fastball singeing the Giants’ batters, Royals flamethrower Yordano Ventura allowed two runs while pitching into the sixth inning. The 23-yearold protege of Pedro Martinez hardly

looked like the first rookie to make a World Series start for the Royals, calmly handling a lineup that had ravaged staff ace James Shields.

The dynamic trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland did the rest.

Herrera got the final two outs of the sixth to escape a jam, his first three pitches clocking at least 100 mph. He also survived a shaky seventh before Davis breezed through the eighth.

Greg Holland, who saved each game in the Royals’ sweep of Baltimore in the AL Championship Series, allowed a twoout single to Brandon Crawford before fanning Gregor Blanco to end the game.

The Giants’ only runs came on a homer

by Blanco and a double by Brandon Belt, their streak of seven straight World Series wins ending on a crisp, breezy night.

“For us to leave here with a split, you like to get greedy,” Bochy said, “but we know it’s going to be a tough series.”

Early on, it looked as if the Giants could have a big lead heading back to the Bay Area.

The fleet-footed Blanco silenced a rollicking sea of blue, becoming the 10th player to open a World Series game with a home run. He deposited Ventura’s 98-mph fastball in the bullpen in right field, just his 17th home run in more than 2,300 at-bats.

The crowd, energized from the

moment that Hall of Famer George Brett delivered the ceremonial first pitch, was left waiting for something good to happen for the second straight night.

This time, the scrappy Royals gave it to them.

ALCS MVP Lorenzo Cain stretched a two-out double later in the first, and Eric Hosmer walked on four pitches. Butler, Giants starter Jake Peavy’s longtime nemesis, then bounced a single past the outstretched glove of Crawford at shortstop to knot the game 1-all.

The Royals kept the pressure on in second. Infante doubled over the head of Travis Ishikawa in left field, and Escobar sliced a two-out double down the rightfield line to give Kansas City a 2-1 lead, its first in the World Series since Game Seven in 1985.

The Giants, so accustomed to October baseball, refused to back down.

Belt tied it in the fourth with a double that bounced off Nori Aoki’s glove in right field.

The game was still knotted at 2 when the Royals got their first two batters aboard in the sixth. Bochy pulled the fiery Peavy. Butler promptly hit a go-ahead single off Jean Machi, and Strickland came in two batters later.

From there, well, the Royals showed they still had plenty of fight left.

Sports

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GROWTH THROUGH INFRA SPENDING Public Works Secretary Rogelio L. Singson (left) answers questions on the topic “Driving Growth through Infrastructure Spending” during the Philippine Investment Conference: Sustaining the Economic Growth Momentum held in Makati City. Also in the photo are panelists Finance Undersecretary Jose Emmanuel Reverente (center) and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy Governor for the Monetary Stability Sector Diwa C. Guinigundo. Alysa Salen

Avid sales up 37% ASIA NEEDS TO COORDINATE on sustained strong POLICIES AS GROWTH SLOWS PC, LCV demand A

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during the seventh inning of Game Two. AP

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commodity prices,” BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said.

Tetangco said the risks to the inflation outlook are now “broadly balanced” and compares more favorably against an earlier assessment in which the risk to inflation was “skewed toward the upside.”

He said potential price pressures coming from pending petitions for adjustments in utility rates and possible price shortages will be mitigated by the uneven growth of those countries to which the Philippines has significant trade and investment relations, such as the United See “BSP,” A8

By Catherine N. Pillas

| Friday, OCtOber 24, 2014 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

The Royals’ cast of clutch relievers keeps the Giants in check for a 7-2 victory to level the World Series and spice things up as the duel shifts to San Francisco for three games.

By Bianca Cuaresma

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SHOOTING RAMPAGE WAS TERRORISM

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

nflation was seen moderating over the next 18 to 24 months—enough to warrant a scaledown in forecast inflation to only 4.4 percent this year from 4.5 percent when this was first projected in September—the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Thursday.

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way, he’ll go on a tangent you’ll have no ability to follow.”

She laughed. “I think he’s wired differently than a lot of us, and as much as he makes attempts every day to be a linear thinker, it’s really not his default setting”. She added, “It’s really exciting for everyone else, but I think it can sometimes be exhausting for him.”

(Of Susan Downey, pregnant with the couple’s second child and his guide and producer in more tangible Hollywood ways, Robert Downey said, “My wife points true north. People think she’s Spock with [breasts], and what she presents to the world is a very structured personality, but she’s this highly intuitive, creative person.”)

In fact, Susan pushed The Judge in the midst of all the Iron Man madness several years ago—Dobkin had devised the idea after the death of his mother and thought Downey would be the perfect man to play a sharpie brought low—even as the actor told his wife that he didn’t want to reprise a legal role after doing that in True Believer and Ally McBeal. She persisted, and eventually persuaded him.

With its swings between heavy-lidded drama and glib comedy, The Judge has a schizophrenic quality that has polarized some viewers. That took particular shape in a bathroom scene that was maligned by some at Toronto. In the scene, breaking from some of the Downey-like one-liners that came not long before, Hank and Duvall’s judge, who is suffering from a terminal illness, have at it emotionally. The scene ends when Hank holds his father as the latter loses control of his bodily functions.

Perhaps because he produced and helped shape the movie, or perhaps because he’s simply invested in this career phase in a different way these days, Downey offers an impassioned defense of the scene.

“It’s meant to be disquieting, not graphic; the judge is meant to be completely exposed in that moment,” he said. “Someone you have a hot, contested relationship and can plunge the dagger in, and in the midst of that moment something like that happens. I can tell you, something like that has happened a half-dozen times in my life and no matter how much friction you have with someone, if they’re metaphorically bleeding you tend to them.”

As an old-school piece, The Judge stands in sharp contrast to the slick entertainment of modern Hollywood, and you can imagine someone who wants to get a away from that kind of moviemaking while at the same time not descending into preciousness (“Beware the passion project,” Downey said, making a cross with his fingers) choosing exactly this kind of zeitgeist denial.

Downey has, indeed, gone against Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes type with this film—not by returning to the hard-boiled Less Than Zero or the quiet charms of Chaplin of his early career but by heading to a time when tentpole entertainment was about emotional fireworks, not whiz-bang effects. Downey calls the film “a really nice, long intermission between outright capitalism.”

So can he do it? Can Downey play someone different from who he’s been, when his private skills and public personality are so bound up with one another, when his Downey-ness is so embedded in our culture?

He and Susan believe he can. Even as Team Downey develops Sherlock Holmes 3, there’s a project about the World War II naval carrier the Indianapolis and a new take on Pinocchio in the works, and other movies that Downey could produce or act in or even write, as well as several TV dramas the company is developing. Downey talks of himself as “coming from a world of off-Broadway that closes after one night.” He described a meeting with Robert Redford recently in which Redford talked about suffering on an independent film. “And my reaction was, ‘I want that.’”

“He has a unique vision and I think we’ve only scratched the surface of it,” Susan Downey said of her husband.

Or as it sounds in Downey-speak: “It’s interesting. There’s an opportunity in placing your worth just slightly out of your own skin, and wanting to prolong a projection of what you represent in an industry instead of saying, ‘This too shall pass.’ But my biological clock is running the show. I’m turning 50 next year, and maybe there’s a few more in me. [But] time is the only nonnegotiable integer.”

Then he takes a pause to go linear. “I think it would be a shame if I squandered whatever opportunity has arisen by just playing it safe.” ■

Friday, October 24, 2014 Vol. 10 No. 16

2014-2016 inflation forecast cut

robert downey jr. sheds the superhero mask D

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MONETARY SETTINGS KEPT AS B.S.P. SEES PRICE PRESSURES EASING

INSIDE

EAR Lord, it is now my 11th day vacationing at Small Mountain Road, Wapwallopen, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. I am staying with my best friend in college UST way back in 1965. Our deep spirituality set our dedication to give our all at work. In 1969 she left for the US. I was in La Salle Green Hills as a teacher. We both made names in our profession as truly dedicated professionals working for the glory of God. More than four decades, we surpassed many trials in life.

We remain loyal to the Father and He gave us our families experiencing love, peace, hope and unity to this day. My prayers will lead me to where God wants after my vacation. Amen.

A broader look at today’s business

ales of vehicle importers and distributors surged by 37 percent in September, credited to the strong demand for both passenger cars (PC) and light commercial vehicles (LCV).

The Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors (Avid), in a statement released on Thursday, said the group’s members collectively sold 3,043 units in September from only 2,227 units sold in the same month last year.

Avid said PC sales increased by 38 percent to 1,703 units against the year-ago figure of 1,230 units.

September’s haul brought total PC sales in the first See “Avid,” A2

PESO exchange rates n US 44.7790

sia-Pacific economies need to recalibrate financial policies in the face of slowing global growth, United States Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin said on Wednesday, following a meeting of regional financial officials to prepare for next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.

Countries in the region are looking to boost financing for the construction of roads, bridges and other necessary infrastructure and will submit proposals to do so to the summit, which will be in Beijing. Figures showing lower Chinese growth announced this week have raised concerns about negative effects on the global economy and highlighted the need for coordinated action.

“Global demand is slowing and it is going to be something that we as a group of countries are going to need to pay particular attention to,” Raskin said at a Continued on A8

Govt to bid out over 10 PPPs in next 12 months

By Cai U. Ordinario

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he government may start the bidding process for more than 10 public-private partnership (PPP) projects in the next 12 months, according to PPP Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao.

The PPP deals to be bid out, Canilao said, include major rail and transportation projects to be undertaken by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and major road projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

“We do now have a very robust

CANILAO: “We do now have a very robust pipeline and, out of that pipeline, we’ve identified several projects that we intend to rollout in the next 12 months.”

pipeline and, out of that pipeline, we’ve identified several projects that we intend to roll out in the next 12 months. Included there are major See “PPPs,” A8

n japan 0.4180 n UK 71.8658 n HK 5.7729 n CHINA 7.3186 n singapore 35.1898 n australia 39.4459 n EU 56.6186 n SAUDI arabia 11.9366 Source: BSP (23 October 2014)

A2

News BusinessMirror

Friday, October 24, 2014

news@businessmirror.com.ph

SC: Facebook photos not covered by right to privacy

By Joel R. San Juan

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from attending the graduation rites of STC on March 30, 2012, four decided to pursue the case before the court. However, two eventually withdrew their lawsuits after reaching an amicable settlement with STC officials.

In their writ of habeas data petition, the parents asked the court to surrender the photos of the students, which STC officials “illegally” downloaded from the students’ Facebook account. They insisted that Escudero violated their children’s right to privacy when she accessed their Facebook accounts, downloaded copies of the pictures and showed the photos to school administrators.

They noted that the action was a breach of the minors’ privacy since their Facebook accounts were under very private or only friends setting safeguarded with a password.

They added that their children’s disclosure was only limited since their profiles were not open to public viewing, thus, people who are not their Facebook friends, including the respondents, are barred from accessing the post without their knowledge and consent.

HE Supreme Court (SC) reminded users of social-networking sites to be cautious of the risks in engaging in cyberspace activities, as it denied the petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas data filed by the parents of two students of Saint Theresa’s College (STC) who were barred from attending their high-school graduation rites in March 2012.

In an 18-page ruling penned by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., the SC’s Third Division held that the trial court did not err when it decided that the STC and its computer teacher Mylene Rheza Escudero did not violate the right to privacy of the sanctioned students when the school used their Facebook photos as basis in taking action against them.

The STC officials described the photos as “lewd, obscene and immoral.”

The SC did not give credence to the claim of the petitioners— Rhonda Ave Vinares and spouses Margarita and David Suzara—that the Facebook accounts of their children were set on “very private” or “friends only” settings and are safeguarded with password.

Thus, they said, the students have a reasonable expectation that their privacy will be respected.

Of the five girls that were barred

PSA. . . continued from a8

which are part of the data. In my personal opinion, in the Philippines the first big data or data revolution that PSA should look into are the administrative records,” Bersales said.

Meanwhile, Bersales welcomed the recommendations on the latest study conducted by Paris21 on the Philippine Statistical System and the PSA. The recommendations include the need to produce timely statistics and provide additional data sets on various sectors such as migrant workers,

business and enterprises, traffic, women and maternal mortality, localized data for various provinces and regions, and other sectors.

“We are listening to this report. [The PSA is] seriously addressing one by one these concerns even as we are in transition mode,” Bersales said.

“Yes, the PSA is committed to be part of the innovations, how to use, utilize big data and ride on the data revolution to make our statistics relevant.”

The PSA was created through the passage of the

They also asked the school to identify all persons who saw the photos and to identify the persons in actual possession and control of the photos.

A writ of habeas data is a legal remedy available to any person whose right to privacy in life, liberty or security is violated.

It grants the petitioner a chance to question the data and to seek its “updating, rectification, or destruction.”

But the SC held that the petitioners failed to present evidence to prove their children’s right to privacy was violated by the respondents.

“Without proof that they placed the photographs subject of this case within the ambit of their protected zone of privacy, they cannot now insist that they have an expectation of privacy with respect to the photographs in question,” the SC ruled.

It gave more weight to the testimony of Escudero, who claimed it was her students who showed her the pictures of the girls clad in brassieres, smoking inside a bar and drinking hard liquor.

Escudero further claimed that these students logged on their Facebook accounts and accessed from there the various photographs of

Philippine Statistical Act of 2013, which merged all the government’s statistical agencies, namely, the National Statistics Office, the Technical Staff of the National Statistical Coordination Board, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics and the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics.

The data produced by the PSA serve as the central statistical authority of the Philippine government on primary data collection. It also administers civil-registration functions in the country.

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

TODAY’S WEATHER

OCTOBER 24, 2014 | FRIDAY

Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is the result of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere tradewind convergence; widespread cloudiness, occasional thunderstorms, precipitation and moderate to strong surface winds are associated weather conditions.

23 – 32°C

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NORTHEAST MONSOON AFECTING EXTREME NORTHERN LUZON. (AS OF OCTOBER 23, 5:00 PM)

TUGUEGARAO

24 – 32°C

23 – 32°C

nine months to 14,050 units. This is a 19-percent increase from the PC sales in the same period last year.

Sales of LCV, meanwhile, grew 35 percent to 1,340 units in September.

Total LCV sales in the January-to-September period reached 12,963 units, reflecting an 18-percent improvement over the 11,020 units sold by impor ters a nd

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TAGAYTAY CITY 23° – 28°C

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PHILIPPINE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (PAR)

distributors in the same period in 2013.

The combined LCV and PC yearto-date sales reached 27,013 units, higher by 19 percent from last year’s 22,785 units. Ma. Fe PerezAgudo, Avid president, attributed the double-digit growth to the sustained demand for brands of Avid member-organizations.

METRO CEBU

22 – 28°C

22 – 29°C

ILOILO/ BACOLOD 24 – 30°C

TACLOBAN CITY 25 – 32°C

PUERTO PRINCESA

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SUNRISE

SUNSET

MOONSET

MOONRISE

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LEGAZPI CITY 26 – 32°C

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY 24 – 32°C

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

METRO DAVAO

TUGUEGARAO CITY 24 – 32°C

METRO MANILA 23 – 32°C

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Avid. . . continued from a1

ITCZ AFFECTING MINDANAO.

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

LAOAG CITY 23 – 32°C

OCT 25

users ‘befriend’ other users who are total stranger and a user’s Facebook account can share the former’s post or tag to others who are not their Facebook friends with the former, despite its being visible only to his or her own Facebook friends.”

“Also, when the post is shared or when a person is tagged, the respective Facebook friends of the person who shared the post or who was tagged can view the post, the privacy setting of which was set at ‘friends,’” the SC ruled.

In resolving the case, the Court reminded social-networking users to be cautious and aware of the risks that they expose themselves to whenever they engage in cyberspace activities.

“Furthermore, and more important, information, otherwise private, voluntarily surrendered by them can be opened, read, or copied by third parties who may or may not be allowed access to such,” the SC said.

Concurring with the ruling were Associate Justices Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Martin Villarama Jr., Bienvenido Reyes and Francis Jardeleza.

the subject students.

“In this regard, we cannot give much weight to the minors’ testimonies for one key reason: failure to question the students’ act of showing the photos to [Kristine Rose] Tigol, [STC’s discipline-in-charge] disproves their allegation that the photos were viewable only by the five of them,” the SC explained.

“Respondents were mere recipients of what were posted. They did not resort to any unlawful means of gathering the information as it was voluntarily given to them by persons who had legitimate access to the said posts. Clearly, the fault, if any, lies with the friends of the minors. Curiously enough, however, neither the minors nor their parents imputed any violation of privacy against the students who showed the images to Escudero.

The Court also ruled that even if the photos are viewable by “friends only,” such setting does not assure absolute privacy.

The SC said the digital images under the setting “remain to be outside the confines of the zones of privacy” since “a good number of Facebook

24 – 31°C

NEW MOON HALF MOON

OCT 24

5:57 AM

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25 – 32°C

OCT 30

10:48 PM

LOW TIDE

HIGH TIDE

MANILA BAY

4:36 AM

0.05 METER

10:08 PM

0.92 METER

25 – 32°C Partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rain showers and/or thunderstorms

METRO CEBU 25 – 31°C CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 24 – 31°C ZAMBOANGA CITY 24 – 32°C

ILOILO/ BACOLOD

Cloudy skies with rain showers and/or thunderstorms.

24 – 31°C

25 – 31°C

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Partly cloudy to at times cloudy with rain showers.

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

METRO DAVAO 23 – 32°C

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Palace to review BIR plan to raise ‘sin’ tax rates

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By Butch Fernandez

alacañang will first undertake a review of Revenue Commissioner Kim JacintoHenares’s plan to raise existing “sin” tax rates on cigarettes and alcoholic drinks before it could be enforced.

Communications Secretar y Herminio B. Coloma Jr. told reporters on Thursday the process requires that such upward tax adjustments are submitted to the Office of the President prior to its implementation.

Coloma added that as far as he knows, the proposed sin-tax raise has not reached that stage yet.

“Aalamin muna natin ang hinggil diyan dahil sa aking pagkabatid ay

hindi pa naman ito inihahain sa level ng Tanggapan ng Pangulo,” he said.

The Palace official explained that measures that impact on government revenue must first be tackled within the Department of Finance.

“Pangkaraniwan na ang mga bagay na ’yan na mayroong implikasyon sa revenue ay binubuo muna sa Department of Finance dahil ’yung BIR [Bureau of Internal Revenue] ay kasama sa Department of Finance,” he said.

Under the sin-tax law, also known as Republic Act 10351, a congressional committee is also empowered to conduct periodic review implementation of the sin tax passed in 2012, as well as its impact on affected industries.

The BIR earlier reported that higher sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol products increased to P51.2 billion their 2013 collections from cigarettes and alcoholic drinks.

House bill seeks to amend cabotage law

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priority measure of President Aquino that aims to liberalize the entry of foreign vessels between ports in the country has been filed recently at the House of Representatives.

House Bill (HB) 5109, authored by Nacionalista Party Rep. Mark Villar of Las Piñas City, seeks to assist importers and exporters in enhancing their competitiveness amid intensifying international trade and to lower the cost of shipping export cargo from Philippine ports to international ports and import cargoes from international ports.

President Aquino, in his 2013 State

of the Nation Address, pressed the Congress to amend the cabotage law to lower the cost of transport of agricultural goods.

Moreover, under the bill, liberalization means that the right to engage in carriage of cargoes shall not be limited to vessels carrying a Certificate of Philippine Registry, provided that said cargoes fall within the purview of import and export cargoes.

The measure said a foreign container van carrying foreign cargo arriving from a foreign port on a foreign vessel, such foreign vessel, after being cleared at its port of entry, shall be allowed to

carry the foreign container van to its domestic port of final destination, and may be carried by another foreign vessel calling at the same port of entry to the domestic port of final destination of such foreign cargo.

It added that a foreign container van carrying foreign cargo intended for export may be carried on a foreign vessel from its domestic port of origin through another Philippine port to its foreign port of final destination, and through a domestic transshipment port and transferred at such domestic transshipment port to another foreign vessel, which shall carry it to its foreign port of final destination.

It said that a foreign vessel engaged in any of the foregoing instances shall also be allowed to car r y such

other cargo to and from any of the domestic ports where the foreign vessel loads or unloads its foreign cargo, provided, that one of the domestic ports where such foreign vessel is coming to or going from is either Port of Subic or Port of Batangas.

In filing the bill, Villar, also chairman of the House Committee on Trade and Industry, said the bill, filed on October 16, seeks to exempt the carriage of container vans from the provisions of Section 1009 of Presidential Decree 1474, otherwise known as the Tariff and Customs Code of 1978, and for other purposes.

“Various studies showed that the high cost of domestic shipping services is attributed to the lack of meaningful competition in the industry. In fact, recent data from the Maritime Industry Authority provide evidence of concentration of domestic operation in the hands of few players, and this lack of compe-

tition is exacerbated by a restrictive cabotage policy as foreign vessels are not allowed to engage in interisland shipping,” he said.

According to Villar, the liberalization of the carriage of cargoes by foreign vessels within Philippine waters will ultimately benefit the Filipino people.

Earlier, Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro filed the coastwise trade bill or HB 1789, which also intends to promote competition in the shipping industry by allowing foreign vessels to transport passengers and cargoes between ports within the country’s waters.

Rodriguez added that the move to liberalize the country’s cabotage law is a key to lower the transport cost of agricultural and industrial products, spurring tourism, and increasing port revenues through the entry of foreign vessel operators. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Poor nations cutting hunger rates–IFPRI

By Marvyn N. Benaning Correspondent

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OOR nations are gaining in the battle against hunger, says a team of experts who wrote about the 2014 Global Hunger Index (GHI) for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI.) The authors—Klaus von Grebner, Amy Saltzman, Ekin Birol, Doris Wiesman, Nilam Prasai, Sandra Yin, Yisehac Yohannes, Purnima Menon, Jennifer Thompson and Andrea Sonntag—said the development is most welcome since it comes a year before the deadline for these countries to achieve their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs.) Moreover, it shows that the reduction of hunger incidence reveals a more equitable distribution of food or a decent increase in yields, primarily of staple food.

IFPRI has been concerned with how the planet could produce enough food for billions but since 2010, it has focused its attention on nonagricultural means to rationalize the distribution of food and nutrition.

The latest recommendations put forward in GHI 2014 have become political, with the authors of the report recommending nutrition as a priority, educating and empowering girls, strengthening social safety nets, cracking down on corruption, and requiring food companies to provide nutritional information.

“IFPRI is not restricting the focus to agriculture. In fact, agriculture gets only passing mention in these recommendations.

And that’s surprising, because the institute is part of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, known as CGIAR. CGIAR was born in the Green Revolution with a mandate to develop agricultural innovations that prevent famine,” noted environmental writer Nathanael Johnson on the latest report.

MDGs are a set of socioeconomic goals set by the United Nations (UN) to halve hunger and poverty incidence, improve school attendance and reduce infant and maternal mortality.

Hunger reduction is invariably related to higher food production and increased incomes for the more than 2 billion people on the planet considered to be dirt-poor.

IFPRI said the 2014 Global Hunger Index report “offers a multifaceted overview of global hunger that brings new insights to the global debate on where to focus efforts in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.”

“The state of hunger in developing countries as a group has improved since 1990, falling by 39 percent, according to the GHI 2014. Despite progress made, the level of hunger in the world is still ‘serious,’ with 805 million people continuing to go hungry, according to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,” IFPRI said.

“The global average obscures dramatic differences across regions and countries. Regionally, the highest GHI scores—and therefore the highest hunger levels—are in Africa south of the Sahara and South Asia, which have also experienced the greatest absolute improvements since 2005. South Asia saw the steepest absolute decline in GHI scores since 1990. Progress in addressing child underweight was the main factor behind the improved GHI score for the region since 1990,” the 2014 GHI authors said.

“From the 1990 GHI to the GHI 2014, 26 countries reduced their scores by 50 percent or more. In terms of absolute progress, comparing the 1990 GHI and the 2014 GHI, Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chad, Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Thailand and

Vietnam saw the biggest improvements in scores,” they added.

Levels of hunger are “extremely alarming” or ‘alarming’ in 16 countries, with Burundi and Eritrea both classified as ‘extremely alarming,’ according to the 2014 GHI. Most of the countries with ‘alarming’ GHI scores are in Africa south of the Sahara. Unlike many other countries south of the Sahara, where hunger has been decreasing, Swaziland is an exception. It suffered the biggest increase in a GHI score between the 1990 GHI and the 2014 GHI. Reliable data for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia, however, are sorely lacking,” the authors noted.

They stressed that the fight, however, must be directed at hidden hunger—also called micronutrient deficiency—which affects some 2 billion people around the world.

With scarce supply of essential vitamins and minerals, the impact of hidden hunger can be irreversible and adverse health effects as well as socioeconomic consequences that stunt individual well-being and development.

Hidden hunger’s toll on national economies can be great, the authors claimed.

“Hidden hunger can coexist with adequate or even excessive consumption of dietary energy from macronutrients, such as fats and carbohydrates, and therefore also with overweight /obesity in one person or community. Poor diet, disease, impaired absorption and increased micronutrient needs during certain life stages, such as pregnancy, lactation and infancy, are among the causes of hidden hunger, which may ‘invisibly’ affect the health and development of a population,” the authors stressed.

“Possible solutions to hidden hunger include food-based approaches: Dietary diversification, which might involve growing more diverse crops in a home garden; fortification of commercial foods; and biofortification, in which food crops are bred with increased micronutrient content,” they said.

“Food-based measures will require long-term, sustained and coordinated efforts to make a lasting difference. In the short term, vitamin and mineral supplements can help vulnerable populations combat hidden hunger,” the report maintained.

“Along with these solutions that address the low content or density of vitamins and minerals in food, behavioral change communication is critical to educate people about health services, sanitation and hygiene, and caring practices, as well as the need for greater empowerment of women at all levels,” the GHI 2014 addded.

“To eliminate hidden hunger, governments must demonstrate political commitment by making fighting it a priority.

Governments and multilateral institutions need to invest in and develop human and financial resources, increase coordination, and ensure transparent monitoring and evaluation to build capacity on nutrition,” it noted.

“Governments must also create a regulatory environment that values good nutrition. This could involve creating incentives for private sector companies to develop more nutritious seeds or foods,” the authors stressed.

“Transparent accountability systems are needed in order to ensure that investments contribute to public health, while standardized data collection on micronutrient deficiencies can build the evidence base on the efficacy and cost effectiveness of food-based solutions. These and other recommendations set out in this report are some of the steps needed to eliminate hidden hunger. Ending hunger in all its forms is possible. It must now become a reality,” the authors said.

briefs house panel: i.l.p. not enough to avert 2015 summer power shortage THE chairman of the House Committee on Energy on Thursday said that the panel will consider the statement of President Aquino, saying this time that the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) may not be enough to address the looming power shortage in the summer next year.

Liberal Party Rep. Reynaldo Umali of Oriental Mindoro, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and cochairman of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC), said that besides the ILP, the lower chamber is still considering other options to avert the Department of Energy’s projected 678 MW power-supply deficit in 2015.

“We will look again into the views of the President. The committee will consider his statement and we can assure him and the public that we will work on emergency powers that are enough to address the power [shortage] in 2015. Maybe the technical working group will meet instead of conducting a regular hearing,” Umali said.

On Wednesday President Aquino, during the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap) forum, said that ILP is good but “these standby generators for the most part have never been considered as baseload plants.”

But according to Umali, Mr. Aquino’s emergency powers will include 847 megawatts (MW) from ILP, 264 MW from power plants for interconnection as disclosed by Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), 690 MW from committed power plants and various energy- conservation measures.

Based on the latest draft of the House resolution, authorizing Mr. Aquino to establish additional generating capacity to effectively address the projected electricity shortage in 2015, the Department of Energy (DOE) projects a critical power shortage estimated at 700 MW to occur in March to July 2015, consisting of 14 weeks yellow alert and two weeks of red alert for a total of 16 weeks of approximately one hour of brownouts for one day per week.

It said that provision and procurement of additional generation capacity shall be available on or before March 1, 2015, and the additional generating capacity shall be preferentially sourced from the ILP. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

zambales group deplores nonpayment of mining damages

SANTA CRUZ, Zambales—A group calling for an end to destructive mining practices in this municipality has urged the government to facilitate the payment of compensation to residents whose properties and sources of livelihood were adversely affected by nickel mining operations here.

According to the Concerned Citizens of Santa Cruz, Zambales (CCOS), the group had filed a claim for compensation on behalf of the affected residents as early as November 2012 but this has not yet been acted upon by concerned offices.

“Four years after their farms and one year after their fishponds were buried with nickel laterite, farmers and fishpond operators have yet to receive any single centavo for the loss of their income,” said Dr. Benito Molino, who sits as CCOS chairman.

“This is justice delayed and justice denied,” Molino said in a news statement released to the media on Wednesday. “The people have lost their income since 2011.

Justice is overdue. The government should order the payment of all affected peoples of Santa Cruz now,” he added.

Molino said the problem started about eight years ago when A3UNA, which was later renamed Shangfil, began mining for nickel in the foothills of Santa Cruz. Soon enough, four other firms followed suit. Henry Empeño

Economy

BusinessMirror Friday, October 24, 2014 A5

EU eyeing enhanced trade, investment ties with PHL

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B L D. V |Philippines News Agency

UROPEAN Union (EU) countries are keen on enhancing trade and investment ties with the Philippines through the adoption of trade-facilitation measures and customs modernization.

Ambassador of the EU to the Philippines Guy Ledoux is optimistic that more European companies will consider locating to the Philippines and contribute to help create jobs and added value to its economy.

“Trade facilitation is the oil that makes our trade and investment machine work—let’s make this a joint effort!” Ledoux said during the 40th Philippine Business Conference on Thursday.

He noted that implementing the trade-facilitation agreement that was agreed in Bali, Indonesia, last year would support trade in goods by improving transparency, streamlining customs procedures and eliminating red tape.

“The benefits of trade facilitation are enormous and might even be more important than a further reduction of import tariffs. For example, revenue loss from inefficient border procedures is estimate to be above 5 percent of gross domestic product in some countries,” he said.

The Philippines has submitted an ambitious schedule for implementing the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade-facilitation agreement.

However, the ambassador lamented that some WTO members seem to stall on the progress made in Bali.

“I hope the Philippines will choose to implement its commitments with or without the adoption of the WTO protocol. As you know, the EU is ready to support with technical cooperation as we have done in the past,” Ledoux said.

Ledoux underscored the importance of fast-tracking the passage of important Customs Modernisation and Tariff Act (CMTA) that includes numerous provisions of the trade-facilitation agreement.

He said the CMTA would support intellectual-property rights (IPR) enforcement, trade data collection, risk management linked to post-clearance audit and automation through a national single window.

“Customs modernization and trade facilitation are not limited by the adoption of the WTO trade-facilitation agreement,” the ambassador added.

In January to June this year, trade between the EU and the Philippines increased by 21 percent to $7 billion.

On the other hand, the EU supplies about 30 percent of total foreign direct investments to the Philippines, providing over 400,000 jobs.

Bill to raise tax exemption on workers’ bonuses up for Senate plenary debates

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BILL increasing the tax ceiling on bonuses, particularly the 13th-month pay, has finally reached the Senate plenary.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto sponsored Senate Bill 2437 under Committee Report 84 on Wednesday night in the hope of approving the measure before December.

“In its enrolled form, this bill can be our Christmas card to them,” Recto said in his sponsorship speech.

Recto said the bill is another form of solution on how to combat high prices of commodities, particularly during Christmas season.

“Lower price tags can’t be legislated, but there’s something else we can do to ease the plight of our consumers and, perhaps, add a little cheer to their Christmas, and that is to pass this law,” Recto said.

The bill, co-authored by Senators Lito Lapid and Juan Edgardo Angara, will raise the annual tax-exemption ceiling on employee bonuses, 13th-month pay and allow-

ances to P75,000 from the current threshold of P30,000.

Recto said changing the current limit is long overdue “as it was pegged 20 years and three presidents ago, and has been eroded by inflation.”

He said the P30,000 ceiling was first introduced in 1994 upon the effectivity of Republic Act 7833, when the basic salary scale of state employees was only P2,800 and the salary of the Philippine president was only P25,000 per month.

Today a government employee with Salary Grade (SG) 1 receives a minimum of P10,800, while those with the highest SG get a P144,000 monthly salary.

The 1997 National Internal Revenue Code Section 32(B) Chapter VI states that private and government employees having bonuses beyond P30,000 were automatically subjected to income tax.

Recto said the measure seeks to shatter the threshold of P30,000 so that bonuses and allowances up to P75,000 would be exempt from income tax. PNA

Palace insists outlawed DAP boosted economy B B F

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ESPITE persistent criticisms that many of the multibillionpeso fund releases covered projects that were not seen to prime the economy, Malacañang insisted on Thursday that the outlawed Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) “helped spur economic growth.”

Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. reminded reporters at a Palace briefing that no less than President Aquino himself had repeatedly affirmed that the implementation of the DAP, which

the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled as unconstitutional, boosted government efforts to improve the economy.

Coloma also cited the World Bank’s acknowledgement that the DAP benefited the economy.

“Makailang pagkakataon ng ipinahayag mismo ng Pangulo ang kanyang paninindigan na nakabuti ang DAP sa pagtamo ng layunin na pabilisin ang pag-unlad ng ating bansa habang ito ay ipinapatupad,” Coloma said.

The Palace official downplayed findings by the Commission on Audit (COA) that the DAP, purported to be

an economic-stimulus scheme, was actually “ineffective” as the multibillion-peso funds released under the program, particularly to governmentowned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs), were not properly used.

The COA’s 2013 Annual Financial Report also directed at least four GOCCs to refund over P2.4 billion in unused funds supposed to have been disbursed for fast-moving projects.

But Coloma pointed out that under existing rules, the GOCCs, before being ordered to return the DAP funds, should first be given time to explain the audit findings.

Turnover of Angat hydropower plant to K-Water set on Oct. 31

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HE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.

(PSALM) said on Thursday that the 218-megawatt (MW) Angat hydroelectric power plant will finally be turned over to its new owner Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-Water) on October 31.

“The closing ceremony is at the end of this month. Everything was already agreed [upon],” PSALM

President Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said.

K-Water, in April 2010, won the bid to privatize the facility. It placed a bid of $440.8 million. It was supposed to take over the facility late last year.

Upon closing of the sale, the National Power Corp. would no longer operate the facility. PSALM is the agency overseeing the privatization

of Napocor’s assets.

The delay was brought about by various regulatory approvals, including the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP) green light for K-Water’s loan application. Out of the $440-million payment, $340 million is the subject of the BSP application.

Also, a dispute between PSALM and the former employees of Napocor adversely affected the sup-

posed closing of the sale of the power facility.

Ledesma earlier said that K-Water received a notice of garnishment from the Quezon City Regional Trial Court’s sheriffs pursuant to the Supreme Court (SC) decision on June 30.

The SC lifted the garnishment order on September 10 following the motion for reconsideration

sought by PSALM. Ledesma welcomed the lifting of the notice of garnishment because this allows it to continue operating its plants and pay off its debts.

Included in the garnishment order was the fee for the Angat facility. That garnishment order was lifted, though. However, the period within which to draw down the loan has already expired. Thus,

K-Water sought for an extension from the BSP. There was also a case filed by non-governmental organizations questioning the constitutionality of the transaction with the SC. This, likewise, delayed the turnover of the assets to K-Water. The High Court eventually upheld the sale of the Angat power plant to the Korean company. Lenie Lectura

Opinion BusinessMirror

A6 Friday, October 24, 2014

Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay

editorial

Are economic-growth estimates useful?

I

MAGINE for a moment that you are the owner of a multinational company with an annual revenue of nearly $300 billion. The company has tens of millions of employees working in hundreds of thousands of subsidies across hundreds of industry sectors.

The company has a large accounting department just to keep track of all the revenue. But you know full well that the accounting cannot be fully accurate. There is just too much business to completely keep track of, and some of the subsidiaries—perhaps, as much as 40 percent of them—do not keep accurate records, if at all. But the shareholders and other outside firms that the company does business with expected data to come on a quarterly basis.

The company is medium-sized in the global business arena, but is important enough that there are many outsiders that keep track of the numbers. As with any major enterprise, the outsiders also offer the benefit of their experience and expertise to give suggestions on how to improve business.

That company is the Philippines.

In its updated Asian Development Outlook 2014 report, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it had downgraded its growth forecast for the Philippines from 6.4 percent to 6.2 percent this year, and from 6.7 percent to 6.4 percent for 2015.

The ADB has been in business for nearly 50 years and performs a valuable function for Asia, not only in lending, but also in identifying and implementing vital projects for countries in the continent. However, the reality is that economic-growth forecasts are estimates at best and guesses at worst.

In its Asian Development Outlook 2010 report, the ADB made the following forecast for Philippine gross domestic product growth: The economy was projected to grow at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in 2010 and 4.6 percent in 2011. The actual growth rate in 2010 was almost double the ADB estimate, at 7.3 percent. Then, in 2011, the actual growth rate was 20 percent lower than the ADB estimate, with the economy growing only by 3.7 percent.

Of course, during the year, the ADB revises its estimates according to changing conditions, and it is fair and proper to do that. But let’s be honest about this: It is like picking the winner of the basketball game at the two-minute warning buzzer. Your odds of success go exponentially higher in this situation than if you have to stick with your pregame choice.

While the basketball coach, as well as the business owner, must adjust to conditions as they change, the coach does not have to plan 12 months or more in advance, as businesses need to do. These economic-growth estimates may be important, but planning your business and personal finance around them could be hazardous to your wealth.

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How do you rate yourself?

James Jimenez

spox

W

E’VE all been asked this, or, at least, we’ve all watched with morbid fascination as someone else struggled to answer this question: “On a scale of one to 10, how do you rate yourself?”

For most people, the instinctive response is to try to come up with an accurate self-rating. While this is all well and good, you have to be aware that whoever is asking you that question is actually setting you up for a fall, unwittingly or otherwise, so be careful.

1, 2, 3, 4, kick yourself out the door

THE most basic thing you have to remember is that, unless you’re deliberately trying to lose your job, do not give yourself a ranking of one to four.

If you do, it will be interpreted in only one of three ways: you are either very honest about your incompetence, in which case you should be handed your hat and told to find something else to do; you’re trying very hard to look “honest” and “uncompromising” in your self-evaluation, in which case, you are trying too hard and should

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5, 6, you’re not supposed to be doing this for kicks

ON the other hand, give yourself a ranking of five or six, and you create the impression that you’re merely coasting along: Doing just enough to get by, but not enough to make any real difference—a true-blue placeholder. Think Shaggy, maybe? The

7, 7.5, now back it up with a little jive

NOW, not everyone will appreciate that you’ve given yourself what amounts to be the passing grade in elementary school, so you have to be quick to defend your self-rating of seven to 7.5.

First, make it very clear that your rating reflects both satisfactory performance and the openness to the possibility of improvement. Second, if pushed to declare that you actually believe “you’re just passing” (and you can bet your retirement lump-sum that they will use that grade-school analogy), respond that this is as hard as you can toot your own horn, but that there are those whose opinions you value, who believe that a higher rating could be justified.

Now this answer might not satisfy whoever is asking you the question, but very few people will actually complain about you not wanting to beat your own chest.

Beer isn’t Malaysia’s problem William Pesek

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be kicked out for being an inveterate preening fool; or you are exaggerating your difficulties, which you will then immediately blame on someone else. Even allowing for this to be actually true, i.e., you suck at your job because some people make it impossible for you to succeed, you would do well to remember that you were placed in that position because some people, at some point, believed that you could do it, despite the obstacles.

By whining about it, you basically prove them wrong.

comparison may actually be more apt than you think.

If this is how you see yourself— or if you’re stupid enough to admit that you’re a slacker—then it would be ridiculous to assume that anyone, let alone your employer, will appreciate you for it—unless you’re in the business of hunting down ghosts with your friends and a talking Great Dane called Scooby Doo.

I

F Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak thought he already had problems at home, now he also needs to worry about a “Jokowi effect” spreading from neighboring Indonesia.

On Monday fresh-faced Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took the helm of the world’s fourth-most-populous nation. Throughout Southeast Asia, young voters have been gripped by the rise of this small businessman— effectively, a nobody—to his nation’s highest office. Jokowi isn’t the scion of any political dynasty or wealthy family, the normal routes to power in Southeast Asia. He’s a self-made outsider known for hands-on solutions and personal incorruptibility.

Voters have to ask themselves why Jokowi’s story can’t be replicated in their own countries, many of which are crying out for more credible, effective leaders. Najib has particular reason to be concerned. His personal background—as the son of Malaysia’s 1970s Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein—is one of privilege.

More important, even as hopes rise that Indonesia might finally achieve its true growth potential, Malaysia seems consumed by petty political infighting and religious smallmindedness.

Najib is hardly alone here. If anything, next-door Thailand seems even more paralyzed by political divisions. But Malaysia’s failings are especially frustrating, because they are so unnecessary.

Consider this: Jokowi is Indonesia’s fifth president since the dictator Suharto was ousted in 1998, and the second to be elected directly by the nation’s 250 million people. In contrast, the political establishment that’s controlled Malaysia for six decades is still trying to silence opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. Since 1998 Anwar has faced many questionable trials

and prison sentences on charges ranging from corruption to sodomy. The latest verdict is due this week—just days after Jokowi publicly buried the hatchet with his political opponents, who pledged to work with him to move Indonesia forward.

Malaysians are understandably angry about surging living costs.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, local politicians from Najib’s United Malays National Organization (Umno) raised a stink about provocative posters for Oktoberfest, which some Muslim groups tried to ban. There’s even a debate among some Umno members about whether Muslims should be allowed to touch dogs.

Even though the Malaysian government is technically secular, religion is increasingly being wielded as a political weapon. This week a delegation of opposition lawmakers visiting Canberra urged Australia to speak out against creeping Islamization in Malaysia. “In an environment where the state subtly and indirectly endorses criticisms and intimidation against a minority, it is easier for the messages of radical groups like the Islamic State to take hold,” delegation leader Rafizi Ramli told reporters.

Malaysia cannot afford to get bogged down in such side issues. To increase the country’s competitive-

8, 9, 10, the ego strikes again!

TO be fair, and if you’re truly good at what you do, you might be able to get away with an eight. But nine or 10 is definitely Kanye West country. Even if it is true and, by all objective measures, you are darn near-perfect at what you do, it is poor form to say so about yourself.

I mean, West is good, after all. What grates is his eagerness to claim the title for himself.

If the question was an honest one—or, at least, a softball toss to give you the chance to make yourself look good—then a self-effacing answer would double the benefit to you. You’ll come off as humble— which is an excellent virtue—and confident enough in your own worth that you’re comfortable leaving it to other people to judge you.

If, on the other hand, the question was meant to trip you up, a humble answer defuses the trap.

If you were to frankly rate yourself a nine or 10, despite the presence of ill will toward you, you will have only exposed your soft-white underbelly to all sorts of ridicule, whether to your face or behind your back.

And there you have it: A practical guide to making your way out of that question alive.

James Jimenez is the spokesman of the Commission on Elections.

ness, Najib should have begun scaling back the four-decade-old affirmation action program that favors the ethnic Malay majority; instead, he has expanded it. Malaysian leaders should be striving to improve the investment climate through stronger corporate governance, and expanding education and training to raise productivity. Subsidies for state-connected companies need to be scaled back and eventually eliminated.

No one’s saying that Indonesia doesn’t face immense hurdles, too.

As skilled and well-meaning as he may be, Jokowi can’t singlehandedly eradicate the endemic corruption and dysfunction that has relegated millions of Indonesians to poverty.

Despite the current bonhomie in Jakarta, he still confronts a determined and well-financed opposition keen on protecting vested interests.

But Malaysians should remember that globalization enables all economies to grow quickly. If their country refuses to open up and become a true meritocracy—the kind of place where a figure like Jokowi could come to power through the ballot box—neighbors like Indonesia and the Philippines will steal away investment and industries. Then the problems they’re focusing on today won’t seem so large.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Why is hunger the most pressing problem in the country today?

Dr. Fernando T. Aldaba

EAGLE WATCH

I

N its recent release of hunger statistics for the second quarter of 2014, Social Weather Stations found that an estimated 3.6 million families, or 16.3 percent, experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months, while 3 million families (13.5 percent of the total) experienced moderate hunger and 609,000 families (2.8 percent) experienced severe hunger.

The impact of this perennial problem can also be seen in the recent statistics on malnutrition in the National Nutrition Survey of 2013. The prevalence rate of underweight children is 19.9 percent, down slightly from 20.7 percent five years ago. Filipino children between zero and five years old who are “wasted”—too thin for their height—increased from 6.9 percent in 2008 to 7.9 percent in 2013, while those who are “stunted”—too short for their age—remained high at 30.3 percent. At this rate Achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing the number of underweight children to 13.5 percent by next year is next to impossible.

Prevalence rate of malnourished children between zero and five years old (2008 to 2013)

Type Underweight Stunting Wasting

2008 20.7 32.3 6.9

2011 20.2 33.6 7.3

2013 19.9 30.3 7.9

Source: Food and Nutrition Research Institute (2014) It has been an established fact that the period starting from pregnancy until a child reaches two years old is critical for the development of that child’s brain. If a pregnant woman and her baby fail to have access to sufficient nourishment, brain development can be severely affected. Last year Save the Children-United Kingdom asserted that one-quarter of the world’s children may underperform at school because of chronic malnutrition. It said a stunted eight-year-old has a 20-percent probability to have difficulty in reading and math, as compared to a child of the same age who has adequate nutrition. Thus, human capital is greatly diminished by hunger and malnutrition and, ultimately, labor productivity suffers.

Malnutrition slackens economic growth in the long run. Worse, it perpetuates chronic poverty because of direct productivity losses from a weak physical status and indirect losses from poor mental capacity, schooling deficiencies, and increased healthcare costs. According to the World Bank, malnutrition’s economic costs are considerable and are estimated at more than 10 percent of the lifetime earnings of individual workers, and gross domestic product reductions can go as high as 2 percent to 3 percent.

Thus, eradicating hunger and providing proper nutrition are not only economic responses; they can also be considered, from the perspective of welfare, social protection and human rights. In this age of high mass consumption and wastage of food among rich countries and elites, it is unthinkable for millions of people to go hungry and have nothing to eat. Thus, the issue is also that of equity—a reallocation of nutritional resources at the global and country levels is needed to end hunger and malnutrition.

Food insecurity among a relatively large portion of the citizenry would certainly require the government to provide leadership in solving this problem. An antihunger strategy must be formulated to respond to this very urgent concern. Certainly, the Aquino administration’s conditional cash-transfer program is one measure that helped reduce hunger and malnutrition in the country. However, this seems inadequate, based on what current statistics have shown. More needs to be done.

First, the government needs to organize the key stakeholders who must be involved in the antihunger and malnutrition program. Key institutions that need to get involved include local government units, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and, of course, the religious sector.

Second, the government, in partnership with the corporate, civil-society and religious sectors, should determine where hunger incidence is high among the population.

Third, the government, again, together with other stakeholders, must draft a comprehensive strategy to battle hunger and malnutrition. The roles of each must also be specified in this strategy.

Fourth, resources from the different sectors must be mobilized to augment the government’s limited budget to address these two problems.

And fifth, the implementation of this program must be nationwide, so that all children who are suffering from this malaise must be targeted and taken cared of.

In conclusion, adequate nutrition is a key factor in a child’s capacity for comprehension and learning skills, which, in turn, determine his or her productivity in the long term. Low labor productivity results in lower incomes and higher poverty incidence.

Hunger today is, indeed, a pressing problem for the country if we want to sustain economic growth in the coming decades.

Fernando T. Aldaba, PhD, is a professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University and a Senior Fellow of Eagle Watch, the university’s macroeconomic and forecasting unit.

Obama’s Ebola czar lacks medical authority

W

ITH United States midterm elections so close, it was inevitable that Ebola would become another depressing political point of division. A scary disease, a scaremongering media and an easily scared American people make the politics of fear its own epidemic.

Republicans in Congress have led the charge to exploit the moment, calling for a ban on travel between West Africa and the US. In response, US President Barack Obama’s administration has appointed an Ebola “czar” with a political background.

None of this inspires confidence. While a travel ban is an option that can’t be ruled out, attempting a quarantine of several West African nations now is premature and could encourage more travelers to be evasive.

The US is a nation of more than 319 million people; so far, three cases have been diagnosed here and one visitor from Liberia subsequently died. Five Americans infected in West Africa were successfully brought home for treatment.

Ebola shouldn’t be a red-state, blue-state issue. Most politicians—including Republican Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, the psychologist who led an Ebola hearing last week—are no more qualified to determine the best public health steps for containing the disease than a person on the street.

Which brings us back to the Ebola czar. With the US Centers for Disease Control having failed to inspired confidence with its early efforts, the Obama administration could do with someone who has the ear of top administration officials and the ability to speak with medical authority.

Instead, Obama asked Ronald Klain to do the job. While he may be a talented lawyer and manager, he is the former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and previously to former Attorney General Janet Reno and Vice President Al Gore.

For the nation’s political fever, Obama, sadly, has prescribed one more political tablet.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS

Framing poverty Tito Genova Valiente

annotations

T

HEORIES, if not sentiment, have always helped me cope with poverty. The sight of poor people, stories of families in abject poverty. As a public anthropologist, I always find, somehow, a perspective through which I can understand why people are poor.

But a few days ago, I watched an episode of an ABS-CBN 2 show, called Mukha (Face), and I did not know how to respond to it.

That particular episode focused on a lola, or grandmother. In our culture, grandmothers are generally the soft and gentle elements of a family. We all knew a grandmother in our life, the person who spoiled us and gave us candies or other food items. Was it novelist Isabel Allende who said grandmothers must play the “part of protective witches who must watch over younger women, children, community and also—why not?—this mistreated planet, the victim of such unrelenting desecration?”

Knowing Lola Diling was getting to know another kind of witchcraft— the witchcraft of living. What pushed me to watch the episode was a trailer showing this old woman, her back hunched by days of walking and walking. On her head sits what looks like fancy bread. She calls them doughnuts, the home-cooked variety.

It is tough and saddening to see her sell her products, because she does not so much as hawk them as she walks them. She just keeps on walking, and the camera is relentless with its close-up shots of her legs, toughened and distorted by her long walks, and of her toes splayed through old, old slippers. Poverty does not mark her; resignation does.

As she goes around the city, the sky seems to shroud her, watching over this old lady who is so strong and, yet, so weak. She has no defense against old age and she is helpless against the most severe form of poverty.

Diling has a backstory: Somewhere in the south again, where she remembers a bountiful life: of a good harvest, of a community. She had a husband who was left behind because, many years ago, she opted to leave her poor village to work in the

Friday, October 24, 2014

big city. She also left her children. In the city, she worked hard and regularly sent money back home. The year came when she could no longer do the work she had been doing and the money dwindled. The husband passed away.

After some years, Diling remarried. It was painful to watch Diling’s daughter pass on to her the container with the food to be sold, sending out a grandmother alone into the big world. The brave and street-smart Diling, however, could take on the world. Back in the house, the daughter says she worries over her mother, who refuses to stay home. It is hard not to judge this daughter, but it is even harder when our judgment about the lack of love and of caring is expressed. Being poor does not seem to accommodate the discourse of love and benevolence; there are other important matters to attend to.

I wanted to judge the episode.

I wanted to make sense of what was happening.

The old woman seems to be punishing herself as she trudges on. Sometimes, she would look up without reason. She laughs with her clients, whom she calls her fans.

She has a wonderfully big sense of humor that can never match the lack of comfort in her life.

Diling does not know how to count. She relies on the kindness of strangers, which makes her daily job even more irrational. But rationality

A generation without chores

By Richard Rende Tribune News Service

I

RECENTLY moderated a talk for a colleague of mine, who was addressing a large group of parents. She asked me to hand out a time wheel, which listed a variety of activities that could comprise a typical day in the life of a kid today. She instructed parents to spend a few minutes thinking about how much time their kids spend on each category, and then shout out some estimates as we made our way around the time wheel.

It was clear that kids devote many hours every day to homework, extracurricular activities and social media. But when my colleague highlighted “chores,” there was a sea of smiles and good-natured chuckles in the audience, and the predominant response from the crowd was “zero.”

I don’t think this exercise produced a fluke result. Studies have shown that the amount of time kids spend on chores has been declining for decades. A recent survey conducted by Whirlpool revealed that, while 82 percent of Americans did chores as a child, only 28 percent are assigning them to children today. Given this, Whirlpool invited me to review the published research on children and chores to understand what’s really at stake, the positive long-term benefits of this work, why we all should be concerned and what we might do to reverse negative perceptions.

After considering studies done for the last 15 years or so, two pat-

terns jumped out at me. First, there were a number of papers published over a decade ago on the significant, and long-lasting, benefits that come from doing chores as a child. Regular, meaningful participation in household chores was linked to academic engagement and achievement, and enhanced social skills, throughout childhood and the teenage years.

Studies that tracked kids for decades revealed that the ones who did chores had the most positive mental-health profiles in adulthood, with more likelihood for professional success, better relationships and personal satisfaction.

The bad news is that, in parallel with the decline in chores, more recent studies have honed into a pervasive negativity that surrounds chores.

Disagreements about doing chores are a primary source of conflict between parents and kids. The old tricks used to get kids to do chores, like giving an allowance, just don’t work

these days. And kids aren’t the only ones who have a negative perception of chores. There’s plenty of current research showing how much mental labor adults expend on chores, and the stresses that caretakers experience when thinking about getting all their household responsibilities met.

The irony is that, while we want our kids to spend time doing things that promote their likelihood of success—personal, academic and, eventually, professional—we have gotten away from encouraging chores, which is a proven predictor of these outcomes. Those seminal papers that espoused the power of doing chores emphasized the caretaking aspect of growing up in a family where responsibilities were shared. The focus wasn’t just on giving kids a list of duties that they took on independently; rather, there was a sense of cohesive family interaction and joint participation in daily routines. Doing chores together carries the same benefits as other notable rituals, like family dinners—regular family interaction promotes conversation, which inspires not just talking to other family members, but also hearing what they are saying. There’s something powerful about developing a concern for others that leads to a personal ethic that carries profound benefits for the developing child.

How do we bring that spirit to the hectic lives of kids and caretakers? Re-

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does not seem to thrive in poverty.

The episode ends with the grandmother preparing her place to sleep. It is a tiny patch, made even tinier as she pushes the cooking utensils and the jars to the side.

Cleaned up, the square of linoleum bears the emaciated body of the old woman. The camera looks down on this creature who never loses trust in the goodness of the world. She curls up and we see her fingers all balled up, the veins looking like they are about to burst and bleed through the hands.

This episode cannot be about poverty, I told myself. This episode cannot be about materialism and the lack of logic in the minds of those who do not have anything. Diling does not represent all poor grandmothers. But the show is not about representations of poverty, or else it fails in that regard, because it chooses to dramatize the extreme.

I am trying to analyze the reason this grandmother is poor. It is the wrong frame.

The blurb for Mukha says: “Behind every story are the men and women that live it. Behind every issue that the country faces today, there is a human being that faces it on a very personal level.”

I may be looking for the big picture, but, this time, it is the small one that is truly significant.

E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com.

cent perspectives in cognitive science suggest that it is possible to change perceptions of “have-to” tasks— sources of drudgery like chores—into “want-to” tasks if a sufficiently strong motivation can be found. Reframing chores as a way of taking care of others is one such platform. There are elegant studies showing that kids— even toddlers—are natural helpers.

They don’t need prompting to pitch in when they see an adult needs help with something. It’s proposed that having more family time and conversations that focus on “we,” rather than “me” or “you,” can change the tone about chores in the home. And as caretakers begin to talk differently about chores—replacing complaints and nags with family talk focused on what we all need to do for each other—it’s hoped that some of that pervasive negativity will give way to a recognition that doing for our family, and others, ultimately delivers a very deep satisfaction, one that our kids will experience and benefit from.

Richard Rende is a developmental psychologist, researcher and educator.

He is author of Psychosocial Interventions for Genetically Influenced Behavior Problems in Childhood and Adolescence (John Wiley & Sons), and (with Jen Prosek) of the forthcoming Raising Can-Do Kids: Giving Children the Tools to Thrive in a FastChanging World (Perigee).

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A8 Friday, October 24, 2014

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PHL pushes arbitration in China sea row P resident Aquino on Wednesday said the international arbitration that Manila has initiated to challenge China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) and a legally binding Code of Conduct are the only ways to settle the long-raging disputes peacefully.

The Philippines says China has been intruding into its exclusive economic zone, including deploying two hydrographic ships in June near an offshore oil well inside Philippine waters.

President Aquino has said Manila is uncertain of the purpose of the ships’ presence at the Reed Bank.

Mr. Aquino said on Wednesday the Chinese-reclaimed land in the disputed waters, if used militarily,

could be a “game changer” in the future settlement of the dispute.

Countries in the region and those that use the busy sea-lanes that straddle the West Philippine Sea and the disputed Spratly Islands chain are concerned that the conflict could erupt into violent clashes.

Speaking at a forum with foreign correspondents, Mr. Aquino said the Philippines is seeking an internationally recognized settlement of the disputes. “This affects not just countries in the region, but countries that have to traverse this particular ocean,” he said.

Manila has filed a case with an

international tribunal in The Hague challenging China’s territorial claims over most of the West Philippine Sea, but Beijing has refused to take part. The Philippines and some other countries in the 10-member Asean are pushing for the approval of a legally binding Code of Conduct to replace the nonbinding 2002 Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. “Beyond that, I don’t know what else we could do,” President Aquino said. “The focus is to achieve a solution through peaceful means bound by international law.” China has said the Philippines’s filing of the

PSA wants greater public access to administrative data

By Cai U. Ordinario

T

he Ph i l ippi ne St at i st ics Authority (PSA) is keen on pushing greater data access for data users and the general public nationwide.

In a workshop on Data Revolution on Thursday, National Statistician and PSA Head Lisa Bersales said open data access is key to ushering in a data revolution where various sectors can tap into existing big data, such as administrative records, to create new data sets and promote the use of data

for researches and planning purposes.

Bersales said the products of the PSA that use administrative data extensively are the National Income Accounts, as well as the Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry.

Bersa les sa id t he PSA c a n create frameworks that can be used by other agencies in opening their data to stakeholders. She added there are numerous kinds of data that can be tapped in the government. These include business-registration records from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The PSA, Bersales said, is already in the process of encoding SEC data. The information that can be culled from these records can be turned into new data sets like a profile of businesses in the Philippines.

The country’s national statistician also said greater access to records like those held by the Commission on Audit would also be very informative.

“Big data, which is [part of the] data revolution, is not new to official statisticians. Official statisticians have always used administrative records, See “PSA,” A2

case could damage relations between the two countries and that it would prefer to settle the dispute bilaterally.

Mr. Aquino said Chinese acttions in the West Philippine Sea were “not in conformity” with the 2002 agreement signed by Beijing and the Asean calling on all claimants over parts or the whole of the regional waters not to exacerbate their dispute. “We have issues about the reclamations, about rocks, insofar as rocks being turned into islands,” he said, referring to Chinese land reclamations in at least three shoals claimed by both China and the Philippines.

“Is it a game changer? Obviously,

it’s a game changer,” he said in response to a question on whether the reclaimed land could be used to install military facilities such as an airstrip, posing a security threat to the Philippines.

China’s conflicts with Vietnam and the Philippines have been intensifying over the past two years. The most serious confrontation was in May, between Chinese and Vietnamese ships near an oil rig deployed by Beijing in waters claimed by Hanoi.

Aside from China, the Philippines and Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam also have claims in the West Philippine Sea. AP

Rights group: Woman-workers getting abused in UAE homes

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any Asian and African women working as domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) say their employers beat them with sticks or cables, punched and slapped them, and there’s little they can do because they’re excluded from the country’s labor law protections, a rights group said on Thursday.

The abuse complaints are rampant throughout the wealthy Persian Gulf region that relies on foreign labor. The Human Rights Watch says the problem is that the migrant workers’ residency is tied to their employers through a sponsorship system that prevents them from easily changing jobs.

It cited passport confiscation, nonpayment of wages, excessive work, forced confinement, food deprivation and psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

The New York-based advocacy group said the report was based on interviews with 99 women

domestic workers, recruitment agents and employers in the UAE. Twenty-two of the women said their employers physically abused them, beating them with sticks or cables, punching or slapping their faces, kicking or chocking them.

Six said their employers or members of the household sexually assaulted or harassed them.

Some 146,000 migrant women are employed as domestic helpers in the UAE, one of the world’s 10 richest countries. Most of them come from the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Ethiopia.

A 28-year-old Indonesian quoted in the report said her employer beat her every day and in March last year twisted her right arm behind her back so severely that it broke a bone above her wrist. The employer refused to take her to a doctor. Two months later, the employer threw a shoe at her foot so forcefully her foot bled. The worker managed to escape. AP

TAN OVERHAULS P.A.L. MANAGEMENT AS ANG EXITS

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iversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has officially exited flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL), concluding the over $1-billion buyback transaction launched by the group of taipan Lucio C. Tan last month.

In a statement, the legacy airline said its board approved on Thursday the appointment of Jaime J. Bautista as president and COO of PAL.

Bautista replaced Ramon S. Ang, who is also the president of the food-to-infrastructure firm.

Tan will remain as PAL’s chairman and CEO. Other new officers of the PAL board are Joseph T. Chua as vice chairman, Florentino M. Herrera III as corporate secretary and Marianne Raymundo as CFO. Also appointed as members of the board are Carmen K. Tan, Heinrich T.

ASIA NEEDS TO COORDINATE POLICIES AS GROWTH SLOWS Continued from A1

news conference following the final session of the preparatory meeting, also in Beijing. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) this month cut its forecast for global economic growth this year to 3.3 percent from 3.4 percent. Even so, the IMF now expects the US economy to grow 2.2 percent this year, up from its June forecast of 1.7 percent.

Emphasizing the importance of infrastructure to growth, the Asian Development Bank estimates that Asian countries need to spend $8 trillion on such projects between 2010 and 2020 to keep their economies humming. AP

BSP. . . continued from a1

States, Japan, China and countries under the European Union.

All forecasts fall within the targets for their respective years of 3 percent to 5 percent for 2014, and 2 percent to 4 percent for 2015 and 2016.

“Given these considerations, the Monetary Board considered it prudent for the time being to allow previous monetary responses to continue to work their way through the economy,” Tetangco said. As a direct consequence, the Monetary Board kept the rate at which it borrows from or lends to banks at 4 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Prior to this, and starting from March to September, the central bank put in place a number of tightening measures to moderate price pressures and boost the potential for continued economic expansion.

The central bank implemented a 50-basis-point hike in the special deposit rate, a 2-percentage-point hike in the banks’ deposit reserves and a 50-basis-point increase in overnight policy rates earlier this year. The Monetary Board also kept the interest rates on term, the special deposit account, as well as the level of reserve requirement rate, untouched.

Khoo, Manuel M. Lazaro and Johnip G. Cua, an independent director.

Completing the PAL board are Lucio K. Tan Jr., Michael G. Tan, Washington SyCip, Alberto D. Lina, Estelito Mendoza, Antonino Alindogan Jr. and Gregorio T. Yu. The 10 new officers and directors replaced the representatives of SMC, led by Ang, whose resignations were accepted effective on October 23. Lorenz S. Marasigan

PPPs . .

continued from a1

railway and transport projects of the DOTC, as well as DPWH’s major road PPPs,” Canilao said at a panel discussion at the CFA Institute’s first Philippine Investment Forum. Canilao said to ensure the government will sustain the interest of investors and assure them of the state’s commitment to undertake these projects, the process of amending the Build Operate Transfer (BOT) law is being vigorously pursued.

She explained that the BOT law will be amended to become the PPP Act. This will, among others, institutionalize the Contingent Liability Fund through a line item in the national budget.

“Right now, what is contained in the 2015 budget is P20 billion to P30 billion, I think. Of course, it will have to increase as we roll out or implement more PPP projects,” Canilao said.

The PPP projects to be included, Canilao said, are the operation and maintenance contracts for six airports, as well as big-ticket projects like the subway to connect Bonifacio Global City, Mall of Asia and the Makati Central Business District.

Canilao added that the list may also include the recent National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Board approvals such as the Regional Prison Facilities through PPP and the Davao Sasa Port Modernization Project.

Another project that may also be included is the Motor Vehicle Inspection System, which is yet to be approved by the Neda Board pending the fulfillment of certain requirements.

Canilao also said the list will include the unsolicited proposal for the North Luzon Expressway-South Luzon Expressway Connector Road, the revival of the south line of the Philippine National Railways and the extension of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 to Dasmariñas, Cavite.