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A YOUNG girl climbs down from their passenger jeepney at the Tandang Sora terminal, which has been home for her family during a lockdown, June 17, 2020, in Quezon City. About 35 jeepney drivers were forced to stay due to travel restrictions and have made jeepneys their home as the government banned public transport during the community quarantine to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Many of the jobless drivers have resorted to begging in the streets, displaying cardboard signs scrawled with pleas for money and food on their multicolored jeepneys. AP/AARON FAVILA

STEEPER CLIMB TO HUMAN PROGRESS

The PHL, which with Indonesia was hardest hit by Covid-19 in Asean, may see hard-won gains in poverty reduction eroded, and already problematic health care system further burdened, says the Unescap.

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By Cai U. Ordinario

ECADES of hard-won gains in poverty reduction are being eroded by the Covid-19 pandemic, even as governments like that of the Philippines have extended billions in cash transfers to the most vulnerable, United Nations experts fear.

In its latest policy brief on the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and Southeast Asia, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Unescap) said without alternative incomes and weak social protection systems, many informal workers would be pushed into poverty.

Based on the report, the Philippines and Indonesia were the most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia in terms of

reported fatalities.

“The crisis threatens to destroy the livelihoods of Southeast Asia’s 218 million informal workers, who represent anywhere between 51 and 90 percent of the national non-agricultural workforces in countries of the subregion,” the policy brief stated.

“Without alternative income, formal social protection systems or savings to buffer these shocks, workers and their families will be

pushed into poverty, reversing decades of poverty reduction,” it added.

Philippine authorities, meanwhile, would rather not be daunted.

National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Undersecretary for Planning and Policy Rosemarie G. Edillon said that while it is possible that poverty would increase, such increase could be tempered by efforts of the Philippine government.

In a press briefing on Thursday, Edillon explained that poverty can be related to income which is linked to a person’s employment or ability to earn a living, while the other is related to purchasing power.

She said the government’s approach has been two-pronged in the way that it has extended the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) to cover the bottom 70 percent of Continued on A2

Final days of hajj and Eid festival impacted by coronavirus

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By Aya Batrawy | The Associated Press

UBAI, United Arab Emirates— Small groups of pilgrims performed one of the final rites of the Islamic hajj on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday amid a global pandemic that has impacted nearly every aspect of this year’s pilgrimage and celebrations.

The last days of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia coincide with the fourday Eid al-Adha, or “Feast of Sacrifice,” in which Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

The pandemic has pushed millions of people around the world closer to the brink of poverty, making it harder for many to fulfill the religious tradition of purchasing livestock.

In Somalia, the price of meat has slightly increased. Abdishakur Dahir, a civil servant in Mogadishu, said that for the first time he

won’t be able to afford goat for Eid because of the impact of the virus on work.

“I could hardly buy food for my family,” Dahir said. “We are just surviving for now. Life is getting tougher by the day.”

In some parts of West Africa, the price for a ram has doubled.

Livestock sellers, used to doing brisk business in the days before the holiday, say sales have dwindled and those who are buying can’t afford much.

“The situation is really complicated by the coronavirus, it’s a tough market,” Oumar Maiga,

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 49.2170

MUSLIMS, wearing protective masks as a precaution against the coronavirus, offer their prayers during the Eid al-Adha prayer backdropped by the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, recently converted back to a mosque, in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, early Friday, July 31, 2020. Eid alAdha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, at the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, is a major holiday observed by billions of Muslims across the globe. This is the first Feast of Sacrifice since the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic. AP/MEHMET GUZEL

a livestock trader in Ivory Coast said. “We are in a situation we’ve never seen in other years.”

The hajj pilgrimage has also been drastically impacted by the virus. Last year, some 2.5 million pilgrims took part, but this year as few as 1,000 pilgrims already residing in Saudi Arabia were allowed to preform the hajj.

The Saudi Health Ministry said there have been no cases of the Covid-19 illness among this year’s pilgrims. The government took numerous precautions, including testing pilgrims for the virus, monitoring their movement with electronic wristbands and requiring them to quarantine before and after the hajj. Pilgrims were selected after applying through an online portal, and all had to be between the ages of 20 and 50 years old.

Just after dawn on Friday, small groups of pilgrims—masked and physically distancing—made their way toward the massive multi-story Jamarat Complex in the Saudi valley area of Mina.

There, the pilgrims cast pebbles at three large columns. It is here Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4690 n UK 64.0018 n HK 6.3507 n CHINA 7.0297 n SINGAPORE 35.8333 n AUSTRALIA 35.3821 n EU 58.0515 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.1252

Source: BSP (July 31, 2020)

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STEEPER CLIMB TO HUMAN PROGRESS Continued from A1

the population, including the poor and near-poor.

In terms of purchasing power, Edillon said the government has ensured that inflation remained benign despite the setbacks in logistics encountered at the start of the lockdowns.

She said agencies—the Department of Agriculture in particular—have stepped up to quickly help their constituencies. The DA quickly moved to help farmers sell their products even during the lockdown, dealing with the twin problems of averting total poverty and hunger among farming communities while also preventing long disruptions in the food supply chain for urban areas that rely on the farmers’ produce.

“We still need the data [to determine the impact on poverty]. There will be an [increase] in poverty due to the reduction in income. But this will be addressed by [government] efforts,” Edillon said.

Pandemic problems

APART from poverty, Unescap said the Philippines will be significantly affected not only in

terms of the economy but in health and social factors.

In terms of the economy, being one of the world’s largest labor exporters, the country would see a significant decline in remittances, Unescap said.

The agency sees up to 500,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) could come home due to the impact of the lockdowns in their host countries. At a recent virtual Senate hearing, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) had said over 300,000 OFWs have thus far reported themselves displaced, though about a third indicated they would rather tough it out in their host countries, in hopes of landing other jobs once quarantines ease. The DOLE and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) have repatriated more than 100,000 OFWs as of last week.

The OFWs’ problems will largely affect consumer spending in the country, with the Philippine economy being a consumptiondriven one, and the services sector having been boosted in past decades with robust spending by remittance-fueled OFW families.

With OFWs coming home and mobility restrictions affecting labor, Unescap said the country’s

full-year unemployment rate may increase by 1.2 percentage points this year.

“This will compound the effect of lack of remittances and increase the unemployment burden at national levels. Returning migrants who have yet to pay off their debts to recruiting agents or money lenders will be particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse and will be among those most in need of services and support,” Unescap said.

Health setbacks

IN terms of health and social setbacks, Unescap said with limitations on the movement of aid workers, 2 million children in the Philippines below the age of two may not be vaccinated and protected from preventable diseases this year.

These preventable diseases include measles, dengue and polio, which has resurfaced in the Philippines. The country last year saw its first polio outbreak decades after it officially became polio-free.

The Unescap said the Covid-19 situations in the Philippines and Myanmar are “particularly concerning” given the weakness of the health-care system.

U

N Secretary General António Guterres said four areas will be critical in the region’s plans for recovery: tackling inequality, bridging the digital divide, greening the economy, and upholding human rights and good governance.

In a recent briefing, Unescap Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana told reporters that based on data from the Philippines, the country only had a few nurses and midwives as well as hospital beds.

Data presented by the Unescap showed there were an average of only two nurses and midwives and 10 hospital beds per 10,000 people between 2010 and 2018.

However, in terms of physicians, the number was not as low, at around 12 physicians per 10,000 people during the same period.

Health expenditure was also low at 4.4 percent of GDP as of 2016.

“Among the 11 countries covered in this brief, the situation is particularly concerning for Myanmar and the Philippines, which have pre-existing humanitarian caseloads, and have therefore been incorporated in the recently launched Global Humanitarian Response Plan,” Unescap said.

Apart from this, Unescap pointed out the fact that mass testing for Covid-19 in the Philippines was not yet available, with only a few local governments giv-

ing free testing, unlike in other Asian countries like South Korea and Vietnam. This means there is a need for more granular data to understand the situation at the local level.

Unescap said better epidemiological data is needed, especially in highly populated areas such as megacities like Metro Manila.

On average, it took Southeast Asian countries 17 days to declare a state of emergency or lockdown after 50 cases were confirmed. This was done by many Southeast Asian countries quickly because of mass testing.

“In some [countries], such as the Philippines, mass testing is not yet available. This may be leading to under-detection and a lower capacity for monitoring the evolution of the epidemic,” Unescap said.

A cure

MOVING forward, UN Secretary General António Guterres said four areas will be critical in the region’s plans for recovery: tackling inequality, bridging the digital divide, greening the economy, and upholding human rights and good governance.

Increased investments to strengthen health systems and accelerate progress toward universal health care will be critical to support those excluded from formal policy and social protection measures.

Digital technology has also proven to be a critical tool in response to the pandemic. However, the benefits it offers are beyond the reach of the 55 percent of Southeast Asia’s population who remain offline.

A regionally coordinated and scaled up effort is needed to put in place next-generation infrastructure networks and ensure universal digital connectivity, highlights the brief.

Alisjahbana also said the crisis presented an opportunity for countries to reorient their development toward sustainability, particularly through green recovery packages.

Stimulus packages should be directed to industries that are low-carbon, resource-efficient and aligned with environmental and climate objectives.

Based on the data presented by the Unescap, the Philippines’s response to Covid-19 only covered cash transfers. The government’s stimulus package has yet to be approved by Congress.

By phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies, Alisjahbana said countries could finance most or all of their current stimulus packages. Such measures would create massive fiscal space and greatly boost lowcarbon alternatives such as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Final days of hajj and Eid festival impacted by coronavirus Continued from A1

where Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim, or Abraham, out of submitting to God’s will.

Muslims commemorate the prophet Ibrahim’s test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing the meat to the poor.

During the last days of hajj, male pilgrims shave their heads and remove the terrycloth white garments worn during the pilgrimage. Women cut off a small lock of hair in a sign of spiritual rebirth and renewal.

The hajj, both physically and spiritually demanding, intends to bring about greater humility and unity among Muslims. It is required of all Muslims to perform once in a lifetime.

Sheikh Abdullah al-Manea, member of the Supreme Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia, used the hajj sermon Friday to praise the kingdom’s leadership for their “wise decision” to limit the number of pilgrims and protect human life.

“We thank the positive role of Muslims around the world that have complied with the regulations of the country to protect them from the spread of this virus, which leads to the protection of Mecca and Medina,” the sheikh said.

Around the world, Muslims gathered with relatives to mark the start of Eid. In the Iraqi capital Baghdad, streets were largely empty due to a 10-day lockdown imposed by authorities to prevent further spread of the virus.

Eid prayers in mosques were canceled and worshipers asked to pray at home. Only security forces and health workers were exempted from curfew restrictions. Despite the measures, infections have continued to surge in Iraq, with over

A PIGEON flies over the site of the Grand Mosque that is empty due to the coronavirus prevention procedures, on the first day of the annual hajj that normally draws millions of faithful, in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, July 29, 2020. A unique and scaled-down hajj started on Wednesday. AP

121,000 registered cases and 4,671 deaths.

“We had hoped that the curfew would be lifted during the Eid period ... we were surprised that the lockdown period included the Eid holiday and more,” said Marwan Madhat, a Baghdad cafe owner. “This will cause losses.”

Kosovo and the United Arab Emirates have also closed mosques for Eid prayers to limit the spread of the virus.

In Lebanon, Muslim worshipers prayed in mosques under tight security, despite a partial lockdown imposed Thursday that will continue through August 10.

Faithful wearing masks offered Eid prayers at the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque in the capital Beirut, spilling out onto the street outside to maintain social-distancing rules.

In Indonesia, home to the world’s largest population of Muslims, people were allowed to attend Eid prayers in mosques under strict health guidelines, including that they bring their own prayer

mats and pray several feet apart from one another. Worshipers must wear masks and are not allowed to shake hands or hug.

Authorities in Indonesia also ordered that meat be delivered door-to-door to the poor to avoid long lines.

“This outbreak has not only changed our tradition entirely, but has also made more and more people fall into poverty,” said Agus Supriatna, an Indonesian factory worker who was laid off this year because of the pandemic.

Muslim leaders in Albania and Kosovo called on people “to be careful” in their festivities to avoid transmission of the virus, including limiting family visits.

A few days ahead of Eid, Alioune Ndong in Senegal said he did not know how he’d come up with the money for his family’s feast. He called on Senegal’s government to help struggling families like his.

“Covid-19 has drained my money,” said Ndong, a tailor based in the town of Mbour.

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Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Saturday, August 1, 2020

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Govt to allot ₧20B for Covid-19 vaccine purchase; eyeing to give 20-M poor citizens free immunization

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By Samuel P. Medenilla

HE government will spend P20 billion to buy the vaccines for novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19), as soon as these become available later this year.

On Thursday, President Duterte revealed the government’s planned vaccination drive against Covid-19 to help “normalize” the situation in the country.

He said among the Covid vaccines they are now considering to purchase are those being developed in China.

This, after the Chinese government issued a statement earlier this week that the Philippines will be

among the countries to be given first crack in purchasing their completed Covid-19 vaccine.

Government loan

Finance Secretary Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez III, however, noted the Department of Health (DOH) will determine which Covid-19 vaccine/s will be bought by the government through the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI)

Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC).

He said the purchase will be financed by the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).

“The GFI [government financial institutions] will fund PITC’s purchase with a term loan for the purchase of the vaccines identified by the DOH, PITC will sell the vaccines to the DOH,” Dominguez told reporters in a Viber message.

The finance chief said the DOH is targeting the inoculation of an initial 20 million people against Covid-19 for free.

Target beneficiaries

Duterte said the government will prioritize poor families, who received social amelioration program benefits from the government during the community quarantine, in the vaccination drive.

He said middle income, Cabinet officials, as well as the army and the police, and even communist rebels w ill be among those to also be given the vaccine if they will stop attacking government forces during the Covid-19 crisis.

However, Duterte said the rich, who can afford the vaccine, and illegal-drug users and pushers, who “destroy” the country, will not be covered by the free vaccination drive.

D uter te sa id he w i l l t a sk the militar y to distribute the government-acquired Covid-19 vaccines.

Dominguez expressed hope all businesses can fully reopen and economic recovery hastened after the implementation of the vaccination drive.

Bong Go: Prepare plans now

Meanwhile, the chairman of

the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, reiterated his call for the Department of Health and other concerned agencies to prepare a national Covid-19 vaccine program in order to ensure the accessibility and affordability of the vaccine, once it is made available, even to the poorest of the poor and, most especially, to the vulnerable sectors.

“When the day comes a vaccine and a cure for Covid-19 become avalilable, we should be ready to give these to all Filipinos who need them, especially the poor,” Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go said in Filipino.

In a statement, Go warned t h at d i f f ic u lt dec i sion s w i l l have to be made once a vaccine is available. Hence, he stressed the need to anticipate possible scenarios in order to ensure the vaccine is accessible to those

most in need.

In a speech at the recent virtual launch of the country’s 77th Malasakit Center in Guimaras, Go said preparations for the availability of the vaccine are already being discussed and developed by the country’s health officials and finance managers.

The senator said he has been “urging government to have a vaccine program” this early, and “to prioritize the poor, because I know that once a vaccine is available, there will be a mad rush for it and I don’t want anyone profiteering from it.”

When it comes to the availability and accessibility of the vaccine, “I don’t want our ordinary people who have no means to buy the vaccine to come last. Everyone should have a fair chance at access,” he explained further, in a mix of English and Filipino.

CALABARZON, 7 CITIES KEEP PAL rolls out OSS at Naia 2 for returning NCR, GCQ STATUS UNTIL AUGUST 15 non-OFWs, authorized foreign nationals M P

By Recto L. Mercene

HILIPPINE Airlines (PAL) will roll out a One-Stop Shop (OSS) center at Terminal 2 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) on August 1, to administer the mandatory reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for returning overseas Filipinos and authorized foreign nationals.

PAL said its OSS will significantly augment the Manila airport’s capacity to screen travelers and process quarantine requirements for passengers on PAL flights from North America, the Middle East, Europe, Oceania and across Asia.

Th e PA L O S S i s a cc re d i te d by t h e National Task Force (NTF), the InterA g e n c y Ta s k F o r c e ( I AT F ) a n d t h e Depar tment of Health (DOH). “ PA L’s O n e - S t o p S h o p i s c a p a b l e of testing 1,200 passengers a day and

producing test results within 48 hours,” said spokesman Cielo Villaluna.

The new PAL facility will operate in tandem with the existing government-run IATF One-Stop Shop facility that will now exclusively serve arriving overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

PAL stated: “The flag carrier set up this new One-Stop Shop, dedicated to non-OFW travelers, to complement the government’s current One -Stop Shop for OFWs. This is industr y and government working in unison with a common goal: to ensure ease and convenience of passengers as they go through testing protocols on arrival.”

PAL’s medical service partner Detoxicare Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory will conduct the RT-PCR Covid-19 tests for non-OFWs, while the Philippine Coast Guard will administer the tests for all arriving OFWs. The Department of Tourism and the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association (HSMA) are

on hand to assist arriving non-OFWs with their hotel bookings and related needs such as bus transfers.

Non-OFWs, namely, returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) and authorized foreign nationals, are required to register via the PALlink— https://bit.ly/3ffoAIK and submit an accomplished electronic Case Investigation Form (e-CIF) at least three days before boarding their flight to the Philippines.

They also need to secure an advance booking at any government-accredited hotel in Manila for at least two nights, in line with the time expected to process and release their Covid test results.

“Travelers will need to pay the costs of the swab test and hotel accommodation,” PAL said.

On the other hand, OFWs need to register through the Red Cross Portal— https://e-cif.redcross.org.ph/ and submit an

accomplished electronic Case Investigation Form (e-CIF) at least three days before boarding their flight home. (Family members traveling together with at least one OFW will likewise be considered OFWs.) Landbased OFWs must also create or update their accounts on the OFW Assistance Information System (OASIS) at http://oasis. owwa.gov.ph/.

The Philippine government and/or manpower agencies will shoulder the costs of testing and quarantine accommodations for OFWs. The OSS facility will help PAL avoid the costly and burdensome re-routing of some international flights to land in Cebu or Clark instead of Manila.

The PAL facility at Terminal 2 has been operating on a trial basis since June 27 and has successfully processed passengers arriving from San Francisco and other selected international flights.

Temporary basic income for poor to cost PHL $10 billion–UNDP

By Cai U. Ordinario

I

MPLEMENTING a temporary basic income (TBI) to shield poor and near-poor households from external shocks may take as much as a percent of the country’s GDP, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

In the Philippines, the UNDP estimates that TBI beneficiaries could reach 59.85 million. This covers those with incomes below $5.50 a day, the threshold used for countries in East Asia and Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa.

Providing relief to these individuals would amount to a total of $3.75 billion to $10.01 billion. This translates to 0.39 percent of GDP to as much as 1.05 percent of GDP. “The idea of a temporary basic income arises from the urgency to deliver shock-resistant transfers to an unprecedented crisis. Several countries have taken a step forward in this direction by rolling out similar schemes under different names and with diverse targeting thresholds,” the UNDP working paper stated.

“A temporary basic income is within reach and can inform a larger conversation about how to build comprehensive social protection systems that make the poor and near-poor more resilient to economic downturns in the future,” it added.

To estimate the TBI per country, including the Philippines, the UNDP used the 2018 population estimates. For the Philippines, this means a total population of 106.65 million.

With $5.50 a day poverty threshold in 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) values, this would translate to as many as 59.85 million possible beneficiaries of the TBI in the country.

The assistance considered in each scenario of a TBI comprising cash transfers with homogeneous amounts across targeted individuals within a country under three options.

These options are top-ups on existing average incomes in each country; lumpsum transfers that are sensitive to crosscountry differences in median standard of living; and lump-sum transfers that are uniform regardless of the country where the beneficiary population lives.

Under the top-up scenario, it will cost the government $3.75 billion or 0.39 percent of GDP. Using and exchange rate of P50 to $1, this would cost P187.625 billion.

This means that each beneficiary will receive $62.7 per month. In peso terms, this would translate to P3,135 per beneficiary.

If the second option is used where the lump-sum transfers are sensitive to crosscountry differences in median standard of living, it will amount to $4.497 billion or P224.86 billion. This will account for 0.47 percent of the country’s GDP. Per beneficiary, this means extending $75.14 per month or around P3,757 using an exchange rate of P50 to a dollar.

For the last scenario, where lump-sum transfers are uniform regardless of the country where the beneficiary population lives, governments are bound to spend more.

This scenario would cost the country $10.01 billion a month or P500.62 billion using an exchange rate of P50 to a dollar. This, the UNDP said, would account for 1.05 percent of GDP. Under the uniform cash transfer, each beneficiary would receive $5.50 per day or P275. If there are 30 days per month, B usiness M irror estimates this would translate

to a uniform amount of $165 or P8,250 a month per beneficiary.

“The idea of a temporar y basic income a r i s e s f ro m a n u n p re ce d e nte d s e t o f responses to an unprecedented crisis. It is being rolled out under different names and with diverse targeting thresholds in countries around the world,” UNDP said. “ I t i nte r s e c t s w i t h ex i s t i n g s o c i a l assistance and insurance systems, but also with the idea of an entitlement-based Universal Basic Income [UBI] that secures a basic income floor for all people, regardless

of means and behavioral testing or work considerations,” it added.

Earlier, local economists said that while UBI is a long-term solution in terms of shielding the poor from economic shocks, careful study must be done to evaluate how it can be implemented and how much will be needed for the measure.

The UBI was implemented in Finland which gave its unemployed citizens aged 25 to 58 years old a monthly stipend of 560 euros a month. This two-year experiment is envisioned to cut red tape, poverty, and unemployment.

ETRO Manila will keep its general co m m u n i t y q u a ra nt i n e (G CQ ) classification in the next two weeks despite its rising novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and diminishing available critical care.

This, after President Duterte approved on Thursday the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) Resolution 60-A implementing new community quarantine classifications nationwide from August 1, 2020 to August 15, 2020.

Under the said IATF resolution, the National Capital Region (NCR), Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal for Luzon; Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City, Mandaue City, Talisay City, Minglanilla and Consolacion for the Visayas; and Zamboanga City for Mindanao will be placed under GCQ. The rest of the country will be placed under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).

Specific conditions

In response to the increasing infection cases in NCR and Calabarzon, however, the IATF imposed additional quarantine measures to ensure the safety of those living in both regions, Presidential spokesman Harr y Roque said.

These measures include strict localized lockdown/ECQ in barangays, where 80 percent of cases are localized and the publication of these barangays.

People in the two regions will also have to comply with stringent enforcement of minimum health standards, which now includes wearing of face shields aside from face masks, social distancing, and regular hand washing.

Roque said there will also be massive targeted testing, intensified tracing, and quarantine of close contacts; isolation of confirmed cases; and strict adherence to Oplan Kalinga implementation in both regions.

Additional bed capacity

To ensure there will be sufficient critical care for Covid-19 cases nationwide, Roque said the IATF ordered all government hospitals to increase their bed capacity allocations for Covid-19 patients from 30 percent to 50 percent.

Private hospitals were ordered to increase this bed allocation for Covid-19 patients from 20 percent to 30 percent.

This was in response to the Department of Health (DOH) report that some hospitals in NCR are already running out of beds for Covid-19 patients.

Roque said the IATF tasked Covid-19 treatment czar and Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega to ensure the compliance of all hospitals with the new policy and to implement the One Command System in NCR, Central Luzon and Calabarzon.

Updated data

Local government units (LGU) in NCR and Calabarzon were also mandated to prioritize the submission of their updated Covid-19 cases to the Covid-Kaya platform, the automated system used by the government to keep track of infection cases nationwide.

Daily trend of active cases, number, and percent of population, Covid-19; cases in community isolation facilities; percentage of close contact traced and percent of contact in quarantine; number of utilization of community isolation beds; met health system capacity target utilization; and Covid special team investigation and results must be reported.

“The LGUs must also submit their detailed plan for the strict enforcement of minimum health standards for their priority areas and barangay,” Roque said.

The Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) will be required to submit weekly comprehensive report on Covid-related data to the IATF. Samuel P. Medenilla

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Xi calls for pivot amid steady domestic economy recovery

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hinese President Xi Jinping called for a greater push on reforms to stimulate domestic demand, as the economy continues its steady recovery from the coronavirus slump.

Speaking at a Politburo meeting on economic policy, Xi said China should speed up its “dual circulation” growth model with a focus on boosting local output, while drawing in foreign investment and stabilizing trade, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

Data released Friday showed the manufacturing outlook improved for a second month in July.

Xi’s remarks come ahead of a series of high-level political meetings that will chart the development path of the world’s second-largest economy. While in the short-term leaders have expressed satisfaction that growth is recovering, over the long-term China faces a host of economic problems, including the confrontation with the US that could pose bigger challenges.

“Dual circulation is the new strategy from Beijing in coping with the new world: In plain English, it means ‘domestic market

first,’” said Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Bank Ltd in Hong Kong. “The implementation is not that clear to us at this stage, but the idea is to strengthen China’s grip on supply chain and reduce the reliance on foreign suppliers.”

The yuan strengthened the most since early July after the m a nu f ac t u r i ng d at a . Stoc k s gained, with the CSI 300 Index rising 1.8 percent. The nation’s 10-year government bond futures slipped to a two-week low.

Top current and retired leaders typically spend early August huddled in the resort of Beidaihe to discuss policy direction. The Communist Party’s Central Committee will meet in October to outline the next five-year plan and a longer term vision to 2035, Xinhua said.

Policy stance

W hile T hursd ay’s Pol itburo meeting kept the overall stance

for fiscal and monetary policy unchanged, it added fresh emphasis for policy to be more targeted. It also called for lower financing costs for the real economy and reasonable credit growth.

“Beijing confirmed that cyclical policy is on cruise control: ongoing rollout of fiscal stimulus, neutral monetary policy,” economists, including Robin Xing at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, wrote in a report. “It emphasized structural initiatives beyond Covid-19 to tackle external challenges: pivoting to the domestic market, speeding up new urbanization, and economic opening.”

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index in July rose to 51.1 from 50.9 a month earlier, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

T he rebou nd i n econom ic growth is continuing into the second half of the year as government-led investment gains traction and global demand recovers.

Economists have revised up their forecasts for full-year growth, and now see China’s economy expanding 2 percent this year.

What Bloomberg’s economists say...

A subtle but important policy shift is under way in China. The gover n ment h a s h igh l ighted dual circulation in recent policy statements—a reference to the

domestic economy and external trade. The emphasis, though, has been on the former—again at Thursday’s politburo meeting.

This suggests an official shift away from an export-led growth model toward a sharper focus on building an economy with stronger domestic drivers. —Chang Shu, Chief Asia Economist Chinese policy-makers have been trying to avoid the formation of asset bubbles in the stock and property markets as the economy recovers and also keep a lid on debt, which is more than 2 1/2 times the gross domestic product (GDP).

T hursd ay’s meet ing ca l led for more balanced growth, with efforts to boost consumption, make supply chains more stable and competitive, and help young people and migrants from rural areas find jobs.

Ea rl ier t his week , X i sa id China would be able to ride out the coronavirus pandemic with stronger growth in the second half of 2020.

“We have strong will, firm determination and solid strength to tackle the challenges, and enough drive, capacity and wisdom to overcome all kinds of risks and tests,” he said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. “No countries or individuals can stand in the way of the country’s great rejuvenation.”

Bloomberg News

76th Malasakit Center opens in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija

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en. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go virtually attended the launch of the country’s 76th Malasakit Center last Wednesday at the Dr. Paulino J. Garcia Memorial Research and Medical Center in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija.

The newly opened Malasakit Center is the 2nd in the province and 38th in Luzon. “ Patuloy po ang serbisyo ng Malasakit Centers para mabigyan ng mabilis, maayos at maaasahang serbisyong medikal ang mga Pilipino kahit saan mang parte ng bansa. Lalo na sa panahon ng pandemya, hindi dapat maantala ang pagbubukas ng dagdag na Malasakit Centers kaya sa Zoom na lang muna tayo ngayon ,” Go said during the launch.

“Gusto ko talagang pumunta diyan, sa totoo lang pero medyo marami pa kasing bawal. Sunod lang muna tayo sa health and safety protocols. Babalik po ako d’yan. Pupuntahan ko po kayo kapag pwede na upang mapakinggan ang inyong hinaing. Palagi pong bukas ang aming opisina para tumulong at magserbisyo sa inyo ,” he added.

Go, then, explained the purpose of Malasakit Centers and how they expedite the provision of medical and financial assistance to patients.

“Pangalawang Malasakit Center na po pala ito sa Nueva Ecija. Noong unang pagbubukas po ng Malasakit Center diyan, nandiyan po ako. Ang Malasakit Center ay one-stop shop, at tumutulong

‘yung apat na ahensya ng gobyerno magbibigay ng tulong sa inyo,” the senator explained.

Filipinos who need medical and financial assistance to cover their hospital bills would only need to fill up one form in the Malasakit Center as a way to streamline the process of availing such assistance from partner agencies. A special lane is also provided specifically for senior citizens and persons with disabilities.

Concerned agencies extending medical and financial assistance programs that are housed in these centers are the Department of Health (DOH), Department of Social Welfare and Development, Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

With the enactment of the Republic Act 11463, otherwise known as the Malasakit Centers Act of 2019, all hospitals run by the DOH all over the country and the Philippine General Hospital in Manila are now mandated to establish their own Malasakit Centers.

Hospitals run by local government units and other public hospitals may also establish their own Malasakit Centers provided that they meet a standard set of criteria and guarantee the availability of funds for the operation of their centers, including its maintenance, personnel and staff training, among others.

Patients who would be admitted to LGU-run and

other public hospitals but are eligible for medical and financial assistance could also seek assistance from the Malasakit Centers.

Meanwhile, Go thanked all frontliners for their heroism in this time of pandemic. “’Yung sakripisyo ninyo sa panahong ito , rest assured na ipaglalaban ko ang inyong kapakanan,” he said. “ Kung ano pa ang maitutulong namin sa inyo, lalo na sa mga frontliners. Sinasabi natin na sila ang bayani natin ngayon, kaya suportahan natin sila sa kanilang mga pangangailangan ,” he added.

He also urged them to report any irregularity or maltreatment that they would encounter in the course of their duty. “Ako naman, handa akong magsalita. Kung may nakikita kayong katiwalian o hindi pantay ang pagtrato sa inyo, sabihin niyo po.”

Go also shared that the Salary Standardization Law 5 has been signed into law. “For the information po ng ating mga nurses at health workers, isa sa mga ipinangako namin ni Pangulo, ‘yung SSL 5.

Ito po ‘yung unti-unting pag -increase ng salaries ng ating government workers . Na -mention po ito ng Pangulo sa kanyang Sona.”

“Holistic po ang approach nito , not only nurses but doctors, health workers and other civilian personnel na nasa gobyerno ay kasama po rito ,” he added.

He also mentioned that the Supreme Court

decision to finally increase the minimum salary grade of government nurses has finally been implemented 18 years after a law providing such increase was enacted.

Meanwhile, to further alleviate the burden of poor patients, Go shared that the President has already signed an executive order (EO) to regulate the prices of select drugs including essential medicines most commonly prescribed to patients. “ Kaya nga sinulong namin ‘yung maximum retail price ng mga gamot. Ipinaglaban namin na makapag -issue agad si Pangulo ng EO sa MDRP. Ibig sabihin may price ceiling na po sa more than 100 [essential] medicines,” Go said.

“Kase kung walang price ceiling, ang mga kababayan natin mapipilitang bumili ng gamot na hindi naman tinitignan halos ang presyo. May sakit eh. No choice sila. Kaya dapat bigyan natin ng price ceiling para po sa mga mahihirap at wala pong matakbuhan. Let’s be fair sa lahat ,” he added.

Ending his message, Go asked the public not to hesitate in seeking his office’s assistance during times of need. “ Huwag kayong mag-atubiling lumapit sa akin. Trabaho namin ito.”

“Gagawin namin ang lahat ng aming magagawa, lalo na ako, dito sa Senate Committee on Health, hindi lang para sa Covid patients kundi para sa lahat ng mga Pilipino,” he added.

U.K. scientists to immunize hundreds with experimental novel coronavirus vaccine

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ONDON—Scientists at Imperial College London say they are immunizing hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing no worrying safety problems in a small number vaccinated so far.

Dr. Robin Shattock, a professor at the college, told The Associated Press that he and his colleagues had just finished a very slow and arduous process of testing the vaccine at a low dose in the initial participants and would now expand the trial to about 300 people, including some over age 75.

“It’s well tolerated. There aren’t any side effects,” he said, adding it was still very early in the study.

Shattock, who is leading the vaccine research at Imperial, said he hopes to have enough safety data to start inoculating several thousand people in October.

Since Covid-19 infections have dropped dramatically in Britain, making it difficult to determine whether the vaccine works, Shattock said he and his colleagues are also looking to test their vaccine elsewhere.

“We’re looking very carefully at the pandemic, at the numbers where the hot spots are and talking to collaborators that have the facilities to do these kinds of studies,” he said.

The Imperial vaccine uses synthetic strands of genetic code based on the virus. Once injected into a muscle, the body’s own cells are instructed to make

copies of a spiky protein on the coronavirus. That should in turn trigger an immune response so the body can fight off any future Covid-19 infection.

Earlier this week, the world’s biggest coronavirus vaccine study started in the United States, with the first of 30,000 planned volunteers getting immunized with shots created by the US National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. Several other vaccines made by China and by Britain’s Oxford University, based on different vaccine technologies, began smaller final-stage tests in Brazil and other hard-hit countries earlier this month.

The World Health Organization has said multiple vaccine approaches are necessary for Covid-19, noting that the usual success rate for vaccine development is about 10 percent.

Shattock said there were numerous coronavirus vaccines now in clinical trials, and he predicted that at least some of them would prove to be effective.

“We have 20 vaccines in clinical trials, [so] we can be pretty confident that at least two of those will work,” he said. “It really depends on how strong the immune response needs to be to provide protection.”

Shattock said he was optimistic the Imperial vaccine would work, but must await the scientific data from the trial.

“I’m just going to hold my breath and wait to see,” he said. AP

JMC cuts ‘red tape’ in construction of telco towers, DILG chief reveals

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By Samuel P. Medenilla

elecommunication companies can now look forward to constructing more communication towers with fewer red tapes under the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) new joint memorandum circular (JMC).

On Thursday, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said the JMC, which was signed on July 22, 2020, cuts the needed permits for so-called passive telecommunication towers.

Aside from the DILG, other signatories of the JMC are the Anti-Red Tape Authority; Department of Information and Communications Technology; Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development; Department of Health; Depar tment of Transpor tation; Depar tment of Public Works and Highways; Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines; and the Food and Drug Administration.

Under the JMC, telecommunication firms will no longer be required to secure a resolution f ro m H o m e o w n e r s’ A s s o c i a t i o n s a n d t h e Sangguniang Bayan.

Año said the issuance will reduce the processing times of needed permits by concerned government agencies and local government units (LGU) for the construction of new telecommunication towers from 16 to 20 days.

Globe Telecommunications President and Chief Executive Officer Ernest Cu said they welcomed the new JMC since it will allow them to build more communication towers.

Prior to the issuance, he said they usually need to apply 28 to 30 permits and pay “miscellaneous fees” to build a single tower, which usually takes eight months.

“So if we applied 5,000 towers times 28 or 30 permits, that will translate to thousands of permit to start [the construction],” Cu said.

The construction of additional communication towers is expected to improve communication and Internet services nationwide.

During his fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday, President Duterte said one of his priorities before he ends his term in the next two years is to improve the country’s quality of communication services.

Mayor cites Clark as source of jobs for Mabalaqueños

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LARK FREEPORT—The mayor of Mabalacat City has cited this free por t as a provider of employment for some 26,000 of his constituents.

In his recent State of the City Address (SOCA), Mayor Crisostomo Garbo said that the free por t was able to provide and sustain the jobs of Mabalacat residents despite the challenges of the pandemic.

“Gusto ko rin sabihin sa inyo na nandyan pa rin naman ang Clark Freeport, na sa ngayon ay may 26,000 manggagawa galing sa ating syudad,” he said.

From 2018 to 2019, the number of Mabalacat residents working in Clark has continuously increased. From 23,108 employees in 2018, the number grew to 24,907 in 2019.

An additional 1,093 workers were employed

this year, ushering a total of 26,000 Mabalacat residents working inside the free port this year.

This accounts for 19.55 percent of the 132,969 total number of workers in Clark during the prepandemic period.

Meanwhile, Garbo also assured that they will continue to look for more work opportunities here, especially for individuals whose jobs were affected by the pandemic.

“I know the situation but we have to be hopeful,” he added. In an article released by the Mabalacat City Information Office, he likewise expressed his gratitude to the Clark Development Corp. and its locators for their support on the City’s Covid-19 efforts and programs. “ Hindi ko man kayo ma-isa-isa lahat, taos puso ko kayong pinasasalamatan. Maraming maraming salamat po ,” he said. Ashley Manabat

US, China consulate closures deal losses to both nations W ASHINGTON—In shutting each other’s consulates, the United States and China have done more than strike symbolic blows in their escalating feud. They’ve also dimmed each other’s ability to observe—and to spy on—critical regions of their countries.

For the United States, the loss of the Chengdu mission in southwestern China will, among other things, cloud its view of Tibet, a region where Buddhist residents say Beijing is eroding its culture and its traditional independent streak. China says Tibet has been its territory for centuries.

For China, the loss of its mission in Houston dims its view of America’s South and, according to US officials, removes the nerve cen-

ter of a Chinese spying network.

While the impact of the consulate closures has yet to be fully felt by either side, it will be.

“We’ll be flying blind if not with very dark glasses and so will they,” said Beatrice Camp, a retired career diplomat who served as consul general at the US consulate in Shanghai from 2008 to 2011.

The closures of the consulates up the ante in the diplomatic confrontation, with the Trump administration turning up the heat on China in the midst of an already heated rivalry that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and ahead of the November US presidential election—and Beijing responding in kind.

As President Donald Trump, under fire for his response to the

pandemic, points to China as the culprit, neither side appears willing to back down. Although a calm of sorts has descended in recent days with no new actions or retaliation announced, US officials say more is coming.

“It’s extremely aggressive, extremely belligerent and I don’t know what the goal is or where this is supposed to take us,” said Camp, noting that cooperation and exchanges in the fields of agriculture, energy, aviation, the environment and commercial and cultural exchanges will suffer.

In addition to serving as service centers for visa seekers and Chinese and American citizens in need of assistance in each city, the consulates provided a safe and secure headquarters for intelligence

collection and political reporting.

In Houston, US officials said they removed the epicenter of a Chinese spying network that spanned more than 25 cities, collecting intelligence, trying to steal intellectual property and harassing the expatriate families of dissidents and others while trying to coerce them to return to China.

Led by a consul general who had previously served in Australia, where China has been especially active in going after expatriates, the Houston consulate was “particularly aggressive and particularly successful,” one US official said.

US officials do not deny collecting intelligence from the consulate in Chengdu but insist that it functioned the same as any diplomatic mission run by the United States

or other nations.

A second US official, who like the first was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Chengdu was important for “understanding and messaging the Chinese people and especially the people in that district, which includes Tibet.”

But the officials said that those efforts were hamstrung by Chinese regulations and that China enjoyed far greater access from its Houston consulate than US diplomats did in Chengdu.

The US has had a consulate in Chengdu for 35 years, but its presence in southwest China predates that. During World War II, American planes airlifted supplies to Chinese troops in the area from

bases in India and Burma, now called Myanmar, in a drive to hold back the Japanese advance.

For many years, it was the lone foreign consulate in Chengdu, with other nations forced to locate diplomatic missions in Chonqqing, a mega-city that is home to major US and other Western commercial interests. The Chengdu consulate had also overseen US interests in the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou.

Chengdu is also a jumping-off point for visits to Tibet, access to which has long been restricted for foreigners, particularly since an uprising against Beijing’s rule in 2008. China says Tibet has been its territory for seven centuries, but many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of that time. AP

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Outbreak may prompt tighter lockdown in Melbourne

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ustralia’s secondmost populous state has recorded 627 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours as public health officials examine data from the first half of Melbourne’s six-week lockdown to determine what’s going wrong.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said Friday that over the next two days, public health experts would analyze trends in the data and warned they may recommend more stringent measures.

On Thursday, Australia suffered its worst day of infections with Victoria recording 723 new cases and Andrews held emergency talks with Prime Minister Scott Morrison to discuss whether further restrictions were needed.

“It is important that all of us acknowledge these numbers are far too high,” Andrews said. “We could not open up with these numbers.

We could not even open up with significantly less numbers.”

Neighboring New South Wales State recorded a further 21 infections while its northern neighbor Queensland added a case. In Victoria, half of the latest eight fatalities were in agedcare facilities. Bloomberg News

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US economy shrinks at record 32.9% pace in second quarter

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he US economy suffered its sharpest downturn since at least the 1940s in the second quarter, highlighting how the pandemic has ravaged businesses across the country and left millions of Americans out of work.

Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 9.5 percent in the second quarter from the first, a drop that equals an annualized pace of 32.9 percent, the Commerce Department’s initial estimate showed on Thursday.

That’s the steepest annualized decline in quarterly records dating back to 1947 and compares with analyst estimates for a 34.5-percent contraction. Personal spending, which makes up about two-thirds of GDP, slumped an annualized 34.6 percent, also the most on record.

The figures lay bare the extent of the economic devastation that resulted from the government-ordered shutdowns and stay-at-home orders designed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus that abruptly brought a halt to the longest-running expansion.

While employment, spending and production have improved since reopenings picked up in May and massive federal stimulus reached Americans, a recent surge in infections has tempered

TRUMP FLOATS DELAYING NOVEMBER 3 POLLS BUT LACKS AUTHORITY TO DO SO resident Donald J. Trump raised the notion of delaying the November 3 election until after the coronavirus pandemic eases, something he cannot do without the consent of lawmakers who have already rejected the idea.

In a tweet, Trump asked if the election should be delayed “until people can properly, securely and safely vote,” suggesting without offering evidence that mail-in voting will be subject to fraud. The President’s comments come as his poll numbers continue to sink against rival Joe Biden, who is leading nationally and in battleground states.

Trump later said that he didn’t intend to change the date of the election, but he also sought to cast doubt on the vote by saying it would be days “or even years” until the nation knew the outcome if mail-in balloting was used. ”Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don’t want to see a crooked election,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “This election will be the most rigged election in history, if that happens.”

Biden said Trump’s comments were meant to be a distraction from the funeral in Atlanta on Thursday of civil rights icon John Lewis.

“He called for not having the election on November 3. He wants to postpone the election.

Well, that’s for two reasons: One, he believes it, but two, he doesn’t want you to focus on what’s going on today,” Biden said at a virtual fund-raiser.

Although terminology differs state by state, there is no difference between mail-in voting and absentee voting. Elections officials have stopped using the latter term as most states no longer require an excuse, such as being absent on Election Day, to request a mail-in ballot.

“Universal” vote-by-mail generally refers to the policy of sending every registered voter a mail-in ballot automatically. Only six largely Western states plan to do so in November.

The Trump campaign quickly began to offer explanations for the president’s remark. Spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement that the president was “just raising a question”—but that question got a swift and uncommonly bipartisan answer from Congress: No. House Democrats, whose support would be needed to pass a law changing Election Day, said it was a non-starter. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who will also be on the ballot in November, told a local reporter in Kentucky that the date was set in stone. Other Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, also rejected the idea.

If Trump’s goal was to change the subject from Biden’s widening lead in public opinion polls and the economy, he got his wish. His question overshadowed headlines about the US passing 150,000 coronavirus deaths and the gross domestic

Saturday, August 1, 2020

product shrinking at an annualized rate of nearly 33 percent to the date of the election.

Trump tied his call for an election delay to his concern over vote-by-mail. As voters worry about contracting the coronavirus at a polling place, most states have made it easier to request a mail-in ballot in recent months. Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that vote-bymail is rife with fraud and primarily benefits Democrats and sought, unsuccessfully, to curb the practice.

Although it will make voting easier, a largely absentee election could also mean delays in counting the results, and Trump’s ire will almost undoubtedly lead to legal challenges from either side after the election.

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 “I don’t want a delay,” Trump said at the White House. “I want to have the election. But I also don’t want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing, and the election doesn’t mean anything.”

The President has often floated unusual ideas when faced with political difficulties, suggesting that he might not accept the results of the 2016 election, alleging he could pardon himself during the Russia investigation and theorizing that the Supreme Court could somehow stop his impeachment trial.

With 96 days until the scheduled election, he is again in political hot water. Polls show Biden ahead nationally, as well as in the six battleground states, with voters losing confidence in his handling of the economy, the one policy area where he consistently led Biden.

Trump’s tweet came minutes after the Commerce Department reported the economy shrank at a record 32.9-percent pace in the second quarter and Labor Department figures showed increasing numbers of Americans claiming state unemployment benefits.

The dollar dropped briefly following the Trump tweet, with the US currency hitting its low for the day against the euro and falling against the yen.

US stock futures and yields on 10-year Treasuries also touched session lows.

One of the first sections of the Constitution lays out that only Congress can determine the dates the Electoral College meets, and the law setting elections for early November was passed in 1845.

Federal elections were held on time during the Civil War, the Spanish flu pandemic and World War II, among other crises. Bloomberg News

the pace of the recovery.

That surge, the result of America’s failure to contain the virus, indicates that the US economy is likely to recover more slowly than places that have done a better job, such as the euro area. And the longer the pandemic lasts without a vaccine, the longer economic output will remain below pre-crisis levels, leaving permanent scars on many businesses and workers.

“We already know that activity rebounded strongly in May and June, setting the stage for a strong rise in GDP in the third quarter,” Andrew Hunter, senior US economist at Capital Economics, said in a note. “Nevertheless, with the more recent resurgence in virus cases starting to weigh on the economy in July, a continued ‘V-shaped’ recovery is unlikely.”

Jobless claims A separate report Thursday showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased for a second straight week. Initial claims through regular state programs rose

to 1.43 million in the week ended July 25, up 12,000 from the prior week, the Labor Department said. There were 17 million Americans filing for ongoing benefits through those programs in the period ended July 18, up 867,000 from the prior week.

US stocks fell the most in a week after the data releases, and yields on 10-year Treasuries declined.

While the economic restart has helped put 7.5 million Americans back to work in May and June combined, payrolls are down more than 14.5 million from their pre-pandemic peak. The swift deterioration in the economy and job market explain why the Federal Reserve is keeping its benchmark rate pinned near zero and why it rolled out several emergency lending programs geared toward fostering liquid trading conditions in financial markets.

“We have seen some signs in recent weeks that the increase in virus cases, and the renewed measures to control it, are starting to weigh on economic activity,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference Wednesday after the central bank’s two-day policy meeting.

“On balance, it looks like the data are pointing to a slowing in the pace of the recovery,” though it was too soon to say how large—or sustained—this period would be, he said.

With the election only three months away, American voters will have to decide whether to reelect President Donald Trump to a second term against a back-

drop of the virus-induced recession and his response to the health crisis.

The second-quarter contraction was broad-based, the GDP release showed.

Business investment in structures, equipment and intellectual property slumped an annualized 27-percent pace, the steepest slide since 1952, while residential investment dropped at a 38.7-percent rate, the most since 1980.

More recently, figures have shown a pickup in home sales as Americans take advantage of record-low mortgage rates.

The pandemic’s toll on household spending for services was breathtaking: A 43.5-percent annualized slide during the quarter, subtracting nearly 23 percentage points from GDP. Meanwhile, outlays for goods took away 2.1 percentage points.

After passage in late March of the Cares Act, the largest US stimulus package in modern history, government spending and investment increased an annualized 2.7 percent as non-defense outlays surged at a 39.7-percent pace, the most since the Vietnam War in 1967. However, state and local spending declined at a 5.6-percent pace, amid plummeting tax revenues.

The report also showed inventories subtracted nearly 4 percentage points from GDP, while trade added 0.7 percentage point.

T he qu a r terly prof i le of t he economy—as shown by the GDP report—paints a much different picture than monthly data do. As shutdow ns g radu a l ly l if ted a nd

states began to reopen, economic activity stirred back to life in May and June—just not to the levels seen before the pandemic.

Millions of people headed back to work, and Americans ventured out of their homes to spend again at newly reopened stores and restaurants.

Bolstered by relief payments and unemployment benefits, retail sales rebounded near pre-pandemic levels and consumer spending surged by the most on record in May—though still came in short of the February level.

Economy’s outlook The rebound in activity will largely be captured in the third-quarter figures, which won’t be released until October 29, just days before Election Day. But the surge in virus cases has led the economic recovery to stall for several weeks as consumers hold back on spending and traveling amid continued layoffs, according to the Bloomberg Economics recovery tracker.

Crucial lifelines in the pandemic, like the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits, are expiring at a time when the economic recovery is showing signs of teetering. Lawmakers are currently debating another stimulus package to support businesses and the unemployed, but the timing of the bill is unclear. Support from Congress has buoyed the economy in recent months, and further action will be crucial in determining the path of the recovery. Bloomberg News

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ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

DTI-EMB chief tells MSMEs: Shift to digital amid contagion

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ONSUMER behavior is evolving because of the Covid-19 pandemic and digital transformation is the way for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to adapt to the new situation, according to Department of Trade and Industry-Export Marketing Bureau (DTIEMB) Director Senen M. Perlada.

Perlada was a panelist in the National MSME Week’s final session on “Riding the Wave of Digital Transformation for Sustainable Enterprises” on July 24, 2020.

The chief executive of DTI’s export marketing arm said that consumers are now switching to the consumption of essentials to suit their new homebody, or cocooning lifestyles.

“All businesses must refocus digital efforts toward changing customer expectations. The digital economy is a departure from the traditional zero-sum-game business model with its focus on shared value creation,” he said.

“The best business model is developed on global best practices but deeply rooted in local consumer insights. Companies that master ‘glocalization’ and personalization will be the winners in the new market space,” Perlada added.

He pointed out that there are four steps to digital transformation, according to Cobena Business Analytics and Strategy. First is putting information in digital format, then digitalization of processes, next creating digital businesses via e-commerce, and last, creating business strategies for the digital environment.

DTI-EMB works closely with the DTI-

Foreign Trade Service Corps and the Philippine Trade and Investment Centers to find new markets for exporters.

For instance, the bureau will hold online business-matching sessions for the US on August 7, Latin America on August 12, and China on August 20 as part of the Guangzhou World Agricultural Expo.

The bureau is also onboarding more MSMEs on the e-commerce platform eCFULFILL so they can sell their products on Amazon, eBay and Etsy.

As of July 25, DTI-EMB has onboarded 30 companies with 60 more for onboarding.

Other panelists in the webinar were Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Director Ma. Aida Yuvienco, Lazada Chief Executive Officer Ray Alimurung, Globe Telecom ECommerce Head Mark Joseph Panganiban, Happy Skin cofounder Rissa Mananquil Trillo, and Leadmore Development Center Chairman and best-selling author Francisco “Dean Pax” Lapid.

They talked about their initiatives to help MSMEs, such as Lazada Fresh that allows the selling and delivery of fresh products in the e-commerce platform.

Globe Telecom’s GCash is easing the transition of the country to a more cashless society through online payments.

Meanwhile, Happy Skin is adapting to the decrease in mall traffic through online skin consultations and product deliveries.

Dean Pax Lapid said that online selling is sustainable if MSMEs go through a process, not just to a platform. The digital marketing process, he said, is composed of the following levels: (1) Knows (knowledge of day to day business); (2) Knows How (Competence to troubleshoot day to day business aspects; (3) Shows How (behavior and performance of the business are evident); (4) Does It More (Consciously takes action and passion to excel); and (5) Identity (takes pride on what he/she has become).

The webinar was moderated by Sherill Quintana, president of the Philippine Franchise Association (PFA), and founder of Oryspa Solutions Inc. Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion delivered the closing remarks.

“The level of frustration is really high, especially for those businesses who were doing well. Then overnight, their lives have changed. Cash flow has been affected, they have to lay off people, so that’s really depressing. Events such as the MSME Week that the DTI has supported, we need more. We need to encourage people,” said Concepcion.

Imee pushes locally made PPEs for frontliners S EN. Imee Marcos has moved for a cutback on the country’s dependence on foreign-made medical supplies by boosting local production, especially of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health-care workers and other frontliners.

Marcos, who chairs the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs, has filed Senate Bill 1708, or the “Healthcare Manufacturing and Pandemic Protection Act,” to exempt local manufacturers from certain taxes and continue applying export incentives even on their output for domestic consumption.

“We need to guarantee that our health workers and frontliners have the medical supplies they require. Shortages of PPEs and other requisites caused infections resulting in the inexcusably high death toll among doctors, nurses and other frontliners,” Marcos said.

“At the onset of the pandemic, we were unable to procure supplies from China, Singapore, Japan, Korea, themselves struggling against the virus. We could not bid against the US and Europe who were understandably paying top dollar for the same short supplies,” Marcos added.

“Clearly what we need to do is to finally establish health security or, at the very least, PPE security, by producing these supplies locally, initiating the stockpiling of their raw materials and encouraging repurpos-

FILE photo shows Sen. Imee Marcos during a pre-pandemic Senate session. Beside her is Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

ing and innovation among willing Filipino manufacturers,” Marcos said.

Local manufacturers need not pay import duties on raw materials and equipment, value-added taxes, and other fees

collected by the Bureau of Customs and Food and Drug Administration under the Marcos bill.

Incentives will also be maintained for export manufacturers even if most of the

medical supplies they produce will go to the Department of Health and private local hospitals.

“Waiving export requirements during a crisis and crediting output for local needs will allow a major industry like the garments industry to preserve hundreds of thousands of jobs and even to expand,” Marcos said.

Marcos had recommended the shift from export manufacture to local production of PPEs by communities of sewers in Taytay, Cavite, and Bataan when the supply of raw materials and orders dwindled during the lockdown in mid-March.

Marcos warned that the country’s rising cases of Covid-19 infection will pose more risks to the safety of health-care workers, citing that the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine already had to suspend operations twice because its personnel fell ill.

“During health emergencies, we should give priority to local manufacturers when the government needs to procure PPE and other medical supplies. But their production capacities must be strengthened first,” Marcos said.

“We can still expand our present capacity which the DTI has pegged at 300,000 PPEs per month. Controversy over the alleged overpricing of imported PPEs will also be avoided in the future,” Marcos said.

Keep export, import supply chains, routes open–logistics expert

By Roderick L. Abad | Contributor

T

HE raging Covid-19 pandemic crisis has continued to take its toll on the economy here and abroad that currently is heading to a steady decline, thus creating adverse effects across different verticals, including export, particularly logistics that includes the supply chains of almost all industries.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the pandemic’s impact on the world trade could mean a $50-billion decline in total global exports.

This is expected to also hit the Philippine supply chains even if the government have eased the lockdowns to reopen the economy while continuously addressing the unprecedented health emergency.

Amid repercussions of Covid-19 to the global trade and industries, it should not be a reason for the international business community to be paralyzed with fear, per JP Marzan Project Ventures Inc. Chairman Jay Marzan.

“Now, more than ever, supply chain leaders must rise to the occasion, and help fight both the pandemic and the economic decline,” he said.

Logistics industry, which handles the movement of goods around the world, may be experiencing declines due to lockdowns and restrictions on the movement of goods and services, but the significance of this sector, specifically the supply chains, is still evident even in these trying times.

In the Philippines, for instance, the government recently imported millions of personal protective equipment (PPE) sets worth P1.8 billion from China.

It plans to send naval ships to hasten the importation of the PPEs since only about 70,000 sets of such protective gears have so far arrived in the country—less than 10 percent of the total amount.

The products would then be brought to the warehouse managed by the Office of Civil Defense prior to its distribution to various hospitals.

It would take time, however, to completely transport the much-needed medical supplies.

“It is instances like this that logistics leaders can make a difference where they can help the country’s economy and the health and safety of the frontliners during this pandemic,” Marzan noted.

Communications and crisis management, he pointed out, are highly essential now that the entire logistics industry is confronted by the contagious disease.

Creating effective plans to improve the supply chain and constant dialogue between leaders is very crucial at this point to immediately determine any weak points that need to be assessed and addressed, he said.

“Leaders need to make rapid and immediate decisions to sustain operations so they can maintain the successful distribution of supplies and services quickly, safely, and securely to the frontliners and people at risk of infection. Supply chains must take a holistic approach and create a strong framework,” Marzan explained.

Because the pandemic is projected to affect not only the logistics industry but also the global economy in the long run, he reiterated that careful planning must become an important part of crisis response both from the public and private sectors.

JP Marzan, the homegrown logistics firm he leads, dedicates itself to help meet the challenges of the globalized market and serves as a reliable partner for the country’s economic growth.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

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Rising coronavirus cases spark concern in Florida nursing homes

Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, August 1, 2020

29 centenarians in Soccsksargen get P100,000 cash gifts amid pandemic

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By Richelyn Gubalani

ENERAL SANTOS CITY—Some 29 centenarians from parts of Region 12 or Soccsksargen have received recognition and cash incentives in the last six months from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

A CARAVAN of union members stop outside the Franco Nursing & Rehabilitation Center to hand out masks to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus on July 20, 2020, in Miami. Experts and industry leaders told The Associated Press that a statewide mask mandate would help protect staff members, and consequently residents, from the virus. AP PHOTO/WILFREDO LEE

By Adriana Gomez Licon & Kelli Kennedy The Associated Press

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IAMI—The coronavirus transformed Florida’s nursing homes into closely guarded fortresses beginning in March, with the state banning family visits, isolating infected residents in separate wings and now requiring staff be tested every two weeks. But the explosion of cases statewide is proving that is not enough.

The numbers are already showing the grim reality, underscoring how mask compliance and restrictions in the outside world impact the state’s most vulnerable. In the past three weeks, cases have gone from about 2,000 to some 4,800 at Florida nursing homes.

Roughly 2,550 long-term care residents and staff have died overall, accounting for about 45 percent of all virus deaths in Florida.

“Where you see Covid hot spots, our anxiety level in our centers automatically goes up. Our vigilance goes through the roof,” said Luke Neumann, a vice president at Palm Garden, which has 14 facilities across Florida.

“That’s how societies are judged in part—by how you care for the weak and aged,” Neumann said.

Florida recorded 173 new coronavirus deaths on Thursday, a daily high that pushed its toll from the pandemic to more than 5,500. Deaths inside nursing homes have also been on the rise, averaging about 40 per day in the last week after those numbers had dropped in mid-June to lower than 20 deaths per day.

About 180 out of every 10,000 longterm care facility residents have died so far in Florida, a toll that is still far lower than some northeastern states, which saw deaths surge at the height of the pandemic in March and April. New York had about 400 deaths per 10,000 nursing home residents and New Jersey more than 1,100.

Florida has set up dedicated isolation facilities for nursing home residents who have been discharged from a hospital yet still continue to test positive for the virus, but those nearly 1,400 beds in about 20 facilities spread across the state likely aren’t enough, industry representatives said.

Nursing homes with scant resources may feel pressured to set up isolation wards that they’re not fully equipped to create safely, said Dr. Paul Katz, chair of the Department of Geriatrics at Florida State University.

“The more positive cases you get in nursing homes, the higher the risk of it spreading within the incredibly susceptible population of residents,” Katz said.

Facilities already are strapped with requirements for extra cleaning, protective gear and testing.

Jay Solomon, CEO of Aviva senior home in Sarasota, said $500,000 in stimulus aid his Sarasota facility received from the federal government will run out in a week.

The federal government sent 14 million masks and 13 million gowns to nursing homes, but some Florida providers said they were unusable. Others didn’t receive them at all.

Solomon compared protective gowns sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “garbage bags” and said a shipment of masks were flimsy and had to be tossed.

“No provider should have to decide between, ‘Do we test the staff this week or do we test the residents this week?”’

Solomon said.

Florida is paying for Covid-19 tests for all nursing home staff once every two weeks until September and it’s unclear if it will be extended.

Larger facilities say testing of staff and residents—at $75 to $125 per kit— can run them up to $300,000 per month.

And testing is of only limited benefit if the turnaround in obtaining results does not improve beyond the current seven to 10 days.

“It’s almost like, ‘What are we accomplishing in that time?”’ Solomon said of the lag in getting results. “If that person is not quarantined in that seven to 10 days, are they spreading without realizing it?”

But without test data, experts say it will be nearly impossible to squelch the spread. “ T he over whelming majority of staff members who are testing positive are asymptomatic. It is an insidious virus that is very difficult to detect, absent the testing,” said Jeffrey Freimark, CEO of Miami Jewish Health nursing home.

Meanwhile, facilities are struggling to maintain adequate staffing levels because some workers are out sick and other prospective hires may be leery of working at a nursing home. There’s been a 148-percent increase in staff cases since June 14, according to state figures.

Anne-Mercie Blot, who has been a certified nursing assistant at Hampton Court nursing home in Miami for 16 years, gets her temperature checked every morning along with the mandated bi-monthly tests.

She sometimes works 16-hour shifts and worries about bringing the virus home to her family, as well as bringing it into the nursing home.

“The facilities might be willing to hire more workers, but because of Covid those workers don’t want to come into a facility,” she said.

Industry leaders said a statewide mask mandate would help protect staff members, and consequently residents, from the virus.

Palm Gardens even created its own public health announcement, reminding the public in their communities that wearing masks and social distancing can be a matter of life or death.

With restrictions not likely to go away any time soon, facilities say the isolation and loneliness is taking a toll on residents and their families. Miami Jewish Health has connected more than 5,000 video calls and allowed drive-by visits where friends and family emerge through sun roofs to see their loved ones.

Frances Reaves recently visited her friend Margaret Choinacki, who has no living family members. They also FaceTime twice a day. In her youth, the now 87-yearold Choinacki modeled for the covers of romance novels.

“She now realizes how important people are for her,” Reaves said.

A7

Cezario Joel Espejo, DSWD-12 director, said on Wednesday the recipients comprise the elderly from the area who reached the age of 100 as documented by local government units (LGU) and their personnel from January to June.

He said they continued with the release of the incentives amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The official said the centenarians each

received cash gift of P100,000 and letters of “felicitation” signed by President Duterte.

“This is to honor their contributions to our country,” he said in a statement.

Espejo said the documentation and evaluation of other centenarians are ongoing and assured the populace that those qualified will get the incentives and recognition that they deserve.

He said more centenarians will receive their

incentives, which is set in Republic Act 10868 or the Centenarians Act of 2016, during the celebration of the Filipino Elders Week in October.

The law provides that all Filipinos who have reached the age of 100, whether residing in the country or abroad, shall receive a cash incentive of P100,000 from the national government as a “centenarian gift.”

Qualified elders are also entitled to awards and incentives from their respective cities or municipalities.

Espejo urged residents to coordinate with their LGUs if there are other elders in their areas who have reached the age of 100.

He said family members or relatives may submit copies of their birth certificate, passport and other secondary documents like senior citizen’s identification card and marriage certificate.

In the absence of any of these documents, he said that birth certificates of the centenarian’s children may be presented to establish their age. PNA

An inheritance of non-material riches

By Nick Tayag

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AYBE something about this long pandemic has made me feel like we are nearing end times.

Or perhaps it’s this e-book about the life of St. Paul I am now reading that has put me in a contemplative mood. Realizing that the end was near and the final curtain were about to fall on his evangelical sojourns, St. Paul wrote: “…and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” When I first heard that being read in church, I thought the tone was too boastful and even presumptuous. But then again, perhaps St. Paul had earned it after surviving blindness, many beatings, trials, calumnies, unfounded accusations, frustrations and disappointments.

Can we old timers declare the same thing now that we are all waiting for our last flight inside life’s pre-departure lounge? Are we prepared to leave our last testament, our life’s footprints, our legacy? Or are we still driving ourselves like crazy scheming to plow more money into our bank balances and acquire more properties?

We have heard of many stories about siblings and relatives getting into acrimonious legal squabbles and disputes over the properties left by their wealthy patriarch who had accumulated so much riches in his lifetime, which he couldn’t bring with him to the afterlife.

As for me and my wife, we are contented that there will be not much material wealth and inheritance that we will bequeath to our children when we move on. Not much to leave behind to cause our children to wage a battle royal against each other. More likely it’s unpaid debts (very little) that we would leave on their laps.

Preparing a last will and testament would be unnecessary and OA. In my case, I am happy to pass on my shelves of books to any of my children.

There is, however, a more valuable and lasting kind of inheritance. It’s called spiritual legacy, as in non-material legacy. The

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH term refers to the wisdom, advice, and blessings of elders to be passed on to those who are next in line. It can also include creative works including paintings, musical compositions, literary writings, personal memoirs and the like. These are goods that have the ability to live on and in the hearts of the next generation.

Although it can’t be seen, counted, or measured, a spiritual inheritance is the most priceless gift you can pass on to your children and grandchildren. It’s imparted over the course of a lifetime when parents display consistent words and actions from their own lives that are worthy of adoption and emulation.

The idea of a spiritual legacy, as opposed to the material goods we leave behind, is a familiar tradition in other cultures as well. In the Old Testament, we read about the dying Jacob giving his children what in Hebrew is called his tzava’ah, or spiritual estate.

Our lives aren’t lived for ourselves only.

We also bear responsibility to influence others spiritually, especially the members of our own families. To that end, let us be aware of some objects or materials that we can leave as spiritual time capsules with the belief that they will bless many generations of our descendants.

But what exactly is worth passing on?

And how do you do it? Of course, one of the most valuable assets you can pass on to your children is a good name, which is the product of the life you live before the watching eyes of your children and grandchildren.

A good name is earned through the consistent practice of character qualities, such as honesty, diligence, humility, kindness, sincerity, faith and love. A good name is also the result of significant achievement as doctor, lawyer, judge, prominent politician, scientist, an award-winning artist or what have you.

But even if you have not gained any significant achievement, you can always tell the story of your life, the story of what is most important to you and how you know it is important. Stories that teach, heal, inspire which are easy to remember. Great men have all used parables to teach complex and paradoxical truths. And each one is connected to the bigger story.

What would be your footprint in the sand? What would be your equivalent of “carbon print,” which in the language of climate change is a broad measure of the actions of an individual, a family, an

event, an organization, or even an entire nation?

W hat w il l you leave that can be passed on that will be meaningful and will last?

For some, a simple story of one’s life would be alright. Aurit, my wife, is meticulously putting family pictures, greeting cards and mementos on albums that a future grand kid curious about our family history might want to leaf through.

As for me, here’s my list in progress:

I am now putting into a box my few published articles, my unpublished writings including those sophomoric writings in college.

I would be bequeathing my eclectic library of books, still vast even after the devastation of Typhoon Ondoy. Mostly purchased in a second-hand bookstores.

My jottings of quotations and phrases

My collection of films, great and not so great, reflecting my passion for art of cinema.

All these are my riches that don’t have much in material value but they reflect my beliefs, my interests, my inclinations as a person. Let my life be a portrait of my thinking and beliefs.

In the manner of St. Paul’s epistle, here is my reflection on my past: I never aspired for any power, riches. I just wanted to be a simple workingman, in the background, just one of the builders, a mason, inconspicuously and silently contributing to the task. If ever I wanted to say something I do it in writing. I have never been vocally religious in my practice but I have been a spiritual seeker. I never committed violence, I never hurt anybody deliberately and intentionally.

Maybe I have been undemonstrative in my show of love and compassion to my fellow men but that love and concern was there and I gave to the needy many times even if not asked. When I hired workers to do tasks for me, I gave more than they deserved sometimes.

To my children, may our family continue to bond in loving unity as ever, and may the succeeding generations in our family sustain a deep love of our country, race and identity.

Learn not to put too much importance on material riches, not to exhaust yourself in pursuit of material success; not to waste time in gaining worldly power and recognition. For all these strivings and pursuits will not enrich you as a human being.

A8

BusinessMirror

Saturday, August 1, 2020

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INSURANCE BRAND PUSHES TECH TO BRING REWARDS

ONE of the country’s leading insurance providers, AXA Philippines is giving customers a chance to win Grab Food and Lazada vouchers and P100,000 via GCash.

To qualify for the promo, one must download the Emma

by AXA app, register, then update the required contact information through the app.

By downloading the Emma by AXA app on the App Store or Google Play Store, customers and non-customers alike also gain the added benefit of access to 24/7 emergency services such as ambulance, fire, police and roadside assistance through the Rescue Line feature. The app also allows customers to monitor their policy online and conveniently access their funds, investments, transaction history, and AXA’s e-servicing features.

Ongoing until August 15, the offer includes free Grab Food vouchers worth P200 every week to be raffled off to 300 life insurance customers and general insurance policyholders who update their information. Moreover, every week from August 16 to September 15, AXA will be raffling off Lazada vouchers worth P1,000 to 50 customers.

What’s more, the company will also reward one life insurance customer and one general insurance customer the grand prize of P100,000 each via Gcash through an e-raffle.

This promo is open to all policyholders who successfully complete the requirements on or before December 15.

More information can be found at bit.ly/3jbvq4m.

GLOBE AT HOMES IMPROVES CONNECTIVITY OF ‘WORK-FROM-HOME WARRIORS’

BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES THE Covid-19 pandemic has encouraged people to recreate their world in their own spaces. As far as the “work-from-home warriors” are concerned, Globe At Home made it sure it offers connectivity that empowers Filipino families to do more and achieve more, with its affordable and high-speed broadband plans, intelligent devices, relevant content partners, and digital account management/ after-sales services.

“Since we’re still mostly at home, we rely on the power of the Internet to inform, entertain and educate us. A strong and reliable connection is now more important than ever,” shared Darius Delgado, vice president and head of Broadband Business at Globe, in a press statement.

“Furthermore, we get to spend more time with our family as we do more and recreate life,” he added.

Baby Aquino, vice president and head of brand management for Globe At Home, said the objective of the telco’s business unit is to enhance the productivity of the worker and enjoy its othe benefits.

“Globe At Home’s goal is to provide more Filipino families with high-speed Internet so they can turn their home into whatever they want it to be—whether it’s an office or a classroom,” Aquino said. “We want to better serve our customers’ increasing need for more stable and reliable home connectivity so they can transform their homes.”

Aquino said Globe At Home’s new postpaid line-up begins with Xtreme WiFi Plan 999. For as low as P999 per month, customers can experience instant WiFi, instant big data of up to 140GB, and instant entertainment right at home. Unli Plan 1899 with speeds of up to 30 Mbps comes with a free Android TV Box. This entertainment device allows families to stream video content on the big screen from your favorite streaming apps so that you can bring the cinema right at home.

Meanwhile, Aquino said UNLI Plan 2899 has speeds of up to 100 Mbps and comes with a pair of TP-Link Deco M5 WiFi Mesh devices.

KALYE Mabunga is a 10-minute show about urban farming and gardening. It airs on Facebook every Friday.

Quarantine planting: Fad or necessity?

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HESE days, everyone is either a fur-parent or a plant-parent. Being a plant-parent or plant-tita seems easier because plants aren’t as high maintenance as animals, no matter how small they are.

Plants can transform any indoor or outdoor space and give it an oasis-like feel. In these times, we need that. But as someone who grew up in a house that was always filled with plants inside and out, I’ve never had to care for them except for the few times my mom was away for months and I was assigned to water them.

Well, I always overwatered them and many of them died but my mom never learned.

These days, people are buying plants by the bulk on Facebook and Instagram. I guess that taking care of a plant is just like raising a pet. In quarantine though, it is more convenient to take care of plants than pets in a condominium with many restrictions. Also, you don’t need to walk a plant or bring it to a vet. It just needs water, fertilizer and, occasionally, sunshine.

For many people, particularly during quarantine, it’s not just that plants bring comfort and joy. It’s also about food security. As someone who grew up in the province, I know the importance of growing one’s food. We even used to grow some vegetables and raise chickens in our backyard.

To help encourage more people to become planttitos and plant-titas and raise awareness on food security, Smart Communications Inc. (Smart) and the Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Training Institute (DA-ATI) have teamed up to produce a web series, called Kalye Mabunga.

This series is in support of the government’s ongoing “Plant, Plant, Plant” campaign that encourages people to attain food security at the household level by making available healthy, nutritious food in their own homes.

Each 10-minute episode tackles topics such

as choosing which vegetable, fruit and herbs can be planted in an urban setting. Urban dwellers, especially those with limited spaces, can learn about city space farming, garden maintenance, and proper habits. Episodes on making gardening supplies out of recycled materials, as well as using plants for art projects, aim to encourage parents to get their children interested in plants.

Aside from planting, viewers can also learn how to cook healthy vegetable dishes. An episode on medicinal herbs can help provide more natural remedies for common sicknesses. Partner guests will also share best practices on how they successfully developed their own backyard farms.

In addition, the series will also feature special episodes for young kids that aim to educate them about food and farming to make them appreciate the value of agriculture even at a young age.

“Kalye Mabunga” will run until September 25, every Friday, 8 pm, at the Smart Communities Facebook page.

The online series is supported by the Department of Education Philippines, Bangsamoro Development Agency, PLDT-Smart’s Gabay Kalikasan and Alagang Kapatid Foundation Inc. ■

Why we need emojis more than ever IN the era of Covid-19, face-to-face communication is a rarity.

As people around the world are distancing themselves from one another to protect ourselves from the pandemic, we’ve found ourselves leaning on technology—from group chats to video calls—to have conversations. While we’ve gotten so used to sending quick messages, we fail to realize how much of our meaning and intent may be falling by the wayside as we exchange words.

Prof. Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer of the understanding of communications since the 1960s established the importance of non-verbal cues in communicating with each other. His research emphasized that in communicating one’s feelings and attitudes, only 7 percent of a message comes from the words that are spoken, while the 38 percent is in the tone and manner of speaking, and 55 percent in facial expression or body language, which telegraphs emotions more precisely than words may be able to.

To prove this even further, according to the 2017 study “The Importance of Understanding Emoji” by Shatha Ali A Hakami at the University of Birmingham, it was found that the same sections of the brain are activated when an individual sees an emoji as when seeing real human facial expressions, helping people empathize with each other.

Here are more reasons why using emojis can improve the way you communicate: ■ AVOID AMBIGUOUS MESSAGES. Messages that contain pure text can easily be misunderstood or taken out of context. How do you know if “Okay!” was an upbeat show of enthusiasm, or a dejected and bored reply? Emojis can help elucidate and emphasize the meaning of text messages

through a variety of characters that effectively express opinions and feelings, with a little bit of your own personality.

■ IMPROVE INTERACTIONS WITH STRANGERS. Technology allows us to get in touch with people we don’t know very well, from a home baker selling ube cheese pandesal online or a fellow BTS fan who wants to barter fan paraphernalia with you. And when you don’t know someone’s nuances in their speech, emojis can help make the interaction more pleasant, especially now that community commerce is on the rise.

■ EASE YOUR WAY INTO A GROUP DISCUSSION. Sometimes, it can be intimidating to communicate when you’re in a big group—even more so when it’s an online group. Sending emojis can help ease your way in by letting you show your support and participate in conversations as you’re getting to know the community. Now, even in your Viber Communities, there’s a way to use emojis to express yourself to a big group of people. Rakuten Viber is incorporating a new Message Reactions feature in Communities. To see how people have reacted to your message, long-tap the message and choose “Info” to see the list of reactions.

■ CONNECT—OBVIOUSLY OR SECRETLY—WITH PEERS. Emojis can take on different meanings from what their literal graphics portray, especially among certain cultures and demographics. When someone uses a fire emoji, for example, it usually doesn’t mean that something is literally burning, but that someone is or looks hot. While that’s something a Boomer might not get, it’s definitely a compliment to Millennials and Gen Z-ers. There are so many cultural ideas

and expressions hidden in emojis, as well as stickers and GIFs, so sending them can show you are in the know. Viber has a wealth of these embedded into their chats so you can easily search and send them out, making conversations fun and funnier.

BusinessMirror

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In reversal, CES gadget show won’t be in-person after all

BY JOSEPH PISANI The Associated Press NEW YORK—CES, one of the world’s biggest technology conferences, will be a virtual event in January due to the coronavirus pandemic, a reversal from May when organizers said it would go on as a smaller gathering in Las Vegas.

The announcement on Tuesday is another blow for Las Vegas which, like all other US tourist destinations, is suffering as people stay home or vacation locally. More than 170,00 people attended the four-day show this year in January, before Covid-19 began to spread across the US.

States in the South and West are being hit particularly hard.

In Nevada over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases has increased 27 percent.

The state now ranks sixth in the country for new cases of Covid-19 per capita. The pandemic has disrupted major tech events everywhere.

Europe’s biggest consumer electronics trade fair, Germany’s IFA, usually runs for six days and drew nearly a quarter million people last year. This year, it’s half that duration and there will be no public access to the event in September.

Web Summit, a glitzy event in Portugal that features high-profile

tech CEOs and celebrities, will be online this time.

Organizers aim to still hold the physical conference in Lisbon in December but won’t make any final decisions until early October.

Trade shows are a place where people network, try new gadgets or make a sale.

But they’re also big business onto themselves, accounting for $2.5 trillion in global spending, according to the Events Industry Council. Much of that is likely to be lost when events go online.

The Consumer Technology Association, which organizes CES, had said in May that it planned

to go ahead and hold some events in Las Vegas next year, but the thinking changed as Covid-19 cases spiked around the world, making it impossible to hold an indoor event in January 2021, said Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro. There was also uncertainty over whether employees of big tech companies would be allowed to travel by then. Google, for example, said this week that its employees should work from home until at least July 2021.

The four-day digital version of the CES gadget show begins January 6.

■ Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this story.

Saturday, August 1, 2020

REALME PHILIPPINES BAGS AN ASIA-PACIFIC STEVIE AWARD

LIFESTYLE partner of the youth realme Philippines was honored with a bronze Stevie Award as the Most Innovative Startup of the Year in the Consumer Product Industries category at the 2020 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. It is the only smartphone brand from the Philippines to win in the prestigious award-giving body this year.

Despite being in the market for just less than two years, realme Philippines has already cemented its place among the top smartphone brands in the country—a feat the brand achieved by launching attainable products with high-tier features, and by providing technology that complement the lifestyle of its young market. The first international award of realme Philippines follows close to the heels of the launch of its latest smart wearable realme watch and flagship starshooter realme X3 SuperZoom.

“We are just in awe of the trust and support we have been getting since we launched in the Philippines in November 2018. Being a young brand, not just in this country but across the globe, was indeed challenging since the smartphone market is already brimming with competitors. But we knew we have the technology, the features and the real value that can elevate the Filipino smartphone experience; thus here we are, dedicated and inspired to offer more. We are truly grateful to the realme Squad and all our customers.

Maraming salamat po,” shares Austine Huang, vice president for marketing of realme Philippines.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards is the only business awards program to recognize innovation in the workplace in all 29 nations of the Asia-Pacific region. The Stevie Awards is widely considered to be the world’s premier business awards, conferring recognition for achievement in programs such as the International Business Awards for 18 years.

More than 1,000 nominations from organizations across the Asia-Pacific region were considered this year in categories such as Award for Excellence in Innovation in Products & Services, Award for Innovative Management, and Award for Innovation in Corporate Websites, among many others.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners were determined by the average scores of more than 100 executives around the world acting as judges in May and June. Details about the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards and the September 22 awards ceremony, and the list of Stevie Award winners, are available at asia. stevieawards.com.

3GPP 5G FORMALLY ENDORSED AS ITU IMT-2020 5G STANDARD

THIS photo provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows digitally applied mask shapes to photos and tested the performance of face recognition algorithms developed before Covid appeared. AP

Pandemic masks thwarting face recognition tech

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BY MATT O’BRIEN The Associated Press

AVING a tough time recognizing your neighbors behind their pandemic masks? Computers are finding it more difficult, too.

A preliminary study published by a US agency on Monday found that even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50 percent when trying to identify masked faces.

The mask problem is why Apple earlier this year made it easier for iPhone owners to unlock their phones without Face ID. It could also be thwarting attempts by authorities to identify individual people at Black Lives Matter protests and other gatherings.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) says it is launching an investigation to better understand how facial recognition performs on covered faces. Its preliminary study examined only those algorithms created before the pandemic, but its next step is to look at how accuracy could improve as commercial providers adapt their technology to an

era when so many people are wearing masks.

Some companies, including those that work with law enforcement, have tried to tailor their facescanning algorithms to focus on people’s eyes and eyebrows. NIST, which is a part of the Commerce Department, is working with the US Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security’s science office to study the problem.

It tested the software by drawing digital masks onto the faces in a trove of border crossing photographs, and then compared those photos against another database of unmasked people seeking visas and other immigration benefits.

The agency says it scanned 6.2 million images of about 1 million people using 89 algorithms supplied by tech firms and academic labs.

Under ideal conditions, NIST says the failure rate for the best facial recognition systems is only about 0.3 percent, though research has found significant disparities across race, gender and age. Add masks and the failure rate rises to 5 percent or worse. When confronted with masks, the agency says, “many otherwise competent algorithms failed between 20 percent to 50 percent of the time.”

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, some governments had sought technology to recognize people when they tried to conceal their faces.

Face masks had become a hallmark of protesters in Hong Kong, even at peaceful marches, to protect against tear gas and amid fears of retribution if they were publicly identified. The government banned face coverings at all public gatherings last year and warned of a potential six-month jail term for refusing a police officer’s order to remove a mask.

Privacy activists, in turn, have looked for creative ways to camouflage themselves. In London, artists opposed to high-tech surveillance have painted their faces with geometric shapes in a way that’s designed to scramble face detection systems.

Then came the coronavirus outbreak, when health experts around the world began strongly encouraging everyone to wear masks that cover the mouth and nose. NIST’s preliminary study says what masks people wear, and how they wear them, makes a difference to facial recognition systems. The results are mostly unsurprising: The more facial features that are covered, the harder it is to recognize the person beneath the mask. ■

THE International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) formally approved the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) 5G technology (with the Narrowband Internet of Things [NB-IoT] included) as International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 (IMT2020) 5G standard at the ITU-R Working Party 5D (WP5D) #35 meeting, which was convened online on July 9 due to concerns of the ongoing global pandemic.

A game-changer to the development of the mobile telecom industry, this announcement was collectively witnessed by more than 200 representatives and experts from regulatory agencies, telecom manufacturing and operating businesses, and research institutions from all over the world. This great milestone was realized after the ITU affirmed through much scrutiny that 3GPP 5G fulfills the entire set of the technological requirements of IMT-2020 5G standard. Through close collaboration of industrial partners from all the relevant countries, ITU has reached the IMT-2020 5G milestone on schedule, leading the entire globe closer to a fully connected, intelligent world.

The standard, IMT-2020 5G, is an umbrella developed by the ITU toward 5G, or the fifth generation technology standard for mobile networks 2020 and beyond. To ensure technological leadership and superiority over previous cellular technologies, the ITU has posed challenging requirements and developed stringent assessment standards.

Since 2016, the ITU has been undergoing a profound and thorough assessment of all received candidate proposals based on 5G’s three major use cases: enhanced Mobile Broadband, ultra-reliable low-latency communication and Massive Machine-Type Communications Finally, 3GPP 5G was approved as the technology meets the technological standards of IMT-2020 for supporting diverse 5G applications in terms of service support, spectrum, and performance indicators. The technology boasts a peak rate of over 20 Gbps, a latency of less than 1 ms, and enablement of one million connections per square kilometer. The host of the meeting, ITU-R WP 5D, is a working group under the ITU that is responsible for the terrestrial radio access of International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) systems.

Over the past 20 years, the ITU-R WP 5D standardized 3G (known as IMT-2000), 4G (known as IMT-Advanced), as well as the current 5G standard (or termed as IMT 2020 and beyond). 3G and 4G have enabled the mobile telecom industry to achieve significant accomplishments worldwide.

Led by the ITU-R WP 5D, countries and regional organizations around the world will continue to work together on mobile communications. In a statement, global technology giant Huawei (www.huawei.com) affirmed that it will continue to make contributions to advance the development of global mobile communications technologies.

A9

A10 Saturday, August 1, 2020

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How to hide from a drone: The subtle art of ‘ghosting’ in the age of surveillance

BY AUSTIN CHOI-FITZPATRICK University of San Diego

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RONES of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, I document a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in my new book, The Good Drone. I show that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance.

But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the USMexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it’s time to think about how many eyes are in the sky and how to avoid unwanted aerial surveillance. One way that’s within reach of nearly everyone is learning how to simply disappear from view.

CROWDED SKIES

OVER the past decade there’s been an explosion in the public’s use of drones—everyday people with everyday tech doing interesting things. As drones enter already-crowded airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration is struggling to respond. The near future is likely to see even more of these devices in the sky, flown by an ever-growing cast of social, political and economic actors.

Public opinion about the use and spread of drones is still up in the air, but burgeoning drone use has sparked numerous efforts to curtail drones.

These responses range from public policies exerting community control over local airspace, to the development of sophisticated jamming equipment and tactics for knocking drones out of the sky.

From start-ups to major defense contractors, there is a scramble to deny airspace to drones, to hijack drones digitally, to control drones physically and to shoot drones down. Anti-drone measures range from simple blunt force, 10-gauge shotguns, to the poetic: well-trained hawks.

Many of these anti-drone measures are expensive and complicated. Some are illegal. The

/

IDA, a single mother and a working student, was one of the participants of the pilot test of a partnership between Connected Women and the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Globe Telecom and Facebook.

most affordable—and legal—way to avoid drone technology is hiding.

HOW TO DISAPPEAR

THE first thing you can do to hide from a drone is to take advantage of the natural and built environment.

It’s possible to wait for bad weather, since smaller devices like those used by local police have a hard time flying in high winds, dense fogs and heavy rains.

Trees, walls, alcoves and tunnels are more reliable than the weather, and they offer shelter from the high-flying drones used by the Department of Homeland Security.

The second thing you can do is minimize your digital footprints. It’s smart to avoid using wireless devices like mobile phones or GPS systems, since they have digital signatures that can reveal your location.

This is useful for evading drones, but is also important for avoiding other privacy-invading technologies.

The third thing you can do is confuse a drone.

Placing mirrors on the ground, standing over broken glass, and wearing elaborate headgear, machinereadable blankets or sensor-jamming jackets can

break up and distort the image a drone sees.

Mannequins and other forms of mimicry can confuse both on-board sensors and the analysts charged with monitoring the drone’s video and sensor feeds. Drones equipped with infrared sensors will see right through the mannequin trick, but are confused by tactics that mask the body’s temperature.

For example, a space blanket will mask significant amounts of the body’s heat, as will simply hiding in an area that matches the body’s temperature, like a building or sidewalk exhaust vent.

The fourth, and most practical, thing you can do to protect yourself from drone surveillance is to get a disguise. The growth of mass surveillance has led to an explosion in creative experiments meant to mask one’s identity. But some of the smartest ideas are decidedly old-school and low-tech. Clothing is the first choice, because hats, glasses, masks and scarves go a long way toward scrambling drone-based facialrecognition software.

Your gait is as unique as your fingerprint. As gaitrecognition software evolves, it will be important to also mask the key pivot points used in identifying the

walker. It may be that the best response is affecting a limp, using a minor leg brace or wearing extremely loose clothing. Artists and scientists have taken these approaches a step further, developing a hoodie wrap that’s intended to shield the owner’s heat signature and to scramble facial recognition software, and glasses intended to foil facial recognition systems.

KEEP AN UMBRELLA HANDY

THESE innovations are alluring, but umbrellas may prove to be the most ubiquitous and robust tactic in this list. They’re affordable, easy to carry, hard to see around and can be disposed of in a hurry. Plus you can build a high-tech one, if you want.

It would be nice to live in a world with fewer impositions on privacy, one in which law enforcement did not use small quadcopters and the Department of Homeland Security did not redeploy large Predator drones to surveil protesters. And, for people in some parts of the world, it would be nice not to associate the sound of a drone with impending missile fire. But given that those eyes are in the sky, it’s good to know how to hide. THE CONVERSATION

Start-up trains underskilled women in AI for free in partnership with UN Women WITH the Philippines bracing itself for the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), one social impact tech startup is making sure that Filipino women are prepared for the inevitable changes.

Philippines-based start-up Connected Women (www.connectedwomen.co) creates opportunities for both skilled and underskilled women by training them to be data annotators, which are considered to be essential in any program that uses AI. Labeling and categorizing images can earn data annotators around P500 per day, depending on their output. This is more than what many Filipino women earn in the informal economy due to lack of education or access to decent jobs. Outside NCR, the minimum wage ranges from P200 to P400 a day. The training is part of the #WomenRiseAboveCovid program in partnership with the joint EU-UN Women program WeEmpowerAsia. This initiative is one of two tracks with the other focused on helping women business owners during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic.

Founder Gina Romero said that the reputation of Filipinos for being hard working will help us stand out in this fast-growth market.

Connected Women plans to train 200 women by the end of the year and 1,000 more by next year.

With more and more companies around the world using AI for their operations, the reality is that these machines still need to “learn”. This is where data labeling comes in. The process uses human intervention to train AI applications by labeling data such as images, text, or voice. The data is then labeled by the AI and verified by a human so that it can further improve its accuracy.

This industry is expected to be valued at more than $1 billion at the end of 2023 and $1.6 billion by the

end of 2025. Google, Microsoft, Walmart and General Motors are only some of the global companies that have leveraged this community.

Connected Women started as a platform where entrepreneurs from all over the world can look for high-quality Filipina talent. Foreseeing this new demand from tech giants who need the services of data labelers, they have expanded their programs to include training women to become adept data annotators.

The Connected Women community consists of over 70,000 members with the majority coming from Philippine megacities like Manila, Cebu and Davao. Connected Women are trying to reach smaller communities too, with the help of private sector partners and local government units.

During this pandemic, however, there is one uniting factor among these women—most of them were affected by the lockdown and sought other means of income during these trying times.

Seventy members were selected to be part of the initial pilot training for “Elevate AIDA [Artificial Intelligence Data Annotation],” where they were trained in basic data labeling skills such as image identification, classification and categorization.

These are women who previously did not have any knowledge of AI or data labeling.

UN Women’s Ma. Rosalyn Mesina, WeEmpowerAsia Philippines Country Program Manager, said that she is very happy to support this project and provide more opportunities for Filipino women to access decent and fair jobs that will enable them to contribute to the socio-economic wellbeing of their families and communities.

With the strengthening of the country’s Internet infrastructure presenting a growing opportunity for those in far-flung communities who benefit from online work the most, Connected Women also partnered with the likes of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Globe Telecom and Facebook to provide access to the necessary training, tools and connectivity to make their initiative a success.

According to Yoly Crisanto, Globe Sustainability Officer and SVP for Corporate Communications,

developing skills in digital technology becomes more important and those who can learn this will reap the benefits, especially because of the new normal.

“Globe is at the forefront of enabling digitalization, and we believe this initiative will help empower women by providing them with the necessary tools that can aid their training even while they are at home,” Crisanto said.

One of the participants of the pilot test was Ida, a single mother and a working student. Because of the lockdown, Ida not only needs to provide for her two young children but also take care of them and do her daily chores around the house.

Her greatest challenge was looking for work that would allow her to stay home with her children.

“It gives opportunities to single mothers like me who have a hard time looking for work,” she said.

With a daily pay of around P500 for categorizing batches of images, all the participants in the pilot test agreed that this was a reasonable rate. Tasks can be carried out at any time.

Experts are saying that flexible work is the future of most industries in the “new normal” which has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Romero said that more and more women are seeing this type of work as an alternative to their corporate jobs. In fact, the whole country seems to be considering this “new normal” as a viable career option. The Philippines is currently ranked as the 6th fastest-growing freelance market, with a 35% growth from 2019.

“Technology is a game-changer for women and providing access to remote and flexible work means having a choice between staying in the workforce or being forced to drop out.”

BusinessMirror

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Saturday, August 1, 2020 A11

Smart 5G lives W

ELL, that was fast.

During President Duterte’s fifth State of the Nation Address, one of the most quoted lines (besides him not understanding what he was reading) was his threat to close down telco giants Smart Communications and Globe Telecom unless their services improve by December.

“I call on our [telecommunication] companies to improve their services lest we be forced to take drastic steps to address the less-than-ideal service the public is getting from you...[Mag-hanap kayo] because if you are not ready to improve, I might just as well close all of you,” the President said emphatically as he talked about taking public utilities back to the government.

Two days later, Smart announced that its 5G service is going live as a commercial service starting July 30. For the initial phase of its commercial deployment, Smart Signature, Infinity and other Smart postpaid subscribers will be the first to enjoy the super-fast 5G data service in key business districts of Metro Manila. These areas include the Makati Central Business District (CBD), Bonifacio Global City CBD, Araneta City, SM Megamall and Mall of Asia Bay Area. Smart 5G will also be rolled out in key hightraffic areas such as North Avenue in Quezon City and Taft Avenue in Manila, as well as in Ortigas CBD and Clark Green City in Pampanga.

Take note: you first need to have a Smart-certified 5G-capable phone with 5G-activated SIMs to enjoy those wicked-fast speeds.

The telco’s deployment of 5G, however, isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the president’s speech as Smart has been working on its 5G network for years, conducting its first test in 2016. If I remember correctly, it fired up the country’s first 5G base stations in Makati with Huawei and the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga with Ericsson in November of 2018. Last year, Smart also launched the first Smart 5G Lifestyle hub and 5G-enabled shopping mall in Araneta City, as well as the first Smart 5G campus at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Insider sources also told us that the July 30 launch was already on their schedule even before the president made his remark.

Executing the 5G deployment plan required a steady investment effort by PLDT and Smart that amounted to nearly P260 billion in overall capital expenditure (capex) over the past five years. In 2019

alone, the PLDT Group’s capex reached a record P72.9 billion. This capex program enabled PLDT and Smart to build the digital infrastructure including the deployment of an extensive optic fiber network.

The group’s fiber network is the most pervasive in the country and extends to over nearly 360,000 kilometers as of June 2020.

Recognized as the fastest and most extensive in the country, Smart 4G/LTE and 3G coverage serves 95 percent of the country’s population. In its ongoing LTE and LTE-Advanced roll-out, Smart has been installing 5G-capable equipment which will enable Smart to deploy 5G easier and faster.

“It has taken a lot of time and effort, but the future is now here,” said Jane J. Basas, Smart senior vice president and head of Consumer Wireless Business, in a statement.

Alfredo S. Panlilio, PLDT chief revenue officer and Smart president and CEO, said the launch of the 5G service enables the Philippines to level up and join the ranks of countries utilizing the next generation of mobile technology. “For our customers, it opens the door to an even higher level of customer experience in terms of enjoying video, playing esports and using more powerful digital services,” he added.

Panilio added that they will rollout 5G in more areas of the country to complement the deployment of their 4G/LTE network.

The first five Smart 5G-certified devices from Samsung, realme, Huawei and Vivo are now available with the Smart Signature Device Plans S, M, L, and

XL. For regular customers, they can sign up for a Smart Signature Plan at Smart Stores nationwide or via the Smart Online Store at store.smart.com.ph.

Hopefully we would be able to test the 5G speeds using our Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra once we get our 5G postpaid SIM.

SMART, CIGNAL TV BRING BACK THE NBA

SMART has even more good news for basketball fans who miss watching the NBA games on their TVs. Smart and Cignal TV have just announced a multiyear partnership with the NBA to deliver the games and programming to fans in the Philippines through freeto-air, satellite television and over-the-top streaming.

Beginning yesterday, July 31, TV5 and ONE Sports now broadcast live four NBA games every week. TV5 and ONE Sports will air select “seeding games” and playoff games through the first and second rounds, while the Conference Finals will be televised in its entirety between the two channels. The 2020 NBA Finals will be broadcast exclusively on TV5.

Through this partnership, Cignal will also launch NBA TV Philippines, a localized version of NBA TV—the league’s dedicated 24/7 channel—which will feature live games and original programming in high definition. Smart will livestream NBA TV Philippines through its new over-the-top service, which will be available exclusively to the network’s paid subscribers. Recently, Cignal TV announced discounted offers to HBO Go and hayu for its postpaid subscribers.

Smart will relaunch NBA.com/Philippines later this year to provide fans with access to game highlights, stats, standings, scores and schedules, as well as features and analysis from its roster of sports journalists.

GETTING READY FOR DISTANCE LEARNING

WITH classes resuming in a few weeks, Smart and Acer announced its partnership to give incoming students an affordable gadget bundle to help them participate in their online classes.

Parents can avail of the Smart School Bundle, which consists of an Acer Aspire 5 laptop, and a Smart Bro LTE Pocket WiFi. The 14-inch Aspire 5 laptop comes with an Intel Core i3 -813OU 2.2 GHz Base Speed with Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz, am 8GB DDR4 memory, 128 SSD + 1TB HDD. The bundle also already includes a Windows 10 Home OS, and other features that can help students cope with their school requirements. The Smart Bro LTE Pocket WiFi can help students connect to Smart’s LTE network across the country whenever they attend video conferences, or submit their homework online.

These gadgets are compliant with the Department of Education’s minimum specifications for devices for distance learning, as the country continues to face the Covid-19 pandemic.

Aside from students, this gadget bundle can also provide reliable tools and LTE connectivity to teachers, employees and other professionals who are also working from home. ■

Australian watchdog accuses Google of privacy breaches CANBERRA, Australia—Australia’s consumer watchdog launched court action against Google on Monday alleging the technology giant misled account holders about its use of their personal data.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s action in the Federal Court is the latest litigation Google has faced around the world over allegations of privacy breaches.

The commission alleges the California-based company misled millions of Australians to obtain their consent and expand the scope of personal information that Google collects about users’ Internet activity to target advertising.

The allegations arise from Google’s move in 2016 to start combining users’ personal information in their Google accounts with information from the same users’ activity on non-Google sites that used Google technology, formerly DoubleClick technology, to display ads. “We allege that Google did not obtain explicit consent from customers to take this step,” the commission’s chair, Rod Sims, said in a statement.

“The ACCC considers that consumers effectively pay for Google’s services with their data, so this change introduced by Google increased the ‘price’ of Google’s services, without consumers’ knowledge,” Sims added.

Google said it had cooperated with the watchdog in its investigation and that its account holders had been asked to “consent via prominent and easy-tounderstand notifications.”

“We strongly disagree with their allegations and intend to defend our position,” a Google statement said. Google has also been closely involved with the watchdog in recent months over the Australian government’s plan to make global digital platforms including Facebook pay for content siphoned from news media.

The commission this week will release draft

rules for the platforms to pay fair compensation for journalistic content after the coronavirus pandemic slashed advertising revenue for legacy media.

British regulators want new rules to foster competition in digital advertising markets and rein in the industry’s dominant players, Google and Facebook.

The Competition and Markets Authority have

taken aim at the US tech giants in a report that recommends the British government adopt a new regulatory approach to governing big digital platforms making money from online ads.

Google announced last month that it was tweaking its privacy settings to keep less data on new users by default, automatically and continuously deleting web and app activity as well as location history after 18 months.

France’s highest administrative court last month upheld a fine of €50 million ($56 million) Google was ordered to pay for not being “sufficiently clear and transparent” with Android users about their data protection options.

In Canada, Google abandoned its smart-city development in Toronto after more than two years of controversy over privacy concerns and amid economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

In the United States, New Mexico’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit in the District Court over allegations that Google illegally collected personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws. In Australia, it is not clear what penalty Google might face if the watchdog’s lawsuit succeeds.

The commission has made multiple allegations of consumer law breaches, each carrying a potential maximum fine of AU$1.1 million ($780 million).

Australia substantially beefed up penalties for such offenses in 2018, but Google will be judged by the rules that applied in 2016. AP

Sports BusinessMirror

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph • Editor: Jun Lomibao

CALL FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE! A12 Saturday, August 1, 2020

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By Tim Reynolds

The Associated Press

AKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—Black players were next to white players.

Coaches from one team were next to their compatriots from the opposing side. Many locked arms with the man next to them, some shut their eyes tightly, a few raised their fists into the air.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) had a strong, powerful reopening night message.

When it comes to demanding change, the league stands united— and on Thursday, the Utah Jazz and New Orleans Pelicans showed that by not standing.

An unprecedented image for the league in unprecedented times: The Jazz and Pelicans knelt alongside one another during “The Star-Spangled Banner,” their way of joining the chorus of those demanding racial justice and equality in society.

The NBA has a rule that dates back to the early 1980s decreeing that players must stand for the national anthem, and Commissioner Adam Silver quickly announced that the policy is being adjusted.

“I respect our teams’ unified act of peaceful protest for social justice and under these unique circumstances will not enforce our long-standing rule requiring standing during the playing of our national anthem,” said Silver, who watched from a plexiglassenclosed suite because he has not been quarantined and therefore cannot be around players and coaches who are living inside the NBA’s so-

called bubble at Walt Disney World.

The coaches, New Orleans’ Alvin Gentry and Utah’s Quin Snyder, were next to one another, their arms locked together. The scene, which occurred with the teams lined up along the sideline nearest where “Black Lives Matter” was painted onto the court, was the first of what is expected to be many silent game-day statements by players and coaches who will kneel to call attention to many issues—foremost among them, police brutality following the deaths of, among others, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in recent months.

Even the game referees took a knee during the pregame scene. The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers were expected to also take some sort of action before the second game of the reopening night doubleheader later Thursday.

“I think it’s critical that all of us, in a unified way, turn attention to social justice,” Snyder said during a televised in-game interview. “And all the players, all the coaches, are united in that fact and committed to do what we can do to effect long-term change.”

Many players warmed up wearing

THE Utah Jazz and New Orleans Pelicans kneel around the Black Lives Matter logo during the national anthem before their game on Thursday in Lake Buena Vista, Flroida. AP

shirts that said “Black Lives Matter.”

Thursday also marked the debut of new jerseys bearing messages that many players chose to have added, such as “Equality” and “Peace.”

The NBA season was suspended when Rudy Gobert—who also scored the first basket of the restarted season—of the Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus and became the first player in the league with such a diagnosis.

Gobert was diagnosed on March 11 and two days later, Taylor, a 26-yearold Black woman, was fatally shot when police officers burst into her Louisville, Kentucky apartment using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. The warrant was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.

Jazz stun Pelicans in restart opener

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AKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—Rudy Gober t sank t wo free throws with 6.9 seconds lef t to cap a 14-point, 12-rebound and three-block per formance, giving the Utah Jazz a 106-104 vic tor y over the New Orleans Pelicans in the first game of the National Basketball A ssociation’s (NBA) restar t on Thursday night.

New Orleans, which led for most of the game and by as many as 16 points, nearly pulled out the victory as time expired when Brandon Ingram’s three-point attempt rimmed out in a bitter end to his 23-point night.

“He’s made a ton of big shots for us this year, but the bot tom line is I don’t think it should have come down to that,” Pelicans Coach Alvin Gentr y said. “ We let a golden oppor tunit y slip away.”

Zion Williamson, who missed nearly t wo weeks of prac tice af ter leaving the team for a family medical mat ter on July 16, was deemed fit to star t, although his playing time was limited.

Williamson scored 13 points in just more than 15 minutes, highlighted by a couple alley-oop dunks, one on a nearly half-cour t lob from Lonzo Ball.

But Williamson checked out for good with 7:19 lef t in the four th quar ter and

watched the tense finish from the sideline.

“Of course we wish we could have played him down the stretch, but he’d used the minutes that was given to us, so that’s the way it is,” Gentr y said. “ We weren’t going to stick him back out there.”

Williamson said he “did want to be out there, but we’re just working my way back into my flow. That’s all it is.”

Jordan Clarkson scored 23 points for Utah and helped lead a second-half comeback, while Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley each added 20. “ When Jordan has space on the floor to work, he’s really dif ficult to guard,” Jazz Coach Quin Snyder said. “ That’s what you saw in the second half.”

JJ Redick scored 21, including a clutch 3 to tie it at 102, while Jrue Holiday added 20 points for New Orleans.

The game was tied at 104 af ter Ingram’s free throws with 32 seconds lef t and Conley missed inside with just less than 20 seconds to go, but got his own rebound.

The Jazz moved the ball to Mitchell, whose drive forced New Orleans to collapse on him before he fed Gober t for a dunk at tempt that Derrick Favors could only stop with forceful foul. AP

Bacon takes on Rocha

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ILIPINO welterweight James Bacon will see action against undefeated prospect American Alexis Rocha in the undercard of the Linares-Fortuna mega fight.

At stake will be the World Boxing Council Continental Americas welterweight belt.

The event will be a closed door af fair to be held on Agust 28 at the Fantasy Springs Resor t and Casino in Indio, California, and is organized by Golden Boy Promotions.

Bacon, who has a record of 13 wins (15 knockouts with four losses and no draw, take on Rocha, who boasts of a 16-0-0 wondrawn-lost record with 10 knockouts.

The way things go, Bacon is supposed to be a record build-up for Rocha who is a fresh prospec t of Golden Boy. But the Filipino is determined to spoil the par t y

and take home the belt.

“I know they expec t me to just lose to their boy. But they can’t look past me. I have experience on my side and I am still hungr y for the title,” Bacon said. “A win could place me up the ranking and ensure bigger fights. I am a Filipino warrior. I am here to fight.”

Filipino boxers have been busy since closed door fights have been allowed in the US. Bacon has been inspired by the huge win of stablemate Mike Plania.

The bantamweight Plania scored the biggest win of his young career by stunning top contender Joshua Greer Jr. via majorit y dec sion, 96-92, 97-91, 94-94 in the main event of a Top Rank Boxing card in Las Vegas, Nevada, last month.

Then on May 25, Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes.

That happened on a street, with the images—and sounds of the man saying he couldn’t breathe, then crying out for his mother—all captured on a cell-phone video.

NBA players have used their

An unprecedented image for the league in unprecedented times: The Jazz and Pelicans knelt alongside one another during “The StarSpangled Banner,” their way of joining the chorus of those demanding racial justice and equality in society.

THE defending champion Brooks Koepka opens with an eight-under 62 to take a two-stroke lead. AP

Koepka matches career best round for Memphis lead

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EMPHIS, Tennessee—Brooks Koepka has been working hard to fix his game even with an injured lef t knee.

He put ever y thing together Thursday.

The defending champ matched his career best with an eight-under 62 to take a t wo-stroke lead over Rickie Fowler and Brendon Todd af ter the first round of the FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

A week af ter missing the cut in Minnesota in the 3M Open, Koepka had nine birdies and a bogey on a windy

platforms—both in the bubble and on social media—to demand equality, to demand justice for Taylor. Coaches have also said it is incumbent on them to demand change and educate themselves and others. And the pregame actions by the Jazz and the Pelicans were just the start of what is expected to be a constant during the remainder of this season.

day at TPC Southwind in the World Golf Championship event. He credits all his work with coaches Claude Harmon and Pete Cowen rather than how comfor table he is on this course.

“It’s the first time I feel like I know where my misses are, I know when the club’s in the correc t spot, I know when the put ting stroke’s nice,” Koepka said. “It’s all just the work we’ve put in over the last three weeks of countless hours of beating balls and on the put ting green.”

Koepka also will defend his PGA Championship title next week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, and his coaches helped him realize last weekend how much he was favoring his injured left knee.

He sure found something at TPC Southwind, where he turned in his lowest round of the year and best in seven events at this course. This was his eighth time shooting under par in his last nine rounds here. He needed 26 put ts af ter working earlier this week with Phil Kenyon.

“It’s nice to see those results and all the changes we’ve made come through,” Koepka said.

Fowler, who last missed the cut at Memorial, chipped in from 30 feet to tie Koepka. Then Fowler t wo-put ted for bogey af ter put ting his tee shot in the lef t rough on his final hole to finish at 64.

It was Fowler ’s lowest round af ter missing three cuts since the Professional Golfers A ssociation Tour ’s return to play in June. He credited get ting back to playing golf instead of just working on the range.

“I was able to get a lot of good work with the put ter last week and get myself back into some bet ter positions to free up the put ter,” Fowler said. “I was pulling a lot of put ts, I was kind of tense with it, so it’s nice to see things kind of pay of f.”

Sung Kang shot 65. Justin Thomas, who can move back to No. 1 in the world with a vic tor y, shot a 66 and was tied with Mat t Kuchar, Chez Reavie and Max Homa.

Jon Rahm, playing his first event since becoming No. 1 with a win at Memorial, shot 70. He said he didn’t play like a No. 1 player, especially on a day where players could lif t, clean and place on per fec t greens. Rahm said Koepka and Fowler made it look easy. AP

“We want our lives to be valued as much as everybody else,” Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum said in a video that aired before the game, a project organized by both the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association. “We don’t think that we’re better. We want to be seen as equals.”

Added Chris Paul, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard and president of the NBPA, speaking in the same video: “Things aren’t going to change until we sort of make them change.”

Gentry said he appreciated the accidental symmetry that came from the first games of the restarted season coming only hours after the funeral for US Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80.

Lewis spent most of his life championing civil rights and equality and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington— the one where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Gentry said he believes this movement, like the one Lewis helped spark six decades ago, will endure.

“If you talk to some of the younger generation, I think this is here to stay. I really do,” Gentry said. “I have a 20-year-old son and a 22-year-old son, and I know that they feel like this is the most opportune time for us to try to have change in this country.”

Criminal case opened against Fifa’s Infantino

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ENEVA—A criminal case against Fifa President Gianni Infantino was opened by a Swiss special prosecutor on Thursday, plunging the soccer body into a new scandal and potentially threatening the tenure of the man who was brought in to restore its tarnished reputation.

Fifa said it and Infantino will cooperate with Swiss authorities after prosecutor Stefan Keller—barely a month into the job— concluded there is enough evidence to go to court after investigating the circumstances of a meeting Infantino had with Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber.

The turmoil involving Lauber, who offered his resignation last week, centers on three meetings he had with Infantino in recent years—including one that he hadn’t disclosed and claimed no memory of—just as he was leading a sprawling investigation into soccer corruption.

Keller, a regional court judge, uncovered “elements that make up reprehensible behavior,” an oversight panel monitoring federal prosecutors said in a statement. He opened a case against Infantino and regional prosecutor Rinaldo Arnold, a childhood friend of the Fifa boss, and sought authorization to open a case against Lauber.

Keller, who was named to the post of special prosecutor on June 29, found possible infractions included abuse of public office, breach of official secrecy, “assisting offenders” and “incitement to these acts,” the panel said, adding other criminal acts and proceedings could also be considered.

Under the Swiss criminal code, conviction for abuse of public office can bring penalties of up to five years in prison or other detention, while breach of official secrecy and assisting offenders can incur up to three years each.

Each charge can also bring financial penalties.

Suspects in such cases benefit from a presumption of innocence in Switzerland until legal proceedings are completed.

It was unclear whether Keller believes the alleged wrongdoing was the mere fact that Lauber and Infantino had met, or if compromising information was divulged during their conversations. AP

Lockdown spurs Hamilton to race on for 2 to 3 years

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ILVERSTONE, England—The pandemicenforced break from Formula One could prolong Lewis Hamilton’s career. “ The Covid-19 lockdown, whilst it was a negative, in some ways it gave a lot of life, a lot of energy to focus on some other things,” Hamilton said Thursday, “and that time of f was a bit of breathing space, and provided a bit of energy to perhaps go longer.”

How much longer for the 35-year-old world champion in his 14th season?

“Ultimately I want to be able to perform at the level I am right now but there is a point at which the physicality and the mental side can tail off,” he said. “I’ve no divine right to be here. My goal is to continue to deliver for as long as I can. So I do see myself going for at least another two or three years.”

Hamilton’s Mercedes contract is due to expire in five months.

“I want to earn my position here,” Hamilton said, “and I feel like every year that is not a given just because I’ve world championships under my belt.”

He heads into the British Grand Prix on Sunday as the favorite to win at his home circuit of Silverstone for a seventh time but for the first time without any fans there to cheer him on due to the pandemic. The race is the fourth in a championship that should have begun in March. The coronavirus has hit the Silverstone race with Sergio Perez forced out after testing positive on Thursday.

Hamilton’s bid for a record-equaling seventh world championship—to match Michael Schumacher—has been played out

against the backdrop of his personal fight against racism.

After dominating the Hungarian Grand Prix earlier this month, Hamilton then accused Grand Prix Drivers’ Association Director Romain Grosjean of failing to convince the grid to be united in kneeling before the race.

Grosjean spoke to Hamilton for 45 minutes on Tuesday, saying that he wanted to provide a voice for as many as eight drivers who were opposed to the anti-racism stance. But he also apologized to Hamilton for indicating that it might have been the wrong call.

“Romain originally reached out to me and we had a great conversation,” added Hamilton. “We learned we had more in common than we perhaps thought. He is

clearly a caring person. It’s not easy for anybody to admit they’re wrong. And that’s a great first step.

“We’re really working towards the same end goal so I really appreciate that from Romain. And that’s really what it is going to take from all of us; open up our minds, don’t put barriers up, don’t be defensive, be openminded. Acknowledging that there is an issue is sometimes the first step and then work towards making it better.”

Hamilton has also been in dialogue with F1 Chairman Chase Carey and FIA President Jean Todt this week. The pit-lane will open 10 minutes earlier than normal on Sunday to allow the drivers time for a more organized demonstration against racism ahead of the race. AP