BusinessMirror August 15, 2020 by BusinessMirror

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75 YEARS LATER, THE REMAINS OF 1 MILLION JAPANESE WAR DEAD SCATTERED ACROSS ASIA HAVE NOT BEEN FOUND

PEOPLE gather for the cremation ceremony for Japanese war dead in World War II, in Papua province, Indonesia, in March 2013. KYODO NEWS VIA AP

By Mari Yamaguchi | The Associated Press

OKYO—Seventy-five years after the end of World War II, more than 1 million Japanese war dead are scattered throughout Asia, where the legacy of Japanese aggression still hampers recovery efforts.

The missing Japanese make up about half of the 2.4 million soldiers who died overseas during Japan’s military rampage across Asia in the early 20th century. They are on remote islands in the South Pacific. They are in northern China and Mongolia. They are in Russia. As the anniversary for the end of the Pacific War arrives on Saturday, there is little hope these

remains will ever be recovered, let alone identified and returned to grieving family members.

Hindrances to recovery

ONLY about half a million are considered retrievable. The rest are lost in the sea, or buried in areas that can’t be reached because of fighting, or security, or political reasons, according to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare,

which is in charge of support measures for bereaved families. Locating, identifying and finding places to store the decades-old remains have been complicated as memories fade, artifacts and documents get lost and families and relatives age. In 2016, Japan’s parliament passed a law launching an eightyear remains recovery initiative through 2024. It promotes more

DNA matching and cooperation with the US Department of Defense in case remains are found at US military facilities on islands in the southern Pacific that were former battlegrounds.

Honored as gods

IT was not until 2003 that the Japanese government started DNA matching, but only at the request Continued on A2

Is DOE at the tip of the energy transition spear?

By Sara Jane Ahmed & Alberto Dalusung III

N recent days, the country’s energy sector has been abuzz with talk from the energy managers of a drive to accelerate indigenous energy development. This is driven by the experience of the real fears of imported fuel supply insecurity for the whole energy sector at the onset of the pandemic,especially for the power sector. In private and public fora, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi has encouraged bolder development of renewable energy. This drive is both patriotic and scientific. Rapid technological development driving the transition to a low-carbon economy means that electricity should no longer be

expensive. Variable renewable energy can now meet or undercut the price of power from the electricity grid while cannibalizing the market for more expensive coal-based generation. This realization has led Meralco, the country’s largest utility company, to acknowledge the risk of nonperforming stranded assets through a carve-out clause in their power purchase agreements that permits curtailment. It means Meralco can opt to buy less power

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 48.8900

POWER pylons and high-voltage lines passing through the Cordilleras. ALEXEY KORNYLYEV | DREAMSTIME.COM

from coal-fired generators under certain conditions. Accordingly, coal generators are no longer able to pass on unmanaged coal price risk to Meralco and its end-users. Meralco confirmed at a conference last month that should it decide to buy less power, as seen in its 30-percent cut during the Covid-19 lockdown, coal generators would have to sell their electricity elsewhere. Coal-fired plants only operate efficiently in a narrow capacity band and if they run at below a certain threshold, the cost of fuel and maintenance rises. Unlike some fossil gas and diesel generators, coal power plants have a minimum stable operating point requirement of 40 percent to 50 percent of capacity, resulting in significant risk of breakdowns at lower operating levels. With mounting competition from low-priced renewable energy and Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4573 n UK 63.8943 n HK 6.3081 n CHINA 7.0386 n SINGAPORE 35.6367 n AUSTRALIA 35.6367 n EU 57.7684 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.0377

Source: BSP (August 14, 2020)

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Is DOE at the tip of the energy transition spear? Continued from A1

storage options, market risk is rising for coal-fired generators and the investors and banks who hold their project debt. Stranded fossil fuel assets have already led to high prices in the Philippines, as highlighted in a previous commentary. Over-reliance on baseload generation that is dependent on imported fuel has translated into high tariffs for consumers that can only temporarily be tempered under certain force majeure conditions. If Meralco had not invoked force majeure clauses in its supply contracts in response to the Covid-19 crisis, consumers would have been punished by a 15-percent increase in per kWh rates in Luzon. In contrast, electric cooperatives have been largely unable to trigger force majeure negotiations because of their small size, lack of negotiating power, and reliance on non-standardized contracts. The only option electric cooperatives can take to protect low-income households who rely on them for power is to request the waiver of the minimum energy offtake provision. The current Covid-19 situation has highlighted the great and growing risks of over-dependence on coal-fired power, which cannot adjust to declining loads, forcing several to shut down. Failure to transition away from inflexible coal plants has already cost Philippine consumers dearly in the form of high electricity prices. Meralco’s carve-out clause is a step in the right direction to ensure that if power companies,

investors and banks are foolish enough to ignore cheaper clean energy options, it is they—not customers—that will bear the risk, either in the form of a writeoff or a non-performing loan. Incumbent power sector players and their banks currently assume electricity demand will simply recover and coal can take back its dominant place. Demand will certainly recover, but it will do so under a modernized wholesale spot market that removes the automatic nomination of a minimum stable load in front of the dispatch (supply) order. Therefore, coal plants will no longer have guaranteed buyers if they are unable to compete. The economics of coal will deteriorate further because even lower cost biomass plants without feed-intariffs (FiTs) will be given priority dispatch ahead of coal. The question then is this: as the market reorients and assets become stranded for being uneconomical to operate, who will hold the debt exposure? Old power contracts leave stranded asset costs to end-users, while Meralco contracts from 2019 onward assign the cost to the power generator, and ultimately banks. Given the pace of change in power markets, and renewed ambition to protect households and industry from paying for ill-advised risks, it would now be prudent for the Department of Energy (DOE) to render the Meralco carve-out clause as a standard provision in all imported fossil fuel contracts. Regulators ought to request for banks to sufficiently insure or cover risk of default from their fossil fuel power project loans.

Commercial and investment banks globally have been accelerating their move away from exposure to fossil fuel power. Considering the deteriorating economics of fossil fuel power and the fact that responsible managers have a fiduciary duty to protect their shareholders from known financial risks. Under current laws and regulations, directors are personally liable if they have breached their fiduciary duty to act in shareholders’ best interests. This is the time to consider if ignoring fossil fuel risks is a breach of fiduciary duty. The Philippines’s financial regulators have already provided leadership in this sphere. The Securities and Exchange Commission has imposed mandatory environmental, social and governance reporting for publicly listed companies, and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has approved the Sustainable Finance Framework to safeguard the financial system from the evolving material hazards of physical climate risk and transition risk, including stranded assets. Banks should now have the impetus to start pricing climate and transition risks and the value of the price stability and resilience of low-carbon ventures. Another step to take is to protect retail investors through appropriate bond disclosures that take into consideration the changed riskprofile of fossil fuel investments. Planning norms for the power sector also need to be reconsidered in light of evidence that over-reliance on fossil fuel in the energy mix results in expensive system lock-in. Coal- and gas-fired units rely on inflexible take-or-pay contracts that

guarantee dispatch even when new lower cost renewables can reduce system prices. Fossil gas in particular requires major infrastructure investment in terms of regasification units, associated pipelines and storage units. All this in turn will require from consumers the same long-term capital recovery guarantees as coal- and oil-fired generation. With cheaper domestic renewables entering the generation mix, power system planners, operators and investors need to reconsider assumptions regarding energy security, technology, finance and economic outcomes for consumers and industry. It’s time to future-proof the Philippine energy market. New

fossil projects should be required to provide estimates of how their technology might compete in eight to 10 years against other technology options. For instance, wind developer Triconti is preparing for a 1,200-MW portfolio of offshore wind turbines in Luzon and the Visayas. Offshore wind costs continue to drop as larger, more efficient turbines are deployed with higher capacity factors up to 52 percent. Unlike coal, offshore wind has no volatile imported fuel cost. In other words, the timing and production of offshore wind means it directly competes with imported coal. We encourage DOE to recalibrate its planning process, includ-

ing surveying generation options to grid capacity needs in order to promote capital efficiency and improve system design options. The DOE will find itself at the tip of the transition spear sooner once it recognizes the way in which the array of new generation options, including energy storage integration, can secure the agency’s cost-reduction and domestic energy security objectives for the long run. • Sara Jane Ahmed is an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Alberto Dalusung III is the energy transition advisor of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.

War’s legacy: The unfound

IN this December 14, 2010, file photo, the remains of Japanese soldiers, who died in the battle for Iwo Jima, lie on sheets as people exhume the remains of a mass grave site. Seventy-five years after the end of World War II, more than 1 million Japanese war dead are scattered throughout Asia, where the legacy of Japanese aggression still hampers recovery efforts. AP/DAVID GUTTENFELDER Continued from A1

of possible families. In July, Japan set up a comprehensive remains information center at the ministry that would provide DNA testing. After Japan’s disastrous retreats in the Pacific in 1943, the military started sending back empty boxes with stones to bereaved families, without providing details about the deaths. Japan insisted all war dead would be honored as gods at Yasukuni Shrine. Similar practices were continued by postwar governments, which didn’t put an emphasis on identifying individual remains to return to families, experts say. Japan sent its first overseas remains collection mission in 1952 after a seven-year US occupation ended. The efforts were unwelcome in many Asian countries that had suffered under Japanese wartime aggression.

No DNA testing

THE government in the 1950s dispatched missions to major former battlegrounds for the “token” collection of random remains; most were unidentified and never returned to families. After collecting the remains of about 10,000 war dead, the welfare ministry in 1962 tried to end the project but was forced to continue the effort following repeated requests by veterans and bereaved families. The government mission has so far recovered just 340,000 remains; most are kept at Tokyo’s Chidorigafuchi national cemetery of unknown soldiers. They were never DNA tested, or identified, and almost certainly include a “significant number” of the remains of non-Japanese nationals, including Koreans and Taiwanese soldiers drafted and sent overseas to fight for the Japanese Imperial Army, said Kazufumi Hamai, a Teikyo University historian and expert on the remains issue.

A CEREMONY to commemorate the return to South Korea of the remains of Korean soldiers who died while serving in the Japanese Army during World War II is held at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo on May 18, 2010. KYODO NEWS VIA AP

Mixed remains

MORE than 240,000 Koreans fought for Japan during the country’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including 20,000 believed to have died outside of mainland Japan. Some of their remains were most likely brought back, unidentified and mixed with the Japanese collected during past missions before being placed in Chidorigafuchi. Japan’s delayed and insufficient remains collection underscored the government’s failure to face up to its wartime past, Hamai said. “The government lacked respect for individual remains and their dignity,” he said. “Their remains collection program was sloppy and carried out reluctantly at the request of veterans’ families, while completely neglecting the Koreans and Taiwanese.” About 700 remains of Koreans have been separately stored at a Tokyo Buddhist temple, Yutenji. Health and welfare ministry officials say they are the only remains of the former Korean soldiers that they are aware of. More than half of the 700 are from North Korea.

‘Necro diplomacy’

SEVERAL hundred remains had been previously returned to their homes through diplomatic arrangement, but talks have been stalled in recent years as diplomatic relations have soured over Japan’s wartime actions, including the use of forced laborers and the sexual abuses of women forced to work at frontline military brothels. Japan gained access to Russia and Mongolia only starting in 1991, when Japan was given a list of tens of thousands of imprisoned Japanese soldiers and maps of the mass graves where they were buried. About 600,000 were sent to former Soviet prisons, where 55,000 died, including a few thousand Koreans. Last year, a US citizens’ group searching for the remains of American war dead in the Pacific War found the remains of about 160 Asians on the island of Tarawa— called the Republic of Kiribati today. It asked the Japanese and Korean governments to have them DNA tested. Hamai says the case could set the stage for Japan and South Korea cooperating to identify and return the remains to where they belong.

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School opening moved to Oct. 5 By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

FTER repeated assurances they are “on track” for the August 24 school opening for school year 2020-2021 that will be anchored on “blended learning,” the Department of Education (DepEd) announced Friday a decision to move the date to October 5. “This morning [August 14], we received a memorandum from the Office of the President that the President has already made the decision in respect to the recommendation that I have submitted to him on August 6, in response to the implications of imposition of MECQ in Metro Manila and in the provinces of Cavite, Bulacan, Laguna and Rizal,” Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said at a hastily called online briefing. B ri o n e s m a d e t h e re co m m e n d at i o n citing the “logistical limitations” faced by areas placed under MECQ and to fill in the “remaining gaps” of the school opening that they are currently addressing. “Thus, we will implement such a decision to defer school opening to October 5, pursuant to Republic Act 11480. We shall use the deferment to provide relief to the logistical limitations faced by the areas placed under MECQ and to fill in the remaining gaps of the school opening that we are currently addressing,” she said. The education chief said she is hopeful that the October 5 schedule is the “final adjustment” of the school opening. “Even with the implementation of MECQ, we will use this time to make the necessary adjustments and ensure that all preparations have been made for the successful opening of classes for school year 2020-2021,” Briones vowed. Briones said she has directed schools outside MECQ areas to continue their orientations, dry runs, and delivery of learning resources and

DFA temporarily suspends ops of Angeles City Consular Office

he Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced on Friday the suspension of operations of its Consular Office in Angeles City (CO-Angeles) following the closure of Marquee Mall for disinfection. CO-Angeles will resume its regular operations when the mall reopens. Affected applicants who have prior appointments and schedules during the closure of Marquee Mall will be accommodated until September 24, 2020 during the CO’s regular operation hours. Applicants who need emergency, or urgent consular services, may contact CO Angeles by e-mail at angeles.rco@dfa.gov.ph. The DFA requests the public’s understanding and cooperation as it continue to battle against this pandemic. Recto Mercene

D.A.-BFAR reminds public on proper food handling

he Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR) has reminded the public to observe proper sanitary practices when handling and preparing food following report of novel coronavirus allegedly found on the packaging of imported seafood that arrived at the port city of Yantai, China. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is no evidence to support transmission of the Covid-19 virus associated with food. However, for the safety of consumers, it is advised that proper food handling practices be observed at all times. As advised by the Department of Health, goods bought from the market must be disinfected with alcohol, or 0.5 percent bleach solution, while fresh food must be washed with clean, running water before storage. Food must also be cooked thoroughly and kept at safe temperatures before consumption.

be ready for the opening of classes, reiterating that there will be no face-to-face classes on October 5. “Sessions will not be limited to online sessions alone. This is because we have adopted the polic y of blended learning w h e re i n v a r i o u s m o d a l i t i e s a re b e i n g recommended depending on the situation at the level of the region and of the school. Thus, we are now finalizing arrangements for Ztv programs, radio and also the much-favored modular system and printed materials and many other modalities,” she said. Although the education chief admitted that the new schedule may have certain “implications on the school calendar of activities, Briones expressed confidence that they can overcome these with President Duterte’s support. She, however, said class stimulations will continue along with the upskilling of teachers. “ Patuloy ang pagproseso ng mga learners for the new way or as I would say brave way for the brave normal which we are trying to create,” Briones said. She also thanked the President, the Office of the Executive Secretary, the Senate and made special mention of Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go for their support. On Thursday, the DepEd said a total of P9-billion funding was downloaded to schools division offices to ensure that the self-learning modules, which will be primarily used in a blended learning setup, are continuously being reproduced in the field offices. From updated reports submitted to the Central Office, several offices shared that their printing of SLMs are ahead of their target schedules. Undersecretary Revsee Escobedo assured that the production of modules have reached 60 percent to 80 percent for the first quarter.

enate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, invoking constitutional principles on local and fiscal autonomy, cautioned Duterte administration officials against “overstepping the boundary” in dealing with local government units. Drilon on Friday raised the reminder for Duterte Cabinet officials “acting as Big Brother” to select local government units on the constitutional principles of local and fiscal autonomy. In a news statement, Drilon recalled that the phrase “Big Brother” was coined by author George Orwell in his 1949 fiction novel, titled 1984 . “Is the ‘Big Brother’ watching us in the new normal?” Drilon said, referring to the term Big Brother in the fiction novel depicting a supreme authority in a totalitarian society. The Senate Minority Leader reminded that the Constitution vests the President with the power of supervision, “not control, over LGUs [local government units].” Drilon reminded the Duterte administration that “we cannot take away some powers, or freedom, in the name of war against Covid-19.” “The LGUs should be allowed to perform their functions with full autonomy,” he said. Drilon hastened to clarify that “what we want to prevent here is overstepping of authority.” A former justice secretary, Drilon cautioned that “there is a thin line that separates supervision and control,” noting that “It is always a subject of overreach by the national government.” The senator recalled that in the case of Pimentel v. Aguirre , the Supreme Court clarified that “[s]uch power enables [the President] to see to it that LGUs and their officials execute their tasks in accordance with law. While he may issue advisories and seek their cooperation in solving economic difficulties, he cannot prevent them from

By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

he Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) agreed with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that a yearlong debt moratorium might put the banking industry at risk, endorsing a 30-day grace period, instead. In a news statement released on Friday, the bankers’ group proposed the adoption of a monthlong moratorium on loan principal and interest payments in areas under enhanced community quarantine and modified ECQ. “We have to ensure the stability and robustness of the banking system in order to help our economy pave the way towards recovery,” BAP Managing Director Benjamin Castillo said. This, as BAP stressed that the “ longer moratorium will impact

performing their tasks and using available resources to achieve their goals.” At the same time, Drilon noted that supervision, as defined in administrative law, means overseeing or the power or authority of an officer to see that subordinate officers perform their duties. “Whereas, control means the power of an officer to alter or modify or nullify or set aside what a subordinate officer had done in the performance of his duties and to substitute the judgment of the former for that of the latter,” he added. Moreover, the senator cited Section 4, Article X, of the Constitution which states that “the President of the Philippines shall exercise general super vision over local governments,” adding that Section 17, Article VII, of the Constitution also provides that “the President shall have control of all the Executive depar tments, bureaus, or offices, exercise general supervision over all local governments as may be provided by law, and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Drilon asserted that under these constitutional provisions, the President was invested with the power of control of all the Executive departments, bureaus, or offices, “but not of all local governments over which he has been granted only the power of general supervision as may be provided by law,” citing the decision of the Supreme Court in Mondaño v. Silvosa . In accordance with Supreme Court rulings, he noted, however, that Cabinet secretaries, as agent of the President, do not have the same control of local governments as that exercised by them over bureaus and offices under their jurisdiction as provided for in the Revised Administrative Code. The senator suggested that “what they need is the full and timely suppor t from the government so they can respond to the pandemic.”

the liquidity of the financial system a nd may put cer ta in banks at risk.” BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said recently that the proposed period on debt moratorium is seen hurting the capitalization of the banks given that its liquidity may be affected as well. He said a “sound banking system” is necessary to maintain affirmations in the Philippines’s credit ratings. The House of Representatives recently approved on third and final

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

UPPORT for the embattled tourism sector is pouring in, with a Cabinet secretary, lawmaker, and former tourism secretary pushing to keep the P10-billion allocation for the sector’s working capital loans, instead of following House leaders’ stand of using it for tourism infrastructure and allocating it to the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza). “To me this is nothing but another shameless and brazen exercise to embed pork barrel in Bayanihan Act 2,” declared former Tourism Secretary Narzalina Lim on her Facebook page. “The tourism industry does not need tourism infrastructure at this time when destinations are closed. Before the pandemic, the DOT [Department of Tourism] had already identified key infrastructure needed by tourist destinations

and the funding for these,” she added. House Bill 6953, the lower chamber’s version of the Bayanihan 2 bill, also allocates P100 million to subsidize and train tour guides. Of this, Lim said, “P100 million for training tour guides? There are no tours. What the industry needs is to remove tourism enterprises from life support.” She urged the public to be vigilant, now that the bicameral conference committee is trying to reconcile HB 6953 with Senate Bill 1564, which had originally allocated the P10 billion for loans to tourism enterprises, through government financial institutions. The Bayanihan 2 bills provide funding appropriations to several government agencies and meant to be used to stimulate the economy, which contracted 16.5 percent in second quarter of the year due to the Covid-19 outbreak. In a tweet late Thursday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. agreed with Rep. Rufus Rodriguez to give the P10-billion

aid in Bayanihan 2 to the tourism sector, and not to Tieza. “You’re so right Rufus,” said Locsin, “It should go to the Department of Tourism to revive jobs lost. Putting it in infrastructure is a recipe for stealing.” On Thursday, Rodriguez, of the Second District of Cagayan de Oro, said the tourism sector does not need infrastructure right n ow, “ b u t [ rat h e r ] d i re c t a s s i s t a n ce to stakeholders in the tourism industry directly hit by Covid-19.” He added in a news statement, the tourism workers have been out of work since March and have to be given priority in fund allocation, “not to more road projects leading to faraway tourist destinations.” Cagayan de Oro is acknowledged as the “whitewater rafting capital of the Philippines. A ferry ride will take tourists to Camiguin Island, which has white beaches and hosts the annual Lanzones Festival. On Wednesday, tourism stakeholders all over

reading the proposed P162-billion Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or the Bayanihan II, which includes extension of loan settlement of up to one year for payments falling between March 16 and December 31. Fintech A lliance.ph, in a position paper submitted to the bicameral committee this week, offered the same alternative— a 30 -day grace period—stressing that the current proposal is deemed “excessive.” The 365-day grace period would make it difficult to extend credit— due to potential slow inflow of liquidity to fund borrowings—at a time when individuals and small businesses are seeking funding for emergency expenses or capital requirements, the group said. Fintech Alliance.ph said that a yearlong debt moratorium would not be sustainable for financing and lending companies as this can reduce available and affordable credit, especially to the unbanked sector, which the fintech industry primarily serves. “It is imperative that the Philippine government carefully balance

the immediate but short-term relief granted to borrowers against the long-term effects on the stability and resurgence of the Philippine financial system,” the group added. According to the latest BSP data, the banking system’s loan portfolio stood at P10.82 trillion as of end-June, which is 5.15 percent higher than P10.29 trillion notched in the same period last year. Gross nonperforming loans (NPL), meanwhile, grew by nearly 27 percent or P273.6 billion in the first half year-on-year. The Central Bank in May shared that the financial system is expected to book P556.6 billion worth of NPLs in 2020 amid the economic downturn. This is equivalent to 5 percent in NPL ratio—portion of NPL to total loans—which is more than double of what the sector has been dealing with in the recent years. The banking industry might not be able to recover 50 percent to 80 percent, or P278.3 billion, to P445.28 billion, of the estimated bad loans, BSP added.

Top ASG leader linked to beheadings, kidnappings surrenders in Davao City

leading terror suspect who has been linked to beheadings of hostages, including two Canadians and a Malaysian, has surrendered after being wounded in battle, officials said on Friday. Philippine National Police chief Gen. Archie Gamboa said Thursday night that Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) commander Anduljihad Susukan gave up after negotiations with police in southern Davao City, where he was served warrants for at least 23 cases of murder, six for attempted murder and five for kidnapping. He is the highest-ranking commander of the small but brutal Abu Sayyaf group to be taken into custody so far this year. The military has been waging a years-long offensive against the ASG, which has been blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization for past bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings. Many of its gunmen, mostly peasants and desperately poor villagers, have aligned themselves with the Islamic State group. Securit y officials have blamed Susukan and his men for playing a role in crossborder kidnappings of tourists and other vic tims from the Malaysian state of Sabah on B orneo island, including a Malaysian citizen, who was beheaded by the militants in 2015 in their jungle base in southern Sulu province on the day when Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Najib Razak arrived in Manila to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Susukan also helped finance the kidnappings in the south of two Canadian men, who were separately beheaded in Sulu in 2016 after terrorists failed to get a huge ransom. Another ASG militant, Ben Yadah, murdered the two

Support pours in for tourism sector on P10-B aid issue Special to the BusinessMirror

BAP backs 30-day grace period for loan payments

Drilon tells Cabinet men: Only a thin line separates LGU supervision, control By Butch Fernandez

Saturday, August 15, 2020

the country spoke up against the realignment of the P10-billion tourism working capital funds to Tieza under HB 6953, as they underscored the revenue losses, and zero foreign tourist arrivals recorded by the industry since May this year. (See, “Tourism sector loses P190 billion in March-July,” in the B usiness M irror , August 13, 2020.) Tourism Secretar y Bernadette Romulo Puyat on Thursday reiterated her appeal to the bicam committee members to give the tourism stakeholders financial assistance to help them survive. She compared the industry to a critically ill Covid patient, which can only be cured by working capital loans. (See, “Tourism ‘critical’ as 7-month receipts dip 71.5 percent,” in the BusinessMirror, August 14, 2020.) HB 6953 was principally authored by Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte, who boasts of building up Camarines Sur as the wakeboarding capital of the Philippines.

Canadians and remains at large, a military officer said. Susukan surrendered to a Muslim rebel chief after the accidental explosion of his M203 rifle grenade in a gunbattle with troops in Sulu severed his left arm. Military officials had believed he was killed but later learned he was in the custody of Nur Misuari, who leads an armed group which signed a 1996 peace deal with the government. Misuari flew from Jolo to Davao City on a private plane with a few companions that included Susukan on Sunday, sparking speculation he may be planning to present the terror suspect to President Duterte. Th e P re s i d e n t h a s b e e n s t a y i n g i n h i s h o m e t o w n i n D a v a o C i t y, w h e re M i s u a r i

also has a home. Although President D uter te has appointed M isuari as a special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Co o p e r a t i o n , t h e M u s l i m re b e l c h i e f h a s n o t b e e n c l e a r l y a u t h o r i ze d to h o l d t a l k s w i t h s u s p e c t e d t e r ro r i s t s. “His giving himself up to Mr. Misuari is not the surrender contemplated under the law and does not make him immune from arrest,” military spokesman Maj. Gen. Edgard Arevalo said of Susukan in a statement. Under a murky arrangement, Misuari and his rebel force have been allowed to keep their weapons in Sulu and outlying provinces under the 1996 Muslim autonomy deal in the south, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation. AP

Saturday, August 15, 2020

The World BusinessMirror

China factory output flat as retail sales slip in July

EIJING—China’s factory output rose just under 5 percent last month from a year earlier while retail sales fell slightly, suggesting the country’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic remains muted.

The data reported on Friday show that despite a rebound in Chinese exports, domestic demand in the world’s second-largest economy is still lackluster. Massive flooding across much of the south of the country also has hurt both production and consumer demand, though it pushed food prices sharply higher. Pork prices jumped nearly 86 percent, the report said. Such “ idiosyncrasies” don’t fully account for the prolonged weakness in consumer spending, said Stephen Innes of AxiCorp. “Still, the glaring concerns around retail demand continue to speak volumes that it’s going to take more than stimulus and deep discounts on luxury products to get people shopping again,” he said in a report. The 4.8-percent increase in industrial output from a year earlier was on a par with the month before

and slightly below forecasts of just over 5 percent. China, where the pandemic began in December, was the first economy to start the struggle to revive normal business activity in March after declaring the virus under control. Manufacturing is recovering, but consumer spending is weak. M a ny C h i nese e it her lost their jobs, or some income, or are worried they might. The National Bureau of Statistics said that overall, China created 6.7 million jobs, nearly 2 million fewer than would normally be expected. The trends show a “steady recovery,” said bureau spokesman Fu Linghui. St i l l , t here were sig n s of i mpro ve me nt i n i nve st me nt in factor ies a nd const r uct ion, whic h fel l 1.6 percent in Ja nua r y to Ju ly, compa red w it h a

People wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus walk through a shopping mall in Beijing in August. China’s factory output rose just under 5 percent last month from a year earlier while retail sales fell slightly, suggesting the country’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic remains muted. AP

3.1-percent contract ion in t he f irst ha l f of t he yea r. Economists ex pect China’s economy to continue to recover in coming months as other economies also regain momentum lost during the pandemic. “While household consumption has been the laggard, we expect it to gather pace along with a gradual improvement in the labor market “ in the second half of the year, Oxford Economics said in a commentary. It said exports would likely bounce back as well. “But the road ahead appears bumpy, as new

export orders remain weak and the recovery path will be uneven across economies.” Friday’s data release came just before Chinese and US officials are due to hold online talks about progress on a “phase one” trade agreement set in January that brought a truce in a tariff war between the two biggest economies. Relations have worsened despite that deal, as the two sides spar over abuses in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, developments in Hong Kong and technology disputes, among other issues. AP

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Singapore not in a hurry to ban plastic waste, minister says

ingapore, the Asia-Pacific island nation that likens the fight against climate change to national defense, is not “in a hurry” to ban plastic bags because it burns the waste to produce energy, according to a government minister. Grace Fu, the recently appointed Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, said at an online event Wednesday that because Singapore incinerates plastic waste to generate power, the value of banning plastic bags “is a little different” than for other countries. “Some decisions that have been taken by other societies—for example, by banning of plastic bags—is not something that we do in a hurry,” Fu said. “In Singapore, our attitude toward waste is not an idealistic one but a very pragmatic one.” Singapore either recycles, or burns, its plastic waste, without sending any directly to the landfill, a ministry spokesman said by e-mail. The incineration process, which also burns other general waste, generates electricity that can be fed to the nation’s grid. For example, the Tuas South I nc i ner at ion Pl a nt produces about 1.6 g igawat t-hou rs of

electricity each day, according to the ministry, with 20 percent of that used to power the plant itself. The facility generates the equivalent of about 1.2 percent of the country’s total daily consumption, according to Bloomberg calculations using Energy Market Authority data for 2018. The country is still eager to pursue plastic recycling efforts, Fu said, citing a “bottle-to-bottle” approach that retains the quality of virgin plastic after being processed. Such initiatives could create new jobs and put the country in a position to export its solutions, she said, according to the Today newspaper, which earlier reported her comments. Last year, Singapore recycled about 4 percent of the 930,000 tons of plastic waste it generated, according to the National Environment Agency. Pr ime Minister L ee Hsien Loong last year called climate change a matter of “ life and death” and an existential threat to the country as important as national defense. Singapore is devising a S$100-billion ($73 billion) plan to safeguard the city against rising temperatures and sea levels. Bloomberg News

Malaysia’s economy shrinks most since 1998 Asia Financial Crisis

South Korea set to rebound from recession–finance chief

to keep its domestic outbreak under control, but officials are on alert after cases almost doubled to more than 100 on Friday. The government isn’t considering a fourth extra budget this year, Hong said, despite calls from some lawmakers. Damage from recent rainfall that has pounded some of the country’s provincial areas can be addressed by the current budget, he said. South Korea has allocated more than 270 trillion won ($228 billion) in support for its economy

and is pushing what it calls a “new deal” initiative to boost the job market around technology and renewable energy. Hong said he’d like to see South Korea and China extend a currency swap set to expire in October at a time when the pandemic is hurting both economies. He also said South Korea will probably see tangible progress in its own vaccine development by the end of this year and approve its first product as soon as the first half of 2021. Bloomberg News

outh Korea’s economy is poised to return to growth this quarter, led by consumption and investment, according to the country’s finance minister, who also said the government doesn’t plan another extra budget. Easing export declines will help South Korea bounce back from its first technical recession since 2003, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki told reporters Friday, declining to provide specific growth estimates. South Korea’s economy contracted 3.3 percent in the second quarter

from the previous three months. It has since seen its exports fall at a smaller pace while consumption has continued to gain momentum. The ministr y is maintaining its 0.1-percent growth forecast for this year and sees a potential spike in coronavirus cases at home and abroad as the main risk, Hong said. “The global pandemic has got to calm,” he said. “Averting negative growth would be considered a good defense.” South Korea has so far managed

U.K. expands Covid-19 vaccine supplies via deal with Novavax

Iran, Turkey lash out at UAE over agreement with Israel

he UK signed another deal to purchase doses of an experimental vaccine for Covid-19, this time from Novavax Inc. The government ordered 60 million doses of the US biotechnology company’s late-stage experimental vaccine, which may be available as early as the first quarter of 2021, the company said in a news statement issued on Friday. The UK will help Novavax conduct a thirdphase clinical trial, which should star t in the third quarter, the company said. Novavax has an alliance with Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies that will produce as many as 180 million doses of the vaccine annually in nor theast England. The latest agreement brings the total number of potential vaccine doses secured by the UK to more than 300 million. The country of 66 million people has also signed deals with partners GlaxoSmithKline Plc. and Sanofi, Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, as well as Valneva SE. The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc intend to make as many as 30 million doses available to the UK by September as part of a pact to deliver 100 million doses. The European Commission said late Thursday that it’s seeking to secure 200 million vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson. The European Union, of which the UK is no longer a member, has also said it’s closing in on a deal for as many as 300 million doses of the shot Sanofi and Glaxo are developing. Results presented this month from a two-injection regimen of Novavax ’s vaccine, when adm i n i s te re d co n c u rre nt ly w i t h t h e co m p a ny ’s i m m u n e - b o o s t i n g te c h n o l o g y, generated antibody responses that were four times hig h e r t h a n t h o s e s e e n i n p e o p l e w h o had recove re d f ro m t h e d i s e a s e.

Bloomberg News

President Donald J. Trump, accompanied by (from left) US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook, Avraham Berkowitz, assistant to the president and special representative for International Negotiations, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, President Donald Trump’s White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, smiles in the Oval Office at the White House, Wednesday, August 12, 2020, in Washington. Trump said on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state. AP

EHR AN, Iran—Iran and Turkey lashed out at their regional rival the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Friday over its decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel in a US-brokered deal, accusing it of betraying the Palestinian cause. Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the deal a “dagger that was unjustly struck by the UAE in the backs of the Palestinian people and all Muslims.” Turkey said the

peoples of the region “will never forget and will never forgive this hypocritical behavior” by the UAE. The UAE, which has never fought Israel and has quietly been improving ties for years, said the agreement put a hold on Israel’s plans to unilaterally annex parts of the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians view as the heartland of their future state. But the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the UAE had no authority

to negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians or “to make concessions on matters vital to Palestine.” The agreement would make the UAE the first Gulf Arab state—and the third Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan—to have full diplomatic ties with Israel. The Palestinians say the deal amounts to “treason” and have called on Arab and Muslim countries to oppose it. The historic deal delivered a key foreign policy victory for US President Donald J. Trump as he seeks reelection and ref lected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken trad itiona l A rab suppor t for t he Pa lest inians. Tr ump has predicted that other countries in the region will follow the UAE’s lead. Israel, the UAE and other Gulf countries that view Iran as a regional menace have been cultivating closer ties in recent years. Turkey has had diplomatic relations with Israel for decades, but under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has positioned itself as a champion of the Palestinians. Turkey and the UAE support rival camps in the conflict in Libya. AP

Shoppers use hand sanitizer as a vendor checks a customer’s temperature outside a store during a partial lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 20. The Malaysian government is working to implement its 260 billion ringgit ($60 billion) stimulus package, the biggest in Southeast Asia as proportion of gross domestic product, while promising another set of measures to bolster an economy struggling with the effects of the pandemic. Bloomberg

alaysia’s economy contracted by the most since the Asian financial crisis more than two decades ago as it bore the full brunt of pandemic lockdowns in the second quarter. Gross domestic product shrank 17.1 percent compared to a year earlier, its worst showing since the fourth quarter of 1998, the central bank said Friday. That compared to the median forecast of a 10.9-percent contraction in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The central bank downgraded its full-year gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for this year to -3.5 percent to -5.5 percent. Previously it had predicted growth in a range of 0.5 percent to -2 percent.

16.5 percent compared to the previous three months, worse than economists’ estimate of an 11.4-percent contraction. It was the second quarterly contraction in a row, the technical definition of a recession. The economy began to show signs of recover y at the tail end of the quarter. Manufacturing production and sales growth turned positive in June and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent. Governor Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus said in a briefing Friday she’s “cautiously optimistic that the worst is behind us.” The full-year forecast was cut because the pandemic had a bigger impact on global demand than previously assumed and Malaysia’s lockdown was extended

Key insights

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Exports in the tradereliant economy fell sharply in the second quarter amid disruptions to global supply chains, declining 21.7 percent from a year ago, the data showed. Consumer spending plunged because of the lockdown, falling 18.5 percent in the period. The economy shrank

Services industries contracted 16.2 percent from a year ago, manufacturing declined 18.3 percent and construction plunged 44.5 percent. The government is seeking to raise its debt limit for the first time since 2009 to fund the fiscal stimulus.

Bloomberg News

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Forced isolation may be the only way to stop resurgence of virus Kamala’s Indian connections spark social-media hysteria

hen Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate, it sparked a frenzy on the other side of the globe to track down her connections to Chennai, the southern Indian city where her mother was born. On Twitter and Facebook, a flurry of users chronicled every minute link, including her grandparents’ home in the Besant Nagar neighborhood, from where her mother Shyamala Gopalan set off as a teenager to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of California Berkeley. Undated photos surfaced of Kamala and younger sibling Maya in saris, smilingly posing with their grandparents during a visit. Many saw Harris a step away from the White House, and the de facto Democratic Party frontrunner in four, or eight years. Senator Harris is the first person of Indian descent and the first Black woman on a major ticket in a US presidential election. Indian media outlets, analyzing the geopolitical impact of her rise, argued a Biden-Harris win would further shore up a US-India relationship that had already improved markedly under Narendra Modi. The closer ties between Modi and US President Donald Trump culminated in two giant stadium events in front of tens of thousands of supporters—one in Houston last September that saw the two leaders walking hand-in-hand to a rock-star like reception, and the other in Modi’s home state of Gujarat in February. Still, the warming relations have not yet led to a long-anticipated USIndia trade deal, although New Delhi is now purchasing more weapons from the US, including a new defense agreement worth more than $3 billion signed during Trump’s visit to India earlier this year.

Chasing aunts

Local outlets and TV crews raced to hunt down an assortment of Harris’s aunts and even a greatuncle who detailed her visits to the sprawling metropolis and her strolls on its humid beaches discussing democracy and equality with her grandfather, a retired government official. A prominent local newspaper, The Hindu BusinessLine, carried the headline: “Kamala Devi Harris and the destiny-changing coconuts from Chennai.” The story described Harris’s aunt praying for her victory in the California Senate elections nine years ago by breaking 108 coconuts, a popular religious ritual, at the local temple. The paper quoted Harris phoning her aunt to say, “Chithi [aunt], please pray for me and break coconuts at the temple.” Twitter users highlighted her Indianness beginning with the name Kamala, which means lotus in several Indian languages. CNN’s local partner tweeted that “Kamala Harris loves idlis. And, sambhar”—fluffy rice cakes and spicy lentil stew often eaten for breakfast in India. The fuss over Harris’s political elevation this week far outstripped the excitement over the rise of other Chennai-connected personalities such as actor Mindy Kaling and Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai. While hundreds of Twitter users in India posted laudatory messages, some rued that Harris’s nomination would inflate the already lofty expectations of Indian parents for their kids. Indian lawmaker and prominent opposition Congress Party member Shashi Tharoor tweeted, “‘Beta [son] what are you doing these days? Oh, just a Harvard Professor? Not even Mayor yet?’” Bloomberg News

lare-ups from Australia to Japan show the world hasn’t learned an early lesson from the coronavirus crisis: to stop the spread, those with mild or symptom-free coronavirus infections must be forced to isolate, both from their communities and family.

In Australia, where Victoria state has been reporting record deaths, some 3,000 checks last month on people who should have been isolating at home found 800 were out and about. In Japan, where the virus has roared back, people are staying home but aren’t in isolation: 40 percent of elderly patients are getting sick from family members in the same apartments. The failure to effectively manage contagious people with mild, or no symptoms, is a driving factor behind some of the world’s worst resurgences. But lessons from Italy, South Korea and others that have successfully contained large-scale outbreaks show that there’s a triedand-tested approach to cutting off transmission: move them out of their homes into centralized facilities while they get over their infections, which usually doesn’t require longer than a few weeks. “A laissez-faire approach naively trusting everyone to be responsible has been shown to be ineffective, as there will always be a proportion who will breach the terms of the isolation,” said Jeremy Lim, adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Faced with a new cluster this week after 102 days without a locally transmitted case, New Zealand has quickly enacted this strategy, placing around 30 people—including at least two children below the age of 10—into centralized quarantine. But other countries facing sustained spread like Australia and the US are not broadly enacting the policy despite its proven track record. Their unwillingness—or inability—to do so underscores

the challenges faced by liberal democracies whose populations are less likely to tolerate measures that require individual sacrifice for the greater good.

Not at home

The existence of a large group of carriers who hardly feel sick is a unique feature of the coronavirus crisis, and a major factor that has driven its rapid spread across the globe. Unlike in previous outbreaks like the 2003 SARS epidemic, many infected people don’t feel ill enough to stay home, and so spread the pathogen widely as they go about their daily lives. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 40 percent of Covid-19 infections are asymptomatic. In Wuhan, the Chinese city where t he coron av i r u s f i rst emerged last year, mildly sick patients were originally turned away from hospitals and told to rest at home, given that the overwhelmed health-care system needed to tend to the most severe cases. But health experts soon found that these people would infect their family members and others as they moved around in the community, precipitating a deluge of cases. Bringing mild or asymptomatic patients to designated facilities— repurposed convention centers, hotels and stadiums—for basic medical care marked a turning point in the city’s fight against the coronavirus. Simply separating them from healthy people halted the pathogen’s silent spread through the community. The strategy has since been used in Italy, Singapore and South Korea at the height of their own

coronavirus outbreaks earlier this year. Faced with a resurgence last month, Hong Kong converted an exhibition center to accommodate mild Covid-19 patients and is building more such facilities. In New Zealand, the government put “a lot of thought” into enacting the policy, and is asking family members of confirmed cases to go into centralized quarantine with them if they require care, said director general of health Ashley Bloomfield. The approach is effective firstly because it prevents people from infecting family members in the same household—over 80 percent of cluster infections in China cities were in households after mild patients were allowed to stay home, said a Lancet study. In Europe, the surge of household infections drove Italy’s Milan to start putting such cases in hotels, enabling the country to gain control over its outbreak in early May. Beyond household spread, the strategy is necessitated by a facet of human nature that’s been seen time and again across countries and cultures: left to their own devices, some people just won’t follow the rules. In Australia and Japan, infected people who’ve been told to stay home have gone out for a variety of reasons—some can’t work from home and need the income, while others want to pick up groceries and supplies. One woman in Tokyo traveled cross country by bus after having her infection confirmed. “It is far better to be more aggressive in the short term with even mild cases than it is to allow such cases to slip under the radar,” said Nicholas Thomas, associate professor in health security au the City University of Hong Kong.

Locked up

But forcibly moving mild, or asymptomatic patients, into centralized facilities has been met with backlash in some countries where citizens are not as accepting of government directives. Some people might lose their jobs if they disappear for two weeks, or have caretaking responsibilities for young children or older parents where it’s unfeasible to be separated.

“People would be wondering what on earth they’re doing locked up in a hospital,” said Stephen Leeder, emeritus professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Sydney. “From what I know about the Australian psyche, I don’t think it would go down all that well.” In places like Venezuela and India where conditions in quarantine facilities are poor, the prospect of being taken away has caused some to avoid being tested, or to lie to contact-tracers, for fear of being found positive, making the work of health officials more challenging. In an e-mailed response to Bloomberg News queries, the Department of Health and Human Services in Victoria said the government provides alternative accommodation for quarantine, but that these are for health workers “who may not be able to safely live at their normal address” and other vulnerable groups. Rather than forcing isolation on mild cases, authorities have locked down 5 million residents in Melbourne and are tightening restrictions until new cases come under control. Officials are using a combination of stepped-up checks and fines of A$4,957 ($3,550) to convince infected people to stay home, while repeat offenders risk a A$20,000 penalty in court. More than 500 military personnel are helping the police conduct checks on 4,000 households every day to ensure those who are supposed to be staying home are there. To be sure, aggressive and thorough contact-tracing and case follow-up have successfully contained outbreaks in countries like Germany without a centralized quarantine strategy. But these places relied on an army of efficient workers hunting down every chain of transmission, a resource not many governments have had time to build up. “The classic practice in public health is to identify, trace and quarantine,” said Yang Gonghuan, former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “But how that is carried out depends on popular sentiment and the country’s resources.” Bloomberg News

Thailand’s dilemma: Silence students or allow monarchy criticism Jokowi sees pandemic as chance

t’s long been the case in Thailand that every conversation about the monarchy requires an extra level of alertness. One must carefully note their surroundings, who could be trusted and who might potentially take offense. Words are chosen delicately, often using coded language, to establish a sense of trust before offering even mild criticism of an institution protected by laws that carry lengthy jail sentences. The ever-present fear is rooted in history: Perceived opposition to the monarchy has been used for years to justify coups, send political opponents to prison or exile, or even kill them—as happened during a massacre of student protesters at Bangkok’s Thammasat University in 1976. That’s what makes the protests challenging the monarchy the past few weeks so historic, and so precarious. Mostly student protesters are breaking deeply entrenched taboos in publicly calling for reduced powers for King Maha Vajiralongkorn, with tensions only set to rise ahead of a planned rally on Sunday where they expect a crowd topping 10,000 people. “If the demonstrations do not cease, then this could be an incredibly dangerous moment for Thailand,” said Paul Chambers of Naresuan University’s Center of Asean Community Studies, who writes frequently about Thailand’s military. “The government may very well brutally repress them or disappear demonstration leaders.” While Thailand abolished absolute monarchy in 1932, the royal establishment saw a resurgence of power during the 70-year reign of King Bhumibol

Adulyadej that ended with his death in 2016. Since taking over, Vajiralongkorn has displayed his authority as head of state more overtly. The king rebuked exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, took command of some army units and approved legal changes that gave him ownership of Crown Property Bureau assets. Those include stakes in Siam Commercial Bank Pcl and Siam Cement Pcl worth about $6.7 billion combined, according to the firms’ web sites and Bloomberg calculations. The 10 demands from the students call for reining in those powers, with the goal of effectively creating a more transparent and accountable monarchy similar to the one in Britain. They include revoking strict lese-majeste laws, allowing criticism of the king, separating the monarch’s properties from the Crown Property Bureau, banning the sovereign from expressing political opinions and prohibiting the monarchy from endorsing any coups. Thai media outlets have remained largely silent on the demands, with only a few Thai-language outlets—such as BBC Thai and Prachatai— reporting details. A front-page headline in the English-language Bangkok Post declared “Students ‘crossed the line.’”

‘Don’t agree’ Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, a former army chief who received a royal endorsement for his 2014 coup, hasn’t directly addressed the demands. On Thursday, he questioned who was backing the movement and whether it was legal.

“The majority of people don’t agree with this,” Prayuth said. “We have to look into the demonstrations, and who’s behind it because there’s a lot of money involved. We have to investigate. There’s already a system in place to look into this. I don’t need to order anyone.” The prime minister’s party, Palang Pracharath, took a stronger line. “I can’t accept that some protest leaders have come out and violated the monarchy, which is unlawful, and some people have already filed complaints to the authorities,” Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana, a former spokesman for the party, said in a statement on Thursday. “Thai people won’t let anybody destroy an institution that’s loved and respected.” Protesters are feeling the heat. United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, which organized a rally on Monday that drew thousands of people, canceled another one planned for Wednesday due to fears that agitators would cause trouble at the event. It coincided with a visit to Thailand from Vajiralongkorn, who spends the majority of his time in Germany, to celebrate his mother’s birthday and attend an oath-taking ceremony for new cabinet ministers. He left Thailand shortly afterward.

‘Honest proposals’ The leaders of another group, the Student Union of Thailand, said late Wednesday night they feared arrest after noticing plainclothes officers around their homes.

One of them, Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul, had read out a statement on Monday that called for curbing the monarchy’s power. Sunday’s rally is being organized by Free People, an umbrella group that includes several student organizations as well as gay, lesbian and transgender youths. Labor groups have also said that they’ll also join the gathering set to start at 3 p.m. at Democracy Monument, which commemorates the 1932 revolution that ended absolute monarchy. While the country’s elected politicians have mostly either stayed silent or condemned the protesters, more than 100 university professors across Thailand signed an open letter to support them. They said the proposal amounts to free speech and doesn’t insult the king according to the law. “These are honest proposals in the preservation of the constitutional monarchy,” the statement released on Wednesday said. Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, said “anything could happen at this point” if the protests escalate, from a dissolution of parliament to the appointment of a new prime minister to a crackdown. “These students at this time are very brave,” said Pavin, who is also an activist living in exile and whose passport was revoked during the 2014 coup. “As someone who has long campaigned for an open discussion of the monarchy, I have never seen anything like this before, so I think this could be a real turning point.” Bloomberg News

to reform Indonesia ‘for good’

he coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity to transform Indonesia’s economic, legal, health and education systems and put it on path to become a developed country, according to President Joko Widodo. “We must turn this crisis into an opportunity to make big leaps,” Jokowi, as the president is known, said in his customary address to the joint house of parliament before the independence day. “And 25 years from now, at the centenary of the Republic of Indonesia, we must achieve great progress and make Indonesia a developed country.” Indonesia has struggled to contain the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Southeast Asia that’s also taken a heavy toll on its economy with millions of people rendered jobless in its services and manufacturing sectors. Jokowi is due to unveil measures to revive the economy in his annual budget speech later Friday after setting aside about $50 billion in fiscal stimulus to counter the impact of the pandemic this year. With the global economy facing its worst crisis ever, “all countries must undergo a brief process of shutdown, restart, and reboot,” Jokowi said. “And all countries have the opportunity to reset all the systems.” Indonesia’s economy shrank 5.32 percent yearon-year in the second quarter, its first contraction in more than two decades, as movement restrictions to contain the coronavirus outbreak decimated business. The government plans to spend as

much as 1,476 trillion rupiah ($100 billion) in the six months through December to boost the economy, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said last week. “This is the time for us to fundamentally renew ourselves, to make a major transformation, to implement grand strategies in the fields of economy, law, governance, social, culture, health and education,” Jokowi said. “We must undertake fundamental reforms in the way we work. Our readiness and speed are being tested.” The president’s strategy of balancing healthcare and the economy by shunning a complete lockdown has meant the virus is still rampant in the country with no signs of easing. Infections surged following the relaxation of social distancing rules from the end of May and the death toll has neared 6,000, the highest among Southeast Asian nations. The virus has also infected more than 130,000 people, with the cases more than doubling since the end of June, official data show. While the pandemic has forced rapid changes to Indonesia’s health-care systems, fundamental reforms in the health sector must be accelerated with a focus on disease prevention and a healthy lifestyle, Jokowi said. The government set aside $6 billion for the health-care sector this year after temporarily scrapping a fiscal deficit limit and getting the central bank to directly finance government spending. Bloomberg News

A6 Saturday, August 15, 2020

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

DTI-EMB launches beta version of EVA chatbot, Tradeline QR Code

O address exporters’ concerns anytime, the Department of Trade and Industry-Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) launched its 24/7 chatbot in the Tradeline Philippines web site, tradeline.dti.gov.ph, on August 10, 2020. In its beta version, the chatbot, named EVA or Export Virtual Assistant, is available at the Tradeline Philippines homepage—tradeline. dti.gov.ph—to answer questions about exporting Philippine products and services. EVA is being trained to answer common questions about exporting requirements, finding foreign markets, as well as queries about

DTI-EMB programs and services, among others. Since the chatbot is in beta version, users are encouraged to send their feedback about their experience at embkpd@dti.gov.ph. Other concerns about exporting can be addressed to exports@dti.gov.ph. “The chatbot is in its early stages and might not answers all kinds of questions yet. But we are continu-

ously building up EVA’s knowledge base to make her more helpful and intuitive,” said DTI-EMB Director Senen M. Perlada. The bureau chief emphasized that EVA is part of the agency’s digital transformation strategy to better serve existing and aspiring exporters. “The pandemic has pushed everything online. The DTI-EMB has been a strong advocate of digital transformation, especially for MSMEs. We are adapting to the next normal through launching EVA, making our processes fully online, and getting our MSME exporters in various digital platforms, among others,” said Perlada. The chatbot was made using the Azure Bot Service under Microsoft Azure. The fembot graphic ID is based on an avatar from https://www. botlibre.com, the open source chatbot and artificial intelligence platform.

In a related development, the bureau has also launched the QR Code of Tradeline Philippines recently to provide its stakeholders a convenient way to access the Bureau’s web site. Tradeline Philippines is DTIEMB’s business intelligence platform that aims to deliver timely and relevant information and assistance to existing and potential exporters to enhance their capabilities and competitiveness as suppliers of quality goods and services to global markets. It is also positioned as DTI-EMB’s main information and communications technology tool in providing its stakeholders with an integrated export information system that will provide regular trade statistics reports, market and product information, supplier and buyer databases, and other trade-related information to its valued stakeholders through the Web.

Basket-making export cottage industry thrives in Pangasinan By Hilda Austria

Philippine News Agency

AIWAN’S exports unexpectedly rose for the first time since February, spurred by a surge in US and Chinese demand for technology products. Overseas shipments from Taiwan rose 0.4 percent last month, according to a statement from Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance. That compares to the median estimate for a 1.4-percent drop in a survey of economists. Last month, the ministry forecast July exports were likely to shrink between 1.5 percent and 4 percent. Imports dropped 6.8 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $5.4 billion.

Key insights

OFFICIALS warned the return to growth may be brief. They predict shipments will decline between 0.5 percent and 2.5 percent in August. “The strength from electronics was well anticipated, thanks to ongoing buoyant IT demand on the back of the 5G rollout, Huawei orders, and re-shoring. But it is also encouraging to see non-tech contraction also eased,” said Barclays Bank Plc economist Angela Hsieh, one of the few economists in the Bloomberg survey to forecast an increase. “We are relatively constructive on Taiwan’s outlook, and believe Taiwan’s export performance will continue to

outshine regional peers in the second half of 2020.” Exports to mainland China and the US continued to expand, up 5.2 percent and 7.8 percent respectively, offsetting falling shipments to almost all other nations. Technology products, from components to information and communication goods, saw gains of between 15.5 percent and 18.5 percent. At its previous release in July, the finance ministry warned that Taiwan’s exports will “come under pressure” in the second half of the year due to a possible second wave of the global coronavirus outbreak and uncertainty surrounding the ongoing trade war between the US and China.

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TAIWAN’S economy unexpectedly shrank last quarter, with gross domestic product falling 0.7 percent in the second quarter, its first contraction in more than four years. The government pointed to a fall in private consumption exacerbated by a 99.6-percent slump in tourism from overseas as the main reason for the decline. Taiwan led a pickup in manufacturing sentiment across Asia in July. The island’s purchasing managers’ index rose to 50.6, indicating an expansion.

EU slaps duties on Cambodia exports over rights concerns

RBIZTONDO, Pangasinan— Some 15 families in Barangay Bituag here continue to earn their living from making baskets, some for the export market, amid the pandemic. Myrna Velasquez, 68, one of the pioneers of basket making in the village, said the demand for woven baskets soared during the quarantine. “Before the quarantine due to pandemic, we only made 500 baskets a week but now it has doubled,” she said in an interview on Monday. From four families, there are now 15 families involved in basket making in the village, she added. Velasquez said basket making in their place was started by his brother, Andres Macalanda, who had learned the craft when he was detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in San Carlos City. Following his release from BJMP, he had a contact with a company based in San Fernando City, Pampanga, that exports hand-made baskets and it consigned him to produce certain pieces of the basket. “My brother had us trained to do woven baskets. The company provides all the materials and we make the baskets,” she said. She added they were paid be-

Taiwan exports see surprise increase as tech shipments to US, China surge

SOME 15 families in Barangay Bituag Urbiztondo, Pangasinan, earn their living through making baskets. Their source of income was not affected negatively by the pandemic. PNA

tween P12 and P70 per piece depending on the size of the basket they finished. “Families working here are mostly farmers like us. There are senior citizens and as young as 17 years old,

but not below 17 years old. And they do the work at the comfort of their homes,” Velasquez said. Mary Joy, 32, a mother of five, said she is thankful their work continued and their income even in-

creased despite the lockdown in the past months. Woven baskets are a trend these days as they are used to complement pots of indoor plants, as planting also a fad during this quarantine. PNA

RUSSELS—The European Union (EU) on Wednesday began to reimpose customs duties on certain exports from Cambodia in response to what it said are concerns about the Southeast Asian country’s human-rights record. The European Commission, which supervises trade deals and relations on behalf of the 27 membernations of the world’s biggest trading bloc, said the duties would be put on clothes, footwear and travel goods. The commission announced in February that it planned to withdraw key tariff preferences amounting to about one-fifth of the 1 billion euros, or $1.2 billion worth of Cambodian exports, that go to the EU each year due to “serious and systematic concerns related to human rights.” Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said the EU gave Cambodia opportunities to develop its export industry and create jobs, and that the bloc would continue to provide help to combat the impact of the coronavirus in the country. “Nonetheless, our continued support does not diminish the urgent

need for Cambodia to respect human rights and labor rights,” Hogan said in a statement. He said free access to Europe’s market might be restored “provided we see substantial improvement in that respect.” In February, Cambodia’s foreign ministry expressed regret about the EU intentions, saying the move to bring back customs duties was politically driven and “triggered by many misperceptions and misunderstandings about the actual realities in Cambodia.” The decision hits the “Everything But Arms”—or EBA—program that Cambodia has with the EU, which grants preferential access to the European market for products other than weapons. Several other developing nations have such arrangements. The EU is Cambodia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 45 percent of Cambodian exports in 2018. Cambodia’s exports to the EU, largely from the garment industry, were worth 5.4 billion euros, or $6.4 billion, in 2018, with 95.7 percent covered by EBA tariff preferences. AP

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Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, August 15, 2020 A7

Felino Palafox Jr.: Pandemic gives us a chance to correct past planning mistakes

PALAFOX By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

ENOWNED architect and urban planner Felino Palafox Jr. believes that now is the best time to pursue sustainable development measures to develop a better tomorrow for Filipinos. As the pandemic rages on, Palafox urged the government to put up pedestrian facilities, bike lanes, pedestrian

walkways, bicycle bridges across waterways like Pasig, San Juan and Marikina Rivers, elevated walkways/bike lanes in congested roads like the whole length of Edsa, narrow streets in Metro Manila without sidewalks, waterfront promenades, and pursue tree planting along sidewalks and waterways to generate employment during this crisis. The University of Santo Tomas alumnus said he is passionate about these causes because they are part of his numerous advocacies. “My advocacies include the protection and enhancement of the environment, promotion of green architecture, green urbanism, architecture for the poor, anti-corruption, and other advocacies for a better Philippines,” Palafox told the BusinessMirror in an online interview. People who know him would agree that Palafox practices architectural activism, philanthropic architecture, patriotic architecture, democratic architecture and architecture of faith. Palafox also walks the talk in his advocacies. He believes that the greater the number of people who are well briefed, the wider the cascade effect. “At Palafox Associates/Palafox Architecture group we put forward many planning, architecture and design recommendations during this pandemic, to help transform our cities, communities, our homes, our offices, buildings, and spaces well into the new world order. We donated our architectural design converting basketball courts into

Ligtas Covid centers,” Palafox explained. The Palafox Associates and Palafox Architecture Group have been advocating and proposing that street designs and road cross-sections should have one-third allocation for pedestrians and bicycle lanes, one-third for trees and landscaping, and one-third for vehicles. For Palafox, the role of an architect/urban planner is to plan and design environment-friendly buildings, communities and cities that are sustainable, resilient, livable, walkable, bikeable, safe, clean, inclusive, intergenerational, mixed-income, and integrating places to live, work, shop, dine, learn, worship, with health-care facilities and wellness centers, with some 24-hour activity centers. Moreover, an architect must integrate harmoniously the natural environment in land use, zoning, transportation, tourism, utilities and services, among others. “In these challenging times, architects and planners have the opportunity to improve our environment, correct the mistakes we see in our urban development and conditions, address not just this pandemic that will reshape our cities, communities, buildings and spaces, address climate change, and other hazards before they become disasters like earthquakes, flooding, landslides and volcanic eruptions,” he said. As far as the roads in urban areas are concerned, Palafox said pedestrians should be given more space, followed by bicycles and public transport and private cars.

To give Metro Manila more oxygen and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Palafox urged government, particularly local government units, to build more parks and open spaces. To do this, he proposed the construction of elevated walkways in the central business districts of the metropolis, and along major thoroughfares to minimize traffic congestion. He said the country needs to develop alternative roads because vehicle travel time along EDSA has gone down to a snail’s pace of only 11 kilometers per hour, whereas its standard design is for a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. “Urban mobility should prioritize walking, biking and all kinds of public transport. The automobile, the most inefficient mode, should be the last priority, whereas highoccupancy modes of transport must be the top priority. An indicator of a First World or progressive country is when leaders in government and business, as well as the more affluent members of society, walk or take their bikes or use public transportation to reach their destination,” he said. However, he said the country is slow in adopting urban planning global best practices and recommendations. Palafox said the country does not have a choice but to bite the bullet now to save and protect the future. “Now is the time to correct past mistakes, make our cities and communities more liveable, and protect and enhance the environment,” he said.

New York’s true nursing home In art is our salvation death toll cloaked in secrecy By Bernard Condon, Matt Sedensky & Meghan Hoyer | The Associated Press

EW YORK—Riverdale Nursing Home in the Bronx appears, on paper, to have escaped the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with an official state count of just four deaths in its 146-bed facility. The truth, according to the home, is far worse: 21 dead, most transported to hospitals before they succumbed. “It was a cascading effect,” administrator Emil Fuzayov recalled. “One after the other.” New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there. That statistic that could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing a better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire. “That’s a problem, bro,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat, told New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker during a legislative hearing on nursing homes earlier this month. “It seems, sir, that in this case you are choosing to define it differently so that you can look better.” How big a difference could it make? Since May, federal regulators have required nursing homes to submit data on coronavirus deaths each week, whether or not residents died in the facility or at a hospital. Because the requirement came after the height of New York’s outbreak, the available data is relatively small. According to the federal data, roughly a fifth of the state’s homes reported resident deaths from early June to mid July—a tally of 323 dead, 65 percent higher than the state’s count of 195 during that time period. Even if half that undercount had held true from the start of the pandemic, that would translate into thousands more nursing home resident deaths than the state has acknowledged. Another group of numbers also suggests an undercount. State health department surveys show 21,000 nursing home beds are lying empty this year, 13,000 more than expected—an increase of almost double the official state nursing home death tally. While some of that increase can be attributed to fewer new admissions and people pulling their loved ones out, it suggests that many others who aren’t there anymore died. However flawed New York’s count, Cuomo has not been shy about comparing it to tallies in other states. Nearly every time Cuomo is questioned about New York’s nursing home death toll, he brushes off criticism as politically motivated and notes that his state’s percentage of nursing home deaths out of its overall Covid-19 death toll is around 20 percent, far less than Pennsylvania’s 68 percent, Massachusetts’ 64 percent and New Jersey’s 44 percent. “Look at the basic facts where New York is versus other states,” Cuomo said during a briefing on Monday. “You look at where New York is as a percentage of nursing home deaths, it’s all the way at the bottom of the list.” In another briefing last month, he touted New York’s percentage ranking as 35th in the nation. “Go talk to 34 other states first. Go talk to the Republican states now— Florida, Texas, Arizona—ask them what is happening in nursing homes. It’s all politics.” Boston University geriatrics expert Thomas Perls said it doesn’t make sense that nursing home resident deaths

as a percentage of total deaths in many nearby states are more than triple what was reported in New York. “Whatever the cause, there is no way New York could be truly at 20 percent,” Perls said. A running tally by The Associated Press shows that more than 68,200 residents and staff at nursing homes and long-term facilities across the nation have died from the coronarivus, out of more than 163,000 overall deaths. For all 43 states that break out nursing home data, resident deaths make up 44 percent of total Covid deaths in their states, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Assuming the same proportion held in New York, that would translate to more than 11,000 nursing home deaths. To be sure, comparing coronavirus deaths in nursing homes across states can be difficult because of the differences in how states conduct their counts. New York is among several states that include probable Covid-19 deaths as well as those confirmed by a test. Some states don’t count deaths from homes where fewer than five have died. Others don’t always give precise numbers, providing ranges instead. And all ultimately rely on the nursing homes themselves to provide the raw data. “Everybody is doing it however they feel like doing it. We don’t have very good data. It’s just all over the place, all over the country,” said Toby Edelman of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit representing nursing home residents. New York health chief Zucker explained during the legislative hearing that New York only counts deaths on the nursing home property to avoid “double-counting” deaths in both the home and the hospital. And while he acknowledged the state keeps a running count of nursing home resident deaths at hospitals, he declined to provide even a rough estimate to lawmakers. “I will not provide information that I have not ensured is absolutely accurate,” Zucker said. “This is too big an issue and it’s too serious an issue.” Zucker promised to provide lawmakers the numbers as soon as that doublechecking is complete. They are still waiting. The AP has also been denied access to similar nursing home death data despite filing a public records request with the state health department nearly three months ago. Dr. Michael Wasserman, president of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine, said it is unethical of New York to not break out the deaths of nursing home residents at hospitals. “From an epidemiological and scientific perspective, there is absolutely no reason not to count them.” Nursing homes have become a particular sore point for the Cuomo administration, which has generally received praise for steps that flattened the curve of infections and New York’s highest-in-the-nation 32,781 overall deaths. But a controversial March 25 order to send recovering Covid-19 patients from hospitals into nursing homes that was designed to free up hospital bed space at the height of the pandemic has drawn withering criticism from relatives and patient advocates who contend it accelerated nursing home outbreaks. Cuomo reversed the order under pressure in early May. And his health department later released an internal report that concluded asymptomatic nursing home staffers were the real spreaders of the virus, not the 6,300 recovering patients released from hospitals into nursing homes. But epidemiologists and academics derided the study for a flawed methodology that sidestepped key questions and relied on selective stats, including the state's official death toll figures.

By Nick Tayag

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH

HE steep drop in our GDP (deep recession) and our inability to contain the surging Covid-19 infections have delivered a 1-2 punch to our sagging national morale. We find ourselves not only in a deep hole economically but also getting a national black eye in terms of image as a country that can’t seem to do anything right about epidemic containment. These are painful blows indeed but I won’t echo the negative outcries of the doomsayers. I would rather face the problem squarely and try to find a way to climb out of the pit we’ve somehow managed to bumble into. Yes, it is a big setback but it also presents bright opportunity to rethink our priorities and do it right and even better this time. This could be our nana korobi, ya oki moment (“fall down seven times and stand up eight.”) As someone who has been involved in creative work all my professional years, I think the way to plan the long hard climb to economic recovery is to get out of the box of the tiresome Build, Build, Build mantra that our economic managers are intoning. Building hard infrastructure may be one way to provide jobs for millions, but not the only way. We can do it not only by way of big-ticket projects but also by softly and strategically harnessing the wealth-generating power of Filipino creativity. We have been overlooking the fact but there is money to be made in the arts! In fact, a lot. Culture and the arts are now acknowledged as major drivers of national economies around the world. Countries such as US, Japan, UK, Australia, and even South Africa have long recognized the huge potential of the cultural and creative industries. There was a study made by Cultural Times, which analyzed 11 cultural and creative industry sectors and assessed their contribution to economic growth. Believe it or not, these industries are able to churn out an estimated $250 billion in revenue every year, employing 29.5 million people worldwide. Creative industries are so important in developed economies that

Great Britain is reported to be investing nearly $2 billion in cultural institutions and the arts to help a sector that has been crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. This money will help safeguard the sector for future generations, ensuring arts groups and venues across the UK can stay afloat and support their staff whilst their doors remain closed and curtains remain down. I also read something somewhere about the world’s economy shifting from an economy based in manufacturing and heavy industry, to an economy of knowledge and information, where creativity and collaboration are at its very center. This new economy is called the “Orange Economy” or “Creative Economy,” which includes all the sectors whose goods and services are based on intellectual property: architecture, visual and performing arts, crafts, film, design, publishing, research and development, games and toys, fashion, music, advertising, software, TV and radio, and videogames. I would even include culinary arts. With disruptions happening in the way we live and work because of the pandemic, I think this shift will even take place much sooner because experts are now saying that the world is now migrating to digital space, particularly the entertainment as well as leisure and recreation industries. This means that there will be a tremendous demand to create content for the diverse digital platforms. This is where we come in. While we are not scientifically and technologically advanced, we have a vast organic pool of talents and artists to compete in this new economy: in communications, media arts, performing arts, design and animation. The question: do we have the will and the system to leverage our vast natural talent pool and capacity for creativity as an asset? Thankfully, our policy-makers appear to be beginning to see the light. Recent pronouncements by leaders of both houses have underscored the value of the arts in the life of the Filipino and our national economy. Recently, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano announced in a press conference that he is seeking the creation of a Department of Arts and Culture to support the country’s creative and

performing arts industries. This department would focus on the development, marketing, and promotion of Philippine arts and culture abroad. I have many disagreements with Speaker Cayetano, but on this one, I silently applaud him. I hope it’s not just political talk. If we can get our act together, government and private companies can make our culture, our arts, in combination with tourism, as a major source of income for Filipino talents, artists, craftsmen as well as the collateral enterprises related to and supportive of the creative industries. Public and private sponsorship and support of the arts is particularly important for our local creators and art workers whose main focus is not primarily money but non-monetary value: to entertain, to delight, to challenge, to give meaning, to interpret, to raise awareness, and to stimulate. Even Senate President Tito Sotto said as much during the opening of the Senate session: “We need writers, poets and creators to help us make sense of what is happening in the world.” Let us use this as an opportunity to create our national brand built on the arts. After all, “malikot ang utak ng Pinoy.” Singapore looks up to us in the field of creativity; I even gave a workshop on conceptualization and scriptwriting there once. There was a time when Filipino creative directors used to head ad agencies in Jakarta and Bangkok. Take note, Filipino indie films are now starting to make their mark on world cinema. Indeed, let’s reset our thinking and take stock of the natural assets we have on hand. Let’s mobilize the power of Filipino creativity and ingenuity to propel ourselves beyond the deep recession we are in toward becoming a nation that would exude the kind of “soft power” and “gravitas” that analyst Andrew Masigan has been espousing in his articles. Build, build, build our creative industry! Above all, our intrinsic creativity will be the cement that will strongly bind our hearts and souls together in the challenging years to come. Ultimately, it is the arts that will save us economically as a nation, as a people and as a part of humanity.

Saturday, August 15, 2020 • Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

BusinessMirror

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K-pop, K-drama, merch and ice cream in quarantine

OFFICIAL merchandise from the hit Korean drama It’s Okay Not to Be Okay, including key rings and an illustrator package (one of the lead characters was an illustrator).

CALIFORNIA’S earthquake early warnings will be a standard feature on all Android phones, bypassing the need for users to download the state’s MyShake app in order to receive alerts. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services worked with Google, the maker of Android, to build the quake alerts into all phones that run the operating system. AP

Android phones to track quakes; California gets alert system

ANY upper middle class and middle class Filipinos have found comfort in two things—K-pop and/or K-drama and ordering food—in quarantine. As far as I know, the first K-pop concert took place in the Philippines in 2010. Someone told me this wasn’t the case since SHINee (minus member Taemin) had been here a year before that. But it was for the Korean Cultural Festival, which wasn’t technically a concert. Since then, K-pop has become part of the Philippine entertainment scene, particularly at this time when many people are just home and waiting for the pandemic to be over or the vaccine for Covid-19 to be developed, whichever comes first. Globe Kmmunity PH started out as a Facebook community group for Globe’s K-pop concert goers. If you don’t know yet, Globe Telecom has sponsored many K-pop concerts for years. The Facebook group has since evolved into a platform where fans of Korean culture can mingle with each other and share their love for all things Korean. The Facebook group also shares exclusive members-only perks. Here is more good news for those who are part of this community: Globe Kmmunity PH is expanding its content with new and exciting channels and partners. “Globe Kmmunity PH is excited to have more K-fans be part of our growing community, where they can enjoy exclusive perks and gain new friends. Likewise, members will also be able to access more quality content from their favorite K-idols with our amazing new content partners, such as VLive, Viki and DIVE Studios,” said Globe Vice President for Get Entertained Tribe Jil Bausa- Go. Social media and messaging channels will have exclusive content for fans to enjoy: ■ TWITTER. The official “KCulture Stan” account that posts about the latest and trending topics on anything about Korean culture ■ SHOPEE. The marketplace for exclusive merchandise, deals and experiences from Globe and its partners ■ VIBER. A community that aims to organize exchange of limited-edition Korean culture items among members ■ YOUTUBE. Exclusive video content on Korean music, drama, beauty, food and travel ■ VLIVE. Exclusive events, fanship experiences and content featuring Korean idols. Note: Singers and members of boy and girl groups are called “idols” in Korea ■ KMMUNITY PH PARTNERS. Globe Kmmunity PH is also introducing new content with exclusive global platform partnerships to bring Korean culture closer to Hallyu fans. The company recently teamed up with VLive, the No. 1 South Korean live video streaming service. Globe is VLive’s first telecommunications company partner

in Southeast Asia. Under the partnership, both companies will provide exclusive K-pop idol content to millions of Globe subscribers in the Philippines. Aside from live concerts and music videos, VLive also showcases personalized idol livestreams and even allows fans the opportunity to interact with them through chat. Globe Kmmunity PH is also the first and exclusive Southeast Asia telecommunications partner of Viki, an on-demand video streaming app. Viki has a rich library of Korean dramas including certified global hits, such as Fight for My Way and Suspicious Partner, as well as a wide selection of other Asian content. To further strengthen its content, Kmmunity PH is also engaging DIVE Studios, a podcast production network with studios in Seoul and Los Angeles. DIVE creates content for international K-pop fans and features artists like Eric Nam, Tablo of hip-hop group Epik High, Jae of the group Day6 and Jamie Park. “Globe Kmmunity PH is the first community to unite Korean culture fans in the Philippines. It has been bringing the best K-culture content and K-idols closer to Filipino fans since 2015,” said Globe Vice President for Strategic Platforms and Partnerships Coco Domingo. Because we’re not going to any live concerts or fan meetings in the near future, joining Kmmunity PH is the next best thing. Even if you’re not much into interacting with others on social-media platforms, you can get news and updates about your favorites here. A Korean drama that has kept a lot of people entertained was the recently-concluded It’s Okay Not to Be Okay. I’d describe it as the journey of three people who are all mentally and emotionally scarred

toward healing. This is one of the few times that a mainstream Korean drama has tackled mental illness face on. If there’s one thing that makes Korean entertainment unique, it’s the merch. In It’s Okay Not to Be Okay, actress Seo Ye-ji plays book author Ko Moonyoung so, of course, some of the merch includes books that the character wrote in the drama. Pop Market (bit.ly/3iAtPnp) has a bundle set for all five books for P4,200 on a preorder basis. You can also get Mang Tae and Teary Key Rings, or the special Story Illustrator Package to complete your It’s Okay Not to Be Okay collection. I actually want the dinosaur key ring. Now onto food. One of the things I miss doing is having bubble tea or a yogurt drink at Black Scoop Cafe in Maginhawa Street or SM City North Edsa after work with my daughter. With the quarantine and all that’s happening, this is something I haven’t done in a while. So we recently ordered some drinks and food (their chicken wings are quite good) via Lalamove. You can also order Black Scoop from Foodpanda and Grab Food. If you live far from a Black Scoop Cafe, you can order using Grab Pabili or Lalamove’s Pabili Service. We discovered Black Scoop’s Pints-To-Go collection in Okinawa Brown Sugar with Pearl, Black Mascarpone with Graham, and Halo Halo Surprise. My favorite is Halo Halo Surprise because it really tastes like halo-halo. We had a feast at home that night with our sandwiches, chicken wings, drinks and ice cream from Black Scoop Cafe. We’re still dreaming of the day when we can go there and enjoy the things we love but for now, we’re lucky and privileged to be able to stay at home. ■

SACRAMENTO, California—Android phones will be used to sense earthquakes around the world and may one day be able to provide global warnings, with the first mass alert system unveiled Tuesday in California, Google announced. Google, which helped develop Android, worked with California and the US Geological Survey to build the quake alerts into all phones that run the commonplace mobile operating system. Android users who have enabled location services and are near a quake of magnitude 4.5 or greater will receive a fullscreen earthquake warning telling them to drop to the floor and seek cover. The screen also will provide estimates of the quake’s magnitude and distance from the user. The alert is based on the projected shaking at a particular location and a certain level of intensity. Depending on their distance from a quake, people could get several seconds or perhaps a minute of warning. The warnings are powered by California’s ShakeAlert system, which uses signals from more than 700 seismometers installed around the state that can sense seismic waves. However, users won’t need to download the state’s MyShake app in order to receive the alerts. That application, developed by the University of California, Berkeley and launched last year, has been downloaded by only about 1 million of California’s 40 million residents. By contrast, many millions of people own Android phones. “This announcement means that California’s world-class earthquake early warning system will be a standard function on every Android phone—giving millions precious seconds to drop, cover and hold on when the big one hits,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. iPhone users won’t receive the alerts through Apple’s operating system, but they can download the MyShake app. Also on Tuesday, Google announced that Android phones will begin detecting earthquakes from around the world through their motion-sensing accelerometers. “Your Android phone can be a mini-seismometer, joining millions of other Android phones out there to form the world’s largest earthquake detection network,” according to a Google blog post. More than 2 billion devices run the Android operating system. Hundreds of millions of people live in earthquakeprone areas. But many countries lack the resources to build detection and alert systems, Google said. The information will be used at first to provide fast and accurate information on Google Search. But Google said it could begin sending out earthquake alerts next year. AP

AXA capitalizes on tech to help customers achieve their goals AS the country adapts to the new normal, AXA Philippines, one of the country’s leading insurance providers, has embedded tech processes for their new product, Goal Getter (www.axa.com.ph/ goalgetter), to provide convenience in achieving one’s goals amid the Covid-19 health crisis and community quarantine. “Technology has helped individuals and businesses alike as the country adapts to the new normal. At AXA Philippines, we continue to shift our efforts and services to a modern platform so people can still build financial plans and secure their future even as we face uncertainties due to the current pandemic,” said AXA Philippines President and CEO Rahul Hora. Goal Getter is an investment and life insurance

plan that helps you build your funds so you can achieve financial independence and realize your goals, whether it’s starting a small business, getting a car or condominium, or pursuing a postgraduate degree. It is readily available online so no need to meet with an agent. You can get started right in the comfort and safety of your own home and be on your way to achieving your goals in three easy steps. Through Goal Getter’s online service, you can personalize your investment, enter your information, and pay. You can start with an initial payment of as low as P10,000 and keep adding to it with as little as P5,000 monthly top-ups. Customers can choose to invest in either the

Philippine Wealth Bond Fund or Chinese Tycoon Fund depending on their risk appetite. Goal Getter allows policyholders the freedom to choose how much and how long they want to build their savings fund for their specific life goals. Since AXA Philippines is committed to provide the best protection for its customers and their families, Goal Getter also comes with life insurance coverage. The policyholder’s beneficiaries may receive 125 percent of the total premiums paid or the actual account value, whichever is higher. After months of staying at home, perhaps it is time for you to get back on track of achieving your goals and all it takes is a few clicks.

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Instagram faces lawsuit over illegal harvesting of biometrics BY ROBE�T BURNSON Bloomberg News FACEBOOK Inc. is facing new allegations that it illegally harvests the biometric data of users, this time in a lawsuit that targets the company’s photosharing app Instagram. Last month, the social media company offered to pay $650 million to settle a lawsuit in which it was accused of illegally collecting biometric data through a photo-tagging tool provided to Facebook users. In the new lawsuit, filed on Monday in state court in Redwood City, California, the company

is accused of collecting, storing and profiting from the biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users, without their knowledge or consent. “This suit is baseless,” Stephanie Otway, a Facebook company spokesman, said in an emailed statement. “Instagram doesn’t use face recognition technology.” Kelly Whalen, an Illinois resident who says she’s been using Instagram regularly since 2011, alleged in her complaint that the photo-sharing app’s practice violates a state privacy law that bars the unauthorized collection of biometric data. Under

the law a company can be forced to pay $1,000 per violation—or $5,000 if it’s found to have acted recklessly or intentionally. Only at the beginning of this year did Facebook start informing Instagram users that it was collecting the biometric data, according to the suit. Instagram’s online data policy on face recognition states: “If we introduce face-recognition technology to your Instagram experience, we will let you know first, and you will have control over whether we use this technology for you.” The case is Whalen v. Facebook, 20-civ-03346, Superior Court of California (Redwood City).

FACEBOOK’S Instagram is officially launching its answer to the hit short video app TikTok: Instagram Reels. The new Instagram feature will let users record and edit 15-second videos with audio, and will let users add visual effects. Users will be able to share Reels with followers in Instagram in a dedicated section called Reels in Explore, or in the Story feature where posts disappear after 24 hours. AP

Facebook launches its new TikTok clone, Instagram Reels BY MAE ANDERSON, TALI ARBEL & BARBARA O�TUTAY The Associated Press

ACEBOOK’S Instagram is officially launching its answer to the hit short video app TikTok— Instagram Reels. The new Instagram feature will let users record and edit 15-second videos with audio, and will let users add visual effects. Users will be able to share Reels with followers in Instagram in a dedicated section called Reels in Explore, or in the Story feature where posts disappear after 24 hours. The Reels option will be available in the Instagram app. The company has been testing Reels in Brazil since November and in France, Germany and India since earlier this summer. Facebook has a long tradition of cloning competitive services. The Instagram “Story” feature, which lets people share photos and videos that expire in 24 hours, is similar to Snapchat. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced tough questioning about the company’s habit of copying rivals before a congressional hearing on July 29. Facebook earlier launched a TikTok knockoff called Lasso in 2018, but closed that down in July. It also tried services similar to Snapchat called Slingshot and Poke before Instagram Stories caught on. But those were separate apps—it might have more success with a feature built into Instagram. In fact, copying Snapchat’s features was successful for Instagram in part because Snapchat was difficult

to figure out for new users. They were already comfortable with Instagram. But TikTok is very easy to use—easier than Instagram—and part of its appeal is that you’re able to sit back and scroll endlessly with just swipes, without the need to follow anyone or post anything. Even with the success of Stories, Snapchat remains popular with younger people, though the Instagram feature has likely limited its growth. Snapchat has more daily users than Twitter. For Reels to succeed, Facebook will have to lure video creators away from TikTok. This might be easier to do with Reels since many creators are already on Instagram. In response to published reports that Instagram is paying TikTok influencers to join Reels, Instagram said in a statement that the company “have a long history of reaching out to emerging creators and working to break new stars on Instagram.” “As with previous products, we remain committed to investing in both our creators and their overall experience, and in certain cases, we may help cover production costs for their creative ideas,” the company said. TikTok, in turn, launched a $200 million “creator fund” in July that it says will grow to over $1 billion in the US in the next three years and more than double that globally, to pay video creators for their material. TikTok, however, is under fire, possibly opening an opportunity for Facebook. Microsoft is in talks to buy part of TikTok in what would be a forced sale, following threats from President Donald J. Trump to ban the Chinese-owned video app, which claims 100 million US users and

hundreds of millions globally. Experts think Facebook has an opportunity to lure in young users with Reels, but its success is not guaranteed. “Social-media users, especially younger users, tend to use social platforms for different things,” said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson. This means Snapchat to message friends privately, Facebook to keep up with school groups or check up on parents and grandparents, Instagram to follow their passions and TikTok for entertainment. “Instagram has put a lot of effort into developing Reels and making it attractive to TikTok users and the creators who work on the app, but I’m not sure it can replace TikTok,” Williamson added. “Even if TikTok were to be banned in the US (which I think is unlikely to happen), users would find a way to keep using it. They are incredibly loyal and protective of TikTok.” Since early July, some TikTok users have been posting videos urging viewers to follow them to other platforms, like Instagram, reflecting the threat of a TikTok ban. Mary Keane-Dawson, Group CEO at the influencer marketing agency Takumi, said the creators she works with have been sad, angry and upset about the threat of a ban. Still, they’re “pragmatic,” she said, and the smart ones were already active on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Reels is debuting in over 50 countries, including the US, the UK, Japan, Australia and others, as well as officially launching in the test countries—Brazil, France, Germany and India. Instagram has more than a billion users worldwide. ■

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

• Saturday, August 15, 2020

Government needs to address connectivity issues in telco sector BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES AN advocacy group of lawyers recently urged government to address the bureaucratic and regulatory issues that have consistently hampered the construction of new cell sites that could improve signal reception. In a public statement, Defenders of the Flag spokesman and convenor Arnel Victor Valeña said government has the power and resources to help Globe Telecom and Smart Communications to improve their services. “It should not expect recurring issues to be resolved in a snap without proper intervention and regulation,” Valeña added. “We are not aware of any emergency and do not find any compelling reason for the government to resort to the drastic measure of taking over Smart and Globe,” Valeña said. Meanwhile, former Department of Information and Communications Technology Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. also cited red tape as the real problem in the telco industry “that only government can solve.” In another development, Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu recently urged local government units to rationalize fees and hasten the processing of permits to facilitate the building of infrastructure to improve connectivity in the country. In a July 30 meeting in Malacañang, Cu informed Duterte of the telco industry’s challenges particularly the slow process of getting permits to build cell sites and towers which takes at least eight months. During the meeting, Cu revealed to the President that Globe needs to secure a total of 29 to 35 permits to build a single cell site tower. In a swift response, Duterte ordered his cabinet officials to “take the most drastic measure you can find” to fast-track the processing of telco infrastructure permits. The DILG recently signed Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) 01-2020 ordering concerned government agencies to provide a faster processing time to a maximum of 20 days. Cu thanked Duterte for giving them the opportunity to present their predicament and for his swift action on the problem of tedious LGU permits for the construction of their cell sites. “In addition, having many cell sites is critical to successfully roll out advanced technologies like 5G services in the country,” Cu said.

VIVO TOPS SMARTPHONE VENDORS IN PHL ACCORDING TO CANALYS REPORT

VIVO finally holds the top spot as the smartphone brand most in-demand in the Philippines based on numbers recorded in the April-June Canalys report. This is a feat for the young smartphone giant who finished in second place in the 2019 close of year report of Canalys. Analyst firm Canalys releases quarterly data and forecasts for all mobile phone categories around the world, and in its latest Philippine report it identified vivo as the No. 1 smartphone brand in the country with a record 21 percent market share in Q2. Since establishing its presence in the Philippines, vivo (www.vivoglobal.ph) has been one of the most aggressive brands in the market reporting a consistent upward year-on-year growth. In 2019, the brand managed to close with a 159-percent growth. Despite the global crisis brought about by the pandemic, vivo was able to successfully launch its flagship series— V19 and V19 Neo—in the country by harping on its digital expertise and trademark innovative means, unhampered by the nationwide quarantine. The brand continues to receive warm reception from the general public and sees no end to it as it gears up to bring to the country more of its latest models for the rest of 2020, including a well-anticipated model from its X series known to sport a new and unique feature, as well as cutting-edge camera technology.

BusinessMirror

A10 Saturday, August 15, 2020 • Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

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MediaTek, Intel bring 5G to next-gen PCs BY RODERICK L. ABAD Contributor MEDIATEK Inc. has tied up with Intel to deliver 5G experiences to next-generation personal computers (PCs) with the successful development and certification of its 5G modem data card. MediaTek’s T700 5G modem, which will be used to bring 5G connectivity to Intel-powered PCs, completed 5G standalone (SA) calls in real-world test scenarios. Intel has advanced on system integration, validation and developing channel optimizations for a superior user experience and is bracing coengineering support for its original equipment manufacturer partners. “Our partnership with Intel is a natural extension of our growing 5G mobile business, and is an incredible market opportunity for MediaTek to move into the PC market,” said Joe Chen, president of MediaTek. “With Intel’s deep expertise in the PC space and our groundbreaking 5G modem technology, we will redefine the laptop experience and bring consumers the best 5G experiences,” he added. For Chris Walker, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of mobile client platforms, a successful alliance is gauged by execution. “And we’re excited to see the rapid progress we are making with MediaTek on our 5G modem solution with customer sampling starting later this quarter,” he said. Leveraging on their 4G/LTE leadership in PCs, he noted that 5G is poised to further change the way they connect, compute and communicate. “Intel is committed to enhancing those capabilities on the world’s best PCs,” said Walker. The MediaTek T700 modem supports non-SA and SA Sub-6 5G network architectures to bring constantly faster speeds and more dependable connectivity. Even if consumers are at home or onthe-go, they can browse, stream and game at ultrafast 5G speeds. The global fabless semiconductor company’s modem is, likewise, highly power efficient to prolong the battery life of laptops so consumers can go longer in between charges. The firm is rolling out its advanced 5G technology across the PC, mobile, home, auto and Internet of Things segments to make super-fast connectivity accessible to everyone. The first laptops enabled by the MediaTek and Intel 5G modem solution will be released in early 2021.

ALL-NEW OPPO RENO4 LAUNCHED VIA LIVESTREAMED CONCERT

GLOBAL smart device brand OPPO launched the muchawaited trendy smartphone, the Reno4, on August 14 via a livestreamed event featuring Careless Music Manila artists Nadine Lustre, KINGwAw, Curtismith, Massiah and Astrokidd. An independent music label, Careless Music Manila has always been focused on creating authentic music, giving the spotlight to up and coming Filipino talents and allowing them to flourish creatively. Each of the ambassadors are passionate about expressing themselves through their unique sound and perspective, their way of showing their best selves clearly. Involved in the creative process from start to finish, Careless Music Manila collaborated with OPPO Philippines to write and produce a song for Reno4 campaign, titled “Clearly the Best You.” So consumers can show off #ClearlyTheBestYou, the OPPO Reno4 is packed with the trendiest camera features to take portrait photography and videography to the next level, including the 32MP Dual Punch Hole Front Camera and the 48MP High Definition QuadCamera system. Ideal for content creation, the Reno4’s camera modes open up realms of possibilities with the AI Portrait Mode, which mutes the background into black and white while keeping the subject in real color, and the Night Flair Mode to upgrade your night photography with neon effects against a backdrop. Finally, with video platforms being all the rage, the Reno4’s camera comes with an epic 960fps AI Slow Motion feature to capture impressive slowmotion shots in the thick of the action, as well as the Ultra Steady Video 3.0 to enhance your videography experience. More information about OPPO’s latest smartphone offering is available on www. facebook.com/OPPOPH/.

Telemedicine shines during pandemic but will glow fade?

BY TOM MURPHY The Associated Press

ACKED with anxiety, Lauren Shell needed to talk to her cancer doctor. But she lives at least an hour away and it was the middle of her workday. It was also the middle of a pandemic. Enter telemedicine. The 34-year-old Leominster, Massachusetts, resident arranged a quick video visit through the app Zoom in May with her doctor in Boston. He reassured her that he was confident in their treatment plan, and the chances of her breast cancer returning were low. “It was really great to be able to talk to him about what I was feeling,” she said. She felt comforted afterward “knowing that I wasn’t alone.” This is how doctors and health care researchers envision telemedicine evolving after the Covid-19 pandemic fades. They see the practice—which has grown explosively this year—sticking around to replace many in-person visits and become a greater part of routine care. Imagine more contact with doctors or nurses but fewer trips to the office. Patients might use telemedicine more for check-ins like Shell did or to talk to a doctor after a procedure or get a second opinion. There’s also secure messaging for quick questions and more remote monitoring of chronic health problems like diabetes. “Your care is going to get better,” said Dr. Thomas Lee, a Harvard professor and care delivery expert with the health care consultant Press Ganey. But to keep some of telemedicine’s growth, thorny questions about insurance coverage and doctor reimbursement need to be resolved. Plus, patients and doctors who were forced to try virtual care during the pandemic need to keep using it. Doctors scrambled to shift to telemedicine when the coronavirus hit the US earlier this year. Care providers like the Cleveland Clinic went from

averaging 5,000 telemedicine visits a month before the pandemic to 200,000 visits just in April. Many insurers waived fees to encourage its use. The federal government relaxed restrictions on telemedicine’s use in Medicare, the federal coverage program for people age 65 and over. The government also started temporarily allowing visits over apps that didn’t meet patient privacy standards. That helped Dr. Jay Meizlish connect with his mostly older heart patients. At first, they struggled. He often had to hold cards up to his camera, telling patients to unmute their microphone or turn up their volume. Then he found what worked—he switched to the more familiar and easier to use FaceTime. “That’s how they talk to their grandchildren,” the Yale New Haven Hospital doctor said. “We have learned the power of this, but whether it continues is not in our hands,” he said. Experts expect some telemedicine restrictions will return, including fees that are now waived. And some doctor practices will be reluctant to work telemedicine permanently into their practices until they know exactly how they get paid, noted John League, a senior consultant with Advisory Board, which researches health care strategy. “They have no appetite for uncertainty,” he said. Insurers ultimately will cover more remote care because it can help keep people out of expensive hospitals and emergency rooms, said Arielle Trzcinski, a senior analyst with Forrester, which does research for insurers and hospitals, among other clients. The insurer Oscar recently announced that it will offer free primary care visits through telemedicine in coverage that starts next year. Leaders in Washington also are interested in expanding telemedicine’s use in Medicare. Trzcinski also thinks doctor groups will provide more virtual care because patients who tried it during the pandemic may go elsewhere if they don’t. With

travel and time in the waiting room, an office visit can carve more than an hour and a half out of someone’s day on average, she said. “People value time,” she said. She estimates that virtual care could eventually replace up to 40 percent of in-person doctor visits that don’t involve hospital stays. Shell, the cancer patient, said she never would have been able to visit her doctor in person that day. She teaches veterinary science at a vocational high school. That makes it hard to break away for an in-person doctor’s appointment. She wound up using telemedicine a few times because of the pandemic. She hopes the practice continues. “I feel strongly that increased safety, convenience, and accessibility are all reasons to continue,” she said. Researchers don’t expect telemedicine to replace all in-person care. Millions of people don’t have access to the technology or a reliable internet connection. Some people may still be reluctant to use it. And not all ailments can be treated remotely. Alexandra Thomas tried it last spring when she woke up with vertigo that made her so dizzy she could barely walk. The nurse practitioner handling her virtual visit wanted Thomas to see someone in person. That meant the 24-year-old Charlottesville, Virginia, resident had to spend another $30 on a copayment and wait three more hours at a clinic before finally getting treated. Telemedicine, Thomas said, is “a good idea in theory, but maybe not so much in practice.” Doctors see it playing a larger role for people with chronic conditions. More patients with diabetes may get their blood sugar monitored at home, go to a lab for blood draws and then visit their doctor once a year instead of every three to six months. Lee, the Harvard professor, said doctors are shifting to caring for patients as efficiently as possible. The pandemic accelerated this push. “I just think there’s no going back,” he said. ■

Huawei’s Guo Ping: Unlock the full potential of 5G to drive commercial success SYNERGY across five major tech domains will help unlock the full potential of 5G to drive commercial success, said Huawei’s Rotating Chairman Guo Ping on the recently held online Better World Summit in Shenzhen, China. The pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the world economy. Fortunately, information and communications technology (ICT) offers a concrete set of tools to aid in the fight against Covid-19 on multiple fronts. “As an ICT company, it’s our responsibility to use the technology we have to help contain and defeat this pandemic,” said Guo. “Together with our partners and customers, including carriers and enterprises of all types, we can use technological solutions to effect a positive impact on our communities.”

“By drawing on our experience in early hotspots, we developed nine scenario-based solutions that use ICT technology to help combat the pandemic. Whether it’s hospital network deployment, remote consultation, online education, or restarting governments and businesses, we’ve been sharing our experience and capabilities to help control the spread of the virus and reopen economies.” There are already more than 90 million 5G users worldwide. “As global 5G deployment begins to wrap up, we need to strengthen our focus on industry applications,” Guo said. “This will help us unleash the full potential of 5G.” The business case for 5G is not just better connectivity. When technologies like 5G, computing, cloud, and AI come together, they reinforce

each other and create numerous opportunities across five major tech domains: connectivity, AI, cloud, computing, and industry applications. “Huawei has in-depth strengths in each of these domains,” Guo continued. “We can mix and match them to create scenario-based solutions that meet the unique needs of our customers and partners. This is key to unlocking the full potential of 5G and driving commercial success.” For 5G to succeed commercially, the entire industry needs to work together. Vertical industry applications can be replicated at scale only when unified industry standards and a collaborative ecosystem are in place. “Moving forward, Huawei will double down on efforts to equip our partners with the capabilities they need,” Guo said. “We will promote

joint innovation, and drive growth for everyone in the value chain.” Continuing, Guo said: “Given the current economic environment, carriers need to focus on both shortterm and long-term goals. More precise deployment is how they can maximize the value of their networks.” The global IT giant has three suggestions for this: ■ First, carriers should prioritize user experience and spend money where it’s needed most to maximize the value of existing networks. ■ Second, carriers should make the most of existing 4G and FTTx networks, and integrate them with new 5G networks through holistic coordination and precise planning. ■ Third, 5G deployment plans should prioritize hotspots and key industry applications.

BusinessMirror

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STUDENTS, PROFESSORS ASSESS BENILDE’S ONGOING FULL ONLINE CLASSES TO protect the students and professors from the threats of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s Benilde Online Learning Term (BOLT), a full online learning option which allowed students to complete their degrees in the safety of their homes, opened last July 1 and will run until August 26. This alternative means of study featured 200 carefully selected subjects parallel to the original syllabi. Sessions were coursed through BigSky, Benilde’s official learning management system. The professors likewise utilized platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Facebook, and Skype for meetings, and Google Drive or YouTube for file sharing. Facilitated by content experts and faculty members with a high level of proficiency in online teaching, they incorporated tried-and-tested practices with new online teaching techniques utilized by educators in other countries. Approximately 550 Benildean educators were likewise trained to prepare for online and blended learning modalities. Human Resource Management Program Chairman Atty. Jude Jose Latorre Jr. saw BOLT as a new frontier in teaching and learning. However, shifting platforms meant he had to adjust teaching methodologies. “It was not easy, but it had to be done. Both the teachers and the students successfully overcame a learning curve in going about it,” he noted. The chairman found new ways to curate his lessons to suit the variety of learners. “Lecture courses were also done through podcasts and webinars, which can also be participatory and interactive through digital messaging responses,” he continued. “As of now, I added these techniques to my repository of teaching strategies, which I hope to refine in the succeeding terms.” School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institution Management Associate Professor Dr. Mary Grace Ac-Ac encountered the challenge in creating and developing course materials designed for an online class. “I dedicated time for training and it helped me a lot as I am not the tech-savvy professor,” she admitted. “I also researched on the best tools to use in an online environment.” “In addition to training, developing the lecture materials also required time investment and creativity. Professors had to be inventive as we designed course materials and activities to engage the students whilst achieving a sound pedagogy,” she specified. Some students likewise weighed in on the ongoing implementation of BOLT. Rafaela Grace Santos, a student under the School of Diplomacy and Governance, shared that she opened Zoom for the first time, explored BigSky through tutorials, and started to regularly check her phone for notifications and deadlines. “It’s harder to concentrate at home but I can manage somehow,” she stated. “It was a rocky start, but I can say that I am slowly adapting since I now know what to expect from my teachers.” In assistance to the hard times, BOLT offered courses with a minimal cost compared to the face-to-face regular term ,and likewise allowed the students to save on allowances, fares, and time intended for travels to and from campus. With only two-to-four synchronous meetings, the majority of classes were carried out offline. This provided an opportunity for students and professors alike to obtain flexible hours and have a work and study-life balance. Benilde is set to officially open the first term of the Academic Year 2020-2021 with full online modality for all year levels on September 7.

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

• Saturday, August 15, 2020 A11

Retro effect: Nokia 5310 redux W

HEN Nokia made its comeback in 2017, it also brought an old classic back to life—the equally iconic Nokia 3310. Since then, HMD Global has also been resurrecting a bunch of other classic phones, so-called Originals, bringing back the Nokia 8110 “banana phone” in 2018, and the Nokia 2720 flip phone last year. This year, Nokia has decided to give the audiophiles a taste of the throwback, with the revival of the XpressMusic phone, the 5310. The entire “Originals” series’ USP is nostalgia, promising to take you back to the good old times, and remind you that once, Nokia was the “king” of the phone world. But will nostalgia be enough reason to buy the Nokia 5310 or should you just leave the past and move on? When I first got my hands on the Nokia 5310, I just couldn’t wait to unbox it. I actually owned a couple of Xpress music phones—the Nokia 3300 that looked like the N-Gage gaming phone, and the 5800 that had a stylus and touch screen. I remember the classic 5310 for how thin it was, so I was a little bit disappointed to see that it has gained a bit of bulk and more rounded edges this time around. Not that it looks “fat”, but I would have preferred a slimmer profile. Thankfully, it retained the rest of the series’ design philosophy, with red colored side panels that housed dedicated music buttons, allowing you to adjust the volume and shuffle through tracks with ease. It’s available in two color options white/red and black/ red. The phone comes in a white cardboard box and the retail package includes a micro-USB charger, 3.5mm earphones and phone manual. Going through the spec sheet, the Nokia 5310 2020 runs Series 30+ OS, has a 2.4” QVGA Display, a MT6260A CPU, 8MB RAM, 16MB internal storage, and VGA Camera with flash. It has a removable 1200 mAh battery that can last up to 20.7 hours talktime and up to 30 days standby time. Since this is an XpressMusic phone, it has dualspeakers, wired or wireless FM radio, and a MP3/3G2/3GP/AMR player. It supports Dual Mini SIM, 2G network bands GSM 900/1800, and Bluetooth 3.0. Is it a big improvement over the original’s specs? The answer is actually a surprising No. It does have a bigger screen size (slightly up from 2.1 inches) and a bigger battery (from 860mAh), but the camera resolution is even lower than the 2MP of the original and the storage is also down to 16MB from 30MB. Yes, that’s MB not GB. Although a 2MP camera is nothing to rave about, still after 13 years you’d think they’d at least retain it. After getting over my initial excitement, I turned the phone on, and that’s when I started to question why you should even consider getting a feature phone in the first place.

I’ve been using the phone for a couple of weekends, and it brought me back to simpler times when you could simply turn off your phone and escape. I tried composing some texts and remembered those ASCII graphics I used to create before forwarding some quotes. I decided not to send them out though, because no one replies to text messages these days. I did try calling my partner and call quality was loud and clear. I took a few photos (they were funny bad) and made me appreciate how great phone cameras have become. The built-in FM player was okay, but with only 16MB storage, you need to get a memory card to even use the music player. Simply put, the 5310 is the antithesis of all the smartphones I’ve reviewed recently. But it does have are the all features you’ll ever want in a PHONE. You get a phonebook, messaging app, a pretty tactile keypad that will test your pre-qwerty keyboard texting skills, a flashlight, calendar, a new version of SNAKE, a few other preinstalled games—it even has Facebook!—and of course dual front-facing speakers to highlight its music capabilities. The speakers are loud enough to fill a room, but quality isn’t that good. At just P2,090, it may just be right phone for those who want to go on a social media detox. If it were not for the pandemic, it would be a great phone to bring on those out-of-town trips when you just want to disconnect from the Internet and enjoy some peace and quiet, yet still remain reachable in case of emergencies. If you’ve got a spare memory card, it would also be a good running/workout companion as you don’t have to worry about carrying your expensive smartphone and risk dropping or losing it. It’s also a good option for those in the e-load retail business, or those who need a phone to call their staff who are out on the field. Final word: In trying to keep the price as low as possible, it seems Nokia opted not to upgrade certain specifications to today’s standards. The new Nokia 5310 design is compact, lightweight and easily fits your pocket, but it’s still not as good-looking as the original XpressMusic phone. But if you’re on a budget looking for a basic phone that can double as an MP3 player, has a long-lasting removable battery, then your inner Technivore would be pleased with the Nokia 5310.

BRINGING SEXY BACK-UP

Shopping spree, exclusive Son Ye-jin scented candle for Smart subscribers

EXCLUSIVE limited-edition scented candle handpicked by Son Ye-jin

Various Smart Signatures plans are available at the nearest Smart Store or via store.smart.com.ph, including the data-packed Smart Signature SIM-Only Plan or Smart Signature Device Plan: Plan S at P999 per month, Plan M at P1,499 per month, Plan L at P1,999 per month, and Plan XL at P2,999 per month. Aside from getting an exclusive limited-edition scented candle, new Smart Signature subscribers shall also get a corresponding number of entries to a special raffle, where 25 lucky subscribers shall win P20,000 each and one lucky customer will take the grand prize

THE Seagate OneTouch SSD

The thing I like about the Seagate One Touch SSD 1TB is its size and looks. It’s very small and compact, about the size of a credit card and about as thick as a smartphone. It’s also very light weighing just 59g. What makes it stand out from other SSD drives is its distinct textured fabric panel on the top, making it look like a fashion accessory than a hard drive. The package includes a short 20cm micro-USB 3.0 black braided cable, which was nice, but Seagate could at least have gone with a matching white or grey to match the white fabric. The bottom of the unit is plastic but textured so it won’t slide easily on your table. The SSD includes Seagate’s premium Toolkit with Sync Plus continuous backup software, and is capable of file transfer speeds of up to 400MB/s (max sequential read/write MB/s). You can use it on both a Mac and PC (exFAT). Freebies include a complimentary two-month subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan and a oneyear subscription to Mylio Create and a three-year warranty. The Seagate One Touch SSD is available in two variants: the 500GB, which retails for P4,909, while the 1TB is priced at P9,619. It is available at all Seagate authorized resellers and the Seagate Flagship Stores on Lazada and Shopee. ■

HOW many photos or videos do you take each day? How many files do you download and save? How many documents do you create? If you’re like me who couldn’t delete a file or photo without backing it up first, then you probably have a collection of portable HDDs. But recently, I discovered why it was better to get an SSD drive instead. Ever since I lost more than half of my photos from my London trip a few years ago, I’ve been obsessed with having backups, and I’m currently using the Seagate One Touch SSD 1TB. For anyone who hasn’t tried an SSD before, the differences compared to a hard drive are going to be surprising. Besides being multiple times faster than hard drives, they are also much lighter, smaller, easier to carry, and more reliable. It may be a more expensive, but it’s worth the investment.

PREMIUM postpaid plan Smart Signature is giving K-drama fans a simple way to get closer to Korean superstar and Smart endorser Son Ye-jin, and relive one of the most romantic moments in the hit series Crash Landing on You. With its new promo, which is ongoing until September 10, customers who sign up for a new Smart Signature Plan (bit.ly/2XTxzZe) will get an exclusive limited-edition scented candle handpicked by Son Yejin, and a chance to win a shopping spree worth up to P100,000 in cash credits via Paymaya.

THE new Nokia 5310 has all the retro feels

of P100,000 in cash credits via PayMaya for their shopping spree. Smart Signature recently unveiled Son Ye-jin as its new endorser, embodying its commitment to simplifying the postpaid experience so customers can make their mark in their career or passion. The service is powered by the country’s fastest mobile data network, as recognized by third-party analytics firms such as Ookla and Opensignal. Smart Signature customers are also among the first to experience superfast Smart 5G commercial service in key areas in Metro Manila.

A12

Sports BusinessMirror

Saturday, August 15, 2020

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

CYCLING FOR LIFE AS the return of MECQ to Metro Manila makes it hard again to commute to work, a borrowed bicycle that has helped a nurse get through the pandemic illustrates why cycling will become a way of life for millions, even after the worst of Covid-19 is over.

By Rio Constantino

IKES have been a great help to Ms. Hana, and in more ways than one. Hana works as a nurse at her hospital’s Covid-19 ward. Before quarantine began, Hana took a tricycle and jeepney to work. Her regular commute was disrupted, however, when public transport was suspended early on during quarantine. So, she began to walk. It took a little over half an hour to arrive at the hospital from her family’s house, where she lives with her boyfriend, and it took just as long walking back. Her hospital offered transport to its employees, but she often had to wait a long while for the bus to arrive at the designated pick-up spots. Either way, it was a tiring daily commute, especially at the end of a long shift. To save time and energy, Hana looked for a bike. At first, she searched online rentals, but soon encountered a Facebook community called Life Cycles PH, where bike owners lent their bikes to frontliners in need. By March 25, just a few weeks after the suspension of public transport, Life Cycles had already matched 220 bike lenders and borrowers. A month later, by April 5, that number had grown to 317, in the process helping out hundreds of doctors, security guards, grocery workers, and other frontliners. The Life Cycles page was how I first got in touch with Hana. It was also where she found a lender,

and was introduced to the lender’s bike, nicknamed Rocinante. It was a good match. Her long walk turned to a quick, 5-10 minute ride. The Life Cycles initiative was “100 percent helpful, especially for a frontliner like me,” says Hana. Soon, Rocinante would also help her in a manner few could have expected. Several months into the quarantine, Hana tested positive for Covid-19. She suspects she got the virus while doing CPR on a critically ill patient, who had also tested positive. “I jumped over his chest and started my compressions, so while doing that I might have inhaled the virus.” As a result, she was quarantined in the hospital until her RT-PCR results returned negative. Isolated with her symptoms— tightness of chest, unable to taste or smell— quarantine was a difficult experience, even traumatic, as Hana described it. Her prolonged quarantine, she says, was also partly a result of delays in circulating Department of Health’s new protocols. The barangay also required two negative RT-PCR results before allowing her to return home. She felt discriminated against. The strict requirements, however wellintentioned, exacerbated the alienation she felt as a health worker. The long stay at the hospital tested her fortitude and inner strength. During that time, an important source of support came in the form of her boyfriend, who would use Rocinante to ferry the supplies she needed during her isolation. The bike-and-boyfriend team gave her

a tenuous link home. “With transport halted by that time,” she says, “Rocinante made everything easy and convenient for him too.” Thankfully, Hana has since returned home, and gone back to her normal routine. She wakes up, pedals to work, and checks her patients’ charts for updates. She makes the rounds, going about the ward taking care of her patients. At the end of the day—or night, because sometimes her shift begins after dark—she showers at the hospital before heading home, making sure to disinfect again before entering the house. Day shifts are preferable, she says, because then she gets to eat with her loved ones. “My family always waits for me from work, lalo na if I’m from day shift. Sabay kami nag di-dinner [We have dinner together].” Like many others, Hana wishes Metro Manila would be safer to bike in. She hopes for wider bike lanes, and better signages. Asked what her dream bike would look like, Hana says: “Ang dream bike ko eh ’yung kompleto lang siya sa gamit, and ‘yung okay lang dalhin sa kalsada. [My dream bike is one that’s complete with basic accessories, and is easy to use on the road]. That’s simple.” (Names have been changed for privacy purposes, as nurse Hana experienced discrimination during the time she was battling Covid-19. Rio Constantino, a writer and volunteer of 350.org, an international climate-change nongovernment organization, has been writing essays on mobility and the pandemic.)

James, players focusing protest on voting rights

BICYCLES help nurses get through the pandemic. bernard testa

Zamboanga

‘The Menace’ stays in shape

O. 1-RANKED One Championship female atomweight Denice “The Menace” Zamboanga is busy in Thailand training and staying in harness in case she gets the call to compete in an upcoming card in Bangkok. Bouts for One Championship’s A New Breed events through August and September have yet to be announced but Zamboanga is hoping that she can return to the One Circle soon. With lockdown restrictions tightening in her native Philippines due to a worsening Covid-19 situation. With Zamboanga in Thailand is her older brother, Drex, and friend Fritz Biagtan. Together, they are preparing Zamboanga for a potential upcoming bout. “Right now I’m just training here in Bangkok with my brother Drex and our friend Fritz Biagtan. I’m very lucky because I can still do what I love to do,” Zamboanga said. “I just want to stay ready, because anytime, I can get called up to compete now that One Championship is hosting events here in Thailand.” One Championship successfully returned to its flagship event schedule with One: No Surrender last July 31. No Surrender II was staged on Friday night with its third installment set a week later, while three more shows are lined up in Bangkok on August 28 and September 11 and 18. Zamboanga is hoping to appear on at least one of those cards. “I really want to fight and compete, so I’m just waiting for that call from ONE Championship. Need to stay as sharp as possible, because the World Title shot is just around the corner,” she said. “Right now, I need to work on my speed. Speed is a great asset to have in the ring. Of course, I’m constantly working on my striking skills and ground game. Thankfully my brother is here to help me.” The 23-year-old rising star also recently revealed that she parted ways with the Fairtex team in Pattaya to pursue her own ventures.

SPURS PLAYOFF STREAK ENDS L

AKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—Gregg Popovich didn’t put much thought into San Antonio’s playoff streak when it was rolling along. He’s not thinking about it now, either. The Spurs’ record-tying run of 22 consecutive playoff appearances is over, and the longest season in team history—almost 300 days from the first game to the last—is also, strangely, over earlier than the National Basketball Association (NBA) is used to seeing. The final outcome was a 118-112 loss to the Utah Jazz on Thursday night, a game that was meaningless in the standings. “Looking at the past doesn’t do much good,” Popovich said. “Any success we’ve had has been because we’ve had some great players.” Rayjon Tucker had 18 points for the Jazz, who finished with eight players in double figures and used their regulars either sparingly or not at all. Jarrell Brantley and Georges Niang each added 13 for the Jazz and All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell had 11 points in just 11 minutes in his final tune-up before the playoffs. “You can’t say enough about the Spurs,” Jazz Coach Quin Snyder said. “They’ve been the premier franchise in the NBA for a long time.” Keldon Johnson scored 24 points to lead seven Spurs in double figures. Marco Belinelli and Luka Samanic each had 16 for San Antonio. The Spurs were officially ousted when Memphis beat Milwaukee, and Phoenix completed an undefeated eight-game run in the NBA’s restart bubble with a victory over Dallas. Those games went final shortly before San Antonio-Utah started. The Spurs needed the Grizzlies or the Suns to lose to have any chance of getting into the West play-in series that begins Saturday to decide the NBA’s final postseason berth. “It’s tough,” Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan said. “It’s more so tough putting your faith in somebody else’s hands.”

Horse with 300-1 odds makes history

UBLIN—A horse running at odds of 3001 became the longest-priced winner in the history of racing in Britain and Ireland on Thursday. He Knows No Fear won the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Leopardstown, prompting bookmakers to

express their astonishment that many people tipped the three-year-old horse for victory. The longest-priced winner in Britain had previously been Equinoctial, a 250-1 shot, at Kelso in November 1990. In Ireland, the biggest outsider to win a race was Killahara Castle at

Popovich’s routine seemed normal. He met with assistants to discuss strategy before addressing players during timeouts. When someone needed a little 1-on-1 instruction, he approached and offered a word or two. It looked just as it always does. Only this time, it was very different. For the first time since April 1997, the Spurs played a game knowing that the playoffs were out of reach. The 22-year run of playoff spots tied the Philadelphia 76ers’ franchise for the longest in NBA history. The 76ers, starting as the Syracuse Nationals before moving to Philadelphia, went to the playoffs every year from 1950 through 1971. With San Antonio out, the longest active postseason streak now belongs to the Houston Rockets. They’ll be in the playoffs for the eighth consecutive year starting next week. This is how long the streak went: David Stern wasn’t even halfway through his 30-year run as commissioner when it started. The Charlotte Bobcats—that’s what today’s Hornets went by then—were still six-and-a-half years from playing their first game. Pat Riley was still coaching the Los Angeles Lakers. And now, for the first time since 1981, the playoffs will happen without either Riley or Popovich as head coaches. The Spurs won five championships during the streak. They played 284 postseason games over those years; the only franchises within 100 of that were the Lakers (218), Miami (196) and Boston (192). And the Spurs won 170 playoff games in that span; only seven franchises have more playoff wins in their entire history. All 170 of those wins for the Spurs came under Popovich, a total that gives him more career playoff victories than any two current coaches combined. There were 102 players who got into at least one Spurs playoff game during the streak, including current NBA

200-1 in December 2017. Trained by Luke Comer, He Knows No Fear was 12th of 14 on his debut at Limerick last month—at odds of 250-1. Despite his huge odds at Leopardstown, British bookmaker William Hill took 86 bets on He Knows No Fear while another bookmaker, Paddy Power, said “almost 100 plucky punters lived up to their horse’s name and somehow

HEAD Coach Gregg Popovich and the Spurs’ record-tying run of 22 consecutive playoff appearances is over. AP

head coaches Jacque Vaughn, Steve Kerr and Monty Williams. The Spurs came into Disney as playoff long shots and felt the eight games they were guaranteed of playing during the restart would be ways to have young players grow from competition. They made it to the last possible day of contention. “At this point, it’s been a huge success for our team and our young players, the development that we’ve talked about from the beginning,” Popovich said. “We’re very happy with what’s gone on here.” He has given the restart rave reviews, both on and off the floor. Popovich—an Air Force Academy graduate and the coach of USA Basketball’s men’s national team—wore a shirt pregame that read “Vote Your Life Depends On It.” He has remained outspoken on the need to end racial injustice and police brutality during the Spurs’ time in the bubble, talking about that perhaps as much if not more as he has about basketball. “It’s important to bring these up, painful as they are,” Popovich said. “Some people talk about getting tired of hearing about it. But that’s the point. It has to change.” AP managed to pinpoint the winner.” “These punting heroes,” Paddy Power spokesman Paul Binfield said, “have either been struck by divine inspiration or are extremely shrewd form judges who managed to see the positives from the winner’s debut at Limerick—where he was slowly away and made no impression from two furlongs out before trailing home a distant 18 lengths behind Comfort Line.” AP

ATIONAL Basketball Association (NBA) players are building on the framework of Colin Kaepernick’s protests during the national anthem that helped raise awareness about police brutality, efforts that have permeated the league since it restarted its season in Florida last month amid the coronavirus pandemic. But where Kaepernick’s demonstrations raised awareness, NBA players want their actions to move the needle further. But transforming the widespread embrace for social justice in America from a moment into a movement requires targeting systemic barriers and changing laws, not just mindsets. One target has been voting, with initiatives such as the LeBron James-led More Than A Vote. “We have some ears,” James said recently, “and we will continue to push the envelope.” Pushing the voting envelope could provide a tangible legacy for today’s socially conscience players who want to transition symbolism into substantive change. According to Pew Research Center, Black voter turnout saw a sizable jump during the 2018 midterm elections to 51.4 percent, up 10.8 percentage points since 2014. That’s after declining in 2016 for the first time in two decades. More Than A Vote is working to see that trend continue in 2020. So far, the main targets for the group have been helping to restore voting rights of ex-felons and the procurement of arenas in states in which access to voting venues and early voting has been restricted. In states like Florida, for example, More Than A Vote donated $100,000 to local organizations that are helping to pay monies owed by exfelons who can’t regain their voting eligibility until their fines and restitution are cleared. The arena efforts go toward easing historical cynicism about a system that has tried to keep Black people from the polls and any concerns that a mailed ballot won’t get counted. Teams in Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, and Sacramento

James’s friend and business partner Maverick Carter reached out to Addisu Demissie, a political consultant who ran California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign and Cory Booker’s 2020 presidential bid, with the idea of starting a politics-oriented nonprofit. Those initial discussions were brought to a standstill in March when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Then the world quickly changed in a much different way following the deaths of Taylor, Floyd and Arbery. As the three incidents incited protests and unrest erupted around the country, those initial discussions between Demissie and James’s team soon picked up in earnest. “It just made it even clearer that this organization needed to exist, A, and B, it crystallized sort of what our mission would be about black political participation and black political empowerment,” Demissie said. James, Carter and others quickly recruited nearly three dozen prominent current and former Black athletes like NBA stars Trae Young and Draymond Green, NFL players Patrick Mahomes and Alvin Kamara and entertainers like Kevin Hart to join the group. It formally launched in June. The group has sought to distinguish itself from past athlete-led efforts by focusing not simply on voting registration, but by eliminating barriers in the voting process. NBA teams like the Orlando Magic have also since announced their own voting initiatives. Dr. Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California, said while symbolic gestures such as having Black Lives Matter emblazoned on NBA courts and statements of social justice on jerseys certainly can support and lead to targeted action, they alone aren’t enough. “It’s not the same as taking direct action,” said Boyd, who has written extensively on the study of race in sports and popular culture. “The objective of a sports league is always going to be bottom line and profit.” AP LEBRON JAMES: We’ll push the envelope.

have already signed on, with secretaries of state in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and New Jersey working to add more. The efforts have inspired NBA players to use both their social-media platforms and interview sessions inside the bubble to advocate not only for justice for Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and others, but voting as well. “I think there’s a lot of power in coming together and voting,” Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said. “There’s a lot of power in exercising that. We’ve got to use it.” A lot of the efforts in Florida have been to ensure people do just that, though they began before players went inside the bubble. It was back in February that