B S P. M
B C U. O @caiordinario I NVESTMENTS in the energy sector must “come quickly” if the Philippines is to build up the necessary energy reserves to support the government’s growth targets, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda). In an open forum at the 43rd National Conference of Employers of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) on Wednesday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said TManila rose to a record-high of P126 per kilogram in the aftermath of the fallout from the government’s 300,000-metric ton (MT) importation program that saw a mass resignation of o cials. The Sugar Regulatory Administration’s (SRA) monitoring report showed that the price of re ned sugar in Metro Manila supermarkets ranged from a low of P86.55 per kilogram to a high of P126 per kilogram in the week ending August 12. It was a few days after the recall of the infamous Sugar Order (SO) 4 that was declared “illegal” and “unauthorized” by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., the concurrent agriculture chief.This is the rst time that the price of re ned sugar, which has been seeing depleting stocks amid lackluster production, broke past the P125-per-kilogram level, based on historical per kilogram.Meanwhile, the price of re ned sugar in Metro Manila public wet markets is now ranging from a low of P90 per kilogram to a high of P100 per kilogram, based on SRA’s monitoring report.The average price of re ned sugar in Metro Manila public wet markets is at P96.93 per kilogram.President Marcos has repeatedly stated in recent days that the priority is to bring down prices of the sweetener at the grocery and store levels after economic managers cited the price spike’s impact on millions of small entrepreneurs, while the shortage of sugar for bottled soft drinks and juices—resulting in manufacturing stoppage in some plants—was seen to dent revenues of government from excise taxes on such products. On a weekly basis, the average retail price tracked the 3.6-percent uptick at the wholesale level.The average wholesale price of re ned sugar as of August 12 rose by P160.71 weekon-week to a fresh record-high of P4,615.38 per 50-kilogram bag, based on SRA monitoring. SRA data also showed that the resumption of milling operations this month was welcomed with a new all-time-high millsite prices. SRA data, as of August 7, showed that the average millsite price of raw sugar was at P2,821.50 per 50-kilogram bag, or 19 percent higher than the P2,370 price level recorded last July 10 when milling operations were terminated.Since the asco surrounding SO 4, the government has said huge supermarket chains in the country—Robinsons Supermarket, Save-
PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 56.1070 ■ JAPAN 0.4081 ■ UK 66.0323 ■ HK 7.1508 ■ SINGAPORE 40.1539 ■ AUSTRALIA 38.5792 ■ SAUDI ARABIA 14.9411 ■ EU 55.8096 ■ KOREA 0.0418 ■ CHINA 8.1935 Source: BSP (August 24, 2022) C A BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business www.businessmirror.com.ph P. | | 7 DAYS A WEEK■ Thursday, August 25, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 321 ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS 2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS Telecommuting law’s updated IRR done by Sept HOUSE PANEL CLEARS PIFITA, MINING REGIME JAILED NAJIB RAZAK FELL MIGHTILY FROM PEAK OF MALAYSIAN POLITICS THE WORLD »A7 C A S “I,” A IMPASSABLE Residents wait to cross the Pinacanauan Overflow Bridge, rendered impassable due to heavy rains brought by Severe Tropical Storm Florita, in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. The overflow bridge allows for low-water crossings of the Pinacanauan River, a tributary of Cagayan River, the country’s biggest river. Stories on the aftermath of “Florita” on pages A3 and A5. ROY DOMINGO GROWTH’URGENTIN‘INVESTMENTSENERGYFORB J M N. D C @joveemarie THE House Committee on Ways and Means on Wednesday endorsed for plenary approval the Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation (PIFITA) or Package 4 of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) and the proposed Fiscal Regime for Mining, which will provide the government P63.5 billion in new revenues.
e panel chairman and Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda said members of his committee passed the unnumbered substitute bill to House Bills 375, 2111, and 3244 or the proposed Package 4 of the CTRP, which seeks to make passive income and fi nancial intermediary taxes simpler and more efficient. is proposed measure, popularly known as the PIFITA, was approved on third and fi nal reading during the 18th Congress. It will redesign the taxation of the fi nan@sam_medenilla E MPLOYERS and workers who will engage in workfrom-home arrangements could expect better protection of their rights in the updated implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act (RA) No. 11165 or the Telecommuting Law, which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). Labor and Employment Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma said he wants the new IRR to be fi nalized before September 12, 2022. “We like to make sure that the companies who engaged in work from home are able to provide for the services which are needed by their principal. Secondly, for the part of the Department of Labor and Employment, we would like to ensure the non-diminution of benefits on works similarly done,” Laguesma said during the 43rd National Conference of Employers last Wednesday.eexistingIRR of RA 11165 was issued in 2019 through DOLE’s Department Order No. 202.Under that issuance, telecommuting should be mutually agreed upon by the concerned employer and worker. It also ensures telecommuting employees are given the same treatment as those working onsite.e telecommuting scheme was supposed to be piloted in some industries, including the Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPM) sector, for not more than three years to allow DOLE to conduct “baselining, scoping, and profi ling research” on the implementation of RAe11165.result of the study will then be used for the mandatory review of theLaguesma,IRR. however, noted that since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, most establishments implemented telecommuting to continue their operations amid the lockdowns implemented by the government.“Although it was a voluntary [scheme], during the pandemic it became mandatory in a sense,” Laguesma said. is provided DOLE a wealth of information on telecommuting experiences in various environments and sectors along with the issues, which cropped up in its implementation.
“ ese significant contributions add to government coffers used to fi nance large-scale infrastructure, create more and better jobs, and boost economic growth,” he said. Currently, Salceda said there are several tax rates and tax bases on passive income, fi nancial services, and transactions.etaxonincome, meanwhile, varies depending on the term of the instrument, the issuer, the currency involved, and the residency of the income recipient, he said. Fewer combinations, rates AT the hearing, Salceda said the Department of Finance recommended that the number of combinations of tax bases and rates applicable to passive income, financial intermediaries, and fi nancial transactions be reduced from 74 to 52. e committee adopted the“Likewise,recommendation.stamptaxes depend on the types of instrument or transactions involved, the terms, and the issuers. ese variations in the tax base and tax rates, even among comparable fi nancial instruments and transactions, result in a complicated tax structure with plenty of room for tax arbitrage. Further, disparities in tax treatments interfere with investment decisions,” he added. e measure aims to level the playing field by harmonizing tax treatments for certain transactions of fi nancial institutions. It seeks to simplify the complex structure of the fi nancial sector, ensure neutrality in tax treatment across fi nancial institutions, improve equity among investors and savers, minimize arbitrage opportunities, and promote capital market development and tax competitiveness within the context of fi nancial globalization, increased capital mobility and fi nancial inclusion.ebill seeks to reduce the fi nal withholding tax rates on interest income by imposing a single rate of 15 percent fi nal tax on interest income, in general, regardless of currency, maturity, issuer, and other differentiating factors. It also unifies tax rates on passive income through a single rate of 15 percent, in general, to be levied on interest income, dividends and capital gains. e measure also harmonizes business taxes on fi nancial intermediaries through a single gross receipt tax (GRT) rate of 5 percent, charged to banks, quasi banks, and certain non-bank fi nancial intermediaries (FIs). e distinction between lending and non-lending income, as well as the maturity of the instrument, will be removed. All types of income will be taxed at 5 percent, except dividends, equity shares, and net income of subsidiaries, which will remain exempt. e bill said preneed, pension, life, and HMO insurance will be taxed uniformly at 2 percent of the premium. Non-life insurance will remain subject to VAT, while crop insurance will remain exempt from VAT. Income other than the premium will be subject to VAT. Junk IPO tax THE bill also mandates the removal of the initial public offering (IPO) tax, deemed to be detrimental to capital market development. e IPO tax is seen as an imposition on capital and restricts capital markets, particularly since collections from IPO tax are minimal— only averaging P273 million annually from 2000 to 2016. Income tax on listed shares of stock and debt securities will also be gradually removed to further promote capital market development.Italso provides for the rationalization of Documentary Stamp Tax (DST) to promote capital mobility. e bill amends certain sections of RA 8424 or the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) of 1997, as amended, to reduce the DST imposed on lotto tickets from P0.20 to P0.10.According to Salceda, while this could cause revenue losses to the government, the measure would help ensure that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) revenue does not collapse due to skyrocketing ticket prices in the long run. e panel also agreed to incorporate in the bill the proposal made by the DOF, together with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), to remove the excise tax exemption of pick-up trucks introduced under TRAIN. is was stated in a letter sent by Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, who also cited that this would result in an estimated additional revenue of P52.6 billion from 2022 to 2026. Mining regime TO boost the mining industry’s potential contribution to the country’s gross domestic product while safeguarding mineral resources and the rights of host communities, the ways and means committee also approved the proposed Fiscal Regime for Mining. See related story in Banking, page B4. e bill seeks to provide a single fi scal regime applicable to all existing and prospective large-scale metallic mines, regardless of location.
B S P. M @sam_medenilla
“Optimum utilization of our minerals cannot be made possible due to gaps in our current laws and regulations. e adverse effects of environmental degradation and climate change must also be addressed to promote sustainable economic development and social equity,” Salceda said. Salceda said this bill addresses the complexity of the current fi scal regime which depends on whether the mine is operating in a mineral reservation and whether it is operated under a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) or a Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA). “A royalty rate of 5 percent for all large-scale mining operations. At present, only those located inside a mineral reservation are subject to this royalty payment. ose outside the mineral reservation are not subject to royalties,” said Salceda. e bill also provides for a minimum government share to be imposed when the basic government share is less than 60 percent of the net mining revenue. At present, this only applies under the FTAA fi scalAnregime.export tax of 10 percent on the gross value of mineral ore is proposed to encourage downstream and value-adding processing, and proper valuation of minerals, said Lastly,Salceda.themeasure proposes to create a Natural Resource Trust Fund from the revenues collected from the margin-based royalty to fund projects that will redound to the benefit of local governments directly affected by mining activities. e trust fund shall serve as inter-generation savings to protect the environment and provide the needs of host local government units, given the non-renewable nature of mineral resources.
Jobs, poverty reduction THE Neda chief reiterated the government’s targets on unemployment which the administration aims to reduce to 4 to 5 percent, or better than pre-pandemic times, by 2028. is will be supported by targets seeking to increase the share of wage and salaried workers to around 53 to 55 percent in 2028 from 48 percent in 2021. is augurs well for reducing poverty incidence down to 9 percent in 2028 from 18.1 percent in 2021.Balisacan thinks this will be achievable given that the country can latch on to its demographic dividends. He said the working-age population of the country has grown faster than the total population between 2000 and 2020. e data showed that the growth of the Working-Age population reached 53.8 percent over the 20year period. e country’s total population growth only increased 42.4 percent.Achieving these targets remains feasible despite the challenges faced by the Philippine economy, Balisacan said, adding that this optimism stems from the actual data showing poverty declined by 6.8 percentage points between 2015 and“A2016.productive and skilled workforce supported by critical infrastructure, which is fundamental to any dynamic economy, is more likely to access the numerous job and market opportunities made available by a growing economic pie. is access is key to raising incomes quickly and sustainably, leading to rapid poverty reduction,” Balisacan said.
energy is an important consideration, particularly in attaining the 6.5 to 8 percent medium-term growthBalisacantarget.said the government is not prioritizing one particular energy source but is open to a sustainable mix of sources that can provide affordable and reliable power for the economy to secure and create decent jobs.“Clearly, for us, as economic managers, we see that energy as an important, a binding constraint to the attainment of this growth and that’s why it’s very high in our economic agenda. We must ensure that investment into that sector must come in, and must come in quickly, because with 6.5 to 8 percent growth, that reserve can easily be wiped out,” Balisacan said. Balisacan said the advancements in renewable energy must also be considered in coming up with an energy mix for the country in the coming years. He noted that advancements in these energy sources may allow the economy to include more of these sources in the power mix. He acknowledged that nuclear energy sources can also be an “efficient, affordable, and sustainable and reliable” power source for the Philippines. e President, in his fi rst State of the Nation Address (Sona), said the government will explore nuclear energy opportunities to address the country’s energy issues.“We are not closed to any [energy] sources, but of course given the development in renewables, for example, the competitiveness of renewables as a source of energy has substantially improved in recent years so we also need to seize the opportunities there,” Balisacan stressed.
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e Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) disclosed the assistance was distributed in areas in Regions 1, 2, 3 as well as the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and the National Capital Region (NCR), which were hit by Florita. “ ese were given to the affected families as well as those in the evacuation centers,” Social Welfare Undersecretary Mario R. Bautista said in a press conference in Malacañang on HeWednesday.saidthis augmented the P82,000 worth of food packs, hygiene kits, clothing, kitchen kits, which were extended by concerned local government units (LGU) storm victims.Based on their latest data, DSWD said it registered 2,213 families, which is equivalent to a total of 7,616 persons, in storm-hit areas. Social Welfare Secretary Erwin T. Tulfo said many of the families have already returned to their homes as of Wednesday as the floods in their areas ereceded.heavyrains and floods caused by Tropical storm Florita prompted President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. to suspend government offices and classes in public schools in NCR, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan, Zambales and Bataan. Aside from displacing people, the storm also caused damage to agriculture. Based on their initial assessment, Agriculture Undersecretary Kristine Y. Evangelista said Florita caused P3 million worth of damage to 628 hectares of agricultural land in Ilocos“WeNorte.will also see if other regions are affected as mentioned a while ago. We are also looking into Cagayan if there are any damages that have to be reported,” Evangelista said. aid allocated to thousands affected by ‘Florita’—DSWD
A dozen risks NEDA recently outlined at least a dozen domestic and external risks that could derail the country’s economic recovery—seven being domestic in nature and the rest, external risks posed by the global economy.edomestic risks Balisacan cited include the spread of the African swine fever and other highly-infectious animal diseases; low production of agricultural commodities; inclement weather (typhoons, reemergence of La Niña) and natural disasters and local value chain disruptions.Hislist also includes the government’s tighter fi scal space; limited absorptive capacity of implementing agencies and local government units; and the emergence of new Covid-19 variants. A more, SM Supermarket, and Puregold Supermarket—have committed to sell re ned sugar at a retail tag of just P70 per kilogram. The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Wednesday said it is expanding its Kadiwa on Wheels to include the sale of P70-perkilogram re ned sugar in the vicinity of partner churches. The expanded Kadiwa on Wheels would be done in partnership with Caritas and select parish priests, according to theKadiwaDA. on Wheels is the mobile variant of the DA’s agship marketing initiative that sells cheaper food products to communities and barangays.
OVER P1.11 billion worth of government aid was provided to thousands of people, who were affected by Tropical Storm Florita (international code name Ma-on). cial sector by making it simpler, fairer, and more efficient, critical to its role in the long-term growth and development of the economy. In 2020, Salceda said the government’s total collection from bank deposits amounted to P58.84 billion while the percentage taxes on fi nancial institutions was around P42.90 billion.
Refined sugar retail price hit record high of P126/kilo
ursday, August 25, 2022A2 News BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.ph C A Investments... C A HOUSE PANEL CLEARS PIFITA, MINING REGIME C
3 road closures in CAR, Region 2
THE House Committee on Trade and Industry on Wednesday approved the proposed Internet Transactions Act, which is a priority measure of the Marcos administration.
Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz
By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM SOME areas in Northern Luzon remained flooded on Wednes day although severe tropi cal storm “Florita” has already left the Philippine area of responsibil ity, the National Disaster Risk Re duction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said. While flooding in several vil lages of provinces in Region 1 have subsided or already receding, some barangays in the country’s northern portion, especially in the province of Pangasinan and in Bicol region are still under water due to heavy rains dumped by the typhoon. In Isabela, a passenger bus that was on its way to Manila skidded off a road and rammed an electric post, with the police confirming that two passengers died due to the accident. The NDRRMC confirmed the inci dent, but not the fatalities.
The counsel of Bello, lawyers Renecio S. Espiritu Jr. and Danilo A. Balucos, filed with the DOJ on June 9 the motion to review the indictment that the Davao City Prosecutor’s Office also issued on the same day. This indictment found probable cause of two counts of libel against Bello for his March 1 statement levelled against then City Informa tion Officer Jefry Tupas that he was “nabbed at a beach party where she and her friends were snorting P1.5 million worth of drugs on Novem ber 6, The2021.”indictment led to the raffling of the case to Fuentes’s sala, which set September 8 as the first day of theThearraignment.casestemmed from Bel lo’s Facebook March 1 post at the height of the campaign for the presidential and national elections thisBello’syear. counsel filed a counter affidavit on April 20 to answer Tupas’s complaint. The City Pros ecution Office denied the counter affidavit on July 1. Bello’s counsel filed its motion to review with the DOJ on July 29.
On Wednesday’s Kapihan Sa Ma nila Bay news forum, Justice Sec retary Jesus Crispin Remulla said the government would not hesitate to file criminal charges and impose other sanctions against these telco entities and ISPs for failure to fulfill their duty under Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009.Under Republic Act (RA) 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, telco companies and ISPs are mandated to install a program or software that will block access to or transmittal of any form of child pornography in the Internet. It also requires ISPs to notify authorities within seven days from discovery that any form of child por nography is being committed using their servers or facilities. “We will give them an ultimatum, I just have to speak with the Cyber crime Division again so that we will know how long it will take for these key persons to comply with the law. I’ll be speaking to the heads of our Cybercrime Division both the DOJ and the NBI [National Bureau of In vestigation] so we will know what it would take for them to comply and what is needed. But I will definitely issue an ultimatum,” Remulla said. Remulla said he is eying to give the telco companies and ISPs until September 15, if possible.
Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
Florita dumped heavy rains before and after making a landfall in Maco nacon, Isabela on Tuesday morning, forcing the government to suspend classes and work in government in Central, Northern and parts of Southern Luzon until Wednesday. Army and Philippine Coast Guard teams were mobilized for humanitar ian assistance and disaster response operations, assisting in the evacua tions of affected residents and even in post-typhoon operations.
Editor: Vittorio V. Nation
By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573
OSAEC, according to the DOJ, refers to the use of digital or analog communication, and information and communications technology, as a means to abuse and exploit chil dren sexually, which includes cases in which contact child abuse and/or exploitation offline is combined with an online component. This could also include, but not limited to the production, dis semination and possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation ma terials (CSAEM); online grooming for children for sexual purposes; sexual extortion of children; sharing image-based sexual abuse; commer cial sexual exploitation of children; exploitation of children through on line prostitution; and livestreaming of sexual abuse, with or without the consent of the victim. Remulla also said social media platform Facebook has started coor dinating with the DOJ with regard to its possible role in the country’s effective implementation of the Anti-OSAEC law. The justice secretary said Face book representatives went to the DOJ more than a week ago to coordi nate with one of the justice secretar ies with regard to the government’s campaign against OSEAC. “They were discussing the IRR [implementing rules and regula tions] and the cooperation of FB in the drives that we are undertaking to prevent online sexual exploitation of children,” Remulla disclosed. The Anti-OSAEC law punishes producing, willingly accessing, and knowingly sharing any form of child sexual abuse and exploit ativeThematerials.lawholds accountable social media platforms, electronic service providers, and internet and financial intermediaries for the proliferation of such criminal acts. Remulla also said the justice department will coordinate with TikTok, a social media app that allows users to share and create short videos, to seek its coopera tion in the implementation of An ti-OSAEC law.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Mario Vittorio Mariño, passed the unnumbered substitute bill, which consolidated 12 measures. The bill seeks to grow e-com merce in the Philippines by pro moting an environment founded on trust among consumers and merchants online.
THE Department of Justice (DOJ) would be issuing an ultimatum to all telecommu nication companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) to perform their obligations under the law that requires them to install a software that will block access to or transmit tal of any form of child pornography in the Internet.
cyber libel case PBBM priority Internet Transaction bill hurdles House panel approval MMDA ManilaclearingintensifiesofMetrowaterways
THE Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has intensified its clearing operations of waterways in the metropolis to prevent garbage from clogging the agency’s pump ing stations after continuous heavy rains in Metro Manila due to severe tropical storm “Florita.”
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THE Department of Public Works and Highways—Bureau of Main tenance has identified three roads that are closed to traffic as of 6 a.m. Wednesday due to “Florita.” Florita, the Philippines’s sixth tropical cyclone for 2022, enhanced the southwest monsoon and dumped heavy to intense and at times torrential rains with strong winds over Luzon. Two national roads in the Cordil lera Administrative Region are cur rently impassable namely: ClaveriaCalanasan-Kabugao Road section in Namaltugan, Calanasan, Apayao due to road cut and soil collapse; and the Mt. Province - Ilocos Sur via Tue Beto Section, Tue, Tadian, Mt. Province due to rock collapse. Also closed to all types of vehicles is the Cabagan-Sta. Maria Road, Cabagan Overflow Bridge in Isabela due to high water elevation. Meanwhile, the Luna-Bangar Road in La Union is flooded and not passable to light vehicles. Motorists are advised that sev eral roads are also one-lane passable which include: Cordillera Adminis trative Region 1) Mt. Province—Ilocos Sur via Tue sections in Naguilian, Calana san, Apayao due to soil collapse; 2) Benguet-Nueva Vizcaya Road, Am buklao, Bokod, Benguet due to soil collapse; 3) andPoblacion8)IfugaoLagawe,ary—Ifugao—Mt.toBrgy.AcopdueBrgy.landslide;Madatag,yaoTuba,inPascual—LaAsin—Nangalisan—SanUnionBoundaryRoadSitioLasong,Brgy.Tadiangan,Benguetduetorockfall;4)Apa-IlocosNorteRoad,K0623+600,Kabugao,Apayaodueto5)Itogon—DalupiripRoadTinongdan,Itogon,Benguettosoilcollapse;6)Cong.AndresCosalanRoad,SitioBatengan,Adaoay,Kabayan,Benguetduesoilcollapse;7)NuevaVizcayaProvinceBoundRoad,Bolog,Kiangan,Cudog,andNamulditan,Hingyon,duetorockandsoilcollapse;Kiangan—Tinoc—BuguiasRoadandJulonganinKiangan,Gumhang,Ap-apid,andAp-apid, Tinoc, Ifugao due to rock fall and soil collapse; 9) Banaue—Hungduan— Benguet Boundary Road in Abatan, Hungduan, Ifugao due to soil col lapse; 10) Mt. agedRoad,tionagedCervantes,BontoctoQuirinoBanayoyo-Lidlidda-Sanfallensections2)agedsettleCalungbuyanKalingaTinglayanPinukpuk—AbbutProvincialKalingaand,collapse;gat,12)toKatabbogan,Roadince—Calanan—Pinukpuk—AbbutdrainsTabuk—CalananPinukpuk—AbbutProvince—Calanan—Road(CagaluanSection),Bagumbayan,City,Kalingaduetocloggedwithmudflow;11)Mt.Prov(Pinukpuk—AbbutSectioninPinukuk,Kalingaduecloggeddrainswithmudflow;Balbalan-PinukpukRoad,MalaPinukpuk,Kalingaduetorock13)Tabuk—BanaweRoadsectionsinMabaca,Tanudan,duetosoilcollapse;14)Mt.Boundary—Calanan-Road,Ambato,andManangol,Lubuagan,duetosoilcollapse;Region1:1)SantaRanchoRoad,Bridgeduetoslightdownofapproachesanddamembankmentslopeprotection;Tagudin-CervantesRoad,severalduetoroadslip,landslide,trees;3)JunctionSantiago-Emilio-Road,severalsectionsduelandslide;4)Cervantes-Aluling-Road,BarangayAluling,IlocosSurduetodamslopeprotection;and5)JuncCandon—Salcedo—delPillarseveralsectionsduetodampavement,landslides.
MMDA Acting Chairman Carlo Dimayuga III pumping stations are fully operational to mitigate flood ing in the metropolis.
“Fully operational ang lahat ng pumping stations ng MMDA sa gitna ng mga pag-ulan sa [All our pumping stations are fully operational in] Metro Manila,” Dimayuga said as he inspected the Libertad pumping station in Pasay City. He was accompanied by MMDA Acting General Manager Baltazar Melgar, who is the concurrent head of the agency’s Flood Control and Sewerage Management Office, and other officials of the agency. There are 71 major and minor pumping stations in the metropolis. Dimayuga said that the Libertad pumping station and similar facilities worked non-stop to pump floodwa ters towards Pasig River and Manila Bay, thereby lessening the problem of flooding in the metropolis amid heavy downpour.
Among the powers and func tions of the bureau are the fol lowing: to implement, monitor, and ensure strict compliance by e-commerce stakeholders of the provision of the proposed act; build trust between consumers and sell ers by requiring e-commerce plat form operators, online merchants, or any other entity who engages in e-commerce to register their busi ness with the bureau; and formu late policies, plans, and programs to ensure the robust and dynamic development of e-commerce. The bureau shall be headed by a director to be appointed by the President of the Philippines, as rec ommended by the secretary of DTI.
That’s been done before. It has to be steep, but of course, they can be closed down if they become, if they refuse to cooperate,” Remulla said. Remulla added that officials of telco companies and ISPs might also be held criminally liable as accom plices or accessory to crimes related to online exploitation and abuse of children if they continue to ignore their“Thatobligations.iswhatwe can use but we are asking for their help…We do not want to go charging everybody, but we just want people to cooperate,” the DOJ chief stressed. The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking led by the DOJ, Depart ment of the Interior and Local Gov ernment (DILG), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Tuesday declared war on online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) after data showed that the Philip pines has become a top source of such illegal content.
The NDRRMC said at least 1,344 families or 4, 646 individuals in 60 barangays in Regions 1 and 2 and in the Cordillera Administrative Region were directly affected by Florita, some of whom were forced to seek shelters in evacuation centers. Another 290 families or 1,013 individuals were also preemptively evacuated.Fiveincidents of landslides were recorded in Region 1 and 5 while sev en road sections and seven bridges remained closed in the two regions and even in Region 2. The NDRRMC said local disaster officials are still assessing the dam age brought by Florita on agriculture products and infrastructure.
The measure is eligible for swift approval under Rule 10, Section 48 of the House of Representatives as this bill was approved on third and final reading in the lower house dur ing the 18th Congress. The bill, which was principally authored by Speaker Martin G. Romualdez, aims to increase the number of e-commerce partici pants, and ultimately achieve sus tainable growth. The bill will also create the eCommerce Bureau to promote the growth of e-commerce, ensure the implementation of Republic Act (RA) No. 8792 or the Electronic Ecommerce Act of 2000, and serve as the focal point in the monitoring and implementation of the Philippine Ecommerce Roadmap. The bill provides for the creation of the E-Commerce Bureau, which would be placed under the Depart ment of Trade and Industry (DTI).
By Manuel T. Cayon Mindanao@awimailboxBureauChief DAVAO CITY—The Regional Trial Court (RTC) here has moved to a later date the arraignment of the cyber libel case filed against former Vice Presidential candidate Walden Bello pending the resolution of the petition for review filed by Bello at the Department of JusticeRetrina(DOJ).E. Fuentes, presiding judge of RTC Branch 10 issued an order on August 18 that moved the date of the arraignment of Bello from September 8 to October 27. “With the filing of a petition for review before the DOJ, the prayer of the accused [Bello] to hold in abey ance the proceedings in view of the pendency of the petition for review before the DOJ, is granted only for a period of 60 days from the filing of the said petition with the DOJ,” Fuentes said.
By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga THE Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) is urg ing Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga to deny the application for an environmen tal compliance certificate (ECC) for the 650-hectare Navotas Coastal Bay Reclamation project, citing environ mental and socioeconomic concerns. Pamalakaya National Spokes person Ronnel Arambulo, in a news statement, said the project would bring disaster to both the environ ment and livelihood of more than 1,000 fisherfolk and workers in mus sel farms in the area. “It should be a no-brainer for the DENR to reject reclamation, as it has been proven by many scientists and environmental experts to be cata strophic to the marine environment and natural resources,” Arambulo said. Pamalakaya said their group has been invited by the proponent of the project to a public hearing during which the environmental impact as sessment is expected to be presented. The first public hearing for the same project was held in November 2020, it was Accordinglearned. tothegroup, land rec lamation, also called dump-and-fill, is in “total contrast” to the DENR’s mandate to protect the marine bio diversity of Manila Bay. “It was no less than the Supreme Court that mandated the DENR to lead several government agencies to rehabilitate and clean up Manila Bay for the benefit of the fisherfolk and the people,” Arambulo stressed. He was referring to the 2008 Su preme Court mandamus directing 13 government agencies, to be led by the DENR, to rehabilitate and restore Manila Bay for fishery resources de velopment and recreational use.
In filing the bill, Romualdez cited a 2019 study by Google and Temasek, which said that, in Asean alone, the Internet economy is experiencing exponential growth as total Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in South east Asia has reached the $100-billion mark, and is projected to reach $300 billion in 2025.
“We remind Secretary YuloLoyzaga that rehabilitating Manila Bay never includes destructive recla mation projects. Without any reser vation, she should deny the Navotas reclamation project an environmen tal permit and save the environment and livelihood of the affected fisher folk,” Arambulo said.
NTC should impose steep fines THE DOJ chief also called on the National Telecommunications Com mission (NTC) to impose steep fines against telco companies and ISPs that have failed to cooperate in the gov ernment’s effort to address online exploitation and abuse of children. The NTC is a government agency that has supervision, ad judication and control over all telecommunications services in the country, including radio and television stations, cable compa nies and internet services. He suggested that these telco com panies and ISPs should be fined on a daily basis until they have complied with their obligations under the law.
DOJ to compel telcos, ISPs to fulfill mandate in fight vs online child porno, sexual abuse of Walden Bello’s
DENR pressed to nix Navotas land proposalreclamation ‘Florita’ exits PHL but some Northern Luzon, Bicol villages remain flooded Davao judge resets arraignment
“The NTC can issue fines on a daily basis for non-compliance.
Remulla acknowledged that one of the major challenges in addressing the problem is technological, which is vital in tracing the perpetrators. He added that there is also a need to immediately pass the New Immi gration Act to tighten the country’s borders against foreign pedophiles that can easily enter the country due to non-visa “Hopefully,requirements.wecanhave some thing done to strengthen the im migration department. That’s the point of entry of all these criminals who prey on our children, that is why there is a need to fix our immigration law,” Remulla said. Remulla also stressed there should be a common database of sexual offenders among countries to restrict their movements and pre vent their entry to other countries, such as the Philippines.
Vitug • Thursday, August 25, 2022 A3BusinessMirror The
In a separate statement sent to reporters, Ruiz said: “The recall of officials from the Bureau of CustomsPort of Subic is standard procedure while an investigation is being con ducted. The BOC will not comment until after the investigation results arePcompleted.”ressSecretary Trixie Cruz-An geles earlier said heads might roll at the BOC if evidence shows that any of the bureau’s port personnel are in connivance with smugglers using recycled sugar import permits. To recall, the BOC last Thursday averted the possible smuggling of 7,021 metric tons of sugar from Thai land at the Subic Port in Zambales after they learned that the import permit used for the cargo was “re cycled,” meaning it was already used for an earlier sugar shipment.
Book presents some farming solutions in fight vs hunger
By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario POOREST Filipinos would need more support in order to get out of poverty, especially af ter the pandemic significantly af fected their lives and livelihoods, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In the Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2022 report, ADB said the poorest 10 percent of Filipinos experienced a 21.1 percent decline in consumption. This is the steep est drop in consumption among all income classes. T he pandemic caused a 13.6 per cent contraction in household con sumption per capita nationwide. All income classes saw a decline in per capita consumption with the top 10 percent of the income decile expe riencing a 14.8 percent contraction in consumption.Thepoorand the vulnerable have been hit hardest by Covid-19, and while economies are recover ing, many people may find that getting out of poverty is even more difficult than before,” ADB Chief Economist Albert Park said in aGovernmentsstatement. in the region should focus on resilience, innova tion, and inclusiveness to provide more balanced economic opportu nities and greater social mobility for everyone,” he added. A DB said the region’s fight against poverty has been derailed by at least two years and many in the region will likely find it harder to achieve upward social mobility. T he Manila-based multilateral development bank said social mo bility or the movement from one so cioeconomic status to another is an important consideration in looking at inequalities between the rich and poor members of society. “ Temporary increases in the prevalence of poverty due to eco nomic shocks may merit less policy or structural intervention in places that enjoy high social mobility [where the poor may have good chances of getting out of poverty eventually],” ADB said in the report. On the other hand, increased poverty levels in places with low social mobility [where poverty may be generational and due to factors beyond a person’s control] could be more problematic and re quire strong policy intervention,” it added.Despite this, ADB said the region’s economic growth this year is expect ed to reduce extreme poverty—de fined as living off less than $1.90 a day—to a level that would have been achieved in 2020 had the pandemic notBhappened.y2030,ADB said, the prevalence of extreme poverty in the region is expected to drop below 1 percent. At the same time, about 25 percent of the population is projected to achieve at least middle-class status, defined as having income or consumption of $15 or more a day, adjusted for pur chasing power However,parity.this outlook is threatened by differences in so cial mobility as well as other un certainties. Developing Asia faces the potential for stagflation, ongo ing conflicts involving key global actors, increased food insecurity, and energy price shocks,” ADB said in the statement. A DB said the pandemic signifi cantly affected tourism, transpor tation, information and commu nications technology, and energy. Efforts to help these sectors re cover will be important in helping more people in the region get out of poverty.
S he added that the contents of the book she wrote, could present the answers to PBBM’s “food crisis agenda,” including the “Masaganang 150,” which is being promoted by the President. Apart from food security, the book also tackles the government’s goal in job generation. P resident Marcos is expected to attend the book launch, along with other government officials, which will be held this September at the Centennial Hall of the Manila Hotel.
T he cargo vessel MV Bangpakaew was found to be loaded with 7,021 metric tons of Thailand white refined sugar equivalent to 140,000 bags and with total tax payment valued at P45,623,007.51.Initialprobeshowed that the consignee of the smuggled sugar is Oro-Agritrade Inc. under the account of ARC Refreshments Corp. under Entry Nos. C-12513 and C-12521. T he Thai exporter is listed as Ru amkamlarp Export Co. Ltd while the local customs broker was identified as Malou Leynes Buerano. T he BOC-CIIS reported that the cargo is covered by a “Special Per mit to Discharge (SPD) and Verified Single Administrative Document (SAD)” from BOC and with a verified clearance from the Sugar Regulatory Administration through a certain Mr. Rondell Manjarres. Upon orders from President and concurrent Agriculture Secretary Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr., the BOC has been using its visitorial powers to inspect ware houses where stocks of sugar were believed to be being hoarded for profit in a bid to address the “ar tificial” shortage and bring down the price of the sweetener.
ADB says poorest Pinoys may need more support to get out of poverty execs smugglingamid‘reassigned’sugarprobe
RODRIGUEZ
A BOOK that presents innovative technologies and organic farming methods to fight hunger in the country is set to be launched next month. T he book entitled “Leave Nobody Hungry” was authored by former Manila Bulletin reporter Virginia R. Rodriguez. According to Rodriguez, she wanted to help the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr., who is also the concurrent Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), so she decided to write and produce the said book. Rodriguez is confident that the book she wrote will help millions of farmers in the country to increase their harvest, including rice, corn and other crops.
“Common fertilizer grades that farmers use like urea and 14-14-14 provide the macronutrients needed by the crop. These include nitrogen [N], phosphorus [P], and potassium [K]. While NPKs are generally impor tant for crop growth, there are also micronutrients such as copper, zinc, and sulfur that are necessary because it affects the soil and the plant’s capac ity to absorb NPK. Thus, micronutrient deficiencies must be addressed first,” Capistrano explained.
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6 BOC-Subic
THE National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) re ported on Wednesday that all its transmission lines and facili ties are under normal operations as severe tropical storm Florita exits the country. A s of 2 p.m., the grid operator said it has resumed normal opera tions of its Overall Command Center (OCC) as Florita poses no fur ther threat to any of its facilities. Lines affected by the passage of the weather disturbance were immediately restored.
By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3 T HE Philippine Red Cross (PRC) on Wednesday started the distribution of cash and emergency shelter assistance as part of the P173 million worth of aid for provinces affected by typhoons Aga ton and Odette. T he distribution started in San Francisco and Pintuyan towns in Southern Leyte where PRC provided cash and emergency shelter assistance to more than 400 families. Each fam ily received P5,000 worth of CGI (cor rugated galvanized iron) sheets, and shelter tool kits. T he PRC noted that eight months after Odette struck the Philippines, the organization continue to assist severely affected communities in partnership with the German Red Cross and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). It also sustained its support to Baybay City, which was badly hit by Agaton in April. Wednesday’s humanitarian aid distribution makes a total of more than 6,000 Odette-affected families in Southern Leyte province who have received cash and emergency shelter assistance from the PRC, amounting to P40.78 million. T here were 400 families in Hilon gos, Southern Leyte, who also received CGI sheets and shelter tool kits. T he PRC is also set to distribute this week cash and shelter assis tance in Palawan, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Cebu, Bohol, Di nagat Islands, Siargao, and Surigao del Norte.
All NGCP lines, facilities under normal op as ‘Florita’ exits PHL
“NGCP assures the public that it is continuously monitoring weath er disturbances and is ready to activate its OCC should there be any threat to its transmission facilities,” it said. NGCP is a Filipino-led, privately owned company in charge of operat ing, maintaining, and developing the country’s electricity transmission grid, led by majority shareholders and Vice Chairman of the Board Henry Sy Jr. and Co-Vice Chairman Robert Coyiuto Jr. It is the sole operating asset of Synergy Grid and Development Philippines.
BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.ph Economy Thursday, August 25, 2022 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug
“ We have processed the recom mendations from the first batch of the MOET setups and are getting ready to cascade these to the target areas. We are collaborating with our partner-lo cal government units [LGUs] to ensure that the recommendations reach the farmers, which they would hopefully adopt,” Bordey noted. MOET is a diagnostic tool used to identify deficient macronutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and micronutrients, including sulfur, zinc, and copper in field conditions. Part of its results show the right ele ment, amount, and timing of fertil izer application needed by the crop for better yields. “Crops require both macro and mi cronutrients for better growth and de velopment. Some of it can be sourced from the environment. The rest are deficiencies that can be supplemented by fertilizers,” Ailon Oliver V. Capist rano, DA-PhilRice nutrient manage ment expert, said. H e added the common method of assessing the needs of the rice crop is to observe its physical appear ance. When crops turn yellowish, some farmers would usually apply urea to solve it. However, Capist rano said the practice may not al ways address the soil or the crop’s specific needs.
By Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM SIX officials from the Bureau of Customs (BOC)-Port of Subic were relieved from their posts pending investigation into an alleged attempt to smuggle sugar into the country, Malacañang said. In his Office Order dated August 22, Acting Customs Commissioner Yogi Filemon Ruiz “temporarily transferred” the officials to the Of fice of the Commissioner from their current position. “ The order shall take effect im mediately and shall last until sooner revoked,” Ruiz said.
‘Site-specific’ fertilizer method eyed to cut rice production cost,
PRC resumes distribution of assistance to Agaton and Odette victims in Leyte
In the meantime, Ruiz designated Willie Sarmiento to be the officer-incharge district collector for the Port of Subic as a replacement for Martin.
THE Department of AgriculturePhilippine Rice Research In stitute (DA-PhilRice), through the Rice Competitiveness Enhance ment Fund (RCEF) Seed and Exten sion Programs, is currently develop ing location-specific fertilizer rec ommendations to help local farmers maximize their resources amid high fertilizerFarmers’costs.resources have now be come more limited because of high fertilizer costs. Meanwhile, current practices show that if farmers con tinue to apply fertilizers that are not appropriate to crop needs, their resources are wasted, and yields can be sacrificed. We want to help them address that,” Flordeliza Bordey, DAPhilRice RCEF Program Management Office head, explained. Studies show that mineral nutrients are vital in boosting the rice growth and development. However, some mineral nutrients have limited availability in the soil and must be supplemented with fertilizer application. E xperts said that too little ap plication will lead to sub-optimal yield, while excessive application is costly and can lead to soil and water pollution. Thus, they emphasized the need to determine the amount of mineral nutrients available and lacking in the soil. W ith this, the institute started conducting massive soil analysis of farmers’ fields representing major soil types in RCEF target areas through the use of the Minus-One Element Tech nique (MOET) kit. The project started in 2021 wet season and is expected to complete generating specific recom mendations for 512 municipalities by end of 2023.
DA-PhilRice reports
Lenie Lectura
T hese officials include Maritess Theodossis Martin, district collec tor; Maita Sering Acevedo, deputy collector for assessment; Giovanni Ferdinand Aguillon Leynes, deputy collector for operations; Belinda Fernando Lim, chief of assessment division; Vincent Mark Solamin Malasmas, Enforcement Security Service (ESS) commander; and Jus tice Roman Silvoza Geli, supervisor of the Customs Intelligence and In vestigation Service (CIIS).
T he availability of these six nu trients can be determined through MOET.“Wewould also like to encourage our partner-LGUs [local government unit] to help us not only in helping dissemi nate the fertilizer recommendations to farmers, but also to implement pro grams that complement our advocacy on proper nutrient management such as providing the required fertilizers,” Bordey said. T he RCEF-Seed Program is a component of Republic Act 11203 or Rice Tariffication Law, which allots P10 billion funds every year for the rice farmers from the rice tariff earnings of the country. The program is a six-year government initiative to help farmers improve their competitiveness.
By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM THE National Security Council (NSC) and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) have asserted the country’s sovereignty in the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and West Philip pine Sea (WPS) with the recent con duct of maritime domain awareness activities in those clusters of islands.
T he security adviser led the launch ing of the PCG project in Kalayaan, whose aim was to increase literacy among the children of Pag-asa Island and raise the environmental con sciousness of the coastal community by developing children’s awareness of marine environmental protection. T he project also intended to provide livelihood-training opportunities for parents and strengthen the involve ment of fisherfolk in upholding marine environmental protection, maritime se curity, and maritime search and rescue. Balilo said Carlos inspected the PCG facilities in Kalayaan, including its weap ons, communications, electronics, and in formation systems (CGWCEIS) facilities. She also visited the naval base and the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute (UPMSI) laboratory on the island.
T he sovereignty mission and activi ties were led by National Security Ad viser Clarita Carlos and PCG officials, including Deputy Chief of Coast Guard Staff for Human Resource Manage ment Captain Jay Tarriela, Deputy Chief of Coast Guard Staff for Intel ligence Captain Nelson Timbang and Commander John Esplana.
A rmy Commanding General Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. has been beefing up the firepower of the Army and strengthening its units and their capabilities. Two of the units, the Artillery Regiment and the Army Aviation, have seen modest improvements, both in firepower and manpower during the past months.
THE Department of Justice (DOJ) has declared that the government would not com ply with any demand from the In ternational Criminal Court (ICC) in connection with its plan to reopen the investigation on the alleged crimes committed against human ity in former President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s bloody campaign against illegal drugs. D uring Wednesday’s Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla stressed that the Philippines is no longer a member of the ICC, thus, it is not oblige to participate in any proceedings of the ICC. It can be recalled that the ICC has given the Philippine govern ment to submit until September 8 its comment on the request of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan to resume the body’s investigation into the anti-illegal drug opera tions during Duterte’s term where deaths occurred. T he ICC deferred its probe on the matter last November 20, 2021 upon the request of the Philippine government to give way for the DOJ and other agencies to investigate the Askillings. Isaid before, we are doing everything as a matter of comity, friendship, respect among nations, among unilateral agencies. We are not submitting anything as a matter of compliance, and we are not mem bers of the ICC anymore,” Remulla pointed out. “ We have withdrawn from the Rome Statute and there is no com pulsive process for them to go into the country and start investigating anything,” Remulla added. However, Remulla said the justice department has already provided Solicitor General Menardo Guevar ra some information with regard to some of the case folders in the justice department pertaining to anti-illegal drug cases where deaths occurred. It’s just that it’s probably up to him, it has to be worded in such a way that is not in compliance. We are not complying with any demand. We are doing this as a matter of comity to inform them that we are doing something on the problems we are supposed to solve on our own,” Re mulla stressed. T he DOJ chief stressed that the country’s judicial system is working, noting that when US Senator Edward Markey and four others wanted to visit former Senator Leila de Lima at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame, they had to seek permission from the two courts in Muntinlupa City that are currently hearing the drug cases against her. He said the court granted the motion of the group and were able to visit the detained senator. T his shows, according to Remulla, that “the court really determines the action of people where they are mer ited or not.” He said that the ICC should only enter countries where there is no ex isting judicial system, which is not the case in the Philippines.
ERSTWHILE Deputy National Security Adviser Rommel Ban laoi vehemently denied he is a spy for China, an accusation made by alleged employees of the National Security Council (NSC) that prompt ed him to quit his post. “Nakakalungkot mga accusations na naging espiya ako,” Banlaoi said during regular online session of Pandesal Forum in Quezon City. “Nagkaroon ng tremendous impact sa aking ap pointment,” he lamented. Banlaoi, who has built his career as a member of academe specializ ing in international relations and security, said friends who used to be supportive of him suddenly became distant when news about his alleged espionage activities were published. National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos earlier named Banlaoi as one of her deputies. But an unsigned letter to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. allegedly from NSC employees branded Banlaoi as a “security risk” and “very popu lar in the intelligence community as a seller of intelligence information.”
T he BusinessMirror could neither independently confirm the veracity of the memo nor if the un signed letter indeed came from NSC employees.Banlaoi was former president of Philippine Association for Chinese Studies, which, he said, is funded by Filipinos and some members of the Filipino-Chinese community. For mer presidents include former Am bassador Jose “Chito” Sta. Romana and Teresita Ang-See. Banlaoi said the espionage rumors started when he studied in China. Ironically, when he took up his doctoral degree at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, he was also seen as being a spy for the CIA be cause he is from the Philippines, a defense ally of the US. I struggled to finish kasi nakita ko ang future eh. We need to deal with China. We lack China experts in the Philippines. We only know China from the basis of what the Ameri cans, the Europeans tell us…. Kung alam nyo lang ang pinagdaanan ko sa China. Akusahan kang pro-US, proCIA,” Banlaoi recalled. He said being accused of espionage as part of his work as researcher on countries, like China, or groups is part of the game. When he researched about Abu Sayyaf, the New People’s Army, the peace process between the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, he was likewise linked to these rebel groups. Banlaoi said he tried asking NSC employees if they don’t really want him at the spy agency, he is willing to give way to whomever they are pleased to work with. He said nobody claimed responsibility for the letter. “Kahit nasaktan ako sa nangyari, di ako nagtanim ng sama ng loob. Kasi kung nagtanim ako ng sama ng loob, aanihin natin yan,” he added. He said he quit the position of fered her by her mentor, Carlos, and “gave way” to a former military officer. Recently, President Marcos appointed former Marine Comman dant Maj. Gen. Nestor Herico who retired last July. By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573
Rene Acosta
L ikewise, they said, they are work ing with other schools and universi ties who are willing to absorb their student population. T hese schools have set up booths at the CDSL gym where students can process their transfers seamlessly. CDSL said that they are grateful to Vice-President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte’s efforts to reform the educational system. Of the Philippine 400 schools that closed during the pandemic, “We hope we will be the last.”
T he letter attached a memo from former Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin to the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff instructing AFP units to “exercise extreme cau tion when engaging” with Banlaoi. Gazmin, the defense chief dur ing the term of the late former president Benigno Simeon Aquino 3rd, added that Banlaoi has been “misrepresenting” the DND as one of the agency’s consultants. “Information from the Depart ment of Foreign Affairs also indi cates that the said person has been making presentations about the South China Sea in international conferences using the AFP’s recon naissance photos of the area,” the al leged Gazmin memo read.
Pandemic
By Malou Talosig-Bartolome @maloutalosig
Enrollment had not recovered, an investor did not materialize, and we realized that the school could no longer be rescued,” the lawyer said. A s to the refund, CDSL is encour aging parents and students to come to the Accounting Office and receive their checks for refunds. The office is open from Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Guidelines for collect ing refunds are posted on the school’s official Facebook page. CDSL is targeting to complete the process by August 26, but their offices will be open until September 20, 2022 for those who would want to collect their refunds later. A s of August 24, all the checks to be claimed have been prepared. Not an easy decision “WE are establishing an open line of communication to reach out to ev eryone who has been affected. We hope that what happened to Colegio de San Lorenzo will not happen to other schools, especially those that are family-owned,” read CDSL’s Board of Trustees statement.
THE Philippine Army’s Artillery Regiment held live fire drills in Maguindanao on Tuesday using howitzers as it tested its new weapons and sharpened troop skills.
T he live fire exercises were con ducted by the regiment’s 6th Field Artillery “Deadly Accurate” Battalion at Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan and Barangay Meta in Datu Unsay, both in Maguindanao.
K han sought the reopening of the ICC investigation on the Philip pine anti-illegal drug war as he ex pressed doubts on the sincerity of the concerned Philippine government agencies to investigate and prosecute those involved in these drug-related killings.Hesaid “the various proceedings referenced by the Philippines also fail to sufficiently mirror the autho rized ICC investigation, as required by articles 17 and 18 of the Rome Statute, because the Philippines has not asserted that it is investigating any conduct occurring in Davao from 2011 to 2016, any crimes other than murder, any killings outside official police operations, any responsibility of mid-or high-level perpetrators, or any systematic conduct or State policy.” Healso noted that the Phil ippine government has cited “a relatively small number of past the ICC investigation.”toandongoing criminal investigationsorprosecutionsthatappearfallwithintheparametersof
www.businessmirror.com.ph Thursday, August 25, 2022 A5BusinessMirror News
A rmy spokesman Col. Xerxes Trinidad said the 6th Field Artillery Battalion tested a newly rebarreled howitzer, registered two guns and evaluated the proficiency of the gun nery crew during the live fire exercise. He said a total of 30 105mm highexplosive rounds were fired in high angle and low angle shots with low and maximum charges to simulate various crisis scenarios. T he Army spokesman said the Artillery Regiment is implementing a certification program for gunners and assistant gunners prior to de ployment at firing lines. Field artillerymen also undergo re-certification before handling ac tual operations.
DOJ on ICC drug deaths probe: ‘We are not complying with any demand’
Banlaoi denies spying for China
M eanwhile, Section 309 of the CREATE law states: “A qualified registered project or activity under an Investment Promotion Agency administering an economic zone or Freeport shall be exclusively conducted or operated within the geographical boundaries of the zone or Freeport being administered by the Investment Promotion Agency in which the project or activity is registered.” L ast Tuesday, during the virtual event, Madrid noted that there have been ongoing discussions “and confusion from some of our investors on the Peza versus BOI with the work from home hybrid overhang that is not quite settled yet.” During the discussions, Madrid said they discussed the pros and cons of BOI and Peza, noting that investment promotion agencies (IPAs) should have very similar privileges and incentives but because of the WFH/Hybrid issue, he said “there needs some more harmonization moving forward.” And so we have provided the inputs of our members as well as our leaders in the industry, providing inputs on what we could do to further harmonize the [implementing rules and regulations] IRR of the [Strategic Investment Priorities Plan] SIPP, we provided this input to the BOI,” said Madrid on Tuesday.
NSC chief leads domain awareness activities in disputed KIG and WPS
Army artillerymen hold live fire exercise in Maguindanao
By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3 THE Colegio de San Lorenzo (CDSL) Board of Trustees on Wednesday said they tried to look for ways to prevent the closure of the school, which has been operat ing for the last 35 years, but failed to save the institution. A fter it announced its perma nent closure on August 15 due to financial reasons, the CDSL said that they have refunded 100 per cent of tuition fees for K to 12 Ba sic Education, and more than half of the tuition fee refund for college students have been processed. In an online news conference, CDSL spokesperson Atty. Mark Vixen Do rado said that the owner of the school tried to prevent the closure by finding an investor, even if the family can no longer be part of it. The prospect, how ever, failed to materialize. “
W ith profound sadness, they stressed, they have to close the Cole gio de San Lorenzo after 35 years of providing education “to our people” and that it was not an easy decision, and “we fought hard to the end to keep it open.” We were hopeful that we could stop the closure from happening. Despite the Covid-19 lockdowns, we lowered student fees and sub sidized school operations using our family’s personal funds,” the Board added. CDSL also said that they are work ing with the Department of Education (DepEd) and Commission on Higher Education to help the students transi tion to other schools. Without cost, we are releasing the transcripts of records for all students to their owners, helping them obtain their academic credentials.”
Perks registry may shift to BOI in WFH
continued from a10 financial woes force us to close CDSL permanently–board
T he IBPAP chief said this conversation is still ongoing but they hope that “this will happen very soon” so that potential investors and those adding new projects to the IT-BPM industry can get more clarity and transparency, allowing them to make best decisions depending on their investment priority. I n the June 29 statement, Madrid underscored that while incentives have been made uniform across the different IPAs through the CREATE law, “the policies that govern the administration and supervision of registered enterprises among IPAs are not uniform and transfers of registration from one IPA to another may not be easy.” M adrid earlier said registering with IPAs such as the BOI and Peza is an important, complex decision made by companies based on their business goals, priorities and investment criteria.
T he buoys have been serving as sov ereign markers for the country while ensuring maritime safety by guiding vessels transiting in those waters. Supangan showed Carlos the estab lished PCG station in Kalayaan and told her that they now manage several com mand observation posts that expanded the PCG’s maritime domain awareness efforts and assured strategic deploy ment of Coast Guard vessels in the area. In Kalayaan, Carlos visited the mu nicipality’s multi-purpose hall and met with the island’s families who received gift packs from the visiting party.
“ It has been our honor to serve the community for 35 years. Cole gio de San Lorenzo has been a part of our family for generations, and closing it is like losing a beloved family member. We will remain in touch throughout this process to ensure that each member of the Colegio de San Lorenzo family— students, teachers, parents, and employees—is taken care of,” the Board lamented.
P CG spokesman Commodore Ar mand Balilo said that from Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Carlos board ed the PCG’s Cessna Caravan plane to Pag-asa Island, the seat of government of the Municipality of Kalayaan. O n the way to the island, the Coast Guard Aviation Force (CGAF) per formed a maritime domain awareness flight in the vicinity waters off Lawak, Patag, Likas and Parola Islands. T he KIG and WPS are subject of dispute by China with its aggressive expansion territorial claims. Balilo said that during the mission, Palawan Coast Guard commander Com modore Rommel Supangan showed Carlos the navigational buoys that have been installed by the PCG in the KIG.
THE Department of Environ ment and Natural Resources (DENR) has tapped the Green Solutions Agricultural Farming Training Center (GSAFTC) for its beekeeping project in the Mt. Hami guitanThesanctuary.Mt.Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary (MHRWS) is aiming to improve the production of its honey enterprise in its farms in Brgys. San Isidro and General Generoso, Davao Oriental. A memorandum of agree ment (MOA) was signed between MHRWS Protected Area Manage ment Board and GSAFTC to expand their collaboration on trainings, marketing-promotional work, ex perimental, and technology-dem onstration on beekeeping. The beekeeping livelihood pro gram is a special project called “Bee keeping as Community-BasedBio-diversity-FriendlyEnterprisein
By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas THE National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. (NFHFI) has again called on President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to reconsider the government’s decision to allow the importation of processed animal products (PAP) from countries that have been affected by African swine feverNFHFI(ASF).President Chester War ren Y. Tan said his group has been appealing to the government to dis allow PAP from countries that have confirmed ASF cases to protect the domestic hog industry. Earlier this month, the Depart ment of Agriculture (DA) eased the restrictions on imported porcine PAPs for aquatic use.
The report aims to provide decision makers with potential considerations in which
The DA issued Memorandum Order 59 that authorized the im portation of PAP even from coun tries with confirmed ASF outbreaks “subject to pertinent precautionary measures and guidelines.”
The agency made the decision after Marcos Jr., the concurrent agriculture secretary, directed BAI to issue guidelines on the importation of porcine PAPs from ASF-hit countries. The DA said Marcos made the directive “to prevent further serious impact on the aquaculture sector.” Since April, various leaders and representatives from the aquacul ture sector have been lobbying for the lifting of the import ban on porcine PAPs from ASF-infected countries to ensure that fish prices would remain stable. Food security advocacy group Tugon Kabuhayan said the blanket ban on porcine PAP could raise fish prices by P2 per kilogram. (Related story: protein-from-italy/)to-lift-ban-on-processed-animal-com.ph/2022/04/25/da-pressed-https://businessmirror.
“On the occasion of World Human itarian Day 2022, the focus is on tak ing action to support people in need, by all corners of society,” said Tiina Vähänen, Deputy Director of FAO’s Forestry Division. “Working together with local communities, humanitar ian interventions must be more holis tic so we can contribute to improved food security for people in need, while doing no harm to dryland environ ments and their tree resources.”
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“The government should give us the guarantee that these PAPs were really tested and are free of ASF.”
“We would like to thank the DAR for this big help of providing equip ment that would be very beneficial to our farmer-members.”
In Australia, known for its coffee snobbery, supermarket Coles Group Ltd. said its A$1 (69 cents) in-store coffee had “never been more popu lar.” That’s a stark shift in a nation that prides itself on its cafe culture and where people often fork out A$5 for a “flat white.” Bean availability in Vietnam has fallen as shipments rose 17 percent to 1.13 million tons in January-July from a year earlier, according to cus toms data. The increase in exports has been aided by an improving supply of containers and ships, but may be difficult to sustain given the shrinking stockpiles. “We are worried” about a shortage through early November, said Phan Hung Anh, chief executive of Quang Minh Coffee Trading JSC in the southern province of Binh Duong. Local growers are probably holding only around 2 percent of their an nual output, compared with about 13 percent a year earlier, he said. The global coffee market is fac ing one of the biggest deficits in recent memory after drought and frost slashed Brazilian output. Colombia is struggling to recover from crop-damaging rains, while Honduras, Guatemala and Nica ragua are running out of supplies from the 2021-22 harvest. Costa Rica’s next-season crop is showing signs of stress, and a drought has cut robusta yields in Uganda.
MHRWS” of the DENR as part of forestMt.conservation.Hamiguitan is a wildlife sanctuary recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). It is home to globally threatened flora and fauna, 8 of which are found only in Mt.TheHamiguitan.beekeeping project in Mt. Hamiguitan ensures the surround ing communities have a livelihood so that they do not resort to illegal forest activities around Mt. Hami guitan, according to the DENR. Beekeeping is also known to have the very important “pollinat ing” function in the ecosystem, en hancing environmental balance. It contributes to rapid generation of forestThereserves.government sees a good market potential for beekeeping products (pollen, propolis, beeswax, and value added products including honey wine, honey and propolisbased soap, massage oil, shampoo, and ointment). The Philippines cur rently imports honey but local pro ducers may soon be able to fill the country’s requirements. The beekeeping project is fi nanced by DENR’s special project fund, which is supervised by the Foreign Assisted and Special Projects Service (FASPS). The project already identified two potential expansion sites in Sto Rosario, San Isidro and Macambol, City of Mati. The project was compelled to transfer the beekeeping activity to the GSAFTC site which serves as the recovery area for the propagation of the bee colonies. This is erratic weather caused the infestation of small beehive beetles which led to the decline of bee colonies. Part of the project’s target is to come up with local policies on bio diversity-friendly enterprise and sustainable honey production. As such, an ordinance for the preserva tion, habitat protection, and collec tion of bee products from the wild has been drafted together with the legislative members from municipal and barangay levels, Davao Oriental State University, Department of Ag riculture, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and municipal tour ismTheoffices.DTI and the Department of Science and Technology also facili tated a training on the handling and packaging of bee products for the project’s beneficiaries. Mt. Hamiguitan is being strict ly protected as it faces threats of conversion of land for agriculture. There are also mining threats out side the site. The DENR said it is now address ing potential risks from climate change and increasing tourism.
womenandenvironmentaltriggeringuseneedableshouldventionsdevelopment.designedinterventions,gratingcallyhumanitariannexushumanitarian-development-peaceaapproachcanbereflectedinactivitiesinecologifragiledrylandenvironments.ThepolicybriefproposesinteenvironmentalconcernsintoincludingprojectstotargetjustoneareaofForexample,interthattargetfoodsecurityincludeaccesstosustaincookingenergytoreducethefordisplacedpopulationstoorcollectcharcoalorwoodfuel,forestresourcedepletion,conflictandsexualgender-basedviolenceagainstandgirls.
Findings THE policy brief provides an indepth analysis of three projects based in ecologically fragile areas hosting settlements of people in protracted displacement in Ban gladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger and Uganda. It shows the fragility of ecosystems in humanitarian settings and explains how com petition for natural resources in agrosilvopastoral areas often leads to conflict between host communi ties and displaced people. It argues that humanitarian interventions should address the environmental impact of displaced populations, and that protection of dryland natural resources must be seen as a vital part of program implementation.
“We are not against PAP coming into the country but of course what we want is to source it from countries that are totally free of ASF.” Tan said they made an appeal to officials of the Bureau of Animal In dustry, DA and even to the President. He said the industry is con cerned about the possibility that PAP users might source it from countries that have reported wide spread outbreaks of the fatal hog disease like China. “The memorandum issued by the DA; even the caption stated that it allows PAP from ASF-infected countries without specifying pos sible source countries. This means [porcine PAP users] can source even fromTanChina.”saidthe government’s deci sion to allow the entry of porcine PAP is “ill-timed” as the local hog industry is now showing signs of recovery from ASF.
At a global level, the world’s drylands are important for both food security and mitigating climate change, supplying about 60 percent of the world’s food production and 50 percent of livestock while containing 27 percent of the the world’s forest area and storing 30 per cent of soil organic carbon.
Green Solutions tapped for beekeeping project in Mt. Hamiguitan sanctuary Cebuano farmers receive farm tractor from DAR PHOTO FROM WWW.ACIAR.GOV.AU ‘Environmental sustainability is a key part of humanitarian work in dryland regions’ Coffee lovers set for price pain as Vietnam reserves shrink
In January, the DA temporar ily banned the importation of pork products, including PAP, from Italy after the European country confirmed an outbreak of ASF. Italy accounts for about 70 percent of the 150,000 metric tons of PAP the country imports annually. urge govt to rethink PAP policy
Hog raisers
Agriculture/Commodities
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Thursday, August 25, 2022 • Editor: Jennifer A. Ng
The group has started their own business such as a consumer goods store and swimming pool which they manage. The income from these ventures are helping its 319 total members, according to Alfone.CebuProvincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II Grace B. Fua said: “We hope the organization will fully utilize and manage the farm equip ment as an important part of their business enterprise to boost their farmFuaproductivity.”remindedthe ARBO of their responsibility to provide a secured storage facility, a regular operator, operating capital, and maintenance for the farm tractor. AMSFA President Fernando Na vaja said the agency has supported the cooperative through its various programs and projects.
‘Substantial risk’ VIETNAMESE reserves could fall further if farmers hold onto beans in the hopes prices will keep rising or if bad weather delays the harvest, said Tran Thi Lan Anh, deputy direc tor of coffee exporter Vinh Hiep Co. in the planting province of Gia Lai. The harvest runs from October through early January. The Central Highlands, the main coffee-plant ing region, is likely to receive higher rainfall in three months from Octo ber due to the La Nina weather pat tern, the National Weather Center said this week. The slump in Vietnamese invento ries pushed domestic robusta prices in Dak Lak province, which accounts for about one-third of the country’s harvest, to a record high of 49,100 dong ($2.10) a kilogram last week. Carryover stockpiles are seen at 200,000 tons at the start of the new season on Oct. 1, compared with an estimated 400,000 tons a year ear lier, according to the survey. Output may fall 6 percent to 1.72 million tons in 2022-23, the survey showed. The robusta variety accounts for about 90 percent of Vietnam’s coffee output.
“We are still appealing [to the government] to not push through with it,” Tan told reporters on the sidelines of Livestock Philippines Expo 2022 on Wednesday at the World Trade Center in Pasay.
By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga T HE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has turned over a farm tractor to a group of Farmers in Pinamunga jan,DARCebu.Central Visayas Regional Director Reynaldo C. Anfone said the four-wheel drive hand tractor worth P813,000 was given to the Anopog Mountain Spring Farmers Association Inc. (AMSFA) under the Climate Resilient Farm Productivity Support Project (CRFPSP). The proj ect provides farm machines aimed at improving farm productivity and earning capabilities of agrarian re form beneficiaries (ARBs) through their“Weorganizations.encouragedthe beneficiaries to establish effective operations of the farm tractor since such a trac tor was provided to help increase the income of their members and their association,” Anfone said.
V IETNAM’S vast hoard of cof fee beans is shrinking, a phe nomenon that’s set to push rising global prices even higher. Stockpiles will halve by the end of September from a year earlier, ac cording to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of traders. Output from Vietnam, the world’s largest robusta supplier and second-largest coffee producer, is also expected to drop in 2022-23. The dwindling reserves and poor harvest outlook come at a time when global coffee consumption is recov ering from a virus-induced slump. Benchmark robusta prices have surged 17 percent from a 10-month low in the middle of July on supply worries from Brazil to Africa. Robusta, used by instant coffee makers including Nestle SA or as a blend in espressos, has been mak ing a comeback. The variety, nor mally cheaper than arabica, is in strong demand as people look for alternatives to mitigate the impact of rising inflation.
HUMANITARIAN interven tions in the world’s dryland areas blighted by conflict must, in the context of the climate crisis, also address the environmental impacts of the conflicts such as those exacerbated by the forced displace ment of people, according to a new policy brief released last August 19. Produced jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the Unit ed Nations (FAO), CGIAR and CARE, “Doing no harm while doing good: Cli mate and conflict sensitivity in dry land humanitarian projects” follows on the heels of the Global Report on Food Crises 2022, which revealed that 70 percent of people with crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse were found in 10 countries and territories located in dryland regions.
Olaf Scholz said his country is providing more than 500 million euros (nearly $500 million) in aid, including powerful anti-aircraft systems. The aid will also include rocket launchers, am munition, anti-drone equipment, a dozen armored recovery vehicles and three additional IRIS-T long-range air defense systems, the Ger man news agency dpa reported. The funding must still be approved by parliament, and some of it won’t be delivered until next year.
The enormous 1MDB financial scandal tied directly to him was not just a personal blow but also shook—temporarily at least— the stranglehold his party, the United Malays National Organiza tion, had over Malaysian politics. UMNO had traditionally been assured the support of the coun try’s ethnic Malay majority and had headed the National Front coalition government since the country became independent of Britain in 1957. Najib set up the 1MDB state investment fund shortly after taking power in 2009. The US Jus tice Department and other inves tigators alleged that at least $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB by associates of Najib between 2009 and 2014, and laundered through layers of bank accounts in the US and other countries to finance Hollywood films and extravagant purchases that included hotels, a luxury yacht, art works and jew elry. Then-US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions described the scan dal as “kleptocracy at its worst.” The Justice Department’s civil case filings also alleged $700 mil lion was transferred from bank ac counts used in the money launder ing to the bank account of “Malay sian Official 1.” It didn’t name the official, but corroborating details made clear it was Najib. Najib in July 2020 was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by Malay sia’s High Court after being found guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money launder ing for illegally receiving 42 million ringgit ($9.4 million) from SRC In ternational, a former unit of 1MDB. Najib, 69, has maintained his innocence and had been out on bail pending his appeals.
“I think the guilty verdict is a very, very good outcome for Malay sia. The Malaysian public has been waiting for a very long time to see the ex-prime minister go to jail,” James Chin, professor of Asian studies at Australia’s University of Tasmania, told The Associated Press. “So with today’s verdict, it is quite clear, at least in the Malay sian case, that even if you hold the No. 1 political position and you did something wrong, you will have to pay the price for it.”
Peck reported from Bangkok.
By Lolita C. Baldor & Matthew Lee The Associated Press
“Given Russia’s track record in Ukraine, we are concerned about the continued threat that Russian strikes pose to civilians and civilian in frastructure,” it said. Other Nato allies are also marking the Independence Day with new aidGermanannouncements.Chancellor
A LETTER from acting archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall to former President Donald Trump’s legal team is photographed Tuesday, August 23, 2022. The letter details that the National Archives recovered 100 documents bearing classified markings, totaling more than 700 pages, from an initial batch of 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago earlier in 2022. Wall told Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Trump, that the Biden administration would not be honoring the former president’s claims of executive privilege over the documents. AP/JON ELSWICK
By Eric Tucker
UALA LUMPUR, Malaysia— Najib Razak is Malaysia’s first former prime minister to go to prison—a mighty fall for a Britisheducated politician whose father and uncle were the country’s second and third prime ministers, respectively.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted the more extended focus Tuesday as he reaffirmed the alliance’s support for the conflicttorn“Wintercountry.is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logis tics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term, so that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,” Stoltenberg said, speaking at a virtual conference about Crimea, or ganized by Ukraine. Six months after Russia invaded, the war has slowed to a grind, as both sides trade combat strikes and small advances in the east and south. Both sides have seen thousands of troops killed and injured, as Russia’s bombardment of cities has killed countless innocent civilians.
BusinessMirror Thursday, August 25, 2022 The World www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso A7
There are fears that Russia will intensify attacks on civilian infra structure and government facilities in Ukraine in the coming days because of the independence holiday and the six-month anniversary of theLateinvasion.Monday, the US Embassy in Ukraine and the State Department issued a new security alert for Ukraine that repeated a call for Ameri cans in the country to leave due to the danger.
AP/VINCENT THIAN US Air Force Staff Sgt. Cody Brown, right, with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron, checks pallets of 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine on April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. US officials say that as Russia’s war on Ukraine drags on, US security assistance is shifting to a longer-term campaign that will likely keep more American military troops in Europe into the future. They say a new aid package to be announced includes an additional roughly $3 billion to train and equip Ukrainian forces to fight for years to come.
The Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
Jailed Najib Razak fell mightily from peak of Malaysian politics
AP/ALEX BRANDON US to send $3 billion assistance to Ukraine as war hits 6 months
WASHINGTON—As Russia’s war on Ukraine drags on, US se curity assistance is shifting to a longer-term campaign that will likely keep more American military troops in Europe into the future, including imminent plans to announce an additional roughly $3 billion in aid to train and equip Ukrainian forces to fight for years to come, US officials said. US officials told The Associated Press that the package is expected to be announced Wednesday, the day the war hits the six-month mark and Ukraine celebrates its independence day. The money will fund contracts for as many as three types of drones, and other weapons, ammunition and equipment that may not see the battlefront for a year or two, they said. The total of the aid package—which is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and is the largest to date— could change a bit overnight, but not likely by much. Officials said that it will include money for the small, hand-launched Puma drones, the longer-endurance Scan Eagle surveillance drones, which are launched by catapult, and, for the first time, the British Vampire drone system, which can be launched off ships. Several officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the aid before its public release. Unlike most previous packages, the new funding is largely aimed at helping Ukraine secure its medium- to long-term defense posture, according to the officials familiar with the matter. Earlier shipments, most of them done under Presidential Drawdown Authority, have fo cused on Ukraine’s more immediate needs for weapons and ammuni tion and involved materiel that the Pentagon already has in stock that can be shipped in short order. In addition to providing longer-term assistance that Ukraine can use for potential future defense needs, the new package is intended to reassure Ukrainian officials that the United States intends to keep up its support, regardless of the day-to-day back and forth of the conflict, the officials said.
The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction and sentence in December, describing the case as a “national embarrassment.” On Tuesday, the Federal Court af firmed the lower court’s decision, sending Najib straight to prison to begin his sentence. Najib had once cast himself as a liberal and reforming leader of the predominantly Muslim country of over 33 million people. He speaks impeccable English with a posh accent, has his own blog and has a strong social media following. At the same time, he often seemed far removed from the con cerns of ordinary Malaysians and the poor rural Malays who are the bedrock of UMNO. He was mocked by the opposition for once saying he prefers eating quinoa, an expensive imported South American grain, to rice, a staple of the Malaysian diet. Revelations after his down fall unveiled a serious taste for luxury, particularly on the part of his wife, Rosmah Mansor, who has also faced criminal charges. The total value of cash, jewelry, watches and handbags seized in 2018 from properties linked to Na jib amounted to at least $273 mil lion, police said. The haul included 12,000 pieces of jewelry—2,200 rings, 1,400 necklaces, 2,100 bracelets, 2,800 pairs of earrings, 1,600 brooches and 14 tiaras along with 567 handbags, 423 watches and 234 pairs of sunglasses. Malaysia has long been beset by corruption, but generally it had been associated with money poli tics designed to help keep UMNO in power.Najibwas thrust into politics in 1976 after his father died, becom ing Malaysia’s youngest lawmaker at age 22, and the youngest ever deputy minister two years later. He became prime minister in 2009, replacing Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who was blamed for the National Front’s reduced majority in an elec tion the previous year. As both finance minister and prime minister, Najib guided his country through the global finan cial crisis of 2009, abolished dra conian colonial-era security laws and reached out to ethnic minori ties with a “1Malaysia” campaign. Then-President Barack Obama praised him as a “reformer with much to However,do.” his National Front coalition suffered a further loss of support in 2013, losing the popular vote to the opposition for the first time though still winning 133 of 222 parliamentary seats. In response, Najib imposed new repressive security measures and increasingly pandered to Islamists and ethnic chauvinism to shore up his Malay support base. Op position leader and former Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim was con victed of sodomy for a second time in 2015 and imprisoned in a case he said was fabricated by the gov ernment to crush the opposition. As he came under more and more pressure over the 1MDB scandal, Najib sacked critics in his government including an at torney general and deputy prime minister, and muzzled the media. The new attorney general cleared Najib in 2016, saying the money was a political donation from the Saudi royal family and that most of it was returned. A 2018 election tested the dam age done to Najib by the 1MDB scandal. Crucial to an alliance formed to bring down Najib was the leadership of Mahathir Mo hamad, a former prime minister who quit UNMO and ran a vigorous campaign despite being in his 90s. Mahathir, popular among his fel low Malays, led the country from 1981 to 2003, during which was credited for the country’s rocket ing economic growth. Najib’s coalition won just 79 of Parliament’s 222 seats, its worstever showing, while Mahathir’s Alliance of Hope won 121 seats. Despite the election debacle and his graft conviction, Najib remained politically influential. His UMNO party leads the current government after defections of lawmakers caused the collapse of Mahathir’s reformist government.
And Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $3.85 mil lion for two Ukraine projects through the Peace and Stabilization Op erations Program. It includes about $2.9 million in funding for ongoing development of Ukraine’s national police force and other emergency services, and about $950,000 to help advise Ukraine’s defense ministry. To date, the US has provided about $10.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including 19 packages of weapons taken directly from Defense Department stocks since August 2021. US defense leaders are also eyeing plans that will expand training for Ukrainian troops outside their country, and for militaries on Eu rope’s eastern and southern flanks that feel most threatened by Rus sia’s aggression.
The Associated Press W ASHINGTON—The National Archives and Records Administration recovered more than 100 documents bearing classified markings, totaling more than 700 pages, from an initial batch of 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, according to newly public government correspondence with the Trump legal team. The numbers make clear the large volume of secret government documents recovered months ago from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, well before FBI officials returned there with a search warrant on Aug. 8 and removed an additional 11 sets of classified records. The warrant reveals an FBI investigation into the potential unlawful possession of the records as well as obstruction of justice. The figures on documents were included in a May 10 letter in which acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall told a lawyer for Trump, Evan Corcoran, that the Biden administration would not be honoring the former president’s protective claims of executive privilege over the Corcorandocuments.had weeks earlier requested additional time to review the materials in the boxes before the National Archives produced them to the FBI so that he could determine whether any specific document was subject to executive privilege and therefore exempt from disclosure, according to the letter. The letter was made public Tuesday on the website of the National Archives. It was released Monday night on a website launched by John Solomon, who was appointed by Trump in June to be one of his designated representatives to the National Archives and who is a Trump ally and conservative journalist. The archivist’s letter says the Justice Department had found “no precedent for an assertion of executive privilege by a former President against an incumbent President to prevent the latter” from obtaining from the National Archives presidential records that belong to the federal government and that are needed for current government business. As a result, the letter said, claims of executive privilege would not be honored and the FBI would be given access to the documents in a matter of days. The National Archives had asked the Justice Department to investigate after saying that it had located classified material among the 15 boxes of records it retrieved from Mar-a-Lago that it said should have been turned over by Trump at the end of his White House tenure. In the letter, archivist Wall writes that in those boxes, the National Archives had identified items marked as classified at the top secret level as well as information about special access programs. It says the records included over 100 documents with classified markings, “comprising more than 700 pages” and cites an excerpt from separate correspondence from the Justice Department’s National Security Division saying that “access to the materials is not only necessary for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation” but also for an “assessment of the potential damage” resulting from the manner in which the documents were transported and stored. Corcoran did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the letter.
US President Barack Obama, second right, stands with Malaysian King Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah, second left, and Malaysian Queen Haminah Hamidun and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak before a State Dinner at National Palace in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 26, 2014. Najib Razak on Tuesday, August 23, 2022 was Malaysia’s first former prime minister to go to prison—a mighty fall for a veteran British-educated politician whose father and uncle were the country’s second and third prime ministers, respectively. The 1MDB financial scandal that brought him down was not just a personal blow but shook the stranglehold his United Malays National Organization party had over Malaysian politics.
By Eileen Ng & Grant Peck The Associated Press
K
The Associated Press writer Farnoush AmiriinWashingtoncontributedtothisreport.
More than 100 classified Trump docs recovered back in January
expert, pointing out that the original “Russia” started as Kievan Rus’ in present-day Ukraine. Is Putin the ultimate “revisionist,” rewriting regional history to suit his agenda? The Russian invasion is a hugely significant and substantial part of current geopolitics that, while part of the aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea, was “unexpected.”
iT is neither unkind nor grossly inaccurate to say that the average government official—and average pundit—has only a little understanding of the overall historical perspective and even less understanding of historic global geopolitics.
“The MSME Growth Stimulus program shows how much we believe and take pride in our local enterprises and entrepreneurs as crucial components in our economic recovery,” Villanueva said. In a statement for this year’s Made in the Philippines Product Week from August 17 to 23, Villanueva batted for continued support for MSMEs, saying local products boost employment, stimulates the economy, and instills hometown and national pride. “Let’s take for example the sweets and delicacies from Bulacan. There’s a unique sense of pride that something that delicious can be made in your hometown, and shared throughout the country and the whole world. Every Filipino should feel that kind of pride,” Villanueva said. In the US, small businesses create two-thirds of new jobs and deliver 43.5 percent of America’s gross domestic product. That’s why President Biden has focused on providing America’s small businesses with the tools and resources they need to reopen, rehire, and build back better. To-date, the Biden administration has distributed more than $400 billion in critical relief to more than six million small businesses. From Goldman Sachs: After extensive research, Goldman Sachs launched the 10,000 Small Businesses UK program in 2010 to specifically address the support gap for small enterprises, helping them to unlock the economic and job creation potential of their businesses. Designed to provide high-quality, practical education and business support to leaders of high-growth small businesses across the country, the program brings together leaders of small businesses from across industry sectors and creates unique networking and peer learning opportunities. It has been proven that the private sector can also play a big part in helping MSMEs grow. Big corporations usually get a lot of attention when it comes to creating jobs, but the DTI said small businesses employ more Filipinos—at least 62 percent of the labor force. With proper support, our MSMEs can be a powerful engine that can create sustainable pathways out of poverty for millions of Filipinos.
The ignorant leading the blind UN chief demands halt to ‘nuclear saber-rattling’
Karl Marx’s political and economic philosophy was based on his theory of history, which has since been called Historical Materialism. And he said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Russia invades Ukraine and everyone suddenly becomes a history
T. C.
www.news.businessmirror@gmail.comThursday, August 25, 2022 • Editor: Angel R. Calso Opinion BusinessMirrorA8
“Most of our MSMEs took massive losses during the pandemic, leading to their closures and laying off employees. Now that the economy is opening up, our MSMEs need booster shots of government aid to keep local goods and services afloat and help MSMEs keep their employees,” Villanueva said, adding that the MSME Growth Stimulus program will provide interest-free loans through the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines. Villanueva’s Senate Bill 138 creates the MSME Stimulus Contingency Fund, which can be implemented for priority job-generating industries affected by disasters, public health emergencies, armed conflict, and other related contingencies such as technological or policy-related disruptions. It also mandates the Department of Finance, through the Social Security System, to provide wage subsidies to cover all or a portion of the wages of the employees of qualified MSMEs affected by said emergencies.
The Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at the College of William & Mary held a poll among international relations scholars the day before the 2014 Crimea annexation, which asked: “Will Russian military forces intervene in Ukraine?” The results were that only 14 percent of the 905 interviewed scholars said “Yes.” Apparently, they had never read this from an English geographer, academic and politician.
By Edith M. Lederer | The Associated Press
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Putin has since said that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a message reiterated by a senior Russian official on the opening day of the NPT conference on August 2. The NPT sought to prevent the spread of nuclear arms beyond the five original nuclear powers— the US, Russia, China, Britain and France —and eventually achieve a nuclear-free world. It requires nonnuclear signatory nations not to pursue atomic weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five powers to move toward nuclear disarmament and to guarantee non-nuclear states’ access to peaceful nuclear technology for producing energy. Gustavo Zlauvinen, president of the NPT review conference, told the Security Council without naming any country that since February “the NPT faces a raft of challenges, the diversity and scope of which are unlike anything that has come before.” It should be no surprise, he said, that concerns have grown on the need for urgent action on disarmament.Zlauvinen, an Argentinian Foreign Ministry official, called “the norm” against using nuclear weapons one of the most important achievements of the post-World War II era, but warned that “it is increasingly threatened.”
editorial Micro, small and medium enterprises are the lifeblood of the economy. Post-pandemic, they are seen playing a vital role in creating jobs and driving economic growth. And they are a really potent force: The Department of Trade and industry said MSMEs comprise 99.5 percent of all businesses in the Philippines, and generate 62.66 percent of the country’s employment in 2020.
Albert Einstein’s discoveries exploded our concepts of time and that the “speed” that it takes for time to “pass” is relative to the speed of an object like you and me is traveling. But until we can reverse ourselves on a timeline, time passes linearly from one event to another. Even with various and numerous cycles on the timeline, today is connected and a result of all the yesterdays. If you don’t know where you came from, you don’t know where you are going. We are like blind tourists on a jungle safari being led by an ignorant guide who does not know the terrain or the path. E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.
He also warned that the current global security environment revived the belief that nuclear weapons provide “the ultimate security guarantee,” calling this “an extremely damaging narrative and dangerous forRussia’snonproliferation.”UNAmbassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council “the international security system is experiencing a profound crisis” and trust between key international players at nearly all the institutions it is based on is at “a critically low level.”
He said Russia called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council Tuesday on what he called Ukrainian provocations at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. He accused “Western countries supporting Ukraine of “essentially helping Kyiv in its attempts of nuclear blackmail” while ignoring shelling of the facility by Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine has accused Russia of using the plant as a military base and shelling it and the surroundings.
“The pivot region of the world’s politics is that vast area of EuroAsia—Russia—which is inaccessible to ships, but in antiquity lay open to the horse-riding nomads, and today is covered with a network of railways. Outside the pivot area, in a great inner crescent, are Germany, Austria, Turkey, India, and China. And in an outer crescent are Britain, South Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada, and Japan. Who rules Eastern Europe commands that Heartland pivot area;
UNiTED NATioNS—Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded a halt to “nuclear saber-rattling” on Monday, saying the world is at a “maximum moment of danger” and all countries with nuclear weapons must make a commitment to “no first-use.”
Unfortunately, MSMEs were the ones hit hardest by the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. The World Economic Forum said the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns in 2020 caused 114 million people to lose their jobs. In the Philippines, Covid wiped out 1.7 million jobs in the 12 months to January 2021, according to the Asian Development Bank. As the country rebounds from the pandemic, solutions are needed to give our MSMEs the support they need to survive and continue to contribute to our economic recovery. In a bid to fast track the recovery of the country’s economy from the pandemic, Senator Joel Villanueva believes the key lies in stimulating MSMEs. That’s why he filed Senate Bill 138, creating the MSME Growth Stimulus Program to extend assistance, strengthen, and facilitate the growth and development of MSMEs for regional job generation. Villanueva said the bill will “help MSMEs become resilient and disaster-proof,” based on the lessons learned from the pandemic and recent economic crises (Read, “Senate bill creates MSME stimulus contingency fund,” in the BusinessMirror, August 22, 2022).
I will assume that you can relate a rather correct history of the Philippines and possibly the world since 1987. You might turn back the clock to 1972 not only for the Marcos declaration of Martial Law but maybe also for the Palestinian terrorists attacking the Israeli team at the 1972 Summer Olympics and President Nixon going to China. Only about five percent of the current global population was even alive when World War 2 ended in 1945. There are about half a million people still alive today that were 16 years or older when the warNationalstarted.and local governments honor those born in 1922 and before with birthday greetings. It may not be chismis, but any information prior to 1922 given to us today is second-hand to us either orally or transcribed.Butthatis not an excuse for being ignorant, dangerously ignorant, especially if you are helping make the decisions for a nation. Why is it important to know what happened in the past? Human free will and a new sunrise every morning should make us realize that we have choices. Even Mark Twain said that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” and we can “rhyme” history almost any way we want.
Anthony
For over 200 years, he said, Western countries have blamed Russia for everything. Nebenzia accused the United States and its allies of “acting in the same reckless and provocative manner in Asia and Africa” as they are in Ukraine. And he said, “the reckless American scheme involving Taiwan is proceeding in the same vein.”
Harnessing the power of the country’s MSMEs
OUTSIDE THE BOX John Mangun
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The UN chief told the UN Security Council that the commitment to dialogue and reason that led to the recent deal restarting grain and fertilizer shipments from Ukraine and Russia must be applied to “the critical situation” at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, where continued shelling and fighting in the area has raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe.Saying“humanity’s future is in our hands today,” Guterres urged all countries “to recommit to a world free of nuclear weapons and to spare no effort to come to the negotiating table to ease tensions and end the nuclear arms race, once and for all.” The secretary-general spoke at a council meeting organized by China, which holds the presidency this month, on “promoting common security through dialogue and cooperation.”Acrossthe world, Guterres said, collective security is being tested as “never before,” pointing to geopolitical divides, conflicts, military coups, invasions, lengthy wars and differences between the world’s great powers, “including at this council.” He also cited “challenges that were unimaginable to our predecessors— cyberwarfare, terrorism, and lethal autonomous weapons.” “And the nuclear risk has climbed to its highest point in decades,” Guterres warned. The council meeting took place during the pandemic-delayed conference to review the 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is considered the cornerstone of international disarmament efforts. It is taking place against the backdrop of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning after his February 24 invasion of Ukraine that Russia is a “potent” nuclear power and any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” and his decision to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island of Euro-Asia; Who rules the World-Island commands theThatworld.”certainly makes sense and explains much about Putin’s actions. But no one should really be surprised since that statement is effectively what is happening today. Halford Mackinder wrote that analysis in a paper presented to Royal Geographic Society in 1904. Note that the expanse of the British Empire, controlling 25 percent of the world’s population, peaked in 1922.
Throughout the capital, there are few overt sign that Russia is engaged in the worst fighting in Europe since World War II. Displays of the letter “Z”—which initially spread as an icon of the fight, replicating the in signia painted on Russian military vehicles—are hardly seen. There are only some scattered posters on bus shelters, showing the impassive face of one soldier or another and the words, “Glory to the heroes of Russia.” The posters give no clue as to what the man did, or where he did it. The public reticence, or denial, about the operation in Ukraine is striking in a country where mili tary exploits are deeply woven into the social fabric. The annexation of Crimea produced almost instant memes, notably images of President Vladimir Putin that called him “the most polite person,” a smug variant on the characterization of Russian troops as polite. Victory Day, mark ing the defeat of Nazi Germany, is obsessively observed with weeks of anticipation.ALamborghini dealership on Ku tuzovsky Prospekt, a main Moscow thoroughfare, still displays a Vic tory Day banner, even though the showroom is dark. Lamborghini pulled out of Russia, along with hundreds of other foreign compa nies that suspended or ended their operations after Russia sent troops intoDarkenedUkraine.storefronts and desert ed spaces in shopping malls that once held popular fast-food outlets such as McDonald’s and Starbucks are the most visible sign of the conflict in Moscow. The companies’ departures were a psychological blow to Mus covites who had become used to the shiny comforts of consumer culture.
Question: Did the Philippines out grow the debt problem and at tain higher level of development by pursuing normal relations with the above creditor institu tions and allocating annually the painful debt service to pay for the debt? By complying with the neo-liberal policy impositions of the IMF-World Bank, has the economy boomed as promised by the economic planners?
Thursday, August 25, 2022 Opinion A9BusinessMirrorwww.news.businessmirror@gmail.com
Danish adoptees call for South Korea to probe adoption issues
The Associated Press
Next to the massive lack of secure and sustainable jobs for 4/5 or 80 percent of the labor force, the next major economic issue that President Bongbong Marcos failed to address in his SONA is the soaring national indebtedness.
By Kim Tong-Hyung | The Associated Press SeOUL, South Korea—Dozens of South Koreans adopted by Danish parents decades ago have formally demanded the South Korean government to investigate their adoptions, which they say were marred by widespread practices that falsified or obscured children’s origins.
MOSCOW—At Moscow’s sprawling Izmailovsky outdoor sou venir market, shoppers can find cups and t-shirts commem orating Russia’s deployment of troops into Ukraine—but from the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. there’s nothing about the “special military operation” that began six months ago. Moscow seeks a ‘sense of normal’ amid Ukraine conflict
By Jim Heintz |
The desire to take vacations has been a peculiar success story for Rus sia’s sense of self-sufficiency in the sanctions era. Denied easy air con nections to Western Europe—in dustry experts say Russian travel to popular Italy has dropped to nearly nothing—Russians have found ex otic domestic destinations, such as Sakhalin Island, 6,300 kilometers (3,900 miles) from Moscow, where tourism reportedly is up 25 per cent; traffic to Baltic Sea beaches in Kaliningrad has reached all time dailyTourismhighs. to Crimea, however, is expected to be about 40 percent lower thanAlthoughusual.
Moscow’s streets show little indication that a conflict is rag ing, the airwaves of full of the news. The flagship news magazine show on state TV, Vesti Nedeli, recently de voted nearly an hour — about half its running time — to the Ukraine oper ation. Lengthy segments painted the Kremlin’s military as highly effec tive, using top-of-the-line weapons. About 60 percent of Russians rely on state television as their main news source, but may find it unreliable. A Levada survey this month found that fully 65 percent of Russians disbe lieve some or all of what they see on state media about Ukraine.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul has up to four months to decide whether to accept the application collectively filed Tuesday by the 53 adoptees. If it does, that could possibly trigger the most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions in the country, which has never fully reconciled the child export frenzy engineered by past military governments that ruled from the 1960s to 1980s. The application cites a broad range of grievances emphasizing how scores of children were carelessly or unnec essarily removed from their families amid loose government monitoring and a lack of due diligence. Perhaps more crucially, the coun try’s special laws aimed at promot ing adoptions practically allowed profit-driven agencies to manipulate records and bypass proper child re linquishment. Most of the South Ko rean adoptees sent abroad were reg istered by agencies as legal orphans found abandoned on the streets, although they frequently had rela tives who could be easily identified and found. This made the children more easily adoptable as agencies raced to send more kids to the West at faster “Nonespeeds.ofus are orphans,” said Peter Møller, attorney and co-head of the Danish Korean Rights Group, as he described the group’s members who filed the application. “(In) a lot of papers, the Korean state at the time have stamped pa pers that say people were found on the streets. If you do a little bit of math, that would mean that from the 1970s and 1980s Seoul would be flooded with baskets with children lying around in the streets.... Base ments will be filled with lost child reports at police stations.” Møller, who was adopted to Den mark in 1974, said about 50 more of the group’s members are expected to join the application and that he plans to come back to South Korea with their files in September. The complaints by adoptees that filed the application include inac curate or falsified information in adoption papers that distort their biological origins, such as wrong birth names, dates or locations, or details about birth parents. Some of the adoptees say they discovered that the agencies had switched their identities to replace other children who died or got too sick to travel to Danish parents, which made it highly difficult or of ten impossible to trace their roots. The adoptees called for the com mission to broadly investigate the alleged wrongdoings surround ing their adoptions, including how agencies potentially falsified re cords, manipulated children’s back grounds and origins, and proceeded with adoptions without the proper consent of birth parents. They want the commission to establish whether the government should be held ac countable for failing to monitor the agencies and confirm whether the uptick in adoptions was fueled by increasingly larger payments and donations from adoptive parents, which apparently motivated agencies to create their own supply. The adoptees also called for the commission to push Holt Children’s Services and the Korea Social Ser vice—the two agencies that sent kids to Denmark—into providing full access to the entirety of their adoption documents and back ground information. They also say all those records should be trans ferred to government authorities handling post-adoption services to prevent the information from being destroyed or manipulated. South Korean adoptees for years have been criticizing agencies over what they see as a lack of transpar ency and an unwillingness to open records. Møller said some adoptees in Denmark remain reluctant to join the application out of fear that the agencies might destroy their records. Holt didn’t answer repeated calls seeking comment. The KSS deferred all questions to Holt, the bigger agency.Holt already has an ongoing legal battle with US adoptee Adam Craps er, who in 2019 filed a 200 million won ($150,000) damage suit against the agency and the South Korean gov ernment for failing to follow through on his adoption and ensure that his American parents naturalized him. After being abused and abandoned by two different sets of American parents, Crapser was deported in 2016 following run-ins with the law because none of his guardians filed citizenship papers for him. The Danish adoptees initially considered filing a lawsuit against the agencies or South Korean gov ernment before dropping the idea because South Korean law puts the burden of proof entirely on the plaintiffs in civil cases. If the truth commission decides to investigate the adoptions, its findings could later be used by adoptees in possible damage suits against the agencies or government, said Philsik Shin, a Seoul-based scholar who helped the adoptees prepare the application. About 200,000 South Koreans were adopted overseas during the past six decades, mainly to white parents in the United States and Eu rope. Denmark was one of the big gest destinations for South Korean children in Europe, receiving about 9,000 adoptees — most of them from the 1960s to late 1980s when South Korea was ruled by consecutive mili taryDuringgovernments.theheight of the adop tions in the late 1970s and mid1980s, agencies aggressively solic ited newborns or young children from hospitals and orphanages, often in exchange for payments, and operated maternity homes where single mothers were pressured to give away their babies. Adop tion workers toured factory areas and low-income neighborhoods in search of struggling families who could be persuaded to give away theirThechildren.agencies were run by board members close to military lead ers, who saw adoptions as a tool to reduce the number of mouths to feed and to remove the socially undesirable, including children from unwed mothers. Adoptions were also aimed at deepening ties with the democratic West amid a fierce regime competition with ri val North Korea, according to the military governments’ documents obtained by AP.
Dr.EXERCENSReneE.Ofreneo
The Philippines stands out in the world as having such an aberration of a law, an automatic debt service law prioritizing debt servicing over education, health and social protec tion. Will the Senate under Migz Zubiri and the House under Martin Romualdez then review this budget process, which prioritizes repaying debt over the social development needs of the country? Is it also not timely for the Sen ate, House and Malacañang to un dertake a thorough review—and audit—of the debt management program and processes in place? Right now, there are worrying de velopments aside from the forego ing nasty debt-over-social-needs budgeting process. First, the total national debt has ballooned to literally stratospheric high. When President Duterte as sumed office in 2016, the figure for the total national debt was P6 tril lion. His administration managed to double it by the end of 2021. And today, we are headed towards P13.4 trillion by the end of 2022, per DBM data.Note that all the post-EDSA ad ministrations (Corazon Aquino, Fi del Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquino) had to allocate, using PD 1177, a great percentage of the annual national budget, from a quarter to even half or more of the total budget, just to maintain the so-called “creditworthiness” of the country. In the process of maintaining “normal” relations with the IMF-World Bank group and its allied creditor institu tions (ODA-lending bilateral/mul tilateral institutions and multina tional banks), the Philippines had to implement a development program that hews closely to the neo-liberal development framework favored by these institutions: roughly a laborintensive export-oriented industrial development propped up the triad economic programs of trade/invest ment liberalization, deregulation of various economic sectors and privati zation of select government corpora tions and public services (e.g., water, power,Question:etc.). Did the Philippines outgrow the debt problem and at tain higher level of development by pursuing normal relations with the above creditor institu tions and allocating annually the painful debt service to pay for the debt? By complying with the neoliberal policy impositions of the IMF-World Bank, has the economy boomed as promised by the eco nomicOneplanners?canendlessly debate with the pro-debt and pro-neo-lib economists the answer/s to these questions. However, one cannot deny that the decades of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were decades when the Phil ippines was left behind by our Asian neighbors—first, by the four tigers (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong); second, by Ma laysia and Thailand; and then, by China and India. For trade unions and civil society organizations, the 1980s-2000s were lost decades of development. And if there were high growth records from the turn of the millennium to the present, credit goes to the millions of hard-working overseas Filipino workers, who keep saving as much as they can just to be able to send as much remittances to their families at home. Now that the national debt has ballooned to a debt-to-GDP ratio of around 65 percent, the critical issue being raised by various sectors is the sustainability of the country’s debt situation, which naturally affects the economy as a whole and the well be ing of the population. It is worrying to hear the economic technocrats reassuring everyone that there will be no debt explosion similar to what happened in the early 1980s or what is happening in some Asian coun tries such as Sri Lanka. Worrying because they are not articulating any new programs aimed at liberat ing the country from a pattern of debt-remittance-driven economic development.Thequestions they should an swer: Is debt sustainable? Can we avoid the scenario that the decade of the 2020s will be another decade of lost development, just like what happened in the 1980s-2000s? Dr. Rene E. Ofreneo is a Professor Emeritus of the University of the Philippines. For comments, please write to reneofreneo@ gmail.com.
“At first, we were very disappoint ed,” said Yegor Driganov, a young man taking in the view along the riverbank opposite Moscow City, a cluster of gleaming towers that in cludes four of Europe’s five tallest buildings. “But stores started to ap pear to replace them.”
The DBM media releases on the proposed national budget for 2023 stoked renewed debates on the sus tainability of the public debt. The allocation for the debt service is a whopping P1.6 trillion, or nearly one-third of the proposed P5.3 trillion budget for 2023. This debt service is almost double the P852 billion being proposed for educa tion, in clear violation of the Con stitutional provision that “The State shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education” (Section 5.5 of Article Incidentally,XIV). the health sector gets P296 billion, while social pro tection under DSWD is given P197 billion. Thus the debt service alloca tion (P1.6 trillion) still dwarfs the combined budget (P1.34 trillion) for education, health and social protection.Byproposing the gargantuan P1.3 trillion for debt service, the DBM is clearly oblivious of what the Constitution says on education and budgeting. Instead, it is keenly ob serving the provisions of an old law issued during the martial law period of the 1970s: Presidential Decree 1177. This Marcosian law states that expenditures on the debt service for public debt, principal and interest, are “automatically appropriated” in the national budget.
“There are a lot of (media) sources” to counter state TV, said Driganov, relaxing along the river. Many of those sources, however, can be accessed only through a VPN, or virtual private network. Russia has banned or blocked an array of foreign news media, bullied criti cal domestic media into closing and banned use of Facebook and Twitter. In a repressive environment, as sessing the population’s views as a whole, even by an internationally respected pollster such as Levada, is uncertain.Levadapolling found about 75 percent of Russians support the mili tary operation, but less than half do so unconditionally.Someoftheequivocators probably expressed support “just in case, fear ing repercussions for themselves,” said Levada director Denis Volkov. Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tal linn, Estonia, contributed.
LABOREM
The complaints by adoptees that filed the application include inac curate or falsified information in adoption papers that distort their biological origins, such as wrong birth names, dates or locations, or details about birth parents. Some of the adoptees say they discovered that the agencies had switched their identities to replace other children who died or got too sick to travel to Danish parents, which made it highly difficult or often impossible to trace their roots.
Debt: Another lost decade of development in the making?
Former McDonald’s and Star bucks outlets were acquired by Rus sian entrepreneurs who speedily moved to reopen with almost carboncopy“Weoperations.walkaround, go around as usual,” said Driganov’s companion, Polina Polishchuk, characterizing the city’s Althoughmood.the belief that Russia can create homegrown alternatives to businesses that left has become an article of faith among officials, many Russians have private doubts. A survey by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent pollster, found that 81 percent of Russians believe the country will be able to replace foreign food operations with domestic alternatives, while only 41% think local industries can fully sub stitute for electronic goods and only a third believe domestic car production can make up for the loss of imports. The automotive industry was slammed by sanctions that dried up the supply of parts. The state statistics service said car produc tion in May had fallen a punishing 97 percent from the same month in 2021. Putin recently admitted Rus sia’s shipyards are also suffering sup plyTheshortages.panic that swept Russia in the immediate aftermath of broad Western sanctions and foreign com panies abandoned the country has abated. The ruble, which lost half of its value against the dollar right after the sanctions, not only rebounded but also rose to levels not seen in years. But if that’s good for national pride, it’s a burden on export-reliant industries whose products became moreRussia’scostly.economic prospects are far from clear amid crosscutting statistics. Unemployment is down, contrary to many predictions. But the gross domestic product fell a sharp 4 percent in the second quarter of the year—the first full period of fight ing—and is predicted to contract by nearly 8 percent for the full year. In flation is calculated to be 15 percent for the year. “It seems to me that it’s obvious to everyone that it won’t be as it was before,” Central Bank of Russia head Elvira Nabiullina warned the St. Pe tersburg International Economic Forum, an annual showpiece gath ering aimed at investors. “External conditions have changed for a long time indeed, if not forever.” But if impending economic trou bles are obvious, they don’t appear to be causing wide anxiety. Izmailovsky souvenir vendor Mikhail Sukhorukov shrugged off concerns, even though European sanctions on air travel to Russia have cut off much of the tourist trade that was important to him. “It’s periodi cal, like a wave,” he said, adding that he chose to be sanguine rather than “go to the “Moscowcemetery.”leadsits normal life be cause people are trying to preserve their sense of normal and relative psychological comfort,” said Nikolai Petrov, a senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eur asia Program. “Russia is at full steam heading toward a dead end and the people, by and large, prefer not to think about it and live their lives.” Petrov also suggested that Mus covites are amid a “summer effect ... when a person not so much watches what is happening in the world, even in a neighboring country, but rather builds his own reality with family, vacationing and so on.”
“ The government will consider integrating appropriate responses and measures to these issues in the 2023-2028 Philippine Develop ment Plan that the National Eco nomic and Development Author ity headed by Secretary Arsenio Balisacan is presently formulating,” Marcos said. A side from employers, he said the government will also consider the position of the labor groups in crafting the said plan. T he new PDP, he said, will help provide the “enabling environ ment” to help employers rapidly generate more jobs, which are “de cent, productive, remunerative, green and freely chosen.”
C OMPANIES can address“micro-credentialing”considertomanpowershort age while awaiting reforms that would produce workers with digital skills, according to Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual. A t the 43rd National Confer ence of Employers in Pasay City on Wednesday, the Trade chief emphasized that, “[Under] The K to 12 educational program … basic education is supposed to produce graduates who are technologically and technically qualified to work.” But, Pascual said, it “has not hap pened to a great extent” for many reasons, including the availability of competent teachers. In relation to this, he noted, “it will take a long time for this to be solved.” Still, he said, there could be a short-term solution for the man power shortage: “So the shortcut is for companies themselves to do thePtraining.” ascualunderscored that the re quired training to be conducted by the companies should only revolve around the job of the employee.
“ These days, the training they need is very focused; as long as you get a literate candidate for employ ment, you can provide intensive training for a few weeks … focus only on the job to be done,” said Pascual, partly in Filipino.
T he Department of Foreign Af fairs had no reaction on the state ment of solidarity of the 19 ambas sadors. DFA Assistant Secretary Eduardo Meñez said DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo sent the customary greetings to his Ukrainian counter part, Dmytro Kuleba. W hen reached for com ment, press attaché Nina Praka povich of the Russian Embassy in Manila said they have no comment as of press time on the joint state ment of support for Ukraine.
The three major sets of issues in your agenda are therefore included not only in DOLE’s (Department of Labor and Employment) priorities, but in the development priorities of the government as a whole,” Marcos said in his speech addressed to the NCR participants. Foremost on the agenda from By Andrea E. San Juan
PRESIDENT Ferdinand“Bongbong”R.Marcos, Jr. has vowed to include the top three priority agenda of employers in the 2023-2028 Philippine Development Plan (PDP). Marcos to Ecop: PDP will carry your 3 priority agenda
T he Ukrainian Parliament de clared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991, confirmed by the people’s over whelming support in a referendum four months later. Coincidentally, Ukraine’s Inde pendence Day this year marked the sixth month of the Russia-Ukraine war which started February 24, 2022. “ Today, as we commemorate the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, and in light of the ongoing brutal, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, we have greater resolve than ever to stand with Ukraine and affirm its right to uphold its sover eignty and territorial integrity, to defend itself, and to choose its own future,” the diplomats declared.
By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla
T he Trade chief said that some countries with successful K to 12 programs in basic education award a college degree in just two or three years. Specifically, in Singapore and other countries around that, Engi neering will require only four years while the Philippines’s Engineering program still takes five years. Pas cual said, “we have to move towards that direction.” He also recommended omitting the general education courses in college, saying that these general courses should only be taken in the K to 12 curriculum. In college, he said, “focus only on the major sub jects and you don’t need to cover a wide range.” T he subjects should be job-ori ented. Pascual served as President and co-chair of the University of the Philippines from 2011 to 2017. W ith scarce resources economic problems, locally and globally, pil ing up, the Trade chief thinks it would be efficient to be job-orient ed and zero in on specific skills in terms of training employees, down from their K to 12 years up until their higher education years.
business groups is for the govern ment to come out with “reasonable regulations” for alternative work arrangements, the effective use of the wage fixing mechanism and promotion of productivity. T hey are also pushing to upskill workers for the demands of the 21st century workplace through “responsive training courses and certification standards,” and im proving the labor market and em ployment facilitation networks as well as to set up help desks to support start up businesses and their workers. M arcos said he hopes the NCE, which was organized by the Em ployers Confederation of the Phil ippines (Ecop), will help the private sector come out with “doable solu tions,” which can be included in the new PDP and DOLE’s National Labor and Employment Plan.
“As a modern market economy, we count on the private sector, es pecially on employers and business organizations like Ecop to create and generate jobs. For its part, the government is fully committed to establish the policy environment to enable the private sector to do so,” Marcos said.
PERKS SHIFT TO BOI IN WFH
REGISTRY MAY
" We do support the statement that the Russian invasions affect greatly food security and political security in Asian region and all over the world. We will be pleased if Fili pinos could support and help in the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine,” he added.
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T he Philippines, he said, could take a leaf from Taiwan since it has semiconductor companies that are training experts “by the thousands” in semiconductor technology, for deployment “partly in the Philip pines but more so in Japan.” “ If the Japanese companies and Taiwanese companies are investing in training people so they can have skilled workers in their plants, we might as well do the same,” Pascual pointed out. Such a move will require some volume of investments but Pascual stressed that investment will surely payPoff. ascual aligned his remarks on focusing on job-specific skills with the country’s higher education sys tem, saying that “the trend now in higher education is to shorten the number of years needed to get a college degree.”
T he ambassadors said they will refuse to recognize Russia’s contin ued attempts to “re-draw borders by force,” which they insisted are a “blatant violation of international law” as well as of the United Nations Charter.Russia’s aggression, they said, has impacted the world, including the Filipino people.
By Malou Talosig-Bartolome @maloutalosig N INETEEN foreign envoys, led by the United States and the European Union, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said it further hurt the poorest among the poor in the Philippines who are still reeling from the economic effects of the pandemic. “Theconsequences of Russia’s illegal war are keenly felt in the Philippines, through increases in the prices of fuel, food, fertilizer and other essential commodities. These effects are exacerbating poverty during a critical period of the country’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic,” the 19 diplomats based in Manila said in a joint statement. T he 19 ambassadors plenipoten tiary and extraordinary and chargé d’affaires a.i. from Australia, Bel gium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Ger many, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Delega tion of the European Union to the Philippines issued the statement to show their “steadfast solidarity with Ukraine” on the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence.
U kraine's non-resident charge d’affaires to the Philippines Denys Mykhailiuk welcomed the state ment of support from his diplo matic colleagues in Manila. We are very pleased at their state ment of like-minded countries in the Philippines, of their efforts to spread the word of truth in Asia,” Mykhai luk told Business Mirror in a phone interview from Kuala Lumpur.
I n his speech at the first day of the 43rd National Conference of Employers (NCE) on Wednesday, which was read by Labor and Em ployment Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma, Marcos took note of the private sector’s demands, as he con siders them a crucial government partner for economic development.
A10 Thursday, August 25, 2022
19 envoys score Russia on Ukraine’s natl day EXPO Sen. Mark Villar, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship, is shown with event mascots during the opening of the Livestock Philippines Expo 2022 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. Livestock Philippines brings together more than 280 exhibitors from 30 countries representing the entire feed, livestock and aquaculture value chains from across the Philippines and its neighboring countries. BERNARD TESTA
“ In light of this, we continue to commit to demonstrating global sol idarity through working to address the international repercussions of Russia’s aggression, especially on the most vulnerable,” they said. We will also continue our in ternational support to democratic institutions and advancing com mon values and principles, includ ing free media and countering dis information and interference in democratic processes,” they added. We reaffirm our strong oppo sition to any unilateral action that seeks to undermine the interna tional rules-based system that un derpins global peace, prosperity, and security. We continue to call on all states to join the growing chorus of condemnation for Russia’s aggres sion against Ukraine,” they added.
Continued on A5 LIVESTOCK
THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is looking to shift incentives registration from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) to the Board of Investments (BOI) as it aims to ad dress work from home issues. The pandemic has shown that work from home for [business pro cess outsourcing] BPOs could be a viable alternative. In fact, it’s a preferred alternative by many em ployees in the BPO sector,” Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual said at the 43rd National Conference of Employers in Pasay City. With this, the Trade chief bared that they are already addressing the issue and certain solutions are being considered, such as “the possibility of shifting incentives registration from PEZA to [Board of Invest ments] BOI,” among others. Pascual noted that “BOI is not subjected to the same rule about the portion of the business that can be done outside PEZA-regis tered enterprises.” T he Trade chief noted that an other solution being looked at is the amendment of a certain law. He said they are trying to see if it is an “efficient way” of addressing the work from home (WFH) issue. I n a statement released last June 29 by the IT and Busi ness Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), President and CEO Jack Madrid said the organization believes that longterm implementation of WFH or hybrid work can be better ad dressed through the continued study and eventual amendment of Section 309 of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) law, or the possible revision of the applica ble portions of its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR). In June, Madrid said amending the said provision will be an im portant undertaking that IBPAP and its partners in the govern ment will jointly and collabora tively work on for the global com petitiveness of the Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry. I n fact, just last Tuesday, at a virtual event which Madrid at tended, he said he is hopeful that IBPAP, along with the Depart ment of Labor and Employment (DOLE) could harmonize the Telecommuting Act with Section 309 of the CREATE law. R epublic Act No. 11165 or the Telecommuting Act aims to protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare, especially in the light of technological de velopments that have opened up new and alternative avenues for employees to carry out their work, such as telecommuting and other flexible work arrangements.
incan‘Micro-credentialing’easelaborcrunchshortterm–DTI
T he Trade chief said he is pro moting in our country’s educational system the so-called “micro-cre dentialing,” a process where short courses only take a few weeks or few months focusing only on spe cific skills, which can then be the basis for hiring people. He cited the case of Taiwan, where companies are now recruit ing high school graduates and spon sor them in colleges or universities in Taiwan for Engineering courses. Upon graduation, there is guaran teed employment.
Andrea E. San Juan
Another solar power project of Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), the power generation arm of Manila electric Co. (Meralco), will be added to its portfolio to meet its target renewable energy (r e) capacity of 1,500 megawatts (MW) in the next 7 years.
to address the issues which have been raised by certain legislators and the national telecommunications Commission (n tC) on the proposed investment by ABS-CBn for a minority interest in t V5, ABS-CBn and t V5 have agreed to a pause in their closing preparations. t his pause will give the space for both media organizations to respond to the issues, and accommodate any relevant changes to the terms,” ABSCBn said on Wednesday. ABS-CBn is acquiring 6.46 million primary common shares, equivalent to 34.99 percent of capital and voting stock, in t V5, valued at P2.16 billion.Both said that the deal will have a favorable impact on Philippine media, and on free-to-air television, which remains the most affordable and extensive source of entertainment and public service to Filipinos.
ABS-CBN, TV5 pause deal as solons question tie-up
Speaking before senators, CocaCola’s Director for Corporate and regulatory Affairs Juan Lorenzo tañada revealed that that its imported sugar supply sourced via Sugar order (So) 3 has been depleted. tañada said Coca-Cola got an allocation of 10,000 metric tons (Mt ) out of the 200,000 Mt authorized for importation under So 3. “We got our 10,000-Mt allocation and it was all used up in only two to three days’ time,” he told the Senate Blue r ibbon Committee on tuesday. tañada said Coca-Cola felt the “scarcity” of bottlers’ grade refined sugar at the start of the year. he added that the bottling firm was forced to purchase available sugar stocks even at higher prices. “We still do not have access [today] to bottlers’ grade sugar,” he said. t his is now the worst [shortage] in my 7 years in the Coke system.
Among those who graced the event were Governor Matthew Marcos Manatoc and Vice Governor Cecillia Araneta-Marcos of the Provincial Government of Ilocos norte, and Mayor edward Quilala and Vice Mayor Sandra Cabreros of the Municipality of Currimao.
By Lenie Lectura @llectura A BS-CBN Corp. and TV5 Network Inc. have agreed to put on hold the completion of their partnership deal. on solar project
e a rlier, n t C Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said ABS-CBn would have to “clear violations and obligations” before proceeding with its investment in t V5. Also, some lawmakers opposed the deal. t hey raised possible violations on foreign ownership of t V5 and ABS-CBn s block time agreement. terry r idon, Infrawatch Ph convenor, said the transaction does not require the prior approval of Congress as this does not involve the sale of controlling shares of t V5 to another entity. “It is our view that this transaction is not a competition concern, as both entities are not the dominant players in the broadcast sector.” ABS-CBn went off the air in May 2020 following a cease-and-desist order by the n tC due to the expiration of its legislative franchise. t hereafter, the house Committee on Legislative Franchises rejected its application for a new 25-year franchise. r idon added that the deal does not violate any ntC regulation. “ t he new government should take notice that this transaction is entirely distinct from the franchise proceedings in the previous government, and if it is truly committed to its call for unity among our people, it should step aside and let this transaction proceed and allow all voices to be broadcast, no matter how inconvenient or discordant these voices may be.”
Ng Companies B1Thursday, August 25, 2022
Editor: Jennifer A.
Continued on B2 The Philippine Stock e xc hange Inc. (PSe) is hosting this year’s edition of the road to IPo which will feature topics and key strategic considerations related to initial public offerings (IPo) t he virtual event scheduled on September 15 aims to gather business owners who would like to know more about the benefits of IPo listing and the requirements and processes in successfully conducting a maiden share offering to the public. “We have had a robust IPo since last year. With more companies inquiring how they can tap the equities market for capital to fund their expansion, we deemed it was essential to offer a more comprehensive road to IPo program,” PSe President and Ceo r amon S. Monzon said in a statement.theforum will showcase the IPo success stories of select listed companies. Featured speakers in this segment are herbert M. Consunji, DMCI holdings Inc. founding director, CFo and executive vice president; Francisco C. Sebastian, Gt Capital holdings Inc. chairman; and Lance Y. Gokongwei, JG Summit holdings Inc.’s president and Ceo VG Cabuag
PSE to host forumIPO CCBPI: Sugar shortage hurts operations ‘No franchise violations in ABS-CBN-TV5 transaction’ BusinessMirror file photo
BusinessMirror
By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie AV e ter A n lawmaker on Wednesday said no franchise law was violated in the “investment agreement” between t V5 network Inc. and ABS-CBn Corp. and that the transaction is exempted from compulsory notification to the Philippine Competition CommissionAlbay(PCC).r ep. edcel Lagman said he wrote a letter to house Speaker Martin romualdez last Monday following the privilege speech of Sagip rep. rodante Marcoleta questioning the “merger” of t V5 network Inc. and ABS-CBn “First, the deal is not a merger where one entity absorbs another or two entities fuse to form a new one as defined by the Philippine Competition Act or republic Act [r A] no 10667. t V5 and ABS-CBn remain separate and independent juridical entities,” Lagman said. According to Lagman, the transaction of P4.45 billion is less than the transaction value threshold of P50 billion under the Bayanihan to recover as one Act (Bayanihan 2) or r A 1144. he also said “acquisition” does not apply to the transaction as defined in Section 4 of the “Philippine Competition Act” because ABS-CBn does not acquire control of t V5. “Consequently, the said transaction is exempt from the compulsory notification and approval by the Philippine Competition Commission.” t he speech of Marcoleta was the agenda of the house Committee on Legislative Franchises and house Committee on trade and Industry during its Wednesday briefing. During the briefing, PCC of ficerin-Charge Johannes Bernabe told lawmakers that ABS-CBn and t V5 have yet to inform them of their transaction.however, he admitted that the transaction between the ABS-CBn and t V is not notifiable, and does not meet the value under Bayanihan 2. “even if it’s not notifiable because it does not meet the threshold under the law, it does not preclude the parties from voluntarily notifying the PCC,” said Bernade, saying the PCC has the power to conduct a review on its own initiative to assess the impact of the transaction on the industry.
By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas CoC A CoL A Beverage Philippines Inc. (CCBPI) confirmed to the BusinessMirror that its bottling operations have been hit by the shortage of premium bottler’s grade refined sugar.
“We are grateful to the government of Currimao and Ilocos n o rte for their continued support for our second project here, and we look forward to delivering it on time safely for the benefit of the nation and our host communities,” said n e hria. Vena energy is a leading renewable energy company in the AsiaPacific region that owns, develops, constructs, operates, manages, and commercializes a renewable energy portfolio totaling 18 gigawatts of solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, battery energy storage, and hybrid r e Inprojects.2021,MGen commenced commercial operations of BulacanSol’s 55 MWsolar plant in San Miguel, Bulacan, followed by the construction of another 75 MW solar project in Baras, r i zal through Ph renewables,Meanwhile,Inc. Meralco said it has adopted a sustainability scorecard covering the utility firm’s entire value chain. t he Meralco Supplier Sustainability Scorecard (MS3) was established as a tool to assess suppliers and contractors on key environmental, social, and governance (eSG) criteria, while using the United nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (Un SDGs) and the Global reporting Initiative (Gr I) Standards as guiding principles.MS3provides Meralco a comprehensive view of its business partners’ eSG performance and is now incorporated in the company’s vendor accreditation process. Lenie Lectura
Marcoleta, who opposed the renewal of the franchise of ABS-CBn claimed that t V5 has violated its franchise by entering into a deal with ABS-CBn A ccording to Marcoleta, the ABS-CBn should settle all their obligations before “riding” on another station’s franchise.
MGen r e newable e nergy Inc. (MGreen), a wholly-owned r e unit of MGen, and partner Vena energy, said on Wednesday the construction of the 68 MW solar project in Currimao, Ilocos norte is on track. t he project is set to complete energization by the end of 2022, and commence commercial operations by the first quarter of 2023. “We are looking forward to commencing its operations soon and witnessing how it would help advance economic progress and create better lives for all,” said MGen President and Ceo Jaime t Azurin. MGreen entered into a partnership with Vena energy last February for the development, construction and operation of this new solar project.“Wehope that through our partnership with MGreen, this project will play an important role in accelerating the energy transition in the Philippines,” Vena energy Philippines head Samrinder nehria said. t hey recently held a ceremony to lay a time capsule in celebration of the continued progress and on-track construction.“todayisa celebration of both small and big wins, and even the trials we have successfully overcome along the way. We are most grateful for the continued support of the local government of Currimao and Ilocos norte, and to everyone working on the ground for the timely accomplishment of this solar facility with Vena energy,” said Azurin.
Meralco unit starts work
“CCBPI confirms that the supply shortage of bottler’s grade sugar has affected the capability of some of our bottling plants to continue producing some products,” the company said in a statement emailed to the BusinessMirror on Wednesday. CCBPI said it is “doing everything” to “minimize” the impact of the sugar shortage on its product line and“Weemployees.aredoing everything we can to minimize supply disruption and the impact of supply shortage to our bottling operations,” it said. “We are also continuing to work with the government and the broader sugar industry sector to arrive at a sustainable solution for the benefit of the small retailers who also rely on our products’ availability for their livelihoods.”ontuesday, Sugar r egulatory Administration (Sr A) chief David John t haddeus Alba assured CCBPI that it is fast-tracking the importation of additional bottler’s grade refinedAlbasugar.confirmed to the BusinessMirror that Coca-Cola’s supply of bottler’s grade refined sugar for its plants has been depleted, which led to the shutdown of some of its plants. however, Alba said Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines Inc., the maker of Pepsi products, and A rC refreshments Corp., producer of rC Cola, still have bottler’s grade refined sugar.“We acknowledge that there is a shortage as far as refined sugar being used primarily by the beverage industry. Coke has no sugar available for its plants while Pepsi and rC still have sugar in their warehouses,” he said. “We are currently consolidating the data as to how much is really needed so we can recommend the necessary actions we need to take to the President. t he Sugar Board just took office and we ask our industry partners to indulge us with some time so we can address this issue based on established facts.”
“I write on behalf of my constituents and concerned citizens about the looming house investigation which may result in the derogation of press freedom and free speech, the bedrock of democratic governments,” Lagman told the speaker. Lagman said the transaction between t V5 and ABS-CBn has generated “baseless innuendoes which must be clarified and corrected.”
BusinessMirror A6www.businessmirror.com.ph Thursday, August 25, 2022
Banking&Finance
THE Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) announced last Wednesday that it will open an emergency loan program for members and pensioners affected by severe tropical storm
Florita.AGSIS member who has an existing emergency loan balance may borrow up to P40,000 to pay off their previous emergency loan balance and still receive a maximum net amount of P20,000, the GSIS said in a statement. Those without existing emergency loan may apply for P20,000. Pensioners may likewise apply for a P20,000Activeloan.members residing or working in affected areas as well as oldage and disability pensioners based in the same areas may apply for the loan after the areas have been declared under a state of calamity. Qualified to apply are members who are in active service and not on leave of absence without pay; have at least three months of paid premiums within the last six months; have no pending administrative or criminal case; and have a net take-home pay of not lower than P5,000 after all required monthly obligations have been“Asidededucted.fromemergency loan, our members may avail of the Multipurpose Loan [MPL] Plus, which has a loan ceiling of up to P5 million,” GSIS President and General Manager Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso was quoted in the statement as saying. “Pensioners, on the other hand, may borrow up to 6-months’ worth of their pension under our enhanced Pension Loan program or up to P500,000.”
THE Department of Finance (DOF) expects the government to earn P37.52 billion in revenues from the passage of its proposed bill on the rationalization of the mining fiscal regime in the country. ore “to encourage downstream and value-adding processing and proper valuation of minerals.” On good governance, Brion said the department also seeks to institutionalize an Extractive Industries Transparency and Accountability mechanism for the full public disclosure of extractive industry information, including tax and revenue data in the extractives value chain, following best practices in the open, accountable, and good governance of mineral“Thisresources.willallow public monitoring when information is publicly available. A multi-stakeholder group composed of representatives from government, industry and civil society shall provide oversight on the implementation of these transparency and accountability mechanism,” sheInterestingly,said. the Philippine government in the latter part of the Duterte administration withdrew from a global initiative on extractives transparency, assailing the body’s “unfair” metrics and procedures for assessing the countries’ compliance with its requirements.
BIR backs DOF stance NONETHELESS, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) backed the DOF’s position on the proposed rationalization of the mining fiscal regime during the committee hearing. “The inclusions of these amendments in the Tax Code will make it clear the tax treatment of the large-scale mining and also the fiscal regime, your Honor, for efficient task collection and enforcement on the part of the BIR,” BIR Officer-in-Charge Assistant Commissioner for Legal Service Larry M. Barcelo said. The BIR also reported that the government’s basic share from mining taxes, fees, and royalties, reached P40.1 billion from 2018 to 2021.
BSP OKs full operation of 6 licensed digibanksIndonesia
In June this year, the DOF said then Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III formally expressed the country’s decision to pull out from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which prescribes a standard for transparency and accountability in the mining, oil, and gas industries. Extractive companies in countries implementing EITI are engaged to publicly disclose data on taxes, royalties, and other payments they make to the government and their host communities.
The spread between Indonesia’s 5- and 10-year papers has narrowed “We’ve been doing this so far and the result has been quite positive,” Warjiyo said. “We’ve seen yield differential getting more attractive, inflows starting to return and supporting our exchange rate in the pastAtmonth.”thesame time, the bank will buy up long-term debt papers to flatten the yield curve and lower borrowing costs for the government. The pace and magnitude of the operation will depend on market conditions, he said.
GSIS to open ₧20,000-loan window for members, pensioners affected by Florita
“This addresses the complexity of the current fiscal regime, which depends on whether the mine is operating within or outside a mineral reservation, and whether it is operated under a mineral production sharing agreement, an MPSA or a financial and technical assistance agreement or what we call the FTAA,” she said. On top of this, the DOF is also pushing for the imposition of a royalty rate of 5 percent applicable to all large-scale mining operations since only those located in mineral reservation are currently subject to royaltyBrionpayment.saidthiswill generate incremental revenue of about P5 billion. On fair share, the DOF proposes to impose a minimum government share when the basic government share is less than 60 percent of the net mining revenue, pointing out that this is only applicable to FTAAs.TheDOF also wants the government to impose a 10-percent export tax on the gross value of mineral
New Pagcor board sworn into office PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. swore into office the new members of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation in simple oath-taking ceremonies held recently. The state-run gaming firm will have as its new Chairman and CEO Alejandro H. Tengco, while appointed as President and COO is lawyer Juanito L. Sañosa Jr. Comprising the new members of the Board of Directors are Gilbert Cesar C. Remulla, Francis Democrito C. Concordia and Jose Maria C. Ortega.
debuts ‘Operation Twist to lure funds, guard rupiah
Yields on Indonesia’s fiveyear government bond climbed 5.2 basis points on Wednesday, while those on the 10-year paper fell 9.1 basis points. The rupiah weakened 0.7 percent to 14,848 to the Operationdollar.Twist would build on a similar exercise by Bank Indonesia to start selling off short-dated securities in July, part of its move to begin unwinding purchases over the last two years to help the government fund pandemic stimulus. Warjiyo said the bank has sold off 17.4 trillion rupiah ($1.2 billion) so far. “The big unknown is the quantum and pace of BI’s bond sale,” Australia & New Zealand Banking Group economist Krystal Tan and strategist Jennifer Kusuma said. They estimate that BI has about 600 trillion rupiah of bonds due in less than five years, or half of their total holdings, with about 410 trillion rupiah being low-coupon debt bought under the burden-sharing program.Bank Indonesia may have to step up its interventions through Operation Twist as a more hawkish Federal Reserve could heap pressure on the currency, according to Reny Eka Putri, a quantitative analyst at PT Bank Mandiri Tbk. The rupiah may need to be kept around its current level of 14,700 to 15,000 rupiah in order to temper rising inflation, sheThesaid.central bank said the operation has shown early success as foreign funds started pouring into government bonds, with $1.4 billion inflows seen so far this month. Global investors have pulled money out of the notes for the previous five months.
Bill sees govt earning ₧37.52B from new mining fiscal regime
Microfinance institution plowing ahead vs Covid Opening account requires aegis vs scams–survey
By Bianca Cuaresma @BcuaresmaBM THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced last Wednesday that all six licensed digital banks in the Philippines may now pursue full operations, after the regulator issued to each of the two remaining digital banks a Certificate of Authority to Operate.Inastatement, the Central Bank said the most recent recipients were UnionDigital Ban Inc. and GoTyme Bank Corp., which obtained their certificates last July 12 and 29, respectively.Inthefirst quarter of 2022, the BSP authorized Tonik Digital Bank Inc. and Maya Bank Inc. to operate as digital banks, while Overseas Filipino Bank Inc., A Digital Bank of LandBank and UNObank Inc. were authorized during the second quarter of Digital2022.banks have no physical branches. Their financial products and services are processed end-toend through digital platforms or electronic channels.
FILIPINO financial consumers are growing wary of cybercrime among banks and other online accounts, as a recent survey showed that 2 out of 5 Filipinos consider scam protection as a main consideration in opening an online financialInternationalaccount.data analytics company Fair, Isaac and Co. (Fico) said its latest global consumer fraud survey has revealed that 2 in 5 Filipino consumers say good fraud and scam protection is their top consideration when looking to select a new financialTheaccount.survey also showed that a further 1 in 4 say it is the second most important consideration.
“The DOF recognizes that the mining industry has the potential to drive our economic recovery and long-term growth and this is really in support of the administration’s Medium-Term Fiscal Framework,” BrionUndersaid.their proposal, the DOF seeks to establish a rationalized and single fiscal regime applicable to all large-scale metallic mines regardless of location to make the country’s mining policy “predictable.”
The Duterte administration earlier proposed reform on mining taxes under Package 2+ of its Comprehensive Tax Reform Program. The proposed package included the implementation of a single fiscal regime in the mining industry and the imposition of royalty and additional government share on all metallic and non-metallic minerals, small-scale and large-scale mines, whether inside or outside mineral reservations. However, this proposal did not hurdle the legislative mill.
“The operations of digital banks support the BSP’s Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, which aims to digitize half of the total volume of retail payments in the country and onboard at least 70 percent of Filipino adults into the formal financial system by 2023,” the BSP said. As of this writing, only Tonik, Maya and Overseas Filipino Bank are in operation. The other three are expected to launch full operations in the second half of the year. The BSP said it issued the certificates to digital banks that have substantially complied with the BSP’s conditions for approval and pre-operating requirements. These requirements include capitalization, risk and governance structure and information technology systems, among others. The process for securing a Certificate of Authority to Operate begins with the application to establish a digital bank, to be approved by the Monetary Board. Once approved by the MB, the BSP issues a Certificate of Authority to Register, to be submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.Afterregistration and completion of all other requirements, digital banks may then obtain the Certificate of Authority to Operate from the BSP.BANK
Bloomberg News
By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio MICROFINANCE institution (MFI) ASA Philippines Foundation Inc. is back on the right track after experiencing what its chief executive calls “a life and death test” during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a sign of confidence in ASA Philippines, CEO Kamrul H. Tarafders said active membership has now reached the 2-million mark in the first seven months of 2022, the highest since 2015 when it had one million members. “We owe our success to the trust of our clients,” Tarafder said. “It also enhances our credibility. In return, we continue to serve our clients in good and bad times.” In a satisfaction survey conducted among MFIs, Tarafder said ASA Philippines achieved a 96-percent rating, higher than the 50-percent global average.Inits latest report, ASA Philippines’s total assets as of July 31, 2022, totalled P35.7 billion, registering a 31.9-percent increase from P27.075 billion in the same month last year. Despite the harsh impact of the pandemic that caused huge challenges to the organization, Tarafder said ASA Philippines was able to show resiliency by increasing its recovery rate by 6.57 percent to 94.2 percent in July from 88.3 percent in the same period lastASAyear.Philippines also reported a significant decline of 70.52 percent in the number of delinquent accounts to 56,176 in July from 190,564 in July,Tarafder2021. recalled that 2020 was the most challenging year for ASA Philippines when it suffered a loss of P1 billion. Nevertheless, he said ASA Philippines was able to stage an extraordinary comeback by posting a P4.2-billion loan portfolio, which signifies a 22-percent growth. Tarafder said ASA Philippines was still able to provide employment opportunities by forming more than 10,000 full-time staff, one of the highest employment-generating non-profit organizations in the Philippines. In 2021, ASA Philippines had 11,000 full-time employees. Tarafder said he is confident that ASA Philippines’s clients will get bigger as the MFI is primarily writing off Asideloans. from providing financial assistance to marginalized female entrepreneurs, ASA Philippines also provides burial, scholarships and environmental services to its clients.
Indonesia is undertaking its own version of Operation Twist, selling shortterm notes and buying up longer ones, which it says will shore up the rupiah by bringing in foreign inflows.Indonesia’s central bank will sell off shorter-tenor government bonds to boost their yield differential over US rates and attract foreign inflows that would help underpin the currency, Governor Perry Warjiyo said in an investor call on Tuesday after delivering a surprise interest-rate hike.
FICO’s survey also showed that Filipinos are growing wary because more and more are being victims of online scam and fraud. Results showed that 4.5 percent of adult Filipinos - which is equivalent to 5 million—know they’ve been a victim of identity theft. An additional 6 percent think “it is likely” that their identity has been used to open an “Withaccount.around 57 million banking customers in the Philippines, if 40 percent of consumers are filtering financial providers to find those with the strongest fraud protection, that’s a market of more than 23 million,” said CK Leo, FICO’s lead for fraud, security and financial crime in Asia “ThisPacific.isasignificant opportunity and shows that good fraud protection can be a bank’s biggest sales asset rather than just an overhead,” the official added. The bad news is, Filipinos are also not very keen on identity checks when opening an account. FICO’s survey showed that Filipinos say identity checks that are too difficult or time-consuming have stopped them from opening a range of different accounts. In particular, 27 percent of customers have given up on opening a savings account, 27 percent on a credit card and 32 percent on a personalFurtherloan. to this, 25 percent of Filipinos say difficult or time-consuming identity checks mean they have reduced their use or stopped using their bank account and 28 percent have stopped or reduced use of a credit“Ascard.new scams and frauds emerge, banks are increasingly challenged with balancing customer experience needs against managing fraud risks and controls such as securing payment verification,” LeoThesaid.survey also showed that there is a correlation between the perceived effectiveness of a security method and people’s preference for usingBiometricit. security was favored and polled as the most secure, with fingerprints in top place on 65 percent and face scans on 60 percent. Despite this, FICO said many consumers have established habits and a reluctance to move on from traditional, less secure methods. About 41 percent of Filipinos still show a strong preference to use oldfashioned usernames and passwords while 47 percent like to receive passcodes sent via SMS. “It takes a while for customers to develop confidence in new security methods even if they are better. Banks need to remain flexible but find ways to show new channels are trustworthy, effective and more convenient,” Leo said. Bianca Cuaresma
BusinessMirrorThursday, August 25, 2022 • Editor: Dennis D. EstopaceB4 www.news.businessmirror@gmail.com
The pension fund chief added that GSIS will provide financial assistance of P400,000 each to six schools in North Luzon. The package of assistance includes support for technology and assistive learning devices, infrastructure and furniture.According to Veloso, the six is out of the 25 schools that GSIS will adopt nationwide this year as part of its corporate social responsibility Sinceprogram.2014, GSIS has already adopted 85 schools across the country, according to the fund manager.
By Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM
Speaking at the House and Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday, Finance Assistant Secretary Valery Joy A. Brion said their proposed measure would reform the mining fiscal regime to achieve simplification, fair share, value-adding and good governance.
Take, for instance, Snapchat, which on Tuesday introduced new parental controls in what it calls the “Family Center”—a tool that lets parents see who their teens are messaging, though not the content of the messages themselves. One catch: both parents and their children have to opt into to the service.
BusinessMirror
The event was Ben&Ben’s first public performance as Pru Life UK’s ally to help Filipino families of different types and sizes get the most out of their lives through PRUHealth FamLove, and its unique and game-changing features. The product is designed for customers to share their critical illness protection coverage with different types of family members, including single parents, cohabiting partners, LGBTQ+ partners, and adoptive family members. The product is also the first in the country as it provides coverage should any major organs require surgery, without the need to remember the long list of critical illnesses. This is a new generation of solutions designed to provide customers with simple, flexible and future-proof protection benefits against unknown diseases. It also provides long-term coverage until age “Strengthening85.Filipino families through financial wellness is one of our biggest advocacies at Pru Life UK. We want every Filipino household to have peace of mind by bringing protection closer to everyone. PRUHealth Famlove, with its shareability feature, is a step forward in achieving that as it gives families an affordable and accessible life protection option,” Pru Life UK senior vice president and chief customer and marketing officer Allan Tumbaga said.
Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • Thursday, August 25, 2022 B5
Kudos to inclusive family protection PHOTO BY UNSPLASHHABESHAWGIFTON Social media offers parents more controls. But do they help? PHOTO BY ANNIE SPRATT ON UNSPLASH KEEP IT WARM AND WONDERFUL THIS Anaise Cane Queen Bed channels 1930s curves and mid-century caning in an dynamicwithPillow23”x23”rugs,complexitytheRESEMBLINGwoventheanglesroomtransformsChairJeannie1950sInspiredLeanneAccentJEANNIE1970sandtheChairandTHISnow.designeye-catchingthat’stotallyBastionLeatherWoodAccentchannelsindulgentlookplayfulformofdesign.CaneChairbyFord.byaniconicdesign,theCaneAccentbyLeanneFordthelivingwithsharptemperedbyvintagefeelofcane.geometricofkilimtheByzanKilimThrowCovercharmssoftcolorandembroidery.
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BY BARBARA O�TUTAY The Associated Press A S concerns about social media’s harmful effects on teens continue to rise, platforms from Snapchat to TikTok to Instagram are bolting on new features they say will make their services safer and more age-appropriate. But the changes rarely address the elephant in the room—the algorithms pushing endless content that can drag anyone, not just teens, into harmful rabbit holes. The tools do offer some help, such as blocking strangers from messaging kids. But they also share some deeper flaws, starting with the fact that teenagers can get around limits if they lie about their age. The platforms also place the burden of enforcement on parents. And they do little or nothing to screen for inappropriate and harmful material served up by algorithms that can affect teens’ mental and physical well-being.
Nona Farahnik Yadegar, Snap’s director of platform policy and social impact, likens it to parents wanting to know who their kids are going out with. If kids are headed out to a friend’s house or are meeting up at the mall, she said, parents will typically ask, “Hey, who are you going to meet up with? How do you know them?” The new tool, she said, aims to give parents “the insight they really want to have in order to have these conversations with their teen while preserving teen privacy and autonomy.” These conversations, experts agree, are important. In an ideal world, parents would regularly sit down with their kids and have honest talks about social media and the dangers and pitfalls of the online world.But many kids use a bewildering variety of platforms, all of which are constantly evolving— and that stacks the odds against parents expected to master and monitor the controls on multiple platforms, said Josh Golin, executive director of children’s digital advocacy group Fairplay. “Far better to require platforms to make their platforms safer by design and default instead of increasing the workload on already overburdened parents,” he said. The new controls, Golin said, also fail to address a myriad of existing problems with Snapchat. These range from kids misrepresenting their ages to “compulsive use” encouraged by the app’s Snapstreak feature to cyberbullying made easier by the disappearing messages that still serve as Snapchat’s claim to Farahnikfame.Yadegar said Snapchat has “strong measures” to deter kids from falsely claiming to be over 13. Those caught lying about their age have their account immediately deleted, she said. Teens who are over 13 but pretend to be even older get one chance to correct their Detectingage.such lies isn’t foolproof, but the platforms have several ways to get at the truth. For instance, if a user’s friends are mostly in their early teens, it’s likely that the user is also a teenager, even if they said they were born in 1968 when they signed up. Companies use artificial intelligence to look for age mismatches. A person’s interests might also reveal their real age. And, Farahnik Yadegar pointed out, parents might also find out their kids were fibbing about their birth date if they try to turn on parental controls but find their teens ineligible. Child safety and teen mental health are front and center in critiques of tech companies. States, which have been much more aggressive about regulating technology companies than the federal government, are also turning their attention to the matter. In March, several state attorneys general launched a nationwide investigation into TikTok and its possible harmful effects on young users’ mental health. TikTok is the most popular social app US teenagers use, according to a new report out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center, which found that 67 percent say they use the Chinese-owned video sharing platform. The company has said that it focuses on age-appropriate experiences, noting that some features, such as direct messaging, are not available to younger users. It says features such as a screen-time management tool help young people and parents moderate how long children spend on the app and what they see. But critics note such controls are leaky at best.“It’s really easy for kids to try to get past these features and just go off on their own,” said Ly of Common Sense Media. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook parent Meta, is the second most popular app with teens, Pew found, with 62 percent saying they use it, followed by Snapchat with 59 percent. Not surprisingly, only 32 percent of teens reported ever having used Facebook, down from 71 percent in 2014 and 2015, according to theLastreport.fall, former Facebook employee-turned whistleblower Frances Haugen exposed internal research from the company concluding that the social network’s attention-seeking algorithms contributed to mental health and emotional problems among Instagram-using teens, especially girls. That revelation led to some changes; Meta, for instance, scrapped plans for an Instagram version aimed at kids under 13. The company has also introduced new parental control and teen well-being features, such as nudging teens to take a break if they scroll for too long.Such solutions, Ly said, are “sort of getting at the problem, but basically going around it and not getting to the root cause of it.” ■
THE best homes have the power to transport you. They are filled with personal treasures, travel finds and culinary discovery. This season, Crate and Barrel (storecatalog. crateandbarrel.com.ph) draws inspiration from the eco-cities of the tropics where the team has traveled to find globally-inspired designs, artisanal details, warm soulful flavors, and new ideas for living sustainably.Soulfulneutrals, warm woods, matte whites and ebonized blacks, lush with tropical greens—it’s a new take on a neutral palette with warmth, texture and depth.Decorate with items that feel traveled, found and collected to make a home feel deeply personal.
“These platforms know that their algorithms can sometimes be amplifying harmful content, and they’re not taking steps to stop that,” said Irene Ly, privacy counsel at the nonprofit Common Sense Media. The more teens keep scrolling, the more engaged they get—and the more engaged they are, the more profitable they are to the platforms, she said. “I don’t think they have too much incentive to be changing that.”
AS we all rebuild our lives and come out from this pandemic, one of the key concerns is how to protect our families especially from unexpected and unfavorable circumstances. And the word “family,” like I shared last week, comes in various forms today. There are families with single parents, adoptive or foster parents, and LGBTQ partners. That is why I am so glad that an industry as traditional as insurance is now offering an inclusive and progressive “one” solution to families. Last July, life insurer Pru Life UK (www.prulifeuk. com.ph) officially introduced Ben&Ben as its new brand ambassador to help more Filipino families get the most out of life at a fun-filled family day event held at The Island in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. illness plan that protects up to four family members under one policy. Under this plan, family members also include same-sex or common-law partners, parents and adoptive children. “Like many Filipino families, Ben&Ben is diverse, inclusive and warm-hearted. They resonate with and ally in helping more Filipino families get the most commercial officer Gilbert Simpao. The top-rating OPM band, which serenaded the crowd with its top hits, is a perfect example of both traditional and progressive Filipino families who are doing great things together, recognizing their differences, and celebrating diversity and inclusivity.
ElIxIr PlacEnTa: STEm cEll THEraPy In a caPSulE When taken regularly, users will also benefit from the active ingre dients from ye ast e x tract, which lowers obesity and reduces the risk of heart disease, Rhodiola Rosea stimulates resistance and improves stamina, and Black c u rrant Seed Oil which can relieve arthritis pain and strengthens immunity and f e nugreek a popular treatment for diabetes that slows down sugar and stimulates insulin.
“ t h ere are certain ingredients in e l ixir Placenta, that does the action, others can augment your medica tions, while others make you more conducive for other treatments like c h emotherapy, your body will be able to stand the treatment because of the ingredients,” he said. e l ixir Placenta can be taken togeth er with other maintenance meds and other supplements. it i s exclusively distributed by g f oxx i nternational. Visit www.gfoxxint.com , gf OXX c o mpanyOffical on f a cebook and gf OXXOfficial on i n stagram.
PHAPCares Foundation sends team to earthquake-hit areas
On TOP of pandemic control it can be recalled that when the p andemic hit the country, the agency developed the online course “Prac ticing c o vid-19 Preventive Mea sures in the Workplace” which was integrated into its te sda Online Program ( t OP). t h is has been among the most popular courses in the t O P. i n f act, more than 142,000 people complet ed the course in 2020, while another 383,826 took it in 2021. c r uz noted that te sda has linked free online courses about c o vid-19 management with other open sourc es, such as the “ c o ntact tr acing c o urse” of the Johns Hopkins Uni versity, as well as “ c o vid-19: How to put on and remove personal protec tive equipment (PP e ) ” and “Stan dard precautions: Hand hygiene” of the World Health Organization (WHO), among others. t O P enrollees get an electronic certificate of completion when they finish a course. t hose who complete programs for full qualification can undergo a competency assessment and receive a national certificate. Apart from te sda’s website, the t O P can also be accessed through the agency’s own mobile app, which can be downloaded to smartphones via g o ogle Play or App Store. i t of fers 150 courses in different industries, including construction, automotive and land transport, electrical and electronics, among others.Since its inception in 2012, the t OP now has more than four million registered users nationwide.
t h ese words rang in the opening remarks of f r ancesca f u gen, cofounder of the Sagip Babae f ou nda tion (SB f ), during the foundation’s launch. She said she was able to talk to many women and knows that she is not alone in this predicament. to be part of the solution, she, together with Melissa Rina Profeta, founded SB f. “ We founded SB f to empower women who were damaged by the circumstances of life. We aim for SB f to be a safe space for women victims of violence, where they can go to us for relief, comfort and love that they should be getting,” f ugen said. f u gen said they aim to be a com munity of love and trust that will catch women who fall into the per ils of sexual harassment, physical and mental abuse. She emphasized that the SB f is here to help women 18 years old and above realize their true value and help them get back on their feet and be reintegrated into society in the aftermath of their horrible ordeal.
Preventing blindness “VRSP welcomes the local introduc tion of brolucizumab into the Philip pine market. t h is new medication is an additional treatment option that offers hope for preserving vision and may decrease the treatment burden for our senior patients and their families,” said Dr. Harvey Uy, c l inical Associ ate Professor at the University of the Philippines-Philippine g en eral Hos pital (UP-P g H ) Department of Oph thalmology and Visual Sciences, and President of the Vitreo Retina Society of the Philippines (VRSP). Dr. Uy said that there is clearly an “unmet need” for more durable and longer-acting treatments against neo vascular wet AMD. “As such, the approval of new and effective treatments is certainly a wel come development and broadens the treatment options for this debilitat ing disease,” Dr. Uy added. n o vartis first received the approv al for brolucizumab in the treatment of wet AMD in 2019 through the US f DA.
Editor: Anne Ruth Dela Cruz Health& Fitness BusinessMirrorThursday, August 25, 2022B6
HIV lecture Afte R t he conduct of the relief op eration in Abra, the PHAP c a res team proceeded to Vigan, i l ocos Sur where they carried out a lecture on H i V f or the elementary students in Barangay
Pantay Daya, Vigan with PHAP c a res volunteers spearheaded by Dr. Benito Arca. t h e team also conducted de briefing sessions for elementary pu pils aged six to 10 years old by drawing what they liked or loved most. “We are very thankful to our part ners for joining us in this endeavor. We are combining our expertise and resources to support the government and the people in n o rthern Luzon whose health may continue to be at risk at this time,” PHAP c a res e x e cutive Director Dr. Maria Rosarita SiasocoPHAPsaid.cares expressed apprecia tion for its members specifically Bay er, Boehringer i n gelheim, Johnson & Johnson, n o vo n o rdisk, PH i L USA, and ta keda as well as Aboitiz fo unda tion for supporting their most recent activities in n o rthern Luzon. t h e public may also now support the activities of PHAP c a res by col lecting Shopee vouchers amounting anywhere from P20 to P1,000. “When we go to the field, we see that there is always a greater need by the people and the communities. With the Shopee vouchers, we are opening the opportunity for anyone who eagerly want to help the people but could not go out of their homes,” said PHAP c a res Operations Manager Dennis tu azon.
gfo xx i nternational recently launched e l ixir Placenta, stem cell therapy in a capsule. Made from n ew Zealand deer placenta, it combines the benefits of stem cell therapy, D n A therapy, and anti-inflammatory therapy in one soft gel capsule. Studies show that the n ew Zea land deer placenta is closely similar to the human placenta. Moreover, these animals from the southern island mountains of n ew Zealand, live and grow within pristine and pollutionfreetsurroundings. hecombination of stem cell ther apy, D n A t herapy, and anti-inflam matory therapy has been proven to be an effective treatment for arthri t is, multiple sclerosis, heart attack , acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and other chronic diseases. t he anti-aging supplement also promotes cell growth and boosts immunity. from the benefits of the placenta, e l ixir also contains 14 high-quality ingredients. During the launch, Dr. f r ancis Decangchon, ce O and Medical Director of Asian c e nter of Ageless Beauty, gave a rundown of the benefits of every ingredient. e l ixir Placenta contains Angelica Sinesis a popular c h inese herb for es trogen, and other hormones. it h elps reduce hot flashes and migraines. it a lso contains grape seed extract, which reduces blood pressure, olive extract which prevents cognitive de cline, cancer, and osteoporosis, and DRibose which prevents muscle fatigue. t he soft gel also contains Squalene oil, an anti-cancer substance used to treat Leukemia, M c t (Medium c h ain tr iglycerides), which controls appe tite, supports weight loss, and ad dresses fat problems, fermented Red g inseng, which contains antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, Rice Bran Oil a source of good fat which help improve cholesterol level, and Sea Buckthorn oil, known to be highly nutritious and contains 190 bioactive substances.
By Roderick L. Abad Contributor W it H t he resumption of face-to-face classes just this week after more than two years of online learning setup, the te chnical e d ucation and Skills Development Authority ( te sda) is offering a free online course on c o vid-19 prevention to schools, stu dents, and Accordingparents.totesda Director g e n eral Danilo P. c r uz, public and pri vate schools, colleges, and universi ties may take this virtual program aimed at curbing the spread of the deadly disease among the faculty and students.
“As we set to open our schools for full face-to-face classes, we are inviting everyone to enroll in our free online courses related to c o v id-19 management to help prevent the spread of the virus and adapt to the changes brought by it,” he said.
A te A M f rom the PHAP c a res fo undation, the corporate so cial responsibility (c S R) arm of the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines, was in the northern Luzon region recently to donate relief items to those severely affected by the July 27 earthquake in Abra.Aspart of its Quick Disaster Re sponse i n itiative, the PHAP c a res team donated sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets, alcohol, and chocolate drink packs to the Diocese of Bangued. “Apart from our efforts to make a difference in the lives of f i lipinos through various medicine access ini tiatives, PHAP c a res has also been at the forefront in helping alleviate the suffering of our kababayans caused by natural disasters. Our aim is to reduce the impact of crisis in the affected communities by partnering with vari ous members and non-members of the organization,” shared by PHAP c a res President Lotis Ramin who is also President of AstraZeneca Philippines.
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Schools urged to take virtual course on Covid-19 prevention
Foundation launched to provide help to women victims of domestic violence
Therapy, medication expenses fU ge n pointed out that what they can give victims who may not be able to afford the sessions is to shoulder all expenses for therapy and medica tion for the first month with SB f s resident counselor, and then half of the costs in the second and third months should they decide to see a psychiatrist who may prescribe med ication. “What i d like to emphasize here is that not all who underwent episodes of domestic violence may not want to talk to a psychologist or psychiatrist. t h at’s ok because we can never judge people how they want to heal. t h ese are the forms of help we can provide so the victim can just focus on the healing,” f u g enSheexplained.addedthat right now, the three-month plan is what they can offer to those who will approach the foundation. And when the time comes for the person to live a better and different life, she said they can enroll through the SB f s livelihood program so that the consultation sessions can be sustained. “As much as we want to help 100 percent, we also have our limitations because we also want to help many, and we want to also do other things to otherAlsopeople.”partof the SB f ’s game plan and dream, according to f u gen, is on the legislative side but since the SB f is still at its launching stage, they are still in the process of de termining who their true allies are. “We can approach some people for help but we believe it’s really seldom that people give out genuine help. With the programs that we are go ing to be advocating and facilitating at SB f, w e can see who will help us genuinely.” legislation On the political side, she cited Quezon c i ty Mayor Joy Belmonte since the city is also in the process of launching a center for women. She will be one of the foundation’s partners in terms of enforcing laws for the victims whom SB f is fighting for. Aside from the dedicated coun selor for the initial session with beneficiaries, the SB f ’s core team members, along with volunteers for the foundation, all underwent men tal health first responder and psy chological support training to en sure that each beneficiary receives competent treatment during their time with the foundation. t h e SB f f a cebook commu nity will also hold webinars and bi-monthly group sessions, offer self-care strategies, well-being ed ucation, plus more information on meditation and holistic healing. it will seek the best possible path of recovery and healing for beneficia ries by carefully matching them to the appropriate partner-experts and practitioners.
VEGF Wet AMD is caused by uncontrolled V e gf (vascular endothelial growth factor), a protein that promotes ab normal blood vessel formation un derneath the macula, the area of the retina responsible for sharp, clear central vision. t h ese blood vessels are fragile and leak fluid, disrupting the normal reti nal architecture and ultimately caus ing damage to the macula. By inhibiting V e gf, b rolucizumab suppresses the growth of abnormal blood vessels and the potential for fluid leakage into the retina. At present, the standard of care for wet AMD is anti-V e gf treatment. t h e anti-V e gf drug is injected di rectly into the eye on a regular basis to control the growth of abnormal blood vessels under the retina. Dr. Marie Joan Loy, i m mediate Past President of the Vitreo-Retina Society of the Philippines (VRSP) and former member of the e x ecutive c o uncil of the Philippine Academy of Ophthalmology, emphasized that there are still unmet needs and chal lenges in addressing wet AMD.
“Many of our patients experience improvement in their vision with ap propriate and timely treatment. Un fortunately, some continue to have a progressive decline in their vision due to several factors, one of which is financial constraints preventing patients from continuing the injec tions. t h e management of wet AMD in the Philippines is quite difficult to sustain because the cost of treatment is not subsidized by the government, so this accounts for high resource uti lization on the part of the patient,” Dr. Loy shared. She added, “ t h is is the reason why eye doctors are looking forward to having a new medication that will al low fewer injections and, hence, avoid treatment and monitoring fatigue.”
A
By Rory Visco Contributor ‘Has it come to a point in your life that you wondered why you are still to be blamed why you were raped, or why your partner hit you or did something bad to you? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror and thought that you don’t know yourself, and the bad things you did because you were in pain and because you were undergoing great trauma? It is really difficult thinking that bad things were done to you yet you are the one to be blamed for all the wrongdoings, but it’s more difficult thinking that you yourself are part of the problem.”
By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
ffecting an estimated 20 million people globally, neo vascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe vision loss and legal blindness in people over the age of 65 in n o rth America, e u rope, Aus tralia, and Asia. i n t he Philippines, AMD is a major contributor to blindness. i n c elebration of Sight Saving Month, the Philippine fo od and Drug Administration ( f DA) has approved the drug brolucizumab for wet AMD. t h e Philippine f DA approval of brolucizumab brings us another step closer to providing wet AMD patients in the country with a new, effective, and affordable treatment option. At n o vartis, we remain committed to reimagining treatments for patients suffering from wet AMD, a leading cause of blindness worldwide,” said Joel c h ong, c o untry President of n o v artis Healthcare Philippines.
“ t h is course is available at etesda.gov.ph and can be easily ac cessed by the public anytime and anywhere using their internet-ca pable smartphones, computers, or laptops,” he added.
S te M c ells are known as the body’s “master cells,’ the build ing blocks of all organs, tissues, blood, and the immune system. i n many tissues the stem cells serve as an internal repair system, regenerat ing to replace lost or damaged cells. t h e human placenta is a fascinat ing organ responsible for the nourish ment and development of a growing baby and is known to contain many stem cells. t h ese cells offer a renew able source of cell replacement for antiaging therapy, and regenera tion medicine, and are used to treat various neurological and immune disorders.Stemcell therapy is known to treat several illnesses effectively but unfortunately, the treatment can be costly.
New treatment option now available for eye ailment
Early symptoms eARLy s ymptoms of wet AMD include distorted vision (or metamorphopsia) and difficulty seeing objects clearly. i f l eft unchecked, it can lead to cell damage, reduced vision quality, and, eventually, complete loss of central vision. t h e patient’s vision can rap idly deteriorate without treatment, leaving them unable to read, drive, or recognize familiar faces. fo r 75-year-old Renato Agbayani, who was diagnosed with wet AMD in 2013, early detection is crucial to preventing the rapid progression of the disease.theearlier you see your doctor and have the treatment done, the bet ter; you save time. Lost time is lost time. t h e earlier you are treated, the lesser the damage in your eye,” said Agbayani, who can now freely watch t V and read without visual distortion after undergoing years of treatment for wet AMD.
The perils of violence against women amid a pandemic i n a r ecent study by the c o mmis sion of Population and Develop ment (POP c O M), it found that 25 percent of surveyed f i lipino adults consider violence against women as one of the more critical issues dur ing the current health crisis. t he re is no denying that the overall so cioeconomic ramifications of the pandemic have created situations that render women more vulner able to Whenabuse.itcomes to demographics, f u gen said that the common vic tims of domestic violence are those from the poor, depressed areas, but likewise emphasized that domestic violence can happen anytime, any where, and to anyone regardless of socio-economic strata. She cited the case of a six-yearold girl who was raped by her father. When asked what really happened, the mother, who was a street vendor in Manila, said they were uprooted and forced to relocate somewhere in Rizal. Since there was no means to establish a livelihood there, they resorted to criminal acts just to earn a living. “ t h e most difficult part among the poor who may undergo an ordeal of violence is to just learn to accept it and move on and would just prioritize their daily needs,” f ugen explained. She said that when they found out about the girl’s story, one of the best forms of help they can give her and to all other victims they may encounter in the future, is that through SB f ’s resident psycholo gists and psychiatrists, they can go through their ordeal with the help of professionals.
“The [country’s] vast civic space is home to over 101,000 nonprofit organizations, of which 60,000 are NGOs actively engaged in vari ous advocacies,” underlined the undersecretary. “The media en vironment that prides itself with over 2,000 private…entities sig nificantly reinforces the vibrant civic space we speak of.”
AMBASSADOR MaryKay Carlson (center) inspects donated maritime tactical gear and maintenance equipment for the Philippine Coast Guard. B7Thursday, August 25, 2022www.businessmirror.com.ph
“The UNJP breaks new ground as an innovative tool of multilat eralism, providing a better option to the current fragmented UN ap proaches to human rights coopera tion and to politicized measures that rend trust and good faith,” he Theaverred. SFA underlined that the UNJP “is holistic and synergistic as it is practical, as it bridges the human rights, development, and peace pillars of the UN. It pursues an inclusive multistakeholder ap proach, and demonstrates that with political will, new strate gies can work to [advance the UN development system more mean ingfully].”
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla and Under secretary Severo S. Catura of the Presidential Human Rights Com mittee Secretariat (PHRCS) pro vided progress of commitments in the areas of good governance, accountability and the rule of law, in line with the UN Joint Program on Human Rights (UNJP) which was launched in July 2021. Remulla underscored that the government would continue with its human rights commitments “with even more vigor and en thusiasm.” He recounted: “When I took the helm of the [Department of Justice (DOJ)] last month, I bared plans to boost the efficiency of the country’s criminal justice system.” Heshared his discussion with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) chief Benhur Abalos on immediate measures, including joint training and continuous learning programs for prosecutors and law enforcers in both remedial and substantive covering surveillance, procedures in conducting arrests, process ing of crime scenes, and evidence preservation. “TheDOJ will be working closely with the DILG on plans to decongest our prison facilities, and to implement effective reha bilitation programs for persons deprived of liberty,” according to Remulla. Pointing out ways the said priorities are consistent with commitments under the UNJP, the justice chief also mentioned milestones in boosting investi gative capacities and improved functioning of the Administrative Order 35 mechanism, or the inter agency committee that addresses extralegal killings and other grave violations of human rights.
Country-partners aid quake, storm-affected localities India to scale up partnerships with PHL on defense, security
Among the developments in clude a linkage with the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, sum mary or extralegal killings on a training course covering the Min nesota Protocol on Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death; the creation of a victim-support and rehabilitation subworking group with policy discussion and capacity-building based on trau ma-informed approach; plus talks on the creation of a National Re ferral Pathway on accountability to streamline complaint processes and facilitate investigations.
BusinessMirror
EU extends assistance IN Siargao Island, where Superty phoon Odette (international name Rai) almost wiped out the entire surf ing capital, Ambassador Luc Véron of the EU visited the bloc’s humanitarian and development projects there. One of its projects is the construc tion of a multipurpose learning space in Caridad Elementary School in the town of Pilar. Under its “Education in Emergencies” program, children were able to go back to school while their parents continued to rebuild their communities. Shelter repair, wa ter, sanitation and hygiene, as well as protection-related interventions, were also“Iprovided.commend our humanitarian-aid workers for their relentless and altruis tic effort in providing the most urgent humanitarian assistance to the com munities in Siargao,” said Véron. His mission also coincided with the cel ebration of World Humanitarian Day, which is celebrated every August 19.
The Department of Foreign Affairs organized the event as part of the government’s regu lar updating on its human rights efforts.
Envoys&Expats
The EU envoy also led a ceremony to highlight a project that provides round-the-clock renewable-ener gy access to four remote communi ties in Anajawan Island. Implemented by the World Wide Fund for Nature or WWF, the ”Solar Community-Based Island Tourism and Livelihood En ergizer Platform” also develops sus tainable ecotourism opportunities, while helping mitigate impacts of climateWomenchange. fisherfolk were also target ed under another EU’s project in Sitio Campinganon, Barangay Maribojoc. The project, “Enhancing Women Fish ers’ Livelihood Opportunities in 34 Coastal Barangays of Siargao Island Protected Landscape and Seascape Women-Managed Areas,” aims to pro mote women-led enterprises and wom en fishers’ active participation in the local management of protected areas.
T HE Philippines and India agreed to build on the gains in their defense and secu rity partnership as they convened for the Fourth Strategic Dialogue on August 18, hosted by the for mer at the Department of Foreign Affairs.Foreign Affairs Undersecre tary for Bilateral Relations and Asean Affairs Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro led the Philippine delega tion, while its Indian counterpart was headed by Ministry of For eign Affairs Secretary (South) Saurabh Kumar. It was the first event both groups staged since their 2017 face-to-face dialogue in New Delhi. The officials discussed the growing cooperation between their countries on defense and security, as well as on maritime partnership. They also shared views about the direction of Philippine-Indian cooperation on strategic matters in the next fewOtheryears.topics covered included counterterrorism, disaster-risk reduction and management, transnational crime, intelligence exchange and procurement of de fense equipment, as well as the impact of regional and global de velopments on the two countries and the region. A day before the strategic dia logue, the delegations convened the 13th Philippines-India Pol icy Consultations, which took a broader view of the bilateral re lationship, then tackled political, economic, and people-to-people cooperation.Thetwopanels agreed to scale up cooperation in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, science and technology, culture, education and tourism. The two officials also discussed new areas of part nership in financial technology, space cooperation, development cooperation, and renewable en ergy.Recognizing their shared con cerns on maritime security and the marine economy, both sides agreed to hasten preparations for a bilateral maritime dialogue. Initially, the strategic ex change was known as the “Se curity Dialogue.” The formal renaming was finalized during the inaugural meeting of the Philippines-India Joint Commis sion on Bilateral Cooperation on March 15, 2011, with the agreed objective of also discussing stra tegicTheissues.policy consultations be tween the foreign ministries, meanwhile, started on an ad hoc basis in 1994, and was later insti tutionalized with the signing of the Memorandum of Understand ing on Policy Consultation Talks in November 2000.
For his part, Catura stated that the lineup of major review process es on the Philippines in the next three months would be avenues to test the newly created digital tracking tool for human rights recommendations coming from different UN mechanisms called the “National Recommendations Tracking Database.”
Thursday, August 25, 2022 www.businessmirror.com.phB4
THE Philippines recently reaffirmed its commitment to further constructive dialogue and cooperation on human rights.
UNDERSECRETARY Ma. Theresa Lazaro and Secretary Saurabh Kumar of India (fifth and sixth from right) join their delegations to the dialogue. DFA-OPCD/JEFFREY MENDOZA
Referencing the joint program as a framework of technical coop eration on human rights, Manalo said its ultimate strength is that “the commitments…by the Philip pines under the UNJP are not ex traneous to, but in fact, are core to the functions of the government and to its programming. Thus, it has the highest degree of national ownership that is fundamental to its effectiveness and success.”
By Malou Talosig-Bartolome FOR foreign governments like Taiwan, the United States, the European Union (EU) and Japan, there is no letup in extending help to Filipinos stricken by calamities, even if news headlines no longer dominate the plight of those affected. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (Teco), the de facto embassy of Taiwan in Manila, recently donated $200,000 to the province of Abra, which was affected most by last month’s North Luzon quake. Representative Michael Peiyung Hsu of Teco handed over the check early this month to his counterpart, Manila Economic and Cultural Of fice Representative Silvestre Bello III. Also in attendance was Governor Dominic Valera of Abra. Hsu said Taiwan, just like the Phil ippines, also sits along the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” and can relate to the suffering of Filipinos during major disasters. He assured that when an earthquake of the same strength hits anywhere in the world, they always provideValerahelp.and Bello thanked Taiwan for its “goodwill and concern.” Assistance in the aftermath IN view of their strong cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster response, the Philippines received a do nation from the Japanese government through the Japan International Co operation Agency (JICA) on August 2 for survivors of the recent earthquake in Northern Philippines. The donation included camping tents, sleeping pads, generators, plastic sheets, and water containers, accord ing to the Japanese Embassy. Present during the turnover cere mony for the donations were Ambassa dor Kazuhiko Koshikawa, JICA Chief Representative Takema Sakamoto, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Civilian Security and Consular Affairs Jesus Domingo, and Social Welfare and Development Assistant Secretary for Special Projects Rommel Lopez. At least 11 people were killed and 410 were injured by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake on July 27. A total of 48,477 people were displaced across the Cordillera and Ilocos regions.
Being better prepared THE Embassy of the United States, meanwhile, donated disaster relief tents and medical supplies worth P1.6 million ($30,000) to help bet ter prepare the province of Palawan with humanitarian assistance and disasterPhilippinerelief. Coast Guard and US sailors from the hospital ship USNS Mercy delivered tents and supplies to the provincial government of Palawan during a ceremony in Puerto Princesa. The ship’s crew joined Pacific Part nership 2022—the largest annual mul tilateral humanitarian-assistance and disaster-preparedness exercise in the Indo-Pacific.
PHL boosts human rights position, positive engagement tradition in UN Joint Program
SECRETARIES Enrique A. Manalo (middle) and Jesus Crispin C. Remulla (left), with Undersecretary Severo S. Catura DFA-OPCD/JEFFREY MENDOZA
THE United States government, through the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Af fairs (INL), donated maritime tactical gear and vessel-maintenance equip ment valued at P11 million ($196,000) to enhance the maritime law-enforce ment efforts of the Philippine Coast GuardAmbassador(PCG). MaryKay Carlson and PCG Deputy Commandant for Operations-Vice Admiral Eduardo Fabricante led the turnover ceremony at the PCG Headquarters in Manila on August 22.
US envoy leads equipment donation to boost PHL Coast Guard capabilities
At the virtual briefing for the diplomatic corps on August 17, Secretary of Foreign Affairs (SFA) Enrique A. Manalo cited the country’s leadership role in creating and nurturing platforms for human-rights engagement in the Asean and in the United Na tions, while “building bridges of trust and cooperation between our region and the UN human rights mechanisms and experts.”
“The PCG is on a promising tra jectory… we are committed to sup port them in achieving their vital and ambitious development goals, and in responding to a wide range of maritime challenges,” Carlson said in herTheremarks.donation consists of visualdetection and monitoring equipment, first-aid kits to support fleet-provided trauma care, and an array of tools for conducting shore-based maintenance of PCG“Thevessels.USgovernment has con sistently shown its support for this organization throughout the years,” Fabricante confirmed. “They are one of the most vocal advocates for im proving [PCG] capabilities, in addi tion to the funding for education and training of [our men and women].” INL and its US partners have de veloped a robust partnership with the PCG since 2015. Areas of cooperation have evolved beyond technical and op erational training for PCG crew mem bers to include major infrastructure development, comprehensive vesselsupport programs, and operationalsupport equipment to significantly enhance the Philippines’s maritimedomain awareness, while expanding the operational coverage of its exclu sive economic zone. The US Embassy and the PCG are preparing together for the visit of US Coast Guard Cutter Midgett to the Philippines next week.
Two revalidas, or constructive dialogue with human rights treaty bodies, are happening in Septem ber and October. They will tackle the country’s compliance to the conventions on child rights, as well as on civil and political rights, respectively. ThePhilippine government also shared that preparations are in full swing for its fourth cycle of the Universal Periodic Review in November, and that it looks forward to receiving the UN Spe cial Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children in November this year, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression in 2023.
Two big ONEs
“ I believe this fight can really go either way, but I’m betting on DJ. After every loss, a great fighter—like DJ— always comes back better in every capacity,” says Fil-Am strawweight Jackie Buntan. ON E Flyweight Muay Thai World Champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon, however, thinks “Adriano will dominate DJ with his well-rounded skills. He can fight in every range. DJ is undisputedly an excellent grappler and wrestler, but with his small size, he has to put in much more energy to drop Adriano’s gas tank on the ground game. I predict Adriano will win once again in this fight.” Adriano has got a great skill set, and I feel that it’s just a stylistically bad matchup for DJ. He’s got great striking and great jiu-jitsu, so I think that Adriano is going to keep his belt,” adds Christian Lee. Former ONE Flyweight Champion Geje “Gravity” Eustaquio who fought Moraes three times inside the ONE Circle is very familiar with how Moraes will bring it to DJ in their much-awaited title fight. He dishes out advice to his erstwhileAdriano,rival.when all of them doubted you to win against DJ, you proved them all wrong by giving him his first career KO. You have to stay on that mentality and I wish you a safe and healthy competition,” he said. Fans can find out how they can watch the events at https://watch.onefc.com/
GERMANY‘Ride
By Josef Ramos
ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA hit gold at the Jockgrim Stabhochsprung Meeting in Germany on Wednesday but missed matching his Asian men’s pole vault record with a 5.81 meters effort. He did try to break the continental record of 5.94 meters he set in claiming a bronze at the world championships in Oregon last July but his attempt at 5.95 meters was a foul. The 26-year-old Obiena also announced on social media that he has reached the qualification standard for the 2023 World inChampionshipsAthleticsHungary.“Greatstartforthesecondpartoftheseason.We got the (gold medal) and the got the standard for next year’s World Champs in Hungary,” Obiena said in a Facebook post. “Thank you, Jockgrim, for your loud (claps) and (hearts).”
The Friday event also features the title match between reigning featherweight champion Thanh Le and his trashtalking Chinese challenger, Tang Kai. T hanh Le is known for his terrifying knockout power, but No. 4 ranked flyweight contender Danny Kingad of Team Lakay picks No. 1 ranked Tang Kai to bring home the belt in ONE 160. This will be a great battle between two great strikers but I think Tang Kai will win because he’s more complete with his punches and kicks. I think his footwork and kicks will be the difference but we can’t really say. In this case, whoever lands first could end the night for the other,” Kingad said. The Saturday event meanwhile features another epic rematch that MMA fans are all het up about. ONE Fight Night 1: Moraes vs. Johnson II is as explosive as it can get. Demetrious Johnson, with 12 flyweight titles on his résumé, is considered by many as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. But in their first encounter, Adriano scored a thrilling knockout of the living legend, dealing him the only stoppage loss of his career. W ill DJ get back at this man who put the only blemish on his impressive card? “ DJ is the GOAT. I don’t think he has lost to anybody twice, so history is on his side. But Adriano is a killer himself, and I think size is really important in this fight. He’s longer and he’s bigger, and those are problems for DJ.… But you can’t pick against the GOAT. You must go with DJ just because of who he is, so I’m going to have to go with DJ,” said ONE Heavyweight Champion Adrian Bhullar, the guy who dethroned our longtime heavyweight king, Brandon Vera.
PBAD Secretary General Christo pher Quimpo, PBAD Vice President and PLDT/Smart Head of Sports Jude Turcuato and Smart Communications FVP for Go-To-Market Melvin Nubla also attended the event. The league is targeting eight schools with most of them from the UAAP already verbally committing to the Stournament.martwillcontinue to partner with PBAD in promoting badminton, this time entering collegiate levels, after the Philippines’s hosting of the 2022 Bad minton Asia Championships last April.
NONIE REYES
THE Vietnamese chalk up their third win in four matches.
Sports BusinessMirror B8 Thursday, augusT 25, 2022
The US’s Christopher Nilsen, who clinched silver at the Tokyo Olympics and in the same Oregon worlds, also settled for silver with 5.71 meters. Australia’s Kurtis Marschall and Germany’s Bo Kanda Luta Baehre shared the bronze medal with similar 5.71 meters on their third attempts. Ten pole vaulters competed in the event with world record holder Armand Duplantis an absentee. EJ’s immediate goal is to pursue in earnest the No. 2 world ranking,” Obiena’s longtime confidante Jim Lafferty toldwithdifferent—outdoors“EveryBusinessMirrorcompetitionisdifferingweather and wind conditions. Sometimes you go for height, other times simply to win. Importantly, EJ won gold today.” A merican Olen Tray Oates was fifth with 5.61 meters while Norway’s Sondre Guttormsen finished sixth with 5.41 meters. Obiena declared his goal of becoming the world No. 2 after the outdoor season ends next month. He is currently ranked third behing Duplantis and Nilsen Ne xt up for Obiena is the Athletissima in Lausanne on Friday, then the True Athletics Classics in Leverkusen (Germany) on August 28, St. Wendel City Jump in Germany on August 31, Memorial Van Damme in Brussels on September 2, ISTAF Berlin on September 4 and Golden Fly in Shaan, Liechtenstein, September. We take it one day at a time, one meeting at a time,” Lafferty. “Next is Lausanne, one of the premier competitions in the world.” Nocos, Velez seek tennisjuniorrepeat T IFFANY NOCOS and John David Velez set out for another title crack in the premier division as the Palawan Pawnshop-Palawan Express Pera Padala (PPS-PEPP) national juniors tennis championships wrap up its Cebu swing beginning Thursday at the Consolacion courts in Laray, Consolacion. Nocos and Velez shared the 18-un der honors in varying fashions in the City of Naga leg last leg with the former, a rising star from Lapu-Lapu City, foiling Ormoc’s Kimi Brodeth’s bid for a golden double with a 6-2, 4-6, 10-4 victory. Velez, on the other hand, stopped Mcleen Gomera’s own two-title bid with a clinical 6-2, 6-1 win with the Ormoc City ace going all-out for a third straight crown in the centerpiece category of the Group 2 tournament presented by Dunlop. With Brodeth opting to take a rest after a grueling campaign in the LapuLapu, Mandaue and Naga stages of the four-leg Cebu tour that netted her four titles, including three in 16- play, this week’s battle looms to be a tossup be tween Nocos and Judy Ann Padilla with Juliana Tenepre, Floresque Hingoyon, Dominique Serrato, Amygray Olalo, Jean Sarap and Lea Balacuit out to spoil their projected title clash. Velez also braces for a tougher outing this week with Gomera raring to get back at him while the likes of Hans Cabellon, Ivan Manila, Cyril Paster, Ethan Ondoy, Gerald Gemida and Gio Manito are all coming into the country’s longest talentsearch put up by Palawan Pawnshop president and CEO Bobby Castro ready to stir up play. The unranked Tenepre, meanwhile, goes all out for defense of the 14-under diadem after the Mandaue bet upended a slew of seeded players to reign in Naga while Alexa Cruspero and Donna Mae Diamante gear up for a showdown in girls’ 12 side of the week-long event backed by ProtekTODO, PalawanPay, the Unified Tennis Philippines and Universal Tennis Rating.
STRIKESOBIENA GOLD INfor Valor’ aims to save Bataan Death March markers
Intercollegiate badminton preseason tourney up
ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA has also reached standardqualificationtheforthe 2023WorldAthleticsChampionshipsinHungary.
T HE first Philippine Intercollegiate Badminton Championships will serve as a preseason tournament for the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The event—organized by Philippine Badminton Association (PBAD), co-presented by Smart and supported by MVP Sports Foundation—is set September 10 and 11 at the Centro Atletico in Cubao, Quezon City.
The main objective of this tournament is to give another avenue for our athletes at our collegiate level,” Project Director Imee Moreno told a press conference at the Gloria Maris in San Juan on Wednesday. “As we all know here in the Philip pines there are very few avenues... that can serve as their training ground,” added Moreno, who is also a councilor in Cagayan de Oro City.
PHILIPPINE Badminton Association (PBAD) Secretary General Christopher Quimpo (with microphone) expounds on the tournament. With him are (from left) PBAD Vice President and PLDT/Smart Head of Sports Jude Turcuato, Project Director Imee Moreno and Smart Communications FVP for Go-To-Market Melvin Nubla.
Editor:mirror_sports@yahoo.com.phJunLomibao
The Friday event has sensational champion Christian Lee getting the chance to get back at the guy who wrested the championship belt from him last September via a bitter, hard-fought contest. Korean Ok Rae Yoon was unanimously chosen by the judges with his conquest of the lightweight champ who already had the scalps of Shinya Aoki, Kotetsu Boku, Dagi Arslanaliev, Iuri Lapicus, and Timofey Nastyukhin under his belt. Lee is raring to prove Ok is just a pretender.Nolessthan Filipino MMA folk hero Eduard Folayang expresses admiration for Lee, but makes no clear choices about who will win the rematch. “(Lee) is an exceptional athlete. Through the years, he had shown his tremendous growth in the sport and he justly earned his spot in the elite group of all-time fighters in ONE Championship,” Folayang said. “(Just 24), he’ll go a long way in MMA.”
AsandWarownedcommercialcommunications.viceVilla-Real,markers,”savetakehistoriccommemorateothers(PVB).Veteranstheanniversarypartcountry’sfoughtAmericansandwhoforthefreedom.Therideisofthe30thofPhilippineBankIhopewilljointothiseventandpartinhelpingourheroes’saidMikePVBpresidentforPVBisabankbyWorldIIveteranstheirfamilies.partofitscharter,
Two back-to-back ONE Championship events are going to have MMA fans on tenterhooks this weekend. The first, ONE 160: Ok vs. Lee II is happening on Friday night, August 26, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium (SIS). The other, ONE Fight Night 1: Moraes vs. Johnson II will pop on Saturday morning also from SIS. B oth events are packed with eye-popping match-ups and epic grudge matches that have global MMA stars weighing in on who will win and who will lose, and why. Even our own Team Lakay warriors, who are not part of the show this time, are showing excitement and casting their votes for who they think have the edge when push comes to shove on Friday and Saturday.
T EN Death March historical markers in Mariveles and four in Limay, both in Bataan, have to be relocated soon due to road widening and other repairs. T he Death March markers serve as a reminder of the route taken by Filipino soldiers who defended the country against Japanese forces during World War II some 80 years ago. The “Ride for Valor” was set up to raise funds for the FilipinoAmerican Memorial Endowment (FAME) to enable them to save our heroes’ historical markers so that we may remember their sacrifice. About 10,000 brave soldiers died along the route; many of the bodies were never identified or recovered. The Filipino-American Memorial Endowment (FAME), is a nongovernment organization that maintains the kilometer markers of the Bataan Death March from Mariveles, Bataan to Capas, Tarlac. I n the past, Bataan Death March markers had been destroyed, uprooted and neglected due to drainage and other road projects.
Ride for Valor, a non-competitive 160 kilometers long bike ride to be held on Sunday will trace the original route of the Bataan Death March. The ride commemorates the camaraderie, bravery and sacrifice of Filipinos
PVB allocates 20 percent of its annual net income for the benefit of its shareholders. T he format for this year’s ride is Gran Fondo or “Big Ride,” where each participant will have a “passport” that they need to bring to three stops: Mt. Samat in Bataan, San Fernando Train/Water Station in Pampanga and the Death March Memorial Shrine in Capas, Tarlac. V IETNAM topped South Korea, 25-13, 25-13, 25-16, to end its Pool A campaign with a twomatch winning streak on Wednesday in the Asian Volleyball Confederation Cup for Women at the PhilSports Arena. A lso on Wednesday, Thailand made quick work of Chinese Taipei, 25-20, 25-18, 25-16, to end its Pool B campaign on a high note. The Vietnamese turned to Nguyen Thi Uyen, who led the way with 13 points, including two blocks, in chalking up their third win in four matches even without captain Tran Thi Thanh Thuy, who sat out for this one to keep her fresh in the quarterfinals. F ive-time winners China remains on top of the Pool A table with a perfect 3-0 record. Ly Thi Luyen had four blocks for a 10-point outing, while VI Thi Nhu Quynh chipped in nine points for the WVietnam.inlessin three matches, the Koreans have one final shot to secure a place in the quarterfinals. South Korea, which is parading high school students in the continental tournament, will face the Philippines in the final day of preliminaries at 7 p.m. Thursday. The young Koreans hope to give the hosts a good fight as they try to capture a quarters berth. “ We seen them play and they played well against the other team (China on Tuesday night). So our goal for tomorrow is to at least to win against the Philippine team,” said South Korea captain Hwang Jimin through an interpreter. We have to focus on their wing players,” she added, referring to Tots Carlos, Michele Gumabao and Jema Galanza. C hoi Hosun paced the Koreans with eight points, while Kim Seyul, fielded in the second and third set, contributed seven kills. Chatchu-on Moksri and Pimpichaya Kokram were in the zone for the Thais with 16 and 11 kills, respectively. A fter losing to Japan in the opener, Thailand has won two straight and will likely face the Philippines in the quarterfinals if the hosts end up third in Pool A after the preliminaries. We have to do our best. We have to play the game within our system,” said captain Pornpun Guedpard as the Thais brace for tougher battles ahead in their bid to end a 10-year title drought. T he Taiwanese stumbled to their second defeat in three matches. Chinese Taipei, whose only win came from the hands of Australia, could potentially face the No. 2 team in Pool A in the quarterfinals on Saturday. K an Ko-Hui and Wu Fang-Yu each scored eight points while skipper Chang Li-Wen and Liu Shuang-Ling added seven points apiece for the Taiwanese.
Vietnam, Thailand in straight-set victories in AVC Cup for Women
