Businessmirror december 06, 2015

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BusinessMirror Local air carriers buck regional trend

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week ahead

ECONOMIC DATA PREVIEW

Peso data

n Previous week: The local currency has largely traded sideways on the lower band of the 47 territory in the previous week on the lack of market moving data or statements during the week. In the first trading day on Tuesday, the peso traded at 47.18 to a dollar, to appreciate on Wednesday at 47.1 to a dollar. The peso then slipped back to 47.15 to a dollar on Thursday and ended the week at 47.105 to a dollar. The total traded volume was at $2.207 billion, while the average value of the peso during the week was at 47.13 to a dollar.

n Week ahead: The peso is still likely to trade within the same band as markets await fresher leads. Players are also likely waiting for any signal coming from the Federal Reserve with regard to its possible rate hike for this month.

Nevertheless, officials from the central bank said that should the Fed decide to raise its interest rates before the year ends, the effect on the local economy will likely be muted, as players have already factored this in earlier.

Previous month

The rice-stock inventory for the month of October reached a total of 2.20 million metric tons, compared to the volume on hand in September; it increased by 12.3 percent. For the month of October, the rice-stock inventory for the household sector was at 35.4 percent; the National Food Authority (NFA) depositories had 34.4 percent; and 30.3 percent were with commercial warehouses. For the previous month, the corn-stock inventory reached 420.7 thousand metric tons, this was 27.9 percent more than the achieved corn-stock levels for the month of September. The cornstock inventory reached 56.4 percent for commercial warehouses; 0.2 percent from NFA depositories; and 43.4 percent for households.

The week ahead

The sector is expecting an update regarding corn and rice prices, which will be released on December 7. While local dealers and markets can expect either a reduction or increase in the prices of selected commodities, which will be released the following day (December 8). And the monthly corn- and rice-stocks inventory report can be expected to come out on December 10, with breakdowns coming from the warehouse sector, household and NFA depositories. Allocations are likely enough and balanced, and are expected to remain conducive both to consumers and suppliers of agricultural commodities.

Bianca Cuaresma and Rea Cu

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A broader look at today’s business

n Sunday, December 6, 2015 Vol. 11 No. 59

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

HE airline sector in Southeast Asia continued to struggle and underperform during the first three quarters of the year despite improved market conditions, with the list of profitable carriers in the region trimmed down to nine—two of them from the Philippines.

A report by aviation think tank Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (Capa) showed that 11 Southeast Asian carriers ended the third quarter in the red, with the group generating operating profits of about $700 million through the first nine months of 2015.

The region, however, is on track to generate an annual profit in 2015 of about $1 billion, representing a fifth of the total

By Lenie Lectura

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PESO exchange rates n US 47.1550

P25.00 nationwide | 4 sections 20 pages | 7 days a week

Opec unity shattered as Saudi-led policy leads to no production limits

profit expected from all of the Asia-Pacific region.

While a majority of Asean airlines were unprofitable, Philippine carriers are reaping the benefit of improved market conditions brought about by the lower fuel cost this year.

Cebu Pacific, which ended September with $156 million in net income, was the third on the See “Air carriers,” A2

D.O.E. offers oil-, coal-exploration opportunities HE Department of Energy (DOE) showcased the country’s vast petroleum- and coal-exploration opportunities to lure in more investors.

At the Energy Investment Forum held on Friday, Energy Undersecretary Donato D. Marcos said there are “areas of opportunities in the petroleum sector” in which prospective investors can choose from.

Marcos said there are 16 sedimentary basins representing an area of over 700,000 square kilometers, with a combined potential of 4,777 million barrels of fuel equivalent.

At present, the country has 29 active petroleum service contracts with Shell Philippines Exploration, Total E&P, Otto Energy, Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp., Nido Petroleum, Philodrill, Pitkin Petroleum and Galoc Production Co., to name a few of DOE operator-partners.

These contracts have produced 1.42 million barrels of oil, 63.33 billion cubic feet of gas and 1.97 million barrels of condensate.

“We hope to invite more investors in the country through our continuous conduct of the Philippine Energy Contracting Round [PECR],” Marcos said.

PECR is a transparent mechanism that allows the government

Marcos: “We have coal reserves located all over the country that could be explored and developed.”

to develop and utilize indigenous petroleum resources under a service contract through partnerships with qualified local and international exploration companies.

Last year PECR5 was launched with 11 petroleum areas offered. As a result, four proposals were received by the DOE and three proposals have been qualified for evaluation.

Under this bid, 11 petroleum blocks—with a total of more than 4.7 million hectares in West Luzon, Southeast Luzon, West MasbateIloilo, East Palawan and the Recto Bank—were offered for exploration and development.

The areas for petroleum exploration include Area 1 in Southeast Luzon; 2 and 3 in Masbate-Iloilo; 4 and 5 in Northeast Palawan; 6 in Southeast Palawan; 7 in West Palawan; and 8 to 11 in West Luzon.

Two of the blocks are close to the Spratly Islands, of which a See “DOE,” A2

General view of a meeting of oil ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, on Friday. AP/Ronald Zak

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HE Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) abandoned all pretense this week of acting as a cartel. It is now every member for itself. At a chaotic meeting on Friday in Vienna that was expected to last four hours, but expanded to nearly seven, the group tossed aside the idea of limiting production to control prices. Continued on A2

Air Force rejoins ‘supersonic age’ with unarmed Korean jets

Two newly acquired FA-50PH fighter jets taxi on the runway upon landing on November 28 at the Clark Air Base in Pampanga. AP/Bullit Marquez

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By Rene Acosta

HE Air Force has boosted its patrol, mobility and groundattack capabilities by formally accepting from defense contractors the first two of 12 ordered fighter jets, attack helicopters and

a transport aircraft.

It is the first time in 10 years that the Air Force has a supersonic aircraft. International defense suppliers officially turned over to the Air Force on Saturday afternoon two FA-50PH “Golden Eagle” fighter jets, six AgustaWest-

land (AW) 109E “Power” attack helicopters and a C-295 “Persuader” medium-lift cargo plane.

The two supersonic FA-50s, manufactured by Korea Aerospace Industries, were received one week after they were brought into See “Air Force,” A2

n japan 0.3849 n UK 71.4823 n HK 6.0848 n CHINA 7.3712 n singapore 33.8393 n australia 34.4474 n EU 51.6300 n SAUDI arabia 12.5686

Source: BSP (4 December 2015)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, December 6, 2015

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Opec unity shattered as Saudi-led policy leads to no production limits Continued from a1

Instead, it went all in for the one-year-old Saudi Arabia-led policy of pumping, pumping, pumping until rivals—external, such as Russia and US shale drillers, as well as internal—are squeezed out of market share.

“Lots of people said that Opec was dead; Opec itself just confirmed it,” Jamie Webster, a Washington-based oil analyst for IHS Inc., said in Vienna.

Opec has set a production target almost without interruption since 1982, though membercountries often ignored it and pumped well above it. The ceiling of 30 million barrels a day, in place since 2011 and now abandoned as too rigid, is no exception. Opec output has outstripped it for 18 consecutive months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Now the organization says it will keep pumping as much as it does now—about 31.5 million barrels a day—effectively endorsing limitless output.

The oversupply has sent the price of Brent, a global oil benchmark, to a six-year low, triggering the worst slump in the energy sec-

tor since the 2008 world financial crisis. It has cut the profits of major oil companies, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc., in half, while crude-rich countries, such as Mexico and Russia, have watched their currencies plunge and their coffers shrink.

On Friday there was no talk of even setting a production target that member-countries could then disregard.

‘It’s ceilingless’

“EFFECTIVELY, it’s ceilingless,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said. “Everyone does whatever they want.”

Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, the Nigerian minister, reinforced the message, saying the market should not worry about the “semantics” of targets or real production.

“We aren’t going to go back to a cartel and work against the customers—that time has passed,” United Arab Emirates Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said.

Most of the market “doesn’t have any ceiling,” Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told reporters.

“Americans don’t have any ceiling.

Russians don’t have any ceiling.

Why should Opec have a ceiling?”

The prospect of Opec, which accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world’s oil production, taking US television personality Sarah Palin’s advice to “drill, baby, drill” sent crude prices further downward.

The US benchmark dropped 5.7 percent between 8:14 and 9:06 a.m.

New York time, on Friday, hovering around $40 a barrel the rest of the session. On June 30, 2014, the price was $105.37 a barrel.

The oversupply is likely to continue in the new year. Iran, for years under sanctions related to its nuclear program, has promised to lift its production to as much as 4 million barrels a day by the end of 2016, up from about 3.3 million barrels a day currently.

Acrimonious end

THE meeting on Friday at times looked as if it might be headed to an acrimonious end, similar to a gathering in June 2011 when Opec was unable to agree on policy and ministers openly attacked each other. At the time, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he personally had had one of his “worst-ever” meetings.

No official would go that far to describe this conference, yet

Zanganeh: “Effectively, it’s ceilingless.

Everyone does whatever they want.” AP

when ministers and delegates left the Opec building, near the iconic Vienna State Opera house, they were speechless and grim.

Within an hour, some of them, including representatives of Saudi Arabia and Iran, were heading to the airport. Al-Naimi said he was traveling to Paris to take part in climate-change talks. Delegates from Venezuela, which pushed hard to cut the old ceiling by about 5 percent, would only say Opec “didn’t decide anything,” a sign of the deep frustration with the new policies in the cash-strapped South American country.

Officials, nonetheless, did their

Air carriers… list of the most profitable carriers in Southeast Asia. Philippine Airlines followed at fourth place with a $124-million profit.

“Market conditions in Southeast Asia have continued to improve in [the] second half of 2015 as fuel prices have remained low and the rate of capacity growth has remained relatively rational. Most of the main low-cost carrier groups have slowed the rate of expansion, while some of the main flag carriers have been restructuring,” the report said.

Malaysia’s AirAsia, the largest low-cost carrier in the world, was the most profitable airline with $220 million in earnings during the period. Singapore Airlines was second with a $203-million net income.

Philippines AirAsia took the 18th place with $43 million in losses.

“Several airlines from Southeast

DOE…

best to conceal any division. Asked what arguments, if any, went on inside the small meeting room where Opec ministers seclude themselves without the presence of aides, Iran’s Zanganeh simply said, “There were discussions.”

That was most likely polite understatement, as Iran’s rival, Saudi Arabia, carried the day. This time around, Opec did not look like the group that American diplomat Henry Kissinger once described as able to blackmail national economies and whole industries.

Instead, it looked like they might have spent the last few days bullying each other. Bloomberg News

Continued from a1

Asia are only marginally profitable, and overall the sector remains less profitable than most other regions. The overall Asia-Pacific airline sector is projected to turn an operating profit in 2015 of more than $5 billion,” the Capa report said.

Despite the seemingly bleak figures for the third quarter, Southeast Asia’s airline sector is still expected to flourish.

“The outlook for Southeast Asia is relatively bright given the economic growth and the region’s fast expanding middle-class population. The situation is certainly a lot brighter than it was in 2014, when the Southeast Asian airline sector was in the red. But the current low rate of profitability remains a concern,” Capa said.

Southeast Asia’s dynamic airline sector, however, needs a higher overall profit margin and

a larger portion of profitable airlines to be sustainable.

“Given the region’s huge order book, overcapacity is a long-term concern and could worsen again, making it difficult for the sector to improve profitability. Southeast Asian airlines collectively have almost as many orders as current aircraft and account for about 13 percent of the global order book,” the think tank said.

It added that consolidation and capacity adjustments will be helpful in developing the region’s aviation sector.

“The Southeast Asian market would benefit from some consolidation and further capacity adjustments. Low fuel prices may help drive improved profitability in the short term but could be a detriment as airlines are less likely to cut capacity or exit the market entirely,” Capa noted.

Continued from a1

portion is claimed by the Philippines and subject of a territorial dispute with China.

Ratio Oil Exploration Ltd. of Israel submitted an offer for Area 4, which covers 416,000 hectares (ha) in waters east of Palawan.

Colossal Petroleum Corp., an affiliate of listed Coal Asia Holdings Inc., submitted bids for Area 5, a 576,000-ha block in waters east of Palawan, and Area 7, a 468,000-ha block within the disputed Reed Bank.

There were no offers received by the DOE for other areas.

A petroleum-service contract has a seven-year exploration period, which could be extended to up to 10 years. If exploration activities were successful, the parties could enter into a 25-year production period.

PECR5 could increase the country’s oil production to 39,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) by 2019, US Energy Information Administration

Air Force… the country from South Korea by Korean pilots.

However, the two are still unarmed and military officials said that may take as long as a year to acquire the armaments that can be installed in the jets.

The two aircraft were part of a squadron of FA-50s that were ordered from South Korea at the contract price of P18.19 billion through government-to-government procurement.

On the other hand, the C-295 medium-lift aircraft was the second aircraft of such type that the Air Force received from manufacturer Airbus Military.

The aircraft was already in the

(EIA) said in its latest report.

“In 2013 total oil production was 26,000 bbl/d, while the country consumed 299,000 bbl/d. In May 2014 the government invited tenders for 11 oil and gas blocks in the Palawan Basin and nearby areas, including one on the South China Sea. This exploration bid round could push oil production up to 39,000 bbl/d by 2019,” EIA said.

The coal sector, meanwhile, is another potential source of power.

“We have coal reserves all over the country that could be explored and developed,” Marcos said.

The DOE, he added, is currently monitoring a total of 76 coaloperating contracts (COCs). Of which, 46 are in exploration phase and 30 are in the development and production phase.

“During the PECR5, 15 coal areas were also offered to encourage private companies to participate in the coal business. As a result, seven contracts have been awarded and

are all in the Mindanao region,” Marcos said.

The DOE has been conducting regular investment fora in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao to promote investments in the Philippine energy sector by facilitating the process of doing business and availment of incentives in the country.

Friday’s forum held in Makati City is part of the government’s continuing commitment to facilitate ease in doing business in the energy sector, said Electric Power Industry Management Bureau Officer in Charge Irma Exconde, who added that the Philippine energy sector still has a broad spectrum of opportunities to offer.

About 200 project developers and representatives from financial institutions, distribution utilities and electric cooperatives, the business sector, government agencies and diplomatic organizations attended the event.

Continued from a1

country since September this year, but it underwent technical inspection and acceptance process before it was formally turned over to the Air Force on Saturday.

The Department of National Defense has ordered three C-295 from Airbus Military through a P5.29-billion contract that was signed last year.

The first aircraft was delivered to the Air Force on March 22.

The C-295 is equivalent to a Fokker F-27 aircraft that is currently being used by the 220th Airlift Wing, and it has rear ramp door similar to a C-130 “Hercules” for easier access and unloading of cargo.

It can carry a load of up to 20 short tons, capable of short takeoff and landing and has a top speed of 358 miles per hour.

The six 109E attack helicopters were acquired through a P3.44-billion contract that was signed in 2013.

The eight-seat attack chopper has two engines and is capable of day and night operations.

The first two units of the attack helicopters arrived in the country in December last year, and along with the four other units, which were delivered in batches months later, underwent evaluation and inspection processes.

NewsSunday

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo

Group urges investments in biodiversity conservation

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HE Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) said the business sector should invest more in biodiversity conservation to reap its benefits rather than suffer the consequences of biodiversity loss.

Rolando Inciong, head of the ACB’s communication and public affairs unit, said that biodiversity loss has dire consequences not only to people, but businesses as well, describing it as nature’s cancer that can cause death.

Biodiversity in Southeast Asia, he said, has huge economic potential, citing various studies that indicate the region’s richness in flora and fauna, as well as marine biodiversity.

Inciong said ecosystem services in Southeast Asia is now valued at $2.2 billion, citing a study dubbed TEEB, or The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, commissioned by ACB in 2012.

The National Wildlife Federation defines ecosystem service as any positive benefit that wildlife or ecosystems provide to people. The benefits can be direct or indirect, small or large.

He said the business sector has a lot to gain in biodiversity conservation, and needs to realize that spending for the environment is a wise business investment.

Biodiversity are essentially a life-support system, source of food and losing it means losing food sources.

Forests, he said, are also giant water purifiers aside from being a source of food and medicine and other goods such as timber.

It also helps clean the air and stores carbons, slowing humancaused global climate change. Wetland and mangroves protect people against storm surges in coastal areas, while serving as breeding ground and nursery of a variety of fish and other nonfish food products.

Southeast Asia, he said, is small in size but globally significant because of its rich biodiversity. With only 3 percent of the world’s total land area, the region is home to 18 percent of known plants and animals.

An estimated 34 percent of the world’s 284,000 kilometers of coral reefs are found in the region, with Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines sitting within the Coral Triangle, the center of the world’s marine biodiversity.

The ACB facilitates cooperation and coordination among the Asean member-states on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, as well as the fair and equitable sharing in their benefits in the region.

“Our priority now is to convince the business sector to join conservation. Business basically relies on biodiversity for their raw materials,” Inciong told participants of a symposium on biodiversity reporting organized by the ACB on Friday in Mandaluyong City.

The ACB is initiating a move to involve the business sector more in biodiversity conservation, in partnership with various environmental agencies of Asean member-states.

In the Philippines, he said ACB and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources through the Biodiversity Management Bureau is initiating stronger collaboration between and among the country’s big corporations to boost the sector contribution in biodiversity conservation.

Inciong recently facilitated a meeting with 30 of the country’s big corporations operating in the country who all expressed support on the idea of investing in biodiversity conservation. He said a group of American business leaders in the country had also expressed support behind the idea.

Inciong said these initiatives will eventually lead to the formation of a partnership in the business sector toward biodiversity conservation which, he said, will be formalized next year. Jonathan L. Mayuga

BusinessMirror

Sunday, December 6, 2015 A3

Tutuban to Malolos railway line to serve 350,000 commuters daily

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By Lorenz S. Marasigan

HE train line that will connect the city of Malolos in Bulacan to Tutuban, Manila, is expected to handle some 350,000 passengers per day once it starts operating five years from now, a Cabinet official said.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya said a train line is the best option to cater to the high demand for transportation between Bulacan and Manila. Railway systems are proven to be effective means to decongest traffic in many cities around the world.

“We are looking at 330,000 to 350,000 passengers daily for the Malolos-Tutuban line. We saw that there are many people living in the north and south extremities of Metro Manila, and they travel to the city to do business or find jobs. So it’s that movement that this train line would cater to,” Abaya said.

Japan, last month, extended a P93.48-billion loan to Manila for the construction of the 36-kilometer commuter railway.

The loan is the biggest ever extended by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) to any country for a single project to date.

It carries an interest rate of 0.10 percent yearly for nonconsulting services and 0.01 percent per annum for consulting services; and a maturity of 40 years inclusive of a 10-year grace period.

The remainder of the needed P116-billion investment for the rail system will be provided by the government.

The project involves the construction of a 36.7km narrow-gauge elevated commuter railway from Malolos to Tutuban. It is seen to be completed by

the third quarter of 2020.

The second phase of the line, which will extend the commuter rail up to Matnog, Sorsogon, will be completed by the forth quarter of 2019. This is being auctioned off under the government’s PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP) Program.

Essentially, the whole project aims to revive the Bicol line of the Philippine National Railways, while improving its decades-old facilities that are far below the train systems of other countries.

The two-phase project is part of the P4.76-trillion Roadmap for Transport Infrastructure Development for Metro Manila and its Surrounding Areas, otherwise known as the Dream Plan, that was formulated by Jica.

The Dream Plan lists the transport infrastructure requirements of the Philippines, facilities that are expected to alleviate potential losses and gain from prospective savings.

If the the transport roadmap would not be implemented through 2030, the Philippines stands to lose roughly P6 billion daily owing to traffic congestion.

Currently, it loses P2 billion a day in loss of productivity and added expenses for fuel.

A large chunk of the list will be implemented under the PPP scheme.

The government has awarded 11 PPP contracts so far. It aims to award at most 13 more contracts before President Aquino steps down in 2016.

Grenade explosion wounds 5

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IVE people were wounded on Friday after a fragmentation grenade that was lobbed on the national highway in North Cotabato exploded just as a tricycle was passing by, the police said on Saturday.

Supt. Bernard Tayong, spokesman for the North Cotabato police command, said the explosion happened at around 10:55 p.m. on Friday on the highway in Matalam, North Cotabato.

He identified the wounded as Macmod Kanacan, 24; Kensed Dilangalen, 32; Dan Jhon Anam, 28; Geraldo Peralta Jr., 44; and Sharon Diaz Bolante, 35, a businesswoman.

Investigation showed that the tricycle driven by Kanacan was traversing the highway when a grenade was thrown on the road and exploded, hitting the tricycle with all of the victims onboard.

The tricycle was on its way to the town’s public market.

Payong said members of the Matalam police were still investigating the incident and are determining the identity of the assailant who lobbed the grenade.

Meanwhile, a member of the Abu Sayyaf Group allegedly involved in the kidnapping of Malaysian Bernard Then was arrested by the police on Friday in a hospital in Sulu.

Then, who was kidnapped in Sabah early this year, was beheaded by his captors in Sulu more than two weeks ago while the country was hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.

Then’s severed head was found at Barangay Walled City in Jolo, Sulu.

The beheading happened while Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was in Manila attending the Apec meeting.

Brig. Gen. Alan Arrojado, commander of the Armed Forces Joint Task Group Sulu, said Kadaffy Muktadil, alias Kadaffy Camsa, was arrested

by Sulu policemen inside the Integrated Provincial Hospital in Jolo at around 11:10 a.m. on Friday.

Muktadil, a resident of Sitangkai, Tawo-Tawi, was nabbed based on the strength of a warrant of arrest for kidnapping that was issued by a court in Sandakan, Sabah, on December 1.

Arrojado did not say why Muktadil was at the hospital in Sulu, but said the suspect was among those who abducted then. Rene Acosta

Mindanao scion runs for Congress

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CHARITABLE businessman is making a bid for congressman in the First District of General Santos City, South Cotabato, under the Kilusan ng Bagong Lipunan.

His goal is to create more jobs, improve public services and make his hometown one of the best places to live in.

Ryan Rivera, 49, is the son of a Mindanao industrialist Rodrigo Rivera Sr. and philanthropist Dolores Chua. The elder Rivera established the diversified RD Group of Companies, whose main business is tuna fishing and processing. It is the largest employer in General Santos.

Rivera took up graduate studies in business in Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, Vancouver. He has managed the family businesses in hospitality, banking, fishery and ship-repair sectors.

Rivera takes pride in the family’s philanthropy through the RD Foundation. It has provided scholarships for children from the local tribes and low-income families; organized medical mission and supported orphanages, to name a few.

Rivera says he will bring to politics the same determination and discipline he displays in running businesses.

On confronting poverty, Rivera believes in the dictum “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” His vision is to confront poverty through more opportunities for education and livelihood. “You have to think about being there for others,” he says. Ayunan G. Gunting

quality life

Ambassador Roberto Mayorga (left), a consultant of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC), hands over a copy of his book Calidad Humana Book 1 to Mercedes Lopez-Vargas (center), chairman of the Lopez Group Foundation, as Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) President Raul M. Sunico looks on during the recent launching of the book at the CCP main lobby in Pasay City. Calidad Humana Movement aims to raise awareness, preserve and encourage the practice of intrinsic Filipino values like humility, simplicity, friendliness, hospitality and resiliency. With the support of the EDC, the movement champions these values through academic research, seminars for corporate and civic organizations, workshops in universities and schools in various parts of the country, as well as through team sports activities. NONOY LACZA

Book bares tactics of landgrabbers, defects of Torrens Title System

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N ac t iv i st - aut hor h a s launched a book that will g u ide t he gover nment against the cunning use by landgrabbers of the Torrens System in having their fake land titles validated and registered.

The book, The Torrens System: A Gateway for the Flooding of Fake Land Titles, was written by Daniel Frianeza to educate the government how land registration has

been manipulated by syndicates to their advantage.

The book detailed how “ignorance of the law and the legal aspects surrounding the Torrens international land title registration system has led to the proliferation of thousands, even millions, of fake land titles nationwide.”

“The country’s justice system is being used wittingly or unwittingly by landgrabbers and

syndicates to validate fake land titles,” Frianeza also said.

The Torrens System covers the registration of land titles, “wherein the official land certificate will always show the state of the title and the person in whom it is vested.”

The system, which is being used internationally, including by the United States, Europe and Asia, was first established by Sir Robert R. Torres when he was the commissioner of

customs in South Australia.

Frianeza said that upon the system’s implementation in the country on February 1, 1903, it has become vulnerable to syndicates and landgrabbers.

“Throughout history landgrabbers and syndicates were able to secure Certificates of Title even without a title or ownership of the land. An example is the controversial Piedad Estate that was

purportedly registered on March 12, 1912, a thing that never happened,” Frianeza said.

The author also blamed courts for the proliferation of fake land titles.

“In judicial practice, the presiding judge always failed to consider substantial facts or documentary evidence of the plaintiff in making his decision as called for by the Constitution [Article 8, Section 14] alongside with the Mandatory Ju-

dicial Notice [Sections 1 and 2 of Rule 129 of the Rules of Court],” Frianeza said.

He said that in 1964 and during the term of President Diosdado Macapagal, Registration Commissioner Antonio Noblejas and National Bureau of Investigation Director Jolly Bugarin claimed that there were issuances of original certificate of titles (OCTs) ranging from “1 to 100,000 of no probative origin.” Rene Acosta

SundayV

Busine

A4 Sunday, December 6, 2015 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

editorial

On State compliance with contractual obligations

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OR a long time now, we have lamented the government’s lack of respect for its contractual obligations.

The latest proof of this is the decision of Megawide Construction Corp., winner in the bid for the modernization of the National Orthopedic Hospital, to terminate its contract with the government on the ground that the implementing agency, the Department of Health, “has not yet given the certificate of possession of the project site.”

The secretary of Health, Janette L. Garin, explained they could not give the certificate because the National Kidney Institute, which owned the project site, refused to give it to them.

Another demonstration of this governmental trait is the dispute between the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) and the Camp John Hay Development Corp. (CJHDevCo) For years, the BCDA and CJHDevCo battled over the lack of compliance of the other party with its contractual obligations. Confronted with the case, the Court of Appeals (CA) in February 2015 found that both parties were in serious breaches of the contract. It then ruled that the BCDA pay CJHDevCo the amount of P1.42billion, representing a part of the amount paid to it as lease payments by CJHDevCo, and that, thereafter, CJHDevCo vacate the premises and turn them over to the BCDA. To this day, the BCDA has not paid CJHDevCo a cent. What it has done, under the leadership of its president and CEO, Arnel Paciano D. Casanova, was to mount a massive media campaign demonizing CJHDevCo and shifting responsibility for the mess to the CA, calling its decision, correctly, as disadvantageous to the government. Except that it is the BCDA’s responsibility, not the CA’s.

Going farther back in time, recall the government’s action on the Cavite-Laguna Expressway (Calax) Project. After putting the project up for a bid, the government canceled the winning bid and ordered a rebidding. The justification given was that the government wanted to maximize its gain from the project, forgetting that any amount paid by the winner would be collected from the consumers when the time came.

The future of public-private partnership (PPP) projects will hinge both on the quality of the plans, as is obvious with respect to the National Orthopedic Hospital project, and the quality of management, as is obvious in the BCDA and the Calax cases. If the quality of the plans is in doubt, succeeding administrations will want to review them. These administrations will also want to evaluate the fitness of the project managers on the basis—let’s face it—of political, not technical, considerations. While we do not endorse determination of fitness by political criteria, we welcome the near certainty that the current managers will be dismissed outright, if they are still there, hopefully to disappear in the interstices of society without any trace.

We want a government that respects its contractual obligations. We also want PPP projects to be cleared of technical, legal and any other defects. We want competent managers, not nincompoops masquerading as such. For the sake of our country’s development, we need the PPP projects to be completed as soon as possible.

Extractive, not inclusive, economy Part four

G

Database

By Cecilio T. Arillo

Gospel

Sunday, December 6, 2015

OING back to the book Why Nations Fail by Robinson and Acemoglu, the pair of economists posit that several countries are plagued by economic institutions that are “structured to extract resources from the many by the few and that fail to protect property rights or provide incentives for economic activity.”

While such extractive economies may achieve growth for a period of time, the authors are quick to note that “Because elites dominating extractive institutions fear creative destruction, they will resist it, and any growth that germinates under extractive institutions will be ultimately short-lived.” Such were the cases of countries with extractive institutions—the Soviet Union in the 1950s and China in the 2000s —where growth was observed to be, indeed, rapid, but wasn’t sustainable.

If one seeks to understand how an extractive institution works in the Philippine setting, a classic demonstration would come from an electricity bill. Depending on how much electricity is consumed, some 51 percent to 57 percent of the total electric bill is the cost of the power that the company buys from power generators (generation charge). Other reflected charges in the bill cover distribution costs, transmission charge, systemloss charge, taxes and other charges.

Filipino consumers continue to suffer from skyrocketing-power rates, as the Philippines maintains its stature as one of the countries with the highest electricity rates in Asia. Concurrently, every day has been a field day for Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), “the king” of the power industry, as it also continues to rake in billions of profits. According to its 2014 annual report, Meralco’s net income rose 5 percent from P17.2 billion in 2013 to P18.1 billion in 2014.

How did Meralco turn into such a moneymaking machine? Thanks to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (as discussed in the previous chapter), consumers are obliged to pay for the electricity’s production costs, on top of the electricity they actually consumed.

Thus, the generation charge bought

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from power companies and the transmission charge paid to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines are automatically passed on to the consumers.

This is the perfect archetype of an extractive institution: taking out resources (money) from the many (Filipino consumers who are forced to pay so much for electricity, while they can hardly afford the basic necessities for their daily lives) by the few (power companies, and in this case, the Meralco), all for the sake of raking remarkable profits.

Liberalized trade

THE Philippines consists of 7,107 islands covering a total land area of 300,000 square kilometers. The country is also endowed with rich natural resources. It has fertile and arable lands to grow major crops, such as rice, corn, sugarcane, coconut, abaca and tobacco; a diverse flora and fauna; an extensive coastline twice longer than that of the US; abundant mineral deposits, metal and nonmetal alike; and excellent natural harbors for ports like Manila and Subic Bay. With this kind of physical geography and topography, one cannot contest the Philippines as a country teeming with natural wealth.

It is baffling, therefore, why 13.1 percent of the country’s population is still hungry, according to the 2014 Global Hunger Index where we ranked 29th in the world, just behind Iraq and Lesoto. In Southeast Asia, we lag behind Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

To answer this question, we should take a glimpse at our history.

For instance, the later part of the 1980s tells a different story.

Filipino economist Felipe Medalla, who served as Neda Director General in the administration of President Joseph Estrada, expounds on this in a conference paper titled Economic Integration in East Asia: a Philippine Perspective.

“China and Japan have good reasons for wanting to take the lead in fostering greater East Asian economic integration. The Philippines has good reasons to be ambivalent about rising economic integration in the region. It gained much less than its more dynamic neighbors after it liberalized trade,” Medalla

N the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysani as tetrarch of Abile’ne, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Ca’iaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechari’ah, in the wilderness; and he went into all the regions about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for

writes as an introduction.

He further notes, “That the Philippines is not as sanguine as China, Malaysia or Thailand about the implications of greater economic integration in the region is hardly surprising if one has looked at how the Philippine economy has performed since the second half of the 1980s, when international trade started to be significantly liberalized [beginning with the administration of President Corazon Aquino]. The Philippine economy actually grew more during the import-substitution and protectionist decades of the 1960s and the 1970s than over the last 20 years.”

Despite incontrovertible evidence, the Philippine Development Plan for 2011 to 2016 approved by Cory Aquino’s darling son, President Noynoy Aquino, firmly upholds that protectionist measures are “policies that distort competition” and are “the main impediments to growth.”

To aggravate this situation, instead of exporting capital goods as a way of integrating the Philippine economy with the global economy, where the first will gain more than the latter, what we shipped off to almost every part of the world now are our human resources. In the Overseas Employment Statistics of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the country deployed a total of 2,391,152 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in 2014, roughly 600,000 of whom are new hires. This is an obvious jump from the 2010 figures of 1,644,439.

Yet, the Aquino administration has the audacity to claim the benefits of this labor export as a proof of mitigating the job crisis, along with the fact that OFWs have contributed to the increase in Philippine per-capita income by way of remittances. On the contrary, this phenomenon is a glaring proof of the lack of a concrete and comprehensive program for domestic job creation. Further, the massive exodus of our labor force is detrimental in the long run as we will eventually be depleted of invaluable human resources.

To be continued To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio. arillo@gmail.com.

the forgiveness of sins.

As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”— Luke 3:1-6

Voices

essMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph • Sunday, December 6, 2015 A5

Back to the future A

Free Fire

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

ND we are back to the question, “Is Grace Poe a naturalborn citizen, inalienably entitled—entitled mind you and not just allowed by mere court or commission, to run for president of a people who, just going by the flatness of her nose, are clearly her own?” To be natural born is a matter of fact, the fact that you issued from a Filipino uterus.

That fact need not be proved because, unless your mother was a beast of the field, she did not give birth to you out in the open for many to see. Now, some people of means may proudly suggest that they were born alfresco. But poor women in our country, albeit with nothing else to lose, yet never forsake their modesty when giving birth. Such was the poor mother

of Grace, now lost to memory.

Logically, no one can deny circumstances that pertain only to another person. Only the person concerned can do that because it happened only to them. And, yet, even that person cannot deny or prove one self-evident circumstance about which she cannot possibly know. And that is the manner of her birth.

Therefore, she cannot be burdened with the logical impossibility of proving or denying her native birth; least of all a birth about which the only dependable witness has vanished: The mother who left Grace to God’s purposes; pretty much like Moses was left in the reed bank.

A person is natural born unless someone else can prove that

she is not by producing the alien woman who gave birth to her.

Rawls says the rule of law forbids requiring the impossible. It forbids imposing impossible obligations, particularly as a precondition of a basic right.

Therefore, no one is more surely native born than one whose mother cannot be produced but upon whose face…our race…is written all over.

US plans to ease Myanmar trade sanctions

By Josh Rogin | Bloomberg View

T

HE US Treasury Department is preparing to make it easier for American companies to do business through a port in Myanmar that is owned by a sanctioned company whose reclusive owner has close ties to the ruling military junta.

Since July US banks have been wary of processing payments for trade through the main port in Yangon, Myanmar, after it was discovered that the port is operated by Asia World, a company that Washington has sanctioned since 2010.

Asia World is controlled by Steven Law, who is also sanctioned by the US government for illicit activities and aid to the regime. His father, Lo Hsing Han, was known as the “Godfather of Heroin,” and was “one of the world’s key heroin traffickers dating back to the early 1970s,” the Treasury Department determined. He died in 2013. Representatives from Asia World told the Wall Street Journal that the company hasn’t received special treatment from either the Myanmar military or government.

But now, following a warming of relations with the Myanmar government and under pressure from the US business community, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is set to issue a general license that would, in effect, provide permission for US businesses and banks to pay fees for the use of the Asia World port in Yangon, even though the money flows into the coffers of Asia World and the Burmese regime, two administration officials who work on the issue told me.

The treasury and state departments briefed some Congressional

officials about the pending decision this week, although they do not need legislative approval for the change.

Staffers on both the Republican and Democratic side told me that there was concern that the administration was moving forward with the license before properly consulting Congress. Some legislators are also concerned that the timing sends the wrong signal to the Myanmar government, which has not yet completed several crucial reforms. Last month the party led by the dissident Aung San Suu Kyi overwhelmingly won the nation’s first open parliamentary elections, but the new government won’t be formed until next spring.

“While I await to be briefed by the administration on any potential changes in the US sanctions policy toward Burma, I am concerned with any such actions prior to the completion of the political transition in Burma early next year,” Sen. Cory Gardner, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Asia, told me. “Any modification of remaining US sanctions toward Burma during this sensitive time would only weaken US leverage as Burma’s democratic transition continues. Furthermore, Congress should be involved in any actions relating to sanctions, and I hope the administration takes that into account should it move forward. ” Gardner met this week with Scot Marciel, the State Department official nominated by President Barack Obama as the next US ambassador to Myanmar, which the US government still refers to under its old name, Burma. In his confirmation hearing, Marciel told senators that the US needed to encourage democracy, rule of law and civil society. He

didn’t mention any administration plans to alter sanctions.

“The people of Burma want us there to support and where possible, help them,” he said in the hearings.

“We can’t fix their problems for them but we do have a role to play: Engaging diplomatically to encourage progress, calling out behavior that opposes reforms and suggesting ways forward.”

Several congressional aides told me that the administration has been briefing Congress in a cursory manner. An aide to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told me that sanctions are a key policy tool when dealing with Myanmar, and any efforts to recalibrate them “must be justified and consistent with our support for a peaceful and inclusive democratic transition.”

A Treasury Department spokesman would not confirm the plans to change the status of the transactions at the Yangon port, but told me that the Office of Foreign Assets Control was responding to concerns about the flow of trade and trade finance through major ports in Myanmar and the impact of sanctions.

Another administration official, who is involved in the issue, told me that the administration needed to address a crisis caused when some major US banks suddenly discovered that they were processing payments to Asia World and, out of fear of triggering scrutiny from the US government, stopped clearing transactions related to the Yangon port fees for both US and foreign businesses.

Since this is Myanmar’s main port, the banks’ actions threaten to shut down a significant portion

A Treasury Department spokesman would not confirm the plans to change the status of the transactions at the Yangon port, but told me that the Office of Foreign Assets Control was responding to concerns about the flow of trade and trade finance through major ports in Myanmar and the impact of sanctions. of the country’s international trade, which was not the intention of the sanctions and could harm broader US policy goals there, the official said. The administration wants to find a way to allow continued use of the port while maintaining, and possible tightening, restrictions on doing business with Law directly, the official said.

Many US businesses have been pushing the Treasury to allow transactions for trade through the Asia World port. The Clearing House Association and the Bankers Association of Finance and Trade wrote to the Treasury Department in July to warn that if no action is taken, the consequences “could amount to a de facto trade embargo on Burma.”

Peter Kucik, a former official in the Treasury’s foreign-asset office, who now consults for companies that do business in Myanmar, told me that adjustments to sanctions are often needed to make sure wellintentioned policies do not have unintended and dire consequences for overall economies. For example, Treasury issued a general license in 2013 to allow transactions with two sanctioned Myanmar banks,

after it was determined that those banks were crucial to the country’s economic development.

“Something needs to be done,” he said. “The intention of targeted sanctions is to target to the extent possible the individual or entities to which they are directed, but they are not supposed to have a broader impact on people who are caught up in the day to day.”

Yet, John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said that the administration is moving too quickly to take an action that would benefit some of Myanmar’s worst actors. Allowing businesses to easily pay fees to Law and Asia World only undermines the effectiveness of the sanctions and sets back Myanmar’s overall path of reform, he said.

“Why is loosening the pressure on these guys the answer? There are other ways,” Sifton said. “These are the people who have helped propped up the junta and ruined Burma’s economy in the first place.”

He added that the US government should press Burma to revoke concessions at ports and other infrastructure owned by sanctioned individuals, or to take other steps to ensure the money doesn’t actually get into the hands of those sanctioned.

The US government is caught in a conundrum. The more it opens up Myanmar to the world, the more those considered the worst actors in Myanmar benefit. The recent elections showed that the country is making real progress, albeit fragile. Allowing trade with Asia World may make sense in the short term, but only if the long-term effort to fight corruption and cronyism in Myanmar is redoubled.

Evaluating Islamic State strategies

By Trudy Rubin The Philadelphia Inquirer TNS Forum

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VER since the Islamic State (IS) attacked Paris, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have called for a more intense effort to destroy the caliphate. Yet, despite the horrors wreaked in France, I’ve yet to see any political leader put forward a strategy that shows much promise of achieving that goal.

Republicans (and I refer to those with foreign policy expertise, not the bombastic Donald Trump or the bemused Ben Carson) rightly chastise President Barack Obama for a policy that has mostly failed to dent the IS’s hold on physical and digital territory. Nor have US efforts prevented the group from developing dangerous franchises in Libya and the Sinai, and mounting attacks in Europe.

Critics such as Sen. John McCain, Republican-Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, accuse the White House of being slow to react and only doing so with “incremental” measures to

supplement inadequate air strikes.

Indeed, Obama’s reaction to Paris was incremental: He pledged to send a small number of additional special-forces troops to Iraq (reportedly around 150) with a mission to raid IS strongholds. Yet, despite their legitimate critiques, I’ve yet to see a responsible Republican put forward a plan that had a chance of working.

Neither party seems to have developed goals or means that match the realities on the ground. So in search of coherence, let’s look at what passes for strategy on both sides of the political spectrum.

By eliminating proposals that are ill-conceived or phantasmagoric, we might arrive at a plausible approach. Let’s start with the premise that our goal is to degrade and ultimately destroy the IS. This doesn’t mean that the threat of jihadi terrorism will be eliminated.

It does mean the liberation of the territory occupied by the IS, which would undermine the group’s social-media appeal to foreign fighters and ability to expand abroad.

W hat are the proposals of Obama’s critics? A few seek a largescale increase in the US troop

presence. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican-South Carolina, have recently proposed sending 10,000 US troops to Syria and boosting the 3,500 trainers and advisers in Iraq to 10,000. These troops would supposedly provide logistics and intelligence support to a 100,000-strong Arab force from Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

This approach is a pipe dream for many reasons, even apart from the US public’s reluctance to get heavily involved in another Middle East war.

First, the Arab states and Turkey won’t mount an invasion of Syria, even with US encouragement and participation. States neighboring Syria—Turkey, Iraq and Jordan—would not permit their territory to be used as a staging ground. Moreover, this proposal depends on another unrealistic assumption, promoted not just by Republicans but by Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton: That it is possible to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria along the Turkish border. This zone would supposedly be used as a staging ground from which Syrian rebels could attack both the IS and Syrian President

Bashar al-Assad.

However, the arrival of Russian war planes in Syria makes the nofly zone a nonstarter. The Russians are bombing within the proposed zone, trying to wipe out rebel opponents of Assad. Unless North Atlantic Treaty Organization is willing to engage in an air war with Moscow, a no-fly zone is a no-no.

Russia’s economic reprisals against Turkey, after a Turkish jet recently shot down a Russian fighter plane that had violated Turkish airspace, are bound to undercut Ankara’s previous enthusiasm for such a zone. So what then of Obama’s approach? He, too, is betting on pipe dreams. US air strikes in Syria are ineffective because there are too few reliable spotters on the ground to identify targets. Our Kurdish allies in Iraq and Syria are good fighters, but can’t liberate the Sunni Arab territories that make up the heartland of the IS caliphate. As he made clear this week, Obama is betting heavily that an ongoing negotiating process involving Arab states, Europeans, Iran and Russia will achieve a cease-fire in Syria and pave the way for a more coordinated

Arab-Russian-Western campaign against the IS. But right now, Moscow and Tehran hold all the cards at the bargaining table. Their price for a cease-fire is unacceptably high: The West and Sunni Arab states must accept a transition process that guarantees Assad’s survival and does not guarantee an IS defeat. The only chance that negotiations will prove fruitful is if Obama finally acquires some leverage at the bargaining table.

This will require him to do things he has so far been unwilling to do: make a personal commitment to this fight; appoint higher-level officials to direct it; give direct aid (and yes, send more special forces) to bolster Syrian and Iraqi Sunni tribes willing to fight the jihadis. Right now, many of those tribesmen believe America is secretly supporting the IS, because it hasn’t been willing to back those who are ready to battle the caliphate. Only when Obama makes that commitment will regional leaders and Putin take him seriously—and will any negotiations stand a chance.

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11 countries haven’t made pledges for climate deal

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E BOURGET, France—Some are at war, others recovering from natural disasters and some are simply ideologically opposed to the climate deal taking shape in UN talks outside Paris.

On ly 11 countr ies haven’t submitted pledges for the envisioned agreement, including conf lict-ridden Syria, reclusive North Korea and socialist Latin American countries who say it’s up to the West to clean up the world ’s carbon pollution.

“Those who caused the problem need to solve the problem,” said Paul Oquist, Nicaragua’s US-born climate envoy. UN officials say they have received pledges covering 184 of the 195 countries that are parties to the UN convention on climate change, representing nearly all of the world’s carbon emissions. (The UN counts the European Union as a separate party in addition to its 28 members so the total number of parties is 196.)

Even though the proposed targets collectively don’t add up to what scientists say is needed to avoid dangerous levels of warming, the fact that so many countries, including some of the poorest, have made pledges represents a sea-change in

the UN talks, which previously only asked rich countries to take action against climate change.

Nicaragua is among the holdouts. While rapidly expanding renewable energy at home, the Central American nation refuses to submit a target in the international talks, arguing that the current approach of letting countries decide themselves how much to cut climate-warming carbon emissions won’t work.

“The approach that will work is historic responsibility,” Oquist told The Associated Press (AP), calling for a system that would compel rich nations that have polluted the atmosphere since the industrial revolution to make much deeper cuts than they have promised so far.

Others have skipped the climate pledges for different reasons.North Korea is isolated from the rest of the world and doesn’t actively participate in the climate talks. Syria is in the midst of a devastating civil war.

Members of China Youth Climate Action Network participate in a demonstration march at the Climate Generations Areas as part of the 21st Conference of Parties, United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Paris on Thursday. AP/Francois Mori

Libya remains v iolent and u n s t a ble a f t e r t he upr i s i n g against dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Nepal, normally a keen participant in the UN climate talks, is recovering from

a power f u l ear t hqua ke earlier t his year. “Yes, there are a few countries left,” UN Assistant Secretary-General Janos Pasztor told the AP. “Some of them are in war situations. Some others,

for whatever national reasons, have not been able to complete their work.”

UN agencies have helped dozens of developing countries prepare their climate action plans. Of the

more than 40 countries getting help from the UN Development Program (UNDP), only East Timor wasn’t able to get their pledge in on time, said Yamil Bonduki, a UNDP official who has been involved in that effort. The biggest countries not to present pledges yet are Uzbekistan and Venezuela, a major oil producer which often blasts the West for not doing more to fight global warming.

On Thursday Venezuela’s minister of eco-socialism, Guillermo Barreto, said the country is withholding its pledge until it knows what commitments wealthy countries will put down in the agreement. “We reserve our right to submit it after we know how will be the outcome of this conference,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Paris talks.

The other countries that haven’t presented pledges are Panama, Saint Kitts, Nevis and Tonga, UN officials say. Some countries have done so against all odds. Afghanistan presented a climate pledge despite years of internal conflict.

One of the latest submissions came from Niue, a poor Pacific island nation with just over 1,000 people. It pledged to boost renewable energy to 80 percent of its electricity generation by 2025, providing it gets international assistance.

“On the whole this has been an amazing, very positive development,” Pasztor said. AP

UPS PHL promotes environmental sustainability, community resilience

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s part of UPS’s 13th annual Global Volunteer Month, more than 500 UPS employees across the Philippines contributed more than 4,000 volunteer hours through various activities that contributed to environmental sustainability and building a more resilient community.

Spearheaded by The UPS Foundation, the global philanthropic and corporate citizenship arm of UPS, the Global Volunteer Month mobilizes UPS employees around the world to engage in various service activities. In the Philippines the volunteer activities include: Promoting sustainable agricultural practices through an ongoing arrangement with Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya (Sibat), a local nongovernmental and nonprofit organization that is engaged in the promotion and development of appropriate technology for village level sustainable development in the Philippines.

Over 90 UPS employees and their family members learned how to make soap and ointment from plants and herbs, prepared bags of sawdust used to grow mushrooms, and manually harvested and threshed rice at the Mangarita Organic Farm in Capas, Tarlac, a Sibat technology extension center that provides training to farm technologists and local farmers.

Conserving the environment through tree planting and cleanup of walk paths in Calijon Falls, Malvar, Batangas. More than 70 UPS employees and their family members volunteered over 800 hours in these activities.

Building a more resilient community by

During their visit to Mangarita Organic Farm in Capas, Tarlac, Tim Gohoc (second from left), managing director of UPS Philippines, and UPS Philippines employees prepared bags of sawdust where mushrooms will be grown. The activity is part of UPS Philippines’s ongoing partnership with Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya to promote sustainable agricultural practices.

raising awareness about disaster preparedness in Clark, Pampanga. About 250 UPS employees partnered with Aweca Foundation Inc. to conduct disaster-preparedness orientations, relief operations and feeding programs with the students and families at Sapang Bato and Sitio Target Elementary Schools.

“Creating a sustainable environment and a resilient community requires us to evolve the way we do things. We need to raise awareness of organic farming or sustainable agriculture practices within the community to attain food security without sacrificing the environment,” said Tim Gohoc, managing director of UPS Philippines. “With climate change, we also see more extreme weather conditions, and

DOST’s Starbooks in Cavite

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aint Dominic College of Asia in Bacoor, Cavite, is the newest addition to the growing list of academic institutions now equipped with the first digital science library in the Philippines, the Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly Operated Kiosks, or Starbooks, of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Developed by experts from DOSTScience and Technology Information Institute, Starbooks is a stand-alone information source that operates even without the use of the Internet.

It contains thousands of local and foreign science and technology resources in various formats—such as books, journals, scientific and research papers—covering topics on different branches of science. It also includes livelihood videos, Britannica Ultimate Encyclopedia and the new interactive courseware of DOST- Science

Education Institute and DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute, among others. “Basically, I am very positive with this collaboration with DOST, about this Starbooks program of yours, because this will widen the information resource material that our students will need in all their studies, researches and their regular academic concerns,” said Dr. Gregorio Andaman Jr., president of Saint Dominic College of Asia.

“I really appreciate this gesture of the government in reaching out even to us private sectors. I highly recommend that the DOST would reach out to more academic institutions...so that everybody can have access to these information.”

The rollout of Starbooks and orientation session recently, attended by the school’s officials, librarians, faculty members and students, was in partnership with DOST Calabarzon for the enhancement of the

building disaster preparedness is key to enabling communities to rebound quickly.”

UPS recently became a founding member of Impact 2030, a private sector-led global collaboration between the United Nations, the private sector and civil-society organizations.

Impact 2030 aims to mobilize employee volunteers to contribute to the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The volunteer efforts of UPS Philippines employees during the Global Volunteer Month support Impact 2030, as well as UPS’s pledge to complete 20 million hours of global volunteerism by the end of 2020. Since 2011, UPS has contributed more than 7 million service hours to this goal. state universities and colleges, as well as the community, within the region.

On the other hand, the turnover of Starbooks was part of the school’s Book Week celebration and launching of its digital campus academy.

Andaman also noted that the school will continue to strengthen its collaboration with DOST by promoting Starbooks to other institutions. “We will invite nearby academic institutions, not only private but also public-school students, to have access in our Starbooks inventor y of learning material,” he said.

Starbooks was among the four recipients of the American Library Association Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects on June 29 in San Francisco, California. It was also one of the many product technologies featured during the Kuala Lumpur Engineering Science Fair on October 30 and November 1 in Malaysia. Starbooks is available online via www.starbooks.ph.

For inquiries, e-mail dost.starbooks@gmail. com, starbooks@stii.dost.gov.ph, or stiilibrary@ gmail.com. S&T Media Service

Sports BusinessMirror

A7

| Sunday, December 6, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

AMAZING TORNADOES F

By Lance Agcaoili

OTON went full throttle with a superb display of teamwork to frustrate Petron’s “three-peat” bid, 25-19, 25-18, 25-17, and capture the Philippine Superliga Grand Prix Women’s Volleyball Tournament crown at the jampacked Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City on Saturday.

The overachieving Tornadoes completed their Cinderella run with a team chemistry it perfected when it mattered most to outlast Petron in the one-hour and 25-minute match witnessed by 9,000 ecstatic fans, who witnessed Foton’s first title conquest in the interclub tournament presented by Asics and backed by Milo with Senoh, Mueller and Mikasa as technical partners and TV5 as official broadcaster since joining last year.

“We want fairy tales to come true and it came true for us,” Foton Head Coach Villet Ponce-De Leon said of their 2-1 victory in the race-to-two series. “There is only one factor, it’s really teamwork. All the players here in Superliga are seasoned, and they know to play the game so because it’s a team event, working as a unit is a very important and that’s what we did.”

“We did not expect this match to be done in straight sets. We just want to play every point, every set per game. We did not intend to win this in straight sets, we just want to make more points,” De Leon added.

Foton had a magical run before claiming its first title.

After finishing fifth in its Superliga debut, the Tornadoes wound up fourth in the Grand Prix’s preliminaries for the last semifinals slot. They surprisingly took down leagueleader Philips Gold in the semifinals to forge their first finals appearance against Petron.

Veteran import Lindsay Stalzer was crowned the Grand Prix Most Valuable Player. She finished with 20 hits on 18 spikes in Game Three. Coimport Katie Messing chipped in 14 points on 12 kills and two service aces,

while Jaja Santiago added 11 points.

Foton was in the groove at the onset and carried the momentum in the second set for a 17-12 spread. But Petron stormed back behind import Rupia Inck and local star Dindin Santiago-Manabat to trim the lead to 19-17.

Stalzer and Messing, however, halted the run and gave the Tornadoes a 2-0 advantage.

The Tornadoes continued to sizzle in the third set and took a 14-8 lead. But the Blaze Spikers fought back again and cut the deficit to 14-12. The American imports, however, spoiled Petron’s comeback—Stalzer brought the momentum back to their side, 18-13, while Messing scored the clutch points to for a 23-17 margin.

Ivy Perez, the Best Setter of the conference, redeemed herself from a lethargic Game Two performance and the championship-winning tip. Perez paced her team with 16 excellent sets—twice her output in Game Two, in the match.

Manabat was the lone double-figure scorer for Petron with 14 points from 12 spikes. Inck, after scoring 25 points in Game Two, was limited to seven points despite Erica Adachi’s 22 excellent sets.

As the Grand Prix champions, Foton will represent the Philippines in the Asian Volleyball Confederation Women’s Club Championship the country will be hosting next year.

The other individual awardees were Ariel Usher (First Best Outside Spiker); Bo Todorovic (Second Best Outside Spiker); Alexis Olgard (First Middle Blocker); Santiago (Second Middle Blocker); Ivy Perez (First Best Setter); Erica Adachi (Second Best Setter); Michelle Gumabao (First Best Opposite Spiker); Frances Molina (Second Best Opposite Spiker) and Jen Reyes (Best Libero). Petron Coach George Pascua was named Coach of the Year for leading the Blaze Spikers to an impressive 13-game sweep of the All-Filipino Conference and a finals appearance in the importflavored Grand Prix.

THE Foton Tornadoes outlast the Petron Blaze Spikers and complete a Cinderella run in a one-hour-and-25-minute no-tomorrow match witnessed by 9,000 fans. ROY DOMINGO

V-League Game 2 on

Plaridel Cup unfurls

LDT Home Ultera hopes to draw strength again from Alyssa Valdez as it goes for the clincher against an Army team expected to bounce back strong on Sunday in the Shakey’s V-League Season 12-Reinforced Conference Finals at The Arena in San Juan City.

Spiked by the power-hitting Valdez’s 25-point performance, the Ultra Fast Hitters came back from two sets down to pull the rug from the Lady Troopers, 16-25, 20-25, 26-24, 29-27, 18-16, and move on the cusp of clinching their second championship this season after ruling the Open Conference crown of the league where it all started “She’s very eager to play after missing so many games. She’s doing it for the fans,” said PLDT Coach Roger Gorayeb of the player long considered as the face of the sport, who didn’t see action from the eliminations to the semifinals to honor a previous commitment with Ateneo in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) beach volleyball tournament.

Game time is at 3 p.m. following the 12:45 p.m. clash between University of the Philippines and Navy, with the Lady Maroons also eyeing for a sweep after scoring an 18-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-10 victory in Game One. Both matches will be shown live on GMA News TV Channel 11 and via streaming on www.v-league.ph, according to the organizing Sports Vision. Valdez sustained a minor back problem during the course of her beach volley campaign, forcing her to take more rest to heal the injury. She was actually not scheduled to play in Game One of the title series, but came into the match all geared up, leaving Gorayeb no recourse but to field her in from the second set on.

The rest is history. The two-time UAAP Most Valuable Player played like she didn’t miss a beat, firing 22 kills and finishing with a 25-hit game to power the Ultra Fast Hitters to a dramatic come-frombehind victory last week.

Meanwhile, expect nonstop volleyball action from the opening serve, as Air Force and Cignal face-off in what promises to be a classic sudden death for the Spikers’Turf Season 1-Reinforced Conference crown also on Sunday at The Arena.

The Airmen clipped the HD Spikers in the opener of their bestof-three series, 25-15, 19-25, 25-19, 25-19, but the latter rebounded with a resounding 25-16, 25-17, 25-18 triumph last week to force a winner-take-all in the pioneering men’s volley league presented by PLDT Home Ultera.

The sudden death is set at 5 p.m. to be aired live via streaming via www.spikerstur.com, according to the organizing Sports Vision.

HE Philippine Racing Commisson (Philracom) will again sponsor the annual “Plaridel Cup” that will be held on Sunday afternoon at the MetroTurf in MalvarTanauan, Batangas.

The fourth running of the charity race attracted 11 horses that will compete for the guaranteed prize of P180,000 to the winner, plus a handsome trophy each for the winning owner, trainer and jockey.

To be disputed over 1,400 meters, the official entries, together with their respective jockeys, are Royal Key (RC Tabor), Epira (Jesse Guce), Touch of Class (Mark Alvarez), Red Pocket (EC Tolentino), Chuchinelli (JV Ponce), The Flyer (Val Dilema), Fernando (MM Gonzales), Chanson D’Or (Christian Pilapil), Mapaghinala (Deo Fernandez), Sir Bonjing (Jericho Serrano) and Bagong Barrio (JE Appellido).

The Philracom has already sponsored the Plaridel Cup the past three years for the benefit of the Association of Philippine Journalists (Samahang Plaridel Foundation), headed by its President Rolly Estabillo and Chairman Rod Reyes.

“We would like to thank the Philracom, headed by Chairman Andrew Sanchez, together with his distinguished commissioners, and the Metro Manila Turf Club, headed by its Chairman and President Dr. Norberto Quisumbing Jr., for sponsoring and hosting, respectively, this event that really helps our organization to raise funds for all our year-long activities,” Estabillo said. This is the third straight year that MetroTurf is hosting the event.

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PHELPS IN ACTION Michael Phelps rallies in the final 10 meters and out-touched Tom Shields by three-hundredths of a second to win the 100-meter butterfly at the US Winter National Championships in Federal Way, Washington, on Friday. AP

SAN MIGUEL PARBUSTERS TRIUMPH S AN MIGUEL-Northern Cement saved its best for last and carved out a final-round 148 points to snatch the 66th Fil-Am Golf Invitational crown by five points over Manila Southwoods on Saturday at the Camp John Hay course in Baguio City.

Eddie Bagtas and Rupert Zaragosa submitted 39 points each, and Jelbert Gamolo contributed 36 points and Lanz Uy made a 34 for San Miguel-Northern Cement, which started the final round

five shots behind dethroned champion Manila Southwoods.

With 544 points, San Miguel-Northern Cement denied the team from Carmona, Cavite, which churned in 144 for the day and a 539 total. Kristoffer Arevalo made 40 points, one of the two best scores for the day, Yuto Katsugarawa added 37, Ryan Monsalve had a 35 and Justin Quiban carded a 32 for Manila Southwoods.

“Wow, what a victory,” San MiguelNorthern Cement team captain Bobby

RAIN OR SHINE FACES TALK ‘N TEXT; STAR TAKES ON MAHINDRA

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AIN OR SHINE tries to keep pace with two other teams in the hunt for the automatic semifinals seats as it battles Talk ‘N Text in the main game of the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup on Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Elasto Painters (6-1) and the Tropang Texters (4-3) clash at 5:15 p.m., with Talk ‘N Text hoping to formalize its entry into the next round.

Star and Mahindra, each holding a 2-6 win-loss record, face off at 3 p.m. in a crucial encounter with the winner

getting some cushion for a berth in the quarterfinals. The Elasto Painters are on a three-game winning streak and are No. 2 spot behind coleaders San Miguel Beer and Alaska, which are totting identical 7-1 records. They are coming off a 94-86 win against Barangay Ginebra San Miguel on November 29, giving them a week’s break before facing Talk ‘N Text.

“This is a good break for us heading to Sunday’s game,” said Rain or Shine Head Coach Yeng Guiao, a six-time champion coach but never in the All-Filipino conference.

The Tropang Texters are in the middle of the standings but are in need of two wins to assure themselves of at least a twice-to-beat advantage in the quarterfinals. The wards of Head Coach Jong Uichico are coming off a 98-105 overtime loss to Barako Bull.

The Hotshots and the Enforcers, meanwhile, eye a crucial victory that will enhance their chances for the next round.

The Star enters the game with a fourgame losing streak, the last with a 90-101 setback to the Beermen. Head Coach Jason Webb took responsibility of the team’s four-game slide.

Iñigo said. “We played against the defending champions and we just won until the end which is a very close game,” Iñigo added.

“It was a team effort and we are lucky to have a supportive team captain [Inigo],” said Bagtas, who did not play in the first two rounds at the Baguio Country Club.

Jobim Carlos was the day’s other best scorer with 40 points to help Royal Northwoods to 137 and 514 total for third place.

NBA RESULTS Washington 109, Phoenix 106 New York 108, Brooklyn 91 Detroit 102, Milwaukee 95 Atlanta 100, LA Lakers 87 Houston 100, Dallas 96 New Orleans 114, Cleveland 108, OT

“We’re turning over the ball too much.

I have to do a better job of preparing the guys, of getting them ready,” Webb said.

Mahindra is also coming off a loss, 86-102, to San Miguel, but the team of assistant mentor Chito Victolero remains confident of advancing to the next stage. Joel Orellana

Cyna jumps to No. 16

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YNA RODRIGUEZ continued to dish out her fine form as the pressure mounted, firing a gutsy two-under 70 and moving two rungs better at joint 16th after three rounds of the final Ladies Professional Golfers Association (LPGA) Qualifying School still led by Simin Feng of China at the LPGA International Course in Florida on Friday.

Back at the Jones layout where she carded a 71 in the first round, Rodriguez birdied three of the first five holes inside eight feet to negate a missed-green bogey on the par-3 No. 3, then made up for another bogey mishap on No. 12 with a second-straight birdie on the par-5 closing hole.

With a 34-36 card, the three-time Ladies Philippine Golf Tour Order of Merit champion pooled a 54-hole haul of four-under 212, still eight shots behind a solid Feng, who shot a 69 for a 204, but well within the top 20 which will earn automatic LPGA Tour cards next year.

Dottie Ardina also got back into the thick of things, rebounding from an awful 76 at the Hills course on Thursday with a four-under 68 back at Jones, leapfrogging from a share of 95th to a share of 48th with still two rounds left in the grueling qualifier which also gives conditional status for players finishing 21st to 45th, including ties.

Feng virtually clinched a coveted berth with an eaglespiked 69, seizing a two-shot lead over Cydney Clanton of the US, who also shot a 69 for a 206, while erstwhile joint leader Julie Yang of Korea slowed down with a 74 and dropped to third at 207.