BusinessMirror January 07, 2020 by BusinessMirror

D.A. SPENDING P40B FOR TOBACCO PLAN By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

A tobacco farmer in Ilocos Sur is seen in this BusinessMirror file photo collecting crabgrass, which affects the growth of tobacco plants. NONIE REYES

HE Department of Agriculture (DA) is eyeing to spend P40 billion over the next five years to modernize and industrialize the country’s tobacco industry in its bid to improve planters’ yield and revenue. In a statement over the weekend, the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) said it has crafted the Tobacco Industry Enhancement Program (TIEP), a five-year plan that seeks to further develop the country’s tobacco sector. The NTA is an attached government-owned and -controlled corporation of the DA. Under the TIEP, the NTA said it plans to utilize P8 billion annually from the Tobacco

Fund created by Republic Act (RA) 4155 for farm mechanization, seed distribution, credit facilities and skills development of tobacco growers in Northern Luzon. The TIEP was revealed by Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar during a brief meeting with tobacco farmers in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur, on December 27 as he led the awarding of the national winners of the Tobacco Growers of the Year (TGY). RA 4155 created the Tobacco Fund, which comprises 50 percent of the total collected tariffs or taxes on imported leaf tobacco and 50 percent of the total special taxes on locally manufactured Virginia-type cigarettes. Department of Budget and Management (DBM) documents showed that as of end2018 the Tobacco Fund has reached P62.543

Tuesday, December 31, 2019 Vol. 15 No. 82

Good current account standing vowed for 2020

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

HE Department of Finance has vowed to improve the Philippines’s current account standing in 2020. The DOF, in a statement on Monday, said they are looking to keep the country’s current account on the improving trend for 2020.

Key to this goal, the finance department said, is maintaining good fundamentals by keeping both the budget deficit and balance-ofpayments manageable, as well as keeping interest rates at the level that sustains the desired volume of investments.

The current-account deficit dropped from 2.46 percent of GDP ($5.84 billion) in the first three quarters of 2018 to 0.42 percent ($0.992 billion) in the same period in 2019, thus boosting the overall surplus in the services trade and income balances.

The current account is the balance of exports and imports of goods, services and income balances. Meanwhile, the deficit in the trade in goods balance also dipped from 15.49 percent of GDP ($36.82 billion) in the same period last year to 13.78 percent of GDP ($35.30

P25.00 nationwide | 3 sections 16 pages |

LOCAL D.T.I. REGULATORS BIASED? STEELMAKERS TO NATL HQ: TAKE OVER

$0.992B L The current-account deficit in the first three quarters of 2019 (representing 0.42 percent of GDP), a sharp decline from 2.46 percent of GDP ($5.84 billion) in the same period in 2018

billion) due to the slowdown in imports brought by lower capital goods purchases. “The current account strengthened with the deficit dropping 16 percent below its previous level in GDP terms,” the DOF said in the latest economic bulletin. The current account also strengthened even as the country’s economic growth recovered

billion with a proposed P560.434-million expenditure for next year. DBM documents also showed that it projected that the Tobacco Fund to earn an additional P8.326 billion next year. The country’s tobacco output from January to September grew by 2.46 percent to 50,490 metric tons from 49,280 MT in the same period in 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said. The PSA attributed the increase to additional areas planted for native tobacco variety production in Northern Mindanao due to higher prices in the third quarter. Furthermore, the PSA noted that the provision of fertilizer and sprayer assistance from the NTA contributed to the increase in tobacco output.

By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

OCAL steelmakers are asking the national level of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to take over the monitoring of mandatory products to intensify the fight against substandard products. In an earlier interview with the BusinessMirror, Philippine Iron and Steel Institute (Pisi) President Roberto M. Cola said the DTI should once again take over the monitoring on the regional level of mandatory products. He argued this will ensure the monitoring is objective and in accordance with standards, unlike under the existing setup. Cola said the setup now allows retailers to know when the regional officers of the DTI are about to conduct a monitoring, as they allegedly have links with some trade executives in their provinces; thus, giving them time to hide their substandard products. “The setup now is that the provincial offices of the DTI are supposed to monitor the market. It’s not just in rebars, but in everything, from electrical items to risk hazard materials. The problem there is that those who are doing the monitoring are either friends or relatives of the owners of the hardware stores,” Cola explained. “They know the owners since they have been in the province for a long time. It’s difficult therefore to be objective, there’s like a regulatory capture. They cannot audit and monitor without running the risk of being subjective,” he claimed. See “Steelmakers,” A2

See “Current account,” A2

Motorists bid 2019 goodbye with oil-price hikes, new taxes

FFCCCII sees economy expanding 6.5-7.5% in ’20

HE Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCII) is bullish about the country’s continued economic growth of 6.5 percent to possibly 7.5 percent next year. In a statement, FFCCCII President Dr. Henry Lim Bon Liong said this will be driven by increased local and foreign investments, constant economic reforms, good fiscal and monetary policies, benign inflation rate, political stability, the expected major acceleration in infrastructure expenditures, the tourism boom, and implementation of state technical and credit support for rural farmers. The momentum, according to him, will continue the growth trajectory of 2019, “a period of notable achievements for the Philippines, despite some domestic challenges and global uncertainties.” For the third quarter of this year, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased to 6.2 percent. The government’s full-year GDP growth target is between 6 percent and 7 percent. According to the businessman, some of the major developments that provide impetus to the country’s improved economy are lower inflation, interest rates, and rice prices; and the booming tourism industry due mainly to successes in the government’s pragmatic independent foreign policy and

PESO exchange rates n

persistent anti-crime campaign. Apart from the vibrant economy, these milestones also contributed to the continued popularity of President Duterte, whose approval rating reached 87 percent in the fourth quarter 2019. “[This] is unique for an incumbent president of the republic at mid-term or three years in office. We believe this means that the government’s poverty alleviation and socioeconomic reforms, and his anti-crime campaign are succeeding and helping social progress,” Liong said. He cited as another accomplishment for 2019 the momentum in the government’s massive infrastructure ramp-up. “We hope in this era of ‘Build Build Build’ for Philippine infrastructures, let us support our Filipino farmers with a ‘Grow Grow Grow’ campaign for Philippine agriculture modernization,” he said. In his personal capacity, the FFCCCII president advocates a “Masagana 300” program in partnership with Secretary Joey Concepcion’s GoNegosyo nongovernment organization to encourage the estimated 2 million Filipino rice farmers to boost rice production to 300 cavans per hectare. The chamber, on the other hand, is backing the government’s drive for a grade “A” investment rating for the Philippines from international credit rating agencies. See “FFCCCII,” A2

@alyasjah

erratic changes in climate,” Searca Director and National Academician Glenn B. Gregorio said. “Due attention must be given to our resource-poor farmers by providing them access to information, best practices, and new technologies that give them a fighting chance to cope with the many challenges they face and to open

IL companies will increase the prices per liter of gasoline by P0.85, diesel by P0.50 and kerosene by P0.35, as the last wave of fuel price adjustments for the year takes effect today. The hike in oil prices takes effect at 6 a.m. of Tuesday, December 31. Pilipinas Shell and Petro Gazz announced their respective price adjustments over the weekend. Other oil firms are expected follow suit. This is the third consecutive week of price increases for diesel and kerosene. Also, motorists should brace themselves for higher fuel prices at the start of the New Year, as the third and last tranche of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, or TRAIN law, takes effect on January 1, 2020. Figures from the Department of Energy (DOE) show that gasoline prices will increase by P1.12 per liter; diesel by P1.68 per liter; kerosene by P1.12 per liter; and liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, by P1.12 per kilogram. These cost increases are imposed on top of the price adjustments that oil firms may implement every week. The DOE, however, warned oil firms to use up their 2019 oil inventories before applying the new round of excise taxes slapped on petroleum products.

See “Golden Rice,” A2

See “Oil price,” A2

Clouds are reflected on the new façade of the Department of Finance in Manila, but from all indications, do not presage threats of financial storms. The DOF said it is looking to keep the country’s current account on the improving trend next year, as the current-account deficit improved, boosting the overall surplus in the services trade and income balance. NONIE REYES

Searca backs Golden Rice amid calls to void permit

HE Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) has thrown its support behind Golden Rice (GR2E) amid calls by certain sectors to revoke the genetically modified organism’s (GMO) biosafety permit. In a statement on Monday, Asean’s farm research center said it is also boosting support for the

country’s biotechnology regulations and policies by opening a program to expand knowledge on biotechnology, particularly GMOs and regulations, for stakeholders, especially policy-makers. “We stand behind products of agribiotechnology that increase agricultural productivity to feed a growing population in the midst of dwindling natural resources and

US 50.7440 n japan 0.4629 n UK 65.9926 n HK 6.5162 n CHINA 7.2512 n singapore 37.4909 n australia 35.2569 n EU 56.3512 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.5238

Source: BSP (27 December 2019 )

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Tuesday, December 31, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Aid, prayers for OFWs in Singapore car crash

By Samuel P. Medenilla

@sam_medenilla

HE Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) is currently extending its assistance to six overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were crushed by a vehicle that lost control in Singapore’s Orchard Road over the weekend.

Steelmakers. . . Continued from A1

Cola recalled how successful the former system was. The policy then was for the national officers of the DTI, along with industry groups, to go to provinces to do unannounced inspection of retail stores. “Before, the setup was that the DTI head office, through the Bureau of Product Standards, goes around the country to monitor. The advantage back then is that the stores in the regions do not know that there will be a team doing rounds in their area. At that time as well, the DTI had a partnership with the industry groups on steel, cement, electrical items, batteries and even in tires,” the Pisi chief said.

Duterte. . .

Continued from A8

That’s a rip-off,” he said. Sought to clarify the President’s statement, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said they have yet to find out what the President wants to do with the agreements with the water concessionaires after the Cabinet meeting on January 6. “This matter is in the agenda for the Cabinet meeting on January 6. The OSG [Office of the Solicitor General] will present a new government version of the water concession agreements, with inputs from the MWSS [Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System], OGCC [Office of the Government Corporate Counsel], and DOJ [Department of Justice]. The DOF [Department of Finance] will also provide inputs on the financial aspect,” Guevarra said in a text message to BusinessMirror.

Just sell, Lopezes told

With three months left before the franchise of local broadcast network ABS-CBN expires, Duterte on Monday advised owners of the TV giant to just sell the network. “Itong ABS, mag-expire ang contract ninyo. Mag-renew kayo, ewan ko lang kung may mangyari diyan. Kung ako sa inyo, ipagbili niyo na ‘yan [This ABS-CBN, your contract is about to expire. If you ask for a renewal, I don’t know what’s going to happen. If I were you, I would just sell it],” Duterte said in a speech in North Cotabato. “Kasi ang mga Pilipino ngayon lang makaganti sa inyong kalokohan [Because it’s only now that Filipinos can seek redress for your misconduct]. I will make sure that you will remember this episode of our times forever,” he added. On December 4, Duterte said he is bent on not granting the renewal of the 25-year congressional franchise to ABS-CBN, still irked by the network’s supposed bias including

Cool to proposal

Meanwhile, Cola’s proposal to return monitoring to DTI head office seems unwelcome to DTI. In an interview with the BusinessMirror, Trade Undersecretary Ruth B. Castelo said such return of powers to the DTI national level will run counter to the rationalization program of the government. Such program in 2013 had rationalized the duties and responsibilities of trade officers, formally transferring the power to inspect hardware stores in the provinces to DTI regional offices. “The 2013 rationalization increased the consumer protection levels of the regional and provincial offices, while decreasing that of the national office. The setup is really like that now due to the 2013 rationalization,” alleged unfair reports about him and failure to run his paid political advertisements during the 2016 presidential race. He said he would not change his mind, despite the news outfit’s persistence to come to him “begging.” Unless the Congress grants its renewal, ABS-CBN’s franchise is set to expire on March 30, 2020. Several bills have been filed at the House of Representatives, seeking the renewal of the ABS-CBN congressional franchise. A congressional franchise bill needs to be first approved by the House before it can be transmitted to the Senate. Once approved by both chambers, it will be submitted to the President to be signed into law. Duterte, however, has the power to veto bills that Congress approves. Radio and television broadcast firms in the country are required to seek a franchise from Congress, pursuant to Republic Act 3846. Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar, however, said ABS-CBN still has other options, should it fail to renew its congressional franchise. “I’m sure ABS-CBN can find a way how to distribute their content if they lose their franchise,” Andanar said. Rival TV5 has indicated it is open to the notion of having the Lopezes, owners of the network, to buy block airtime at TV5 and air their content there, but Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of TV5’s parent firm, denied they were selling their network to the Lopezes. See related story in Companies, “TV5 open to let Lopezes buy block airtime if ABS-CBN doesn’t get franchise,” page B1.

Wawa, Kaliwa

In a related development, the President in another speech on Monday also said he will order authorities to go ahead with the Wawa Bulk

Current account. . . Continued from A1

to 6.3 percent in the third quarter. Moreover, the DOF said allowing the exchange rate to stay at its competitive level will also bode well for the country’s economic growth in the medium term. As of December 27, the peso-dollar exchange rate stood at P50.744=$1. GDP growth reached 5.6 percent in the first quarter and 5.5 percent in the second quarter. Year-to-date GDP growth is at 5.8 percent, still below the government’s revised target of 6 percent to 6.5 percent. The surplus in trade in services and income balances as of end of third quarter

Two of the OFWs died, while four others are in serious condition as a wayward car crashed into them while they were spending their Sunday in the Lucky Plaza district. “We are extending our condolences to the families of the OFWs who died from the incident in Singapore yesterday [Sunday],” Owwa Administrator Hans J. Cacdac said via his official Twitter account. “We are also helping the families of those who were injured and in the hospital right now.”

Castelo explained. “Now, even if we want to, our resources are limited. Even if we want to go to the regions, our resources are limited because the budget is allocated to the regional offices. We also know that there’s a consumer protection division in the area with this task to do it,” she added. Castelo told the BusinessMirror she has called the attention of the regional offices to intensify the campaign against substandard products in line with the national office’s program. Industry group Pisi has so far tested rebar samples from 164 hardware stores across the country this year. Of this total, nearly 38 percent, or 62 retailers, were found selling substandard rebars. Water Supply Project as well as the controversial Kaliwa Dam projects, but vowed to pay and relocate the locals who will be affected by the construction. “I can give you a little bit of elbow room to move. Those who are living there, of course, they are all natives and they are trying to delay the project. We need water,” Duterte said in a speech in Digos City on Monday. “Without Wawa and Kaliwa Dam....this will be the last resort to have water for Manila. I will order them to go ahead.” The construction of the Chinese-funded P12.2-billion New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project has been opposed by environment groups, citing the damage it will pose to the Sierra Madre and its biodiversity, as well as the displacement of the Dumagat indigenous tribes. The Kaliwa Dam is also a 600 million liter per day water reservoir project in Rizal and Quezon. On the other hand, the Wawa Bulk Water Supply Project, a joint venture between billionaire Enrique Razon’s Prime Infra and businessman Oscar Violago’s San Lorenzo Ruiz Builders Group, is eyed to supply 80 million liters per day of water in 2021 and more than 500 million liters per day in 2025. The President has been lambasting the water concessionaires after the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in Singapore ordered Manila to pay east zone concessionaire Manila Water P7.4 billion for the nonimplementation of water-rate increases that occurred prior to his presidency. The PCA had also ruled on a similar case filed by west zone concessionaire Maynilad, ordering the State to pay P3.4 billion for Maynilad’s losses from March 2015 to August 2016. The water concessionaires have since said they will no longer seek payment for the arbitral award from the government.

rose by 10.8 percent from $30.98 billion or 13.0 percent of GDP to $34.31 billion or 13.4 percent of GDP. Earnings from BPOs, remittance inflows and earnings from investments abroad by Filipino citizens accounted for these substantial receipts. The primary income balance, which is accounted for by earnings by the country from placements abroad less earnings by other countries from local placements, grew by 52.8 percent, from $2.48 billion to $3.79 billion. On the other hand, secondary income balance, which is accounted for by remittances accruing to OFWs less incomes of expatriates remitted abroad, also grew —by 2.7 percent, from $19.74 billion to $20.27 billion.

Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is awaiting the results of the investigation by Singaporean authorities on the accident. As of yesterday, the DFA has confirmed that among the four injured victims, two are already in stable condition, while the others are still undergoing intensive-care treatment. They are currently receiving assistance from the Philippine Embassy in Singapore. The foreign affairs department

said it “stands ready to provide all the assistance needed [by] the victims.” Together with the embassy, it is currently coordinating with Singaporean authorities for the repatriation of the remains of the casualties. For the Catholic Church’s part, Balanga, Bataan, Bishop Ruperto Santos said it has offered prayers and a Mass for the said victims. “We implore our good Lord to grant strength to those whom they have left behind.... We have to pray,

FFCCCII. . .

Wage-setting review seen to gain traction

Continued from A1

“Thus, we support the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act [Citira] to lower corporate income tax from 30 percent to 20 percent and to rationalize investment incentives,” Liong said. “Whatever we at the FFCCCII have done in 2019, our over 170 member chambers and industry associations nationwide are committed to do more for 2020. We have great faith in the bright and more inclusive future of the Philippine economy, therefore we shall invest more and encourage other fellow entrepreneurs here and abroad to do more business in the Philippines,” he added. Looking forward to 2020, the group of Filipino-Chinese traders is excited for the upcoming 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China amid their flourishing economic and infrastructure cooperation, cultural diplomacy and other people-to-people exchanges. “The strengthening of our traditional good relations with China is good news for the Philippine economy, as we compete with our Asean and Asian neighbors in tapping this world’s No. 1 largest consumer and tourism market of 1.4 billion people,” Liong stressed. Roderick L. Abad

TRAIN. . .

Continued from A8

P7 per liter

Deputy Minority Leader Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate of Bayan Muna said with the latest oil price hike plus the third tranche of the TRAIN law’s excise tax on oil, as well as the diesel conversion of oil tankers all over the world, the oil price hike for diesel for January 2020 may reach up to P7 per liter. He said gasoline could be P1.85 per liter more while kerosene would be P1.35 per liter higher. He noted the latest oil price hike that takes effect January 1 and would welcome the new year is as follows: gasoline, P0.85/liter; kerosene, P0.35/liter; and diesel, P0.50/liter. “Worse, considering the shift to diesel by tankers transporting oil products, an additional P5 to P10 more, based on DOE computations, will be added to diesel prices per liter. This means, we will have a whopping P7 per liter increase in diesel alone,” said Zarate. Even if the DOE is telling oil companies to first deplete their old stocks before imposing the added excise tax on oil products, Zarate said that “without the unbundling of the prices of oil products we cannot tell for certain if the oil companies are already passing on the new excise taxes.”

Chinese. . .

Continued from A8

“These criminals are not welcome here in the Philippines,” Morente said. Many of them, he added, are “part of international syndicates that try to relocate their operations in the country. We will not allow this. They will be arrested, deported, and immediately banned from returning.” Joel R. San Juan

Oil price. . . Continued from A1

Energy Undersecretary Jesus Cristino Posadas said oil firms should not impose the additional taxes next year if they still have old stock of petroleum products from 2019. “Ubusin muna yung lumang inventory. [Exhaust first the old i n v e n t o r y. ] . . . T h a t ’s n o r m a l protocol—[for fuel] both imported and produced by the refinery,” instructed Posadas. The DOE official meant that the sale of old stocks, referring to the remaining balance of the inventory

ending December 31, 2019, should be exempted from the third tranche of excise taxes, and should not be collected from consumers. Otherwise, the sale would constitute a violation of the law and would warrant not only administrative penalties such as closure of the establishment, but also the criminal penalty of large-scale estafa. Posadas said the DOE will strictly monitor the inventories of oil companies in order to protect consumers from unjust trading and profiteering. The government agency has ordered the said firms to submit an inventory report of their petroleum products’ supply as of December 31, 2019. Lenie Lectura

By Samuel P. Medenilla

@sam_medenilla

HE call to finally “fix” the existing minimum-wage setting mechanism is expected to gain momentum next year. This after Partido Manggagawa (PM) said it will be intensifying its lobby in 2020 to bring back the national minimum wage and the abolition of the regional wage boards as financial compensation for workers stagnate despite their growing productivity. “A Department of Finance study has revealed that from 2001 to 2016, labor productivity has doubled but real wages have remained stagnant despite repeated nominal wage orders by regional boards,” PM said in its year-ender statement. “In other words, the pie has become bigger but capitalists have monopolized the fruits of workers’ labor,” it added. The militant labor group said it will be pushing for the creation of the National Wage Commission that will set their proposed national minimum wage at the level of the cost of living. “This will be in consonance with the constitutional provision for a living wage. Next year, the fight

Golden Rice. . . Continued from A1

up better opportunities for them and their families so that they can have better quality lives,” Gregorio added. Despite safety questions on these biotechnology products, Searca said “it is important to harness the full potential of agribiotechnology through effective communication and science-based regulatory frameworks.” Searca’s statement came a week after environmental group Greenpeace urged the Department of Agriculture (DA) to revoke the biosafety permit for food, feed and processing (FFP) use of GR2E. In a statement on Christmas Eve, Greenpeace said it “believes” that the approval of the GR2E’s FFP biosafety permit is “unwarranted” due to “incomplete data submitted by proponents” and “lack of transparency and adequate public participation.” Greenpeace added that it submitted a formal appeal on December 23 to Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar, urging him to revoke the

Ursula. . .

Continued from A8

In Western Samar, Samelco II reported it has partially restored electricity service in Catbalogan City, Calbiga, Hinabangan, Jiabong, Motiong, Paranas, Pinabacdao, San Jose de Buan, San Sebastian, Zumarraga, Villareal, Basey and Sta. Rita, while restoration efforts are ongoing in Daram, Marabut and Talalora. Meanwhile, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) reported Monday the restoration of the Borongan-Quinapondan

care for them, and do whatever to alleviate their sufferings,” Santos added. The former head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People also urged authorities to probe into the incident, and hold those responsible for it accountable if found guilty. Based on recent reports, Singaporean policemen have arrested the 64-year-old driver of the car that crashed into the group of OFWs.

for a living wage should begin in earnest,” PM said. PM, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), Federation of Free Workers (FFW), and other members of the labor coalition Nagkaisa have been making similar calls. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has already initiated its own review on the current region-based minimum-wage setting since 2018 upon the request of lawmakers in preparation for the proposed national minimum wage. Earlier this year, DOLE’s National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) tapped an expert from the International Labor Organization (ILO) to conduct a third-party review of regional wage boards. In an interview, NWPC Executive Director Maria Criselda R. Sy told the BusinessMirror said they expect the review to be completed by the first quarter of 2020. However, she noted, the completion of the review will depend on the assessment of the ILO expert. “Currently there are still no findings since the data for it is still being consolidated,” Sy said. The NWPC, in cooperation with the University of the Philippines (UP), earlier conducted stakeholder consultations on the same issue. biosafety permit issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry, an attached agency of the DA. Searca said it partnered with the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (Isaaa), the Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre, and Monash University for its program called “Second Asian Course on Agribiotechnology.” T he program, Isaaa Global Coordinator Dr. Mahaletchumy Arujanan said, would provide Asian stakeholders with “updated information and hands-on experience on agribiotechnology, exercises on food/feed safety assessment, and tips on strategic communication, and risk management and communication.” “ T h i s y e a r ’s A s i a n S h o r t Course on Ag r ibiotechnolog y gathers 25 participants from both public and private sectors of eight countries. These are China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam,” Searca said. The program focuses on Agribiotechnology, Biotechnology Regulation and Communication. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

69-kV Line and Concepcion-Sara-Estancia 69-kV Line as Monday noon. The transmission lines that are still unavailable are Ormoc-San Isidro 69-kV Line and Nabas-Sapian 69-kV Line. “NGCP continues with the aerial inspection and foot patrol of all areas affected by Typhoon Ursula, given the difficulty in accessibility of certain areas devastated by the storm due to floods and landslides. Mobilization of line personnel and equipment continue, and simultaneous restoration activities are being conducted on the areas already accessible,” it said. Lenie Lectura

The Nation BusinessMirror

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Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Tuesday, December 31, 2019 A3

Duterte asks Año to supervise PNP

RESIDENT Duterte bared on Monday that he has asked Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año to supervise the Philippine National Police (PNP) while he has yet to appoint a chief for the country’s police force. Duterte admitted he is still having trouble deciding on who to appoint as next PNP chief lamenting that the police force in Manila remained problematic. “Sa mga probinsiya, mahusay ang pulis [In the province, police are doing good]. But in Manila...that’s why I did not appoint a PNP [chief.]. Sabi ko kay Gen. Año na hawakan niya [I told Gen. Año to supervise it first],” Duterte said in a speech in North Cotabato.

“You fix the police so that by the time we make the exit two years from now, at least ’yung mga problema ng Pilipino, medyo hindi na masyadong mabigat [the problems of Filipinos would be less heavy],” he added. He also warned police and local politicians involved in the illegal-drug trade and corruption from facing the worst type of punishment if caught. “Pagka pumasok kayo sa droga [If you enter

the illegal-drug trade], there is no other way to deal with you except to kill you,” Duterte said. Meanwhile, he slammed human-rights groups for criticizing his aggressive crackdown on illegal drugs. “Ang mga human rights na ’yan, ang ginagawa puro human wrong, hindi human rights [Those human-rights groups, they’re involved in doing ‘human wrong,’ not human rights],” Duterte said. He criticized them for counting the number of suspects killed in the drug war instead of taking notice of those killed by crimes, which resulted from drug overdose. “Maraming buhay nasisira. Ikaw, may bahay ka, may adik ka lang sa bahay mo, may problema ka na. [There are many lives ruined. If you live with an addict, you have a problem]. And even let me say, the family becomes dysfunctional,” he added. Last month, Duterte said he would rather direct the PNP himself than appoint a corrupt chief, insisting his desire for the next leader not to be involved in any allegation,

or case of corruption. “I would rather not appoint anybody for that matter. Ako na ang hahawak [I will handle it]. I will be the one directing...guidance and direction lang naman ako [I will only be there for guidance and direction],” Duterte said in a media interview on November 28. In a TV interview earlier this month, he said even if all contenders were “good” he wanted the next PNP to guarantee that all drugs lords would be killed. The PNP is currently headed by Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa as an officer in charge. Contenders for the post are Gamboa; Lt. Gen. Camilo Cascolan, deputy chief for operations; and Maj. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, former Metro Manila police director and now head of the directorial staff. Other names mentioned were Central Visayas Regional Director Brig. Gen. Valeriano de Leon and Calabarzon Regional Director Brig. Gen. Vicente Danao Jr. PNA

Sotto to local executives: Enforce firecracker ban

Arrest of alien criminals rise to 65% in 2019 By Joel R. San Juan

By Butch Fernandez

@jrsanjuan1573

HE Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Monday disclosed that Chinese nationals topped the number of foreign criminals arrested in the Philippines in 2019. BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said immigration operatives have arrested at least 421 foreign fugitives in the country from January up to December of this year, which is 65 percent higher compared from 2018 figures. The alien fugitives were arrested by the BI’s Fugitive Search Unit (FSU) and have been deported to their respective countries of origin to face prosecution and serve their sentence behind bars. “They can no longer come back because they have been placed in our blacklist of undesirable aliens. We cannot allow these criminals to use the Philippines as their sanctuary,” Morente said. The arrested aliens were wanted for various serious offenses, including rape, child molestation, illegal drugs, fraud, cyber crimes, and large-scale economic crimes. Out of 421 foreign fugitives arrested, 324 were Chinese nationals, 277 of whom were rounded up during a raid on their lairs at the Ortigas Center in Pasig City, last September. The said 277 Chinese nationals were all wanted for involvement in a large-scale investment scam wherein a thousand of their compatriots were victimized and whose combined losses amounted to more than 100 million yuan or more than $14 million. Japanese nationals came in next with 36 fugitives arrested in the country. Most of them are wanted by authorities for involvement in telecom fraud and theft, and whose victims allegedly incurred losses of more than ¥2 billion, or more than $18 million. The FSU’s list of arrested fugitives also included 27 Koreans, 20 Americans, three other Japanese, as well ass three Taiwanese and two Britons. Completing the list is a Russian, a Swede, a Malaysian, a Colombian, an Australian, and a German. With Recto Mercene

OF MICE AND MORTALS

In anticipation of the forthcoming year of the rat, children were gathered at the Malabon Zoo, and were each given free play trumpets to encourage them to just blow the paper noise maker during the New Year’s eve revelry rather than exploding firecrackers. The children were also taught about the noise sensitivity of animals. ROY DOMINGO

Miaa conducts surprise drug test on 1,400 airport personnel By Recto Mercene

@rectomercene

HE Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) has conducted surprise random drug test to some 1,400 of its organic personnel last Friday and Saturday to identify possible users and dependents of illegal drugs. Miaa General Manager Ed Monreal said they tapped the services of DrugCheck Phils. Inc. who conducted the drug test through urine tests. The results will be released in the first week of January 2020. Monreal said the drug test covers office workers, policemen, firefighters, other organic employees, and other airport workers suspected to be using illegal drugs.

“We want to know who are the employees using illegal drugs so we can file charges against them,” he said. “But of course there will be due process like confirmatory test to find out if any employee is found positive.” Monreal added that it is possible some of the employees may be taking doctor-prescribed maintenance medicines. Monreal said the Miaa is doing random drug test every year in line with the Comprehensive Dangerous Drug Act of 2002 and Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade’s directive. We want to assure air travelers that all our personnel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport are not drug users.

AFP, PNP pay homage to Dr. Jose P. Rizal’s heroism and martyrdom By Rene Acosta

@reneacostaBM

HE Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) joined the Filipinos in paying tribute to national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, as the country observed his 123rd martyrdom anniversary at Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park) on Monday. “The AFP pays homage to our national hero. He epitomizes the AFP’s core values of honor, service, and patriotism,” said AFP Spokesman, Marine Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo, in a message to reporters. Aside from these traits, Rizal also exudes the leadership principles of a Filipino trooper. “He labored tirelessly to improve himself personally and professionally. He led by example. He took care of his people and look out for their welfare,” he said. He added that above all, Rizal played an active role in the fight for nationalism, and took responsibility and paid dearly for his heroic actions.

@butchfBM

THE Rizal monument in Manila

“Thus, every soldier, airman, sailor and marine of the AFP emulates Dr. Rizal’s selfless devotion to duty the

country and people—offering the ultimate sacrifice like he did 123 years ago in Bagumbayan when duty demands

it,” Arevalo said. PNP Officer in Charge Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa, for his part, said in a news statement: “Today, we honor and cherish the memory of the 123rd year of Rizal’s martyrdom after his noble deeds and sacrifices to fight for our freedom from three centuries of Spanish rule,” he said Gamboa said Rizal remains as the foremost inspiration of the 195,000 members of the PNP with their sworn duty to serve and protect the country. According to Gamboa, Rizal took the opportunity to “die a meaningful death and awaken the nation to rise from bondage.” “The men and women of the PNP derive inspiration from Rizal’s supreme sacrifice that we too shall be honored to offer ours,” he said. Rizal Day was first celebrated on December 30, 1898, after General Emilio Aguinaldo issued a decree declaring December 30, as the anniversary of Jose Rizal’s death. With PNA

OOKING to minimize casualties in the upcoming New Year revelry, Senate President Vicente Sotto III reminded local officials on Sunday to strictly enforce existing regulations on the use of firecrackers, and other pyrotechnics. In a news statement, Sotto prodded local executives to strictly regulate the use of firecrackers, and other pyrotechnic devices in their jurisdictions to ensure this coming New Year celebration would be “safer and more environment-friendly.” Sotto had earlier filed Senate Bill 493 for Congress’s approval in seeking to institutionalize President Duterte’s Executive Order 28 issued last June 2017, which bans “uncontrolled and unregulated use of firecrackers and similar devices.” The Sotto bill, to be known as Firecracker Ban law would prohibit “unsupervised use of firecrackers and pyrotechnic devices in any place regardless of any occasion.” It, however, allows use of firecrackers and/or pyrotechnic devices but only in designated areas and requires authorization from local government units. “The use of the same shall exclusively be done by professionals who have the technical skills and knowledge on the preparation and lighting of firecrackers, and similar devices,” the bill added. Once enacted into law, any person caught violating the ban shall be punished by a fine of not less than P10,000 but not more than P 50,000, or imprisonment from six months to one year, or both, at the discretion of the court. Sotto, in seeking the timely passage of remedial legislation, cited, however, the huge drop in injuries and fatalities during the 2018 New Years’ celebration following the issuance of Malacañang’s EO 28. “By reason of the aforesaid presidential issuance [EO 28], there has been an 80-percent drop as compared with the five-year average in firecracker-related injuries nationwide in January 2019. Moreover, there was a 68-percent decline in the number of fireworks-related incidents from December 21, 2018, to January 1, 2019, compared to the same period in the previous year,” said Sotto. He pointed out that “due to the undeniable success in the implementation of EO 28, it is but appropriate to institutionalize it and make it in effect through legislative enactment,” as embodied in Senate Bill 493.

QC fireworks zones

THE local government in Quezon City, in a bid to regulate and control the use of firecrackers and other pyrotechnics to welcome 2020, has designated zones where fireworks use and displays are allowed. “We urge the public to use fireworks only within the permitted zones in the city. We hope everyone will cooperate with the city government in promoting safe and responsible celebration during the holidays,” said Mayor Joy Belmonte in a news statement, stressing that the use of firecrackers this season must be carried out with utmost regard to its possible hazards and to the safety of every citizen. Several firecracker zones have been assigned in all 12 police stations under the Quezon City Police District’s (QCPD) areas of responsibility. Each zone will be manned by a team comprised of barangay officials, Barangay Security and Development Officers, and volunteers. La Loma, PS1; Masambong, PS2; Talipapa, PS3; Novaliches, PS4; Fairview, PS5; Batasan, PS6; Cubao, PS7; Project 4, PS8; Anonas, PS9; Kamuning, PS10; Galas, PS11; and Eastwood, PS12. “We have assigned a total of 180 firecracker zones all over QC and we will deploy several police personnel who will make rounds of stations to ensure full implementation. Our objective is to ensure that the occurrence of fireworksrelated injuries, damage to properties, and even death will be minimized,” Police Maj. Alexander Barredo of the QCPD. “The use of fireworks outside the designated zones and use of illegal fireworks are both prohibited,” added Barredo, citing Ordinance 2618, Series of 2017. Anyone who will violate will be fined P5,000 and/or will be imprisoned by one year. Belmonte, meanwhile, encouraged the public to watch and enjoy community fireworks displays that will be simultaneously staged by the city government, and other partner establishments in various parts of the city at 12 midnight to usher the new year.

A4 Tuesday, December 31, 2019 • Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Economy BusinessMirror

Typhoon Ursula farm damage climbs to ₧999.4M–DA report

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

@jearcalas

HE damage caused by Typhoon Ursula (international code name Phanfone) to the farm sector has climbed to almost P1 billion from P782.97 million, following additional reported losses incurred by farmers in the regions of Mimaropa, Western and Eastern Visayas, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

In a bulletin report issued on Monday, the DA’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Op-

erations Center (DA-DRRM OpCen) said over 62,000 farmers and fisherfolk have incurred losses

amounting to P999.4 million due to Typhoon Ursula. “Updated reports from Mimaropa, Western and Eastern Visayas, particularly for rice, corn and highvalue crops, caused the increase in the total damages and losses,” it said. As of Monday, 2 p.m., the volume of production loss on rice, corn, highvalue crops, livestock and fisheries has now reached 17,659 metric tons (MT), affecting 17,165 hectares and 62,197 farmers and fisherfolk, according to DA-DRRM OpCen. “There are also reported damages and losses on agri-infrastructure,” it added. Based on the DA-DRRM OpCen’s report, the fisheries sector suffered the brunt of Typhoon Ursula’s damage as it accounted for almost 60 percent of the recorded losses. About 43,813 fisherfolk lost

P587.41 million worth of produce and fishing gears. T he t y phoon’s d a m age to the rice sector was estimated at P200.56 million with 8,524 MT of produce in 12,957 hectares of farms being affected, according to the DA-DRMM OpCen’s report. As for the corn sector, 1,969 hectares of land with an estimated output of 110 MT worth P20.16 million was damaged by Typhoon Ursula, the report added. “Concerned DA Regional Field Offices [RFOs] are crafting their respective rehabilitation and recovery plans for areas affected by the typhoon,” it said. “Furthermore, the DA RFOs are still conducting field validation on the extent of the impact brought by Typhoon Ursula in the agri-fisheries sector,” it added.

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For 2 yrs in a row, DOLE cited anew as FOI champion By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

HE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has been cited anew as one of the top government agencies with the most accessible data to the public this year. In a news statement, DOLE said it was hailed by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) as a Freedom of Information (FOI) champion for the second year in a row for its “transparency and full public disclosure of requested information.” PCOO took note of the prompt action of the agency on FOI requests with the average of only 4.12 days. Its other criteria for giving the award to DOLE includes compliance with FOI requirements; awareness campaign to support the implementation of the program; various initiatives and innovations; and the quality, timeliness and efficiency in the overall operationalization of the program. PCOO said this is reflected with

DOLE being among the top requested and performing agencies in the eFOI portal (www.foi.gov.ph). PCOO also recognized DOLE FOI Officer Zyra Glerica Perlora of the Internal Audit Service as one of the Best FOI Receiving Officers. Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III lauded the new award, which he attributed to the department’s substantial reduction of the average processing time, constant updating of the FOI Manual, ensuring a refined “No Wrong Door Policy,” instituting dynamic visibility and feedback mechanisms, and a sound information platform. “It is a validation of our unwavering commitment, and support, to the President’s instructions against corruption and inefficiency,” Bello said. The FOI program was implemented in 2016 through the issuance of Executive Order 2. It allows Filipino citizens to request any information about government transactions and operations, provided that it shall not put into jeopardy privacy and matters of national security.

From undersecretaries to directors, Cimatu orders reshuffle of key DENR executives By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

CHILDREN’S CLOTHES GALORE

A throng of shoppers that include two nuns from a nearby children’s hospice shop for children’s wear at a mall in Manila a day after Christmas. NONOY LACZA

PIDS study urges govt to develop creative industries By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

HE state’s think tank is calling on government executives to develop the creative industries, saying the sector could potentially contribute to the country’s economic growth. In a recent public seminar on digital trade, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) Senior Research Fellow Ramonette B. Serafica said the government should develop an export strategy to strengthen the creative economy. She argued that the promotion of such sector would be in line with the objectives of the government’s development plan. “This would be in line with t he Ph i l ippi ne De ve lopment Plan 2017-2022, which seeks to promote creative industries that cover both tangible goods and in-

tangible services,” Serafica said in the seminar. Serafica added that the government should promote copyrightbased industries, specifically the core CBIs whose outputs can be digitally delivered through the Internet. Core CBIs are divided into nine groups, namely, press and literature; music, theatrical productions, operas; motion picture and video; radio and television; photography; software and databases; visual and graphic art; advertising services; and copyright collective management services. Citing a 2014 study, Serafica said the country’s core CBIs contributed 5.11 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.83 percent of total employment in 2010. In terms of trade, exports of core CBIs grew to $21 million in 2012, a 133-percent increase from 2010 when shipments reached $9 million.

As reported by World Intellectual Property Organization in 2005, CBIs linked to the digital revolution have grown faster than the traditional sectors of the economy. However, Serafica cautioned against cases of copyright infringements related to the activities and operations of core CBIs. As such, she suggested the implementation of strict monitoring by authorities to avoid copyright breaches. Serafica also called on the Philippine Statistics Authority to regularly provide specific information and statistics to both public and private sectors about the creative economy, given its potential to enhance employment and economic outputs. Further, Serafica said the government should look more closely at the opportunities for supporting CBIs, considering the risks that the Fourth Industrial Revolution may have on employment.

TARTING next year, both officials and employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will be working under a new environment following Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu’s issuance of special orders (SO) reshuffling key executives of the department. The reshuffle is expected to affect undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and director-level officials who were also given new offices, or services, to supervise. In an SO dated November 22, 2019, Cimatu has assigned undersecretaries to be “in charge” of certain offices, or services, in the DENR. Undersecretary Rodolfo C. Garcia is the new chief of staff, and field operations undersecretary for Visayas and Mindanao, and is in charge of the Forest Management Bureau (FMB), the agency which implements the Enhanced National Greening Program. Environment Undersecretary Ernesto D. Adobo Jr.’s assignments are administration, finance, human resources and information system. He has been assigned as the supervising undersecretary of the Land Management Bureau. Environment Undersecretary Jonas R. Leones has been assigned to legal, policy, planning and international affairs, and is now the supervising officer of the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB). Environment Undersecretary Analiza R. Teh retains her assignment as undersecretary for climate change and mining concerns. In addition to being the supervising officer for the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Teh is the new supervising officer of the Environmental Management Bureau.

Environment Undersecretary Juan Miguel Cuna has an additional assignment on priority programs on top of being the undersecretary for field operations for Luzon. Environment Undersecretary Jim O. Sampulna has been assigned to enforcement and Muslim affairs, and was named as supervising officer for task forces, including Environment Protection and Enforcement Task Force, and TF Tayo ang Kalikasan. Environment Undersecretary Sherwin Rigor is assigned to the DENR’s attached agencies. Environment Undersecretary Benny D. Antiporda retains his assignment as undersecretary for solid-waste management and local government unit (LGU) concerns, as well as designation as supervising officer for the National Solid Waste Management Commission. In a separate SO dated December 2, 2019, most assistant secretaries of the DENR were also given new assignments. Environment Assistant Secretary Corazon Davis is assigned to policy, planning, foreign-assisted and special projects; Environment Assistant Secretary Marcial C. Amaro Jr. is assigned to field operation-Visayas; Environment Assistant Secretary Michelle Angelica D. Go is assigned to legal and legislative affairs, and supervising the legal and legislative liaison offices. Environment Assistant Secretary Joan A. Lagunda is assigned to administration and human resources, and is the supervising officer of the human resource development service and administrative service; Environment Assistant Secretary Nonita S. Caguioa has been assigned to finance, information system and mining concerns; Environment Assistant Secretary Daniel Nicer is assigned to enforcement;

Environment Assistant Secretary Joselin Marcus E. Fragada to field operations; Environment Officer in Charge Assistant Secretary Ricardo L. Calderon, climate change; Environment OIC Assistant Secretary Ruth M. Tawantawan is assigned to field operations-Eastern Mindanao and concurrent regional executive director of DENR Region 11; Environment OIC Assistant Secretary Gilbert C. Gonzales is assigned to field operations-Southern Luzon and concurrent regional executive director, DENR Region 4A; Environment OIC Assistant Secretary Metodio U. Turbella is assigned to field operations-Western Mindanao. DENR Director IV Jesus Enrico Moises B. Salazar, in an SO dated December 10, was designated as assistant secretary for LGU concerns. In another SO, Calderon’s designation was amended, assigning him as OIC assistant secretary for climate change and concurrent director of the Biodiversity Management Bureau, while Lagunda’s new assignment, or designation, is assistant secretary for administration, human resources and legislative affairs. Cimatu, in another SO dated December 10, 2019, named former ERDB Director Sofio B. Quintana as director for internal audit service, while DENR Director Roland R. Castro is assigned as director of administrative service. Last, DENR Director Angelito V. Fontanilla was assigned as director, foreign-assisted and special projects service. In an interview, Antiporda, the deputy spokesman of Cimatu, said the “reshuffle,” which caused the demotion of several officials, only aims to give chance to others. With the new assignments, he said, the DENR chief is hoping for a more “aggressive” performance next year.

No ‘kid glove’ policy in dealing with power players, lawmaker tells Duterte By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie

DEPUTY minority leader on Monday dared President Duterte to get tough on “abusive” power players next year, the same treatment he gave to water concessionaires. Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate said he wants to see the President to also stop abusive players in the power sector. According to Zarate, power stakeholders are also pushing onerous contracts, which, he said, similar to

what earned the President’s ire in connection with water firms. “For the sake of consistency, President Duterte should be as tough on these power oligarchs as he was to these water concessionaires,” the Makabayan lawmaker said, referring to Manila Water and Maynilad. “They are also pushing for onerous contracts that will no doubt burden consumers,” added Zarate, who warned the public regarding the disadvantageous nature of some proposed power-supply agreements (PSAs) for the construction of several

coal-fired power plants. Zarate said these power contracts are still pending before the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

Monopolies

ALSO, Zarate said President Duterte should also look into the power industry where “monopolies are also holding consumers hostage.” “The constant threat of thinning power supply and brownouts in exchange for higher power rates, or more onerous power-supply agreements, has been the bane of consumers for decades now,” Za-

rate said, reiterating an appeal to Malacañang in April 2019. During that month, the Luzon grid was placed under red alert status several times, leading to rotating brownouts in some areas. “We agree with Department of Energy [DOE] Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi, that the yellow and red alert warnings are signals that demand has caught up with the existing supply and that there is a need to start building capacity but we need to have a comprehensive nationalized power plan to achieve this,” he said.

At the minimum, Zarate said the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) must be reviewed and drastically amended, or, at best, even repealed outright so that “it would be the government that would make the energy plan to be implemented and not just rely on the whim and greed of power oligarchs.” “As it is, with the Epira, electricity rates have increased more than 100 percent since its enactment in 2001, with periodic yellow and red alerts along with hours-long brownouts especially in the provinces,” added the deputy minority leader.

“A true nationalized comprehensive power plan with the government spearheading construction of its own power plants would not only ensure the power rate remain low but would also guard against power oligarchs again trying to push down onerous deals at the expense of the people,” said Zarate. In 2013, the Energy Regulatory Commission and DOE found basis to conclude that energy players colluded to jack up electricity prices in the spot market in the midst of simultaneous power plant shutdowns.

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

strikes hit Iraqi militia China convicts three researchers US blamed in contractor’s death in gene-edited baby controversy W

EIJING—Three researchers involved in the births of genetically edited babies have been sentenced for practicing medicine illegally, Chinese state media said on Monday. The report by Xinhua news agency said lead researcher He Jiankui was sentenced to three years and fined 3 million yuan ($430,000). Two other people received lesser sentences and fines. Zhang Renli was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 1 million yuan. Qin Jinzhou received an 18-month sentence, but with a two-year re-

prieve, and a 500,000 yuan fine. He, the lead researcher, said 13 months ago that he had helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls born in November 2018. The announcement sparked a global debate over the ethics of gene editing. He also was involved in the birth of a third gene-edited baby. AP

Oil holds near 3-month high as US crude stockpiles shrink

Kim Jong Un calls for measures to protect North Korea’s security

il held gains near the highest close in over three months after US crude stockpiles declined more than expected. Futures were little changed in New York after capping a fourth weekly advance on Friday, the longest run of weekly gains since April. American crude supplies fell by 5.47 million barrels through the week ended December 20, more than three times the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Hedge funds remain upbeat on prices, increasing bullish wagers on Brent oil to a sevenmonth high. Oil is poised for the biggest yearly gain since 2016, boosted recently by a breakthrough in US-China trade talks and a commitment by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies to deepen output cuts. The market has shrugged off comments from Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Friday that Opec+ would discuss ending supply curbs next year. “We have probably seen the best of the oil rally,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda in Singapore. Prices should remain well supported into January but I don’t see a comprehensive trade agreement between the US and China in 2020, that would be a miracle, he added. West Texas Intermediate for February delivery rose 6 cents to $61.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 7:20 a.m. in London. The contract gained 4 cents to close at $61.72 on Friday, the highest since September 16. Prices are also set for the biggest monthly gain since January. Brent crude for February settlement added 19 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $68.35 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract rose 3.1 percent last week. The global benchmark crude is trading at a $6.57 premium to WTI. US crude inventories fell for a second straight week to the lowest level in two months, despite the first dip in exports since late November, according to Energy Information Administration data on Friday. Gasoline stockpiles rose for a seventh week to the the highest since mid-March. Bloomberg News

EOUL, South Korea—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for his military and diplomats to prepare unspecified “offensive measures” to protect the country’s security and sovereignty, the North’s state media said on Monday, before his end-of-year deadline for the Trump administration to make major concessions to salvage a fragile nuclear diplomacy. Kim during a ruling Workers’ Party meeting on Sunday also “comprehensively and anatomically analyzed” problems arising in efforts to rebuild the North’s moribund economy and presented tasks for “urgently correcting the grave situation of the major industrial sectors,” the Korean Central News Agency said. The plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee, which began on Saturday, is being closely watched amid concerns that Kim could suspend his deadlocked nuclear negotiations with the United States and take a more confrontational approach by lifting a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. The North has said the meeting, which will continue for at least another day, is intended for discussions on overcoming “manifold and harsh trials and difficulties.” Kim, who has said the North would pursue a “new path” if Washington persists with sanctions and pressure, is expected to announce major policy changes during his New Year’s address on Wednesday. The KCNA report did not describe any decisions made at the meeting or mention any specific remarks by Kim

In this November 28, 2018, file photo, He Jiankui, a Chinese researcher, speaks during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong, where he made his first public comments about his claim to have helped make the world’s first gene-edited babies. Chinese state media says the researcher He has been sentenced to three years for practicing medicine illegally. He Jiankui was also fined 3 million yuan. Two others were also sentenced on the same charge. AP Photo/Kin Cheung

about the United States. The North’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published photos of Kim, wearing a white dress shirt and horn-rimmed glasses, speaking from a podium as hundreds of government and military officials jotted down his comments. “Emphasizing the need to take positive and offensive measures for fully ensuring the sovereignty and security of the country as required by the present situation, [Kim] indicated the duties of the fields of foreign affairs, munitions industry and armed forces of the DPRK,” the agency said in its English report, referring to North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. KCNA’s Korean-language report said Kim called for “active and offensive” measures. Kim also “comprehensively and anatomically analyzed the problems arising in the overall state building including the state management and economic construction in the present time,” the agency said. “He stressed the need to reasonably straighten the country’s economic work system and order and establish a strong discipline and presented the tasks for urgently correcting the grave situation of the major industrial sectors of the national economy,” the report said. It added that Kim stressed the need for a “decisive” increase in agricultural production and gave out instructions for improving science, education and public health standards. Lee Sang-min, a spokesman of South Korea’s Unification Ministry,

said Seoul is closely watching the North Korean party meeting, but he didn’t speculate on what Kim’s call for active and offensive security measures would have meant. Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior analyst at South Korea’s private Sejong Institute, said it was the first time under Kim’s rule that a plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee continued for more than a day. Kim has an urgent need to make major policy changes in the face of persistent US-led sanctions and pressure, especially with a global crackdown on North Korean labor exports further straining his broken economy, Cheong said. It’s also likely that Kim during the party meeting reaffirmed a commitment to strengthen his nuclear and missile program, considering the commander of the North Korean army’s strategic force was seen during Saturday’s meeting, Cheong said. Kim has met President Donald Trump three times in two years of high-stakes summitry, but the diplomacy has progressed little beyond their vague aspirational goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. At their last meeting in June, they agreed to resume talks. A working-level meeting in Sweden in October broke down with the North Koreans blaming their American counterparts for maintaining an “old stance and attitude.” The North said earlier this month it conducted two “crucial” tests at its long-range rocket launch facility, raising speculation it has been developing a new long-range missile or preparing a satellite launch. AP

ASHINGTON—The US carried out military strikes in Iraq and Syria targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia blamed for a rocket attack that killed an American contractor, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Sunday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the strikes send the message that the US will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardize American lives. “Precision defensive strikes” were conducted against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, Defense Department Spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement earlier on Sunday. The US blames the militia for a rocket barrage on Friday that killed a US defense contractor at a military compound near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. Officials said as many as 30 rockets were fired in Friday’s assault. Esper said the US hit three of the militia’s sites in western Iraq and two in eastern Syria, including weapon depots and the militia’s command and control bases. US Air Force F-15 Strike Eagles carried out the strikes and all the aircraft safely returned to their home base, Esper said. At the ammunition storage facilities that were struck, significant secondary explosions were observed. Pompeo, Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Palm Beach, Florida, after the operation to brief President Donald Trump. Esper said they discussed with Trump “other options that are available” to respond to Iran. “I would note also that we will take additional actions as necessary to ensure that we act in our own self-defense and we deter further bad behavior from militia groups or from Iran,” Esper, who was accompanied by Pompeo and Milley, said in a brief statement to reporters in a ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where the president is on a more than two-week winter break. The national security officials did not answer any questions. Pompeo said the “decisive response” makes clear that the US “will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy.” Trump was at Mar-a-Lago but did not appear with his top national security officials. After Pompeo and Esper spoke, the president traveled to his private golf club in West Palm Beach. The White House did not immediately

say why Trump returned to the club after spending nearly six hours there earlier Sunday. Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement that three US air strikes on Sunday evening Iraq time hit the headquarters of the Hezbollah Brigades at the Iraq-Syria border, killing four fighters. Iraq’s Hezbollah Brigades, a separate force from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, operate under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Many of them are supported by Iran. The Popular Mobilization Forces said on Sunday that the US strikes killed at least 19 of Kataeb Hezbollah’s members. Kataeb Hezbollah is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, one of Iraq’s most powerful men. He once battled US troops and is now the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. In 2009, the State Department linked him to the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, designated a foreign terrorist organization by Trump earlier this year. The US maintains some 5,000 troops in Iraq. They are there based on an invitation by the Iraqi government to assist and train in the fight against the Islamic State group. The militia strike and US counterstrike come as months of political turmoil roil Iraq. About 500 people have died in anti-government protests in recent months, most of them demonstrators killed by Iraqi security forces. The mass uprisings prompted the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi late last month. AbdulMahdi remains for now in a caretaker capacity. Abdul-Mahdi had made no public comment on Friday’s militia attack but condemned the US retaliatory strike on Sunday. He called it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a “dangerous escalation that threatens the security of Iraq and the region.” In a statement, Abdul-Mahdi said Esper had called him about a half-hour before the US strikes to tell him of US intentions to hit bases of the militia suspected of being behind Friday’s rocket attack. Abdul-Mahdi said in the statement he asked Esper to call off US retaliation plans. The statement said Iraqi President Barham Salih also received advance notice from a US diplomat, and also asked unsuccessfully for Americans to call it off. AP

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (left) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley (right) listen as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a statement on Iraq and Syria, at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Sunday, December 29, 2019, in Palm Beach, Fla. AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Turkey detains dozens of IS suspects ahead of New Year

A In this Sunday, December 29, 2019, photo provided on Monday, December 30, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in white, left, speaks during a Workers’ Party meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea opened on Saturday, December 28, a high-profile political conference to discuss how to overcome “harsh trials and difficulties,” state media reported on Sunday, days before a year-end deadline set by Pyongyang for Washington to make concessions in nuclear negotiations. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

NKARA, Turkey—Police in Turkey detained dozens of people suspected of links to the Islamic State group, the state-run news agency reported on Monday, in an apparent sweep against the militant group ahead of New Year celebrations. At least 33 foreign nationals were detained in the capital Ankara in a joint operation by antiterrorism police and the national intelligence agency, according to the Anadolu Agency. Police conducted simultaneous, predawn raids in the city of Batman, in southeast Turkey, where 22 suspects were detained, it said in a separate report.

Raids were also conducted in the cities of Adana and Kayseri where 15 people, including six foreign nationals were detained. Anadolu said the IS suspects apprehended in Ankara were from Iraq, Syria and Morocco. Police were searching for some 17 other suspects, the report said. The country was hit by a wave of attacks in 2015 and 2016 blamed on IS and Kurdish militants that killed over 300 people. IS also claimed responsibility for an attack at an Istanbul nightclub during New Year celebrations in the early hours of 2017. The attack killed 39 people, most of them foreigners. AP

A6 Tuesday, December 31, 2019 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorial

Irony of good films

here are more movie theaters now in the country than ever before because of the ubiquity of malls and their multiplexes. However, it is ironic that some filmmakers still find it hard to make their movies accessible to the masses.

Of course, most theater owners have to run a business more than anything else. It makes sense, therefore, that a film is guaranteed screenings based on its commercial viability or the number of people who are willing to watch it. Which is why blockbuster films are automatically guaranteed a certain number of theaters and shown for weeks, while smaller, independent producers whose films are not as popular can only get a few theaters, if at all, and are given only a few days before their films are taken out. This happens despite a Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) memorandum circular issued in July, which is supposed to ensure a minimum seven-day run for every film booked in theaters. Film festivals, like the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), should be the exception to this norm of commercial viability, as they are supposedly meant to give smaller films a chance to find their audiences. For instance, the historical drama Culion, one of the entries to this year’s MMFF and winner of Special Jury Prize for acting ensemble, was featured in only 71 theaters nationwide during the festival’s opening day, not even half of the theaters allocated for the more popular entries like The Mall, the Merrier, Miracle in Cell No. 7, 3Pol Trobol: Huli Ka Balbon, and Mission Unstapabol: The Don Identity. Even in Palawan, where Culion was shot and whose unique northern island town inspired the film’s story, one mall did not even feature the film in its multiplex, while the other mall had it in only one theater—the one with limited special seats and charges double the average ticket prices that most Palaweños cannot afford. On the MMFF’s second day, Culion was down to being screened in just 40 theaters, and down further to 22 on its third day. Similar premature pullouts were reported in social media for Mindanao, which took the lion’s share of MMFF awards, including Best Picture. During the MMFF awards night on Friday, Mindanao’s lead and the festival’s Best Actress, Judy Ann Santos, used her acceptance speech to appeal for more theaters to screen their film. “Since we only have a few cinemas [showing the film], may we ask to have more screens?” Santos said in her appeal, which was seconded by Best Director Brillante Mendoza (also for Mindanao). We too encourage our readers to support this year’s struggling entries, which (again, ironically) happen to be the critical successes and noteworthy films in the MMFF lineup. These films may not be perfect, or as “entertaining” as the Vic Sotto, Vice Ganda or Coco Martin crowd-pleasers that MMFF patrons are used to, but they are significant films that educate, provoke thought and just as capable of stirring something in their audiences. Their audiences may have been small so far, but these films are still worth watching. Please see them while you still can. If it is any consolation to their producers, they have perpetual rights over their films. There are many options now for earning revenue and recouping production costs aside from the box office. For instance, the streaming services like Netflix, Iflix, Hulu, HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus are always looking for quality content. There are reportedly plans to have a second MMFF, this time to run during summer, but what kind of films will they feature? And would all the curated films have an equal chance for an honest-to-goodness commercial screening? A film festival should distinguish itself from regular theater runs. We hope the MMFF would encourage creative films and develop audiences for them by providing venues for exhibition, like it did in 2016, when it skewed toward more rarefied, creative and challenging films made by independent producers who otherwise would not have gotten commercial screenings. The MMFF, as well as other local film festivals, with the government’s help, should offer smaller productions an opportunity to tell their unique stories— and not lose their shirts in the process. The government should give back a considerable percentage of the huge tax that it collects from the film industry to provide incentives, like funds for independent filmmakers to produce and distribute good films, as well as ensure that wider audiences are able to see them.

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Strong economic growth is proof of BBB success Manny B. Villar

THE Entrepreneur

ritics of the administration are claiming that President Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) infrastructure program is a “dismal failure.”

I totally disagree with that assessment. There are no metrics that show the BBB program is a flop. On the contrary, the infrastructure program is a success if gauged by the number of Filipino jobs it created and its contribution to the overall gross domestic product. Critics of the BBB program claim that only 2 percent of the 75 flagship projects that were proposed at the start of the Duterte administration have started construction. One must be familiar with the planning process of the government and the implementation of infrastructure projects—from the feasibility stage to the final approval (or disapproval and temporary postponement) by regulating agencies. The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) receive and act on many proposals after subjecting them to thorough feasibility studies.

The Neda may disapprove some proposed projects for several reasons. But the disapproval does not mean that a particular project is completely shelved or may not start construction at all. Not all projects submitted to the Neda, of course, will be approved. Budgetary constraints may prompt the Neda and the implementing agencies to temporarily shelve them in favor of more priority projects. Some of them may not be economically viable at the outset for technical reasons. A proposed bridge project connecting two towns, for example, may not be viable to build from the start. The two may be third- or fourth-class municipalities with little income and economic activities. The bridge will serve no purpose if there are not enough vehicles passing through it. The bridge project, thus, is not economically viable. However, a bridge project will be

viable even if only one municipality has enough income. The bridge will serve its purpose because the more progressive town can improve the income of the poorer municipality through trade. Accusations that the government’s BBB program is a failure, therefore, are baseless. President Duterte and Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo both refuted the claims of Duterte’s critics. The previous administration, on the contrary, has done little in six years in terms of infrastructure projects. The Duterte administration is, in fact, constructing or about to build several big-ticket projects. These include the Mindanao Railway, the LRT 1 Cavite Extension (BaclaranCavite), Metro Manila Subway, MRT Common Station, LRT 2 East Extension, Sangley Airport, Naia Rehabilitation, Clark Airport Expansion, PNR Clark, PNR Bicol, PNR Calamba and Subic-Clark Railway. The BBB serves as the government’s medium-term goal to increase infrastructure spending from 5.4 percent of the GDP in 2017 to 7.3 percent by the end of 2022, the highest budget allocation for infrastructure in Philippine history. The Neda earlier identified 75 infrastructure flagship projects for development, approval, implementation and review. Bases Conversion and Development Authority President Vince Dizon, who is President Duterte’s

India’s rightward lurch is self-defeating

By Mihir Sharma | Bloomberg Opinion

or decades, Indian foreign policy has been moving slowly but methodically in a single direction: toward a greater embrace of the West. The days of nonalignment, when India believed it led the developing world in standing apart from either Cold War bloc, are over. Although successive governments in New Delhi have worked hard to avoid antagonizing Beijing, it has been taken for granted that India’s future lies in ever closer ties to other liberal democracies. Equally, support for India’s rise has been one of the few subjects of bipartisan consensus in Washington. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have pushed for closer ties, even when New Delhi has appeared too suspicious or inefficient to respond. A fast-growing liberal democracy, open and transparent, and with the potential to balance China—what could go wrong? A great deal is going wrong, as the visit of India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, to Washington recently revealed. Such visits are usually low key, but this one made headlines when Jaishankar reportedly canceled a meeting with lawmakers because they refused to exclude Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the

progressive Democrat from Washington State, from the room. This somewhat unusual decision was presumably made because Jayapal has been a prominent critic of recent Indian policy in Kashmir. This didn’t go down well on the Hill, or on the Democratic campaign trail. Primary voters, many assume, want their party’s nominees to present a more “moral” stand on foreign policy than in the past. Thus, Sen. Elizabeth Warren condemned India’s efforts to “silence” Jayapal, and tweeted that the US-India partnership requires “shared respect for religious pluralism, democracy and human rights.” South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg went further, criticizing India for recent political detentions and Internet blackouts, and warning that it “could threaten its longstanding democratic traditions.” Jaishankar, perhaps, wanted to avoid airing India’s dirty laundry in Washington. But if that was the plan, it has backfired massively. India’s

decision-making seems to be rooted in the past—a past when it was growing at 8 percent a year, its military was not being chronically underfunded, and it appeared to be steadily maturing as a liberal democracy instead of sliding into majoritarianism and repression. If there are now doubts being raised about its reliability as a long-term partner, the government’s actions must bear much of the blame. Indian officials, meanwhile, seem to have forgotten the need for bipartisan outreach. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared with US President Donald J. Trump at a political rally in Houston, for example, he appeared to offer an endorsement (the Indian government denies that interpretation). And India’s ambassador to the US raised many eyebrows when he tweeted about meeting the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, whom he called “the legendary ideologue and ‘Dharma’ warrior” and an “avid follower of the Hindu epic the Bhagavad Gita.” (The ambassador, who has since been promoted to lead India’s diplomatic service, later deleted the tweet and said “we meet everyone.”) The Indian government is behaving less like its usual self and more like, say, Viktor Orban of Hungary or Trump himself in its happy embrace of the global right. It’s hard to see how such

adviser on flagship programs and projects, has also dismissed the claims of critics. The inroads in the infrastructure program, he said, has raised government spending on infrastructure development that largely contributed to the GDP growth. Dizon noted that the Duterte administration had spent more than double what previous governments spent on infrastructure. The government has already spent over a trillion pesos in infrastructure from 2016 to 2018. The heavy spending has impressed foreign financing institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It also made the Philippines more attractive to foreign investors, who are all aware of the impact of the infrastructure projects on economic development. Administration critics understandably are starting to make political noise in their effort to attract the attention of voters in the next presidential elections. But I believe they will run out of ammunition in discrediting the current administration. The country’s macroeconomic fundamentals remain solid and the economy continues to grow at a robust pace of 6 percent to 7 percent. Happy New Year to All!

For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@gmail. com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.

actions could conceivably keep India a bipartisan priority in Washington. Nor are they likely to succeed on their own terms. Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has already signaled a harder line on Indian tariff policy. With the diplomatic finesse typical of a Trump appointee, he has called India “the maharajah of tariffs;” it’s highly unlikely that Trump, elected on a protectionist agenda, would go easy on India purely because of the public warmth in his relationship with Modi. As the University of Chicago political scientist Paul Staniland argues, “If the bipartisan political values pillar of the US-India relationship weakens, it may focus American attention on bluntly transactional realpolitik and economic considerations even beyond the Trump administration.” Frankly, this isn’t in India’s interest—we’ve never been able to manage transactional relationships, given that we simply don’t have enough to give away in return for everything we want. But India’s newly aggressive and openly right-wing international posture is also an honest reflection of its transformed domestic environment. Modi was reelected earlier this year despite a stuttering economy because he fought one of the only election campaigns in India’s history squarely focused on foreign policy.

Opinion BusinessMirror

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Say goodbye to banking as we know it

We are our brothers’ keeper Manny F. Dooc

TELLTALES

Andy Mukherjee

BLOOMBERG VIEW

O is China readying its own Bitcoin? Banish the thought. It’s far bigger than that. Yes, just like any other cryptocurrency—or for that matter, cigarettes in prisoners of war camps—the upcoming digital yuan will be “tokenized” money. But the similarity ends there. The crypto yuan, which may be on offer as soon as 2020, will be fully backed by the central bank of the world’s second-largest economy, drawing its value from the Chinese state’s ability to impose taxes in perpetuity. Other national authorities are bound to embrace this powerful idea. Little is known about the digital yuan except that it’s been in the works for five years and Beijing is nearly ready to roll. The consensus is that the token will be a private blockchain, a peer-to-peer network for sharing information and validating transactions, with the People’s Bank of China in control of who gets to participate. To begin with, the currency will be supplied via the banking system and replace some part of physical cash. That won’t be hard, given the ubiquitous presence of Chinese QR code-based digital wallets, such as Alipay and WeChat Pay. It may start small, but the digital yuan can disrupt both traditional banking and the post-Bretton Woods system of floating exchange rates that the world has lived with since 1973. No wonder that for China, “blockchain and the yuan digital currency are a national strategic priority—almost at the level of the Internet,” says Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. fintech analyst Gautam Chhugani. Ever since the advent of the 17thcentury goldsmith-banker in London, the most crucial thing in banking has been the ledger, a repository of irrefutable records to establish trust in situations where it doesn’t exist. When Peter in Vancouver agrees to send money to Paul in Singapore, they’re forced to use a chain of interlinked intermediaries because there’s no ledger in the world with both of them on it. Blockchain’s distributed ledgers make trust irrelevant. Paul devises a secret code, and shares its encrypted version with Peter, who uses it to create a digital contract to pay Paul. A cumbersome and expensive network of correspondent banks becomes redundant, especially when it comes to the $124 trillion businesses move across borders annually. Imagine the productivity boost; picture the threat to lenders. China isn’t the only one experimenting. Fast, cheap cross-border payment settlement is one application of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Quorum, an Ethereum-based platform on which the Monetary Authority of Singapore is running Project Ubin, an exploration into central bank digital money. These are early days, but if blockchain technology shows promise in handling a large number of transactions simultaneously, then digital currencies could become substitutes not just for physical cash but also for bank reserves. That’s when the game changes. Reserves at a central bank are maintained by deposit-taking lenders. A digital yuan—or Singapore dollar or Indian rupee—could bypass this

system and allow any holder of the currency to have a deposit at the central bank, potentially making the state the monopoly supplier of money to retail customers. As Agustin Carstens, the general manager at the Bank for International Settlement, noted recently, “If the central bank becomes everybody’s deposit-taker, it may find itself becoming everybody’s lender too.” But why would central banks want to demote their own banking systems? One answer, looking at Europe and Japan, is that negative interest rates are doing that anyway. Lenders are starved of profit because while the central bank charges them for keeping money on deposit, they can’t as easily pass on those negative interest rates to their own depositors. If the global economy gets mired in long-term stagnation, official digital currencies will at least be an efficient way of monetary easing without involving banks. The other, more concrete, reason may be that technological progress is making the status quo untenable. It’s no coincidence that China hastened its national cryptocurrency after Facebook Inc. announced the Libra project, which was touted as an alternative dollar. Perhaps that was fanciful, and the Libra has hit a wall of regulatory concerns. But if they’re offered like Spotify gift cards at the local 7-Eleven, there will be demand for tokens that are acceptable across borders, stable in value against baskets of national currencies, and can be used in global trade and investing. Someone in Silicon Valley will eventually succeed, blowing away the fig leaf of monetary sovereignty in emerging markets in the process. The changes won’t end with banking and monetary arrangements. Token transactions will be pseudonymous: If the central bank wants to see who’s spending where, it can. Anonymity disappears when cash does. While that will make life difficult for money launderers and terrorists, it could also become a tool to punish political activism. Meanwhile, currency as a foreign policy weapon loses some sting. Pariah states will covet a crypto they can access by circumventing banks that are terrified of flouting Western sanctions. As Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff notes, technology “is on the verge of disrupting America’s ability to leverage faith in its currency to pursue its broader national interests.” A roller-coaster decade—not just for banking and money but also for privacy and politics—may just be beginning.

S we reflect on the passing of the year 2019 and look forward to the advent of the New Year, let us pause and reflect on Pope Francis’ “Urbi et Orbi” Christmas Day message to the world. The Pope hit the nail on the head when he said that change starts in the hearts of individuals. “There is darkness in personal, family and social relationships, but the light of Christ is greater. There is darkness in economic, geopolitical and ecological conflicts, yet greater still is the light of Christ.” He might as well be referring to the sad plight of many of our exploited overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) when he said: “It is injustice that forces them to endure unspeakable forms of abuse, enslavement of every kind and torture in inhumane detention camps. It is injustice that turns them away from places where they may have a dignified life, but instead find themselves before walls of indifference.”

Our OFWs may be driven by economic necessities and they are not confined in detention camps but many of them labor harshly under the same insufferable and abject conditions bereft of dignity and respect. And his holiness concluded, posing a challenge to men’s indifference and apathy to his suffering fellowmen, to correct this injustice when he intoned: “May God soften our often stony and self-centered hearts, and make them channels of his love.” We don’t have a wooden heart, as Elvis once sang, which is impenetrable to the light of Christmas to illumine every dark corner in our hearts. It

may sound trite and banal, but we are our brothers’ keeper. nnn

Last Christmas, we had a real Santa Robin Hood in the person of David Wayne Oliver. Oliver, a 65-year-old man and sporting a white hair and white full beard but minus “red and white” outfit and black belt and a pair of boots, held up a bank in Colorado Springs, US, on Christmas eve and took an undetermined amount of cash. After robbing the bank, he stepped out and tossed the stolen cash to the crowd while shouting, “Merry Christmas.” It was his way of sharing his bounty and blessings to

Bloomberg Opinion

egative-yielding government bonds have been a significant force for a superb year of investment returns for both stocks and bonds, and many are welcoming their recent decline as an indicator of what will support the next leg up in valuations. Yet, the evidence remains mixed, suggesting a more nuanced approach to longerterm investing. The growth and persistence of negative-yielding debt

in 2019 has done more than deliver attractive price appreciation on government bonds. It has pushed investors to take on more risk, pushing up the price of assets from investmentgrade and high-yield corporate bonds to emerging markets to, of course, equities. It has also encouraged companies to intensify their financial engineering, often involving debt issuance to pay for stock buybacks. And it has supported a range of mergers and acquisitions. All of this is best summarized by the historically unusual coincidence of a

his fellow men. Poor Santa spent his Christmas inside the El Paso County jail pending his court appearance this week. How I wish our pervert government officials who have looted our Treasury all these years would also share their bounty with the poor and heed President Duterte’s Christmas wish, which I quote: “May we emulate Christ’s empathy and kindness by opening our hearts and extending our hands to everyone, especially to those who are less fortunate.” Amen. nnn

Why was December 1933 considered as the happiest Christmas in the US history? Shortly before Christmas that year, the State of Utah provided the 36th and final required vote to ratify the proposed 21st Amendment to the US Constitution, which repealed the 18th Amendment otherwise known as the Prohibition law. This constitutional amendment, passed on January 29, 1919, was launched as a noble social experiment and heralded as a panacea to all societal ills. Social scientists, moralists and religious reformers hailed the move to curb the sale, production and consumption of alcohol and all intoxicating liquors in the country. They celebrated the extermination of the curse of liquors. Soon the country became “dry” in alcohol since its production became illegal. However, illegal sources sprang up and sinister means of distributing the illegal drinks were contrived giving currency to such odious terms as bootlegging and speakeasies. Struggling in the throes of economic depression in the 1930s, millions lost their

Real-property taxation–proper party Fulvio D. Dawilan

Tax Law for Business

y colleague, Rodel Unciano, started discussing realproperty taxation in the last article in this column. I’d like to follow through on the same subject. This time, though, I will not be discussing the taxation of trees as my colleague did. Instead, I will focus on the real-property tax obligation of parties, especially if the beneficial user of the property is other than the owner. Our laws allow local government units to levy annual ad valorem taxes on real properties not specifically exempted. In the assessment of realproperty tax, real property shall be classified, valued and assessed on the basis of its actual use regardless of where located, whoever owns it, and whoever uses it. For the proper assessment of taxes, the owner or the administrator or their authorized representatives are required to make truthful declaration of the description and value of the properties with the assessor’s office. And jurisprudence dictates that the party responsible for the payment of taxes rests with the person obliged to declare the same for taxation purposes. Thus, the Courts had been consistent in holding that the liability for taxes generally rests on the owner of the real property at the time the tax accrues. This is a necessary consequence that proceeds from the fact of ownership. The declared owner is, therefore, considered the taxpayer, and presumed to be the person with the

primary obligation to shoulder the burden of paying the tax. To be clear, anybody can actually pay the tax. But should there be failure or deficiency in tax payment, the local government may pursue the same only against the owner or the person with legal interest in the property. Assessment issued against a wrong party will result in its invalidity. Needless to say, only the same person has the right to question the reasonableness or correctness of real-property tax assessment. Any other person is an improper party. A controversy usually arises when the use of a real property is with a person other than the owner, such as in cases of leased premises. Which party has the obligation to pay the tax and in cases of assessment or dispute, who has the right to contest the same? Based on a number of decided cases, personal liability for realty taxes may also rest on the entity with the beneficial use of the real property, such as the tax on property owned by the government but leased to private persons or entities, or when the

Retreat of negative rates isn’t an all-clear for investors By Mohamed A. El-Erian

Tuesday, December 31, 2019 A7

nearly 30-percent gain in the S&P 500 stock index, a still-robust 15 percent for the Bloomberg Barclays Bond Index and minuscule volatility as measured by the VIX index. Yet, many investors have become uncomfortable with the possibility, to quote Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under US Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, that, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Already, the global pool of negative-yielding bonds has fallen from its high of nearly $18 trillion in

the middle of the year to $11 billion now. But two forces are restraining investor behavior when it comes to adjusting market exposures accordingly—that is, retaining a claim on the upside while increasing downside protection. First, a technically driven momentum for markets that favors higher risk assets and relatively well-behaved bonds is continuing for now; and second, the recent fall in negativeyielding bonds indicates a promising hand off in market drivers that can push risk assets higher in 2020, if not

jobs and desperate people sought solace in alcohol. Organized crimes proliferated and made legends of Al Capone and the Mafia lords. Government coffers suffered with the loss of substantial revenues generated from alcohol tax. It was not long before everyone realized that prohibition was a dismal failure as a public policy. Thus, the US Congress approved the proposed 21st Amendment to the Constitution to revoke prohibition culminating in its final ratification on December 5, 1933. The lifting of the ban caused a financial windfall to the US Treasury, which collected $258 million in alcohol taxes one year after its repeal. That is equivalent to several billions of tax dollars in today’s money representing close to 10 percent of the government’s revenue, which helped fund FDR’s New Deal Programs during the years of the Great Depression. It revived foundering businesses and opened up millions of jobs to the jobless. So, the “sin” tax is not our invention. Just an hour after the 21st Amendment was ratified, then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed the end of prohibition, and said: “I think this is a good time for beer.” And alcoholic drinks freely flowed quenching the thirst of millions of Americans by buying their first authorized drinks since 1919. Champagne corks were popped in every household and wine glasses were openly clanked to celebrate the merriest Christmas after 14 “dry” years. So now, get your glasses and let’s toast and welcome 2020: “Happy New Year to all!”

tax assessment is made on the basis of the actual use of the property. In either case, the unpaid realty tax attaches to the property but is directly chargeable against the taxable person who has actual and beneficial use and possession of the property regardless of whether or not that person is the owner. When the tax liability is imposed on the beneficial use of the real property, or when the assessment is made on the basis of the actual use thereof, the personal liability is on any person who has such beneficial or actual use at the time of the accrual of the tax. A look at these cases, however, would indicate that the actual owners of the properties involved in these realty-tax controversies are exempt from taxes, such as the government or government instrumentalities. Incidentally, the Local Government Code (LGC) recognizes the exemption from payment of tax of real properties owned by the government, except when the beneficial use of such property is granted, for consideration or otherwise, to a taxable person. The government, therefore, is exempted from the payment of taxes on government properties. But the tax exemption ceases if the beneficial use of the real property is granted to a taxable person. While the LGC excludes from tax exemption government properties used by taxable entities, it does not identify the party obligated to make the payment. Should that be the government owner or the user, as in the case of a taxable lessee? There seems to be inconstancy in this regard. There are cases holding that the liability for real-property taxes due on government owned properties leased to taxable entities

The author is the managing partner of DuBaladad and Associates Law Offices, a member-firm of WTS Global. The article is for general information only and is not intended, nor should be construed as a substitute for tax, legal or financial advice on any specific matter. Applicability of this article to any actual or particular tax or legal issue should be supported therefore by a professional study or advice. If you have any comments or questions concerning the article, you may e-mail the author at fulvio.dawilan@ bdblaw.com.ph or call 8403-2001 local 310.

beyond. This second factor is especially important for longer-term investors who tend to shy away from tactical investment positioning. It centers on the encouraging notion that the drop in negative-yielding bonds is due to prospects for higher global growth that will also develop stronger momentum because of greater fiscal stimulus—a development that would involve the long-delayed shift from liquidity support for markets to one based on fundamentals. As much as I would like to buy wholeheartedly into this explanation, and as much

as I remain upbeat about the market short term, the evidence for such longer-term optimism is far from overwhelming. For now, the pickup in global growth seems much more cyclical than secular and structural; and systemically important countries with fiscal room for meaningful budget stimulus, such as Germany, show little willingness to do so. The gradual erosion in central banks’ appetite for the current negative-interest-rate regime is as important a reason as others for the decline in the pool of negative-yielding bonds.

rests upon the owner of the property, which is the government. It is the government which is liable to pay real-property tax on properties on government-owned properties leased to private entities, and that in the event of failure of the government to pay thereof, the real property may be sold at public auction to satisfy the tax delinquency, except if the property is part of the public domain. Predominantly, however, including the most recent cases, the corresponding liability for the payment of taxes on government properties devolves on the taxable beneficial user. Lessees of government properties are, therefore, obliged to pay taxes on the leased premises. In conclusion, real-property owners are primarily responsible in the payment of real-property taxes. This holds true even if the use of the property is granted to a third party. A nontax exempt owner cannot escape its responsibility under the beneficial use doctrine. That can be invoked only if the registered owner is tax exempt. As with tax-exempt property owner whose property is used by a taxable person, the owner or the actual/beneficial user can be made liable for the payment of the tax. For guidance. Happy New Year!

A8 Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Govt reminded on TRAIN’s safety nets in ’20

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

@joveemarie

AWMAKERS on Monday reminded the Executive Department, particularly the Department of Finance, to fully implement the safety net provisions of the Tax Reform of Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law as the oil-price hike for diesel for January 2020 may reach up to P7 per liter.

Deputy Speaker Michael Romero of 1-Pacman and Deputy Minority Leader Carlos Isagani Zarate made separate statements as the government is expected to implement the third tranche of excise tax increases on fuel next year. “While the Department of Finance continues to implement the TRAIN law provisions on excise tax increases, we in Congress gently remind the executive agencies that the safety net provisions of that law have not yet been maximized,” said Romero. By January 1, 2020, the TRAIN law will increase tax on diesel by

“While the Department of Finance continues to implement the TRAIN law provisions on excise tax increases, we in Congress gently remind the executive agencies that the safety net provisions of that law have not yet been maximized.”—Romero

P1.50 per liter, while gasoline, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and lubricating oils will go up by P1. Bunker fuel and petroleum coke, meanwhile, will increase by P1.50.

The TRAIN law provides that 30 percent of the annual incremental revenue be allotted to various programs to offset the effects of higher taxes. These programs include unconditional cash transfers (UCT), fuel vouchers and rice subsidies. Besides fuel, the TRAIN law also increased the excise taxes on tobacco, automobiles, minerals, documentary stamps and sugarsweetened beverages (SSB). During the oversight hearing on the implementation of the TRAIN law, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda dis-

covered that there was no allocation in the 2020 budget for sugar farmers who have been affected by the passage of the TRAIN law, which imposes higher taxes for SSB. TRAIN slapped a P6-per-liter tax on beverages using caloric and non-caloric sweeteners and P12 per liter on those using high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Milk and threein-one coffee mixes are exempted from this tax. Under the TRAIN law, 15 percent of the revenue from SSB should go directly to farmers. See “TRAIN,” A2

Duterte threatens to arrest water Poe picks up MINDANAO’S ELECTRIC tycoons, tells ABS-CBN to ‘sell’ cudgels for CO-OPS HELP VISAYANS Angkas users AFFECTED BY URSULA By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

RESIDENT Duterte on Monday threatened to have the businessmen behind the two water concessionaires—Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala for Manila Water Co. and Manuel V. Pangilinan for Maynilad Water Services Inc.— arrested for “non-bailable” offenses of syndicated estafa or plunder, saying he would love to see billionaires in jail. Duterte said he won’t be letting go of this “issue of corruption” as

this would be his “last shot” at life. “Two years, I’ll be out. So these two years, I will use this for the people. You are asking, ‘Where’s the big fish? Where’s corruption?’… I will deliver to you now: Ayala and Pangilinan,” he said in a speech while visiting earthquake victims in M’lang, Cotabato. “If those f****** commit a mistake, I will have them arrested. Look at them, when I insulted them, they are not responding anymore. That’s for sure. Syndicated estafa,” he added. Manila Water is a publicly listed company and a subsidiary of Ayala

NORTHEAST MONSOON AFFECTING EXTREME NORTHERN LUZON EASTERLIES AFFECTING REST OF THE COUNTRY as of 4:00 pm - December 30, 2019

Corp., while businessman Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) owns a controlling stake in Maynilad. Despite Cabinet members telling him to negotiate the contracts, Duterte argued that there is nothing to negotiate as the contracts were already “null and void” from the very beginning. “Because in that contract, the Philippines agreed to waive sovereignty. You cannot do it. And the tax‚corporate income tax, they will pass it on to consumers. See “Duterte,” A2

By Butch Fernandez

@butchfBM

EN. Grace Poe said remedial legislation legalizing motorcycle taxis is “a priority measure” of the Senate Public Services Committee, which she chairs and “will be tackled when the Senate resumes” sessions on January 20. In a letter to regulators where she confirmed lawmakers’ intent to provide the legislation to fill in the legal vacuum from an archaic transportation code amid a traffic-weary public’s need for more options to get around, Poe also asked officials to reconsider the ill-timed rider-supply cap imposed in the second trial for motorcycle taxis from December 23 to March 23, 2020. If that second trial—on the heels of a six-month experiment participated in by ride-hailing app Angkas—lapses without remedial legislation on March 23, the thousands of motorbike taxis must stop plying the roads. The rider-supply cap included in the three-month trial hits only Angkas, because it claims a rider base of 27,000 versus the cap of 10,000 that the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) imposed. Two new players, Joy Ride and Move It, were allowed to join the three-month trial, but Poe noted that it did not make sense to limit Angkas, as these two newbies do not have its “99-percent safety” record yet. In her letter to LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra, Poe asked state regulators to reconsider the timing of the decision to trim the number of Angkas motorcycle taxis to make way for new players. Poe pointed out that “while competition is a welcome development and opening the market to other players is agreeable on principle,” she suggested that “we need to consider the timing of this decision in the context of increased demand due to the holidays and the dire need for alternative mass transport in the metros.” The senator stressed the need to assess the impact of the TWG directive on commuters, saying: “At the crux of this issue, we must consider the convenience and safety of the riding public who will be most affected by the drastic reduction of motorcycle taxi supply in favor of new players who currently do not have the 99-percent safety rating and track record which the currrent major player has.” Surely, she said, “there must be a way to accomodate new players in the pilot program without inconvenience to the riding public.” Poe said her committee looks forward “to your submission of the results of the pilot program and the recommendation of the technical working group.”

LECTRIC cooperatives (ECs) from Mindanao have sent linemen and boom trucks to Eastern Visayas to assist in the ongoing power restoration efforts in areas affected by Typhoon Ursula. The 55-man crew, dubbed Task Force Kapatid Ursula, arrived in Don Orestes Romualdez Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Dorelco) headquarters in Tolosa, Leyte, last Saturday. The task force is composed of line workers and support personnel from Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Aneco), Agusan del Sur Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Aselco), Dinagat Island Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Dielco), Siargao Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Siarelco), Surigao del Norte Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Surneco), Surigao del Sur I Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Surseco I), Surigao del Sur II Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Surseco II), and Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Daneco). They will be assisting the Easter Samar Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Esamelco) and Samar II Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Samelco II) in restoring electricity. Typhoon Ursula is the 21st tropical cyclone to hit the country this year. It disrupted power transmission and distribution services to several provinces in Mimaropa, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas and Western Visayas. The National Electrification Administration (NEA) is working closely with the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca) and its regional organi-

zations in the deployment of crews and equipment to disaster-stricken areas. NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong commended all members of Task Force Kapatid Ursula who left their families and homes for weeks to help restore power in typhoon-battered provinces. “Thank you to all our line workers who sacrifice time with their families this holiday season to provide assistance to the communities impacted by the typhoon. I wish them well as they work in the field restoring power,” Masongsong said. Of the 29 ECs affected by the storm, 13 power distribution utilities have returned to normal operations, based on the monitoring of the NEA Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Department (DRRMD) as of December 29. The NEA DRRMD said the 16 ECs with ongoing restoration activities are in Romblon, Oriental Mindoro, Occidental Mindoro, Capiz, Aklan, Iloilo, Cebu, Biliran, Leyte, Eastern Samar and Western Samar. In Eastern Samar, Esamelco reported that power has been fully restored in the municipalities of Arteche, Can-avid, Dolores, Jipapad, Maslog, Oras, San Julian, San Policarpo, Sulat and Taft. Electricity has been partially restored in Borongan City, Balangkayan and Maydolong, while restoration is ongoing in Balangiga, Gen. MacArthur, Giporlos, Guiuan, Hernani, Lawaan, Llorente, Mercedes, Quinapondan and Salcedo. See “Ursula,” A2

Chinese criminals top list of fugitives nabbed by BI

HINESE nationals topped the number of foreign criminals arrested in the Philippines in 2019, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported on Monday. BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said immigration operatives have arrested a total of 421 foreign fugitives in the country from January up to December of this year, or 65 percent more than the 2018 figures. The aliens were arrested by the BI’s fugitive search unit (FSU), and have been deported to their respective countries of origin to face prosecution and serve their sentences. “They can no longer come back because they have been placed in our blacklist of undesirable aliens. We cannot allow these criminals to use the Philippines as their sanctuary,” Morente said. The arrested aliens were wanted for various serious offenses, including rape, child molestation, illegal drugs, fraud, cybercrimes and large-scale economic crimes. Out of 421 foreign fugitives

arrested, 324 were Chinese nationals, 277 of whom were rounded up during a raid of their lairs at the Ortigas Center in Pasig City last September. The 277 Chinese nationals were all wanted for involvement in a large-scale investment scam that victimized a thousand of their compatriots whose combined losses amounted to more than 100 million yuan, or over $14 million. Japanese nationals came in next with 36 fugitives arrested in the country. Most of them are wanted by authorities for involvement in telecom fraud and theft, and whose victims allegedly incurred losses of more than ¥2 billion or more than $18 million. The FSU’s list of arrested fugitives also included 27 Koreans, 20 Americans, three other Japanese, as well ass three Taiwanese and two Britons. Completing the list is a Russian, a Swede, a Malaysian, a Colombian, an Australian and a German. See “Chinese,” A2

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Companies BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

PSE supports SEC’s hike in listed firms’ public float

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

HE Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is supportive of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiative to increase the public float of listed firms straight to 25 percent over a period of five years. PSE President and CEO Ramon S. Monzon said the move will drive more volume for the bourse, which has seen lower volume almost for the entire year. “We have a lot of new products in the pipeline [for next year]. Number one, the most important, is increased minimum public ownership. SEC has a proposal to increase it to 25 percent over five years. That’s im-

portant,” he said. “We have 268 listed companies. But how many are actively traded? For us, I’d rather have 150 actively traded companies than 268 listed companies [that are lightly traded] because we don’t generate enough volume,” Monzon added. SEC Commissioner Ephyro Luis B. Amatong earlier said there’s no liquidity issue in the country

today that prevents a listed company from raising cash from the money system in order for it to increase its public float to 25 percent, from the current 10-percent rule. Some initial public offerings (IPO) even had their public ownership straight to 40 percent of the company. “We felt that they can do it, but we’ll give them a longer period to comply. Some of these companies are very big, but they’ve indicated that if we require them [to increase public float], they’d be able to do it,” Amatong said. The SEC was supposed to implement the increase this year, but wasn’t able to do it as a number of projects prevented the matter from having it discussed during the en banc meeting of the commission, including the revision of the rules for the real-estate investment trust, or Reit.

Amatong said the SEC commissioners will talk among themselves first on how to do it, but he is inclined to give the listed companies time to comply with the new minimum public float rule in five years, instead of increasing it incrementally by 5 percent to be complied within three years until the minimum requirement reaches the 25 percent. The 25-percent rate is already the standard among the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. For the year, the benchmark PSE index managed to post gains of 349.24 points, or 4 percent, from last year’s close. It reached a high of 8,365.29 points and a low of 7,475.16, despite lower volumes. Foreign investors were net sellers at P14.5 billion. Average daily trading for the last trading week was at P4.99 billion, lower than the year-to-date average of only P6.25 billion.

TV5 open to let Lopezes buy block airtime if ABS-CBN doesn’t get franchise By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

HILE TV5 Network Inc. is reluctant to take any step toward helping save ABS-CBN Corp.—in danger of closure unless it gets it’s a new franchise by March—the former is open to allowing the latter to buy block airtime to stream its content. Manuel V. Pangilinan, who chairs TV 5’s parent PLDT Inc., also debunked online reports that the Lopez-led network is in talks to buy TV 5. “No one is talking to us,” he said. “I don’t think they want to buy into a losing company.” Pangilinan stressed his group’s cool reception to the prospect of

Clean-energy groups to Meralco: We’re watching your next CSP

Tesla hands over first China-built C vehicles to employees in Shanghai

ESLA Inc. delivered its first China-built cars, a milestone for Elon Musk’s company as it accelerates a push in the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market. The company handed over the first 15 Tesla Model 3 sedans assembled at Tesla’s new multibillion-dollar Shanghai plant—its first outside the US—to company employees at the facility on Monday. More workers will receive vehicles over the next couple of days, and deliveries to customers will start in January, company officials said at the ceremony. The Chinese plant represents a cornerstone of Musk’s plans to make Tesla a truly global carmaker. The company last month announced plans to build a factory in Germany to cater to burgeoning European demand for electric cars. The China plant could also help Musk build on recent momentum for the company in the world’s largest market both for EVs and autos in general. The Tesla Model 3 will compete with electric cars from local contenders, such as NIO Inc. and Xpeng Motors, as well as global manufacturers including BMW AG and Daimler AG. Demand for the locally built Tesla Model 3 is “very good,” and Tesla is confident it will sell all vehicles manufactured at the site, Allan Wang, general manager of Tesla China, said at the plant. “Our aim is to kill all internal-combustion engine cars.”

Volume goal

While deliveries to customers haven’t started, Monday’s milestone caps several months of wins for Musk. The latest came on Friday, when the locally built car was included on a list of vehicles qualifying for an exemption from a 10-percent purchase tax in China. The plant is now producing more than 1,000 cars a week, and aims to double the rate over the next year, said Song Gang, the factory’s manufacturing director. That means the facility has met a prediction Musk made back in April. Tesla’s original and, for long, its only car factory in Fremont, California, spent months trying to hit a 1,000 weekly rate. Musk has said a weekly rate of 3,000 in Shanghai is

A Tesla Model 3 slowly moves off the assembly line in Shanghai on December 30. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

a target at some point. The German manufacturing base near Berlin will allow Tesla to better challenge its European premium rivals on their backyard. Musk estimated this year that the European gigafactory probably won’t be operational until 2021. Shares of Tesla have surged since the carmaker reported a surprise profit on October 23, and are now more than double their year low of $178.93 in June. The stock closed little changed at $430.38 on Friday.

Muddy plot

A crowd of about 200 people, including media and Tesla workers, had gathered inside the Shanghai plant on Monday, and clapped and cheered as Tom Zhu, the company’s head of greater China, handed over the first cars. One of the employees receiving a car presented it to his girlfriend,

along with flowers, and proposed to her. She accepted by nodding, and they kissed. The Shanghai Gigafactory broke ground at the start of this year. Originally just a muddy plot about a 90-minute drive away from Shanghai’s city center, it is now a crucial test of Musk’s bid to keep his carmaker profitable as he bets big on Chinese appetite for electric cars. With Tesla’s volatile stock price and strained finances, investors will be watching closely how the ramp-up unfolds. The multibilliondollar investment will be a deciding factor to determine whether Tesla will be able to take on local competitors and fend off challenges by the likes of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi. As part of its China expansion, Tesla plans to add dozens of locations in the country over the next year for showcasing its vehicles,

and providing charging and other services, said Xue Juncheng, director of China after-sales, at the ceremony. Tesla said in October the locally built Tesla Model 3 will be priced from about $50,000. On top of the tax exemption announced on Friday, the China-built model this month qualified for a government subsidy of as much as about 25,000 yuan ($3,600) per vehicle. The company may lower the price of the locally assembled sedans by 20 percent, or more, next year as it starts using more local components and reduces costs, people familiar with the matter have said. About 30 percent of the parts now used by the Shanghai facility are sourced locally, and the company plans to increase that to 100 percent by the end of 2020, said Song, the manufacturing director. Bloomberg News

being acquired. “We’re not offering them anything, we’re not suggesting anything to them. We don’t want to take the first step,” he said. ABS-CBN’s congressional franchise will expire on March 30. President Duterte has made it his mission to “block” the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise, claiming that the company had been remiss in its duties as a media platform. With this, Pangilinan said his group remains open to negotiating for terms not related to any form of equity acquisition. “We have lots of highways on 5. Setting aside the politics, if they want to [buy] block time, we’re prepared to talk. We don’t have a lot of entertainment content, anyway. So, it’s up to them,” he said.

LEAN-energy advocates vowed on Monday to keep close watch over the upcoming Competitive Selection Process (CSP) of the Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) 1,200-megawatt (MW) power-supply contract. Gerry Arances, convenor of the Power for People (P4P) Coalition, told Meralco that consumers will uphold the goal of the CSP in securing affordable electricity from the power firms that will sell their capacity to the country’s largest power distribution firm. “Meralco should be expecting the mistrust of consumers as they already exposed their coal greed during the first CSP, in which the TOR [terms of reference] was so obviously crafted to favor the 1,200-MW coal power plant project of Meralco’s own subsidiary, Atimonan One Energy,” Arances said. This, he added, was behind the failure of the first CSP. On Friday, Meralco announced that it published the bid invite for the said power-supply contract. Meralco also relaxed the TOR, heeding the Department of Energy’s (DOE) call to, among others, allow both old and new power plants to participate in the CSP to foster completion. “We welcome the changes that Meralco made in their terms of reference for this second bidding after the Department of Energy’s prod, but we have not forgotten how intent Meralco is on making sure their customers are burdened by costly and dirty electricity from coal,” asserted Arances. The revised TOR states that bidders can offer to supply Meralco 600 MW blocks. If multiple power facilities would be utilized to supply Meralco, bidders are allowed to place a minimum bid capacity of 150 MW per unit of the same fuel type. The contract is good for 20 years, commencing September 2024. Meralco conducted in September the CSP for the 1,200-MW greenfield capacity. It was declared a failed bid after only Atimonan One Energy Inc., a unit of Meralco Powergen Corp. (MGen), submitted its offer.

“Even the DOE expressed concern over Meralco’s blatant favor for its own coal power. We echo this distress, as even with the new TOR, Meralco’s insistent false brandishing of coal as a cheap electricity source and of its Atimonan coal project as clean are highly alarming,” Arances said. The 1,200-MW power-supply contract is the third CSP that Meralco is conducting following the Supreme Court’s decision to require all power contracts to undergo competitive bidding. Winning power-generation companies have already been determined for the two CSPs with respective capacities of 1,200 MW and 500 MW, the contracts of which are now under application for approval at the Energy Regulatory Commission. Of the six contracts, three will utilize coal as fuel source. The P4P Coalition has filed a petition for intervention in the application of the said contracts before the ERC. “We are closing 2019 with among the highest records of red and yellow alerts in just one year for the Luzon grid—all because most of our electricity is sourced from coal power plants that take days to resume operation when they encounter problems and are forced to shut down. “These low reserve periods are almost always followed by a rate hike, resulting in a double inconvenience for consumers who lose both their electricity supply and then more of their money to pay for Meralco’s terrible service,” said Arances, who is also the executive director of the Center for Energy, Ecology and Development. According to the group, Meralco should instead take the 1,200-MW CSP as an opportunity to walk its clean energy talk by expanding its renewable-energy portfolio, as “Meralco in October loudly trumpeted their intent to develop at least 1,000 MW of renewable energy in the coming five to seven years, even creating their own RE subsidiary, MGreen. So far, however, this green promise is coming up short; all talk and no action.”

Hyundai ending 2019 sans 10% sales growth By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

NE of the country’s largest vehicle importers looks likely to end the year without achieving its target of 10-percent sales growth as the passenger car (PC) and light commercial vehicle (LCV) segments continued to decline. In a report on Monday, Hyundai Asia Resources Inc. (Hari) disclosed its sales from Janu-

ary to November fell 6.94 percent to 30,599 units, from 32,882 units during the same period last year. Hari saw its PC sales for the 11-month stretch crash double digits, while its LCV performance dipped nearly 3 percent. The car firm’s PC sales declined 12.36 percent to 16,116 units, from 18,389 units, while its LCV sales slipped 2.55 percent to 13,696 units, from 14,055 units. Continued on B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

December 27, 2019

Net Foreign Stocks Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Buy (Sell) FINANCIALs

BDO UNIBANK BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK CITYSTATE BANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK PHILTRUST SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE BDO LEASING COL FINANCIAL FIRST ABACUS FERRONOUX HLDG IREMIT MEDCO HLDG NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH SUN LIFE

157.9 87.9 25 8.48 12.04 66.25 34.5 57.35 118 195 57.6 0.85 1.85 18 0.54 3.82 1.15 0.365 0.82 174 1820

158 87.95 25.05 8.49 12.06 66.3 35 57.5 130 196 57.7 1.06 1.88 18.42 0.69 3.83 1.22 0.375 0.83 175 1825

157.4 88 25.05 8.49 12 67 34.5 57.5 118.5 192 58.2 1.11 2.02 18 0.6 3.9 1.16 0.375 0.79 173 1825

158 88 25.15 8.49 12.18 67 35.8 57.5 130 197 58.25 1.11 2.02 18.42 0.72 3.95 1.22 0.375 0.83 175 1825

155.3 86.7 24.9 6.23 11.9 66.2 34.45 57.5 118.5 190 57.7 1.11 1.84 18 0.6 3.81 1.16 0.375 0.78 173 1825

158 87.9 25.05 8.49 12.06 66.3 34.5 57.5 130 195 57.7 1.11 1.87 18.42 0.72 3.83 1.16 0.375 0.83 175 1825

2245820 2222540 366300 4300 64000 1972480 235900 470 1250 186470 3280 4000 176000 111400 500000 235000 9000 80000 74000 1170 60

354223145 195154222 9175310 33547 766302 130811156 8201970 27025 159350 36417772 190029 4440 330160 2005578 336630 899670 10500 30000 59850 204630 109500

INDUSTRIAL

AC ENERGY ALSONS CONS ABOITIZ POWER BASIC ENERGY FIRST GEN FIRST PHIL HLDG MERALCO MANILA WATER PETRON PETROENERGY PHX PETROLEUM PILIPINAS SHELL SPC POWER VIVANT AGRINURTURE AXELUM CENTURY FOOD DEL MONTE DNL INDUS EMPERADOR SMC FOODANDBEV ALLIANCE SELECT FRUITAS HLDG GINEBRA JOLLIBEE MACAY HLDG MAXS GROUP PEPSI COLA SHAKEYS PIZZA ROXAS AND CO RFM CORP ROXAS HLDG SWIFT FOODS UNIV ROBINA VITARICH VICTORIAS CONCRETE A CONCRETE B CEMEX HLDG EAGLE CEMENT EEI CORP HOLCIM MEGAWIDE PHINMA TKC METALS VULCAN INDL CHEMPHIL CROWN ASIA LMG CHEMICALS PRYCE CORP CONCEPCION GREENERGY INTEGRATED MICR IONICS PANASONIC SFA SEMICON CIRTEK HLDG

HOLDING & FRIMS

ABACORE CAPITAL ASIABEST GROUP AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL AYALA LAND LOG ANSCOR ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A ATN HLDG B COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG FILINVEST DEV FJ PRINCE A GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV JG SUMMIT JOLLIVILLE HLDG KEPPEL HLDG B LODESTAR LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP METRO PAC INV PACIFICA HLDG PRIME MEDIA REPUBLIC GLASS SOLID GROUP SYNERGY GRID SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP SOC RESOURCES TOP FRONTIER WELLEX INDUS ZEUS HLDG

-103363751 55023362 63268 -55845414 -4663920 -10958980 -109137 16160 1033200 -6200 -54750

2.23 1.21 33.55 0.231 23.9 68.95 313.6 10.34 3.86 3.95 11.48 32.8 8.19 14.02 13 2.61 15.18 4.85 9.48 7.2 84.95 0.5 1.2 37.5 215.4 6.1 11.72 1.92 9.9 2.17 5.29 1.79 0.117 145 1.19 2.44 65 66.6 2.01 14.3 9.8 13.52 16.36 9.85 0.99 0.85 165 2.15 4.61 4.94 27.05 1.86 7.72 1.29 4.62 0.85 4.05

2.25 1.28 34.2 0.243 24.15 69 317 10.36 3.88 4.1 11.94 32.85 8.2 15.12 13.2 2.66 15.28 5.05 9.5 7.21 85 0.52 1.21 38 216 6.19 12.4 1.93 10.12 2.2 5.3 1.93 0.119 148.9 1.2 2.57 67 71.9 2.04 14.86 9.85 13.6 16.38 10.06 1.02 0.86 170 2.17 4.86 5.06 30 1.87 7.89 1.3 5.42 0.86 4.07

2.28 1.23 33.85 0.239 23.85 68.2 305 10.04 3.89 4.1 11.5 32.9 8.48 15.12 13.38 2.76 15.12 5.05 9.44 7.22 85 0.5 1.25 38.25 216.2 6.2 11.94 1.92 9.9 2.19 5.3 1.8 0.115 147.8 1.17 2.6 64.45 71.95 2.08 14.5 9.78 13.7 16.38 10 1.02 0.87 170 2.16 4.6 5.06 27 1.87 7.91 1.26 4.54 0.87 4

2.28 1.23 34.8 0.245 24.6 70 317 11.38 3.92 4.1 11.94 33.4 8.48 15.12 13.5 2.78 15.28 5.05 9.5 7.22 85.3 0.52 1.26 39 217 6.2 12.4 1.93 10.08 2.2 5.3 1.8 0.117 149.9 1.2 2.6 67 71.95 2.08 14.9 9.8 13.7 16.44 10.08 1.02 0.87 170 2.17 4.86 5.06 30 1.89 7.91 1.3 5.43 0.87 4.78

2.23 1.21 33.55 0.23 23.3 68.2 304 9.48 3.84 4.1 11.4 32.6 8 15.12 13 2.61 15.08 4.85 9.43 7.2 84.9 0.49 1.2 37 214.6 5.9 11.7 1.92 9.9 2.15 5.25 1.8 0.115 145 1.14 2.6 64.45 71.9 2.01 14.3 9.46 13.5 16.32 10 0.99 0.85 161.8 2.14 4.6 5.06 27 1.8 7.6 1.26 4.54 0.85 4

2.23 1.21 34.2 0.245 24.15 68.95 317 10.36 3.86 4.1 11.94 32.8 8.19 15.12 13.5 2.61 15.18 4.85 9.5 7.21 85 0.51 1.21 38 216 6.19 12.4 1.92 9.9 2.17 5.3 1.8 0.117 145 1.2 2.6 65 71.9 2.01 14.86 9.8 13.6 16.38 10.06 1.02 0.86 170 2.15 4.86 5.06 30 1.87 7.89 1.3 5.43 0.85 4.07

3099000 71000 798800 5100000 3151100 40920 190120 79907100 1481000 1000 330500 1043400 113000 3000 423000 4775000 308400 6000 1887000 488600 239460 219000 18722000 149000 302990 68700 182800 12747000 1790000 1273000 10900 5000 220000 631700 8016000 1000 2220 2390 1949000 19200 334900 1281500 2842500 3004300 89000 1352000 230 435000 11000 1000 54800 9898000 66700 77000 10200 28000 2856000

6962930 86190 27261925 1232980 75567255 2804704 59419560 831706562 5744380 4100 3897144 34250320 922447 45360 5660486 12660970 4681796 29500 17892788 3521861 20356623.5 110190 22856990 5615820 65345474 413176 2228768 24481550 17744749 2744190 57577 9000 25500 93104458 9511550 2600 144370 171848.5 3,984,150( 279946 3278663 17422828 46598230 30083148 89490 1165030 38854 941150 50860 5060 1522830 18124090 516122 99300 46442 23900 12395740

6830330 -26239490 -1497943.5 29707428 -48073396 -1966200 -37014 -16584265 -22680 -2988386 21310 2231708 4903047 -621953 8825461.5 -138010 1441000 -28251350 24800 -1202052 -2544190 -4541195 -39202 -46045675 135930 1,707,370.0001) -87882 -1123673 -16846038 -35479036 -30050000 81950 -5400 10874880 134341 -64200 199610

0.85 10.18 785.5 51.45 11.64 2.99 6.33 0.68 0.92 0.94 6.83 6.61 13 3.83 847 5.2 80.55 6 5.2 0.485 3.71 11.92 3.47 4.55 1.14 2.81 1.22 190.5 1042 163.1 0.75 206.6 0.202 0.191

0.86 10.46 790 51.5 11.66 3 6.59 0.69 0.93 0.96 6.84 6.63 13.38 3.99 856.5 5.24 80.8 6.65 5.79 0.5 3.8 11.98 3.48 4.7 1.2 2.96 1.24 195 1043 164 0.79 214 0.217 0.2

0.87 10.24 800 52 11.54 3.02 6.42 0.67 0.91 0.96 6.67 6.87 13.38 4.2 845 5.25 79.2 5.89 5.86 0.485 3.72 11.9 3.58 4.6 1.2 2.9 1.22 214 1068 161 0.77 206 0.218 0.19

0.88 10.48 808 52.5 11.76 3.02 6.42 0.69 0.93 0.96 6.9 6.93 13.4 4.2 881 5.25 81 6.65 5.86 0.5 3.73 12 3.59 4.78 1.2 2.95 1.22 214 1080 165 0.79 214 0.22 0.202

0.85 10.2 785.5 51.5 11.54 2.99 6.42 0.66 0.9 0.96 6.67 6.61 13 3.78 845 5.2 79.2 5.89 5.79 0.485 3.71 11.68 3.46 4.6 1.13 2.9 1.22 190 1039 157.5 0.74 206 0.202 0.19

0.86 10.46 785.5 51.5 11.66 2.99 6.42 0.69 0.93 0.96 6.84 6.61 13 3.99 847 5.2 80.8 6.65 5.79 0.5 3.71 11.98 3.48 4.75 1.2 2.95 1.22 195 1043 164 0.79 214 0.202 0.2

15101000 11200 448810 1103790 17493800 1783000 6200 69000 692000 203000 272700 19598000 222000 12000 197790 62100 1719870 382000 200200 2000 163000 1645800 60319000 14000 61000 255000 135000 1130 428450 101610 39000 165480 1180000 6830000

13098160 114442 356100685 57127455 204259208 5343320 39804 45930 635670 194880 1855111 132357921 2898420 48710 170793930 325055 138894595 2428676 1173165 985 605060 19700732 212074230 66230 69910 752000 164700 216310 449582840 16629465 29220 35377140 258610 1365850

524000 -57401710 -7484613 -1406634 -733100 7704 222403 -24445337 -66366620 -210000 7331079.5 377557 1172586 -3730 -8811258 -127525430 12200 -120820290 -4839307 -2380 -220000 -

PROPERTY

ARTHALAND CORP 0.8 0.81 0.8 0.81 0.78 0.81 630000 499830 45.5 46 46.3 46.55 45.5 45.5 10432800 479698750 -214708815 AYALA LAND ARANETA PROP 1.32 1.44 1.47 1.47 1.47 1.47 6000 8820 1.98 1.99 2 2 1.98 1.99 119000 236880 -11910 BELLE CORP 0.7 0.71 0.71 0.72 0.7 0.71 142000 99960 A BROWN CITYLAND DEVT 0.81 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.85 6000 5100 0.182 0.188 0.18 0.189 0.18 0.188 1110000 203630 CROWN EQUITIES CEBU HLDG 6.63 6.8 6.9 6.95 6.5 6.8 6000 41165 4.69 4.83 4.76 4.83 4.67 4.83 1478000 7105280 -502320 CEB LANDMASTERS 0.53 0.55 0.54 0.55 0.53 0.55 13021000 7014670 -221900 CENTURY PROP CYBER BAY 0.385 0.395 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 10000 3800 18.88 18.9 18.9 19.4 18.88 18.9 1052900 20003218 -3172578 DOUBLEDRAGON DM WENCESLAO 9.67 9.9 9.98 9.98 9.65 9.9 97200 960630 -668305 0.41 0.43 0.415 0.43 0.415 0.43 150000 62800 EMPIRE EAST FILINVEST LAND 1.5 1.51 1.52 1.52 1.5 1.5 2737000 4129670 322890 GLOBAL ESTATE 1.15 1.18 1.16 1.2 1.15 1.2 356000 410720 14.72 14.74 14.76 14.78 14.72 14.74 359000 5296126 -229970 8990 HLDG PHIL INFRADEV 1.23 1.25 1.25 1.27 1.22 1.25 1267000 1570560 4.01 4.08 4.14 4.18 4.01 4.01 27824000 114129640 8003770.0001 MEGAWORLD 0.19 0.191 0.192 0.194 0.189 0.191 10230000 1947040 57060 MRC ALLIED PRIMEX CORP 2.05 2.12 2.1 2.1 2.03 2.09 1900000 3901790 -240.0001 27.55 27.8 27.2 28.15 27.2 27.55 2038200 56837455 2270850 ROBINSONS LAND PHIL REALTY 0.3 0.305 0.31 0.31 0.3 0.3 510000 153550 2.04 2.11 2.11 2.12 2.03 2.04 63000 130490 ROCKWELL SHANG PROP 3.19 3.2 3.2 3.21 3.1 3.2 24000 76430 STA LUCIA LAND 2.39 2.47 2.36 2.48 2.36 2.48 500000 1206980 41.95 42.1 41.5 42.1 41.4 42.1 14600500 613844805 228459150 SM PRIME HLDG VISTAMALLS 5.47 5.66 5.55 5.66 5.46 5.66 1832600 10045330 1.23 1.24 1.18 1.24 1.18 1.23 8235000 10066700 SUNTRUST HOME PTFC REDEV CORP 40.05 49.95 49.95 49.95 49.95 49.95 100 4995 VISTA LAND 7.37 7.73 7.38 7.73 7.32 7.73 8337900 63078293 -37595813 SERVICES ABS CBN 15.76 15.8 15.8 15.82 15.3 15.8 60600 953926 5.31 5.33 5.31 5.37 5.31 5.33 545500 2907261 GMA NETWORK MANILA BULLETIN 0.355 0.38 0.385 0.385 0.385 0.385 20000 7700 2000 2020 1998 2030 1998 2020 35090 70702720 20243890 GLOBE TELECOM PLDT 988 996 999.5 1003 988 988 124630 124310925 -37777760 APOLLO GLOBAL 0.042 0.043 0.042 0.043 0.042 0.043 1700000 72500 4.82 4.88 4.88 4.9 4.51 4.88 866000 4222840 DFNN INC ISLAND INFO 0.1 0.103 0.1 0.104 0.1 0.104 130000 13040 3.44 3.45 3.4 3.46 3.31 3.44 10071000 34466430 -201440 ISM COMM 2.01 2.17 1.9 2.19 1.9 2 34000 68210 JACKSTONES NOW CORP 2.48 2.49 2.43 2.6 2.4 2.49 3058000 7594830 -560580 0.27 0.275 0.27 0.28 0.27 0.27 1130000 310300 TRANSPACIFIC BR PHILWEB 2.59 2.61 2.56 2.61 2.54 2.61 2093000 5400730 -28150 10.02 10.5 9.89 10.5 9.51 10.5 128300 1295194 2GO GROUP ASIAN TERMINALS 18 18.5 18 18.5 18 18.5 250700 4520100 4242600 CHELSEA 5.47 5.5 5.4 5.5 5.3 5.5 1053100 5716814 40565 89.45 89.5 89.85 89.85 89.45 89.5 141270 12648324 -8162953 CEBU AIR INTL CONTAINER 128.6 129.2 129 131.3 127.1 128.6 1669580 215210196 -62802719 0.85 0.86 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.85 75000 63750 LORENZO SHIPPNG MACROASIA 16.4 16.5 17 17 16.5 16.5 331600 5,493,932( 2,430,543.9997) PAL HLDG 7.5 7.85 7.85 7.85 7.1 7.85 4800 34505 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.05 1.07 700000 747590 107670 HARBOR STAR ACESITE HOTEL 1.4 1.54 1.42 1.42 1.4 1.4 88000 123660 0.6 0.61 0.57 0.61 0.57 0.6 121000 72600 WATERFRONT STI HLDG 0.6 0.62 0.61 0.62 0.6 0.6 4238000 2546310 -2151600 BERJAYA 5.14 5.2 4.95 5.2 4.76 5.2 4445000 22583050 -238200 11.3 11.32 11 11.34 11 11.3 1918200 21661494 -3377236 BLOOMBERRY PACIFIC ONLINE 2.25 2.5 2.57 2.57 2.45 2.5 26000 64820 -54750 2.39 2.4 2.39 2.4 2.38 2.4 832000 1988040 LEISURE AND RES MANILA JOCKEY 3.33 3.35 3.35 3.35 3.35 3.35 5000 16750 PH RESORTS GRP 4.4 5 5 5.2 5 5.2 50000 253706 0.56 0.57 0.57 0.59 0.56 0.57 14396000 8095570 -613569.9997 PREMIUM LEISURE PHIL RACING 8.84 8.85 8.88 8.88 8.85 8.85 200 1773 11.6 11.64 11.56 11.64 11.52 11.64 2868200 33309926 -4254076 ALLHOME METRO RETAIL 2.09 2.12 2.12 2.12 2.09 2.11 433000 911040 -172200 PUREGOLD 39.7 39.75 40.3 40.3 39.75 39.75 1336600 53323565 568135.0004 77 80 77.95 80 76 80 839780 65672083 -15872737 ROBINSONS RTL PHIL SEVEN CORP 140 142 136.2 142 136.2 142 1530 216004 71364 2.73 2.78 2.77 2.78 2.71 2.78 2051000 5655760 -869480 SSI GROUP WILCON DEPOT 17.84 18 17.8 18 17.78 18 182900 3279610 428332 APC GROUP 0.385 0.39 0.38 0.39 0.37 0.39 1480000 562050 7.77 7.79 7.79 7.79 7.76 7.79 169700 1321701 EASYCALL GOLDEN BRIA 436 436.4 425 436.4 425 436 310 134068 7 7.94 6.5 7 6.45 7 68900 455900 130580 IPM HLDG PRMIERE HORIZON 0.335 0.34 0.34 0.35 0.32 0.34 28370000 9628700 -8250 SBS PHIL CORP 9.2 9.26 8.69 9.26 8.64 9.26 236000 2121789 MINING & OIL ATOK 10.5 10.92 10.96 10.96 10.5 10.96 500 5388 0.98 0.99 0.96 1 0.96 0.99 4248000 4203230 APEX MINING ABRA MINING 0.0015 0.0016 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 3000000 4500 2.41 2.5 2.49 2.5 2.49 2.5 55000 137460 ATLAS MINING BENGUET A 1.05 1.13 1.13 1.13 1.13 1.13 1000 1130 CENTURY PEAK 2.87 2.88 2.81 2.89 2.81 2.88 2314000 6598990 111000 6.92 6.93 7.3 7.3 6.93 6.93 600 4195 DIZON MINES FERRONICKEL 1.78 1.79 1.79 1.81 1.76 1.79 1225000 2184450 257060 0.197 0.202 0.203 0.203 0.197 0.202 80000 15940 GEOGRACE LEPANTO A 0.091 0.092 0.092 0.097 0.091 0.091 680000 62070 MARCVENTURES 0.98 1 0.89 0.98 0.89 0.98 485000 465020 0.98 1.01 1.01 1.02 1.01 1.02 2000 2030 NIHAO NICKEL ASIA 3.33 3.39 3.38 3.39 3.24 3.39 7033000 23532070 -3809430 0.45 0.49 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.47 30000 14100 OMICO CORP ORNTL PENINSULA 0.75 0.76 0.75 0.75 0.74 0.75 264000 197850 -18000 PX MINING 2.81 2.83 2.76 2.83 2.76 2.83 370000 1041790 22 22.05 22 22.6 21.6 22 2253400 49725465 -3360585 SEMIRARA MINING ACE ENEXOR 7.32 7.38 7.46 7.56 7.3 7.32 447300 3308503 53465 0.011 0.012 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 8500000 93500 1100 ORNTL PETROL B PHILODRILL 0.01 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 15000000 165000 PXP ENERGY 8.58 8.64 8.62 8.64 8.52 8.64 549900 4735194 68300.9999 PREFFERED AC PREF B1 499 505 499 499 499 499 50 24950 101.3 103.3 101.3 101.3 98.25 101.3 510 51632.5 -50650 ALCO PREF B AC PREF B2R 505 509.5 505 505 505 505 3000 1515000 100.1 101 100.6 100.6 100.5 100.5 5240 526784 DD PREF SMC FB PREF 2 997 998.5 998.5 998.5 997 997 80 79775 FGEN PREF G 108 111.9 111.9 111.9 111.9 111.9 10 1119 498 507 500 500 500 500 200 100000 GLO PREF P MWIDE PREF 100.2 101 100.5 100.5 100.3 100.3 4770 478447 1022 1030 1031 1035 1022 1022 4290 4419400 PNX PREF 4 PCOR PREF 3A 1031 1051 1031 1031 1031 1031 3000 3093000 PCOR PREF 3B 1050 1055 1051 1055 1050 1055 800 843025 76 77.5 77.5 77.7 77.5 77.5 10840 842208 SMC PREF 2C SMC PREF 2D 75 75.5 75 75 75 75 13400 1005000 75.8 76.9 75.75 76 75.75 75.8 1513530 114724905 SMC PREF 2F SMC PREF 2I 75.2 76.5 76.95 76.95 75.2 75.2 9440 710105.5 -

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR GMA HLDG PDR

15.4 5.07

15.7 5.3

15.4 5.3

15.02 5.3

15.4 5.3

21100 28200

324812 149460

WARRANTS LR WARRANT

1.2

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

ITALPINAS 3.7 KEPWEALTH 9.7 0.77 XURPAS

1.29

1.3

1.2

1.29

38000

46720

3.79 9.72 0.78

4 10.08 0.76

4.01 10.08 0.78

3.64 9.51 0.76

3.79 9.7 0.77

671000 346500 1611000

2625440 3346331 1241220

1953730 28344 -

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS FIRST METRO ETF

116.7

306498 -

117.4

117.3

117.9

116.5

117.4

45500

5314164

-318951

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Grab, Singtel team up on SG digital bank license bid

RAB Holdings Inc. is partnering with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. to apply for a full digital banking license, jumping aboard a Singapore government initiative to attract technology firms into its financial sector.

A Grab entity will own a 60-percent stake in the consortium that will apply for the bank license in Singapore, while the telco known as Singtel will hold the rest, according to a joint statement. The consortium plans to set up a digital bank targeting so-called digital-first consumers, as well as small and medium enterprises that lack access to credit. The move teams one of Southeast Asia’s largest operators of online businesses from finance and car-hailing with Singapore’s largest telecommunications firm. The Monetary Authority of Singapore unveiled plans this year to grant as many as five virtual bank licenses to boost competition and innovation. Of these, two will be full bank

licenses and three wholesale licenses limited to serving corporate clients only—the first category requires capital of S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion), the second S$100 million. Southeast Asia’s digital lending market is expected to more than quadruple to $110 billion by 2025, according to a report by Bain & Co., Google and Temasek Holdings Pte. Bids for the new virtual licenses are due by the end of the year. Several other groups have expressed interest in joining Singtel and Grab in applying, including billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, gaming gear-maker Razer Inc. and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. Singtel’s shares climbed as much as 0.9 percent Monday in light trade.

Biggest electric co-op taps AboitizPower for renewable energy By Lenie Lectura @llectura

ATANGAS II Electric Cooperative Inc. (Batelec II) has tapped Aboitiz Power Corp. to supply power to the largest electric cooperative in the country. Under their power-supply agreement, AboitizPower will provide 3 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy (RE) to Batelec II. Power will be sourced from the Tiwi-MakBan geothermal power plants, which are being operated and managed by AboitizPower subsidiary AP Renewables Inc. (Apri). It will be utilized by Batelec II for its local retail electricity supply (LRES) customers. Apri will also supply Batelec II with a 20-MW emergency power supply for one year, from December 26, 2019, to December 25, 2020. “We’ve been in the business for over four decades, and this is the first time we have decided to venture into the open access business and activate our local retail electricity supplier,” said Octavious Mendoza, Batelec II general manager. “To make a difference, we have

decided to source renewable supply to serve our contestable customers. It’s such a bold move so we need a dependable partner to support us in this sustainability journey, and we trust AboitizPower can do just that,” he added. Batelec II, which has a peak demand of 132 MW, is the largest of all 119 ECs in the country. Aside from serving its contestable customers through LRES, Batelec II also supplies electricity to its franchise area of more than 300,000 households across 15 municipalities and two cities in Batangas. Together with partners, AboitizPower currently has around 1,200 MW of Cleanergy capacity from its hydro, geothermal, and solar power plants that are strategically located nationwide in support of the country’s rapidly growing demand for clean and renewable energy. Aside from power generation, AboitizPower also owns distribution utilities that operate in high-growth areas in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, including the second- and third-largest private utilities in the country.

Hyundai ending 2019 sans 10% sales growth Continued from B1

The lone bright spot for Hari is the commercial vehicle (CV) bracket that grew 79.68 percent to 787 units, from 438 units. In spite of the declines in the PC and LCV segments, Hari is bullish it will surpass the 3,000 sales mark for December to enter the new decade on a high note. Hari President and CEO Maria Fe Perez-Agudo said she expects December to be a “good month” for the vehicle importer, as this is historically picked up by higher consumer spending. “December is historically a good month for Hari due to consumer spending. Coupled with lower interest rates and inflation, we expect our

sales to be further bolstered. Beyond these factors, our main drivers remain the quality, reliability and ease of maintenance of Hyundai passenger cars and commercial vehicles,” Agudo said in a statement. Hari expects its sales to be fired up by the CV bracket in the next months on the back of increased demand from the public transport sector. Recently, the car firm even opened its fifth dedicated CV dealership for the year in Cainta, Rizal. The inauguration of Hyundai’s truck and buses dealership in Cainta was highlighted by the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the order of 1,200 units of Hyundai HD50S Modern Jeepneys Class 1, Hyundai H-100 Modern Jeepneys Class 2 and Hyundai County Buses.

Efforts to open up the Singapore banking industry to technology companies come on the heels of a similar move in Hong Kong, where Ant and Chinese competitors including Tencent Holdings Ltd. obtained licenses earlier this year. For Grab, a digital banking business complements its growing suite of services built atop a ride-hailing platform that’s expanding regionally. Its advantage over other nonbank companies is an existing share of online payments built up under the GrabPay brand from ride-sharing users and local merchants. Grab doesn’t disclose the number of users—which include many for food delivery—but said its app has been downloaded onto more than 166 million mobile devices in Southeast Asia. The company, which started out as a taxi booking app in Kuala Lumpur in 2012, has sought to forge closer ties to Singapore. It has moved its base to the city and taken other steps to polish its local credentials. In March, it announced a new headquarters building in the city, and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Tan revealed plans to double local staff to 3,000. Grab has expanded into financial services across Southeast Asia in

mutual funds

partnership with 60 financial institutions including United Overseas Bank Ltd. in Singapore and Malayan Banking Bhd. in Malaysia. It set up the Grab Financial Group in 2018, which, among other things, provides digital payments services and personal loans. It also launched a numberless card with Mastercard and plans to start wealth management services next year. Singtel has delved deeper into financial services as growth in its core telecoms business plateaus in an uncertain economy. The company swung to a net loss of S$668 million in the quarter ended September, due to an exceptional item related to Bharti Airtel Ltd. The carrier’s been offering its own mobile payments service in cooperation with regional associates, including in Thailand. Users can pay via its Dash app when traveling wherever Dash’s partners are located. The app can also be accessed through Apple Pay. Digital banking is a natural extension of the company’s existing mobile financial services, said Arthur Lang, CEO of Singtel’s International Group. “We want to fundamentally change the way consumers and enterprises bank,” he said. Bloomberg News

December 27, 2019

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 253.04 0.62% 3.07% -0.43% 0.33% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 1.3784 -2.68% 2.04% -3.36% -4.33% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 3.6956 -4.94% 0.05% -3.17% -5.31% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.9029 1.2% n.a. n.a. 0.21% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.8531 4.21% n.a. n.a. 3.95% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 5.3449 1.92% 4.23% -0.59% 1.36% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,6 0.8567 3.07% 0.06% n.a. 2.39% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a 103.41 -12.8% n.a. n.a. -10.98% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 51.4767 4.79% 5.79% n.a. 4.58% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 534.98 4.26% 4.32% -0.01% 3.93% Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d,8 1.0263 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 1.2919 3.22% 4.69% 0.7% 3.02% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 38.0502 4.1% 5.64% 0.66% 3.87% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,1 1.0218 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 5.2426 5.93% 1.95% 5.72% 6.43% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a 875.11 5.85% 6.34% 1.9% 5.63% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 0.8548 -0.33% 3.07% n.a. -0.6% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 4.2296 4.48% 5.45% 0.99% 4.21% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 1.0044 5.46% 6.07% n.a. 5.25% United Fund, Inc. -a 3.671 5.07% 7.37% 2.65% 4.86% Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 117.3442 6.18% 7.07% 2.88% 5.96% ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b $1.0235 11.7% 7.4% 1% 10.16% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.3711 25.73% 9.76% n.a. 24.06% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.5669 -5.04% -1.39% -3.95% -5.11% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 2.1866 -0.58% 0.28% -1.26% -1.02% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.6364 4.11% 3.95% -0.99% 3.67% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,5 0.2303 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Grepalife Balanced Fund Corporation -a 1.3294 2.04% n.a. n.a. 1.92% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. N.S. PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.7982 7.65% 3.5% 0.5% 7.62% 17.0014 7.06% 3.39% 0.42% 6.88% Philam Fund, Inc. -a Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 2.1349 3.24% 2.98% 1.14% 3.18% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.8745 6.36% 4.44% 0.82% 6.11% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d,2 1.0181 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d,2 0.9987 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d,2 0.9957 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.9787 6.28% 3.95% -0.12% 6.18% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a $0.03817 8.38% 3.09% 2.01% 8.13% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -a $1.0326 -0.14% 5.71% 1.19% 13.01% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $3.8945 18.15% 7.76% 4.06% 17.71% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,7 $1.1248 12.38% 4.61% n.a. 11.92% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 357.83 4.21% 2.83% 2.33% 4.18% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.9014 2.32% 0.02% -0.5% 2.27% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.1141 4.88% 5.21% 5.21% 4.64% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.2237 4.35% 2.46% 1.96% 4.44% 2.39% 1.58% 6.97% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.3589 6.81% Grepalife Fixed Income Fund Corp. -a P 1.6065 2.8% 0.99% -0.13% 2.69% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.3722 11.54% 2.85% 1.77% 11.54% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.7767 7.75% 2.99% 1.42% 7.38% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 0.9639 8.01% 1.52% n.a. 8.16% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.075 11.35% 4.9% 2.67% 11.18% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a 1.7011 10.63% 4.45% 2.21% 10.47% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $468.02 4.43% 2.72% 2.77% 4.38% Є219.71 3.34% 1.65% 1.31% 3.31% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.2063 7.24% 3.24% 2.58% 7.16% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0258 3.61% 1.46% 1.29% 4.03% Grepalife Dollar Bond Fund Corp. -a $1.7091 1.09% -0.03% 0.13% 1.12% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -a $1.093 17.84% 1.54% -0.8% 5.47% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.402 10.63% 3.7% 2.97% 10.65% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0603476 5.89% 2.31% 1.99% 5.87% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.1717 10.41% 3.06% 2.58% 10.43% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 125.77 4.11% 2.86% 2.18% 4.05% First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a,3 1.0299 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a 1.2563 6.35% 3.04% 1.71% 6.29% Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.2641 3.74% 2.88% 2.34% 3.68% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0371 2.11% n.a. n.a. 2.09% Feeder Fund Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,4 $0.99 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day. b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago. c - Listed in the PSE. d - in Net Asset Value per Unit (NAVPU). 1 - Launch date is January 3, 2019. 2 - Launch date is January 28, 2019. 3 - Launch date is February 1, 2019. 4 - Launch date is November 15, 2019. 5 - Launch date is September 28, 2019. 6 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last October 12, 2018 (formerly, One Wealthy Nation Fund, Inc.). 7 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019. 8 - Launch date is December 09, 2019. "While we endeavor to keep the information accurate, the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) and its members make no warranties as to the correctness of the newspaper’s publication and assume no liability or responsibility for any error or omissions. You may visit http://www. pifa. com.ph to see the latest NAVPS/NAVPU."

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QC eases tax payments procedures

NTICIPATING the influx of taxpayers in January 2020, the Quezon City government, led by its City Treasurer’s Office, has simplified the process of payment of business and realproperty taxes. “Every January, the City Hall is filled with taxpayers who are dutifully settling their taxes. We are expecting around 75,000 to 80,000 taxpayers so we want to ensure that we can accommodate everyone with fast and efficient service,” Mayor Joy Belmonte said. Starting January 2, the City Treasurer’s Office located at the Quezon City Hall is prepared to accommodate clients from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or until all the clients are finished from Mondays to Fridays, in addition to services during weekends. From six steps, the City Treasurer’s Office has reduced the process to four steps: filling up of forms; evaluation and assessment; signature of the city treasurer; and, lastly, payment. Overall, the estimated maximum processing time will be 30 minutes. In addition, clients with seven or more transactions may proceed directly to the City Treasurer’s Office located at the second floor of the Annex building of City Hall. Senior citizens, persons with disabilities and pregnant women will also be given their own lines and comfortable waiting areas. Car flow and foot traffic are also being planned within the city hall compound. Tents and seats are also installed around the City Treasurer’s Office. Also, Belmonte encouraged people to visit the City Treasurer’s Office branches located in Cubao, Galas, La Loma, Novaliches and Talipapa, and the recently opened Quezon City Business Centers in SM North, Ali Mall and Robinsons Novaliches. The Quezon City government is also set to open Business Centers in Fairview Terraces, Fishermall and Robinsons Magnolia soon. “We are bringing our city hall system closer to our people through our business centers. Instead of traveling to City Hall, our citizens can also do their transactions and payments in these centers,” Belmonte added. The City Treasurer’s Office is reminding clients to bring complete documents to avoid any delay in the transaction. Documents include the 2019 business permit, 2019 tax bill and official receipt received from the City Treasurer’s Office and 2019 certified breakdown of sales. In case of two or more lines of businesses or two or more branches, clients must bring their 2019 valueadded tax returns or percentage tax returns, whichever is applicable, and 2018 annual income tax returns with complete set of audited financial statement, with proof of payment.

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

PHL’s largest rural bank cites higher consumer spending in off-bank sites

By Manuel T. Cayon |

@awimailbox Mindanao Bureau Chief

AVAO CITY—Consumer spending has revved up in rural centers, as well as in urban suburbs that have no bank branches or automated teller machines nearby but where a leading bank has started to operate point-of-sale (POS) gadgets that allow bank depositors to pay through their bank ATMs or withdraw cash at designated mall or department store counters.

“Spending has been significant in areas where there are no more banks or ATMs around. People now have the convenience to still pay their grocery using their ATMs and even to withdraw cash through the POS,” Karen L. Cua, senior vice president of the Banco de Oro (BDO) Network Bank, said. “We have offered enterprising Filipinos, especially overseas Filipino workers [OFWs] and their families, the business model where the latter would be the cash disbursing agent for ATM users who use the POS to withdraw cash,” Cua said. These agents get an average of P20 in the transactions, she added. Cua told reporters over the weekend that more POS gadgets have been deployed to off-bank sites to approximate cashless transaction in these areas, while also allowing ATM holders to withdraw cash through the POS.

China central bank to scrap benchmark as rates shift toward market-led system

HINA’S central bank ordered lenders to adopt a new loanpricing regime for all credit from next year, marking an end to the previous benchmark and another step toward liberalizing the financial system. Financial institutions should stop using the old lending rate as the pricing reference for all credit from January, while gradually converting existing loans to a new base—the loan prime rate—from March to August, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said on Saturday. The oneyear lending rate had provided the previous anchor for loans across the economy. The move could lower costs for some of the 152 trillion yuan ($21.7 trillion) in yuan-denominated outstanding loans held by financial institutions and boost economic growth, even though it won’t involve a straightforward cut to interest rates. The LPR—set at 4.15 percent for one-year tenor in December—is lower than the benchmark rate at 4.35 percent. Against the backdrop of the long-term slowdown in the economy, policy-makers are opening the financial system to outsiders more while making it more market driven in some respects. At the same time, officials are keen to control the pace of change as they try to weed out bad debt while keeping the system stable. The transition is “in line with the need to further reduce the financing costs for the real economy, although

communicate sufficiently.” If this is Lagarde’s New Year resolution, it’s a formidable one. Each noun has one of three genders to be memorized—compared with two in French—with adjectival endings to match. Verbs can come at the end of the sentence, and many are irregular. The American author Mark Twain was driven to craft an 1880 essay on “The Awful German Language” after the ordeal of trying to get to grips with it. “The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of,” he wrote. The “alphabetical processions” of compound nouns were one of Twain’s frustrations. There are a few jumbles Lagarde is likely to encounter, such as Eigenmittelanforderungen— capital requirements for banks—or Anleihekaufprogramm, the term for quantitative easing. The president, who turns 64 on January 1, appears to relish the challenge. She told lawmakers this

“It’s still like using an ATM. It has its limit of withdrawal per transaction only that the user would bring the POS receipt to the nearby designated BDO-affiliated counter [which] would hand the cash to the client,” she said. This has assuaged customers with no cash that they could still transact business, including buying of groceries, even if the place is already far from any ATM or a bank branch, Cua added.

‘Kabayan savings’

CUA said OFWs were the most numerous among the BDO affiliates operating the cash disbursement outlets or counters in off-bank sites. She credits this to BDO’s innovation of its financial literacy. She said they designed a savings account they call the “BDO Kabayan Savings” solely for the OFWs.

A man rides past the People’s Bank of China in Beijing, China.

there’s still a long way to go,” said Fan Ruoying, an analyst at the Bank of China’s Institute of International Finance in Beijing. The move will present more challenges for commercial banks because the interest margin will be squeezed and lenders will need to improve their pricing ability, she said.

Revamped rate

THE LPR, revamped to become the benchmark for new loans this year, is based on the interest rate for oneyear loans that 18 banks offer their best customers. Banks submit the quoted price each month in the form of a spread over the rate of the PBOC’s medium-term loans. “By now, close to 90 percent of

new loans are priced with the LPR, but outstanding loans with floating rates are still based on the benchmark lending rate,” the central bank said in a separate statement. That means the real lending cost “can’t reflect changes in market interest rates,” it said. The move may help make monetary policy more effective, resolving a long-standing problem in which cheap funding that the PBOC offers banks doesn’t result in cheaper loans to businesses. In the new scenario when all borrowing is based on the LPR, the supply of central bank funding or cuts to the rates of mediumterm loans will in theory push down the LPR, and reduce the cost of all lending to businesses. Bloomberg News

month that she faces an “accelerated” learning curve that involves learning both German and the language of central banking. Aside from getting about the city though, she didn’t explain how she plans to achieve her goal. Just getting to the point of being able to have an elementary conversation about daily life requires 240 hours of lessons, according to the Goethe Institut, a public-funded network of colleges which specializes in teaching the language. Lagarde’s predecessors had a mixed track record on the matter. The ECB’s first president, Wim Duisenberg of the Netherlands, spoke German before moving to Frankfurt. France’s Jean-Claude Trichet made an effort, and credited the experience with helping him “gain a profound understanding” of how people think in Germany. “The structure of a language also reveals patterns of argument,” he told magazine Der Spiegel in 2005. “It’s no coincidence that numerous

great philosophers are Germans.” Trichet made enough progress to deliver a speech in German in 2009 marking 10 years of the euro. Later that year, he told a reporter that he was very happy with how it had been received by the audience. Still, he said, German is “difficult.” His successor, Italy’s Mario Draghi, whose negative rates and bond-buying programs led to him being demonized in some sections of the German media, never mastered the language in eight years as president. Perhaps, his most famous attempt was the phrase “nein zu allem”—no to everything—which he pointedly used in 2012 and again in 2016 to criticize resistance to his radical policies. Lagarde says she won’t be deterred by the difficulties. When Joachim Schuster, a German lawmaker in the European Parliament, questioned her in his native tongue, she had a ready response. “One day, maybe, I’ll be able to answer in German.” Bloomberg News

Cua said OFWs could use their Kabayan Savings to remit to their families back home or to scale up their personal savings while abroad. She said the BDO Network Bank, considered the country’s largest rural bank, has entered into a partnership with several remitting agencies. “It would be good if one family holds at least two Kabayan Savings Account: one for the OFW and the other one to the wife or anyone in the family back home,” she said. “This would ensure that the remitted money is safe in the hands of the wife or the family back home.” On the other hand, the OFW account holder would have his personal way of tracking and monitoring his or her personal savings for whatever business or investment venture in the future, such as operating the POS cash disbursement outlet or center, Cua explained.

Danish pension funds with $680 billion finally find their missing link

ECB President Lagarde trying to learn German UROPEAN Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde is attempting an endeavor possibly as daunting as reigniting inflation in the euro area: Learning German. It’s understandable that the region’s new monetary chief, an internationally minded Frenchwoman now based at the ECB’s headquarters in Frankfurt, might want to communicate in the first language of her latest home. Not only is German the mother tongue of a quarter of the currency bloc’s population, but policies such as negative interest rates haven’t gone down well in Europe’s biggest economy, and being able to explain them more directly might help. “It is a huge asset if you can communicate locally,” said Philipp Hildebrand, vice chairman of Blackrock and a former president of the central bank of Switzerland, which has four official languages, including German. “By and large, many Germans feel like the ECB did not

Tuesday, December 31, 2019 B3

N Denmark, where institutional investors have been living with negative interest rates longer than anyone else, the authorities just took a big step. Danish pension funds, the world’s best managed along with their Dutch peers, will finally get a 30-year government bond. When it starts trading next year, funds managing a total of $680 billion in assets will get the missing link they’ve long needed: a long-term, AAA-rated asset at a positive yield. That’s quite a novelty these days. The new bond will give the industry a “crucial point on the curve,” said Christian Lage, chief executive officer of PFA Asset Management, which is a unit inside Denmark’s biggest commercial pension fund in Copenhagen. “We’re following it closely,” he said in an interview. “Not only with regards to what extent we want to invest in it, but also how it’s being priced. It has an impact on a lot of different things when we price longterm exposures.”

Setting records

DENMARK’S central bank first cut its benchmark rate below zero in mid-2012. Almost eight years later, the country has had negative rates longer than any other place on Earth. The distortions wrought by a policy intended to keep the krone fixed to the euro are particularly pronounced in the pension industry. The art of generating long-term, stable returns so Danes can retire comfortably has become increasingly difficult. Pretty much everything safe generates a negative yield. Assets that generate positive yields tend to come with a good deal more risk. The Danish debt office, which is a unit inside the central bank, hasn’t issued a 30-year bond since 2008. That’s forced pension funds to extrapolate a key anchor point in the interest rate curve that helps them determine the value of both assets and liabilities. Not having a real number at the 30-year point was problematic. The calculations used could muddy price-setting, particularly given the uncertainty of how and when central banks might extricate themselves from negative rates. Lage says that “what is a bit hard for the industry is that, if the interest rate curve—the govvie curve— ends at a 20-year point, what is the fair price for a 30-year asset?” PFA Asset Management is a unit of PFA Holding, a pension fund

owned by its customers. It has about 442 billion kroner ($66 billion) under management. Its clients include PFA customers, other professional and nonprofessional investors in Denmark. Dealing with long-term negative rates is an issue affecting much of the rich world. Real investment rates of return, net of expenses, were negative last year in the membercountries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. With few exceptions (Sweden stands out), most central banks have signaled a willingness to cling on to stimulus. The new decade could be the dawn of a tougher era for bond investors, as conditions that sustained the historic bull run in government debt fall away. Unprecedented central bank action has dominated economic stimulus since the global crisis and suppressed yields around the world. The skew may now be shifting more toward fiscal expansion that could pressure rates higher. Austerity is on the wane in Europe, spending packages are landing in Asia, and US borrowing is on track for even bigger records in the next couple of years. Denmark’s government debt market is considerably smaller than the country’s roughly $500 billion covered-bond market, which is the back bone of the Danish mortgage system. There are plenty of 30-year covered bonds. But they’re far from ideal as an anchor point in the yield curve. That’s because the securities are callable, which means borrowers have the option to buy back their debt. That can happen not only when rates go down, and homeowners try to lock into lower rates; but also when rates go up, and borrowers try to reset their mortgages at lower bond prices (and reduced debt values). “The duration on mortgages is fairly short these days due to the optionality and prepayment mechanisms,” Lage said. That means government bonds become “very central” and “when we miss guidance far out the curve, we lean toward how assets are being priced in Europe.” “It’s in the interest of the full financial sector to have as trustworthy a back-end anchor point as possible,” he said. “It’s very important that the central bank continue to be fully aware of their responsibility and keep up the good job in issuing longer debt, so we’ve got a fairly precise idea where the back-end of the curve is priced.” Bloomberg News

B4 Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Holiday Giving Tree at Makati Diamond Residences

DLSMC kicks off the season of giving, partners with Bantay Bata 163

O give further meaning to the Christmas season, De Los Santos Medical Center (DLSMC) collaborated with Bantay Bata 163— joining the foundation in its advocacy in changing the lives of Filipino children. Through its partnership with Bantay Bata 163, DLSMC pledged support for the foundation’s Adopt-A-Can program. The DLSMC President and CEO, Raul C. Pagdanganan, and Bantay Bata 163’s Program Director, Jing Castañeda, led the turnover of 200 coinbanks. The coinbanks were distributed to different departments and individuals across the hospital. In addition to the cans, DLSMC also made an initial donation of worth PHP 100, 000. Since 1997, the Coinbank Project has been a very effective tool in fundraising because it allows people from all walks of life and differing economic capacities, the “feel good” of being able to help in their own little way. Every can in every company, schools, malls, and hospitals, etc. is a constant reminder to every Filipino of what Bantay Bata 163 stands for and it is an invitation for every Filipino to join the fight for child protection and welfare. Small acts of kindness passed on from one generation to the next, motivated by love and concern for the Filipino child. “Kung itong mga latang ito, sa bawat kalansing ng baryang itinulong natin ay para bang musika sa kanilang pandinig. Para bang magbibigay ito ng ngiti sa kanilang mga labi sapagkat alam nila na hindi sila nag-iisa sa mundo dahil maraming mamamayan dito sa atin, katulad niyo, na maaring tumulong sa kanila. Sa Bantay Bata, nagpapasalamat

ako dahil binigyan niyo ng higit na kahulugan ang kapaskuhan para sa De Los Santos Medical Center,” said DLSMC President and CEO Raul C. Pagdanganan. Coin bank donations support Bantay Bata’s four program pillars: Bantay Proteksiyon, Bantay Pamilya, Bantay Kalusugan, and Bantay Edukasyon. Coin bank donations support the safety and welfare of thousands of children each year. This includes funding Hotline 163, still the only child-focused helpline that provides quick access for reporting abuse and other child-related concerns nationwide. It also includes Community Outreach Programs implemented in schools and communities to bring the various advocacy campaigns of Bantay Bata 163 on child welfare and protection directly to children and their families. They fund crucial healthcare services for patients aged 0 to under 18. They also fund payments to partner medical

service providers for walk-in patients. Coin bank donations take Bantay Bata to where the need is greatest. They allow Bantay Bata to reach children in different parts of the country by helping to fund the operations of regional offices in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Truly, every peso in a Bantay Bata coin bank is worth a million opportunities to a child. Every peso provides a lifeline for many Filipino children who are abused, marginalized and left behind because of poverty and other systemic ills in our society. Although loose change may not seem like very much, when collected and counted in volume, it can give new hope to unfortunate children. For those who want to partner with Bantay Bata 163, you can call Hotline 163 or message the website at http://abscbnfoundation.com/.

At the launch of the Bantay Bata 163 Adopt-A-Can program, from left: DLSMC VP for Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nilo C. de los Santos, Bantay Bata 163 Program Director Jing Castañeda, and DLSMC President and CEO Raul C. Pagdanganan.

New World Makati Hotel welcomes 2020 with wonderful celebrations

EW Year celebrations at New World Makati Hotel are made more meaningful and memorable as it proffers an array of experiences to usher in 2020 with family and friends. From a spectacular countdown party at the ballroom, to a bountiful buffet feast at Café 1228, indulgent Chinese fare at Jasmine, splendid room stays, and a 25th anniversary raffle of getaways

and giveaways, the luxury hotel ensures that there is something for everyone to provide a fitting welcome to the year ahead. Combining enthralling live entertainment, Western and Asian delights, as well as free-flowing libations all night long, New World Makati Hotel’s annual New Year’s Eve Countdown Party will be an evening of merriment and cheer. Guests will be singing along and partying to the music of the Brass Munkeys as they perform all-time favorites from the 60’s up to present-day chart toppers. The event’s revelry continues as DJ Cam Abecina gets partygoers grooving with upbeat tunes and dance tracks from today’s latest and greatest hits. Guests who stay on until the end of the program may win

exciting prizes such as overnight stays, dining experiences, and more, courtesy of the hotel. Free standing admission is at PHP2,988 per person. A 20 percent discount is applicable for children six to twelve years old. VIP Children five years and below are free of charge. The Countdown to 2020 party will be at the ballroom on 31 December starting from 9 PM to 1 AM. All prices are nett. Guests can wake up to a bright and beautiful new year with an overnight stay in New World Makati Hotel’s rooms or suites with buffet breakfast for two adults and two children six years and below starting at PHP9,000++. A New Year’s turndown amenity and an exclusive 25 percent discount on the Countdown to 2020 party are likewise included in the room package. An upgraded stay at the Residence Club affords Club benefits such as afternoon cocktails and access to the Residence Club Living Room.

Fabrique Runway 2019 debuts at the 6th National TVET Congress

LIDING and sashaying on the ramp were selected TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) personalities clad in special collections of Filipino designers from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao & NCR. The event was the 6th National TVET Congress held recently at the SMX Aura BGC Taguig. The Congress was organized by TEVSAPHIL, Inc., the country's national TVET association in collaboration with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). The fashion world requires private, government, and educational sectors to revive and sustain local fashion and textiles. Many of these evolutional skills are evident in enduring local methods and products such as those by the Tagolwanen Women Weavers Association (TWA) from Malaybalay, Bukidnon, according to Fabrique ramp director Cess Dalmas. Centuries before we've arrived at our

modern-day, colonial-inspired garments, Filipino natives donned clothing created according to their respective ethnicities and textile sources. Such sources are making a comeback in the form of piña, abaca and silk products. The pre-colonial Tagalogs wore baro't saya, The Cordillerans wore patterned loins, Visayans wore a robe called Marlota or jacket called Baquero, and Mindanaoans wore a diverse spectrum of their ethnic tribes (Wikipedia). Despite our rich socioeconomic history of fashion, most of our local products rely on imported raw materials, due to

lack of production, support and research. Importing cotton and synthetic materials prove to be costly, economically stunting and unsustainable. Following these sensibilities and the endeavor of embodying social transformation, TEVSAPHIL has arrived at Fabrique: A spectacle celebrating and promising the modern renaissance of local human and material assets Tevsaphil National is headed led by ace coiffure Tony Galvez. The Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao collections were provided by designers Dexter Alcaraz, Diana Katigbak, Migz Mentel and Edwin Rosas Visda.

HE holidays is a time for gratitude, for all things big or small, best expressed through giving. This Christmas season, Makati Diamond Residences invites all guests to give back and share their blessings in the form of any amount, allowing them to place a thoughtful message of greeting in our Holiday Giving Tree, displayed at Alfred and the Club Lounge. 100% of the proceeds will be given to Better World Tondo, San Miguel Foundation’s food bank, soup kitchen and education center that gives support to the poorest of the poor in Tondo, Manila. Place a donation today by visiting Makati Diamond Residences. To learn more about our corporate social responsibility, calling (02) 5317 0999 or emailing pr@makatidiamond.com. Alfred is located at the Ground Floor of Makati Diamond Residences, 118 Legazpi Street, Legazpi Village, Makati City 1229. Visit www.makatidiamond.com for details or other hotel promotions and updates.

Security Bank chosen as Best Bank for SMEs in PHL

INANCE publication Asiamoney recently awarded Security Bank as the country’s Best Bank for SMEs for its consistent support to the needs of small, medium and homegrown businesses. Asiamoney commended the bank’s digital innovations, electronic cash management services, and products like the Business Express Loans – which reduces the turnaround time for a loan application from three weeks to a maximum of five days. Moreover, the SME loan does not require an application fee or collateral for loans up to Php 5 million. “The bank’s small business loans portfolio grew by a remarkable 137% in 2018 and continued its strong momentum in the first quarter of 2019. Small business loans as a percentage of total consumer loans almost doubled from 5% in the first quarter of 2018 to 9% in the first quarter of 2019,” read the citation. MSMEs still account for 99.56% of total establishments, according to The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The sector group also contributed to almost 62.9% of total jobs generated and account for 25% of the country’s total exports revenue. Despite the growth of the MSME sector from 911,768

in 2016 to 924,721 in 2017, Security Bank still sees a growth potential that is yet to be tapped. “The bank will continue to pursue initiatives and offer competitive loan products to cater to the expanding SME sector, driving economic growth,” said Security Bank President & CEO Sanjiv Vohra. Some of the initiatives that the bank pursued were partnerships with franchise associations and trade unions to educate and deliver sound business solutions to members and franchisees. “Empowering businesses, especially SMEs is our bank’s mission,” said Vohra. He acknowledged that it was Security Bank’s BetterBanking vision that led them to pursue the initiatives, products, and services that garnered the bank’s international recognition. Security Bank was also recognized as the Best SME Bank in the Philippines by the Alpha Southeast Asia Award. Asiamoney and Euromoney also released the results of its 41st annual foreign exchange (FX) survey tagged as the most comprehensive annual study on FX markets. The survey ranked Security Bank as among the top 3 FX banks in the Philippines, beating the largest local banks.

Do your last-minute holiday shopping with the new Robinsons Cashback Card

HIS Christmas make sure to have the Robinsons Cashback Card by your side when you do your last minute Christmas shopping so you can treat yourself to a rewarding shopping experience. Earn up to 3% rebate for any singlereceipt purchase worth Php 3,500 when you shop at Robinsons stores and affiliate brands. Get up to 0.50% rebate for purchases less than Php 3,500. Shoppers can also earn a 1% rebate when they use the Cashback Card at non-affiliate brands for every singlereceipt purchase worth Php 3,500. It pays to shop with the new Robinsons Cashback Card as it lets you earn rebates up to Php 20,000 annually. All rebates are automatically credited to the account’s monthly billing statement. The Robinsons Cashback Card is the new product of Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. and Robinsons Bank that aims to provide customers a different level of fulfilling shopping experience.

Apply now and get the first year’s annual fee for free. Robinsons Bank is the financial services arm of the JG Summit Group of Companies, one of the country’s largest conglomerates. Currently, it ranks 18th among universal and commercial banks in terms of assets amounting to Php110.555 Bn as of September 2019. Robinsons Bank has been recognized as the “Best Commercial Bank in the Philippines” by the International Banker 2019 Banking Awards and “Fastest Growing Commercial Bank in the Philippines” by the Global Business Outlook (GBO) Awards 2019. For questions and concerns, or to apply for a Robinsons Cashback Card you may reach Customer Care Center at (02) 8637-CARE (2273) or domestic toll-free 1-800-10-637CARE (2273); or go to its website at www.robinsonsbank.com.ph. Like them on Facebook at www.facebook. com/robinsonsbank/ and follow them on Twitter @RBankCorp for the latest promo.

God of deepest mercy

EAR God, Your designs stand forever. We rejoice in Your lasting covenant, established forever in Jesus and we pray: God of justice, hear our prayer. Let Your Church joyfully proclaim Your salvation across the Earth. Inspire every nation to lay aside weapons of war and methods of destruction. Embolden us to live the mystery of Your incarnate word. Make us constantly aware of the reasons why You created us: to know Your More, love You most and to serve You endlessly. May the radiance of the newborn Christ bring peace and light to all the world. Amen. GIVE US THIS DAY SHARED BY LUISA LACSON, HFL Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

A MID-WEIGHT French organic linen blanket from Coyuchi, with a quiet striped pattern inspired by vintage Peruvian blankets. Blankets may be simple squares of woven material, but they can pack an emotional punch. And that makes blankets nice gifts, too. COYUCHI VIA AP

Life BusinessMirror

JUDGE: NO SLANDER IN ALEC BALDWIN’S COMMENTS ON PARKING SPAT C4

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

EASY-TO-GROW edibles thriving in containers that can be moved to follow the sun. The boxes are designed with built-in water reservoirs that provide moisture to the plant roots as needed. Starting too large is said to be the most common mistake made by first-time gardeners. DEAN FOSDICK VIA AP

Blankets to put you in the comfy zone

THE Bernat Alize EZ Wool is a prelooped yarn that lets you create your blanket—or any craft project— without needles or hooks, or really any knowhow. There are loads of colors, in soft, chunky machine-washable chenille wool blends. BERNAT VIA AP

BY KIM COOK The Associated Press

UTHOR Lucy Maud Montgomery, of Anne of Green Gables fame, loved a good blanket. “I like to hear a storm at night,” she wrote. “It is so cozy to snuggle down among the blankets and feel that it can’t get at you.” Rep. Barbara Jordan once mused that the world would be a better place if at 3 pm every afternoon, we all took some cookies and milk to a blanket for a little nap. Blankets may be simple squares of woven material, but they can also be emotional touchstones. The one we slept under as a child. The one that soothed us during storms. The one that wrapped a child, a pet, a grandparent, a friend. And that makes blankets nice gifts. You’ll find them in every price range, so here are some suggestions: Pendleton’s national park series is a good place to start. Commemorate a family trip, dress up a sofa, give a present to an outdoorsy friend or drift off to dreamland, yourself, with one of these blankets. The wool is brushed to a soft, fluffy nap for extra loft, and each blanket comes with a tag noting authenticity of the design along with an interesting park feature. Yellowstone, Glacier, Rainier, Acadia and Olympic are among those included. Travelers might also like Pendleton’s Meridian Crossing reversible blanket, with a contemporary, crossed-lines graphic design inspired by navigational markings. Got an art lover on your list? Think about one of the company’s limited-edition blankets designed by glass artist Dale Chihuly. His exuberant vision is translated in boldly hued wool, and each blanket comes with a signature patch.

If you prefer a lightweight blanket, Coyuchi has some nice options. Made of washed organic Turkish cotton, the blankets are perfect for hot sleepers. Choose from pleasing neutral colors, like Riverstone, Midnight Blue, Alpine White and Blush. Also here, a mid-weight French organic linen blanket, with a quiet striped pattern inspired by vintage Peruvian blankets. The company even offers a subscription program called Coyuchi for Life; get new linens at a discount every six, 12 or 24 months, and the old, returned ones are recycled or upcycled. If you sleep better under something heavier, Bearaby has blankets woven of soft, pliable Tencel—a tree fiber—in 15-, 20- and 25-pound weights. Want something super luxe? JG Switzer offers English lambswool and cashmere blankets trimmed with silk, in relaxing hues, like champagne, raven and snowy white. A nice whipstitch trims the Alta reversible blanket from Peacock Alley. The blanket is made of combed Portuguese cotton and acrylic, in quiet color pairings, like white/linen and pearl/flint. Garnet Hill has a couple of beautiful wool blankets that are plush but practical.

Fostering a sense of community YOU don’t simply live in a house and call it a home, or reside in a neighborhood and consider it a sanctuary. To be happy and at peace, you need to feel safe and secure, and have a sense of belonging to a place where residents have each other’s back and care for each other’s well-being. This is what a sense of community is all about. And this is what BRIA Homes (www.bria.com.ph), the fastest-growing mass housing developer in the Philippines, had in mind when visualizing how they wanted their developments to be. Committed to serve ordinary Filipinos, the mass housing developer builds high-quality affordable homes in friendly and welcoming communities, where Filipino families will thrive for the long haul. To establish a sense of community, BRIA Homes makes sure that each development has features that spur its homeowners to engage in camaraderie. For

instance, all BRIA communities are eco-friendly, with lush green spaces that allow residents to chill—on their own or with newfound friends. Recreational amenities, such as covered basketball courts, are fixtures in all developments. Also, BRIA Homes put the spotlight on Upa, a short film that should give ordinary Filipinos a wake-up call. If you live in a tiny rented room, put up with nosy and noisy neighbors, or worry about your family’s safety in a congested neighborhood, you know how it is to be an ordinary Filipino. In the film, seeing their dear friend happily settled down in a beautiful BRIA home, the husband and his wife check out a family-friendly BRIA community— and like what they see: well-designed homes in a wholesome, and secure, environment that boasts of modern amenities and facilities designed for its residents’ enjoyment.

From Eileen Fisher Home, there’s a windowpanepatterned merino wool blanket, and from Pendleton the Eco-Wise wool plaid or striped blanket. Both can be popped in the washing machine on the cold setting and tumbled dry. Sherpa fleece is the hot fashion material this season, and the trend has found its way into home décor, too, on upholstery, soft furnishings and bedding. Target has a squooshy blanket that’s modestly priced and comes in dark green, blush or gray, as well as a Made by Design sweater-fleece blanket in heathered gray or navy. Pottery Barn has one with the Sherpa material on one side and a crisp black-andwhite gingham cotton on the other, so you basically have a coverlet and blanket in one. Want to make your own blanket but don’t know how to knit or crochet? The Bernat Alize EZ Wool is a prelooped yarn that lets you create your blanket—or any craft project— without needles, hooks or really any knowhow. There are loads of colors, in soft, chunky, machine-washable chenille wool blends. ■

Advice to first-time gardeners: Think small. Find your spot. BY DEAN FOSDICK The Associated Press ANOTHER growing season is building momentum with the arrival of the 2020 seed catalogs, and gardeners are drafting plans for new harvests. There’s such a thing as being too enthusiastic, though, especially among novices. Beginners can achieve their best planting results by thinking small. “Starting too large is the most common mistake made by first-time gardeners,” said Barbara Murphy, a Master Gardener coordinator and horticulturist with University of Maine Cooperative Extension for 23 years. “Limit yourself to 10 feet by 10 feet,” she says. “If you grow frustrated because of too many things happening the first year, there’s a good chance you won’t feel like gardening for a second. You can always expand as your skills develop.” Other tips that beginners can start thinking about now: ■ FIND THE RIGHT LOCATION. You need 12 to 16 hours of sun per day for a vegetable garden, Murphy said. Ornamental gardens aren’t as fussy. Gardens also need a convenient water source and rich, well-drained soils. “Good soil preparation is important to success, but be patient,” said Rosie Lerner, an Extension horticulturist with Purdue University. “Don’t force the soil when it’s wet. Soil structures will compact and get tight. That makes it tough for water and air to move through and greatly inhibits growth.” ■ SQUEEZE THE SOIL GENTLY IN YOUR HAND. If it crumbles a bit when squeezed, it’s ready for use. “It can take a long time to get good soil texture, and just minutes to destroy it if you work it while it’s too wet,” Lerner said. ■ KEEP RECORDS: “You can learn a lot by recording things,” Lerner said. “What worked and what didn’t. Put those lessons to use the following year.” For vegetable gardens, choose easy-to-grow plants, like leaf lettuce, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, green beans and radishes. Leave more challenging plants, like cauliflower, melons, celery and broccoli, for another season. DEAL QUICKLY WITH INSECTS. “Make regular visits to your garden to check for plant pests,” Murphy said. “Don’t worry about the adults. You want to go after the eggs before they develop into juvenile leaf cutters. Most eggs are on the underside of leaves. Use soapy water and picking, or simply remove the infested leaves.” ■ WEEDS COMPETE WITH YOUR PLANTS FOR NUTRIENTS AND WATER. Get rid of them before they go to seed. Mulching retains soil moisture, cools the ground and smothers weeds. Use natural and free materials, like shredded leaves, newspaper, grass clippings and sawdust, that also enrich the soil over time. Avoid overcrowding. That stresses plants, invites disease and reduces yields. ■ RECRUIT POLLINATORS. Adding clumps of pollen-rich blooms (think daisy-like coneflowers, sunflowers, asters) to a vegetable mix enhances pollination and boosts harvests. ■ ELIMINATE OR EASE UP ON THE PESTICIDES. Chemicals don’t discriminate. They kill the beneficial insects along with the bad.

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C2 Tuesday, December 31, 2019

KING JAMES

Davis stops Gamboa in 12th round to bag WBA lightweight title

Bt Tim Reynolds

TLANTA—Gervonta Davis could tell early on that Yuriorkis Gamboa wouldn’t go down easily, so Davis decided to be patient and wear him down. “I wasn’t pressed for the knockout,” Davis said. “Once I seen I was hurting him and he wasn’t getting out of there, I just had to touch him up and win the rounds.” Davis stayed unbeaten in his career with a 12th-round stoppage of Gamboa to win a lightweight title Saturday night. Fighting past the ninth round for the first time, Davis (23-0, 22 KOs) showed why his nickname is Tank, releasing a barrage of punches in the final round before a left uppercut to the head ended the fight at the 1:44 mark when referee Jack Reiss called it. Davis, becoming a two-division champion in his adopted hometown, dropped Gamboa three times. He landed a left hand to knock the veteran down in the final seconds of the eighth, bringing fans in the lower bowl at sold-out State Farm arena to their feet. “I showed I’m an elite fighter,” Davis said. “I’m not trying to rush it and get him out of there and wind up getting caught. That was my main focus going in. Not trying to rush it. Touch him up and show the people I have skills.” Atlanta rapper Lil Baby performed alongside Davis as he made his entrance for the main event. It didn’t take long for Davis to energize the fans, using a double-jab and a left hand to drop Gamboa at the 1:36 mark of the second. At 25, Davis is entering his prime and moving up to lightweight for the first time. He gave the 38-year-old Gamboa a beating in the fifth with left uppercuts, but the Cuban had plenty of punch resistance. Reiss called a brief timeout before the start of the third when Gamboa complained about an issue with his right shoe. His corner retied the shoe before the start of the fourth and taped it heavily before the start of the fifth. Stacy McKinley, Gamboa’s assistant trainer, said his fighter “had his ankle or his Achilles heel all messed up. They wanted to stop the fight and I said, ‘No.’ I told him to get

OS ANGELES—On the night before his 35th birthday, LeBron James reached another milestone. James became the ninth player in National Basketball Association (NBA) history with 9,000 assists during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 108-95 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday. James—named The Associated Press Male Athlete of the Decade earlier in the day—got No. 9,000 with 4:35 remaining in the first quarter when he fired an outlet pass to Anthony Davis threequarters of the way down the court for a dunk. It was one of 13 assists on the night for King James. “It was something that was instilled in me when I first picked up a basketball,” James said about his ability to distribute the ball. “One of my earliest coaches said the best part of the game was to move side to side, attract the defense and get the teammate the open look.” James, who scored 13 points, has been more aggressive running the point the past two games. He totaled 29 assists and only three turnovers in victories over Portland and Dallas. “His pace the last two nights has been outstanding, and not wanting to settle,” Lakers

IVERPOOL, England—Liverpool extended its unbeaten home run in the Premier League to 50 games with a 1-0 win against Wolverhampton in a scrappy match on Sunday where two video replays went in the runaway league leader’s favor. Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool side is 13 points clear of second-place Leicester and 14 ahead of defending champion Manchester City, having played one game less than both its rivals. Sadio Mané’s goal in the 42nd minute was allowed after VAR ruled out a handball from passer Adam Lallana, and a Wolves equalizer from Pedro Neto in first-half injury time was not allowed because VAR revealed there was a fractional offside beforehand. Wolves Coach Nuno Espírito Santo was puzzled by the decisions. “Anfield is amazing, but they are celebrating a non-goal. It doesn’t make sense. The referees should sustain their decisions,“ he said. “The decisions are [instead] being taken by a referee that is miles from here, miles and miles away [behind] a TV screen. He doesn’t feel the game.“ It is the second time in Liverpool’s history it has gone 50 league games at home unbeaten in the top division, having achieved a run of 63 games between 1978 and 1980. Chelsea is the only other side to have previously reached the mark with an impressive 86-game spell without losing at Stamford Bridge, between 2004 and 2008. Liverpool also ended a calendar year unbeaten at home in all competitions for the fifth time, after doing so in 1893, 1979, ’80

The Associated Press

Gervonta Davis (left) lands a punch on Yuriorkis Gamboa in round six. AP

locked in and do the best you can.” Davis, a southpaw, won Atlanta’s first world championship fight since Evander Holyfield successfully defended his heavyweight belts against Vaughn Bean 21 years ago. “My thing was to go out there, touch him up, not get hit and break him down,” Davis said. “I believe if I would’ve touched him to the body more that I would’ve gotten him out of there early, but lesson learned. I put on a great performance for the fans. I’m grateful.” Davis had a dramatic Friday, getting fined by the Georgia State Athletic Commission for missing weight when he tipped the scales at 136.2 pounds and taking the two extra hours he needed to make 134 3/4 He also shoved Gamboa at the faceoff, setting off a ruckus on the stage, though both boxers quickly departed. Davis’s next fight is undecided. Superlightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko of Ukraine said in April that he wants a match, and Davis said last month that he’s ready, too. But a more likely possibility is Davis returning to 130 pounds to face Mexico’s Léo Santa Cruz. “I don’t feel like nobody above me,” Davis said. “I’m the cash cow, I believe, so at 135 or 130, I’m selling out arenas, putting butts in the seats. I don’t think [Lomachenko is] doing that. Line him up. I’m a fighter. I’m willing to fight anybody. I’m ready.” Davis’s handlers have cautiously laid out his career, and Gamboa, a former unified featherweight champion and 2004 Olympic gold medalist at

flyweight, was one of Davis’s toughest matchups to date despite being past his prime. The approach has worked to help Davis stay unbeaten and build his brand. Davis had one fight last into the ninth, in his 14th bout against Luis Sanchez of Mexico four years ago. Davis’s past three fights lasted no longer than three rounds. His TKO of Argentine Jesús Cuellar in the third in April 2018 won Davis the WBA super featherweight title. His next fight, 11 months ago against Mexico’s Hugo Ruiz, a late replacement, marked his eighth career firstround knockout and his first as a card headliner. And, in July, before a capacity crowd in his hometown of Baltimore, Davis finished off Ricardo Núñez of Panama in two rounds with a TKO. Gamboa, whom Davis described as his toughest opponent since his seventh-round TKO of Puerto Rico’s José Pedraza for his first world title nearly three years ago, had won four straight since failing to come out for the eighth round in 2017 against Robinson Castellanos. In a cofeature undercard, Haiti’s Jean Pascal (35-6-1) won a split decision over Sweden’s Badou Jack (22-3-3) to claim the WBA light heavyweight title. Jack used a couple of rights in the opening seconds of the 12th to knock down Pascal for the second time in his career. Pascal staggered to his knees and into the ropes, but quickly stood up, and the final cards read 114-112 for Jack and two 114-112s for Pascal. AP

e left Cleveland for Miami, finally became a champion, went back to his beloved northeast Ohio, delivered on another title promise, then left for the Los Angeles Lakers and the next challenge. He played in eight straight finals. No National Basketball Association (NBA) player won more games or more MVP awards over the last 10 years than he did. He started a school. He married his high-school sweetheart. “That’s all?” LeBron James asked, feigning disbelief. No, that’s not all. Those were just some highlights of the last 10 years. There were many more, as the man called “King” spent the last decade reigning over all others—with no signs of slowing down. James is The Associated Press male athlete of the decade, adding his name to a list that includes Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky and Arnold Palmer. He was a runaway winner in a vote of AP member sports editors and AP beat writers, easily outpacing runner-up Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. “You add another 10 years of learning and adversity, pitfalls, good, great, bad, and any smart person who wants to grow will learn from all those experiences,” James, who turns 35 Monday, told the AP. “A decade ago, I just turned 25. I’m about to be 35 and I’m just in a better [place] in my life and have a better understanding of what I want to get out of life.” Usain Bolt of Jamaica was third for dominating the sprints at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, soccer superstar Lionel Messi was fourth and Michael Phelps—

the US swimmer who retired as history’s most decorated Olympian with 28 medals, 23 gold—was fifth. James was revealed as the winner Sunday, one day after Serena Williams was announced as the AP’s Female Athlete of the Decade. In his 17th season, he’s on pace to lead the league in assists for the first time while remaining among the NBA’s scoring leaders. “When LeBron James is involved,” Denver Coach Michael Malone said, “I’m never surprised.” Including playoffs, no one in the NBA scored more points than James in the last 10 years. He started the decade 124th on the league’s all-time scoring list. He’s now about to pass Kobe Bryant for No. 3. No. 2 Karl Malone and

No. 1 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are within reach. Is Abdul-Jabbar in his sights? Is catching him the new decade’s goal? “I would be lying if I said I don’t see it,” James said. “Obviously I’m not trying to say, ‘OK, well if I play this amount of time, if I average this’.... I’m not doing that because I’ve never done that with my career. I’ve always just kind of let it happen. Whatever happens, happens. But I see it. I do see it.” His work ethic, even now, makes even those closest to him marvel. Here’s a typical day this past summer for James, who remains obsessed with working even though fame and fortune found him long ago: He’d wake up at 3 a.m. and be at the Warner Bros. lot by 3:45—where a weight room and court, built just for him, were waiting. He’d be lifting by 4 a.m., getting shots up by 5:30 and be ready to start another day of shooting the remake of “Space Jam” that

SOME love him. Some don’t. But LeBron James doesn’t mind. AP

LEBRON REACHES ASSIST MILESTONE Coach Frank Vogel said. “We have done a much better job of living in the paint the past couple games, making great decisions and being aggressive.” James concurred that he’s been more aggressive because he wants to get up the floor quicker to have more time to see what opposing defenses are doing. “My teammates and coaching staff trust me to play the point and run the show,” he said. “It’s my job to take care of the ball, put guys in position to be successful, get them the ball on time and on target.” Davis led the Lakers with 23 points and nine rebounds. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added a season-high 19 points, including four 3-pointers, and Dwight Howard scored 15. All of Howard’s points came in the second quarter. The Lakers’ defense was also impressive as they held the Mavericks to a season low in points and shooting from the floor at 36 percent. Vogel

said he threw in some zone defenses for the first time in the regular season. “I think it was good and messed them up a little bit. It disrupted them a little bit,” Davis said. Luka Doncic led Dallas with 19 points but struggled from the field one night after getting his ninth triple-double of the season. The second-year guard shot five of 14 and missed all six of his three-point attempts. “That was one of the worst games we played. We didn’t play like us and had a really bad night. I can’t say much more,” Doncic said. Delon Wright came off the bench to score 14 points. Dorian Finney-Smith and JJ Barea had 12 apiece. Los Angeles, which has won two straight after a four-game losing streak, led most of the way. The Lakers were up 35-31 midway through the second quarter before going on a 12-2 run to take control. The Mavericks committed four turnovers during a spurt that led to seven Lakers points, including a pair of dunks by Howard.

The Lakers’ largest lead was 17 midway through the third. “They played with more force. Any time we started to get some traction they had an answer,” Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle said.

TALKING SLOVENIAN

LUKA DONCIC got to shake hands with Lakers great Kobe Bryant courtside after the game and said he was surprised. “He was talking Slovenian. He was

talking my language. I saw Kobe talking Slovenian and I was really surprised,” Doncic said.

TIME TO REFLECT

LEBRON JAMES said he would have a small birthday party Monday but did acknowledge that turning 35 was nothing special. “I don’t have wishes. Biggest one I had was when I turned 21. This one will be mild. When I turn 40, that will be epic,” he said. AP

Liverpool 50 games unbeaten at home with 1-0 win over Wolves and ‘90—the year it won the last of its 18 league titles. Liverpool’s last home defeat in the league was at home to Crystal Palace in April 2017. But Klopp is trying to prevent fans from getting too carried away by the huge midseason lead. “Who cares about points in December?” he said. “We’ve just created a basis which we will work with from now on.” The Champions League and Club World Cup winners looked tired following a hectic recent schedule. After Mohamed Salah’s tame volley was easily saved and Roberto Firmino’s glancing header from a corner went wide, Mané swept the ball in from close range. Lallana had moved smartly between two defenders to reach Virgil van Dijk’s long pass and knock the ball down. Referee Anthony Taylor called for a video replay, which established that the ball struck the top of Lallana’s shoulder and not his arm. It appeared unclear, however, if Van Dijk hand-balled when receiving a high ball before launching his pass to Lallana. There was more frustration to come for the angry Wolves bench. After Van Dijk, Firmino, and Trent AlexanderArnold all failed to clear a cross from the right, Neto finished neatly from 15 meters out. But

images showed Jonny was fractionally offside because his hand was ahead of the defender marking him. “VAR is killing us,” Wolves captain Conor Coady said. “It is constantly against us. I don’t know where we are going wrong. It is affecting games. No one likes it.” Still, Wolves rallied from two goals down to beat City 3-2 at home on Friday and looked confident of another comeback at a subdued Anfield. “It was a hard-fought win. That’s no surprise as Wolves are a proper, proper team,” Klopp said. “Their counterattacking threat is massive.” Forward Diogo Jota caused Van Dijk problems with his mobility and pressured him into a rare mistake midway through the second half. Van Dijk slipped and the reactive Jota span away down the right flank, but his shot was too close to Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson. When Wolves forced a corner in the final seconds of injury time, Anfield roared in collective relief as the imposing Van Dijk headed it clear. AP

Sadio Mané’s goal in the 42nd minute is allowed after VAR rules out a handball earlier in the play. AP

Shiffrin

IENZ, Austria—Mikaela Shiffrin keeps closing in on the many Alpine skiing records held by retired standout Lindsey Vonn. Shiffrin earned her 43rd career World Cup slalom win Sunday with another dominant performance, posting the fastest times in both runs to beat her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova by 0.61 seconds. It matches the 43 downhill wins Vonn collected before retiring last season, the World Cup record for a woman in a single discipline—although Shiffrin is still 18 victories short of Vonn’s overall women’s mark of 82. And it provided a winning end to an eventful year for Shiffrin, both on and off the course. While she set a new best mark with 17 World Cup

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Tuesday, December 31, 2019

S REIGNS! he has been planning for years by 7 a.m. “That’s who he is,” said Mike Mancias, one of the longest-tenured and most trusted members of James’s inner circle, tasked for more than 15 years with keeping James fit. “He does whatever it takes when it comes to fulfilling his commitments to everything—especially his game and his craft.” The 2010s for James started with “The Decision,” the widely criticized televised announcement of his choice to leave Cleveland for Miami. (Lost in the hubbub: The show raised more than $2.5 million for charity.) He was with the Heat for four years, went to the NBA Finals all four times with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, finally won the title in 2012— “it’s about damn time,” he said at the trophy celebration—and led the way in a Game Seven win over San Antonio to go back-to-back the following year. “He grew immensely here as a leader,” Miami Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He impacted winning as much as with his leadership as he did with his talent. I think that was the most important thing he learned with us. And he’s been able to take that to different franchises and continue using that as a template.” Cleveland was devastated when he left. It forgave him. James returned home in 2014, took Cleveland to four consecutive finals, then led the Cavaliers to the 2016 title and came up with one of the biggest plays of his life by pulling off a chase-down block of Golden State’s Andre Iguodala in the final seconds of Game Seven of that series. And in 2018, he was off to LA. Going Hollywood made so much sense—he’s making movies, has a production company, has a program called The Shop as part of his ‘Uninterrupted’ platform featuring an array of guests from Drake to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed a bill on the show that will allow college athletes to get paid for the use of their likeness and sign endorsement deals. “There’s a lot of

moments from this decade that would be up there, winning the two Miami championships, winning a championship in Cleveland, the chase-down block,” James said. “But the best moment? Definitely marrying Savannah [Brinson]. That would be No. 1.” James and longtime partner Savannah got married six years ago. They already had two sons— both are very good basketball players already—and added a daughter in 2014. James also spent most of the last decade as a lightning rod for critics. He used his voice often on social matters, speaking out after the killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and campaigning for Hillary Clinton. He supported Colin Kaepernick’s methods of protesting police brutality and racial injustice. Most recently, he was criticized by many—including top US lawmakers—for his remarks after Houston General Manager Daryl Morey sparked a massive rift between the NBA and China by sending out a tweet supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. “I don’t live in regret,” James said. “There’s no moment in this last decade that I wish I could have back. If a situation was bad or you feel like you could have done better, then I learned from it.” He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll play. He laments missing time with his children. Hi “I Promise” school that opened in 2018, in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, has been an immediate success story, and he wants to see that enterprise continue growing. Some love him. Some don’t. He doesn’t mind. “When you believe in your calling or you believe in yourself, then it doesn’t matter what other people say or how other people feel,” James said. “And if you allow that to stop you or deter you from your mission, then you don’t get anywhere.” And in the 2010s, nothing deterred James.

Ichi Ban captures overall honors in Sydney to Hobart

OBART, Australia— The 52-foot Australian yacht Ichi Ban has been confirmed as overall winner of the Sydney to Hobart race for the second time in three years. Ichi Ban completed the race in two days, six hours, 18 minutes and five seconds at sea, crossing the line about 12 hours behind the line honors winner Comanche. That put it 34 minutes ahead of 52-footer Gweilo on corrected time. The Bruce Farr-designed 52-footer Quest was third. All three yachts are Sydney-based. Ichi Ban skipper Matt Allen on Monday received the Tattersall Cup as the handicap winner of the 75th edition of the blue water classic. “The Sydney to Hobart yacht

SAN MIGUEL Beer’s June Mar Fajardo is again in the thick of the fight for individual honors.

wins World Cup slalom to match Vonn’s discipline mark 82 before long. “Can’t wait to see you break the all time record too!” Vonn wrote on Twitter. Watched by her parents, Jeff and Eileen Shiffrin, among the 5,400 spectators, Shiffrin built a lead of 0.26 seconds over Vlhova in the opening run. While Vlhova attacked in the second run on a course set by her Coach Livio Magoni, Shiffrin even managed to double her advantage over the Slovakian. “I saw Petra race and thought I don’t know if I can ski that fast. All I can do is try,” Shiffrin said. “I know that if I am skiing my very best slalom, then it should be fast. So it was more of a

question today if I would have the courage to be aggressive.” Her near-flawless run denied Vlhova a first slalom win in 11 months. “It’s really difficult. She is all the time perfect, like today, she did both runs perfect,” Vlhova said. “Second place is good but I always want to do better but today she was the best.” Sunday’s victory left Shiffrin three short of the overall record for most wins in a discipline held by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, who won 46 giant slaloms between 1975 and 1989. However, the American three-time overall champion did set another record as she became

race is so hard to win and it has been a long wait since we have been at the dock in Hobart to wait to be declared the overall winner for 2019,” Allen said. “We were leading the race most of the time from Sydney but you need the weather gods to help you a little as well to get the overall win.” Ichi Ban won the 2017 race on handicap, and was leading the 2018 race until it was becalmed close to the finish, dropping back to fifth. “Coming up the Derwent doing 19 knots when last year we were lucky to be doing half a knot,” Allen said. “That made a big difference to the crew’s morale. There were a few scars from last year but you’ve got to get over that.” AP

CLOSE FIGHT IN BPC RACE IN GOVS’ CUP

MIKAELA SHIFFRIN pulls off another dominating performance. AP

wins in the 2018-19 season and won two world titles, she moved into a new house and saw a two-year relationship with French skier Mathieu Faivre come to an end. “I feel like I learned a lot, I feel like it’s been emotional. I have gone through a lot of changes and transitions in my life,” Shiffrin said. “I feel like I grew up a lot this last year. I feel like I was 17 last year and all of a sudden I am 24.” Shiffrin also won Saturday’s giant slalom, a win that put her in sole second place behind Vonn on the list of all-time World Cup wins. And even before Sunday’s win, Vonn seemed sure that Shiffrin will pass her mark of

the first skier, male or female, with a podium finish in 14 consecutive slalom races. Shiffrin’s double triumph in Lienz came 50 years after countrywoman Judy Nagel also won a GS and a slalom on back-to-back days here in December 1969. The 200 points helped Shiffrin extend her lead in the overall standings to 295 points over Italy’s Federica Brignone. If she receives her fourth crystal globe at the end of the season in March, Shiffrin would match Vonn’s career tally of four overall World Cup titles. The Shiffrin versus Vlhova rivalry will continue next Saturday in Zagreb, and on January 14 in

Flachau, where Vlhova last beat Shiffrin a year ago. “I am very happy with how I skied, that’s important,” Vlhova said. Shiffrin and Vlhova have combined to win all 23 World Cup slaloms since January 2017, with the American taking 19 of them, including all six since January. The pair was far ahead of the rest of the field, with third-place Michelle Gisin of Switzerland 1.73 seconds behind for her first career slalom podium. Nina Haver-Loeseth of Norway was third after the opening run but dropped to 19th, while Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener was disqualified after straddling a gate in her second run. AP

HE fight for the coveted individual trophy in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup is a virtual barroom brawl. The Best Player of the Conference (BPC) derby heads to a curious finish, with not a single player from finalists Barangay Ginebra and Meralco making the top 5 in the statistical race. San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo, Columbian Dyip super rookie CJ Perez, NorthPort’s Christian Standhardinger, Nlex’s Kiefer Ravena and TNT KaTropa’s Jayson Castro slug it out in the BPC rumble. Meanwhile, two-time Governors’ Cup Best Import winner Allen Durham and onetime Commissioner’s Cup top reinforcement Justin Brownlee are again chief rivals for the coveted ware. With outside chances for the Best Import honors are TNT’s KJ McDaniels and NorthPort’s Michael Qualls. But it could well be either Durham or Brownlee as they’ve remained class acts, with their top-notch performances leading to a third finals duel in the season-ending tourney. The BPC award is a toss-up among Fajardo, Perez, Standhardinger, Ravena and Castro— all with strong cases to win the award. Fajardo (with an average of 38.8 stats points) narrowly won the stats race over Perez (37.2), the season’s top draft selection who made good impression all season long, including in the Governors’ Cup where he showed the way in scoring (23.2) and in steals (2.5). Standhardinger (35.1 SPs) and Castro (31.6 SPs) were two candidates who were able to carry their teams to the semifinals while Ravena earned taps on the back with his fine showing coming from his long Fiba suspension. Three Ginebra stalwarts in Stanley Pringle (30.8), Japeth Aguilar (29.9) and LA Tenorio (28.0) narrowly missed the Magic Five together with TNT’s Roger Ray Pogoy (30.4) and Meralco’s Chris Newsome (29.8). Tied with Tenorio at 10th spot was Magnolia’s Ian Sangalang (28.0) then came another rookie in Bobby Ray Parks (27.5), followed by Raymond Almazan (27.4), Jeth Troy Rosario (27.0) and Matthew Wright (26.8) to round out the top 15. Fajardo collected averages of 19.3 points, 14.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.2 blocks to contend for a second BPC award in the season following his BPC coronation in the all-Filipino tourney. Castro, the Commissioner’s Cup best player, normed 14.9 points, 5.9 assists, 4.4 boards and 1.7 steals.

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Today’s Horoscope By Eugenia Last

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www.businessmirror.com.ph

z Judge: No slander in Alec

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Joey McIntyre, 47; Val Kilmer, 60; Bebe Neuwirth, 61; Anthony Hopkins, 82. Happy Birthday: Look for opportunities, and something of interest will surface. A change will make it easier to take advantage of an exciting prospect. Don’t allow uncertainty, or confusion, set in when it comes to where or how you live. Do whatever it takes to reach your destination of choice. Someone from your past will play a role in the future. Your lucky numbers are 3, 13, 16, 22, 29, 34, 49.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Think about what others say. Reveal little, mull over the information you gather and watch to see how others respond. Keep your plans simple, moderate and geared toward spending time with someone you love. Romance is in the stars. HHH

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Refuse to let a decision someone makes bother you. Close the year on a high note by surrounding yourself with people who share your likes, dislikes and plans. Expand your circle of friends, and enjoy the endof-year festivities. HHH

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Engage in activities that will allow you to mingle with people you’d like to collaborate with next year. Now is not the time to do business, but it is the perfect opportunity to know people better. Listen and learn. HH

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Bring in the new year in a unique manner. Spending time with people who help stretch your mind and encourage you to take better care of yourself will help you start a lifelong routine that makes you feel and look your best. HHHHH

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): You may be all wired up and eager to go, but erratic behavior will not end well. Take a step back and choose a quieter venue, or consider staying at home with someone whose company you enjoy. HHH

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Be honest with yourself and others when it comes to your New Year’s resolution. If you want to make a change, do so openly and wholeheartedly. However, don’t try to pressure others to follow you; do your own thing. HHH

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Align yourself with people who bring out the best in you, not those who put you down or hold you back. Concentrate on you, the things you like and enjoy, and the people you know you can trust to be supportive. HHH

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): A change is in your best interest. Listen to what others have to say, but do what’s best for you. A direction that allows you to use your skills uniquely will encourage you to live life your way. New beginnings look promising. HHHHH

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Be careful when dealing with sensitive issues. Someone is likely to be deceptive regarding a situation that can influence a decision you need to make. Don’t trust anyone but yourself. Make decisions based on your needs, not what someone else wants. HH

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Sit up and take note of what everyone is doing. Don’t feel that you have to follow the crowd. Set your plans in motion; appreciation for what you have to offer will be yours. Be a leader, and you’ll rewrite your destiny. HHHH

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Put greater emphasis on your health and relationships. A physical change will lift your spirits, and get you in the mood to bring in the new year with the people who mean the most to you. HHH

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Emotions will be close to the surface. Observe more, and choose your words wisely. A change that takes place will end up being to your benefit, so don’t make an unnecessary fuss. Let things unfold naturally. HHH Birthday Baby: You are articulate, courageous and insightful. You are original and adaptable.

Baldwin’s comments on parking spat

By Jennifer Peltz The Associated Press

EW YORK—Alec Baldwin didn’t slander a man in interviews about a parking dispute that turned physical, a judge has ruled as dueling lawsuits between the actor and the other driver continue. Baldwin’s remarks—including claims that Wojciech Cieszkowski’s driving was “really fast,” “really aggressive,” and made the actor think his wife and son were about to be run over—were “hyperbole” and “rhetorical illustrations,” Manhattan judge David B. Cohen wrote on Thursday. “They are words of frustration with someone’s driving,” not accusations that amount to slander, Cohen wrote. He tossed out Cieszkowski’s slander claim, but his assault and battery allegations can proceed toward trial. “The heart of the case will now move ahead,” said Doug Lieb, one of Cieszkowski’s attorneys. “We look forward to holding Mr. Baldwin accountable in court.” Baldwin’s lawyers, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said on Friday they were pleased with the decision. The Emmy Award-winning actor pleaded guilty to harassment in the November 2018 confrontation. He went on to file a defamation suit of his own against Cieszkowski, a contractor. The two clashed over a parking spot outside Baldwin’s Manhattan apartment building. Cieszkowski said Baldwin hit him in the face, causing him “substantial pain” and headaches. Baldwin has said he “lightly pushed Cieszkowski in the chest,” but did not seriously injure him. Baldwin initially faced a misdemeanor attempted assault charge, but it was dropped. Harassment is a violation, the lowest level of offense. After pleading guilty and agreeing to take an anger-management class, Baldwin commented on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Howard Stern Show. “Did I have an argument with the guy? Yeah. I thought he was going to run over my wife with his car when he was stealing my parking spot,” he said on Ellen. He similarly told Stern that he feared

Cieszkowski “was going to hit my wife and my son” as the contractor “just went zip!—really fast and really aggressive” in taking the parking space. “I thought what he did was impolite, bordering on dangerous,” Baldwin said. Cieszkowski said through his lawsuit that he never imperiled anyone. Baldwin’s remarks essentially, and falsely, accused him of such crimes as reckless endangerment, he said. For his part, Baldwin argues in court papers that Cieszkowski defamed him by falsely accusing him of a

Daang Dokyu: A festival of Philippine documentaries launched WITH 100 years on its back, Philippine cinema celebrations have mainly focused on narrative films. A group of filmmakers now feel it is high time that films with real-world impact and purpose are celebrated. Documentary filmmakers Jewel Maranan, Baby Ruth Villarama, Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, and Monster Jimenez have decided to initiate a move towards this and pioneer a documentary festival about the Philippines. What started as a casual conversation two years ago among the four women gradually evolved into a full-scale documentary-driven event. “We want people to fall in love with documentaries. Like any good movie, it can be compelling, emotional, life-changing, life-saving and transformative,” shares broadcast journalist Alikpala. Daang Dokyu is a festival of Philippine documentaries slated from February 15 to 20, 2020, at Cine Adarna of the University of the Philippines. The six-day festival will exhibit films curated and presented with Q&As with filmmakers. It will also hold a supplemental exhibition presenting the breadth of Philippine documentaries, launch a book on the genre, and culminate

with the first-ever Philippine Documentary Forum, which will be the largest gathering of documentary filmmakers in the country. Researchers of the Daang Dokyu Film Festival have already found 200 remarkable documentaries, and the festival is looking forward to discovering more. “We are at a point when there has never been as many documentary practitioners in our cinema history not only continuing the practice of documentary filmmaking, but also actively pushing the limits of acceptable form, stories and ways of seeing. For this, Daang Dokyu is an occasion for the inspiration and encouragement of the documentary community,” says documentarist Maranan, who is also the founder of Cinema Is Incomplete, an alternative arts and film distribution center. Daang Dokyu is still open to look into films that resonate with Pinoys, provoke convention or question existing taboos. They are also hoping to discover hidden films emerge from different regions. The search is ongoing for nonfiction or documentary work of any type and running length. More information can be found at www.daangdokyu.ph.

violent assault. Baldwin has gotten into a number of public dustups over the years. He was arrested in 1995 after being accused of slugging a photographer in Los Angeles, and he was thrown off a plane in 2011 after arguing with a flight attendant who asked him to stop playing a cell-phone game. Three years later, Baldwin was arrested in New York, where police said he became belligerent after being stopped for bicycling the wrong way on a oneway street. That case was eventually tossed out. n

Tina Turner mural defaced at North Carolina record store ASHEVILLE, North Carolina—Employees at a record store in North Carolina say a mural of pop star Tina Turner has been defaced with a red swastika. The Citizen Times reported on Thursday that the mural is outside Static Age Records in downtown Asheville. Store owner Jesse McSwain said someone unconnected to the store apparently covered the mural in a black sheet before he could address the situation. Static Age called police and the Southern Poverty Law Center. McSwain said that his store is “a widely inclusive, safe space,” and that “hate speech will get you out the door.” The record store uses its pulldown storefront to honor music legends. They have included Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Lemmy from Motörhead and Lou Reed. Turner’s mural was based on her character in the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. AP

‘jump start’ by winston emmons The Universal Crossword/Edited by David Steinberg

ACROSS 1 Stockpile 6 Certain geography book 11 Drs. 14 They go on feet 15 Verb following “thou” 16 Fury 17 Post-winter restlessness 19 2019 World Series champ 20 ___-do-well 21 Cuts, as grass 22 Prepares for print 24 To-the-max prefix 26 Hosp. areas 27 Turner of Peyton Place 29 2020, for one 34 Brief moment 35 Composer Gustav 38 Golden Fleece ship 39 Good for drinking 41 Lassies’ companions 43 Author Blyton or Bagnold 44 Spanish celebration 46 Nevada-to-South Dakota dir. 47 Seedy pubs

9 Take a break 4 51 Hoppy brew, informally 52 Linguine, for example 55 Volkswagen model 57 Orange County’s ___ Point 58 Bench press units 62 Parisian pal 63 With no chance of success 66 A side of one looks like [: :] 67 Zeal 68 Rene who played Frigga 69 Aliens, briefly 70 “Chasing Pavements” singer 71 Sound from a 25-Down DOWN 1 Org. 2 Act dejected 3 Land unit 4 Winter Olympics track 5 Government-issued ID 6 Regarding 7 Pink Floyd album with bricks on its cover 8 Loos 9 Ginger ___

0 Actress Meryl 1 11 “Chernobyl” or “Roots” 12 “Nuts!” 13 Hardens 18 Cambridge clock setting: Abbr. 23 Wood nymph 25 Pasture youngster 27 Tea of Madam Secretary 28 Daily happenings at summer camp 30 Snaky fish 31 “I smell ___!” 32 Real-estate worker 33 Wine at many New Year’s Eve parties 34 Hurried along 36 Bravo preceder 37 Princess, say, for a queen 40 Skillful 42 Pub missile 45 “Se habla ___” 48 Sounds from a 25-Down 50 Verbal outpouring, to the listener 53 Name hidden in “Italian dressing” 54 Did not play 55 Green gemstone

56 Send out 57 “Bro!” 59 Facility 60 Tuscany tower city 61 Put on the schedule 64 Chicago airport, on a luggage tag 65 Sphere

Solution to Friday’s puzzle: