BusinessMirror January 14, 2023

A broader look at today’s business

By Josef T. Ramos

MISSOULA, Montana—Millions of rounds of ammunition have been produced by Armscor Cartridge Inc. (ACI) and exported all over the United States since 2011—and now, ACI President Darren Newsom wants more for the company as it seriously embarks on an expansion to hike its annual profits.

Speaking to select Filipino journalists—including BusinessMirror —brought by the Armscor Global Defense Inc. in the US for a facility tour, the 52-year-old game hunter shared the ACI company’s ballpark figure of $50-million earnings from overall sales last year in the cartridge business.

And by the end of 2023, ACI is shooting for a 10-percent growth forecast or somewhere in the vicinity of $55 million; and looking to expand their market down to several countries in South America like Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina, among others, although they already started delivering ammunition there since last year.

“We are doing over $50 million now and we’re planning to increase it by 10 percent this year. That’s actually the goal to increase it every year,” said the American Newsom, whose facility located in Montana, USA, has under 50 employees, including 10 Filipinos.

A total of one million differ-

ent cartridges, like the normal 223 for rifles and 10mm for handguns, among other types, are being assembled every day in the facility where it puts together the bullet, the brass, the primers, and the gunpowder through its state-ofthe-art machines.

According to a website article four years ago from Stevensville Montana’s Bitterroot Star, the gross sales for the business started at just $8 million in 2011 until it reached $30 million in 2017. And the growth continued from there, even during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, which they still considered their “best year” after breaching the $50-million mark.

He noted that the US commercial market remains to be ACI’s biggest clients at 70 percent, although that could be unpredictable.

Armscor Global Defense Inc.,

holds the majority of the ownership sharing of the ACI at 55 percent, while Newsom is holding 45 percent, but he handles the daily management and its operations.

fore selling BVAC. They started the partnership in 2011, opening Armscor USA on a very small level, with five machines and 10 people producing just 100,000 rounds of ammunition daily—and now they have over a hundred machines that do one million rounds per day.

game,” he added. “But we have potential there, as we get to the point, I think we can go out to some of the smaller US government contracts. It’s always an option.”

Prior to his partnership with the Tuasons, Newsom started the Bitterroot Valley Ammunition Components (BVAC) in 2008 and they bought bullets and brass from Armscor during the time of former president Demetrio “Bolo” Tuason, whom he became friends with be -

Armscor Global Defense Inc., aside from the Armscor Cartridge Inc. in Montana, is represented with the other subsidiary manufacturing American facility in Cedar, Utah, and Armscor/Rock Island Armory in Pahrump, Nevada. The main headquarters are located in Marikina, Philippines.

Philippine context

HE cited as well the needs and importance of support of the Armscor Global Defense Inc. in the Philippines, saying their growth also relies on what happens elsewhere.

And Newsom is very much willing to help the Philippines land on top of the global market.

is sus -

Now, the challenge is to sustain the growth for the next several years.

“The growth is all within the market share you have, that’s why we have to look for the export of ammo and increase the law enforcement sales,” Newsom explained.

“The growth on the US commercial side has always had its ups and downs as far as either politics go, or [when there is] some kind of tragedy like a school shooting or something else, and you never know what is coming. In politics, you can kind of predict every two years that something is going to happen. But in the school shooting or stuff like that, they can happen, the big one can happen tomorrow, and our market can go crazy again.”

happen

Guns and ammos, Newsom said, are publicly available in various stores, that’s why they are very strong in the US commercial side. The challenge, though, is to penetrate more the US government market comprising the law enforcement sector, which is the steadiest on their side.

“We haven’t been even tapped into the government side of things yet, which probably we should do at this point—that’s another ball-

“We are like bringing the Philippines, the Philippine product, into the US to make the US market better. So usually, the US exports to a company that makes them better, but we are actually reversing that, which I’d like to be a part of because we helped the Philippines get to a point to be a major player now in the US.”

Speaking of quality, Newsom said the ACI has met the strict requirements of their suppliers through the years and then successfully sold their cartridges at a

cheaper price without sacrificing the premium and the quality of their brand.

owned by the Tuasons headed by president Martin Tuason,

ARMSCOR Cartridge Inc. President Darren Newsom

MISSOULA Armscor Cartridge Inc. facility

US flight chaos puts harsh spotlight on FAA after tense year

By Alan Levin, Mary Schlangenstein & Jack Gillum Bloomberg News

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials were still working to determine what went wrong in an outage that prompted a nationwide flight halt, delaying more than 10,000 trips.

Th e agency said late Wednesday that preliminary findings traced the cause to a “damaged database file”—confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report— and there’s no evidence of a cyberattack.

The system breakdown immediately attracted criticism from prominent lawmakers and aviation industry leaders, just weeks after Southwest Airlines Co. was called out by authorities for its own technology failures.

“ The FAA’s inability to keep an important safety system up and running is completely unacceptable and just the latest example of dysfunction within the Department of Transportation,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the leading Republican on transportation issues, said in a news statement.

The system outage heightens

tensions after an already contentious year in which airlines and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg traded accusations over who was most responsible for airtraffic disruptions.

It also sets up a potential showdown as Congress prepares to write legislation setting FAA policy for the next few years. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the committee will be “looking into” the FAA meltdown.

Awkward turn

THE situation is an awkward turn for aviation officials, coming shortly after the Southwest meltdown stranded thousands of passengers during the holidays.

“ We have the secretary who lambasted Southwest and the airlines over their response to avoid cancellations and delays and provide compensation, but right now he doesn’t appear to accept responsibility or provide a clear answer when his own department fails,”

said Kenneth Quinn, a partner at the Clyde & Co law firm and former chief counsel for the FAA. “Who’s going to compensate these affected passengers?”

Buttigieg, speaking to reporters Wednesday at a news conference in Washington, defended the FAA’s decision-making and said the agency would address the issue.

“ We are a government system—we are going to own it, we’re going to find it and we’re going to fix it,” Buttigieg said. “My top priority right now, now that the system is working again as of about 9 this morning, is to understand the root cause, understand how it could have led to this level of disruption and understand how to make sure that it does not happen again.”

The impacts were significant—there were 10,689 delayed US flights Wednesday and another 551 early Thursday, according to tracker FlightAware. There were also more than 1,400 canceled domestic flights.

Even as the fallout lingered into another day, airline shares rose, buoyed by American Airlines Group Inc.’s better-thanexpected preliminary earnings results. American shares climbed 5 percent as of 7:41 a.m. Thursday in New York, while United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. were each up more than 1.5 percent.

The flight disruptions collectively are still well short of those just from Southwest in recent weeks. The Dallas-based carrier canceled 16,700 flights from December 21 through December 31 when a winter storm stranded

planes at airports across the northern states, overwhelming the airline’s outmoded crew scheduling system.

The FAA’s crisis centered on the system producing Notice to Air Missions, known as NOTAMS. Officials a little over a year ago expressed concern about the system’s reliability.

“ There’s a fair amount of redundancy in the existing system today,” Jim Linney, the FAA’s director of operations support, said on an October 2021 webinar, according to a recording of the event. “It’s not where we want it to be for the future, which is why we’re investing in modernizing that infrastructure.”

The Oklahoma-based system has a backup at an FAA facility in New Jersey, Linney said.

The agency has been in the process of updating the NOTAM computer system and in recent years has made it easier to obtain the notices and to search them. But the underlying system that failed is based on older technology, said two people familiar with it who weren’t authorized to speak on the matter.

The upgrade was behind schedule, at least in part as a result of cuts in funding to the agency’s technology budget, the people said.

W hile the FAA has had prior issues with technology, it has upgraded most of the US air-traffic system’s computers with more

modern equipment and transitioned to satellite-based flight monitoring.

Improved reliability

FEDERAL data suggests FAA’s reliability has improved dramatically. Flight delays attributed to the FAA, which also include most weather-related issues, have fallen from about 60 percent in 2003 to 36 percent this year through October, according to transportation department data. That occurred even as the FAA wrestled with staffing issues and Covid-19 disruptions.

The FAA NOTAM system provides critical safety information to pilots, such as runway conditions and issues with restricted airspace, and they are required to review them before each flight. FAA airtraffic controllers also must radio pilots updated NOTAMS if they’ve changed after departure.

“Because the FAA runs conservatively—and the airlines the

same thing—when this came up they stopped service,” said John Hansman, an aviation professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said the system isn’t nearly as critical as flighttracking technology or instrument landing systems.

The FAA said earlier Wednesday that flights in the air during the shutdown were able to land normally.

Still, the chaos gave the industry an opening to turn the spotlight back on the authorities that had been quick to criticize carriers’ operational records in recent months.

The “catastrophic system failure is a clear sign that America’s transportation network desperately needs significant upgrades,” said Geoff Freeman, chief executive officer of the US Travel Association, the lobbying group for the travel industry. “Our nation’s economy depends on a best-inclass air travel system.”

AN overlooked software flaw is opening up US aviation authorities to new scrutiny over the resiliency of the systems that keep the nation’s planes moving.

‘T

he FAA’s inability to keep an important safety system up and running is completely unacceptable and just the latest example of dysfunction within the Department of Transportation.’

—Texas Senator Ted Cruz

SOUTHWEST Airlines passenger jets sit at their gates at Chicago’s Midway Airport as flight delays stemming from a computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration has brought departures to a standstill across the US Wednesday, January 11, 2023, in Chicago. AP/CHARLES REX ARBOGAST

Roque says SC decision on JMSU with China and Vietnam ‘simply is wrong’

FORMER presidential spokesman

Harry Roque on Friday said the Supreme Court (SC) decision declaring as unconstitutional the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) forged by the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2005 with Vietnam and China “is wrong,” and hopes the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) will “file a comprehensive, convincing motion for reconsideration.”

Roque, an international law expert, commented on the SC’s recent decision in remarks at the New Year media party hosted by the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines.

Roque said one couldn’t apply the Constitution’s limits on foreign involvement in natural resource exploration on an area that is only covered by “sovereign rights” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the

Sea, such as that area delineated in the JMSU.

“That decision is wrong; it simply is wrong,” Roque said.

According to Roque, the reported SC decision—a copy of which no one has seen yet—poses a “new challenge” to Philippines-China relations that was recently boosted with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s state visit to Beijing.

Under the JMSU, which expired in 2008, the Philippines, China and Vietnam, through their respective national oil corporations, agreed to conduct joint explorations of the disputed South China Sea covering 142,886 square kilometers (agreement area).

However, up to 80 percent of the JMSU site is within the Philippines’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, prompting the filing of petitions seeking to declare the agreement as unconstitutional.

PHL MAY NOT FILL ONION IMPORTS ON TIGHT CONDITIONS, USDA SAYS

THE Philippines is unlikely to meet a plan to import 21,060 tons of onions due to the tight requirements, including delivery before the end of January, which could favor Chinese suppliers due to proximity, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.

The Southeast Asian nation plans to purchase onions to tame domestic prices that have surpassed those of meat and helped push inflation to a 14-year high. The

Philippines’s

department has told importers they need to bring in shipments by January 27 and any late arrivals would be rejected. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is also the agriculture secretary.

The “extreme conditions attached to the unscheduled quota all but guarantee that it will not be filled and likely will not come close to filling,” USDA said in a report

See “Onion,” A4

PBBM taps experts group for MIF iterations ahead of ’23 WEF in Davos

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos

Jr. has tapped experts to consider various iterations of the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) that he is expected to present before the 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland next week.

The BusinessMirror learned that as technical working group chairman and an industry expert in the investmentbanking sector, House Committee on Ways and Means chairman and Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, along with a few other experts, were tapped to consider various iterations of the MIF.

President Marcos intends to introduce the proposed Philippine sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to business leaders during the World Economic Forum, the Department of Foreign Affairs bared.

Under the concept note of the MIF, which was recently presented by experts to President Marcos, the MIF corporate structure as well as key objectives of the MIF will help attract more investments in the country.

The note also includes how the fund will be managed, the source of funds and public participation in creating the MIF.

The MIF, which is patterned after the SWF of other countries, is aimed at allowing the government to increase investments in priority sectors, particularly in infrastructure, power and agriculture.

The House of Representatives has already approved House Bill 6608 to establish the MIF on third and final reading last month, but the Senate has yet to pass its own version of the legislation.

Under the concept note, the MIF will be managed by the Maharlika Investment Corporation, which will be a publicly listed company with the Government of the Philippines as the principal shareholder.

The fund’s key objectives are to develop a means to leverage the government’s fiscal resources through a competently managed Fund that can invest in developmental projects with private sector participation; to provide the government a channel for investing in high-return opportunities domestically and abroad; and to create a channel for building intergenerational wealth.

To ensure a professionally managed fund that will be efficiently and transparently run, the note said the management structure of the fund must draw from the expertise of the private sector and allow it to be ran similar to commercial entities, which may not be aligned with the limitations of being a government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC).

On hiring senior officers and management, it added that a merit system must be established to aid the President in appointing the CEO of the fund as well as the Chairman and the government board members. The Chairman

and independent directors of the Board must have terms like officials of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and Constitutional Offices to limit political influence.

Three major sources of funding for the MIF are public listing, dividends from GOCCs and national government (NG), according to the note.

Under the note, in order to maximize available liquidity here and abroad, a portion of the fund should be publicly listed, and to subject the fund to the standards of a listed corporation.

Also, it said the GOCCs with the highest recurring revenue could be required to provide their annual dividends supposedly for the national government to the MIF instead.

Dividend sources can be securitized by amending RA 7656, or the Dividend law, to require remittances to the MIF.

Some top dividend remitting GOCCS that can be mandated by law to annually remit dividends to the MIF are Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, Land Bank of the Philippines, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, Philippine Ports Authority, National Transmission Corporation, Philippine Economic Zone Authority, PNOC Exploration Corporation, Philippine Reclamation Authority, Philippine Guarantee Corporation, Philippine Retirement Authority, Cebu Port Author-

ity with an estimated annual dividend of P44.3 billion.

The NG may also fund the MIF by selling government assets or infusing such assets into the MIF, through such arrangements as assets-for-shares swaps and the like.

On taxation, the MIF should be subject to regular corporate taxes to address issues of “government neutrality” and allow the MIF to invest in a broader range of securities, as well as generate consistent NG revenues from the fund.

The MIF, if eligible, can be considered for tax incentives, such as those under the CREATE law.

On addressing fiscal issues, the infusion of GOCC dividends into the MIF will cause an increase in the consolidated public sector deficit.

But the note said this is more than offset by the reduction in NG revenues that could have been spent on developmental capital outlays that can be invested by the MIF towards similar projects with a multiplier due to private sector participation and the net asset value of the MIF.

Over time, this will significantly offset the value of the national government assets and funds invested into MIF.

Also, the MIF can create a sense of ownership among the Filipino people by either allowing any member of the public to buy shares to date of listing (as in the case of Petron Corporation) or by issuing shares to every Filipino.

agriculture

SEIPI aims for P50-billion semiconductor export in ‘23

By Andrea E. San Juan

THE Philippine electronics industry is targeting $50 billion in exports this year, 70 percent or $35 billion of which, will come from semiconductors, according to the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation Inc. (SEIPI).

SEIPI, the organization of electronics companies in the country, issued the export forecast during a panel discussion at the Indo Pacific Business Forum organized by the US Embassy and hosted by US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) on Thursday.

With the title “Building Resilient Semiconductor Supply Chains for Semiconductors and Critical Minerals in the Indo-Pacific,” SEIPI highlighted the Philippines’s experience in nurturing the growth of the country’s successful semiconductor sector and efforts to strengthen supply chains within the country and across the region.

According to SEIPI, the semiconductor industry accounts for a significant amount of the country’s export revenues.

The organization stressed that even

amid the Covid-19 pandemic, except for two months, it was able to resume operations, with support of the government, industry and private sector partners.

SEIPI kick started the year with a trip to the US, together with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), to lead the promotion of the country’s top export sector on the global stage.

Dubbed as the “most influential tech event in the world,” the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023 presented wide opportunities for the Philippines to promote its capabilities in the electronics industry and explore partnerships with academic and research institutions.

The tech event featured manufacturers, developers and suppliers of consumer technology hardware, content, technology delivery systems, and more. The CES 2023 includes a conference program where the world’s business leaders and “pioneering” thinkers address the industry’s most relevant issues.

According to SEIPI, Indo Pacific business forum housed smartphones, smart devices, and everything that has electronic components. The organization emphasized that most of the

components in smartphones are made in the Philippines.

As automotive electronics become more sophisticated, the organization stressed most of those chips too are made in the Philippines.

SEIPI made these remarks, also noting “they won’t function without being tested.” With this, it said that the Philippines has a testing facility located in Cebu.

It said this dramatizes what the industry means by the importance of being in the global supply chain for semiconductors.

For his part, Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual underscored the importance of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) in moving the Philippines up the supply chain.

“I think the IPEF will be an important platform for the US. It’s an important platform which the US can really help bring the Philippines to the higher value of the supply chain because under the supply chain pillar of IPEF, there are provisions for training, technical cooperation and capacity-building that could be arranged by our partners,” Pascual said.

Pascual also mentioned that there

is a USTDA grant to a local mining company, which contains a feasibility study that can be done on the processing of nickel ore for the production of intermediate nickel products that will eventually be used for battery manufacturing.

The trade chief said the Philippines is “banking heavily” on this demonstration of support in terms of eventually going up “higher in the production of chips,” because Pascual said right now, the country is mainly in outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT).

“We’re not yet in the wafer fabrication stage. We’ll need to import silicon but we’re also working on our power sector so we’ll be able to bring renewables that will bring down power cost. We’re talking of the use of nuclear as well that will be an added boost to our power supply,” Pascual said.

“And we have the silica, lower power cost can produce silicon and the next stage is wafer fabrication which is right now almost monopolized by Taiwan. But we can provide the diversification of sources that is needed in the geopolitical situation we’re all in,” the trade chief added.

DOTr chief vows to resolve DOTr, Thales dispute and air traffic controller ‘exodus’

TRANSPORTATION Secretary Jaime

Bautista vowed to settle the dispute involving the service contract agreement between the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and Sumitomo Corp.-Thales Corp. over the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’s (CAAP) installation of the Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM).

During Thursday’s Senate hearing on the airport incident on January 1, Bautista told lawmakers that the DOTr has been in discussions with the two corporations since September 2022 and assured that the

transport agency is expediting the resolution of the payment dispute.

The transport chief added that the resolution is one of the priority projects submitted for President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s approval.

“On the CAAP [issue with SumitomoThales], we will fast track the resolution of the dispute between DOTr and SumitomoThales. I’ve been talking to them since September last year, because I know that it is important that we complete the maintenance agreement and upgrade of the system. We have included this on our list of

priority projects to the President,” he said. Once the dispute has been resolved, Bautista said a feasibility study will be conducted for the procurement of the CNS/ ATM’s backup and system upgrade to prevent the recurrence of the New Year’s Day incident, which affected hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers.

“We agree that we will have a budget to do the feasibility study for this project and we will work with Thales, as far as the upgrade of the software is concerned,” Secretary Bautista pointed out.

Meanwhile, to address the workforce gap

of the air traffic controllers, Bautista expressed support on the legislation that will exempt CAAP’s employees from salary standardization to provide better benefits and salaries that are at par with Middle Eastern countries.

“We also support the bill that the employees of the CAAP should be exempted from the government salary standardization because we know that we need to retain this people, or else, they will leave the country, not because they don’t love the country but for economic reasons, they also need to support their families and give their families a very good livelihood,” he said.

Galvez firms up DND leadership, issues 12-point defense guidance

By Rene Acosta

DEFENSE Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. issued on Thursday his 12-point defense guidance as he moved to solidify the defense and military establishments amid reported dissension in the ranks brought about by the abrupt resignation of his predecessor and the reappointment of a new Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff.

Galvez issued his guidance, two days after he assumed the mantle of leadership of the DND following the resignation of former Department of National Defense Officer in Charge Jose Faustino Jr. and the installation of Gen. Andres

Centino as chief of staff of the AFP, his second stint to the post.

The abrupt resignation of Faustino and the reappointment of Centino, vice Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro, were perceived to have spawned rumblings in the uniformed service, but which military officials however dismissed as non-existent.

Among the guidance of Galvez include orders for “unwavering patriotism” by employees of the defense department and the soldiers, his leadership’s support to the modernization program of the military and the need to end the communist-led insurgency. He assured the commitment of “one

defense team” to the “Constitution, the flag, the Commander-in- Chief and to the democratic processes.”

“In the coming days, I will personally visit AFP commands and units to discuss further the department’s overall direction,” Galvez said.

Galvez also assured his leadership’s full support to the peace efforts in Mindanao, including in the transition of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao government and the holding of its elections in 2025.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Military Academy gave a testimonial parade and review to Lt. Gen. Ernesto Torres Jr., the outgoing

commander of the Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom), who will retire on January 26 this year.

The Nolcom said that under Torres, it has neutralized 88 New People’s Army personalities, the surrender and recovery of 207 various firearms and the dismantling of terrorist groups east and west front committees of Komiteng Rehiyong-Cagayan Valley (KRCV) and the Regional Sentro De Grabidad (RSDG, KRCV) as well as the declaration of Ilocos Region and Quirino Province as insurgency-free.

On territorial defense operations, the area command carried out a total of 77 air patrols and 37 surface patrols.

Kadiwa Centers eyed to bring farm products closer to Metro consumers

By Butch Fernandez

SENATOR Sherwin “Win”

is urging the Marcos government to establish more Kadiwa Centers to bring agricultural products closer to consumers, a move seen to “subsequently lower food prices to more affordable levels.”

The senator said his appeal is intended to bring lower priced farm produce “para matugunan nang maayos ang problema sa mataas na presyo at kakulangan ng mga produktong pang-agrikultura, tulad ng sibuyas.”

“Kailangang mabigyan ng sapat na suportaangmgamagsasakasapamamagitan ngpagtatatagngmasmaramipangKadiwa Centers,” he added.

G atchalian said having more farmto-market retail centers, such as Kadiwa

stores, will empower farmers because it will significantly improve their productivity levels as they are likely to become more motivated in improving their farm production efficiency.

Ultimately, this would increase farm output levels, which, in turn, would mean higher income for farmers and lower food prices for consumers.”

“Ang Valenzuela City ay isa sa mga nabiyayaan ng Kadiwa. Ang kagandahan nito ay nababawasan ang mga middlemen. Dapat government-sponsored ang Kadiwa, ibigsabihinyunglugar,kuryenteattubigay manggagalingsagobyernopara‘yungmga kooperatiba ay diretso nang makakabenta samasmuranghalagadahilwalangpatong mula sa middleman.”

T he senator suggested that “to further empower farmers, the government should also extend the provision of subsidies

such as the Fuel Discount for Farmers and Fisherfolk Program.

Beginning in March last year, the agriculture department started implementing the program, which provides P3,000 in assistance to all farmer-beneficiaries.

Gatchalian reminded that the subsidy

was

BARMM explores rice varieties suited for Maguindanao soil

DAVAO CITY—The agriculture ministry of the Bangsamoro government has identified two rice varieties that demonstrated good adaptability and yield to the soil and weather condition of Maguindanao after conducting tests last month.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR) has picked the NSIC Rc128 variety in the Special Purpose category and the NSIC Rc514 in the Inbred category after they showed the best adaptability and performance in the demonstration farm in Barangay P. Labio, in Kabuntalan, Maguindanao del Norte

The two varieties were among the 13 rice varieties tested on a 1,000-square meter demonstration farm. Eight of these varieties were intended for irrigated farms and five of them were classified as specialpurpose varieties.

The special purpose category were NSIC Rc344, NSIC Rc402, NSIC Rc342, and NSIC Rc128 varieties. For the Irrigated Inbred category were NSIC Rc506, NSIC Rc508, NSIC Rc402, NSIC Rc222, NSIC Rc510, NSIC Rc582 and NSIC Rc512 varieties.

Tong A. Abas, director for Research Development and Extension Services of MAFAR in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BARMM) said the varieties planted in the demonstration farm in Maguindanao was to find out which among the varieties was the most suitable for the local soil.

The extension service conducted the trial activity during the Regional Preferential Analysis of Participatory Performance Testing and Validation Technology Demonstration under Next Generation (NextGen) Project.

“This is the extension activity of the research, mainly, our purpose is to showcase the different varieties that might be applicable in our area,” Abas said.

“This also shows our farmers the possible variables to be adapted and suited in our province and the region,” he added.

Engr. Ismail Guiamel, director for agriculture, said the demonstration of the different varieties was vital “as this will serve as the basis for procuring seeds for distribution to partner farmers.”

Manuel T. Cayon

Customs collection for 2022 up 34% to record-high ₧863B

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

UP THE Bureau of Customs on Friday said its total revenue collections last year rose by 34 percent on an annual basis to a record high of P862.929 billion on the back of higher imports and better system of collection.

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) added that it surpassed its revenue collection target last year of P721.52 billion by 19.6 percent based on its preliminary report. The BOC collected P643.562 billion in 2021.

“It was the first time in the BOC’s history that all ports exceeded their annual collection targets per the BOC Financial Service,” the bureau said in a statement.

The BOC said its Post-Clearance Audit Group (PCAG) collected P1.840 billion in deficient Customs duties, taxes, penalties, and interests as part, surpassing its 2021 collection of P1.522 billion by 21 percent and its target collection of P1.584 billion by 16 percent.

“The Group bolstered the BOC Post Clearance Audit and Post Modification through the Computer-Aided Risk Management System (CARMS), which

Onion. . .

Continued from A3

late Thursday. “For the trade that does flow, the government’s conditions greatly favor Chinese supplies despite China not being importers’ favored supplier,” it added.

Netherlands accounted for 48 percent of the Philippines’s onion imports, followed by China at 30 percent and India at 22 percent, according to the USDA, citing data from October 2021 to September last year. “Given the time restriction, proximity and shipping

was implemented in August 2022. The system provides critical information for traders to measure and improve Customs compliance,” it added.

The BOC said it also raised P292 million from public auctions of overstaying cargoes.

“The public auction of seized, forfeited, or abandoned containers generated additional revenues for the government and decongested the ports of the Bureau for more efficient trade facilitation,” it said.

The BOC noted that Customs Commissioner Yogi Filemon Ruiz warned unscrupulous individuals against smuggling, and other forms of Customs fraud as the Bureau “pursues to heighten its border protection efforts to combat revenue leakages and increase the collection of lawful revenues for the Philippine government.”

“Commissioner Ruiz continues to lead the BOC in implementing the directives of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to boost revenue collection, strengthen border control, and enhance trade facilitation while curbing corruption and gearing toward a modernized Customs administration,” BOC said.

lanes, the measure gives strong favor to Chinese exporters over to those in Europe and India,” the agency said.

Manila’s agriculture department has also limited the entry of the agricultural commodity to five ports including two in the main Luzon island so it can strictly monitor arrivals.

The Philippines’s anti-graft agency has launched an investigation of agriculture officials over alleged anti-competitive practices following the onion price spike and a lawmaker has also sought a similar probe. Bloomberg News

Importation seen to bring down prices of sugar by P7 per kg

THE price of refined sugar that would be imported through the minimum access volume (MAV) could be P7 per kilogram (kg) cheaper than prevailing local retail prices, based on estimates made by an international agency.

In a report, the United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service in Manila (USDA-FAS Manila) disclosed its computations on the possible wholesale price of imported sugar in the local market.

The USDA-FAS Manila computed the wholesale price using three different tariff levels that the Philippines currently extends to its trade partners: the Atiga rate of 5 percent for Asean sources, 50 percent for imports within minimum access volume (MAV) and 65 percent for outside the MAV.

The USDA-FAS Manila’s report came a few weeks after the national government announced that it is planning to utilize the MAV for refined sugar imports to boost domestic supply and arrest the skyrocketing price of the commodity.

(Relatedstory:https://businessmirror. com.ph/2022/12/22/government-totap-mav-scheme-for-sugar-imports/)

Based on its report, the USDA-FAS Manila’s computations showed that the derived wholesale price of imported sugar within MAV would be at P4,141.54 per 50-kg bag, P358.46 cheaper than the prevailing Manila wholesale price of P4,500 per 50-kg bag.

On a per kg basis, the wholesale price of imported sugar under MAV mechanism would be P82.83 compared to the prevailing P90 per kg price in the market.

Refined sugar imports that would enter outside the MAV mechanism, meanwhile, do not have a difference in terms of the prevailing wholesale price. The USDA-FAS Manila’s computation showed that the derived wholesale price of P4,470.82 per kilogram.

Meanwhile, the USDA-FAS Manila report showed that the cheapest imported sugar would be the ones arriving from Asean member-countries, which are levied with just a 5 percent tariff.

Based on its computations, the wholesale

price of imported refined sugar from Asean would be P3,153.7 per 50-kilogram bag or just P63.074 per kilogram.

“If the Philippines were to honor its commitments under the WTO (World Trade Organization) and Asean, retail sugar prices are estimated to decline by $480/MT (metric ton) from Asean and $128/MT, at 50 percent tariff or break-even at 65 percent tariff, if outside Asean,” the USDA-FAS Manila said in its Global Agricultural Information Network (Gain) report published recently.

Sugar millers’ opposition

MEANWHILE the Philippine Sugar Millers Association (PSMA) has expressed opposition to the proposed importation of 64,050 MT of refined sugar through the MAV mechanism.

In a letter addressed to Senior Agriculture Undersecretary Domingo F. Panganiban, the PSMA said it “respectfully” requests the reconsideration of the directive of President Marcos Jr. to allow the additional refined sugar imports.

The PSMA explained that the industry is currently at the peak of its milling season and prevailing prices for raw sugar have started to dip since November.

“To help calm the market, the PSMA recommends that the Sugar Regulatory Administration comes out with its latest estimated production and ending balances for the crop year, and based thereon formulate an import program—for consultation with stakeholders and for implementation at close of milling—that adequately addresses any deficiency in production of raw and refined sugar and is equitable to producers and consumers,” it said in its letter, a copy of which was obtained by the B usiness M irror

The B usiness M irror earlier reported that the Department of Agriculture was still contemplating the most efficient way of bringing in the additional sugar imports that will help temper local retail prices.

(Relatedstory:https://businessmirror. com.ph/2023/01/02/govt-mullingover-mav-scheme-for-sugar-imports/).

Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

Gatchalian

“aimed at helping farmers and fishermen defray the cost of diesel or gasoline amid high fuel prices brought about by the RussiaUkraine conflict and cushion the impact of the current global economic challenges and enable the food production sector to be more productive.

China reopening driven by elderly vaccinations, Covid adviser says

CHINA couldn’t delay its pivot from Covid Zero, avoiding the frigid winter when respiratory viruses circulate easily, because protection levels from previous vaccination would have waned, according to Beijing’s senior Covid adviser.

T he best time to reopen would have been June or July 2023, since the summer is more forgiving, said Liang Wannian, an epidemiologistturned senior official leading China’s Covid response, in an interview with state television on Monday. However, immunity generated from vaccinating the high-risk elderly would have ebbed, he said.

The summer of 2022 wasn’t a good time to reopen since elderly vaccination rates then were low, he said. Immunization has since climbed to 80 percent, offering more protection, he said.

The interview is the latest effort by the Chinese government to shape the narrative around the dismantling of its extensive Covid restrictions at a pace that shocked its own citizens and experts outside of the country. The move ushered in an avalanche of infections, estimated to reach nearly 37 million a day in December, and led to overwhelmed hospitals, drug shortages and mounting deaths.

China started making major changes to its Covid Zero approach before the mass protests that outsiders have claimed forced President Xi Jinping to abandon his signature policy, according to an article published by the state news agency Xinhua. China was fine-tuning its Covid control policies when top communist party leaders decided to rein in excessive controls such as lockdowns and mass testing in the first significant easing of Covid Zero, the article said.

Vaccination rates remain an issue for some groups in China. While 86 percent of people aged 60 or above have been fully vaccinated, the rate drops to 65.8 percentfor those 80 and older. Booster uptake is much lower for this most vulnerable age group, at around 40 percent, health officials said in late November.

China isn’t an exception in enduring a hospital squeeze, Liang said in response to a question about the government’s seeming lack of preparation for the pivot. The priority now is to make sure high-risk groups get timely medical care when resources are relatively tight, he said.

“Globally, no country can dare say they are ready,” he said. “It’s inevitable for all sorts of problems to arise.” Bloomberg News

Bacolod City to grant social pension to senior citizens starting this year

BACOLOD CITY—The city government here announced on Thursday the grant of social pension to qualified senior citizens starting this month as provided in the ordinance approved in October last year.

T hose qualified will receive financial assistance of P500 a month or a total of P6,000 a year, the statement said. To avail of the benefit, the senior citizen must present proof of identity or residence, and status of indigency.

C ouncilor Celia Flor, chair of the committee on senior citizens and veterans affairs, said the city’s database on senior citizens is being updated to determine the actual number of recipients.

In his first 100 days report last October, Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said this will be the first time the city government is providing social pensions to an estimated 12,000 elderly.

T hose who can avail themselves of the social pension are senior citizens who do not receive any form of contributory pension, as well as individuals receiving not more than P5,000 monthly from a contributory

pension such as Government Service Insurance System, Philippine Veterans Affairs Office and Social Security System and the social pension program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Considered indigent are senior citizens with no permanent source of income, compensation, or finan-

cial assistance from relatives to support his/her basic needs; and must be a registered voter and a resident of the city for at least a year.

Meanwhile, the city government started using QR (quick response) code to monitor the attendance and assignments of job order (JO) workers hired for the implementation of

various projects and programs starting January this year. As of Tuesday, some 2,700 workers have been hired, and each is required to secure an identification card with a QR code that stores the encoded personal and work information of the cardholder, which will be scanned when they report for duty. PNA

FDA approves Alzheimer’s drug, pushing drugmaker’s shares up

By Kanoko Matsuyama

THE US Food and Drug Administration approved on January 6 Esai and Biogen’s lecanemab, the secondever treatment for Alzheimer’s disease intended to tackle the root of the condition and slow cognitive decline.

Shares of Eisai Co. surged the most in more than three months after winning initial US regulatory clearance for lecanemab, the first treatment

seen to slow the advance of brainwasting Alzheimer’s disease.

T he drug, to be sold under the brand name Leqembi, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration under an accelerated pathway late Friday. While Eisai and partner Biogen Inc. are submitting more data to gain full approval, the decision expands treatment options for the millions of patients living with the debilitating condition. The drug will cost $26,500 a year for a person of average weight, Eisai said.

‘Polo’ the constant gardener

Eisai shares jumped as much as 9.2 percent in Tokyo trading Tuesday, the most since Sept. 29 on an intraday basis. The stock had dropped 19 percent through Friday from a peak of ¥10,050 on December 5.

Given the decline for Eisai shares ahead of this, we don’t think the market had priced in a 100 percent approval probability, so this news could be positive for the shares,” Hidemaru Yamaguchi, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc. wrote in a note to clients on Saturday.

have him around.

By Nick Tayag

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH

Frantic, I opened our pedestrian gate and was surprised to see a man in blue shirt wearing a cap, bent over our plant box. I asked what he was doing, the man slowly turned towards me and with a sheepish smile explained: “I was just taking out the dead leaves and weeds.”

Polo! I exclaimed. Very typical of him, always driven by a compulsion to care for plants first and foremost wherever he finds them.

A ctually, I had been expecting him that morning because for over 20 years now, without fail, he would drop by our home every Christmas day morning, except in 2020 during the long shutdown due to the Covid pandemic.

Polo is so straight and honest, updating me on happenings, without guile or malice on his part. And trustworthy, too. If there’s info that’s confidential, he would say so or he would keep silent and just smile and it’s up to you to get the message. In all these years, I never heard him badmouth any of our common acquaintances. He knows his boundaries around what he can share with other people, building trust by not oversharing.

E lisio Polo is his full legal name. It’s funny because at first I thought Polo was short for Apollo. I first met him many years ago when we were both working in a Jica-funded project where he was a “janitor-gardener” on a contractual basis. A naturally amiable, helpful, and courteous person, he was liked and admired for his work ethic.

“We also see the fact that there were no serious warnings in the package insert as positive.”

Characterized by the presence of toxic brain deposits of a protein called amyloid, Alzheimer’s disease damages the minds and memories of some 6 million Americans.

Lecanemab is among a series of drugs aimed at removing those deposits, and while it’s far from a cure, the companies recently found in a final-stage trial that it slowed cognitive decline by 27 percent over 18 months compared with a

showing that speaking nicely to plants will support their growth. This may have more to do with vibrations and volume of one’s voice. Plants appear to react favorably to low levels of vibrations.

I am now starting to believe that Polo, like other gifted gardeners, must have some sort of “spiritual” connection with plants. Maybe it’s the way he speaks, for he never speaks loudly or angrily to anyone. Maybe plants perceive his ministering presence, the way he is truly attentive to their needs for water, or new soil, or nutrients.

placebo in a late-stage trial.

Eisai plans to launch the medicine in the US during the week of January 23, Chief Executive Officer Haruo Naito told reporters at a briefing Saturday.

Eisai expects Leqembi to start generating profit in the latter half of the second year after the launch, Naito said. The company estimates about 100,000 Alzheimer’s patients will be found to be eligible for disease-modifying drugs including Leqembi in the US in about three years and about

must be in his 70s but he is still very healthy. He says he exercises every day and is a long-distance walker. The same discipline he follows in caring for his plants is what he applies to himself in terms of self-care. He has no vice, meaning he doesn’t smoke or take alcoholic drinks. Did he drink beer then? I don’t remember.

2.5 million people globally will be eligible by 2030, he said.  T he clearance could be a chance for the companies to bounce back after the controversial approval of their earlier Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm in 2021. The drug, previously developed together by the two companies, was approved in the US despite contradictory trial results. Medicare refused to pay for the treatment that initially cost $56,000 a year outside of clinical trials, and the drug ended up a commercial failure.  Bloomberg News

importance gets in the way of discerning the wisdom of people of simple faith.

A s St. Paul admonishes us: “Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.”

ON the morning of Christmas day last year, I thought I heard some rustling sounds in front of our house. My wife and I looked at each other quizzically: If they were the usual street kids asking for pamasko how come they’re not knocking or saying anything?

I have grown so accustomed to his Christmas visits that I wouldn’t consider Christmas day complete without seeing him. Even for just a few minutes, we would have a short casual talk, as I quiz him about the whereabouts of ex-officemates, friends and acquaintances we have in common. It’s the usual “Maritess” chit-chat, I am embarrassed to admit. That’s because Polo has stayed connected to many of them; everybody likes to

A ssigned to take care of the garden where we worked, he would meticulously tend the plants for hours, even under the heat of the midday sun. Visitors and guests always had a good word about the blooming plants and flowers, which they would notice before entering our building.

I f there are animal whisperers, Polo is probably a plant whisperer. He once told me that he talks to plants and maybe they respond positively to him. That’s probably the key to his magic with plants.

At first, I considered the idea of chatting with plants eccentric behavior. But now I’ve stopped scoffing because there’s now research

Truth be told, there was a time when I took Polo lightly. His favorite topic was gardening, about the gardens he designed and maintained in the past. He gave me tips on how to design our front yard garden, what plants are best suited to our soil, how and when to water them and so on. But with no interest in gardening, I just let the words go over my head.

But now I am beginning to value what he’s telling me and the kind of person that he is.

T hat’s why on the day he dropped by, it dawned on me that with everything he knows about plants and gardening, Polo should be a teacher conducting a workshop on gardening and plant growing. In Japan, he would probably be revered as a shokonin, the Japanese term for master, not only for his natural gift and superb skill but also for his utter devotion and dedication to the caring of plants.

I admire his self-discipline. Polo

He is also a man of simple faith. There is one anecdote he related to me that started me thinking. One day, he saw a lumpy paper bag on a garbage dump as he passed by on his way home. Something told him to go closer and see what was inside. It turned out to be an old statue of the Lady of Fatima, but with a chipped hand and face. He brought it home, cleaned it and next day he had it repaired by a statue maker, had it blessed by a priest and since then has kept it with him in his room, serving as an inspiration for him.

He says although he seldom goes to mass, he prays to it at night before going to bed. He deeply believes it was his prayers to the Lady that enabled him to endure and survive a serious illness that befell him sometime in the past. Her presence in his life, he says, is also what prevents him from being lured by temptations of fast, easy money through dishonest deals.

T hat story was a teachable moment for me and those of us who pride ourselves in our knowledge of the bible, theology and our direct connections with people in the Church hierarchy. Often, pride is a wisdom killer. Most of the time, our sense of self-

Sometimes I fault Polo for his naiveté and simplemindedness. He seems to have no further ambition in life, contented with his lot. So trusting, he has been taken advantage of many times over. Yet he never hesitates to share freely what he knows.

B ut on the other hand, he seems happy with what life has given him. Maybe he’s found his true calling. He doesn’t even carry a cellphone with him. Give him an old pair of shoes he would gladly accept them and make them look new. Was it Confucius who said: “Life is really simple but men insist on making it complicated.”

I also read that “It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.” In that sense, Polo is wiser and more honorable than many of us who are driven by the compulsion to acquire and possess more and more, even at the expense of turning back on our ingrained values.

O pening myself to the earthy knowledge of this constant gardener keeps me grounded on what is most important in life. It enriches the ground where I am rooted. Every time he visits me, I am like one of his plants, growing a little bit more even at this ripe age.

PAYOUT of the Department of Social Welfare and Development social pension for seniors in Barangay Felisa, Bacolod City in September 2022. The city government here announced on January 4, 2023 the grant of a social pension of P500 monthly to qualified senior citizens starting this month as provided in a city ordinance. FILE PHOTO FROM BARANGAY FELISA FACEBOOK PAGE

Solon wants Arabic taught in all elementary schools

education, and will address and respond to learners’ diversity of needs, while ensuring full participation, presence, and achievement in learning cultures and communities.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian filed Senate Bill 382, or the Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE) Act, last year to provide Muslim-Filipino students the appropriate and relevant educational opportunities, while recognizing their culture, which includes the teaching of the said subjects.

The proposed measure, the senator added, would also ensure the contribution of Muslim Filipinos to national goals and aspirations aimed at making them partners in nation-building.

Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Basic Education, believed that the measure aligns to foster inclusive

The bill proposes that subjects of Arabic or Islamic values education, or both,shall be taught to Muslim and non-Muslim Filipino learners. It also seeks to provide relevant textbooks and instructional materials, as well as training or capacitybuilding of “asatidz,” or teachers, in most Muslim-Filipino communities.

It also aims to provide technical, financial and educational aid to the Department of Education-accredited or recognized “madaris:” privately-operated, community-based educational

institutions whose core emphasis are Islamic studies and literacy in Arabic, with the latter being their medium of instruction.

Gatchalian said in Filipino that, in recognition of Muslim compatriots and students’ culture and contributions, more intensified programs under ALIVE are being promoted. According to him, the initiative is also part of efforts to ensure that when it comes to quality education, Muslim students will not be left behind.

Aside from the country’s public schools and private madaris outside the Bangsamoro Region, the proposed measure also covers learners enrolled in the alternative learning system, or ALS. PNA

Filipina hotelier amps up corporate dream; leads opulent properties in US, Middle East

FILIPINA hotelier Nikita

Conwi had never considered working in the hospitality industry before, despite growing up seeing her father travel extensively for business, which exposed her to the world of sales and marketing.

“I liked the idea of being creative, so marketing was perfect for me,” said Conwi, who enrolled at Enderun Colleges and took up Business Administration-Major in Marketing Management, with a Certificate in Hospitality Operations.

Four years later, Conwi matured into a well-rounded woman who integrates creativity, business acumen, and customer-driven qualities into the persona of a true hotelier. Enderun’s Lead Founder Jack Tuason recognized her potential, and advised the aspiring hotelier to pursue a career in the hospitality industry, which has grown exponentially in the last few decades.

To support this fact, the World Travel and Tourism Council’s “Economic Impact 2022: Global Trends” report released in August 2022 showed that the Philippines’s travel and tourism receipts grew by 21.7 percent in 2021.

In addition, based on a long-

term forecast between 2022 to 2032, the sector’s contribution to the global economy is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.8 percent, generating 126 million additional jobs. Around 64.8 percent of those new jobs will be concentrated in the AsiaPacific Region.

At present, Conwi holds true to her profession, as she paves the way for success in providing hospitality excellence in the Middle East. In 2015 she started her internship at the Miami Beach EDITION, famously called the “urban resort of the 21st Century,” as a guest-experience agent. She was

also offered to stay for another year for a new position in the VIP concierge team as supervisor.

“Being part of the opening teams for EDITION was a big accomplishment for me. I got to travel around for work and really help people on a successful opening,” the hotelier shared. “When I got exposed to working for the hotel, I fell in love with it. There was so much to learn, and it was more people-oriented—which I really wanted in a job! It was so interesting to me, and really ‘spoke’ to me.”

In 2018 Conwi gradually built up her name and moved to Abu Dhabi to open The Abu Dhabi EDITION—the first in the Middle East. As part of the preopening team, she ensured that standard operating procedures are created, implemented, and followed by the guest-relations and front-office teams. She was also part of the inaugural team for Times Square and West Hollywood, and spent time in a task force in New York EDITION as a team trainer.

At present Conwi is the head of spa for Bulgari Resort and Residences Dubai, a gleaming gem perched on a seahorse-shaped island in Jumeirah Bay. The resort and Residences Dubai brings

Mediterranean style to the Middle East. It is the only Forbes 5 star-rated spa in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“Getting rated with a Forbes 5-star for the Bulgari Spa Dubai for the first time ever since they opened five years ago is truly an accomplishment for me,” the hotelier shared. “And to be the only one in the whole UAE, that’s massive. I did not have a spa background, but my rooms’ operations experience helped me a lot.”

With her wealth of knowledge, success stories and genuine concern for others, Conwi believes that true hospitality is about living in the moment: “Getting to interact with different types of people is one of my favorite things about working in the hospitality industry, and being a problem-solver too, is. There are many options…to make a person happy, and help them solve their problems. It’s so much fun for me.”

Finally, she said she is inspired and empowered to continue pursuing her purpose. Her advice to future hospitality professionals is to “be authentically [yourself, and love what you do. It sounds] cliché, but it really helps! It makes you feel like you’re not working at all!”

Multicultural students cited at Korea Times’ youth awards

THERE’S no turning back, as far as digital learning is concerned in the “next normal.”

In response to this paradigm shift, C&E Adaptive Learning Solutions (C&E ALS), the “pioneering and most dynamic integrated learning-solutions provider in the Philippines,” recently formed a partnership with global educational-technology firm Instructure to bring the latter’s flagship Canvas LMS (learning management system) closer to Filipino students.

For C&E ALS Chief Operating Officer John Emyl Eugenio, the partnership between the two leading learning and education companies “will create a huge impact that unlocks the power of one of the most effective and innovative LMS platforms in the world for Filipino learners.

“Our complete portfolio of ed -

ucational tools and technologies in both traditional and digital spheres complement Canvas and create unbeatable, tailor-fit solutions for our clients in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and value for money,” explained Eugenio. “Moreover, implementation and operationalization become more efficient as well, with more responsive localized service.”

He recalled that the importance of LMS emerged at the onset of the pandemic as one of the most viable solutions to the limitations in physical contact and mobility brought about by lockdowns.

Eugenio pointed out that LMS is an online-based platform where students and educators can converge, evolving the learning environment from the traditional classroom set-up into a virtual one. Information and educational materials can also

be stored and shared efficiently and on-demand.

Although the current situation shows that schooling is slowly going back to the way it used to be with face-to-face classes and physical attendance, Eugenio said LMS established a niche in the overall academic ecosystem and has proven to be a key strategy moving forward in implementing more effective learning interventions.

For one, Eugenio stressed that LMS can respond more effectively, especially to the demands of today’s generation of “digital natives:” learners in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the digital age.

He observed that the digital natives yearn for more creative and engaging content, and LMS is able to create a compelling learning environment online that stimulates and interests them.

Meanwhile, he said educators are now aware of the explosion of new skills in the digital age, as well as the continuous need for reskilling and upskilling.

“LMS heeds the need for relevant, tailor-fit, flexible and adaptive educational programs across various disciplines and areas of knowledge,” Eugenio said.

He urged educators and academic institutions to choose the right solution for their particular situation and context, so as to optimize the benefits they can reap from this modern technological innovation for their organization and their students.

Canvas is a leading LMS platform in the world, with over 1 million users. It is part of Instructure’s educational technology network that supports more than 30 million educators and learners in 6,000 global organizations. Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

SEOUL—Ambassador

At the ceremony Dizon-De Vega presented awards to high-achieving multicultural high school students Kim Kyung-min, who is a FilipinoKorean student from the Korea Polytechnic Dasom High School and Hong Seok-yeon from the Seoul Information Technology High School. The

The Philippine Embassy in Korea continues to champion the importance of inclusivity and representation of multicultural youth in Korean society. Dizon-De Vega encourages multicultural students of Filipino ethnicity to continue to do well in their studies and extracurricular activities.

The Korean publication holds the annual youth awards to recognize and encourage students from multicultural backgrounds toward greater achievements.

Globe, PHINMA Education converge to close learning gaps via mobile solutions

IN the face of historic setbacks in education, schools around the world are getting smarter with technology, harnessing its power to close learning gaps caused by the pandemic, while meeting students’ diverse needs.

PHINMA Education has accomplished this goal by quickly forging its digital future in empowering its learners to continue their education amid learning disruptions through its collaboration with Globe.

Through its enterprise arm, Globe customized a mobile plan, referred to as Globe PHINMA Educ Exclusive, enabling PHINMA Education to develop a hybrid learning system that efficiently combines printed modules with remote virtual coaching. The exclusive mobile package is powered by Globe’s “Load Up:” a mobile loading solution that allows schools to send data allocations to students, faculty and staff conveniently, with automated bulk sending and convenient top-up, manage their connectivity, distribute Internet load to students, faculty and staff, as well as provide data allocations for learning apps like Google Workspace, YouTube for Learning, Facebook Messenger and Microsoft Office 365.

The initiative allowed enrolled students to keep pace with changes in their learning, as the organization embraced technology that ensures the continuity of quality education.

“Our partnership with Globe Business gave us the support we needed to navigate a difficult period in education, while remaining true to our mission to serve underprivileged students and

help improve their chances of completing their education and finding employment,” said Christopher Tan, PHINMA Education Phils. country head.

PHINMA Education, a fast-growing network of academic institutions in Southeast Asia, operates nine local schools and one in Indonesia under a brand of education responsive to the needs, resources and aspirations of first-generation college students from low-income households.

In 2020 they introduced two learning systems: “Flex Learning,” which allowed students to return to school once the government eased pandemic protocols, and “Remote and Distance [RaD] Learning:” an entirely homebased learning setup. Both programs relied on printed materials and strong teacher-and-peer support through mobile data.

PHINMA Education tapped Globe for its mobile solutions to ensure that no student gets left behind, as 70 percent of pupils lack access to connectivity at home, according to Tan, and to bolster communication among teachers and learners.

“Globe continues to support the education sector with customized solutions that will help them transform digitally, [while ensuring nonstop] delivery of quality learning. The personalized services we offer…come from our deep understanding of their unique needs to meet their goals, and adapt to an era that revolves around digitalization,” said Raymond Policarpio, Globe Business Enterprise Group vice president for Business Strategy and Marketing.

ALAWMAKER pitches for the inclusion of Arabic and Islamic-values learning in public and private elementary schools’ curriculum outside the Bangsamoro Region.

of the Philippines to South Korea Ma. Theresa Dizon-De Vega presented awards to notable students during the Korea Times’ 11th Multicultural Youth Awards, held at the Korea Press Center early in December 2022 in this capital city.

former is set to enter university in 2023, and hopes to major in events management.

AMBASSADOR Ma. Theresa Dizon-De Vega (left) with winners for the high school category: Hong Seok-yeon and Kim Kyung-min. SEOUL PE

DISTINGUISHED guests and the student-awardees SEOUL PE

Tourism&Entertainment

Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua

Discover PujaDa Bay,

one of the Most Beautiful Bays in the WorlD

Pujada Bay is included as one of the most beautiful bays in the world bestowed by the Paris-based Les Plus Belles Baies du Monde (The Most Beautiful Bays in the World) Club. It is one of only two Philippine bays awarded by the uNESCO-supported club, together with Puerto Galera Bay back in 2005.

Located in Mati, Davao Oriental, Pujada Bay is once again the center of attraction during the first edition of the Bay Deep Mati Free Diving Festival. Dubbed the biggest freediving festival in the country, the e vent brought together more than 50 freedivers and scuba divers from different parts of the Philippines to showcase Mati’s rich biodiversity and its clear waters, and to promote the area as a world-class diving destination.

“We, at the Department of to urism, have long recognized the potential of freediving and we continue to s upport initiatives that highlight and promote these emerging recreational water sports,” said DO t X i R egional Director ta nya Rabat-ta n, who is also a certified scuba diver. “ it s purpose is not only to bring in tourists, but also to create a livelihood f or our community that advocates a sustainable lifestyle, and respect of

nature without harming the ecology,” she added.

t he e vent is also an important venue to underscore the importance of responsible, ethical and sustainable diving tourism, as well as the g lobal significance of conserving the country’s biodiversity.

t he kick-off at Mati City also served as a venue to meet and greet celebrity freedivers from Belgium such as Youtu ber Gert Leroy, pioneering freediving instructor JP F rancois, and our very own Filipino freediving record holder, i m am Gulisan of the Sama tribe of Davao.

t h is dive tourism event was also graciously hosted by Davao Oriental Governor Cora N. Malanyaon, w ith the presence of the Philippine Commission on Sports Scuba Diving headed by Commissioner Dr. Fred Medina, and PCSSD Executive Director Marco Angelo Ancheta.

t he freediving participants who

completed their certification on time for the Bay Deep Mati Freediving Festival were also individually recognized on stage.

As a PAD i Certified Rescue Diver and a pioneering Professional Mermaid, i have had the privilege of visiting many dive spots in the Philippines. Over the past 25 years of diving here and in other countries like i nd onesia, Malaysia, and t h ailand, i have come to appreciate our very own waters as we do have the best and most diverse marine ecosystems in the world.

Preserving the beauty of marine life, and advocating for its protection comes naturally. i am happy to share with you this piece of paradise under the Mati sun.

i t i s a three-hour drive from Davao City to the City of Mati, but i admire the view of the countryside. We stopped at some places of interest like the City of Mati Baywalk, the v iewpoint of Pujada Bay (where we had our first glimpse of this beautiful bay), and a visit to the Subangan D avao Oriental Provincial Museum, where we were mesmerized by the famous Davos, the 53-foot long sperm w hale’s bones on exhibit.

Pujada Bay and its Islands t h E biggest island in the bay is Pujada i s land, a 156-hectare gem with majestic mountain ranges as its backdrop, p owdery white sands, and crystal blue

waters, truly a paradise for divers and non-divers alike. t h is island is open to the public with some make-shift cottages with tables, which is perfect for a day of picnic frequented by local tourists. We also visited the vanishing islets of Oak and iv y, which are white sandbars that shine under the sun.

Beyond the beach, nothing compares to the wonders of the underwater world, and needless to say, the r ich marine life of Mati deserves to be recognized. New markets abroad now see the Philippines as a richlydiverse destination for underwater adventure, and this is the perfect opportunity to take the plunge.

t he 2 1,200-hectare Pujada Bay is a protected landscape and seascape. Sightings of the dugong (sea cow),

whale sharks, sea turtles, and dolphins at different times of the year h ave been reported. h o me to migratory sea cows, these gentle sea creatures play an integral role in achieving marine ecosystem balance in all t he areas that they pass through.

t he s uccess of the first edition of the Bay Deep Mati Freediving Festival is the primary step in promoting t ourism in the City of Mati. t he event concluded with Mayor Michelle Nakpil Rabat, together with the Department of to urism Region X i , a nd the local government unit working handin-hand in promoting dive tourism, putting Mati on the world diving map, and securing its commitment to protecting the region’s marine life.

After the revelation of Mati’s abundant underwater resources, divers and other participants became m ore vigilant and motivated to further their cause. We fully support t hese events advocating responsible dive tourism that could help its local community prosper for future g enerations.

Our Back Beach Experience in Boracay

With a travel fund falling short for a lavish holiday, my family and i decided that if we are to travel to an island, we’ll stay on the rear beach since it will be more affordable for us than choosing accommodations on the main beach. it ’s not always true that being in the back means a place is not worth staying; sometimes, you will be surprised. to c ommemorate my daughter’s 18th birthday, we traveled to the

renowned Boracay island. t h is trip brings back memories of living there for a while some 20 years ago.  t h ere used to be a tranquil beach, romantic sunset, fresh food, and booze in an ambiance filled with dead mangroves, olden tree trunks, and twigs that fill the island.  t he structures and the varied attractions the island now offers are only a few of the numerous changes that had added to the allure of the tourist destination. Now, the contrast between the front beach and the back is almost unrecognizable.

Boracay i s land is a well-known tourist destination famous for its fine white sand and beach-perfect views. it s white beach is endowed with a long stretch of fluffy white sand, and crystal clear, turquoise waters. t h e heart of its one-kilometer-long white beach is an expansive grand plaza known as Newcoast Station. Away from the crowded stations, Newcoast offers hotels with various accommodations that can cater to your vacation needs.

Nestled in Newcoast Drive, the Belmont hotel Boracay has an amaz -

ing interior and friendly and accommodating staff as well. he re we celebrated my daughter’s birthday away from home. We had no idea what to do, where to go, and what we will experience during our stay. Luckily we stayed near the Newcoast Station so, we got to experience Boracay and appreciate its provincial vibes.

At the southernmost point of the Newcoast property, in Barangay Yapak, is where you’ll find the Boracay Keyhole Rock Formation. it h as a sizable opening on a large formation of rocks

that tapers into the water. With a little imagination, it appears to be a dragon sipping water at its good time.

Access to a hotel’s private beach is one of the benefits of booking a room within the boundaries of Boracay Newcoast township. i t i s situated on the far east side of the property and offers the same famed powder white sand and crystal blue waters minus the crowd and the party commotion not all visitors appreciate during their stay.

Unlike the Main Beach that’s positioned at the rowdiest part of Boracay, the Back Beach is just as beautiful and so much more peaceful. t he ocean’s calm, undisturbed waters and gentle waves lapping at the shoreline make for

the ideal setting for a relaxing swim. it i s perfect for the infamous crystal kayak photo shoot and other water activities such as paddle boarding that come free with your hotel booking.

t h ere is also a t i ki Bar on the beach that serves delectable cocktails and cool drinks. t h is is where you can enjoy your drink while you “drink in the scenery,” the one that’s famous and only Boracay can deliver, as the sunset sky turns a vibrant array of colors and settles down for a lovely evening.

t he next time you step foot on these white sandy beaches, check out this backside area. it is worth checking out for a different experience in Boracay that you can uniquely call your own.

Story & photos by Nonie Reyes

Belmont Boracay from afar

t h e private beach of Belmont and Savoy is located at the back beach

Story & photos by Arabelle Jimenez Underwater Photography by Rodney Jao

Sights from Davao city to the city of mati

t h e scenic Pujada Island beach is one of the main attractions of Pujada Bay.

From Pujada Bay, this is the stunning view that overlooks Sleeping Dinosaur Island.

FreeD I v er S looking like superheroes of the Justice league.

t h e author is about to scuba dive in the clear waters of Pujada Bay.

PuJADA Beach food is served buffet-style.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Beauty tech embraces inclusivity and self expression

The device uses a combination of built-in smart motion controls plus customizable attachments to give the user an improved range of motion, increased ease of use for difficult-to-open packaging, and precision application that is otherwise hard to achieve.

A magnetic attachment is what HAPTA is equipped with that allows for easy ergonomic use enabling for 360 degrees of rotation and 180 degrees of flexion.

TECHNOLOGY is everywhere, even in fashion and beauty, but a new product from French beauty giant L’Oreal, which uses software and hardware to give hope to those who have limited mobility, is truly groundbreaking.

I have always wondered what to do if I became too old and feeble to apply lipstick and do my brows with my own hands. I know it’s not that important in the larger scheme of things, but it’s a question I always ask myself. If I become too old to apply lipstick on my own, it is part of the natural order of things.

For a 21-year-old who wants to wear makeup but is hindered by physical challenges they were born with, it is a real challenge.

So at CES 2023, L’Oreal unveiled HAPTA, the first handheld, ultra-precise computerized makeup applicator designed to advance the beauty needs of people with limited hand and arm mobility. The HAPTA leveling device will be piloted with L’Oréal-owned Lancôme in 2023, first with a lipstick applicator followed by additional makeup applications in the future. It will be priced at $149-$199.

L’Oreal created HAPTA for an estimated 50 million people globally who live with limited fine motor skills that make so many daily gestures, like applying makeup, incredibly challenging. Under development by L’Oréal scientists and engineers, HAPTA gives them the ability to steadily apply lipstick at home. HAPTA will incorporate technology originally created by Verily to stabilize and level utensils to give people with limited hand and arm mobility the ability to eat with confidence and independence.

A “clicking” feature lets the user intuitively set the intended position, stay in position during use, so the user can lock in customized setting for future use. It also comes with a built-in battery (three hours to fully charge) and device charging which results in one-hour of continuous use (approximately 10+ applications).

“Inclusivity is at the heart of our innovation and beauty tech strategy,” said Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology at L’Oréal, in a press release. “We are dedicated and passionate to bring new technologies powering beauty services that augment and reach every individual’s ultimate desires, expectations and unmet needs.”

The second beauty-related device is L’Oréal Brow Magic, a brow applicator which helps people achieve a personalized eyebrow look at home based on their natural brow and facial features.

Developed by L’Oréal in partnership with the tech company Prinker, a pioneer in printed, nonpermanent tattoos, L’Oréal Brow Magic helps users achieve professional-like results possible at home. The device uses 2,400 tiny nozzles and printing technology with up to 1,200 drops per inch (dpi) printing resolution.

Prinker is Korean temporary tattoo start-up. Last year, L’Oreal acquired a minority stake in the company probably for this reason and many other future innovations. Prinker was established in 2015 by three former Samsung employees to “inspire consumers and offer new tools for self expression.”

Prinker’s temporary tattoo products have won multiple CES Best of Innovation awards and the prestigious global iF Design award. In 2020, Prinker already presented the tattoo printer Prinker S, a

DO you still remember those “pakibalik po ’yung load” scams or those nasty messages saying that one of your relatives/friends got into an accident modus? Or maybe you’ve been tricked into being “textpals” only to ghosted when it was time to meet up?

Our smartphones might have evolved so much to the point that it could already identify spam messages, but it still hasn’t stopped scammers from sending out text messages containing potentially harmful smishing links hoping to trick unwary individuals, especially the elderly.

Well, the SIM Registration Act hopes to end, or at least discourage and curb, the proliferation of text scams and other mobile phone-aided criminal activities.

Unfortunately, even the SIM Registration process is being targeted by scammers. So to avoid entering your information on a fake website, its best to just type in your mobile provider’s registration portal (ex www.smart.com.ph/simreg). It’s also better to head over to the official telco web

some link forwarded by a friend or colleague or from some TikTok video.

During the first 10 days of SIM Registrations, Smart Communications (Smart) announced it has already registered over 7 million Smart and TNT customers. Smart and TNT also quickly set-up assisted SIM registration booths and touchpoints across the country to help facilitate SIM registration for all subscribers needing assistance. In collaboration with LGUs, partner stores, and regional and provincial distributors, Smart was the first telco to set up assisted SIM registration booths in several areas in Luzon, Iloilo, Cebu, and the Davao Region.

As a bonus, Smart Prepaid and TNT subscribers can register their SIM and get 3 GB free data upon

wearable device that prints a temporary tattoo on the skin. “We are thrilled to enter this new phase of partnership with L’Oréal, which aligns with our mission of empowering consumers with versatile and customizable tech to express themselves,” said Luke Yun, co-founder and CEO, Prinker Korea Inc., in a press release. “Their century-long heritage of beauty, research and development, and sharp focus on beauty technology will allow us to reach more consumers than ever before. Their investment will enable us to create innovations that will have the best solutions for people worldwide, and we are elated to work together to reach this goal.”

The eyebrow look created by L’Oréal Brow Magic can be removed with a standard makeup remover. The devide is expected to launch this year, too. Using L’Oréal’s Modiface AR technology, L’Oréal Brow Magic

successful registration. Smart’s SIM registration portal uses optical character recognition (OCR), the technology required by the law to efficiently gather and protect subscribers’ personal information throughout the process.

For those who can’t access the website, Smart is also making its SIM registration accessible to subscribers by visiting Smart Stores nationwide, calling Smart Hotlines (*888 via Smart/TNT mobile, or 8888-1111 via landline) via the Smart Facebook Messenger Chatbot, or the Smart GigaLife App (downloadable on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store).

Smart postpaid subscribers simply need to confirm the personal information and IDs they submitted for their postpaid plan application. To do this confirmation, subscribers just need to text YES to 5858. They shall then receive a confirmation message from Smart upon successful SIM registration. Lastly for Smart Bro subscribers refer to www.smart.com.ph/ viewbroadbandsms for instructions on viewing their required One-Time Password (OTP).

Alongside their support for SIM registration, PLDT and Smart’s long-standing consumer protection initiatives include blocking SIMs that send smishing messages and Uniform Resource Locators (URL) or links that lead to illegal activities, to help safeguard the public against emerging cyberthreats, vulnerabilities, and other online criminal activities.

NEW YEAR, NEW GADGET

GETTING fit is probably the most overused resolution but for those who are serious, this pair of OPPO’s devices can help keep you motivated beyond the first few weeks of the new year.

The Enco X2 is the flagship true wireless earbuds

scans the user’s face and makes recommendations for microblading, micro-shading, or filler effects.

The device connects to a smartphone app that uses L’Oréal’s Modiface AR technology to scan the user’s face and make brow suggestions, according to L’Oreal.

Users can select their desired shape, thickness, and overall brow effect via the app before sweeping the Brow Magic across the brow.

How to use the device:

■ Open the L’Oréal Brow Magic app and scan face with the Modiface brow reader.

■ Select desired shape, thickness and effect.

■ Brush the L’Oréal Brow Magic primer through brows.

■ Move the printer across the eyebrow in a single, sweeping motion.

■ Apply a topcoat finish to lock in the look. ■

from OPPO featuring a new ergonomic design to give you the most comfortable fit for all-day use. The overall exterior of the buds is also protected with its IP54 dust- and water-resistance, so you can exercise without fear of damage from sweat and rain. Controlling your sound takes a simple squeeze or slide of your fingers on the stems of the buds to adjust the volume and pause tracks. But my favorite feature of the OPPO Enco X2 has to be its smart adaptive active noise cancellation. The Enco X2 can automatically detect your surroundings and adjusts its noise cancellation levels. It blocks out noise from the streets, cars, and even planes while you workout at the gym or outdoors. With this, you can immerse yourself in studio-quality sound and hear your favorite songs clearly while enjoying a rich, deep bass. The OPPO Enco X2 lets you enjoy up to 40 hours of listening time with the charging case and 2 hours of music playback on just a 5-minute charge. It also supports wireless charging where you can simply place it on a charging pad or power up by putting it on the back of your OPPO phone.

Together with your new earbuds, track your progress with the OPPO Band 2 that features 100 workout modes packed in a large 1.57-inch screen. Included in these workout modes are the new and upgraded professional tennis modes and running modes which can help you better understand your skills, provide professional data, and guide you to make your workouts more effective.

The OPPO Band 2 also goes beyond your sweat sessions with its high-quality sleep and health monitoring capabilities. It can track and analyze sleep cycles, snoring risks, and oxygen levels to give you a full report that lets you know if you are getting proper and sufficient rest when you sleep. It also monitors and assesses your heart rate after running, alerting you of any abnormalities for all-day protection for your heart health. The OPPO Band 2 gives you comfortable wear for 14 days straight on a full charge. It also supports fast charging and a 5-minute charge is all you need for a day’s use.

The Huawei Mate 50 Pro: An excellent, exciting re�lection of things to come

BY GERARD S. RAMOS Lifestyle & Entertainment Editor

THE punishing trade restrictions the US government slapped in 2017 on prominent China-based technology companies that included Huawei and ZTE, ostensibly due to possible national security threats, have not eased, and there appears to be no indication the blacklist—which has been adopted by some US allies—would be lifted anytime soon.

Such sanctions would have crippled, even doomed, most companies. Indeed, Huawei, one of the top three smartphone brands in the world prior to the US ban, “rapidly lost both its global and domestic market share of consumer electronics,” according to the Financial Times (on.ft.com/3W74DbA), forcing the company to regroup and adopt measures to stop the bottom from falling out. For one, it sold off the profitable mid-range Honor mobile phone sub-brand, and then—having lost access to Google and its apps and services—the company rapidly leveraged its considerable technology skills to create its own software ecosystem based on the open-sourced Android OS.

Five years after those US sanctions, Huawei seems to have regained its footing on what Eric Xu, the company’s current rotating chairman, calls the “new normal.” Xu, according to a January 5, 2023 report by www.sdxcentral.com (bit.ly/3k5lG0n), said, “In 2022, we successfully pulled ourselves out of crisis mode. US restrictions are now our new normal, and we’re back to business as usual. It’s been all hands on deck for the past year with every single member of the Huawei team working hard to navigate challenges and improve the quality of our operations.”

While it continues to work its way back to its pre-US sanctions glory days, Huawei has clearly lost none of its smartphone mojo—as clearly evident in its latest flagship release, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro.

First released in China in September 2022, the phone continues to burnish Huawei’s longestablished reputation as being no slouch in bringing hardware and software together to create a thing of power and beauty—and the Mate 50 Pro certainly is all that.

With dimensions at 162.1 x 75.5 x 8.5 mm, the phone weighs in at around 205 grams, which gives the Mate 50 Pro just the right amount of heft that makes it feel good and secure in the hand, while the rounded edges and the curved glass display overlay make it appear sleek and modern. No doubt adding to that aesthetic is that gorgeous glass back plate that, of course, makes the phone a fingerprint magnet—but whoever said that such gorgeousness is never high maintenance? However, if you are not inclined to buff the phone back to its gorgeous sheen after every use, the matter can be easily resolved with a nice case—a clear silicone jacket is included in the package, though we got ourselves a nice hard case.

The glass back plate, aluminum frame and glass display overlay are all fused together so seamlessly, so smoothly that the phone feels like one whole slab of glass. The faultless build Huawei has come to be known for easily won the Mate 50 Pro an IP68 certification for splash-, water- and dust-resistance under IEC standard 60529.

For those averse to fingerprint smudges, apart from the usual glass Black and Silver models, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro is also available vegan leather variant for the back plate in either Kunlun Orange or the just-released Kunlun Carbon Black. This vegan leather variant not only does away with the need of a getting a smudge-resistant case, such as what we did, but also gives the phone an even more premium look and feel.

In this age of social media, particularly in terms of content creation and consumption, it is not only camera chops that matter but also the size and quality of a phone’s display panel.

The Mate 50 Pro’s screen will have no critics: a 6.74-inch OLED screen with a 2,616 x 1,212-pixel resolution (428ppi), 120Hz refresh rate, 10-bit color depth for over a billion colors, HDR10+ support—all those specs yielding sharp, brilliant colors and a viewing experience that can only be described

as totally immersive and thoroughly pleasurable even at extended viewings. Sure, the Mate 50 Pro’s screen does have a long notch for the Face ID system and the earpiece, while most premium phones and even some mid-rangers now employ “punchholes” or “cutouts” for those. That said, Huawei’s choice to go for a notch makes the Mate 50 Pro stand out—and, yes, that nick isn’t all that obtrusive to take away from the overall user experience.

By the way, it is not the Mate 50 Pro’s display that is curved but the glass panel overlay, which gives that the illusion of a curved display. The glass panel is fashioned from what the company now calls the Huawei Kunlun Glass. In a release, the company talks up the new technology:

“Surveys reveal that half of the industry’s aftersales maintenance cases are related to cracked or broken screens. A slight crack on the glass is often enough to require a repair, or even result in the entire screen, middle frame, and battery being replaced.

Huawei engineers borrowed the robust features of reinforced concrete structures, and carefully considered the needs of phone users in creating Huawei Kunlun Glass.

“The Kunlun Glass coating consists of 10 quadrillion-level nanocrystals, which are made possible by composite ion strengthening, 24-hour nanocrystal growth at high temperatures, 108step micro-crystalline matrix material and panel processing techniques, and 1600° platinum smelting technology, which boosts glass durability. The drop resistance of the phone is increased by 10 times.

Huawei Mate 50 Pro phones are the first smartphones to ever garner the five-star glass drop resistance certification from Switzerland’s SGS.”

We have not quite summoned up the nerve to test that drop resistance, but YouTube and TikTok are replete with videos of the Mate 50 Pro emerging from drops of pant-pocket heights with nary a scratch on its screen.

The other headline feature of the Huawei’s latest flagship is, of course, its rear camera system with all the sensors now housed in a massive circular island that definitely gives the Mate 50 Pro a very distinctive look. Distinctive enough, yes, to make Huawei’s design decision quite polarizing—but it is something we quickly embraced, as the very massiveness of that island not only separates it from crowd of mobile phones with a design flourish but also does not make the phone wobble when placed on a table, which is not something you can say of the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

The imaging system that Huawei has brought together to the back of the Mate 50 Pro includes the primary 50MP camera, a 64MP with 3.5x a periscopic lens, a 13MP ultrawide-angle camera, plus a laser autofocus system. The front-facing camera is another 13MP ultrawide-angle camera carefully concealed in the screen notch. The company has ended its long and successful partnership with imaging giant Leica, replacing it with Huawei’s own branded

but we imagine that hobbyists and aspiring photographers will be delighted the primary camera offers variable apertures they can play with to get their captures just as how they would like them to be. Meanwhile, we have no complaints about the images we have taken on the Mate 50 Pro. The phone is an excellent shooter.

As with all premium mobile phones, the Mate 50 Pro has the top-tier hardware spec one would expect: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 4G SoC, Adreno 730 GPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB or 512GB storage (the one we have been playing with is the 256GB variant), dual SIM support (the second SIM slot can also be used for an NM Card instead), 4G LTE, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC fingerprint scanner, 3D Face Recognition, IR blaster, USB 3.1 Type-C and so on. Yes, there is no 5G to be found here, this largely on account of those US trade restrictions. That said, 4G is a robust technology, and has a far more robust infrastructure support than 5G—a fact that Huawei

Google nor its apps and services still—a fact that we thought we could not live with in a phone, given our dependence on Gmail, YouTube and a host of other Google services. Hell, we even pay a monthly fee to enjoy storage more hefty than the free 15GB that comes with every Google account.

However, as we have written about regarding other Huawei devices in the last couple of years, the company has mitigated much of the impact of Google’s absence by creating a truly robust app ecosystem with the Huawei App Gallery, which now carries plenty of the must-have apps—from TikTok to Twitter, Snapchat to WeChat, Facebook to Grab, Zalora to Zoom. And, yes, other apps have also come to sharp relief to help resolve the so-called Google crisis, most notably Gspace. This fabulous app has allowed us to continue to use and enjoy everything Google, from Gmail to Chat, Maps, YouTube, Keep, Photos, Calendar and Books, with all our data and settings intact.

Listen, Gspace is available to use for free, sure but if you want to do away with the benign but nonetheless annoying ads that pop up whenever you launch Gspace and the Google apps you have installed, pony-up the paltry one-time fee to get rid of the ads. Which is what we did—and it was one of our best app purchases ever.

All things considered, Huawei still has work to do to regain its once-lofty standing in the mobile phone market. However, with its deep well of expertise in technology, which it has successfully parlayed not only in networking but also in cloud services, automation and wearables, it will continue to be a relevant and formidable presence in the consumer and other markets—and the truly excellent and exceptional Huawei Mate 50 Pro is reflective of that. ■

PLAN A NEW YEAR HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECT WHILE HELPING OTHERS

THE new year is here, and what better way to welcome 2023 than by upgrading your living space? If you need home improvement ideas this holiday season, head to Our Home and

by shopping.

From now until January 15, SMAC (SM Advantage Card) members can earn extra SMAC points on select purchases. And the best part? Half of those extra points will be donated to the Hapag Movement, Globe’s techdriven initiative against involuntary hunger, and other SM Foundation programs, making it easy to give back while updating your home.

At Our Home, you can earn 1,000 Extra SMAC Points on purchases of participating items, while you can also earn 100 Extra SMAC Points for any purchase from the Entertaining, Kitchen and Dining categories at Crate & Barrel.

To avail of the promo, you can present your SMAC Start Card, SMAC, or SMAC Prestige Card upon payment in-store, or provide your card number when ordering via SM Store’s Personal Shopper site.

Nowhere else can you help feed the hungry and upgrade your home at the same time than at Our Home and Crate & Barrel, which offer a wide array of modern contemporary furniture, home décor, and dining ware.

This opportunity has been made possible by a partnership between leading digital solutions platform Globe and SMAC, helping to put meals on the table of those in need through Globe’s Hapag Movement.

The Hapag Movement leverages technology and collaboration to help 100,000 families who are experiencing involuntary hunger through supplemental feeding and livelihood support.

Globe initiated the program to help Filipinos severely affected by the pandemic, especially since a Social Weather Stations Survey showed that an estimated 15 million Filipinos still suffer from involuntary hunger.

More information about the Hapag Movement can be found on bit.ly/3vV45uX, while shoppers may also visit www. smac.ph or download the SMAC app to learn more.

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

Editor: Angel R. Calso • www.businessmirror.com.ph

World economy walks tightrope between recession and soft landing

downshift to a quarter-percentage-point rate hike at their Jan. 31-February 1 policy meeting, according to trading in the federal funds futures market. That would follow a half-point increase in December and four 75 basis-point moves prior to that.

“The danger of a complete economic meltdown, a core meltdown of European industry, has—as far as we can see—been averted,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said earlier this month.

A variety of factors—a soonerthan-expected reopening of China’s economy, a warmer-than-normal winter in energy-strapped Europe and a sustained fall in US inflation—are combining to dissipate some of the gloom that engulfed financial markets at the end of 2022 and fanning hopes the world can dodge a recession.

But with the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and several peers still pushing ahead with higher interest rates, the risk of a slump later in the year can’t be dismissed, especially if inflation proves sticky and doesn’t retreat as much as central banks want.

“There’s a narrow path to a soft landing,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist Jan Hatzius told a Jan. 11 webinar sponsored by the Atlantic Council. “It’s going to be difficult for policymakers to calibrate the amount of restraint to get that done.”

He’s betting they’ll succeed— and so too are investors. Emergingmarket equities are on a tear and

Man

corporate-bond prices are rising on hopes that the world economy will emerge from the scariest inflation in decades without suffering a downturn.

There are some reasons for guarded optimism. Price pressures are easing worldwide, in part because global growth has slowed but also due to an untangling of supply chains that were tied in knots by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. US consumer prices rose 6.5 percent in December from a year earlier, down from a high of 9.1 percent in June.

The ebbing of inflation will support the purchasing power of consumers who spent much of the last year squeezed by rising prices, especially for such essentials as energy, food and rents. It will also allow central banks to scale back their rate increases, dampening fears among investors that policymakers would go too far and “break something” in the markets.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues are expected to

The step back has led to a reversal of the dollar’s meteoric rise, easing pressure on other central banks to match the Fed with economy-slowing rate increases of their own.

“We have seen peak dollar strength,” Kroll Institute chief global economist Megan Greene said.

Other pluses: Labor markets remain remarkably resilient, while household and business finances continue to enjoy some health.

When prices for energy, especially natural gas, surged last year, a recession in Europe was widely seen as a foregone conclusion. No longer: Goldman’s Hatzius said he now sees the region dodging a downturn.

Credit mild winter weather and a concerted effort to boost supplies and expand suppliers to make up for lost imports from Russia. The result: the euro-area economy has held up better than expected: Industrial production in Germany edged up in November, despite the country’s heavy dependence on Russian energy supplies.

Germany should also benefit from China abandoning its Covid Zero policy in favor of a reopening of its economy, a major destination for the European country’s exports.

China forecasts

WALL Street economists are busily upgrading their forecasts for China’s growth following the dismantling of Covid Zero. Barclays Plc lifted its gross domestic product growth projection to 4.8 percent for 2023 from 3.8 percent on a faster-than-expected reopening. Morgan Stanley now expects growth of 5.7 percent instead of an earlier estimate of 4.4 percent.

While China’s recovery faces hurdles, the combination of an easing real estate slump and more government support means the outlook is better than many anticipated as recently as the end of last year.

“We’re now expecting a kind of V-shaped recovery as we’ve seen in many other economies that have been shut down because of Covid,” said Goldman’s Hatzius of China’s prospects.

The China reopening, though,

could complicate the global inflation story, by stoking demand— and prices—for oil and other commodities. That could then have implications for the Fed and other major central banks.

US jobs

HOPES that the Fed can rein in elevated inflation without crashing the economy into recession were boosted by the December jobs report, which showed wage gains easing while unemployment returned to a multi-decade low.

“It looks more like a soft landing,” Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok said.

Despite such budding optimism, the World Bank this week slashed its growth forecasts for most countries and regions, and warned new shocks could still lead to a recession.

While the risk of a near-term global recession has diminished, there’s still a 70 percent chance of a slump later this year or in 2024, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief economist Bruce Kasman. Price and cost pressures are likely to remain too persistent and elevated for the Fed and the ECB, setting the stage for an eventual end to the global expansion, he said.

“A recession is the more likely scenario down the road,” Kasman said. Bloomberg News

Oil set for weekly gain on China optimism, brighter US outlook

OIL headed for a weekly gain of around 6 percent on China’s improving demand outlook and as US inflation cooled.

West Texas Intermediate held above $78 a barrel after a six-day run of gains, the longest winning streak since February. China ramped up purchases of crude this week after Beijing issued new import quota, and consumption is poised to surge to a record this year following the nation’s exit from Covid Zero.

US consumer prices in December posted the first monthly decline since 2020, fueling expectations that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of interest-rate hikes, and adding to bullish sentiment across financial markets.

Oil has pushed higher after a rocky start to the year, with a raft of forecasters from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to top hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand predicting prices will rally back above $100 a barrel in 2023. There are also tentative signs that trading activity has picked up in the new year.

“Markets are upbeat on what China is doing at the margin, but I don’t think everyone is sold on the roaring economy thesis,” said Vishnu Varathan, the Asia head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank Ltd. “Although a pullback from recession risks has given oil some breathing space, if prices rise too much, that could quickly scratch off the demandside support.” Bloomberg News

China’s exports slump further as global demand drops off

NEW YORK—A New York man pleaded guilty Thursday to a hate-crime manslaughter charge for beating a Chinese immigrant who was collecting cans to earn money.

Jarrod Powell, 51, is expected to get a 22-year prison sentence for the 2021 death of Yao Pan Ma. The killing drew national attention as part of a rise in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in New York and around the country.

“This unprovoked attack took the life of Yao Pan Ma and took away a sense of security for so many in the AAPI community in New York,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Thursday.

A message seeking comment was left for Powell’s attorney.

Ma was abruptly attacked from behind, knocked to the ground and kicked and stomped in the head on an East Harlem street on April 23, 2021, authorities said. His attacker fled and left him unconscious; a nearby bus driver flagged down an ambulance.

Ma, 61, suffered a traumatic brain injury and never regained consciousness. He died from his injuries eight months later.

Powell was arrested four days after the assault. In pleading guilty, he acknowledged that he targeted Ma because the victim was Asian, according to Bragg’s office.

Ma’s loved ones approved of the plea agreement, family spokesperson Karlin Chan said.

“While this will not bring back Mr. Yao Pan Ma, it is a significant sentence that we can accept,” Chan said, noting that the plea spares the family the pain of a trial.

Ma and his wife immigrated to the US in October 2018 from China, where Ma was a dim sum chef, according to Chan. He has said Ma and his wife both lost their jobs—his as a kitchen worker, hers as a home care attendant—during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic shutdowns, and the couple then started collecting cans and bottles to return for refunds.

CHINA’S exports fell further in December as global demand continued to drop off, adding to pressure on the economy as it charts a hasty, uncertain path out of Covid Zero.

Exports in US dollar terms fell 9.9 percent in December from a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs said Friday. That beat economists’ estimate for a 11.1 percent drop, and compared with a decrease of 8.7 percent in the previous month. For the full

year, exports rose 7 percent to a record $3.6 trillion.

Imports shrank 7.5 percent, better than the median estimate of a 10 percent drop. That left a wider trade surplus of $78 billion last month, the data showed.

Export growth was robust for most of 2022, providing some support for the world’s second-largest economy as it was hit by a housing market slump and weak consumer demand.

However, the trend began to

reverse in October as pandemicfueled demand waned and central banks around the world hiked interest rates to curb surging inflation. Disruptions from Covid outbreaks in China also snarled supply chains, weighing on exports.

China’s commerce ministry said Thursday the trade outlook remains uncertain as the global economy heads for recession.

“The task of maintaining stability and improving the quality of foreign trade is still

very arduous,” Shu Jueting, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said at a press briefing.

Authorities have taken a slew of measures to support exporters, including sending officials on chartered flights to meet overseas clients.

Still, the downward trajectory is expected to continue through 2023. Net exports will probably account for a smaller portion of growth for the year, or may even become a drag.

The slump in imports is a sign of weak domestic demand as the economy reels from Covid — first because of strict movement curbs to contain the virus, and now because the rapid dismantling of Covid Zero has led to widespread infection and illness.

China’s leadership has cited domestic demand as a top priority this year, though confidence among businesses and consumers has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Bloomberg News

Swedish mining firm LKAB finds Europe’s largest rare earth deposit

THE largest known deposit of rare earth minerals in Europe has just been discovered in Sweden’s Arctic, with potential to help the continent break free from China’s dominance on the market for the resources.

The deposit, found by Swedish state-owned mining company LKAB, contains more than 1 million tons of rare earths, according to a statement on Thursday. Work is still in an exploratory phase and the full extent of the deposit, just north of the company’s biggest mine in the

Arctic town of Kiruna, is not known, LKAB said.

“It will be at least 10 to 15 years before we can actually begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market,” Chief Executive Officer Jan Mostrom said, citing a time line derived from other permitting processes in the industry. LKAB plans an application for an exploration concession this year, before seeking permits.

The relative scarcity of rare earth minerals has been identified as a major hurdle in the world’s transition away from fossil fuels. China and

parts of Southeast Asia dominate both the mining and processing of rare earths. A 2022 US Geological Survey report said China has around 44 million tons of rare-earth oxides and in 2021, the country produced 168,000 tons, up from 140,000 tons the year before.

That’s been particularly painful in Europe, where the European Union is trying to assert itself as a major player in renewable energy (RE). Sweden already plays a key role in the bloc’s RE ambitions. It supplies roughly 90 percent of the continent’s

CHINA’S Covid outbreak could continue for another two to three months as there are parts of the vast country yet to be hit, according to the former chief scientist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Speaking at a recent seminar in China, Zeng Guang said that parts of the country are approaching the peak of their virus waves and life in some major cities is slowly returning to normal. But other areas, particularly rural regions, are yet to see infections surge.

“We first zoomed in on big cities. Now it’s the countryside that most

deserve our attention,” Caixin reported Zeng as saying, according to a story published on Thursday. “The plans dedicated to Covid control and prevention in rural areas are well devised, but how to implement them is a big problem.”

The warning underscores concerns that Beijing’s abrupt pivot away from Covid Zero would hit poor and rural areas hardest, while successive waves of infections will continue to hamper economic growth.

An enduring outbreak also contrasts with expectations that the high transmissibility of Omicron

would see most of the country’s virusnaive population infected quickly. While that’s true for some areas— the central province of Henan said last week that around 90 percent of its nearly 100 million people have been infected—other regions are yet to see rapid spread.

But there are growing concerns that this month’s Lunar New Year holiday will see the virus sweep through smaller cities and rural areas as hundreds of thousands of people travel home, with many finally able to reunite with family after three years.

The regions are also the most poorly equipped to deal with a virus

iron ore, most sourced in LKAB’s mines in the north.

Erik Jonsson, senior geologist at the Geological Survey of Sweden, said the LKAB finding could prove to be a “very good addition” to fill the acute need for European rare earth elements.

He called it a “significant” addition to the Nordics’ known resources of the rare metals, which he and some colleagues have previously assessed to lie at around 36 million tons of metal content, most of it locked into deposits in southern Greenland.

LKAB benefits from its previous experience in extracting some rare metals from old mining waste, given that the levels in the deposit announced today would be far too low to be profitable as a pure rare-earth mine, he said.

The Nordic nation, which has just taken over the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, has invited the European Commission for a two-day summit in Kiruna. The town has won fame for being moved in its entirety to accommodate the growth of LKAB’s mine. Bloomberg News

wave. Rural hospitals and clinics have had little experience dealing with Covid, medication is in short supply and facilities are typically sparse. Many villages have seen young people move to big cities for better job opportunities, leaving behind children and elderly, who are under-vaccinated compared with their peers in developed countries.

An enduring wave also adds to China’s economic woes. Covid restrictions had pushed consumer and business sentiment close to record lows, the property market is in a record slump and overseas appetite for Chinese goods has plummeted.

The sudden reopening means first-quarter economic activity will also likely be disrupted, although some economists see an increasing possibility of a faster recovery once infection waves peak.

The spread of the virus through rural areas is set to amplify the information vacuum within China that’s sparked fears the true impact of the outbreak isn’t been revealed.

Officials appear to have stopped publishing daily Covid data, just as criticism about its lack of transparency grows and a slew of countries introduce measures targeting travelers from China. Bloomberg News

THE world economy is beginning the new year on a more optimistic note, though that’s no guarantee 2023 will end that way.

pleads guilty to hate crime in Chinese immigrant’s death

Biden’s exposure on classified files widens after Garland orders probe

PRESIDENT Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents erupted into a political crisis with potential legal repercussions on Thursday after the attorney general appointed a special counsel to investigate the incident.

Attorney General Merrick Garland named former US attorney for Maryland Robert Hur, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, to lead the inquiry after the White House confirmed that a second set of classified materials was uncovered inside a garage storage area at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

“This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the

law,” Garland said at a news conference.

Hur will explore whether any person or entity violated the law and will receive all the resources he needs to conduct the investigation, Garland said.

The naming of a special counsel is a blow for Biden and the White House, which had sought to move quickly past the episode. Garland’s move also intensified questions about why the White House waited until after news reports this week on the discovery of the documents to disclose the episode. The first set of documents were found at

UFO reports rise to 510, not aliens but still a threat to US

WASHINGTON—The US has now collected 510 reports of unidentified flying objects (UFO), many of which are flying in sensitive military airspace.

While there’s no evidence of extraterrestrials, they still pose a threat, the government said in a declassified report summary released Thursday.

Last year the Pentagon opened an office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, solely focused on receiving and analyzing all of those reports of unidentified phenomena, many of which have been reported by military pilots. It works with the intelligence agencies to further assess those incidents.

The events “continue to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety of flight or adversary collection activity,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in its 2022 report.

The classified version of the report addresses how many of

those objects were found near locations where nuclear power plants operate or nuclear weapons are stored.

The 510 objects include 144 objects previously reported and 366 new reports. In both the old and new cases, after analysis, the majority have been determined to exhibit “unremarkable characteristics,” and could be characterized as unmanned aircraft systems, or balloon-like objects, the report said.

But the office is also tasked with reporting any movements or reports of objects that may indicate that a potential adversary has a new technology or capability.

The Pentagon’s anomaly office is also to include any unidentified objects moving underwater, in the air, or in space, or something that moves between those domains, which could pose a new threat.

ODNI said in its report that efforts to destigmatize reporting and emphasize that the objects may pose a threat likely contributed to the additional reports. AP

an office Biden used after his vice presidency just before November’s midterm elections.

‘Locked garage’

BIDEN has said he was “surprised” that classified material was found at his old office, and he suggested Thursday that documents found in his garage were secure because they shared space with his classic Corvette. He did not explain why the files were at his home.

“By the way, my Corvette’s in a locked garage, so it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street,” Biden told reporters at the White House after he was asked about the latest discovery.

Biden’s glib remark, which came before Garland’s announcement, risked suggesting that the White House—which has refused to answer many questions about the documents—regards the incident as inconsequential.

A special counsel is already investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents following an FBI search of his Palm Beach, Florida, estate in August. Biden

has called Trump “totally irresponsible” for the hundreds of pages of classified materials he and his aides took from the White House after his presidency ended in January 2021.

But with Biden’s own handling of classified material now under scrutiny, Democratic criticism of the former president—and perhaps even the legal case against him—risk being undermined. Many Republicans have complained of a double standard in the justice department’s handling of the Trump and Biden cases.

“There’s a process and I’m telling you that we’re trying to do this by the book,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a combative briefing on Thursday. While insisting that the White House had “been transparent here,” she also repeatedly said that she would not “go beyond what the President said” and that she was “limited” in what she could say.

Biden timeline

THE first batch of classified records connected to Biden were

found Nov. 2 as the President’s lawyers were cleaning out his office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. The White House has said the lawyers immediately notified the National Archives and Records Administration, which took possession of the materials the following day.

Garland said the Archives’ inspector general notified the justice department on November 4.

The White House has not explained why lawyers were hired to clean out Biden’s old office, nor why Biden’s team waited months to publicly disclose the discovery of the classified material. The documents were found six days before the November 8 elections.

Garland asked John Lausch, the Trump-appointed US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to review the discovery, and Biden’s team began searching other properties connected to him, including his Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, homes, for additional records.

Garland said Biden’s aides re -

ported to Lausch on Dec. 20 that they’d discovered more classified records at his Wilmington home and that the FBI seized those files.

Lausch recommended to Garland that he appoint a special counsel for the Biden records on January 5, the attorney general said Thursday. Jean-Pierre said the White House learned Hur had been appointed when Garland made the announcement.

Mary McCord, a former top official at the justice department, said there are “abundant dissimilarities” in the Biden and Trump cases but that appointing a special counsel to investigate the Biden documents was warranted “to make clear the department’s commitment to independence.”

“In this political environment, given the criticisms of the department as being weaponized and politicized, I don’t see he had any other choice,” McCord said of Garland. She is now executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center. Bloomberg

News

Suspect charged with murder in assassination of Japan’s Abe

By Mari Yamaguchi The Associated Press

TOKYO—Japanese prosecutors formally charged the suspect in the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with murder, sending him to stand trial, a Japanese court said Friday.

Tetsuya Yamagami was arrested immediately after allegedly shooting Abe with a homemade gun as the former leader was making a campaign speech in July outside a train station in Nara in western Japan.

Later that month, Yamagami was sent to an Osaka detention center for a nearly six-month mental evaluation, which ended Tuesday. Yamagami is back in police custody in Nara.

Prosecutors said results of his mental evaluation showed he is fit to stand trial. Yamagami was also charged with violating a gun control law, according to the Nara District Court.

Police have said Yamagami told them that he killed Abe, one of Japan's most influential and divisive politicians, because of Abe's apparent links to a religious group that he hated.

In his statements and in social media postings attributed to him, Yamagami said he developed a grudge because his mother had made massive donations to the Unification Church that bankrupted his family and ruined his life.

One of his lawyers, Masaaki Furukawa, told the Associated Press on Thursday that Yamagami was in good health during his

mental evaluation in Osaka when he was only allowed to see his sister and three lawyers.

Furuawa said his trial is a serious case and involve a jury panel of citizens. Due to the complexity of the case, it would take at least several months before his trial begins, he said.

Police are also reportedly considering adding several allegations, including weapons production, violation to explosives control law and causing damage to buildings.

Some Japanese have expressed sympathy for Yamagami, especially those who also

Ransomware gang Lockbit accused of cyberattack on UK’s Royal Mail

PROLIFIC criminal hackers were behind a cyberattack on the UK’s Royal Mail that has shut down its ability to send international letters and parcels, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A ransomware gang known as LockBit targeted the British business and used encryption to lock some of its computers, rendering them inoperable, according to the people who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.

The gang usually demands payment to unlock computers it has compromised and often threatens to leak stolen data to pressure victims to pay. It’s not known how much money the group has demanded from Royal Mail or whether the company intends to pay.

Royal Mail declined to com -

ment. A representative for LockBit didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

The company, part of International Distributions Services Plc, said in a statement on Wednesday that it was experiencing a “cyber incident” that was causing severe disruption to international export services.

“We are temporarily unable to dispatch items to overseas destinations. We strongly recommend that you temporarily hold any export mail items while we work to resolve the issue,” the company said in the statement. “We immediately launched an investigation into the incident and we are working with external experts. We have reported the incident to our regulators and the relevant security authorities.”

The UK’s National Cyber Se -

curity Centre said it was aware of an incident affecting Royal Mail Group Ltd. and was working with the company, alongside the National Crime Agency, to fully understand the impact.

The hackers compromised systems at Royal Mail that created dispatch notes for mail being exported out of the UK, according to one of the people. The malicious software has been contained within those systems, the person added.

A note left by the hackers on some compromised Royal Mail computers directed the company to a LockBit website on the darkweb to begin a negotiation over payment. The note, reviewed by Bloomberg News, warned Royal Mail that if it didn’t pay the ransom the company’s data would be published online.

Mike Godfrey, chief executive

officer of London-based cybersecurity firm Insinia Security, said the attackers’ intention would be to put as much pressure on the company as possible to extort a payment. He said disrupting a valuable supply chain put Royal Mail in an uncomfortable position. “Do they pay the ransom or do they spend ten times the amount of time and money recovering?” he said.

According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, attacks linked to LockBit began in September 2019 and the gang’s victims have spanned organizations across Europe and the US, as well as China, India, Indonesia and Ukraine. The gang operates under a model known as “ransomware for a service,” leasing its malicious software and infrastructure to hackers in return for a percentage of their proceeds.

suffered as children of followers of the South Korea-based Unification Church, which is known for pressuring adherents into making big donations and is considered a cult in Japan.

Thousands of people have signed a petition requesting leniency for Yamagami, and others have sent care packages to his relatives or the detention center.

The investigation into the case has led to revelations of years of cozy ties between Abe’s governing Liberal Democratic Party and the church since Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, helped the church take root in Japan in the 1960s over shared interests in conservative and anti-communist causes.

Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's popularity has plunged over his handling of the church controversy and for insisting on holding a rare, controversial state funeral for Abe.

TETSUYA YAMAGAMI, front right, holding a weapon, is detained near the site of gunshots in Nara, western Japan, Friday, July 8, 2022. Yamagami, the suspected assassin of Japan’s former leader Shinzo Abe, is expected to face murder charges on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, in Japan’s highest profile case in recent years. AP

Basic

service information and resolving product service problem.

DARASON, WASON Thai - Speaking Customer Service

Basic

Basic

Basic Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate.

29.

Brief Job Description: Serves customer by providing product service information and resolving product service problem.

MUNGVICHAR, KRIT Thai - Speaking Customer Service

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate.

30.

31.

Brief Job Description: Serves customer by providing product service information and resolving product service problem.

PHETLUM, JARUWAN Thai - Speaking Customer Service

Brief Job Description: Serves customer by providing product service information and resolving product service problem.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

32.

LE THI KIEU PHUONG Vietnamese - Speaking Customer Service

Brief Job Description: Serves customer by providing product service information and resolving product service problem.

NGUYEN NAM ANH Vietnamese - Speaking Customer Service Brief Job Description: Serves customer by providing product service information and resolving product service problem.

Basic Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate.

Basic Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 33.

NGUYEN THU HUONG Vietnamese - Speaking Customer Service Brief Job Description:

by providing product service

Qualification: Fluent for both native and English language, computer literate. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 35.

Qualification: Fluent in Both Native and English Languages, Computer Literate Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Brief

Basic

Basic

75.

Basic

76.

Brief

DANG ANH QUAN Vietnamese Customer Service Representative

Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service queries; suggesting information about other products and services.

NGUYEN HOANG GIANG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative

Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service queries; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic Qualification: Proficient in speaking, reading and writing English and their respective native language for the position applied for. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proficient in speaking, reading and writing English and their respective native language for the position applied for.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proficient in speaking, reading and writing English and their respective native language for the position applied for.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proficient in speaking, reading and writing English and their respective native language for the position applied for.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

ZAPPORT SERVICES, INC. 22/f & 36/f Burgundy Corporate Tower, 252 Sen. Gil J. Puyat Ave., Pio Del Pilar, City Of Makati

77.

78.

ANDIKA LESMANA Indonesian - Speaking Customer Service Officer

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

DEDEH RAHMAWATI Indonesian - Speaking Customer Service Officer

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

WITA NOVITA ASTUTI SUWANDI Indonesian - Speaking Customer Service Officer

Basic Qualification: Indonesian Speaking and Written Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Indonesian Speaking and Written Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

79.

Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills.

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

ACHMAD SIDDIQ BUTAR BUTAR Indonesian-speaking Customer Service Officer

support and data base services.

80.

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer-oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

Basic Qualification: Indonesian Speaking and Written Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Indonesian speaking and written Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

MA VAN CHINH Micro-tunneling Boring Machine Operator

Brief Job Description: Operates micro-tunneling boring machine.

CHEMICALS

Basic Qualification: Micro-tunneling boring machine training.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 PIPESOLUTION INC. 109, C D. Tuazon St., Lourdes, Quezon City 67.

Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

CHRISTIAN ZAKARIA Indonesian-speaking Customer Service Officer

81.

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer-oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

ERDIANA GADIS PERMATA INTAN Indonesian-speaking Customer Service Officer

Basic Qualification: Indonesian speaking and written Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 82.

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer-oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

GITA INDRIA BUDIARTI Indonesian-speaking Customer Service Officer

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer-oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

Basic Qualification: Indonesian speaking and written

Basic Qualification: Indonesian speaking and written Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 83.

JOHANES Indonesian-speaking Customer Service Officer

Brief Job Description: Indonesian written reports on a daily operation of call center activities performing customer-oriented telephone activities and various background operation duties

Basic Qualification: Indonesian speaking and written

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 84.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 85.

LATIF ISKANDAR Indonesian-speaking

DRAGONS SHOT WELL IN GAME 6–TIM CONE

By Josef Ramos

LOOKING at the stats sheet, it wasn’t only a prolific Myles Powell that prevented Barangay Ginebra San Miguel’s red balloons from falling down the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Wednesday night.

They [Dragons] had a great shooting night from the three-point line where they shot almost 50 percent,” Ginebra head coach Tim Cone said on Friday. “In my mind, we did a good job defensively and we held Powell down to where we wanted [him to be].”

P owell scored 29 points in the Dragons’ 87-84 victory in Game 6, way below his average of 37.5 points in eight games in the league. He also had a 50-point night against Rain or Shine in a 120-87 win last November.

Cone said it was a total team effort by the Dragons, who went 44.3 percent overall from the field against the Gin Kings’ 37.5 percent.

The Dragons nailed 17 of their 36 three-point attempts with Hayden Blankely making six triples, Powell five and Kobey Lam three.

The Gin Kings? They were terrible with 7 of 33 from beyond the arc.

We only gave up 85 points and I think they averaged like 115 points when Powell was playing,” Cone said. “So we did what we wanted defensively, but we just didn’t knockdown most shots on the offensive end.”

D ragons head coach Brian Goorjian, meanwhile, welcomed the decision to move Game 7 from Friday to Sunday starting at 5:45 p.m. at the 50,000-seat Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan.

“ There’s no negative for us. It’s extra time,” Goorjian said. “We were ready to play on Friday, but extra time is good for us and no problem there.”

P owell subbed for Bay

China’s reopened borders raise hopes for soccer resurgence

AFTER three years of isolation and financial struggles in Chinese soccer, the country is reopening its borders and economy to the outside world.

With it, frustrated fans, financially challenged clubs and unpaid players in the Chinese Super League might receive some long-awaited good news.

The 2022 season was unrecognizable from the 2019 edition, the last before COVID-19 hit. Then the league had an average attendance of over 24,000, the highest in Asia, and a number of bigname foreign imports.

From 2020 onwards, Beijing’s “zeroCOVID” policy, designed to stamp out the virus, meant that teams mostly played in empty stadiums at centralized venues. Players were stuck in biosecure bubbles for months on end and international stars, unable to enter the country, were released from contracts.

It also meant little ticket, broadcast or sponsorship revenue for clubs. In 2021, defending champion Jiangsu FC folded and several other clubs have struggled to pay players.

O pening up the country may not mean a return to the carefree spending of the previous decade but is a prerequisite to starting the journey back to pre-pandemic levels. It is reported that clubs will play home and away games in the 2023 season.

It almost feels like there has been no league in the past three years with delays, months without games and strange schedules,” Shanghai Shenhua supporter Wang Yi told The Associated Press. “Some fans have lost interest but I think that will change when we can all get together at the stadium again.”

D ue to the government’s strict policies, foreign teams were unable to enter the country, forcing China to play 2022 World Cup qualifiers in neutral venues. It finished next

to last in its final qualification group, eight points behind Oman.

The country was scheduled to host the 2023 Asian Cup in June but last May, Beijing relinquished its staging rights.

“ It remains to be seen if and how quickly Chinese football can return to its ambitions and plans of 2019, and prior to that.”

Simon Chadwick, professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy at Skema Business School, told the AP, adding that state help will be needed.

It is important that the sport doesn’t just restart, but that it is kick-started...there must be a worry that unless both the government and Chinese football commit themselves to refreshing and relaunching it, then the sport could get stuck in the international doldrums.”

The pandemic also exacerbated a downturn in China’s overheated property market. With more than half of the clubs in the top tier owned, at least in part, by real estate companies, it has been a major soccer issue.

E vergrande, the property developer, saw its club Guangzhou, who won eight titles in the previous decade, relegated in December after the team’s stars left and were replaced by young domestic players.

Opening up the country is expected to boost the housing market especially as, in December, Chinese state banks opened up a line of credit worth around $460 billion for real estate companies. It remains to be seen if this will ease the financial strain on clubs. AP

Area’s Canadian import Andrew Nicholson, also a prolific player at 6-foot-10, who still nurses an ankle injury.

Phoenix Super LPG, meanwhile, announced the promotion of assistant coach Jamike Jarin as interim coach of the Fuel Masters in lieu of head coach Topex Robinson, who didn’t renew his contract with the team last week.

Team Philippines, CDMs brace for busy year

ILIPINO athletes will be busy competing in over 57 days of action in five major international competitions—four regional and one world—this year.

A nd so are the chiefs of mission—baseball’s Chito Loyzaga, fencing and pentathlon’s Rep. Richard Gomez, surfing’s Dr. Jose Raul “George” Canlas, wrestling’s Alvin Aguilar and karate’s Ricky Lim.

“ That’s how busy Filipino athletes will be as sports competitions return almost all at the same time as pandemic restrictions are dramatically eased worldwide,” Philippine Olympic Committee president Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino said on Friday.

L oyzaga is chef de mission to the Cambodia 32nd Southeast Asian Games set from May 5 to 17, Gomez to the Second World Beach Games in Bali from August 5 to 12, Canlas to the Hangzhou 19th Asian Games from September 23 to October 8, Aguilar to the World Combat Games in Riyadh from October 21 to 30

Fand Lim to the Sixth Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in Bangkok and Chonburi from November 17 to 26.

A l Panlilio, meanwhile, begged off as chef de mission to the Paris 2024 Olympics, citing his leadership responsibilities and obligations at the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas and PLDT and Smart.

My current leadership roles and ongoing matters in the said organizations may not give me the full capacity for the CDM role,” Panlilio said in his letter to Tolentino.

“In as much as I would be so delighted to accept this assignment, I had to regretfully decline this most prestigious position.”

P anlilio added: “I will continue to provide support to the POC so that our athletes can replicate or even surpass our great showing at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, but I believe providing help outside of the CDM role should allow the POC a great opportunity to add another helping hand, which would only benefit our athletes further.”

Tolentino lamented Panlilio’s decision, saying his

Hidilyn tops among Filipino athletes in PSA list of December performers

TOKYO Olympics gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo achieved another milestone in her storied career at the 88th IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bogota, Colombia, in early December.

A fter failing to capture gold in her five previous appearances in the world championships, Diaz-Naranjo, no longer a spring chicken at 31, hoisted herself and the country to a golden treble by sweeping the women’s 55 kgs class at the Gran Carpa Americas Corferias Convention Center in the Colombian capital.

I n an early Christmas gift, the Zamboanga City pride ruled the weight division with a lift of 93 kgs in the snatch and 114 kgs in the cleanand-jerk for a total lift of 207 kgs in her breakthrough at the worlds that also served as the first qualifying meet for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

It was Diaz-Naranjo’s last competition in the 55 kgs class, which was dropped from the Paris program in favor of the 59 kgs category.

I n collegiate action, Ateneo regained the University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball championship by dethroning University of the Philippines, 75-68, in a winner-takeall Game 3 played before 21,814 fans at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Naturalized player Ange Kouame was named Finals MVP.

I n the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Letran made history by winning its third straight seniors basketball title by blowing away College of St. Benilde, 81-67, in the do-or-die Game 3 at the Ynares Center in Antipolo.

Behind the heroic of powerhitting American import Lindsey Van Derweide, the underdog Petro Gazz Angels captured the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Reinforced crown via a sweep of Cignal HD Spikers in their best-of-3 title playoffs.

The chargers of coach Raid Ricafort took Game 1 in straight sets 25-21, 27-25, 37-36, then clinched their second PVL championship in subduing the wards of coach Shaq delos Santos in four hard-fought sets 25-17, 22-25, 12-25, 25-21 in Game 2 in front of a lively crowd at the PhilSports Arena.

Van Derweide bagged both MVP Finals and Best Foreign Guest Player honors, while teammate Mar-Jana Philips was cited as Best Middle Blocker of the tournament.

Still in volleyball, the National University Bulldogs took down the

University of Santo Tomas Tiger Spikers 25-23, 25-23, 25-21 in the championship match to capture the V-League Collegiate Men’s title at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

The Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards sustained their winning ways under coach Jerson Cabiltes, securing the Season 4 title of the Maharlika Basketball League by beating the Zamboanga Family Brand Sardines, 69-65, in Game 4 of their best-of-five title series at the Mayor Vitaliano Agan Coliseum in Zamboanga City.

Byron Villarias paced the Vanguards with 14 points, 10 rebounds and two steals, sweeping both Best Player of the Game and Most Valuable Player Finals honors, as they bagged their fifth straight crown under Cabiltes.

B ack in the limelight was ring icon Manny Pacquiao, who figured in a goodwill exhibition match for a cause with South Korean mixed martial arts fighter DK Woo at the Korea International Exhibition Center in Seoul.

leadership and management acumen augurs well as chef de mission for the Paris Olympics, where the POC set the bar higher following the success in the Tokyo 2021 Games.

The POC will announce a replacement for Panlilio next week, just in time for a team—led by Tolentino—flies to the French capital to seal contracts with a training camp facility for qualified Filipino athletes to the Olympics.

There are 49 sports in the Cambodia SEA Games program, 14 in the World Beach Games, 37 in the Hangzhou Asian Games, 15 in the World Combat Games and 32 regular and two demonstration sports in the AIMAG.

Citystars, Islanders extend win streak

MANILA and Boracay

Rence Alcoriza fired a game-high 19 points and grabbed five rebounds to steer the Citystars to an 81-74 victory over Koponang Lakan ng

acky Acosta barely missed a double-double with 18 points and nine rebounds, while Levi Dela Cruz added 10 points for Manila, which maintained the grit and effort it showed in an 89-79 win over Cagayan de OroPSP last week and climbed to 5-3 won-lost for seventh place.

Bulacan failed to do an encore to a 100-57 shellacking of Bagong Cabuyao-Homelab Nation last December 28 and fell to 3-3.

Former Philippine Basketball Association star Mac Cardona wound up with 20 points, six rebounds and four assists as the Islanders trounced Cagayan de Oro, 89-82.

Jaymar Gimpayan turned in a double-double of 19 points and 16 rebounds for Boracay.

Johnsherick Estrada also scored 17 points and dished off five assists as the Islanders improved to 4-4 for eight spot.

Coming off a 79-89 setback at the hands of the Citystars last week, Cagayan de Oro tumbled to a 1-7 card.

L eo Najorda scored 12 points and pulled down five rebounds for Bulacan, while Mark Pangilinan and Keanu Caballero got 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Jayvee Dela Cruz paced Cagayan de Oro with 15 points, while Omar Larupay had 14 and 10 points, respectively.

I an Yutuc, Jopet Soriano, and Jeff Comia also combined for 36 points for Cagayan de Oro.

BACHMANN TOURS PHILSPORTS Philippine Sports Commission chairman Richard “Dickie”

Bachmann visits Olympian Kayla Sanchez and the national water polo team during training at the PhilSports Complex in Pasig City. Bachmann assured the swimmers of the PSC’s all-out support as they prepare for the 32nd Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia in May.

CHINESE fans

their national team lost to Saudi Arabia in the Asian zone group B qualifying match

Qatar

at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in

defeated their respective opponents Thursday night to stretch their winning streaks to three games in the Manila Bankers Life-Pilipinas Super League Pro Division Second Conference Dumper Cup at the Rizal Technological University Gym in Mandaluyong City.

K ing Caralipio was the Finals MVP as he helped the Knights duplicate the “three-peat” pulled off by a Samboy Lim-led Letran team from 1982-84.

HIDILYN DIAZ-NARANJO makes an emphatic conquest in the world championships in Bogota.

BARANGAY Ginebra San Miguel head coach Tim Cone and team governor Alfrancis Chua react to a call in Game 6.