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‘JUST LET THEM BE, STAY AWAY’

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

HE travel restrictions forced by the Covid-19 pandemic are serving as a blessing in disguise for efforts to protect the local population from diseases caused by smuggled wildlife or brought by travelers unknowingly infected with them.

These diseases could include even the bubonic plague, which killed 50 million people in Europe in a pandemic in the Middle Ages. It recently killed a teenage boy in Mongolia, who ate a rodent-like animal, and was also detected in squirrels in Colorado. The risk of bubonic plague reaching Philippine shores is very slim, according to a Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) expert interviewed by the BusinessMirror, citing climate and the pandemic’s travel restrictions. Still, the head of the Asean

Center for Biodiversity (ACB) aired a strong warning for Asean nations to cooperate more fully in enforcing the cross-border transfer of wildlife. The warning is well understood: a bubonic plague outbreak at this time, when the world reels from Covid-19, is the last thing humans would want to see.

There’s a cure

UNLIKE Covid-19, for which there is neither vaccine nor cure yet, the good news about bubonic plague, though, is that it can be treated with antibiotics, as plague is

caused by bacteria and not a virus, said ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim. “They discovered the treatment to this years ago. Treatment for Covid, on the other hand, is still being tested, and management is more symptomatic, meaning you give medication to the symptoms of the disease, as they appear,” Lim, a veterinarian, and expert in zoonotic diseases, said. She maintained that in Southeast Asia, there are existing laws or similar regulations on poaching and illegal wildlife trade among Asean member-states, and a good

level of awareness on the implications of wildlife trafficking. “That is why even in 2018, there was already the Chiangmai Statement on illegal wildlife trade,” Lim, a former DENR-BMB director, told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview via Messenger.

A threat, nonetheless

STILL, she said, bubonic plague remains a threat because the pneumonic form of the plague can easily spread from person to person, and, if left untreated, is fatal. Continued on A2

China is forcing the world to find new ways to deal with it By Iain Marlow, Nick Wadhams & John Follain

Bloomberg News

EALING with China is so complex it’s produced its own lexicon: Engagement. Containment. Confrontation. Constrainment. Even “con-gagement.” The word stew reflects the dilemma for governments facing a power that is no longer simply “rising.” The leadership under Xi Jinping believes China is now strong enough that it can forcefully assert its agenda both at home and abroad because it has reached the point it can withstand whatever penalties come its way. Xi’s imposition of a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong despite global outrage, a deadly military skirmish on the border with India and Beijing’s aggressive pandemic-era diplomacy are only the latest examples of

how Western policies have largely failed to shape, slow or stop China.

‘Rethink’

AS the US prioritizes “America First” and the values-based multilateral architecture weakens, countries are increasingly realizing they need a rethink. Until now, strategies have largely fallen into one of two camps: Keep your fingers crossed that China turns into a better actor by pulling it into the global system of rules and institutions, or try and halt it in its tracks by economic, or military pressure. “The open policies toward

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 49.5440

MEMBERS of the People’s Liberation Army honor guard walk past a banner depicting Xi Jinping near the Forbidden City in Beijing, on May 21, 2020. BLOOMBERG

China from the US and European Union were well intended and mutually beneficial, with hopes that China will join, or at least learn to conform to the order of the free world,” said Fernando Cheung, a pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong. “But with growing economic power and military might, it’s becoming apparent that Xi thinks the order under the Chinese Communist Party is superior.” While Covid-19 has accelerated the conversation on China, “the problem is a lack of agreement of what teaming up should look like—not all like-minded governments are all that like-minded when it comes to dealing with the challenges China poses,” said Bates Gill, a professor of Asia-Pacific security studies at Macquarie University in Sydney who has consulted for companies and government agencies. The fissures President Donald Trump has opened with longstanding US allies also hinder a united approach. “The basic building blocks of such a strategy—working Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4619 n UK 62.2223 n HK 6.3900 n CHINA 7.0888 n SINGAPORE 35.5971 n AUSTRALIA 34.5173 n EU 56.3959 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.2107

Source: BSP (July 17, 2020)

RALUCA TUDOR | DREAMSTIME.COM

WITH REPORTS OF THE BUBONIC PLAGUE BEING DETECTED IN MONGOLIA AND THE U.S., EXPERTS RAISE THE ALERT ANEW AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN WILD ANIMALS.

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A2 Saturday, July 18, 2020

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‘JUST LET THEM BE, STAY AWAY’ Continued from A1

“More people, expanding human habitation that provides more chances for interaction with wild animals, and increased global mobility give pathogens nowadays more opportunity to be transmitted compared to the olden days of the plague,” warned Lim. To prevent the spread of bubonic plague, she said the guidance from the Asean Environmental Ministers needs to be operationalized at the regional level, with all the countries working together to improve border monitoring and patrol across Asean, against the smuggling of wild meat or live wild animals. The eating of wild animals has been flagged anew since the reported outbreak in January of what is now known as Covid-19 (some quarters previously referred to it as the Wuhan virus, after the Chinese city where it was believed to have originated, in a market for exotic animals used as human food). On a side note, Lim said ACB welcomes the Philippine government’s call to enable the Asean body to support such a proactive initiative in the region. Lastly, Lim recommended the implementation of measures to reduce the collection of wild animals from their natural habitats, not just through stricter enforcement, but address socioeconomic drivers as well. Asean must work harder, Lim added, to “protect remaining natural habitats of wild indigenous species of rodents and implement

measures to control domestic rats and mice.”

Tiny risk—for now

ASSISTANT Secretary Ricardo Calderon, the concurrent director of the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, maintained that cases of bubonic plague happening hundreds or thousands of miles away from our shores are something that Filipinos should not worry about. Because of Covid-19, where travel is restricted from one country to another, and even within one country such as the Philippines, transmission of bubonic plague is next to impossible, he said. “Besides, our ports are under tight watch,” noted Calderon. The official said the DENR is also strictly monitoring the ports to prevent attempts to smuggle in or smuggle out of the country wild animals amid the Covid-19 pandemic. He added that the DENR-BMB has also stopped issuing special import or export permits for wild animals allowed under CITES or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, thereby effectively eliminating the chances of zoonosis (the transmission of diseases from animals to humans) affecting the Philippines or its trading partners. The official said right now, Covid-19 is the more serious problem the government is focusing on, and the travel restrictions as well as community quarantines in effect in various parts of the country

THIS May 25, 2019, file photo shows the Tomohon traditional market selling meats of bats, pythons, dogs, cats, rats and wild boar in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. JIMMY RUFLAS PONTOH | DREAMSTIME.COM

limit the risks of another disease like bubonic plague breaking out. However, as a precaution, DENR field personnel were advised to be on the lookout for wild animals, particularly rodents, getting sick. Calderon told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview there is a very slim chance of transmission of bubonic plague that may cause a contagion or even pandemic here in the Philippines.

Temperate climate

HE noted that there’s not even a report of bubonic plague case in the Philippines because it occurs only in temperate climates while the Philippines is a tropical country.

The official added that any report about zoonosis must first be verified, adding that what were reported in Inner Mongolia or Colorado merits a simple advisory to field personnel. “We need to check if that report is true. It may be another fake news for all I know. The real problem right now is Covid-19,” said Calderon. Calderon admitted that there

are now squirrels in the wild, adding that even the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Rescue Center in Quezon City, which houses the BMB office, is host to several squirrels. “I can see the squirrels around, but I am not afraid of them.” He said squirrels, a potentially invasive species, are not harmful as long as their population is manageable, and as long as they are left alone in the wild. “What is important is for people to maintain proper hygiene and sanitation,” and avoid interacting with wild animals, because they are potential carriers of deadly viruses or diseases. It is best to stay away from wild animals, he stressed, and to anyone who sees a dead animal, “I advise them to report it to the nearest DENR office for proper handling.” In the case of the 15-year-old boy in Mongolia, he was reported to have hunted and eaten marmots, large ground squirrels implicated in plague outbreaks in the area. Rodents have always been tagged as the primary vector of plague transmission from animals to humans, but one could also get it from the bite of fleas hosted by an infected animal. On July 15 CNN reported: “Authorities in the Chinese

region of Inner Mongolia also confirmed a case of the plague in the city of Bayannur, northwest of Beijing, on July 7, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. “In 2019, a couple in Mongolia died after eating a raw marmot kidney, triggering a quarantine that left several tourists stranded in the region.” The CNN report also cited the case of the squirrel in Colorado that tested positive for the plague. “The US reports up to a few dozen cases every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Two people died in Colorado from the plague in 2015. “The plague has recently made a comeback, and the World Health Organization has categorized it as a re-emerging disease,” added the CNN report. “Anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people get the plague every year, according to the WHO, but that estimate does not account for unreported cases,” it added. Whatever the real number may be, it seems disease experts are now more wary and taking greater pains to monitor disease, what with the painful lessons from Covid-19 and Wuhan still haunting everyone—and killing people by the thousands each day.

China is forcing the world to find new ways to deal with it Continued from A1

multilaterally, respecting allies, and committing to a reliable and predictable set of well-thought-through policies, which align ways, means and ends—are not part of this administration’s playbook,” Gill said. For much of Trump’s term, he’s shied away from criticizing China for human-rights violations, veering between a trade war and publicly admiring Xi. Now, the US is stepping up its actions from stronger measures against telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. to requiring Chinese state media in the US to register as foreign agents to imposing sanctions on top Chinese officials. “For China, sticking to its own domestic priorities—for instance, the decision to ram through security legislation in Hong Kong, the emphasis on building self-reliance in high-tech industry, and sticking to China’s own political system regardless of the US attacks—are themselves the biggest retaliation against the US and the Trump administration,” said Shi Yinhong, an adviser to China’s Cabinet and a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Dependence factor

OFFICIALS from multiple countries say the only solution to dealing with China is to better band together, with or without America. They are starting to do so in new and interesting ways—particularly middle powers like Australia, Canada, India and the UK, which have long struggled to balance their economic reliance on China with their strategic concerns about its actions. The US is belatedly attempting to repair some relationships: Diplomats are

seeking to rally allies in Asia and elsewhere, according to a senior Trump administration official and two senior western diplomats in China. Part of the clarion call is to reduce economic dependency on China via supply chain disengagement, while cranking up domestic investments in advanced technology and manufacturing. Australia, Canada and the UK recently released a statement alongside the US condemning Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong. One Western diplomat described a more united approach to China as the “new normal.” After the border clash with China, Indian officials said they planned to invite Australia to annual naval exercises alongside Japan and the US, signaling progress on the on-again, off-again security grouping of nations known as the Quad.

Diverse agenda

IT’S not going to be easy. Some China hawks in Trump’s inner circle still want to try and force a Soviet-style collapse of the Communist Party, an approach other nations won’t support, one US official said. In a recent meeting with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell suggested a dedicated dialogue with the US focused solely on China. But an official close to French President Emmanuel Macron warned the EU shouldn’t become a mediator between Washington and Beijing, in part because Europe had its own agenda and proposals. And from Africa to Southeast Asia, China’s economic diplomacy—often in regions largely ignored by the Trump administration and US investors— makes ties with Beijing too valuable to throw out. In some ways, Trump’s approach to China has created a vicious cycle. One US official said some fear the countries are stuck in a doom loop of titfor-tat measures that leave both sides worse off. There’s no longer trusted go-betweens such as ex-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs chief executive officer. Some allies are tired of being lectured by US officials on Huawei and feel that multilateral forums have had their agendas taken over by the US-China rivalry, one Western diplomat said. Rather than attempt to alter China’s overall approach or its internal politics, smaller countries have opted to

pursue technical cooperation on issues such as climate change, they said. A senior European official echoed that view, saying leaders wanted to keep China as a partner on some matters. Another said EU nations see more room for collaboration with China than the US and worry that antagonizing Beijing could see it block progress on peripheral issues, including Afghanistan and Syria. While recent attempts to cooperate—including a parliamentary alliance of lawmakers in the US and seven other democracies—are important, Trump is unlikely to “win continental European hearts as it has for the Five Eyes,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist with Natixis SA. It’s possible though such an effort would succeed under Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival in the November election, she said. At the same time, large swathes of the world are content with the benefits of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative on trade and infrastructure.

Unprepared?

“I DON’T think development aid is as much of a priority for African leaders as credit from China that is not tied to certain conditions—whether it’s rule of law, anti-corruption, transparency,” said Adewunmi Emoruwa, the lead strategist for Nigeria-based advisory service firm Gatefield. While some Chinese projects in the developing world have caused controversy—in places such as Sri Lanka—and concern about high debt levels, many nations, particularly those in Africa, lack the resources or expertise to establish alternate supply chains. China is Africa’s biggest trading partner, with two-way flows totaling more than $180 billion—almost four times that of America. Chinese investments often come without conditions imposed by Western donors. China’s role in global manufacturing and the vested interests of Western allies also makes it difficult for Trump to argue persuasively for a full decoupling from the world’s second-largest economy, said Charles Liu, a former diplomat and founder of Hao Capital, a private equity firm. “The US hasn’t prepared itself mentally for the rise of China, so it has been trying to find ways to create problems for China and limit its ascent,” said Shen Shishun, senior researcher at the China Institute of International Studies under China’s Foreign Ministry. “The US is creating problems on China’s doorstep, so of course China will not step away from this.”

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Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

I.A.T.F. mandates DTI to issue ‘negative list’ of biz industries

By Samuel P. Medenilla

h e I n t e r - A g e n c y Ta s k Fo rc e f o r t h e M a n a g e m e n t o f E m e rg i n g I n f e c t i o u s Diseases has authorized the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to reclassify which industries will be prohibited to operate in areas under community quarantine. P re s i d e n t i a l s p o k e s m a n H a r r y R o q u e s a i d t h e n e w m a n d a t e w a s ve s t e d t o t h e DT I i n a m e e t i n g o n T h u r s d a y t h r o u g h R e s o l u t i o n 5 6 . “The DTI is likewise given authority of the IATF to issue a negative list of industries which shall remain prohibited even in areas under MGCQ [modified general community quarantine],” Roque said in a news statement issued on Friday. MGCQ is currently the community quarantine classification with the lowest risk in terms of the threat posed by novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Roque said the IATF also authorized DTI to “recategorize cer tain industries for the resumption of their operations, or gradual increase of operating capacity of industries

that are now open.” The reclassification should be done in consultation with the Departments of Finance (DOF), of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and Tourism (DOT). There are currently four classifications of industries depending on their relevance during the Covid-19 crisis. Fo o d p ro d u c t i o n a n d u t i l i t i e s b e l o n g t o Ca t e g o r y 1 b e c a u s e o f t h e i r i m p o r t a n c e, while less relevant industries such as tourism and leisure -related industries b e l o n g t o Ca t e g o r y 4 . IATF Resolution 56 allows DTI industries from Category 4 to Category 3. “The resumption of, or gradual increase in operating capacity, and continued operations of Category 3 industries shall be subject to their proprietors’ compliance with the proper health protocols set by DTI,” IATF said in its five-page issuance. IATF gave DTI the additional powers for the implementation of the second phase of the National Action Plan for the Covid-19 crisis, which will focus on allowing more businesses to operate during the pandemic.

SENATOR ASKS LGUS TO PROVIDE ‘SAFE’ ROAD SPACE FOR BICYCLES

en. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go is appealing to local authorities to install m o re b i ke l a n e s to e n c o u r a g e m o re Filipinos to use bic ycles given the current limited transportation options due to existing quarantine measures. In a news statement, Go acknowledged that “despite the gradual relaxation of quarantine measures, public transpor tation remains a challenge for many Filipinos in many areas in the country due to social distancing measures.” G o ex p re s s e d h i s o p e nn e s s e a r l i e r to suggestions of allowing motorcycle backriding, subject to strict adherence to health protocols, given the limited transportation options for Filipinos. “ Malaking tulong sa ating mga kababayan na papayagan ang ‘backriding’ sa motorsiklo lalo na dahil limitado pa ang public transpor tation. Huwag lang po natin madaliin. Siguraduhin dapat na magagawa ito sa ligtas na paraan ,” said Go. Proposed guidelines on motorc ycle backriding specifically allowing family members have been submitted by the Technical Working Group to the Inter-Agency Task Force

on Emerging Infectious Diseases and will also be reviewed further by the National Task Force Covid-19 with its own recommendations. Go asked local government units (LGUs), in coordination with concerned government agencies, to designate more bic ycle lanes with proper lane markings, road safety signs and lighting, among other safety measures, when feasible. “This is both to encourage more people to use bicycles as an active mode of transportation and to ensure their safety, particularly those plying busy streets in big cities,” Go said. The senator also encouraged the public to consider the use of bicycles as an active mode of transportation. Go likewise reminded the public to comply with traffic guidelines when using bicycles. “ At dapat palaging sinusunod ang lahat ng batas trapiko, kasama na ang pagsuot ng helmet, hindi lang para sa inyong kaligtasan kundi para na rin sa ibang gumagamit ng ating mga kalsada ,” he said. Go cited Davao City as an example for LGUs that seeks to install their bike lanes to provide transportation options to their constituents.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

Tourism chief allows MICE events but participants limited to only 50% By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

that they can push through before the year ends.”

Special to the BusinessMirror

EETINGS, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) are now allowed to be held in areas under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) status, but only at 50-percent seating capacity of the event venue. Said guidelines are contained in Administrative Order 20200 0 3 , s i g ne d o n Tu e s d ay b y Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat. The guidelines also allow MICE events in other community quarantine areas, but only via online platforms. “MICE tourism plays a critical role in our recovery with its innate characteristic to boost local economy, generate employment and directly benefit tourism entrepreneurs. With these guidelines in place, our stakeholders will be assured that their health and wellbeing are protected, as we maintain our position as an established MICE destination,” said the DOT chief in a news statement. The new guidelines also prohibit persons below 21 and over 60 years old from participating in any MICE events, even under MGCQ, in compliance with rules of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases. For its part, SMX Convention Center (SMXCC), one of the leading convention facilities in the country, expressed its support to the DOT’s new MICE guidelines.

“We are one with DOT in implementing the health and safety guidelines for events in the new normal,” said Agnes Pacis, vice president and general manager of SMXCC in a brief exchange with the BusinessMirror. “Although it might take a while before all types of event gatherings resume, SMX Convention Center remains positive for the rest of the year. The preventive measures being undertaken can be initially overwhelming to some if not many, but it is the best way to show our guests that SMX Convention Center will always place its guests and employees’ safety and security as a top priority.” Asked how many events SMXCC-Manila is still hosting for the rest of the year, Pacis said, “We are looking forward to a few major events in the last quarter of the year. The MICE industry is in anticipation of the green light from the relevant authorities and the appropriate lifting of quarantine status to hold these events. A significant decline can be seen from social gatherings, but most major business events are still hopeful

By VG Cabuag

gateway,” Manuel Louie B. Ferrer, the company’s managing director for transportation, said in a news statement. “We believe in the potential of Naia and we see its vital role in our economy’s recover y and continuing development. As our main gateway, it is a symbol of our Philippine identit y and its rehabilitation will be a big step towards achieving our vision of a First World Philippines,” he added. Ferrer said Megawide is now awaiting the next steps from the government. Megawide, with its partner, submitted its proposal for Naia’s rehabilitation on March 1, 2018 to redevelop and rehabilitate the airport, almost the same time when the super consortium bagged the original proponent status. The super consortium, composed of seven— later down to six— of the countr y ’s top conglomerates, wrote the government on July 6, saying it will have difficulty obtaining financing for the Naia unsolicited proposal unless the terms and conditions as approved by the Investment

Mea n w hile , Romu lo P uyat

l i kew ise sig ned Memora ndu m Circu lar 2020 - 006, or the Hea lt h a nd Sa fet y Gu idel ines Gover ning t he O perat ions of MICE orga ni zers a nd venues, or fac i l it ies u nder t he “new nor ma l.” Under this memo, MICE organizers are required to formulate an emergency preparedness plan to prevent the spread of infection at their event. A lso, the venue operator is required to designate an isolation room, or area for persons who feel unwell while at the event, before they are referred to medical personnel, based on the prescribed protocols of the Department of Health. Other guidelines include seating arrangements for different venue setups such as a 1 meterdistance between seats for conference and breakout rooms, and a two person-maximum for each 6-foot table. The layout in exhibits should have wider aisles than usual, preferably more than 3 meters. No adjacent booths shall be directly facing each other. Only pre-packed individual meals and drinks will be allowed as standard food service and packaging at the MICE event. “Similarly, we would like to reiterate that MICE organizers also need to comply with the applicable issuances of the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Trade and Industry, and other sector-related agencies for compliance with the minimum public health standards,” Romulo Puyat stressed. The full texts of the two MICE guidelines are available on the DOT Facebook page.

Coordination Committee and the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Board are revised. The Naia Consortium previously offered to spend some P350 billion in 35 years to rehabilitate, modernize and maintain Naia, which is still the country’s main gateway as other airports are too small. The amount, however, included the P25-billion proposal to build a third runway that will be constructed on reclaimed land. It will be operated as an independent airport. The proposal underwent several changes before the Neda Board approval, with the amount reduced to P102 billion ($2 billion) for a 15-year concession. The Naia Consor tium’s proposal involves expanding and interconnecting the existing terminals of the Naia, upgrading airside facilities and the development of commercial facilities for the first two phases. All existing terminals will be expanded and rehabilitated, and will be connected to each other using what they call a people mover, or an elevated

railway system that transport passengers from one terminal to another. In 2017, the four Naia terminals, which are all not connected with each other, accommodated 42 million passengers, or far more than the combined capacity of 31 million. With these improvements, the capacity of Naia by 2023 should be increased to 58 million passengers per year. The third phase involves the construction of new terminals and the expansion of the existing ones to raise Naia’s capacity to 65 million passengers per year by 2024. It will also involve the development of airside facilities and upgrading works for general utilities, a car park area, passenger connection and miscellaneous facilities corresponding to the increased capacity. The Megawide -GMR proposal in 2018, meanwhile, provides a project cost of $3 billion since it does not include the construction of a third runway on a reclaimed land and shorter concession period of 12 years.

ITB Asia goes virtual

In this regard, all MICE eyes will be looking to ITB Asia this October, as it goes virtual. In a news statement, show organizer Messe Berlin (Singapore) announced that the annual travel trade show, including MICE Show Asia and Travel Tech Asia, will instead be held on a virtual platform due to the uncertainty over continued global travel restrictions and safe distancing measures. The virtual event will be hosted on a newly developed platform, also known as the ITB Community, which will be launched on August 12. It would be recalled that the ITB Berlin, one of the largest travel trade shows in Europe annually attended by Philippine tour operators, carriers, and travel agencies, was canceled in March on Covid-19 worries. Katrina Leung, managing director, Messe Berlin (Singapore) said,“We undertake a huge responsibility as Asia’s leading travel trade show to adapt and serve the travel trade community in recovery. Taking into consideration the need for businesses to connect, it is imperative for us to unite the community to enable business meetings to take place for a seamless knowledge exchange. ITB Community will be the latest permanent addition to a wide variety of offerings we have for our customers to tap into for their business success.” ITB Asia will be held from October 21 to 23.

Health and safety rules

Bishop David designated Megawide-GMR bags original proponent status for Naia redevelopment project as new CBCP president C L

aloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David will temporarily take over the helm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). The vice president of CBCP said his new designation will last until CBCP President and Davao Archbishop Romulo G. Valles makes a full health recovery. David said Valles suffered a mild stroke, which was aggravated by a hospital-acquired pneumonia. “He has been discharged already from the hospital and is recuperating well in his residence. He asked me to take over as Ac ting CBCP

president while he’s recuperating,” David said. In a related development, Bishop Charlie Inzon is now installed as the apostolic vicar of the southern Philippine, which covers the islands of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. According to a news article in CBCPNews, it was reported Inzon’s installation was held last Thursday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. The event was scheduled on May 28, 2020, but was reset to July 16, 2020, because of the community quarantine. Inzon replaced Archbishop Angelito Lampon, who was transferred to Cotabato archdiocese in 2018. Samuel P. Medenilla

Govt to allow entry of FNs with long-term visas in Aug.

h e I nte r -Ag e n c y Ta s k Fo rce f o r t h e M a n a g e m e nt o f E m e rg i n g I n f e c t i o u s D i s e a s e s ( I AT F ) h a s a l l o we d f o re i g n nationals (FNs) with existing long-term visas to enter the country starting next month. In a statement, Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said an FN must first have valid and existing visas at the time of the entry. “This means no new entry visa shall be accepted. They are likewise subject to the maximum capacity of inbound passengers at the port and date of entry, as returning overseas Filipinos will be given priority,” Roque said.

He said FNs must also have pre-booked accredited quarantine facility and a pre-booked novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) testing provider. Last March, the IATF has temporarily ordered the Department of Foreign Affairs to stop issuing visas to FNs as part of government efforts to limit the entry of possible Covid-carriers in the country. However, it exempted FNs, who are spouses and children of Filipino citizens as well as employees of other countries and international organizations from the said restriction.

Samuel P. Medenilla

RED CROSS-LT GROUP MOLECULAR LAB Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Chairman Sen. Richard Gordon (second from left) leads the inauguration of PRC’s sixth molecular lab located in Batangas City. Donated by the LT Group Inc., the listed holding firm of tycoon Lucio C. Tan, the new lab is capable of conducting 4,000 Covid-19 tests daily using its own automated RNA Extraction and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine. Open to the public since July 11, the lab can also detect tuberculosis, cancer, HIV, dengue, malaria, hepatitis and Zika, among others. Joining Gordon are LT Group Chief Finance Officer Jose Gabriel Olives (from left); Atty. Raul Academia of tobacco firm PMFTC; and Asia Brewery Vice President Dr. Rocky Rivera.

ISTED firm Megawide Construction Corp., along with its Indian operating partner GMR Group, has bagged the original proponent status (OPS) for the redevelopment of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), just days after the so-called super consortium walked out of the deal. The company, which already operates Mactan-Cebu International Airport and the current construction of Clark International Airport Terminal 2 project, said it received the OPS from the Manila International Airport Authority on July 15. “The decongestion and rehabilitation of Naia is vital to [the] sustainably [of ] supporting the air traffic needs of our national capital region. Megawide has always been supportive of our government’s vision to improve and modernize the airport infrastructure in the Philippines and we are committed to bringing our experience in airport operations and management, and engineering excellence to the country’s main

Pagasa unit in Naia, vital to aviation safety, shuttered by Covid-19; ad hoc office set up

By Recto L. Mercene

v ital o f f i ce o f t h e P h i l i p p i n e At m o s p h e r i c, G e o p hy s i c a l a n d Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 1 was closed for over a week after two weather specialists tested positive for coronavirus. Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) Public Affairs Office chief Consuelo Bungag said the Pagasa office was closed for disinfection and all airport employees are prohibited to go near the office located at the fourth level of Naia 1. The office is crucial to aviation authorities because they issue timely alerts on thunderstorms that could impact flight operations, as well as warn airport and airline employees, especially those working on the ground. Two years ago, lightning struck two airline employees at the tarmac, killing one. To keep the work going, Pagasa has

transferred some of its operations to an adjacent office operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) to provide a semblance of weather forecasting, including advisory alerts in cases of thunderstorms. “Pagasa has transferred to the Flight Operations Briefing Service [FOBS] just across the room from their office to continue providing weather forecasting and up-to-the-minute storm alerts,” Bungag said. She added that Pagasa has yet to issue a statement as to when their staff would return to their abandoned office, although she said the the Naia is awaiting updated reports on the infected employees. Bungag said disinfecting Pagasa is being fast-tracked because the staff needs to return urgently to their office, which houses all the weather forecasting instruments, including the weather radar monitors and associated equipment. She said Bureau of Quarantine officials are conducting contact tracing to find out those who

might have been in contact with the infected Pagasa employees. Airport Manager Ed Monreal said some 24 airport employees have tested positive for coronavirus for the past months, although majority of them are already out of danger. Pagasa personnel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport provide primary weather forecasts to aviation in the country. It also disseminates its latest forecast across the world through a Caap facility in an adjacent office. One of Pagasa’s airport branch most important contributions lately is issuing various kinds of alerts relative to the effects of approaching cumulunimbus cloud formations that could disrupt aircraft operations at the Naia tarmac due to the deadly threat of lightning strikes. In the last three months alone Pagasa has issued scores of level 1 alerts, forcing airline personnel to abandon the tarmac and to seek cover inside the terminal while a thunderstorm rages in the area, Bungag said.

The World BusinessMirror

Saturday, July 18, 2020

Global air passenger slump to last until 2023–Moody’s

lobal airline passenger demand won’t recover to precoronavirus pandemic levels until the end of 2023, and only then if effective vaccines and medicines are available, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The recovery for airlines and airports will be largely aligned, followed by aircraft lessors as carriers return fleets to service, Moody’s analysts including Jonathan Root wrote in a report. Manufacturers such as Boeing Co. and Airbus SE will be the last in the direct aviation industry to regain their 2019 footing, they wrote. Demand dropped by more than 90 percent within weeks of the onset of the pandemic, a slump that impacted a broad swath of the global economy given that passenger airlines supported about 3 percent

of world gross domestic product in 2019, according to the report. The development of a vaccine will be key in determining the industry’s recovery, both fundamentally and financially, while more government support will probably be necessary to ensure airlines survive, Moody’s said. “With an effective coronavirus vaccine likely not available before well into 2021—and likely longer to cover potential mutations of the virus and to ensure adequate dosage supply for the masses—additional government support will be required for the airline indus-

Many of the seats aboard a United Airlines flight sit empty on May 11, in flight to Houston, Texas, in San Francisco. Air travel is down as estimated 94 percent due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, causing US airlines to take a major financial hit with losses of $350 million to $400 million a day and nearly half of major carriers airplanes are sitting idle. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

try if employment levels are to be maintained near already reduced levels, and potentially to stave off additional airline restructurings and insolvency proceedings,” Moody’s said. There could also be changes to long-haul travel, with some carriers expanding point-to-point

operations and others reverting to hub-to-hub flying, relying on code-share, or joint venture partners to complete journeys. Meanwhile, the need to reduce carbon emissions will “hold out hope” for Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max deliveries, according to Moody’s. Bloomberg News

Rising coronavirus cases threaten US economic recovery

ALTIMORE—Rising coronavirus infections across dozens of states are threatening the US economic recovery, forcing businesses and consumers to freeze spending and keeping the unemployment rate stubbornly high. T he gover nment repor ted Thursday that retail sales rose a sharp 7.5 percent in June, but the positive trend was undercut by more recent data showing that credit card spending has stalled. A separate report showed that more than a million Americans sought unemployment benefits last week—a sign that companies continue to cut jobs as the virus slashes through the heavily populated Sunbelt. Economists fear that any positive momentum could come to a halt later this summer if infections and deaths rise and more businesses close. “Conditions in the labor market remain weak and the risk of mounting permanent job losses is high, especially if activity continues to be disrupted by repeated virus-related shutdowns,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics. It was the 17th consecutive week that jobless claims surpassed 1 million. Prior to the pandemic, just 200,000 people sought unemployment assistance in a typical week. The Labor Department data emerged as the nation saw more

troubling infections. Florida reported a single-day record of 156 deaths, along with nearly 14,000 new cases, mirroring a broader trend this week that has seen the national death rate spike. The seven-day rolling average for new deaths has risen to 730, a more than 21-percent increase from a week ago. Infections are now climbing in 40 states, and 22 states have either paused or reversed efforts to reopen their economies, according to Bank of America. Businesses and consumers alike are adjusting to the perpetual risk of outbreaks. Cash payments are out. Deliveries are in. Skeletal crews are keeping retailers af loat. It’s a moment of both caution and innovation that will likely produce lasting changes in how Americans spend. Business as usual may never return because the steps to improve safety also enable companies to streamline and operate with fewer workers. At the R. House food hall in Baltimore, all orders and payments now go through an app, Toast TakeOut. Customers gather on an outdoor patio instead of venturing inside what had previously been an auto dealership. That reduces the hall’s potential capacity to 100 eaters from 350 before the outbreak and makes the business more reliant on take-out. But the payment app has become a convenience for custom-

ers, who no longer need to wait in lines for cash registers and can settle into their seats while ordering from the local eateries on site that range from authentic tacos to Korean BBQ to Hawaiian poke bowls to fried chicken sandwiches. “Absolutely we’re going to keep using this technology,” said Peter DiPrinzio, director of food and beverage at the food hall. Dedric Richardson, 45, and his wife opened Creole Soul at R. House in December, serving po’ boys, gumbo and shrimp and grits. Sales are rebounding after the shutdown, but they are still down by half, and his staff has shrunk from 10 to four. Noting that he served in the Navy, Richardson is still optimistic that he can steer through the difficult times. “That’s the nature of the beast we’re living in,” he said. “I feel like I’m the cashier, the chef, the everybody.” Consumers are shifting their spending patterns in ways that could make it hard for jobs to return to a retail sector that employed 15.7 million people before the pandemic. Even with the June rebound, sales at eateries and clothiers are down more than 20 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, spending on an annual basis has picked up at building material stores, online outlets and merchants in the sporting goods, musical instrument, books and hobbies categories.

Adding to all this pressure are signs that the recovery in consumer spending began to stall at the end of last month, according to analysis of credit cards by the bank JPMorgan Chase. “This is my biggest nightmare that we would open and reclose small businesses,” said Sandy Sigal, president and chief executive officer of NewMark Merrill Companies, which operates a total of 85 outdoor lifestyle centers in California, Colorado and Illinois. Sixty of the centers are located in California, which has now reclosed gyms and nail salons among other businesses. The total number of people receiving jobless benefits nationwide dropped 400,000, to 17.3 million, last week, the government said, suggesting that hiring in some regions could offset some of the mounting job losses seen last week in Florida, Georgia, California, Arizona and South Carolina. But huge US companies continue to announce layoffs. American Airlines warned workers Wednesday that it may have to cut up to 25,000 jobs in October because of sharply reduced air travel. United Airlines warned 36,000 of its employees last week that they may lose their jobs. The uncertainty of what comes next is heightened by the pending expiration of many of the government-support programs that have shored up the finances of both businesses and families. AP

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Covid infections on the rise in kids and teens with school approaching

As the school year draws near, children and teens represent a ballooning percentage of Covid-19 cases in the US as the youngest Americans increasingly venture outside their homes and are able to get tested. While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has long maintained on its website that those younger than 18 make up only 2 percent of cases, state data paints a much less rosy picture.

mea n t h at somet h i ng bad s the school year draws doesn’t to them,” said 10 near, children and teens California and Mississippi, for instance, arehappen recording rates nearing Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist represent a ballooning percent of overall cases. Florida has found that about a third of all chilat University of South Florida’s percentage of Covid-19 cases in dren tested there are infected. College of Public Health. “Think the US as the youngest Ameriabout cancer. cancer could have upcans increasingly venture outIn response to questions from Bloomberg, the ACDC cited a chart, a tumor developing over 10 side their homes and are able to dated on Friday, with data from the states showing children maketoup 6.4 20 years, and don’t know.” get tested. percent of those infected, though information isn’tyou included on almost 1 Florida’s schools While the US Centers for million cases. The numbers are rising, epidemiologists say,are as slated testing has reopen in symptoms, the fall despite the Disease Control and Prevention become more available to those with to mild or no encompasssurge of cases there and state (CDC) has long maintained on ing many of the pediatric cases, and as those under 18 are increasingly reports that 31 percent of chilits webin site thatactivities. those younger involved social dren tested there were positive. than 18 make up only 2 percent Salemi,building who helps run the of cases, state data paints a much At the same time, there is enormous pressure to reopen in-class CovKids Project, which collects less rosy picture. schooling from parents who need to return to work, childhood development data on casessees in it children and for California and Trump Mississippi, specialists and the administration, which as a linchpin teens, said he supports schools for instance, are recording rates the economy in an election year. Others remain skeptical. reopening responsibly with ronearing 10 percent of overall casin placeand to keep es. Florida has found about a why bust “I think we need to that understand that’splans happening whatchilit means safe, Nuzzo, something he doesn’t of allofchildren tested there said dren forthird the risk this virus in kids,” Jennifer a senior scholar at think Florida is capable of for right infected. theare Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center Health now. In response to questions from Security. “Our understanding for how it effects kids is evolving.” The projectacross has tracked Bloomberg, the reported CDC cited Virus data isn’t in a aconsistent manner states. 769 But pubpediatric intensive-care unitvastly chart, updated on Friday, with licly available databases show that in many cases, the numbers are related to the virus data from states showing different thanthe what the CDC continuesadmissions to say on the portion of its website across the US since mid-March, children make up 6.4 percent of meant to provide Covid-19 information to pediatric health-care providers, and 29. 66 deaths in those younger those infected, informaa site that hasn’t though been updated since May than 20. Some of thefrom severe cases corotion isn’t included on almost 1 �Studies have found that children tend not to suffer severe have resulted in a condition simi- They million cases. The numbers are navirus symptoms as often as adults, but there remain unknowns. lar to Kawasaki disease, which rising, epidemiologists say, as include the potential long-term effects of a Covid-19 infection, and at what cause heart andincirculatory testing has can become more the availrate students transmit virus tocan each other while the classroom, problems. able to those with mild or no as well as the effect on their teachers. symptoms, encompassing “Just because somebody many doesn’t die from this doesn’t mean that someof the pediatric cases, to andthem,” as said Older Americans thing bad doesn’t happen Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist those under 18 are increasingly Ageofdata collected from stateabout at University of South Florida’s College Public Health. “Think involved in social activities. health departments Bloomcancer. A cancer could have a tumor developing over 10 toby20 years, and At the same time, there is berg shows that the oldest Ameryou don’t know.” enormous pressure building to now a lower perFlorida’s schools are slated to reopenicans in the fallrepresent despite the surge of cases reopen in-class schooling from centage of infections than they there and state reports that 31 percent of children tested there were positive. parents need to to did at thewhich start collects of the outbreak. Salemi, who helps runreturn the CovKids Project, data on cases work, childhood development The surge in recent cases is with in children and teens, said he supports schools reopening responsibly specialists and the Trump adled by the group most likely robust plans in place to keep children safe, something he doesn’ttothink ministration, which seesnow. it as a have school-aged children, those Florida is capable of right linchpin for the economy in an in their 20s, 30s and unit up to admissions their The project has tracked 769 pediatric intensive-care election year. Others remain 50s in some states. related to the virus across the US since mid-March, and 66 deaths in those skeptical. theresulted same time, preva- simiyounger than 20. Some of the severe cases At have in a the condition “I think we need to underlence in children has risen as lar to Kawasaki disease, which can cause heart and circulatory problems. stand why that’s happening testing has become more availOlder Americans and it means from for the riskhealthable to those with mild or noshows Age what data collected state departments by Bloomberg of this virus in kids,” said Jensymptoms. that the oldest Americans now represent a lower percentage of infections nifer Nuzzo, senior scholar “Without the testing, we were than they did ata the start of theatoutbreak. the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg blind,” said Margaret Aldrich, School of Public Health’s Center director infection The surge in recent cases is led by the groupof most likelycontrol to havefor schoolfor Health Security. “Our underthe Children’s Hospital Monaged children, those in their 20s, 30s and up to their 50s inat some states. standing for how it effects kids tefiore in the Aldrich’s At the same time, the prevalence in children hasBronx. risen as testing has is evolving.” hospital its own lab so it become more available to those with mild or nohas symptoms. Virus data isn’t reported in a tests every child “Without the testing, we were blind,” said Margaretadmitted Aldrich,and director consistent manner across states. is able to turn around of infection control for the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore inresults the Bronx. But publicly available databases aboutevery six hours, much dif-and is Aldrich’s hospital has its own lab so itintests child aadmitted show that in many cases, the ferent experience than theexperience long able to turn around results in about six hours, a much different numbers are vastly different wait times at testing sites around than the long wait times at testing sites around the country. than what doctors, the CDC itcontinues the that country. For many isn’t surprising children have the virus in to say on the portion of its web For doctors, itto isn’t surlarger numbers than was believed. But it begsmany the question, what extent site meant to provide Covid-19 prising that children have the will they spread it? information virus in larger numbers than Flu Spread to pediatric healthcare providers, a site that hasn’t believed. influenza, But it begs Children are often the primary driverwas in spreading andthe though been updated since May 29. question, to what extent will in coronavirus transmission hasn’t appeared to be as strong via children havenot found chilthey spread it? other Studies countries, all that researchers are reassured with the US unable to dren tend not to suffer from severe bring the virus under control. Bloomberg News coronavirus symptoms as often as Flu spread adults, but there remain unknowns. Children are often the priThey include the potential longmary driver in spreading influterm effects of a Covid-19 infection, enza, and though coronavirus and at what rate students can transtransmission hasn’t appeared to mit the virus to each other while in be as strong via children in other the classroom, as well as the effect countries, not all researchers are on their teachers. reassured with the US unable to “Just because somebody bring the virus under control. doesn’t die from this doesn’t Bloomberg News

Trump’s HK action will hurt American biz, AmCham says

resident D o n a l d J. Trump’s move to end Hong Kong’s special status under US law will hurt the country’s business interests and deepen pessimism about the Asian financial hub’s future, the American Chamber of Commerce’s local branch said. “ We regret the revocation of Hong Kong’s special trade status with the United States under the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act, which we believe will hurt American businesses in Hong Kong,” AmCham

Hong Kong said in a news statement issued on Friday. Trump ordered an end to Hong Kong’s special status with the US earlier this week, signing legislation that would sanction Chinese officials responsible for cracking down on dissent in the city. The move would have a wide-ranging impact on everything from US exports and Hong Kong resident visa applications to how financial institutions in Hong Kong deal with Chinese clients. China denounced the action as a “gross interference” in the

countr y’s internal affairs nd vowed to impose sanctions on US officials and entities. Referring to a recent survey of its members, AmCham said Trump’s move would further harm the city’s reputation, which has been hit over the last year by sometimes-violent pro-democracy protests, the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent imposition by Beijing of sweeping national security legislation. “We fear revocation of Hong Kong’s special status with the US will only deepen that pessimism,”

the chamber said. The Trump administration is cranking up attacks on China as the President seeks to strengthen his position in what appears to be an uphill reelection fight against former US Vice President Joe Biden. The US has escalated disputes over everything from the 5G ambitions of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. I n a s p e e c h T hu r s d ay i n Michigan, US Attorney General William Barr criticized China

for what he called a global attempt to export its dictatorship and authoritarian values. He accused US firms of being short-sighted and naive about China’s long-term ambitions. “The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg—an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government, indeed whole-of-society, campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent superpower,” Barr said. Bloomberg News

www.businessmirror.com.ph

The World BusinessMirror

Struggling India crosses 1M coronavirus cases

EW DELHI—India has crossed 1 million coronavirus cases, third only to the United States and Brazil, prompting concerns about its readiness to confront an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test the country’s feeble health-care system. A surge of 34.956 new cases in the past 24 hours took the national total to 1,003,832. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported a record number of 687 deaths for a total of 25,602. The ministry said the recovery rate was continuing to improve at 63 percent. The grim milestone comes at a time when several Indian states are imposing focused lockdowns to stem the outbreak amid frantic efforts by local governments to protect the economy. So far, three states—Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu—have accounted for more than half of total cases. But in India’s vast countryside, which is much less prepared and with weaker health care, the pandemic is clearly growing. “The acceleration in cases remains the main challenge for India in the coming days,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, adding that a vast majority of cases were still being missed. The continuing surge has forced authorities to reinstate lockdowns in some cities and states. In Bangalore, a city that prides itself as the center of Indian technology innovation, the government ordered a weeklong lockdown that began Tuesday evening after the cases surged exponentially. In Bihar, an eastern state with a population of 128 million and a fragile health system, a two-week lockdown was announced Thursday. In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state with more than 200 million people, authorities have started placing residents under strict weekend curfews, which will remain in place until the end of the month. Other local governments are increasingly focusing on smaller lockdowns that shield the economy. Nearly a dozen states have imposed restrictions on “containment zones”—areas that can be as small as a few houses or a street. Dr. Anant Bhan, a global health researcher, said that India was likely to see “a series of peaks,” as the infection spread in rural areas. He pointed out that the capital of New Delhi and the financial capital, Mumbai, had already seen surges, while infections have now shifted to smaller cities. India’s response to the virus was initially sluggish and then it bought time by locking down its entire population of 1.4 billion people

when Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a nationwide lockdown for three weeks on March 24. “If [the] situation is not handled in these 21 days, the country and your family could go back 21 years,” Modi said then in a televised address to Indians, many of whom were still unaware of the scale of the crisis in the country. The nationwide lockdown, then extended for five more weeks, came at an enormous economic cost amid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis when millions of impoverished migrant workers were forced to return to the countryside due to job losses and hunger. Aimed at increasing the capacity of the healthcare system, the lockdown slowed down the virus, but it wasn’t enough. Cases kept increasing while testing still remained abysmally low and the virus rocketed through India’s vast landscape—from high up in the Himalayan Kashmir to the sprawling beaches of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu. “Slowdown isn’t eradication,” said Jayaprakash Muliyil, an epidemiologist at the Christian Medical College in Vellore. Muliyil said that India had to try and slow down the virus because it didn’t have enough beds but was only partly successful since the “requirement was quite large.” India’s public health-care system is one of the most chronically underfunded in the world and access to hospitals in rural areas is very low. Experts say the challenge for India will be to tightrope the opening up of the economy while trying to restrict the increase in cases to manageable levels that don’t overwhelm hospitals. “India’s strategy going forward will revolve around containment zones,” said Rajesh Bhushan of India’s federal Health Ministry. Once more zones are mapped out, health-care workers will go from house to house and test those with symptoms, he said. Experts say low testing remains a concern. Dr. Ujjwal Parakh, a senior consultant at the department of respiratory medicine at Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi, said authorities could have been more transparent about testing guidelines. Initially, India had some of the world’s most stringent testing criteria and used only about a third of its testing capacity. After months of sluggishness, it has now ramped up testing, from a single lab in January to over 1,200. Over 300,000 samples are being tested every day. In some cities, it has also allowed tests without a doctor’s prescription. “The battle plan is to do all the things we know work. Open the economy, as much as it is safe. Track things very closely,” said Jha. “But don’t let the virus get a foothold.” AP

Piracy in Asian waters in H1 rises to highest in five years

iracy and armed robbery against ships in Asian waters in the first half of 2020 shot up to its highest level in five years and nearly double the number recorded in the same period a year earlier. A total of 51 incidents were reported in the region in the January-to-June period, 50 of which were actual and one was an attempt, according to data from ReCAAP ISC, a piracy information group with 20 member-nations, mostly in Asia. That compared with 28 incidents reported in the same period a year earlier and is the highest tally since 114 recorded in the first six months of

2015, the data showed. The incidents occurred in the Singapore Strait and South China Sea, as well as waters off countries including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Thirty-one of the 51 incidents occurred while the ships were anchored and the remaining when they were in transit, according to the data. Piracy and armed robbery in the Singapore Strait, one of the world’s busiest commercial maritime routes, doubled from a year ago to 16 incidents. Chinese ports recorded no such occurrence in the period versus three incidents last year. Bloomberg News

Monsoon floods, landslides kill at least 221 in South Asia

EW DELHI—Floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 221 people across South Asia over the past month, officials said Friday. More than 1 million people have been marooned in Nepal, Bangladesh and India and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes for higher ground. Indian officials said floods and mudslides killed 16 more people in the northeast and eight people were killed in building collapses in Mumbai, raising the death toll in the country to 101. Nepal reported at least 117 deaths over the past month and Bangladesh reported three. Eight people were killed in two partial building collapses in Mumbai on Thursday, the fire service control room said on Friday. One of the buildings was dilapidated and most residents had vacated it for repair but some families stayed, the fire service said. Six people died there. Rains caused the Brahmaputra River, which flows through Tibet, India and Bangladesh, to burst its banks in India’s Assam state late last month, inundating large swathes of the state, triggering mudslides and displacing about 3.6 million people, officials said. Vast tracts are still underwater, with 26 of the state’s 33 districts badly affected. Authorities rescued about 4,000 people trapped by the surging flood waters in various parts of Assam, said M.S. Mannivanan, chief of the state Disaster

Management Authority. About 36,000 people whose homes were destroyed or submerged have taken shelter in nearly 300 government-run relief camps, he said. The floods also inundated most of India’s Kaziranga National Park, home to an estimated 2,500 rare one-horned rhinos, authorities said. In the eastern state of Bihar, at least nine rivers swollen by heavy downpours in Nepal rose beyond their danger levels and inundated many villages. One of them, the Gandak River, swept away the connecting roads of a newly built multimillion-dollar bridge in Bihar’s Gopalganj district, disrupting transportation in the area. The Meteorological Center in the state capital, Patna, forecast heavy rain over the next 48 hours. Nepal’s Home Ministry said 117 people have died in monsoon-related incidents, including landslides in mountainous areas and flooding in the southern plains. At least 47 people were reported missing and 126 have been injured in the past month, it said. In Bangladesh, the Ministry of Disaster and Relief said at least three people have died and more than 1 million people have been marooned since floods hit the country late last month. Officials said heavy rainfall and the onrush of river waters from upstream India were creating havoc in Bangladesh, a delta nation of 160 million people that is crisscrossed by 230 rivers. AP

Saturday, July 18, 2020

Russia is hacking virus vaccine trials, US, UK and Canada say By Eric Tucker, Jill Lawless & Danica Kirka

The Associated Press

ASHINGTON—Western governments on Thursday accused hackers believed to be part of Russian intelligence of trying to steal valuable private information about a coronavirus vaccine, calling out the Kremlin in an unusually detailed public warning to scientists and medical companies.

The alleged culprit is a familiar foe. Intelligence agencies in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada say the hacking group APT29, also known as Cozy Bear, is attacking academic and pharmaceutical research institutions involved in Covid-19 vaccine development. The same group was implicated in the hacking of Democratic e-mail accounts during the 2016 US presidential election. It was unclear whether any useful information was stolen. But British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “It is completely unacceptable that the Russian Intelligence Services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic.” He accused Moscow of pursuing “selfish interests with reckless behavior.” Sticking to more general language, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “We worked very closely with our allies to ensure that we would take measures to keep that information safe and we continue to do so.” The allegation that hackers linked to a foreign government are attempting to siphon secret research during the pandemic is not entirely new. US officials as recently as Thursday have accused China of similar conduct. But the latest warning was startling for the detail it provided, attributing the targeting by name to a particular hacking group and specifying the software vulnerabilities the hackers have been exploiting. Also, Russian cyber attacks strike a particular nerve in the US given the Kremlin’s sophisticated campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. And the coordination of the new warning across continents seemed designed to add heft and gravity to the announcement and to prompt the Western targets of the hackers to protect themselves.

“I think [the governments] have very specific intelligence that they can provide,” said John Hultquist, senior director of analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence. “The report is full of specific operational information that defenders can use” to protect their networks. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, rejected the accusations, saying, “We don’t have information about who may have hacked pharmaceutical companies and research centers in Britain.” “We may say one thing: Russia has nothing to do with those attempts,” Peskov said, according to the state news agency Tass. The accusations come at a tenuous time for relations between Russia and both the US and UK. Besides political ill will, especially among Democrats, about the 2016 election interference, the Trump administration is under pressure to confront Russia over intelligence information that Moscow offered bounties to Taliban fighters to attack allied fighters. The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said “it’s clear that Russia’s malign cyber operations and other destabilizing activities—from financial and other material support to non-state actors in Afghanistan to poisoning dissidents in democratic countries—have persisted, even when exposed.” He urged President Donald Trump to condemn such activities. The vaccine assessment came two years to the day after Trump met with Putin in Helsinki and appeared to side with Moscow over US intelligence agencies about the election interference. The UK did not say whether Putin knew about the more recent research hacking, but British officials believe such intelligence would be highly prized. Relations between Russia and

In this March 16 file photo, a subject receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine by Moderna for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. Britain, the United States and Canada accused Russia on Thursday, July 16, 2020, of trying to steal information from researchers seeking a Covid-19 vaccine. AP

the UK, meanwhile, have plummeted since former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Soviet-made nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury in 2018, though they later recovered. Britain blamed Moscow for the attack, which triggered a round of retaliatory diplomatic expulsions between Russia and Western countries. More broadly, Thursday’s announcement speaks to the cybersecurity vulnerability created by the pandemic and the global race for a vaccine. The US Department of Homeland Security’s cyber-security agency warned in May that cybercriminals and other groups were targeting Covid-19 research, noting at the time that the increase in people teleworking because of the pandemic had created potential avenues for hackers to exploit. Profit-motivated cr imina ls have ex ploited the situation, and so have foreign governments “who also have their own urgent demands for information about the pandemic and about things like vaccine research,” Tonya Ugoretz, a deputy assistant director in the FBI’s cyber division, said at a cyber-security conference last month. “Some of them are using their cyber capabilities to, for example, attempt to break into the networks of those who are conducting this research as well as into nongovernmental organizations to satisfy their own information needs,” Ugoretz said. The alert did not name the targeted organizations themselves, or say how many were affected. But it did say the organizations were in the US, UK and Canada, and said the goal was to steal information and intellectual property related to vaccine development. Britain’s NCSC said its assessment was shared by the National

Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and by the Canadian Communication Security Establishment. A 16-page advisory prepared by Western agencies and made public Thursday accuses Cozy Bear of using custom malicious software to target a number of organizations globally. The malware, called WellMess and WellMail, has not previously been associated with the group, the advisory said. “In recent attacks targeting Covid-19 vaccine research and development, the group conducted basic vulnerability scanning against specific external IP addresses owned by the organizations. The group then deployed public exploits against the vulnerable services identified,” the advisory said. Cozy Bear is one of two hacking groups suspected of separate break-ins of computer networks of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 US election. Stolen e-mails were then published by WikiLeaks in what US intelligence authorities say was an effort to aid Trump’s campaign over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. A report on Russian election interference by former special counsel Robert Mueller called out another group, Fancy Bear, in the hack-and-leak operation. Cozy Bear, though, operates “quietly gaining access and gathering intelligence,” said Hultquist of the Mandiant cyber-security firm. Their goal, he said, is “good oldfashioned espionage.” Separately, Thursday, Britain accused “Russian actors” of trying to interfere in December’s UK national election by circulating leaked, or stolen documents online. Unlike in the vaccine report, the UK did not allege that the Russian government was involved in the political meddling.

Hackers targeted just 130 people in cyber attack–Twitter statement

witter Inc. revealed hackers targeted just 130 accounts during the cyber attack this week that compromised some of the world’s most recognizable people, though no passwords were stolen. The US company said the still-unknown perpetrators had gained control of a subset of those accounts and were able to send tweets. Twitter has blocked data downloads from affected accounts as its investigation continues, it said on its online support page. “We’re working with impacted account owners and will continue to do so over the next several days,” the company said. “We are continuing to assess whether non-public data related to these accounts was compromised, and will provide updates if we determine that occurred.”

Details are trickling out about the hack that affected global political and business leaders, including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. Those who gained access to the accounts used them to attempt a Bitcoin scam, sending tweets asking for people to give them money in exchange for a bigger payment in return. Twitter is grappling with the worst security breach in its 14-year history. It’s said the hack was part of a “coordinated social engineering attack” that targeted its own employees. That granted hackers access to some of the company’s internal systems, and then high-profile user accounts, it said. That forced Twitter to temporarily halt verified accounts from sending any tweets. Twitter is still probing how the attack was

carried out and has not disclosed if any other information from the accounts—such as data like private messages—was compromised. The company’s explanation so far has ignited speculation over the identity of the perpetrators and what they were actually targeting in the attack. The scale of the endeavor and its timing—months before the November US elections—have prompted some cybersecurity experts to theorize that the attack masked a more nefarious campaign to seize sensitive data. Some people who changed their passwords in the past 30 days may still be blocked from accessing their accounts, the company said earlier, but that doesn’t mean those accounts were compromised.

“We have no evidence that attackers accessed passwords,” Twitter said in an update Thursday. “Currently, we don’t believe resetting your password is necessary.” It will take “significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing.” US politicians quickly called on Twitter to share more information. “The ability of bad actors to take over prominent accounts, even fleetingly, signals a worrisome vulnerability in this media environment,” said Democratic Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and one of the tech industry’s most vocal critics. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the hack.

Bloomberg News

A6 Saturday, July 18, 2020

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

Davao Oriental expands cacao beans output for domestic, export market

By Manuel T. Cayon | Mindanao Bureau Chief

AVAO CITY—Cacao farmers in Davao Oriental are primed for a wider production engagement with the multi-awarded chocolate maker here with fresh financial aid from the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP). The project, dubbed “Fermented Cacao Beans Marketing Enterprise Sub-project” seeks to involve farmers’ cooperatives in seven municipalities to produce quality beans for the products of Malagos Chocolates owned by the Puentespina family of Davao City. The PRDP-funded project would be centralized under the lead proponent group, Nagmasid Agrarian Reform Cooperative of San Isidro municipality, to establish post-harvest

and marketing facilities in the seven municipalities of Davao Oriental. The six other groups are the Panikian Cacao Small Farmers Association in Banaybanay, Nagkahiusang Kristohanong Mag-uuma sa Cocornon Cooperatives in Lupon, Governor Generoso Cacao Growers Association in Governor Generoso, Limot Mandaya Tribal Multi-purpose Cooperative in Tarragona, Yagakauyon na Kooperatiba sa San Ignacio in Manay, and the Davao Oriental Coconut Industry Develop-

ment Coalition in the city of Mati. The PRDP approved the funding requirement of P14 million for the project under its Investment for Rural Enterprise for Agricultural Productivity (I-REAP) component. The check was handed over to Nagmasid cooperative on July 1. Witnesses to the turnover were Davao Oriental Governor Nelson Dayanghirang, San Isidro Municipal Mayor Justina Yu, Regional Director for Region 11 and PRDP Mindanao Project Director Ricardo Oñate, PSO Mindanao I-REAP head Ronnie Yulo, municipal local government officials, as well as cooperative managers and members of the project’s recipient proponent groups. “Our support will not just end after the distribution of seedlings but will continue with provisions for processing and marketing, with assistance on where to sell your products to maximize your income,” Dayanghirang said. “We produce high-quality cacao beans here in Davao Oriental so our dream should be to come up with a finished product—if possible, chocolates

that we can sell to other countries,” he added. “By our continued support we would in effect be hitting not just two but three birds, namely, food security, livelihood for farmer and fisherfolk, and livelihood for former insurgents,” Oñate said. “We still have a lot of work to do.” In total, PRDP turned over 14 solar tunnel dryers, seven fermentation facilities, one warehouse, one cargo truck, seven weighing scales, and three motorcycles that would be distributed to the seven cooperatives in the seven recipient municipalities. In addition, a check for P1 million was also given as a counterpart loan care of the Provincial Cooperative Office. Aside from these, the proponent groups would wait for the arrival of eight units of moisture meters to complete the list of facilities and equipment for turnover to the sub-project. All in all the total cost of the subproject is P14,524,197 and would benefit 924 households in the seven sub-project sites in Davao Oriental, the PRDP said.

China buys record commodities haul to fuel post-virus recovery

HINA’S imports of raw materials, from oil to soybeans to copper, surged to records last month as the top commodities consumer fuels a recovery from the pandemic that has slammed global growth and roiled markets. Shipments of crude and soybeans rocketed in June as cheap cargoes bought during the depths a price crash continued to arrive, while unwrought copper and iron ore purchases jumped on expectations Chinese manufacturingactivitywillunlockdemand. The country first hit by Covid-19 is indicating signs of an economic revival, with

figures released on Tuesday alongside commodity trade data showing China’s overall exports and imports both rose last month. The surprising increases come as some developed economies started to reopen, potentially bolstering the outlook for exports from the Asian nation in coming months. “Import volumes were particularly strong, which points to robust domestic demand as well as some opportunistic buying when prices were low,” Capital Economics said in a note. Monthly imports may dip after recent rises in commodity prices, and a further pickup in

economic activity elsewhere should give a lift to China’s exports, it said. The world’s second-biggest economy imported the most oil ever last month as a long line of vessels carrying cheap oil waits to offload shipments at already-swollen storage tanks. The Brent crude benchmark averaged a little over $40 per barrel last month, compared to $63 last year. Likewise, a record haul of soybeans arrived after crushers increased purchases from Brazil to profit from cheap supplies amid rising demand for animal feed as the hog herd recovery gains traction. China’s

natural gas imports jumped 11 percent from last year due in part to an uptick in buying of seaborne deliveries, while other North Asian nations cut back shipments. Meanwhile, purchases of unwrought copper and products jumped to a record, while iron ore imports neared an all-time high despite a recent price rally. Data also showed the different trajectories underway in the global steel market, with Chinese imports climbing to levels unseen since the global financial crisis and exports dropping to their lowest in eight years. Bloomberg News

MSMEs told to innovate, look for opportunities in era of the ‘new normal’

ICRO, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the current coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) are encouraged to innovate and look for opportunities as they prepare for the “new normal” of doing business after the pandemic. Synergizing Recovery Initiatives, Knowledge, and Adaptation Practices for MSMEs, or SIKAP, an online Covid-19 recovery hub, said the coronavirus crisis has caused many establishments to improve their typical operations, such as logistics and transactions. It said apps such as LalaMove are delivery services online so MSMEs’ products can reach their customers. “This is an opportunity for you to engage with your customers online, through Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram. It is also important that you keep in touch with your customers so they can be updated of your operating hours, the available products you sell, your menu, and the methods that they can pay for their purchase,” SIKAP said. Firms can also constantly check online the situation and well-being of their employees, it said. “Engage your business too on FB groups where sellers can post their products and buyers can comment on them,” it added. They are, likewise, called to identify consumer behavior that changes too as much as how every sector is affected and should change their operations. “Because there would be limited contact with your customers when your business reopens, you may conduct surveys through e-mails, or by messaging them, so that they can answer and submit comments on how you can serve them better, or to just simply how they got through the quarantine without your services,” it said. SIKAP said MSMEs can ask their customers such as what products of their business did they miss the most during the quarantine, or their alternative at home when their services were not available. “Another way to listen to your market is to go on social media and observe the posts of people. You can observe what product they should have according to their needs,” it added. SIKAP also underscored the need for firms to be innovative and creative at their business so they can easily solve the problems they may be currently facing while looking for “opportunities in problems.” It cited as an example this time when everybody is at their homes due to quarantine, thus, people have a lot more time on their hands, and they want to be productive. “What is something that requires a lot of attention at the same time you can reap what you can sow? Gardening. A business opportunity could be to sell a gardening kit, seeds that you can grow in your backyard, plant pots, etc. The key is to be on the lookout, and to think of a creative answer to a problem,” it added. SIKAP was developed by the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation with the support of the Connecting Business initiative, and in partnership with United Nations Development Program Philippines and United Nations OCHA Philippines.

Firms urged to develop business continuity plan, cushion impact of coronavirus pandemic

OMPANIES are advised to develop a business continuity plan (BCP) that will enable them minimize the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on their operations, or prepare for possible future disasters. “The current situation right now, it is still not yet too late to establish regulations and standards that will help you manage the crisis,” Mechell Madriaga, health, safety, security, and environment (HSSE) manager at Subic Bay International

Terminal Corp., said in a live event. Madriaga said firms have to define their specific yet measurable objectives in creating a framework of a comprehensive BCP. She said the plan should enumerate strategies, procedures in making decisions, internal and external communications and other related practices, systematic procedure for recovering systems, networks, and maybe processes that help companies resume their normal operations. “With appropriate strategy

to gauge both of your efforts, customers, community and your partners, it is to reduce the likelihood of your business going to be significantly impacted by a disaster or distraction,” she said. The framework should also define the specific roles and responsibilities of the employees and communicate with clients about its implementation, Madriaga said, adding the need to test and revise the plan. She said a risk assessment

tool is likewise imperative in analyzing the business weakness and strength, “especially when you face unexpected events such as this pandemic that can cause your organization money and worse, permanently close like what happened to some businesses today.” “One of the aspects in your business that needs to be considered are your resources. Number one resource is your people which are the most important assets in your organization. You need to

check their function and their capability since they are gonna be the executor of your plan,” she added. Madriaga said the BCP should identify tools and equipment, existing procedures or processes involving engineering, safety, security, finance and administration that will be utilized. It should likewise list stakeholders and firms’ partners, including clients, third party service providers, different government agencies, emergency responding

units, and surrounding community, she said. “Can they [suppliers or service providers] give us our business requirements during these disruptive events? Can our suppliers respond to our needs? If not, then we should have a back-up supplier then. You need to have a good relationship with them, strong connections, (you need to) reach out to them. Make them feel they are important, prioritize them as you would want them to prioritize you,” she added.

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Hard work, competence, integrity keys to success of banker Dela Paz-Magat

MAGAT By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

ETIRED economist banker Rosalina Dela Paz-Magat initially wanted to become a doctor because of her father’s influence and a stellar academic record at Rizal High School in Pasig City. Magat belonged to an elite pilot class put up by the Department of Education and the National Science Development Board (NSDB). She was the salutatorian of the class of 622 graduates. After her high-school graduation, Magat went to the United States as one of the 81 Filipino scholars of the American Field Service (AFS). She went through a rigorous screening process where more than 600 candidates competed. She hurdled the rigid multilevel elimination consisting of extemporaneous speaking, essay writing, talent demonstration and panel interview. Magat finished 12th grade at Jamesville-Dewitt (J-D) High School in suburban Syracuse, New York. During her stint in New York, she became interested in economics and took it as an elective. Magat learned to love economics, and she emerged topnotcher in her class. “I realized then and there it was my calling to become an economist instead of a doctor,” she said. “I liked the practical application of economic theory and I knew that it will give me greater flexibility in my career growth. I also found economics as very relevant with wide ranging applications in all aspects of life,” Magat added. Upon her return to the Philippines, Magat told her father she’d like to study economics instead of medicine. He gave her the green light and she enrolled at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She graduated in 1971 as magna cum laude and class valedictorian at the same time. Magat bagged prestigious awards: UP President’s Gold Pin for honor graduates, Dean’s Gold Medal of Excellence for Consistent Scholastic Performance (straight university scholar). She obtained the Highest Average in All Economics Subjects and was cited for her Outstanding Undergraduate Research/Thesis.

Stellar career

MAGAT had a very fulfilling 39-year career as an economist banker. “I am proud of the fact that I never had to look for a job and that instead I was always invited to join and work with the offices that offered me the job,” she said. She initially worked as an economic analyst at the Board of Investments in 1972. After her two-year stint at the BOI, Magat joined the Central Bank from 1974 to 1980; Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), 1981 to 1992; Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB), 1992 to 1998; and Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), 1998 to 2009. At the BOI, she was assigned to do a special study on the effects of foreign investments in the country. She also wrote the speeches of then-Chairman Vicente Paterno. Moreover, Magat was made the official representative of the BOI in the specially created Task Force on Deregulation of Interest Rates and Adoption of Floating Interest Rates, which was based at the then CB. “This gave me the opportunity to be recognized by the Central Bank officials who later invited me to join them in 1974 as a junior officer with the rank of Chief Economist,” Magat said. When she moved to the CB, Magat was assigned to head the division in charge of making the rules and regulations and technical studies being required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). At

the same time, she pursued an MBA at UP Diliman, taking evening classes. After finishing her MBA, Land Bank of the Philippines President Basilio Estanislao recruited her to work directly under him. Magat headed the corporate planning department with the rank of manager. The department did all the economic research and special studies, prepared the budget and monitored all the bank’s subsidiaries and affiliates. She was also designated as team leader to do the operations audit of the World Bank-funded Small Farmers Development Program (SFD). While at the LandBank, Magat qualified for a USAID scholarship to take up a master’s degree in public administration at Harvard University. LBP granted her a study leave from 1987 to 1988. After her Harvard stint, Magat returned to LandBank and was appointed as assistant vice president and head of the project management department, which was created for her to handle the foreign assisted and official development assistance (ODA) projects of the bank. While on an official travel overseas in 1992, Magat received a communication from Sunday Lavin, a retired LBP official who was then president of PVB, inviting her to work with him at PVB. She accepted Lavin’s offer because she loves the challenge of reopening a closed bank. There, she worked as vice president and head of the corporate planning and communications department. “It was blood, sweat and tears for me. I worked alone and gathered all the dusty documents of PVB from the Central Bank vault. I wrote the rehabilitation plan and personally did all the financial projections and write up that we submitted to the now renamed Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas [BSP]. I presented and defended the plan before the PVB Board of Directors and the BSP. They approved it and I started its implementation,” Magat said. Later, she was named head of the Fund Management Department, which handled the treasury operations of the bank. In 1998, Magat got a call from Remedios Macalincag, another LBP colleague. Macalincag, the first woman president of the Development Bank of the Philippines, invited Magat to join her at DBP with the rank of senior vice president and head of the Strategic Planning and Research (SPR) group. After securing Lavin’s blessing, Magat moved to DBP in September 1998. Magat directly reported to Macalincag, handled all the most confidential matters that was entrusted by the DBP and wrote all her speeches. “The most stressful part was preparing and managing the bank’s budget and attending the Senate and congressional hearings to present DBP’s position on proposed legislation, and chairing the Annual Report Committee,” Magat said. She also headed the Secretariat of the Management Committee. Other positions she handled at DBP: Chief Economist, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. She availed herself of the Early Retirement Program in 2009.

Intellectualism and networking

FOR Magat, the key to a successful career in any field is hard work, competence, integrity and professionalism. “To be a successful economist banker, one must have the diligence, analytical mind, excellent communication skills, ability to integrate even the most complicated matters, visionary leadership, creativity and innovativeness,” Magat said. She said it is also important to be a self-starter, to be able to think out of the box and to have the courage to make bold decisions in the most critical situation. Building a network by joining various professional associations is a good step to widen one’s network to connect with many people. Magat also urged the youth to be voracious readers. “One must also have continuing education such as taking up graduate studies and special seminars to upgrade one’s skills. Be resourceful in looking for scholarships and other grants for higher education. Definitely, a master’s degree will give one an advantage in seeking new opportunities.”

Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, July 18, 2020 A7

Septuagenarians from Cabanatuan lead latest batch of land transfer beneficiaries By Jonathan L. Mayuga

WO 70-year-old farmers were among a batch of 20 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) who received their certificate of land ownership awards (CLOAs) from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). Paciano Vicente, in a news release issued by DAR, expressed his gratitude to the government saying the land awarded to him is “a dream come true.” DAR Secretary John R. Castriciones personally led the distribution of the CLOAs during simple rites in Cabanatuan City recently. Vicente and Bernardino Torillo, another farmer-beneficiary, were surprised when Castriciones visited them at their farm to turn over the CLOAs. “I personally gave these CLOAs to them to give them hope, to let them feel that despite this pandemic, the government is here ready to give them help and support,” Castriciones was quoted as saying.

The rest of the ARB was awarded with CLOAs in a ceremony held on July 7, at the Cabanatuan City municipal hall. The distributed lands covered a total of 16 hectares of agricultural land located in Cabanatuan City, Bongabon, and Gen. Natividad. “With this land and the other projects turned over today, I am confident that my family’s future is secured. I am looking forward to earning more this coming years,” said Vicente, a rice farmer most of his life. Torillo, 70, said he is very happy because he now has something to hand down to his children. Castriciones, meanwhile, said the CLOA recipients will also receive support from the government.

“No matter what circumstances we face, pandemic or no pandemic, we will follow the President’s national goal of improving the economic lives of farmers by pouring various support services to farm communities,” Castriciones said. During the CLOA distribution, Castriciones, together with Undersecretary for support services office Emily O. Padilla, also turned-over support services for the ARBs worth P4.8 million. Turned over were the following: two Kubota four-wheel drive, 35-horsepower Diesel farm tractors complete with rotary tiller and trailer to two agrarian reform beneficiaries organization (ARBOs); productivity assistance consisting of vegetable seeds, seedling trays and fertilizers given to 27 ARBs; and poultry egglaying business given to five ARB women. “These provisions are highly significant in achievingfoodsecurityinthecountry.These[support services] would greatly help the farmers in fulfilling their role as frontliners by continually producing and delivering food crops in critical areas affected by the pandemic,” Padilla said. The provision of support services is being implemented under the project called “The PaSSOver: ARBOld Move to Heal as One Deliverance of our ARBs from the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

Blinded By Nick Tayag

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH Part Two

N one of his books about patients with neurological disorders, the late neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about a blind person recovering his eyesight but preferring to be blind again. He also told of instances of patients who become blind as a result of an accident or tumor in the brain but do not know that they are blind. They think they can still see but technically their eyes are blind. Show them something and they can identify it. Wrong or not, they see it in their mind. Amazing isn’t it? Doesn’t it remind us of some people who see and know too much? They are actually clueless and ignorant about a certain subject and they don’t know it. Take the self-righteous preacher who prattles about the beatitudes and all the other Christian virtues, citing excerpts from the Bible, while he rakes in millions of pesos and flaunts his tax-free properties. Or the government official who supposedly hates corruption is committed to eradicate it but is oblivious to the shady deals done by subordinates and colleagues around him. Too much self-satisfied knowledge makes them blind to their hypocrisy. How many of our friends love to sound off on any subject matter as we politely listen and nod to his or her long-winded opinions and pronouncements. Remember well-meaning relatives and friends who offer suggestions and recommendations on how to deal with a crisis or ailment as if they are the ultimate authority on it? They probably just picked it up somewhere from a book or someone and don’t really know anything but they seem to know better. I would much admire someone who admits he’s ignorant or in the dark about something. At least, this “blind” person doesn’t pretend. He knows he’s blind. He is taking a step towards the light. For as someone said, knowing yourself (specially your weaknesses and limitations) is the beginning of wisdom. There’s another kind of blinded people. Blinded by pride and their deplorable penchant for showing off, they display pictures of their newly acquired expensive possessions on social media in the midst of increasing poverty and hunger, deprivation being experienced by economically disadvantaged sectors caused

by prolonged lockdowns. Where is their sensitivity? Don’t they open their windows and scan the view from their towers once in a while? Seeing all these blinded people is enough to make you lower the blinds of your mind.

The people’s eye

SOMETIME years ago, I read about a man who was elected as councilor of a city. What caught my attention was the fact that the fellow was totally blind. The voters pinned their hopes on him. They wanted him to be their guileless “eye” in making sure no corrupt deals pass through the city council. To him being blind was more of an advantage. This is because he could listen more intently to people’s problems and grievances. And because of his disability, he “feels more” about their plight. He said he could see his constituents better by using his heart to “see.” Today, many public servants never bother to look at their constituents’ problems. They overlook corruption and are even complicit to it. They play blind to the hanky-panky going on in the government. This fellow would put normal-sighted public servants to shame. How I wish we could elect more blind public officials to see the problems of society and give us better insights on governance. Why not? Our society might become better if we vote to office politicians who will do more listening instead of just seeing. But there are times when we prefer to be blind, not literally perhaps, but putting some things beyond our sight.

Out of sight out of mind

WE live in a world of “screens” that leave us glued to social-media messages, clips, reality shows, contests, video games and sticky web sites. Our minds are being directly fed by TV or mobile gadgets. In an article I clipped, someone wrote about his experience in trying to give up the use of his eyes as his way of making his Lenten sacrifice. He said: “I realized all my hobbies had one thing in common: all required visual aids. Why not give up the use of my eyes? Not only am I giving up most of my hobbies I’m also giving up something most people rely on to function.” Detaching himself from all his visual gadgets, he admitted how difficult it was not to have the use of sense of sight.

“I could deal with tripping, the fumbling, the frustration of not finding what you were looking for…. What I couldn’t bear was the extreme boredom of not having anything to pass the time with. No TV, video games or movies, not even books.” It was the ultimate sacrifice for a young man who lives on what he calls “media high.” We can probably question the wisdom of his chosen way of fasting and abstinence. But it opened his eyes to something about life as he reflected: “I began to appreciate the world more. One thing I gained is discipline and more appreciation and respect for the stoicism and perseverance of those who are blind not by choice.” In a world where our minds are being fed incessantly by digital media, we would probably lose our minds if we ever lose our sense of sight. Enjoying easy access to a smorgasbord of visual excitement is making many of us blind to the simple pleasures of life, the essential beauty of the world. Is it something we depend on to help us function as human beings? Or has it become an addiction? Can we close our eyes to the visual stimulants that surround us? The truth is the world in which we exist is now becoming virtual, not real. One night, our neighborhood had a power outage, so my wife and I went out into our small front yard garden. With no artificial light to outshine the sky, we could once again enjoy looking at the starfilled night sky. Our ears became attuned once more to the quietness around us, the croaking of the frogs, the distant barking of the dog, even to the buzzing of the mosquito. We even felt the slight breeze wafting through the plants, bringing the scent of flowers. It was a most stimulating experience, even a fleeting one. But it reminded me how much we have been missing because we let ourselves be blinded by artificial stimuli. When we are too blinded by worldly artificial glare, perhaps it is healthy practice to blindfold ourselves from time to time and go into the dark, into deep introspection, get a sense of where we are, to enable authentic light to shine through once more and open our mind’s eyes to new knowledge and fresh insight. As the old book assures us: “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them.”

Saturday, July 18, 2020

BusinessMirror

Supporting small online businesses during a pandemic

ACTOR Neil Ryan Sese (left) with one of the riders of his online seafood delivery business. PHOTO

FROM @NEILSESE ON INSTAGRAM

N the past month, I’ve been ordering my seafood from an Instagram account, called @k_gseafood. I didn’t find this account randomly. It is owned by actor Neil Ryan Sese, who’s helping out-of-work riders by hiring them to do the seafood deliveries. The full shipping cost of every order goes to the rider. Sese does not take any percentage off it so if you order from them, you’re helping the business and the riders. I have realized that ordering from one small business just once a week will help them, maybe not in the biggest of ways but I am thinking that if every person with a job does this, then that could help these businesses survive. To order from them, you need to send a Viber message (0918-9260951) and tell them your orders. They will give you instructions on how to pay. You can opt for same-day delivery (just don’t expect ondemand delivery as they will schedule it) or set it for another day. I will attest to the freshness of the seafood and how the prices are aligned with those at the wet market. They have fish, shellfish like lobster and crabs, and even slices sashimi in trays with soy sauce and wasabi. In the two times that I have ordered from them, I have been happy. So, yes, let’s help small businesses if we can. Oh, if you’re lucky, Neil Sese himself will deliver the seafood to your house. Many small businesses have thrived during this quarantine. We have seen all sorts of food trends, from ube cheese pan de sal to sushi bake to homedelivered Korean barbecue, all over Instagram and Facebook. There’s even an Instagram sticker that says “Support Small Businesses.” Meanwhile, Smart is hosting a K-Quiz Night tonight at 8 pm. Show off your knowledge of K-pop and K-drama, and you just might win the limitededition and much-coveted BTS Edition Samsung Galaxy S20+. Aside from the Samsung Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition, you can also win the Samsung Galaxy Buds+ BTS Edition. To join, simply tune into the live online show to be hosted by Patricia Prieto on Smart’s Facebook page and go through four rounds of questions—easy,

medium, hard, and a special BTS round. Smart’s K-Quiz Night is just the second of a series of fun nights that aim to celebrate the passion of Filipino K-pop and K-drama fans and communities. Smart launched the K-Quiz Night last June 27 with a P100,000 cash prize for the grand winner who outwitted hundreds of online participants. Smart Prepaid and Smart Signature subscribers can stream the latest K-dramas, listen to K-pop hits and constantly connect with K-communities and fans powered by Smart LTE, the country’s fastest mobile data network as recognized by third-party mobile analytics firms. Ookla, the global leader in Internet testing and analysis, cited Smart as the Philippines’ Speedtest Awards Winner for mobile network speed during Q1-

Q4 2019. To win this award, Smart achieved a Speed ScoreTM of 17.40, with average speeds of 19.62 Mbps for download and 9.45 Mbps for upload. On the other hand, Opensignal, an independent mobile analytics firm, reported in its April 2020 Mobile Network Experience Report for the Philippines that Smart remained ahead of competition in terms of Video Experience, Upload and Download Speed Experience, Voice App Experience, Games Experience and 4G Availability. My Smart LTE Postpaid has gotten me and my family through quarantine, I tell you. We have used it for work, Netflix, Zoom, other online meetings and Facetime. Although I have friends at Smart, I pay for this line myself. I have had it for six to eight years. It is reliable and consistent. ■

IBM, UN partner to disseminate better, trusted Covid-19 info BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES IBM on Monday afternoon announced that it has formed a partnership with United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) Youth Philippines to deliver fast and trusted Covid-19 information to Filipinos by using IBM Watson Assistant, a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) solution designed and trained to understand natural language and interact with users to provide responses to coronavirus questions. “In these unprecedented times, access to accurate information plays a critical role in allaying fears, dispelling myths and building trust among citizens,” Aileen Judan-Jiao, IBM Philippines president and country general manager, said in a press statement. Since deployment, Jiao said the average daily conversations the virtual agent using IBM Watson Assistant is having has increased by 1,050 percent, compared to the previous QA platform UN SDSN Youth Philippines was using. In April this year, SDSN Youth became part of the UN Covid-19 Response Task Force. In order to maximize citizen outreach, UN SDSN Youth in the Philippines has created the Philippine Interactive Dashboard (covid19.sdsnyouthph. org), a consolidated and comprehensive one-stop shop for all

relevant information on Covid-19. Designed specifically for the Filipinos, especially the youth, Jiao pointed out the dashboard aims to efficiently learn more about Covid-19 from reputable sources, and presents data in an appealing format. It has been averaging around 200,000 site visits a month as of June 2020. Jiao said the virtual agent can answer citizens’ questions, asking for clarification or redirecting the user to specific information on the dashboard or to other websites of related government departments and official bodies. Moreover, the virtual agent is deployed in a web browser and designed to safeguard the privacy of the users. The virtual agent is using IBM Watson Assistant, hosted on the IBM public cloud, and state-of-art enterprise AI search capabilities with Watson Discovery to understand and respond to common questions about Covid-19. It leverages trusted information sources, including guidance from the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and SDSN Youth’s Philippine Interactive Dashboard. Using these sources, it understands and responds to common questions including pre-trained Covid-19 symptoms and testing information, public service information, and additional content that organizations can select from the IBM’s catalog. Watson Assistant continuously

learns and gets better the more it is trained and used. “We are currently offering Watson Assistant to local government agencies, businesses, hospitals or other healthcare organizations while assisting with the initial set up, which can typically be done in just a few days. Organizations can customize the solution to address questions specific to their city or region, or integrate IBM Watson Assistant to its existing back-end ERP systems,” Jiao said. Julio Macrohon, Overall Project Lead and Board Secretary of UN SDSN Youth Philippines’ Leadership Council, said IBM Watson Assistant has provided vital information regarding the most common Covid-19 questions, especially those coming from the youth. “All in all, this partnership has allowed SDSN Youth to streamline its operations and maximize the time and effort of our volunteers, thus enabling us to better achieve our mission of fighting against both the pandemic and infodemic,” Macrohon said. Aside from the Philippines, IBM Watson Assistant is also currently at work in the Covid-19 initiatives of more than 25 countries and counting, including Thailand, the Czech Republic, and the US. SDSN Youth Philippines is a youth-led organization at the forefront to provide young people with opportunities for representation and participation in the fight toward equality.

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SPECIAL COLLABORATION WITH JO MALONE LONDON FOR OPPO FIND X2 PRO ORANGE VEGAN LEATHER EDITION

POPULAR mobile phone brand OPPO recently announced a special collaboration with British perfume house Jo Malone. Called “The Tale of Two Oranges”, the exclusive bundle gives users the OPPO Find X2 Pro Orange Vegan Leather edition featuring exclusive wallpaper designs and music available globally, and a 100ml bottle of its Orange Bitters perfume. The collaboration seamlessly enhances the human’s multisensory experience from the perfume, vegan leather, cutting-edge technology within the hardware to even OPPO’s custom Android software ColorOS. Users can indulge themselves to uncover the ultimate visual experience, hear the ultimate sound, feel the ultimate sense of touch, and enjoy the ultimate tasteful journey with a hint of citrus. In addition to the premium box set (available only in Indonesia), OPPO added a special touch through ColorOS with a series of beautiful wallpapers exclusively designed by OPPO Indonesia with each image featuring different elegant women enjoying different facets of life. The wallpapers are enhanced thanks to the phone’s QHD+ Ultra Vision screen feature which has set the bar high in the smartphone industry. Supported by Dolby Atmos, the OPPO Find X2 Pro Orange Vegan Leather edition brings cinematic audio experience to life with a white noise app, called OPPO Relax, which creates serenity through soothing sounds. Pre-installed is a track named “The Tale of Two Oranges” composed by Indonesian music arranger Adra Karim. OPPO has always committed to creating a better smartphone experience centered around users’ needs. The vegan leather edition Find X2 Pro adopts top-grade PU environmentally-friendly material that is waterproof (IP68), oil-proof, and resistant to high temperatures, humidity as well as general wear-and-tear. Another advantage of leather is that it prevents fingerprints. The vegan leather is also seamlessly attached to the back cover for the distinct final look. Overall, Find X2 Series is designed for the ultimate experience which pleasures users’ senses—from pleasing the eyes to delighting touch with the texture. You can get the OPPO Find X2 Pro for P65,990 in all official OPPO concept stores, authorized partner merchants, and via Lazada. OPPO users from around Asia may download the exclusive OPPO x Jo Malone London-designed wallpapers via the OPPO Theme Store.

BusinessMirror

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JEFF BEZOS

ELON MUSK

BILL GATES

JOE BIDEN

Saturday, July 18, 2020

BARACK OBAMA

Twitter hack hits Obama, Biden, Musk in Bitcoin scam

BY SARAH FRIE� & KA�TIKAY MEHROTRA Bloomberg News

HE Twitter accounts of some of the most prominent US political and business leaders, from Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett, were hacked on Wednesday afternoon in an apparent effort to promote a Bitcoin scam. The attacks were stunning in scope and almost certainly coordinated. Others whose Twitter accounts were caught up in the security incident included Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Uber Technologies Inc., Apple Inc. and Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP. The accounts sent out tweets promising to double the money of anyone sending funds via Bitcoin within 30 minutes. Twitter said it was aware of the incident impacting its accounts and is investigating. As the hack was unfolding, verified Twitter accounts suddenly lost the ability to post new tweets. “You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident,” Twitter wrote on its support account. Access was restored within hours. The company’s shares declined more than 3 percent in extended trading. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey tweeted late Wednesday that the San Francisco-based company was “working hard to make this right.” “Tough day for us at Twitter,” Dorsey wrote. “We’re diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened.” So far, the Bitcoin address tweeted by the hackers has been sent over 12 Bitcoins, worth more than $110,000. The popular Bitcoin exchange

Most verified accounts can tweet as normal again, Twitter says MOST blue-check verified Twitter accounts have resumed publishing tweets as normal, the company says in a tweet. The resumption comes a couple hours after Twitter shut off verified users’ tweeting following the Twitter accounts of some of the US’s most prominent political and business leaders being compromised on Wednesday afternoon in an apparent effort to promote a Bitcoin scam. Among those affected were Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett. BLOOMBERG NEWS

Coinbase has blocked its users from sending money to the address. Some of the Twitter accounts that were targeted said they used two-factor authentication and strong passwords. The tweets indicate they were posted using Twitter’s web application, sparking theories online that the hack may be internal to Twitter, or a service used to manage accounts. Whatever the source, the breach prompted a swift response from lawmakers. “I am concerned that this event may represent not merely a coordinated set of separate hacking incidents but rather a successful attack on the security of Twitter itself,” US Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican of Missouri, said in a

statement, asking that Dorsey immediately reach out to the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Exactly what happened remains unclear, although some Twitter accounts and hacking forums have been sharing screen shots purporting to show access to Twitter’s own dashboard allegedly commandeered to control the accounts. Twitter has since removed some of those screen shots, and in one case temporarily suspended the user who posted them. Accessing this internal portal would have required gaining a Twitter employee’s credentials or finding a dramatic security vulnerability in the platform’s login system. From there, a hacker may have been able to change the e-mail address associated with the account, allowing them to change the password and gain complete control. While Twitter continues to investigate, cybersecurity experts have begun speculating on other potential sources of the breach. While unlikely, it’s possible there was a bad actor inside Twitter, or working for a software vendor. One of the third-party platforms used to track and publish Twitter content may have been compromised, said Kevin O’Brien, cofounder of cybersecurity firm GreatHorn. Twitter has previously endured high-profile hacks, including one of Dorsey that was administered through a SIM swap—meaning a user found a way to mimic the phone number of the account and tweet via text message. Following the string of incidents, Twitter closed the loophole by suspending the ability to tweet via text. The official Twitter accounts of more than a dozen NFL teams were hacked earlier this year, just ahead of the Super Bowl. ■ With assistance from Maria Jose Valero, William Turton and Sebastian Tong.

Sy-led bank plans to digitally push financial literacy amid pandemic BY RODERICK L. ABAD Contributor BDO Unibank Inc. will continue to leverage digitalization to tap more of the unbanked sector and further promote financial literacy among Filipinos. According to BDO Senior Vice President and Head of Remittance Geneva T. Gloria, they are taking advantage of the peoples’ increased time spent online, especially during this time when physical distancing is highly observed to avoid contracting the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). “Our plan is to translate our grassroots marketing that we’ve been doing since 2014 into a webinar format for us to continue the financial literacy [push nationwide],” she said during a recent virtual press briefing. Together with their brand ambassador, actor Piolo Pascual, she recalled that the Sy-led company has been going around the country to raise public awareness on the importance of banking. In fact, she attributed such effort to the growth

in the number of their account holders for Kabayan Savings or BDO Remit for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) alone, which already reached more than 2 million. “Actually just for three regions, we’re doing about 50 to 100 fresh or new accounts opening a day,” she said of the spike despite limited access to their branches since the national government-imposed lockdowns in Metro Manila and other areas in midMarch. “So many have realized the importance of having a bank account.” With their planned virtual trainings, Gloria revealed that they will focus more on OFWs and their families by guiding them on how to open a bank account and save money for the future. Such effort, she noted, will follow soon after the launch of their three new promotional videos, featuring Pascual. These light-hearted spoofs and puns of his hit romantic films that featured OFWs as characters have been shown on BDO Unibank’s YouTube channel and on the BDO Kabayan Facebook page since July 5. BDO Remit also has pushed even further the BDO

Kabayan Savings during the pandemic. To encourage more migrant workers and their dependents to open a bank account, the requirements have been relaxed with just a single valid identification card to present and only P100 as initial deposit. Amid Covid-19, OFWs can still send their hardearned money back home via the bank’s remitance partners abroad. Aside from over-the-counter and automated teller machines (ATM), their dependents can withdraw it from the more than 8,000 Cash Agad agents. “That’s what we do. We’ve made it simple, accessible and very convenient. Also, our employees go out of their way to reach out to more people, especially those who are intimidated to go to our bank outlets to open an account,” Gloria stressed. Having the largest distribution network in the Philippines, BDO has more than 1,400 consolidated operating branches and over 4,400 ATMs nationwide. It also has full-service branches in Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as 15 overseas remittance and representative offices in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East.

VIBER RELEASES NEW GIF CREATOR IF a picture is worth a thousand words, a GIF must be worth a million. The Graphics Interchange Format has changed the way we interact online. These looping images are often sent as reactions, conversation starters, or just pieces of entertaining content. Now, Viber’s new feature lets you turn your expressions into GIFs for any convo you might find yourself in. Pushing the limits of online messaging, it’s a fitting addition to Viber’s Group Video Call feature released last month, as well as group chats for up to 250 people, and group voice calls for up to 20 people. Whenever you’re at a loss for words, or just want to record your facial reactions for friends, just make a GIF with Viber. In any chat, Viber’s users can record a short video with the app’s new camera, or select a video from their gallery, and turn it into a legendary looping GIF in boomerang, fast play, or reverse modes. Turning a video into a new GIF takes only three easy steps. First, trim the video to select the perfect part to star in the GIF. Then, choose a play mode for the GIF—from boomerang for endless looping, to reverse mode, slow-play, and x2 or x4 fast-play. Finally, style the new GIF with text in various fonts and colors, as well doodles or stickers. This gamechanging feature is now available on iOS for all Viber users, with Android support to be added in the following weeks. “Especially during these times, Viber is committed to empowering users to express themselves in various ways as they communicate over instant messages. As we like to say at Viber, if an emoji is used to replace a word, GIFs and stickers can replace an entire sentence. Now, with our custom GIFs, users can express themselves more accurately and do it in a more fun and funny way,” said Ofir Eyal, COO of Rakuten Viber.

A10 Saturday, July 18, 2020

BusinessMirror

Is technology making us dumber or smarter? Yes contributed more to winning the war by staying at home and sticking to a specialized role than by heading to the front with a rifle. It also meant other men (and some women) donned uniforms and had a much greater chance of dying.

MAKING MACHINES FOR THE REST OF US

INCORPORATING human skills into a machine— called “blackboxing” because it makes the operations invisible to the user—allows more people to, for example, take a blood pressure measurement without investing the time, resources and effort into learning the skills previously needed to use a blood pressure cuff. Putting the expertise in the machine lowers the barriers to entry for doing something because the person does not need to know as much. For example, contrast learning to drive a car with a manual versus an automatic transmission. Mass production of blackboxed technologies enables their widespread use. Smartphones and automated blood pressure monitors would be far less effective if only thousands instead of tens of millions of people could use them. Less happily, producing tens of millions of automatic rifles like AK-47s means individuals can kill far more people far more easily compared with more primitive weapons like knives. More practically, we depend on others to do what we cannot do at all or as well. City dwellers in particular depend on vast, mostly invisible structures to provide their power, remove their waste and ensure food and tens of thousands of other items are available.

OVERRELIANCE ON TECHNOLOGY IS DANGEROUS

BY JONATHAN COOPERSMITH Texas A&M University

HE smartphone in your hand enables you to record a video, edit it and send it around the world. With your phone, you can navigate in cities, buy a car, track your vital signs and accomplish thousands of other tasks. And so? Each of those activities used to demand learning specific skills and acquiring the necessary resources to do them. Making a film? First, get a movie camera and the supporting technologies (film, lights, editing equipment). Second, learn how to use them and hire a crew. Third, shoot the movie. Fourth, develop and edit the film. Fifth, make copies and distribute them. Now all of those tasks are solved by technology. We need no longer learn the intricate details when the smartphone programmers have taken care of so much. But filmmakers are now freer to focus on their craft, and it is easier than ever to become a filmmaker. Historically, technology has made us individually dumber and individually smarter—and collectively smarter. Technology has made us able to do more while understanding less about what we are doing, and has increased our dependence on others. These are not recent trends, but part of the history of technology since the first humans began to farm. In recent decades, three major changes have accelerated

the process, starting with the increasing pace of humans specializing in particular skills. In addition, we outsource more skills to technological tools, like a movie-making app on a smartphone, that relieve us of the challenge of learning large amounts of technical knowledge. And many more people have access to technology than in the past, allowing them to use these tools much more readily.

SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE

SPECIALIZATION enables us to become very good at some activities, but that investment in learning—for example, how to be an ER nurse or computer coder— comes at the expense of other skills like how to grow your own food or build your own shelter. As Adam Smith noted in his 1776 “Wealth of Nations,” specialization enables people to become more efficient and productive at one set of tasks, but with a trade-off of increased dependence on others for additional needs. In theory, everyone benefits. Specialization has moral and pragmatic consequences. Skilled workers are more likely to be employed and earn more than their unskilled counterparts. One reason the United States won World War II was that draft boards kept some trained workers, engineers and scientists working on the home front instead of sending them to fight. A skilled machine tool operator or oil-rig roustabout

A MAJOR downside of increased dependence on technologies is the increased consequences if those technologies break or disappear. Lewis Dartnell’s “The Knowledge” offers a delightful (and frightening) exploration of how survivors of a humanitydevastating apocaplyse could salvage and maintain 21st-century technologies. Just one example of many is that the US Naval Academy just resumed training officers to navigate by sextants. Historically the only way to determine a ship’s location at sea, this technique is being taught again both as a backup in case cyberattackers interfere with GPS signals and to give navigators a better feel of what their computers are doing. How do people survive and prosper in this world of increasing dependence and change? It’s impossible to be truly self-reliant, but it is possible to learn more about the technologies we use, to learn basic skills of repairing and fixing them (hint: always check the connections and read the manual) and to find people who know more about particular topics. In this way the Internet’s vast wealth of information can not only increase our dependence but also decrease it (of course, skepticism about online information is never a bad idea). Thinking about what happens if something goes wrong can be a useful exercise in planning or a descent into obsessive worrying. Individually, we depend more on our technologies than ever before—but we can do more than ever before. Collectively, technology has made us smarter, more capable and more productive. What technology has not done is make us wiser. THE CONVERSATION

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GLOBE CALLS ON PINOYS TO CONSUME ONLY LEGAL CONTENT ONLINE

THE Internet has become the main source of many copyright infringement content, impacting people and businesses involved in the production and distribution of legitimate materials and exposing consumers to malware and other cybersecurity threats. The problem is further exacerbated by the pandemic as people are cooped up indoors and have to rely significantly on streaming or downloaded video, music, and games for entertainment. The latest report released by YouGov for the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (AVIA CAP) showed that 66 percent of online Filipino consumers admitted having accessed piracy streaming sites and torrent sites, the highest percentage among eight Southeast Asian countries included in the survey. Moreover, the number of Filipino consumers who purchased illegal streaming devices (ISDs) or a TV box to access pirated video-on-demand content and premium TV channels without paying subscription fees, has jumped to 34 percent from 28 percent a year earlier. Of the 34 percent of consumers who purchased an ISD, more than half or 59 percent stated they had canceled all or some of their subscription to legal pay TV services. In addition to the short-term problem of canceled subscriptions is a longer-term problem—many of the people streaming pirated content are young. The survey found that 45 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds and 46 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds used ISDs or other apps or services to view infringing entertainment content. “In no uncertain terms, piracy is theft. It puts the creative and film industry at risk. It also puts the livelihood of people working in the industry at risk. On top of these, piracy also puts data privacy and devices at risk because many unscrupulous persons use these sites to hack devices to obtain personal information. For these reasons, we encourage our customers to watch content using legitimate sources only,” said Yoly Crisanto, Globe chief sustainability officer and SVP for Corporate Communications. In the Asean region, one of the known initiatives to help curb piracy is through site blocking. Countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have been successfully doing this practice. In the Philippines, Senate Bill 497, titled the “Philippine Online Infringement Act,” was filed by Senator Vicente Sotto III last year. The pending bill proposes an administrative site blocking mechanism which would empower the authorities to ensure that Internet Service Providers take “reasonable steps to disable access to sites whenever these sites are reported to be infringing copyright or facilitating copyright infringement.” Neil Gane, general manager of AVIA CAP, said, “Site blocking is a key tool in disrupting the availability of piracy web sites and the illicit revenues that are generated by the crime groups that operate these sites. An effective site blocking process is a win-win for all Filipinos, resulting in many consumers migrating back to reliable and safe legal services with quality content.” He added: “Content piracy is not a victimless crime and often it’s the users who become victims. Piracy is a hotbed for malware. Unfortunately, the appetite for free and accessing stolen content via piracy web sites or illicit streaming devices blinkers some consumers from the real risks of malicious malware infection such as spyware.” As the Philippines’s leading advocate against online piracy, Globe, through its #PlayItRight campaign, continuously sends a strong message to the public to consume digital content the right way. #PlayItRight is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals that the company is supporting, namely: UNSDG 8–decent work and economic growth, 9–industry, innovation, and infrastructure, and 17–partnerships. More information on Globe’s sustainability efforts is available at bit.ly/39c4xsB.

Productivity tools help business thrive during pandemic BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES IN these challenging times, a productivity tool such as Microsoft 365 plays a vital role to help businesses thrive and survive. Manpower Group IT manager Gene Edward Batingan told BUSINESSMIRRO� in an e-mail interview the company relied heavily on Microsoft 365 in their rapid adjustments in their daily operations “Microsoft 365 is what powered the seamless transition for our company,” Batingan said. He pointed out the Manpower Group was forced to adapt to the new developments in the business sector. Before, Batingan recalled that regular hiring usually required face-to-face interactions but is now done online. While documents are sent electronically, he pointed out that workflows have been reconfigured so people can still effectively work as a team from different locations. “The rapid adaptation of

technology-as-solution transformed the company’s IT team from being backend workers into a dynamic group that can educate, instruct and support the whole work force in its daily dealings,” he explained. Manpower Group, a global company that operates in the Philippines through its wholly owned subsidiary Manpower Outsourcing Services Inc. (MOSI) and its local affiliate, Prime Manpower Resources Development Inc., adapted a “work from home” model in response to the pandemic. The company’s core business functions include staffing and outsourcing, HR services, recruitment for local and multinational clients, executive search for both local and overseas positions, customized online assessment tools and e-learning courses, among others. Moreover, he said the company not only used the basic tools within the productivity suite but also maximized the multiple applications that come with

it. Regular daily communications leveraged Microsoft Teams, while paperwork was coursed through secure file-sharing services via SharePoint. Communications on company news enjoyed a boom via social layers through the Yammer platform. Online enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management were done via Microsoft Dynamics. “Manpower Groups’ IT department can seamlessly provide immediate support to our colleagues since the majority of tools can be maintained on a central Office 365 platform,” Batingan explained. As to how cloud technology is integral for disaster recovery, Batingan said the company realized early that having “on-cloud” would be an advantage, as it provides immediate recovery during disaster recovery and business continuity process scenarios. “The accessibility, reliability, security and scalability of any platform placed on-cloud assures us of a consistent and ready source of tools and

information,” he said. In the immediate future, Batingan said the Manpower Group hopes to adapt the IT process automation in the Philippines to allow regular tasks be automated. Moreover, Batingan said the Manpower Group is excited in the developments in artificial intelligence to improve data security, promote decision-making speed and accuracy, increase employee output and training, and enable technologies to use resources with far greater efficiency. Furthermore, the company also looks forward to customer relations management (CRM) integration to not only retain customer information based on manual entries but also integrate marketing automation software to bring such data directly into the platform. Batingan said company has partnered with local firm Radenta Technologies for their IT requirements.

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BusinessMirror

MAKING MACHINES FOR THE REST OF US

OVERRELIANCE ON TECHNOLOGY IS DANGEROUS

BY JONATHAN COOPERSMITH Texas A&M University

SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE

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GLOBE CALLS ON PINOYS TO CONSUME ONLY LEGAL CONTENT ONLINE

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BusinessMirror

Saturday, July 18, 2020 A11

SuperZoom at super value, realme takes a shot at the �lagship market healthy. The realme watch can track users’ daily activities and exercise by monitoring heart rate, blood oxygen and calories. It also has a blood-oxygen level monitor, a 24/7 real-time heart rate monitor and an Intelligent Activity Tracker for walking and running. It has 14 sports modes which include badminton, indoor cycling, elliptical, yoga and cricket. For users to strike a balance between work and life while reporting from home, the realme Watch has special remote controls for apps like music and camera. Device unlock can also be done through the watch, a feature that is useful now with everybody required to wear a facemask. It also sends constant alerts and reminders from chat and health apps. The realme Watch comes with multiple personalized watch faces and four different strap colors, which are available for purchase. Since the X3 SuperZoom doesn’t have a headphone jack, you might want to grab the realme Buds Air Neo. The wireless experience is optimized by the Buds Air Neo’s R1 True Wireless Chip, which uses a new generation of dualchannel transmission technology. In terms of sound quality, the realme Buds Air Neo has a Dynamic Bass Boost (DBB) solution, allowing the device to unleash true bass potential and bring about the dynamism and layers of the bass. Priced at P1,990 the realme Buds Air Neo has a promised total playback of 17 hours. Then there’s the upgraded version of its power accessory, the realme Powerbank 2. The realme Powerbank 2 can store 10,000mAh of juice at every full charge. Its size is wellcomplemented by an 18W Two-Way Quick Charge and is capable of charging multiple devices at a time. Final word: although realme had to make some compromises to keep the price within its target market’s reach, those tradeoffs do not change the fact that the realme x3 SuperZoom is one of the best bang-for-your-buck phones you can buy right now. In a year full of uncertainty, it’s good that the brand has been consistent in staying true to its promise of putting out value-for-money products, and that you don’t have to settle for less when you can get something that’s just right. ■

N the first half of the year, realme Philippines released six smartphones, a smartwatch, fitness band, TWS earphones and a couple of other AIoT devices. It also pioneered livestream selling during the enhanced community quarantine, built a solid community through its Squadcast and regular livestreams, became one of the top-selling brands on both Lazada and Shopee, and climbed to fourth spot in the local smartphone market. Not bad for a brand that is just a year and a half old. Last week, realme released its first-ever flagship smartphone, the realme X3 SuperZoom, and made its first stab at the flagship market. But at a time when businesses are closing, people are losing jobs, and everybody is on a tight budget, was it really the perfect time for them to follow their mantra and “Dare To Leap”?

DEVOUR

■ Price! ■ 120hz screen ■ Periscope camera with 5x optical zoom ■ 12GB RAM + 256GB Storage ■ Excellent battery life

DISLIKE

■ Mono speaker ■ Dated design is unremarkable ■ No more headphone jack ■ Camera can be inconsistent at times Let’s take a look at the top features of the realme X3 SuperZoom and see if it is indeed the super value flagship to beat. ■ 120HZ SCREEN REFRESH RATE: To put things in perspective, the current standard for smartphones is 60Hz, while most current flagships only offer 90Hz. The only other phone I have, which has the same 120Hz, costs three times more than the X3 SuperZoom. The high refresh rate makes the animations and content on the screen look and feel smooth and snappier, thus improving the overall experience. Though the difference between 90Hz and 120Hz screens is not easily perceivable to the naked eye, it’s more noticeable when upgrading from phones with a 60Hz refresh rate. Scrolling through the app drawer, images, web pages, and playing games on a 120Hz display—let’s just say that once you’ve gone 120Hz, you don’t ever want to go back. As for the display itself, the X3 SupeZoom has a 6.6 inch IPS LCD panel with a 2400 x 1080 Full HD+ resolution. The LCD panel is surprisingly good, bright with really vibrant colors. It’s not the very best or the sharpest, but I don’t see it being an issue at all. I’m also among those who prefer a flat panel than curved displays because it’s simply much easier to hold without having to worry about my palm accidentally activating those edge functionalities. Also, as cool as those gestures are, I would rather stick to the navigation buttons especially when browsing through photo albums or editing some videos. All told, the X3 SuperZoom LCD screen is about as good as you’re going to get outside an OLED panel. ■ POWERFUL PERFORMANCE WITH 12GB RAM: It might not have the latest Snapdragon processor but that 12GB RAM + 256GB storage combo is such a sweet deal, and again bigger than those offered by other flagships. On paper, it may look like a compromise, but the updated Snapdragon 855+ is a beast when it comes to performance with enough power to keep even the most demanding user happy. You don’t get 5G, but who cares? As if we’ll be having extensive 5G coverage anytime soon. The Snapdragon 855+ remains as powerful as when it was first launched, and when you combine that with 12GB of RAM, it practically allows you to do just about everything you can on a smartphone. Switching between apps is quick. Games, productivity apps, video streaming—all work exceptionally. The benchmark scores are second only to the Snapdragon 865 and Apple’s A13 Bionic processor, and, again for its price, it’s something truly impressive. In real-life use, the results are even better and everything runs quite fast without any lag or random app shutdowns. This likewise translates to an excellent gaming experience as it can handle any game I installed and run it smoothly in the highest details. Does it get warm? Yes, but it never overheats or shuts down any apps in the process. It’s actually one of the reasons why I’m still using it as my daily driver even after

doing this review, not to mention that with 256GB of storage, you won’t even miss that microSD slot. ■ PERISCOPE CAMERA: The realme X3 SuperZoom’s highlight feature is obviously its cameras and zoom capabilities. At a sub P25,000 price point, it is the first to have a 64MP quad-camera setup with a 5x periscope telephoto lens. The main camera consists of four shooters: a 64MP Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor ultra high-resolution wideangle camera (26mm, f/1.8); an 8MP ultra wide-angle camera with a 119-degree field-of-vision (15.7mm, f/2.3); another 8MP Periscope camera with 5x optical zoom (124mm, f/3.4); and a 2MP Macro (4cm focus, f/2.4) Camera modes include, Night, Video, Portrait 64MP, Panorama, TimeLapse, Ultra Macro, Text Scanner and even Google Lens. For its price, the X3 SuperZoom’s cameras are amazing and would make a great choice for those budding content creators who are looking for a versatile camera. Photos in good lighting are clear with lots of detail and great color reproduction. You can even turn on AI-assist to make the colors pop out even more. There is a bit of a struggle in less-than-ideal lighting but it’s something you can easily fix by switching on to night mode. Just make sure to give it a second or two to process before moving the camera. As for its highly advertised zoom, the phone also delivers on its promise—up to 10X that is, but to be fair not even those with 100x zoom can deliver good photos at max. You can use it like a binocular to make out faraway objects but don’t expect much. That said, I still think camera “zoom” is just a neat trick to show off, but something you won’t actually use a lot of times—because it’s not only kind of “creepy” and “pervy,” but you need really steady hands or a tripod to get a decent photo at maximum zoom. As for videos, performance was good during daylight, with good detail and less shake when the UltraSteady mode is activated (available only on 1080p 60fps and lower resolutions). But there’s a noticeable loss in quality when shooting in darker areas. It can shoot up to 4K videos but without stabilization, it’s best to have a gimbal or tripod ready. It’s also worth mentioning that the dual-lens 32MP+8MP selfie camera has an ultrawide mode of its own and will be useful for those who are into vlogging. Even more interesting is that you can even shoot portrait mode videos, which blur out the background with the option to adjust the level of the bokeh—definitely a nice addition. I expected a lot from the X3 SuperZoom and, thankfully, it did not disappoint. It may not be the best in class, but it does comes close in a lot of areas. Unfortunately, I have yet to try Starry Mode in the Super Nightscape 4.0 feature, as the only thing I could capture are the roofs and electrical wires around our neighborhood.

■ BATTERY: The realme X3 SuperZoom comes with a 4,200mAh battery along with a 30W Dart Charger. Getting through a day on a single charge was easy; even with heavy usage and gaming, I still had around 35 percent by bedtime. As for charging the device, it’s also quick. Using the Dart Charge got me 50 percent within 30 minutes and a full charge in just a little over an hour. If you really are anxious about battery use, you can go to the Settings > Battery section where you’ll find power-saver options, performance modes and screen battery optimization. You can tinker around with these settings to further extract more usage from the phone. ■ PRICE: Last and definitely the most compelling reason to get the X3 SuperZoom is its price. With most flagship phones now starting at almost P40K and above, it makes the realme X3 SuperZoom a steal at P24,990. It’s the most affordable phone with a 5x periscope zoom camera, a powerful Snapdragon 855+ processor, a whopping 12GB of RAM and 256 GB storage, 120hz screen refresh rate (the highest at this price point), and a long-lasting battery with fast charging. As mentioned in the beginning, realme also launched a few other items to complement its AIoT lineup. First is the realme Watch priced at P3,990. The realme watch promotes life-work balance and fitness, which are essential to staying

A12 Saturday, July 18, 2020 | mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Sports BusinessMirror

Editor: Jun Lomibao

TIGER QUIET IN RETURN

Tiger Woods opened with a 10-foot birdie and there was silence. He finished with a 15-foot birdie for a one-under 71, leaving him five shots behind Tony Finau in the Memorial, and he walked to the side of the green and stood with Rory McIlroy, chatting briefly before they nudged their elbows toward one another without touching.

By Doug Ferguson

dying out. They were two feet faster on the Stimpmeter, the wind was strong and often changed direction without notice. That showed in the scoring. Only seven players broke 70, compared with 35 rounds in the 60s for the first round last week. This is the first itme in 63 years the PGA Tour has played consecutive weeks on the same course. Muirfield Village only looked like the same course. “It’s night and day,” Palmer said. “The greens, they’re 2, 3 feet faster for sure. So I knew it wasn’t a course you had to just go out and light up.” It wasn’t a course to overpower, either. Bryson DeChambeau hit one drive 423 yards with the wind at his back, leaving him 46 yards to the pin on No. 1, a hole where he recalls hitting 5-iron in the past. That was a rare birdie. With wedges in his hand, he still managed only a 73. Collin Morikawa won at Muirfield Village last week at 19-under 269, beating Justin Thomas in a playoff. Morikawa opened with a 76. Thomas, who didn’t make a bogey until his 55th hole last week, had two bogeys after two holes. He shot 74.

The Associated Press

UBLIN, Ohio—Tiger Woods was back on the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour for the first time in five months Thursday and saw Muirfield Village like never before. It was practically empty. Woods opened with a 10-foot birdie and there was silence. He finished with a 15-foot birdie for a one-under 71, leaving him five shots behind Tony Finau in the Memorial, and he walked to the side of the green and stood with Rory McIlroy, chatting briefly before they nudged their elbows toward one another without touching. It’s a different world, Woods keeps saying. It was a reasonable return. “Got off to almost an ideal start and got a feel for the round early,” Woods said. “I just didn’t make anything today. I had looks at birdies, but I really didn’t make much.” He left that to Finau, who seemed to make everything. Finau finished with seven birdies over his last 10 holes on a Muirfield Village course that was faster and tougher than last week in the Workday Charity Open. That gave him a one-shot lead over Ryan Palmer. The greens are being replaced after the Memorial, so there’s no concern about them

TIGER WOODS says it’s a different world after the first round of the Memorial with Tony Finau taking a one-shot lead. AP

IG league players will still hear the roar of the crowd even though the stands will be empty when the baseball season opens next week. Taking a cue from two European soccer leagues, Major League Baseball (MLB) will play crowd noise from its official video game through ballpark sound systems during games. Stadium sound engineers will have access to around 75 different effects and reactions, according to MLB, which has provided teams with crowd sounds captured from “MLB The Show.” San Diego Studios, a branch of Sony Interactive Entertainment, compiled the noise during games over several seasons. Clubs started using the sounds during summer camp games and will be able to test them further during exhibition games. “There was some reticence when you first talk about crowd noise in an empty ballpark because you don’t want to do something that is distracting,” said Chris Marinak, who is MLB’s Executive Vice President for strategy, technology, and innovation. “It is heard in a way that is natural with the play of the game and on field. The sounds do match what is happening.” England’s Premier League and Spain’s La Liga were the first to return to action

with crowd sound from video games. The leagues enlisted EA Sports to provide crowd effects they engineered for the Fifa video game franchise. Marinak said MLB talked to multiple companies before deciding to go with Sony. Baseball is hoping the crowd noises, along with stadium announcers, walkup music and in-stadium video, will replicate the in-game experience as closely as possible without real fans in the stadium. Some ballparks are also offering fans the chance to buy photo cutouts which will be placed in the stands. Brewers infielder Eric Sogard said Thursday that the crowd noise did help step up the competition for some guys during intrasquad games. “You’re still focused on the game but that noise is very helpful. I could tell the first few scrimmages with pure silence was tough for some guys,” he said. “You could hear the other dugout talking and it was kind of awkward.” The sounds will also be audible on radio and television. The Korean baseball league pipes in crowd noise at stadiums so they are not completely silent but it is barely audible during

games aired on ESPN. Some fans and broadcasters are leery of artificial crowd noise because it takes away a unique opportunity to hear players’ conversations during games this season. Alex Rodriguez noted during an ESPN conference call that the only time fans can hear that type of interaction is if they go to spring training workouts. ESPN announcer Matt Vasgersian is hopeful there still might be some sort of audio sweet spot to provide a little bit of everything. “I think it still allows us to capture some of that and still make the viewing experience feel right at home,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear what we hear. Nobody involved in broadcasting baseball wants to compromise strategy. We’re not looking to pry into the playbook but we do want to hear things that maybe we wouldn’t hear ordinarily.” The NBA has been in contact with 2K Sports about possibly using its sound library when the league resumes play outside Orlando, Florida. AP

MMA, motorsports, football, esports action up on Sky

KY brings back live sports action this month—including esports—beginning with the UFC Fight Night on Sunday and July 26 at 8 a.m. on Fox Sports. Car racing also makes a comeback with Formula 1 action in Hungary on Sunday and United Kingdom on August 2, all on Fox Sports. North America’s open-wheel racing league, Indycar Series, will stage its seventh annual GMR Grand Prix this month. Days for football fans, meanwhile, get exciting with La Liga goes. The FA Cup continues its semifinals on BeIn Sports on Saturday and Sunday with Manchester City facing Arsenal and Manchester United taking on Chelsea. The obstacle course race series “American

Ninja Warrior” is back every Wednesday this month, this time featuring different people who come from different backgrounds. Catch the action on AXN at 7:55 p.m. The “Ninja Warrior UK,” is set to challenge 250 contestants in tackling a variety of obstacles on Blue Ant Extreme on Mondays at 9:55 p.m. Hosted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “The Titan Games,” returns for another season on Fox every Tuesday 9 p.m. The “Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge,” meanwhile, airs on Blue Ant Extreme every Sundays at 9:55 p.m. Arena E-sports, on the other hand, brings viewers extensive coverage of games such as League of Legends, Hearthstone, DOTA2, Smite and Super Smash Bros. on Tap Sports every

edginess, nerviness starting out, and it was good. It was a good feel. I haven’t felt this in a while.” US Open champion Gary Woodland and Brendan Steele each shot 68, with Jon Rahm among those at 69. McIlroy had two splendid short-game shots on the back nine that led to par and birdie, and he was in a group at 70 that included Jordan Spieth and defending champion Patrick Cantlay. Cantlay hit a pitch-and-run across the fifth green that last week would have settled next to the hole. On Thursday, it kept rolling until it was just off the green. Finau didn’t play last week, so he wouldn’t know the difference. “I don’t know about an advantage, but I definitely felt like I played this golf course this way before,” Finau said. “I don’t know what the numbers might be as far as the guys that played last week compared to this week. I’ve played this golf course in these type of conditions, and it definitely helped me.”

NBA REFEREES BACK IN HARNESS L

Ballparks to use crowd noise from video game during season

A NEW YORK Mets employee stands beside cardboard cutouts of people to simulate fans in the stands during practice at Citi Field on Thursday. AP

Dustin Johnson shot 80, his highest score on the PGA Tour in more than four years. Rickie Fowler shot 81. By now, players are used to seeing open spaces with minimal distraction. That wasn’t the case for Woods, who last played Feb. 16 when he finished last in the Genesis Invitational during a cold week at Riviera that caused his back to feel stiff. The absence of spectators was something new, and it was even more pronounced with Woods playing alongside McIlroy (70) and Brooks Koepka (72). They still had the biggest group, with 36 people around them on the 16th green. That mostly was TV and radio crews, photographers and a few volunteers. No one to cheer when Woods opened with a birdie and quickly reached 2 under with a wedge that spun back to a foot on the third hole. And there was no one to groan when he wasted a clean card on the back nine with a bunker shot that sailed over the green into the rough. “I definitely didn’t have any issue with energy and not having the fans’ reactions out there,” Woods said. “I still felt the same eagerness,

Monday at 7 p.m. Gamerz, a reality show where 12 ambitious gamers selected from the hundreds of players as they are trained inside a Gamerz Gaming House, airs on Techstorm on weekdays 11 p.m.

AKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—National Basketball Association (NBA) referees have not had the same opportunities as players have to knock off the rust from the shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Players have been back on the court for a few weeks, with the majority of that time spent getting in individual workouts before practices could resume when the 22 teams arrived at the Walt Disney World bubble. The referees didn’t have that chance. Right now, there’s a healthy amount of nervous anxiety for those who operate the whistles at NBA games with exhibition contests—the first opportunity for refs to call anything in roughly four-and-a-half months— set to begin next week. Like the players and coaches, referees are at Disney and quarantining for what could be a stay of at least a few weeks for most and potentially as much as three months for those who will be assigned to work the NBA Finals. “Our referees are pros and they’re going to come here ready to work,” said Monty McCutchen, the NBA’s vice president and head of referee development and training. “From the mental side, we never took any time off, quite frankly.” It will largely be business as usual for referees—though with two notable differences. The first of those is how the NBA Replay Center will still be operating in Secaucus, New Jersey, but the referees assigned with actually assisting in those situations will be on-site at Disney. The reason is because it didn’t make much logistical sense to send referees into the greater New York City area and have them adhere to local guidelines there by quarantining for 14 days before working games. The replay-tasked referees will be working from a trailer in the broadcast compound outside the three arenas that will be used for games—with allowances, of course, made for social distancing. “It’s important that we follow that process because, you know, we want the best working now who have earned that right,” McCutchen said. The other difference will be the noise, or lack thereof. It’s no secret that there is a level of banter

THE referees, like the players, experience the same difficulties during the pandemic.

between players, coaches and referees during games. When arenas are filled with 20,000 people, the din of crowd noise muffles much of those conversations from the general public. But at Disney, there will be no fans and that means some off-color talks might get picked up on broadcasts. McCutchen isn’t worried. “We’ll look for a collaboration with coaches and players and I think coaches and players, they’ll figure out how to communicate,” McCutchen said. “A lot of yelling that goes on does go on because there’s crowd noise and in a passionate moment you want to be heard you want to be listened to. Without the crowd there, I expect our players and coaches to have an occasional burst, but because they can be heard in a different way, they will communicate in a different way.” There’s a rhythm for players, and the same goes for referees. The NBA sent workout materials to referees during the shutdown— things like resistance bands, jump ropes and yoga balls—to help them keep in shape. But much in the same way that it’s hard for players to get into game shape without really playing, the same holds true for referees. Veteran referee Eric Lewis said he’s looking

Harden makes Disney practice debut

AKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—National Basketball Association (NBA) scoring leader James Harden of the Houston Rockets practiced with his team for the first time in more than four months Thursday, saying

JAMES HARDEN says his arrival at the league’s restart bubble at Walt Disney World is delayed by family issues. AP

his arrival at the league’s restart bubble at Walt Disney World was delayed by family issues. Harden came to Disney earlier this week, satisfied his league-mandated quarantine requirements and got cleared to participate. “I’m happy I’m here,” Harden said. “It felt actually really, really good to be out here with the guys, getting after it, just pushing our way. Every single day is going to be a new challenge for us.” Harden has been working out, but said Thursday was his first time playing actual 5-on5, contact-laden basketball in more than a month. “I pushed myself through it today,” Harden said. Harden’s arrival means Houston finally has half of its starting backcourt at Disney. On Monday, guard Russell Westbrook revealed that he tested positive for Covid-19. It’s not known when Westbrook will be ready to arrive. But Harden wasted no time in impressing his teammates.

forward to the exhibition games, just to get in some work. “We really need those,” Lewis said. “We really depend on our eyes and having that consistent practice of movement and moving them where they need to be. You don’t see that level of play every day, so now we have to get to where we catch up with the players. Even running—running those sprints in games and stopping and going are very different than jogging on a treadmill or on the street.” McCutchen and the league’s referee development advisers, a group of top former officials, have been holding regular Zoom calls during the shutdown with the current referee staff to study situations and technique. There have also been tests and other video study done internally, just to keep minds sharp during the weeks away from the court. “There is not the same rhythm that our teams and referees and coaches have been accustomed to,” McCutchen said. “There’s going to be a ramp-up time for everyone. That doesn’t excuse bad work, though. We’re going to be grading our officials on the standards of the NBA and to our standard of excellence.” AP “He looked good,” Houston coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He probably was rusty for about 30 seconds.... A good beginning.” Rockets guard Ben McLeMore was more succinct. “Same James.... Didn’t miss a beat,” McLeMore said. D’Antoni didn’t expect Harden to do much 5-on-5 work initially, figuring he would need some time to build up his wind. But Harden arrived fully ready, in D’Antoni’s eyes, showing that whatever regimen he was following had paid off. “James is smart,” D’Antoni said. “He knows his body. He knows what he needs to do. He’ll come over late at night if he needs extra shooting or if he needs extra running, he’ll do it. But he loves to play. He’s the ultimate professional on what he needs to do to get ready. So, I trust him totally.” Harden is a virtual cinch to win his third consecutive scoring title. He’s averaging 34.4 points, well ahead of second-place Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards. Beal, who isn’t participating in the restart because of an injury, finished the season averaging 30.5 points. AP