BusinessMirror July 27, 2022

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Medalla to markets: Another rate hike in Aug By Bianca Cuaresma @BcuaresmaBM

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ANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Felipe Medalla assured markets on Tuesday of another rate hike in their scheduled meeting in August after the surprise 75 basis points rate hike earlier this month. Speaking at the post-State of the Nation Address (SONA) Economic Briefing, the BSP chief said the hike will be to the tune of 25 basis points or 50 basis points, depending on the latest data on the economy at that time. “We can surprise people only once. So there will be no more offcycle. As to how many more rate hikes before the end of the year,

that will be very data dependent,” Medalla said. “Come this August meeting, we can rule out zero and we can rule out 75 basis points. For the rest of the year, it all depends on what will happen in the outside forces,” he added. The governor, who took the BSP helm a few weeks ago, said they are currently playing a “balancing act” in deciding the magnitude of further rate hikes for the rest of the year. “On one hand, the current drop in the prices of oil—which is now below $100 [per barrel]—signals that there is less need for rate hikes. On the other hand, the US is surely going to raise its policy rate by 75 basis points,” he said.

“Too much depreciation of the peso—or what we economists call ‘overshooting’—could actually add to an inflation that is already high. So these are the things that we are balancing,” Medalla added. The governor also defended their decision earlier this month to raise interest rates in an unscheduled meeting by 75 basis points, deviating from their earlier policy guidance of a “gradual” and “well-communicated” fashion of monetary policy support exit. “Much of our inflation is what we call the supply side. And a big part of it is imported. But we have to act because what we are afraid of is that this imported inflation will have a life of its own and start a self-fulfilling prophecy of prices

rising because prices are rising,” Medalla said.

Still growth-friendly

AMID their more aggressive monetary policy tightening, the governor said the current monetary policy still remains supportive of economic growth. “75 basis points was considered large. However, when you look at it, our monetary policy is still very supportive of economic growth. Indeed, the policy rate—which used to be a record low 2 percent— is now just around 3.25 percent. So, by and large, the economy can absorb the increase in the policy rate,” Medalla said. See “BSP,” A2

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Wednesday, July 27, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 292

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FACING HEADWINDS, PHL BARES ECONOMIC AGENDA n

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

Stakeholder groups cheer Marcos Jr.’s tourism thrust

@BNicolasBM

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HE Marcos administration unveiled on Tuesday its 8-point socioeconomic agenda to address headwinds including soaring consumer prices, and to bring back the “high-growth trajectory” of the economy. Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, the head of the administration’s Economic Development Cluster, presented the 8-point socioeconomic agenda bearing nearterm and medium-term plans for the country to achieve a robust economy as well as an inclusive and resilient society. With this, Diokno said the country is “fully prepared to address the challenges ahead.” “Inflation is expected to remain elevated for as long as world prices of oil and other key commodities remain high. The effects of the pandemic linger while the global political economy remains unpredictable,” he said during the Marcos administration’s first post-State of the Nation Address economic briefing at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay. “The Marcos administration will implement a comprehensive 8-point socioeconomic agenda to decisively respond to these risks and steer the economy back to its high-growth trajectory,” he added. Diokno said their near-term plans will address the immediate challenges faced by Filipinos. Under their near-term agenda, the economic team aims to protect the purchasing power of families in response to rising prices, mitigate scarring from the Covid-19 See “Economic,” A2

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

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FOR GOOD HEALTH Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto together with Pasig City Lone Dist. Rep. Roman Romulo and MMDA Officer-in-Charge, Director Baltazar Melgar, check recreation facilities during the inauguration of the linear park at Brgy. Buting, Pasig City on July 26, 2022. The linear park is part of the MMDA’s Adopt-a-Park project, to provide a playground for children and exercising devices for adults. NONOY LACZA

MEETING GROWTH GOALS TO BOOST PHL’S UMIC BID By Cai U. Ordinario

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@caiordinario

F the Philippine economy attains the government’s economic targets this year and next year, the average per capita income in the country could increase to over $4,000 annually by 2024, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda). At the Post-State of the Nation Address (SONA) Economic Briefing

on Tuesday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said attaining a per capita income level of $4,250 or even $4,300 would be possible at the target growth rates. The national government aims to grow the Philippine economy by 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent this year and 6.5 percent to as high as 8 percent next year. These targets, set by the Development and Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), were also reiterated by the President in his SONA on Monday.

“At the rate we are growing and assuming that we achieve the 6.5 to 7.5 percent growth this year and the 6.5 to 8 percent next year, we should be reaching that minimum of $4,250 in 2024. By that time, we will become a member of the so-called upper middle income class. That will mean that the size of the economic pie will be bigger,” Balisacan said. Based on the World Bank’s country classification, the Philippines remains a lower middle income country which

has an average per capita income of between $1,086 and $4,255 in 2021. This is based on the 2023 calculations made by the World Bank using the Atlas Method, which also takes into consideration exchange rates. The same method leads to a per capita income estimate of between $4,256 and $13,205 for upper middle income countries and $13,205 or more for high-income economies.

HE Department of Transportation (DOTr) will identify particular airports that need to be upgraded, to help improve the access of travelers to tourism destinations in the country. This developed as national tourism groups welcomed the goal of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to help the tourism sector recover and regain its place as a driver of economic growth. In a news statement, Transportation Secretary Jaime J. Bautista said he “feels challenged” by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s instruction to modernize the country’s transport facilities, especially those relating to aviation, during the latter’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday. (See, “Marcos wants tourism to drive GDP, jobs,” in the BusinessMirror, July 25, 2022.) A former president of pioneering flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL), Bautista vowed to prioritize the enhancements of various airports and elevate them to global standards. “We will build upon the dozens of aviation-related projects completed in the past administration and identify areas for technical

See “Neda,” A2 See “DOTr,” A2

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 56.1840 n JAPAN 0.4111 n UK 67.6961 n HK 7.1580 n CHINA 8.3211 n SINGAPORE 40.5339 n AUSTRALIA 39.0816 n EU 57.4369 n KOREA 0.0429 n SAUDI ARABIA 14.9529 Source: BSP (26 July 2022)


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Wednesday, July 27, 2022

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1-M vacancies seen opening in IT-BPM, ‘green’ sectors By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

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V ER a million vacancies from the Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) firms, “green” industries, and other sectors are expected to be facilitated by the government in the next six years, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). DOLE said these will be part of the comprehensive labor and employment plan, which is now crafted as part of the new Philippine Development Plan (PDP) of the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. “Our target time frame [to complete the plan] is before the end of the year as the plan will require consultations with stakeholders, particularly labor and employer sectors,” Labor and Employment

BSP. . . Continued from A1

The governor added that growth targets remain “attainable” despite future plans of monetar y policy hikes.

Green jobs

AMONG such sectors are agriculture, tourism, construction, as well as the IT-BPM sectors. “With the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, reverted to the fold of the Department of Labor

and Employment, we will concentrate vigorously in coordination with the other departments who are presently here in the stage to upskill workers and answer to the needs and requirements of emerging and growth industries,” Laguesma said. He noted the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines [IBPAP] committed to open an additional 1 million jobs up to 2028. “They (IBPAP) also committed they would be able to produce more with total and complete government support. And we are committed to help them by providing them support,” Laguesma said. As part of DOLE’s assistance to the IT-BPM establishments, Laguesma said there will be the amendment of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act (RA) No. 11165 or the Telecommuting Law to address the needs of the said industry.

“Our own models in BSP say that in spite of all these increases in the policy rate, the government’s forecast of 6.5 to 7.5 [growth] this year is well within reach. And six and a half to eight and a half going forward, 2023 and onwards, are still all quite attainable,” Medalla said.

“So going forward, of course there is so much uncertainty, but we stand ready to make the necessary adjustments so that balancing between sustaining growth and ensuring financial stability on the one hand and price stability on the other will all be achieved,” he added.

The BSP is scheduled to meet again on August 18 for their next scheduled monetar y policy meeting. On Tuesday, data from the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) showed that the local currency receded back to the P55 territory, closing at P55.3 to a dollar. This was a strong appreciation from the previous day’s close at P56.1 to a dollar.

Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma told the BusinessMirror in an SMS. He said they will initially submit the plan to the government’s economic team before it can be acted upon by Marcos. The plan is expected to address issues on employability, provision of decent work, and promotion of green jobs. During the post-State of the Nation Address (SONA) Forum held by the government economic cluster on Tuesday, Laguesma disclosed the emerging and growth industries, which are expected to become key employment generators in the coming years.

IT-BPM support

LAGUESMA said they will also push for green jobs as part of Marcos’s initiative to provide more employment and address the climate change crisis. “We would like to aggressively promote greening of jobs in coordination with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources because we believe they are able to address the issues on climate change and produce not only more jobs, but also quality jobs,” Laguesma said. In its JobsFair report, DOLE identified several green occupations, which involve energy, pollution management, environment preservation and climate mitigation. Some of the said occupations are Solid Waste Management Equipment Operator, Recycling Worker, Solar Technician, and Urban Gardener. During his first SONA last Monday, Marcos said he expects the mainstreaming of renewable energy in the country such as solar, hydropower, geothermal, and wind are expected to produce more local jobs. DOLE, however, said jobs for that sector will require highly skilled workers.

Neda. . . Continued from A1

“That will adjust because of the exchange rate. Atlas method was used to compute that. Of course we will also adjust. But I think we have room to adjust given the lowand high-end estimates for our growth rate,” Balisacan explained to reporters in the vernacular. Attaining Upper Middle Income Country (UMIC) status has been part of the goals of the previous administration. The country was well on its way to becoming a UMIC under the Duterte administration had it not been for the pandemic. Balisacan said the impact of the pandemic led to a decline in the country’s economic growth and to per capita income to decline by about 10 percent during the period.

Jobs creation

PART of what will help make this possible is the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) which aims to increase quality jobs in the country. By the end of the President’s term in 2028, around 53 to 55 percent of Filipino workers would be wage and salaried workers in the private sector from the 48 percent in 2021. These jobs, Balisacan told reporters on the sidelines of the economic briefing, will be provided through the government’s efforts to train and retool workers in both the formal and informal sectors. Quality jobs that could come from sectors such as infrastructure, tourism, manufacturing, and even mining could allow more Filipinos to earn better incomes. However, Balisacan said, environmental concerns in the mining industry should be addressed before more jobs could be derived from the sector. “[We have] to be cautious and make sure that the social cost outweighs the benefits and that’s what the President said, we have to preserve our environment not just for us but for the future,” Balisacan said. “It has high potential but of course we have to make sure that it’s not environmentally destructive.” Balisacan said this is where Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) could be useful. He said the private sector would have greater access to technologies that can be employed in mining without destroying the environment. Ensuring that mining efforts are sustainable would allow the country to better maximize the possibilities in the sector. Such possibilities include economic growth and jobs for millions of Filipinos. Based on the Labor Force Survey (LFS) results in May 2022, mining and quarrying employ only 2.3 percent of the country’s workforce engaged in the Industry Sector. The bulk of these workers or 52.6 percent are in Construction and some 42.7 percent are in manufacturing.

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Economic. . . Continued from A1

pandemic and ensure sound macroeconomic fundamentals. To protect the families’ purchasing power, the government identified three strategies: ensure food security; reduce transport logistics costs through streamlining regulatory processes; and cut energy cost through alternative flexible work arrangements and pushing active transport. On mitigating pandemic-induced scarring, the economic team vowed to: tackle health through ramping up vaccination and booster uptake; strengthen social protection through the core functions of poverty reduction and human capital investment of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and expediting the adoption of the National ID system; address learning losses through quick and safe reopening of classes at all levels and providing tutorial and remedial classes to address learning gaps arising from the pandemic. On ensuring sound macroeconomic fundamentals, the economic managers aim to enhance bureaucratic efficiency and sound fiscal management through digitalization of government processes and implementation of rightsizing, particularly on functions that were devolved following the Supreme Court’s Mandanas Garcia-ruling. They also aimed to ensure a resilient and innovative financial sector by adopting regulatory frameworks and platforms for digital finance. In the medium term, the government plans to create more quality and green jobs. To achieve this, they vowed to promote trade and investments, improve infrastructure, improve energy security, increase employability, encourage research and development and innovation, enhance the digital economy, pursue a green and blue economy and establish livable and sustainable communities. “These interventions will enable us to cut the poverty incidence to 9 percent by 2028 and elevate the country to upper-middle income status,” Diokno said.

Budget priorities

BUDGET Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman identified on Tuesday the administration’s budget priorities, including education, health, social safety nets, infrastructure, and agriculture. Pangandaman said education will remain on top of the budget priorities as mandated under the 1987 Constitution. By prioritizing agriculture under the budget, Pangandaman said she hopes to “make our farmers and fisherfolks more productive” and expressed support for “their services and mechanize and use technology in their processes” to have “self-sufficiency and self-security and lower food prices in the country.” On infrastructure, Pangandaman said the government will continue the Build, Build, Build program as directed by the President. In a related development, Diokno also said they will “revisit” the Chinese loan agreements on three multibillion-peso railway projects which were previously considered “withdrawn” after Beijing failed to act on the funding requests of the Duterte administration. “We will revisit and we will resubmit to Neda [National Economic Development Authority] just in case,” Diokno said on the sidelines of the event. Transportation Undersecretary for Railways Cesar Chavez earlier said President Marcos, Jr. ordered them to renegotiate the loan agreements for the projects worth P276 billion: Subic-Clark Railway Project, the Philippine National Railways South Long-Haul Project, and the Davao-Digos segment of the Mindanao Railway Project. In case the loan agreements with China do not push through, Diokno said other funding options may be considered, such as Japan, World Bank, or the Asian Development Bank. “These are nice projects. These have been evaluated by Neda and socially worthwhile projects so we will just look for funding,” he said.

DOTr. . . Continued from A1

upgrade to allow them to enhance their operational capabilities,” he stressed. “The President’s order to the DOTr is clear—it’s full speed ahead for our transport projects,” said the Transportation chief, who was absent at the SONA as he is still recuperating from Covid. The Tourism Congress of the Philippines also expressed support to the Marcos Jr. administration’s plan to upgrade the country’s airports, which the group has been advocating for years. But its president Jose C. Clemente III added, “Government must also look at creating favorable conditions for both foreign and national carriers to fly to those airports. Consider landing and parking fees, charges for Immigration and Customs personnel, and so on. Examine the reasons why many foreign carriers don’t fly here directly anymore.”

Incentives for sustainable tourism

AT the post-SONA briefing of economic managers on Tuesday, Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco outlined her agency’s main objectives to achieve the tourism industry’s rightful place in growing the economy: Improvement of tourism infrastructure and accessibility; cohesive and comprehensive digitalization and connectivity; enhancement of overall tourist experience; Equalization of tourism product and development; diversification of portfolio through multi-dimensional tourism; maximization of domestic tourism; and strengthening tourism governance through close collaboration with local government units and stakeholders. “It’s also very, very important for us to ensure that we examine all existing strategies that have been set in place to continue the good programs that have been implemented, and introduce innovations and strong coordination with tourism-enhancing government agencies in the national government; overall, to be able to ensure that we build a strong foundation for the tourist industry so that it becomes resilient against any crisis,” she added. She also said it was important to introduce incentives to tourism stakeholders so they will implement green policies that preserve the environment, “as well as [introduce] measures that promote environmental protection, energy-efficient usage, and the like.”

Nat’l tourism groups

MEANWHILE, the Philippine Hotel Owners Association (PHOA) welcomed the President’s directive to improve infrastructure and promote better connectivity to the different tourist destinations. “As for the possible change in the branding campaign, we likewise welcome any initiative to improve the image and increase the competitiveness of the country,” said PHOA Executive Director Benito C. Bengzon Jr., a former Undersecretary for Tourism Development. For its part, the board of the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association Inc. also expressed support to Marcos Jr.’s tourism thrust. “Developing roads, airports and tourist destinations will help boost tourism targets, provide convenience for travelers and generate economic growth, as these will create employment opportunities in travel, tourism and aviation industries. And continued collaboration with the private sector is important,” they said. In a separate news statement, PAL President and COO Capt. Stanley K. Ng also backed Marcos Jr.’s goal to improve tourism access. “The construction of new international airports will help boost tourism targets, generate economic growth will create employment opportunities in the aviation, travel and tourism industries. New access roads will help these economic benefits to flow into local communities.”


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Covid daily cases may rise to 19,306 by end of August, Health dept warns By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3

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HE Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday warned that daily Covid-19 cases at the national level might reach an alarming 19,306 by August 31 if the current rise in cases will not be reversed. The DOH, however said, that with the improvement of vaccination and booster rates and minimum public health standards (MPHS) compliance, case increase may be slower and more controlled at about 6,194 to 8,346 cases by the

end of August. The DOH said that while they consider Covid-19 case numbers in determining an area’s alert level, it emphasized the larger focus is on the admission and hospital utilization rates. “With the advances in Covid-19 treatment and the availability of vaccines to combat severe and critical disease, as well as deaths, we now have the capability to reduce the vulnerable population and keep hospital utilization and fatalities to a minimum,” DOH added. In line with this, the DOH reiterated the need to continue the wearing

of best-fitting face masks, isolating and informing close contacts when sick, doubling-up protection via vaccines, and ensuring good airflow to control the spread of the virus. “With a continuous rise in Covid-19 cases, the DOH reminds the general public to remain vigilant and adhere to our minimum public health standards such as wearing the best-fitted masks, social distancing, and immediate isolation at the onset of symptoms,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, DOH Officer-in-Charge, said adding that if such factors will be implemented and followed imme-

diately, “a decline in cases may be observed sooner.” On Monday, the DOH reported that 19,930 cases were logged from July 19 to July 25, averaging 2,847 cases per day. This was higher by 30 percent as compared to the country’s daily average from the previous week, at only 2,190 cases per day. The DOH also warned that agency’s latest projections are showing that these case increases may translate to a spike in total and ICU admissions in October, if compliance with MPHS continues to decline and booster rates remain low.

DOH vows to implement PBBM’s directive for pandemic recovery

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HE Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday assured that they would carry out the directives of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. for the country’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and improve access to health care during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday. “It is important that the DOH is agile based on our circumstances. Our focus has fittingly shifted towards saving lives while also protecting livelihoods. We are promoting vaccination on top of our usual health protocols, instead of imposing restrictions,” said Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, DOH Officer in Charge. Vergeire said that while the new

Omicron subvariants are indeed still spreading, “cases have been reported to be mild and can be allowed to heal at home.” The DOH stressed that in line with the Marcos’ statements during the SONA, there are no plans to execute any further lockdown measures moving forward amid the pandemic. Instead, Vergeire said the DOH is committed to close coordination and deployment of necessary resources to keep our health-care systems ready to respond to both Covid and non-Covid cases.

High vaccination

DOH data showed that hospital admission rate remains to be at low risk, with severe and critical cases at only 8.69 percent of total admis-

sions as of July 26, 2022. The DOH credited these to the high vaccination coverage. Still, the DOH reminded the public to continue adhering to the minimum public health standards, such as wearing best fitting masks, isolating when sick, and ensuring good airflow to prevent possible virus transmission. Amid the easing of restrictions, the DOH vowed that it would ramp up its booster rollout across the Philippines to further strengthen the wall of immunity against Covid-19 and improve health literacy to instill vaccine confidence within communities. For he r pa r t , OIC- Unde r secretar y Beverly Lor raine Ho of the Public Hea lth Ser v ices Team said they are grateful that

Marcos sees the tr ue va lue of vaccination. “We must protect ourselves to enjoy this new normal of face-toface classes and open businesses,” Ho said. Marcos also shared long-term health plans for his administration, which include priority bills to establish a Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as establishing a Vaccine Institute. “A ligned w ith the new administration’s calls for more affordable medicine and bringing health care closer to families, the DOH also vowed to further realize the Universal Health Care Act around the country for the benefit of every Juan and Juana.” Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

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Not so fast: De Lima stays in prison–DOJ By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

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HE Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday dismissed the call of opposition senators to drop the drug charges filed against former Senator Leila de Lima who is accused of benefiting from the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa during her term as justice secretary. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla said the justice department would wait for the outcome of de Lima’s trial before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Muntinlupa City. He noted that the matter is already within the jurisdiction of the Muntinlupa RTC, which has the sole power and authority to act on the pending cases against de Lima. “It is a judicial matter,” Remulla stressed. Remulla was reacting to the filing of a resolution by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and Sen. Risa Hontiveros, seeking the release of de Lima from “unjust and arbitrary detention” and urging the justice department to withdraw the remaining charges against her. The two senators cited the recent recantations of supposed government witnesses against de Lima, which include self-confessed drugtrader Kerwin Espinosa, former officer in charge of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Rafael Ragos, and her former aide Ronnie Dayan. “Whereas, with these series of recantations, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Senator de Lima’s arrest and continued unjust detention was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated ploy to silence an outspoken critic, and passionate human rights

[advocate],” the senators said. The opposition senators also noted that one of the three drug cases filed against the former senator, along with her co-accused Jose Adrian Dera, was dismissed on February 21, 2021, nearly four years after her arrest and continued detention. On April 28, 2022, Espinosa retracted all his statements implicating de Lima in the illegal drug trade inside the NBP but the DOJ has said it would have no bearing on the case since he was not utilized as prosecution’s witness. Ragos is one of the prosecution witnesses who testified before the court against de Lima and Dayan. It can be recalled that Ragos executed an affidavit on September 5, 2016 claiming that in November 2012, as BuCor officer in charge, and together with aide Jovencio Ablen, claimed they delivered a black bag containing P5 million to Dayan and de Lima at the latter’s residence. He added that they made another delivery of money contained in a plastic bag in December 2012 to de Lima and Dayan. In 2016, Ragos testified before the House Committee on Justice hearing on the New Bilibid Prisons drug trade where he reaffirmed his previous affidavits. He also testified then that the kickbacks came from Peter Co and other drug lords to support De Lima’s senatorial bid in 2013. Ragos also testified on June 7, 14, 28 and July 12, 2019 before the Muntinlupa RTC against de Lima. But Ragos recently released a statement to the media claiming that former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II into implicating de Lima in the NBP drug trade coerced him.

LCP reminds lawmakers on legislative reforms to strengthen local governance By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie

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HE League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) has called on the new leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate to push for legislative measures that will further strengthen local governance. LCP National Chairman and Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo B. Benitez said reviewing the Local Government Code of 1991 and improving local fiscal autonomy both need support from leaders of the 19th Congress. “I believe local government lead-

ers, especially the country’s city mayors, have found a benevolent pair of Congress allies as we pursue legislative measures that will further strengthen local governance and unbridled support for the delivery of the most pressing needs of our constituents,” he said. “Improved local fiscal autonomy, prioritization of housing and urban development, poverty alleviation and the review of the 1991 Local Government Code are among the legislative priorities that will require the full cooperation and support of SP [Senate President Juan Miguel] Zubiri and

Passage of bills for creation of CDC, VIP, MRC assured

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OLLOWING the call of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Congress to pass several priority measures, the House of Representatives has vowed to immediately move for the passage of landmark health reform measures, including the proposed Philippine Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) Act, Virology Institute of the Philippines (VIP) Act, and Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) Act. Rep. Keith Micah “Atty. Mike” D.L. Tan of Fourth District, Quezon said these landmark health reform measures—the establishment of the Philippine CDC (House Bill No. 281); VIP (HB 282); and MRC Act (HB 285) were already approved by the House of Representatives in the previous Congress. The leadership of the lower chamber said it would prioritize all the bills that were passed on third reading and final reading by the House of Representative, but were not acted upon by the Senate due to time constraints during the 18th Congress. Former House Committee on Health Chairperson and now Governor of the Quezon Province Angelina “Helen” Tan spearheaded the passage of these bills amid the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tan also said the immediate enact-

ment of the CDC into law is urgently necessary as the country, just like most of the health systems in the world, is ill-prepared to address the challenges of pandemics such as the Covid-19. “The bill seeks to modernize the country’s capabilities for public health emergency preparedness and strengthen the current bureaucracy that is mandated to address communicable diseases in the country through organizational and institutional reforms,” Tan explained. To better prepare against public health emergencies, the neophyte lawmaker underscored the need to embark on health modernization and institutional reforms. “We cannot keep on rearranging the boxes in our health organization without capacitating our health personnel and resources. The modernization and reorganization of our health system must go hand in hand to protect the public from health risks,” he said. Meanwhile, the proposed creation of the VIP seeks to focus on key development areas for virology science and technology applications in plants, animals, and humans. The VIP is set to facilitate the country’s preparation against pandemic or public health emergencies and the goal of achieving vaccine self-sufficiency. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Speaker [Ferdinand Martin] Romualdez,” Benitez, a former lawmaker, said. Benitez, meanwhile, said local governments are “in good hands” following Zubiri and Romualdez as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives of the 19th Congress, respectively, with both at the helm of Houses of Congress. “With Senate President Zubiri and Speaker Romualdez at the helm of the legislative chambers, we are confident that the country’s march towards economic recovery and meaningful reforms will be swift and assured,” said Benitez.

“Our lawmakers made the right choices for their respective leaders as Senator Zubiri and Congressman Romualdez are strong advocates of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call for unity among all Filipinos. They will be vital cogs who will help push the wheel of reconciliation and unity espoused by the president,” said Benitez. The LCP is the official organization of the 145-strong member-cities in the Philippines and was established in 1988. Benitez chairs the highest policymaking body of LCP, which is the National Executive Board.

Report of ‘instant’ doctoral degrees for Chinese teachers alarms CHED

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HE Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has expressed alarm over a report that Chinese teachers who reportedly enrolled at the Adamson University allegedly earned “instant” doctoral degrees within 28 months, which is shorter than the prescribed minimum of four years. CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera III, when asked to comment, said that the report on the Chinese teachers receiving an instant (Doctor of Philosophy) Ph.D. degree is “very alarming.” The report was published by the South China Morning Post about the alleged Ph.D. degree it conferred to teachers from Shaoyang University in China’s central Hunan province. “Adamson University has been granted an autonomous status by CHED,” de Vera said. Although, Adamson is free from regular monitoring of CHED as an autonomous institution, de Vera said the commission may conduct investigation activities “in case of reports of a general erosion of quality and/or gross violation of laws, rules and regulations that adversely affect the good standing of the PHEI [Philippine Higher Education Institution] as a reputable

education institution.” “This report of an instant Ph.D. is very alarming and prejudicial to the international reputation of our Philippine HEIs. CHED will not condone any violation of existing laws and regulations, autonomous or not,” he stressed. He said that they have read the statement issued by Adamson University on the matter. CHED, he added, has constituted a team that will evaluate the report.

No ‘instant PH.D.s’–Adamson University

THE Adamson University, meanwhile, denied the allegations. In a news statement, Adamson strongly denounced what they described as “malicious claims.” “The Ph.D. offerings of Adamson University strictly adheres to the policies, guidelines and standards set by the Commission on Higher Education, specifically, the minimum six [6] terms of residency,” Adamson said. It added, “Ph.D. degrees conferred to Adamson graduates had passed through stringent verification procedures and are awarded in accordance with their successful compliance to institutional and CHED requirements.” Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco


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PBBM initiative to boost fishery sector lauded By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

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QUACULTURE and fisheries leaders on Tuesday lauded President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s plan of prioritizing local fish production, encouraging them to pour more investments in the sector to produce cheaper source of protein. Food security advocacy group Tugon Kabuhayan said the “vision” laid out by Marcos in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on boosting local food production was “doable” and “timely.” “A more pro-local producer policy would greatly help our goal of making fish cheaper and more accessible for everyone,” the group said in a news statement issued on Tuesday. In his SONA, Marcos said the Department of Agriculture is finalizing its plans to boost domestic food production through “financial” and “technical” means. For one, Marcos, who is serving as the concurrent agriculture chief, said loans and financial assistance for farmers and fishermen will be “institutionalized” under his administration. Marcos added that the government would also provide cheaper farm inputs that include fertilizer, pesticides, seeds, feeds, fuel subsidies and even cash assistance to eligible farmers and fisherfolk. Marcos also vowed to “strengthen” the value chains of various commodities and support post-production and processing needs of the agriculture sector such as construction of farm-to-market roads. “We are happy to hear his support for local farmers and fishermen and the plan to use updated technology to increase food production. This will enable us to fish more efficiently in municipal waters,” Pablo Rosales, president of Pangisda, said. “The construction of support facilities in appropriate locations so we can efficiently bring our catch for distribution to the wet markets is much welcome,” Rosales added. Mario Balazon, Taal Lake Aquaculture Alliance Inc. spokesman, said the government should prioritize boosting the local aquaculture industry, which is capable of meeting the country’s fish requirements even during off-fishing season. Balazon said aquaculture producers were discouraged in recent years due to fish importation programs approved by the previous administration. Balazon claimed that the importation in the past several years were “excessive” and discouraged the growth of the local aquaculture industry. “We are therefore happy to hear that the President prefers to increase local fisheries production. We look towards appropriate government agencies to realize these goals,” he said. “If done properly, I am certain that members of the aquaculture industry will reciprocate by investing and working hard to expand fish production,” he added.

Peza hails Marcos’ call for dispersal of strategic industries to the regions By Andrea San Juan

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HE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) lauded the call of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. to bring strategic industries outside Metro Manila, saying the move could make the country a viable investment destination in the region. “Peza, together with our valued ecozone investors, is one with the PBBM administration in enhancing our economic competitiveness to make the Philippines a viable investment destination in the region,” said Peza Officer in Charge Director General Tereso O. Panga in a state-

ment posted on Facebook on Tuesday. Panga said investments that are “productivity-enhancing” can rise from foreign direct investments (FDI) or efficiency-seeking investments, which investment promotion agencies (IPAs) like Peza can promote and facilitate through the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) law, Strategic Investment Priority Plan (SIPP), and the recently passed economic liberalization laws. Peza’s officer in charge highlighted that scouting for the best locations is among the critical factors to consider in attracting strategic industries. “With Peza and the ecozones

providing for the best locations and business ecosystem, we can attract strategic industries, including R&D [research and development] and innovation, other emerging technologies and big-ticket investments to help sustain our GDP growth target and countryside development strategy,” said Panga. Two months ago, during her stint as Peza’s director general, Charito B. Plaza said they are pursuing a different path in Peza, as they would recommend to the Marcos administration incentives particularly for strategic and big-ticket industries that would be located in the countryside to attract investors.

‘No rush for President to vacate DA post’ By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

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INORITY bloc Senators are not keen on prodding President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to promptly vacate and fill up the still vacant Cabinet post of a fulltime Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA) tasked to ensure food sufficiency and crackdown on agri-smuggling syndicates. “We also appreciate that the President himself is serving as concurrent Agriculture Secretary,

if this means he will really use the full weight and power of his office to respond to the food crisis to avert a looming food catastrophe,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros. She indicated the opposition senators are not raising an objection “if it is for the longer term, and will really help the agriculture sector grow, as mentioned by Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon earlier.” Hontiveros conveyed in a news conference that several “agricultural modernization advocacy groups are also very keen to engage President

Marcos and the DA on its agenda.” She added, however, they are also keen to know who are heading the Bureau of Customs, notably on the implementation of the findings at recommendations of the Senate Committee of the Whole in the previous Congress. At the same time, Hontiveros indicated that even if President Marcos made no mention on his administration’s anti-drug policy at his SONA, she is poised to push additional proposals to boost the government’s anti-drugs campaign.

Post-SONA, DOE starts tweaking priority list continued from a12 Another 11.8 percent of the fuel for power is oil-based. These, he stressed, show the country’s vulnerability to volatilities in global prices. Lotilla said his office will work with the rest of the government to provide well-targeted assistance to the most vulnerable communities, and to shift to more electrification in mass transport and industry. “There are still more than a million unserved households in the country, with more than 800,000 in Mindanao,” he said. On amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), Lotilla said the agency will also coordinate with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to achieve a level playing field and to promote competition in order to attract investments. “This is clear in his inclusion of Epira amendments relating to the ERC in his legislative agenda,” he said. Of importance also, Lotilla added, is planningandrollingoutoftransmission facilitiestoavoidREstrandedpowerthat cannotbebroughttothemarket,aswhat happened on Negros Island. Former Energy Secretary Vince Pérez, current chairman of Alternergy group of companies, meanwhile lauded President Marcos Jr.’s strong push for the development of RE to mitigate the impacts of climate change and provide sufficient power supply for the country. “This is a strong statement and sets

a clear direction for the energy industry to rally behind President Bongbong Marcos’s call to build new power plants and with the use of renewable energy,“ Pérez said, noting that Alternergy and its subsidiaries plan to bring some 1,245 MW of new renewable energy capacity in the next five years. “Alternergy fully support’s President Marcos’s energy program. Renewable energy is an abundant resource in the country and will provide the Philippines with clean fuel to cushion the impact of climate change and at the same time continuous rise of imported fuel,” Pérez added. The Developers of Renewable Energy for AdvanceMent (DREAM) also support Marcos’s pivot to renewable energy as his main energy policy. “We have been pushing the previous administration to transition to renewables instead of sticking to conventional sources of energy to no avail. Now, we are suffering from high oil and coal prices as we have added more of them in the power mix. It is time and long overdue. We are very happy with President Marcos’s energy thrust and we will collaborate well with his administration and DOE Secretary Popo Lotilla,” said DREAM President Atty. Jay Layug. Meanwhile, the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) agrees that the Philippines should increase the level of energy produc-

tion to meet its current demand. “Fossil gas is the bridge, until the country has installed adequate RE power and storage capacity to meet growing demand. The necessary infrastructures should be in place to facilitate the just energy transition. However, possible asset stranding over the long term must be avoided considering the drastic reduction in prices and increase in efficiency of solar, wind and storage technologies,” said ICSC Senior Policy Advisor Pete Maniego. He noted that many goals and policies under Epira remain unrealized. He said Epira must be strengthened to achieve resiliency, flexibility and connectivity in the power sector. The Philippine Energy Efficiency Alliance (PE2), meanwhile, was hoping to hear “explicit scale-up of energy efficiency interventions as a cost-effective solution to support the energy security and decarbonization objectives of the Philippines.” “The energy efficiency industry was expecting the President to commit the full enforcement of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act during the first year of his administration. And this could be achieved if the DOE maintains the policy momentum of its Energy Utilization Management Bureau in crafting the remainder of the pending circulars and guidelines under the said law,” said PE2 President Alexander Ablaza.

LPGIA reminds consumers to check on safety of LPG tank before buying

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HE LPG Industry Association (LPGIA) of the Philippines has reminded consumers to ensure the tanks are certified safe before purchase. According to Executive Director Mercedita G. Pastrana, uncertified LPG cylinder tanks under circulation fall under three categories: (1) cylinders that were manufactured by a company without License from the Department of Trade and Industry’s Bureau of Philippine Standards (DTI-BPS) (2) cylinders that do not comply with the Philippine National Standards (PNS) and (3) cylinders already in circulation but missed requalification after the required period.

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug • Wednesday, July 27, 2022 A5

Requalification refers to the mandatory evaluation and testing of cylinder tanks 10 years from date of manufacture, and then every five years thereafter to determine whether these cylinders are still serviceable. Scrapped cylinders, which are also referred to as “unsafe and injurious tanks,” should also be removed from circulation. According to the PNS, scrapped cylinders often have too much corrosion , dents beyond the allowable limit, a damaged foot ring, and tanks without collar, all of which make the cylinder unsafe for use. How can consumers check if their cylinder is certified? Pastrana shared

the following handy tips. Certified cylinders should have permanent markings on them, preferably embossed on the body of the trademark owner, contain other details such as name of manufacturer, date tested, serial number, trademark owner, among others. “Without this information, it’s automatically considered as uncertified,” said Pastrana. Meanwhile, the name of the manufacturer is indicated in the marking should be in the list of licensed manufacturers by the DTI-BPS. Lastly, a consumer or dealer should check if the markings indicate testing date for tanks manufactured more than 10 years ago. “For

example, the manufactured date is 12-10. That means, [it was manufactured in] December 2010. So it should also be indicated that the testing date is 2020. The initial of the company that conducted the test should also be stamped. Otherwise, the cylinder is deemed uncertified,” said Pastrana. In case a consumer encounters or purchases an uncertified tank, they are entitled to return it and request for an exchange with a certified tank. “You have the right to return [the uncertified LPG tank to the retailer],” said Pastrana. “Upon purchase, there should be a receipt which indicates the details of your transaction.

In line with this, the former Peza chief emphasized that the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that they entered into with the environment department in May will be key in securing and identifying public lands nationwide that can be utilized as economic zones, particularly on agro-forestry, agro-industrial, ecotourism, and mineral processing. Plaza earlier highlighted that ecozones are drivers of economic growth outside the National Capital Region. She added that the landmark partnership between Peza and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources aims to fully utilize production areas of the DENR

across the Philippines. During the signing of the MOU two months ago, DENR agreed to cooperate with Peza to provide inventory of public lands and islands to Peza in order to explore feasible development of sustainable mineral and agro-forestry processing economic zones, oil depots, refinery ecozones, eco-tourism, agro-industrial special economic zones. The former chief of Peza earlier said that their industry partners such as the Philippine Economic Zones Association will also help in developing these different types of economic zones so they can attract different types of investors.

Green groups cheer PBBM’s push for RE, but nix nuke, LNG tack By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

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RESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. on Monday drew mixed reactions from environmental groups who hailed the push for renewable energy (RE), but criticized plans to boost energy security through nuclear energy and liquefied natural gas. Greenpeace Philippines said Marcos’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) was somewhat confusing, at the least. In his first SONA, the President said RE and addressing climate change are at the top of his agenda. Yet the President put nuclear and fossil gas plans ahead of RE sources, such as solar and wind. It is sending mixed signals, and somewhat “worrying,” said Greenpeace Campaigner for Renewable Energy Transition Khevin Yu. “The mixed signals coming out of the Marcos administration’s first SONA are worrying. Nuclear and fossil gas should be out of the picture today; it’s hypocritical to talk about addressing the climate crisis while prioritizing dangerous energy sources. If the President is sincere about acting on the environment and climate, he should head straight for genuine renewable energy— and stop promoting nuclear and fossil gas,” he said. According to Yu, the necessary push for RE and climate action is somehow being maneuvered to suit the administration’s misguided nuclear and fossil gas agenda. According to Greenpeace Philippines, nuclear in any context is a dangerous proposition—even more so for the Philippines. “Housing a nuclear plant in a country constantly battered by typhoons and earthquakes is like building a ticking time bomb, not to mention the amount of radioactive waste we wouldn’t know how to dispose of. The cost of building up and maintaining this energy source will also be staggering for a country already swimming in debt—and will no doubt be passed on to consumers, who are already struggling with food, energy, and climate crisis,” said Yu. Likewise, Yu said fossil gas is no better, as it also produces another greenhouse gas—methane, which is up to 105 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time horizon. “Any new facility built now will lock the country into 40 more years of fossil fuel dependence and will considerably delay the country’s much-needed transition to RE,” Yu argued. According to Yu, the country’s existing energy problems will be further exacerbated by the President’s insistence on public-private partnerships—surrendering the fate of our energy sector to corpo-

rations, when the administration’s primary concern should be providing Filipinos with safe, affordable, and reliable power. “We have a vast amount of renewable energy resources waiting to be tapped, and RE has been proven to be more cost-efficient and dependable in the face of climate,” he said. “With the world and our country facing the impacts of a rapidly worsening climate crisis, we have no lead time and no room for nuclear and fossil gas. The President should walk the talk on his statements about preserving the environment and human life, and stop creating barriers to RE. Distracting ourselves with more costly and risky sources only sacrifices valuable time and resources­—and threatens the very lives he wants to preserve,” he said. Energy consumers from the Power for the People Coalition (P4P) likewise expressed disappointment, saying Marcos’s RE plan is full of contractions. In particular, the group said while Marcos declared that the use of RE is at the top of our climate agenda, gas remains necessary for the transition, calling for the development of new power plants and the use of natural gas as another energy source alongside renewables. “President Marcos’s energ y plans are at odds with what he promises. He cannot say that renewable energy is his top agenda when he is peddling nuclear and natural gas, both of which are not clean sources of energy, not to mention the environmental risks and hazards that come with it,” said P4P convenor Gerry Arances.” Marcos, during his SONA, also bared his plan for the enactment of an enabling law for the natural gas industry and providing incentives to liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a bridge fuel. “Renewable energy is a top priority not just by saying it, but by committing to minimizing, then eliminating the use of fossil fuels to protect the environment and consumers. It’s disappointing to hear him talk about incentives and bill for gas and action point for nuclear but no actual plans for renewable energy,” Arances explained. “Marcos was on point on renewable energy as a priority both for lowering costs and transition but his plans were distracted and unsound with his push for LNG and nuclear. However, the more we invest in imported, expensive, capital-intensive gas-powered facilities, the harder it becomes to discard them, essentially locking us into using gas instead of moving forward to renewable energy. And the more we rely on fossil fuels, the more consumers suffer during times of high prices in the world market, as we are experiencing now,” Arances added.


BusinessMirror

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

A6

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION ACCENTURE, INC. 7f, Robinsons Cybergate Tower 1, Pioneer St, City Of Mandaluyong

No.

RAMAN, MANIKANDAN Tech Solution Planning Sr Manager

1.

Brief Job Description: Translate buyer requirements into a standard solution that includes the deal approach, solution plan, proposal, and cost estimate. Leverage standard process methods and deliverables to shapes service to meet requirements; define the service delivery locations and related cost for the solutions; ensure that delivery architecture is implemented according to policies and standards.

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE Basic Qualification: Degree of difficulty of an assignment of problem-solving assessment and resolution required, as indicated by degree of problem-solving, strategic vs. Routine focus, and stakeholder interactions (e.g., executives, supervisor, etc.) Requires identifying and assessing complex problems for area(s) of responsibility. Creates solutions in which analysis requires in-depth knowledge of organizational objectives. Requires involvement in setting strategic direction to establish near-term goals for area(s) of responsibility. Interaction is with senior management levels within Accenture, involving negotiating or influencing on significant matters.

No.

FLYING DRAGON NETWORK PHILIPPINES INC. Ri Rance Ii Bldg., Block 2 Lot 3 Aseana City, Tambo, City Of Parañaque BEINHARD JOHANNES RAJA GUKGUK Customer Service Representative 11.

XU, WANHONG Field Sales Consultant 5.

Brief Job Description: The one responsible to “get the sale” using various customer sales methods.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can research accounts and generate or follow through sales leads; can valuate customers skills, needs and build productive long-lasting relationships; can meet personal and team sales targets

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

DAO THI LIEN Customer Service Representative 12.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

EDY CAHYONO Customer Service Representative 13.

Salary Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999

AMDOCS PHILIPPINES INC. 23rd, 25th, And 26th Floors Eco Tower, 32nd St. Cor. 9th Ave. Bonifacio Global City, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig Basic Qualification: RAJ, MOHIT Bachelor’s degree and has Domain Solution Expert experience in functionality, specs definition, architecture 2. Brief Job Description: and design. Manages and leads definition and design of the solution, ensuring that it meets the customer’s needs Salary Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999 Basic Qualification: PATIL, KIRAN MADHAVRAO Bachelor’s degree, w/ practical Software Development Specialist experience in business/system analysis and proficient in 3. Brief Job Description: partner/client management. Responsible for the design, modification, debugging and/or maintenance of software systems. Salary Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999 C’EST LA VIE EVENT MANAGEMENT INC. 230, Narra Street, Marikina Heights, City Of Marikina Basic Qualification: Can research accounts and generate or follow through WANG, CHILIE sales leads; can valuate Field Sales Consultant customers skills, needs and build productive long-lasting 4. Brief Job Description: relationships; can meet The one responsible to “get the sale” using various customer personal and team sales sales methods. targets

NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

FAJAR NURHESTININGSIH Customer Service Representative 14.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

HA THI LAN NHI Customer Service Representative 15.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

HOANG THI DU Customer Service Representative 16.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

LE TRAN TRI Customer Service Representative 17.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

LE VU NAM Customer Service Representative 18.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions, and responding to complaints

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 CHENGXIN IMPORT AND EXPORT TRADING CORP. 2502m San Andres Bukid,, Madre Perla, Sta. Ana 083, Barangay 764, Santa Ana, City Of Manila

HONG, BAOSHENG Logistic Specialist 6.

Brief Job Description: The duties of a logistic specialist involve dealing with goods preparation, shipment receipts, and shipment deliveries. Besides that, they help organize transaction schedules, maintain inventory records, and manage fleet maintenance programs.

Basic Qualification: Can communicate in English & Mandarin written and verbal. Warehouse operations management. Order fulfilment and delivery arrangements. Stock receiving, picking,labelling, packing and issuing. Daily and monthly report such as aging report, order report and stock count to ensure no discrepancy

LI, SHANSHAN Customer Service Representative 19.

LU, ZHAOXIAN Customer Service Representative 20.

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

GONG, HUAN Marketing Specialist 7.

Brief Job Description: To be successful as a marketing specialist, you must be highly self-motivated, proactive, and have a working knowledge of current marketing tools and strategies in order to execute successful marketing campaigns

HONG, YINCHENG Marketing Specialist 8.

Brief Job Description: To be successful as a marketing specialist, you must be highly self-motivated, proactive, and have a working knowledge of current marketing tools and strategies in order to execute successful marketing campaigns

LEI, FUDA Procurement Specialist 9.

Brief Job Description: A procurement specialist is responsible for ensuring a company has the right materials and equipment necessary to function. The job description of a procurement specialist will involve meeting with salespersons and negotiating contracts.

Basic Qualification: Ability to work pressure and motivation to success in a competitive environment. Should have bachelor’s degree in journalism, marketing, communication or a related field. Good communication and interpersonal skills. Able to speak and communicate using Mandarin is an advantage Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Ability to work pressure and motivation to success in a competitive environment. Should have bachelor’s degree in journalism, marketing, communication or a related field. Good communication and interpersonal skills. Able to speak and communicate using Mandarin is an advantage Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can communicate in English & Mandarin written and verbal. Knowledgeable in Procurement, Negotiation, Inventory and Supply Chain Management, Fleet Management, Safety and Security Process

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions, and responding to complaints

M ABDI EKA PRAYOGA Customer Service Representative 21.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

MUSDALIFA DUDA Customer Service Representative 22.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

NGUYEN TAN CUONG Customer Service Representative 23.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

NGUYEN TRUNG NGHIA Customer Service Representative 24.

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

COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS PHILIPPINES, INC. 2nd, 3rd, And 4th Floors, Science Hub Tower 4 Bldg., Mckinley Hill Cyberpark, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig SUBRAMANIAN, SIVAMANI Basic Qualification: Associate - Projects 4+ years of healthcare and IT experience on STLC 10. Brief Job Description: To analyze the business requirement and prepare test plan Salary Range: documents by defining test strategy Php 90,000 - Php 149,999

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions, and responding to complaints

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions, and responding to complaints

PHAM HOANG LONG Customer Service Representative 25.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

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ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE

Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or sales experience, fluent in Mandarin and basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or sales experience, fluent in Mandarin and basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or sales experience, fluent in Mandarin and basic English

No.

PHAM NGOC PHU Customer Service Representative 26.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English.

27.

28.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

RAYMOND CHALLESS Customer Service Representative 29.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

RIZKI PEBRIANA Customer Service Representative 30.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

SUGENG HARIADI Customer Service Representative 31.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

TRANG LAC VI Customer Service Representative 32.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

VAN THI THIEN NGA Customer Service Representative 33.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

VERONICA AULIA Customer Service Representative 34.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

VU TIEN DUNG Customer Service Representative 35.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

WINDI DEWI ALPIAMY Customer Service Representative 36.

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

37.

38.

ARJU, OSMAN Bangladeshi Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services

FAN, XIAOQI Chinese Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services.

GAN, JIASONG Chinese Customer Service 39.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or sales experience, fluent in Mandarin and basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

NEW ORIENTAL CLUB88 CORPORATION Sky Garage Bldg., Aseana Avenue, Entertainment City, Tambo, City Of Parañaque 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th/f, Pearl Marina Building Pacific Drive, Don Galo, City Of Parañaque 1331 Pearl Plaza Bldg., Quirino Ave., Tambo, City Of Parañaque

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or sales experience, fluent in Mandarin and basic English

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions and responding to complaints.

PHAN CONG TIEN Customer Service Representative

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English

Brief Job Description: Supports customers by providing helpful information, answering questions, and responding to complaints

PHAM THI MI Customer Service Representative

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate Level, preferably with Customer Service or Sales experience. Fluent in Mandarin/Basic English.

NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION

JIANG, ZUOHUA Chinese Customer Service 40.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents

Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999


BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No.

NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION LAI, XIAOJUN Chinese Customer Service

41.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. LIU, CHENGYU Chinese Customer Service

42.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents LU, JUNSHENG Chinese Customer Service

43.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. TANG, JIAN Chinese Customer Service

44.

45.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. WANG, PEIGEN Chinese Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services

WEI, XINYU Chinese Customer Service 46.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. XU, TINGWEI Chinese Customer Service

47.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents XUE, JIAKANG Chinese Customer Service

48.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. YAN, LIRONG Chinese Customer Service

49.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. YU, WENXIU Chinese Customer Service

50.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents YU, ZHENJIANG Chinese Customer Service

51.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents ZHANG, TAO Chinese Customer Service

52.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents ZHAO, PENG Chinese Customer Service

53.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. ZHAO, XIN Chinese Customer Service

54.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. ZHU, CHEN Chinese Customer Service

55.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. ZHU, CHONGYANG Chinese Customer Service

56.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. TOUYANG Customer Service Representative

57.

58.

59.

60.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents.

ANDY Indonesian Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services

BILL ALFA EFRAIM Indonesian Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services

CRISTINA Indonesian Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services.

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language)

No.

NICO CHANDRA Indonesian Customer Service 61.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language)

62.

63.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language)

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. LAU TAI HONG Malaysian Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services OOI LAY KOON Malaysian Customer Service

64.

65.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents MA CHI Myanmari Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services.

SI SHWIN CIIN Myanmari Customer Service 66.

67.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents.

SIN HWAY Myanmari Customer Service Brief Job Description: Customer support and data base services. SUN, LI-HAN Taiwanese Customer Service

68.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. GIP MINH TU Vietnamese Customer Service

69.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents HA THI HU Vietnamese Customer Service

70.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents

LANG KHAM PHI Vietnamese Customer Service 71.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language)

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents VALENTINO ROSSE Indonesian Customer Service

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language)

NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents

NGUYEN THI THUY Vietnamese Customer Service 72.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents. PHAM THI HANG Vietnamese Customer Service

73.

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and inquiries, handling complaints, provide solutions, process customer accounts and file documents.

74.

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in Computer Application With Good Oral and Written Communication Skills

DENG, YUANLIN Marketing Specialist 75.

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in Computer Application With Good Oral and Written Communication Skills Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE

DU, FEI Marketing Specialist 76.

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

No.

Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 year experience in the same field, Speaks and write (Native Language)

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language)

77.

QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

JIANG, YA Marketing Specialist 78.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION

GE, YUSHENG Marketing Specialist

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

KONG, LEI Marketing Specialist 79.

Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English)

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Knowledgeable in computer application with good oral and written communication skills.

LI, CHENXIAO Marketing Specialist 80.

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

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language)

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

WU, ZHILIN Marketing Specialist 81.

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy. Marketing Specialist

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language) Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

YE, FEI Marketing Specialist 82.

Basic Qualification: College Graduate, Preferably 1 Year Experience in the Similar Field, Speaks and Write Fluently (Native Language)

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas.

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

Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English)

YU, XI Marketing Specialist 83.

Brief Job Description: Responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the company’s marketing strategy.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: College graduate, preferably 1 year experience in the similar field, speak and write fluently (native language & English)

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

SAN MIGUEL AEROCITY INC. (MANILA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT) 40 San Miguel Corporation, Head Office Complex San Miguel, Wack-wack Greenhills, City Of Mandaluyong

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

Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

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

A7

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS

S&P CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY & DEVELOPMENT CO., INC. U-1168b G/f Veca Bldg., Chino Roces Ave. Cor. Estrella St., San Antonio, City Of Makati

CAO, ZHENG Marketing Specialist

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Basic Qualification: Can Conduct market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends; Can Brainstorm and develop ideas for creative marketing campaigns; Can Assist in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

WONG CHUN KAI Project Manager- Airport Terminal Building Consultant 84.

Brief Job Description: Design management between the design and build contractor ad the various vendors. Subsequent to the appointment of the TBAE. Management of Civil and Structural Design. Assist during the self-execution of runways, taxiways, aprons and primary drainage.

Basic Qualification: Design management between the design and build contractor ad the various vendors. Subsequent to te appointment of the TBAE. Management of Civil and Structural Design. Assist during the self-execution of runways, taxiways, aprons and primary drainage. Salary Range: Php 500,000 and above

SHA LONG BEAUTY SALON, OPC G/f 142 Amorsolo Bldg., 142 Amorsolo St., San Lorenzo, City Of Makati LIU, MINGYUN Hair Specialist (Chinese Speaking) 85.

Brief Job Description: Keeping updated on hairstyle trends and styling methods and determine clients’ preferences.

Basic Qualification: Can speak Chinese language for assisting Chinese customer’s needs. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

TENERITY PHILIPPINES CORP. 12th Floor, W Fifth Building, 32nd St. Cor. 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig MBANJWA, S’PHAMANDLA Customer Care Specialist, Bilingual French 86.

Brief Job Description: Maintain and improve contact center customer relations by providing exemplary customer service with one contact solution

Basic Qualification: Excellent interpersonal, listening written and verbal communication skills, passion for customer service Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999 *Date Generated: Jul 26, 2022

Any person in the Philippines who is competent, able and willing to perform the services for which the foreign national is desired may file an objection at DOLE National Capital Region located at DOLE-NCR Building, 967 Maligaya St., Malate Manila, within 30 days after this publication. Please inform DOLE National Capital Region if you have any information on criminal offense committed by the foreign nationals.


A8

TheWorld BusinessMirror

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

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

Foreign Minister Lavrov: Russia wants to end Ukraine’s ‘unacceptable regime’ By Susie Blann

K

The Associated Press

YIV, Ukraine—Russia’s top diplomat said Moscow’s overarching goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its “unacceptable regime,” expressing the Kremlin’s war aims in some of the bluntest terms yet as its forces pummel the country with artillery barrages and airstrikes. T he rem a rk f rom Ru ssi a n Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comes amid Ukraine’s efforts to resume grain exports from its Black Sea ports—something that would help ease global food shortages—under a new deal tested by a Russian strike on Odesa over the weekend.

“We are determined to help the people of eastern Ukraine to liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime,” Lavrov said at an Arab League summit in Cairo late Sunday, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy’s government.

Apparently suggesting that Moscow’s war aims extend beyond Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region in the east, Lavrov said: “We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historical.” Lavrov’s comments followed his warning last week that Russia plans to retain control over broader areas beyond eastern Ukraine, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south, and will make more gains elsewhere. His remarks contrasted with the Kremlin’s line early in the war, when it repeatedly emphasized that Russia wasn’t seeking to overthrow Zelensky y’s government, even as Moscow’s troops closed in on Kyiv. Russia later retreated from around the capital and turned its attention to capturing the Donbas. The war is now in its sixth month. Last week, Russia and Ukraine

IN this handout photo released by Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gestures during a joint news conference with Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry, following their talks in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday, July 24, 2022. RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE VIA AP

sig ned ag reement s a i med at clearing the way for the shipment of millions of tons of desperately needed Ukrainian grain, as well as the export of Russian grain and fertilizer. Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure

Pope Francis apologizes for Church’s ‘catastrophic’ school policy in Canada By Nicole Winfield & Peter Smith The Associated Press

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A S K WA C I S , A l b e r t a — P o p e Francis issued a historic apology Monday for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families and marginalized generations. “I am deeply sorry,” Francis said to applause from school survivors and Indigenous community members gathered at a former residential school south of Edmonton, Alberta. He called the school policy a “disastrous error” that was incompatible with the Gospel and said further investigation and healing is needed. “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said. In the first event of his weeklong “penitential pilgrimage,” Francis traveled to the lands of four Cree nations to pray at a cemetery and then deliver the long-sought apology at nearby powwow ceremonial grounds. Four chiefs escorted the pontiff in a wheelchair to the site near the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, and presented him with a feathered headdress after he spoke, making him an honorary leader of the community. Francis’ words went beyond his earlier apology for the “deplorable” abuses commit ted by missionaries and instead took institutional responsibilit y for the church’s cooper ation with Canada’s “ c a t a s t r o p hi c ” a s si mil a t io n p oli c y, which the countr y’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said amounted to a “cultural genocide.” More than 150,000 native children in Canada were forced to attend governmentfunded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior. Ottawa has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages. The legacy of that abuse and isolation from family has been cited by Indigenous leaders as a root cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction now on Canadian reservations. The discoveries of hundreds of potential burial sites at former schools in the past year drew international attention to the schools in Canada and their counterparts in the United States. The revela-

POPE Francis leaves with Indigenous peoples after praying in a cemetery at the former residential school, in Maskwacis, near Edmonton, Canada on Monday, July 25, 2022. Pope Francis begins a “penitential” visit to Canada to beg forgiveness from survivors of the country’s residential schools, where Catholic missionaries contributed to the “cultural genocide” of generations of Indigenous children by trying to stamp out their languages, cultures and traditions. AP/GREGORIO BORGI) tions prompted Francis to comply with the truth commission’s call for an apology on Canadian soil; Catholic religious orders operated 66 of the country’s 139 residential schools. Reflecting the conflicting emotions of the day, some in the crowd wept as Francis spoke, while others applauded or stayed silent listening to his words, delivered in his native Spanish with English translations. Others chose not to attend at all. “I’ve waited 50 years for this apology, and finally today I heard it,” survivor Evelyn Korkmaz said. “Part of me is rejoiced, part of me is sad, part of me is numb.” She added, however, that she had hoped to hear a “work plan” from the pope on what he would do next to reconcile, including releasing church files on children who died at the schools. Many in the crowd wore traditional dress, including colorful ribbon skirts and vests with Native motifs. Others donned orange shirts, which have become a symbol of school survivors, recalling the story of one woman whose beloved orange shirt, a gift from her grandmother, was confiscated at a school and replaced with a uniform. “It ’s something that is needed, not only for people to hear but for the church to be accountable,” said Sandi Harper, who traveled with her sister and a church group from Saskatchewan in honor of their late mother, who at tended a residential school. “He recognizes this road to reconciliation is going to take time, but he is really on board with us,” she said, calling the apology “genuine.” Despite the solemnity of the event, the atmosphere seemed at times joyful: Chiefs processed into the site venue to a hypnotic drumbeat, elders danced and the crowd

cheered and chanted war songs, victory songs and finally a healing song. Participants paraded a long red banner through the grounds bearing the names of more than 4,000 children who died at or never came home from residential schools; Francis later kissed it. “I wasn’t disappointed. It was quite a momentous occasion,” said Phil Fontaine, a residential school survivor and former chief of the Assembly of First Nations who went public with his story of sexual abuse in the 1990s. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who last year apologized for the “incredibly harmful government policy,” also attended, along with other officials. As part of a lawsuit settlement involving the government, churches and approximately 90,000 survivors, Canada paid reparations that amounted to billions of dollars being transferred to Indigenous communities. Canada’s Catholic Church says its dioceses and religious orders have provided more than $50 million in cash and in-kind contributions and hope to add $30 million more over the next five years. While the pope acknowledged blame, he also made clear that Catholic missionaries were merely cooperating with and implementing the government policy, which he termed the “colonizing mentality of the powers.” Notably he didn’t refer to 15thcentury papal decrees that provided religious backing to European colonial powers in the first place. Jeremy Bergen, a church apology expert and professor of religious and theological studies at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, said Francis made clear he was asking forgiveness for the actions of “members of the church” but not the institution in its entirety.

“The idea is that, as the Body of Christ, the church itself is sinless,” he said via e-mail. “So when Catholics do bad things, they are not truly acting on behalf of the church,” Bergen added, noting it’s a controversial idea on which many Catholic theologians disagree. Francis said the schools marginalized generations, suppressed Indigenous languages, led to physical, verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse and “indelibly affected relationships between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren.” He called for further investigation, a possible reference to demands for further access to church records and personnel files of priests and nuns to identify perpetrators of abuses. “Although Christian charity was not absent, and there were many outstanding instances of devotion and care for children, the overall effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic,” Francis said. “What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The first pope from the Americas was determined to make this trip, even though torn knee ligaments forced him to cancel a visit to Africa earlier this month. The six-day visit—which also includes stops in Quebec City and Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the far north—follows meetings Francis held in the spring at the Vatican with First Nations, Metis and Inuit delegations. Those encounters culminated with Francis’ apology April 1 for “deplorable” abuses at residential schools and a promise to do so again on Canadian soil. Francis recalled that one of the delegations gave him a set of beaded moccasins as a symbol of children who never came back from the schools, and asked him to return them in Canada. Francis said in these months they “kept alive my sense of sorrow, indignation and shame” but that in returning them he hoped they can also represent a path to walk together. Event organizers had mental health counselors on hand Monday, knowing the event could be traumatic for some people. Later Monday, Francis visited Sacred Hear t Church of the First Peoples, an Edmonton parish whose sanctuar y was dedicated last week af ter being restored from a fire. The church incorporates Indigenous language and customs in liturgy, and both were on display during the event, with folksongs and drums and providing the backdrop to the pope’s visit.

The Associated Press writers Rob Gillies in Toronto and Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed.

minister, Yury Vaskov, said the first shipment of grain is planned for this week. W hile Russia faced accusations that the weekend attack on the port of Odesa amounted to reneging on the deal, Moscow

insisted the strike would not affect grain deliveries. During a visit to the Republic of Congo on Monday, Lavrov repeated the Russian claim that the attack targeted a Ukrainian naval vessel and a depot containing Western-supplied anti-ship missiles. He said the grain agreements do not prevent Russia from attacking military targets. In another development, Russia’s gas giant Gazprom said it would further reduce the flow of natural gas through a major pipeline to Europe to 20 percent of capacity, citing equipment repairs. The move heightened fears that Russia is trying to pressure and divide Europe over its support for Ukraine at a time when countries are trying to build up their supplies of gas for the winter. Zelenskyy accused Moscow of “gas blackmail,” saying, “All this is done by Russia deliberately to make it as difficult as possible for Europeans to prepare for winter.”

Former US congressman among 9 charged in insider trading cases By Larry Neumeister The Associated Press

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E W YO R K — A f o r m e r U S congressman from Indiana, technology company executives, a man training to be an FBI agent, and an investment banker were among nine people charged in four separate and unrelated insider trading schemes revealed on Monday with the unsealing of indictments in New York City. It was one of the most significant attacks by law enforcement on insider trading in a decade, and a prosecutor and other federal officials pledged fresh enthusiasm for similar prosecutions in the future. They said the cheating resulted in millions of dollars of illegal profits for defendants situated on both coasts and in middle America. Stephen Buyer was accused in court papers of engaging in insider trading during the $26.5 billion merger of TMobile and Sprint, announced in April 2018. An indictment identified him as someone who misappropriated secrets he learned as a consultant to make $350,000 illegally. Buyer, 63, of Noblesville, Indiana, was arrested Monday in his home state. He served on committees with oversight over the telecommunications industry while a Republican congressman from 1993 through 2011. He was described as making purchases of Sprint securities in March 2018 just a day after attending a golf outing with a T-Mobile executive who told him about the company’s thennonpublic plan to acquire Sprint, according to a civil case brought against Buyer by the Securities and Exchange Commission in a federal court in Manhattan. Authorities said he also engaged in illegal trading in 2019 ahead of Navigant Consulting Inc.’s acquisition by consulting and advisory firm Guidehouse. Documents said he leveraged his work as a consultant and lobbyist to make illegal profits. His lawyer, Andrew Goldstein, said in a statement: “Congressman Buyer is innocent. His stock trades were lawful. He looks forward to being quickly vindicated.” US Attorney Damian Williams told a news conference that the cases, in

addition to several other recently announced crackdowns on insider trading, represent a follow-through on his pledge to be “relentless in rooting out crime in our financial markets.” “We have zero tolerance, zero tolerance for cheating in our markets,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC Enforcement Division. “When insiders like Buyer—an attorney, a former prosecutor, and a retired Congressman—monetize their access to material, nonpublic information, as alleged in this case, they not only violate the federal securities laws, but also undermine public trust and confidence in the fairness of our markets,” Grewal said. In a second prosecution, three executives at Silicon Valley technology companies were charged with trading on inside information about corporate mergers that one of them learned about from his employer. A n indic tment ac cus ed A mit Bhardwaj, 49, of San Ramon, California, who was the chief information security officer of Lumentum Holdings Inc., of using secrets to trade illegally and then giving the information to criminal associates, including four friends. The SEC said Bhardwaj and his friends generated more than $5.2 million in illicit profits by trading ahead of two corporate acquisition announcements. A lawyer for Bhardwaj did not immediately return messages seeking comment. In a third case, Seth Markin, of Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania—a man who was training to be an FBI agent—allegedly stole inside information from his then-girlfriend who was working at a major Washington D.C. law firm. According to court papers, he and a friend made more than $1.4 million in illegal profits after he learned that Merck & Co. was going to acquire Pandion Therapeutics. It was unclear who would represent Markin in court. In a fourth indictment, an investment banker based in New York was charged with sharing secrets about potential mergers with another person, on the understanding that the pair would share illegal profits of about $280,000. Authorities said seven of the nine defendants were arrested Monday while two were arrested previously.


www.businessmirror.com.ph

The World BusinessMirror

Myanmar’s execution of prisoners elicited widespread condemnation By David Rising & Eileen Ng

The Associated Press

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ANGKOK—International outrage over Myanmar’s execution of four political prisoners intensified Tuesday with strong condemnation from world governments and grassroots protests. Myanmar’s military-led government that seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 has been accused of thousands of extrajudicial killings since then, but the hangings announced Monday were the country’s first official executions in decades. “We feel that this is a crime against humanity,” said Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, speaking at the side of the UN’s Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. He said the executions would be a focus of the upcoming meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers, which begin in Cambodia in a week. Myanmar is a member of the influential Asean group, which has been trying to implement a five-point consensus it reached on Myanmar last year calling for dialogue among all concerned parties, provision of humanitarian assistance, an immediate cessation of violence and a visit by a special envoy to meet all parties. With the executions, he said, “we look at it as if the junta is making a mockery of the five point process.” In Bangkok, hundreds of prodemocracy demonstrators protested outside neighboring Myanmar’s embassy, waving flags and chanting slogans amid a heavy downpour. “The dictators used their power arbitrarily,” yelled a young man through a bullhorn to the crowd, some of whom waved pictures of Suu Kyi or the four executed men. “We can’t tolerate this any more.” Among the four executed was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old former lawmaker from Suu Kyi’s party, and Kyaw Min Yu, a 53-year-old democracy activist better known as Ko Jimmy. All were tried, convicted and sentenced by a military tribunal with no possibility of appeal. The execution of the four activists prompted immediate calls from around the world for a moratorium on carrying out any further sentences, and condemnation for what was broadly seen as a politically motivated move. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, announced in June that it was going to resume executing prisoners and has 113 others who have been sentenced to death, although 41 of those were convicted in absentia, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a

non-governmental organization that tracks killing and arrests. At the same time, 2,120 civilians have been killed by security forces since the military takeover. “This was a barbaric act by Myanmar’s military regime,” said New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta of the four executions carried out. “New Zealand condemns these actions in the strongest possible terms.” Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “appalled” by the executions. “Australia opposes the death penalty in all circumstances for all people,” she said. Earlier, Australia and New Zealand had joined the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Norway and South Korea in a joint statement condemning the executions. Asean denounced the executions as “highly reprehensible.” It said the move represented a setback to the group’s efforts to facilitate a dialogue between the military leadership and opponents. “We strongly and urgently call on all parties concerned to desist from taking actions that would only further aggravate the crisis, hinder peaceful dialogue among all parties concerned, and endanger peace, security and stability, not only in Myanmar, but the whole region,” the group said in a statement. The military’s seizure of power from Suu Kyi’s elected government triggered peaceful protests that soon escalated to armed resistance and then to widespread fighting that some UN experts characterize as a civil war. Some resistance groups have engaged in assassinations, drive-by shootings and bombings in urban areas. Mainstream opposition organizations generally disavow such activities, while supporting armed resistance in rural areas that are more often subject to brutal military attacks. News of the executions prompted a flash-demonstration Monday in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, where about a dozen protesters took to the streets marching behind a banner saying “we are never afraid,” then quickly slipping away before authorities could confront them. The last judicial execution to be carried out in Myanmar is generally believed to have been of another political offender, student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, in 1976 under a previous military government led by dictator Ne Win. All four executed men had been accused of violent anti-government acts, charges that were denied by their defenders.

Ng reported from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul in Bangkok contributed to this report.

By Matthew Brown

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The Associated Press

ILLINGS, Mont.—The Biden administration on Monday said the government will plant more than 1 billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the US West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change.

Destructive fires in recent years that burned too hot for forests to regrow naturally have far outpaced the government’s capacity to plant new trees. That has created a backlog of 4.1 million acres (1.7 million hectares) in need of replanting, officials said. The US Agriculture Department said it will have to quadruple the number of tree seedlings produced by nurseries to get through the back log and meet future needs. That comes after Congress last year passed bipartisan legislation directing the Forest Service to plant 1.2 billion trees over the next decade and after President Joe Biden in April ordered the agency to make the nation’s forests more resilient as the globe gets hotter. Much of the administration’s broader agenda to tackle climate change remains stalled amid disagreement in Congress, where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority. That has left officials to pursue a more piecemeal approach with incremental measures such as Monday’s announcement, while the administration considers whether to declare a climate emergency that could open the

By Jill Lawless

The Associated Press

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THIS combo of file photos show the remaining candidates in the Conservative Party leadership race, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. The two candidates vying to be Britain’s next prime minister sparred in a TV debate. AP PHOTO governing a country of 67 million. Party members will vote over the summer, with the result announced September 5. Johnson remains caretaker prime minister until his successor is chosen. Truss, 46, and Sunak, 42, have wooed Conservatives by doubling down on policies thought to appeal to the right-wing Tory grassroots, including a controversial plan to deport some asylum-seekers to Rwanda. The government says the policy will deter people-traffickers from sending migrants on hazardous journeys across the Channel. Political opponents, human rights organizations and even a few Conservative lawmakers say it is immoral, illegal and a waste of taxpayers’ money. The first scheduled deportation flight was grounded after legal rulings last month, and the whole policy is now being challenged in the British courts. Hardline policies like the Rwanda plan are less popular with voters as a whole than with Conservatives, but the British

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US govt to plant 1 billion trees as climate change kills forests

door to more aggressive executive branch actions. To erase the backlog of decimated forest acreage, the Forest Service plans over the next couple years to scale up work from about 60,000 acres (24,000 hectares) replanted last year to about 400,000 acres (162,000 hectares) annually, officials said. Most of the work will be in western states where wildfires now occur year round and the need is most pressing, said David Lytle, the agency’s director of forest management. Blazes have charred 5.6 million acres so far in the US this year, putting 2022 on track to match or exceed the record-setting 2015 fire season, when 10.1 million acres (4.1 million hectares) burned. Many forests regenerate naturally after fires, but if the blazes get too intense they can leave behind barren landscapes that linger for decades before trees come back. “Our forests, rural communities, agriculture and economy are connected across a shared landscape and their existence is at stake,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement announcing the reforestation plan.

2 UK leadership contenders spar over tax in TV debate ONDON—The two candidates vying to be Britain’s next prime minister sparred Monday over how to help families struggling with the soaring cost of living, meeting in a testy televised debate that highlighted the contrasting economic visions of the Conservative Party rivals. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss promised to cut taxes as soon as she took office, using borrowing to pay for it. Former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak said he would get inflation under control first, arguing that Truss’s plan would increase the public debt and leave people worse off in the long run. Tempers flared as Sunak said that “it’s not moral to ask our children to pick up the tab for the bills that we’re not prepared to pay.” Truss called that “Project Fear” and said it was sensible to borrow to rebuild from the coronavirus pandemic, a “once in a 100-year event.” The two are battling to succeed Boris Johnson, who quit as leader of the governing Conservative Party on July 7 after months of ethics scandals triggered a mass exodus of ministers from his government. The contest has exposed deep divisions within the party as it tries to move on from the tarnished, but election-winning Johnson. Oddsmakers say Truss is the favorite to win. She outperforms Sunak in polls of Conservative members—though Sunak has the edge among voters as a whole. The winner will be chosen by about 180,000 Conservative Party members and will automatically become prime minister,

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

electorate won’t get a say on the government until the next national election, due by the end of 2024. The leadership election is taking place during a cost-of-living crisis driven by soaring food and energy prices, partly due to the war in Ukraine. While many countries are experiencing economic turbulence, in Britain it’s compounded by the country’s departure from the European Union, which has complicated travel and business relations with the UK’s biggest trading partner. Both Sunak and Truss are strong supporters of Brexit, which was the signature policy of the Johnson government. Both denied Brexit was responsible for huge queues of vehicles waiting to cross to France at the port of Dover in recent days. Sunak is running as the candidate of fiscal probity, while Truss has positioned herself as a disruptor who will “challenge orthodoxy” and “get things done.” The two sparred on topics such as

policy toward China, with Truss accusing Sunak of changing his stance on relations with Beijing. Sunak says that China represents the “biggest long-term threat to Britain” and that if elected he would close the 30 Confucius Institutes in Britain. Funded by the Chinese government, the institutes teach Chinese language and culture, but have been accused of spreading pro-Beijing propaganda. “As recently as a month ago you were pushing for closer trade relationships with China,” said Truss, who warned the West must not become “strategically dependent” on China. “I’m delighted that you’ve come round to my way of thinking,” she said. Sunak faces hostility from allies of Johnson, who consider him a turncoat for quitting the government earlier this month, a move that helped bring down the prime minister. Truss chose to remain in the caretaker government. Both candidates, though, said Johnson would not be part of their government if they became prime minister. “I think we need to look forward at this point,” Sunak said. Truss said Johnson “deserves a wellearned break, and added: “What’s done is done.” Many Conservatives worry that the bitter internal fighting the campaign has already brought is only benefitting the opposition Labour Party. Former party chairwoman Amanda Milling said the contest was “more toxic than I’ve ever seen.” Writing on Twitter, she urged both candidates to sign up to a “Clean Campaign Charter,” saying that without it “the lasting damage to our Party could see us out of power for a decade.”

A BURNED hillside where crews are planting seedlings including Giant Sequoia in Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest outside Springville, California, on April 26, 2022. Destructive fires in recent years that burned too hot for forests to quickly regrow have far outpaced the government’s capacity to replant trees. CARLOS AVILA GONZALEZ/SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE VIA AP

“Only through bold, climatesmart actions...can we ensure their future.” The Forest Service this year is spending more than $100 million on reforestation work. Spending is expected to further increase in coming years, to as much as $260 million annually, under the sweeping federal infrastructure bill approved last year, agency officials said. Some timber industr y supporters were critical of last year’s reforesting legislation as insufficient to turn the tide on the scale of the wildfire problem. They want more aggressive logging to thin stands that have become overgrown from years of suppressing fires. To prevent replanted areas from becoming similarly overgrown, practices are changing so reforested stands are less dense with trees and therefore less fire prone, said Joe Fargione, science director for North America at the Nature Conservancy. But challenges to the Forest Service’s goal remain, from finding enough seeds to hiring enough workers to plant them, Fargione said. Many seedlings will die before

reaching maturity due to drought and insects, both of which can be exacerbated by climate change. “You’ve got to be smart about where you plant,” Fargione said. “There are some places that the c l imate has a lready changed enough that it makes the probability of successfully reestablishing trees pretty low.” Living trees are a major “sink ” for carbon dioxide that’s driving climate change when it enters the atmosphere, Fargione said. That means replacing those that die is important to keep climate change from getting even worse. Congress in 1980 created a reforestation trust that had previously capped funding—which came from tariffs on timber products—at $30 million annually. That was enough money when the most significant need for reforestation came from logging, but became insufficient as the number of large, high intensity fires increased, officials said. Insects, disease and timber harvests also contribute to the amount of land that needs reforestation work, but the vast majority comes from fires. In the past five years alone more than 5 million acres were severely burned.

Central banks to blame for global inflation, former RBNZ chief says By Matthew Brockett

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ENTRAL banks are responsible for soaring inflation rates around the world and should admit that they overstimulated economies during the pandemic. That’s the view of former New Zealand central bank governor Graeme Wheeler and Bryce Wilkinson, a senior research fellow with the New Zealand Initiative think tank, who have co-authored a paper released Tuesday in Wellington titled: “How Central Bank Mistakes After 2019 Led to Inflation.” “The main cause of inflationary pressures lies in the errors of judgment made by central banks in conducting monetary policy during the Covid pandemic,” they write. “While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accentuated the rise in inflationary pressures, commodity prices were already high because of the rapid global expansion in liquidity and debt.” Central banks “overdid interest-rate cuts and the scale of their quantitative easing,” and many continued asset purchases “when it was clear from the tightness of the labor market and rise in bond yields from late 2020 that their economies were stronger than forecast and that inflation pressures were starting to build,” Wheeler and Wilkinson say. Wheeler led the Reserve Bank of New Zealand for five years until late 2017. During his tenure, the RBNZ raised rates in anticipation of faster inflation but had to reverse course when it didn’t materialize. Afterwards, Wheeler insisted the tightening was justified given the information he had at the time.

In a podcast released Tuesday with the paper, Wheeler is asked if he would have done anything differently and concedes the rate hikes were a mistake. “We did have a situation that I do regret, we did get wrong, though at the time when we made that judgment it certainly wasn’t clear that we were doing anything wrong,” he says.

‘Glass house’

“I’M conscious that if you live in a glass house you shouldn’t throw stones,” Wheeler says. “But I’m very keen to collaborate with Bryce on this paper because the mistakes that have been made by central banks are so grievous, they’re so damaging in terms of the adjustments that lie ahead.” In the paper, Wheeler and Wilkinson are critical of policy makers for failing to admit their errors and argue they need to fess up to their mistakes to rebuild credibility and restore public confidence. “Central bankers need to reflect deeply on the management of monetary policy over the past two years and review their models and the assumptions and judgments they made,” they write. “Trite responses about ‘having no regrets,’ ‘would not do anything differently,’ and ‘there is no alternative’ are irresponsible and further damage a central bank’s credibility.” Central bankers need to learn from their misjudgments because the social, economic and political consequences of major mistakes run deep and the trust and confidence that the public have in them can be readily depleted, the authors say. Bloomberg News


A10 Wednesday, July 27, 2022 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

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editorial

City garden template

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arangay San Antonio in Pasig City is a highly urbanized community where one can find various high-rise condominiums and office buildings. It is the home of Ortigas Center Business District, the University of Asia and the Pacific, Discovery Suites, Development Academy of the Philippines, and the National Economic and Development Authority. In their midst is an urban garden where fruits and vegetables are grown using compost (See, “Barangay San Antonio tops Pasig’s urban gardening contest,” in the BusinessMirror, August 4, 2021). Aside from producing fruits and vegetables, the barangay’s urban garden also has a honey farm, mushroom and farm and waste composting. The garden is organized by Pasig City street sweepers who reside in Brgy. San Antonio. They sell produce to the public at “very reasonable prices” and proceeds are set aside for the operating expenses of the urban garden, according to barangay officials. The Brgy. San Antonio garden shows that producing food in a highly urbanized community is possible, especially if it will get the support of both local officials and residents. It can serve as a possible template for other communities that are in search of initiatives that will not only benefit residents but also the environment. This is because a sustainable urban garden will help reduce carbon footprint as residents would not have to travel elsewhere to buy fruits and vegetables. It would do well for the new administration to encourage the establishment of similar urban gardens to boost food supply in the community and fight hunger, which could worsen given the recent spike in commodity prices. The results of a Social Weather Stations survey conducted in December indicated that nearly 12 percent of Filipino families, or 3 million people, experienced involuntary hunger in the fourth quarter. This brought the annual average rate for 2021 to 13.1 percent, lower than the record high 21.1 percent recorded in 2020, but still above the 9.3 percent in 2019. As suggested by House Bill 72, or the Integrated Urban Agriculture Act, local government units should incorporate urban farms in their development plans. The commitment of LGUs to implement programs such as urban farming is key to mainstreaming the initiative. With the assistance of national agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture, urban gardens that are capable of producing part of the food requirements of residents will help ease the pressure on supply chains, which are currently grappling with disruptions caused by the pandemic and the eventual reopening of economies. Increasing the supply of affordable fruits and vegetables in the community will also boost efforts of the government to fight malnutrition and stunting. Over 75 million Filipinos cannot afford a healthy diet, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report (See, “7 in 10 Filipinos can’t afford nutritious food—OFI 2022,” in the BusinessMirror, July 11, 2022). Making nutritious food more accessible to households will reduce the cost of a healthy diet, especially now that fruits and vegetables have become more expensive following the surge in fertilizer prices. Since 2005

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A world in crisis needs both trade and aid The following is a joint opinion piece by WTO Director-General Ngozi OkonjoIweala, UN Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan, and International Trade Centre Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton.

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E are in the toughest period the world economy has faced since the creation of the multilateral system more than three-quarters of a century ago. A quadruple shock of Covid, climate change, conflict and cost-of-living has undone years of hard-fought development gains. As financial conditions tighten, even countries that had seemed on track to prosperity and stability now stare into the abyss of debt distress, fragility and uncertainty about the future.

Coordinated, multilateral action is necessary to tackle the crises we face. Both aid and trade have key roles to play in reversing the impacts of this quadruple shock and putting the world back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We head the three international agencies that comprise the Geneva trade hub—the World Trade Organization, UN Conference on Trade and Development, and the International Trade Centre. The WTO makes and monitors the rules for global trade. UNCTAD delivers research and consensus-building to guide governments. ITC helps small business go global, especially firms led by women and young entrepreneurs. We work together so that trade works better for development. All three of us share a deep commitment to trade-led prosperity. All three of us understand that a world in crisis means no more business as usual. And all three of us want our organizations to “walk the talk” on making aid and trade deliver for real people. To guide aid and trade towards a

better world, policymakers need to pivot in three fundamental ways. First, make trade greener. Global trade can play an important role in a transition to a low-carbon economy. Preliminary research at the WTO suggests that removing tariffs and regulatory trade barriers for a set of energy-related environmental goods would reduce global CO2 emissions by 0.6 percent in 2030 just from improved energy efficiency, with additional potential gains from innovation spillovers and as lower prices accelerate the shift towards renewable energy and less carbonintensive products. Second, make trade more inclusive. Promoting greater trade by small businesses and greater participation by women and youth make companies and countries more competitive, drives economic transformation and reduces poverty. Yet ITC business surveys found that only one out of every five exporting companies is women-led. WTO data show that micro, small and medium-sized firms represent around 95 percent of all companies globally but only one-

Patent infringement Dennis Gorecho

Amicus curiae

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patent is granted to provide rights and protection to the inventor after an invention is disclosed to the public. It also seeks to restrain and prevent unauthorized persons from unjustly profiting from a protected invention, including the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the product of his invention during the life of the patent. Under the Republic Act 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code (IP Code), a patentable invention is a product or process that provides any technical solution in any field of human activity that is new, involves an inventive step and is industrially applicable. An invention is not considered new if it already forms part of the domain of prior art.

An invention involves an inventive step if, having regard to prior art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art at the time of the filing date or priority date of the application claiming the invention. An invention that can be produced and used in any industry is considered industrially applicable. The Philippines follows the firstto-file rule in determining who has

third of total exports. Third, make trade more connected. In our networked world, the future of trade is through digital channels and platforms, especially for small businesses. During the pandemic, we saw how doing business online went from being useful to critical for survival. UNCTAD data shows that digitally delivered services reached almost two-thirds the level of global services exports. These themes will be discussed at the upcoming Global Review of Aidfor-Trade, which will be held from July 27 to 29 in Geneva. The event comes one month after the WTO’s successful Twelfth Ministerial Conference, which put trade multilateralism back on track and delivered a landmark agreement on fisheries subsidies, and two months before the COP27 meeting in Egypt that could determine the world’s chances to keep the 1.5C target alive. The data shows promising signs that aid-for-trade is tilting towards greater sustainability, inclusivity and connectivity. OECD and WTO data reveal a record high of nearly $50 billion in aid for trade disbursements in 2020, of which half were either climate or gender related, and one-third supported the digital economy. Despite growing budgetary pressures at home, it is critically important to continue and increase aid for trade flows. Apart from a stronger thematic focus on sustainability, inclusivity and connectivity, maximizing the contribution of aid for trade to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a resolute focus

on the “where” and “how” of delivering development results. This means a focus on those countries whose trade and development needs are highest – particularly Least Developed Countries and fragile/ conflict-affected countries—and regional initiatives like African Continental Free Trade Area, to ensure they become stepping-stones to wider and more inclusive regional value chains and trade-led growth. It means partnership across international organizations. The WTO, UNCTAD, and ITC already collaborate on initiatives like the Global Trade Helpdesk, which simplifies market research by bringing key trade and business information into a single portal, as well as on support to cotton-exporting countries in Africa. Last but certainly not least, it means mobilizing public and private finance. The IFC estimates a worldwide $300 billion financing gap for women, and the global trade finance gap has nearly doubled from an already-staggering $1.5 trillion. Without access to finance, firms cannot grow, diversify or formalize. We want to end with a call to action. Creating a more sustainable, inclusive and connected future is the moon shot of our times. Aid, trade and multilateralism—working together—are part of the solution. It is normal and understandable that governments act to shore up their own economies in troubled times. But we must act now to ensure that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable can still see a pathway to prosperity through global trade.

a better right over a patent. Patent owners may also give permission to, or license, other parties to use their inventions on mutually agreed terms. The term of a patent shall be 20 years from the filing date of the application. One of the oldest patent case in the Philippines involved a farming plow as decided in Vargas v. F. M. Yaptico & Co (GR 14101, September 24, 1919). Vargas was a farmer who took it upon himself to produce, with the native plow as the model, an improved, adjustable plow. In 1910, he applied for letters patent before the US Patent Office, which was later issued on March 1912. He then filed a certified copy in the Division of Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks of the Philippines Executive Bureau. The defendant was engaged in the foundry business in Iloilo City, which manufactured plow parts such as points, shares, shoes, and heel pieces adapted to replace worn-out parts of

the Vargas plow. Vargas filed a case to enjoin the alleged patent infringement by the defendant and to recover the damages. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendant who was able to prove his defenses, among others, that for more than two years before the application for the original letters patent, or before July 22, 1908, there was, by the consent and allowance of Vargas, a public use of the invention covered by them. The Supreme Court said that rude wooden implements for tilling the soil have been in use in the Philippines, possibly not since the Israelites “went down to sharpen every man his share and his coulter,” but certainly for many years. Iron plows called “Urquijo” and “Pony” have been the vogue. Patent infringement is also the plot of Episode 5 of the Korean series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which revolves around Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), a neophyte lawyer working See “Gorecho,” A11


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The missed Minsk agreements

Nurses bleeding, leaving, lacking Dr. Carl E. Balita

Entrepreneurs’ Footprints

LITO GAGNI

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HERE is an interesting piece that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently wrote that shines a spotlight on the missed opportunities at peace in the ongoing Ukraine crisis: the Minsk agreements that were not implemented. Now glossed over, especially by the West, Lavrov points to the seven arduous years that the Minsk accord remained unimplemented, and could have signaled peace in that part of the world. Now, all countries have to grapple with high energy prices, shuttered supply chains and inflation spikes that rob people of their purchasing power. For Lavrov, there have been initiatives made by Russia, Germany, and France to signal a cessation of hostilities between Kiev on one hand and Donetsk and Lugansk on the other hand, with the signing in February 2015 of the Minsk Agreements, so called for having been crafted in Belarus’s capital. “Berlin and Paris played a proactive role” in the signing of the accord meant to stop the war between Kiev and the Russian-speaking region of Donbas region where Donetsk and Lugansk are located, according to Lavrov’s essay, published in Izvestia. Proudly calling themselves the guarantor countries, Germany and France, however, did absolutely nothing during the seven long years that followed, to force Kiev to launch a direct dialogue with Donbas representatives for the brokered peace. Donetsk and Lugansk and Kiev were supposed to agree on matters regarding the special status, amnesty, restoring economic ties, and holding elections, as required by the Minsk Agreements, which were approved unanimously by the UN Security Council. However, the West remained silent when Kiev took steps that directly violated the Minsk Agreements under both Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “The German and the French leaders kept saying that Kiev cannot enter direct dialogue with the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and blamed everything on Russia when the fact of the matter is that while Russia was not mentioned in the Minsk agreements even once, it remained basically the only country that kept pushing for the accords to be implemented,” Lavrov maintained. This is a key insight that showed how the West kept on hammering for peace when it did not really exert any effort to achieve that peace. And now the Minsk agreements have gone to waste. To understand the ongoing war is to go back to those Minsk agreements and how the West was trying to show to the world that it is brokering peace when in fact it was part of the break-up for the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 accords. In fact, Ukraine even revised its Constitution by providing for its Nato membership, which meant the crossing of a line with the deployment of troops near Russia’s border. So what followed was the special military operation that Vladimir Putin launched as he cited the military incursions at Russia’s very doorstep. “You promised us in the 1990s that (Nato) would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly,” Putin said and thus Russian forces crossed into Ukraine on February 24 after recognizing the state of Donetsk and Lugansk. We have cited earlier the assertions from Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Marat Pavlov that “Russia’s concerns were not taken into account. Attempts to negotiate security guarantees with the US last December came to nothing. They rejected Russian proposals so we have no choice but to recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and commence our special operations.” According to the Russian envoy,

“The German and the French leaders kept saying that Kiev cannot enter direct dialogue with the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and blamed everything on Russia when the fact of the matter is that while Russia was not mentioned in the Minsk agreements even once, it remained basically the only country that kept pushing for the accords to be implemented,” Lavrov maintained. for the past eight years, his country has been negotiating for a political solution in the Donbas region so that they remain inside Ukraine. But he said that the Ukraine regime “has put the territories under siege and switched off the banking systems, food supply and payment of pensions.” For Lavrov, the Minsk agreements showcase the “fake” narratives that the West had been harping on to embellish what it had been trying to do: torpedo the attempts at peace that Russia has been latching on to maintain a harmonious relationship with Kiev. He cited several fake narratives that the West had been guilty of on various fronts. These are, as he cited in his essay: n If anyone doubted that the Minsk Package was anything but yet another fake, Petro Poroshenko dispelled this myth by saying on June 17, 2022: “The Minsk Agreements did not mean anything to us, and we had no intention to carry them out… our goal was to remove the threat we faced… and win time in order to restore economic growth and rebuild the armed forces. We achieved this goal. Mission accomplished for the Minsk Agreements.” The people of Ukraine are still paying the price of this fake. n There was also Syria, with the 2013 agreement on eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles in a stage-by-stage process verified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for which it received the Nobel Peace Prize. After that, however, there were outrageous provocations in 2017 and 2018 staging the use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun and Duma, a Damascus suburb.... All attempts to force the OPCW Technical Secretariat to perform its duties in good faith and ensure a transparent investigation into these incidents, as required by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), failed. n If we look at today’s events through a historical prism, the entire Ukrainian crisis appears as a “grand chess game” that follows a scenario earlier promoted by Zbigniew Brzezinski. All the good relations talk, the West’s proclaimed readiness to take into account the rights and interests of Russians who ended up in independent Ukraine or other postSoviet countries after the collapse of the USSR, turned out to be mere pretense. Even in the early 2000s, Washington and the European Union began to openly pressure Kiev to decide which side Ukraine was on, the West or Russia.

Wednesday, July 27, 2022 A11

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he world will be short of 5.6 million nurses by 2030, based on the WHO’s State of World Nursing Report in 2020. The Filipino nurses are the best for the Filipinos and the choice of the world, as envisioned in the Philippine Nursing Roadmap. The Filipino nurses are the best for the Filipinos but they are leaving to respond to the irresistible offers of foreign countries. The WHO recommends that countries need to invest in massive acceleration of nursing education, create at least 6 million new nursing jobs by 2030 and strengthen nurse leadership. The recent DOH report expressed that the Philippines is short of 92,000 physicians and 44,000 nurses. We also lack 19,000 medical technologists, around 14,000 pharmacists, and around 17,000 radiologic technicians and radiologic technologists. The Private Hospital Association of the Philippines has consistently expressed alarm for the exodus of nurses. For the past 20 years, the Professional Regulation Commission has registered 606,428 nurses and 55,783 physicians. Prior to the pandemic, an average of 30,000 nurses are registered a year for the past 20 years, and there is no reason for the country to have scarcity of nurses, if only we give our nurses reasons to stay. With the increased health-care demand, the full implementation of the Universal Health Care Law, and the availability of the local resources due to the Mandanas-Garcia Ruling, the welfare of health professionals should be and may be addressed properly, before it is too late.

The problems

Nurses are not regarded well in

the Philippines. The Salary Grade 15, which was provided by RA 9173 in 2002, took almost two decades to benefit the nurses in government. The nurses in private institutions remain within the bracket of the minimum wage, even at present. The positive practice environment is not provided, not only to nurses, but to many health professionals as well. The absence of these is the reason why, while nurses may want to be home to serve Filipinos, they are pushed away to grab the opportunities overseas. Even before the pandemic, the nurses were deployed as “casual, job orders” under the Nurse Deployment Program, which gave the “carrot” of higher salary but lacks plantilla positions for job security and career progression. Their services are under contractualization scheme, which does not provide for security of tenure. The Build, Build, Build program built health facilities and infrastructures but did not supply the human resource through permanent job positions to manifest the seriousness of the government, national and local,

in prioritizing health specially amid the pandemic. There was the imposition of the deployment ban after the cap of 6,500 deployments in 2021. The ban is increased to 7,000 deployments in 2022, a big threat still to the lack of nurses in various hospitals, especially the private hospitals. All these reveal that the problem is not really a shortage of nurses. On the contrary, we have a surplus of competent nurses. What we lack is societal compassion and the initiative to pay attention to health-care workers’ needs and provide immediate sustainable solutions.

The proposed solutions

Investments in education, in all health science courses, are long-term solutions in forms of scholarships and subsidy for public and private institutions offering these health courses. Scholarships in graduate studies are needed to supply the scarce qualified instructors and educators in various areas of health sciences. Immediately, the government needs to create and fill up plantilla positions for various nursing positions cognizant of the nurse-patient ratio, which is scientifically based on the acuity of care. The Nurse Deployment Program should be shifted to a more sustainable investment in health human resource that provides for security of tenure and positive practice environment. There may be a need to have a National Chief Nurse position in the Department of Health to ensure a more orchestrated strategic directions and tactical execution of nursing agenda for the universal health care. The PhilHealth needs to remain true to its mandate as a national health insurance that enables and empowers the private healthcare institutions. Government may need

to subsidize the private hospitals, specific in their human resource development, to cushion the increasing cost of health care. In the short-term, there are solutions to increase the supply of health-care professionals, specific to nursing, which may also provide for models in other health-care disciplines: n Strengthening of the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation in nursing. n Provision of the scholarships and subsidies for the drop-outs in nursing schools due to financial reasons. n Institutionalization of the Nurses Licensure Examination Competency Enrichment Programs by the Centers of Excellence and Centers of Development among nursing colleges and universities, as an extension service to nursing graduates. n Creation of a Bridging Program for those RNs who have left the practice of nursing and shifted to BPO, airline services, business, etc. n Engagement of the repatriated overseas Filipinos who were healthcare workers across various levels of nursing career paths. This may be an attractive proposition towards braingain. Almost two years must have been long enough a time for the government to realize that the heroism they attribute to health frontliners needs measurable rewards, not as a palliative band-aid solution but as a sustainable and equitable investment on health human resource, which is the most important resource of the health care system. By the way, there is a looming commoditization of nursing education, again, as the moratorium in the opening of nursing school is lifted. For feedback, please send e-mail to drcarlbalita@ yahoo.com.

EU struggles with how to cut off its reliance on Russian gas By Raf Casert | The Associated Press

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RUSSELS—European Union nations struggled Monday to find common ground on how to wean the bloc off its reliance on Russian natural gas, seeking to appease wary, stressed consumers at home while upholding unity as Moscow turns down the tap. Russian President Vladimir Putin has weaponized gas exports to pressure the bloc into reducing its sanctions over the war in Ukraine or to push other political aims. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday called Russia’s cuts to gas deliveries “a form of terror” and urged European countries to respond by tightening sanctions on Moscow. On the eve of an emergency meeting to discuss plans to cut EU gas use 15 percent over the coming months, envoys on Monday were still brokering a possible compromise that should keep all 27 nations in line by Tuesday night. “This is still a work in progress,” said a senior diplomat who asked not to be identified because the talks were still ongoing. The bloc is bracing for a possible full Russian cutoff of natural gas supplies that could add a big chill to the upcoming winter, leaving nations like economic juggernaut Germany especially exposed. But some other

Gorecho. . .

continued from A10

at the prestigious Hanbada Law Firm. Her main challenge in the legal profession is that she has autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The episode is about the legal battle for the patent infringement of the “honesty cassette” in ATM machines that was meant to cut out embezzlement and financial crime. Her law firm’s client insists that they own the technology while the defendant argued that it belonged

Reducing EU gas use by 15 percent between August and next March will not come easy. The European Commission signaled its proposed target would require EU countries as a whole to triple the cuts they have already achieved since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Yet there is a fear of displaying a lack of solidarity, with the rest of the world—especially Russia— looking on.

EU countries, like Spain and Portugal, which have little dependence on Russian gas, do not want to force such a major cut on their people. Russia has cut off or reduced gas to a dozen EU countries so far. On Monday, it said it will slash flows this week through a major pipeline to Germany by another half, to 20 percent of capacity. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline reductions further endanger goals to fill European gas storage tanks for winter as envoys haggled over EU plans. It was what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had seen coming when she announced the plan. She is convinced that Putin will cut off natural gas exports to try to wreak economic and political havoc in Europe this winter. “This is exactly the sort of scenario the president was referring to last week,” said Commission spokesman Eric Mamer. “This development validates our analysis. We therefore hope that the Council will adopt an appropriate response” on Tuesday. The diplomat said ambassadors had been working nonstop on the divisive issue and had sought to clip the powers of the executive European Commission, which under its plan, could sidestep member countries to impose such reductions.

“First and utmost” was the need to put EU nations in charge of deciding when such cuts should become mandatory, the diplomat said. Yielding some of their powers over energy policy to EU officials in Brussels has long been anathema in some national capitals. Hungarian officials were in Moscow last week, reportedly seeking additional energy imports. Spain and Portugal have already said making mandatory reductions are a nonstarter. They noted that they use very little Russian gas compared with countries such as Germany and Italy and that there are scant energy connections linking them to the rest of Europe. A one-size-fits-all solution seemed off the table Monday as

to another entity and copied only by their client. To substantiate their claim, she “fabricated” evidence by coaching the R&D manager (a former theater actor) to become a reference witness that the technology is really theirs. The court issues an injunction against the rival company, preventing them from selling their products. The rival company eventually finds an ATM that proves that the technology already existed before Hanbada’s client “developed” theirs. Unfortunately, their client already won supply contracts with all the banks while the injunction was

on, so the eventual cancellation of the injunction doesn’t affect them. Their client submitted for model utility rights because it wanted to monopolize the industry. And she belatedly realized that this was their plan all along. In Dupont de Nemours. v. IPO (August 31, 2016 GR 174379), the Supreme Court said that a patent is a monopoly granted only for specific purposes and objectives. To balance the public interests involved, failure to comply with strict procedural rules will result in the failure to obtain a patent. The Court explained that the

envoys were looking at exemptions for island nations that are not connected to other networks, for Baltic nations that have close links with the Russian electricity grid, or nations whose industries depend heavily on gas imports. Reducing EU gas use by 15 percent between August and next March will not come easy. The European Commission signaled its proposed target would require EU countries as a whole to triple the cuts they have already achieved since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Yet there is a fear of displaying a lack of solidarity, with the rest of the world—especially Russia—looking on. “The world is watching very closely,” the diplomat said. During the war, the EU has approved bans on Russian coal and most oil to take effect later this year, but it did not include natural gas because the bloc depends on gas to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes. The aim of the commission’s proposals is to ensure, in case of a Russian cutoff, that essential industries and services like hospitals can function, while others would have to cut back. That could include lowering heat in public buildings and enticing families to use less energy at home. patent law has a three-fold purpose: “First, patent law seeks to foster and reward invention; second, it promotes disclosures of inventions to stimulate further innovation and to permit the public to practice the invention once the patent expires; third, the stringent requirements for patent protection seek to ensure that ideas in the public domain remain there for the free use of the public.” Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho heads the seafarers’ division of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan law offices. For comments, e-mail info@sapalovelez.com, or call 0917-5025808 or 0908-8665786.


A12 Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Vaping bill lapses into law; boost to biz, tax take touted

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie & Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

ESPITE the controversial provisions of the Vape bill from the previous administration, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. allowed the legislation to lapse into law. On Tuesday, Press Secretary Beatrix “Trixie” Cruz-Angeles confirmed Marcos decided not to veto the measure, which was being opposed by Senator Pia S. Cayetano, government agencies and health advocates for supposedly relaxing existing regulations for vape under Republic Act (RA) No. 11346. She issued the statement amid news reports that the bill became effective last Monday after being signed by Marcos. The bill was passed by lawmakers during the 18th Congress, but was not acted upon by former President Rodrigo R. Duterte before he ended his term last month. Cayetano together with other

nongovernment organizations including the Action for Economic Reforms, HealthJustice Philippines, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance and ImagineLaw urged Duterte and Marcos to veto the Vape bill. The Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Education (DepEd) also oppose passage of the Vape bill, saying it could expose more people to the products, the health risks of which have not been fully ascertained. Health officials noted that no less than the Supreme Court recognized the health risk posed by tobacco products. Among the provisions of the Vape bill which they rejected are

the transfer of the regulatory jurisdiction of e-cigarette and heated tobacco products from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI); lowering the minimum age to access such products from 21 to 18 years old; and allowing its sale and promotion online and to nonsmokers.

Boost

THE new vaping law will provide a much-need economic boost for small businesses and the government, said Valenzuela City Mayor Wes Gatchalian, one of the principal authors of the bill. The Vaporized Nicotine Products (VNP) bill that will comprehensively regulate the importation, manufacturing, communication, promotion, sales, distribution and use of vaping products like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products (HTPs), lapsed into law on Sunday, July 24, 2022. Gatchalian, who served as Deputy Speaker of the 18th Congress and co-sponsor of the measure in the House of Representatives, said the bill enacts crucial regulations that will prioritize legitimate businesses, safeguard consumers and

potentially generate billions in revenue for the government. “The vape law likewise comes at a crucial time when industries and businesses are now beginning to bounce back from the impact of lockdowns,” Gatchalian said. “Reasonable regulations of these products strengthen the government’s twin goals of boosting revenue and fortifying public health policy.” The higher taxes on VNP are expected to largely contribute to fill the funding gap for the Universal Health Care (UHC) program of the government. Republic Act 11467, signed in 2020 and which increases excise taxes on alcohol and VNP, is seen to generate a total of P108.9 billion over the next five years, Gatchalian said. The increased excise tax on VNP will likewise “enable the DOH to push through with plans to upgrade state medical facilities and establish more hospitals in remote areas, hire and train more doctors and nurses, and scale up non-communicable disease prevention services, especially for low-income families—facilities that the country requires to aggressively combat this continuing pandemic,” he said.

POST-SONA, DOE STARTS TWEAKING PRIORITY LIST By Lenie Lectura @llectura

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HE Department of Energy (DOE), under the leadership of the agency’s new secretary Raphael Lotilla, has started sorting out priority issues in the power sector to address concerns on energy security and the need to develop indigenous energy sources. He said top priority will be given to addressing uncertainties regarding investment incentives to the entire upstream sector, especially natural gas, after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. pointed out that the country’s power supply is inadequate. “This is particularly true with the loss of Malampaya natural gas for the 1200 MW Ilijan plant due to declining field production,” said Lotilla. Lotilla’s office would soon present a “clear articulation” of PD 87, which provides incentives to petroleum service contractors. “The uncertainty over the interpretation of PD 87 allowing the service contractor’s corporate taxes to form part of the government’s 60-percent net share has hindered investments and rollout in this sector. In order to ensure a stable

investments regime across different administrations, we will seek legislative articulation of that policy,” said Lotilla. Earlier, the Commission on Audit (COA) overruled the petition of the Malampaya consortium that income tax was already imputed in the government’s 60-percent share in the Malampaya royalties. The tax, it argued, was deductible from the government’s share of the Malampaya earnings. The COA said there is no provision in the law saying that income tax of the contractors forms part of the government’s share. Back then, the COA noted in its 2009 report a P53,140,304,739.86 tax deficiency. PD 87 was issued by the late former president Ferdinand Marcos to amend the earlier PD 8, which promotes the discovery and development of the country’s indigenous petroleum resources. During the post-SONA forum, Lotilla said 100 percent of the country’s fuel requirements is imported. In the power sector, 45 percent of the power plants utilize coal for fuel and 80 percent of that coal is imported. Continued on A5

picks Sandigan dismisses House chairmen for PCGG’s bid to get committees more Marcos assets T T By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

HE Sandiganbayan has junked the motion for reconsideration filed by the government through the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) seeking to recover several more properties believed to be part of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family. In a 12-page resolution dated July 22, 2022, the Sandiganbayan’s Fourth Division denied the PCGG’s appeal to reconsider its December 16, 2019 decision dismissing its complaint for reversion, reconveyance, restitution, accounting of supposed ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses allegedly amounting to P200 billion, as well as damages. The Sandiganbayan noted in its December 16, 2019 decision, that most of the documentary evidence presented by the PCGG was photocopied, in violation of the best evidence rule. Prior to this, the Sandiganbayan partially granted PCGG’s MR, saying that a sweeping dismissal of the entire complaint on the ground of the Best Evidence Rule (now Original Document Rule) “is not warranted,” since many of the subject properties have long been recovered by the government. Thus, the anti-graft court directed the Sandiganbayan to submit a report as to the status of the properties subject of its original complaint and all its subsequent amendments. Upon receipt of the PCGG’s report, the Sandiganbayan said it would make a final determination of whether the properties that had not been recovered yet by virtue of final judgments and /or compromise agreements should be returned to the government, in consideration of the pieces of evidence that the PCGG presented during trial. Based on the compliance report submitted by the PCGG, the Sandiganbayan noted that many of the properties subject of the present case have already been recovered or transferred to third persons not party to the case. These include, among others, shares of stock under the IRC Group of Companies ceded to the govern-

ment by virtue of compromise agreement with Jose Campos and private in 1994; 526 pieces of sequestered art collections already turned over to the PCGG and presently under the custody of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for safekeeping; the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company’s 111,415 shares in the of PTIC which were disposed in 2006 through public bidding in favor of Metro Pacific Assets Holdings, Inc. for a price of P25.2 billion; and the Marcos peso and dollar deposits in Security Bank and Trust Co. in the amount of P934.6 million and $8 million, respectively, were released/paid to PCGG in 1992 and remitted to the Bureau of the Treasury for agrarian reform fund. Except for the properties still under verification, the Sandiganbayan noted that only four properties have remained under the control of the Marcoses. It identified these as the Currimao Beach House registered in the name of Ferdinand E. Marcos; the house in Pandacan, Manila under the full control and supervision of the Marcoses and registered in the name of heirs of Vicente Romualdez; the Batac Museum which is under the control and supervision of the Marcoses; and the Batac Guest House, also under the control and supervision of the Marcoses. The Sandiganbayan noted that it had given the PCGG the opportunity to submit further evidence in support of its report. Unfortunately, the Sandiganbayan said, the PCGG failed to do so as the latter manifested in its compliance submitted on April 25, 2022 that “all material and relevant documents and pieces of evidence for the instant case have already been presented during the trial.” “Considering that the evidence already offered by the plaintiff during trial do not sufficiently establish its claims as to the properties mentioned above that are purportedly still within the Marcoses’ control, the Court is constrained to deny the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration dated December 29, 2019 as regard to the said properties,” the Sandiganbayan declared.

HE House of Representatives on Tuesday elected several committee chairpersons to start deliberating bills and resolutions filed in the 19th Congress. The lower chamber elected Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda as Committee on Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Zaldy Co as House Committee on Appropriations chairman and Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo as the appropriations’ committee vice chairperson; and Rep. Teodorico Haresco as the chairman of the House Committee on Economic Affairs. It also elected Rep. Yedda Romualdez as chairperson of the House Committee on Accounts, Rep. Edgardo Chatto as chairman of the House Committee on Climate Change, Rep. Roman Romulo as chairman of the House Committee on Basic Education, and Rep. Mark Go as the chairman of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education. The House has also elected Rep. Juliet Ferrer to head the House Committee on Justice, Rep. Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo to chair the House Committee on Muslim Affairs, Rep. Elpidio Barzaga to chair the House Committee on Natural Resources and Rep. Romeo Momo to head the House Committee on Public Works and Highways. It also elected Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos as Senior Deputy Majority Leader. Meanwhile, Rep. Marcelino “Nonoy” Libanan of 4Ps Partylist has been elected minority leader of the House of Representatives. In a caucus, a total of 24 House members belonging to the minority earlier voted for Libanan to be their leader. Under existing House rules, the House members who did not vote for the winning candidate for Speaker shall constitute the minority, who shall then elect their own leader. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz


Companies BusinessMirror

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

SMC Global bonds breach ₧30-B goal on high demand By Lenie Lectura

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@llectura

MC Global Power Holdings Corp. (SMCGP) has raised P40 billion from the listing of its fixed rate bonds on the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEX), the largest corporate bond issuance to date. The power unit of conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) said last Tuesday that the bond offering was initially targeted to raise P30 billion. However, the strong demand from investors and confidence on the company’s ability to continue providing reliable power nationwide prompted it to exercise its oversubscription option of up to P10 billion. “The funds provided by these bonds come at an opportune time as we continue with our commitment to provide the country with reliable power supply, amidst present challenges in the global fuel market,” SMC President and CEO Ramon S. Ang said. The debt papers comprise the first tranche of SMCGP’s P60-billion shelf-registered peso retail instruments consisting of: Series K Bonds,

with an interest rate of 5.9077 percent per annum due in 2025; Series L Bonds, at 7.1051 percent per annum due 2028; and, Series M Bonds, at 8.0288 percent per annum due 2032. “SMC Global Power fully supports the government’s thrust in powering the nation, as we continue to pursue business and expansion strategies that are aligned with our national and regional energy policies and needs demonstrating our commitment to conduct business operations in a socially and environmentally responsible manner,” Ang added. The CEO said SMC’s power unit remains on track with plans to minimize the country’s dependence on coal, as part of the conglomerate’s larger sustainability goals. “Right now we’re facing an unprecedented situation; but even as

we work to maintain reliable and sufficient supply throughout this crisis, we are also very much focused on continuing our transition to cleaner and renewable fuel sources, without compromising on supply, quality, and affordability,” Ang said. The conglomerate is currently working on a group-wide sustainability roadmap that will include major targets for its power business to achieve a sustainable energy future. And added that as part of its transition strategy, SMCGP last month completed putting up a 500-megawatt hour (MWh) of installed power storage capacity coming from new battery energy storage system, or “Bess,” facilities being installed nationwide. By the end of this year, SMCGP expects to bring total battery capacity to 700 MWh and 1,000 MWh by the end of 2023 once all 32 Bess facilities come online. This is the very first and largest battery network in the Philippines by far. Ang said the Bess network will be key to ensuring reliable power supply nationwide, even in far-off areas. It is designed to minimize wastage by storing and redistributing excess capacity to ensure even underserved regions can have the same sufficient, reliable electricity enjoyed by larger cities.

“With this, provinces and regions will have equal access to power, and therefore, an equal chance to attract investors,” Ang said. “Bringing electricity to power-challenged regions will help uplift the lives of more Filipinos, who will finally have access not just to basic electricity, but also opportunities and jobs brought about by electrification.” SMCGP’s Bess facilities are also crucial to wider use of renewable energy in the country. “Currently, the main challenge of renewables is intermittence, or the unreliable nature of renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower. Battery technology will enable renewable capacity to be stored, ready to be deployed even when solar or wind farms or hydropower plants are down,” Ang explained. SMCGP, which previously said it would no longer pursue new coal power investments, is also planning to increase capacities coming from cleaner fuel sources as well as renewables. The firm is also investing in new liquified natural gas (LNG) plants, utilized by developed countries as a cleaner “bridge” fuel that facilitates an exit from coal, and transition to renewables. The company is also putting up additional solar and hydropower plants.

Pilmico opens 4th swine nursery By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

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ILMICO Animal Nutrition Corp. (Pilmico), the food and agribusiness subsidiary of the Aboitiz Group, launched a new swine breeder and nursery farm capable of producing 4.7 million kilograms of pork annually. Pilmico said the new swine farm is worth “around P1 billion.” Pilmico launched its fourth swine breeder and nursery farm Talugtug, Nueva Ecija, which is expected to have an additional capacity of 2,500

BOI OKs ₧60-M high-value crops producer project in Batangas

sow level and can produce 4.7 million kilograms of pork annually. Pilmico First Vice President William Paradies said the facility was part of the company’s attempt to boost pork supply to the market devastated by African swine fever (ASF). “The past few years have been challenging for us in the swine industry mainly because of the impact of [the ASF]. In line with our mission, it is a big priority for us to contribute to the recovery of the industry by boosting the production capacity of local pork,” Paradies was quoted in a statement the firm issued last

Tuesday. He added that the breeder and nursery farm is equipped with the necessary biosecurity measures to fend off incursion of the highly contagious viral disease of pigs and even Covid-19. “It is equipped with modern designs and the latest technology in swine production, following the high standards of a world-class facility,” read a document provided by the company. Paradies said the new breeding and nursery farm was made possible with the assistance from government

agencies and officials of the local government of Talugtug, Nueva Ecija. “We are committed to supporting the [agriculture department] in their thrust to uplift the swine industry so that together, we can serve more Filipinos with great quality pork,” Paradies said. Pilmico executives said a portion of the new farm’s production would be processed at its meat-cutting facility in Tarlac. This will also serve the retail brand, the products of which are now available in more than 250 supermarkets in Greater Luzon, the company added.

ALC Group spearheads blood donation drive

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ITH an eye to attaining food security in the country’s urban areas, the Philippine Board of Investments (BOI) has granted the application for registration to Denso Philippines Corporation as the new producer of high-value crops, particularly microgreens, kale, arugula, herbs, and melons. With an estimated investment cost of P60 million (US$1.09 million), the firm’s SMART Agriculture Project that will soon operate in Ibaan, Batangas was approved under “Agriculture, Fishery, and Forestry” of the 2022 Strategic Investment Priority Plan (SIPP). The project proposes to produce microgreens, kale, arugula, herbs, and melons. Its target market will be hotels, restaurants, online market (e-commerce), culinary schools, and other food-related businesses in Central Business District areas in the Philippines. “The project of Denso Philippines Corporation is a testament to our unwavering commitment to attaining food security in our country. True enough, these high-value crops will be significant in supporting urban areas and leveling up the country’s agriculture industry. This is only the beginning of more projects that will make food security happen in the Philippines,” Trade Undersecretary and BOI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo said.

Left photo shows representatives from the ALC Group, namely (l-r) Loida Virtudazo, executive vice president and general manager of BusinessMirror; Marielle Cabangon, Training and Recruitment manager of the ALC Group Central Human Resources Division; Giannina Eunice Cabangon, Special Assistant to the President of Isuzu Gencars, Inc.; and Carisa de Mesa, assistant vice president for Human Resources Management of Fortune Life Insurance Company. Right photo show ALC employees participating in the blood donation drive.

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he ALC Group of Companies, in partnership with the Caloocan City Chapter of the Philippine Red Cross, organized a blood donation drive called “I am a #Lifesaver,” which was held last July 20, Wednesday, at the Mezzanine Training Room of Dominga Building III in Makati City. Employees of the different sister companies, including Eternal Gar-

dens, BusinessMirror and Philippines Graphic; Pilipino Mirror, Citystate Properties and Management Corp., Fortune Life Insurance Co., Gencars, Inc., Eternal Plans, Inc., ALC Pasig, and Asian Security, volunteered to donate blood during the drive. They underwent screening before they were allowed to donate. By the end of the bloodletting activity, the donors produced

a total of 40 bags, each containing 450cc of blood. The blood donation drive is one of the ways through which the conglomerate and its employees extend help to the community. Founded by the late Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua, the ALC Group is currently headed by its chairman, D. Edgard A. Cabangon.

B1

Meralco to hold bidding for 900MW supply needs

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HE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will conduct more competitive biddings, possibly this year, for 900 megawatts (MW) of power supply requirement. “Based on the approved PSPP [power supply procurement plan], we have the 200 MW baseload for RE (renewable energy) to comply with RPS [renewable portfolio standards] requirement. And another 100 MW, also baseload RE, and then there’s 600 MW conventional baseload also up for CSP [competitive selection process],” Meralco First Vice President Jose Ronald V. Valles said. “But we haven’t approved it yet for submission to the DOE [Department of Energy],” Valles, who also heads the power utility’s Regulatory Management Office, added. The capacities are aligned with Meralco’s submitted PSPP, the firm said. In terms of when the CSPs will be conducted for the total 900MW, this will depend on when Meralco will submit the Terms of Reference to the DOE for its approval, Meralco added. When asked for tentative CSP schedules, Valles said these could be conducted “in the next few days or weeks or months, but this year.” Also, Valles said, Meralco “may add emergency procurement but still being reviewed to determine the exact requirement.” Meralco had just conducted a CSP via competitive challenge for the unsolicited proposal by Terra Solar Philippines Inc. to supply 850-MW renewable energy to cover Meralco’s mid-merit requirement starting 2026. However, the Third-Party Bids and Awards Committee (TPBAC) declared a failure of bidding after

no comparative bids were received during the two rounds of CSPs. Since there were no outstanding disputes and as advised by the TPBAC, Meralco proceeded with direct negotiation with the original proponent. Once signed and finalized, the power supply agreement will be submitted for approval of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). Meralco will also conduct another CSP via competitive challenge of Ahunan Power Inc.’s unsolicited proposal for 500-MW renewable energy mid-merit supply from a pumped storage hydro facility starting 2026. Ahunan’s offer is still subject to competitive challenge under the rules of the DOE. This means that Ahunan has the right to match any comparative proposals. Both these CSPs form part of Meralco’s compliance with the RPS and of its efforts to source up to 1,500 MW of its power requirements from renewable energy sources. Terra Solar and Ahunan are renewable power subsidiaries under Prime Infrastructure Holdings Inc. of tycoon Enrique K. Razon. “After Terra Solar, the other CSP that commenced already is the 500 MW midmerit in accordance with the PSPP approved by the DOE,” Valles explained. Meralco President Ray C. Espinosa said the firm relentlessly looks for ways to cushion the impact of external volatilities on its operations. “We will move ahead with the execution of sourcing strategies that include our planned CSPs, consistent with our PSPP, in a timely manner to ensure availability of cost-competitive power for our customers in the long-term.” Lenie Lectura

ACEN sells last coal asset to EPHI, InLife

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CEN Corp. is selling its remaining coal asset to ETM Philippines Holdings, Inc. (EPHI) and The Insular Life Assurance Company, Ltd. (InLife) for P3.7 billion. “ACEN, the Ayala Group’s listed energy platform, approved the divestment of all its shares in its wholly-owned subsidiary, South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC), through energy transition financing,” it said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Tuesday. The sale of the 244megawatt (MW) coal plant in Calaca, Batangas is subject to regulatory approval. ACEN said it will use the proceeds from the divestment to invest in more renewable energy (RE) projects. “This pioneering deal will allow the early retirement and transition of our coal plant to cleaner technology,” said ACEN Chief Executive Officer Eric Francia. EPHI is a special purpose vehicle that allows financial investors to invest in energy transition by accelerating the retirement of coal-fired power plants, and to fund the development of new clean energy technologies. ACEN approved the provision of bridge financing to EPHI to facilitate its investment in SLTEC while providing prospective financial investors a vehicle to participate in energy transition. “As a Filipino company with more than 100 years of service and commitment to the nation, we welcome the opportunity to participate in this

pioneering deal to promote a sustainable environment for the country’s future,” said InLife President and CEO Raoul E. Littaua. This transaction shall serve as a pioneer energy transition financing in the country. It takes off from the principles of the Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) piloted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which aims to leverage a marketbased approach to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. BPI Capital and CLSA are Joint Lead Arrangers for this transaction. “CLSA is proud to play a part in funding the country’s first energy transition financing, which will play an essential role in allowing countries in Asia Pacific realize their climate goals. This forms part of CLSA’s core sustainability values,” said CLSA Philippines Country Head Mitzi De Dios. BPI Capital and AlphaPrimus Advisors, Inc. acted as Joint Financial Advisors for this transaction. ACEN hopes the sale will generate momentum for the just energy transition in the region, and help towards the achievement of Net Zero. ACEN announced in November last year its commitment to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Through this energy transition mechanism, SLTEC’s coal power plant will be decommissioned by 2040, 15 years ahead of the end of its technical life and transitioned into cleaner technology. Lenie Lectura


B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

PSE to hold its 2nd investor relations day for the year

T

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

HE Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. on Tuesday said it is set to hold the second edition of its investor relations activity, which hopes to link the general public with listed firms, especially those that do not hold a briefing of its financial reports. “The success of the first-ever PSE STAR: Investor Day affirmed our objectives in providing a communication platform for PLCs (publicly-listed companies). We are re-staging the investor day to give other PLCs the opportunity to share their growth stories and interface with analysts and investors,” PSE president and CEO Ramon S. Monzon said. The second PSE STAR or short for

Strengthening Access and Reach Investor Day is set on August 16 to 18. It will feature a new set of publiclylisted companies that will tackle their first-half financial results, the factors affecting their business performance, and their outlook for the remainder of the year. Monzon earlier said company briefings may be a common communication platform for listed companies in other countries, but this

is still not a very common activity among Philippine listed companies. In the 2021 reporting season in April, for instance, less than a third of the PSE’s 259 active listed firms, conducted a company briefing to discuss their full year 2021 results, the PSE said. “We hope that this investor day activity will encourage more companies to regularly hold presentations to analysts and investors. The PSE plans to host an investor briefing for listed companies every quarter henceforth,” Monzon said during the first PSE investor day event in May. “Information is integral to a well-informed market. While companies issue disclosures and press releases, addressing investors in a briefing like this presents a unique opportunity for companies and their existing and potential shareholders to interface, even if in a virtual set up. With increased awareness on prospects and plans, we hope to increase analysts’ cov-

erage on our second-tier listed companies. We also hope to boost investor confidence, which in turn will prop up demand for shares of these companies,” he said. The PSE said the firms that will join investor day include Bank of Commerce, Bloomberry Resorts Corp., Cebu Air Inc., Citicore Energy REIT Corp., D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc., D and L Industries Inc., Double Dragon Corp., Manila Water Co. Inc., MREIT Inc., Petron Corp., Philex Mining Corp., Philippine Seven Corp., Semirara Mining and Power Corp., Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc. and Union Bank of the Philippines. The PSE’s second investor day event is co-hosted by Bloomberg LP with the Fund Managers Association of the Philippines and Trust Officers Association of the Philippines as event partners. The event is open to the company’s shareholders, buy and sell side analysts as well as the investing public in general.

Unilever hikes prices on rising costs U NILEVER Plc said it’s still pushing up prices as it faces the biggest cost surge in decades with “truly unprecedented” inflation hitting many of its key markets. The maker of Dove soap and Surf detergent said it is charging shoppers more for products to help offset its own surging costs as it forecast that sales growth will exceed a previously stated range of 4.5 percent to 6.5 percent. In a sign that some shoppers are prepared to accept higher prices for consumer products, Unilever said its full-year operating profit margin will be about 16 percent which is within its guided range. The stock rose as much as 3 percent in London. Unilever is among consumergoods makers performing a careful balancing act as they seek to pass on some price increases to customers without deterring shoppers too much. The company warned earlier this year that it’s facing the worst inflation since the financial crisis and that it will take two years to return to 2021’s profitability level. Inflation will likely peak in the

second half, around the end of the third quarter or start of the fourth quarter, Chief Executive Officer Alan Jope said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “We’re very conscious that the consumer is feeling the pinch in many parts of the world,” he said.

Costs rising

WHEN it comes to its own inflation management, Unilever is also facing “a truly unprecedented cost landscape,” according to Chief Financial Officer Graeme Pitkethly. The company is having to absorb an extra 4.6 billion euros ($4.7 billion) of costs this fiscal year, and it can only offset part of that which is why it’s having to push up prices. Sales volumes are beginning to fall as some shoppers switch from branded goods to own-label products in a bid to make ends meet, said Pitkethly on a media call. In Europe, private label manufacturers have been gaining market share in food, ice-cream and household cleaning products as people economize, he said. In the US, Unilever’s ice cream division, which owns Ben & Jerry’s and Magnum, is facing significant pressure as people switch to cheaper brands. Britain’s biggest grocer Tesco Plc also recently said it was starting to see some early evidence of shoppers swapping some branded staples, such as pasta, for own-label products. While sales are holding up at Unilever, elsewhere consumers are reining in

big-ticket spending. Walmart Inc. issued a surprise profit warning Monday saying US shoppers are spurning larger purchases and buying less profitable groceries. British home-improvement chain Wickes Group Plc slumped as much as 18 percent on Tuesday after indicating that it too was finding that customers are taking longer to commit to big projects.

Jope has been under pressure for months after a failed approach to buy Haleon Plc, the consumer unit spun out of drug company GSK Plc, last year. He also needs to show investors he has a plan for growth while contending with activist investor Nelson Peltz, who was appointed as a non-executive director in May and joined the board this month. Bloomberg News

mutual funds

July 26, 2022

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 198.19 -5.52% -10.21% -6.42% -14.97% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 1.2894 -3.96% -8.14% -4.27% -22.52% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 2.7101 -6.16% -14.04% -9.1% -16.3% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.6931 -6.67% -11.18% n.a. -8.38% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.6529 -9.48% -10.46% n.a. -15.31% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 4.5112 -2.63% -7.33% -4.47% -12.96% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.668 -9.91% -7.18% -2.75% -14.72% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a 75.39 -22.65% -14.63% n.a. -20.16% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 40.9635 -4.5% -9.08% -4.94% -14.89% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 424.62 -5.88% -9.21% -5.17% -15.19% Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 1.1986 8.29% -4.62% -1.95% -11.63% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 31.1241 -3.6% -8.39% -4.06% -14.95% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.8069 -3.41% -9.52% n.a. -14.29% Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 4.2444 -3.53% -8.46% -4.3% -14.44% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a 707.18 -3.94% -8.52% -4.37% -14.64% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 0.622 -7.25% -13.7% -17.35% -7.41% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 3.1645 -5.71% -11.16% -5.91% -16.18% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.8049 -4.24% -8.8% -4.62% -14.78% United Fund, Inc. -a 2.965 -3.64% -8.55% -3.7% -13.74% Primarily invested in Peso securities (units) Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a 0.9789 -5.45% n.a. n.a. -15.81% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a 861.06 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Exchange Traded Fund (shares) First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 95.3463 -3.52% -8.3% -3.99% -14.47% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities (shares) ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b $0.9125 -25.9% -2.94% -2.38% -19% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.4831 -18.11% 3.79% 4.57% -19.68% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities (shares) ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.5494 -6.12% -4.77% -2.81% -8.43% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 2.0713 -3.77% -4.61% -2.77% -9.21% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.4717 -1.65% -3.28% -1.55% -8.15% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.1913 1.92% n.a. n.a. -8.47% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a 1.8513 -2.8% -2.24% -0.7% -8.2% PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.363 -5.86% -4.47% -2.26% -10.68% Philam Fund, Inc. -a 15.0636 -5.96% -4.62% -2.33% -10.58% Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 1.9311 -3.3% -4.25% -2.22% -8.97% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.2381 -4.87% -6.81% -3.24% -11.21% Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.8418 -0.61% -6.31% -2.83% -11.78% Primarily invested in Peso securities (units) Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a 0.8912 -7.55% -5.35% n.a. -9.96% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a 0.8042 -7.21% -8.55% n.a. -14.85% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a 0.7916 -6.99% -8.94% n.a. -15.24% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities (shares) Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a $0.03388 -11.54% -3.29% -1.11% -10.7% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -b $0.9183 -17.99% -2.93% -1.79% -13.94% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $4.0103 -15.74% 1.75% 2.85% -16.49% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,2 $1.0282 -14.52% -1.49% 0.11% -14.22% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities (shares) ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 374.22 0.43% 2.08% 2.28% -0.02% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.8929 -1.61% -0.21% -0.05% 0.44% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.2303 -0.11% 1.81% 3.22% -0.42% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.177 -3.77% -0.36% 0.68% -3.31% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.3984 -1.85% 0.98% 1.59% -1.14% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.1855 -6.82% -0.43% 0.5% -4.78% Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a 1.3168 -0.02% 2.45% 2.73% -0.17% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.8737 -2.71% 1.6% 2.19% -2.32% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.011 -2.58% 2.24% 1.71% -1.67% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.1326 -2.6% 1.46% 2.62% -1.72% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a 1.6937 -3.24% 0.58% 1.92% -2.13% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities (shares) ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $481.66 -1.06% 1.52% 1.74% -1.62% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a Є210.67 -4.34% -1.26% -0.12% -4.25% ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.0969 -8.58% -2.59% -0.52% -8.89% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0243 -6.9% -1.85% -0.49% -6.54% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -b $0.9054 -14.19% -5.94% -3.43% -11.48% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.2319 -11.42% -1.83% 0.03% -10.93% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0606903 -3.71% 0.7% 1.17% -2.57% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $2.8223 -11.49% -3.04% -1.31% -11.7% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities (shares) 132.39 1.55% 2.2% 2.56% 0.91% ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.0646 1.03% 1.54% n.a. 0.65% Sun Life Prosperity Peso Starter Fund, Inc. -a,1 1.3273 1.59% 2.07% 2.46% 0.89% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities (shares) Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0646 0.62% 1.12% n.a. 0.38% Feeder Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities (units) ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -a 45.1603 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Sun Life Prosperity World Equity Index Feeder Fund, Inc. -a 1.2649 -4.2% n.a. n.a. -8.53% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities (units) ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -a $0.8281 -16.35% n.a. n.a. -14.63% a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day.

b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago.

c - Listed in the PSE.

d - in Net Asset Value per Unit

(NAVPU). 1 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last July 8, 2021 (formerly, Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc.). 2 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last November 25, 2021.

"While we endeavor to keep the information accurate, the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) and its members make no warranties as to the correctness of the newspaper’s publication and assume no liability or responsibility for any error or omissions. You may visit http://www. pifa. com.ph to see the latest NAVPS/NAVPU."

www.businessmirror.com.ph

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

July 26, 2022

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

ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK COMMERCE BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE COL FINANCIAL FIRST ABACUS IREMIT MEDCO HLDG MANULIFE PHIL STOCK EXCH

174,410 381,715,487 20,103 152,417,569 401,025 1,286,437 51,790,515 627,660 787,634 54,567.50 395,600 12,816,494.50 1,264,471.50 176,260 108,400 620 10,650 85,120 45,000 57,496

-159,767,131 -65,264,471.50 -995,420 5,460,495 -495,710 395,600 4,627,118.50 -25,546 -

INDUSTRIAL AC ENERGY 8.29 8.3 8.2 8.37 8.17 8.3 9,709,000 80,462,044 ALSONS CONS 0.93 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.95 0.95 47,000 44,960 31.65 31.8 31.1 31.8 31.1 31.8 1,388,500 43,956,245 ABOITIZ POWER RASLAG 1.74 1.75 1.8 1.81 1.7 1.75 5,391,000 9,383,780 0.42 0.425 0.395 0.425 0.395 0.425 9,470,000 3,918,250 BASIC ENERGY FIRST GEN 17.2 17.42 17.2 17.42 17.2 17.42 118,800 2,057,594 64 64.95 65 65 64 64.85 3,770 243,991 FIRST PHIL HLDG MERALCO 358 358.8 354 358.8 354 358 82,270 29,439,918 15.66 15.68 15.94 16 15.68 15.68 1,557,000 24,731,454 MANILA WATER PETRON 2.9 2.91 2.93 2.95 2.9 2.91 1,347,000 3,927,040 4.81 4.85 4.82 4.85 4.63 4.85 183,000 877,890 PETROENERGY PHX PETROLEUM 8.91 9.77 8.8 9.77 8.8 9.77 297,100 2,785,132 12.18 12.2 12.2 12.24 12.18 12.2 3,338,500 40,678,964 SYNERGY GRID PILIPINAS SHELL 17.6 17.8 17.6 18 17.6 17.8 37,300 665,302 9.74 9.75 9.8 9.8 9.72 9.75 98,700 962,866 SPC POWER SOLAR PH 1.64 1.65 1.62 1.66 1.62 1.65 25,132,000 41,359,970 14.26 18.36 18.36 18.36 18.36 18.36 5,400 99,144 VIVANT AGRINURTURE 5.6 5.64 5.59 5.67 5.55 5.64 1,821,400 10,215,099 2.42 2.47 2.33 2.57 2.33 2.47 658,000 1,592,480 AXELUM CENTURY FOOD 22.6 22.65 22.05 22.65 22 22.6 700,700 15,828,210 DEL MONTE 13.32 13.7 13.4 13.5 13.32 13.32 6,700 89,668 7.04 7.05 7.05 7.06 7.01 7.05 1,122,800 7,916,000 DNL INDUS EMPERADOR 18.88 18.9 18.98 19.1 18.9 18.9 6,617,600 125,440,486 43.45 43.8 44 44 43.3 43.8 14,900 652,150 SMC FOODANDBEV FIGARO COFFEE 0.68 0.69 0.68 0.71 0.68 0.69 43,388,000 30,090,850 1.05 1.06 1.04 1.07 1.03 1.06 1,411,000 1,485,210 FRUITAS HLDG GINEBRA 96.6 97 98 98 97 97 15,890 1,541,560 206 206.2 207.2 207.2 205 206.2 345,020 71,151,550 JOLLIBEE KEEPERS HLDG 1.17 1.18 1.17 1.18 1.16 1.18 1,598,000 1,873,170 17.02 18.98 17 18 17 17.98 1,200 21,088 LIBERTY FLOUR MAXS GROUP 4.48 4.5 4.51 4.51 4.4 4.48 22,000 98,470 0.103 0.109 0.103 0.103 0.103 0.103 10,000 1,030 MG HLDG MONDE NISSIN 14.12 14.14 14.34 14.4 14.02 14.14 2,915,500 41,257,774 7.02 7.15 7.02 7.02 6.98 7.02 48,200 337,836 SHAKEYS PIZZA ROXAS AND CO 0.58 0.59 0.58 0.58 0.58 0.58 326,000 189,080 3.85 3.9 3.85 3.9 3.85 3.85 342,000 1,316,800 RFM CORP UNIV ROBINA 113.6 113.9 113 115 112.4 113.9 586,050 66,746,212 0.58 0.59 0.6 0.6 0.58 0.58 362,000 213,020 VITARICH VICTORIAS 2.5 2.61 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 65,000 162,500 CEMEX HLDG 0.74 0.75 0.76 0.8 0.73 0.74 9,583,000 7,366,150 12.72 12.76 12.38 12.76 12.38 12.74 134,100 1,694,348 EAGLE CEMENT EEI CORP 3.3 3.35 3.4 3.45 3.3 3.35 144,000 481,280 4.75 4.8 4.76 4.8 4.76 4.8 18,000 85,720 HOLCIM MEGAWIDE 4.02 4.17 4.01 4.17 4 4.02 303,000 1,219,760 19.26 19.42 19.2 19.2 19.2 19.2 5,900 113,280 PHINMA TKC METALS 0.66 0.72 0.74 0.74 0.72 0.72 3,000 2,180 0.77 0.79 0.79 0.8 0.77 0.79 179,000 141,350 VULCAN INDL CROWN ASIA 1.41 1.45 1.48 1.52 1.4 1.45 1,045,000 1,495,620 0.98 1.03 1 1.04 0.98 0.98 76,000 75,940 EUROMED MABUHAY VINYL 5.05 5.29 5.11 5.29 5.1 5.29 3,600 18,399 18.22 18.98 18.98 18.98 18.98 18.98 300 5,694 CONCEPCION GREENERGY 1.74 1.75 1.71 1.77 1.69 1.75 6,060,000 10,465,550 6.8 6.85 6.72 7 6.7 6.82 98,900 681,121 INTEGRATED MICR IONICS 0.72 0.74 0.8 0.83 0.72 0.74 4,616,000 3,539,030 5.6 5.68 5.6 5.68 5.6 5.6 36,500 205,816 PANASONIC SFA SEMICON 1.59 1.63 1.65 1.65 1.57 1.63 1,004,000 1,613,530 CIRTEK HLDG 3.29 3.3 3.26 3.33 3.2 3.3 17,361,000 56,599,220

-6,509,722 -6,775,220 39,760 73,200 -154,428 -9,458,808 -7,042,946 -2,238,850 -36,000 -22,115,124.00 -173,182 62,303 -984,600.00 409,757 120,300 -3,646,461 28,033,184 -123,570 2,086,100 -1,493,010 -33,597,838 479,700 -13,530 4,009,486 -219,016 1,301,200 871,057 -1,079,270 -80,010 -400,690 120,350 49,300 -64,080 -26,250 230,475 43,110 3,430,490

HOLDING & FRIMS

ABACORE CAPITAL AYALA CORP ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL ANGLO PHIL HLDG ATN HLDG A COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG FILINVEST DEV GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV JG SUMMIT LODESTAR LOPEZ HLDG LT GROUP METRO PAC INV PACIFICA HLDG PRIME MEDIA SOLID GROUP SM INVESTMENTS SAN MIGUEL CORP TOP FRONTIER

42.05 114 8.2 86.45 26.65 6.8 46.95 6.47 17.88 56.3 18.9 90 73.55 1.61 3.45 0.62 0.71 0.222 895 172

2 599.5 53.2 9.73 0.72 0.4 4.29 9.5 7 467 3.42 52 0.53 2.9 8.69 3.69 2.2 2.12 0.92 790 103 108

44.1 114.3 8.41 86.5 26.9 6.84 47.15 6.48 17.9 56.85 19.78 90.3 74 1.66 3.5 0.67 0.78 0.275 949.5 173

2.01 600 53.25 9.74 0.8 0.405 4.3 9.55 7.07 470 3.54 52.5 0.56 2.93 8.7 3.7 2.25 2.15 0.93 791 104 115

44.1 116.5 8.02 87 26.5 6.75 46.55 6.5 17.96 56.85 19.78 89.5 74.25 1.64 3.5 0.62 0.71 0.255 900 174.9

1.94 603 52 9.76 0.72 0.405 4.3 9.45 7 470 3.42 51.1 0.61 2.93 8.57 3.7 2.22 2.23 0.92 792 104 107

44.1 117.1 8.29 87.15 26.9 6.84 47.2 6.5 17.96 56.85 19.78 91.5 74.4 1.67 3.5 0.62 0.71 0.29 900 174.9

2.04 612 53.25 9.89 0.72 0.405 4.3 9.72 7.07 473 3.42 52.5 0.61 2.93 8.71 3.72 2.22 2.24 0.92 792 104.5 115

42 113.6 8.01 86.5 26.5 6.72 46.5 6.48 17.84 56 19.78 87.8 73.55 1.6 3.45 0.62 0.71 0.221 900 173

1.94 600 52 9.7 0.72 0.4 4.28 9.37 7 466.4 3.42 51 0.53 2.93 8.57 3.68 2.2 2.1 0.92 781 103 107

42 114 8.29 86.5 26.9 6.8 47.15 6.48 17.9 56 19.78 90.3 74 1.66 3.45 0.62 0.71 0.29 900 173

2.01 600 53.2 9.74 0.72 0.405 4.3 9.55 7.07 470 3.42 52.5 0.56 2.93 8.7 3.7 2.2 2.15 0.92 790 103 115

4,100 3,320,020 2,500 1,755,830 15,100 189,100 1,101,700 96,700 44,100 960 20,000 141,800 17,080 108,000 31,000 1,000 15,000 360,000 50 330

21,459,000 124,610 829,090 663,300 10,000 310,000 65,000 11,712,400 19,100 13,660 20,000 446,150 209,000 1,000 2,213,900 5,798,000 25,000 151,000 126,000 80,360 3,780,350 310

42,757,400 74,980,460 43,935,441 6,464,789 7,200 125,300 278,860 112,216,719 133,987 6,408,272 68,400 23,295,875 112,130 2,930 19,200,742 21,407,570 55,200 322,800 115,920 63,314,770 389,405,822 35,570

PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.52 0.54 0.54 0.54 0.54 0.54 22,000 11,880 AYALA LAND 23.8 23.85 24 24.3 23.7 23.8 9,632,800 230,096,805 3 3.08 3.04 3.11 2.98 3.08 624,000 1,882,110 AYALA LAND LOG ALTUS PROP 13.06 13.76 13.6 13.7 13.6 13.7 2,500 34,110 1.36 1.37 1.42 1.42 1.36 1.37 198,000 274,210 ARANETA PROP AREIT RT 36.3 36.35 36.25 36.75 36.25 36.35 1,611,300 58,598,430 0.73 0.75 0.74 0.75 0.73 0.75 81,000 59,170 A BROWN CITYLAND DEVT 0.68 0.7 0.69 0.69 0.69 0.69 6,000 4,140 0.082 0.085 0.084 0.086 0.083 0.086 980,000 82,590 CROWN EQUITIES CEB LANDMASTERS 2.48 2.5 2.45 2.51 2.44 2.49 63,000 155,940 0.38 0.39 0.385 0.385 0.385 0.385 60,000 23,100 CENTURY PROP CITICORE RT 2.45 2.46 2.48 2.49 2.46 2.46 2,443,000 6,031,850 7.7 7.74 7.68 7.8 7.68 7.74 8,500 65,797 DOUBLEDRAGON DDMP RT 1.52 1.53 1.51 1.53 1.51 1.53 1,461,000 2,225,240 6.84 6.85 6.84 6.84 6.84 6.84 20,900 142,956 DM WENCESLAO EMPIRE EAST 0.202 0.214 0.214 0.214 0.214 0.214 50,000 10,700 0.3 0.31 0.295 0.31 0.29 0.31 14,880,000 4,465,350 EVER GOTESCO FILINVEST RT 6.74 6.8 6.8 6.8 6.7 6.8 4,416,600 29,974,053 0.91 0.92 0.95 0.95 0.92 0.92 7,694,000 7,122,660 FILINVEST LAND 9.14 9.55 10 10.44 9.12 9.55 105,400 1,005,256 8990 HLDG PHIL INFRADEV 1.11 1.12 1.08 1.12 1.07 1.12 1,155,000 1,272,180 0.7 0.71 0.7 0.71 0.7 0.71 83,000 58,500 CITY AND LAND MEGAWORLD 2.25 2.26 2.28 2.28 2.22 2.26 12,451,000 27,992,120 0.18 0.182 0.18 0.182 0.176 0.182 1,700,000 303,710 MRC ALLIED MREIT RT 15.98 16 16 16.1 15.96 16 2,581,200 41,294,610 0.375 0.38 0.37 0.38 0.37 0.37 460,000 170,300 PHIL ESTATES PRIMEX CORP 2.02 2.07 2.02 2.07 2 2.07 1,777,000 3,628,840 6.36 6.4 6.47 6.5 6.35 6.36 569,600 3,654,766 RL COMM RT ROBINSONS LAND 16.64 16.7 16.9 16.9 16.6 16.7 1,576,800 26,353,694 0.225 0.235 0.234 0.235 0.234 0.235 1,230,000 288,650 PHIL REALTY ROCKWELL 1.3 1.31 1.31 1.31 1.3 1.3 5,000 6,520 2.55 2.58 2.58 2.58 2.58 2.58 10,000 25,800 SHANG PROP STA LUCIA LAND 2.73 3.04 3.04 3.04 3.04 3.04 5,000 15,200 36.55 36.85 36.5 37 36.3 36.85 3,523,700 129,308,160 SM PRIME HLDG VISTAMALLS 3.22 3.34 3.36 3.36 3.36 3.36 3,000 10,080 1.94 1.97 2 2 1.93 1.94 885,000 1,726,110 VISTA LAND VISTAREIT RT 1.75 1.76 1.76 1.76 1.75 1.75 2,444,000 4,300,880 SERVICES ABS CBN 9.05 9.06 9.05 9.1 9 9.06 26,500 239,871 GMA NETWORK 10.22 10.24 10.42 10.42 10.18 10.24 500,400 5,113,556 2,126 2,128 2,122 2,190 2,122 2,128 20,020 42,713,950 GLOBE TELECOM PLDT 1,618 1,620 1,612 1,648 1,612 1,618 81,775 132,603,610 0.035 0.036 0.034 0.036 0.034 0.036 274,500,000 9,635,100 APOLLO GLOBAL CONVERGE 19.88 19.92 20 20.3 19.82 19.92 2,925,700 58,319,370 3.16 3.25 3.17 3.27 3.16 3.25 37,000 117,960 DFNN INC DITO CME HLDG 3.94 3.95 3.93 4.1 3.9 3.95 3,705,000 14,782,440 1.17 1.18 1.23 1.24 1.17 1.18 2,311,000 2,760,180 NOW CORP TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.27 0.275 0.275 0.28 0.275 0.275 1,260,000 347,350 6.27 6.47 6.26 6.49 6.26 6.48 1,500 9,645 2GO GROUP ASIAN TERMINALS 13.8 13.96 13.7 13.7 13.7 13.7 7,000 95,900 1.18 1.21 1.12 1.21 1.12 1.21 784,000 930,290 CHELSEA CEBU AIR 41.85 41.95 42 42 41.7 41.85 83,600 3,501,035 182.4 184.2 180.6 185.9 180.6 184.2 541,080 99,546,304 INTL CONTAINER LBC EXPRESS 18.52 21.85 18.12 18.12 18.12 18.12 500 9,060 4.23 4.3 4.35 4.36 4.22 4.3 185,000 790,750 MACROASIA METROALLIANCE A 0.87 0.89 0.88 0.88 0.87 0.87 42,000 36,620 5.52 5.84 5.56 5.56 5.51 5.51 600 3,316 PAL HLDG HARBOR STAR 1.01 1.04 1.03 1.05 1.03 1.04 70,000 72,160 BOULEVARD HLDG 0.078 0.079 0.076 0.081 0.076 0.079 36,100,000 2,844,600 10.02 11.5 11.6 11.6 10 10 1,300 13,800 GRAND PLAZA WATERFRONT 0.44 0.455 0.425 0.44 0.425 0.44 870,000 381,750 1.18 1.19 1.18 1.18 1.17 1.18 70,000 82,500 BELLE CORP BLOOMBERRY 5.95 6.05 6 6.06 5.92 5.96 1,489,900 8,896,022 1.38 1.49 1.39 1.39 1.38 1.38 50,000 69,220 PACIFIC ONLINE LEISURE AND RES 1.41 1.42 1.45 1.45 1.41 1.41 1,166,000 1,660,440 0.76 0.77 0.79 0.79 0.76 0.77 760,000 585,820 PH RESORTS GRP PREMIUM LEISURE 0.4 0.405 0.405 0.405 0.4 0.4 1,390,000 557,850 3.35 3.36 3.39 3.49 3.36 3.36 1,217,000 4,156,790 PHILWEB ALLDAY 0.3 0.305 0.295 0.31 0.295 0.305 3,340,000 1,012,350 4.78 4.84 4.7 4.89 4.7 4.78 113,000 544,050 ALLHOME METRO RETAIL 1.45 1.46 1.45 1.47 1.45 1.47 81,000 117,610 29.6 29.95 30 30 29.4 29.95 1,515,500 45,150,840 PUREGOLD ROBINSONS RTL 54.55 55 54.7 55.25 54.05 54.55 180,880 9,866,712.50 63.6 66 65.95 66 65.95 66 140 9,236 PHIL SEVEN CORP SSI GROUP 1.36 1.37 1.39 1.4 1.37 1.37 1,083,000 1,496,660 23.35 23.5 23.5 23.7 23 23.35 380,400 8,917,140 WILCON DEPOT 0.185 0.191 0.19 0.19 0.19 0.19 150,000 28,500 APC GROUP MEDILINES 0.74 0.75 0.76 0.8 0.74 0.74 18,443,000 14,419,530 0.42 0.43 0.425 0.43 0.415 0.43 1,080,000 455,950 PRMIERE HORIZON MINING & OIL ATOK 6.58 6.68 6.58 6.68 6.58 6.68 39,100 257,418 1.47 1.49 1.43 1.49 1.43 1.49 765,000 1,119,680 APEX MINING ATLAS MINING 4.29 4.35 4.26 4.33 4.26 4.3 419,000 1,797,400 2.7 2.72 2.71 2.72 2.71 2.72 30,000 81,400 CENTURY PEAK FERRONICKEL 2.3 2.31 2.33 2.33 2.28 2.3 570,000 1,310,040 0.139 0.14 0.137 0.14 0.136 0.14 2,650,000 367,580 LEPANTO A LEPANTO B 0.133 0.138 0.132 0.132 0.132 0.132 120,000 15,840 1.26 1.27 1.26 1.3 1.25 1.27 1,011,000 1,280,030 MARCVENTURES NIHAO 0.9 0.92 0.89 0.9 0.89 0.9 41,000 36,520 5.49 5.5 5.49 5.52 5.42 5.5 1,547,100 8,487,301 NICKEL ASIA ORNTL PENINSULA 0.72 0.73 0.71 0.72 0.7 0.72 148,000 104,330 3.26 3.27 3.25 3.27 3.2 3.26 214,000 695,620 PX MINING SEMIRARA MINING 40.2 40.55 40 41.05 40 40.2 3,094,700 125,904,115 0.006 0.0062 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 7,000,000 42,000 UNITED PARAGON ACE ENEXOR 14 14.08 12.8 14 12.58 14 786,600 10,707,272 0.01 0.011 0.011 0.012 0.01 0.011 37,700,000 412,400 ORNTL PETROL A PHILODRILL 0.0088 0.009 0.0089 0.009 0.0089 0.009 4,000,000 35,800 5.61 5.7 5.38 5.75 5.38 5.7 547,500 3,084,439 PXP ENERGY PREFFERED HOUSE PREF B 97.5 98.5 98.5 98.5 98.5 98.5 2,100 206,850 AC PREF B1 501.5 502 502 502 502 502 3,500 1,757,000 100.8 104.9 104.9 104.9 104.9 104.9 10 1,049 ALCO PREF C ALCO PREF D 495 505 503 503 503 503 1,200 603,600 496.4 498 498 498 496.4 496.4 1,000 496,432 AC PREF B2R CEB PREF 40.6 40.95 40.5 40.8 40.5 40.8 32,500 1,320,510 100 101.4 101 101.4 101 101.4 100 10,108 CPG PREF A DD PREF 98 99.5 98.75 99.85 98.75 99.5 99,990 9,970,938.50 105 106.5 106.5 106.5 106.5 106.5 30 3,195 EEI PREF B GTCAP PREF B 1,011 1,014 1,014 1,015 1,014 1,015 50 50,710 980 985 985 985 985 985 10 9,850 JFC PREF A MWIDE PREF 2B 97.5 100 97.3 97.5 97.3 97.5 1,110 108,203 91.05 96.95 90 96.95 90 96.95 19,940 1,798,075 PNX PREF 3B PNX PREF 4 830 847 815 849 815 847.5 3,550 2,940,925 1,030 1,034 1,035 1,035 1,034 1,034 600 620,500 PCOR PREF 3A PCOR PREF 3B 1,047 1,060 1,047 1,047 1,047 1,047 5 5,235 76 76.1 76.1 76.45 76.1 76.45 2,850 217,567.50 SMC PREF 2F SMC PREF 2J 71.05 72 71 71.3 70.9 71.05 44,180 3,138,477.50 72.2 74 72.5 72.5 72.2 72.2 6,600 476,830 SMC PREF 2K 50.1 54.95 50.1 50.1 50.1 50.1 200 10,020 TECH PREF B2C TECH PREF B2D 54 55.9 54 54 54 54 170 9,180 PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR 9.05 9.68 GMA HLDG PDR 10.1 10.72 10.1 10.1 10.1 10.1 100 1,010 WARRANTS TECH WARRANT 0.74 0.75 0.72 0.75 0.69 0.74 1,643,000 1,178,840

8,646,000.00 2,422,090 19,969,317.50 549,502 -55,700 -13,149,124 -957,330 2,364,205 -1,645,781 3,044,430 -21,906,035 -641,336 -54,472,315 -70,200 -3,578,145 504,380 -28,838 1,123,280 270,980 -5,145,650 9,500 -8,960 -9,466,130 -215,890 -725,693 -7,082,248.00 -23,500 1,310 -31,178,445 -657,380 2,992,000 -21,852,530 -38,206,020 17,000.00 -16,408,439 -518,630 -158,260 -22,000 35,470 3,002,385 29,899,900 -342,330 -7,768,672 581,750 -15,800 24,000 397,650 61,000 19,840 -365,330 -155,390 1,978.50 720,500 5,575,250 31,870 29,300 -113,176 108,750 -777,040 -545,660.00 36,790 1,410,865 -159,710 6,312,435 42,000 -351,516 9,969,940 10,703 -18,760 134,905 36,125 -

SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

BALAI FRUITAS CTS GLOBAL HAUS TALK ITALPINAS MERRYMART XURPAS

0.63 1.01 0.88 0.72 1.29 0.3

0.64 1.02 0.89 0.73 1.3 0.325

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS FIRST METRO ETF

95.4

95.5

0.63 1 0.89 0.74 1.3 0.3

0.65 1.01 0.92 0.75 1.33 0.3

0.63 0.99 0.88 0.71 1.29 0.3

0.64 1.01 0.89 0.73 1.29 0.3

1,835,000 7,631,000 724,000 107,000 2,562,000 550,000

1,177,830 7,643,650 646,610 78,620 3,349,470 165,000

-3,200 -1,803,500 -266,520 -18,320 31,460 -

95.45 100 95.35 95.5 13,280 1,277,102.50 403,622.50


B4

Show BusinessMirror

Wednesday, July 27, 2022 • Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Today’s Horoscope By Eugenia Last

z

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Taylor Schilling, 38; Jonathan Rhys Meyers, 45; Cassandra Clare, 49; Maya Rudolph, 50. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Assess your life; understanding what stresses you out will help resolve matters that can influence your health and your relationships with others. Clear up what isn’t working for you by replacing negative situations with positive input. Select your associates carefully, and nurture the relationships that offer a lifeline. Change what’s necessary to achieve peace of mind. Your numbers are 4, 15, 23, 27, 35, 42, 46.

SURGERY DOWN THERE

THE actress is known for having had extensive cosmetic surgery on her face and body. Some even say she’s had too much but it’s her body, her choice. More recently, people are talking about the work she had “down there.” It’s unclear what work it was exactly but apparently, the talks started after someone who worked in the medical facility where she had it done told people they knew. Of course when that happens, word will spread and the story will become exaggerated. But it’s clear that everyone is fascinated with the actress, even if they say they don’t like her.

CAT FIGHT

HOW true is the rumor that a certain beauty queen and a starlet got into a fight after the former caught the latter in her ex’s apartment? The beauty queen was reportedly at her ex’s place to pick up some of her things but she saw the starlet with her former boyfriend. The starlet and the beauty queen had an exchange of words and a few blows between them. Because the starlet is tinier than the beauty queen, she was at a disadvantage and ended up with a few bruises and cuts here and there.

a

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Know what you must do to overcome adversity and make amends. Stand behind your statements, but don’t ignore outside input. Networking will help you decide between who is most likely to help you get ahead and who is manipulative. HH DANIEL KALUUYA (from left), Keke Palmer and Brandon Perea in a scene from Nope, a UFO thriller that enjoyed solid numbers to finish as the No. 1 film in North American theaters.

Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ debuts at No. 1 with $44 million percent on Rotten Tomatoes. “It’s a great number,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution. “It’s amazing how broadly it’s playing, too.” “Jordan Peele crafted an incredible film,” Orr added. “And it is absolutely something that should be seen on the big screen.” The film got off to a strong start with $6.4 million from Thursday previews. By the end of Friday, it had grossed $19.3 million. About 68 percent of the opening weekend audience was between the ages of 18 and 34, which is the “sweet spot” for a horror film. Audiences were also quite diverse according to exit polls, reporting 35 percent Caucasian, 33 percent Black, 20 percent Hispanic and 8 percent Asian. And many chose to experience Nope in IMAX, which accounted for about $5.2 million of its first weekend earnings. “It’s incredibly gratifying to see a visionary like Jordan Peele, who represents a new generation of filmmakers, use our technology in pioneering ways and create an experience meant to be seen in IMAX,” said IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond. Word-of-mouth is going to be critical in the coming weeks for Nope, which begins its international rollout on August 12. “An opening weekend for a Jordan Peele film is not the right metric. We have to see where it is a month from now,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for comScore. “Nope could have solid, longterm playability as the word gets out. One need only look at Elvis to see that a film doesn’t have to open huge to be a big success.” Nope knocked Thor: Love and Thunder to second

REAL, NOT REEL

SO some fans are insisting that the matinee idol’s girlfriend is not his favorite screen partner but a model who recently split from her longtime BF. They’ve come to this conclusion because of circumstantial evidence even if the matinee idol and his screen partner seem to be as sweet as a real couple even offscreen. However, how many times have we been fooled by loveteams so this story is worth looking into. It’s worth noting that the matinee idol’s dad and younger sister follows the model on Instagram while his mom and other sister don’t. Very recently, some fans pointed out that the model and the matinee idol were in the same foreign country at the same time. They’ve also been at the same places and while there’s no proof they were there at the same time, it still seems suspicious to some fans.

NOT QUEEN-LIKE

TWO beauty queens attended an event. One is a title holder while the other is one of her runners-up. People were so surprised that the title holder barely smiled and seemed not to be able to handle herself while the runner-up was confident and friendly. People at the event also commented that it was surprising the other beauty queen won the title since she didn’t seem very queen-like. They also said she looked better in photographs than in person. Meanwhile, the runnerup charmed everyone at the event because of her beauty, poise and grace.

J

By Lindsey Bahr The Associated Press

ORDAN PEELE’S UFO thriller Nope topped the North American charts in its first weekend in theaters with an estimated $44 million in ticket sales, Universal Pictures said on Sunday. Though it doesn’t come close to the $71 million debut of Us, it is still significantly impressive for an original, R-rated film—and the biggest of the pandemic for an original screenplay. Nope, which opened on 3,785 theaters in the US and Canada, is the most expensive film Peele has made to date with a reported $68 million production budget, not accounting for marketing and promotion costs. Us cost around $20 million to produce, while Get Out was made for only $4.5 million. Both films ultimately made over $255 million worldwide. Critics were largely positive about Nope, which stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun and pays homage to UFO films, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Signs, and is currently resting at 83

Continued on B5

said in a statement. When the restraining order was issued, the Puerto Rico newspaper El Vocero said the order stated that Martin and the other person dated for seven months. The report quoted the order as saying that they broke up two months earlier but that the petitioner said Martin did not accept the separation and had been seen loitering near the petitioner’s house at least three times. The AP didn’t obtained a copy of the order. “This was never anything more than a troubled individual making false allegations with absolutely nothing to substantiate them,” Martin’s legal team said Thursday. “We are glad that our client saw justice done and can now move forward with his life and his career.” AP

Rico’s domestic violence law, but police didn’t provide further details, including who requested the order. But on Thursday, “the petitioner ceased his claims voluntarily; therefore the case was archived and no further procedures are required,” the judicial spokesperson told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity as required by the tribunal rules. The hearing to review the case was scheduled for Thursday, but it took place behind closed doors and the parties attended it virtually. Outside the tribunal, several media reporters and cameras awaited. “Just as we anticipated, the temporary protection order was not extended by the court,” Ricky Martin’s legal team

c

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You’ll be your own worst enemy if you don’t stick to the truth and honor your promises. Diligence and discipline will help you advance; bold statements based on little substance will work against you. Use your imagination to create, not to mislead. HHH

d

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Use creative input to your advantage. Take what others offer and turn it into something spectacular. Your insight will draw attention and encourage others to look up to you and help you reach your target. Trust and believe in yourself. HHH

e

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Conflict will make you think and spark new beginnings. Don’t waste your time on anger. If you use your energy to accomplish your goals, you will find the quickest route to achieving happiness. HHH

f

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Be part of the solution and make a difference. A change you make will bring positive results. Sharing with someone you love will bring you closer and help you make financial adjustments that lower your overhead. HHHH

g

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You’ll overreact if given the chance. Think matters through, and don’t act on assumptions. Look inward and concentrate on self-improvement. Discipline, coupled with fitness and sufficient rest, will be a game changer. Do whatever it takes to maintain good health. HH

h

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Actions will speak louder than words. Live up to your promises and set high standards for others to follow. Don’t let anger set in when taking a stellar approach to the way you do things will be worth a thousand words. HHHHH

i

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Be smart with your cash. Pay attention to detail and set practical goals. Turn your attention to home and family and ways to improve relationships and living arrangements. Take responsibility for your actions and words. Don’t give up on love. HHH

j

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Plan the changes you want to enforce. Live within your means, and refuse to let anyone talk you into something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Personal improvements will add to your popularity and encourage love and romance. HHH

k

Court closes restraining order case against Ricky Martin SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—A Puerto Rico court “archived” a restraining order issued against superstar Ricky Martin, meaning the case was closed, a judicial spokeman said on Thursday. The case had brought intense media attention, and without giving details, the Puerto Rican singer had only denied any wrongdoing. On Thursday, hours after the court ruling, he said that he was a “victim of lies” from a relative. “I’ve been working onstage in the public eye for almost four decades,” he said on a video released by his publicists. “And I’ve never, ever had to deal with anything as painful as what I’ve been through in the last two weeks.” A judge issued a restraining order in early July against the Puerto Rican singer. The order was filed under Puerto

b

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Set boundaries, but don’t limit what you can achieve. Anger and instability will settle in if you aren’t smart about handling others. Choose your battles wisely and partner with those who can contribute to your goal. HHHH

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): When in doubt, sit tight and wait to see what happens. Take the high road, regardless of what others do, and you’ll have no regrets. A job opportunity or financial gain looks promising. HHH

l

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Engage in something that inspires and motivates you to head in a new direction. A change will boost your morale and help you move on from situations holding you back. Let go of the past and celebrate new beginnings with someone you love. HHHHH BIRTHDAY BABY: You are unpredictable, spontaneous and big-hearted. You are protective and original. H: Avoid conflicts; work behind the scenes. HH: You can accomplish, but don’t rely on others. HHH: Focus and you’ll reach your goals. HHHH: Aim high; start new projects. HHHHH: Nothing can stop you; go for gold.

‘reframing the question’ BY BILL PIPAL AND ALIE BURNET The Universal Crossword/Edited by Amanda Rafkin

ACROSS 1 Surrenders, like land 6 ER fluid holder 11 “Well, that ___ awkward” 14 Opposite of obtuse 15 Around the date of 16 Choose 17 Leading question? 19 Covid-19 vaccine molecule 20 “Mayday!” 21 Tapered haircuts 22 Person who poses 24 Garr of Mr. Mom 25 Type of relationship or reasoning 26 Burning question? 31 “Bad Guy” singer Billie 32 Pump ___ (lift weights) 33 1980s TV character who became a cat lover 36 Faucet problem 37 Hot stone massage venue 38 On the house 39 Patch things up, in a way 40 Ice-cream drink 42 Tree that giraffes love 44 Trick question?

47 49 50 51 53 56 57 60 61 62 63

Japanese canines Spare in the trunk, say Bungle Sanaa is its capital A deer, a female deer Grecian vase in a Keats poem Loaded question? Driving aid? Gets wind of Sixteenth of a pound “___ My Name” (Destiny’s Child song) 64 Brains or beauty, perhaps 65 First inheritances? DOWN 1 Crows’ cries 2 Reverberate 3 Steely Dan and Indigo Girls 4 UFO crew 5 Fixed prices 6 Sealed the win, slangily 7 Mood in the room 8 Warner ___ 9 Cooling units, for short 10 Pilot’s fuel source? 11 Puzzle whose grid has no black

squares 12 Sleeper’s woe 13 What kids may try to do around bedtime 18 Like an Arctic winter 23 ___ Flag Means Death (HBO Max show) 24 Stumble 25 Cash flow exec 26 Marries 27 Pick for a position 28 Inventor known for interchangeable parts 29 Savvy about 30 Pitcher’s stat 34 Princess who called Chewbacca a “walking carpet” 35 Impressive achievement 37 Crafty 38 Kismet 40 Maniacal laugh 41 Things you may pay to avoid 42 Parting word in Paris 43 Carnival fare on a stick 45 Like Advil and Tylenol: Abbr. 46 Maximum extent

47 48 51 52 53 54 55 58 59

Touches against Region with Seoul Senators’ affirmatives Bronte heroine Jane Jourdan on the runway “You only live ___” Squeaks (out) Hi-___ audio Feel badly about

Solution to today’s puzzle:


www.news.businessmirror@gmail.com

Investors stick with long-tenor positions

T

HE Bureau of the Treasury sold P35 billion in reissued 25-year Treasury bonds (Tbonds) on Tuesday as investors remain attracted to longer tenors. National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon said the investors were once again drawn into the longer tenors due to yield pick-up. “Rate lower than secondary [as] market did not ask for any maturity or illiquidity premium,” De Leon told reporters. Given the auction results, De Leon said they will continue to offer debt papers with long tenors under the government’s domestic borrowing program for August. Bids for the debt paper reached P94 billion, making the auction more than twice oversubscribed. Strong demand for the longer tenor was evident, pushing the average even lower than those from the secondary market benchmark rates. With a remaining term of 13 years and four months to maturity, the T-bonds fetched an average rate of 6.894 percent, also lower than the original coupon rate of 8.125 percent set on its first issue in December 2010. Likewise, this is also below the Bloomberg Valuation (BVAL) Service Reference Rates of 6.982 percent and 6.922 percent for the 15-year tenor and the security itself, respectively. To accommodate the demand, the Treasury also decided to open the tap facility window to raise an additional P10 billion. For this month, the government is set to borrow P200 billion from the local debt market. As of end-May, the national government’s outstanding debt dipped to P12.5 trillion from a record-high of P12.76 trillion as of end-April due to its repayment of a P300 billion short-term, zero-interest loan from BSP. In a bid to temper inflation which has already hit a 3-year-high of 6.1 percent in June, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) earlier surprised markets with an aggressive rate hike of 75 basis points. Even before this off-cycle hike, the BSP has already resorted to backto-back 25-basis point hikes in its May and June meetings. But the BSP seems not to be done yet as its Governor Felipe Medalla earlier said they still have room to raise interest rates. The US Federal Reserve is also set to conclude its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday as the market priced a 75-basis point rate hike. Bernadette D. Nicolas

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Editor: Dennis D. Estopace • Wednesday, July 27, 2022

B3

Govt underspending reduces deficit

T

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

HE national government’s budget deficit for the first half of the year fell below program as the government missed its spending target for the period.

The negative cash flow from January to June this year stood at P674.2 billion, lower than the programmed budget deficit of P828.7 billion by 18.64 percent, latest data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed. The figure was also narrower by 5.84 percent than the recorded budget gap of P716.1 billion in the same period last year as revenues grew faster than expenditures. When revenues exceed expenditures, a budget deficit occurs. A smaller budget deficit could also mean less need for the government to borrow

money to finance its spending requirements. Government spending reached P2.4 trillion in the first semester of this year, falling short of the P2.477-trillion target by P75.4 billion or 3.04 percent. The Treasury said the government missed its spending target largely due to “slower-than-expected capital expenditures amid the election ban in late March up to early May.”

Catch-up

GOVERNMENT expenditures for the first six months of this year

rose by 8.85 percent from the P2.21 trillion recorded in the same period in 2021. Given the underspending in the first semester of the year mainly because of the election ban, Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno separately told reporters on July 26 that the government would have to implement a catch-up plan. “Definitely mabilis lang magcatchup. Pagbabayaran lang yung mga nagawa na,” said Diokno, who also served as budget secretary and later central bank governor under the Duterte administration. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief Economist Michael Ricafort told the BusinessMirror government’s underspending wouldn’t necessarily drag the country’s economic growth. “Since there are other offsetting growth drivers this year such as election-related spending, further re-opening of the economy towards greater normalcy, further pick up in foreign and domestic tourism,

phased face-to-face schooling, increased infrastructure spending,” Ricafort said.

Revenues

REVENUES during the period hit P1.73 trillion, exceeding the P1.65trillion target by 4.8 percent. Likewise, revenues even posted a double-digit growth of 15.91 percent from P1.49 trillion recorded in the first half of last year. This, despite the government’s main tax collection agency—the Bureau of Internal Revenue—slightly falling short of its mid-year target of P1.165 trillion by 2.77 percent after it collected a total of P1.13 trillion. For its part, the Bureau of Customs exceeded its mid-year goal of P360.7 billion by 9.98 percent. For the month of June alone, the government’s budget deficit widened to P215.5 billion, up by 43.81 percent from P149.9 billion recorded in the previous year as expenditures outpaced revenues. Expenditures during the month

stood at P505.8 billion, soaring by 27.91 percent from P395.4 billion in June last year. Revenues also reached P290.3 billion, climbing by 18.2 percent yearon-year from P245.6 billion. The Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee expects a lower budget deficit this year at P1.65 trillion, or 7.6 percent of the country’s GDP. Last year, the national government’s budget deficit soared to a new record-high of P1.67 trillion on the back of weaker revenue collection and increased spending amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As a share of the Philippine economy last year, the budget deficit also soared to an unprecedented level of 8.61 percent. The economic team aims to reduce the national government’s deficitto-GDP ratio to three percent by the end of the term of President R. Marcos Jr. by raising more revenues through supporting the country’s economic growth.

Seven behind One Dream Global pyramiding scam ordered jailed By VG Cabuag

@villygc

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HE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday said it secured another win over investment scams after a Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Batangas fined seven people affiliated with One Dream Global Marketing Inc. totaling P2.8 million. They were also ordered to serve up to 20 years of jail time each. In a decision dated July 14, the Batangas City RTC Branch 2 found officials of One Dream guilty for syndicated estafa for their pyramid scheme, when its permit only allows them to sell detergents, which violates the Securities Regulation Code. Convicted were the following: Arnel Gacer; Jobelle De Guzman; Judith Itoh; Marlon De Guzman; Louie De Guzman; Belinda De Guzman; and, Jun De Guzman. The court also issued an alias warrant of arrest against Ariel De Guzman, Richard Ramos, Jay-ar De Guzman and Joel De Guzman, who all remain at large. The case against the Lipa, Batangas-based investment scam stemmed from complaints filed with the Department of Justice by nine investors against One Dream for syndicated estafa on July 21, 2015. Two other investors filed complaints against the group with the SEC’s Enforcement and Investor Protection Department on August 3, 2015. The complainant-investors accused the officers of One Dream of offering investments worth P888, with the promise of a P1,300 payout after four days, excluding a 10-percent tax. Investors were allowed to pay for up to 31 slots, or a total of P27,528, in exchange for P39,022.80 after four days. One Dream also supposedly promised freebies and a commission of P44 for every referral. In his inspection of One Dream’s office on July 11, 2015, then Lipa mayor Meynardo A. Sabili found that the group had been illegally

soliciting investments from the public. He then ordered One Dream to cease operations, as its business permit only allowed it to engage in the retail and wholesale of detergents. The investors noted they were not aware One Dream was selling detergents but only guaranteeing high returns over a short period of time in exchange for investing. Following the local government unit’s inspection, payouts from One Dream stopped, despite repeated demands from the complainants. Gacer and the One Dream management team supposedly assured them that there was nothing to worry about. Later, however, they neither showed up at One Dream’s principal office nor could be found at their respective residences. The court ruled that it was “undisputed” that the accused, through the company One Dream, solicited investments from the public, enticing investors with the promised profit of 46 percent every four days, plus P44 for every referral. “The investment scheme employed falls within the definition of ‘securities’ under the SRC and that the same constitutes a ‘fraudulent transaction’ under Section 26 of the same law because it involves the purchase and sale of securities by the use of a scheme that is intended to defraud the investing public, which is prohibited by Section 26,” the court said. The court also noted that One Dream had no actual business operation other than the collection of money from investors, as the receipts it issued in the alleged sale transactions carried the markings “Product to follow,” “P.T.F.” or “F.F.P.” “It also turned out that One Dream had in fact no financial capacity to repay the loans as it had an authorized capital stock of only P1 million and paid-up capital of only P100,000.00. Clearly the representations regarding its supposed financial capacity to meets its obligations to the private complainants were simply false,”

Revenge travel–revenge delays and prices?

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but on different schedules ITH people going who were also affected by the back to traveling delays. Worse, the shuttle van again, there is the that will take us to the hotel problem of flight delays due arrived late and we arrived at to airport congestion, lack of our hotel almost 12 midnight. pilots and shortage of planes, And they were supposed to etc. This difficult experience I pick us up at 1 a.m. for us to encountered when I attended be at the airport for our early a conference in Tacloban City. Wilma Inventor-Miranda morning flight! On my way home I have a Thus, instead of taking a connecting flight from Taclorest right away in my hotel bed, which is just a ban via Manila and back to Bacolod. That mornsmall economy room but with a decent bed at ing, flights were delayed. least, I took a shower instead, to be ready for my Upon arriving at the airport, I asked the ground morning flight. attendant that since the flight from Manila will be At that time, I was also super hungry. We delayed by an hour, will that affect my flight? With were served with dinner of a cup of rice, a piece a nonchalant reply, she responded that since it is a of chicken and a softdrink. I do not usually eat connecting flight, they will surely wait for me.But the skin of the chicken and even a fried chicken guess what? Huff and puff, arriving in Manila I from a fast food restaurant. But this time only a was at the boarding gate 20:15—the time for defew bones were left of the chicken after I ate it! parture is 20:20 but the gates were already closed! Several minutes after, with hardly getting a wink, Running all the time with my small hand-carried we were whisked away by the van to be brought luggage in tow from the arrival to the departure to the airport to catch the early morning flight. gate did not do me any good! The inconvenience and the stress are lessons We were given a hotel accommodation and for me not to get a flight with a short layover peanother plane ticket for an early morning flight. riod. But I learned later that the delays in flight My whole body longing to sleep and extremely it is a global problem! tired coming from a conference and I was lookWith “revenge’ travels as they say—people ing forward to at least for a few hours of rest in longing to see the world again—flight capacities the hotel. are full. One flight delayed, or worst cancelled, Lo and behold I was not the only one stranded does not only result to a domino effect but a “big as there were other passengers (all Filipinos) comheadache” not only to the passengers but to the ing from other countries taking the same airline

Finex free enterprise

airlines. Other reasons could be traffic in the runway because of congested airports or lack of planes to fly because of lack of pilots. Aside from delays, airfares are also going up, and hotel prices too, especially during these months of June, July and even up to August, which are the summer months and peak vacation months in the United States and Europe. Plane fares and related travel prices will likely go down starting September this year. Statistics shows that after gasoline prices, which rose by 59.9 percent over a 12-month period, airfare comes next at 34.4 percent (US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data as of June 2022). I do not have the Philippine statistics on domestic airfares but certainly it went up even as I pay higher fares in my domestic travels—coupled with inflation rate in June 2022 at 5 percent from 4.3 percent in June 2021. In the end, if you want to travel, consider all factors. It is not just about “revenge travel” because “revenge prices and delays” are waiting for you, too. Nevertheless, while hoping for a smooth trip be ready for all possible contingencies. That way, you will not be disappointed. Instead, consider everything—good or bad— as an experience to learn from.

Wilma Miranda is the 2022 chairman of the Finex Ethics Committee, managing partner of Inventor, Miranda & Associates, CPAs and member of the Board of Directors of KPS Outsourcing Inc. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of these institutions and the BusinessMirror.

the court said. This is the second conviction secured by the SEC during the pandemic, with the first guilty

verdict promulgated in the case against RJF Construction and Development Corp. on November 27, 2020.


Image BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

How YouTube creators are making an impact on the lives of their fans YouTube has become a haven for entertainment, learning, or even a way to pass the time while on a long commute, or while waiting for the end of a long day. Days become busier and sometimes people need a little pick-me-up with feel-good stories. So if you’re one of those people who need a sprinkling of positivity in your life (or know someone who does), take a gander and visit these YouTubers who aim to spread the good vibes. Small Laude She’s a socialite known for shopping sprees across the globe, but Small Laude’s charm lies in her candor, her humor, and her down-to-earth personality. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, she decided to share her blessings by sponsoring a weekly feeding program for the homeless at the Daughters of Saint Anne Convent in Quezon City. Called Small Saturdays, Small, her husband Philip Laude and friend Giselle Sanchez go to the convent and feed almost 100 people every Saturday across Quezon City. “It’s only about 100 people and I feel good [doing it],” she said in her vlog. She also echoed one of the sister’s comments that they may not be able to solve all the problems in the world, but at least “they can do a little.” Her small act of charity has led her viewers to be inspired, with Namii Choz saying, “You gave us laughter and now you’re touching our hearts with your generosity. It’s the best time to use ‘Sana all!’ They say na our goal is not to go to heaven but to bring heaven here on Earth. These people are making the first steps and I hope a lot will follow. Thank you for this great content, Ms. Small, and indeed God bless you and your fam more!” Chef RV Manabat CHEF RV Manabat is more than just a celebrity chef: he’s a culinary instructor who uses his YouTube channel to teach Filipinos simple recipes that they use to start their own food business. After his milky cheesy donuts and empanada went viral with viewers commenting that they began selling their creations to great success, Chef RV decided to upload a new recipe, this time his easy moist chocolate cake recipe. “[This is] a very easy super moist chocolate cake that you can turn into a small business,” he said in the video. “As you’ll see, the ingredients we’re using for the cake are not very pricey—they are very straightforward ingredients.” Throughout the video, he takes the viewers step-bystep through the process of making the icing and the cake while pointing out substitutes (like using all-purpose cream instead of heavy cream) that will make the recipes more accessible to his viewers. His engaging way of filming his video and his willingness to help Filipinos learn how to start their own businesses did not go unnoticed, as Josephine Corotan wrote: “Thank you for being so generous in giving full knowledge to your viewers, especially in giving tips.” Chink Positive Mr. Chink Positive himself, Chinkee Tan has made a name for himself as a motivational speaker and wealth coach. While he personally hands out words of advice and encouragement on his web site and TV shows, his YouTube channel does not slouch when it comes to sharing his expertise with his viewers. One of his more popular videos, Chinkee talks about the 10 bad financial decisions people make including overspending, over-investing, and not saving enough during good times. “Don’t let one financial mistake ruin your finances. Educate yourself about what are the most effective ways to safekeep your money,” he says in the video. These are only a very small sampling of Filipino YouTubers who have made it their mission to put a little happiness and positivity into the lives of their viewers.

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

• Wednesday, July 27, 2022

How to be more likable PHOTO BY CHRISTINA @ WOCINTECHCHAT. COM ON UNSPLASH

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ORKING with others entails sustaining a good working relationship even if you do not like the other person. In a work environment, professional relationships are maintained if you do your work well and everybody accords one another a certain degree of respect and mutual advantage. However, to expand your network and ensure you have key people you can tap when you need help, you first need to establish good working relations with them. And it all begins with being likable. Some people are naturally friendly and charming, and people are easily drawn to them. For others, it is something they need to work on deliberately because they do not have the social exposure nor the opportunity to deal with different kinds of personalities. Wherever you are in the range of likability, your ability to draw people will help you collaborate with others and open opportunities for professional and personal growth. Below are some of the ways you can become more likable. Try to be as approachable as possible. It goes without saying that people are drawn toward others who are approachable and easy to talk to. Pay attention to the language you use and the way you say things because people pick up on these nuances. Most of the time, we are not even aware of it and a trusted friend might be needed to point out our abrasive language or the way we deal with others. Be mindful of what your friends are telling you so that you can correct yourself. Actively listen to what your coworkers are saying about their work or personal lives. If you meet the person for the first time, use their name as often as you can in the conversation to make them feel important. When talking to people in succeeding meetings, try to mention details of what they said to you before, so they know that you cared enough to listen. This is especially important if you are handling a team because this indicates to them that you have their best interest at heart. When someone is speaking to you, listen with all your body. Your body language indicates whether you are interested, and your ears should not be doing all the work. Keep a modest amount of eye contact and try to naturally point your entire body toward the person you are talking to. If you are sitting down, you can lean in to indicate undivided attention and interest. Never cross your arms, and keep an open stance to show that what they are saying is important. Put down your phone or put it away so it will not distract you. In this age, putting away your phone shows that they have your full attention. Our mobile devices have made us more reachable and has made every little issue an emergency. To create genuine connections with people, you need to immerse yourself wholeheartedly into the conversation so you can understand the other person better. When you know what motivates them, it becomes easier for you

to relate with them and empathize. This will help you become more gracious and tactful when speaking with them. Early in the working relationship, set clear boundaries of what you deem as acceptable behavior and graciously call out what you think are inappropriate behavior. There is wisdom in Aristotle’s saying that “a friend to all is a friend to none.” While it is important that you are likable in the workplace, that does not mean that you should be liked by everyone in the office because there will always be people who will not like you for whatever reason. But you need to be friendly enough that when they work with you, they will be professional and cooperative. You cannot spend your time winning over and being liked by everyone by saying yes to everything they ask from you because they will expect it from you all the time. Setting clear boundaries at the start helps prevent future conflicts later and ensures that you and the people you work with understand what they need to do to keep the work going. If you need to win someone over, a technique you can use is to ask them for a small request like, say, lending you their pen. The idea is to ask them something they can easily do and when they do it, they will subconsciously justify in their head why they lent you the pen, and it will somehow make them

think that they might like you on some level. This makes it easier for another request. This is what is referred to as the foot-in-the-door technique. Use this to befriend work mates who do not like you. Strive to discover similarities with the person you are working with so you can talk about it. People are drawn to others who have similar hobbies, interests, or even concerns. Similarities can help people lower their own barriers and take an interest in what you have to say. You are perceived to be more like them so they will find it easier to relate to your other experiences. Stop over-complaining. Nobody wants to be around one who always has a negative thing to say with just about everything. While it is true that we need to maintain a certain level of excellence in our work, it would not help if you keep on complaining without doing anything about it. There are better ways of managing subpar work at the office, and it would do you well to explore alternative ways of handling it than through complaining. Being more likable also depends on whether or not you like yourself. You need to be confident and what you can contribute to the group. You can do all the things above, but if you do not like yourself, it will all come off as mechanical and forced. Ultimately, you need to like yourself so you can have the confidence to meet others and make them like you, too. n

Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ debuts at No. 1 with $44 million Continued from B4 place in its third weekend. The Disney and Marvel blockbuster starring Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman added $22.1 million, bringing its global total to $598.2 million. Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru landed in third place with $17.7 million in its fourth weekend. The animated pic has made $640.3 million globally. The Sony-released adaptation of the best seller Where the Crawdads Sing, meanwhile, is enjoying a modest second weekend drop. The film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones added an estimated $10.3 million from 3,650 locations. It’s now grossed $38.3 million domestically. Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick rounded out the top five in its ninth weekend with an additional $10 million. Earlier this week, it surpassed The Avengers to become ninth biggest domestic release of all time with its total now sitting at $635.6 million. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. 1. Nope, $44 million. 2. Thor: Love and Thunder, 22.1 million 3. Minions: The Rise of Gru, $17.7 million 4. Where the Crawdads Sing, $10.3 million 5. Top Gun: Maverick, $10 million 6. Elvis, $6.3 million 7. Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, $3.9 million 8. The Black Phone, $3.5 million 9. Jurassic World Dominion, $3 million 10. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, $1.4 million. n

B5

Indian Ambassador H.E Shambhu S. Kumaran (first row, right) and wife Mme. Amrita Singh Kumaran (first row, left) lead health and fitness enthusiasts in a Common during the International Day of Yoga celebration at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia.

Yoga instructors led by Chandru Mahtani (second from right) during the Indian Embassy Manila’s International Day of Yoga at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia. From left: Clara Day Herrera, Jennifer Aguas Non and Janice Cuevas.

8th International Day of Yoga celebrated Hundreds of yoga enthusiasts, members of the Indian community in Manila, and fitness buffs recently gathered together to celebrate the 8th International Day of Yoga at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia. A joint partnership between the Indian Embassy in the Philippines and SM, the International Day of Yoga celebration was led by Indian Ambassador H.E. Shambhu S. Kumaran and wife Mme. Amrita Singh Kumaran. It opened with a Ganesh Stuti dance presentation, a traditional ceremony in India that signifies the start of something positive and auspicious. This was followed by a video message from the

Honorable Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. He said that this year’s theme “Yoga for Humanity” appropriately portrays how yoga helped in alleviating the sufferings during the peak of Covid-19 pandemic. It likewise brings people together through compassion, kindness, fostering a sense of unity, and building resilience among people the world over in the emerging post-Covid geo-political scenario. The Government of India, in consultation with leading yoga gurus and schools in India, developed the Common Yoga Protocol to make yoga practice accessible to all. The Common Yoga Protocol during the International Day of Yoga at SM Mall of Asia started with Chalankriyas or Loosening Practices,

and a powerful yoga pose Surya Namaskar, literally translated as Sun Salutation, led by Yoga practitioner Janice Cuevas. This was followed by a Yogasana practice or seated posture typically used for meditation led by Yoga advocate Chandru Mahtani, and Pranayama or breath regulation led by certified international yoga and meditation teacher Clara Day Herrera. Certified yoga and meditation teacher Jennifer Aguas Non then completed the celebration with a meditation practice. Yoga, with a 5,000-year legacy from India, is a spiritual discipline which focuses on bringing harmony between mind and body, and is also an art and science for healthy living.


B6 Wednesday, July 27, 2022

FastCat reopens Mindanao gateway from Liloan, Leyte

CSMC unveils upgraded facilities and newly-renovated Centers for Medicine

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ARDINAL Santos Medical Center (CSMC) continues to make their world-class standard of healthcare more accessible through the renovation of its facilities in recent months. The institution opened the Center for Thoracic and Critical Care Medicine last April, while the Professor Sol V. Alvarez Center for Digestive Diseases and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy was unveiled in June. The Center for Thoracic and Critical Care Medicine aims to provide patients who experience pulmonary diseases with comprehensive, state-of-the-art medical services. The opening ceremony was attended by the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Sen. Bong Go, who commended the enhancement of CSMC’s facilities. The senator also stated that the efforts are in line with the government’s goal of building more health facilities and improving existing ones. Meanwhile, the Prof. Sol V. Alvarez Center for Digestive Diseases and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy was named in honor of the pioneering doctor who established the very first endoscopy unit in the country in 1974 within CSMC. CSMC’s endoscopy unit is one of the premier gastroenterology facilities

in the Philippines, and is home to some of the best physicians in the field. CSMC’s goal has always been to nurture its legacy of Caring Cardinal service, and uphold its mission of saving lives by being up-to-date with industry innovations and advancements. “Cardinal Santos Medical Center is steeped in a rich tradition of excellence in clinical care,” said CSMC President and CEO Raul C. Pagdanganan during the

Prof. Sol V. Alvarez Center for Digestive Diseases and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy inauguration. “[The new facilities are] designed with the needs of the patients in mind, [and] is another testimony to CSMC’s dedication to delivering highquality standards of care for our patients and the communities we serve.” Visit https://cardinalsantos.com.ph/ and follow www.facebook.com/CardinalSantos for updates.

Pampanga Rep. Arroyo named ISST chair emeritus

AT CONFERMENT RITES, FROM LEFT: ISST Treasurer Miguel Guioguio, ISST president and former tourism secretary Mina Gabor, Rep. Arroyo, outgoing ISST chairman Department of Transportation secretary Jaime Bautista, and ISST director Joselito Bernardo.

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AMPANGA second district congresswoman and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was recently conferred the title of Senior Adviser and Chairman Emeritus of the International

School of Sustainable Tourism (ISST), a Silang, Cavite-based academy. Arroyo was accorded the prestigious title because of her strong support to sustainable tourism, and the promotion of Pampanga’s farm

tourism, and culinary and cultural heritage. Founded in 2010, ISST is a private non-stock and non-profit corporation dedicated to education and technical training of manpower to develop, promote and viably operate sustainable tourism in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It is dedicated to the upliftment of the lives of the people of communities with ecological resources that need to be preserved and can be sustainably used for tourism. It offers intensive short-term courses designed for executives, entrepreneurs and the working class who seek to expand their tourism business, specialize or improve their knowledge on specific tourism disciplines. It is described by National Geographic Traveler editor Costas Christ as “The first sustainable tourism school in the Asia-Pacific region educating a new generation of leaders”.

Sun Life is now certified as a Great Place to Work™

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UN Life Philippines has officially been certified as a Great Place to Work™ after 86% of its employees affirmed in a recent survey that the financial services company provides an overall great employee experience. The employee survey was conducted independently by Great Place to Work®, the global authority on workplace culture. Results show that 92% of employees feel that they are treated fairly regardless of their race, 93% feel they are treated fairly regardless of their gender, and 94% feel that they are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation. Meanwhile, 93% deemed Sun Life as a physically safe place to work. “Sun Life is not just after providing the best experience for our clients. We also want the best possible experience for our employees as they grow their careers with us,” Sun Life Philippines Chief Human Resources Officer Yahmin Mattison said. “This is why we strive to ensure that our workplace culture is not only engaging, but also nurturing, empowering, and inclusive.” Confidence in the management was also expressed, with 91% of respondents agreeing that they are competent at running the business and 92% saying that management is honest and ethical in its business practices. Moreover, 92% said are proud to tell others that they work in Sun Life. “These results tell us that there

is a high level of trust within our community,” Sun Life Philippines CEO & Country Head Benedict Sison said. “The feeling is mutual. Sun Life would not be where it is today if not for our employees. They are our greatest asset, and we will continue to put their wellbeing as one of our top priorities.” Sun Life continues to welcome talents looking for a workplace that will allow

SUN Life Philippines Chief Human Resources Officer Yahmin Mattison

them to harness their full potential. Those interested in joining the company as an employee may visit https://sunlife. co/BecomeAnEmployee, while those eager to become an advisor may visit https:// sunlife.co/BecomeAnAdvisor. Information and updates about the company are also available via @SunLifePH on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and on Linkedin via https://sunlife.co/Linkedin.

SUN Life Philippines CEO & Country Head Benedict Sison

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T’S full speed ahead for Archipelago Philippine Ferries Corporation (APFC) for 2022 as FastCat re-opens the gateway to Mindanao from Liloan, Leyte to Surigao Base Port on July 29, 2022. The re-opening connects people and businesses from nearby islands and strengthens the links between Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. In the year 2021, the Lipata port was damaged by Typhoon Odette and has led FastCat to stop its Liloan-Lipata operation since. In addition, the pandemic brought about by the coronavirus has changed the way people traveled. Trips were limited, therefore connection among family, friends, business partners or co-workers, from places around the Philippines were lost. Now that the travel restrictions are lifted, FastCat is here again to serve the riding public and fulfill its brand promise of a FerrySafe, FerryFast and FerryConvenient travel experience. Crossing the Liloan, Leyte to Surigao Base Port and vice versa is now easier and faster with FastCat, travel time is only

three hours. It will also operate two round trips daily. FastCat continues to prioritize the comfort and convenience of passengers and ensuring their safety through its state of-the-art vessels. This new development is again a move towards the fulfillment of FastCat’s aim to be an economic enabler by supporting tourism and trade in the country through its routes nationwide.

Batangas, NHCP, DOT observe 158th Mabini Day

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HE City Government of Tanauan, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), and the Provincial Government of Batangas led the observance of the recent 158th birth anniversary of Apolinario Mabini at the Mabini Shrine in Tanauan City, Batangas. Department of Tourism Calabarzon Region brought members of the Republica Filipina Reenactment Group, an association of professionals which seeks to rekindle public awareness and patriotism through the portrayal of the Philippine Revolution’s historic personalities and events. The regional office’s participation in the historic event is

in line with the thrust of DOT Sec. Christina Garcia-Frasco to promote museums as part of local tourism circuits. Known as the Sublime Paralytic and Brains of the Revolution, Mabini was born on July 23, 1864 to humble beginnings at the Taal lakeshore village of Talaga in Tanauan town. He rose to become legal and constitutional adviser to the Philippine Revolutionary Government, and later as Prime Minister of the First Philippine Republic. He died in 1903 and buried in Manila, and was reinterred to the current Shrine in 1956 from the Manila North Cemetery’s Maosuleo delos Veteranos dela Revolucion.

AT the commemorative ceremony are (first row) Tanauan City vice mayor Herminigildo Trinidad Jr., Mayor Nelson Collantes, Batangas third district congresswoman and event keynote speaker Rep. Ma. Theresa Collantes, DOT-Calabarzon OIC regional director Marites Castro, NHCP OIC executive director Carminda Arevalo, Batangas vice governor Mark Leviste, and (second row) Hazel Dimaala and Norman Eusebio of Microtel Sto. Tomas, and members of the Republica Filipina Reenactment Group (third row).

Philanthropy conference urges mission-sustaining investments for community-based organizations

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ON-PROFIT organizations, community -based organizations, and philanthropic development offices are a crisis away from failing to sustain their mission. The pandemic has made this more apparent, with funding drying up for small NGOs. To mitigate risks, organizations must lean into the power of an Ecosystem of Good. They must leverage partnerships, and create synergy through strategies that collectively activate their networks’ strengths while minimizing individual weaknesses to continue serving their communities. Spring Rain Global’s 6th Asian Philanthropic Development Conference, which will take place virtually on July 27-July 29, will provide insights on how this could be done. With the theme “Beyond Boundaries for Impact: Our Sustainable Ecosystem Roadmap'', APDC6 will tackle current challenges as well as trends in giving, fundraising, and philanthropy. An international panel of investment and development experts will highlight best practices and innovations in advocacy and lead participants in thinking through a concrete plan for building resilience through an empowered ecosystem of good. “It is usual for the private sector, philanthropists, and governments to fund programs directly responding to the world’s biggest needs such as hunger and homelessness. But we at Spring Rain Global want to challenge them: where are the investments for the small mission-based organizations that work closest with those in need?” said Dr. Glenda Miro-Antonio, Spring Rain Global’s president and CEO. “We want

to normalize investing in community-based organizations that implement programs closest to the need. In order for these organizations to sustain their missions, they would need the capital to capacitate their teams and cover other administrative costs.” SRG has put together a panel of expert speakers for APDC6, including the co-founder and CEO of Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), Mr. Amit Bouri, and co-founder of Multicultural Engagement for Utah (ME4U), Mr. Robert Lucero to highlight the need and the ways to tackle this challenge. The panel is expected to urge participants towards innovations in conscience-based investments, or the use of personal or organizational funds for causes that align with one’s values to create social impact. The APDC6 is the flagship event of Spring Rain Global, a social enterprise that aims to empower philanthropic development organizations towards sustainability. It aligns with the organization’s belief that sustainable development can only happen through partnerships among the private sector, philanthropists and the governments to support advocacies and causes for the benefit of the most vulnerable people and communities. Register now for the 6th Asian Philanthropic Development Conference for a chance to upskill, network, and activate your Ecosystem of Good at https://bit.ly/APDC6. For more information about becoming one of the event partners, you may contact Spring Rain Global at comms.springrainglobal@ gmail.com.


BusinessMirror

Editor: Tet Andolong

Wednesday, July 27, 2022 B7

Get access to better work-life opportunities at The Trion Towers

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onifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig has become one of the largest business districts in the Philippines, being home to prime retail and residential facilities as well as five-star and business hotels, international schools, and top-notch hospitals. As such, having a BGC address equates to an upbeat live, work, and play lifestyle that complements the passion and pace of a driven city-zen. Home to the The Trion Towers, a readyfor-occupancy development under the RLC Residences brand, BGC enjoys unmatched accessibility with a secure 24/7 transport system in place. The BGC bus, favorite among commuters, conveniently takes residents, workers, and even tourists around the urban district. And soon, BGC dwellers will enjoy faster road travel as new road infrastructure projects such as the Skyway Stage 4 and Metro Manila Subway nears completion. “The Trion Towers is in a strategic location that allows its residents superior mobility. BGC’s road networks and zoning is a product of an urban master planning with world-class standards, that directly benefit homeowners of Trion. It’s truly a coveted address that is representative of a global lifestyle that suits urban professionals,” RLC Residences Marketing Head and Chief Integration Officer Karen Cesario points out.

A place for achievers

As a ready-for-occupancy property, The Trion Towers also presents an edge for urban professionals looking to advance their

careers with its proximity to a number of global and promising start-up companies. At present, over 2,000 offices can be found in BGC’s towering skyscrapers serving headquarters to various local and international brands such as Procter & Gamble, Shopee, Lazada, Globe, Google Philippines, TaskUs, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Pru Life UK, and Nissan Philippines Inc., among others. And as the majority of these offices shift to hybrid work arrangements, The Trion Towers makes for an appealing living space still, with units offering ample space to accommodate work-from-home nooks, fiber-optic cabling for faster connections, zoned amenities that intentionally separate the active and quiet areas, as well as serene views conducive for virtual meetings whatever time of day.

Home to artistic creations

But amid the hustle and bustle, choosing The Trion Towers also comes with an opportunity to nourish the soul. The BGC community is a haven for artistic minds. Living here means getting used to going on a daily art stroll across the district filled with 36 mural gems, 22 art

installations, and 110 street furniture. It is home to murals like Nurturing Ubuntu: Connected in Our Humanity at The Flats and Magsasaka in Burgos Eats. Surrounded by arts in the city, those living in BGC have a rich source of inspiration that can be easily channeled to their work, passion projects, and even hobbies. The Hobbyist’s Nook, numerous landscaped areas, yoga, and dance rooms, are just among the many amenities at The Trion Towers one can pour in and showcase their artistry.

Hangout places for friends and family

After work and live, comes play, which The Trion Towers also promises to provide. BGC goers and residents will never run out of options when it comes to hangout places. With an array of food crawls, and lifestyle and entertainment areas, people

can find a place to relax in almost every corner of the city. For those who are into coffee dates, they can visit Caravan Black in the Net Park building or try out Muji Cafe in Central Square. For that gastronomic experience, they can visit La Picara and Lorenzo’s Way in One Bonifacio High Street or Wildflour Cafe in Uptown Bonifacio. However, if you feel like staying in for fun, residents of The Trion Towers are fortunate as the property has a Karaoke Room, Game Room, and High-Definition Screening Room. Many professionals choose to live in BGC because of its convenience and the quality of living in the area is matched with its environment. The Trion Towers is a residential property that provides its residents with just that—a home with

multi-functional architectural design and well-thought amenities that complements their dynamic lifestyle. “Advancing in our careers while juggling life priorities is a struggle that we completely understand. This is why we are proud that we have The Trion Towers in our portfolio of ready-for-occupancy projects as it presents an instant solution to work-life integration. A home at The Trion Towers can truly open your life and career to limitless opportunities,” said Cesario. Individuals who are interested in readyfor-occupancy units in The Trion Towers may connect with a Property Specialist through rlcresidences.com and get a 10-percent discount on select RFO units. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more about their properties by following RLC Residences on Facebook and Instagram.

RTO brings positive outlook for real estate, Aseana’s MidPark Towers ready to meet demand JCVA partners with Digiscript

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he outlook for Philippine real estate is becoming brighter as more people return to onsite work and are looking for well-developed and accessible residential areas to live closer to their work, as Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) recently ordered a return-to-office or on-site work arrangement for registered business enterprises and outsourcing firms boosting consumer confidence in the residential property market. Professional services and investment management company Colliers Philippines also noticed optimism across various property segments. Consumer confidence is seeing a boost as well. According to their recent Quarterly Residential Property Market report, residential vacancy rates are declining in Metro Manila as Q1 2022 reported a 17.8-percent vacancy rate with the succeeding Q2 projected to have a 17.2-percent vacancy rate after it skyrocketed to a record-high since 2020 due to pandemic. The need for a residential estate with world-class amenities and generous home layout is something that MidPark Towers is preparing to fill for Filipinos. Aseana Residential Holdings Cor p. (ARHC)’s newest development, MidPark

MidPark Towers in Aseana City offers a total of 699 large format units spread across four towers.

Towers, is a four-tower residential estate located at the heart of Aseana City—bay area’s emerging Central Business District. MidPark Towers is more than ready to fill the market need as the recent residential projection by Colliers estimates a total of 10,500 units being up and available in the market by end of 2022. MidPark Towers follows the architec-

tural vision of ARHC in redefining city living which dons the community with a pedestrian-friendly landscape with accessible connectivity to key transit points such as NAIA Expressway (NAIAx), LRT Line-1 Extension, and the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITx). Additionally, its prime location allows for accelerated mobility as it will be connected to key develop-

ments inside the community such as Parqal, Aseana City’s biggest linear mixed-use development, 8912 Asean Ave., a two-tower office building, Ayala Malls Manila Bay, the biggest mall in the Ayala Malls portfolio, and St. John Paul II Chapel. “We are following our vision of creating safer homes and breathable communities for our residents to enjoy. MidPark Towers is inside a master-planned community that complements the rest of the offerings we have in Aseana City,” shared Buds Wenceslao, CEO of D.M. Wenceslao Group of Companies. Interested buyers can choose from MidPark Towers’ unit layouts that range from a 40 sq m+/- for a studio unit, 52 sqm+/ for a one-bedroom unit, 80 sq m+/- for a two-bedroom unit, and a 120 sq m+/- for a three-bedroom unit. MidPark Towers is easily set apart from other residential developments as it offers spacious and livable units that exude comfort, functionality, and gracious living. For inquiries, you may contact (+632) 8805-2501 or inquiries@midparktowers.com. You may also visit their web site at www. midparktowers.com and www.dmwai.com for more information.

COMMUNITY

The role of family in the fight against drugs: Celebrating IDADAIT 2022

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ommemorating the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (IDADAIT), USAID’s RenewHealth project hosted a joint event, the “Kapamilyang Kalinga sa Pagbangon Laban sa Droga,” in collaboration with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Health (DOH), and the Dangerous Drugs Board. The event emphasizes the key role of family in the recovery and rehabilitation of people who use drugs (PWUDs). “This year’s IDADAIT celebration is important because it recognizes the role of family members in seeking help, treatment, and recovery of PWUDs,” said Dr. Regina M. Hechanova Alampay, Chief of Party of the USAID RenewHealth Project as she welcomed participants. The coming together of family, community, and various sectors for stronger evidence-based programs is necessary for PWUDs to make significant steps to influence healthy behaviors, as Dr. Beverly C. Ho, the Director of the Health Promotion

Bureau and the Disease Prevention and Control Bureau of the Department of Health stressed. Family is the recovery capital of PWUDs. They are the first people they seek help from for personal issues like drug use. Recovery is easier, safer, and speedier with a strong family support system. That’s why it becomes even more important to properly educate family members on how they can properly guide a loved one suffering from substance use or addiction. The RenewHealth project developed informational comics, a flyer, and a booklet that local government partners can use in their house-to-house and outreach campaigns. These materials provide information on what family members can do to help someone who can go for screening and treatment. The step-by step care guide will be useful for local government partners when they conduct outreach activities to promote Community-Based Drug Rehabilitation (CBDR) services. These materials are available in #Bawat Simula Facebook page and the CBDR portal (www.cbdr.org).

Undersecretary Joseline Niwane of the DSWD also announced a significant development in supporting the family. She announced the DSWD’s initiative in partnership with USAID RenewHealth Project, the Yakap Bayan Program, supports recovering persons and children who use drugs towards reintegration into families and communities, transforming them into productive members of their families and society. The highlight of the event was the announcement of winners for the CBDR Commu-nity Champions Video Contest. LGUs across the country submitted their own take of the song, “Adhikain,” judged by Lalaine F. Divina of the Dangerous Drugs Board, and Jules Sabile of the Department of Health. Winning the Best Use of the RenewHealth’s SBCC Material was the City of Pasig. General Santos City won Best Dance Choreography and Over-all Second Runnerup. First Runner-up went to CSWD-Oro Citizen’s Wellness and Development Center of Cagayan de Oro. And winning the

highest prize, the Champion of the CBDR Champi-ons Video Contest was the Manila Anti-Drug Abuse Office—Manila Treatment and Rehabilitation Center. Ending on a high note, USAID RenewHealth also announced that official choreography to the “Adhikain” song would be released to serve as an icebreaker in treatment sessions, allowing for easier community engagement. To close the event, Assistant Secretary Maria Belen Angelita Matibag, Deputy Executive Director for Operations of the Dangerous Drugs Board shared her sentiments. “We cannot promise it will be easy, but we will stand with them [PWUDs] in their journey to recovery and a better life.” She promised a more responsive environment for those recovering, in full knowledge that the drug problem can only be addressed through concerted efforts of many fields of expertise towards a common goal. Asec. Matibag closed off her speech and the event with a statement capturing the learnings of the day’s event—“Every PWUD deserves a golden opportunity for a life that matters.”

By Roderick L. Abad

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ONSTRUCTION project management company JCV & Associates (JCVA) has tied up with leading 3D visualization provider Digiscript Philippines Inc. to introduce one of the most advanced technologies for reality capture called OpenSpace. This platform offers complete job site documentation to remotely manage and track construction progress. It boasts of automated, passive capture and mapping. OpenSpace is the leading product in the market that removes the time-consuming, manual task of uploading, naming and mapping each photo onto project plans. Such construction management solution empowers engineers, project managers, and developers to successfully finish their projects. With it, users can see entirely site transparency and monitor real-time progress, handle risks, conduct remote site visits, do seamless integrations with different stakeholders and tasks, and team synchronization. Innovation like OpenSpace does not replace human skills but rather augment them. Being the pioneer to offer this in the country, JCVA, together with its official channel partner Digiscript, opens limitless possibilities to the future of synchronized and precise work and creates better-designed and executed, sustainable and optimized infrastructures. Backed by 120 years of combined experience from its leadership and project teams, the company offers bespoke and holistic project management solutions catered to diverse client portfolios from project planning and development, cost consultancy, to certifications like WELL, LEED and BERDE. JCVA has other forward-looking technologies that provide on-the-go and real-time information to clients and project managers. These include Agile, a proprietary program that serves as a dashboard for all project updates and reports, and Vault, a Project Management Information System (PIMS) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) facility that functions as a secure online drive for all project-related documents. Technology provider Digiscript specializes in reality capture solutions. It has pioneered 3D Laser scanning in the country with their partnership with Leica Geosystems in the early 2000s. Over the years, the firm has expanded its services by offering aerial surveys, virtual tours and OpenSpace to ensure clients can better understand their sites at different phases of the project. At present, Digiscript has captured hundreds of sites and empowered hundreds of AEC professionals to accelerate their project timelines, minimize their rework, increase collaboration, and reduce risks.


Sports

PSC-backed Para team start mission

BusinessMirror

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HE Philippine Sports Commission (PSC)-backed Team Philippines flew on a chartered flight to Solo in Indonesia on Tuesday morning for the 11th Asean Para Games that start on July 30 and end on August 6. The national team will be vying for honors at the biennial multisport event for differently-abled athletes against representatives from the 10 other member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. A total of 144 Filipino athletes are competing in 12 sports—archery (9), athletics (24), badminton (8), boccia (4), chess (22), goalball (6), judo (6), powerlifting (8), sitting volleyball (10), swimming (12), table tennis (13), wheelchair basketball men (12) and wheelchair basketball women (4). They are accompanied by 38 coaches and 40 team officials. The PSC granted P51.2

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| Wednesday, July 27, 2022 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

AFTER WORLDS, OLYMPICS NEXT By Josef Ramos

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HERE’S no other way but up for Ernest John “EJ” Obiena who over the weekend sent a beacon almost six meters high to signal his arrival into world athletics’ elite circle. Addressing a virtual news conference before a select few Filipino sportswriters on Tuesday, Obiena announced his next target: the Paris 2024 Olympics. “That’s what I want to achieve…to do the same thing at the World Championships in the Paris Games,” the 26-year-old Obiena told reporters while in transit back to Europe where for him, “pole vaulting never stops.” Obiena bagged the men’s pole vault bronze medal at the World Games in Eugene, Oregon, on Sunday (Monday morning in Manila) by leaping to a new Asian record of 5.94 meters. He owned the previous mark of 5.93 meters. He was the only Asian among the 12 finalists that included Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who reset his own world

PLDT, Smart praise Filipinas for historic AFF Women’s win

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LDT Inc. and its wireless arm Smart Communications Inc. (Smart) lauded the national women’s football team Filipinas for their historic Asean Football Federation (AFF) Women’s Championship victory at the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila recently. The Filipinas beat regional power Thailand, 3-0, for the Philippines’s first AFF crown. The victory primed the team for its first-ever entry in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 set in Australia. The Filipinas also beat dethroned Vietnam, the reigning Southeast Asian Games gold medalists, in the semifinals. “Congratulations to Filipinas for marking another milestone in sports history,” said Alfredo Panlilio, PLDT and Smart President and CEO. “This is proof that if we give our athletes the support and training that they need, we can help them reach their goals and bring glory to the country.” “We will continue to back Filipinas as they gear up for the World Cup next year,” added Panlilio, who is also the president of the MVP Sports Foundation (MVPSF) and the First Vice President of the Philippine Olympic Committee.

record by a centimeter with a 6.21-meter performance. That bronze was the first medal for the Philippines at the track and field worlds, but it could have been a silver. American Christopher Nilsen cleared 5.94 meters in his first attempt to bag silver, shoving Obiena to the bronze for making the height on his second try. “Two years, or actually a year and a half from now, that’s the plan,” said Obiena on his Paris goal. Obiena acknowledged how invincible the US-born Duplantis is in the event, but hinted that just like in Oregon, a medal looks forthcoming for the Philippines in France. “Mondo [Duplantis’s alias] is actually a force to be respected and reckoned with, Chris [Nilsen] is a competitor and everybody else in the field,” Obiena said. “So if it’s going to be a medal, I can’t say.” Obiena finished 11th in a field of 12 in his Olympic debut in Tokyo last year, a finish that all but movitated the athlete born and raised in Tondo and son to former national pole vaulter

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HE Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas (SWP) intends to tap a Chinese coach to guide the associations up-and-coming athletes most of who won 15 gold medals at the just-concluded Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships in Tashkent. SWP President Monico Puentevella said the present crop of weightlifters need a Chinese coach to prepare them for qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympics, the same path Hidilyn Diaz took

Obiena a class act EJ OBIENA is a class act, period. Mental messes will never mess his focus. He gets the job done despite bumps. Hard to find someone like him in Philippine sports. And he always comes shining through from a field less travelled: pole vault. Look, Obiena has already won six medals this year in world events in Europe and America. He did all that while

Emerson and athlete Jeanette. “Definitely I just proved to myself what I have been saying… that I can compete with these guys and I can win,” he said. “So hopefully, I’ll do the same thing or even better in Paris.” Breaking the 6.0-meter barrier is now tops in Obiena’s agenda, which also includes accumulating qualifying points in the coming season to gain entry to Paris. Next up for Obiena and the world’s men’s pole vault elite is the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Chorzow, Poland, on August 6, followed by the Hungarian Athletics Grand Prix in Szekesfehervar on August 8.

Bong Coo at PSC: Full circle

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ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA is setting the bar higher. AP

Weightlifting body eyes Chinese coach for new breed of athletes before winning the country’s first Olympic gold medal in Tokyo exactly a year ago on Tuesday. Puentevella said the SWP request for a Chinese coach was aleady approved by the previous Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) board chaired by William “Butch” Ramirez. But to get his request implemented, the

request needs the imprimatur of the incoming PSC board. “We are hoping the incoming PSC board will do the same on our request,” said Puentevella, who graced the online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum from Baguio City where he’ll be one of the principal sponsors in Diaz’s wedding with her coach, Julius Naranjo. Puentevella said his trust remains with Chinese coaches. Gao Kaiwen coached Diaz for almost two years and the result was remarkable. “Seven of the eight Chinese athletes in Tokyo won a gold medal, except for one, Liao Qiuyun, who Hidilyn beat in the 55 kgs category,” Puentevella told the forum presented by San Miguel Corp., Milo, PSC, Philippine Olympic Committee, Amelie Hotel Manila, Unilever and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

LADY TROOPERS SCORE

Jovelyn Gonzaga is again at the forefront of the assault as Army gets back on track with a 25-20, 25-23, 25-22 romp of Chery Tiggo on Tuesday to wrest solo fourth going into the final week of the Premier Volleyball League Invitational Conference eliminations at the Filoil Ecooil Centre in San Juan. under duress, including a silver-turned-bronze effort only last week in the World Athletics Championships. To be in the worlds is already huge. But a podium finish there? Unbelievable. In carving his latest coup, Obiena did not only become the first Asian to medal in the worlds but also break, again, the Asian mark in a sport that is least loved, less indulged in, by any Filipino competitor. Obiena pole-vaulted to 5.94 meters, good for second behind Swede wonder Armand Duplantis, who is the reigning Olympic champion. Duplantis flew to a wondrous world record 6.21 last weekend in Eugene, Oregon, and no one’s surprised one teeny-weeny bit. It’d be a first-class shocker if he lost; he’s been dominating pole vault the last decade or so. Obiena had to settle for the bronze, only because he made his 5.94 on his second try. American Chris Nilsen snatched silver as he cleared 5.94 in just one attempt. But days before Obiena’s bronze victory, he had to wiggle his way out of a messy maze at American immigration. Over-eager airport officials took Obiena’s spat with athletics officials back home as a deterrent to his stepping into US soil.

million in financial assistance to fully support the campaign of the 222-member delegation. “We support our national paraathletes as much as we support our abled athletes. This is their chance to raise the flag again in the 11th Asean Para Games.” PSC Executive Director and Officer-in-Charge Atty. Guillermo Iroy Jr. said. The PSC released P31.7 million for the team’s actual participation— chartered flight, accommodation, travel and Covid-19 medical insurance, meal allowance and swab test for the seven-day competitions. The sports agency also provided the team with P10.4 million for competition and training equipment, supplies and uniforms and another P7.7 million for the bubble training at the PSC-operated PhilSports Complex in Pasig City. “We wish them all the best this APG. They are the greatest pride of the country, especially for the PWD community. We are all behind them, win or lose.” Iroy said.

ETTING appointed as commissioner of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) is the pinnacle of her illustrious athletic career, legendary bowler Olivia “Bong” Coo told the online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum on Tuesday. “At my age, to be appointed (to the PSC) is the pinnacle,” the 74-year-old bowling icon said. A three-time world champion and World Cup winner, Coo said it came as a surprise for her to be the first appointee of President Marcos at the PSC. The posts of chairman and three other commissioners remain vacant. Coo, however has to give up the presidency of the Philippine Bowling Federation. She was elected to the post earlier this year. “I’m doing my homework, I’m fast-tracking. Yesterday [Monday], I attended the (PSC) flag-raising ceremony and I asked for their guidance. It’s a very big task,” said the five-time Asian Games and

COO eight-time Southeast Asian Games gold medalist. Coo said it was a surprise when she got a call from the PSC last week and was asked to sit down with Atty. Guillermo Iroy, the PSC executive director and officer-in-charge. “Atty. Iroy handed me an envelope and asked me to open it,” said Coo, referring to her appointment papers from Malacañang. The former bowler, coach and sports administrator thanked President Marcos for the “trust.” “With my position as athlete, coach and NSA (national sports association) president, I’ve seen both sides,” she said. “Full circle. I think this is the highest I could attain (in Philippine sports).”

Macron supports Paris 2024 for huge opening ceremony

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ARIS—Organizers of the Paris Olympics marked the two-years-to-go milestone to the 2024 games by unveiling the official slogan—”Games Wide Open”—on Monday and said they got fresh backing from French President Emmanuel Macron for their planned giant opening ceremony along the Seine River. Macron held talks in Paris with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach and brought together ministers and security officials to review Olympic planning—signaling quickening efforts to ready the French capital for the July 26 to August 11, 2024, games. Amid questions over the costs and security for the opening ceremony, Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet said Macron, his interior minister and the Paris police chief reaffirmed “their total support for the organization of this ceremony on the Seine.” Breaking with Olympic tradition, the ceremony won’t be held inside a stadium and will instead take place on the river that cuts through the French capital. Boats will transport the 10,500 athletes on the waterway from east to west, past city landmarks, some of which will be used as games venues. Organizers are planning for at least 600,000 spectators, most of them

Also a man of intellect—I have always insisted that most good athletes are also gifted with brilliant minds— Obiena’s fool-proof explanation about his long-running rift on money issues with former track and field president Popoy Juico has already been resolved with finality. Our Commission on Audit has, in fact, absolved Obiena of any irregularity in handling his training expenses, even obliquely chiding (former athletics chief) Philip Ella Juico on hurling unfounded accusations against the elite athlete. Show me another competitor as articulate as Obiena and I’ll tell you that sportsperson is also bound to hit the big time in no time. THAT’S IT Aligned with EJ Obiena are the likes of Pancho Villa, Flash Elorde and Manny Pacquiao (boxing); Carlos Loyzaga and Robert Jaworski (basketball); Hidilyn Diaz (weightlifting), Carlos Yulo (gymnastics), Paeng Nepomuceno (bowling), Efren “Bata” Reyes (billiards), Lydia de Vega (100 and 200 meters), Yuka Saso (golf), Junna Tsukii (karate) and Eugene Torre (chess), who are among the Philippines’s sports greats likewise endowed with minds that matter to go with extraordinary skills in their chosen sport.

ticketless and watching for free, and are billing it as the largest opening ceremony in Olympic history. “We won’t take risks with the security of the athletes or the security of spectators,” Estanguet said. “There is no major obstacle to the organization of this ceremony.” Organizers also unveiled details on the 10 million tickets. Prices for all sports will start at 24 euros (US$24.5) and nearly half of tickets for sale to the public will cost 50 euros ($51) or less. Some spots for the opening ceremony, those closest to the river, will need tickets but the majority of spectators won’t have to pay. All games tickets will be digital only, to combat fraud. Organizers said their slogan reflected their desire to make the games accessible and use them to also open minds, with emphasis on LGBTQ rights, gender equality and disabled rights. “‘Games wide open’ has really been our motivation from the start,” Estanguet said. “It’s a simple slogan that says exactly what is important for us.” Details also were given about the competition schedule. Breakdancing will make its debut as an Olympic sport on Augst 9, 2024, with women competing first at that event’s venue on Place de la Concorde. The men compete the next day. INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach (left) talks to French President Emmanuel Macron as he leaves the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday. AP


BancNet 32nd Anniversary A BusinessMirror Special Feature

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Wednesday, July 27, 2022 C1

BANCNET: LEADING THE WAY IN PAYMENTS DIGITALIZATION By Anne Ruth Dela Cruz

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S it celebrates its 32nd year, BancNet is leading the way in the use of available digital technology to deliver alternative payments options. This move will help prepare the country for its gradual exit from the pandemic and consequent recovery of the economy, increased consumption and higher demand for services.

An electronic payment network that enables its members and customers to transact at Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), point-of-sale (POS) terminals and mobile phones, BancNet made this all happen last year after it “successfully completed two complex, industry-wide projects.” “These projects are the migration of InstaPay to a new, more robust platform powered by the cutting edge Vocalink technology in March 2021 and the migration to acquire-based fee charging for ATM transactions the following month,” read the report to shareholders by BancNet Chairman of the Board Nestor V. Tan and President Fabian S. Dee.

Migration to new platform

THEY added that “the migration to the Vocalink platform enabled BancNet to develop new real-time payment use cases that support the Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) target volumes for cashless payments.” BancNet started the first phase towards the full switchover of InstaPay to the Vocalink technology in March 2021. This innovative, state-of-the-art infrastructure provides InstaPay participants with improved services, better data capabilities and strong security features. Vocalink’s full functionality was successfully attained in September 2021, anchored on the adoption of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 20022 messaging format which is the global messaging standard for electronic data interchange between financial institutions. The adoption of ISO 20022 paved the way for new use cases in the future, including cross border realtime payments. Relatedly, BancNet introduced two new use cases which had been prioritized by InstaPay and designed to make digital payments through InstaPay even more convenient and easier. These two new use cases are the interoperable merchant payment using a QRPh code displayed at business establishments and interoperable bills payment using a QRPh code. InstaPay QRPh payment to merchant was launched by BSP on October 12, 2021. By the end of the year, the service was available at over 200,000 business establishments through 12 partner banks and non-bank electronic money issuers. These business establishments include a vast range of big and small businesses from boutiques, beauty and wellness salons, coffee shops, and specialty stores to department stores, restaurants and supermarkets.

Real-time processing

THE InstaPay QRPh payment to biller is a facility for real-time processing of electronic bill payments across accounts in different banks and digital wallets. It enables receiving banks and digital wallets to sponsor billing companies, or billers, so these can collect payments from customers of participating sending banks and digital wallets. By the end of 2021,

the facility had eight participants and six billers. To generate awareness for the new ways to make InstaPay fund transfers and payments, BancNet launched the InstaPay website (www.instapayph.com) in November 2021 along with an advertising campaign on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Google Search. These efforts helped InstaPay generate a total of 429.14 million transactions, up 97 percent from 218.30 million in 2020. The number of InstaPay transactions posted a milestone on December 15, 2021 when it reached 1.88 million, the largest single day total since InstaPay was launched in 2018. The cumulative value of transactions in 2021 amounted to P2.53 billion, a growth of 121 percent over the total value of P1.14 billion the previous year. Ten additional partner banks and non-bank e-money issuers joined InstaPay in 2021, bringing the total InstaPay participants to 62. Online payments to government agencies like the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Social Security System (SSS), Philhealth and Pag-IBIG Fund also increased significantly during the year, aggregating 2.68 million transactions worth P325.04 billion. These are 74.03 percent and 36.38 percent higher, respectively, compared to 2020 levels. Payment transactions on BancNet’s internet payment gateway rose as well by 22.91 percent to 95,807 transactions. Cashless payments through pointof-sale (POS) terminals onsite rose to 99.19 million transactions from 87.33 million, growing by 13.58 percent.

Higher volumes in 2021

DESPITE the intermittent lockdowns brought about by the surges in Covid-19 cases last year, BancNet generated higher volumes in 2021 versus 2020 from all its channels. Overall, it processed a record total of 1.07 billion interbank transactions. This is 21.56 percent or 189.77 million more than the total of 880.12 million transactions in 2020. On December 12, 2021, BancNet registered the highest number of switched transactions in a single day with over 4.97 million. Despite the high volume, the average host availability rates for the year were 100 percent for the InstaPay switch and 99.96 percent for the ATM switch. BancNet ended the year with 123 members consisting of banks, cooperatives, non-bank electronic money issuers, independent ATM deployers and an affiliate switch network. BancNet’s combined network of 22,721 ATMs and 413,896 POS terminals served 93.86 million active debit cards, 16.77 million more cards than the previous year. In 2021, BancNet migrated to PhilPaSS Plus, BSP’s enhanced settlement system. BSP launched this project to advance the robustness and interoperability of the country’s real time gross settlement system (RTGS) with domestic and international payment systems. The new RTGS provides features that further enhance system availability and efficiency, provide mechanisms for liquidity savings, tracking payment instructions, multiple currency settlement, and validation procedures, and is compliant with the ISO 20022 international messaging and communication standard.

ATM fee charging

ON DECEMBER 2020, the BSP approved the implementation of the acquirerbased ATM fee charging model for the banking industry, a game changing shift from the decades old issuer-based model. This move supported the BSP Memorandum No. M-2019-020 which lifted the freeze order on raising of ATM fees issued in 2013. BancNet enhanced its ATM switch infrastructure to enable online messaging of the acquirer-based fee charging system. It also helped its ATM switch participants deal with the shift effective April 7, 2021 through the preparation of technical specifications, operational guidelines, customization and testing, among other operational and techni-

cal activities. BancNet also helped communicate the shift to the new scheme to their customers through social media. “We have turned the challenges we faced in 2021 into opportunities that put us in a superior position as we prepare for the gradual exit from the pandemic and consequent recovery of the economy, increased consumption and higher demand for services. In particular, we have embraced the use of technology in both our internal busi-

ness operations as well as our development and delivery of services to our members and participants,” Tan and Dee said. “While challenges still remain, we are confident that working even harder to enhance our operational resiliency by building on our strengthens, we will be able to achieve our goal of sustaining business viability while delivering on or even exceeding the expectations of our partners, members, and shareholders,” they added.


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BancNet 32nd

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Wednesday, July 27, 2022 | www.businessmirror.com.ph

TOP OF FORM

Tan, Dee lead Bancnet directors, officers for 2022-2023

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ESTOR V. Tan and Fabian S. Dee have been given a fresh mandate to lead electronic banking consortium BancNet as chairman of the Board and president, respectively.

tered Bank; Eduardo J. Katigbak, Jr., president of Equicom Savings Bank; Wilfredo E. Rodriguez, Jr., executive vice president of Asia United Bank; Cecilio Paul D. San Pedro, president and CEO of Sterling Bank of Asia; Elfren Antonio S. Sarte, president and CEO of Robinsons Bank; Gerardo Susmerano, executive vice president of East West Bank; and Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso, president and CEO of PNB.

Ready to serve

During their annual meeting held last June 9, 2022, BancNet shareholders elected the company’s directors for the term 20222023. Re-elected with Tan and Dee were: Dennis C. Bancod, senior executive vice president of RCBC; Cecilia C. Borromeo, president and CEO of Land Bank; John Cary L. Ong, executive vice president of Security Bank; Noel A. Santiago, senior vice president of BPI;

and William C. Whang, president of China Bank. Tan is currently the president and CEO of BDO while Dee is the president of Metrobank. Also elected to the 15-man Board were new directors Henry Rhoel R. Aguda, chief technology and operations officer of Union Bank; Kathleen Charmaine H. Hernandez, transaction banking director of Standard Char-

Dee told the stockholders that BancNet is “in a superior position as we prepare for the gradual exit from the pandemic and consequent recovery of the economy, increased consumption and higher demand for services. In particular, we have embraced the use of technology in both our internal business operations as well as our development and delivery of services to our members and participants” During their organizational meeting, the new Board also

Fabian S. Dee

Nestor V. Tan

elected the following key officers of the company: Elmarie S. Reyes, CEO; Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso, Treasurer; and Agnes H. Maranan, Corporate Secretary. The Board also appointed the members of the Operations Committee which is responsible for translating Board-defined policies into detailed operating policies and procedures. They are: Dennis C. Bancod (RCBC), Allan V. Bornas (Land Bank), Reynaldo Burgos (PNB), Ralph Cadiz (Sterling Bank), Marie Carolina L. Chua (China Bank), Eduardo Katigbak, Jr. (Equicom Savings), Michael Magbanua (Union Bank), Tomas Victor A. Mendoza (BDO), Wilfredo Rodriguez, Jr. (AUB), Noel A. Santiago (BPI), Salvador Serrano (East West Bank), Richard So (Metrobank), Ricardo G. Torres (Security Bank), Angela D. Vagilidad (Standard Chartered Bank), and Paul Donato Villanueva (Robinsons Bank).


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www.businessmirror.com.ph | Wednesday, July 27, 2022

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BSP Designates PESONet and InstaPay as Prominently Important Payment Systems ​T

HE Monetary Board has approved the designation of PESONet and InstaPay as Prominently Important Payment Systems (PIPS) pursuant to the National Payment Systems Act (NPSA). Under the Payment System Oversight Framework, PIPS refers to a payment system which may not trigger or transmit systemic risk but could potentially cause adverse economic impacts or undermine the confidence of the public in the national payment system or in the circulation of money.

BSP GOVERNOR FELIPE M. MEDALLA | GERIC CRUZ/BLOOMBERG

PHL GEARS UP TO BECOME A CASHLESS SOCIETY

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CASHLESS society is one where cash is not the primary mode for financial transactions. Instead, transactions are settled electronically using credit or debit cards, mobile or online payment apps and even QR codes.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, cashless payments proved useful when mobility was greatly limited due to health and security reasons. Online banking and digital payments saw growth in usage as both became options to branch banking for many Filipinos. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) considers cashless payments not only as an alternative mode to perform banking transactions, but also to promote financial inclusion. It serves as a gateway, especially for unbanked and underbanked Filipinos, to other financial products such as savings, loans, and insurance aside from those offered through traditional channels.

Making Filipinos financially and digitally savvy

“TO MAKE cashless payments an active tool to promote financial inclusion, it needs to be easy to use and accessible for everyone. With our online banking and cashless payment platforms, BDO provides alternatives for those who wish to do their financial transactions digitally,” said BDO consumer banking group digital banking head Roy Villareal. BDO primed its digital banking channels and launched its BDO Online and BDO Pay mobile apps not just to address the sudden demand for contactless financial transactions during the pandemic, but to make bank services more accessible and convenient in the new normal. BDO Online and BDO Pay allow BDO clients to pay their bills, transfer money, and monitor their bank account through their computers or mobile phones. “BDO wants to integrate financial wellness into the growing digita l lifest yle of Filipinos. Mobile connection in the countr y is more than 100% of the countr y’s tota l popu lation. A side from w idening our net work of branches and ATMs across the countr y, BDO prov ides dig ita l bank ing solutions that are accessible to Filipinos v ia their smartphones,” said Villareal. “BDO’s mobile apps allow our clients to have the financial information they need right at their fingertips. More than the convenience, what these digital solutions offer is control over one’s finances,” he added. With its new mobile apps, BDO aims to help the BSP promote cashless payments and advance financial inclusion in the country.

The designation of PESONet and InstaPay as PIPS would subject them to closer Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) supervision and monitoring to protect the public. “The designation of PESONet and InstaPay as PIPS is considered timely, as these payment systems will facilitate the launch of other use cases for digital transactions, such as interoperable bills payments and direct debits,” said BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla. “This further promotes consumer

welfare as we continue making progress toward the BSP’s objective of reaching 50% digital payments by 2023,” the Governor explained.

Digital payment schemes

PESONet and InstaPay are digital payment schemes launched in 2017-2018 under the National Retail Payment System. Their usage grew significantly during the pandemic. PESONet is a batch electronic fund transfer service and is a viable alterna-

tive for checks and recurring payments. InstaPay, on the other hand, is a realtime, low-value payment substitute for cash transactions. PESONet and InstaPay are operated by the Philippine Clearing House Corporation and BancNet, Inc., respectively. The two payment systems are expected to comply with international standards that foster safe, efficient, and reliable operations, particularly those provided under BSP Circular No. 1126 series of 2021.


AMID A HARVEST OF AWARDS, YOUR SUPPORT COUNTS MOST

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HE pandemic tested the media industry, forcing newsrooms around the world to overhaul the way they do their job while following strict health protocols in order to survive a deadly infection. The BusinessMirror, the country’s premier national business daily, was tested like everyone else, and survived, even continuing to live up to its promise to provide a broader look at today’s business. In November 2021, the business broadsheet was recognized as the “Business News Source of the Year” for 2020 by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (Ejap), the country’s premier organization of business reporters, editors and wire agencies. It was a 4-peat for BM, having gotten the same honors for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. And, as in the past Ejap awards, it also swept half of the individual categories, with its seasoned reporters adjudged as best in their respective coverages. Earlier in 2021, the BusinessMirror was given the Pro Patria Award by the Rotary Club of Manila, for “its commitment of valuable resources for the protection of free expression and its resilience in disseminating fair and truthful information resulting in an informed and enlightened citizenry.” It was just the latest recognition from the prestigious Rotary Club, which named it “Business Newspaper of the Year” for 2018-2019, and again in 2020. In all, it has received six top

Rotary journalism awards in its short 16-year existence. The BusinessMirror has also consistently reaped top awards in the Brightleaf Journalism Awards for Agriculture and the Philippine Agricultural Journalists-San Miguel Corp. (PAJ-SMC) Binhi Awards, also for the best in agriculture journalism. The BusinessMirror was also repeatedly adjudged the leading daily in biotechnology journalism, a recognition bestowed by the Jose G. Burgos Jr. Biotechnology Journalism Awards. The “broader look” mantra also drew recognition from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) which named the BusinessMirror, at its first awards rites in 2018, as the inaugural “Data Champion.”

In the first “Bantog Science for the People” awards for media from the Department of Science and Technology, the BusinessMirror got the top award for the Institution category for Print; and the grand prize in the individual category for science journalist Stephanie Tumampos. In 2018, Environment Reporter Jonathan Mayuga received the Luntiang Aligato award from the Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit organization founded by Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore. The Broader Look at biodiversity was also recognized. It was named among the Asean Champions of

Biodiversity, for the Media Category, by the Asean Centre for Biodiversity. The Broader Look also extended to the paper’s corporate social responsibility. It organized and staged the first-ever recognition rites for the best of the Philippines’s friends in the world, with the “MISSION PHILIPPINES: The BusinessMirror Envoys & Expats Awards.” The initiative won a Gold Anvil in 2019. Distinguished institutions in government have also repeatedly recognized the BusinessMirror’s role in spreading the word about the work they do—information that shines a light on good governance and committed public service to uplift people’s hopes. Most notably, these are the Social Security System and Pag-IBIG Fund. Sixteen years, two of them in a pandemic, have tested the promise of a Broader Look. But they are also a measure of the unstinting support of friends—advertisers and news sources alike—and readers who continue to believe in that promise.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE. YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT TROPHY.

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business


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