BusinessMirror July 27, 2020 by BusinessMirror

Sona cut down to basics, mostly on Covid By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

& Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

P DEPARTMENT of Health employees do a rapid test on one of the Locally Stranded Individuals at the Rizal Memorial baseball field in Manila as a prerequisite before they can go back to their provinces. Many LSIs availing themselves of the government's free ride for the long-awaited return trip to their provinces are temporarily staying at Rizal Memorial baseball field. NONIE REYES

RESIDENT Duterte’s fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) has been streamlined to focus on the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. In a radio interview on Sunday, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said the President himself issued the order that only the “important things” be included in his Sona on Monday afternoon, to be held in unprecedented circumstances at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, with only 50 people present. “So most of the topics will be about Covid-19,” Andanar said. He assured the public the President will

deliver his speech live at 4 p.m. on Monday, in front of a select group of lawmakers, as part of strict health protocols warranted by the deadly virus. A ndanar urged ever y Filipino to watch the Sona since it will give details on the government’s response and recovery plan for Covid-19, including provide alternative employment for thousands of displaced employees and helping overseas Filipino workers (OFW ).

Another test

THE Palace official reiterated the event will be attended by only 50 guests, who were subjected to revese transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) the day before. Before being allowed in the venue, Andanar said the guests will once be again required to go through another screening,

this time using rapid test kits, to ensure they are Covid-free. If many of the guests test positive for Covid-19, he said the Sona will be moved from the Batasan to the Rizal Hall of Malacañang.

Virtual viewing

HE said the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) will set up an online “viewing room” via Zoom, where local chief executives, who will not be able to attend in person, could view the Sona. “The viewing room will be for them and will include PCOO and some members of the Cabinet, who will give their message,” Andanar said. He said members of the House of Representatives and the Senate will have their separate virtual viewing rooms for the event. Continued on A4

RICE TARIFF TAKE SEEN 44% OFF 2020 TARGETS

n Monday, July 27, 2020 Vol. 15 No. 291

P25.00 nationwide | 3 sections 20 pages |

ECOP: ANALYTICS, NOT LOCKDOWNS, GOOD FOR ECONOMY By Elijah Felice E. Rosales @alyasjah

MPLOYERS are calling on the government to do a demographic profiling of Covid-19 positive cases to be able to craft targeted interventions of keeping quarantine restrictions for too long. In a statement, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) suggested the extensive use of analytics to break down the demographic profile of local infections for targeted interventions. The group argued the economy can no longer bear maintaining, more so intensifying, quarantine protocols. “Ecop is gravely concerned that going back to ECQ [enhanced community quarantine] will make it all the more difficult for the econ-

THOUSANDS of Locally Stranded Individuals (LSI) stay at the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Malate, Manila, as they wait for their batch to be sent back to their home provinces during the "Hatid Tulong Send Off" program of the government over the weekend. Critics noted that social distancing and face mask protocols were not observed by many in the crowd of 7,000. ROY DOMINGO

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

ITING the drop in rice import volume amid the pandemic, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) is now eyeing to collect just P14 billion in rice tariffs in 2020—44 percent lower than what it initially hoped for early this year. Customs Assistant Commissioner and spokesman Vincent Phi l ip C . Maroni l l a told t he BusinessMirror they would have been close to hitting the P25-billion mark in rice tariff

collection this year if not for the decline in the rice import volume as rice-exporting countries decided to control the volume of ex ports amid local supply concerns.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n

Despite this, Maronilla still expressed confidence they could exceed the P12.3 billion in rice tariffs that they collected last year. “We expect better volume in the succeeding months, so if our projections in volume hold true, we expect to exceed last year’s revenue performance,” he said. Pressed on their projection on rice tariff collection this year, he said: “Hard to give specific figures at this time, but hopefully we reach P14 billion.” As of July 17, BOC said it was able to collect a total of P10.728 billion in rice tariffs despite the rice import volume falling 24.6 percent year-on-year to 1,651.267 metric tons. The rice tariff collected by BOC for the period is 8 percent higher than the P9.936 billion it collected

for the same period in 2019. BOC attributed the increase in rice tariff collection to its continuous effort to ensure correct valuation of goods and protect government revenue. It added it consistently conducts close monitoring of the declared value on rice importations in view of its strict adherence to global published prices for rice, which serves as a guide when the veracity of the declared values is under dispute. Under the rice tariffication law, Filipino rice farmers are guaranteed with a P10- billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) annually until 2024 regardless of whether or not rice tariff collections hit P10 billion. Continued on A2

omy to bounce back. Under this scheme, only businesses offering selected essential services will be allowed to operate,”the group said. “Add to this is the huge amount of resources needed to feed these families that will be locked down in their homes. Most of these family members are also possibly the ones out on the streets seeking livelihood opportunities or reporting for work with great difficulty due to transport shortage and cumbersome border checkpoints,”it added. As such, Ecop President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis Jr. said it would be better if the government responds to the rising Covid-19 rates by improving contact tracing and maximizing available data for the rollout of interventions. Continued on A4

TOYOTA Motor Philippines (TMP) Vice Chairman Dr. David Go (left) and President Atsuhiro Okamoto (second from left) visit their manufacturing plant in Santa Rosa, Laguna,T to inspect newly assembled units of Toyota Vios, the Philippines's best-selling passenger car. TMP officially unveiled on Saturday the 2020 update of the Philippine-made flagship model, which the company says “helps support almost 55,000 lives throughout the Toyota network, 71 dealers, 56 local suppliers and countless other business and trade partners.” The local production of Vios is TMP’s share in the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) Program to boost the local carmaking industry. The new Vios will be available to customers in all Toyota dealers starting July 27. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

US 49.4110 n JAPAN 0.4626 n UK 62.9546 n HK 6.3749 n CHINA 7.0547 n SINGAPORE 35.6475 n AUSTRALIA 35.0522 n EU 57.3019 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.1780

Source: BSP (24 July 2020)

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Monday, July 27, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

PhilHealth: Prepositioned funds in hospitals part of Covid preps E

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

MBATTLED Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) justified their move of releasing funds— allegedly in the hundreds of millions—even to hospitals with only one Covid-19 patient, saying it is “still too early to say” that this money will go to waste given that the number of Covid-19 cases may still spike. This, after Senator Panfilo Lacson claimed that PhilHealth released over P200 billion to hospitals, even to those treating only one Covid-19 patient each. PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Ricardo C. Morales told reporters that they have “prepositioned” funds to hospitals to help them better respond to the ongoing pandemic. “Those places with zero Covid [cases], tomorrow, they might see spikes. It’s too early to say that there’s only one case there because the LSI [locally stranded individuals] have returned home. We have a lot of LSIs going home and we

prepared these areas where Covid is low by prepositioning the funds for them to respond. So it’s still too early to say that these funds won’t be needed,” Morales explained, in a mix of English and Filipino, in a virtual press conference. PhilHealth released these funds in March at a time when the country still did not know the extent of Covid-19 cases locally, he added. “And we were in a semi-panic mode so what we did was we prepositioned these funds and now, with better knowledge, we are now husbanding the distribution of the funds,” he said. Should the funds given to the

hospitals not be fully used, he assured the public that these will be liquidated by the hospitals for their future claims. “So these funds are not lost. They will be subject to regular auditing and checking requirement of the government,” he said.

P247M for a hospital

ON Saturday, Lacson said in a radio interview with AM station DWIZ that P247 million was released in just two weeks in one hospital in Bicol while another P196 million was released in a hospital in Eastern Visayas in just a week. Moreover, the senator said five hospitals in two regions are involved in this scheme as he warned PhilHealth would go bankrupt at the rate things are going. Senators, including Senate President Vicente Sotto III, have also called for a probe on the alleged corruption and irregularities within the agency. President Duterte has ordered a separate investigation on the alleged issues involving the state health insurer. Over the weekend, Sotto suggested that PhilHealth officials

tagged in corruption allegations go on leave out of delicadeza. Asked if he is willing to heed Sotto’s call, Morales on Sunday said: “Yes, I am considering his suggestion.” But Morales said in a separate statement read to reporters during the virtual press conference on Sunday that the problem of fraud and inefficiencies confronting PhilHealth are part of a bigger problem that is “difficult or impossible to solve.” He said overhauling the ranks in PhilHealth will not immediately eliminate corruption. “Of course, the corrupt and incompetent will have to be identified and punished, but the overall problem is deepseated and long term. In fact, a rapid and wholesale turnover of executives will exacerbate, not mitigate, the problem,” he said. “Resolution will not appear overnight and will require some stability in the organization. Reform does not happen overnight.” In the same statement, the PhilHealth chief also lamented the “miniscule” budget allocation on the development of the management information system, adding that their 2018-2020 Information System Strategic Plan is “on the

verge of failure.” This, he said, led them to deal with “fly-by-night mom-and-pop neighborhood computer shops or failed bids.” “Out of the P2.1-billion budget for Capital Outlays, only P327.8 million [was] approved for the Information Communication Technology [ICT] and only P101.2 million for awarding or 31 percent and the rest is under ongoing procurement. And there are only six months remaining in the program,” he said. He added it is only through an efficient information system that PhilHealth will significantly reduce losses. “According to the Lam study, PhilHealth’s fraud index is 7.9 percent. In other words, if we are going to spend P240 billion next year, P19.6 billion of that will be lost to fraud in a single year,” he said. “In other words, if PhiHealth wants to reduce its losses to fraud and inefficiencies by developing a robust information system it can spend up to P19.6 billion for this and still come out ahead. Seen in this light, an IT budget of P2.1 billion over three years is indeed foolish.”

RICE TARIFF TAKE SEEN 44% OFF 2020 TARGETS Continued from A1

However, any revenue collections in excess of P10 billion would still be ear marked for other inter ventions aimed at boosting rice farmers’ yield and improving their global competitiveness. To recall, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee further slashed in May the collection targets of BOC and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to P520.4 billion and P1.744 trillion, respectively. The new combined collection target this year of the BIR and the BOC—the main collection agencies of the government—is now P2.26 trillion, a 31.66-percent reduction from the original revenue goal set at P3.307 trillion. The downward revision was done on the back of government’s expectations—as the pandemic gouged almost all sectors—of an economic contraction by 2 percent to 3.4 percent and lower imports, as well as a drop in tax base. BIR’s collection target for the year is down by 32.3 percent to P1.744 trillion from the initial goal of P2.576 trillion. On the other hand, BOC’s revised collection target is a 28.8 percent drop from its initial goal of P731 billion.

Transport alliance: New policies hurt people Munti emergency unit By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

N the time of a pandemic, what is needed is an inclusive policy that ensures not only the welfare and convenience of commuters, but also of drivers and other stakeholders, a coalition of transport groups said on Saturday. Koalisyon ng Transportasyon para sa Mamamayan (KTM), a group of 25 transport stakeholders and advocates, said an inclusive, safe, sustainable and efficient transport system is a key aspect of national recovery efforts amid the Covid-19 national health crisis. They said the implementation of the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) and the revocation of franchise routes of traditional public utility vehicles were “made without proper consideration” on the impact of the virus to transport stakeholders. “Thousands of drivers, conductors and operators of public vehicles have been out of work for months

in observance of health protocols and are struggling amidst this pandemic. Apparently not content with ignoring their woes, our government decided to ultimately phase out their means of living by implementing the PUVMP under the guise of ‘modernization,’” Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) Representative Luke Espiritu said. The policies implemented during Covid-19 lockdowns only favor large enterprises and hurt smaller players, he said. He cited the implementation of e-payments for fare collection and the “handing over of operating franchise to a few largescale companies” as examples. Alex Yague of the Provincial Bus Operators Association of the Philippines (PBOAP) questioned the integrity of the modernization program. “As drivers and commuters ourselves, we understand the transportation needs of people today and we, too, want better mobility systems. This is why we are opposed to what is going on—the lack of available transportation

due to the suspension of traditional public utility vehicles causes commuters to crowd together as they scramble for a ride, exposing them to great health risks while making them pay more. Drivers and operators are displaced, and, in the end, the transport sector will be in the hands of a profiteering few,” he said. The government limited the number of PUVs on the road to discourage people from going out of their homes and prevent further spread of the virus. Apart from this, vehicles have to cut their operational capacities by half or more to promote social distancing. It is a lso proceeding w ith the PUVMP, which requires operators to form cooperatives to maximize funding capacities to buy modern vehicles. It is providing P160,000 in subsidy per unit purchased for modern units. PBOAP Legal Counsel Vincent Rondaliz said the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and the Department of Transportation

(DOTr) should have sat down with transport workers and commuters to discuss “proper transition measures” amid Covid-19. KTM also called on the government to “withdraw the modernization measures” and demanded “an inclusive pathway for the recovery and improvement of the transport industry.” “We challenge the government to take the responsible route of modernizing transportation. We call on them to return jeepneys and buses to their previous routes with the necessary support to ensure health standards, and to protect the rights and tenure of transportation workers and commuters. To this end, relief in the form of fuel subsidies and tax suspensions, and health care aid including testing and protective equipment, must also be provided. Most importantly, we urge them to listen to the voice of the public. Democracy must be upheld on all fronts—even on the road,” Ed Laurentio of the National Land Transport Union (NLTU) said.

Recovery road map, budget top House list Continued from A8

Other Sona priorities are: the proposed fire protection modernization programs, which is under committee report preparation; creation of the Department of Water Resources and Services and creation of the Water Regulatory Commission, as well as Additional Benefits for Solo Parents, both under committee/technical working group deliberations. Cayetano said the remaining Sona-priority measures approved by the House and now pending at the Senate are the Public Service Act, Creation of Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment, Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (Citira), Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act (Pifita), and the Real Property

Valuation and Assessment Act. Romualdez, meanwhile, said the 2021 spending program “will likely be a stimulus budget to revive the economy, which is reeling from lockdowns due to the pandemic.” The 2021 national budget will likely “focus on the health sector and the improvement of its facilities nationwide,” said Romualdez. Lawmakers expect the President to idenfity in his 5th State of the Nation Address the full details of his Covid-19 road map for recovery and other priority measures for the second regular session, said Romualdez.

Better normal

DEPUTY Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte has called on senators to give urgent attention to three measures helping Filipinos best adapt to the “better normal” way of life in a world that is not likely to get rid anytime soon of the lethal coronavirus that has thus far sickened over 78,000 people in the country. Villafuerte asked senators to put on their priority list counterpart measures to House Bill 6864 prescribing a “whole-of-society” approach to strict mandatory safety and physical

distancing protocols, HB 1248 on E-Government and HB 1297 authorizing cash agents to help serve the banking needs of people in faraway villages without banks. Aside from prescribing the obligatory health and safety protocols like social distancing, frequent hand-washing and use of facial masks in public to avoid Covid-19 infection, Villafuerte said that HB 6864 will clear the way to the speedy migration of the economy to digitalization, which has become indispensable in the face of the unprecedented global health crisis. Approval by both chambers of HB 6864 would let Filipinos live their lives safely as this substitute bill incorporates other initiatives necessary in this season of the pandemic, including the fast-track and full implementation of RA 11055 on the establishment of a National Identification (ID) System as well as the National Broadband Plan (NBP) of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

Wish list

MEANWHILE, Villafuerte asked the Executive Department to take immediate and forceful action against local government unit (LGU) executives behind Social Amelioration Program (SAP) irregularities.

Villafuerte said President Duterte himself had warned officials of LGUs not to mess with the SAP grants early on, after the distribution of the first tranche cash grants faced several delays. For her part, House Deputy Majority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera hopes that the President “would certify as urgent the Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy or ARISE bill, which contains a P1.3 trillion economic stimulus package in response to the Covid-19 crisis.” According to the party-list lawmaker, the ARISE bill will help prevent more businesses, especially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), from closing permanently. The ARISE bill seeks to protect and assist up to 15.7 million workers and create 3 million short-term jobs over the period of three years, and help up to 5.57 million workers at MSMEs. For this year alone, the spending plan includes assistance to various sectors such as MSMEs (P10 billion); tourism (P58 billion); industry and services (P44 billion); transportation (P70 billion); agri-fisheries (P66 billion); and funding for the National Emergency Investment Vehicle (P25 billion) to “minimize permanent damage to the economy.”

temporarily shut down

HE Muntinlupa City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MCDRRMO) has suspended in the interim its emergency medical services under Muntinlupa Rescue over the weekend, until further notice. MCDRRMO Chief Erwin Alfonso said the temporary shutdown was warranted by Covid-19 infections of three personnel who took reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction or RT-PCR tests. Meanwhile, 26 employees of Muntinlupa Rescue are now under quarantine. They are scheduled for swab testing. The local saving unit augments the City Health Office in handling the management and transportation of suspected and confirmed cases of the virulent disease. It also helps people during disasters, accidents and emergency

cases, taking them to hospitals. Alfonso said that during the temporary closure, emergency medical services facilities, including ambulances and equipment, will undergo complete disinfection to protect other people served by the Rescue Unit from infection. He added that emergency services and transportation of patients using Muntinlupa Rescue’s ambulances are handled for now by Barangay Emergency Response Teams. Mayor Jaime Fresnedi assured the public that the city government will enforce stricter measures and health quarantine protocols as recommended by the Department of Health. As of July 25, Muntinlupa has 1,062 confirmed cases with 467 recoveries, 525 active cases, 70 deaths, 642 probable cases, and 555 suspect cases. Roderick L. Abad

PHL Covid cases top 80K; infections in OVP, PNP, DOH Continued from A8

OVP, too FOUR more employees of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were found positive for the virus, bringing to eight the total number of infected staff, Vice President Leni Robredo said on Sunday. She said the OVP remained on a lockdown over the weekend for the “disinfection” although they were eyeing to partially open some of its offices today (Monday). Still, she assured there was no disruption in their services. “We already have eight affected [the Covid-19],” Robredo said in her radio program. “We learned that four tested positive on Sunday, and so we conducted contact tracing for those who have come into contact with the four. The other day, we learned that four more turned positive.” Robredo said swab testing was conducted on those who have come into contact with the eight at the OVP, including herself. The results of the tests on the Vice President were negative.

Meanwhile, Robredo said their delivery and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) to individuals, groups and institutions at the forefront of the battle against Covid-19 are continuing. As of Sunday, at least 222,450 PPEs have been delivered to 1,150 institutions around the country. She said the donation and delivery of food and care packages and even medical supplies also continues for local government units and health centers, with more than 600 LGUs having benefited from the programs.

PNP’s loss AT the Philippine National Police, General Archie Gamboa mourned the latest death of a police frontliner. The PNP Health Service recorded the fatality as the 10th from the PNP, with the victim being a 46-year-old police commissioned officer who was among those infected with Covid-19. He was recently assigned at Camp Crame. The policeman died on Wednesday, five days after testing positive following an RT-PCR test on July 17.

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‘PHL to see lower rice production cost by 2023’ By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

ESPITE the delays in the distribution of free farm equipment to rice planters, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said the country is on track to reducing palay production cost to P8 per kilogram by 2023. The DA said the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) is on schedule to distribute thousands of free farm machines to rice farmers this year, including those funded by the 2019 Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF). Under the rice trade liberalization law of 2019, rice farmers are entitled to receive a guaranteed P10-billion worth of interventions annually to boost their productivity. Half of the amount is for the distribution of farm equipment. “We will continue to boost farm

mechanization to reduce production costs, enable our rice farmers produce more harvests, earn bigger incomes, and subsequently compete with their counterparts in Asean,” Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said in a statement. To date, PhilMech has procured and is currently distributing 2,938 farm machinery and equipment worth P2 billion to 625 RCEF-accredited farmers’ cooperatives and associations (FCAs) nationwide, the DA said. The farm equipment were still part of the 2019 RCEF farm mechanization with the remaining P3 billion still undergoing the bidding process, which will be completed by the end of the month, PhilMech Executive Director Baldwin Jallorina said. The P3-billion worth of farm machinery would be distributed to 1,068 FCA, according to DA. For the 2020 RCEF farm mechanization fund, the PhilMech has

already validated 2,587 FCA applicants, of which 1,259 FCAs have been shortlisted and qualified to receive 4,543 farm machineries, Jallorina said. “With the sustained and vigorous implementation of the RCEF program, coupled with our Rice Resiliency Project [RRP], we expect Filipino rice farmers to be at par with their counterparts in the Asean, in terms of cost efficiency and productivity, in the next three years,” Dar said. “We are confident that with appropriate interventions and assistance under RCEF and RRP, we can reduce our production cost to P8 per kilo and increase our national average yield to 6 tons per hectare, in the next three years.” Currently, Filipino farmers spend an average of P10 on labor, seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs to produce 1 kg of palay (paddy rice), while the country’s average harvest is at 4

metric tons (MT) per hectare (ha), according to DA. In comparison, rice farmers in Thailand and Vietnam spend P8/kg and P5/kg, respectively, to produce 1 kilo of palay, DA added. The DA attributed the country’s high production cost to heavy reliance on manual operations from land preparation to harvesting; high cost of farm inputs, notably fertilizers; lack of irrigation; inaccessible and inadequate credit; usurious loans offered by traders; and low productivity.

Prices

THE Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the nationwide average farm-gate price of dry palay as of the third week of June was pegged at P18.86 per kg, 5.7 percent higher than last year’s P17.85 per kg. However, the latest farm-gate price of dry palay was slightly lower than the previous week’s P18.96 per

Mindanao officials on alert against ASF after lifting of lockdowns By Manuel T. Cayon

@awimailbox Mindanao Bureau Chief

DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG

pig raisers may avail of a zero-interest loan of up to P30,000 from the DA’s Agricultural Credit Policy Council. The loan is payable in three years. Panabo City has repeatedly advised meat dealers and meat sellers in the city market to ensure their products came only from areas that are ASF-free. In Davao City, the City Veterinarian’s Office called on all lechon house owners and meat sellers to get their pigs or meat supply from legitimate pig growers and ASF-free areas in the city. The warning was issued after the ASF team in the Sirawan checkpoint 22 kilometers southwest of downtown intercepted eight heads of undocumented pig carcasses on July 9. The team said the products were smuggled into Davao City from Padada, Davao del Sur, as it did not have a permit. City Veterinarian Dr. Cerelyn Pinili said that the

products weighed 35 to 40 kilograms each and were covered with coconut husk and charcoal inside a vehicle owned by a lechon house businessman who later admitted to the violation. “Fortunately, our people at the checkpoint are vigilant, that’s why they caught them,” she said. Pinili added that it was a violation of the Meat Inspection Code of the Philippines or Republic Act 10536, and Executive Order 39, Series of 2019, of Davao City temporarily banning all live pigs, pork and pork-related products and by-products from ASF-affected areas to enter the city. Pinili said her office will take legal action against the violator and warned all lechon house owners, and meat businesses to take the measures against ASF seriously.

Repatriates breach 100K mark—DFA, DOLE report. . . DOLE earlier said at least 400,000 OFWs worldwide displaced or suffered reduced work hours because of Covid-19. Of these, about 190,000 still refused to go home as they opted to look for other employment opportunities in their host countries.

Other fund sources

THE sheer number of Covid-affected OFWs has placed considerable strain on the government’s assistance programs for them. DOLE is once again running out of funds for its Abot Kamay ang Pagtulong (AKAP) program, which provides a one-time cash aid of P10,000 or $200 to Covid-affected OFWs. Citing data from OWWA, it said 254,846 AKAP applications had been approved, with 214,619 OFWs hav-

ing received the emergency aid. Currently, DOLE only has a P2.5 billion budget for AKAP—just enough for 250,000 beneficiaries. This includes the original P1.5 billion budget for AKAP and the P1 billion later released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the second tranche of the program. It requested an additional P2.5 billion funding for the supposed third tranche of AKAP, but as of last week DBM was still evaluating the request. In a phone interview last week, OWWA administrator Hans Cacdac told BusinessMirror they are now considering using P1 billion of the P5-billion funds earlier approved by DBM to be used in their OFWs assistance initiatives. “This fund will be separate [from

that of AKAP]. It will provide assistance for those who will not be covered by AKAP,” Cacdac clarified.

Improving deployment

THE local community quarantine measures and travel restrictions imposed by the other countries due to Covid-19 severely reduced the deployment of OFWs from January to May. Preliminary data of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said the deployment of OFWs for the first five months dipped by 47.10 percent to 460,264 from 870,015 in the same period in 2019. However, recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani said this has improved this month with the gradual increase in the deployment of seafarers abroad.

continued from a8

He said these include Filipino seafarers who went to Germany and Rome last week for the scheduled resumption of the cruise ships operation next month. POEA administrator Bernard Olalia confirmed the slight improvement in the deployment figures this month. “This is due to the IATF [InterAgency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] joint circular for the establishment of a green lane [for] crew change,” Olalia told BusinessMirror in a SMS. The green lane was implemented by concerned government agencies this month to facilitate the safe and swift disembarkation and crew changer of seafarers in the country. Recto L. Mercene, Samuel P. Medenilla

3 solons join Makabayan push to bring ABS-CBN to plenary. . . continued from a8 “Majority of our people want ABS-CBN to return on air. This recent [SWS] survery is a message to our colleagues in Congress that we need to reflect on this matter in the

P42.61 per kg, or by 0.3 percent from last week’s P42.75 per kg, PSA said. The latest average quotation was 0.7 percent lower than last year’s P42.91 per kg price level.” The average wholesale and retail quotations of regular-milled rice also declined during the reference week, PSA said. “The average wholesale price of regular-milled rice fell to P35.71 per kg or by 0.4 percent during the week, from its level of P35.85 per kg in the previous week,” it said. “Meanwhile, it inched up at an annual rate of 0.9 percent from its level during the same week of the previous year of P35.4 per kg.” PSA said the average retail price of regular-milled rice dropped slightly to P38.47 per kg from last week’s P38.52 per kg. “It also declined at an annual rate of 0.1 percent from its level of P38.52 per kg during the same week of the previous year.”

Ecop: Analytics, not lockdowns, good for economy continued from a1

AVAO CITY—African swine fever (ASF) is rearing its ugly head anew in Mindanao following the easing of lockdown restrictions, which allowed traders to transport food products, including pork, to other parts of the region. In Davao del Norte province, authorities locked down Barangay Cagangohan in Panabo City over the weekend after the City Veterinarian’s Office confirmed that ASF struck 12 pigs of backyard raisers in Purok Mabolo. This is the latest incident of ASF infection in the region since it first appeared in backyard farms in the town of Don Marcelino in Davao Occidental last January. Officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) could still not say how the disease found its way into Mindanao. Before the incident, ASF has been confined to the provinces of Rizal, Pampanga and Bulacan. City officials of Panabo said they put up road restrictions from the coastal Cagangohan barangay to the neighboring barangays of JP Laurel, Gredu, New Pandan and San Pedro. Davao del Norte Governor Edwin Jubahib said stricter quarantine protocols against ASF are necessary to prevent the spread of the killer hog disease to other parts of the province. “We now blocked the entry and exit of live pig and pork products to and from Cagangohan to stop the spread of the disease,” he said. Panabo City had to cull 222 pigs from 59 backyard raisers in the affected barangay last week. The DA and the city and provincial governments raised the indemnification to P2,000 per suckling and P8,000 per pig. Jubahib also assured that native chicken, which will be raised by affected households until the ASF threat is eliminated, will be delivered next week. Regional Agriculture Director Ricardo Oñate said

kg, preliminary PSA weekly price monitoring report showed. From June 17 to June 23, the highest average farm-gate price of dry palay was recorded in the Northern Mindanao region at P20.34 per kg while the lowest average quotation was in Caraga region at P17.75 per kg, PSA data showed. PSA report also showed that both the average wholesale and retail prices of well-milled rice registered downward movements during the reference period. “The average wholesale price of well-milled rice plunged to P39.36 per kg or by 0.4 percent during the week from its price level of P39.53 per kg in the previous week,” it said. “Compared with its level of P39.29 per kg during the same period of the previous year, it registered a slower annual increase of 0.2 percent.” At the retail trade, the average price of well-milled rice dipped to

plenary,“ said Carlos Zarate. He was referring to a report by the pollster that three-fourths of Filipinos want ABS-CBN to get back on air. The Makabayan letter said “even if

the technical working group report is the most unsure and insecure document ever approved by a committee, the fact is, it was approved by many committee members. The next step,

therefore, is to resolve [these] insecurities and doubts through a plenary debate and approval.” Forhispart,SpeakerAlanPeterCayetano said while the call of these law-

“While I understand that geographic-based indicators are now available already, we still need to get the other factors such as nature of work and workplace, gender and health condition. Then the intervention can be more specific, well targeted, and localized quarantine measures may be put in place,” Ortiz-Luis said. The Ecop chief also agrees with the demand of legislators and civil society groups for mass testing, as he said the duty of assessing infections should fall at the hands of the state, not the private sector. He explained most business owners these days are just trying to survive the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Requiring them to do testing on their employees every two weeks, as suggested by the health department, would further constrain their already tight cash flow, he said “Business owners are not government or health insurance companies. Government, which has the resources and logistics at its disposal, must be able to

cover, if not subsidize the people’s needs in fighting this virus,” Ortiz-Luis said. A survey by the Department of Trade and Industry in April showed that 52.66 percent of micro, small and medium enterprises have shut down, 12.55 percent have limited operations and 34.79 percent have managed to continue their operations. The job scenario, on the other hand, is not as inviting as reported by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). As of June, at least 100,000 workers were laid off from January to June This figure is a fraction of the 4.9 million workers who lost their income source in April, out of the 7.3 million unemployed that month as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority based on its survey. “To require business owners to conduct at their own cost random Covid-19 rapid test for their employees and repeat it every two weeks will be a heavy additional financial burden and drive those still operating to eventual closure,” Ortiz-Luis concluded.

Sona cut down to basics, mostly on Covid continued from a1

THE leadership of the House of

Representatives on Sunday backed Plan B or the alternative plan to deliver the Sona at the Palace should many guests test positive for Covid-19. As of last Saturday, at least 22 people from the House have tested positive. “So, we will take all precautions. We don’t want to face the problem rather than try to solve the problem,” Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said. “We have still a backup plan, you know PSG [Presidental Security Group] is very professional, and they understand that Covid-19 is also an enemy. So if they’ll make a call that it will not be safe for everyone, especially our President, to be in Batasang Pambansa,” then the Sona will move to Malacañang, he said, noting that “even Senate President [Vicente] Sotto [III] said he is okay with Plan B.” Presidential Broadcast StaffRadio Television Malacañang (PBS-RTVM), which will be inside to cover the Sona, will live feed the event through People’s Television Network (PTV), Presidential Communications Operations Office and RTVM Facebook pages and RTVM YouTube channel.

makers is possible, this is still not the regularprocedureinthelowerchamber. “So is it possible? Yes. Is it a regular procedure? No,” he said. “As a general rule, once a franchise

is denied, that will no longer reach the plenary. But the plenary, under the Constitution, has all the powers. So it depends on how the House will decide,” Cayetano added. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Live protest

IN a related development, labor groups said they will still push though with their planned live protest at the “University of Philippines [Diliman] and in other parts of the country” during the Sona to hold the government accountable for its mishandling of the pandemic response. This, despite the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) announcement last week of a ban on street rallies during Sona, for what it frames as a Covid-19 precaution. Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) Chairman Elmer Labog, however, condemned the measure as an attempt to use Covid-19 to silence it critics. Labor coalition Nagkaisa agreed with Labog, calling the ban a violation of the constitutional right to assembly. Labog said they will observe safety protocols such as maintaining physical distancing, wearing of face masks and use of disinfectants during their rally to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Plan B backed

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Bill Gates says Korean firm could make 200 million vaccines by June

K Bioscience, the South Korean pharmaceutical company backed by Bill Gates, may be capable of producing 200 million coronavirus vaccine kits by next June, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder said in a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Gates is seeking to cooperate closely with South Korea, the presidential office in Seoul said on Sunday, citing the July 20 letter. The US billionaire and Moon spoke by

phone in April about teaming up to fight the virus and develop a vaccine, the Blue House said in a text message. The world is in a race to develop a vaccine that could protect masses against a virus that has wreaked havoc on the global economy. Gates has said investment in factories across the world can ensure regions beyond the US won’t be left behind in the rush for Covid-19 vaccines. Bloomberg News

Singapore and Malaysia agree on aspects of green lane travel

ingapore and Malaysia said they’ve agreed on key aspects of green lane travel as the two countries move a step closer to reopening one of the world’s busiest border crossings. The talks on the so-called Reciprocal Green Lane and the Periodic Commuting Arrangement will facilitate travel for official, business and work purposes, according to a joint statement by the two foreign ministries after their ministers met on Sunday. The governments will discuss further on restoring travel for other groups, they said. Applications by eligible travelers can be submitted by Aug. 10,

and they have to abide by public health measures in both countries. Operational details will be published soon. Border lockdowns had been imposed in March. Some 300,000 people travel by land each day between the two nations, which are trying to safely reopen their economies that have been disrupted by the pandemic. Besides the land crossing via bridges, a one-hour flight between Singapore and Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur is the world’s secondbusiest international route measured by seat capacity, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. Bloomberg News

EW DELHI—India began its first human trials of a coronavirus vaccine candidate as the world’s secondmost populous country recorded nearly 49,000 new cases. The additional infections reported on Saturday raised India's total to more than 1.3 million, with surges seen in a quarter of the country's 36 states and union territories. India has tallied 31,358 deaths, including 757 in the last 24 hours. It has reported a much lower death rate than the world's two other worst hit countries, the United States and Brazil. Johns Hopkins University showed that the US has more than 4.1 million cases, while Brazil has a caseload of nearly 2.3 million. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a premier teaching hospital in New Delhi, said it administered the first dose of a trial coronavirus vaccine on Friday. The candidate vaccine, Covaxin, is among nearly two dozen that are in human trials around the world. AIIMS is among the 12 sites selected

Protest against governor’s arrest challenges Kremlin

mering discontent with Putin's rule. Local officials' attempts to discourage people from joining the demonstrations by warning about the risk of coronavirus infection have been unsuccessful. "We had enough," said protester Anastasia Schegorina. "We elected the governor and we want to be heard and decide ourselves what to do with him. Bring him here, and a fair and open trial will decide whether to convict him or not." Protesters chanted "Freedom!" and "Russia, wake up!" and carried placards voicing support for Furgal and denouncing Putin. Demonstrations were also held in other cities of the Far East, and police didn't intervene. But in Moscow, police briefly detained several dozen activists who attempted to stage pickets in support of Furgal and other detainees protested the city's ban on rallies due to the pandemic. Authorities suspect Furgal of involvement in several murders of businessmen in 2004 and 2005. He has denied the charges, which date to his time as a businessman with interests focusing on timber and metals. A lawmaker on the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party ticket, Furgal won the 2018 gubernatorial election even though he had refrained from

Amid new coronavirus surge, India tests potential vaccine

People attend a rally supporting Khabarovsk region's governor Sergei Furgal, during an unsanctioned protest in support of Sergei Furgal, who was interrogated and ordered held in jail for two months, in Khabarovsk, 6,100 kilometers (3,800 miles) east of Moscow, Russia on July 25, 2020. Many thousands of people have marched across the far eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk to protest the arrest of the regional governor on murder charges, continuing a wave of protests that has lasted for two weeks in a challenge to the Kremlin. AP Photo/Igor Volkov

H A BA ROVSK , Russia— Tens of thousands of people marched on Saturday across Russia's Far East city of Khabarovsk on the border with China to protest the arrest of the regional governor on murder charges, continuing a two-week wave of protests that has challenged the Kremlin. Sergei Furgal has been in a Moscow jail since his arrest on July 9, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has named an acting successor. Protesters in Khabarovsk see the charges against Furgal as unsubstantiated and demand that he stand trial at home. “People are offended,” said protester Dmitry Kachalin. "I think people take to the streets because their vote in the 2018 election was taken away." Unlike Moscow, where police usually move quickly to disperse unsanctioned opposition protests, authorities haven't interfered with the unauthorized demonstrations in Khabarovsk, apparently expecting them to fizzle out in the city 3,800 miles (6,1,00 kilometers) east of the Russian capital. But daily protests, peaking at weekends, have gone on for two weeks, reflecting anger against what residents see as Moscow's disrespect of their choice for governor and sim-

Monday, July 27, 2020

campaigning and publicly supported his Kremlin-backed rival. His victory was a humiliating setback to the main Kremlin party, United Russia, which also lost its control over the regional legislature. During his time in office, Furgal earned a reputation as a "people's governor," cutting his own salary, ordering the sale of an expensive yacht that the previous administration had bought and offering new benefits to residents. "We want to protect Furgal," said Evgenia Selina, who joined Saturday's protest. "If we hadn't elected him, he would have been living quietly with his family and working at the State Duma. He would have had a normal life." Mikhail Degtyaryov, a federal lawmaker whom Putin named Monday to succeed Furgal, is also a member of the LiberalDemocratic Party—a choice that was apparently intended to assuage local anger. If that was the plan, it hasn't worked. Degtyaryov, who has refrained from facing the protesters, left the city on Saturday for an inspection trip across the region. AP

by the Indian Council for Medical Research for conducting the twophase randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials of Covaxin. Countries are making giant bets on various vaccine candidates, entering into purchasing agreements with pharmaceutical companies for delivery if and when regulators deem the doses safe and effective.

In other developments in the AsiaPacific region:

n South Korea reported 113 newly confirmed cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, its first daily jump over 100 in nearly four months. Health authorities had forecast a temporary spike driven by imported infections found among cargo ship crews and hundreds of South Korean construction workers airlifted out of virus-ravaged Iraq. The figures released by South Korea's Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought the national caseload to 14,092, including 298 deaths. The KCDC said 86 of the new cases were linked to international arrivals while the other 27 were local transmissions. It said the imported cases included 36 South Korean workers who returned from Iraq and 32 crewmembers of a Russia-flagged cargo ship docked in the southern port of Busan. South Korean officials consider imported cases as less threatening than local transmissions because of mandatory tests and a two-week quarantine for all overseas arrivals.

n Five more Victoria residents died from Covid-19 as the Australian state recorded 357 new cases in the past 24 hours. Premier Daniel Andrews refused to rule out further restrictions but said on Saturday the mandatory wearing of masks was the current strategy to stop the spread. "If they are worn by everybody, we may not need to go further," Andrews said. "We can't rule out going further with rule changes, but it's a big game changer." There are now nearly 4,000 active cases in the state and of those, 313 are health care workers. The deaths take the state toll to 61 and the national figure to 145. Victoria recorded 300 new cases on Friday, down from 403 on Thursday.

n China on Saturday reported 34 new confirmed coronavirus cases. The total reported in the 24 hours through midnight Friday includes five people who caught the virus abroad, the National Health Commission said. No additional deaths were reported, leaving China's fatality toll at 4,634. n Vietnam has reported the first local case of Covid-19 in over three months. The 57-year-old man from central Da Nang city was hospitalized on Thursday with a fever and respiratory distress. The Health Ministry says his condition worsened and he was put on a ventilator. Health workers have not been able to trace the source for his infection. For over a month, he did not travel outside his hometown, where no case of Covid-19 has been reported since April. Da Nang city authorities have isolated the hospital he had visited and those who had been in contact with the man in the past weeks. His family members and over 100 others have initially tested negative for the coronavirus. The news of a local infection after most activities had resumed in mid-May caused many to cancel or prematurely end their holidays in Da Nang, one of Vietnam's most popular beach destinations. Vietnam has reported 416 confirmed cases and no deaths. AP

Monday, July 27, 2020 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

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editorial

Working-at-home is not working

aybe because we measure time by the Gregorian calendar—and humanity is no longer a “teenager”—predictions for what the 21st century would be like have always been popular. A civil engineer named John Elfreth Watkins Jr. wrote in the December 1900 Ladies Home Journal magazine about his viewpoint of the future. Watkins predicted that hot and cold air would be pumped into houses, and cameras would allow us to see events on the other side of the world. At the 1900 Paris Exposition, artists were tasked to show their vision of the year 2000. One showed The Electric Train from Paris to ‘Peking.’ What French artist Villemard called “Correspondence Cinema,” we call “Zoom” meetings. Here is science-fiction author Robert Heinlein in a 1952 issue of Galaxy magazine: “Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision.” That was accurate but did not even go far enough. However, Heinlein also said that we would not achieve “Manlike robots with manlike reactions.” This is a headline from last month: “AIpowered sex robots are selling well during lockdown—experts say the government needs to regulate from cybersecurity risks.” Two predictions that were popular were flying cars and household robots. Elon Musk is certainly working on the first. Although 20 million iRobot Corp’s Roomba Vacuuming Robot have been sold, it would appear that paying $12,000 for a 21st century sexual experience is more important than a clean house. Nonetheless, there have been countless forecasts that robotics and automation would change production from the farm to the factory. With the telephone becoming common, by the 1920s, business offices were already being depicted with all sorts of electronic gadgets. But the concept of people moving from their “offices” to their “homes” for work never showed up. There may be a reason for that. From the Wall Street Journal: “Four months ago, employees at many US companies went home: They got their work done, seemingly without missing a beat. Executives were amazed at how well their workers performed remotely. Some companies even vowed to give up their physical office spaces entirely.” Remember the “Correspondence Cinema” idea? “Now, as the work-from-home experiment stretches on, cracks are starting to emerge. Projects take longer. Training is tougher. Hiring and integrating new employees, more complicated. Some employers say their workers appear less connected and bosses fear that younger professionals aren’t developing at the same rate as they would in offices, sitting next to colleagues and absorbing how they do their jobs.” “This is not going to be sustainable,” said Laszlo Bock, chief executive of human-resources start-up Humu and the former HR chief at Google. People work better being with other people. “Problems that took an hour to solve in the office stretched out for a day when workers were remote, said Chef Robotics Chief Executive Rajat Bhageria. Chef Robotics designs “Robotics and artificial intelligence to assemble food.” “We tried it,” he said. “It’s just not the same. You just cannot get the same quality of work.” Another executive said, “It was easier to go remote fast than most people would have ever imagined. That doesn’t mean it’s great.” From our own personal experience, Zoom meetings are not as enjoyable or productive as we were told they would be. And you cannot have group pizza delivered. Since 2005

The Cory legacy

Cory left us with a lesson on great leadership, one that was based on her strong character and clear vision for her people. She was able to prove, under numerous circumstances, that serving the greater good was more important to her than anything else. Her values were reflected in how she conducted herself and the way she lived her personal life.

One of the important lessons has to do with unity. When People Power happened, the Filipino people became united toward one goal: to overthrow a dictator and restore national democracy. Cory showed us that we are capable as a people to stand together and fight for our freedoms. We need to understand, however, that unity means setting aside our personal agenda for the sake of the common good. It means helping one another and even

and about the fruits of the revolt, including freedom of the press and our legacy to the world, a peaceful revolution. Inspiration was also another one of Cory’s gifts to us. She inspired us to be strong as a people and actually showed us that it was doable to overcome seemingly impossible odds. This inspiration burns bright to this day, and not just here in the country but also around the globe. In fact, she had said before in one of her speeches: “If we were able to overcome then, we will be able to overcome [the] challenges now.” This

Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

S we remember President Corazon Aquino on her 11th death anniversary on August 1, it is only fitting to expound on the lessons from her presidency and from the Edsa People Power Revolution. As we go through the challenges of the present time, may we be guided by her leadership and legacy. She showed and taught us things that may be regarded as beacons of light that can help us navigate through dark times.

The State of the Nation’s Transport Address (SONTA)

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Thomas M. Orbos

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sacrificing ourselves for the welfare of our kababayan. Cory also taught us to remember the lessons of history so we won’t make the same mistakes. We all fought hard for the liberties that we presently enjoy. Lives were lost and huge sacrifices were made to be able to restore democracy. We need to learn as a people to value these hardwon victories. We need to teach the younger generation about the hard lessons that we learned as a nation

is still true today. Cory taught us to be brave and to fight tyranny in the name of democracy. Cory left us with a lesson on great leadership, one that was based on her strong character and clear vision for her people. She was able to prove, under numerous circumstances, that serving the greater good was more important to her than anything else. Her values were reflected in how she conducted herself and the way she lived her personal life. So as we remember Tita Cory on the anniversary of her death, I hope we can also reflect on the lessons that she taught us. The Filipino people must protect not just her legacy but also the fruit of our own struggles: democracy. I hope we have understood by now that it is not a permanent thing. To be able to retain democracy, we all need to continuously work hard to nourish and sustain it. Please join the Holy Mass to be celebrated on the 11th death anniversary of President Cory Aquino on August 1 at 10:30 a.m. This will be presided by Fr. Manoling Francisco SJ. Just go to the Facebook page of “Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation.”

oday will mark the fifth time that President Duterte delivers his State of the Nation Address, his penultimate Sona. Of particular interest is what he would say about the national state of our transportation. If this were a transport journey that our country took four years ago, it would be to our best interest to know where we are right now, what had been achieved and the plans for the remaining two years, notwithstanding the effect of the pandemic that caught all of us flat-footed. We remember how it was, transportation wise, when this administration started. Transportation and traffic were key campaign concerns more than in other past elections. Several issues came to the fore— namely the horrendous traffic, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s laglag-bala, the motorized license plates backlog, and the daily breaking down of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT). There was also the nagging perception of an administration with so many “unfinished” projects, in particular the Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite extension, the North Avenue common terminal, and the many rail projects that did not move during those six years. Quite unfair as there were a lot of good significant transport projects that emanated from that time and in fact spilled over to this administra-

tion—the P2P buses, the integrated provincial bus terminals, the policies governing TNVS, among others. But such was the case and the commuting public saw “incompleteness” and was left wanting at the end of that term. Enter the new Department of Transportation. Problems such as the laglag-bala, the MRT breakdown and the vehicle license plates were tackled head on. Projects inherited were either pushed to be finished or eliminated rather than hemorrhaging government funds. To date, more than a hundred seaports and airports projects have been built, upgraded or rehabilitated. Rail projects, notably MRT 7, the Luzon north and south corridors and the flagship subway project have broken ground. With land transportation, two over delayed but much needed projects the jeepney

Two years is definitely not enough to complete these projects and adequately address the problems that have evolved. But two years is enough for this administration’s transport policy-makers to ensure that the projects embarked on will be finished even beyond their term. A seamless continuity of transport governance should start in these remaining two years.

modernization under the Public Utility Modernization Program, and the Motor Vehicle Inspection System saw the light of day. To the credit of this government, the pandemic even became an opportunity to implement the needed policies that were hard to pursue in pre-Covid times. These changes would include the Edsa Bus loop; the accelerated push towards jeepney modernization; the banning of provincial buses in Metro Manila; and the building of bike lanes and more greenways and walkways in many areas. But all of these are just part of the transport factory that came to be under the watch of the Department of Transportation. Despite all of these, there’s still so much work to be done. A growing population and a developing economy led to new transport problems that need to be addressed. Even during pre-Covid times, we already saw a tremendous growth in commuter demand, worsening vehicular traf-

fic, lack of public transportation and worsening air pollution caused by the transport sector. To make matters worse, the Covid-19 pandemic created a whole new set of complications. Commercial viability of public transport became adversely affected, and timelines of ongoing infrastructure projects were delayed because of the lockdowns and fear of infections. Two years is definitely not enough to complete these projects and adequately address the problems that have evolved. But two years is enough for this administration’s transport policy-makers to ensure that the projects embarked on will be finished even beyond their term. A seamless continuity of transport governance should start in these remaining two years. The current transport policy-makers this early can prepare for a governance transfer that will benefit the next national transport managers who can immediately slide into their roles, whoever they may be. This would ensure that these needed projects for the country will be realized. Continuity of the work that was started, and not the incompleteness of work committed, may well be the final defining legacy of this administration’s transport leadership.

Thomas “Tim” Orbos was formerly with the DOTr and the MMDA. He is an alumnus of the McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University and the MIT Sloan School of Management. He can be reached via e-mail at thomas_orbos@ sloan.mit.edu

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PEOPLE: Focus on the workplace

Soldiers’ Lives Matter (SLM) Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

Dorelene V. Dimaunahan

DEBIT CREDIT

ome industries are permitted to resume operations during the GCQ. Yet, a lot of questions loom in the mind. How can you bounce back? Do you need to pivot operations? When is the best time to collect receivables? How can you settle payments? Yes, there are so many things that we ought to be concerned about. However, let us remember one thing. We need to start with our employees. As we return to our workplace, let us remember the acronym P.E.O.P.L.E. Positive Culture Everyone is going through fear, stress and anxiety. It helps to leave home and finally be able to go back to the workplace, see familiar faces and earn a living. Sadly, this is not something easy to jump-start. In order to “break the ice,” begin with setting a workplace culture that is positive and hopeful. One way would be to initiate an informal kamustahan session to catch up or check up on one another, prior to discussing business-related matters. Emotional and Mental Health Many people are going through emotional distress and mental health issues, especially those who personally experienced death of loved ones because of Covid-19, have been PUIs, PUMs or simply just stayed at home, uncertain of when this battle would end. Remember that people respond differently to issues of emotional and mental health. Some prefer to be quiet, whereas others are very open about this. It is important to take extra precaution on these matters, since mental issues have long-term effects on the person and are likely to affect productivity as well. If there is a need to see a mental expert, this is a non-negotiable. There are also other ways to battle this “other” invisible enemy, in the form of wellness activities, such as yoga and exercise. Open-Door Communication Regardless of the size of the company, “open-door communication” is necessary, especially during the recalibration or adjustment period. It takes effort, but remember that this will go a long way in motivating and retaining employees. It begins with a firm decision, followed by a company-wide announcement that there is such a policy on “open-door communication.” The manner of execution will definitely vary, depending on the nature of the company. What is important is that this comes from the leaders or from top management – for small businesses, the owner-manager; whereas for medium to large-scale companies, top management, as executed or relayed by the human resources department.

During the ECQ, many people have realized the importance of collaboration and being grateful for still being alive, most especially since a lot have perished because of the pandemic. As we go back to the workplace, let us also extend the value of empathy, because again, the battle is not over. Upon leaving the office, the risks of infection remain out there. Policy Review and Revision The #NewNormal is disrupting the way workplace policies once worked. New arrangements such as flexible work, work-from-home arrangements, remote work, skeletal work force and new forms of scheduling have emerged. These must be discussed and attended to with urgency by management. Once policies have been revisited, revised and have adhered to the necessary legal implications, these policies must be properly explained across the company. Listen to and Follow Precautionary Measures Since the battle versus Covid-19 is not over, it remains a duty to follow precautionary measures set forth by the government and respective agencies, prior to entering the workplace and after work hours. Wearing of masks, social distancing, workplace misting or sanitation and temperature checks are just some precautionary measures. Empathy During the ECQ, many people have realized the importance of collaboration and being grateful for still being alive, most especially since a lot have perished because of the pandemic. As we go back to the workplace, let us also extend the value of empathy, because again, the battle is not over. Upon leaving the office, the risks of infection remain out there. Dorelene Dimaunahan is an entrepreneur, educator of the country’s top universities, a host and an author. She has a PhD in Business at De La Salle University. She is also a Certified Franchise Executive, Certified Management Accountant and a Certified Human Resources Practitioner. This column accepts contributions from the business community. Articles not exceeding 600 words can be e-mailed to boa.secretariat.@gmail. com.

Last of three parts

S stated in the earlier parts of this series, mistaken encounters are generally caused by lack of communication, interservice rivalry, excusable negligence, or worse, a wicked agenda, which sadly remains hidden even after an investigation. To minimize misencounters or any other similar incident, I propose the solutions of 3T—training, transparency, and most importantly, trustworthy leadership.

Winston Ragos, a retired Army corporal suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, was killed as he violated quarantine restrictions in Quezon City. The policemen made a critical judgment call as they thought that Ragos was pulling out a gun from his shoulder bag. For some, that judgment call was justified as one can rightly value his own life over the life of others. “Kill or be killed,” as one former Army colleague told me, in alignment with self-defense advocates, who say that injury or death to another can be justified if one’s own life is in danger. Most penal laws subscribe to this justification. Even civil rights leader Malcolm X who said “I don’t even call it violence when it’s self defense, I call it intelligence” adopted this self-preservation approach. For General Dennis Acop (Ret.), the killing of Ragos would have been prevented were it not for the trigger-happy and poorly trained law enforcers who opted to shoot before being shot at. With proper training, soldiers and policemen can be indoctrinated about their ultimate role as security forces. The mindset of “better them, not me”, espoused by some of the “warrior mentality” commanders, loses sight of the servant philosophy of being leaders in uniform. As leaders, law enforcement and security forces should serve and not be served, applying what Jesus

Christ tells us in Mark 10:45, when he said: “Even the Son of Man came to earth to be a servant to other people. He did not come here to have servants who must work for him. No, he came to die so that many people can be free.” The training need not be based on certain religious principles; it simply needs to adopt the mindset of a servant. After all, they are called “public servants.” More than just technical skills, law enforcers need to be trained about values-based leadership for them to understand that their role is to protect the people first by applying the law; not protecting themselves and then apply the law on self-defense as in the case of the killing of Ragos. We need to reorient our law enforcement and security forces (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Police, Coast Guard, even the Bureau of Corrections) for them to understand that their mission is anchored first and foremost on “service”. And the best kind of service to God, country, and people is one that starts from the heart to serve others, brothersin-arms included. Those at the top echelon of the organization can best initiate such reorientation. In the words of Dennis, “Only a radical change of strategy from the topmost can reverse this dysfunction that continues to eat away at the gains of honorable policing.” To me, a change in strategy can only be had

By Mihir Sharma | Bloomberg Opinion

he United Nations currently predicts that by 2027, India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country. Estimates suggest India and Nigeria will together add 470 million people in the next three decades—almost a quarter of the world’s population increase to 2050. According to a new study from the University of Washington, however, several developing nations may find their so-called demographic dividend much less of a boon than anticipated. Published in the Lancet, the UW study has improved on the UN’s model by modeling fertility differently and making its decline more sensitive to the availability of contraception and the spread of education. In many parts of India, for instance, the total fertility rate—the expected average number of children born to each woman—is already well below the replacement rate of 2.1 and dropping faster than expected. The study, which also tries to account for the feedback loops between education,

mortality and migration, concludes that populations around the world are going to start shrinking sooner and faster than projected. South Asia, for example, would have 600 million fewer people in 2100 than previously predicted thanks to lower-than-expected levels of fertility. Instead of growing throughout, India’s population would peak in 2050 and then decline to 70% of that number by the end of the century. By that point, China’s population would be about half its

if there is a change in the culture of law enforcement or public service. Culture is destiny as what Lee Kuan Yew said. We become what we think, as we do what we think. We can all be one catalysts for culture change, in our own little way. Unless we change our culture of hiding or covering the ugly truth, this country will continue to lose the lives of its soldiers and policemen unnecessarily. While basic is the “need-to-know” precept in intelligence operations, leaders should be more aware of the repercussions of secret operations as in the case of the Mamasapano massacre. In the more recent incident where Army operatives were killed by policemen in Jolo (incidentally charged with the crime of murder), I still believe that there is more than just a case of murder. I find it extremely disturbing to see how lower level policemen can act with much impunity. Similar to reorientation training, transparency in operations can be attained when top leaders will have the humble heart to truly serve, “not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others”, as provided in the Bible in Philippians 2:4. Thus, I pray that the investigation surrounding the killing of these Army operatives will uncover the bigger conspiracy, which I sense in this ruthless, mafiastyle killing. The investigators can do a great service to the country and perhaps ignite a culture of transparency by courageously knowing and sharing the truth, even at the expense of losing their jobs. When it comes to trustworthy leadership, voices matter more than words, especially during trying times. President Duterte was physically present and was heard in Jolo whereas his predecessor, former President Benigno Aquino III was absent when his presence was needed the most during the arrival honors for the slain SAF 44. We can hear the sincerity in a person’s voice not in his written words. Trust is best earned up close, face to face, or hearing one’s voice to say the least. In these pandemic days where people started using Zoom, Teams,

and other online apps to meet, hearing the voices of our leaders can really encourage and motivate. We prefer them to be clear and concise, especially during these uncertain times. When it comes to clarity of the message, inspirational speaker Andy Stanley offered three basic principles—“Be honest, don’t pretend, don’t exaggerate.” As our President delivers his fifth State of the Nation Address address, I wish that he will forego his usual style of including misplaced humor, profane language, and discombobulated ad libs in his speech. I expect to see and hear him deliver a speech for the ages and show that his high trust ratings are based on trustworthy leadership and not just on surveys. I hope that President Duterte will be clear in his message that while this government, just like any other in this world, was unprepared to fight the virus, he will continue to show his heart to serve the Filipino people, detractors included. Just like the rest of us, I need to see and hear our President as trustworthy as he can be in this Sona. Soldiers’ lives matter. Some have died, others have been killed. Doctors, the soldiers in this virus fight, have died, others unnecessarily. The coronavirus is not the enemy; it is an opportunity for this country’s leaders, especially President Duterte, to show SLM does not only mean that Soldiers’ Lives Matter. All of our lives matter! May this virus and its consequential incidents produce leaders who aim to serve and not be served. You see, SLM can also stand for Servant Leaders Made! A former infantry and intelligence officer in the Army, Siegfred Mison showcased his servant leadership philosophy in organizations such as the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Malcolm Law Offices, Infogix Inc., University of the East, Bureau of Immigration, and Philippine Airlines. He is a graduate of West Point in New York, Ateneo Law School, and University of Southern California. A corporate lawyer by profession, he is an inspirational teacher and a Spirit-filled writer with a mission. For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.

Please don’t quit your job to homeschool your kid By Teresa Ghilarducci Bloomberg Opinion

t’s sinking in: most of the 130,000 schools in the county will likely not fully open as Covid-19 diagnoses continue to break records. Should parents admit defeat and have one parent quit the workforce to provide childcare and supervise remote learning? Before making this decision, consider the longer-term costs of taking a break from work. Taking a career break means losing more than just salary. According to a calculator from the Center For American Progress, a 30-yearold parent earning $50,000 a year taking just one year off loses over

$156,000 in lifetime pay. The parent is behind $30,000 in retirement benefits, $49,000 in wage growth; and $44,000 in lost wages. That parent loses retirement plan contributions, social security credits, insurance for disability, and, less quantifiably, status and momentum in the labor market. The losses mount up if it takes months or years to find a job and re-enter the work force. Consistently steady employment leads to the highest wages; women are more likely to have unsteady work histories mainly because of childcare. Even a woman who starts her own consultancy or home-based business feels this pinch: Periods of self-employment substantially hurt

Poor countries are running out of time to get rich

Monday, July 27, 2020

current size. On the other hand, sub-Saharan Africa would continue to grow, with Nigeria entering the 22nd century as the world’s secondlargest country, behind India and just ahead of China and Pakistan. For policymakers in India and several other developing nations, this isn’t good news. As the authors of the UW study point out, a shrinking global population has “positive implications for the environment, climate change, and food production.” But it also means time is running out—indeed, may already have run out—on those nations’ development clocks. China has been truly fortunate in its demographics; it peaked at the right time. Working-age Chinese people, both in total numbers and as a share of the population, crested just when world trade was most open. This made the possibilities for manufacturing-led growth easier to seize than they had been for centuries.

By 2050, as expected, China will be the world’s largest economy. But the study authors predict that, as the Chinese population declines, immigration should in theory continue to bolster America’s work force. The US could again become the world’s largest economy in 2098—if the country lives up to its ideals and continues to welcome the world’s migrants. There’s no better way to ensure America becomes great again. Those countries that come next— India and Pakistan in particular— will confront a more closed world. And, worse, they now know that it is people currently in the work force, or children in school, who over their lifetimes will have to lift the country to prosperity. For countries whose

women’s, but not men’s, lifetime earnings. A recent Fed study shows people with periods of non-employment suffer large and long-term earnings losses of up to 40 percent compared to people who worked continually. The cost of caring for children— women spend about twice as much time on it as men—shows up in women’s lower average earnings. According to the US Department of Labor the median weekly earnings for fathers is $1,146; for it is mothers $809 per week. The average man earns a lifetime income of $2.4 million, while the average women will earn $1.8 million. There are many reasons for this, but one

is that women generally work fewer hours. Today’s male retirees worked approximately 70,000 hours per lifetime; female retirees just 50,000 hours—the equivalent of about a 10-year difference. So quitting—or even dialing back on hours—is obviously enormously expensive. When total costs are taken into account, it’s even more expensive than hiring babysitters or tutors. Before taking a leave of absence, parents should consider every option, including buying or trading homeschooling resources. Brown University economist Emily Oster has good tips for home-based DYI classroom and parent co-ops, etc.

populations will begin to decline in the 2040s, this generation of workers and the next is all there is: They must, like their Chinese counterparts in the last two decades, push their countries from farm to factory and beyond. Right now, India’s boosters tout the fact that its working-age population swells by a million people a month, propelling economic growth. If that demographic push runs out sooner than expected, growth will depend on individual productivity, not sheer numbers. That means education and healthcare and similar “soft” infrastructure no longer look like rich-country luxuries. Unless they are put into place within the next decade, indeed within the next few years, countries such as India, Indonesia and Brazil may never become rich. There are other dangers, some of which the Lancet article gestures at in passing. It is the spread of women’s

education and women’s reproductive rights that are causing these declines in fertility. Unless women gain political clout to match, they might well end up being “blamed” for the loss in national power caused by a greying population. Those hard-won rights might begin to be curtailed. In places with particularly patriarchal societies, like much of South and West Asia, this is even more of a danger than elsewhere. Even the most fortunate countries will need to be careful. By 2050, as expected, China will be the world’s largest economy. But the study authors predict that, as the Chinese population declines, immigration should in theory continue to bolster America’s workforce. The US could again become the world’s largest economy in 2098—if the country lives up to its ideals and continues to welcome the world’s migrants. There’s no better way to ensure America becomes great again.

A8 Monday, July 27, 2020

Recovery road map, budget top House list By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

HE road map for the Covid-19 recovery and the passage of the national budget for 2021 will be the top agenda of the House of Representatives as it opens the second regular session of the 18th Congress on Monday (July 27). Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said the House is eyeing a three-step strategy to accelerate the recovery amid the pandemic. Cayetano, in a recent interview, said the economic managers and House leaders have agreed that passage of the “Bayanihan to Recover as One” or Bayanihan II will be their first priority but they are still negotiating to increase the allocation to P200 billion. “There is already an agreement on P140 billion immediately, and about one-third or half of it will go to banks that will help [give] loans with small and medium and micro businesses,” he said. “[Finance] Secretary Sonny [Dominguez] doesn’t want us to be irresponsible, so we are talking about the line between being irresponsible and being too conservative,” Cayetano said of the funding for the economic stimulus measures. As a second strategy, Congress is looking at the 2021 budget as a tool to fund programs that facilitate faster and better services to help save the lives and livelihoods of the Filipinos. Lastly, Cayetano said Congress will pursue separate stimulus measures such as the Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy

(ARISE) and the Covid-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act of 2020. Cayetano said the ARISE measure, spearheaded by House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Joey Salceda, Rep. Stella Quimbo, and House Committee Chairman of Economic Affairs Rep. Sharon Garin, proposes P1.3 trillion to finance programs providing assistance and wage subsidies to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and the tourism and transport sectors. Of the total amount allocated under ARISE, P650 billion will fund the enhanced “Build, Build, Build” program for the next three years starting in 2021. The CURES bill proposes a total of P1.5 trillion to step up infrastructure development programs that create more jobs in the rural areas affected by the pandemic. The program will be implemented for three years with a P500-billion budget for each year. He said other bills pending in the Senate that will be tackled are the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Act, the Coco Levy Fund, the Medical Scholarship Act, the Creation of the Department of Disaster Resilience, the Amendment to the Public Service Act, and the Agrarian and Agricultural Condonation Act. For his part, Majority Leader Martin Romualdez said they will also continue deliberations on some priority legislation of the President like the Creation of the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR), which is under period of interpellations. Continued on A2

PHL Covid cases top 80K; infections in OVP, PNP, DOH

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco | Correspondent & Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM

HE tally of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the Philippines breached the 80,000 mark as 2,110 additional cases were logged on Sunday based on total tests done by 66 of 90 current operational laboratories nationwide.

As of 4 p.m. of July 26, the Department of Health (DOH) reported the total number of Covid-19 cases at 80,448. The DOH also reported 382 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 26,110. There were 39 deaths recorded. The death toll stood at 1,932.

Mega quarantine facility in Laguna

THE Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has conducted a routine

inspection of the Alonte Sports Arena Coliseum in Biñan City, Laguna, one of the government facilities converted into a mega quarantine facility by the Department of Public Works and Highways. “We have to ensure that essential medicines and medical supplies are available like swab test kits, face masks and also make sure that our health workers are safe and secure by having complete supplies of personal protective equipments [PPEs] for their use,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque said at the visit to the facility on Saturday. Duque led the inspection along with Office of the Civil Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, IATF Chief Implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., DOH-Calabarzon Regional Director Eduardo Janairo and Biñan City Mayor Arman Dimaguila. The Alonte Sports Complex is equipped with nursing stations, sanitation chambers, and designated storage areas as part of the government’s effort to ensure additional prov isional hospitals for Covid-19 patients in the provinces, particularly Laguna which has the highest recorded number of positive cases in the region—at 2,036, and 66 deaths as of July 25. The Alonte Sports Complex is

Repatriates breach 100K mark–DFA, DOLE report

MEANWHILE, Regional Director Janairo announced over the weekend the temporary closure of the regional office from July 27 to 31 after seven staff members were confirmed positive for Covid-19. “We have decided to temporarily close the office to give time for an office-wide cleaning and conduct disinfection activity in all its premises,” Janairo said adding that the DOH-Calabarzon Regional Office located at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center Compound in Project 4, Quezon City, shall re-open and resume regular operations on August 3. Among the seven confirmed cases, six are still active cases after a swab test was conducted on all its employees last Monday. According to Janairo, all official communications shall be made through the DOH-Calabarzon official web site at chd4a_doh_calabarzon@yahoo.com. “All staff will be on a work-fromhome [WFH] basis to continuously provide the necessary services needed,” he added.

HE number of repatriated overseas Filipinos (OF) surpassed the 100,000 mark over the weekend with the arrival of 12,022 OFs last Saturday from the Netherlands, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States, according to separate statements by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Labor and Employment. The DFA said 102,519 have been brought home since February, of whom 43,893 are sea-based and 58,626 are land-based. The DFA said it continues to bring home stranded OFs from anywhere in the world amid the challenges brought about by Covid19-related lockdowns and travel restrictions, as most of the Filipinos lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Last week, the DFA brought home a total of 8,895 OFs from the Middle East, 1,806 from the AsiaPacific, 677 from Europe and 644 from the Americas. Of these repatriates, 1,400 were brought home from Malaysia, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The DFA chartered four flights, paid for by the Assistance-to-Nationals Fund. The DFA also facilitated the first repatriation flight from New Zealand since April and brought home 280 overseas Filipinos, many of whom were senior citizens. The DFA also repatriated 111 Filipino seafarers from Fujian, China. The stranded Filipinos came from nine different Chinese fishing vessels that were forced to anchor in the high seas for several months due to Covid-19 restrictions imposed by countries around the world. In a statement on Sunday, the DOLE reported a slightly different number from DFA. It registered 106,200 repatriated OFWs who sought government aid to be transported back to their home provinces. Of the said OFWs, 2,246 were sent home by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) on Saturday after they tested negative for Covid-19.

Continued on A2

Continued on A4

one of the 11 facilities converted into mega quarantine centers. The others are the Ninoy Aquino Stadium, World Trade Center, Philippine International Convention Center, Rizal Memorial Coliseum, Philippine Sports Complex/Ultra Stadium, Asean Convention Center, New Clark City-National Government Administrative Center, Philippine Arena, Filinvest Tent, University of the Philippines Mindanao Multipurpose Building Human Kinetics Building, and Davao City Sports Complex. It has a 68-bed capacity and will cater to patients coming from Laguna and nearby provinces of Calabarzon. The facility opened on May 25, 2020.

Regional office closed

3 solons join Makabayan push to bring ABS-CBN to plenary

S the second regular session of the 18th Congress opens Monday, lawmakers urged the leadership of the House of Representatives to reopen the debates on the issues granting ABS-CBN Corp. a new franchise in the plenary. In an online forum over the weekend, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza, Agusan del Norte Rep. Lawrence Fortun and Parañaque Rep. Joy Tambunting supported the call of the Makabayan bloc to submit the resolution denying ABS-CBN’s application for a fresh 25-year franchise to the plenary for further debates. “The plenary should be given a chance to review the vote taken by the committee. To me it [the voting done at the committee] doesn’t represent the whole [chamber]; it represented the opinion of two people [of the technical working group] concurred in by 70 [committee] members,” said Atienza. “Let’s scrutinize the report. Let’s check word for word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, because it was clear they failed to prove any wrongdoing in the 12 hearings,” the senior lawmaker added. The TWG report was crafted

by Cebu Rep. Pablo John Garcia, Camiguin Rep. XJ Romualdo and Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo. However, Quimbo dissented, saying the TV network deserves a new franchise. “We have to reopen the issue and debate on it openly in the plenary. Let’s encourage [other members] to speak up. Let’s be on record. Let’s continue this [strong call] until it reaches the plenary for open debates,” Atienza added. For his part, Fortun said the decision to reject the franchise application was done swiftly despite 12-day lengthy hearings. “The entire House should look at the findings of the TWG.... The term ‘laid on the table’ means the committee will no longer act on it. But it doesn’t prevent the plenary from reviewing the resolution. It can still be acted upon by the plenary,” he said. “The committee in its vote to kill or deny the application for franchise is definitely not on the right side, but the House as a whole may; there’s still a chance by way of correcting the mistake of the committee,” added Fortun. Tambunting, one of the authors

of the ABS-CBN franchise bill, appealed anew to the leadership for the sake of 11,000 workers of the TV network. “There’s a chance that it may succeed. Some say it’s futile but how futile can our situation be now? If it’s a secret vote, I think there is a big chance. By secret voting, we don’t have to worry about the consequences of our votes. There are 300 [plus] House members. Only 70 voted against the franchise,” she said. In a separate text message, Batangas Rep. Vilma Santos, one of the committee members who voted to grant the franchise, said the move to bring the matter to plenary might be an uphill climb considering the outcome of the franchise committee voting.

Makabayan letter

LAST week, the Makabayan bloc, in a letter to the Committee on Legislative Franchise, urged Rep. Franz Alvarez, the panel chairman, to submit the TWG report and adopted committee resolution on the ABS-CBN franchise to the plenary for the rarification of its decision Continued on A4

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, July 27, 2020

Jollibee to survive Covid-19, post profit next year–exec By VG Cabuag

@villygc

ocal fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) said its financial recovery may happen starting next year and may return to the levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic, which paralyzed its operations all over the world. “We will emerge in this crisis as a stronger business and organization. We expect strong growth in sales and profit in 2021 versus 2020,” Ernesto Tanmantiong, the company’s president, said during the stockholders’ meeting that JFC conducted online. “Starting in 2022, we expect that JFC will grow in line with its histori-

cal growth rate of about 15 percent per year. In the succeeding years, we expect JFC to grow at that rate at least, which will double the size of that business every five years.” In 2019, however, Jollibee's income fell 22 percent to P6.42 billion, from P8.21 billion in 2018 as it incurred losses due to the weakness of Smashburger in the United States and Red Ribbon in the Philippines. Recovery is already starting to take place in the US, China and other countries where the lockdown restrictions are slowly easing, Tanmantiong said. The company has conceded that it will struggle to make a profit this year, warning it will incur even steeper losses in the second quarter when the full impact of the lock-

downs on the business will be felt. The business will start recovering in the third and fourth quarters, but it will be slow. Tony Tan Caktiong, the company’s chairman, said the company's recent acquisition, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL), is on track to achieving profitability by next year. “We expect Coffee Bean's performance to improve by the fourth quarter this year and become profitable in 2021. In the long term, we are very bullish on the coffee category as we foresee that demand will continue to significantly grow. We believe that Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is [a brand] that will be loved by consumers globally, beginning in Asia and the US.” CBTL, a company based in Los Angeles in

the US, is already the company’s second-largest brand after its flagship Jollibee brand. The company bought CBTL, a company that struggled to make profits, last year for $329 million in a deal covering more than 1,100 stores in 26 countries. In the fourth quarter of 2019, CBTL contributed 11 percent to JFC’s consolidated system wide sales and increased international business’ contribution to 33 percent of worldwide system sales. The acquisition increased JFC’s total store count to 5,971 worldwide. “Combined with Highlands Coffee based in Vietnam, JFC can now become an important player in the large, fast growing and profitable coffee business market,” he said.

‘PHL must fortify health system via higher budget’

he Philippines should increase its spending on health care to cope in a post-Covid-19 world, according to a director of the Philippine College of Surgeons. In a webinar on Friday, Dr. Manuel Francisco T. Roxas, who is also an advisor of Ayala Corp. unit ACHealth, said health expenditures should increase to around 8 percent to 12 percent of GDP. In 2018, Roxas said total health expenditures only amounted to 4.6 percent of GDP. This already

represented a growth of 8.3 percent. “What do we see beyond the Covid-19 pandemic? Now understanding what the pandemic has exposed, we do need to increase total health expenditures by 2 to 3 times the current level, perhaps to 8 to 12 percent of GDP," Roxas said. The additional resources will help the country implement the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law and boost primary care services. Roxas said there is a need to strengthen the capa-

bilities of Department of Health (DOH) particularly in its ability to orchestrate hospital response and allocate health-care manpower. He also said the DOH should have more resources to improve and increase critical care facilities and programs after the pandemic as well as in terms of testing, contact tracing, data gathering and analytics. Roxas said more resources should be set aside for the creation of specialty hospitals for continuity of care for high-mortality conditions like cardiovascular,

renal, cancer, and neurologic diseases, “which have been sidelined during the pandemic.” The pandemic, he said, exposed the problems of the Philippine healthcare system such as the lack of centralized and coordinated inter-hospital response. Roxas noted there is a limited capacity for testing and contact tracing. The pandemic, he said, posed a significant strain on hospital manpower resources, supply-chain delivery, and finances. Cai U. Ordinario

STOCK-MARKET OUTLOOK Last week

Share prices fell again for the third consecutive week last week, with the main index nearing the 5,000-point level, as investors stayed on the sidelines. The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) fell 85.49 points to close at 6,003.26 points. “It tried to climb at the beginning of the week after the government opened the economy further by increasing the dine-in capacity of establishments as well as reducing curfew hours in selected areas. The optimism was short-lived as buying pressure was minimal,” Christopher Mangun, research head at AAA Securities Inc., said. External factors such as rising United States-China tensions had little to no effect on market, as investors focused on the current business atmosphere in the Philippines, he said. Average daily trading for the week was at P3.71 billion, with Friday recording the lowest value for the week at just P2.82 billion. Foreign investors were net sellers at P1.72 billion. All other subindices were down with the exception of the Mining and Oil index that gained 18.41 points to 5,130.44 points. The broader All Shares index shed 46.59 to 3,533.01, the Financials index fell 14.83 to 1,183.62, the Industrial index declined 80.66 to 7,336.79, the Holding Firms index retreated 136.73 to 6,268.98, the Property index decreased 16.40 to 2,924.50 and the Services index lost 25.03 to 1,392.39. For the week, losers edged gainers 135 to 88 and 23 shares were unchanged. Top gainers were MJC Investments Corp., Benguet Corp. A and B shares, Del Monte Pacific Ltd., Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co. A and B shares, United Paragon Mining Corp. and Apex Mining Co. Inc. Top losers, meanwhile, were ABS-CBN Corp., Altus Property Ventures Inc., Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corp., Semirara Mining and Power Corp., Metro Alliance Holdings and Equities Corp. and Republic Glass Corp.

This week

Share prices may improve this week as investors are expected to pick up bargain stocks, while companies may also buy for their month-end window dressing activities. “Investors may find current valuations at-

tractive as prices have moved back to levels seen at the beginning of June. We have been expecting it to test its breakout support of 5,950, it fell to this level at the end of last week but quickly recovered as buyers rushed back in. Higher trading volumes will correlate with the market’s rise,” Mangun said. President Duterte is scheduled to give his fifth State of the Nation Address on Monday, which is expected to give investors cues on what to expect from his government in the coming year. Japhet Louis O. Tantiangco, senior research analyst at Philstocks Financials Inc., said investors will still monitor the pandemic situation, and also the souring US-China relations. “A sustained or intensified pace in the daily increase of local cases and a further escalation of WashingtonBeijing tensions may drive the local market deeper into negative territory. Investors are also expected to look out for cues regarding the government’s plans for the economy and against the pandemic from the President’s State of the Nation Address,” Tantiangco said. A minor support for the main index is seen to be building at the 6,000 level and resistance is seen at the range of 6,100-6,170. Next week, the local market may test the 6,000 support, he said.

Stock picks

COL Financials Inc. recommended the purchase of the stocks of PLDT Inc. as the telco heavyweight will become the beneficiary of strong demand for data. Its revenues from data already accounted for around 70 percent of total service revenues in the first quarter. PLDT also saw a turnaround in its wireless segment as evidenced by the 13-percent growth it recorded in the first quarter. It pegged the fair value of the company's stock price at P1,640 per share and advised to buy at P1,426. PLDT's share price closed Friday at P1,340. Meanwhile, COL Financials also recommended the acquisition of D and L Industries Inc. stocks as its focus on specialization of products will be beneficial over the long term, providing it with customer loyalty and higher margins. It advised to buy below P4.96 and gave a fair value on the stock at P6.20 per share. Shares of DNL closed last week at P4.69 apiece. VG Cabuag

Companies BusinessMirror

Monday, July 27, 2020

‘Wild swings in stock market to persist until end of 2020’

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

tock broker COL Financial Group Inc. expects the main index to end 2020 at 6,300 points as the market is expected to have wild swings throughout the rest of the year, while recovery will not be felt until 2021.

During its midyear market briefing, COL Chief Equity Strategist April Lynn Tan said the country’s economy is expected to be “U” shaped rather than “V” shaped— characterized by a steep decline, but a quick recovery. The U shape, meanwhile, is similar but the recovery would be longer.

“I don’t expect the economy’s recovery to be ‘V’ shaped. I'm expecting it actually to be more of a ‘U’ shape, or to be more like a Nike swoosh type of shape, which is exactly how you answered it or most of you expect the new normal to materialize or reach the 2019 scenario towards the end of 2021

rather than in three months or six months,” Tan said. The main index, she said, may start recovering in 2021 and can reach 7,000 points by the end of the year. Throughout the lockdown period, Tan said the foreign investors left the country and most of the trades were done by the local investors. “Foreign investors are still not yet in the Philippines. They are still net sellers in the Philippines and in the past, we actually have not been able to sustain a recovery with foreign investors not present in the country,” she said. Key to the recovery, she said, is for the country not to return to the strict lockdown that happened in March through April. “Why should we be worried about returning to ECQ [enhanced community quarantine]? Remem-

ber it was during that period when no public transportation was available and dining in [restaurants] was not allowed. So if we returned to ECQ, I don't know if a lot of businesses can cope.” For the year, Juanis Barredo, the company’s chief technical analyst, said the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi), is charting a “W” shape of movement throughout the year, or a series of fall and then a recovery, and then another decline. The main index may go down as low as 5,300 to 5,010 points or even 4,500, which the main index touched during the start of lockdown in March. “The PSEi is still in quicksand. Trading should rather be defensive and not offensive,” Barredo said. Trading is expected to fall further during the Chinese Ghost Month which will start on August 19.

Alsons mulls over future of property unit

lcantara-ledAlsonsConsolidatedResources Inc. (ACR) said it is still exploring the best option for letting go of its property business. ACR is engaged in the business of exploration of oil, petroleum and other mineral products. It is into thepropertydevelopmentbusinessthroughitssubsidiary, Alsons Land Corp. (ALC), which is engaged in an approximately 72-hole golf course development with a residential component called the Eagle Ridge Golf & Residential Estate. ACR Executive Vice President Tirso G. Santillan Jr. said the company is still assessing whether “to dispose ALC now or have ALC develop and dispose of its properties later.” “This would mean divesting of our property business. We are still looking of a way of accomplishingthis.Wearestillstudyingthemosteffectiveway." The company, he assured, will carry it out “in the way that best maximizes stockholder value.” ACR sees better performance this year mainly on the back of the full operation of its coal power plant in Sarangani.

mutual funds

“For the rest of the year, we are cautiously optimistic on the financial performance of the company,” said ACR Deputy Chief Finance Officer Philip Edward Sagun. Inparticular,hesaidthecompanyexpectshigher revenuesandprofitmarginsfromthefulloperations of Sarangani Energy Corp. Unit 2 (SEC2). Last year, ACR’s 210 MW SEC baseload coal-fired power plant in Maasim, Sarangani began operating its full capacity when the plant’s second 105 MW section came online. SEC currently provides power to key areas in Mindanao including Sarangani Province, General Santos,CagayandeOro,Iligan,Dipolog,Dapitan,Pagadian,Samal,Tagum,Kidapawan,andButuan.The $570-million SEC plant is the single largest investmentinSaranganiProvinceandtheentireRegion12. ACR’SprojectsinthepipelinearetheP4.5-billion 14.5MWSiguilHydrorunofriverhydroelectricpower plant in Maasim, Sarangani Province and the 105 MW San Ramon Power, Inc. (SRPI) baseload coalfired power plant in Zamboanga City. Lenie Lectura July 24, 2020

NAV One Year Three Year Five Year Y-T-D per share Return* Return Stock Funds ALFM Growth Fund, Inc. -a 198.26 -27.66% -10.55% -5.88% -21.28% ATRAM Alpha Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 1.0129 -39.48% -14.19% -6.82% -26.71% ATRAM Philippine Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. -a 2.666 -37.2% -15.23% -8.44% -27.52% Climbs Share Capital Equity Investment Fund Corp. -a 0.6815 -31.07% n.a. n.a. -24.11% First Metro Consumer Fund on MSCI Phils. IMI, Inc. -a 0.6527 -28.05% n.a. n.a. -23.15% First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund,Inc. -a 4.2486 -24.92% -9.21% -5.69% -20.26% First Metro Save and Learn Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a,4 0.6692 -26.56% -11.62% n.a. -21.6% MBG Equity Investment Fund, Inc. -a 79.7 -34.47% n.a. n.a. -22.79% PAMI Equity Index Fund, Inc. -a 39.7753 -26.83% -8.76% -4.98% -22.44% Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 427.13 -24.5% -8.03% -5.2% -19.83% Philequity Alpha One Fund, Inc. -a,d,5 0.8671 n.a. n.a. n.a. -15.82% Philequity Dividend Yield Fund, Inc. -a 1.0071 -26.76% -8.72% -4.79% -21.74% Philequity Fund, Inc. -a 29.6537 -26.46% -8.25% -4.5% -21.75% Philequity MSCI Philippine Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.7869 -27.58% n.a. n.a. -22.71% Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. -a 4.0515 -26.57% -8.56% -4.33% -22.44% Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. -a 678.32 -26.37% -8.53% -4.53% -22.21% Soldivo Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. -a 0.6125 -36.48% -12.27% -8.62% -28.06% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. -a 3.1382 -30.38% -9.91% -5.68% -25.44% Sun Life Prosperity Philippine Stock Index Fund, Inc. -a 0.7779 -26.5% -8.7% -4.5% -22.27% United Fund, Inc. -a 2.8422 -26.39% -7.2% -4.02% -22.2% Exchange Traded Fund First Metro Phil. Equity Exchange Traded Fund, Inc. -a,c 91.0753 -26.15% -8.05% -3.71% -22.13% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ATRAM AsiaPlus Equity Fund, Inc. -b $1.0319 3.76% 0.23% 0.81% 0.34% Sun Life Prosperity World Voyager Fund, Inc. -a $1.4662 11.11% 7.27% n.a. 6.35% Balanced Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ATRAM Dynamic Allocation Fund, Inc. -a 1.5611 -13.2% -4.46% -3.72% -0.11% ATRAM Philippine Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 2.053 -13.55% -4.86% -2.19% -5.87% First Metro Save and Learn Balanced Fund Inc. -a 2.407 -11.75% -3.41% -3.37% -8.53% First Metro Save and Learn F.O.C.C.U.S. Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a,1 0.1848 n.a. n.a. n.a. -19.12% NCM Mutual Fund of the Phils., Inc. -a 1.8385 -7.03% -1.44% -0.65% -6.28% PAMI Horizon Fund, Inc. -a 3.488 -9.23% -2.38% -1.79% -7.95% Philam Fund, Inc. -a 15.536 -10.04% -2.69% -1.98% -8.4% Solidaritas Fund, Inc. -a 1.918 -12.64% -3.95% -1.73% -9.62% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. -a 3.2725 -17.99% -5.03% -3.13% -15.3% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2028, Inc. -a,d 0.9426 -9.93% n.a. n.a. -7.2% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2038, Inc. -a,d 0.8423 -19.69% n.a. n.a. -15.47% Sun Life Prosperity Achiever Fund 2048, Inc. -a,d 0.8167 -21.88% n.a. n.a. -17.77% Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. -a 0.8051 -21.29% -6.1% -4.38% -17.41% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Cocolife Dollar Fund Builder, Inc. -a $0.03917 4.59% 2.97% 2.02% 2.54% PAMI Asia Balanced Fund, Inc. -b $1.0231 2.1% 0.77% 1.28% 1.1% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. -a $4.0465 6.67% 5.12% 4.21% 3.47% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. -a,3 $1.1472 3.34% 2.77% n.a. 1.64% Bond Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 367.44 4.53% 3.2% 2.61% 2.65% ATRAM Corporate Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.9451 2.16% 1.18% -0.03% 2.27% Cocolife Fixed Income Fund, Inc. -a 3.196 4.44% 5.07% 5.07% 2.5% Ekklesia Mutual Fund Inc. -a 2.3048 4.88% 3.05% 2.37% 3.66% First Metro Save and Learn Fixed Income Fund,Inc. -a 2.4522 5.4% 3.44% 1.98% 3.95% Philam Bond Fund, Inc. -a 4.6604 10.73% 4.5% 2.71% 6.57% Philam Managed Income Fund, Inc. -a,6 1.3027 6.59% 4.22% 2.32% 3.66% Philequity Peso Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.9677 7.48% 4.43% 2.4% 4.74% Soldivo Bond Fund, Inc. -a 1.0389 10.13% 3.83% 1.93% 7.74% Sun Life of Canada Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. -a 3.1792 6.48% 4.87% 2.9% 3.37% Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. -a 1.7455 5.19% 4.22% 2.37% 2.61% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $476.39 3.55% 2.54% 2.78% 1.71% ALFM Euro Bond Fund, Inc. -a Є216.29 -1.01% 0.71% 1.03% -1.59% ATRAM Total Return Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -b $1.2383 4.37% 3.22% 2.77% 2.58% First Metro Save and Learn Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $0.0263 2.33% 1.84% 1.51% 1.94% PAMI Global Bond Fund, Inc -b $1.0836 -0.4% 0.18% 0.56% -0.91% Philam Dollar Bond Fund, Inc. -a $2.4887 5.76% 3.68% 3.35% 3.54% Philequity Dollar Income Fund Inc. -a $0.0608876 2.51% 2.06% 1.89% 0.97% Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. -a $3.2266 4.42% 2.24% 2.66% 1.62% Money Market Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities ALFM Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 128.51 3.69% 3.27% 2.46% 2.13% First Metro Save and Learn Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.0428 2.55% n.a. n.a. 1.61% Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. -a 1.2852 2.99% 3.04% 2.59% 1.6% Primarily invested in foreign currency securities Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Starter Fund, Inc. -a $1.0461 1.61% n.a. n.a. 0.75% Feeder Funds Primarily invested in Peso securities Sun Life Prosperity World Equity Index Feeder Fund, Inc. -a,d,7 1.0167 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Primarily invested in foreign currency securities ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund Inc. -b,d,2 $0.95 n.a. n.a. n.a. -4.04%

a - NAVPS as of the previous banking day. b - NAVPS as of two banking days ago. c - Listed in the PSE. d - in Net Asset Value per Unit (NAVPU). 1 - Launch date is September 28, 2019. 2 - Launch date is November 15, 2019. 3 - Adjusted due to stock dividend issuance last October 9, 2019. 4 - Renaming was approved by the SEC last October 12, 2018 (formerly, One Wealthy Nation Fund, Inc.). 5 - Launch date is December 09, 2019. 6 - Re-classified into a Bond Fund starting February 21, 2020 (Formerly a Money Market Fund). 7 - Launch date is July 6, 2020. "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 24, 2020

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

ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE COL FINANCIAL FERRONOUX HLDG IREMIT MEDCO HLDG NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH SUN LIFE

45.5 93.05 69.5 19.94 7.26 35.9 8 19.9 47.3 16.6 97.55 52 0.69 20.05 2.31 0.95 0.28 0.59 159 1752

46.2 93.15 69.55 19.98 7.29 36.05 8.98 19.92 48.95 16.7 97.7 53 0.8 20.6 2.41 1 0.285 0.6 160 1790

46 92.5 69.5 20 7.32 36 8.01 20 47.2 16.7 99.4 53.2 0.81 20.6 2.32 1 0.29 0.61 159 1790

46 93.3 70.6 20 7.33 36.05 8.01 20 47.5 16.7 99.4 53.2 0.81 20.6 2.43 1 0.295 0.61 159 1790

45.5 91.25 69.25 19.9 7.26 35.55 8 19.88 47.2 16.6 97 52 0.8 20.05 2.3 1 0.285 0.58 159 1790

45.5 93.05 69.5 19.94 7.26 36.05 8 19.9 47.5 16.7 97.7 52 0.8 20.6 2.43 1 0.285 0.6 159 1790

44700 1289310 930410 81700 175900 766400 50000 116600 200 17100 215850 11490 7000 65100 64000 2000 170000 468000 1160 5

2043850 119867344 64829092 1630756 1278922 27531560 400003 2321434 9470 284420 21092289 599376.5 5610 1323705 148470 2000 49200 278360 184440 8950

INDUSTRIAL

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

2.27 1.13 25.75 0.153 23.85 59.1 261 12.74 3.1 3.32 11.04 18.02 7.99 12.52 7.73 2.05 10.22 14.48 5.1 4.69 9.02 64 0.6 1.17 30.5 128.5 6.52 4.86 0.124 6.01 1.27 4.03 0.104 121.5 0.8 2.23 58 0.91 9.8 5.07 4.9 7 8.37 0.66 0.79 1.87 1.77 3.8 4.06 18 1.78 4.9 0.95 1.26 5.52

2.3 1.17 25.9 0.158 23.9 59.2 261.2 12.76 3.11 3.39 11.4 18.04 8.05 14.96 7.75 2.1 11 14.5 5.2 4.7 9.06 64.05 0.63 1.19 31.55 128.6 7 4.9 0.134 6.07 1.28 4.14 0.105 122 0.81 2.38 60.95 0.92 9.81 5.1 4.91 7.01 9 0.68 0.8 1.89 1.78 3.9 4.16 19.86 1.79 5 0.97 1.28 5.54

2.21 1.16 26.6 0.152 23.9 60 259 12.86 3.11 3.45 11.34 18.1 7.9 13.7 7.7 2.2 11 14.5 4.21 4.76 9.24 64 0.64 1.18 31.6 128.1 6.21 4.9 0.125 6 1.25 4.03 0.104 119 0.81 2.24 58.1 0.91 9.8 5.07 4.8 6.9 9 0.67 0.8 1.89 1.8 3.81 4.03 18.5 1.76 4.85 0.96 1.29 5.77

2.31 1.17 26.6 0.16 23.95 60 261 12.96 3.12 3.45 11.4 18.16 8.05 13.7 7.95 2.2 11 14.52 5.5 4.76 9.24 65 0.64 1.2 31.6 129.7 7 4.9 0.125 6.07 1.28 4.14 0.105 122 0.81 2.24 58.1 0.92 9.81 5.1 4.93 7.17 9 0.72 0.8 1.89 1.8 3.81 4.18 18.8 1.79 5 0.97 1.31 5.77

2.21 1.13 25.55 0.152 23.5 59 258.2 12.6 3.1 3.3 11.34 18 7.9 13.5 7.51 2.05 11 14.48 4.21 4.69 9 64 0.6 1.17 31.55 127.5 6.21 4.8 0.125 6 1.24 4.03 0.104 119 0.8 2.24 58.1 0.9 9.79 5.01 4.5 6.8 9 0.66 0.77 1.88 1.75 3.81 4.02 18.5 1.7 4.85 0.95 1.25 5.45

2.3 1.17 25.9 0.158 23.85 59.2 261 12.76 3.1 3.39 11.4 18.04 8 13.5 7.75 2.05 11 14.5 5.1 4.69 9.04 64 0.6 1.19 31.55 128.5 7 4.86 0.125 6.07 1.27 4.14 0.105 122 0.81 2.24 58.1 0.92 9.8 5.1 4.9 7 9 0.69 0.8 1.88 1.76 3.81 4.18 18.8 1.79 5 0.97 1.28 5.52

4115000 656000 701800 460000 1271500 18650 150250 3154000 1393000 118000 1152100 630100 49800 900 365500 1046000 5800 1139600 1530000 1080000 2007400 97680 1304000 3718000 800 400400 3900 321000 20000 46600 3858000 2000 120000 601060 1669000 11000 2000 3573000 548500 182800 3202000 1095800 500 58000 234000 20000 342000 3000 2037000 3100 4376000 57000 311000 1479000 1925100

1816350 57538581 -15117814 -594570 200640 -641635 -888016 -8382302.5 -15240 -

9408100 748360 18250120 71510 30330030 1108761 39036572 40306678 4323140 394000 13082814 11397286 397647 12250 2806638 2209040 63800 16524650 7593050 5075600 18150813 6253575.5 793550 4403770 25255 51303476 25710 1550400 2500 280097 4839770 8170 12580 72570582 1348120 24640 116200 3243220 5376464 927338 15106750 7674410 4500 40190 182970 37650 605910 11430 8350490 57710 7632930 284500 297150 1895160 10680375

1456350 -6700095 -1263165 -1019064 -12024134 -7454132 -1025800 996594 -24000 232988 -532960 -3342690 -1833240 -3510830 -2102868 632493 -653440 -3478371 -695920 52702 337860 12517409 -85050 55210 -40035 3339250 -358664 -0 40910 24780 -600 41226

HOLDING & FRIMS ABACORE CAPITAL 0.465 0.47 0.465 0.47 0.46 0.47 1100000 511300 ASIABEST GROUP 7.85 8.15 8.31 8.31 7.5 8.1 24200 197395 AYALA CORP 735 742 740 749 727 742 74430 55120920 ABOITIZ EQUITY 49.65 50 48.4 50 48.4 50 736600 36695595 ALLIANCE GLOBAL 5.83 5.85 5.82 5.88 5.77 5.83 2538600 14811867 AYALA LAND LOG 1.61 1.63 1.61 1.63 1.6 1.61 677000 1092140 ANGLO PHIL HLDG 0.48 0.49 0.49 0.495 0.475 0.49 350000 171350 ATN HLDG A 0.59 0.6 0.58 0.62 0.57 0.6 1982000 1165770 ATN HLDG B 0.61 0.64 0.58 0.64 0.58 0.64 27000 16240 COSCO CAPITAL 4.99 5 5.12 5.12 4.9 5 1340800 6,701,043( DMCI HLDG 3.49 3.5 3.49 3.59 3.49 3.5 4891000 17280060 FILINVEST DEV 8.16 9.1 9.1 9.11 9.1 9.11 900 8192 GT CAPITAL 437.2 437.8 438 438.8 435 437.8 81160 35510698 HOUSE OF INV 3.26 3.29 3.3 3.3 3.28 3.28 14000 45990 JG SUMMIT 65 65.5 65.3 65.95 62.4 65 1245880 80669818 LODESTAR 0.59 0.6 0.6 0.61 0.58 0.6 819000 484050 LOPEZ HLDG 2.4 2.41 2.41 2.41 2.4 2.41 376000 905580 LT GROUP 7.42 7.43 7.45 7.45 7.41 7.43 802000 5957560 MABUHAY HLDG 0.37 0.5 0.55 0.55 0.52 0.52 12000 6560 MJC INVESTMENTS 2.01 2.52 1.84 2.52 1.84 2.52 56000 124450 METRO PAC INV 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.23 3.12 3.15 10596000 33640270 SM INVESTMENTS 900.5 901 896 910.5 896 900.5 147410 133013155 SAN MIGUEL CORP 97.7 97.8 98.5 98.5 97.65 97.8 389570 38108824 TOP FRONTIER 121 123.5 123.5 123.5 123.5 123.5 90 11115 WELLEX INDUS 0.179 0.198 0.178 0.178 0.178 0.178 10000 1780 ZEUS HLDG 0.137 0.144 0.14 0.148 0.137 0.137 2170000 299700

-27950 -2568085 11336475 -3082048 431930 8400 1,218,009.0003) -5705580 12622678 -45990 -47109516 -64520 -1385973 -1060 -6356900 -38991980 5272123 -

PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.5 0.51 0.51 0.52 0.5 0.51 627000 317640 AYALA LAND 32.45 32.5 33.6 33.6 32.1 32.5 5226300 171397360 ARANETA PROP 0.98 1.03 0.99 1.03 0.98 1.03 86000 85650 BELLE CORP 1.36 1.4 1.35 1.36 1.35 1.36 85000 115090 A BROWN 0.74 0.75 0.73 0.76 0.72 0.74 728000 535660 CROWN EQUITIES 0.119 0.12 0.118 0.121 0.118 0.12 2010000 239570 CEB LANDMASTERS 4.89 4.93 4.9 4.93 4.88 4.93 3878000 19050760 CENTURY PROP 0.36 0.37 0.37 0.37 0.36 0.36 750000 274700 CYBER BAY 0.255 0.275 0.285 0.285 0.255 0.275 1800000 472300 DOUBLEDRAGON 16.32 16.4 16.1 16.5 16.1 16.4 355100 5822642 DM WENCESLAO 6.1 6.2 6.07 6.1 6 6.1 3114300 18988768 EMPIRE EAST 0.25 0.26 0.25 0.26 0.248 0.26 860000 217620 EVER GOTESCO 0.095 0.1 0.093 0.093 0.093 0.093 110000 10230 FILINVEST LAND 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.94 0.95 5601000 5312120 8990 HLDG 8.75 8.89 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 300 2670 PHIL INFRADEV 0.88 0.89 0.83 0.9 0.83 0.89 4565000 3990360 KEPPEL PROP 3.1 3.53 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 1000 3100 MEGAWORLD 3.07 3.08 3.07 3.13 3.05 3.07 6703000 20639010 MRC ALLIED 0.184 0.185 0.187 0.187 0.182 0.185 12770000 2365320 PHIL ESTATES 0.29 0.31 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 300000 90000 PRIMEX CORP 1.32 1.39 1.33 1.39 1.33 1.39 36000 47940 ROBINSONS LAND 15.76 15.9 15.9 15.98 15.7 15.9 1246500 19725304 PHIL REALTY 0.231 0.239 0.229 0.239 0.229 0.239 70000 16270 ROCKWELL 1.55 1.58 1.55 1.55 1.55 1.55 2000 3100 SHANG PROP 2.65 2.71 2.71 2.71 2.71 2.71 2000 5420 STA LUCIA LAND 1.78 1.86 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 111000 199800 SM PRIME HLDG 30.2 30.5 30.3 30.5 30.05 30.5 13693100 415114735 VISTAMALLS 3.83 3.99 3.64 4.2 3.64 3.99 447000 1781060 SUNTRUST HOME 1.21 1.22 1.21 1.24 1.2 1.21 5203000 6340170 PTFC REDEV CORP 37.05 44.95 37.05 37.05 37.05 37.05 800 29640 VISTA LAND 3.55 3.56 3.5 3.6 3.5 3.55 368000 1306890

-33080960 -2710 -11208390 -18500 997652 -1710010 957080 -3373380 -28010 -9314894 252655710 -3910 -13310 -188690

SERVICES

ABS CBN GMA NETWORK MANILA BULLETIN MLA BRDCASTING GLOBE TELECOM PLDT APOLLO GLOBAL DFNN INC DITO CME HLDG ISLAND INFO JACKSTONES NOW CORP TRANSPACIFIC BR PHILWEB 2GO GROUP CHELSEA CEBU AIR INTL CONTAINER LBC EXPRESS LORENZO SHIPPNG MACROASIA METROALLIANCE A PAL HLDG HARBOR STAR ACESITE HOTEL BOULEVARD HLDG WATERFRONT FAR EASTERN U STI HLDG BERJAYA BLOOMBERRY PACIFIC ONLINE LEISURE AND RES PH RESORTS GRP PREMIUM LEISURE ALLHOME METRO RETAIL PUREGOLD ROBINSONS RTL PHIL SEVEN CORP SSI GROUP WILCON DEPOT APC GROUP EASYCALL GOLDEN BRIA PRMIERE HORIZON

7.64 5.63 0.385 11.2 2082 1340 0.049 2.96 2.72 0.066 1.66 1.93 0.176 1.89 9.02 3.3 38.35 96.8 12.14 0.72 5.1 1.59 6.13 0.77 1.17 0.027 0.37 590 0.29 2.14 6.8 2.04 1.25 2.21 0.295 6.88 1.46 47.65 61.5 124.8 1.1 15.18 0.315 6.43 285 0.212

7.67 5.64 0.4 11.96 2090 1341 0.05 3.05 2.73 0.07 1.72 1.94 0.177 1.9 9.05 3.4 38.4 97 13 0.75 5.12 1.6 6.2 0.79 1.29 0.028 0.375 648 0.295 2.18 6.82 2.09 1.32 2.36 0.3 6.95 1.47 48 61.8 127 1.11 15.2 0.325 6.5 307 0.215

7.26 5.55 0.395 12.02 2116 1339 0.049 3.26 2.65 0.07 1.62 1.91 0.176 1.88 9.04 3.45 38.6 97 12.14 0.7 5.02 1.61 6.3 0.76 1.23 0.027 0.37 590 0.295 2.15 6.99 2.03 1.24 2.36 0.3 6.9 1.42 48 62 125 1.1 15.22 0.325 6.41 307 0.21

9 5.74 0.395 12.06 2116 1343 0.05 3.26 2.75 0.07 1.78 1.95 0.176 1.93 9.08 3.45 38.6 98 13 0.7 5.14 1.64 6.68 0.79 1.23 0.029 0.375 590 0.3 2.19 6.99 2.09 1.38 2.36 0.305 6.92 1.46 48 62 125 1.13 15.22 0.325 6.53 307 0.223

7.26 5.46 0.38 11.2 2054 1305 0.049 2.9 2.6 0.069 1.62 1.85 0.172 1.85 9 3.25 38.2 96 12.14 0.7 5 1.55 6.12 0.76 1.23 0.026 0.37 590 0.29 2.13 6.74 2.03 1.24 2.29 0.295 6.78 1.4 47.45 61.05 124.8 1.07 15.12 0.31 6.39 307 0.204

7.64 5.63 0.395 11.98 2090 1340 0.05 2.96 2.72 0.07 1.66 1.93 0.176 1.9 9.02 3.4 38.4 97 13 0.7 5.12 1.59 6.2 0.79 1.23 0.028 0.37 590 0.295 2.18 6.8 2.09 1.25 2.36 0.3 6.88 1.46 48 61.8 125 1.1 15.2 0.325 6.42 307 0.214

10005000 1859500 780000 11200 22105 82230 30000 321000 24920000 580000 117000 2206000 1790000 255000 53300 411000 239900 884100 1000 8000 2864200 920000 32500 98000 10000 61300000 470000 10 4040000 19000 1382100 37000 839000 40000 3630000 886300 715000 655000 626000 100 2270000 3347100 390000 24700 330 12570000

77243242 10420553 299900 129394 46125850 110059890 1480 975700 66530930 40240 202850 4198460 312650 481470 480307 1378650 9207260 85608995.5 12226 5600 14,521,052( 1454560 208445 76240 12300 1652800 173950 5900 1184250 40810 9410516 75670 1079720 93350 1083600 6083223 1015520 31334275 38489319.5 12496 2486110 50838458 123150 158310 101310 2691060

-13377360 -16286730 23270 801770 41240 76190 -25200 -230465 -19970007 3,367,184.9997) 1560 123900 -4111061 169700 -174000 3570719 1420 -1545110 -25165726 3750 -768360 -11186230 -

MINING & OIL ATOK 7.71 8.15 8.15 8.16 7.65 8.15 7000 55084 APEX MINING 1.45 1.46 1.48 1.48 1.4 1.45 10448000 15118800 -1610900 ABRA MINING 0.0008 0.0009 0.0008 0.0009 0.0008 0.0009 531000000 425000 ATLAS MINING 2.53 2.56 2.67 2.68 2.58 2.58 473000 1225070 -653680 BENGUET A 1.91 1.97 1.93 2.05 1.89 1.97 621000 1208020 BENGUET B 1.91 1.95 1.93 1.96 1.93 1.96 27000 52470 COAL ASIA HLDG 0.214 0.218 0.214 0.218 0.199 0.217 2550000 540020 -25200 CENTURY PEAK 2.6 2.69 2.7 2.7 2.6 2.69 251000 667780 134500 DIZON MINES 7.35 7.4 7.51 7.51 7.34 7.35 16800 124086 FERRONICKEL 1.05 1.06 1.05 1.11 1.05 1.06 21058000 22646820 -1826630 GEOGRACE 0.23 0.231 0.226 0.235 0.225 0.23 640000 146920 LEPANTO A 0.133 0.134 0.126 0.136 0.126 0.133 85270000 11234490 LEPANTO B 0.13 0.131 0.125 0.135 0.125 0.13 32720000 4266960 -1299440 MANILA MINING A 0.0089 0.0091 0.0089 0.0091 0.0088 0.0089 43000000 381900 MANILA MINING B 0.009 0.0094 0.0094 0.0094 0.0087 0.0087 40000000 362000 MARCVENTURES 0.76 0.77 0.8 0.82 0.74 0.77 3219000 2557430 -15050 NIHAO 1.3 1.32 1.34 1.38 1.29 1.31 455000 603310 NICKEL ASIA 2.25 2.28 2.25 2.35 2.23 2.25 37830000 86611350 1519319.9997 OMICO CORP 0.38 0.41 0.37 0.38 0.37 0.38 130000 48600 ORNTL PENINSULA 0.6 0.61 0.61 0.65 0.58 0.61 4711000 2861470 PX MINING 3.04 3.06 3 3.09 2.99 3.04 3422000 10406010 -3274900 SEMIRARA MINING 9.43 9.44 9.5 9.69 9.41 9.43 3473700 32885414 -7361740 UNITED PARAGON 0.0048 0.005 0.005 0.0052 0.0047 0.0048 88000000 432000 ACE ENEXOR 5.7 5.91 5.8 5.91 5.6 5.91 60100 347717 3535 ORNTL PETROL A 0.0082 0.0085 0.0082 0.0082 0.0082 0.0082 2000000 16400 PHILODRILL 0.0078 0.008 0.008 0.008 0.008 0.008 11000000 88000 PXP ENERGY 5.62 5.63 5.75 5.75 5.51 5.62 520300 2911379 35228 PREFFERED HOUSE PREF A 100.4 102.9 103 103 100.3 100.3 1100 110600 ALCO PREF B 101.3 103.9 101.3 101.3 101.3 101.3 400 40520 DD PREF 101.3 102 101.2 101.2 101.2 101.2 800 80960 FGEN PREF G 106 108 106 106 106 106 12980 1375880 GTCAP PREF B 1012 1019 1012 1012 1012 1012 50 50600 MWIDE PREF 100.6 101.4 101 101.5 100.6 100.6 50 5055 PNX PREF 3A 100.4 101 100.7 101 100.7 101 6600 666520 PNX PREF 3B 104.5 106.9 106.8 106.8 106.8 106.8 700 74760 PNX PREF 4 1025 1030 1025 1025 1025 1025 365 374125 PCOR PREF 2B 1039 1050 1038 1039 1038 1039 315 327030 PCOR PREF 3A 1050 1055 1058 1058 1058 1058 1940 2052520 PCOR PREF 3B 1100 1121 1100 1100 1100 1100 200 220000 SMC PREF 2C 78.5 78.55 78.55 78.55 78.5 78.5 103550 8128827.5 SMC PREF 2D 75.3 75.55 75.3 75.3 75.3 75.3 3000 225900 SMC PREF 2E 75.6 76.5 75.5 75.5 75.5 75.5 1500 113250 PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR 6.85 6.9 8.47 8.47 6.37 6.85 2783300 19254255 -9362289 GMA HLDG PDR 5.42 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.42 5.5 85800 471164 -321120 WARRANTS LR WARRANT 0.63 0.65 0.69 0.69 0.65 0.65 19000 12790 SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES ALTUS PROP 13.44 13.5 13.5 14 13 13.44 847100 11316436 -582112 ITALPINAS 1.71 1.72 1.7 1.71 1.64 1.71 1139000 1915420 41950 KEPWEALTH 5.1 5.38 5.4 5.55 5.1 5.1 78400 409583 MERRYMART 2.35 2.36 2.11 2.35 1.97 2.35 81353000 173779590 -289520 XURPAS 0.56 0.57 0.56 0.59 0.56 0.57 1284000 731410 43710 EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS FIRST METRO ETF 91 91.95 90.95 92 90.5 91 10120 922314.5 9960

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Financial institutions help CIC expand credit database By Tyrone Jasper C. Piad @Tyronepiad

he Credit Information Corp. (CIC) recently reported that 21 additional financial institutions helped the state-run credit registry expand its database by submitting their respective credit data. CIC President Jaime Casto Jose P. Garchitorena said this brought the CIC network to 504 entities, translating to 13.4 million unique Filipino individuals and 87,000 companies or proprietors, with 79.2 million contract data. “Statistically, it [database] has the potential to provide a more detailed profile of the Filipino as a credit seeking entity and we look forward to working with other government agencies to help craft policies that are credit and credit behavior-specific for the benefit of both borrower and lender,” Garchitorena said. Now included in the list are the following: Cebu People’s Multipurpose Cooperative; Ceneco Employees Multipurpose Cooperative; Countryside Builders Multipurpose Cooperative; Kooperatiba ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan Multipurpose Cooperative; Polomolok Multipurpose Cooperative; Seafarers’ Multipurpose Cooperative; and the Moog-Baguio Credit Cooperative. Cooperative banks submitting their credit reports include the Mindanao Consolidated and Network Consolidated. Rural banks, meanwhile, consist of the following: Frontier Rural Bank Inc.; Marayo Bank Inc. (A Rural Bank); Misamis Bank Inc. (A Rural Bank); Rural Bank of Leganes (Iloilo) Inc.; and, Zambales Rural Bank Inc.

Other lending companies and banks that are now part of the network include the following: Accutrust Lending Corp., Advantage Lending Corp., Camfin Lending Inc., Chang Hwa Commercial Bank Ltd., First Metro Investment Corp. and Metro-Cebu Public Savings Bank. Beneficial Life Insurance Co. is included in the database as well. Meanwhile, Aileen Amor-Bautista, CIC’s senior vice president for business development and communications, explained that the coronavirus pandemic has changed the credit landscape. “The challenges brought about by the pandemic are not just from a risk management perspective, but from the very basic issues of how to actually get, apply for, assess, and deliver credit to the borrowers at a time when travel and other physical activities are restricted,” she said. Garchitorena said that the crisis has adversely impacted the financial position of businesses and individuals. But being able to provide credit data for loan restructuring could help “avoid massive financial failures of businesses and individual borrowers, both during and postrecovery period of the economy,” he added. The CIC has told lenders last April to be more considerate during the health crisis, advising them not to tag missed or partial payments of loans as default or delinquent right away. Garchitorena has said that nonpayment of a borrower during the lockdown period should not be a basis of one’s creditworthiness. He also encourages lenders to analyze historical data as well “to see the whole picture.”

Perspectives The new consumer: Financially constrained and more savvy

lobally, a new consumer is emerging—one that is financially constrained, more advanced in their use of digital technologies, more thoughtful and selective in their decision-making, and keen to see Covid-19 as an opportunity to reset values in the world. The changes we’re seeing are likely not short term. Most consumers believe they will be living their lives very differently for the foreseeable future. Businesses will be faced with new challenges in this new reality. Our research identifies three areas to inform organizations’ decisions and plans: 1) The economic impact of Covid-19 will influence behaviors for some time to come. On average, 40 percent of respondents are financially constrained and are, therefore, reducing their discretionary spend. New and persistent consumer segments have emerged based on the economic and psychological impact of Covid-19. Those most affected (economically and psychologically) are less inclined to pay a premium for branded products or nice-to-have experiential factors and are deferring non-essential purchases. 2) The new consumer is digitally savvy and embraces the ease with which they can interact with organizations through digital channels. Organizations have responded to Covid-19 with high levels of innovation, including greater digital access to purchasing and customer support. Consumers of all ages are keen for this to continue. 3) Consumers increasingly pur-

chase from organizations they trust, at a time where trust is becoming more complex to build. Historically, trust was driven by whether organizations delivered on the brand promise. Now, trust is multidimensional and nuanced: trust that companies will continue to put the consumer’s needs first, trust that the consumer will be safe dealing with them and trust that their data will be secure and protected. In addition, younger respondents are concerned about a company’s environmental and social practices. Organizations must focus on digital enablement of their customer and be clear on where they need to win the customer’s trust. Each of the trends identified in our study accelerated with the beginning of Covid-19. This study confirms that they are persistent both over time and geography, and that their combined impact on consumers’ behaviors has stark implications for organizations. Companies can no longer protect their price positioning with experiential factors (e.g. in-store coffee shops) that now have less direct benefit to the consumer.

The excerpt was taken from KPMG Thought Leadership article, “Consumers and the new reality: Preparing for changing customer needs, behaviors and expectations.” © 2020 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member-firm of the KPMG network of independent member-firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity. All rights reserved. Printed in the Philippines. For more information on KPMG in the Philippines, you may visit www.kpmg.com.ph.

Monday, July 27, 2020 B3

NG subsidies to state-run firms jump to nearly ₧170B

By Bernadette D. Nicolas

@BNicolasBM

he national government’s subsidies to state-run corporations jumped more than 6-fold to nearly P170 billion for the first half of the year from the same period last year, the latest data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed. The BTr data revealed that government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) received P169.530 billion in subsidies as of end-June from only P26.698 billion in the same period last year. State-run pension fund Social

Security System (SSS) cornered the bulk, or 30 percent, of the total subsidies for the same period for its implementation of the P51-billion Small Business Wage Subsidy program. The program is expected to help ease the financial burden of

workers affected by the lockdown measures against the Covid-19 pandemic. Receiving the next biggest subsidy as of end-June is the National Food Authority (NFA) with P37.650 billion followed by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) with P26.174 billion, the National Irrigation Administration (P17.833 billion), the Light Rail Transit Authority (P11.151 billion) and the National Electrification Administration (P11.015 billion). The national government gives subsidies to GOCCs either to cover operations that are not supported by corporate revenues or to fund specific programs or projects. Of the total subsidies for the first half of the year, 51.17 percent or P86.748 billion went to major nonfinancial government corporations

while the remaining 48.83 percent or P82.782 billion was allocated to other government corporations. For June alone, the government disbursed a total of P69.161 billion, a 9-fold rise from only P7.040 billion in the same month in 2019. Taking the biggest share (45.18 percent) of subsidies for June was the NFA with P31.250 billion followed by PhilHealth with P26.173 billion and the National Housing Authority with P7.460 billion. Of the total subsidies for June, major non-financial government corporations hauled 59.63 percent or P41.243 billion while other government corporations took 40.37 percent or P27.918 billion. In 2019, the government extended record P201.524 billion in subsidies, a 47.47 percent hike from P136.652 billion in 2018.

Congress asked: Pass tax relief for pro bono doctors By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

et to resume plenary sessions this week, Senator Grace Poe prodded Congress to frontload passage of an enabling legislation granting tax incentives for frontline doctors providing free medical assistance amid the Covid-19 contagion. In pushing its early enactment into law, Poe said Senate Bill (SB) 1715 was intended to pave the way for tax credits to deserving doctors rendering vital services without pay, pointing out that volunteer doctors who “braved the frontlines—with or without the pandemic—to give their services for free to where healthcare needs are at their direst deserve recognition and incentives.” To be known as the Physician Pro Bono Care Act, SB 1715 provides that physicians rendering free services to indigent patients shall be entitled

to a tax credit to be deducted from their gross income. Poe pointed out that many doctors took it “upon themselves to volunteer and render free health services to our people who cannot afford to seek medical attention.” Pressing timely passage of the remedial law, the senator sees the tax incentive as “a way of giving back for their selflessness, commitment and expertise.” At the same time, the Senator clarified that while a favorable tax incentive would result in less tax revenue, generating more free physicians’ services could ‘lead to long-term savings for the government’s health insurance program, which would offset potential revenue losses.” As provided in the bill, the Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) shall evaluate the pro bono services rendered by the volunteer physicians, considering the number

of hours and the nature of treatment involved. It further provides that the Bureau of Internal Revenue shall promulgate the implementing rules and regulation for the implementation of the Pro Bono Law, in consultation with the DOH and the PMA. Poe assured that the enabling law was crafted to affirm “the constitutional right of Filipinos to have access to health services, and for the government to endeavor to provide free medical care to the poor.” Citing figures indicating that in 2019, the Philippines had a “woeful doctor-to-patient ratio” of 1:33,000– far from the 1:6,600 global average, the lawmaker lamented that “worse, six out of 10 Filipinos die without seeing a doctor.” She acknowledged the Covid-19 pandemic challenged the country’s healthcare system and highlighted the importance of having adequate number of doctors in protecting

Advocates bat for ensuring health laws amply funded

ealth care advocates are urging lawmakers to ensure the adequate funding for the implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act and National Integrated Cancer Control Act (Nicca) to keep the country move forward. “We cannot wait until this pandemic is completely over in order to revive the economy. With public health and the economy in the balance, the way forward is for the government to utilize the next year’s budget to reform the country’s health care system, strengthen social protection, and provide the much-needed enabling regulatory environment coupled by transparency and accountability measures,” Victor Andres C. Manhit, president of the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute (ADRi), said during a virtual townhall discussion on July 24. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, the prime proponent of the UHC law and the Nicca as then-chairman of the Senate committee on health, expressed strong support for the fast implementation of the two laws. “I will not allow any delay in the implementation of this law [UHC], since this will be a disservice to the Filipino people. This is a landmark law, which should start to benefit ALL Filipinos,” Ejercito said. “I will also appeal to our former colleagues to support the needed budget of the NICC Act.

More than a year since this law was passed, it is now high time to push for its gradual implementation,” the former Senator added. For his part, Paul Perez, president of the Cancer Coalition of the Philippines, asked the Department of Budget and Management and health care advocates in Congress to ensure that adequate funds are allocated for cancer treatment as required under Section 32 of the Nicc law, which states that the amount should be included in the General Appropriations Act. “Having this budget line item will secure that cancer funds will be available, as not allocating one may bring about bigger health issues, which will put more pressure on the already overstretched health system,” Perez said. Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ruiz Daza, vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said funding for these laws should be prioritized as several laws that were passed in previous years remain to be funded. Rep. Alfred Vargas of the 5th District of Quezon City expressed support for the funding of the two health care laws. “I am here to reiterate my undying support to the public health sector, as one of the principal sponsors of the Nicca. We have approached the DBM and Speaker [Alan Peter] Cayetano regarding the funds needed for our costs,” Vargas said.

and advancing public health. Poe also noted that the pandemic also widened the gap to quality healthcare access among the poor and the marginalized. “Truthful to their oath, doctors reduce or even forgo their fees based on patients’ circumstances. But we recognize that they also have a need to sustain their profession and that’s where tax incentives could be most helpful,” Poe said. She also suggested that “if doctors could write off their pro bono work on their taxes, we would see more charity care.” “This is a win-win situation for patients and doctors,” she added. At the same time, the Senator clarified that while a favorable tax incentive would result in less tax revenue, generating more free physicians’ services could lead to long-term savings for the government’s health insurance program, which would offset potential revenue losses.

STI first school operator to borrow from Landbank

he Land Bank of the Philippines Inc. announced STI Education Services Group Inc. (STI-ESGI) as the first academic institution to participate in its lending program weeks after government allowed schools to reopen on August. In a statement over the weekend, LandBank said STI-ESGI—STI Holdings’ largest subsidiary—has signed a P250-million term loan rediscounting deal. Landbank President and CEO Cecilia C. Borromeo expressed gratitude to STI-ESGI Executive Committee Chairman Eusebio H. Tanco “to finance and ensure the enrollment of around 15,000 to 25,000 students in STI colleges and academic centers this upcoming school year.” STI-ESGI CEO Monico V. Jacob was quoted in the statement as saying the credit support from Landbank was a “much needed relief” given that 70 percent of STI-ESGI’s students are supported by repatriated overseas workers. “We are committed to the education of our youth, and we are happy to work with Landbank to make sure their future will continue to be bright and hopeful,” Jacob said. Other schools that are participating in Landbank’s credit program are Medical Colleges of Northern Philippines Inc. and the International School of Asia and Pacific Inc. Landbank added that at least 80 more private academic institutions expressed interest in availing the lending facility. The approved amount is part of the P3-billion credit support to private academic institutions the state-run bank launched in early May. The lending facility can be availed by private high schools, private technical and vocational education training institutions, as well as higher education institutions such as colleges and universities. The loan will be released via lump sum or staggered basis per semester. It will be directly credited to the deposit account maintained by the school with the bank. Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

Philippine Savings Bank declares 7.5-percent regular cash dividends for Q2

hilippine Savings Bank (PSBank) declared 7.5-percent regular cash dividends for the second quarter, amounting to a total of P320.14 million. The subsidiary of Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (MetroBank), said that its board of directors approved the distribution of P0.75-per-share

dividend to common stockholders during a meeting last week. All the stockholders will receive payment by August 24. PSBank declared dividends for the first quarter in April, with the payment settled not later than May 21. It also amounted to P320.14 million or P0.75 per share. This month, the listed bank

launched PSBank Mobile Time Deposit placement which is a digital service allowing clients to open peso time deposits via mobile phone. The Metrobank consumer banking arm said that this offering is an investment option for customers who have extra funds willing to be set aside for up to 90-day period to

earn fixed-rate returns. PSBank is requiring a minimum placement of P10,000 to open a peso time deposit account. In the first quarter, the bank saw its earnings decline by 5.1 percent to P646.2 million on the back of higher buffer against potential increase in credit loss amid the pandemic. Net

interest income for the period improved to 21.8 percent to P3.2 billion year-on-year while net services fees reached P458.1 million. Total loan portfolio, meanwhile, climbed by 3.6 percent to P165 billion in the first three months, bringing 1.8-percent growth for total assets at P240.3 billion. The bank’s capital

adequacy ratio was 17.2 percent as of end-March, which is above regulatory minimum of 10 percent. “PSBank has a strong balance sheet and capital position coming into this unprecedented situation,” PSBank President Jose Vicente Alde said in an earlier disclosure. Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

Style

BusinessMirror

Monday, July 27, 2020

The vintage advantage

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Today’s Horoscope By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Taylor Schilling, 36; Jonathan Rhys Meyers, 43; Cassandra Clare, 47; Maya Rudolph, 48. Happy Birthday: Look at what you want to achieve, and put your energy behind the blueprint you mapped out for the upcoming year. Expect someone to put emotional pressure on you, and be ready to make adjustments to ensure it won’t happen again. Choose to ease stress. Your numbers are 4, 17, 20, 28, 32, 34, 41.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Spice up your life. Make personal and physical changes that will add pizzazz and push you into the spotlight, where you can make a difference. Change begins with you, so stop waiting and start doing. HHH

N 1947, the world was still reeling from the aftermath of World War II. So, when Princess Elizabeth, heir presumptive to the throne of the United Kingdom, wed Philip, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, the fabric for her wedding gown was purchased using ration coupons. As we continue to grapple with the Covid-19 pandemic, another royal bride, Princess Beatrice, sends an equally compelling statement for austerity, upcycling and sustainability. She wore a dress borrowed from her grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, to her wedding to property developer and BritishItalian noble Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi on July 17. The wedding, held at the Royal Chapel of All Saints, Royal Lodge, Windsor, was kept secret from the public. It was originally scheduled on May 29 at Saint James’ Palace at Westminster. The royals were not exempted from Covid-19 protocols. Only 20 were invited and the ceremony observed shorter rituals, social distancing, and no singing. ROYAL STYLE Norman Hartnell (1901-1979) gained the Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 1940 and Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. But before his official designation, he designed the wedding and coronation gowns of the Queen. He also created the costumes for Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). For an official function in Rome in 1961, Hartnell created a sleeveless long dress with a voluminous skirt for the Queen. She later wore it to the premiere of Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole, in 1962 and for the Opening of State Parliament in 1966. It is this dress that Beatrice, 31, borrowed from the Queen, with some sophisticated repurposing, as the Queen’s current dressmaker Angela Kelly, along with designer Stewart Parvin, added organza sleeves. Buckingham Palace said that the dress is “made from peau de soie taffeta in shades of ivory and trimmed with ivory duchess satin, with organza sleeves. It is encrusted with diamanté and has a geometric checked bodice.” The Queen also lent Beatrice the Queen Mary Fringe Tiara, previously worn by the Queen at her wedding and by Princess Anne at her first wedding in 1973. The diamond tiara was made in 1919 by the Garrard and Co. for Queen Mary, fashioned from a diamond necklace given by Queen Victoria. The young princess’s use of the dress and the tiara holds a special meaning. Her real name is Beatrice Elizabeth Mary. FIRST LADY STYLE THE beautiful widow Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy moved back to New York in 1964, the same year the soon-to-be Italian Emperor of Fashion, Valentino, showed a blockbuster collection in the city. “Jackie ordered six haute couture dresses and soon after began wearing Valentino almost exclusively for several years. In 1968, the former First Lady donned Valentino when she wed her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, and thus became ‘Jackie O,’” according to Valentinogaravanimuseum.com. Jackie’s wedding to the Greek shipping tycoon

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Keep everyone guessing. Don’t commit to anything until you are sure it’s what you want to do. If a change isn’t going to make your life better, take a pass until something else comes along. HHH

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Don’t settle for less. If you want more, do what’s necessary and don’t complain. Take charge of your life before someone tries to take over. Be direct, and do whatever it takes to please yourself. HHH

Princess Beatrice (2020) and Queen Elizabeth II (1961) in Norman Hartnell GETTY IMAGES; BENJAMIN WHEELER-WPA POOL/GETTY IMAGES

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You are overdue for a change. Look at your options, and consider how best to use your skills to get ahead. Look at a partnership proposal carefully, and consider the motives involved before you engage in something that may compromise you. HHHHH

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Get involved in something that moves and inspires you. Gather knowledge, pick up skills and focus on what’s important to you. Refuse to let an emotional incident result in an undesirable change. HH

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Look at your options, and offer better alternatives. Intelligence will override inconsistency and emotional tactics to manipulate situations. Do what’s right, and associate with those who bring out the best in you. HHHH

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Spend more time nurturing essential relationships and making personal changes that make you feel and look your best. Refuse to let anyone bring you down or put you in a vulnerable position. HHH

Jennifer Lopez (2003) and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1967) in Valentino OSCAR.COM/PINTEREST

pre-dated her visit to Cambodia in 1967, where she wore a teal one-shouldered, floor-length gown with embroidery. The Queen of American Style conquered the Khmers in a Valentino ensemble. That unforgettable frock was reincarnated at the Oscars red carpet in 2003 when Jennifer Lopez, Jenny from the Block, ignited her glamorous transformation. SUPERMODEL STYLE “I remember when my aunt was trying on dresses for the year she was nominated and won, and the dress she wore, I said lovingly, ‘You should wear the skunk dress!’” Emma Roberts told Ryan Seacrest in 2017 about her auntie, at the time the most famous actress in the world, Julia Roberts. Julia won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her role in Erin Brockovich. She received the award in a black and white Valentino dress frequently cited as one of the best seen in an Oscars ceremony. The dress is so memorable that it even has its own Wikepedia entry: “Black and white Valentino dress of Julia Roberts.” The couture piece was from the Valentino Fall/ Winter 1992-1993 collection. French model Nadege

Julia Roberts (2001) and Christy Turlington (1992) in Valentino PEOPLE/PATRICK DEMARCHELIER FOR HARPER’S BAZAAR US

first wore it a party and years later, Czech model Karolina Kurkova wore it at an Oprah show when Valentino was a guest. The supermodel Christy Turlington was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier wearing the dress for the US Harper’s Bazaar October 1992 issue. The description reads: “The 1940s femme fatale, always in the most glamorous gown. Black velvet [Taroni] dress with a black tulle [Taroni] train, accented with white satin striping.” Variations of the dress has been displayed in museums but the original is with Julia as she’s reserving it for future use by her daughter. “It’s under my bed, in a box,” she told People magazine in 2017. “I have this little space in my house that my husband refers to as the heritage collection. Things I go, ‘I can’t get rid of [this], what about Hazel?’” Valentino himself said that Julia wearing his dress is a career highlight. “I have dressed so many people but I have to be sincere. The person that made me feel so very, very happy was Julia Roberts. When she got the Academy Award for Erin Brockovich I watched it on television and really I was so excited that she appeared in my dress. It makes me so very happy and proves once more that movie stars love my clothes.” n

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You’ll find it difficult to make up your mind and control your emotions. Learn from the experience, and you’ll recognize what you have to do to get what you want. Intelligent, practical ideas will help you do what’s right. HHH

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Spend time tidying up unfinished business. Clear the way for better projects. Set your sights on long-term plans and updating contracts that can save or make you money. Show others what you have to offer. HHH

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Take what you do best to a whole new level. Update your skills, technology and attitude, and you’ll step into a position that suits your lifestyle. A change at home conducive to added income looks inviting. HHHH

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Don’t feel you have to do what someone else is doing. Consider what brings you the most joy, and head in that direction. Personal improvements will energize you and give you the confidence to present and promote what you have to offer. HH

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Focus on contracts, health, legal and money matters. How you approach others will determine the response you get. Question anything that doesn’t sound realistic or honest, and make sure someone’s motives are honorable before you commit. HHHHH Birthday Baby: You are energetic, playful and passionate. You are aggressive and sensitive.

Closures, bankruptcies in fashion, beauty industries

BLK cosmetics’ Universal 2.0 collection is doing well sales-wise despite the pandemic. @BLKCOSMETICSPH ON INSTAGRAM

IT would be safe to say that as far as retail is concerned, 2020 has definitely not been a good year and before year’s end, many brands will close while others will shift to e-commerce, or do a combination of brick-and-mortats and e-commerce. In May, Victoria’s Secret said that it will close 250 of its stores in the US with additional closings seen in the coming months. L Brands, Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, said it will also close 50 Bath and Body Works stores in the US and one in Canada. Because of the effects of Covid-19 in the retail sector, Muji USA Ltd. has sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed its 18 stores in the US. In March, the brand said it would concentrate on online sales. Swedish fast fashion brand Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) has also suffered losses because of Covid-19. It closed nearly 200 stores worldwide and has increased its online customer base. In June, Inditex, the company that owns Zara, announced that it would shutter 1,200 stores worldwide and boost online sales because of the pandemic. Inditex also owns Bershka, Pull & Bear and Massimo Dutti. Even the beauty industry has been hard-hit, but the findings of a McKinsey & Company Global Consumer Sentiment Survey published in May reveal, “There are signs the beauty industry may once again prove relatively resilient.” In China, McKinsey reported that online revenues for beauty industry players rose 20 to 30 percent even during the outbreak. According to the survey, “above-the-mask treatments” are doing well. “Skin care, hair care, and bath-and-body products

appear to be benefiting from self-care and pampering trends.” I will attest to the fact that many of the people I follow on Instagram have been purchasing not only skin-care items, like serums, sunscreens and creams, but also makeup like skin tint, foundation and lip balm-lipstick hybrids and tints. Very popular are items from blk cosmetics, Benefit Cosmetics, Clio Professional, Romand and 3CE. This is what I noticed: People want value for money. They’re buying slightly expensive skin-care stuff if they come in bundles and there are actual “savings.” I put the word in quotations marks because you’re not really saving any money, you’re spending it. I’m more concerned about the beauty services side of the industry. Dashing Diva, for instance, has been closed since March and while there’s

nothing I want more than to have my nails done, I am not sure if I can do it even if they opened. I’d rather have my inexpertly cut nails than put myself and the nail therapist at risk. I’m also thinking of beauty salons. The one I regularly go to has sent a message announcing they’re again open for business and that I can now book an appointment, but I really can’t. I’m not scared for myself alone. I’m also concerned about them. I don’t know if I have an illness or something and could potentially infect anyone. It’s sad that small businesses like salons and spas will be the casualties of this pandemic. I think of the workers who will lose their jobs and their families who will be severely affected. I and a friend, who runs a PR and influence marketing agency, were talking recently and we agreed that in the industry we’re in, there are so many people who have been badly affected by the pandemic. It’s not only the employees who have been retrenched. We are thinking of the carpenters who do the set-ups for events, the cooks and waiters of catering companies, the photographers and their assistants, the makeup artists, and the many other people who depend on the launches and press conferences that are no longer being staged because of Covid-19. These people mostly work on a per project basis and they don’t have benefits. This is why I have no words for those who say the Earth is resetting and all that New Age stuff. These are people we’re talking about. So what happens when the Earth has reset? Will the reset or delete human beings?

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Stepping Into a Leadership Role?

Be Ready to Tell Your Story.

By David M. Sluss

details will make you seem more relatable and may help lay the groundwork for presenting your vision for change and continuity at a later stage. While it may seem as if relaying that vision right away will help you get your reports excited about you, you may not want to rush in, choosing to wait until you know the staff better.

tepping into a role as a leader is both challenging and exciting. How you handle this transition can have a huge impact on your career. You need to hit the ground running not only with your bosses and key stakeholders, but also with your direct reports. Research shows that having a 90-day plan with 30-day and 60day milestones along the way increases your chances of success. But while these plans are great tools, direct reports will evaluate who you are and what you bring to the table long before you hit those milestones. Indeed, they’ll make “sticky” evaluations of you from the very first conversation. That’s why I think you should have a “Day 1” plan, or what I like to call a “new-leader pitch.” You should never assume your direct reports will automatically follow your lead just because you have the title of manager or vice president. You must win them over, and you should have a strategy for doing so that you can translate into a cogent set of talking points to guide all your early conversations with them. What should a new-leader pitch include? To answer this question, I asked full-time professionals, via an online survey platform, what they would want to learn from a new leader in their first conversation. In total 278 people responded. Based on their responses and the research I have conducted over the past decade on work relationships and new employee onboarding, I have created the recommendations that I discuss in this article. Before you create your newleader pitch, you should pause to consider what your direct reports might want to learn from their new leader in their first conversation. Based on my research, you can di-

vide your employees roughly into two groups: “warriors” and “worriers.” Each group had a distinct set of concerns. Chances are, you’ll have representatives of each type among your reports, so you’ll need to figure out how to address both in your pitch. Warriors will evaluate your knowledge, competencies, experience and leadership approach to decide if they will support you. They will want to know if you can handle the job and understand how to help them do theirs better — or will just get in their way. Worriers, in contrast, are more focused on whether you’re a “safe” investment that makes them feel secure in their jobs. How can you set these reports at ease? By clarifying job expectations and sharing your plans for the future. To a d d r e s s b o t h g r o u p s , make sure your pitch provides information on your competencies and the changes you want to make, your experience and expectations, and your overall leadership approach. Jonathan (a pseudonym), a global product development associate at a pharmaceutical company based in the Caribbean who responded to my survey, described how a hired leader did all this in an initial conversation: “The new leader reviewed his past accomplishments in significant detail. It was impressive. He laid out his approach to learning the priorities of the various departments. He also told me that although he would restructure the organization to

Don’t just share your résumé, but do tell them your ‘story’

support the business, jobs and opportunities would expand. No one would be fired, but everyone would need to interview again for positions. That first meeting left quite an impression, and I was excited to see what was to come.” Although it’s true that the prospect of interviewing for positions might have alarmed some worriers, setting clear expectations settled the future for them. As you craft your new-leader pitch, you should also reflect on how you could get off on the wrong foot — and what you should be do-

ing instead. Focusing on the two recommendations below will help:

Don’t overshare, but do relate to reports on a personal level

Relationships with supervisors can be powerful motivators. Research shows that when a direct report has a strong connection with a leader, the report is more likely to identify with the organization, engage in creative behavior and help others at work. As one professional said in the survey, a good connection with the boss helps with morale and teamwork.

Interestingly, another respondent, an information-technology consultant, provided nuanced guidance on how to create a productive connection by sharing a small bit about their personal life. “Nothing too revealing, but enough to make them feel like an actual person,” he said. Another professional went a bit further: “I would like to know them more, not just about where they worked. ….If they could do anything in life besides what they are doing now, what would that be?” Ultimately, sharing personal

While warriors may be examining your experience and worriers may be wondering how it influences your approach to them, both groups want to know about your work history. In particular, they want you to stake your claim as the new leader through your career “story,” or narrative. They want to know, for instance, why this particular job makes sense for you at this time. As one warrior said, “I would like to know what led my supervisor to get into a role like this. We help hospices manage their patient care, and our company is only medium-size and not wealthy. It takes a certain kind of person to give up money and work for a good cause.” In your narrative, you can and should project your story into the future. Indeed, several respondents to my survey wanted to know about their new leader’s goals for the leadership position itself. A health care industry professional commented: “I would like to know what their vision for the position entails and how this vision affects me personally.” Employees also appreciate it when you explain why your new position is integral to your story and, most important, how your direct reports play a critical role in that story. Everybody likes to be part of a story—especially a success story. And if, as a new leader, you put some thought into how to make a good first impression on your reports and win their support, you can help them be part of yours. David M. Sluss is an associate professor of organizational behavior at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business.

Develop a ‘probabilistic’ approach to managing uncertainty By Mike Walsh

hen faced with uncertainty, how should leaders react? Should they make a big bet, hedge their position or just wait and see? Investors and traders might be adept at managing risk and unforeseen events, but in other industries, leaders can be blindsided by the unknown. We naturally tend to see situations in one of two ways: Either events are certain and can therefore be managed through planning, processes and reliable budgets; or they are uncertain, and we cannot manage them well at all. Fortunately, there is another approach. Enter Thomas Bayes, an English statistician and clergyman, who in 1763 proposed a theorem that would forever change the way we think about making decisions in ambiguous conditions. Bayes was interested in how our beliefs about the world should evolve as we accumulate new but unproven evidence. Specifically, he wondered how he could predict the probability of a future event if he only knew how many times it had occurred, or not, in the past. To answer that question, he constructed a thought experiment.

Imagine you are at a billiard table. You put on a blindfold and an assistant randomly rolls a ball across the table. Your job is to figure out where the ball is. All you can really do at this point is make a random guess. Now imagine that you ask your assistant to drop some more balls on the table and tell you whether they stop to the left or right of the first ball. If all the balls stop to the right, what can you say about the position of the first ball? If more balls are thrown, how does this improve your knowledge of the position of the first ball? In fact, throw after throw, you should be able to narrow down the area in which the first ball probably lies. Bayes figured out that even when it comes to uncertain outcomes, we can update our knowledge by incorporating new, relevant information as it becomes available. You can find evidence of Bayesian thinking throughout modern history. For example, 19th-century French and Russian artillery officers would use it to adjust their cannons to account for uncertainties about the enemies’ location, air density and wind direction. It even influenced the design of artificial intelligence and machine learning

techniques. For modern leaders, Bayesian thinking has become increasingly influential. At Amazon.com one of the 14 leadership principles is “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit,” which—as explained by the founder and CEO Jeff Bezos— is a strategy to encourage leaders to avoid wasting time trying to secure universal agreement. Better to commit to a controversial decision, and then gather data and adjust if necessary. Data can be imperfect, incomplete and uncertain. There is often more than one explanation for why things happened the way they did; and by examining those alternative explanations using probability, you can gain a better understanding of causality and what is really going on. However, thinking probabilistically takes some getting used to, as the human mind is naturally deterministic. We generally believe that something is true or false. Either you like someone or you don’t. There is rarely, for example, a situation when you can say that there is a 46% probability that someone is your friend. However, the deterministic approach won’t help you make good deci-

sions in complex, unpredictable environments. One of the best ways to embrace uncertainty and be more probabilistic in your approach is to learn to think like a professional gambler, as the experience of Rasmus Ankersen, a Danish author, public speaker and former soccer player, shows. Ankersen, who now lives in London, originally traveled to the UK to look for a publisher for a book on human performance he had written. One of the reasons he decided to stay in London was to have the chance to meet with Matthew Benham, a professional gambler who had founded two gaming companies: Matchbook, a sports betting exchange community, and Smartodds, which provides statistical research and sports modeling services. When Ankersen and Benham met, they started talking about how soccer was a sport that was yet to be disrupted by data and probabilistic thinking. Benham was impressed enough to invite Ankersen to help run Brentford Football Club, which he had recently acquired. Soon after, Benham also bought FC Midtjylland, the soccer club in Ankersen’s hometown. Ankersen’s insight was this:

Soccer is one of the world’s most unfair sports. Although there is a saying that “the league table never lies,” in Ankersen’s opinion that is exactly what it does. Because soccer is a low-scoring sport, the win/loss outcome of a game is not an accurate representation of the actual performance of a team, and therefore the intrinsic value of its players. From a professional gambler’s perspective, the key to placing a good bet is to continually update your position with relevant insights that impact the probability of an event occurring. Rather than trying to be right, gamblers strive to be less wrong with time. Benham and Ankersen started to use the scientific application of statistics—the “moneyball” technique pioneered in baseball—when assessing the performance of a team. Their key performance metric became “expected goals” for and against a team, based on the quality and quantity of chances created during a match. The point of this exercise was to develop an alternative league table, which might serve as a more reliable predictor of results and a better basis on which to value and acquire players. Benham and Ankersen’s approach has lessons for all kinds of

leaders as they seek to incorporate more data into their decisionmaking. A probabilistic human resources manager, for example, might examine the data about where a company’s best people come from and how they perform throughout their career to identify new sources of talent that may have been overlooked. A probabilistic sales professional might be conscious that it’s not enough to simply close lots of deals; it’s critical to also think about where leads come from. Rather than relying on inflexible credit policies, a probabilistic risk manager might start to look deeper into their data to see if there are low-risk segments in their customer base that they may have missed. Developing a probabi listic mindset allows you to be better prepared for the uncertainties and complexities of our world. Even when events are determined by an infinitely complex set of factors, probabilistic thinking can help us identify the most likely outcomes and the best decisions to make.

Mike Walsh is the author of The Algorithmic Leader: How to Be Smart When Machines Are Smarter Than You.

B6 Monday, July 27, 2020

Hinatuan Mining declares success in ‘Coral Gardening’

Hinatuan Mining divers monitor the coral nursery twice weekly to record its detailed growth and to graph survival rates.

INATUAN Mining Corp. (HMC) announces with pride the success of its coral nursery project in the island of Hinatuan, Tagana-an, Surigao del Norte. HMC is a subsidiary of Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC). “The coral nursery initiative, designed and implemented by HMC’s Mine Environmental Protection and Enhancement Department (MEPEO), aims to further enhance the growth of the natural coral reef systems around the marine waters of the island,” explains Forester Manuel A. Torres, Jr., HMC’s MEPEO lead and Envi-Manager. For Jusua dela Peña, HMC’s dedicated marine biologist, ‘success’ means that in less than a year of establishing the nursery – initially with 343 coral fragments in 4 nursery beds – the coral fragments have fully recovered with an excellent growth rate and a yield of 90% survival against a mortality rate of 10%. The nursery begins the successful coral gardening in Hinatuan Island as healthy coral “outgrowths” are transplanted to propagate the coral garden. The United Nations (UN) connects coral

gardening to the current narratives about the pandemic, detailing how humans and our livelihood are connected to corals in so many ways: the fish that live on coral reefs provide food; coral reefs are draws for tourists who bring in the cash that provide livelihood; that there are new medicines being developed from species found in coral reefs; and, that coral reefs help in the protection of our shores from erosion and pollution. “We know that the priority right now is to keep the communities and our workforce healthy and safe from the virus, but we at HMC will never stop finding ways to also protect the environment and enhance the island’s marine resources,” explains dela Peña. Engr. Francis J. Arañes, Jr., HMC’s Resident Mine Manager, is most happy about the success of the company’s ‘coral gardening’ because it showcases the healthy waters surrounding the mine site, which is something to be greatly proud of as a miner. “The coral nursery is located 200 meters from the mine site’s pier and 6 meters in depth from the water line. The excellent growth of the corals signifies that the water

quality around the mine and HMC’s marine resources are a healthy support to the overall water ecosystem,” Arañes explains. “The objective of this program is to highlight NAC-HMC’s sustainable best practices in marine protection, emphasizing our initiatives, as a responsible mining company, in resources protection and tourism development,” Arañes adds. As a marine biologist, dela Peña attests to ‘growing corals’ as being labor-intensive, requiring dedication and focus. The nursery is monitored twice weekly with the help of experts and licensed-divers. Every inch of growth is recorded, ever recovery rate or otherwise, graphed. “We cannot emphasize enough the importance of ‘coral gardening’ and we at HMC, as responsible miners, are obviously very passionate about this. Coral gardening plays a significant part in the sustainable development of our environment and in maintaining the integrity of our ecosystem,” dela Peña adds. Dela Peña explains further that, most importantly, the involvement of the community is a vital component to the success of the coral garden. Everyone in the mining communities must be taken in as part of the drive to reach the full potentials of the project. This means intensive information, education and communication (IEC) campaigns about corals and, also, to declare the site of the nursery as marine protected area in order to minimize disturbance to allow the corals to reach its full growth to be healthy enough for massive propagations. The Hinatuan mine site, also known as the “Tagana-an Nickel Project”, is located in Barangay Talavera, Hinatuan Island, municipality of Tagana-an, the Province of Surigao del Norte. Its area of operations is within the Surigao Mineral Reservation.

Amid new normal, DDVMH actively advocates contactless payments and online consult services

ITH the practice of physical distancing expected to be prolonged, Dagupan Doctors Villaflor Memorial Hospital (DDVMH), a leading healthcare provider in the Metro Dagupan area, actively offers contactless payment options, so patients would not have to carry cash, lessening the chances of being infected by or being carriers of the new coronavirus. Patients availing of the hospital’s Villaflor On Demand and Hello Dok services can now pay via GCash and PayMaya. They may download and register on their e-wallet app of choice, then call DDVMH to avail of their needed services. The hospital’s call center agent will then request the needed details and provide the instructions and payment link for an efficient transaction.

Villaflor On Demand is the hospital’s mobile medical service offering laboratory extraction services in patients’ homes -- the first in the Metro Dagupan area -- as well as home delivery of medicines. Meanwhile,Hello Dok is an online consult program that allows patients to see a doctor through online channels such as Zoom, Facebook Messenger, Google Meet, and Doxy.me. Through this program, patients remain safe at home and avoid the risk of infection from the virus. Under this program are two services: Telekonsulta and COVID Helpline. Telekonsulta provides patients with non-emergency conditions with an alternative to consulting with their

doctors face-to-face. For COVID-related concerns, patients may opt to use the COVID Helpline. This service provides patients with medical information as well as preliminary counseling on COVID-19. To consult through the Hello Dok program, patients may contact the hospital using these numbers: 0917-7148564, 0939-903-3320, or (075) 522-7629. They may also reach DDVMH through email ddmh.helpdesk@gmail.com and facebook at facebook.com/ddvmh.helpdesk. By launching these off-site, contactless services, DDVMH is reinventing how medical centers provide healthcare, showing its expertise in meeting and going beyond Metro Dagupan’s medical needs.

Maynilad-DLSMC inaugurate Covid-19 Testing Center

AYNILAD Water Services, Inc., together with De Los Santos Medical Center (DLSMC), recently inaugurated the MayniladDLSMC Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) Testing Center at the DLSMC grounds in Quezon City. Considered the gold standard in Covid-19 infection testing, the construction of the facility was a result of a Php 15-M donation by Maynilad in response to the health pandemic which affects the lives of Filipino s nationwide. The inauguration was graced by Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC) Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan and Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings, Inc. (MPHHI) Chairman Augusto P. Palisoc, Jr. Both Maynilad and DLSMC are companies under MPIC, with DLSMC as one of 16 hospitals under Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings, Inc. Pangilinan recognized the frontliners working in the different hospitals and companies under the MPIC group. “It’s very important for us, the group, to show that despite the pandemic, we would be reporting to the office or hospital to show that we are committed in delivering the service that the people need. Part of the increased cases of the virus is due to lack of tracking and tracing that would be very important to contain the virus. My thanks to Maynilad for this laboratory. I think that’s what this country needs.”

Unveiling the commemorative plaque of collaboration at the Maynilad-DLSMC RT-PCR Testing Center are (from left) Metro Pacific Investments Corporation Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, DLSMC President and CEO Raul C. Pagdanganan, and Maynilad Water Services, Inc. President and CEO Ramoncito S. Fernandez.

Maynilad President and CEO Ramoncito S. Fernandez expressed gratitude for the support given by the holding company in the building of the facility. “I would like to thank MVP (Manuel V. Pangilinan) and the MVP group of hospitals for allowing Maynilad to contribute its own share in the MVP group objective of doubling the group’s COVID testing capacity. De Los Santos Medical Center is a proven reliable partner of Maynilad. We will con tinue to step up our health program for our employees and for the community.”

Once operational, the Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) laboratory will be capable of contributing an additional capacity of up to 200 RT-PCR confirmatory tests per day. “We will have the ability to isolate and care for patients better and more quickly. This can significantly impact the mitigation of the spread of the virus in the community. As we face our new normal, we will continue to ensure that our patients have access to quality care and the basics they need to be healthy,” says DLSMC President and CEO Raul C. Pagdanganan.

DOH OPENS SARANGANI PROVINCIAL OFFICE. The Department of Health and Center for Health Development recently opened the Sarangani Provincial DOH Office and Integrated Provincial Health Office (PDOHO-PHO) in Alabel town as part of expanding its services to the countryside. The P25-million PDOHO-PHO building is part of the P100-million Sarangani Health Care Facility (SHCF), which also covered the completion of the East Wing, operating room and wastewater treatment facility, and was funded through the efforts of Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao and Rep. Rogelio Pacquiao. The inaugural ceremony was attended by municipal local chief executives, Sangguniang Panlalawigan board members and department heads. In photo are (from left) provincial health officer Dr. Arvin Alejandro, DOH-CHD XII regional director Dr. Aristides Tan, Sarangani vice governor Elmer De Peralta, Sen. Pacquiao, and Atty. Ryan Ramos, chief of staff of Rep. Pacquiao.

Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman, Retired Brigadier General Danilo ‘Danny’ Lim receives the donations of Alcohol, Disinfectant Spray, Hygiene Kit and Probaton from Filipino Inventors Society Producers Cooperative (FISPC) Chairman Francisco ‘Popoy’ Pagayon, Publishers Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PAPI) President/FISPC Treasurer Nelson Santos and National Press Club (NPC) President/ FISPC Director Rolando Gonzalo. Pagayon said it’s their way of helping MMDA’s frontliners to fight off Covid-19 with the health essentials the FISPC shared. The Probaton can likewise be used by frontliners in warding off stubborn individuals, who refuse to strictly observe physical distancing.

Stories of humankind: Ayala Malls honors ordinary people doing extraordinary acts with Extra Mile Changemakers.

AYALA MALLS’ EXTRA MILE CHANGEMAKERS: For the past years, Ayala Malls has been recognizing amazing stories of employees whose selfless deeds deserve much gratitude through their Extra Mile program. Now on its 16th year, Ayala Malls expands the concept by including its merchant partners and communities to put a spotlight on ordinary people who do extraordinary things for others. Beginning July 1, the public is invited to share and nominate people whose selfless deeds are worth honoring and celebrating.

INDNESS. If there is anything the world needs more of today amidst the global pandemic and ensuing chaos experienced globally, it is precisely this. Countless heartwarming tales of generosity, selflessness, and benevolence are seen and talked about despite the abundance of dismaying news that befalls our communities daily. Not only is this testament to the strength of the human spirit, but also of our people’s infinite capacity to be our best selves during the worst possible situation. These are the inspiring accounts of a humble security guard who returned a wallet full of cash when he himself was in dire straits, a janitor who helped deliver gallons of water to his elderly neighbors after what was already an exhausting full day’s work, and a hardened-up restaurant cook/dishwasher who despite not having income when restaurants temporarily closed found it in his heart to volunteer his services for free and cooked meal packs intended for hospital front liners. The new normal saw an explosion of altruism among Filipinos. The true spirit of Bayanihan, be it big or small, is seen thru ordinary people doing extraordinary things and have gone the extra mile to help the community. These are stories of people going beyond the call of duty without asking for anything in return. These are stories of people who didn’t have to…but did anyway. These are stories of people going even farther. These are the stories of the Extra Mile Changemakers. Ayala Malls President Jennylle Tupaz shares, “Ayala Malls has always been the second home of its community and it is a place where memories are formed and stories unfold in the everyday lives of ordinary people who are capable of doing extraordinary things.”The Extra Mile Changemakers has been an ongoing effort by the Ayala Malls to recognize employees who have shown exemplary acts of altruism. Now on its 16th year, Ayala Malls aims to inspire more individuals and expand the scope of the program by including its merchant partners and communities.Tupaz added, “Our malls have been the venue for such amazing stories; not only through our employees but also through our stakeholders our malls serve. We want to put a spotlight on these ordinary people who do extraordinary things, and hopefully inspire more to do the same in their own little ways.”

Beginning July 1, Ayala Malls invites the public to share and nominate individuals whose noble deeds are truly worth celebrating. Tupaz continues, “This effort is a celebration of people. We believe there are hundreds or thousands of souls out there whose random acts of kindness perfectly fit the spirit of the Extra Mile Changemakers philosophy we wish to uphold. We thank and honor them for their positive contributions.” How to Nominate Extramile Changemakers, Go to the Ayala Malls’ website www.ayalamalls.com/extramile starting July 1-August 15, 2020, and share the individual you intend to nominate and his/her compelling story. All participating parties must be at least 13 years old. Complete the information required for both nominee and nominator indicated. All nominations must have occurred from March 16 to August 15, 2020. Selecting Extramile Changemakers, A special committee specially assembled for this project will verify and review the nominations based on their veracity, aptness, and congruity with the Extra Mile Changemakers mantra. The committee is composed of notable personalities and leaders in media, business, and public service. They are the ExtraMile Changemakers advocates, who themselves have outstanding contribution to the community and have dedicated their time and effort in cultivating a positive outlook while honoring the human spirit. The committee will deliberate on the nominations based on authenticity of purpose, resonance, and impact to society befitting of modern-day role model who inspires and serves regardless how big or small the contribution. Ayala Malls’Marketing Director Eunice Velasco emphasizes, “Extra Mile Changemakers is not a competition. We believe there is so much goodness around us, and no one act of kindness is better than the other. We want to share as many of these heartwarming stories that happen in our malls or within the communities of our establishments to give hope and encourage a more positive outlook.” If you know of an individual who went the extra mile for you or for others, please share their stories with us: Website: www.ayalamalls.com, Instagram: @ iloveayalamalls, Facebook: Ayala Malls, Twitter: @ayalamalls

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The coronavirus chronicles:

the new age of pr PR Matters By Millie F. Dizon

There will be a new in-house/ agency balance

With more companies enhancing their communications teams, “brands and companies may focus on building robust in house capabilities,” says Slater. Outside help, on the other hand, “will support the in-house team.” Slater looks at this as a welcome development that will bring out the best in each side of the relationship. While “inhouse personnel offer institutional and subject matter expertise, the strategic vision and tactical execution of an agency can complement that expertise.” All in all, “balance is the key; each side must contribute to bring about efficient, effective results-oriented strategies.”

The brick and mortar agency will decline

In retail, we refer to brick and

n Brand & Business: dentsu X ranked India’s #1 Media Agency for growth 3rd time in a row by RECMA

MUMBAI, INDIA—RECMA, the Independent research firm that evaluates media agencies, has ranked dentsu X India No. 1 in the “new business and client portfolio growth” category. This is the third consecutive year when dentsu X India, the integrated media specialist from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), has grabbed the No.1 spot on the list. For the record, RECMA, now in its 20th edition, is the only company to publish a wide range of media agency notation reports on a global scale. The study is based on four parameters—Qualitative Scores & Benchmark, Vitality Analysis, Structure Analysis and Activity Volume. With its rapid pace, dentsu X India has recorded a stellar growth of 35 percent in 2019 as compared to 2018. In fact, dentsu X India was the only market agency to grow more than 30 percent in Apac in 2019. The agency has been extensively active in 2020 and has been captured in all global regions as per RECMA’s latest analyses. Speaking on the occasion, Divya Karani, chief executive officer, dentsu X India commented, “The increasing number of discerning marketers, rec-

ognizing the difference dX delivers in this accelerated changing and challenging market, is a huge validation of our design. It is simple. We know where you want to go, and we do so with ambition, agility and flexibility. Again, and again and then again. The recognition of our trajectory by RECMA, now for the third consecutive year, is very pleasing.” RECMA has also ranked dentsu X Global as the world’s fastest-growing media agency for the second consecutive year. Here, dentsu X Global has been ranked No. 1 in terms of year-on-year growth globally at 18.4 percent. “To receive the title of the world’s fastest-growing agency for two consecutive years speaks volumes for not just our work that delivers transformative experiences for our clients, but also the passion of our teams across the world,” said Mike Nakamura, Global President, dentsu X. “This recognition sets the foundation for the ambitious future we have ahead of us and shows that our focus on Experience beyond Exposure is resonating with clients who are looking for an agency that not just delivers results, but also differentiation.” “Clients are increasingly recognising that a simple exposure isn’t enough to make a difference. Media can do so much more than expose; it can engage, entertain and ultimately add value,” added Sanjay Nazerali, Global MD, dentsu X. “We’re delighted that many of those clients have put their faith in us.” It is pertinent to note here that the 20th edition of

WWW.FREEPIK.COM | DESIGNED BY STORIES

IKE all things related to the coronavirus pandemic, change has redefined today’s PR practice. While most of us communication practitioners have focused on day-today concerns—work from home arrangements, spreading good news amid all the challenges, and handling crisis matters— we should use this opportunity to also think about the future. With the passing of months, it seems that these changes are here to stay and it is up to practitioners to understand them, embrace them, and to live with them. And with these come thoughts of what is to come. What indeed is the future of PR and PR agencies? It is said that with great challenges come great opportunities. And Alex Slater, founder and chief strategy officer of the Clyde group echoes this in his article “The Pandemic Will Hasten Changes in PR and PR Agencies in PR News.” Here are his thoughts:

mortar as the physical store. In agencies, we are referring to office space, which will be evolving. “In the wake of the pandemic, some PR firms will need to examine their real-estate costs,” says Slater. “Office space quickly has become a substantial expense, rather than an asset.” That said, “PR is a humanfirst business; being in the same room remains incredibly valuable.” While zoom meetings and work from home arrangements point to virtual arrangements, these “more than likely will not be complete.” Slater predicts that “agencies will retain offices, but they may resemble a free-flowing, coworking meeting space rather than a dedicated desk and cubicle office.” That practice social distancing and health protocols, may we add.

Every firm will be a crisis firm

Slater has observed that “the pandemic has turned nearly every communicator into an issues management consultant, wheth-

RECMA’s Overall Activity Research is a wider coverage compared to its previous editions. It has also covered 75 countries and analyzed over 1200 agencies.

n Music: Island Records sets sail on its first home base in Southeast Asia

MANILA, PHILIPPINES—Having earned its reputation for building a music empire that housed the discovery and management of today’s most prominent legends and stars in the music industry, Island Records is finally making its way to the local shores with the launch of its first regional headquarters in Southeast Asia. The British-Jamaican record label is looking to reinforce its position as a global powerhouse and expand its domestic reach via Island Records Philippines, the newest subsidiary based in Manila. In a recent virtual presser last July 21, 2020 (Tuesday), Managing Director of Universal Music Philippines Enzo Valdez takes pride of the record label’s efforts in trailblazing a new era of music culture. According to him, “Island Records is an iconic label that represents creativity, adventure, and authenticity. It celebrates artistry, individuality, and style, while also amplifying the voice of the artists.” With the record label’s initiative to give partner artists an opportunity to make history and be part of something big, expect only the best in terms of talent and artistry from its maiden roster of exciting, innovative

er they started in consumer PR or influencer marketing.” With that, “crisis management expertise has gone from a highly concentrated specialization to an expectation of every PR pro.” Likewise, “companies and brands will continue to demand issues-management sensibility from consultants, no matter the project.”

The profession will be democratized

During the lockdown, “there has been a Covid-19- motivated explosion of on-line resources, courses, and academic material—many are free or low cost— that can help any PR practitioner.” This has democratized the profession, allowed talent to grow further, and reminded us that our line of work demands constant learning and growth. While quarantine has been challenging, it has also allowed us opportunities to grow and to have new perspectives that will level the playing field.

and fresh new discoveries. The first six members in the Island Records Philippines’s family continue to take the country by storm as they answer the call to help redefine Original Pinoy Music and stand out in the global music arena with their unique brand and authenticity. Singer-songwriter and producer Fern and alt-pop outfit One Click Straight push their sound into new music horizons by incorporating indie and electronic sensibilities with heartfelt anthems that connect the personal with the universal. Both Lala Vinzon and Zack Tabudlo reinvent their pop past with impeccable showmanship and stylistic excursion into new musical directions. Over October heralds an easy-listening sound with cleverly crafted lyrics and emotionally resonant appeal that wouldn’t feel out of place in today’s most-streamed mood playlists. To complete the pioneering batch, multi-platinum band Juan Karlos plans to create an impact in the international and local music markets with the release of his newest single BLESS Ü. Island Records Philippines’s impressive roster of homegrown acts took the virtual stage on June 23 (Thursday) to give listeners a preview of their new music releases. The 90-minute digital launch, which was streamed live via MCA Music’s Facebook and YouTube channel, was hosted by top actor and celebrity endorser Tony Labrusca, and also featured several surprise international guests from the Island

Projects will become the new normal

forward to a new age of PR, where PR firms will be held to a higher standard. With that, “it won’t be enough just to do the job—the PR industry will join the rest of the corporate world in a new era of ethical business practices, philanthropy, pro-bono work, and above and beyond community engagement.” This is because in the wake of the coronavirus, “the public will expect nothing less.”

Demand for PR holds

PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier association for senior professionals around the world. Millie Dizon, the senior vice president for Marketing and Communications of SM, is the former local chairman.

Slater sees that as economic uncertainty skyrockets, “companies on retainer will be less prevalent.” Instead, as budgets are squeezed and belts are tightened, “PR pros will need to show their value through quick, nimble projects that yield results and keep potential longterm clients coming back for more.” For Slater, it is clear that “until the pandemic is over, we will live with constant change and heightened uncertainty.” As such, demand for our expertise will remain.” He sees that once the pandemic subsides, “we will enter a post-Covid world. Success will belong to those who form strategic partnerships with those they represent, serve as resources during crisis and upheavals, and ultimately deliver their promises.” Slater says we can all look

Records global family such as PUBLIC, Skip Marley, Johnny Orlando, Olivier O’Brien, Keshi, Jack Ross and Banners.

About Island Records

More than 61 years from its birth in Jamaica, Island Records maintains its position as one of the world’s legendary record labels, a coveted destination for new and established artists of every description. Today, Island is home to a varied roster across the world, from U2 to Queen, Elton John to Amy Winehouse. Its unique ethos has provided the platform for launching some of the biggest artists from across the musical spectrum, including contemporary international acts such as Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato, Mike Posner, Bon Jovi, Mumford & Sons, Florence and the Machine, The Killers, Nick Jonas, Jessie Reyez, Bishop Briggs, Jack & Jack, Skip Marley, and many more.

n People: DDB Worldwide announces leadership appointments, Marty O’Halloran promoted to Global Chief Executive Officer of DDB Worldwide

NEW YORK, USA—DDB Worldwide today announced key leadership appointments, promoting Marty O’Halloran to Global Chief Executive Officer and naming Justin ThomasCopeland as Chief Executive Officer of the network’s North America region. O’Halloran most recently served

We are devoting a special column each month to answer the reader’s questions about public relations. Please send your comments and questions to askipraphil@gmail.com.

as chairman and CEO of DDB Group across Australia and New Zealand, a position he has held since 2005. DDB Australia/New Zealand currently holds 5 Agency of the Year titles and consistently ranks as one of the top creative, direct marketing and effectiveness agencies in the world. In his new role, O’Halloran will oversee operations across the global network. Thomas-Copeland joins from OPMG Health, an Omnicom Precision Marketing Group network, where he served as Global CEO. Widely regarded as a disruptive leader in data and analytics with a passion for creativity, Thomas-Copeland is a modern marketer who connects creative ideas with data and customer experiences that effectively drive outcomes for our clients “Marty has a remarkable track record and a relentless focus on adding value. With his guidance and leadership, DDB has become a creative force across Australia and New Zealand,” said Chuck Brymer, chairman of DDB Worldwide. “Marty knows that creativity is the most powerful force in business, and has a reputation for delivering long-term success for our clients.” “Justin has been a standout leader within Omnicom, using his ability to glean intelligence out of complex data to inform smart, effective creative,” added Brymer. “I’m thrilled to have Justin bring his skills and capabilities in data and his eye for creativity to lead the team in North America.”

Sports

THIS aerial photo shows the New National Stadium which will be the main stadium for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. AP

BusinessMirror

| Monday, July 27, 2020

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN IN TOKYO By Paul Newberry The Associated Press

ELEN MAROULIS will never forget that epic night in Rio. As she and thousands of her fellow Olympic athletes waited to make the long walk from a volleyball arena to the massive Maracanã Stadium for the opening of the 2016 Summer Games, a giant party broke out. “They were blasting music,” Maroulis recalled in a telephone interview Friday. “We were all sitting around with these giant blow-up beach balls, smacking them in the air and waiting for them to call each of us, country by country.” For all the cynicism that is rightly directed at the excesses of the Olympic movement, it all tends to melt away on the night of the opening ceremony. It is truly one of the most magical moments in sports. “Once you walk into that stadium, I don’t have words for it,” said Maroulis, a Maryland native who won a gold medal in freestyle wrestling four years ago. “It’s so cool.” She should’ve been walking into another

PSC online national coaching certification course unwraps

HE Philippine Sports Commission’s (PSC) National Sports Coaching Certification Course (NSCCC) goes online beginning on Monday. The course is a program of the Philippine Sports Institute’s (PSI) Sports Education and Training Program. The program kicked off in Tagum City in 2018 and was also staged in Legazpi City and Davao City last year. For its fourth edition, the NSCCC will cater to 1,090 elementary and high-school team coaches in the Visayas. “The present situation in the country should not deter us from continuing our programs and services to the sports community, specifically in enhancing the competencies of our coaches in the schools and the LGUs [local government units],” PSC Commissioner for Visayas Ramon Fernandez said. Level 1 modules on Sports Philosophy, Sports Pedagogy, Sports Psychology, Sports Physiology, Talent Identification and Sports Ethics are offered in the course. The lecturers include PSC-PSI Sports Education Dean Prof. Henry Daut, Sports Psychology Head Dr. Karen Katrina Trinidad, Sports Physiology Head Prof. Josephine Joy Reyes and Sports Specialist Prof. Luis Serafin Cosep and Fr. Fonz Suico, CSSR. A blend of synchronous and asynchronous learning methods will be applied through the use of Google Meet and Google Classroom tools. Coaches who passed the Level 1 course in Legazpi and Davao are also expected to continue with the Level 2 online program. There will also be a separate curriculum for coaches for the differently-abled in November. The course will move to Luzon—Ilocos Region 1 and Cordillera Autonomous Region—from August 10 to 13, while the program for Mindanao— Northern Mindanao—is set from August 17 to 20. The three-level course program, staged in partnership with Milo Philippines, aims to prepare coaches to meet the demands of their responsibility and ensure a vibrant sporting experience for athletes through the enhancement of their competencies and skills.

stadium on Friday, the dazzling structure that was built in Tokyo to serve as the centerpiece of the 2020 Games. Instead, it was just another mundane day of training for athletes around the globe, an elite group that was forced to hit an unprecedented reset button because of the devastating pandemic. The coronavirus has claimed more than 600,000 lives and continues to rage largely unchecked in the United States and other major countries, forcing the Olympics to be postponed for the first time in their history. American swimmer Ryan Murphy, who won three gold medals at Rio, began his day lifting weights in the temporary gym that he and his roommates have set up in their garage. Then he headed to the pool for two-hour workout. It didn’t even occur to him that it was supposed to be Day 1 of the Tokyo Games. “I’m definitely bummed that everything has transpired the way it has,” said Murphy, who hails from Jacksonville, Florida, and now trains in the Bay Area of northern California. “But when the Olympic decision [to postpone the games] came down, I was pretty quick to shift my focus to next year. That’s where I’ve been the past couple

of months. I’ve almost erased from my memory that the Olympics were supposed to start today.” Tokyo organizers marked the one-year-togo milestone—for the second time—with a brief, no-fans event at the national stadium on Thursday, a striking change from the raucous ceremony held in 2019. Even with a delay of 364 days, there are still doubts about whether the Games can safely begin next summer on July 23. The pandemic continues its deadly rampage, especially in the US and countries such as Brazil, India and Mexico. While Japan has been spared from the brunt of the virus, its borders are closed to citizens from 129 nations as it attempts to stamp out cases entirely. Even if the Games are staged, they won’t look the same. Eager to reduce the massive costs associated with the one-year postponement, organizers have come up with a lengthy list of items that could be simplified, downsized or cut out entirely. No one knows if the competitions will have to be staged in empty arenas and stadiums to reduce the risk of infection. Murphy said he’s keeping a close eye on the National Basketball Association (NBA), which plans to finish its season in a bubble-like

setting at Walt Disney World in central Florida. The players have been isolated and are tested constantly. No fans will be allowed to attend games. “If the NBA bubble works, then we have the model,” Murphy said. “Yes, the Olympics would look much different if we do not advance on vaccine front, but at least we could fall back on the NBA model.” A fan-less Olympics beats no Olympics at all. “All the athletes are willing to accept that the the Olympics could look completely different next summer,” Murphy said. “That’s OK. We all just want to compete, but we want to compete safely. I those two things are possible, then we’re all in on it.” Maroulis said the one-year delay could actually be to her benefit, both personally and for the greater good of her fledgling sport. She’s battled injuries the last two years and might not have been in peak condition if the Olympics had been held in 2020. Also, the extra year gives her and other female wrestlers a chance to bring more attention to their sport, which joined the summer program in 2004 but still attracts scant coverage.

“I’m definitely looking at this in a more positive light,” Maroulis said. “Some of the things I’ve been focusing on lately have been about increasing coverage for female wrestling. It’s actually kind of nice to have another year to work with my teammates toward that goal.” For all the outrageous costs and infuriating politics, the Olympics still have the potential to bring the world together. Even if it’s for only one night. “There’s so much tension between different groups of people,” Murphy said. “The Olympics is the place where you really find one common goal. That’s a really beautiful thing.” Beautiful, indeed. See you in 2021. Hopefully.

Williamson back in NBA quarantine at Disney bubble

AKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—Zion Williamson will be out of quarantine by the time New Orleans plays in the first official game of the National Basketball Association (NBA) restart at Walt Disney World. Whether the Pelicans will play him that night or not remains anyone’s guess. The NBA said Saturday that Williamson will have to serve a four-day quarantine for leaving the league’s Disney bubble on July 16 to tend to an urgent family matter. He returned to Disney on Friday night and immediately went into quarantine. That means he will likely be released from quarantine sometime Tuesday, two days before the Pelicans play the first “seeding game” against the Utah Jazz. A person familiar with the situation said that if all goes well with Williamson’s quarantine, he can return to team activities during a practice scheduled for Tuesday night. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity

because such plans have not been completed and cannot be until Williamson passes more tests now that he has returned to Disney. “The most important thing is we hope everything’s OK with him,” Pelicans forward Derrick Favors said Saturday, shortly after the NBA revealed the four-day quarantine determination. “He went away for personal reasons. So, it’s good to see. Whatever it was, hope everything went fine and OK and he’s back with us. And I know everybody’s excited to have him back. I know he’s excited to be back.” Williamson was tested daily during his absence and continually came back negative for Covid-19, which helped his hopes for a shorter quarantine upon his return to Disney. The league has said quarantine for those who leave the bubble can last as much as 10 days or more if those individuals are not tested daily while they are away. The No. 1 overall pick in last year’s NBA draft is averaging 23.6 points and 6.8 rebounds in 19

games this season for the Pelicans, who are one of six teams in the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. NBA coaches, meanwhile, started wearing a large pin during games this weekend, the message reading “Coaches for Racial Justice.” It’s not uncommon for NBA coaches to wear pins or ribbons to support various causes. This one is different, being roughly the size of a business card and the words written in large, red type—the thinking being that coaches want the words noticed. “We’re coaches and we’re teachers or maybe even educators,” Orlando Magic Coach Steve Clifford, himself a former special education teacher when he was a high-school coach, said Saturday. “But the key is to work with people who understand how we can get things changed and that’s law, that’s policies, procedure.” NBA coaches, with a committee led by Atlanta Coach Lloyd Pierce, have

2021 Aussie Open: Smaller crowds,

USTRALIAN Open organizers have settled on a plan to host the 2021 tournament complete with biosecurity and fewer spectators. Tennis Australia Chief Executive Craig Tiley will be looking at the running of both the US Open and delayed French Open to help plan contingencies for the first Grand Slam tournament of 2021. Tiley says the tournament has already decided on how the event will shape up in January—reduced seating due to social distancing, players in a secure biosecurity “bubble” and the likelihood of no overseas spectators. The World Health Organization didn’t declare the coronavirus a pandemic until March 12, about six weeks after Novak Djokovic and Sofia Kenin lifted their respective men’s and women’s singles trophy before capacity crowds of 15,000 at Rod Laver Arena. If current planning continues, there’ll be only half that many

THE US’s Sofia Kenin holds the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup after defeating Spain’s Garbine Muguruza in the women’s singles final at the Australian Open in Melbourne in February. AP

spectators in Melbourne Park’s main show court in 2021, and any overseas players who win the title will have spent some time in quarantine on their arrival in Australia, been tested for Covid-19, stay at one of the official biosecure tournament hotels and travel to the tournament site in sealed transport. “We made that decision this week, to go with that scenario from a number of options,” Tiley told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Saturday. “We will not hit the numbers we had last year, a record 821,000 through the gates. Our fans will be from Melbourne and Victoria state, interstate, as well as potentially New Zealanders, if they lift border restrictions. But the 15 percent we get from overseas will likely not be here.”

WHETHER Zion Williamson will play in the first official game of the National Basketball Association restart or not remains anyone’s guess. AP

been working with noted lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative on how best to use their platform and promote change during the NBA restart. Players have been vocal with their wishes, the NBA had “Black Lives Matter” painted on the game courts and coaches wanted to be involved as much as possible as well. AP

player biosecurity The pandemic forced the cancellation of Wimbledon and the postponement of the French Open to September 27 to October 11. The US Open is set for August 31 to September 13. “They are both exploring mandatory testing, varying levels of quarantine and limited entourages,”Tiley said. “Of course we are looking at all these options, and more, as part of our scenario planning.” Tiley, who said Tennis Australia has had to reduce by about 6 percent its full-time tournament staff of 450, is trying to take some positives from the current lockdown in Melbourne due to a serious spike in Covid-19 over the past several months in Victoria state. The city and a neighboring shire are in the middle of a six-week lockdown, which could be extended, and the wearing of masks while outdoors is mandatory. On Saturday, health officials in Victoria announced their 21st consecutive day of triple-digit infections and five more deaths. AP

Bleachers’ Brew Rick Olivares bleachersbrew@gmail.com

Football organization isn’t rocket science I LAUD the attempts of Global FC and the new United City FC in sorting out their respective clubs. But how they resolve that remains to be seen. We will give them their so-called 10-day honeymoon plus-plus. More than ever, it is incumbent upon our football officials—national and regional—to fix things. How the sport moves forward really depends on how the current flawed system is fixed. We have previously talked about accountability, the need for a better understanding and implementing of marketing, public relations, and media strategies to the game across the board. Look. What I am saying is not rocket science or something I came up after waking up in the morning. This is practiced all over the world. Only in this country do you have such a state of the game that the phrase “only in the Philippines” isn’t funny but absolutely disgusting. It is hard to see all these problems plaguing football. To wit, some people who have their own clubs are either with the national team or certain branches of the federation. Is England’s Gareth Southgate involved with any club at the moment? No. Is World Cup champion Didier Deschamps of France with any other team? No. Is Golden Dragons’ Coach Park Hang-seo with any other team or affiliated with any other organization in Vietnam? You must see the point by now. Now, you have conflict of interest. Now, instead of penalizing clubs that do not pay their coaches and players wages, people look the other way. What is galling is the fact, they had to wait for the disgruntled players to post on social media or for people in media to write about it. Hiding behind statutes to protect one’s self is a disgrace. It does not hide from the fact the word “professional” is just a word, but not practiced. Furthermore, nonpayment of players has been an issue for many clubs. The pandemic isn’t an excuse. The issues have plagued club football since 2011. I actually have a list of all the players of a certain club and how many months of pay they are owed. Why aren’t club owners vetted? As we previously wrote, if when you apply for a credit card, loan, or even purchase a car, they check if you can pay. So why not football? Why don’t we even know the owners? Why are the players wondering why the logos look similar? What exactly are the businesses these entities engage in? It is general knowledge that the owners of clubs like Liverpool, Paris Saint Germain, and Real Madrid to name but a few are engaged in. Isn’t it a source of comfort when you know you are backed by a company that you know is engaged in a certain tangible or known business? It is perplexing when you interview someone and he says he isn’t the club owner. That smacks of shady business. Shouldn’t it be automatic that all clubs have published organization charts, office and post office addresses, including a structure? Where are the business papers? You walk into any restaurant all their licenses to operate including certificates of inspection are on display for all to see. Of course, you cannot display that on a pitch, but it would be nice to see that not only on their social media but also when it is needed to inquire. You need people of integrity and with no agendas. And certainly no room for conflict of interest. I wonder...if Fifa stops sending money...will all these people still be around? The growth of club football is every bit as vital as the grassroots, college, national team, and women’s football. One cannot function without the other. It would be nice to have another “Miracle of Hanoi” but that is like a band aid solution. No doubt that would be good. And yet, it’s like throwing a fresh coat of paint on a building that has problems with its foundation. And you know that isn’t going to last.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

SONA

20 20

A BusinessMirror Special Feature

Monday, July 27, 2020

HIGH HOPES AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS

As we all anxiously wait for Duterte’s SONA, it’s important to keep our minds open about his plans for our country.

Will Duterte’s 5th State of the Nation Address be more reassuring than concerning?

The Filipinos need great leaders—now, more than ever—instead of charlatans and thieves garbed in well-tailored suits. Between the 12-month gap from President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s previous State of the Nation Address (SONA) to this day, the Filipinos seemed to be in an endless topsy-turvy situation, especially consider-

ing the on-going crusade against the deadly coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Such hindrances, however, have tested the efficiency and credibility of all elected and appointed public officials. While it is true that a State is “an ideal person, invisible, intangible, immutable and existing only in contemplation of law”, the

PRESIDENTIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS DIVISION

By Trisha Jean V. De Leon

HILE it’s hard to remain optimistic during this time of crisis, everyone is looking forward to hearing what the current administration has to say regarding the economic and health measures amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines’ ties with China, the contentious Anti-Terrorism Law, and others.

government, as its primary agent, is its perfect representative to actively pursue its mandate and promote the welfare of the people. Nonetheless, as discussed by former Associate Justice Isagani Cruz in his book, “whatever good is done by the government is attributed to the State but every harm inflicted on the people is imputed not to the State but to the government alone.” Clearly, this is an affirmation of how critical the government is when it comes to building a people-centric nation that will address its citizens’ needs while staying true to their constituent and ministrant functions.

Duterte’s 5th SONA

EVER since Duterte took the office, he has been constantly bombarded with controversies and criticisms. It wouldn’t then be a surprise if his words at the Batasang Pambansa today will cause an uproar from both his avid supporters and critics.

Continued on C2

SONA

20 20

A BusinessMirror Special Feature

Monday, July 27, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

HIGH HOPES AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS

PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte, center, delivers his 4th State of the Nation Address as Senate President Vicente Sotto III, left, and House Speaker Allan Peter Cayetano listen at the 18th Congress at the House of Representatives in Quezon city, Monday, July 22, 2019. AP PHOTO/AARON FAVILA

PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte delivers his 4th State of the Nation Address at the 18th Congress at the House of Representatives in Quezon city, Monday July 22, 2019. AP PHOTO/AARON FAVILA

Continued from C1 Indeed, the State of the Nation Address is meant to keep the Filipinos abreast of the present economical, social, and political condition of the country, which the public has the right to know, but it is also an avenue for the president to inform the citizens of his long-term plans for the next 12 months and perhaps for the rest of his term. Given the present situation in the country, Duterte’s SONA will hopefully shed some light on some of the most important issues we are facing today and provide concrete schemes. While it’s hard to remain optimistic during such pressing time, everyone is looking forward to hearing what the current administration has to say regarding the economic and health measures amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines’ ties with China, the contentious Anti-Terrorism Law, and others.

Public Health and Safety

AS the number of COVID-19 patients continues to rise, even after months of imposing community quarantine, Filipinos are still wary of their safety. Realistically, the supposedly “strict” quarantine measures are now becoming more lenient, which may not be necessarily for the better. This can be traced back from the financial capabilities of most Filipinos, who are often mere wage earners. Since many people cannot afford their daily sustenance without a job, many are risking their lives to ensure that they will have enough money to at least feed their families. Somehow, it seems like the government has realized this harsh reality but the question still remains: how long can the medical sector handle the pandemic? People have high hopes that President Duterte have some answers for this and other pressing concerns in his coming SONA.

AN image of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is shown at an electronic screen as he delivers his speech during his 4th State of the Nation Address at the 18th Congress at the House of Representatives in Quezon city, Monday, July 22, 2019. AP PHOTO/AARON FAVILA

Economy

ANOTHER critical topic that the president has to address is how the government is planning to stabilize the Philippine economy. According to Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Duterte will be presenting a roadmap that will help the country recover from the effects of the proliferation of COVID-19. However, Roque did not spill any more details about it. While it’s reassuring that Duterte has a plan prepared to help our country bounce back from the pandemic, it’s still hard to ignore the economic impact of this health crisis, which is creating a domino effect to both public and private sectors. Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon has also expressed his desire to hear clear-cut measures to revive the economy. He even asked how much the country needs to stimulate the economy, which equation should they stimulate, and where should they source the funds.

Philippine-China Relationship

APART from the direct effect of the COVID-19 in the country, the president is also expected to discuss the current political ties of the Philippines to China, as well as the country’s stand on the disputed West Philippine Sea. Even before the advent of the pandemic, Duterte has shown his interest in strengthening our relationship with the said country, even as such efforts are subjected to constant backlash from understandably skeptical sectors. True enough, the country has been left in the dark for too long regarding our international relationship with the “Sleeping Giant” and it’s probably the perfect time for the government to reveal the real score.

Anti-Terrorism Law

IN the midst of our battle against the COVID-19, another issue has surfaced, which alarmed many human rights groups in the country. The controversial Anti-Terrorism

Law is now under fire as petitions have piled up at the Supreme Court for its reversal, questioning its constitutionality. While the government says it needs the legislation to combat insurgencies, many people are doubting the timing of the passing of this law. Should the government really tackle terrorism during a pandemic when many people from all walks of life are in the brink of despair? It will be interesting to see if and how Duterte will tackle this issue in his SONA and whether his response will be more reassuring than concerning.

Press Freedom

ARTICLE III, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution is a constitutional safeguard against the infringement of the freedom of the press. Recently, however, the administration has been caught up in a storm over the franchise of ABSCBN, an established media company in the country.

While it has been asserted that Congress has the discretionary power to issue or renew a franchise since the subject is of political nature, some ABS-CBN sympathizers feel like such a move is a direct attack against press freedom. They assert that the president’s distaste against the company has influenced lawmakers to deny the franchise renewal. Although the ABS-CBN is a private entity, the removal of its franchise had caused many people from the media to lose their jobs during a pandemic. Indeed, it would then be interesting to know how Duterte will talk about this issue during his SONA if he ever decides to include it on his agenda. As we all anxiously wait for Duterte’s SONA, it’s important to keep our minds open about his plans for our country. We all hope and pray, however, that whatever these may be, the people’s welfare will be his main priority.

UNLIKE ANY OTHER

Pandemic fear, strict health protocols trump tradition at Duterte’s 5th SONA

By Samuel P. Medenilla

RESIDENT Duterte's fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) will be unlike any other. The much anticipated annual event is already a risky event for the President as is, but for this year, it was made more dangerous amid the ongoing novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. The disease, which is primarily spread through exposure to the small droplets from an afflicted person's cough, has already infected thousands of people in Metro Manila. Faced with such an invisible and ever present threat to their principal, the Presidential Security Group (PSG) together with the Office of the President (OP) prepared plans for two possible scenarios for President Duterte’s fifth SONA on Monday. The first will involve the President still holding his SONA at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City, following tradition, but with stricter measures. The first restriction is on the number of people: from the usual 500 who jampack the Batasan on SONA Day, the total number will be limited to 50—half from

the Executive Department, meaning, Duterte and just select Cabinet members; and 13 from the House, and 12 senators. The opening of the session and the SONA will be available via Zoom for other lawmakers who are not at the scene.

Internal arrangement

CABINET Secretary Karlo Nograles said gone are the usual arrangement wherein the guests will personally witness and react with their usual cheers and applause to the President, when he delivers his speech live. Instead, he said the President will be delivering his delivering his SONA in a chamber that will not be filled by the legislators, officials and dignitaries that

usually attend this function. The House of Representatives will also be implementing strict screening protocols for participants of the event, which includes requiring everyone at the scene to accomplish a health declaration form and undergoing temperature checks before they are allowed entry at the Batasang Pambansa. Those with temperature of 37.5 degree or higher will not be allowed entry in the venue and will be sent to quarantine tents. Upon entry into the venue, the guests will be required to wear face masks and face shields when they enter the session hall. Physical distancing of two meters will also be enforced. The Batasang Pambansa Complex will also undergo intensive disinfection prior to the event especially after some of the personnel in the facility tested positive for Covid-19 a few days before. On the actual day, the entire venue will be place under lockdown and will be secured by the Quezon City Police District and fire marshall.

Limited guests

ALSO unlike in previous SONAs, only 50 guests will be allowed at the Batasan “It [guests] will not go beyond 50. This will include representatives of the Palace and will also be shared by the [representatives] from Senate and Congress,” Andanar said in a radio interview last Friday. Aside from the said guests and personnel

of the PSG, no other people will be allowed inside the Batasang Pambansa. The restriction also barred the media from covering the event. Only the Presidential Broadcast StaffRadio Television Malacañang (PBS-RTVM), which will be inside the venue to cover the SONA, will live feed the event through People’s Television Network (PTV), Presidential Communications Operations Office and RTVM Facebook pages and RTVM YouTube channel. All the of the 50 guests were required to be tested using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) process on July 26, 2020 or the eve of SONA, to make sure they are free from Covid-19.

Second option: Malacanang

THE tests results of the guests will determine if the second option of PSG and OP for the SONA will kick in. “If there is a large number of positives [results] or if there is any positive with the swab test of the guests, the Office of the President together with the PSG may implement option B, which will be done in Malacañang,” Andanar said. Under the said scenario, Andanar noted, there will be fewer guests attending due to the smaller venue. “Of course, this will still include the Senate President, Speaker of the House, the President and the Executive Secretary and some select congressmen and senators. So

it will be fewer compared to the Batasang Pambansa,” Andanar said. The health and screening protocols to be implemented in the Batasang Pambansa are already in place in Malacañang.

The speech

BUT while the PSG and OP will do anything to ensure Duterte remains Covid-free, the President’s SONA speech will most certainly be “consumed” by the virus. Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque earlier said the speech will, innevitably, focus on the government’s comprehensive road map to for the country’s economic recovery plan for Covid-19. But since it is a SONA after all, Nograles said the President might also discuss his priority legislation for the last two years of his administration. For his part, Andanar said Duterte might also touch his other priorities such as his drive against corruption, illegal drugs, and poverty alleviation as what he did in his previous SONAs. The said officials admitted they have yet to see the final speech of the President, when they issued the said statements last week.

House, Senate restrictions

BESIDES the Palace measures to protest the President from Covid-19, the leadership of the House and the Senate have also traken

extraordinary steps to ensure the virus is not transmitted during the SONA Day and the chambers’ respective opening sessions on Monday morning. After all, both the Senate and House have had their share of infections since March, with each chamber reporting even deaths of a couple of employees. Three senators were also infected. Invoking “health and safety protocols,” the Senate banned media coverage of the opening rites of the 2nd regular session of the 18th Congress on Monday morning, which takes place six hours before the SONA. “In accordance with the health and safety protocols mandated by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), media are not allowed inside the premises of the Senate of the Philippines on Monday, July 27, 2020,” a media advisory sent to Senate reporters stated. It said photographers and cameramen of the Public Relations and Information Bureau will “cover the plenary proceedings and email to media situationer photos and video clips ofthe event.” Indeed, the limited coverage and guest list, not to mention the absence of the glittery trappings of SONA, mean no red carpet or “best gown” competition, among other things lacking this year. But when people have battled fear of disease and dying the past 120 days, who cares about all that?