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GORDON observes as a technician takes a swab sample at the newly opened SBMA Swabbing Center.

STEPPING UP

TESTING is the key: Sen. Richard Gordon explains the connection between ramping up testing and reviving the ailing economy.

GORDON and SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma inspect the Red Cross molecular laboratory in the Subic Bay Freeport.

The Philippine Red Cross accelerates the pace for Covid-19 mass testing–and economic recovery By Henry Empeño

UBIC BAY FREEPORT—On June 19, two multimillion-peso biomolecular laboratories—one here in the Subic Bay Freeport and another in the nearby Clark Freeport Zone— were unveiled without fanfare by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC), the stark simplicity of the occasion underscoring the urgent mission of the facilities: to save the sick and help heal the ailing economy.

Sen. Richard J. Gordon, who is chairman of the nongovernment organization, said the Subic and Clark laboratories were just the latest in a string of Covid-19 testing centers put up by the Red Cross. But they won’t be the last. “We can do a total of 4,000 tests per day in the [Subic and Clark] facilities, which will enable us to run an overall total of 16,000 tests a day,” Gordon said last week. He added that the PRC is putting up more laboratories to increase its overall capacity to 32,000 tests a day by the end of June to help step up the government’s mass testing program that targets the more vulnerable sectors of the population.

The reason is twofold, Gordon said: to separate the people who are sick from the people who are not, so they won’t contaminate; and to allow people to return to their jobs faster, thus reviving the economy. “When people are tested and we know where they are, they can start working already. But without that, it’s going to be hard getting people back to getting an income of their own,” he pointed out. “We do not want a system where people rely on the government—that is the worst thing that we can do to our country and it’s been happening for some time. Now we’re going to get out of it,” Gordon said.

Rising cases

THAT job of testing, isolating and treating appears daunting, as cases of Covid-19 infection continue to rise. As of June 24, the Department of Health has recorded a total of 32,295 Covid-19 infections in the country, of which 22,436 are active cases. The day before, on June 23, new cases shot up to 1,150, the biggest single-day increase in infection that was recorded—some say following the relaxation of rules, as some areas eased down to modified enhanced community quarantine or general community quarantine. Most of the positive cases are clustered in the National Capital Re-

gion, with a total of 16,277; Region VII (Central Visayas), with 6,419; Region IV-A (Calabarzon), 2,334; Region III (Central Luzon), 838; and Region XI (Davao Region), 479. Meanwhile, the cities and provinces with the most cases are Cebu City, with 4,216; Quezon City, 2,957; City of Manila, 2,035; Cebu Province, 935; and Makati City, 899.

Covid-19 response

SECRETARY Vince Dizon, who was recently named Deputy Chief Implementer of the government’s Covid-19 response on top of his being president and CEO of the Bases Continued on A2

Darkened duty-free shops are fueling a worldwide chocolate glut By Marvin G. Perez & Isis Almeida | Bloomberg News

HEN commodity analyst Judy Ganes spent 36 hours flying home from a business trip to Asia, it was what she didn’t see that stuck with her. In the four airports she passed through, Ganes found almost no food courts, or duty-free shops, open for business. No snow globes. No T-shirts. No special liquor bottles. And perhaps most importantly, no Toblerone and other specialty chocolates that are ubiquitous in international terminals. Ganes’s experience underscores the challenge facing sellers of not just candy but also spirits, with the airline industry still hampered by some travelers’ reluctance to fly and travel restrictions in some countries. The drop in dutyfree sales has exacerbated the global economic downturn that’s thrown the $107-billion chocolate

market into disarray, helping turn a global deficit into a glut. “There’s no question the virus has been a hit for the dutyfree industry across the board and chocolate is caught in it,” said Michael Payne, president of the International Association of Airport Duty Free Stores. “If you don’t have international flights and you don’t expect them to come back as quickly as domestic flights, then this pain is going to continue.”

Declining numbers

THERE were 471,421 airline passengers in the US on June 23, compared with 2.51 million on the same weekday a year earlier, ac-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.0130

A BOX of chocolates contains a piece decorated with a URL written in twodimensional code in Tokyo, Japan. JUNKO KIMURA/GETTY IMAGES ASIAPAC

cording to the Transportation Security Administration. On her journey from Palau, Micronesia—where she was grounded for two months after the nation imposed lockdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus— to Newark, New Jersey, Ganes saw few signs of life. “In Honolulu, there was a gift shop open to buy chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, some kids’ books and games, smoked tuna jerky,” Ganes said. “In San Francisco all closed. In Newark, the only thing open was one grab and go place that had a rack with chips and gummies for 50 percent off.” The International Monetary Fund lowered its outlook for the world economy, signaling a further hit to cocoa consumption, which tends to closely follow gross domestic product. The demand woes are inflicting another blow to processors of the cocoa beans, already facing rising costs in part because of sustainability initiatives in West Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4668 n UK 62.1462 n HK 6.4530 n CHINA 7.0865 n SINGAPORE 35.9418 n AUSTRALIA 34.4390 n EU 56.0996 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.3347

Source: BSP (June 26, 2020)

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A2 Saturday, June 27, 2020

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Stepping up Continued from A1

Conversion and Development Authority, had said the government intends to undertake focused testing on just 2 percent of the country’s population. In a media briefing after the opening of the Red Cross laboratory in Subic, Dizon said the government’s testing program is gaining headway, as could be gleaned from the number of testing centers that have been established since the Covid-19 outbreak. “Last February, there was only one testing center for Covid-19 in the country and that was the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. Then in March we had less than 10, in April less than 15, and now we have 42 labs operating,” Dizon pointed out. He said this number has increased the daily testing capacity nationwide to 50,000, with the Red Cross undertaking from 15,000 to 20,000 of the tests made each day. “In the most challenging days and weeks, it was the Red Cross that really stepped up and took up the cudgels, especially in testing returning overseas Filipino workers [OFWs],” Dizon recounted. “Since March, almost 60,000 OFWs have arrived. About 300,000 more will be arriving in the next three to four months. Now the Red Cross has tested 54,000 OFWs in just six weeks, and a lot of them have already returned to their respective provinces because their test results from the Red Cross came out fast,” he added.

Stepping in

AS the country’s foremost humanitarian organization, the Philippine Red Cross has been a proactive player in the Philippine Covid-19 response. When the virus outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, China, in January, its chairman Senator Gordon urged Philippine officials to monitor the situation and prepare in case the “mystery” disease spreads. Gordon was also among the first to call for temporary, partial lockdowns in February in face of the spreading infection worldwide, and for the government to stockpile strategic medical supplies. Then, PRC began filling the void in mass testing by establishing testing facilities in March at its national headquarters along Edsa and starting actual testing by mid-April. By late April, Gordon reported that PRC testing centers “are picking up speed as more samples come in, although our machines are still not maximized” and that the Philippine Coast Guard and some local government units in Metro Manila have started sending more samples. Upon opening the two testing centers that were both equipped with two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines, the Red Cross was able to test 12,622 unique individuals from April 16 to May 4. PRC records also indicated that from an initial high of a little more than 700 tests daily due to

GORDON announces the opening of the Red Cross laboratories in Subic and Clark free ports with SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma and BCDA President and CEO Vince Dizon.

the small number of samples they received, Red Cross testing centers soon recorded a dramatic increase in the output of the facilities: a total of 990 tests on May 4; 1,980 on May 5; and 2,136 on May 6. “Testing is the key,” Gordon stressed then, “that’s why I call on the LGUs to test more people, because the more people are tested, the faster the enemy will be unmasked.”

Ramping up testing

BUOYED by its early success, PRC soon opened a third testing facility at the Port Area in Manila, thus coming up with a daily combined capacity of 12,000 tests. It was then at this time that Red Cross was cited by Dizon as doing a huge chunk of the testing nationwide, and owning fully 45 percent of the 11,123 tests com-

pleted on May 14. Figures released by the PRC indicated that its facilities completed increasingly larger volume of samples tested: 4,590 on May 14; 5,040 on May 15; 5,400 on May 16; and 6,030 on May 17. The recently opened biomolecular laboratories in Subic and Clark are the first such facilities to be put up outside of Metro Manila. These are expected to boost PRC’s capacity to 16,000 tests per day, Gordon said, but more facilities are already being established as of this writing. He said eight more testing centers will soon open in Batangas, Laguna, Mandaue City, Isabela, Cagayan de Oro City, Zamboanga City, Bacolod City and Surigao. Red Cross will also add 10 more PCR machines at its laboratory in the Port Area to enable a total of 46,000 tests per day, Gordon added.

The task ahead

EVEN with targeted testing, where the most vulnerable sectors of the society were to be tested, the Philippine Red Cross still faces a seemingly impossible task. Gordon noted that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 13 percent of the population has to be tested so that the positivity rate of Covid-19 can be determined. Given Metro Manila’s population of 13 million, Gordon said that Red Cross would be able to test the required number of about 1.7 million in about 50 days, given a capacity of 32,000 tests per day. “For the whole country, if all laboratories are working at 46,000 tests per day, we can finish 13 percent in 305 days. Very ambitious, but we can make it happen,” Gordon said.

The expected arrival of some 300,000 OFWs who have been displaced worldwide by the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to complicate the task of targeted testing. But Gordon said the Red Cross laboratories in Subic and Clark could play a major role in mitigating this problem, if only the Department of Transportation will open up the Subic Bay International Airport so that OFW flights could be diverted there to facilitate testing. “We have an airport and a seaport here in Subic. So, some OFWs could be brought here where they can be tested by the Coast Guard and use the quarantine facility put up by SBMA Chairman Amy Eisma,” he said. Gordon also pointed out that it would be easier for ships carrying returning Filipino seafarers to dock in Subic because of calmer waters. “Here members of the Philippine Coast Guard can easily go up the vessels to take swab samples, unlike in Manila Bay,” he said. Gordon added that with the combined 4,000 test capacity of the Subic and Clark laboratories, testing the expected 300,000 OFWs can be completed in 75 days.

New prospects

CAN Gordon do these tasks he set out to do? The government’s deputy chief implementer of Covid-19 response, for one, agrees that Gordon has the perfect plan for the returning OFWs. “Subic is the ideal place for seafarers coming from cruise lines. Manila is already congested, so Subic is perfect for anchorage because of the bay. They can be tested by the Coast Guard while remaining on their ships,” Dizon said. Subic Bay Metropolitan Au-

thority Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma, who helped operationalize the Subic testing facility by putting up a swabbing center at the Freeport main gate, also believes Gordon can. “I learned malasakit from Dick Gordon,” said Eisma, who was among the volunteers at the Subic agency when Gordon was chairman. “He has a genuine desire to serve the country, and politics takes a backseat for him.” “I have worked long enough with him to know about his persistence—that what may seem impossible to others may only take a longer time for him to accomplish,” Eisma added. Indeed, Gordon continues to step up. With the same foresight that manifested at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he is now setting his sights on several molecular laboratories strategically placed in the country’s major tourism destinations. These, he said, would ease the reopening of the local tourism industry in view of a warning from the United Nations World Tourism Organization that international tourism may decline by as much as 70 percent this year if countries around the world would gradually open their borders starting August. To help put the local tourism industry on the rebound, Gordon said the PRC will open testing centers in Boracay, Bohol, Palawan and Siargao, first to test local workers and residents, and then enable said areas to advertise that they are cleared of infection and are now open to tourists. The Philippine Red Cross response to the Covid-19 pandemic could go a long, long way.

Darkened duty-free shops are fueling a worldwide chocolate glut Continued from A1

Africa, which accounts for about two-thirds of world supplies. Top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana announced that starting with the 2020/21 crop, they would add a $400 a ton premium on their beans in a bid to boost farmer income. That’s pressuring margins for the world’s top makers of bulk chocolate, as well as chocolatiers such as Lindt & Spruengli, at a time when consumption faces headwinds from several fronts. Olam International Ltd., the third-largest processor, now expects global grindings to fall 1.5 percent this season, the first drop in four years. Some analysts are calling for bigger declines. Mondelez International Inc. said in April that its world travel retail section is expected to see significant declines. The company has previously said travel represents about a third of the demand for Toblerone. Brown-Forman Corp., the makers of Jack Daniels, said in a June 9 earnings call that its global travel retail segment, which includes duty-free sales, was down around 65 percent.

Fewer cruises

IT’S not just the lack of airport sales that’s dragging down cocoa. Chocolate-heavy events such as weddings have been postponed, or canceled, and cruise bookings are way down. Peter Liszewski, a retired federal government worker living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, typically takes three to five cruises a year, which include a chocolate placed on the pillow every night. This year, he’s taking only one trip and has rebooked two of them for 2021. He also delayed a trip to Boston, where his nephew postponed his wedding. “Cruises won’t be happening for those large brands until early October at earliest,” said Brian Egger, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. Companies that cater to these segments are feeling the pinch, including Dufry AG, a major dutyfree shop operator, as well as Sodexo SA and Compass Group Llc., two of the biggest companies catering to the food-service industry. Not all is completely dire though. Hershey Co., whose brands such as Hershey’s, Kisses, Reese’s, Brookside and BarkThins are available at airport duty-free locations

worldwide, sees a shift that’s helping the company navigate the crisis. “The slowdown in air travel has certainly impacted retailers who operate within airports,” Jeff Beckman, a company spokesman, said by email. “But as Covid has changed how people are living their daily lives, we have seen volumes shift to other areas of retail and other pack-types, such as larger ‘take-home’ bags, e-commerce, and at-home baking and cooking products.” Still, slack demand will probably help flip the global market to a surplus of more than 300,000 tons from a deficit a year earlier, according to Eric Bergman, vice president at JSG Commodities in Connecticut. In the year ended June 14, US sales of candy chocolate at traditional retail outlets fell 1.9 percent from a year earlier, while the average price advanced 4.7 percent, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market researcher. “It will take some time for demand to come back,” said Nick Gentile, managing partner for NickJen Capital Management in New York. “Now that the Covid cases are going up again, I think it will hurt more.”

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Senator urges DepEd to present action plan for ‘blended learning’

s the county’s educational system prepares to adopt blended learning methods to protect students from Covid-19, Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to lay down an action plan to address concerns of Filipinos in preparation for the forthcoming school year. Go also reminded concerned government agencies to work together to provide for alternative, remote learning methods that can ensure education access even for students who have no Internet connection. “Meron pa rin sa ating mga estudyante ang walang access sa Internet. Dapat siguraduhin na mabig yan pa rin sila ng oportunidad para maituloy ang kanilang pag-aaral,” he said. “Kaya naman po hinihikayat ko ang DepEd na gawing mas accessible at inclusive ang kanilang mga programa para sa mga kabataan kahit saan mang parte ng bansa sa pamamagitan ng online at off line methods of teaching,” he added. A global framework formulated by the United Nations Children’s Fund; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; and the World Bank recommends that, for the safe reopening of classes, focus should also be on other learning modalities to reach areas without Internet connection. Go earlier recommended to the education sector to ma ximize the use of available media, such as television and radio, to facilitate distance learning among students. “May available multimedia platforms na pwedeng gamitin at airtime sa radyo at telebisyon na dapat allotted for educational programs. Ayon sa batas, pwede po itong gamitin bilang alternative mode of teaching and learning,” he stated. The senator cited Republic Act 8370, also known as the Children’s Television Act of 1997, which requires a minimum of 15 percent of a network’s daily total airtime to programs that further children’s positive development. Meanwhile, state media company Intercontinental Broadcasting Corp. (IBC-13) has offered to use its television facilities as a remote learning platform. The proposal should enable DepEd to air curriculum-based programs when the school year reopens. “Sa planong ‘ blended lea r ning’ ng DepEd, dapat masig uro na hindi lamang online learning ang foc us nito kundi pat i na r in ang ibang mod a l it ies na hindi nanga nga ilangan ng i nte r ne t connect ion,” Go sa id. The senator added that teachers must be g iven suf f icient training in the use of various multimedia platforms for teaching. Given the ongoing health crisis, Go also reminded DepEd that educators should also be ready to provide psychosocial support to their students. He stressed that students with disabilities should be considered in the implementation of the plan. The integration of social and emotional learning should also be emphasized given the ongoing pandemic which has affected the lives of students and their families. T he senator has staunchly backed President Duterte’s call to disallow face-to-face learning until it is deemed safe, or until a vaccine for Covid-19 is available. Duterte also earlier suggested the use of radio as a mode of distance learning given that it is the most accessible form of media even in far-flung areas.

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Palace slams UN special rapporteurs’ report on alleged HR abuses in PHL

alacañang on Friday berated the United Nations special rapporteurs for their alleged “partiality” in accusing the government of rampant human-rights (HR) violations. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the joint statement issued by the special rapporteurs on Thursday was a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

“We have a working and independent judiciary that deals with violators of human rights, regardless of who they may be,” Roque said in a news statement.

“We call on the special rapporteurs to respect our legal system and the Philippines as a sovereign state,” he added. T he 31 rappor teu rs u rged the UN and the international community to intervene on the supposed “widespread and systematic human-rights abuses” in the country. “ T he hu m a n- r ig ht s sit u ation in the Philippines has now reached a level of gravity requiring a robust intervention by the UN,” they said in a joint statement posted in the web site of the United Nations Human Rights

Office of the High Commissioner. “We call on [UN] memberstates to initiate, whenever possible, governmental sanctions and criminal prosecution against individual Philippine officials who have committed, incited or failed to prevent human-rights abuses,” they added. Among the issues they raised were the killings linked to the government’s war against illegal drugs, as well as the killings and harassment of human-rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists. Roque, however, noted that the

PHL retains Tier 1 rankings for 5th consecutive year in US State Dept’s anti-trafficking report By Recto Mercene

he Philippines has retained its Tier 1 ranking in the US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report for 5 years in a row, according to US Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez. “The retention of the Philippines at Tier 1 in the US Department of State’s 20th Edition of Trafficking in Persons [TIP] Report underlines our country’s ser iousness in combating a l l forms of human trafficking,” the envoy said. He added: “For the fifth year in a row, the US has recognized the relentless and comprehensive efforts of the Philippines to prevent TIP, protect the victims, and prosecute the perpetrators of this heinous crime.” “We remain fully committed to working with domestic and international partners, including the US, in addressing this global concern. In this context, the Philippines shall continue to engage with both labor-sending but more importantly labor-receiving countries in promoting the welfare and protecting the rights of migrant workers everywhere,” Romualdez said. According to the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a nongovernment organization (NGO) that represents migrant workers in the

Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, the Tier 1 ranking of the Philippines is a result of teamwork and cooperation among government agencies led by the Department of Justice and Department of Social Welfare and Development, and various NGOs in the fight against human trafficking. “Five years in a row is no fluke, and is a testimony to how committed the Philippines is in the fight against modern slavery. There can be no room for complacency because despite the global pandemic, we continue to receive reports of abuses being committed against our domestic workers, especially in the Middle East,” Susan Ople, head of the policy center said in a news statement. The Philippines was promoted to Tier 1 in 2016 and has retained this ranking ever since. The Ople Center also lauded the combined efforts of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of Labor and Employment in attending to the needs of distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFW), many of whom are in forced labor trafficking situations in the Middle East. “Can we do more? Definitely! The global pandemic should not be a distraction from ongoing efforts to stop illegal recruitment and human traf f ick ing

of ou r n at ion a l s, es p e c i a l ly through online schemes.” “The challenge that confronts us now is in how to maintain our ranking amidst a global pandemic that has led to the temporary closure of our consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the shutdown of our labor office in Riyadh due to Covid-positive personnel,” Ople said. Riyadh and Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia account for a total population of nearly 700,000 Filipino migrant workers, mostly working in vulnerable occupations such as domestic work. She urged the government to allocate additional funds for the augmentation of consular and labor staff in countries with high incidences of Covid-19 cases. “Even during normal times, most of our embassies and labor personnel were overwhelmed with the sheer number of OFW clients. Under the so-called ‘new normal,’ we may need to review the budgetary requirements of each post that must attend to both welfare cases and health concerns not only of our OFWs but also of their staff.” The Ople Center noted that the US State Department appreciated the work of the InterAgency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) that includes the active participation of the DFA and the newly created IACAT Task Force Against the Trafficking of

OFWs in successfully bringing about the conviction of eight human traffickers in Bahrain, who have been exploiting OFWs as sex workers. “This shows that our government has been working closely with other countries to bring about convictions on human trafficking cases,” the Ople Center said. The NGO urged Congress to act with haste on the request of the DOLE and DFA for a supplemental budget to keep the Assistance-toNationals Fund and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration afloat and sustainable. “Without the necessary funds, these two critically important government units would not be able to respond in a prompt and effective manner to the needs of at least 10 million overseas Filipinos,” the Ople Center said, while stressing that the number of stranded OFWs all over the world continue to increase daily. The US Department of State releases the Trafficking in Persons report every year. The report evaluates country efforts against trafficking based on minimum standards in preventing trafficking, protecting victims, and prosecuting offenders. Tier 1 is the highest level of compliance which indicates that the countries under Tier 1 have met the minimum standards in combating trafficking.

Duterte pushes unified Asean response against pandemic in regional summit By Samuel P. Medenilla

resident Duterte pushed for a united response against the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) during the 36th Asean Summit on Friday to help in the quick recovery of the regional bloc from the effects of the pandemic. During his 7-minute speech in the online event, he said the realization of the integrated approach, which he is advocating was the newly launched Asean Covid-19 Response Fund. The fund can be availed of by Asean member-states to acquire medical and personal protective equipment (PPE) crucial in their anti- Cov id-19 response. The fund will be from the contributions of Asean members and their partner countries. “This pandemic has exposed the limitations of our health care and social protection systems,”

Duterte said. “To survive, we need to make fundamental and systemic changes. And only a cohesive and responsive Asean can help us all safely navigate out of this perfect storm of a crisis,” he added.

Stronger online connection

Duterte also supported “strengthening economic cooperation” during the Covid-19 crisis through the use of new technology. He said this could be achieved through the adoption of e-commerce, e-learning, videoconferencing and artificial intelligence. “Forced experimentation with remote work could spur more services offshoring. These will spread [growth across] regions while minimizing harm to the environment,” Duterte said. He said the establishment of the Asean Technical Vocational and Education Training Council will allow

workers to gain necessary skills for the new trend.

flights in the Southeast Asian region subject to health protocols.

Supply chain connectivity

Crisis resilience

However, Duterte also said physical trade and travel should still be given attention to ensure supply chain connectivity. “We have to maximize trade facilitation initiatives to promote the growth and participation of MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprise] in regional and global value chains,” Duterte said. There were interests among Asean countries for the resumption of business interaction and travel in Asean, which was suspended, or restricted, in previous months due to Covid-19 during the summit. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, who was also monitoring the summit, said that at least two Asean leaders have advocated for the resumption of business

Looking forward, Duterte also pushed for greater Asean cooperation in promoting research and capacity-building in health technology to boost the bloc’s resilience to future pandemics. “We must enable the Asean Centre for Biodiversity to contribute in combating wildlife trafficking to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases,” Duterte said. He also said the recovery plan of each Asean member-country from the effects of Covid-19 could serve as an opportunity for them to make their economies more sustainable. “I join other leaders in tasking our ministers to craft a recovery plan that is innovative and ambitious, and one that will lead us to a greener and more sustainable future,” Duterte said.

statement of the special rapporteurs, which he claimed gave an erroneous depiction of the handling of HR cases in the country, do not reflect the position of the UN. Citing the six rebels who were found guilty for their involvement of the Siege of Marawi City in 2017, Roque said the country’s courts can competently handle HR abuse cases. “If anyone would go to foreign courts, despite the working courts in the Philippines, that can be considered as a violation of the sovereignty of the Philippines,” Roque said. Samuel P. Medenilla

IATF okays DOLE’s motion to repatriate remains of deceased OFWs from Saudi By Samuel P. Medenilla

he government will now be repatriating all the remains of overseas Filipino workers (OFW), who died in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), including those who were infected with novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19). At a meeting on Thursday, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) approved the recommendation of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to also repatriate the bodies of deceased Covid-infected OFWs. The IATF previously ordered that the remains of the virus-infected OFWs should be buried in KSA due to health concerns. “Now, we will bring home all the remains of Filipinos from Saudi Arabia and other areas where there [are OFWs who died] because of Covid,” Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in an online briefing. DFA earlier said there were 506 OFWs who died during their overseas stint due to Covid-19 infection, worldwide. It noted that most of the remains were either buried, or cremated, in the country where the OFWs have died. In KSA, there are 301 OFW remains, which will be repatriated by the DOLE via chartered flights next month. Of which, 152 died from Covid-19, while the remaining 149 died from non-Covid cases. “Based on initial preparations, two chartered planes will separately fly the Covid dead and those who died of non-Covid causes,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said. “The bodies will be transported from various points to Riyadh and Jeddah, and will be flown back to the country by the second week of July,” he added. Upon arrival, the remains of the Covid-infected OFWs will be cremated, while those who died because of nonCovid causes can be claimed by their families at the airport.

The World BusinessMirror

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Asean virus fund, sea feud in spotlight in virtual summit

ANOI, Vietnam—Southeast Asian leaders are holding an annual summit Friday by video to show unity and discuss a regional emergency fund to tame the immense crisis wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. The long-divisive South China Sea conflicts are also in the spotlight.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc delivers a speech in front of a TV screen showing Asean leaders at the opening ceremony of the 36th Asean Summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Friday, June 26, 2020. Leaders from the Southeast Asian 10-nation bloc hold the bi-annual summit via online videoconference to discuss regional issues. AP

The leaders of the Asean linked up online due to regional travel restrictions and health risks, which have delayed dozens of meetings and shut out the ceremonial spectacles, group handshakes and photo-ops that have been the trademark of the 10-nation bloc’s annual summits. Vietnam, the current Asean chair, had planned face-to-face meetings, but most member-states assessed it was still too risky for leaders to travel. Still, it organized a colorful opening ceremony with traditional songs and dance in Hanoi for about 200 Vietnamese officials and foreign diplomats. They showed up without masks and sat close to each other while the heads of state watched remotely on their screens. “The Covid-19 pandemic is a test for Asean,” Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said. He added that the contagion “is fanning the flame of dormant challenges within the scope of political, economic and social environment,” and helping escalate frictions among major powers. Southeast Asian nations have been impacted by the pandemic differently, with hard-hit Indonesia grappling with more than 50,000 infections and more than

2,600 deaths, and the tiny socialist state of Laos reporting just 19 cases. The diverse region of 650 million people, however, has been an Asian Covid-19 hot spot, with a combined total of more than 138,000 confirmed cases that have well surpassed that of China, where the outbreak started. The economic toll has been severe, with Asean’s leading economies, including Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, facing one of their most severe recessions in decades. “We recognized the significant cost and unprecedented challenges to the region and the world caused by the coronavirus disease pandemic,” Vietnam says on behalf of Asean states in a draft communique to be issued after Friday’s summit. “We noted with grave concern the human and socioeconomic costs caused by Covid-19 and remained committed to implementing targeted policies to instill confidence that Asean is at the forefront of this critical battle.” A high-priority project would be the establishment of an Asean Covid-19 response fund, which could be used to help member states purchase medical supplies and protective suits. Thailand has pledged to contribute $100,000

Traders need to be ‘more picky’ in betting against the greenback

Alibaba Group replaces CEO of Southeast Asia arm Lazada

here may be oppor tunities for investors to sell the dollar as the global economy rebounds in the second half of 2020, but they need to be fussy about what to trade it against as the US currency looks set to remain broadly resilient. That’s the view of JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists who recommend selling t h e g re e n b a c k a g a i n s t c u r re n c i e s o f industrialized nations with strong current account balances, such as Sweden and Japan, even as they caution against taking an under weight stance on the dollar more generally. On the emerging-markets side, JPMorgan recommends sticking to bets on currencies with high real yields like Mexico’s, Russia’s and Indonesia’s, according to a mid-year outlook published by the bank on Thursday. The global economic collapse triggered by attempts to contain the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has spurred drastic policy action from central banks around the world, compressing interest-rate differentials between countries. That means structural drivers should become more relevant for currencies, while carry trades should become less salient in driving the market, according to Paul Meggyesi, JPMorgan’s head of global foreign-exchange strategy. “In a zero interest-rate world, currency markets should become more fundamental,” Meggyesi wrote in the report. “Currencies with structural resilience, big current account surpluses, and cheap valuations should do well, and thus we expect the Japanese yen to perform well.” Bloomberg News

and Asean partners, including China, Japan and South Korea, were expected to announce contributions after the terms of the fund were recently finalized, a senior Southeast Asian diplomat told The Associated Press. A regional stockpile of medical supplies has also been proposed and the group will undertake a study to be financed by Japan on the possibility of establishing an Asean center on public health emergencies, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to speak publicly. While the conservative bloc has tried to project unity, it has been riven by longstanding rivalries and disputes, particularly in the South China Sea that mainly involve four of its members—Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei—pitted against China’s overlapping claims to one of the world’s busiest waterway. It’s also a crucial battleground for influence by Beijing and Washington. The lingering disputes, along w it h t he pl ight of Rohing ya Muslims from Myanmar who are

languishing in crowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, are among the most thorny issues on the Asean agenda. “We underscored the importance of non-militarization and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities by claimants and all other states, which could further complicate the situation and escalate tensions in the South China Sea,” the draft Asean communique said. China has come under fire for what rival claimants say are aggressive actions in the disputed waters, while countries scrambled to deal with the viral outbreaks. Vietnam protested in April after a Chinese coast guard ship rammed and sank a boat with eight fishermen off the Paracel Islands. The Philippines backed Vietnam and protested new territorial districts announced by China in large swatches of the sea. Washington also lashed out at China, which denied accusations that it was exploiting the intense preoccupation with the pandemic to advance its territorial claims as “sheer nonsense.” AP

hun Li, who currently runs Lazada’s Indonesian business, will take the reins from July, Lazada said in a news statement. Li served as chief technology officer for Alibaba’s business-to-business division between 2014 and 2017 before joining Lazada. He was a chief architect of the firm’s technology platform and currently serves as a Lazada president, the Singapore-based company said. Lazada has gone through frequent management shuffles since getting absorbed by Alibaba. Poignant, who cofounded Lazada for Rocket Internet in 2012, was promoted to CEO in 2018 and will now become special assistant to Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang. Lazada was the first e-commerce outfit to serve six countries in Southeast Asia. The company has grown into an instrumental facet of Alibaba’s push to expand beyond its home market, spearheading the Chinese firm’s thrust into a region that’s one of the world ’s fastest-growing ecommerce and digital payments arenas. Lazada aims to ser ve 300 million Southeast Asians by 2030, up from 65 million now, Poignant told Bloomberg News earlier this year. But fiercest rival Shopee, a unit of Tencent Holdings Ltd.-

U.K. firms get ready for no-deal Brexit with time running out

owever much Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will be able to arrange a trade deal with the European Union by the year-end, firms in Britain are already bracing themselves for the possibility he won’t. Renold Plc, a Manchester-based maker of vehicle chains and gearboxes, is among them. It’s planning to fast-track deliveries to customers in the coming months to ensure they aren’t caught up in any potential border disruption due to Brexit in January, according to Chief Executive Officer Robert Purcell. “We’re going to assume it’s going to be difficult,” Purcell said in a phone interview. “You can never count on the way you think it’s going to go.” Johnson is still optimistic that a deal will be done with the EU, despite months of stumbling trade talks. But even if negotiations do make progress in the weeks ahead—with extra sessions agreed for July and August—firms are having to make hard choices now to reduce the risks to their operations. For manufacturers, this includes rebuilding stockpiles. Luxury automaker Bentley, the UKbased unit of Germany’s Volkswagen AG, has doubled its warehousing capacity and is carrying between five and 10 days of parts compared with around two previously, Chief Executive Officer Adrian Hallmark said Tuesday. Bentley imports about 45 percent of the parts that go into its cars, with 90 percent of those coming from continental Europe. “It has cost us millions per year,” he said, referring to the stockpiling expense. “We see a significant hit from a hard Brexit.”

Getting ready

Fellow carmaker Vauxhall, owned by Groupe PSA, has major UK production facilities in Luton and Ellesmere Port and is preparing for both a deal and a no-deal scenario. It’s preparing to file new customs documentation for when the UK leaves the EU’s customs union, according to Helen Foord, the company’s head of government relations. It’s also getting ready to submit extra paperwork to prove so-called rules

“ T he fundamental shift in global business environment as a result of Covid-19 has created new expectations for Lazada in how to better serve our customers and create value. Under Chun’s leadership, I believe we will broaden our horizons and further leverage our technology,” Lazada Chairwoman Lucy Peng said in a statement. Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

irecard AG’s longtime auditors, Ernst & Young, accused their client of “an elaborate and sophisticated fraud” that allowed more than $2 billion to go missing. Now that Wirecard has filed for court protection from creditors, the accountants who signed off on the fintech firm’s books for a decade are rejecting responsibility for their role in the debacle and preparing for the inevitable avalanche of lawsuits. “Ernst & Young [EY] bear responsibility for this,” said Neil Campling, an analyst with Mirabaud who has had a price target of zero on Wirecard since March 2019. “They were defrauded like everyone else but, as auditors, they should have looked through it. It is amazing that they signed off on the 2018 account.” EY, as the accounting firm is officially known, finally sounded the alarm last week, when they refused to sign off on Wirecard’s 2019 financial report. (The firm remains the auditor of record). That set off a cascade of events that started with Wirecard admitting it couldn’t locate billions of euros in cash, followed by the ousting and arrest of former chief executive officer (CEO) Markus Braun before Thursday’s insolvency filing.

financial health and subsequently signed off on more than 10 years of the company’s results without raising significant concerns. During those years, Wirecard grew from a niche payments service to the pinnacle of corporate Germany—membership in the exclusive Dax 30 index. Its collapse is shaping up to be one of Germany’s biggest accounting scandals ever. Separately, auditing firm KPMG also p ro b e d a l l e g at i o n s a b o u t a cco u nt i n g irregularities into Wirecard, but said in late April it was unable to obtain the data needed to confirm past revenues, and criticized the payment processor for internal “shortcomings” and unwillingness by its third-party partners to contribute to the report. Some investors are irate that EY didn’t seek to clarify previous public statements by Wirecard, which they said misled the market about the extent to which the audit could find more issues. Braun, the former CEO, told investors in April that “E&Y informed us this morning that they have no problem at all to sign off the audit 2019,” according to a Financial Times report published several days later.

Wirecard declined to comment

Silence criticized

‘Frightening’

backed Sea Ltd., has expanded aggressively in the past year and overtaken Lazada as the region’s most visited web site in 2019, according to research firm iPrice Group. In Indonesia, the largest and most promising market, Alibaba-backed Tokopedia ranks as the top e-commerce company based on web traffic, followed by Shopee, Bukalapak and Lazada.

of origin, showing the eligibility of its cars to receive tariff-free treatment under any potential trade agreement. Yet the risk of a 10 percent tariff on the export of cars to the EU from Britain under a no-deal scenario, which is the duty that would apply without a trade accord, means it is postponing a final call on expanding in the UK. “It’s no secret that we are due to make an investment at our plant in Ellesmere Port,” Foord said to a parliamentary committee earlier this month. “Until we have the clarity over what Brexit looks like, then we will make a decision.” The UK and the EU are hoping to have a trade deal hammered out by October, at the latest, because the bloc needs time to receive necessary approvals from member nations before the January 1 exit date. However, the longer the negotiations go on, the more costs businesses will have to incur to protect themselves from the cliff edge of no deal. The top concerns for businesses remain tariffs and disruption to the flow of goods crossing the UK-EU border. Without a free-trade agreement, Britain and the bloc will default to trade on World Trade Organization terms, which can impose steep levies such as an 8 percent tariff on chocolate and 30 percent on orange juice. At the same time, the government is worried that businesses won’t be ready for the wave of new post-Brexit paperwork, which will lead to trucks being stopped at ports. Earlier this month, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said he was concerned by the lack of preparatory action taken by firms, and the government is planning a “shock and awe” information campaign in the second half of this year to jolt companies into action. Many companies are still reluctant to conduct any major reorganizations of supply chains to avoid tariffs while there is still hope of a UK-EU trade deal, said Stephen Adams, senior director at Global Counsel, which advises firms on their Brexit planning. “Strategy teams are reluctant to bake into their spreadsheets the worst case scenario,” he said. “That can create a whole cascade of choices that are hard and costly to reverse.”

Wirecard auditors: Elaborate fraud led to missing billions

In its statement, EY said Wirecard provided “false confirmations and statements with regard to escrow accounts” in the audit for 2019. “There are clear indications that this was an elaborate and sophisticated fraud, involving multiple parties around the world in different institutions, with a deliberate aim of deception,” said EY Germany, adding that “even the most robust and extended audit procedures may not uncover a collusive fraud.”

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has appointed a longtime veteran to replace Pierre Poignant as Lazada Group chief executive officer (CEO), the latest top-level reshuffle at the Chinese e-commerce titan’s Southeast Asian operation.

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“It is frightening how long Wirecard AG was able to operate without being objected to by the auditors,” Wolfgang Schirp, a lawyer who has filed suit against EY on behalf of investors, said in a statement. Schirp’s claim, which was filed this month before the fraud was disclosed, alleges that EY failed to flag that 1 billion euros in assets were improperly booked in 2018. VEB, an association that represents private and institutional European investors, says it’s also preparing legal action against EY, which it expects to file in Germany in the coming weeks. German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has said “auditors and regulators don’t seem to have been effective here.”

First engagement

Ernst & Young’s engagements with Wirecard date to a review of its 2007 books, which were the subject of an investor lawsuit claiming the published results were misleading. The Londonbased auditor gave the company a clean bill of

Later in May, Wirecard said in a news statement that EY “has informed Wirecard AG that all foreign auditors have meanwhile been able to finalize their audit procedures” and that it had not yet been informed of any material findings though, not all audit procedures had been completed. “We feel EY should have explained to the market that they weren’t done with the audit yet,” Paul Koster, CEO of VEB. “It was amazing that EY just let this comment slip,” he said, adding the comments led investors to make decisions on selling or buying Wirecard stock they otherwise wouldn’t have. After EY took over work on the company’s accounts, it assigned the annual review to various sets of auditors throughout the years. EY and KPMG belong to the so-called Big Four accountants, which all have come under criticism in the UK. Several instances of firms’ failure to flag the struggles of companies prior to bankruptcies have brought calls to break up their audit and consulting units. The Wirecard scandal has prompted calls by liberal and green members of the European Parliament, including Luis Garicano and Sven Giegold, to change European auditing rules; in particular, they cite perverse incentives that arise when audited companies can freely hire and dismiss their own auditors. “As a result, accounting firms have strong incentives to please their customers rather than to exercise scrutiny,” the lawmakers said. Bloomberg News

Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Trump ignores coronavirus spike as US cases surge toward records

In this October 1, 2019, file photograph, the father of Elijah McClain, LaWayne Mosley, left, and mother, Sheneen McClain, right, flank the family’s lawyer, Mari Newman, during a protest outside city hall in Aurora, Colorado. Elijah McClain died after being stopped by three police officers while walking in the east Denver suburb of Aurora. AP

Colorado to probe Black man’s ’19 chokehold death

ENVER—The Colorado governor on Thursday ordered prosecutors to reopen the investigation into the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man put into a chokehold by police who stopped him on the street in suburban Denver last year because he was “being suspicious.” Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order directing state Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate and possibly prosecute the three white officers previously cleared in McClain’s death. McClain’s name has become a rallying cry during the national reckoning over racism and police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd and others. “Elijah McClain should be alive today, and we owe it to his family to take this step and elevate the pursuit of justice in his name to a statewide concern,” Polis said in a news statement. He said he had spoken with McClain’s mother and was moved by her description of her son as a “responsible and curious child... who could inspire the darkest soul.” Police in Aurora responded to a call about a suspicious person wearing a ski mask and waving his arms as he walked down a street on Aug. 24, 2019. Police body-camera video shows an officer getting out of his car, approaching McClain and saying, “Stop right there. Stop. Stop.... I have a right to stop you because you’re being suspicious.” Police say McClain refused to stop walking and fought back when officers confronted him and tried to take him into custody. In the video, the officer turns McClain around and repeats, “Stop tensing up.” As McClain tries to escape the officer’s grip, the officer says, “Relax, or I’m going to have to change this situation.” As other officers join to restrain McClain, he begs them to let go and says, “You guys started to arrest me, and I was stopping my music to listen.” One of the officers put him in a chokehold that cuts off blood to the brain, something that has been banned in several places in the wake of Floyd’s death May 25 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer and the global protests that followed. In the video, McClain tells officers: “Let go of me. I am an introvert. Please respect the

boundaries that I am speaking.” Those words have appeared on scores of social media posts demanding justice for McClain. He was on the ground for 15 minutes as several officers and paramedics stood by. Paramedics gave him 500 milligrams of the sedative ketamine to calm him down, and he suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. McClain was declared brain dead August 27 and was taken off life support three days later. A f o re n s i c p a t h o l o g i s t c o u l d n o t determine what exactly led to his death but said physical exer tion during the confrontation likely contributed. McClain’s younger sister, Samara McClain, told The Denver Post shortly after his death that her brother was walking to a corner store to get tea for a cousin and often wore masks when he was outside because he had a blood condition that caused him to get cold easily. In the video, Elijah McClain sobs as he repeatedly tells officers, “I’m just different.” Samara McClain said her brother was a massage therapist who planned to go to college. The police department put the three officers on leave, but they returned to the force when District Attorney Dave Young said there was insufficient evidence to support charging them. “Ultimately, while I may share the vast public opinion that Elijah McClain’s death could have been avoided, it is not my role to file criminal charges based on opinion, but rather, on the evidence revealed from the investigation and applicable Colorado law,” Young said shortly before Polis ordered the investigation reopened. Aurora police said interim Police Chief Vanessa Wilson won’t comment to avoid interfering with the investigation. Mari Newman, the McClain family’s attorney, said she was pleased with the governor’s decision. “Clearly, Aurora has no intention of taking responsibility for murdering an innocent young man,” she said. “Its entire effort is to defend its brutality at all costs, and to lie to the public it is supposed to serve. It is time for a responsible adult to step in.” Colorado’s attorney general said in a statement that the investigation will be thorough and “worthy of public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system.” AP

resident Donald J. Trump has paid little heed to a resurgence in US coronavirus cases, announcing no new steps to curb the outbreak as infections jump to nearrecord levels and continuing with a normal schedule of meetings and travel as hospitals fill with sick patients. Trump hasn’t asked Americans to change their daily routines, and top administration officials say there will be no repeat of the lockdowns that collapsed the US economy in March. When Trump travels, or stands close to other officials, he doesn’t wear a mask, a precaution urged by health officials. But the growing number of cases—there were nearly 35,000 reported on Wednesday—could prevent the kind of economic rebound Trump has been promising by year’s end and further damage his standing in polls that show Democrat Joe Biden ahead nationally and in key swing states. A mounting death toll adds to Trump’s reelection concerns as new modeling predicts the virus will kill 180,000 Americans by October. Officials have downplayed the resurgence, saying it remains contained to about a dozen states and that deaths haven’t begun to climb. “We’re going to see these things,” top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters on Thursday, referring to the growing number of cases. “But the economy is not going to be closed down again.” Many governors on the front lines of the crisis—including those in red states—are acting far more aggressively than Trump. Texas on Thursday halted its phased reopening as Republican Governor Greg Abbott warned of a new sharp wave of the virus. “The last thing we want to do as a state is go backwards and close down businesses,” Abbott said in a statement. The surge is particularly acute in the Sunbelt states that were among the first to ease social distancing requirements imposed to slow the spread of the virus. Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday in Ohio that the administration is working closely with those states, but emphasized “in some 38

states across the country, cases are stable or even declining.” “While you see in the news over the past week or so we have rising cases and outbreaks in several Southern states, I want to assure you that our task force and our entire administration is working continuously with leaders in those states to respond,” Pence said, adding that he’ll soon travel to Texas and Arizona to meet with officials there. The vice president and other members of the coronavirus task force, which hasn’t held a briefing since April 27, will meet with reporters on Friday at the Health and Human Services Department, the White House said. On Sunday, Pence will speak to the press along with Abbott and the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx, according to an official familiar with the plans. Birx hasn’t spoken to reporters at the White House since May 29.

Texas, Florida records

Florida and Texas each hit records for cases Wednesday, with health officials in Houston saying its hospitals are nearly at capacity. Arizona, at the same time, reached a peak in hospitalizations. In California, which also saw an all-time high for new infections, the Walt Disney Co. delayed the reopening of its theme parks indefinitely, while Nevada’s governor ordered everyone to wear masks in public as some of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas made them a condition of entry. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut set quarantines for incoming travelers from US hot zones, and North Carolina put its reopening on ice for three weeks. The White House says its virus task force is continuing to meet and consult with governors. Trump administration officials insist they’re

not trying to diminish the threat posed by the virus. “We obviously are concerned,” Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. “We may have a lag in what we see in hospitalizations and deaths because that can lag by three or four weeks, but I’m asking people to recognize we’re in a different situation today than we were in March or April.” The Trump administration said more cases are being detected now than in earlier months when the country had less testing capacity. They said that’s reflected in data showing a lower median age for those infected and a lower mortality rate. That argument doesn’t appear to be winning over Americans. Fox News polls released Thursday show Biden leading Trump—in some cases within the margin of error—in key states where caronavirus cases are rising. The former vice president had a nine-point advantage in Florida, a one-point lead in Texas and a twopoint advantage in North Carolina and Georgia. When Trump comments on the coronavirus, it’s usually in order to blame China for the US outbreak, or compliment his government’s response.

Trump on testing

“We have cases because you test. Deaths are down,” Trump said at a shipbuilding plant in Marinette, Wisconsin, on Thursday. He later added: “It came from China, and it hit 188 countries—not good, not good.” While expanded testing can identify cases of the disease that otherwise might not come to health authorities’ attention, the percentage of tests coming back positive is rising in several states, indicating the virus is spreading through their communities. There have been more than 2.4 million cases of Covid-19 in the US and at least 122,000 Americans have died so far, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. White House aides said that Trump has been trying to remind the public that the virus came from China by repeatedly referring to it as the “Kung Flu,” a slur that groups fighting discrimination say may lead to racist acts against Asian Americans. In his behavior, the president is seeking to show the country returning to normal. He held a rally at an indoor arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last week and didn’t require attendees to

wear masks. Trump continued his practice of not wearing one. The president visited Arizona this week without a mask, speaking in a packed church where nearly every attendee followed his lead, as the state faces one of the sharper US outbreaks. On Thursday, the President traveled to Wisconsin, where he’s touring the shipbuilding facility and participated in a Fox News town hall.

Convention move

Trump moved the August Republican convention from North Carolina to Florida so he’d be allowed to have a celebration free of restrictions, but that state is now seeing cases soar. Trump and his administration have been pressing governors to quickly reopen their economies. The president and his supporters have spent the week largely focusing on the economic reopening, and criticizing violent protests over police brutality and racism. Trump has promised a vaccine will be ready soon, with a caveat. “I don’t even like to talk about that, because it’s fading away,” Trump said of the virus last week in a Fox News interview. “It’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen.” The rising US case totals are causing alarm among US allies. Europe is weighing restricting Americans from entering its countries, while the US and Canada have jointly extended a de facto border closure until July. In testimony to Congress earlier in the week, several top health officials indicated they’ve had little contact with Trump recently. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir said they haven’t spoken to Trump about the virus in about two and a half weeks. Fauci called the virus situation a “mixed bag,” with some states doing better than others. Trump has continued to tout a swift cure and economic rebound— and even an end to the pandemic without treatments. But he also predicts that treatments and vaccines are coming quickly, as he did Wednesday during a White House visit with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “I think you’re going to have a big surprise—a beautiful surprise, sooner than anybody would think,” Trump said. Bloomberg News

The contagion has made India’s ‘devastating’ gender gap worse W

omen around the world have been hurt financially by the coronavirus outbreak, but the situation in India is more precarious for them than almost anywhere else. For women in India already suffer from a wide gender gap in employment, wages and education. Less than a quarter of women in India are in the labor force—among the poorest standings in the world—and they earn 35 percent less on average than men, compared to the global average of a 16 percent gap. Women represent 49 percent of India’s population yet contribute only 18 percent to its economic output, about half the global average. And when Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 25 imposed a lockdown on this nation of 1.3 billion people, many women were set back even further. Asha Sharma, 25, is among them. Five years ago, she left the hilly state of Uttarakhand for New Delhi to try to make a living from her passion of dancing to Bollywood songs. That dream lasted only a short while; she couldn’t get into a dance troupe and her degree from a small town was of no help in landing an office job in the city. With a friend’s reference, Sharma found a job at a beauty salon. She was earning about 12,000 rupees ($159) a month and sending some money back home to her mother, a worker at a government child-care center. After her father’s death a decade ago, her mother struggled to raise three children. Sharma can no longer help, though, as she has had no income in the past two months with the beauty salon shuttered.

Her siblings are also out of work amid the outbreak, making them all dependent again on the 1,500 rupees a month their mother earns. “Our mother did so much for us. Now we are all grown up but can’t do anything to help her,” Sharma said. “It’s not easy for a woman to earn. Unlike men, who can do any kind of job, we have limitations. We also have to keep safety aspects in mind.” The virus outbreak and stay-at-home orders in India have hurt women in other ways. Many of the millions of migrant workers forced to flee cities for their rural homes with little notice were women. They are over-represented in vulnerable service jobs like health care and education and in informal jobs, such as agriculture and sex work, where there’s no safety net. And as Sharma points out, they have safety concerns, with travel a risk for many. “Lockdown and social-distancing norms are likely to have an outsized impact on women. The concern is the economic impact will be felt across employment and well-being indicators over the coming years,” said Sanjay Mathur, an economist with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, calling this “India’s painful shecession.”That’s a term used by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research after US employment numbers showed a majority of jobs lost in April were held by women. Oxfam India estimates the economic loss from women losing their jobs during the pandemic at about $216 billion, knocking off 8 percent from the country’s gross domestic product. This clouds

women’s already poor economic outlook. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2020 ranks India 112th of 153 countries in offering equal opportunities to women and men, and women often don’t have the same access to health care and education as their male counterparts. Even professional women in India have had setbacks. The virus outbreak has led many to work from home, yet Poonam Kumar made that choice 20 years ago. A freelance public relations professional living on the outskirts of New Delhi, Kumar wanted to spend time with family, raising her son, who’s now 16. “People who started with me have grown big,” she said over the phone from her residence in Gurugram, referring to colleagues from early in her career who have moved up the ladder. “But that was a choice I made.” Kumar said her life was going smoothly, until the pandemic hit. Her husband’s retail business was hurt by the lockdown, and Kumar’s business, she says, “is at a standstill.” She has lost four of her six clients and hasn’t been able to pay full salaries to the two women she employs. “When companies are struggling to pay salaries and chucking out employees, no one is going to think about public relations,” she said. “I don’t see things returning to normal anytime soon. I’m trying to figure out what to do next.”

Other inequities

The impact of the virus is also exacerbating India’s

deep-rooted social inequities. An unsafe environment in many places, with a girl raped an average of every 15 minutes, and the burden of domestic responsibilities have kept many women away from work. There has been a more than two-fold rise in complaints of domestic violence since the lockdown. Experts warn that girls’ education will be disadvantaged—as only 29 percent of Internet users in India are female, and there’s a tendency for families with limited means to give preference to boys for schooling. “Insofar that violence has long-lasting emotional and psychological consequences, one persistent economic impact will be on women’s ability to work outside their homes,” said Tarun Jain, a professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Female employment in April was at 61 percent of the pre-lockdown yearly average; for men it was 71 percent, Ashwini Deshpande, an economics professor at Ashoka University, wrote in a research paper June 3. Women employed in the pre-lockdown phase were 23.5 percentage points less likely than men to be employed postlockdown, she said. Neeti Pandey, 42, last month became part of those statistics when she walked out of the private school where she taught for about two years, holding a termination letter. A mathematics teacher in Indirapuram near New Delhi, Pandey was called to the school and

asked to resign along with several other teachers. They were told there was no money to pay them as many families had stopped paying tuition. The news came as a shock to Pandey, a mother of two who had become the family’s lone breadwinner after her husband, a cancer patient, gave up his grocery business last year. She wasn’t paid for April and May though she taught online classes from home. Taking care of her husband, along with child care and elderly care, has added to her burden. “Life is tough for a woman. Men will do only one job at a time, but we always have to do multitasking. We are supposed to strike the right balance between family and work, and keep everyone happy,” she said. “But if you are sad, you can’t hide it for long.” For now, Pandey is managing with a little savings and some financial assistance from relatives. She is desperately looking for a job, but with unemployment rising above 23 percent, her search hasn’t been easy.

Work risks

In India, women are at higher risk of contracting the virus because they are overrepresented in the healthcare sector. Women’s self-help groups are trying to make available personal protective equipment gear, though the need is great. For some women, “the choice seems to be between unemployment and jobs that put them at risk of disease and infection and make them targets of vicious stigma,” Deshpande said.

Madhu, 39, who goes by only one name, is used to handling risk in her job. She is a sex worker in New Delhi, saying financial need pushed her into this field more than a decade ago. She was separated from her husband when her two daughters, nearly adults now, were toddlers. She tells her family she’s a peer educator doing awareness training about AIDS—which she is, a job that pays little but lets her keep her real work under wraps. “There was a time we were 12 people at home, including my parents and siblings, and there was hardly any food to eat. We fed sugar syrup to the kids for days,” Madhu said. “It was then a friend told me about the men who pay 100 rupees for a one-hour bike ride with them. That was a princely amount for me at that time.” The lockdown has left Madhu and millions of other sex workers in India without a source of income. There are no social welfare programs specifically for sex workers in India, and many of them don’t have documents that give the poor access to free food and cash transfers. To survive during the outbreak, Madhu started working at a hospital canteen where coronavirus patients are treated. She serves food to doctors and patients, and in return gets leftovers for her family. A few of her clients also have provided some financial help. “I wish I had studied and become a teacher,” she said. “I don’t want my daughters to struggle like me.” Bloomberg News

A6 Saturday, June 27, 2020

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

World Bank sees ‘softening’ of PHL import, export growth

S countries across the world mitigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) with strict containment measures, weak international trade will result in lower levels of goods exports and imports in the Philippines, according to the World Bank’s Philippines Economic Update. “Global trade is suffering one of the worst contractions in post-war history in 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused disruptions to international travel and global value

chains,” said the report, titled Braving the New Normal. “The Covid-19 outbreak further weakened merchandise exports amid disruptions in global value chains and

as global trade slowed down affecting Philippine exports of agriculture, fisheries products and manufacturing goods,” it added. The report said Philippine export growth started to weaken in 2019 due to trade tensions and slower global growth. Demand for tourism services, which accounted for 12.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018, and adjacent industries fell suddenly in the first quarter of 2020, and it “will remain low as long as countries continue to restrict travel,” it said. The World Bank sees subdued growth prospects for the businessprocess outsourcing (BPO) industry, while receipts will likely be maintained as the sector remains open for business. The report said growth in foreign remittances may also decelerate as laid off workers are repatriated and

the economies of source countries are disrupted by the pandemic. “The current-account deficit is projected to settle at 0.5 percent in 2020 due to weaker services exports and remittance inflows, before widening in 2021 and 2022 as the economy normalizes and imports rise, including for domestic infrastructure projects,” it added. Service exports contracted by 4.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020 reflecting travel restrictions imposed in the Philippines and globally that resulted in a 40-percent decline in international tourist arrivals. Meanwhile, imports also contracted given weaker growth in capital goods imports due to lower domestic investment activities, and in raw and intermediate goods imports reflecting disruptions in global value chains.

Virus-hit meat plants from UK to Brazil stop shipping to China

HE halting of a British pork plant’s sales to China after just a few workers contracted coronavirus highlights the risk that more facilities around the world could see exports disrupted. China’s Customs authorities said that a division of the UK’s Tulip Ltd. and a beef unit of Brazil’s Agra voluntarily stopped shipments to China after some workers tested positive. Tulip said three of its 640 workers at its Tipton, England, site tested positive —a relatively small amount compared with recent outbreaks at meat plants in Europe and the Americas. The news follows China’s suspension of poultry imports from a Tyson Foods Inc. plant in the US, where hundreds of cases were reported, and a German abattoir has also voluntarily halted pork exports to the Asian country. While food consultant Gira said some companies may have freely stopped sales to China to avoid risking a ban, it raises concerns about interruption to trade. Further sales disruptions would be a blow to Europe’s pork industry. China accounted for more than half of exports from the European Union —the world’s top shipper—in the first four months of the year and is the UK’s top customer. Plus, meat products sold to China often aren’t popular in Europe. “The way things are going, I think there will be more” export disruptions, said Max Green, a meat and livestock analyst at IHS Markit. “That’s four plants now in less than a week, and they’re not all located in one country.”

WTO : Global trade leaning toward more ‘positive’ scenario

HE World Trade Organization (WTO) has updated its global trade outlook for this year amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, projecting it is “unlikely to reach the worst-case scenario.” In April, WTO forecasted that global trade would decline between 13 percent and 32 percent due to the pandemic and associated lockdown measures implemented by many governments around the world. “We are currently on track for the more optimistic scenario. If trade volumes rebound by a relatively modest 2.5 percent per quarter for the rest of the year, then the overall decline for 2020 will be around 13 percent,” WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo said in his video message on Tuesday. Azevêdo said governments started to relax lockdown measures and travel restrictions, while commercial flights have picked up. He added the purchasing manager’s index for export orders also started to improve from historic declines in April. “This is genuinely positive news but we cannot afford to be complacent. A second wave of Covid-19 outbreaks would threaten both lives and livelihoods,” he said. Azevêdo said policy-makers will determine the pace of economic recovery. “For strong rebounds in output and trade in 2021, fiscal, monetary, and trade policies will all need to pull in the same direction. Closing markets to trade would mean uncertainty, supply shocks, weaker productivity, and lower living standards. Keeping markets open to trade flows would do the opposite,” the WTO chief said. PNA

Interest-free loans open for pandemic-hit MSEs

Though exports from most meat factories around the world remain unaffected, there’s been a rise in outbreaks at plants in the past few months. China stepped up testing of imported meat in June after tracing a domestic outbreak to the chopping board of a seller of imported salmon. The tests were negative and officials agreed with global experts that food trade was unlikely to be responsible, but there are signs buyers remain wary. China asked meat exporters to

send a letter declaring they’ve complied with Covid-19 food safety rules during production, with similar measures for soybean shippers, people familiar with the matter have said. The export halts may be a sign that some plants are self-policing and stopping shipments themselves rather than risking a ban, said Rupert Claxton, meat director at Gira. That means exports could resume once outbreaks ebb. China’s meat demand surged after an outbreak of African swine fever decimated

its hog herd last year, and domestic prices remain high. Tulip, which belongs to JBS SA’s Pilgrim’s Pride unit, said it’s continuing to test staff at the Tipton facility. Companies can boost measures to avoid large-scale outbreaks, but it’s difficult to avoid a handful of cases, according to IHS Markit’s Green. “That would pretty much exclude a large chunk of the world’s meat plants,” he said. “It seems very unclear at this stage where they draw the line.” Bloomberg News

ICRO and small enterprises affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and quarantine measures implemented in the country can avail of interest-free loans to help them resume their businesses amid the pandemic. During the general membership meeting of the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., Small Business Corp. (SB Corp.) President and Chief Executive Officer Luna Cacanando said they have crafted a loan facility from the P1.5-billion Cov id-19 A ssistance to Restar t Enter prises (C ARES) program specifically for micro and small firm-members of Philexport. Cacanando said qualified borrowers are those 100-percent Filipino owned in operation prior to March 15, and with asset size of not more than P15 million. The community quarantine was raised over Metro Manila since March 15, and the mainland Luzon since March 17. Cacanando said CARES loan size ranging from P100,000 to P500,000, is bracketed based on the company’s minimum number of employees registered with the Social Security System (SSS), asset size, and minimum sales in 2019. She said the term of the loan payment can be up to 30 months inclu-

sive of grace period. “The 18 months, or 30 months, is inclusive of a six months grace period, meaning the enterprise will not pay anything for six months. In the seventh month, amortization of the principal portion starts because there is zero interest,” Cacanando said. “We have tried to ensure that the loan facility will be something that will truly help the micro and small enterprises recover so it should not create financial burden on the enterprise,” she added. Cacanando said documentary requirements for online loan application under CARES portal are proof of SSS-registered employees, Bureau of Internal Revenue license, and consummated purchase orders in 2019. These also include Philexport certification of industry association-endorsed loan applicant enterprises having submitted its SSS, BIR, and purchase orders (PO) documents. Either Philexport, member industry associations or chapters may certify that the member enterprise qualifies under the guidelines. “Once we receive the endorsement by Philexport, we commit to release the loan in seven working days,” she said. Meanwhile, Cacanando and Philexport President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the CARES program.

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Jose Rizal in the last great pandemic of 19th century

By Geronimo Suliguin

NE hundred and 30 years ago, in 1890, the 28-year-old Jose Rizal arrived in Paris from London on January 18 after spending a few days there since the 6th looking for books. He just published his Annotations of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas at a time when Paris, like London, was suffering from “die influenza” which was “wreaking havoc” in much of Europe. T he inf luenza epidemic of 1889-1890 was the largest 19thcentury epidemic of influenza, which arrived in Europe from the east in November and December of 1889. The media widely commented on it, with the greatest attention in the cities of Paris and London where Rizal was during the period. It has been hinted that the inf luenza reached Paris sometime at the turn of November and December of 1889 when Rizal was busy preparing for the printing of his Annotations. In Parisian newspapers Le Matin and Le Temps, the influenza was the topic from end of November until two months later. The papers reported a mysterious disease that appeared in the middle of December among different shop assistants of the well-known Parisian store Louvre—Grands Magasins du Louvre—some 1.5 kilometers away from where Rizal lived at 45 Rue de Maubeuge. Come Christmas week, the inf luenza epidemic assumed a “more serious nature” with the

disease reportedly often ending with pneumonia and the hospitals incapable of accommodating “such an enormous number of patients.” Some 200 more people died in Paris that week than in the previous one. It may have been rather fortunate that the copies of Rizal’s Morga came out of the press about the 23rd of December. The road to the publisher, Libreria de Garnier Hermanos at 6 Rue Des SaintsPeres, directly passes through the Louvre area. His admission permit to the Bibliotheque Nationale, which was also in the vicinity of the Louvre shops, expired on this date, sparing him from unnecessarily being exposed. When Rizal got back from London in January, a decrease in the Parisian epidemic was also noted in the French newspapers. Rizal, thus, was spared, not having caught the fever or any malaise either in London or in Paris.

‘Letter to Blumentritt’

IN his January 20, 1890, letter to Blumentritt, he thanked God he only had to endure “a few minutes

DR. JOSE RIZAL

of headache” or the illness would have given his enemies “an occasion to say jubilantly that it is God’s punishment” for having attacked the men of the cloth and the Catholic Church in his novel Noli Me Tangere and the recently published Annotations. Rizal also revealed how he would have laughed at his accusers, as such allegations would be blasphemy. In his letter of even date, Rizal took note of the conversation between Pardo de Tavera and the Jesuit priest Fr. Federico Faura (yes, the very priest Padre Faura Street was named after). Padre Faura used to be the director of the Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila, or Manila Observatory, which was located along the street, the space now occupied by a mall, and gave it its former name—Observatorio Street. Rizal told Blumentritt that the Jesuit priest exclaimed upon learning Rizal was “slightly ill” that “It cannot be otherwise; a man like him has to die!” Rizal admitted that it was not good for the Jesuit to say such “nonsense” but also hinted on the likely reason why the Padre may have wished that way. Rizal had spoken with Padre Faura the last time he was in Manila. In their conversation, the priest made known to Rizal that what he had written in the Noli was the

truth, the bitter truth, and the sad conditions of the time. To him, Noli has “nothing of the novel in it.” And for writing what was the truth, God will punish Rizal with death, like Zeus chaining Prometheus to a rock for giving men the gift of fire. Recalling this incident, the Filipino nation should be grateful that Rizal did not succumb to the influenza epidemic of 18891890. More than this, the country should be equally thankful that the influenza epidemic did not hinder the young Rizal’s sense of purpose. At a time when death was near and ever-present in Paris, Rizal was busy writing for La Solidaridad with his essays “Filipinas Dentro de Cien Años” and the poem “Las Flores de Heidelberg” both published in December, and saw to it that he sent out a copy of his Annotations to Mariano Ponce in Barcelona. For Rizal, epidemic or not, it was service as usual. This resolve of a young man to combat with all his strength the primary cause of all the sufferings and tears in his country wherever, whenever, and whatever the condition was is what makes our National Hero still relevant to this day and age. Rizal did not hesitate to fight the enemy that hid behind the false religion. The young Rizal dared to speak truth to power and paid for it with his life. He preferred truth to his fame. His only wish was for his countrymen to sacrifice their passions on the altar of the country, and to seek their welfare in the virtues that distinguish and adorn free peoples. Non Omnis Moriar! PNA Geronimo Suliguin, Knight Commander of Rizal, took postgraduate courses in historical and diplomatic studies at Oxford University. He is the assistant director at the Department of Foreign Affairs-Maritime and Ocean Affairs Office

Plastic keeps virus, not love, away from Spain nursing home By Emilio Morenatti The Associated Press

ARCELONA, Spain— Even when it comes wrapped in plastic, a hug can convey tenderness, relief, love and devotion. The fear that gripped Agustina Cañamero during the 102 days she and her 84-year-old husband spent physically separated during Spain’s coronavirus outbreak dissolved the moment the couple embraced through a screen of plastic film. Pascual Pérez, her husband, lives at a nursing home in Barcelona, one of the many

that locked out visitors to try to shield their residents as the coronavirus killed so many elderly Spaniards. Cañamero, 81, stayed during the country’s nationwide lockdown at the home she and Pérez used to share. During their 59 years of marriage, the couple had never spent so many days apart. So when the Ballesol Puig i Fabra nursing home allowed visits to resume with the addition of protective screens, Cañamero was among the first to arrive. The husband and wife kissed for minutes through the thin layer of plastic—and their face masks. Their tearful reunion was

repeated several times throughout the day by others, washing other residents, visitors and even mistyeyed health-care workers with waves of healing energy. Beatriz Segura carefully put on long gloves before reaching her arms through two holes in the plastic film to hug her 96-year-old mother at Ballesol Puig i Fabra. It was their first in-person encounter since March 15. As members of the nursing home’s staff sobbed from a respectful distance, mother and daughter talked. Segura said she was looking forward to take her mother, Isabel López, out to eat at a restaurant. López replied that

her first priority was getting to a beauty salon. Dolores Reyes, 61, and her father, José Reyes, 87, also were together for the first time in nearly four months. In their eagerness, they pulled down the screen while reaching for each other. Representatives of Ballesol Puig i Fabra wouldn’t disclose how many residents had fallen ill with Covid-19 or died during the outbreak, citing an ongoing judicial investigation. Spain’s nursing homes were hit particularly hard by the virus, which has exacted a nationwide death toll of at least 28,300.

Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, June 27, 2020 A7

Irene as in serene By Nick Tayag

MY SIXTY-ZEN’S WORTH

AST June 10, my family marked the death anniversary of a dearly departed: Irene, wife of my son Dino. Nicknamed Ayen, she was laid to rest four years ago after a long and wearying bout with a stubborn and aggressive metastatic breast cancer. At home, Irene was a most loving mom to her two daughters, and you never heard a harsh word from her even when the kids were being bratty. Yet at her place of work, she could wield a loud piercing Batangueña voice, barking orders or expressing her displeasure like any good boss when she had to. She also had a very soft heart for persons under her care, whether they are family, friends, or former subordinates. Many former classmates, co-managers and supervisors came to the wake night after night, even at midnight, just to pay their last respects. No uncaring friend or boss can inspire such devotion or earn such high esteem. Most of all she was a dynamo at home or office. When she was a branch manager of a top fast-food chain, she had to be up and early to open the outlet, and the last to depart at closing time. In a major supermarket where she worked as a manager, she could be seen walking around the store, inspecting, giving instructions. She was so dedicated to her job even if it was physically stressful. Many times she worked deep into the night doing inventories or attending high-level meetings. She looked like she thrived on that kind of strenuous job. That’s what we thought. Thinking about it, I honestly believe that it was the constant stress and pressure of the job that might have made her body more susceptible to cancer. Some medical experts say that stress is a deadly toxin that is now an active player in the life and health of the urban dweller. It is an unrecognized factor in the incidences of heart attack, obesity, aneurysm, diabetes, cancer, even drug addiction and suicide. It’s no wonder so many people in their 40s, who are in what is supposedly the most productive phase of a human being, are being prematurely cut down. As our family stood silently before her crypt on that day, we all felt that even now we still sorely miss Irene. As the song goes, we had grown accustomed to her face and her voice. Familiarity can breed contempt but in her case, as we came to know her more intimately, the more we came to love her for what she was. To us

she was not an in-law but rather truly an in-family. That’s why when we were told about her terminal condition, we came to be truly afraid for her. Her condition filled our thoughts every day. We would never pass a chapel or church without kneeling down for a few moments to pray for her. We wanted to own her pain and suffering although we could not imagine the degree of her excruciation because she was so quiet about it. Her default answer was “Ok lang po” even when her condition became already critical and we were all on edge. For someone who had a strong vocal power, Irene never let out her agonizing pain but just bore it quietly and uncomplainingly. In fact when you talked to her she looked so serene that you forgot she was suffering. “Mater dolorosa in silentio” indeed. Till the end, Irene stayed serene in suffering. We know because we were by her bedside up to her last breath. One joy scatters a hundred griefs, says an old Chinese proverb. Our family recalls the many moments of joy Irene spent in our company. How she loved to eat, how she relished good food, how she laughed heartily with us, how proudly she stood on stage savoring every little achievement of each of her two daughters. But at the same time her death reminds us of the uncertainty and fragility of life. That we need to savor the joy of every moment of life that God gives us, specially those moments when we are free of pain and distress. Our happy moments will never last but let us not let them pass just like that. To rephrase the song of John Lennon, many times what is most important in our life happens while we are busy planning and doing something else. In every way, let us practice mindfulness, not by counting the days and the hours but by making each day count. Ah, trite sayings you say. Beautiful phrases that don’t really mean anything. But confronted with the reality of young lives being cut short like Irene’s, we should take heed of the wisdom behind those ancient words of advice. The sages certainly knew what they were talking about. The poet John Donne counsels us: “Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee.” Now that so many young lives are “rounded with a little sleep,” may the bell’s tolling serve as an awakening for us who continue to receive the gift of a new day by the grace of God.

Grim blame game over Covid-19 deaths in besieged nursing homes By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar The Associated Press

ASHINGTON—A grim blame game with partisan overtones is breaking out over Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents, a tiny slice of the population that represents a shockingly high proportion of Americans who have perished in the pandemic. The Trump administration has been pointing to a segment of the industry—facilities with low federal ratings for infection control—and to some Democratic governors who required nursing homes to take re-

covering coronavirus patients. Homes that followed federal infection control guidelines were largely able to contain the virus, asserts Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, which sets standards and pays the bills. “Trying to finger-point and blame the federal government is absolutely ridiculous,” she says. Verma says data collected by her agency suggest a connection between low ratings on safety inspections and Covid-19 outbreaks. But several academic researchers say their own work has found no such link. Advocates for the elderly say the

federal government hasn’t provided needed virus testing and sufficient protective gear to allow nursing homes to operate safely. A White House directive to test all residents and staff has been met with an uneven response. “The lack of federal coordination certainly has impeded facilities ability to identify infected persons and to provide care,” Eric Carlson, a long-term care expert with the advocacy group Justice in Aging, told lawmakers. “That absence remains important as facilities are attempting to open up, which requires an extensive reliance on testing.”

Democrats are critical of the Trump administration response. “We need action,” says Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. “We need a plan from CMS and we need resources to stop the spread of Covid-19 in nursing homes.” Nationwide, more than 45,500 residents and staff have died from coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to a running count by The Associated Press. That’s about 40 percent of more than 115,000 total deaths. Nursing home residents are less than 1 percent of the US population.

It’s a sensitive election-year issue for President Donald J. Trump, who’s trying to hang on to support from older voters. A recent CNN poll found that 54 percent of adults 65 and older said they disapproved of how Trump is handling his job as president, while 44 percent approved. With more coronavirus legislation possible this year, congressional Democrats are pressing for a national testing plan and additional resources for nursing homes. Republicans are mainly seconding the administration’s arguments. During a recent briefing for lawmakers, Rep. Steve Scalise

of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, blamed New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the high numbers of deaths in his state. A since-rescinded state directive that nursing homes had to accept recovering coronavirus patients “ended up being a death sentence” in New York and several states with similar policies, Scalise said. Scalise echoed earlier, less forceful, comments from CMS head Verma, who has said such state orders were “not appropriate” and “may have contributed to this issue as well.”

Saturday, June 27, 2020

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BTS EDITION OF SAMSUNG FLAGSHIP UP FOR PRE-ORDER

THE Samsung Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition is finally up for preorder until July 5. The device, which will be made available exclusively through Samsung’s official online store, offers BTS-themed content (bit.ly/3fToI0s). “With this one-of-a-kind collaboration with the global pop music and cultural sensation BTS, we hope to give an exclusive opportunity for the fans to connect more with their favorite phenomenal group,” said Jerry Mañus, Samsung Philippines business unit head of IT and Mobile. The Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition features a purple exterior with the group’s logo and purple heart iconography found on the backside of the device. It also has a preinstalled BTSinspired theme, icons and more that fans will not want to miss out on. The special BTS edition package will also include stickers and seven collectible photo cards featuring band members RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook. Meanwhile, the new device sports the same pro-grade camera system the Galaxy S20+ is known for, so fans can share stories online and connect with other fans. It is also equipped with a 6.7” screen that is perfect when streaming the band’s hyper-synchronized dance moves. As a preorder offer, the limited-edition device comes with a 50-percent discount on the BTS Edition Galaxy Buds+ to let fans immerse themselves in their favorite hits with its superb sound quality. They will also be entitled to a P4,000 eStore voucher (S20YOURGALAXY) which can be used upon check out. On top of these, all pre-ordered units through the Samsung Online Store come with Samsung’s official warranty.

GLOBE subscribers were able to attend the fanmeet of BrightWin, one of the most popular Thai love teams.

Over 1B ‘hearts’ for BrightWin

ONLINE DELIVERY WEB SITE BRINGS FAST FOOD TO TECH AGE AMID PANDEMIC

IS quarantine making you miss the taste of Popeyes’ juicy chicken and biscuit? Does the summer heat make you crave for a serving of Kuya J Ube Halo Halo? Well, you are in luck. A new online delivery web site, called Central Delivery (www.centraldelivery.ph), has been launched so that customers can indulge on their favorites and get their cravings delivered. Central Delivery is determined to deliver only the best food consumers deserve as the featured restaurants only offer the best-tasting dishes. Order your favorite Popeyes famous fried chicken or Kuya J’s succulent Crispy Pata and Lechon Baka, Landers Central’s New York-style pizzas, burgers, and hot dogs, and Da Gianni Cucina Italiana’s home-cooked Italian meals for people in the Alabang vicinity. Central Delivery is available every day in selected areas in Metro Manila. If you are looking for something else, Central Delivery will have more choices and areas that will be up and accessible really soon. You can look forward to mouthwatering seafood dishes from Isla Sugbu Seafood City, which was awarded the Best Seafood Restaurant of 2019; sweet delights from Dough and Co., and timeless Chinese flavors from Majestic.

APPLE Inc. CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 22 in Cupertino, California. Apple on Monday provided a glimpse at upcoming software changes designed to make the iPhone even easier to use as people become ever more dependent on technology as they minimize personal contact during the worst pandemic in a century. BROOKS

KRAFT/APPLE INC. VIA AP

LAST year, I went to over 20 concerts and fanmeetings here featuring Korean artists. At that time, I thought, “If this is what 2019 is like, I wonder how many events I would go to in 2020?” As it turns out, I would go to two concerts (Eric Nam and NCT Dream) and one fanmeeting )Kim Myung Soo) before Covid-19 decided to take over the year. But people have found a way around that. Fans will have their concerts and fanmeetings. I’ve been to two this year so far (SuperM and TVXQ), both on the VLive platform. Using the VLive app platform, Thai entertainment provider GMMTV hosted the first online global fanmeet of one of the most popular Thai love teams, BrightWin. The event was livestreamed on VLive and fans got to watch by purchasing tickets.

A hundred Globe Telecom (which has a partnership with VLive) subscribers got the chance to meet and interact with the two Thai BL (meaning Boy Love) actors for free by recreating a photo or video of their favorite scene of TayNew or BrightWin, posting it on their Twitter accounts together with the screenshot of the recreated scene, tagging @enjoyglobe and using the hashtags #Recreate, #GlobeBL, #GlobeVlive and #GlobeAtHome. Fans can binge-watch and enjoy their favorite Korean and Thai content through affordable data packages and promos from Globe. You can download the VLive App and register to your favorite Globe prepaid and postpaid video streaming offers to enjoy your favorite Korean and Thai BL content. More information on the Globe plans and other data packages is available at www.globe.com.ph. Now, back to BrightWin: Who or what is BrightWin? Vachirawit Chiva-aree, also known as Bright or Sarawat, and Metawin Opas-iamkajorn, better known as Win, are the stars of the hit Thai BL series 2gether. During the fanmeet, it only took one mention of Mayon Volcano by Win for his fans to make it trend on Twitter. “I found this place, it’s called Mayon Volcano in the Philippines. It’s very beautiful, like a painting,” he said after being asked by a Filipino fan about his next dream vacation during the show.

“I want to go to Mayon Volcano—because of the view, and the landscape is so beautiful,” said Win. Meanwhile, Bright said he’d like to go to the Maldives. During the fanmeet, Bright and Win thrilled their fans with back-to-back song numbers, which were made more fun with augmented reality. They also answered questions from fans and played games. BrightWin opened the show with 2gether’s official soundtrack, “Tit Gub [Stuck On You]” by Max Jemnana and “Event” by Season Five. After that, Win did a cover of “Pid Tee Wai Jai” by Thai rock bank Silly Fools and Bright sang his single “Tok Long Chan Kit Bpai Eng Chai Ma [It’s all in my head all these times].” The popular loveteam performed a Scrubb medley, featuring the songs “Klai [Close],” “Khao Gun Dee [Click]” and “Khoo Gun [Together].” They also performed “I Love You 3000” by Stephanie Poetri and Jackson Wang and “Piang Chai Kon Nee [When a Man Loves a Woman].” Bright and Win became emotional after watching a tribute video about their journey. “I know this is the beginning for us, but we never thought we would have today,” said Win. “Thanks to the fans who are with me right from the beginning, or just recently. You are with me through the happiness, the sadness,” said Bright. The VLive event, by the way, got over a billion “hearts” or “likes” during the event.

Apple previews new iPhone software, changes to Mac chips

BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE The Associated Press

PPLE on Monday provided a glimpse at upcoming software changes designed to make the iPhone even easier to use and also announced a long-anticipated shift to a new type of chip to power its line of Mac computers. The preview of the next version of the iPhone’s operating system, known as iOS 14, highlighted Apple’s annual conference for computer programmers and mobile app makers. The event, which was delayed for three weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, took place in virtual form via a webcast from the company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. In recognition of the pandemic, Apple’s next iPhone operating system will include an option to put a face mask on a personalized emoji. Upgraded software for the Apple Watch will also detect when wearers wash their hands. Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off Monday’s session with remarks that acknowledged the nationwide protests triggered by George Floyd’s death last month at the hands of Minneapolis police, as well as the social and business challenges posed by the worst pandemic in a century. But most of the presentation revolved around an array of new features that, for instance, could help iPhone users manage their apps better, find new ones,

and use their phones to unlock and start their cars remotely. (Though that last feature will initially only be available for a 2021 BMW model.) Apple also promised an upgraded version of its digital assistant Siri intended to make it smarter and less cumbersome, helping it fend off rival voiceactivated concierges made by Google and Amazon. Apple also said its Mac computers will begin using its own chips as it phases out the Intel processors that have powered the machines for the past 15 years. Some Macs will have the Apple chips before the end of the year, but the full transition away from Intel chips won’t be completed until 2022. There had been speculation that Apple would unveil apps that rely on augmented reality, or AR, a technology that melds digitally projected images with the real world. Although Cook has been hyping AR has the next big wave in technology, it hasn’t caught on in the mainstream yet and Apple didn’t drop any new bombshells about it during Monday’s event. Instead, the company disclosed a few relatively minor features in its AR platform for iPhones and iPads in a written summary. Apple is widely believed to be working on an AR headset and Internet-connected glasses that could be released in the next two to three years. True to its secretive nature, Apple hasn’t disclosed any plans for its own line of AR devices. The company gave no indication whether the

pandemic-driven disruptions in work in the factories that make iPhone parts will delay the release of the next model. The company typically unveils its next iPhones in early September and then starts selling them toward the end of the month. Analysts believe the release of the iPhone 12 will be come later than usual, but are expecting it still will be on sale well before the pivotal holiday shopping season. Earlier this month, the CEO of chip maker Broadcom, Hock Tan, told analysts he expected a delay in the production of a product made by a major North American smartphone maker. Broadcom is a major

supplier for the iPhone. Apple is expected to roll out as many as four different iPhone 12 models this year, including its first version that will be able to work on the next generation of ultrafast wireless networks known as 5G. Investors are betting heavily that Apple could emerge even stronger from the pandemic and the associated recession. The company’s stock hit a new all-time high Monday before closing at $358.87—a gain of 22 percent so far this year that gives Apple a market value to give the company a market value of more than $1.5 trillion. ■

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Saturday, June 27, 2020

Apple can’t ignore antitrust outcry. Here’s a game plan

C Vivo V19 Neo brings stunning nighttime shots with five-camera design, advanced shooting abilities POPULAR smartphone brand Vivo has unveiled the new V19 Neo in the Philippines. V19 Neo comes with an innovative Ultra O Screen design which provides consumers with a whole new viewing experience beyond their imagination. Housed with a total of five professional-grade cameras on the front and back, V19 Neo helps consumers to ignite their night and allows them to shoot everyday life. Completing its futuristic design with brilliant colors and a glossy finish, the V19 Neo is the ultimate answer for what young and stylish consumers are searching for. “The V19 Neo represents our understanding of today’s consumers’ needs and it is an innovation which we are extremely proud of. The 5-camera design, together with the Ultra O Screen, provides consumers with a brand-new photo-taking and viewing experience. V19 Neo will also help consumers to ignite their night with the advanced night-shooting abilities,” said Charisma Buan, Vivo PR team lead. “The creation of V19 Neo once again showcases our strong consumer-centric innovation approach and reinforces our position as a pioneer in bringing bestin-class mobile experiences to the Philippines.” V19 Neo features an innovative Super AMOLED Ultra O Screen with the industry’s slimmest indisplay front camera design. The 6.44-inch FHD+ display houses 2.98mm wide super-clear front camera, providing a trendy and futuristic look without sacrificing the viewing experience. The customized next-gen display features an aspect ratio of 20:9, bringing vibrant and authentic colors and filtering out 92.5 percent of blue light and boasts SGS Eye Care Display certification. The smartphone also comes with Vivo’s industryleading In-Display Fingerprint Scanning Technology. With its higher fingerprint pixel density and more sophisticated algorithms, it allows consumers to unlock the smartphone safely and easily. The V19 Neo is also designed for users to complete all their everyday tasks with their mobile, be it work, social, or entertainment. It is supported by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 675 AIE processor with 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM, delivering performance for all applications and ensuring systems can be operated smoothly at all times. Its 4500mAh battery with dual-engine fast charging technology brings higher durability and faster charging so the smartphone can provide a long-lasting and safe mobile experience. For gamers who want a smooth mobile gaming experience, the V19 Neo comes with an Ultra Game Mode that brings out the best and uninterrupted gaming experience by temporarily blocking messages and notifications so users can fully immerse themselves into their fantasy world. The MultiTurbo acceleration technology actively tunes the operating system to ensure gamers can enjoy a more exhilarating game performance. V19 Neo also comes with a “Voice Changer” feature, which can inject more fun into game time by providing a variety of voices to match game characters. The smartphone comes in two trendsetting color options—Admiral Blue & Crystal White.

BY TAE KIM Bloomberg News

UPERTINO, we have a problem. On Monday, Apple Inc. kicked off its Worldwide Developers Conference—a weeklong annual event for the millions of programmers who create the apps that are enjoyed by roughly a billion iPhone users. It’s meant to be a platform for celebrating the tech giant’s developer community, but this year the backdrop is different—and not just because the conference is being held entirely online for the first time. This time around, the festivities arrive just as Apple faces fresh scrutiny about the fairness of its App Store policies. There is a rising chorus of criticism over Apple’s business practices and how the company treats its partners, and the company will have trouble sidestepping the debate. The issue came to the fore last week, when the European Union said it opened two formal antitrust investigations into Apple. One of the probes is centered around Apple’s requirements on when companies are required to use the App Store’s inapp purchase system, where it charges developers up to a 30 percent cut for digital content or services sold on its platform. Soon after that news hit, wellknown Basecamp developer David Heinemeier Hansson accused Apple of a “shakedown” in rejecting the latest revision of his company’s Hey email app. After an initial approval, Apple later decided the Hey app didn’t deserve an exemption from using its in-app payment system, and thus would be required to use Apple’s billing service—and be subject to the fees that go with it—or face being kicked out of the app store. Hansson’s willingness to call out Apple publicly unleashed a tidal wave of similar negative commentary from other developers, who resent what they see as Apple’s arbitrary enforcement and seemingly haphazard rule set in its App Store Review Guidelines. Some complained Apple’s fee structure was way too high, while others wrote about their similar domineering treatment experiences going through Apple’s app approval process. As the anecdotes piled up throughout the week, many journalists and bloggers increasingly took the side of developers. Of course, it didn’t help that Apple had already granted exceptions to larger companies including Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com, Inc. under special category exemptions and negotiated deals. And it wasn’t only the developer community that was up in arms. Other larger technology companies and politicians felt compelled to weigh in amid the firestorm last week. Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith said regulators should review Apple’s App Store practices, saying today’s digital mobile stores now had far “higher walls and far more formidable gates” against competition than when Microsoft’s Windows operating system did two decades ago during the company’s own antitrust battle. Further, Rhode Island Democratic Representative David Cicilline, the chairman of the House antitrust subcommittee, told The Verge the Apple App Store is “charging exorbitant rents—highway robbery, basically—bullying people to pay 30 percent or denying access to their market.” The truth is, Apple’s dominance over nearly half of the US smartphone market and its more affluent customer base means every developer and company with an app simply needs to be on the iOS

platform. And its power is such that it can materially harm potential competitors at a whim with anticompetitive business decisions. Antitrust laws are tailor-made for situations like this. Apple should accept this new reality and act accordingly. The company can defuse the situation by updating its policies to be more developer friendly. Many of its current guidelines were created under a drastically different circumstance more than a decade ago and need to be revamped. For example, Apple’s in-app payment system exemptions—from a business versus consumer service delineation to the exception for “reader apps” such as Netflix and Amazon’s Kindle—do not have much business logic behind them in today’s world. The fact that some developers are forced to give up nearly a third of their sales to Apple, while others can skate by without paying anything simply doesn’t seem fair. So, here are the four things Apple can do: 1. Rewrite its App Store review guidelines with clear, concise and precise language for its requirements and terms. There is still too much confusion on what is allowed or not allowed under its current policy, making every app approval process a worrisome ordeal for developers. 2. Make any in-app purchase system exemption that is offered to larger and powerful companies available to smaller developers as well. It’s a bad look to offer loopholes for Amazon, but not for the rest of the community. 3. Consider a complete revamp of the entire fee business model. Online dating company Match Group, Inc. said in a statement last week it is unfair that the “digital services” app category is the only one that is forced to pay fees to Apple. The company noted apps that provide ride-sharing services and socialnetwork apps that monetize through advertising don’t have to pay that same cut. Perhaps, if Apple can spread its fee take to a larger base of companies, it can then

lower the overarching percentage. For example, the Epic Games Inc. Games Store charges a 12 percent fee on software sold on its platform, while also allowing developers the ability to use their own payments services for in-app purchases. 4. Abandon certain blatantly anticompetitive restrictions—such as forbidding links and descriptions to external, potentially cheaper purchasing alternatives. The ability to offer more choice to consumers is the main request by the developers who are criticizing Apple’s policies. Hansson, the developer at the center of the last week’s debate, told me he and others like him want the ability to bill their own customers and direct potential customers to where they can buy a subscription. “Fundamentally, we want choice,” he wrote in an e-mail. “It’s plain, it’s fair, and it’s way overdue.” European Union said last week it will look into Apple’s restrictions that keep developers from informing users of alternative purchasing avenues inside apps. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney also agrees app developers should not be forced to use Apple’s in-app payments system. Apple blocks competing payment providers from offering lower fees, Sweeney told me in an e-mail. “iOS and Android should be level playing fields where all stores and service providers can compete freely, unhindered by anticompetitive tying of stores and services,” he wrote. Yes, acceding to some of these demands and concessions may hurt Apple’s finances on the margin. But the tech giant valued at nearly $1.5 trillion can afford it. Meanwhile, there is no doubt the antitrust regulatory freight train is coming down the track at full steam in both the US and Europe. Apple should proactively offer fairer terms or risk cruder regulatory actions from governments that will likely be far worse. ■

Google loses appeal against $56 million fine in France PARIS—France’s highest administrative court has upheld a fine of €50 million ($56 million) Google was ordered to pay for not being “sufficiently clear and transparent” with Android users about their data protection options. Google was first slapped with the fine in January 2019, the first penalty for a US tech giant under new European data privacy rules that took effect in 2018. Google appealed the penalty issued by the French data privacy watchdog to the Council of State, France’s final arbiter in such cases. The council ruled Friday that the National Data Protection Commission had the right to sanction Google and that the fine was not disproportionate, “given the particular seriousness” and duration of Google’s failings. In response, Google said it would

look at making changes. In force since May 2018, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is aimed at clarifying individual rights to personal data collected by companies. It requires companies to use plain language to explain what they’re doing with data. In sanctioning Google, France’s data watchdog had said Google users were “not sufficiently informed” about what they were agreeing to as the company collected data for targeted advertisements. It faulted Google for making users take too many steps, “sometimes up to 5 or 6 actions,” to find out how and why their data is being used and for being “too generic and vague” in descriptions of why data is processed.

The Council of State concurred and faulted Google for “particularly intrusive” data collection methods. It said the firm “has not provided sufficiently clear and transparent information to users of the Android operating system and has not enabled them to give free and informed consent to the processing of their personal data for the purpose of personalizing advertisements.” Google said Friday that it has “invested in industry-leading tools” to help its users “understand and control how their data is used.” “This case was not about whether consent is needed for personalized advertising, but about how exactly it should be obtained,” the company said. “In light of this decision, we will now review what changes we need to make.” AP

A10 Saturday, June 27, 2020

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Despite green pledges, Amazon’s carbon footprint grew 15% BY JOSEPH PISANI The Associated Press NEW YORK—Amazon said on Tuesday that its carbon footprint rose 15 percent last year, even as it launched initiatives to reduce its harm on the environment. The online shopping giant said activities tied to its businesses emitted 51.17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, the equivalent of 13 coal burning power plants running for a year. That’s up from 2018, when it reported a carbon footprint of 44.4 million metric tons.

Amazon disclosed its carbon footprint the first time last year after employees pressured the company to do more to combat climate change. Gregg Marland, a professor at the Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics at Appalachian State University, said his first reaction to Amazon’s massive carbon footprint was, “Oh wow.” But he said the company was comprehensive in calculating the number, even including the emissions from shoppers’ drives to its Whole Foods grocery stores and the energy used to make a Kindle tablet. Amazon said that while its carbon footprint grew, the

amount of carbon it emitted for every dollar spent on the site fell 5 percent between 2018 and 2019. The Seattle-based company also said it’s on track to have 100 percent of its energy use come from solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable energy by 2025, five years earlier than it had planned. And on Tuesday, Amazon announced it would start a $2 billion fund to invest in companies that make products and technology that help fight climate change. But the increase in its carbon footprint shows how tricky it is for a rapidly-growing company like Amazon to cut down on pollution. Amazon depends on

fuel-guzzling planes and trucks to ship billions of items a year around the world. Emissions from fossil fuels rose 18 percent last year, Amazon said on Tuesday. Orders have increased amid the coronavirus pandemic, as more stuck-at-hope people shop online. To keep up, and deliver on time, Amazon said this month that it leased a dozen more Boeing 767s, bringing its fleet of jets to more than 80. Earlier this year, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said he would spend $10 billion of his personal fortune to fund scientists, activists and nonprofits working to improve the environment.

Facebook ad boycott gains steam, but small business can’t quit so easily

BY KU�T WAGNE� Bloomberg News

NUMBER of major apparel brands have promised to pull advertising money from Facebook Inc. as part of a coordinated campaign to pressure the social-media giant to crack down on hate speech and misinformation amid nationwide civil-rights protests and the lead-up to the 2020 US presidential election. Civil rights groups, including the NAACP, the AntiDefamation League and Color of Change, launched the campaign last week, asking marketers to boycott Facebook ads for the month of July, an effort they’re calling Stop Hate for Profit. The group says that Facebook, which brings in almost all of its revenue from advertising, makes money off user posts that include hate speech, racism and misinformation. A few large marketers were quick to jump on board. Outdoor apparel brand The North Face, owned by CF Corp., on June 19 tweeted “we’re out,” and confirmed to Bloomberg that it has pulled ad spending for both the main Facebook social network and its photo-sharing app Instagram until August. Recreational Equipment Inc., known as REI, which also sells sporting gear, and Upwork Inc., an online marketplace for freelancers, joined the boycott that afternoon. On June 21, Patagonia Inc. also pledged an advertising pause. On Tuesday, outdoor outfitter Arc’teryx said it would halt Facebook spending at least until the end of July, followed closely by popular ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., part of Unilever NV. The six companies have more than 19 million combined Facebook followers, and more than 13 million on Instagram. Still, many small businesses, which make up the bulk of Facebook’s advertisers, likely can’t afford to pause spending on the social network, their main online outpost for reaching local customers—a sign of the company’s strength in the digital ad market. “We deeply respect any brand’s decision, and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information,” said Carolyn Everson, vice president of

Facebook’s Global Business Group. For years, Facebook has been the target of politicians and nonprofit groups seeking to challenge the company’s power over user data and speech content. Despite previous ad boycott efforts, and a #deletefacebook trend online in early 2018, Facebook’s revenue and user growth numbers have never been seriously impacted by user or advertiser protests. Since 2016, when Facebook’s policies became the center of debate following foreign interference efforts during the US election, the social network’s revenue has jumped by 150 percent to more than $70 billion in 2019. It’s possible the latest boycott will be the first to gain any real traction. Civil rights protests erupted in hundreds of cities across the country last month following the death of an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. Many companies, including Facebook, have donated money and issued statements of support for racial justice groups. Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the formal end of slavery in the US, was adopted widely as a corporate holiday by many companies for the first time this year. “It’s obviously a cultural moment of pain,” said Steve Lesnard, VP of marketing at The North Face, who said the company made the decision in “hopes that Facebook will provide stricter rules.” But support of the boycott also signals support for groups that started it, like the NAACP. “We believe that normal is not good enough and we all need to drive positive change immediately,” Lesnard added. Civil Rights groups have taken issue with Facebook for years. The Menlo Park, California-based social network enabled voter suppression efforts against African Americans in 2016, they say, and then named The Daily Caller, a right-wing outlet with ties to white nationalism, as one of its formal fact-checking partners. Most recently, Facebook left up posts from President Donald Trump threatening protesters that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase with ties to a pro-segregation presidential candidate. Employees at Color of Change, a civil rights nonprofit helping lead the boycott, have phone calls set up with advertisers throughout this week in

hopes of encouraging them to halt spending. “It’s not the time for statements of support that are just ‘Black Lives Matter’ and don’t come with real change,” said Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, the group’s senior campaigns director. “Now it’s time to change rules and behaviors.” It’s unclear how much money any of the brands that committed to the boycott actually spend on Facebook advertising—for many national brands, Facebook ads are just a fraction of their overall marketing budgets—or if others will join them in holding back. While more large companies may pause spending, many small businesses, which make up the majority of Facebook advertisers, may not have that luxury. Shutting down Facebook advertising for a month, even for a cause they believe in, would pose a serious threat to online commerce brands in particular, many of which rely on Facebook ads to drive the bulk of their sales, according to multiple ad buyers. Almost 76 percent of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from small- and medium-sized businesses—the kind that are unlikely to be in a position to spend a month off the platform— according to research from Deutsche Bank. “They’re in the trenches, and they’re trying to hit their numbers,” said Terry Whalen, president of the digital marketing agency Sum Digital, which works with smaller e-commerce and direct-to-consumer brands. “If you talk about boycotting Facebook, to me that sounds like a fantastic idea to send a message. But for a whole month? That’s just too ambitious.” Many smaller media buyers like Whalen—the kind who spend tens of millions of dollars per year on Facebook ads instead of hundreds of millions—first heard about the boycott from Facebook itself. The company sent its media partners an email last week acknowledging the boycott, and highlighting much of the work Facebook is doing around identifying hate speech using algorithms and defending election integrity, including a new goal to register 4 million voters ahead of the 2020 US general election. “We remain open to meeting with any of these organizations and welcome feedback on the issues they have raised,” the email read. Barry Hott, VP of growth at a software company for driving website sales called Thesis, manages over $4 million in Facebook ad spending per month. He agrees that for many of his clients, Facebook is too valuable to give up. “A huge stream of their revenue is unfortunately tied directly to [Facebook] ads,” he said. “None of these clients can afford to do that.” The dependence on Facebook has been part of a broader industry discussion in recent years about the immense power of major technology companies. Facebook alone accounts for 23.4 percent of the entire US digital advertising market, according to EMarketer, and more than 50 percent of the market is controlled by Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Not coincidentally, numerous US regulators are investigating the tech industry’s largest companies for antitrust reasons. Facebook investors, meanwhile, don’t seem concerned that some big brands are throwing their names and their dollars behind the boycott. Deutsche Bank’s Lloyd Walmsley, an analyst covering Facebook, said that while he’s heard from many advertisers worried about marketing on social media given the current environment surrounding the protests, he doesn’t anticipate Facebook suffering any kind of long-term business harm. “Looking beyond the very short term, I think this will end up being a speed bump,” he says. Facebook stock closed on Tuesday at $242.24 a share, an all-time high. “I don’t suspect that a month-long call to boycott is going to be successful,” said Whalen. “Facebook is too important.” ■

SMART BRINGS TOGETHER TOP PHL MOBILE LEGENDS PLAYERS FOR CHAMPION INVITATIONAL

FILIPINO eSports players and fans are in for a treat as the top Mobile Legends: Bang Bang players in the country will be on an epic battle to determine the best of the best at the first-ever Mobile Legends Pro League-Philippine Champion Invitational, powered by Smart. The MPL-PH Champion Invitational, which opened online on June 20 and 21 and continues on June 27 and 28, is a grand exhibition tournament featuring all the champion teams of MPL PH from Season 1 to Season 5. All champions will battle it out not only for the cash prize pool, but also for the glory and the entertainment of local eSports fans during these challenging times. Champion teams Aether Main (Season 1), Cignal Ultra (Season 2), ArkAngel (Season 3) and back-to-back champion SunSparks (Season 4 and 5) will go on to the big stage in an epic battle to determine who is the best Mobile Legends team in the Philippines, as well as a grand prize of $5,800. Fans will be able to follow all the nail-biting Mobile Legends action on the Smart Facebook page on both weekends. As a staunch supporter of Philippine eSports, Smart powered some of its biggest eSports events over the past few years. The MPL-PH Champion Invitational comes on the heels of the mobile services provider new ‘Simple. Smart Ako’ campaign, which reinforces its commitment to bring simple solutions and amazing experiences to Filipinos. Meanwhile, eSports players and enthusiasts can enjoy their favorite games all day with Smart’s GIGA Games offer. For as low as P99, subscribers can get 1 GB per day of Games All Day with Mobile Legends and other titles, as well as 2 GB of open-access data for seven days. More updates and information on Smart’s eSports events and initiatives are available at www.facebook.com/ SmartCommunications.

THE Sony wireless sports earphones WI-SP510 provides all the ear candy the brand is known for.

HOW TO TURBO-CHARGE YOUR WORKOUT

AS people become more conscious about health and fitness amid this global Covid-19 pandemic, Sony has introduced its new entry wireless sports earphones WISP510 in the Philippines, targeted to people with active lifestyles who aim to turbo-charge their workout without breaking the bank. The WI-SP510 comes with features that are perfect for intense training: IPX5 water resistance rating, long battery life, secure fit and a deep punchy bass to help you get in the zone. With an IPX5 water resistance rating, splashes and sweat won’t stop these headphones—you can even wash them after your intense home training session. Available in all Sony Centers and dealers nationwide, the WI-SP510 also lasts for 15 hours on a full charge to support you set after set so you won’t have to worry about not finishing your get-fit playlist or your goto motivational podcast. Aside from the all-day comfort and convenience this new Sony offering provides, it is also built with a deep, punchy sound that Sony’s Extra Bass technology is known for, giving you the drive to keep going.

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Saturday, June 27, 2020 A11

Will blended/distance learning or ‘GOAL’ be the new normal in education?

HEN I was a student, the start of the school year was a lot like Christmas for me and my siblings (minus the toys and the noche buena), because it was the only other time when we had reason to buy new shoes, uniforms, bags (Khumbmela!) and lots of school supplies. Those were simpler times. We were happy with Cattleya or Corona notebooks and Pilot pens, and if you had a Trapper Keeper, one of those refillable binder notebooks, or were using Staedtler/Faber Castell pencils instead of Mongol #2, you were already the envy of your classmates. Now, in addition to skyrocketing tuition fees and those expensive school supplies, students also “need” a smartphone, tablet or laptop, and prepaid cards for their call and data loads—on top of their daily allowances. So I can just imagine how hard it must be for parents to send a child, let alone several kids to school—something that’s about to become even more complicated and problematic because of the Covid-19 pandemic. As President Duterte himself has said that he won’t be allow students to go back to school until it is safe or a vaccine becomes available, the Department of Education has developed the Basic EducationLearning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP) and schools are directed to implement blended/distance learning modalities where lessons will be delivered to the students in their homes. In the blended/distance learning modalities, DepEd will utilize online learning resources such as its learning portal, called “DepEd Commons.” The DepEd said it will also continue to pursue various distance learning delivery modalities, one of which is online learning. For those without Internet connectivity or gadgets at home, the DepEd said preparations are also currently underway to implement home-based learning through TV, radio, online and printed modules. The agency is tapping private partners and local government units to assist them in this challenging implementation of School Year 20202021. As of the third week of June, the total number of enrollees has reached 12,768,466 nationwide (12,319,956 in public schools and 439,520 for private schools) for Kindergarten to Grade 12 in both formal and informal education systems. Teachers nationwide, on the other hand, are getting free online trainings provided by Gabay Guro, PLDT’s flagship educational program through

its “Learning Never Stops” campaign. As of May 30, Gabay Guro has led 13 e-learning sessions on Facebook with over 300,000 views to date. The online training videos uploaded on the Gabay Guro Facebook Page are all for free. These videos are available for replay which allows teachers to learn at their own pace. Topics of the live training and recorded webcasts include life learnings from the quarantine, virtual teaching 101, flipping the classroom, improving students’ reading and comprehension, as well as teachers’ mindset improvement in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. My nephew has already enrolled and is about to start school next week, although how exactly that will happen remains a mystery to all of us.

iACADEMY SETS GOAL

UNLIKE many schools who are just trying to attempt distance learning for the first time, Makati-based school iAcademy has already been implementing technology-enabled learning by utilizing various online platforms and tools like NEO and Google Classroom to deliver lessons even before the pandemic began. With the current global health crisis and government pronouncements prohibiting conduct of face-to-face classes, iAcademy has decided to roll out its new approach, called GOAL, or Guided Online Autonomous Learning. iAcademy has ramped up its efforts in fully implementing flexible remote learning for its students to ease its transition to what might become the new normal for educational institutions. Earlier this month, the school gathered hundreds of parents for a webinar wherein school academic officials and parents had a meaningful discussion about flexible remote learning, and the preparations the school has done to ensure the continuous and dynamic delivery of education for its students. Cecilia Sy, iAcademy’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, said, “When the pandemic broke, all schools and universities were forced to expedite the use of technology to deliver instruction to ensure that learning is not disrupted. For us, we saw this challenge as an opportunity to step up our game. iAcademy will implement the online distance learning program GOAL, which is designed to provide a flexible, relevant, balanced and collaborative learning experience to our students. Sy emphasized that the program will be learnercentered and faculty-directed. It is anchored on a holistic and adaptive approach to teaching and learning. She said that it is learner-centered because it factors in the learning capacity of the students and provides learning activities that are engaging, relevant and outcome-based. The focus is to equip students with the essential knowledge, values and skills to prepare them for future challenges in their careers. It’s also faculty-directed because students are still guided, monitored and mentored by our professors despite the absence of a face-to-face interaction.

A lot of buzzwords have come up ever since schools started adopting alternative modes of learning. Among these terms include online learning, blended learning, modular, flexible remote learning and distance learning. The webinar likewise gave the school administrators a chance to further explain what each term means. Flexible learning is a multifaceted approach to learning where students are given options on how, what, when and where they learn. It is the overarching drive, philosophy or approach behind the other methods of delivering instruction. It is student-centered because it encourages and empowers students to be autonomous or independent, which is a key attribute that enables them to manage the challenges in the 21st century. It combines and expands familiar approaches to teaching and learning. Face-to-face classes, blended learning and distance learning are part and parcel of flexible learning. Flexible learning draws on different approaches and methods of delivering instruction that is most suitable to the circumstances and needs of the learners. Blended learning, meanwhile, refers to delivering the lessons through face-to-face and online classes. This means some lessons are taught in a traditional classroom set-up and others are taught online. Distance learning, on the other hand, pertains to delivering instruction remotely. The key elements in distance learning are time and space. In this set-up, students are not in the same physical room with their teachers and classmates while learning. Learning sessions will be conducted either

synchronously and asynchronously. Synchronous learning is conducting learning sessions where students and professors interact and collaborate in real time. This can be done either through face-to-face classes or through remote or distance learning enabled by technology. This set-up allows immediate feedback because it facilitates the exchange of ideas and information in real time. In asynchronous learning, professors and students collaborate but not in real time. The professors provide offline learning materials or resources that students study or work on in their own time. This includes tutorial videos, recorded lectures and demonstrations, modules, learning guides and other reading materials. Students and professors communicate through discussion boards, emails, or instant messaging. These tools are used for consultation and feedback. Asynchronous learning has its benefits because in this format, students develop self-discipline and a sense of ownership of their learning because they are given some autonomy on how to pace themselves. It allows them to spend more time on challenging lessons and work toward mastery. Students can still collaborate with their teachers and classmates through chat boxes and discussion boards. Jake Aragon, iAcademy’s Senior High School Principal, assured parents and students alike that the delivery of quality education is possible even through flexible remote learning. Next week we’ll talk about more about how quality education can still be achieved through iAcademy’s GOAL program. ■

GLOBE URGES CUSTOMERS TO USE REPORTING TOOL FOR SPAM/SCAM CASES AS cases of mobile fraud and spamming continue to escalate during the Covid-19 pandemic, Globe Telecom is encouraging customers to use the company’s reporting tool to stop unscrupulous people from taking advantage or deceiving the general public through calls and text messages. By visiting www.globe.com.ph/stop-spam. html and filling out the online form, Globe customers can easily help put a stop to these illegal practices. Once a report is received, Globe will promptly respond by deactivating numbers proven to be repetitive sources of such dubious messages. “We are concerned about the problems that could arise from these call and text scams. This is why we continuously work to combat this malicious behavior to provide a spam-free experience for all our customers. While we constantly upgrade and improve our blocking and filtering mechanism to keep unwanted messages from entering our network, we also need the cooperation

of our customers to make this effort fully effective,” said Anton Bonifacio, Globe chief information security officer. Globe reminds customers that official Globe advisories come only from a fourdigit or alphanumeric sender code; thus, they should not entertain any message from 11-digit numbers pretending to be from Globe no matter how legitimate they seem to be. Other warning signs of scams and spams are the presence of letters that are deliberately capitalized, as well as grammatical and spelling errors. Most recently, there are complaints about alleged Globe representatives offering a SIM upgrade and asking for one-time PIN. Globe, however, will never ask for personal information or ask anyone to surrender their SIM since this may lead to unauthorized access to services such as verification or security protocols for banks accounts, money transfers, and other related transactions that are linked to the customer’s

mobile number. The same holds true for other text messages from third parties that request for personal information such as name, age, and address, in exchange for raffle prizes, preapproved loans, and other similar offers. These scammers often entice their victims to send money in exchange for a prize. Globe also warned against text messages that require the recipient to send a certain amount to 2 + (10-digit mobile number) for either a “discount,” “refund” or other fraudulent claims. This is a Share-a-Load process that will transfer prepaid load to the scammer. Another similar scam involves a request for the recipient to dial *100*1* (10-digit mobile number) and so on. This is an AutoloadMAX retailer process that will transfer load credits to the scammer. Thus, Globe also reminds its customers to always transact with Globe official channels and accounts (glbe.co/official-accounts).

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A12 Saturday, June 27, 2020

VINCE CARTER, 43, RETIRES By Tim Reynolds

The Associated Press

INCE CARTER made his retirement official on Thursday, announcing on his podcast that his 22-year National Basketball Association (NBA) career, the longest in league history, has come to an end. The announcement was largely a formality because the 43-year-old Carter had said many times over the course of this season that this would be his last in the NBA. He became the first NBA player to appear in four different decades. “Vince Carter has made an indelible impact on the NBA with his remarkable skill and enduring commitment,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who lauded Carter as “a true ambassador of the game.” Carter appeared in 1,541 NBA games, behind only Robert Parish (1,611) and Kareem AbdulJabbar (1,560) on the league’s all-time list. He started his career with Toronto, then played for New Jersey, Orlando, Phoenix, Dallas, Memphis, Sacramento and spent his final two seasons with Atlanta. Carter’s first season was the 1998-99 campaign, which was shortened to 50 games because of labor strife. His final season was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic, and the Hawks will not be part of the 22 teams headed to the Disney complex near Orlando, Florida, next month for the planned resumption of NBA play. “It’s kind of a cool situation for me because I came into the league on a shortened season and I walk away from the league on a shortened season,” Carter said on the “Winging It” podcast. “So for me, it’s just kind of a unique situation.”

Carter scored 25,728 points in his career, 19th-most in NBA history. The Hawks quickly lauded Carter for what he’s done, not just in two years with Atlanta but over the totality of his career. “Throughout his historic 22-year journey covering an unprecedented four different decades, his evolving career arc was perhaps like none other in league history—from Top 5 Draft Pick to Rookie of the Year to Slam Dunk Champion to superstar and eight-time All-Star to Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year and valuable role player,” the Hawks said in a statement. Carter’s last game was March 11, a contest the Hawks lost at home in overtime to New York. By the time that game was winding down, the NBA already had announced that it was suspending the season at the conclusion of that night’s play after Utah center Rudy Gobert became the first player in the league known to test positive for the coronavirus. The moment was not lost on Atlanta fans, who chanted “We want Vince!” repeatedly with 19.5 seconds left in overtime and with the Knicks’ victory clearly decided. Carter checked back into the game at that point, inbounded the ball to Trae Young, then trailed the play as the Hawks headed downcourt. Young flipped the ball back to Carter, who took an uncontested three-pointer. The shot went in, Carter threw his arms skyward, and the clock ran out on the game a few seconds later. What many suspected would be the case that night became reality: The clock had run out on Carter’s career, too. “There were times, probably in April, I was like, ‘Man, I wish this didn’t happen like that,’” Carter said. “And then, after a while, I was kind

VINCE CARTER says he will still play the game of basketball—for fun. AP

of like, ‘It is what it is.’ Once I was able to kind of put that aside and say: ‘Retire, Vince. You can go and golf now,’ it’s been easier.” Carter was an eight-time All-Star selection, was rookie of the year in 1999, won the slam dunk contest in 2000 and helped USA Basketball win gold medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics—highlighted by his dunk over 7-foot-2 French center Frederic Weis—and the 2003 Fiba Americas tournament. He played college basketball for three years at North Carolina, starting his career there under Dean Smith, and Carter’s retirement means there are no more Smith-coached players left in the NBA. “Half Man, Half Amazing, ALL class!” Hawks Coach Lloyd Pierce wrote on Twitter in a message to Carter. “It’s been an honor and a privilege for me to work with you.” Carter said he will still play the game of basketball—for fun. It has long been expected that television networks will pursue him as an analyst, something he’s dabbled in at NBA Summer League in recent years. “I’m officially done playing basketball professionally,” Carter said. “I’ll play at home.”

Novak Djokovic (second left) poses with (from left) Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov and Dominic Thiem after a press conference prior the charity tournament Adria Tour in Belgrade. AP

Liverpool clinches title to end 30-year drought

THIEM SAYS SORRY FOR PARTICIPATING IN ‘DJOKO’ EVENT IENNA, Austria—Third-ranked tennis player Dominic Thiem apologized Thursday for taking part in an exhibition series hosted by Novak Djokovic in which four players tested positive for the coronavirus. Thiem wrote on Instagram: “Our behaviour was a mistake, we acted too euphorically. I am extremely sorry.” The top-ranked Djokovic tested positive on Tuesday. Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Coric and Viktor Troicki have also said they tested positive after taking part in the Adria Tour exhibition series in Serbia and Croatia. Thousands of spectators attended the matches in Belgrade and the Adriatic resort of Zadar, and no social distancing was observed. Thiem won the opening event in Belgrade on June 14. “We played without an audience for weeks, so we have been more than happy about the fans at the event,” the Austrian wrote. “We trusted the Serbian government’s corona

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph / Editor: Jun Lomibao

rules, but we have been too optimistic.” Thiem, a two-time French Open finalist who lost to Djokovic in the Australian Open final this year, said he has been tested five times in the last 10 days but is negative for the virus. The final for the event in Croatia was canceled and subsequent matches in other countries were also called off. Djokovic said on Tuesday that he and his wife tested positive and admitted it was “too soon” to host such an event. The coronavirus outbreak led to the suspension of the Association of Tennis Professionals and Women’s Tennis Association professional tennis tours in March. Plans were announced last week for the sport’s sanctioned events to return in August. But the infections have raised questions about the full-fledged return of competitive tennis, including the US Open, which is scheduled to begin on Aug. 31 without spectators. Djokovic has called the rules to keep everyone safe at the US Open “extreme.” AP

IVERPOOL, England—The 30year wait is over. Liverpool is champion of England again. Liverpool clinched its first league title since 1990 on Thursday, ending an agonizing title drought without the players even having to take the field. Instead, the Premier League crown was secured when Chelsea beat second-place Manchester City, 2-1, a result that means City can no longer catch Liverpool with seven games remaining. For the city of Liverpool, this has been a party three decades in the making, and even the restrictions caused by the coronavirus failed to prevent fans from gathering to celebrate outside Anfield. Only a few dozen supporters were outside the stadium as the final whistle blew at Stamford Bridge. But hundreds more quickly arrived, setting off flares and fireworks, waving flags and singing “Allez, Allez, Allez” on the steps of the stadium. “It is such a big moment, I am completely overwhelmed,” said Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp, who was almost in tears as he spoke to broadcaster Sky Sports via video link. “I never would have thought it would feel like this. I had no idea.” After a dominant campaign that was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, Liverpool became England’s earliest-ever champion—and the latest. No team since the inception of the country’s league system in 1888 has clinched the title with seven games remaining. And no team has been crowned Premier League champion in June. The title itself had hardly been in doubt since December, with Klopp’s team quickly building a massive lead with a rampant attacking style of play that has earned 28 wins in 31 games so far. “The world has watched the fierce determination of this club on the field for every single match,” said John Henry, Liverpool’s American-based owner, “the preparation, the resolve and the talent of those who put together perhaps the greatest league performance ever in any country’s history.”

For a while, though, it seemed the coronavirus could still prevent Liverpool from ending its drought. The club was 25 points clear when the league was abruptly halted in March as the country was forced into lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19. “Null and void” became the dreaded term in the red half of Liverpool amid fears the season could be canceled completely as the coronavirus death toll soared and clubs struggled to agree on a strategy to restart the league during the country’s gravest emergency since World War II. After Liverpool finally returned to the field on Sunday, a 0-0 draw in the Merseyside derby against Everton delayed the crowning moment. But not for long. The team quickly rediscovered its scintillating attacking form as it swept aside Crystal Palace, 4-0, on Wednesday inside an empty Anfield. Chelsea then put Liverpool over a winning line that had proved so elusive for a team accustomed to dominating English football in the 1970s and 80s. After waiting so long to win a 19th English title, the pandemic left an anticlimactic cloud over celebrations on the hottest day of the year so far. Fans couldn’t even gather in pubs, which have been shut since March, to watch Chelsea clinch the title for them. Gatherings of multiple households are also still banned inside. The only communal viewing experiences allowed are for groups of up to six people to meet outside. Photos of garden viewings spread on social media. A few fans watched on phones outside Anfield. Klopp, the German manager who has restored a winning mentality to Liverpool with his brand of “heavy metal” football, already led the club to the Champions League title last year. But this will widely be regarded as the moment he truly brought Liverpool back to the pinnacle of English football. The last time Liverpool won the league, it was still called the First Division and the club held the English record for most titles with 18. But the inception of the Premier League in 1992 transformed the landscape of the English game. Liverpool faded as a force, to be eclipsed by Manchester United. Sweeping to 13 Premier League titles, United manager Alex Ferguson succeeded in his mission of knocking Liverpool “off their perch” by helping the Mancunians become 20-time English champions and one of the wealthiest sports teams in the world. AP

Hughes shoots 60 for 3-shot Travelers Challenge

ROMWELL, Connecticut—Mackenzie Hughes shot a career-low 60 Thursday to take the first-round at the Travelers Championship as the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour tried to switch its focus back to golf amid growing concerns about the coronavirus. Hughes, a 29-year-old Canadian, had a chance to shoot the 12th sub-60 round in PGA Tour history, but his 40-foot birdie attempt on his final hole came up short. Jim Furyk shot a 12-under 58 on the same TPC River Highlands course four years ago, the lowest score in a tour event. “I kind of joked walking off there that 59 wasn’t even the record because of Jim’s 58,” Hughes said. “It’s probably not even that special

around here. But as a personal milestone it would have been neat.” It was good enough for three-shot lead over Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland, who each shot 63 on a day of low scoring. Phil Mickelson, paired with McIlroy in his first competitive round since turning 50, was one of six players to shoot 64. Bryson DeChambeau’s 65 was the worst score in the marquee threesome. There were 106 players who broke par. The record for a day at TPC River Highlands was in 2011, when 111 players were one-under or better in the second round. Hughes’s bogey-free round included a 30-foot birdie putt on his second-to-last hole, the par-3

eighth. Patrick Cantlay was the last to shoot 60 at TPC River Highlands as an amateur in 2011. McIlroy, who also started on the back nine, eagled the par-5 13th and followed that up with two straight birdies. He made four more birdies on the front nine for a 31. “It’s just been nice to get back into some competitive golf again,” McIlroy said. “You know, it doesn’t feel the same because you’re not having thousands of people reacting to your birdies and getting that going. I felt the weekends have been a little flat for me just because that’s when you’re in contention and that’s where you sort of start to feel it. Thursdays and Fridays don’t feel that different to be honest, but into the weekends they do.”

Mickelson learned earlier Thursday that he was granted an exemption into this year’s US Open for being in the top 70 in the world on March 15, when golf was shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. “That worked out great, to be able to know that I have a chance to go back to Winged Foot and give it another shot,” said Mickelson, who finished second at Winged Foot in 2006 after a double bogey on the 72nd hole. “But I’ve had 30 US Opens. I’ve had plenty of opportunities, and so if I don’t qualify, I want somebody else who deserves a spot, too, to play. As long as I’m playing well enough to compete to earn my way into the field, then I want to play and keep trying to win that tournament.” AP

LIVERPOOL supporters celebrate with a replica of the Premier League and Champions League trophies outside of Anfield Stadium in Liverpool on Thursday. AP

NIKE POSTS $790M QUARTERLY LOSS N EW YORK—Nike lost $790 million in the fourth quarter, as soaring digital sales couldn’t make up for the loss of revenue from shuttered stores in most of the world. The world’s largest sports apparel maker said Thursday that its revenue fell 38 percent to $6.31 billion in the three-month period ending May 31. That was well below the $7.26 billion in revenue expected by Wall Street analysts, according to a survey by Zacks. The Beaverton, Oregon-based company’s

quarterly loss amounted to 51 cents per share. Analysts had expected a profit of 2 cents a share. Nike said 90 percent of its stores in North America, Europe, Latin America were closed during the period because of the coronavirus pandemic. Sales fell 46 percent in both North America and Europe but just 3 percent in China as stores reopened there. Revenue grew 1 percent in China when accounting for currency fluctuations. The company grappled with costs

associated with reducing built-up inventory, including wholesale markdowns and factory order cancellations. Product shipments to wholesale customers fell 50 percent during the period. Chief Financial Officer Matthew Friend said the company expects its inventory, which rose 30 percent in the fourth quarter, to be right-sized by the end of the second quarter. Nike said about 90 percent of its directly owned stores are now open worldwide,

including all of its stores in China. A bright spot for Nike throughout the pandemic has been a rise in digital sales, which analysts say positions the company to emerge strongly from the crisis over the long-term. Nike has aggressively invested in its direct-to-consumer digital platforms in the past few years. Nike said digital sales rose 75 percent in the fourth quarter and accounted for 30 percent of total revenue. Friend said Nike expects digital sales to account for 50 percent of its revenue in the near future. Nike shares fell nearly 4 percent to $97.50 in after hours trading. AP