BusinessMirror November 10, 2014 by BusinessMirror

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three-time rotary club of manila journalism awardee 2006, 2010, 2012

U.N. Media Award 2008

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Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay • Monday, November 10, 2014 E3

Juan M. Flavier (1935 to 2014):

Dedicated public servant and PR man par excellence

YOUNG HAIYAN SURVIVORS BRIGHTEN UP GRAYSCALE PHOTOS IN ‘PROJECT RAINBOW’

ORMER Health Secretary and Sen. Juan M. Flavier, who died on October 30, exemplified how an able and dedicated public servant, who also possesses natural and acquired public-relations (PR) skills, can accomplish a lot to promote the welfare of the country and the Filipino people. One of the basic principles of PR is that it must be based on truth, on reality. If the subject is bad, no amount of PR can project it as good—at least, not for long, because, sooner or later, the truth will come out. And Flavier was the real deal—a simple, sincere, capable and honest man who wanted to help the country move forward, especially in the most basic areas of public health and poverty alleviation, particularly in rural areas, where the majority of poor Filipinos live.

PR Matters BY Rene Nieva

Natural and acquired PR skills

IT also helped a lot that Flavier possessed both natural and acquired PR skills. He was, by nature, a cheerful person, always smiling, always joking, quick to the punch with his puns. His sense of humor was disarming, made even more so because it was self-deprecating (especially about his small stature) and even earthy, at times (to which the common tao responded). Flavier’s communication skills, both written and spoken, were developed through his stint with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, where his job involved education and training. And when he went to the United States to get his master’s degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University, he took up a formal communications course at Michigan State University, where he learned more of the theoretical and technical aspects of communications. His writing skills were brought to the fore when he wrote a book, Doctor to the Barrios, which was interesting, insightful and very readable, and which quickly became a classic in its genre. Flavier’s PR talents found full expression when Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) was elected president in 1992, and FVR appointed him to head the Department of Health (DOH). Slogans are among the most powerful tools in rallying public support behind an organization and the causes it espouses. They encapsulize, in as brief and as catchy a phrase as possible, what a campaign is all about and what it hopes to achieve.

‘SARIJEEPNEY’ HAILED FIRST DOODLE 4 GOOGLE PHILIPPINES WINNER

A HIGH-SCHOOL student from Compostela Valley was declared the overall winner of the first Doodle 4 Google (D4G) competition in the Philippines with his entry Sari-Jeepney. Kim Patrick Saren of Nabunturan National Comprehensive High School came out on top of the nationwide contest, which saw 51,000 entries from all over the country answering the question, “What can I do for the Philippines?” “This is a sarimanok-inspired idea. It symbolizes Filipino culture with deep appreciation of hard work and creativity,” wrote Kim of his doodle. “The concept is created to solve problems like traffic, economy, education and basic needs. The key on the tail signifies the solutions to the problems, wherein we must fly high with pride and honor.” Saren belongs to the 15-to-17 age-group category. Launched in July, D4G encouraged students and learners to look beyond themselves and imagine what they can do for the country. The entries were judged in three categories: artistic merit, creativity and theme communication. Aside from Saren, three other winners were picked per age group. Angela Kaitlin Tiu’s Love and Care for the Philippines, Avryll Nartates’s Coral Ripped or Coral Reef?, and Jay Portallo’s Symphony for Peace won for the 5-8 years old, 9-11 years old and 12-14 years old categories, respectively. “Through the competition, we saw the depth of the Filipino youth’s insight, creativity and innovation. They are very keen on the idea of nation-building,” said Ryan Morales, Google Philippines country marketing manager. “The doodles reflect the aspirations of the nation over pressing issues—from solution to flooding to environment protection to food for the poor, value of education, culture preservation and global competitiveness.” Saren’s doodle will be displayed on the Google Philippines homepage on November 10. He also took home an especially designed trophy by Google, a P400,000 educational grant from BPI Foundation at any school or college in the Philippines, an art kit from National Book Store, and an Acer C720 Chromebook.

Master sloganeer

FLAVIER was a master at coining slogans, coming up with such gems as “Let’s DOH It”, the health department’s overall slogan; “Oplan Alis Disease”, for the DOH’s nationwide immunization program; “Sangkap Pinoy”, for its project to combat malnutrition; and, most memorable of all, “Yosi Kadiri”, for its anti-smoking campaign. The last one featured a villainous and odious mascot representing the cigarette as some monster that should be denounced and destroyed. But, aside from having good titles, these DOH programs, which, to a large extent, were healthawareness and disease-prevention campaigns, would not have been successful had they not been planned and executed in a strategic, systematic and cost-effective manner. Knowing how Filipinos look up to and are influenced by entertainment personalities, Flavier was also PR-savvy enough to enlist celebrities to endorse and generate awareness and mass support for the DOH’s various programs.

TEAMASIA JOINS 4AS PHILIPPINES

TEAMASIA has been inducted into the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies (4AS) of the Philippines as the first nonadvertising-specific agency to be allowed to join the organization. Acknowledging the evolving nature of advertising agencies, members voted favorably on the same day to amend several bylaws of the association, which included the justification for the inclusion of the IMC firm. The membership criteria expanded from solely advertising agencies to marketing communications and advertising.

Giving speeches was also another of Flavier’s PR talents. But these were not formal speeches that he read, but more like talks or conversations with his audience. These were based on bullet points around which he wove stories and jokes that conveyed his messages about health in a more understandable and effective manner.

Media darling

MEDIA relations are probably at the very core of good PR, and Flavier’s media relations were superb. He treated the media fairly and with professional respect, but, at the same time, in a friendly and fatherly manner. The journalists who covered the DOH during Flavier’s time said he was always accesible to them, answered phone calls himself, and was very open and generous in sharing information. This made him the undisputed “media darling” among members of FVR’s Cabinet. Flavier’s PR skills became even more evident when he ran for the Senate in 1995. He was a great campaigner, getting tremendous response from the crowds whenever it was his turn to speak. This enabled him to land in fifth place among the winners, which was pretty high for a political neophyte. He was easily reelected when he ran again in 2001. Testifying to his PR skills was his getting his Senate colleagues to support and pass into law bills that promoted the causes he believed in, among them the Traditional Medicine law, the Poverty Alleviation law, the Clean Air Act, the Indigenous People’s Rights Act, the Tobacco Regulation Act and the AntiMoney Laundering Act, among others. He accomplished these despite the opposition of powerful lobby groups of the industries affected.

Kinship with Flavier

I HAVE had the good fortune of dealing with Flavier personally, both when he was health secretary and senator, in connection with the Rizal Award for Rural Physicians that we initiated and ran for a pharmaceutical company-client. We sought his endorsement for the project, which he enthusiastically gave. And every time we brought the awardees to him for a courtesy call, he received them warmly. I was able to observe firsthand how the affinity between Flavier and the rural doctors was so close, so palpable, like they belonged to the same brotherhood of Filipinos who were, and are, among the nation’s heroes of our times, as Dr. Jose P. Rizal, after whom the award was named, was a hero in his. We PR practitioners also feel a similar professional and personal kinship with Flavier, a dedicated public servant and PR man par excellence. We salute him and bid him a fond farewell. Rene Nieva is the president and chief executive officer of Perceptions Inc. PR Matters is a rotating column of members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association, the premier association for senior professionals around the world. PR Matters is devoting a special column each month to answer readers’ questions about public relations. Send your comments and questions to askipraphil@gmail.com.

marketing

the key to change is middle management BusinessMirror

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Monday, November 10, 2014 E 1

Is MIddle ManageMenT 3 C 4 I By Behnam Tabrizi

A hallmark of the successful 32% was the involvement of midlevel managers two or more levels below the CeO. In those cases, midlevel managers weren’t merely managing incremental change; they were leading it by working levers of power up, across and down in their organizations. I recently took another look at my 553 hours of interviews with 380 executives, managers and con-

tributors to see why some managers emerge as change leaders. I found a few defining characteristics:

Change leaders have a north Star—and they talk about it. Many change efforts fail because people reduce themselves to checking boxes in safe, defensible systems, such as Lean and Six Sigma. Successful change leaders, on the

other hand, are open, bold and have a clear sense of their motivations.

Change leaders use a GPS to guide them toward their north Star. Change leaders are visionaries. But they recognize that they—and the organization—need a process to help them reach their goals. they adopt a process, stick to it, and inspire others to embrace it.

Change leaders work across boundaries, in many cases creating a direct line of communication to top executives.

Change leaders move fast. I encourage managers eager to transform themselves into change leaders to write vision statements. then I suggest three other steps: Find a bold process of change to follow; push yourself to communicate, especially up, with your company’s executives and the CeO; and embrace speed at every possible juncture. We think of midlevel managers as managing incremental change, but many are change leaders in the making. When they align their personal goals and strengths with the organization’s goals, they become extraordinary leaders.

Behnam Tabrizi is the managing director of Rapid Transformation Llc. and teaches at Stanford University. He has written five books, including rapid transformation and the Inside-Out effect.

Humans Can make tHe Internet Of tHInGs smarter By Carlos Montero-Luque

nternet of things, or Iot, systems usually consist of a set of sensors that collect information, which is then transmitted between different devices without human intervention. Meanwhile, today’s mobile infrastructure—devices, apps—is typically all about human interaction. At first glance, these two environments seem to be separate. But their integration is key to making the Iot work, especially under circumstances in which human interaction, judgment and action can enhance data collection, analysis and system behavior. In short, input from actual people will make the Iot smarter. A system that collects data automatically can be compromised by issues of data quality, such as inconsistent, missing or unrecognized data, which then can result in incorrect analysis. Human interaction with Iot systems through mobile apps can augment automated data collection and correct, complement, extend or even override the data gathered by the system or the actions it would undertake in response to the analysis of poorquality data. For example, the iPhone 6 includes the following capabilities: camera, GPS, compass, Bluetooth and nFC, micro location, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, proximity sensor and an ambient light sensor.

ue to lack of support from Congress, the Department of Energy (DOE) has reportedly abandoned its plan to acquire or lease generator sets (gensets) to deal with the projected power-supply deficit in the summer months of 2015.

This, House Deputy Minority Leader and Party-list Rep. Arnel Ty of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers’ Association said, is because both administration and opposition lawmakers had attacked the plan as “vulnerable to corruption.” Malacañang previously invoked the emergency provisions of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 to allow the government to establish the required additional generating capacity under such terms and conditions as Congress may authorize via a joint resolution. “We presume the gensets and the fuel supplies will

The Key To Change hange efforts often crumble into excruciatingly dull meetings and PowerPoint presentations. I studied large-scale change and innovation efforts in 56 randomly selected companies in the high-tech, retail, pharmaceutical, banking, automotive, insurance, energy, nonprofit and health-care industries. My research found that the majority of the efforts failed.

these functionalities make it possible for a person to collect a wide range of information that can, in turn, be used to interact with an Iot system. Imagine a traffic system that detects that the flow of vehicles has changed dramatically in a tunnel. A photograph of an accident taken by someone in the tunnel and sent via a mobile app could help inform the decision to reroute traffic and open the road to emergency services. Or imagine a person wearing a device to monitor blood pressure or sugar levels. While a change in readings can trigger a call from the doctor’s office or signal an ambulance dispatch and preparation of lifesaving medicines in the emergency room, it is likely that direct input from the patient or a loved one can help determine whether this is a false alarm. Whether entered through a mobile phone or the wearable device itself, the user’s or loved one’s input—for instance, noting that the patient took off the device momentarily—can help make the system smarter. the key to maximizing the usefulness of Iot systems is getting these mobile interactions right. We should look for opportunities to improve the capabilities of Iot environments by making it easier for real people to contribute to them.

Carlos Montero-Luque is chief technology officer at Apperian.

COWOrkers sHOuLd Be LIke neIGHBOrs, nOt LIke famILy By Art Markman

Communication tips for global virtual teams By Paul Berry

ne of my designers lives in turkmenistan. every day he wakes up to e-mail and assignments from our commercial team in new York and San Francisco. When he’s done, he sends his designs to a developer in Ukraine to implement. throughout the day they work on various projects, and when they go to bed our design and development teams in new York take over. the system runs smoothly and it means that my team happily works around the clock—without any one person actually working around the clock. People often ask me about how I built a global engineering team at rebelMouse, and before that at

Huffington Post. A lot of it comes down to communication. In my 15 years managing remote teams, I have learned to:

nLive and breathe e-mail MY team is spread across more than 20 countries. Instant messaging relies on everyone being there at the same time. e-mail, on the other hand, suits our time zone differences and odd working hours. So everyone on the team makes e-mail the absolute highest priority. nGive the benefit of the doubt MY team has huge cultural and language differences. It’s essential that we forgive each other constantly for odd grammar and odd behavior and

try to make the beauty of building something together lift us above any confusion.

my team to be overtly friendly in their e-mails, even if it means they sound less “businesslike.”

nOvercommunicate eSPeCIALLY as part of a start-up, it’s sometimes hard to understand where we’re going and what we’re building. Asking questions all the time helps. I want people to always be inquisitive while also working on the little pieces of concrete information that we know for sure.

nOffer suggestions, not critiques WHen you disagree with someone in person, you can often discuss the issue until you’re both on the same page. that’s much harder to do from halfway around the world, when a brief “I don’t get it” can steer the conversation into a dead end. If you don’t like someone’s idea, suggest an alternative instead of simply sharing your dislike. And if there’s anything you do like about the proposal, make sure to include that, too.

nBe intentionally positive It’S way too easy for things to sound negative in an e-mail. Without the benefit of tone, body language and other social cues, it’s especially important to make sure e-mails don’t turn into hurt feelings. I encourage

Paul Berry is the Founder and CEO of RebelMouse.

eSeArCH suggests that we can break the world up into several kinds of relationships. there are three that are particularly important in the context of business: strangers, family and neighbors. Strangers are people with whom we don’t have a close connection; if we need their help, we pay them for it. Families are people with whom we have a close bond and for whom we do whatever is needed, often expecting nothing in return. In between strangers and family are neighbors—people with whom we have a reasonably close relationship, who offer us help and expect help in return. It’s not good to have a workplace that consists primarily of strangers, because every interaction becomes a fee-for-service transaction and strangers aren’t motivated to go above and beyond to help the organization fulfill its goals. Likewise, it’s dangerous for most organizations to function as a family, because not all employees will pull their own weight. It’s an inefficient and demoralizing way to work. But with our neighbors, we try to balance what we do for them and what we get from them over time. We construct covenants in which everyone shares a common vision and agrees to do what they can to work toward these common interests. there are several ways to promote a neighborhood in the workplace:

ntraining

MAnY companies provide extensive

Continued on A2

training opportunities for their employees, giving them a chance to develop both work-related and personal skills. this demonstrates that the organization is interested in the employees’ long-term best interests.

nProviding opportunities for employees to engage with higher-ups

BeInG a part of the neighborhood requires a feeling that the organization knows who you are and cares not just about people in general, but about you in particular

nfostering a shared purpose

reSIdentIAL neighbors are bound together by the desire to create a community that benefits the people who live there. Similarly, companies need a shared vision that transcends individuals.

nkeeping “neighbors” from becoming strangers

tHe biggest signal that a neighborhood is eroding is when employees start finding reasons not to support broader initiatives within the organization because of the narrower job that they have been assigned. When this happens, managers need to demonstrate that the organization cares about them and remind them of their connection to the broader mission. Although it requires effort and resources to maintain a neighborhood, the investment is quickly repaid.

Art Markman is a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the editor of the journal Cognitive Science and the author of Smart thinking.

monday morning

what’s really going on in north korea BusinessMirror

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN NORTH KOREA

IN this February 26, 2008, file photo, people bow in front of a statue of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP/DAVID GUTTENFELDER

B P F | Los Angeles Times

T was a news story that read like the plot of a Peter Sellers or Mike Myers picture: Vertically challenged dictator of a starving populace, overweight and addicted to imported Swiss cheese, falls off his high heels and breaks both ankles. He is sent off to rehab and, in his absence, rivals jostle for preeminence as the world anxiously looks on and speculates.

Rather than the plot of an upcoming movie, this was one story about North Korea when “The Marshal,” Kim Jong Un (military experience: none), the third-generation Kim to rule the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, disappeared from view for weeks. The international media were feverish with speculation about a possible power shift in Pyongyang. So-called experts took turns hypothesizing on Kim’s health and his grip on power. When one high-profi le North Korean defector suggested that the policymaking unit of the Workers’ Party might have enough influence to occasionally contradict Kim, the mainstream media distorted his words into the announcement of a “coup.” Much of what has been said and written over the last few weeks has muddied the waters rather than cleared them. Most experts’ key mistake is to treat each sign from Pyongyang as if it is sent to the international community, when Kim and the Workers’ Party have a more urgent audience: their own people. The story for the outside world was Kim’s “disappearance.” For the North Korean people, indications are that the big news was his reappearance, and what he looked like

when he did: thinner and leaning on a cane. Image, in North Korea, is everything. The Kim family mythology is the foundation of its statehood narrative. A big part of that is that the Kims—the dictator dynasty started with Kim’s grandfather, “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung, and father, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il—are the purest, most virtuous, most perfect humans, superhuman even. They cannot be shown to be wrong, to be weak, to fail. The state goes to great lengths to maintain this. The goiter on the Great Leader’s neck was airbrushed out of portraits and photos, as were the Dear Leader’s paunch, wrinkles and liver spots. There is a “longevity institute” in Pyongyang, according to North Korean defectors, where the nation’s top doctors work to try to extend each Kim’s life, using citizens of the same age, build and “physical characteristics” as the leader as guinea pigs. Both the late Kims spent their old age allegedly sleeping with teenage girls and receiving transfusions of the blood of young men in hopes that either act would rejuvenate them. And when the Supreme Leader and Dear Leader died, the party media told the people the Kims died of heart attacks

IN this July 25, 2013, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (center) arrives at the cemeteries of fallen fighters of the Korean People’s Army in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP/WONG MAYE-E

brought on by “heavy strains” and “overwork”—not death by weakness but by strength: death caused by too much superhuman striving in the name of the people. In the West, a head of state breaking an ankle is an accident— at worst, if someone stood nearby with a camera phone, YouTube fodder. In North Korea it is another dangerous tear in the wool thrown

over the people’s eyes. It is unprecedented for the party media to acknowledge that a Kim—they of Supreme Leader blood—could be injured or in poor health. Is it possible, as theorized by some, that the young, inexperienced Kim is only a figurehead for some party unit that holds the true power in Pyongyang, or that there are influential party members

working to reform the country? Of course. But it seems equally possible that, out of ignorance, we have whipped up a misguided, dangerous frenzy—dangerous in that it obscures accurate understanding of a rogue state that, after all, has nuclear capabilities—over Kim’s absence. He could well have been kept out of sight simply because his people, who are taught to believe

he is a demigod, would be shaken to the core to see him in a wheelchair or on crutches. We in the West have been repeatedly proved wrong in our predictions about the plucky little dictatorship that could. We just knew, for example, that it would crumble within months after the Berlin Wall fell, and again when Kim Il Sung died. It didn’t. We felt certain that Kim Jong Il, the family black sheep, would never take over; indeed, that father-to-son dynastic rule would never be accepted by a state governed by the principles of socialism. We even go on calling North Korea a communist or socialist state, when it has long ceased to be either and is, in fact, a military dictatorship run by one family and its cronies. North Korea is, by all accounts, on the brink of enormous change. It is a failed state, isolated and mostly reliant on foreign aid. It exists in an ideological reality that is anachronistic and contradictory. Discontent is growing, with “illegal” black markets in every town and corruption rampant. Citizens repeat the propaganda they are force-fed, declaring themselves the luckiest people in the world, knowing full well they are not. They have DVDs, VHS tapes and photos, bought from the Chinese, showing them how much more peaceful and affluent fourfifths of the rest of the world is. They struggle to reconcile the “truths” they are hard-wired to believe with the truths they see with their own eyes. The poor, starving and beaten are fed up. The elite, who know how much more luxurious life is in Japan, China, South Korea or the West, are fed up. The picture we have of North Koreans—homogenous, blindly obedient, brainwashed people—is incomplete, in spite of major news outlets dangerously and inexplicably acting as if it is. The change, when it comes, will present risk and opportunity for the West. China, South Korea, Russia and Japan will also have an interest. We willfully misunderstand and misrepresent this regime at our peril. TNS

perspective

finding the balance

Sports

The los angeles lakers simply don’t have much talent besides Kobe Bryant, and they don’t have any balance offensively. AP

BusinessMirror

| Monday, noveMber 10, 2014 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

FINDING

BryanT can’T carry The lOaD By himSelf

THE BALANCE

By Mike Bresnahan Los Angeles Times

OS ANGELES—There used to be whoops of fun and frivolity from the Los Angeles Lakers when they were a championship-caliber franchise. Who could forget Shaquille O’Neal standing outside Staples Center on a late June day and bellowing to delirious Lakers fans, “Can you dig it?” Or Ron Artest sitting on the dais after the Lakers beat Boston in Game Seven and yelling out, “Acknowledge me, please!” Now, though, the Lakers aren’t doing much yelling. Their catchphrase these days would be something less enthralling: “Beat Charlotte?” The Lakers are 0-5 and on their way to a lot worse if they lose to the Hornets (3-3) at Staples Center. Their schedule after Sunday’s game takes a decisive turn for the worse: at Memphis, at New Orleans, home against San Antonio, home against Golden State. It’s hard to remember a Lakers game against Charlotte holding this much significance. And it’s only November. Barely a week into it. “This is not a given,” Lakers Coach Byron Scott said on Saturday. “Charlotte’s a good basketball team. They were in the playoffs last year.” The Lakers couldn’t be further from thinking about the postseason. They’re merely trying to figure out how to stop allowing 116.8 points a game. (Hint: Stop surrendering so many fastbreaks and simple three-point looks.) Then there’s the offensive side. Kobe Bryant took 37 shots, while the rest of the starters combined for 35 in a 112-106 loss to Phoenix on Tuesday. It’s a tricky line to straddle: The Lakers don’t have much talent besides Bryant, but they definitely don’t have any balance offensively. “I’ve talked to a couple individuals about just being a little bit more assertive, not relying on Kobe as much,” Scott said. “You guys can ask Kobe this. I think he wants to get those guys to step up. He really does. Take shots when they have them. Not defer to him as much.” Jeremy Lin had only eight shots against Phoenix and Carlos Boozer just isn’t shooting well for a power forward (44 percent). But Bryant needs to step back a bit, Scott added. “I’ve got to remind him not to chase the ball at times, to let those guys play because sometimes you’ve got to let guys make mistakes,” Scott said. “He tries to bail them out at times. That’s a

habit that he has, and he knows that he has to try to break that. That’s hard. He’s been playing this game and he’s one of those guys, ‘OK, if you guys are not doing it, give it to me, and I’ll try to do it myself.’ That’s the competitive nature that he has.” Bryant did not speak to reporters after Saturday’s practice, but he addressed his teammates in a colorful manner while they huddled after a scrimmage. It couldn’t be entirely heard by reporters, but Bryant was obviously heated. naSh reSPOnDS STEvE NASH has been assailed on social media by Lakers fans since posting an Instagram video

of himself whacking a golf ball at a driving range. He tried to explain himself in a Facebook post on Friday, aware that criticism stems from him making $9.7 million while sitting out this season because of chronic back pain. “There is an incredible difference between this game and swinging a golf club, hiking, even hitting a tennis ball or playing basketball at the park,” Nash wrote. “Fortunately, those other activities aren’t debilitating, but playing an NBA [National Basketball Association] game usually puts me out a couple of weeks. Once you’re asked to accelerate and decelerate with Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving, it is a completely different demand.” Nash, 40, expressed disappointment he hadn’t played better—or much at all—since being acquired from Phoenix for two first-round and two second-round picks. “The past two years I’ve worked like a dog to not only overcome these setbacks but to find the form that could lift up and inspire the fans in LA as my last chapter,” he wrote. “Obviously, it’s been a disaster on both fronts but I’ve never worked harder, sacrificed more or faced such a difficult challenge mentally and emotionally.” Nash will have played only 65 games in three seasons with the Lakers.

Rubio out for 2 months?

INNESOTA Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio may miss as many as seven to eight weeks with a badly sprained left ankle, a person familiar with the injury told USA Today Sports. The person requested anonymity because, he was not authorized to speak publicly about the injury. Rubio sustained the ankle sprain in Friday’s game against the Orlando Magic, after landing awkwardly on a drive to the basket with 2:28 left in the second quarter. The

team said he is out indefinitely with a significant sprain. Rubio, who will wear a walking boot for the next two weeks, suffered no serious ligament or tendon damage, according to the MRI, and the injury is not classified as a high-ankle sprain, the person told USA Today Sports. It’s disappointing news for Rubio and the 2-3 Timberwolves, who came to terms on a four-year, $55-million extension on October 31. Rubio, 24, is averaging 9.4 points, 10 assists and 5.6 rebounds in five games this season. MCT

CURRY HAS 34 IN WARRIORS’ WIN vS ROCKETS

OUSTON—Stephen Curry had 34 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Golden State Warriors past the depleted Houston Rockets, 98-87, on Saturday in a matchup of undefeated teams. Houston played without center Dwight Howard (flu-like symptoms) and power forward Terrence Jones (bruised right leg), which made things much easier for the Warriors inside. Golden State center Andrew Bogut dominated the glass in Howard’s absence, pulling down 18 rebounds. James Harden led the Rockets (6-1) with 22 points, and point guard Isaiah Canaan had 21. At San Antonio, Anthony Davis scored the game-winning basket and finished with 27 points and 11 rebounds to help the New Orleans Pelicans hold off the Spurs, 100-99. The Spurs went on a 15-4 run, with Tony Parker and Tim Duncan on the bench, to take a 99-98 lead. Danny Green capped the run with three free throws with 12 seconds remaining after he was fouled by Eric Gordon on a wild three-point attempt as the shot clock was about to expire. Tyreke Evans had 18 points, including buzzer-beating shots in the second and third quarters; and Jrue Holiday had 15 points and 11 assists. Parker scored 28 points; Manu Ginobili added 17 points, Green had 16; and Duncan had 11 points and 10 rebounds. Milwaukee’s Brandon Knight converted a three-point play with 1.1 seconds remaining to rally the Bucks to a 93-92 win over Memphis to hand the Grizzlies their first loss of the season after six consecutive victories. Memphis guard Mike Conley was fouled with eight seconds remaining, but missed the first free throw and made the second to make it 92-90. Zach Randolph had 22 points and 14 rebounds, and Marc Gasol scored 18 for Memphis (6-1), which was off to the best start in franchise history. The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 106-102, after J.J. Redick scored 30 points and Blake Griffin added 23. Chris Paul added 22 points and 11 assists; Jamal Crawford had 20 points in his first start of the season; and DeAndre Jordan grabbed 14 rebounds. Damian Lillard led the Blazers with 25 points. In other games, Dwyane Wade had 25 points and eight assists; and Chris Bosh scored 24 as the Miami Heat held on in the final minutes to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 102-92; the Boston Celtics defeated the Chicago Bulls, 106-101; the Washington Wizards downed the Indiana Pacers, 97-90; and the Atlanta Hawks were 103-96 winners over the Brooklyn Knicks. AP

sports » San antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan is guarded

by new Orleans Pelicans forward anthony Davis in the first half of their encounter. AP

BSP SEES RECENT STEPS COOLING PROPERTY RISK

Perspective

E4 Monday, November 10, 2014

P25.00 nationwide | 7 sections 36 pages | 7 days a week

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz & Lenie Lectura

SOMBER black-and-white photographs of the devastation caused by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) have been turned into pictures of hope by children who survived one of the worst storms in history, through an initiative aptly named Project Rainbow. Initiated by Aspac Advertising, the project builds on auctions off the artwork created by young Yolanda survivors who drew over photographs taken by Director Sid Maderazo. “Children have this innate sense of optimism so we used that idea, and what we did was we got some black-and-white photos of the devastation. We got them, printed them on a big A3 size, we flew back to Tacloban about 100 days after the storm,” Aspac Chief Creative Officer Joey Ong shared in an interview with adobo. They then gave the children in Tacloban crayons and the photographs. Their output, Ong said, surprised him. “Even me, I had an idea of what I wanted to come out. After seeing it, I was very surprised. It makes you feel good, and, at the same time, it kind of inspired me to do this project,” he said. Fifty artworks were put up for auction, while some were printed on cards, which were also put up for sale. So far, the project has already raised P200,000 from the paintings and P80,000 from merchandise. The proceeds will be used to mount a trauma-rehabilitation workshop for survivors. “The problem is still there, these kids are still very traumatized. I want to help them through the use of art,” Ong said.

Monday, November 10, 2014 Vol. 10 No. 32

Acquisition of gensets stricken off D

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A broader look at today’s business

teps taken this year by the central bank will be enough to damp risk in the domestic property sector, the country’s chief monetary official said, after land prices exceeded a 1997 high. Measures to tighten policy and cool the real-estate sector have provided banks with “clear enough guidance to help them better appreciate the risks of their lending activities,”Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said in an e-mailed response to reporters’questions. He cited a new credit-risk management framework; property stress tests for banks; and an expanded definition of lenders’ investments. Policymakers also raised the benchmark interest rate twice this year to 4 percent, from a record-low 3.5 percent. Tetangco’s comments come after land values in at least seven Philippine cities tracked by Colliers International UK Plc., climbed in the September quarter to levels above their peaks in 1997. Accelerating economic growth, rising remittances from more than 10 million Filipinos abroad and low borrowing costs are fueling demand, the property broker said in a report this week. The steps are intended to ensure that banks have the capital to support lending activities and have assessed the creditworthiness of their clients, Tetangco said. The central bank will intervene in the foreign-exchange market, if necessary, to smooth out volatility as Bank of Japan and European Central Bank easing and good US economic data point to a stronger dollar, Tetangco said. The country’s economic fundamentals will also support the local currency, he said. The peso fell to 45.045 per dollar on Friday, the weakest close since March 25, prices from Tullett Prebon Plc. show. “We continue to be on the lookout for excessive market reactions to news,” Tetangco said. Bloomberg News

PESO exchange rates n US 45.0380 n japan 0.3911

ayala tower rising Hong Kong Land Executive Director Robert Wong (from left); Ayala Land Chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala; Hong Kong Land Chief Executive Y.K. Pang; Bank of the Philippine Islands Senior Vice President and Group Head Maria Theresa Javier; and Ayala Land President Bobby Dy propose a toast as Ayala Land introduces Two Roxas Triangle, the second luxury residential tower rising on the prime location of the Roxas Triangle Towers in Makati City. NONIE REYES

CHINA VOWS First Pacific to allot ₧96B TO BE GOOD for PHL operations in 2015 NEIGHBOR IN By Lorenz S. Marasigan

ong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd. is investing P96 billion for its Philippine units’ capital expenditures next year, a senior official told the BusinessMirror over the weekend. The programmed budget for 2015, which is still being finalized, is roughly 22 percent higher than this year’s outlays. Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) CFO David J. Nicol said his firm will be spending roughly P53 billion in 2015, with its water utility receiving the lion’s share at P17 billion. Maynilad Water Services Inc. has programmed P17 billion for next year’s capital outlays to further expand its capacity and coverage. The water utility is the largest contributor to the conglomerate’s bottom line, which grew by 15 percent in the first nine months of the year to P6.5 billion in core earnings. The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), which is the second-largest contributor to the infrastructure giant, will be spending P15 billion in 2015. The said capital investments will be used mainly to modernize its power facilities and expand its capacity. Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC), meanwhile, will be spending P10 billion in capital

NICOL: “Our various tariff issues at MPIC [Metro Pacific Investments Corp.]—roads, water and, now, possibly rail—need resolving if we are to achieve all of the above.”

outlays next year. It is expected to complete its two-segment expansion plan amounting to P12.4 billion by the first half of 2015. The Hospital Group will be spending roughly P2 billion next year. The bulk of the investments will be used to increase its hospitals’ patient capacity. The group is mulling over the acquisition of four more hospitals to achieve its 3,000-bed target through 2016. Making its foray in the group’s capital investments is the budget for its investments in the train systems in the country. The listed holding company, Nicol said, will be spending P9 billion for the initial phase of the P64.9-billion venture to expand the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 to Cavite, and to roll out the P1.72-billion Automated Fare Collection System project. See “First Pacific,” A12

ASIA PACIFIC

resident Xi Jinping signaled China is ready to accept slower economic growth, telling a gathering of executives that expansion of about 7 percent will still make the country one of the world’s top performers. “Even a growth rate of about 7 percent will put China among the top performers in the world in terms of both speed and size,” Xi told the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) CEO Summit in Beijing. “Some worry whether China’s growth rate will slow down further, or whether China can overcome the obstacles—risks , indeed,there, but they’re not that scary.” Xi also reiterated that China will be a good neighbor in the region, after a year in which tensions have escalated with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines over territorial disputes. China on Saturday announced it will create a $40-billion Silk Road See “China,” A2

n UK 71.3087 n HK 5.8093 n CHINA 7.3684 n singapore 34.7650 n australia 38.6658 n EU 55.7435 n SAUDI arabia 12.0053 Source: BSP (7 November 2014)

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Monday, November 10, 2014

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Acquisition of gensets stricken off Continued from A1

be acquired under emergency conditions. Thus, all existing policies and rules meant to ensure the integrity and fairness of the procurement process may be put aside,” he said. Also, Liberal Party Rep. Reynaldo Umali of Oriental Mindoro, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC), said the leasing option is no longer being pursued under President Aquino’s emergency powers. “[However] we have to make sure the ILP [Interruptible Load Program] succeeds...so we will continue monitoring how much additional capacity is coming in on a weekly basis just to make sure we will hit the 700-megawatt (MW) projected [shortfall],” he said. “I gave him [Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla] the draft of resolution, which that [power to lease or acquire gensets] not included. From

likely just focus on recommending a measure that will enable government to fully harness the reserve supplies of electricity available from the standby generators already held by private firms. Umali said their data showed there are already 891 MW that have been committed to the ILP, with a derated or usable capacity of 623 MW. Based on established protocols, the ILP will be implemented during a red-alert status (minimal power reserve) upon the notice of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), with the distribution utilities (DUs) informing ILP participants to deload from the grid. The ILP is a voluntary program where businesses such as malls and factories that have their own generators can be disconnected from the power grid in times of short supply, and can sell any excess power they generate to distributors. Through the ILP, the aggregate demand for power from the system

our discussion he is already amenable to the [House] draft resolution but he is still studying it,” Umali said. According to the draft resolution on emergency powers, the House of Representatives wants the government to use the committed ILP in addressing the looming power shortage next year. But a draft of the resolution submitted by the DOE to the Senate seeks to grant the President an authority to negotiate contracts for the acquisition of additional generation capacity either via lease or purchase. Based on the draft of the House resolution authorizing the President to establish additional generating capacity to effectively address the projected electricity shortage in 2015, the DOE projects a critical power shortage estimated at 700 MW to occur in March to July 2015, consisting of 14 weeks of yellow alert and two weeks of red alert. This means a total of 16 weeks of approximately one-hour brownouts daily. Umali also said Congress will now

China. . . continued from a1

Fund to help build infrastructure along the route that extends by land and sea to Europe. China’s economy is forecast to grow at 7.5 percent this year, the slowest since 1990. The country may cut its growth target to 7 percent for 2015, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists last month. Xi said an economic slowdown is part of China’s “new normal,” where the economy will be fueled more by services, consumption and innovation instead of infrastructure investment. The government will be able to handle

any slowdown, he said. “Seven percent looks like the consensus for growth target next year,” said Shen Jianguang, Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. “A further signal that Chinese policy-makers are willing to tolerate lower growth to pursue structural reform. I think a lower bottom line of growth of 6.7 percent should be also acceptable with any labor market problem.”

Regional cooperation

The summit and an Apec ministers’ meeting

will be reduced to a more manageable level, helping ensure the availability of supply during the summer season. Umali also vowed to approve the committee report for emergency powers when Congress resumes session on November 17.

Revision of ILP rules

THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said it will seek more ILP participants to draw in additional capacity needed by the country. To achieve this, the ERC wants to amend the ILP rules, which, at present, cover only the DUs. In a notice, the ERC is soliciting comments from industry stake-holders on a plan to amend the ILP rules. It has scheduled on November 26 a public consultation to discuss the draft “Rules to Amend Resolution 8, Series of 2013, otherwise known as the Rules to Govern the Interruptible Load Program of DUs.” In the draft, the commission wants the NGCP to be included in the

that ended on Saturday saw Xi put his vision for Asian regional cooperation on the agenda, with the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia- Pacific (FTAAP) agreement featuring in discussions and winning support from Chile President Michelle Bachelet. The US is pushing for a separate regional trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which doesn’t currently include China, highlighting competition between the world’s two largest economies for influence in Asia. Bloomberg News

NOV 7

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

TODAY’S WEATHER

NOVEMBER 10, 2014 | MONDAY TAIL-END OF A COLD FRONT AFFECTING THE EASTERN SECTION OF SOUTHERN LUZON. NORTHEAST MONSOON AFFECTING NORTHERN AND CENTRAL LUZON.

Northeast Monsoon locally known as “Amihan”. It affects the eastern portions of the country. It is cold and dry; characterized by widespread cloudiness with rains and showers. Tail-end of a cold front is the extended part of the boundary, which happens when the cold air and warm air meet. This may bring rainfall and cloudiness over affected areas.

NOV 11 TUESDAY

NOV 12

WEDNESDAY

program that currently covers only DUs. The ERC said the expansion of ILP’s coverage will help address imminent power shortage and augment the limited power requirements of any grid in the country. The rules are meant to establish a process for the ILP of DUs and the NGCP for its directly connected customers. “These rules shall apply to all DUs and their respective participating captive customer within their franchise area, to all DUs that entered into a tripartite ILP agreement with a retail electricity supplier (RES) and its participating contestable customers, and the NGCP that entered into an ILP agreement with a participating directly connected customer,” stated the draft amended ILP rules. Under the ILP, the DU and its customer shall enter into an agreement wherein the latter may be requested to de-load for a period of time as determined by the DU. The ERC, in its draft rules, wants the ILP to be implemented for the

LRT 2. . . continued from a12 n the P3.86-billion PSIP Phase II con-

NOV 13

THURSDAY

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST

NOV 7

NOV 11

NOV 12

NOV 13

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

24 – 31°C

25 – 31°C

21 – 32°C

21 – 31°C

22 – 31°C

METRO CEBU

TUGUEGARAO

20 – 30°C

TACLOBAN

24 – 32°C

23 – 32°C

23 – 31°C

21 – 32°C

CAGAYAN DE ORO

23 – 32°C

24 – 32°C

23 – 32°C

24 – 32°C

25 – 32°C

24 – 32°C

23 – 32°C

24 – 32°C

(AS OF NOVEMBER 9, 5:00 PM)

LAOAG CITY 20 – 32°C

BAGUIO CITY 14 – 23°C

METRO MANILA 21 – 32°C

TAGAYTAY CITY 20 – 29°C

20 – 31°C

21 – 31°C

BAGUIO

13 – 23°C

13 – 22°C

13 – 23°C

METRO DAVAO

SBMA/ CLARK

23 – 32°C

24 – 32°C

ZAMBOANGA

TUGUEGARAO CITY 20 – 31°C

SBMA/CLARK 24 – 31°C

TAGAYTAY

19 – 28°C

LEGAZPI ILOILO/ BACOLOD 24 – 32°C

TACLOBAN CITY 23 – 32°C

METRO CEBU 25 – 31°C CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 24 – 32°C ZAMBOANGA CITY 23 – 33°C

PUERTO PRINCESA

ILOILO/ BACOLOD

23 – 31°C

23 – 32°C

SUNRISE

SUNSET

MOONSET

MOONRISE

5:54 AM

5:25 PM

8:41 AM

8:26 PM

20 – 29°C

LEGAZPI CITY 22 – 31°C

PHILIPPINE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (PAR)

n the P17.5-billion Mactan Cebu International Airport New Passenger Terminal project, bagged in April by Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructures Ltd.; and n the P64.9-billion Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite Extension deal, awarded in September to Light Rail Manila Consortium of Ayala and MPIC. The administration aims to sign at least 15 contracts by the time President Aquino steps down from office in 2016.

tract, partially awarded last year to Megawide and the BSP & Co. Inc.-Vicente T. Lao Construction consortium; n the P5.69-billion modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center project, which went to the Megawide-World Citi Inc. consortium also last year; n the P1.72-billion Automatic Fare Collection System contract, awarded to the AF Consortium of Ayala and Metro Pacific Investment Corp. in January;

METRO MANILA

LAOAG

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY 23 – 31°C

contestable customers under a tripartite agreement to be executed among the DU, RES and the participating contestable customer. For directly connected customers, the ILP shall be administered by the NGCP through an ILP agreement. The NGCP shall pay the participating customer an amount representing the incremental cost incurred due to the full or partial de-loading. The ERC also wants the NGCP to submit a monthly report on its ILP implementation, containing details of its calculations of the de-loading compensation. The ERC said the draft amended rules are also meant to “ensure the timely compensation and recovery of allowable expenses…protect the public interest as it is affected by the rates and services of the DUs and NGCP, ensure transparent and reasonable prices of electric power service, and help maintain the security, reliability and quality of the supply of electric power.”

23 – 31°C

FULL MOON HALF MOON

SOUTH HARBOR

NOV 7

6:06 AM

24 – 31°C

23 – 32°C

24 – 31°C

NOV 14

11:16 PM

CELEBES SEA

11:40 PM

1.07 METER

Cloudy skies with rain showers and/or thunderstorms.

24 – 31°C

24 – 32°C

Partly cloudy to at times cloudy with rain showers.

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SABAH

7:08 AM

-0.18 METER

Partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rain showers and/or thunderstorms

Watch PANAHON.TV everyday at 5:00 AM on PTV (Channel 4).

METRO DAVAO 25 – 33°C

LOW TIDE MANILA HIGH TIDE

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The Nation BusinessMirror

Peacekeepers from Liberia Ebola-free; to be quarantined By Rene Acosta

LL of the 112 Filipino peacekeepers who are set to return to the country after serving their duty in Liberia are all free from the deadly Ebola and even from other disease; but just the same, they will undergo quarantine upon their return, the military said on Sunday. Lt. Col. Harold Cabunoc, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) public affairs office chief, said all the returning troops have passed their screening tests, which are preparatory to their repatriation, and are more than ready to go home. The peacekeepers will be quarantined on Caballo Island, located at the mouth of Manila Bay, straight upon their arrival on Tuesday at the Villamor Air Base. All of them will remain on the island for 21 days, according to Cabunoc. He added that Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang has ordered the Task Group Liberia, a contingent of soldiers tasked among others to secure the arriving troops, to provide recreational and medical facilities to the peacekeepers while they are isolated from the general population. Col. Roberto Ancan, commander

of the AFP Peacekeeping Operations, said the medical results provided relief not only to the military and to the family of the returning soldiers, but even to all Filipinos. “Definitely positive, actually [they are] 100-percent medically and physically fit. They are not infected, not exposed to Ebola,” Ancan said. Ancan said he had been expecting the results of the screening because the soldiers were never exposed to Ebola or even its risk. Still, he said, the quarantine is needed. “We will be doing it as one of the first precautionary measures because based on the medical information, Ebola will only manifest within 21 days if you have it,” Ancan said. The facility where the soldiers will be held is fully equipped to handle the quarantine as needed, according to Ancan.“I am sure, all those soldiers will never get bored. I already sent generator sets in order to ensure electricity on the whole island. Other facilities and needs were also added.” Ancan, however, said only 108 soldiers will be arriving on Tuesday, as four peacekeepers would be left behind for days in order to oversee the transportation of equipment and other belongings of the whole contingent.

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Monday, November 10, 2014 A3

Health-care inequality to ail PHL beyond 2015–PIDS

By Cai U. Ordinario

NEQUAL access to health-care services will continue even if the Philippines achieves its healthrelated Millennium Development Goal (MDG) commitments by next year. State-owned think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said health-care problems, such as accessibility, availability and affordability, will persist nationwide. PIDS Senior Research Fellow Celia Reyes said this is because Filipinos living in Luzon still receive better access to health services and facilities compared to Filipinos in the Visayas and Mindanao. “In terms of hospital beds to population ratio, for example, only one-third of the provinces are able to meet the required one bed for every

1,000 people. Most of these hospitals are in the National Capital Region [NCR],” Reyes pointed out. Reyes also said the uneven distribution of health labor force across the country. For example, there are 28 doctors per 100,000 population in the NCR, whereas there are only 12 per 100,000 in Central Visayas. The ratio is lower in Bicol, at 10 doctors per 100,000; and even lower in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), at only three doctors per 100,000 population. The PIDS also said not all hospi-

tals have x-ray and ultrasound machines. Hospitals in the NCR are more equipped compared to other regions. Further, not all hospitals have complete basic emergency equipment. Only 56 percent of hospitals in the NCR have complete basic emergency equipment, while for the rest of the regions, less than half of hospitals have these facilities. The PIDS also said Filipinos living in the NCR have better access to health services and facilities, thus health indicators, such as infant mortality, maternal health, antenatal care, etc., are also better. Reyes said these regional disparities need to be addressed to continue the gains that have been achieved in the health sector. She noted the government should put more resources and capacity-building programs for regions that persistently trail behind in terms of health indicators. However, Reyes cited improvements in the overall health status among regions from 2008 to 2013.

Reyes said by 2011, indicators like infant mortality rate, malnutrition, antenatal care, immunization and birth delivery by health professional have gone down and have become slightly more equitable across regions. “Regions are comparable to level of development of countries when it comes to health outcomes. For instance, in terms of birth delivery by health professional, the figures for Central Visayas are just slightly higher than that of Cambodia and Myanmar. In terms of antenatal care, figures for the NCR are close to that of Singapore, while for the ARMM, performance in antenatal care is similar to that of Bangladesh,” Reyes explained. Meanwhile, Reyes said, the Philippines is likely to achieve healthrelated MDGs, particularly in reducing child mortality, and in combating malaria and tuberculosis. However, Reyes said, it would be difficult to for the country to achieve the target for maternal health and HIV-AIDS.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Regions BusinessMirror

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Lawmaker warns of more protests vs govt negligence of Tacloban

B J M N. D C

ACLOBAN CITY—Lakas Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez of Leyte warns survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda’s (international code name Haiyan) wrath would continue to hold protest actions to demand the immediate and adequate assistance from the government. Last Saturday thousands of survivors from the country’s islandgroups of the Visayas and Mindanao converged in various protest activities here against what they says is the “continuing negligence, government corruption and antipeople rebuilding plan.” “Local government units [LGUs]

are not given enough role in the rebuilding efforts,” Romualdez told reporters here. He added he can’t stop the people from expressing their “exasperation over the national government’s foot-dragging.” It was only 11 days before the anniversary of the typhoon’s landfall that President

Aquino approved a P167.9-billion rehabilitation and recovery plan for the 171 cities and municipalities ravaged by Yolanda. On Sunday it was reported the government’s infrastructure managers was building a grandstand for the expected arrival of Pope Francis in Tacloban next year. Romualdez said local officials are not being consulted in the rebuilding process in the affected areas. LGUs know better what is good for their people than any other government agency, he explained. “I hope the [national] government will recognize the devolution policy or LGUs’ empowerment in the decision-making because local officials know better what is good and best for them.” Under a “Build Back Better” slogan, the 8,000-page Yolanda Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan Mr. Aquino approved on October 29 aims to provide for the resettlement, infrastructure,

livelihood and social services in the areas devastated by Yolanda. Yolanda affected 1.5 million families of whom 918,261 were outright displaced. Government official figures place the number of deaths at 6,300 and those injured at 28,689. While estimates are higher, government data said 1,061 remained missing after Yolanda hit the country on November 8 last year. “The assistance being provided by the government is not enough to support the needs of the survivors,” Romualdez said. His cousin and Tacloban City Mayor Alfred S. Romualdez also expressed dismay on the housing program for the affected families and residents of the tragic event. He said only more than 200 of the much-needed 14,000 permanent housing units were constructed for the survivors. The mayor also said half of those units were constructed through the

efforts of the various non-governmental organizations and not the national government. He said he is asking Congress to pass a law that would create a new government agency tasked to exclusively address all concerns regarding natural and man-made calamities to avoid politics and red tape. The mayor said the country needs a department that would solely focus on natural disasters because the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which is chaired by the secretary of the Department of National Defense is “already obsolete.” “If there is an ongoing war in Mindanao, how can he focus on addressing disasters?” the mayor asked on the sidelines of activities commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Yolanda tragedy. “To avoid politics and save lives, we have to be efficient. Doing so will eliminate bad politics. There is good politics and we should start now,” the older Romualdez added.

Canadians not turning back on work-force devt in Talikud

AVAO CITY—Canadian government representatives said they expressed satisfaction with preparations for a massive work skills training program for residents of an island resort off the Davao Gulf ahead of an expected influx of development projects and private investments. The Canadian-funded project is called the Local Governance Support Program for Local Economic Development (LGSP-LED). Its staff went around Talikud Island, part of the resort Island Garden City of Samal, to view the progress of a component

program in Talikud Island. Project officials said employees of government agencies were expected to undertake specific activities to teach various technical and vocational skills to residents. However, they needed to survey the residents first to identify existing skills and assess their certification or levels. The next activities would be simultaneous skills training, such as landscaping, carpentry and masonry, food and beverage, bartending, housekeeping, frontline servicing, plumbing, house wiring/electrical, mechanical,

tour guiding, culinary arts, security force development, community-based assistance and boat tending. “For those who could not meet the requirements needed for skills training, they would undergo livelihood trainings on handicraft making, food processing, gifts and housewares making, and entrepreneurship development,” a statement from the LGSP-LED said. Barangay officials from Barangay Dadatan, Cogon, Santa Cruz and Linosutan were given an orientation about the partnership between LGSP-LED, the provincial government of Davao

del Norte, and national government agencies, and they were briefed about their role in the work-force development component of the project, the agency said. The design program earmarked P6 million and expected to train residents for 1,294 jobs that were projected to be created by the end of 2016. Team Leader and First Secretary Genevive Asselin and LGSP-LED Regional Director Susan Steffen said they were pleased “to see the residents of Talikud respond positively to the introduction of programs specifically

targeting the work force of the island”. Asselin said the work-force development would be a key component of the project “that aims to provide skills and livelihood training for residents in preparation for projected demands once investments start pouring in.” “I am excited to see the cooperation of all of the different agencies and your political leadership to ensure that the jobs that will come from tourism are sustainable jobs, are long-term jobs, and are jobs of good quality for Talikud and the whole island,” Steffen added. Manuel T. Cayon

Lawyer warns election officials of impeachment from Paniqui standoff

ANIQUI, Tarlac—Lawyer Romulo Makalintal warned three Commission on Elections (Comelec) officials they can be impeached if they fail to act on a petition against a judge’s order that created two persons occupying one office. Unseated Mayor Miguel Rivilla has petitioned the Comelec to cite Judge Agapito Laoagan Jr. for “direct contempt” for acceding to hear Rommel David’s second motion for reconsideration “despite the fact that the same court had previously dismissed the protest twice.” Laoagan of Regional Trial Court Branch 67 of Paniqui, Tarlac, has issued a writ of execution installing David as municipal mayor. David has occupied the upper floor of the city hall here while Rivilla, a relative of President Aquino, maintains he is the mayor. The leadership dispute has directly paralyzed the operations of the local government unit in this municipality with employees deprived of their salaries and wages. Makalintal said “election contests involve public interest and technicalities should not be allowed to stand if they constitute an obstacle to the determination of the true will of the people.” Meanwhile, supporters of Rivilla remained massed-up at the town hall. The Rivilla rally turns into an entertainment program at night when singers and dancers take the stage even as municipal employees are hurting because of their having been deprived of their salaries and wages. Last Thursday night, the employees rallied for peace and flew white balloons. “We are praying for peace to come back,” an employee said. This town is also the birthplace and hometown of late President Corazon C. Aquino, Mr. Aquino’s mother. Ashley Manabat

GMR-Megawide consortium assumes management of Mactan-Cebu airport

DIRECTORS of GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), (from left) Michael Cosiquien and Srinivas Bommidala, hold a glass of wine in a toast with GMCAC President Louie Ferrer during a symbolic handover ceremony marking the official change of management of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport on November 1 in Cebu.

ERMINAL operations of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) were officially handed over at midnight on November 1, to GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), its new private operators announced over the weekend. A symbolic handover ceremony marks the official change of management, a statement from the company said. GMCAC, a consortium of Megawide Construction Corp. and India’s GMR Infrastructure Ltd., sealed the deal with MCIA in April. GMCAC said it will begin construction of the new terminal building by the start of the first quarter of 2015. The second terminal is expected to increase the passenger handling capacity of the airport from 4.5 million per year to 12.5 million a year. GMCAC said it plans to make the airport as the “friendliest gateway” and “strengthen Cebu’s position as the country’s most

popular destination for both tourists and business travelers.” The company said cited its threepronged approach to the institution of immediate improvements in terminal operations: reduction of congestion, improvement of the facility’s ambiance and improvement of guest services. “Among the immediate changes to be expected at the travel hub will be an expansion in the terminal entry security capacity through common security checks for domestic and international passengers and the installation of additional x-ray machine lanes,” the company’s statement said. It added: “To lessen check-in queues, the common check-in concept will be adopted enabling flexible allocation of check-in desks among airlines operating through the Cebu hub.” The company said it also plans to hire ushers, put seats, repair washrooms, replace signs and allot an airconditioned hall at the arrival area.

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Economy BusinessMirror

More Taiwanese firms keen on setting up PHL operations

he country may see a spike in investments from Taiwan in 2015, as prevailing tensions between China and several countries over the sea row are piquing the interest of Taiwanese firms in the Philippines, the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (Meco) said. Amadeo R. Perez Jr., Meco chairman, said at least five firms are eyeing to set up operations in the Philippines in 2015. Three of these firms are in electronics manufacturing and may bring in a minimum of $10 million each in fresh investments. The remaining companies engaged in agribusiness and trading of medical equipment. Aside from the five Taiwanese firms, Meco is also courting other electronics manufacturers such as Foxconn, a parts supplier of Apple, which is reportedly eyeing the Philippines as a possible destination. The electronics parts supplier visited the Philippines three months ago and toured several economic zones. The trade department, for its part, has also been courting financial institutions like Taiwan’s Cathay Financial in the past year, according to a source that requested anonymity. “[Trade Seretary Gregory L.] Domingo has been talking to financial institutions in Taiwan to finance loans by our banks here to loan out to borrowers. It’ll help

stabilize our economy with the infusion of more capital,” said the source, adding that the institutions that are having discussions with Domingo are keen on setting up operations here. The trade official said some Taiwanese investors have observed that labor cost in China is already rising. This is compounded by the power interruptions and policy decisions affecting investors in China. Also, the official said the hiring preference of Taiwanese businesses is being affected by Taiwan’s relations with China. The source said Filipino work force in Taiwan is expected to increase in 2015, as Taiwanese firms are now hesitant in employing Vietnamese workers after the anti-Chinese destruction spree they carried out earlier in the year that affected Taiwanese factories and property. The Taiwan-Philippines bilateral trade reached $12 billion in 2013, with imports from Taiwan pegged at $9.78 billion, mostly electronics. Philippine exports to Taiwan reached $2.2 billion. Taiwan is the tenth-largest foreign investor in the Philippines in 2013. The Philippines was Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner among Asean nations in 2013, just behind Singapore and Malaysia, and stood as the seventh top export market in the same year. Catherine N. Pillas

Monday, November 10, 2014 A5

EDC’s Burgos Wind Project commissioned

By Marvyn N. Benaning |Correspondent

opez-led Energy Development Corp. (EDC) has informed the Department of Energy (DOE) that its 150-megawatt (MW) Burgos Wind Project in Burgos, Ilocos Norte, touted as the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia, had been commissioned successfully. “We are happy to have met our target commissioning date, even a bit earlier than expected. This is a major achievement for us,” said Richard B. Tantoco, EDC president and COO. “Renewable energy has a long way to go before it can meet our country’s ever-growing energy demand. But this is a significant step.” Under the DOE’s Guidelines for the Selection Process of Renewable Energy Projects Under Feed-In Tariff (FIT) System and the Award of Certificate for FIT Eligibility, successful commissioning means that the renewable-energy project “is now physically connected to the grid and is delivering power to the transmission system.” The Burgos Wind Project will be providing 370 gigawatt-hours of elec-

tr icit y to approximately 2 million households, Tantoco said. With this amount of energy, he added, the facility will displace about 200,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually. Tantoco revealed that the wind project is the largest investment of any corporation in Ilocos Norte. The project occupies 600 hectares in three Burgos barangays—Saoit, Poblacion and Nagsurot. EDC has been committed to develop renewable-energy sources as mandated by the Renewable Energy Act. It invested $450 million in the Burgos project and closed a $315-million financing deal with the support of EKF, Denmark’s export-credit agency, and a group of leading international and local banks.

The Burgos Wind Project is also poised to be the first to avail itself of the FIT, which the DOE will grant to 200 MW of wind projects on a “first-to-commissionfirst-served” basis. Under the FIT system as mandated by the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) will allow payments on a fixed rate per kilowatt-hour—called FIT rates—for power producers harnessing renewable energy. The successful commissioning, set to be verified by the DOE, followed the department’s nomination of the project to the ERC as an eligible project under the FIT System. The Phase 1 (87 MW) and Phase 2 (63 MW) of the project achieved the requisite 80-percent electrical and mechanical completion on September 25 and October 10, respectively. It is the only wind project to be nominated by the DOE to the ERC. The Burgos Wind Project features 50 units of model V90 wind turbines of Vestas, the world’s number one wind turbine manufacturer. Vestas has already issued commissioning certificates for each of the 50 turbines that were furnished to the DOE as vital substantiation of successful commissioning. The Philippines has set a target to significantly increase its renewable energy.

Tourism&En A6 Monday, November 10, 2014 • Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay

Busine

WALKING ITA

A PICTURESQUE WAY TO SEE TU

THIS June 11, 2014, photo shows neatly plowed fields and workers tending crops on a farm en route to Rocca d’Orcia, a village in Tuscany, Italy.

S    K S | The Associated Press

ONTALCINO, Italy— Walking from the towns of Buonconvento to Montalcino as part of a weeklong trek through Tuscany, I was faced with a tough decision: How many bottles of wine could I reasonably carry in my daypack?

The road that led to this quandary had passed right by the Caparzo winery—so, naturally, we stopped in for a sample. Now I weighed the taste of the award-winning Brunello against the realities of being only midway through our 9-mile (14.5-kilometer) walk on a warm day: A grueling ascent up a steep grade to Montalcino still lay ahead. I opted to carry only one bottle. Once it was packed away, we topped up our water and continued on, past rolling vineyards and along a short stretch of the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrim route running from France to Rome. It was another typical day on our selfguided trip walking from town-to-town in Tuscany's Val d'Orcia. If we could avoid encountering vipers and wild boar, we had nary a care in the world. My husband and I had booked the tour through Girosole, which specializes in customized Italian walking tours and conveniently has an office in the United States. Because the trips are private, we got to pick the departure date and duration. We opted for seven nights in five towns. On the other two days, we were shuttled in one direction and walked in the other. They handled all the logistics: hotel reservations, shuttles to and from the train, baggage transfers, detailed walking directions and even a cellular phone for emergencies. Our responsibilities were few. We only needed to have our bags packed by 9 a.m., bring enough water and try not to lose the directions.

THIS June 10, 2014, photo shows the medieval fortress in the town of Montalcino in Tuscany, Italy.

(After dropping them once on the roadside, I took a picture of them each day with my iPhone as a backup.) Otherwise, we were free to walk and sightsee at our own pace. The directions, while not infallible, were very specific, referencing distances, landmarks, topography and the occasional marker from the Italian alpine club. They also included useful tidbits, like the amount of shade, the availability of water, the locations of bathrooms and whether neighborhood dogs were friendly. The landscape—with large farmhouses and borders of cypress trees— often seemed familiar, immortalized in countless paintings during the Renaissance by artists from the Sienese School. Ten years ago the Val d’Orcia, about 25 mi (40 km) south of Siena, was named a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage site, chosen for its artistic influence and its association with the utopian ideals of sustainable rural development. Often we walked on dirt roads around vineyards or while watching a lone tractor traverse a wheat field. Some days we passed through the forest, where unseen wild boar left hoof prints on muddy paths. We visited two monasteries and skirted one truffle reserve. Other travelers were few. Most days, we covered about 8 mi (13 km) with an average elevation gain of 1,200 feet (365 meters). We’d generally pass through the gates of the next walled town in the afternoon, just as the buses with the hordes of day-trippers from Siena and Florence were leaving. That was ideal. Although the hill

towns thrive on tourism, it was nice to move beyond the cheese, wine and souvenir shops and explore their historic fortifications (including spectacular views from the ramparts in Montalcino), small museums (like the mansion of the Piccolomini clan in Pienza) and beautiful churches. We were fortunate to catch the start of the annual Festival of Barbarossa in San Quirico d’Orcia, held each June, in which the town's four quarters reenact a 12th-century competition with flag and archery contests. Adding to the ambiance in San Quirico was the discovery that our room at the hotel Palazzo del Capitano had a turret that afforded great sweeping views. When booking the tour, we had a choice of three levels of hotels and opted for the middle, somewhere between standard and luxury. All of the hotels we stayed in were welcoming, clean and comfortable. Our bags were always waiting in our room, giving us plenty of time to clean up and explore the town before choosing where to have that night’s sumptuous dinner. Being Tuscany, the food was fabulous, often featuring dishes made from local truffles, pecorino or cinghiale—wild boar. Still, our most memorable meal was in the dining room at La Cisterna nel Borgo hotel, overlooking the well-preserved medieval piazza in the town of Rocca d’Orcia. It featured innovative dishes created from recipes and spices collected by the proprietors when they travel the world during the offseason. For wine, there was no place like Montepulciano, where restaurants, like La Bottega del Nobile, boasted of as many as 60 local offerings by the glass. The famous city is often associated with the Val d’Orcia and was a stop on our trip, even though it sits in a neighboring territory. And that bottle of Brunello? It was exquisite. But I was glad I had decided to carry only one, because it turned out that the winery shipped. So many months later, with a case in my basement, I'm still enjoying the fruits of my trip.

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■ Giro Tour c group

■ Val Unesc region lavaldo

■ Pala com/en Rates

ntertainment

essMirror

tourism@businessmirror.com.ph • Monday, November 10, 2014

ALY:

USCANY

Nighttime operations at Laguindingan airport seen to boost tourism industry

OU GO

rosole: http://www.girosole.com/. company organizes small p walking tours of Italy.

l D’Orcia: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1026. co World Heritage site in Siena, in the Tuscany n of Italy. Walking itineraries: www.parcodeldorcia.com/en/itinerari.asp.

lazzo del Capitano: www.palazzodelcapitano. en/index.html. Hotel in San Quirico d’Orcia. s vary by room and date.

THIS June 12, 2014, photo shows a street in the Borgo quarter of San Quirico, in Tuscany, Italy, decorated with flags for an annual event reenacting a 12th-century competition. The event is called the Festival of Barbarossa.

B R M

OURISM is expected to receive a big boost once the Laguindingan International Airport in Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental province— which is regarded as the major gateway to northern Mindanao— starts nighttime operations later this month to accommodate a growing number of air passengers, it was learned recently. Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, who hails from Cagayan de Oro, lauded the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) for upgrading the airnavigation facilities of the airport

and installing a ground-lighting system to allow nighttime-landing operations. He said the scheduled start of the airport’s nighttime operations this month is timely, as more Filipinos returning from overseas, as well as local and foreign tourists, are expected to come to the region because of the improved law-andorder situation there, as well as for Christmas. Aviation authorities and DOTC officials have already inspected and tested the lighting system for safety purposes and for any possible defect. Pimentel said the Laguindigan airport’s nighttime operations would

greatly expand air travel to Cagayan de Oro, Iligan City in Lanao del Norte province and Marawi City in Lanao del Sur province, as well as to other neighboring provinces. He also said air passengers would now have more options to take because of added flights that would result in the prevention of air traffic and congestion at the terminal, especially during peak seasons like Christmas. Business is expected to dramatically improve, especially the burgeoning tourism industry, because of the new security procedures that have complied with the policies and procedures of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

TheElderly A8 Monday, November 10, 2014 • Editor: Efleda P. Campos

BusinessMirror

Rizal seniors laud pain relief obtained from magnesium therapy during medical mission

By Oliver Samson | Correspondent

AGNESIUM, “the spark of life” regarded highly by drugless practitioners here and abroad for its capacity to improve a number of health conditions, is gaining popularity among senior citizens in Rizal, following pain-relief missions by a home for the aged in Antipolo.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The national laws for senior citizens By Cheridine P. Oro-Josef, MD, FPAFP, FPCGM

right to health

KANLUNGAN ni Maria Special Project Director Victoria Baterina Solis (standing, fourth from left), Fr. Dari D. Dioquino (standing, sixth from right), Kanlungan Wellness Program Director Mary Jean Netario-Cruz (standing, fifth from left), Kanlungan staff, Dominican Sisters of the Holy Rosary and senior citizens during Kanlungan’s Healing Mission on October 23 at Balanti, Cainta, Rizal. OLIVER SAMSON

HE 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article XV, Section 4 on the Filipino Family of the 1987 Philippine Constitution mandates that, “It is the duty of the family to take care of its older person members, while the State may design programs of social security for them.” It is, therefore, the obligation of each family to make sure that the senior members of its household are properly cared for and assisted. At present, our government has already issued several programs to help families in caring for older persons. Among them are the following proclamations and executive orders: Presidential Proclamation 470, Series of 1994, declaring the first week of October of every year as “Elderly Filipino Week.” Presidential Proclamation 1048, Series of 1999, declaring a nationwide observance in the Philippines of the International Year of Older Persons. Executive Order (EO) 266, Series of 2000, approving and adopting the Philippine Plan of Action for Older Persons (1999-2004). EO 105, Series of 2003, approving and directing the implementation of the program providing for group homes and foster homes for the neglected, abandoned, abused, detached and poor older persons and persons with disabilities. There are also national laws for senior citizens that need to be properly implemented for the benefit of older persons. These are: Republic Act (RA) 7432, or the “Senior Citizens Act of 1991,” or “An Act to Maximize the Contribution of Senior Citizens to NationBuilding, Grant Benefits and Special Privileges and for Other Purposes.” This provides for the granting of a 20-percent discount for senior citizens on fares for domestic transportation, and the availment of services from hotels, lodging houses, restaurants, theaters, recreation centers, and purchase of drugs and medicines anywhere in the country. It also exempts senior citizens from payment of individual income tax and establishes the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs (Osca) at the city or municipal mayor’s office. RA 9257, otherwise known as the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2003, expands the coverage of the benefits and privileges for senior citizens by making it mandatory for business establishments to grant the 20-percent discount on goods and services. It also installs a process for organizing the Osca and the selection of the Osca head. But, more important, it provides for a comprehensive system for senior citizens to foster their capacity to attain a more meaningful and productive aging. RA 9994, or the “Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010,” is the most recent amendment and prevailing law for senior citizens. It provides for the following benefits and privileges: Twenty-percent discount and 12-percent value-added tax exemption, free services and/or training fees; Discount on “essential medical supplies, accessories, equipment,” free flu and pneumonia vaccines; Additional government assistance, i.e., social pension, mandatory PhilHealth coverage, social-safety nets, death benefit assistance; The Department of Trade and Industry now part of the National Coordinating and Monitoring Board (NCMB); Clearer and “stricter” appointment procedure and requirements for Osca Heads; and Honoraria for Osca head equal to SG10. There are also administrative orders and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) issuances, which guide our stakeholders in ensuring quality care for older persons. Adapted from the lecture of the NCMB Secretariat of the DSWD during the Annual Convention of the Philippine College of Geriatric Medicine.

Over 700 individuals, most of them seniors with body pains, reported relief after undergoing magnesium therapy provided by Kanlungan ni Maria. The home for the aged introduced the therapy to its residents and senior citizens in the province early this year, said Fr. Dari D. Dioquino, Kanlungan priest in charge. The senior citizens complained of frozen shoulders, back pain, painful and stiff fingers, gout, arthritis, stiff neck, muscle cramps, migraine, and other health conditions, he said. However, they demonstrated relief after receiving the therapy. About 350 of the magnesiumbeneficiaries are elderly who underwent a brief magnesium therapy during Kanlungan’s “Healing Mission” in Jalajala, Pililia, and Cainta in recent weeks, said Victoria Baterina Solis, Kanlungan special project director. The main advocate for magnesium therapy in the Philippines is Mar y Jean Netar ioCruz, who created the formulation being used by the K anlungan medical missions. Aside from the free therapy, the senior citizens also received a free bottle of magnesium (in liquid form), she said. They were also encouraged to continue magnesium therapy at home to get optimum benefit. Since any one could do the therapy himself, each senior citizen was briefed by Kanlungan’s staff

on proper transdermal application so they could do it at home. Relatives who accompanied the elderly were also instructed on the procedure. “Recipients of the free therapy and magnesium are less-fortunate senior citizens in depressed areas in Rizal, who also received Kanlungan residents’ excess goods, like milk and other grocery items that would otherwise expire,” Solis noted. The magnesium pain-relief missions also gained the interest of community health workers in the province for the mineral and the therapy itself, she said. Dioquino said magnesium works on various body pains as more and more people flock to the venues of magnesium pain-relief missions. “My knee joints and back pains have improved,” Socorro del Rosario, 78, said in Filipino in an interview. “My son, who had been suffering from stiff and painful fingers, also felt relief.” Both del Rosario and her son Fernando, 54, are residents of Simeon Perez, Second District, Jalajala. Wilma Acosta, 58, another resident of Jalajala, also reported improvement from the nausea she had been experiencing due to heart enlargement. “Magnesium was massaged on my head and shoulder,” she said in Filipino. “I perspired and felt better afterward.” Although Kanlungan pushed magnesium across depressed villages, the mineral also won over religious peo-

DOH vaccinates Mimaropa elderly

Columbia team: Cacao has compound that reverses memory decline among elderly

O help them stay healthy, prevent illness and even prolong their lives, the Department of Health (DOH) in Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) the local government of Pinamalayan in Oriental Mindoro conducted a pneumococcal vaccination for elderly people recently. Health Regional Director Eduardo Janairo and Pinamalayan Vice Mayor Aristeo A. Baldos Jr. led the kick of ceremony of pneumococcal vaccination at the municipality as a way also to express gratitude for the elderly. “Pneumococcal vaccine is the safe and effective way to help elderly people stay healthy, prevent illness and even prolong their lives. As we age, we are at higher risk of complications from pneumonia but once vaccinated, we can be protected from the virus from up to five years,” Janairo said. Janairo said the elderly have been “keeping our generation safe and healthy as we also give them health and protection as they enjoy a more fruitful journey through life and a possible return to mainstream economic society. According to health experts, pneumonia is an infection of the lungs which affects thousands of Filipinos yearly. Pneumonia infections can be prevented and treated through proper vaccination. As the body grows older, its natural defense systems tend to decrease, which places older people at greater risk of flu and pneumonia. Pneumoccocal vaccines weaken the severity of these viruses. The DOH provides free pneumococcal vaccination to seniors and are available in municipal health centers. According to Janairo pneumococcal vaccine prevents serious blood, brain, and lung infections from the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

By Marvyn N. Benaning Correspondent

ACAO farmers have every reason to enthuse about a recent study conducted at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), which showed that cocoa flavanols reverse age-related memory decline. The Philippines is a net importer of cacao, which is believed to have a variety of pharmaceutical, as well as dietary uses, with the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations, considering it as a “drink of the gods.” Cacao cultivation is on the upswing in Bicol and in Mindanao, motivated in part by the rise of artisanal chocolate production in Davao and elsewhere. The CUMC researchers clarified that the product used in the study is not the same as chocolate, and they warned against an increase in chocolate consumption as people attempt to achieve the same effect on the participants in the study. Flavanols are naturally occurring bioactives found in cocoa but their ability to stop debilitating memory loss among people over 50 years old cannot be exploited without resorting to a special process. Unfortunately, the process of processing, extracting, enriching and using cacao flavanols for drinks is owned and patented by Mars Inc., which also supported

ple—clergies and nuns alike—and a number of affluent individuals in the province, Dioquino said. Dr. Caroline Dean, an American medical and naturopathic doctor, popularly known as “The Doctor of the Future,” explained in an e-mail that magnesium relieves pain since it “relaxes muscles and prevents muscle spasms and ner ve twitching, both of which can cause pain.” Pain killer depletes stored magnesium in the body, she added. Its depletion “causes more migrainedeficiency symptoms, the worst being the development of cardiovascular problems.” The main symptoms of magnesium deficiency and calcium excess are “headaches, fatigue, insomnia and muscle pain,” Dean said. Dean even prescribes magnesium to patients, including executives and athletes, who suffer from anxiety and panic attack, instead of sedatives. In the Philippines Magiteque Therapy was “discovered” by Mary Jean Netario-Cruz, a leading magnesium advocate in the country, in 2010. She introduced it to the public the following year. Magnesium repletion by the skin bypasses the laxative effect of oral magnesium, Cruz said. There is not an overdose since the body throws out excess magnesium. “Magnesium deficiency is caused,

the CUMC research. Most methods of processing cocoa actually remove many of the flavanols found in the raw plant. The study, published on October 24, in the advance issue of Nature Neuroscience, discusses the first direct evidence that one component of age-related memory decline among humans is caused by changes in a specific region of the brain. This memory decline can be arrested and the memory can be enhanced through dietary intervention using cacao flavanols. A decline in cognitive abilities shows as people age, with the process starting in early adulthood but becomes more patent when they reach their 50s or 60s. This memory decline is different from memory impairment caused by Alzheimer’s, which damages and destroys neurons in various parts of the brain, including the memory circuits, as well as the entorhinal cortex. Previous work, including those of senior author Dr. Scott A. Small, had shown that changes in a specific part of the brain—the dentate gyrus—are associated with age-related memory decline, but the evidence adduced was only a correlational link, not a causal one. To find out if the dentate gyrus is the source of age-related memory decline, Small and his colleagues

among other things, by sweating, caffeine, certain pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, stress and excessive calcium,” she said. Cruz, a certified well-being coach, studied at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition—New York and is a member of the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. She was appointed Wellness Program Director for Kanlungan in January after Dioquino, who had complained of body pains, felt relief after undergoing Magiteque Therapy. Before her association with Kanlungan, Cruz conducted at least 1,000 magnesium-therapy sessions on various health conditions and certified over a dozen of “magi coaches” (magnesium therapy coaches) since 2011. She also joined efforts by the government and private organizations to de-stress survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda in evacuation camps in Manila in 2013. Rolled out in September, the pain-relief mission seeks to help liberate the elderly from pains due to magnesium deficiency and introduce to people of various age groups the natural and safe healing power of the mineral, Cruz said. “People should try the healing power of natural nutrients—among them magnesium—before resorting to medication by drugs,” she said.

tested whether compounds called cocoa flavanols can improve the function of this brain region and improve memory. Previous studies had shown that flavanols extracted from cocoa beans improved neuronal connections in the dentate gyrus of mice. Small is the Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology in the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the A g i ng Bra i n, t he Serg ie vsk y Center and the Departments of Radiology and Psychiatry and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in the Taub Institute at CUMC. A cocoa flavanol-containing test drink was prepared by Mars Inc., which has developed the expertise in retaining the flavanols found in the raw plant. In the CUMC study, 37 healthy volunteers, aged 50 to 69, were randomized to receive either a highflavanol diet (900 milligrams of flavanols a day), or a low-flavanol diet (10 mg of flavanols a day), for three months. Brain imaging and memory tests were administered to participants before and after the study. The brain imaging measured blood volume in the dentate gyrus, which shows the level of metabolism, while the memory test involved a 20-minute pattern-rec-

ognition exercise meant to assess a type of memory controlled by the dentate gyrus. “When we imaged our research subjects’ brains, we found noticeable improvements in the function of the dentate gyrus in those who consumed the high-cocoaflavanol drink,” said lead author Dr. Adam M. Brickman, associate professor of neuropsychology at the Taub Institute. Brickman also noted that the high-f lavanol group also performed significantly better on the memory test. “If a participant had the memory of a typical 60-year-old at the beginning of the study, after three months that person on average had the memory of a typical 30- or 40-year-old,” Small said. He stressed that, soon, a larger study will be conducted to test the efficacy of the flavanols among the seniors and broader social sectors. Flavanols are also found naturally in tea leaves and in certain fruits and vegetables, but their amounts and specific forms vary, the CUMC team said. The precise formulation used in the CUMC study has also been shown to improve cardiovascular health. Buoyed by these findings, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston recently launched a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded

study of 18,000 men and women to see whether flavanols can help prevent heart attacks and strokes. The study used a new information-processing tool developed by Dr. Usman A. Khan, a PhD student in the laboratory, and Frank A. Provenzano, a biomedical engineering graduate student at Columbia. This tool allows the imaging data to be presented in a single, threedimensional snapshot, rather than in individual slices. The other innovation developed by Brickman and Small was a modification to a classic neuropsychological test, allowing the researchers to evaluate memory function localized to the dentate gyrus. Besides flavanols, exercise has been shown in previous studies, including those of Small, to improve memory and dentate gyrus function among younger people. However, the researchers were unable to assess whether exercise had an effect on memory or on dentate gyrus activity. “Since we didn’t reach the intended VO2max [maximal oxygen uptake] target,” Small concluded, “we couldn’t evaluate whether exercise was beneficial in this context. This is not to say that exercise is not beneficial for cognition. It may be that older people need more intense exercise to reach VO2max levels that have therapeutic effects.”

A10 Monday, November 10, 2014

Opinion BusinessMirror

Editor: Alvin I. Dacanay

editorial

Feeling good about being wooed

HERE was a time when the Philippines was like a vendor roaming the streets of the world in search of a sale. We have all seen such a person pushing a cart filled with cheap Chinese tools and padlocks that open with a key or a paper clip, whichever is handier.

We might have taken pity and bought something from the vendor just to allow him to buy some food and survive another day. Occasionally, we’ve bought something that we really wanted: a walis tambo from Baguio City, or a plastic rack to store our shoes. Granted, international trade today is not exactly the modern version of our so-called viajeros, otherwise known as cattle-caravan traders, but the principle is the same. Traders go to where the buyers are, hoping to sell their wares, like what the viajeros used to do in various areas in Quezon City. Now, the marketplace is like a five-star hotel, with plenty of free food and drink to make the buyers more agreeable to opening their wallets and purchasing something. In 2003 the Philippines stopped being a global itinerant vendor when the government began putting its fiscal house in order. Per-capita gross domestic product (GDP), measured by purchasing power, started to rise steadily; so did investment and capital formation. Suddenly, after decades of having a negative current account-to-GDP ratio, the country’s money flow went positive. Now, foreign sellers are coming to the Philippines to try to make us buy their products. Case in point: Last month a United States trade delegation came to the country to sell American potatoes. The Oregon Potato Commission and the Washington State Potato Commission came to sell their potatoes because our market has just opened to them. An Oregon-based Christmastree grower had invited Philippine and Malaysian agricultural officials to witness its methods of ensuring that no dangerous pests are included in its potential shipments of trees to the Philippines. Presumably, free food and drink were served. The Global Business Travel Association predicts that the two fastest-growing markets in Southeast Asia for business travel—at an annual rate of 7.5 percent to 10 percent—would be the Philippines and Vietnam. It is not only sellers who see the Philippines as a good market. With recent international acquisitions by major Filipino firms Emperador Inc. and Universal Robina Corp., even financial institutions are becoming more interested in the country. As The Financial Times noted recently, these acquisitions “have made bankers in Singapore sit up. They are convinced that the Philippines will, next year, provide a tidy source of mergers-and-acquisition advisory fees as other companies follow suit.” We must admit that being wooed by international companies to do business with them feels very good after being considered as a “basket case” for so long.

US franchises interested in the Philippines Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II

RISING SUN

HE Department of Trade and Industry has an informative newsletter—Philippine Business Report—that rounds up the latest business news in the Philippines, and its two most recent issues offer a wealth of information to people looking for entrepreneurship and investment opportunities.

For starters, it reported that, in July, the registrations of 12 new export enterprises were approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza). Four are Filipino-owned, while the others were established by Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, South Korean, Swedish and Taiwanese citizens. Also that month, 12 new information-technology (IT) firms were approved—one from the Philippines; the others, from Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom. Total investments registered with Peza from January to July this year rose 30.8 percent to P127.5 billion from P97.48 billion in the same period in 2013. Peza’s target this year is “10-percent growth in the value of investments to be approved,” in the agroindustrial and electronics sectors; garment, bag and shoe industries, IT services; and transportation, including car parts, aerospace and shipbuilding. Investors may choose to establish

their business in any of the country’s 197 IT centers, 66 manufacturing ecozones, 17 agro-industrial ecozones, 18 tourism ecozones, and two medical-tourism zones. These developments prove that opportunities abound, and that the government is actively creating an attractive business climate to encourage more foreign and local investors to take part in the Philippines’s growth spurt, notably in the high-priority manufacturing sector. The strides that the Philippines made in this regard have led to its identification as an “emerging manufacturing nation” in Hong Kong-based Dezan Shira and Associates’s report “Manufacturing Hubs Across Emerging Asia,” which was published in the July issue of Asia Briefing magazine. This recognition was given to the Philippines, along with Indonesia and Vietnam, based on such factors as “key industries; investment regulations; and labor, shipping and operational costs.”

At present, manufacturing accounts for 23 percent of the Philippines’s gross domestic product. The country’s goal is for this figure to reach 30 percent by 2030, since manufacturing is considered as “key to inclusive economic growth,” and to the development of jobs and related businesses. In retail 14 US franchises expressed interest in establishing their presence in the Philippines, with their representatives visiting the country on a trade mission in cooperation with the US Department of Commerce. These companies, which were evaluated by the US Commercial Service as the brands “with the biggest chance of success in the Philippine market,” are Edible Arrangements, Jan-Pro Cleaning Systems, Panda Express, Pretzelmaker, Russo’s New York Pizzeria, Title Boxing Club, World of Beer, Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery, PJ’s Coffee, Radio Shack, Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery, Tutor Doctor and Wow Café. According to Josh Merin, director of international affairs of the International Franchise Association, the factors that contributed to the interest of US franchisers and other companies include “the growing Philippine economy, the perceptivity to US brands, the strong cultural ties between the US and the Philippines, and the growing sophistication of the Philippine business sector.” The ongoing economic expansion includes not only new businesses, but also established ones. One of these is Coca-Cola, which first began operations in the Philippines in 1912.

How much is a handshake worth? William Pesek

BLOOMBERG VIEW

EETINGS, John Kenneth Galbraith said, are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything. Rarely will that observation prove truer than today, when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will reportedly sit down together for the first time. Last Friday Xi and Abe agreed to hold a formal meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) confab in Beijing. The talks are welcome: Only dialogue can help China and Japan resolve their differences and deepen a trade relationship worth $168 billion as of the first half of 2014. But this “handshake summit” isn’t likely to eliminate frictions between the Asian archrivals. Both leaders had good reason to seek the meeting. By hosting Abe on his home turf, Xi has a chance to look statesmanlike and magnanimous before an audience of other Asian leaders, many of whom remain wary

of China. By contrast, snubbing Abe would’ve allowed Japan to play the part of mature power seeking rapprochement with a rising, but sophomoric one. Behind the scenes, Chinese officials are already crowing about the concessions that Abe has reportedly made to arrange the get-together, including acknowledging that there is a dispute over the sovereignty of offshore islets administered by Japan. Abe, too, is trying to appeal to other Asian leaders, some of whom worry about his push to make Japan a more normal military power. The bilateral meeting with Xi will bolster Abe’s argument that Japan

can maintain good relations with its neighbors without apologizing for its wartime record or ending official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors several convicted war criminals, along with Japan’s war dead. What’s less clear is whether either leader has any reason to go much further than that. In a September poll by research group Genron NPO, 87 percent of Chinese said they had an unfavorable impression of Japan. Most attributed their distrust to a lack of remorse for past invasions of China, a perception bolstered by Abe’s own visit to Yasukuni last December. At a time when growth is slowing and more painful economic reforms still lie ahead, Xi can’t afford to defy nationalist sentiment too blatantly. That same Genron NPO poll revealed that an astounding 93 percent of Japanese held unfavorable views of China. For Abe, one of whose goals is to restore domestic pride in the Japanese brand, those numbers are sobering. His Liberal Democratic Party relies on the support of ultraconservative groups for crucial funding and votes. In fact, kowtowing to China simply isn’t an option available to a modern Japanese leader, regardless of party.

During the inauguration of the expanded Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines plant in Canlubang town, Laguna province, on November 3, President Aquino said Coca-Cola Pacific Group President Glenn Jordan had pledged to him in 2010 that the company would make a $1-billion investment in the Philippines from that year until 2015. “Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines,” the President said, “together with the Coca-Cola Export Corp., surpassed this $1-billion target by investing over $511 million in the country, on top of the $700-million acquisition of 51 percent of Coca-Cola Philippines in January 2013, for a total of $1.2 billion already invested in the Philippines.” President Aquino said the company had committed to invest “another $500 million in upgrades,” adding that “other investments will come into the country by 2015.” According to him, the country will have “a total of $1.7 billion in investments by next year.” These are only some of the many positive business-related developments in the country, showing that the reforms in governance and policy undertaken by the Aquino administration are contributing to the remarkable improvements in the Philippine economy. The Philippine Business Report is available online at dti.gov.ph and via e-mail subscription (publications@ dti.gov.ph). Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II is the vice chairman and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

If nationalism among the Chinese is driven by newfound assertiveness, among the Japanese much of it grows out of insecurity. Japan Inc. has yet to get over China surpassing it in gross domestic product terms in 2010. What will resonate for most Japanese next week is how much the world has changed in China’s favor since the last time Beijing hosted Apec in 2001. As Xi trumpets China’s “great rejuvenation,” expanding maritime claims and lavishing cash around the globe, Japan is devaluing its currency again. Abe correctly views the summit as an indispensable step toward a more vibrant Japanese economy. But as all those who once thought that commercial interests would prevent conflict in North Asia have discovered, economic imperatives do not trump other, deeper fears and frictions. As Yoon Young Kwan, a former South Korean foreign minister, wrote in an op-ed piece last week, “The supposed ‘Asian century’ is being thwarted by a paradox: Deep economic interdependence has done nothing to alleviate strategic mistrust.” A handshake and some reassuring words for the cameras aren’t likely to do much more.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Agro-ecology: Making a case for its adoption in the Philippines

The spirit of capitalism Teddy Locsin Jr.

Free fire

By Sen. Cynthia A. Villar

First of two parts Slightly edited version of the privilege speech of Sen. Cynthia A. Villar on agro-ecology that was delivered on October 22.

ORLD experts on agriculture and food have been highlighting agroecology in various venues or platforms. It has been a topic of various symposiums, seminars, researches, publications and speeches. These experts see agro-ecology as an idea whose time for adoption or implementation worldwide has come. On September 18 and 19 the International Symposium on Ecology for Food Security and Nutrition was facilitated by the United Nations’s (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and held at its headquarters in Rome. The discussions during the symposium focused on the numerous economic, environmental and social aspects that agro-ecology encompasses. You see, agro-ecological concepts and practices contribute to the three main goals of the FAO: 1) the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; 2) the elimination of poverty and the driving forward of economic and social progress for all; and 3) the sustainable management and utilization of natural resources, including land, water, air and climate, for the benefit of present and future generations. These are goals that we all here share, as well, which, the FAO believes, will be attained with the help of agroecology. So, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, I would like to present my own points and ideas about agro-ecology, so that we can all weigh its benefits and promote its adoption or active implementation here in our country.

Benefits offered

SO what is agro-ecology? Agro-ecology uses ecological concepts and principles to design and manage sustainable agro-ecosystems, offering benefits for productivity; food security; environmental sustainability; and important ecosystem services, such as climate-change mitigation. What can agro-ecology offer? First and foremost, agro-ecology has a number of environment-related benefits, since it aims for environmental sustainability. If only for those benefits, agro-ecology is, indeed, a very timely alternative to conventional farming, taking into consideration that the country now experiences extreme weatherdisturbances,suchasstronger typhoons, droughts, the El Niño and La Niña phenomena, and other environmental risks. Thus, we need different approaches, such as agro-ecology. According to FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva, a “paradigm shift” in agriculture is needed. He said themain challenges facing world farming is to reduce the use of agricultural inputs, especially water and chemicals, and to make food production viable in the long term. He also cited agroecology as having the potential to reframe farming in a more sustainable way. Sustainability is the key. This is seconded by Prof. Hilal Elver, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, who said recent scientific studies are increasingly proving how agro-ecology offers far more environmentallysustainablemethodsthatcan still meet the rapidly growing demand for food. Based on estimates, there is a need to increase food production by over 60 percent to meet the expected demand from a global population of more than 9 billion by 2050. Ensuring food security is another thing that deserves great consideration. Only small farmers and agroecologycanfeedtheworld,something that the UN itself acknowledged. According to the FAO, 70 percent of the food we consume comes from small farmers. Based on official statistics, there are an estimated 1.5 billion people involved in family farming in over 500 million small farms worldwide. Ang seguridad ng pagkain ng ating bansa, at ng buong mundo, ay nakasalalaysamgamaliliitnamagsasaka. This assertion is highlighted by the fact that 2014 has been designated by the UN as

the International Year of Family Farming. Family farmers are a crucial part of our efforts to attain sustainable food security. As such, we need to develop and implement specific policies, programs and strategies for them. In the process of sustainably increasing production, addressing climate change and building resilience, agro-ecology is providing benefits to small-scale and family farmers, in particular. Actually, to some extent, smallscale and family farmers have been practicing agro-ecology without them knowing about the science behind it. But now, with the increased interest in and attention given to agro-ecology, people have become more aware of it, and thousands more are involved in it. Many are even partnering with scientists. Agro-ecology is also seen to slow the trend toward increasing urbanization, which is placing stress on public services in urban areas, where an increasing concentration of people is observed (like here in Metro Manila). Kaya lumalala ang traffic dito ay dahil lalonglumalakiangpopulasyonsamga urban areas or cities. Pag nagkaroon ng development sa rural areas, baka hindi na magsiksikan ang mga tao sa mga urban areas or cities. Agro-ecology would contribute to rural development, and the higher incomes it would generate in rural areas would help grow the other sectors of the economy in the countryside.

INALLY, Marxism has invaded the capitalist workplace in the United States. Marxism famously promised: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. So Virgin and Netflix are offering female workers $20,000 to freeze their eggs, so that maternity doesn’t get in the way of progress, thereby giving each according to her need, and extracting from each according to her ability to keep on working uninterrupted. Other companies give other extras, like on-site child care, flexible work hours and 100-percent-paid health benefits. The aim is to keep workers in the workplace working as long as possible without distractions or interruptions. Pets can be brought to work and families can eat in the office canteen if the work runs late. This is workers’ heaven.

But social scientists warn that they are golden shackles with silver chains. Unlimited vacations don’t give you all the time you want to relax and unwind, and recharge for work again. Unlimited vacations just add pressure to keep on working and to not take vacations, because some will take long vacations, while others

would most probably keep on working out of fear of the comparison between slackers and workers. Does it matter? Not in Germany and Scandinavian countries, where there is job security and even board representation for workers, and their economies are so way ahead of that of the US and the United Kingdom

Monday, November 10, 2014 A11

that economists find that making comparisons no longer makes sense. And, right there, you know what is missing. No one offers job security, let alone the now-abandoned Japanese obligation of lifetime employment. If someone still does, then unlimited vacation leaves would be enjoyed, instead of feared, because there would be no consequences. But clear capitalism will adopt even Marxism as a way to get more work out of workers, even if it means giving them more pay and perks; in short, a caress works better than a squeeze; it will still be out to get the last drop of work from a worker. And, yet, this is still better than sweatshops, which are the norm across the capitalist world. But it does show that, in the end, some Marxism is best for each according to his ability and to each according to his need. It is how capitalism can keep on working without a crisis; the crisis of poorly paid workers getting paid less and less and, yet, making more and more, so that fewer of them will buy what capitalism makes. In case anybody missed it, the reason Karl Marx’s magnum opus is called Das Kapital is that it of-

fers the best argument for ceaseless capitalist productivity—like no other economic system in the past—as a necessary stage on which to unfold the next logical stage: the distribution of capitalist wealth equally among those who produce it. Without capitalism, there would be nothing to give away. So having reached an advanced stage of capitalism, why does equality continue to be avoided? It is the only thing that will keep capitalism going. Because it was also noticed, in the same study of capitalist adoption of generous perks, that there are still some people who prefer that each be paid according to his or her worth to the company, and they will turn down more perks unless they are taken away from others or are denied to them. They do not want more pay, unless other workers are paid less. One can’t stand out, except against a backdrop of failure. And there you have the spirit of capitalism. Max Weber and, then, R.H. Tawney said this is the Protestant ethic: It is not worth being saved by Christ if He doesn’t condemn others to hell; there is no worthwhile salvation without damnation.

Support from scientists

SCIENTISTSalsosupportagro-ecology. It is, after all, an interdisciplinary science that derives insights from ecologists and agronomists, as well as social scientists. In a move seen as proof of its support, about 70 scientists and scholars of sustainable agriculture and food systems sent an open letter to the FAO, praising it for convening the agro-ecology symposium. Mindful of the intensifying challenges posed by continued food insecurity, rural poverty, climate change, drought and water scarcity, the scientists called on the international community to make a solid commitment to agro-ecology. They also called for the launch of a UN system-wide initiative on agroecology as the central strategy in addressing climate change. The initiative, they said, could form one of the pillars for the future work of the Committee on World Food Security. Most experts believe that agroecology is best suited for small-scale and family farmers. As I said earlier, they have been practicing it even before they knew about it. There is a need to provide adequate incentives and technical assistance to support small-scale farmers, as well as micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises, in creating local agro-ecological business models that can make appropriate inputs and technologies available to communities. Agro-ecology will also have an effect on solving malnutrition, which is still prevalent in our country. The status of micronutrient malnutrition in our country is a cause for concern. To quote a FAO report: “Iron-deficiency disorder or anemia is the most alarming of the micronutrient deficiencies affecting a considerable proportion of infants [56.6 percent], pregnant women [50.7 percent], lactating women [45.7 percent] and older [men] [49.1 percent].” Also, “the vitamin A status of the country is considered [a] severe subclinical deficiency.” To be concluded on Tuesday

Is the United States stuck in a secular slump? By Michael Hiltzik Los Angeles Times (TNS)

HE scariest term that economists have been throwing around lately is “secular stagnation.” It means that the economy is in a slump that it may never be able to escape.

It’s one thing to say things will get worse before they get better; quite another to say they’ll just keep getting worse. But that’s the fear expressed by former United States Treasury Secretary and White House chief economist Lawrence Summers in an essay published two weeks ago. Summers observes that growth in the US and Europe—and projections for future growth—has been dismal and getting worse. “US economic growth has averaged only 2 percent over the last five years, despite having started from a highly depressed state,” he writes. What’s worse, he asserts that growth was meager even in the prerecession period, when it appeared to be quite healthy. But its fundamental sickness was masked by risky financing—“vast erosion of credit standards, the biggest housing bubble in a century, the emergence

of substantial budget deficits, and what many criticize as lax monetary and regulatory policies…. It has been close to 20 years since the American economy grew at a healthy pace supported by sustainable finance.” Summers’s concerns are echoed by a clutch of leading economists— among them Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, and Paul Krugman of Princeton University—who contributed to a remarkable volume on secular stagnation that was published in August by the London-based Center for Economic Policy Research; Summers’s essay appeared as its keynote. Many of them find that the evidence of secular stagnation is inescapable, though they disagree about its causes and remedies. The causes include a slowdown of technological advances aiding productivity—electricity and the internal-combustion

engine are behind us; a slowdown in population growth; a rise in income inequality; and a failure to invest in infrastructure. The latter two get most of the blame, with good reason. As Eichengreen reflects, “Pessimists have been predicting slowing rates of invention and innovation for centuries, and they have been consistently wrong.” Robotics and genomics, he argues, bear as much potential for improving human productivity as the Industrial Revolution did in the 19th century. On the other hand, federal spending “devoted heavily to infrastructure, education and training has been cut to the bone.” Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern University adds that “salaries for CEOs and celebrities march ever upward,” while “for the disposable [after-tax] incomes of the bottom 99 percent, it is hard to find any room for growth at all.” Not all the economists are as pessimistic: Nicholas Crafts of the University of Warwick observes that the term “secular stagnation” was coined by economist Alvin Hansen in 1938 as a projection of a permanent post-Depression slump, but his fears turned out to be “the

delusions of a hypochondriac,” proved wrong by World War II and the postwar boom. Yet, Summers and others like him struggle to find the light. The greatest reason they find for despair is the failure of government in the US and Europe to respond. Summers writes that improving financial stability, increasing economic output and raising employment require “increased public investment, reductions in structural barriers to private investment…a commitment to maintain basic social protections so as to maintain spending power, and measures to reduce inequality and so redistribute income toward those with a higher propensity to spend” (that is, middle- and lowerincome households). The US is moving away from, not toward, those policies; even with Republican control of only one chamber of Congress, the prospects for such a program have been dim. All isn’t lost, but the future is in our hands. Eichengreen says: “If the US experiences secular stagnation, the condition will be self-inflicted.… It is important not to accept secular stagnation, but, instead, to take steps to avoid it.”

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

A12 Monday, November 10, 2014

LOCAL GAME DEVELOPERS TO CONQUER ASIAN SCENE By Catherine N. Pillas

he local game-development industry will be sending a delegation to South Korea’s largest trade show for computer and video-game developers this month, a first for the industry, in a bid to boost its network in the Asian market. Andro Baluyut, director of the Game Development Association of the Philippines (GDAP), said 10 of their members and three government trade officials will be participating in the annual G-Star trade show in South Korea, where players in the game-development industry convene to market their capabilities. Baluyut said this is the first time the local gaming industry will be represented in the trade show. The Philippine participation is geared toward attracting interest from the Asian market. “We’ve participated in an event recently in Vancouver, that’s for the Western market. Now this effort is for the Asian market,” Baluyut said. The GDAP director added that a lot of local players are already doing art outsourcing and customer-support services for international game developers. They are hoping to expand their network with this endeavor. “South Korea also has a strong mobile market, so we’ll also be promoting app development. Western markets are looking at console-gaming development, we’re not yet that adept [in that area], but in mobile gaming, we can do that,” Baluyut added. Baluyut said the trade show would beef up the association’s ongoing thrust to fortify the capabilities of local players in mobile-app development by linking them with foreign gaming firms.

Coca-Cola plans to invest another $500M in PHL

By Roderick L. Abad

OCA-COLA Femsa will invest another $500 million in its Philippine operations by 2015, rounding up to $1.7 billion its total investments in just three years.

“[That amount is] a combination of our investments in the market represented in bottles, coolers, cases, marketing investment, as well as the growth of our manufacturing infrastructure, warehouses and distribution centers across the country,” said Juan Dominguez, corporate affairs director for Coca-Cola Femsa Asia Division. Following last week’s inauguration of its $95-million CocaCola Femsa Philippines Canlubang

Manufacturing Facility in Laguna, the executive said they intend to grow their distribution network in the Visayas and Mindanao and, at the same time, develop their markets in sari-sari and retail stores. “It will be focused in the Zamboanga, General Santos City, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental areas,” he said. “We have already reopened our facilities in Tacloban and we are working around Cebu. [Next year’s expansion] will be focused in

Bacolod and Iloilo.” Coca-Cola Femsa began its operations in the country after the acquisition of Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines for $688.5 million in January of 2013. Since then, the firm has launched new packages led by Coca-Cola Mismo and expanded its existing product portfolio, including the launch of Minute Maid Fresh and Wilkins Pure. The beverage giant also improved its distribution network and created over 2,000 new jobs, bringing total employment to more than 8,000 and the operations of 22 plants and 47 sales offices nationwide. “As we grow our road to market expansion, we will hire people across the Visayas and Mindanao that should imply a generation of 1,000 more direct employees by the end of next year,” Dominguez said. What’s more, the company also increased its production capacity

by upgrading its Misamis Oriental Plant with the installation of two new PET (bottling) lines, acquisition of a manufacturing facility in Davao del Sur, and the rehabilitation of the recently reopened Tacloban Plant that was damaged by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) late last year. These developments cost CocaCola Femsa over $511 million and come on top of around $700 million with the acquisition of 51 percent of Coca-Cola Philippines last year, or a total of $1.2 billion committed to date. Dominguez said they will keep on investing in the Philippines to expand both its geographical presence and their product portfolio. “While we continue with our efforts toward nation-building and expand our reach to other underserved communities in the country, we will continue to explore expansion opportunities,” he said.

Govt debt fell to 37.3% of GDP in H1 By David Cagahastian

he general government (GG) debt stood at P4.5 trillion as of June 2014, equivalent to 37.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), the Department of Finance said. The GG debt viewed against GDP

represents a 6-percentage-point drop in the ratio since 2009, when the ratio equaled 44.3 percent of GDP. The GG debt, which includes the national government’s debt minus debts of local governments, intra-sector debt holdings and the bond sinking fund—from which maturing government debts are

paid—is an important indicator of the government’s creditworthiness because the ratio in relation to GDP provides creditors an idea of the government’s ability to settle its obligations. The broader national government debt stood at P5.7 trillion, slightly higher than the first-quarter of 2014 because of higher domestic debt net issuance and the impact of the peso’s depreciation against the US dollar. Of the total national government debt, P1.919 trillion, or 34 percent, were obtained from foreign creditors while P3.731 trillion, or

66 percent, were borrowed from the domestic market. Also contributing to the increase in the national government debt was the 0.5-percent increase in the debt obligations of local government units from its March 2014 level. The intra-sector debt holdings of government securities held by Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System, which are among those deducted from the national government debt figure to arrive at the GG debt, rose to P485.7 billion in June 2014 from P453.8 billion in June 2013.

Slower manufacturing growth seen

By Bianca Cuaresma

he local manufacturing sector likely continued its growth, albeit, at a slower rate in September, the research arm of an international credit watcher said. In its weekly Asia-Pacific Economic Data Preview, Moody’s Analytics said the country’s volume of industrial production likely grew by 7 percent in September this year. If validated, this is a further slowdown from the 7.5-percent growth seen in August and from the 16 percent in September last year. “The Philippine manufacturing sector has cooled in 2014, after surging across the second half of 2013. That said, August production surprised on the downside given that export demand remains firm, particularly from the US, and the domestic economy continues to expand,” Moody’s Analytics said. Despite the slowdown, Moody’s said they still see a “solid” type of manufacturing growth in September this year, as the production of electronics continues to fall as a share of total output. This means that the country has started to diversify its manufacturing and export products for the year. In the previous month, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported a growth of 7.5 percent in the country’s Volume of Production Index in August this year. Among the major drivers during the month include production in printing, leather products, beverages, machinery, fabricated metal products, transport equipment, basic metal products, petroleum products, and furniture and fixtures. The Philippine Statistics Authority will be reporting the country’s manufacturing data as of September this year on Tuesday.

First Pacific. . . continued from a1

The conglomerate, with partner Ayala Corp., won the two public-private partnership (PPP) deals this year. “MPIC has a subtotal of P53 billion in capital expenditures,” Nicol said. He added that Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) will be spending P36 billion in 2015 to bankroll the expansion of its network capacity. The bulk of the investments in PLDT will be used by the company to “transition more into the digital space.” Philex Mining Corp., meanwhile, is spending P6 billion in capital investments next year. A portion of the budget will be spent for its Silangan Copper-Gold Project in Surigao del Norte. First Pacific is also spending P1 billion for its sugar business through Victorias Milling Co. Inc., where private unit Metro Pacific Holdings Inc. owns an 8.3-percent shareholding. “Our various tariff issues at MPIC—roads, water and, now, possibly rail—need resolving if we are to achieve all of the above,” Nicol pointed out. Shares of MPIC closed at P5.02 apiece on Friday, while those of PLDT ended at P2,942 each, and those of Philex finished at P8.45 per share.

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SIX MORE FIRMS TO VIE FOR LRT 2 DEAL By Lorenz S. Marasigan

he deadline for the submission of qualification documents for the contract to operate and maintain the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 2 has been pushed back by almost a month, after six more parties expressed interest in bidding for the deal. Transportation Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo M. Lotilla said his agency decided to move the deadline to December 15, from November 20, to give prospective bidders ample time to prepare their qualification documents. The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center said the list of prospective bidders now includes Miescorrail Inc. of power company Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), Hyundai Rotem Co. of South Korea, TUV Rheiland Inc. of Germany, SMRT Corp. of Singapore, MTR Corp. Ltd. of Hong Kong and Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. Earlier, six groups expressed their interest in bidding for the project. They are Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) Development, DMCI Holdings Inc., San Miguel Corp. (SMC), GT Capital Holdings Inc., Marubeni Corp., and the Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), a joint venture between Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. An indicative time line showed that the bid submission date for the deal is set in May or June 2015. The issuance of the notice of award will be a month after, hence, the signing of the concession agreement between the government and the winning concessionaire will be scheduled by August or September next year. The private sector may start operating the railway line east of Metro Manila by the second half of 2016, the document showed. The winning bidder will take over the operations and maintenance of all 11 stations of the existing line, as well as the 4.19-kilometer LRT 2 Masinag Extension, for about 10 to 15 years. Construction of the P9.7-billion Masinag Extension will start by January next year. It will take the government roughly a year and a half to fully complete the construction of the railway extension. It will be fully operational by that same time frame. When constructed, the new facility will add 4.14 km to the existing line, which is the youngest of the four train systems in the country. Two additional stations will be constructed: the Emerald Station in front of Robinsons Place Metro East in Cainta, Rizal; and Masinag Station at the Masinag Junction in Antipolo City. It will serve an additional 130,000 train commuters from the current number of 240,000. The 13.8-km long LRT 2 traverses the cities of Manila, San Juan, Quezon City, Marikina and Pasig. Since the infrastructure program’s inception in 2010, the government has awarded eight contracts so far. These are: n the P1.96-billion Daang HariSouth Luzon Expressway project, bagged by Ayala Corp. in 2011; n the P16.42-billion first phase of the PPP School Infrastructure Program (PSIP), which went in 2012 to the consortium formed by Megawide Construction Corp. and Citicore Holdings Investment Inc., as well as the BF Corp.-Riverbanks Development Corp. Consortium; n the P15.68-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport expressway, given to SMC an Miguel Corp. unit Vertex Tollways Development Inc. in 2013; See “LRT 2,” A2