Businessmirror november 15, 2016

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From left, Mark Watson, Manila Southwoods general manager; Robert John L. Sobrepeña, Manila Southwoods chairman; SSP Chawrasia, 2016 RWM Masters champion; John Cope, Manila Southwoods director for grounds and maintenance; and Jerome Delariarte, Manila Southwoods golf director.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016 Vol. 12 No. 34

Govt scouts for new water sources as shortage nears 2017 T

By Cai U. Ordinario

inside

the megacity of 12 million people.

“It was projected that Metro Manila will experience a water-supply deficit by 2020, if no buffer capacity for demand is assumed; or around 2017, if a 15-percent buffer capacity for demand

The year when water shortage is expected in Metro Manila, given the demand and production capacity

is provided, given the anticipated water demand vis-à-vis the current production capacity of the concessionaires,” Neda documents stated.

See “Govt,” A2

silicon valley style puts gloss on tesla’s bid for s0larcity BusinessMirror

analysis, ideas and commentary from

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Silicon Valley Style Puts Gloss on Tesla’s Bid for SolarCity

By Steven Davidoff Solomon

F Tesla Motors’ proposed acquisition of SolarCity wasn’t a Silicon Valley deal through and through, it would have been dead on arrival.

The deal is about as conflicted as they come. Elon Musk owns large interests in both companies and had the idea for SolarCity, which is led by his cousin. Mr. Musk is also chief executive and chairman of Tesla and is chairman of SolarCity.

Incestuous ties like these are not uncommon in Silicon Valley. Yet SolarCity is struggling. Its stock price has declined by more than two-thirds since early 2015 and its revenue is down as solar takes a beating from low oil prices.

Given the context and the initial bumbling of the process, it is understandable why some thought that Mr. Musk’s interest in SolarCity was a way to bail out his investment.

The initial market reaction when the offer was announced in June indicated as much. Tesla’s stock price declined more than 12 percent in the wake of the possible bid.

After the decline in Tesla’s stock price and the criticism of the conflicts, one might have thought that the merger was as dead as pets.com.

But a good narrative in Silicon Valley means everything, and Mr. Musk has long played the role of visionary to great effect. He put this to good use in the last few months to shine up this deal.

Lawyers were brought in to tidy up the process. SolarCity shopped itself around but found no other buyers—who else would buy when Mr. Musk had so ardently expressed his desire to acquire a company of which he already owned a fifth?

So an agreement was reached at a reduced price for SolarCity.

Most important, Mr. Musk amped up his vision.

In capital markets today, conglomerates are hated and companies are

carved and diced to the finest business.

But not Tesla.

Tesla has been portrayed as a car company and a battery company, but now Mr. Musk’s vision has turned Tesla into an integrated solar company with SolarCity the crucial missing piece.

Well-heeled consumers would get their car from Tesla, as well as their home battery storage and solar from SolarCity to power it all.

That is the vision anyway, for those who can afford it and live in sunny climes. To increase excitement for the deal, Mr. Musk successfully exhorted Tesla to get to a profitable quarter in order to “throw a pie” in the face of all the Wall Street “naysayers.”

Analysts, investors and reporters were given personal access to the rock star entrepreneur himself. Mr. Musk used the time to pitch new products including glass shingles—solar roofs that would generate energy and also look beautiful.

The strategy appears to be working.

The influential proxy advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, has endorsed the merger. “The transaction is a necessary step toward TSLA’s goal of being an integrated sustainable energy company,” ISS wrote, using Tesla’s stock market ticker symbol.

In addition, the advisory service cited the low premium and the fact that Tesla, a $30-billion company, could probably handle SolarCity’s $3.1 billion in debt with the ability to raise more needed capital in the markets.

Tesla itself has said it will need to raise cash this year in connection with the production of the Model 3, and SolarCity’s financing needs will add to that strain. And in an investor presentation, Tesla said that much of this would be project financing and that SolarCity would add $1 billion to Tesla’s balance sheet over the next three years.

Then there are the structural biases for a deal. The shareholders of Tesla are largely also invested in SolarCity.

Mr. Musk owns 21.7 percent of SolarCity and 20.1 percent of Tesla. But the second-biggest shareholder of each is the mutual fund giant Fidelity, which owns 8.9 percent of Tesla and 11.6 percent of SolarCity. Vanguard, BlackRock and Bank of Montreal are in the top 10 shareholders of each.

Theoretically, these institutional investors are supposed to look at each investment separately, but a bailout of SolarCity by Tesla might be in their best interest. Certainly, the voting dynamics work in Tesla’s favor.

But the biggest spur pushing this deal toward success may be the willingness to believe in the Silicon Valley magic.

Take the ISS report. It cited three reasons for the deal. Ultimately, it came down to what the advisory service said was that vision of an integrated solar company.

Really? Would any other industry get this pass? Let me answer that: No. The simple truth is that Silicon Valley visionaries are given freedom no other chief executive would. To put it another way, there is a Musk pass (as well as a Zuckerberg pass and a Brin and Page pass). (Glass Lewis, the other large proxy advisory service, refused to give Mr. Musk his pass, calling for a vote against the deal because of the conflicts.)

SolarCity may also have made strides in core markets, but it will have a tougher time in New York and Michigan and markets where there is less sun.

And SolarCity will have to work out the financing to get its new customers to be able to afford these batteries, solar cars and beautiful new roofs featuring “Tuscan shingles, slate tiles, and Spanish-style curved clay shingles.” All in a time that interest rates are likely to rise.

But how could you not bet on Mr.

Musk’s vision?

Because of this last fact, I fully expect this deal to happen. Perhaps this is to be admired. Too often, institutional investors play it too safe. Now, public shareholders can profit from some risktaking instead of leaving it all to the venture capitalists.

Still, questions persist about the business model of the combined company. The solar market is saturated and limited to people with the cash to buy panels. This is why financing is such an important part of the equation. And are there legions of potential customers willing to spring tens of thousands of dollars for terra-cotta glass solar shingles?

There is great risk here, as well as possibly great rewards. In most cases, institutional shareholders would pass on the deal solely because of the risk, let alone the conflicts and conglomerate issues. And it raises the question of whether Silicon Valley should, alone among other industries, have a special pass to make deals that no company in any other industry could.

Even institutional shareholders seem to lose their heads when it comes to Silicon Valley.

businesssense © 2016 The New York Times

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EIGHTEEN-YEAR CYCLE Manila motorists and pedestrians ignore what is happening up in the heavens as the supermoon rises. The event marks the closest distance between the moon and the Earth at some 356,509 kilometers since January 24, 1948. The next supermoon that would beat this record will be on November 25, 2034. Stephanie Tumampos

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Open universities offer opportunities for Filipinos to juggle work, academics

By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

Life

@PsycheRoxas

d1

Part Two

P

30-30-30 game

sports

Aforeign policy of fear

the entrepreneur Manny Villar

S

ome people are puzzled, or even critical, of President Duterte’s belligerent attitude toward other people, including leaders of other countries.

If you look at the pattern of the President’s behavior and statements, however, you would find that he doesn’t put on an aggressive stance unless somebody hits him first. Thus, when asked about his verbal attacks, his response was that the other party started it.

Continued on A10

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Elon Musk, the cofounder of luxury all-electric us car maker Tesla, speaks at the startmeupHk Venture Forum in Hong kong on January 26, 2016. PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP-GEtty ImAGEs

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RCEP TO PROGRESS FASTER ON BETTER MANILA, BEIJING TIES

BusinessSense E1 Tuesday, November 15, 2016

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he government is now identifying possible raw-water sources for Metro Manila, after the University of the Philippines National Engineering Center warned of a water shortage starting next year.

And in the draft final value-engineering study commissioned by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) that was obtained by the BusinessMirror, Manila Bay was identified as the most viable raw-water source for

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OISED against the sky, the Oblation sculpture of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) in Los Baños, Laguna, casts an arresting figure with its ribbon-like flag swirling around its pedestal. Designed and executed by university artist and former UPOU Chancellor Grace J. Alfonso, the swirling flag is said to be symbolic of the UPOU’s lifting education to

PESO exchange rates n US 48.9080

greater heights by widening access to UP quality education.

It takes about an hour and 58 minutes to travel from Manila to the UPOU center in Barangay Maahas, Los Baños, Laguna. But that’s if one wants to see the campus up close and get to see its facilities or talk to the faculty. One can also access any search engine and type http://our.upou.edu.ph/ on the Internet to get to the UPOU web site.

From there, anyone can inquire about admission, registration, enrollment schedules, degree programs and other pertinent data that students may want

to know about the UPOU. Established on February 23, 1995, the UPOU is the fifth of seven constituent campuses that make up the UP System, which includes UP Diliman, UP Los Baños, UP Baguio, UP Manila, UP Visayas and UP Mindanao.

Current UPOU Chancellor Melinda de la Peña-Bandalaria said the other UP constituent campuses can only take a small portion of qualified students every year. “The resources, like classrooms, teachers, dorms, etc., are the limiting factors in terms of the number of

By Catherine N. Pillas

@c_pillas29

he Philippines’s own pivot to Asia and its intent to mend relations with Beijing are seen to help speed up the conclusion of the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, especially now that the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is at a standstill, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Dr. Jayant Menon, ADB lead economist for Trade and Regional Cooperation, said the Duterte administration’s decision to turn around its previously contentious relations with China will make it easier to move things along on the Asia-centric expansive free-trade agreement (FTA).

“The challenge facing RCEP is to try to get many diverse countries to agree on a common set of rules, so whenever bilateral relations between any pair of countries improve, it’ll only help the process to be concluded more efficiently and rapidly. This [improvement of relations] is a big plus for the whole agreement,” Menon told the BusinessMirror.

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez met with Asean trade ministers two weeks ago, where he said options have been “narrowed” in terms of negotiating a common set of numbers in the area of trade in services and goods to be included in the RCEP. RCEP is a mega trade deal aiming to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.

The 16 countries (Asean nations plus countries they’ve already concluded FTAs with) account for over a quarter of the world’s economy, estimated to be more than $75 trillion.

According to a joint statement released after the meeting, the 16 countries have agreed to negotiate the RCEP as a “single undertaking,” instead of on a Continued on A3 See “RCEP,” A2

Continued on A2

n japan 0.4579 n UK 61.6388 n HK 6.3044 n CHINA 7.1765 n singapore 34.6570 n australia 36.8326 n EU 52.9869 n SAUDI arabia 13.0404

Source: BSP (14 November 2016 )

A2 Tuesday, November 15, 2016

BMReports BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Open universities offer opportunities for Filipinos to juggle work, academics Continued from A1

students [that] UP can take.”

She added that these constraints are no longer relevant in a distance education institution like UPOU. Bandalaria also noted that “UPOU’s mode of instructional delivery provides an opportunity for the many experts in UP to expand their reach by teaching courses in the DE [distance education] mode of instruction.”

Online classes

At UPOU, classes are held online through a learning management system, or LMS (myportal.upou. edu.ph). Online interactions can be done in two ways: Synchronously and asynchronously.

The first interactions are those that require students and instructors to be online at the same time.

These are during online lectures, discussions and presentations that occur at a specific hour.

Interactions done asynchronously refer to online courses that one can take at one’s own schedule.

Synchronous interactions can be done using Skype.

According to Bandalaria, study guides and course modules or lessons are uploaded in the online course site and this is what the students access. Accessing the site can be likened to attending a class in a classroom.

Since in most cases, interactions are done asynchronously, there’s no set schedule as to when the teacher and students access the course site.

Both teachers and students access the course site and par-

RCEP. . .

Continued from A1

piece-meal basis, to ensure both goods and services will be prioritized on India’s insistence.

This negotiation came just a week after President Duterte much-hyped visit to China, seen by many as the beginning of the country’s rectification of relations with the world’s secondbiggest economy.

Menon said that, apart from the tariff-elimination schedule for goods, countries should pay equal attention to ensuring nontariff barriers are kept at a minimum.

“These nontariff barriers are more challenging than tariffs, but,

ticipate in learning activities at their own time and pace, although there are also schedules and deadlines to consider.

Bandalaria said there are also assignments, exams, class reporting, etc., just like in a conventional study setting.

“The modern [technology that we have] now [and are] available [to us] make all these possible,” she said. “So there’s no such thing as a typical day—but more of the essentials which constitute the learning design and which should be present in the online courses.”

But according to Bandalaria, “the learning design will, however, depend on the learning goals.”

The UPOU has 34 full-time faculty members. It also has other teaching staff from other UP units (affiliate faculty), other universities (adjunct faculty) and from the industry (lecturers).

“Given this mechanism, I can say the UPOU can get the best when it comes to its teaching pool,” Bandalaria said.

Bandalaria, the 56-year-old current president of the prestigious Asian Association of Open Universities, has more than 20 years of experience in open and distance learning (ODL) instruction, research and administration.

She teaches 10 graduate and undergraduate courses in the distance e-learning mode and is involved in 20 major research activities either as “research leader” or “coresearcher.”

“I look at online teaching [and learning] as really empowering,” Bandalaria said. “I can attend to various functions and tasks and slowly, they’re trying to make progress, and I think it’ll take a long time.

But if we can get this harmonization happening, this will reduce a lot the cost of doing trade, especially for services; this will benefit the Philippines,” the ADB economist said.

The RCEP is now seen as the likely route in achieving a free-trade area in the Asia Pacific, as the momentum to push TPP in the US Congress has died down in the run-up to the divisive US presidential elections.

US President-elect Donald J. Trump has voiced strong opposition to the expansive Pacific rim trade deal, as he aims to deliver on his promise to “bring back jobs” to America and revive industries that were edged out by foreign competition.

University of the Philippines Open University program offerings:

Master’s degree programs ■ Asean Studies ■ Social Work ■ Development Communication ■ Distance Education ■ International Health ■ Land Valuation and Management ■ Public Health ■ Hospital Administration ■ Nursing ■ Public Management ■ Environment and Natural Resources Management ■ Language and Literacy Education ■ Social Studies Education ■ Information Systems Doctoral Programs in Education ■ Biology Education ■ Chemistry Education ■ Physics Education

it will not, in any way, affect my teaching assignments, as I can still teach wherever I am as long as I have access to the Internet.”

She cited her own experience as example.

“We held an almost weeklong conference during the last week of October and after that I spent another week in Bali [Indonesia] to attend a workshop for online learning and, still, I performed my teaching functions.”

Bandalaria added that UPOU’s mode of instructional delivery itself can be considered as public service, as it aims to reach the underserved areas and sectors of

■ Mathematics Education ■ Communication

Nonformal courses and certificate programs ■ Caring for the Special Child ■ Caring for the Elderly ■ Community Mental Health ■ Health Research Methods ■ New Enterprise Planning ■ Online Teaching and Learning ■ Organic Agriculture ■ Personal Entrepreneurial Development ■ Introduction to e-Commerce ■ Professional Teaching Certification ■ Simplified Accounting for Entrepreneurs ■ Continuing Professional Education Program on Land Valuation

the society.

Funding

THE UPOU can get additional research funding from the UP System, the Comission on Higher Education and the Department of Science and Technology.

Other funding agencies and organizations that have provided funding support for UPOU include the Asian Development Bank, Unicef Philippines and the International Development Research Council and Quezon Power (Philippines) among others.

The UPOU also partners with local government units to provide

scholarship program for the public school teachers in their area.

Business, through their corporate social responsibility initiatives, can provide support to the different programs and initiatives of the UPOU.

Degree, nondegree

THE UPOU offers three undergraduate programs: Associate in Arts, Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies and Bachelor of Education Studies. It has 14 masters’ degree programs in various fields and doctoral programs in education. Still, more than the degree programs, UPOU also offers nonformal courses and certificate programs.

“Some of the UPOU courses are similar to those offered by other UP units with the mode of delivery as the only difference,” Bandalaria said. “Programs and courses are distinct from the other courses offered by other UP units to take advantage of the expertise in the substantive areas in this mode of delivery.”

People from various persuasions come to the UPOU. “I would consider all our graduates outstanding, as it takes so much self-discipline and sense of responsibility to be able to finish a degree through the online mode,” Bandalaria said. Some of the known personalities that were able to acquire degrees via the UPOU include former VicePresident Jejomar Binay (Diploma in Environment and Natural Resources Management), Sen. Miguel Zubiri (Master in Environment and Natural Resources Management), Richard Gomez (Associate

in Arts) and Miss Earth Catherine Untalan (Diploma and Masters in Environment and Natural Resources Management).

She added that interested individuals can access the UPOU web site (www.upou.edu.ph) for detailed instructions on application for admission. “They can accomplish the application form online and the documents, which they need to submit are listed in the form [http://our.upou.edu.ph/index. php?radio=admission].”

Commitment

IT takes persistence and solid determination to finish a course or degree program at UPOU. Figures supplied by the UPOU showed that only 326 students graduated from some 15,959 undergraduate students enrolled between 1995 to 2016.

The records for persistence to complete a degree in the other programs showed a similar trend— Masters graduates (1,389 out of 39,894), Doctorate graduates (54 out of 4,167).

Not including nondegree students and cross-enrollees, the total number of graduates of UPOU from 1995-2016 are 4,698 out of 84,807.

Bandalaria explained, however, that “the number of total enrollees is not for unique individuals.”

“Those are course enrollments, while graduation is for unique individuals, meaning an individual can enroll from a range of one to five courses as in the case of our undergraduate students,” she added.

“Therefore, the individual will be counted depending on the number of courses enrolled.”To be concluded

Duterte outbursts start scaring firms–Seipi S

igns of investor discontent with President Duterte’s outbursts against the US are multiplying, with American companies starting to hold off investing in the Philippines, the nation’s electronics and semiconductor industry said.

“The concern is that we have lost momentum,” Dan Lachica, head of the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. (Seipi), said in an interview. “Investments have been held and orders have been canceled. Hopefully, it doesn’t get to the point that they shut down.”

After initially causing declines

in the stock and currency markets, Duterte’s repeated attacks against the US since September may be finally taking their toll on direct investment. The concerns of Seipi, the largest organization of foreign and local electronics companies, mirror those raised by the American Chamber of Commerce, which has warned the President is creating unease.

“We’re requesting an audience with the President so he can hear the concerns of our industry’s chief executive officers,” Lachica said, declining to name the companies that

Govt. . .

Continued from A1

“Apart from the looming water-supply deficit, the Angat Dam and its downstream waterworks seem to be at risk, given the country’s susceptibility to various natural disasters, such as earthquakes and drought [especially during El Niño events]. Possible damage to the dam, as well as prolonged drought, may severely affect water-supply service provision in Metro Manila,” the Neda added.

The study evaluated five raw water sources and three water measures, particularly in the use of nonrevenue water reduction, reuse of treated wastewater and reuse of treated stormwater.

The five water sources are Manila Bay, which ranked first, followed by Laguna Lake; Kanan and Laiban Dams ranked third; and Agos dam ranked fourth. The water measures, such as reusing treated storm water, ranked fifth. Reusing treated wastewater ranked sixth and nonrevenue water reduction ranked seventh.

These were evaluated and scored according to technical, financial and implementation. The technical aspect entailed the ability to meet water demand by 2037; capacity to provide further growth of the population and industries; and good quality of water source.

The technical aspect also includes possessing drinking-water quality at point of distribution; sustainability in terms of yield

have halted investment. Texas Instruments Inc. and Moog Inc. are among US electronics companies with factories in the Philippines.

Duterte’s remarks are not antiAmerican but anti-interference, Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said. “He promotes and protects investors and promotes exports,” he said in a mobilephone message on Sunday. The American Chamber of Commerce could not be reached for comment.

Electronics account for about half of Philippine shipments, which climbed in September after 17 months of decline.

Exports of semiconductors and elec-

tronics rose 0.7 percent in the first nine months of 2016 from a year earlier.

Seipi is pinning its hopes on the election of Trump as the new US president to reinvigorate the relationship between the two nations.

Duterte has told US President Barack Obama to “go to hell” and announced a “separation” from the US during an official visit to China.

“It’s a good sign that Trump’s message, even in the United States, is conciliatory,” Lachica said. “It’s a good sign that Duterte called him up and offered congratulations and looking forward to strengthening their relationship.”

and potential redundant source.

The parameters for the financial component are the low-capital cost of investment; low operations and maintenance cost of facilities; and high potential to attract financing from investors.

In terms of implementation, the criteria included implementability, which considers resettlement, land acquisition, compliance to government regulations, etc., and timeliness of infrastructure completion.

The results showed that the desalination of the Manila Bay scored higher than the technical, financial and implementation thresholds of 55 percent, 25 percent, and 21 percent, respectively.

Manila Bay received a total score of 248.53.

In terms of cost, it will take around 40 million to 50 million per million liters per day (MLD).

“The Manila Bay, which has potentially unlimited supply, would require a desalination plant. The plant could be on the eastern shore or on barges stabilized by fender piles,” the draft final report stated.

This was followed by Laguna Lake, which had a score of 234.55; Kanan and Laiban Dams, 232.42 each; and Agos Dam, 221.82.

The parameter costs for Laguna Lake is around P15 million to P20 million per MLD. If this will become the source of raw water, the government needs to build a submerged pipe on the lake bottom.

The water from the lake could be pumped directly to the main transmission line or the treatment plant.

Meanwhile, making Kanan Dam a raw water source for Metro Manila will cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion. It was recommended by the consultant that the dam be used to supply the long-term water requirement of Metro Manila.

“Two other dams were considered—Laiban Dam and Agos Dam. Laiban Dam [based on past studies] has outstanding social/resettlement issues, which have not been resolved for more than 10 years now. With regard to Agos Dam [also studied in the past], pursuing it would likely result in Kaliwa Dam [currently under bidding] being submerged, rendering the latter ineffectual and the investment wasted,” the report stated.

Reusing treated storm water garnered a score of 209.1, while reusing treated wastewater and nonrevenue water reduction got scores of 201.35 and 179.04, respectively.

Water reclamation, such as reusing treated storm water and reusing treated wastewater, are both seen as critical to achieving water security for the Philippines. The only possible constraint is the “cultural stigma” against the use of gray water, or wastewater, and storm water.

The safe use of these as raw water sources require upgrading existing water-treatment plants, according to the Singapore model, which undertakes water reclamation.

“The proposed investments could be financed by the private sector or with government contribution, and the costs would be recovered through tariffs,” the report stated.

Economy BusinessMirror

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briefs sbma remains major role player in country’s economic growth

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—The country’s premier free port remains to play a major role in pushing the economic growth envisioned by the Duterte administration for the national government by generating business and job opportunities.

Lawyer Randy Escolango, officer in charge-administrator and CEO of Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), said the role of Subic Freeport is always as important in the thrust of the national government in inclusive growth by generating business opportunities and creating jobs.

Escolango noted that the financial performance of the SBMA and contribution to the national economy show best ratings in the past four years, which turned the table for the SBMA from “sickly” to one of the most successful government-owned and -controlled corporations to date.

Earlier this year the SBMA reported that in 2015, it was able to appropriate P302.5 million for eight major infrastructure projects, which was 956.73 percent higher than in 2014, with only P28.6 million.

The amount is part of the P800million capital expenditures being utilized this year by the SBMA to fund the repairs of major service roads networks and other facilities. PNA

Tesda launches japanese language, culture courses for health workers The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) on Monday announced it has started teaching Japanese language and culture to nurses and caregivers bound for Japan.

Tesda Director General Secretary Guiling Mamondiong said up to 191 nurses and caregivers have availed themselves of the program on Japanese twin courses, which started on November 4 and it will end on May 19 next year. The launching was attended by Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Kasuhide Ishikawa.

“Not only will it determine your chances of passing the Japanese national examination, but it will also make a huge impact on your overall experiences in Japan. The more you learn the language, the more fruitful your life will be,” Ishikawa said in his opening remarks.

Mamondiong has encouraged students to study the language and culture to eliminate the language barrier.

The current enrollees for the sixmonth Japanese courses comprise the the ninth batch of Filipino health workers who availed themselves of the program under the National Language Skills Institute of the Tesda.

A total of 971 students have already graduated from the agency’s skills institute since 2011. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

gensan sets auction for 579 ‘delinquent’ real properties GENERAL SANTOS CITY—The city government will auction this month some 579 private real properties that have accumulated “delinquencies” or unpaid realty taxes for at least three years.

Rodilon Lacap, assistant city treasurer, said on Monday they decided to hold another public auction sale to allow the local government to recover the real-property tax dues owed by the owners of the concerned property units.

He said the auction sale is scheduled on November 23 at the city-hall lobby and is expected to continue for several days.

“The auction will mainly involve property units with unpaid taxes of three years and above,” he said.

Under the law, real properties are deemed delinquent one year after their owners fail to settle their realproperty tax dues.

Such provision was set in Title II of the Local Government Code, or Republic Act 7160, and its implementing rules and regulations. PNA

Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon • Tuesday, November 15, 2016 A3

JCPC members back rehab, activation of BNPP

T

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

@joveemarie

wo members of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) on Monday backed the plan of the Duterte administration to rehabilitate the 620-megawatt (MW) Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).

Party-list Reps. Jericho Nograles of PBA and Rodel Batocabe of AkoBicol said in a news conference the plan of the Duterte administration to finally activate the BNPP could lower power rates in the country.

“Congress is ready to hear the debates...the pros and cons on the matter,” Nograles said.

Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi has said the Department of Energy is currently conducting all the studies for the activation of the controversial nuclear-power plant.

Earlier the National Power Corp. said the BNPP could provide 620 MW, or 10 percent of the Luzon grid.

However, Nograles said the gov-

House committee sets deliberations of ‘template’ to improve city traffic

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

T

HE leadership of the House of Representatives has recently filed its version of the proposed Traffic Crisis Act 2016, which provides the traffic chief and President Duterte special powers to address traffic woes in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Davao City.

House Committee on Transportation and PDP-Laban Rep. Cesar Sarmiento of Catanduanes said House Bill (HB) 4334, or the “Traffic Crisis Act of 2016 Makiisa.

Makisama. Magkaisa,” will be the government’s urgent, immediate and comprehensive response to the traffic crisis.

“It will be proposed to be adopted as the model bill this Wednesday and will hopefully be approved by the committee by next week,” Sarmiento said.

The measure was also principally authored by Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez and Majority Leader and PDP-Laban Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas of Ilocos Norte.

Sarmiento said the bill is the result of the efforts of the Committee on Transportation and the House leadership, with the materials and references gleaned from the 10 committee hearings conducted on the traffic crisis and even from the book Larga Pinas which listed down the issues observed and policy recommended by the committee during the last 16th Congress.

The bill is currently pending before the Committee on Transportation. Sarmiento said the deliberations on the provisions of the bill will proceed during the technical working group meeting next Wednesday. “[I] look forward for this measure to serve as template to improve the traffic system in localities other than the covered metropolitan areas,” he added.

HB 4334 also identifies and limits the scope of the bill to the land traffic crisis in Metro Manila,

Metro Cebu and Davao City.

The bill said the secretary of the Department of Transportation is also designated under the bill as the ex-officio traffic chief.

It added the traffic chief will be allowed to also implement similar mechanisms and systems provided in the bill to other cities and municipalities around the country, which may suffer from a traffic crisis.

The measure said during the effective period of the act, the traffic chief shall have the power of supervision and control over the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority; Cebu Coordinating Council, Philippine National PoliceTraffic Management Group, Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board, Road Board, all other executive agencies, bureaus and offices with roles pertaining to land-transportation regulation and Davao Traffic Administration.

“The traffic chief, as alter ego of the President, shall have power of supervision over all local government units within the metropolitan areas,” the bill said.

It, however, added such power of control/or supervision shall be for the sole and limited purpose of implementing the act and enforcing all rules, regulations, policies and programs enacted pursuant thereto, harmonizing and enforcing all traffic rules and regulations, implementing a unified traffic system, throughout each of the Metropolitan areas, and carrying out all priority projects and programs approved in accordance with the act.

The measure also said for the purpose of centralizing the control and management of land-based traffic with the traffic chief during the effective period of the act, the President may abolish or create offices; split, group or merge offices; transfer functions, appropriations, equipment, properties, records and personnel in accordance with existing laws, and take other necessary actions.

Stickler for quality Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) officials, led by

Chairman Jose Jorge E. Corpuz (fourth from right) and General Manager Alexander F. Balutan (third from left) present to PCSO employees on Monday the certificate of recognition from the Government Quality Management Committee after successfully establishing a quality management system using ISO 9001:2008. The certificate is in compliance with Executive Order 605, Series 2007. Others in photo are (from left to right) Assistant General Manager (AGM) for Charity Sector Dr. Larry Cedro; AGM for Management Services Sector lawyer Lauro Patiag; AGM for Branch Operations Remeliza Gabuyo; AGM for Administrative Sector Julieta Aseo; and Jerusa Corpuz, Quality Management System Committee head. JOSEPH MUEGO

ernment would do a lot of work with the reopening of the BNPP that was supposed to operate commercially in 1986 but was mothballed during the term of former President Corazon C. Aquino. The government has allocated P50 million yearly just to maintain the BNPP. “However, the BNPP needs a lot of work; this is not just a matter of budget...but securing the area, the engineering and special people who can run it efficiently and safely,” Nograles added.

“The good side of the BNPP or having any nuclear-power plant is that it will invigorate our steel industry, such as car manufacturing,” Nograles said.

For his part, Batocabe said, “I appreciate the pronouncement of the President to revive the BNPP, as his declaration will seal the fate of the

mothballed plant, on what his administration would want to do on the BNPP.” Civil-society organizations and environmental advocates, as expected, expressed alarm on Monday over the administration’s plan to revive the mothballed BNPP. Responding to Cusi’s revelation of the President’s green light for the project, Sanlakas Party-list Secretary-General Aaron Pedrosa Jr. raised problems of environmental safety and sustainability that attached to reviving and maintaining nuclear- power plants.

“The revival of the BNPP is an environmental disaster waiting to happen,” Pedrosa said in a news statement.

“A nuclear plant, especially one in the Philippines, carries with it a number of hazards which effects

could prove irreversible for a developing country like ours. First and primary of these effects are the inevitable nuclear waste produced by nuclear-power reactors,” he added.

Pedrosa said this type of waste, being radioactive, poses a threat to the biological integrity of the environment in which it is emitted.

“Historically, we know the unpredictability of both the degree and the length that effects of harmful radiation have on those who are exposed to it,” he said.

Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development convener Gerry Arances, meanwhile, cited the case of Fukushima I Power Plant in Fukushima, Japan, which in 2011 saw a nuclear meltdown and release of harmful radioactive material after the country was hit by a tsunamitriggered earthquake.

The Nation BusinessMirror

A4 Tuesday, November 15, 2016 • Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo

Group links more Aquino officials to Pagcor mess

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By Joel R. San Juan

@jrsanjuan1573

HE Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) on Monday implicated former Government Corporate Counsel Raoul C. Creencia and another former official of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) in the P234million plunder and graft charges it earlier filed against the state-controlled gaming company’s former chairman, Cristino Naguiat, and 10 others.

Aside from Creencia, added as respondent in the complaint that was filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in October was Jose Christopher M. Manalo IV, chairman of Pagcor technical working group.

I n it s s up ple me nt a l com p l a i nt - a f f i d a v it , VAC C a l s o c harged t he respondents for violation of Republic Act 9184, or t he Gover nment Procurement Act, and Executive Order 423 that prescribes procedures and guidelines for the government procurement.

The case stemmed from the alleged anomalous P3.2billion lease contract they entered into with a private comnaguiat pany for a nonexistent casino-gaming facility.

VACC claimed it was Manalo who recommended to the Pagcor Bids and Awards Commit-

tee (BAC) the award of the said project to Vander wood Management Corp. (VMC) despite nonsubmission of certain documents and noncompliance with some conditions indicated under the technical requirements of the bid.

On the other hand, Creencia was the one who reviewed the lease contract and held that it “may be given due course.”

“However, the aforementioned award of the lease contract by respondents Pagcor board of directors to VMC was found by the Office of the Supervising Auditor, Commission on Audit, to be irregular and anomalous…,” the complaint read.

In its original complaint, VACC, t hrough its President Da nte Jimenez and board member Arsenio Evangelista, claimed that the lease contract that the Pagcor awarded to VMC in 2015 was “highly irregular and anomalous.”

The group claimed that the 6,500 square-meter lot subject of the lease contract was within the portion of the Museo Maynila Complex, formerly Army and Navy Club and is owned by the city government of Manila.

The property, according to the complaint, was leased by the city government to Oceanville Hotel and Spa Corp. sometime in January 2014.

It claimed that the amount of P234 million was paid to VMC representing 12 months advance rental and six months security deposit at P13 million per month pursuant to the lease contract, despite the fact that the building or space to be leased was not existing the time of the execution of the contract.

“Considering that there was no leased premises to speak of, the disbursement of P234 million was irregular and, therefore, disallowable in audit pursuant to Commission on Audit Circular 2012-003 dated October 29, 2012,” it added.

Aside from Naguiat, also named as respondents in the complaint were former Pagcor Chairman Jorge Sarmiento and board members Jose S. Tanjuatco, Enriguito M. Nuguid and Eugene G. Manalastas; members of the BAC Milagros Pauline L. Visque, Ramon Jose E. Jones, Romeo R. Cruz Jr., Annalyn Zoglmann, lawyer Kathleen G. Delantar; and VMC President Manuel B. Sy. T he VACC a lso questioned t he bidd i ng comm it tee’s de cision to qua lif y V MC in the postqua lification process despite nonsubmission of certain documents and noncompliance w ith cer tain conditions under the technica l requirements of the bid.

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Senate defies Ombudsman order suspending Villanueva

By Butch Fernandez

@butchfBM

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HE Senate will not readily comply with the Ombudsman’s order dismissing Sen. Joel Villanueva, who is seeking reconsideration of the ruling, over alleged misuse of P10-million Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in 2008 when Villanueva was still a congressman.

Senators were expecting to receive an official copy of the order from the Ombudsman by Monday after which they will first convene members of the Committee on Rules to affirm their next course of action.

Senate President Aquilino L. Pimentel III said he was informed that Villanueva had already filed a motion for reconsideration of the Ombudsman’s action.

“Hence, the Ombudsman must act on that first before I act on the Ombusman’s communication to me [about its dismissal order]” Pimentel said.

The Senate President, however, indicated inclination to refer the matter to the Rules Committee, chaired by Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III. “I would follow the ‘better’ procedure, which is to refer the Ombudsman letter to the Rules Committee,” Pimentel said.

In a separate interview, Sotto said that following procedures, he will convene members of the Rules Committee after the letter is officially referred to the panel on Monday’s session.

At issue before the Senate Rules Committee is the Ombudsman’s order dismissing Villanueva, cit-

PIMENTEL: “Hence, the Ombudsman must act on that first before I act on the Ombusman’s communication to me [about its dismissal order].”

ing two counts of violation of Republic Act 3109, or Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, one count of malversation of public funds and one count of malversation through falsification of public documents, while serving as member of the House of Representatives.

For his part, Villanueva played down the issue as “an old case” when he still serving as a partylist congressman.

“As far as I can remember, as a minority congressman then, I did not receive that amount,” he said.

In addition, Villanueva pointed out that the National Bureau of Investigation has “already made a conclusion that the signatures on the related documents were forged.”

Villanueva said one of the documents even “used a Buhay party-list group letterhead, when I was representing CIBAC party-list group.”

He has filed a motion for reconsideration before the Ombudsman, and was now leaving it up to the Senate President to act on the Ombudsman’s order.

“In any case, my faith is strong in the judicial system and, in time, justice will be served,” he added.

Non-governmental organizations ask Lawmaker eyes transfer of passport issuance to Immigration SC to lift TRO on some contraceptives

By Recto L. Mercene

S

EVERAL non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and reproductive-health advocates on Monday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to immediately lift the temporary restraining order (TRO) it issued in June 2015 stopping the government from “procuring, selling, distributing, dispensing and administering, advertising and promoting” contraceptive implants.

In a 20-page motion, the Filipinos Voices for Reproductive health (C4RH), Philippine NGO Council on Population Health and Welfare (PNGOC), Philippine Center for Population and Development (PCPD) and Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation Inc. (PLCPD), former Health Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral and former Presidential Assistant for Social Development Ben de Leon sought to be re recognized as intervenors in the case.

The groups sought the reversal of the decision issued by the Court’s Second Division on August 24, claiming that it would deprive millions of Filipino women access to contraceptives.

They claimed that depriving women access to contraceptives would surely result in the further deterioration of the already problematic reproductive-health situation in the country.

They added that unplanned pregnancy rates of almost 40 percent will shoot up, as well as teenage-pregnancy rates.

Even maternal deaths from preventable childbirth complications, which is now estimated to be at 14 deaths a day, will spike, the groups said.

Earlier, the Department of Health (DOH) also sought the reversal of the Court’s decision issued on August 24, which also ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine whether certain contraceptive drugs and devices are abortifacients or nonabortifacients.

The SC issued the order as it

nullified the certification and recertification earlier issued by the agency covering 77 contraceptive drugs and implants owing to the failure of the DOH to observe and comply with the basic requirements of due process.

The Court held that the FDA certified, procured and administered contraceptive drugs and devices, without the observance of the basic tennets of due process, without notice and without public hearing, despite the constant opposition from petitioners—Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines (AFFP) and a certain Maria Concepcion Noche.

In their motion for reconsideration, the DOH, together with the Population Commission and the FDA, argued that the Court’s ruling could jeopardize the effective methods of the familyplanning program that they are implementing through loca l governments and civil society nationwide and lead to increased mortality and morbidity among women and infants.

W hile the Cour t r u led to struck down the certifications and recer tifications and the distribution of the questioned contraceptive dr ugs for being violative of the constitutional rights to due process, it nevertheless remanded to the FDA the petitions filed by A FFP and Noche.

The Court agreed with the petitioners that the FDA should “observe the basic requirements of due process by conducting a hearing, and allowing petitioners to be heard” on the matter.

The petitioners claimed that the use of Implanon was against the spirit of the reproductivehealth law.

It also accused the DOH of implementing the reproductivehealth law “without observance of due process and with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”

Joel R. San Juan

@rectomercene

A

C ON G R E S S M A N f r o m Mindanao on Monday said he would file a bill to remove from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) the task of issuing passports and transfer it instead to the Bureau of Immigration (BI).

“The expertise of the Department of Foreign Affairs is diplomacy, its officials should focus their attention to good diplomatic relations with other countries, not the issuance of passports that distract them from their regular duties,” Lakas Rep. Prospero A. Pichay Jr. of Surigao del Norte said at a media forum.

Pichay said that despite the current heavy load of the BI, the agency would be able to handle the task because “this is just a matter of transition.”

When told that the BI might not be able to handle 15,000 passport applicants per day, or 3.5 million a year, Pichay said the task is doable

“Maganda ang magiging transition, some of those personnel who are now with the DFA on Macapagal Boulevard would be transferred to the Bureau of Immigration,” he said.

“I know it is not easy, [but] I will draft it and then I will file it, I’m very serious about it.”

Ask what countries he could name where Immigration handles the issuance of passports, Pichay said, “One is Hong Kong, I think the United States of America does the same, I’m not so sure, but why do I have to copy other countries?”

Immigration Commissioner Jaime H. Morente, who was one of the Kapihan guests, said he would accept the job of handling the passport provided the administration will support the needed infrastructure, like adding more personnel and more budget.

“The matter was brought up this morning, we briefly discuss it during this forum, but if it is given to us, we will do it.”

PICHAY: “Maganda ang magiging transition, some of those personnel who are now with the DFA on Macapagal Boulevard would be transferred to the Bureau of Immigration.”

He said the bureau is currently addressing three top priorities, such as strong border control to target international terrorism, improved service efficiency of the bureau and cleaning up corruption.

The DFA had been criticized lately for the alleged lack of foreign-policy direction, which has become apparent by President Duterte’s unpredictable foreign-policy statements.

Foreign Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr., who is a political appointee and former Security and Exchange commissioner, has also been criticized for his apparent lack of exper-

Sueno rallies local govts to help end violence against women

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

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OCAL Government Secretary Ismael D. Sueno on Monday urged local governments to end violence against women (VAW) as the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) launches next week the “18-Day Campaign to End VAW” starting November 25.

Sueno enjoined all local governments to observe the 18-day campaign in their localities and initiate activities for synchronized efforts to reinforce the theme in line with the pronouncements of President Duterte during his first State of the Nation Address (Sona) to put an end to VAW and implement the Magna Carta of Women down to the barangay level.

“I urge local governments to commit and contribute to pursuing the common vision of having VAW-free communities in the Philippines. Let us sustain the consistent high ranking of the country in

the World Economic Forum’s [WEF] Global Gender Gap Report,” Sueno said in a statement.

In the said report of the WEF, the Philippines closes over 78 percent of its total gender gap and ranks first in Asia and seventh out of 144 countries in the world.

Meanwhi le, Sueno encouraged local governments to collaborate with the Department of Tourism (DOT) through its regional offices for the “Orange Your Icon” advocacy.

Since most of the tourism sites and attractions in the country are under the jurisdiction of local governments, local governments are asked to prepare the participation of icons and retain its orange décor throughout the 18-Day Campaign to End VAW. Local government may use flags, streamers or banners; paint their landmark orange if possible; use orange spotlights at night; or any other creative ways of making it orange without violating any

existing policies or regulations regarding the preservation and maintenance of said icons.

Orange is chosen by the DOT and Philippine Commission on Women because it is a bright and optimistic color representing hope and a future free from VAW. Sueno also asked local governments to participate in the online campaign by using official hashtag #VAWfreePH in their web sites and official Facebook and Twitter pages.

“Local governments with Men Opposed to VAW Ever y where [MOVE] chapters are also requested to allow their members among the employees’ rank and file to organize or join activities focused on male responsibility in ending VAW,” he said.

According to the DILG National Barangay Operation Office (NBOO), 37,044, or 88.12 percent, of 42,036 barangays in the country have established their respective VAW Desks as of September 22, 2016.

tise on foreign-policy matters.

Former Ambassador A lbert Encomienda attributed the DFA’s lack of focus to the lack of professional guidance of the DFA through ticklish issues.

He said the DFA now do not have the caliber of such secretaries as Carlos P. Romulo, Emmanuel Pelaez, Blas Ople, or Salvador Laurel.

“The DFA is now more concerned with being a passport ‘factory’,” Encomienda said.

“The DFA is basically a think tank and not, as the majority of Filipinos think today, as an office for providing passports, which should have been the job of either the Department of the Interior and Local Government or the Department of Justice.”

Encomienda is disappointed by the apparent loss of professionalism in the foreign service, unlike in Malaysia, Korea and other Asian neighbors, where “one is nailed on the spot practically for their entire career [once he joins the foreign service].”

Abu land mine wounds 3 soldiers

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM

T

HREE soldiers were wounded on Monday after they hit a homemade land mine believed to have been planted by Abu Sayyaf bandits while on patrol in Lamitan City, Basilan, the military said.

The Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command spokesman, Maj. Filemon Tan Jr., said a section of the Army’s 14th Scout Ranger Company was conducting a morning foot patrol when its members tripped the land mine.

The incident occurred in Barangay Sabong, Lamitan City, Basilan.

As a result, three Scout Rangers, whom Tan did not identify, were wounded.

Members of the Third Scout Ranger Battalion reinforced and rescued the wounded soldiers.

The three were later evacuated to Zambonga City for medical treatment. Rene Acosta

Agriculture/Commodities BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng • Tuesday, November 15, 2016 A5

‘Rice QR expiry to hike price of hot dogs’

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By Cai U. Ordinario @cuo_bm

ifting the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice next year could increase the prices of some processed -meat products, particularly those that make use of imported poultry meat, according to an expert.

Dr. Rolando Dy, executive director of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s (UA&P) Center for Food and Agri Business, said poultry-meat imports would become more expensive if the government allows the QR to expire next year.

“Some processed-meat products, like hot dogs, could become more expensive if the QR is removed,” Dy told the BusinessMirror.

“But other poultry products, such as chicken-leg quarters, would not become expensive, as these are heavily discounted [by the US],” he added.

The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture noted in its latest report that tariff rates for mechanically separated meat (MSM) of poultry and dairy products would revert back to their previous, higher levels if the rice QR is lifted.

The government had issued

158,000 MT The volume of chicken MDM imported by the Philippines in 2015 executive orders, that granted tar iff concessions to poultr y produc t s, suc h a s mec h a n ic a l ly deb one d me at ( M DM ) of chicken.

“Since 2007, Philippine imports of chicken MDM have skyrocketed from 18,000 MT in 2007 to almost 158,000 MT in 2015, the majority of which were used in meat processing, e.g., hot dogs, sausages and dumplings,” the FAS report read.

In 2015 the FAS noted that the top three sources of chicken MDM by volume were the US, Brazil and the Netherlands.

The report also noted that the 10-percent tariff for frozen pota-

toes, which currently enjoy zero duty, would be reinstated if the rice QR is removed.

The National Economic and Development Authority had announced that the Philippines will not seek the extension of the QR on rice. The Department of Agriculture, however, said it would pursue a two-year extension to prepare farmers to compete with their Asean counterparts.

In 1995 the Philippines, upon its accession to the World Trade Organization ( W TO), was allowed to implement a rice QR for 10 years. Under the QR, rice imports within the minimum access volume (MAV) of 805,200 MT were slapped with an inquota tariff of 35 percent, while all imports in excess of the MAV were assessed w it h a higher 50-percent tariff.

In 2004 Manila applied for a seven-year extension of the QR, lasting until 2012. In December 2006 the request was approved by the WTO, subject to tariff concessions on certain agricultural products for member-countries.

Among those concessions was a reduction in tariffs for MDM and MSM of poultry.

In 2012 the Philippines secured another five-year extension of the QR, granting both an extension of prior concessions in addition to new ones. The new concessions included a reduction in tariffs for dairy products, oilseed meals and frozen potatoes. The tariff reductions are in effect until June 30, 2017.

Natural disasters could cut GDP by 6.5%–World Bank N

atural disasters could cost the Philippine economy as much as 6.5 percent of GDP in “well-being” losses every year, the World Bank said on Monday.

In its report, titled Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters, the World Bank said the country also stands to lose 4.5 percent of GDP in annual average of asset losses.

Based on 2015 data, a 6.5-percent cut in GDP would translate to P493.6 billion, while a 4.5-percent loss would amount to P341.72 billion.

“According to the GAR [Global Assessment Report] analysis, risk to assets—that is, the annual average of asset losses in countries—averages 0.63 percent of GDP, ranging from 0.005 percent in Denmark to 4.5 percent in the Philippines,” the report stated.

“As for the risk to well-being— that is, the equivalent loss in consumption—this risk averages 1.1 percent of GDP across our sample, ranging from 0.006 percent in Denmark to 6.5 percent in the Philippines,” it added.

However, the World Bank said some well-being loses could be avoided if countries will put in place measures that would reduce the exposure of the poor to natural disasters.

The World Bank added that ef-

fort should be exerted toward protecting the poor by ensuring they do not live in fragile buildings and are covered by social protection and that they have access to finance.

In the Philippines using absolute terms and reducing the exposure of 5 percent of poor people to natural disasters, this would already mean avoiding $3.3 billion worth of wellbeing and $570 million in asset losses annually.

“The concentration of risk on poor people in these countries makes it very efficient to concentrate efforts on protecting them.

Unfortunately, these countries are often also those in which reducing exposure is extremely difficult because of lack of land tenure or of institutional weakness that makes plans difficult to enforce in practice,” World Bank said.

Globally, the World Bank said the impact of extreme natural disasters is equivalent to $520-billion loss in annual consumption, and forces some 26 million people into poverty each year.

The report warned that the combined human and economic impacts of extreme weather on poverty are “far more devastating” than previously understood.

In all of the 117 countries studied, the effect on well-being, mea-

sured in terms of lost consumption, is found to be larger than asset losses.

Because disaster losses disproportionately affect poor people, who have a limited ability to cope with natural disasters, the report estimated that the impact on wellbeing in these countries is equivalent to consumption losses of about $520 billion a year. This outstrips all other estimates by as much as 60 percent.

“Severe climate shocks threaten to roll back decades of progress against poverty,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said.

“Storms, floods and droughts have dire human and economic consequences, with poor people often paying the heaviest price. Building resilience to disasters not only makes economic sense, it is a moral imperative.”

With the climate summit, 22nd Conference of the Parties, under way, the report’s findings underscore the urgency for climate-smart policies that better protect the most vulnerable.

Poor people are typically more exposed to natural hazards, losing more as a share of their wealth and are often unable to draw on support from family, friends, financial systems, or governments. Cai U. Ordinario

A6

The World

Tuesday, November 15, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

China’s Xi reaffirms US ties in talk with Trump

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The walls of a historic church are damaged in Waiau, after a earthquake in Waiau, New Zealand, on Monday. Mike Scott/New Zealand Herald via AP

7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes New Zealand, killing 2 people

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ELLINGTON, New Zealand— A powerful earthquake that rocked New Zealand on Monday triggered landslides and a small tsunami, cracked apart roads and homes and left two people dead, but largely spared the country the devastation it saw five years ago when a deadly earthquake struck the same region.

Strong aftershocks continued to shake the country on Monday, rattling the nerves of exhausted residents, many of whom had spent a sleepless night huddled outside after fleeing for higher ground to avoid the tsunami waves.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the South Island just after midnight in a mostly rural area that’s dotted with small towns.

Near the epicenter, it opened up snaking fissures in roads and sparked landslides.

The quake caused damage in Wellington, the capital, more than 200 kilometers to the north. It was also strongly felt to the south in the city of Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2011 that killed 185 people.

Residents said the shaking went on for about three minutes.

The police said one person died in the small coastal town of Kaikoura and another in Mount Lyford, a nearby ski resort. Several other people had reportedly suffered minor injuries in Kaikoura, the police Spokesman Rachel Purdom said.

Prime Minister John Key flew over the destruction in Kaikoura by helicopter on Monday afternoon, as aftershocks kicked up dust from the landslides below.

Cars could be seen lying on their sides and parts of the road were clearly impassable.

“It’s just utter devastation....

That’s months of work,” Key told acting Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee as they hovered above the damage. Key and Brownlee estimated the cleanup would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and clearing the debris and blocked roads could take months.

Defense force personnel were planning to take food, water and other supplies to Kaikoura on Tuesday. The prime minister said waves of about 2 meters hit the

185 The number of people killed in the 2011 earthquake

coast but the tsunami threat had since been downgraded to coastal warnings. He said authorities had no reason to believe the death toll would rise above the two reported fatalities.

“On the very best information we have at the moment, we think it’s only likely to be two. But of course, there are isolated parts of the country which we don’t have perfect eyes on, so we can’t be 100-percent sure,” he said.

Key said officials had decided not to declare a national emergency because the nation’s regions were able to adequately cope with the situation. The quake completely cut off road access to Kaikoura, said resident Terry Thompson, who added that electricity and most phones were also down in the town of 2,000, a popular destination for tourists taking part in whale-watching expeditions.

Thompson was out of town but managed to reach his wife by cell phone during the night before her phone died.

“She said the glass exploded right out of the double ranch-slider,” he said. “The neighbor’s chimney was gone, there were breakages and things smashed everywhere.”

His wife helped a 93-year-old neighbor and a tourist into her car and drove to higher ground, he said. “They stayed in the car all night but couldn’t sleep,” Thompson said. “They’re all very, very tired and concerned about the

state of their property.” The main road to Kaikoura was blocked in places by landslides, and the police were working to airlift out a few tourists stranded in their campervans to the north and south of the town, according to emergency services officials in the nearby Marlborough region.

Kaikoura suffered “major infrastructure damage” in the quake, the Marlborough Emergency Management Group said in a statement. Sewage and water supplies were knocked out, though power was gradually being restored on Monday afternoon. Thepolice were in radio communication with the town and mobile-phone service was expected to be restored shortly.

Video taken from a helicopter near Kaikoura showed three cows stranded on an island of grass in a paddock that had been ripped apart in the quake. The patch of grass was surrounded by deep ravines of collapsed earth, trapping the animals where they stood.

The quake temporarily knocked out New Zealand’s emergency call number, 111, the police reported.

In Wellington it collapsed a ferryloading ramp, broke windows and caused items to fall from shelves.

It also forced hundreds of tourists onto the streets, as hotels were evacuated. Australians Paul and Sandra Wardrop and their children Alexander, 15, and William, 12, were on the 10th floor of the Park Hotel when the shaking began.

“We felt that the building was going to collapse,” Sandra Wardrop said. “You could hear the sounds of the building shaking and see cracks appearing in the walls, in the plasterwork in the bedroom.”

The family was among dozens of people who took shelter in the capital’s parliamentary complex, which threw open its doors. It was William’s 12th birthday, and while he didn’t get to tour Wellington as planned, he did get to meet Key, who visited the displaced tourists.

New Zealand, with a population of 4.7 million, sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes are common.

Monday’s quake brought back memories of the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch in 2011 and destroyed much of the downtown area. That quake was one of New Zealand’s worst disasters, causing an estimated $25 billion in damage.

Monday’s quake was stronger

but its epicenter was deeper and much farther from major urban areas. Location, depth and other factors beyond magnitude all contribute to the destructive power of an earthquake.

The location of Monday’s quake largely helps explain why the damage was so minimal compared to the 2011 temblor, said Mark Quigley, associate professor of active tectonics at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

The 2011 quake was almost directly beneath Christchurch, meaning tens of thousands of people were exposed to the most violent shaking at the epicenter.

Monday’s quake was centered in a rural area that is home to just a few thousand people.

The 2011 quake also had a tremendous amount of high-frequency energy, including very strong vertical ground motions, which felt “like you’re being picked up by a giant and being shaken around,” Quigley said.

But for those in Christchurch on Monday, the shaking felt very different—more of a rolling motion. “They were far enough away that a lot of that high-frequency energy was dissipated,” he said.

Authorities in Wellington told people who work in the city’s central business district to stay home on Monday. Officials said some large buildings were showing signs of structural stress, and the quake would likely have caused a mess in some buildings. The city’s suburban rail network was shut while crews checked tracks, bridges and tunnels.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management reported that a tsunami wave struck at about 1:50 a.m. and warned residents living in low-lying areas anywhere along the country’s east coast to move to higher ground.

There was confusion about the tsunami threat throughout the morning. The ministry initially said there was no threat but later wrote on Twitter “situation has changed—tsunami is possible” before reporting that a tsunami had hit. The quake was centered 93 kilometers northeast of Christchurch, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The USGS initially estimated it had a 7.4 magnitude before revising it to 7.8. It said the quake struck at a depth of 23 kilometers, after initially putting the depth at 10 kilometers. Earthquakes tend to be more strongly felt on the

EIJING—Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed the importance of relations with the US in a phone conversation with President-elect Donald Trump on Monday, opening communication with a politician who had been strongly critical of China during his campaign.

State media reports say Xi congratulated Trump on his election in their Monday talk and said cooperation was the “only correct choice” for China and the US, the world’s two biggest economies.

“At present, there is an important opportunity and huge potential in China-US cooperation,” Xi told Trump, according to the reports. Trump had accused China of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation during the election campaign, threatening to slap a 45-percent tariff on all Chinese imports.

Despite that, Chinese state media largely favored Trump over his Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton. She was disliked in Beijing over her promotion of the US “pivot” to Asia that is viewed by China’s leaders as an attempt to contain their country’s rise to global prominence.

Beijing’s rivalry with Washington largely boils down to economic issues, especially China’s $334-billion trade surplus with the US and accusations of unfair subsidies for exporters and the condoning of intellectual property theft.

The sides are also opposed over security in east Asia, particularly China’s assertion of its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where it has been creating new islands atop atolls and coral reefs.

Beijing has also closely aligned its foreign policy with Russia, putting it at odds with the US over issues, including the civil war in Syria and the deployment of US antimissile defenses in South Korea.

Aside from his criticisms of Beijing, Trump had touted his business dealings with Chinese companies, although he is not known at present to have any major investments in the country.

Trump has also touted a more isolationist foreign policy that could benefit China by weakening US support for longtime Asian allies, such as South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

China to pump brakes on US deal-making

Meanwhile, Chinese buyers keen to continue 2016’s rapid dealmaking under a Trump presidency are being given one piece of advice: Wait and see. Bankers and lawyers are already counseling some Chinese clients to hit the pause button until Trump clarifies his stance on cross-border deals for US targets, according to three advisers to Chinese clients, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Acquisitive Chinese companies have led a blockbuster year of deal-making in 2016, accounting for about $225 billion of overseas purchases this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s more than triple the level of the same period a year earlier—and the biggest chunk of the money has been spent in the US. If Trump follows through on his campaign, rhetoric, however, their enthusiasm could be short-lived.

“There’s at least a short-term pause,” said Annabella Fu van Bijnen, a partner at law firm Linklaters Llp. in Hong Kong. “Given the way Trump has run his campaign there’s not a lot of policy clarity. Investors might be a bit more cautious, given the protectionist sentiments that were expressed.”

One of the hallmarks of Trump’s presidential campaign was an insistence that China has taken advantage of the US on trade deals. The president-elect has pledged to label Beijing a currency manipulator. He’s also vowed to lower corporate taxes in an effort to tempt companies to stay in, or come back, to the US.

Some of the biggest effects could be seen in the technology and entertainment industries, where Chinese buyers have been particularly active. Just this month, billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group Co. agreed to pay $1 billion to acquire Dick Clark Productions Inc., the television studio behind the Golden Globe awards and Miss America beauty pageant.

‘Tough rhetoric’

Trump’s administration could also bring changes to the way that US regulators treat deals. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), the body tasked with reviewing acquisitions of companies that could have implications for national security, is chaired by the treasury secretary.

Until that position is filled it’s unclear how CFIUS will judge Chinese interest in US targets. Advisers are pushing temporary caution.

“People are still in the process of working out what it means,” said Joseph Chow, who formerly led Moelis and Co.’s China business and now runs CJC Partners, a financial advisory firm in Beijing.

“He has some tough rhetoric but he’s a businessman.”

China’s interest in US companies spiked earlier this year as the world’s second-largest economy by nominal GDP searched for growth outside its borders. Through June, buyers from the country accounted for about 24 percent of total deal volumes, Gregg Lemkau, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s global cohead of mergers and acquisitions, said at the time. That’s an increase from the usual annual output of about 10 percent, he said.

Biggest ever

The largest announced Chinese deal of the year is the acquisition

by China National Chemical Co., known as ChemChina, of Switzerland’s Syngenta AG in February for about $43 billion. The deal, which was approved by CFIUS in August but is still going through European regulators, is the biggest-ever foreign acquisition by a Chinese firm.

Despite the increase in activity, deal-making under the Obama administration hasn’t a lways been easy.

Chinese deal flow for US technology companies has already slowed in recent months after several acquisitions failed to make it through regulatory processes.

Tsinghua Unisplendour Corp.’s $3.8-billion investment for 15 percent of Western Digital Corp. fell apart in February, after the deal came under a US national security review from CFIUS. In January Dutch company Royal Philips NV said it was canceling the sale of its lighting-components business to a Chinese-led consortium due to CFIUS concerns. Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. also passed up a higher offer from a Chinese group on the grounds it might not get a US security nod, opting, instead, for a bid from domestic suitor ON Semiconductor Corp.

‘Political body’

Despite the slowdown, other sectors continue to generate interest. China Oceanwide Holdings Group Co. agreed to acquire Richmond, Virginia-based insurer Genworth Financial Inc. last month for $2.7 billion. Still, investors have already shown skepticism that regulators will allow the deal, pushing Genworth ’s shares more than 20 percent below its acquisition offer price.

“CFIUS has always been a political body,” said David Tang, Managing Partner for Asia at law firm K&L Gates in Hong Kong.

“It consists of elected officials or officials appointed by elected officials, so it absolutely captures the policy framework of the elected administration. It will expand or become narrower as a reflection of the politics.” AP and Bloomberg News

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Priebus is chief of staff, Bannon as strategist

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • Tuesday, November 15, 2016

A7

Trump starts naming key officials R

eince Priebus will be chief of staff (COS) and Stephen Bannon, who was chief executive of Donald Trump’s winning campaign, will serve as chief strategist and senior counselor when the Republican takes over as US president in January.

The twin appointments are an attempt to balance the alternative right, or alt-right, and Tea Party wing, represented by Bannon, with the establishment Republican Party, which has its man in Priebus.

The move was announced in a statement on Sunday from Trump’s transition team, which termed the men “equal partners” in transforming federal government but listed Bannon’s appointment first.

“I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country,” Trump said in the statement.

The former executive chairman of the right-wing web site Breitbart News, Bannon, 62, had reportedly been under consideration for COS. He’ll have most of the strategic decision-making powers on Trump’s staff while Priebus concentrates on the dayto-day operations of the West Wing, said a person familiar with the arrangements.

“President-elect Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as his top aide signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in the Trump White House,” Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, said in a statement. “It’s easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion.”

Political insiders were keen to see how the setup would work in practice. “The operative question is how power is actually divided. But COS has inherent authorities that advisers do not,” David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who guided President Barack Obama’s two winning White House campaigns, said on Twitter.

Priebus, 44, has been chairman of the Republican National Committee since 2011. He patched up a rough early relationship with Trump during the real estate developer’s

campaign for the Oval Office, and played a key role in the party’s successful get-out-the-vote efforts.

He was by Trump’s side at the president-elect’s victory celebration on November 8.

‘Sighs of relief’

Priebus is a close ally of House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow native of Wisconsin, and is a familiar figure to lawmakers and long-time Republican leaders. “Many sighs of relief as President-elect picks @ Reince as WHCOS [White House chief of staff],” David Kochel, chief strategist for the presidential campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said on Twitter.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose White House bid was quickly derailed by the Trump locomotive, said there was “no better person to represent presidentelect than well-respected @Reince.

I look forward to working with them to move country forward.”

The personnel moves may antagonize some of Trump’s supporters who’d been heartened by the thencandidate’s promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington.

Roger Stone, a Republican political strategist and sometime Trump ally, tweeted on Saturday that the selection of Priebus “wou ld c au se a rebe l l ion i n Trump’s base. #RyansBoy.” The role of COS varies from administration to administration but often includes duties, such as selecting and supervising key White House personnel, controlling who has access to the president, and leading negotiations with Congress, agencies and external political groups.

The COS is considered a Cabinet-rank position and is invited to all National Security Council briefings. It is most often reserved for a true confidante of the

President-elect Donald Trump (center) stands with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus (right) during an election night rally in New York. Trump on Sunday named Priebus as his White House chief of staff. On the left is Vice President-elect Mike Pence. AP/John Locher

president-elect. The idea is that the Trump team’s power structure balances both factions of the party—those that want to shake Washington to its core and those who want a reasonable and seasoned government insider at the helm, a senior Trump aide said.

It will be similar to how campaign operated, with Bannon in charge of the big picture and overall strategy while someone else kept an eye on the day-to-day operations.

The so-called alt-right movement is a loosely affiliated group of people, often with nationalist and anti-Semitic views, that reject the mainstream conservatism of the Republican Party. The Breitbart web site is among their forums.

“We at @ADL_National oppose the appt of Steve Bannon to sr role at @WhiteHouse bc he and his altright are so hostile to core American values,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, said on Twitter. Bloomberg News

China’s economy holds ground amid curbs to cool housing markets

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hina’s economy held ground last month following new measures to cool property markets in almost two-dozen big cities.

Industrial production rose 6.1 percent from a year earlier in October, compared with median estimate of 6.2 percent in a Bloomberg survey and 6.1 percent in September. Retail sales slowed to 10 percent, missing estimates for 10.7 percent. Fixed-asset investment rose 8.3 percent in first 10 months of the year Any sign the world’s second-largest economy is losing steam may add to uncertainty in the global economy, which already faces the prospect that president-elect Donald Trump will impose punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. But for now, it’s all about domestic drivers, with efforts to rein in property prices tapping the brakes on China’s consumer.

“It’s probably consistent with policy remaining supportive of growth but no further ramping up or ramping down,” said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors in Sydney. “The moderation in retail sales growth is a bit of a disappointment, given a desire to continue rebalancing the economy toward greater consumer spending, but then again, what other country in the world has 10-percent retail sales growth?”

China’s shoppers’ ongoing spending

power was on display on November 11, when Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Singles’ Day posted record sales of 120.7 billion yuan ($17.8 billion), easily topping last year’s total of 91.2 billion yuan.

“We need to see another month of data, but it could be the consumer participation in growth is declining,” said Andrew Collier, an independent analyst in Hong Kong and former president of Bank of China International USA. “It’s harder for the government to control retail sales than fixed asset investment or industrial production, which is heavily state-driven.”

Property markets

Even amid curbs in major cities, property development investment rose 6.6 percent from a year earlier in the first 10 months, compared to 5.8 percent in the first nine.

While cooling prices and fewer transactions will hurt services, construction fueled by investment remains key to driving output.

Growth of private investment stabilized to 2.9 percent in the first 10 months of 2016 from a year earlier.

“Growth momentum is stabilizing,” said Zhao Yang, Nomura Holdings Inc.’s chief China economist. “But looking ahead, headwinds remain in the economy, as property markets in tier-1 cities have started to cool down.

The cooling property sales in tier-1 cities will transmit to lower-tier cities and eventually drag property investment growth.”

Fiscal spending

Separately, the Finance Ministry said on Monday that fiscal spending slumped 12.5 percent from a year earlier. That’s because of an unfavorable comparison to the prior October, which included a surge of spending on urbanization and transportation infrastructure to stabilize the economy, officials said in a statement.China’s expansion remains resilient, and economists are raising 2016 and 2017 growth forecasts. The Bloomberg Intelligence monthly China growth tracker slipped to 6.95 percent for October, down slightly from 7.11 percent in September.

“Another month of solid growth data is good news for China, and should open space for the government to continue rotating policy toward tamping down rapid credit growth and an upward spiral in house prices,” Tom Orlik, chief Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence in Beijing, wrote in a report.

“This time though, the surprise win of Donald Trump in the US presidential election and the challenging outlook for China’s own property sector mean the period in the comfort zone of may be short lived.” Bloomberg News

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The World

Tuesday, November 15, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

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Prisons fight opioids with $1,000 injection

Inmate Joshua Meador speaks about drug addiction at Sheridan Correctional Center in Sheridan, Illinois. Meador, a recovering heroin addict, hopes to get into a Vivitrol program at Sheridan before his release in January. AP/Kamil Krzaczynski

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Hundreds protest against climate change and urge world leaders to take action, in a march coinciding with the Climate Conference taking place in Marrakech, Morocco, on Sunday. AP/Mosa’ab Elshamy

Carbon emissions flat in last 3 years, report says

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ARRAKECH, Morocco— Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) have flattened out in the past three years, a new study showed on Monday, raising hopes that the world is nearing a turning point in the fight against climate change.

However, the authors of the study cautioned it’s unclear whether the slowdown in CO2 emissions, mainly caused by declining coal use in China, is a permanent trend or a temporary blip.

“It is far too early to proclaim we have reached a peak,” said coauthor Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by just 0.2 percent this year.

That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions

0.2% The projected percentage growth of global carbondioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry this year

growth may have been severed.

“This could be the turning point we have hoped for,” said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study.

“To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen.”

The authors of the study attributed the slowdown mainly to a decrease in Chinese coal consumption since 2012. Coal is a major source of CO2 emissions.

Chinese emissions were down 0.7 percent in 2015 and are projected to fall 0.5 percent in 2016, the researchers said, though noting that Chinese energy statistics have been plagued by inconsistencies.

Peters said it remains unclear whether the Chinese slowdown was due to a restructuring of the Chinese economy or a sign of economic instability.

“Nevertheless, the unexpected reductions in Chinese emissions give hope that the world’s biggest emitter can deliver much more ambitious emission reductions,” he said. China, which accounts for almost 30 percent of global carbon emissions, pledged to peak its emissions around 2030 as part of the global climate pact adopted in Paris last year. Many analysts say China’s peak is likely to come much earlier—and may already have occurred.

“The continued decline of China’s CO2 emissions, combined with knowledge of structural change in the energy system, does indicate that CO2 emissions from China may have peaked, however, a few more years of data is needed to confirm this,” said Bill Hare, of Climate Analytics, a separate group that monitors global emissions.

Howe ver, e ven i f C h i nese emissions have stabilized, emissions in India and other developing countries could push global emissions higher again. India’s emissions rose 5 percent in 2015, the study said.

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States— the world’s No. 2 carbon polluter— could also have an impact.

US emissions fell 2.6 percent last year and are projected to drop 1.7 percent this year, as natural gas and renewables displace coal in power generation, the study showed. But it’s unclear whether those reductions will continue under Trump, who has pledged to roll back the Obama administration’s environmental policies, including the Clean Power Plan, which was meant to reduce carbon pollution from US power plants.

Other researchers not affiliated with the study stressed that it’s not enough for global emissions to stabilize; they need to drop toward zero for the world to meet the goals of the Paris deal.

“Worryingly, the reductions pledged by the nations under the Paris Agreement are not sufficient to achieve this,” said climate scientist Chris Rapley of University College London. The agreement calls for limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or even 1.5˚C (2.7˚F) compared with pre-industrial times. AP

South Korea prosecutors to quiz prexy over scandal

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EOUL , Sout h Korea— South Korean prosecutors want to question President Park Geun-hye this week over suspicion that she let a shadowy longtime confidante manipulate power from behind the scenes, an official said on Sunday.

It would be the first time that a sitting South Korean president has been questioned by prosecutors.

The explosive scandal is the most serious challenge for Park, whose public apologies have done little to calm public anger.

Prosecutors are seeking to question Park face-to-face on either on

Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, a prosecution official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was under way, said prosecutors conveyed their position to Park’s office and were awaiting a response.

The president’s office said earlier on Sunday that it could work out its position on a Park investigation as early as Tuesday. It said it needs time to review when and how Park should be investigated.

In addition to allegedly manipulating power, the president’s confidante, Choi Soon-sil, the daughter

of a late cult leader who emerged as Park’s mentor in the 1970s, is also suspected of exploiting her presidential ties to bully companies into donating tens of millions of dollars to foundations she controlled.

Choi was arrested on November 3 on charges of fraud and abuse of power. Prosecutors have until November 20 to formally charge her.

On Saturday hundreds of thousands of people flooded Seoul’s streets to demand Park’s resignation in what may be South Korea’s largest protest since it shook off dictatorship three decades ago.

In an attempt to stabilize the

situation, Park said on Tuesday that she would let the oppositioncontrolled parliament choose her prime minister. But opposition parties say her words are meaningless without specific promises about transferring much of her presidential powers to a new No. 2.

Under South Korean law, a sitting president has immunity from prosecution except in cases of treason, but many scholars say a president can still face investigation.

Park has 15 months left in her term. If she steps down before the end of it, an election must be held within 60 days. AP

HER I DA N, I l l i noi s — US prisons are experimenting with a high-priced monthly injection that could help addicted inmates stay off opioids after they are released, but skeptics question its effectiveness and say the manufacturer has aggressively marketed an unproven drug to corrections officials.

A single shot of Vivitrol, given in the buttocks, lasts for four weeks and eliminates the need for the daily doses common with alternatives, such as methadone. But each shot costs as much as $1,000, and because the drug has a limited track record, experts do not agree on how well it works.

Proponents say Viv itrol cou ld save mone y compa red w ith the cost of lock ing up a dr ug offender—about $25,000 a year for each inmate at the Sher idan Cor rectiona l Center, 70 miles southwest of Chicago.

Dr. Joshua Lee of New York University’s medical school said more evidence is needed to determine whether the medication can help substantial numbers of people and whether it’s worth paying for, but the early results are encouraging.

“It sounds good, and for some of us, it feels like the right thing to do,” said Lee, a leading researcher on the treatment.

Vivitrol is emerging as the nation searches for ways to ease an opioid epidemic that affects more than 2 million Americans and an estimated 15 percent of the US prison population. Many experts view prisons—where addiction’s human toll can be seen most clearly—as a natural place to discover what works.

Christopher Wolf had already served prison time for nonviolent crimes when he was ordered into treatment for a heroin addiction by a judge who suggested Vivitrol.

Three months later the 36-yearold from Centerville, Ohio, is clean and working full time as a cook.

He now suggests the medication to other addicts.

“I don’t have cravings,” Wolf said. “I see how much better life is. It gets better really fast.”

Vivitrol targets receptors in the brain’s reward system, blocking the high and extinguishing urges.

In some programs, prisoners get an injection before release, then follow-up shots from any clinic.

For decades researchers have recognized addiction as a relapsing brain disease with medication an important part of therapy.

But most jails and prisons reject methadone and buprenorphine, the other government-approved medications for opioid addiction, because they are habit-forming and can be abused.

Just ask Joshua Meador, 28, an inmate at Sheridan who hopes to get into the Vivitrol program before his release in January.

Before incarceration, he abused both older treatment drugs. When given take-home doses of methadone for the weekend, he would sell them for heroin.

“When I’m on Vivitrol, I can’t

get high,” he said. The drug has no street value or abuse potential.

“You couldn’t design something better for the criminal justice system,” said David Farabee of the University of California at Los Angeles, who leads a Vivitrol study in a New Mexico jail. “There’s been pushback with other medications, people saying, ‘We’re just changing one drug for another.’ That argument goes out the window when you’re talking about a blocker” like Vivitrol.

Prison systems in Illinois, Ver mont, Wyoming and Wisconsin are tr ying the drug on a small scale. Michigan is offering Vivitrol to parolees who commit small crimes, if addiction is the reason for their new of fen se. T he federa l Bu reau of Prisons ran a field trial in Texas and plans to expand the program to the Northeast next year. The drug’s manufacturer hopes prisons will be the gateway to a larger market.

Also known as extended-release naltrexone, the medication won Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for alcohol dependence in 2006 and in 2010 to prevent relapse in post-detox opioid users.

The evidence for giving Vivitrol to inmates is thin but promising.

In the biggest study, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 300 offenders—most of them heroin users on probation or parole—were randomly assigned to receive either Vivitrol or brief counseling and referral to a treatment program.

After six months the Vivitrol group had a lower rate of relapse, 43 percent compared with 64 percent. A year after treatment stopped, there had been no overdoses in the Vivitrol group and seven overdoses, including three deaths, in the other group.

The results, published in March in the New England Journal of Medicine, have been promoted by the drugmaker, Ireland-based Alkermes, as it markets Vivitrol to US correctional systems.

Yet, addiction is stubborn.

W hen the injections stopped, many in the study relapsed. A year later relapse rates looked the same in the two groups. “It does suggest six months wasn’t enough,” said Lee, the lead author.

T.J. Voller was a Vivitrol success story—until he wasn’t. After Vivitrol was approved by the FDA, Voller talked about getting the shot with The Associated Press and Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a CNN segment. The 30-year-old was back at work and seemed proud of his recovery. But after 10 months on Vivitrol, he died of a heroin overdose.

“He was alone for the weekend and picked up that needle one last time,” said his mother, Kathi Voller of Raynham, Massachusetts.

A d v o c at e s a r g u e t h at i n m ates h ave a const it ut ion a l r ight to a l l FDA-approved addiction medications throughout their incarceration. AP

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AseanTuesday BusinessMirror

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Tuesday, November 15, 2016 A9

Leaders decode Trump on the future of pivot

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onald Trump is set to tear up a giant Pacific trade pact and has questioned alliances that have defined America’s engagement in Asia since World War II. But it’s too early to declare President Barack Obama’s “pivot” dead.

For Asia’s leaders, a big question from Trump’s win is whether America’s military and economic focus on Asia will continue, given how Trump played on a populist mood at home and pledged a less interventionist foreign policy. With an increasingly expansionist China on their doorstep, many countries have looked to the US to provide a counterbalance.

Now diplomats and analysts are parsing Trump’s comments and those of his advisers to try and separate his campaign rhetoric of “America First” from the reality of governing, even with the Republican party controlling Congress.

“Coming out of the campaign there was the perception that he was going to pull back and not get entangled overseas,” said Sam Crane, a professor of Chinese politics at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Based on the names being considered for key posts—Randy Forbes for secretary of the Navy, for example—and commentaries by Trump’s inner circle, Crane said he “is going to be as, or even more, assertive than Obama.”

An article published last week

by Trump campaign advisers Alexander Gray and Peter Navarro said

Obama’s policy was “talking loudly but carrying a small stick,” with the deployment of warships to Singapore and marines to Darwin “token gestures”. Under Trump the Navy would be expanded to “reassure our allies that the United States remains committed in the long term to its traditional role as guarantor of the liberal order in Asia.”

Michael Pillsbury, an adviser to Trump’s transition team who worked in the Reagan administration, said the article was cleared by the president-elect.

Trump has been quick to speak with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and Australia about his commitment to security ties. Even so, given his unpredictable style, it’s impossible to say what he will do in office.

In one sign of nervousness over that uncertainty, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is stopping off in New York this week en route to a summit in Peru in order to meet Trump.

The full implications of Trump’s elevation for Asia are yet to be “fully appreciated,” said former Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa. The country’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Panjaitan said in an interview last

Trump will get the same advice from the State Department, from the Pentagon, from the Treasury that President Obama got, which is that you need to have influence and you need to have a presence in Asia, and to do that free trade locking you in there is the way to do it.”—Key

week it’s too early to judge Trump, “but I believe the US will see their national interest.”

“Let’s give him two months after he’s inaugurated to see what he’ll do,” Panjaitan said.

The US has been the dominant military presence in Asia since the end of World War II, though it has been in Asia for much longer, ruling the Philippines for a number of decades starting in the late 19th century. That position is in doubt not just because of Trump. China is seeking under Xi Jinping to become a global power, and is using its economic and military heft to push the US aside.

Malaysian investors are fast running out of ‘Trump Cards’

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mid a deepening emergingmarket rout, three of Donald Trump’s seven promises to American workers are making Asia particularly nervous.

A US withdrawal from the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) would kill the 12-nation deal, while labeling China as a currency manipulator is set to provoke a tit-for-tat response.

If the president-elect delivers on those two threats, the export-led region will wait for Trump to make good on his vow to end “all foreign trading abuses.”

Although no Asian nation would relish the prospect of an all-out trade war, Malaysian investors are perhaps most at risk.

Why Malaysia? China, Japan, South Korea, India and Singapore are among America’s 15 biggest trading partners; Malaysia is not. And while it’s a TPP member, the accord’s demise is the least of Kuala Lumpur’s worries. It might even be a short-term boon. After all, the Southeast Asian country is an energy and palm-oil exporter.

It’s not terribly competitive at much else.

Opening up Malaysia’s consumer economy of 30 million people as part of the free-trade bargain could turn a fast-vanishing current-account surplus into a permanent deficit.

That would weigh on the ringgit, scare away investors in Malaysian bonds, and lead to a spike in companies’ cost of capital.

But TPP being dead doesn’t help either. For one, dollars are in short supply in the banking system, and therefore a flight to safety among investors jittery about a Trump presidency makes Malaysia a particularly vulnerable emerging market.

This can be seen in the overall cost for a bank trying to raise dollar funds by borrowing locally in the interbank market, using those ringgit to purchase greenbacks in the spot market and then selling them forward by, say, three months. That

operation now costs 1.78 percent, the stiffest premium over Libor among major Asian economies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The dollar crunch may ease if the ringgit falls, so foreign investors would find local currency-denominated assets cheap again.

But authorities can’t allow an abrupt exchange-rate adjustment to take place right now.

Among other things, a weaker home currency would push up dollar-linked coal-purchase costs for power producer Tenaga Nasional Bhd.; those pressures would in turn get passed on to consumers who are already among the most indebted in the region.

That would be an ill-timed blow.

Friday’s GDP report might have masked the weakness in Malaysia’s consumer economy, but bank lending trends offer a clue.

The so-called Amanah Saham Bumiputera unit trusts, which are available only to the indigenous Malay Muslim population, have been a popular asset for banks to lend against. But advances against such securities are slumping.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Diksha Gera, retail clients may be redeeming their unit-trust investments to manage

their cash flow better amid higher living costs.

A global probe into allegations of theft and the laundering of billions of dollars from Malaysian state-run investment fund 1MDB led to the first conviction in Singapore on Friday. The scandal has weighed on both investor and consumer sentiment.

However, an early election may be in the cards and the government has been throwing money around to placate voters. Since May, domestically focused Public Bank Bhd. has outperformed its larger and more international rival Malayan Banking Bhd. on expectations consumers will shake off their blues.

But on Friday, the Malaysian currency fell 0.7 percent onshore.

If that doesn’t sound like much, it’s only because the central bank may have intervened to prevent a steeper slide. In offshore forward markets, where the bets are settled in dollars, the ringgit dropped to a 12-year low.

If fears about a Trump presidency keep exchange rates volatile, and the $5.5 billion of foreign inflows into Malaysian bond markets turn into outflows, hopes consumers will provide a floor to the economy may quickly disappear. Bloomberg Views

With his campaign slogan to “Make America Great Again,” Trump can ill-afford to pull back from Asia and the Pacific. The region boasted six of the top 15 US export markets last year, its companies selling everything from power systems to fuel, high quality foods and financial services. More than $5 trillion in trade passes each year through the South China Sea, of which $1.2 trillion is US related.

Asian countries will “want to use competition between the US and China to reap benefits while maintaining relations with both,” said Bilahari Kausikan, Singapore’s ambassador-at-large. Trump will probably be “extremely transactional,” he said. He “will cooperate when there are benefits and compete when that is in his interest. That’s how he has lived his life.”

While campaigning, Trump lambasted Japan and South Korea for not paying their “fair share” to support US military bases, raising the prospect he might withdraw troops.

Still, in a phone call after the election, he told President Park Geun-hye he agrees “ 100 percent” on the need to deter North Korea.

Even so, the risk is that Trump’s bluster undermines alliances in North Asia, according to Yukio Okamoto, a former diplomat who has advised two Japanese leaders.

“Deterrence is all about how strong and steadfast surrounding countries perceive the US-Japan alliance to be,” he said. “Perceptions are the issue.”

Some analysts point to Trump’s pledge to “ make our military so

big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody— absolutely nobody—is gonna to mess with us,” as evidence he’ll stick with existing arrangements. Trump will pursue a “peace through strength” approach, Gray and Navarro argued in their article.

On the South China Sea, where China has multiple disputes with Asian nations, Trump has accused Beijing of building a military fortress. “They do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country,” he said in March.

“The US sees itself as the holder of the balance of power in Asia and is likely to remain determined to protect its allies against Chinese overreach,” James Woolsey, an exdirector of the Central Intelligence Agency turned senior adviser to Trump, said in an opinion piece in the South China Morning Post. Unchecked expansionism, he said, “only invites more bad behavior.”

Still, the domestic US climate raises doubts Trump would be keen to intervene militarily in a conflict so far from home, for example if the South China Sea or the East China Sea—where China at Japan are at loggerheads—were to see a real clash.

One thing Trump is likely to follow through on his pledge not to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact that covers 40 percent of the global economy and whose members include Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. He has said the deal would undermine the US economy.

Asia members have said it can’t

be renegotiated and have urged Congress to pass it. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, speaking in the US in August after meeting Obama, said America’s credibility was on the line.

“If at the end, waiting at the altar the bride doesn’t arrive, I think there are going to be people who are going to be very hurt, not just emotionally, but damaged for a long time to come,” Lee said.

Alan Bollard, a former New Zealand central bank governor who is executive director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation secretariat, suggested Trump may transplant some elements of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) into another form to keep the US engaged in a region that Standard Chartered Plc estimates will account for 58 percent of global growth next year.

“There would continue to be a lot of interest from almost all the economies in Asia for easing trading conditions with the US,” Bollard said. “But there is the question of whether there has to be a formalized legally binding agreement like TPP or not.”

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the deal was not going to happen anytime soon. Still, he told Radio New Zealand, “Trump will get the same advice from the State Department, from the Pentagon, from the Treasury that President Obama got, which is that you need to have influence and you need to have a presence in Asia, and to do that free trade locking you in there is the way to do it.” Bloomberg News

A10 Tuesday, November 15, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Time to diversify

R

ice is the staple food of Filipinos, and its affordability will always be a paramount concern of any administration. In place of more expensive protein sources like meat and chicken, rice, for the poor, is usually the answer to a grumbling stomach. It is for this reason that the Philippine government has been, for the longest time, fixated on supporting rice production.

In previous years, the rice sector had enjoyed huge support from the government. During the previous administration, the Department of Agriculture (DA) increased its budget annually in a bid to achieve rice self-sufficiency for the country. For example, the budget for irrigation alone hit P24 billion in 2012, while the allocation for the national rice program reached P6.1 billion, according to government data.

Despite the government’s efforts, the Philippines continued to import rice. In 2015 the total volume of rice contracted by the government reached 1.787 million metric tons (MMT). Even before the ambitious rice self-sufficiency goal of the Aquino administration, the Philippines has been importing some 1 MMT of rice annually to plug the shortfall in production. For this year, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the gap between domestic rice production and demand could reach 1.8 MMT. While these are valid reasons to shoot for rice self-sufficiency at all cost, the government’s fixation on rice production has been detrimental to the production of other crops, which are potential dollar earners, such as cacao. As of November 10, data from the International Cocoa Organization showed that cocoa beans fetched a price of $2,500 per MT. At the current exchange rate, this is equivalent to P120,000 per MT, or P100 per kilogram (kg). In contrast, unmilled rice is being bought at P17 per kg by traders.

Despite this, the government appears to be lukewarm to expanding plantations for cash crops such as cacao. For years, cacao farmers have been appealing to the government to help them increase their output by providing “affordable” production loans. While a road map that outlined the targets and strategies for hiking cacao production has been crafted by the previous administration, its goals were not met. According to the Cocoa Foundation of the Philippines, the cacao farmers would find it difficult to produce as much as 100,000 MT of cacao beans by 2020, as indicated on the government’s cacao road map.

The DA earlier announced it intends to expand the production of high-value crops, such as cacao. There’s a reason why cacao and coffee are called “high-value crops”—these products have the potential to give farmers more income.

All the government has to do is to put its money where its mouth is and provide farmers who plant these crops the same level of support that it extends to rice farmers.

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Manny B. Villar

THE Entrepreneur Continued from A1

T

he harsh statements made by the President against the US, the UN and the EU were reactions to their criticism of his campaign against illegal drugs, implying that the government was encouraging extrajudicial killing of people allegedly involved in drug trafficking.

I cited the issue over illegal drugs only to show why President Duterte is hostile to some people or countries like the US, while being friendly to others, like China, Japan, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.

But the illegal-drugs problem is not the only issue that the President is passionately pursuing. As I mentioned last week, he is also determined to succeed in eliminating corruption and red tape; securing peace with the communist and Muslim groups; and resolving the dispute with China over the Spratlys.

He is doing these things, because these are what he promised during the campaign. Unlike many politi-

cians, Duterte obviously does not subscribe to the saying that promises, especially campaign promises, are meant to be broken.

His actions since day one of his administration are the fulfillment of his election promises. Many are complaining now, because either they did not listen to his campaign speeches, or they did not believe he would do what he said.

Another reason people complain when the President delivers harsh words against leaders of powerful nations is because they are not used to hear such words from a Filipino leader.

Instead of complaining, I think we should be proud that, for the first

Despite decades of governing ourselves after the departure of our colonizers, we have not really come out of the colonial shell. In this era of self-governing sovereign nations, we continue to act like we are still under the watchful eyes of a conqueror. time, we have a president who can speak up to Americans or to those who try to belittle us.

Despite decades of governing ourselves after the departure of our colonizers, we have not really come out of the colonial shell. In this era of self-governing sovereign nations, we continue to act like we are still under the watchful eyes of a conqueror.

This is more evident in our dealings with other countries. Since my time as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have been saying that our foreignaffairs policy is a policy of fear. We are afraid of everybody—of the US, China and Europe.

Now, the signals that we’re getting from Duterte is that we no longer have a foreign policy of fear, and we’re not afraid of anybody.

That means we can no longer

What the Trump win means John Mangun

Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Efleda P. Campos

Online Editor Social Media Editor

Chairman of the Board & Ombudsman President VP-Finance VP Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Manager Group Circulation Manager

A foreign policy of fear

OUTSIDE THE BOX

I

f you want to understand the dynamics of what is happening now around the world, here is what you can do. Fill a pan with some water, put it on the stove with high heat and watch for about 15 minutes. You will see a phase transition of the water from liquid to gas.

The political cycle is changing as the economic cycle also changes, and it is never a calm evolution.

For example, 300 years ago, King Philip V of Spain applied the Nueva Planta decrees to Catalonia, making that area subject to the laws of the Crown of Castile, abolishing the Principality of Catalonia. A few days ago, 80,000 people of the region marched for a return to independence.

Protesters of the election of Donald Trump as president are doing what Americans have become good at in the last few years. They

are “peacefully” objecting to the US election results by fighting with law enforcement, looting stores, damaging property, and with some calling for Trump’s assassination.

This is all “business as usual” for the cycle change.

The political pundits are suddenly all talking about a “populist revolt” the same way one might look at that pan of hot water and exclaim that the water has suddenly and unexplainably become chaotic. But the US election results are not the cause of the unrest, but that the unrest of

the cycle change is the cause of the election results. The genuine significance of the US election or Trump’s victory is that the event is another and important confirmation of the political-cycle transformation.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo took office in 2014 as the first nonmilitary leader of the country.

December 2015 saw Liberal Party Justine Trudeau take power from the Conservative Party, after 10 years, in a complete reversal of political ideology. Taiwan’s Kuomintang party lost its control of the legislature for the first time in history.

The Philippines elected a president without any national office experience in May 2016. The UK voted to leave the EU in June by a strong majority. In August, even with a flawed voter-information system, 61 percent of Thailand’s ballots approved a new constitution giving even more political power to the military.

After the existing ruling party was found to have cheated, Austria’s far-right “populist” party is leading the polls. Bulgaria has just elected— with 58 percent of the vote—the US-

be cowed by foreign governments for not toeing their line. Singapore and Malaysia continue to receive criticism but they also continue to prosper.

Human Rights Watch, in an online report titled “World Report 2015: Singapore,” said the Singaporean government continues to limit political and civil rights, especially freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.

A similar report basically made the same observation in Malaysia.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Malaysian government launched in 2013 a crackdown on “freedom of expression and other civil and political rights that continue to the present,” and that human-rights defenders, activists and political figures “face continuing harassment and persecution.”

The Philippines, with many internal strengths, is being projected to be the best-performing economy in Southeast Asia.

With a true pro-Filipino independent foreign policy, I believe our country can achieve high growth rate not just for a year, but for the long term, as we march side by side with other progressive, sovereign nations.

For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@ gmail.com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.

trained former head of Bulgaria’s Air Force, a complete political newcomer who wants closer ties with Russia.

Why are these events important?

Tracking the political cycle is the economic cycle. As the pundits and experts are saying around the globe, “How could this be happening?” in regard to the political changes, so, too, will they say the same thing about the economic events that will unfold in the next two years.

As you read the headlines that have repeatedly used the word “shocked” to describe these elections, wait until the economic cycle changes. If you recognize and accept the cycles, then you will be no more surprised by these changes than with an eclipse of the sun. And as with the change from the dry to wet season, you can be prepared. Prepare for the economic cycle change.

It is coming, and it will not paint a pretty picture.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stockmarket information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

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SC ruling on RH law puts women at risk

Trump’s triumph Edgardo J. Angara

Ernesto M. Hilario

ABOUT TOWN

T

he Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10354), also known as the RH law, guarantees universal access to methods on contraception, fertility control, sex education and maternal care. It requires government health centers to provide condoms and birth-control pills for free, as well as for public-health workers to undergo familyplanning training.

The RH bill was finally signed into

law by President Benigno S. Aquino III in December 2012, after languishing for 15 years in the legislature. The full implementation of the RH law was supposed to have taken place by November 30, 2015, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had certified that the artificial contraceptives to be distributed by the Department of Health are nonabortifacient.

On May 13, 2015, however, the Alliance for the Family Foundation Phils.

Inc. (Alfi) petitioned the Supreme Court (SC) to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the sale of contraceptive drugs and devices that have abortifacient attributes.

On June 17, 2015, the SC granted the Alfi petition and issued a TRO stopping the DOH and the FDA from “granting any and all pending applications for registration and/or recertification for reproductive products and supplies, including contraceptive drugs and devices.”

Later, the SC issued another TRO, stopping the two agencies from “procuring, selling, distributing, dispensing or administering, advertising and promoting the hormonal contraceptive implants.”

In his first State of the Nation Address on July 25, 2016, President Duterte promised to implement the RH law to curb population growth and assist the poor in family planning.

Since no less than the President himself wants the full implementation of the RH law, four non-governmental organizations and a legislative committee are now asking the SC to rescind an August 24, 2016, order of its Second Division that would deprive Filipinos of access to contraceptive drugs and devices provided by the government or those available in the market. They also asked the SC to recognize them as interveners in the case.

The petitioners-interveners argued that the assailed order of the SC Second Division “undermines the constitutionally guaranteed right to life and health of Filipinos and impedes on the rights of women embodied in RA 9710, or the Magna Carta for Women, and RA 10354, or the RH law.”

Those asking to be recognized as interveners are the Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc.; Filipino Catholic Voices for Reproductive Health; Philippine NGO Council on Population Health and Welfare; Philippine Center for Population and Development; Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation Inc.; and the Democratic

Socialist Women of the Philippines.

The petitioners are correct in saying that depriving Filipinos of access to government and privately available reproductive-health services and contraceptive options would result to unwanted pregnancies; endanger the lives of mothers; result to untrammeled population growth in the country; and perpetuate poverty in the country.

The SC Second Division order, after all, seems to have “forgotten women, especially mothers, while depriving them of their right to choose when to get pregnant.”

According to the petitioners, the decision will have the effect of depriving Filipinos access to contraceptive drugs and devices because the FDA is bound to hear all oppositions to such products, at present already numbering 77.

“The legal and practical implications of the decision are in direct contravention of the policies set forth in our Constitution and laws, as well as the internationally recognized right to universal access to health-care services, in connection with the right to health, gender equality, women empowerment and responsible parenthood,” they said.

The petitioners warned that “if there is limited access to safe, high-quality health services, women are more vulnerable to a host of reproductive-health complications, which may include death or injury during childbirth, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, of which 1.9 million were recorded in 2008 alone by the Guttmacher Center for Population Research Innovation.

The 1.9 million unwanted pregnancies “resulted mainly in either unplanned births or unsafe abortions, which, along with other factors, indicated how difficult it is for a Filipino woman to meet her fertility desires,” they said. The interveners assert the order also violates Principle 8 of the International Conference on Population and Development Program (ICPDP) of action, which provides that nations should ensure that “reproductive health-care programs should provide the widest range of services without any form of coercion.”

“All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children, and to have the information, education and means to do so,” the ICPDP said.

Will the Supreme Court heed their petition? We certainly hope so.

E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com

D

onald Trump’s victory is unprecedented and historic. He swept the South, captured the so-called Rust Belt, and won most of the states on the periphery of the US-Mexico border.

He stunned Democrats in many of their traditional strongholds, including Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, through smart and strategic campaigning.

He showed that the election polling was wrong—considering major pollsters saw a close, but nevertheless clear win for Hillary Clinton two days before the elections.

In the primaries, he eliminated all 16 opponents through insults, slander and falsehoods. On many occasions, he chose social-media platforms like Twitter, ensuring his tirades immediately went viral. One New York Times columnist described him as a “seventh-grade bully”. Many of his supporters, however, appreciated his straight-

Trump is a mercantilist Cecilio T. Arillo

database

M

ercantilism is an economic theory and practice that promoted governmental regulations, and rapidly transformed Europe into an industrial economy from the 16th to the 18th century, and, thus, drew the ire of famous Scottish economist Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations in 1776.

At the peak of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump strongly argued “for protectionism (another word for mercantilism), asserting that decades of free-trade policies were responsible for the collapse of the American manufacturing industry, for example, by bringing cheap consumer goods into the country, costing domestic jobs and depressing wages. Outsourcing of jobs to cheaper markets has also been a concern. Against that backdrop, Trump’s stance on trade is, perhaps, the clearest of his economic policies,” the Guardian says.

As a backgrounder, classical or neoclassical economists were the forerunners of physiocrats who originated from the school of physiocracy founded by François Quesnay, a Frenchman who lived in France from 1694 to 1774. A surgeon by profession, Quesnay was the personal doctor of Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of King Louis XVI. Sm it h beca me acqu a inted with Quesnay and other powerful physiocrats who exerted much influence on his thinking while writing his book Wealth of Nations in France, which he completed and published in England in 1776, coincidentally the year of the American Declaration of Independence.

Two of the commonly held important teachings of the physiocrats, known as laissez faire or natural law and their adherence to economic

growth through agriculture, underlie Smith’s book and the economic policies of the Philippines.

Indeed, Smith devoted 220 pages, in eight chapters, in the Wealth of Nations, attacking mercantilism, as having, in particular, evil effects on agriculture.

The physiocrats mounted a strong opposition against mercantilism, which was then rapidly transforming France, Italy and other European countries from feudal agrarian states into industrializing countries.

In their relentless campaign, the physiocrats held that the accumulation of wealth through commerce and industry, not agriculture, was contrary to laissez faire, causing confusion, dissatisfaction among the people, and should, therefore, be removed. The mercantilists, led

by Jean Baptiste Colbert, who served as the King’s minister of finance for 25 years, just ignored the physiocrats and guided France with his policies to become a great power that rivaled England.

In America in 1791, exactly 15 years after Smith’s economic ideas had entered the consciousness and imagination of American policymakers, President George Washington, the first nonpartisan candidate elected to the White House, appointed Alexander Hamilton, his brilliant military aide, secretary of the treasury and ordered him to formulate an economic strategy.

Why Obama should pardon Hillary Clinton

By Paula Dwyer Bloomberg View

Y

ou may recall this exchange in the October 9 presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton said, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” To which Trump replied, “Because you’d be in jail.”

It wasn’t clear then if candidate Trump was just grandstanding. Nor is it clear now if President-elect Trump will do what he also pledged then: “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.”

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after he was elected, Trump didn’t list prosecuting Clinton among his priorities. Still, half the country now

worries, and the other half hopes, that Trump will make good on his threat.

More likely, he’ll contract the job out to House Republicans salivating over the prospect of televised hearings, starting with Clinton raising her right hand, then taking the Fifth over and over again.

So should President Barack Obama pardon her, preempting the GOP’s plans for four years of show trials?

Rudolph Giuliani, mentioned as a possible attorney general, has already warned Obama off a pardon, while revealing to Fox News his firm belief that Obama and Clinton “have completely corrupted the Justice Department and the State Department,” and predicting her inevitable indictment.

To assess the wisdom, legality and politics of a pardon, this is where to begin: The incoming administration already has its mind made up that she committed crimes and should be prosecuted.

Given that, Obama shouldn’t hesitate to pardon her—even if she says she doesn’t want him to.

Without it, Republicans will reopen the 35,000 e-mails turned over to the State Department. Thanks to WikiLeaks, they will rummage through thousands of e-mails to and from her campaign chairman, John Podesta. They will resume the search for the 33,000 e-mails that she said were personal and had deleted. They will second-guess FBI Director James Comey’s decision that even if she had been “extremely careless” with her private server, she never intended to commit crimes.

They will also subpoena years of Clinton Foundation documents in search of pay-to-play favors and conflicts of interest during her tenure at the State Department. And they won’t hesitate to draw in Bill Clinton and top aides Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, or place in

legal jeopardy many other longtime associates. Why would Republicans pursue Clinton, even though she is unlikely to run for office ever again? The simple answer is that “lock her up” energized Trump’s campaign and propelled many House members’ reelections.

The question, then, isn’t whether Obama should pardon her, but whether he will. His lawyers will look at past presidential pardons for guidance and ask: Would he be tarnishing his legacy if he takes action?

Bill Clinton certainly tarnished his own when, on his last day as president in January 2001, he pardoned fugitive financier Marc Rich, skirting the Justice Department’s usual procedures to do so. Rich’s ex-wife had recently made a handsome donation to Clinton’s library.

The case of Hillary Clinton is entirely different. She has been investigated almost continuously for four years. But

Tuesday, November 15, 2016 A11

talking style, saying his brashness demonstrated that he was unafraid to face establishment politicians in Washington.

In the general campaign, he pounded on the loss of factory jobs in the industrial belt, like Detroit and Pittsburgh. For years, many working-class white Americans have lost their jobs because of free trade, seeing their jobs outsourced to other countries where labor costs were lower. Trump capitalized on their disgruntlement and raised their anxieties even more with the specter of uncontrolled immigration.

His victory was well-received by leaders, like Vladimir Putin of Russia; Marine Le Pen of the French right-wing party National Front; Nigel Farage, head of the UK Independence Party once nicknamed by Trump as “Mr. Brexit”; and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Certainly, few libertarians received Trump’s victory as warmly.

On the other hand, much of Trump’s campaign rhetoric caused deep worry among the world’s democratic leaders. He vowed to withdraw support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; to disown the Iran nuclear deal; and said he would leave South Korea to defend itself against North Korea, if it did not shoulder more of the costs of the US presence there.

However, mere days after his victory, he affirmed the US’s commitment to defend South Korea in a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

What then will be the foreign policy of President Trump? What will be his view of the US’s global role in this era of uncertainty? Obviously, it is too early to tell.

As a military man, Hamilton knew that behind England’s and France’s relative land and naval military superiorities was not agricultural but a mercantilist economy, largely based on commerce and industry.

Wasting no time, Hamilton went to Congress with a mercantilist economic strategy, convinced its members and turned America from an agrarian union into an industrial colossus that stood after the end of World War I as the world’s unrivaled economic empire.

After that war, the US surprisingly abandoned its mercantilist policies and sought, as Smith did, the universal application of free trade. America subsequently removed its protective tariffs and opened her huge market to imported goods.

England abandoned mercantilism only in 1846, 70 years after the publication of the Wealth of the Nations. Its experience with Smith’s economics, however, proved disappointing, and England, in the late1930s, adopted a new economic strategy, laden with mercantilist ideas introduced by John Meynard Keynes, a traditional classicist like Smith, who changed his economic policy on the basis of the bad economic policies of the dogmatic classicists who were largely responsible for the Great Depression.

In his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Keynes attacked some of his former classicist colleagues by calling them “orthodox economists whose common sense has been insufficient to check their faulty logic.”

As the economy moved to recover from the Great Depression, World War II broke out, forcing governments to mobilize their economies to meet the challenge of armed conflict.

Governments had to assume full control of their limited resources, rationing fuel, food commodities, fixing prices, sequestering factories and limiting the movements of people.

In the rigor of the war, the depression banished, as Keynes’s

idea of government intervention, which he called the new economic orthodoxy, had predictably worked and, as a result, humiliated some of the classicists of the old school of orthodoxy.

After the war, England’s electorate unseated the conservative Winston Churchill, the great statesman who brilliantly led his country to victory against the fascist alliance, and elected Clement Atlee, a socialist from the powerful labor party.

Upon assumption in office, Atlee, a mercantilist, immediately put under government control a large sector of the economy, including the steel industry, and mobilized its labor force to manufacture small, medium and heavy industries that saw Britain rise from the destruction of war and depression.

Atlee’s pro-labor, pro-industrial economic policy, in effect, disproved Smith’s pro-agricultural doctrine to accumulate wealth.

In 1944, exactly eight years after the publication of Keynes’s General Theory, the US government initiated the organization of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for the purpose of creating a new-world economic order based on the neoclassical free-trade economic theory.

Ironically, this was the same America that spurned free trade in favor of mercantilism, which made her a great power up to this day.

Despite the creation of the new economic order, however, many countries in Europe, including Germany, France and Britain; India in the subcontinent; and those from East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, have pursued a mercantilist economy.

In essence, they are the economic powerhouses in their respective regions today, because mercantilism cared more about economics and little of politics.

To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@ gmail.com.

in addition to being twice absolved by the FBI, she hasn’t been accused of any specific crime, let alone indicted, tried or convicted.

To those Republicans who would say a pardon proves they were right all along, Obama can cite Gerald Ford’s 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon. Though Ford’s action probably cost him the election of 1976, he acted to bring the country together after two years of the Watergate scandal, congressional hearings, impeachment proceedings, a Supreme Court decision and, finally, Nixon’s resignation.

Obama’s lawyers will also look to other last-minute pardons, including President George H. W. Bush’s Christmas Day 1992 exoneration of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others. They had been involved in the 1987 Iran-contra arms-for-hostages scandal in the Ronald Reagan

administration. Bush issued the pardons after letting the legal system run its course for six years: An independent prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, had obtained one conviction and three guilty pleas. Two other cases were about to go to trial. In his anger, Walsh revealed that President Bush was a subject of his probe, based on notes Bush had taken as Reagan’s vice president, inviting accusations of a cover-up.

President George W. Bush avoided similar allegations in his 2007 commutation of the 30-month prison sentence of Lewis Libby, an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby had been convicted of lying and obstructing justice in the investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, a Central Intelligence Agency operative, to a columnist. Bush waited four years for the case to go through the federal courts before acting.

E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016 A12