BusinessMirror October 26, 2022

BSP to do whatever it takes to rein in inflation

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pili pinas (BSP) on Tuesday said it is “prepared” to under take “all necessary” monetary pol icy action to bring inflation within the national government’s target.

The Central Bank pointed out that it “remains vigilant” in moni toring all risks to the country’s inflation and outlook.

“The Bangko Sentral ng Pili pinas supports the initiatives of the National Government to boost the supply of key food com modities and address supply-side

pressures exacerbating infla tion,” said the BSP statement on October 25.

“Addressing high inflation re quires a whole-of-government approach to protect vulnerable sectors of the economy from the impact of high prices,” it added.

The BSP noted that govern ment measures aimed at improv ing local farm productivity and addressing bottlenecks in supply chains are “crucial” in “mitigat ing” supply-side pressures on inflation.

“The overall supply of agricul tural commodities continues to be restricted by low farm productivity and high production costs, wors ened by global supply disruptions, persistent animal diseases, uncer tainties due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and tariff and non-tariff restrictions on agricultural trade,” it explained.

The Central Bank said its mon etary policy actions are “working in tandem” with the government’s fiscal policy and programs “to pre vent inflation expectations from

becoming more entrenched.”

Earlier this week, Bangko Sentral Governor Felipe M. Medalla hinted that the BSP could raise interest rates by another 100 basis points (bps) this year, depending on the interest rate hike to be implemented by the US Federal Reserve.

Medalla said the Fed could raise interest rates by 75 bps in November and another 75 bps before the year ends. He said this could merit the same response

“BSP,”

DESPITE

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

THE Philippine economy will still grow at 6.5 percent this year despite heating infla tion all-year round, a local think tank said.

In its latest Market Call report, First Metro Investment Corpora tion-University of Asia and the Pacific (FMIC-UA&P) Capital Mar ket Research said the upcoming Christmas season would fuel economic growth through higher employment.

FMIC-UA&P said it expects do mestic manufacturing output to rise further in the last quarter as the national government “rachets up” spending on infrastructure and agriculture.

FMIC-UA&P added that the government’s higher tax collec tions year-on-year has led to “lower projected” debt-to-GDP to a range of 63 percent to 64 percent this year.

However, FMIC-UA&P noted that

“Inflation,” A2

BUSINESS GROUPS BACK TOTAL PHASEOUT OF POGO

By Andrea E. San Juan

BUSINESS and economic groups have expressed full support for the com plete phaseout of Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) citing “social and reputational costs.”

“We fully support the De partment of Finance’s [DOF] push to phase out all POGO operations, and urge our leg islators and the Executive Department to take all ac tions necessary to execute in an orderly way,” said Founda tion for Economic Freedom (FEF),  Makati Business Club

(MBC), and Management As sociation of the Philippines (MAP) in a joint statement on Tuesday.

These business groups have underscored the “social and reputational costs” of govern ment sponsorship of the POGO operations, noting that these are “globally frowned upon.” Hence, the groups added, these costs far outweigh any economic benefits.

The business groups noted that crimes, like money laun dering, kidnapping, bribery, prostitution, human and drug trafficking—all associ ated with the gambling indus try—have an impact on the

country’s record of law and order hence tarnishing the country’s reputation.

The damaged reputation could also result in the dwin dling confidence in the coun try’s banking system.

“The taint of money launder ing diminishes confidence in our banking system and puts legitimate financial flows, in cluding from [overseas Fili pino workers] OFWs, at risk from sanctions of international oversight bodies,” the business groups stressed.

The groups emphasized that the country’s connectivity to international banking and the

business and OFW communi ties who depend on it, must be protected.

The business groups also re counted that for the past years, regulatory oversight has been a problem, resulting in “monitor ing and taxation issues” with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor), the country’s licensing agency.

“Conflicting mandates and the lure of corruption have ren dered it and other involved gov ernment agencies incapable of effectively regulating POGOs,” the groups noted.

See “POGO,”

China envoy: We offer wider market for PHL goods

By Lito U. Gagni

CHINA has offered a wider market for Philippine prod ucts as it crafts a policy on modernization that is inclusive for other developing countries.

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian bared the proffered cooperation agree ment with the country at Tuesday’s Pandesal Forum at Kamuning Bak ery where he discussed the impact of the 20th China Communist Party congress that elected Chi nese leader Xi Jinping to a third 5-year term last weekend.

Huang said China is committed to buying Philippine fruits and, in See “China,” A2

CHINESE Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian (third from right) speaks about the new opportunities for Philippines-China relations and pursuing Chinese modernization at the Pandesal Forum held at Kamuning Bakery Cafe in Quezon City on Tuesday, October 25, 2022. Others in photo are Prof. Lucio Pitlo III, research fellow, Asia-Pacific Pathways & Progress Foundation; former Presidential Political Adviser Ronald Llamas; and Pandesal Forum host Wilson Y. Lee Flores. NONOY LACZA

Service eyed to aggregate MSME e-commerce hubs

By Andrea E. San Juan

THE Philippine government is eyeing to launch by the end of the year a service that aggregates e-commerce platforms which could benefit small entrepreneurs, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

“We’re launching before the end of the year. Secretary Alfredo Pascual is also very passionate about this launch ing—the Philippine e-commerce plat form so this is to aggregate all solutions of the Philippines,” DICT Undersecre tary for E-Government David Almirol said at the Digital Sign-Up Now 2022 event on Monday in Pasay City.

BSP.

Continued from

from the BSP. (Related sto ry: https://businessmirror.com. ph/2022/10/25/bsp-chief-ratehike-to-match-feds-move/)

In early October, the BSP said it is  “prepared to take policy actions”

The DICT undersecretary said this will spur more jobs and livelihood.

Hence, he encouraged all  small mer chant-attendees at the Go Negosyo event to onboard their businesses to the online platform once it’s launched.

When he joined the state visit to the United States of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. on Septem

to cool inflation as the latest infla tion print in September averaged at 6.9 percent. It was faster than the 6.3 percent posted in August 2022 and 4.2 percent posted in September 2021. (Related story: https://busi nessmirror.com.ph/2022/10/06/ september-inflation-at-6-9-bspvows-policy-moves/)

The government’s economic team

ber 23, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy divulged that a “single and extensive” e-commerce portal for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) will be deployed with the help of the De partment of Trade and Industry (DTI). Here, MSMEs can provide products and services online—an ecosystem where they can take full advantage of digital payments and participate in the digi tal economy.

To aid the small merchants in en gaging in a digital payment facility, the DICT chief earlier said the agency will address the issue by working with the Trade department.

Uy also noted that “all they need to do is to register and post their prod ucts or their services and the whole ecosystem where logistics, marketing, payments, access to credits and source materials will be integrated in a single platform simplifying the process to join

also revealed it is recommending the extension of lower tariffs slapped on various commodities beyond the De cember 31, 2022 expiry.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan earlier said the economic team is “fully aware” that adjusting interest rates would not be enough to curb inflation.

“My understanding of the sources of

the digital economy.”

Spearheading the Digital Sign Up Now 2022, Go Negosyo founder Jose Maria A. Concepcion III said, “There has never been a better time to become an en trepreneur as today, when digital technology is mak ing it easier for MSMEs to level up their businesses.”

“The MSMEs benefited immensely from the ewallets, the delivery apps, and social media, which allowed them to compete alongside the big players. And this is significant for all of us because MSMEs generate more than half of the jobs in the Philip pines,” Concepcion added.

According to the Go Negosyo statement released on Tuesday, hundreds of MSMEs, founders of digital startups, key executives from leading digital tech nology companies and incubators, experts in the creative industry, as well as young professionals and students in the field of digital technology flocked to the event which featured a forum with key players in the country’s digital arena and learning sessions from digital creatives, fintech experts, e-commerce executives and some of the country’s top social me dia influencers.

inflation is that some of it is on the supply side. So if you are going to use monetary policy to address what is essentially a supply issue, you’re not going to get it right,” Balisacan said. (Related story: https:// businessmirror.com.ph/2022/10/19/economicteam-backs-extension-of-eo-171/)

Local economists from the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) have also recommended the extension and expansion of Executive Order (EO) 171 to cover more commodities in light of the spike in prices.

Balisacan said it is possible that the EO will be extended, depending on the decision of the Committee on Tariff and Related Matters and the Tariff Commission. EO 171, issued in May 2022, provided for the reduction of tariffs imposed on pork, corn, rice, and coal.

Food accounts for 55 percent of the 2012-based consumer price index (CPI) for the bottom 30 households; while food and non-alcoholic bev erages accounts for only 37.75 percent of the 2018-based CPI for all income households.

Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

Inflation. . .

Continued from

“elevated” inflation remains as the country’s “only sore point.” However, FMIC-UA&P pointed out that the negative effect of the accelerating inflation on consumer spending will be “muted” by higher remittances by OFWs and revenues from BPO industry and exporters.

“We, thus, see GDP growth in 2022 of 6.5 percent, at the upper end of our projections, while we may expect an inflation rate of 6.9 percent in October,” the local think tank said.

Earlier this month, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. met with his economic managers in Malacañang to discuss “soaring inflation,” and the falling value of the peso.

While high inflation may just be temporary, the President’s economic team believes it will still be able to slow the country’s economic growth next year.

In a briefing in Malacañang, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said inflation could cut the country’s growth by “0.6 percent” next year.

Based on the July 2022 estimates of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), the target of the administration is for GDP growth to average 6.5 to 8 percent annually between 2023 and 2028. (Related story: https:// businessmirror.com.ph/2022/10/19/governmentbraces-for-slow-growth-sets-strategy/)

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan earlier said sharp peso swings are more crucial than the actual value or whether the currency is “weaker” or “stronger” relative to the dollar. (Related story: https:// businessmirror.com.ph/2022/10/20/neda-sharp-pesoswings-notweakness-crucial-to-economy/)

Balisacan said having sharp swings in the foreign exchange will create uncertainty in the economy which could prevent potential investors and existing businesses from doing business in the country.

The Central Bank earlier reported that Filipinos abroad sent $2.72 billion in cash remittances in August. Data showed this represented an increase of 4.3 percent from the $2.61 billion posted in the same period last year.

Cash remittances reached $20.99 billion in the January to August 2022 period, which was a 3-percent increase from $20.38 billion recorded in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recently reported that the country’s trade deficit widened 81 percent to $6 billion in August 2022 from the $3.31 billion posted in August 2021.

China. . .

Continued from

reply to a question on how many will his country buy, he countered, “how many can the Philippines produce?”

POGO. . .

Continued from

“Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the POGO indus try has significantly declined by 50 to 70 percent. This suggests that now is the best time to terminate their operations,” the business groups stressed.

The groups added that the total ban “will only result in economic strains as opposed to the endur ing socioeconomic consequences and heavier dis ruption” if the issue is not dealt with immediately.

The business groups stressed that the Chinese government has been “quite categorical” in its objections to POGO, which they characterized as “harming not only China’s interest and ChinaPhilippines relations but also hurt the interests of the Philippines.”

Finance Undersecretary Maria Cielo D. Mag no earlier said they had concerns in relation to POGO-related crimes, as these “can have an ef fect on foreign direct investment.”

Citing a study, the DOF official said that one crime incidence in every 100,000 population could result in a decrease of gross domestic product by 1 percent.

On the other hand, Hose Committee on Ways and Means Chairperson Rep. Joey Salceda said that linking kidnapping and foreign direct invest ment was “a facile approach” to the ongoing POGO issue. (Full story: https://businessmirror.com. ph/2022/10/21/dof-scored-for-analysis-onpogo-operations/)

According to the lawmaker, “there are far more factors that affect the flow of foreign direct in vestments,” as he cited ease of doing business and power costs as far more significant concerns for potential investors.

China has already bought $450 million in bananas and has also bought Philippine avocado for the first time. He noted that durian from the Philippines is tasty and that his country will soon source its durian imports from the country.

The recent congress is tuned to modernization prospects and is geared to forging a shared destiny with other countries. Huang said a “global village” is to be expected as a result of China’s push for its Belt and Road Initiative and global security initiative that will be helpful to other countries and that frowns on colonization.

The 5,000-kilometer Great Wall of China is meant for defense, and not for aggression, the Chinese envoy said, as an analogy as he pushed forward China’s intention to modernize in away that will “also benefit the rest of the world.”

For the Philippines, China is offering partnerships in infrastructure development, clean energy, R and D, 5G connectivity, and a supermarket for Philippine products, even as it further promotes China-Philippine cooperation that “seeks to improve the quality of life” of both China and the Philippines.

China, Huang added, aims to push the limits of cooperation with the Philippines and other countries  that “will go hand in hand [with] and [with a view] to benefiting from each other.”

On the question of the South China Sea, Huang said he is pleased that the fishermen of both China and the Philippines are, in his words, getting along peacefully. He believes maritime cooperation should be promoted, as he expressed hope that a joint drilling exploration in the area—an undertaking begun by the Duterte administration, but which both Manila and Beijing had to formally set aside on legal issues in early 2022—can be undertaken.

On the question of Philippine Overseas Gaming Operators (POGOs) against which an outcry has recently been revived amid a spike in violent incidents related to some operators, Huang reiterated that China considers POGOs illegal, as it remains firm in its policy banning online gaming.

Huang exchange with some senators he visited recently drew controversy after Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri disclosed at a Senate hearing that Beijing’s top envoy had told them Manila is on some sort of a “blacklist” as a tourist destination owing to its continued hosting of POGOs. Huang subsequently clarified that China has not blacklisted the Philippines, even as he stressed his government’s appeal for its neighbor to stop online gaming, noting the high number of Chinese citizens back home whose lives have been ruined by gambling.

Earlier, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the Philippines suffers a great “reputational risk” from hosting POGOs, as the crimes—abductions, human trafficking, extortion—linked to some POGO parties are a turnoff for investors and visitors.

Both the Executive and Congress are weighing, though, the implications of a call to totally ban the POGOs, on the ground that, as critics put it, the revenue and jobs they bring in cannot compensate for the downside in terms of damage to reputation and peace and order.

The Nation

Senators firm up PHL-France bilateral ties with Paris visit

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senate President

Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, taking advantage of the Congress session break, led a delegation of Philippine senators set to meet with their French counterparts to firm up and enhance bilateral ties between Manila and Paris.

L egarda, in a pre-departure statement, affirmed their upcom ing talks with top French officials are expected to be “an opportune time for us to assess our country’s strong ties with the French Republic and discuss how we can foster our friendship and cooperation, espe cially on areas that concern both the Philippines and France.”

She added “matters relating to the environment, and the blue economy would be among the topics to be tack led in their meetings, stressing de liberating on the issues is timely and significant as these are connected to climate change, which remains a top global concern.”

“Our visit to France is a chance for the Philippines to convey our vision, plans, and involvement in address ing global challenges such as climate change,” added Legarda.

The Senate President Pro Tem pore assured, “Our country fully rec ognizes France’s steady allegiance to be a global leader in addressing the issue, and we are fully committed to supporting the Paris Agreement.”

At the same time, Legarda re minded that the Paris Agreement, also referred to the Paris Climate Accord as an international climate change treaty adopted in 2015 by members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

It will be recalled that in 2017, Le garda, who chaired the Subcommit tee on the Paris Agreement under the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, also sponsored the Phil ippines’s concurrence in ratifying the agreement.

In addition, Legarda likewise led the Philippine contingent into assenting to the High Ambition Co alition (HAC) for Nature and People after United States Senator Russell Feingold sought her guidance and leadership in bringing the Philippines to the HAC, an agreement started by France, among other nations.

“These are just some of the issues we intend to bring to the table dur ing our meetings,” she added recall ing that the Philippines and France “enjoy 75 years of fruitful and vibrant friendship and cooperation in vari ous areas such as economy, defense, food security, and people-to-people relations, and these, too, are part of our agenda.”

Legarda, likewise, affirmed that “it is an honor to be part of the Philip pine delegation once again, and I look forward to making our bilateral ties with France stronger,” she concluded.

At the same time, she confirmed that the Philippine delegation is also meeting with the France-Southeast Asia Parliamentary Friendship Group led by its president, Senator Mathieu Darnaud.

PBBM agrees to make indoor face mask use voluntary to boost tourism–Frasco

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

THE government is set to imple ment another wave of easing of its pandemic-related proto cols, including making the wearing of face masks indoors voluntary, in an effort to further boost foreign tour ist arrivals in the country.

It made the announcement days after the Department of Health (DOH) detected the presence of the Omicron subvariants XBB and XBC in the country.

D uring the Cabinet Tuesday’s meeting held President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. has de cided he will come out with a new executive order (EO) to also relax the mask-wearing mandate indoors.

L ast month, Marcos already is sued EO No. 3, which made it vol untary to wear face mask outdoors.

As a result of the Cabinet meet ing this morning it was agreed that the President would be issuing an executive order for the IATF [Inter-Agency Task Force for the

Management of Emerging Infec tious Diseases] recommendation to make indoor mask wearing also voluntary all over the Philippines,” Tourism Secretary Ma. Esperanza Christina Garcia Frasco said in a news conference in Malacañang.

T he new EO, however, will not apply to public transportation, medical transportation and in medical facilities.

Frasco said the mask wearing would also still be highly encour aged for unvaccinated individuals, persons with comorbidities as well as senior citizens.

Minimal impact

DESPITE the further easing of mask wearing mandate, Frasco said they do not expect it will translate to a surge in novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases.

In fact, she said Covid-19 cases decreased even after Marcos allowed the voluntary wearing of face masks outdoors last month.

We have seen that since Septem ber, there has been a decrease in Co

DOJ places sister of ‘middleman’ in Percy Lapid slay under WPP

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

THE Department of Justice (DOJ) bared on Tuesday that it has placed under its Witness Protection Program (WPP) the sister of the dead “middleman” in the kill ing of broadcaster Percy Mabasa, also known as Percy Lapid, last October 3.

D OJ Assistant Secretary and Spokesman Jose Dominic Clavano IV said the sister of Jun Villamor, the alleged middleman in the kill ing, was brought to the justice de partment last Monday through the assistance of Senator Raffy Tulfo.

C lavano said the woman met with Justice Secretary Jesus Crisp in Remulla and shared some infor mation about the sudden death of her brother.

He said Villamor’s sister was placed under the WPP after a thor ough screening.

“ We saw the information she provided was relevant to the case of her brother so we immediately referred her to the witness protec tion for an interview and to deter mine if the threat to her life is high,”

Clavano explained.

“ It was established that there is a threat to her life, thus, she was immediately placed under the Witness Protection Program and brought to the temporary shelter,” Clavano said.

T he woman disclosed that she was able to talk to her brother via FB’s Messenger application before he died.

“ There were names mentioned, but all these are allegations as of now. So, we have to verify, we have to vet,” Clavano added.

V illamor died while confined at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City last October

18 or on the same day Joel Esco rial, the self-confessed gunman of Mabasa, was presented to the pub lic by Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos.

E scorial earlier named a certain Crisanto Palana Villamor as the “middleman,” but Remulla said Crisanto and Jun are one and the same person.

Remulla also said a certain Jose Palana Villamor, also a person of interest in Lapid’s killing, has been transferred from the NBP to the Philippine National Police Custodial Center to ensure his safety.

I nitial an autopsy report re leased by the National Bureau of In vestigation-Medico Legal Team in dicates no foul play in Villamor’s death due to absence of external physical injuries.

However, Remulla said a sec ond autopsy would be conducted by known forensic expert Dr. Raquel Fortun on the cadaver of Villamor.

Remulla added that the conduct of the second autopsy by Fortun was requested by the Mabasa family.

Meanwhile, Bureau of Jail Man agement and Penology (BJMP) per sonnel that were deployed to aug ment the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), particularly in NBP will be returned to their mother unit.

Remulla said a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Bu Cor and BJMP signed in 2019 fol lowing the appointment of Gerald Bantag as director general of BuCor had expired last month.

BuCor is under the DOJ while the BJMP is under the DILG.

T he BJMP has the sole jurisdic tion and authority over all local jails—municipal, city and provincial.

T he MOA led to the deployment of BJMP personnel to augment

vid-19 cases by 2.8 percent, and up to 22 October 2022, there has been a decrease of 22.74 percent in posi tive cases,” Frasco said.

“ This supports the empirical data that we had previously pre sented, vis-à-vis our Asean neigh bors. Wherein the lifting of the mask mandate in no way led to any surges in the majority of these countries,” she added.

A s to the risks posed by the new policy with the detection of the new XBB and XBC Omicron subvariants in the country, Frasco said, the DOH is already implementing measures to stop any spread through aggressive vaccination and booster drives.

Health officials attributed the XBB to the surge of Covid-19 cases in Singapore, while the characteristics of the XBC subvariant is still under investigation.

Less travel requirements

TO further make it more conve nient for foreign travelers to visit the country, Frasco said the govern ment would also be replacing the One

Health Pass (OHP) with the eArrival Card System.

T he eArrival Card, which only contains half of the 20 questions under the OHP, will contain the per sonal information, health declara tion, and vaccination details of the arriving passenger.

A lso to be scrapped is the re verse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing requirement for passengers bound to the Philippines.

As far as unvaccinated foreigners are concerned, they would hence forth be allowed entry into the Phil ippines with only the requirement of presenting an antigen test 24 hours taken before departure or an option of taking an antigen test upon arrival into the Philippines,” Frasco said.

Competitive destination

THE tourism chief said the mea sures are aimed to boost the coun try’s competitiveness as a tourism destination.

Generally the direction of the Marcos administration is to lift the

remainder of travel restrictions into the Philippines and that includes easing of our mask mandates to al low our country to be at par with our Asean neighbors who have long liberalized their mask mandates,” Frasco said.

She noted the country remains a top tourist destination abroad as shown by their recent record-break ing tourist arrival figures and sales.

“ This is actually well-reflected in our tourist arrivals which have now reached 1,827,603 arrivals as of to day. Notably, this exceeds the previ ous projections of the Department of Tourism, before June 30, which pegged international arrivals only at 1.7 million by December of 2022,” Frasco said.

DOT was also able to register over P173 million worth of sales and leads from its recently concluded Philip pine Travel Exchange.

This far exceeds previous sales in that the highest sales achieved was in 2018 at 94.8 million and in 2019 sales were pegged at 46 mil lion,” Frasco said.

BuCor’s staff.

“ There was a memorandum of agreement before between the BuCor and the BJMP on this matter but it expired just a month ago. So they can be returned already,” Remulla said.

A round 160 BJMP personnel were seconded to BuCor under the MOA.  BuCor OIC retired General Gre gorio Catapang said he had already signed an order on his first day running the BuCor “returning” all seconded BJMP personnel to their mother units.

C atapang said this would boost the morale of organic Bu Cor personnel.      “

We are just giving them back their jobs. No major revamp,” Cata pang said.

M eanwhile, K-9 units would be deployed in the NBP’s entry and exit points to further enhance existing security measures and

stanch the smuggling of contra band items to inmates.

C atapang also said more close circuit television cameras would be installed as well as signal jammers.     B ut Bantag expressed dismay over the decision of Catapang to disarm him and his men and re call their service vehicles despite knowing that this could put their lives in danger.

I thought I was just suspended, under preventive suspension, but what happened was all my men were disarmed. That’s why the BJMP per sonnel were saddened as they were disarmed,” he said in an interview over DZRH.

They know all our sacrifices in cleaning up the BuCor which put our lives under threat but General Capatang still recalled our service firearms and our vehicles. He did not wait [for the investigation to be

finished],” Bantag said.

Bantag believed that he was actu ally sacked from his post without due process and not merely placed under a 90-day preventive suspension.      He also claimed that his removal could be the handiwork of those af fected by the reforms he introduced in the BuCor.

This is not just a mere suspension but rather I was sacked from my post without due process,” he stressed.

H e also accused Catapang of bringing back BuCor officers who were previously suspended or on floating status due to their involve ment in various illegal activities in side the NBP.

Remulla earlier said Bantag is be ing considered as a person of interest in connection with Lapid’s killing and is facing investigation for pos sible reckless imprudence following the death of Villamor.

Villanueva: PRC’s computerized licensure examinations are two decades ‘overdue’

SENATE Majority Leader Joel Villanueva expressed concerns over the “long overdue” status of the computer-based licensure examinations (CBLE) project of the Professional Regulation Commis sion (PRC), as the PRC Moderniza tion Act of 2000 (Republic Act No. 8981) was enacted more than two decades ago.

T his was the senator’s reaction after PRC Commissioner Dr. Jose Cueto Jr.’s statement during the Senate hearing on the proposed

2023 budget of the agency, that no funding was allocated for setting up CBLEs in PRC regional offices for next year.

“ Two decades have passed since the PRC Modernization Act was en acted and we have gone through two years of the pandemic. The PRC’s capacity to widely and efficiently conduct computer-based licensure examinations is very long overdue,”

Villanueva said.

T he senator said that CBLEs allow the PRC to make up for in

stances when licensure exams are canceled due to natural calamities and health emergencies such as the pandemic. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, only 11 out of 85 licensure exams were conducted, according to the PRC. The agency also said that they were also only able to conduct 62 out of 101 licen sure exams for 2021.

Villanueva also noted that the Licensure Examinations for Teach ers (LET) were canceled four times between 2020 and 2021.

T he senator said that the liveli hood of the examinees are held back by the exam cancellations, and that they are forced to wait for another six months for the next scheduled exam, vying for a slot against a new batch of examinees as well as repeat examinees.

Villanueva said that the CBLEs are an “obvious solution” in pro viding more access to board exams currently held in a limited number of testing sites in different parts of the country.

“ Let’s not wait 20 more years. We needed a fully functional CBLE years ago. We are eager to hear from the PRC its modernization plans for transitioning to a digitalized system of conducting licensure exams,” he said.

Republic Act No. 8981 mandates the PRC to implement  “the full com puterization of all licensure exami nations by the various professional regulatory boards.”

According to data from the PRC, the agency was able to conduct only

one CBLE in 2021, and that they could conduct up to seven CBLEs within 2022. Cueto also mentioned during the Senate hearing that the agency still doesn’t have the capac ity to conduct CBLEs in most of PRC regional offices.

“Our government services are subject to the same demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as our professionals and workforce are. PRC has a lot of catching up to do and making up for lost time,” Villanueva said.

UNDAS TRANSPORT PREPARATIONS Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Acting Chairman Engr. Carlo Dimayuga III and MMDA traffic czar Col. Bong Nebrija conduct an inspection of bus terminals along Edsa in Quezon City as part of the agency’s preparation for the coming All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day dubbed as “Oplan Undas” starting Tuesday, October 25, 2022. NONOY LACZA

Economy

Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

Garin urges DA to prod resto owners to serve kamote side by side with rice

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz  @joveemarie

AFORMER health secretary turned lawmaker on Tuesday called on the Department of Agriculture (DA) to help and encourage restaurant owners, and small businesses like “carinderias” to serve kamote or sweet potato as an alternative to rice.

House Deputy Majority Leader and Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said sweet potatoes could provide better nutrition, while helping the country

address the problem of rice shortage. G arin issued statement after farmer groups have warned of a pos sible shortage of rice supply in 2023,

amid the decline in palay output due to the high cost of agricultural inputs.

To avert the looming shortage, Garin pointed out that it is high time that the DA extensively promote sweet potato as an alternative.

She said one way of doing this is to increase production and make the necessary investment in root crops —in terms of agricultural research, food technology or marketing.

Garin also proposed incentives to food establishments serving sweet potatoes.

“Our love for rice has given birth to the famous ‘extra rice’ and ‘unli rice’ cultures. Unlike the popular expression ‘rice is life,’ we encourage restaurants to try using kamote in place of rice and even as French fries. What we need today are innovations in the kitchen,” Garin said.

According to Garin, the nutritious

content of rice cannot compare to that of sweet potato since rice trans forms into sugar in the body, making one susceptible to diabetes, while the root crop is high in fiber and is one of the best foods that one can eat to prevent cancer.

G arin, a medical physician, also said too much rice might make one sick, as data shows that 1 in 14 Filipino adults live with diabe tes, and some studies have already identified that eating white rice regularly can increase diabetes risk by up to 1.5 percent.

“Our fondness for rice draws from our having been eating it since child hood and our meals having been de signed to complement rice, but it’s high time we change our attitude towards both rice and root crops,” Garin added.

“Kamote can bring back health and keep some health problems at bay. As medical studies have shown, kamote lowers hypertension, bad cholesterol, and even blood sugar when taken as a substitute for rice,” she added.

T he lawmaker believed that if there were a food alternative on the restaurant menu, particularly when it comes to rice, people would quickly adapt to it.

She noted countries such as South Korea, Japan, and the United States that consider sweet potatoes to be super foods and incorporate them into their daily diet, in contrast to the Philippines, where root crops are seen as inferior foods, causing people to reject them.

DAR, WB delegates deliver e-titles to Bulacan farmers

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

THE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and World Bank (WB) delegates have personally distributed electronic land titles (etitles), through the “Serbisyong DARto-Door,” in San Ildefonso, Bulacan.

Undersecretary for Foreign As sisted and Special Projects Office (FASPO) Jesry Palmares, together with WB delegates Benoit Bosquet and Achime Fock, personally handed over five e-titles to agrarian reform benefi ciaries (ARBs) to ensure the farmers would receive their land titles.

T he five ARB recipients are the Placido siblings, namely, Wilson, Felixberto, Leonardo, Alejandro, and Rogaciano. The siblings have been tenants and farmers of the land they have been tilling all their lives.

We are overflowing with hap piness. We thank the government for this program. We never thought that it would be possible to have our own title. We also thank Secretary Conrado Estrella and President Fer dinand R. Marcos Jr. for speeding up the process,” said Felixberto Placido.

T he Placido siblings’ land title belonged to a collective certificate of land ownership award (CCLOA). The farmers were able to receive their own titles because of DAR’s Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling project or SPLIT Project.

The DAR’s SPLIT Project is funded by the World Bank, which extended in the year 2020 a $370-million loan to the Philippines.

The project seeks to fast track the subdivision of collective land titles covering over 1.3 million hectares of agricultural lands and eventually issue individual land

PALMARES TWITTER PHOTOGRAB

titles to ARBs previously awarded with lands and collective CLOAs under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program to benefit a total of 1.1 million farmers.

“Issuing separate titles for each farmer-beneficiary is better because it enables them to have a clear and defined ownership of the parcels of land they are tilling,” Palmares said.

SPLIT National Project Director Joey Sumatra said under the SPLIT Project, the agency would parcelize the awarded lands covered by a CCLOA.

“Each farmer beneficiary would be given an individual land title based on the actual area or a par ticular portion of land they are till ing,” Sumatra explained.

The Placidos are among the 35 jubilant ARBs who received their e-titles during a simple ceremony held at the Upig Elementary School covered court after the DAR-to-Door e-title distribution.

Palmares encouraged the ARBs not to sell or transfer the lands given to them by the government, as this land would help uplift their lives and their family in the future.

“ You have been blessed with lands during this time as a sign of the government’s concern for the farm ers,” Palmares said.

GARIN TWITTER PHOTOGRAB

Go Negosyo leads MSME-focused digital tech transformation event

THERE has never been a bet ter time to become an entre preneur as digital technology is making it ever easier for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) to level up their busi nesses. This was quite apparent as the year’s biggest digital trans formation event aimed at encour aging MSMEs to embrace digital transformation got underway on Monday, October 24, at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia.

O rganized by Go Negosyo to gether with the US Embassy in the Philippines, the Digital Sign Up Now 2022 brought together two growth drivers—MSMEs and digital technology—which together are seen to accelerate inclusive growth in the country. In attendance during the event in Pasay City were MSMEs, founders of digital start-ups, key executives from leading digital technology companies and incubators, ex perts in the creative industry, in cubators, and start-ups, as well as young professionals and students in the field of digital technology.

The game has changed,” said Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion in his opening remarks. “Digitali zation has given MSMEs an equal opportunity to move up the ladder of success. The pandemic has accel erated the digital transformation of many MSMEs. They were the ones who benefited immensely from the e-wallets, the delivery apps, and social media, which allowed them to compete alongside the big play ers. And this is significant for all of us because MSMEs generate more than half of the �obs in the Philip pines,” he said.

D igital Sign Up Now 2022 was organized to help MSMEs learn from the experiences and best practices of other entrepreneurs who have successfully trans formed their businesses using digital platforms. It will also intro duce MSMEs to possible collabo rations with the different digital platforms now in the country, as well as learn from professionals specializing in creative services, brand imaging, fintech, as well as cyber security.

T he Philippines has been cited as the area with the fastest growth in digital consumers, according to the 2021 report “e-Conomy SEA” by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and until the first half of 2021, the country

recorded 12 million new digital consumers, 63 percent of whom come from the rural areas of the country.

“

There’s really no excuse to not become an entrepreneur now,” said Brian Cu, founder of SariSuki, a community-based retail solution aimed at making essential goods more affordable for ordinary consumers. He was � o ined in the panel discussion that kicked off the event by start-ups that of fered solutions in small-business management systems (Peddlr), logistics and transport (Angkas), live selling (Shoppertainment), and professional content creation (Tier One Entertainment), who all gave an overview of the possibili ties offered by digital technology and social media.

H eather Variava, Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Em bassy in the Philippines, re marked during her speech that because entrepreneurship al ready presents risks, attention to cybersecurity mitigates that risk. It is also a priority of the US Government to provide a secure and stable environment, especially for entrepreneurs.

A lso present to support the event was Department of In formation and Communications Technology Undersecretary Da vid Almirol, who shared that the Philippine government is eye ing to launch by end-2022 a ser vice that aggregates e-commerce platforms specifically suited to small entrepreneurs. SM Super malls President Steven Tan also expressed SM’s support, saying that 80 percent of its suppliers are MSMEs, and that new con cepts are often born from small enterprises.

A ttendees at the Digital Sign Up Now 2022 had their pick from the eleven 30-minute sessions, while active entrepreneurs re ceived one-on-one mentoring from big-brother companies and digital experts. Attendees were able to sign up for fintech and capital ser vices, and connected with digital market providers who readily as sisted them on how to take their products and services online. They were also able to sign up on site for Go Negosyo’s Angat Lahat sa Digital Alliance.

Lucky aspiring and active entre preneurs in attendance went home with cash to start and grow their businesses.

PBBM moves to revitalize support to STEM scholars for ICT industry

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

Ferdinand “Bong

PRESIDENT

bong” R. Marcos Jr. is pushing for the creation of a demanddriven scholarship program to help address skill shortages in the infor mation and communication technol ogy (ICT) industry.

In a news statement, the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) said Mar cos instructed the Department of

PNP wrecks 6,526 BER firearms

By Glen Jacob Jose

THE Philippine National Po lice (PNP) has destroyed a total of 6,526 pieces of firearms deemed to beyond eco nomical repair (BER), including confiscated, captured, surren dered, deposited, abandoned and forfeited-turned PNP property firearms (CCSDAF-TPPF).

PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo S. Azurin Jr., led the ceremonial destruction of the assorted discarded firearms through the �oint effort of the Di rectorate for Logistics and PNP National Headquarters Disposal Committee held at the PNP Grand stand, Transformation Oval, Camp Crame in Quezon City on Monday.

“ This demilitarization process renders these firearms and their parts unusable by reducing them to scrap metal, thus preventing them from being recycled into functional firearms,” Azurin said in a news statement.

A zurin added that the event is part of the PNP gun control mea sures to keep firearms off the hands of criminal elements and unauthor ized individuals.

T he PNP Logistics Office initi ated the demilitarization process by conducting an inventory and technical inspection on the 25,476 units of CCSDAF-TPPF from Feb ruary 8 last year to January 25, 2022, followed by a series of de militarization processes.

Under the PNP Memorandum Cir cular No. 2017-017, demilitarization

Information and Communications Technology (DICT) during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday to coordinate with the private sector to determine their skills needs.

T he government, he said, could then provide scholarships for science, technology, engineering, and math ematics (STEM) courses to qualified beneficiaries, which can help fill out the said industry requirements.

T he President made the statement after DICT Secretary Ivan John E.

Uy shared the concern of members of the ICT sector that the current information technology graduates lack the “right tools and training,” which they require.

Uy also said there is also a cur rent shortfall of students taking up STEM courses.

Marcos said ensuring the country has a sufficient pool of STEM gradu ates will help the country’s address its big gap with other nations in terms of research and development.

T he Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has also ad vocated for more students to take up STEM courses amid the so-called fourth industrial revolution, which is marked by the introduction of new technologies in workplaces such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

It noted the emerging industries from the said revolution would re quire more workers with STEMrelated skills and expertise.

CAVITE CITY—Cavite City May or Denver Chua went person ally to the Corregidor island on Tuesday with Cavite First District Rep. Jolo Revilla, Vice Mayor Raleigh Rusit and other city officials to reas sess the viability of the historic place as a leisure and tourist destination in the province.

It will be recalled that the mayor had already signed the memorandum of agreement with the Corregidor Foundation Incorporated (CFI) for the development of the island.

One of the most popular tourist des tinations in the province of Cavite is Corregidor Island because of its beauty and rich history.

But according to the mayor, it seems that it has been neglected and it is not being used properly, even as vowed to transform the island into a viable tour ism destination.

Meanwhile, tourism in Corregidor will be a big boost for the construction planning of the proposed Bataan— Cavite Bridge to make it easier for tourists to visit the island. Dennis Abrina

of BER firearms is an allowable method of disposal if PNP Property is already unsale able and may pose a hazard to the public if not destroyed.

T he demilitarization process involved cutting individual steel pieces into sec tions using a circular saw or blowtorch, bending and deforming each piece, de forming hammer and trigger assembly using a blowtorch, grinder, or power tools, and cutting or chopping wooden parts and stamping aluminum parts.

T he cut-up metal pieces are disposed off as recyclable scrap materials and may be forged or fabricated into farming tools and industrial equipment.

Scrap or waste materials from demili tarized firearms, on the other hand, will be disposed of through public bidding. Proceeds will be used to support the or ganization’s plans and programs.

NGCP tower bombing leads to power interruptions in some parts of Mindanao

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

ATRANSMISSION tower in Lanao del Norte was bombed the other day, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) reported on Tuesday.

T he incident led to a line trip ping that eventually resulted in Manual Load Dropping (MLD), or rotating power interrup tions, to prevent overloading of the remaining line.

NGCP’s Baloi-Aurora 138kV Transmission Line tripped at 4:50 p.m. last October 24. The tripping was due to the bombing of Tower No. 8 of the said line located in Sitio San Isidro, Barangay Bagombayan, Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte. The bomb ing resulted in the toppling of the said tower.

A reas affected by the MLD are the entire Zamboanga Peninsula, namely, Zam boanga del Norte, including Dipolog City and Dapitan City, Zamboanga del Sur, including Pagadian City and Zamboanga City, Zamboanga Sibugay, entire Misamis Occidental, and parts of Lanao del Norte.

NGCP said that repair of Tower No. 8 will commence as soon as the area is secured. The grid operator is currently coordinating with local law enforcement agencies to secure the area as repairs are to be done by NGCP personnel.

A still unidentified individual was found at the scene with fatal in�uries. It is un-in ries. un clear if this is related to the bombing, NGCP said. Responding authorities confirmed that lawless elements used an improvised explosive device to bomb the said tower. The incident is under investigation.

T he company stressed that bombings only serve to increase the burden of the public, which must suffer through power interruptions when towers are bombed. NGCP reiterated that the conduct of suspicious activities within or along the power transmission corridor, which may disrupt the transmission of power is punishable by law, with a penalty of as much as P200,000 or 12 years imprisonment, or both.

CAMP Crame policemen led by top cop Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rodolfo S. Azurin Jr. lead the destruction of some 6,526 unserviceable firearms on Monday. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Taiwan’s Tsai says no backing down to Chinese aggression

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Taiwan won’t back down in the face of “aggressive threats” from China, the president of the selfgoverning island democracy said Tuesday, comparing growing pressure from Beijing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tsai Ing-wen made the comment following a twice-a-decade congress of China’s Communist Party at which it upped its longstanding threat to annex the island it considers its own territory by force if necessary.

The party added a line to its constitution on “resolutely opposing and deterring” Taiwan’s independence and “resolutely implementing the policy of ‘one country, two systems,’” the formula by which it plans to govern the island in the future.

The blueprint has already been put in place in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which has seen its democratic system, civil liberties and judicial independence decimated in recent years.

Speaking to an international gathering of pro-democracy activists in Taipei, Tsai said democracies and liberal societies are facing the greatest challenges since the Cold War.

“Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a prime example. It shows an authoritarian regime will do whatever it takes to achieve expansionism,” Tsai said.

“The people of Taiwan are all too familiar with such aggression. In recent years, Taiwan has been confronted by increasingly aggressive threats from China,” she said, listing military intimidation, cyberattacks and economic coercion.

The rising Chinese pressure has spurred calls in Taiwan for additional defense spending and a lengthening of the term of national service required of all Taiwanese men.

“However, even under constant threats, the people of Taiwan have never shied away from the challenges” and have worked against authoritarian forces looking to undermine their democratic way of life, Tsai said.

Asked about Tsai’s comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said attempts to maintain an independent Taiwan were “doomed to fail.”

“I would like to stress there is no way forward other than reunification for Taiwan,” Wang said at a daily briefing in Beijing.

Tsai was speaking at the opening ceremony of the World Movement for Democracy’s steering committee, which is chaired by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949 and Taipei enjoys strong US military and political support, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties.

Despite having just 14 official diplomatic allies, Taiwan has drawn increasing backing from major nations, including Japan, Australia, the US, Canada and across Europe.

A recent visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enraged Beijing, which responded with military exercises seen as a rehearsal of a blockade of the island.

On Monday, Tsai met with a German parliamentary delegation focusing on human rights, which expressed concern about how Taiwan would handle threats from China.

“Taiwan is really facing military threats,” delegation head Peter Heidt said. “From Germany’s point of view, changes to the cross-Strait status quo, if any, must be based on peaceful means. Also, these changes must be made after both sides have reached a consensus.”

Also on Tuesday, Taiwanese Premier You Si-kun met with Ukrainian lawmaker Kira Rudik and Lithuanian politician Zygimantas Pavilionis. Taiwan has strongly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and at least one Taiwanese citizen is reportedly fighting with Ukrainian forces.

Rudik expressed Ukraine’s gratitude for Taiwan’s financial support and backing of sanctions against Russia. Despite Russian attacks on the country’s infrastructure, particularly the electrical grid, “we will win this war. I promise you,” she said.

The Ukrainian conflict has focused new attention on whether China might launch military action against Taiwan, given that a solid majority of Taiwanese reject Beijing’s calls for “peaceful reunification.”

A full-scale invasion across the 160-kilometer (100-mile) -wide Taiwan Strait remains a daunting prospect for China despite its recent massive military expansion, especially of its naval and missile forces.

However, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s securing of another five-year term in office has some observers speculating he may be looking to move up the schedule for bringing Taiwan under China’s control.

Among the personnel changes at China’s congress that concluded Saturday, Gen. He Weidong was elevated to second vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. He was formerly head of the Eastern Theater Command, which would be primarily responsible for operations against Taiwan should hostilities break out. AP

Britain court to hear Uyghur demands to ban Xinjiang cotton

LONDON—A Uyghur organization and a human rights group are taking the UK government to court to challenge Britain’s failure to block the import of cotton products associated with forced labor and other abuses in China’s far western Xinjiang region.

Tuesday’s hearing at the High Court in London is believed the first time a foreign court hears legal arguments from the Uyghurs over the issue of forced labor in Xinjiang. The region is a major global supplier of cotton, but rights groups have long alleged that the cotton is picked and processed by China’s Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in a widespread, state-sanctioned system of forced labor.

The case, brought by the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress and the Global Legal Action Network, a nonprofit, is one of several similar legal challenges aimed at putting pressure on the UK and European Union governments to follow the lead of the United States, where a law took effect this year to ban all cotton products suspected of being made in Xinjiang.

Researchers say Xinjiang produces 85 percent of cotton grown in China, constituting one-fifth of the world’s cotton. Rights groups argue that the scale of China’s rights violations in Xinjiang— which the UN says may amount to “crimes against humanity”—means that numerous international fashion brands are at high risk of using cotton tainted with forced labor and other rights abuses.

Gearóid Ó Cuinn, the Global Legal Action Network’s director, said the group submitted almost 1,000 pages of evidence—including

company records, NGO investigations and Chinese government documents—to the UK and US governments in 2020 to back its case. British authorities have taken no action so far, he said.

“Right now, UK consumers are systematically exposed to consumer goods tainted by forced labor,” Ó Cuinn said. “It does demonstrate the lack of political will.”

Researchers and advocacy groups estimate 1 million or more people from Uyghur and other minority groups have been swept into detention camps in Xinjiang, where many say they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. The organizations say the camps, along with forced labor and draconian birth control policies, are a sweeping crackdown on Xinjiang’s minorities.

A recent UN report largely corroborated the accounts. China denounces the accusations as lies and argues its policies were aimed at quashing extremism.

In the US, a new law gives border authorities more power to block or seize cotton imports produced partly or wholly in Xinjiang. The products are effectively banned unless the importer can show clear evidence that the goods were not produced using forced labor.

The European Commission last month proposed prohibiting all products made with forced labor from entering the EU market. The plans haven’t been agreed upon yet by the European Parliament.

Anne D’Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

Ethnic group says Myanmar air attack kills 80 at celebration

By Grant Peck  The Associated Press

BANGKOK—Air strikes by Myanmar’s military killed as many as 80 people, including singers and musicians, attending an anniversary celebration of the Kachin ethnic minority’s main political organization, members of the group and a rescue worker said Monday.

The reported attack comes three days before Southeast Asian foreign ministers are to hold a special meeting in Indonesia to discuss widening violence in Myanmar.

The number of casualties at Sunday night’s celebration, held by the Kachin Independence Or ganization in the northern state of Kachin, appeared to be the most in a single air attack since the military seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Initial reports put the death toll at around 60, but later tallies raised it to about 80.

It was impossible to indepen dently confirm details of the inci dent, though media sympathetic to the Kachin posted videos showing what was said to be the attack’s aftermath, with splintered and flattened wooden structures.

The military government’s in formation office confirmed in a statement late Monday that there was an attack on what it described as the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army’s 9th Brigade, calling it a “necessary operation” in response to “terrorist” acts carried out by the Kachin group.

It called reports of a high death toll “rumors,” and denied the mili tary had bombed a concert and that singers and audience members were among the dead.

The United Nations’ office in Myanmar said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned and sad

dened” by reports of the air strikes.

“What would appear to be ex cessive and disproportionate use of force by security forces against unarmed civilians is unacceptable and those responsible must be held to account,” it said.

Envoys representing Western embassies in Myanmar, includ ing the United States, issued a joint statement saying the attack underscores the military regime’s “disregard for its obligation to protect civilians and respect the principles and rules of interna tional humanitarian law.”

Myanmar has been wracked for decades by rebellions by eth nic minorities seeking autonomy, but anti-government resistance increased markedly nationwide with the formation of an armed pro-democracy movement oppos ing last year’s military takeover.

The Kachin are one of the stron ger ethnic rebel groups and are capable of manufacturing some of their own armaments. They also have a loose alliance with the armed militias of the pro-democ racy forces that were formed in 2021 in central Myanmar to fight army rule.

Sunday’s celebration of the 62nd anniversary of the found ing of the Kachin Independence Organization, which included a concert, was held at a base also used for military training by the Kachin Independence Army, the KIO’s armed wing. It is located near Aung Bar Lay village in Hpakant

township, a remote mountainous area 950 kilometers (600 miles) north of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.

Hpakant is the center of the world’s biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry, from which both the government and the reb els derive revenue.

As many as 80 people were killed and about 100 were injured in Sunday’s attack on the first day of a three-day celebration of the KIO’s founding, a spokesperson for the Kachin Artists Associa tion told The Associated Press by phone. He said he first heard there had been 60 deaths, but was later told by sources close to Kachin Independence Army officials that about 80 people had died.

He said military aircraft dropped four bombs on the cel ebration at about 8 p.m., accord ing to members of his group who were there. Between 300 and 500 people were in attendance and a Kachin singer and keyboard play er were among the dead, said the spokesperson, who asked not to be identified because he feared pun ishment by the authorities.

Those killed also included Kachin officers and soldiers, musi cians, jade mining business owners and other civilians, he said. They also included at least 10 Kachin military and business VIPs sitting in front of the stage, and cooks working backstage, he added.

The Kachin News Group, a me dia outlet sympathetic to the KIO, reported that an initial search found 58 bodies and that govern ment security forces had blocked the wounded from being treated at hospitals in nearby towns. It reported later that more than 20 more bodies had been recovered, bringing the death toll to about 80.

Col. Naw Bu, a spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army, said by phone that KIA soldiers, musicians, businesspeople and villagers were among the dead, but he could not confirm a casualty number due to communications problems. He said the deaths were a loss for all Kachin people, and its group would fly the Kachin flag at half-staff.

An emergency services rescue worker who was in Hpakant and also asked for anonymity said he saw three military aircraft making bombing runs over the celebra tion ground, just a few kilome ters (miles) away. He said he was barred by the KIO from entering the area but heard that more than 60 people were killed, including a KIA brigade commander.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-govern mental organization that tracks killings and arrests, said Friday that 2,377 civilians have died in crackdowns by the security forc es since the army took power. Its figure, however, does not always include people killed in military actions in the countryside.

“We fear this attack is part of a pattern of unlawful aerial at tacks by the military which has killed and injured civilians in ar eas controlled by armed groups,” Amnesty International’s deputy regional director, Hana Young, said in a statement.

“The military has shown ruth less disregard for civilian lives in its escalating campaign against opponents. It is difficult to believe the military did not know of a sig nificant civilian presence at the site of this attack. The military must immediately grant access to medics and humanitarian as sistance to those affected by these air strikes and other civilians in need,” Young said.

Cambodia, the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, said Sunday that the group’s foreign ministers will hold a special meeting in Indone sia this week to consider the peace process for Myanmar. Myanmar’s generals have all but shunned the group’s previous efforts.

“As officials and leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations prepare to host high-level meetings in the coming weeks, this attack highlights the need to over haul the approach to the crisis in Myanmar,” Amnesty International said. “ASEAN has to step up and formulate a more robust course of action so that military leaders end this escalating repression.”

Japan Cabinet minister resigns over Unification Church ties

By Mari Yamaguchi  The Associated Press

TOKYO—Japan’s economy minister submitted his resignation Monday over ties to the Unification Church after facing mounting criticism in a widening controversy involving dozens of governing party lawmakers.

Daishiro Yamagiwa’s resignation is a further blow to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government, which has been rocked by his party’s close ties to the controversial South Korean-based church following the assassination of former leader Shinzo Abe in July.

Yamagiwa faced opposition lawmakers’ growing demands for his resignation after he repeatedly said he did not remember his past attendance at church meetings during overseas trips and posing for group photos with church leader Hak Ja Han Moon and other executives.

Kishida on Tuesday appointed former Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto to take Yamagiwa’s place as the economy minister.

Kishida said Goto is a veteran politician who is “highly capable of giving explanation” and has “passion” for economic and social reforms. Kishida said he expected him to play a central role in coordinating and achieving key policy goals, including a major economic package that Kishida plans to announce later this week. Goto’s appointment is to be official after a palace ceremony later Tuesday.

The Kishida government’s support ratings have nosedived over his handling of the scandal and for holding a highly unusual state funeral for Abe, one of Japan’s most divisive leaders who is now seen as a key link between the governing Liberal Democratic Party and the church. Abe sent a video message in 2021 praising Hak Ja Han Moon at a meeting of the church affiliate the Universal Peace Federation.

Since the 1980s, the church has faced accusations of devious business and recruitment tactics, including brainwashing members into turning over huge portions of their salaries to it.

“I just submitted my resignation” to Kishida, Yamagiwa told reporters Monday. He said he routinely discards documents and therefore could not clearly verify past contacts with the church and only provided explanations after reports of his past church

ties surfaced.

“As a result, I ended up causing trouble to the administration,” Yamagiwa said. “I attended the church’s meetings a number of times and that provided credibility to the group, and I deeply regret that.” He pledged to stay away from the church in the future.

A governing party survey in September found nearly half of its about 400 lawmakers had ties to the church, including Cabinet ministers, many of whom shared the church’s conservative views and sent messages or attended church meetings, though not as followers of the church theology. Kishida has pledged to cut all such ties, and recently said he instructed the government to probe the church, with the possibility of revoking its legal status.

Media surveys show many Japanese want a clearer explanation of how the church may have influenced party policies.

Kishida said he accepted Yamagiwa’s resignation because “as prime minister, I have to prioritize our work to push forward economic measures, an extra budget and support for victims of the church problems.”

Yamagiwa, who was criticized for clinging to his post and stalling parliamentary sessions because of questioning by opposition lawmakers, was seen as having been forced to quit. He said he has no intention of resigning as a lawmaker because he did not break any law.

Former Prime Minister Abe was shot to death during an outdoor campaign speech in July. The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, told police he killed Abe because of his apparent link to a religious group he hated. A letter and social media postings attributed to Yamagami said his mother’s large donations to the Unification Church bankrupted his family and ruined his life.

Australia to raise spending to boost slowing economy

By Rod Mcguirk  The Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia—Australia’s new government released plans Tuesday for more spending on families, the elderly, defense and its Pacific neighbors as the country braces for an economic slowdown due to rising interest rates, inflation and disastrous floods.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered his center-left Labor Party’s first annual budget for the fiscal year that began in July. It is the first budget in nine years by a Labor government and comes as Australia contends with unprecedented levels of debt that has mounted during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chalmers said rising inflation was the primary influence on his economic blueprint.

Inflation is forecast to peak at 7.75 percent by December and remain higher for longer than had previously been expected.

“It’s framed against a backdrop of a complex combination of a serious economic downturn overseas, damaging and devastating natural disasters here at home, war in Europe, a slowdown in China brought about by Covid—all of these issues combining at once,” Chalmers told reporters.

“We are still optimistic about the future of our economy and the future of our country, but there is no use pretending that we don’t have some difficulty to navigate in the near

term,” he said.

To get the budget measures through Parliament, compromises may be required.

The previous conservative government had forecast in its last budget in March a deficit of 78 billion Australian dollars ($49 billion) for this fiscal year.

The new government’s forecast more than halves that to AU$36.9 billion ($23.3 billion), thanks mainly to extraordinarily high prices for commodities including iron ore and coal. But deficits are expected to rise again as commodity prices normalize.

The economy is forecast to grow 3.25 percent in the current fiscal year before plummeting to 1.5 percent in 2023-24 — one percentage point lower than was projected in March — as rising interest rates hit consumer spending. Growth is then forecast to creep up to 2.25 percent in 2024-25 and to 2.5 percent the following year.

Chalmers said a weakening of household spending was “a very concerning development” and inevitable after six consecutive monthly interest rate hikes so far this year.

When the central bank lifted the benchmark cash rate by a quarter percentage point to 0.26 percent in May, it was Australia’s first rate hike in more than 11 years. The bank lifted the rate to 2.6 percent at its October meeting and said rates would continue to rise, prompting economists to warn of a recession.

Rishi Sunak becomes British prime minister

By Jill Lawless The Associated Press

LONDON—Rishi Sunak has become British prime minister after being asked to form a government by King Charles III.

Sunak met at Buckingham Pal ace with the king, who had just accepted the resignation of Liz Truss. In Britain’s constitutional monarchy, the monarch plays a ceremonial role in appointing gov ernment leaders.

Sunak is expected to immedi ately begin appointing a Cabinet on Tuesday and getting to grips with an economic crisis that has left millions of Britons struggling

to afford food and energy bills.

The third Conservative prime minister this year, he will also try to unite a governing party that is riven with divisions.

Sunak, the UK’s first leader of color, was selected as leader of the governing Conservative Party on Monday as it tries to stabilize the economy, and its own plunging popularity, after the brief, disas trous term of Liz Truss.

Truss departed after making a public statement outside 10 Down ing St., seven weeks to the day after she was appointed prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II. The queen died two days later. Her son, who is now king, will take over the cer emonial role of accepting Truss’ resignation at Buckingham Pal ace before asking Sunak to form a government.

Truss offered a defense of her low-tax economic vision and her brief term in office before being driven from the prime minister’s official residence for the last time.

“I am more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the problems we face,”

she said. She stood by the freemarket principles of “lower taxes” and “delivering growth,” despite the market mayhem triggered by her September 23 budget package.

Truss wished Sunak success as Britain continues “to battle through a storm.”

Sunak—at 42 the youngest British leader for more than 200 years—must try to shore up an economy sliding toward recession and reeling after his predecessor’s experiment in libertarian econom ics, while also attempting to unite a demoralized and divided party that trails far behind the opposi tion in opinion polls.

His top priorities will be ap pointing Cabinet ministers, and preparing for a budget statement that will set out how the govern ment plans to come up with bil lions of pounds (dollars) to fill a fiscal hole created by soaring infla tion and a sluggish economy, and exacerbated by Truss’ destabiliz ing economic experiments.

The statement, set to feature tax increases and spending cuts, is currently due to be made in Parlia ment on Monday by Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt—if Sunak keeps him in the job.

Sunak, who was Treasury chief himself for two years until July, said Monday that Britain faces “a profound economic challenge.

Sunak becomes prime minister in a remarkable reversal of for tune just weeks after he lost to Truss in a Conservative election to replace former Prime Minister

Boris Johnson. Party members in the summer chose her tax-cutting boosterism over his warnings that inflation must be tamed.

Truss conceded last week that she could not deliver on her plans—but only after her attempts triggered market chaos and wors ened inflation at a time when mil lions of Britons were already strug gling with soaring borrowing costs and rising energy and food prices.

The party is now desperate for someone to right the ship after months of chaos under Truss and Johnson, who quit in July after becoming mired in ethics scandals.

Sunak was chosen as Conser vative leader after becoming the only candidate to clear the hurdle of 100 nominations from fellow lawmakers to run in the party elec tion. Sunak defeated rival Penny Mordaunt, who may get a job in his government, and the ousted Johnson, who dashed back from a Caribbean vacation to rally sup port for a comeback bid but failed to get enough backing to run.

As well as stabilizing the UK economy, Sunak must try to unite a governing party that has de scended into acrimony as its poll ratings have plunged.

Conservative lawmaker Victo ria Atkins, a Sunak ally, said the party would “settle down” under Sunak.

“We all understand that we’ve now really got to get behind Ri shi—and, in fairness, that’s ex actly what the party has done,” she told radio station LBC.

GERMAN PRESIDENT VISITS KYIV AS WEST MULLS REBUILDING PLAN

By Andrew Meldrum  The Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine—Germany’s president arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday for his first visit to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, as Western countries mulled a massive plan for Ukrainian rebuilding when the war eventually ends.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after arriving that “it was important to me in this phase of air attacks with drones, cruise missiles and rockets to send a signal of solidarity to Ukrainians.”

Eight months of pummeling by the Kremlin’s forces has ruined homes, public buildings and the power grid. The World Bank estimates the damage to Ukraine so far at 350 billion euros ($345 billion).

The German president, whose position is largely ceremonial, made it to Ukraine on his third try.

In April, he was planning to visit the country with his Polish and Baltic counterparts, but said his presence “apparently...wasn’t wanted in Kyiv.” Steinmeier has been criticized in Ukraine for allegedly cozying up to Russia during his time as Germany’s foreign minister.

Last week, a planned trip was put off because of security concerns.

Steinmeier’s visit came as Ukrainians are bracing for less electric power this winter following a sustained Russian barrage on their infrastructure in recent weeks.

Citizens in the southern city of Mykolaiv lined up for water and essential supplies Tuesday as Ukrainian forces advanced on the nearby Russian-occupied city of Kherson.

In Berlin, meanwhile, European Union leaders brought together experts to start work on a “new Marshall Plan” for the future rebuilding of Ukraine—a reference to the US-sponsored plan that helped

revive Western European economies after World War II.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the meeting aims to discuss “how to ensure and how to sustain the financing of the recovery, reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine for years and decades to come.”

Scholz, who co-hosted the meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said he’s looking for “nothing less than creating a new Marshall Plan for the 21st century—a generational task that must begin now.”

Even so, one of Moscow’s allies on Tuesday urged Russia to step up the pace and scale of Ukraine’s destruction.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the regional leader of Chechnya who has sent troops from the region to fight in Ukraine, urged Moscow to wipe off the map entire cities in retaliation for Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s territory. Authorities in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine have repeatedly reported Ukrainian shelling that damaged infrastructure and residential buildings.

“Our response has been too weak,” Kadyrov said in a statement posted on his messaging app channel. “If a shell flies into our region, entire cities must be wiped off the face of the Earth so that they don’t ever think that they can fire in our direction.”

Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, sought to ease public fears over Russia’s use of Iranian drones to strike the country’s infrastructure, claiming increasing success in shooting them down.

Ukraine’s forces have shot down more than two-thirds of the approximately 330 Shahed drones that Russia has fired through Saturday, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, said Monday. Budanov said Russia’s military had ordered about 1,700 drones of

different types and is rolling out a second batch of about 300 Shaheds.

Although Russia and Iran deny that the Iranian-built drones have been used, the distinctive triangle-shaped Shahed-136s have rained down on civilians in Kyiv and elsewhere.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was likely to use a large number of drones to try to penetrate the “increasingly effective Ukrainian air defenses”—to substitute for Russian-made long-range precision weapons “which are becoming increasingly scarce.”

Russia’s “artillery ammunition is running low,” the British report said Tuesday.

The Institute for the Study of War, in Washington, added that “the slower tempo of Russian air, missile, and drone strikes possibly reflects decreasing missile and drone stockpiles and the strikes’ limited effectiveness of accomplishing Russian strategic military goals.”

Despite the reduced attacks, at least seven civilians were killed and another three wounded in the latest Russian shelling of the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine’s presidential office said Tuesday.

The attacks came as the Russians pressed their offensive on the strategically placed towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka and also shelled other areas in the Donetsk region, which is part of Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas.

The developments came after a stark warning by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to his British, French, Turkish and US counterparts over the weekend that Ukrainian forces were preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device—a so-called dirty bomb. Britain, France, and the United States rejected that claim as “transparently false.”

www.businessmirror.com.ph

editorialMilking the dairy sector’s potential Filipino

farmers have been raising cows for decades and numerous studies that focus on improving the productivity of the dairy sector have been undertaken in the past. And yet the philippines continues to import nearly all of its milk requirements, based on government data and the United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDAFAS) in Manila. local dairy producers could supply only one percent of the annual milk requirement of the philippines, (See, “Report: PHL will continue to rely on milk imports,” in the BusinessMirror, October 20, 2022).

This year, the USDA-FAS in Manila expects the Philippines to import nearly 3 million metric tons (MMT) of milk this year and next year to meet demand. The United States, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, and Poland were the top five sources of milk for the Philippines last year, according to the National Dairy Authority (NDA). The combined shipments of the US and New Zealand accounted for nearly 60 percent of the country’s milk purchases.

Data from the NDA indicated that foreign milk producers earned $1.199 billion from the Philippines last year. The amount is nearly 11 percent higher than the $1.082 billion recorded in 2020. The value of milk imports this year is on track to breach the $1-billion level as purchases have already reached $828.84 million.

Filipino dairy producers have long been asking the government to prioritize their sector so they can supply the requirements of local industries and consumers. While there have been incremental improvements in cattle production over the years, and efforts have been put in place to raise productivity, milk production has remained miniscule.

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) noted that farm-gate and retail milk prices in the Philippines are relatively high, making fresh milk products unaffordable for consumers. The industry is also hampered by low cow and farm productivity, inadequate supply chain cooling infrastructure and insufficient access to milk testing and support services.

ACIAR had collaborated with the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development, the University of Adelaide’s Center for Global Food and Resources and the Philippine Foodlink Advocacy Cooperative on a project that sought to unlock the potential of the local dairy sector. The results of the research initiative were published in September 2021. The project identified factors and interventions that could lead to the development of the Philippines smallholder dairy sector and their value chains.

The dairy industry offers tremendous opportunities for improving the income of Filipino farmers and developing local industries. It can also help the government in its bid to win the fight against hunger and narrow the country’s trade deficit, particularly if it could address the constraints that have long prevented dairy farmers from meeting domestic demand. It would do well for the new administration to put in place the necessary reforms to enable the industry to become a significant contributor to the output of the local farm sector.

Control of Congress: What’s at play in the 2022 midterms?

By Mary Clare Jalonick | The Associated Press

WASHinGTon

Democrats have held both chambers of Congress and the presidency for the last two years, but they may not have such consolidated power for much longer.

Republicans are favored to win the House in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, bolstered by frustration over the economy and advantages in the redistricting process that takes place every 10 years. But Democrats are working to hold their ground, campaigning on maintaining access to abortion and other issues.

The outlook is murkier in the Senate, where Republicans are bidding to take back control. Several races in key battleground states are tight, leading Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to say the chances of his party winning a majority are just 50-50.

A look at control of Congress and what will happen if Republicans win a majority in either chamber in the election:

What if the House flips?

Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have held the majority since 2018, when they won control in then-President Donald Trump’s first midterm election. Republicans could take back the House if they net just five seats in dozens of competitive districts, and they are trying to win dozens.

History also gives Republicans reason for optimism. In the modern era, the party that’s held the White House has lost congressional seats in virtually every first-term president’s

midterm election.

If Republicans win the House on Nov. 8, the GOP caucus will elect a new speaker and take power on Jan. 3, 2023. They will run every committee and decide what bills come to the House floor.

What would a Republican House look like?

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has already unveiled his “Commitment to America,” a broad outline of economic, border security and other policies that the GOP would propose in the early days of the next Congress.

A return to Republican power in the House would be a victory for Trump, who has fought Democratled efforts to hold him accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. The vast majority of Republicans who are expected to return to Washington next year, along with most of those hoping to win a first term, are loyal to Trump and have followed his example in their policies and positions.

Among those allies are far-right members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was stripped of her committee assignments by Democrats because of her extreme rhetoric but would be part of a broad governing majority under a GOP House. Greene stood behind McCar-

thy as he introduced the “Commitment to America” in Pennsylvania last month.

What would a GOP House mean for Biden?

Democratic priorities like access to abortion, addressing climate change and stricter gun control would immediately be sidelined. And most, if not all, of President Joe Biden’s agenda would be effectively dead for the final two years of his term.

Still, nothing becomes law without Biden’s signature. Bills to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and deal with military issues are necessary for government to function. Those bills are likely to become flashpoints in negotiations between the GOP, Democrats and the White House.

Biden, who served in the Senate for decades, has often touted his bipartisan credentials and said he wants to work with Republicans. But there would be little appetite for that in a GOP Congress that has made opposition to Biden its top priority.

What about the Senate?

While the Senate could tilt either way after the midterm elections, the majority party is still likely to have the slimmest of margins. That means Biden will be able to find a bit more common ground there, no matter who is in charge. Much of Biden’s legislative achievements in office have been the byproduct of bipartisan negotiations in the Senate.

Still, a Republican-led Senate could pass bills sent over by a GOP

House, putting political pressure on Biden. And the GOP would regain control of committees and, with it, the power to conduct investigations and oversight of the administration.

A Republican Senate could also make life difficult for Biden by blocking or delaying passage of the president’s judicial and executive branch nominees.

What if Democrats win?

If Democrats were to hold the Senate and Republicans win the House, the two chambers would be unlikely to find much common ground. But Republicans could try to win over Democratic Senate moderates on some legislation.

If Democrats were able to keep the House and the Senate, they would likely restart negotiations on some of Biden’s agenda items that were never passed, including his new package of social and economic programs that stalled amid internal Democratic disagreements.

What does the House map look like?

The majority of House districts aren’t competitive, thanks to a redistricting process that allows state legislatures to draw their own congressional lines if they decide to. Many legislatures draw lines to give advantages to one party or the other.

Still, dozens of seats are in play, including many of those held by Democrats who won in suburban districts in 2018, winning the majority for the party that year.

Prison deaths mount in El Salvador’s gang crackdown

By Christopher Sherman | The Associated Press

SAn SAlVADoR, El Salvador—Jesús Joya says his brother was “special”—at 45, he was childlike, eager to please. He was as far from a gang member as anyone could be. And yet the last time he saw Henry, he was boarding a bus to prison.

“Henry, you’re going to get out,” Jesús shouted. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

From his seat, Henry responded with a small wave. A police officer smacked him in the head.

Three weeks before, on March 26, El Salvador’s street gangs had killed 62 people across the country, igniting a nationwide furor. President Nayib Bukele and his allies in congress launched a war against the gangs and suspended constitutional rights.

Nearly seven months later, this “state of exception” is still widely popular. But gangsters are not the only ones caught up in a dragnet that has been haphazard, with fatal consequences.

The arrests of more than 55,000 people have swamped an already overwhelmed criminal justice system.

Defendants arrested on the thinnest of suspicions are dying in prison before any authority looks closely at their cases. At least 80 people arrested under the state of exception have succumbed without being convicted of anything, according to a network of non-governmental organizations trying to track them. The government has provided no figures.

Life in the prisons is brutal; the Bukele administration turned down AP requests to visit them. Defendants disappear into the system, leaving families to track them down. A month after Henry’s arrest, guards at the Mariona prison north of San Salvador told Jesús that Henry was no longer there. That’s all they would say.

A local newspaper photographer had captured the image of Henry, already dressed in prison whites,

spotting Jesús in the crowd as he was taken away. For more than two months, Jesús carried a clipping of that photo to every prison in El Salvador, and then to every hospital.

Have you seen this man, he asked. Have you seen my brother?

When police and soldiers fanned out across El Salvador to make their arrests earlier this year, Bukele tweeted the daily number of “terrorists” detained and talked tough about making their lives miserable.

Police and soldiers encircled neighborhoods or towns, set up checkpoints and searched door to door. They grabbed people standing in the street, commuting to work, at their jobs, in their homes. Sometimes it was a tattoo that got their attention, a picture in someone’s cell phone. Sometimes, they carried lists of names, people who had prior records or brushes with the law. They encouraged anonymous tipsters to drop a dime on gang members or their collaborators.

Some police commanders imposed arrest quotas and encouraged officers to massage details.

It quickly became apparent that the president’s plan did not extend beyond making mass arrests.

Lawmakers bought time by suspending arrestees’ access to lawyers, extending from three days to 15 days the period someone could be held without charges and lifting the cap for how long someone could be held before trial. Judges almost automatically sent those arrested to prison for six months while prosecutors tried to build cases.

Judges are under tremendous pressure to go along with the president’s goals to protect their jobs, said Sidney Blanco Reyes, a judge forced to retire after a legislative reform established an age cap last year. “It’s as though the fate of those locked up depends on what the president says.”

By the government’s own account, El Salvador’s prisons were already overcrowded before the war against the gangs. The president quickly announced the construction of a new mega prison, but it remains unfinished. Seven months later, El Salvador’s incarcerated population has See “Prison,” A19

Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua

Japan steps up push to get public buy-in to digital IDs

By Yuri Kageyama | AP Business Writer

TOKYO—Japan

has stepped up its push to catch up on digitization by telling a reluctant public they have to sign up for digital IDs or possibly lose access to their public health insurance.

As the naming implies, the initiative is about assigning numbers to people, similar to Social Security numbers in the US. Many Japanese worry the information might be misused or that their personal information might be stolen. Some view the My Number effort as a violation of their right to privacy.

So the system that kicked off in 2016 has never fully caught on. Fax machines are still commonplace, and many Japanese conduct much of their business in person, with cash. Some bureaucratic procedures can be done online, but many Japanese offices still require “inkan,” or seals for stamping, for identification, and insist on people bringing paper forms to offices.

Now the government is asking people to apply for plastic My Number cards equipped with microchips and photos, to be linked to drivers licenses and the public health insurance plans. Health insurance cards now in use, which lack photos, will be discontinued in late 2024. People will be required to use My Number cards instead.

That has drawn a backlash, with an online petition demanding a continuation of the current health cards drawing more than 100,000 signatures in a few days.

Opponents of the change say the current system has been working for decades and going digital would require extra work at a time when the pandemic is still straining the medical system.

But the reluctance to go digital extends beyond the health care system. After numerous scandals over leaks and other mistakes, many Japanese distrust the government’s handling of data. They’re also wary about government overreach, partly a legacy of authoritarian regimes before and during World War II.

Saeko Fujimori, who works in the music copyright business, said she’s supposed to get My Number information from the people she deals with, but many balk at giving it out. And no one is all that surprised she has trouble getting that information, given how unpopular it is.

“There is a microchip in it, and that means there could be fraud,” said Fujimori, who has a My Number but doesn’t intend to get the new card. “If a machine is reading all the information, that can lead to mistakes in the medical sector, too.”

“If this was coming from a trustworthy leadership and the economy was thriving, maybe we would think about it, but not now,” Fujimori said.

Something drastic may have to happen for people to accept such changes, just as it took a devastating defeat in World War II for Japan to transform itself into an economic powerhouse, said Hidenori Watanave, a professor at the University of Tokyo.

“There’s resistance playing out everywhere,” he said.

Japanese traditionally take pride in meticulous, handcraft-quality workmanship and many also devote themselves to carefully keeping track of documents and neatly filing them away.

“There are too many people worried their jobs are going to disappear.

Now the government is asking people to apply for plastic My Number cards equipped with microchips and photos, to be linked to drivers licenses and the public health insurance plans. Health insurance cards now in use, which lack photos, will be discontinued in late 2024. People will be required to use My Number cards instead.

These people see digitization as a negation of their past work,” said Watanave, who spells his last name with a “v” instead of the usual “b.”

The process of getting an existing My Number digitized is time consuming and very analog, it turns out. One must fill out and mail back forms sent by mail. Last month’s initial deadline was extended, but only about half of the Japanese population have a My Number, according to the government.

“They keep failing in anything digital and we have no memories of successful digital transformation by the government,” said Nobi Hayashi, a consultant and technology expert.

Hayashi cited as a recent example Cocoa, the government’s tracing app for Covid-19, which proved unpopular and often ineffectual. He says the digital promotion effort needs to be more “vision-driven.”

“They don’t show a bigger picture, or they don’t have one,” Hayashi said.

Koichi Kurosawa, secretary-general at the National Confederation of Trade Unions, a 1 million-member grouping of labor unions, said people would be happier with digitization if it made their work easier and shorter, but it was doing just the opposite at many Japanese work places.

“People feel this is about allocating numbers to people the way teams have numbers on their uniforms,” he said. “They are worried it will lead to tighter surveillance.”

That’s why people are saying No to My Number, he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Yojiro Maeda, a cooperative research fellow at Nagasaki University who studies local governments, thinks digitization is needed, and My Number is a step in the right direction.

“You just have to do it,” Maeda said.

On Monday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida acknowledged concerns about My Number cards. He told lawmakers in Parliament that the old health insurance cards will be phased out but the government will arrange for people to continue to use their public health insurance if they are paying into a health plan.

Japan’s Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, acknowledged in a recent interview with The Associated Press that more is needed to persuade people of the benefits of going digital.

“To create a digitized society, we need to work on developing new infrastructure. My Number cards could serve as a passport that will open such doors,” Kono said. “We need to win people’s understanding so that My Number cards get used in all kinds of situations.”

lawyer with the non-governmental organization Cristosal.

“There is interest in hiding these deaths,” said Navas, and so they are blamed on natural causes.

more than doubled.

Generally, the deaths stem from unattended injuries sustained in beatings during their capture, chronic illnesses for which prisoners do not receive treatment, aggression from other inmates or deplorable sanitary conditions, said Zaira Navas, a

Guillermo Gallegos, a vice president in El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly, concedes mistakes have been made and said it was a “tragedy” when they occur. But he sees no reason to lift the state of exception anytime soon.

He attributed the prison deaths to

Angel R. Calso

EDITOR’S CORNER

INthe newspaper business, galley proofs are the preliminary versions of news items meant for review by copy editors and proofreaders. In the days of handset letterpress printing, the printer would set the page into “galleys”—metal trays into which type was laid and tightened into place. A small proof press would then be used to print a copy of news items for proofreading.

The personal computer made galley proofs obsolete. And proofreading has become an all-encompassing term for checking spelling, grammar, and readability issues. Current word processing applications, like Microsoft Word, have a built-in spelling and grammar check to alert the user to errors in their documents. However, these applications are not foolproof and may fail to detect “typos”—short for typographical errors. That’s why newspapers still hire proofreaders.

Google is reportedly a product of a typographical error. Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the search engine—initially named “Back Rub” —as part of their PhD project at Stanford University. It had worked efficiently servicing the Stanford University campus for a year. But soon, the bandwidth increased as demand for web search skyrocketed.

On September 14, 1997, when the founders started brainstorming for a name of their dream company, many Stanford students were there in the room to suggest a new name for the search engine. One of the students, Sean Anderson, proposed “Googolplex”—a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Larry shortened it “Googol,” saying the name represents the infinite amount of information on

the Internet, which they were aiming to streamline. Anderson, who was on the computer rushed to check if the name is available as a domain name to register, typed “google” and made the most famous spelling mistake in the business history of the world. The founders were happy to find that “www. google.com” as a domain name was available for them to register.

Based on its trailing 12-month numbers, Google is projected to earn $278 billion in 2022. About $500 million of this income comes from “typos” or frequently misspelled site addresses. In a study, Harvard University researchers Tyler Moore and Benjamin Edelman estimate that Google could be making half a billion dollars from the practice of “typosquatting” because its network of display ads—from which it receives a share of the profits—run on these “hijacked” sites. Wikipedia says typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly “brandjacking,” which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser.

In their book Comedy Writing Secrets, Mel Helitzer and Mark Shatz showed how some newspaper bloopers form serendipitous puns From

By Michael R. Sisak & Michael Balsamo | The Associated Press

The Ootlewah Times (Tennessee): “Our paper carried the notice last week that Mr. Herman Jones is a defective in the police force. This was a typographical error. Mr. Jones, of course, is a detective in the police farce.”

From a newspaper ad: “Employment Wanted: Manure woman requires work.”

From a newspaper headline: “Human brian is still evolving, says scientist.” (The brain can’t teach the eyes to spot typos like this).

Here are typos from the article “Typo: Examples of Typographical Errors” written by Richard Nordquist for thoughtco.com:

Frozen panties

“T HE T ypo of the Year award went to Reuters for this in 2005: ‘Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties that may be contaminated with E.coli.’ (Read ‘patties,’ presumably.)” (Martin Cutts, Oxford Guide to Plain English, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2009)

A pricey typo

“PENGUIN Group Australia turns over $120 million a year from printing words but a one-word misprint has cost it dearly. The publishing company was forced to pulp and reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week after a recipe called for ‘salt and freshly ground Black people’— instead of pepper—to be added to the spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto. The exercise will cost Penguin $20,000, the head of publishing, Bob Sessions, said. At $3,300 a letter, it’s a pricey typo.” (Rachel Olding, “Penguin Reprints Book, Peppered With an Error, Wants It Taken With Grain of Salt.” The Sydney Morning Herald, April 17, 2010)

And the worst typo ever? Probably The Times’s write-up of the opening of Waterloo Bridge by the Prince Re-

gent on June 18, 1817, when, due to a stray vowel, the report claimed that ‘The Royal party then pissed over the bridge.’ The entire composing-room staff was (reportedly) sacked the next day.” (John Walsh, “btw.” The Independent, July 26, 2008)

Billboards are large outdoor advertising structures. As these giant installations typically found in hightraffic areas use big fonts, one would assume they are free of typos. Turns out they are not, as these funny billboard mistakes from bmediagroup. com demonstrate:

Eccept the Challenge

Sneaky errors New US prisons chief pledges truth, reform for ailing system

strike and roughed up by a special tactical team.

I’M hoping this was the result of “let our students change the marquee” day. If not then this elementary school has probably very few future spelling bee champions.

A Mistake on Pupose ONE has to wonder whether the banner on the bottom was added after the fact or whether this was done intentionally. We missed it the first time too.

These sneaky errors should remind us that proofreading our work is incredibly important. In the age of social media, typos could go viral and bring an awful lot of unwanted publicity.

WASHINGTON—The

outsider brought in to reform the ailing federal Bureau of Prisons pledged Monday to hold accountable any employees who sexually assault inmates, reform archaic hiring practices and bring new transparency to an agency that has long been a haven of secrecy and cover-ups.

Colette Peters detailed her vision in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, her first since becoming director nearly three months ago.

She said she wants to reorient the agency’s recruiting and hiring practices to find candidates who want to “change hearts and minds” and end systemic abuse and corruption. She would not rule out closing problematic prisons, though there are no current plans to do so.

As Oregon’s prison director, Peters developed the “Oregon Way” of running prisons, which aims to transform “environments inside correctional facilities to be more normal and humane,” according to the state prisons’ website. She oversaw sharp drops in Oregon’s inmate population.

Skeptics within the federal prison system’s rank and file have derided her approach as “hug a thug.” Peters didn’t mind that but offered a different term: “chocolate hearts.”

Peters said her ideal prison worker is as interested in preparing inmates for returning to society after their sentences as they are in keeping order while those inmates are still locked within the prison walls.

rivalries between jailed gang members. He raised doubts about claims of arbitrary detentions. It is very hard, he said, for a mother to admit her son was a gang member or collaborated with them.

Gallegos said he expected the state of exception will continue for another six months -- long enough, he said, to lock up all the 30,000 gang members he believes remain at large.

They should be kept behind bars

“Our job, as you’ve heard me say before, is not to make good inmates. It’s to make good neighbors,” Peters said. “They’re coming back to our communities, and so we need to hire the right people on the front end with that kind of thinking to help us do that.” It’s a departure from the agency’s previous recruiting model that stressed the law enforcement aspects of the job. Peters’ approach is similar to how prisons are run in Norway, where the focus behind bars is more on rehabilitation and promoting a humane approach.

But Peters acknowledges major hurdles to reforming the Justice Department’s largest agency, a behemoth of more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion.

Peters has visited three federal prisons so far as director.

Two have been sources of the agency’s biggest controversies: a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California, where the warden and several other employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates, and the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon, where inmates say they were denied showers during a hunger

for as long as possible, said Gallegos, who is also a proponent of the death penalty. “They can’t be rehabilitated, there’s no reinsertion.”

Henry Joya lived in a single room in Luz, a San Salvador neighborhood notorious for its gangs. Henry and Jesús had been there for some 35 years, and Henry was a well-known figure, polite and friendly. Neighbors would give him small sums for taking out their trash and cleaning their

On Tuesday she’s scheduled to visit US Penitentiary Atlanta with one of the agency’s most vocal critics in Congress, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. Ossoff’s committee has been investigating the agency and clashed with her predecessor, Michael Carvajal.

Peters in the interview pointedly acknowledged the agency is facing a massive staffing crisis that is at the center of its myriad issues, which Carvajal had refused to do.

Low staffing has hampered responses to emergencies and slowed the implementation of the First Step Act, a criminal justice overhaul championed by Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

“We are looking for people who want to change hearts and minds, who want to make good neighbors and safety and security is a top priority,” Peters said. “And so that is a paradigm shift, and I hope it’s one that recruits the right people.”

Peters said the staffing crisis, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, has only worsened as the agency looks for new ways to recruit officers and retain its staff. A 2021 AP investigation found nearly onethird of federal correctional officer positions were vacant, forcing prisons to use cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates.

Now, the Bureau of Prisons finds itself not only competing with other law enforcement agencies and corporate employers, but with fast food

yards. Jesús Joya paid $50 a month for Henry’s room in a modest boardinghouse on a narrow alley where he said he made sure there were no gang members. Two days before Henry’s arrest, Jesús had talked to him about the state of exception and warned him to stay inside. “Be really careful, go to bed early,” Jesús said. Henry said he would only go to work.

A neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of at-

restaurants offering signing bonuses. In some cities, the biggest hurdle has been huge cost of living burdens. And in rural communities, the agency has struggled to find many qualified applicants. Peters also vowed to have zero tolerance for any employee who abuses their position or sexually abuses inmates in their care.

“We need to continue to hold people accountable, let people see and understand that if you engage in this type of egregious activity, you’re going to prison,” she said.

A year ago, the Justice Department took the bold step of closing one of its more troubled facilities: the crumbling Manhattan jail where financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in 2019. Peters says the agency has yet to determine if the jail, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, will reopen—a task that would require a pricey structural overhaul. She also isn’t ruling out closing more prisons as repair bills pile up and inmate populations shift.

“We will always be analyzing the infrastructure,” Peters said. “We have billions of dollars in back-loaded infrastructure repairs that need to happen at all of our institutions. At some point there’s a return on investment where there’s just the cost of repairing them are too high.”

AP reporting has revealed rampant sexual abuse and other criminal conduct by staff, dozens of escapes, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies.

tracting police attention, said he heard three loud knocks on the door to Henry’s building on the night of April 19. On the fourth, someone shouted “Police!”

The neighbor glimpsed police and soldiers. Henry did not put up any resistance and the neighbor heard him say nothing as he was led away.

By the time Jesús ran up the hill from his house, the police and Henry were gone.

₧2.5-B sweetened beverage taxes at risk from sugar lack

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

IF industrial beverage makers fail to get sugar for their operations, the government could lose as much as P2.5 billion per month in taxes from sweetened beverages under Republic Act 10963 or the TRAIN Law, according to the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

With this, Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda suggested that industri al users be allowed to import at least 200,000 metric tons more of refined sugar, “at more realistic schedules.”

“Jobs are on the line. Taxes are on the line. Growth is on the line, if industrial users are unable to get their sugar. Consumers can shift from refined to raw sugar, or even shift preferences altogether to oth er alternatives. But industrial us ers always need high-grade refined sugar,” Salceda said on Tuesday.

From 21 days’ worth of inventory, the economist-lawmaker said bever

age makers only have around four days’ worth of inventory at a time.

“They usually operate at 21 days’ worth of inventory. If they are unable to procure sugar from the 150,000 MT sugar import order of the SRA, we’re going to see more work stoppages. Beverage plants can only produce their zero-sugar or ‘diet’ varieties. That doesn’t ac count for much of the demand,” Salceda added.

Salceda explained that his com mittee was expecting P37 billion in sweetened beverage taxes if the sugar crisis had not hit.

He said that as restaurants begin

to reopen more widely, and as the economy returns to a greater sense of normalcy, demand for sweetened beverages is growing.

Companies, however, are at seri ous risk of being completely unable to meet demand because they can not import directly and are forced to make do with “whatever amount of refined sugar they can get from traders,” he said.

“They have to make do with vol umes like 9,000 MT from individual traders. That may sound like a lot. But that’s one or two days of peak production at these beverage mak ers,” he added.

Salceda also took to task the Sugar Regulatory Administration’s “pro-rated” system of allocating sugar import orders.

“Pro-rated based on what, ex actly? I was not able to get an an swer to this when the Committee on Agriculture and Food held hearings on the sugar issue,” added Salceda, who is also vice chairman of the agriculture and food committee.

Earlier this month, the SRA had to amend its sugar import order to allow late arrivals of imports to come in.

“The SRA issues an import or der, allocated to some random set of traders, and then it sets a deadline, so all the sugar has to arrive all at

once. That further increases prices of sugar, because then we have to take care of so much warehousing,” he said.

“Here’s my proposal, which the House Committee on Ways and Means will forward at the appropri ate time: Make import allocations pro-rated based on excise tax pay ments, so that we have some empiri cal basis for the allocation. It’s also an incentive for bottler companies to pay their taxes right. If you don’t pay your taxes right, you don’t get enough sugar,” the solon added.

The lawmaker said reliable and cheap sugar supply is the future of the country’s food and agriculture processing sector.

“And then we set the arrival schedule more realistically, say ev ery month or every quarter, rather than all at once, so our industrial users don’t have to shoulder un necessary warehousing costs due to the imports having to arrive all at once,” he said.

“If you don’t have cheap sugar, you won’t have a big food process ing sector. We’ll be forced to im port products with sugar anyway, like we do 3-in-1 coffee. And they won’t produce jobs here. We won’t produce value-added for farmers. Being import-averse is the worst option in this case,” he added.

VP SARA DENIES DEPED PLAN TO REBRAND ‘ML’ INTO ‘NEW SOCIETY’

VICE President and Education Secretary Sara Z. Duterte has denied reported plans to re brand Martial Law as the “New soci ety, saying the Department of Edu cation (DepEd) is not in the business of “erasing these facts and replacing them with something else.”

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Duterte stressed that the terms New Society/Bagong Lipunan and Martial Law are both “historical facts” and the DepEd has no intention to twist them around in order to change the narra tives of the era of dictatorship in the seventies and eighties.

“Katulad ng milyon-milyon nating mga kapwa Pilipino, alam ko po ang ka halagaan ng Martial Law at Edsa Revo lution sa ating kasaysayan bilang isang bansa [Just like millions of Filipinos, I know the significance of Martial Law and the Edsa Revolution],” Duterte said.

In fact, she said, when she was young she couldn’t even count the number of yel low pages that she was able to cut out into confetti, for the regular “Yellow Friday Movement” demonstrations led by her grandmotherSoledadDuterteinDavaoCity.

It appears, she added, that she had contributed more to the movement against Martial Law than those who are making some noises now.

“Bilang Education Secretary, wala po sa aking mandato ang pagsira sa integridad  ng ating kasaysayan [As Education Secretary, it is not within my mandate to destroy the credibility of our history],” she said.

She said the DepEd is busy with programs aimed to raise the quality of basic education in the country, and has no time for historical revisionism that anti-Marcos groups—but also academics—are warning against. The concern grew after the late president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s son, Ferdinand

Jr., won the May 2022 elections by a landslide and said he wanted to serve Filipinos while redeeming the name of his father, who declared martial law in 1972 and imposed one-man rule for 14 years. He was ousted in the bloodless 1986 Edsa revolt, and the Marcos fam ily flew to exile in the United States.

Duterte made the clarification af ter minority senator Risa Hontiveros called on the DepEd to focus on im proving quality of education rather than be engaged in historical revision ism . https://businessmirror .com. ph/2022/10/25/deped-cautionedon-rebranding-of-fm-era-ml-tonew-society/

The vice president said, however, “The terms New Society/Bagong Lipu nan and Martial Law are both historical facts. It is a historical fact that New So ciety refers to the program launched by former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. during his administration. She added, “And it is another historical fact that Martial Law refers to the 14-year rule of the former President [Ferdinand Marcos Sr.].” She said both terms have been used in DepEd textbooks “since 2000—within their proper context.”

“DepEd is not in the business of erasing these facts and replacing them with something else,” Duterte reiterated as she cited that the  social media post of a learner in Marinduque showing the DepEd module using “New Society,” only focused on one line and not the whole page of the said module.  This, she said, may be used by the critics of DepEd in spreading lies about rebranding and historical revisionism.

“Ang buong pahina ay malinaw na tumatalakay sa mahabang panahon ng batas militar o Martial Law at ng Edsa Revolu tion [The whole page clearly discussed the long period of Martial Law and Edsa Revolution],” she added.ClaudethMocon-Ciriaco

Govt to merge travel arrival procedures, assures BOQ exec

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo

@akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror

THE separate entry requirements of differ ent government agencies are being merged to help avoid the confusion and long queues by passengers arriving at the country’s airports from abroad.

This was the assurance made by Bureau of Quar antine (BOQ) Director III Dr. Roberto M. Salvador in a Viber message to the BusinessMirror : “The pur pose of the e-arrival card is to merge the system of the CIQ (Customs, Immigration, Quarantine). There are still ongoing discussions at the technical working group headed by the DOH (Department of Health), and whose members are from the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology), BOQ, BI (Bureau of Immigration), DOT (Depart ment of Tourism), DOH, [Bureau of] Customs, and DOJ (Department of Justice).”  Said TWG is a unit of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The BOQ official responded to renewed complaints from passengers arriving from abroad at the Ninoy Aqui no International Airport that the new e-arrival card, which replaces the One Health Pass, has not made their lives easier. They still have to endure long queues at the airport, as there are separate lines for the scanning of the QR code received after filling up the e-arrival card online, and for the Immigration check of their pass port. (See, “Still long queues at the airport, despite e-arrival card system,” in the BusinessMirror , October 25, 2022.)

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has repeatedly said he wants tourism to be a key driver of the economy. Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Fra sco also mentioned the new e-arrival card among the measures that would ease the entry of travelers into the country.

From February 10 to October 16, government re corded some 1.77 tourist arrivals, of which close to 72 percent were foreign nationals. The bulk of tourists, especially balikbayans (homecoming Filipinos), arrive during the Christmas season until February.

Airport queues are ‘normal’ MEANWHILE , Salvador said, “With BOQ, we fully sup port the project that only one e-arrival card and one scanning [of the QR code] can be used by the traveler.” He could not say what exactly were the challenges in merging the system. Prior to the pandemic, however, any passenger arriving from abroad only had to manu ally fill up an arrival card and submit this along with his passport to the Immigration counter.

Salvador also said queues at the airport terminals were “normal because of the overlapping flights. More

than three flights arrive at the same time at the small concourse of the airport in terminals 1, 2, and 3. When they leave the plane, they have to line up to pass by the BOQ booth.”

He added, “If they comply with the e-arrival card and QR code, it will not take more than 5 seconds at the BOQ booth for their QR code to be scanned by the system.”

Traveler Divine Recio, who arrived on October 21 and shared with this paper the photos and videos of the long queues upon arrival at Naia1, said it was only their flight that arrived that time of the evening.

Asked if it was possible for BOQ to assign more per sonnel to man the kiosks for QR scanning, Salvador said, “Yes, we have already requested from the mother unit for additional HRH (Human Resources for Health) so we can increase the personnel on the ground. We have to wait for the budget for this. At present, we are be ing augmented by the PCG (Philippine Coast Guard) to help in the airport process.”

PASSENGERS arriving at the Naia-1 from Singapore on the evening of October 21, wait their turn to get their QR code scanned by the BOQ/ Philippine Coast Guard. Travelers still have to line up separately for their passports to get checked by Immigration officers.

IMAGE CREDIT DIVINE RECIO

Wilcon income gets boost from construction rebound

By VG Cabuag @villygc

Wilcon Depot inc. on Tuesday said its income in January to September jumped by 59 percent to P2.96 billion from last year’s P1.86 billion mainly on higher business volume and the increased contribution of higher margin products.

net sales totaled p24.72 billion for the nine-month period, up by 23 percent from last year’s p20.24 billion.

The company said the increase is mainly attributable to the growth in comparable sales which reached 15 percent. Metro Manila stores led

the turnaround since these were the ones most affected by covid surges and the corresponding restrictions last year. Six new depots and one Home essentials were opened so far this year.

“Wilcon once again delivers a ban-

ner quarter going from strength to strength coming off a stellar second quarter. The complete turnaround of our stores from the slight slump in the third quarter of last year, propelled comparable sales growth,” said Wilcon president and ceo Lorraine Belo- cincochan.

“This is the re-opening scenario that we hoped to happen last year but was stymied by the Delta variant surge. A lot more private construction has indeed resumed this year, particularly those that were delayed due to mobility restrictions and lack of manpower, inflation notwithstanding.”

net income for the third quarter alone reached p1.1 billion, higher by 77 percent from last year’s p622.13 million, driven by higher sales and expansion of gross profit margin partly offset by the increase in op-

erating expenses.

net sales totaled p8.78 billion, 32 percent higher than the previous year’s p6.69 billion.

comparable sales grew by 23 percent driven mainly by the recovery of Metro Manila stores, which were the hardest hit by covid-19 restrictions in the last year. The balance of the increase was contributed by sales from new stores. For the quarter, four new stores were opened bringing to 80 total number of stores at the close of the quarter.

“With the resilience shown by our mature stores, we will focus on further enhancing their performance for the rest of the year and especially for the succeeding years. We also still have one new store to be opened this fourth quarter and we expect to have opened eight stores by the end of this year,” cincochan said.

CDI rescinds bid to cut ref tariffs to zero

By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan

Concepcion Durables i n c. (c D i ) has withdrawn its petition to reduce the duty on refrigerators to zero percent, according to the Tariff c o mmission (T c ) n o tice is hereby given that the petition filed by c o ncepcion Durables i n c. (c D i ) to reduce 0 percent the [most favored nation] MF n rate of duty on Refrigerators (classified under AHT n 2022 Subheading n o s. 8418.10.31, 8418.10.32, 8418.10.39 and 8418.21.10), pursuant to Section 1608 of Republic Act n o 10863, otherwise known as the c u stoms Modernization and Tariff Act (c M TA), has been withdrawn [T c i ( TM) n o . MF n 2022Refrigerators],” the T c stated in the n o tice of Withdrawal of pet ition for Tariff Modification on

Refrigerators document it issued on o c tober 14. c o nsequently, it noted, all activities relating to the investigation of the petition by the Tariff body will be discontinued including the public hearing which was initially scheduled on o c tober 27. o n September 5, a notice of conduct of investigation was issued by the c o mmission, ordering the interested parties to submit to the Tariff body their comments, inputs, and/or positions on the aforesaid petition for tariff modification on or before September 30, which was 14 days before the Tariff body released the notice of withdrawal petition.

c D i offering domestic refrigeration products and services, is among the six subsidiaries of c o ncepcion i n dustrial c o rp. (c ic ), an air conditioning and refrigeration firm in the p h ilippines.

The aircon and refrigerator

Santiago returns to PPA

F o R M e R ports chief Jay Daniel Santiago has been reappointed by p r esident Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as the General Manager of the p h ilippine p o rts Authority ( p pA ).

Santiago said he is “humbled” by his reappointment, noting that he will focus on infrastructure development as well as his increasing service levels in the agency.

i am deeply humbled…We commit to his e x cellency our unrelenting effort and determination to improve and bring our ports to even greater heights, both in terms of services and infrastructure, with special focus on his mandate for digitalization of port operations and management for greater port efficiency, more reasonable logistics cost and enhanced comfort and safety for our countrymen,” Santiago said.

He replaces p pA officer-incharge general manager Francisquiel Mancile.

Santiago was the head of the p pA during the administration of former p r esident Rodrigo Duterte.

He was the former general counsel of the p h ilippine Amusement and Gaming c o rp. prior to his appointment as head of the

ports authority.

Santiago earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities from the University of the p h ilippines and obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from the same institution. p r ior to his appointment as head of the p pA during the Duterte administration, Santiago also served as the senior and managing partner of Feria Tantoco Robeniol Santiago, specializing in corporate and commercial law, particularly in the areas of banking and finance, securities regulation, telecommunications and new technologies, tax, immigration, and general business advisory.

e s tablished in 1974 by p r esidential Decree n o . 505, the p pA i s the primary government agency responsible for the planning, development, and operation of the country’s ports or port districts.

Lorenz S. Marasigan

firm operates principally through 6 subsidiaries-- c o ncepcion- c a rrier Airconditioning c o c o ncepcion Durables i n c., c o ncepcion Midea i n c. p h ilippines, c o ncepcion o t is p h ilippines i n c., c o ncepcion Business Services i n c., and c o rtex Technologies c o rp. c ic has 100 percent ownership over the refrigeration line. The brands under c D i are c o ndura and Kelvinator. This subsidiary has an allied partnership with the e l ectrolux brand.

Meanwhile, c ic has 60 percent ownership over its air conditioning line, the c o ncepcion c a rrier Air c o nditioning c o . (c A c p) i t h as formed an allied partnership with c a rrier c o rp., which has been one of the leading global manufacturers and marketers of heating,ventilating, and air conditioning.

The aircon line of c ic carries some of the famous brands in the market such as c a rrier, Toshiba, c o ndura and Kelvinator.

Converge expands local fiber network

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

@lorenzmarasigan

In T e R n e T service provider c o nverge i c T Solutions i n c. said its fiber network has extended to roughly 600,000 kilometers, a move the “strengthens its position as the country’s leading pure fiber network provider.” c o nverge c eo and c o -Founder Dennis Anthony Uy said the group is committed to be “aggressive” in investing in the expansion of its fiber footprint to provide access to more Filipinos, while building redundancy into its network.

“Fulfilling our commitment to reach the unserved and underserved, we are continuously expanding and strengthening our fiber network to serve the strong demand for reliable and accessible internet,” Uy said.

He added: “We are glad that we are on track to achieve our targets

for 2022, and for the final quarter of the year, we are looking forward to more promising developments in terms of our fiber rollout.” c o nverge also reported to have installed over 1.7 million fiber ports across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao in the same period including augmentation in existing coverage areas and expansion to new cities and municipalities.

Recently, c o nverge laid out more than 600,000 fiber ports in Visayas and Mindanao—twice of its previous 300,000 ports rolled out by the end of 2021. previously, converge had expanded its coverage to more than 13.5 million homes, which, it claims, “makes it one of the country’s most advanced and extensive cable systems despite being the youngest.”

o o kla named c o nverge as the top-rated fixed network in the p h ilippines in the first half of the year.

Entrepreneur

Growsari pushes ‘cashless society’ by enabling ‘sari-sari’ stores to accept QR digital payments

PHL resto biz on the mend with loosening of Covid curbs

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio Contributor

THE local restaurant industry is on the rebound with the expected launching of new brands in the dining horizon.

Italian-American food chain Bistro Group is bullish on the local restaurant industry as the economy starts to open up after experiencing an economic slowdown in the past two and a half years.

As a sign of confidence in the economy, the Bistro Group recently opened the first Olive Garden restaurant in the Philippines at the Mall of Asia. A partnership between Darden Restaurants and the Bistro Group, Olive Garden  seeks to bring to the local market their world-famous cuisine.

Darden Restaurants Senior Vice President of Franchising Bradley Smith said that the secret to Olive Garden’s success across their over 900 locations worldwide is their commitment to their brand strategy.

“We certainly took considerations from the Bistro Group and their team if we needed to make very slight adjustments to our recipes. However,  we want to keep it as true to the brand as possible. It has been very widely received across the world because our customers understand that it is an Italian-American concept  so they want to have that experience,” Smith added.

Baloch, whose role includes making sure that the brand’s culture is consistent in all their branches says that Olive Garden’s spirit of warmth and generosity blends very well with Filipino hospitality. “I have been so impressed with the Filipino staff and I think what this culture is all about is a perfect match.”

Olive Garden plans to open more branches in the Philippines through its valued partnership with The Bistro Group. “We are happy to partner with them because they are  great restaurant operators, they know the system, they have access to real estate and they meet core values and culture at Darden.”

For his part, Bistro Group President Jean Paul Manuud said the company is optimistic that the entry of Olive Garden in the local restaurant business will be a welcome development  “We know that this concept will be very well accepted by Filipinos, not only for those who have enjoyed the restaurant abroad, but also those who will experience it for the first time, because we are introducing a new value proposition through our endless soup, salad, and breadsticks along with other bestsellers, not to mention, the Bistro brand of service. This fits very well with how we like to share our meals with family and friends.”

Smith pointed out that he is positive about the continued growth of the F&B industry in the new normal.

“We have seen it in the US first, then Canada, and other countries around the world as they start opening back up. The guests were fine using delivery and takeaway during the pandemic but people in general want to get out and socialize with their friends and family and a big part of that is food. We want to be able to go out and eat, share food, and have a good experience again.”

Growsari, the leading B2B ordering and store solution platform in the Philippines, is pioneering financial inclusion to reach the broader micro, small and medium enterprises (MsME) and Filipino consumers by outfitting the smallest of retail outlets, or sari-sari stores , to accept digital payments through their Growsari app.

Small physical retail sectors have always been underrepresented and underbanked, mainly because they are technologically-marginalized and logistically difficult to organize as a group.

And with the pandemic accelerating the shift to digital, store owners are feeling the pressure to adjust to the new landscape. However, Growsari continues to bridge the gap between financial institutions and sari-sari stores by rolling out Universal PH QR codes, in partnership with Instapay-approved member institutions.

Quick Response, or QR technology, involves a safe and secure payment method and benefits customers through faster, easier and cheaper payment options with greater convenience.

Through Growsari, sari-sari stores can now accept digital payments from their customers (sukis), making them more competitive and leveling the playing field between small and large retail stores Sukis just need to look for the Sariclub QR code displayed in the front of the neighborhood store, and scan to pay using their preferred bank or wallet.

Growsari’s Head of Financial Services, Sandeep Bhalla, shares his excitement on the launch of QR digital payments to the grassroots level. “We are pleased to show support for BSP’s (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) initiative for a cashless society through QRPH to our market. This also strengthens Growsari’s commitment to assist MSMEs to adapt to the age of digitalization and to modernize their store operations.”

DTI and partners launch 2nd in-line Go Lokal! store at UP Town Center

local MSMEs.”

By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28 Contributor

Each transaction paid by suki to the store will be instantly available on the store’s wallet in the Growsari app, and all transaction receipts and records are easily accessible. By driving digital payments, Growsari is educating and enabling store owners to track their daily earnings and minimize errors on balancing their manual cash ledgers.

“We are entering into a new normal after the pandemic. And Growsari is building a digital ecosystem which is inclusive and easy to understand for the millions of mom-and-pop stores in the country. We are confident the initiative will facilitate better store management and an efficient digital payments gateway to the local communities,” explains Bhalla.

All digital payments received through the QR code are credited on their Growsari merchant wallet that can be used seamlessly for all other Growsari transactions such as ordering FMCG (fast-moving cnsumer goods) and E-service products like load, bills or wallet top-ups without the restrictive limits of personal wallets.

“Malaki tulong talaga ang Growsari para makasabay kami sa panahon ngayon. Pwede na kami tumanggap ng bayad sa QR na pupunta sa aming

Growsari wallet na pwedeng ibayad sa iba’t ibang supplier. Mas malaki din ang mga transaksyon limits ng Growsari kumpara sa personal kong apps,” says by a Growsari user and sari-sari store owner, Yvonne Bautista.

(Growsari is helping us sari-sari stores catch-up to the times. We can already accept payments through QR codes, which goes directly to our Growsari wallet that we can use to pay other suppliers. There are also higher transaction limits in Growsari compared to my other personal apps.)

And to fully help stores in adapting and using Digital wallets in app, field agents visit stores frequently to facilitate instant top ups for store owners who don’t have any bank accounts.

“At kung mahirapan kami may mga ahente na bumibisita. Malaking pasasalamat talaga namin sa Growsari Naiintindihan nila ang mga pangangailangan naming tindera,” adds Bautista happily.

(There are agents on standby to teach us as well. We are really grateful for Growsari. They understand what we, the store owners, need.)

Growsari has begun to install QR PH codes across their network this October 2022, and is targeting to have 200,000 sari-sari stores to start accepting QR PH payments by 2023.

TIMELY

to the economy’s reopening with the easing pandemic curbs in the country, the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Go Lokal! program has opened its second in-line store at Ayala Malls UP Town Center in Quezon City.

Together with Common Room PH, it carries within its more than a hundred-square meter retail area over 200 homegrown micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) products, including 28 Go Lokal! food, home and wellness, and arts and crafts brands, as well as the former’s 22 brands that offer collections from the latter.

The store was two years in the making, after the first outlet in Katipunan was affected when Covid-19 hit the country in 2020, recalled Ma. Roma Agsunod, owner of Common Room PH and Go Lokal! store operator.

“And the only reason we were able to return [was] because we know that we don’t have to do it alone. We did it because of the help of DTI’s Go Lokal! and UP Town Center who gave us this home,” she said during the kick off event held last October 19.

Introduced by the trade agency in collaboration with select retail partners, Go Lokal! is a free-market access platform for small-scale entrepreneurs. Since its launch in December 2016, this program has tied up with 24 retailers, rolled out 156 stores nationwide, and assisted 863 MSMEs, of which 414 were already mainstreamed and have become regular suppliers of partner retailers. It has so far generated P457 million in sales as of April 2022.

“Our partnerships with the private sector have been instrumental in promoting the products of local MSMEs and helping them recover amidst the Covid-19 pandemic,” noted DTI-Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) Supervising Assistant Secretary Glenn G. Peñaranda.

“The opening of Go Lokal’s second in-line store here at UP Town Center allows us to continue our mandate in giving equal market access and sustainable business models to our

According to Ayala Malls Cluster Head Pivi Diaz, it has always been their advocacy to nurture and back up local social enterprises.

“Under our Alagang Ayala Land program, we provide promising startup businesses with critical market access and support through our malls,” she said, while citing their allocation of free spaces to them within their establishments is one of the company’s many initiatives in stimulating the growth of small businesses. “This is aligned with Go Lokal’s vision to help expand market access to MSMEs and create livelihood opportunities to our fellow Filipinos.”

To date, Ayala Malls has been a home to five Go Lokal! outlets. They are located in Glorietta 2, Ayala Center Cebu, and Abreeza Mall in Davao City. The first in-line store with Common Room PH is in Ayala Malls Manila Bay, followed by the newest sophomore branch in Ayala Malls UP Town Center.

“I’m happy to hear that Ayala continued its efforts to promote the Filipino products to the local mainstream market. This partnership with Ayala Land Inc. is definitely helping the DTI’s advocacy for MSME development and inclusive economic growth,” Senator Mark Villar said in a recorded message.

“To Common Room PH, partner of in-line store and operator for Go Lokal in Ayala Malls in Manila Bay and here in Ayala Malls UP Town Center, thank you for being one with the DTI in supporting Philippine MSMEs and promoting the works of local artists and makers in the mainstream local market,” he added.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship filed last August 11 Senate Bill 1124, an act providing for an enhanced market access, mainstreaming, and promotion platform for Philippine MSMEs through the institutionalization of the Go Lokal! program.

“We hope that in the coming years, Go Lokal! will have more opportunities to build lasting relationships with the private sector and unlock new markets for our local MSMEs. I hope that this milestone event serves as an inspiration for

both the government and private sector to continuously work together to support local small businesses for the betterment of the Filipino people,” Villar stressed.

Expansion amid pandemic GO Lokal! keeps on reaching a wider market in spite of the ensuing health crisis.

“We look forward to [opening] three more soon,” Diaz told the BusinessMirror in a sideline interview, while declining to elaborate further details on their planned expansion, except for their locations being in Trinoma, Quezon City; Alabang Town Center, Muntinlupa; and Market! Market! in Taguig City.

Hoping to maintain and strengthen their partnership with the upcoming Go Lokal! stores in Ayala Malls, Peñaranda bared their plan to establish such in hotels, airports, and tourist centers.

Per the DTI-EMB supervising assistant secretary, who also serves as the officer-in-charge of the Trade Promotions Group, this will complement the Department of Tourism’s program.

“As we open up the economy, there are a lot of people who want to travel. So we want to partner with them. As they promote the destinations, it’s a good opportunity to also promote the products from these destinations,” he said.

Apart from the Go Lokal!, he also revealed their expansion of the One Town, One Product (OTOP) project to provincial in scope. OTOP is a priority stimulus initiative where products rooted in local culture, resources and competitive advantage are determined, curated, developed, supported and marketed.

“Maybe the province can think of the products they can highlight [as a] starting point. Once the products improve [and become] acceptable to the mainstream [market], then it will go up to Go Lokal! and, then, in other programs of DTI like the national trade fairs and later on international trade fairs. What we want is for entrepreneurs with good products, as they grow, they can graduate from being small to medium and their market reach from local to national and, hopefully, global,” Peñaranda explained.

PCCIJ, delegates visit 1st and only Japan-accredited Philippine meat processing facility in Pampanga

DELEGATES from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan (PCCIJ) and officials of the Embassy of the PhilippinesTokyo recently visited the Mekeni Food Corporation’s headquarters in Pampanga.

The group, led by PCCIJ Chairman Allan Reyes and Agricultural Attaché Jose I.C. Laquian, went to Mekeni for a tour of the facility to gain a better understanding of the food manufacturing process and to know more about Mekeni’s biosecurity measures.

Mekeni, a home-grown brand that is starting to strengthen its international market, is the first heat-treated meat processing facility accredited by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the first and only meat processing facility in the Philippines to be accredited by the Japanese government to export products to the country.

Mekeni is also one of the pioneers in food safety and quality in the Philippines. It is the first in Asia and second in the world to be certified compliant with

ISO 22000, and the first hotdog and marinated meat processing plant in the Philippines to be accorded certification for FSSC 22000.

These milestone accreditations demonstrate that Mekeni meets the highest and globally recognized standards of the food safety management system.

PCCIJ aims to further develop and advance the relationship between the Philippines and Japan through partnerships and trade. The visit gave a glimpse of how Mekeni is at par with global organizations in terms of food safety and quality.

“It is an honor to host our delegates and show some of the processes that we have in place,” said Mekeni President Prudencio Garcia. “We hope that they learned from us, and we look forward to working with PCCIJ in the future.”

Garcia was joined by Assistant Vice President (AVP) for Human Resources and Exports Marilou Uy, AVP for Manufacturing Hope Ulibarri, and AVP for Marketing Kat GomezSchultz.

A

DeleGAtes of PCCIJ and embassy of the Philippines-tokyo pose for souvenir snapshot with Mekeni executives during their visit at Mekeni's headquarters in Pampanga. Mekeni is the first and only meat processing company authorized by the Japanese government to export products to the country.

Banking&Finance

BTr raises ₧26.139B from bonds sale

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

THE national government bit the bullet on Tuesday to raise P26.139 billion in Treasury bonds (T-bonds) as investors demanded higher yield in anticipation of another rate hike by monetary authorities.

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) awarded three-fourths of its P35billion T-bond offering that had a remaining life of 12 years and 11 months.

The auction saw average yield settling at 7.887 percent, 65.4 basis points (bps) higher than the 7.233

percent Bloomberg Valuation (BVAL) Service Reference Rate for 15-year T-bond.

Investors’ asking rates ranged from a low of 7.625 percent to a high of 8.0 percent.

Tuesday’s auction was oversubscribed as total tenders amounted to

P46.988 billion, nearly a third higher than the total amount offered by the Treasury.

National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon said investors asked for higher rates following recent statements by Central Bank Governor Felipe M. Medalla and Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno of a looming rate hike next month.

“Decent demand but bids higher; taking cue from statements of the BSP [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas] Governor [and the Finance Secretary] on aggressive rate hikes this year,” De Leon told reporters after the auction.

This month, the Philippine government aims to raise P200 billion from the sale of debt papers. The amount covers P60 billion worth of T-bills and P140 billion worth of Treasury bonds.

For the whole year, the govern-

US Federal Reserve is losing billions, erasing profits that funded spending

ment is set to borrow a total of P2.21 trillion, of which 75 percent will be sourced locally while the remaining 25 percent will come from foreign sources.

Earlier this week, Medalla hinted that the BSP could raise interest rates by another 100 basis points (bps) this year, taking cue from the hawkishness of the US Federal Reserve.

The Central Bank Governor has said the Fed could raise interest rates by 75 bps in November and another 75 bps before the year ends. Medalla said this could merit the same response from the BSP. (Related story: https://businessmirror.com. ph/2022/10/25/bsp-chief-ratehike-to-match-feds-move/) Eh, kung dalawang 75 [bps] ang US, alangan namang dalawang 50 [bps] lang tayo [If the US raises interest rates by 75 bps, it does not make sense for us to only raise interest

rates by 50 bps],” Medalla said. “One scenario is there will be two 75s this year; [the] 75 this November [is] almost sure, for the Fed,” he added, partly in Filipino.

The BSP Chief said raising interest rates is part of the focus on the Central Bank as “persistently high” inflation remains a pebble in the country’s shoes. Medalla said this is compounded by a 50-percent chance of hitting the inflation target of 2 percent to 4 percent next year.

Earlier this month, the BSP said it is “prepared to take policy actions” to cool inflation as the latest inflation print in September averaged at 6.9 percent. It was faster than the 6.3 percent posted in August 2022 and 4.2 percent posted in September 2021. (Related story: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2022/10/06/ september-inflation-at-6-9-bspvows-policy-moves/)

Goldman, JPMorgan CEOs see recession

JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon and his Goldman Sachs counterpart David Solomon said a recession in the US and Europe is increasingly likely.

Solomon said economic conditions are going to “tighten meaningfully from here” as the Federal Reserve has made it clear it is going to raise to the path target for interest rates.

w hen there’s an economic scenario where inflation is embedded it’s very hard to get out of it without a real economic slowdown,” he said at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh. Still, Dimon said he is worried more about geopolitics. “The most important thing is the geopolitics around Russia and Ukraine, America and China, relationships of the western world,” he said. “That to me would be far more concerning than whether there’s a mild or slightly severe recession.”

PROFITS

and losses aren’t usually thought of as a consideration for central banks, but rapidly mounting red ink at the Federal Reserve and many peers risks becoming more than just an accounting oddity.

The bond market is enduring its worst selloff in a generation, triggered by high inflation and the aggressive interest-rate hikes that central banks are implementing. Falling bond prices, in turn, mean paper losses on the massive holdings that the Fed and others accumulated during their rescue efforts in recent years.

Rate hikes also involve central banks paying out more interest on the reserves that commercial banks park with them. That’s tipped the Fed into operating losses, creating a hole that may ultimately require the Treasury Department to fill via debt sales. The UK Treasury is already preparing to make up a loss at the Bank of England.

Britain’s move highlights a dramatic shift in countries including the US, where central banks are no longer significant contributors to government revenues. The US Treasury will see a “stunning swing,” going from receiving about $100 billion last year from the Fed to a potential annual loss rate of $80 billion by year-end, according to Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC.

The accounting losses threaten to fuel criticism of the asset purchase programs undertaken to rescue markets and economies, most recently when Covid-19 shuttered large swathes of the global economy in 2020. Coinciding with the current outbreak in inflation, that could spur calls to rein in monetary policy mak-

ers’ independence, or limit what steps they can take in the next crisis.

“The problem with central bank losses are not the losses per se—they can always be recapitalized—but the political backlash central banks are likely to increasingly face,” said Jerome Haegeli, chief economist at Swiss Re, who previously worked at Switzerland’s central bank.

Fed remittances owed to the US Treasury reached a negative $5.3 billion as of October 19—a sharp contrast with the positive figures seen as recently as the end of August. A negative number amounts to an IOU that would be repaid via any future income.

The Reserve Bank of Australia posted an accounting loss of A$36.7 billion ($23 billion) for the 12 months through June, leaving it with a A$12.4 billion negative-equity position.

Dutch central bank Governor Klaas Knot, warned last month he expects cumulative losses of about 9 billion euro ($8.8 billion) for the coming years.

The Swiss National Bank reported a loss of 95.2 billion francs ($95 billion) for the first six months of the year as the value of its foreignexchange holdings slumped—the worst first-half performance since it was established in 1907.

w hile for a developing country, losses at the central bank can undermine confidence and contribute to a general exodus of capital, that sort of credibility challenge isn’t likely for a rich nation.

As Seth Carpenter, chief global economist for Morgan Stanley and a former US Treasury official put it: “The losses don’t have a material ef-

fect on their ability to conduct monetary policy in the near term.”

RBA Deputy Governor Michele Bullock said in response to a question last month about the Australian central bank’s negative-equity position that “we don’t believe that we are impacted at all in our capacity to operate.” After all, “we can create money. That’s what we did when we bought the bonds,” she noted.

But there can still be consequences. Central banks had already become politically charged institutions after, by their own admission, they failed to anticipate and act quickly against budding inflation over the past year or more. Incurring losses adds another magnet for criticism.

ECB implications

FOR the European Central Bank (ECB), the potential for mounting losses comes after years of purchases of government bonds conducted despite the reservations of conservative officials arguing they blurred the lines between monetary and fiscal policy.

with inflation running at five times the ECB’s target, pressure is mounting to dispose of the bond holdings—a process called quantitative tightening that the ECB is currently preparing for even as the economic outlook darkens.

“Although there are no clear economic constraints to the central bank running losses, there is the possibility that these become more of a political constraint on the ECB,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists George Cole and Simon Freycenet said. Particularly in northern Europe, it “may fuel the discussion of quantitative tightening.” Bloomberg News

Insurers offer to shield Japan firms from losses due to parental leave

INSURERS in Japan now offer products that pay out to companies if employees go on parental leave, eyeing growing demand for such services from employers grappling with the impact of more people, particularly men, taking time off.

Two of the country’s largest property and casualty insurers, Sompo Holdings Inc. and Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. recently started selling such services. Companies that meet certain conditions set by the insurers are eligible for compensation related to hiring costs incurred should an employee take childcare leave, such as placing recruitment ads.

The number of men who take paternity leave in Japan remains low compared to other developed countries with similar benefits, but the number who do has been steadily growing amid a government push.

Philippines Joins ‘Crowdfunding’ Community

Data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and welfare show that 14 percent of fathers took paternity leave in the last fiscal year ended March 31, up from just 3 percent in 2016. Men are entitled to up to a year of parental leave in Japan. The increase in parents embracing such benefits, however, is exacerbating Japan’s long-standing labor shortage problem.

“Small- and medium-sized companies now face changes in the social environment such as labor shortages and revisions to child and nursingcare leave laws,” said wataru Kawaguchi, a deputy manager at a core unit of Tokio Marine whose team developed the product.

“Securing personnel to fill in for absent employees can become a business management issue,” said Hiroyuki Aso, a senior deputy manager at Sompo. Bloomberg News

This year’s FII event comes amid an escalating dispute over an OPEC+ decision to cut oil production that risks causing lasting damage to political relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, though wa ll Street seems unfazed. JPMorgan’s Dimon and Goldman’s Solomon are among US finance chiefs attending the conference—a showcase for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Supply chain disruptions

SAUDI Arabia is well-positioned to address supply chain disruptions, Minister of Investment Khalid AlFalih said during a panel at the FII.

The kingdom’s geography and resources including minerals as well as its openness to foreign direct investment make it a “prime location,” to address such disruptions, he said.

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman had said that it was the time to prepare for a massive project that includes special economic zones to enable the kingdom for such a role, Al-Falih said.

Riyadh and washington will work through the recent tensions in their relationship and remain allies, a senior Saudi official and JPMorgan CEO said at the conference.

“It’s a blip,” Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Investment Al-Falih said.

JPMorgan’s Dimon said earlier: “They will work it through and I’m comfortable folks on both sides are working through and these countries will remain allies going forward.”

But Dimon also warned against what he referred to as America’s “everything our way” policy amid an escalating dispute between the countries over an OPEC+ decision to cut oil production.

Adjustments, finances

‘CROwDFUNDING

provides a platform that affords mostly small businesses to get funding options and investors to participate in the growth of companies online. In the Philippines, companies can source as much as P50 million a year. Crowdfunding has also been approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a safe and sustainable form of investment.

As of May 2022, crowdfunding in the United States of America has attracted $73.6 billion, the United Kingdom $12.6 billion and Brazil $5.3 billion. Crowdfunding is also strong in Germany, Italy and France. It has even reached Africa, a continent that has surprisingly reported the highest number of entrepreneurs, mostly women.

So far, the biggest crowdfunders are Kickstarter PBC and Indiegogo Inc. for profit-oriented firms and Mightycare Solutions GmbH for nonprofit ventures.

In February 2022, the SEC approved the first permanent crowdfunding license to “Round One,” a unit of the Eastern Securities Development Corp. The latter is a stock brokerage listed at the Philippine Stock Exchange since 1977 or 45 years ago. One of the prime movers of “Round One” is Eastern Securities President Brandon P. Leong.

Investors can come in the form of equity (common and preferred), a loan or a hybrid of the two as options. Effectively, the “Round One” platform matches Filipino investors and fundraisers, stands as a payment and payout portal and maintains friendly investor relations. It

has a group of financial advisors and strives to maintain sustained education in finance to participants through webinars and the like.

In the formal launching of “Round One” at the Solaire Resort and Casino recently, some fund seekers were already announced as engaged (in varying stages) with “Round One.” The list of activities being funded is quite interesting.

In the Philippines, short of dealing with “5-6” shylocks, many small businesses have to deal with stringent bank requirements to get a loan like a three-year period of operation and/or the presence of collateral. On the other hand, small-time investors are often flooded with information for listed shares and do not get personal attention from investor relationship managers who provide upto-date financial and market data of the issuers, which crowdfunding platform can, as a matter of course. This occasion makes sense of crowdfunding.

Among the companies listed are: automates fare collection of public utility vehicles on a nationwide basis; first digital health marketplace and hub providing both online and on-site consultation and medical supplies; end-to-end management of customer real estate property and assets; and, a pioneering Filipino legal regulatory technology hub (compliance and legal matters) accelerating the ease of doing business.

Other companies include: one that builds modern web-based systems solutions for organizations, especially cooperatives; one that provides policymakers and program implementors with community correct and current data and information; and, one that provides environmentally-friendly mobility to customers and communities (schools, etc.) through bike rentals.

Other firms include one that connects buyers and suppliers in the area of discoverability, saving and enhanced sales and one that provides

the connection to affordable, independent hotels and resort getaways in the country and Southeast Asia (50 locations) and promotes coconut products.

The list is as diverse as it is challenging and provides perhaps the future “big companies,” which may later qualify for a potential IPO and a chance for ordinary Filipinos to participate in a possible potential growth of firms without being involved in their management and earning short-term dividends or interest at the same time.

The era of crowdfunding has begun in the Philippines; “Round One!” as they say in boxing.

Zoilo “Bingo” P. Dejaresco III, a former banker, is a financial consultant and media practitioner. He is a Life Member and Media Member of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (Finex). His views here, however, are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Finex and the BusinessMirror.

He could be reached via dejarescobingo@yahoo. com.

GOLDMAN CEO Solomon told the conference that world is going through a period of adjustments whether in technology or monetary polices.

“The innovation economy is alive and well. The progress that’s been made on a whole variety of fronts, whether it’s AI and quantum or med tech and advances in health care will have a profound impact on the way we live,” he said.

“ we’re going through an adjustment after a very long period of the world—at least as far as monetary policy—working a certain way.”

Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio said productivity is among his great concerns and that the printing of money is leading to overspending.

“ we’re creating unsound finances because we print a lot of money. we want to spend more money than we have,” he told the conference. Investing in productivity, in education and creating higher education that allows living standards to rise, is the way of the future, he said.

FInEx FrEE EntErprISE

Zoilo ‘Bingo’ Dejaresco III

COOPERATIVENESS This Thursday, October 20, 2022, photo shows Social Security System (SSS) President and CEO Michael G. Regino (third from left) and Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) Undersecretary and Chairman Joseph B. Encabo (fourth from left), together with SSS Cooperatives and Informal Sector Department Concurrent Acting Head and Professional Sector Department Manager III Carlo C. Villacorta (leftmost), SSS Branch Operations Sector Executive Vice President Voltaire P. Agas (second from left), CDA Assistant Secretary Myrla B. Paradillo (second from right) and CDA Legal Division Chief Jovilyn Gaffud-Marquez (rightmost), during the MOU signing ceremony held at the SSS Building in Quezon City last October 20. Photo courtesy oF social security system

What it means to lead like a woman

have enough school supplies for their schooling. She would ask for donations from fellow teachers and bring those materials all the way to Bataan. There were a lot of teachers who gave, and some would even go with her to the outreach. She was not just teaching her ideals, she was practicing them, and that made her all the more admirable. Leaders like her helped the faculty understand that their influence is not confined to the four corners of the classroom but also in the communities they live in.

WHEN I started writing this article, I realized that I have always had female leaders. It is no surprise that most of my people management skills have been learned from extraordinary and accomplished women who have taught me that the most important skill a leader needs to have is influence. Today, influence is no longer based on diplomas or position, but on how effective you are in persuading people to follow you. Today, more and more women are showing that they are better than their male counterparts.

Julia Boorstin, in her book When Women Lead: What We Achieve, Why We Succeed, What We Can Learn, proposes several pointers that can help anybody learn how to become a better leader. Based on her interview of more than 120 women, she discovered that traits traditionally considered as weaknesses in women are actually the very reason why women are better leaders than men. These traits include leading with empathy, vulnerability, a sense of community, and focus on purpose.

An important trait a leader should have is empathy, not just for their team but for their customers as well. Numerous research has shown that women are more empathetic than men, which most people dismiss as being too emotional. What people forget is that being emotional is actually what makes women more attuned to put themselves in other people’s shoes, and to think of solutions so they can help others. Leaders who lack empathy decide without thinking of how their team or their customers will be affected.

One of the most empathetic leaders I have worked with was Ermalee Hidalgo, who was the academic dean of a community college where I taught for some time. She had been with the college for some time, and she understood the different political and social dynamics at play within the organization. And even though she was bombarded with different issues and problems, she always took the time to talk to her teachers and get to know them better. Her knowledge and understanding of our own concerns and struggles helped her make decisions that would benefit the entire team and made it easier to talk to those who would be most affected by new policies. Her personal relationship with the teachers made it easier to convince them of how new policies would benefit them in the long run, while at the same she kept an open ear to their concerns.

Another trait that leaders can learn from women is vulnerability. People think that this quality is a weakness because it opens you to attacks from other people when they discover your shortcomings. But Boorstin says the opposite because she has discovered that vulnerability invites collaboration. In her book, she talks about Gwyneth Paltrow, the Academy Award-winning actress and the CEO of her own company called Goop, who would ask her people about things she did not know. This lessened the pressure on everyone to act like they should know everything and helped open communication lines so that everyone on the team is on the same page. Asking for help made it easier for people to offer help and

contribute meaningfully to the team.

Kat Valdez and Aina Castaneda were that for me when I moved from management training to corporate training. They have been doing training programs for quite some time and I knew they were experts. So, I was surprised when they asked me how we did management training in my previous organization because I felt they already had a good training program. I was more surprised when they used some of the ideas I presented, and it made me proud that I contributed to the team’s accomplishments. Later on, I discovered it was easy for them to admit they do not know everything because they are always willing to learn. This made it easier for all of us to speak our minds and helped us develop a mindset to always be learning from each other. With empathy and vulnerability, women also tend to adopt a communal approach to doing things. Because women find it easier to relate to more people, it gives them the added advantage of knowing how to rally people behind a cause. When I joined the training and development team of a hospital, Irene

Isleta led the way in breaking down the silos among the different sections of her department by instituting group activities and creating opportunities where the different groups had to work together. This helped us see members from the different sections as colleagues and helped us respect each other’s work and appreciate how everyone contributed to the success of the team.

In her book, Boorstin also discovered that more women focus on purpose alongside profits, which means that women have a higher tendency to include corporate social responsibility to their projects.

Having projects that make a positive impact to the community provides purpose and direction to your team especially when office work has become routine or repetitive. When your team understands that what you do impacts other people’s lives, they are more likely to exert more discretionary effort to perform better in their work.

One woman I looked up to when I was still a highschool teacher was Maricar Cascasan-Villafuerte. Her advocacy was helping children in her hometown

As people managers, you can learn to become more influential and trustworthy by leading like a woman. By leading with empathy, vulnerability, a sense of community, and focus on purpose, you can influence not just your team but your community as well.

Leadership knows no gender because women have a lot to teach men about what it means to be a true influence to their team. n

W. MALL OPENS DOORS TO MUNTINLUPA

THE second W.Mall opened recently in Muntinlupa, coinciding with the 30th anniversary celebration of WalterMart Supermarket. Conveniently located along the West Service Road, W.Mall Muntinlupa stays true its promise of bringing a complete and enjoyable shopping experience to the public.

Positioned to be a premium, one-stop destination for every family’s needs, W.Mall Muntinlupa offers a wide selection of anchor stores, food choices, services and wellness. The two-storey W.Mall serves the diverse Muntinlupa community with free parking to the car-riding public, and provides even more reasons for customers to love going to this newest community mall.

Major anchors include WalterMart Supermarket, known for its quality fresh produce, food-to-go and a wide array of local and international food products; and the W Department Store, where one can find fashion brands for less everyday for the entire family.

Christmas perks are in store for online shoppers using www.waltermart.com with promo code WMLOVESMUNTINLUPA for free delivery with a minimum purchase of P2000. The offer is available until December 15.

By Cecile McKee University of Arizona

HAVE you visited Yew Nork? Does your stummy ache? What dog of bag food will we get?

In case you’ve wondered what causes such speech errors or slips of the tongue, you might like to know that all speakers—of all ages and abilities—make them sometimes. Even people who use a sign language produce what some call “slips of the hand.” Slips are a common feature of language.

As a developmental psycholinguist who studies how people use language, I am interested in what speech errors tell us about the human mind. Research shows that language users store and retrieve different units of language. These include small ones like single consonants, and big ones like phrases made of several words.

ExChangEs and BlEnds of sounds and words

ONE way to think about speech errors is in terms of the linguistic units that each involves. Another way to think about them is in terms of the actions affecting these units. The “Yew Nork” slip shows consonant sounds switching places—a sound exchange. Notice

that each of the consonants is first in its own syllable. The “dog of bag food” slip shows a word exchange. Notice that both words are nouns. Vowel sounds can also switch places, as when a speaker who meant “feed the pooch” said, “food the peach.”

The “stummy” slip blends the synonyms “stomach” and “tummy.” Phrases can also blend, as in “It depends on the day of the mood I’m in.” The speaker who said this had in mind both “the day of the week” and “the mood I’m in,” but with only one mouth for the two messages to pass through, he blended the phrases.

suBstitutions By MEaning

ANOTHER way to think about speech errors is in terms of what influences them. Substitutions of one word for another can illustrate.

Someone who meant to refer to fingers said instead, “Don’t burn your toes.” The words “toe” and “finger” don’t sound alike, but they name similar body parts. In fact, Latin used the same word, “digitus,” to refer to digits of the hands and digits of the feet.

This word substitution—and thousands like it—suggests that our mental dictionaries link words with related meanings. In other words, semantic connections can influence speech errors. The speaker here was trying to get the word “finger” from the

body-part section of his mental dictionary and slipped over to its semantic neighbor “toe.”

suBstitutions By sound

ANOTHER type of word substitution reveals something else about our mental dictionaries.

Someone who meant to refer to his mustache said instead, “I got whipped cream on my mushroom.” The words “mustache” and “mushroom” sound similar.

Each word starts with the same consonant and vowel, denoted as “[m‸]” in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Each word is two syllables long with stress on the first syllable. But the meanings of these two words are not similar.

This word substitution—and thousands like it— suggests that our mental dictionaries also link words with similar sounds. In other words, phonological connections can influence speech errors. The speaker here was trying to get the word “mustache” from the “[m‸]” section of his mental dictionary and slipped over to its phonological neighbor “mushroom.”

insights froM variEty

PSYCHOLINGUISTS who collect and analyze speech errors find many ways to categorize them and to explain how and why people make them.

I like to compare that effort with how Charles Darwin studied Galápagos finches. Studying speech errors and finches in detail reveals how tiny variations distinguish them.

Theories of how people talk seek to explain those details. Psycholinguists distinguish slips by the linguistic units that they involve, such as consonants, vowels, words and phrases. They describe how and when speakers use such information. This can help us understand how language develops in children and how it breaks down in people with certain impairments.

These theories also describe different stages for planning and producing sentences. For example, psycholinguists hypothesize that speakers start with what they want to convey. Then they retrieve word meanings from a mental dictionary. They arrange the words according to the grammar of the language they’re speaking. How words sound and the rhythm of whole sentences are later stages. If this is right, the “finger-toe” substitution reflects an earlier stage than the “mustache-mushroom” substitution.

The study of speech errors reminds us that glitches happen now and then in every complex behavior. When you walk, you sometimes trip. When you talk, you sometimes slip. THE CONVERSATION

Why do people have slips of the tongue?

Muntinlupa branch are W.Mall executives with Muntinlupa Vice Mayor Temy Simundac, Engr. Allan Cachuela, Muntinlupa City Administration and Representative for Muntinlupa Mayor Ruffy Biazon, and Rev. Fr. Carmelo Estores from Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish.

The Bellevue Manila has experienced hotelier as its new General Manager

THE Bellevue Manila announced the appointment of Mavic Recio to the role of General Manager. She will oversee the daily operations of the premier business and leisure hotel, which houses over 400 rooms, various restaurants and wellness facilities.

Proven by her 27 years of experience in the hospitality industry, 10 years of which were spent with The Bellevue Manila, Recio brings with her a deep understanding of the hotel’s core values. She first began working as the Hotel’s Director of Events and was later promoted to the position of Group Director of Sales and Marketing for The Bellevue Hotels & Resorts (BH&R) group. Prior to her appointment as General Manager, she was also the Resident Manager of The Bellevue Manila.

Recio boasts of extensive training in event management, revenue management, and food and beverage, with a strong background in sales and marketing. She has also mastered the art of planning, coordinating, and executing events both grand and intimate, and has collaborated with high-caliber entities and individuals from both local and international markets.

Recio’s undoubted capability and loyalty is exhibited in her tireless

leadership through the BH&R Group’s most challenging moments, notably from the start and the peak of the pandemic, until today that the country is settling into the new normal.

“It is my pleasure to continue serving our guests in this role of general manager at our beloved Bellevue hotel,” says Recio.

“This is an exciting new challenge, and I look forward to working with our team to the best of our abilities to reach new

heights for the hotel.”

The Bellevue Manila is a world-class hotel nestled in the heart of Filinvest City in Alabang. It has 456 modern rooms, fully equipped meeting and banquet venues, a gym, a swimming pool, and wellness centers (Azurea Spa, Jing Monis Salon, and PrettyLooks). The hotel also offers gastronomic delights through its food concepts Phoenix Court, Café d’Asie, Pastry Corner, Vue Bar, and Cellar 22.

SM opens 80th mall in Tanza, 7th mall in Cavite

AS part of a province with a rich historical tradition, Tanza in Cavite is the place where Emilio Aguinaldo was sworn in as President of the revolutionary government of the Philippines. It is also the birthplace of Felipe G. Calderon, who composed the Malolos Constitution.

It was another date with history on Friday, October 14 when SM City Tanza opens its doors to the public as SM Prime’s 80th mall. It is also the 7th supermall in this historic and bustling province after SM City Bacoor, SM City Dasmarinas, SM City Molino, SM City Rosario, SM City Trece Martires, and SM Center Imus. SM also has a Marketmall in Dasmarinas.

Strategically located in a 86,718 square meter site along Antero Soriano Highway, SM City Tanza will serve shoppers in the northwestern areas of Cavite as well as in nearby Batangas. More than that, it will be a catalyst for employment and business opportunities in the area.

The two story almost 60,000 square meter mall’s design is inspired by the chief means of livelihood in Tanza, which is farming and fishing, as well by its nearby beach resorts in the coastlines.

Symbolizing warmth from the colors of the boats and serenity of the seas, its interior is configured in an L-shaped layout, provided with natural clerestory light that stretches across the mall area, including the Cyberzone.

The ceiling is accented with curvilinear cove light lines depicting the ripples of the sea. The mall also has a 1,500 square meter Events Center for activities and exhibits. It also features a lush landscaped indoor area that will provide mallgoers with a place to relax, shop, and dine.

SM Store and SM Supermarket are SM City Tanza’s major anchors along with SM Appliance Center, ACE Hardware, Watsons, Surplus, Uniqlo, Pet Express, Miniso, Levi’s, and Crocs. It will also have fashion boutiques, jewelry stores, bookstores, as well as service and wellness centers.

Eating out options include a Food Court; specialty restaurants like Mesa, Botejyu, The Great Buddha Café, Marugame Udon and Tempura, and Crustasia Asian Bistro; and international and local food chains like Kenny Rogers, Panda Express, Bon Chon, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Mary Grace Café, Breadtalk, J. Co Donuts and Coffee, and Starbucks.

SM City Tanza will also have five state of the art cinemas and a Cyberzone for techie enthusiasts.

For its customer’s convenience, and enhanced malling experience, SM City Tanza will have almost 800 slots in its carpark. The new mall will also have public transport terminals for interprovince, and inter region travel that will further boost tourism and commerce in the area.

SM City Tanza’s project team includes DSGN, Design Consultant; Asya, Architect on Record; RM Cabanela, Construction Management; and Dahn Bager, General Contractor.

Servier calls on Pinoys to regularly monitor their blood pressure to prevent Emergency Room visits

blood” is a term Filipinos often use to refer to someone whose temper level is flying off the charts. What many people don’t know is that the term is a red flag especially to medical practitioners. This would also explain why taking our blood pressure is just as essential as taking our weight and temperature before any medical consultation.

By definition, high blood pressure or hypertension is when the heart needs to work harder to keep blood flowing to all the vital areas of the body. Hypertension is a condition when blood pressure is consistently higher than 140/90 mm Hg. (The normal blood pressure is 120/80 mmHg, or thereabout.)

A spike in one’s blood pressure may be caused by several reasons: lifestyle, diet, excessive weight, lack of physical activity, genetics, and stress. Known warning signs include early morning headaches, nosebleeds, irregular heart rhythms, vision changes, and buzzing in the ears. Severe hypertension can cause fatigue, nausea, vomiting, confusion, anxiety, chest pain, and muscle tremors. Any and/or a combination of these symptoms could, however, mean that one’s high blood pressure had already affected other vital organs.

Studies show that it is a silent killer and the leading contributing risk factor for global death. Raised blood pressure causes strokes, heart attacks, and other cardiovascular complications. It is important to learn more about our blood pressure when 10 million lives are lost each year needlessly due to raised blood pressure.

In spite of this number, not everyone who have the symptoms are aware that they have it. Hypertension awareness in the Philippines is around 67.8 percent and out of those who are aware, only 75 percent are treated with only 27 percent of those who

are treated have it under control.

Organizations and agencies, including SERVIER Philippines, Inc., a subsidiary of Les Laboratories SERVIER, a research pharma company specializing in medications for cardiovascular diseases, and maker of Single Pill Combinations (SPCs), have been supporting efforts of the International Society of Hypertension and the World Hypertension League in collaboration with the Philippine Society of Hypertension and the Department of Health, to spread awareness on this condition.

There has been the need to drum up awareness for the condition not only because of the rising number of cases, but more importantly because the only sure way to know when one has hypertension is when blood pressure is checked. Unfortunately for many, hypertension is usually discovered only during routine examinations, and oftentimes it would be too late because the condition had already deteriorated into an illness that required a trip to the Emergency Room. It has been called a silent killer for good reason: it has no warning signs or visible symptoms.

Among all the handy gadgets to have at home or at the workplace, especially for those identified as prone to or at high risk of hypertension, a blood pressure monitor should rank as high as a thermometer and even higher than an oximeter. Make it a habit to monitor blood pressure levels, especially when feeling a bit off. If and when blood pressure reaches 140/90 mmHg health professionals advise to relax, sit up, and retake the test after 5 minutes. If it stays on that level, call or see a doctor.

Any cause to be high-blood lately? Go get your blood pressure checked. To know more about hypertension, visit https://www. myhealth-partner.com

Enjoy a memorable Halloween by the beach; spend the long weekend in Boracay, Palawan

HALLOWEEN is just around the corner, there is tons of fun to be had: flex your favorite Halloween costume, exchange spooky stories, and indulge in sweet treats.

While the season’s a true winner for the little ones, trick-or-treating doesn’t have to be just for the kids. Make Halloween more memorable for the whole family with a trip to Discovery Shores Boracay (DSB) or Club Paradise Palawan (CP), where occasions, even spooky ones, are made spectacular.

Discovery Shores Boracay is the perfect destination for all ages looking to let their imagination run free. Located in the Philippines’ top tourist destination, DSB is a sprawling, beachfront property along Station 1 offering its guests an unforgettablyindulgent stay. If one desires a more adventurous getaway, Club Paradise Palawan is a private island resort in Coron that boasts of breathtaking marine life and a myriad of island activities for the entire family to enjoy.

This Halloween is the best time for kids to join the celebration in DSB with “Bogart’s Timmy’s Mystery Tales,” a theme anchored on the resorts’ recent Roblox game launch. In CP, it’s also going to be a mystery-filled afternoon with their resident turtle Timmy in “Timmy’s Mystery Tales.”

It’s going to be a fun afternoon for the little ones as they dress up and parade their costumes, and participate in trick or treats, games, and other exciting surprises that await them. Don’t miss out on the excitement on October 30, 2022, 3:00 PM.

It’s an adult Halloween celebration on the 31st of October at DSB’s Sand Bar with an extended Happy Hour from 4 to 9pm featuring Halloween themed drinks and cool mixes from guest artists; namely, DJ Andru William, DJ Slim J, DJ Jerric Ngo, DJ Ron Tena, DJ Big Bro, DJ Warren Zabala, and, DJ Rec Dela Paz. Best dressed guests will receive a stay gift certificate from the resort.

Besides Halloween festivities, more surprises await guests at DSB.A new pool hang-out place called “Bogart’s Bar” provides

cozy nooks for friends to chill, grab a snack, and load up on bottomless brews or for remote employees to take work on a different level.

Discovery Shores Boracay and Club Paradise Palawan continue to create new and unforgettable memories that will be cherished by everyone. Plan your Halloween vacay today! For more information, visit their website at www.discoveryshoresboracay.com/ and www. clubparadisepalawan.com

“HIGH

THE team of Servier Phil. during its launch

PRESENT during the opening of SM City Tanza were Tanza Mayor Yuri Pacumio (4th from left),

Tanza Vice Mayor Archangelo Matro (3rd from right), Cavite Board Member

7th District Crispin Remulla (3rd from left) and Reverend Bishop Reynaldo Evangelista of Archdiocese of Imus. They were joined by SM Markets Chairman Herbert Sy (right), SM Engineering Design and Development President Hans Sy, Jr. (left), SM Prime Holdings President Jeffrey Lim (2nd from right) and SM Supermalls President Steven Tan (2nd from left).

Data Land Inc. launches ₧11-B project skyscraper in Quezon City

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

Upper middle market developer

Data Land Inc. (DLI) recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with the re-launching of its p11-billion project which the company stressed as a sign of confidence in the local property market.

DLI Executive Vice President And Gen eral Manager Joseph Ramil Lombos told reporters the 947 Sky Towers project is aimed to address the potential shortage of condominium units in the Quezon City area. Lombos said DLI had to reconfigure the plans for 947 Sky Towers as some un expected developments unfolded during the pandemic. The original plan called for construction of a 60-story office build ing. However, the pandemic forced DLI to re-study the project.

After a thorough evaluation and as sessment of the developments that took place in the industry, DLI Vice President for business development and customer turnover group Felimon Yee Jr. said the company decided to build a two-tower mixed-use edifice in response to the de mand of the market.

Lombos said the huge vacancy in the Ortigas area caused by the Covid-19 pandemic forced DLI to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate the plan.

“That was the time when we decided to change it to a mixed-use development,” Lombos said.

Located in Epifanio delos Santos Av enue (Edsa) corner Mother Ignacia in Quezon City, the 947 Sky Towers will be formally launched by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

Yee said the development will become one of the future landmarks of the Edsa skyline standing at 55 floors. The first tower will be a 54-story structure with 880 residential units. Meanwhile, the second tower will have 55 storys and 855 residential units. There will be three basement parking sites and three podium parking facilities.

Although 947 Sky Towers is compet ing for market share against property heavyweights Ayala Land and SM Devel opment Corp., Lombos pointed out DLI remains bullish as the project is quite ac cessible by public transport through the MRT-3 and the future subway funded by the Japanese International Coordination Agency (JICA).

The company will also capitalize on the revenge buying of Filipinos.

“Overseas Filipinos are buying prop erty back home not just as primary resi dence but more for the passive income or rental potential it provides,” explained DLI Vice President and head of sales and marketing Marian Roxas.

As the property development arm of renowned quadruple-A contractor DDT Konstract Inc., DLI has emerged as an important independent player in the local

real estate industry in the past 10 years.

Given the strength of its parent com pany in construction excellence, DLI’s mission is to provide Filipino homeseek ers and investors with “quality beyond the basics”—real-estate developments that exceed expectations and provide the best value for hard-earned money.

On its landmark 10th anniversary, DLI continues with this mission and ensures the company’s enduring relevance to the majority of Filipinos. “More than just building structures and creating homes, our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of lives of the most ordinary of Filipinos, which they truly deserve,” DLI President Engr. Andrea Tamayo-Ulep said.

Despite numerous challenges in both global and local business environments, DLI remains optimistic of prospects in the property market. “The first 10 years

of DataLand has been met with chal lenges, which we have successfully over come thanks to a solid business founda tion and a strong organization brought together by shared values and common goals,” added Ulep.

Yee, DLI vice president for Business Development and Customer Turnover Group, bares some of the company’s up coming projects that the market can look forward to.

The development will become one of the future landmarks of the Edsa skyline standing at 55 and 54 floors.

By the end of 2023, DLI will also be launching a new 4,833-sq m, mixed-use residential and office condominium de velopment in Sta. Ana, Makati City. Lo cated along Carreon corner Delas Alas Streets, it is strategically located very near Circuit Makati.

In an effort to expand their en deavors outside of the Southern Luzon region, Laguna-based property developer PA Alvarez Prop erties and Development Corporation (PA Properties) opened a brand-new sales office in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, last October 13, 2022. The opening was celebrated through an office blessing, followed by a ribbon cutting ceremony.

PA Properties’ Bulacan sales office will serve the nuVista San Jose, St. Joseph Homes norzagaray, East Resi dences Ortigas, The north Grove, and P.A. Commercial projects.

This is part of their expansion efforts to build additional housing communities around the Philippines in the next five years to help ease the more than 6 million housing backlog in the country, while also boosting the local economy that was hit by the pandemic.

“We know that having your own home gives a sense of pride, safety and comfort. With the new sales office, that dream of building a brand-new life with one’s family in a brand-new community is just a heartbeat away and PA Properties will be with them

every step of the way,” PA Properties President Atty. Marianne Cruz said.

PA Properties has established it self a name in the competitive Philip pine real-estate industry by enabling the public to have their dream homes at affordable rates and payment schemes. The company has built more than 20,000 housing and con dominium units in 40 communities in Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, Pampanga, Bulacan and Metro Manila. Currently it is on a mission to build 20 addi tional housing projects in the next five years.

The 4th largest estate of Ayala Land is poised to fuel the prog ress in the South of Metro Manila. It’s the 725-hectare Vermosa central business and residential district that encompasses the cities of Imus and Dasmariñas in Cavite.

Perceived as the new growth center and the hub of Cavite’s economic, resi dential, social, cultural and sports activi ties, Vermosa was launched in 2014 when Phase 1 of the residential projects began and to date, continues to aggressively pursue every aspect of its development. Since its launch in 2014, it continues to spur growth in the Daang h a ri corridor.

In this sprawling property can be found the perfect mix of living outside the metropolis yet within commuting distance plac ing everything that residents need within easy reach.

Vermosa Campus Town is the estate’s commercial district intended to become a modern contemporary urban center. Accessible via Daang ha ri, its key devel opments include Ayala Malls Vermosa, the De La Salle Santiago Zobel School (DLSZ), the Ayala Vermosa Sports h u b (AVSh) and other institutional and commercial loca tors.

Ultra-wide landscaped pedestrian walkways, bicycle lanes, jogging paths, active street life and pocket parks are suitable for one’s health and wellness goals. Investors and businesses wanting to expand in the South should not overlook setting up shop here.

Vermosa ’s charm has attracted some 40,000 visi tors monthly who enjoy the relaxing outdoor vibe while dining in their favorite restaurants such as McDonald’s, Jollibee, Peri-Peri, and Starbucks. Soon to open would be: Burger King, Army Navy, Panda e x press Chowking, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. These dining concepts will surely be a welcome addition to the on-the-go com munity and add to the many reasons why Vermosa is worth the visit.

In addition, its strategic location is proximate to key urban centers through various road networks— via Daang h a ri Road, Slex through the MCX exit, and the upcoming Cavite Laguna e x pressway (Calax) Road.

It has three access points through Aguinaldo h i ghway, two at Molino Road, and one at Jose Abad Santos. The proposed LRT 6 that will pass through Daang h a ri road only increases the accessibility to Vermosa.

Leading Growth Center South of Metro Manila Ve R M o SA S u nique mixed-use estate development is

aimed at solidifying the growth in the South. Almost 60 percent of the whole property is earmarked for residen tial use with diverse living options from all Ayala brands, namely: Ayala Land Premier, Alveo, Avida and Amaia; 24 percent for open, green spaces for suburban charm and around 16 percent is set aside for commercial and institutional use, including Ayala Vermosa Sports h u b.

Likened to be the Makati of the South, it is envi sioned to be the financial and commercial center this side of the country and home to sports facilities, malls, offices, institutions, schools, entertainment venues, government centers and BP o s, among others. Vermosa affords residents with features for an all-important work-life balance within a gentle environment that fosters an enhanced sense of community. It will be, in essence, a place of convergence where everything that residents need and want is at their fingertips for an easy yet exciting lifestyle.

Completing the office and residential offerings would be the Landers Superstore to open beside Ayala Malls Vermosa.

Advocates of Healthy Living Ve R M o SA b oasts of being the benchmark in active life style. It is the first estate to advocate healthy and active living, as evidenced by its state-of-the-art technology, equipment and facilities in Ayala Vermosa Sports h u b (AVSh) w hich opened in 2018.

The 8-ha AVSh is a unique offering of Vermosa, an integral part of the whole estate. AVSh supports the Ayala Center for e xcellence in Sports (AC e S), the Ayala Group’s program for the good of the Filipino athlete. It currently serves as a complete one-stop training and lifestyle

destination for triathletes, sports enthusiasts and even for students. Touted as the premier destina tion for “new-age” sports, AVSh g ives access to professionally man aged sports facilities that adhere to international standards such as the Fina-standard o l ympic size pool with o m ega Timing System, and the only IAAF Certified nine-lane track oval in the Philippines.

Key Stages of Development

L A ST M ay 2022, Meralco recently started the construction of the dedicated 115 kV-34.5kV substa tion which will be located within Vermosa. Slated for full operations by December 2022, the substation will provide adequate capacity to accommodate new and additional load ap plications in the area. This will guarantee a smooth flow of electricity for Vermosa dwellers, whether from residential customers or the commercial and industrial accounts, catering to the retail, sports and leisure and office markets.

o n July 11, 2022, Ayala Corporation and Ayala Land also broke ground for additional facilities at the Ayala Ver mosa Sports hub (AVSh) including the athlete’s dormitory and the multi-purpose field. These world-class facilities expand Ayala’s commitment to developing the Filipino athlete by providing venues that will enhance training. Also in the works are Ayala Malls Vermosa retail opening, a central park and a transport terminal, a chapel within DLSZ campus and a church in the drawing board.

More key developments will be undertaken over the next few years, prompting residents and businesses to invest in Vermosa . This early, the capital values have almost doubled at 82 percent land value appreciation of commercial lot investments since its launch in 2014.

Vermosa is a premier development of Ayala Land that promises to deliver accelerated growth in the South. Its strategic location and accessibility via major road networks, blends suburban charm with the con venience of city life, work and play. Master planned as the first estate to champion the advocacy for healthy and active living, the Ayala Vermosa Sports h u b (AVS h) is a turn-key development, housing various state-ofthe-art sports facilities and wellness amenities, to pro mote and support a fit and balanced lifestyle. To know more about Vermosa, visit vermosa.ph or message in Facebook VermosaP h

THe SouTH of MeTro MAniLA SprinTS To GrowTH AnD GiveS A proMiSe of proGreSS wiTH verMoSA by AyALA LAnD

PA Properties opens new sales office in Bulacan in its bid to provide quality and affordable housing to more families

pA properties’ management team at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and blessing of the brand-new sales office in San Jose Del Monte, bulacan

CHAirM An romarico T. Alvarez (right) with Svp and executive Assistant to the board of Directors and executive Committee Armando de Guzman (center), Svp of Central Corporate Services irzan Jureidini (left), and president Atty. Marianne Cruz (far left).

947 Sky Tower is seen to be a landmark development along eDSA in Quezon City

De TAiL of the high-rise, mixed-use residential and office building

Preps for FIBA 2023 World Cup co-hosting shifts to higher gear

THE Philippines’s Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for the co-hosting of the FIBA Basketball World Cup completed another round of detailed planning workshop in Clark late last week as the countdown hit its 10-month mark for the August 25 to September 10 major event.

Th rough the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), headed by chairman emeritus Manuel V. Pangilinan and president Al S. Panlilio, the country will lead an unprecedented hosting honors with Japan and Indonesia for the 19th edition of the World Cup that will bring together 32 teams from continental zones Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania.

S pain is the defending champion of the World Cup, that serves as a qualifying tournament to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

David Crocker, executive director for the 2023 FIBA World Cup, attended the two-day session at the Quest Plus Conference Center inside the Clark Freeport Zone along with heads of the numerous committees involved in the hosting.

A lso present were SBP executive director and LOC event director Renauld “Sonny” Barrios and deputy event director Erika Dy.

LOC master planner Ramon “Tats” Suzara moderated the workshop, which were also held at the Malarayat Golf and Country Club in Lipa City in March and at the PLDT office in Makati in June.

It covered updated reports from the Joint Management Committee and the chiefs of departments handling ways and means, broadcast and media, World Congress, games services and sport/competition.

Suzara said two more planning sessions are scheduled in March and in July after the Draw Ceremony on April 22.

“ I think now that the different departments realize that very detailed planning is important for this event, like transportation schedule, catering plan, ID plan and the venue drawings, spaces, among others, everything is falling into place,” Suzara said.

A fi nal planning meeting will be held, Suzara said, once the teams coming in are known after the draw.

FAMILIAR FACES AHEAD IN LUBAO

Que, Lascuña share 1st-rd lead

ACOUPLE of top guns out to snap a long spell took charge with identical 69s while a pair of amateurs, a legend and two former amateur hotshots matched 70s in a crowded start to the International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) Pradera Championship at the Pradera Verde Golf and Country Club in Lubao, Pampanga, Tuesday.

With the wind at manageable level, Angelo Que and Tony Lascuña produced three-under cards in varying fashions in separate flights in dark skies with the former banking on his length and putting to string a 34-35 and the latter forging ahead with his trusted 3-wood and irons for a 36-33.

I had a good day, putted well, hit a few bad shots but was able to recover pretty good,” said the multi-titled Que, a three-time former Asian Tour winner, who last won a Philippine Golf Tour (PGT) event in 2019.

The amiable former Philippine Open champion actually bucked a two-bogey, one-bogey card at the

backside of the long, well-maintained 7,262-yard layout but hit back-to-back birdies from No. 16, added another on the first hole then bounced back from a mishap on No. 2 with another pair of birdies from No. 4.

H e did miss some fairways and greens but found a way to finish with 25 putts and put himself in early contention in the P2 million season-ending PGT tournament put up by ICTSI.

I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing—hit the fairways and greens and hopefully hole in more putts and avoid bogeys,” said Que, who is also using this tournament as part of his final buildup for the LIV-backed Asian Tour events in Morocco and Egypt starting next week.

To make up for his lack in length, Lascuña banked on his 3-wood and long irons and seized control with amateur Elee Bisera with a fourunder card after 10 holes, also from the back. He fumbled with back-toback bogeys from No. 2 on a couple of mishits but recovered a stroke on

the par-5 ninth to catch his fellow Manila Southwoods’ bet at the helm.

“ The course is too long for me and the greens are also tough. But I was able to hit five birdies against two bogeys. So, I’m very happy,” said Lascuña, a four-time Order of Merit winner, including three straight from 2012, who last won at Riviera two years ago.

D espite being winless the last couple of years, Lascuna is enjoying top form, coming off back-to-back runner-up finishes at Eagle RidgeAoki and Riviera, the last, losing to Juvic Pagunsan in sudden death three weeks ago.

Strong start, strong finish give Avaricio 3-stroke lead

POC scouts Paris for training venue for PHL athletes

that the venue’s proximity to the athletes’ accommodation would be a determining factor.

“ I personally inspected the venues to make sure they’re fitted to the needs of our athletes,” he said. “We wanted a 3-in-1 facility…at least 10 minutes to and from the athletes accommodation, which should also be equipped with a kitchen.”

Tolentino clarified that although weightlifting, boxing and gymnastics are being prioritized for their medal potential, athletes who qualify for Paris will be included in program.

Brodeth displays champion’s form in Baybay netfest

ORMOC City’s Kimi Brodeth came away with another twin-kill while young David Sepulveda missed matching the feat but flourished with a victory and a runner-up finish in the Palawan Pawnshop-Palawan Express Pera Padala (PPS-PEPP) Baybay City National Juniors Tennis Championships at the Baybay courts in Leyte over the weekend.

Coming off a two-title feat at home last week, Brodeth reasserted her mastery over the girls’ 16- and 18-under field, trouncing Kate Imalay from Danao, Cebu, 6-1, 6-1, then dominating fellow Ormocanon Mia Gemida, 6-3, 6-0, respectively, for another double in the Group 2 tournament of the country’s longest-talent search.

Sepulveda, on the other hand, held off Urcisino Villa from Sogod, Leyte, in the first set before settling down in the next to fashion a 7-5, 6-2 victory in the boys’ 12-under final but the rising star from Pardo in Cebu City fell short of his title crack in 14-under play where he bowed to Kenzo Brodeth, also 7-5, 6-2.

But his 1-2 finish proved enough to net him a share of MVP honors with Kimi Brodeth in the event, put up by Palawan Pawnshop president and CEO Bobby Castro, serving as a prelude to the Pintaflores Festival Juniors Championships in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, beginning Thursday.

THE Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) has gone steps ahead of preparing for the Paris 2024 Olympics by shopping around for a pre-Games training facility for Filipino athletes at the French capital over the weekend.

POC President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino led an early bird team that conducted an ocular of potential training venues for weightlifting and boxing—sports that delivered the country’s first gold medal, two silvers and one bronze in Tokyo last year—as well as gymnastics, another potential medal source in Paris.

T he Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) will shoulder expenses for the training facilities as part of the Paris Olympics budget, according to Tolentino who added that the POC will decide on which facility to rent in its upcoming executive board meeting. We will ask the PSC to cover the expenses as part of the Olympic journey,” Tolentino said.

CHANELLE

AVARICIO didn’t miss a beat despite missing the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour (LPGT) action the past three months and with a strong start and a stronger finish shot a 67 to storm ahead by three strokes over amateur Mafy Singson in the International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) Pradera Championship Tuesday in Lubao, Pampanga.

Using the postponement of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Q-School Stage II to hone and sharpen up her all-around skills, Avaricio flashed top form at the Pradera Verde layout where she reigned in runaway fashion last June, birdying three of the first eight holes

then rebounding from a bunkerbunker mishap on the par-5 No. 9 with three backside birdies.

Th at put the former Alabama State star at a very familiar spot in the circuit she has dominated with three victories before embarking on a tougher mission in the LPGA.

“I hit a number of good iron shots that set up short birdie putts,” said Avaricio, who gained strokes on Nos. 4, 5 and 8 then made up for his lone miscue with birdies on Nos. 10, 16 and 18.

I’ll just try to put myself in position and not to be aggressive,” said Avaricio, who also ruled the Hallow Ridge and Caliraya Springs. “But it will depend on the pin placements tomorrow (today).

The goal is to have our qualified athletes to be in Paris at least one month before the Olympics,” said Tolentino, who was joined in the ocular by POC deputy secretary general Bones Floro, legal chief Atty. Wharton Chan and manager Carla Maramara.

It’s not only us [Philippines] who’s making a reservation for a training facility, but several other countries as well,” Tolentino said.

“It’s first come, first served so we’re making sure we get the best one for our athletes.”

Tolentino said he was impressed by state-of-the-art training facilities in Paris but stressed

The Philippines booked its best Olympic performance so far in Tokyo last year with Hidilyn Diaz winning gold in weightlifting and Carlo Paalam and Nesthy Petecio bagging silvers and Eumir Felix Marcial clinching bronze in boxing.

A lthough Carlos Yulo missed the podium in Tokyo, his gymnastics world championships gold medals in floor exercise and vault make him a potential medalist in Paris.

E rnest John “EJ” Obiena, ranked No. 3 in the world in men’s pole vault who’s also a Tokyo Olympian like Yulo, is based in Europe and will be using a specialized program set by legendary Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov.

Paris will host its third Olympics—the most by any city so far with Los Angeles bound to host a third time in 2028—from July 26 to August 11.

Yulo expects tough foes in Liverpool world gymnastics championships

By Josef Ramos

CARLOS YULO vies in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships that starts Saturday in Liverpool hoping to defend his men’s vault title and shoot for more gold medals, including the floor exercise he dominated three years ago.

But the task would be daunting.

I really need to overcome myself because there are many rivals who are better than me,” Yulo told an online press conference on Tuesday from his training base in Tokyo just

hours before he and his Japanese coach, Munehiro Kugimiya, took a flight to England.

But when the competition comes, I will have a better mindset,” said the Tokyo Olympian Yulo, who won gold in vault and silver in parallel bars last year in the Kitakyushu worlds and in the floor exercise in Stuttgart in 2019.

“ In the parallel bars and vault, as well as in the floor exercise, all the finalists, including the gold medalist in Tokyo, will also be there,” Yulo, 22, said. “There are also solid gymnasts from Great

Britain, China and Turkey.”

Tokyo Olympics floor exercise gold winner Artem Dolgopyat and parallel bars bronze medalist Fehrat Arican of Turkey are two of Yulo’s toughest rivals in the world championships that will hold the men’s qualifying stage on Monday and end November 6 at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool.

Yulo, who will compete in all six events—floor exercise, vault, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings and horizontal bar—said he would bring new routines and skill sets to Liverpool.

It’s time to try new skills [moves].

Fajardo is now recuperating from a throat procedure as a result of a wayward elbow he absorbed from Steve Taylor in an SMB win over Rain or Shine some two weeks or so ago. Doctors gave the 6-foot-10 Fajardo at least four weeks to recover.

The 6-foot-9 Scott, personally picked by SMB coach Leo Austria despite the import’s modest credentials that include Scott being an undrafted National Basketball Association (NBA) applicant, improved somewhat in his last game where he scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in SMB’s 124-116 victory over NLEX last weekend.

Focus on SMB import

WILL Devon Scott continue to deliver?

That’s the question in today’s San Miguel Beer (SMB)NorthPort encounter in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Set at 5:45 p.m. after the 3 p.m. opener between Phoenix and Rain or Shine, the game will prove how well can Scott hold on in manning SMB’s crucial center position vacated by the injured June Mar Fajardo.

It was a mini rebound for Scott, who debuted rather unimpressively in a San Miguel loss to Converge prior to Sunday’s victory.

But patience is another of Austria’s several virtues that had helped him win a total of eight PBA crowns, including six All-Filipino plums.

“ I noticed him (Scott) to be so respectful to his teammates, causing him at times to commit turnovers,” Austria said.  “So, I told him to stop being nice and too unselfish and start playing aggressive because he has a shot most of the time.”

Scott has a knack for assisting, finishing with seven feeds against NLEX.

So when 2023 comes, all we have to do is polish my routine,” said Yulo, who’s won five gold medals in the Southeast Asian Games. Yulo said he has been perfecting new elements in vault—75 completion—while upgrading his routine in rings and floor exercise.

He has the moves, definitely, and all the bearded reinforcement has got to do, indeed, is to flaunt them at will to ensure his continued stint with the defending champions still precariously down below with a 2-3, win-loss card.

Fortunately for Scott during SMB’s Sunday surge, the team’s talented locals gave him a fiery back-up job by helping amass a 43-point first-quarter production leading to a 15-point bulge at one point.

M arcio Lassiter keyed the Beermen’s early revolt, firing 18 of his 22 points in the first frame on six-of-seven threes finding their target to help his team snap out of a two-game slide.

We have each other’s back and, yes, we have to do it as a team,” said Lassiter, who got ample support from CJ Perez, Vic Manuel, Jericho Cruz and Mo Tautuaa, among others.

But Scott should sustain his momentum if he wishes to avoid being sent home like what happened to Diamond Stone.

THAT’S IT Reviewing referees’ calls is a step in the right direction for the PBA. For one, it will help lessen mistakes.

For another, it will enhance genuine integrity of every game…With the Los Angeles Lakers at a dismal 0-3, winloss start, do we see another disaster in the making for the NBA’s most glamorous team?  Too early to tell.

KIMI BRODETH shares top honors with young David Sepulveda.

ANGELO QUE and Tony Lascuña are in control in the men’s contest while Chanelle Avaricio’s in charge in the women’s tournament.

YULO

PHILIPPINE Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino (sixth from left) and deputy secretary general Bones Floro (right) are in a discussion with French sports facility officials.