BusinessMirror October 26, 2019

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The Philippines is deemed the top global source of child-sex abuse and exploitation materials, and a broad coalition of government and international agencies and private organizations is leading the charge against the ever-growing evil.

By Estrella Torres | Special to the BusinessMirror

H

OME is where a child must feel safe and loved by parents and carers.

For thousands of children living in deprived areas, however, their small and dingy bedrooms are turned into hidden crime scenes where they are coerced to strip, dance naked and perform sexual acts in front of a web camera as sex predators from abroad pay to watch.

Parents and family members usually act as crime facilitators of the rising cases of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

The Philippines is now the top global source of child-sex abuse and exploitation materials, with more cases of live streaming of child sex abuse that continue to

surface in recent years.

Poverty, ease of access to the Internet and mobile phones and the dominant English-speaking population are top reasons for the increase in cases of sexual abuse and exploitation against minors.

In 2017, the Office of Cybercrime of the Department of Justice (DOJ) received 45,645 tip-offs about sexual images of Filipino children from the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NMEC). The number ballooned to 600,000 last year.

New technologies, such as live streaming, are contributing to rising incidents of cybercrime in the Philippines, an alarming 80 per-

cent of which is online sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

Children who are most vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation are those with disability, members of LGBTQI, as well as those displaced by armed conflict and natural disasters and living in deprived situations.

The Australian Embassy in the Philippines along with leading child rights organizations—the United Nations Children’s Fund or Unicef, Save the Children Philippines and Asia Foundation—recently launched SaferkidsPH, a six-year program that seeks to reduce cases of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the Philippines.

The SaferKidsPH campaign, with an A$8-million (P298 million) grant, engages the government, nongovernment agencies, special task forces and committees, civil society, communities and schools, the private sector, media and other like-minded donors to support and be part of innovative and sustainable solutions.

“Online sexual exploitation and abuse of children is a crime that transcends territorial jurisdictions. The SaferKidsPH campaign aims to bring more light to this issue,” said Australian Ambassador Steven J. Robinson AO. He said the SaferkidsPH program aims to increase public aware-

ness of the risks of online sexual exploitation of children and involve children, parents, schools, private sector, civil society and media to promote online child safety and to prevent and respond to online sexual exploitation of children.

At the same time, the program partners with the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to strengthen investigation, prosecution and adjudication of cases of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children in line with national legislation.

The program will prioritize deprived areas in Cebu, Cagayan de Continued on a2

The never-ending trial between a billionaire heir and his nation

T

By Sohee Kim |

Bloomberg News

HREE years after explosive allegations of graft and corruption brought down the government of Asia’s fourth-largest economy, South Korea’s chaebol culture will again come under the microscope when Samsung Electronics Co. heir Jay Y. Lee returns to court.

The billionaire’s retrial over expanded corruption charges begins Friday at the Seoul High Court, rebooting a landmark case that led to the impeachment of then-president Park Geun-hye and inflamed popular anger over the power of Korean conglomerates, also known as chaebols. It threat-

ens to potentially throw the defacto leader of Korea’s biggest company back in jail.

“This is problematic for Samsung as it seeks to elevate and portray him as a Silicon Valleyminded reformer,” said Geoffrey Cain, author of an upcoming book about Samsung. “He won’t

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 51.0610

JAY Y. LEE, co-vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. SEONGJOON CHO/BLOOMBERG

be able to shed the image of corruption that easily.”

The appeals court that decided to release Lee in early 2018 from jail, where he’d spent about a year after his initial arrest, will decide his final sentence over the course of the next few months. Factoring in the trial’s social and economic implications, Park Sang-in, a professor at Seoul National University, warns it could take longer than usual and stretch beyond six months.

Unless new evidence emerges during the retrial, the appeals court is expected to rule in line with the decision of Korea’s Supreme Court, which found that Lee had used three horses and additional funds, via an intermediary, to bribe President Park while seeking political support for his succession as Samsung chief. This would mean altering Lee’s presently suspended prison sentence.

The total amount of alleged Continued on a2

n JAPAN 0.4701 n UK 65.6338 n HK 6.5150 n CHINA 7.2227 n SINGAPORE 37.4540 n AUSTRALIA 34.8083 n EU 56.7032 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.6148

Source: BSP (October 25, 2019 )

News

BusinessMirror

DARK-NET PREDATORS A2 Saturday, October 26, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Continued from a1

Oro and Metro Manila that were identified as hot spots in sexual abuse and exploitation on children due to strong Internet connection and large number of poor communities.

Lawyer Albert Muyot, chief executive officer of Save the Children Philippines, said there is no truth to the belief of many parents that live streaming minors while performing sexual acts does not cause harm since there is no physical contact with their children.

He said the impact of sexual abuse and exploitation on children is lifelong and devastating. When these children become adults, they will have difficulty forming relationships, get drawn into sex work or even become abusers themselves, he said.

“Online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) violates children’s right to protection,” said Muyot. “We believe that strengthening child-protection systems is crucial in addressing the problem that has been affecting children, mostly in deprived situations.

“We are committed to working with local government units and civil society actors to ensure that there are policies, programs, services, budgets and school- and community-based child protection mechanisms in place to address OSAEC. We will also strengthen our work with children, their families and teachers

AUSTRALIAN Ambassador Steven J. Robinson AO: “Online sexual exploitation and abuse of children is a crime that transcends territorial jurisdictions. The SaferKidsPH campaign aims to bring more light to this issue.” SAVE THE CHILDREN PHILIPPINES

to raise their awareness on this issue, and mobilize them to help protect children in communities and schools,” he added.

Oyunsaihan Dendevnorov, Unicef representative, highlighted the need to engage concerned agencies along with children, parents, schools and communities to stop the violation of children’s rights.

“SaferKidsPH is calling on the public to engage. Get to know the issue, join the discourse, report, support, and be part of this movement demanding safety and protection for every child in all the spaces they are in, online and offline,” she added.

Sam Chittick, country representative of The Asia Foundation, said the organization stands ready to help push the domestic initiative by providing assistance to the justice sector, the Philippine National Police and investigating authorities.

Online sexual abuse and exploitation of children is a global menace that needs the cooperation of governments of countries with the most number of sex predators, including Australia.

The consortium believes that the advancement in technology may provide easier access to information and communication, but

THE Australian Embassy in the Philippines along with leading child rights organizations—the United Nations Children’s Fund or Unicef, Save the Children Philippines and Asia Foundation—recently launched SaferkidsPH, a six-year program that seeks to reduce cases of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the Philippines. SAVE THE CHILDREN PHILIPPINES

LAWYER Albert Muyot, chief executive officer of Save the Children Philippines, said there is no truth to the belief of many parents that live streaming minors while performing sexual acts do not cause harm since there is no physical contact with their children. SAVE THE CHILDREN PHILIPPINES

gives child abuse perpetrators a platform to abuse and exploit our children online.

The US Department of Jus-

tice reports that an aggregate 1.9 million users are registered across nine sites dedicated to child sexual abuse materials.

The Global Threat Assessment showed that the Virtual Private Network (VPN) usage continues to grow, especially in technologically advanced countries.

One of the fastest growing among VPN is the Darknet/TOR usage whose users grew to 4 million in 2018 from 1 million in 2013.

Sex predators prey not only on children, but worse, on babies and toddlers. The consortium said that one dark-net service dedicated to infant/toddler abuse has over 18,000 registered members.

Save the Children Philippines believes the culture of silence surrounding the issue of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the Philippines is caused by communities tolerating the hidden crime as an acceptable way to earn money.

It takes a village to raise a child. The community should provide a safe environment for every child to grow healthy and educated and safe from all forms of violence to achieve full potential.

The never-ending trial between a billionaire heir and his nation Continued from a1

bribery determined by the top court, including all three equines, carries a minimum sentence of five years, which cannot be suspended in the same way that Lee’s existing sentence has been. Media coverage in Korea, however, has centered on Article 53 of the Korean Criminal Act, which stipulates there could be a discretionary mitigation of the punishment “when there are extenuating circumstances.” In Lee’s case, the damage to Samsung—crucial as it is to Korea’s economy—could be presented as grounds to keep him out of prison.

Even in the event of an unfavorable ruling, the 51-year-old Samsung scion would still be able to appeal at the Supreme Court one more time, which could take another year. To avoid such a protracted legal battle, people in and out of Samsung have expressed hope that the court may reduce the punishment and slash the sentence to a suspended 30-month term.

But close observers of Korean politics and its mighty family-run conglomerates argue there is little chance that Lee will avoid imprisonment, saying Samsung should brace for the worst-case scenario.

“If this company had a normal corporate culture, it could start a process of searching beyond Jay Y. Lee, just as Steve Jobs and Jack Ma spent time designating their successors,” said Seoul National University’s Professor Park. “Samsung, however, sticks to an idea that only a controlling family member

should manage its overall business. If Lee can step back to stay as a major shareholder and find a ‘real’ professional manager, it may light the fuse for changes.”

Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker, has an army of business experts and senior managers who can run its day-to-day operations, according to Park Ju-gun, president at corporate research firm CEOScore. Lee could continue his management even while in prison and then come back as a leader when he’s out, emulating the example of his chaebol peers including SK Group chairman Chey Taewon and CJ Group chairman Lee Jay-hyun, who today are active leaders of their conglomerates in spite of having spent years in jail.

Under pressure, Lee gave up on extending his three-year term on the Samsung board, which is set to expire on Saturday. Although he’s keeping his title as vice chairman, it will be the board that drives overall management decisions, according to people familiar with the matter. Board Chairman Lee Sang-hoon and Samsung President Chung Hyun-ho—who’s managing Samsung’s business task force and is known to be an ally of Lee’s—are likely to take the lead in management in the absence of the heir, according to CEOScore’s Park and Samsung officials.

The latest chapter in the ongoing legal drama is kicking off at a sensitive time for the half-centuryold tech behemoth. Samsung is confronting heightened uncertain-

ties from a lingering trade war between the US and China as well as a trade spat between South Korea and Japan, both of which complicate its market outlook and supply chain. A rising tide of new technology like fifth-generation mobile networks and artificial intelligence is also opening up new opportunities for eager Chinese rivals, who are spending lavishly to catch up to Samsung and its cash-cow businesses of semiconductor and display manufacturing.

Lee’s absence would dampen Samsung’s aggressiveness in pursuing massive deals for future technology, which are often struck among the top leaders between two companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

While they claimed that Lee’s leadership is crucial for making decisions over the company’s long-term blueprint, Samsung has already announced $116 billion in investments for logic chips through 2030. It envisions a further $11 billion of spending for next-generation displays by 2025.

Behind the scenes, activist investor Elliott Management Corp. is closely watching the outcome of Lee’s legal wranglings, as it had an interest in the controversial 2015 merger at the root of the heir’s current travails. The New Yorkbased hedge fund has filed an international arbitration claim that contends Korea unlawfully meddled in that merger and it now seeks compensation of more than $700 million.

News BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph · Editor: Vittorio V. Vitug

FED SEEN CUTTING RATES NEXT WEEK AND THEN HITTING PAUSE BUTTON

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EDERAL Reserve officials will signal they’re likely to take a break from cutting interest rates after lowering them again next week, according to a majority of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

In an October 21 to 24 poll of 40 economists, 85 percent said they anticipate the Federal Open Market Committee will reduce rates by a quarter percentage point when it wraps up a two-day meeting in Washington on Wednesday. That would lower the target range for the Fed’s benchmark rate to 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent.

In addition, 56 percent of respondents said in the event of such a cut, policy-makers would telegraph, either in their policy statement or through Chairman Jerome Powell’s post-meeting news conference, that they are likely to pause for some time before making another rate move.

“It might well be a hawkish cut as Powell will likely signal some resistance to cut rates more,” said Thomas Costerg, senior US economist at Pictet Wealth Management in Geneva.

The Fed has already lowered rates twice this year—in July and September—not because officials forecast a steep downturn but because the risks of such a slump have mounted. Powell last month compared that to taking out “insurance.”

Though US unemployment is low, hiring strong and consumer spending solid, he cited slowing global growth, uncertainty around trade tensions and below-target inflation as reasons to nudge rates lower.

Three and done

COMING out of this meeting, the big questions will center on whether Powell and other key policy-makers believe three, quar ter-point cuts represent enough insurance. Even if that is the case, there’s no guarantee Powell will say so. At his September press conference, Powell shied away from providing any signal on future rates despite repeated questioning.

“The Fed is refraining from providing forward guidance, saying rate decisions are on a meeting-by-meeting basis,” said Kathleen Bostjancic, an economist at Oxford Economics in New York. “However, if the Fed intends to pause its rate cuts at the December meeting, look for Chair Powell to provide some signal in his press conference.”

Remaining uncertainty

NOT all the economists agreed. Brian

Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Portfolios, said he expected no such signal because the uncertainties the Fed has used to justify rate cuts haven’t abated.

“China and the US haven’t come to an agreement, Europe is still slow and weak, and Brexit isn’t done,” he said. “They can’t put a floor under this, because that would argue they’ve already done enough to fix the uncertainty, or that the uncertainty is gone, and it’s not gone.”

According to their median projections, respondents expect the Fed will lower rates once more in 2020. That’s roughly in line with investors. Pricing in fed funds futures implies an expectation for another roughly 40 basis points in easing by the end of 2020.

A separate question showed economists nonetheless seeing significant risks to the US economy. As a group they assigned a 30 percent median probability that the Fed will cut rates all the way to zero before the end of next year.

T-bill purchases

M O S T respondents said they expec t the Fed will find sufficient supply in outstanding Treasury bills to execute a new plan aimed at smothering volatility in overnight funding markets.

The Fed announced on October 11 that it would initially buy $60 billion a month in bills to increase the level of bank reserves.

Just under a quarter, however, said the Fed will be forced to add some purchases of coupon-bearing short-dated Treasuries to reach their target.

Average inflation

ASKED about the Fed’s ongoing policy framework review, just 11 percent said they expect the Fed will formally adopt an inflation-targeting strategy known as average-inflation targeting. A much larger group of 43 percent said officials will instead alter the language in their annual polic y strategy statement to include a reference to hitting their inflation target on average. Another 22 percent said officials will drop the fixed-point inflation target for a range.

The Fed has failed for most of the last eight years to bring inflation up to its 2 percent objective. Officials have contemplated a new policy that would require overshooting the target for some time to make up for periods of undershooting. Bloomberg News

Japan’s Abe replaces economy chief after funeral gift scandal

J

APANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe named a new economy minister after the man he appointed a little more than a month ago stepped down over allegations that one of his aides made an illegal funeral donation.

Isshu Sugawara, 57, told reporters on Friday that he had resigned, becoming the first member of Abe’s Cabinet to leave after being appointed in September to the post responsible for the economy, trade and industry. Abe said he would install Hiroshi Kajiyama—a veteran in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a former minister for regional economic revitalization—in Sugawara’s place.

While the resignation is an embarrassment for Abe, who’s on track to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister next month, he has weathered far worse storms before. The replacement isn’t likely to dent support for his rule over the world’s third-largest economy.

“I am responsible for the appointment and I apologize for it,” Abe told reporters, adding he wanted no pause in his plans to keep the economy moving.

The swap won’t affect Japanese trade relations with the US, which are being managed by Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.

Pressure mounted on Sugawara this week when the Shukan Bunshun magazine published an article alleging that Sugawara’s secretary gave 20,000 ($185) in condolence money to a supporter’s family and made other inappropriate offerings to followers. Japanese law prohibits these types of donations, which can be seen as a form of vote buying and influence peddling.

It was a repeat scandal for Sugawara, who previously faced similar allegations of making illegal donations to constituents more than a decade ago in the form of pricey melons and crabs, the magazine report said. But the statute of limitations had expired before any action was taken. Bloomberg News

Saturday, October 26, 2019

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Bulacan airport, Naia rehab join expanded priority infra projects

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By Elijah Felice E. Rosales

HERE will now be roughly 100 flagship infrastructure projects under the government’s “Build, Build, Build” program after the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) revised the list to take out some connectivity facilities and replace them with road projects.

In a news briefing on Friday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said smaller projects will take the place of proposed bridges under the state’s P8-trillion infrastructure plan. After the Neda evaluated the flagship projects, it decided to remove some bridges from the list on technological, economic and financial viability reasons.

The bridges taken out of the government’s priority would have connected islands in the Bicol region, Visayas and Mindanao, particularly Samar to Sorsogon, Leyte to Surigao and Cebu to Bohol.

There will be more of the smaller projects, Pernia said, “but still game changing, especially for the regions that will be included, which we did not include in the first list.” Pernia added, “What we have done is take out certain projects that are impossible given the engineering technology [that they require], or maybe the technology [to build them] we don’t have yet.”

For example, he said, the Matnog, Sorsogon to Samar bridge was found to be “unfeasible from the feasibility study in terms of economic viability and financial viability [so] that was turned down. The Leyte to Surigao long bridge is also very deep and really just very challenging. Also going to be very costly is the Cebu to Bohol bridge.”

In replacement, the Neda inserted in the government’s flagship list a number of road projects being undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Although these roads are smaller in

scale—and most likely in cost—than the bridges, Pernia said their impact to the economy is still “game changing.”

The addition of these road projects will bring the number of priority infrastructure under the Build, Build, Build program to about 100, from just 75 at present.

“The [list of flagship projects] will be about 100, but not all of them [can be finished] within this administration. Most of them will be either [completed] or would have been started substantially such that it would incentivize the next administration to continue,” Pernia said.

The revised list also includes more public-private partnership (PPP) projects, which the government used to shun in favor of financing from the

BIGGEST BRANCH Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) inaugurated on Thursday (October 24)

night the new BPI Makati Main Branch, its biggest branch in the Makati Central Business District.

The current footprint of 2,943 square meters will be expanded come December 2020, adding another 179 sq m. Photo shows the Personal Banking section where clients can lounge and have access to services, such as cash deposit, cash withdrawal, encashment, bills payment, and more.

Inset, BPI Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala honors the legacy of BPI. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO national budget and foreign sources, multilateral lenders included.

There was some hesitancy toward PPP projects before, Pernia noted.

But, over time, he said, “the minds tend to adjust to reality and that’s what’s happening. Also, my philosophy [is] we should look at the bigger picture. Let’s not be obsessed over little gains to be made by the privatesector proponents or little lost in the part of the government, [but] let’s look at the bigger picture.”

Among the PPP projects upgraded to the government’s flagship list are the P735-billion New Manila International Airport implemented by the San Miguel Corp. and the rehabilitation of

the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) proposed by a consortium of seven firms.

The government relies on these private sector-led projects to add ress t he worsening congest ion at Naia. The New Manila International A ir port in Bulacan, specifically, can ser ve at least 100 million passengers annually w ith its four runways, eight ta xiways and three passenger terminals once it is operational w ithin five years.

With the changes introduced in the priority list, Pernia said the cost of the whole Build, Build, Build program—initially valued at roughly P8 trillion—was adjusted as well.

A4 Saturday, October 26, 2019

ExportUnlimited BusinessMirror

Weak external demand seen dampening PHL export growth T

Manila not giving up on FTA with Seoul, DTI chief assures

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EAK external demand will likely continue to weigh on the country’s export growth amid lower growth forecasts among advanced economies and prolonged global technology downturn, according to the Philippines Economic Update recently released by the World Bank.

The report said growth among advanced economies, which include Japan and Germany, will be substantially lower at 1.6 percent in 2019 and 1.4 percent in 2020 and 2021.

This will soften the demand for Philippine goods as roughly 70 percent of the country’s exports are des-

tined for high-income economies.

“In addition, a prolonged global technology downturn will hurt the Philippines’s export performance since electronics components constitute nearly half of the value of its exports,” it noted.

The Philippines’s merchandise

export growth contracted by 0.8 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2019, reversing the 1.1-percent growth registered a year ago, on weak global demand and heightened trade tensions.

The contraction has been attributed to subdued global demand for electronics, the country’s main exports, and a slowdown in the electronics cycle.

The report added net services exports will be supported by the tourism and business-process outsourcing (BPO) sectors, although their growth will likely be modest given the weak external demand.

“Beyond external demand, export competitiveness remains a challenge, as the country has not progressed in diversifying its export goods,” it added.

The report said imports will likely intensify, outpacing export growth but at a slower pace compared to 2018

before eventually rising in 2020 to 2021, trailing domestic demand.

“Acceleration in the implementation of the government’s public infrastructure program will increase the import of capital goods while steady household demand will drive consumer goods imports,” it said.

Merchandise imports contracted by 1.0 percent year-on-year, a steep reversal compared to the 17.1-percent growth in the first half of 2018, driven by a fall in the import of raw materials and intermediate goods.

The report said the contraction is an indication of lackluster trading activity across the regional value chain, and a significant deceleration in imports of capital goods.

It added global economic growth is expected to slow this year due to weakness in international trade and investment performance.

RADE Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said the Philippine government is looking to revive next year the negotiations on freetrade agreement (FTA) with South Korea should the “mismatch” of offers under the deal between the two countries is not resolved by the end of the month.

Lopez said while negotiations for an FTA are still ongoing, the deal may no longer be possible to be signed next month if these issues remained unsettled.

“Saka na lang mag-usap ulit [we will again negotiate]. Another round [of negotiation], maybe we’ll revive it next year. Pwedeng ganon [that is possible]. That’s option plan B. That’s our continuing objective, di pa rin natin bibitawan [we will not give up the deal], we continue to make, that request kung hindi ma-conclude [if it will not be concluded],” he told reporters last week on the sidelines of a business event.

But Lopez remains hopeful that the country could conclude its FTA negotiations with South Korea by

last week of November.

The Philippines aimed to reduce its trade deficit with South Korea through negotiating the FTA which was expected to be signed next month.

FTA discussions between the two countries started in June this year, with the Philippines seeking for higher agricultural exports, aside from banana, pineapple and mango, and some industrial products, to South Korea.

South Korea is also asking for higher exports of industrial products to the Philippines.

The trade chief said the Philippines has been pushing for immediate reduction of tariffs on its banana exports.

“Kasi di mo naman ibibigay ’yun ng zero [because you cannot give zero tariff] in one year so para s’yang may schedule—how many years, from what to what [rates]? What we thought we could get it earlier or it would be somehow maybe given earlier,” he said.

In 2018, South Korea was the country’s fourth major trading partner. It is the Philippines’s eighth export market and top import supplier. PNA

Asean trade facilitation instrument Training teaches basics on LC for trade in services fully operational import and export transactions

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OUTHEAST Asian services operator experiencing problems while operating in one of the Asean member-states can now consider engaging governments directly through a trade facilitation instrument.

This, as the Asean Solutions for Investments, Services and Trade (ASSIST) for trade in services became fully operational starting in May 2019, and ready for use by Asean enterprises.

All Asean member-states’ focal points for ASSIST have been trained with assistance from the European Union under the ARISE, or Asean Regional Integration Support from the EU Plus program, which has an important component on trade facilitation.

ASSIST has been available for Asean enterprises to address problems in relation to trade in goods since August 2016, and has now been extended to issues occurring

with respect to intra-Asean crossborder trade in services, according to its web site.

An Internet-based platform and free of charge, https://assist.asean. org/, ASSIST deals with various tariff and nontariff-related measures affecting goods, issues in the area of cross-border services, and measures limiting investment in various sectors of Asean integration.

It, however, does not deal with employee/employer disputes or discrimination claims; matters that are being or have been litigated/ arbitrated in national jurisdictions; complaints against individuals or companies; matters not related to intra-Asean trade, services or investment; visa and residence rights; and cross-border movement of capital or payments. The best way for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) filing an ASSIST complaint is to seek guidance and assistance from independent

consultants, lawyers, law firms, chambers of commerce, business councils, business federations, trade associations or even academia; or its home government’s opinion and possible support ahead of filing.

It is important to build a thorough and well-proven or well-argued case before lodging a complaint on ASSIST as it will be examined by the relevant authorities involved in trade facilitation instrument.

“The measure or practice being challenged, or the problem being faced by the complainant must be presented clearly, and it is highly recommended that supporting documentation be provided.

Complainants may even consider proposing possible solutions to facilitate the process. Comprehensively, presented complaints will have a higher chance of being accepted by the destination country, with the objective of finding a solution,” it said.

L

ETTERS of Credit (LC) are one of the safest and most reliable commercial payment instrument and most commonly used in international trade transactions.

With the Asean integration and expected increase in global trade, many businesses want to learn how to use this mode of payment. To help businesses effectively use LCs, the Center for Global Best Practices, in collaboration with the International Chamber of Commerce, will host a two-day training, entitled “Mastering the Basics of Letters of Credits” to be held on Thursday and Friday, November 14 and 15, 2019, at the Marriott Grand Ballroom, Resorts World Complex, Pasay City, Philippines.

This program intends to guide participants on about LC transactions and operations. Participants will also learn the practical steps, and valuable tips in issuing proper LCs and how they work, what to do

to avoid pitfalls and actions to take in cases of discrepancies. Discussion will also cover revised regulations and applications of UCP 600, involving LCs. Most important, participants will be taught how to handle pitfalls and traps in the use of the various types LC in the international trade transactions.

The program is highly recommended for importers, exporters, traders, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, bankers, insurers, transporters of goods, chief finance officers, company treasurers, lawyers (in case of trade disputes) and those interested in fully understanding how LCs work.

The training will also feature Singapore-based expert, Victor Tan, an authority in the field of international trade with 15 years of banking experience in Europe covering areas of international trade finance, remittances, guarantees, and import and export. He has worked with various

international banks, such as Standard Chartered Bank, AmsterdamRotterdam Bank, Bangkok Bank, Royal Trust Merchant Bank and Barclays Bank, the last of which he served as deputy head of the trade finance department. He conducts highly specialized training programs for clients in Jakarta, Bangkok and Singapore. He will teach attendees all the best practices applications of LCs for one’s advantage.

Interested parties are advised to check www.cgbp.org for details and a complete list of other best practices programs, such as the NEW INCOTERMS 2020, Advanced Course on Letters of Credits, Board Effectiveness Best Practices, 2019 Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines, How to Build a Working Board, and many more. You may also call landlines in Manila (+63 2) 8842-7148 or 59 and (+63 2) 8556-8968 or 69, or Cebu (+63 32) 512-3106 or 07.

DA’s Dar renews push for lower tariffs on bananas exported to Japan

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GRICULTURE Secretary William Dar has reiterated his request to Japan Vice Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) Shinya Fujiki to lower the tariffs imposed on Philippine bananas.

“I would like to request your sup-

port for the preferential tariff rate of zero percent for Philippine bananas in Japan, which currently imposes an 18-percent tariff during the winter season and 8 percent during the summer,” Dar said in a news statement.

Japan used to be the largest importer of Philippine bananas for

nearly three decades (1991 to 2017), until China took the spot, buying more than 1.1 million tons in 2018.

This redounds to a 56-percent increase from 2017 banana imports.

Currently, Japan is one of the countries where imported bananas from the Philippines are taxed heav-

ily. It is due to this concern that Dar requested a zero tariff on the banana.

Fujiki wished to discuss the matter in the context of the ongoing review of the PhilippinesJapa n Economic Pa r t nership Agreement.

Other matters that Dar tabled

during the bilateral meeting included the Philippines’s request for updates on the market access for Hass avocados and the accreditation of the Philippines as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free country.

Meanwhile, among the issues that Fujiki raised include the elimination

of tariffs on Japanese rice and market access for Japanese strawberries in the Philippines.

Both countries agreed to fasttrack the submission of necessary documents to expedite the process to enhance trade for both sides. PNA

OurTime BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Editor: Angel R. Calso • Saturday, October 26, 2019 A5

Miss Earth beauties join AFP outreach program for seniors

By Priam Nepomuceno Philippine News Agency

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ISS Earth 2018 winners recently joined the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in an outreach program for the benefit of senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs) confined at

the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Diliman, Quezon City.

Navy Captain Jonathan Zata, AFP public affairs office chief, said the activity seeks to increase the awareness of military personnel regarding the condition of PWDs and senior citizens, and to promote the Armed Forces as

a people-oriented organization that cares for all Filipinos, especially the elderly, the disabled veterans and their dependents.

He added that this initiative was organized by AFP Deputy Chief of Staff for Civil-Military Operations Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., to also promote military service

and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps among the military’s stakeholders.

Reigning Miss Earth Nguyen Phuong Khánh from Vietnam, Miss Earth-Air Melanie Mader from Austria and Miss Earth-Water Valeria Ayos from Colombia were full of enthusiasm in meeting Filipino veter-

ans in their hospital rooms.

Assisted by some personnel of the AFP, the three beauty queens led a simple gift-giving activity that boosted the morale of the veterans.

“It’s amazing to see how the veterans served their country and I really hope that the future generation of Filipinos will appreciate

what these people have done for their country. I wish that the Filipino youth would volunteer and see what effect it can do if they respect the elderly and serve their country,” Mader said.

Mader, who is born to a Filipino mother, speaks and understands Filipino. PNA

New visitor center at MACM dedicated to WWII heroes

By Rene Acosta

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HE Philippines and the United States recently marked the 75th year anniversary celebration of the return of American General Douglas MacArthur into the country by dedicating a new interpretative visitor center at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM), which tells and chronicles the sacrifices of soldiers during World War II. The return of MacArthur through the “Leyte Landing” on October 20, 1944 ushered the liberation of the country from the clutches of invading Japanese imperial forces, whose savagery and notoriety were depicted by the infamous “Bataan Death March.”

“We dedicate the new visitor center highlighting the war in the Western Pacific, early losses and also victory over the imperial forces of Japan,” said Robert O. Wefald, commissioner of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), during the opening of the 11,000 square feet facility, which is located at the MACM in Taguig City.

The ABMC manages and maintains 15 World War II cemeteries abroad, including the 152-acre Manila American cemetery, which contains 17,000 graves of fallen soldiers and engraved tablets honoring 36,286 listed as missing in action. It also hosts the remains of at least 600 Filipino soldiers.

“We believe you will be impressed with its truthful and actual presentation of the history of the war in the Western Pacific.

This center include a story of valor and sacrifices, compelling artifacts along with thought-provoking film that conveyed a story of a Philippine-American history, our shared history and a shoulder-to-shoulder fight for freedom,” said Wefald.

The interpretative visitor center, the first among US cemeteries in the Pacific, include an exhibit gallery and a modern theater that features a 17-minute film showing the gallantry and sacrifices of Filipino and American troops during the war in the country and in the whole Pacific.

“Those who are interred in these hallowed grounds, we keep our promise, we will not forget. Your sacrifice will have meaning,” said Wefald.

The unveiling of the center comes amid the ongoing effort of the US through the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPMAA) to identify all those who have been missing from the war.

“This is a distinct honor to share with you this dedication on this hallowed grounds. Hallowed because here lies fallen heroes… these thousands of crosses are a solemn reminder that freedom is not free.

Through this center, their stories will come alive and their sacrifices will never be forgotten,” said Kelly K. McKeague, director of the DPMAA. He said that like the ABMC, his office is also tasked to honor those who have made the “ultimate sacrifice” by pursuing to the “fullest possible” the identification of soldiers listed as missing in action in the Philippines.

The accounting was being made in

coordination with other agencies of the government, including the National Museum, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of National Defense, Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the indigenous office.

Last month, the DPMAA successfully identified one of the previously unknown remains interred at the Manila American cemetery as those of Lt. Junior Grade James “Jimmy” Eugene Crotty, a member of the US Coast Guard, whose war exploits were recounted by McKeague.

Crotty, whose feats were remembered by the US military, especially the US Coast Guard whom he gave its first and only “Philippine defense battle streamer” that currently flies under its flag, died in Cabanatuan while being kept as a prisoner of war by Japanese forces.

Crotty was the sole member of the US Coast Guard posted with the naval shipyard in Cavite when Japanese troops bombed the facility in December 1941, forcing him to be added to the crewmen of US submarine mine sweeper USS Quail.

With the USS Quail, he laid mines in order to protect Manila Bay while helping guide other US submarines through the minefield as they supplied American and Filipino troops at Corregidor.

Crotty also led and joined missions back to Cavite to gather guns, ammunition and even fuel that were taken to Corregidor for its defense, while leading raids against Japanese depot and formations, delaying the fall of Bataan into the hands of Japanese troops.

ELDERLY BENEFITS INFORMATION DRIVE

In line with Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso’s recent announcement that the city government will give monthly allowances and other benefits to senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and solo parents in Manila, officials of Barangay 406 in Sampaloc recently held a Barangay Assembly to explain the benefit packages and the methods of availment. In attendance were (from left) SK Mark Anthony Nabong, Kagawad Myla Ilagan, Kagawad Nena Cañutal, Kagawad Angel Elorde Leal, Punong Barangay Noel Domingo, Kagawad Nicolas Reyes, Kagawad Jayson Onia , Treasurer Angeli Ann Nanong, Kagawad Margarita Ortega and Secretary Ana Maria Guevara.

Tacloban’s Price Mansion brings back World War II memories

THE Price Mansion built by US army engineer Walter Scott Price in 1910 still stands along Justice Romualdez Street. The building was Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters when he came to liberate the country from Japanese occupation 75 years ago. PNA PHOTO BY SARWELL MENIANO

By Sarwell Meniano Philippine News Agency

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ACLOBAN CITY—Lilia Price turned emotional as she reminisced the pre-World War II years when their family lived at the Price Mansion, a historic landmark here that witnessed events that spanned over a century.

She was just five years old when American General Douglas MacArthur stayed in their property during the campaign of the Allied Forces to free the Philippines from Japanese occupation.

It was also used as a temporary seat of government following the proclamation of the restoration of the country’s civil government.

The 80-year-old woman described MacArthur as tall and very nice, but the struggle of war was evident in his weathered skin and wrinkles.

The American general was the commander of the United States Army Forces in the Far East and former chief of staff of the US Army.

“MacArthur chose to make our house as his headquarter since this

was the sturdiest structure in the city during World War II. I am happy that this property has been preserved over the years,” Price told the Philippine News Agency.

On October 20, 1944, a Japanese bomb penetrated the roof over General MacArthur’s room. The hole caused by the bomb was preserved and can still be seen today.

After a few years, the College Assurance Plan (CAP) acquired the property and preserved its original architecture. Today, the building is owned by the Romualdez family.

The mansion on Justice Romualdez Street has been opened to the public with an exhibit of World War II photos and war memorabilia.

Walter Scott Price, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, built the property in 1910. At the age of 21, he was one of the 12 US army engineers assigned in the Philippines at the onset of the Spanish-American War to help rebuild war-torn communities.

He married Simeona Custodio Kalingag, a native of Cavite, whose family migrated to Leyte after the Spanish-American War.

THE preserved hole after a Japanese bomb penetrated the roof over General MacArthur’s room in 1944. PNA PHOTO BY SARWELL MENIANO LILIA PRICE, the granddaughter of Walter Scott Price, shows photographs of World War II displayed inside the Price Mansion. PNA/SARWELL MENIANO

“He decided to stay in Tacloban, establish a family and do business here. He was considered as the King of Leyte because he created a lot of jobs here,” Lilia recalled. Among the businesses he established were transportation services, grocery store, cinema, school and a maternity hospital.

His hard-earned wealth allowed Walter to build the 12-room Price Mansion with one room for each of his 12 children. On the first floor, he provided a huge space for the overnight stay of his employees.

“He lived like a king but is best remembered as hospitable, fun, loving and generous. People of Tacloban just loved him,” Lilia said.

When the Japanese invaded Leyte, Walter and thousands of other Americans were detained at the Manila Internment Camp inside the University of Santo Tomas (UST) campus.

He died of pneumonia in 1945 at the age of 68 shortly after his release from the UST prison camp. MacArthur orchestrated the liberation of prisoners of war. Walter was buried in this city. His wife, Simeona, died in 1973 at the age of 100.

“When MacArthur landed in Leyte, one of the first few people he looked for was the 12 US army engineers sent to the Philippines, including my grandfather,” Lilia recalled.

On October 20, Leyte Island commemorated the 75th Leyte Gulf Landings, remembering the Battle of Leyte Gulf as the largest naval battle in the Pacific, and the largest naval battle recorded in history.

The battle spanned 100,000 square miles of sea; and was fought for three days, from October 23 to 25, 1944, during the invasion of Leyte by the Allied forces. PNA

GEN. Douglas MacArthur’s bedroom at Price Mansion. PNA/SARWELL MENIANO

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BusinessMi

Saturday, October 26, 2019 | Editor: Jun Lomibao

Merckx out of hospital after crash

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IVE-TIME Tour de France winner Eddy Merckx was released from hospital, several days after he was rushed into intensive care following a crash while out riding.

Merckx fell while riding with friends last Sunday and was immediately transferred to a hospital in Dendermonde, near Gent, with reports circulating that he had suffered a “serious head injury.”

Merckx left intensive care four days later but remained hospitalized for several days in order to undergo a series of medical tests. Sudpresse reported that Merckx suffered a hemorrhage and was kept in intensive care overnight. On Monday afternoon he was given the green light to leave and was transferred to a regular ward.

On Friday, Sporza reported that Merckx had been given permission to leave the hospital with the 74-year-old now resting at home.

“He is happy that he can go home,” Claudine Merckx, his wife, told Het Nieuwsblad. Cyclingnews

BRAILSFORD

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A DIFFERENT PUZZLE TO BE SOLVED

EAM Ineos is weeks away from announcing its leaders for the Tour de France in 2020 but, with defending champion Egan Bernal, four-time winner Chris Froome, 2018 winner Geraint Thomas, and new signing Richard Carapaz all in the mix, Dave Brailsford is confident that the team can succeed in its quest for an eighth title in nine years.

Speaking at the 2020 Tour de France route presentation in Paris, Brailsford told Cyclingnews that his next challenge would be to analyze the route in full before coming up with a plan of action.

Both Bernal and Froome have expressed their hopes of leading the team at next year’s race, as Froome seeks a record-equalling fifth title following his serious crash at this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné.

While lineups and rosters are far from complete, Brailsford at least knows the sort of parcours his team will have to deal with.

Gone from this year is the team time trial, while there are just 36 km of individual time trialing deposited on the penultimate stage of the race. The fact that all 36 km come during a mountain time trial on home favorite Thibaut Pinot’s local roads will not be lost on Brailsford, but he believes Ineos’

strength in depth will be enough when it comes to controlling the race through the medium mountain stages that pepper the entire 2020 Tour de France route.

“I think there’s a reduction in time trials and flats,” Brailsford told Cyclingnews in Paris.

“Then the last time trial is interesting but they’ve taken the climbing kilometers and spread them throughout the race rather than have them focused on your Alpine and Pyreenean focus stages, which is interesting. It’s more a midmountain, all-rounder route. I don’t think that makes it more difficult to control.

“Every year it’s a different puzzle to solve.

We’ll take it away, pick it apart and figure it out. In the team, we’ve got riders who can really climb, who can time trial well and, whichever way a Grand Tour goes, we’ve got guys who can cover all the bases.”

With Geraint Thomas hinting that a Giro d’Italia bid could be his main focus, Brailsford will wait until the Italian Grand Tour and then the Vuelta a España announce their routes later in the year before confirming Team Ineos’ plans.

“It’s now a question of sitting down, looking at the Giro, this, then looking at the Vuelta and then deciding who we’re going to tackle the season,” he said. Cyclingnews

PUMP UP THE ACTION! The US’s Tommy Zula takes first place

during the final run of the recent UCI Pumptrack World Championships in Oberried near Koeniz, Switzerland. AP

TOUR FOR MIL A

LYU XIANJING is slowly and surely making a name.

FTER unveiling a groundbreaking route for the 2020 Tour de France— low on time trials and high on hills—Christian Prudhomme spoke of the battle to capture the increasingly fleeting attention of the 21stcentury audience.

The race director referred to the “civilization de zapping,” a term that comes from the tendency of modern television viewers to restlessly flick through channels, and insisted: “We have to make things as varied as possible.”

The 21 Tour de France stages certainly make for an atypical route that was described as “unprecedented” by both Julian Alaphilippe and Romain Bardet. The first week, which

REMEMBER THE NAME: LYU XIANJING

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NE year ago, a young rider from China, Lyu Xianjing, made minor waves in the world of cycling when he finished fifth overall in the Tour of Hainan, followed swiftly by third in the Tour of Fuzhou including victory in the opening 107-km stage between Ma Wei and Ku Liang.

We are not talking UCI WorldTour level racing but there was a strong presence of top riders in China, some of whom started to ask themselves who this young rider was. Also, Xianjing, at the time just 20 years old, was discovering a few things—he had not heard of the Tour de France and did not know who Geraint Thomas was.

Fast-forward one year and it has become obvious that those early results of this Chinese sensation—as he was referred to by one sports writer at the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire—were no flash in the pan.

Last month, riding for UCI Continental Team Hengxiang Cycling Team, he became the first Chinese winner of the Tour of China II, celebrating its 10th edition this year. One week later, Xianjing was in Yorkshire for the Under-23 UCI Road World Championships where he was still in the mix when echelons formed to split an already reduced peloton with less than 60 kms to go.

Coming from mountain biking—popular in his home province of Yunnan—Xianjing quickly demonstrated his climbing skills when trying his luck on the road. He finished the 2018 Tour of Hainan atop the mountains classification, although admitted he had trouble handling his bike in the descents. Since then he has been on a learning curve that has seen him go from strength to strength.

“After the 2018 Tour of Hainan and Tour of Fuzhou, I got more interested in road cycling and started loving it,” he said. “I decided I would stick with it, and no matter how hard it was, I would persist.

“From 2018 to 2019 I have kept learning from different races: for example, I have learned in which position I can save energy, and how to work with good riders. I always find my own weakness during the race and after the race I practice and improve.

“My strength is climbing, and my weakness is still downhill skill, especially long distance downhill.”

The Chinese rider’s personal highlight of the year was his victory in the Tour of China II. “I didn’t aim to win but wanted to make a personal breakthrough and get stronger. When I was on the podium I was very moved and emotional, also because I had a great team and coach,” he said.

Xianjing now knows about the Tour de France and followed the action closely in 2019. His cycling hero is Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step).

“This year in the Tour de France I saw his great quality, he’s a very tough guy!” Xianjing said.

Third this year in the Asian Mountain Bike Continental Championships and second in the Asian Road Continental Championships, the 21-year-old has his sights set on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

“My goal is to keep learning and get to a higher level. I would love to go overseas to compete. That would make me mature even faster,” he said.

It is not the last we have heard of Lyu Xianjing. UCI News

takes in three mountain ranges, is surely the one of the toughest in the history of the race, with the first major climbs coming as early as Stage 2 in the Nice hinterland, the first summit finish in the Alps on Stage 4, a stage in the Massif Central on Day 6, and two big outings in the Pyrenees before the riders even pause for the first rest day.

The theme continues in week two as the race heads back through the Massif Central and then to a summit finish on the Grand Colombier in the Jura, before a couple more stages in the Alps in the final week. Finally, the Vosges range hosts the race’s dénouement in the form of a time trial finishing atop La Planche des Belles Filles—the only race against the clock of the

entire three weeks. Four-time champion Chris Froome described the route as “brutal”—the hardest he’d seen in several years.

“We’re not looking to make it harder; we’re looking to make it more varied,” Prudhomme said.

“In that respect, we’re lucky to be starting in Nice—for only the seventh time in 107 editions. When you think of Nice, you think of the sea, but we’re also at the foot of the Alps, and close to all of France’s mountain ranges.

So we’re going to start in the Alps, go to the Massif Central, the Cévennes, Pyrenees, back to the Massif Central, the Jura, the Alps again, and the Vosges. The idea was to make it as varied as possible.

“It’s not that there are fewer stages for

the sprinters, but they’re spread out. There are chances for the sprinters in the first week, but never two in a row.”

Likewise, the climbing stages are spread throughout the three weeks, with Prudhomme and his colleagues hoping hostilities between the yellow jersey contenders could flare at any moment, rather than being limited to set-piece blocks in the Pyrenees and Alps. This year there are just two stages in the Pyrenees, neither with a summit finish, and the hardest day of the race in terms of elevation gain comes in the Massif Central on Stage 13.

“The Tour is about the Alps and Pyrenees and always will be. However, in the last few years, we’ve been seeking out difficulties

Top XCO ride T

TO RIDE OR NOT TO RIDE An Iranian woman rides a bicycle rented from a GPS-enabled station with her smartphone as a man walks

downtown Tehran. Tehran municipality is encouraging citizens to use bicycles to stop driving their own cars that cause heavy traffic jams and pollute the air. Cycling is getting more popular among both genders but hardliners and some clerics say it is not appropriate for women since it might expose parts of their body. AP

HE Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games cross-country mountain bike test event attracted a large number of riders and saw Switzerland’s Jolanda Neff win the Women’s race and her compatriot Nino Schurter at the men’s category.

The Olympic cross-country mountain bike test event was held 150 kilometers south of Tokyo attracted a large field, with 42 women and 47 men taking to the start line.

Among them were two-time UCI world champions Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France), Neff (Switzerland), reigning men’s Olympic champion and eight-time UCI world champion Nino Schurter (Switzerland) and former Olympic champion and UCI world champion Jaroslav Kulhavy (Czech Republic).

Neff won the women’s race ahead of Sina Frei (Switzerland) and Anne Terpstra (the Netherlands), while Schurter took the honors in the men’s race from Victor Koretzky (France) and Luca Braidot (Italy).

Laid out in a natural, partially wooded setting,

irror CYCLING

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph | Saturday, October 26, 2019

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Pinot: It will be a battle every day F ROM his seat near the front of the Palais des Congrès during the 2020 Tour de France route presentation, Thibaut Pinot had to relive footage of his dramatic abandon on this year’s race. By the time the lights went up in the auditorium, however, his thoughts were firmly on the 2020 edition of the race, which features a course that seems tailored to his talents.

“The page is turned, you have to think about other things,” Pinot said. “Obviously, it was difficult. August wasn’t the best month of my life. It was a big disappointment and it was hard to accept, but, with time, it’s better.”

Given the number of leaks in recent weeks, there were few surprises when Christian Prudhomme unveiled the Tour route on Tuesday morning. There are climbs dotted throughout the three weeks of the race, starting with a foray into the Alps on Stage 2 and concluding with a mountain time to La Planche des Belles Filles, a stone’s throw from Pinot’s native Mélisey, on the penultimate stage.

“It’s a course for me, but not only me,” Pinot said. “It’s for all the climbers, and I think it suits [Egan] Bernal completely. But it’s a course that I like.”

The Grand Départ in Nice—just the second in Tour history—means the peloton begins climbing on the opening weekend, and there are also summit finishes at Orcières Merlette and Mont Aigoual in the first week, which should provoke early gaps in the general classification. There are precious few transitional stages thereafter, and Pinot was enthusiastic about the idea that general classification contenders might be compelled to race day in, day out.

“There are climbs immediately and then almost all the time. There aren’t big gaps between the mountain ranges,” Pinot said.

“The Massif Central is very well placed in the middle of this Tour. We’re climbing straight away in Nice, then we’re in the Massif Central before the Pyrenees and back in there before the Alps. That’s a good thing and it means that it will be a battle every day.”

In 2019, Pinot won atop the Tour’s most frequented mountain pass, the Col du Tourmalet. Next July, the race features some new finishes, including the Puy Mary on Stage 13. “It’s an area I know but not that well, so I’ll have to go and reconnoiter it because it’s a col that’s quite particular,” Pinot said. “It’s a bit of a change from the classic finales, but that’s OK, novelty isn’t a bad thing.”

Pinot hasn’t raced since he was forced to abandon the 2019 Tour on Stage 19 with a thigh injury. The Frenchman was lying 5th overall, but just 20 seconds behind eventual winner Bernal, when he left the race. He has already confirmed that he will target the Tour de France in 2020 rather than return to the Giro d’Italia, which he rode in 2017 and 2018.

“I’m going to start training again in November. My injury needed almost three weeks to heal so I only got back to regular activity in the month of September,” Pinot said. “Now I’m having a spell off the bike and I’m concentrated on 2020.” Cyclingnews

Froome: Tour de France 2020 route most difficult in 6 years

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LLENNIALS elsewhere,” Prudhomme said.

“I’m very happy that we have summit finishes in three ranges that aren’t the Alps or Pyrenees. For me, that’s a good thing. We wanted to seek out novelties.

These are places that are emblematic, beautiful, and tough, with very steep gradients. We have all the ingredients for a great battle.”

As for the paucity of time trialling, a recent trend that has now been taken to a new level, Prudhomme sympathiz ed with the traditionalists but argued it was a necessary step given smaller and smaller time gaps seen in the mountains compared to the time trials.

“I dream of cycling where the climber distances the rouleur in the mountains and loses

time against the clock, but, nowadays, that doesn’t happen,” he said.

After a few years of trying to break the Team Sky/Ineos stranglehold, Prudhomme delighted in the spectacle of this year’s race, widely regarded as the most exciting in three decades. The 2020 route seems an overt attempt to recreate this summer’s drama, but he pointed out there’s only so much he can do: “It’s the riders who make the race.” Cyclingnews CHRISTIAN PRUDHOMME: We’re not looking to make the 2020 Tour de France harder—we’re looking to make it more varied. AP

ers all praises about Tokyo BMX route the course (a 4-km loop completed five times) features some very steep climbs and challenging off-camber sections dotted with roots and stones.

The presence of several different types of surfaces—grass, gravel and track—will make tire choice crucial. Riders will also have their nerve tested by two rocky sections and the breathtaking Sakura Drop.

Rio 2016 gold medalist Schurter was full of praise for the course.

“It’s very demanding, which surprised me.

There’s one steep climb after another and they give you no chance to get your breath back,” Schurter said. “You have to stay with it from start to finish, which is what I did by moving into the lead on the descent on the last lap. I think it will be warmer and not so windy next year. It’ll be a question of making a quick impact because I can’t see a group finish like we had today.”

“It’s definitely the toughest course I’ve seen

for an Olympics,” said the Swiss rider, who will be competing at his fourth Games in Tokyo.

His compatriot, Neff, shared those views.

“It’s a similar course to the ones for the World Championships and the World Cup, in natural settings with wooded and rocky sections. The obstacles are pretty amazing but you can still negotiate them,” Neff said.

“The Izu course is different to London and Rio, which were mainly on grass. Here they’ve made the most of the natural conditions, while creating a compact site that will keep spectators close to the action,” she added.

Brazil’s Henrique Avancini, who placed fifth in the men’s race, echoed Neff’s words.

“I really appreciated the environment surround the track. The fans can easily get around from one place to the next,” Avancini said. “We got a little taste of their passion for our sport and I can’t wait for the Olympic race.”

Fresh from her third place in the women’s race, Terpstra also expressed her appreciation of the pre-Olympic atmosphere.

“My aim was to gather as much information as I could to prepare for next year. I was amazed by the atmosphere. It was a challenge and it felt like we were really at the Games,” Terpstra said. “The organization was perfect, the fans came out to see us, and not everyone gets to ride on a course that looks out on to Mount Fuji.”

“This is a very different course to previous Games, and the athletes were a bit surprised by what they came across,” said Simon Burney, the head of off-road racing at the UCI. “Following two days of training and Sunday’s test event, the track has won all the rider over and it will test their technical and physical skills.

Izu has set a new standard for the design and construction of the Olympic cross-country course at the Games.” UCI News

HRIS FROOME has admitted he faces a personal battle of rehabilitation and recovery before he can start to think about targeting the 2020 Tour de France and a recordequaling fifth yellow jersey victory.

Froome crashed hard while studying the time trial stage at the Critérium du Dauphiné in June, fracturing his leg, hip, ribs, vertebrae and elbow. He watched the 2019 Tour de France from a hospital bed but has gradually started to ride a bike and plans to ride the Saitama Tour de France criterium in late October.

Froome was welcomed on stage at the presentation of the route for the 2020 Tour de France in Paris, a slight limp and a lack of muscle in his right leg the only apparent consequences of his crash.

He admitted his first personal challenge is being at the start line in Nice on June 27 as part of the final Team Ineos lineup, which could include 2019 winner Egan Bernal and 2018 winner Geraint Thomas.

“Even to be on the start line at next year’s Tour would be just incredible for me,” Froome told Cyclingnews and other media backstage after the presentation.

“Winning would be just something else.

To win after having the injuries I’ve had, it’d be incredible. At the same time, even being back on the bike at this moment is a big victory.”

Froome’s career could have ended with the crash but he never seriously thought about

CHRIS FROOME says the 2020 route doesn’t suit one particular rider, but it suits anyone who can climb.

throwing in the towel.

“From the moment I woke up [after surgery], it was always about how I was going to get back,” he said.

“When I heard that the surgery went well and they said I’d be able to get back where I left off, that was music to my ears. From that moment, it’s been very positive, we’ve seen week-on-week improvements and, hopefully, it continues that way into the New Year and I’ll be able to start racing in the early season next year.”

Froome started riding a stationary bike a few weeks after his crash and has since begun road riding, recently climbing the Col de la Madone overlooking Nice as part of a French television interview.

The 2020 Tour de France is eight-and-halfmonths away and Froome has made returning to the race that has defined his career a huge personal goal. Any final decision on whether Froome has a place in the Team Ineos lineup for the Tour will probably only be made a few weeks before the race.

“I’ve had an incredible recovery so far. It’s gone, as well as I could have hoped, even if I’ve still got a lot of work ahead of me,” Froome explained.

“I’ve got to remove a plate from my hip and a whole load of screws. But, hopefully, when that comes out, things will continue improving. Going forward, I’ll take what I can, keep chipping away and, hopefully, get back to where I left off.”

Froome was, perhaps, hoping for an easier 2020 Tour de France route, with a traditional flat first week of racing that would help him find his feet and polish his form. However, the mountains begin on Stage 2 and there are a total of 29 classified climbs spread across 20 days of racing, while there are just 36 kilometers of time trialling, in the form of one mountain time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles that will decide the winner of the yellow jersey on the penultimate day.

“I haven’t seen a parcours that hard in the last five or six years. It’s brutal,” Froome admitted.

“Even though there’s a lack of time kilometers, there are a lot of opportunities in the mountains. It’s definitely going to be a race that is won or lost in the mountains, especially with the last TT going up La Planche des Belles Filles.

It’s a brutal sting in the tail.”

Froome shrugged off suggestions that the lack of time trials suited French riders Julian Alaphilippe and Thibaut Pinot.

“It is what it is. Every year we’ve got to adapt to what the organizers throw at us. That’s the nature of the race,” he said.

“It doesn’t suit one particular rider; it suits anyone who can climb.... It suits Egan pretty well…”

And does it suit Froome?

“If I can get back to where I left off, then I’d be confident on the start line,” he said with pride.

“First things first, I’ve got to get back to where I left off and then I can start looking at how to tackle the race. That, for me, is the biggest part of the preparation.” Cyclingnews

Sports BusinessMirror

JUVIC MAKES MOVE A8 Saturday, October 26, 2019

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UVIC PAGUNSAN emerged from a crowded leaderboard in the last eight holes to seize control in pivotal day of the International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) Summit Point World 18 Challenge in Lipa City, churning out a second straight 64 for a twostroke lead over an equally hot-charging Tony Lascuña.

A crisp approach shot on the par-four 18th set up another birdie chance from 6 feet which he calmly knocked in to cap a brilliant backside 31 and firm up his lead at 17-under 199 that had appeared a bit shaky after Lascuña turned in his own version of a 33-31 that moved the veteran shotmaker from joint sixth to solo second at 201.

“It was a superb game and I hope I could sustain it to the finish,” said Pagunsan, who rushed to and hugged son PJ after holing out with that birdie feat, his 17th in the last two days marred by just one birdie in a brilliant show of shotmaking, iron game and putting on a wellkept course that features replicas of 18 of the world most renowned golf holes and which he calls home.

American Brett Munson, who started the day ahead by three over Pagunsan and Jhonnel Ababa,

Valdez, Morado cut Japan camp to help Cool Smashers in semis

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REAMLINE, which completed a record sweep of the eliminations without its two key players in the last three games, aims to move closer to a grand feat with Alyssa Valdez and Jia Morado back in the fold as the Cool Smashers face Motolite at the start of the Premier Volleyball League Open Conference Final Four on Saturday at the Filoil Flying V Centre.

Valdez and Morado cut their training camp with the national team in Japan to help anchor Creamline’s title retention drive in the seasonending conference, taking on a team whose top hitter continues to be hobbled by a foot injury.

Game One of their best-ofthree series kicks off at 2 p.m. with No. 2 PetroGazz and third-ranked BanKo-Perlas clashing in their side of the playoff at 4 p.m.

The four teams switch game times on Sunday in a grueling back-to-back matches.

Michele Gumabao—who with Jema Galanza, Kyle Negrito, Risa Sato, Celine Domingo, Rosemarie Vargas and Pau Soriano took care of business in the absence of Valdez and Morado—has guaranteed a stronger, fiercer Creamline crew in the semifinals with the duo back in the roster.

“It’s only going to get better from here and we’re ready to welcome them back,” Gumabao said.

But Motolite vowed to give its best shot to stop its powerhouse rival and fuel its own title drive in the league organized by Sports Vision with Myla Pablo raring to go despite being far from top form after sustaining a foot injury that sidelined her from quite a number of games in the eliminations.

JUVIC PAGUNSAN hopes to sustain his form to the finish. ROY DOMINGO

year’s Philippine Golf Tour Order of Merit title; Lascuña, the former three-time OOM winner who swept the last two legs of PGT’s milestone 10th season coming off a PGT Asia Taiwan victory last month; and Ababa, the winningest player on PGT Asia with four victories.

Despite his lead, Pagunsan remained wary of his chances for the top $17,500 prize and a second Philippine Golf Tour Asia crown after dominating the Riviera leg early this year, stressing “other players are capable of shooting a 64. No game plan and will just play my game.”

staved off the Filipinos’ charge by bucking an early bogey with an eagle on the ninth. But he bogeyed three of the first four holes at the back and fell with a thud to joint seventh at 205 with Aussie Jack Lane-Weston, who rallied with a 66.

“Unlike in the second round, I had problem with my putter. But it happens in golf and I have to shoot a 64 to win. But of course, it’s quite tough to do it,” said Munson in jest.

Ababa also reeled back with a mediocre 35 start but almost matched Pagunsan’s backside attack with a four-birdie binge from No. 12 then rescued pars in the next two to shoot a 67 for third at 202.

That arranged a perfect allP i noy f i n a l g roupi ng a mong Pagunsan, who posted a record four-win-in-row feat to bag this

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aquatics center, a 20,000-seater athletics stadium and seven-building Athlete’s Village that will accommodate Games delegates and volunteers from November 30 to December 11.

“Pagcor is very proud to be part of this gigantic international sports spectacle. We hope that through our partnership with Phisgoc, the Philippines’s hosting of the 30th SEA Games will be a huge success and our athletes will reap major honors for the country,” Domingo said.

Besides committing as one of the major sponsors of the event, Pagcor has earlier granted P842.5 million to the PSC for the rehabilitation of facilities that will be utilized for the Games, including the PhilSports Complex Multipurpose Arena, Rizal Memorial Track and Football Stadium, Rizal Memorial Coliseum and the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

Bucks down Rockets, spoil Westbrook’s Houston debut

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OUSTON—When Giannis Antetokounmpo fouled out with more than five minutes left after putting up a triple-double against the Houston Rockets, the rest of the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t panic.

“These guys in this locker room, we’re fighters, we’re competitors,” Wesley Matthews said. “If Giannis fouls out we can’t just come into the locker room.”

Antetokounmpo scored 30 points and his supporting cast held on to lead the Bucks to a 117-111 victory over the Rockets on Thursday night in a starstudded opener featuring the last three MVPs. Antetokounmpo, the MVP last season, also had 13 rebounds and 11 assists.

While certainly upset after fouling out, he was impressed with the way his team responded.

“They did an amazing job,” he said.

“Moving the ball, knocking down shots.”

Brook Lopez made two free throws with about a minute left before a lay-up

by Russell Westbrook. But Lopez made a fadeaway shot to leave Milwaukee up, 115-109, with 39 seconds remaining.

James Harden added a pair of free throws

“I’m happy with my game, especially my putting. I hope to play this way again tomorrow,” said Lascuña, also out to post a twotitle PGT Asia feat in the third season of Asia’s newest circuit after his Taiwan escape.

Munson’s bogey on No. 10 enabled Keanu Jahns, Pagunsan and Lascuña to force a four-way tie at 12-under with Ababa, Aussie Damien Jordan and Clyde Mondilla just a couple of shots behind at 10-under.

But Jahns failed to sustain a fiery 32 start with a par game at the back for a 68 and a share of fourth at 204 with Mondilla and Jordan, who shot 66 and 68, respectively.

L e x u s K eon i n h a l so c a me through with a solid 66 spiked by four birdies in the last six to tie fellow American Sam Gillis, who fired 68, at ninth at 206.

PHL ladies grope in LPGA qualifiers

PAGCOR STRESSES SUPPORT FOR SEAG HE Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) formalized its partnership with the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) for the country’s hosting of the 30th Southeast Asian Games in a signing ceremony held recently at the New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac.

Pagcor Chairman and CEO Andrea Domingo and House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, also the Phisgoc chairman, sealed the deal in the presence of Senate Committee on Youth and Sports Chairman Bong Go and officials of the House of Representatives, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and Philippine Olympic Committee (POC).

The signing ceremony was highlighted by the officials’ tour of the P13-billion sports hub in Capaz, Tarlac,, which boasts of a world-class

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

before Ersan Ilyasova made a jump shot with about 15 seconds to go that sent many fans heading to the exits.

Some had wondered what would happen with the pairing of the two ball-dominant guards in Harden and Westbrook after the 2017 MVP was traded from Oklahoma City for Chris Paul this summer. In their first game together with the Rockets both filled up the stat sheet, but they were unable to come away with a win after leading for much of the game.

Westbrook had 24 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists.

Harden, the 2018 MVP, added 19 points, 14 assists and seven rebounds. He was 2 of 13 from the field, 1 of 8 on threes and made 14 free throws without a miss.

“They’re going to be fine,” Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “It’s sad to say, but we’re not going to win 82 games this year. Now we’ve got a chance to win 81.”

The Bucks led by six when Antetokounmpo fouled out. He walked to Coach Mike Budenholzer and implored him to challenge the call, but he’d already used his one challenge per game that coaches get this season and couldn’t do anything to help his superstar. AP

OTTIE ARDINA stumbled with a late bogey that cut short her frontside rally as she settled for an even par 71 even as Clariss Guce and Bianca Pagdanganan continued to grope for form after two rounds of the grueling Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Q-Series at Pinehurst, North Carolina, Thursday.

Ardina recovered big from an opening bogey on No. 10 with birdies on Nos. 2 and 4 but missed the par-three No. 7 and failed to get up-and-down, ending up with a 35-36 round at the par71 layout. Though she improved by two strokes after an opening 73, the Filipina ace still dropped from joint 34th to a share of 43rd at 144 as majority of the bidders from starting field of 98 made their moves and gain ground, including American Lauren Kim, who sizzled with a 66 to grab the lead at 134.

Erstwhile front-runner Kim Kaufman, also of the US, slipped to second at 135 after a 70 after 36 holes of the two 72hole eliminations.

After a two-over 73 start, Guce fell farther back with two bogeys in the first four holes but got the strokes back on Nos. 5 and 9 only to fumble with another bogey on the par-five 16th for a 72 and a 145.

Pagdanganan, the low medalist in Stage1 and rallied in the final round to finish tied for eighth in Stage 2 of the eliminations which stakes precious cards for the 2020 LPGA season, also failed to rebound from a 74 start with three bogeys in the first five holes and limped with a second three-over card after trading three birdies with the same number of bogeys in the last 13 holes. She fell to joint 74th at 148, 14 strokes off the pace.

ATENEO TRIES TO MOVE CLOSER TO ELIMS SWEEP eight boards and three blocks while Thirdy Ravena also scored 11 points for WO-TIME defending champion the Eagles.

Ateneo seeks to move closer to an Just two victories away from eliminations sweep as it tackles an elimination sweep, Coach Tab also-ran National University (NU) in Baldwin urged his wards to focus on the University Athletic Association the task at hand. of the Philippines Season 82 men’s “We’re just thinking of NU. For basketball at the Ynares Sports Center any team in this position, things in Antipolo on Saturday. like undefeated seasons, sweeps, Already assured of the No. 1 seed, they happen because you take it one the Blue Eagles (12-0) aim to soar a step at a time and not because you win shy of a sweep for an outright make some grand statement about finals berth against the how good you are in front of a bottom-dwelling Bulldogs microphone,” Baldwin said.

(2-10) at 2 p.m.

“Sports is about performance No. 3 University of Santo and not about bragging about Tomas (UST), meanwhile, performance. So, we’re very tries to bounce back and much focused on what our boost its Final Four chances next performance is gonna when it battles the already be,” he added. eliminated Adamson University NU, on the other hand, (4-8) at 4 p.m. is just out to spoil Ateneo’s Ateneo posted its 12th sweep bid and rack up straight win—and 22nd overall wins before closing its dating back to last season—after dismal campaign that led an 84-50 romp over University to a fourth consecutive of the East last Sunday. early exit.

Veteran big man Isaac Go Sophomore guard drained a season-high 13 Dave Ildefonso will points built on three triples once again take charge to power the Katipunan of the Jamike Jarindribblers’ balanced offense. coached Bulldogs Coach Tab Ivory Coast center Angelo ATENEO together with brother Baldwin tells his wards to focus on the task at hand.

Kouame tallied 11 points, Shaun and JV Gallego.

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By Ramon Rafael Bonilla

Austria wrests Luzon regional lead with 72

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ONAR AUSTRIA wobbled at the finish but salvaged an even par 72 and kept a one-stroke lead over titleholder Sean Ramos and Brunei Darussalam’s AK MD Syakir at the start of the National Golf Association of the Philippines (NGAP) Northern Luzon Regional Golf Championship on Friday at Luisita Golf and Country Club in Tarlac.

Austria showed up the field with a two-birdie, one-bogey 35 start and went three-up over Ramos and Syakir with another birdie on the par-five 12th. But the 25-year-old shotmaker, a former jungolfer, dropped a stroke on the last par-5 (No. 16) and bogeyed the difficult, long, water-laced parthree 17th to close out with a 37.

But his 72 proved enough to put him in the lead in the early going of the 54-hole championship organized and conducted by the NGAP as Ramos also bogeyed Luisita’s signature hole for a 73.

Syakir bounced back from a twoover card with a birdie on the par-three 13th then parred the rest to match the defending champion’s 37-36 card.

Coby Rolida, Paolo Barro and Korean Tae Won Ha submitted identical 74s while Dan Cruz, winner of the recent Cangolf Am Open, settled down with a closing 36 after a 39 for a 75 for joint seventh with Andres Lorenzo, ensuring a fierce battle in the last two days of the event sponsored by the MVP Sports Foundation, Cignal and Metro Pacific Investments and serving as part of PLDT Group National Amateur Tour.

Laurea Duque bogeyed No. 16 and signed for a 73 to seize a one-stroke lead over Sophia Blanco in women’s Elite side with last year’s winner Kim Seo Yun of Korea struggling with a 77 and another Korean Hee Yeon Bang turning in a 78.

Czech, Kiwi eye 5150 crowns

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ZECH Jakub Langhammer and Laura Wood of New Zealand hope to cash in on their good form in pursuit of victory against multi-titled rivals when the second Black Arrow Express 5150 is fired off on Sunday in Subic Bay. Langhammer foiled fancied Mitch Robins in a recent 5150 race reduced to a duathlon event in Davao but what inspires him to aim for no less than the BAE 5150 crown is his solid buildup for this particular race set over the Olympic distance of 1.5-km swim/40-km bike/10-km run in the country’s triathlon hub.

“I did really good training block before this race and I feel ready for tomorrow [Sunday],” said Langhammer, who placed third to Robins and Sam Betten in last year’s inaugurals of this event put up by one of the country’s top cargo movers and organized by Sunrise Events Inc., now part of the Ironman Group.

Like Langhammer, Wood is coming into the event brimming with confidence, having toughened up for the first two events while hoping her legs would hold up in the deciding run part.

But the duo will be up against a set of veteran rivals with Langhammer gearing up for a threecornered fight with Robins and many-time Subic 5150 champion Sam Betten and Wood facing a tested Dimity Lee Duke and defending champion Manami Iijima in the centerpiece pro division of the event, which also features the Asian Elite division and the Go for Gold Sunrise Sprint, a short distance triathlon series featuring a 750-m open-water swim, 20-km bike ride and a 5-km run put up by Go for Gold to help Filipino athletes promote excellence.

For details, contact secretariat at blackarrowexpress@5150philip pines.com. For pro athletes, contact preregistration@ironman.com.

BusinessMirror

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Saturday, October 26, 2019 A9

New Facebook oversight board results to be public, exec says

BY LINDSAY WHITEHURST The Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY—A new quasi-independent oversight board will soon make decisions on some of the most difficult questions on what material belongs on Facebook’s platform in a “very public way,” an executive for the social-media company said Friday.

The board will consider a small number of cases where all appeals of Facebook decisions have been exhausted, the company’s director of governance and strategic initiatives, Andy Pergam, said in a speech at the University of Utah.

The board’s decisions and the company’s responses will be public, he said.

Its rulings will be binding in individual cases, but broader policy findings will be advisory.

“They’ll do all this in a very public way. This is the mechanism by which the board will have lasting policy influence over a company like Facebook,” he said.

Board members who are experts in a range of disciplines from around the world will be named December and begin hearing cases in early 2020.

The board will begin by weighing users’ posts and is expected to take on ads later.

The ads have recently come under scrutiny after Facebook refused demands to remove President Donald J. Trump campaign ads that make false claims.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the refusal to take down content it considers newsworthy on Thursday, saying he stands for free expression. His speech at Georgetown University was maligned by critics who said the company has failed to curb the spread of disinformation.

Zuckerberg announced plans to establish the oversight board last year during a firestorm over an inability to quickly and effectively misinformation, as well as hate speech and malign influence campaigns on the platform. Critics have called the board a bid to forestall regulation or even an eventual breakup of the company as Facebook faces antitrust investigations.

The board’s establishment is “one of the highestpriority projects” at the company, Pergam said.

He called it an effort that many Facebook officials are “losing a lot of sleep over, because it’s that important to get right.”

MICROSOFT RACKS UP MORE CLOUD CUSTOMERS

REDMOND, Washington—Microsoft on Wednesday reported its latest solid quarterly report card to Wall Street, buoyed by another round of business customers signing up for its cloud computing services.

The company reported fiscal first-quarter profit of $10.7 billion, up 21 percent from the same period last year.

The net income of $1.38 per share beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed

by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.25 per share. The software maker posted revenue of $33.1 billion in the July-to-September period, up 14 percent from last year and also beating forecasts. Ten analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $32.2 billion.

Microsoft shares have risen 35 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has risen 20 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $137.11, an increase of 27 percent in the last 12 months. It’s been dueling with Apple this season as the most valuable company in the S&P 500.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been rewarded for his efforts in steadily lifting the company’s earnings since taking over in 2014. His compensation was $42.9 million in the fiscal year that ended in June, a 66 percent raise over the previous year, according to a statement filed last week ahead of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in December.

That included a $1-million base salary increase, which the board said it awarded because of “his significant contributions to Microsoft’s success during his tenure as CEO” and a desire to encourage his “continued strong leadership.”

The strongest sales growth has come from adding new corporate and government clients to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. Azure’s quarterly revenue grew 59 percent from the same time last year, much of that powered by contracts worth at least $10 million each, the company said.

A less profitable part of Microsoft’s business has been its consumer products, such as Xbox, which saw no revenue growth in the quarter, and Surface laptops, which declined 4 percent. The Surface team, though a small part of Microsoft’s business, launched a new line of devices this fall and expects demand to pick up during the holiday season. AP

VIBER CEO Djamel Agaoua

FILIPINO singer Julie Anne San Jose was one of the performers at the Viber Asia Summit

Viber stays true to its DNA: Part 1 PRIMETIME

DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ @dinnachanvasquez luckydinna@gmail.com

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ESSAGING app Viber will stay true to its DNA of data ethics and privacy in the light of digital users being vulnerable to online threats.

This was emphasized by Viber CEO Djamel Agaoua during the recent Rakuten Viber Asia Summit at Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort & Spa in Singapore.

“If we are ‘left behind,’ as they say, then so be it. We shouldn’t live in a world where we think there will only be one winner,” said Agaoua.

Viber has 1 billion registered users, 25 million of them in the Philippines alone.

“Privacy is a strategy that isn’t opportunistic.

Viber’s platform is architectured in such a way that we [the people who work at Viber] have no access to your data,” said Agaoua.

For the Viber Summit, the team brought together its executives, industry leaders and content creators to talk about current trends in technology. The focus of the talks was the relevance of data protection in creating and maintaining formidable business solutions.

“Asia is one of the most thriving digital hubs in the world. Its digital users are among the most active online. Viber is fully committed to our users and their privacy. By initiating an important first step in data protection, we aim to encourage other companies to do the same and take the necessary steps to protect consumers as well,” said Agaoua.

He stressed that Viber is the safest messaging application in the world today and explained how the app’s default encryption works.

“Once the message is delivered, it is automatically destroyed. We only keep the footprint of the message like the date it was sent and the phone numbers involved, but the message content is gone. This means that even if technology advances to a point where our servers could be unlocked, in the case of Viber, those

messages will not be there to be hacked as they would have already been destroyed.”

For instance, Viber is staying true to its DNA by not planning to be a strong e-commerce player because it might compromise the privacy of its users.

Dr. Meri Rosich, Visa chief data officer and head of Data Science, kicked off the Viber Summit with a talk on how organizations can succeed with ethical artificial intelligence.

She was joined by Saemin Ahn, Rakuten Ventures managing partner; Chy Sila, Sabay Digital Media CEO; and Shehan Selvanayagam, managing director of Loops, in a panel discussion on how Asian consumers value their privacy.

■ To be continued....

High time restaurants adopt digital-first tech approach, GenieTech says THE digital era continues to disrupt every segment of the restaurant value chain—whether it is from in-store or customer-facing technology—and the only way to thrive in this changing landscape is to adopt a digital-first tech approach, says leading solutions provider Genie Technologies Inc. (GenieTech).

According to Jett Nava, client engagement manager of GenieTech, today’s customers expect fresh food, as well as a different dining experience that can entice them and trigger repeat visits. This mindset urges restaurant operators to redefine data as a commodity.

Citing industry research by media organization HospitalityTech.com, Nava noted that most restaurants with little to no integration of any digital tools feel less satisfied with their visibility online.

Most players also say that point-of-sale is the top system from which to mine data. They also consider having an established data flow as vital for restaurants to go beyond dashboards and unlock the full capability of available business

insights—all of these strategies are being rolled out to increase their sales and thrive amid strict competition.

“Restaurants are now realizing the benefits of taking on a digital-first approach because of the many ways that it can help maximize every interaction with your customers, manage the pace of technology, and lower the costs of running a restaurant,” said Nava.

“For restaurants in the country, they need to take advantage of the available tech tools and systems so they can reap its benefits.”

Recently, GenieTech, together with its partner NCR Aloha, the world’s preeminent restaurant point-of-sale solution, gathered restaurant owners, operations managers, and heads of the IT department to elevate the discussion on this trend through a series of events and focus group discussion.

The events underlined the importance of creating a data-driven restaurant amid the ever-changing digital world.

Through the use of digital tools that utilize artificial intelligence (AI), restaurants are given a transformative opportunity to

collect data and gain not just insights but also actionable recommendations to strengthen their operations.

GenieTech is a partner of NCR Aloha in rolling out these types of restaurant management tools for businesses in the Philippines. NCR Aloha gives operators the tools they need to boost sales and increase the pace and accuracy of service, such as entering orders and payments, streamlining food preparation and delivery, and improving operations.

NCR Aloha POS is ideal for quick-service, fast-casual (FC), casual-dining and fine-dining table service restaurants (TS), and can be used on fixed POS terminals, built-for-purpose handheld devices, and consumer mobile devices.

As a solutions provider, GenieTech (www.gti.com.ph) makes it easier to integrate such digital tools in restaurants’ current IT systems.

The company is recognized across Southeast Asia as a highly specialized information-technology company that provides global business solutions and world-class consulting and support services.

BusinessMirror

A10 Saturday, October 26, 2019

www.businessmirror.com.ph

PLDT Enterprise provides continuous connectivity solutions to seafarers

BY RIZAL RAOUL S. REYES

Net�lix heads into showdown with slowing subscriber growth

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BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE The Associated Press

AN FRANCISCO—Netflix’s subscriber growth is bogging down even before the leading video streaming service confronts high-powered threats from Apple and Walt Disney Co. The latest sign of the challenges the company is facing emerged Wednesday with the release of its third-quarter results. The numbers provided further evidence that Netflix’s salad days may be over, particularly in the United States, where most households that want its 12-year-old streaming service already have it.

Netflix added 6.8 million subscribers worldwide from July through September, below the 7 million customers forecast by the Los Gatos, California, company. Just 520,000 of those subscribers were picked up in the US, below the 800,000 that management anticipated. The shortfall came after Netflix lost 123,000 subscribers in the US during the April to June period, marking its first contraction in eight years.

The latest miss on US subscriber growth “spells trouble for the company ahead of heightened competition,” said eMarketer analyst Eric Haggstrom.

“The fourth quarter represents a completely new ball game for Netflix.”

Uncertainty about Netflix’s future growth is the main reason the company’s stock had dropped by about 30 percent below its peak price of $423.21 reached 16 months ago. Netflix’s shares surged 10 percent in extended trading Wednesday, apparently because some investors had been bracing for an even bigger letdown in the third quarter.

Netflix said it expects to add another 7.6 million worldwide subscribers during the final three months of the year, down from 8.8 million during the same

period last year in an acknowledgment of the fiercer competition.

“The launch of these new services will be noisy,” Netflix advised in its third-quarter letter to shareholders. “There may be some modest headwind to our near-term growth, and we have tried to factor that into our guidance.”

The big question now is whether some of Netflix’s existing subscribers will decide to cancel its service and defect to cheaper alternatives that Apple and Disney will launch within the next month.

Apple is charging only $5 per month for its service, set for a November 1 debut, while Disney is selling a service featuring its vast library of treasured films and TV shows for just $7 per month beginning November 12. Netflix’s most popular plan in the US costs $13 per month.

Netflix is counting on the unique lineup of awardwinning TV shows and movies that it has amassed since expanding into original programming six years ago to help it retain its competitive edge and attract more subscribers.

It has taken advantage of its head start in video streaming to track the viewing interests 158 million subscribers around the world, giving it valuable insights into the kind of programming that is most likely to appeal to wide swaths of its audience.

That knowledge, in theory, will help Netflix and choose which TV shows and movies to back in the future as it bids for programming against the likes of Apple, Disney and existing rivals such as Amazon and AT&T’s HBO. Even if Netflix keeps picking winners, some budget-conscious subscribers may be tempted to abandon its service and be content with the entertainment options being dangling by Apple and Disney.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged Wednesday that a US price increase imposed earlier this year is causing some current subscribers to cancel

the service, and perhaps causing some prospective customers to shy away.

“There’s a little more sensitivity, we are starting to see a little touch of that,” Hastings said during a discussion about the third quarter. “What we have to do is just really focus on the service quality, make us must-have.”

Apple is trying to make its new streaming service even more tempting by offering it for a year to anyone who buys an iPhone, iPad or Mac computer.

And Disney already is heavily promoting on Twitter its forthcoming service by highlighting that it will feature classic films, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Lion King.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said he is expecting Netflix to lose some of its appeal. He thinks the company could lose about 24 million subscribers, or about 15 percent of its customers, during the next 18 months.

As more competitors take aim at Netflix, some of them are also pulling their programming from the service. Disney is yanking its films from Netflix beginning next year. Beloved TV series The O��ice and Friends will disappear from the service in 2020 and 2021 in separate decisions made by NBC and AT&T. The losses of those popular shows may hurt Netflix even more than the competing streaming services from Apple and Disney, said Michael Pachter, another Wedbush Securities analyst.

“Netflix is going to lose 50 percent of its most viewed hours during the next two years,” Pachter said.

“As that starts to happen, subscribers are going to start to notice and some may start looking elsewhere.”

Netflix has another problem: It has been borrowing billions of dollars to pay for most of its programming. With its debt load already standing at $12 billion and still likely to climb, Netflix probably can’t afford to cut its prices without risking bankruptcy, Pachter said. ■

REALME PHILIPPINES TO LAUNCH 64MP SNAPDRAGON QUAD-CAMERA SUPER PHONE GAME-CHANGER brand Realme Philippines is set to disrupt the sub-P20,000 price segment by launching its 64MP quadcamera super phone, the Realme XT. The smartphone is the first in its price range to sport quad-camera technology with ultra-high graphic resolution, addressing the growing need of Filipinos for superior camera capability.

It’s been reported by Hootsuite in recent years that there is considerable growth in the number of Filipinos actively using content and social platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Through the Realme XT’s superb camera

technology, Filipino content creators are well-equipped in producing pro-like photos and quality vlogs.

This upcoming superphone boasts of a quad-camera module and Samsung’s ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor. This combination and the integrated 64MP main camera work complementarily to produce photos with impressive quality even in lowlight conditions.

Crisp details even while zooming in are guaranteed from an image size of four times larger than a 16MP shot. To further elevate the camera’s performance, the Realme XT is equipped with three other lenses: ultra-wide angle, macro and portrait.

But more than a camera powerhouse, the Realme XT is built to perform superbly with its Snapdragon 712 AIE with Hyperboost 2.0, which optimizes smartphone performance for a lag-free and immersive gaming experience.

The large-capacity 4,000 mAh battery is supported by a 20W VOOC 3.0 Flash Charge technology to deliver many hours of optimum superphone experience.

“We are very much excited to finally launch this impressive 64MP super phone.

We work diligently to ensure we offer products that pack innovations needed by our market. Realme Philippines is

committed to making flagship experience more attainable because we believe we all deserve the best experience. We are excited for everyone to do super fun adventures, super amazing photos, and super exhilarating activities—with the Realme XT,” says Realme Philippines Marketing Director Austine Huang.

Realme Philippines encourages fans to watch the livestream of the RealmeXT launch on the Realme Philippines Facebook page and YouTube channel on October 29.

Purchasers of Realme products are also welcome to join the realme community on Facebook to see the latest news and discussions about the brand.

PEOPLELINK Inc., a service specialist of the Magsaysay Group of Cos., that provides connectivity solutions for the shipping and manning industry, recently engaged PLDT Enterprise to ensure the country’s seafarers would enjoy continuous connectivity whether with their manning agency or their loved ones back home.

“We really wanted to address [the] communications problem of our seafarers. When they go out at sea for prolonged periods of time, sometimes they don’t have signal. And when that happens, their SIM cards that have ran out of load will expire,” said Norman Carcellar, president of Peoplelink Inc., in a press statement.

Carcellar said Peoplelink approached PLDT Enterprise, the business-to-business arm of the country’s leading information and communications technology and digital services provider, to address a major concern of Filipino seamen, who account for about 30 percent of the global maritime force. In turn, the latter provided its Smart Bizload platform, a Web-based credit portal that enables companies to efficiently load and manage budgeted mobile credits for their employees.

“Our partnership with Peoplelink actually began almost a decade ago, when we provided their seafarers with free SIM packets that granted them P200 worth of monthly e-load. Today, we are delighted to see how this partnership has grown with the provision of our Smart Bizload solution. Now that the loading of their credits is automated, both seafarers and management no longer have to worry about communication,” Vic Tria, first vice president of PLDT Alpha, said in a press statement. The tie-up has, in part, helped the Magsaysay Group bag several awards—including the Lloyd’s List Asia Innovation Award and the Asean Business Advisory Council Corporate Social Responsibility Award.

“We at PLDT Enterprise are always looking for ways to uplift the condition of our fellow countrymen, most especially our modern-day heroes—the OFWs, the seafarers, those who journey out to provide our country with the best service,” Senior Vice President and Head of PLDT and Smart Enterprise Business Groups Juan Victor Hernandez said.

“It is with great pride that we are able to fortify their work with solutions that best cater to their needs,” he added.

Carcellar pointed out that its partnership with PLDT has allowed it to reinvent its everyday operations, most especially in the advent of disruption and competition.

“This spirit of innovation in our company is what sets us apart.... We are able to dream and have this constant influx of ideas, and we are confident that PLDT-Smart will always be there to help us bring those ideas to reality,” he said.

BusinessMirror

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Saturday, October 26, 2019 A11

ENTERPRISES FULLY OPERATIONALIZE A.I. WITH INFOR’S PLATFORM

BY RODERICK L. ABAD Contributor

GOOGLE has unveiled a new Pixel phone with an updated camera and an emphasis on artificial-intelligence features. AP

Google touts privacy options, but still depends on your data

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BY RACHEL LERMAN The Associated Press

AN FRANCISCO—Google’s latest phone and smart-home devices came packaged with a not-so-subtle message: Google cares about your privacy. Does it?

The tech company has had a complicated relationship with user information in the past.

Google’s latest steps offer consumers some additional protections, although it’s unclear how much more secure users will feel.

Google unveiled a new Pixel smartphone and other hardware devices on Tuesday, all aimed at getting people more hooked on services powered by the company’s Google Assistant and other artificialintelligence technology.

But privacy has emerged as a bigger issue with these products thanks to the growing popularity of always-listening “smart speakers” and similar devices. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple have all recently acknowledged employing human contractors to listen to and transcribe some voice recordings captured by AI software.

Most such AI work, from interpreting voice requests to answering questions to turning on your lights, takes place in the cloud, not on your device.

Users have very little control of what happens to their data in the cloud.

On Tuesday, though, Google emphasized that much of what you do on its new phones will stay there. Its new facial recognition unlock feature won’t transmit details to Google servers for processing, for instance, and its Assistant can also handle many queries directly on the phone. A new recording transcription feature and radar technology that recognizes gestures are also done on the device.

“You need to know what your data is safe,” Rick Osterloh, Google senior vice president of hardware, said at the company’s New York launch event Tuesday.

“When computing is always available, designing for computing and privacy becomes more important than ever.” Apple and Amazon have also emphasized their privacy commitments at recent product launches.

The goal is to give people more choice over privacy settings, Osterloh said. Nest speakers and cameras now come with physical switches to turn off cameras and mics, for example.

Still, Google relies heavily on customer information to build user-specific profiles it uses to target digital advertising, which produces the vast majority of its income.

The Assistant, akin in basic function to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, is emerging as Google’s latest digital data collector. It can learn more about you from your queries and can direct you to other Google services, such as maps and search, which also feed into Google’s multibillion-dollar advertising business.

“Their end game is trying to collect all this data and target you with advertising,” said Victoria Petrock, principle analyst at eMarketer. “The voice is a whole new way to capture people’s behaviors.”

The more helpful the Assistant becomes, the more likely people are to use it.

On the hardware front, Google’s new Pixel 4 features a fancier camera that will recognize people who’ve appeared previously in your photos in order to automatically focus on them in new shots.

The new phone also comes with motion-sensing technology that allows people to skip songs or switch apps by gesturing near the phone.

The Pixel 4 will carry a starting price tag of $799— $100 more than the entry-level iPhone 11—and will go on sale October 24. The larger XL version will cost

$899, or about $200 less than the similar-sized iPhone 11 Pro Max. Google’s phones have been well-reviewed, but have yet to make much of a splash in the market dominated by Apple, Huawei and Samsung. In fact, Google’s hardware products have never been big moneymakers. Rather, they offer a way for Google to showcase its money-making services.

The company also unveiled true wireless earbuds, called Pixel Buds, Google’s answer to Apple’s AirPods.

The new model, which will go on sale early next year for $179, does away with the wire that connects the two buds.

Google introduced Nest Mini, the smaller version of its smart speaker. It comes out next Tuesday for $49. Google’s refreshed Wi-Fi router, Nest Wi-Fi, will be available in the coming weeks for $269. A new Pixelbook Go laptop goes on sale in January starting at $649.

Google hardware team, including many former Google Glass engineers, work from a lightfilled, architecturally impressive building near the company’s main campus in Mountain View, California. The building is complete with a “color lab” for finding the perfect device hues, a materials library for all sorts of elemental inspiration and a small model shop to build device prototypes on site.

“We started by defining what it feels like to hold Google in your hands,” hardware design executive Ivy Ross said. “The good thing about coming a little bit late to the hardware arena is you get to stand back and look at everyone else.”

One of the challenges this time around was finding a way to make the products more sustainable, a feat especially notable on the Nest Mini, which has a “fabric” casing made of yarn created from plastic water bottles. ■

BUSINESS cloud software provider Infor has taken a giant leap forward for artificial intelligence (AI) at scale as it has made the general availability of its platform for embedded machine learning models.

The Infor Coleman AI Platform provides the speed, repeatability and personalization required for businesses to fully operationalize AI. Named after physicist and mathematician Katherine Coleman Johnson for her work at Nasa that helped humans land on the moon, it is a key building block for the company’s Intelligent CloudSuite.

With the platform, enterprises can leverage on industry-specific starter packs (templates) to accelerate development of repeatable big data, machine learning-based AI projects. They are highly personalized and designed to specific customer data and usage patterns. Also, they are tailored for utilization by “citizen developers,” who don’t need extensive data modeling skills.

When consolidated with Infor Operating Service, enterprises can simplify and accelerate the whole implementation process—giving them the ability to roll out complete, production AI projects in less than six weeks. Infor OS is a cloud operating service that combines business processes with AI and offer operational insights that were never accessible to a business before.

Infor, via its AI Platform and OS, delivers the Intelligent CloudSuite, a complete suite to automate, anticipate, predict and inform. This gives businesses the required insights when they need them.

“With other solutions, you have to figure out how to use AI with a multitude of other technologies. We bring an enterprise AI ensemble together in a single platform, through which we can provide a complete Intelligent CloudSuite,” said Rick Rider, Infor senior director of product management, Infor OS and the Coleman AI Platform.

“The Infor Coleman AI Platform is unique in that it is designed specifically for business users and built upon a foundation of industry-specific data. At any given moment, it can help with executing tasks and recommending next-best sales offers, or predicting maintenance issues and adjusting production schedules accordingly,” he added.

Being a pervasive machine learning channel that operates below an application’s surface, this platform mines data and uses powerful machine learning to help enhance processes, such as inventory management, transportation routing and predictive maintenance. Specifically designed for nontechnical business users, it is built upon a foundation of industry-specific data and also provides the extensive tooling needed for a well-established machine learning practice.

The platform modeling environment is “digestible,” in that it doesn’t require as complex a skillset as other AI tooling; nor is it designed to require an exhaustive service engagement. Customers can better understand, relate and trust the output, given the focus on user experience and embedded connectivity to the whole applicable enterprise suite.

Organizations can work to gain a competitive edge by creating models from their proprietary data and experiences, and the platform allows them to pass along advantages, up and down stream, using their AI insights.

Infor offers different applications that span across financials, manufacturing, supply chain, human resources, customer relationships, health care, retail and the public sector. The firm serves over 68,000 customers in more than 170 countries through its 17,300 employees worldwide. In the Philippines alone, it has over 300 customers.

Carousell tackles counterfeit ONE of the world’s largest and fastest-growing classifieds, Carousell (www.carousell.com) has launched the Carousell Rights Owners Programme, a platform that tackles counterfeit listings in collaboration with brand partners.

CROP provides assurance to brands whose rights are more closely protected, and users who can deal with greater confidence in the marketplace platform.

CROP allows trusted brand partners to directly remove listings of brand replicas from Carousell with zero processing time, thus tightening the content moderation process by drastically reducing the time required for takedowns. First piloted in December 2018 in Singapore, CROP has taken down 13,000 listings in the nine months

since its introduction. Only select brand partners, whose activities will be closely monitored by Carousell, will have access to CROP and its content moderation capabilities. Brands that have come onboard CROP include Nike, Grab and luxury brands, such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta.

“We want to create a trusted marketplace platform and protect Carousellers from inadvertently purchasing counterfeits or unauthorized goods, while, at the same time, protecting brands’ rights. CROP allows us to proactively address both these issues seamlessly, eliminating any delay in action altogether. Once a listing has been deemed counterfeit and removed directly by the brand through CROP, the seller will

automatically receive an e-mail to notify them of the takedown due to their item’s infringement of intellectual-property rights,” said Serena Darcel Chin, Carousell head of legal.

Carousell’s existing counterfeit policy prohibits the sale of fake products, replicas or counterfeits, and the creation of any content that violates any IP rights.

Prior to CROP, there was a longer process from the flagging of an item to the actual takedown, as its URL had to be first submitted to Carousell’s brand protection team for processing.

To ensure swift action, Carousell is looking to further streamline and automate CROP’s processes in the near future.

“Trust and safety continues to be a key priority

for Carousell. Carousell has been collaborating with and supporting the police’s efforts in combating the sale of counterfeit goods on its platform. We are invested in building a holistically safe and conducive environment for buying and selling, and have seen very promising results from our combined efforts to tackle counterfeits,” said Raffy Montemayor, Carousell Philippines general manager.

CROP is the latest development of Carousell’s series of dedicated efforts in building a trusted environment for its users. Besides CROP, the brand has also invested resources in Sift Science (a third-party service provider) and manual moderation teams to help combat counterfeits on the platform.

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

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A COUPLE of options from the new Seiko sports watch collection.

Google claims breakthrough in blazingly fast computing

BY RACHEL LERMAN & MATT O’BRIEN The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO—Google announced on Wednesday it has achieved a breakthrough in quantum computing, saying it has developed an experimental processor that took just minutes to complete a calculation that would take the world’s best supercomputer thousands of years.

The feat could open the door someday to machines so blazingly fast that they could revolutionize such tasks as finding new medicines, developing vastly smarter artificial-intelligence systems and, most ominously, cracking the encryption that protects some of the world’s most closely guarded secrets.

Such practical uses are still probably decades away, scientists said. But the latest findings, published in the scientific journal Nature, show that “quantum speedup is achievable in a real-world system and is not precluded by any hidden physical laws,” the researchers wrote.

Big tech companies including Microsoft, IBM and Intel are avidly pursuing quantum computing, a new and somewhat bewildering technology for vastly sped-up information processing.

While conventional computing relies on bits, or pieces of data that bear either a one or zero, quantum computing employs quantum bits, or qubits, that contain values of one and zero, simultaneously.

But quantum computing requires placing the fragile and volatile qubits in colder-than-outer-spacerefrigerators to control them.

Google’s quantum processor looks like an upsidedown garbage can, out of which comes a series of tubes used to conduct signals to a chip. The whole thing is stored in a cool chamber to protect the chip.

Google said that its quantum processor, called Sycamore, finished a calculation in three minutes, 20 seconds—and that it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to do the same thing.

The calculation was a random sampling problem, similar to looking at the various combinations that could come from dice or a gambling machine. It has little practical value, other than to test how well the processor works.

“The more interesting milestone will be a useful application,” said Chris Monroe, a University of Maryland physicist who is also the founder of quantum startup IonQ. Google’s findings, however, faced push-back from other industry researchers. A version of Google’s paper leaked online last month.

IBM took issue with Google’s claim that it had achieved “quantum supremacy,” or the point when a quantum computer can perform a calculation that a traditional computer can’t complete within its lifetime.

IBM researchers said that its IBM-developed supercomputer, called Summit, could actually do the calculation in 2.5 days.

Google disputed IBM’s claims.

Whether or not Google achieved “quantum supremacy,” the research suggests the field is maturing.

“The quantum supremacy milestone allegedly achieved by Google is a pivotal step in the quest for practical quantum computers,” John Preskill, the Caltech professor who coined the term “quantum supremacy,” wrote in a column after the paper was leaked.

It means quantum computing research can enter a new stage, he wrote, though a significant effect on society “may still be decades away.”

One feared outcome—though experts said it is a long way off—is a computer powerful enough to break today’s best cryptography.

Seiko 5 Sports: A journey in time

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THE celebrity ambassadors of Seiko make some noise.

TECHNIVORE ED UY

whereiseduy@gmail.com

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F you are an ’80s kid, you probably grew up knowing “Seiko” for three things: the so-called lucky wallet, the sexy films Gretchen B. made famous, and the Seiko 5 watches your dad and uncles could never stop talking about.

Yes, the same Gretchen you’ve been following on IG for her “juicy” stories recently. Also I dare you not to sing: “Seiko, Seiko wallet/ang wallet na maswerte/balat nito ay ‘ginuwayn/international pa ang mga design.” Ha! You’re in LSS mode now!

As for the watch, you might not be aware of it but Seiko is actually one of the oldest tech companies in the world, tracing its beginnings from way back in the late 1800s. Throughout history, they have introduced numerous technological innovations not only for watches but also with their other brands, such as the printer and projector brand Epson.

■ HOUSE OF EXQUISITE WORKMANSHIP. The story of Seiko began in 1881, when a 22-year-old entrepreneur, Kintaro Hattori, opened a store that sold and repaired watches and clocks in Tokyo. He then put up the first ever “Seikosha” factory 11 years later, in 1892, producing wall clocks.

Seikosha roughly translated to “House of Exquisite Workmanship,” and it is where the word Seiko was derived from. Seiko also meant “exquisite” or “success.” True to its name, Seikosha’s wall clock business became a success prompting Kintaro to broaden the range of his business by introducing the Timekeeper, a pocket watch, in 1895, which eventually paved the way for Japan’s first-ever wristwatch called the “Laurel,” in 1913.

The first “Seiko” watch was released in 1924, a year after the Great Kanto Earthquake destroyed the company’s headquarters and its Seikosha factory all burned down. Seiko’s innovations include the “Diashock,” a shock-resistant device; the Gyro Marvel, the first self-winding watch equipped with Seiko’s proprietary “magic lever” system which is still being used today; and the creation for the first Japanese diver’s watch.

In 1969, Seiko ignited the quartz revolution with the first quartz watch, Seiko Quartz Astron. At the time, the Astron cost the same as a medium-sized car.

Eventually, the company made the wristwatch the most versatile gadget of its time, introducing new features, such as an LCD quartz display, a multifunction digital watch with a chronograph, a watch with a TV and radio tuner, as well as a watch that could record short voice memos.

Seiko is also credited for ushering in the age of portable information devices when it released the UC-2000. It was the world’s first watch with computer functions. It had a memory of up to 2,000 characters

and could store telephone numbers and addresses, as well as a diary or schedule for up to one month. Talk about high tech!

■ SEIKO 5 SPORTS: DESIGNED FOR THE NEXT GEN. Throughout its long history, Seiko has produced watches with quartz, kinetic, solar and mechanical movements of varying styles and prices points. To separate them, the company created several different brands, namely, Grand Seiko, Astron, Prospex, Presage, Seiko Premier, and perhaps, the most popular of them all, the Seiko 5 Sports.

Born in the 1960s, the Seiko 5 was the brand’s introductory line of automatic watches and the “5’’ represented the promise that every watch would have five key attributes: an automatic movement, a day-date display at the three o’clock position, water resistance, a recessed crown at the four o’clock position, and a case and bracelet built for durability.

Taken together and in combination with a mainspring and shock-resistance system, these features gave Seiko 5 its distinctive appearance and its strength.

The Seiko 5 Sports was created for the evergrowing number of men and women who wanted a watch they could trust as they played sports.

In addition to the fundamental values of Seiko 5, the Sports variant offered enhanced water-resistance, a strengthened crystal, and luminous hands and hour markers. Throughout the next decades, Seiko 5 Sports found great international favor as a ‘’goanywhere’’ watch that offered a unique look and extraordinary value.

In particular, the collection became synonymous among younger watch lovers with the many designs that had dials in vivid colors.

This year, the Seiko 5 Sports is reborn with 27 different executions, each in one of five styles: Sports, Suits, Specialist, Street and Sense. Drawing inspiration from the five decades of Seiko 5 Sports’ success, its design is based on one of Seiko’s mostloved sports watches. Every creation in the new collection shares an updated version of this celebrated case and all have the same arrow shaped minute hands, distinctive hour markers and one-way rotating bezel. The movements are all Seiko’s triedand-trusted automatic Caliber 4R36, with 24 jewels, optional manual-winding, a 41-hour power reserve, and a hacking second hand.

■ SHOW YOUR STYLE. To celebrate the grand relaunch of the Seiko 5 Sports collection, a special

event was held at the SMX Convention Center in SM Aura last October 16. It also introduced new Seiko 5 celebrity ambassadors including Rodjun Cruz, Dianne Medina, Khalil Ramos, Chu Calleja and Ben&Ben— each one representing the 5 Seiko personas: Street, Sense, Suits, Sports, and Specialist, respectively.

Launch visitors enjoyed a 20-percent discount for all Seiko 5 Sports watches, and 15-percent off on other Seiko watches through the Seiko ambassadors promo codes. DJ Javi Vargas and DJ Tobi Panlilio pumped up the venue as guests engaged in five different booth activities that provided a unique Seiko 5 Sports experience.

SMART HYPES THE LATEST IPHONE THE new iPhone 11 series is out and Smart Communications has just wrapped up its pre-order promos for the latest Apple smartphones.

The new iPhones are best experienced with Smart Signature Device Plan L, which comes with monthly 15GB data, Unli AnyNet Texts, Unli On-net Calls, and 150 min AnyNet Calls.

Under Smart Signature Device Plan L, Smart offers the iPhone 11 (64GB) for P2,499 per month for 24 months with a one-time cash-out of P7,000. With the same plan, Smart also offers the iPhone 11 Pro (64GB) for P3,099 per month for 24 months with a one-time cash-out of P11,500 and the iPhone 11 Pro Max (64GB) for P3,299 per month for 24 months with a one-time cash-out of P12,910.

You can also get the new iPhones via affordable cash amortization options under Smart Signature Plan M, which comes with monthly 10GB data, Unli AnyNet Texts, Unli On-net Calls, and 150 min AnyNet Calls. And for existing Smart Postpaid subscribers, great news: those who are availing of iPhone via retention can simply charge their device cash-out to their monthly bill—so there’s no need to shell out cash up-front. The iPhone 11 comes in six new gorgeous colors including purple, green, yellow, black, white and red.

Smart is also the only mobile services provider in the Philippines that offers Carrier Billing for App Store and Apple Music, among others.

This is a safe, secure and convenient payment method that enables Smart Postpaid subscribers to easily charge all Apple purchases to their mobile phone bill, eliminating the need for a credit card. ■

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In the ad material of Notice of filing of Application for Alien Employment Permits published on October 11, 2019, the Position of Mr. Tao, Gang under CHINA CONSTRUCTION FRONT GENERAL DEVT. CORPORATION should have been read as Senior MEP Manager and not as published. While in the ad material published on October 23, 2019, the Company name of Mr. Ki, Sebin and Mr. Kang, Hanbin under ONNURITOUR PHILIPPINES INC., should have been read as PARTY-ON TRAVEL AND TOURS COMMUNITY INC. and not as published.

If you have any information / objection to the above mentioned application/s, please communicate with the Regional Director thru Employment Promotion and Workers Welfare (EPWW) Division with Telephone No. 400-6011.

ATTY. SARAH BUENA S. MIRASOL REGIONAL DIRECTOR