BusinessMirror September 27, 2023

www.businessmirror.com.ph

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

SOCIAL protection schemes may not even be needed if countries only had “wellfunctioning” labor markets, according to an expert from the United States-based Brookings Institute.

Santiago Levy, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development Program, made the point in his Keynote Speech at the Asia-Pacific Social Protection (APSP) Week Opening Session and High-Level Forum on Tuesday.

Social protection programs are

meant to address gaps in society, particularly those who are considered vulnerable to shocks such as low-income citizens, the unemployed, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and women and children, among others.

“The bottom line from all that is that there is no substitute for a well-functioning labor market. So my suggestion is to take advantage of this conversation and always improve [programs],”

Levy said via Zoom at the opening panel session at the Asian Development Bank headquarters where the hybrid forum is taking place. “We also use the data from [these programs] to understand

the drivers within each country.”

Levy, currently based in Washington, D.C., said social protection programs, even in Latin America, have not been perfect. The “Bismarckian” model adopted by many of the countries in this region has not been that successful in covering all the vulnerable people who need social protection.

In some countries like Bolivia, Levy said, the coverage only extends to 20 percent of its labor force while middle-income countries like Mexico cover only 45 percent of those who need these transfers.

Part of the reason for this is informality. Social protection in

many countries is often linked to formal employment preventing those engaged in informal work from accessing these social services.

However, Levy noted that informality is not synonymous with poverty. It is important to take this into consideration when designing programs as well as the fact that some countries may be similar to Latin American countries in the sense that people constantly move from formal to informal, depending on various factors.

Levy said given this, it is still important to remember that labor

See “Labor,” A2

MARCOS REJECTS RICE TARIFF CUT PROPOSAL

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla  & Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

The chief executive made the decision following a meeting with the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), Department of Finance (DOF), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

“Tariffs are generally lowered when the price is going up,” said Marcos, who is also the concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

“It was not the right time to lower the tariff rates because the projection of world rice prices is that it will go down,” he added.

Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan had proposed the reduction of the 35-percent rice tariff following the surge in domestic rice prices.

Farmer groups had opposed the proposal as the entry of more rice imports could depress farmgate prices at a time when planters are already harvesting their crop.

During the sectoral meeting, Balisacan and other agriculture officials agreed with the President’s decision to not lower tariff rates at this time.

In a separate interview, Senior Agriculture Undersecretary Domingo F. Panganiban said he “personally opposes” the reduction of rice tariffs, as only the traders would benefit from it.

The DA earlier noted the spike in rice prices despite the sufficient supply of the staple. The chief executive attributed to smugglers and hoarders who manipulated prices.

THE state’s rice price ceiling and elevated world grain prices will curb the Philippines’s rice imports next year to 3.5 million metric tons (MMT),

according to an international report.

The United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign See “Rice,” A2

By Malou Talosig-Bartolome

ARTIFICIAL intelligence will inevitably replace “certain” human jobs but companies should be responsible for retooling their employees who will be affected

by it, former chief operating officer of Nestlé Group Peter BrabeckLetmathe said. Brabeck-Letmathe is in Manila for the two-day conference

See “AI,” A2

OF SINAG

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. rejected the proposal of his economic managers to temporarily reduce rice tariffs due to the projected downward trend in the international prices of the staple.

Senators ask DFA: You want confidential funds? ‘No, thanks’

By Malou Talosig-Bartolome

“Tayo ang Jine-James Bond ng ibang bansa eh. Tayo, hindi tayo nagje- James Bond ,” he added.

The former-chief-of-policeturned-senator stressed that the foreign service should also be given confidential funds “for strategic purposes.”

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III asked DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo, “For the record, is the department asking for a confidential fund?”

“No we are not,” Manalo replied. Pimentel urged Bato “not to give the [DFA] a headache” but parked the idea for later discussion.

Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, acting chairperson of the Senate sub-committee on Finance, said he favors that the DFA also be given confidential funds to augment its diplomacy work overseas. “Siguro if there’s any civilian agency na dapat magkaroon ng malaking (confidential) fund, no doubt,

dapat ang DFA bigyan na malaking suporta. Alam ko our counterparts from other countries malaki ang disbursement nila sa [confidential] fund sa kanilang DFA. For James Bond purposes, napakalaki ng investment  ng ibang bansa sa kanilang mga DFA,” Dela Rosa said during the hearing on DFA budget Tuesday.

sportscasters during the opening of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Season 99 games.

Under the Vienna Convention for Diplomatic Practices, diplomats are prohibited from conducting espionage against the country where they are assigned. However, it has become a practice by some sending countries to send diplomats to

“collect information” that sometimes borders on espionage. Many consider this practice as abuse of their privileges as many who were found to have spied on their host governments were merely declared persona non grata since they have diplomatic immunities.

Pimentel lauded the DFA for the “noble” use of the “contingent” fund from the Office of the President for helping countries which experience large-scale catastrophes or emergencies.

The DFA has tapped US$500,000 (P28.5 million) from the OP’s contingent fund for 2023.

Manalo said the DFA cited the case of Turkey and Monaco which experienced massive destruction from strong magnitude earthquakes.

“Ito ang lehitimo, tama at  commendable na ginawa ng Republika ng Pilipinas na ginawa ng DFA,” Pimentel said.

To help stabilize the price of the food staple, Marcos issued last September 5 Executive Order (EO) No. 39, which imposed a price cap of P41 per kilogram (kg) for regular milled rice (RMR) and P45 per kg for wellmilled rice (WMR) nationwide.

The economic managers said, however, that they were not consulted by the President prior to the issuance of the EO.

Marcos said he and other government officials will have to study the lifting of EO 39 carefully.

Sought for his comment about the price ceiling on rice, Panganiban said the measure can be lifted within a week’s time since the impact of the price cap has only been felt in the past two or three days.

Rally vs rice tariff cut

ON Tuesday, various agricultural groups held their second rally in

front of the Department of Finance (DOF) to denounce its proposal to reduce rice tariffs to as low as zero percent.

The groups reiterated their opposition to the tariff reduction proposal as well as their calls for Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan to resign for supporting the tariff reduction measure.

“There is no rice shortage, therefore there is no basis to reduce tariff or flood the market with imported rice,” the groups, led by Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The President’s message is clear: there is no rice shortage and there is enough rice but gaps in distribution disrupt market availability,” they added.

The Tariff Commission has already held its public hearing regarding the proposal of the Foundation for Economic Freedom to reduce rice tariffs to 10 percent from the current 35 percent.

Situations (AICS).

on corporate responsibility by the Asian Institute of Management.

His remarks came a few days after broadcast giant GMA Network Inc. drew flak from social media for the introduction of AI-powered

“Any technological revolution has an impact on the labor market. We have seen this with the invention of the steam engine that not only replaced human beings but also animals. The same thing happened with electricity. The same thing is

going to happen with ChatGPT. It is going to replace a lot of human thinking,” he told reporters after his opening remarks.

ChatGPT, short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is an AI chatbot that uses natural language processing to create conversational dialogue that sounds like human.

The Austrian businessman said while AI will replace jobs, it will also create new ones.

“The problem is not the jobs will disappear. The problem is we have to re-skill the workers for the new jobs and those who are not being reskilled are going to be the victims of the technological revolution,” Brabeck-Letmathe said.

He said one of the corporate responsibilities that companies need to undertake is to continuously train its work force.

“I remember when we introduced 20 years ago the idea to digitalize the entire company. Many people, especially in developing countries, are worried they will lose their jobs. Because some of them do not know how to write, how to read. But we trained them so they will not lose their jobs. And they had new jobs which were much more fulfilling than they had before,” he said.

GMA Network had clarified that the use of AI sportscasters is not meant to replace journalists.

Brabeck-Letmathe believes the human race will not be replaced by robots who looked like humans, similar to the movie “Terminator.”

“The real replacement will be artificial intelligence which we don’t see. It’s the information. It’s the body, it’s not a thing, It’s information,” he said.

The former said, now, humans are already using “cyborg” intelligence.

“The big part of your brain is already delegated to your iPhone. This is what artificial intelligence is all about. This is what we are going to be—more and more like cyborgs. We are simply outsourcing part of our brain into this funny instrument,” he explained.

He said AI is generally “good” for humanity “as long as we can control it and guide it.”

“I think we have to have strong regulations on what the AI can do and should not do. Like, killer robots—the lethal autonomous weapons systems. The robot decides who to kill or who not to kill. I don’t think they should be around. So we have to regulate AI,” he added.

The Philippine government had earlier proposed that the international community come up with rules on AI, including manufacture and use killer robots.

markets will have greater sway when it comes to ensuring that no citizen is left behind whether in income, education, health, or other socioeconomic needs.

To this end, Social Welfare and Development Secretary Rex Gatchalian agreed with Levy and said solving poverty cannot be done by relying on social protection alone.

Gatchalian said this should be a “whole-of-nation approach” where the public and private sectors work together to lift millions from poverty.

“If you try to solve poverty, it’s never one agency’s ambit. It has to be a whole-of-nation approach. Ending poverty, making a dent in that 18 percent [means] we have to make sure that not just one government agency functions but all in unison,” Gatchalian told reporters on the sidelines of the event.

Currently, Gatchalian said the country is moving toward a “digital ayuda” to reach more Filipinos who need help from the government. This is included in the digital transformation plan of the department, which includes a pilot test for the guarantee letters under the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis

Rice. . .

Continued from A1

Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS) in Manila projected that the Philippines’s rice imports next year would be 400,000 MT lower than its estimated 3.9 MMT full-year import volume this year.

The USDA-FAS in Manila attributed the decline to the “high international prices and uncertainty over the imposition of the retail price ceiling.”

The USDA-FAS in Manila’s rice import projection for the Philippines next year is 300,000 MT lower than the USDA’s (Washington office) official estimate of 3.8 MMT.

“Rice importers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, with some importers canceling their purchases in the days after the ceiling was announced, according to industry contacts,” the USDA-FAS Manila said in its latest Global Agricultural Information Network (Gain) report published recently.

“Following the imposition of the price ceilings, industry contacts reported diminished interest among rice importers to import,” it added.

The Gain report indicated that the USDA-FAS Manila pro -

that the coun -

Gatchalian said this is part of his advocacy since he wants Filipinos to go online and not fall in line to get their ayuda. He said this was part of the lessons he learned during the pandemic when he saw thousands of Filipinos line up for P3,000 cash grants from the government. He noticed that those who did not have problems getting help were those enrolled under the Pantawid ng Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) who already had cash cards. They used these cards to directly access their ayuda.

“I have never been poor in my entire life. But I know how it feels for them to line up in dire times just to get P3,000 lining up in the middle of the street trying to get their food boxes. It’s just turning poverty into a deeper sense of poverty, the emotional type of poverty,” Gatchalian said. “And in these times when you get mental wellness issues, poverty can be both humiliating and take you deeper into desperation.”

ADB said this year’s APSP brings together social protection experts and practitioners, including decision makers from developing Asia and Pacific countries, to discuss the challenges brought by and effective responses to ongoing and emerging crises.

try’s milled rice output next year would be at 12.55 MMT from this year’s 12.6 MMT due to typhoon damages.

“Industry contacts’ expectations for the 2023 El Niño are mixed but balanced across the country, so overall effects on production are likely minimal,” it said.

The USDA-FAS Manila projected that the Philippines’s total rice consumption next year would be at 16.4 MMT, flat with this year’s estimates.

Meanwhile, the USDA-FAS Manila projected that the Philippines’s corn production in the current market year 2023-2024 would decline to 8.2 MMT from the previous market year’s 8.322 MMT because of typhoons and pest damage.

The country’s corn market year starts from July of the present year and ends in June of the next year.

“FAS Manila decreases forecasts of local corn production for MY 2023/24 because of the effects of typhoons Dodong, Egay, and Falcon and the continued presence of fall armyworm,” the Gain report read.

“The situation is particularly severe in Ilagan, Isabela, the corn capital of the Philippines, and surrounding areas,” it added.

Because of the foreseen reduction in corn production, the USDAFAS in Manila expects the country’s corn imports to reach 1 MMT in the current market year from previous market year’s 950,000 MT. Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

WHILE other agencies can barely justify their request for millions of peso of confidential funds, the Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday was “offered” a chance to have such funds but it declined.

THE Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) beefed up its capability to station ships at the disputed Bajo De Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal, a ranking official of the maritime agency said Tuesday.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, made this comment when asked on whether the Coast Guard can station its vessels in Bajo de Masinloc during a broadcast interview Tuesday.

But while the PCG can deploy its ships there, these vessels cannot stay as long as their China Coast Guard (CCG) equivalent, which can stay for three to five weeks before being relieved.

“We have been doing this strategic deployment of our Coast Guard vessels since the new administration, at first we attempted to come close to eight nautical miles, and then two weeks or three weeks after, we did seven [nautical miles] and then six [nautical miles] and then five [nautical miles], we do this gradually until right now we become successful in reaching out to 300 meters,” he added.

Tarriela said that these efforts will be further sustained in the coming days along with plans to take control again of Bajo de Masinloc and its lagoon, which the country lost access to since the April 2012 stand-off.

“As I said since the new administration took office, we have already strategize how can we able to take control once again of Bajo De Masinloc especially the lagoon in Bajo De Masinloc, as I said for so many months we were able to calibrate our deployment until such time that we can already anchor at a distance of 300 meters,” he added.

Tarriela said they cannot give the details on the plan but emphasized that the PCG, along with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and with the support of the Armed Forces of the Philippines “will be able to sustain this patrol with the end goal of once again allowing the Filipino fishermen to be able to

go inside the lagoon” and fish.

“It was already decided by the [2016] Arbitral Award but it’s not just for the Filipinos but this is a traditional fishing ground for both Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipinos, so we are going to abide [by] the decision of the international ruling and that’s our end goal,” he added.

The PCG on Monday earlier conducted a special operation to remove the floating barrier that obstructed the southeast entrance of Bajo De Masinloc.

This floating barrier was installed by the CCG last week.

This is in response to the instruction of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. issued to the National Task Force for the West Philippines chair, National Security Adviser Secretary Eduardo Año.

Tarriela earlier said the barrier posed a hazard to navigation, a clear violation of international law.

“It also hinders the conduct of fishing and livelihood activities of Filipino fisherfolk in Bajo de Masincloc, which is an integral part of the Philippine national territory,” he added.

Tarriela also emphasized that the 2016 Arbitral Award has affirmed that Bajo de Masinloc is the traditional fishing ground of Filipino fishermen.

“Thus, any obstruction hindering the livelihoods of Filipino fisherfolk in the shoal violates international law. It also infringes on the Philippines’ sovereignty over Bajo de Masinloc,” he added.

“The decisive action of the PCG to remove the barrier aligns with international law and the Philippines’ sovereignty over the shoal,” he stressed.

“The PCG remains committed to upholding international law, safeguarding the welfare of Filipino fisherfolk, and protecting the rights of the Philippines in its territorial waters,”Tarriela concluded. Rex Anthony Naval

Missile frigate BRP Antonio Luna fires ‘big guns’ in Zambales coast war drill

By Rex Anthony Naval

GUIDED missile frigate BRP Antonio Luna (FF-151) demonstrated her formidable firepower by firing all of her guns during a recent gunnery exercise held off the coast of Zambales.

These exercises are part of the third quarter test firing of naval guns, the ship said in its Facebook post Tuesday.

This gunnery event was held on

Saturday, September 16, took place 45 nautical miles southwest off Grande Island, Zambales.

“Utilizing the ship’s 76mm Super Rapid Multi-feed Gun, 30mm Mk44 SMASH, and .50 K6 HMG, FF-151 tested their accuracy, range, and overall functionality that serve as a vital deterrent with a significant advantage against surface and air threats,” BRP Antonio Luna said.

BRP Antonio Luna, along with

sister ship BRP Jose Rizal (FF150), are modern warships capable of surface, sub-surface, air, and electronic warfare using state-of-the-art electronic sensors, long-range missiles, acoustic-guided torpedoes, and an embarked anti-submarine helicopter.

The BRP Jose Rizal was delivered to the Philippines in May 2020 and commissioned in July that year, while the BRP Antonio Luna was commissioned on March 19, 2021.

Go extends helping hand to Laguna fire victims

SENATOR Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, an adopted son of Calabarzon Region, directed his team to provide assistance to 30 fire-hit residents in Barangay Primera Pulo, Lumban, Laguna on Thursday, September 21.

Go’s team, in coordination with the local government officials, distributed financial assistance, grocery packs, snacks, clean drinking water, and shirts to all affected families at the barangay hall of Barangay Primera Pulo.

Meanwhile, a team from the National Housing Authority (NHA) assessed affected households for possible housing assistance to help the families rebuild from the devastating effects of the fire.

“Yung mga mag-qualify ay maaaring mabigyan ng National Housing

Authority ng ayuda pambili ng housing materials tulad ng pako, yero at iba pa upang maisaayos muli ang kanilang mga tirahan,” Go said.

The mood was clearly one of gratitude as local leaders and community members openly thanked Go for his personal assistance.

Lumban Councilor Saan Añonuevo spoke with a sense of urgency and praised the senator’s efforts. “Napakalaking bagay po ng natutulong ni Senator Bong Go dito sa bayan ng Lumban,” she said. Añonuevo also pointed out that this was not the first time Go helped the community as he had also given cash assistance to the residents during the pandemic.

Councilor John Denver delos Reyes also expressed his respect for the senator, emphasizing the quality of his service. “Ako po

personally, hindi ko kayang kalimutan ‘yung quality of service na ibinibigay sa atin ni Mr. Malasakit Kuya Bong Go,” he stated.

Barangay Chairman Reden Rivera summed up the community’s feelings, saying, “Ang sangguniang barangay ng Primera Pulo ay lubos na nagpapasalamat sa napakasipag at napakabait na senator na si Senator Bong Go,” he said.

Rivera noted that Go was the first senator to provide aid to the 16 households affected by the fire.

One of the fire victims, Ramilita Fesalbon, held back tears as she thanked the senator. “Kami po ay nagpapasalamat sa inyo, senator, sa pagtulong niyo sa aming lahat sa mga bagay na kailangan namin ngayon,” she said.

In order to proactively mitigate

The contract for the two ships was placed at P16 billion with another P2 billion for weapon systems and munitions.

“As the PN continues to bolster its maritime defense capabilities, BRP Antonio Luna stands out and underscores the nation’s commitment to maintaining a modern and advanced maritime defense force, ready to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty and territorial waters,” it added.

potential disasters caused by fire incidents, Go highlighted that the Bureau of Fire Protection is presently undergoing a modernization initiative aimed at bolstering its capacity to effectively address fire emergencies and disaster situations. Under the provisions of Republic Act No. 11589, principally authored and co-sponsored by Go, the bureau is mandated to implement a decadelong modernization program. This comprehensive program includes procurement of state-of-the-art firefighting equipment, expansion of personnel, and delivery of specialized training to firefighters, among other enhancements.

“Modernizing the Bureau of Fire Protection is crucial for improving its ability to respond to emergencies and disasters. It is important that the government invest in the modernization of the BFP to ensure the safety and well-being of the Filipinos,” said Go.

PCG beefs up capability to station ships in disputed Bajo de Masinloc

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Expanded bill vs economic sabotage approved on second House reading

THE House of Representatives on Tuesday approved on second reading a measure that seeks to serve as a “permanent deterrent” to hoarders and price manipulators of basic commodities by imposing a life sentence as the maximum penalty for offenders.

With the viva voce approval of House Bill 9284, or the Anti-Agrifishery Commodities and Tobacco Economic Sabotage Act of 2023, Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said the legislative chamber has just put more teeth into the country’s anti-smuggling law.

“This is because we want to have a chilling effect on these cartels that have been operating for decades now. We really mean business this time. And our primary task here is to protect the welfare of the masses—to provide them with the most affordable goods in the market,” he said.

“President Marcos, as Chief Executive and Secretary of Agriculture, fully appreciates the adverse impact of the smuggling of rice and other staples on farmers, fisher -

men, and consumers. We share his concern for the affected sectors,” the Speaker said.

Romualdez said once the measure becomes a law, it would protect farmers and fishermen from smugglers, especially in times when prices are manipulated and agricultural products are hoarded.

“We have to shield them from these atrocious activities to encourage them to produce more rice and other staples so the country can attain food sufficiency,” Romualdez said.

House Committee on Agriculture and Food chairman Rep. Wilfrido Mark Enverga said HB 9284, or the Anti-Agri-fishery Commodities and Tobacco Economic Sabotage Act of 2023, would amend Republic Act (RA) 10845, or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016, to include the smuggling of agri-fishery commodities and tobacco products as economic sabotage.

The bill refers to economic sabotage as any act or activities that undermine, weaken, or render into disrepute the economic system or

viability of the country or tend to bring about such effects, particularly for this proposal.

The measure added that the crime of large-scale agri-fishery commodities or tobacco smuggling as economic sabotage involves agri-fishery commodities in their raw state or which have undergone the simple processes of preparation or preservation for the market, such as freezing, drying, salting, broiling, roasting, smoking, or stripping, with a minimum aggregate fair market value of P1 million, or involving tobacco with a minimum of excise tax and VAT payable in the amount of P1 million.

It said agri-fishery commodities refer, but are not limited, to rice, sugar, corn, pork, poultry, beef, lamb, garlic, onion, carrots, cruciferous vegetables, coconut, coconut oil, palm oil, palm olein, wheat, fish, and shellfish.

The bill provides a penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of six times the fair market value of agri-fishery commodities or tobacco subject to large-scale

DENR pushes more air quality monitoring stations in Metro Manila, other urban areas

AIR quality in Metro Manila has improved but the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said there’s a need to put up more air quality monitoring stations while maintaining all 33 existing air quality-monitoring stations.

Juan Miguel Cuna, DENR Undersecretary for Field Operations in Luzon and Visayas, told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview that it will cost around P5 million to P10 million depending on the gadget to put up in an air quality monitoring station.’

According to Cuna, air quality on Monday and Tuesday has improved considerably, compared to what was experienced last Thursday and Friday, with readings in most cities indicating air quality is “good.”

O n Thursday and Friday, air quality in Metro Manila suffered due to smog, while in

parts of Calabarzon, smog was aggravated by volcanic dusts emitted by the restive Taal Volcano. The smog and vog in the NCR and Calabarzon prompted local government units (LGUs) to suspend classes and issue emergency public health advisories, such as the wearing of face masks and staying at home to avoid health problems.

Except for one or two areas where air quality is fair, almost all areas in Metro Manila have now better air quality, which classified PM2.5 and PM10 levels to be good.

Cuna said the DENR needs to rehabilitate, if not upgrade its existing air quality monitoring stations and acquire more units to be put up in strategic locations.

“The last time we bought a unit for air quality monitoring was in 2016. We are continuously requesting for budget to put up air

quality monitoring stations,” said Cuna.

He said the DENR would ask Congress to allocate budgets to boost the capacity of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), which he once held as director, in monitoring air pollution in major cities.

According to Cuna, the DENR is looking at partnering with the private sector for the maintenance of the existing air quality monitoring station gadgets.

“We need he help of the private sector to maintain our air quality monitoring stations. Aside from electricity and internet, we need to secure and protect these facilities,” said Cuna.

Budget-wise, the DENR official said the DENR is hoping for an additional budget for the purpose of strengthening its air quality monitoring capacity, as well as other regulatory functions, as part of its mandate to implement the Clean Air Act.

“We continuously ask Congress for budget allocation for our air quality,” he said, adding that with the recent smog that blanketed Metro Manila was due to smoke from motor vehicles

smuggling, hoarding, profiteering, cartelizing, and other acts of market abuse, and the aggregate amount of the taxes, duties, and other charges avoided plus interest at the prevailing legal rate shall be imposed on entities who commit any of the acts numerated under this proposal.

Also, the measure added that the penalty of imprisonment of not less than 30 years but not more than 40 years and a fine six times the fair market value of agri-fishery commodities or tobacco subject to large-scale smuggling, hoarding, profiteering, cartelizing, and other acts of market abuse and the aggregate amount the taxes, duties, and other charges avoided plus the interest at the prevailing legal rate shall be imposed on entities who knowingly sell, lend, lease, assign, consent, or allow the unauthorized use of their import permits for purposes of large-scale smuggling, hoarding, profiteering, cartelizing, or the other acts of market abuse.

Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

plying Metro Manila coupled with fog, which was aggravated by thermal inversion.

The last two are natural phenomena but smoke-belching vehicles are to be blamed for the emission of smoke from motor vehicles, underscoring the need for the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Local Government Units (LGUs) to revive the crackdown on smoke belchers.

Air pollution brought about by smoke from motor vehicles can cause a number of health problems, such as heart attacks. It can also trigger asthma, while long-term exposure can lead to lung cancer.

Health experts advised the public to stay at home and wear facemasks all time when in Metro Manila when the air quality is poor, due to smog, or vog in the case of volcanic activity that aggravates pollution caused by smog.

The DENR is proposing a total budget of P24,571,827,000 for 2024 on top of the P1.1 billion automatic appropriations for the agency under the National Expenditure Program (NEP) prepared by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Specific for pr ograms to improve air quality, the DENR is proposing a budget of P145 million for 2024, but this does not yet include appropriations for additional air quality monitoring stations.

Jonathan L. Mayuga

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.

on Tuesday assured the confiscated smuggled rice, which is now being distributed to Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries, is safe for consumption.

“This went through the right process of investigation, confiscation and inspection to ensure it is safe for distribution to the needy,” the Chief Executive said in Filipino during the rice distribution in San Andres Sports Complex in Manila.

At least 1,000 sacks of rice were distributed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to 4Ps beneficiaries during the event.

The distributed rice were part 42,180 sacks of rice seized by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in Zamboanga earlier this month.

Last w eek, the government started distributing parts of the confiscated rice to 4Ps beneficiaries in Zamboanga City and Cavite.

S muggled agriculture products do not go through the needed sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance (SPSIC) to

ensure they are free from potential disease, pests or harmful substances.

Marcos said he ordered the distribution of the smuggled rice after it went through the necessary inspection to help the needy following the recent spike in rice prices.

“Inst ead of these [sacks of] rice to be wasted, we opted to distribute it to citizens,” the President said.

T he distribution, he added, was also part of the government’s intensified campaign against smugglers and hoarders, which he called “bukbok” (weevil)—a beetle harmful to crops—for destroying the local rice market through price manipulation.

That is why I ordered all officials, authorities, and agencies to intensify the implementation of policies and laws on the issue related to rice,” Marcos said.

“I know this will be an uphill battle since they [smugglers and hoarders] have long dominated the market, but am determined to use the full force of the government to stop these illegal operations,” he added.

Samuel P. Medenilla

SC junks customs brokers’ plea against modernization provision

THE Supreme Court has junked the petition filed by the Chamber of Customs Brokers Inc. (CCBI) seeking to declare as unconstitutional a provision in the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, which limits the powers of customs brokers.

In a 13-page decision, the Court’s Second Division affirmed the ruling issued by the Court of Appeals (CA), which upheld the resolution issued by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila on April 5, 2019, dismissing the petition for declaratory relief filed by CCBI.

The CCBI, a national organization of customs brokers recognized by the Professional Regulation Commission as an accredited professional organization, filed a petition for declaratory relief before the Manila RTC, pleading, among others, that Section 27 of Republic Act (RA) 9280 or the Customs Brokers Act of 2004 should remain in full effect despite the passage of Section 106 (d) of RA 10863, otherwise known as the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act or that the latter be struck down as unconstitutional for being in violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Section 27 of RA 9280 states: “Any single act or transaction embraced within the provision of Section 6 hereof shall constitute an act of engaging the practice of customs broker profession. Import and export entity declarations shall be signed only by customs broker under oath based on the covering documents submitted by the importers.”

On the other hand, Section 106 of R.A. 10863 regulates the practice of customs brokerage profession.

T he said provision states: “A declarant may be a consignee or a person who has the right to dispose of the goods. The declarant shall lodge a goods declaration with the Bureau and may be...a person duly empowered to act as agent or attorney-infact for each holder.

The petitioner contended that Section 106 (d) of RA 10863 did not repeal or amend RA 9280, as there were no irreconcilable inconsistencies between them.

B eing so, CCBI argued that the

provisions of the latter law should be harmonized and read in conjunction with the provisions of the former law.

T he petitioner further said that “allowing any person designated as an agent or attorney-in-fact of the importer or exporter to perform acts that would otherwise be limited only for licensed customs brokers created undue favor and inequality.”

The respondent Bureau of Customs, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), however, insisted that Section 106 has modified Section 27 of RA 9280 in relation to Section l07 of RA 10863.

Thus, the new law authorized the importer, exporter, as well as their appointed agent or attorney-in-fact, to lodge a goods declaration independently and without the participation of a customs broker.

T he BOC further pointed out that RA 10863 contains a repealing provision, i.e., Section 1803 thereof, which reads in part: “[a]ll other laws, acts, presidential decrees, executive orders, rules and regulations or parts thereof inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby expressly repealed, amended or modified accordingly.”

F urthermore, the BOC also pointed out tha t even before the passage of RA 10863, Section 27 of RA 9280 had already been amended by Section 1 of RA 9853 such that import declarations shall be signed by both a customs broker and the consignee/ owner/importer, while export declarations are to be signed by the exporter, or, at his option, a customs broker or authorized representative.

In denying CCBI’s petition seeking the reversal of the trial court and the CA’s rulings, which favor the BOC, the SC did not give credence to the claim that Section 106 (d) of RA 10863 violate the equal protection clause under the Constitution.

“As regards petitioner’s contention that Section I06 [d] of RA I0863 violates the equal protection clause, suffice it to say that the CA correctly ruled that petitioner failed to substantiate such contention,” the SC declared. Joel R. San Juan

PBBM: Distribution of seized rice underwent ‘right process’

DTI chief to Chinese bizmen: Invest in N. Luzon’s Yatai Industrial Park

By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan

DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo E.

A ccording to a document sent by the DTI to reporters, Yatai Industrial Park “is surrounded by airports, container terminals, highways and is a hub of transportation, commerce and logistics, and industry in the northern part of Metro Manila.”

The document noted that the industrial park would be a “new generator of economic growth” in Northern Luzon. It will focus on attracting industries, such as electricity and heat production and supply, ferrous metal smelting and rolling, and non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling metal products.

O n Monday, Pascual highlighted the “strong” economic partnership between the Philippines and China, particularly in the Fujian province during the China (Fujian)Philippines Joint Demonstration Zone for Economic Innovative De -

velopment and Economic and Trade Cooperation Promotion Conference held in Pasay City.

“China’s prominence in the Philippine economic narrative is undeniable. Standing as our most significant trade ally among 231 nations, in 2022 alone, China was our primary source of imports and our third-highest export destination,” Pascual said in his speech on Monday.

In a statement released on Tuesday, DTI said the Trade chief noted that this initiative “will advance the economic landscape of both countries generating investments, technological advancements, and high-quality and better-paying jobs for all.”

The document sent by the Trade department to reporters on Tuesday also noted the “preferential policies” for Yatai Industrial Park. It noted, “foreign investors and their imme -

diate family members are entitled to be a permanent resident.”

I n addition, the document said foreign citizens could be hired at the Yatai Industrial Park.

Under the investment elements, the document showed the cost of water, power rates, cost of labor (weekly salary) and rental reference price of factory building for Yatai Industrial Park.

Based on the document, within the first 25 cubic meters, industrial water consumption costs P320.22 or RMB 40.3, while commercial consumption costs P755.91 or RMB 94.49.

W ithin 26 to 1,000 cubic meters, use of industrial water costs P15.84 or RMB1.98, while commercial water costs P30.20 or RMB 3.78.

More than 1,000 cubic meters, industrial water costs P15.75 or RMB 1.97, while commercial water costs P36.14 or RMB 4.52.

For power rates within the industrial park, the document showed that industrial power costs P11.65 kw/h (kilowatt per hour) or RMB 1.46 kw/h; commercial power rate costs P11.65kw/h or RMB 1.46 kw/h while residential power costs P11.33 kw/h or RMB 1.42 kw/h. The document also showed the cost of labor within the industrial par is P460 a day (8 hours) or RMB 57.5.

The rental reference price of factory building, meanwhile, costs P150 per square meter or RMB 18.75.

Meanwhile, a document obtained from the China (Fujian)-Philippines Joint Demonstration Zone for Economic Innovative Development & Economic and Trade Cooperation Promotion Conference showed that 24 projects were signed with a total contract value of RMB 42.62 billion or some P332.36 billion.

THE House of Representatives has unanimously approved on third and final reading a bill institutionalizing a mechanism to refund customers in case of outages and disruptions with their Internet or telecommunications services.

With 278 affirmative votes, lawmakers approved House Bill (HB) 9021, or the proposed Refund for Internet and Telecommunications Services Outages and Disruptions Act.

Stable Internet is tantamount to a basic human right nowadays given its many applications that make life

easier. And since this is a paid service, getting a refund for service failure is only just,” Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said.

T he bill mandates public telecommunications entities (PTEs), including internet service providers (ISPs), to provide a refund credit to a customer or adjust a customer’s bill if they were adversely affected by an Internet service outage or interruption for an aggregate period of 24 hours or more within a month.

The PTEs will do so on a pro-rated basis, the measure said.

However, a refund is not warranted if the reason for such an outage is due to scheduled maintenance, which should be notified 48 hours prior to the scheduled maintenance and should not exceed 48 hours in a month; a fortuitous event; or acts of a third party or subscriber.

A fortuitous event is defined under the bill as either an “act of God” or natural occurrences, such as floods, typhoons, storms, earthquakes, and the like; or an “act of man,” such as riots, strikes, wars, governmental prohibitions, robbery, theft, sabotage,

cyberattacks, deliberate destruction, or accidental damage to telecommunications facilities by third parties, and the like.

The PTEs and ISPs concerned shall apply a bill adjustment automatically, without need of demand from the subscriber, after a standard process, but shall not preclude the consumer from filing a complaint to the appropriate administrative or quasi-judicial agency for disputes regarding refunds or bill adjustment amounts.

The refund credit granted under the circumstances mentioned

supra shall likewise be granted to customers subscribing to a service on a pre-paid basis.

This proposed law will cover all PTEs and ISPs in the country,” Romualdez said.

Violators of this proposal will face a fine of not less than P50,000 but not more than P200,000 for each count of violation.

Meanwhile, PTEs or ISPs with repeated violations shall face, aside from a fine, the revocation or cancellation of their license, registration, or franchise, whichever applies,

House OKs bill requiring refund for internet service disruption Lower

THE House on Tuesday adopted a resolution expressing its profound condolences to the family of the late former Marikina City mayor and congressional representative, Bayani “BF” F. Fernando, who passed away on September 22 at the age of 77.

House Resolution (HR) 1332, introduced by Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez and other officials of the lower chamber, paid tribute to Fernando’s significant contributions.

F ernando’s illustrious career spanned various key roles, including serving as mayor of Marikina City for three consecutive terms from 1992 to 2001, president of the Metro Manila Mayor’s League in 2001, chairperson of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in 2002, Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways in 2003, a return to his previous post as MMDA chair from the later part of 2003 to 2009, and Representative of the First Legislative District of Marikina City during the 17th and 18th Congress from 2016 to 2022.

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

I n the resolution, Fernando was hailed as “a true public servant” whose unwavering commitment to leadership and governance “serves as a prime example for all local public officials, as he never succumbed to popular influence when it came to enforcing the laws.”

The resolution also recognizes Fernando as a “staunch advocate of simple, effective, and science-based policies and the preservation of the rule of law, exemplifying a strong and commendable track record of reliable governance.”

“

Honorable Bayani ‘BF’ F. Fernando will always be remembered for uplifting the welfare and well-being of countless Marikeños and the Filipino people,” the resolution read.

I n line with his vision of responsive and effective governance, Fernando initiated programs that focused on sanitation and upholding the rule of law in the City of Marikina.

Under his leadership, Marikina swiftly transformed from a fourthclass municipality into a model

A TOTAL of 10,387 out of the 10,791 Bar applicants have managed to finish the three-day 2023 Bar Examinations held in 14 testing centers nationwide.

Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Ramon Paul L. Hernando, the 2023 Bar Examinations chairperson, described this year’s Bar as a “smashing success” with 96.26 percent turnout.

I am overwhelmed by the smooth, peaceful, and orderly turnout of the 2023 Bar Examinations. It was more than what I hoped and envisioned it would be,” Justice Hernando said.

Justice Hernando led the conduct of the 2023 Bar under the so-called   Condensed Bar Schedule, which shortened the original four-Sunday-schedule and packed it into three days instead.

H e also promised to cut short the waiting period for the Bar results from five to six months to three months.

city, renowned for its cleanliness, law-abiding residents, and pedestrian accessibility. The remarkable progress earned Marikina the prestigious title of Best National Capital Region Local Government Unit in 1994 and the Most Outstanding City in the Philippines in 1997.

D uring his tenure as the head of the MMDA, Fernando exhibited unwavering political determination and applied scientific and practical solutions to address perennial issues in Metro Manila, including waste management, traffic congestion, and flooding.

W hile serving in the House of Representatives as Deputy Minority Leader in the 18th Congress, Fernando focused on policy advocacies to enhance transportation, the MMDA, and private infrastructure.

I n addition to his legislative duties, Fernando initiated crucial projects in Marikina’s first legislative district to enhance the quality of life for residents.

Th is included the Bahay Tao project, which provided decent housing to hundreds of Filipino households,

This year, however, following the examples of my recent predecessors as Bar Chair, the time spent by the examinees waiting in agony for the results of the exams will be cut short: my team and I are eyeing the release of the results of the 2023 Bar Examinations in early December before Christmas Day.  Yes, you heard me right, the results will, God-willing, come out in early December, before Christmas Day,” Hernando said.

A mong those who took the regionalized and digitalized Bar exams were those with special needs and senior citizens.

Upon the recommendation of Justice Hernando, the Court, through separate issuances allowed select examinees with special needs to take this year’s Bar under exceptional accommodations, either through the traditional handwritten modality, with an encoder’s assistance, or with the use of the new Digital Booklet Method.

It can be recalled that in Bar Matter No. 4399, a visually impaired examinee was allowed to take

and the facilitation of construction projects such as dikes and flood control measures.

Beyond his public service, Fernando was a successful businessman who founded the BF Group of Companies, involved in construction, steel, manufacturing, and real estate industries.

I n recognition of his steadfast leadership and contributions to governance, Fernando received numerous awards and honors throughout his lifetime, including a Doctor of Humanities, Honoris Causa from the Ateneo de Cagayan, the

the test through the use of the Digital Booklet, where a Court-issued laptop with installed Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) served as examination booklet.

The said examinee, with the aid of NVDA, completed all three days of the examinations at the local testing center in Ateneo de Davao University.

While it was not the first time that an individual with visual impairment was allowed to take the Bar exams, it was the first time that the Court permitted the use of NVDA application. NVDA is a screen reader that “reads aloud” scanned text of his books and testing booklets, enabling the examinee to study his books and take his exams through ear reading.

In Bar Matter No. 4662, the Court also allowed examinees, who are senior citizens and suffering from varying physical disabilities, to take the Bar through the traditional and handwritten modality. The 2024 bar examinations will be chaired by Associate Justice Mario V. Lopez.

including the waiving of any pre-termination fees for affected subscribers and the timely disbursement of any remaining credits from excessive downtime.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is tasked with coordinating with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and other concerned agencies to promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to ensure the effective implementation of this proposal.

Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

as public servant

Outstanding Filipino Award for Government Service, the H.R. Reyes Medallion of Honor from the Central Colleges of the Philippines, and

a Doctor of Public Administration, Honoris Causa from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.   Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Pascual encouraged Chinese businessmen to invest in Yatai Industrial Park, which is located in the bay area in Northern Luzon, saying this will advance the economic landscape of both countries as it is expected to generate “high-quality and better-paying” jobs.

Republic of the Philippines DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT Regional Office No. IV-A

4th Flr. Andenson Bldg. II, Brgy. Parian, Calamba City Telefax No.: (049) 545-7362

September 27, 2023

NOTICE OF FILING OF APPLICATION/S FOR ALIEN EMPLOYMENT PERMIT/S (AEP/S)

Notice is hereby given that the following companies/employers have filed with this Regional Office application/s for Alien Employment Permit/s:

1 ARTNATURE PHILIPPINES INC. Warehouse No. 3, Km. 32 National Highway, Nueva, City of San Pedro, Laguna

COLLINS, STEPHEN JOHN Senior Supervisor-operations

Job Description:

Basic Qualification: Must have at least 5 years work experience in a large manufacturing aerospace industry

Salary Range: Php150,000Php499,999

3 COOL HERITAGE TRADING CO. LTD., CORP. Warehouse 2A-A, Mercedes Business Park, Mercedes Ave., San Andres (Pob.), Cainta, Rizal

SU, DONG Chinese Speaking Assistant Manager

Brief Job Description: Familiarize the team with the customer needs, specifications, design targets, the development process, design standards, techniques and tools to support task performance

Basic Qualification: Must have proven experience as Chinese Speaking Assistant Manager, excellent in communication interpersonal and presentation skills

Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999

4 DIGISILICON TECHNOLOGIES INC.

Unit 3A, Administration Building 1, Annex 1, Main Avenue, Laguna Technopark, Malamig, City of Biñan, Laguna

SWAMINATHEN, BALACHANDAR President & Chairman of the Board

Brief Job Description: Responsible for the entire operation of the company

Basic Qualification: With 21 years work experience as Software Engineer or Software Architect

Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999

5 ENVIRONMENT PLUS OPC Unit 30 Century Commercial Complex, Paliparan Road, Salawag, City of Dasmariñas, Cavite

YAMAZAKI, HIROSHI Operation Manager Brief Job Description: Make important policy, planning and strategy decisions

Basic Qualification: Must have Bachelor’s degree/college graduate in any field

Salary Range: Php90,000 –Php149,999

19

Lot 5, Block 8, Phase 1, Cavite Economic Zone, Tejeros Convention, Rosario, Cavite PARK, GEUN HYEONG General Manager Brief Job Description: Plan, coordinate and manage all business operations Basic Qualification: Must have nano technology expertise Salary Range: Php150,000Php499,999 7 HAN SAMMAE INTERNATIONAL CORP Lot 01 Block 7a Phase II, Cavite Economic Zone, Tejeros Convention, Rosario, Cavite SONG, SUNGHO Vice President Brief Job Description: Advise and assist with the management of projects and/or meetings Basic Qualification: Must have an experience in a manufacturing industry Salary Range: Php90,000Php149,999 8 MD DISTRIPARK MANILA, INC. 121 East Science Avenue, Laguna Technopark, Loma, City of Biñan, Laguna KUGO, MASAHIRO Director Brief Job Description: Assist the President to manage the company Basic Qualification: Must have experience in managing company Salary Range: Php90,000Php149,999 9 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite AYE CHO Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 10 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite KAUNG HTET HEIN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 11 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LI CHWIN YINN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 12 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LIN KYU Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 13 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LIN OHN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 14 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LWIN MOE HEIN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 15 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite NAN WOE SAN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 16 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite SAUNG WUTYI TUN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 17 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite YAN SHIN Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999 18 MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite ZAW TUN MYINT Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese and Burmese language Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999

Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite

81 RYONAN ELECTRIC PHILIPPINES CORPORATION

105 East Main Avenue, Laguna Technopark, Special Economic Zone, Biñan, City of Biñan, Laguna

82 TAI YUAN GASES CORPORATION

Block 12, Lot 13, 15, 17 & 19, Governor’s Drive, Dasmariñas Technopark, Paliparan I, City of Dasmariñas, Cavite

83 TAI YUAN GASES CORPORATION

Block 12, Lot 13, 15, 17 & 19, Governor’s Drive, Dasmariñas Technopark, Paliparan I, City of Dasmariñas, Cavite

84 YKHUKU INC.

La Vivienda Condo 1, Ilaya St., Niog II, City of Bacoor, Cavite

for improvement

TASAKI, MAKOTO

Vice President

Brief Job Description:

Assist President in overseeing all business operations both support group and manufacturing on their operations and effective management

HSIA, PEI-HSUAN

Head of Admin Department (Supervisor)

Brief Job Description:

Participate in the hiring process of administrative staff, perform interviews and lead the review process

CHIANG, HAO-WEI

Production and Planning Control Supervisor

Brief Job Description:

Plan and prioritize operations to ensure maximum performance and minimum delay

HU, LUSI Mandarin Speaking Marketing Manager

Brief Job Description: Evaluate and optimize marketing and pricing strategies

Basic Qualification: Must have at least level 3 on unified problem-solving ups, WPI and BDE

Salary Range: Php90,000Php149,999

Basic Qualification: Must have 10 years work experience in manufacturing industry

Salary Range:

Php90,000Php149,999

Basic Qualification: Must be at least graduate of any business & management course and with leadership skills

Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999

Basic Qualification: Must be graduate of Engineering course and have 2 years work experience in gas company

Salary Range:

Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Must be fluent in Mandarin and English language both in written and verbal

Salary Range: Php30,000Php59,999

85 ICHIKAWA KOGYO PH INC.

L15 B20 Phase 4 Cavite Economic Zone, Tejeros Convention, Rosario, Cavite

IWASAKI, KEIZO Managing Director

Brief Job Description:

Shall perform such duties as may be from time to time assigned to him by the directors

Basic Qualification: Must be College Graduate

Salary Range: Php60,000Php89,999

Any person in the Philippines who is competent, able and willing to perform the services for which the foreign national is desired may file an objection at DOLE Regional Office IV-A located at 3rd and 4th Floors, Andenson Building II, Parian, Calamba City, Laguna, within 30 days after this publication.

Please inform DOLE Regional Office IV-A if you have any information on criminal offense committed by the foreign nationals.

By authority of the Regional Director:

ATTY. MARION S. SEVILLA, LL.M. Assistant Regional Director

company’s strategy, to ensure the implementation and localization of the company compliance management process. Routine communication with up-level management team in china to ensure the company’s compliance management process are conducted well, disputes management and organize company compliance training for business colleagues to improve compliance awareness.

Basic Qualification: Must have at least 3-year work experience for compliance affairs management, have keen company risk awareness and good communication skills, can effectively grasp the key points of problems with technical skills contract review and project negotiation capabilities, with experience in dispute handling graduated with a bachelor’s degree in public administration/ legal management or

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet commander among 34 killed in Crimea missile strike, Ukraine claims

By Illia Novikov The Associated Press

Ukraine’s Special Operation Forces said on the Telegram messaging app that its strike on the main building of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in the port city of Sevastopol had wounded 105 people. The claims could not independently be verified and are vastly different from what Russia has reported.

Russia’s military announced the attack on the building and initially said one serviceman was killed but later said the person was not killed but missing. Moscow has provided no further updates.

The Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has been a frequent target since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a fullscale invasion of Ukraine 20 months ago. Crimea has served as the key hub supporting the invasion.

On Monday evening, Russianinstalled governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Russian air defenses shot down a missile in the vicinity of the military airfield in Belbek, a village near

By Sangmi Cha

SOUTH Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned North Korea its regime would be ended by Seoul and Washington if it used nuclear weapons, in a speech marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of his country’s military.

Yoon celebrated the long-standing alliance with the US to mark Armed Forces Day and agreements he reached with President Joe Biden to strengthen consultations on the deployment of American nuclear assets to the region to deter Kim Jong Un from trying to launch a strike.

“If North Korea uses nuclear weapons, its regime will be brought to an end by an overwhelming response from the ROK-US alliance,” Yoon said Tuesday, referring to his country by its formal name. He also slammed Pyongyang for its pursuit of atomic arms, saying its people are paying the price.

“The North Korean regime’s obsession with the development of nuclear weapons aggravates the North Korean people’s suffering,” Yoon said. “The North Korean regime must clearly realize that nuclear weapons will never be able to guarantee its security.”

South Korea is holding its first military parade in a decade in Seoul that features thousands of troops and its latest military hardware such as domestically made longrange surface-to-air missiles. KF21 fighter jets, next-generation light-armed helicopters that were supposed to be featured at an airshow beforehand, were grounded due to bad weather.

The parade begins in the afternoon in the streets of a central Seoul area that has been home to massive

the port city. He didn’t offer any details about possible damage or casualties.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted naval facilities in Crimea in recent weeks while the brunt of its summer counteroffensive makes slow gains in the east and south of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War said. It followed Friday’s attack with another barrage on Saturday.

The new death and casualty figures are a steep increase from what Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, told Voice of America on Saturday when he said at least nine people were killed and 16 others wounded in the attack that left the building smoldering. He also said Alexander Romanchuk, a Russian general commanding forces along the key southeastern front line, was “in a very serious condition.”

The new report indicates that the fleet’s chief, Adm. Viktor Sokolov, was also killed, though no supporting evidence was offered. He was not named in the statement

uses nukes

protests and gatherings of hundreds of thousands to watch events such as World Cup soccer on big screen video monitors.

The event will include displays of drones from a newly established unmanned aerial vehicle command and will highlight the country’s 70year military alliance with the US. Festivities at the airbase in the morning were expected to be attended by more than 10,000 people, including veterans of the 1950-1953 Korean War from 19 different countries and their families.

South Korea has held a parade every five years to mark its Armed Forces Day but it was not conducted under then President Moon Jae-in in 2018 as he sought rapprochement with North Korea. Pyongyang, for its part, has held several parades under Kim Jong Un, showing off its latest nuclearcapable missiles designed to strike South Korea and deliver warheads to the US mainland.

Biden was dealt a stronger hand in Asia when Yoon became South Korea’s president more than a year ago, backing hawkish security policies that brought Seoul closer to Tokyo while looking to diminish bickering between the neighbors.

When Biden met Yoon at the White House in April, the US leader said a North Korean nuclear attack on the US and its allies would be the end of Kim’s regime as he announced new efforts with South Korea to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear buildup.

North Korea has denounced Yoon as a “puppet traitor” and stepped up its provocations in displays of anger at joint military drills between the US and South Korea. With assistance from Shinhye Kang and Brian Fowler/Bloomberg

by the Special Operation Forces, but Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine posted his name and a photo on social media.

Ukraine’s military also offered more details about Friday’s attack. It said the air force conducted 12 strikes on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, targeting areas where personnel, military equipment and weapons were concentrated. It said that two anti-aircraft missile systems and four Russian artillery units were hit.

The casualty figures were announced as Russian drone and missile strikes near Odesa damaged an abandoned hotel, a grain silo and killed two people who were buried in the rubble of a grain warehouse in the Black Sea port city, Ukrainian officials said. Russian attacks elsewhere were blamed for killing six other civilians in the past day in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force reported downing all Russian drones launched overnight, but one of 12 Kalibr missiles and two P-800 Oniks cruise missiles apparently made it past air defenses.

Russia has continuously targeted port and grain storage facilities in Odesa since pulling out of a wartime deal that allowed Ukrainian grain exports to countries facing the threat of hunger. The attacks have destroyed silos, warehouses, oil terminals and other infrastructure critical for storage and shipping.

The Russian Defense Ministry said long-range missiles and drones were used to strike facilities that it alleged had housed foreign mercenaries and trained saboteurs. The ministry didn’t name locations or provide other specifics to support its claim. It also said it downed several Ukrainian drones.

The attacks came as independent UN-backed human rights experts said they found new evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces and as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the arrival of the first Abrams tanks sent by the US that could figure in their slow-moving summer counteroffensive.

The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said it found evidence of crimes committed by both sides in the war, but far more by Russians, including instances of torture, some of it fatal, and rape of women as old as 83. It said it was also looking into allegations that Russian forces committed genocide.

Zelenskyy thanked allies on Telegram for their support in announcing the anticipated arrival of the tanks. He didn’t say how many tanks had arrived, but the US has said it was sending 31 tanks.

In other fighting, Russian forces also dropped bombs and launched six heavy artillery strikes on southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, destroying a school and factory and damaging residential buildings. Three of the deaths reported by the Ukrainian president’s office were in the region: three people were killed and two others were injured by bombs that hit the city of Beryslav. A man was killed in the neighboring village of Lvove.

In eastern Ukraine, Russians attacked residential areas of 10 cities and villages in the Donetsk region, killing two people in the village of Zarichne, according to the presidential office.

During fighting in southeast Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian army carried out five airstrikes on Orikhiv, a small city, and its surrounding area.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed three Ukrainian drones over the Kursk region of Russia and three others over the Bryansk region early Monday. It also reported that three drones were shot down over the Belgorod region. Kursk Gov. Roman Starovoit said a downed drone over the center of the city of Kursk damaged the roof of an administrative building and several private houses and shattered windows in an apartment building. Starovoit said there were no injuries.

A day earlier, a Ukrainian drone damaged the roof of an administrative building in Kursk that some Ukrainian and Russian media reported housed the offices of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s main domestic security agency.

Bryansk Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said the drones caused no casualties, but Ukrainian rockets damaged a farm building and killed cattle.

During the drone attack, Russian authorities delayed or diverted several flights at Moscow’s airports.

The Defense Ministry said five other Ukrainian drones were also shot down over Crimea and the Black Sea.

The Associated Press journalists Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia and Brian Melley in London contributed to this report.

High rice prices bring risk of social unrest, UN says

By Ilena Peng

HIGH rice prices, which have been fueled recently by India’s export ban, bring the risk of political instability in Asia and Africa, according to the head of a United Nations agency.

Prices for the crop, a staple for half the world, surged to the highest in almost 15 years after the top shipper began curbing exports. India accounted for nearly 40% of the global rice trade in the past three

years. Soaring prices are fueling concerns about food insecurity for billions of people in Asia and Africa who depend on the grain.

“Rice, especially in Africa, can certainly bring potential conflict or social unrest, which at this moment in time would be quite dangerous,” Alvaro Lario, who leads the International Fund for Agricultural Development, said in a Thursday interview in New York.

The export ban is bringing back memories of 2008, when a global rice crisis put 100 million people at

risk, many in sub-Saharan Africa. Back then, both Vietnam and India restricted exports. Food shortages have also contributed to unrest in the past, with surging wheat prices helping spark the Arab Spring that toppled governments just over a decade ago.

The impacts of bans “go beyond the borders of the countries” implementing such measures, Lario said. Rice is the “main concern” for food security—even more so than wheat, he said.

“Export bans have a lot of impact,

Australian lawmakers call for warmer Taiwan relations

TAIPEI, Taiwan—On a visit to Taiwan, a delegation of six Australian lawmakers called Tuesday for warmer relations with the self-ruled island increasingly threatened by Beijing.

The visit comes as Australia has been working at recalibrating its relationship with China, which had been tense in the past few years over disputes on the origin of Covid-19. China in response had imposed tariff barriers on several Australian exports, such as barley.

Paul Fletcher, a lawmaker with Australia’s Liberal Party, lauded the fact that the lawmaker delegation crossed party lines.

“The two major parties in Australia are both represented and we are here to further the warm relationship between Australia and Taiwan,” Fletcher said.

They also discussed strengthening economic cooperation with Taiwan, particularly in clean energy, and expressed an interest in Taiwan’s semi-conductor industry.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory.

Taiwan, with a population of 23 million compared to China’s 1.4 billion, has never been part of the People’s Republic of

China and while increasingly isolated diplomatically and threatened militarily by Beijing, has maintained an international presence separate from the mainland.

At the same time, Australia has been working to expand its security partnerships in the region with an eye on China’s presence, which has grown in the past few decades.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said she was grateful for Australia’s role in regional security, citing its new partnership with

the United States and the United Kingdom called AUKUS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

“In recent years, Australia has continued to play an important role in upholding peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” she said. “It has also used major international gatherings to emphasize the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and support Taiwan’s international participation. For this, want to express sincere gratitude.” AP

especially on the most vulnerable, by raising prices and having a shock on prices,” he said. “Generally they are not positive, neither for the local populations in the medium term, nor for the other countries.”

Some regions in Africa that are more reliant on rice imports are already seeing impacts from higher prices, Lario said.

“We have to understand that many of these people who consume this type of crop are sometimes on the brink of poverty,” he said. Bloomberg News

Vietnam protests China’s vessel ID stations in Paracel

By Linh Vu Nguyen

VIETNAM protested China’s installation of two automatic vessel identification stations in the Paracel Islands, saying it’s a violation of the Southeast Asian nation’s sovereignty.

“All activities on the Paracel Islands without Vietnam’s permission violate the nation’s sovereignty and are completely invalid,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement posted on its website. The statement followed media reports about Chinese-built ship ID stations at North Reef and Bombay Reef in the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

T his isn’t the first time that Vietnam has urged China to respect its sovereignty in the disputed South China Sea. The Southeast Asian nation has previously asked its neighbor to end tourism activities on the Paracel and Spratly islands, as well as desist from military drills in the contested waters. Bloomberg News

KYIV, Ukraine—The missile strike that blasted the Crimean headquarters of Russia’s navy last week killed 34 officers, including the fleet commander, Ukraine said Monday, though it provided no evidence to support its claim.

IN this photo provided by the Odesa Region Administration, firefighters work to extinguish a fire in a hotel at the seaport after a Russian rocket attack in Odesa, Ukraine on Monday, September 25, 2023. ODESA REGION ADMINISTRATION VIA AP)

South Korea warns Kim Jong Un his regime would end if he

IN this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, visiting Australian lawmakers are greeted by Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, September 26, 2023. TAIWAN PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE VIA AP

‘Carbon tax will make goods more expensive’

The worsening effects of climate change have made it imperative for all nations to implement the necessary measures that will prevent global temperature from increasing. These measures have one goal: to significantly reduce carbon emissions that harm the ozone layer, which protects earth’s inhabitants from UV rays. The catchphrase nowadays is “net zero,” which means cutting carbon emissions to as close to zero as possible, according to the United Nations.

The costs of adaptation measures implemented by certain sectors like the maritime industry are painful at the outset, especially since these will be put in place at a time when the world continues to grapple with the fallout from the conflict in Eastern Europe. It could raise the costs of some commodities initially, particularly since ships carry more than 80 percent of world trade. Countries like the Philippines that import huge volumes of food and fuel and raw materials, such as mechanically deboned meat, would have to be ready for the possible impact of this development.

Based on the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the country’s food imports continued to outpace agricultural exports in April to June. While food imports declined by a tenth to $4.32 billion in the second quarter from last year’s $4.84 billion, the figure was significantly higher than earnings from agricultural exports, which reached only $1.61 billion. These figures show that it may take a while for the Philippines to significantly reduce its reliance on foreign producers and shipping companies that will transport its food requirements.

The Philippines is not the only country in the world that is reliant on the maritime industry. Unfortunately, vessels are a big source of emissions. In 2018, vessels pumped about one billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2018.

It is for this reason that a number of countries have called for a levy to be imposed on greenhouse gas emissions of shipping vessels in June. The move is expected to hasten the green transition of the shipping industry, which is said to be responsible for about 3 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Bloomberg reported that France, Spain, Norway and Portugal are among 22 nations that supported “the principle of a levy on the GHG emissions” of the international shipping sector and that the European Commission supports it.

The country’s economists have earlier voiced their concerns over calls to impose a levy on greenhouse gas emissions of shipping lines. (See, “Carbon tax seen to hike goods’ prices,” in the BusinessMirror, June 28, 2023). Experts said a carbon tax will have the same effect as a tariff that will make goods more expensive. However, this is the price that citizens of this planet must be prepared to pay, whether they are from rich or poor countries, to stop climate change from further destroying their only home. The cost of transitioning to a greener world may be onerous but it is something that even low- and middle-income countries must bear. We can only hope that the adaptation measures would immediately produce the results the world needs to help prevent global warming.

Since

Antarctica’s shrinking sea ice hits a record low, alarming scientists

By Danielle Bochove

AT its largest expanse this year, sea ice covered less than 17 million square kilometers (6.6 million square miles) of the Antarctic—an area that is 1 million square kilometers (almost 400,000 square miles) smaller than the previous record low set in 1986, according to preliminary figures released Monday by the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. The number represents the smallest peak extent in almost 45 years of satellite records.

Peak Antarctic ice coverage during the region’s winter—which is the northern hemisphere’s summer— likely occurred on Sept. 10. On that date sea ice stretched over 16.96 million square kilometers, after which it began to shrink, the NSIDC said. This took place almost two weeks earlier than the median date of September 23 between 1981 and 2010.

“There is some concern that this may be the beginning of a longterm trend of decline for Antarctic sea ice, since oceans are warming globally, and warm water mixing in the Southern Ocean polar layer could continue,” the NSIDC said in a news release.

While the drivers of the loss are complicated, and not fully understood, scientists believe climate change plays a role, and continuing

shrinking of the ice could exacerbate warming’s effects, as less ice means less sunlight is reflected back into space. Scientists who study Antarctica observed months ago that the ice was struggling to grow back from its February nadir, in a stark deviation from usual patterns.

“The last three or four months now is nothing like we’ve seen before, or would have expected, ever,” said Cecilia Bitz, a climate scientist specializing in sea ice at the University of Washington. “This tells me that the climate change we’re seeing is outside our range of experience and can’t be explained by natural variability.”  If sea-ice coverage that is dramatically lower than usual continues, more of the coastline will be exposed to ocean waves, the effects of which are not yet clear, the NSIDC noted.

By Seung Min Kim, Tom Krisher & Chris Megerian The Associated Press

WAShINGTON—President Joe Biden’s decision to stand alongside United Auto Workers picketers Tuesday on the 12th day of their strike against major carmakers underscores an allegiance to labor unions that appears to be unparalleled in presidential history.

Experts in presidential and US labor history say they cannot recall an instance where a sitting president has joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of the more ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Theodore Roosevelt invited labor leaders alongside mine operators to the White House amid a historic coal strike in 1902, a decision that was seen at the time as a rare embrace of unions as Roosevelt tried to resolve the dispute.

Lawmakers often appear at strikes to show solidarity with unions, and during his 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Biden and other presidential hopefuls joined a picket line of hundreds of casino workers in Las Vegas who were pushing for a contract with The Palms Casino Resort.

But sitting presidents, who have to balance the rights of workers with disruptions to the economy, supply chains and other facets of everyday

Scientists have all sorts of ideas about how sea ice and oceans interact in the Antarctic but most are theoretical and more study is needed, Bitz said.

Arctic summer

IN the Antarctic, sea ice typically covers the largest expanse of ocean at some point in September. After that, it begins a slow melt over the southern hemisphere’s summer, with the most open water typically seen in early March. The process is the same in the Arctic, though the wintersummer months are reversed.

The research center also released the latest summer sea-ice coverage estimates for the opposite side of the planet. They showed that sea ice covered just 4.23 million square kilometers of the Arctic Ocean at its lowest point this summer. That’s the sixth lowest figure recorded, and the 17 lowest were all posted in the last 17 years.  Scientists are interested in understanding why a given year may have more or less sea ice, even though the multi-decade trend is clearly down, said Flavio Lehner, an assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric science at Cornell University who is also chief climate scientist for Polar Bears International.

“Was it because the air temperature was warmer, because certain weather patterns brought more warm air?” he asked. “Was it the ocean transporting more warm waters into the Arctic? Was it a big storm that broke up the sea ice and made it easier to be flushed out of the Arctic and melted? There’s different stories to every individual sea-ice-minimum year that help us better understand the vulnerability of the ice.”

Those variations can have a significant impact on those living in the region, from Indigenous communities to land and marine animals to the smallest flora and fauna. In the case of polar bears, for example, an earlier freeze in one area might mean an earlier hunting season, while a longer ice season might encourage the migration of bears from other areas. Understanding the variations, and the way animals are responding, is key to successful conservation, Lehner said.

“If we designate something, a national park or a marine sanctuary, but climate change makes that not habitable anymore for a species that we are trying to protect, then that’s a problem,” he said. “It’s a lot about teasing as much out of the data as we can to be prepared.” Bloomberg

life, have long wanted to stay out of the strike fray—until Biden.

“This is absolutely unprecedented. No president has ever walked a picket line before,” said Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and an expert on US labor history. Presidents historically “avoided direct participation in strikes. They saw themselves more as mediators. They did not see it as their place to directly intervene in a strike or in labor action.”

Biden’s trip to join a picket line in the suburbs of Detroit is the most significant demonstration of his pro-union bona fides, a record that includes vocal support for unionization efforts at Amazon.com facilities and executive actions that promoted worker organizing. He also earned a joint endorsement of the major unions earlier this year and has avoided southern California for highdollar fundraisers amid the writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood.

During the ongoing UAW strike,

Biden’s trip to join a picket line in the suburbs of Detroit is the most significant demonstration of his pro-union bona fides, a record that includes vocal support for unionization efforts at Amazon. com facilities and executive actions that promoted worker organizing. He also earned a joint endorsement of the major unions earlier this year and has avoided southern California for high-dollar fundraisers amid the writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood.

Biden has argued that the auto companies have not yet gone far enough to satisfy the union, although White House officials have repeatedly declined to say whether the president endorses specific UAW demands such as a 40 percent hike in wages and fulltime pay for a 32-hour work week.

“I think the UAW gave up an incredible amount back when the automobile industry was going under. They gave everything from their pensions on, and they saved the automobile industry,” Biden said Monday from the White House. He stressed that the workers should benefit from the carmakers’ riches “now that the industry is roaring back.” Biden and other Democrats are

more aggressively touting the president’s pro-labor credentials at a time when former President Donald Trump is trying to chip away at union support in critical swing states where the constituency remains influential, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden is also leaning in on his union support at a time when labor enjoys broad support from the public, with 67 percent of Americans approving of labor unions in an August Gallup poll.

Instead of participating in the second Republican primary debate on Wednesday, Trump will head to Michigan to meet with striking autoworkers, seeking to capitalize on discontent over the state of the economy and anger over the Biden administration’s push for more electric vehicles—a key component of its clean-energy agenda.

“If it wasn’t for President Trump, Joe Biden would be giving autoworkers the East Palestine treatment and saying that his schedule was too busy,” said Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, referring to the small Ohio town that is still grappling with the aftermath of a February train derailment. Biden said he would visit the community but so far has not.

White House officials dismissed the notion that Trump forced their hand and noted that Biden was headed to Michigan at the request of UAW

See “Biden,” A17

By Lisa Mascaro & Stephen Groves | The Associated Press

WAShINGTON—With a government shutdown five days away, Congress is moving into crisis mode as Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces an insurgency from hard-right Republicans eager to slash spending even if it means curtailing federal services for millions of Americans.

There’s no clear path ahead as lawmakers return with tensions high and options limited. The House is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a package of bills to fund parts of the government, but it’s not at all clear that McCarthy has the support needed to move ahead.

Meanwhile, the Senate, trying to stave off a federal closure, is preparing its own bipartisan plan for a stopgap measure to buy some time and keep offices funded past Saturday’s deadline as work in Congress continues. But plans to tack on additional Ukraine aid have run into trouble as a number of Republicans in both the House and Senate oppose spending more money on the war effort.

Against the mounting chaos, President Joe Biden warned the Republican conservatives off their hardline tactics, saying funding the federal government is “one of the most basic fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”

Biden implored the House Republicans not to renege on the debt deal he struck earlier this year with McCarthy, which set the federal government funding levels and was signed into law after approval by both the House and Senate.

“We made a deal, we shook hands, and said this is what we’re going to do. Now, they’re reneging on the deal,” Biden said late Monday.

“If Republicans in the House don’t start doing their jobs, we should stop electing them.”

A government shutdown would disrupt the US economy and the lives of millions of Americans who work for the government or rely on federal services—from air traffic controllers who would be asked to work without pay to some 7 million people in the Women, Infants and Children program, including half the babies born in the US, who could lose access to nutritional benefits, according to the White House.

It comes against the backdrop of the 2024 elections as Donald Trump, the leading Republican to challenge Biden, is egging on the Republicans in Congress to “shut it down” and undo the deal McCarthy made with Biden.

Republicans are also being encouraged by former Trump officials, including those who are preparing to slash government and the federal workforce if the former president retakes the White House in the 2024 election. With five days to go before Saturday’s deadline, the turmoil is unfolding as House Republicans hold their first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing this week probing the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

“Unless you get everything, shut it down!” Trump wrote in all capital letters on social media. “It’s time Republicans learned how to fight!”

McCarthy arrived at the Capitol early Monday after a tumultuous week in which a handful of hard-right Republicans torpedoed his latest plans to advance a usually popular defense funding bill. They brought the chamber to a standstill and leaders sent lawmakers home for the weekend with no endgame in sight.

After the House Rules Committee met Saturday to prepare for this week’s voting, McCarthy was hopeful the latest plan on a package of four bills, to fund Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, and State and Foreign Operations, would kickstart the process.

“Let’s get this going,” McCarthy said. “Let’s make sure the government stays open while we finish our job passing all the individual bills.”

But at least one top Trump ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is also close to McCarthy, said

Against the mounting chaos, President Joe Biden warned the Republican conservatives off their hardline tactics, saying funding the federal government is “one of the most basic fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”

she would be a “hard no” on the vote to open debate, known as the Rule, because the package of bills continues to provide at least $300 million for the war in Ukraine.

Other hard-right conservatives and allies of Trump may follow her lead.

“Now you have a couple of new people thinking about voting against the Rule,” said Rep. Ken Buck, RColo., referring to the upcoming procedural vote.

Once a holdout himself, Buck told reporters at the Capitol he would be voting for the package, but he’s not sure McCarthy will have enough for passage. “I don’t know if he gets them back on board or not,” Buck said.

While their numbers are just a handful, the hard-right Republican faction holds oversized sway because the House majority is narrow and McCarthy needs almost every vote from his side for partisan bills without Democratic support.

The speaker has given the holdouts many of their demands, but it still has not been enough as they press for more—including gutting funding for Ukraine, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Washington last week is vital to winning the war against Russia.

The hardline Republicans want McCarthy to drop the deal he made with Biden and stick to earlier promises for spending cuts he made to them in January to win their votes for the speaker’s gavel, citing the nation’s rising debt load.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a key Trump ally leading the right flank, said on Fox that a shutdown is not optimal but “it’s better than continuing on the current path that we are to America’s financial ruin.”

Gatez, who has also threated to call a vote to oust McCarthy from his job, wants Congress to do what it rarely does anymore: debate and approve each of the 12 annual bills needed to fund the various departments of government—typically a process that takes weeks, if not months.

“I’m not pro-shutdown,” he said. But he said he wants to hold McCarthy “to his word.”

Even if the House is able to complete its work this week on some of those bills, which is highly uncertain, they would still need to be merged with similar legislation from the Senate, another lengthy process.

Meantime, senators have been drafting a temporary measure, called a continuing resolution or CR, to keep government funded past Saturday, but have run into trouble trying to tack on Biden’s request for supplemental funding for Ukraine. They face resistance from a handful of Republicans to the war effort.

A Senate aide said talks would continue through the night. And a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget said the administration would continue to work with members of both parties in Congress to secure supplemental funds and ensure efforts to support Ukraine continue alongside other key priorities like disaster relief. Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Macron is pushing Europe into a $900 billion fight with China

By William Horobin & Ania Nussbaum

european

The government in Paris has taken a key role in driving the policy shift, according to people familiar with its thinking, calculating that inaction now would put the bloc’s economy on a path to long-term damage.

Officials speaking on condition of anonymity recalled the solar industry debacle a decade ago, when cheap imports from China gutted European production. One of the officials said Europe’s auto industry could potentially be vulnerable in the same way and so the EU faces a binary choice: Either it affirms its power or submits to China.

The intention isn’t to turn Europe’s $900 billion-a-year trading relationship with China into a headto-head battle like Beijing has with the US, but rather to establish a level playing field among the world’s largest economic blocs, the officials added.

French President Emmanuel Macron wants his EU partners to see Europe as a balancing force between the world’s two economic superpowers, one said. That would allow Paris and other capitals to cultivate special relationships with other potential allies such as India.

Still, the EU’s tougher stance has also provoked nervousness, with even officials in Paris concerned

about what it means to turn French principles into practice.

One described the Chinese response to the opening of a probe as a worrying over-reaction, while another acknowledged the risk of a trade war.

China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, expressed “strong concern and dissatisfaction” on Monday to the EU’s chief trade negotiator, Valdis Dombrovskis, over the bloc’s antisubsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles.

Macron has long championed a rethink of the EU’s economic goals to provide tools to protect declining industries and more state aid for key sectors. Yet French initiatives have often met pushback from countries including Germany, who fear retribution would hurt their exporters, and smaller nations worried about unfair competition from giant firms flush with public money.

Now the EU has begun a subsidies investigation that could lead to tariffs and raises the prospect of a sea change in European policymaking that would cast aside principles of free trade and open markets as the best way of defending the continent’s economic interests.

As Germany has taken a step back from leading European policy, this has left a vacuum for others including

France and the European Commission to jostle for influence, according to Mujtaba Rahman, head of Europe research at Eurasia Group. Macron’s cause was also furthered by President Joe Biden’s plan for massive subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act to drive home-grown industry in the climate transition.

“The big wakeup call was the IRA, which completely re-framed the debate and gave France a lot more leverage to say the Americans are ultimately implementing a much more actively managed economy and there’s a much greater role for industrial policy,” Rahman said.

Any provocation of China is a huge gamble for a bloc already struggling to emerge from the energy crisis and the worst bout of inflation in the history of the euro area. Adding to the unease, Chinese tariffs would be difficult to predict and could have the potential to entangle a range of the continent’s biggest firms, including French luxury groups for which Asia’s largest economy is a key market.

“If you look at it in a very simple way, you could say that if European measures on Chinese electric vehicles were to materialize, then there’s a risk of retaliation to which German cars could well be most exposed,” said Societe Generale Chief Economist Michala Marcussen. “But it won’t necessarily be as black and white as that. Will China really retaliate on the same goods? It risks being much more complex.”

What’s more, a tussle with China would be imbalanced.

According to calculations by Allianz Trade, if the EU were to impose a 1 percentage-point increase in tariffs, total losses for China— taking into account sensitivities to prices— would be around $8.4 billion. While that may be a large sum, it only amounts to 0.2 percent of Chinese exports compared with 1.5 percent of EU imports.

The dependence on Chinese goods could also transform into an asymmetric inflation shock, as Europe would have to accept higher prices for critical materials, while China could be more self-sufficient or turn to other markets to substitute European goods.

Against a backdrop of high inflation and a record monetary tightening campaign by the European Central Bank, the bloc could end up tipping into recession, according to Ana Boata, head of economic research at Allianz Trade.

Show of strength

M ACRON S ability to influence EU policy also ties in with his political brand, which he built on an embrace of the European project as the way to defend the interests of ordinary people. With EU Parliament elections in June next year, that vision will face another stress test against the France-first nationalist party of Marine Le Pen.

In the debate over whether to risk a trade war with China, one senior French official said voters care more about a show of strength than the interests of corporations that could get caught up in retaliation. Bloomberg

Teetering China property giants undercut Xi’s revival push

By Bloomberg News

FRESH drama at property developers including China Evergrande Group is jeopardizing President Xi Jinping’s latest efforts to end the housing crisis.

Just as China enters a key holiday sales season, a raft of headlines are weighing on already-frail confidence in the property market. Evergrande said it has to revisit its debt restructuring plan and a unit missed a yuan bond payment. Former executives at the defaulted real estate giant have been detained, Caixin reported. Meanwhile, China Oceanwide Holdings Ltd. said it is facing liquidation and Country Garden Holdings Co. is still trying to avoid a potential default.

The news, which contrasts with a slew of recent government measures to prop up housing demand, has fueled investor confusion over whether authorities have a unified plan to stabilize the market. It couldn’t come at worse time for Chinese developers counting on the upcoming Golden Week holiday period to spark a longawaited revival in home sales.

“Any setback in the process will negatively affect the still very fragile market sentiment of almost all players in the sector and defeat the policy purpose,” said Zhi Wei Feng, a senior analyst at Loomis Sayles Investments Asia Pte.

A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of Chinese developer shares fell 1.2 percent on Tuesday, a day after dropping the most this year as the crisis at Evergrande entered a new phase. The developer scrapped key creditor meetings and said it must rethink its debt overhaul plan, raising the risk

Biden

continued from A16

President Shawn Fain, who last week invited the sitting president to join the strikers.

“He is pro-UAW, he is pro-workers, that is this president,” White House press secretary Karine JeanPierre said Monday. “He stands by union workers, and he is going to stand with the men and women of the UAW.”

Yet the UAW strike, which expanded into 20 states last week, remains a dilemma for the Biden

of a liquidation of the nation’s most indebted builder.

On top of that, Caixin reported that Xia Haijun, an ex-chief executive officer of Evergrande, and Pan Darong, a former chief financial officer, have been detained by Chinese authorities.

The eight-day national holiday starting Friday is the centerpoint of the industry’s September-October busy season. The stakes are higher than ever this year, as the housing slowdown weighs on China’s economic recovery and developers that are struggling to refinance rely on cash from sales to meet debt obligations.

“Property sales this year have been very lackluster, so for most developers accelerating transactions in the two months will be especially crucial,” said Zhang Hongwei, founder of Jingjian Consulting, which advises real estate companies. If sales aren’t good enough by October, local governments will roll out more stimulus, Zhang added.

An easing of mortgage restrictions at the end of August triggered a spurt of home sales in larger cities that is already losing momentum. That’s prompting speculation policy makers will need to do more to revive sentiment which has been hammered by worries over unfinished apartments, falling property values, high unemployment and dwindling incomes.

Homebuyers “need to have sufficient confidence that the houses that they buy will be delivered a year later,” said Charles Chang, Greater China country lead at S&P Global Ratings. “Since many developers in large parts

administration since a part of the workers’ grievances include concerns about a broader transition to electric vehicles. The shift away from gaspowered vehicles has worried some autoworkers because electric versions require fewer people to manufacture and there is no guarantee that factories that produce them will be unionized.

Carolyn Nippa, who was walking the picket line Monday at the GM parts warehouse in Van Buren Township, Michigan, was ambivalent about the president’s advocacy for electric vehicles, even as she said Biden was a better president than

of the market are in distress, many homebuyers are likely to just put off their home purchases.”

Some builders are already taking aggressive steps to get customers.

One developer in Guangdong is offering incentives to buyers of its Royal Skyrim apartments in Shenzhen to purchase additional properties elsewhere in the province.

Thirteen developers from Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost province, went to the eastern city of Nanjing to promote their 21 projects earlier this month, hoping that buyers fond of traveling would consider them as holiday residences.

Local authorities are helping out, too. A city government in central Anhui province gave out 5,000 spending vouchers of as much as $137 each to homebuyers.

Local authorities have been following each other to stimulate housing demand in recent weeks. Some have loosened rules banning non-residents from purchasing property there.  Guangzhou made such a move in some urban areas last week, marking one of the most significant steps taken in a tier-one city. Beijing and Shanghai still restrict non-locals from buying property and place limits on how many units each household can own.

“Whether tier-one cities will step up loosening depends on how much their housing markets recover,” said Chen Wenjing, associate research director at China Index Holdings. “The Guangzhou move signals that it’s not impossible anymore.”

Easing in big metropolitan areas may do little to fix the slump elsewhere, however. Developers in

Trump for workers. She said it was “great that we have a president who wants to support local unions and the working class.”

“I know it’s the future. It’s the future of the car industry,” Nippa said. “I’m hoping it doesn’t affect our jobs.”

Still, other picketers remained more skeptical about Biden’s visit Tuesday.

Dave Ellis, who stocks parts at the distribution center, said he’s happy Biden wants to show people he’s behind the middle class. But he said the visit is just about getting more votes.

“I don’t necessarily believe that it’s really about us,” said Ellis, who

lower-tier cities are likely to see weak sales and cash flows “for a prolonged period if the trend of demand channeling into top-tier cities and prime locations persists,” said Karl Shen, an analyst at Fitch Ratings.  There are entrenched barriers to a recovery that measures to fuel demand can’t easily overcome. As well as the tough job market, China’s aging population and an oversupply of housing limit the upside for investing in real estate.

Former People’s Bank of China policy maker Li Daokui said a recovery may take as long as a year and Beijing should do more to encourage lending to cash-strapped developers.  “New-home inventories, at over decade-highs in tier-2 and -3 cities, suggest pricing pressure is likely to stay, while surging listings of existing homes indicate heavy supply in that market,” said Kristy Hung, Bloomberg Intelligence real estate analyst.  Officials are treading a fine line on how far to push stimulus. While a persistent real estate slump poses risks to the government’s growth target of 5 percent this year, it wants to reduce the economy’s reliance on a leverage-driven property market in the long run.

For now, the expectation that home values will keep falling is among the biggest deterrents to buyers. Home prices dropped the most in 10 months in August, led by declines in smaller cities.

“It is more or less a waiting game now,” said Chang at S&P. “We’re going to enter a seasonally slow time for home sales as soon as we get into the winter.” With assistance from Pearl Liu / Bloomberg

argued that Trump would be a better president for the middle class than Biden because Trump is a businessman. The Biden administration has no formal role in the negotiations, and the White House pulled back a decision from the president earlier this month to send two key deputies to Michigan after determining it would be more productive for the advisers, Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, to monitor talks from Washington. Krisher reported from Van Buren Township, Michigan. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in Summerville, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

he

TUnion’s new, tougher approach to China is being shaped by French concerns that Beijing’s trade practices have started to pose a critical threat to core industries.

With a government shutdown just days away, Congress is moving into crisis mode

A18 Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Bicameral panel OKs PPP Act, green reforms seen OVP, DEPED BUDGET DEBATES RESCHEDULED

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

the door to PPPs involving the generation and trading of carbon credits and other innovative climate finance mechanisms,” he added.

T he lawmaker said the country needs one common set of rules to strengthen investor certainty and confidence.

‘blended finance’ or the participation of the private sector on the side of the financing country in the use of ODAs for PPP projects,” he added.

“

THE plenary deliberations of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) as well as the Department of Education’s (DepEd) proposed budget for 2024 have been rescheduled for Wednesday—the last day of the budget debates.

abrupt rescheduling of the plenary budget deliberations for OVP and DepEd amid questions on Vice President Sara Duterte’s huge confidential fund in the national budget.

House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Joey Sarte Salceda said Congress will likely ratify the proposal by Tuesday.

According to Salceda, they have introduced several amendments to include provisions to encourage green financing, allow commercial involvement in ODA for PPP projects, and boost the returns of the government on PPP projects by allowing an internal rate of return as a basis for bidding and negotiating PPP projects.

“ I proposed several amendments to my colleagues and counterparts, all of which were accepted in some form. But the major ones are these

three,” said Salceda, the chairman of the technical working group that drafted the House version of the bill. Salceda also pushed to elevate the PPP Law into a code so that future amendments would be made to the code instead of in a scattered way. With my amendment, for example, the code explicitly allows projects involving green growth, low-carbon, carbon avoidance, sustainable development, and the use of alternative assets such as carbon credits, such as those pursuant to Article VI of the Paris Agreement, or ecosystem services. This opens

We have a lot of potential in the market for carbon credits because we are a low-per-capita emissions country with moral ascendancy and experience in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and mitigation. In December 2022, [Environment] Secretary Toni Yulo said that they needed an enabling law to establish a carbon credit market in the Philippines. With this, you can already create that market through PPPs. I expect unsolicited bids from RE companies first, who are tax-exempt on the sale of their carbon credits. They stand to benefit the most,” Salceda said.

Salceda added that he also introduced amendments that will allow more ODA to finance PPPs.

U nder the proposal, Salceda said that ODAs, when used to finance PPPs, are executive agreements and therefore do not require treaty approval.   “ The amendment also allows

This is already standard practice among European countries that finance ODAs. The proposal will help diversify the ODA portfolio. Japan dominates our ODA sources, but France comes in at a distant second and is willing to do more if we can make these amendments,” he said.

Salceda said they also introduced a provision allowing a maximum rate of return for private PPP partners as a bidding parameter or a negotiation term in crafting PPPs.

“Anything in excess is remitted to the National Treasury, like San Miguel Aerocity’s franchise, which allows a 12-percent internal rate of return. The Public Service Act amendments also provide for this,” he said.

S alceda also brought up additional amendments, such as allowing local water districts in PPPs to combine to maximize efficiency and reduce consumer bills.

T he proposal also allows all government agencies and instrumentalities to undertake PPPs.

Following the inquiry of ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, Deputy Majority Floor Leader and Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin explained that the OVP notified the lower house of a conflict in their schedule.

The Office of the Vice President as well as the Office of the Department of Education and the Secretary of the Department of Education have conveyed a message to the [House] Committee on Appropriations as well as the Committee on Rules of a possible conflict in schedule. . .  details of which the Majority Leader, I mean yours truly, is not yet that privy,” said Garin.

But [it is] precise for us to say that as of the moment, the deliberations of the proposed budget of the OVP as well as DepEd have been temporarily moved [Wednesday], considering that we also have other agencies in the pipeline,” she added.

For his part, Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel questioned the

“ It was two weeks ago when the schedule of the House’s plenary hearing on the budget was first announced. No other agency changed the schedule on the same day. What could be the reason for this absence? Is it also confidential?” asked Manuel.

Last-minute cancellations with vague explanations in any context are unprofessional. Without a clear explanation, the only thing that happened was that the OVP and DepEd were afraid to face the people and explain, especially about their confidential funds,” he added.

M anuel assured the public that no official would be able to evade their scrutiny of the public funds.

We are ready to enter early and still serve, even if we have spent more than 12 hours discussing the national budget in the past few days,” he said.

T he plenary deliberations for the 2024 General Appropriations Bill are expected to finish on Wednesday (today).

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

THE congressional bicameral conference committee has approved the proposed PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP) Act, which includes “innovations” to boost green projects, Official Development Assistance (ODA), and returns of publicprivate projects to the government.

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Globe ties up with IPOPHL, local ISPs to combat piracy

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

Globe Telecom Inc. said on Tuesday it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Intellectual Property office of the Philippines (IPoPHl) and four other Internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to establish a site-blocking mechanism against pirate sites.

Yoly Crisanto, the chief sustainability and communication officer of Globe, said the deal is a “significant step forward against

content piracy” even as amendments to the 26-year-old Republic a c t 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines

are still forthcoming.

“What we are doing today is such an important step in the absence of a site-blocking law. We are no longer tied up. We can do something about piracy,” she said.

The M o U i s the “first in a s ia and second in the world,” after Germany.

Under the M o U , the signatories will establish a voluntary site-blocking practice against the unauthorized distribution and sale of pirated content over the Internet and “set an example” for other stakeholders.

It also outlines the general principles and procedures for site blocking, emphasizing collaboration between ISPs and IP o P H l , and ensuring compliance with the Data Privacy a c t of 2012.

Recognizing that site-blocking is among proposed amendments to the Intellectual Property Code, Crisanto said Globe

Holcim to delist from PSE in Nov

is hoping for “a more robust, institutionalized mechanism for site-blocking under the law, as this would penalize offenders and make site-blocking a matter of course for ISPs.”

She added that the urgency of these efforts is underscored by a recent study by Media Partners a s ia, which projected a potential revenue loss of $1 billion for the Philippines by 2027 if online video piracy continues unchecked.

Site-blocking, meanwhile, could help “benefit the Philippines’s P1.6-trillion creative industry,” according to YouGov. “Just as we have taken our advocacy to such great lengths, we’re fully committed to stopping piracy. a n d hopefully, in the digital economy, the Philippines can start looking forward to a creative industry that is robust and free from all these challenges,” she said.

Avon optimistic about ’23 prospects

Global beauty brand av on said it could post a singledigit growth in the Philippines this year despite rising inflation and other economic headwinds.

a c cording to av on Philippines General Manager (GM) and Managing Director for a s ia Pacific Razvan Diratian, the reopening of the economy helped prop up the performance of the skincare and cosmetics industry.

“We are always looking to grow [faster than the market]. Doubledigit, it will be a very good projection. [b ut] as far as I know at this moment, the market is moving [up] by just a single digit,” he told

reporters on the sidelines of avon’s National Sales Convention 2023 at the Winford Hotel Manila.

He said the market reopened as the pandemic situation eased in the second half of 2022. With the continued decline in the infection rate here and abroad the following year, the World Health o r ganization finally declared last May 5 that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency. “ b eginning of the year, probably, most of the consumers [are] coming out of the pandemic. They are starting to spend more. It’s [still] possible towards end of the year to have a slowdown,” Diratian said.

“So I think, at this moment,

the first and second half will play differently. b ut I’m not expecting a double-digit growth of the market. If market will catch up in the fourth quarter, we are ready to do it better.”

While the company is on a “waitand-see” mode about the market’s movement in the fourth quarter, Diratian said 2023 is generally a “good year” for av on it continues to hold on to the top spot in the direct selling market. av on, he said, is dominant in the fragrance, color, lotion, intimate apparel, and custom jewelry categories across its omnichannel platforms.

a t t he start of the holiday sea -

son, Diratian expects av on’s business to accelerate further with the unveiling of its upcoming products, including new variants of its branded perfumes, Imari and b e yond the Moon, in o c tober and December, respectively.

“For any cosmetics business, fourth quarter has quite a high contribution in the total sales. So the ‘ber months’ are extremely important. a c tually, that’s one reason why most of our launches are happening right now and in the coming months,” Diratian said.

“It’s the gifting season for us, and this is something that is driving our strategy. So I hope 2023 will be even better.”

Roderick L. Abad

DOJ affirms SEC position on foreign directors in local firms

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

TH e D epartment of Justice (D o J ) has affirmed the position of the Securities and e x change Commission (S e C ) on the number of seats allowed for foreigners in corporations.

The S e C s aid the number of seats allowed for foreigners in a partially nationalized corporation or in any corporation not considered public utilities should be based on its allowable share in the capital of such entities.

In a legal opinion issued last September 20, Justice Secretary

Jesus Crispin Remulla said that only those corporations that are considered public utilities under Republic a c t (R a ) 11659, an a c t amending Commonwealth a ct No. 146, otherwise known as The Public Service a c t, are covered by the constitutional limitation in the participation of foreign investors in the board of directors.

“For all other corporations with foreign capitalization requirements and ownership of stock, or those corporations engaged in regular activity, the participation of foreigners is limited by their allowable participation or share in the capital of such entities, as provided for in Section 2- a of the a nti-Dummy l aw,” Remulla said.

Remulla issued the opinion in response to the letter dated March 13, 2023 of Se C G eneral Counsel Romualdo Padilla seeking the justice department’s confirmation

that consistent with the objective of the a nti-Dummy l aw, the determination of the number of seats allowed for foreigners in a partially nationalized corporation is based on its allowable participation or share in the capital of such entities.

Padilla, in his letter, told the D o J t hat it has been the position of the S e C that foreigners can be elected as directors in proportion to their allowable participation or share in the capital of corporations engaged in activities that are reserved to Filipinos.

The Se C ’s position is based on

D o J o p inion Nos. 37, series of 1976 and 11, series of 1981.

However, the S e C noted that in its subsequent query on the number of board seats, which may be given to alien investors in par -

tially nationalized activity, the D o J t hrough its o p inion 161, series of 1994 seemingly altered its position.

In the said opinion, according to S e C , the D o J stated that “it is the actual investment of the foreigner that will form the basis for its representation in the board of directors, which may be less than the allowable participation of aliens therein.”

The D o J, in its latest opinion on the matter, cited Section 11, a r ticle XII of the 1987 Constitution which states: “No franchise, certificate or any other form or authorization for the operation of a public utility shall be granted except to citizens of the Philippines or to corporations or associations organized under the law of the

Philippines at least sixty percentum of whose capital is owned by such citizens…”

It added that “the participation of foreign investors in the governing body of any public utility enterprise shall be limited to the proportionate share in its capital…”

Remulla explained that the said provision under Section 11, a rt icle XII of the 1987 Constitution formed the basis for o p inion No. 161, series of 1994, where participation of foreign investors in the governing body of any public utility or enterprise was limited to their proportionate share in its capital.

The purpose of the said provision, according to the D o J s ecretary, is to prevent foreigners from controlling the operations of public utilities in the country, which is imbued with public interest.

Considered as public utilities under R a 11659 are those engaged in the distribution of electricity, transmission of electricity, petroleum and petroleum products pipeline transmission systems, water pipeline distribution systems, seaports, and public utility vehicles.

For the purposes of determining the number of seats allowed for foreigners in regular corporations in consonance with the objectives of the a nti-Dummy l aw, the D o J said the allowable participation or share in the capital of such corporations will be taken into account.

“This is consistent with the strict limitation set forth by the Constitution for businesses considered as public utilities,” Remulla said.

By VG Cabuag @villygc

Ce M e N T maker Holcim Philippines Inc. said it is ready to delist from the Philippine Stock e x change (PS e ) a fter it has complied with all the rules and conducted a tender offer to siphon off the remaining shares of minority holders.

The company said it will be delisted on November 27.

“The company believes that it has satisfied all the conditions in PS e Memorandum CN No. 2020- 0104, the amended Voluntary Delisting Rules, to delist its common shares from the main board of the PS e ,” it said.

o n J une 29 Holderfin, b V., one of the company’s major shareholders, has purchased from Sumitomo o s aka Cement Co., l t d. 594.95 million common shares of Holcim representing 9.22 percent of the company’s issued and outstanding capital stock. Thereafter, the minimum public float of the company fell to 5.05 percent.

From July 10 to a u gust 30, the first tranche of the voluntary tender offer was conducted by Holderfin. It siphoned off some 233.81 million common shares, representing approximately 3.62 percent of the company’s issued and outstanding common shares.

a s o f September 6, the total own -

ership of Holderfin along with two of its affiliates, Union Cement Holdings Corp. and Cemco Holdings Inc., has reached about 98.58 percent of the company’s issued and outstanding common shares.

Holcim said its net income grew 26 percent to P835.11 million in the first half from the previous year’s P661.46 billion, mainly on higher sales in the second quarter.

Net sales in January to June rose by 6 percent to P12.89 billion from the previous year’s P12.17 billion.

The company’s net sales grew by 15 percent to P6.25 billion in the second quarter from the previous year’s P5.43 billion due to higher volumes sold across all business segments.

Net income in a p ril to June almost doubled to P478.88 million from P240.85 million, mainly on solid growth across business segments, the company said.

o u r focus on sustainability and innovation is continuing to pay off with more efficient operations and higher value offerings that are raising business performance,” Horia a d rian, president and C e o of Holcim, said.

“We are determined to further accelerate programs for decarbonization, circularity and digitalization to deliver better results and contribute to building progress in the country.”

DA aid enables 32 Siargao land tillers to start pineapple farm

BUTUAN CITY—At least 32 farmers in the Siargao Island town of Santa Monica embarked on pineapple production earlier this week after receiving aid from the Department of Agriculture in the Caraga Region (DA-13).

The farmers, who formed themselves into the Abad Santos Farmers Association (ASFA), received 15,000 pineapple-planting materials under the DA’s Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) program.

Johnny Arlan, the ASFA president, said aside from the planting materials, DA also provided 100 sacks of fertilizers and farm tools to support their project.

The group also expects the delivery of a multi-cultivator machine to boost production.

“This is the first time that we ventured into pineapple production. The DA also prepared us before the start of the project by providing us with training and education on pineapple production last June,” Arlan said in a phone interview Friday.

Leveraging tourism sector

HE said the group expects to make their first harvest a year after planting, adding that they also seek to leverage the booming tourism sector on Siargao Island to expand their market.

Ariel Obillos, SAAD community development officer in Siargao Island, noted that pineapple is suited in Santa Monica based on preliminary studies.

“The number of hotels, resorts, and restaurants in Siargao Island, especially in General Luna town are our target markets. With the return of the tourism industry on the island after the pandemic and the typhoon in 2021, we are seeing big opportunities for the ASFA project to succeed,” Obillos said in a separate interview Friday.

The current buying price of pineapple on the island, he added, ranges from P70 to P80 per kilo.

The support for the Santa Monica farmers is provided under the SAAD Phase 2 implementation this year with some P1.59 million worth of assistance. PNA

Global beauty brand Avon continues to ‘empower’ enterprising Filipinas

By Roderick L. Abad @rodrik_28 Contributor

But not until the modernization and globalization came in the latter part of the 19th century when they started to come out of the kitchen sans their aprons on their way to the real world in flats or high heels.

Global beauty brand Avon was among those that first opened the doors for the members of Eve’s tribe to explore their neighborhoods and even the corporate world to pursue their entrepreneurial goals not only for themselves and their families, but for their communities as well.

No wonder that with it’s erstwhile direct selling model, almost every household in the country has had any member, either mothers, sisters or daughters wearing at least an Avon lipstick and makeup or any item they ordered from the brochure of their seller-neighbor. Internally, women comprised about 71 percent of all Avon employees, of which 68 percent are mid-level leaders and 83 percent are senior executives.

“Why I think our business is very successful is that globally 20 percent of every sale is actually going to help a woman. In the Philippines, it’s even more. So that’s something that we are very proud and will continue to support women all around the country and also the world,”

Razvan Diratian, Avon Philippines general manager (GM) and managing director for Asia Pacific, told reporters on the sidelines of their National Sales Convention 2023 dubbed “I’ve Got the Power” held at the Winford Hotel Manila last Thursday, September 21.

Igniting Pinay’s entrepreneurial spirit

FOR more than 125 years, Avon has been helping women internationally to achieve financial independence. In the Philippines, it has not only elevated the self-confidence of the female populace with its quality beauty and personal care products, but also unleashed their entrepreneurial spirit for 45 years.

Proof of which is its growing network of hundreds of thousands of representatives, otherwise known as the “Avon Ladies.” The multinational gives them a chance to build a business of their own—selling high quality cosmetic products—with no upfront cost at all.

“To access Avon, it’s absolutely zero. More than that, we are one of the very few businesses offering credit based on a very simple [term]. You just need to have an ID and other [documents required],” he said.

With a credit that starts from P2,000 up to P100,000, an enlisting representative can start his or her beauty venture. The first order is payable in around 30 days. In a month’s time, they can build a customer base to sell the products and collect the money back to settle the bill.

“On top of that, we are providing training. We are providing free access to all the digital tools; not just the ordering platform. For example, for the sales leaders, it’s about reports and all the other supporting tools for their business. So it’s a free access for everyone,” he noted.

Aspiring entrepreneurs receive lessons on business sustainability

PUTTING up a business can be daunting yet exciting journey for first-time entrepreneurs. As much as possible, they need to do it right early on to avoid committing mistakes which, in turn, could make or unmake an enterprise.

During the series in-person and online staging of Shell’s flagship enterprise development program, micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) and start-up owners were guided on how to establish successful and long-lasting businesses by mentors with vast experience in business growth, innovation, and empowering small players like them.

“Shell LiveWIRE Homeroom Sessions aim to reach and upskill more start-ups and inspire the entrepreneurial spirit within all the participants. We hope that this platform and the learnings from our guests today pave the way for future success,” Shell Pilipinas Corp. (SPC) Vice President for Corporate Relations Serge Bernal said in his opening remarks.

Adaptable and agile

IN the inaugural session, titled “Start-ups’ Keys to Success: Adaptability and Agility,” the significance of experimentation for new businesses to find their audience was tackled.

Expounding on the theme, BounceBack Philippines Founder Jason Dela Rosa defined “Adaptability is all about endurance. Being able to endure challenges in your environment, and then be able to change the way you do business. Agility is how quickly you do that.”

Businesses in their initial stages were advised by Urban Traveller and Co. Chief Execu-

tive Officer Hans Kenner Fernandez on how to become agile and prepared. He said: “Try to be flexible, but then at the same time, preparing for contingencies. Mostly for me, that means having multiple ways to earn revenue.”

Do it right for longevity

COMMON errors that fresh businessmen make and the importance of correcting them at the beginning to ensure sustainability were discussed in the final session dubbed “Navigating Business Mortality: How to Avoid the Pitfalls that Cause Businesses to Fail.”

The two early mistakes start-ups commit are recruiting too many employees early and improper planning in equity sharing among the staff, according to Shoppable Chief Technology Officer Christian Blanquera.

“We all have to think about, when we create a start-up, we’re representing or supporting the economy of this country and we have a responsibility to produce revenues for your start-up and the entire ecosystem,” he noted.

“We’re all part of the economy in some sort of way, so we have to always try our best.”

Triumph over difficulty was also talked about during the symposium as business owners can experience burnout as their venture goes on.

“There are a lot of challenges, a lot of bumps along the road. But the thing is, when you go back to your core, you go back to your why, you go back to your vision and the reason why you’re doing this, that should help drive you so that you can move forward regardless of the challenges that you encounter,” said StartUp

Village President Carlo Calimon. Roderick L. Abad

Power of three COMING from the pandemic, the countrywide sales conclave is the biggest event that Avon has had in the recent years, which gathered together around 1,000 best representatives and sales leaders across the Philippines. This in-person event was also streamed live across its more than 190 branches all over the nation.

“What can be more powerful than being together—the Avon Force For Good—that will rock all of the representatives and all the consumers in the Philippines?” Diratian said. “Because now we are in the most powerful quarter of the year, we have three powers for each one: the power to empower, the power to delight, and the power to build.”

According to him, the power to empower always starts with Avon’s people—the associates who are working with passion to create value for representatives and customers. This is also the power to make sure that everyone is healthy like driving awareness to stop breast cancer; care about the planet for a better environment to live in; and commitment to animal welfare by becoming Leaping Bunnyapproved brand. This first power also applies to

the company’s sales leaders for them to become more effective in their duties. For Avon Philippines Head of Sales Quilin Biasbas, it is said, “leaders become great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others to multiply themselves and to also help more people through leadership.”

The power to delight means to please greatly both the representatives and consumers. For this quarter, Diratian bared their campaign during the BER months called the “12 Weeks to Christmas.”

“Avon is a caring brand. We are on the relationship selling. What better gift can be rather than an Avon product? And if a consumer is getting a gift from our representative, from a friend, once they are testing that Avon product, they buy it forever,” he explained.

A lot of product launches are, likewise, in the pipeline, such as Imari’s new variant, the apparel line called Power Intimacy, and the Power in Mystery that is a perfume line called Beyond the Moon. Representatives and customers can also get to enjoy the improved and more attractively designed branches perfect for the Holidays. Avon is also going omnichannel, making its presence both online and offline.

Overcoming rejections

THE most difficult challenge faced by sales professionals is rejection. In fact, just the mere thought of it causes many to drop everything, and run as far away as possible from the sales profession.

But why is this so? Why do most sellers experience difficulty in facing rejections? Here’s my top three (3) reasons based on personal conversations with hundreds of salespeople:

Obsession

T HERE are times when sales professionals become too obsessed in getting the sale. Please don’t get me wrong, but there’s no problem with being laser-focused on your sales target. This is even encouraged.

According to Stephen Covey, we need to think of the end in mind. So if you want to achieve your sales target, you need to zero-in on how you can get to it. But being laser-focused is not the same as being obsessed with it. Obsession is about getting the desired result no matter what, to a point where you become too emotionally attached to your sales target.

Once you are obsessed in getting the sale, it becomes more difficult to accept a rejection— as if it’s either a pass or fail situation. If you get the sale, you’re a success, but if not, then you’re a failure.

But this is not true! A lot of times, a rejection may even lead to better opportunities. All you need to do is to open your possibilities and be flexible with strategies.

Desperation

MOST sellers try to achieve their sales targets

during the eleventh hour. It’s either because they’re overly confident of their closing prowess or because they’re too lazy to do the real grind.

Unfortunately, selling very close to the deadline causes desperation. This means getting the sale becomes a life or death circumstance, and a rejection puts you in a miserable situation. Also, the moment you sell desperate, your prospect can smell it from a mile away and you’ll surely be in trouble.

Self-preservation

IN my years of training sales professionals, I’ve encountered many who would rather not deal with the negative emotional effects of rejection. And they do this by shying away from asking for the order.

Wanting to avoid the pains of rejections, their self-preservation mode kicks-in, and will cause them to simply not ask for the sale. But if you think about it, what could be the worst thing that can happen after a rejection?

To answer this question, allow me to use the Socratic method—what could be the worst thing that can happen to you when crossing a busy street? Well, God forbid, but the worst thing is that you get hit by a car and die.

On the other hand, what could be the worst thing that can happen to you when rejected? Well, whatever it is, you’ll definitely survive and live to tell the tale. But you still cross the street daily, yet abhor getting rejections. Doesn’t make much sense, right?

So what do you need to do in order to overcome rejections? Well, firstly, instead of being obsessed with getting the sale, preoccupy yourself with helping customers solve their problems.

For the former, the gift of knowledge also awaits them through the Avon Beauty Adviser Program, which provides a hands-on workshop by professional makeup artists and gives selling techniques, especially for new representatives.

“The benefits of this is that not only will you be able to know more about the features advisory of our products, but it’s also fun and experiential,” Biasbas said, adding that finishers will receive an official certificate for added credibility.

The improved Avon Connect will be relaunched as Avon Academy, an online learning platform that will be available in all devices— laptop, cellphone, and tablet. It will have a search tool and filter to easily find information about a certain topic, as well as customize the learning plan.

With the power to build, Avon offers each new representative a welcoming journey for the first three months with the brand. There’s also the Avon Leads initiative that powers the sales leaders’ relationships and supercharges their earning potentials.

“We also have R&R or ‘Recruitment and Retention.’ Avon is here to help you and to support you with the retention of our new representatives through our RepCon series every month in our FB pages,” she said.

To bring back its sales partners and executives who were affected by the Covid-19 crisis, the firm offered them an amnesty program.

“Even during the pandemic, we’re supporting our representatives and sales leaders. Coming from their difficulty to settle their payments, we have an amnesty program. Also, we support on expediting their commission and their earnings,” Diratian stressed. “At this moment, I think we are back to normal. We are very happy that face-to- face interaction is coming back to normal. We are able to bring them back at the level of pre-pandemic. It was one objective to make sure that we are bringing the same level of representatives and sales leaders to serve our customers.”

At the end of the day, it’s the solution to their problem that truly counts. Ask questions to determine their real and felt needs and problems, and endeavor to uncover their buying motivations. After which, offer the appropriate solutions, using the relevant features and benefits of your product or service.

Secondly, just do the grind—and do it early in the game! And please do it consistently. Developing these habits (doing it; doing it early; doing it consistently) will help you avoid desperation.

After all, there is no shortcut to success.

Lastly, keep in mind that selling is a numbers game, and getting rejections is part of the sport. So determine your batting average in closing—for instance, in ten (10) sales calls, how many successful transactions were you able to make? If you can close 3 out of 10 transactions, that means you have a 30 percent batting average in closing.

Use this as your guide in determining the right number of prospects that you need to talk to in order to close your desired number of clients. So if your sales target for the month is to close three (3) transactions, and your batting average is 30 percent, then you must call on at least ten (10) prospects.

Anything less will most probably yield a lower sales closing result. Embracing the numbers’ game will help you overcome self-preservation and welcome rejection as simply a means to an end. Now that’s a radical paradigm to live by!Keep selling, keep helping!

IN a very conservative country like the Philippines in the past wherein gender norms defined the role of men as the family “breadwinners” and women as “homemakers,” the latter had been restricted to gain economic opportunities and financial freedom.

RAZVAN DiR AtiAN Avon Philippines general manager and managing director for Asia Pacific, discusses the company’s current business status, current and upcoming initiatives and offerings for its representatives, sales leaders and customers during the National Sales Convention 2023 dubbed i ve Got the Power” held at the Winford Hotel Manila on thursday, September 21.

House-approved MUP bill wants new entrants to pay for pension

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

Royalty fees await large miners in fiscal proposal

said a military or uniformed personnel shall choose the modes of payment of retirement: (A) lump sum, which received in advance and in one lump sum, retirement benefits equivalent to 36 months; and three years thereafter, received monthly retirement benefits as they accrue; or (B) direct pension, which received monthly retirement benefits as they accrue.

AFP Trust Fund

House Bill (HB) 8969—approved, on third and final reading last Tuesday—mandates new entrants to government military and uniformed service to contribute 9 percent of their monthly compensation as personal shares. The national government shall provide 12 percent as its share, HB 8969 mandates.

HB 8969 also mandates that the monthly retirement pay of new entrants shall be 50 percent of the base pay and longevity pay of the permanent grade last held by the personnel in case of 20 years of active service, increasing by 2.5 percent for every year of active service rendered beyond 20 years to a maximum of 90 percent for 36 years of active service and over.

The bill, a priority of of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., was endorsed last September 26 for Senate approval.

Ad Hoc Committee on the MUP Pension System Chairman and Albay Rep. Ma. Jose Clemente “Joey” S. Salceda said the bill essentially reduces the unfunded liabilities of the MUP pension system from estimates of as high as P14 trillion to P3.4 trillion.

Automatic indexation

THE measure also mandates the automatic indexation of the pension of retired MUP and the survivorship pension of qualified survivors at a rate not exceeding 100 percent of the increase in the base pay of the MUP in active service and holding the same rank during the same year.

The provision clarifies, however, that the indexation can only

be implemented if the government guarantees an annual adjustment in the base pay of active MUP of three percent in the first decade of the enactment of the law.

Prior to HB 8969, MUPs are not required to pay for their pension unlike civilian government employees.

Their pension is being subsidized by the government through the annual appropriations in the national budget, Senator Francis Joseph G. Escudero explained in a statement last year.

Fund management

THE bill mandates the creation of the AFP Trust Fund and the Uniformed Personnel Services Trust Fund. A MUP Trust Fund Committee is also created under the proposal. This body may increase the retirement benefits by not more than 1.5 percent of the retirement benefit within a given year. The bill, however, provides a caveat: this can only be done if the financial sustainability of such an increase is supported by an actuarial study.

HB 8969 also mandates the compulsory retirement of military personnel, in accordance with Section 6 of Republic Act (RA) 11709 (as amended by Section 2 of RA 11939). The caveats of this provision are one of the following conditions: upon reaching 57 years of age, or upon accumulation of 30 years of satisfactory active service, whichever comes later; or for key officers, upon completion of a tour of duty; or, upon relief by the President.

Upon retirement, the measure

HB 8969 mandates that a source of the AFP Trust Fund should come from the proceeds of the residual assets of the AFP retirement separation benefits system.

Other sources include the sale of military reservations, as may be authorized by Congress, pursuant to the provisions of existing laws and regulations governing sales of government properties. Another source could be the lease or joint development of military reservations, as may be authorized by the President, pursuant to the provisions of existing laws and regulations governing lease or joint development of government properties.

The fund could also come from shares of the AFP from the sale of military camps provided for under RA 7227, as amended, and at least 50 percent of the proceeds, net of direct expenses authorized to be deducted from such proceeds from the lease and/or joint venture agreements and such other dispositions pertaining to the same camps in accordance with applicable and/or existing orders, rules, regulations, and issuances.

Still, other sources are: income derived from public-private partnerships entered into by the Department of National Defense or the AFP, as may be authorized by the President; and, sale of non-strategic real estate assets of the DND or the AFP as determined by the National Defense Secretary.

Within 30 days from the effectivity of HB 8969, of enacted into law, the concerned military and uniformed services shall submit a complete list of their real assets in the manner prescribed by the Department of Finance to identify additional sources of funding for budgetary support

of their services and augment the financing of the separation, retirement, and pension benefits of their military and uniformed personnel under existing laws and this act.

Significant increase

ACCORDING to Salceda, the annual appropriations allocated to the current MUP pension system have significantly increased over the years.

From a pension fund appropriation of P64.2 billion in 2014, the budget has increased to P128.6 billion in 2023, a growth equivalent to 101 percent, the lawmaker said.

Salceda said the pension system is indexed to the salary of active personnel, contrary to the common practice of using the highest salary as the basis for retirement or the Government Service and Insurance System practice of using the average monthly salary received by a government employee during the last three years immediately preceding retirement.

The lawmaker added that the estimates of actuarial reserve deficiency for the MUP pension should also decline from the original P9.6 trillion.

The proposal seeks to establish a viable funding source for the pension requirements of the MUPs, which stand at P158.4 billion for fiscal year 2023 and are estimated to increase to P257 billion for fiscal year 2024.

HB 8969 gained ayes from 272 members of the House of Representatives and nays from four lawmakers; one abstained.

The bill covers “all employees of the government who wear uniforms, with ranks, may be armed or unarmed, primarily involved in national defense, enforcement of laws, and in the maintenance of peace, order, and security, and who belong to any of the following services: Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Philippine National Police, Philippine Coast Guard, Bureau of Fire Protection, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Bureau of Corrections, and commissioned officers of the hydrography branch of the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority who were transferred from the Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey.”

FLI bonds get high credit ratings, stable outlooks

THE Philippine Rating Services Corp. (PhilRatings) has assigned the highest issue credit ratings and stable outlooks on the proposed bond issuance of Filinvest l and Inc. (Fl I), the developer announced last Monday.

F l I ’s proposed bonds, amounting to P10 billion, with a P2-billion oversubscription option, were assigned an issue credit rating of PRS Aaa. The same PRS Aaa rating was also assigned to F l I ’s outstanding bonds, totaling P35.4 billion. Proceeds from these bonds will be used for capital expenditures and debt refinancing, according to F l I

Obligations rated PRS Aaa (the highest rating assigned by PhilRatings) are of the highest quality with minimal credit risk. The obligor’s capacity to meet its financial commitment to the obligation is extremely strong. Each of the rat-

ings was also assigned an Outlook of Stable. An Outlook is an indication as to the possible direction of any rating change within one year and serves as a further refinement to the assigned credit rating for the guidance of investors, regulators and the general public.

A Stable Outlook means the rating will likely be unchanged in the next 12 months.

According to PhilRatings, the assigned credit ratings take into account F l I ’s “established brand name and track record, with geographically diverse real estate products and substantial land bank for future expansion.”

l i kewise, PhilRatings said it also considered F l I ’s “sound growth strategies” and its “improved revenues and operating cash flow, supported by more than satisfactory liquidity and interest coverage,” among other factors.

A statement issued by F l I read that it will launch this year condominium and housing developments in Antipolo City, Taytay, Angono, Calamba City, Tanauan City, Trece Martires City, Bacoor City, Dumaguete City, and the Island Garden City of Samal.

The statement also read that F l I will also accelerate the development of its township projects in the following areas: Cainta, Rizal; San Mateo, Rizal; Calamba City, l a guna, Trece Martires City, Cavite; and, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.

These townships will include residential, commercial, transportation, and school components to create a self-sufficient environment that considers the needs of residents and customers in mind, the developer’s statement read.

For malls, F l I is currently constructing Marina Town in Duma-

ABIl l seeking a new fiscal regime for the mining sector—approved on third and final reading last Tuesday by the House of Representatives—tweaks the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) of 1997.

The measure, embodied in House Bill (HB) 8937, creates four new sections—151-A, 151-B, 151-C, and 51-D—in the NIRC, or Republic Act (RA) 8424 (as amended).

Once enacted, the House-approved measure will subject largescale metallic mining operations within mineral reservations to a royalty rate of 4 percent of the gross output of the minerals or mineral products extracted or produced.

A margin-based royalty on income from metallic mining operations would be imposed on large-scale metallic mining operations outside mineral reservations.

The bill said large-scale metallic mining operations within mineral reservations shall be subject to a royalty rate of 4 percent of the gross output of the minerals or mineral products extracted or produced by metallic mining operations, exclusive of all other taxes.

It said large-scale metallic mining operations outside mineral reservations shall be subject to a marginbased royalty on income from metallic mining operations.

It added that pursuant to Sec-

tion 13 of the People’s Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991, there shall be levied one-tenth of one percent of the gross output of the minerals or mineral products extracted or produced by small-scale metallic mining operations.

In addition to the taxes imposed under the NIRC, a windfall-profit tax would also be imposed for each taxable year on income from metallic mining operations.

Under the bill, all metallic mining contractors shall provide the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) with a copy of approved marketing contracts and sales agreements, including those submitted to the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, on all sales and exports of minerals, mineral products, and raw ores.

It also mandates the Mines and Geosciences Bureau to require metallic mining companies to submit a report for each shipment before leaving the loading ports. The report shall be shared with the Department of Finance (DOF) and the BIR, the measure reads.

The BIR shall be entitled to examine and audit for tax purposes all sales and exportations of minerals, mineral products, and raw ores, including the terms and conditions of all sales commitments.

HB 8937 received affirmative votes, four negative votes and one abstention. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Stepping back

“Nothing is more difficult to take in hand, More perilous to conduct, Or more uncertain of success, Than to take the lead in the Introduction of a new order of things.”— Machiavelli

THE winds of change are lifegenerating opportunities but the waves of development invariably require more effort and time. Every change entails a paradox. As a law of life, out of order comes the need for change, but out of change comes the need for order.

guete City, which will open by end2023, and new malls in Filinvest Mimosa+ l e isure City and Activa Cubao, which will open by end2024, the developer revealed. These will expand F l I ’s retail portfolio by about 55,000 square meters in gross leasable area (Gl A ), bringing F l I ’s nationwide retail Gl A to 300,000 square meters.

F l I is also present in the industrial park and ready-built factory leasing businesses with its Filinvest Innovation Parks in New Clark City, Tarlac, and Calamba City, l a guna.

l a st August 19, F l I broke ground on the 25-hectare Filinvest Innovation Park Ciudad de Calamba, an expansion of the 50-hectare Filinvest Technology Park in Ciudad de Calamba. FIP-CDC is envisioned to become a stage for new and relevant products that will catalyze progress in the local community.

The immediate past four years featured unprecedented events in the world: the Covid pandemic, the various disasters ranging from unusual flooding, wild fires, from pockets of uprising in some jurisdictions to the prolonged Ukraine adventurism. The disruptions caused by these events drove a lot of changes that include technology’s impact on business and dayto-day life. During the lock-down, a number of schemes were put into place to continue operations like working from home and conducting meetings virtually. Postpandemic, there seems to be the preference to continue adopting in a modified form those technology enabled ways of doing things. Some businesses consider the work from home inefficient while some have adopted a hybrid of in office and from home scheme. Evidently, the ways of doing things have changed a lot.

Because of these developments, business organizations have stepped back to assess the situation and plan for the way forward.

The process of looking at the big picture to poise the business for significant growth/development is not a walk in the park.

In any change management un-

dertaking, the “best intentions” should be the norm right at the “thought” level. A professional practitioner of organizational development shared with me two fundamentals on the subject. First is the principle of the primacy of the thought “of best intentions” as a point to begin the process of becoming. Second is the principle of time as a continuum of the thought process rather than as a point in time independent from the thought.

Guiding principles, practices and benchmarks have to be determined and put into subsequent applications or actions. Objectivity, accountability, transparency and expediency should take precedence. The designated key personalities who will lead managing the winds and riding the waves of change will encounter lots of challenges.

Expectations derived from evaluating the past and the present paving the way forward have to be met within a reasonable timeline. The journey of effecting change is a shared experience among the leadership and the members of the organization as well as the stakeholders.

Indeed, change management is not an easy undertaking.

Conchita L. Manabat is the President of the Development Center for Finance, a joint undertaking of the FINEX Research & Development Foundation, Inc. and the Virata School of Business of the University of the Philippines.

Bill seeks to require OFWs to take financial literacy training before departure

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

SENATORS are backing two measures to help migrant workers, even as they are rushing the seafarers’ Magna Carta.

The first measure aims to stop the investment and online scammers from victimizing overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) by providing finan-

cial literacy training programs for them even before they fly to their host countries.

The second measure imposes stiffer penalties for online scammers preying on OFWs.

At a Senate committee hearing Tuesday, Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Officer-In-Charge Hans l eo J. Cacdac, together with the agency’s officials, expressed

support for Senate Bill (SB) 2078 (OFWs Financial literacy Enhancement Act) authored by Sen. Rafael “Raffy” T. Tulfo.

The DMW supported the proposed measure to stop the investment and online scammers from victimizing OFWs.

The proposed measure aims to provide financial literacy training programs for OFWs that is free

of charge, as a pre-departure and post-arrival seminar in order to promote and develop financial responsibility.

Relatedly, Sen. Robinhood “Robin” C.Padilla said at the same hearing presided over by Tulfo that it is high time the government cracked down on online scammers, especially those victimizing OFWs tagged as our modern-day heroes.

Padilla said: “Meron talaga tayong problema sa mga nanloloko sa mga OFW lalo sa social media. Sa (Facebook) page lang natin, may makita kayong sumusulpot talaga. [We really have a problem with those swindling our OFWs especially on social media. I have seen their posts on our Facebook page.]

He agreed with Tulfo that there should be heftier penalties against

those behind the scams. “ Tama ang sinabi ninyo Senator, na magkaroon dapat tayo ng matinding parusa dito sa mga gumagawa nito, dahil tinatawag nating mga Bagong Bayani ito. Dapat ang mga nanloko sa kanila may mas mabigat na parusa,” he told Tulfo. [You are right, Senator, to call for heavier penalties against these scammers. They are victimizing our modern-day heroes.]

THE proposed Military and Uniformed Personnel (MUP) Pension System Act approved at the Lower House last Tuesday would require new entrants to pay for their pension, a provision that radically changes an old system.

Finex Free enTerPriSe

Conchita L. Manabat

Kathryna Yu-Pimentel’s recipe for success

By Ayunan G. Gunting

THERE are no shortcuts to success, says entrepreneur Kathryna Yu-Pimentel. At the start of her career, the self-taught culinary artist was pushed to the extremes running her now-defunct food services. Humbled by the lessons, she has teamed up with other partners for her businesses and she has been reaping the fruits with the Singaporean casual dining restaurant chain Tiong Bahru Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice and Alpina Lounge and Wellness.

Entrepreneurship came naturally to Kathryna, who started earning money in  her elementary and high school days by making polvoron and cookies and selling them. In college, she supplied 500 packed cookies a week to a classmate who owned a coffee cart in the school. After graduation, they became suppliers to lobby coffee shops and school canteens. Likewise, she ran her own catering business and an Italian restaurant.

Kathryna shifted careers when she worked at the law firm of her future husband, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, and at the Senate office upon his election.

Six years ago, she came upon Tiong Bahru Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice restaurant in a trip to Singapore. Its long name distinguishes itself from the original, Tiong Bahru, Singapore’s oldest neighborhood and tourist destination. Located in the hawkers’ area, the restaurant attracted long queues of office workers. The come-on was the bite-size pieces of succulent Hainanese chicken on fragrant turmeric rice with ginger, chili and hoisin sauce.

“It was a hearty meal yet you didn’t feel the guilt because the chicken was not fried,” says Kathryna.

Whenever she visited in Singapore, she kept returning to Tiong Bahru Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice.

In 2019, Kathryna and several partners, including the Singaporean owner, established the local corporation, Tiong Bahru Philippines, which owns and manage its restaurants here. The first restaurant opened at MET Live Mall in Pasay City followed by another branch at Easton Place in Makati. Lockdowns notwithstanding, the businesses flourished with its healthy offerings and efficient delivery.

The famous chicken rice dish clicked because it offered top quality and value for money for less

Rediscoveri ng you r love for work

opportunities to do what you enjoy doing, you might need to volunteer for projects that expose you to more of what you like, or find a passion project for your own personal fulfillment. Loving your work does not always mean focusing all your talents and skills on your work. It means developing your skills to do your work better.

AFTER some time, you will find yourself losing interest in your work, either because it has become routinary, there is no growth in what you are doing, or the challenges have become so difficult that you just want to leave everything for a while. While it is normal to feel any of these at work, it does not mean that it is time to leave and look for another job. Sometimes, all you need is to pause and rediscover the passion that once drove you to pursue your current role.

The first thing you should do is to take the time to evaluate the reasons why you wanted to be there in the first place. You need to ask yourself if the reasons for being in your job are still the same reasons why you are doing it now. If the reasons have changed, you need to evaluate what you are willing to let go and what you are willing to retain to achieve your professional and personal goals. Remember that work takes up a third of your life so make sure you are working for all the right reasons.

You also need to distinguish between wanting to leave your job and wanting to leave your boss. Most people lose interest in their job because of a bad boss. If the reason for losing interest is your boss, you might want to try another department that can use someone with your skillset. If the work is still the issue, you need to review your goals and evaluate whether your professional goals ultimately support your personal objectives.

Evaluate what you enjoy doing in your work and do more of it. Sometimes, you do not enjoy your work because you are now in a position where you do less of what you enjoyed before. If there are only a few

Which leads me to the next point, which is working on your opportunities for improvement. Some people wait for opportunities to develop their skills and will rely heavily on their supervisor to coach them or give them training opportunities. While it is true that there are learning opportunities dependent on your supervisor, there are a lot of available resources to upskill yourself.

Video streaming services, online references, and mentors within the organization can help you professionally develop. Also, if it means spending an hour doing volunteer work in your community to improve your interpersonal skills, then it will also help develop how you deal with different personalities at work. All you need is to discover what is available, and then filter those that target your areas of improvement.

If the work has become routine and predictable, you might need to set new goals. Talk to your supervisor on your professional and personal goals so that they can break the monotony or help you develop new goals. Who knows, they might even give you new opportunities aligned with your personal goals. You can also work with your supervisor to develop ways to improve your team’s processes. This shows that you are committed to your work and tells your manager that you are ready to take in more responsibilities, which in turn could lead to a salary increase or a promotion.

Sometimes, your team might also be the reason why you are losing your love for work. If you feel left out, do not take it against them immediately. It could be that they have limited opportunities to work with you and there is not enough time to develop any professional relationship.

It will also depend on how much you want to connect with others because there are those who excel at working alone. If the team is finding it hard to

work with you even after repeated interventions, the problem could be the culture fit. You can talk to your supervisor but if you want to remain with the team, you might have to make a few adjustments.

Personally, I try to maintain good working relations because it is part of my work, but also because I know I will need them sometime in the future. However, I also keep a few work friends because I can destress with them, and we work on helping each other achieve our professional and personal goals. Work friends are your go-to people in the office when you feel stressed and you just want to unload your disappointments. Even if you feel frustrated and tired at work, they somehow make the load easier because you have a sounding board. You might also need to consider taking a vacation

than P300 for a solo serving.  Some customers kept ordering daily.

In the post-pandemic world, Tiong Bahru Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice now has seven outlets in the metropolis. The flagship restaurant was recently inaugurated at the Eastwood Mall. The eighth branch is slated to open at the Greenhills Shopping Center later in the year.

Aside from the poached and roasted chickens, tender for their juicy meat, the restaurant chain is also known for the tofu appetizer with sweet chili sauce, the sausage-like kikiam Singapore, the beef and fish head curries.

A major advantage is that the food is cooked on-site to guarantee freshness. Before each restaurant opening, the Singaporean principal, Andrew Koh, trains the kitchen staff to ensure authenticity of tastes. Its customers seek fresh taste and healthy meals at pocket-friendly prices. Kathryna attributes Tiong Bahru’s success to the harmonious partnership.  The investors, who come from diverse fields, offer their expertise. Kathryna and two other partners are foodies who conduct the taste tests and visit the branches to check the consistency in quality. She adds that the location in malls and high-traffic areas helped bring in the customers.

She cites that aside from the human capital or the knowledge of each business partner, Tiong Bahru’s success is likewise attributed to customer satisfaction from the high quality products and service, and a strong company image.  It also helps that Kathryna actively promotes the brand.

Meanwhile, Alpina Lounge and Wellness, a nail and brow salon and spa at Uptown Parade in Taguig City, has been thriving. Kathryna is joined by her sister Stephanie Yu Chua and Russian brow expert Maria Zhukova as managing partners. Aside from offering minimally invasive services, specialized blood tests and massages, Alpina doubles as a party place at night. Business is flourishing because it uses top quality machines and products executed by professionals who follow international standards in nail art, semi-permanent makeup and aesthetic procedures.

Kathryna says her earlier ventures taught her to be resilient. Maturity, location and timing are important to success. Learning from her lessons, she follows the classic recipe for success: “Good partners, good location, good products and good service.” n

to relax. Your vacation leaves are there for a reason. Maximize the benefits that your company has provided to ensure your work remains at par with expectations. Studies have shown that it is better to have frequent small vacations throughout the year than one long vacation. This is because the work stress is equally dissipated throughout the year, and you get to recharge in sprints. Putting all your rest days in one long vacation tires you out even before your vacation starts, and it becomes harder to go back to work. Work will always be an important part of who you are because it takes up a significant portion of your life. It should give you a sense of purpose and help you become the best version of yourself. If it no longer makes you happy, it is never too late to find that one job where you do not work for the rest of your life.

ENTREPRENEUR Kathryna YuPimentel

PHOTO BY PROXYCLICK VISITOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ON UNSPLASH

Digital PR: BrightPR.io — Revolutionizing the Public Relations Landscape in the PHL

is as simple as clicking a button. That’s the promise of BrightPR.io, boasting connections to an impressive 1,600+ leading national and regional media outlets across 60 countries. Such expansive outreach empowers emerging businesses, allowing them to echo their tales on a global stage.

What sets the company apart is its customer-centric model. Their unique commitment promises full refunds if publications don’t materialize within a stipulated time frame. This assurance emboldens brands to explore the digital PR frontier fearlessly, shifting their focus from potential pitfalls to crafting compelling narratives.

A glance at the Philippines’ vibrant PR landscape reveals the seismic shifts happening within the industry. BrightPR.io’s seamless integration of strategy, deployment, and monitoring tools is democratizing PR, making this powerful communication medium accessible to businesses of all scales.

Crystal Blue Enterprises leading the way in the construction of Earth-friendly swimming pools

without toxins and chemicals such as chlorine had sparked a new purpose in him. After years of study and experimenting, Richard finally invented the Healing Pool System in 2001 which has been patented in the Philippines and soon in South Korea.

RICHARD Cariño, President, Crystal Blue Enterprises

The Healing Pool System is a device that can be installed in swimming pools that utilizes powerful minerals such as magnesium, potassium, copper, and sulfur instead of toxic chemicals and free radicals. It provides active oxygen in nanobubble size and enriched with hydrogen that treats the water to eliminate skin allergens and offer extra health benefits that can last for years. Swimming pool enthusiasts of all ages can safely enjoy the waters without the risk of skin irritation or burning from chlorine.

IN our digital age, a new era is dawning for businesses globally.

The unforgiving pace of digital transformation means that organizations relying on old paradigms face the risk of fading into obscurity. This rings especially true for the realm of Public Relations (PR), which is undergoing a metamorphosis, propelled from its traditional roots into a digital future. At the forefront of this revolution stands BrightPR.io, an avantgarde global media outreach and news publishing platform poised to reshape the PR narrative.

Historically, public relations was a domain exclusive to the privileged— reserved for those who could afford the lofty price tags of established PR firms practicing time-worn methods. These

strategies, while prestigious, often fell short in reaching a global audience, a necessity in our borderless digital world.

The rise of digital PR is palpable, especially in burgeoning markets like the Philippines, where local brands aspire for international acclaim. BrightPR.io, a brainchild of visionary Filipino entrepreneurs and strategically headquartered in Singapore, is steering this transformation. Their groundbreaking platform democratizes public relations, offering businesses a cost-effective yet global conduit to share their stories.

The Southeast Asian startup isn’t merely pushing the envelope; it’s rewriting the rulebook. Envision a world where sharing your brand’s journey, milestones, and innovations to a global audience

Persisting with antiquated PR strategies in today’s digital zeitgeist is a perilous path. Companies must evolve, embracing the expansive opportunities digital avenues offer. With trailblazers like BrightPR.io, the future of digital PR in the Philippines isn’t just bright; it’s revolutionary. Their platform isn’t just a service; it’s the harbinger of change, ushering in an era where PR evolves from a luxury to an indispensable asset.

Drawing inspiration from Peter Drucker, “The best way to predict the future is to create it,” and that’s precisely what BrightPR.io is achieving.

As we embark on this redefined PR journey, spurred by trends in the Philippines and around the world, we tip our hats to our ingenuous Filipino game changers for bridging the past and future of PR, crafting an inclusive, digital-first landscape.

Beauty & Beyond Anti-Aging and Aesthetics 2.0

Series by DMark Beauty continues at Seda BGC

CRYSTAL Blue Enterprises, the leading swimming pool construction company in the Philippines, is making waves in the industry with their exceptional expertise and innovative approach. With over 40 years of experience, Crystal Blue has become the go-to name for building stunning, earthquake-proof swimming pools that stand the test of time. What sets Crystal Blue apart from the competition is their commitment to providing top-notch quality and customer satisfaction. Their pools are built to last, with a remarkable 30-year warranty that ensures peace of mind for their clients. Trusted since the 1970s, Crystal Blue’s reputation for excellence has made them the number one choice among homeowners, developers, and resorts across the Philippines. But Crystal Blue’s dedication to perfection doesn’t stop there. They have revolutionized the industry with their groundbreaking invention: the Healing Pool System. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, these pools are infused with therapeutic minerals, providing a truly rejuvenating swimming experience. The best part? Crystal Blue’s Healing Pool System uses zero chlorine, ensuring a safe and ecofriendly solution for pool enthusiasts.

Richard Cariño, an entrepreneur and Crystal Blue’s second-generation president, has been an organic advocate since his teenage years. The idea of creating a water system where people can enjoy risk-free swimming

EMPOWERING THE ACADEME THROUGH COMMUNICATION EXCELLENCE. Meralco

Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications Joe R. Zaldarriaga (left) shared his expertise on the importance of authentic and purposeful communications to faculty and researchers of the De La Salle University – The Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance last September 24, 2023. The activity was part of “Communicating with Clarity and Confidence: A Media Relations Workshop for Academics” – a 2-day training that aims to equip the academe with knowledge and skills to communicate with the public effectively. In the photo with Zaldarriaga is Prof. Ador R. Torneo, Director of La Salle Institute of Governance (right).

In addition to their innovative pool designs, Crystal Blue is also an expert in sustainable and affordable pool solutions. They have pioneered the use of constant water pressure system, solar-powered pumps and heaters, reducing energy consumption and lowering overall environmental impact. With Crystal Blue, you can enjoy a luxurious swimming pool while contributing to a greener future. Crystal Blue’s commitment to excellence extends to their customer service. With offices in the Philippines, Japan, and China, their dedicated team is always ready to assist clients with their pool construction needs. Whether it’s a residential pool, a commercial project, or a resort development, Crystal Blue’s expertise and attention to detail ensure a seamless and hassle-free experience from start to finish.

“Everyday we strive to improve and we will never stop innovating,” says Cariño. “Crystal Blue is the only pool company that offers a 30-year warranty, so why risk your money on services with a shorter warranty?”

To stay up-to-date with exciting offers and the latest news about Crystal Blue’s groundbreaking products, interested individuals can follow them on their Facebook page at Crystal Blue Enterprises Inc. For more information about Crystal Blue Enterprises and their exceptional swimming pool construction services, you can visit their website at https://crystalblue.com.ph.

A Night of Culinary Craftsmanship at Hotel Okura Manila

PREPARE your taste buds for an adventure as we invite you to a sevencourse French-Japanese collaboration that promises to redefine your gastronomic experience with apéritifs from Whyte & Mackay and sake pairing from Philippine Wine Merchants. Set against the backdrop of the Hotel Okura Manila’s Yawaragi Restaurant within Newport World Resorts, this event is scheduled for the evenings of October 11 and 12, 2023.

in Japanese cuisine, Chef Fujino’s creations promise to transport diners to the heart of Japan with every bite.

Completing this culinary dream team is Chef Vi Serrano, the head Pastry Chef of Hotel Okura Manila. Chef Vi brings a touch of international flair to the table, having honed her skills from multiple hotels across the globe including one of the most prestigious hotels in Dubai.

DMARK Beauty Corporation, the global beauty expert, recently concluded the much-anticipated second installment of its Beauty & Beyond Anti-Aging and Aesthetics series on September 13, 2023 at Seda BGC.

Organized by beauty-prenuer and CEO, Nikki Tang, the conference brought together doctors, medical experts, and enthusiasts in the field to explore the evolving landscape of beauty and aesthetics.

The gathering also highlighted new and effective products and innovations that are revolutionizing the field and enhancing people’s journeys towards ageless beauty.

These products are classified into the three tiers of the Beauty Pyramid for skin health.

Protection. The base of the pyramid covers products that protect the skin, such as photoprotection (Heliocare oral and topical products, particularly H360

Pigment Solution Fluid SPF 50) and DNA repair enzymes (Photozyme products, all laced with DNA Repair Enzymes).

The second tier are innovations that provide skin renewal, including alpha hydroxy acid, or AHAs (NeoStrata products) and retinoids (NeoStrata Potent Retinol Complex, Endocare Retinol Serum and Endocare Retinol Intensive Serum).

Finally, the highest tier are activation and regeneration products, such as growth factors (Endocare Concentrate, Endocare Tensage Concentrate) and peptides (Glowbiotics).

Attracting an impressive turnout of 100 attendees, Beauty & Beyond Anti-Aging and Aesthetics 2.0 featured a stellar cast of speakers, including Dr. Claudia Samonte, FPDS, Dr. Irene Gaile R. Vitas, FPDS, Dr. Lucia Lourdes C. Fores, FPDS, Dr. Maria Teresita Gabriel, FPDS, and Dr. Gisella Adasa, FPDS, each delivering valuable insights and empowering attendees to

embrace their unique path to beauty.

Tang expressed her delight at the conference’s success, stating, “The Beauty & Beyond Anti-Aging and Aesthetics 2.0 Conference was an incredible opportunity for us to empower individuals on their unique journeys to ageless beauty. We plan to introduce more insightful topics and resource speakers as we continue the series. Stay tuned for more exciting events in this series!”

DMark Beauty Corporation is the house of dermatological skincare products like Aknicare, Bioderma, Biretix, Coverderm, Endocare, Heliocare, Isispharma, Neostrata, Puressentiel, Sebamed, Teoxan and much more. For more information about DMark Beauty Corporation and its initiatives, please visit https://dmarkbeauty.com/ follow social media accounts https://www.facebook.com/ dmarkbeauty and https://www.instagram. com/dmarkbeauty/

Leading the kitchen team is Chef Gerard Villaret Horcajo, Chef de Cuisine of the Michelin-starred restaurant Elements, inspired by Ciel Bleu of The Okura Prestige Bangkok. His mastery of French cuisine laced with Japanese touches, rich in tradition and innovation, is sure to be a highlight of the evening.

Joining him will be Chef Keiichiro Fujino, the Japanese executive chef of Hotel Okura Manila. With deeprooted expertise

Join us on the October 11 and 12, 2023 and savor the symphony of flavors brought to life by the three culinary maestros. Reserve your seat today at Php12,000.00 nett per person, and you can enjoy a 20 precent discount when using your Premier HSBC credit or debit card. A Php5,000.00 down payment is required to avail of the HSBC discount. Limited seats available.

For inquiries and reservations, please call +63 5318 2888 or +63 917 842 9067. You may also email us at chefs.dinner@ hotelokuramanila.com.

JEDEMAE Lazo, co-founder and CMO, BrightPR.io

Editor: Tet Andolong

Power Plant continues to raise the bar in uPscale malling

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes

“We continue to beef up our offerings by bringing in. Dining options are also more diversified with 12/10, a modern izakaya, The Perfect Pint and Pizza at The Proscenium Retail Row, and The Chef’s Table at The Balmori Suites, where we bring in the most-sought after local chefs such as Chefs Thirdy Dolatre and Kevin Navoa of Hapag, Chef Jordy Navarra of Toyo Eatery, Chef Aaron Isip of Balai Palma, Chef Lezo Pimentel of Soil Private Dining and Chef Sau del Rosario of Sawsaw,”

Christine Coqueiro, Vice President for Retail, and Development explained in an email interview with the BusinesssMrror

The fashion component also got bigger when SoFA Design Institute relocated to Rockwell this year, complementing the soon-to-rise Rockwell Performing Arts Theater at The Proscenium Retail Row at The Plaza. This offers a comprehensive cultural

experience to the community.

Rockwell saw an opportunity to raise the bar of Manila’s fashion scene, expanding the offerings of Power Plant Mall. “Our aim is simple—provide a delightful shopping and dining experience to our patrons. We’re dedicated to enhancing the retail experience in our community by bringing retail spaces closer to them, such as The Proscenium Retail Row and The Balmori Suites, featuring unique lifestyle and dining concepts,” Coqueiro pointed out.

B y offering more of what the market craves, Coquiero said Power Plant is determined to redefine upscale living and maintain Rockwell’s status as the “address of Fashionable Manila.”

To make shopping at the Power Plant more exciting, Rockwell Land launched a loyalty program where customers can earn points and redeem rewards on our mobile app,

The Rockwellist. Moreover, Coqueiro said Power Plant mall has converted its annual Christmas raffle as it converted its annual car raffle stub to digital entries making it more convenient for their patrons to join.

At the moment, Power Plant Mall’s total gross leasable area is approximately 46,000 sq m. Soon, it will be expanding the Power Plant

Robinsons Appliances opens 84th branch in Muntinlupa

brand replicating the signature Rockwell retail experience in their properties outside Metro Manila, in Nepo, Angeles in Pampanga, and Bacolod.

Power Plant Mall developed a solid reputation as an upscale mall since it was established 23 years ago, and has expanded to over 300 stores, catering to the needs and wants of its residents and custom -

By Roderick L. Abad

ROBINSONS Appliances,

which is part of the publiclylisted Robinsons Retail Holdings, Inc. (RRHI), recently opened its 84th branch in Festival Mall, Alabang, timely to the projected strong demand for home equipment and consumer electronic devices this Holiday season.

“It’s really a good opportunity for us to be here right at the center of Muntinlupa City. We also see the need of a very nice appliance store here in Festival [Mall],” Robinsons Appliances Marketing Manager Donna San Luis told reporters in a sideline interview.

According to her, a lot of corporate centers and exclusive villages here would want to upgrade their appliances, especially with the upcoming Christmas leading to the New Year.

“So that’s really what we’re aiming for: To provide the best technology to households and offices in this business [area]. This is really an open market for us, and we see that demand here,” she said.

Located on the upper ground floor of the mall’s east wing, this new branch offers a wide range of products, from basic home appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, coffee makers, blenders and toasters, to high-end smart televisions (TVs) and home automation systems, as well as gadgets like mobile phones, laptops, wearables and even drones.

“The demand for appliances is indeed rising, especially with the new technologies,” San Luis noted.

This year, for instance, she cited that airconditioner is their top-selling category on the back of the prolonged El Niño this year, followed by washing machine, TV and gadgets.

As Yuletide season is fast approaching, she expects the last two items to gain traction as many would want them to give or receive during this time of the year.

With shopping spree currently seen on the rise again at the start of the BER months, the newly-launched outlet has just offered a three-day sale for its opening weekend, with a Bingo bonanza and 500 Go Rewards for a minimum of P20,000 worth of

purchase.

On top of discounts and other freebies already existing, the branch also has an ongoing month-long promo. As part of its campaign for the holidays, customers can watch out for the most-anticipated Race to a Minute Year Five for a chance to win appliances and gadgets.

Robinsons Appliances store in Festival Mall boasts of a modern and sophisticated design, complete with the refreshed logo.

“The overall shopping experience here is really better because it’s well-lighted, our stocks are fresh and new and, of course, our team is very well-trained,” San Luis said. “We’re in the process of refreshing all stores to look and feel like this.”

The top executive bared that they will relaunch the newly renovated Robinsons Appliances outlet in Robinsons Magnolia on September 29. This will be followed by the upgraded branch in Robinsons Galleria in October.

“The takeaway really is what you want, we try to translate it to your shopping experience at Robinsons Appliances,” she stressed.

ers, who have come to regard the mall as their second home. Some of the longest staying tenants of Power Plant are Zaifu Japanese Restaurant, MilkyWay Cafe, Cafe Via Mare, Fino Leatherware, and Mosaic.

Apart from the Rockwell residents, Power Plant Mall strategically caters to a discerning clientele of high spenders. To show its appreciation to its clients, Power

Plant recently launched a rewards program, the Rockwellist Rewards, which generously recognizes and incentivizes its most loyal customers.” This initiative solidifies Rockwell’s position as a go-to destination for those in pursuit of both quality and exclusivity,” Coquiero said.

To support sustainable development and reduce car footprint, Rockwell embraces the rise of electric vehicles, as the mall now features dedicated 50kW EV chargers, supporting CHAdeMO and CCS for rapid charging, accommodating diverse car brands. This is located at the P1 Parking Level.

“Aside from this, we also champion environmental responsibility through our Tarp to Tote initiative, where we repurpose used tarpaulin from mall advertising materials, in collaboration with Filipino designers and local social enterprises, reflecting Rockwell’s commitment to merging fashion and sustainability,”

Innovative adhesive technology supports trends in electronic devices

ELECTRONIC device design and production processes are experiencing an evolution. Devices are becoming increasingly more complex and smaller in size, with trends in functionalities and aesthetics supported by innovations in adhesive bonding technology.

Adhesives not only facilitate miniaturization but also increase performance and improve smart device functionality and reliability. Among the emerging adhesive technologies gaining traction is Low Pressure Moulding (LPM) technology and the use of Thermal Interface Materials (TIM).

LPM is a cross between classic plastic injection and resin potting. Simplified to a single, fast process, LPM solutions are multipurpose, resistant towards high temperature and oil. It also provides easy processability at low pressures and low temperatures. Given the low injection pressure of LPM solutions, it requires less equipment and consumes less energy. The reduced cycle times with one component products also allows immediate setting with no mixing errors.

LPM solutions’ delicate encapsulation proves suitable for use with the most sensitive of electronic components. Its watertight capabilities and resistance to high temperatures, shocks, harsh environments, and solvents make it ideal in protecting and sealing components like connectors, onboard electronics, LEDs and printed circuit boards (PCBs) against moisture, dust and dirt. LPM solutions’ lightweight and sky-lining design with no housing needed assures manufacturers of its contribution toward the aesthetics of their products.

Sustainability is not only a modern buzzword but is now very much a requirement in the manufacturing process. LPM solutions are solventfree, bio-based up to 80 percent, and contributes to zero waste due to its recyclable excess material and long shelf life with improved end-of-life management.

Meanwhile, the use of TIM is an elegant solution to alleviate heat dissipation in electronics. As devices are scaled smaller, heat sinking ele -

ments become too bulky for use in these devices. Thermal gap-fillers bond a heatsink to a hot component, efficiently transferring heat away from a set of hot components.

As a key industry leader, Bostik works closely with equipment manufacturers and low pressure injection experts to innovate, create and offer the best solution for every encapsulation project, like the Thermelt Polyamide Hot Melts range. Bostik LPM adhesives are high performing, safe and non-toxic sustainable solutions made with environmentally friendly materials. It is also moldable with good adhesion at a fast cycle of 90 seconds.

Bostik is always looking to offer viable products to their partners in the electronic market. Thus, the recent acquisition of Polytec PT GmbH is a move towards becoming a full system provider with specialty adhesives and thermal interface materials for applications in the electronics sector.

Since it was established 23 years ago, Rockwell Land’s Power Plant Mall continues to be the place for upscale shopping. interestingly, it does not rest on its laurels but continues to beef up its offerings by bringing in newer brands such as A.P.c., Patton, and unique multi-branded concept stores such as Maisonette.

CUTTING the ribbon are (from left): Anthony Caliwag, assistance vice president (AVP) for operations, Robinsons Appliances Corp.; Michael Dumlao, first VP, Retail Business Unit head, Festival Supermall Inc.; Marizell Narvaez, VP for leasing, Festival Supermall Inc.; Satoshi Kono, executive director, Panasonic Manufacturing Philippines Corp.; Jie Cheng, chief executive officer (CEO), TCL Sun Inc.; Cindy Deng, CEO, Data Analytics Ventures Inc.; Albert Wong, deputy general manager (GM), Concepcion Mide Inc.; James Anthony Lim, business strategy and commercial excellence lead, Finden Technologies Inc.; and Jovito Santos, Group GM, Robinsons Appliances Corp.

ROBINSONS Retail Holdings, Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Robina Gokongwei-Pe (second from right), together with other guests of honor, graces the opening of Robinsons Appliances Festival Mall branch.

EV charging station P OWER Plant Mall

H APAG at the Balmori Suites

By Jun Lomibao

HANGZHOU—Gilas

Pilipinas didn’t show signs of “excess baggage” in routing Bahrain, Carlo Paalam was convincing atop the ring and Alex Eala didn’t budge against a more experienced opponent in the 19th Asian Games on Tuesday.

M argielyn Didal, one of four Filipino gold medalists in the Indonesia 2018 games, was also on track in women’s street of skateboarding.

C hina, meanwhile, continued its breakaway in the medals race with 47 golds and South Korea a far second with 13 and Indonesia was the frontrunning Southeast Asian team so far with three golds of its own.

“ That’s important for us—to get that extra time,” said head coach Tim Cone after Gilas Pilipinas’s 89-61 rout of Bahrain at the start of basketball’s 5x5 action at the HOC Stadium.

G ot Hangzhou organizing committee already denied the accreditation of four replacement players sought by Cone.

Cone brought in another set of five replacement players and it was only hours before tip-off when the team got official confirmation on the clearance to play for CJ Perez, Kevin Alas, Marcio Lassiter, Chris Ross and Arvin Tolentino.

Gilas takes on Thailand as its next assignment in Group C with Cone showing some uneasiness on the Thais’ naturalized player, the versatile Tyler Lamb.

L ike Eumir Felix Marcial, Carlo Paalam didn’t disappoint at the Hangzhou Gymnasium and dominated a taller Jordanian with longer reach, Mohammad Jajeh Abu, 5-0, in his first foray at 57 kgs in a major international competition.

Paalam clinched silver at the

HANGZHOU—With Bahrain turning out as an easy prey for the men’s national basketball team, head coach Tim Cone fielded five of his late-replacement players to get the feel of the system he formulated for the 19th Asian Games.

That was important for us to get that extra time,” said Cone after Gilas Pilipinas clobbered Bahrain, 89-61, to send a strong message in their Asiad’s 5x5 campaign that teetered even before Tuesday’s tip-off at the HOC Stadium.

“ The five guys are still feeling their way around,” Cone said. “And again, those are the guys who we’re gonna depend on as they decide how far we [can] go.”

The late replacements were CJ Perez, Kevin Alas, Marcio Lassiter, Chris Ross and Arvin Tolentino. They were inserted into the game when the outcome was already decided in Gilas’s favor.

Tokyo Olympics at 51 kgs but has to fight here heavier at 57 kgs because the flyweight was scrapped from Paris’s program.

It’s practically the same for Marcial, who shed off his pro status for these games as he also tries to return to the Olympics to pursue his gold medal dream. But he has to go up in weight at light heavyweight and no longer at middleweight, which is also shelved by Paris Didal, 24, scored 41.53 points in her second run to emerge No. 6 in the qualification round for Wednesday’s final.

C hina went 1-2 in the women’s street qualifiers behind Wenhui Zeng (69.15) and Chenxi Zui (66.36), followed by Japan’s Yumeka Oda (65.26) and Miyu Ito (53.96) and Thailand’s Vareeraya Sukaem (45.39) and Nathtiyabhorn Nawakitwong (39.84). South Korea’s Siye Ha (12.12) was the eighth qualifier.

E ala? She’s living up to the expectation of Team Philippines, whose Asiad stint is supported by the Philippine Olympic Committee headed by Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino and the Philippine Sports Commission chaired by Richard “Dickie” Bachmann.

E ala, reeling at times with cough, put away Rutuja Bhosale of India, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, to advance to the women’s singles quarterfinals of tennis.

E ala, 18, had to work hard though in the first set against her 27-year-old opponent. She needed 72 minutes and a tiebreak to snatch the first set.

It was a tight first set. My opponent was playing really well,” Eala said. “But in the key moments, I was there and I held my ground and that made the difference.”

S he faces Japan’s Kyoka Okamura, a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 winner over Savanna Ly-Nguyen, in the next

round Wednesday. Kyla Sanchez, meanwhile, missed the podium in her swimming debut for the Philippines after she wound up fifth in the women’s 100 meters freestyle final on Tuesday night.

PAALAM, DIDAL ON TRACK Sports BusinessMirror

S anchez, who won medals in Tokyo swimming for Canada, clocked 54.69 seconds—almost three seconds behind Singapore’s Siobhan Bernadette Haughey who set an Asian record 52.17. China’s Yan Junxuan (53.11) and Cheng

Yujie (53.91) completed the podium with Japan’s Nagisa Ikemoto (54.27) finishing fourth.

T he Chinese athletes continued to frolic at home—as they did in the last 10 editions of the Asian Games, and have been dominant in almost all fronts—they won 11 of 14 gold medals staked in rowing and have so far scooped 11 of the 41 events in swimming alone.

South Korea could only pinch the Chinese juggernaut in a few battlefields for its 13 gold medals while Japan had six gold to show, one more than Uzbekistan and two better than Hongkong-China in the top five of the medal tally.

The Philippines stood at No. 22 in the tally board with two bronze medals from Patrick King Perez in men’s individual poomsae of taekwondo and Jones Inso in wushu’s men’s taijiquan and taijijian allaround. Thailand had two gold medals, Vietnam a silver and five bronzes and Malaysia one silver and two bronzes.Brunei was ahead of the Philippines with its silver medal in wushu.

Gilas warms up with 28-point rout of Bahrain in Asian Games hoops

Naturalized players Justin Brownlee and Ange Kouame led a secondquarter onslaught that send Gilas way up front, 51-33, at half time.

Brownlee finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds in his first Asian Games stint, while Kouame, also an Asiad first timer, had 15 in the 28-point victory that put Gilas on top of Pool C with Jordan, a 97-63 winner over Thailand also Tuesday.

It was only hours before the Bahrain game when the Philippine delegation got a confirmation from the Hangzhou organizers on the five players’ eligibility to play.

The Philippines teetered days

Eala survives stubborn Indian

HANGZHOU—Alex Eala

survived a stubborn Rutuja

Bhosale of India, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, to advance to the women’s singles quarterfinals of tennis in the 19th Asian Games at Olympic Sports Stadium. The result showed Eala, 18, had to muster her strength in disposing off his 27-year-old opponent as she needed 72 minutes and a tiebreak to win the first set. “ It was a tight first set. My opponent was playing really well,” Eala said. “But in the key moments, I

Paalam boots out tall Jordanian rival in Hangzhou debut

HANGZHOU—Carlo Paalam disposed of Jordan’s Mohammad Jajeh Abu, 5-0, in his first foray at 57 kgs in a major international competition on Tuesday in the 19th Asian Games at the Hangzhou Gymnasium.

The victory put Paalam on track to returning to the Olympics in Paris where he aims to improve on the silver medal he clinched in Tokyo 2020.

The gold and silver medalists in Asian Games boxing will get automatic berths to the Paris Olympics.

before the games when the hosts didn’t allow Calvin Abueva, Terrence Romeo, Jason Perkins and Moala Tautuaa to play as replacements.

Cone and the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas had to scramble for replacement players and finally sighed in relief on Tuesday, three days after arriving in Huangzhou.

A nd Cone was quick to prepare for Tyler Lamb and Thailand, their next opponent on Thursday. Jun Lomibao

was there and I held my ground and that made the difference.”

She faces Japan’s Kyoka Okamura, a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 winner over Savanna LyNguyen, in the next round Wednesday.

E ala—ranked 192 in the world for a slight edge she has over the No. 223 Japanese—struggled with her serves and committed five double faults against only three aces.

The Filipina double-faulted only twice in the second set of the match played under the sun. She coughed at least four times in the match.

I have been playing high level

Mathematics to decide Filipinas’ fate

HANGZHOU—After losing to South Korea, 5-1, on Monday night, the women’s national team—called the Filipinas—now has to beat Myanmar and hope mathematics plays to its favor to advance deeper into the 19th Asian Games.

The Filipinas carry a 1-1 won-lost record their victory coming against Hongkong, 3-1, to start their Asiad campaign. But the 2018 bronze medalists South Koreans were a tough nut to crack.

“ We still have a chance,” Philippine Football Federation president Mariano

Araneta said. “We still have the Myanmar match.”

The Filipinas must beat the Myanmar gals at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Wenzhou for added insurance.

Th at’s because only the top teams from each of the five groups—the Philippines is in Group C—will automatically advance to the knockout stage.

To complete the eight-team quarterfinals, the top three teams from those who don’t get automatic qualification will advance.

It’s important to beat Myanmar then

Pilots as triathletes

WHO said pilots are good only at flying planes?  In the following abridged article, Ian San Gabriel paints another picture of our “heroes in the sky.”

I an is a colleague of Cielo Villaluna, the Philippine Airlines’ affable spokesperson. Ian is an external

hope for the best that we land in the top three among the remaining teams,” Araneta said.

If we beat Myanmar we have six points. Then we have a chance depending on the goal difference of the other teams,” Mariano said.

The Filipinas broke the ice against the South Koreans on Sarina Bolden’s conversion in the eighth minute. But that was their last goal as the South Koreans took control the rest of the way.

The South Koreans equalized four minutes later and scored again in the 44th, 52nd, 56th and 70th minutes for the runaway victory. Our defenders didn’t click against the Koreans,” said Mariano of the team whose 15 players saw action in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. “That’s football. But what’s important is that we still have a chance.” Jun Lomibao

communications specialist from PAL’s Corporate Affairs Department headed by the jovial Josen Perez de Tagle.

I an’s piece:

In 2012, several pilots and cabin crew formed a triathlon team that would compete here and abroad. (A triathlete participates in swimming, biking and running.)

“Capt. Mike Ugalino, one of the pioneers, said: ‘We would meet at race events and trained together. This was the time when running races were starting to grow.’

For their baptism of fire, two PAL triathlon relay teams competed in the 2012 Cobra Ironman 70.3 in Cebu. The first team included Second Officer Kat Pijuan (swimming), Capt. Monjo Balinghasay (biking) and Ugalino (running).

The other team was composed of First Officer Moy Pabalan (swimming), Flight Steward George Carag (biking) and Flight Steward Chris Casella (running).

“ In 2016, with more PALers getting hooked on the sport, the team was reorganized with the addition of new leaders, FO Maya Segovia and Capt. Mark Tan. They received the support of Ms. Lilybeth Tan-Ng, AVP-Pilot Affairs; and, Cheq Navarro of PAL’s Human Capital Department.

tournaments for 5 weeks straight and have an on and off allergic cough with the constant change in weather,” she said. “But I am keeping myself healthy.”

E ala shut out Sarah Ibrahim Khan of Pakistan, 6-0, 6-0, in her first match here. She was also scheduled to play mixed doubles with Ruben Gonzales later Tuesday. Jun Lomibao

P aalam summoned his worldclass fists against the Jordanian who stood some 6 inches taller than the 5-foot-4 Olympian.

“ He’s so tall so I stuck to what my coaches told me to do,” said Paalam, one of three Filipino boxers who medaled in Tokyo and are in search for automatic qualification for Paris in these games.

Paalam, whose silver in Tokyo was in 51 kgs that won’t be in Paris’s program, played it smart and only punched when necessary as he avoided the Jordanian’s long reach.

“ I’ll really work hard to return to the Olympics in Paris,” said Paalam, bronze medalist at flyweight in Jakarta four years ago. “I’ll do my best especially that I’m new in this weight class.

I have to make major adjustments here because I’m bound to face taller opponents with longer reach,” added the 25-year-old pride of Talakag, Bukidnon.

Paalam’s fellow Tokyo medalists Nesthy Petecio (silver) has yet to fight on Friday against Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu Ting in women’s featherweight while Eumir Felix Marcial (bronze) fights October 1 in the men’s light heahyweight second round.

A aron Jude Bado (51 kgs), Aira Villegas and another Olympian Irish Magno were already eliminated. Still to fight are Marjon Pianar and John Marvin. Jun Lomibao

‘PARADISE ON EARTH’

Chinese volunteers stand at a shuttle bus hub in Hangzhou. Signs around Asian Games host bills the city as a “paradise on earth” while China adopts the motto “heart to heart” for the games, which feature some 12,000 athletes, more than the Olympics, from across Asia and the Middle East. AP

The team coined TeamPAL for a more modern feel, replacing PAL Triathlon Team so as not to alienate those who were not yet totally addicted to triathlon.

In its first foray, TeamPAL topped the group competition of the 2016 Tri-United Sprint Triathlon, triggering a steady growth of membership, and inspiring Capt. Marc Castro to pay tribute to the company’s ‘great support.’

As TeamPAL kept expanding, time and job demands posed challenges. Said FO Maya Segovia: ‘A major concern is time management.  We don’t follow a set schedule, have weekends, or enjoy holidays. Without a sound training regimen, it’s challenging to increase stamina and develop new skills. Repetition and consistency are performance enhancers.’

“ Ugalino stressed discipline.

“’Pilots are known to be very disciplined,’ Ugalino said. ‘The team members balance work and find time to recover by having adequate rest, to allow them to still do their jobs well.’”

Mixing job and sports at PAL has its perks.

’Part of my motivation comes from the privilege of

being able to visit different destinations and do my training there,’ said SO Martin Carandang. ‘PAL’s destinations are really beautiful, and we get to go to many of those.’

Team leaders are focused on developing tight bonding among their team members, encouraging aspiring PALers to take up the sport.

“ Said SO Rey Yee: ‘Taking up triathlon does not only give us huge medical benefits but warm camaraderie as well. It also gives us the rare luxury of representing both our flag and Philippine Airlines in triathlon battles abroad.’

From just a handful of enthusiasts in 2012, TeamPAL has grown to 105 members, all teeming with enormous pride in having already tasted overseas competitions, including the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. “Take a bow, Capt. Ugalino.”

THAT’S IT Since the Asian Games is practically the Olympics of Asia, any medal we win there would all look like gold.  So the bronze medals won by Jones Inso in wushu and Patrick King Perez in taekwondo are golden-like already.  Cheers to the duo.

ALEX EALA hugs her parents Mike Eala and Rizza Maniego-Eala, a former national swimmer, after her victory on Tuesday. PHOTO BY NONIE REYES (CANON EOS R6)

B8 Wednesday, septemBer 27, 2023 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

CJ PEREZ proves his worth in the national team with his 15 points. PHOTO BY NONIE REYES (CANON EOS R6)