TCR Volume 2 Issue No 24 by The CenSEI Report

Strategic Analysis and Research by the

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[With] time and budget constraints ... the execution of the Deed of Sale, are the more prudent choices available to the Comelec … Petitioners could not even give a plausible alternative to ensure the conduct of a successful 2013 automated elections, in the event that the Court nullifies the Deed of Sale ~ Supreme Court decision allowing the Commission on Elections’ P1.8-billion purchase of Smartmatic-TIM vote counting machines

Volume 2 - Number 24 • June 18-24, 2012

[Had] the Comelec complied with Section 26 of Republic Act No. 8436 and undertook the automation [rather than outsourcing] ... the government would not be a ‘captive market’ of SMARTMATIC-TIM for the subsequent elections ~ Dissenting opinion by Justice Arturo Brion

CENTER FOR STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE & INTELLIGENCE

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NATION

4 Who Will Be the Next Chief Justice?

With 25 qualified nominees and counting, the Judicial and Bar Council begins its research, interviews and deliberations to come up with at least three names for the President to consider for the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court • The shortlisters: Who’s who in the Judicial and Bar Council • Leaving their marks: Chief Justices to remember and their legacies

14 The President, the Surveys and the Economy

Why are President Aquino’s ratings falling? What’s ahead in the numbers game? And how will it affect the elections? Much of the answer lies in the economy

WORLD

26 Where Asia Is Dead Wrong on Rights

As the U.S. and other international rights reports detail every year, the region still has an appalling record in political killings, especially in the Philippines. When will it stop? • Meanwhile, at the courts: Southeast Asia's justices and legal practitioners push for judicial integrity

BUSINESS

34 The Upcoming Surge in Digital-Savvy Staff

Digital-savvy employees able to work via the Internet, navigate social media, and otherwise master the world of Generation C will be a big part of tomorrow's workforce. The smart employers will be capitalizing on their skills • Do you have ‘techblock’? It could lose you your next job

POINT & CLICK

TECHNOLOGY

42 Take the E-Bus to a Green Tomorrow

With support from the government, the Asian Development Bank, and Meralco, the country’s fledgling electric vehicle industry targets public transport • E-cooling the earth: E-vehicles vs. greenhouse gases • The ABCs of EVs: Primer on electric vehicles and the industry’s big global players

You can access online research via the Internet by clicking phrases in blue

48 The Amazing New Gadgets from Apple

iPhone, iPad and Mac devotees didn’t have the late Steve Jobs to show off the latest goodies from the Apple orchard at its World Wide Developers Conference last week. But goodies there were aplenty to amaze, delight — and profit • The i’s have it: The dominant devices in Asia start with an i

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Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence provides expertise in strategy and management, enterprise development, intelligence, Internet and media. For subscriptions, research, and advisory services, please e-mail report@censeisolutions.com or call/fax +63-2-5311182. Links to online material on public websites are current as of the week prior to the publication date, but might be removed without warning. Publishers of linked content should e-mail us or contact us by fax if they do not wish their websites to be linked to our material in the future.

When the News Goes Crazy Every Week How do you handle a week when so many big news events are breaking? Which is pretty much every week. Last week the search for the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court began in earnest, following the removal of Renato Corona. Also in the past seven days, President Aquino saw his public satisfaction, approval and trust ratings continue their downward trend from last August, despite the 6.4% economic expansion in the first quarter, and his administration’s success in removing Corona. Then, thousands of miles across the Pacific, Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference 2012 (WWDC) unveiled new hardware and software eagerly awaited by a world whose ways of living, thinking and having fun have been greatly shaped by the technologies from the Cupertino, California, company, the planet’s most valuable. It impacts not just the multi-billion-dollar gadget markets, but also the even larger industries of software, content, and high-tech services riding on Apple’s creations. As always, The CenSEI Report harnesses the triple offerings of the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, especially intelligence. In tackling fast-developing news, with its flood of information and permutations, drawing strategic intelligence demands careful but urgent digging for information, drawing of strategic insight, and divining of implications, especially for the nation’s endeavors and enterprises. On the search for a new chief justice, Atty. John Carlo Gil Sadian reprised his meticulously detailed coverage of the impeachment from House vote to Senate conviction. His article provides brief profiles of 28 nominees (as of last Friday) and the eight Judicial and Bar Council members who will research, interview and deliberate each nominee before shortlisting at least three. There’s more: the powers, duties and functions of the Chief Justice, the process of his or her nomination and appointment, and the past holders of the post and their legacies. (Please tell us if we missed anything crucial.) With survey data widely reported and available online, strategic insight is the added value in Ricardo Saludo’s analysis of President Aquino’s polling ups and downs. That means picking out the most significant numbers among the sea of percentages, figuring out how these disparate and seemingly unrelated data influence one another or point to future directions. In the surveys story, what emerges is the paramount importance of economic rather than political factors in the public’s satisfaction, approval and trust. Implications for the future are, of course, the iffiest part of any article. But Don Rapadas, a registered Mac developer, has seen over the years how Apple’s innovations have unleashed new and even unimaginable twists and turns in the technosphere. Fasten your seatbelts for his amazing WWDC guided tour.

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The Search for a New Chief Justice

The process, personalities and politics of choosing the next CJ By Atty. John Carlo Gil M. Sadian

s the nation moves on from the drama that surrounded the impeachment of its Chief Justice, the search for a successor to Renato Corona is now left in the hands of two institutions constitutionally designated to safeguard the independence of the judiciary. Section 9, Article VIII of the Constitution grants the President the power to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court from a list of at least three (3) nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC). Such appointment, pursuant to Section 4 of the same article, must be made by the President within ninety (90) days from the date of the vacancy. Since this period includes the JBCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s screening process, the President has

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no more than 90 days to make a choice, depending on how long it takes the JBC to come up with a short list of nominees. This lull, however, seldom happens when the vacancy concerns the position of Chief Justice. The practice has been for the JBC to conduct an advance screening and to submit to the President a short list of nominees even before the retirement date of an incumbent top magistrate. The reason for this, as shown by the Supreme Courtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision itself, is that the position of Chief Justice is so important to the Judiciary that it cannot be left vacant even for a day. This reasoning was not really questioned, as shown by the fact that all the Chief Justices appointed under the 1987 Constitution

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assumed office on the very day their predecessors retired, which meant that the JBC prepared and submitted the short list during the incumbency of the predecessors. However, controversy arose when Chief Justice Reynato Puno was about to retire a few days after the 2010 presidential elections. This was well within the supposed ban on “midnight appointments” which started two months before the elections. Reversing an earlier 1998 decision that voided the appointment of two judges whose papers were signed by then-President Fidel Ramos within this two-month period, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of De Castro vs. Judicial and Bar Council, that the ban on midnight appointments does not include appointments to the judiciary, paving the way for Corona’s appointment as Chief Justice. Even as then-presidential candidate Benigno Aquino 3rd expressed his inclination not to recognize Corona’ appointment and refusal to take his oath before the new Chief Justice, nobody expected that the rift between the two would end up in Corona’s impeachment and unscheduled “retirement,” hence the lack of a screening process and short list of possible successors. Now that the JBC has started accepting applications and nominations for the vacated seat on the High Court, the President is expected to use prudence so that his choice for Chief Justice would not carry the same “original sin” of having been appointed under legally questionable circumstances. Qualifications of a magistrate of the Supreme Court. Section 7, Article VIII, further provides an exclusive list of

The

minimum qualifications for a member of the Supreme Court: (1) natural-born citizen of the Philippines, (2) at least forty years of age, (3) must have been for fifteen years or more, a judge of a lower court or engaged in the practice of law in the Philippines, and, the most important yet disregarded qualification of (4) proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence. The minimum age and practice requirements are self-explanatory, as these are intended to ensure that a Justice has the necessary experience and wisdom expected of a High Court member. The citizenship requirement, however, had recently been brought to spotlight when then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed Sandiganbayan Senior Associate Justice Gregory Ong to the Supreme Court. Oppositors succeeded in convincing the High Court to void Ong’s appointment because his birth certificate showed that he was born of Chinese parents, which meant that he was not a natural-born Filipino citizen. He was ordered by the Supreme Court to file the necessary petition to correct his birth certificate if he was to prove his status as a natural-born citizen. He was eventually vindicated when a Pasig court affirmed his natural-born status, but he has since then refused to be renominated for a Supreme Court seat. The JBC’s short list is the final list. Regarding the President’s own preference as to who to appoint, such is limited to the short list prepared by the JBC. Although no jurisprudence has yet to clearly lay down this rule, the JBC has in previous occasions showed the President that the list that they prepared can no longer be changed once they submitted it to the appointing power.

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6 One such instance was when then-President Arroyo returned a short list of six nominees submitted by the JBC to replace retired Justices Alicia Austria-Martinez and Dante Tinga. When Executive Secretary Ermita returned the list to the JBC, requesting more nominees be added, the latter rejected the request. The President went on and picked thenUST Law Dean Roberto Abad and Court of Appeals Justice Martin Villarama from the original short list. Since its duty covers recommending appointees for the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the Sandiganbayan, lower trial courts, and the Ombudsman and his deputies, the JBC has to promulgate separate rules in processing nominations and applications for specific classes of vacancies. For appointments to the Supreme Court, Section 1, Rule 8 of the Rules of the JBC provides that “Due weight and regard to recommendees of the Supreme Court. In every case involving an appointment to a seat in the Supreme Court, the Council shall give due weight and regard to the recommendees of the Supreme Court. For this purpose, the Council shall submit to the Court a list of the candidates for any vacancy in the Court with an executive summary of its evaluation and assessment of each of them, together with all relevant records concerning the candidates from whom the Court may base the selection of its recommendees.”

a long list to the Supreme Court, which the justices themselves would vote upon. “Due weight” shall be given by the JBC to the result of this vote among the justices. The JBC has set a deadline of June 18 for submission of recommendees for its initial long list, and as of deadline, there were 23 recommendees alongside the five senior justices. The practice has been for the JBC to automatically nominate for chief justice the five most senior associate justices of the High Court. Seniority in the Court is determined by the date of their appointments, and at present, Justice Antonio Carpio is the most senior member of the 15-man tribunal.

The JBC first submits a long list to the Supreme Court, which the justices themselves will vote upon

The long list before the short list. This means that the JBC first submits

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Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, an economics degree-holder from Ateneo de Manila, graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law in 1975. He took the Bar exams the same year, placing sixth. Before entering government service as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel to President Ramos, he was founding partner of Carpio Villaraza & Cruz, the controversial and powerful law office that became widely known as “The Firm.” The second most senior member of the Supreme Court is Associate Justice Presbiterio Velasco Jr. He took up political science in UP and went on to graduate from its College of Law in 1971. He placed sixth in the Bar exams the same year. Velasco was a private practitioner before he joined government as JBC member

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Who’s who in the Judicial and Bar Council Section 8(1), Article VIII of the Constitution provides that the JBC shall be composed of three ex-officio members and four regular members. The ex-officio members are the Chief Justice, the Secretary of Justice, and a representative of Congress. The regular members include a representative of the Integrated Bar, a professor of law, a retired Supreme Court Justice, and a representative of the private sector. In practice, each chamber of Congress sends the chairperson of its Committee on Justice as its representative, thereby increasing Congress’ representation in the JBC to two -- a senator and a congressman. To avoid any constitutional issue, the two members of Congress were each given only a half-vote, to preserve the constitutional intent of having only seven votes in the JBC. The current members of the JBC are Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, Justice Secretary Leila De Lima, Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights Chair Francis Escudero, and House Committee on Justice Chair Niel Tupas Jr. As ex-officio members, they are members of the JBC by virtue of their principal offices. Since 2001, the half-vote rule for the two representatives from Congress has been abandoned, so Sen. Escudero and Rep. Tupas now have one full vote each.

The regular members, who are appointed by the President for staggered four-year terms, are retired Justice Regino Hermosisima Jr. as multiple-termer representative of retired Supreme Court Justices, Atty. Jose Mejia as representative of the academe, retired Justice Aurora Santiago-Lagman as representative of the private sector, and Atty. Maria Milagros Fernan-Cayosa as representative of the Integrated Bar.

After the JBC was convened for the processing of applications for Corona’s replacement, Carpio and De Lima already inhibited themselves because they were among the nominees. There is a possibility that Justice Lucas Bersamin, the most senior member of the High Court who has not been nominated so far, would chair the JBC as it finalizes the list in time for the deadline it set for the applications/nominations on Monday, June 18. Once the shortlist is transmitted to the Palace, the President has until August 27 to choose the next Chief Justice.

The

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8 representing the Integrated Bar, and later on, as Undersecretary of Justice under President Ramos. He joined the Judiciary in 1998 as a Justice of the Court of Appeals and eventually became Court Administrator prior to his appointment as a magistrate of the Supreme Court.

in what would be a fruitful government career focused on labor law. He was later appointed Court of Appeals justice, from where he returned to the executive department as President Arroyo’s Secretary of Labor prior to his appointment to the High Court.

Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro is the third most senior member of the High Tribunal. A Bachelor of Arts graduate from UP, she got her law degree from the same school in 1972. De Castro started her career in government as a law clerk in the Supreme Court. She later transferred to the Department of Justice, where she rose from the ranks to become Assistant Chief State Counsel. She rejoined the judiciary when she was appointed by President Ramos to the Sandiganbayan, a court she would eventually head in 2004. She penned the decision convicting President Joseph Estrada of plunder.

Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta completes the circle of five most senior Supreme Court justices who are automatically nominated for Chief Justice. Peralta, a Bachelor of Science graduate of Letran, took up law studies at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), graduating in 1979. He was a regional trial court judge before he was appointed to the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft court that he would head later on. He was part of the Special Division that convicted President Estrada of plunder.

The fourth most senior member of the Supreme Court is Associate Justice Arturo Brion. A Mathematics degree-holder from San Pablo Colleges, he took up law at Ateneo de Manila, and graduated valedictorian and cum laude in 1974. He topped the Bar exams the same year. He also holds an Ll.M. from York University in Toronto. After a stint in private practice, Brion joined the Ministry of Labor in 1982,

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Other possibilities make the JBC’s long list. Although he is not among those automatically nominated by the JBC, Associate Justice Roberto Abad’s name is included in the preliminary long list, after being nominated by UST Law Dean Nilo Divina. The Court’s eighth-most senior justice finished law at Ateneo de Manila, but was recruited by then-Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion to teach law at UST. He was Dean of UST law prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

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Associate Justice Jose Portugal Perez was recommended for inclusion on the JBC list by the Asia Pacific Bar Association. Perez is currently the Supreme Court’s tenth most senior Justice, being thenPresident Arroyo’s second-to-last appointee. He took up political science and law at UP, where he was consistently part of the honor societies for being in the top of his class. He passed the Bar in 1971. Despite being a junior member of the Court, Perez was nominated because of his experience in the judiciary, having started his career as a legal assistant in the Supreme Court and rising from the ranks to eventually become Court Administrator prior to his appointment as a magistrate. President Aquino’s first appointee to the Supreme Court, Associate Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, is the Court’s twelfthmost senior justice, nominated by Felma Roel Singco, Raegan de Guzman, and Fidel Thaddeus Borja. An economics graduate of Ateneo de Manila, she took up law at UP and graduated cum laude, placing 14th in the 1984 Bar exams. She also has an Ll.M. from the University of Michigan. At the age of 51, she is one of the youngest appointees to the Supreme Court, and could conceivably serve until she is eligible for retirement in 2030. She was part of the think-tank of the Asian Institute of Management prior to her appointment to

The

the High Court. Serving as government counsel in different cases, one of her most controversial cases was the Fraport case filed by the German government against the Philippine government concerning the NAIA Terminal 3 Project. Before Corona was impeached, the Palace stated that the “next chief justice” must be in the mold of Justice Sereno. Former Makati Congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr. was nominated by lawyer Brigido Dulay and ABAKADA party-list president Jonathan de la Cruz. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Ateneo de Manila and a Master’s degree from Harvard. While engaged in private practice, he was editorial writer for The Daily Globe (defunct) and Today (merged with Manila Standard). He was also speechwriter for Presidents Corazon Aquino, Joseph Estrada, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Before running for Congress, Locsin hosted a public affairs program for ABS-CBN. He currently writes opinion columns for various publications. President Aquino’s, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, was nominated by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption. A History and Political Science graduate of De La Salle University, she took up law at San Beda where she graduated as class salutatorian. She placed eighth in the 1985 Bar exams. She started her career as a staff

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10 in the Supreme Court, but later on engaged in private practice, specializing in Election Law. She served as Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights during the Arroyo administration before joining the Aquino Cabinet. Commissioner Rene Sarmiento of the Commission on Elections was nominated separately by the San Beda College of Law and President Manuel Quezon’s daughter, Zeneida Quezon-Avanceña. His name had previously been submitted to the JBC a number of times. A political science magna cum laude graduate of San Beda, Sarmiento took up law at UP and engaged in private practice before joining the government. He was one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution. Prior to his appointment to the Comelec, Sarmiento was the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process to then-President Arroyo. He currently teaches law at the San Beda College of Law and the Philippine Judicial Academy. Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza graduated cum laude from the UP College of Law in 1974 and placed third in the same year’s Bar exams. He also took up his Ll.M. in Harvard. After passing the bar, Jardeleza engaged in private practice and also became a foreign associate in a New York law firm. He served as senior vice president and general counsel of San Miguel Corporation from 1996 until his appointment as Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon in 2010. President Aquino designated him Solicitor General in February. One of Jardeleza’s predecessors, former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez, was also nominated. A summa cum laude English graduate from the West Negros College in Bacolod, Chavez took up law in

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UP, graduating cum laude in 1971. He holds the distinction of being the youngest bar examiner when he served as Remedial Law examiner during the 1985 Bar examinations. He was appointed Solicitor General by President Corazon Aquino in 1987. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Kim Jacinto-Henares was nominated by lawyer Elpidio Jamora. A Certified Public Accountant from De La Salle University, Henares took up law at Ateneo de Manila. She also has an Ll.M. from Georgetown. Before her appointment at Bureau of Internal Revenue, she also had a stint at the Board of Investments. She also engaged in private practice, and then worked for auditing firm Sycip Gorres Velayo & Co. and other international financial institutions. Aside from those mentioned, there were also other recommendees from academe. They were former UP Law Dean and chief government negotiator in the peace process Marvic Leonen, former UP Law Dean Raul Pangalangan, University of the East Law Dean Amado Valdez, and Ateneo de Manila Law Dean Cesar Villanueva. The box below shows the basic information on the 25 recommendees, excluding those who declined or were disqualified, as of June 16: former Laguna prosecutor Marianito Sasondoncillo (declined); Jocelyn Esquivel, a nurse who submitted her own name (disqualified for not being a lawyer), and; retired Court of Appeals justice Hilarion Aquino (disqualified for being overage). A historic short list. While the JBC has been exercising its constitutional mandate whenever a vacancy in the judiciary occurs,

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THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO WOULD BE CHIEF NOMINEE 1

Antonio Carpio

Presbiterio Velasco Jr.

POSITION

LAW SCHOOL

POST GRAD

SC Senior Associate Justice

UP 1975 cum laude, 6th place in Bar exams

Teresita Leonardo-De Castro

SC Associate Justice

UP 1972

Arturo Brion

SC Associate Justice

Ateneo 1971 cum laude 1st place

Diosdado Peralta

SC Associate Justice

UST 1979

Roberto Abad

SC Associate Justice

Ateneo 1968

Jose Perez

SC Associate Justice

UP 1971

Ma. Lourdes Sereno

SC Associate Justice

UP 1984 cum laude, 14th place

Ll.M., Georgetown

Teodoro Locsin Jr.

Former Makati congressman

Ateneo 1977

Ll.M., Harvard

10 Rene Sarmiento

SC Associate Justice

UP 1971 6th place

Comelec commissioner

UP 1978

Secretary of Justice

San Beda 1985, 8th place

12 Francis Jardeleza

Solicitor General

UP 1974, 3rd place

13 Francisco Chavez

Former Solicitor General

UP 1972

11 Leila De Lima

14 Kim Jacinto-Henares 15 Manuel Siayngco Jr. 16 Marvic Leonen 17 Nepomuceno Aparis 18 Raul Pangalangan

Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Ateneo

Government Peace Panel Chairman

UP 1987, 4th place

Ormoc City Vice Mayor

Former UP Law Dean UP 1983 UE Law Dean

UE 1969

20 Cesar Villanueva

Ateneo Law Dean

Ateneo 1981, 2nd place

21 Rafael Morales

Private practitioner

Ateneo 1974 cum laude, 4th place

22 Rodolfo Robles

Private practitioner

San Beda 1967, 1st place

23 Roan Libarios

President of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines

UP 1984

Private practitioner

FEU 1976, 2nd place

25 Pedro Aquino

Ll.M., Harvard

Ll.M., Georgetown

Former RTC Judge

19 Amado Valdez

24 Katrina Legarda

Ll.M., York University, Toronto

Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rights advocate

The

Ll.M., Harvard; SJD, Harvard M.B.E., UA&P

Ll.M., Harvard; SJD, San Beda Ll.M., University of Michigan Ll.M., Harvard

UP 1980

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12 the short list it will submit for this specific vacancy will probably be the among the most historical it will ever prepare. The successor of Renato Corona will be chosen amid a wave of calls for reforms, not only in the judiciary, but in the entire government as well. Considering that the position of a Chief Justice is at the apex of an entire branch of government, we need to understand the responsibilities that await the yetto-be-named successor.

Legacies of past Chief Justices Cayetano Arellano (1901 to 1920) was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was appointed by United States President William McKinley to lead a Court comprised of Filipino and American Justices. Notwithstanding its mixed composition, Arellano was able to assert the kind of leadership that proved that it was a Filipino Supreme Court. He led the Court for a record of almost 19 years. Jose Abad Santos (1941 to 1942) did more than just lead the Court. He made the ultimate sacrifice by offering his life instead of allowing himself to be controlled by the Japanese Imperial forces during the Second World War.

While it is true that a Chief Justice is primus inter pares among the 15 magistrates of the High Court, his vote does not weigh more than Roberto Concepcion (1966 to 1973) oversaw a his colleagues in the tribunal. Both Court that legitimized the declaration of in the Court’s en banc and division Martial Law by President Ferdinand Marcos in voting, the Chief Justice’s vote is Javellana vs. Executive Secretary, and resigned only one. Yet, as head of the tribunal, ahead of his retirement due to dismay over the he must be able to exercise a kind Court’s decision. He would later on be appointed of leadership that would enable the by President Corazon Aquino as part of the Court to render decisions that will Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 withstand withering scrutiny. As Constitution. He was instrumental in the expanded pointed out by retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban in his June 16 Panganiban continues, a Chief Justice Inquirer column, a Chief Justice “relies on must be “the leader who inspires, motivates moral ascendancy and persuasive skill, not and moves them to work unceasingly, on boss-subordinate relationship, to sway to rise above their puny limitations, to the High Court. excel beyond themselves and to achieve collectively their loftiest dreams and As head of “2,000 lower court judges and highest aspirations.” 26,000 judicial employees nationwide,”

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power of the Supreme Court now enshrined in the current fundamental law. Enrique Fernando (1979 to 1985) symbolized the Martial Law Supreme Court that served the interests of an authoritarian president. No image would symbolize such dominance more than that of Fernando holding an umbrella to protect then-First Lady Imelda Marcos from the rain. Claudio Teehankee (1986 to 1988), while a Marcosappointee, had been known as one of the freethinking minds of the Court, which might have been the reason why he was bypassed for promotion to Chief Justice twice by Marcos despite his seniority. He would eventually administer the oath of office to Corazon Aquino in what would be the final act of installing a democratic government after two decades. After waiting for almost two decades, Teehankee would eventually be named Chief Justice under the new government. Hilario Davide Jr. (1998 to 2005) gained respect after presiding over the aborted impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada in 2001. To avert a

With the recent events that have shaken not only the judiciary but also the entire country, it is timely that the JBC, in choosing the successor to a disgraced leader, must take into consideration Justice Panganiban’s observation that “Our people, especially the young, look up to

The

constitutional crisis and potential public uprising, he swore in Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as President during the height of the Second People Power Revolution at EDSA. Two impeachment cases would eventually be lodged against him. The first was dismissed and the second was invalidated by the Supreme Court. Artemio Panganiban (2005 to 2006) was Chief Justice for less than a year, yet he led a Court that faced a number of crucial cases which nullified a number of executive acts, reinforcing the image of the Court as the last bulwark of democracy. In the cases of Senate vs. Ermita, Gudani vs. Señga, and David vs. Macapagal-Arroyo the Court enriched jurisprudence by delineating the limits of presidential power. In one of the most crucial Supreme Court decisions ever, Lambino vs. Commission on Elections was decided by a heavily-divided Court that eventually ruled (8-7, Panganiban being the swing vote) that the Arroyo administration’s attempt to amend the Constitution was a “gigantic fraud on the people.”

the Chief Justice as an exemplar and role model. Because of our inquisitive media and open society, every public official is subjected to minute scrutiny. In their search for heroes, our people often look up to the Chief Justice as their model of an upright public servant.”

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The Numbers Game

Why President Aquino’s ratings are down and what’s ahead for him — and us By Ricardo Saludo

DOWN FROM THE PEAK 70 50 30 10 -10

C.Aquino

-30

Ramos

-50 1986

1992

STRATEGY POINTS Though still high, President Aquino's poll ratings have been falling, despite 6.4% GDP growth and the Chief Justice's ouster Rising self-rated poverty, hunger and unemployment partly explain the ratings drop: growth may not be benefiting the poor World economic strains, rising political criticism toward elections next May, and chart analysis point to more declines ahead

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Estrada

1998

hy are the satisfaction, approval and trust ratings of President Benigno Aquino 3rd dropping? Will they keep going down? And how will their gyrations affect the political landscape? In May polling results from the two top survey entities, Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia, President Aquino saw declines in his approval, trust and satisfaction ratings. SWS’s May 24-27 poll produced his lowest net satisfaction rating, which subtracts negative from positive scores: still a good +42 but down 22 points or nearly one-third from its +64 peak in November 2010, and 18 points from his first rating in September 2010 (see Down From the Peak chart).

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SWS Net Satisfaction Ratings

+42

Arroyo

B. Aquino

2001

2004

In Pulse Asia’s May 20-26 survey, meanwhile, Aquino’s disapproval and distrust ratings were both at their highest in his presidency, reaching double digits for the first time. Public disapproval hit 10% after two quarters at 9%, while one-tenth of respondents also indicated little or no trust in Aquino, up from 9% in March and 8% last November. Approval and trust ratings, meanwhile, have lost 12 and 15 points, respectively, since their highs of 79% and 80% in October 2010. The ratings slumped despite the administration’s ouster of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona and the 6.4% first quarter economic growth, East Asia’s second-fastest after China. Expressing

The

2010

2012

Social Weather Stations Chart

surprise over the SWS survey, as the Philippine Star reported, Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told media: “... we need a briefing from SWS. ... Is it consistent with the opinions of the people surveyed?” To be sure, both SWS and Pulse ratings remain at high levels, with about two-thirds of Filipinos still expressing satisfaction, approval and trust for the President. But Malacañang’s concern is understandable, especially when one compares Aquino’s trend with those of his mother Corazon and her successor Fidel Ramos. Aquino bests Aquino. The 18-point drop in net satisfaction in President Aquino’s

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16 first two years, despite taking over an economy growing 7.6%, is bigger than the 11-point loss from under Fidel Ramos between September 1992 and August 1994 (see The Two-Year Itch chart). This despite the former general’s handicap of half-day blackouts inherited from his predecessor Corazon Aquino.

vote in their own elections. But they did much worse two years afterward. Estrada’s net satisfaction score fell 41 points, while Arroyo’s lost 25 and fell below zero. Unlike Aquino, though, these leaders faced both formidable economic challenges and grave controversies which even threatened to unseat them.

The first Aquino administration did even better, notwithstanding several confidencesapping coup attempts, including four in 1987 alone. Corazon Aquino’s net satisfaction grade was down just eight points in February 1988 from its +72 peak in October 1986, and up by 11 from May 1986, when the SWS public satisfaction ratings began.

Estrada took office amid the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. In 2000 he faced corruption charges which eventually led to his impeachment and ouster. Arroyo grappled with soaring world oil prices, painful fiscal reforms, Cabinet resignations and street protests over her phone calls to an election commissioner during the 2004 polls. Plainly, if Aquino must compare his ratings with those of his two immediate predecessors just to look good, that’s bad.

Like Benigno Aquino, both Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo won two-fifths of the

THE TWO-YEAR ITCH

SWS Net Satisfaction Ratings of Philippine Presidents, 1986-2012 After Elections

70 55

64 53

66 55

Two Years Later

60 42

40 25 10

19 May Feb 1986* 1988

Sept Aug 1992 1994

Sept Sept 1998 2000

Aug 2004

Sept 2006

-5 -20

-13

Sept May 2010 2012**

+11 Corazon Aquino

Fidel -11 Ramos

Joseph -41 Estrada

Gloria -25 Arroyo

Benigno -18 Aquino III

*First SWS satisfaction survey. **Less than two years since election (23 months). Source: Social Weather Stations

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GRADING THE PRESIDENT

More thumbs down. Turning to Pulse Asia’s Ulat ng Bayan survey, the President’s disapproval ratings have more than tripled to 10% from 3% in his first poll in October 2010 (see Grading the President tables). The multiples of increase in the most populous regions are even bigger: sixfold to 12% in Metro Manila, and nearly fourfold to 11% in the rest of Luzon and 7% in the Visayas.

President Aquino’s Pulse Asia Approval and Trust Ratings Demographic Variable

Total Philippines NCR Balance Luzon Visayas Minadao Class ABC TOTAL D E

Demographic Variable

Moreover, approval scores and trust grades have declined steadily, while disapproval and distrust marks have gained in every quarterly survey except last August, when the President’s State of the Nation Address on the last Monday of July normally lifts his ratings in the survey following the SONA.

Total Philippines NCR Balance Luzon Visayas Minadao Class ABC TOTAL D E

Demographic Variables

Geographically, the biggest approval drop in ratings was in Metro Manila: down 21 percentage points in approval and 16 in trust between October 2010 and May this year. The biggest drops by income level was in Class ABC, whose approval fell by 16 points and trust by 21. That’s nearly one in every five respondents in Metro Manila and among the highest incomes strata losing trust and approval.

Total Philippines NCR Balance Luzon Visayas Minadao Class ABC TOTAL D E

Demographic Variable

Pulse Asia reports further: “Out of 11 national issues on which it is performance-rated in this survey, the Aquino administration obtains majority approval ratings only on three issues”: fighting corruption, combatting crime, and enforcing

Total Philippines NCR Balance Luzon Visayas Minadao Class ABC TOTAL D E

Approval Oct 10 (A) 79 78 75 86 79 74 77 83

Mar 11 (B) 74 66 72 83 78 69 72 80

May 11 (C) 71 57 73 68 79 63 70 77

Aug 11 (D) 77 72 76 80 81 68 74 86

Change Nov 11 (E) 72 64 70 82 71 65 71 75

Mar 12 (F) 70 68 69 76 68 52 71 72

May 12 (G) 67 57 69 69 66 58 66 71

Disapproval Oct 10 (A) 3 2 3 2 4 4 3 2

Mar 11 (B) 7 9 8 4 7 5 8 6

May 11 (C) 8 15 7 7 6 14 8 5

Aug 11 (D) 4 5 5 2 5 7 5 1

75 80 87 80 78 78 85

Mar 11 (B) 75 69 71 84 75 71 73 78

May 11 (C) 71 56 73 70 76 63 69 78

Aug 11 (D) 75 74 73 74 82 64 74 82

Nov 11 (E) 9 10 10 6 11 11 10 8

Mar 12 (F) 9 11 9 6 12 13 9 9

May 12 (G) 10 12 11 7 9 10 10 9

Nov 11 (E) 74 69 71 87 70 68 73 76

Mar 12 (F) 69 67 67 73 71 60 68 72

May 12 (G) 65 59 68 65 64 57 66 66

Mar 11 (B)

May 11 (C)

Aug 11 (D)

Nov 11 (E)

Mar 12 (F)

May 12 (G)

15 6 6 7 12 8 5

5 6 5 5 11 6 2

+1 +2 +1 -3 -3 +1 0

11 10 3 10 8 9 8

May12May12 (G - F) -4 -8 +1 -8 -7 -3 -2 -6

Change*

Oct 10 (A)

7 6 2 6 2 7 4

May12May12 (G - F) +1

Change*

Small / No trust

2 2 1 4 1 3 1

-11 0 -7 -2 +6 -5 -1

Change*

Big Trust Oct 10 (A) 80

May12May12 (G - F) -3

9 7 8 10 12 8 8

14 9 8 10 9 10 10

May12May12 (G - F) +2 +5 +2 0 0 -3 +2 +2

Tables from Pulse Asia

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18 the law. On controlling inflation, the top issue considered by most Filipinos among their three paramount concerns, Aquino got 28% approval against 40% disapproval, the same as in March (see Howâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the Government Doing? table).

The February 26-March 9 Pulse Asia survey asked respondents to list as many as five of their most pressing concerns. Of the five cited by more than half of the sample, fighting corruption was the only one where the President got majority approval ratings

HOWâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S THE GOVERNMENT DOING?

National Government Approval Ratings on Key Issues, by Pulse Asia Selected National Issues

Approval Nov March 2011 2012

Fighting graft and corruption in government Fighting criminality Enforcing the law to all, whether influential or ordinary people Increasing peace in the country Stopping the destruction and abuse of our environment Creation of more jobs Improving / increasing the pay of workers Strengthening the people's trust in the government and its officials Controlling fast population and its officials Reducing the poverty of many Filipinos Controlling inflation

Undecided May 2012

Disapproval

Nov March May 2011 2012 2012

Net Approval Rating

Nov March May Nov March May 2011 2012 2012 2011 2012 2012

53 53

57 57

56 52

30 30

31 31

28 33

17 18

12 12

16 15

36 35

36 45

40 37

-6

-5

-12

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JOBLESS, POOR AND HUNGRY

SWS Unemployment & Poverty Survey Results, September 2010-March 2012 percent of Filipinos age 18 or older Poor

Jobless

Food-poor

Hungry

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Sept 2010

Nov 2011

March

June

Sept

Dec

2012

March

Source: Social Weather Stations, First Quarter 2012 Survey

in May. But in the four other leading needs, all economic, he got negative net approval ratings (for controlling inflation and reducing poverty) or low NARs (for creating jobs and improving workers’ pay), less than half of his anti-graft net score (see last column of How’s the Government Doing? table). The economy’s the thing. Pulse Asia’s NARs on major issues point to one likely reason for President Aquino’s ratings slide: growing economic woes. Palace officials have cited the 6.4% first quarter GDP growth to question the falling survey results. But other numbers indicate rising hunger, poverty and unemployment. Hence, to paraphrase the Bard, the economy’s the thing to match the scorecard of the king. Take SWS’s March 10-13 unemployment survey (see Jobless, Poor and Hungry

The

chart). From 20.2% last September, the jobless rate hit a record 34.4% — about 13.8 million working-age Filipinos looking for work. Adjusted for the official unemployment definition since 2005, the SWS rate is still more than a quarter of Filipinos: 26.3% or 9.4 million people. That number excludes jobseekers not available for work but adds those who have given up looking for employment or are between jobs. But here’s the more telling trend: the SWS jobless ratio had been rising since the last quarter of 2011 — the very same period in which President Aquino’s Pulse Asia approval rating for creating jobs was falling: from 48% last November to 41% in March and 33% last month. That’s a drop of 15 percentage points or nearly one-third. Net approval rating fell to +19 in May from +27 last November.

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What about helping the poor? Aquino’s NAR for reducing poverty has sunk into negative territory for the first time: -6% last month from +4% last November. Again, SWS provides an explanation (see also Jobless, Poor and Hungry chart). From 45% last December, self-rated poverty (SRP) jumped to 55%, the highest since hitting 59% during the global recession in mid-2008. Food-poor Filipinos unable to buy enough to eat, increased from 36% to 45% in the same period. Even worse than poverty, hunger has surged to an all-time high: 23.8% in March, nearly one-fourth of Filipinos, rising in every quarter since it dropped to 15.1% or one in seven Filipinos last June (see Jobless, Poor and Hungry chart). Among

poor and food-poor households, the empty stomachs have also risen relentlessly, now afflicting about a third of these families (see No Food to Eat chart). Besides unemployment and poverty, hunger tends to track inflation: when the cost of living increases, people have to cut spending on food or buy less with their household budgets, increasing hunger incidence. Hence, the rise in SWS hunger rates can partly explain President Aquino’s lowest approval and highest disapproval ratings for controlling inflation, as well as the second-poorest scores for reducing poverty. Consumers lose confidence. So can the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ consumer

NO FOOD TO EAT

Hunger Among Poor and Food-Poor Families and Other Households percent of group as surveyed by Social Weather Stations Experience of hunger in the past three months, by self-rated poverty and self-rated food poverty: Total families, June 2011 to March 2012 38.1 37.3 Total

33.6 32.4 26.9

Not Poor / Borderline

Poor

8.5

13.713.0

13.5 11.411.0 7.2

Not Food-Poor / Food Borderline

Moderate Hunger

23.7

3.2 June

March

Dec

Sept

1.3 1.3 2.3 2.0

29.0 24.2

10.5 6.9 9.1 Severe

Hunger

Dec

14.8

June

March

8.0 9.2 Dec

2.9 5.5 Sept

March

Dec

Sept

11.8 13.2 11.2 1.2 0 1.2 1.4 2.1 1.7

June

10 7.0

14.6 13.5 13.3

23.2 25.6 22.4 20.9

26.8

March

27.9

23.8

Hunger

31.1

Sept

June

% who experienced hunger

Food Poor Chart by Social Weather Stations

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confidence survey for the second quarter of 2012, out June 15. The April-June index dropped to -19.5% from -14.7% in JanuaryMarch, with pessimistic respondents citing much the same paramount concern — rising prices and low or no income — in Pulse Asia’s polls: “perceived high cost of goods and services; rising unemployment; low salary and income; and expected higher household expenditures.” And the full BSP report cites more worries on the cost and jobs front: March transport fare hikes, May electricity increases, higher tuition fees this month, plus tougher employment prospects after college and high school graduates joined the labor force in the summer. No wonder confidence for the third quarter slipped into the red at

-2.4%, with further inflation in basic goods expected. Optimism for the year ahead, while still positive at +10%, is down two percentage points. Respondents expect prices to rise 8.8%, and joblessness too, with the unemployment sub-index up nearly eight points to 60.2%. The decline in confidence cut across poor, middle class and rich, and affected three component indicators of the confidence index: economic condition, family financial situation, and family income. Says the report on page 2: “The low-income group [below ₧10,000 annual income] turned more pessimistic on all three component indicators.” The poor’s economic condition indicator fell seven points to 34.7%, while the other two indicators dropped less and

WHEN PEOPLE WORRY

Bangko Sentral Quarterly Consumer Confidence Index, 2007-2012 blue line for current quarter, red for next quarter, green for next 12 months Index (%) 40 30 20 10

0.8

11.9

Next 12 Months

4.4

0 -10 -20

-2.8 -11.1

-30

-7.8

Next Quarter

-24.1

-33.3

-40

-14.7

10.0

-2.4 -8.5

Current Quarter

-50 -60

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Graphic based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas chart

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22 was better than the fourth quarter of 2011 (see first table after page 5 of BSP report). “The middle-income group [₧10,000₧29,999] recorded the highest drop in sentiment about the economic condition of the country,” the BSP added, “but remained upbeat on their family income. The sentiment of the high-income group [₧30,000 or more] likewise declined on the country’s economic condition even as it remained optimistic on their family income and financial situation.” So where is this going? Since the President’s ratings remain high, the real question is whether his SWS and Pulse Asia scores would recover or keep dropping in the coming quarters all the way to the May 2013 elections. Three factors would be important: one economic, one political, and one psychological.

Given the amply demonstrated impact of economic factors on performance ratings, growth, inflation and employment prospects bear watching. Following the better-than-expected 6.4% first-quarter expansion, several banks and think-tanks upgraded their forecasts for the Philippines at the start of June, with credit rating agency Moody’s following suit. But last week, the World Bank cut its projection by half a percentage point to 4%, citing gloomier world trends due to the worsening euro zone crisis and China’s looming slowdown (see Slowdown Ahead? table). In its midyear Global Economic Prospects, titled “Managing Growth in a Volatile World,” the Bank saw growth slowing even in global leader East Asia, to 7.6% from 9.7% in 2010 and 8.3% last year, tracking the planetwide downturn in the same period.

SLOWDOWN AHEAD?

Selected World Bank Data and Updated Forecasts for the Philippines A. Real Expenditure Growth 1. GDP at market prices 2. Private consumption 3. Government consumption 4. Fixed investment 5. Exports, GNFS 6. Imports, GNFS B. Contribution to GDP Growth 1. Private consumption 2. Government consumption 3. Fixed investment 4.Net Exports C. Price Deflators 1. GDP at market prices 2. Private consumption 3. Exports, GNFS 4. Imports, GNFS

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

1.1 2.3 10.9 -1.7 -7.8 -8.1

7.6 3.4 4.0 19.1 21.0 22.5

3.7 6.0 7.0 14.5 -14.0 -2.5

4.0 3.3 4.0 5.0 3.4 2.5

5.0 4.2 4.0 7.5 5.7 6.0

5.0 5.0 4.0 7.0 6.0 6.0

1.7 1.0 -0.3 -3.6

2.5 0.4 3.6 8.8

4.2 0.7 3.0 -6.6

2.3 0.4 1.2 1.3

3.0 0.4 1.7 2.2

3.5 0.4 1.7 2.4

-4.1 -4.8 -8.1 -10.6

9.9 10.0 5.8 7.0

9.6 9.3 13.7 12.7

3.1 7.6 0.7 -1.1

4.7 5.5 1.5 0.8

5.8 5.3 1.9 1.2

Source: World Bank Global Economic Prospects - June 2012

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ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Pulse Asia Survey on Electoral Endorsements for Senatorial Candidates percent who will vote or not vote for candidates endorsed by given entities Endorser President Aquino Vice-Presidnet Binay Former President Estrada Voter's Religious Group

Vote For 66% 73% 51% 57%

Whether optimists or pessimists prove prescient in coming months, the other question is whether economic expansion creates more jobs, especially for the poor and hungry. Over the weekend came welcome news of official unemployment dropping to 6.9% in April, from 7.2% a year ago, according to the National Statistics Office. “We expect this economic growth to translate into more employment,” Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said in a Philippine Star report.

The political front. Like economic challenges, emerging political alignments may also undermine President Aquino’s ratings. In coming months all the way to the elections next May, political groups and candidates not getting his endorsement will have reason to reduce his voter influence by highlighting national problems and government deficiencies to lower public satisfaction, approval and trust toward the Chief Executive. Even pro-administration leaders who don’t get into the Liberal Party ticket would turn critical to some degree.

Looking at unemployment by work hours, age and schooling, people working less than 40 hours comprised 63.9% of the jobless, up from 59.5%. Young people aged 15-24 grew slightly to 51.7%; so did elementary and high schoolers, comprising a combined 56.6% of the unemployed. By comparison, the college-educated made up 34.8%, down from 43.5%, with undergraduates cutting their share of

The

No Effect 7% 7% 10% 9%

jobless ranks by nearly 10 points to 13.8%. In sum, while there are more jobs overall, most of them did not go to workers with limited skills or in the countryside — groups more likely to be poor.

She should look more closely at the numbers. Farming, forestry and fishing work, mostly held by low-income groups, slipped to 14.7% as a ratio to total employment, from 15.3% in April 2011. Job quality declined: occupations of less than 40 hours a week rose from 37.1% to 42.8%, while full-time positions of 40 hours or more dropped from three out of every five jobs to just over half.

Not Vote For 25% 20% 39% 33%

Already, Aquino’s sway had slipped below Vice President Jejomar Binay’s endorsement, based on Pulse Asia’s survey on electoral endorsements for senatorial candidates, conducted February 26-March 9 (see On the Campaign Trail table). Two out of three respondents said they would vote for Aquino-endorsed candidates, compared with nearly three-fourths for those of Binay, who also garnered the highest ratings for satisfaction (72%), approval (81%) and trust (78%) in surveys by SWS in March and Pulse Asia last month.

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The numbers game

Moreover, the latter’s ally in the new United of sharp declines. After a year, Cory’s net Nationalist Alliance party (UNA), former satisfaction grade fell by half to +24%, president Estrada, while Ramos’s mark lost would himself win 43 percentage points, No leader can rest support for those he two-thirds off +67%. One secure on high marks. endorses from half explanation: failing to the electorate. Add to sustain a rising trend after Only sustained and the UNA mix Senate two tries, public sentiment effective leadership President Juan Ponce turns negative, dwelling to address people's Enrile, whose evenmore on failings than gains.” concerns can keep handed handling of public ratings up the impeachment of TheStockBandit.com Chief Justice Renato explains the same doubleCorona, lifted his top chart trend as applied scores for satisfaction (69%), approval to share prices. “The pattern is considered (68%) and trust (62%). complete once price makes the second peak and penetrates the lowest point between Thus, against Aquino’s plug for the highs,” the website says, reflecting administration hopefuls, UNA candidates the conventional analysis. For President would have three strong endorsers, and Aquino, that trough between the twin tops possibly even four if many religious was +46% net satisfaction a year ago, which groups, who can influence 57% of was breached downward by last month’s voters, go against the President over such +42% grade. issues as the Reproductive Health Bill, the jueteng numbers game, the maligning So is the President’s report card due for of the so-called “Pajero bishops,” and the more declines, like his mother and her Corona impeachment. successor? To be sure, financial chart analysis may not apply to political ratings, What goes up ... Besides economic and national developments under the woes and political criticism, a third second Aquino would no doubt deviate possible pointer to lower Aquino ratings from the first Aquino’s coup-ridden rule are past presidential trends. This writer’s and Ramos’s rice-short second year. April 20 column in The Manila Times posited that the President’s scores may be Still, one thing is certain: no popular following the same trajectory as those of leader can rest secure in his or her high his mother and Ramos. marks. Only sustained and effective leadership and action to address the “Chartists will recognize the double-peak people’s pressing concerns, especially graph lines of the two Aquinos and Ramos,” economic needs, can maintain public the story on the March SWS survey noted satisfaction, approval and trust. While (see Down from the Peak chart at start of craftly PR helps, in the long run, only solid this article). “In the earlier presidencies, performance seen and felt by ordinary that trend heralded consecutive quarters Filipinos can win the survey game.

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NEWS ON THE NET Nation

Court orders arrest of GMA witness, co-accused in 2007 poll fraud Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court ordered the arrest of former Maguindanao election officer Rasam Mabang who disappeared before the bail hearing on May 31 on electoral sabotage charges filed against Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Mabang recalled in his sworn affidavit that he did not conduct a canvass of election returns for national positions during the 2007 elections. Also, former Maguindanao provincial administrator Norie Unas finally testified in court and claimed that he heard Arroyo ordering Andal Ampatuan Sr. to ensure a 12-0 victory for the Team Unity senatorial candidates. He revealed that he decided to testify after co-accused Lintang Bedol implicated him in the poll cheating although he admits not having personal knowledge of the actual cheating.

SC upholds PCOS machine deal between Comelec, Smartmatic The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the contract giving Smartmatic Total Information Management the right to supply the Commission on Elections with vote-counting machines for the

2013 midterm polls. The Court sitting en banc voted 11-3 to dismiss four petitions challenging the validity of the contract, as it found that the main contract for the Automated Election System (AES) between COMELEC and Smartmatic containing the option to purchase the PCOS machines was still existing when Smartmatic extended the period of the option. The Court further said that when the COMELEC exercised the said option, the performance security bond had not yet been returned to Smartmatic. The temporary restraining order issued by the high court on April 24 was also lifted. Lawyer Abraham Espejo expressed fears that the said ruling is proof of the chilling effect of the conviction of former Chief Justice Renato Corona since the decision reflects Malacanang's desire to contract with a company without the necessary bidding process.

Amid row with Zubiri, Koko says he wants to stay with UNA Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said he wants to stay with the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) and that he will try to save his membership with the coalition. Nonetheless, while his membership with UNA is uncertain, he said he will not leave his political party PDPLaban. He clarified that he will not join the ruling Liberal Party although he is open to joining other coalitions.

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Earlier, Pimentel hinted that he might leave the coalition after it decided to include and retain former Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri in its senatorial slate for the 2013 elections. Zubiri and Pimentel were involved in a cheating issue in the 2007 senatorial elections wherein the former was declared winner but decided to resign only in 2010.

Cabinet revamp on amid denials; new DOE chief seen by Aug. 1 Despite denials by MalacaĂąang, a Cabinet revamp is underway with names already floating as replacements. Former Finance Undersecretary Noel Bonoan is set to be named as secretary of the Department of Energy replacing Jose Rene Almendras. Representative Arlene Bag-ao, a prosecutor in the impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, is set to replace incumbent Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes. The rumored entry of Bag-ao is seen by farmers group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas as an evil conspiracy between President Aquino and his allies in the Akbayan partylist to avoid the distribution of Hacienda Luisita. The KMP believes that the replacement of de los Reyes is due to the latter's implementation of the Supreme Court decision to distribute Hacienda Luisita.

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Bloody Hands in Southeast Asia The region’s economic gains conceal an appalling record in state killings By the Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence

STRATEGY POINTS Across Southeast Asia, a culture of violence persists in the countries’ police structure Corruption, a lack of resources or outright government influence in their justice system, and impunity in cases of human rights abuses, continue to plague these countries

onsistent economic growth in Southeast Asian countries hasn’t done much to erase the continuing stain of human rights violations – arbitrary killings, unexplained disappearances, torture, to name some of the more obvious examples – in our societies. Going by the United States State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011, which were released in late May, the Philippines appeared to stand out among selected countries in Southeast Asia -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma (Myanmar), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam – with the highest number of arbitrary killings and disappearances in 2011. It should be noted, however, that atrocities were committed both by government forces and nongovernment groups. Arbitrary killings and disappearances. According to the State Department’s country report on the Philippines, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) investigated 78 complaints involving of 95 alleged victims of politically motivated killings, down from 87 complaints in 2010. The CHR suspected

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that the Philippines National Police were involved in 11 complaints, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in seven others. Suspects in the remaining complaints were the NPA, ordinary citizens or unidentified.

In the case of Rodel Estrellado, cited in the State Department country report, charges had been filed against military personnel. In late February 2011, the activist farmer was abducted and his body was found two days later in a neighboring province. His wife filed a murder case against nine AFP members, and they were relieved of their duties. The case is pending in a provincial court. The Philippine constitution prohibits torture, but the CHR noted that the use of excessive force and torture remains an â&#x20AC;&#x153;ingrained part of the arrest and detention process,â&#x20AC;? where police routinely abuse and sometimes torture suspects and detainees.

The

Brunei had no cases of arbitrary killings and disappearances, or use of torture. However, caning was applied to certain offenses as provided for by law. The situation in other countries. The State Department country reports also turned up cases involving arbitrary killings in other countries, though not on the level of the Philippines. In Burma (Myanmar), a public works employee allegedly beat to death a 28-year-old villager for a minor traffic violation. On another occasion, fellow soldiers reportedly beat a number of child soldiers to death. There was no move by the government to prosecute the alleged perpetrators. Torture, however, was likewise routinely used, with methods including severe beatings, electric shocks, burning with lighters, etc..

In light of this, the Philippines was subjected to a review by 69 countries, during the Universal Periodic Review held by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva last May. Some countries asked for the dismantling of paramilitary groups, while the Australian mission specifically asked for the immediate arrest of fugitive general Jovito Palparan, who is wanted for the kidnapping and disappearance of two University of the Philippines students, Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno, in 2006. Palparan remains at large.

Cambodia had one reported case, in the killing of Leng Rin during an arrest attempt. He was being escorted to court for questioning about a murder, and shot and killed by Battambang province acting police chief Kim Rith. A local NGO alleged this was an unlawful killing and a criminal complaint was filed. The case was pending as of year end, with no hearing date set. Kim Rith remains as acting police chief. Likewise, beatings and other forms of mistreatment continued, and even increased from 2010. Indonesia did not experience politically motivated killings, but deaths occurred when security force personnel used

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excessive violence in handling alleged then tried to attack the police, who criminals, terrorists and protesters. The then killed the suspect in self-defense. violence against protesters centered The groups said this narrative was around Papua and West Papua provinces. used to justify deaths usually of ethnic In one case, police fired on peaceful minorities in police custody. No protesters in Papua in October that disappearances were reported. left three dead. Amnesty International lamented the fact that the officers Singapore also did not have reported involved were given cases of arbitrary killings and only warnings, disappearances, though like Groups noted a which amounted to disturbing pattern Brunei, caning remains a legal an â&#x20AC;&#x153;accountability form of punishment. narrated by failure.â&#x20AC;? Torture was state-influenced administered in the Excessive and lethal force. media, wherein form of beatings with Reports that Thai officers used fists, sticks, iron bars excessive and lethal force in the subject was and hammers. apprehended, then apprehending suspects or were involved in arbitrary tried to attack the There were no credible killings were included in the police, who then reports of cases of country report for Thailand. killed the suspect arbitrary killings in the As many as 72 suspects were country report on Laos. killed by security forces in the in self-defense Occasionally, however, arrest process from October torture was also inflicted on detainees. 2010 to September 2011, though it was This came in the form of beatings and not indicated how many of the 72 died in long-term solitary confinement in 2010. (According to Human Rights Watch, darkened rooms. as many as 90 people died from March to May, 2010, from the violent political Arbitrary killings with a disturbing confrontations of the time, with loss of life pattern. Arbitrary killings were resulting from unnecessary use of lethal also reported in Malaysia. One force by Thai security forces. Newspapers nongovernmental organization (NGO) also reported numerous cases of citizens reported 20 deaths in police shootings in accusing police and other security officials 2011. 20 deaths was a marked decrease of brutality.) however from 35 reported in 2010, and 108 in 2009. (A non-government The relatively new republic of Timor organization, Suara Rakyat Malaysia, in its Leste saw no politically motivated Malaysia Civil and Political Rights Report killings, but on May 14, a soldier beat an for 2011, saw it differently, agreeing on elderly woman to death for engaging in 20 deaths in 2011, but seeing an increase witchcraft. The soldier was convicted of from 15 deaths in 2010.) Local human murder and dismissed from the service, rights groups noted a disturbing pattern but the report did not indicate if he narrated by state-influenced media, was imprisoned for it. The government wherein the suspect was apprehended, generally respected the legal prohibition

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on torture; still, there were complaints of use of excessive force by security personnel on civilians. The country report on Vietnam turned up no reports of arbitrary killings, but there were 19 reported deaths of persons in

custody in 2011. In Hanoi, Lt. Col. Nguyan Van Ninh beat Trinh Xuan Tung to death while in detention for a traffic violation. He was suspended pending investigation, and trial was expected early this year. (In rough consonance with this figure, Human Rights Watch reported that 13 people

A regional bid to strengthen judicial integrity In a step to strengthen judicial integrity in the region, more than 130 senior judges, academics, and legal practitioners from 16 countries met in Jakarta, Indonesia, in January this year for the first ever judicial integrity workshop in southeast Asia. It was sponsored by the United Nations Development Program, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Although other countries outside the region were present, the aim was focused on the southeast Asian region. Regional participants came from Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Timor Leste. Participants from outside the region came from Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Germany, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, the Netherlands, and Sri Lanka. The outcome of the workshop was a communiquĂŠ (which can be downloaded through the link above), which stated among other things: 1. Significant progress has been made in advancing judicial reforms in many nations. 2. There is need to develop and review codes of conduct based on the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct 3. There is need to measure progress and impact of the implementation of the Bangalore Principles 4. A multi-pronged and holistic approach is needed 5. The principles need to be disseminated among all judges, with dialogue support and peer monitoring 6. Implement training programs on judicial ethics 7. There has to be a credible, accessible and responsive complaints system 8. Establish an income and assets declaration system for judges 9. Establish an appropriate salary and welfare structure and a transparent selection process for judicial personnel 10. Conduct regular court inspections/audits 11. Enhance consistency and efficiency in the delivery of justice 12. Uphold and promote integrity in everyone including court personnel 13. Establish mechanisms for internal and external oversight Concrete proposals for follow up actions: 14. Make the communiquĂŠ available to the ASEAN Secretariat and members 15. Establish an e-mail network for workshop participants 16. Continue translation of the Bangalore Principles 17. The UNDP and UNODC provide technical assistance when possible upon request 18. That participating organizations outside the ASEAN further advance the dialogue on strengthening judicial integrity within the context if their activities

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died in police custody during the first 10 months of 2011. HRW noted that police brutality, including torture and fatal beatings, continues to be reported all over the country.) Going back to the country report, the police commonly mistreated suspects during arrest or detention. In April, police beat Tran Van Du while in interrogating him in custody. By October, the four officers involved were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to eight years. This would show that the government was also making efforts to increase accountability for human rights abuses. Corruption and weakness in the judicial system. In the dispensation of justice, most countries also suffered from weak and corrupt judicial systems. In some cases, people were literally getting away with murder. According to the Brunei and Singapore reports, the courts appeared to act independently. No instances of government interference were reported. The constitution of Cambodia provides for an independent judiciary, however “the government did not respect judicial independence in practice.” Corruption was deemed “widespread” among judges, prosecutors and court officials. The executive branch interfered with court proceedings. At the same time, a lack of resources including low salaries intertwined with corruption to produce a vicious cycle of inefficiency. It contributed to the corruption, and also caused a delay or outright denial of a fair trial. There was a shortage of judges and courtrooms.

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Pressure to go easy on military personnel. When cases involved military personnel, military officials pressed on judges to have defendants released without trial. One example is the death of Lon Chhun Leng in January 2010. A local human rights organization reported that two police officers attacked Lon after an argument at a wedding party, and he died from the injuries. Lon’s family filed a complaint, but so far no hearing date had been set, and the two police officers remained free. The country report for Indonesia put the local situation in a slightly better light, saying the “judiciary remained susceptible to influence from business interests, politicians and security forces.” Low salaries led to bribes. Widespread corruption in the legal system remained, although there were specialized government task forces that attempted to prosecute corruption.

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The country report for Laos characterized the local judiciary as “weak,” but there were no cases of senior officials influencing the courts during the year. Impunity and corruption were problems, along with some reported incidents of bribing. In Malaysia, some constitutional provisions and legislation restricted judicial review and “additional factors” (which were not explained) strengthened executive influence over the judiciary. ‘Institutionalized corruption.’ According to the country report for Burma (Myanmar), although the country’s Judiciary Law of 2000 ensures an independent judiciary, in practice the justice system was “characterized by institutionalized corruption” and under the effective control of the military and government, the Burma country report states. As shown by studies of civil society organizations,

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bribes were paid out at all stages of the legal process and to levels of officials. Certain laws, such as Unlawful Associations Act, Electronic Transactions Law, and others, were used to arbitrarily arrest and detain citizens engaging in peaceful protests an deny them a fair trial. Lawyers representing political cases were not spared. Authorities revoked the license of lawyer U Tin Aung Tun, who was representing farmers in a land confiscation case. The country report cited the Asian Legal Resource Center in stating that about 32 lawyers remained disbarred for political reasons. Personal connections, bribery, and a lack of sufficient personnel. The Philippine report stated that “the government generally respected judicial independence in practice.” Corruption was pervasive through personal connections, and sometimes bribery resulted in impunity for wealthy or influential offenders. In many cases, denial of justice was caused by a lack of sufficient personnel, inefficient processes and long delays, with the average trial duration for extrajudicial killings and disappearances found to be “longer than five years.” The Maguindanao massacre case is still ongoing. Of the 196 accused, 65 suspects were detained and arraigned, 28 individuals were detained with pending arraignment, while 103 suspects remained at large (including 10 police officers and four soldiers). Thailand’s judiciary was generally regarded as independent, but still subject to corruption and outside influences.

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Human rights in Southeast Asia

A wide array of challenges. The country report for Timor Leste observed that judicial independence did not exist in practice, due to a wide array of challenges. There were concerns regarding the impartiality of judicial bodies. Other challenges include: a severe shortage of qualified personnel, a legal regime based on different legal sources: Portugese-era, Indonesian-era, and UN administration-era laws and regulations. Also, laws were written and courts operated in Portuguese, a language not spoken by the majority. In Vietnam, the judicial system was not independent. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) controlled the courts at all levels, where it determined court

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appointments, and in many cases the verdicts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Political influence, endemic corruption and inefficiency strongly distortedâ&#x20AC;? the system. Most judges were members of the CPV. The party influenced cases wherein a person was charged with challenging or harming the party or state. In addition, there is a shortage of lawyers and judges. In the 2009 report of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, it noted that although Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have established human rights commissions, some of them still lack political support from the government, and lack the strength and resources to effectively monitor violations.

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NEWS ON THE NET World

U.S. to stop deporting some immigrants In a new policy of the Obama administration, some 800,000 illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children will be able to obtain work permits and be safe from deportation. The policy announced Friday last week, and which is effective immediately, will apply to people who are currently under 30 years old, who arrived in the country before they turned 16, and have lived in the United States for five years. They must also have no criminal record, and have earned a high-school diploma, remained in school or served in the military. The said qualifications resemble in some ways those of the socalled Dream Act, a measure blocked by Congress in 2010 that was geared to establish a path toward citizenship for certain young illegal immigrants. The administration's action on Friday, which stops deportations but does not offer citizenship or even permanent legal status, is being undertaken by executive order and does not require legislation. Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security secretary, said that young immigrants will obtain the ability to apply for a twoyear “deferred action” that effectively removes the threat of deportation for up to two years, with repeated extensions. New York Times’ Julia Preston wrote that as President Obama heads into the main stretch

of his re-election campaign, his immigration policies have produced few gains for Latinos, whose votes could be crucial to him in November. Out of 288,000 deportation cases heard before the immigration courts, the Homeland Security Council reported last week that less than 2% were suspended by prosecutors for deportation. Another New York Times report revealed that the rapidly growing Latino population in the United States is not fully felt at the voting booth. Latinos’ reason for entrenched pattern of nonparticipation to voting ranges from distrust in the government to a fear of what many see as an intimidating effort by law enforcement and political leaders to crack down on immigrants both legal and illegal.

Suu Kyi urges care as world reaches out to Myanmar During her meeting with U.N. diplomats at the annual meeting of the International Labor Organization in Geneva, 1991 Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi said foreign investment must help – not hurt – Myanmar’s goal of moving forward full democracy as she welcomed efforts to reach out to her country while it emerges from decades of isolation under military rule. Suu Kyi said she would like to call for aid and investments that will strengthen the democratization process. “We accept that investments pay off, but we would like these profits

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to be shared between the investors and our people, ”she told foreign governments and businesses eager to invest in Myanmar. Suu Kyi highlighted the secrecy surrounding recent deals between China and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. The state-owned company that all foreign firms seeking to tap into the country’s oil and gas riches must deal with “lacks both transparency and accountability at present,” she said. Many years as an international pariah have left Myanmar, also known as Burma, poor and in need of foreign investment, but concerns remain about corruption and money being used to prop up the powerful military. Suu Kyi’s two-week visit to Europe next takes her to the Swiss capital Bern for a meeting with the government. On Friday, she flies to Oslo, where she will make a belated acceptance speech Saturday for the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to her in 1991. At the time, she was detained by the military after leading a prodemocracy party to victory in Myanmar’s 1990 election. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy remains outside of the government but has endorsed the reforms instituted by Myanmar President Thein Sein, who is backed by the stillpowerful military. Suu Kyi hinted that her political ambitions may not stop at a supporting role in the new Myanmar.

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The Rise of Mobile Workers The growing number of tech-savvy workers and mobile devices will change how business gets done By Pia Rufino

hese days, workers don’t necessarily have to be in the office to get their jobs done. Workers who use mobile devices -laptops, smartphones, cellphones, or tablets -- and access networks for work purposes, as defined by enterprise mobility services provider iPass in its 2012 Global Mobile Workforce Report — report to their bosses from anywhere. According to the report, an average mobile worker now carries 3.5 mobile devices, up from 2.7 in 2011. From one billion mobile workers in 2010, the world's mobile worker populationwill reach 1.3 billion by 2015, representing 37.2% of the total workforce, the global market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts.

STRATEGY POINTS

Millennial workers (employees younger than 30 years old today) will comprise 45% of the entire workforce by 2020, according to another global research and advisory firm

According to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2011-2015 Forecast, released in March, the most significant growth will be in the emerging economies of Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), wherein the number of mobile workers will increase by 39.4%, from 601.7 million in 2010 to 838.7 million in 2015. The number of mobile workers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa will increase by 31.4%, from 186.2 million in 2010 to 244.6 million in 2015.

Employers can and should leverage the technological skills and expectations of the upcoming generation of digital natives to boost efficiency and productivity

The Americas will experience a slower growth rate of 16.2%, from 182.5 million in 2010 to 212.1 million in 2015. Japan‘s mobile workforce will decline by 0.2%

By 2015, the workers who work from anywhere with the help of mobile devices -laptops, tablets, and smartphones -- will reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2% of the total workforce, one global market intelligence firm predicts

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The rise of mobile workers

a year from 2010 to 2015 because of declining overall population, but will still comprise 64.8% of its workforce by 2015. (The report can be purchased from IDC’s website)

tablets in businesses and social media for collaboration are creating an unstoppable generational shift in the workspace, the firm elaborated in its press release.

An unstoppable generational shift in the workspace. This trend leads IDC to believe that “enterprises looking to succeed in the future workspace will have to foster a highly collaborative, virtual, mobile, multi-media and multidimensional environment,”the firm said in a press release earlier this month. The ubiquity of smartphones, the use of

According to the aforementioned 2012 iPass mobile workforce report – a survey of trends and habits in the usage of mobile tools of 1,700 mobile workers worldwide between January 11 and February 3 -- 64% of mobile workers used a tablet, which was expected to rise to over 80% within the next six months. (See the following graph)

TABLET OWNERSHIP OF MOBILE WORKERS 45%

42.5%

Current

40%

6 Months

35% 30%

27.7%

25% 20% 15% 10%

6.3%

7.7%

5% 0%

6.5% 4.6%

6.3% 0.7%

iPad

Samsung Galaxy

Amazon

3.4%

2.1% 1.5% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2%

Windows Blackberry Asus Eee & tablet Playbook Pad

Motorola Xoom

5.1% 3.1%

Other

Source: The iPass 2012 Global Mobile Workforce Report, iPass, p.7

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36 Only 25% of tablet owners were given tablets by their employer, 73% were personally owned devices. Across all tablet users, 88% used their tablets for at least some work, according to the study.

mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility. Meanwhile, about two-thirds of the young workers believe company-issued devices should be available for both work and play.

Globally, 61% of employees believe they don't need to be in an office to be productive

However, for the respondents, the laptop was still the most effective device for multi-tasking, and that smartphones and tablets were only effective in combination with another device for multitasking. Meanwhile, 92% of mobile workers believe their smartphones should be enabled for both work and personal use.

Likewise, findings from the October 2010 The Cisco Connected World Report, which polled 1,303 endusers and 1,309 IT decision makers on employee expectations, demands, and behavior, said that 66% of employees globally place a higher value on workplace flexibility than salary.

Meanwhile, 67% of 1,700 mobile workers surveyed by iPass worldwide use social media for work, with social networking site LinkedIn as the leading choice, followed by Facebook.

According to the study, 61% of employees globally believe they don’t need to be in an office to be productive. Nearly half with remote access worked up to three extra hours a day and a quarter worked four or more hours. About two-thirds (66%) of end-users globally agree that company-issued devices should be available for both work and play.

The importance of social media, mobile devices, and the Internet. The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report, an international study of the behavior and expectations of 1,441 college students (age 18–24) and 1,412 young professionals (age 21–29), indicates that the desire of the next generation of workers to use social media, mobile devices, and the Internet more freely in the workplace is a strong factor in choosing their future job.

Flexibility can adversely affect productivity.However, when workers are not facing restrictions on social media, there’s a constant temptation to slack off, according to a 2012 Salary.com survey, where 64% of 3,200 people surveyed said they visit non-work related websites every day during work hours. Thirty-nine percent said they spend a mere 1 hour a week or less on non-work related items while 21% said they spend five hours a week.

Given the choice, 45% of employees even said they would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access, and

Most people spend time checking their personal email, visiting news sites, performing Google searches, monitoring social media and shopping online,

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The rise of mobile workers

Now, the 'tech block' syndrome For companies embracing technology, the participation of workers who are tech-savvy and who are adept in social media is necessary in the workforce. Bader Rutter, a marketing service agency based in the United States with a staff of 224, has increased employment by 40% since it started hiring employees with digital skills, i.e., Web programming, social media, brand management and design, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in April.

“We are interested in creative and innovative individuals. New media is the area of most interest now, in particularly, the digital environment. My advice to the younger students is to make sure you’re well-versed in the digital environment. We are looking for innovative and creative stand them apart but it helps to have a background in the digital environment because so much of what we do now has a digital component to it.”

For Mark Peter Davis, cofounder and chief executive of Kohort, a social media start-up in New York and an investor in information companies at High Peaks Venture Partners, when hiring a staff, tech company should determine whether or not the candidate has what he calls a “tech block syndrome,” by asking people if they use the latest “social media toys,” or by asking them to give feedback on some other hot new products. Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of Interpublic Group, one of the world’s largest organizations of advertising and marketing services companies, said background in digital media is a plus for job applicants genconnect

Tech block is a mental barrier that prevents people from understanding how to use technology because they're afraid to try like being scared to click on buttons and links thinking that they might break something, he said in a blog published on Inc.com online publication for entrepreneurs and business owners.

“Typically if they're anywhere near the cutting edge they're capable of self-teaching,” Davis said. In a short interview with genConnect.com, Michael Roth is Chairman and CEO of Interpublic Group (IPG), one of the world’s largest organizations of advertising and marketing services companies discuss the importance of digital media.

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Findings from Computerworld's Annual Forecast survey, show that nearly 29% of the 353 IT executives polled said they plan to increase IT staffing this year—a 45% increase in hiring expectations compared to the combined results of surveys in 2009 and 2010. Respondents said these nine IT skills will be in demand this year: Programming and Application Development, Project Management, Help Desk/Technical Support, Networking, Business Intelligence, Data Center, Web 2.0-Tech (skills centered around social media), Security, and Telecommunications.

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38 according to the report. Facebook is checked by 41% of the respondents, followed by LinkedIn (37%), Yahoo (31%), Google+ (28%), Amazon.com (25%) and Twitter (8%). “Nearly three-quarters (71 %) of respondents said they believe short breaks throughout the day are beneficial. By being able to check Facebook, Twitter and have periods of brief downtime throughout the workday, those surveyed said they believe employees will actually be more productive than if restrictions are placed on them,” according to the report. Tech-savvy workers benefit companies. A 2011 study titled “Digital Natives: Born 2 B Connected” by Johnson Controls, a global diversified technology and industrial leader, said that companies can leverage the technological skills and expectations of the digital natives – the generation born after the general implementation of digital technology -- to improve workplace efficiency and significantly increase productivity.

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Digital natives are 30 years old or younger who have used digital technologies since early childhood, naturally developing the skills to integrate them in their lives, according to the study conducted in Germany, the U.K., the U.S., and China to look into the relationship between digital natives and technology. “As digital natives enter the workforce, they will infuse companies with a new work culture conducive to a generation more adept at incorporating technology into their personal and professional lives than previous generations. Organizations have an opportunity to leverage this level of knowledge by encouraging Digital Natives to share it with elder coworkers. These technological skills can also be harnessed to improve workplace efficiency and significantly increase productivity,” according to the study. Meanwhile, the report titled "BT 2020: IT’s Future In The Empowered Era" by the global research and advisory firm Forrester said that, empowered tech-savvy employees

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Millennials in the workforce

WORKERS WILL EXPECT TO BE MORE SUFFICIENT AND EMPOWERED

25% 66% of your employees select their own mobile phone*

34% of Millennials say they have better technology at 22% of home that they your employees have at work* have used a service delivered over 39% of the Web to help Millennials select their own them get their job done* mobile phone — regardless of what IT supports*

By 2020, 45% of your workforce will be Millennials†

45% Empowered, tech-savvy employess

*Source: Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q3 2010 † Bureau of Labor Statistics and Forrester Research Source: “BT 2020: IT’s Future In The Empowered Era," Forrester, January 7, 2011, p. 5

along with business-ready, self-service technology and a radically more complex business environment are the three forces will have a significant impact on the relationship between IT (information technology) and businesses in 2020. The firm sees a shift from IT to what it calls BT (business technology), which will involve more than just finding a new way to use technology. The millenials are coming, the millenials are coming. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections, millennial workers (employees younger than 30 years old today) will

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comprise 45% of the entire workforce by 2020. (See the above graph) “The new generation of workers coming into your business doesn’t need you (referring to the Chief Information Officer) — and the current generation of 30-to-40year-olds already set the pace for bringing consumer technology into the workplace. These workers increasingly select and manage their own smartphones, computers, and software to get their jobs done.” The study tells the CIOs: “Start embracing your empowered business users who bring in nonstandard technology to address

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The rise of mobile workers

the needs they see, are easy to view as troublemakers. Instead, treat them as the leading edge of an extended team. Edge technology drives new business change — and these empowered users are your best resource for uncovering them and ﬁnding where they provide value.” According to a 2008 study titled “Gen Y-ers, Baby Boomers and Technology: World’s Apart: Technology Usage in the Global Workplace,” by Deloitte, a professional services network that provides audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk, and financial advisory services, there is an ever-increasing demand on both employers and employees to keep up with communication technologies in order to remain competitive. The study found that that geography, not age, has a larger influence on employees’

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technological preferences. It indicated a surprising trend: older workers (50-59) in emerging nations like China, India and Brazil, are quicker to embrace technology communications than their counterparts in industrialized nations-- United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The study says: “To be most effective with the young workers, employers should be aware of their strong appetites for information and their willingness to use all available channels to gain more information. Their two priorities are: give us lots of information through as many vehicles as possible, and make it interactive and fun. They are more likely than others to take advantage of new channels, such as blogs, electronic message board, and podcasts.”

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NEWS ON THE NET Climate change seen to disrupt global trade Climate change and natural disasters could threaten the expansion of world trade because of their potential to disrupt global or regional supplychain network, according to a World Bank report. In its “Global Economic Prospects,” the bank cited as examples the impacts of last year’s earthquake in Tohoku, Honshu, Japan, and the floods in Thailand on supply networks. “Given the vertically integrated nature of many supply chains involving firms from multiple countries and the just-intime inventory management systems employed, [the] risks of disruption to trade are no longer limited to the shores of a single country,” the World Bank report read. The report said disruptions to production even in a “small country” that is considered the dominant producer of a critical component in a supply chain may greatly affect production in other countries. The bank added that the increasing importance of production networks could help account for the rising sensitivity of trade flows to changes in global gross domestic product (GDP), the sum of all goods and services that a country produces in a year. Another risk to global trade for this year, the World Bank said, is the “further unraveling” of the debt crisis in Europe. It added that simulations conducted using its macroeconomic model indicated that for every percentage point decline in income in high-income countries, developing country exports might fall by 2.2% percent. Output in developing countries might decline by about 0.8%. Last month exporters belonging to the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) expressed confidence they could still achieve their 10%-growth target for 2012, despite, for example, restrictions imposed by China on bananas exported by the Philippines to the mainland.

Business

China now the leading economic power, says survey

government’s own advisers warn it must make basic changes to its economic strategy to boost productivity and keep incomes rising.

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in March and April this year shows that most of the 26,210 interviewed see China and not the United States as the world’s leading economic power. But the results of the survey do not reflect reality: America’s economy remains well ahead of its closest rival. But the survey highlights China’s steadily rising public image amid rapid growth, as well as the erosion of the United States’s status as the global superpower, especially after the 2008 financial crisis left it struggling with recession and high unemployment.

Tax collection shortfall persists

The 21-nation poll found that 41% of survey respondents said China was the world’s economic power, while 40% favored the U.S. Among 14 nations that were asked the same question in 2008, the margin was wider: 45% placed the U.S. on top four years ago, with just 22% for China; in the latest poll China was favored 42% to 36%. The trend was especially strong in Europe: 58% of people in Britain saw China as the leading economy, versus just 28% for the United States. Even in the U.S., respondents were about evenly divided on the question. Turkey and Mexico were the only countries where more than half of people consid er the United States the leading economic power. China passed Germany as the biggest exporter in 2009 and has overtaken Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy. But its situation is complex: It is relatively poor by income per person, while the United States is among the richest. The United States is the global center for the auto, computer, finance, aerospace, and other industries. China’s competitive edge is its large pool of low-cost labor, but that is shrinking as wages rise and the Chinese population ages. The World Bank and the communist

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The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)

posted its biggest shortfall so far this year in its May tax collections. The bureau collected just ₧95.55 billion that month, nearly ₧9 billion short of its ₧104.475-billion target, according to a statement released June 15. Nonetheless, the May collections represented an 8.39% jump from the ₧88.15 billion collected last year. The BIR, which accounts for the bulk of government revenues, had raked in ₧440.81 billion as of May, ₧19 billion short of the ₧459.957-billion goal for that period. In the same period in 2011, the bureau's shortfall totaled just ₧0.778 billion. Still, its fivemonth take was 12.71% more than the ₧391.092 billion recorded the previous year. The bureau’s actual collections this year to date comprise about 41.25% of its ₧1.066-trillion fullyear target.

Commissioner Kim S. JacintoHenares attributed the weak collections to the Large Taxpayers Service (LTS), which remitted ₧63.17 billion in May, just slightly more than the ₧61.96 billion the year before. LTS showed a dip in reported sales and revenues and an increase in reported costs, Henares explained. She added that the BIR will audit some taxpayers under the LTS to determine the accuracy of data reported. By comparison, collections of regional offices again grew by more than a fifth, to ₧29.09 billion in May from ₧23.42 billion a year ago. "The regional performance is an important indicator. The problem in the country has always been how to broaden the tax base, and we are showing now that we are addressing the issue," Henares said. Despite the significant setback, the BIR chief remained confident the full-year target could still be met.

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Plug Them In and Charge Them Up

Local electric public-utility vehicles might just be the start of something big By Tanya L. Mariano

STRATEGY POINTS Transportation accounts for 25% of all CO2 emissions globally, while the local transport sector is becoming the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest user of energy With a little help from various government initiatives, electric vehicles are starting to make their way into the local market, in the form of e-trikes (tricycles) and e-jeepneys An emerging electric-vehicle industry plans to manufacture e-trikes and e-jeepneys for both local consumption and export Legislation is currently pending in Congress that would provide tax incentives for manufacturers and importers of electric vehicles

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Plug them in and charge them up 43

he Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP) recently hosted the 2nd Philippine Electric Vehicle Summit 2012 last May 24-25. The wellattended conference gathered high-ranking public officials, delegates from Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, and business tycoons to discuss the state of e-vehicles in the Philippines and what the future holds for this sunrise industry. Manila Electric Company (Meralco) president Manuel Pangilinan, whose company hosted the summit, revealed in a May 24 BusinessMirror report that Meralco would like to explore joint ventures with local partners to manufacture different types of electricity-operated public-utility vehicles. “Our group of companies are prepared to invest in the downstream manufacturing capability of this industry. It is better for us to build rather than import these vehicles,”

Pangilinan elaborated. He also reiterated their support for the government’s e-vehicle program, adding that they will be increasing their capacity to build charging stations needed by the vehicles. Since then, four Asian manufacturers from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan have been back to explore investment and joint-venture possibilities with local manufacturers, according to EVAP president Rommel Juan, according to a June 14 Philippine Star report. Juan also explained that local e-vehicle manufacturing would focus on electric tricycles and jeepneys for domestic consumption and export to Thailand and Vietnam. E-vehicles cut carbon emissions, boost energy security, and generate jobs. The report, “EV City Casebook: A Look at the Global Electric Vehicle Movement,” features case studies of 16 cities in their efforts to promote the use

The electric way to stop climate change The transport sector accounts for about 25% of all carbon-dioxide emissions worldwide, with cars and trucks representing three-fourths of this figure, according to the 2009 International Energy Agency report, “Transport, Energy and CO2: Moving Toward Sustainability.” In the quest to halve carbon emissions by 2050, among the most promising solutions are e-vehicles. Meanwhile, according to projections from the Asian Development Bank’s 2009 publication, “Energy Outlook for Asia and the Pacific,” the transport sector in the Philippines will account for just under 40% of the country’s final energy demand in 2015, and 44% by 2030. At the same time, the ADB projects that the country’s energy import dependence will climb from 43.1% in 2006 to 65% in 2030, and that the percentage of fossil fuels as part of the country’s energy supply structure will rise from 53.9% in 2005 to 70.5% in 2030.

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of electric cars. According to the report prepared by the Rocky Mountain Institute, Clean Air Ministerial, and the International Energy Agency, with support from C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, such vehicles can achieve 50 grams of CO2 per kilometer, significantly lower than the most efficient cars available today, which emit 100-150 grams of CO2 per kilometer.

In the Philippines, public transportation goes electric. Currently, there are about 400 e-vehicles in the country, including electric trikes (tricycles), shuttles, jeepneys, and buses, according to the EVAP press release issued in advance of its afore-mentioned Electric Vehicle Summit.

iCSC’s battery-run e-Jeepneys have been plying two routes in Makati s

LEGASPI VILLAGE ROUTE

Dela Rosa North Drive Legazpi

Salcedo

Rizal Drive

Makati Ave

West Drive

Paseo De Roxas

Esperanza

Benavidez

Apart from helping cut greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions, electric vehicles also diversify the fuel mix, thereby strengthening energy security, they reduce dependence on petroleum, and, in the face of rising unemployment, they “unlock innovation and create new advanced industries that spur job growth and enhance economic prosperity,” declares the report.

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In 2007, the Philippine-based nongovernment organization Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC) launched the e-Jeepney program in Makati under its Climate Friendly Cities Program and began offering free rides to the public in 2009. The iCSC e-Jeepneys received the first franchise for electric public-utility jeepneys from the Land Transportation Office early this year, and were to begin

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charging passengers a minimum fare of ₧8 in March, the Manila Standard Today reported in February. EVAP also reported that the Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturers Association of the Philippines and PhUV Inc. were the first to design, fabricate, assemble, and massproduce e-Jeepneys for iCSC and other

the go-signal to the ₧21.5-billion “Market Transformation through Introduction of Energy Efficient Electric Tricycle (E-trike) Project,” which expects to cut tricycle fuel consumption by 2.8%, or 560,926 barrels of oil, according to a NEDA press release. “The project will distribute 100,000 E-Trikes to tricycle operators on a

ince 2009, and charging a minimum fare of ₧8 starting in March 2012

SALCEDO VILLAGE ROUTE

Villar

H.V. Dela Costa

Makati Ave Paseo De Roxas

Sedeno Valero

North Drive

West Drive Source: Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities

markets. According to Ferdi Raquelsantos, president of both MVPMAP and PhUV Inc., e-Jeepneys can now be found in Pasig, Quezon City, Cebu, Bicol, Los Banos, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Batangas, Palawan, Ilocos region, Boracay, and other urban areas. NEDA green-lights e-trikes. In March this year, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) gave

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lease-to-own arrangement, replacing their old gas-fed and two-stroke gasoline engine units,” according to NEDA. Of the 100,000 E-Trikes, 20,000 will go to operators in Metro Manila, Puerto Princesa City, Cabanatuan City, and Davao City, with the balance to be distributed among other cities or municipalities to be determined.

cenSEI Report

• June 18-24, 2012

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46 Funding for the project, which was proposed by the Department of Energy, will come from the Asian Development Bank through a ₧12.9-billion loan, the Clean Technology Fund via a ₧4.3-billion loan and ₧43-million grant, while ₧860 million will come from the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism facility, and ₧3.397 billion from the national government. Earlier, in April 2011, Mandaluyong City received 20 lithium ion-powered e-Trikes through the project. These are the only electric tricycles to have been deployed under the e-Trike program as of January 2012, according to a footnote on the project page on the Asian Development Bank website. Government launches an electricbus program. Also in March 2012, the government launched the very first electric bus in the country, according to a Philippine Information Agency report. A

product of the joint efforts of the Climate Change Commission and Victory Liner, one of the biggest transportation operators in the country, the e-Bus sits 26 and can accommodate up to 52 passengers and reach maximum speeds of 90 kilometers per hour. It is powered by a 400V “Winston” rare-earth Yttrium Lithium-ion battery. The program aims to deploy 2,000 electric and hybrid buses over a span of five years. Bills seeking tax breaks for e-vehicles being mulled. A bill that will offer incentives for vehicles than run on alternative fuels is currently awaiting approval from the Senate. Senate Bill 2856, or the Alternative Fuel Vehicles Incentives Bill, sponsored by Senator Ralph Recto, seeks to “reduce the price of electric vehicles by at least 30 percent through a blend of tax breaks and non-fiscal incentives aimed at consumers and emerging local electric

This yellow e-Trike is one of 20 deployed in Mandaluyong City in April 2011 by the DOE and ADB. (Photo from “E-Trikes – Driving Change,” Asian Development Bank, May 29, 2012)

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vehicle manufacturing and servicing industry,” according to a May 17 GMA News Online report.

Electric cars 101 This infographic from AutoInsurance.org, a free online resource of car-insurance information, illustrates the basics of electric cars and their environmental impact, along with a brief history of their development, and a list of the major players in the world of electric cars.

The Alternative Fuel Vehicles Incentives bill has provisions similar to that of House Bill 5460, passed last March, which also seeks to offer tax breaks and institutional support for consumers and the electric-vehicle industry, the report added. Froilan G. Dyntianquin, vice-president of Mitsubishi Motors Philippines, revealed that their firm would consider importing electric cars if the bill is passed, BusinessWorld reported on May 24. Mitsubishi recently turned over one unit of the i-Miev (Mitsubishi innovative electric vehicle), a five-door hatchback, to the Department of Energy, and will be bringing in at least three more for purposes of evaluation. According to Dyntianquin, without the tax perks offered in Recto’s bill, the price of the i-Miev could shoot up from ₧2 million to ₧3.5-4 million. Right now, collaborations between the government, private entities, and nongovernment organizations, plus funding from multilateral institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, are driving innovation in the development and deployment of environment-friendly vehicles, which is a promising start. Even if the current prohibitive cost of electric cars puts those particular electric vehicles out of reach for private individuals, government support for

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electric public-utility vehicles might still provide the impetus for developing a local manufacturing industry that actually serves the public while being kinder to the environment.

cenSEI Report

• June 18-24, 2012

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Apple Unleashes Its New ‘Cat’ By Zandro G. Rapadas, M.D.C.

STRATEGY POINTS Apple's App Store is the largest on the Internet both in terms of number of total apps and creditcard accounts Apple's latest iteration of the MacBook Pro with Retina Display raises the bar in notebook technology Apple devices are the top choices among e-mobile users in Southeast Asia

pple Inc. held its latest worldwide conference of app developers from 60 countries, with tickets sold out in a record 1 hour and 43 minutes, compared to last year’s almost a week of selling. Dubbed the “Worldwide Developers Conference,” or WWDC 2012, the annual event opened June 11, 10 AM Pacific time at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, California with Apple CEO Tim Cook delivering the keynote, together with senior VP for worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller, VP for Mac software engineering Craig Federighi, and senior VP of iOS software Scott Forstall, assisted by close to 1,000 Apple engineers at the week-long conference sessions and labs. It is the 23rd edition of the conference and the first to miss Apple’s iconic cofounder, Steve Jobs, who was also its CEO for 14 years (1997-2011). Jobs passed away in October 2011, succumbing to a rare pancreatic cancer, but not without leaving his successors with a few more brilliant ideas to carry out, speculation about which has been continuing among Apple enthusiasts and tech bloggers since Jobs’ demise, including buzz about a new iPhone 5. The conference churned out major hardware and software updates, specifically with Apple’s current generation notebooks, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and with its operating systems – OS X for Mac and iOS for iPad, iPod, and iPhone. The conference opened with “Siri,” the intuitive virtual assistant in iPhone 4s that has earned good reviews for its breakthrough features, gave a “warm”

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welcome to all conference delegates and told them what to expect from the conference. Siri even said in jest that she is excited about the new Samsung, “not the phone, (but) the refrigerator, hubbahubba.” Apple sued Samsung in April 2011 for alleged patent infringements, and the conflict rages on. Cook started his keynote with Apple’s achievements in the previous year, sharing that the App Store now has over 400 million credit-card accounts, which he said is the largest anywhere on the Internet. It has 650,000 apps, 220,000 of which have been specifically designed just for the iPad. Moreover, Cook noted that Apple users have downloaded to date an astounding 30 billion apps. Cook noted this was “mindboggling and unthinkable not too long ago.” Apple has paid $5 billion to its developers. It now operates in 120 countries throughout the world, and at the end of the month, 35 more countries will be added. Interestingly, Cook’s showcase of Apple’s success metrics dovetailed with a storytelling of real- life experiences arising from the use of various Apple products. An inspiring video of testimonies by real people (starting at the 7:40 mark of this 16:18-minute presentation) raised the presentation of Apple’s recent successes to a level that was profound. The video shows a blind man gaining confidence to walk through a forest, a grade-school teacher making his Science class more interesting and interactive, and a speech-challenged girl being able to communicate with people around her. They were among several other individuals

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featured who have discovered and benefited from using Apple apps for navigation, education, and communication, among other things, and which made life easier for them. Adding speed to light. Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP for worldwide marketing, announced that the new MacBook Air would have the ‘third generation’ Intel Core processors, otherwise known as Ivy Bridge, and depending on configurations, these can run up to 2 gigahertz of dual-core i7 speed. With Intel turbo boosting, they can go as high as 3.2 gigahertz, with memory that can be configured up to 8 gigs. The internal disk space is now built entirely around a new Flash architecture, with storage of up to 512 gigabytes (or half a terabyte!), which makes your applications launch in a zip; even boot up or waking up from sleep becomes quicker. Finally, MacBook Air now has an additional USB 3.0 port to the current USB 2.0 support for faster data read and transfer, and FaceTime HD web camera that used to be with the MacBook Pro and iPhone 4s only. More power to the Pro. The Apple party on June 11 went on to unveil new features to its quintessential notebook, the MacBook Pro, aptly dubbed because it is the choice of professionals who do video and/or music editing, graphics, design, and photography, among other heavy computing tasks. But probably the biggest headliner of the day was the unveiling of the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. This means that pixels on the display are so small that from a normal working distance, the human retina cannot discern individual pixels;

cenSEI Report

• June 18-24, 2012

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50 images on the screen appear more crisp and clear, and renders text on screen more like a printed format. The display is 15.4 inches across, but its pixel density is 2,880 by 1,800, or four times the number of pixels in the previous generation MacBook Pro display, which Apple claims to be the world’s highest resolution notebook display to date. This latest iteration of the MacBook Pro also packs inside the same Ivy Bridge quadcore i7 processors of the new MacBook Air, the new Kepler architecture with up to a

In Southeast Asia’s e-mobile market, the i’s have it Research data made public by Australia-based Effective Measure revealed that as of October, 2011, 11.8 million users, comprising 53.1% of the e-mobile population in Southeast Asia, use Apple devices, primarily the iPad (32.0%) and iPhone (19.1%). E-mobile population refers to people who access the Internet on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. (Southeast Asia here is defined as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.) The study showed that Apple has the greatest e-mobile market share in Thailand at 79.6%, followed by Singapore at 75.8%, and the Philippines at 69.2%. The iPad dominates the e-mobile market most in Thailand at 47.9% and in the Philippines at 43.7%, while iPhone is the leading Apple device in Singapore at 37.5%. Apart from Singapore, the iPad has the highest usage compared to other mobile devices in the other SEA countries. Apple is also the top manufacturer of mobile devices in the region, accounting to 51% combined share of iPad and iPhone, followed by Research in Motion, makers of Blackberry at 6.9%, and Nokia at 2.8%. The market share was based on the usage of 14.6 million users, or 65% of the region’s total e-mobile population.

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gigabyte of video memory, internal Flash storage of up to 768 gigs, as well as an SD card slot for transferring your photo and video files. For the first time in a Mac notebook, an HDMI port is added, so you can plug right into your TV or projection system. And like the new MacBook Air, there’s the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 on both sides, a thinner MagSafe power port to fit into the new design, and two Thunderbolt ports. This latest product enhancement on the MacBook Pro fulfills what many Apple users have long wished for – powerful processing and portability in one device, combining the best in MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. And with Retina Display now on the new MacBook Pro, Apple has once again raised the bar for notebook computing. In fact, Mac|Life got hold of the device early and posted “mind-blowing” test results. Apple’s new ‘Cat’ unleashed. After only nine months since Mac OS X Lion (10.7) was released, Apple announces its new operating system for Mac: Mountain Lion, or simply OS X 10.8. Take note that the word ‘Mac’ was dropped from the name because that’s what it is – this new operating system integrates several functions that are not natively Mac but actually come from iOS, bringing in some 200+ new features that improve user interface design, sharing capabilities, backing up, connectivity, security, and productivity. Native apps in iOS such as Notification Center, Reminders, Game Center, and Notes now make their way into OS X. Likewise, a few native Mac apps were renamed to match their iOS counterparts,

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e.g., Messages (formerly iChat) and Contacts (formerly Address Book). Security is further improved with Gatekeeper, which allows a user to configure the system to prevent apps not developed by the Mac App Store and identified developers to be downloaded or installed from the Internet. Safari also gets updates, particularly with Offline Reading, a bookmark function that downloads the contents of the webpage you intend to read offline at a later time. A new tab allows a user to share content on the Internet through Message, Twitter, or email right from the browser. Native dictation support. Moreover, the latest OS X now has native dictation support, which can be configured on “System Preferences” and allows you to do dictation on any app where you can type in, including iWork and Microsoft Office. Interestingly, the app icon resembles that of Siri, giving a hint that it may come soon to Mac. But probably the most impressive new feature is the so-called “Power Nap,” which pushes updates to your Mac even when it is in sleep mode, including emails, Calendar reminders, Photo Stream updates, and Software Updates, even backing up to your Time Capsule. This feature, however, will run only on the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as these require the new Flash storage. Finally, Apple took much interest in the China market by including in the new OS X some features that it thinks “are going to make it even more popular there.” These include an improved Chinese input method for pin yin and a new Chinese dictionary. In

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Safari, there is added support for Baidu as an optional search provider, as well as sharing support for the Sina microblogging website, and video sharing to Youku and Tudou. Finally, on the “Mail, Contacts, and Calendars” section of System Preferences, one will see China’s top e-mail services added to the leading Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail. Mountain Lion becomes available on the App Store in July at US$19.99 only, 10 dollars cheaper than its predecessor Lion. More intelligent Siri and local driving in iOS 6. Not to be outdone in the bevy of new product enhancements is the new iOS 6, to be released sometime in September or October this year. The biggest headline here is probably that Apple dumped Google maps to make way for its own “Maps” with an entirely new mapping feature fully devised by Apple’s own cartography, offering city views of France, Italy, and Singapore among many other locations. Local search is further improved with Yelp, thereby offering information not just on locations of business and other establishments but also reviews and ratings on their products or services. There is also a traffic advisory and new turnby-turn driving directions service that integrates Siri. Speaking about Siri, this virtual assistant “grows up” from its beta status to a more intelligent form, now capable of giving information on sports, restaurants, and movies. Siri can even launch apps now and integrate with Facebook and Twitter for your status updates or tweets.

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• June 18-24, 2012

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Another cool new feature is PassBook, which functions as your digital wallet. Here you can store and flash boarding passes (United Airlines has an app for issuing such), electronic movie tickets and discount coupons, even QR codes for business or information.

choose which phone calls will get through to you. Now, if someone really wants to get a hold of you and they’re persistent and they call you back within three minutes because it’s an emergency, that second call will come through.

FaceTime will now work over cellular and not just solely on WiFi. Also, FaceTime ties up your phone number to your Apple ID, so that when someone calls you on FaceTime through your mobile number and iPhone, you can take the call using your iPad or Mac.

Moreover, you can now send a text reply to an incoming call that you cannot take at the moment, with responses like “I’ll call you later,” or “I’m on my way.”

Some enhancements were also introduced into the “Phone” settings itself, such as a “Do not disturb” feature, which allows you to control which phone calls you receive. You may opt to receive no phone calls at all or just

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Other noteworthy improvements include Guided Access for persons with disabilities; Lost Mode that allows you to send a phone number to your iPhone, hoping that the person who recovered the phone will contact you; and improved sharing capabilities on Photo Stream and Safari. And with iOS 6, Siri will now work on the new iPad.

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Social media major tool in disaster response Social media has played critical roles in coping with natural disasters particularly in disaster-prone countries like the Philippines, experts from the United States and Japan said. Allen Clark, senior consultant at the Pacific Disaster Center in Hawaii said that social media are becoming more and more a critical component of influencing policy and causing action. The more people (“citizen journalists”) on the ground, the quicker the response in times of disaster, Clark said. Some devastating natural disasters where citizen journalists were said to have provided a wealth of information include the 2004 tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in a dozen Asian countries, Hurricane “Katrina” in the United States in 2005, Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in the Philippines in 2009, the Haiti earthquake in 2010, and the tsunami in Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011. In order to save more lives, disaster centers around the globe should make full use of the social media’s tools and methods for crisis communication, said James Burke, associate director of Course Development and Delivery in Hawaii’s National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. In Palo Alto, California, Internet-giant Google has developed the Google Crisis Response. Christian Adams, product manager of Geo and Maps Team of GCR, identified three major products of GCR: Google People Finder, where people can search for those who are missing; Google Crisis Map, which provides satellite imagery of the disaster, and Google Public Alerts. Adams said a great story on the role of the social media happened during the 2011 tsunami in Japan, when people displaced by the tsunami started sending e-mails via mobile phones and set up an area where everyone took pictures and posted them on Google. In the Philippines, Benito Ramos, executive director of National Disaster

Risk Reduction and Management Council said that they have incorporated Facebook and Twitter in NDRRMC’s monitoring system and website for quick response.

New web domain applications revealed The global Internet regulator, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), revealed on June 13 the list of proposed new Web domains. Would they surpass the trusty old Internet address we know and love -- .com, .nets, .orgs? ICANN, the nonprofit organization that manages the Internet naming system, received 1,930 proposals for new domain names last week after it formally approved the expansion. The “largest-ever expansion of the Internet’s naming system, would include, if passed, names like .google, .coke, .lol, or .HBO and hundreds more. The current system has 21 generic top level domains or gTLDs that includes .com, .net and .org among others. Big and famous names in different industries were among the applicants. They were automakers like Fiat and Chrysler, banks JPMorgan Chase, and tech companies including Apple and Google. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said that the Internet will be changed forever, and that we’re presently standing at the cusp of a new era in online innovation. With domains like .web and .sport, many suitors are expected to battle for the same coveted keyword. If multiple applicants want a single domain and ICANN deems them equally worthy, it's decision time. Beckstrom said there were 231 proposed new gTLDs for which at least two applicants applied, involving 751 total applications. Some of the contested names include .app, .baby, .baseball, .blog, .money, .pizza, .web and .vip. In related stories, Internet-giant Google wants to grab not only .google, but also fun suffixes like .lol. Google said it would like to operate

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“domains we think have interesting and creative potential,” citing .lol as an example. Google revealed some of the gTLDs it's applied for -.google, .youtube., .docs and .lol -- in a blog post published on June 1.

Nokia to cut 10,000 jobs Nokia said Thursday last week that it would slash 10,000 jobs, or 19% of its work force by the end of 2013 as part of an emergency overhaul. The company also warned investors that its loss was likely to be greater in the second quarter, which ends June 30, than it was in the first, and that the negative effects of its transition to a Windows-based smartphone business would continue into the third quarter. Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, posted a loss of €929 million, or $1.2 billion, in the first quarter as sales plummeted 29%. Once the undisputed global leader in the mobile phone business, Nokia has been outdone by Apple, as well as by Samsung and other makers of handsets running Google’s Android operating system. In February 2011, Nokia and Microsoft announced an alliance to produce a line of smartphones called Lumia running the Windows operating system. Since then, the Finnish company has seen its sales fall and profit evaporate, as consumers and operators have avoided or demanded discounts on smartphones running Nokia’s inhouse Symbian operating system, which the company is phasing out. Although Lumia devices have won critical praise, sales have not been strong enough to offset declines in its main business. Nokia said 3,700 of the 10,000 jobs to be cut would take place in Finland. The handset factory in Salo to be closed is Nokia’s largest in the country, and about 850 employees will be affected there by the reductions. Nokia employed 53,553 workers in its handset business at the end of March. The company also had 68,595 employees in Nokia Siemens.

• June 18-24, 2012