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Monday, March 21, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 165
MPIC eyes arbitration over delayed toll hike ₧4.3B I
P. | | 7 DAYS A WEEK
THE 75 CHOICES ON PPP MENU
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NFRASTRUCTURE conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) should soon file a P4.3billion complaint for arbitration against the government for its alleged failure to implement toll-rate adjustments for two of the expressways it operates. Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. President Rodrigo E. Franco said the group is ready to submit the complaint, as foregone revenues from delays in toll increases now
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SUPERBODS’ BEST BETS
amount P3.5 billion at the North Luzon Expressway (Nlex) and P800 million at the Manila-Cavite Toll Expressway (Cavitex). Franco said the Toll Regula-
Foregone revenues of MPIC due to delays in toll increases tor y Board ( TR B), cha ired by Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya, has sought a 30day period within which to reach a compromise. “It’s a request. I’m not saying that we are agreeing to grant that request. We’re ready to file our arbitration case,” he said. “In fairness to them, they are working on reviewing our petitions. They said they need a few S “MPIC,” A
PPP Lead Alberto C. Agra
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HY public-private partnership (PPP) for a road project and not procurement using public funds? Why do most local government units and water districts opt for joint ventures and not a build-operatetransfer scheme? Why will government assume the rightof-way risk and not the operations risk? Why use the lowest tariff, not the highest concession fee, as financial parameter for bulk-water supply project? Why bundle a reclamation project with land development and expressway, and why unbundle a radiology department from a PPP of the whole hospital? Why contribute the usufruct of government property and not cash in a PPP arrangement? C A
PPP MENU
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DAMNING STUDY FINDS A ‘WHITEWASHED’ HOLLYWOOD
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FUNDING OPTION
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7 9 11 MIDNIGHT QUENCH This Caltex gas station on Edsa operates 24/7 to cater to motorists traveling in the wee small hours of the morning. Most gas stations along the main roads in Metro Manila have the same “normal” operating hours. ALYSA SALEN
ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
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IMPLEMENTING AGENCY
AUTHOR: ALBERTO C. AGRA
BM GRAPHICS: JOB RUZGAL
PHL natural-gas industry won’t To Ride the take off sans pipelines–think tank Wind: The PERSPECTIVE
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INGAPORE—Energy think tank and global consultancy IHS said the Philippines’s natural-gas industry would not f lourish minus a gas pipeline that would transport the resource a ll the way to Manila, where many industrial and commercial
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 46.4430
customers could tap the gas. “For the Philippines, the challenge really is infrastructure of pipelines, because you are still limited to what you got in the industry stations. For years, they have been looking at connecting the pipelines to Manila. Different companies have looked at that and, until you get that, you cannot replicate
what was done in Singapore,” IHS Research Director Tony Taylor said. There is an existing gas pipeline that transports gas from Malampaya to the three gas plants owned by First Gen Corp. of the Lopez group in Batangas. Separately, the Philippine government is planning to bid out a 100-kilometer Batangas-Manila C A
Life of Amb. Antonio L. Cabangon Chua »A8-A9 B J P S
n JAPAN 0.4168 n UK 67.2309 n HK 5.9892 n CHINA 7.1721 n SINGAPORE 34.3997 n AUSTRALIA 35.4592 n EU 52.5688 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.3855
Source: BSP (18 March 2016 )
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BMReports BusinessMirror
PHL natural-gas industry won’t take off sans pipelines–think tank C A
(Bat-Man1) gas pipeline. However, this plan has yet to take off due to several issues raised by industry stakeholders. These include the project design and structure, right-of-way and off-takers. The pipeline is one of the critical natural-gas infrastructure projects of the government. It is estimated to cost between $100 million and $150 million. The plan to bid the multimillion-dollar project, however, has been delayed for many years now. “Somebody has to bite a bullet, and just pay the money and the billions of dollars, but that’s the way,” Taylor commented. In January this year former Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balicasan said Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada has raised certain issues. Until those issues are resolved, the project could not be approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Board. “There are certain issues raised by the DOE. We are waiting for their submission of that. We are aiming it as a PPP [public-private partnership] project, but the DOE wanted to revisit other options. It’s up to the DOE and the proponent. The Neda is facilitating the process to make sure it meets all the requirements,” Balisacan said. T he B at - M a n 1 p ro j e c t w a s originally approved by the Neda Investment Coordinating Council (Neda-ICC), but did not make yet to the Neda Board because of “some issues that need to be clarified.” It can be recalled that the Neda-ICC
earlier approved the project based on a study conducted by the Rebel Group International BV. However, the DOE raised a number of concerns about the project. Among others, the agency raised questions on how off-takers can connect to the pipeline and on right-of-way issues. “There was an issue raised regarding right-of-way, involving the Sucatto-Navotas route. There could be a conflict with the expansion of PNR [Philippine National Railway] and other ongoing excavation in the area,” Monsada had said. Monsada added that the study on the project actually proposes three routes. The shortest route, she said, was earlier approved by the Neda-ICC. “The other routes will have to be approved again at the Neda-ICC,” she said. In the same study, DOE officials also raised concerns on the pipeline design. It seemed that the pipeline would be constructed from end to end, without customers in between. “We have a question because of the end to end design. There are no takers in between so we want to do the evaluation again because it cannot be just end to end,” former Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said. Industry stakeholders that are interested to build a gas terminal also raised questions pertaining to the specific location of the pipeline. “If you have a pipeline, you have a start and end, so where is your starting point? You should have an import facility, or if there is additional gas from Malampaya or another Malampaya, you have a source. Now, who is the customer?” asked Pilipinas Shell
Petroleum Corp. Country Chairman Edgar Chua. “There should be customers along the way or the end point,” Chua added. Shell plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. However, it awaits the final investment decision before it can pursue the project. Ahead of the construction, Chua had said the company is in talks for LNG deals. “We are engaging different parties so we can finalize an off-take agreement.” First Gen Corp. of the Lopez group is also planning to build an LNG terminal that could cost around $1 billion. “We will pioneer the entry of imported LNG into the country by constructing the country’s first LNG regasification terminal adjacent to our power plants in Batangas,” First Gen President Francis Giles Puno had said. First Gen owns the Santa Rita and San Lorenzo power plants in Batangas. These are two of the three power plants fueled by the Malampaya facility. Together, the plants generate a combined 1,500 megawatts (MW). The third is the 1,200-MW Ilijan power plant owned by Kepco Ilijan Corp. All three power plants generate a total of 2,700 MW, which accounts for about 40 percent of Luzon’s power requirements. Shell is also planning to build an LNG import facility near its oil refinery in Batangas. However, this plan is still dependent on the final investment decision (FID) from its parent firm Royal Dutch. LNG is natural gas that has been converted into a liquid state for easier storage and transportation. Upon reaching
its destination, LNG is regasified so it can be distributed through pipelines as natural gas. Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. President Ramon S. Ang earlier said his group is interested to participate in the Bat-Man1 gas pipeline auction. Businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan earlier said the government should provide a well-crafted study on LNG, particularly on the Bat-Man pipeline, which had been proposed in previous administrations but failed to kick off primarily on concerns regarding supply of gas and sufficient demand. One concern that the government should focus on is off-takers of LNG, Pangilinan said. “Who will be the consumers? Why will you build it when there is no sure market. It could be the industrial customers and the power plants, but then you have got to import the gas eventually,” said Pangilinan, when asked if his group is interested to join the auction should it push through this year. “You have to build a regas facility somewhere in Bataan, Batangas, Cavite or whatever. You will import LNG so you have to regas it and push it to the pipeline and then, of course, who buys the gas? “As I said, it could be industrial customers but then eventually when you satisfy the demand, who else? Also, you have to pipe the gas. That’s expensive,” Pangilinan said. All these factors, Pangilinan said, must be thoroughly planned. “So, we really need to plan everything. Why build something in the first place if there is no market. Importation of gas is also another factor. The regas facility and the pipeline are also needed.”
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MPIC. . .
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more days to sort out the issue, and we are waiting for an explanation.” The company has already filed notices of claim against the government for its contined refusal to approve the tariff hike, despite such increases being provided for in its contract with the state. Still, the tollways operator is seeking toll adjustments that have been in limbo for more than four years already. “We are waiting for some clarity,” Franco said. “As far as we are concerned, any time that we want to go to arbitration, despite the request, we can go to arbitration.” The toll regulator has not acted on the company’s petitions for rate increases at Nlex, with one filed yet in 2012 and another in 2014. The first petition was due on the first of January 2013. The second, submitted on September 30, 2014, would bring the cumulative toll-rate adjustment to 15 percent, of which 12 percent is long overdue, The concession that the Pangilinan-controlled company holds allows for toll adjustments every two years. Current toll fees at the thoroughfare (from Mindanao Avenue to Santa Ines) amount to P218 for Class 1 Vehicles (cars, jeepneys, pickup trucks and vans); P544 for Class 2 vehicles (two-axle trucks, buses and vans); and P652 for Class 3 vehicles (trucks and trailers with three or more axles). For the Cavitex, the company is seeking a 25-percent increase in tariff, as its last increase was yet in 2011. The tollway operator was supposed to implement adjustments in 2014, as its contract with the government allows for such surges. In absolute terms, the petition for a rate hike for Cavitex are as follows: n Class 1 vehicles, including cars, jeepneys, pickup trucks and vans, to P27 from P22; n Class 2 vehicles, including two-axle trucks, buses and vans, to P54 from P44; and n Class 3 vehicles, including trucks and trailers with three or more axles, to P81 from P66. Transport officials were not available for comment as of press time. The tollways arm of Metro Pacific booked a 19-percent increase in its core net income in 2015. Earnings reached P2.6 billion as a result of strong traffic growth in its expressways here and abroad. The group of Pangilinan is the largest toll-road operators here in the Philippines. It also has significant shareholdings in expressways in Vietnam and Thailand, and is scouting for prospects in Indonesia.
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Monday, March 21, 2016 A3
ABS-CBN confident of hitting ₧3.6-B profit target for 2016
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ROFITS of multimedia and entertainment giant ABS-CBN Corp. may reach the P3.6-billion territory this year, a tall order that will be buoyed by revenues from election-related and regular ads, and its growing consumer business, company officials said. The target is 38 percent higher than the P2.54-billion net income that the network booked in 2015. Last year’s bottom line—driven by the 14-percent rise in revenues at P38.28 billion—was 25 percent higher than the P2.03 billion registered the year prior. It was also above the company’s earnings target of P2.4 billion.
“Our profit guidance for the year is between P3.3 billion [and] P3.6 billion. The drivers would be a combination of advertising, movies, election-related revenues [and], at the same time, consumer sales,” Aldrin M. Cerrado, the company’s CFO, said in a chance interview. ABS-CBN Group CFO Rolando P. Valdueza added that the com-
pany will soon hit breakeven for its digital-television initiative, helping drive further growth to the firm’s rising revenues. “We are confident that our company will deliver even stronger results this year. Our digital-TV initiative has done very well, recently breaching the 1 million mark in terms of sales of ABS-CBN TVplus boxes,” he said. Its broadband and cable TV businesses also grew steadily in 2015. The growth trajectory of the said business segments is expected to continue this year. “SKYcable increased its broadband subscriber count by over 40 percent, and has maintained a healthy average revenue per user of about P1,100,” Valdueza said. “It recently obtained a license to operate direct-to-home service, which will expand its reach around the country.” The cable television unit is expected to roll out its satellite-television service within the year.
Our profit guidance for the year is between P3.3 billion [and] P3.6 billion. The drivers would be a combination of advertising, movies, election-related revenues [and], at the same time, consumer sales.”—C
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Monday, March 21, 2016
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‘Govt must ensure money-laundering scandal won’t hike remittance cost’
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HE government was asked to reach out to countries hosting thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) whose regular remittances to their families in the Philippines were to be adversely affected by a scandal linking local banks to an $81-million fund stolen by hackers from a Bank of Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve in New York. Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto aired the suggestion over the weekend, after OFW advocate Susan “Toots” Ople voiced concern that foreign banks in OFW host countries may use the money-laundering scandal as further excuse to tighten restrictions on remittance centers, including the foreign subsidiaries of the Philippine National Bank and the Bank of the Philippine Islands. Ople warned of a scenario where host countries take such steps so
₧400M
Amount stolen over two years by hackers from the country’s automated teller machines. their own banks corner the remittance business, making it harder and costlier for OFWs to send mon-
ey home. “This should be taken up by our Department of Foreign Affairs with foreign governments where we have OFWs,” Recto told the BusinessMirror. This developed as Sen. Sergio Osmeña III wondered whether the outgoing Aquino administration, which ends on June 30, still has the “political will ” to reinforce existing regulations to avert another money-laundering scandal that sets back the Philippine standing before the global ba n k ing commu nit y. “ Wil l the administration f ina l ly be able to summon the politica l w il l to suppor t our effor ts to plug the loopholes in our f inancia l system? ” Osmeña asked. In t he af ter mat h of t he $81- m i l l ion mone y - l au nde r ing sca nd a l being invest igated by t he Senate Blue R ibbon Com m it te e, of f ic i a l s of t he Ba ngko Sent ra l ng P i l ipi n a s (BSP) a nd t he Bu reau of Inter n a l Revenue ec hoed c a l l s for l aw ma kers to pass reme d ia l leg isl at ion rel a x ing str ict prov isions in t he ba n k-secre c y l aw, c l a i m i ng it h a mpers t he d r ive to go a f ter money l au nderers a nd t a x e v aders. But Cong ress is in recess a nd
wou ld resu me session s on ly after the May 9 elections, w it h l aw ma kers sit t ing a s a Nat iona l Boa rd of C a nva ssers to t a l ly t he votes c a st in t he president i a l pol ls. In a related development, while cyberthieves in the Philippines may not have the sophistication of their international counterparts to stage billion-peso heists, they now have capability to steal millions of pesos from automated teller machines (ATM) stationed all over the country. W hat is alarming, according to Recto, is that the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) has only 110 officers who serve as special investigators for all Internet-related crimes. The growing cybercrime menace, Recto said, should move Malacañang to immediately sign into law the Congress-approved bill creating the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). The DICT bill, which Recto principally authored in the Senate, mandates the creation of a cybercrime investigation and coordination center. The DICT will also be tasked to formulate the National Cybersecurity Plan
and form the National Computer Emergency Response Team, which, Recto said, will serve as “our IT special action forces.” Recto said a cybercrime report, prepared by the Department of Justice for 2014-2015, showed that the Philippines ranked 39th among countries most vulnerable to cyberthreat activities. The top-growing trends in the threat landscape, according to the report, include advanced targeted attacks, mobile threats, malware attacks and data breaches. The PNP-ACG, on the other hand, recorded an increase of 113 percent in cybercrime statistics, from 288 incidents in 2013 to 614 incidents in 2014. Topping the cybercrime list is Internet fraud, with 137 incidents, followed by libel through social media (104); voyeurism (68); harassment/threat (63); identity theft (53); Electronic Commerce Act (47); Access Device Regulation Act (23); ATM fraud (8); and credit-card fraud (8). While PNP data on ATM fraud seem negligible, Recto said ATM hackers got away with almost P400 million from bank depositors in 2012 and 2013. According to the senator, the BSP reported
2,872 cases of ATM fraud during that period. The modus operandi involve the use of illegal personal identification number-capturing devices on ATMs. “Big banks are not the only ones at risk. Every Juan dela Cruz who has an ATM account is a potential victim of these cybercriminals,” Recto said. “If we cannot protect these poor ATM holders, who will?” Recto added. At present, the PNP-ACG has been tasked to investigate all cybercrimes and others utilizing information and communications technology. It also maintains Cyber-Patrolling and Terror Response Team for the monitoring of social-media exploitation. But due to limited manpower, there are only 110 police officers who ser ve as special investigators in the PNP-ACG. These officers are detailed in different units of the PNP-ACG, such as child protection, economic cr imes, financial intelligence and organized crimes. “ The Internet telecommunications network is an information superhighway. How do we expect 110 police officers to ensure the security and safety of Filipinos using this superhighway?” Recto said.
US maritime aid to PHL seen rising to $119M this year B R A
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HE country is expected to receive a bigger amount in security assistance this year under the United States’ Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, as the Americans direct their attention to the region, with particular focus on Manila and the South China Sea territorial dispute. The increase in aid in maritime domain awareness and security was raised by US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel and Assistant Secretary of Defense David Shear during a two-day bilateral-security dialogue with Foreign Undersecretar y Evan Garcia and Defense Pio Lorenzo Batino in Washington, D.C. The US Department of Defense is proposing to allocate to the Philippines a larger amount of the $140-million fund intended for the development of the maritime capabilities of its allies in Southeast Asia given perceived maritimesecurity threats arising from the South China Sea dispute. Last year the Philippines received $79 million of the $119-million US maritime-security project allocation for Southeast Asia, its largest beneficiary of the military resource. For this year, US assistance is largely focused on building the training and logistical base for the Navy, Coast Guard and the Air Force’s ability to conduct operations in waters “off the Philippines’s coasts.” The money would also assist the Navy in its maintenance-capacity building, as well as provide interdiction vessels, finance naval fleet upgrades, communications equipment and aircraft procurement. Likewise, the maritime-security money would prioritize the transfer of maritime-related Excess Defense
Articles (EDA) in order to rapidly enhance the capability of the military within its limited budget. The EDA should transfer to the Navy, the high-endurance US Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Boutwell, which would become the third ship of its class given to the Philippine military after the BRP Ramon Alcaraz and the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, which has become the Navy’s f lagship. “ T his w il l prov ide the Philippines the abilit y to maintain g reater mar itime presence and p at r o l s t h r o u g ho ut it s E E Z [e x c lu s i v e e c o no m i c z o ne],” Washington said in a statement issued immediately after the bilatera l meeting. “We are also in the process of transferring the research vessel RV Melville to support naval research and law-enforcement capabilities. We will continue to support the National Coast Watch System and assist the Philippines through the Global Security Contingency Fund,” it added. Last month the US transferred to the Army more than 100 armored personnel carriers and has also given the Air Force years ago with a C-130 aircraft, both under the EDA agreement. In response, Garcia and Batino thanked the US over the initiative, which would fund mutually agreed projects that would directly support the Philippines’s maritime-security priorities. Last year US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter launches a reinvigorated Southeast Asia Maritime Initiative, whose purpose is to develop a shared maritime domain-awareness architecture that will help the region share information, identify potential threats and work collaboratively to address common challenges.
This will provide the Philippines the ability to maintain greater maritime presence and patrols throughout its exclusive economic zone.” —W
PALM FROND FESTIVITIES The Catholic faithful take to the churches on Palm Sunday to have these pieces of religious fervor blessed by priests at the
Baclaran Church in Parañaque City. Palm Sunday is a Christian movable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. In many Christian denominations, worship services on Palm Sunday include a procession of the faithful carrying palm fronds, representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem. NONIE REYES
DTI eyes perks for fruits, processed food under IPP
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HE inclusion of processed food and beverages, specifically meats, fruits and confectioneries, should be clearly defined in the Investment Priorities Plan (IPP), as these have been tagged as key export-sector products under the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) 2015 to 2017, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). At the DTI Forum on Regionalization of the Philippine Export Development Plan 20152017 held recently, processed food and beverages were considered a “key” export sector. The PEDP defines key products as those meeting the following criteria: 1. They take a significant share of total export value of at least $1 billion. 2. They have substantial impact on employment if the sector falters.
3. They have high growth potential based on global demand. “ We are work ing on the inc lu sion of pro cesse d me at s, f r u its, confect ioner ies a nd sweets in the IPP to encourage activ ities there and avail themselves of incentives,” Depar tment of Trade and Industr y Ex por t Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) A ssistant Director A nthony B. R ivera said. Rosemarie Castillo, DTI Agrimarine Division chief, clarified in an interview that as the IPP is periodically reviewed and updated, it is a must that the list of processed food and beverage with the most potential is included in it and is specific. “If these products are not included yet, we want to make sure that they will be, because the exporters of these are usually small
and medium enterprises,” Castillo explained. The IPP, crafted by the Board of Investments under the DTI, is a government listing of investment and export activities that are pivotal to the country’s economic development, based on employment potential, new technology introduced and other economic factors. In the IPP 2014-2016, agribusiness and fishery have already been identified as priority investment areas, specifically the commercial production of coconut, corn, cassava, coffee, cocoa, fisheries, poultry and livestock; the production of high-value crops, such as rubber, spices, vegetables and fruits; and production of emerging commodities, like sampaloc, jackfruit, Peking duck, native pigs, siling labuyo, peanuts, monggo and achuete. The list also mandates that
agribusiness and fishery cover the production of processed foods, including vegetable oils, beverage crops and plantation, seaweeds production and processing, fruit processing, to name a few. Castillo said they only wanted to avoid a “ blanket” inclusion of processed food and beverage to make sure the rules are clear for the exporters whether they qualify or not. Specific products that should be included, if not maintained on the list include dried fruits, fruit juices, concentrates, snack foods and chips. Aside from IPP inclusion, the EMB is also employing other strategies to boost the sector’s competitiveness, including the participation of food and beverage exporters in local and international food fairs and business-matching sessions. Catherine N. Pillas
news@businessmirror.com.ph
AseanMonday BusinessMirror
Monday, March 21, 2016 A5
Asean cities join 10th annual Earth Hour
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EW YORK—Cities around the world turned out the lights on Saturday evening to mark the 10th annual Earth Hour, a global movement dedicated to protecting the planet and highlighting the effects of climate change.
As night came on, the lights went out in cities from South Korea to the United States, in what the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) describes as a moment of solidarity for climate action. The group sponsors the event and says people in 178 countries and territories had planned to participate. Lights went out for the hourlong event—from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time—in Beijing, Moscow, Beirut, Cairo, Athens, Rome and Paris. The lights atop the Empire State Building in New York were dimmed, and
some billboards in Times Square also went dark. In Seoul the glass-covered City Hall was among several public buildings where officials switched off the lights inside and out. Lights illuminating landmarks such as the massive COEX shopping mall, the city’s main railway station and several bridges on the Han River were all either turned off or dimmed. In Beijing Chinese actress Li Bingbing showed up at the iconic Temple of Confucius, which was shut dark for an hour while municipal government
officials announced that the city’s energy-conservation slogan would be “Consume less, consume wisely.” The Taipei 101 skyscraper was among the buildings to go dark in Taiwan’s capital. Philippine officials in metropolitan Manila led hundreds of environmental activists, students and movie and TV celebrities in switching off lights at the Quezon Memorial Circle in suburban Quezon City. Amid the darkness, some participants pedaled bamboo bikes attached to small energy generators to power LED lights and illuminate a giant Philippine map to symbolize the country’s yearning to shift to renewable-energy sources, organizers said. The first Earth Hour event was held on March 31, 2007, when the WWF conservation group inspired people in Sydney to turn out the lights for an hour. Since then, the WWF-organized event has expanded to thousands of cities and towns around the world and has been held every March. AP
‘Yomiuri’: Hon Hai seeks to reduce price it pays for Sharp
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ON Hai Precision Industry Co. is seeking to reduce the amount it pays for Sharp Corp. due to concerns about potential liabilities and future earnings, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. The Taiwanese company is also renegotiating terms with Sharp’s lenders, according to the Nikkei. Hon Hai’s investment in new equity to be issued by Sharp may shrink by 10 percent to 20 percent from the originally agreed ¥489 billion ($4.38 billion) as it cuts the price per share ¥118, the Yomiuri said, citing an unidentified person. Sharp’s shares closed ¥138 in Tokyo on Friday. Hon Hai is also in talks with Sharp’s main banks, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (MUFG), to reduce interest rates on ¥510 billion in credit lines and loans due at the end
of March, the Nikkei newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. The Taiwanese company may be asking the lenders to accept less than the ¥100 billion it agreed to pay them for preferred shares in Sharp or to put off the purchases for the time being, the Nikkei said. Sharp Spokesman Yoshifumi Seki declined to comment on both reports when contacted by phone on Sunday. “We have no new update since February 28,” Louis Woo, a spokesman for Foxconn Technology Group, Hon Hai’s parent company, said in an e-mail. Calls to Mizuho and MUFG went unanswered on Sunday. Hon Hai’s ¥600-billion takeover of the struggling Japanese manufacturer has been stalled a l most si nce Sh a r p’s boa rd agreed to it last month. Within hours, Foxconn said it would
postpone finalizing the deal after new information provided by Sharp included about ¥300 billion in possible liabilities for restructurings and layoffs, people familiar with the matter said at the time. Last week Foxconn again said it would delay the agreement in order to review Sharp’s performance in the current quarter, said people with knowledge of the matter. Foxconn’s lawyers and bankers have sorted through the contingent liabilities and concluded earlier this month they will likely not require major changes in the board-approved deal, people familiar with the matter have said. The Taiwanese company is taking extra precautions with the period’s financial results because of the last-minute notice about the liabilities, the people said. Bloomberg News
Hong Kong Occupy Central leader disbands student-activist group
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ONG Kong pro-democracy group Scholarism has dissolved more than a year after the student group’s protests against the government sparked the city’s biggest challenge to Chinese
rule since it was returned in 1997. Scholarism, which was among the leaders of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central movement in late 2014, was disbanded on Sunday, it said on its official Facebook page. Joshua
Wong, the teenage cofounder and the most recognized face of the movement, will form a new political party in April. “In nearly a year of discussion and reflection, we’ve realized that
Scholarism needs to change its way of inter-crossing political movement and student movement,” Scholarism said in a statement. Its status as a student organization makes it hard to participate in
long-term political reform, it said. Scholarism’s Wong was among three student-activists whose arrest by police triggered demonstrations by students and supporters demanding electoral reform. The
protests lasted for almost three months and ended when public support faded. “Hopefully in the near future, we can still see each other on the streets,” Scholarism said. Bloomberg News
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Monday, March 21, 2016
The World BusinessMirror
IS suffers blows in Iraq, Syria but still launches attacks
IN this March 9 file photo, Popular Mobilization forces chant slogans against the Islamic State group, as Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi tours the frontline in Anbar, Iraq. AP/HADI MIZBAN
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AGHDAD—After months of losing ground in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State (IS) group is showing signs of wear and tear, and its opponents say they have seen an increase in desertions among the extremists. But the jihadis appear to be lashing back with more terrorist and chemical attacks. Under a stepped-up campaign of US-led and Russian air strikes, as well as ground assaults by multiple forces in each country, the jihadis are estimated to have lost about 40 percent of their territory in Iraq and more than 20 percent in Syria. At their highest point in the summer of 2014, the group had overrun nearly a third of each country, declaring a “caliphate” spanning from northwestern Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad. At that time, the extremists were riding high, known for their courage, experience, readiness to die and brutality. Now, those battling them on the ground say they appear to be flagging. “What we are witnessing is that Daesh are not as determined as they used to be,” said Lt. Col. Fares al-Bayoush, commander of a Syrian rebel faction, using an Arabic acronym to refer to IS. His 1,300-strong Fursan al-Haq Brigade has been fighting against IS and Syrian government forces for more than a year. “Now there are members who surrender, there are some who defect. In the past they used to come blow themselves up,” he said. A Palestinian-American member of IS recently gave himself up to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, but, so far, the reports of desertions are mostly anecdotal. Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama’s
envoy to the US-led coalition fighting IS, said this week at a conference in northern Iraq that IS desertions have increased recently and more are expected, but he did not provide figures. Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said IS is experiencing a phenomenon he’s witnessed in other extremist groups that begin to lose territory. “You’ve seen more and more reports of defectors just broadly, and you’ve also seen more reports of internal killings of so-called spies,” Watts said. “As they lose ground and retract, you start to see these fractures emerge in the organization.” The IS setbacks began over a year ago, when the fighters were forced out of the northern Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani by local Kurdish forces backed by US-led air strikes. Last December the predominantly Kurdish US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) under cover of intense coalition air strikes seized the Tishrin Dam, which supplies much of northern Syria with electricity. In the weeks that followed the forces gained control of more areas. In all of 2015 the jihadis lost 14 percent of their territory in Syria, according to IHS, an analysis group that monitors the conflict. In the past three months, they lost another 8 percent, a sign that the ero-
sion is accelerating. The IHS figure roughly matches an estimate of a 20-percent loss given this week by US Secretary of State John F. Kerry. In February alone, the SDF said it captured 2,400 square kilometers (927 square miles) consisting of 315 villages, including the IS stronghold of Shaddadeh, on the main road linking the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the “caliphate.” SDF Spokesman Col. Talal Sillo said the command will meet soon to plan for another offensive in northern Syria. In Iraq IS territorial losses have been more gradual. Coalition air strikes have cleared the way for ground forces to reclaim towns and cities from Sinjar in the country’s north to Ramadi in the west. The coalition estimates that between the launch of the air campaign in August 2014 and January 2016, IS has lost between 21,000 to 24,000 square kilometers (8,100 to 9,200 square miles), about 40 percent of the Iraqi territory it once held. Calls for a stepped-up campaign intensified after IS claimed responsibility for the November 13 Paris attacks that left 130 dead, and the October 31 downing of a Russian jetliner from the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 onboard. Deadly attacks in Turkey by IS that killed scores of people also spurred Ankara to tighten its closure of the border, making it difficult for the extremists to cross into Syria. In an effort to squeeze the group’s finances, coalition and Russian warplanes in Syria began increasingly targeting IS oil assets last November. IS has since had to cut salaries and benefits for fighters. Last week Iraqi, Syrian and US officials confirmed that prominent IS military leader Omar al-Shishani died of his wounds from a US air strike in northeastern Syria earlier this month. US special forces also recently captured the head of the IS unit researching chemical weapons in Iraq, and air strikes have targeted
the group’s chemical weapons infrastructure. “As bad things start to happen, the less motivated, less disciplined, less radical elements of the force break and run,” US Army Col. Steve Warren said. “We’re going to keep seeing this.” The US estimates that as of last month, IS fields 19,000 to 25,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria—down from an estimated 20,000 to 31,500—a number that was based on intelligence reports from May to August 2014. A US official said the decrease reflects the combined effects of battlefield deaths, desertions, internal disciplinary actions, recruiting shortfalls and difficulties that foreign fighters face traveling to Syria. Still, these developments do not necessarily make IS less of a threat. In both Syria and Iraq IS has launched some of its deadliest suicide attacks in recent weeks, as well as a number of chemical weapons attacks. On February 22 a triple suicide bombing in a Shiite suburb of the Syrian capital killed at least 83 people and wounded more than a hundred. In neighboring Iraq a suicide truck bombing south of Baghdad killed 61 and wounded 95. In the northern Iraqi town of Taza an IS chemical weapons attack last week killed one person and wounded more than 600. IS also launched a coordinated assault on the northern Syrian border town of Tal Abyad and nearby villages. In days of fighting, 47 SDF fighters and 140 militants were killed, according to the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group that tracks all sides of the conflict. Watts said that if IS can’t use battlefield victories to rally its supporters, it will turn to terrorist attacks. “In terms of being a conventional army that can take territory, they are less dangerous,” Watts said. “But if your worry is regional and international terrorism they’re going to be more dangerous.” AP
Coast Guard: 9 Cuban migrants die, 18 rescued off Florida
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IAMI—Nine Cuban migrants died at sea and 18 others were rescued by a cruise ship after their 30-foot boat was found about 130 miles from the Florida coast, the US Coast Guard said. The migrants were severely dehydrated when they were found on Friday and said they had been at sea for 22 days. The bodies of those who didn’t make it were placed overboard, Coast Guard Petty Officer Mark Barney said. The survivors were in bad condition. “They could barely walk off the
vessel itself,” Barney said. “They were weak and they were shaking.” The rescue by the Royal Caribbean ship took place about 130 miles west of Marco Island in southwest Florida. The migrants were in a “rustic” boat that was about 30-feet long, Barney said. They were found by the cruise ship Brilliance of the Seas at about 7 a.m. on Friday. The migrants boarded the ship and received food, water and medical treatment, Royal Caribbean said. The company reported the event to the Coast Guard and made the decision
to bring the migrants to its next port of call, Cozumel, Mexico. The cruise had departed Tampa on Thursday. The rescue comes as President Barack Obama travels to Cuba to meet with President Raul Castro during on a two-and-a half-day visit that begins on Sunday. The visit is part of Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. While the US has eased travel restrictions to the island Cuba, many Cubans still risk their lives to reach the US. “The Coast Guard has observed a steady increase in illegal maritime
migration attempts from Cuba to the southeastern US since the US announcement of normalized diplomatic relations with Cuba in December 2014,” the Coast Guard said in a press release. Last month 269 Cuban migrants attempted to reach US shores and about 2,420 have tried to reach the US by sea since last October. On the same day Royal Caribbean rescued the group it found, the Coast Guard returned 42 other migrants to Cuba after they were picked up in the Florida Straits in two separate incidents earlier in the week. AP
Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • news@businessmirror.com.ph
Chinese governor’s false claims highlight rampant deception
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EIJING—A Chinese governor’s rare admission of having given a misleading account about the plight of coal miners has prompted new laments among the public about pervasive deception practiced by China’s bureaucracy, with even state media calling on officials to be more truthful. Heilongjiang Gov. Lu Hao’s assertion that 80,000 miners at his province’s largest mining company had been fully paid triggered an angry protest by the workers. The governor soon backtracked and pledged to pay back wages. His candor won some applause, but it also reignited questions online and even in state media about how he could have been so easily misinformed on such an important matter. “There’s hardly any thread of authenticity these days in the reports from subordinates to their supervisors in the government, and the superiors shall, by no means, believe any of those reports,” wrote Hua Yuxi, a Chinese blogger. “Their statistics, their work summaries and their achievements are all fully inflated.” The incident came just months after the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that officials in China’s northeast admitted they had inflated economic data, apparently to meet targets and impress their superiors. In one case, a county in Liaoning province inflated its fiscal revenue by 847 million yuan ($131 million) for 2013, state auditors reported last year. Xinhua said local governments had cooked the books to cover up fabricated data on everything from economic growth to investments, consumption, trade, urban projects and urban incomes, before investigators and cooperating officials uncovered the scam. “Although officials at all levels know the dangers of inflated statistics, they feel they have no choice when they feel the pressure from performance evaluation, regional competition and promotions for themselves,” Xinhua said. The deceptions harken back to some of the darkest periods in recent Chinese history, particularly the 1958 to 1961 Great Leap Forward, when communes were rapidly formed and the communist government vowed to surpass the West economically and show the superiority of its socialist system. In answering to Beijing’s hopes and demands, village cadres across the country
80,000 Number of coal miners the govt said had been fully paid
massively inflated their reported yields of wheat and rice and the lies were trumpeted in state media. The lesson was costly as the government took possession of what were thought to be vast grain surpluses, contributing to a famine that claimed an estimated 30 million lives. Six decades on, discussion of that tragedy remains largely taboo and official deceptions show no sign of departing the ways of Mao Zedong and other communist elites, who considered that the truth had to be malleable in the service of the socialist cause. Even Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has reportedly spoken of his distrust of official information. Quoted in a US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, Li, then a provincial Communist Party secretary, described Chinese economic statistics as “man-made” and “for reference only,” saying he preferred to look at raw data, such as electricity consumption, bank loans and the cargo volume moved by railways. No less than the party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily, reported last year that local cadres in an unnamed Chinese village ordered children to drape themselves in white fertilizer bags and pretend to be a herd of sheep to please higher ranking officials on a poverty reduction inspection tour. Then came the gaffe by Lu, who was speaking during the annual national legislature in Beijing on the challenges of orderly reducing the payrolls of the province’s largest publicly owned mining company, Longmay Mining Holding Group Co. Ltd., which has been hemorrhaging cash and cannot make timely payments to its more than 200,000 employees. Lu claimed Longmay made sure that 80,000 miners weren’t owed “even a cent.” The remarks seemed aimed at showing that Longmay and the provincial leadership were meeting the central government’s expectations for competently handling economic challenges. AP
PROTESTERS BLOCK MAIN ROAD TO TRUMP RALLY IN ARIZONA
TRUMP protester Bryan Sanders (center, left) is punched by a Trump supporter as he is escorted out of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally at the Tucson Arena in downtown Tucson, Arizona, on March 19. MIKE CHRISTY/ARIZONA DAILY STAR VIA AP
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HOENIX—Protesters blocked a main highway leading into the Phoenix suburb where Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump staged a campaign rally on Saturday, just days ahead of the Arizona primary. Tempers flared at the rally itself, but without the violence that marred Trump’s event in Chicago a week earlier. He never goaded the protesters as he usually does at campaign events. For hours, about two dozen protesters parked their cars in the middle of the main road to the event, unfurling banners reading “Dump Trump” and “Must Stop Trump,” and chanting “Trump is hate.” Traffic was backed up for miles, with drivers honking in fury. The road was eventually cleared and protesters marched down the highway to the rally site, weaving between Trump supporters who booed and jeered them. Trump was in Arizona to campaign ahead of Tuesday’s primary in which the winner will take all 58 delegates at stake. Polls show Trump leading his rivals in Arizona, a border state where
Trump’s hard-line on immigration has drawn support from Republican voters. Trump was introduced at the rally by Joe Arpaio, the tough-talking sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and nearly two-thirds of Arizona’s population. Arpaio has supported harsh measures to deal with immigrants living illegally in the US. He has forced inmates to wear pink underwear and live outside in tents during tripledigit Fahrenheit (temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius) heat. Trump’s main rivals, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are desperately trying to prevent the real-estate mogul from accumulating the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination at the party’s national convention in July. They are hoping for a contested convention in which delegates would be freed to turn from Trump if he fails to win a majority on the first ballot. Trump has won 678 delegates in contests held thus far, according to a count by The Associated Press. Cruz is in second place with 423 delegates, and Kasich is in third with 143. AP
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The World BusinessMirror
Monday, March 21, 2016
A7
Eyeing new future with US, Cubans await visit by Obama
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AVANA—Eyeing a new future with the US, Cubans are preparing their famed capital for a long-awaited visit by President Barack Obama, who will make history when Air Force One touches down in Havana. Obama’s visit to the tiny island nation beginning Sunday will serve as a powerful symbol of the relationship that the US and Cuba are now forging. For Obama, the twoand-a-half-day trip offers one of the last, best chances to advance the diplomatic opening with President Raul Castro before Obama leaves office early next year. A head of Obama’s ar r iva l, American flags were raised in parts of Havana alongside Cuban flags, an improbably image for those who lived through a half-century in which the US and Cuba were bitter foes. Cubans were hard at work cleaning up Old Havana and giving buildings a fresh coat of paint, as the city buzzed in anticipation of Obama’s visit. Yet, while Obama remains a popular figure in Cuba, the jubilation that surged here in the early days of detente has been tempered by the absence of tangible improvement in most people’s lives. In a reminder of how tightly Cuban society is still controlled, the Castro government announced a virtual shutdown of Havana during Obama’s stay, and few Cubans expected to see him in person. “I don’t think things are going to improve here,” said Rosa Lopez, 52-year-old food stand worker. Gesturing at her worn-out sandals and soft drinks for sale, she added, “all this is here, in this country, and the United States is way over there.” Still, the historic significance of Obama’s visit was impossible to overlook. Not in nearly 90 years has a sitting American president visited Cuba. Joined by his wife and daughters, Obama will stroll the streets of Old Havana and meet with Castro in his presidential offices. He’ll join baseball-crazed Cubans for a historic game between their beloved national team and Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays. Obama will be closely watched for signs of how aggressively he’s pushing Cuba’s communist leaders on the very issues that led the US to isolate Cuba for the last halfcentury: human rights, democracy and economic reform. Though Cuban officials have warned Obama
against meddling, the White House insists he’ll use his visit to speak directly to Cubans about possibilities for a different future. To that end, Obama will meet with dissidents critical of Castro’s government. Aiming to show that Obama was traveling on his terms, the White House emphasized that Obama—not Cuba’s government—was deciding which dissidents would attend. At home, Obama has faced intense criticism from some Cuban-Americans who see his outreach as a disgraceful embrace of a government whose practices and values betray much of what America stands for. That’s increasingly a minor it y v iew among both Cuban-Americans and the broader US population. Ahead of his trip, Obama further lifted restrictions on Cuba, easing travel restrictions for Americans and restoring Cuba’s access to the global financial system. Cuba, meanwhile, announced plans to lift a 10-percent conversion fee on US dollars. And on Saturday, US hotel chain Starwood signed a deal to renovate and run three Cuban hotels, returning American hotels to the island more than 50 years after Fidel Castro’s socialist revolution. T he W hite House a lso released a video of Obama bantering with Cuba’s most famous comedian, in a direct appeal to Cuban humor and pop culture. Luis Silva plays the elderly fellow Panfilo in a wildly popular show that often uses biting humor to comment on social reality and the government’s shortcomings. Yet, supporters of warmer ties are concerned that as American travel to Cuba increases, the US trade embargo that Congress has refused to lift will force American businesses to cede opportunities to competitors overseas. “If we don’t lift the embargo, we’re going to be sleeping in European hotels and eating Chinese food,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat-Minnesota, one of dozens of lawmakers traveling with Obama, said in an interview. Illustrating the tensions surrounding the visit, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez rebuked Obama ahead of the trip for suggesting that he would use the visit to promote change. Invoking the 1959 revolution, Rodriguez said Cubans had already “empowered themselves decades ago.” AP
US supports threatened UN Western Sahara peace mission
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A S H I N G T O N —T h e United States has declared its support for the threatened United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, after Morocco took steps to reduce its size and terminate $3 million in funding. At the same time, US State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement released on Friday night that Washington considers an autonomy plan put forth by Morocco for the territory to be “serious, realistic and credible.” Kirby said the Moroccan plan “represents a potential approach that could satisfy the aspirations of the people in the Western Sahara to run their own affairs in peace and dignity.” He reiterated that the US continues to back the peacekeeping mission and “the UN-led process designed to bring about a peaceful, sustainable and mutually agreed solution to the conflict in the Western Sahara. “ K irby’s statement comes at a time of an escalating dispute between Morocco and the United Nations over Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that Morocco annexed in 1975. Morocco fought Polisario Front rebels
seeking independence for Western Sahara until the UN brokered a cease-fire in 1991. The UN peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym Minurso, was established to monitor the cease-fire and help organize a referendum on the future of the vast, mineralrich territory. But the referendum has never taken place because of disputes over voter lists. Morocco considers Western Sahara its “southern provinces” and has offered the region autonomy, but the Polisario Front insists on selfdetermination through a referendum for the local population. Morocco accused UN Secretar y-General Ban K i-moon of bias in the conf lict after he used the word “occupation” to describe the territorial status of Western Sahara during his first visit to refugee camps in Algeria for the Sahrawis, as the region’s native inhabitantsare known. Morocco responded by organizing a march by up to 1 million people through the capital, Rabat, last Sunday. Ban’s Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that Ban told Morocco’s foreign minister on Tuesday that the huge demonstration in Rabat was “disrespectful” to the secretary-general and the UN. AP
EXILED Tibetans register their Green Books, a document required for voting, as they wait to cast their vote to elect the next prime minister and parliamentarians in Dharamsala, India, on Sunday. Tens of thousands of Tibetan exiles are voting around the world on Sunday to elect a new prime minister and parliament for a second time since the Dalai Lama stepped down as head of the government in 2011 to focus on his role as a spiritual leader. AP/TSERING TOPGYAL
Thousands of exiled Tibetans vote for govt shunned by China
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HARMSALA, India—The prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile called on Sunday for China to engage in dialogue on autonomy for his people’s homeland, as tens of thousands of Tibetans around the world voted for new leaders of a government that Beijing does not recognize.
Budd h i st mon k s i n c r i m son robes lined up along with hundreds of Tibetan men and women in schools, government buildings and the courtyard of the Tsuglakhang Temple in India’s northern city of Dharmsala, where the exiled government is based, to cast their votes for prime minister and parliament. They started to line up early Sunday, carrying their “Green Books”— passport-size booklets that record their paid taxes and are mandatory for Tibetans to be eligible to vote. The voters stood patiently, at times for more than an hour, as they waited for their turn to mark their choices on ballot papers printed with the images of the two prime minister candidates. Elderly Tibetans carrying walking sticks and rosaries were assisted by government officials in voting. The ballot boxes were fashioned out of painted tin boxes with hinged lids. Separate boxes were marked in Tibetan for the election of the prime minister and for parliament.
80k
Registered voters among Tibetans in exile
It was the second election since the Dalai Lama stepped down as head of the government-in-exile in 2011 to focus on his role as the Tibetans’ spiritual leader. Some 80,000 voters were registered, and results are expected next month. Lobsang Sangay, the incumbent pr ime minister, arr ived with his young daughter to cast his vote at a polling booth in a government building. “The dialogue [with China] will be the main initiative,” Lobsang, who is running for reelection against parliamentar y speaker Penpa Tsering, told reporters. “I hope Chinese President Xi Jinping in his second term in 2017 will look at
the Tibetan issue and take the initiative” to hold talks with Tibetan exiles, he said. Lobsang added, however, that the reality on the ground “is repression.” China doesn’t recognize the Tibetan government-in-exile, and hasn’t held any dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama since 2010. “ We ne ve r re cog n i z e t h i s so - c a l led gover n ment - i n- e xile,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang said at a reg ular news conference last Thursday in Beijing. “We hope that all countries in this world, especially those that want to maintain friendly relations with China, will not provide facilities or venues for any anti-China, separatist activities by the so-called Tibet independence forces.” China says Tibet has historically been part of its territory since the mid-13th century, and the Communist Party has governed the Himalayan region since 1951. But many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of their history, and that the Chinese government wants to exploit their resource-rich region while crushing their cultural identity. The Dalai Lama and his followers have been living in exile in Dharmsala since they fled Tibet after a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Both prime minister candidates support the “middle way” approach advocated by the Dalai Lama, which calls for seeking regional autonomy under Chinese rule. Some Tibetan groups advocate independence for Tibet, since little
progress has been made in dialogue with China. But their representatives couldn’t win enough support in the first round of voting last year to be in the running for the prime minister’s post. “There has been little discussion about the future of Tibet,” said Bhuchung D. Sonam, a Tibetan writer. “For example, how the two candidates would approach the issue of Tibet in terms of talking to China.” Lobsang said he wants India’s government to recognize Tibet as a core issue of its policy. New Delhi considers Tibet as part of China, though it is hosting the Tibetan exiles. He said Tibet has become more of an issue for India, and mentioned New Delhi’s concerns over the falling water levels of the Brahmputra River, which flows from Tibet into India, as well as plans for a railway link. “In that sense, I think Tibet is becoming an important issue not just simply for human rights, but also from a geopolitical point of view, an environment point of view and from a climate-change point of view,” he said. Exiled Tibetan officials say at least 114 monks and laypeople have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule over their homeland in the past five years, with most of them dying. US government-backed Radio Free Asia puts the number of self-immolations at 144 since 2009. Beijing blames the Dalai Lama and others for inciting the immolations and says it has made vast investments to develop Tibet’s economy and improve quality of life. AP
Facebook’s Zuckerberg meets China’s propaganda chief
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EIJING—Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a rare meeting last Saturday with China’s propaganda chief, at a time when Chinese authorities are tightening control over their cyberspace. Liu Yunshan told Zuckerberg that he hopes Facebook can share its experience with Chinese companies to help “Internet development better benefit the people of all countries,” the official Xinhua
News Agency reported. Zuckerberg was in Beijing to attend an economic forum. China has called for the creation of a global Internet “governance system” and cooperation between countries to regulate Internet use, stepping up efforts to promote controls that activists complain stifle free expression. Facebook and other Western social media, including Twitter, are banned in China. Zuckerberg has
long been courting China’s leaders in a so far futile attempt to access the country with the world’s largest number of Internet users—668 million as of last year. China has been increasing control over its Internet, dubbed the Great Firewall, because it is already heavily censored. Liu, a member of the ruling Communist Party’s top leadership panel, the Politburo Standing Committee, recently said all Internet users
must not cross the “ baseline” when discussing China’s governance. Chinese censors have introduced a slate of new regulations to better enable them to police digital and social media as closely as traditional publications. The country’s top Internet regulator has repeatedly warned that an untamed cyberspace would pose a risk to domestic security and the government should decide who to allow into “its house.” AP
Business
TO RIDE THE A8 Monday, March 21, 2016
The life of Ambassador Antonio L. Ca
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B J P S | Special to the BusinessMirror
O ode to a successful man will ever be complete without paying tribute to the woman behind his great accomplishments. This is no truer in breath and scope than in the life of Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua, chairman emeritus of the ALC Group of Companies. His mother, Dominga Lim Chua, had occupied a special spot in all that the ambassador had achieved, with nary a thing left to claim for and by himself. It is, therefore, no surprise that this beloved matriarch had left her imprint in all that the ambassador learned and achieved in the last 81 years. The story to end all stories of his success started years before the Second World War. Tomas Chua, a middle-class businessman, met the young and beautiful Dominga Lim before the war. In the ensuing love affair came their only child, Antonio, who was born out of wedlock in 1934 at the Philippine General Hospital. Antonio was named after Saint Anthony de Padua, his mother’s patron saint. Their life as a family stood relatively peaceful and comfortable, until the day Tomas Chua was reassigned to Apalit, Pampanga, to manage a lumber business. Even in his absence, the family hardly lacked for daily necessities. Tomas sent mother and son adequate amounts of money and rice that Dominga spared what was more than necessary for neighbors in need. The supplies were such that even when war broke out with the Japanese, a time when life was fraught with hardship for most Filipinos, the family had more than sufficient food and resources. Thanks to the young boy’s enterprising mother, they hardly lacked for anything. But as soon as the war knocked on their very door, their enjoyment of relative comfort drastically changed. The father had disappeared and the resources and supplies dried up. Rumor had it that Tomas Chua had been seized by Japanese officers, and killed for supporting the guerrilla resistance. To quote the ambassador’s biographers, Jose “Pete” Lacaba and Eric S. Caruncho in the book Antonio L. Cabangon Chua: The Continuing Saga of Success: “Alarming rumors began to reach Dominga that her husband had been arrested by the Japanese on suspicion of being a guerrilla. Later, she
received the news that he had been executed, though this could not be confirmed, nor was his body ever recovered.” As mother and child coped with thinning resources and the father’s absence, the world around them began to tighten. Soon after, the Japanese military campaign reached Malate in Manila. To avoid risking capture or abuse, both mother and child fled to Barrio Vergara near the Pasig River, leaving the life they once knew. Life had been one difficult spree to the next. While the arrival of the Americans promised liberation for most Filipinos, all that Dominga and the young Antonio experienced was toil after toil. Both mother and child’s travails were nothing short of the agonies of Calvary, as the ambassador would later describe it. Antonio was 10 years old in 1945, the year of liberation, and at that young age, circumstances forced him and Dominga to make both ends meet. Learning from the enterprising spirit of his mother, Antonio took on various menial jobs as shoeshine boy, wash boy for the GIs, vendor of dried fish and pan de sal, newsboy and janitor. At the Namayan Primary School (now Isaac Lopez Elementary School), where he was enrolled for primary education, the boy would be seen walking to school barefoot. Their poverty had reached a point where even 30-centavo wooden sandals, which the young Antonio had begged his mother to buy, were too expensive to own. He bawled, wept and cried to get his mother to free him from the pain in his feet. But when Antonio saw his mother weep quietly for lack of resources, he immediately
knew he needed to do something. It was one of several low points in their life together, but nothing that the two cannot manage to somehow turn around. Early on, Antonio learned the rudiments of survival, even raising the money to pay for rent when her mother lay confined in a hospital. He learned to catch fish from the Pasig River by digging out worms for bait from empty lots somewhere in Santa Ana. Dominga, who hardly cooked a meal in her young life, took on the task of whipping up sugared coconut patties (bukayo) to sell. After fleeing to an area the Americans had occupied—the barefoot Antonio walking for miles—both mother and child worked as clothes washers for the GIs. Antonio had asked an old man to craft a shoeshine box for him so he can add to his daily keep by shining the shoes of American soldiers. National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, as quoted by Lacaba, said: “In Joaquin’s biography, Tony sounds like a Filipino Huck Finn, describing how he would dig in the mud for little worms, with which to bait his fishhooks, and how he immediately gutted the catch and flayed the fish for drying. He also raised chickens in his backyard, ironed clothes at night, sold ice drops—whatever it took to pay the rent and survive, he would do.” Food was nowhere scarcer than in their little rented home. Antonio would at times go for hours and days without a bite to eat, leaving him in an almost debilitating state of starvation. Tony later described himself as thin, of dark skin and a weak constitution. One afternoon, while shining the shoes of an American officer, the
ALC timeline EARLY LIFE AND EMPLOYMENT
■ 1910: May 12—the day Tony’s mother, Dominga Lim Chua, was born. ■ 1934: Tony was born, out of wedlock, to Tomas Chua and Dominga Lim at the Philippine General Hospital. ■ 1945: Age 10, enrolled in Namayan Primary School (now Isaac Lopez Elementary School). The succeeding years saw the child Tony working as shoeshine boy, wash boy for GIs, seller of dried fish and pan de sal, newsboy, janitor, mechanic and jeepney driver, among others. ■ 1947: Left Namayan Primary and worked at China Dragon Curio Store, Plaza Goiti, Santa Cruz.
Enrolled at Anglo-Chinese School in Quiapo for one year through the help of the bother of his father.
■ 1948-1949: Left Anglo-Chinese School in Quiapo to enroll for 5th and 6th grade at Santa Ana Elementary School. Returned to Mandaluyong and started a sarisari store business on Luis, Segura Street, Barangay Namayan. ■ 1950: Studying in high school at the Cosmopolitan College in Santa Ana. ■ 1952-1953: Took exams at La Salle College and passed. But since he lacked credits for other subjects, he enrolled at the Philippine College of Commerce and Administration (currently the University of the East). Eventually graduated high school with a UE diploma, completing high school in three years.
■ 1953: At 19, he entered college through a commerce course in UE. Also enrolled in Feati University for a preparatory engineering course (eventually dropped out of Feati due to the heavy academic load). ■ 1953-1954: Shifted to vocational courses, i.e., automotive and diesel mechanic at Guzman Institute of Technology. This, in turn, led Tony to purchase a jeep that plied the Santa Ana, Paco and Pandacan routes. It was during this time when he also enrolled in Bohol Colleges, where he took up steno and typing.
boy noticed the man munching on a pear. He had not taken a single bite for a whole day, thus his unwitting display of interest in the fruit. The officer noticed the boy’s stares and asked, rather crudely, if he had eaten anything. Antonio said no. Without warning, the officer hurled the half-eaten pear to the ground, summoning Antonio to pick it up and eat it. Tony wanted it, but he held back his hands for reasons of dignity. He had learned from his mother not to belittle himself despite the pangs of hunger. The boy refused to budge. The officer kept on nudging him, until the GI kicked the boy in the face. All Antonio could do was run to a corner and weep. The lessons learned by the young Antonio during the years of survival proved vital to his rise in the world, but such lessons did not come easy. Each lesson learned was hard fought. They were brutal trainings heaped by people who were, at best, hostile to him and his poverty. At another time, the boy came home with nothing to eat the whole day. As Antonio searched the small rented hut for some food, he saw a milkfi sh stashed in the makeshift cupboards. The modest hut made of nipa, which mother and child shared with another couple, was empty at the time. The boy took the milkfi sh and ate it, thinking it was reserved for him by his mother. Only later did he find out that the milkfish belonged to the other couple. Antonio’s mother flew in a rage. He would, decades later, describe the incident as one of the most unforgettable in terms of what he had learned from it. He saw his mother, Dominga, suffer that day from a mixture of wounded pride and shame, anger and self-pity. The mother, for the first time, scolded and beat the young Antonio for taking someone else’s food. It was on that very hour when the boy promised himself to do everything necessary for his mother never to suffer humiliation again. All this time, Dominga never gave up on Antonio’s education. From the Namayan Primary School, the young Antonio later jumped to other schools with the assistance of some members of the larger family. He was an avid student, working alongside his mother while studying. By the end of the 1940s, he finished primary school at the Santa Ana Elementary. Too, Dominga had raised enough savings to return to Mandaluyong and there put up a sari-sari store. While their life together had
CPA exam, where he failed in his first try. ■ 1957: Got his first commission as member of the Philippine Constabulary (he eventually reached the rank of full colonel in the late-1970s). ■ 1958: Reviewing for his second CPA exams. But before taking it, he already went into his first business venture—a pawnshop.
EARLY BUSINESS VENTURES
■ 1956: Tony graduated from UE with a Commerce course, major in Accounting.
■ 1958-1959: Tony put up office at the Manila Stock Exchange, where he worked to get mining companies listed in MSE.
■ 1956-1957: Got a job at J.S. Zulueta and Co., the only time he worked as an employee. He was also in the middle of taking his
■ 1959: Opened his first business—Filipinas Pawnshop—1135 along Herran (currently Pedro Gil Street) and
yet to turn for the better, things were already moving in their favor. This was up until the store started experiencing its attendant problems. Many neighbors bought supplies on credit, which made earning on time difficult for Dominga. One particular man bullied the mother to supply him with drink— a bottle of gin—sans any plan of paying up. When Antonio heard about it, he immediately grabbed his balisong, a local butterfly knife, and challenged the man to leave. Their situation was no less precarious than the days of the Japanese Occupation, but Antonio had also grown up, this time with a courage to contend with anyone’s show of force. By the early 1950s, Antonio had enrolled in high school at the Cosmopolitan College in Santa Ana. Then he thought of taking the entrance exam in La Salle College. He passed the exam, but since he lacked units in other subjects, he chose to enroll at the Philippine College of Commerce and Administration (currently the University of the East). He graduated high school at UE, completing the four-year stint in three years’ time. At 19, Antonio entered college through a commerce course at UE. At the same time, he crossenrolled at the Feati University for a preparatory engineering course. Still working alongside his mother, Antonio eventually dropped out of Feati due to the heavy academic load. He shifted to vocational courses, like automotive and diesel mechanic, at the Guzman Institute of Technology. It was during this time when he also enrolled in Bohol Colleges to take up steno and typing. In 1956 the young man graduated from UE with a Commerce degree, major in Accounting. Tony, as he was now fondly called, took the first big step to his rise to success: his knowledge of automobiles led him to purchase a passenger jeep that plied the Santa Ana, Paco and Pandacan routes. In conjunction with his work as a jeepney driver, Tony also got a job at the J.S. Zulueta and Co., the only time he worked as an employee. In the middle of it all, Tony grabbed the first chance he got to take the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exams. He failed on his first try. It was a crucial time for Tony to prove himself to his mother, that he can do what he had promised himself to do: Save his mother from a lifetime of misery. The failure to pass the CPA exam on his first try was a foolish one in Tony’s estimation. The heavy workload, coupled with some boyish infatua-
General Luna in Paco, Manila. ■ 1959: December 24 was the day Tony married Benny Angeles, who hailed from a Protestant family. They were married at the Central Church. ■ 1960: At 25, Tony became a member of the Pawnbrokers Association. It was also during this time that he passed his second CPA exam. October of the same year, on the 11th, the couple’s first child, Willie, was born at De Ocampo Hospital. ■ 1961: Started his nightclub businesses at 26 going on 27. ■ 1962: December 4, near noon, Dominga Lim Chua passed away from cancer. The wake was at the Namayan Barrio Chapel. She was buried at the Mandaluyong Catholic Cemetery.
tion, brought him face to face with his first failure, one he miserably regretted. Thus, the determination to go at it once more. This time, he made himself a CPA. Alongside the prudence Tony had cultivated after years of living just to survive, his tenacity intensified. Tony scarcely knew how to surrender, to hang up the gloves. As life began to slowly turn to his favor, the young man began thinking of making it big in the world. Even as a student, Tony would recount decades later, he was already being eyed as a leader. His motley gang of friends felt in him a natural drive to lead, to take responsibility for his decisions and actions, to never surrender in the face of tremendous odds. And even as the odds were stacked against him, Tony soldiered on, mindless of consequences, using common sense and a pragmatic way of looking at a situation as his weapon. All this he had seen and learned from his beloved mother. Before reaching 25, in 1959, Tony—the shoeshine boy, wash boy, jeepney mechanic, fi sh and bread vendor, janitor and certified Jack-of-all-trades—opened his fi rst legitimate business venture with the help of friends: the Filipinas Pawnshop at the corner of 1135 Herran (currently Pedro Gil Street) and General Luna in Paco, Manila. By the end of the year, Tony wedded Benny Angeles, who hailed from a Protestant family. They were married at the Central Church. After a year, Tony stood as a member of the Pawnbrokers Association of the Philippines. On October 11, 1960, their first son, Willie, was born. The world of profit and business was nothing new to Tony, but the world of profit through sheer greed was. In his search for more lucrative business ventures, he chanced upon an idea that seemed viable at first. Only later did he realize that such a venture can turn against him at any moment. In the early 1960s, years after he put up his pawnshop business, Tony leaped into the nightclub scene. His first venture was the Golden Key, an exclusive men’s club. The business did not turn out as expected. But before that, his mother Dominga, beloved of his life, succumbed to cancer on December 4, 1962. She was buried in a small public cemetery in Mandaluyong. Soon after, Tony received his first commission as member of the Philippine Constabulary. Shortly after the Golden Key, he opened a movie-productions company called Perlas Productions
■ 1960-1963: Opening of the Golden Key Exclusive Night Club; he also opened during this time a movie-productions company called Perlas Productions with Frenie Amoranto. When Golden Key ran into trouble and eventually closed, three other night clubs opened: Red Carpet, Red Key and The Sinner. Each one eventually closed shop.
NEW BUSINESS VENTURES ■ 1964: He set up the Hillcrest Hotel Inc. ■ 1965: The start of the Bermuda Motel business along the corner of Highway 54 (now Edsa) and Shaw Boulevard. ■ 1966-1968: Tony took up courses at Creative Learning Institute.
■ 1965-1969: Tony joined the mining business under Rizal Mining and ran the company for seven years. ■ 1971: Tony bought the majority shares (50 percent) of Piltel. ■ 1971-1972: Began operating Aquarius Casino for a year. Martial law was declared in September 1972. By the time Tony has already ventured into logging in Palawan (Roxas town and El Nido) under The Palawan Wood Enterprises (he managed it as treasurer). ■ 1972: The month of October. Tony presented himself for six months of active duty in the military when he returned from Palawan to Manila. ■ 1973-1974: Built Orchids Fishing Industries Inc. on June 13 (big-time fishing).
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Monday, March 21, 2016
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Cabangon Chua with friend Frenie Amoranto. Tony had been an avid fan of the movies during his young life. On rare occasions when mother and son had some spare time, they would see a movie together at Mandaluyong’s old Riverside Theater, which Tony later bought to jump-start his own string of movie houses. Golden Key, however, ran into trouble and finally closed. But three other nightclubs opened: Red Carpet, Red Key and The Sinner. Each one eventually closed shop. The 1960s and 1970s saw Tony’s leap from one business venture to another. These were the years when his “Midas Touch” ran full throttle. From the Hillcrest Hotel in 1964, Tony expanded by buying other hotels and motels. As expected, he ran into some difficulties along the way. His motel business almost did not see the light of day when fringe groups opposed it on “moral” grounds. He had sought the help of friends, who directed him to certain media personalities who may be able to lend a hand. Truth to tell, he had meant his first motel business to cater to foreign patrons, particularly the Japanese bigwigs working on a project for the Pasig River. He explained his side to then columnist Amado Hernandez, who later would become National Artist for Literature. Tony said that whatever “immoral” acts are done in motels were also being done in big hotels, and the place itself can never be “immoral.” Hernandez wrote a column on the matter, taking Tony’s side in the argument. His friendship with Hernandez opened to Tony the door of the media industry. His motel-hotel business flourished. This led him to look into other ventures that included mining, commercial fishing, communications, lumber and oil exploration. Tony would later build the Eternal Gardens Memorial Park Project. Within five years, the project became the fastest-selling memorial park in the country. By 1980, Eternal Gardens was making an average of P3 million in monthly sales. By 1984, it sold P10 million worth of memorial lots in just one place: Biñan, Laguna. Shortly after this momentous achievement, Tony formed the Health Maintenance Inc. (HMI), which led to the creation of the Fortune Care business. He bought Fortune Insurance, thereby organizing Fortune Life and Fortune Care, including the auto dealership General Cars (Gencars). He now had the means to purchase the majority shares of Supercars (franchised dealer of General Motors). By the end of 1984, Fortune Life and General Insurance Co. became the first holder of a composite license in the country. His work to propagate the canonization of Blessed Lorenzo Ruiz
■ 1974: On October 28, two months after his 40th birthday, Tony set up his flagship company: the ALC Commercial and Industrial Corp. ■ 1974: Transferred residence to Wack-Wack. ■ 1976: Kicked off the Eternal Gardens Memorial Park Project. Within the next five years, Eternal Gardens became the fastestselling memorial park in the country. ■ 1977: Gave up Rizal Mining to join a new mining company: Montana Mineral Resources. This led Tony into oil exploration in the Bondoc Peninsula. ■ 1979: Met novelist and journalist Celso Carunugan, who later introduced Tony to Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin during a
opened the way for him to pay Pope John Paul II a visit in Rome. On June 12, 1985, he presented the pope a replica of the Brown Madonna. Based on the biographies written by Nick Joaquin, Pete Lacaba and Eric Caruncho, Tony had a secret dream— to be an artist. His penchant for the arts proved it—that in many ways he also wanted to be an artist—a writer, sculptor, painter. In the midst of running his businesses, he would spare some hours with writers and journalists, and employ the works of numerous artists for his businesses. In his youth, he wrote poems in Filipino, a sort of tribute to a bloodline that included a great-grand uncle who stood as a popular poet in his day. This secret dream led him to put up a media conglomerate that was to rival the biggest in the country. The early 1990s saw him putting up the Philippines Graphic and Mirror magazines, Headline tabloid and his most ambitious project: the BusinessMirror newspaper. Amid all this, he also published View, Pilipino Mirror and operated under the Aliw Broadcasting Corp.’s DWIZ882 and a number of other radio stations years later. CNN Philippines came under his wing in 2015. For such dreams to find completion, Tony also embarked on the need to recognize the people behind the effort. The Philippines Graphic each year awards exemplary literary works and their authors through the prestigious Nick Joaquin Literary Awards. It is now on its 26th year. The Catholic Mass Media Awards also came under Tony’s wing, which bestows recognition to outstanding personalities in the field of print and broadcast media. Fortune Life created the Gintong Parangal (The Gold Prize), an award-giving body out to reward the contribution of Filipino teachers to national development. In 2003 Tony did not escape the watchful eye of the government. For his exemplary contributions to national development, he was assigned by the Philippine government as ambassador to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, or Laos. His appointment was confi rmed in July of the same year. He was conferred the Gawad Lakan Tagkan Award from the city of Makati also in 2003. Years later in 2006, he was named one of 60 Most Outstanding Alumni of the University of the East during the university’s 60th Foundation Anniversary. A year later, Tony launched a scholarship for Laotian students enrolled in Philippine universities. This was also the year he began developing the Batulao Monte Grande Resort. In 2007 the city of Mandaluyong conferred on him the Order of Tatlong Bayani: a Laoreano Gonzales Award in the Field of Business and Media. One is always hard put to write a panegyric for a man whose life had
breakfast meeting at Villa San Miguel on Shaw Boulevard. It was also at this time when he embraced the image of the Transfiguration of Christ as a symbol of Eternal Gardens, whose sculptor was National Artist Napoleon “Billy” Abueva. ■ 1980: Tony bought a 1-hectare lot on Pasong Tamo, built a building there and named it Dominga III. His first was located on Shaw Boulevard, Pasig City, and the second along Makati’s Legaspi Village. Also bought the Winston Motel and the Daisy. ■ 1980: Eternal Gardens was averaging P3 million in monthly sales. By 1984, it sold P10 million worth of memorial lots in just one place: Biñan, Laguna. ■ 1981: Tony became active in propagating the canonization of the
been, at the very least, complex. In order for the piece to be perfect, one must see the subject in his imperfection as a man, and there erect the skyscraper, which was his life. Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua was many things to many different people, but in all his efforts, he was never anything but the dutiful son to his mother, Dominga. His last wish marked him as a man with deep-seated passion, when he chose to be buried beside his mother in a public cemetery fronting the San Felipe Neri Parish in Mandaluyong. While Dominga Lim Chua never saw her son rise to prominence in the field of business and media, the ambassador showed his gratitude to his mother by helping thousands of people in need. The untold wealth he shared was never anything but an expression of gratitude for all he had learned through his mother. Tony was, till the end, the son of Dominga, the beautiful and courageous woman who saw his son through war and peace, hunger and thirst, pride and prejudice. Tony’s Midas Touch, a clear reflection of his mother’s courage in the face of overwhelming odds, had turned their misery around to form his golden rule: “Sipag at tiyaga.”
Joel Pablo Salud is currently the editor in chief of the Philippines Graphic.
■
recently beatified Filipino Christian martyr Lorenzo Ruiz. In September of the same year, the image of the Beato Lorenzo, a statue commissioned by Tony for artist Boy Caedo to sculpt, was inaugurated. ■ 1984: Tony was named Insurance Man of the Year by the Second Annual Consumers Awards. He also unveiled in November this year the monumental image of the Transfiguration of Christ at the Eternal Gardens in Dagupan City. ■ 1980-1985: Built the Health Maintenance Inc. (HMI), which led to the creation of the Fortune Care business. At this time, he also bought Fortune Insurance, thereby organizing Fortune Life and Fortune Care, including the dealership Gencars. Also bought the majority shares of Supercars (franchised dealer of General Motors). By the end of 1984, Fortune Life and
General Insurance Co. became the first holder of a composite license in the country. ■ 1985: On June 12 Tony traveled to Rome to present to Pope John Paul II a replica of the image of the Brown Madonna.
MEDIA BUSINESS AND RECOGNITIONS ■ 1986: A month before the People Power I revolution, on January 31 Tony’s Brown Madonna Press Inc. (BMPI) was registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission. By August 31, 1993, BMPI’s authorized capital rose from P2 million to P50 million. ■ 1986: Earlier this year Tony launched his Headline tabloid, which he ran only for three years; after which he published Oh magazine, patterned after the US
publication W. It ran for two years. ■ 1986: Chosen as Outstanding Citizen of Mandaluyong in the Field of Business. ■ 1989: The month of July saw the birth of the newsweekly publication the Philippines Graphic magazine with its first editor in chief National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin. In premartial-law days, the title Weekly Graphic was an institution in English publications in the country, together with the Free Press. Tony later on launched the Mirror magazine. ■ 1990: Tony started the Bulacan operations, the year when Benjamin Ramos also came in as his administrator. In October of the same year, Tony acquired the 7-hectare property at Meycauayan wet market.
■ 1997: Started construction and development of the Citystate Center in Pasig City, a joint venture between the ALC Group of Companies and Leow Siak Fah, a Singaporean investor. In the succeeding years, he was able to convince the investor to invest in the acquisition of the Cherry Blossoms Hotel and the Tower Hotel in Ermita, Manila. ■ 1999: Adamson University conferred on Tony the Degree of Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, on December 16. ■ 2002: Outstanding Manilan Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership, June 24. ■ 2003: Tony was assigned by the Philippine government as ambassador to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, or Laos. His appointment was confirmed in July of the same year.
■ 2003: Conferred the Gawad Lakan Tagkan Award from the city of Makati. ■ 2005: Tony launched his most ambitious media project: The BUSINESSMIRROR, a daily business newspaper. Later on, View magazine was also launched. ■ 2006: Named as one of 60 Most Outstanding Alumni of the University of the East during its 60th Foundation Anniversary. ■ 2007: Started a scholarship for Laotian students enrolled in Philippine universities. This is also the year they began developing the Batulao Monte Grande Resort. ■ 2007: Conferred the Order of Tatlong Bayani: Laoreano Gonzales Award in the Field of Business and Media by the city of Mandaluyong.
Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror
A10 Monday, March 21, 2016
Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua
THE SEARCH FOR A LOST MALAYA
THE colorful streets of Unesco World Heritage-listed George Town, Penang
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WAS searching for a Malaya that no longer existed in the speed of 21st-century Kuala Lumpur, so I headed straight for the historical port of Melaka in western Malaysia. At the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum in this town, I gazed at the great divider of this rich Peranakan home fronting the gates. It was made out of dark wood and delicately carved into sophisticated symbols that these Chinese merchants had brought to their Malay households. I saw the peepholes through which the nyonyas (unmarried females of Peranakan families) looked through whenever male visitors came to call on business. The young maidens were not allowed out of the house, so I learned, and were dressed in the finest ChineseMalay ensembles. I heard about their lifestyle, even saw the traditional Peranakan kitchen and how these families once-a-upon-a-time dined. I was able to imagine how meals were prepared in a massive kitchen in the back of the house, with a mill ready to make rice paste for finer dishes that required it. Six generations ago, the museum I was in had been purchased by a wealthy Chinese merchant. The Dutch occupation had left behind a slew of long and winding homes
that men like himself plucked up with finances from the rubber-tree plant trade at the time, and it was in homes such as these that the Peranakan culture of Chinese husbands and Malay wives began. This social fusion would prove to be so rich, that it also gave birth to nyonya cuisine, which is a mixture of Malay and Chinese ways of cooking and eating. Declared a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site in 2008, Melaka lay only about 130 kilometers southeast of Kuala Lumpur by land. It was a successful trading post in the 8th century. I was left in awe, as I traversed historically preserved Heeren Street during the day, and soaked in all the madness that was the Jonker Walk Night Market as twilight swept over the city. Heeren Street was characterized by its fantastic windows and awnings. It left me feeling as if I had been transported back in time to an era when the Chinese-Malay families ruled the district, and the white gold (the rubber industry, or white
MORE eateries and activities just off Jonker Walk Night Market
latex from the rubber-tree plant) wealth of the Peranakans was what kept the streets vibrant. Heading to George Town in Penang was also worth the trip, some 360 km north of Kuala Lumpur. Even the drive across the bridge that connected the mainland to Penang Island was a sight worth seeing. The infrastructure was put up in 1985. The island has seen a major boom in development since then. I expected charming colonial architecture all throughout, but post colonial countries have a way of hurriedly building up, and a sight of skyscrapers greeted us as we rode into town. George Town was also given the Unesco World Heritage listing in 2008, and though it takes work to traverse the modern-day massive boulevards, it is well worth the effort to look for the street art that dot several corners of the map, livening up the historical district. There were several clan houses that captured my imagination: Khoo Kongsi was the grandest of them all. The Khoos are a Chinese family able to trace their lineage back 25 generations. Expect a walk through a smorgasbord of opulent chinoiserie, replete with symbolisms of carp turning into dragons, images of unicorns that are a sign of good luck, and other visual invitations for an influx of wealth and prosperity. For those interested in Chinese culture and folklore, this is a wonderful place to gaze at fine examples of their art and beliefs. I was even impressed to discover an entire room full of gold plaques labeled with each family member’s educational achievements.
Mystery Manila Easter at Manila Hotel
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N Easter like no other! Share the joy of Easter with family and friends as The Manila Hotel partners with Mystery Manila for the first time for an Extraordinary Easter celebration on March 27 at the newly renovated Fiesta Pavilion. Mystery Manila believes in challenging people for them to be able to experience new things and look for creative solutions to difficult problems, thus, broadening their imagination. This Easter Sunday, a fun and one-of-a-kind experience awaits guests as activities will require prowess, wits and skills in search of hidden golden eggs scattered all around The Manila Hotel. This is not your usual Easter egg hunt, as participants must first search for clues and complete different kinds of challeng-
es, such as puzzles and mysteries. Team work is the name of the game and a little strategy, as well! Delicious afternoon snacks will be prepared and served by the chefs of The Manila Hotel. Egg painting, cupcake decorating and other fun activities await the guests. Special prizes include three days and two nights stay with buffet breakfast for two, an overnight stay and a breakfast buffet for two at one of the well-appointed rooms of the hotel and a dining privilege at the famed Café Ilang-Ilang. Mystery Manila Hotel Easter ticket are priced at P1,300 net (kids) and P1,900 net (adults). Prestige members will be entitled to special discounts. Registration will start at 11 a.m. For ticket inquiries and purchase, please call our Concierge
Team at 527-0011 local 7. Patrons looking for a perfect city destination this Holy Week break need not travel far to enjoy the hot summer sun, the tall tropical trees, the stunning view of the bay and a large inviting swimming pool where you can relax and unwind. Guests can book the Holy Week Retreat Room Package from March 21 to 27. For P8,500 net per room per night, the package includes staying in one of The Manila Hotel’s Superior Deluxe rooms with complimentary buffet breakfast at the Café IlangIlang for two persons, as well as P1,000 spending money to sample the Hotel’s restaurant offerings. As a treat, guests availing this promotion get one complimentary ticket to the kiddie Easter Egg Hunt activity.
MASJID Kapitan Keling Mosque was built in 1801, George town, Pulau Penang (Penang Island)
ICE-CREAM rolls frozen right in front of you, making its preparation part of the indulgence and experience, at Jonker Walk Night Market.
A REPLICA of the historic Melaka Sultanate Watermill, representing the glorious days of trade through Sungai Melaka (Melaka River).
Several cartoon steel pieces (by Sculpture At Work Studio) are part of George Town’s thoroughfares: part of a 2010 governmental effort to have the streets pop with occasional bits of informational and humorous art about local customs of the country. What really melted my butter was the artwork of Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic, who in 2012 was part of George Town Festival’s feature for breathing new life into the historic avenues of George Town. Make sure to grab a map from your hotel and walk around town to search for Zacharevic’s art: They are such a hit that dozens of visitors line up to take photographs of and with the artwork. They are also quite imaginative, as he sometimes utilizes three-dimensional objects from life (a motorbike, for example, or a children’s swing) and paints human figures interacting with
these objects. Hunting for his images through the streets of Penang makes for a fantastic art escapade. The Pinang Peranakan Museum, Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s Penang Base and the magnificent, unmistakably blue Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion were more of what made George Town for me a fanciful trip to a time long gone. Just imagine the sheer significance of walking through the very rooms that Sun Yat Sen once sat in and delivered speeches, or see where wealthy Peranakan families lived, married and conducted their business. Pinang Peranakan Museum was a grander version of the Baba & Nyonya Museum in Melaka. These two foundations proved to be a perfect complement to each other during my cultural heritage trip. Seeing both of these museums in towns that were related in history (Melaka had been a natural port of
Traveling made easy B E V. D
T
RAVELING doesn’t have to be complicated. Going on a trip together should not be a hassle. No traveler likes long queues at the bus terminal, waiting for hours for that one bus to pick you up or being a chance passenger, unsure whether you’ll finally be leaving for the next trip. In fact, seeing new sights and sounds should be a breeze, a scenario that should really put a traveler at ease. Fortunately, Biyaheroes, a group dedicated to a seamless online system, makes it easy for travelers to book and monitor reservations that sets all of these scenarios to rest. “We started Biyaheroes because we want to address the public transportation problems in the Philippines, particularly on provincial trips,” says cofounder Mirra Reyes. “Lines are usually long with no spe-
cific departure times, and reservations have to be done at the actual terminals, too. We decided to build a company that offers a fresh and proactive take at old problems and make commuting something fun and easy to do.” Biyaheroes at www.biyaheroes. com addresses the pain points of commuting, such as long lines, unsure departure schedules, and having to go to the actual terminals to reserve seats. This empowers the provincial public transportation by creating a platform where reservations can be both easy and fun for everyone, believing that modernizing provincial bus transport is one of the best solutions for local travel and tourism. Plus, travelers and commuters also get freebies and points, the convenience of paying in any major bank (whether it’s online banking or overthe-counter), as well as payment
trade for centuries when the British came and wanted to develop Penang as a new area for commerce) further solidified my knowledge of Peranakan culture, and I left Malaysia completely enamoured with its fusion of Chinese and Malay ways. It was at the Pinang Peranakan Museum, in particular, that I witnessed history and architecture so delicately preserved in the heat of Southeast Asia. It was on a par with all the castles I had toured in Central Europe, when it came to the art of structural conservation. The finery of clothing from centuries past was completely intact, the furniture seemingly alive and breathing, as if each seat and table were waiting for the madam of the house to come in and sweep through the room. It was in Melaka and George Town that my quest for a long-lost Malaya leaped from the pages of my favorite books into reality. I had found a lost Malaya revived.
partners like Cebuana Lhuillier, Bayad Center, LBC, SM and more options nationwide. Interestingly, Biyaheroes also has an online chat system, where travelers can post their questions and messages, and an assistant will be available to assist travelers with their concerns immediately. With just an online service charge of 10 percent, or P50, for a booking of P500 or less, travelers can now have peace of mind and avoid the stress and the lines. Currently partnered with JAC Liner for their daily Mauban, Marinduque, Kamias and Buendia LRT trips, as well as Partas Transport for their daily Pagudpud, Laoag, Vigan, Abra, Cubao, Pasay and Sampaloc trips, more bus lines and routes are in the offing. “We look forward to offering more routes, bus lines and other modes of public transportation soon,” Reyes adds.
Tourism&Entertainment BusinessMirror
Editor: Carla Mortel-Baricaua
Monday, March 21, 2016 A11
Kochi’s vibrant past and promising future
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T has been a few weeks since my friend and I began our journey through India. From the holy Ganga River to the Taj Mahal and to the deserts of Rajasthan, the vastness of the country was overwhelming, its contradictions beautiful. The terrain was not the only thing that changed when we moved from the northern states to the south, the familiar tropical weather of home replaced the chilly days and nights. It was night when we arrived at Kochi and I could only see vestiges of a metropolis, the ascending and descending buildings of concrete and wood, the fading lights of local fastfood chains and shopping centers, while we moved through traffic. The city was asleep; I could not wait to explore the city in the morning.
Fort Kochi
SOMETHING felt familiar as I walked around Fort Kochi; the hot and humid air was not the only thing that reminded me of home. The presence of Catholic churches, the Saint Francis Church and Santa Cruz Basilica, was a refreshing sight, after seeing several Buddhist and Hindu temples in all our stops in India. The Rajah of Kochi granted the territory to the Portuguese in 1503,
STRIKING and attractive makeup of the performers brings the folk dance to life.
after Alfonso de Albuquerque’s forces helped him fend off the attacks of Saamoothiri of Kozhikode. The conquistadors stayed for 160 years
them in photos. They went about their business in their fishing boats, their lives in tune to the slow, yet perfectly timed harmony of nature. At the end of the trip, I said goodbye to our friendly boatman and boarded the van back to the city, returning to the frenetic pace of the world.
Experiencing Kochi
KATHAKALI’S detailed hand gestures and facial expressions are integral to the performance.
before the Dutch captured the area in 1683 until 1795, destroying relics and institutions built by the Portuguese. The region changed hands for a third time when the British ousted the Dutch and stayed until the end of foreign control in 1947, after the declaration of Indian independence. The foreign influence in Kochi was not only Western. The vestiges of trade with China lined the beach, their towering fishnets a reminder of a vibrant history and culture. The more I explored, the more I thought of the Philippines. The portside town, the brown-sand beach, the tropical weather, Catholic churches, and the Chinese and Western influences were all fragments of home. Kochi is a city, like several of the Indian cities we’ve been to, on the cusp of development. I took a ferry to another island that contrasted with the rustic Fort Kochi. The boat passed by towering cranes, large
CHURCH life in Kochi is close to home.
cruise ships and vessels for trade waiting for departure. As the ferry docked, skyscrapers and shopping centers were all around us. The semblance of its former trade with several countries in Asia and the West was just as it was on the other side. I felt like I was moving through two worlds simultaneously.
Backwaters of Kerala
RIGHT in between modern and old Kochi is the Backwaters of Kerala, an interconnected network of lakes, inlets, canals and rivers. The winding and labyrinthine system of waterways that connect a number of cities and towns are often the beginning and end of cruises offered as tours. My friend and I took the day trip, instead of spending the night in a houseboat. Saying that the cruise
was slow is an understatement; the languid movement of our boat mimicked the surroundings, the unhurried dance of the trees and the whisper of the wind. It did not help that the air was humid. However, I later realized that the languorous beat of the boat allowed me to enjoy nature and its beauty, without the hurried gaze of a distracted, fastpaced lifestyle. The towering trees and verdant surroundings snaked through wide and narrow canals. We passed through waterways with only nature around us, the beeping of cars and buzz of people far away. We passed by friendly locals eager to get a glimpse of tourists pointing their cameras, while others balked at the idea of strangers capturing
KOCHI has a rich and vibrant performing-arts history that dates back centuries ago; Kathakali and Kalaripayattu. Kathakali is a classical Indian dance and drama noteworthy because of the makeup of characters, detailed costumes, and well-defined body movements and gestures synch with the music. I was mesmerized as the performers told a story using their hands, rhythmic dancing, and displayed various emotions with their eyes. Tracing its roots to almost 1,500 years ago, it combines several ritual folk dances. Kalaripayattu is an ancient martial art that dates back to the 1300s AD, and is one of the oldest fighting systems in the world. The dancelike, fluid movements displayed the strength and flexibility of the athletes onstage. The offensive and defensive stances were on display as the performers used bare hands, swords and shields to demonstrate precision and power. I only managed to scratch the surface during my trip to Kochi. However, the fragments that I saw gave me a glimpse of a region prepared for the future, but firmly planted on its vibrant history and culture.
Science Monday
Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph BusinessMirror FILIPINO SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS HAVE A KEY ROLE IN MAKING SCIENCE WORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT A12 Monday, March 21, 2016
‘S&T is the prime mover for natl progress’
‘H
S S T
OW do you spur innovation?” Science Secretary Mario G. Montejo asked this question to scientists at the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP) 83rd General Assembly and Research Conference on March 16 held in Pasay City.
Montejo highlighted in his speech the country’s history, and related it to the people’s mind-set of having a better technology if applied with foreign influences. He said building a healthy scientific ecosystem can move the Philippines to greater heights. “In science and technology [S&T], our quest for self-realization and independence begins with the recognition of the key role of our own scientists and engineers in making science work for sustainable national development,” Montejo said. “S&T, after all, is the prime mover for national progress.” With the projects the Department of Science and Technology has completed and supported, it was evident that Filipino scientists and engineers have pushed these projects to a success, he said. Montejo said breakthroughs in agriculture, such as the carrageenan growth regulator for higher yield in rice farming; the Project Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH), which has saved lives in many occasions, and the Diwata microsatellite program, which will be launched in a few weeks’ time, were all the works of Filipino hands and minds.
With the new government administration expected in a few months, Montejo said he is not worried. “It’s the [S&T] ecosystem that is now [making] innovation thrive,” he said in a news conference after the opening ceremonies. He added that if the country cont inues t he moment u m of producing breakthroughs every year, very soon, the Philippines’s scientific structure and community will be self-sustaining. “Many of the elements are in place and with the push of everybody, very soon not really that far, it would happen.” “We must rely more on our scientists and engineers to come up with innovation and breakthroughs that address national problems and increase productivity,” Montejo said. He lauded the NRCP and urged the organization to continue to come up with more innovations and breakthroughs, and implement them in more areas in the country.
More projects in the pipeline
FOR NRCP President Filemon A. Uriarte, he is hoping that budget will be increased. The initial budget of the NRCP for research is about P25 million, and its overall budget is over P40 million.
SCIENCE Secretary Mario G. Montejo (center) answers questions of reporters at the news conference after the opening ceremonies of the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP) 83rd General Assembly and Research Conference on March 16 in Pasay City. With Montejo are guest speaker Rajesh Sharma (left), managing director of Ion Exchange, a water-treatment manufacturing company; and NRCP President Filemon A. Uriarte.
In addition to this, the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development is granting the NRCP with P75 million for the next three years. Another P10 million would come from the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, and P10 million from the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development, both for research and development. “The budget alone is not the complete picture, because we are also getting money from other sources, and we are using it to support research in universities,” said Uriarte in an interview with the BusinessMirror. He also added, “We are giving it out to universities and researchers for their work.” Uriarte also told the BusinessMirror
that more projects are expected as positive results are given. “Filipinos should expect new projects for the coming years, and these are comprehensive,” he said. One of these projects is a research on the Lake Lanao. “We are looking at the social, the water quality, the ecological, terrestrial and aquatic aspects [of the lake].” The NRCP is funding the work of scientists from four universities involved in the project of getting a comprehensive look of the Lake Lanao. “The Lake Lanao is a very important ecosystem in Mindanao. [It flows] into the Agus River, and the Agus River is used for energy. It is necessary to preserve the integrity of the Lake Lanao in order to continue [its services],” including fishing, recreation and as a cultural symbol of the local community, he said.
How to transform your coffee into a wonder drug
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OF F E E l o v e r s of t he world know that their morning cup contains a substance to be reckoned with. Caffeine is so effective at juicing our energy and productivity that until 2004, its intake was restricted by the International Olympic Committee. But the original performance-enhancing drug doesn’t just provide a jolt to athletes. “In many ways, it is the drug of work,” says Stephen Braun, a medical writer and author of Buss: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine. “When caffeine was first introduced to Europe in the late 17th century, it was seen by business owners as a miracle drug that turned formerly dozy workers into productive cogs in the industrial machine.” But while caffeine is best known for its ability to keep us awake and alert—more than a few of you are likely reading this piece with a cup of coffee in one hand—research suggests it can sharpen performance across an astonishing range of tasks. As with most things, though, it’s easy to overdo it and negate those positive effects. Here’s how, and when, to dose yourself with coffee just right.
Coffee won’t help you as much if you’re tired
IT may sound counterintuitive, but caffeine, which made its name as an accessory to sleepless nights, actually works best when you’ve had some rest. This comes down to the drug’s chemistry: Caffeine mimicks the shape of a naturally occurring brain chemical called adenosine, which Braun compares to an internal “brake pedal” that allows us to turn
for the drug, serious jitters, and a slew of sleepless nights.
Grab a cup right before your brainstorming meeting (or typing test, or figure-drawing class)
DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drinks from a coffee cup, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (right), Vermont, looks on during a break in a Democratic presidential primary debate at the University of Michigan-Flint on March 6 in Flint, Michigan. AP/CARLOS OSORIO
off and fall asleep. By essentially clogging our adenosine receptors, caffeine plays defense for stimulating brain chemicals, such as dopamine, allowing them to work without the crank-down effects of adenosine. But caffeine won’t do as much for you if you’re so tired that the chemicals it’s clearing the way for are already depleted. “Caffeine will work best when you already have high levels of these accelerants, like when you’ve had a good night’s sleep or had a nap,” Braun says. “If you’re really sleep-deprived, you won’t get the full benefit of caffeine.”
Drink just enough before you need to stuff your brain with facts
ACCORDING to a 2014 study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, caffeine consumption could significantly improve longterm memory, allowing users to remember information better, and for longer stretches. In it, researchers at Johns Hopkins University gave subjects a series of images to study, along with
either a placebo or a 200-milligram caffeine pill—roughly the amount found in two cups of coffee. The next day, subjects were tested on their ability to recall the images. “We found that 200 mg of caffeine enhances memory over a 24hour period,” said Michael Yassa, PhD, who worked on the study before moving to his current role as associate professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California at Irvine. To take advantage of this effect, Yassa suggests consuming moderate amounts of caffeine before you need to absorb large amounts of information. And lest you be fooled by click-baiting blog posts that promise a single best time and dose of caffeine to get the biggest impact, Yassa said different people handle caffeine in different ways, and there is no universal ideal dose. “Just like every other pharmacological agent, caffeine has a U-shaped curve with higher doses impairing performance,” Yassa says. Not to mention the potential for increased tolerance
COULD caffeine make people more willing to collaborate? Maybe, according to a 2009 study published in Nutritional Neuroscience. In it researchers in Hong Kong asked participants to play a game in which their willingness to cooperate would directly benefit somebody else. Subjects who had consumed 150 mg of caffeine via coffee showed significantly more willingness to cooperate than those who were given decaf. The more researchers look into caffeine, the more benefits they seem to find. And they’re only now beginning to understand the drug’s wide range of effects and possible uses. “This is such a broad-spectrum drug,” Braun says. “Other stimulants are more surgical in their effects. But caffeine is working with the adenosine system, which is all over the freaking brain, so it’s not surprising that you see effects with things like creativity, typing speed, data-processing speed, and mathematical computation.” According to Yassa, research suggests caffeine could be associated with increased longevity, a reduction in cognitive decline in men, and even help with Alzheimer’s in mouse models. If these results bear out in further studies—Yassa and his collaborators are currently looking into its possible use as an Alzheimer’s intervention—caffeine could be prescribed for a lot more than staying awake and alert. Bloomberg News
Sustainable and environment friendly innovation and breakthroughs
BESIDES the projects and breakthroughs, more important, Filipino scientists and engineers are urged to develop cuttingedge technologies that are also env ironment-fr iend ly. R ajesh Sharma, managing director of Ion Exchange, a water-treatment manufacturing company, and guest speaker at the 83rd NRCP General Assembly, spoke of environmental approaches in developing technologies. Sharma said scientists, engineers and innovators should look into the cost and the environmental impacts of technology. He said increasing productivity without harming the environment and the health of human beings should be the focus of technology. As
an example, Sharma cited mobile phones, which are handy, but when disposed of, have drastic environmental effects. “It has items which are not safe for environment. So when we develop technology, we should also develop a solution to handle the technology, so the environment is not impacted,” he said. Sharma lauded the current breakthroughs of Filipino scientists. “I was very impressed to hear that these work have been done,” he said in an interview with the BusinessMirror. “The good thing is there is a lot of awareness now. It is the time we would all realize that whatever we are doing, it should be in the direction where we will have a very little impact on the environment, and we do work which is sustainable. I think, we all owe this to our future generations.”
Acetaminophen useless against osteoarthritis pain, study says
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ITH this week ’s release of new guidelines aimed at driving down prescriptions for opioid pain medications, a new analysis of published research studies has found that, in older patients with osteoarthritis, acetaminophen provides no more pain relief and improvement in day-to-day function than does a placebo. The study, published on Thursday in the journal Lancet, found that several nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) had high probabilities of improving arthritis pain of the hips and knees. But only three of those found most effective—150 milligrams a day (mg/day) of diclofenac (a prescription drug marketed as Voltaren, Cambia and Cataflam); 1,000 mg/ day of naproxen (marketed over the counter as Aleve and Naprosyn); and 1,200 mg/day of ibuprofen (marketed over the counter as Motrin, Advil, Nuprin)—are available in the United States. Tw o ot he r N S A I D s fou nd highly effective in the current study are not available in the US. They are etoricoxib (Arcoxia), which was denied approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2007 but is marketed in Europe, and rofecoxib (Vioxx), which was withdrawn from the US market in 2004. Two other NSAIDs, lumiracoxib (marketed as Prexige in only a few Central American countries) and Celecoxib (a prescription medication marketed in the US as Celebrex) did not fare, as well, in the analysis.
At daily doses of both 200 mg and 400 mg, Celecoxib, which is widely taken by arthritis patients in the US, was found to reduce arthritis pain and improve function only marginally when compared with a placebo pill. The analysis, conducted in Sw it zerl and, folded toget her the findings of 74 randomized trials of painkillers conducted between 1980 and 2015 and ref lected the response of 58,556 study participants. In July 2015 the FDA issued orders that all NSAIDs sold in the US warn that patients taking these medications increase their risk of heart attack and stroke. Those risks appear to rise with longer use of those drugs, the agency warned. That makes those medications appropriate for short- or mediumterm use, the authors noted. But while they can treat pain episodes, these medications aren’t generally recommended for ongoing treatment of chronic pain. The new analysis, which pooled data from 74 randomized trials published between 1980 and 2015, underscores the dilemma that physicians face in treating patients with chronic pain conditions such as osteoarthritis. In a commentary also published in Lancet on Thursday, Dr. Nicholas Moore notes that the study’s most remarkable result is that acetominophen (called paracetamol in the United Kingdom) “does not seem to confer any demonstrable effect or benefit in osteoarthritis, at any dose.” Los Angeles Times/TNS
Green Monday BusinessMirror
Monday, March 21, 2016 A13
www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion
CSOs, govt close ranks to protect Tañon Strait
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SCIENCE Undersecretary Rowena Cristina L. Guevarra (second from left) leads the groundbreaking ceremony of the University of the Philippines (UP)-designed toxic-free processing plant for small-scale mining operation in Barangay Nabunturan, Compostela Valley. LYNN TALINGDAN
GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY OF A PROCESSING PLANT FOR A SMALLSCALE MINING OPERATION
Toxic-free gold, copper processing
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B M T. C | Mindanao Bureau Chief
ABUNTURAN, Compostela Valley—A mercury- and cyanide-free processing of gold ores was introduced recently for the fund-strapped, small-scale miners, with the new processing technology that could include extracting copper, offering new avenue for additional income source.
The fourth University of the Philippines (UP)-designed processing plant for sma l l-sca le mining operation had a groundbreaking with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) on Tuesday in interior Barangay Katipunan in this town. Five of the town’s sitios have been subjected to gold prospecting in the last decade, and many tunnels have been abandoned owing to meager gold output per several sacks of ore. Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevarra, DOST undersecretary for science and technology services, said all four processing plants—with the three others in Benguet, Albay and Caraga—were still prototypes to be tested before they would be finally used for full operation. The DOST spent P120 million for the four plants, which would use organic liquid solutions under a generally categorized group of substances called separators and floaters. Dr. Herman D. Mendoza of the UP College of Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering who designed and tested the technology from 2004 to 2012, described it as alternative and innovative ,“because it would discard the use of mercury and cyanide in extracting gold from the ore that is a common practice among small-scale mines across the country.” “We are using old and existing technology for use of the smallscale miners to help them save on cost and time, and allowing them to double their recovery of gold from the ores than what their mercury and cyanide use could derive,” he said.
Gravity, flotation
THE technology would still need infrastructure, like buildings and processing tanks, Mendoza said, but unlike the carbon-inpulp tanks that use cyanide, “we would use organic solutions that coat the extracted gold from the water and float it.” “The main medium is still water, and the solutions would separate and float the gold, this time without mercury and cyanide,” he said. Unlike cyanide that is used
₧120M DOST spent for four prototypes of small-scale mining processing plants
by the sacks per processing, the solutions are used by the small bottles only, he said. “It’s one use only and would be discarded after processing,” he said. There would still be a tailings pond for extra safety precaution, like they do to the ores after they were treated with either mercury or cyanide. “But the solutions are actually organic and degrades easily. The tailings ponds would find its significance more in the ores for the remaining unextracted gold or copper, and we can subject them for another round of processing.”
Field test
GUEVARRA said she was excited with what she has monitored through the years that Mendoza and his team was designing and testing the technology in the laboratory. “We helped persuade the DOST secretary [Mario Montejo] to help pursue the technology, because we told him this is for the smallscale miners and their families,” she said. It is estimated that there are 300,000 small miners across the country. But the actual number of individuals who will benefit from possible increase in income would reach 2.3 million Filipinos, “because we would be counting also their family members.” “That possibly persuaded the secretary. And to put the fourth plant here for field test also persuaded [him] when he was told the economic windfall would help the province recover from the devastating Typhoon Pablo in 2012,” Guevarra said. The UP and the DOST said laboratory tests for high recovery of gold from the ores was 90 percent, compared to 40 percent derived with the use of mercury, and 60 percent with cyanide. Guevarra
UNIVERSITY of the Philippines (UP) Engineering professor Dr. Herman D. Mendoza bares his designed gold-andcopper processing plant that discards mercury and cyanide commonly used by small-scale miners. The UP and Department of Science and Technology held a groundbreaking for the fourth processing plant in remote Barangay Katipunan in gold-rich Compostela Valley province. MANUEL T. CAYON
said three processing plants were earlier put up in Benguet, where the partner miners’ federation would start processing their ores by the end of March, while in Caraga, the partner local government is expected to finish the plant by the end of the year. “It would take three months, starting with the first processing, to end the field test and to start the commercial operation of this plant,” Mendoza said.
Cost-effective
MENDOZA said the cost for processing would be less than what the small miners would spend to process their ores from the carbonin-pulp (CIP) plants using cyanide. Menrado Matanhay, 54, of Barangay Katipunan, said miners had to group themselves to reach the average minimum requirement of 20 tons for a single processing in the CIP. “We would chip in and spend P60,000 per processing.” “The cost per processing is lower than that because of the small solutions needed,” he said. Also, the waiting time is only one day, compared to the CIP processing of 72 hours. Matanhay said the CIP processing involved the use of limestone, then cyanide and then carbon. “Maybe it would take longer, especially if the tank operator would see that these materials have not been used up.” “It’s a huge income if we happen to hit a high-grade vein, such as one time in 2003, when I have 150 bags of ore and they produced 600 grams of gold. That was a jackpot when the buying price of gold was then P500 per gram,” he said. In many instances, the yield per sack would be dismal “that in the end I stopped and closed my tunnels.” Matanhay said he has three tunnels in the barangay, one in Purok 6 and two in Purok 5. Angelo Quintila, 23, a lso of Barangay K atipunan, had the same experience. But he did not tr y his luck in the tunnels in his village. He and his relatives went to dig in the
recently discovered mining area in Pamintaran, in another Compostela Valley town of Maragusan in 2010. “We tunneled for only three years, until the cooperative decided to stop all operations in the area because of lack of timber,” he said. “But, actually, the mining activities were stopped, because there were no more adequate deposits there.” Quintila returned to farming, planting his 1-hectare farm with 500 trees of cacao, which are now one year old. Cacao begins to yield fruit in 18 months. Quintila said he was excited with the promise of a ready market because of the still inadequate supply of this raw material for chocolates. Matanhay also returned to tilling his farm with lemons, which he said are selling well since February at P600 per 50-kilogram sack. At that price, “I am very happy,” he said.
Environment-friendly
THE sheer number of small-scale gold miners is probably explained by the rich gold and other mineral deposits in the countr y, Mindanao having the richest and largest deposits. The country’s small-scale mining account for 80 percent of the Philippines’s $32.97-billion gold production and contribution to the GNP, a 2014 Mines and Geosciences Bureau statistics said. The environmentally destructive processing in small-scale mines caused a national uproar following reports of severe mercury contamination of rivers and gulf, especially in the Davao Gulf, which is the final draining basin for two of the largest small gold-mining areas of Diwalwal in Monkayo, and Boringot in Pantukan, all in Compostela Valley. Government studies ascribed this also to the poverty impulse for driving the poor to the risky operations in the poorly built tunnels merely for daily sustenance. Dr. Anthony Sales, regional DOST director, said the new processing technology would satisfy the agency’s thrust for economic benefit for the ordinary Filipino, a social benefit for the community and the environmental sustainability of the projects. “Our projects are all about seeking the economic well-being of people. It’s not about testing only the technology,” he said. Guevarra said the original plan was to put up 10 plants, but the budget allocation hindered its distribution. “Maybe we can finally have 10 in commercial operation,” she added. “But what we hope is that other groups would find the technology worth emulating that they would put up their own, and ultimately we would have a clean environment,” she said. “And probably, that would put substance to what we always hear as responsible mining,” Guevarra said.
IVIL-SOCIETY organizations (CSOs) are closing ra n k s w it h concer ned government agencies to sustainably protect and manage Tañon Strait, the county’s largest marineprotected area, between Cebu and Negros, in the Visayas. The CSOs working in Tañon Strait have committed to provide their respective support to the Tañon Strait Protected Seascape (TSPS) Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) to implement its 10-year general management plan (GMP), in a parallel session during the recent second general assembly of the TSPS-PAMB held in Cebu City. “Our dialogue was a huge first step for CSOs to be united and work together in various areas in the critical phase of the implementation of the General Management Plan to protect Tañon Strait from all forms of threats and make it resilient,” said lawyer Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president of Oceana. Oceana is helping the government in the implementation of the Fisheries Code, as amended, to fight illegal, unreported and unregistered fishing in the country. It is looking at collaboration with both public and private sectors in the adoption of measures, such as vessel monitoring for commercial fishing. T he ot he r C S O s i nc lud e d R a re Ph i l ippi nes, Ph i l ippi ne Earth Justice Center (PEJC), Sea Knights, Tambuyog Development Center, Grassroots Travel, University of the Philippines in the Visayas and University of Cebu. Fr. Tito Soquiño, founder of the Knight-Stewards of the Sea (Sea Knights), suggested that the CSOs consider “ecologically evangelizing” the stakeholders, including the clergy, by initially briefing them on the various initiatives to protect the bounty and beauty of Tañon Strait. Soquiño said this approach would facilitate in spreading the word to their respective dioceses and, finally, to their parishioners in Cebu and Negros, who are directly dependent on Tañon Strait, particularly small fishers and their families, other rural folks and commercial fishers, including barangay and municipal officials. Soquiño cofounded the Sea Knights in 2008, initially composed of Catholic priests, whose aim is to help protect the environment. The volunteer group has since then expanded to include professionals, athletes, journalists, policemen and government officials. It conducts regular diving expeditions in Tañon Strait and in other waters in the Visayas. Rare Philippines, represented by its TSPS Program Manager Rosa Antes, said it will expand its current five project sites in Tañon Strait to 20 sites in the next four years, under its joint project with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, called “Strengthening the Marine-Protected Areas to Conserve Marine Biodiversity Areas.” Antes said Rare will continue to help local government unit partners by supporting the organizational capacity needs of their coastal-resource management (CRM) and fishery units; assist in conducting technical and management effectiveness exercises; develop and support fish-catch monitoring; facilitate coastalwater zoning exercises; develop social-marketing campaigns on sustainable fisheries use and protection; and providing policy support in managing their respective marine-protected areas. Lawyer Rose-Liza Osorio of PEJC said her group would help the TSPS-PAMB on policy and enforcement, particularly on providing capacity-building training and seminars for paralegals, including
legal and technical support for policy studies, and legal assistance. It will also help produce a primer to maximize public participation in environmental rule of law. Tambuyog, Delfa Talaid said, would keep on helping empower fisherfolk organizations by partnering with government agencies, like the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), in implementing livelihood projects. She said Tambuyog is actively partnering with the BFAR in the establishment and operation of fish unloading and trading centers in their group’s constituent sites. Boboi Costas of Grassroots Travel said his group will continue to encourage the establishment of sustainable and environmentfriendly ecotourism destinations in Cebu, in line with his task as tourism consultant of the Cebu provincial government. He said they are currently implementing a Cebu midwest community-based ecotourism project involving the five towns of Alegria, Aloguinsan, Balamban, Asturias and Tabuelan. The project is focused on conserving the natural and cultural resources of Tañon Strait and, at the same time, providing supplemental livelihood to fishers and rural folks. In August 2016 the five towns will be launched into one tourism circuit or destination, Costas said. He added that eco-tourism is one way to deter dynamite fishing, as coastal communities will protect their respective areas and dive sites from destructive fishing methods to maintain the bounty of Tañon Strait, and, thus, attract more tourists. Members of academe—Dr. Joyce Flores of UP Cebu and Edilyn Lopez of University of Cebu—have committed to conduct appropriate researches and surveys to enhance and update current baseline data on marine and socioeconomic parameters of Tañon Strait. The TSPS-PAMB general assembly business meeting was chaired by Director Isabelo Montejo of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Region 7 (DENR7). The assembly was attended by about 250 municipal and barangay officials from the Tañon Strait coastal towns and cities in the three provinces of Cebu, Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental. “We have strong local chief executives and national government agency leaders, who are sincere and dedicated in the performance of their job. The continuing support from us, and with the wealth of commitment, resources and expertise that each of our institution and organization that we represent brings in, inspires these dedicated authorities to do the mandates of their office to the best that they know how, despite the horrible and tremendous pressures that they encounter from some public servants, who still have to understand what sustainable development means,” Ramos said. Besides Montejo, the other government officials who graced the second TSPS-PAMB general assembly were DENR Negros Island Region Director Al Orolfo, Department of the Interior and Local Government Region 7 Director Rene Burdeos, BFAR Region 7 Director Andres Bojos, lawyer Chad Estrella, who represented Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III, local chief executives from Cebu and Negros provinces and Am Prospero Lendio, TSPS park superintendent “Our steadfast collaboration with the dedicated men and women from the public sector and other stakeholders will, sooner than soon, make our dear Tañon Strait, a shining model MPA not just in the Philippines, but in the world,” said Ramos, who commended the government officials, led by Montejo, for the successful conduct of the second assembly of TSPS-PAMB.
Opinion BusinessMirror
A14 Monday, March 21, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso
editorial
The Americans are coming back
I
N July 2015, we asked the question, “Are the Americans coming?” Assuming that the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) would be upheld by the Supreme Court, we then said: “The ‘devil,’ as they say, is always in the details, which are yet to be hammered out.” Now, those details appear to have been finalized. The Philippine and the United States governments announced after talks in Washington this past week that five locations would be made available for access by the US military. The locations are at Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, which faces the contested Spratly Islands; Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro; Basa Air Base in Floridablanca, Pampanga province; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija province; and Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu. We could make a “shopping list” of the reasons for and against American troops on Philippine soil. Unquestionably, the Edca and the availability of Philippine installations for the US is a step to strengthening relations between the two countries. This move is a clear indication the US and the Philippines are united in opposing Chinese encroachment on Philippine economic interests in the region, and are willing to take risks to express their position. The Philippines needs additional concrete military support from the US to shore up our defenses. Objections to the agreement are that this is a step backward in Philippine sovereignty with foreign military in the Philippines. This move will only increase tension with those insurgent groups that the government is negotiating with. China will view the US presence in the Philippines as a potential threat. We will have other “Pemberton-type” incidents. Local authorities where the bases are located have mixed views. One councilor in Cagayan de Oro expressed concern about the potential increase in prostitution, while also saying that the confidence of investors could be increased. However, although all the arguments in favor or against the plan have some merit, we see a much greater and serious issue. We can understand the desire of the Aquino administration to push forward with the details of the Edca prior to the determination on the merits of the arbitration case filed by the Philippines before the Untied Nations. But this was an unnecessary calculated risk. President Aquino has set the Philippines on a course with the US, China and our regional neighbors that he will not be around to see out and take responsibility for. President Aquino has done a terrible disservice to his successor in that whoever next occupies Malacañang will not have the freedom to change policy without making Philippine policy-making look unstable and arbitrary to both the US and China. Having the Edca upheld by the Supreme Court should have been enough to firm up relations with the US and to show the Philippines’s resolve. The US ambassador to the Philippines said movements of supplies and personnel to the base locations would take place “very soon,” and that this was “a pretty big deal.” The announcement of the specifics for implementing the Edca was the wrong decision at the wrong time. Since 2005
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Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II
RISING SUN
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ORMER Ambassador to Laos Antonio Lim Cabangon Chua was laid to rest last week in a solemn ceremony that brought to a close the life and times of a remarkable man.
“A mba ,” a s he wa s fond ly known to many, died at the age of 81 a wealthy business mogul with a diverse range of companies, from mass media to insurance. His story is typical among men who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, turning his early adversities into inspiration to achieve his high aims. His father, businessman Tomas Chua, was killed during the World War II. Amba had to support his mother Dominga Lim Cabangon and himself by working as a shoeshine boy, an ice-drop vendor, a newsboy, a pan de sal peddler and other odd jobs. He suffered abuse during this period from rich relatives and other people, and vowed that he would make a better life for
himself and his beloved mother. Amba, in fact, was very attached to his mother, who died in her 50s from breast cancer. He visited her grave at the Mandaluyong Public Cemetery every Saturday whenever he was in the country, and left the instruction that at his death, he was to be buried beside his mother. No fancy monument or grand mausoleum for him, only a simple resting place beside the person whom he loved most. That, for him, was glory enough. One of his biographies quotes him as saying, “If there is one thing I want to be remembered for, it is for [having] the love of a child for his mother,” explaining that this was in obedience to the Lord’s command to “honor thy
The 75 choices on PPP menu
Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes
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HOM
Rest in peace, Amba
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By Alberto Agra
PPP LEAD Continued from A1
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HE answers to these questions can be found on the PPP menu. Like choosing from various cuisines and dishes, PPPs involve making choices from a host of options. Like ordering in a restaurant, not everything on the menu is ordered in one sitting, but food choices can be combined. For PPPs, the alternatives revolve around what is more feasible, viable and acceptable. The project must not only be legally justifiable but must be technically feasible, environmentally compliant, socially sustainable and economically viable, as well. Further, the PPP parties must be organizationally ready. The75choicesmaybeclassifiedinto 12clusters. Herearethe“viands”onthe PPP menu:
1. Funding option n n
PPP Procurement using public funds
Contracting a loan from a government bank n All or some of the above n
2. Implementing agency National government n State corporation n Local government unit n All or some of the above n
3. PPP value drivers/reasons n Pursuant to a development strategy n Better quality of life n Resource scarcity n Innovation n Value-for-money n Risk spread and sharing n Acceleration of delivery n All or some of the above
4. PPP modality
Any of BOT law-variants n Joint venture n Concession n Lease n Management or service contract n Donation n Divestment n Corporatization n
“Amba” died at the age of 81 a wealthy business mogul with a diverse range of companies, from mass media to insurance. His story is typical among men who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, turning his early adversities into inspiration to achieve his high aims. father and mother.” “I’m not ashamed to be called a “mama’s boy,” because I was really a mama’s boy,” Amba said. “She devoted her life to me. She never thought of marrying again, and she did everything for us [to survive].” He did succeed in giving his mother a comfortable life. What was remarkable was that, with all his wealth and fame, he remained humble and unassuming, devoted to his church and family. His life is a good example of how to live life to the fullest, by harnessing our talents for good and using our resources to benefit others. Amba’s life is an interesting story to reflect on, especially dur-
For PPPs, the alternatives revolve around what is more feasible, viable and acceptable. The project must not only be legally justifiable but must be technically feasible, environmentally compliant, socially sustainable and economically viable, as well. Further, the PPP Parties must be organizationally ready.
ing our Holy Week retreat. Our Lenten recollection theme at work was “the extraordinary Jubilee of mercy,” a special event announced by Pope Francis for 2016 that is a period for the remission of sins and universal pardon. We are encouraged at this time to reflect upon God’s forgiveness and mercy. While Amba used his past experiences to propel him into a brighter future, he could not have moved on as successfully, I imagine, if he had not eventually forgiven those who wronged him. Amba, as I knew him, was a man without bitterness or rancor in his character, and I’d like to think this was because he let go, and let God. Once again, good-bye, Amba, and thank you for the life lessons you impa r ted to us by your example. May we all muse upon Amba’s story and renew our love for our parents and family, as well as strengthen our capacity to forgive and love others as God loves us. To all my readers, a blessed and meaningful Holy Week! n n n Atty. Rojas is vice chairman and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
Grant of concession Cash n Asset n Right-of-Way n Government approvals n Tax Incentives or holiday n All or some of the above n n
9. Role of government in operations n n
Active Passive (Purely regulatory)
10. Tariff mechanism Rate of return Price cap n Revenue cap n n
5. PPP project
11. PPP selection process
n
n
Hard (Infrastructure) n Soft (Social service) n Combination
Open bidding (competitive selection) Limited negotiations (when bidding fails) n Unsolicited proposal (competitive challenge) n
6. PPP Period
12.Winning Financial parameter
n
n
Long term n Medium term n Short term
7. Risk Allocation
Risk retention by government Risk transfer to private sector n Risk sharing between the parties n n
8. Government support Subsidy Guarantee n Equity n Performance undertaking n n
Highest payment to government Lowest government subsidy n Lowest tariff by end-user n Highest share in revenues n Highest purchase price n Highest rated bid (aualifications) n Lowest calculated bid/price n
Making the “right choice” is not one-size-fits-all or no-brainer exercise. There are no default choices. At the end of the process, the parties and the people must be happy with the “food choice.”
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John Kasich is wrecking the Republican Party
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Reduce the financial-statement disclosures
B J B | Bloomberg View
Filbert Tsai
OULD John Kasich be single-handedly destroying a political party? Either by helping Donald Trump win the Republican nomination or by dragging the party into an ugly contested convention, Kasich seems to be causing a lot of trouble.
DEBIT CREDIT Conclusion
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HE thick financial statements submitted each year by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a nightmare to look at. Five to 10 pages of accounting updates, which are almost similar across all companies, and a few pages added to cover the SEC requirements on disclosing related party transactions and applicable accounting standards— do they really matter? Most of the private companies in the Philippines are filing financial statements for reportorial purposes only, and adding unnecessary disclosure simply heighten the burden and increases the risks that disclosures are not accurate, for the reason that these information are not usually pulled until year-end just to disclose for financial reporting purposes.
KASICH
Serious presidential candidates normally leave the race when they no longer have a chance to win. This is an important part of how the nomination system functions. If losers drop out, then voters in subsequent states—voters who might not follow politics enough to know which candidates are serious contenders and which aren’t—won’t waste their voters on the also-rans. Winnowing is how most nomination fights are decided: Eventually, only one candidate, the winner, remains. That’s important too, because (as we’re learning now) the national conventions aren’t really well-equipped to function as decision-making bodies. Decisions are supposed to be made in the primaries and caucuses. For a nomination season that has seemed chaotic at times, winnowing has—with this one exception—proceeded exactly as one would expect. Fears that super PACs or social media or whatever else would disrupt the normal functioning of the system proved mostly unfounded. Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio: All of them proved capable of raising plenty of money, but none of them survived defeats at the polls. Except for John Kasich. The Ohio governor chose to campaign as a moderate, despite having at least as conservative a record as previous GOP candidates, such as John McCain and Mitt Romney, or as Chris Christie and Jeb Bush in the current cycle. Kasich instead campaigned as if he were Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who ran in 2012: by emphasizing his differences with conservative orthodoxy, instead of papering them over. Kasich then chose to skip Iowa and focus on New Hampshire. This strategy has never produced a nominee since the Iowa caucuses became the first contest back in 1972. Candidates don’t have to win in Iowa, but they do have to compete there. After Iowa, there has never been a point where he should have remained in the race: n In New Hampshire his 16 percent was disappointing: second place, but well behind Donald Trump, and only matching the 17 percent Huntsman won in 2016. n South Carolina (8 percent of
the vote) and then Nevada (4 percent) were wipeouts. n On Super Tuesday he lost one state he campaigned in—Vermont—and was clobbered in the other, Massachusetts. Meanwhile, he won less than 10 percent of the vote in the other nine states. n He targeted Michigan on March 8 and managed to finish third there, while ignoring (and losing) several other states in the first half of the month. n Even on March 15, when he won in his own Ohio, he failed to impress overall, placing a distant third in Illinois and worse in the other three states. Yet, Kasich’s choice to stay in the race has mattered. There’s a decent argument that he singlehandedly destroyed Marco Rubio, who almost certainly would have had many more delegates if Kasich had dropped out when it made sense to. And his current campaign makes no sense at all. Kasich inexplicably declined to debate Ted Cruz on March 21 after Trump dropped out of that debate, thus, costing both candidates a decent-sized opportunity to impress voters. Even weirder is his decision to campaign in Utah before that state’s caucuses on March 22. Utah has a 50-percent winner-take-all trigger, and is thought to be a good Cruz state. If Kasich wants a contested convention, he needs Cruz to get that 50 percent and win all of Utah’s delegates, thereby locking out Trump. The Ohio governor has other states where he should be devoting his limited resources. It’s as if his campaign strategist was a Magic 8 Ball. If only Cruz and Trump remained, it’s possible Trump would just win. Cruz hasn’t shown the ability to win the votes of anyone but the most conservative Republicans, and perhaps he can’t. T heoret ic a l ly, K a sic h a nd Cruz could coordinate their efforts to focus on each candidate’s strengths (even given that Kasich’s strengths are still largely theoretical at this point). But apparently, neither of these wouldbe Trump stoppers plays any better with others than does the man they’re chasing. All in all, Trump couldn’t have asked for a better opponent.
The list of standards issued, but not yet effective, is probably the single largest section of the financial statements showing a list of future accounting standards (until 2019) and a summary of each new accounting standard. I am really not sure of the value that this section adds to a private company’s financial statement other than a burden to ensure that all not applicable future accounting standards are well negated in each section. T hen, probably, c a sh-f low
T
ENNESSEE State Rep. Martin Daniel stirred up some outrage when he said this week that the First Amendment should give Islamic State (IS) the right to recruit on state campuses. He’s wrong about the First Amendment, which doesn’t prevent bans on coordinated recruitment. But the bill he was defending, which would create designated zones for free speech at state-funded Ten-
nessee universities, isn’t such a bad idea. The law governing free speech on campuses is much more restrictive than the law that applies on a street corner or in a park. We may be approaching a time where there would be a benefit to designating safe spaces for free speech, protected from the regulatory requirements of the Department of Education and the norms of campus life. St a r t w it h R e present at ive
statement is also another gem in the financial statements that simply results to difficulty in trying to tie all those figures through the specific notes of the financial statements. For most private companies, the cash-flow statement is simply a burden rather than a useful component for its financial analyses. Last, the most hated section for nonfinancial institutions is the requirement to disclose lengthy financial risk disclosures in the financial statement for Philippine Finan-
cial Reporting Standards (PFRS) reporters. There is a dreadful load of disclosure requirements on credit, liquidity and market risks and fair value disclosures that simply doesn’t make any sense for companies with simple financial instruments and even plain vanilla hedges. While the above sections are not yet all of the disclosures that are overwhelming, albeit, burdensome, we have to consider the value-added of these disclosures for each company. Beginning 2016 the Board of Accountancy reinforced the SEC’s reminder that auditors should not prepare financial statements. Rather, the task of preparing financial statements shall be the role of Certified Public Accountants in commerce and industry. While this is a good move and in line with ethical requirement, the key barrier to this is the cost/benefit challenge for private companies to assign a person fulltime doing reportorial disclosure requirements. The regulators should help the industry practitioners on making their life a little bit better by taking off unnecessary reportorial burdens if the goal is to ensure public compliance of good financial reporting. The increased burden to private companies to complete the financial statements and to do a thorough compliance with all the disclosure requirements under PFRS, or PFRS for Small and
medium-sized enterprise might simply be not worth the benefit (if there’s any). The United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are the forerunners of the reduced disclosure framework for accounting disclosures. There are a lot of inputs the Philippines can get by conducting a detailed study of how reduced disclosure framework had been working for the past couple of years in other countries. Probably, the most important thing here is that regulators try to identify and stratify the market and adopt necessary disclosure reductions as applicable to each market segment. Adopting a reduced disclosure framework can really help free up time and money wasted in the loads of pages included in the financial statements for disclosure purposes without any real value-added. Filbert Tsai is a Filipino financial accounting advisory services executive in the UK with specialization in transaction accounting in the power and utilities sector. He had provided accounting advice to a significant number of government and financial institutions investing or providing financing structures in the renewables sector in Europe and in developing countries. This column accepts contributions from accountants, especially articles that are of interest to the accountancy profession, in particular, and to the business community, in general. These can be e-mailed to boa. secretariat.@gmail.com.
A computer is now the master of Go, but let’s see it win at poker
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in a game where key information is hidden, and where the best players win by using the unique human skill of lying? In games like poker, Science Magazine points out, where victory depends not on pursuing the optimal strategy, but deviating from it? First, a few details of the game at the center of this week’s match. Invented more than two millennia ago in China, Go is played on a grid of 19-by-19 lines on which two players place black or white stones, attempting to build chains that surround territory without being enveloped by their opponent. Because of the size of the board and the lack of specific rules for each piece, the number of potential moves in Go is exponentially larger than in chess. The number of possible arrangements of stones is on the order of 10 to the 100th power; far more than the options that Deep Blue had to consider in defeating Kasparov. The route to victory at any point can be obscure; experts talk as though their play emerges from intuition, or even the subconscious, as much as experience. Indeed, during Sedol’s lone victorious game, DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis tweeted that AlphaGo hadn’t played a wrong move, but had got deluded into believing it was winning. Go occupies a special position in oriental life; in his clas-
sic work The Master of Go, the Nobel novelist Yasunari Kawabata spun a trenchant tale of youth vs. age, the past vs. the present, and the power of culture out of the game. The DeepMind designers’ solution to the intricacy of Go was to use an architecture known as neural networks. These mimic the structure of the human brain by creating connections that become stronger with experience— in other words, to learn. AlphaGo could test millions of options and assess their outcomes rapidly, but its design allowed it to develop shortcuts to discard all but the most promising choices. Observers found the result strikingly humanlike; the machine’s 37th move in game two was so unexpected that some commentators thought it was a mistake. Sedol left the room in shock, and later confessed, “Today I am speechless.” Does AlphaGo’s performance on Go really point to the coming dominion of learning-capable machines over us mere mortals? The idea of superintelligent machines exercising a hostile attitude toward the human race is colorful, certainly and frightening in a Hollywood fright-night feature sort of way. (The Terminator movies are the best example of the genre.) Not a few well-respected technologists, including Bill Gates and Elon Musk, have sounded the alarm. But just as many AI experts dismiss such notions. “The extraordinary claim that machines can become so intelligent as to gain demonic powers requires extraordinary evidence, particularly since artificial intelligence researchers have struggled to create machines that show much evidence of in-
telligence at all,” wrote Edward Moore Geist of Stanford last year, reviewing the very book that got Musk tweeting so nervously, Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. More likely, humans will learn how to exploit the capabilities of superintelligent machines to augment our own efforts. That’s the guess of Garry Kasparov, who in 1998 participated in a chess match in which he and his opponent both had a computer partner at their side. “Having a computer partner,” he wrote, “meant never having to worry about making a tactical blunder.… With that taken care of for us, we could concentrate on strategic planning instead of spending so much time on calculations. Human creativity was even more paramount under these conditions.” In that 2010 piece, Kasparov also drew distinctions between chess and poker. “While chess is a 100-percent information game— both players are aware of all the data all the time—and, therefore, directly susceptible to computing power, poker has hidden cards and variable stakes, creating critical roles for chance, bluffing and risk management. “These might seem to be aspects of poker based entirely on human psychology and, therefore, invulnerable to computer incursion. A machine can trivially calculate the odds of every hand, but what to make of an opponent with poor odds making a large bet?” And yet, as he observed, computers are getting better at poker already. A computer better than a human at bluffing and lying? That might be really frightening.
ing to stand up for free speech, said the answer was yes. “So long as it doesn’t disrupt the proceedings on that campus,” he said, “they can recruit people for any other organization or any other cause. I think it’s just part of being exposed to differing viewpoints.” Unfortunately for Daniel, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark 2010 case of Holder v Humanitarian Law Project that even peaceful advocacy can be criminalized under the law banning mate-
rial support for terrorism if it’s coordinated with a group on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. That includes IS. My own view is that the Holder precedent went too far. It undercut a 1969 holding that speech could only be criminalized if it was intended to incite imminent violence and was likely to provoke it. But the Holder rule is the law. So IS can’t recruit anywhere in the US Doing so would be a felony. Nevertheless, Daniel’s bill isn’t
as crazy as his legally erroneous justification (which he’s since repeated) makes it sound. You might think that the First Amendment applies with full force on state campuses. State universities are a branch of the government, which can’t suppress free speech under the Constitution. They’re not like elementary or high schools, where students’ freespeech rights are balanced against the school’s interest in maintaining discipline and order.
HE worlds of Go and artificial intelligence (AI) were both unsettled by the victory this week of an advanced AI computer over one of the world’s leading masters of the intricate Japanese board game, four games to one. It’s an achievement that experts in both fields didn’t expect to happen for as long as 10 years.
The triumph of AlphaGo, the product of a Google lab named DeepMind, over the fourth-ranked Go champion Lee Sedol of South Korea, is widely viewed as a landmark in AI much greater the victory of IBM’s Deep Blue over chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997. That result, Kasparov wrote in 2010, “was met with astonishment and grief by those who took it as a symbol of mankind’s submission before the almighty computer.” Go is a far more complex challenge than chess, so it’s unsurprising that AlphaGo’s victory is seen as bringing the era of ultimate submission that much closer. But is it? Some AI experts are cautious. “People’s minds race forward and say, if it can beat a world champion it can do anything,” Oren Etzioni, head of the nonprofit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, told Nature this week. The computational technique employed by AlphaGo isn’t broadly applicable, he said. “We are a long, long way from general artificial intelligence.” And there’s another aspect to consider. Chess and Go are both “deterministic perfect information” games, Alan Levinovitz of Wired observed in 2014—games in which “no information is hidden from either player, and there are no built-in elements of chance, such as dice.” How will a computer do
Campus safe spaces for free speech? B N F | Bloomberg View
Monday, March 21, 2016 A15
Daniel, his bill and his misstep. The bill, called the Tennessee Student Free Speech Protection Act, designates all outdoor spaces at Tennessee universities as “traditional public forums,” spaces where free speech would be protected to the highest degree under the First Amendment. In defending the bill, Daniel, a Republican, was asked by Democrat John DeBerry Jr. whether IS should be allowed to “recruit” in those public spaces. Daniel, mean-