8 minute read
Paleng-QR PH Plus is a grassroots enabler
THE marketplace is changing and at such a rapid pace that has never been seen in history with digital technologies opening up virtually limitless possibilities in innovations that will reshape the way humans will live, work, and play on a planetary scale.
The most ubiquitous evidence of how technology has changed us is the smart phone that has become the default device to connect, interact, transact, and entertain.
Now that we have survived the pandemic, we have the opportunity to build on important lessons from that crisis.
One important learning that stands out is how we quickly adopted to technology to deal with severe disruptions of those lockdowns and how the new modes of digital transactions should be harnessed to bring us to, and even beyond pre-pandemic levels of economic growth.
The President in several pronouncements has given marching orders for a government wide digital transformation and has recruited the support of the private sector to engage in partnerships to help in what essentially will need to be a systemic overhaul of the slow, linear, redundant, and inefficient government bureaucracy to a level of productivity, transparency, and efficiency of public services that consumers are already getting from private enterprises that are already adept in integrated digital solutions in their operations.
The first challenge that the government will need to act on with urgency is the updating of obsolete government laws and policies which will need strong champions to push reforms that will be very disruptive to the old ways of bureaucrats as many human touch points can be automated with cloud based applications that will accomplish processes that would typically take hours, days, weeks or even more, in a matter of minutes and without the need travel and fall in long queues in local or national government offices.
Several policy reforms have been prioritized such as the E-Governance Act, and the Digital Transaction Act, among others.
The Ease of Doing Business Law which aims to cut the red tape in getting business registration and permit renewals will need the automation of these processes for government offices to comply.
On the grass roots level, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Department of the Interior and Local Government jointly launched to bring the convenience and efficiency of digital payment platforms down to public markets, daily commuter transportation and other SMEs in all cities and municipalities.
All local government leaders should help enable their constituents... by working with the BSP in rolling out the Paleng-QR PH Plus in their local ecosystems
The idea of empowering all Filipino consumers with the ability to do daily transactions digitally came from a team of students of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños student who was one of the finalists of the BSP Youth Summit competition in 2021.
Kudos to these young innovators from UPLB: Martin Rafael Torres, Reymar Angelo Cabatu, Harper de Leon, Oliver Caile Montesar, and Paolo Nicomedes. The team’s adviser Joram Obsioma said in a published statement, “The concept was aimed at helping Filipinos face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, while promoting financial digitalization.”
Obsioma explained that “By helping palengkes go digital, we not only help market vendors protect themselves against COVID-19, but also to cope with the fastchanging financial environment-’yung hindi sila mapag-iiwanan ng mga malls and techie businesses,”.
By now, QR (Quick Response) codes are those square shaped images with an array of many squares that are uniquely arranged in
Women dance to their own beat in China’s nightclubs
released its first album in 2022.
In “Shanghai Dreams”, the label’s all-women compilation released this year, ticking, whirring beats meld with the sounds of roaring waves and blurred vocals to express what the group calls an “alluring and deceiving” mood.
T-shirts vs make-up
In the bar, one of the featured artists gave the group pointers on developing an ear for music composition.
Eva, who performs under the stage name Empress CC, said the underground electronic music scene is in some ways a refuge for women.
The 31-year-old said that in mainstream clubs, some men perceive “paying to have women drink with you “ as a status symbol.
Still, her experience as a professional music producer has shown her that even in underground circles, women must work harder than their male peers to make their mark.
“For talented female DJs to be able to make a name for themselves, it’s much harder than for male DJs who started at the same time and are at the same level,” Eva said.
More broadly, women in China must also contend with negative stereotypes of promiscuity and immorality that persist around women who frequent clubs and bars.
The band’s lead singer, Yuetu, has campaigned against sexual harassment at nightlife venues and is a firm believer in fighting for women’s rights—but she takes pains to emphasize that her music is about much more
In 2020, when a young woman’s visits to multiple bars were publicized by COVID tracers in the city of Chengdu, the flood of online vitriol and misogyny showed how widespread those perceptions can still be.
In recent years, conservative attitudes valuing women primarily for their appearance and childbearing have been increasingly reinforced by state media and popular culture.
Even in more liberal circles, Fan often felt objectified in the clubs where she and her friends cut their teeth as DJs.
“Men can put on a t-shirt, sweatshirt and shorts and be a DJ, but women (are expected to) put on thick make-up, and dress up so they look sexy and beautiful,” she told AFP.
“One of the artists from our label told me she had previously been asked for her body measurements for a show.”
She pointed to other factors behind the relatively lower number of women in music.
Parents often feel that it’s normal for boys to be “naughty or cause trouble and play,” but encourage girls to “make safer decisions,” Fan said.
Labelled
Breezy, a 27-year-old legal professional from southern Guangdong province who has contributed to a Scandal album, told AFP she was proud of the project’s overtly feminist aims.
“Scandal can help women in China realize that female musicians can also do well,” she said.
But the feminist label can be a minefield for what looks like a matrix of sorts. women trying to gain recognition as artists.
This is a familiar feature that you may see when shopping online or even in brickand-mortar stores that you can simply scan with your smart phone and fulfill your purchase.
Consumer advocacy group CitizenWatch Philippines co-convenor, former HOR Representative, Atty. Kit Belmonte in a recently published statement has called on local governments to encourage their constituents in the grassroots to shift to digital transactions, saying the benefits of technology must be felt by all.
“The use of technology should be extended to market vendors, community shopkeepers, tricycle operators and drivers, farmers and small merchants,” Atty. Belmonte said. The top payment platforms such as GCash have integrated QR codes for the ease of their users and are seeing an increase in the volume of transactions.
These has led to the substantial improvement of the ratio of banked and unbanked Filipinos which BSP 2021 figures show banking penetration at 56 perent and sees demand for financial services growing at a rate of 9 to 10 percent.
The BSP-DILG Joint Memorandum Circular issued in June 2022 already outlines the implementing guidelines and roles and responsibilities anent to the program.
All local government leaders should help enable their constituents, especially those still in the informal, micro-enterprise level and their consumers by working with the BSP in rolling out the Paleng-QR PH Plus in their local ecosystems. Beyond convenience, expansion of the Paleng-QR PH Plus program will expose more Filipinos to financial services and become integrated into the formal banking system which can open bigger and more profitable entrepreneurial opportunities.
In China, women in the public eye often explicitly disavow feminism to avoid angering fans.
Multiple people working on feminist projects involving nightlife venues in China told AFP they had attracted negative attention from authorities for their activities, and that speaking openly to foreign media about feminism would be too risky.
Under President Xi Jinping, authorities have cracked down on almost every kind of feminist activism, restricting NGOs, arresting high-profile figures, and suspending social media accounts.
In capital Beijing, the all-female rock band Xiaowang said a reductive view of women’s role in music can get in the way of their passion for loud sounds and rhythm.
The band’s lead singer, Yuetu, has campaigned against sexual harassment at nightlife venues and is a firm believer in fighting for women’s rights —but she takes pains to emphasize that her music is about much more.
“I’m not in a band just to promote feminism,” Yuetu told AFP.
Nevertheless, she said she felt “a little bit of responsibility as a female musician.”
“I hope some young girls can hear the true voice of female musicians.” AFP
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