9,400 MWInitial peak-demand fore-cast for the Luzon grid this year that was already exceeded last Friday The escalated demand for elec-tricity, amid the prevailing thin power reserves in the Luzon grid, as what was experienced last Fri-day, will likely result in higher power rates next month, at least for Meralco customers.

stocks with the NFA, then post their selling price in the electronic board, which is accessible to buy-ers nationwide. Buyers could also indicate the price they are willing to pay for the corn. If a seller and a buyer agree to a price, then the NFA would fa-cilitate the transaction. However, Jarina said, the NFA cannot buy corn at a level that is higher than its mandated support price. “Farmers choose not to sell to the

NFA, because they know they can sell corn at a higher price if they go directly to private traders,” he said. Traders buy white corn cur-rently at an average of P14 per kilogram, a peso higher than the NFA’s buying price of P13 per kg, Jarina said. Yellow corn is cur-rently being bought by traders at P12.50 to P13 per kg, also higher than the NFA’s support price of P12.30 per kg.

See “Corn e-trading” A4

See “Electricity rates,” A2

PESO ExchangE ratES n US 46.1740 n jaPan 0.4243 n UK 65.9180 n hK 5.9546 n chIna 7.1297 n SIngaPOrE 34.1650 n aUStraLIa 35.7802 n EU 52.2505 n SaUDI arabIa 12.3167 Source: BSP (19 April 2016 )

A broader look at today’s businessBusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph n Wednesday, April 20, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 193 P25.00 nationwide | 5 sections 32 pages | 7 dAys A Week

mEDIa PartnEr OF thE yEar2015 EnvIrOnmEntaL

LEaDErShIP awarD

UnItED natIOnSmEDIa awarD 2008

301 PInOy athLEtEStESt thEIr wILL atUnDEr armOUr tILt

INSIDE

EthiopianswEEp

Expect higher electricityrates as demand peaks

I.L.P. avErtS brOwnOUtS, bUt gEnEratIOn chargE tO rISE

Continued on A2

BMReports

FiLinVEst nEt inCoME sURGEs to p7 BiLLion

Wednesday, April 20, 2016E1 Editor: Tet AndolongBusinessMirror

The group generated P49.3 bil-lion of revenues, or 28 percent, more than the previous year, partly due to the initial recognition of electricity sales from its power sub-sidiary FDC Utilities Inc. (FDCUI), as well as increased sales in its real-estate operations.

FDCUI saw its first significant revenue stream in 2015, as it rec-ognized the sale of power from its Independent Power Producer Ad-ministrator contracts with Unified Leyte Geothermal Plant and Apo Geothermal Power Plant.

The bulk of revenues, or 43 per-cent, continued to come from the real-estate business. Financial ser-vices and banking contributed 37 percent, while power generation delivered 13 percent of revenues. The balance came from sugar oper-ations (5 percent) and hotel opera-tions (2 percent).

Real-estate subsidiaries Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI) and Filinvest Ala-bang Inc. (FAI) continued to deliver solid growth to the group. FLI, one of the country’s largest residential developers and business-process outsourcing office providers, saw net income increase by 11 percent to reach P5.1 billion. Consolidated revenues from FLI rose 7 percent to P18.3 billion. Recurring income from rental revenues surged 12 per-cent on the back of its growing port-

folio of office buildings. Year-end 2015 saw an increase of

33 percent in gross leasable area of its office rental portfolio. These new buildings are expected to contrib-ute to revenues in 2016. Revenues from real-estate development grew by a steady 6 percent as the group continued to launch horizontal, midrise and high-rise projects. FAI, the developer of the 244-hectare Filinvest City, generated P1.9 bil-lion in revenues. FAI realized record prices in 2015, which reached more than P200,000 per square meter.

Banking subsidiary EastWest Bank ended 2015 with net income of P2 billion. It continued to post a healthy 23-percent growth in its core revenues (net revenues ex-trading) driven mainly by net in-terest income. This was the result of the expansion of its loan portfo-lio. Consumer loans, which account for 58 percent of total customer loans, grew 38 percent to P90.8 bil-lion, led by auto loans and personal loans. Corporate loans grew 18 per-cent to P66.4 billion.

The bank has been ramping up investments to grow its branch-store network, ending 2015 with 433 stores and 579 automated teller machines. “Even as we expect to realize the impact of these invest-ments, we continue to focus on delivering products and services

that will complement our existing lineup, starting with bancassur-ance products through our newly formed joint venture with Ageas,” FDC Chairman Jonathan Gotianun said. EastWest’s joint venture with the Belgium-based Ageas Insurance

NV, EastWest Ageas Life, will begin selling life-insurance products at EastWest branch stores this quarter.

Revenues from the sugar group grew by 5 percent, while revenues from the hotel group grew by 16 percent. The group is

poised to launch its newest hotel later this year, Crimson Resort and Spa in Boracay.

“We have much to look forward to in 2016, as we expand the FDC portfolio with our investments in the power sector,” enthused Jose-

phine Gotianun-Yap, FDC president and CEO. “This year we are look-ing forward to commissioning the group’s 405 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Misamis Oriental and providing much-needed elec-tricity to the Mindanao grid.”

INTEGRATING cool vibe in the sizzling summer heat, Litton & Co. opened the

sixth installment of the Man-dala Weekend Market at the Mandala Park recently, show-casing once more well-curat-ed merchants to showcase locally sourced and crafted produce, and provided a plat-form for holistic wellness in the middle of Metro Manila’s hustle and bustle.

Family fun with homegrown treatsIN the spirit of  promoting an active lifestyle, Mandala Park invited William Cabelin to host  special Zumba classes  for the kids. The mini pop-up event immediately attracted kid visi-tors as it offered them a fun way to get rid of all that  extra  en-ergy  in an exciting and healthy way.  Some  parents  even  joined in on the cardio fun, while oth-ers  relaxed with the market’s usual list of merchants.

Ever-present at the Mandala Park weekend market were well-loved merchants: Ribs Ma-nila, with its  fall-off-the-bone smoked ribs; Stanford & Shaw, with its refreshingly zesty gin-ger ale; and Fog City Creamery, with its homemade ice cream.

The weekend market’s list was filled with merchants who prac-ticed sustainability, majority of them choosing to source their ingredients around the Philip-pines rather than having them shipped from abroad—from Bio

Reis’s organically grown rice grains and Project Hearth’s all-natural jams and broths, to THC Chip’s homemade crisps made from different root crops.

Locally based but inter-nationally inspired restaura-teurs also showcased their tasty goodies along with the locals. Gostoso Piri Piri, Babci Kuch-nia, Cocina Peruvia, Mister Deli-cious, Wrapped, Yen Yen Taiwan Noodle Cart, Ziazan Mediter-ranean Mezze, Bao Fusion Con-cepts and Eats Meets West delighted visitors with their mouth-watering fusion treats. 

Retailer Yakang-Yaka Bar-ter was present to give visitors a chance to shop for unique clothing and home decorating choices, while  supporting in-digenous communities around the country through the pro-motion of their artistry and craftsmanship.

Supporting the growing green communityTHE 3.2-hectare Mandala Park stands as a symbol of a new Mandaluyong in bloom,  and is designed to be a green com-munity that fosters a way of life that gives a sense of pride for one’s city, for one’s home and for one’s well-being. Through Mandala Park,  Litton and Co. has kept its vision  of creating a seat of wellness and sustain-ability  through continued  col-laboration with organizations and individuals that put home-grown merchants first. 

IN these fast-paced times, living in cities has become more ideal to give the finest conveniences that many professionals and families seek today. Imagine living

in an ideal city—accessible, progressive and with wide open spaces filled with nature to boost peoples’ wellness.

This preeminent version of a city actually exists at the heart of the new Mandaluyong Central Business District. The Greenfield District by real-estate giant Greenfield Development Corp. is a green city that, on one hand, is ready for the future and, on the other, remains as fresh as the past.

As a legacy meant to be handed down to future gen-erations, the 12.8-hectare master-planned development is a well-planned city—especially designed to become a business, residential and leisure capital in its own right.

In fact, as an expansion that also signals its contin-uous progress, the district will soon open a business-process outsourcing office building along Mayflower Street. The said building will be part of the develop-ment’s office sector which has always been an integral part of its master plan.

Lying at the heart of these perks and features is the Central Park which is a huge pocket of green for outdoor recreation. Families and friends decompress at the weekend food markets and are entertained at the same time by live bands and various events that usually keep the nights alive.

Twin Oaks Place offers future-ready homes MODERN conveniences and the best of leisure are only some of the lifestyle benefits one can have as a resident of the Greenfield District. The Twin Oaks Place, dubbed as the Philippines’s first future-ready home, makes some of the digital age’s perceived lifestyle possibilities a reality.

The condominium development pioneers a smart and connected living in this minicity. Every one of its units is embedded with a state-of-the-art fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology that lets residents benefit from un-paralleled, high-speed internet connectivity. This en-hances daily living and—because the whole Greenfield District is built with fiber optics—easily connects Fili-pino families and friends at the community to the rest of the world.

Furthermore, the built-in fiber optic framework pro-vides option for homeowner’s remote-control access to gadgets, appliances and security features in the unit with just a click on their tablet or smart phone.

At the Twin Oaks Place, life inside the building is as dynamic as on the outside. The twin towers of the enclave each comes with their own three floors of various com-mercial and retail stores, while two floors are dedicated for amenities which include a swimming pool for adults with an adjoining pool for kids, a spacious fitness gym, function rooms for both grand and intimate gatherings and landscaped gardens.

The first tower of the development has 38 floors of residential units that come in studio, one-bedroom flat, one-bedroom loft and two-bedroom loft units. The sec-ond tower, which is currently on the sixth floor of con-struction, will feature more options on flat units in stu-dio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom configurations.

Filinvest City

Filinvest net income surges to ₧7 billionTHE Filinvest Development

Corp. (FDC) reported consolidated net income of P7

billion for full-year 2015, 13 percent higher than in 2014.

Twin Oaks pioneers the future-ready lifestyle The growing green community

The truth about election spending

‘Private sector should operate corn e-trading platform’CONsULAR MeeT An aerial shot of the department of Foreign Affairs building, where officials announced that Manila successfully hosted a high-level contingent of Indonesian officials for the first Philippines-Indonesia Consular Consultation Meeting. NORIEL DE GUZMAN

A shIRTLess man rides his bicycle on a street in Baseco, Tondo, Manila, where campaign posters of different candidates running for national and local positions are glued on a gate. Candidates are said to give as much as P350 to buy votes in the city. NONIE REYES

By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

Conclusion

LIGHTING her nth cigarette for the afternoon, Linda (not her real name) says that even without commercial talents tapped to endorse a candidate, it takes P500,000 to a

million pesos to produce a 30-second political advertisement.

With a platform where determination shines and dynamism is appraised in leaps and bounds, 301 Filipinos

answered the challenge and participated in the Manila leg of Under Armour’s test of Will at Bonifacio high Street in taguig City on April 16 and 17. the test of Will is Under Armour’s inaugu-ral Southeast Asia-wide fitness challenge that will be held in countries like the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and thailand. Pinoys from all walks of life were one with the most innovative sports apparel today in celebrating human performance, functional

See “Athletes,” A12

PROPeRTy e1

“There is a science to vote-buying. You have to buy early, weeks before election day. And you must befriend them, establish a closeness, even before that. They trust you, you trust them. The going rate at the moment for a vote in our city is P350.”

sPORTs C1

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

DesPite the record-high power demand being experienced these days due mainly to the

rising heat index, rotating brownouts may still be avoided in the areas being served by the Manila electric Co. (Meralco) with the interruptible Load Program (iLP) in play. But not higher electricity rates.

By Mary Grace Padin@ _enren

tHe National Food Author-ity (NFA) on Monday said it has urged the private sector

to operate the country’s electronic-trading platform for corn to make it efficient. Allowing the private sector to operate the enhanced elec-tronic Trading System (eeTS) for corn would facilitate transaction

between farmers and corn buyers, according to NFA Deputy Admin-istrator Ludovico J. Jarina. “We have already met with the producers and the buyers, most es-pecially the feed millers, who are big consumers of corn. We have asked them to organize a team composed of stakeholders, including produc-ers, who would operate the eeTS,” Jarina told the BusinessMirror. With the private sector at the helm of the trading platform, de-

13,692 Mtvolume of corn deposits in the EEtS

positing corn stocks and negotia-tion between farmers and potential buyers would be “smoother”. Currently, farmers are required to initially sell and deposit their

The increasing heat index triggered an unusual rise in demand for power, where Luzon’s requirements alone reached around 9,700 megawatts (MW), breaching historical records, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). This prompted the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to issue a red alert in Luzon from 1 to 3 p.m. The red alert was lifted at 3:01 p.m., then NGCP placed Luzon on yellow alert once more that day. Meralco Head for Utility Econom-ics Lawrence Fernandez said in an interview the yellow and red alerts indicate a tight supply situation in which there is less or no reserve margin in the grid. This, he said, will typically be reflected as higher spot-market prices, especially during the periods of yellow and red alerts. “These may have an upward pressure on genera-tion costs this April, which will be re-flected in the May generation charge,” Fernandez added. The Meralco official did not provide numbers, saying it was too early to compute how much this will impact on generation charge, the largest compo-nent of an electricity bill. Normally, the utility firm provides an indication of a possible upward or downward power-rate adjustment during the first few days of the month before actual rates are issued every 8th or 9th day of the month. “We’re still in the middle of the supply month and we will have to see how the supply-demand situa-tion unfolds in the next two weeks,” Fernandez said. Meralco’s April bills already reflected a higher generation charge, mainly on account of higher demand. Moreover, a P0.08 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) increase in the feed-in tariff allowance-rates also contributed to the overall rate increase of P0.22 per kWh compared to last month’s rate. For a typical household consuming 200 kWh, April’s adjustment translates to an increase of around P44 in electricity bill. The increase in last month’s rates was primarily due to the generation charge, which increased by P0.10 per kWh from last month. Meralco said generation charge shoot up as a result of higher charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), which went up by P2.23 per kWh. Peak de-mand in the Luzon grid increased by more than 500 MW from the February-to-March supply months with the ap-proach of summer.

Plant shutdownLAST Friday’s critical power-supply situ-ation in Luzon could also be blamed on some power plants that suddenly conked out. Kalayaan units 3 and 4 (180 MW each); QPPL (289 MW); Ma-laya 1 (130 MW); Botocan 2 (10 MW); Pagbilao 1 (382 MW); and Magat units 3 and 4 (95 MW each) were all put on emergency shutdowns. Meanwhile, the capacity output of Calaca 1 (200 MW) and 2 (300 MW) had been limited to 190 MW and 220 MW, respectively. The DOE has already di-rected power producers to reschedule the maintenance work of their power plants after elections. They agreed. However, the agency said the sud-den shutdown—mostly due to techni-cal glitches experienced by some power plants—was already beyond its control. “Higher power rates would be a consequence of meeting the neces-sary power supply. It just so happened that there were unscheduled power- plant shutdowns that coincided with scheduled plant shutdowns,” Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada said. The DOE official also recognized the possibility of higher power rates next month, because some of the coal-fired power plants that were shut down had to be fed with diesel, which is more ex-pensive than coal. “Malaya coal plant, for instance, when it was called to operate, had to utilize special fuel oil, which is in between bunker and diesel, thus, more expensive than coal,” the DOE chief explained. The DOE said it is closely monitoring maintenance-shutdown schedules of plants to make sure all plants will come online before the end of April. Based on the latest monitoring, most plants are already back online, but not all are running at full capacity. There are no scheduled plant shut-downs in May. One unit of Pagbilao coal power plant was supposed to be on scheduled maintenance until May 1, but it came back early and resumed operations last Friday.

Revised outlookMErALCO, the country’s largest dis-tribution utility in the country serving over 5 million customers to date, awaits an updated forecast of power demand and supply from the DOE. Fernandez said this would help the company plan ahead during critical times, particularly summer, when de-mand for electricity is at its peak.

“We will await DOE’s guidance on the expected Luzon supply-demand situation. We were advised that the DOE will be updating its forecast, con-sidering that the peak demand regis-tered last week already exceeded the initial forecast of 2016 peak demand of around 9,400 MW,” Fernandez said in the same interview. Latest available data have it that Luzon will have a total supply of about 9,000 MW, with a demand of 8,900 MW, while the Visayas will have a total supply of 1,800 MW, with a demand of 1,600 MW. For Mindanao, it will have a supply of 1,700 MW with a demand of 1,500 MW. These figures were pro-vided by Monsada in September last year. There are no available updated figures provided by the DOE up to now. The DOE also confirmed on Monday night that a revised forecast for Luzon is in the works. “We are updating still, but we are looking at an upward revision,” Energy Assistant Secretary Patrick Aquino said in a text message when sought for comment. He did not elaborate on what he meant by an “upward revision.” He only said: “Figures are dynamic. We will come out with updated figures soon.” He did provide, however, a weekly forecast on the country’s power situa-tion. For April 16 to 22, power demand is expected at 9,439 MW in Luzon, 1,749 MW in the Visayas and 1,455 MW in Mindanao. Supply, meanwhile, is expected to reach 10,941 MW in Luzon, 2,143 MW

in the Visayas and 1,404 MW in Mind-anao. Except for Mindanao, which is still on red alert, the DOE said Luzon and the Visayas’s power situation this week is “normal.”

Contingency measuresMANUAL Load Dropping, or rotating power outage, was averted last Fri-day in Luzon because Meralco acti-vated the ILP. The ILP scheme works by calling on business customers with loads of at least 1 MW to run their own genera-tor sets, if needed, instead of drawing power from the grid. With the ILP, power supply from the grid that will not be consumed by participating customers will be avail-able for use by other customers within the franchise area. Through this, the aggregate demand for power from the system will be reduced to a more manageable level, helping ensure the availability of supply. With the ILP, the peak demand was kept at a lower level of 9,416 MW. “With the implementation of ILP af-ter a red alert, as advised by the system-grid operator, the estimated deloaded contribution of 247 MW from around 121 ILP participants helped avert rotat-ing brownouts. “We were able to prevent power interruptions, which would have af-fected close to 300,000 customers last Friday,” Meralco Spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said. Moreover, the government-owned Malaya power plant is already on

stream as a must-run unit during week-days, where power demand is higher compared to weekends. Currently, the plant’s Unit 1 provides 290 MW of ca-pacity, while the Unit 2 is still starting up and is expected to be online on Wednesday night, further augmenting the power supply in Luzon. Meanwhile, the DOE and NGCP urged the public to undertake energy efficiency and conservation initiatives, such as setting the thermostat of air-conditioning units installed in their offices and households at 25 degrees Celsius; and/or by adjusting the usage period of any electric appliances away from the peak hours (i.e., 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Luzon and 5 to 7 p.m. in the Vi-sayas and Mindanao), such as ironing of clothes, unnecessary use of comput-ers and even the laundry of clothes using washing machine and dryer, as any contribution really does matter. Meralco also offered some energy-efficiency tips for its customers: Unplug appliances that are not in use, as appliances in standby mode still consume electricity. Also, keep appliances clean and properly main-tained to ensure that they work ef-ficiently – poorly maintained and dir ty appliances consume more electricity. When buying new lights and appliances, it may be a good idea, too, to consider the LED and inverter types. The initial cost to buy them may be higher, but they are more energy efficient, and will ensure significant savings on elec-tricity costs in the long run.

May 9 polls MEANWHILE, the Power Task Force Election (PTFE) 2016, led by the DOE, laid down measures to make sure power supply is sufficient, sta-ble and reliable before, during and after the conduct of national and local elections on May 9. “Actually, we have two task forces that are looking into the integrity of the power-supply chain to secure sup-ply of electricity, particularly during the period one week before and one week after the election day, especially within and near the voting precincts,” Monsada said. Monsada added that since Decem-ber, the PTFE started groundworks, including coordination meetings with energy stakeholders, and identification of tasks and responsibilities of member-agencies in employing strategic and preparatory measures to ensure avail-ability and stability of power supply, not only for the elections period, but for the entire summer months. The PTFE’s latest and ongoing initia-tives to ensure that all systems nation-wide are ready and in place prior to the elections, include conduct of tabletop drills and information, education and communication campaigns among stakeholders (i.e., distribution utilities, generation companies, transmission companies and various government energy agencies) to equip them with best practices during crisis manage-ment; directive to distribution units to ensure power supply by contracting needed capacities ahead, and making sure that backup power is available should power failure occur; prioritiza-tion scheme for the provision of elec-tricity service to voting centers; and advisory to generation companies to undertake maintenance either ahead or after the critical period to enable all available plants to run on full capacity during these times. Alongside the PTFE, President Aquino also created the Inter-Agency Task Force on Securing Energy Facilities (IATFSEF), which paved the way for concerned na-tional government agencies, local gov-ernment units and other energy stake-holders to commit for the protection and preservation of the country’s energy facilities from insurgency and persistent right-of-way issues. Through the IATFSEF, the tower No. 25 in Lanao del Sur, which was bombed in December 2015, was restored, al-lowing the transmission of power from Agus 1 and 2. Consequently, the IAT-FSEF, through the NGCP, continues to implement maintenance work along the transmission system to uphold its integrity and reliability.

The amount corresponds to expenses for location hunting, reservation, travel, actual shooting, editing, dubbing and other related activities, like food and talent fees for director and production staff. “Only 40 percent of the budget for pro-ducing a political ad goes to the ad agency,” Linda said. “You use up almost 60 percent for creating the ad.” She added the budget excludes payment for celebrity endorsers, which can go as high as P8 million, “if he or she is as popular as Sarah Geronimo.” “But that’s a separate expense to be shouldered by the client.” Linda said her placement agency sub-contracts the production of political ads. “Matrabaho masyado, nakakapagod [It’s too tiring, work is frenetic],” adding that she prefers social-media placements. The revenue is not so competitive in social media. “Mura lang ang ad placement [cost of ad in social media is cheap].” “Linda said a banner political ad in Ya-hoo! only costs P150,000. “And [that] will already last for a month.” A common strategy employed by po-litical operators is the use of social media to defend a candidate or criticize his or her rival.  “ S u p p o s i n g o u r c a n d i d at e g e t s bashed in Twitter or Facebook, our writ-ers manufacture the retaliatory twits or statements, and our research team posts them,” Linda explained. “Iba-iba kunyari ang sumasagot; iba-ibang loca-tion, pero isang grupo lang ’yun  [But it

is just one group].” She said there are devices that allow them to do that nowadays.

Community of connectionsBUSY is a short word that fully describes Linda, owner of a media-placement agen-cy. There is another pause in the inter-view, as Linda answers yet another call from staff, coordinating schedules for the following day. Hers is also a world of connections, pa-trons and former benefactors that come with every ad placed in the trimedia. “The media-placement community is a close community and a friendly one. Peo-ple know each other. We know who won which bidding and who transferred to which [political] camp or candidate. Kaya bigayan lang [So it’s give and take].” She said, “There is no dog-eat-dog mind-set. Someone approaches you, a former client and says: ‘O si Senator __, kailangan ng  TV-ad placement;  sa iyo ko na ibibigay’ [Senator __ wants TV-ad placement. I’ll assign the job to you].” Linda further explains that ad place-ments in the media usually go by conduits. “For example, this public relations [PR] operator knows candidates requiring media placements. Kung ka-alyado ka niya [if you are his friend or ally], you get the contract.” Hence, she said it matters which candi-date your PR friends are aligned with. “If their candidate does not have money, it will be lean pickings for the rest of the election season. But if your PR conduits are aligned with the incumbent, it will be a very productive election season.”

Another election reality, Linda admits, is that every election brings in new clients. There are no old clients.  “Lahat new eh. Kasi, nawawala na ’yung nanalo. Mas malaki na  resources  niya, lu-milipat sa mas malaking outfit [All my cli-ents are new. The old ones who won now have better resources, so they move to the big agencies],” she said. “So for every new election, a new candidate-client. We don’t have repeat clients. The only ones with a chance for repeat clients are the big agencies.”

Grooming, surveysLIKE their counterpart candidates at the national level, local candidates also require getting introduced to voters.  But while senatorial, vice-presidential and presidential aspirants see the media as a critical channel for national projec-tion, the candidates at the local level depend on ward leaders and ground-level political operators like Nick to carry them to victory. A new local candidate, like one aspiring to become a councilor, is “groomed” one year before running for office. He or she is made to attend community functions and

become visible to the media.  “Kumbaga, tinatambol na ’yung pangalan niya para magkaroon ng name recall  [The name is made known to establish name re-call.] Uma-attend na siya ng mga liga [attends sports leagues], birthday party of the ba-rangay captain, etc. This happens one year before the campaign season,” Nick said. And one year before the actual cam-paign period, a wannabe local official has to pass the surveys conducted by the incumbent to determine the most win-nable among the would-be local official candidates (councilors).  The wannabe local candidate has to make it to the top half on the survey list. This is before he can apply for can-didacy. Surveys are conducted by the incumbent official or political party at the local level. This is a funded activity, according to Nick. For the opposition, this is financed by the financier of the opposition ticket.

P100 million, P350 and trustNICK said in the span of one local elec-tion-campaign season, expenses can run to P100 million to sustain the op-erations that penetrate every district, every barangay, every area—all the way to the sitio in every street of a city or municipality.  “In Metro Manila a district is composed of barangays. Big barangays have many areas, and every area has many streets,” Nick said. “In each of these, we identify a key person, down the line, until we reach the street level. This does not include the organized networks of the barangay captain

and the kagawad—these are the people who concentrate on the sectoral formations—youth, senior citizens, disabled, LGBT, tra-ditional organizations, etc.” According to Nick, all of these area-based and sectoral formations should have a key person identified to oversee his or her area of responsibility.  He added that the main qualification of this key person is trust. This line of trust begins with the lo-cal candidate, his family, trusted friends, finance people, head of operations and key operations staff—all of them must be trustworthy. Outside of this line of key trusted people, there is already the chance for turncoatism, Nick said.  “Kaya bantay-bantay lang [So you just keep your guard up]. The operations team is the candidate’s last line of defense. We are employed as community-development staff of the incumbent,” he explained. “Once the election season begins, we are transformed to an organizing team for the person running for office.” Come election day, Nick said, they oper-ate like a Strike Team. “We can be called for a specific task, like ‘we bulong’ [whisper]—those who convince voters at the last minute who to vote for.” Their other, more delicate task is vote-buying.  There is a science to vote-buying, accord-ing to Nick. “You have to buy early, weeks before election. And you must befriend them, es-tablish a closeness even before that,” Nick said. “They trust you, you trust them.” According to Nick, the going rate at the moment for a vote is P350.

BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.ph Wednesday, April 20, 2016A2

BMReportsThe truth about election spending

Continued from A1 ₧350The amount given by a candidate to buy one vote

Electricity rates. . . Continued from A1

noni

e rey

es

But without access to capital to go to the next step in the supply chain, the odds are stacked against the common farmer to keep him in the cycle of poverty—selling only his raw harvest without adding any value to it, for a very small profit that will be used merely to pay off the debts.

“Selling raw products should be a crime. What happened to us is that we’re always selling raw and becoming the dumping ground of finished prod-

ucts,” CDA Chairman Orlando Ravanera told the BusinessMirror in an interview.

“Our problem is not the scarcity of our resourc-es; we have the resources. It is our powerlessness to control how these resources are used. The solu-tion is to empower our farmers and give them the power to control what to produce, how to produce it and how to sell it,” Ravanera added.

He said problems faced by farmers and even by

cooperatives each harvest cycle all stem from lack of capital.

It is a common misconception that farmers do not own the land they till, because the country’s agrarian reform had at least given land to the farm-ers, but the ownership of the land is not the full solution to allow the farmers to produce better products and break the cycle of poverty.

“Even if you own the land, you don’t con-trol the modes of production or the marketing

BusinessMirror Wednesday, April 20, 2016news@businessmirror.com.ph

BMReportsA3

Selling only raw goods harms farm sector–CDAstrategies,” Ravanera said.

This is because creditors of farmers, who are mostly from the informal financial sector charging exorbitant interest rates, would like, as an additional security, aside from the advance interest they charge, to control the modes of pro-duction or the actual selling of the raw product.

Thus, without control over how the crops will be produced or at what price the harvest will be sold and to whom, the farmer is left at the mercy of the creditor, and is expect-edly given only the crumbs.

Inaccessible bank loansRAvAnERA said it is very difficult for a farmer to gain ac-cess to credit in the formal banking system, even if farmers could use their farm lots as collateral. Even through a coop-erative, there are many requirements which banks impose on collateralized loans, such as postdated checks and the involvement of guarantors.

According to a recent interview with a representative from the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines, rural banks are already complying with the submission of credit data of their clients to the Credit Information Corp. (CIC), in a bid to lower the costs and risks of lending to farmers.

But until a government-administered credit-information database is made operational, banks would still be relying on their own private credit database, wherein most farmers are not included for lack of a credit history, leaving farmers and cooperatives to rely on themselves for access to capital.

“But this should not be the case, because agriculture is already a very viable business. It is viable, because the mar-ket is already assured, the only thing missing is the capital to create the value chain,” Ravanera said.

Credit-surety fundsTHIS situation, which had been going on for decades, had behooved farmer cooperatives to create credit-surety funds, wherein member-cooperatives make contributions to the fund that will be invested to make it sustainable enough to serve as collateral for bank loans.

Even before the Credit Surety Fund Cooperative Act, which recently lapsed into law, credit-surety funds had already been established by farmer cooperatives, driven by their exclusion from the formal financial market.

Currently, records from the CDA showed there are 48 credit-surety cooperatives, with funds in the aggregate amount of P390 million, serving as collateral for some P1.9 billion worth of loans. Of the total amount of loans, P1.7 billion had already been released to more than 14,000 mi-cro, small and medium-sized enterprises from August 2008 to August 2015.

With the new Credit Surety Fund Cooperative Act, these credit-surety cooperatives are expected to flourish because of the stricter rules to be imposed on the trustee banks, which will invest the funds, the qualifications of the directors of such cooperatives, and other prudential measures to ensure the sustainability and integrity of the funds.

The funds of these credit-surety cooperatives, pooled from contributions from the Land Bank of the Philippines, local government units and member-cooperatives, will serve as collateral for loans to be taken out by cooperatives for their projects aimed at adding value to the raw produce of their farmer-members.

Value chainTHE economic integration of Asean is about going up the supply chain in the manufacture of a finished product, Rav-anera said. But to be able to accomplish this, the Philippine agricultural sector would require big investments in machines to add value to the raw produce.

Ravanera said the reliance on selling raw produce is prone to losses, because it is highly dependent on the prices of the commodity, which could be very volatile due to various causes, such as natural disasters, supply and demand, and the prices of similar commodities in other countries.

For example, he said many rubber farmers in Zamboanga are already losing profits due to the low prices of rubber. Pre-viously, corn also suffered declines in its prices.

Ravanera said farmers, through their cooperatives and assisted by loans collateralized by the credit-surety funds, should choose high-value crops to plant. But they should not stop at planting these high-value crops but should proceed to going up the supply chain all the way up to the finished product to gain the biggest profit among all the players in the supply chain.

“The integration already assures us of a market, but if we continue to sell raw, we’ll continue to be the mar-ket, and our neighbors will continue to be the suppliers,” Ravanera said.

For instance, he said, Filipino cooperatives could com-pete in planting bamboo; but instead of merely selling the bamboo, they should invest in making chopsticks and ex-port them to Taiwan, where 2 million chopsticks are needed each day. “Corn should be turned into animal feed, ‘rubber should be turned into tires; and coconut should be made into coconut sugar.”

Access to capitalTHE new Credit Surety Cooperative Fund Act seeks to provide cooperatives with access to capital from the formal banking system, so they can make investments in infrastructure, which could add value to the raw produce of their farmer-members.

The implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the new law is being drafted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the CDA, and is expected to be out before the end of this administration.

Ravanera said the committee drafting the IRR is looking at a “limitless” amount that a cooperative may borrow from the formal banking system, since the BSP itself is backing the establishment of the credit-surety cooperative funds, and is committed to realizing the intent of the law.

Number of credit surety cooperatives with funds totaling P390 million

48By David Cagahastian @davecaga

In a time of brisk economic integration, adding value to harvested crops is the key for the agriculture sector and its workers to survive harsh competition, the chief of the

Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) said.

BusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.ph A4

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

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US troops and equipment will be in the country under a rotational scheme to enable American ser-vicemen and Filipino soldiers to jointly respond to crisis—natural or man-made.

The US troops’ rotational pres-ence in the Philippines was unoffi-cially announced by Carter himself after his meeting with President Aquino in Malacañang.

“Some Americans here for this ex-ercise [Balikatan] will be staying be-hind on a rotational basis to continue joint training and working with our Philippine allies to contribute to re-gional security and stability. I thank these service members for taking on this important assignments,” he said.

The start of the pivot, which will allow US troops and their state-of-the-art assets and equipment, including warplanes and ships, in five selected military bases in the country, took place even as both the Philippines and the US are still working on the technical side of the defense agreement.

“Our planners are working on identifying the technical require-ments for the selected sites, where agreed locations could be developed,” said Defense Secretary Voltaire T. Gazmin, who accompanied Carter during his visit to Malacañang.

“We are optimistic that the Edca would significantly contribute to our efforts in enhancing the interoper-ability between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the United States Pacific Command, or Pacom, by de-veloping the facilities that could be used for our approved Philippines-US activities,” he added.

However, Carter indirectly im-plied that the temporary basing of US soldiers in the country has

Carter visit start of US troops’ rotational presence

THE rotational presence of American troops in the country under the Enhanced

Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) has started in the presence of US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter over the weekend.

already started, with part of those who participated in the two-week Balikatan and the Stennis Carrier group, that was sent to the country during the period, to stay behind for regional security duty.

“A contingent of US aircraft and their crews and pilots that partici-pated in Balikatan will stay behind at Clark Air Base. We’ll do this, in fact, on a regular basis. The initial contin-gent, five A-10 ‘Thunderbolt’ aircraft, three H-60G ‘Pave Hawk’ helicopters and one MC-130H ‘Combat Talon’ aircraft will stay behind,” he said.

“And 200 airmen, including pi-lots, will continue joint training, conduct flight operations in the area, including the South China Sea, and lay the foundation for joint air patrols to complement ongoing maritime patrols,” he added.

“A command-and-control center manned by American personnel here for the exercise will also remain be-hind. They will continue exercising combined US-Philippines command-and-control capabilities and support increased cooperative activities in the region,” Carter added.

Never in the history of the Balika-tan that American servicemen, who have participated in the annual bi-lateral exercise, have stayed behind, and while US forces occasionally visits the country, they only do this during port-call visits or when they are on humanitarian assistance and disaster-response operations.

When the Philippines and the US were working on the details of the Edca in 2014, Filipino defense offi-cials said the agreement should help the country deal with the aggressive China in the West Philippine Sea, other than training and boosting the equipment-lacked military.

Gazmin has said the Edca will serve as the country’s temporary but primary territorial defense plan while the government is beefing up the capabilities of the Armed Forces.

Based on the same statement of Carter, activities under the Edca has even started as early as last month, and this was in the form of a joint patrol in the West Philippine Sea, where Chinese military and paramili-tary vessels were a constant sighting during the past months.

“Last month we commenced joint maritime patrols in the South China Sea. These patrols, an alliance deci-sion at our two-plus-two ministe-

rial, which Voltaire [Gazmin] and I held with our respective secretaries of foreign affairs in Washington in January,” Carter revealed.

“These patrols will continue to help build our interoperability and improve the Philippine Navy, even as these patrols contribute to the safety and security of the region’s waters,” the candid Pen-tagon chief revealed.

Gazmin, however, tried to down-play the joint patrol, saying it was in the form of a passing exercise.

“We conducted such joint patrols as part of our passing exercises or the passexe. Our planners are ex-amining ways on how to make such

patrols as part of our regular activi-ties,” he said.

Passing exercise is an activity which ensures that two navies can work and communicate together dur-

ing times of peace and war.As spelled out by the Edca, both

the Philippine Navy and the US Navy are required to conduct joint patrols, especially in the West Philippine Sea.

IN this April 15 photo, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter reviews troops as he arrives for the closing ceremony of the 11-day joint US-Philippines military exercise at Camp Aguinaldo in suburban Quezon City. Carter announced that, for the first time, US ships had started conducting joint patrols in the South China Sea with the Philippines—a somewhat rare move not done with many other partners in the region. AP

Some Americans here for this exercise [Balikatan] will

be staying behind on a rotational basis to continue joint training and working with our Philippine allies to contribute to regional security and stability.”—Carter

Because of this, Jarina said the NFA does not have corn stocks in places where are a lot of corn buyers. “For example, Cebu should have been prepositioned with white corn grains as it is a corn-eating province. But we do not have white corn in our warehouse in Cebu,” he said. A private-sector led EETS, Jarina said, would allow farmers to sell and deposit their corn at spot prices.

BenefitsTHE Philippine Association of Feed Millers Inc. (Pafmi) said the e-trading platform would benefit buyers, particularly feed millers, as it would cut production cost. For one, feed millers would no longer have to travel to corn-producing provinces, such as Isabela and Cagayan to buy corn. Ely Miranda, who represents Pafmi in the Corn Develop-ment Fund Committee, said it would also provide an easier payment scheme for farmers, as transactions can be done through bank deposits. Data from the NFA showed that corn deposits in the EETS have reached 13,691.93 MT to date. However, the NFA said there are no interested buyers for the stocks. “We have not had successful deals yet. The farmers post their selling price and the buyers post their buying price, but more often than not, they cannot agree on a price,” Jarina said. “[Also], the system does not operate in real time. It still operates manually using a short messaging system,” he added. Jarina said the government has allotted P10 million from the Corn Development Fund for the procurement of new software and hardware for the EETS. The EETS was set up in 2009 to introduce electronic trad-ing in the Philippines and pave the way for the Agricultural Commodity Exchange System (Aces). Aces was envisioned as a digital platform for trading vari-ous agricultural commodities, including rice, sugar and high- value crops. The government had hoped that Aces would en-hance the competitiveness of local-farm products in Asean. “The plan back then was to develop an electronic-trading system starting with corn, and then other commodities, like rice and sugar. After these systems mature, it was seen to de-velop into the Aces, which will include other commodities, as well,” Jarina said. However, the government could not follow through on its plans for the Aces as the corn platform has yet to take off.

Corn e-trading. . . continued from a1

IN the shadow of Greenwich’s 02 Are-na—the futuristic dome originally built as London’s showpiece for the

Millennium—what looks like a picnic cooler on wheels zips among groups of gawking children. This little delivery ro-bot, designed to autonomously navigate sidewalks, not roads, later this year will begin making deliveries from local busi-nesses direct to customers.

In doing so, it may just conquer e-com-merce’s final frontier: the Last Mile, the least efficient and most problematic step in the delivery process.

“Thirty percent to 40 percent of the cost of delivery comes in the last mile,” says Allan Martinson, the COO of Star-ship Technologies, the company building this robot. The venture is the brainchild of Ahti Heinla, one of Skype’s original devel-opers, and is backed by billionaire Skype cofounder and tech investor Janus Friis.

The little delivery robots designed by Starship and a competing US start-up, called Dispatch, are the BB-8s and Wall-E's of e-commerce. These scrappy droids are up against tech’s strongest forces. Amazon is testing airborne drones, as are Wal-Mart and Google. Google has also sought patents for a driverless truck, which would carry an array of storage lockers that unlock with a text message. And Uber is deploying driv-ers for food delivery, a concept that could be expanded to other products. And don’t forget incumbents from Federal Express and UPS to government postal services.

While Starship’s robot may be first to market, victory isn’t assured. The droids have limitations, with economic viability confined urban areas. Drones have a higher sticker price and bigger regulatory hurdles to surmount, but may prove less expensive on a per-mile basis. And for the foreseeable future, some logistics experts say, humans

still have the edge over any sci-fi inspired contenders.

Heinla, a tall, gaunt Estonian with shaggy blond hair and the disheveled look of an engineer for whom form matters more than fashion, says delivery droids have their advantages. Smaller robots are easier and cheaper to build. Because Star-ship’s droid weighs less than 35 pounds and travels slowly, it's less likely to cause damage. As a wheeled vehicle, there are no spinning rotorblades that could cause injury—unlike drones.

Most important, it travels on sidewalks not roads, which simplifies getting regula-tory approval to operate. Starship robots have already covered more than 1,900 miles in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Estonia and the United States, with more than 50,000 miles planned this year. In comparison, drones are being tested in highly controlled environments, with com-mercial deliveries on hold until regulators work out safety, liability, air rights and pri-vacy issues. Autonomous vehicles are so far only allowed limited tests on public roads.

“We’ve tested it in snow, slush, ice and rain—you name it,” Martinson says. In the US, Starship is testing its robot in Fay-etteville, Arkansas, about 35 miles from Wal-Mart’s Bentonville headquarters, in conjunction with an innovation lab at the University of Arkansas named after the family of Wal-Mart chief executive Doug McMillon. This has lead to speculation the giant retailer may be interested in the little robot. Wal-Mart’s 415C Lab, an in-ternal unit investigating various disrup-tive technologies, has said it is monitoring the testing program. Starship won’t com-ment on a possible tie-up with Wal-Mart. But Martinson says he expects the first e-commerce customers to start using the robots later this year. Bloomberg News

Droids are the future of e-commerce deliveries

BusinessMirrorWednesday, April 20, 2016 • Editor: Max V. de Leon A5

AseanWednesdayDrought killing Vietnam rice crops compounds Mekong area water crisis

The nine acres in southern Vietnam that double as rice paddy and shrimp pond for farmer Nguyen Thi Tam

have become a wasteland. After the worst drought in 90 years, almost nothing grows.

Tam’s family had no income for two har-vests because the rice crop failed and the shrimp died. They ran up $8,000 in debt—more than twice her earnings in a typical year. To make ends meet, Tam plans to leave her village to work at a factory hundreds of miles away. Many others in the area already have fled, she said, including her daughter-in-law, who couldn’t endure the poverty.

“I am worried about everything,” Tam, 55, said inside the thatched house in Kien Giang province she shares with her hus-band, three grown children and two grand-children. “I cannot sleep.”

The dry spell in the once-fertile Mekong Delta is devastating food supplies in south-ern Vietnam and threatening to reduce global exports of rice, seafood and coffee. It is also compounding a Southeast Asia water shortage along a 3,000-mile river that runs from Tibet to Thailand to the South China Sea, as climate change and too many dams erode livelihoods for millions of farmers.

More shortagesWATerS in the Mekong Delta, a network of channels that cut across vast flatlands in southern Vietnam, are at the lowest in al-most a century, which may mean shortages for as much as 50 percent of the region this year, according to a United Nations report. That means less for irrigating crops and an increase in salt levels as more seawater seeps into the delta, causing more damage.

The Mekong river countries of Viet-nam, Thailand, Lao PDr, Cambodia and Myanmar produce about 62 million metric tons of rice, or 13 percent of global output, United States Department of Agriculture data show. The river accounts for as much as 25 percent of the global freshwater catch and provides livelihoods for at least 60 million people, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Vietnam exported about $3 billion of shrimp last year. Almost half of Vietnam’s population of 91 million works in agriculture, which accounts for about 13 percent of the economy.

“People in Indonesia and the Philippines will go hungry if the Thais and Vietnamese don’t produce enough rice,” said richard Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia Pro-gram at the Stimson Center in Washington. “This is a preview of the longer-term effect of development and climate change to the Mekong Delta.”

TAM

62MMTCombined rice output of the Mekong River countries of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, or 13 percent of global output

More damsrICe exports from Vietnam, the world’s third-largest shipper, probably will drop 10 percent this year because of lower pro-duction, said Do Ha Nam, the CeO of In-timex Group, a major Vietnam exporter of agricultural products. rice output from the Mekong Delta fell 6.2 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, reducing the country’s total agricultural production by 2.7 percent, according to Nguyen Bich Lam, head of the General Statistics Office.

Water from the Mekong was already un-der pressure before the drought, which the UN attributed to a stronger-than-normal el Niño weather pattern. China has com-pleted six of seven major dams on the river in southern Yunnan Province, Cronin said. Vietnam has built dozens in the Central Highlands, which, like the Chinese and Laotian dams, deprive the Delta region of the critical sediments needed to replenish eroded soil, he said.

eleven more dams planned in Thai-land, Laos and Cambodia could result in fish and farming losses of $750 million in Vietnam and $450 million in Cambodia, with extinctions for as much as 10 percent of fish species in the region, according to a study submitted to the Mekong river Commission, a group created to mediate water disputes.

Vietnam’s government, which relied on rice farming to feed its population during years of dire poverty after its war with the US, needs to encourage Mekong Delta farm-ers to switch to more profitable crops, such as fruit trees that require less water, and raise higher-value shrimp in coastal areas, said Vo-Tong Xuan, a professor of agrono-my and rector of Nam Can Tho University.

Bloomberg News

The WorldBusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.phWednesday, April 20, 2016A6

Cuban leaders criticize both bureaucracy, private sector

The comments illustrated the conundrum faced by a Cuban gov-ernment simultaneously trying to modernize and maintain control in a new era of detente with Wash-ington, D.C. The Cuban Commu-nist Party ended the third day of its twice-a-decade congress with a vote for the 114-member Cen-tral Committee, which, in turn, selects the powerful 15-member Political Bureau. The bureau’s first and second secretaries are the country’s top officials.

Monday’s vote, like the rest of the congress, was open only to 1,000 delegates, 280 hand-select-ed guests and state journalists, whose reports revealed virtually no concrete details of the policies that will guide the government for the next five years.

The Seventh Party Congress has been criticized for its extreme se-crecy by ordinary Cubans and even members of the Communist Party itself. State media said the results of the voting would be revealed on Tuesday. Cuban President and First Party Secretary Raul Castro opened the meeting on Saturday with a somber evaluation of the state of reforms he introduced after taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2008.

Raul Castro blamed “an obsolete mentality” and “attitude of inertia” for the state’s failure to implement

reforms meant to increase produc-tivity. First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, long seen as Castro’s successor, repeated that criticism of the bureaucracy in a speech on Monday, announcing the con-gress’s formal acceptance of Cas-tro’s evaluation. He said obsolete ways of thinking led both to inertia in enacting reforms and “a lack of confidence in the future.”

“Along with other deficiencies, there’s a lack of readiness, high standards and control, and little foresight or initiative from sectors and bureaucrats in charge of mak-ing these goals a reality,” Diaz-Canel said in an excerpt of a speech broad-cast on state television.

However, lengthy state media reports on the four-day congress focused less on proposals for re-form than on debates about po-litical orthodoxy focusing on the

need to protect Cuba’s socialist system from the threat of global capitalism and US influence, in particular. A month after Presi-dent Barack Obama’s visit to Ha-vana, the first by a US president in nearly 90 years, Cuban leaders have begun to consistently portray his trip as an attempt to seduce ordinary Cubans into abandoning the country’s socialist values, in favor of a desire for free markets and multiparty democracy.

On Saturday Castro said “the enemy” was targeting young peo-ple, intellectuals, the poor and the 500,000 members of Cuba’s new private sector as vulnerable to persuasion.

On Monday Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez went further, calling Obama’s visit “an attack on the foundation of our history, our culture and our symbols.”

“Obama came here to dazzle the nonstate sector, as if he wasn’t the representative of big corpora-tions but the defender of hot-dog vendors, of small  businesses  in the United States, which he isn’t,” Rodriguez said. Rene Gonzalez, a former intelligence agent held in the United States in a case re-solved by the declaration of de-

tente with Washington, made an unusual call for the consider-ation of political reform in Cuba. Saying the party had focused excessively on the economy for 10 years, he said, “Let the party call for a broad public discussion that goes beyond concepts of economic development.”

“Let’s arrive at the eighth party congress for the first time in hu-man history with a consensus on that human aspiration that some call democracy, and that’s possible through socialism,” Gonzalez said.

State media did not indicate whether his proposal was in-cluded in any of the formal doc-uments put up for a vote during the congress.

Aged 55 and 58, respectively, Di-az-Canel and Rodriguez are mem-bers of the generation expected to move into the highest ranks of pow-er in Cuba as early as Tuesday when the congress’ vote is announced. Castro said on Saturday that he was proposing an age limit of 60 for election to the Central Com-mittee and 70 for lower-ranking but important posts in the party.

Castro is 84 and his second secretary, hardliner Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, is 85. AP

Members of Cuban Communist Party’s

Central Committee

114 Communist Party delegates raise their hands during a vote in a session of the seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party of in Havana, Cuba, on monday. Ismael FrancIsco/cubadebate vIa aP

MANTA, Ecuador—Rescu-ers are in a race against time to find survivors

from a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake as the death toll from Ecuador’s strongest earthquake in decades has risen above 400.

On Monday teams from Ecuador and neighboring countries fanned out across the country’s Pacific coastline to look for the dozens of people still missing.

In the port city of Manta, a group of about 50 rescuers working with sniffer dogs, hydraulic jacks and a drill managed to free eight people trapped for more than 32 hours in the rubble of a shopping center that was flattened by Saturday night’s quake.

The first rescue took place before dawn, when a woman was pulled head first from a nearly two-and-a-half-foot hole cut through concrete and steel. Firefighters applauded as she emerged from the debris, dis-oriented, caked in dust and com-plaining of pain, but otherwise in good health.

Another uplifting scene played out in nearby Portoviejo, where a cell-phone call to a relative from under the debris of a collapsed ho-tel led searchers to Pablo Cordova, the hotel’s administrator. Once he was gingerly removed, he was immobilized and hauled away on a stretcher, his hands waving in the air in a sign of appreciation to cheering onlookers.

“Since Saturday, when this coun-try started shaking, I’ve slept only two hours and haven’t stopped working,” said Juan Carranza, one of the firefighters leading the res-cue effort in Portoviejo.

Despite such cheering moments, tragedy continued to mount. At the

shopping center in Manta, authori-ties were working to free a woman they had found buried alive with a heavy concrete slab pinning her legs when an aftershock forced them to abandon the effort.

When they returned the debris pile had moved and the woman was dead, said Angel Moreira, a firefighter coordinating the effort.

The government reported late on Tuesday that the official death count had increased to 413 and said they expected the toll to rise further in the days ahead. Among the dead were an American and two Canadians. Complicating rescue efforts is the lack of electricity in many areas, meaning noisy power generators must be used, making

it harder to hear anyone who might be trapped beneath rubble.

Christian Rivera, the head of emergency services for the capital, Quito, said that depending on the circumstances a person without serious injuries can survive up to a week in such conditions.

“After that, there’s a quick decline...and the rescuers’ work

becomes very difficult,” he said.Some 450 rescue workers from

Spain, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezu-ela and elsewhere are working in the areas with the most damage.

The United States has also of-fered assistance, but so far Presi-dent Rafael Correa, a strong critic of US foreign policy in Latin Amer-ica, has yet to respond publicly.

The leftist leader on Monday boarded a military helicopter to deliver water, food and other sup-plies to devastated areas.

He urged Ecuadoreans to remain united in what is likely to be a long rebuilding process that could cost billions of dollars. “The priority is to direct resources where there are signs of life,” Correa said.

After a deadly earthquake in Chile in 2010, that South American country was able to get back on its feet quickly thanks to a commodi-ties boom that was energizing its economy. But Ecuador must re-build amid a deep recession that has forced austerity on the Orga-nization of Petroleum Exporting Countries nation’s finances.

To assist in the recovery effort, Ecuador plans to draw down on some $600 million in credit lines from the World Bank, Inter-Amer-ican Development Bank and other multilateral lenders.

Manta, a thriving port city, is among the areas hit hardest by the earthquake. Power cables lie in city streets and electricity remains out in many neighbor-hoods. Among the many building f lattened by the shaking was a control tower at the airport that was home to US antinarcotics missions in South America until Correa kicked the Americans out.

As humanitarian aid begun trickling in, long lines formed as people sought to buy bottled water. Many residents are sleeping out-doors in makeshift camps or in the street cuddled next to neighbors.

Spain’s Red Cross said as many as 5,000 people might need tem-porary housing because of de-stroyed homes and 100,000 need some sort of aid. AP

Ecuador rescuers race against time to find quake survivors

ResCue workers on monday carry body bags in a basket stretcher, as they look for survivors after an earthquake, in manta, ecuador. the strongest earthquake to hit ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. aP/rodrIgo abd

br asIlIa, brazi l—President d i lma r o u s s e f f s a i d o n m o n d a y s h e i s “ i n d i g n a nt ” ove r a co n g re s s i o n a l

vote to open impeachment proceedings against her and vowed to fight what she called the injustice. she again categorically ruled out resigning.

In her first public appearance since the chamber of deputies voted 367-137 late on sunday to send the impeachment proceedings to the senate for a possible trial, brazil’s first female president appeared shaken but delivered a message of defiance.

rousseff repeated the words “indignant,” ‘’injustice” and “wronged” dozens of times during her news conference in the presidential palace. she also repeated her long-stated position that she hasn’t done anything illegal and is the victim of a “coup” orchestrated by her political foes.

“ today, more than anything, I feel wronged—wronged because this process doesn’t have any legal basis,” she said. she said the feeling of being unjustly accused is among the worst sensations.

the impeachment proceedings against rousseff are based on accusations that illegal accounting tricks by her administration allowed her to use government spending to shore up flagging support before elections.

rousseff says previous administrations u s e d s u c h f i s c a l m a n e u v e r s w i t h o u t repercussions and insists the accusations are a flimsy excuse by brazil’s traditional ruling elite to grab power back from her left- leaning Workers’ Par t y, which has governed for 13 years.

she slammed the impeachment effort as an act of “violence against democracy.”

“I’m not going to cowed; I won’t let myself be paralyzed by this,” rousseff said, adding: “I have the energy, strength and courage to confront this injustice.”

rousseff lashed out at her nemesis, chamber of deputies speaker eduardo cunha, the driving force behind the impeachment move. as no. 2 in line to succeed rousseff, cunha has been charged with taking $5 million in bribes in a sprawling corruption scheme at the state-run Petrobras oil giant. AP

Brazil’s Rousseff won’t quit after impeachment vote

Trump, Clinton betting on New York

Wa s H I n g t o n — F o r t h e t w o front-runners in the republican a n d d e m o c r a t i c p re s i d e n t i a l -

nomination races, there’s no place like home. Polls show democrat Hillary clinton and republican donald trump with double-digit leads heading into the new York primary on tuesday, and both candidates are hoping that strong victories on their home-court will reset their respective races and catapult them toward the finish line.

a f t e r t o u g h l o s s e s —tr u m p w a s embarrassed in Wisconsin two weeks ago by texas sen. ted cruz’s strong showing, and clinton has lost eight of her party’s last nine nominating contests to vermont sen. bernie sanders—the immediate path ahead for each candidate looks promising. If the two new Yorkers can close out their home state—clinton is targeting minority voters, while trump is trying to temper his emotional campaign—they’ll pick up needed momentum for the next round of primaries.

Five northeast states hold contests next week, where both candidates should hold

strong advantages. “april 26 is the goal l ine,” Joel benenson, cl inton’s pollster, said in an inter view about the primaries next week. there are about 750 delegates up for grabs in the democratic race over the next week, about 40 percent of the total remaining.

“at that point,” benenson said, “our pledged delegate lead will be of a sufficient size that senator sanders just simply will not have enough real estate left.”

clinton targeted black voters on sunday at a baptist church in mount vernon and at block par ties in Washington Heights and brooklyn, where she campaigned on progun-control messages and celebrated President barack obama’s two terms. It was a stark reminder of perhaps clinton’s biggest advantage in the race—the wide support she enjoys among minority voters over sanders.

“I am your neighbor, which makes me very happy,” she told the black church congregation. “I’m asking for you to be part of what I do as president.” Bloomberg News/TNS

HAVANA—Some of Cuba’s most powerful officials criticized the creaking inefficiency of its

state-controlled economy on Monday, but tarred its vibrant private sector as a potential source of US subversion.

The WorldBusinessMirrornews@businessmirror.com.ph Wednesday, April 20, 2016 A7

China extends controls on wealth of officials to Beijing and beyond

Restrictions initially imposed on officials in the financial hub last May will be extended to the municipalities of Beijing and Chongqing, as well as Guang-dong province and the Xinjiang region, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a decision on Monday at a meeting of the party’s leading group for reform chaired by President Xi Jinping.

The Shanghai program set strict regulations over the business ac-tivities of senior officials’ family

members who previously received less scrutiny and allowed for vari-ous forms of corruption.

The tr ia l ’s expansion a lso came in the aftermath of the leak of the Panama Papers, which ear-lier this month disclosed offshore holdings of family members of eight serving or retired senior Chinese leaders.

Regulating business activities of spouses and children of senior officials “is an important measure aimed at strictly managing the

party,” according to the statement. It did not provide much detail

about what regulations would be applied in the four new locations but said they aimed at “setting clear boundaries” to control fam-ily members’ business operations.

Under the pilot program in Shanghai, the husbands and wives of ministerial and provincial-level officials are prohibited from start-ing companies or getting involved in any business operations.

Children of local officials and their spouses cannot conduct business within the municipality, which carries the same status as a province. The move is a further step in President Xi’s years-long drive to crack down on official corruption. Some of those cases revealed a pattern of officials amassing wealth through busi-ness dealings of family members.

China has long sought to reign in rent seeking among top offi-cials and their family members,

but such directives generally lack specific penalties and have often been ignored. It’s not clear what sanctions can be used against those who violate the new rules, although the official China Daily newspaper said 10 Shanghai of-ficials have been removed from

their posts or transferred to oth-er departments since they were imposed almost a year ago.

The so-called Panama Papers, disclosed earlier this month  by news organizations affi l iated with the International Consor-tium of Investigative Journalists, also detailed the overseas hold-ings of about 140 Chinese politi-cians, public officials and family members, including Xi’s brother-in-law, and family members of Liu Yunshan, the country’s top propaganda official, and Zhang Gaoli, a vice premier.

China’s censors quickly removed any mention of Chinese links to the Panama Papers in social media and Internet sites accessible in China. Aside from one editorial assess-ing the leaks as likely to provide fodder to criticize non-Western nations, China’s state-run media has been largely silent and online searches related to the leaks have been blocked. Bloomberg News and AP

For Britons in France, the upper lip is stiff no more. Louise Garavaglia, who has lived in France for more than two decades, is

rushing to apply for a French passport before the June 23 “Brexit” referendum in the United Kingdom and has no time for “wait and see.”  For his part, Paris-based financial c o n s u l t a n t Pa u l J o h n s o n - Fe rg u s o n i s getting birth certificates translated in time to apply for French citizenship.

With just over two months to go before the referendum that will determine whether the UK stays in the European Union (EU), some of the estimated 1.2 million Britons like Garavaglia and Johnson-Ferguson living and working in the 27 other EU member states are worried about what a possible exit will mean for their status in the countries of their residence. Some are scrambling to ensure they don’t have to make life-changing moves.

“There are risks you can’t afford to take when your family life and livelihood are at stake,” said Garavaglia, 47, in a phone interview. Married to a Frenchman, she has two Franco-British boys and owns a language school in Paris. “If the UK moves out of the EU, I may land up being treated like any other foreigner here, one just doesn’t know,” said Johnson-Ferguson, who has lived in Maisons-Laffitte, in the Western suburbs of Paris, since 1998. “I don’t particularly want to be French, but I’m risk averse so I’d rather hedge my bets.”

Privileges revised?IF the vote puts an end to 43 years of UK’s EU membership, Britons’ right to stay, work and access to pensions, health care and public services in the countries of the bloc will be among a long list of issues to be negotiated within a two-year delay set out by Article 50 of the EU treaty. If talks fail, those privileges may not be maintained, according to a UK government memo published on February 29.

At a conference in London on Thursday, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron warned that leaving the EU would have consequences. It would make the UK “just like Hong Kong, Jersey or Guernsey, “ he said, adding ominously: “Leave the club and you’ll be alone.” Friday was the first day of official campaigning ahead of the June 23 vote, with some polls suggesting the outcome is too close to call. Individuals, like businesses, are trying to make sense of what, such as exit, might mean for them.

The worry is perceptible among the large British communities in Spain, Ireland, France and Germany, the four EU members that, according to the United Nations, are home to the largest number of UK citizens, totaling about 852,000.

Dual citizenshipGArAvAGLIA, worried she might not be able to return home to Paris from a holiday abroad, continue to freely travel to and from the UK or legally represent her company, passed the required French language test in February. She’s now busy getting legal documents translated to get French citizenship, usually a formality for long-standing residents, especially for those with a French spouse and children.

“For many people, if you get dual citizenship you have no more difficulties,” said Christopher Chantrey, Chairman of the British Community Committee, a body which aims to represent British residents in France.  “There is a huge amount of uncertainty.”

Letters to the French administration and the British government  seeking guidelines have gone unanswered, he said. recent data on British requests for citizenship or long-term residency in France aren’t available, said a spokesman for the French Interior Ministry, who asked not to be named in line with government policy. Processing applications takes at least one year, she said.

Retirees worriedSPoTTING that British residents in the rest of the EU have more than a passing interest in the UK remaining in the bloc, the government has been urging them to register to vote.

on its web home page, the Brit ish Community Committee has also posted an appeal to get UK citizens to protest against the fact that those who’ve resided outside the country for more than 15 years are barred from the poll.  For many British retirees, who’ve been longtime residents in another EU country, a great deal is at stake. Take Brian Cave, 83, for example. He and wife moved 18 years ago to Gourdon, in the south of France, to find peace, quiet, natural beauty and cheaper real estate than back home. An activist for the rights of British pensioners living abroad, Cave says Brexit has become the most pressing issue for his group called Pensioners Debout!, or Pensioners on Their Feet. Bloomberg News

Britons in France worry as ‘le Brexit’ fear looms large

ToUrIST groups from China, South Korea, and Taiwan—the three biggest sources of visitors to Japan—have scrapped trips

to the quake-devastated Kyushu region. Travel agencies are anticipating further cancellations. 

The blow to tourism coincided with Japan’s peak spring travel season, with carriers, including Korea’s Asiana Airlines Inc., Hong Kong Airlines Ltd. and China Airlines Ltd., canceling flights to Kumamoto after the southern prefecture was struck by a series of earthquakes since Thursday last week. 

The death toll had risen to 44 with more than a thousand people injured as of Tuesday morning, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. At the 400-year-old Kumamoto Castle, ranked by Tripadvisor Inc. as  No. 1 on a list of things to do in the prefecture, parts of the surrounding stone walls and ornate tiered-towers have collapsed. Built in 1601 by a feudal warlord, the site is one of the most famous castles in the country, according to the Japan National Tourism organization. Standing near the castle on Sunday, Kumamoto resident Mitsuo Furuki mourned the damaged landmark.

“It would take so much time to be rebuilt,” said the 63-year-old. “I came here just a week ago—what I see now isn’t what I saw then.”

Tour cancellationsHANA Tour Services Inc., South Korea’s largest publicly traded tour agency, has canceled all its Kyushu tours up to April 22, and will waive charges for those who drop out until April 30, according to a spokesman. A branch of Beijing-based China International Travel Ser vice Corp. has abor ted Kyushu tours scheduled for April 21 and 29 and will offer refunds to those who cancel.

“Tourism will be hit not just for that area but there will be a spillover effect on the rest of Japan, as well,” said  Mariana Kou, an analyst at CLSA Ltd. “The average Chinese tourist won’t have a good knowledge of the geography of Japan, they will just feel that they should stay away from Japan for now.”

Travel agency H.I.S. Co., which operates the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Kyushu, rebounded as much as 6.3 percent on Tuesday after plunging 12 percent in Tokyo trading a day earlier.

Japan travel web site open Door Inc. rose 2.1 percent after closing down 4.8 percent, while China International Travel’s Shanghai-listed shares rose 0.5 percent after falling as much as 1.8 percent on Monday.

Japan had seen a rebound in tourism since a bigger earthquake, which struck in 2011 and triggered a nuclear disaster in Fukushima prefecture. The travel boom has been a bright spot in an economy struggling to sustain growth, as the double-digit surge in visitors annually since 2011 boosted hotels, retailers and sales of everything from tour buses to contraceptives.

China tourists made up the largest group of visitors to Japan, accounting for 5 million of the record 19.7 million who went to the country last year, according to the Japan National Tourism organization. South Koreans

placed second with 4 million, followed by Taiwan, which sent 3.7 million. Ctrip.com International Ltd., a  Shanghai-based travel services web site, and Taiwan’s Life Travel and Tourist Service Co. said in separate statements they are temporarily suspending tours to the Kyushu region. Kumamoto’s airport reopened on Tuesday morning. Japan stocks rebound JAPANESE stocks rose, rebounding from the biggest drop in two weeks, as investors speculated the Bank of Japan (BoJ) may boost stimulus in the wake of a deadly earthquake.The Topix index climbed 3 percent to 1,359.20 as of 12:48 p.m. in Tokyo, recovering after Monday’s 3 percent loss.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average added 3.3 percent to 16,818.04 as volatility on the gauge declined after spiking 16 percent on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed in New York at its highest since July 20  as oil pared losses that on Monday sparked a 1.5-percent

drop in the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index on Monday.“Things look terrible for Kumamoto in

the shor t-term, but we’ll l ikely see more relief aid and stimulus to help them. It ’s unlikely the Japanese economy will be hurt a lot from this,” said Kazuhito Suzuki, senior strategist at Shinkin Asset Management. “ There was a knee -jerk element to on Monday move, but as US and European stocks were solid, today we’re seeing a sense of relief power a rebound.”

I nve s to r s c o n t i n u e d we i g h i n g t h e economic fallout from Thursday’s earthquake and subsequent aftershocks in southwestern Japan. The quake forced the closure of factories at companies such as Sony Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., with one report estimating the automaker’s operating profit may decline by as much as ¥30 billion ($274 million).

Partial reboundSHArES of some companies which halted operations after the earthquake partially

recovered on Monday’s losses. Chipmaker renesas Electronics Corp. rose 4.8 percent to pare Monday’s loss of 12 percent, while HIS Co., which operates a theme park in the area, added 4 percent after dropping 12 percent on Monday. Sony surged 5.9 percent, the most in two months, as concerns eased about its plant closing in the area.

Speculation the BoJ may boost stimulus to combat economic fallout from the quake weakened the yen for a second day, with it trading at 109.05 per dollar. Exporters Honda Motor Co. jumped 3.8 percent and Mazda Motor Corp. surged 6.5 percent.

BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Saturday it is hard to assess the economic impact of the ear thquake and that he will monitor it closely. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday in parl iament he would consider speeding up a transfer of tax revenues to local governments and using surplus budget funds in response to the quake.

Research dealsroBoTIC suit-maker Cyberdyne Inc. jumped 6.5 percent after striking a research deal with a medical research agency. Sosei Group Corp. soared 11 percent after entering a pact with a London-based Kymab Ltd. to research antibody therapeutics. Shares of the Japanese drugmaker have more than doubled this year.

Futures on the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index added less than 0.1 percent after the underlying gauge gained 0.7 percent on Monday as oil pared losses. The index is trading at its highest level since December 1 as it heads into a week where more than 90 companies are scheduled to report earnings, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

After slumping on the failure of large oil producers to reach agreement to curb output, crude futures pared losses on Monday as a labor strike in Kuwait, organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ fourth-biggest member, cut production for a second day.

Bloomberg News

Japan quakes damage castle, unnerve tourists as deaths rise

Kumamoto Castle stands with its tiled roofs and stone walls partially damaged after a 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Kumamoto city, southern Japan, on april 15. SADAYUKI GoTo/KYoDo NEWS vIA AP

China will restrict private business activities of relatives of senior officials in Beijing and three

other places, as the ruling Communist Party broadens its anticorruption drive and expands a Shanghai pilot program. 10

Number of Shanghai officials who were removed from posts or transferred to other departments since the rules were imposed a year ago

briefs obAmA: top iNtel

oFFiciAl reviewiNg Secret 9/11 mAteriAl

germANy: 5 ArreSted For FormiNg right-wiNg terror group

SpAiN: police NAb moroccAN iN mAllorcA For i.S. liNkS

tAlibAN lAuNcheS AttAck oN AFghAN govt Security AgeNcy

The WorldBusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.phWednesday, April 20, 2016A8

Staffan de Mistura, the UN en-voy for Syria, said he would press on with the talks despite the suspen-sion by the opposition High Nego-tiations Committee (HNC).

The HNC said it would no longer attend meetings at the UN office in Geneva that has hosted weeks of on-and-off peace talks aimed ulti-mately at ending the country’s dev-astating five-year war.

The HNC delegation will remain at their hotel in Geneva, and de Mistura said he will continue “tech-nical” discussions with its envoys by

phone or off-site in hopes of firming up a blueprint for a political transi-tion in Syria. He said he would “take stock” of progress toward that goal on Friday.

The HNC, in a statement late on Monday, said it had asked de Mis-tura for a “brief hold in order to end the Assad regime’s truce violations.”

De Mistura has repeatedly said that political transition—as called for under a UN Security Council resolu-tion—is “the mother of all issues.”

On Monday he acknowledged a “gap” between the two sides on that

issue: The HNC wants no role for Assad in any transitional govern-ment, and Assad’s envoys have pro-posed a “broad-based government.”

The suspension came just hours after Syrian opposition fighters launched a new offensive against government forces in a number of northwestern areas. Rebel groups said attacks in rural parts of Latakia province, a government stronghold, were in retaliation for violations of a US and Russian-brokered cease-fire.

De Mistura said the new fight-ing in parts of Syria, especially near Aleppo, was “particularly worri-some,” and said he expected that the United States and Russia—who are leading oversight of the truce—will hold a special meeting about it “if this trend continues.”

In a statement, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama discussed the situation in Syria and agreed to increase coordination be-tween the special services and mili-taries of the two countries.

US State Department Spokesman John Kirby said the concerns raised by the opposition before pausing the talks are “concerns we share in terms of the lack of some sort of sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance and what are violations of the cessa-tion of hostilities.”

He added that, despite these vio-lations, the cease-fire had reduced the overall level of violence in Syria.

The HNC’s chief negotiator, Mo-

hammed Alloush, said the fragile cease-fire that started in late Feb-ruary “has effectively been ended by the regime.” He said government forces carried out 70 air raids on Sunday. Iran had sent in two new fighting groups to help reinforce Assad’s troops, and Russia has sup-plied Syrian soldiers with weaponry.

“All this intervention gives a clear indication that the solution in  Syria, with the presence of this regime, has become shut—or we have hit a wall,” he told The Associ-ated Press (AP).

In a telephone interview with AP, Khaled al-Nasser, a member of the opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition who is in close contact with the HNC, said “there is no intention to boycott the talks. We will not be responsible for the collapse of the ne-gotiations. The regime will be.”

The rebels said their offensive came in response to government attacks against refugee camps and residential areas. Different rebel factions shared videos of their fight-ers lobbing rockets at government positions in the Jabal al-Akrad area, close to the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib. They claimed on social media to have gained ground.

The Britain-based Syrian Obser-vatory for Human Rights confirmed the rebels seized control of at least two areas and said al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, is taking part in the fighting. Neither the Nusra Front nor the Islamic State group is included in the cease-fire.

The cease-fire, which has been planned to help buttress the Geneva talks, had reduced violence across Syria  despite alleged violations on both sides. The opposition says the government has breached the agreement more than 2,000 times. De Mistura has said that many Syri-an civilians have felt positive effects from the truce overall.

The cease-fire has held in most of Syria, except in the north, where it has practically collapsed. The Nus-ra Front is deeply rooted in the ar-eas in northern Syria controlled by opposition forces, complicating the oversight of the truce. AP

Syria opposition backs away from Geneva talks

GENEVA—Syria peace talks ran into trouble on Monday, with the United Nations

mediator saying the opposition has suspended its formal participation in the indirect discussions with President Bashar al-Assad’s government to protest “worrisome” new violence, especially near the northern city of Aleppo, and rising concerns about the humanitarian situation.

the number of times Syrian government has breached the cease-fire, the opposition alleged

2,000MAROUA, Cameroon—Here on

the front line against Boko Haram, no one boasts of having

“technically” won the war.More than four months after Nigerian

President Muhammadu Buhari made such a claim, the extremists still crisscross international borders, avoiding direct confrontations with US-backed African forces while refocusing on soft targets, like marketplaces and mosques, with little to no protection.

The group may be gone from major cities, but in the countryside it poses a constant threat. And for the hundreds of thousands of refugees and impoverished villagers surrounded by fighting in the isolated northern reaches of Cameroon, terror and hunger form daily challenges to their survival.

“All of you who are attempting to fight this terror, the United States stands with you,” said Samantha Power, America’s UN ambassador, making a rare visit by any foreign dignitary, let alone a US Cabinet member, to this parched, dusty land-scape dotted by thatched-roofed huts and meandering goats and donkeys.

Underscoring the insecurity, Power traveled with a large contingent of US and Cameroonian special forces. A Cameroo-nian helicopter monitored overhead.

But in a tragic accident, an armored jeep in Power’s motorcade stuck a 7-year-old boy who darted onto the road, killing him instantly. She traveled back to the scene of the incident several hours later to offer her condolences to his parents and “our grief and heartbreak.”

Power’s larger goal of pairing mili-tary efforts with greater development of West Africa’s impoverished, Boko Haram-ravaged regions is daunting. They’ve suf-fered generations of neglect.

In Maroua, an enclave some 800 miles from the Cameroonian capital sandwiched between Chad and Nigeria, shortages of water, schools and invest-ment are chronic.

Activists, opposition politicians and Muslim clerics say the extremists will draw Maroua’s disaffected youth to their ranks as long as economic opportunities are limited and security forces continue committing indiscriminate atrocities, while trying to stamp out the insurgency.

Military force must be part of the coun-terterror effort, Power told reporters.

“They have guns. The have suicide vests. They have armored vehicles,” she said.

But Power said targeting civilians is self-defeating because doing so only creates more potential recruits, echoing counterinsurgency lessons the United States learned the hard way in Af-ghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Excessive military force is a problem that appears ubiquitous in the region.

In its flagship Human Rights Report released last week, the State Department chided Nigerian forces for killings, tor-ture, rape, arbitrary detention, prisoner abuse and destruction of property while countering Boko Haram.

One Nigerian state government re-cently acknowledged burying hundreds of minority Shiite Muslims in a mass grave after they were killed in army raids.

Pushed from population centers by Nigeria’s military since Buhari’s elec-tion last year, Boko Haram is changing its tactics.

It launched 159 suicide bombings last year, more than half in Nigeria, increas-ingly using girls to set off the explosives. The consequence has increased suspi-cion even on children

And buoyed by its alliance with the Islamic State, Boko Haram is employing increasingly slick messaging—as evi-denced in some recent videos. As of now, however, US officials aren’t sure about how deep the operational links between the two groups run.

The war against Boko Haram has killed, perhaps, 20,000 people in this decade, and possibly far more. Some 2.4 million are displaced throughout the re-gion. More than 60 percent of these are children. Millions more face dire food shortages.

Boko Haram, which espouses an ex-treme form of conservative Islam, also has kidnapped and raped hundreds of girls. These include more than 200 they still hold two years after seizing them from their school in the town of Chibok, drawing worldwide condemnation.

Power met with one such child at the Minawao refugee camp, which currently houses almost 60,000 people. It was de-signed to host 20,000. Less than 50 miles away, Boko Haram’s fighters hide in the wilderness. AP

boko haram still a threat

AMMAN, Jordan—Jordan’s prime minister on Monday said his gov-ernment has decided to call off a

plan to install surveillance cameras at Je-rusalem’s most sensitive holy site, derail-ing a United States-brokered pact to ease tensions at the volatile hilltop compound.

The decision came just days before the Jewish holiday of Passover—a time of increased activity at the site. The spot is re-vered by Jews, who refer to it as the Tem-ple Mount, and Muslims, who call it the Noble Sanctuary. It has been a frequent scene of violence in the past.

In a deal brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Jordan offered to in-stall the cameras last fall after clashes between Palestinian protesters and Is-raeli security forces.

The Palestinians had accused Israel of secretly plotting to take over the site—a charge Israel strongly denies—while Is-rael pointed to videos showing Palestin-ian protesters using the mosque as cov-er while throwing stones and firecrackers at police.

The idea was that transparency by both sides would help ease tensions.

But the plan quickly ran into trouble, with the Palestinians objecting to Israeli de-mands to place cameras inside the mosque.

The Palestinians also said that Israel

would use the cameras to spy on them.Jordan’s prime minister, Abdullah En-

sour, told the state-run Petra News Agen-cy that Jordan was calling off the plan due to Palestinian concerns.

“We were surprised since we an-nounced our intention to carry out the project by the reactions of some of our brothers in  Palestine  who were skepti-cal about the project,” he said. “We have found that this project is no longer enjoy-

ing a consensus, and it might be contro-versial. Therefore, we have decided to stop implementing it.”

The Jordanian decision could deal an embarrassing blow to Kerry, who had hailed the deal when it was announced last Octo-ber and pushed behind the scenes in recent months for the sides to wrap it up.

In Washington State Department Spokesman John Kirby said it’s “unfortu-nate” that Jordan decided to call off the

plan to install the surveillance cameras.He could not say whether Kerry had

any plans to revisit the idea with Jorda-nian authorities.

“We still see the value in the use of cameras,” Kirby told reporters.

“I can’t tell you at this time that we’re going to you know, be assertive in terms of trying to have it revisited,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean that we’ve changed our minds with respect to the value of that as a tool to increase transparency.”

There was no immediate reaction from Israel.

But the Palestinian minister for Jerusa-lem affairs, Adnan Husseini, said, “I think it’s a wise decision and we are with any decision taken by Jordan, I think Jordan studied the issue wisely and took all the is-sues into consideration until they reached this wise decision.”

The site is revered by Jews as the lo-cation where the biblical Temples once stood. Today it is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Un-der a decades-old arrangement, Jews are allowed to visit the site, but not pray there. Increased visits to the compound last fall by Jewish nationalists, coupled with some restrictions on Muslim access, set off clash-es that quickly escalated into months of vi-olence across Israel and the West Bank. AP

Palestinian men pray at the al-aqsa mosque compound during the muslim holy month of ramadan in Jerusalem in July 2015. AP/MAhMoud IlleAn

Jordan halts plan to install cameras at Jerusalem holy site 

miGrant man and his wife, from syria, prepare dough for bread to sell at the market, at the makeshift camp at the northern Greek border point of idomeni, Greece, on sunday. some thousands of people have been stuck here for more than a month amid hopes that the border would reopen. AP/AMel eMrIc

KABUL, Afghanistan—Armed militants in Afghanistan have staged a coordinated as-sault on a key government security agency in the capital on Tuesday morning, causing an unconfirmed number of fatalities and wounding more than 200 people. The Tal-iban has claimed responsibility.

The attack, including a suicide car bombing, appears to have targeted an agency similar to the US Secret Service, providing personal protection for high-ranking government officials.

Ismail Kawasi, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, said, so far, 208 wounded people, including women and children, have been brought to area hospitals. An Interior Ministry statement said there have been fatalities but it was still unclear how many people were killed. AP

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama says the top-ranking US intelligence of-ficial is reviewing classified material in a September 11 report that families of attack victims and some lawmakers are demand-ing be made public.

Several members of the House and Senate, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, have joined 9/11 families in pressuring for declassification of 28 pages that are part of government docu-ments compiled on the 9/11 attack amid speculation of a possible role by Saudi Arabia. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attack.

In an interview with CBS’s Charlie Rose, Obama was asked if had read the 28 pag-es. “I have a sense of what’s in there,” he replied. Obama also revealed that James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, “has been going through this” to ensure that whatever is made public does not damage US national security interests. “My understanding is that he’s about to com-plete that process,” the president said. AP

BERLIN—Five people were arrested in Germany on Tuesday on suspicion of founding a right-wing terror group to at-tack refugee homes and other facilities, prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors said the “Freital Group,” named after a suburb of the east-ern city of Dresden that has seen a string of antirefugee protests and other incidents, was formed in July last year or earlier. They said several apartments in the state of Saxony were searched alongside the ar-rests of the five German nationals—four men and a woman aged between 18 and 39. The group acquired more than 100 firecrackers of various types from the Czech Republic, prosecutors said in a statement.

They said members are believed to have carried out three attacks in Sep-tember and October—two on refugee homes in Freital and the other on a left-wing housing project in Dresden—in which windows were blown out and one asylum-seeker suffered cuts to the face. Prosecutors are looking into whether they were behind any further attacks.

The suspects were identified only as Justin S., Rico K., Maria K., Sebastian W. and Mike S., in line with German privacy rules, as well as membership in a terrorist organi-zation, they are also suspected of offenses including attempted murder, bodily harm and bringing about explosions. AP

MADRID—The Police say they have arrest-ed a Moroccan man with alleged strong links to the Islamic State (IS) armed group and who was pushing for attacks to be car-ried out in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

A statement said the man was arrest-ed on Tuesday in Palma de Mallorca City on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca where he lived.

It said the detainee poses “a clear threat to national security” given that he used the Internet to promote recruitment for IS, help send potential combatants abroad and encourage attacks in Spain and else-where in Europe. It said he maintained close contact with IS leaders in Syria. Span-ish police have arrested dozens of suspect-ed jihadi recruiters in recent years. AP

The World BusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn ResurreccionWednesday, April 20, 2016A9

LONDON—The longest-reign-ing monarch in British his-tory turns 90 on Thursday,

but Queen Elizabeth II is not planning a major, fireworks-filled celebration to mark the happy occasion.

Just a gentle stroll outside the grounds of Windsor Castle, the light-ing of a beacon and a night at home with family are all that are on the royal plate.

No, she’ll save the pomp and cer-emony for her next birthday. The monarch is such an eminent figure in British life that she gets two birthdays each year, one on the actual date of her birth, April 21, and one official birth-day in June, when there is at least a reasonable hope of dry, sunny parade weather.

Her customary reticence hasn’t kept the nation’s media from going slightly bonkers at the approaching milestone. ITV has already aired a celebratory Our  Queen  at 90 docu-mentary to pump up its Easter rat-ings, and Tatler magazine not only put the queen on its cover, foregoing the youthful socialites that are its typi-cal cover fare, but published a special supplement in her honor.

The birthday events on Thursday can be considered a dress rehearsal for the official celebrations planned in early June. It also opens the door to a rolling birthday season that will last a full six weeks, climaxing with hun-dreds of celebrations large and small.

“June is when everything is hap-pening. That’s the great big extrava-ganza, the street parties and every-thing,” said Sophia Money-Coutts, Tatler’s features director. “From now on, the coverage will be relentless. The republicans will be screaming.”

Indeed, it’s not a good time for those who oppose the monarchy to peek above the parapet. The Brit-ish public’s considerable affection for the queen surfaces at times of national celebration—witness the million-plus crowd that cheered her outside the Buckingham Palace gates at her

Golden Jubilee in 2002.The queen and the royals have en-

dured some low points in the last two decades, particularly around the time of the death of Princess Diana in 1997, but their popularity has rebounded with the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton and the arrival of their two children, Prince George—now third in line to the throne—and Princess Charlotte.

“It’s just a golden moment for the whole family after a tricky few years,” Money-Coutts said. “And the queen is the figurehead of all that, with the line of succession pretty assured. They are going through a glorious period.”

Elizabeth—with her familiar smile, colorful outfits and eccentric if ex-pensive hats—seems oddly impervi-ous to time. If she is tired, it doesn’t show. She has softened her schedule, as a concession to 89 and counting, and she has cut back on grueling plane journeys, but she shows no sign of physical or mental frailty.

Neither does her 94-year-old hus-band Prince Philip, despite several serious health scares that included a medical intervention to open clogged heart arteries. His face is craggy, but he still carries himself with the up-right bearing of the former naval of-ficer that he is.

Both still seem to be going strong, although their children and grand-children are increasingly stepping in to handle royal duties ranging from the routine, like opening a hospital ward, to the more substantial, such as attending a meeting of Common-wealth heads of state.

Elizabeth and Philip say little in public, but the ITV documentary was revealing about the family dynam-ics because William, Kate and Prince Harry all spoke about the  queen, breaking the normal code of silence that governs their relations with an often intrusive news media held re-sponsible by some for cruely hounding Diana in the final months of her life.

William, who lost his mother

Diana when he was just 15, said the  queen  had helped him in subtle ways by providing stability and en-couraging him to find his own foot-ing.

“Growing up, having this figure-head, having this stability above me has been incredible,” he said. “I have been able to explore, understand, slightly carve my own path. I greatly appreciate and value that protection.”

Kate, a likely future  queen  who stepped into the limelight when she and William fell in love in their university days in Scotland, praised Elizabeth for making it easier for her to cope with the constant attention her position brings.

“I feel she’s been there, a gentle guidance really for me,” she said. The milestone 90th birthday is a happy occasion, one the  queen  is willing to acknowledge and share with the na-tion. It was different last September when— by virtue of her father’s early death and her own longevity—she surpassed Queen Victoria to earn dis-tinction as the British ruler with the most time on the throne.

While the British press went gaga over her accomplishment, it seemed that for Elizabeth it was a somewhat painful reminder that her father, King George VI, had died suddenly at age 56, making her queen far ear-lier than had been expected or de-sired. She was on vacation in Kenya at the time, having left Britain as a princess and returning as a queen in mourning, greeted at the airport by Winston Churchill, the first of many prime ministers.

The  queen  may be reluctant to make a great fuss over her 90th birthday, but there is little doubt her favorite time of year is approaching. For June means not only her official birthday, and the gala Trooping The Color parade that accompanies it, it also brings the Royal Ascot races that are a highlight of the queen’s year, and other races and racing-related events dear to her heart. AP

Queen elizabeth ii to mark 90th birthday at Windsor Castle

britain’s Queen elizabeth ii, then Princess elizabeth (right), enjoys a joke with her father king George Vi on the grounds of the royal lodge, Windsor, england, in this august 20, 1946, photo. britain’s Queen elizabeth celebrates her 90th birthday on thursday. AP

Nevada Seismology Laboratory Director Graham Kent says the re-gion’s earthquake “drought” is likely one of the sources of a public mis-conception that it is at a low risk of experiencing a serious earthquake.

He planned to discuss details about the latest research on Tuesday during an Earthquake Economic Re-siliency Forum ahead of the Seismo-logical Society of America’s annual meeting running on Wednesday to Friday in Reno.

Kent said a 6-magnitude earth-quake or larger typically strikes every 10 years or so along the Si-erra Nevada frontal fault system running from south of Yosemite National Park to north of Reno and Lake Tahoe.

There were seven 6.5-magni-tude or larger in the region from 1915 to 1954, but none since, he said. The last 6-magnitude was 22 years ago in the Carson Valley south of Carson City.

The Federal Emergency Manage-

ment Agency estimates a 6-magni-tude quake could cause up to $1.9 billion in damage in the Reno-Sparks area and $590 million in the populated area of South Lake Ta-hoe, California, Kent said.

“Let’s take advantage of this ex-traordinary quiescent period in our earthquake history,” Kent said. “We have a great opportunity to bring experts together with our commu-nity—those who need to put plans in place not only for disaster re-sponse but, just important, a plan

for quick economic recovery.”The experts are gathering in

Nevada days after powerful earth-quakes killed hundreds of people in Ecuador (7.8 magnitude) and killed dozens and wounded thousands in Japan (7.1 magnitude).

Scheduled speakers on Tuesday include Dick McCarthy, executive director of the California Seismic Safety Commission, and Cory Ly-man, director of the Salt Lake City Emergency Management’s “Fix the Bricks” program.

The largest earthquake ever re-corded in the Sierra fault system was a 7.4 magnitude in 1872 in Owens Valley south of Yosemite Na-tional Park. It’s still the third larg-est in California history, behind the 7.9 magnitude at Fort Tejon in 1857 and the 7.8 magnitude in San Fran-cisco in 1906.

More recent studies of the fault lines and damage suggest the Ow-ens Valley quake was probably big-ger than the one in San Francisco, Kent said.

The Seismology Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno chronicled the event in its March newsletter with historical excerpts from naturalist John Muir, who wrote about the violent shaking while at Yosemite.

“I ran out of my cabin near the Sentinel rock, both glad and fright-ened, shouting, ‘A noble earthquake!” Muir wrote. “The shocks were so violent and varied and succeeded one another so closely, one had to balance in walking as if on the deck of a ship among the waves.” AP

Sierra Nevada’s eastern front long overdue for quakeRENO, Nevada—Scientists

say the Sierra’s eastern front is long overdue for a large

earthquake along the California-Nevada line, where a 7-magnitude event expected on average every 30 years hasn’t occurred in six decades.

Frequency of 6-magnitude earthquake that occurs along the Sierra Nevada fault system

10 yrs

SYDNEY—Australia’s prime minis-ter said on Tuesday he expects to call a rare early election, with the

nation likely to head to the polls in July amid waning popularity for the ruling conservative party.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s comments all but confirmed that Aus-tralia was on track to hold its first early election—called a “double dissolution” because both the House of Represen-tatives and the Senate are dissolved—since 1987.

Turnbull, whose administration is scheduled to deliver its first annual bud-get to Parliament on May 3, has until May 11 to officially announce an early election.

He had previously said he would call for a double dissolution if the Senate failed to pass government legislation that would create a construction industry watchdog. The Senate rejected the bill for the second time on Monday, providing the trigger Turnbull had been waiting for.

“My intention is after the budget, at an appropriate time after the budget has been delivered, I will be asking the gover-nor-general to dissolve both houses of the parliament for an election which I expect to be held on the second of July,” Turnbull

told reporters.A typical election, in which the entire

House of Representatives and half the Senate go to the polls, can be held any time from August 6 until January 14, 2017. A double dissolution can be called earlier to break a legislative deadlock after the Senate has twice rejected a bill passed by the House.

Turnbull’s move comes shortly after an opinion poll showed the government trailing the opposition party for the first time since he took over as leader last year. The Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper earlier this month found that support for Turnbull’s conservative co-alition was behind the center-left Labor Party 49 percent to 51 percent.

The poll was a blow to the ruling par-ty’s confidence as it prepares to campaign for a second three-year term in office. The coalition was lagging behind Labor in opinion polls for more than a year until Turnbull replaced the unpopular Tony Ab-bott as prime minister in September in a bid to boost the party’s ratings.

The government did see an immedi-ate boost in popularity under Turnbull, but the recent Newspoll shows his honey-moon with voters may be ending. AP

AuStrAliAN leAder plANS to cAll rAre eArly electioN

NEW YORK—The Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for public service on Monday for document-

ing the use of slave labor in Southeast Asia to supply seafood to American tables—an investigation that spurred the release of more than 2,000 captive workers.

The Los Angeles Times was awarded the breaking news prize for its coverage of the shooting rampage by husband-and-wife extremists that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino, California, and The Washington Post received the national reporting award for an examination of killings by police in the United States.

Besides recognizing some of the big-gest national and international stories of the year, the awards spotlighted deep dives into a chilling rape case, the long arc of school segregation and the mistreat-ment of psychiatric patients.

The New Yorker was honored in the criti-cism and feature writing categories, which only recently were opened to magazines.

The New York Times won for interna-tional reporting for detailing the plight of Afghan women, while the Times and Thomson Reuters both took the breaking news photography prize for images of refugees. The Times’s report-er on the Afghan story, Alissa J. Rubin, said she was “overwhelmed” to see the work recognized.

The Boston Globe also won two awards: the feature photography prize for pictures showing the life of a poor, 6-year-old boy who survived a horrific beating by his mother’s boyfriend, and the commentary award for Farah Stock-man’s work on the legacy of school bus-ing in the city.

The Tampa Bay Times and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune received the investigative reporting prize for demonstrating that years of budget and staff cuts and overall neglect had resulted in a dramatic uptick of violence in Florida’s mental hospitals.

The Tampa Bay Times also won in local reporting for detailing the harmful effects of ending school integration in Pinellas County, Florida. AP

AP wins Pulitzer for stories on enslaved fishermen in Asia

BEIJING—Taiwan says its delegation was ejected from a meeting of the Or-ganization for Economic Cooperation

and Development’s (OECD) steel committee after China complained, part of an apparent hardening of Beijing’s attitude toward the is-land it claims as its own territory.

Taiwan is only an observer rather than a member of the OECD due to China’s cam-paign to isolate it diplomatically. It was partic-ipating as a dialogue partner in the meeting held on Monday in Belgium to discuss excess steel capacity.

However, the Chinese delegation de-manded the Taiwanese leave because the delegates’ ranks were not senior enough,

Taiwan’s official Central News Agency (CAN) said on Tuesday.

CNA cited Foreign Ministry Spokesman Eleanor Wang as saying that claim wasn’t valid because Taiwan had participated in pre-vious meetings at the same level and in the same capacity.

“Strong protests” had been lodged against China, Belgium and the OECD over the ejection, CNA said without giving details. Taiwan and China recently disagreed over Ke-nya’s deportation of 45 Taiwanese wire fraud suspects to China, with Taiwan saying Beijing had violated a tacit understanding under which both sides agreed not to interfere in the legal affairs of their citizens abroad. AP

Taiwan protests ejection from OECD steel talks, blames China

Wednesday, April 20, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

OpinionBusinessMirrorA10

A word to duopolistic telecom companies

editorial

As news continue to trickle in on our telecom-munications predicament, we are astounded at the corporate duplicity on the true state of the telecommunications industry in our country.

Until updated by the failed entry into the business of the Australian In-ternet service provider Telstra Corp. Ltd., we did not know that the two incum-bent providers in the Philippines—Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Globe Telecom Inc.—have been delivering to us one of the most mediocre Internet services in the world, while assuring us through highfalutin verbiage that we were advanced in the field. We took pride in being described as one of the texting-est people in the world, not realizing that we were being “used” to conceal corporate mediocrity.

One of the reasons Telstra’s partnership with San Miguel Corp. (SMC) did not push through was its fear that the duopolistic incumbents would insist on fragmenting the 700-megahertz (MHz) spectrum now assigned to SMC. True enough, shortly after the announcement of Telstra’s potential entry into the Philippine telecommunications market, the duopolists moved to pressure the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to reallocate the 700-MHz spectrum.

As expected, Globe and PLDT justified their renewed interest in the real-location by appealing to improved customer service. Harrumph!

So much for PR spin. An independent researcher on information and com-munications technology, Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos, has something to say on the matter: “Other countries that have fast and reliable Internet con-nection speeds do not necessarily operate on the 700-MHz band…the issue of the spectrum is overshadowed by the problem of congestion. What the local telcos need to address is the problem of congestion. Are there enough cell sites to service the growing number of mobile broadband subscribers?” In a later commentary, Mirandilla-Santos said “new players find it very difficult and costly to enter what is clearly a profitable market, [because] there are barriers that help maintain the status quo and benefit existing market players.… The two incumbents are ready to pull commercial and political strings to stop the entry of new competitors.”

According to Globe’s own data, there are about 15,000 cell sites in the Phil-ippine archipelago. This is far fewer than those in our peers in Asia.

In this connection, Trade Undersecretary Prudencio M. Reyes is quoted as saying that the slowness and costliness of Internet service is the main factor behind the slow growth of e-commerce as a platform for growth of our coun-try’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) says right now only 10,000 MSMEs are online. The DTI is targeting that 100,000 MSMEs will migrate into e-commerce in four years. Thus, it is calling for more investments in telecommunications infrastructure.

We do not know how the NTC will act on these issues. Our unsolicited advice is to bring foreign telcos into the Philippines and take heed of the recommen-dations of the telco expert. We must escape from the bottom of the telecoms pit where the duopolists have condemned us.

stArting April 15, 2016, social security system (sss) mem-bers who wish to save more for their retirement through the sss Personal Equity savings Option (Peso), a provident-fund

scheme that aims to increase savings among members, may now enroll in the program through the Web.

Enrollment to the SSS Peso Fund made easier

At their own time and conve-nience, members may register via the My.SSS web site and click the “e-services tab.” A confirmation will be sent to their e-mail once the reg-istration is successful.

Enrollees may start paying their contributions once enrolled online.  But they are required to go to any SSS branch to confirm their enrollment.  Nonconfirmation will not allow the member to withdraw his or her eq-uity or apply for any benefit.

It can be recalled that the SSS Peso Fund was first launched in September 2014  as an alternative and tax-free investment that would help members accumulate adequate

income in retirement and earn a rea-sonable rate of return.

The SSS Peso savings can be used to supplement the benefits available under the regular SSS program. It offers guaranteed earnings based on rates higher than those offered by regular financial institutions. It is open to all members below the age of 55, with six consecutive SSS con-tributions within the last 12 months prior to enrollment, and who have not yet filed final claims with the SSS. Qualified members can par-ticipate with a minimum contribu-tion of P1,000 up to a maximum of P100,000 per year.

One’s membership will start

upon receipt of the first contribu-tion. Succeeding SSS Peso Fund con-tributions can be made anytime, as long as there is a correspond-ing regular SSS contribution for the month.

Self-employed, voluntary and overseas Filipino workers members are qualified to join the program, provided they are contributing based on the maximum salary credit under the regular social-security program. 

Savings in the SSS Peso Fund are invested in sovereign-guaranteed investments, where 65 percent of the total fund is allocated for retire-ment, and 35 percent is for medical and general purposes. The portion for retirement is guaranteed to earn

income based on interest rates of five-year Treasury yields, while earn-ings of the fund allotted for medical and general purposes will be based on 364-day Treasury bill rates.

Aside from guaranteed earn-ings, SSS Peso Fund members may also get excess earnings, which will be credited automatically to their accounts, depending on the actual year-end performance of the SSS Peso Fund.  Savings in the SSS Peso Fund can be withdrawn upon the member’s effective date of retire-ment or total disability with the SSS, either in monthly pensions over a minimum period of 12 months and P1,000 payment per month, in lump sum, or combination of both.

For more details on the SSS Peso Fund online registration, call the SSS hot line at 924-6446 to 55 or e-mail member_relations@sss.gov.ph.

For more details on SSS programs, members can drop by the nearest SSS branch, visit the SSS web site (www.sss.gov.ph), or contact the SSS Call Center at 920-6446 to 55, which accepts calls from 7 a.m. on Mondays, all the way to 7 a.m. on Saturdays.

Susie G. Bugante is the vice president for public affairs and special events of the SSS. Send com-ments about this column to susiebugante.bmir-ror@gmail.com.

HOM

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nDXQR -93dot5 HOME RADIO CAGAYAN DE ORO E-MAIL ADDRESS: homecdo@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Archbishop Hayes corner Velez Street, Cagayan de Oro City CONTACT NOs.: (088) 227-2104/ 857-9350/ 0922-811-3997

nDYQC -106dot7 HOME RADIO CEBU E-MAIL ADDRESS: homecebu@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Ground Floor, Fortune Life Building, Jones Avenue, Cebu City CONTACT NOs.: (032) 253-2973/ 234-4252/ 416-1067/ 0922-811-3994

nDWQT -89dot3 HOME RADIO DAGUPAN E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeradiodagupan@ yahoo.com ADDRESS: 4th Floor, Orchids Hotel Building,

Rizal Street, Dagupan City CONTACT NOs.: (075) 522-8209/ 515-4663/ 0922-811-4001

nDXQM – 98dot7 HOME RADIO DAVAO E-MAIL ADDRESS: home98dot7@gmail.com ADDRESS: 4D 3rd Floor, ATU Plaza, Duterte Street, Davao City CONTACT NOs.: (082) 222-2337/ 221-7537/ 0922-811-3996

nDXQS -98dot3 HOME RADIO GENERAL SANTOS E-MAIL ADDRESS: homegensan@yahoo.com ADDRESS: 2nd Floor, Penamante ClinicTiongson Street, General Santos City CONTACT NO.: 0922-811-3998

nDYQN -89dot5 HOME RADIO ILOILO E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeiloilo@yahoo.com

ADDRESS: 3rd Floor, Eternal Plans Building, Ortiz Street, Iloilo City CONTACT NOs.: (033) 337-2698/ 508-8102/ 0922-811-3995

nDWQA -92dot3 HOME RADIO LEGAZPI E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeradiolegazpi@ yahoo.com ADDRESS: 4th Floor, Fortune Building, Rizal Street, Brgy. Pigcale, Legazpi City CONTACT NOs.: (052) 480-4858/ 820-6880/ 0922-811-3992

nDWQJ -95dot1 HOME RADIO NAGA E-MAIL ADDRESS: homenaga@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Eternal Garden Compound, Balatas Road, Naga City CONTACT NOs.: (054) 473-3818/ 811-2951/ 0922-811-3993

Since 2005

✝

All About Social SecuritySusie G. Bugante

Atty. Dennis B. Funa

INSURANCE FORUM

Are you paying more than ₧625 for one-year coverage of CTPL insurance?

A PrivAtE-vEhiclE owner should pay no more than P625.40 for a comprehensive third-Party liability (ctPl) insurance. Premium rates for ctPl insurance policies are

highly regulated. the price is the same for all private vehicles all over the country. no insurance company should charge more than the amount fixed by the insurance commission (ic). if you are being charge more than this amount, then the insurance agent is commit-ting the crime of estafa for which you have the legal right to file a criminal complaint with the nearest police precinct.

There are seven vehicle classifica-tions with different CTPL insurance premiums. These classifications and the corresponding CTPL premiums are: 1) private vehicle—P625.40; 2) light and medium trucks (not over 3,930 kg)—P675.40; 3) heavy trucks (over 3,930 kg)—P1,265.40; 4) tourist cars—P805.40; 5) taxis, public utility jeepneys and mini-bus—P1,165.40; 6) public utility bus and tourist bus—P1,515.40; and 7)

motorcycles, tricycles and trailers—P315.40. There are six ingredients that go into determining the total premium payable. These are: 1) the basic premium as computed by the IC; 2) the documentary-stamp tax, which is at 12.50 percent; 3) the ex-panded valued-added tax (E-VAT); 4) the local government tax; 5) the Stradcom fees; and 6) the authen-tication fees.

Pursuant to Insurance Memoran-

dum Circular 4-2006, dated July 26, 2006, the total premium (for one-year coverage) for 1) private vehicles is P560; 2) for light and medium trucks, P610; 3) for heavy trucks, P1,200; 4) for tourist cars, P740; 5) for taxis, PUJs and minibus, P1,100; 6) for PUB and tourist bus, P1,450; and for 7) motorcycles, tricycles and trailers, P250.

These amounts are the sums of the basic premium (pegged by the IC), the documentary-stamp tax (fixed at 12.50 percent) and E-VAT (fixed at 12 percent), and the local government tax (LGT), which varies depending on the local government unit, but has been fixed at a maxi-mum of 0.75 percent. To be added to the total premium is the Stradcom Fees, which has been fixed at P50.40. Also to be added is the authentica-tion fees imposed by the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association (Pira) and the Organization of Insur-ance Companies of the Philippines (OICP). The Pira authentication fee is P14.46, while the OICP authenti-cation fee is P15. The total of these fees is fixed and cannot be increased further without violating the

Insurance Code. It should be noted that a “private vehicle” covers both sedan and sport utility vehicles, and both vehicles should cost no more than P625 in CTPL insurance. In this regard, Pira has issued Pira Cir-cular 006-2007, dated January 10, 2007 on the sample computations of CTPL premiums.

The basic premium pegged by the IC is also already inclusive of the agent’s commission. Under Circu-lar Letter 10-2003, dated December 3, 2003, nonlife-insurance compa-nies were reminded “to adhere to the 10-percent commission rate for CTPL business as prescribed in the Insurance Code.” This is pursuant to Section 400 of the Amended Insurance Code. Likewise, only 10 percent of the premiums must be allocated for marketing expenses, to be taken from the basic premi-um. The Stradcom fee is the sum of the basic fee of P45 plus the 12- percent VAT.

Atty. Dennis B. Funa is currently the deputy insurance commissioner for legal services of the Insurance Commission.

E-mail address: dennisfuna@yahoo.com.

The SSS Peso savings can be used to supplement the benefits available under the regular SSS program. It offers guaranteed earnings based on rates higher than those offered by regular financial institutions. It is open to all members below the age of 55, with six consecutive SSS contributions within the last 12 months prior to enrollment, and who have not yet filed final claims with the SSS.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

OpinionA11BusinessMirroropinion@businessmirror.com.ph

InclusIvIty, or the lack of it, has been the buzz word lately to describe why poverty has not dropped substantially, unlike those of our Asian neighbors, despite the fact the Philippines

recorded the highest robust economic growth.

Next govt must reallocate tax spending for inclusivity

By Matt Levine | Bloomberg View

Conclusion

Banks

A lot of people are pretty worked up about all the banks whose “living wills” were rejected by regulators this week. the trick to staying calm, I find, is to remember that the

living wills have nothing to do with whether banks are too big to fail: there’s a whole separate regulatory process to allow them to fail outside of the bankruptcy/living-will regime, and anyway the wills are so conditional and uncertain, that a passing or fail-ing grade says almost nothing about a bank’s likely outcomes in bankruptcy. the wills are an interesting exercise in focusing bank executives’ attention on liquidity and risk and careful op-erational planning, but they have nothing particularly useful to teach us about bigness or systemic risk.

Bad supervision or no supervisionhas brought in investment banksto review its options amid interest from buyout firms and other companies in a number of its businesses.”

Market structureHere’s Federal reserve Governor Lael Brainard on “the use of distrib-uted ledger technologies in payment, clearing and settlement,” arguing that the blockchain will probably come sooner to areas with already-antiquated settlement mechanisms (syndicated loans, private company shares) than to areas that are already computerized and centrally cleared (public equities, Treasuries):

As a practical matter, the large-scale adoption of wholly new clear-ing technologies to replace existing legacy technologies for major mar-kets may face a significant hurdle initially, such that incremental change or delayed adoption until the technology has achieved greater maturity and standardization may be more likely.

At the other end of the spectrum, there appear to be some markets or segments where clearing practices are relatively cumbersome and out-moded, and the network hurdles to the adoption of new technologies are lower. Improvements in smaller markets would also provide an op-portunity for market participants to gain operational and business experience with distributed ledger technologies that could help inform and strengthen the case for broader applications over time.

elsewhere: “Banks begin  block-chain-payment integration.” And here is a comment letter from the FIA Prin-cipal Traders Group arguing against the securities and exchange Com-mission’s proposal to allow stock ex-changes (like, one day, IeX), to delay for up to 1 millisecond before execut-ing orders. And: “Bats IPO raises $253 Million After Pricing at High end.” But now it has to trade.

People are worried about uni-corns.

Here  is Dan Primack  question-ing Yale’s claim that its endowment’s “venture capital program has earned an outstanding 92.7 percent per an-num” over 20 years:

For instance, if Yale had $1 billion in venture capital investments two decades ago—which is my educated guess of what it may have had, based on an overall private-equity portfo-lio of $2.5 billion at the time—and just that portion of its fund had compounded annually at that rate, it would mean Yale’s VC portfolio alone would be worth $498 trillion today, or roughly 6.4 times the entire world’s GDP.

Unicorns are magical, but not that magical. Anyway it’s a dollar-

weighted internal rate of return, not a time-weighted compound annual growth rate.

People are worried about bond- market liquidity.

One bond-market liquidity prob-lem is fragmentation: There are so many different bonds—sometimes dozens or hundreds per issuer, ver-sus just one stock—that it’s less likely that a buyer will want to buy and a seller will want to sell the same bond at the same time. One possible solution is an electronic-trading platform that gets every potential buyer and seller in one place, instead of relying on opaque informal net-works of dealers, making phone calls and taking inventory risk to match up buyers and sellers. electroni-fication  doesn’t exactly solve the problem, but at least if you do have a buyer and seller of the same bond at the same time, they can find each other efficiently. except that every-one had the same idea at the same time, and “the bond market now has 99 electronic platforms to facilitate fixed-income trading from London to New York and singapore, ac-cording to technology consultancy Alignment systems.” That seems to reproduce the fragmentation prob-lem in platforms as well as in bonds.

Meanwhile, “more than a quarter of Us bond money is now in passive funds,” and “we are seeing a struc-tural shift toward awareness, un-derstanding and adoption of fixed income eTFs [exchange-traded funds]” are another solution to the liquidity problem—one portfolio manager says that “if we want to make a quick move in or out it is more efficient for us to take that exposure with an eTF” than to buy illiquid bonds—that some people think are also a cause of it: “some even argue bond eTFs are dangerous, offering the illusion of liquidity, while track-ing debt instruments that may only trade occasionally.”

But there might be bigger bond market worries than liquidity. For instance,  there is  “Duration risk: The Bomb Ticking Inside Today’s Bond Market,” and I hope someone is working on an action movie called “Duration.” (sample dialogue: “We must defease this 100-year bond be-fore the Fed raises rates!” “Cut the blue wire maybe?”) Or there is regu-lar old default risk: “Defaults for Us high-yield bonds have topped $14 billion in April—the largest month-ly volume in two years, according to Fitch ratings—and the month isn’t even half over,”  and”debt inves-tors’ outlook for  corporate-credit defaults is the most negative in almost seven years on weakening global.”  On the other hand, may-be insolvency is good?

on the contraryMichael Makabenta alunan

But here is  Jeff spross argu-ing  that they tell us that “Dodd-Frank should have been stupider,” which is a fairly common but, as far as I can tell, completely ungrounded view about modern regulation.  It would be a nice world if all complex problems had simple solutions but, I mean, it took millions of lines of code and a massive global telecom-munications network built up over decades for you to be able to read the words that I am typing now. Lots of simple problems have com-plex solutions! I am more in sympa-thy with Peter eavis’s view that the opaque  and uncertain living-will process is intended to unsettle bank-ers and prevent them from gaming the system, and with Mike Konczal’s view that complex modern financial regulation requires technocratic reg-ulators. Hillary Clinton and Bernie sanders also have views. 

Meanwhile, if the banks are too big to fail, they’re getting smaller. Or at least cheaper. At Goldman sachs, for instance, “they are getting even leaner”:

The firm, already expected to report a steep drop in expenses for the first quarter, recently began dismissing more support staff and is increasingly rejecting bankers’ spending on airfare, hotels and en-tertainment unless it directly serves clients, the people said. For example, the company cut technology work-ers in London this week, one person said, and some employees in europe aren’t being permitted to take once-routine trips to other offices in the region, said another. Additional cuts are likely.

similarly,  “Bank of America Corp. sees more room for cost cuts after bigger-than expected reduc-tions in the first quarter helped blunt declines in profit and revenue,” and “BNP Paribas sA plans to eliminate as many as 675 positions at its French investment-banking division.” It is no fun, though there is “One Bright spot for Bank Trading: rates.”

Also Citigroup reported earnings today, with earnings per share of $1.10, beating estimates of $1.03. Here are the press release and the-supplement.

SunEdisonsUNeDIsON, the  solar company once beloved by hedge funds for its combination of clean technol-ogy and financial engineering, has had a rough time recently. Here is a good story by Liz Hoffman cover-ing sunedison’s entire arc, from its humble beginnings as a silicon parts company, through its solar empire-building and the formation of “yield-cos” to buy projects that it built, to its current liquidity crunch and awkward yieldco controversies. The yieldcos, TerraForm Power and Ter-raForm Global, are public companies controlled by sunedison, and when sunedison needed money to pay off a margin loan (on TerraForm Power shares), it asked TerraForm Global to pay $231 million for a project in India that sunedison was develop-ing. TerraForm Global’s independent directors rejected the deal, so sune-dison fired them, replaced them with more pliable directors, and pushed the deal through. There are lawsuits. “TerraForm now says its indepen-dent directors were misled about the India deal, and that sunedison officials never mentioned the margin loan or the reluctance of the previ-ous committee.” 

That is not the only oddity; for instance, there was the time that an investor “presentation told investors sunedison had $1.4 billion in cash,” while “the same day, a report circu-lated to top executives showed $90 million in available cash.”  sunedi-son’s investigation into itself found some “‘wrongdoing’ by a former non-executive employee and an ‘overly optimistic’ culture fostered by man-agement.”

elsewhere in once high-flying hedge-fund favorites, “Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.

Philippines has the worst tax system? One reason is the onerous and tedious tax system that is not only posing a burden on the poor, but also on businesses, thus, de-terring growth that creates jobs and better incomes for the poor. A Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) study noted that it takes 193 hours for a businessman in the Philippines to pay 36 kinds of fees and taxes per year. A Philip-pine employer pays an average of 42 percent in income-tax rate and related fees, which is 6 percent higher than the average tax rate in the Asia Pacific. However, let’s reserve discussion on our onerous tax system, but focus here on how taxes are allocated. Currently, 60 percent of taxes is kept for national spending and 40 percent for local government units (LGUs) through the internal revenue allotment (IrA), which is distributed as follows: 23 percent for provinces; 23 percent for cities, 34 percent for municipalities, and the 20-percent balance for barangays. After the allocation by LGU class, the share of each province, city or municipality is based on pop-ulation, 50 percent; land area, 25 percent and equal sharing among the same LGU class, 25 percent. IRA lopsided in favor of cities. The problem with this allocation criteria is that it does not neces-sarily address directly the millen-nium development goals (MDGs) of eradicating poverty and hunger, with targets of decreasing by 50 percent both poverty and hunger by 2015 from their 1990 levels. The criteria are simply lopsided in favor of bigger cities. For one, while municipalities get more or 34 percent of total IrA for LGUs, compared to 23 percent for cities, the latter get more as there are less than 100 cities, which share in their allocation as against over 1,000 municipalities sharing their allotment. Thus, many municipalities want to convert into cities, which the lat-ter blocked, fearing it will affect their share of the pie. second, although population must rightfully be considered a vital factor, on the contrary, it has effectively reinforced the wide rural-urban poverty gap. Cities be-ing naturally congested with bigger populations, which attract busi-nesses and resulting more taxes, receive even bigger IrA allocations, which they do not really need. Divert wasteful spending to countryside. Cities, being trading hubs, which attract businesses and property development that lead to bigger local tax revenues, have be-come financially strong enough to even afford to adopt provin-cial towns and cities, like Makati’s 300 sister LGUs. Quezon City, with the biggest revenue of P16 billion a year, can spend lavishly on inani-ties and wasteful unnecessary ex-penditures, like demolishing road islands and replacing them with fancy high-rise islands with initials of its mayor engraved on them. This is grossly unfair as many towns can’t even build decent farm-to-market roads, water systems and other infrastructures. These big cities do not need IrA budgets as these only account for 20 percent to 40 percent of their total revenues, unlike small towns which totally depend 90 percent to 95 percent on their IrA for their survival. And yet, two-thirds of those living in poverty are based

in the countryside, as no opportu-nities are developed owing to the lack of rural infrastructures and basic services. Cities already benefit thrice. The bigger problem is the fact big-ger cities benefit thrice from the lopsided allocations. First, being regional centers and very likely more influential, cities easily be-come main beneficiaries of national projects, like national roads, thus, allowing them to save on such ex-penditures. second, having bigger popula-tions and land areas, they get the lion’s share of IrA budgets. Third, as magnets of businesses and prop-erty development, they generate much more in business and real- estate taxes. Last, cities, particularly in Metro Manila, are where big businesses register and pay their taxes, even if actual operations, like mining and agriculture, are based in the rural areas. Reallocate tax proceeds. This brings me to my friend Voi Aguilar’s suggestion that the bulk of taxes of these businesses be spent back in the countryside, from where they were generated anyway in the first place. Aguilar adds that individuals, who hail from the provinces but are working in the cities, must be given the option to declare that sizeable proceeds of their taxes be spent in the regions they came from. even the 60-percent automatic national allocation must be re-viewed by legislators as this simply means 60 percent of taxes gen-erated in the rural areas are si-phoned out towards the national government in NCr. This capital flow must be re-versed, as statistics show that NCr’s poverty incidence is only 3.8 percent in 2012 as against 68.8 percent in Lanao sur, 59.8 percent in Kalinga-Apayao, 57.8 percent in Maguindanao, and 59.4 percent in eastern samar, etc. Moreover, insurgency and Muslim extrem-ism abound where poverty is at its worst, which means development is key and not military action. (See related column entitled P-Noy’s BBL and Lincoln’s railway economics) on how Lincoln pursued his railway de-velopment, and was not distracted by the American civil war. Our rural poverty is three times that of Asean neighbors, as they have reduced poverty substantially with Vietnam alone, reducing pov-erty from 60 percent to 20 percent in only 20 years. We can do the same by reallocating resources to where they are needed most—in the countryside.

E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com.

The bigger problem is the fact bigger cities benefit thrice from the lopsided allocations. Firstly, being regional centers and very likely more influential, cities easily become main beneficiaries of national projects like national roads, thus allowing them to save on such expenditures. Secondly, having bigger populations and land areas, they get the lion’s share of IRA budgets. Thirdly, as magnets of businesses and property development, they generate much more in business and real estate taxes.

FMB Director Ricardo Calde-ron, the country’s top forestry official, said the country’s wood industry needs to catch up with other neighbors in Southeast Asia, especially with the onset of the Asean economic integration, and compete with other countries in the world market. Calderon said various stake-holders have been consulted in the crafting of a draft executive order (EO) on forest certifica-tion. The EO now awaits the final approval of Environment Sec-ret a r y R a mon J.P. Paje a nd President Aquino. In August 2013 the DENR fa-cilitated the formulation of poli-cy guidelines and mechanism on national forest certification. A series of consultations was held to come up with a draft EO on forest certification, including the national standards for forest-management certification. Calderon said the draft EO was subjected to regional and

national consultat ions, w ith representatives from people’s organizations, wood and furniture industries, and non-governmen-tal organizations (NGOs). Other government agencies also took part in the consultation process. The EO highlights the proce-dures, composition, rules and management of establ ishing a national forest-certification system, or the Philippine Forest Plantation Certification System (PFPCS), and provides for the es-tablishment of a Philippine Forest Plantation Certification Council (PFPCC), which shall function as an advisory council to the national governing body (NGB).  The PFPCC shall create the NGB, which shall serve as the chief gov-erning body of the PFPCS. A forest certification is a market-based mechanism that promotes good practices in forest manage-ment and forest-product utiliza-tion. It is considered a nonregula-tory-conservation and -protection

approach, while practicing sustain-able utilization of forest resources, according to the FMB.  Forest certification, according to Calderon, supports responsible forest management and utilization through an independent viable compliance. “Other countries al-ready have forest certification. We need to have our own to be more competitive, especially with the Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] economic integra-tion,” he said. Calderon added that forest certification communicates a sig-nificant positive image of proper forest management to the pub-lic through informed decisions in ethical, low-carbon and sus-tainable procurement and other business practices. “With the global effort to fight climate change, many countries want to buy wood and wood prod-ucts that are certified as legally harvested,” Calderon said. President Aquino signed EOs 23 and 26, which banned the harvesting of timber in natural and residual forests and established the National Greening Program (NGP), respectively. The NGP aims to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hect-ares of land by 2016.  Last year Mr. Aquino, l ikewise, signed EO 193, expanding the cover-age of the NGP to cover the 7.1- million-hectare remaining de-graded forest until 2028. The massive reforestation is being eyed to boost the wood industry, particularly for manu-factured wood articles, which is giving hope to the DENR-FMB in increasing forestry’s contribution

to the GDP. According to the Food and Agri-culture Organization of the United Nations, the country’s forestry sector as a contributor to GDP has declined significantly from 12 per-cent in 1980 to less than 1 percent in 1994.  Still facing an uphill climb, the country’s wood industry ex-pressed support behind the push for forest certification. While the industry, represented by the Phil-ippine Wood Producers’ Associa-tion (PWPA), is pinning its hope on a more stable policy environ-ment that will revive the “dying industry” that will ensure sus-tainable forest management, it believes that forest certification will benefit the wood industry, in general. PWPA is the national association of corporations, partnerships and individuals involved in forest man-agement, logging, forest-planta-tion development, manufacture of lumber, veneer and plywood, pulp and paper and other wood products, as well as in trading, shipping and sales of these products. Maila Vasquez, executive di-rector of PWPA, said forest cer-tification will put into a higher level the wood and wood-based products industry.  “This certification will assure that the wood used came from a legal source and a sustainably managed forest,” she said. PWPA sits as a member of the NGB, which crafted the draft EO on forest certification. “Wood certification has been existing since the 1990s.  We fol-low the market-driven trend.  Our neighboring countries have a

policy that they will not accept wood products if they are not cer-tified,” Vasquez added. While she said some countries are not as strict as others in requir-ing wood certification, the impact of climate change and the clamor for sustainable forest management could prompt most countries to adopt similar polices. “ T he industr y is evolv ing because of climate-change is-sues. This is one way of contribut-ing to the global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change.  “Wood is the best solution to cli-mate change.  Unless it is burned, it will not release carbon into the atmosphere,” she said.  Vasquez added that aside from a steady supply of wood, a stable policy environment is needed for the country’s wood industry to recover from the decades-old slump as a result of massive deforestation. “What we really need is a stable policy. I am not saying the industry is dying, but we are fighting for survival,” Vasquez said. Vasquez added that the group continues to promote the use of wood being a renewable source of materials for construction and furniture, and as a way of increasing the country’s carbon-

absorption capacity. “If you plant a tree, it absorbs carbon dioxide.  The tree releases oxygen, while the carbon is retained in the wood.  “If the tree grows and its mar-ginal utility is reached, the trees are cut, but the carbon remains in the wood.  The wood captures car-bon and it will stay there, unless it is burned,” Vasquez said. She said the push for the mas-sive reforestation and cultivation of forest plantation will boost the revival of the wood industry, not-ing the need for sustainable supply for its many uses.  “There are many challenges.  But the industry is not dead. Wood remains as the best construction material. We are encouraging mem-bers, because there is a future in forestry.  The challenge is huge but we need to move forward,” she said. According to Vasquez, there is a need for stability in terms of policy.  She said the industry supports the passage of the Sus-tainable Forest Management Act, which has been pending in Con-gress for more than two decades.  “This could provide a road map and stability to the forestry sec-tor.  Every industry needs a road map,” she said. 

A12

2ndFront PageBusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.phWednesday, April 20, 2016

EASTERLIESAFFECTING EASTERN SECTION

OF THE COUNTRY(APRIL 19, 5:00 PM)

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga 

The Department of environ-ment and Natural Resources (DeNR), through the Forest

Management Bureau (FMB), is pushing for forest certification to boost the country’s wood industry, and prepare various stakeholders for a more competitive arena in the global market.

DENR pushes forest certification to boost competitiveness of domestic wood industry

Other countries already have forest certification. We need to

have our own to be more competitive, especially with the Asean economic integration.”—Calderon

fitness and training lifestyle. The who’s who of the local show business scene and the Philippine sports industry took part in the Test of Will’s Manila national heat, including veteran actor and triath-lete Piolo Pascual; matinee host and MMA athlete Luis Manzano; PBA Superstar Asi Taulava; celebrity-turned-fitness guru Bubbles Paraiso; PBA professional player Jervy Cruz; performance enhancement special-ist; head coach of Olympics Philip-pine Team Jim Saret; Biggest Loser Metabeats Fitness host and featured trainer Coach Toni Saret; two times MVP National Swimmer Johan Agui-lar; MMA legend Erwin Tagle; and Walt Steven Young, UA athlete and cofounder of Crossfit Insurrecto, who is also the head judge of the Test of Will Challenge. Pushing the outer limits of strength and endurance, contestants competed in a four-minute intense contest and must complete 60 seconds of four ex-ercises, such as burpees, squats, dumb-bell presses and pull-ups. Noelle Wenceslao topped the com-petition and the female category with 243 total reps, while Derrick Carlo Mer-cado triumphantly had his hand raised in the male bracket with 164. Each participating country in the first-ever Test of Will will have a representative of two men and two women in the final round, which is scheduled to happen at the extrava-gant Gardens by the Bay in Singa-pore on May 28. Sixteen competitors will go head-to-head inside the highly touted structure known as The Tower, which contains different fitness zones with calisthenic exercises. Under Armour will announce the four Filipino delegates in the finals via @underarmourph on Instagram and Twitter, and on Facebook at www.face-book.com/underarmoursea.

Athletes. . . Continued from A1