Businessmirror December 1, 2015

IF the trend in online hiring is to be used as basis, the country is still far from solving its problem on job-

skill mismatch, a phenomenon that the government and private sector already noticed and sought to address since the early 2000s.

According to  the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI), online-hiring activity nationwide contracted 30 percent in Octo-ber 2015, almost double the 16-percent drop in September 2015. The main reason cited in the MEI survey was the lack of right skill sets for the jobs available. “Despite the strong growth in the Philippines’s economy, the country struggles to keep up with its growing population, lead-ing to underemployment among the working population. There may have been a surge in the number of job roles created, includ-ing government job roles, but candidates may not necessarily be equipped with the right skill sets for the jobs,” said Sanjay Modi, managing director at Monster.com 

Even in the services sector—the main driver of Philippine growth—online hiring was considerably low.

None of the 10 occupational groups saw positive increase in Oc-tober. See related table on B4.

Customer service  jobs experienced a decline of -2 percent year-on-year—the first time for this category to register a negative rate in the last four months.

THE government and business leaders are banking on clean- energy technology to fight global

warming, kicking off this week’s high-stakes climate-change negotiations by pledging billions of dollars to research and develop a technical fix to the plan-et’s climate woes.

Microsoft founder and philan-thropist Bill Gates, President Barack Obama and French President François Hollande will launch a joint initiative on Monday after a diplomatic push in recent weeks ahead of the Paris climate conference. A key goal is to bring down the cost of cleaner energy. At least 19 govern-ments and 28 leading world investors, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires George Soros and Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal,

and Jack Ma of China’s Alibaba, have signed on so far.

“It’s quite a big deal,” said Jennifer Morgan, global climate director for the World Resources Institute. “It brings a new kind of burst of energy into the conference right at the beginning on something very important.”

The UN climate summit formally opened on Sunday afternoon, with a minute of silence for the victims of this month’s Paris attacks, and vows not to let terrorism derail efforts to slow or stop climate change. A few ki-lometers (miles) away in Paris, police trying to secure the nation against new violence sprayed tear gas on protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations and lobbed projectiles. A big sticking point at the climate talks will be money—how much rich

countries should invest to help poor countries cope with climate change, how much should be invested in re-newable energy, and how much tra-ditional oil and gas producers stand to lose if countries agree to forever reduce emissions. The new initiative is twofold: a public-private project called Mission Innovation, led by governments, and the Gates-led investor group called the Breakthrough Energy Initiative.

The governments pledge to double their spending on low or no-carbon energy over the next five years, ac-cording to Brian Deese, senior adviser to Obama on climate and energy is-sues. They include leading energy pro-ducers and consumers, such as the US, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia,

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PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 47.0690 ■ JAPAN 0.3839 ■ UK 71.0789 ■ HK 6.0733 ■ CHINA 7.3665 ■ SINGAPORE 33.4344 ■ AUSTRALIA 34.0266 ■ EU 49.9402 ■ SAUDI ARABIA 12.5434 Source: BSP (27 November 2015)

www.businessmirror.com.ph ■ Thursday 18, 2014 Vol. 10 No. 40 P. | | 7 DAYS A WEEK■ Tuesday, December 1, 2015 Vol. 11 No. 54

A broader look at today’s businessBusinessMirrorBusinessMirrorMEDIA PARTNER OF THE YEAR

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Life Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Life BusinessMirror

Life Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • [email protected]

DDEAR God, heaven is meant not just for the great saints but for all, like the air that we breathe or the Earth on but for all, like the air that we breathe or the Earth on but for all, like the air that we breathe or the Earth on which we live in. Heaven is intended for all, not in the which we live in. Heaven is intended for all, not in the

sense that it is given indiscriminately to everybody, but in the sense that it is given indiscriminately to everybody, but in the sense that no one is barred from it on account of physical, sense that no one is barred from it on account of physical, intellectual, economic or social prerequisites. This means that intellectual, economic or social prerequisites. This means that heaven is not just for the “exceptionally gifted and holy” but heaven is not just for the “exceptionally gifted and holy” but for all those who are created in the image and likeness of God. for all those who are created in the image and likeness of God. In heaven, all are given the possibility of winning the trophy In heaven, all are given the possibility of winning the trophy of eternal life and, thus, we must aim and claim it if we remain of eternal life and, thus, we must aim and claim it if we remain holy and in the state of grace. Amen.

Heaven is intended for all

WORLD AND LIFE, FR. SAL PUTZU, SDB AND LOUIE M. LACSON, HFLWORLD AND LIFE, FR. SAL PUTZU, SDB AND LOUIE M. LACSON, HFLWord&Life Publications • [email protected]@yahoo.com

Greens, ribbons makeholiday displays beautiful

DECK YOUR HOME WITHENERGY-EFFICIENT PARTNERSTHE past year has been witness to fluctuating electricity rates due to the surge of demand from consumers and the shutdown of several power plants. This development has been a cause of concern among many homeowners.

As a response, individuals are becoming smarter when it comes to their energy usage. One solution hyped among these independence-seekers is the use of energy-efficient appliances.

“These kinds of home partners have been around for years but their popularity in the market is steadily increasing because of the demand for energy-savings,” says Phillip Trapaga, general manager of Midea. “We can never predict how electricity rates would change, so our way of dealing is to adjust our usage instead.”

He continues, “The good news is that many domestic appliance manufacturers are rising to the challenge. The only thing that homeowners need to consider now is to choose which one suits their lifestyle best.”

Midea, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of appliances, has come up with home partners with energy-saving features that help make electricity bills easier to manage.

A good example is the Midea Mirror Black Inverter series. This no-nonsense intelligent air conditioner features the innovative Turbo DC

inverter technology that runs on a wide range of electrical frequencies, resulting in energy savings, as the compressor operation automatically adjusts based on the room’s constantly changing temperature requirement.

This is complemented by the Eco Mode feature that automatically increases the cooling temperature by 1 degree Celsius per hour during the first two hours of use before maintaining it for the next five hours, after which it will automatically switch off.

Laundry is another part of independent living that can be costly. In answer to this, Midea has the Piso Wash feature available for its Top Load Washing Machine. This technology lets users complete a wash, rinse, and dry cycle all for P1 in electric consumption.

“What early-nesters really need are home partners that could provide them the same comfort they experience at their old households. This means that appliances should be all-around: user-friendly, efficient, and easy on their finances,” explains Trapaga, adding, “Your electric bill shouldn’t stop you from truly living independently. With the right appliances, you can actually save money while stretching your independence.”

Visit www.midea.com.ph to know more about www.midea.com.ph to know more about www.midea.com.phhome partners that make everyday living pleasant without depleting your bank account.

THE Midea Mirror Black Inverter series, a no-nonsense intelligent air conditioner that features the innovative Turbo DC inverter technology that helps keep power cost down.

B M C GTribune News Service

WHETHER it’s your Christmas HETHER it’s your Christmas HETHERtree, bannister, mantel or a tabletop display, the best way to make your holiday décor

stunning is to start with my two favorite tools: greens and ribbons. Gorgeous greens take your displays to the next level, and holiday ribbons give them character and charm.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

■ Add picks to your tree to make it more lifelike. The secret to a sensational Christmas tree is to pop it up with greenery picks. Think of your undecorated tree as the base of your display, that “little black dress” just waiting for the right accents. Before you add the ornaments, tuck in a mix of greenery picks. When you add variations in colors, textures and sizes, you give your tree added dimension. For more drama, use long picks that extend out from the cone of the tree and ascend from the tree’s top.

■ Make your mantels lush. Give your mantel display more visual punch by, including some long, strong picks that overhang the sides and front of the fireplace, should you have one. Work in picks that contrast with the base garland on your mantel to bring in more pizzazz, like red berries, silver leaves, bare sticks and pinecones.

■ Thread greens into displays around your home. A great way to add a splash of holiday cheer to your home without putting in tons of time is to simply add some greens to your existing displays.

I’m over the moon about birch logs, and we’re having a heyday. You’ll see them on top of book shelves, on table displays and even zip-tied into Christmas trees. We rested a few on top of a bookcase, then filled in with faux pine greens. It’s a great way to give that empty space

above your tall cabinets some seasonal charm, and it just takes minutes.

■ Mix up your ribbons. Bev, our seasonal floral designer at our home store Nell Hills, is a wiz with ribbons, and in display after display at the stores, she shows how long strips of wired fabric can take a space from meh to marvelous. “A lot of times, your wreath, your tree, your mantel or bannister is more about the ribbon than anything else,” she says. Just changing out the accent ribbons you use on your tree will give it new life, she shares.

Using ribbons can be intimidating if you don’t know where to start. Bev suggests first picking a mix of several ribbons for your displays, pulling together different weights, widths, colors and patterns. She often layers two ribbons, one on top of the other, with the widest or heaviest one in the back.

■ Work with manageable lengths of ribbon. Bev suggests cutting the ribbon into lengths of about three yards each so you can work with it more easily. You can finish the ends in a straight cut or a traditional dart. Bev likes to then twist the ribbon sections into loose, lazy loops. When she’s using ribbon on a Christmas tree, she gently pokes the sections of ribbon into the branches of the tree, starting top down, side to side. She never winds the ribbon strips all the way around the tree, but instead tucks them in, section by section, because she finds it’s easier to work with the ribbon that way and she likes the finished look better.

■ Make mock bows. I could not tie a beautiful bow to save my life, and I’m guessing a lot of you are in the same predicament. So we use a cheater technique you might like to try, too. Just create loops with your ribbon until it forms a bow you like, then secure them in place at the bottom, using wire or a zip tie. That’s it!

■ This article was adapted from Mary Carol Garrity’s blog at www.nellhills.com.

The WorldBusinessMirror [email protected], December 1, 2015B2-4

PARIS—� e wave of suicide bombers and gunmen who terrorized Paris marked a new

stage in the war against extrem-ism that will leave no country in the world untouched, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Sunday.

In an interview with � e Associ-ated Press, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Iraq has long known that  Islamic  State (IS) extremists posed a fundamental danger and the November 13 attacks on in-nocent people enjoying a night out were a demonstration to the West of the IS group’s determination to sow fear by killing as many people as possible. A total of 130 people died and hundreds were injured in the attacks on the Bataclan concert venue, bars and restaurants, and the national stadiums.

“� e world took too long to react against Daesh [IS] and al-Qaeda. In 2004, 11 years ago, I said terrorism had no religion, had no country, had no particular beliefs. And in 2012 I said that we were in a third world war. Now, you will see that no coun-try can live in peace, quietly,” al-Jaafari said, using the Arabic acro-nym for the group, which he said has nothing to do with Islam.

Meanwhile, Iran’s o� cial news agency is quoting the country’s su-preme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khame-nei, as calling the recent Paris at-tacks “blind terrorism.”

� e comments, reported by the Irna news agency on Sunday, were Khamenei’s � rst reaction to the at-tacks, in which extremist jihadists killed 130 people and injured scores of others. � e government had previ-ously condemned the attacks imme-diately after they occurred.

Khamenei said “the bitter events brought about by blind terrorism in France” moved him to issue the state-ment. He said he has also been “dis-turbed” by bloodshed between Israel and the Palestinians, and as well as violence by the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Iran does not recognize Israel and supports anti-Israeli groups, like Palestinian Hamas and Leba-nese Hezbollah.

Al-Jaafari spoke on the side-lines of international climate nego-tiations, which is bringing together

more than 140 world leaders. He said the decision to attend the global con-ference was a sign of solidarity and trust in France’s ability to protect people at the highest level.

Now, he said, countries must take initiative against the group.

He con� rmed that Iraq had warned France and other nations the evening of November 12 of an impending attack, even if few de-tails were available, and said Iraq’s intelligence services are redoubling their e� orts.

“In Iraq, we are not only defend-ing ourselves. We are defending your countries. We are defending every-one. Because those who are currently in Iraq can go home, can go back into their countries to commit terrorist acts,” he said.

All the attackers who have been � rmly identi� ed were French or Belgium, and many had joined IS extremists in Syria or Iraq. � is comes as little surprise to al-Jaaf-ari, who said the group has become an international breeding ground for extremism.

“It’s the expression of a culture, these actions. � is culture is not linked to a territory. � e terrorists who belong to Daesh come from 100 countries. � ey are from the world’s greatest democracies,” he said. “What unites them is this ha-tred they share. � ey are ready to die. � ey are ready to kill themselves to take out the largest number of victims. � ey detest the entire world and, it must be said, most of the vic-tims are Muslim.”

Al-Jaafari arrived in Paris after the winter sundown, and said he rev-elled in seeing the city lit at night.

“We cannot cover our heads when faced with this terror and let our communities, our cities, be terror-ized, to be afraid. � at is their goal, their objective. Yesterday, when I ar-rived at the airport to go to the hotel, I saw Paris with all its lights, joyful. And it was a pleasure to see Paris like that.” AP

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the attacks ‘blind terrorism’

Paris attack marks new Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the attacks ‘blind terrorism’

Paris attack marks new Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the attacks ‘blind terrorism’

global war–Iraqi envoy  

FOREIGN Minister of Iraq Ibrahim al-Jaafari addresses the 2015 Sustainable Development Summit at United Nations headquarters. AP/RICHARD DREW

IRBIL, Iraq—Kurdish o� cials said on Sunday three more mass graves have been found in the northern

town of Sinjar, where Kurdish forces backed by heavy US-led air strikes drove out  Islamic  State  (IS) militants earlier this month.

The discovery brings the total num-ber of burial sites in the area to � ve and the total number of bodies uncovered to between 200 and 300, according to local o� cials.

While experts say proper excava-tion and identi� cation of the bodies could take months, Sinjar residents are expressing frustration with the process so far, complaining that their requests from the Kurdish Regional Government for expert help have gone unanswered.

Residents are seeking a faster iden-ti� cation process and assistance in rebuilding the town, much of which is uninhabitable after more than a year of clashes and air strikes.

The graves found over the week-end are believed to contain 80 to 100 bodies, Qasim Simo, the head of secu-rity in Sinjar, said on Sunday. Two were uncovered to the east of the town and one was found within the western edg-es of Sinjar town itself.

Experts caution, however, that properly counting and identifying the dead is a process that could take months and requires a controlled en-vironment.

Local media reports showed some of the burial sites being excavated with heavy construction equipment. At oth-ers, Kurdish Peshmerga � ghters were seen moving what appeared to be hu-man remains into plastic garbage bags.

“The important thing is that the site is secure,” said Kevin Sullivan of the International Commission on Missing Persons, an organization that specializes in war-crimes documentation, including the excavation of mass grave sites.

“The site needs to be controlled, for example, by police or under authority of a prosecutor and the bodies need to be exhumed in a systematic way with any identifying artifacts,” as wallets and scraps of clothing, he said. Care-ful record taking is key to being able to initiate war-crimes proceedings in the future, he added. AP

IRAQIS FIND THREE MORE MASS GRAVES IN SINJAR

BEIRUT—Air strikes believed to have been carried out by Rus-sian warplanes killed at least 18

civilians and wounded dozens more on Sunday in a northern Syrian town held by insurgents, Syrian opposition media reported.

� e Britain-based Syrian Obser-vatory for Human Rights said the air strikes struck the town of Ariha, kill-ing at least 18 people, including four children, and wounding dozens more.

� e Local Coordination Commit-tees (LCC), an activist collective, said the air strikes struck a busy market, in� icting heavy casualties.

� e Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the air strike destroyed three build-ings in the center of Ariha.

Ariha Today, a Facebook page that covers events in the town, said the air strikes were carried out by Rus-sian warplanes, killing 40 people and wounding more than 70. Con� icting tolls are common in the chaotic after-math of violent incidents in Syria.

If Russian warplanes carried out Sunday’s strikes it would be one of the deadliest incidents since Moscow began launching air strikes in Syria two months ago. Opposition activists say more than 400 civilians have been killed by Russian strikes since the air campaign began on September 30.

An amateur video posted online showed several men being treated on the � oor of what appeared to be a clinic. Blood stains could be seen on the � oor’s white tiles. On the street outside, four men could be seen lying near the building, with several young men weeping over them.

Shortly afterward, an ambulance

wheelchair was carried into the clinic.� e video appeared genuine and cor-

responded to other Associated Press reporting of the event.

� e Observatory reported several other strikes in the northwestern province of Idlib believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes on Sunday. It said that an o� ce of the Turkistan  Islamic  Party, a group that consists mainly of � ghters from Asian states, was hit in the town of Jisr al-Shughour and that planes struck a re-lief o� ce for the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group in the town of Saraqib.

� e LCC reported air strikes on a hospital in Idlib, the provincial capital, and other targets in Saraqib.

Russia says its air strikes are aimed at the IS group and other “terrorists,” but Western o� cials and Syrian rebels say most of the strikes have focused on central and northern Syria, where IS does not have a strong presence.

In the capital Damascus, state me-dia quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying that he is determined to continue � ghting “terrorism in all its forms” because Syria and its allies are “con� dent that eliminating ter-rorists is the main step in bringing about stability to the region and the entire world.”

� e Syrian state news agency Sana said Assad made his comments dur-ing a meeting on Sunday with Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ar-rived in Damascus earlier in the day. Iran has been one of Assad’s strongest supporters over the past years.

Syria’s con� ict has killed more than 250,000 people and wounded more than a million since the start of an up-

Syrian opposition: Russian strikes kill 18, wound dozens

WORLD B24

GREENS, RIBBONS MAKE HOLIDAYDISPLAYS BEAUTIFUL

PARIS ATTACKMARKS NEW GLOBAL WAR—IRAQI ENVOY

LIFE D1

Job-skill mismatch still glaring

Billions pledged for clean-energy tech 

LACK OF RIGHT SKILL SETS BLAMED AS ONLINE HIRINGEVEN IN SERVICES SECTORSUSTAINED DROP IN OCT.

TORN BETWEEN U.S.LED TPP AND CHINAINITIATED RCEP

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First of two parts

THE recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) took center stage in the discussions of business magnates and state leaders during the last leg of the Asia-Pacific

Economic Cooperation (Apec). Still, questions on the best route to achieve regional integration, amid competing initiatives— the US-led TPP and the China-initiated Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—remain. What is clear, however, is that the Philippines won’t be in-troducing any changes to the Constitution during the Aquino administration to bend to the ambitious standards of the TPP. During the first session of the Apec CEO Summit at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel, President Aquino addressed the Philippines’s stance on the TPP, making a blanket statement that any change in the Constitution at this time is out of the question.

BONIFACIO MURAL Mallgoers pass by a mural of Andres Bonifacio on High Street, Bonifacio Global City, which was made for his 150th birth anniversary in 2013. On Monday several events were held in commemoration of Andres Bonifacio Day. ALYSA SALEN

SPECIAL REPORT

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SIMILAR CONSTRAINTS TO GROWTH STARE PHL IN THE FACE»�e BroaderLook A4-A5

BusinessMirror [email protected] Tuesday, December 1, 2015 A2

News

Veterans. . . Continued from A8

Continued from A1

“There’s still some debate whether the Constitution has to be rewritten, the idea of economic provisions and term limits...at this point in the administration, I think it’s too late for me to consider any of that. And, of course, I don’t want them to consider the issue of term limits,” Mr. Aquino said. “But if it can be demonstrated that it will lead to common good, then that is subject to review or can be made to be reviewed.” Considering Apec’s overarching prior-ity to realize free and open trade by 2020, the business sector and the government emphasized the need to achieve regional integration through the Free Trade Area in the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), the initiative in Apec, where both the US and China are major players. According to Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao, regional integration is a step toward creating an open and free investment and trade regime, and has been the primary engine of growth for previously closed economies.  Nakao said the steady rise of China over the years is a result of the gradual opening of its trade and investment policies.  Integration initiatives, such as the US’s TPP and China’s RCEP,  will keep the momentum of growth, not just of China, but the regional economy, as well, Nakao said.

According to the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, both initiatives can be sources of future growth, as the Asia- Pacific region is bound for its slowest growth this year to 3.2 percent—the slow-est pace for the region since 2009.  This overarching goal of regional inte-gration—or achieving the FTAAP—can be achieved in a number of agreements. How-ever, considering the existing geopolitical ambition of both China and the US to rewrite the rules of trade, much of the focus has been on TPP and RCEP. Government heads and business mag-nates across the Asia-Pacific region—save for those already included in the TPP—have been careful in espousing support of one over the other, and simply pushed for free trade.  “The reason that Asean and Southeast Asian countries are now growing fast is because of an open trade and investment regime; there’s no question about it, an open trade and investment regime, and that is the most important reason China started growing fast, and Myanmar and Vietnam also. How we can maintain this momentum in that regard, the TPP and other initiatives like RCEP are so impor-tant,” Nakao said.  The Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac), representing the private sector in Apec,   acknowledged the significance of this objective. 

“Our work over the years has been under-pinned by the conviction  that an open and predictable environment for the free flow of goods, services and investment can generate new growth opportunities. A free-trade area of the Asia Pacfic provides the comprehensive framework for achieving this environment. The completion of the TPP is a significant step toward this, as we build pathways to the FTAAP,” said Abac Chairman Doris Mag-saysay-Ho after the Abac members of the 21 Apec economies wrapped up their meeting last Monday.  The private sector’s support toward gen-eral regional economic integration has been clear, as they sent a letter of support to the Apec leaders, encouraging ratification of the TPP to those member-economies that are party to it.  “One of the things we achieved under [Doris Magsaysay-Ho’s ] chairmanship is writing a letter going to the leaders of the countries encouraging those that are involved to ratify the TPP through their own government systems. That is a key forerunner to the bigger opportunities, which involves all the Apec countries, which is the FTAAP,” said Abac Austra-lia representative Sir Rod Eddington in a news conference.  Abac members said that, while not all Apec members are part of the TPP, the con-clusion of this expansive trade pact will

eventually be beneficial to all Apec mem-bers, with the expectation that the trade advantages will trickle down to nonmem-bers through FTAAP.  But Abac representatives pointed out that the FTAAP would also be achieved through China’s RCEP, another “building block” to-ward regional integration. Other building block-regional trade agreements like the Pacific Alliance are also regional-integration initiatives. But consid-ering the geopolitical friction between the US and China, as reflected in each country’s attempt to rewrite the rules of trade, the Asia Pacific’s focus has been on the two compet-ing initiatives—the TPP and RCEP. During the Apec Summit Leaders’ Week, business leaders and government heads gave measured responses on whether the best route would be through an alliance with the US or with China.  Those included in the trade pact, how-ever, are optimistic as to the gains they will realize once the governments ratify the TPP.  In an Apec CEO Summit session on trade, FedEx COO David Cunningham noted that moving toward an open and freer regional economy would be a good reprieve from the rise in protectionism observed in the past few years following the global financial crisis.  “If you look at trade over the past six years, you’ve seen increase in protection-

ism and decrease in trade, that’s where TPP is so important in terms of moving forward because, just within this past seven months, in the G-20 [Group of 20], there are over 190 protectionist measures that have impacted trade flows. That’s why we’re supportive of TPP,” Cunningham said.  New Zealand Prime Minister John Key stressed the importance of regional trade agreements (RTAs), like the TPP, as opposed to the multilateral trading system.  “The WTO [World Trade Organization] process isn’t working well and there’s no good sign it’s moving anytime soon. In the absence  of that, we need RTAs that are ex-pansive as possible. In this situation coun-tries would voluntarily sign up to the TPP, or alternatively RCEP,” Key added.  But on the question on whether two megatrade deals could sit alongside each other, stakeholders are elusive.  Key said:“[the TPP] is not perfect…but in a perfect world you get a situation where the FTAAP would be concluded and include all 21 economies of the Apec, and everyone would want to join because of its sheer size,” Key said. New Zealand is among the 12 na-tions included in the TPP. For the Philippines, while the government has been vocal about its enthusiasm to join the TPP, observers noted that provisions in the country’s Constitution may be blocking the country’s bid. To be continued

Torn between US-led Tpp and China-initiated RCep

Australia, Canada, France and Norway. They currently invest about $10 }billion a year total, about half of which comes from the US, Deese told reporters in Washington. Gates committed $1 billion of his money and was the “intellec-tual architect” behind the effort to get investors involved, US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said. The business leaders are making their pledges conditional on governments also pledging more money, said a former US government official who is familiar with the plan. President Barack Obama, who arrived in Paris late Sunday night,

wrote on his Facebook page that “we’ll work to mobilize support to help the most vulnerable countries expand clean energy and adapt to the effects of climate change we can no longer avoid.” The money would focus on re-search and development of technolo-gies, such as energy storage, which could make better use of clean power from wind and solar, regardless of the vagaries of weather. It will also look at farming and transport. But a multinational research effort combining the investments of governments, corporations and private individuals could create

intellectual property problems. It also remains to be seen how much of this money will involve repackaging old promises, and whether the future funding will be approved in the US or other budgets. “The Obama administration recognizes that this is a fundamental competitive advantage for the Unit-ed States,” a former US official said, but getting such funds approved by a Republican-controlled Congress could be difficult. Moniz has traveled to sever-al countries to seek support for the plan. “A major driver of the acceleration to work together is

climate change,” he told reporters in Washington. Storing electricity is especially crucial for wind and solar power, which can be intermittent because of the weather. Improving bat-teries is key, and there have been breakthroughs, both in technol-ogy and production, announced this year, including by space and electric car tycoon Elon Musk, whose Gigafactory has begun pro-ducing large batteries for home power storage to make solar and wind power more viable. “Only our governments have the mandate to protect the public

interest, as well as the resources and mechanisms to do this,” says a statement released early Monday in Paris by the private investors in the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. “However, current governmental funding levels for clean energy are simply insufficient to meet the chal-lenges before us.” The conference center where delegates from more than 190 nations will be meeting for two weeks began to bustle on Sunday as lower-level negotiators arrived, and UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres expressed optimism about the outcome.

World leaders were expected to arrive on Monday to discuss com-mitments to reducing ever-rising carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Armed security was noticeable nearly everywhere at the Le Bour-get center, and 200 to 300 people violated a national ban on pro-tests under the state of emergency France declared when extremists killed 130 people in Paris. Obama visited the site of the worst mas-sacre soon after arriving. About 100 protesters found to have projectiles or other suspi-cious objects were detained after

Billions pledged for clean-energy tech. . . Continued from A1

some demonstrations turned vio-lent, said the Paris police chief, Michel Cadot. Thousands of other people joined peaceful demonstra-tions in other European capitals on Sunday. AP

study is about to be done,” he said in an interview. He could not give further details as to the amount of the project, but according to Transportation Under-secretary Rene K. Limcaoco, the fa-cility will cost around P4 billion to P6 billion. Earlier, Transportation Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo M. Lotilla explained that the location suits the parameters set by the gov-ernment for the facility. For one, it is near the three railway systems in Metro Manila, namely, the Light Rail Transit Line 1, the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 and the future MRT 7, which will run from North Edsa to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan. The transportation department has three key considerations in choosing the best location for the infrastructure: cost, time of travel and passenger convenience. Once negotiations with the defense department have concluded, and the location for the project has been chosen, the transport agency will then endorse the deal to the National Economic and Develop-ment Authority Board, which is chaired by President Aquino. The project’s siblings, the P2.5-billion ITS Southwest Terminal and the P4-billion ITS South Terminal are also progressing. The first one has been awarded to Megawide Construction Corp. and partner Walter Mart Property Management Inc. of billionaire and retail magnate Henry Sy, while the South Terminal was bagged by Ayala Corp.

Liberal Party Rep. Herminia B. Roman of Bataan, author of House Bill (HB) 6230, said that a veteran who is at least 65 years of age shall be paid an old-age pension of P10,000 monthly for life, unless he is actu-ally receiving a similar pension for the same consideration from other government funds. HB 6230 seeks to amend Section 10 of Republic Act 6948, otherwise known as An Act Standardizing and Upgrading the Benefits of Military Veterans and Their Dependents, as amended. Roman, chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs and Welfare, said the current pension of P5,000 enacted almost 21 years ago is clearly not enough to meet the basic necessities of veterans for decent living. “Our veterans have sacrificed so much for the country. They invested blood, sweat and tears and, in return, it is only fitting that we repay their service by taking care of them in their old age. They have dedicated their lives in the service of the country. They should be able to live out the rest of their days com-fortably without worrying about their basic needs,” Roman said. Roman added the old-age pension raise is also a way to show the nation’s grateful

appreciation of the veterans’ bravery, serv-ice and sacrifice. Rolando Villaflor, chief legal officer of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Of-fice (PVAO) and representative of PVAO Administrator Ernesto Carolina, said the proposal to raise the old-age pension of veterans is not only urgent but “it proceeds from a very compelling reason that it is based on justice, considering the steady decline in the number of our senior vet-erans due to advanced age.” Villaflor said the youngest veteran un-der this category is 84 while the oldest is aged 105. “As of June, there are only about 12,730 senior veterans who stand to benefit from the proposed increase,” Villaflor said. He added that the old-age pension will require a funding of P1.9 billion in 2016, and will gradually diminish annually with a projected number of about 4,211 sen-ior veterans in 2020, or the equivalent of P757.980 million. Villaflor said that as to post-World War II veterans, there are 27,137 of them as of this November, saying the corresponding amount of increase in their old-age pension to P10,000 will require P1.628 billion.

[email protected] Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Tuesday, December 1, 2015 A3BusinessMirrorThe Nation

House panel OKs 100% hike in veterans’ pensionBy Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

THE House Committee on Veterans Affairs and Welfare has endorsed for plenary approval a measure increasing the pension

of veterans to P10,000 from P5,000 a month.

Father oF Katipunan Caloocan Mayor Oscar Malapitan (left) and Chairman Emerson Carlos of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority lead the wreath- laying ceremony at the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan City to mark the 152nd birth anniversary of Gat. Andres Bonifacio. NONOY LACZA

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 BusinessMirrorA4

�eBroaderLook

SIMILAR CONSTRAINTS TO GROWTH STARE PHL IN THE FACETWO APEC HOSTING 20 YEARS APART

Twenty years apart, some would naturally ask—what has changed since 1996, and what has the Philip-pines achieved in that span?

In Subic, developing human capital; fostering safe, efficient capital markets; strengthening economic infrastructure; har-nessing technologies of the fu-ture; promoting environmentally sustainable growth; and encour-aging the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were the themes given priority by the Apec leaders in 1996.

In the 2015 Manila Apec sum-mit, the more striking goals were to improve regional economic in-tegration; foster SMEs’ partici-pation in the regional and global economy; invest in human-capital development; and build resilient and sustainable communities—obviously carrying the same tenor as the targets set in 1996.

“We haven’t ful ly achieved these goals, that’s why they are still the same,” economist Dr. Alvin Ang stated in an interview. “We haven’t improved yet.”

However, he too said that the 1996 Apec should not be compared to this year’s because of several things, particularly since the an-nual summit was only established three years prior to the first sum-mit in the Philippines.

“The summit in 1996 was proce-dural, it was more on procedures, how to do this and that. Now it’s already about policies. We’re talk-ing about issues now,” he said.

Looking closer, smallerSMEs serve as the backbone of the economy. The present data from the Department of Trade and In-dustry (DTI) show that, as of the 2012 census, 944,897 business enterprises are operating in the Philippines, and 99.58 percent (940,886) are micro, small and me-dium enterprises (MSMes), while the remaining 0.42 percent (4,011) are large enterprises.

The goals of the Asean are aligned with that of Apec—fos-tering the growth of businesses within communities that are mi-cro, small and medium. As large contributors to the increase of market value in any economy, both blocs firmly believe that the effi-cient integration of SMEs will help economies compete in the global and regional markets.

Benel P. Lagua, executive vice president and chief development officer of the development sector of the Development Bank of the Philippines, noted in his presen-tation that SMEs comprised 99.6 percent of the total registered busi-nesses in the Philippines, and that 70 percent of the labor work force are employed by SMEs.

MSMEs generated a total of 4,930,851 jobs in 2012, in contrast to the 2,658,740 jobs from the large enterprises. These numbers specify that MSMEs generated al-most 64.97 percent of the total jobs produced by all types of business establishments that year, but 5.03 percent lower than in 2001.

Lagua noted that a major hur-dle getting in the way of MSMEs faster growth and development is

the lack of resources and funding from the government. MSMEs are still in a problematic state given that the country’s local business-es have not yet modernized, Ang said. He added that MSMEs need to be more organized to stand out and survive the inf lux of pri-vate companies that are provid-ing more convenient setups for public purchasing.

“That is the way to beat com-petition, it’s to fight them as one. Kaya walang nangyayari, ’yung SMEs kanya-kanya eh,” he said.

To help foster the growth and development of MSMEs in the country, the DTI created the SME Development Plan 2004-2010 and the MSME Development Plan 2011-2016 to serve as the framework for the stimulation of MSMEs and how it can con-tribute to the economic growth of the country.

The plans are aimed at enhanc-ing the operations of individual MSMEs, to assist in pr ior ity industries and to improve the MSME operational environment. The plan was launched in 2004 and has since been implemented to guide the MSME sector. It is trying to increase the economic contribution of the SME sector of up to 40 percent by 2016.

Meanwhile, in the report of Rafaelita M. Aldaba, assistant sec-retary of Industry Development Group, titled “Asean Economic Community 2015 SME Develop-ment: Narrowing Development Gap Measure,” she stated that the Asean has also developed a plan to aid the SME sector of member-economies in terms of being ef-fective contributors to a country’s economic standing.

The 2010-2015 Asean Strategic Action Plan for SME Development and the 2004-2009 Asean Policy Blueprint for SME Development were developed to further assist SMEs into becoming competitors in the global arena. The Asean Strategic Action Plan aims for the implementation of numerous pro-grams for SME financing, facili-tation, technology development, promotion and human-resource development, while the Asean Policy Blueprint for SME devel-opment strives for the same goals with the inclusion of the imple-mentation of enhancing SME mar-keting capabilities and creating conducive policy environment.

A s ment ioned in A ld aba’s study, the targeted increase in the SME sector was not fully met. There were little to no change in having an effective impact on financing measures for SMEs, technological development, pro-motions and capacity-building.

This was due to the numerous barriers the SMEs face, which make it hard for SMEs to be inter-nationally competitive. Accord-ing to the study, it would require strong government support and close coordination between the government and the SME sector for an effective integration into the global market.

The problem also encompasses not just the lack of funds, but also the lack of access to them. Despite

the mandatory allocation of 8 per-cent of their loans to SMEs, banks are generally hesitant to lend funds because of the high trans-action cost of small loans and the lack of collaterals.

“Ang mga issue nila hindi kami maka-access sa funds. How can you access funds if you don’t even do accounting? Paano kayo papautangin ng bangko kung wala kayong libro?” Ang said.

Some SME loan-guarantee pro-grams failed to stimulate lend-ing to SMEs. Other nonfinancial government agencies also lack proficiency on loan evaluation, subsidized interests rates are be-low cost and there are some that turn problematic because of low repayment rates.

When free trade is not yet freeLACK of infrastructure, the con-stitutional restrictions and high cost of power are some of the fac-tors holding foreign investors back from settling in the Philippines.

“Investors don’t like inconsis-tency of rules, “ Ang said.

As of the second quarter of this year, the total foreign investment approved in the country totaled to P36 billion. The combined in-vestments committed by local

and foreign firms in the first half, meanwhile, reached P58 billion, dipping 21 percent from last year’s P73.4 billion.

Free trade, according to Ang, does not pose any harm to the local economy. In fact, he sees this as an avenue for the local industries to be more competitive. The industry sector should also improve through free trade, although it failed to do so in the past years.

The creation of the Osaka Ac-tion Agenda through the 1995 Apec summit paved the way for the country to implement the Philippine Action Plan, which propelled the reduction of tar-iffs progressively and ensured the transparency of tariff re-gime, which also goes for the country’s nontariff measures.

The challenge with free trade is not the different countries cir-culating within the economy, but on its implementation.

“The government need not pro-vide the solution, but provide a good environment for business,” Ang said.

A good environment should foster the culture of entrepre-neurship and streamline govern-ment processes; accessible funds, trouble-free processing of papers,

eradication of corruption, sus-tainable quality infrastructures and consistent laws and regula-tions. Microenterprises should also be distinguished from SMEs since the profit margins of the two segments vary.

“In a competitive environment, kung pantay-pantay ang starting point magagawa nila [iangat] ’yun,” he said.

The gradual elimination of tariff barriers on goods since the first Apec summit in 1996, is a slow but steady pace in imple-menting free trade. The market is first to filter the effects of the low tariff barriers, which in turn have an effect on both local and international businesses.

It was stated in the Osaka plan that by the year 2003, a two-tiered tariff structure consisting of 3 percent for raw materials/intermediate products and 10 percent for finished products will apply. To monitor whether the country is following the said guidelines, it must actively up-date the Apec Tariff Database with its progress.

As for nontar iff measures (NTM), it was planned that for the period covering 1997 to 2020, the NTM’s that will be allowed to

remain are ony those imposed for reasons of public security, health and safety.

It can also be noted that the country’s GDP growth in the year 1996 was at 5.8 percent, with 23 percent of the growth driven by the manufacturing industry, in-cluding nondurable goods and tex-tiles, processed food and tobacco products. The Philippines had an 11.9-percent share in the GDP of Southeast Asia and 0.29 percent in the world.

Notable years that the country experienced fast GDP increments were in 2010 with a 7.6-percent growth, 10.4-percent share in the Southeast Asia and 0.31 percent in the world; and 2013, with a 7.2-per-cent growth, 11.1-percent share in Southeast Asia and 0.36 percent share in the whole world. In the January-to-September period this year, the country’s economy grew 5.6 percent, mostly driven by the services sector.

In a statement to the Manila Ro-tary club, Rodolfo C. Severino, sec-retary-general of the Asean from 1998 to 2002, said the Philippines has already achieved the 0-to-5 percent tariff drop on goods traded with its fellow Asean 6 countries. Still, the 5-percent tariff allowed

B R C M R M

DIFFERENT set of leaders, but the same goals. �is was how experts described the

1996 and 2015 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meetings that the Philippines hosted.

IAN BREMMER (from left), president of Eurasia Group; John Rice, vice chairman of GE; Chilean President Michelle Bachelet; Dennis Nally, global chairman of Pricewaterhouse Coopers International; and Norman Pearlstine, chief content O�cer of Time Inc., in open forum discussion on “Navigating Uncertainty” during the summit focus on the new global context at the Apec CEO Summit 2015 held at the Makati Shangri-La on November 16. PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE TUMAMPOS

JOSETTE SHEERAN (from left), president of Asia Society; John Chen, executive chairman and CEO of Blackberry; H.E. President Truong Tan Sang, Vietnam; E. Allan Gabor, president and CEO of Merck Biopharma China; Donald Kanak, chairman of Prudential Corp. Asia; and Zoher AbdoolCarim of Time Inc., on summit focus on inclusive growth and building resilience with a dialogue on “Strategies for Growth, Equity and Resilience” at the Apec CEO Summit 2015.

BusinessMirror A5www.businessmirror.com.ph | Tuesday, December 1, 2015

�eBroaderLook

SIMILAR CONSTRAINTS TO GROWTH STARE PHL IN THE FACETWO APEC HOSTING 20 YEARS APART

under the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement constitutes barriers to intra-Asean trade.

In plain sight, this is a step for-ward when it comes to achieving the first Apec goal, which is to enhance the regional economic integration.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) stated in a 2012 report that the “ lack of industrial dy-namism in the Philippines” is one of the main reasons for its stagnant economy. From 1980 to 2009 the country’s labor pro-ductivity increased by only 10 percent, while those of neigh-boring Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand more than doubled.

The stumpy capacity of com-panies to expand or upgrade their range of industrial products be-ing exported may be linked to the Philippines’s lagging performance. Aside from that, agricultural im-ports have tripled over the years, reflecting the mismanagement in what was once the top exporter of rice in the region.

The ADB then proposed to fo-cus more on public-sector support, which emphasizes specific indus-tries and products for industrial upgrading and diversification.

The report also recommended “effective dialogue between the

public and private sectors” to identify constraints specific to the target products and to cultivate satisfactory resolutions

Human-capital developmentBOTH Apec and Asean com-munities also recognize the ca-pacity of the work force when stimulated effectively, and have made it a point to continuously invest in human-capital devel-opment. This means increasing the employment rates within economies and also providing more jobs and opportunities to the labor force that will contrib-ute to economic development.

In the year 1996 the Philip-pines experienced an 8.525-per-cent unemployment rate. The lack of available jobs, partnered with the growing population, was one of the many hindrances the labor sector faced.

“It means that there aren’t enough quality jobs being created,” Ang said.

Ex ist ing l abor-ma rket re -quirements also were not met since the skills available within the population are not in line with the standards companies are looking for. The Asian Financial Crisis that happened in 1997 also

worsened the unemployment rate of the country.

According to a study done by Anne Therese M. Connolly, titled “A Jobless Growth: Why is unem-ployment still high in the Philip-pines?,” the Philippines—prior to the Asian crisis—already experi-enced an 8.8-percent unemploy-ment rate, and as of 2013, it has progressed minimally.

As of April 2013, 7.25 mil-lion Filipinos are stil l under-employed, and another 3 mil-lion are jobless. As for the third quarter of 2015, the Philippines logged an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent, a decrease from last year’s 6.7 percent. Though small, it stil l can be seen that the unemployment rate of the country was slightly changed. It averaged 8.82 percent from the year 1994 to 2015.

Building sustainable and resilient communitiesA SE A N member-nat ions and Apec member-economies a lso seek to foster and build resilient and sustainable communities. A sustained economy, meaning a country that is capable of pro-viding the needs of its popula-tion without compromising the

benefits it will provide for its future generation, will function better, as it is already equipped with the tools necessary for it to function effectively.

A resilient economy, meaning a country that can bounce back after weathering a crisis or problem, will be able to address problems quickly by working with what it already has and putting into motion what it can still do.

Since the Philippines is a coun-try frequently visited by typhoons, its government has developed plans aimed at preparing for natu-ral disasters. A quicker response in aiding disaster-hit areas and hav-ing enough resources to answer the needs of affected areas are some of the ways that a country can be-come more resilient.

The reduction to damage in property, the loss of life and social and economic disruptions are what this goal is trying to achieve.

Since the 1990s to 2005, the annual damage reported from disasters and natural calamities amount to almost P20 billion, or 0.5 percent of the GDP on aver-age. The Luzon earthquake in the 1990s resulted in P695 million in economic losses.

The Philippine government has

partially addressed the challenges disasters constantly present. Be-sides improving its framework on how to prepare for disasters, it has also implemented a disaster-preparedness program that in-forms and teaches the country’s population on what to do when disasters strike.

This year a number of typhoons have visited the country, with Ty-phoon Lando as the last to inflict havoc. A total of 666,562 families were affected in Luzon and a total of 23,993 persons were preemp-tively evacuated, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. A total of P104.77 million worth of assis-tance was provided to the victims.

The difference between the twoWHEN asked to comment on the difference between the commit-ments made via the Asean and Apec, Henry J. Schumacher, vice president for external affairs at the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, said: “Apec is not binding. Apec is not based on treaties with clear commitments and timelines. In contrast, Asean is binding, with commitments in all areas of the Asean integration, from the political environment to

the economies, from business to the social environment.”

And because of the binding nature of the Asean community, Schumacher believes that the bloc is definitely more effective in deliv-ering results than the Apec. Asean member-economies are more likely to act on its plans and initiatives since Asean has deadlines and ex-pectations to meet. “Yes, they are binding, manifested in over 1,000 meetings annually to test, super-vise, accomplish progress toward the integration that will commence on January 1, 2016.”

He also notes that both goals set by the two parties are works in progress, still. Though the Asean community has made changes within the communities of its member-states—gradual but sure changes—it is still evident that the member-countries still have a long way to go. Even if the Asean has achieved some of its goals, it still needs to work harder for the completion of most, if not all, of its goals. “Yes, this has happened, but we have to be realistic that the Asean economic integration remains a work in progress, as has been and still is experienced by the European integration,” Schum-acher added.

U.S. President Barack Obama (from left); Jack Ma, executive director of Alibaba Group; and Aisa Mijeno, CEO of Sustainable Alternative Lighting, talking about climate change, role of businesses and, most especially, Alibaba in helping the planet, and Mijeno’s invention of a lamp powered by saltwater which can also charge a cell phone at the Apec CEO Summit 2015 held at Makati City on November 18.

PRESIDENT Aquino on a one-on-one talk and interview with Andrew Stevens of CNN at the Apec CEO Summit 2015 held at Makati Shangri-La on November 16.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

OpinionBusinessMirrorA6

Send in the attorneyseditorial

THE ongoing arguments at the hearing on mer-its at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, the Netherlands regarding the Philip-pines’s claims against China are a classic example

of theory clashing with reality. In other words, an im-movable object against an irresistible force.

Assume for a moment that the Philippines prevails and the panel rules in favor of all the legal arguments that the Philippine has presented. Assume even that the panel rules that China must not only stop all efforts at further reclamation, but that China must abandon not only its claims, but physically leave the area. Who is going to enforce that ruling? That is not to say by any means that the Philippines is wasting its time and should not pursue this path. However, it may be even worse than a le-gal judgment against someone who has disappeared. Who will kick China off the islands that may very possibly belong to the Philippines? Not the United Nations, not the United States, not Japan, not the Philippines and certainly not any of our Asean partners will physically attempt to remove China from the area. The Philippine government has stated that once the Philippines wins at The Hague, other nations will come onboard to put heavy diplomatic pressure on China. This presumably will change China’s course of action in the region. The government is dreaming. Diplomatic pressure for decade has not kept China from propping up the North Korean government. This same diplomatic pressure has not altered Chi-na’s course of supporting Russian foreign and military policy in both Ukraine and Syria. It is unlikely that a Philippine win will stop the United Kingdom, Australia, France, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and Indonesia from supporting and participating in China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Richard Javad Heydarian, assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University, and a genuine expert on the subject, has written about a Philippine win that “the reputational costs, and corresponding diplomatic backlash, will surely undermine China’s soft power and bid for regional leadership.” Economically, China is already the region’s leader in “soft” power and is not about to lose that power anytime soon unless the Chinese economy completely collapses. China is the largest export market for the countries in the Asean, equaling over 8.4 percent of Asean’s total gross domestic product. “Might” may not make “right,” but “money” can make “might.” The Aquino administration was probably right to advance the country’s claims at The Hague. But the next administration better have a well-crafted “Plan B” ready. At this point, the Philippines may win the battle and yet even-tually lose the war. Perhaps the brilliant legal minds that are so confident of the Philip-pines’s prevailing before The Hague panel will be on the first ship to throw China off Panatag Shoal. Maybe a boatload of Filipino lawyers could scare China away. 

YOU probably don’t need to read any further unless you are invested in the Philippine stock market. Actually, on second thought, if you are “invested” in the Philippines or

its economy, you might want to read a little more.

By Christopher Flavelle | Bloomberg View

ANOTHER round of United Nations climate talks started this week in Paris, and they face a fundamental problem. Most scientists agree that potentially catastrophic climate change

can’t be stopped except by keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2°Celsius above their pre-industrial average. Yet, even if each country cuts emissions as much as pledged, temperatures are projected to increase by almost twice that amount. 

Capitulation or collapse?

Some ways to save the planet

  The Philippine stock market just completed a miserable month. It is not that the broad market was down an extraordinarily large amount; it was the negative sentiment that the 2.77-percent fall in the Philip-pine composite index has and will continue to generate.  After a 3.49-percent increase in October—which followed a 9-percent drop in the previous two months—November was supposed to be the month that Jaws was gone and it was safe to go back in the water. For some issues, it was safe. The price of LT Group shares went 19 percent higher. But then shares of Bloomberry Resorts Corp. fell 15 percent. It was that kind of month. On top of all the price movement, we faced “Apec Week” when the stock market was closed for two days and Metro Manila was effectively shut down for five days. Yet, we ended the month on a day that saw one of the highest trading volume days in 2015. All the while, the experts could

not seem to decide what was moving the markets: China’s economy, US interest rates, or domestic economic numbers that were neither particu-larly good nor particularly bad. So what is happening with our stock market?  I can give you all kinds of bril-liant market analysis—and I will —but I fear it is also coming down to something I very rarely equate to stock-price movement. Politics, even Philippine politics, just does not figure into investors’ decisions. Unless there is a cataclysmic shift in government policy, “politics” just does not figure in the stock-market picture. Major changes—like what happened in Greece—causing the market to crash are created over time. Even a change in government policy principles from “right” to “left” or whatever causes economic adjust-ments down the road.  However, something is different this time in Philippine politics that may be affecting the stock market.

Still, experts haven’t given up hope. Bloomberg View asked leaders in energy, science, government policy and innovation to name the most promising way to keep global tem-peratures from passing the 2-degree threshold. The answers ranged from the simple to the technical, and all but one start from the premise that, with sufficient effort, this problem can be fixed.

The best way to curb emissions is using market-based mechanisms, mixing the lightest touch by govern-ment and the maximum amount of liberty. It’s free enterprise innova-tion that’s going to make clean en-ergy work. 

World leaders should consider a

carbon tax, paired with cuts to exist-ing income taxes so that there’s no growth of government. They should also apply that tax to imports from countries that don’t price carbon, to avoid sacrificing economic com-petitiveness and to give their trading partners an incentive to introduce similar taxes.

If the fight against climate change incorporated accountable price sig-nals, American conservatives could enter the conversation. Until now, they’ve felt excluded as the preferred solutions have involved a growth of government and a loss of liberty. It doesn’t have to be that way. 

In fact, while conservative sup-port for a carbon tax may look

Listening to the discussions about the next presidential election, it seems as if there are not any adults left in the room.  Perhaps, Philippine politics has not gone completely from “guns, goons and gold.” But we definitely have moved far into “hype, hashtags and hysterics.” But stock-market investors are serious in their opinions about the future unlike all the political “ex-perts.” When I see someone on social media willing to make a P10,000, P100,000 or P1,000,000 wager on a political candidate—as stock inves-tors do every day—then I will be more impressed with their wisdom about the candidates. It is not that these people do not feel strongly about their choice of candidate being important and even critical for the nation. They do. But the 2016 elec-tion is obviously turning very ugly and extremely uncertain as to the efficiency and effectiveness of the political process.  Stock-market investors do not like even the appearance of chaos, especially on the political front be-cause if it gets out of control, it can spill over into the economy.  Capitulation is defined as giving up or surrendering. Wars are won and lost when one side loses for whatever reason its will to fight. In the market, capitulation means that the majority of investors are con-vinced that prices will never go any higher and sell out. They give up on the market. Because everyone has

sold out, that creates a bottom. The problem is that you know there has been capitulation only in hindsight. Has the enemy stopped fighting just to regroup and come again or have they really given up?  If the month of November was not a capitulation in the stock mar-ket, then we are at the beginning of a relatively brief, but potentially significant, “collapse” in prices that will see the stock market fall at least another 10 percent to below the 2013 low.  I wrote this past  Saturday  that “The PSE trend is still up” and I still see that for the long term. I also put forward the opposite idea several months ago with the question, “What if the stock market is headed into a multiyear downtrend?”  Old guys like me trade for the short term and analyze for the long term. We trade “short” because five years from now may never come, and ana-lyze “long” because we may not live to see the results of our bad predictions. A 30-year chart still says the market is going higher. But the months of December and January are going to decide the question of capitulation or collapse in the medium term and I will trade it that way.  E-mail me at [email protected]. Visit my web site at www.mangunon-markets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-mar-ket information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

impossible at the moment, the im-possible may become inevitable. Rather than fickle tax incentives, clumsy government mandates or expensive regulations through cap-and-trade and the Clean Power Plan, energy optimists and climate realists believe a free and entrepre-neurial society can deliver on Pope Francis’s leadership and implicit blessing of the “spirit of enterprise.”

Our leaders should do three things to prevent uncontrolled cli-mate change. First, agree on a ratch-eting mechanism of national com-mitments that is automatic, bind-ing and legally sanctioned. Future periodic negotiations should deal with modifying these commitments, rather than arguing over how to set them in the first place.

How can that be achieved? By taking advantage of leaders’ desire to push costs into the future. Just as politicians tend to prefer the de-layed expense of climate change to cutting emissions today, they may also prefer agreeing to reductions later (even if they ratchet up over time) to cuts today.

The challenge is to entrench those commitments in a credible, legally binding way.

Second, agree to ban drilling for oil in the Arctic. Those reserves are the most costly to extract, and are thus the first reserves humanity should conserve indefinitely, and the first that become unprofitable if we succeed with emission cuts. A drilling ban will thus have no impact if we succeed with future emission cuts, but it will be our insurance policy if we fail.

Third, pay developing countries to protect instead of cutting down their tropical forests, because they can keep huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere. This may be the most cost-effective climate policy available. But the option is gradually vanishing as those forests decline, making it urgent to find effective ways of paying for their conserva-tion. Those lessons will also help should we need to pay fossil fuel owners to leave their reserves of coal and oil in the ground—an option that once seemed radical, but may become essential.

OUTSIDE THE BOXJohn Mangun

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

[email protected]

THE EnTrEprEnEurManny B. Villar

Trains are the way to go

IT’S not clear when the first phase of the North-South Commuter Railway (NCSR) project will start and be completed. But the all-important first step in realizing this vital transport

infrastructure from the drawing board to reality has been taken with the recent signing last week of a multibillion-peso loan commitment by Japan. Under the agreement, Japan will lend the Philippines a total of P93.457 billion to finance construction of the first phase of a commuter railway project stretching 36.7 kilometers from Tutuban, Manila to Malolos, Bulacan.

The railway project will entail the construction of a new elevated railway, the procurement of 104 cars and the installation of electro-mechanical systems. According to the Department of Finance, the railway will utilize a seismatic-design technology usually used for earthquake-resilient struc-tures, earthquake-detection sys-tems, corrosion-resistant steel, and signaling and communications sys-tems for punctual and reliable opera-tions. For the Japanese government, this railway project will enhance the transport network and ease serious traffic congestion in Metro Manila, apart from contributing to sustained economic development through pro-motion of investments. The second phase of the NSRP will be funded through the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) deal, which will extend commuter lines from Tutuban to southern Lu-zon all the way to the Bicol region. The proposed NSRP South Line PPP covers Metro Manila to Le-gazpi City, Albay, plus a number of existing and proposed branch lines totaling approximately 653 km. The P170.7-billion project will also include long-haul railway opera-tions on the branch line between Calamba, Laguna and Batangas, as well as the extension between Le-gazpi and Matnog, Sorsogon. Apart from easing the horrible traffic situation in Metro Manila and improving the mobility of

people and cargo, the projected Tutuban-Malolos railway will also attract more investments and ex-pand economic activities in sur-rounding areas, thus boosting Philippine growth potentials once it is completed. The latest North-South Commuter Railway is said to be the biggest official development assistance (ODA) yen-loan package to date that Japan has given any of its partners, with $2 billion. Japan remains one of the strongest devel-opment country supporters of the Philippines, with total ODA in loans and grants given second only to the World Bank. As of end-July, the assistance given by the Japan International Coopera-tion Agency to the country covers 18 ongoing and two new project loans totaling some $2.8 billion. It also has eight ongoing grant projects with a to-tal worth of about $116 million. One of the main reasons foreign investors do not want to put their money here is the poor infrastructure, particularly in the rural areas. The railway proj-ect in Luzon will no doubt help spur economic growth. This should be rep-licated in the Visayas and Mindanao, if we really want sustained economic development.

Philippine-Taiwan relations on the mend OUR diplomatic ties with another neighbor, Taiwan, have vastly im-proved since an unfortunate inci-dent in 2013 that led to the killing

of a Taiwanese fisherman in the high seas in the Batanes area. Recently, the Philippines and Taiwan signed an agreement on fa-cilitating cooperation in law enforce-ment concerning fisheries matters. The agreement would effectively reduce fisheries disputes in the two countries’ overlapping exclusive eco-nomic zones and protect the rights and interests of Taiwan fishermen operating legally. Following the signing, the two countries convened a meeting of a Technical Working Group. This led to consensus on two mechanisms—one-hour advance notification to the other party, and release of detained vessels and crew within three days. Under the agreement, before law-enforcement action is taken against a fishing vessel from the other party believed to be operating illegally in the overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones, one-hour advance notifica-tion will be given to the fisheries and coast guard agencies, as well as the representative office, of the other party. If the vessel is found to have vio-lated the law and subsequently de-tained, it will be released within three days after posting a reasonable bond, other security, or payment consistent with the law of the arresting party. The agreement, according to Taiwan Economic and Cultural Of-fice, the de facto Taiwan embassy in Manila, upholds the spirit and principles of the Taiwan president’s

South China Sea Peace Initiative, which calls for shelving disputes, pursuing peace and reciprocity, and promoting joint exploration and development of resources. Relations between the two coun-tries soured following an incident involving the fishing boat Guang Da Xing No. 28 in May 2013, when a Taiwanese fisherman died after a Philippine Coast Guard vessel fired shots at the boat. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fisheries Agency, and Coast Guard Administration have pledged to hold consultations with the appropriate Philippine govern-ment agencies through the coopera-tion mechanism established under the accord. We commend the two sides for moving bilateral relations forward and agreeing to resolve contentious issues peacefully.

Added benefit for senior citizens AS a senior citizen myself, I am glad that Rep. Alfred Vargas of the Fifth District of Quezon City has filed House Bill 6248 that seeks to provide additional benefits and privileges to the Filipino elderly in addition to what we are now enjoying under Republic Act (RA) 7432, as amended by RA 9994, otherwise known as the Expanded Senior Citizens Act. Under the proposed measure, se-nior citizens shall be exempted from the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduc-tion Program of the government if he is the driver or the passenger of the vehicle he is riding. Vehicles regis-tered under the name of the elderly shall also be entitled to free parking in all establishments. In pushing for the bill’s passage, Vargas said the elderly should enjoy additional privileges considering their role in nation-building. At present, senior citizens com-prise nearly 7 percent of the total Filipino population with their num-ber estimated at 6.263 million. The percentage of the elderly population in relation to the total population of the country is expected to rise to 10 percent in the years ahead.

E-mail: [email protected].

Edgardo J. Angara

A RECENT Wall Street Journal article (September 9, 2015) asked if a person’s identity is found in his intellect, memory or moral character, pointing to a new study from the

University of Arizona and Yale University. 

Character defines us

Researchers interviewed the families of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s, dementia and Amyo-trophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).  Some of these disorders lead to changes in a patient’s personality, and the re-searchers wanted to pinpoint what family members meant whenever they said their loved ones weren’t “the same person” anymore.

T he fami ly members were asked to compare how their loved ones were before and after being diagnosed with the neurodegen-erative sickness.  And they were made to rate the degree of change in 64 areas, such as the patient’s intellectual behavior, physical-ity, courteousness, optimism, patience, cheerfulness, assertive-

ness, adventure-seeking behavior, composure, sense of responsibil-ity, sense of propriety and compas-sion, among others. 

The study found it was changes in so-called moral behavior—or simply, how patients treated oth-er people—that accounted for a change in the “perceived identity” of the loved one. Patients may have suffered memory loss (even to the point of not knowing who their loved ones were), but there was still something in how they treated others that made their fam-ily members believe they were still the same person. 

An article on the same study illustrated this point with a story from Dr. Felipe Brigard of Duke University about the husband of one of his patients suffering from Alzheimer’s. The husband told Bri-gard, “There’s something about the

way [my wife] interacts with me that makes me realize she knows who I am, even though she can’t remember me.” Brigard asked for an example. The husband answered, “Yes, every night when I put her to bed, she asks me to stay.”

What the University of Arizona and Yale University researchers found was apparently contrary to  what generations of philoso-phers and psychologists have thought—that memories and ac-cumulated knowledge are what form the core of our identities.  In fact, morals and values do—as the study suggests. 

In the run-up to next year’s presidential elections, that find-ing is worth remembering when choosing the next president. Character matters. 

 E-mail: [email protected].

First of two parts

THE explosive growth of the retail business and the long-lasting boom in the real-estate industry are among the conspicuous signs of the robust economy, as well as the

increasing purchasing power of consumers, particularly the ex-panding middle class.

Big investors see hospitals as good business

ABOuT TOWnErnesto M. Hilario

The rise of new and modern hos-pitals reflects not only the growing economy, but the improving quality of life of the people.

Furthermore, the entry of major investors indicates that hospitals are now being considered as viable busi-ness ventures.

In the past, doctors who became financially successful in their practice put up their own clinics, which they later expand into hospitals. For ex-ample, Manila Doctors Hospital in Er-mita, Manila, was founded by a group of doctors in 1956. It was taken over by Metrobank Foundation in 1979.

Even now, groups of doctors are establishing their own business groups and are building their own medical facilities.

Big investors, with their financial resources and expertise, have the ad-vantage of being able to start big, and to run hospitals more efficiently. This, in turn, accelerates the moderniza-tion and expansion of the health-care sector, which can only be good for the Philippines and its people.

Among the leading investors in hos-pitals is Manny Pangilinan, through his publicly listed Metro Pacific In-vestments Corp. (MPIC). The company recently signed an agreement with Metrobank Foundation to acquire a 20-percent interest in Manila Medical Services Inc., which owns the 300-bed Manila Doctors Hospital in Manila.

The acquisition will increase MPIC’s chain of hospitals to 10, with a total of 2,600 beds. Incidentally, Manila Doctors is also undertaking an expansion project, which involves the construction of an 18-story building that will house 200 additional patient rooms and more clinics.

MPIC, which is targeting a total of 4,000 beds, now has a nationwide chain of hospitals: the Makati Medical Center, De Los Santos Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Asian Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Hos-pital, all in Metro Manila; Central Lu-zon Doctors Hospital; Riverside Medi-cal Center in Bacolod in the Visayas; and the Davao Doctor Hospitals Inc. and West Metro Medical Center (Zam-boanga) in Mindanao.

Ayala Land’s strategy in the health-care business is to put up new facilities rather than acquire existing hospitals. Ayala Land and its partner, White-knight Holdings, announced last year they would spend more than P5 billion to build a chain of hospitals and satel-lite clinics under the Qualimed brand in five years.

The group actually began opening satellite clinics in 2014, and plans to build one hospital each in Iloilo, Laguna, Bulacan and Bacolod in the next two years, plus another six in the next five years in Quezon City, Taguig, Cavite, Pampanga, Cebu and Davao.

The cost of a satellite clinic has been estimated at P20 million to P30 million, while that of a hospital with 100 beds to 150 beds has been placed at P500 million.

Vista Land & Lifescapes, the coun-try’s biggest homebuilder, is also going into the hospital business, primarily to provide world-class and affordable health services to Vista Land Commu-nicities and nearby areas.

Vitacare Health Group, in partner-ship with Unimed, a group of skilled and well-known doctors, is putting up its first hospital in Vista City. Vitacare Unimed Hospital and Medical Center, which will rise along Daang Hari at Vis-ta City with 100 beds, will be accessible to communities in the  Muntinlupa,

Parañaque, Las Piñas, Cavite and La-guna areas. Construction of the hos-pital, estimated at P500 million, will start in May 2016. Target of comple-tion for phase one will be two years.

The joint venture is targeting 10 more hospitals with a total of 3,000 beds within five years, which will require an investment of at least P8 billion. Possible areas for expansion are Parañaque (Lake Front), Bataan (Balanga), Bulacan (Malolos and San Jose del Monte), Cavite (General Trias and Tanza), Batangas (Santo Tomas), Pampanga (San Fernando), Naga (Ca-marines Sur), Cebu (Talisay), Iloilo (Boton), Davao and Cagayan de Oro.

I want to note that even the new projects being planned by these three major investors are not enough to sat-isfy demand for hospitals in the coun-try of 100 million people.

The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAP) said during a regional conference in August last year that the country would need 100 new hospitals with a total of 100,000 beds in the next three years to cope with the health-care needs of the growing population.

The country currently has 1,800 hospitals, both private and govern-ment-owned, with a total of 77,000 beds, according to PHAP. The pub-lic hospitals include the 72 institu-tions controlled by the Department of Health (the others are under local government units).

Pharmaceutical products distrib-utor Zuellig Pharma, in an article titled “Expanding Healthcare Access in the Philippines,” written by Kirst-en Clodfelter and published online in April, said the number of available hospital beds in the Philippines was 10 for every 10,000 people, one of the lowest in the world. The United States and United Kingdom each has 29 hos-pital beds for every 10,000 people.

While the entry of big investors will have a significant impact on expanding health infrastructure in the country, it is still the government that has the resources to build new hospitals.

First, it has vast tracts of public land that can be used as sites for the new hospitals. This is one ma-jor cost component that private in-vestors have to cope with. Second, the government has been enjoying surpluses, and we have been seeing reports about big chunks of appropri-ated funds still to be spent.

I think that under the regular bud-get, which has breached the P3-trillion mark, the government is capable of building six new hospitals every year.

Lamentably, public lands are being given away to make way for malls and other commercial facilities, which only cause traffic. Tell me if there is one government hospital in the Bonifacio Global City, one of the largest public landholdings that are now mostly pri-vately owned.

I believe building hospitals is only one side of the health-care issues that we face. My view is that the basic ele-ments of health care are availability and affordability. The private sector may help in the availability side, but the government must lead in the af-fordability side.

The bottom line is that no Filipino patient should die without receiving medical attention. 

To be continued

For comments, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.mannyvil-lar.com.ph.

The yuan grows upAT a board meeting on Mon-

day, the International Mon-etary Fund (IMF) is likely to

announce that China’s currency, the yuan, will join the dollar, yen, euro and pound as part of the global cur-rency basket known as the Special Drawing Right (SDR). Don’t dismiss this as an inconsequential technical adjustment. It’s a milestone for the world economy.

Beijing has been seeking the de-cision for a while, arguing that the yuan’s importance in world trade warrants this new status as a global reserve currency. Earlier this month the IMF staff reported that the yuan now met the criteria for inclusion in the SDR. It remains only for the board, representing the views of the

US and the IMF’s leading members, to sign off. They should do so.

The point of the SDR is to assure IMF members that, if necessary, they can borrow the basket’s constituent currencies to meet balance-of-pay-ment needs. Now that more trade is transacted in yuan than in yen, China’s currency easily passes the first test for inclusion—that it be “widely used.” And China has made changes (such as opening up its bond market) to satisfy the other criteri-on, that the currency should also be “freely usable.”

Granted, deciding what’s “freely usable” isn’t black and white—some discretion is involved, and China hasn’t fully liberalized its capital mar-ket— but refusing to include the yuan

in the SDR would, at this point, look like a deliberate snub. After all, the de-cision is not just about the technicali-ties of currency baskets, it’s even more about granting China standing as one of the world’s leading economies. In that regard, the change is overdue.

The people’s currencyBEIJING will see the move as a rec-ognition of its efforts to reform its economy and liberalize its financial markets. The decision will likely strengthen the hand of those who want reform to go further and fast-er—which would benefit China and its trading partners alike. In the short term, the direct effects on currency markets will probably be modest, but with time use of the yuan will widen

further, which is all to the good.Further changes are needed to

give China and other big emerging economies a greater say in the IMF and global economic governance more broadly. Since 2010, the US Congress has delayed moves to bring such nations’ voting strength at the fund into better alignment with their new economic weight—not because of deep convictions on the matter but out of lawmakers’ sheer inability to get anything done.

Such neglect is unacceptable. The shape of the world economy has changed dramatically in the past few years, and there’s more to come. The institutions that governments have created to manage global finance need to keep up. Bloomberg editorial

As of end-July, the assistance given by the Japan International Cooperation Agency to the country covers 18 ongoing and two new project loans totaling some $2.8 billion. It also has eight ongoing grant projects with a total worth of about $116 million. One of the main reasons foreign investors do not want to put their money here is the poor infrastructure, particularly in the rural areas. The railway project in Luzon will no doubt help spur economic growth.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya said talks with the De-partment of National Defense for the utilization of a portion of the Veter-ans Memorial Medical Center complex for the construction of the Integrated Transport System (ITS) North Terminal have been fruitful, with the two parties eager to jump-start the project by the first quarter of 2016. “Hopefully, we could sign this December with the Department of National Defense. Only then we could publish the invitation to bid for the ITS North. The feasibility

A8

2ndFront PageBusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.phTuesday, December 1, 2015

See “Veterans,” A2

Veterans to houseITS North Terminal

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

The multibillion-peso deal for the construction of an intermodal transport hub north of Metro

Manila will be rolled out soon, as the deal for the exact location of the facility is set to be signed within the month, a Cabinet official said.

BRIGHTLEAF HALL OF FAMER Mauricio “Mau” Victa (center), Baguio-based correspondent of the BusinessMirror, receives the Oriental Leaf, the Hall of Fame award, during the Ninth Brightleaf Agriculture Journalism Awards held on November 27 at a Pasay City hotel. He was accompanied by BusinessMirror Senior Editor Efleda P. Campos (second from right). Victa won the Agriculture Photo of the Year in 2008; the Tobacco Photo of the Year in 2011, 2013 and 2014; and the 2012 Tobacco Story of the Year. Handing the award are (from left) Chita Herce, manager, Fiscal and Government Relations at Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Manufacturing Corp. (PMFTMC); Michael Tan, LT Group president; and Roman Militsyn, PMFTMC president. ROY DOMINGO

        Also registering drops were finance and accounts at -3 percent; sales and business development, -14 percent; human resource and admin, -18 percent; purchase, logistics and supply chain, -20 percent; marketing and communications, -25 percent; health care, -26 percent; software, hardware and telecom, -27 percent; and engineering/production and real estate, -39 percent.        While tourism industry is boom-ing at present, hospitality and travel  jobs

reported a huge decline in online recruit-ment at -45 percent. Industry-wise, the banking, financial services and insurance industry witnessed the steepest hike at 25 percent in the two comparable periods. It surpassed the information technol-ogy, telecom/Internet service provider at 8 percent. Meanwhile, the production/manufac-turing, automotive and ancillary again

performed the worst at -61 percent.        Other laggards were the business-pro-cess outsourcing and information technol-ogy enabled services at -8 percent; hospi-tality, -15 percent; education, -17 percent; health care, -28 percent; consumer goods/fast-moving consumer goods, food and packaged food, home appliance, garments/textiles/leather, gems and jewellery, -30 percent; engineering, construction and real estate, -31 percent; and logistic, courier/

freight/transportation, import/export and shipping, -48 percent.        “At this point, the government may have to focus on boosting job opportunities in the agriculture and education sectors, on top of implementing more policies to manage the population and enhance employment in the country,” Modi stressed. The MEI records the industries and oc-cupations that show the highest and lowest growth in recruitment activity locally.

The index is based on a real-time review of millions of job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career web sites and online job listings across the Philippines. Launched in May 2015, with data collected since February 2014, the MEI is a broad and comprehensive monthly analysis of online job posting activity in the Philippines con-ducted by Monster India.

Cai Ordinario, Roderick Abad

Job-skill mismatch still glaring. . . Continued from A1