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Belmonte said the meeting between lawmakers will be conducted before the session resumes on May 23, or before they convene as the National Board of Canvass- ers (NBC) to officially count the votes for president and vice president. “We will schedule our meeting with senators soon, and discuss our legislative B F V. E @elefantefil Conclusion T HEY saw themselves as part of an exclusive class. Among their perks was the power to choose who among them was appointed town mayor. And their anointed one showed his gratitude by rewarding these people with favors for getting him the job. No, this is not a scene describing corruption in towns in the country after a recent local election. Actually, this scene dated back to the time when the country was under the Spanish colonial administration T HE Philippine peso rose the most in six weeks against the dollar, as Rodrigo R. Duterte sought to ease investor concerns after claiming victory in the nation’s presidential election. The currency also strength- ened versus all of its 10 Asian peers, as preliminary results showed Duterte, the tough- talking mayor of Davao City, won about 39 percent of the vote. He said on Monday it was time to start a process of “healing,” and named potential Cabinet members. Uncertainty about his economic plans and lack of policy-making experi- ence had sent investors to the sidelines in the weeks before the election. “A Duterte win had been flagged for some time now, and the market has already largely priced it in,” said Julian Wee, a senior market strategist at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Singapore. “Going forward, the market will be watching what Duterte does, and the initial signs are mildly positive in that he seems to be making some overtures to the other players in the political establishment.” The currency rose 0.7 percent to 46.77 per dollar as of 3:25 p.m. in Manila, after initially dropping as much as 0.3 percent from Friday’s close, prices from the Bank- ers Association of the Philip- pines show. The peso declined 1.8 percent in April in Asia’s worst performance. The Philippine Stock Ex- change index jumped 2.6 per- cent, the most since January 27, ending a two-day drop. Local financial markets were shut on Monday. S “ C,” A C A S “D,” A PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 47.2470 n JAPAN 0.4362 n UK 68.0735 n HK 6.0856 n CHINA 7.2523 n SINGAPORE 34.4567 n AUSTRALIA 34.5565 n EU 53.7907 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.5989 Source: BSP (10 May 2016 ) Senate, House to set final agenda of 16th Congress A broader look at today’s business BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.ph n Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 214 P. | | 7 DAYS A WEEK MEDIA PARTNER OF THE YEAR 2015 ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP AWARD UNITED NATIONS MEDIA AWARD 2008 INSIDE iPHONE S.E. FEATURES SMALLER SCREEN, LOWER PRICE C A LIFE D1 PROPERTY E1 VISTA LAND BOOSTS STUDENT LIVING ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES e rise of the dynasty BMReports THE HONG KONG JUNTA Emilio Aguinaldo, Mariano Llanera, Tomas Aguinaldo, Vito Belarmino, Antonio Montenegro, Escolastico Viola, Lino Viola, Valentin Diaz, Dr. Anastacio Francisco, Benito Natividad, Gregorio H. del Pilar, Manuel Tinio, Salvador Estrella, Maximo Kabigting, Wenceslao Viniegra, Doroteo Lopez, Vicente Lukban, Primitivo Artacho, Tomas Mascardo, Joaquin Alejandrino, Pedro Aguinaldo, Agapito Bonson, Carlos Ronquillo, Teodoro Legazpi, Agustin de la Rosa, Miguel Valenzuela, Antonio Carlos, Celestino Aragon, Jose Aragon, Pedro Francisco, Lazaro Makapagal y Lakang-dula, Silvestre Legazpi, Vitaliano Famular, Vicenter Kagton, Francisco Frani and Eugenio de la Cruz Clear Duterte win received well as peso, stocks climb HEADED FOR VICTORY Nearly complete unofficial vote counting shows tough-talking Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte (right photo) has won the presidential election in the Philippines, defeating his four main rivals by a large margin. Election officials estimated a turnout of 41 million out of 55 million eligible voters in Monday’s elections. With 37 million votes counted by early Tuesday, Duterte had secured 14.4 million votes. His nearest rival, former Interior Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II (left photo), who had 8.6 million votes; and Sen. Grace Poe, who had 8.1 million votes, have already conceded defeat. “I respect the result of our elections,” Poe told reporters. Stories on B7 . AP Elections are not democracy Teddy Locsin Jr. FREE FIRE T HERE is an ABS-CBN special about a mountain woman who journeyed for days to get to a voting precinct. She had done the same to be registered as a voter there. Closer to home, I got a tweet showing the photo of an 82-year- old man who walked in the baking heat to cast his vote. ere was another tweet about 400 Aetas who made the same trek as that woman. Warren de Guzman chose to report on the least interesting, yet the most important, electorate in the country: old people, who have already paid their dues to this country, unlike young people, who only pay to Globe and Smart. Now, in order to test their resolve, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) arranged that old people already reg- istered in their respective precincts must cast their votes in designated areas inaccessible because of distance and height, on the top floors of hot and crowded school build- ings. Once they got to the top, they were made to wait for hours, de Guzman said. I guess, to check if they will drop dead, so they can be struck from the voters’ list; kind of like two birds with one stone. B J M N. C B F @joveemarie @butchfBM S PEAKER Feliciano R. Belmonte Jr. on Tuesday said leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate will meet in the coming days to identify their legislative agenda for the remaining days of the 16th Congress. May 23-June 10 The remaining session days of 16th Congress, including the canvassing of votes
12

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Page 1: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

Belmonte said the meeting between lawmakers will be conducted before the session resumes on May 23, or before they convene as the National Board of Canvass-ers (NBC) to officially count the votes for president and vice president.

“We will schedule our meeting with senators soon, and discuss our legislative

B F V. E @elefantefil

Conclusion

THEY saw themselves as part of an exclusive class. Among their perks was the power to choose

who among them was appointed town mayor. And their anointed one showed his gratitude by rewarding these people with favors for getting him the job. No, this is not a scene describing

corruption in towns in the country after a recent local election.

Actually, this scene dated back to the time when the country was under the Spanish colonial administration

THE Philippine peso rose the most in six weeks against the dollar, as

Rodrigo R. Duterte sought to ease investor concerns after claiming victory in the nation’s presidential election.

The currency also strength-ened versus all of its 10 Asian peers, as preliminary results showed Duterte, the tough-talking mayor of Davao City, won about 39 percent of the vote. He said  on Monday it was time to start a process of “healing,” and named potential Cabinet members. Uncertainty about his economic plans and lack of  policy-making experi-ence had sent investors to the sidelines in the weeks before the election.

“A Duterte win had been flagged for some time now, and the market has already largely priced it in,” said Julian Wee,

a senior market strategist at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Singapore. “Going forward, the market will be watching what Duterte does, and the initial signs are mildly positive in that he seems to be making some overtures to the other players in the political establishment.” T he c u r re nc y rose 0.7 percent to 46.77 per dollar as of 3:25 p.m. in Manila, after initial ly dropping as much as 0.3 percent from Friday’s close, prices from the Bank-ers Association of the Philip-pines show. The peso declined 1.8 percent in April in Asia’s worst performance. The  Philippine Stock Ex-change index jumped 2.6 per-cent, the most since January 27, ending a two-day drop. Local financial markets were shut on Monday.

S “ C,” A

C A S “D,” A

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 47.2470 n JAPAN 0.4362 n UK 68.0735 n HK 6.0856 n CHINA 7.2523 n SINGAPORE 34.4567 n AUSTRALIA 34.5565 n EU 53.7907 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.5989 Source: BSP (10 May 2016 )

Senate, House to set finalagenda of 16th Congress

A broader look at today’s businessBusinessMirrorBusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph n Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 214 P. | | 7 DAYS A WEEK

MEDIA PARTNER OF THE YEAR2015 ENVIRONMENTAL

LEADERSHIP AWARD

UNITED NATIONSMEDIA AWARD 2008

INSIDE

iPHONE S.E. FEATURES SMALLER SCREEN, LOWER PRICE

C A

LIFE D1

PROPERTY E1

VISTA LAND BOOSTS STUDENT LIVING

ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES�e rise of the dynasty

BMReports

THE HONG KONG JUNTA Emilio Aguinaldo, Mariano Llanera, Tomas Aguinaldo, Vito Belarmino, Antonio Montenegro, Escolastico Viola, Lino Viola, Valentin Diaz, Dr. Anastacio Francisco, Benito Natividad, Gregorio H. del Pilar, Manuel Tinio, Salvador Estrella, Maximo Kabigting, Wenceslao Viniegra, Doroteo Lopez, Vicente Lukban, Primitivo Artacho, Tomas Mascardo, Joaquin Alejandrino, Pedro Aguinaldo, Agapito Bonson, Carlos Ronquillo, Teodoro Legazpi, Agustin de la Rosa, Miguel Valenzuela, Antonio Carlos, Celestino Aragon, Jose Aragon, Pedro Francisco, Lazaro Makapagal y Lakang-dula, Silvestre Legazpi, Vitaliano Famular, Vicenter Kagton, Francisco Frani and Eugenio de la Cruz

Clear Duterte win received well as peso, stocks climb

HEADED FOR VICTORY Nearly complete unofficial vote counting shows tough-talking Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte (right photo) has won the presidential election in the Philippines, defeating his four main rivals by a large margin. Election officials estimated a turnout of 41 million out of 55 million eligible voters in Monday’s elections. With 37 million votes counted by early Tuesday, Duterte had secured 14.4 million votes. His nearest rival, former Interior Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II (left photo), who had 8.6 million votes; and Sen. Grace Poe, who had 8.1 million votes, have already conceded defeat. “I respect the result of our elections,” Poe told reporters. Stories on B7. AP

LIFE D1

ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES�e rise of the dynasty

Elections are not democracy

Teddy Locsin Jr.

FREE FIRE

not democracy

THERE is an ABS-CBN special about a mountain woman who journeyed for days to get to a voting precinct.

She had done the same to be registered as a voter there. Closer to home, I got a tweet showing the photo of an 82-year-old man who walked in the baking heat to cast his vote. �ere was another tweet about 400 Aetas who made the same trek as that woman. Warren de Guzman chose to report on the least interesting, yet the most important, electorate in the country: old people, who have already paid their dues to this country, unlike young people, who only pay to Globe and Smart.

Now, in order to test their resolve, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) arranged that old people already reg-istered in their respective precincts must cast their votes in designated areas inaccessible because of distance and height, on the top �oors of hot and crowded school build-ings. Once they got to the top, they were made to wait for hours, de Guzman said. I guess, to check if they will drop dead, so they can be struck from the voters’ list; kind of like two birds with one stone.

B J M N. C B F @joveemarie @butchfBM

SPEAKER Feliciano R. Belmonte Jr. on Tuesday said leaders of the House of Representatives and

the Senate will meet in the coming days to identify their legislative agenda for the remaining days of the 16th Congress.

May 23-June 10The remaining session days of 16th Congress, including the canvassing of votes

Page 2: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.ph Wednesday, May 11, 2016A2

BMReportsfrom early 17th century until the late 19th century.

The ‘principalia’FOR more than 200 years, this privileged class, known as the principalia, were the only people the Spanish colonial administra-tion allowed to hold any sort of local administrative position in the towns and villages.

The principalia were descendants of the original village leaders who agreed to cooperate with the newly arrived Spanish conquistadors in the mid-16th century. By the 17th century, the descen-dants of these tribal leaders were firmly entrenched in the lowest rungs of the Spanish colonial ad-ministration. Prominent among these descendants were the village leaders or cabeza de barangays.  

This group, usually composed of a dozen men, were known as the principales. They choose among themselves who will be the town mayor, or gobernadorcillo. The gobernadorcillo was the only one allowed to deal directly with the Spanish colonial administrators and officials, while the cabezas de barangay enjoyed generally cordial relations with the Spanish clergy. Thus, in a town of 1,000 na-tives, political power concentrated in the hands of just 12 men, chief among them was the gobernador-cillo. The principales kept their fel-low natives in line. While doing so, they enjoyed the patronage of their Spanish bosses. The general native population

had no say in how things were to be run.

Reform and revolutionBY the 19th century, such a state of affairs was no longer accept-able. The rise of liberalism in Europe finally made its way tothe Philippines.

The Propaganda Movement was born. This movement sought re-forms. Unfortunately, their move-ment failed. And with the failure of this movement, a revolt of the masses arose.

The principales became involved in the revolt. Unfortunately, some among them only sought to protect and enhance their status.

Ballot paddingWHEN the time came to form a new government, members of the principales class took control of the proceedings of the Tejeros Con-vention. They sought to protect the traditional colonial practice of consolidating political power within their class. They refused to accept a nonmember of the princi-palia class as a peer. In their eyes, only a peer was qualified to hold political power.

In what was possibly the first case of ballot padding, the integ-rity of the proceedings of the Teje-ros Convention was compromised. There were more ballots than del-egates. And when the ballots were counted, a principales was named president. He was Emilio Agui-naldo, a former gobernadorcillo. His chief rival, Andres Bonifacio, was

elected secretary of the Interior.One of Bonifacio’s avowed goal

for the revolution was to do away with as much of the Spanish co-lonial practices as possible. The principales saw the Revolution as a chance to increase their pres-tige and authority by replacing the Spaniards with people from their class. Bonifacio wanted to have the name “Filipinas” replaced, because it is in honor of a Spanish monarch. The principales, who felt threatened by Bonifacio’s changes, disagreed.

A coup and sham trialTHINGS came to a head. Since Bonifacio was not a princi-pales, a delegate of the convention questioned Bonifacio’s qualifica-tion to hold any post in the new government. Insulted, Bonifacio invoked his authority as head of the revolution to declare the proceedings void. Aguinaldo’s supporters began cir-culating rumors that Bonifacio was actually a Spanish collaborator and

a thief. Acting upon these rumors, Aguinaldo had Bonifacio arrested and tried as a traitor of the revo-lution. Bonifacio was found guilty and executed.

Several months after Bonifacio’s execution, Aguinaldo agreed to a truce with Spanish colonial author-ities. In exchange for ending the revolt, the Spanish colonial gov-ernment agreed to pay Aguinaldo and members of his Cabinet, as well as instituting reforms.

Aguinaldo, along with his imme-diate circle, went into exile, while the remaining principales in the towns restored their status before the revolution. The archipelago re-mained a Spanish colony.

The Spaniards did attempt to institute administrative reforms. However, the only people among the natives who had the education-al and administrative background to implement these reforms were still the principales. Thus, the prin-cipales maintained their hold on power despite Spanish reforms.

Enter the AmericansTHE outbreak of the war between the United States and the Spanish Crown brought in a new dimension.

Aguinaldo sided with the Ameri-cans against Spain.

He declared the Philippines an independent state on June 12, 1898. In doing so, he tried to in-sinuate himself with the US offi-cials by adding in his declaration of independence that the country was under the protection of the US government.

The people in Washington, D.C., however, had other plans. They nego-tiated directly with representatives of the Spanish Crown and the Span-iards ceded the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico to the Americans.

Instead of finding himself as the new country’s head honcho who can deal with the newly arrived Americans, just as what he used to do with the Spaniards, Aguinaldo found himself in the middle of an-other war. While some in his Cabinet ac-tively sought to continue fighting a war with the US, many of Agui-naldo’s allies thought differently. They sought to end the fighting based on amicable terms, the same formula that they used with Spain.

Bitter infighting occurred with-in the Aguinaldo administration. In the end, Aguinaldo’s loyalists had those people who disagreed with them removed quietly. Those who refused to do so were murdered.

As a reward for keeping him in power, Aguinaldo protected his loyalists. Unfortunately for Agui-naldo, these “loyalists” continued to undermine the war against the Americans.

In the end, Aguinaldo, whom the Americans captured, executed an oath of allegiance to the US on April 19, 1901. The other Filipino leaders who refused to swear allegiance to the US were exiled to Guam.  

Official hostilities ended in 1902, when US President Theo-dore Roosevelt offered a general amnesty to Filipinos. Those who refused to lay down their arms were branded as bandits.

The ‘principalia’ under the USIN order to assert administra-tive control over the archipelago, Americans tapped people who had previous administrative experience into positions of local authority. John Ray Ramos, a heritage-con-servation advocate and historian, said under the first rules on suf-frage at the beginning of American rule, only men who were at least 23 years old, owned real property worth at least $250, paid an an-nual tax of at least $15 annually, had held a municipal position un-der Spain and could read or write in either Spanish or English were eligible to vote. That meant that only people qualified to vote and run for mu-nicipal elections were the members of the principalia class. According to Jennifer Conroy Franco in her book Elections and

Democratization in the Philippines, these early restrictions resulted in an extremely small electorate under during the first municipal elections under the US rule in 1902.

“By one account, in 390 mu-nicipalites with a total population of 2,695,801, there were a total of 49,523 persons who had qualified as electors, or 18.37 electors, to 1,000 inhabitants,” Franco wrote.

This was a situation tailor- made for the perpetuation of the principalia class. Coupled with the then existing rules on suffrage, the principaleseasily maintained their hold on power. They were the town’s large landowners, the only people who can afford to pay such an annual tax, the only people who held ad-ministrative posts under Spain, aside from being able to speak Eng-lish and Spanish fluently. Put simply, an average of only 18 people in a town of 1,000 could vote for mayor. This was little changed from the previous practice of 12 people deciding who among them can become gobernadorcillo during the Spanish colonial period.

When the US allowed Filipinos to assume provincial posts, those elected to municipal posts were the ones to choose who among them would be provincial governor. This expanded the power of the principa-lia from the towns to the provincial level. The Americans inadvertently allowed the principalia’s patronage politics to expand.

And when the Americans opened the National Assembly for Filipino voters in 1907, the rules on suffrage haven’t changed.

“Only 104,996 Filipinos, or 1.15 percent, of the total population was qualified to vote in the 1907 elections,” Franco wrote in her book. A check with the records of the National Historical Commis-sion of the Philippines confirmed Franco’s account.

Because of the situation, the campaigning for a municipal of-fice was a simple matter. In 1902, to win as mayor in a town with a population of 1,000, a candidate only has to get 10 out of 18 votes.

By 1907, a person who wants to win the post of governor only has to win the nod of a majority of town mayors in a province. For example, if that province has 25 towns, the candidate only has to get the nod of 13 mayors to be governor. It was network that encouraged the development of political alli-ances, even between rival factions.

The principalia was a class that survived the downfall of the Span-ish colonial administration, thrived during the revolution and adapted well to the American occupation of the Philippines.

US officials in the Philippines later sought to expand the number of voters in the country. The rules on suffrage were changed by the time of the Jones Act, otherwise known as the Phil-ippine Autonomy Act of 1916. R amos explained that the change consisted merely of allow-ing Filipinos who can read and write any of the dialects fluently aside from English and Spanish to vote. The same other restrictions on landownership and taxes remained.

“This changed brought the num-ber of voters in the colony to a mere 9 percent of the entire population,” Franco wrote in her book.

Records showed that by 1916, the Philippines had a population of 9,542,000. The statistic Franco cited meant that the country had a little over 850,000 people who were qualified to vote. Despite the expansion, it kept the right to vote largely within the landed class.

That meant that most of the political campaigning was done by ward leaders. These ward leaders had the responsibility of convincing the voters who lived in the ward leaders’ area to vote for a particular candidate. It was a simple matter for the ward leaders to tell the relatively few dozens of voters to gather in the town plaza and tell them who to

vote for. At the plaza, favors were asked and promises made. The practice of candidates barn-storming in the towns was un-known. “With the promulgation of the 1935 Commonwealth Consti-tution, the property restrictions were dropped, but literacy and gen-der requirements were retained,” Franco added. Ramos said the country’s voting population expanded in 1936, when Filipino women won a plebiscite granting them the right to vote. Due to the literacy requirement, only a mere 11 percent of the popu-lation at that time were qualified to vote, even after women were granted the right to vote.

According to Franco, the re-strictiveness in voting qualifica-tions came from the principaliaclass, who had gained their posts in previous elections. This gave rise to what was described in Franco’s book as an “electoral style of dex-terous manipulation.”

Franco cited the memoirs of for-mer US Vice Governor in the Phil-ippines Joseph Ralston Hayden. “From 1903, a very large pro-portion of citizens, who possessed the electoral qualifications, actu-ally registered,” Hayden wrote. “Not only is the franchise highly esteemed, but in the early days, a man’s vote possessed a distinct material value in many districts. Furthermore, in many provinces, the rival political factions saw to it that every possible voter qualified and, in many instances, forced onto the register additional persons who were not legally en-titled to vote. An especially com-mon method was to secure the registration of a voter under the property qualification by grossly overestimating the value of his possessions.” “On the other hand, some per-sons who were legally entitled to be registered were kept off the books by partisan officials,” Hayden added.

This was a principalia practice of preventing people from outside their class from voting or running for office. Franco claimed that US colonial officials in the Philippines did not take a serious effort to en-force the formal rules governing political competition.

“Such practices quickly became a standard feature of elections in the Philippines,” Franco wrote. “The carefully orchestrated introduction of national political institutions was clearly intended to ensure that national political power would belong exclusively to members of the elite, who as the main beneficiaries of US colonial policies, were also expected to be the most reliable guarantors of US interest in the Philippines,” Franco wrote. “In creating the national political arena, US colonial offi-cials had consciously built upon existing rival networks of compet-ing factions of the elite that had dominated municipal politics since the 19th century.”

And it was the principalia class that had been dominating munici-pal politics since the Spanish colo-nial era, Ramos said.

“In effect, this created a con-trolled environment for members of the native land-based elite to build and expand the political re-sources and develop the political skills needed to compete electorally and gain access to the national po-litical arena in the future,” Franco wrote. “The most politically ambi-tious members of the Filipino elite used the opportunity to establish and extend rival elite alliances and patronage networks, to gain expe-rience in managing government affairs, and to win the confidence of top US colonial officials.”

Even after the introduction of the popular vote after World War II, the  practices of the principaliaclass, especially that of political patronage, still endures to this day.  One rarely hears the word prin-cipales nowadays because they are now more popularly identified as “political dynasty.”

ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES �e rise of the dynasty C

10 of 18The number of votes a candidate in 1902 needs to win as mayor in a town with a population of 1,000, according to Jennifer Conroy Franco in her book Elections and Democratization in the Philippines

Page 3: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

BusinessMirror Wednesday, May 11, 2016 [email protected]

BMReportsA3

11.32 MTThe volume of cotton produced by the Philippines in 2014

Bt cotton rollout may get green light this yearB M G C. P @ _enren

THE Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (PhilFida) on Tuesday expressed

confidence that the commercialization of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) will be given the go signal in the fourth quarter of 2016.

PhilFida Executive Director Clarito M. Barron said Bt cotton would have to hurdle an environ-mental risk assessment—an ad-ditional requirement in the new joint department circular (JDC) for genetically modified (GM) crops, which replaced Administrative Or-der (AO) 8.

“Under the new JDC, there are already revised guidelines for the impact assessment of every GM crop on the environment. That’s what we are working out,” Barron said, add-ing that multilocation field trials of Bt cotton have concluded.

He noted that the old guidelines authorized only the Department of Agriculture (DA) to evaluate GM crops.

“The new JDC requires the in-volvement of other national agen-cies for its approval. In this case, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will be the one on top of the environmental risk assessment,” Barron said.

The new JDC replaced AO 8, which was nullified by the Supreme Court (SC) last December. The SC ruling delayed the propagation of Bt cotton.

Barron said the PhilFida will be hard-pressed to reach its target of planting 50 hectares of land with Bt cotton to jump-start the propa-gation of the GM variant this year.

“If Bt cotton gets approved for commercialization in the last quar-ter of this year, then definitely, planting would be delayed. Plant-ing would start in 2017,” he added.

Barron said the target of plant-ing 20,000 hectares of land with Bt cotton by 2020 may be delayed by a year.

It has been more than a decade since the clamor to introduce Bt cot-ton in the country has started. The DA initiated efforts to introduce and evaluate Bt cotton varieties locally in 2004.

However, field trials were re-peatedly delayed due to a number of issues, such as the feasibility of selling Bt cotton seeds in the

B L L @llectura

THE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) has yet to line up the inventory of power assets up

for sale this year, pending further discussions with concerned agencies. 

Under Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, PSALM is mandated to manage the privatization and maintenance of National Power Corp.’s (Napocor) power-genera-tion assets, liabilities and contracted capacities. 

Among the power assets that are yet to be privatized are the 850-megawatt (MW) Sucat Thermal Power Plant; the 200-MW Mindanao Coal-Fired Thermal Power; the 982-MW Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex; the  40-MW “security capacity” of the Unified Leyte Geothermal Power Plant (ULGPP) and the bulk capacity of the ULGPP itself. 

“There is no definite bid schedule yet for Unified Leyte bulk and security energy this year because we need further consultation with [the] DOE [Department of Energy] on policy direc-tions,” PSALM Officer in Charge Lourdes Alzona said in an interview. 

The ULGPP is in the Visayas. The PSALM Board still needs to determine if the 40-MW security capacity would be bundled to the remaining 160 MW of ULGPP’s bulk capacity that has yet to be privatized.

 PSALM is also looking at a negotiated sale of the bulk capacity of ULGPP after only one bidder—Unified Leyte Geothermal Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Lopez-led Energy Development

Corp.—participated in the bidding activity.  In the case of Mindanao coal, PSALM said

it is awaiting the go ahead of the DOE. “We are continuously consulting the DOE with regard to power demand-supply outlook in Mindanao before further presentation to the PSALM Board will be made this year,” Alzona said in the same interview. 

Mindanao coal privatization has been de-ferred taking into consideration the power supply outlook because of the El Niño, and the target schedule for commissioning of new ca-pacities in 2016. 

Alzona said PSALM fully supports the position of the DOE to reschedule the bidding on a later date when the power-supply outlook is already at a comfortable level.

 The power plant supplies about a fifth of Mindanao’s power requirements. An early auc-tion, at a time when supply is tight, could cause price shocks, DOE officials said, adding that the winning bidder might dictate electricity rates, which, in turn, could translate to higher electric-ity rates for the consumers. 

Located in Misamis Oriental, the Mindanao coal plant was constructed in 2006 for a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement under a build-op-erate-transfer scheme that ends in 2031 with Steag SPI. 

The power plant is 51-percent owned by Steag; 34 percent, Aboitiz Power; and 15 per-cent, La Filipina. 

For the 982-MW Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex, which provides more than half of Min-dano’s current electricity capacity, Alzona said

the facility is unlikely to be privatized this year. “Agus-Pulangi [has not been lined up for priva-

tization], as there is still need for consultation with Congress and stakeholders. PSALM, meanwhile, is studying sale structure options for these power assets,” Alzona added. 

The hydro facility is tentatively scheduled for privatization in 2017. However, the sale is being opposed by some Mindanao lawmakers and consumer groups, fearing it could result in power-rate hikes. 

The Mindanao Development Authority strongly opposed the privatization of Agus-Pu-langi power complex, and said this should be op-erated by the proposed Mindanao Power Corp. 

It also urged Congress to pass a law that will allow Mindanao to manage and operate the cru-cial power facility in the region before the end of the Aquino administration. 

The PSALM Privatization Bids and Awards Committee, meanwhile, has yet to convene to discuss the next steps for the sale of the decom-missioned 850-MW Sucat Thermal Power Plant. 

PSALM earlier declared the second round bid-ding for the structures, plant equipment, auxilia-ries and accessories of the Sucat plant, as a failed bidding after the three qualified bidders did not meet the reserve price set by the PSALM Board. 

Initially, four bidders submitted their offers for the Sucat sale. However, one bidder was dis-qualified after it was found noncompliant with the legal requirements of the bidding process.  

The three bidders who were qualified in the bidding were Riverbend Consolidated Mining Corp., VPD Trading and Sta. Clara International.

Philippines.Bt cotton will address the infes-

tation of bollworm, an insect that causes as much as 60-percent yield loss in cotton plantations. The pro-duction cost incurred by farmers would be reduced, as they would no longer need to buy pesticides to control bollworm, Barron said.

“The reduction in yield loss and the use of insecticides and pesticides will therefore increase farmers’ in-come and profit,” he said.

International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Ap-plications (ISAAA) Global Coordi-nator and Southeast Asia Director Randy Hautea said the expected commercialization of Bt cotton in the country is a “welcome” development.

“Cotton is probably the big-gest pesticide and insecticide user among all crops because of the is-sue of the bollworm. I’m sure, local cotton growers would welcome its commercialization,” Hautea said.

The PhilFida said the rollout of Bt cotton in the Philippines could help fast-track the revival of the local textile industry and make the country self-sufficient in cotton.

Data from the Philippine Sta-tistics Authority (PSA) showed the country’s cotton production in 2014 reached 11.32 metric tons (MT), 79.54 percent lower than the 2013 output of 55.34 MT.

With the propagation of Bt cot-ton, the PhilFida said about 60,000 MT of cotton could be harvested from 20,000 hectares of land.

This volume is seen to wipe out the country’s imports of lint esti-mated at 40,000 MT a year valued at P3 billion.

B B C @BcuaresmaBM

BANKING and finance officials have proposed to leaders of both houses of Congress to

amend the country’s Anti-Money Laundering Act (Amla) and revise the bank deposit secrecy law for tax-evasion purposes.

The proposal was prepared joint-ly by the Department of Finance (DOF), the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

 “Amendments to the Amla have been proposed in the last two years and were made more urgent by re-cent financial controversies that have exploited the weakness in the country’s tax and financial system’s legal framework: the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist involving a lo-cal bank and casinos; the Panama Papers exposing offshore bank transactions from across the globe that may have avoided or evaded

domestic taxation; the “derisking” phenomenon, where foreign banks are closing the accounts of our money-transfer operators abroad, which may double the cost of remit-ting money to the Philippines,” the DOF said in a statement.

  Among the more salient pro-posed amendments to Republic Act (RA) 9160, also known as the Amla of 2001, is to include casinos, among others, as mentioned in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, as covered enti-ties under the law; as well as the inclusion of tax evasion, among other crimes, as a predicate crime to money laundering.

 The government also said the proposal aims to improve the abil-ity of AMLC to safeguard the finan-cial system from money-laundering activities.

 This is by authorizing the AMLC to issue subpoenas, by allowing the council, instead of the Court of Ap-peals, to issue ex parte freeze orders

with respect to certain unlawful activities, and by adding unlaw-ful activities that are exempted from the requirement of a court order before a bank inquiry may be conducted.

 The proposed bill also increases the monetary penalty for adminis-trative sanctions.

  “The Philippine banking and financial system remains stable and strong. To respond to emer-gent risks and challenges, we are proposing a thorough update of the Anti-Money Laundering Act to further strengthen our regula-tory institutions in safeguarding a robust financial system,” BSP Gov-ernor Amando Tetangco Jr. said.

  Also among the amendments include the designation of the BSP as the supervising authority over foreign-exchange dealers, money changers, and remittance and mon-ey-transfer businesses for purposes of the Amla.

 The DOF also proposed to amend

RA 1405, or the bank-secrecy law, and RA 6426, otherwise known as the Foreign Currency Deposit Act of the Philippines, to lift restrictions on bank secrecy of peso deposits and foreign currency deposits for tax purposes.

 “We are one of only three coun-tries in the entire world where our tax administration cannot access bank transactions for tax-evasion purposes. We are one of only two countries in the entire world where tax evasion is not a predicate crime to money laun-dering,” Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said.

 Purisima noted that, while the tax gap has narrowed since 2009, the country still has a long way to go in plugging the 4 percent of GDP lost to tax evasion. 

“It’s high time we keep up with international standards and pierce the veil the unscrupulous few have conveniently hidden behind,” the finance secretary said.

Changes to Amla, bank secrecy eyed

PSALM lists ‘hurdles’ in privatization of power assets

BULLISH MARKET A trader at the Philippine Stock Exchange trading floor in Makati City gives a thumbs-up sign after the market closed at 7,174.88, up 183.01 points, or 2.62 percent, on Monday. See related story on A1. NONIE REYES

Page 4: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

BusinessMirror [email protected] A4

briefsCHINA READY TO WORK

WITH NEW ADMIN ON SEA ROWCHINA said on Tuesday that it hopes to work with the Philippines’s new government to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea, but insisted the onus is on Manila to lower tensions.

Beijing hopes the Philippines will “meet China halfway, taking concrete measures to properly deal with the disputes so as to put the ties of the two countries back on the track of sound development,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily news briefing. Lu said that, while the two countries have a traditional friendship, bilateral relations have been "hit by major setbacks in recent years, due to reasons known to all”—a reference to moves by the Philippines to assert its claims and activities by the US challenging China’s actions.

Beijing and Manila have for years accused one another of infringing on each other’s territory in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety.

President-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte has said he would negotiate directly with China on the dispute. However, he also said that if negotiations fail, he would sail to one of China’s newly built artificial islands and plant the Philippine flag on it. AP

MALACAÑANG ASSURES SMOOTH TRANSITION

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

BMReports

“Our people have spoken and their verdict is accepted and respected,” outgoing President Aquino’s Spokes-man Herminio B. Coloma Jr. said in a statement. “The path of good governance...is already established as all presidential candidates spoke out against corruption.”

For mer Inter ior Secretar y Manuel A. Roxas II, who was run-ning second behind Duterte in the unofficial vote count following Monday’s election, conceded de-feat. “Digong, I wish you success,” Roxas said at a news conference, using Duterte’s nickname. “Your victory is the victory of our people and our country.”

Duterte’s harshest critic also conceded that the mayor, known for his off-color sexual remarks and pledges to kill criminal sus-pects, had emerged the unques-tioned winner.

“I will not be the party pooper at this time of a festive mood,” Sen. An-tonio F. Trillanes IV, who has filed a plunder complaint against Duterte, told The Associated Press. “I will step back, listen to his policy pronounce-ments. This time we don’t expect a

stand-up comedy act but a president who will address the nation.”

Duterte, 71, himself has not spoken since casting his vote on Monday, and remained at his home in Davao, on the southern main island of Mindanao.

Results from a semiofficial count gave Duterte an unassailable lead, thrusting him into national politics for the first time after 22 years as mayor of Davao and a government prosecutor before that. In those two jobs, Duterte gained notoriety by go-ing after criminals, although he was accused of carrying out hundreds of extrajudicial killings.

This earned him the nickname “Duterte Harry,” a reference to the Clint Eastwood movie character with little regard for rules. He has also been compared to Donald Trump, the US Republican presumptive presi-dential nominee, for his propensity for inflammable statements.

In the election for vice president, who is separately elected in the Phil-ippines, the son of late dictator Fer-dinand E. Marcos was trailing by a hair to a political neophyte, Rep. Leni Robredo, who is backed by outgoing

Duterte seen as emancipator, looming dictatorRODRIGO R. DUTERTE, the

bombastic mayor of a major southern city, was heralded

on Tuesday as president-elect of the Philippines after an incendiary and populist campaign that projected him alternatively as an emancipator and a looming dictator.

President Aquino.During the three-month cam-

paign, Duterte made audacious promises to eradicate crime and corruption within six months. His explosive outbursts and curses against the inequality and social ills that bedevil the Filipino every-man resonated among different class levels of the people that his big political rivals clearly under-estimated, until he began to take a strong lead in opinion polls in the final weeks of the campaign.

He captured domestic and inter-national attention with speeches peppered with obscene jokes about sex and rape and anecdotes about his Viagra-fueled sexual escapades, and for undiplomatic remarks about Australia, the United States and China, all key players in the coun-try’s politics.

He has not articulated an over-all foreign policy, but has described himself as a socialist wary of the US-Philippine security alliance. He has worried members of the

armed forces by saying that com-munist rebels could play a role in his government.

When the Australian and Ameri-can ambassadors criticized a joke he made about wanting to be the first to have raped an Australian mission-ary who was gang-raped and killed by inmates in a 1989 jail riot, he told them to shut up.

He said he would talk with China about territorial disputes in the South China Sea, but if noth-ing happened, he would sail to an

LIKE Donald Trump, to whom he’s often compared, the Philippines’s apparent president-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte won over voters with a crude and bombastic persona—or, if you will, his big mouth. What

the country he may soon inherit needs most, however, is a steady hand.Duterte, a mayor who has proudly advertised his links to vigilante death

squads in Davao City and threatened a “bloodbath” for criminals once he’s in power, has tapped into a deep vein of frustration with the political status quo. In truth, though, the Philippines are in better shape than they’ve been in for years. The country is forecast to grow faster than its neighbors this year, aided by low oil prices and continued healthy consumption. Remit-tances are strong, while a booming outsourcing sector could soon replace them as the country’s largest source of dollar revenues.

Outgoing President Aquino can’t take credit for all this good fortune. But he’s unquestionably leaving the country on a stronger footing than he found it six years ago. The Philippines, the former “sick man of Asia,” now boasts a current-account surplus, an investment-grade credit rat-ing, improved competitiveness and steady growth in foreign investment. Aquino has gone after tax cheats and scored notable victories against of-ficial corruption.

Aquino, the son of former President Corazon C. Aquino, is a likable, but diffident leader. He has built his record on sober and unflashy re-forms. His successful efforts to widen the tax base have helped shrink the budget deficit. Changes, such as introducing online bidding for gov-ernment contracts, helped convince ratings agencies to give the coun-try its first investment-grade rankings. He’s rolled out a cash-transfer program for the poor and boosted infrastructure spending to around 5 percent of GDP this year.

Certainly, growth hasn’t trickled down enough: A quarter of Filipinos still live in poverty, and Manila’s crumbling and traffic-choked roads remain a nightmare. But change will require patient work and coalition building. Duterte will need Congress’s help if he wants to pursue land reforms that would spread growth beyond Manila, or if he’s to open up more sectors of the economy, including mining, to greater foreign investment. He can’t fix the power sector—critical, if the country is to build up its manufacturing industries—on his own. Yet, much like Trump in the United States, Duterte has done nothing to improve his standing among legislators, whom he largely derided during the campaign as trapos, or traditional politicians, sucking the country dry.

Geopolitically, his election comes at a fraught moment. A United Na-tions tribunal is set to rule soon on a case the Philippines brought against China’s expansive maritime claims in the Spratly Islands chain. Even as the Philippines has welcomed US military forces back to its shores for the first time in decades, Duterte has issued provocative and contradictory policy statements—in one breath threatening to ride a jet ski out to a dis-puted reef to plant the Philippine flag, in another offering to negotiate concessions with China in return for infrastructure investment. Either move would undermine US efforts to build regional support for the rule of law in the South China Sea.

As Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, himself a successful former mayor, might attest, skills that are effective locally don’t always translate at the national level. A single figure, no matter how determined, can’t dictate out-comes the way he or she might in a city or town. What Filipinos need from their next leader isn’t brute strength, but consistency and pragmatism, to reassure markets and to make deals possible. While Duterte hasn’t shown those abilities to date, part of his appeal is his unpredictability. He should aim to surprise everyone. Bloomberg Editorial

Election brings change PHL doesn’t need

AFTER defeating his op-ponents in a heated presi-dential election in the

Philippines, Rodrigo R. Duterte is seeking to calm markets with a call for “healing,” as he seeks to win over Filipinos and investors watching closely for how he will manage the economy.

“Past days have been virulent, I’d like to reach my hand to my opponents,” Duterte, 71, said in a briefing in Davao City after Mon-day’s voting. “Let’s begin healing now.” He claimed victory after preliminary results showed he secured about 39 percent of the vote, and named some potential cabinet members.

The early response from mar-kets was a positive one. The peso strengthened against the dollar and all its major Asian peers. The Philippine Stock Exchange Index rose for the first time in three trading sessions, bucking the trend for emerging-market equities that extended their longest slide this year. Volatil-ity in local shares will persist as investors gain familiarity with Duterte, according to the Bank of the Philippine Islands.

“There will be a honeymoon period moving forward, as in-vestors give Duterte the benefit of the doubt,” said Smith Chua, who helps manage about $10.6 billion as chief investment of-ficer at the nation’s second-largest money manager. “His popularity is very resounding and investors are interested to see what he will do with this strong popularity and how he will conduct peace with other parties and run government.”

The peso rose 0.4 percent to 46.89 per dollar as of 11:48 a.m. in Manila, prices from the Bank-ers Association of the Philippines show. The currency has strength-

ened more than 1 percent from a two-month low reached on Friday. The benchmark stock index gained 0.5 percent. Local markets were shut Monday. The country’s dollar-denominated bonds due in 2041 advanced for a fourth day, sending the yield down three basis points to 3.26 percent, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices.

Uncertainty about Duterte’s economic plans and his lack of policy-making experience had sent investors to the sidelines in the weeks before the election.

Duterte told reporters on Monday he may appoint Carlos Dominguez as finance chief or to head the transport department. Dominguez was agriculture sec-retary in the cabinet of late Presi-dent Corazon C. Aquino. He owns Marco Polo Hotel and is a child-hood friend of Duterte.

“We’re looking for an admin-istration that will have conti-nuity—almost seamless—par-ticularly in infrastructure,” John Forbes, senior adviser at the American Chamber of the Philippines, said in an in-terview with Bloomberg TV’s Haslinda Amin. “The first chal-lenge is going to be infrastruc-ture because the growth of the economy has produced much more demand on roads and airports and seaports.”

Once labeled Asia’s “sick man,” the nation of 101 million people has earned World Bank praise

as the continent’s “rising tiger” under outgoing leader Benigno Aquino III. It posted average an-nual growth of 6.2 percent over the past six years, the fastest pace since the 1970s.

Despite those gains, poverty rates remain high and Duterte tapped rising discontent among millions of voters who feel they haven’t benefited from Aquino’s reforms. Faster growth and 4 million jobs created during Aquino’s six-year term led to re-cord car sales, but also clogged up Manila’s already gridlocked roads as infrastructure spend-ing failed to keep pace with eco-nomic expansion.

Duterte has been making posi-tive signals to investors. He told online news web site Rappler in an interview published on Monday that he will consider raising the 40-percent foreign-ownership limit in certain industries to win over investors. He also pledged to work with countries in the region to boost trade.

“Our mayor has been suc-cessful in making Davao in-vestor-friendly,” Bonifacio Tan, president of Davao Chamber of Commerce, said in an inter-view. “The mayor really does what he says. The mayor may be a bit emotional, when he speaks, when he gets mad, he sometimes expresses foul lan-guage. The way he talks does not show the real government official he will be.” Bloomberg News

Next job of new president is winning over investors

We’re looking for an administration that will have

continuity—almost seamless—particularly in infrastructure.” —F

artificial island newly created by China and plant the Philippine flag there. China, he said, could shoot him and turn him into a national hero.

He has also threatened to form a one-man rule if legislators in the Congress oppose him.

President Aquino went public against Duterte late in the cam-paign, saying the mayor may en-danger the country’s hard-fought democracy and squander economic gains of the last six years, when the Philippine economy grew at an aver-age of 6.2 percent, one of the best rates in Asia.

Aquino, whose parents were d e m o c r a c y c h a m p i o n s w ho helped topple the senior Marcos, also campaigned against Marcos Jr., who has never clearly apolo-gized for economic plunder and widespread human-rights abuses under his father. Filipinos have been hypersensitive to potential threats to democracy since they ousted the elder Marcos.

On Monday Duterte was asked to comment about his image as a mass-murder advocate. He replied without elaborating, “I’m sure that there will be a resurrection one of these days.” AP

Digong, I wish you

success. Your victory is the victory of our people and our country.”—R

DUTERTE

MALACAÑANG on Tuesday assured a smooth transition of power to the next president, who would likely be Davao City mayor and PDP-Laban standard-bearer Rodrigo R. Duterte, according to the partial and unofficial results from the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. said the Aquino administration had always been willing and ready to work with the incoming administration.

“We are ready to cooperate and work with the incoming administration and all that we have done in the last six years to strengthen our government structure to empower and to capacitate our government employees have all been geared toward bequeathing or transferring to the next administration a government work force and a government that is more capable, more responsive and that will be more effective in delivering essential services to our people,” Coloma said in a press conference. David Cagahastian

Page 5: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

[email protected] Editor: Max V. de Leon • Wednesday, May 11, 2016 A5

AseanWednesday

570,000 MT

200,000

Indonesia coffee crop may tumble most in five years on El Niño effectCOFFEE production in Indone-

sia will probably drop 10 per-cent this year after dry weather,

caused by the worst El Niño in almost two decades, damaged some crops and delayed the harvest.

Farmers  in the world’s third-largest grower of robusta may reap 570,000 metric tons of beans in the season that started April 1, down from a record 636,300 tons a year earlier, according to the median of five traders estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the steepest decline since 2011-2012, data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed.

A smaller Indonesian crop will cut supply of robusta beans used by Nestlé SA, potentially boosting a rally in futures in London this year. The strongest El Niño since 1997-1998 was largely responsible for dryness in the country’s main coffee-producing region of southern Sumatra last year, according to In-donesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.

“Drought caused a crop failure in the lowland of Sumatra, the trees withered and dried and flowering has failed,” said Moelyono Soesilo, purchasing and marketing man-ager at PT Taman Delta Indonesia, a Semarang, Central Java-based ex-porter. “We’re now waiting for the harvest in the highland to start in June or July.”

The harvest normally starts at

The projected coffee yield of Indonesia in the season that started April 1, down from a record

636,300 metric tons a year earlier

The number of households in the Mekong Delta that currently lack

sufficient water

PHL, Thailandreturn to WTOon tobaccosettlement case

THAI FM IN MYANMAR Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai (second from left) shakes hands with his Myanmar counterpart and de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi following their meeting in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Monday. Pramudwinai is visiting Myanmar as part of his regional tour. AP

the end of May or early June on the higher ground of Southern Sumatra, Soesilo said.

Coffee regionsTHE provinces of Lampung, Bengkulu and South Sumatra in the southern tip of Sumatra island are the main robusta areas in Indonesia, producing about 75 percent of the country’s out-put. Beans from the area are shipped from Panjang port in Lampung. Ara-bica is grown mostly in northern Sumatra and Java, and accounted for 16 percent of the total harvest in 2014-2015, USDA data showed. Ro-busta coffee 0.9 percent to close at $1, 635 a ton on ICE Futures Europe on Monday, trimming the gain this year to 6.9 percent. Futures slumped 20 percent last year.

The dry period may soon give

B C P @c_pillas29

MANILA is now formally demanding Bangkok’s compliance to a World

Trade Organization (WTO) ruling to adjust its tax treatment on imports of cigarettes from the Philippines before the multilateral trading body.

This is through the “compliance review” that was submitted by the Philippines to the WTO’s dispute settlement body on May 4.

This request will entail consulta-tions with Thailand under Article 21.5 of the Dispute Settlement Un-derstanding (“compliance panel”) to review Thailand’s compliance to a 2011 WTO ruling.

The formal request may also be seen as an implementation case.

An implementation case, under Article 21.5 of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding, is a for-mal demand for compliance that a complainant-country can initiate if it deems that the losing party in a dispute-settlement case is not ob-serving the WTO ruling.

The Philippines has been shuf-fling its feet in formally requesting compliance in recent years, saying the country should give space to the Thai government, as its authorities were caught in a separate legal battle with Philip Morris Thailand.

The Philippines, in 2008, ques-tioned Thailand’s fiscal and customs measures affecting its cigarette ex-ports (mostly from the local unit of Philip Morris) at the WTO.

The Philippines claimed that its cigarettes are being excessively taxed versus Thailand’s domestically man-ufactured counterpart, and being slapped with burdensome adminis-trative requirements.

Thailand subjected resellers of imported cigarettes to value-added tax-related administrative require-ments, but exempted resellers of domestic cigarettes from these.

The Philippines also claimed Thailand’s customs-valuation mea-sure is inconsistent with the WTO’s Customs Valuation Agreement.

The WTO ruled in favor of the Philippines. It said Philip Mor-ris’s declared import value was correct, and ordered Thailand to comply with the recommendations and rulings of WTO’s dispute-settlement body.

However, Thai authorities recent-ly slapped a criminal case against Philip Morris Thailand for alleged tax evasion on imports of cigarettes sourced from the Philippines, threat-ening the cigarette manufacturer with a $ 2.2-billion fine.

The import transactions covered by the case may have overlapped those covered by the WTO ruling, thus, inadvertently dragging back the Philippines’s WTO case into the discussions.

THE UN deputy secretary-general has offered assistance to Vietnam in coping with the

ongoing drought and saline intru-sion, which affected 2 million people in the southern and south-central region of the country.

Jan Eliasson, who recently com-pleted a fact-finding trip to Mekong Delta’s BenTre Province, told local media during a news briefing last Friday that the UN would allocate a budget of $48.5 million to sup-port Vietnam.

The UN and partners have called on the international community to offer emergency assistance to Vietnam in fighting drought.

The UN official said he offered support to the efforts now being taken by the UN secretary-general to assist Vietnam in adapting to climate change.

Visiting Ben Tre, Eliasson said that, during his fact-finding trip, he could clearly see the impact of drought and saline intrusion.

Many farms have been seriously damaged by the drought and saline intrusion.

Eliasson has asked UN officials in Vietnam to monitor the case of a family in Ben Tre, whose 0.5 hectares of farmland face a total loss due to the historic drought.

Meeting with local residents affected by the disaster, Eliasson vowed to seek solutions to help affected farmers.

During the upcoming World Hu-manitarian Summit and climate change in Turkey at the end of this month, he will mention the challenge that Vietnam is confronting and the case of the Ben Tre family.

Drought this year has seriously af-fected other countries, Eliasson said, adding that “Vietnam is not alone…”

Freshwater shortage has also become serious, not only in Viet-nam, but in the world community, he added.

way to normal weather as there is a 50 percent chance for La Niña weather from August to October, with its impact to be seen by the end of year, said Adi Ripaldi, head of climate analysis and information at the Indonesia’s meteorology agency.

Rainy season“THE weather is likely to be normal starting June or July, as El Niño is

seen fading through the end of May,” Adi said by phone on May 3. Indone-sia may see a very wet rainy season if La Niña happens, he said.

The possibility of a prolonged rainy period is bad, as well, and can damage bean quality as most farm-ers rely on the sun to dry cherries by spreading them on the ground, said Hutama Sugandhi, head of Indone-sian Coffee Exporters’ Association.

La Niñas occur when the surface of the Pacific cools, bringing on an atmospheric reaction that can upset global weather patterns and move commodity and energy markets. In addition to helping cause colder winters across the northern US, the phenomenon also has meant heavier monsoons in India, as well as more rain across parts of Indonesia, Aus-tralia and Brazil. Bloomberg News

The UN also plans to work with Vietnamese scientists to develop so-lutions that would alleviate the fresh water shortage. Rising sea levels are other serious concerns in Vietnam. Eliasson urged close cooperation in water use between riparian countries along the Mekong River.

He said water demand from coun-tries near the upstream and down-stream of the river was high, especial-ly for agriculture. But he noted that countries need water for electricity, as well. Drought and saline intrusion has caused the Mekong Delta to lose 1 million tons of rice and more than 9,000 hectares of fruit orchards, while more than 200,000 households lack sufficient water.

Eliasson suggested that Vietnam work with countries to devise a joint action plan that takes climate change into account.

Mass fish deathsCONCERNING the mass fish deaths in the central region of Vietnam, Eliasson said the UN would assist in finding the cause of the incident if the Vietnamese government asked for help.

He said it was a serious issue that needed to be addressed, and urged the local government to promptly determine the cause of the incident.

He also said the government should stop industrial production that causes negative impact to the en-vironment and curb other activities that disrupt natural processes. PNA

NEED FOR A SEXUAL-VIOLENCE LAW Activists light candles during a vigil for a teenage girl who was raped and murdered by 14 men in Bengkulu province on Sumatra island, outside the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia. The attack on the girl in western Indonesia on April 2, which went largely unnoticed at a national level until social-media users began highlighting its brutality, has reignited calls in Indonesia for a sexual-violence law that is languishing in Parliament to be enacted. AP

UN vows to assist Vietnam tackle drought, salinity

Investors staying away from Thai junta bondFOREIGN investors are shying

away from Thai government bonds after their extra yield

over US Treasuries evaporated, bringing an end to a record nine-month rally.

An index of baht notes fell in April after surging 12 percent from July through March. The yield premium on Thailand’s 10-year securities is near zero, compared with more than 2 percentage points four years ago, and the gap with US bonds matur-ing in 2046 has turned negative. The currency’s gains are slowing too fol-lowing the best quarterly advance since early 2013.

The appeal of the Southeast Asian nation’s debt is likely to fade further, as the central bank seems to now favor spurring growth via stimulus spending rather than cutting bor-rowing costs, while the US is poised

to raise interest rates. A 15-month bout of deflation also ceased in April, removing support for bonds in a country that remains under military rule two years after a coup—with no set date for elections.

“As the Federal Reserve embarks on further rate hikes this year, we expect US Treasury yields to slowly creep up,” said Edward Ng, a Singa-pore-based fixed-income portfolio manager at Nikko Asset Manage-ment Co., which oversaw 18.5 trillion yen ($171 billion) globally at the end of 2015. “We are maintaining our underweight in Thai bonds and will look to further reduce our holdings when inflation shows stronger signs of picking up in the next few months.”

Bank of Thailand Governor Veer-athai Santiprabhob said in March that fiscal policies will do more to improve the economy than lowering

borrowing costs, and the govern-ment’s stimulus spending should show results in the second half. The central bank has kept the repurchase rate at 1.5 percent since cutting it in April last year. It next meets on May 11.

The finance ministry cut the 2016 GDP growth forecast to 3.3 percent from 3.7 percent, last month. The Washington-based In-ternational Monetary Fund projects a lower 3 percent.

Thailand’s yield curve flattened after the 30-year yield dropped more than a 100 basis points in 2016 to 2.46 percent, while that for 10-year paper declined 75 points to 1.77 percent.

Plentiful money supply is sup-porting demand with the three-month money-market rate near the lowest in more than five years.

Overseas investors turned net buy-ers of Thai debt this month after offloading $2.9 billion in April.

“The rally in the first three months of this year was more based on liquidity than anything else,” said Pongtharin Sapayanon, a Bangkok-based fixed-income manager at Aberdeen Asset Management Plc. overseeing $421 billion worldwide. “If yields go up, we will see buying back in from locals, because there are more positives than negatives to be invested in Thai bonds.”

He’s considering adding to his holdings from the current “almost neutral” position against the bench-mark used to measure performance should yields rise “significantly.” It’s unlikely there will be any big selloff in long-term bonds because there’s still large demand from insurers, he said.

Bloomberg News

Page 6: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

The WorldBusinessMirror [email protected], May 11, 2016A6

Ex-North Korea army head, whoSeoul said was executed, is alive

R IO DE JANEIRO—The fight over President Dilma Rous-seff ’s future has taken a

strange twist in Congress, with the leader of the lower house say-ing senators can’t go ahead with an impeachment vote and the Senate leader insisting they will.

The latest chapter in Brazil’s political drama began on Monday, when the acting speaker of the Chamber of Deputies announced that he had annulled a majority vote by his own colleagues last month that favored ousting Rousseff and sent the matter to the Senate for a possible trial of the president. The surprise move by acting Speaker Waldir Maranhao touched off a stormy debate over the decision’s legality and its possible implica-tions, a standoff that will likely have to be solved by the country’s supreme court.

The Senate had been expected to vote on Wednesday whether to ac-cept the impeachment case against Rousseff and put her on trial for allegedly breaking fiscal rules in her management of the national budget. If a simple majority of sena-tors decides in favor, Rousseff will be suspended and Vice President Michel Temer will take over until a trial is conducted. Senate President Renan Calheiros told colleagues that he intended to ignore Maran-hao’s action and move forward with the proceedings as scheduled. He criticized the speaker’s action as “toying with democracy.”

Whether the Senate would be able to go forward was unclear, since both the government and op-position were likely to appeal Ma-ranhao’s decision. At the very least, the impeachment process could be pushed back a few days.

The impeachment proceedings come as Brazil is grappling with its worst recession in decades, a con-tinuing corruption probe that al-ready has ensnared top politicians and prominent businessmen, and an outbreak of the Zika virus. At the same time, the country’s show-case city, Rio de Janeiro, is gearing up to host the Olympics in August.

Rousseff ’s once-overwhelming public support has eroded with the onslaught of bad news, with her approval ratings dipping into the single digits in recent months. While polls have suggested broad public support for her impeach-ment, they have also pointed to widespread worry about who might replace her.

Under the terms of Maranhao’s decision, the Chamber of Depu-ties would have five sessions to hold another vote on whether to send the impeachment process against Rousseff to the Senate. The lower house overwhelmingly voted to move forward with the process last month and it is those April 15 to April 17 sessions that were annulled by Maranhao, who opposed impeachment.

Speaking late Monday, Maran-hao said the vote was riddled with irregularities, and included a viola-tion of rules, such as party leaders telling members how to vote.

“We are not, nor will we ever be, joking around with how we make democracy,” he said.

Rousseff is battling impeach-ment over allegations that her government violated fiscal rules, in what critics say was a bid to artifi-cially bolster the country’s flagging economy. Rousseff has said that prior presidents used such fiscal maneuvers and that the impeach-ment effort amounts to a “coup” aimed at removing her and her left-leaning Workers’ Party, which has governed the country for 13 years.

Rousseff reacted cautiously to Maranhao’s announcement, sug-gesting it wasn’t entirely clear what was happening.

“We have a difficult fight ahead of us,” she said at an event about education. She also called for cau-tion, saying that “we live in a time of cunning and wile.” AP

LONDON—A report billed as the first comprehensive look at world’s plants finds a planet

slowly being ravaged by changing land use, mostly conversion of for-ests to agriculture to feed a grow-ing population, and climate change.

The “State of the World’s Plants” study is designed to provide a base-line for annual reports that will measure how many plant species are being discovered, and how many are being lost forever.

“The positive is we’re still discov-ering lots of new plants, about 2,000 each year, new plants for food, for fuel, for drugs,” said Kathy Willis, science director at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. “On the negative, we’ve seen a huge change in land cover, mainly driven by cultural activity, with a little bit of climate change in there, as well.”

The goal, she said, is to bet-ter understand the factors driv-ing these negative changes—and to change them to protect more plants from extinction. The re-port by one of the world’s leading

research institutions involved more than 80 scientists. Here are some of its findings:

How many plants are out there?THE report estimates there are 391,000 vascular plant species known to science, with an average of 2,000 new ones being discovered and named each year.

Brazil, with its vast rain forests, has led the way in the last decade with the highest number of newly discovered species. That sounds encouraging, but a daunting 21 percent of global plant species are currently threatened with extinc-tion, the report finds, as habitat is gobbled up for human use.

Why does it matter?T H E ne w s t u d y d o c u me nt s 31,128 plant types put to a spe-cific use, mostly for medicine (17,810 plant species used in the pursuit of good health), but also for human food, animal food, fuel, materials and other things. Plants provide many of

the building blocks used for tex-tiles and construction materials.

The study found “significant gaps” in the collection of DNA data and specimens from many parts of the world that would hinder ef-forts to preserve plant diversity in the face of changing climate and land-use patterns. It also seeks to pinpoint locations where botanists should focus collection efforts to boost food security and find plants that can adapt.

How bad is climate change?IT is too early to accurately judge the impact of climate change, Willis says, but the report finds most of the world’s ecosystems have expe-rienced a greater than 10 percent change in land cover in the last 10 years, due to changes in land use and climate change.

Studies by a research institute in Colombia included in the report establish timelines for the loss of certain foods in Africa, finding that up to 30 percent of land used for growing maize and bananas

won’t be viable by the end of the century. The figures for beans are even higher, with 60 percent of the land likely to be unfit for that purpose.

But some crops—particularly yams and cassava—are found to be much more resilient, making them important candidates for more re-search and investment as the world copes with mounting food insecurity as population rises and productive land dwindles.

What’s in a name?THE obscure process of discover-ing, describing and naming a new species may seem of little practical value, but Timothy M.A. Utteridge, head of identification and naming at the Royal Botanical Gardens, says the information is vital if scientists are to protect plants.

He helped name 12 new species last year and sees a remarkable number of new plants pinpointed in Australia, Brazil and China, all of which are developing new computer databases with nearly

comprehensive deta i ls about their plants.

That’s step one in protecting those plants, he said.

“If this plant doesn’t have a name, and it falls over in the for-est, no one knows,” he said. “Once we have a specimen, and a name, we put that on the map,” he said, adding that it’s important for “conservation assessment.”

Who collected that?LEST anyone doubt Kew’s bona fi-des, consider the origin of some of the samples hidden away in the vast herbarium—including the ones collected in the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin. The scientist, whose theory of evolution has helped shape modern thinking, enjoyed a long, intense friendship with William Hooker, who was an early direc-tor at the botanical gardens, and Darwin used Hooker’s son Joseph as a taxonomist to work on the plants Darwin had brought back from his travels. AP

The news on Ri Yong Gil marks yet another blunder for South Ko-rean intelligence officials, who have often gotten information wrong in tracking developments with their rival. It also points to the difficulties that even pro-fessional spies have in figuring out what’s going on in one of the world’s most closed governments.

Ri, who was considered one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s most trusted aides, missed two key national meetings in February. Seoul intelligence officials later

said that Kim had him executed for corruption and other charges.

Kim has reportedly overseen a series of killings, purges and dismissals since he took power in late 2011, part of what foreign experts call an attempt to tighten his grip on power.

The South’s report on Ri ’s ex-ecution seemed to be bolstered later in February when Pyong-yang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed Ri had lost his job by describ-ing someone else as chief of the

North Korean military’s general staff. He hadn’t appeared any-where in KCNA, the North’s main media outlet for foreign audienc-es, until the report on Tuesday that a person with the same name as Ri was among those awarded important positions during the just-concluded Workers’ Party congress in Pyongyang.

The congress, the first in 36 years, ended on Monday with an-nouncements of personnel and organizational changes.

According to KCNA dispatches, Ri got three posts—member of the party’s Central Committee, alternate member of the commit-tee’s powerful Political Bureau, and member of the party’s Central Military Commission.

Seoul ’s Unification Ministry said on Tuesday that it confirmed Ri is back after analyzing North Korean state media photos and video of the party congress. South Korean media said Seoul intelli-

gence authorities were responsible for the initial reports on Ri’s execu-tion. But the National Intelligence Service—South Korea’s main spy agency—tried to distance itself from the misstep, saying it never disclosed any information on Ri.

Mon itor ing deve lopments among the North’s ruling elite is very hard for outsiders; the coun-try keeps strict tabs on visitors and

its own state-run press acts as a disseminator of government pro-paganda. South Korea, which runs several intelligence organizations mainly tasked with spying on the North, has a mixed record.

Earlier this year, South Korean intelligence and defense officials faced criticism for failing to see in advance that North Korea had been preparing for its fourth nuclear test. The NIS also failed to learn of the 2011 death of Kim Jong Il, the dictator father of Kim Jong Un, before Pyongyang’s state TV an-nounced it. In 2013, it saved its face by releasing its finding that Kim’s powerful uncle Jang Song Thaek was purged, days before North Ko-rea announced his execution.

The rival Koreas have shared the world’s most heavily fortified bor-der since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, and they bar ordinary citizens from exchanging phone calls, letters and e-mails without special permission. AP

Royal Botanical Gardens: Mixed report on the world’s plants

Effort to impeach Brazil’s president plunges into chaos

The number of years that has passed since the last congressof North Korea’s Workers’ Party

36

PARADE participants carry the ruling Workers’ Party �ag as they march during a parade at Kim Il Sung Square on May 10 in Pyongyang, North Korea. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans celebrated the country’s newly completed ruling-party congress with a massive civilian parade featuring �oats bearing patriotic slogans and marchers with �ags and pompoms. AP

SEOUL, South Korea—A former North Korean military chief who Seoul had said was executed

is actually alive and in possession of several new senior-level posts, the North’s state media said on Tuesday.

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The [email protected] Wednesday, May 11, 2016 A7

Study: Sanders’s economic planpiles $18T on US’s federal debt

T hat sober ing assessment comes from a joint analysis re-leased on Monday by the nonpar-tisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Urban Institute Health Policy Center, well-known Washington think tanks.

Democratic presidential can-didate Sanders would raise taxes by more than $15 trillion over 10 years, with most of that paid by upper-income earners.

But that wouldn’t be enough to cover the cost of his proposed gover nment-r u n hea lt h- ca re system, along with free under-graduate college, enhanced so-cial security, family and medi-cal leave, among other new pro-grams. The cost of the health-care plan alone is more than $30 tril lion, according to the study.

The bottom line: Sanders would add $18 trillion to federal debt over a decade. That’s about double the current total government debt of $19 trillion. “The dramatic in-crease in government borrowing

would crowd out private invest-ment, raise interest rates, further increase government borrowing costs and retard economic growth,” the analysis concluded.

In a statement, the Sand-ers campaign said the analysis “wildly overestimates” the cost of the Vermont senator’s health-care proposal. The campaign also said the analysis “significantly underestimates” health-care sav-ings through less bureaucracy, simplified paperwork and lower prescription drug prices, simi-lar to what other countries with

government-run systems have achieved. “If every other major country can spend less on health care and insure all of their people, so can the US,” the campaign said.

But economist John Holahan of the Health Policy Center said those countries put their systems in place decades ago, and he doubts modern-day America could easily achieve comparable savings.

If the critics are right, a Presi-dent Sanders may be forced to raise taxes even more to pay for considerably richer social bene-fits. Running as a democratic so-cialist, Sanders envisions making the US more like European coun-tries that cover a much broader set of services.

Because the Sanders plan al-ready maximizes tax increases on upper-income earners, any additional levies to pay for the shortfall would like fall on mid-dle- and lower-income families, the study authors said.

A leading possibility would be a new national sales tax, a revenue-raising scheme used by other economically advanced countries with more extensive social benefits.

“President Sanders would have to rely on much more broad-based taxes,” said economist Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center.

The studies try to give a sense of winners and losers under Sand-ers’s proposals. All but the richest would come out ahead.

Those in the middle of the in-come ladder—averaging about $41,000 in annual income—would

gain nearly $8,700 on average be-cause the new benefits would be worth more than the taxes they would pay.

But households in the upper rungs—the top 5 percent av-eraging about $650,000 in an-nual income—would lose about $110,000 on average, because the new taxes levied on them would exceed the value of benefits they would receive under the plan.

Health care is the most ambi-tious and costliest part of Sand-ers’s plan. His new “single-payer” government-run health-care sys-tem would incorporate all private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid and President Barack Obama’s health-coverage expansion into a new program. Everyone would be covered. There would be no insur-ance premiums, deductibles or co-payments. Long-term care would be covered, as would most dental, vision and hearing care.

“It would be significantly more generous than current-law Medi-care or typical private insurance,” the analysis said.

With more generous benefits and without copayments and de-ductibles, the analysis projects in-dividuals would use more health-care services, growing the nation’s overall health-care tab.

All told, the Sanders health-care plan would cost about $32 trillion over 10 years.

“Sanders would change what the government does for people in a very big way,” said economist Roberton Williams, a Tax Policy Center expert. AP

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta—Alberta premier’s declared Canada’s oil sands city saved

and said a plan will be put together within two weeks, so the 88,000 residents forced to evacuate can return to their homes.

At least two neighborhoods in Fort McMurray were scenes of ut-ter devastation with incinerated homes leveled to the ground from a wildfire that the city’s fire chief called a “beast ... a fire like I’ve never seen in my life.”

But the wider picture was more optimistic, as Fire Chief Darby Al-len said 85 percent of the city re-mains intact, including the down-town district. Alberta Premier Ra-chel Notley said about 2,400 homes and buildings were destroyed, but f iref ighters managed to save 25,000 others, including the hos-pital, municipal buildings and every functioning school.

“This city was surrounded by an ocean of fire only a few days ago but Fort McMurray and the sur-rounding communities have been saved and they will be rebuilt,” Notley said.

Notley added there will be a meeting on Tuesday with the en-ergy industry to discuss the state of their facilities and the impact on operations. She got her first direct look at the devastation on Monday after cold temperatures and light rain had stabilized the massive wildfire to a point where officials could begin planning to get thou-sands of evacuated residents back.

T he brea k in the weather left officials optimistic they’ve reac hed a t u r n i ng poi nt on getting a handle on the mas-sive wildfire. The temperature dipped to 7 degrees Celsius on Monday, following a week where the region had unseasonably warm temperatures.

Notley flew in on Monday to meet with local officials and took

a ground tour of the town before holding a news conference at the emergency center.

“I was very much struck by the devastation of the fire. It was re-ally quite overwhelming in some spots,” Notley said. “But I will also say I was struck by the proximity of that devastation to neighborhoods that were untouched.”

More than 40 journalists were allowed into Fort McMurray on a bus escorted by the police. The forest surrounding the road into town was still smoldering and there were abandoned cars. Only the sign remained at a Super 8 Motel and Denny’s restaurant on the edge of town. The Beacon Hill neighborhood was a scene of utter devastation, with homes burned to their foundations.

Allen said at one point in Beacon Hill the fire jumped across a road that is 15 feet to 20 feet wide.

“It jumped that without think-ing about it. This was a beast. It was an animal. It was a fire like I’ve never seen in my life,” he said on the media bus.

In the early stages of the fire he feared that as much as half the city could burn down.

Allen said at one point the fire raced down a hill to the corner of a bank, but firefighters were able to halt the encroaching flames at the bank. Had they failed to stop it there, the fire would have destroyed the downtown district, he said.

But other neighborhoods were not spared. In the Abasand dis-trict, townhouses were completely destroyed, and charred children’s bikes could be seen in backyards. A parking facility was burned to the ground.

“I just want everyone to know that there were hundreds of people, emergency services staff, that gave their all,” Allen said. “I do truly believe we couldn’t do any more. This was a horrible fire. Whatever

we tried to do, it went a different way and it found some new fuel so we our very best.”

About 88,000 people have been forced out of Fort McMurray since the fire broke out a week ago in the heart of Canada’s oil sands region. The bulk of the city’s evacuees moved south after a mandatory evacuation order, but 25,000 evacu-ees moved north and were housed in camps normally used for oil sands workers until they also could be evacuated south.

Gas has been turned off, the power grid is damaged and water is undrinkable in Fort McMurray.

More than 250 power company workers are trying to restore the grid and assess the gas infrastruc-ture. “We are now turning our minds more and more to the recov-ery effort,” Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said.

“This is going to be a long-term endeavor because, at the moment, there is no power and gas, no pal-atable water supply. There’s dan-gerous hazardous material all over the place. It’s going to take a very careful, thoughtful effort to get that community back in a livable condition,” Goodale said.

Notley said the fire continues

to grow outside the city and now is about 2,020 square kilometers in size. No deaths or injuries have been reported from the fire itself. But the fire has forced as much as a third of Canada’s oil output of-fline and was expected to impact an economy already hurt by the fall in oil prices.

“We’re just beginning to become aware of the economic impacts,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. Alberta’s oil sands have the third-largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Its workers largely live in Fort McMurray, a

former frontier outpost-turned-city whose residents come from all over Canada. Officials said the fire didn’t reach the Suncor or Syncrude oil-sands facilities north of Fort McMurray, and that the oil mines to the north are not threatened.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs es-timated the wildfire has reduced Canada’s oil-sands production by a million barrels per day, but said in a note the lack of damage to the oil mines could allow for a fast ramp up in production. They noted, how-ever, that the complete evacuation of personnel and of the city could point to a more gradual recovery. AP

Alberta officials say oil sands city saved from fire’s worst

FLAMES �are up from hot spots from a wild�re along a highway to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, on May 8. O�cials said on Sunday they reached a turning point in �ghting an enormous wild�re, hoping to get a “death grip“ on the blaze that devastated Canada’s oil sands town of Fort McMurray amid cooler temperatures and light rain. RYAN REMIORZ/THE CANADIAN PRESS VIA AP

SAINT PETERSB URG, Flor ida—Roy S p e e r, t h e c o f o u n d e r o f H o m e Shopping Network, was a Florida

billionaire once listed on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

His investments were handled by Ami Forte of Morgan Stanley, and she made tens of millions buying and selling on his behalf. Because of her expertise in handling Speer’s assets and other top-flight accounts worth $2 billion, she became a managing director and one of the few female members of Morgan Stanley’s Chairman’s Club, which was reserved for its top wealth-management advisers. She, too, was well-known around her home near Tampa, serving on several boards and was once named “Businesswoman of the Year” by the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

But there was something else between Forte and Speer: a years-long love affair—and after Speer died in 2012, things got messy, with his widow alleging that Forte and Morgan Stanley took advantage of him in his later years to earn millions in commissions. Forte was fired, and she is now fighting back by filing an arbitration case against Morgan Stanley challenging that decision.

“I cared deeply for this person,” Forte said, during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “The type of relationship we had changed over the years. We were very, very dear friends. It changed to a very dear friendship, there was a time when it was more than that.” After Speer’s death, his widow gained control of her husband’s brokerage account and alleged that Morgan Stanley, through Forte, put through approximately 12,000 unauthorized trades in Speer’s accounts, generating commissions of nearly $40 million.

Lynnda Speer filed suit with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), saying Forte and Morgan Stanley “took advantage” of the elderly man, who died when he was 80. A three-person arbitration panel ruled in March that Morgan Stanley, Forte and a Morgan Stanley branch manager were guilty of elder exploitation, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud, unauthorized trading and

churning Roy Speer’s accounts, along with negligence, negligent supervision and unjust enrichment. The panel awarded Lynnda Speer $32.8 million, plus costs and legal fees likely to be several million dollars more.

Forte and another broker who worked with her were fired days later. She’d worked at Morgan Stanley for 16 years and, she said, her dismissal prevented her from receiving millions in deferred compensation and other benefits.

Now Forte, who lives in Pinellas County, Florida, has struck back. She has filed a multimillion-dollar securities arbitration case before Finra against Morgan Stanley and its subsidiaries, saying the company unjustly fired and penalized her. She says the basis for the arbitrator’s decision was Morgan Stanley’s conduct after she was no longer managing the Speer investment accounts.

“It’s just not right,” Forte said. “I have been a loyal employee, I loved that company. I’ve done everything for them. When times were tough, I rallied the troops.” Forte, who was divorced when she met Speer, insists that her relationship with him wasn’t manipulative. According to documents filed by Forte’s attorney, Speer had been estranged from his wife for years. Forte and Speer began a relationship about eight months after meeting in 1999, she said.

“There were many, many people in Morgan Stanley who very much knew about that relationship for years and years and years,” Forte said.

Morgan Stanley declined comment.Forte questions whether she would have

been fired had she been a male broker.Speer visited the Morgan Stanley office

several times a week, said Forte and her lawyer, Robert Pearl.

“Mr. Speer had no problem disagreeing with those around him, including the people at Morgan Stanley who serviced his accounts, when he felt it appropriate,” wrote a Morgan Stanley attorney in an arbitration document. “He was not a person who was manipulated into doing anything he did not want to do.” AP

Former broker who had affairwith client challenges firing

WASHINGTON—Sen. Bernie Sanders’s tax and spending proposals would provide

new levels of health and education benefits for American families, but they’d also blow an $18-trillion hole in federal deficits, piling on so much debt they would damage the economy.

The cost of the health-care plan proposed bySen. Bernie Sanders

$30T

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The WorldBusinessMirror [email protected], May 11, 2016A8

China announces stepsto boost sagging exports

IN this April 29 photo, workers load steel bars at a steel market in Yichang in central China’s Hubei province. China’s Cabinet has approved measures to boost exports in a move that might worsen tensions with trading partners that say Beijing is �ooding their markets with unfairly low-priced steel and other goods. AP

The announcement late Mon-day comes as Beijing struggles to reduce a glut of goods in an ar-ray of industries and reverse an export decline that threatens to cause politically dangerous job losses. Its efforts so far have prompted complaints by Euro-pean and US steelmakers and others that it is violating free-trading pledges.

In its latest measures, the Cab-inet promised more bank lending, an increase in tax rebates and support for export credit.

Chinese exports contracted by 1.8 percent last month compared with the same period last year and are down 7.6 percent so far this year.

“The foreign trade situation is complicated and grim,” said the Cabinet statement. “Promoting foreign trade to return to sta-bility is important for economic stability and upgrading.”

Beijing is trying to shrink bloated companies, many of them state-owned, in industries includ-ing steel, coal, glass, cement and aluminum in which supply exceeds demand. That has led to price-cutting wars and heavy losses. Monday’s announcement follows a Cabinet announcement last month promising to boost steel exports with bank loans and other support.

In Ma rc h Wa sh ing ton re-sponded to a f lood of low-cost steel from China by announced antidumping tar iffs of up to 266 percent on some Chinese steelmakers. Britain’s govern-ment faces pressure to act after Tata Steel cited low-cost Chinese

competition when it announced plans in April to sell money-los-ing operations there that employ 20,000 people.

Elsewhere in Europe, steel-workers have protested in Brus-sels outside the European Union headquar ters. A lso in Apr i l , China pushed back against its trading partners, announcing antidumping duties on steel from the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

Monday’s announcement also said Beijing will support compa-nies in setting up foreign distri-bution centers and other sales infrastructure and shifting some operations abroad.

As part of the campaign to re-duce overcapacity, China’s minis-ter of human resources announced plans in February to eliminate 1.8 million jobs in coal and steel. Bei-jing announced a 100-billion-yuan ($15-billion) fund to help laid-off workers find jobs.

Plans for other industries have yet to be announced. AP

The percentage of contraction in Chinese exports in April compared with the same period last year

1.8BEIJING—China’s Cabinet has

approved measures to boost exports in a move that might

inflame tensions with Western trading partners that accuse Beijing of flooding their markets with steel and other goods at improperly low prices.

WA S H I N G T O N — S i x states that allow mari-juana use legal tests to

determine driving while impaired by the drug that have no scientific basis, according to a study by the nation’s largest automobile club that calls for scrapping those laws.

The study commissioned by AAA’s safety foundation said it’s not possible to set a blood-test threshold for THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, that can reliably determine impairment. Yet, the laws in five of the six states automatically pre-sume a driver guilty if that person tests higher than the limit, and not guilty if it’s lower.

As a result, drivers who are un-safe may be going free, while oth-ers may be wrongly convicted, the foundation said.

The foundation recommends replacing the laws with ones that rely on especially trained police officers to determine if a driver is impaired, backed up by a test

for the presence of THC rather than a specific threshold. The of-ficers are supposed to screen for dozens of indicators of drug use, from pupil dilation and tongue color to behavior. The founda-tion’s recommendation to scrap the laws in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington comes as legislatures in several more states consider adopting similar laws.

At least three states, and possi-bly as many as eleven, will vote this fall on ballot measures to legalize marijuana for either recreational or medicinal use, or both. Several legislatures are also considering legalization bills.

“There is understandably a strong desire by both lawmakers and the public to create legal limits for marijuana impairment in the same manner we do alcohol,” said Marshall Doney, AAA president and CEO. “In the case of marijua-na, this approach is flawed and not supported by scientific research.”

Determining whether some-one is impaired by marijuana, as opposed to having simply used the drug at some time, is far more complex than the simple and reli-able tests that have been developed for alcohol impairment.

There’s no science that shows drivers become impaired at a spe-cific level of THC in the blood. A lot depends upon the individual. Drivers with relatively high levels of THC in their systems might not be impaired, especially if they are regular users, while others with relatively low levels may be unsafe behind the wheel.

Some drivers may be impaired when they are stopped by police, but by the time their blood is test-ed they have fallen below the legal threshold because active THC dis-sipates rapidly. The average time to collect blood from a suspected driver is often more than two hours because taking a blood sample typi-cally requires a warrant and trans-port to a police station or hospital,

the foundation said. In addition, frequent users of the drug can ex-hibit persistent levels of the drug long after use, while THC levels can decline more rapidly among occasional users. Nine states, in-cluding some that have legalized marijuana for medicinal use, have zero-tolerance laws for driving and marijuana that make not only the presence of THC in a driver’s blood illegal, but also the presence of its metabolites, which can linger for weeks after use.

That makes no sense, said Mark A. R. Kleiman, a New York Univer-sity professor specializing in is-sues involving drugs and criminal policy. “A law against driving with THC in your bloodstream is not a law you can know you are obeying except by never smoking marijuana or never driving,” he said.

He said rather than switching to a new kind of law as AAA rec-ommends, states should consider simply making it a traffic violation.

Studies show that using mari-

juana and driving roughly doubles the risk of a crash, Kleiman said. By comparison, talking on a hands-free cellphone while driving—legal in all states—quadruples crash risk, he said. A blood alcohol con-tent of .12, which is about the me-dian amount in drunken-driving cases, increases crash risk by about 15 times, he said. Driving with “a noisy child in the back of the car” is about as dangerous as using mari-juana and driving, Kleiman said.

The exception is when a driver has both been using marijuana and drinking alcohol because the two substances together greatly heighten impairment, he said.

The foundation also released a second study that found the share of drivers in fatal crashes who had recently used marijuana doubled in Washington after the state legalized it for recreational use in December 2012. In 2013 and 2014, the share of drivers who had recently used marijuana rose from 8 percent to 17 percent. AP

Scientific basis for laws on driving, marijuana questioned by auto club

AMIAMI-DADE circuit judge declared that the state’s new death-penalty law is

unconstitutional, saying on Mon-day it should require a unanimous decision from the jury.

Florida had to revise its law after the US Supreme Court ruled on January 12 that it was uncon-stitutional because it gave too much power to judges, not juries. When the Florida Legislature passed the new law in March, some thought that it could hold constitutional muster because it says a jury needs a unanimous vote on aggravating factors to consider someone for a death sentence but it takes only a 10-2 vote to impose it.

Judge Milton Hirsch said the new law should require all 12 ju-rors to agree to the death penalty.

“Every verdict in every crimi-nal case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of some, not of most, but of all jurors—every single one of them,” he said.

The ruling was in the case of Karon Gaiter, who is awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge. The ruling is limited be-cause it applies only to Florida’s 11th circuit and no other judge is bound by it.

Ed Griffith, a spokesman for Miami-Dade’s state attorney, said the state would appeal.

Hirsch’s decision was first re-ported by The Miami Herald.

Under the new law, judges can’t impose the death penalty if a jury recommends a life sentence. The new law was signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott on March 7.

The Senate originally favored unanimous verdicts while the House supported a 9-3 vote before reaching a compromise.

“The Legislature was certain-ly forewarned as they were de-bating what new statute would require that there would be con-stitutional attacks if they didn’t vote for unanimity. That is what has come to pass,” said Karen Gottlieb, who is the director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida Inter-national University’s School of Law. Florida’s Supreme Court will take up the matter of 10-2 juries next month after ordering briefs last Thursday in a case involving Larry Darnell Perry.

That was the same day the court heard oral arguments in the Timo-thy Lee Hurst case on whether he should receive a life sentence in-stead of death due to flaws with the old law. The case could have far-reaching impact as the court could rule that all 390 inmates on Florida’s death row should also receive life sentences. AP

EGYPT ARRESTS 3 MEMBERSOF A STREET SATIRICAL GROUP CAIRO—Egyptian security officials say police have arrested three members of a satirical street group that mocked President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and his supporters in video clips posted online. The officials say the three were arrested late on Monday in Cairo and are likely to face charges of inciting protests and insulting state institutions. A fourth member of the group, 19-year-old Ezzedeen Khaled, was detained on Saturday and faces the same charges. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to reporters. AP

GERMANY: UP TO 5 WOUNDEDIN STABBING AT TRAIN STATION BERLIN—German police say several people were stabbed at a train station near Munich early Tuesday. Four or five people were wounded, one of them seriously. The incident happened at the Grafing Bahnhof station, some 30 kilometers east of Munich and near the end of one of the city’s commuter railway lines, shortly before 5 a.m. (0300 GMT). Police spokesman Michaela Grob said a man was arrested and authorities are working to identify him. AP

CHINESE MAN LOSESIN COUNTRY’S 1ST TRANSGENDER LABOR DISPUTEBEIJING—A Chinese transgender man says he is disappointed but will continue to fight for equality, after a labor arbitration panel rejected his complaint that he was fired unfairly, in China’s first transgender job-discrimination case. The man, who uses the name Mr. C to protect his parents from discrimination, said on Tuesday the panel in the southwestern province of Guizhou granted his demand for about $62 in wages owed but did not rule that his dismissal was unfair. AP

IRAQ OFFICIALS: SUICIDE BOMBKILLS AT LEAST 13 NEAR BAGHDAD BAGHDAD—Iraqi officials say a suicide bombing in a commercial area northeast of Baghdad the previous evening killed at least 13 civilians. A police officer said on Tuesday the bomber blew up his explosives-laden minibus shortly before sunset on Monday near a bakery and a falafel restaurant in a Shiite neighborhood of the city of Baqouba. The explosion also wounded at least 60 others. Baqouba, the provincial capital of Iraq’s Diyala province, is located 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. AP

2 EXRWANDAN MAYORS STAND TRIAL IN FRANCE OVER GENOCIDE PARIS—Two former Rwandan mayors are appearing in a French court for allegedly inciting and taking a leading part in mass killing of ethnic Tutsis during the first days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Tite Barahirwa, 64, and Octavien Ngenzi, 58, are both accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. They face trial on Tuesday over the massacre of some 2,000 Tutsis who had sought refuge in a church in the eastern town of Kabarondo. AP

PAKISTAN SAYS U.S.AFGHAN RAID RESCUES SON OF PAKISTANI EXPM ISLAMABAD—Pakistan’s foreign ministry says a joint raid by US and Afghan forces has rescued the son of a former Pakistani prime minister from a three-year Taliban captivity in Afghanistan. The Foreign Office says the Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar told Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz in a telephone call that Ali Hiader Gilani was found on Tuesday and is safe. Gilani, believed to be in his 30s, is the son of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, whose secular anti-Taliban Pakistan People’s Party’s led several major offensives against militants. AP

briefs Florida judge: New deathpenalty law unconstitutional

Page 9: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

ExportUnlimitedBusinessMirrorEditor: Efleda P. Campos • www.businessmirror.com.ph

THE Department of Trade and Industry’s Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) is pushing

various innovative measures to boost the competitiveness of local companies by physically exposing them in the international trade arena.

DTI-EMB leads OBMs to 7 overseas markets this year

The past few years, the DTI-EMB spearheaded outbound trade mis-sions to its major market Japan. Last year it also led a mission that visited the cities of Atlanta, Wash-ington, D.C., and New York in the United States.

This year the DTI-EMB has expanded its sight to lead out-bound business missions (OBMs) to Europe; North America to in-clude Canada in the US OBM; and its Asean neighbors Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia.

Later this year it will again spearhead a business mission to Japan. Activities, scheduled dur-ing OBMs include business-match-ing activities, such as business-to-business meetings, store checks and information sessions.

EMB Assistant Director Agnes Legazpi stressed the importance

of joining outbound missions. She said, “We really want to position our products to what the market needs. The last outbound mission to the United States has been an eye-opening experience to us. It has provided us with insights about the US market and the chal-lenge on how we can mainstream our products like what our Asean neighbors have achieved.”

The DTI-EMB’s most important OBM, to date under the adminis-tration of President Aquino, took place in Switzerland where  Trade Secretary Adrian S. Cristobal signed the Philippines-European Free Trade Association (Efta) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on April 28.

The Efta is composed of four countries, namely Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.

The OBM to Switzerland on

April 26-28 also coincided with the second Philippines-Switzer-land Joint Economic Commis-sion meeting. Participants to the Swiss OBM represented the food, garments and forensic-supply sectors. The OBM to the US and Canada will take place on  May 15-28, 2016.  The delegation will cover the East Coast in the US and also participate in a business-matching event called Centrallia to be held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Central l ia in Canada is an event where around 700 partici-pants from Canada and around the world are expected to take part in what is dubbed as the “speed dating for small and medium sized businesses.” This event is a way for the Philippine delegation to tap opportunities for the inter-national market through business matching and networking.

Participants will come from various sectors including food, personal care, health and well-ness products, as well as con-struction materials. Other gov-ernment promotion agencies, like the Philippine Retirement Authority, Tourism Infrastruc-ture and Enterprise Zone Author-ity, Tourism Promotions Board and Zamboanga Cit y Specia l Economic Zone Authority, will join the DTI-EMB in Centrallia.

On  May 24-June 1, 2016, the DTI-EMB is set to lead a busi-ness delegation to Thailand and Myanmar. The OBM to the two countries will be a significant av-enue for Philippine participants to meet buyers, look into the possibil-ity of joint-venture projects, and strengthen business tie-ups and network linkages.

The OBM will include Philip-pine participation and/or visit to THAIFEX—World Food Asia on-May 25-28, 2016  at the IMPACT Exhibition and Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand. The partici-pants have the option to join the OBM in Yangon, Myanmar on  May 28-June 1, 2016.

A total of 21 companies mostly involved in food manufacturing signified interest to join this trade mission.  An innovation the DTI-EMB added to its trade missions this year is the exposure of Philip-pine educational institutions and the competitive edge Philippine schools and universities have over their counterparts in the Asean.

Last February 20-21, local uni-versities including representatives from Enderun Colleges, WCC Avia-tion Co. Inc. and the Asian Insti-tute of Aviation participated at the World Education Expo Festival 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

 With RD Velasco

Of new beginnings and innovation

FULL SPEED AHEAD

By Nora K. TerradoUndersecretary, Investment Promotions Group

Upcoming Events

EDC leads implementation of 3-year PEDP

W E are on the verge of a new beginning. As the nation welcomes the

new administration, we, at the De-partment of Trade and Industry (DTI), shall stay focused and moti-vated to do the work that has been entrusted to us. We shall continue to provide an enabling environment to businesses and to empower the Filipino consumers.

With full optimism, we hope to provide information that will serve the interests of the Philippine ex-porting community. Aside from helping local exporters to grow more competitively, the page also aspires to encourage more micro, small and medium enterprises to participate in the global value chain (GVC).

Over the last decades, the global production landscape has witnessed significant changes, with GVCs be-coming a dominant feature of in-ternational trade. GVCs entail the process of producing goods from raw materials to finished products being carried out wherever the necessary skills and materials are available at competitive cost and quality. With the emergence of GVCs, goods must now cross borders several times, first as inputs and then as final products. Our goal is to deepen our participation in GVCs.

To succeed in international markets, countries must have both the capacity to export and import world-class inputs. In a GVC world, the view that exports are good, and imports are bad and that market access is a concession in exchange for access to a part-ner’s market is clearly self-de-feating. Successful participation would depend on factors, such as resource endowments, infrastruc-ture, skilled labor, human capital, innovation and other relevant domestic policies that our new industrial policy espouses. Both trade policy and complementary industrial policies are necessary for capturing value and upgrad-ing within these value chains to ensure inclusive, and sustainable growth and employment.

Exports play a vital role in the nation’s economy. We have seen how it has shaped the country’s eco-nomic direction and brought it to a brighter era. Latest data from the World Bank showed that exports of goods and services comprised 28.7 percent of our GDP in 2014. More-over, the Philippines was ranked the 39th largest economy in the world and is touted as an emerging market in the 2016 International Monetary Fund records. With this, the export industry is challenged to maintain the necessary momentum to drive the country to a higher and more rapid growth path.

Innovation is among the eight strategies identified in the 2015-2017 Philippine Export Develop-ment Plan (PEDP) to help domestic

industries establish their niches in regional and global markets and expand the country’s participation in GVCs. While there is a wealth of technological advances that local exporters can tap, they are hin-dered because of gaps in the flow of knowledge and information among industries, universities and public-research institutions.

Systemic failures that undermine the capacity of industries to inno-vate are another concern together with the mismatches between basic research in the public sector and academia and industry’s need for more applied research. Raising the effectiveness of technology trans-fer institutions, and providing in-centives for collaborative research and technology development among firms and with public research in-stitutions are also areas of concern that government has to resolve in partnership with the private sector.

Together with the implementa-tion of the other strategies laid out in the current PEDP, the government hopes to attain the elusive $100-bil-lion export target by the end of the cycle. Under the PEDP, exports are projected to grow between 6.6 per-cent and 8.8 percent this year, and between 7.7 percent and 10.6 per-cent next year. The growth targets translate to additional export rev-enues of $5.2 billion to $8.8 billion in 2016 and $8.5 billion to $15.5 billion in 2017.

Aligned with the ultimate goal of the government to reduce pov-erty, the PEDP aims to provide from 800,000 to 1.4 million job op-portunities this year, and between 1.2 million and 2.3 million next year. The estimated additional employment opportunities over the planning period is between 500,000 and 2.8 million.

In keeping with the innovation agenda for the export sector, the DTI is implementing programs that will help develop and promote it. Recently, DTI launched SlingShot, a program that aims to support start-ups in the country by providing an enabling environment that will encourage and nurture new ente-prises and innovative businesses. Another program is the provision of a coworking space for start-ups at the DTI International Building where the Export Marketing Bu-reau (EMB) is located. This comple-ments the establishment of two other workspaces in Intramuros and Marikina, where the Center for Innovation and Technology Enter-prise, formerly the Cottage Indus-try Technology Center, is housed.

People and administrations, for that matter, may come and go, but the agency will continue to do what it ought to do. Information technol-ogy will continue to serve genera-tions beyond administrations. The agency embraces new beginnings and innovations.

A9Wednesday, May 11, 2016

PRESIDENT  Aquino III ap-proved on February 4, 2016 the 2015-2017 Philippine

Export Development Plan (PEDP) through Memorandum Circular 91, directing 14 agencies to plan the flow of exports as a primary platform to achieve inclusive growth and to transform the Phil-ippines into a strong, competitive and innovative exporting nation.

The PEDP is a three-year roll-ing plan  for  ex por ts, which forms part of the Philippine De-velopment Plan (PDP). It lays out the plan of providing a business environment supportive of trade, growth and innovation. The plan would enable domestic industries, especially micro, small and me-dium enterprises (MSMEs), to es-tablish their niches in the regional and global markets by increasing the country’s participation in the global value chain (GVC).

  The Export Development Council (EDC) is the lead agency that will oversee the implemen-tation of the PEDP. It is tasked to coordinate  the formulation and implementation of policy reforms and export promotion strategies.

Director Senen Perlada of the Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)  and concur-rently the executive director of the EDC said, “The goals set for this plan are two-fold: One is to

transform the Philippines into a strong, competitive and innova-tive exporting nation; and two is to make exports a primary plat-form to achieve inclusive growth. The latter resonates with the over-arching goal of the PDP to bring about inclusive growth. These twin goals translate to increasing the country’s participation in the GVC and making full use of the benefits that can be derived from such participation. As a core strat-egy, the plan is to maximize the country’s participation in the GVC through provision of a healthy and conducive business environment that would allow domestic pro-ducers, including SMEs, to find niches in the GVCs through which they can profitably and sustain-ably integrate in the regional and global markets.”

Emmarita Z. Mijares, dep-uty executive director of the EDC,  noted  some major  weak-nesses in the Philippine Export Sector that the PEDP aims to ad-dress. “Some of the major weak-nesses in the Philippine export sector that the PEDP will give priority addressing include the low degree of diversification, such as concentration in few markets and products, concen-tration in products with limited growth potentials and lack of competitiveness on most prod-ucts it exports, including those

products where it is deemed to have comparative advantage.”  

The PEDP identified eight de-velopment strategies, namely, (1) design comprehensive packages of support for key and emerging sectors; (2) remove burdensome domestic regulations that impede the movement of goods; (3) raise the productivity and competitive-ness of Philippine enterprises; (4) upgrade the quality of exports; (5) improve exporters’ access to finance; (6) exploit the oppor-tunities presented by the Asean Economic Community (AEC) and other preferential trade areas (free trade agreements or FTAs), US General System of Preferences (GSP), EU GSP+ and explore new ones; (7) intensify export promo-tion by linking it with various initiatives designed to attract investments; and (8) enhance the innovative capacity of the export system of national innovation. 

The core strategies of the PEDP aim to achieve ex port competitiveness through com-prehensive support to identified key and emerging sectors, maxi-mization of preferential trading agreements lowering of the com-mon hurdles, and costs faced by exporters. and capacity building through innovation.

The initial targets set for 2015 took into consideration the global economic slowdown, particularly

in the Philippines’s  major mar-kets: China, Japan and the United States. They also considered the impact of past natural calamities on the domestic supply of raw materials.  From 2016, however, exports are targeted to be back on track and grow according to the trend  of 8.8 percent  and breach 10 percent in 2017.

Mijares said there will be chal-lenges in the implementation of the PEDP, especially with the coming change in leadership by July. Get-ting the support of the incoming administration to the export sector is key to its success. 

“If export is not recognized as a means to attain inclusive growth, the new administration may di-vert their attention to other sec-tors,” Mijares said.

Fourteen government agencies were directed to collectively work to formulate, revise and implement policy reforms in order to facilitate the free flow of exports, includ-ing the DTI as the lead agency, Departments of Agriculture, En-ergy, Environment and Natural Resources, Finance, Department of Foreign Affairs, Health, Inte-rior and Local Government, Labor and Employment, Public Works and Highways, Science and Tech-nology, Transportation and Com-munications,  Bangko  Sentral  ng Pilipinas  and National Economic Development Authority. RD Velasco

MAY 12, 20169 a.m. to 12 noon: Doing Business in Free Trade AreasSession 1: Discussion of ATIGA, ACFTA, AKFTA, AJCEPA, AANZFTA, AIFTA, PJEPASession 2: Doing Business Using the Generalized Schemes of Preferences (GSP), EU GSP+, US GSP, Canada’s General Preferential Tariff1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.: Philippine Export Competitiveness Program Seminar Series for ExportersSession 1: Overview of EMB Services and Export ProceduresSession 2: Overview of E-Commerce

PRESENT at the signing of the Philippine-European Free Trade Association (Efta) Free Trade Agreement on April 28, in Bern, Switzerland, are (from left) Martin Zbiden, deputy secretary-general, Efta; Iceland Ambassador Martin Eyjolfsson; Aurelia Frick, foreign minister of Liechtenstein; Johann Schneider-Ammann, federal president of Switzerland; Adrian Cristobal, Philippine Trade and Industry secretary; and Dilek Ayhan, state secretary of trade and industry and �sheries of Norway.

MAY 1113, 2016 5th Software Development Expo (Outbound okyo Big Business Matching Mission–Services Division) Sight, Japan Being attended by EMB Director Senen Perlada and Ma. Teresa Loring OIC–Services Division

Session 3: Key Techniques for Digital Marketing Strategy: Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Venue: Penthouse, 5th Floor, DTI International Building, #375 Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City

Page 10: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 •Editor: Angel R. Calso

OpinionBusinessMirrorA10

We wish success to all winners in the elections

editorial

WE congratulate the winners in the other day’s elections, led by former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, now the pres-ident-elect of our country, and wish them

all success in the fulfillment of the promises they made to the people. We also hope that we now forget and forgive the charges that were hurled during the campaign, in-cluding the vicious ones that were made in desperation in the last few days.

What exactly are these promises? We know those made by Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Grace Poe, because these were more or less clearly ar-ticulated during the campaign.

Vice President Binay would implement nationwide, among all members of the family, particularly those suffering from ill health, lack of education, senior age, the programs of social uplift he had successfully carried out in Makati City. Senator Poe would bring compassion to the people by a faithful attendance to their problems, in the fields of employment, education, health and livelihood, and by an acceleration of investment in key sectors of our economy.

The three others? Former interior secretary Manuel A. Roxas II vowed to continue the programs of daang matuwid. Beyond linking him directly to a pro-gram of doubtful acceptability to the people, that commitment gave him the image of one who had no initiative of his own. True enough, Secretary Roxas made no promise of his own to the people.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, asking the electorate to focus on the can-didates’ educational qualifications, also made no promise at all but raised a counter-issue: Where will the money come from to back up the promises of her adversaries? Comes now former Davao City Mayor Duterte, the most im-portant candidate of them all because he won the mandate. The mayor was a single-issue candidate: criminality. He would kill all drug pushers, drug users, pickpockets, even traffic violators, within six months of his presidency. It was not clear whether his definition of lawbreakers included the big crooks in the highest councils of our government, the president himself, the senators, the congressmen and the Cabinet secretaries, who resorted to all schemes, overt and covert, to enrich themselves in office. This would seem to be the real is-sue, the plundering of the public treasury by crooks of the highest ranks, not the petty criminality on the streets.

Still and all, a political campaign might be too narrow a framework for the articulation of a comprehensive program of government. No place for China or other foreign-policy issues, for instance. Cognizant of that possibility, we are encouraged by the good mayor, when apprised of the nonresponsiveness of his speech before the Makati Business Club, saying that he would adopt as parts of his Development Plan programs of predecessors that have been shown to be beneficial to our country. Good enough. We hope so fervently.

We wish President-elect Duterte and the other elected people all success in their leadership of our country in the next six years.

HAVING incorrect or un-updated personal record with the Social Security System (SSS) could be problematic, especially at a time when one applies for a benefit claim.

Updating or correcting your personal data with SSS

One of the common failures of SSS members is updating their civil statuses and lists of beneficiaries or correcting their names according to their birth records or submitting the supporting documents needed dur-ing SSS registration. What they don’t realize is that updating or correct-ing their personal record with SSS is really quite simple. All they need to do is accomplish SSS form E-4 or the Member Data Change Request Form and submit it with the needed supporting documents.

For correction of name and birth date, the supporting document re-quired is the birth certificate duly authenticated by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), formerly National Statistics Office, or a valid passport. In the absence of both, a certificate of no birth record issued

by the local civil registrar or the PSA along with any two valid identifica-tion cards or documents showing the member’s name and date of birth, as listed at the back of the SSS Form E-4.

If the correction of name is due to naturalization from Filipino citizenship to foreign citizenship or vice-versa, any of the following should be submitted: Certificate of Naturalization issued by the Philip-pine Department of Foreign Affairs, identification certificate issued by the Philippine Bureau of Immigra-tion, and any foreign government- issued ID cards and/or documents showing the new name (e.g., pass-port, driver’s license).

To update one’s civil status from single to married, a marriage con-tract is required; from married to legally separated, certificate of

separation; from married to wid-owed, death certificate or court dec-laration of presumptive death; from married to single, a certificate of finality of annulment or annotated marriage contract or decree of divorce or certificate of divorce (in the case of Muslim members) or certificate of no marriage (if not legally married to a previously reported spouse).

Sometimes members commit mistakes in indicating their gen-der during registration. To correct one’s gender, any of the following documents may be submitted: birth certificate, passport, member’s copy of Personal Record (SS Forms E-1, RS-1, OW-1, NW-1) duly received by the SSS where the correct gender is indicated and court order granting petition for correction of gender, if with erroneous entry of gender in the birth certificate.

To report new or additional de-pendents or beneficiaries in case of a spouse, the submission of a marriage contract is required. In the case of a dependent child, a birth or baptismal certificate is needed or a decree of adoption as the case may be.

To delete previously reported de-pendents or beneficiaries, in the case of a spouse, any of the following, whichever is applicable, should be submitted: decree of legal separation,

if legally separated with previously reported spouse; death certificate of spouse, if due to death of previ-ously reported spouse; certificate of Finality of Annulment/Nullity or annotated Marriage Contract/Certificate, if due to annulled or void marriage with previously reported spouse; court order on declaration of presumptive death, if previously reported spouse is presumed dead; and certificate of divorce (OCRG Form No. 102), if due to divorce of Muslim member with previously reported spouse.

To remove one’s parents as ben-eficiaries one must submit parents’ death certificates, if previously re-ported parents are already dead.

Why is it important to update or correct one’s personal data with the SSS? To avoid delays in the process-ing of one’s benefit claims and to ensure that the rightful beneficia-ries are given the benefits due them.

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 [email protected].

HOM

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INSURANCE FORUM

Money laundering in the insurance industry

Part two

Defining suspicious transactions

THERE are a number of “red flags” that should alert insurance companies. Among these are a) funding a policy using payments from a third party; b) purchasing single-premium investment-

linked policies, then cashing them in a short time later; c) payment of premiums from different (multiple and diverse) sources or third-party funding; d) overpayment on a policy, then asking for a refund; e) unusual relationship between the policyholder and the beneficiary; f) practicing “structuring” or purchasing several policies below the reportable limit, instead of purchasing one large policy; g) the customer is more inter-ested about the cancellation terms than about the benefits of the policy; h) making payment of premiums via offshore banks; i) insurance policies with premiums that exceed the client’s apparent means; and j) transac-tions involving an undisclosed party.

Lower risk in insurance sectorACCORDING to a 2004 report of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), the vulnerability of the life-insurance industry is not regarded as being high compared to the other sectors of the financial industry. According to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Typologies Report (2004-2005), there is a low level of insurance re-lated STRs in comparison to the total STRs received by the financial inves-tigation units. From 1999 to 2003, 23 jurisdictions had only 3 percent total insurance-related STRs, while

only two jurisdictions had more than 20 percent total insurance-related STRs. The FATF stated that earlier typologies research “indicated that there was a low detection of money laundering within the insurance industry in comparison to the size of the industry and in compari-son to other parts of the financial services industry.” It furthermore added that “the insurance sector’s relative size within the financial services industry of each jurisdic-tion is such that one would expect it to be exposed to the risk of be-ing infiltrated by money launderers

and criminals in general to a much wider extent than the number of STRs would indicate.” Vincent Schmoll, principal administrator at the FATF secretariat stated that “there would appear to be less of it [money laundering] in the insurance industry than in other financial sec-tors.” These figures may lead to the conclusion that the number of actual money-laundering cases related to life insurance is low when compared to the actual size of the life-insurance market. It can also lead to a conclusion that insurers are failing to identify suspicious transactions. But it has been pointed out that the insurance industry would “certainly be one of the more complicated and lengthier channels” for ML. The FATF holds an annual exercise to examine the meth-ods and trends—the typologies—of money laundering.

The FATF pointed to the reliance on brokers by the industry and the “lack of an industry-wide commitment to ad-dress this risk” as the possible reasons for the low detection of ML within the insurance industry.

According to Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project, a nonprofit orga-nization, “[T]he insurance industry is a kind of second-tier financial services industry. The companies may now have to file suspicious activity reports, but remember that they’re not the ones necessarily setting up accounts all the time or the ones that are receiving the lion’s share of direct deposits. The ma-jor share of responsibility always falls on the first tier of financial services, the deposit-taking companies.”

A theory has been forwarded that introduction of money-laundering

measures did not really pose that much challenge in the insurance industry because in insurance underwriting the “insurer already had risk-assessment procedures indirectly incorporating features very similar to antimoney-laundering precautions.” These pro-cedures have been put in place not against money laundering but against insurance fraud. Indeed, many state regulators have required the report-ing of insurance fraud.

Role of intermediariesATthe forefront of antimoney-laun-dering measures are the insurance intermediaries (i.e., the brokers and agents). Intermediaries are the ones in direct contact with the clients and not the insurers. Indeed, “intermediaries are an insurer’s first line of defense.” It is therefore important that inter-mediaries receive adequate training on AML/FT legislations. According to Franz-Josef Werle, director at the European committee of insurance associations, “Normally it is done by an intermediary, an agent or broker, and normally it’s up to them to take on the identify obligation for the cli-ent—it’s up to the intermediary to do the job and verify the client.” Money launderers may deliberately seek out insurance brokers who are not aware of, or does not conform necessarily to, the procedures. It has been observed that intermediaries may be too focused on making a sale and may overlook money-laundering indicators.

To be continued

Dennis B. Funa is currently the deputy insurance commissioner for Legal Services of the Insurance

Page 11: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

[email protected]

PRESIDENTELECT Rodrigo R. Duterte may have shocked the well-heeled scented crowd of the elite with his gutter lan-guage, but by being true to himself, he has done a “great job”

of endearing himself to the hoi polloi or the masses (masa), which has catapulted him to a landslide victory.

Analyzing President-elect Duterte’s victory

Continued from A1

As a senior citizen myself, let me say, without calling you what you are because I vowed not to use bad words anymore, “Do not do us any favors just to look good pretending to help old people—but doing it in a way that will kill them. And yet, it is for such people, for those who take each painful step along the highway to cast their vote in the elections that democracy was invented in the first place: for the grizzled old men of Athens who pulled the oars of the rowing ships that protected Athenian freedom. It is for them that democracy was invented—and it was not to give them freedom, because they had that already.

Indeed, they freely gave of their time and strength to row the battleships of freedom. Democracy was invent-ed to give their freedom its most appropriate political expression in a democracy. It was also old people who stood in the front ranks of the phalanx, because experience enabled them to take the first fresh blows of the enemy full in the chest until they fell—and the young took their plac-es, hopefully, or ran. We have just concluded an election; for the most part, cleanly; for some part, dirtily.

This election was not about democracy nor is democracy about elections. If that were true, we should give up democracy, because elections

Elections are not democracy

FREE FIRETeddy Locsin Jr.

have given us only crap for govern-ments. It is just that elections seem the best way of picking the people who will run a democracy with the least threat to freedom. It is the saf-est but, by no means, the smartest way to pick such people. Lee Kuan Yew showed that democracy does not need the kind of elections we have. My good friend Joey Leviste pub-lished a book of short pieces, writ-ten by people such as myself, and called it: If the Philippines had a Lee Kuan Yew. Yes, what would the Phil-ippines be like if it had a Lee Kuan Yew? It would be what Singapore is: a perennially satisfied democracy, which is, to say, a government of, by and for the people.

It only seems like a dictator-ship, because the people do not want change when they have it so good already. In our country, elections are definitely not about democracy, be-cause elections have not produced, even remotely, a government of, by and for the people. It has produced only government for the govern-ment and its chums. This election has not yet settled anything. The elected president has yet to show that he is making a seri-ous start at establishing a democra-cy—and that is to say a government of, by, and for the people—and not for himself and his chums. So going back, democracy was invented for the sort of people who, against all reason, still believe; it is worth giving your last ounce of strength to cast your vote even if you barely survive to see it counted be-cause the Commission on Elections has tried to kill you with the distance and the altitude. Fu—, fyu—; no I must keep my promise never again to use a bad word.

ON THE CONTRARYMichael Makabenta Alunan

This election has not yet settled anything. The elected president has yet to show that he is making a serious start at establishing a democracy—and that is to say a government of, by and for the people—and not for himself and his chums.

His ways may be coarse, rough and uncouth, but an analysis of his campaign strategies and pro-paganda shows that he has played well with metaphors, the indirect approach, and has captured the “Pinoy masa” culture and how the masses think and behave.

Duterte’s obnoxious ways are something that Manuel A. Roxas II and Grace Poe could not replicate, nor should they do the same, as that is not being themselves. Their class backgrounds must not be taken against them, but what matters to people is one’s standpoint and how one can convey one’s messages effectively.

It is only Vice President Jejomar C. Binay who could have matched Duterte’s deep grasp of the masaculture. Unfortunately, he fell into the folly of heeding the advice of his leaders to declare his ambitions too early, which, on the contrary, also gave all his political opponents enough time, too, to launch a drag-ging Senate probe on his corruption cases in Makati. Being an eager beaver is a trait Pinoys do not actually like. In con-trast, Duterte played coy from the start, or made pakipot, a Pinoy term downplaying any overtures of self-ish desires and ambitions. In fact, his initial plans of run-ning and backtracking the next moment was not seen as being in-decisive, as everyone knows him as a decisive executive, who is even perceived to figuratively shoot from the hip without aiming.

Actually, Duterte was just test-ing the political waters, while dishing out his usual unortho-dox comments on issues, of-ten laced with sound bites of expletives and cuss words.

Many even perceived his indeci-sion as lacking the funds to launch a campaign. Whether this is true, it has become effective to some people, as he has played the power of metaphors, being an underdog.

He caps this positioning line with his powerful political ads played a month before the elections. His ad message declares that he may not have the resources and machinery of other candidates, but appeals on the public to become his political machinery instead.

This ad did more than bring awareness and conversion, it mobi-lized people to take action. Known for getting criminals “caught in the act,” called acto in the local language, this ad became an acronym for “A Call To Organize,” thus, beating the traditional “machineries” of Binay and Mar. Whether his opponents should have done better is already water under the bridge. Binay should have learned from Machiavelli by play-ing both the fox and the lion, a sly cunning fox playing on the surface without declaring early, while con-tinuously building like a lion and consolidating and expanding his forces with his solid organizing. Binay’s decline over corruption charges became an advantage for Poe, who soared in surveys, but failed to secure and consolidate these popularity gains by trans-forming them into solid organized commitments.

Coming from a showbiz family exposed to cameras, Poe should have mobilized her young cadres

of supporters and equip them with cameras and portable printers to take pictures of rural folks, who rarely have pictures of themselves in their entire lives. So instead of distributing posters with pictures of themselves, she should have gone metaphorical or adopt the indirect method again to win people’s hearts and minds by pasting the photos of people on reserved blank spaces of her political posters. This is what I call Project Click. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s chances have long been discount-ed owing to health issues. So let’s discuss Roxas, whose obsession of becoming president having the pedigree of being a grandson of wartime President Manuel Roxas, has colored his objectivity to be able to see political opportunities beyond his ego. After the Mamasapano issue, where he was left out of the loop, he could have resigned and rallied the opposition to his side. But he stuck it out with P-Noy’s Daang Matuwid, hoping for his eventual endorse-ment. Unfortunately, all failures of the Aquino administration became a political stain that he could not easily remove. When Duterte’s surveys were soaring, Mar hinted on people to vote for decency, this only in-sulted Duterte’s supporters who only dug in, and felt alluded and insulted, claiming “Why? Don’t we have decency?”

Mar could have done the ulti-mate selfless sacrifice again, by giving way to Poe, and echoing his grandfather’s quotation “Nation above self,” which he did in 2010 for P-Noy. It could have wiped out all the negatives on him. But because of his bloated ego and obsession with the presidency, he does not have Duterte’s grit to go for the jugular.

Many say Duterte won not be-cause people really like him, but more because he simply personi-fies the people’s anger, angst and frustrations over the failures of the government and that the democracy won in Edsa 1986 has not translated to benefits to a majority of the poor still stuck in poverty. Perhaps, indeed, it is Duterte’s destiny. It’s good, though, that his opponents have conceded for the common good. On Duterte’s part, he should also be magnanimous in victory and always decide with the common good and the general wel-fare in mind.

E-mail: [email protected].

B R L R D | TNS Forum

PYONGYANG’S version of YouTube recently featured a computer-animated clip of a

nuclear strike on Washington deliv-ered via a North Korean ICBM. The North, which a decade ago tested its first nuclear weapon, will soon cross another threshold that could make its video propaganda a genuine threat: It will be able to attack the US homeland with nuclear-tipped long-range ballistic missiles.

North Korea’s potential nuclear breakout is both quantitative and qualitative. Unclassified American assessments estimate that North Korea will possess from 20 to 100 nuclear warheads by 2020, and some US officials believe it has already achieved the miniaturization nec-essary to mount warheads on bal-listic missiles.

An arsenal of this scale and quali-ty would be a game-changer not only for the US, but also for China, whose security interests would be harmed by the inevitable US response—a significant arms buildup on Chi-na’s doorstep. This convergence of Western and Chinese interests cre-ates political space for coordinated diplomacy aimed at freezing North

Korea’s nuclear capabilities at the present level.

Relying on sanctions in hopes of bringing about the collapse of the Kim government won’t work. Pyong-yang has already withstood societal pressures, such as mass starvation in the 1990s, that would topple other governments. In 2002, on the as-sumption that the government of the late Kim Jong Il was teetering, the George W. Bush administration voided the 1994 Agreed Framework, which had resolved the first nuclear crisis of the early 1990s by freezing the North’s plutonium program. It confronted Pyongyang over its al-ternate route to a bomb: covert ura-nium enrichment. The teeter never materialized; the bomb did.

The Obama administration came to office with hopes of reengaging the Kim government. After these ambi-tions were dashed by North Korean border provocations and nuclear tests, the US defaulted to a policy of strategic patience. When Pyongyang rewarded patience with an additional nuclear test and missile launches earlier this year, the US, working through the United Nations Security Council, reverted to sanctions yet again. Alternating between stra-tegic patience and sanctions has re-sulted in tacit acquiescence to North

Korea’s nuclear ambitions.Beijing, meanwhile, will not per-

mit sanctions to endanger the gov-ernment of Kim’s son, Kim Jong Un, which could precipitate a refugee crisis in northern China and lead to a unified Korea allied with the US. (Just recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared “we will never allow…chaos on the Korean penin-sula.”) But Beijing must now weigh that risk against a North Korean strategic breakout that could lead to the US deploying its latest antibal-listic missile system in South Korea.

Working with the US to secure a freeze of Pyongyang’s nuclear pro-gram is the best achievable outcome for Beijing, as well as Washington. China can’t compel Pyongyang, but it can influence North Korea’s ac-tions, and a freeze would demon-strate its responsible regional lead-ership. It would also stabilize the north-south division of the Korean peninsula that gives China a buffer against American alliances in the Pacific region and free China’s leader to focus on the country’s daunting social and economic challenges.

The timing is, therefore, as good as it will ever be to engage Beijing in a freeze campaign. The full dip-lomatic attention of both great powers, combined with sanctions

that punish North Korea even if they don’t cripple it, could prove a sufficient inducement to Kim to negotiate a freeze.

Reinvigorating diplomacy with North Korea has its pitfalls. Pyong-yang has cheated on past agree-ments, and any American conces-sions will be characterized by ad-ministration opponents as the prop-ping up of an odious regime. Kim Jong Un would surely sell the deal at home by credibly claiming that his strong leadership had caused the West to change its demands. Distasteful as those prospects are, joint diplomacy with China remains America’s best strategy. As with the Iran nuclear agreement—in which China (and Russia) played a con-structive role—the goal would be to buy time and prevent a deterio-rating situation from getting worse.

Freezing North Korean’s nuclear capabilities is an imperfect, interim solution, but it would avert the great-er danger of North Korea developing a nuclear weapon that could strike the US. The alternative—principled refusal to negotiate and the blinkered hope that sanctions and patience will bring Kim Jong Un to his senses—will almost certainly result in North Korea’s full emergence as a belliger-ent nuclear state.

How to freeze North Korea’s nukes

Many say Duterte won not be-cause people really like him, but more because he simply personifies the people’s an-ger, angst and frustrations over the failures of the gov-ernment and that the democ-racy won in Edsa 1986 has not translated to benefits to a majority of the poor still stuck in poverty. Perhaps, indeed, it is Duterte’s destiny. It’s good, though, that his opponents have conceded for the common good.

Page 12: BusinessMirror May 11, 2016

agenda for the remaining session days of [16th] Congress,” Belmonte told the BusinessMirror.

Based on the legislative calendar, Congress sessions adjourned on February 3 as part of its prepara-tion for the May national and local election, then resume from May 23 to June 10.

According to Belmonte, the two chambers will approve first the pending priority bills before they convene as the NBC.

“The idea is we will resume our session and finish our legislative work before we convene as the

NBC,” he said. For his part, Sen-ate President Franklin M. Drilon a f f i r med t hat  senators w i l l focus efforts to fasttrack passage of pending measures intended to “help Filipinos meet their daily needs” when Congress resumes sessions on May 23.

He confirmed that among those on their priority list are “the bills on income-tax reform, higher wages for state workers and the institutionalization of the Panta-wid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.”

Drilon assured that senators will also facilitate approval of

reform measures seeking up-ward adjustments in the existing take-home pay of workers be-longing to the middle- and lower-socioeconomic brackets.

Assured of reelection to the Senate, Drilon said senators are raring to go back to work on quick passage of pending legislation that will “improve people’s lives and uplift the economy.”

Under the Constitution, Con-gress—the Senate and the House of Representatives in joint ses-sion—will act as the NBC to can-vass the votes and proclaim the winners of the presidential and vice-presidential race. On the other hand, the Commission on

Elections (Comelec) will canvass the election results for the sena-torial and party-list polls.

After the May 9 elections, the Comelec is expected to transmit the certificates of canvas and election re-turns to the Senate in Pasay City for safekeeping, until the NBC convenes to count the votes for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Belmonte said there are still many important measures that need to be approved by the 16th Congress, saying, “There’s still time to approve bills. Also, several bills will be tack-led when session resumes.” Earlier, Majority Leader and Lib-eral Party Rep. Neptali Gonzales II of Mandaluyong has said the lower

chamber would approve several bills that are now in the advanced stage. “We will approve bicameral committee reports and also bills already passed on third reading by the House and the Senate that either house will accept as its ver-sion [or vice versa],” he said. Drilon said the official canvass-ing of votes for presidential and vice-presidential candidates will start a day or two days after the resumption of session.

T he bicamera l conference committee reports on Strength-ening the Ba lanced Housing Development Program; Amend-ing Foreign Ownership Restric-tions in Specific Laws Governing

University of the Philippines (UP) Prof. Leonor Magtolis Brio-nes said the impending victory of presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte appears to have been delivered by votes from the young, informed but unemployed millenials who are fed up with the government’s utter failure to create jobs and consequently decrease poverty.

Briones, a former National Trea-surer, explained that with the un-employment rate of 5.8 percent as of January, the number of voters among the unemployed is estimat-ed to be around 3 million, and most of these voters are the millenials, or those between the ages of 18 and 35. This is the same work force which the Aquino administration had earlier referred to as “our de-

mographic sweet spot,” or that bulk of the population who are capable of working.

But w it hout e mplo y me nt oppor tunit ies, t he supposed drivers of the Philippine golden age would count for nothing and will have minimal contribution to the GDP.

“Our usual impression is that these millenials have jobs, but what we overlook is that most of them are unemployed, and I have a feeling that many of these well-informed but jobless young Filipinos voted. Aside from the 3 million, add the 700,000 who just graduated and are also unem-ployed,” Briones said in an inter-view with the BusinessMirror. Br iones pointed out t hat during the past six years, the Philip-pines became the only middle-level country in the Asean that has not complied with its commitment of halving poverty levels by 2015 un-der the United Nations’s Millenium Development Goals, with a 25.3- percent poverty rate as of 2016.

Another factor, which contribut-

ed to Duterte’s unfolding landslide victory, is the people’s dislike for the continuity of daang matuwid, which was the Liberal Party’s (LP)campaign strategy.

Another UP professor and politi-cal analyst said LP standard bearer Manuel A. Roxas II, who has con-ceded to Duterte, could still have pitched for continuity even if he did not use Aquino’s campaign slogan of daang matuwid. “Mar Roxas could have moved away from daang matuwid for the purpose of recognizing that change and inclusive growth are the way forward, not a continuity of the present situation,” said Edna Esti-fania-Co, also from the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance.

This pitch for continuity trans-lated to a position in favor of the status quo, which Filipinos hated enough to risk some of their free-doms in exchange for Duterte’s promised change. Despite earlier speculations that the poor would shun a Duterte presidency because of his known propensity for extra-

judicial killings of petty criminals, Duterte remained popular among the poor and lower middle-class Filipinos for whom the status quo simply did not work.

The daang matuwid slogan was diametrically opposed to what Filipino voters wanted, as shown by Duterte’s more than 6 million vote lead over Roxas, according to UP Vice President for Public Affairs Prospero de Vera. “ I wou ld h ave pre fer re d that the President did not get directly involved in the campaign and instead stayed above the politi-cal fray. Instead, he not only cam-paigned for Roxas, he also became

a rabid attack dog against [Jejomar C.] Binay, [Grace] Poe, and especially Duterte. The overwhelming win by Duterte is a slap on the face of daang matuwid,” de Vera said.

De Vera added that President Aquino should have just used his remaining pol it ica l capi-tal to push for the Freedom of I n for m at ion b i l l a nd ot he r critical legislation.

“His focus on his last few days should be to immediately recognize the victory of Duterte to rachet down the tension and anger of his followers and ensure a smooth tran-sition for the next administration,” he added.

Mar Roxas could have moved away from daang matuwid for

the purpose of recognizing that change and inclusive growth are the way forward, not a continuity of the present situation.”—Estifania-Co

16th Congress. . . C A

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2ndFront PageBusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

2Wednesday, May 11, 2016

RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE AREAEXTENDING OVER LUZON

EASTERLIESAFFECTING EASTERN SECTION OF

VISAYAS AND MINDANAO(MAY 10, 5:00 PM)

The country’s dollar-denomi-nated bonds due in 2041 advanced for a fourth day, sending the yield down three basis points to 3.26 percent, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. Local-curren-cy notes were steady, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year debt at 3.94 percent, prices compiled by Bloomberg show. It has risen 29 basis points from this year’s low of 3.65 percent on April 20.

Duterte told reporters he may appoint Carlos Dominguez, a former agriculture secretary to the late-President Corazon Aquino, as finance or transport chief, and may turn to his run-ning mate Alan Peter S.Cayetano as foreign secretary. Dominguez owns a hotel and is Duterte’s childhood friend.

Once l abe led A sia’s “Sic k Man,” the nation of 101 million people has earned World Bank praise as the continent’s “Ris-ing Tiger” under outgoing leader Aquino, posting average annual growth of 6.2 percent over the past six years, the fastest pace since the 1970s. “The business sector will also be anxious to see what policies Duterte has planned for the econ-omy and investment,” NAB’s Wee said. “In the meantime, the mar-ket is likely to wait and watch, and we would expect that the dollar-peso would be fairly sup-ported around current levels.”

Bloomberg News

B D C @davecaga

PRESIDENT Aquino should have just focused on legacy projects instead of actively

campaigning for his anointed successor, which has apparently backfired with the protest vote against his efforts to perpetuate his platform of daang matuwid, political analysts said on Tuesday.

Analysts: Aquino help doomed Roxas

Adjustment Companies, Lending Companies, Financing Companies and Investment Houses Cited in The Foreign Investment Negative List, except those in the Constitu-tion; Modernizing the National Bureau of Investigation; Banning the Reappointment of a Regular Member of the Judicial and Bar Council, who has already served two full terms; and Speed Limiters in Public-Utility Vehicles, are now awaiting ratification by the House when sessions resume. Also, measures that are still pending for bicameral confer-ence committee approval are the proposed Salary Standardization Law IV; Increase in the prescrip-tive period for violations of Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act from 15 years to 20 years; Es-tablishing the Philippine Trade Representative Office; and In-stitutionalizing the National Implementation of the Jobstart Philippines Program.

Duterte. . . C A