Filings for unemployment benefits in the Us de-creased to a four-week low, indicating a still-solid labor market approaching the new year.

Jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 267,000 in the week ended December 19, a labor department report showed on Thurs-day. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 270,000. Applications are hovering close to the 255,000 level reached in July, the lowest since the 1970s. A tighter labor market this year has put a premium on skilled and experienced workers, encouraging employers to forgo reductions in staff. limited dismissals and steady hiring helped persuade Federal Reserve policy-makers last week to raise their benchmark interest rate for the first time in almost 10 years. “There is no evidence that the pace of layoffs has budged, and more broadly, labor market conditions remain robust,” stephen stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont secu-rities llc. in stamford, Connecticut, said in a research note. Estimates in the Bloomberg survey for jobless claims ranged from 265,000 to 285,000. The number of applica-tions in the previous week was revised to 272,000, from an initially reported 271,000. no states were estimated last week and there was noth-ing unusual in the data, according to the labor department. The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile mea-sure than the weekly figure, increased to 272,500, from 270,750 in the prior week.

Continuing claimsThE number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits

See “US labor market,” A2

PESO ExChangE ratES n US 47.2980 n jaPan 0.3907 n UK 70.1193 n hK 6.1013 n ChIna 7.3004 n SIngaPOrE 33.6809 n aUStralIa 34.2293 n EU 51.8055 n SaUDI arabIa 12.6087 Source: BSP (23 December 2015)

A broader look at today’s businessBusinessMirrormEDIa PartnEr Of thE yEar

2015 EnvIrOnmEntal lEaDErShIP awarD

UnItED natIOnSmEDIa awarD 2008

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Insurers can now putmoney in derivatives

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SportsA8 | SAturdAy, december 26, 2015mirror_sports@yahoo.com.phsports@businessmirror.com.phEditor: Jun Lomibao

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By Juan KaritaThe Associated Press

LA PAZ, Bolivia—At first glance, the indigenous Bolivian women don’t look much like mountain climbers, with their colorful, multilayered skirts and fringed shawls.

But their helmets, polarized goggles and crampons attached to their shoes give them away as mountaineers who accompany their husbands, often as cooks and porters, as they guide tourists scaling the local peaks. Eleven of these Aymara women, ranging in age from 20 to 50, earlier this month made the two-day climb up the 19,974-foot-high Huayna Potosi, near La Paz, with Lake Titicaca to the back and surrounded by snowy Andean peaks. They started their climbing careers working for tourist agencies, carrying food and other equipment for the foreign mountaineers to the base camp, located at 11,116 feet. “First, I was a porter, then a cook,” said 41-year-old Domitila Alana Llusco. “But the tourists asked me what it was like up on Huayna Potosi and I had to climb up so I could find out and tell them.” Alana said she had a hard time finding

appropriate gear she could afford when she started 15 years ago. “My feet are small, there are no boots,” she said. “But nothing stopped me and I have reached the peak of three mountains.” Though they cling to their traditional clothing, these mountaineers aren’t typical indigenous women. “Women also have the right to climb mountains,” said Adrian Quispe, one of the mountain guides. “It’s not just men who are allowed. Women of all ages can go.” And the money is good. While the minimum wage for a housekeeper is around $175 a month, guides can earn $35 a day and the female cooks about $20 a day. As they climb, the women wear thermal sweat suits under their traditional clothing. Only in the last part of the climb up to the top do the women remove their skirts, to prevent accidents. They start the last piece of their ascent after midnight to take advantage of the hardness of the snow, hoping to reach the top by dawn. Some of the youngest in the group now dream of climbing even higher someday, to the top of Aconcagua, which, at 22,834 feet, is not only the highest peak in the Andes, but also the highest mountain outside Asia.

The Aymara women’s helmets, polarized goggles and crampons attached to their shoes give them away as mountaineers who accompany their husbands, often as cooks and porters, as they guide tourists scaling the local peaks.

DENVER—They have popular names like Dome Rock, Yosemite, Rocky Mountain National Park and Joshua Tree, and they

all have one problem in common that seasoned rock climbers call a “ticking time-bomb”—aging climbing anchors. The anchors, drilled and pounded into the sides of mountains, are rusting and starting to fail, and some climbers and parks are trying to replace them. Funds, however, are sparse. Some of the anchors are made of iron and were installed in the 1960s. Others hide dangerous secrets—they are bolted in rocks that have loosened

because of freezing and thawing, and there are bolts that

look new on the outside, but have rotten cores.

Some bolts are so bad climbers can pull them out with their fingers.

Experienced climbers often keep logs of dangerous or failing equipment and share them with other climbers, but the information is often not available to other climbers. Bernadette Regan, a seasoned climbing ranger at Joshua Tree National Park, about 225 kilometers east of Los Angeles, fell last year when a bolt broke off while she was rappelling down a popular route called “Solid Gold,” one of the park’s more popular routes. Her life was saved because she didn’t trust the bolt and had a backup rope that kept her from plunging 150 feet to the ground.

“I was testing it, and jumped on a bolt and it broke,” she said. The bolt was replaced a week later. Park officials held a “bolting blitz” last month that brought in master bolters from around the US to do some concentrated re-bolting on ancient anchors. They replaced 62 bolts, some of them more than 30 years old. Regan said experienced climbers are worried because the sport has drawn more interest in recent years. She said interest soared this year after Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell spent 19 days scaling the 3,000-foot sheer granite face of the Dawn Wall of El Capitan wall in Yosemite National Park, long considered one of the world’s most difficult climbs. Chris Weidner, who is on the board of the Boulder Climbing Community in Colorado, said the anchors are ticking time-bombs.

He said it has taken years for the climbing community to band together to fix the problems, because experienced climbers are a close-knit community and they don’t rely on old equipment to keep them safe. He said thousands of climbing routes from the East Coast to the West Coast need to be fixed for new enthusiasts. “It’s scary when you look at bolts that are corroded,” he said. Weidner said one of his favorite routes in Rocky National Park, called “the Diamond” because of its massive diamond shape, requires climbers to climb nearly 1,000 feet vertically on ropes. He said the mountain is dotted with rotting equipment left behind by other climbers. He said most climbers can’t stop and spend hours drilling into granite to replace the bad

equipment they find, and they climb other routes or use equipment that can be easily hammered or stuffed into a crag and removed as the climbers scale their way up. Weidner said it will take a concerted effort to make the sport safer, and the group is asking for donations to buy the equipment. “So far, deaths are few and far between,” said Brady Robinson, who now leads a campaign called the Access Fund dedicated to replacing the equipment. He said every climber, no matter how experienced, falls once in a while and people are putting their lives on the line when they hook their ropes to the equipment. AP

ROCK CLIMBERS WARY ABOUT AGING EQUIPMENT

PARIS—The Tour de France will start from the German city of Duesseldorf in 2017. Tour organizers say it will be the

fourth time in the race’s century-old history that cycling’s showpiece starts in Germany. London was considered the favorite to host the 2017 race start, but withdrew its bid in September. The last time the three-week race started from Germany was in 1987, when the Grand

Depart took place in West Berlin. Details of the first stages will be unveiled in January. Earlier, reports came out that the Tour de France and other major races are being pulled from the International Cycling Union’s (UCI) elite calendar in 2017 in a renewed fight for control of the sport. Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), the organizer of the Tour, last month rejected the UCI’s proposed reforms for the 2017 WorldTour,

and has the support of a majority of race organizers in its bid to be free of cycling’s governing body. ASO said in a statement on Friday it told the UCI “it has opted for the registration of its events on the Hors Classe calendar for season 2017,” meaning it will have more freedom to invite the teams of its choice to its events. ASO described the UCI reform of the 2017 WorldTour as “a closed sport system.” AP

Tour startsin Germany

next year

A MAN performs a BMX bike stunt as the pack with Britain’s Christopher Froome, wearing the yellow jersey, passes during the 10 stage of the Tour de France in La Pierre-Saint-Martin, France, in July. AP

AYMARA indigenous women look at the Huayna Potosi mountain before climbing it on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia. AP BOLIVIA’S

PRIDE

The WorldBusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.phSaturday, December 26, 2015B2-4

Americans in Beijing warned of terror threat; parts of city under lockdown

Beijing authorities put swaths of the city under lockdown, station-ing armed guards on street corners and in pedestrian plazas.

“The US Embassy has received information of possible threats against Westerners in the Sanli-tun area of Beijing, on or around Christmas Day,” the embassy said in an e-mail to American citizens living in Beijing. “US citizens

are urged to exercise heightened vigilance. The US Embassy has issued the same guidance to US government personnel.”

The British, French and Irish embassies also sent similar warn-ings. None gave further details about the threat. Yang Shu, a coun-terterrorism expert at Lanzhou University in northwest China, said the threat’s high profile and

focus on Westerners could mark a first for Beijing.

“If you look at previous ter-rorist threats in the area dating back to the 1990s, except for one incident in central Asia…no other attacks in China and central Asia have targeted Westerners,” he said. Sanlitun is one of Beijing’s most fashionable districts, a war-ren of chic restaurants, bars, cafés and shopping outlets, including China’s first Apple store, which opened in 2008.

The area has seen violence be-fore: In August a Chinese woman was stabbed to death outside a Uniqlo clothing store as she walked with her French husband. Chinese media later reported that the as-sailant said he “hated Americans” before he attacked. Beijing au-thorities have issued a yel low

security alert—the lowest on a three-t ier system—to last through Christmas weekend, according to a statement by the city government’s media office.

“As the holiday season ap-proaches, the number of people visiting shopping, entertainment and dining venues will increase remarkably,” said the statement, citing local police. “The Beijing police will spare no efforts to en-sure security and order.”

On Thursday afternoon San-litun was swarming with cam-ouflage-clad guards toting large black rifles. Miles away, another pedestrian shopping street, Wang-fujing, was lined with police cars, their lights flashing. Authorities have placed roadblocks in at least one of the city’s embassy districts.

China is struggling with its

own domestic terrorism problem in the northwestern region Xinji-ang, where violent clashes between ethnic Uighurs—a predominantly Muslim minority group—and ma-jority Han Chinese have become more common in recent years.

The UK government has warned citizens of the violence in a travel advisory posted to its web site.

“There is a general threat from terrorism [in China], but the risk of attacks is higher in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region,” it said.

“Although foreigners haven’t been specifically targeted, attacks could occur in places visited by foreigners. You should be particu-larly vigilant in Xinjiang. Outside of Xinjiang you should be vigilant when transiting public-transport hubs, which have been the subject of recent attacks.” Los Angeles Times/TNS

B ETHLEHEM, West Bank—Christian faithful from a r o u n d t h e w o r l d o n

T hu rsd ay descended on t he biblical city of Bethlehem for Christmas Eve celebrations at the tradit ional birthplace of Jesus, trying to lift spirits on a holiday dampened by months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The fighting cast a pall over the celebrations. Crowds were thin and hotel rooms were empty. While the annual festivities in Bethlehem’s Manger Square went on, other cel-ebrations in the city were canceled or toned down.

“There’s lights, there’s carols, but there’s an underlying sense of tension,” said Paul Haines of Cornwall, England, who arrived in Bethlehem following a four-month trek from Rome.

Bethlehem has been a focal point for clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters during a three-month wave of vio-lence that has gripped the region.

The city was quiet on Thursday, although violence raged elsewhere in the West Bank.

Israeli authorities said three Pa lest i n i a n a ss a i l a nt s were ki l led as they carr ied out or tried to carry out stabbing or car-ramming attacks against Israeli security personnel, and a fourth Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli troops, a Palestinian hospital official said. Two Israeli security guards and a soldier were wounded.

Lisette Rossman, a 22-year-old student from Albuquerque, New Mexico, said the violence made her think twice about vis-iting a friend studying in Jeru-salem. She said she was glad she

made the trip because “ it was one of my dreams to come here.”

Since mid-September, Pales-tinian attacks, mostly stabbings and shootings, have killed 20 Is-raelis, while Israeli fire has killed 124 Palestinians, among them 85 said by Israel to be attackers. The rest were killed in clashes with Israeli forces. Israel accuses Pal-estinian leaders of inciting the violence. The Palestinians say it is the result of nearly 50 years of military occupation.

In Manger Square local activists placed an olive tree they said was uprooted by the Israeli army in a nearby village, and surrounded it with barbed wire and decorated it with spent tear-gas canisters fired

by Israeli troops and photographs of Palestinians killed or arrested in recent violence. “We’re in Beth-lehem celebrating Christmas, cel-ebrating the birthday of our lord Jesus Christ. This is the birthplace of the king of peace, so what we want is peace,” said Rula Maayah, the Palestinian tourism minister.

In the evening several thou-sand people crowded into Man-ger Square, admiring the town’s glittering Christmas tree and lis-tening to holiday music played by marching bands and scout troops. Palestinian vendors hawked cof-fee, tea and Santa hats. Young children sold sticks of gum.

But at 9 p.m., traditionally a bustling time of the evening, there

were few tourists to drink local wine sold on the square or to eat freshly fried falafel. As the festivi-ties got underway, Miral Siriani, a 35-year-old publicist from Jeru-salem, said she was relieved to get a break from three months of ten-sion that has included numerous attacks in her city.

“I feel safe in Bethlehem,” she said. In recent years Beth-lehem had enjoyed a relative calm and thousands of revelers and pilgrims poured into Man-ger Square each Christmas. But vendors and hotel owners com-plained of sagging business this Christmas season.

Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian official, said hotel bookings were

down 25 percent from last year, which itself was weak following a war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip several months earlier.

Some Palestinians hoped holi-day cheer would replace the gloom. Said Nustas, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, rang a Christmas bell on a narrow asphalt street as he prepared to deliver gifts from a toy store to children nearby.

“The situation is what it is, a war and intifada,” Nustas said. “But God willing, we’ll overcome it and celebrate.”

Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal led a procession from his Jeru-salem headquarters into Bethle-hem, passing through a military checkpoint and past Israel ’s con-crete separation barrier, which surrounds much of the town.

Israel built the barrier a de-cade ago to stop a wave of sui-cide bombings. Palestinians say the structure has stif led Bethle-hem’s economy. In Bethlehem Twal wished “peace and love” for all.

Twal led worshippers in a Mid-night Mass at the Church of the Nativity, built atop the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

In his homily, Twal expressed sympathy for the plight of Pal-estinians, Syrian refugees and “victims of al l forms of terror-ism everywhere,” according to a transcript issued by his of-fice. He wished “al l inhabitants of the Holy Land ” a happy and healthy new year.

“We pray to change the face of the world, that our world be a safe dwelling place and refuge, where justice prevails over rivalry and conflict, mercy over vengeance, charity over hatred,” he said. AP

Israeli-Palestinian violence clouds Christmas in Bethlehem

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad twal (center) arrives at the Church of the nativity, built atop the site where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank City of Bethlehem, on thursday. AP/MAjdi MohAMMed

KA BU L , A f g h a n i s t a n —Afghan forces backed by US a i r st r i kes pushed

back a Ta l iban onslaught on Thursday in a strategica l ly im-portant district in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, off icia ls said.

Sangin district had been be-sieged by the insurgents for weeks before an uptick in the ferocity of the fight this week sparked con-cerns it could fall to Taliban control.

But civilian and military offi-cials said Sangin remained in gov-ernment  hands after the United States conducted two air strikes overnight, and Afghan military helicopters dropped food and am-munition to soldiers and police who had been surrounded and trapped inside the district army base for days. The presence of a small contingent of British troops,

who arrived in the Shorab base—formerly Britain’s Camp Bastion during their Afghan combat mis-sion—on Wednesday had helped boost morale of both civilians and security forces, officials said.

Overnight, the Taliban cap-tured parts of the center of Sangin district around the district gover-nor’s compound, but the Afghan forces, bolstered by reinforce-ments, soon succeeded in driving them further out, said Akhtar Muhammad, a police commander in Sangin. “An hour later we recap-tured that building and now we have it,” he told The Associated Press.

In recent days the Taliban as-sault has threatened to overrun Sangin, a major poppy-growing area in Helmand, raising alarm that A fghan forces were too overstretched to fend off the in-surgency. The Taliban this week

pronounced they had seized con-trol of the district, but the claim was widely refuted by Afghan of-ficials. As the military rushed more troops to the area, Afghan officials on Wednesday asked for the inter-national military coalition’s help, including air strikes.

Just before midnight, US war-planes conducted two strikes in the vicinity of Sangin, the spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Orga-nization mission in Afghanistan, US Army Col. Mike Lawhorn, said.

Afghan planes also struck Tal-iban strongholds in Sangin, kill-ing 25 insurgents and wounding another 12, said the Afghan army spokesman in Helmand, Guam Ra-soul Zazai. Operations were slowed on Thursday as insurgents began taking shelter in civilian homes, he said. Sangin is an important prize for the Taliban. It sits on crucial

smuggling routes for drugs, arms and other contraband which fund the insurgency. Most of the world’s heroin is made from opium produced in Helmand’s poppy fields. Afghani-stan’s opium output is worth up to $3 billion a year, much of it going to the Taliban which sponsors and polices its production and transport.

Shadi Khan, a tribal elder in San-gin who is also director of the Sangin District Council, said he was trapped in the Sangin army base for three days before government forces ar-rived. “Taliban rumors that they have captured the district are not true,” he said. Reinforcements were rushed to the region, the acting De-fense Minister Masoom Stanekzai told reporters on Wednesday, after the province’s deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasulyar, used his Facebook account to plead for help from central authorities. AP

District besieged by Taliban still under Afghan control 

an afghan national army soldier searches a passenger at a checkpoint on the way to the Sangin district of Helmand province, afghanistan, on Wednesday. Reinforcements have been rushed to a besieged southern district threatened for days with takeover by taliban fighters, afghanistan’s acting defense minister said. AP/Abdul KhAliq

B RUSSELS—A ninth person has been arrested in Belgium on terrorism charges in

connection with the deadly attacks in Paris last month, prosecutors announced on Thursday. The suspect had several contacts with Hasna Aitboulahcen, who is said to have been the cousin of the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Belgian prosecutors said in a statement.

Both Abaaoud and Aitboulahcen died last month during a police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The contacts between Aitboulahcen and the suspect arrested in Belgium took place between the November 13 attacks and the November 18 raid.

The prosecutors named the suspect as Abdoullah C, a Belgian national born in 1985. He was taken into custody on Tuesday and was later placed under arrest for having played a role in terrorist murders and participating in the activities of a terrorist organization, the prosecutors said.

The November13 attacks left 130 people dead. They featured a wave of shootings and bombings targeting a concert hall, the national stadium and a string of bars and restaurants in central Paris. Seven attackers died in the violence. Several of them had links to Belgium. dpa/TNS

Ninth suspect arrestedin Belgium in connection with Paris attacks

ABUJA, Nigeria—A gas tanker truck ignited an inferno at a crowded industrial-gas plant

in Nigeria on Thursday, killing more than 100 people lining up to refill their cooking-gas cylinders in time for Christmas. The disaster took place in Nnewi, a predominantly Christian community in southeast Nigeria. By the time firefighters managed to put out the blaze, an Associated Press reporter counted the charred remains of more than 100 corpses.

A witness, Emeka Peters, said the fire broke out at about 11 a.m. when a tanker truck that had finished discharging fresh gas at the Chikason Group Gas plant left without waiting to observe the prescribed cooling time.

“The fire exploded like a bomb, and the whole gas station went up in thick, black smoke amid an explosion from cooking-gas cylinders,” Peters said. “Many people were killed, and most of them were those that had been in the station queuing all day to get their cylinders refilled.” He said the fire raged for hours. Peters, 36, said most of the corpses and the few badly injured victims were evacuated to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital in Nnewi.

“Many of them were burned beyond recognition, and I doubt if many family members of the dead victims would be able to identify the remains of their loved ones,” said Peter. AP

Gas-tanker truck fire kills more than 100 in Nigeria

BEIJING—The US Embassy in Beijing on Thursday morning warned citizens of a Christmas-

time terrorism threat against Western-ers in one of the city’s most popular expat districts.

The WorldBusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.phSaturday, December 26, 2015b2-2

Christmastime tornadoes ravage US South, killing at least 14 people

TrisTa Boga (center) helps salvage what she can from a friend’s home along Highway 178 in Holly springs, Mississippi, on Thursday. at least 14 people were killed in Mississippi, Tennessee and arkansas as spring-like storms mixed with unseasonably warm weather and spawned rare Christmastime tornadoes in the south. Thomas Wells/The NorTheasT mississippi Daily JourNal via ap

“Santa brought us a good one, didn’t he?” Bobby Watkins said as he and his wife took a walk amid the destruction in rural Benton County, Mississippi, where four people, including a married couple and two neighbors on the same street—were confirmed dead and their homes destroyed. “I may have lost some stuff, but I got my life.”

Unseasonably warm weather on Wednesday helped spaw n twisters from Arkansas to Michi-gan. The line of springlike storms cont inued marching east on Thursday, dumping torrential rain that f looded roads in Ala-bama and caused a mudslide in the mountains of Georgia.

Authorities confirmed seven deaths in Mississippi, including that of a 7-year-old boy who was in a car that was swept up and tossed by a storm. Six more died in Ten-nessee. One person was killed in Arkansas. Dozens more were in-jured, some seriously, said Greg Flynn, spokesman for the Mis-sissippi Emergency Management Agency. Search teams combed damaged homes and businesses for people still missing, including at least one man in hard-hit Ben-ton County. The hunt was made complicated because so many had left for the holidays.

“Until they know for sure where those folks are, they’re going to

keep looking, because we’ve had, in some cases, houses leveled, and they’re just not there anymore,” Flynn said.

In Linden, Tennessee, Tony Goodwin ducked into a storm shelter with seven others as the storm passed. He emerged to find his house had been knocked off its foundation and down the hill.

He managed to climb inside and fetch some Christmas gifts that had been under his tree. Goodwin’s neighbors weren’t so fortunate. Two people in one home were killed.

“It makes you thankful to be alive with your family,” he said. “It’s what Christmas is all about.”

Chris Shupiery grabbed his San-ta hat along with a chainsaw as he set out to help clean up on Thurs-day. He cut up fallen trees not far from Goodwin’s home.

“This was just the right thing to do, come help a family in need,” Shupiery said. “Suit up, try to cheer people up and try to make them feel a little better with Christmas coming around.”

In Benton County, Mississippi, relatives helped Daisy and Charles Johnson clean up after the storm flattened their house. They carried some of the couple’s belongings past a Santa Claus figure on a table.

Daisy Johnson, 68, said she and her husband rushed along

with other relatives to their storm shelter across the street from the house after they heard a twister was headed their way.

“We looked straight west of us and there it was. It was yellow and it was roaring, lightning just continu-ally, and it was making a terrible noise,” she said. “I never want to hear that again for as long as I live.”

Peak tornado season in the South is in the spring, but such storms can happen at any time. Exactly a year ago, twisters hit Mississippi, killing five people and injuring dozens.

Glenda Hunt, 69, was cooking chicken and making dressing on Wednesday night at her Benton County home, where Christmas Eve lunch is a family tradition, when her daughter called to warn her of the approaching storm.

Hunt and her husband ducked into their storm shelter and wres-tled the door shut against the wind’s powerful suction. She start-ed praying when she heard sheet metal hitting trees.

On Thursday heavy farm equip-ment and corn were strewn across the couple’s property. Their house sustained heavy structural damage but was still standing.

“We’re OK and that’s all that matters,” Hunt said. “But the Lord did save my furniture.” AP

NeW yorK—president Barack obama this year signed an executive order directing agencies to allow federal

workers to take six weeks of paid leave to care for a newborn child, and he urged states and cities to follow suit and expand benefits to new mothers and fathers. progress has been slow—but momentum is building.

This week New york City became one of a handful of us cities to move to grant six weeks of paid leave, following the lead of places like pittsburgh, Kansas City, missouri, and austin, Texas. other cities have adopted smaller measures, while several financial firms and tech companies have begun to offer generous leave packages that, in the case of Netflix, could last a year.

But many other municipalities haven’t joined them, largely because of financial constraints. Washington state, for instance, approved a paid paternal-leave program in 2007, but has been unable to fund it. and while the Department of labor has started giving grants to cities studying how to implement paid parental leave, legislation introduced in the us senate to pay for federally mandated leave appears to have stalled.

“i am heartened because these things are all connected, and each city that does it sparks another to do so,” ellen Bravo, the director of Family values at Work, a nonprofit coalition pushing for paid parental leave, said on Wednesday. “But it’ll be slow; it won’t be a stampede. There are real financial or political challenges in many places.” in his state of the union address, obama noted that the us was “the only advanced country on earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers.”

“That forces too many parents to make [a] gut-wrenching choice,” obama said.

in New york mayor Bill de Blasio announced he’ll sign an executive order early next year to give the fully paid leave to 20,000 nonunion municipal workers. De Blasio said the leave will apply to new mothers and fathers, as well as to workers who adopt a child or become a foster parent. sadye Campoamor, who is six months pregnant and works for the city’s Department of education, said the new policy would allow her to bond with her child and help her avoid taking three months of unpaid leave, which is all federal law currently provides.

“The thought of having no pay for three months was terrifying me,” she said. “Between student loans and living expenses, i was honestly not sure how we would do it.”

previously, those workers didn’t have paid paternal leave and were forced to use sick days and vacation days. administration officials urged the city’s much larger unionized work force, numbering about 300,000 employees, to adopt the benefit through collective bargaining. (some of New york’s most powerful unions signaled immediate support for the measure.) To cover the $15-million cost, the nonunion employees will give back two vacation days, and the city will rescind a small portion of a planned 2017 raise.

other us cities also bolstered their plans this year. Chicago now offers four weeks for vaginal births and six weeks for C-sections. Boston now offers six weeks, with the first two weeks at 100-percent pay, the next two at 75 percent and the final two at 50 percent. other cities offer paid leave benefits that kick in only after some sick days are exhausted. (san Francisco has the most expansive program, offering 12 weeks after some sick days are used.) AP

Paid parental-leave programs starting to expand in US cities

Brazil fears birth defects linked to mosquito-borne virus  R IO DE JANEIRO—In the

early weeks of Angelica Pereira’s pregnancy, a mos-

quito bite began bothering her. At first it seemed a small thing. But the next day she awoke with a rash, a headache, a fever and a burning in her eyes. The symp-toms disappeared within four days, but she fears the virus has left lasting consequences.

Pereira’s daughter Luiza was born in October with a head more than an inch (3 centimeters) below the range defined as healthy by doctors, a rare condition known as microcephaly that often results in mental retardation. A neurologist soon gave Pereira and her husband more bad news: The brain damage had caused cerebral palsy.

“ My hea r t stopped . A l l I kept thinking about was all the struggles and discrimination my baby will suffer,” said Pereira, a 20-year-old seamstress who lives

in Santa Cruz do Capibaribe, a small, garment-manufacturing city in northeast Brazil. More than 2,700 babies have been born in Brazil with microcephaly this year, up from fewer than 150 in 2014. Brazil ’s health officials say they’re convinced the jump is linked to a sudden outbreak of the Zika virus that infected Pereira, though international experts caution it’s far too early to be sure and note the condition can have many other causes.

Brazil alone estimates it’s al-ready had between 440,000 and 1.3 million cases of Zika since the first local transmission of the virus was detected in May. The mosquito-borne disease was first identified in the Americas less than two years ago and has spread rapidly across South and Central America.

“We are looking at the beginning of an epidemic in a country that has in between 200,000 and 300,000

births per year, which shows how worried we are. It’s a virus we don’t know that much about,” said Rodri-go Stabeli, vice president of the Rio de Janeiro-based Fiocruz research institute. “We are preparing for the unknown.” Brazilians are so con-cerned that some obstetricians, such as Helga Monaco at São Paulo’s Samaritano Hospital, recommend women avoid becoming pregnant during the rainy season when mos-quitoes are most prevalent.

“All the women I see at the hospi-tal or in my office who are pregnant or wanting to get pregnant are very alarmed, almost panicky,” she said.

The Zika virus, first detected in humans about 40 years ago in Uganda, has long seen as a less-painful cousin to dengue and chikunguya, which are spread by the same Aedes mosquito. Until a few months ago, investigators had no reported evidence it might be related to microcephaly.

Suspicion arose after off i-cials recorded 17 cases of central nervous system malformations among fetuses and newborns af-ter a Zika outbreak began last year in French Polynesia, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

And in November, Brazilian researchers reported the Zika vi-rus genome had been found in amniotic fluid samples from two women whose fetuses were been diagnosed with microcephaly by ul-trasound exams. Brazil announced on November 28 that researchers had found the Zika virus present in brain tissue of a newborn with microcephaly who died. As more evidence arose from further Bra-zilian tests, Paho and the World Health Organization recently urged officials in the Americas to watch for possible neurological problems or congenital malformations else-where related to cases of Zika. AP

Dejailson arruDa holds his daughter luiza at their house in santa Cruz do Capibaribe, Pernambucostate, Brazil. luiza was born in october with a rare condition, known as microcephaly. luiza’s mother angelica Pereira was infected with the Zika virus after a mosquito bite. Brazilian health authorities are convinced that luiza’s condition is related to the Zika virus that infected her mother during pregnancy. ap/Felipe DaNa

Choking on Smog, Rome, milan oRdeR no-CaR daySrome—rome and milan have ordered no-car days next week to combat pollution, which has hit unhealthy levels for weeks mainly because no rain has fallen to wash away the smog.

a six-hour ban on cars this monday and Tuesday was announced by rome on Thursday, while milan’s anti-pollution measure sees six-hour bans daily from monday to Wednesday.

in rome, home heating is blamed along with heavy traffic for the eye-stinging, throat-irritating air. until air quality improves, thermostat settings in rome’s homes and offices cannot exceed 18 degrees Celsius.

The total daily hours that furnaces can run is being reduced from 12 to eight, except for schools and hospitals. But many romans ignore the rules and leave the heat on all day.Warm, dry weather is worsening pollution. AP

Fedex iSn’t Coming to town with all giFtS on ChRiStmaS eve uNliKe santa Claus, Federal express (Fedex) is conceding it won’t be able to make all its scheduled deliveries on Christmas eve.

Fedex is hoping to ease the disappointment by delivering packages on Christmas Day and opening counters at its express offices across the us so customers can pick up the gifts themselves. The carrier blames the delayed shipments on inclement weather in parts of the us and a last-minute surge of holiday shopping. The counters at the express offices would be open Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fedex’s other offices will be closed.

household deliveries would be given top priority on Friday. AP

PRominent PUtin Foe may Seek aSylUm in U.k. aFteR new aRReSt loNDoN—mikhail Khodorkovsky, a prominent critic of russian president vladimir putin and once russia’s richest man, may seek asylum in Britain following the declaration in moscow that he had been arrested in absentia for possible involvement in a 1998 murder.

The former chief of the now-closed yukos oil firm told the BBC on Thursday it’s now clear that putin sees him as “a serious threat.” he said he feels safe in london and is interested in seeking asylum.

Khodorkovsky, 52, spent 10 years in prison in russia on tax evasion and embezzlement charges widely seen as punishment for challenging putin’s authority. his oil company, once russia’s largest, was dismantled and sold off to state-owned firms. russian officials announced his arrest in absentia on Wednesday over the slaying of a siberian mayor.

PoliCe Say 1 killed at CRowded US mall aFteR aRgUment CharloTTe, North Carolina—a long-standing dispute sparked a shooting at a crowded North Carolina shopping mall on Christmas eve, the police said, and an off-duty officer fatally shot a man who pointed a gun in his direction.

The police said no one else was shot and there were no other reports of injuries. The shooting was not a random act but rather the result of a feud among people who knew each other—though there was no indication it was gang-related, Chief Kerr putney of the Charlotte-mecklenburg police Department said.

During the fight, a weapon was brandished and shots were fired about 2 p.m. at Northlake mall in Charlotte, putney said. shoppers who were crowding the mall for last-minute gifts hid in stores and locked themselves inside, officials said. The police could be seen blocking all mall entrances. AP

briefs

ASHLAND, Mississippi—Instead of doing some last-minute shopping or wrapping gifts,

families across the US South spent Christmas Eve taking stock of their losses after an unusual outbreak of December tornadoes and other violent weather killed at least 14 people and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes.

BOLIVIA’SPRIDE

AmERIcAnS In BEIjIng wARnED Of tERROR thREAt

tORnADOES RAVAgE U.S. SOUth

DOOC allOwS rISKy bUt hIgh-rEtUrn InvEStmEntSU.S. labOr marKEtrEmaInS rObUSt aS jOblESS ClaImS fall

SportS a8

worlD B2-4

worlD B2-2

Solons want SSL to cover pension of veterans, retirees

Now in the Philippines

Out in January Free to BusinessMirror subscribers

BusinessMirror

BSP citeschallengesto growthnext year

a’GaCI clothing store Hiring Manager Marcie lowe (right) gives her card to job applicant Xionara Garcia of Miami during a job fair at Dolphin Mall in Miami. according to the labor Department on thursday, the number of americans seeking unemployment benefits fell the week before, reflecting a job market that continues to look persistently healthy. AP/Wilfredo lee

tHe CHeaper alternatIve people from different walks of life flock to the Children’s play-ground in Manila to celebrate Christmas with their families without straining their pockets. NoNie reYeS

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

ADminisTRATion lawmakers have recently asked the leadership of the house of Representatives to move for

the inclusion of pension of veterans and re-tired military and uniformed personnel in the coverage of the proposed salary standardiza-tion law (ssl) of 2015. in house Resolution 2547, Party-list Reps. gary C. Alejano and Francisco Ashley l. Ace-dillo of magdalo, liberal Party (lP) Rep. leo-poldo n. Bataoil of Pangasinan, Party-list Rep. samuel D. Pagdilao of ACT-Cis and lP Rep. Romeo m. Acop of Antipolo City said that while the ssl of 2015 will benefit 1.53 million

civilian, military and uniformed personnel of the national government, it excluded from its coverage the pension of the military and uniformed personnel. section 11 of house Bill (hB) 6268 pro-vides for the suspension of the indexation of pension benefits of retired military and uniformed personnel with the base pay of active personnel pending the pas-sage of a pension-reform law establish-ing a sustainable and just pension system for military and uniformed personnel. The lawmakers, who were former military and police officers, said it is unfair that the suspension of the indexation of pension benefits for retired military and uniformed

personnel be based on the passage of a pen-sion-reform law, which has not yet been filed for consideration of Congress. They also noted that the exclusion of the retired military and uniformed personnel from the ssl of 2015 further undermines existing laws that entitle retired military and uniformed personnel the same privileges as those in the active duty. “The omission of the retired military and uniformed personnel from the coverage of the ssl of 2015 discredits the sacrifices made by our veterans and retirees, who have spent al-most half of their lives as guardians of peace and protectors of democracy,” they said.  on the other hand, they said the inclusion of

the retired military and uniformed personnel in the ssl 2015 coverage would be a fair gesture from the state in recognizing the rights of the retired military and uniformed personnel to a fair adjustment in their pension. The lower chamber failed to ratify the pro-posed ssl of 2015 on December 16, after the senate reconsidered it on third reading. The leadership of the house of Representa-tives said the ssl will be approved in January next year.   The proposed ssl of 2015 seeks to strengthen the link between pay and perfor-mance through an enhanced performance-based bonus system, temper the cost of benefit while maximizing the benefits of employees,

By David Cagahastian

The Insurance Commission (IC) has allowed insurance companies to invest in formerly taboo derivative instruments, which are far more risky than run-of-the-

mill equity or debt securities but do offer substantially higher returns, particularly forward and swap agreements involving foreign exchange and interest rates.

See “SSL,” A2

By Bianca Cuaresma 

ThE uneven growth pace of econ-omies in the world—particu-larly the country’s top trading

and investment partners—remains as one of the major challenges from the external front for the Philippine economy going forward, while the possible effects of El niño and the lingering infrastructure gap are the challenges seen as growth hurdles on the domestic side.  in its recent publication on economic and financial developments, the Bang-ko sentral ng Pilipinas (BsP) cited the challenges that the economy still has to hurdle and the major policy direc-tions from the Philippines’s central monetary authority.  “looking ahead, one of the major chal-lenges facing the country is the uneven

Continued on A2

See “BSP,” A2

BusinessMirror news@businessmirror.com.ph Saturday, December 26, 2015 A2

News

Insurers can now put money in derivativesand allow higher take-home pay, es-pecially for government personnel belonging to the lower salary grades. The measure will result in a weighted average increase of 45 per-cent in the compensation of all sal-ary grades, and raise compensation of government personnel to at least 70 percent of the private-sector rate. The Department of Budget and Management said the SSL of 2015 will be effected through a combi-nation of a salary increase, a 14th- month pay, and an enhanced per-formance-based bonus to be imple-mented over a four-year period, from January 2016 to January 2019.

declined by 47,000 in the week ended December 12, the most since mid-Sep-tember, to 2.2 million. The unemploy-ment rate among people eligible for benefits dropped to 1.6 percent from 1.7 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag. Since the beginning of March, claims have held below the 300,000 level that economists say is con-sistent with strength in the labor market. While economies overseas are struggling to improve, domes-tic demand has been resilient and encouraged more companies to put out help-wanted signs. Payroll gains are showing solid momentum after the 260,000 average last year, that was the best since 1999. Through November, this year’s monthly gains averaged 210,000, with December data due on January 8. The labor-market progress was among factors convincing Fed of-ficials to announce on December 16 the first increase in the bench-mark interest rate since 2006. The central bankers unanimously voted for a quarter-point rise, with their forecasts signaling rate increases will amount to 1 percentage point in 2016. Bloomberg News

US labor market. . .

Continued from A1

SSL. . . Continued from A1

global prospects. The Philippines is monitoring closely countries where investments are coming, trade ties are stronger, workers are deployed to and tourists are ex-pected to come from, such as countries from the Asean, the US, Europe, Japan and China,” the BSP said.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently said the global growth for 2015 is projected at 3.1 percent, 0.3 percentage point lower than in 2014, and 0.2 percentage point below the forecast in July 2015. Prospects across major economies and regions also remain uneven.  In particular, the BSP said the recovery in advanced economies is expected to pick up slightly, while ac-tivity in emerging market and developing economies is projected to slow down due to weaker prospects for some large emerging-market economies and oil-exporting countries.  Meanwhile, in the local scene, the BSP said the im-pact of El Niño and the infrastructure gaps remain as strong headwinds.  In the earlier quarters of the year, the growth of the agriculture sector remained modest on the back of the effects of El Niño, which is hurting farm and fisheries output.  “The need to address infrastructure gaps is a top pri-ority. There are plans to increase spending on infrastruc-ture to 5 percent of GDP by 2016,” the BSP also said.  Despite the challenges, the BSP said the Philippine economy appears to be well placed to deal with chal-lenges—particularly from a slow global economic recov-ery—given the country’s broad growth drivers.  “From a monetary and financial policy standpoint, the BSP will continue to pay close attention to the outlook for inflation and growth to ensure that mone-tary-policy settings remain consistent with price and financial stability,” the central bank said.  “The BSP will also help mitigate the adverse impact of capital outflows on the domestic economy by ensuring ad-equate level of liquidity in the economy and the financial markets during periods of heightened uncertainty and increased risk aversion,” it added. 

Insurance Commissioner Em-manuel F. Dooc issued very early just this month Circular Letter 2015-86, allowing insurance companies to put their investible assets in the following investment instruments: forward foreign exchange contracts, bond forwards, foreign-exchange

swaps, interest-rate swaps and currency swaps. The decision represents a radi-cal departure from many years of a rather conservative regulatory ap-proach to investing among financial entities in the country, particularly insurance companies. The order effectively gives insur-ers alternative investment outlets.

Some of the local banks, but cer-tainly not the insurers, engage in the derivatives business although their activities are tightly regulat-ed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipi-nas (BSP) who each need to have a special license. The stringent regulations hope to separate the sophisticated financial warrior or investor from the merely

inquisitive and adventurous among market participants. The rules laid down in the regu-lations also effectively weeded out the bottom 10 of 32 insurers now operating in the country as their net worth fall below the minimum prescribed by the IC. These so-called bottom dwell-ers among insurers in the country

were ranked based on net worth established as of end-2014. Forward foreign exchange con-tracts are those agreements wherein the buyer agrees to purchase and the seller agrees to deliver at a specified future date a specified amount at a specified exchange rate. Bond forwards are agreements wherein the buyer buys a specific bond from the seller who delivers that bond at a set price but at a fu-ture date, thus, speculating on the price of the bond at that future date. Foreign exchange swaps are agreements involving an initial ex-change of two currencies, usually at the prevailing exchange rate, and the simultaneous commitment to reverse the exchange of the same two currencies at a future date at an exchange rate different from that applied in the initial exchange. Interest-rate swaps are agree-ments wherein the parties agree to exchange interest cash flows on a principal amount at certain times in the future according to an agreed formula. Currency swaps are agreements wherein the two parties exchange a series of cash flows in one currency for a series of cash flows in another currency at a specified exchange rate and/or interest rate and at agreed intervals over a certain period. Dooc also imposed additional qualifications before an insur-ance company can invest in these derivative instruments, such as the insurance company should have a minimum net worth of P550 mil-lion, and has the qualified people who understand such instruments to be able to prudently manage the higher risks. Insurance companies also can only deal with parties authorized by the BSP in their derivative activities, and prior approval by the IC is required before the in-surance company can engage in these activities. “A qualified insurance/rein-surance company will be allowed to engage in derivative activities limited to forward and swap agree-ments, provided that, at any given time, the aggregate placements in derivatives does not exceed 10 per-cent of the total admitted assets of the life insurance company, or 20 percent of net worth of a nonlife insurance/reinsurance company,” the circular said.

Continued from A1

Wanted: World-class China bond market

BSP. . . Continued from A1

What if you had a reserve currency but nobody wanted—or even could —hold much of it?

That’s somewhat the situation for China, as it prepares to join the reserve-currency club next year. Compared with US Treasuries—the typical asset held as reserves in dollars—buyers face a thicket of rules and a limited array of counter par-ties. For one thing, besides central banks and sovereign funds, not many other for-eign investors can currently buy Chinese government bonds. Officials recognize the scale of their task —People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Yi Gang said on December 1 that there was a lot of work to do on building the nation’s capital markets. Gradually letting more investors buy government bonds; estab-lishing the market infrastructure for bor-rowing and lending them; and providing assurance that there would be no punish-ment for selling the securities short, are among the to-do list items. One reward for having a liquid govern-ment-bond market that investors around the world feel comfortable buying into would be having a stronger benchmark for the trad-ing of other debt, like corporate bonds. That

would help Premier Li Keqiang as he encour-ages companies to tap debt markets for more funds and wean themselves from bank loans and shadow lending. While China would have to surrender to the markets some control over its borrow-ing costs, that’s the price for increasing the nation’s sway in a global financial system currently dominated by the dollar. “It will take time, but there is no doubt that the Chinese government bond market will become a fulcrum global asset class,” said Luke Spajic, portfolio manager for emerging markets at Pacific Investment Management Co. “It’s importance cannot be understated.”

Reform listBUT getting to that point won’t be easy. Ana-lysts say authorities in Beijing will first need to complete a laundry list of reforms, similar to the process that won the yuan inclusion in the International Monetary Fund’s basket of reserve currencies.  On the agenda: further opening capi-tal borders; lifting caps on foreign invest-ment; getting inclusion into key bond

indexes; improving transparency around pricing and market making; fully opening up the market to retail and institutional investors; and allowing derivative instru-ments to be developed. Some changes are already under way. The Communist Party has pledged to increase the yuan’s convertibility by 2020 and to gradu-ally dismantle capital controls. Sovereign wealth funds, central banks and approved institutional investors are being granted gradual access to the bond market. China’s outstanding government bonds, stood at 14.6 trillion yuan ($2.25 billion) as of November, up 41.7 percent from end of last year, ChinaBond web site data show.  Traders say it’s difficult for most foreign investors to directly short Chinese govern-ment bonds, and that liquidity in trading China’s government bonds offshore is thin.

Long road“ThErE is still a long way to go before ‘Chi-nese Treasuries’ trade like US Treasuries,” said James Yip, a fund manager at Shenwan hongyuan Asset Management (Asia) Ltd. in hong Kong. Overseas investors’ holdings of Chinese government and corporate bonds rose 14 percent in the first three quarters to 764.6 billion yuan, compared with a 68-percent gain in 2014.  Bloomberg News

BusinessMirror Saturday, December 26, 2015news@businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo A3

NewsDECLINES in fuel and lubricant prices kept the

wholesale prices of construction materials in Metro Manila low in November, the Philippine

Statistics Authority (PSA) reported. Data gathered by the PSA howed that the Con-struction Materials Wholesale Price Index (CMWPI) in the National Capital Region (NCR) decreased by 0.2 percent in November. The CMWPI posted a decrease of 0.8 percent in October 2015, while in November 2014, it posted a growth of 0.8 percent. PSA data showed that the CMWPI has been posting decreases since December 2014 with a

decline of 0.1 percent. The steepest fall, however, was recorded in August with a decrease of 1.2 percent. In November the PSA said the construction ma-terial that posted the steepest decline in wholesale prices was fuels and lubricants, which posted a 11.7- percent decrease. Other construction materials that posted declines in prices were cement at 1.1 percent and reinforcing steel, 0.1 percent. In addition, slower year-on-year increases were observed in the indices of sand and gravel at 2.2 percent; hardware, 2.4 percent; plywood, 2.9 percent and galvanized iron sheet, 0.3 percent.

Slower wholesale price increases were noted in structural steel at 0.5 percent; electrical works, 1.9 percent; and plumbing fixtures and accesso-ries, 5.1 percent. The CMWPI measures the changes in the av-erage wholesale prices of construction materials. Prices are collected through personal interviews or actual price quotations from select sample out-lets in Metro Manila. It is used for the computation of price escalation of construction materials for various government projects as indicated in the Presidential Decree 1594. Cai U. Ordinario

PSA reports drop in price of construction materialsPPP Center gives San Miguel Februarydeadline to secure funding for MRT 7

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

DIVERSIFIED conglomerate San Miguel Corp. has until February to secure funding for the construction

of the P62.7-billion Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 7, a train system that will run from Quezon City to San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao said the government is eager to see the construction of the fourth overhead railway system in the country soon, and has given the concessionaire two more months to complete the financial closing of the project. “We talked to the private partner for MRT 7, the deadline is for them to do financial closing in February. They are working to meet that and start groundbreaking soon,” she said. According to an indicative timetable, the construction of the 44-kilometer road and rail-transportation network will begin immediately after this. It is expected to be completed by 2018. The rail component of the MRT 7 project involves the construction of a 22.8-ki-lometer rail-transit system that is envisioned to operate 108 rail cars in a three-car train configuration with a daily passenger capacity ranging from 448,000 to 850,000. It will have 14 stations, starting with the North Avenue station on Epifanio de los San-tos Avenue in Quezon City, passing through Commonwealth Avenue, Regalado Avenue and Quirino Highway, up to the proposed Intermodal Transport Terminal in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan. The road component of the project, meanwhile, involves the construction of a six-lane access road from San Jose del Monte to the Balagtas, Bulacan, North Luzon Expressway exit. The 25-year concession agreement between Universal LRT Corp. (ULC) and the govern-ment was signed in 2008, but implementation was delayed, owing to ULC’s failure to secure financial closure. San Miguel Holdings Corp. owns a 51-percent controlling stake in ULC. The engineering procurement contract for the MRT 7 has been awarded to Marubeni Corp. The deal was expected to be closed by 2014, but the snafu with the construction of a common alignment for the MRT 7, MRT 3 and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 has yet to be resolved. The common alignment, which aims to link the LRT 1, MRT 3 and MRT 7, has been in limbo ever since the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) reviewed the project’s technical and financial components years back. To recall, the transportation department decided to change the station’s location from SM North Edsa to TriNoma after several reviews on the project’s technical and financial components. SM Prime Holdings Inc. sought for court intervention as it initially paid P200 million for the naming rights of the station. This led to the transportation department’s proposal of building two common stations as a compromise. Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya said the government is bent on strik-ing up a compromise deal with the SM Group to move forward with the implementation of the infrastructure project. Under the draft settlement deal, the government and the private sector will jointly in-vest in building two common stations. One will be built near SM North Edsa, and another near TriNoma Mall. The train station near SM will connect the MRT Lines 3 and 7, he said, while the one near TriNoma will link MRT 3 and the LRT Line 1. “Total cost would be somewhere between P2.2 billion and P2.6 billion, which was the original cost of the original three-in-one station approach,” he said. The cost will be shared by the government, which will shoulder the investment require-ments for the station near SM North Edsa, and San Miguel Corp., which will fund the sta-tion near TriNoma. Building a single station in TriNoma would only cost P1.4 billion. The compromise deal is aimed at ending the stay order issued by the Supreme Court and move toward the construction of the facilities, including the MRT 7.

Saturday, December 26, 2015 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

OpinionBusinessMirrorA4

Christmas weekendeditorial

This weekend, between the Christmas holiday and the coming New Year celebrations, marks a transition in the lives of most Filipinos.

Although the calendar does not always cooper-ate, this year we have our two-day weekend between the two holidays. Our Christmas Noche Buena is usually a time spent with family and is often sentimental and solemn. Many, if not most, will go back to work on Monday for two days, and then the Rizal Day holiday will lead into greeting the New Year with raucous celebration.

There is a pronounced difference between the two holidays. The Christmas celebration is often criticized for supposed “commercial-ization.” To that we say “Bah humbug.” shopping may be a part of the Christmas tradition, but it is most often in search of that per-fect gift to show someone that we care about them. Families have traditions associated with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that help define who they are as a family. Even the office party often helps define the company family, also with its own traditions.

The New Year celebration is more of a public affair. Barangays, towns, even the nation comes together in one moment to ring in the New Year. This is a holiday of self-interest, not giving. We think of what we want and hope will happen in the next 12 months. We sometimes pledge to live our lives a little differently, expecting that we will have better times ahead. The mistakes of the past will not be repeated and we will strive, seek and work for a better future.

Christmas then may be simplified to a time of loving and giv-ing, while the New Year festivities are about achieving and getting.

There is nothing incorrect about living each of these celebra-tions in that way. however, Christmas is a family affair, while New Year’s is a collective event. The country has made some accomplishments that reflect a national effort. No institution and certainly no individual or group can take credit for the economic successes of the Philippines in the last decade. Every single Fili-pino has made a contribution. We have put together a successive number of “achieving and getting” New Year celebrations that have made the nation better.

Nevertheless, it is time to start putting more of the “Christmas spirit” in our national mind-set.

if we, Filipinos, could give to the nation and to our kababayan the way we look out for our own families, maybe our national problems could be more easily solved. Maybe that is what we could begin thinking about during this weekend before we address the challenges of the New Year.

EvERYONE is either out of town or on a mental vacation for a few days, so maybe it is time to have a quiet chat as we head into 2016.

Waiting for 2016

This year of 2015 is going to be remembered right up there with some of the most memorable years in history. here is a brief list of no-table events: the Nepal earthquake, two major terrorist attacks in France, the Greek debt default, the war in Ukraine and Russia taking Crimea, the civil war in syria and the rise of islamic state of iraq and syria, and collapsing oil and commodity prices.

But, perhaps, if there is a major theme for 2015, it is the fundamental change in the global political stage. i keep talking about the major 50-year political cycle that brings the change, but i know you probably think it is all academic or coinciden-tal nonsense. That’s ok, i understand your skepticism. i felt the same way until i started looking at the history of this cycle.

Then you start adding up

the number and the diversity of nations that are going through ma-jor political changes and you start seeing the pattern. No better ex-ample is Canada.

Canada’s economy is being killed by low oil prices. The Canada dol-lar has lost 38 percent of its value against the Us dollar since January 1, 2013. The economy keeps moving in and out of recession. its manufac-turing sector survey is at a record low. Canada just elected a new prime minister that may—on paper—be the least qualified leader of a major country ever.

Justin Trudeau has degrees in English literature and Education, whose only private-sector job was a brief stint as a teacher. Even his elect-ed office experience is only about five years, but the current election results were almost a landslide. he

selected his Cabinet based first on gender and among his top 10 priori-ties is the legalization of marijuana and a national climate-change plan.

The political situation in the Phil-ippines is equally bizarre for want of a better term.

For example, it would appear that a good portion of the mem-bers of the senate and the house of Representatives may have mis-used public funds over an extended period of time. Regardless of how you wish to spin the opinion polls, if the election were held today, the most qualified candidate—at least on paper—would not be the next president. And although the bal-lots are supposed be getting ready to be printed, no one knows who will be allowed to contest the 2016 presidential election. Would you be willing to bet your next year’s salary on who will be the next president?

Confusion, though, is not lim-ited to politics. how about betting your annual salary on what fourth quarter 2016 economic growth will be? Or better yet, bet on what the Philippine stock Exchange Composite index will close at on  December 29, 2016.

stockbrokers decided that 2015 would be the “Year of the Millenni-als”—those aged 18 to 34 in 2015. No longer an “Old Boys’ Club,” the

brokers directed their marketing ef-forts to this new breed of investors. Unfortunately, the Millennials and their “experts” did not have a clue what the stock market was all about or how to handle it in 2015.

The market went down about 13 percent from the historic high. That is not a big deal. But for the last four months we have gone sideways. That also is not a big deal. What is impor-tant is the fact that we have traded a narrow 3-percent range during that time.

By comparison, the 2013 sideways movement for seven months saw a 9-percent range. The 2010-2011 12-month “flat” movement was in the 10-percent range. The 2009 five-month sideways movement at least gave us a 12 percent up and down range.

The problem with sideways movement is, you never know if it is a floor to go higher or a ceil-ing to go lower. That is reflected in the basic stock market analysis of 2015: “if prices do not go up, they will go down... or maybe the other way around. And it’s all China’s/the Federal Reserve’s fault”.

 i could say more, but as next week will end 2015 and begin 2016, here’s my take: if 2015 was turbulent, then it is safe to say “you ain’t seen noth-ing yet” about 2016.

OUTSIDE THE BOXJohn Mangun

By Noah Smith | Bloomberg View

ECONOMiC inequality has skyrocketed in the Us during the past few decades. That has prompted many calls for government policies to reverse that trend. Defenders of the

status quo argue that rising inequality is a necessary by-product of economic growth—if we don’t allow people the chance to become extremely rich, the thinking goes, they will stop working, investing, saving and starting businesses. A receding tide will then cause all boats to sink. 

Cronyism causes the worst kind of inequality

Critics of the status quo have re-sponded with the claim that inequality doesn’t help growth, but instead hurts it. This view was given ammunition by a number of recent studies, which have found a negative relationship between how much income inequality a country has and how fast it grows. One exam-ple is an international Monetary Fund (iMF) study from 2015:

“[W]e find an inverse relationship between the income share accruing to the rich [top 20 percent] and eco-nomic growth. if the income share of the top 20 percent increases by 1 per-centage point, GDP growth is actually 0.08 percentage point lower in the fol-lowing five years, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. instead, a similar increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent [the poor] is associated with 0.38 percentage point higher growth.”

A similar 2014 study from the Organization for Economic Coopera-tion and Development (OECD) con-cluded the same thing. interestingly,

the negative correlation between in-equality and growth is found even when controlling for a country’s income level. This isn’t simply a case of wealthier countries growing more slowly and also being more unequal. 

so the evidence is pretty clear: high-er inequality has been associated with lower growth. But as with all correla-tions, we should be very careful about interpreting this as causation. it might be that countries whose growth slows for any reason tend to experience an in-crease in inequality, as politically pow-erful groups stop focusing on expand-ing the pie and start trying to appro-priate more of the pie for themselves. 

The iMF and OECD list some chan-nels by which inequality might actually be causing lower growth. The most im-portant one has to do with investment. When poor people have more money, they can afford to invest more in hu-man capital (education and skills) and nutrition. Because these investments have diminishing marginal returns—the first year of schooling matters a

lot more than the 20th—every dollar invested by the poor raises national productivity, but it generates more if it is invested by the rich. in other words, the more resources shoring up a nation’s weak links, the better off that nation will be. That’s a plausible hypothesis. But there might also be other factors contributing to the correlation between inequality and growth. it could be that there is something out there that causes both high inequality and low growth at the same time. 

The obvious candidate for this dark force is crony capitalism. When a coun-try succumbs to cronyism, friends of the rulers are able to appropriate large amounts of wealth for themselves—for example, by being awarded gov-ernment-protected monopolies over certain markets, as in Russia after the fall of communism. That will obvi-ously lead to inequality of income and wealth. it will also make the economy inefficient, since money is flowing to unproductive cronies. Cronyism may also reduce growth by allowing the wealthy to exert greater influence on political policy, creating inefficient subsidies for themselves and unfair penalties for their rivals. 

Economists sutirtha Bagchi of the University of Michigan and Jan svejnar of Columbia recently set out to test the cronyism hypothesis. They focused not on income inequality, but on wealth inequality—a different, though probably related, measure. Con-centrating on billionaires—the upper strata of the wealth distribution—they

evaluated the political connections of each billionaire. They used the propor-tion of politically connected billionaires in a country as their measure of crony-ism.  What they discovered was very interesting. The relationship between wealth inequality and growth was nega-tive, as the iMF and others had found for income inequality. But only one kind of inequality was associated with low growth—the kind that came from cro-nyism. From the abstract of the paper:

“[W]hen we control for the fact that some billionaires acquired wealth through political connections, the ef-fect of politically connected wealth inequality is negative, while politically unconnected wealth inequality, income inequality and initial poverty have no significant effect.”

in other words, when billionaires make their money through means other than political connections, the resulting inequality isn’t bad for growth. 

That’s a heartening message for defenders of the rich-country status quo. if cronyism is the real danger, it means that a lot of the inequality we’ve seen in recent decades is benign. Eliminate corrupt connections between politicians and businesspeople, and you’ll be safe. 

But Bagchi and svejnar’s finding cuts two ways. it also means that plain old in-equality isn’t beneficial for growth, as its defenders have claimed. That removes one of the big objections government policy makers face in talking steps to reduce inequality—and that doing so is unlikely to hurt economic growth.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

OpinionA5BusinessMirroropinion@businessmirror.com.ph

‘Misericordiae Vultus’

Part 3

Merry Christmas to you and your family! Today we continue the reprint of Mi-sericordiae Vultus—the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Year of Mercy by His Holiness, Pope Francis.

Mercy is the very foundation of the church’s life. All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers; nothing in her preaching

and in her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy.

The church’s very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love. The church “has an endless desire to show mercy.” Perhaps, we have long since forgotten how to show and live the way of mercy. The temptation, on the one hand, to focus exclusively on justice made us forget that this is only the first, albeit necessary and indispensable step. But the church needs to go beyond and strive for a higher and more im-portant goal. On the other hand, sad to say, we must admit that the practice of mercy is waning in the wider culture. In some cases the word seems to have dropped out of use. However, without a witness to mercy, life becomes fruitless and sterile, as if sequestered in a bar-ren desert. The time has come for the church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instills in us the courage to look to the future with hope.

Let us not forget the great teach-ing offered by Saint John Paul II in his second encyclical,  Dives in Mi-sericordia, which at the time came unexpectedly, its theme catching many by surprise. There are two passages in particular to which I would like to draw attention. First, Saint John Paul II highlighted the fact that we had forgotten the theme of mercy in today’s cultural milieu: “The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy. The word and the concept of ‘mercy’ seem to cause uneasiness in man, who, thanks to the enormous de-velopment of science and technol-ogy, never before known in history, has become the master of the earth and has subdued and dominated it (cf. Genesis 1:28). This dominion over

the earth, sometimes understood in a one-sided and superficial way, seems to have no room for mercy…. And this is why, in the situation of the church and the world today, many individuals and groups guided by a lively sense of faith are turning, I would say almost spontaneously, to the mercy of God.”

Furthermore, Saint John Paul II pushed for a more urgent procla-mation and witness to mercy in the contemporary world: “It is dictated by love for man, for all that is hu-man and which, according to the intuitions of many of our contempo-raries, is threatened by an immense danger. The mystery of christ…obliges me to proclaim mercy as God’s merciful love, revealed in that same mystery of christ. It, likewise, obliges me to have recourse to that mercy and to beg for it at this dif-ficult, critical phase of the history of the church and of the world.” This teaching is more pertinent than ever and deserves to be taken up once again in this Holy year. Let us listen to his words once more: “The church lives an authentic life when she professes and proclaims mercy—the most stupendous at-tribute of the creator and of the redeemer—and when she brings people close to the sources of the Savior’s mercy, of which she is the trustee and dispenser.”

The church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. The Spouse of christ must pattern her behavior after the Son of God who went out to everyone without exception. In the present day, as the church is charged with the task of the new evangelization, the theme of mercy needs to be proposed again and again with new enthusiasm and renewed pastoral action. It is abso-lutely essential for the church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy. Her language and her ges-

SERVANT LEADERRev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual

DATAbASECecilio T. Arillo

When Santa was a bankBy Stephen Mihm | Bloomberg View

IT’S bonus season, and while many in the junk bond market should expect coal in their stocking, the rest of Wall Street remains hopeful that Santa claus remembers them this year.

Given the Federal reserve’s rate hike, though, more than a few financiers are losing faith.

It would help, perhaps, if Wall Street had a direct line to Santa claus. Once upon a time, it did. For much of the 19th century, Santa claus had a branch office at No. 12 Wall Street. This was the “Saint Nicholas Bank,” established in 1853 and capitalized at $500,000.

The origins of the Saint Nicholas Bank are a bit murky. Aside from the fact that it built a safe that Bankers’ Magazine described in 1854 as “the largest in the United States, if not the world,” the new institution attracted very little notice.

At this time, state-chartered banks in the United States issued their own currency, in denominations and designs of their choice. This system of private money creation flourished before the civil War, with nearly 2,000 banks printing their own currency by the end of the 1850s.

The Saint Nicholas Bank printed money illustrated with—who else?—Santa claus. The $1 and $3 bills showed Santa popping out of the fireplace to tend to children’s stockings. The big man was depicted in various poses in his reindeer-drawn sleigh on the $2, $5 and $10. The $20 and $50 showed the jolly old elf popping out of another fireplace, with sleeping children tucked into a bed a few feet away. (The rarely seen $100 note, by contrast, showed the US capitol building—so much for holiday cheer).

Still, why would Santa claus adorn a bank note? The answer lies with the deeper history of New york city business and finance, and possibly, the man who would loom the largest over the bank’s reputation.

The very distant ancestor of Santa claus was the real-life Saint Nicholas, for whom the bank was undoubtedly named. Born in what is now Turkey, the original Saint Nicholas became the patron saint of sailors, thanks to his alleged ability to calm storms. His benevolence toward children made him the patron saint of that set, too.

While Saint Nicholas vanished through much of europe during the Protestant reformation, the Dutch and others kept his legend alive, calling him Sint Nikolass.

New york city, of course, began its existence as the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. There was no cult of Santa claus in the colony. But in 1809 Wash-ington Irving published his famous sat-ire, Knickerbocker’s History of New York, which suggested that the connection between New york and Santa claus did, in fact, date back to the founding of the Dutch colony.

Irving’s associate,  clement clarke Moore—the probable author of A Visit From St. Nicholas, better known for its opening words, “‘Twas the Night Before christmas”—built on Irving’s stories. In

the process he helped create the modern Santa claus, complete with reindeer, sleigh and home invasions via chimney.

By the 1830s New york city had be-come the capital of the Santa story that rested on a largely fabricated genealogy that paid homage to the city’s Dutch founders. credulous readers learned that the first church in New york city was named for Saint Nicholas, and that the first Dutch ship to land had a figurehead of Saint Nicholas.

All of this made a certain amount of sense. A city founded on mercantile wealth and maritime trade would look toward Saint Nicholas for protection of valuable cargoes. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that Saint Nicholas had become an informal patron saint of New york by the 1830s.

The notes of the Saint Nicholas Bank combine all of these elements. In addi-tion to Santa claus himself, several of the notes depict ships and the docks of New york; others show New Amsterdam’s famed governor, Peter Stuyvesant.  Like-wise, some of the buildings shown on the notes as a backdrop to Santa’s sleigh have the crow-stepped gables characteristic of Dutch architecture.

The people who founded the Saint Nicholas Bank are less well known. After a couple of years of high turnover, one man in particular stands out: a promi-nent New york merchant named caleb Barstow, who became president in 1856 and remained in the position until 1874. 

In what seems to have been a coinci-dence, Barstow had a connection to the North Pole: he had been the head of the Arctic Fire Insurance co. prior to heading up the Saint Nicholas Bank. And while he may or may not have been a font of gen-erosity prior to assuming the leadership of the bank, he acquired that reputation in his lifetime.

In an obituary from 1880, Bankers’ Magazine reported that his “deeds of charity were many and unostenta-tious”—strange behavior, perhaps, for a Gilded Age banker.  Indeed, in its obituary, the New York Herald described him as “in some respects a very pecu-liar man,” even as it praised him for his “generous nature.”

In fact, it seems that Barstow took to heart the ethos of Saint Nick, believ-ing it better to give than to receive. He contributed heavily to charities and handed out food and clothing to the poor. And though he accumulated a large fortune in his lifetime, he died penniless. The Bankers’ Magazine noted that “to his great benevolence and his kindness to friends is due the fact that he became financially embar-rassed in his old age, and eventually lost all of the property which had so honorably accumulated.”

tures must transmit mercy, so as to touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the Father.

The church’s first truth is the love of christ. The church makes herself a servant of this love and mediates it to all people: a love that forgives and expresses itself in the gift of oneself. consequently, wherever the church is present, the mercy of the Father must be evident. In our parishes, communi-ties, associations and movements, in a word, wherever there are chris-tians, everyone should find an oa-sis of mercy.

We want to live this Jubilee year in light of the Lord’s words: Merci-ful like the Father. The evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). It is a program of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace. Je-sus’s command is directed to any-one willing to listen to His voice (cf. Luke 6:27). In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscov-ering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle.

The practice of pilgrimage has a special place in the Holy year, be-cause it represents the journey each of us makes in this life. Life itself is a pilgrimage, and the human being is a viator, a pilgrim traveling along the road, making his way to the desired destination. Similarly, to reach the Holy Door in rome or in any other place in the world, everyone, each according to his or her ability, will have to make a pilgrimage. This will be a sign that mercy is also a goal to reach and requires dedication and sacrifice. May pilgrimage be an impetus to conversion: by crossing the threshold of the Holy Door, we will find the strength to embrace God’s mercy and dedicate ourselves

to being merciful with others as the Father has been with us.

The Lord Jesus shows us the steps of the pilgrimage to attain our goal: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; for-give, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Luke 6:37-38). The Lord asks us above all not to judge and not to condemn.  If anyone wishes to avoid God’s judgement, he should not make himself the judge of his brother or sister. Human beings, whenever they judge, look no far-ther than the surface, whereas the Father looks into the very depths of the soul. How much harm words do when they are motivated by feelings of jealousy and envy! To speak ill of others puts them in a bad light, undermines their reputation and leaves them prey to the whims of gossip. To refrain from judgement and condemnation means, in a posi-tive sense, to know how to accept the good in every person and to spare him any suffering that might be caused by our partial judgment, our presumption to know every-thing about him. But this is still not sufficient to express mercy. Jesus asks us also to  forgive  and to give. To be instruments of mercy because it was we who first received mercy from God. To be generous with others, knowing that God showers his goodness upon us with immense generosity.

Merciful like the Father, there-fore, is the “motto” of this Holy year. In mercy we find proof of how God loves us. He gives His entire self, always, freely, asking nothing in re-turn. He comes to our aid whenever we call upon Him. What a beautiful thing that the church begins her daily prayer with the words, “O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me” (Psalm 70:2)! The assistance we ask for is already the first step of God’s mercy toward us. He comes to assist us in our weak-ness. And His help consists in help-ing us accept His presence and close-ness to us. Day after day, touched by His compassion, we also can become compassionate toward others.

We will continue with Misericor-diae Vultus next week.

To know more about the programs of Caritas Manila, visit www.caritas.org.ph. For donations, call 563-9311. For inquiries, call 563-9308 or 563-9298. Make it a habit to listen to Radio Veritas 846 in the AM band, or through live streaming at www.veritas846.ph. For comments, e-mail veritas846pr@gmail.com.

TODAy’s headline-grabbing stories in both print and broadcast media on money, labor, inflation, market, unemployment, environment, foreign and domestic debts, deficit spending,

interest rates and consumption of limited resources have something to do with economics, particularly its two most important branches: macroeconomics and microeconomics.

Mercantilists vs classicists

Indeed, mercantilists and clas-sicists (free-enterprisers) often dis-agree because they differ in their approach to create and formulate policies to solve economic problems.

The best solution is to take a pragmatic, rather than a dogmatic, approach in using macroeconom-ics and microeconomics. In other words, you can either be objective, subjective or both as long as you can defend your principles and policies from all angles.

What matters is what economics Professors Alan A. Brown of the Uni-versity of Windsor and John e. elliott of the University of california have

said of what economics is all about: “First, any definition is arbitrary. Second, economics is not a word to be defined, but a set of issues to be explored. Third, most definitions are lightly concealed value judgments as to what an author thinks his profes-sional colleagues should do.”

In fact, it was in this set of eco-nomic issues that the dogmatic post-Marcos governments have failed to examine the terms imposed by the International Monetary Fund-World Bank on the Philippines, which were mostly prepared by classicists whose macroeconomic fallacies merely re-sulted in economic hardship.

For instance, they swallowed hook, line and sinker such prescrip-tions as free trade, liberalization, deregulation, privatization, deficit-spending and floating-rate exchange that consequently caused the coun-try to sink deeper in debt. 

Because of its complexity, there is a need for the country’s leaders and policy-makers to understand this discipline with an open mind to shun biases, prejudices and fallacies and avoid the danger of being called a cynic, whom Oscar Wilde, the fa-mous Irish novelist-writer, described as “... a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

For example, the late George Stigler, one of the respected classical economists and the 1982 Nobel lau-reate in economics for his research work on deregulation and govern-ment control policies, called econom-ics an “imperial science.”

Another economist of the classical variety, Francis Fukuyama, author of the recent best-selling book Trust, may have offended the sensibility of some pragmatic Americans and Fili-pinos who do not usually side with any doctrinaire political positions on economic issues.

“We can think,” Fukuyama said,

“of neoclassical economics as being, say, 80-percent correct: it has uncov-ered important truths about the na-ture of money and markets because its fundamental model of rational, self-interested human behavior is correct about 80 percent of the time.”

“But there is a missing 20 percent of human behavior about which neo-classical economics can give only a poor account,” Fukuyama added, obviously referring to some mer-cantilists as the missing 20 percent in human behavior.

According to Fukuyama, believers of mercantilism like James Fallows,

chalmers Johnson, clyde Prestow-itz, John Zysman, Karl van Wolfer-sen, Laura Tyson and Alice Amsden “have strongly argued that the dy-namic and fast-growing economies of east Asia have succeeded not by following but by violating the rules of neoclassical economics.”

The implication of his carefully crafted fallacy and prejudice, dis-guised as an objective analysis of cul-tural human behavior in economics, is that both the mercantilists and the classicists have the same economic rules and that the east Asian econo-mies have become dynamic and fast-growing because they had violated these rules.

If we also follow Fukuyama’s 80-20 percent analysis on economic hu-man behavior in money and markets in favor of the classicists, the fast-growing mercantilist countries in east Asia, particularly Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Sin-gapore, would have remained today the world’s economic laggards and retardates.

Besides, these classicists and mercantilists, although both capi-talists, have different set of eco-nomic rules, lifestyles, work eth-ics, business policies and frame

of minds, just to cite a few, in the production, distribution and con-sumption of their limited resources.

Unlike the classicists, the mer-cantilists believed in government intervention on the behavior of money, market, inflation and taxes; have pursued a manufacturing and export-oriented economy; have put premium on research and technol-ogy; have ignored the free-trade economic policies of the IMF-World Bank; and are highly nationalistic.

By calling economics an “imperial science,” Stigler may not have real-ized it that he unnecessarily added another line to the leftist popular slogan “American Imperialism” and, thus, created his own bias against some of the far-right libertarians.

He should have known better that history was replete with people from both extremes of the left and the right, who have used pompous slogans to advance their ideological cause. He was a bit luckier though that the cold War had already ended and many people from the radical left may no longer have any use of his jargon.

To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com

What matters is what economics Professors Alan A. Brown of the University of Windsor and John E. Elliott of the University of Califor-nia have said of what economics is all about: “First, any definition is arbitrary. Second, economics is not a word to be defined, but a set of issues to be explored. Third, most definitions are lightly concealed value judgments as to what an author thinks his profes-sional colleagues should do.”

The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. The Spouse of Christ must pattern her behavior after the Son of God who went out to everyone without exception. In the present day, as the Church is charged with the task of the new evangelization, the theme of mercy needs to be proposed again and again with new enthusiasm and renewed pastoral action.

Jan to Sept metals output down by 20%TOTAL metallic production

during the first nine months of the year dropped by 20

percent, as depressed price of gold, silver, copper and nickel prompt-ed mining companies to slow down operation.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) reported that total metallic production from Janu-ary to September went down from P107.24 billion in 2014 to P85.78 bi l l ion this year, recording a P21.46-billion decrease. MGB Director Leo Jasareno said the nine-month averages of gold stood at P$1,180.13 per troy ounce and $16.03 per troy ounce for silver. Average price of gold fell by $108.6, or 8.43 percent, from

$1,288.73 per toy ounce to $1,180.13 per troy ounce. The price of gold is expected to fall below $1,100 per ounce before the end of 2015. Price of silver, on the other hand, slipped by 19.64 percent, or from $19.95 per troy ounce to $16.03 per troy ounce.  Price of nickel went down by 26.64 percent from $7.77 per pound to only $5.70 per pound. Copper price dropped by 17.89 percent, from $3.13 per lb to $2.57 per pound.

Jasareno said the depressed value of nickel, plus the lower demand for nickel ore by China, prompted the country’s nickel producers to slow down operation—targeting lower-than-usual production output—re-sulting in the 38-percent deficit in the overall production value from P51.58 billion to P32.13 billion, a difference of P19.44 billion. Jasareno said for nickel, the mar-ket situation in China is a major fac-tor.  Nickel miners in the Philippines, he said, are bracing for a two-year downtrend.  The price of nickel is pre-dicted to pick up in the last quarter of 2017. With its economy slowing down, nickel smelters in China, the country’s biggest importer of nickel, decided to reduce production by 20 percent next year. Nickel miners believe that China had overproduced stainless steel and still had enough stocks of nickel—the main raw material for the production of metals because of previous year’s huge import

volume—mainly from the Philip-pines, after its supply from Indo-nesia was cut in 2014 owing to that country’s metals-export ban. But the MGB said direct shipping nickel ore and mixed nickel-cobalt sulfide maintains its lead in terms percentage contribution to metal’s total production value. Nickel accounted for 52.43 per-cent, or P44.97 billion; followed by gold with 30.17 percent, or P25.88 billion. Copper, on the other hand, shared 16.63 percent, or P14.26 bil-lion; while the remaining 0.77 per-cent, or P0.66 billion, came from the aggregate values of silver, chromite and iron ore. Jasareno said the depressed value of nickel, which triggered a lower demand for nickel ore by China, prompted the Philippines’s nickel producers to slow down operation, targeting lower-than-usual pro-duction output, resulting in the 38-percent decrease in the over-all production value from P51.58

billion to P32.13 billion, a difference of P19.44 billion. This, even as four nickel producers joined the produc-tion scene during the period. Agata Mining Ventures/Mini-max Mineral Exploration Corp. in Agusan del Norte, Wellex Mining Corp.-Vista Buena Mining Corp. on Dinagat Island, Libjo Mining Corp. and Westernshore Nickel Corp.-East Coast Mineral Resources Inc. also on Dinagat had started commercial production during the period. The operation of the four nickel miners account for a projected increase of 2,345,855 dry metric tons (DMT) of nickel ore during the nine-month period, with estimated value of P2.52 billion. Copper experienced deficit in both production volume and value. In terms of production, a setback of 6 percent from 263,359 DMT worth P16.17 billion to P248,593 DMT worth P14.26 billion. This was attributed to, among oth-ers, the stoppage of mining operation

at the Lutopan mining area of Carmen Copper Corp. in Toledo City, Cebu, starting in March 2015. Gold and silver, according to Jasareno, grew during the nine-month period with the so-called yellow metal enjoying a 19-percent increase in volume from 12,996 kilograms to 15,485 kilograms, up by 2,489 kilograms. On the other hand, the white met-al grew by 34 percent, from 16,433 kilograms to 21,974 kilograms, up by 5,541 kilograms. Jasareno said Didipio Copper-Gold Project of Oceanagold Philip-pines Inc., the Masbate Gold Project of Filminera Resources Inc., and the Maco Gold Operation of Apex Mining Co. Inc.’s good performance factored in together can be credited for the growth.  “This only means that gold and silver remain as the preferred invest-ment haven in times of economic uncertainty,” Jasareno said.

Jonathan L. Mayuga

DAVAO CITY—A group of high-ranking church officials has asked the govern-ment and the   National Democratic

Front (NDF) to resume their stalled negotia-tions as their gesture of goodwill to the nation observing Christmas. “As Christendom celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform [PEPP] calls on the government and the NDF to resume formal peace talks,”  said the PEPP, the group led by Roman Catho-lic and Protestant bishops. The group anchored its appeal on the call for the resumption of the peace negotiation between the two parties by Ola Almgren, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator, two days before the nation ob-served the international human-rights day on December 10. The group said, “Mr. Almgren called for a full and meaningful resumption of the peace process between the government and the NDF in the context of the human- rights challenges of the indigenous peoples of Mindanao as one of the longer-term actions to end the lumad crisis.” “May this season of hope inspire both par-ties to break down the dividing wall of hos-tility and engage in principled negotiations to end the decades-old armed conflict in the country,” the group said. Talks between the two parties collapsed in 2005 after the NDF reacted to the move of the US that listed it as a terrorist orga-nization, including its political wing the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army. The NDF also protested the suspension of

the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immu-nity Guarantee (Jasig). Several peace organizations have been asking the two parties to resume their talks for several years. One of them, the Sulong Carhrihl, has asked the Aquino administra-tion in 2010 to return to the negotiation table and proceed to the next three agenda items of the talks, on the economic and so-cial reforms, on political and constitutional reforms, and on the disposition of forces and end of hostilities. In calling this time to resume their talks, the PEPP said the talks would have a major impact on the eventual return of the lumad evacuees back to their communities, “espe-cially in the light of the Christmas season.” More than 700 tribesmen from Talain-god and Kapalong in Davao del Norte, and from the southern towns of Bukidnon, f led to a compound owned by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and have been staying in the place since April this year. The evacuees have been anxious for their safety following the encampment of soldiers in their commu-nities and after they were also linked to the armed operations of the NPA. The owner of the evacuation center, the UCCP, is a member of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, which, in turn, is one of the conveners of the PEPP. “As both the NDF and the government has already declared cease-fire from December 23 to January 3, 2016, we hope that both parties will respect and remain faithful to their declaration of cease-fire to ensure a peaceful holiday season,” the PEPP said in a statement.

ChrisTmas is for… Children receive cash and other gifts during the tradi-tional house-to-house Christmas caroling on friday morning at molino homes 2 subdivi-sion, salitran 3, Dasmariñas City, Cavite. PNA

Christian group urges govt, NDF to resume peace talks

news@businessmirror.com.ph Saturday, December 26, 2015A6 BusinessMirrorNews

By Manuel T. CayonMindanao Bureau Chief

DAVAO CITY—A farmers cooperative here that also functions as consolidator of cacao harvests has received P26 million

for its production project. The National Project Coordination Office of Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) has issued a No Objection Letter on December 9, which signals the start of the project imple-mentation, a PRDP statement said. The PRDP announced that it awarded the fund support to the Subasta Integrated Farm-ers Multi-purpose Cooperative (SIFMPC) in the northwestern district of this city. The co-operative submitted to the PRDP its enterprise project, titled “Cacao Production and Marketing of Dry-Fermented Beans of Davao City.” The cooperative would operate a cluster-type operations covering the Marilog, Baguio, Calinan and Tugbok districts of the city. SIFMPC would be the main consolidator of 15 cooperatives of 495 cacao farmers. The PRDP included the project under its Investments for Rural Enterprise and Agri-cultural Productivity (I-REAP) component. This component seeks to “strengthen exist-ing marketing arrangements between SIFMPC and buyers like Coco Dolce and Filipinas Oro de Cacao for the local market and Askinosie for the export market.” “We are optimistic to jump-start the first cacao-production enterprise project of PRDP with the approval of the business plan of the SIFMPC,” PRDP National Deputy Project Direc-tor Arnel de Mesa said. De Mesa said the lead proponent group was able to comply with the requirements of the

project, including the proposed enhancements to the business plan that aims to focus more on giving support to production for cacao farmers. “PRDP’s main intervention is to provide sup-port to production that will lessen the cacao farmer’s dependency to traders and consequently enhance their income,” he said. PRDP said it would also assist in providing postharvest facilities “to ensure that the cacao production quality meets the required market standard and increase SIFMPC’s production of dried fermented beans from the current average of 43 metric tons (MT) to 193 MT for the first year of implementation.” “The P26-million assistance will not just ex-pand production, but it will also empower the farmers to compete in the bigger market,” said Councilor Marissa Salvador-Abella, who also acts as the agriculture committee chairman of the City Council. Salvador-Abella said the expansion of cacao plantation areas, particularly in Paquibato and Marilog areas, would benefit tribesmen. “We also expect the project to improve our technology in cacao beans and chocolate produc-tion,” she added. Citing data gathered by the Bureau of Ag-ricultural Statistics, the PRDP said that in the Philippines, cacao bean production was at 4,831 MT as of 2013, with Mindanao accounting for 90 percent of the total harvest. The top five ca-cao-producing provinces in Mindanao are in the Davao region, with Davao del Sur in the lead. Enterprise-development subprojects will be supported by infrastructure like farm-to-mar-ket roads. Recently, the PRDP regional project advisory board approved around P432 million worth of infrastructure projects that support cacao production in the region, it said.

Davao City cooperative gets P26M for cacao production

By Lenie Lectura

THE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) recently

completed a series of consultative meetings with industry stakehold-ers in Mindanao aimed at ad-dressing power-industry specific concerns on power generation and management issues. The state-run company said it completed last month its sixth and last consultative meeting for the year in Butuan City. These meet-ings, it said, complement the an-nual Mindanao Power Customers’ Fora held in Davao City and Cagayan de Oro City in October. “PSALM convened the represen-tatives of Mindanao power-distri-bution utilities and large indus-trial customers to discuss their contracted energy and equivalent demand allocation for 2016, con-sidering the available capacity of the remaining PSALM-IPP [inde-pendent power producers] plants against current demands and In-terim Electricity Market [Imem] concerns,” it said. Imem is designed to provide an immediate venue for transparent and efficient utilization of addi-tional capacities to address Mind-anao’s energy-supply shortfall. This commercial electricity market will allow energy distribu-tors to sell power supply from its embedded generators to areas having deficit. All of the distribu-tion utilities and other generation capacities connected to the Mind-anao power system are mandated to participate in the Imem. The Philippine Electricity Mar-ket Corp. (PEMC),  operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Mar-ket (WESM), launched an interim electricity market in Mindanao in 2013. However, the market was placed under “intervention” in February 2014, effectively halt-ing its operations. This was mainly because of the power shortage in Mindanao sometime February last year, brought about by the shut-down of the 210-megawatt coal power plant. “The temporary pause has turned into an opportunity for PEMC and the DOE [Department of Energy] to thresh out technical and commercial issues with NGCP [National Grid Corp. of the Philip-pines], PSALM and Imem partici-pants through the conduct of coor-dination meetings and focus group discussions,” PEMC President Melinda Ocampo said.

PSalM completes consultations in Mindanao

SportsA7BusinessMirrormirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph | sports@businessmirror.com.ph

SPORTS PLUS

Saturday, December 26, 2015

LAS VEGAS—Anderson Silva will return to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on February 27 after finishing his one-year suspension for steroid use. UFC President Dana White said on Thursday the 40-year-old former middleweight champion will face Michael Bisping at the O2 Arena in London. Their bout will be telecast only on Fight Pass, the UFC’s digital subscription service. Silva (33-6) reigned as the UFC’s 185-pound champion for nearly seven years, until he lost twice to Chris Weidman in 2013, breaking his leg in the second bout. Silva returned last January 31 for a decision victory over Nick Diaz at UFC 183, but was suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission after testing positive for steroid use. Bisping (27-7) and Silva both joined the UFC in 2006, but have never met in the cage. AP

BUDAPEST, Hungary—World champion weightlifter Aleksei Lovchev has been provisionally suspended after failing a drug test, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said on Thursday. The Russian tested positive for a banned substance after last month’s world championships in Houston, where he broke the clean-and-jerk and total world records on his way to the overall title in the 105 kilogram-plus category. Russia’s sports minister Vitaly Mutko claimed the banned substance, the growth hormone ipamorelin, was in a medicine he had been cleared to use. The IWF said Lovchev’s compatriots Aleksei Kosov, Olga Zubova and Olga Afanaseva also failed tests. Three other medalists—South Korea’s Kim Kwang-song and Kazakhstan’s Almas Uteshov and Zhassulan Kyrdyrbayev—were among 24 adverse findings from the competition, the IWF reported. AP

ANDERSON SILVABACK IN ACTION

WEIGHTLIFTINGCHAMP BANNED

NO LONGER A DEBATE

By Marcus Thompson IISan Jose Mercury News

 

T IME Magazine’s piece this week on Stephen Curry features a line that makes Curry a bit uncomfortable. In it, Curry calls himself the best in the world.

Well, he didn’t say that, exactly. He was proposed the statement and he answered

in the affirmative. Because that’s what he is supposed to do. Because in that

stratosphere of player, confidence is oxygen and believing you are the best is step one to pushing

your performance to new levels. So Curry didn’t intend to stand on

a soapbox and tout himself as the best in the world. But that doesn’t change that it’s true. LeBron James, who, not that long ago, pried the scepter from Kobe Bryant’s grip, has had his kingship hijacked by Curry. Leapfrogging Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis, Curry has come out of nowhere to take the crown as best in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Assuredly, the blasphemy of calling Curry the best will prompt some James fans to rip off their clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes. But anyone who dismisses the claim is in need of a more modern basketball paradigm. Curry is the new king. And many great basketball minds have stopped fighting the traditional notions that suggest otherwise. “Steph Curry looks different,” said ESPN/ABC analyst Jalen Rose, a former NBA point guard. “The best player in the league usually is also physically imposing. He’s 6-foot-6-plus, with a scowl on his face and is menacing with the attitude that we appreciated because of Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal or Kobe Bryant—just a cutthroat nature. Steph allows us into his living room.” James, at 6-foot-8 and 250 pounds, is the most physically dominating. A case could be made that he is the greatest player of all time. If we were ranking careers, LeBron would be way ahead of Curry. But right now, no player is as dominant as Curry. No player lifts his team higher. No player is as skilled or as fun to watch. No one presents more challenges to defend. James used to be that way. He could make a bunch of washed up specialists look like All-Stars. Now at 31, with high mileage, he needs Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. Curry is doing what James once did. As one Western Conference executive said: “All you have to do is look at Brandon Rush.” Rush is experiencing a resurrection since replacing injured Harrison Barnes in the starting lineup. Rush’s true shooting percentage—which takes into account three-pointers, two-pointers and free throws—is 37 percent this season coming off the bench. Since he was joined the starting lineup, it’s 71.2 percent.

“Coming off the bench, he wasn’t very good,” the executive said. “Put him in the lineup with Curry, all of a sudden he is a productive player. He’s getting wide open shots.” That’s the Curry effect. The Warriors point guard forces the defense to adjust so radically that it opens the floor wider than we’ve ever seen. Taking nothing away from Klay Thompson or Draymond Green, they are flourishing in open space against distracted defenses. Curry leads the NBA in scoring (31.2), but on top of that, he leads the league in player efficiency, win shares and value over replacement. In all the metrics that attempt to measure who is most productive at securing victory, Curry is at the top or near it. When Curry is on the floor, the Warriors have outscored opponents by a total of 443 points, highest in the NBA. The next closest non-Warrior is Russell Westbrook at 297. LeBron is eighth at 252. Through Wednesday’s games, 26 players had made 90 or more shots inside of five feet. Only five of those players had a better shooting percentage than Curry from that distance. (James is one of them.) Curry leads the NBA in shots from 25 feet, with 84, and converts at a clip of 44.4 percent. Think about that for a moment. Curry has made 94 baskets from short range and 84 from long range. That’s the production of a good power forward and a good shooting guard—and it comes in the package of a point guard who does all the things a good point guard does. Curry ranks among the top 15 in assists per game—tied with James, ahead of All-Star point guards Kyle Lowry and Mike Conley—despite facing constant double teams and traps. He ranks second in steals. He ranks eighth among guards in rebounds per game—ahead of several bigger All-Stars who play more minutes, such as Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan and Washington’s John Wall. Curry isn’t new to these “best” debates, and he was on the losing end of them initially. First the question was whether he was the best point guard in the 2009 draft. While then-Warriors General Manager Larry Riley thought so, Curry was the fourth point guard taken. Before long, the question was whether he was the Warriors’ best player. And many Monta Ellis fans scoffed just as James fans do now. Then the debate was where Curry ranked among point guards. As recently as 2012, some lists had Curry behind the likes of Ty Lawson and Conley, who were a tier behind Westbrook and Chris Paul. Now, having settled all those debates, Curry finds himself in a new one. His growth as a player, his explosion as a star, has bullied us into reconsidering NBA hierarchy. This is Curry’s league now. And knowing LeBron will have something to say about it makes this Christmas matchup all the more special.

Stephen Curry is

the new king. And many great

basketball minds have stopped fighting the traditional notions that

suggest otherwise.

COACH RON PASSES AWAY

THE league’s newcomers take on the Philippine Cup perennial contenders in the first phase of the quarterfinal round of the Philippine Basketball

Association (PBA) on Saturday at the Mall of Asia Arena. Blackwater and NLEX, which joined the PBA last season, face a daunting task of beating their seeded rivals twice to move on to the next stage. The Elite, playing their first playoffs game, square off with No. 3 Rain or Shine at 3 p.m., while the Road Warriors battle sister team and sixth seed Talk ‘N Text at 5:15 p.m. Blackwater booked its first quarterfinal stint with a 108-99 victory over Mahindra, but the Elite face an angry Elasto Painters who were denied by NLEX an automatic semifinals berth. “Going to the playoffs is a big thing for a young team. We will do our best because for sure they are in rage,” said Blackwater Head Coach Leo Isaac, referring to Rain or Shine’s 106-111 loss to the Road Warriors. “Hopefully we can compete with them. Baka makaisa kami sa Rain or Shine malay ninyo,” he added. Coach Yeng Guiao’s team had the chance to move into the best-of-seven semifinal series and be the No. 1 seed, but his squad faltered against the Road Warriors and settled for the No. 3 seed in the quarterfinals. NLEX is also the underdog against the Tropang Texters, but Head Coach Boyet Fernandez is confident his Road Warriors could force a decider—if they bring along their A-game. “We just have to play it one game at a time. Defi-nitely this will be a tough one for us,” Fernandez said.

Joel Orellana

Newcomers vs‘usual suspects’

DIVING DUTCH The Netherlands’ Rosanna van der Hoeven dives for the ball, as she and partner Ilke Meertens yield to New Zealand’s Shauna Polley and Julia Tilley, 19-21, 17-21, in the battle for seventh place of the Spike for Peace International beach volley tournament held early this month at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City. NONOY LACZA

Assuredly, the blasphemy of

calling Stephen Curry the best

will prompt some LeBron James fans to rip off

their clothes and put on sackcloth

and ashes.

believed in me when I first came to Manila Coach. #RIP #CoachRonJacobs #RP-Selecta,” Alapag wrote on his Twitter account. Alapag was part of a big pool, divided into RP-Selecta and RP-Hapee, formed by Jacobs for the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea. But Jacobs never got the chance to handle the squad as he suffered that near fatal stroke on December 22, 2001. Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Head Coach Tim Cone, who faced Jacobs twice in the

finals in 1998 in the PBA, said Jacobs’s scientific approach influenced

many coaches today. “Ron Jacobs was

the most intense competitor I ever faced,

plus he had an absolutely brilliant

mind. What a lethal combination to go up against,” Cone said. “Ron impacted all of us coaches. We all took pages from his playbook and made it our own. He will be forever

By Joel Orellana 

PHILIPPINE basketball lost one of the great minds in the sport as former national team Head Coach Ron Jacobs

passed away a few hours before Christmas. He was 72. The news spread on Twitter with Jacobs’s former wards and disciples expressing their sorrow and admiration over the man who revolutionized coaching in the Philippines and helped put the country back on a serious track to regain its supremacy at least in the Asian continent.             “He [Jacobs] gave Philippine basketball the first scientific approach in coaching,” said newly hired Adamson University Coach Franz Pumaren, who played for Jacobs with the Northern Cement Consolidated (NCC) team in 1980s. The NCC program was the forerunner of today’s Gilas Pilipinas of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas. The program borders on pooling topnotch amateurs who will concentrate on the national team alone and represent the country in major international competitions. “RIP [rest in peace] Coach Ron Jacobs. You were more than just a coach to all of your players. Thank you for believing in me. I will forever be grateful,” Olsen Racela posted on his Twitter account after learning about Jacobs’s demise from sports broadcaster Quinito Henson on Thursday night. Racela played for Jacobs at San Miguel Beer in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) at the turn of the new millenium. Meralco guard Jimmy Alapag also thanked Jacobs for giving him the opportunity to be included in the 2002 national pool, which Jacobs was supposed to coach until that massive stroke paralyzed him. “Thank you for being one of the few who

remembered,” he added. Jacobs, a native of Marion, North Carolina, penetrated the Filipinos’ consciousness when he was hired by former Ambassador Danding Cojuangco Jr. to handle the NCC program, the country’s all-amateur national team, in 1980. Under his watch, the country won the 1981 and 1985 William R. Jones Cup and the 1985 Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) Championship, the forerunner of the International Basketball Federation Asia Men’s Championship. The NCC team, bannered by naturalized players Dennis Still, Chip Engelland and Jeff Moore and now cage greats Allan Caidic, Samboy Lim and Hector Calma, qualified for the 1986 World Championship, but failed to compete because of the Edsa Revolution.

Jacobs left his wife Menen.

SportsA8 | SAturdAy, december 26, 2015mirror_sports@yahoo.com.phsports@businessmirror.com.phEditor: Jun Lomibao

BusinessMirror

By Juan KaritaThe Associated Press

LA PAZ, Bolivia—At first glance, the indigenous Bolivian women don’t look much like mountain climbers, with their colorful, multilayered skirts and fringed shawls.

But their helmets, polarized goggles and crampons attached to their shoes give them away as mountaineers who accompany their husbands, often as cooks and porters, as they guide tourists scaling the local peaks. Eleven of these Aymara women, ranging in age from 20 to 50, earlier this month made the two-day climb up the 19,974-foot-high Huayna Potosi, near La Paz, with Lake Titicaca to the back and surrounded by snowy Andean peaks. They started their climbing careers working for tourist agencies, carrying food and other equipment for the foreign mountaineers to the base camp, located at 11,116 feet. “First, I was a porter, then a cook,” said 41-year-old Domitila Alana Llusco. “But the tourists asked me what it was like up on Huayna Potosi and I had to climb up so I could find out and tell them.” Alana said she had a hard time finding

appropriate gear she could afford when she started 15 years ago. “My feet are small, there are no boots,” she said. “But nothing stopped me and I have reached the peak of three mountains.” Though they cling to their traditional clothing, these mountaineers aren’t typical indigenous women. “Women also have the right to climb mountains,” said Adrian Quispe, one of the mountain guides. “It’s not just men who are allowed. Women of all ages can go.” And the money is good. While the minimum wage for a housekeeper is around $175 a month, guides can earn $35 a day and the female cooks about $20 a day. As they climb, the women wear thermal sweat suits under their traditional clothing. Only in the last part of the climb up to the top do the women remove their skirts, to prevent accidents. They start the last piece of their ascent after midnight to take advantage of the hardness of the snow, hoping to reach the top by dawn. Some of the youngest in the group now dream of climbing even higher someday, to the top of Aconcagua, which, at 22,834 feet, is not only the highest peak in the Andes, but also the highest mountain outside Asia.

The Aymara women’s helmets, polarized goggles and crampons attached to their shoes give them away as mountaineers who accompany their husbands, often as cooks and porters, as they guide tourists scaling the local peaks.

DENVER—They have popular names like Dome Rock, Yosemite, Rocky Mountain National Park and Joshua Tree, and they

all have one problem in common that seasoned rock climbers call a “ticking time-bomb”—aging climbing anchors. The anchors, drilled and pounded into the sides of mountains, are rusting and starting to fail, and some climbers and parks are trying to replace them. Funds, however, are sparse. Some of the anchors are made of iron and were installed in the 1960s. Others hide dangerous secrets—they are bolted in rocks that have loosened

because of freezing and thawing, and there are bolts that

look new on the outside, but have rotten cores.

Some bolts are so bad climbers can pull them out with their fingers.

Experienced climbers often keep logs of dangerous or failing equipment and share them with other climbers, but the information is often not available to other climbers. Bernadette Regan, a seasoned climbing ranger at Joshua Tree National Park, about 225 kilometers east of Los Angeles, fell last year when a bolt broke off while she was rappelling down a popular route called “Solid Gold,” one of the park’s more popular routes. Her life was saved because she didn’t trust the bolt and had a backup rope that kept her from plunging 150 feet to the ground.

“I was testing it, and jumped on a bolt and it broke,” she said. The bolt was replaced a week later. Park officials held a “bolting blitz” last month that brought in master bolters from around the US to do some concentrated re-bolting on ancient anchors. They replaced 62 bolts, some of them more than 30 years old. Regan said experienced climbers are worried because the sport has drawn more interest in recent years. She said interest soared this year after Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell spent 19 days scaling the 3,000-foot sheer granite face of the Dawn Wall of El Capitan wall in Yosemite National Park, long considered one of the world’s most difficult climbs. Chris Weidner, who is on the board of the Boulder Climbing Community in Colorado, said the anchors are ticking time-bombs.

He said it has taken years for the climbing community to band together to fix the problems, because experienced climbers are a close-knit community and they don’t rely on old equipment to keep them safe. He said thousands of climbing routes from the East Coast to the West Coast need to be fixed for new enthusiasts. “It’s scary when you look at bolts that are corroded,” he said. Weidner said one of his favorite routes in Rocky National Park, called “the Diamond” because of its massive diamond shape, requires climbers to climb nearly 1,000 feet vertically on ropes. He said the mountain is dotted with rotting equipment left behind by other climbers. He said most climbers can’t stop and spend hours drilling into granite to replace the bad

equipment they find, and they climb other routes or use equipment that can be easily hammered or stuffed into a crag and removed as the climbers scale their way up. Weidner said it will take a concerted effort to make the sport safer, and the group is asking for donations to buy the equipment. “So far, deaths are few and far between,” said Brady Robinson, who now leads a campaign called the Access Fund dedicated to replacing the equipment. He said every climber, no matter how experienced, falls once in a while and people are putting their lives on the line when they hook their ropes to the equipment. AP

ROCK CLIMBERS WARY ABOUT AGING EQUIPMENT

PARIS—The Tour de France will start from the German city of Duesseldorf in 2017. Tour organizers say it will be the

fourth time in the race’s century-old history that cycling’s showpiece starts in Germany. London was considered the favorite to host the 2017 race start, but withdrew its bid in September. The last time the three-week race started from Germany was in 1987, when the Grand

Depart took place in West Berlin. Details of the first stages will be unveiled in January. Earlier, reports came out that the Tour de France and other major races are being pulled from the International Cycling Union’s (UCI) elite calendar in 2017 in a renewed fight for control of the sport. Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), the organizer of the Tour, last month rejected the UCI’s proposed reforms for the 2017 WorldTour,

and has the support of a majority of race organizers in its bid to be free of cycling’s governing body. ASO said in a statement on Friday it told the UCI “it has opted for the registration of its events on the Hors Classe calendar for season 2017,” meaning it will have more freedom to invite the teams of its choice to its events. ASO described the UCI reform of the 2017 WorldTour as “a closed sport system.” AP

Tour startsin Germany

next year

A MAN performs a BMX bike stunt as the pack with Britain’s Christopher Froome, wearing the yellow jersey, passes during the 10 stage of the Tour de France in La Pierre-Saint-Martin, France, in July. AP

AYMARA indigenous women look at the Huayna Potosi mountain before climbing it on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia. AP BOLIVIA’S

PRIDE