The digital edition of The Standard: A nationally circulated newspaper published daily in the Philippines since February 1987.
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VOL. XXX NO. 94 3 Sections 32 Pages P18 TUESDAY : MAY 17, 2016 www.thestandard.com.ph [email protected]A3 Abu Sayyaf threatens to behead 2nd captive A3 Duterte to name new AFP, PNP heads REDS IN THE CABINET Next page Next page Meeting the press. President-in-waiting Rodrigo Duterte speaks to the media for the first time since he claimed victory in the May 9 presidential election at a restaurant in Davao City on Monday. Duterte declared his choices for Cabinet positions and vowed to reintroduce capital punishment. AFP Rody to give DAR, DENR, DoLE, DSWD to communists ‘Leni benefited from manipulated poll data’ By Christine F. Herrera, Sara Susanne D. Fabunan and Joel E. Zurbano THE Liberal Party’s vice presidential bet Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo was the beneficiary of “manipulated, anoma- lous and abnormal data” that appeared shortly aſter a new script was uploaded to the transparency server that was report- ing unofficial election results on May 9, a study by two university professors said. Professors Antonio Contreras of De La Salle University and Rogelio Que- vedo of the University of the Philippines on Monday urged the Commission on Elections to conduct an independent “forensic investigation” into the entire automated election system (AES) aſter a Smartmatic technician uploaded the script that altered the system’s hash code, apparently without authorization. Although Smartmatic project direc- tor Marlon Garcia said the changes were “cosmetic,” the professors said the unof- ficial count from the transparency server By John Paolo Bencito PRESIDENT-IN-WAITING Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he would be willing to give four key Cabinet posts to the Communist Party of the Philippines if it decides to join his government. In a press briefing in Davao City, Duterte said if the communists joined his administration, they would be given control of the departments of Agrarian Reform, Environment and Natural Re- sources, Labor and Employment and Social Wel- fare and Development. “Labor is the one they are saying [is] the most oppressed, and some of them [communists] are the most vigilant... about labor, so they will get it. And DWSD. But those are the only departments I can concede to them. at’s four—it’s good already,” Duterte said. On Sunday night, Duterte said he expected his former university professor, Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the CPP, to return from his exile in e Netherlands, to help end the longest-running com- munist insurgency in the region. “He is welcome. I am happy with the statement that he is coming home,” Duterte said of Sison. “I would very much want to talk to him about resolv- ing the insurgency.” Sison, now 77, fled to Europe soon aſter peace talks with the administration of then President Corazon Aquino failed in 1987. The communists armed wing, the New Peo- ple’s Army, is believed to have fewer than 4,000 soldiers, down from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s, according to the military, but retains sup- port among the deeply poor in rural areas. Communists killed three soldiers in the central Philippines on Saturday, according to the military, in the first outbreak of deadly violence between the two sides since Duterte’s election win.
Meeting the press. President-in-waiting Rodrigo Duterte speaks to the media for the fi rst time since he claimed victory in the May 9 presidential election at a restaurant in Davao City on Monday. Duterte declared his choices for Cabinet positions and vowed to reintroduce capital punishment. AFP
Rody to give DAR, DENR, DoLE, DSWD to communists
‘Leni benefi ted from manipulated poll data’By Christine F. Herrera, Sara Susanne D. Fabunan and Joel E. Zurbano
THE Liberal Party’s vice presidential bet Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo was the bene� ciary of “manipulated, anoma-lous and abnormal data” that appeared shortly a� er a new script was uploaded to
the transparency server that was report-ing uno� cial election results on May 9, a study by two university professors said.
Professors Antonio Contreras of De La Salle University and Rogelio Que-vedo of the University of the Philippines on Monday urged the Commission on Elections to conduct an independent “forensic investigation” into the entire
automated election system (AES) a� er a Smartmatic technician uploaded the script that altered the system’s hash code, apparently without authorization.
Although Smartmatic project direc-tor Marlon Garcia said the changes were “cosmetic,” the professors said the unof-� cial count from the transparency server
By John Paolo Bencito
PRESIDENT-IN-WAITING Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he would be willing to give four key Cabinet posts to the Communist Party of the Philippines if it decides to join his government.
In a press brie� ng in Davao City, Duterte said if the communists joined his administration, they would be given control of the departments of Agrarian Reform, Environment and Natural Re-sources, Labor and Employment and Social Wel-fare and Development.
“Labor is the one they are saying [is] the most oppressed, and some of them [communists] are the most vigilant... about labor, so they will get it. And DWSD. But those are the only departments I can concede to them. � at’s four—it’s good already,” Duterte said.
On Sunday night, Duterte said he expected his former university professor, Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the CPP, to return from his exile in � e Netherlands, to help end the longest-running com-munist insurgency in the region.
“He is welcome. I am happy with the statement that he is coming home,” Duterte said of Sison. “I would very much want to talk to him about resolv-ing the insurgency.”
Sison, now 77, � ed to Europe soon a� er peace talks with the administration of then President Corazon Aquino failed in 1987.
The communists armed wing, the New Peo-ple’s Army, is believed to have fewer than 4,000 soldiers, down from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s, according to the military, but retains sup-port among the deeply poor in rural areas.
Communists killed three soldiers in the central Philippines on Saturday, according to the military, in the first outbreak of deadly violence between the two sides since Duterte’s election win.
showed “a linear line” that fa-vored Robredo in the vice pres-idential race after the script was introduced.
At the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel, Contreras and Quevedo emphasized that anomalies in the system occurred after the hash code was changed.
Contreras said a straight line increase in a candidate’s vote count was not normal, especially when results from many areas were be-ing transmitted at random.
“There should have been an up and down spikes depending on the areas coming in but in the vice presidential race, there was only one line upwards and then after the 80-percent transmis-sion rate, Senator [Ferdinand] Marcos [Jr. slowed down] in a linear [way] that was really ab-normal,” Contreras said.
It was during the hours after the script was introduced that Marcos’ one-million-vote lead was overtaken, Contreras and Quevedo said.
Quevedo said the introduc-tion of the script triggered a change in the system that altered the results.
“I could categorically state that it is not accurate [to say] that a mere change in the hash codes will not result in cheat-ing,” Quevedo said.
Asked who was the benefi-ciary of the abnormal data in the elections results, Contreras said: “It is obviously Robredo because she was the one who took the lead shortly after the hash codes were changed.”
Quevedo, also a member of the Comelec Advisory Council, said even the supposed investi-gation made by the poll watch-dog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting showing that the system change did not cause any modification in the results was “merely superficial and self-serving.”
Quevedo added the PPCRV was not qualified to make such a finding.
“I am asserting that PPCRV is not in any way in a position to make that finding. They could not say there was no anomaly because they were present when that interference in the transparency server was made and they allowed it. So PPCRV’s investigation is just self-serving. It is just exonerat-ing itself,” Quevedo said.
Contreras said the linear increase in Robredo’s votes could only be the result of manipulated data.
“We didn’t just study Marcos and Robredo, but all the vice presidential candidates,” Con-treras said in Filipino. “All of them showed a straight line. This would not have happened to the transmission if another program had not been introduced.”
Any increases, he added would not be in a straight line.
Quevedo of the UP College of Law, and Contreras a pro-fessor of political science at DLSU, debunked the claim of the Comelec, the PPCRV and Smartmatic that the changing of the system, which in turn changed the hash codes, was merely cosmetic, saying “no IT expert in his right mind would dismiss it as a minor change.”
Quevedo said as a lawyer whose expertise is IT, he has strong belief that the change of the “?” to “ñ” is a trigger that caused some changes in the entire system.
Last week, Garcia admitted having ordered the change in the hash code as he said a new script had to be introduced to change the “?” to “ñ” in the names of some candidates such as Roy Señeres for president and Sergio Osmeña and Getu-lio Napeñas for senator.
But Quevedo pointed out that the mere change in the hash code during the transmis-sion period meant “something was not right.”
Although he refused to say there was cheating in the trans-mission, Quevedo said the Comelec should order a forensic investigation to erase any doubts created by the unauthorized change in the system’s code.
“If Comelec really wants to project itself as the body in charge of the election, that it is transparent and not biased, then it should immediately or-der the forensic investigation of the transmission and the elec-tion results,” he said.
A forensic investigation would examine the system’s historical data and determine what changes were made to the system, said Quevedo, a top executive and lawyer for Smart Communications Inc.
Both Quevedo and Contreras clarified they were not rooting for any particular candidate, but merely interested in ensuring the integrity of the elections.
He said questions on the AES had surfaced in the 2010
and 2013 elections but were not corrected despite their re-peated pleas with the Comelec.
On Monday, Comelec Com-missioner Rowena Guanzon asked her colleagues to seek a hold departure order against Garcia.
In a memo, Guanzon asked the Comelec en banc to direct Smartmatic to prohibit their officers and personnel from leaving the country while an investigation is ongoing.
Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista, however, said it was premature to involve the Bu-reau of Immigration.
“Nobody has told me they were leaving so why are we talk-ing about whether they should be allowed to leave when nobody is leaving in the first place?” Bau-tista asked Guanzon.
He assured the other com-missioners that Smartmatic officials were not planning to leave the country.
Bautista, in a press briefing, also insisted there was no ma-nipulation of the voting results, and said the Marcos camp has yet to file a formal complaint.
Also on Monday, the camps of five senatorial bets filed a manifestation before the Comelec to declare an early proclamation for the top finish-ers in the senatorial race.
The manifestation was filed by lawyers for former Justice secretary Leila de Lima, Sena-tors Ralph Recto, Vicente Sotto III, former senator Francis Pan-gilinan, and former Technical Education Skills Development Authority chief Joel Villanueva. With John Paolo Bencito and Maricel V. Cruz
‘Only 16% of budgetleft for rest of 2016’
Duterte is due to be sworn into of-fice on June 30.
President Benigno Aquino III re-vived peace talks soon after taking of-fice in 2010 but shelved them in 2013, accusing the rebels of insincerity.
The talks bogged down after the communists demanded the release of scores of their jailed comrades whom they described as “political prison-ers,” which the Aquino government rejected.
Duterte, who was Sison’s student at a Manila university in the 1960s, said Sunday he was open to releasing com-munist prisoners.
Duterte on Monday said govern-ment positions are open to commu-nists as long as they are qualified for the job.
In the same press briefing, Duterte announced that lawyers Salvador Medi-aldea will be his executive secretary and Salvador Panelo as his press secretary.
Medialdea, a Davao-based lawyer who is part of Duterte’s five-man transi-tion committee, filed Duterte’s last-min-ute Certificate of Candidacy last year.
Panelo, Duterte’s long-time confi-dante and known ally of former Presi-dent and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was the one who faced the media defending him over Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s accu-sation of Duterte’s alleged ill-gotten wealth while Davao Mayor.
Panelo, a criminal lawyer, was spot-ted partying in Arroyo’s birthday cel-ebration in her La Vista home in Que-zon City, where the former president was seen without a neck brace.
In the same press briefing, Duterte said that he wanted to give the Defense post to former Arroyo Defense chief Gilbert Teodoro, who is already in Davao City for talks.
Duterte also said he wanted former Ag-riculture secretary Carlos Dominguez to join his Cabinet as Finance secretary.
“Sonny Dominguez has many mis-givings [about] my offer. I hope he would consider,” he said.
Duterte said he would also offer Foreign Affairs to his losing running mate, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, if he chooses not to serve out his term as senator.
“If he doesn’t want it, Perfecto Yasay can take his place,” Duterte said, refer-ring to the former chief of the Securi-ties and Exchange Commission.
Duterte also announced that his San Beda Law classmate Arthur Tugade would hold the Transportation and Communications portfolio while Ly-ceum of the Philippines University Batangas and Laguna Campuses presi-dent Peter P. Laurel will be the new Education secretary.
The Palace on Monday said they have yet to hear from Duterte’s transition team.
“We are prepared to meet and work with then. We are awaiting word on when they would like to meet,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr.
Aquino’s transition committee met on Friday to ensure the smooth transi-tion to the incoming administration.
In its first meeting, the Presidential Transition Committee focused on en-suring that the transition reports of all departments, agencies, bureaus, gov-ernment-owned and -controlled cor-porations and other instrumentalities under the executive branch are sub-mitted and consolidated by end-May, said Coloma.
This will give the incoming admin-istration ample time to review these reports before assuming office, Co-loma added. With Rio N. Araja, Sandy Araneta, AFP
‘Leni...From A1
Binay said the rushed spending during the Aquino administration’s last months in of-fice would affect Duterte’s ability to pursue his priorities.
“The Aquino administration’s mad rush to spend during the election season has left the incoming administration of… Ro-drigo Duterte little room to work on dur-ing its first year,” Binay spokesperson Rico Quicho said.
“After years of underspending, the adminis-tration decided to go on a spending binge ob-viously to swing voters to favor its chosen one but to no avail. Such recklessness will have as its casualty the priorities of the incoming admin-istration,” Quicho said.
Binay’s office said the Department of Budget and Management has released P2.5 trillion or almost 84 percent of the P3.002-trillion nation-al budget for 2016.
But Budget Secretary Florencio Abad de-nied the allegation.
“If you say 84 percent has been released, does that mean it has all been spent? Of course not,” Abad said. “What has been re-
leased is the allotment or authority to obli-gate or bid out projects. Why was it done so quickly? Because now we don’t have a SARO [special allotment release order] that must first be issued because the General Appro-priations Act itself is the release document. We did this to speed up the budget execution and remove the problem of underspending.”
Abad said it was the DBM’s duty to “release the allotment” and that the next process was the obligation of allotment” that was the job of the line agencies.
Under this process, he said, the period of bidding and procurement take place.
Binay’s camp previously criticized the Aqui-no administration’s anemic spending, espe-cially for programs and projects to mitigate the impact of El Niño.
In the 2016 national budget, P19 billion has been allotted for subsidies, alternative liveli-hood projects, irrigation and other assistance projects for farmers affected by drought.
However, Quicho said Abad refused to re-lease in March the P900 million to the Depart-ment of Agriculture for projects intended to
By Christine F. Herrera and Vito Barcelo
THE incoming Duterte administration will be taking over with only 16 percent or P496 billion of the P3.002-trillion national budget to work with after its predecessor went on a “rushed spending binge,” leaving the new government little room to pursue its priority programs, Vice President Jejomar Binay said Monday.
mitigate the effects of El Niño.Quicho said the government’s withholding
of the fund led to a bloody and tragic out-come, with two people killed and more than 30 farmers injured during a protest rally in Kidapawan City in April.
Quicho also slammed Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala’s claim that the agency provided seedlings to farmers.
“Our farmers have been starving since December last year. How Secretary Alcala could expect them to plant the seedlings when they are already dying of hunger is beyond me,” he said.
A federation of 60 non-government orga-nizations, meanwhile, appealed to the Aquino administration to come out with complete and detailed explanations on the P1.3-trillion poten-tial state obligations which it did not disclose to the public.
The Balikatan People’s Alliance noted that the potential state obligations were discovered by the Commission on Audit in 2013 but to date, no detailed breakdown has been reported by the government.
Balikatan spokesman Arsenio Anti-porda said the non-disclosure even ran counter to Section 7, Article III and Section 28, Article II of the Constitu-tion, which recognizes the right of the people to information on matters of public concern.
Antiporda said. according to CoA, the government had only declared P470.81 billion in contingent liabilities.
THE terror group Abu Sayyaf has threat-ened to behead another foreigner if the P600-million ransom for him is not de-livered on June 13, its third deadline after it beheaded 68-year-old John Ridsdel, a Canadian citizen, on April 25.
The threat was contained in a new video posted on the internet, but the captors did not specify who among Rob-ert Hall, a Canadian citizen, and Kjar-tan Sekkingstad, a Norwegian, would be beheaded.
The Abu Sayyaf is also holding Marites
Flor, Hall’s girlfriend.The terrorist group aired its new de-
mand even as the Armed Forces said op-erations were still ongoing to rescue the hostages the Abu Sayyaf is holding.
“We have not stopped. We will not cease until these bandits and criminals are held accountable for their actions,” military spokesman Restituto Padilla said.
Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said they were now verify-ing with the Department of Foreign Af-fairs the new video released by the Abu
Sayyaf Group.“We are deferring to the DFA on this as
this involves foreign nationals,” Coloma said in a statement.
All the captives together with Ridsdel were abducted by the terrorists in August last year in a beach resort on Samal Island and took them to Sulu.
“I appeal to my government and the Philippine government, as I have ap-pealed before, for help,” Hall said in the video. Florante S. Solmerin and Sandy Ara-neta, with PNA
He also called on the police scala-wags to resign or retire before June 30, the date of his inauguration into office, “otherwise, they will be sent to Jolo in the lair of the Abus.”
Duterte made his statement even as the Commission on Human Rights and the Catholic Church on Monday vowed to oppose his plan to revive the death penalty.
Malacañang said it was up to Con-gress to decide whether or not to lift the death penalty in the Philippines.
“The lifting of the death penalty re-quires that the law be amended. It is best that this be tackled by the next Congress,” Communications Secre-tary Herminio Coloma Jr. said.
Under his presidency, Duterte said, the barangays will be the front-liners in identifying and going after drug users and peddlers.
He said he will recruit special civil-ian active auxiliaries and arm them to fight the drug lords and drug pushers.
He said he will impose a 10 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors, but his arrest order will only apply to negligent parents.
“The barangay knows the locations of the parents. They will be arrested for child abandonment under the Re-vised Penal Code,” Duterte said.
He said government transactions will be completed within 72 hours but asked the Commission on Audit to relax its guidelines on the spending of the budget appropriations at the local level.
He said taxi drivers must not short-change their passengers and must give them their exact change.
“Always keep loose change. On the other hand, I am asking the riding public to estimate or figure out your exact fare. Also, bring loose change,” he said.
Duterte said the death penalty by hanging must be imposed on robbery with rape and homicide.
The presidential yacht Ang Pangulo will be auctioned off so he could build a new building for the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center. Rio N. Araja, John Paolo Bencito and Sandy Araneta
PRESUMPTIVE President Rodrigo Duterte said late Sunday he plans to appoint as head of the military and the police two officials who are both products of the Philippine Military Academy.
“I’m considering General Visaya to be the chief of staff. He is a vibrant general,” Duterte told reporters at 11 p.m. Sunday in Davao City.
He was referring to Southern Luzon Command Lt. Gen. Ricar-do Visaya, a member of the PMA Class of 1983 and a native of Ba-carra, Ilocos Norte.
Meanwhile, some reports say Duterte is likely to appoint Chief Supt. Ronald Dela Rosa, a member of the PMA Class of 1986, to replace Philippine National Police Chief Ri-cardo Marquez, a member of the PMA Class of 1982 who will reach mandatory retirement this August.
A source from Duterte’s inner circle said Visaya and Dela Rosa will assume their new posts on June 30, when Duterte takes his oath of office.
“Yes, it’s Chief Supt. Dela Rosa sa PNP and Lieutenant General Visaya para naman sa AFP,” said the source who requested anonymity.
If Dela Rosa is appointed, it will be the first time in PNP history that a chief superintendent is elevated to director general, a four-star position in the military. He served as Davao City’s police chief under Duterte.
Just recently, Marquez sacked Dela Rosa when he threatened in his Facebook account to bring to justice any cheaters in the May 9 elections, saying the PNP was “apolitical.” Dela Rosa was then a brigade com-mander of a support unit based in Camp Crame in Quezon City for election duties. Florante S. Solmerin
Breakfast forum. From left, Antonio Contreras , De La Salle University professor, Rogelio Quevado, a former member of the Comelec Advisory Council, law professor of the UP College of Law and an IT expert, and investment banker Francisco Yuseco, discuss the recent elections during the Samahang Plaridel Kapihan sa Manila Hotel Media Forum on Monday. LINO SANTOS
Briefing. Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista briefs reporters on the canvassing of the votes and the Smartmatic issue at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City. LINO SANTOS
PRESUMPTIVE President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday discussed his plan to fight drugs, crime and corruption and to restore the death penalty for heinous crimes.
FreshHouseleaderssoughtBy Vito Barcelo and Maricel V. Cruz
THE Liberal Party leadership of the House of Representatives should yield their positions to a looming pro-Duterte coalition in the chamber so the admin-istration can push its legislative agenda, congressman-in-wait-ing Harry Roque said Monday.
“The election results is a complete repudiation of the yel-low forces,” said Roque, the first nominee of the Kabayan party-list which, as of 6:45 p.m., had garnered 2.6 percent of votes cast in the May 9 elections.
Kabayan is among the party-list groups virtually as-sured of getting at least one seat in the House. The other top parties are Ako Bicol (5.2 percent), Gabriela (4.3 per-cent), 1Pacman (4.1 percent), Act Teachers (3.7 percent) and Senior Citizens (3 percent).
“Speaker [Feliciano] Bel-monte [Jr.] should now al-low [newly elected Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon] ‘Bebot’ Alvarez to assume the speak-ership rather than be obstruc-tive,” Roque said.
“Belmonte and his yellow cohorts have had their time and their time is now up. He should allow changes in Con-gress pursuant to the mandate given by the people to Du-terte,” he added.
Alvarez has been endorsed by the PDP-Laban, under which Duterte ran and won, as next House speaker.
“If it is really the people’s welfare they have in mind and not their party’s, then the LP must allow Duterte to reor-ganize Congress,” he added.
Meanwhile, three newly elected congressmen sub-mitted their certificates of proclamation to the secre-tary-general of the House, lawyer Marilyn Barua-Yap, as required by the rules of the chamber.
Tree-planting bill pushedBy Maricel V. CruzLAWMAKERS have vowed to refile in the coming 17th Congress a measure that would enhance and protect the country’s forest cover.
“We are all witnesses to nature’s fury. Global warming and climate change are now a real threat to humanity. We must do our part and act now to counter the prob-lem of biodiversity loss for the sake of the future generations,” Magdalo party-list Reps. Gary Alejano and Francisco Ashley Acedillo said in a statement.
The two lawmaker were referring to sev-eral pending measures in Congress that seek to promote environment protection.
Two of them are House Bills 3556, authored by outgoing Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rod-riguez, and HB 972” by Acedillo and Alejano.
The measures are under consideration by the House committee on reforestation which,
if not passed due to time constraint during the 16th Congress, are sure to be reintro-duced in the early days of the next Congress.
“While we recognize the right of the youth to a balanced and healthful ecology, as proclaimed in the 1987 Constitution, there is no reason why they cannot be made to contribute in order to ensure that this would be an actual reality,” Alejano said.
Alejano noted that HB 972 also com-plements Executive Order No. 26, issued by President Benigno Aquino III in 2011, which aims to mobilize students and gov-ernment employees to plant 1.5 billion trees over a period of six years from 2011 to 2016.
With over 12-million students graduating from elementary and nearly 5-million from high school, and almost 500,000 graduating from college each year, this initiative, if prop-erly implemented, will ensure that at least 175 million new trees would be planted each year, the Magdalo lawmakers pointed out.
Duterte meets Chinaambassador in Davao By Vito Barcelo and Macon Araneta
PRESIDENT-apparent Rodrigo Duterte met with Chi-nese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua in Davao City on Monday afternoon, a day after he said he was open to bilateral talks with Beijing over the territorial row in the West Philippine Sea.
“We had a very good conversa-tion,” Zhao said. “The Chinese side is looking forward [to work with] him and his team to further en-hance our bilateral relationship.”
The envoy, who was assigned to the country in 2014 when tension between Manila and Beijing was es-calating, did not reply when asked if the matter of the West Philippine Sea was discussed.
Zhao only said he congratulat-ed Duterte on his electoral victory and expressed China’s expecta-tion of working with the Philip-pine government to “properly deal with the differences, deepen traditional friendship and pro-mote mutually beneficial coop-eration, so as to bring the bilateral ties forward.”
He stressed that China and the
Philippines are good neighbors and quoted Duterte as saying he is will-ing to improve and develop China-Philippines relations and strength-en bilateral cooperation to benefit peoples of both countries.
Duterte reiterated what he had already said in Davao on Sunday when he told journalists he want-ed friendly relations with China and confirmed he was open to direct talks over a territorial row that has badly damaged bilateral ties.
“Well, ties have never been cold. But I would rather be friendly with everybody,” Duterte said.
Relations between China and the Philippines worsened sharply throughout Aquino’s six-year term over conflicting claims to parts of the South China Sea, one of the
world’s most strategically impor-tant waterways.
Duterte, who will be sworn into office on June 30, said he planned to continue raising the issue in multilateral environments, bit also stressed he would hold direct talks with China, if other negotia-tions failed.
“If the ship of negotiation is in still waters and there’s no wind to push the sail, I might just decide to talk bilaterally with China,” Du-terte said.
But Senator Antonio Tril-lanes IV, whom Duterte accused of “selling” Scarborough Shoal to China, warned that Duterte may be impeached if he keeps on saying that the Philippine has already lost its claim to Scarbor-ough Shoal.
Renewal of ties. Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte greets China Ambassador Zhao Jianhua, who called on the mayor on Monday ahead of his proclamation as duly-elected president of the Philippines. Duterte had earlier said he was open to bilateral talks with China over the South China Sea dispute. AFP PHOTO
Home is the ‘Tarlac’. The BRP Tarlac (LD-601), the country’s largest naval vessel to date, is officially welcomed to the Philippine Navy fleet after it arrived from Indonesia on Sunday. The Tarlac, the first of its class in the country, is a command ship with sealift capabilities. DANNY PATA
Scams proliferate; solon seeks probe By Maricel V. Cruz
A pArty-list lawmaker has sought a congressional probe in aid of legislation on the sud-den proliferation of investment scams in the country.
In filing House Resolution 2256, Rep. Christopher Co of Ako-Bicol party-list, said thousands of Filipinos have been enticed and fooled into entering these dubious deals, and are seemingly left vulnerable to these scams that continue to successfully form and prey upon the public despite the numerous laws being enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Co said that instead of preventing the occurrence of such illegal acts, the govern-ment merely responds to the resulting sit-uation which amounts to the loss of liveli-hood and life savings of the thousands of victims left financially and emotionally crippled by these unscrupulous invest-ment schemes.
Co, a member of the House majority bloc, said that numerous complaints have been filed against several compa-nies engaged in unauthorized invest-ment schemes such as multi-level net-working, sale of goods and even outright swindle.
“Last July 22, 2015, reports surfaced revealing a P3-billion investment scam involving a multi-level networking firm called One Dream Global Marketing Inc. or One Dream,” he said.
He said that One Dream promised that under a “pay-in” scheme, an investor pays P888, which is equivalent to a pen slot, which shall result in an “exit” or “pay-out: of P1,300 after four days.
“This Batangas-based firm, which be-gan its operations last May, allegedly vic-timized at least 20,000 people when One Dream’s president and chief executive of-ficer Arnel Gacer, and vice president Jo-belle de Guzman closed the corporation and took away about P12.7 million worth of investments from a group of 300 inves-tors,” Co said.
The party-list solon said that One Dream was registered with SEC as a firm involved in buying and selling various goods, but had no permit to engage in selling and marketing in-vestment products.
Co said that weeks before the inci-dent with One Dream, another company named Freedom Life Advanced Global Prosperity Marketing Inc. otherwise known as Flag Prosperity Marketing Inc. is being probed for alleged unauthorized selling of investments.
“FLAG, which is based in Calamba City, was reportedly engaged in recruiting indi-viduals in one to 15 slots, wherein one slot amounts to P1,500 each and has a prom-ised return of P2,2oo and also has One Dream’s president Arnel Gacer, as one of its incorporators,” he said.
The resolution noted that companies that are engaged in unauthorized sale of investments from the public are Suc-cess200 International Marketing Corp., Goldextreme Trading Co., One Light-ning Corp., and Emgoldex Philippines.
Students ask Rody: Scrap K-12MILITAnT students on Monday urged President-elect Rodrigo Du-terte to stop the K to 12 education program of President Benigno Aqui-no III.
“We appeal to our new president to heed our call to stop and junk the K to 12 program. To President Du-terte, do not allow our dreams and futures to be destroyed because of the K to 12 program implemented by the previous administration,” said a statement of Junior High School completer and Stop K to 12 Alliance spokesperson Princess Balaba.
Balaba finished grade 10 in a pub-lic high school in Quezon City and was one of the top students of her class.
Her family originally came from Eastern Visayas and they were among the thousands of families affected by Super Typhoon ‘‘Yolanda.’’
Balaba narrated that the slots for senior high school (SHS) in her current school are very limited. She noted that out of seven sections of grade 10 stu-dents, her school will only be offering two sections of grade 11 students.
Balaba said that her parents can-not afford a private SHS education and affirmed that she might drop out
of high school education if she can’t obtain a slot in her current school.
“President Duterte, enrollment has started but most of us have nowhere to go. The slots offered in public schools for senior high school is so scarce that some of us are already considering to drop out of our high school education because we cannot afford private sen-ior high schools,” said Balaba.
“Under K to 12, we are deprived of being a high school graduate even after finishing four years in high school. We will not be allowed to go to college. Even if we decide to go to work, we will have low wages because we weren’t able to at least finish high school education. President Duterte, under K to 12, there is only a pitch black future that awaits us,” Balaba added.
League of Filipino Students sec-retary-general Aries Gupit stressed that the K to 12 will only produce more drop-outs. He added that this education program certainly curtails the youth’s right to free public basic education.
“K to 12 is transforming our edu-cation into a lucrative business by al-lowing private schools to dominate senior high school. In the national
Capital Region alone, only 2 out of 10 SHS are public. Of the 933 senior high schools in the region, 736 are private schools with matriculation cost of 25,000 pesos up to more than 100,000 pesos,” said Gupit.
“DepEd pronouncements that there are more public schools offering senior high school are meaningless. These public schools have very lim-ited slots that they cannot even cater to half of their grade 10 students,” he added.
Gupit noted that under K to 12, at least 700 thousand to one million stu-dents will be either forced to enroll in private schools or drop out of their high school education.
“The ongoing chaos in enrollment is the result of the evil design of K to 12 to force students into private schools, make the most out of their pockets even at the expense of their right to educa-tion and future,” Gupit said.
Gupit also challenged the pre-sumptive president Rodrigo Duterte to end the K to 12 program. Accord-ing to him, the students welcome his early pronouncements against K to 12 and they expect Duterte to uphold his stand against Aquino’s main educa-tion platform.
Best foot forward. Forty-seven candidates for the beauty pageant Miss Earth Philippines 2016 from different regions of the country show their best foot forward during the media presentation at Diamond Hotel on Monday May 16. Pageant organizers promote the re-use and recycling of waste materials among ways to protect mother earth. DANNY PATA
Tax evasion raps vs Corona droppedBy Rio Araja
THE Court of Tax Appeals dismissed on Monday the multiple counts of tax evasion cases against ex-Supreme Court chief Justice Renato Corona because of his death.
The Second Division granted the motion for dismissal filed by Corona’s lawyer Reody Anthony Balisi, who maintained that Corona “died an innocent man.”
The camp of Corona cited Article 89 of the Revised Penal Code mandating “criminal liability is totally extinguished by the death of the convict or when the death of the offender occurs before final judgment.”
It also invoked Article 89 of the RPC stating the death of the convict or the accused also extinguishes his or her “personal and pecuniary” liabilities.
Corona was charged with six counts of violation Section 254 of the national Internal Revenue Code for alleged failure to file income taxes in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2010.
He was also charged before the Second Division a case of violation of Section 255 of nIRC for failure to file or to supply correct information in his income tax returns for the same years.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue and Department of Jus-tice alleged that Corona owed the government P120.5 mil-lion, inclusive of interests and surcharges, for his failure to pay taxes.
At 67, Corona died of cardiac arrest on April 29. Apart from the tax evasion cases, a civil forfeiture case and a perjury case were filed against Corona before Sandiganbayan also in connection with his alleged misdeclaration of assets.
Malacañang has set a 30-day review of a congress-ratified bill creating the Department of Information and communications Technology.
Pump pricesof diesel rise
By Rey E. Requejo
The people’s right to infor-mation is not absolute, but is rather confined to matters of public concern.
Supreme Court made this ruling as it denied the petition filed by Association of Petro-chemical Manufacturers of the Philippines led by its executive director Mario Jose e. Sereno, seeking to reverse a ruling of the Pasig City Regional Trial Court, Branch 268, that will compel the Committee on Tar-iff and Related Matters to re-lease to them certain data and documents.
“The constitutional guar-antee to information does not open every door to any and all information, but is rather confined to matters of public concern. It is sub-ject to such limitations as may be provided by law. The
State’s policy of full public disclosure is restricted to transactions involving pub-lic interest, and is tempered by reasonable conditions prescribed by law,” the SC stressed.
In a 13-page decision penned by Justice Lucas P. Bersamin, the tribunal up-held the decision of the Pasig City RTC dismissing the APMP’s petition for man-damus to compel CTRM to provide him a copy of the minutes of its May 23, 2005 meeting as well as to provide copies of all official records, documents, papers, and govennment research data used as basis for the issuance of executive Or-der No. 486. eO 486, signed by then President Arroyo on January 12, 2006, lifts the suspension of the tariff reduction on petrochemi-
cal resins and other plastic products under the ASeAN Free Trade Area–Common effective Preferential Tariff (AFTA-CePT) Scheme.
The SC held that two req-uisites must concur before the right to information may be compelled by writ of man-damus: first, the information sought must be in relation to matters of public concern or public interest; and second, it must not be exempt by law from the operation of the constitutional guarantee.
In the second requisite, the tribunal, citing chavez v. Public Estate authority, has already declared that the con-stitutional guarantee of the people’s right to information does not cover national secu-rity matters and intelligence information, trade secrets and banking transactions and criminal matters.
SC rules: Right to info not absolute
By Alena Mae Flores
DIeSeL prices went up by P0.30 per liter effective 6 a.m. Tuesday but there were no movements for gasoline and kerosene.
Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., Seaoil Philippines, PTT Philippines, Phoenix Petro-leum, Unioil Philippines and eastern Petroleum announced the price movement which re-flects the movement in world oil prices the previous week.
“eastern Petroleum will not adjust gasoline prices but will hike the price of diesel by P0.30 per liter at 6 a.m., Tuesday, May 17, 2016,” eastern said.
energy Secretary Zenaida Monsada said diesel prices went up due to higher demand from Vietnam and India.
There was no significant demand for other petroleum products like gasoline and kerosene last week amid the global supply glut.
Last May 10, most of the oil companies implemented a price rollback of P0.30 per lit-er for gasoline, P0.20 per liter for diesel and P0.40 per liter
for kerosene, effective today.World oil prices have been
significantly affected by the global supply glut.
The energy Department cited a recent Reuters survey wherein OPeC crude produc-tion rose in April to 32.64 mil-lion barrels per day, close to the highest level in recent history, led by Iran and Iraq, which output more than offset the lost production during strike in Kuwait and other outages.
In Asia, the department cited the report of global oil think tank Platts which stated the ample supply of gasoline in the region and the Middle east continued to weigh on sentiment, as re-gional demand was unable to mop up the excess barrels.
Demand in the region re-mained subdued, leading to a surplus of barrels. Market participants are said to be waiting on seasonal demand spikes in June and July to ab-sorb the supply.
More supply is expected to hit the market for June load-ing dates after Asian refineries complete their maintenance.
Surprise test. The National Police’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Group conducts a surprise drug test of all officers and personnel at Camp in Quezon City on Monday. MANNY PALMERO
Trading post. Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala (left) is guest of honor during the launching of the Benguet Agri-pinoy Trading Post in La Trinidad, a P40-million facility. In the same venue, he introduced a Filipino invention of a washing machine to be used by farmers in washing root crops before being shipped to retail outlets nationwide. The washing machine was an invention of engineer Donald Mateo of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. DAVID CHAN
According to the Presi-dential Legislative Liaison Office, the ICT bill was transmitted to Malacañang on May 10, Communica-tions Secretary herminio Coloma Jr. said in a state-ment on Monday.
“There’s a 30-day review period,” said Coloma.
Roughly four months after being ratified by Congress—and with a lit-tle more than a month left
before this administration ends—the measure that will form an ICT department is now in Malacañang for President Benigno Aquino III’s approval.
house Bill No. 6198, which the Senate adopted—hence, foregoing the need for a bi-cameral conference commit-tee to iron out any difference between versions—was rati-fied by both chambers in De-cember last year.
A delay occurred in Congress, house Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said on May 3 when asked for updates.
“We are in the process of submitting it to the OP; [I] don’t know why the delay,” Belmonte said.
John D. Forbes, senior ad-viser of the American Cham-ber of Commerce of the Phil-ippines, said that the business community has been advo-cating the establishment of a DICT for “over a decade.”
This is the closest the measure has gotten to being enacted.
“The entire business com-munity had been optimistic that it would be enacted in the 15th Congress,” Forbes said.
But the measure didn’t reach Malacañang during the 2010-2013 15th Con-gress because the confer-ence committee failed to meet, he recalled.
Belmonte said in June last year that lawmak-ers forming the bicameral conference committee in 2013 no longer acted on the measure, “because we got word that Malacañang will veto it.”
While it has constantly formed part of foreign and local business chambers’ legislative priorities, the DICT measure has never been included in Ma-lacañang’s separate list since Aquino assumed office at noon of June 30, 2010.
“The DICT, which almost all countries have, will pro-vide appropriate focus and support to the country’s massively important ICT sector,” 18 major local and foreign business chambers said in a joint May 15, 2015 letter to Aquino.
The country’s business process outsourcing sector already rivals—in terms of volume and growth—re-mittances from overseas Filipino workers as a key source of dollar inflows for the economy.
Last year saw growth of OFW remittances slow to 4.6 percent to $25.767 bil-lion from $24.628 billion in 2014, which saw a bigger 5.8 percent annual increment.
In comparison, data e-mailed yesterday by the IT and Business Processing Associa-tion Philippines showed rev-enues of its members grew 12 percent to an estimated $21.3 billion last year from $18.99 billion in 2014 (though that year also saw a bigger 24 per-cent increment from 2013).
Article VI, Section 27 of the 1987 Constitution says that any measure submitted to Malacañang lapses into law if the President fails to act on it within 30 days from receipt.
“I think the unknown is the president’s position,” Forbes said.
“hopefully the president would make it part of his legacy,” Forbes said.
DUMAGUETE CITY—Three of the four inmates of the Negros Oriental Deten-tion and Rehabilitation Cen-ter in Dumaguete City were killed in a shootout with police officers Sunday after-noon at a village in Tayasan town, Negros Oriental.
Police Insp. Jose Luis Lacandula, chief of police of Tayasan, confirmed that killed on the spot following a 30-minute exchange of gun-fire at Sitio Tinibgan, Baran-gay Saying in Tayasan, were Maximo Aspacio, Richard Balasabas and James Mag-dasal while a fourth inmate, Rico Bandico survived but was recaptured.
The four inmates had bolted the provincial jail in Dumaguete City on May 8 at 6 p.m., allegedly tak-
ing hostage a female pastor, identified as Nailyn Gaje of the Seventh Day Adventist Church who was immediate-ly released after getting out of the facility.
Police records show that the slain fugitives Aspacio, Balasabas and Magdasal were facing murder charges while Bandico is facing a criminal charge for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
The Tayasan police chief disclosed that concerned citizens reported to him the presence of strangers at Sitio Tinibgan.
When presented the pho-tographs of the fugitives, the tipsters confirmed these were the same individuals they had noticed in their com-munity, which prompted the police to organize a team for
the recapture of the escapees, said Lacandula.
The Negros Oriental Pro-vincial Police Office, headed by acting provincial police director Sr. Supt. Harris Fama, immediately deployed its Spe-cial Weapons and Tactics, the Provincial Public Safety Com-pany and the Provincial Intel-ligence Bureau to Tayasan, Lacandula added.
After a briefing, the teams proceeded to the area where the fugitives were hiding, specifically at the house of Bandico in Sitio Tinib-gan, about four kilometers away from the town proper, Lacandula said.
The fugitives allegedly refused to surrender and in-stead engaged the police in a firefight that lasted for about 30 minutes. PNA
Cops kill 3 of 4 inmateswho escaped Negros jail
ZAMBOANGA CITY—Four people were safely rescued while an esti-mated P15 million worth of properties went up in smoke in a more than four-hour fire that broke out early Monday in this city.
The fire, which broke out around 4:55 a.m. Monday, gutted a cinema and a department store located along Mayor Jal-don Street, Barangay Zone III, this city.
Chief Insp. Clint Cha, Zamboanga City Fire Dis-trict marshal, said the fire started at Viva Cinerama and spread to the four-story building occupied by the Unisales Metro Zam-boanga that deals with tex-tiles and other household products.
Cha said the fire started near the storeroom of the cinema’s orchestra section based on the testimonies of one of the four employ-ees the firemen rescued.
Cha said that the ZCFD first responders managed to rescue the four employ-ees although the blaze was already uncontrollable. The cinema was an old building.
“The fire was not visible outside since the cinema is an enclosed building,” he said.
The cinema is located in a building adjacent to the ZCFD headquarters as well as the Bureau of Fire Pro-tection regional office.
He said they declared fire out at 9:20 a.m. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined. PNA
By Dexter A. See
KIBUNGAN, Benguet—It took the tradi-tional drawing of lots to break the tie in the last seat for the eight-member munici-pal in this fifth-class town.
Young spectator. A boy waits on the streets of Lucban, Quezon to witness the festivities in the annual celebration of Pahiyas. The feast honors patron saint San Isidro Labrador. DANNY PATA
Summer lessons. Children in San Juan, La Union enjoy the last days of summer vacation by learning how to surf. DAVID CHAN
councilor gained the same number of votes, he re-quested the public who were inside the jampacked can-vassing center on how they should break the tie which is allowed under the provi-sions of the Omnibus Elec-tion Code.
“We had to render a quick decision at that time because the municipal can-vass results were already being awaited by the pro-vincial board of canvassers to facilitate the proclama-
tion of winners at the pro-vincial level,” Buenaventura stressed.
Upon consultation with the public, the concerned parties and the members of the municipal board of can-vassers, it was agreed that they would break the tie by drawing lots.
Aplat and Palukpok also agreed to respect the outcome of the drawing of lots and that the losing party would not file any motion for reconsid-eration before the municipal
board of canvassers which might cause further delay in the proclamation of the win-ning candidates for the mu-nicipal level.
Buenaventura took two pieces of paper which he marked “8” and “9.” The par-ties would pick a piece of pa-per to determine their fate.
Palukpok, a senior citi-zen, was the first to draw. He drew the number “9.” Palukpok immediately wished the new set of mu-nicipal officials well.
After the votes from all the clustered precincts in the dif-ferent barangays had been canvassed by the municipal board of canvassers, Onoda Alpat and Ben Palukpok were both tied for the eighth spot
with 1,921 votes while Joseph Cayad-an was in seventh place with 1,923 votes.
Richard Buenaventura, municipal election officer, said upon learning that the two aspirants for municipal
elections of 2010, 2013 and 2016. But ever since we hooked up with the Venezuelans run-ning that company, something has always seemed to go seri-ously wrong with our elections.
My favorite 2010 automated election anecdote involves former Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen, who protested that if the Comelec-Smartmatic count that year were to be believed, he did not even vote for himself in his own precinct. Dilangalen deadpanned that he would understand if his wife held a grudge against him that made her not vote for him; but he distinctly remembers, he said,
OPINIONA8
[ EDI TORI A L ]
ALTER EGOS
A9ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R
T U E S D AY : M AY 17, 2 0 1 6
OPINION
IT’S BEEN nine years. Maybe it’s about time we ended our messy, scandal-plagued relationship with that Venezuelan.
It’s just not working any-more. For starters, you’d think we’d have learned how to run an automated election by ourselves, using our abun-dant local talent and the les-sons we’ve learned in the past
three political exercises with the Commission on Elec-tions’ partner of choice, the infamous Smartmatic.
After all, as I recall, the orig-inal plan was to learn how to automate Philippine elections using Smartmatic’s technol-ogy. This was why the original bid for the automated election system designed a decade ago involved partnering with a local outfit in a joint venture scheme that would include the transfer of technology.
As for local talent, I have no doubt whatsoever that we
will be able to find the com-puter wizards who will be able to write the code for a homegrown program that will run on store-bought, cheaply sourced parts for the next elections. Every computer-savvy person I’ve talked to ac-tually wondered how hard that would be—to come up with our own, transparent, audit-friendly AES that will actually cost a lot less than the junk Smartmatic is foisting on us.
I really wouldn’t be belly-aching about Smartmatic if its record has been stellar in the
GOODBYE, GARCIA
IMAGINE the apostles with the Blessed Virgin Mary huddled together in the Up-per Room discussing what course of ac-tion to take after their Master ascended into heaven. With Peter taking the lead, they exchange thoughts and ponder the words of the Lord. The prospects are dim, always afraid what will become of them, and what the hostile Jews can do to them. They feel like abandoned or-phans. Suddenly, the sound of a violent wind blows from heaven and tongues of fire rest upon each one of them. The Spirit of God fills them, and they begin to speak different tongues.
As this happened during the Feast of Weeks, a Jewish festival celebrating the beginning of the early weeks of harvest, there are many pilgrims coming from different places. Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Ju-dea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia and a few other places. The Feast of Weeks sometimes called the Feast of Har-vest (Pentecost is the Greek term) was a pilgrim festival where Jewish pilgrims from all over the place would come in at-tendance to celebrate the festivities. Full of the Spirit of God, the apostles emerge from the room and begin proclaiming Jesus to people in their own native lan-guage. Many within hearing distance must have been amazed and bewildered by what they are hearing. Each one can hear the apostles’ proclamation in his own tongue. Aren’t these Galileans? They begin asking each other. The day of the Pentecost is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise before his ascension. After res-urrection, he gave his disciples instruc-tions for 40 days and promised to send them the Holy Spirit, the Helper. On the Day of the Pentecost, Peter preached his first sermon and 3,000 were converted and baptized.
The Holy Spirit, also known as the Ad-vocate, Helper, Holy Ghost and the Para-clete, among others, is the least under-stood among the three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity. We Christians believe in a Triune God manifested as the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. But many see the Holy Spirit in a different plain as the Father and the Son. Sometimes he is even regarded as inferior to the Father and the Son. Jesus himself attests to the Divine nature of the Holy Spirit: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me” (John 15:26).
Not being a theologian, I will not haz-ard an explanation on the nature of the Holy Spirit, for God is a mystery, well beyond the comprehension of a finite mind. That being said, the Scriptures are replete with revelations as to who God really is. From the various verses of the
SANCTIFYING THE WORLD
casting a vote for himself, which was never counted.
Right after the 2013 elections, a group of IT experts, politicians and other concerned citizens actually sued Smartmatic after a Venezuelan supervisor named Marlon Garcia al-legedly monkeyed around with the computer source code in its vote counting gadgets, then called Pre-cinct Count Optical Scan machines, right after the polls closed on elec-tion day. That case has languished
for so long in the Department of Jus-tice that Garcia apparently decided that it’s perfectly all right to pull the same stunt last May 9.
If the incoming president, Rodrigo Duterte, really wants change, perhaps he can spend a little time thinking about our stormy relationship with Smartmatic. And the next time the people at Comelec talk about con-tinuing the romance for one more election, Duterte can say “S-T-O-P, stop” already.
* * *The headline-grabbing story, of
course, is president-in-waiting Ro-drigo Duterte offering the Com-munist Party of the Philippines four departments in his soon-to-be-con-stituted Cabinet. But I have a small-er problem with one of the names Duterte actually mentioned, that of high-profile lawyer Salvador Panelo, whom the Davao City mayor nomi-nated as his presidential spokesman.
Continued on A11
AT HIS first press conference held in Davao City on Monday, presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte gave a preview of what is to happen under his administration.
He named those he is considering to appoint to his Cabinet. Some of the names: Alan Peter Cayetano, Perfecto Yasay, Carlos Dominguez, Art Tugade, Peter Laurel, Jesus Dureza, Bebot Bello, Salvador Panelo and Salvador Medialdea.
Duterte also said he would offer the Communist Party of the Philippines several positions in the Cabinet.
The Davao City mayor said he would name the members of his Executive family on his own, and he would refuse to take “recommendations” from lawmakers and other influential people who might try to broker appointments. It’s a good way to deter the age-old “backer” system in government positions.
Certainly, naming the members of his official family is the sole prerogative of the president. And because a Cabinet member is also known as the chief executive’s alter ego, he or she must be one who enjoys the trust and confidence of the latter. It is, after all, physically impossible for anybody to attend to numerous concerns of equal importance, making big and small decisions, at the same time.
This does not mean, we hope, that Duterte should not take advice from a competent and fair inner circle of advisers as well from public opinion.
That the appointee should have had ample experience and expertise —not just familiarity—in the field he is being assigned to is a given. So should the absence of irregularities. Cabinet secretaries should have all the time to attend to demands of their department. Other battles should not have a place in their calendar.
We hope too that this president would show himself different from his immediate predecessor by acting as the leader of all Filipinos, not just of those who supported him, voted for him and are allied with him.
Duterte has been called many things, but we hope he would be humble enough to acknowledge that one’s allies do not have the monopoly of expertise, or righteousness.
Rolando G. Estabillo Publisher Jojo A. Robles Editor-in-Chief Ramonchito L. Tomeldan Managing Editor Chin Wong/Ray S. Eñano Associate Editors Francis Lagniton News Editor Joyce Pangco Pañares City Editor Adelle Chua Senior Deskman Romel J. Mendez Art Director Roberto Cabrera Chief Photographer
MEMBERPhilippine Press InstituteThe National Association of Philippine NewspapersPPI
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Continued on A11
elections of 2010, 2013 and 2016. But ever since we hooked up with the Venezuelans run-ning that company, something has always seemed to go seri-ously wrong with our elections.
My favorite 2010 automated election anecdote involves former Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen, who protested that if the Comelec-Smartmatic count that year were to be believed, he did not even vote for himself in his own precinct. Dilangalen deadpanned that he would understand if his wife held a grudge against him that made her not vote for him; but he distinctly remembers, he said,
OPINIONA8
[ EDI TORI A L ]
ALTER EGOS
A9ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R
T U E S D AY : M AY 17, 2 0 1 6
OPINION
IT’S BEEN nine years. Maybe it’s about time we ended our messy, scandal-plagued relationship with that Venezuelan.
It’s just not working any-more. For starters, you’d think we’d have learned how to run an automated election by ourselves, using our abun-dant local talent and the les-sons we’ve learned in the past
three political exercises with the Commission on Elec-tions’ partner of choice, the infamous Smartmatic.
After all, as I recall, the orig-inal plan was to learn how to automate Philippine elections using Smartmatic’s technol-ogy. This was why the original bid for the automated election system designed a decade ago involved partnering with a local outfit in a joint venture scheme that would include the transfer of technology.
As for local talent, I have no doubt whatsoever that we
will be able to find the com-puter wizards who will be able to write the code for a homegrown program that will run on store-bought, cheaply sourced parts for the next elections. Every computer-savvy person I’ve talked to ac-tually wondered how hard that would be—to come up with our own, transparent, audit-friendly AES that will actually cost a lot less than the junk Smartmatic is foisting on us.
I really wouldn’t be belly-aching about Smartmatic if its record has been stellar in the
GOODBYE, GARCIA
IMAGINE the apostles with the Blessed Virgin Mary huddled together in the Up-per Room discussing what course of ac-tion to take after their Master ascended into heaven. With Peter taking the lead, they exchange thoughts and ponder the words of the Lord. The prospects are dim, always afraid what will become of them, and what the hostile Jews can do to them. They feel like abandoned or-phans. Suddenly, the sound of a violent wind blows from heaven and tongues of fire rest upon each one of them. The Spirit of God fills them, and they begin to speak different tongues.
As this happened during the Feast of Weeks, a Jewish festival celebrating the beginning of the early weeks of harvest, there are many pilgrims coming from different places. Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Ju-dea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia and a few other places. The Feast of Weeks sometimes called the Feast of Har-vest (Pentecost is the Greek term) was a pilgrim festival where Jewish pilgrims from all over the place would come in at-tendance to celebrate the festivities. Full of the Spirit of God, the apostles emerge from the room and begin proclaiming Jesus to people in their own native lan-guage. Many within hearing distance must have been amazed and bewildered by what they are hearing. Each one can hear the apostles’ proclamation in his own tongue. Aren’t these Galileans? They begin asking each other. The day of the Pentecost is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise before his ascension. After res-urrection, he gave his disciples instruc-tions for 40 days and promised to send them the Holy Spirit, the Helper. On the Day of the Pentecost, Peter preached his first sermon and 3,000 were converted and baptized.
The Holy Spirit, also known as the Ad-vocate, Helper, Holy Ghost and the Para-clete, among others, is the least under-stood among the three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity. We Christians believe in a Triune God manifested as the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. But many see the Holy Spirit in a different plain as the Father and the Son. Sometimes he is even regarded as inferior to the Father and the Son. Jesus himself attests to the Divine nature of the Holy Spirit: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me” (John 15:26).
Not being a theologian, I will not haz-ard an explanation on the nature of the Holy Spirit, for God is a mystery, well beyond the comprehension of a finite mind. That being said, the Scriptures are replete with revelations as to who God really is. From the various verses of the
SANCTIFYING THE WORLD
casting a vote for himself, which was never counted.
Right after the 2013 elections, a group of IT experts, politicians and other concerned citizens actually sued Smartmatic after a Venezuelan supervisor named Marlon Garcia al-legedly monkeyed around with the computer source code in its vote counting gadgets, then called Pre-cinct Count Optical Scan machines, right after the polls closed on elec-tion day. That case has languished
for so long in the Department of Jus-tice that Garcia apparently decided that it’s perfectly all right to pull the same stunt last May 9.
If the incoming president, Rodrigo Duterte, really wants change, perhaps he can spend a little time thinking about our stormy relationship with Smartmatic. And the next time the people at Comelec talk about con-tinuing the romance for one more election, Duterte can say “S-T-O-P, stop” already.
* * *The headline-grabbing story, of
course, is president-in-waiting Ro-drigo Duterte offering the Com-munist Party of the Philippines four departments in his soon-to-be-con-stituted Cabinet. But I have a small-er problem with one of the names Duterte actually mentioned, that of high-profile lawyer Salvador Panelo, whom the Davao City mayor nomi-nated as his presidential spokesman.
Continued on A11
AT HIS first press conference held in Davao City on Monday, presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte gave a preview of what is to happen under his administration.
He named those he is considering to appoint to his Cabinet. Some of the names: Alan Peter Cayetano, Perfecto Yasay, Carlos Dominguez, Art Tugade, Peter Laurel, Jesus Dureza, Bebot Bello, Salvador Panelo and Salvador Medialdea.
Duterte also said he would offer the Communist Party of the Philippines several positions in the Cabinet.
The Davao City mayor said he would name the members of his Executive family on his own, and he would refuse to take “recommendations” from lawmakers and other influential people who might try to broker appointments. It’s a good way to deter the age-old “backer” system in government positions.
Certainly, naming the members of his official family is the sole prerogative of the president. And because a Cabinet member is also known as the chief executive’s alter ego, he or she must be one who enjoys the trust and confidence of the latter. It is, after all, physically impossible for anybody to attend to numerous concerns of equal importance, making big and small decisions, at the same time.
This does not mean, we hope, that Duterte should not take advice from a competent and fair inner circle of advisers as well from public opinion.
That the appointee should have had ample experience and expertise —not just familiarity—in the field he is being assigned to is a given. So should the absence of irregularities. Cabinet secretaries should have all the time to attend to demands of their department. Other battles should not have a place in their calendar.
We hope too that this president would show himself different from his immediate predecessor by acting as the leader of all Filipinos, not just of those who supported him, voted for him and are allied with him.
Duterte has been called many things, but we hope he would be humble enough to acknowledge that one’s allies do not have the monopoly of expertise, or righteousness.
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Continued on A11
I’m sure there will be a petition for injunction filed against her. With Congress still investi-gating the alleged in-tervention in computer system in favor of Ro-bredo, the whole proc-lamation by Congress of the winning candidates could be endangered. This would adversely affect the stability of our nation.
If we must blame anybody in particular over the mess the na-tion is in right now, it’s BS Aquino. He wants to save his skin. It’s not Smartmatic. Bongbong and Leni are both vic-tims.
Leni may not real-ize it, but, she’s only a pawn here. BS Aquino is desperate not to land
in jail.IT experts are one in
saying that vote-shaving or “bawas dagdag” or “dagdag bawas” became possible to make Robre-do win. In fact, there are now instances when the votes of Senator Chiz Escudero were taken to add to Leni’s votes. The Marcos camp has proof of this.
Despite all this, I still believe Leni is not in it. This is solely the machi-nation of BS Aquino and the Liberal Party when they realized that Mar Roxas could not make it. That’s why I am surprised that Leni is claiming victory. It’s premature to do so.
Another scenario which I think is best for the nation is the nulli-
fication of the election for vice president.
In fact, there is al-ready a plan by IT ex-perts of the Marcos camp that they would file a petition for the nullification before the Supreme Court in the wake of this furor.
Indeed, as I said, the first year of the Duterte administration will be a turbulent year.
* * *I have asked many
businessman-fr iends what they think of the eight-point economic agenda of presiden-tial-elect Rodrigo Roa Duterte. I got posi-tive responses. They all agreed that with Davao business Carlos “Son-ny” Dominguez lead-ing Duterte’s economic
advisers, the Duterte administration is on the right track.
I know Sonny per-sonally and I have noth-ing but respect and ad-miration for him when he was Agriculture Secretary of the Cory Aquino administration. He was a doer and an achiever. Sonny briefly also served under the Ramos administration until he went back to business in Davao.
Sonny’s eight-point agenda for the econo-my may somewhat fol-low some of the eco-nomic policies of BS Aquino and GMA. In-frastructure and tax reform, however, are what the country needs. What the Duterte
OPINIONT U E S D AY : M AY 17, 2 0 1 6
A10
WHEN I woke up and started reading news-papers yesterday, I was rather confused when an unabashedly pro-administration broad-sheet had as its banner headline vice presiden-tial candidate Leni Ro-bredo claiming victory over Senator Bongbong Marcos.
Another broadsheet, however, was more objective, saying that while Marcos was lead-ing in the Comelec’s official but partial can-vass, Leni was “sure” of winning.
Leni’s stance is now the opposite of what she earlier said, that if she wins, she would not aspire for the presi-dency. Now, Leni is be-ing ambitious with the thought that BS Aqui-no’s “Plan B” would ma-terialize, and she would eventually be president when Davao City May-or Rodrigo Duterte gets impeached by the Liberal Party.
In the wake of so many complaints about that overnight surge of votes for Leni, and given the controversy about Smartmatic’s changing of the hash code in the transparen-cy server of the Come-lec without author-ity, it is logical that the Comelec has to delay the proclamation of the vice president.
For the sake of our stability as a nation, the proclamation of the president and the 12 duly-elected senators could continue. The absence of a vice presi-dent has no bearing, anyway. There is no provision for it under the Constitution.
As for that Smart-matic project director who tinkered with the hash code in the trans-parency server, com-promising the entire integrity of the election process, an investiga-tion has already been scheduled by Congress. Meanwhile, hold de-parture orders must
be issued on all Smart-matic officials. What they did was economic sabotage.
If that project di-rector of Smartmatic truly did what he did, he could have done something else to make Robredo look like she’s winning.
Note this well: While the nation went to sleep with Bongbong win-ning by a million votes over Leni, the lead started getting nar-rower, and then at three o’clock in the morning, Leni overtook Bong-bong. Isn’t this suspi-cious enough? Smart-matic has become an adjunct of Malacañang as it was during the 2010 and 2013 polls.
The Comelec may be in it, too, Santa Banana, since Chairman Andres Bautista keeps saying that the change was merely cosmetic. It was Commissioner Rowena Guanzon who said that the breach of protocol must be investigated because the integrity of the election process has been compromised. Remember what I have been saying all along that there are still “little Garcis” at the Comelec.
I say proclaim the winners for the presidential and senatorial races, but delay the proclamation of the vice president. The people must be assured that whoever gets proclaimed is the real winner.
If Leni were to be proclaimed, as BS Aquino and the Liberal Party would want it,
THE REAL CULPRIT
MORE ON THE LP PLAN VS. DUTERTE AND ON THE NOVOTEL INCIDENT
MAR Roxas has conceded the presidential election to Rodrigo Duterte, but his Liberal Party still has something up its sleeve. After conceding defeat, Roxas urged his followers in the LP to guard the votes of his vice presidential running mate, Leni Robredo. As of that time, Robredo was in a tight race against her main rival, Bongbong Marcos.
The Roxas defeat only means Roxas is no longer in the LP politi-cal plans for the predictable future. It does not mean the LP is giving up on its desire to stay in power. In fact, the LP intends to remain in power through a Robredo vice pres-idency. That is why Roxas urged his followers to guard Robredo’s votes.
Last week, this column dis-cussed the LP “secret plan” to seize the presidency from Duterte through Robredo. The plan calls for a Robredo victory over Bong-bong. After that, LP strategists will exploit every opportunity to em-barrass Duterte and portray him as a ruthless killer. The LP plan cul-minates with “EDSA IV”—a “peo-ple power” revolt to oust Duterte and to install Robredo before the end of 2016.
Under this arrangement, the LP regains power, and President Benig-no Aquino III will be assured that he will not face criminal charges for the large-scale corruption under his administration.
More details of the LP “secret plan” have become obvious.
The plan starts with measures to prevent the public and the me-dia from getting suspicious about the lead Robredo currently has over Bongbong in the election. Ro-bredo’s lead is suspicious because after trailing Bongbong by more than a million votes on the first day, Robredo managed to catch up two days later, and now leads Bongbong by 200,000.
A week before election day, Roxas was fourth place in the surveys. Surprisingly, Roxas made it to second place a few days prior to election day. Roxas’ sudden leap in the surveys is incredible because the number of previously undecided survey respondents was far less than the number of respondents added to those already supporting Roxas.
Perhaps, the suspicious lead Ro-bredo has over Bongbong can be traced to the Novotel controversy which took place in the early morn-ing of election day, May 9, 2016. The news media discovered that 20 foreign executives of Smartmatic were actually billeted at the No-votel hotel located at the Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City. The LP general campaign headquarters is located at Novotel, and the Ara-neta Center is owned by the family of Roxas.
Since Smartmatic provided the voting machines used in the elections, the contracted stay of 20 of its executives at the same hotel where the LP general campaign headquarters is located invites suspicion.
Commission on Elections Chair-man Andres Bautista admitted that the foreign executives from Smart-matic were in town to help the Comelec in the elections. Bautista added that the foreign executives are assigned to the Comelec’s Na-tional Technical Support Center lo-cated near Talayan Village in north-ern Quezon City—which is far, far away from the Comelec election command center at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City.
It is imperative for the LP to cover up the Novotel controversy because it raises embarrassing and incriminating questions. Foreigners are not allowed to get involved in Philippine elections, so why were the foreign executives of Smartmatic involved in the election? Does the Comelec have the power to amend the law and permit foreigners to intervene in the polls? If the role of the foreign executives is purely technical but vital, why were they not based at the Comelec election command center at the PICC, which ought to be the logical base of their “technical support” operations?
There are many fine hotels in Metropolitan Manila for the Smart-matic foreign executives to select from. Why did they choose to billet themselves at Novotel where the LP general campaign headquarters was located? Were they hosted by the LP? If so, then the LP will have a lot of explaining to do.
On the other hand, if the Comelec paid for the hotel accommodations of the foreign executives, why did the Comelec allow them to stay in the same hotel where the LP general campaign headquarters is located?
If Smartmatic paid for the hotel accommodations, then that means these foreign executives were in the country in their own private capaci-ties to help the Comelec in the elec-tions—but in violation of the legal prohibition against alien involve-ment in Philippine elections.
Clearly, therefore, the LP cannot afford to let the Novotel controversy develop into a scandal. This means the LP must keep public attention away from this controversy.
Notwithstanding this “Novotel-gate scandal,” the next step in the LP plan is to organize public opinion against Bongbong Marcos to jus-tify the proclamation of Robredo as
IT’S UP TO GOVERNMENTS TO STOP ENABLING CORRUPTION
Bloomberg editorial
IT WILL take more than a “Global Declaration Against Corruption” to rid the world of an age-old scourge, but don’t dismiss last week’s anti-corruption summit in London too quickly. The surge of interest in the issue is all to the good—and an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted.
Graft may always be with us, but governments can choose either to tolerate and even assist it, or to confront it vigorously. One of the simplest and best ways to fight back is through sharing information.
Letting the fruits of bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion be hidden away enables the crime.
Ahead of the meeting, more than 300 economists called on world leaders to restrict the use of shell companies and vehicles that conceal the ownership of assets. They make a good case. There’s nothing wrong with owning assets abroad, and investors are entitled to expect appropriate confidentiality—but that doesn’t justify a policy of hiding information from other tax and law enforcement authorities.
Pressure on governments
that offer such invisibility can yield results. Following the outcry over the so-called Panama Papers, for example, Panama and four other jurisdictions have promised to share information on nonresidents’ holdings of assets.
Yet tax havens aren’t necessarily poor or small. British Prime Minister David Cameron was recently caught on camera calling Nigeria “fantastically corrupt.” At the summit, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, elected on an anti-corruption platform, didn’t dissent. Instead, he asked for Britain’s help in finding
stolen Nigerian assets parked in London.
Real estate is one of the easiest ways to launder ill-gotten wealth, and in this regard, Britain has developed a reputation it shouldn’t want. More than 100,000 properties in England and Wales, and more than 44,000 in London alone, are owned by foreign companies. Cameron has promised changes, such as making foreign companies that own property in the UK declare their assets on a new public register. He’s also announced plans for a new anti-corruption coordination center in London, and tougher treatment for
executives who fail to prevent fraud or money laundering in their companies.
The US is another haven for offshore wealth. “How ironic—no, how perverse —that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour,” wrote one Swiss lawyer recently. Earlier this month, the White House said it would act to restrict the use of shell companies in the US.
Steps like these shouldn’t need to wait for global corruption summits. But better late than never.
the winner in the vice presidential race. Therefore, references to martial law will be made against Bongbong in the media, in order to make an anomalous Robredo victory over Bongbong palatable even to voters who do not like the LP, and who did not vote for Robredo.
Then three to six months into the Duterte presidency, the LP strategists will religiously monitor everything Duterte and his officers will do, and take notice of each shortcoming. These shortcomings will then be highlighted in the news me-dia. At the same time, Robredo will be portrayed by the LP as an ideal substitute for Duterte.
Since Duterte promised to solve the law and order problem in the country within three to six months from his assuming office, pro-LP elements and hirelings will disseminate as much anti-Duterte publicity they can generate during this period, for the purpose of making Duterte look like he is unable to fulfill his campaign promise. When that happens, the LP strategists will urge the unsuspecting public to collectively demand the resignation of Duterte. If Duterte refuses to resign, the “people power” strategy will be resorted to.
Bible we can derive the Father as the creator, the Son Jesus Christ as the redeemer and the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier.
But what is the role of a sancti-fier? A person in a state of grace is sanctified by the Holy Spirit through his gifts which, accord-ing to current Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 1831) “They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them.” Infused with God’s gifts, a soul responds to the prompt-ings of the Holy Spirit as if by instinct, the way Christ Himself would. The gifts of the Holy Spir-it are wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord. Wis-dom allows us to value properly the revealed truths of our faith. Understanding engenders in us a certitude of our faith and the truths as revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Counsel enables us to dis-cern God’s will in every situation.
Knowledge allows us to see the hand of God in everything that we do. Fortitude is moral courage and allows us to sacrifice every-thing, even our comforts or life, for our faith. Piety is reverence and devotion to God. And finally, fear of the Lord.
How then do these gifts of sanctification act upon a soul? An individual who, leading a dissolute life, is pricked by the pangs of his conscience. Full of remorse, he turns his back on his sins, and is sanctified by the Holy Spirit. A tax cheat, because of his belief in Jesus Christ, pays his full taxes, and is sanctified. A voter who, because of his faith, refuses to accept money in exchange for his vote to a particular candidate, is also sanctified. An employee, who refuses to take a bribe out of fear of God, is likewise sancti-fied. The more a person aspires to be holy and acts upon this aspiration, the more the Holy Spirit showers him with God’s
gifts of sanctification. As we can see, the Holy Spirit and his sanctifying action, invisible as he may seem, is an abiding real-ity. It is not an archaic and irrel-evant notion of a higher being but a relevant, contemporary and crucial reality. The coming of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost happened not only two thou-sand years ago but it continues to take place this very day.
Of course, God, not being an autocrat, does not impose him-self upon us. He respects our free will. He does not dwell upon a soul uninvited. He comes only to those who are welcoming and who respond to his invitation ac-cordingly. But God, merciful and forgiving he may be, is also a just God. In the end it is our choices that will determine our final des-tiny. As one Roman philosopher says: our life today will echo in eternity.
Facebook: tonylavs5 or Dean Tony La Viña Twitter: tonylavs
More... From A10 Sanctifying... From A9
administration must prioritize above his fight against criminality, illegal drugs and corruption is job creations to make business and industry alive again. I am also glad that the incoming president knows that there’s need to ease the restriction on foreign investments by amending the Constitution.
Like what I have been saying, above everything else, there’s need for healing political wounds and unification of the country. There is the issue of the burial of the remains of the late strongman Fer-dinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. There is also the release of former President Glo-ria Macapagal Arroyo from hospital detention, where she has been for almost four years now. The evidence against her in that P336-million plunder case is weak. She simply continues to languish in jail because of a vindictive BS Aquino.
* * *It is said that newly elected Davao Mayor Sara
Duterte will be with President Duterte in of-ficial functions as first lady, but it will be Hon-eylet Avencena, Duterte’s common-law wife and live-in partner, who will stay at Malacañang, to
handle the Palace.Some unsolicited advice: President Duterte
should just marry Honeylet and avoid all snide re-marks against the president living in Malacañang with a mistress. After all, Duterte, under the law, is considered single.
It may not be uncommon for a president to rule a country with a mistress—there was former French president Nikolas Sarkozy, for instance—but the Philippines is predominantly Catholic. That our leader should live at Malacañang with a mistress leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Another piece of advice: There are reports that when he goes to the Vatican to personally seek the forgiveness of Pope Francis for what he said—he cursed the Pope for the traffic in which Duterte gotr stuck for hours—President Duterte will also meet with communist party leader Joma Sison in Utrecht, Belgium.
Duterte should not see Sison—it’s unbecoming of a president. He should just wait for Sison to come to the Philippines to pursue peace with the government if he’s truly sincere about it.
Duterte may be a friend of Sison, but, he is also the president of a country that is at war with com-munist insurgents.
The real... From A10
Goodbye... From A9
I don’t know if Duterte is sending a message to the media by throwing out Panelo’s name as spokesman. After all, the abrasive, combative Panelo is probably the last person you’d want to speak for you, if you were president.
All this time, I thought Duterte would appoint the self-ef-facing but thoroughly effective Peter Tiu Laviña to be his offi-cial mouthpiece. Laviña did a fine job of speaking for Duterte during the campaign and has in the process developed great relationships with the reporters and other journalists he inter-acted with on a daily basis during the period.
Panelo, of course, was Duterte’s answer to Senator Antonio Trillanes, who accused the mayor of hiding billions of pesos in bank accounts at a BPI branch in Ortigas Center. And Panelo did a fine job of going mano a mano with Trillanes, who has since gone into hibernation.
But turning a publicity-seeking lawyer known for his high acceptance fees and controversial clients like Mayor Antonio Sanchez and the Ampatuans into a presidential spokesman? That’s a terrible mistake, I think.
Duterte must hate the media so much that he will inflict Panelo on them.
* * *And what should we make of this current member of the
Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board who recently hailed Duterte’s election as the best thing that happened to road discipline nationwide? I think LTFRB member Ariel Inton only wants to keep his job, like so many officials of the Aquino administration who are making a beeline for Davao City.
Just stop, board member Inton. If you and the rest of Aquino’s men at the LTFRB failed so miserably in the last six years, you shouldn’t be given six more to do more of the same thing.
Sealed with a kiss. Oscar Clark is kissed by the podium girls after he was given the king of the moun-tain jersey following Stage 1 of the Amgen Tour of California on May 15, in San Diego, California. AFP
Day captures US PGA Players ChampionshipMIAMI—World number one Jason Day overcame a sluggish start Sun-day to win the US PGA Players Championship, firing a final-round one-under-par 71 to complete a wire-to-wire victory.
Open at Oakmont.“I’m very motivated to stay
at number one,” Day said. “This definitely gives me that extension on the gap between one and two and I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the year.”
The victory made Day the third reigning world number one to capture the Players, join-ing Woods and Greg Norman, and the fourth Aussie to win the event after Norman, Adam Scott and Steve Elkington.
Day’s caddie for a decade, Colin Swatton, said his man battled his instincts down the stretch to claim the victory.
“All day it was just stay pa-tient, pick your moments and let the course come to us. He’s like a Formula One (guy). He wants to have the hammer down all the time. It’s hard at times for him not to hit the driver. It showed a lot of con-fidence, patience and trust.”
AFP
Day matched the TPC Saw-grass course record with an opening-round 63 and followed with a 66 on his way to a 72-hole total of 15-under 273 for a four-stroke victory over Ameri-can Kevin Chappell.
“This is up there,” Day said when asked the magnitude of his 10th career US PGA triumph in a tournament often seen as golf ’s unofficial fifth major.
“I just wanted to win this so bad. This could possibly push me over to get into the Hall of Fame one day and I’m just glad I managed to win it.”
The 28-year-old Australian took a top prize of $1.89 mil-lion (1.67 million euros) at the $10.5 million event, collecting his seventh win in 17 starts -- his fifth in a row when leading
after 54 holes.“I’m going to hold this mem-
ory for a long time,” Day said.The Aussie made bogeys at
the sixth and ninth holes to car-ry only a two-shot edge onto the back nine, but responded with key birdies at 10 and 12 and an-other at the par-5 16th to hold off a host of rivals.
“I was really nervous on the front side and it showed,” Day said. “Then on the back side I was able to hold on.”
Chappell fired a 69 to fin-ish second on 277, one stroke ahead of fellow Americans Jus-tin Thomas, Ken Duke, Matt Kuchar and Colt Knost with Italy’s Francesco Molinari and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama sharing seventh on 279.
It was the second start-to-
finish triumph of the season for Day, who also led after every round in taking the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. Since 1980, only Tiger Woods has had two wire-to-wire US PGA wins in the same year.
Day’s impressive victory run over the past 10 months includes his first major title at last Au-gust’s PGA Championship, the Barclays and BMW Champion-ship in last year’s US PGA play-offs and this year’s World Golf Championships Match Play.
Day, who stretched his mar-gin over second-ranked Jor-dan Spieth after the American missed the cut, has top-10 fin-ishes in the past four majors and will try to add to his ma-jor win total by dethroning Spieth in next month’s US
Murray masters Djoko in RomeROME, Italy—Britain’s Andy Murray said pride at becoming a new father may have given him the edge as he stunned world number one Novak Djokovic to win his maiden Rome Masters title.
Murray, the number two seed who suffered defeat to Djokovic in last week’s Masters final in Madrid, cel-ebrated his 29th birthday in style on Sunday with a stylish 6-3, 6-3 victory in one hour, 35 minutes.
It is only Murray’s third clay-court title after his maiden victories on the red dirt in Munich and Madrid last year, but comes in timely fashion just two weeks before the start of the French Open at Roland Garros.
Becoming the first Briton to win in Rome since Patrick Hughes in 1931, it is also the first time Murray’s name has been added to a trophy since the birth of his daughter four months ago.
He said the arrival of his daughter has changed his outlook on life, but believes it will ultimately “have a pos-itive effect on my tennis career”.
“The last thing I looked at today be-fore I went on the court was a picture of my daughter,” said Murray.
In reality, Murray’s clay-court game is coming along nicely but a week af-ter his Madrid defeat the stars aligned for the Scot.
“Every time I go up against him I know I have to play great tennis to win,” said Murray. “Any time you beat the best player in the world, it’s a big win.”
After Roger Federer fell in the third round, Murray was already assured of jumping one place up to number two in the ATP rank-ings when they are announced on Monday, albeit well behind runaway leader Djokovic. AFP
Blues beat SharksLOS ANGELES—Brian Elliott produced a goaltending master-class as the St. Louis Blues edged out the San Jose Sharks 2-1 in the opening game of their NHL West-ern Conference finals series on Sunday.
Blues goalie Elliott made a stag-gering 32 saves as St. Louis took an early advantage in the best-of-sev-en series at their home Scottrade Center rink.
David Backes had fired St. Louis into a 1-0 lead in the first period before Tomas Hertl leveled shortly afterwards to make it 1-1.
Jori Lehtera scored an unassisted goal midway through the second period to break the deadlock, and St. Louis then hung on for a 2-1 vic-tory.
Elliott’s masterful display in the goal proved to be decisive, with the goalie stopping 32 of 33 shots throughout.
The goalie’s refusal to be beaten included a spell of ferocious pres-sure in the second period when he saved all 16 shots by San Jose.
Elliott also held firm in a frantic finale as the Sharks pulled opposite number Martin Jones out as an ex-tra attacker.
Sharks coach Peter DeBoer ad-mitted his team had paid the price for failing to capitalize on their dominant second period.
“The tragedy of the second pe-riod was we spent the whole period in their end and lost the period 1-0,” DeBoer said. “That was basi-cally the game.
“We had to score more than one goal tonight. We had plenty of chances to do that. We had some opportunities to score more than the one we got, and we’ve got to cash in.”
Backes meanwhile heaped praise on Elliott’s performance. AFP
TOKYO —Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday vowed co-operation with French investigators probing payments allegedly made to help Tokyo secure the 2020 Olym-pics.
“I have instructed the education and sports minister to fully cooper-ate in the investigation,” Abe told lawmakers in parliament, Jiji Press reported.
“Education and sports minister Hi-roshi Hase told the Japanese Olympic Committee and the former bid com-mittee to cooperate in the investiga-tion,” Abe was quoted as saying.
French prosecutors on Thursday said they were investigating $2 mil-lion in payments, suspecting they were aimed at winning support for Tokyo’s successful bid to host the 2020 Games.
On Friday, Japan’s Olympic chief insisted that the payments were “le-gitimate” and were for consulting work.
The payments to a bank account in Singapore were first revealed by Brit-ain’s Guardian newspaper.
Sources told AFP that French in-vestigators suspected the money was aimed at helping Tokyo secure the 2020 Games. AFP
Abe vows to supportinvestigation
Making a splash. Norbert Szabo swims to a third place finish in the men’s 200m IM during the 2016 Arena Pro Swim Series at Charlotte swim meet at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center on May 15, in Charlotte, North Carolina. AFP
grace ForumWINNERS of the Test of Will fit-ness event bound for Singapore will make a personal appear-ance as special guests in today’s session of the Philippine Sports-writers Association Forum at Shakey’s Malate.
Noelle Wenceslao, Zoe Pond-McPherson, Derrick Mercado, and Merwin Torres are going to talk about their expectations for the coming Asian Champion-ships during the session aired live over DZSR Sports Radio 918 and presented by San Miguel Corp., Shakey’s, Accel, and the Philip-pine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
Joining them in the 10:30 a.m. public sports program is Under Armour Philippines managing director Christine Majadillas.
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
REIGNING World Boxing Federation world super featherweight champion Harmolito “Hammer” dela Torre of General Santos City will finally make his long-delayed debut in the United States on May 28 (Manila time) against Guillermo Sanchez, regarded as a mediocre opponent with a record of 15-18-1, with 6 knockouts, according to boxrec.com.
Dela Torre’s manager and youthful head of Sanman Pro-motions Jim Claude Mananquil based in General Santos City announced that Dela Torre will face Sanchez, who is from Puer-to Rico but fights out of Buffa-lo, New York in an eight-round
bout at the Seneca Niagara Re-sort and Casino, Niagara Falls in New York.
The lanky 5’8” Dela Torre is unbeaten in 17 fights with 12 knockouts, while the southpaw Sanchez, who stands one inch taller, may have a forgettable
record but has the distinction of having fought Adrien Broner, the current WBA super lightweight champion on Sept. 4, 2010, when he lost by a second-round TKO in a scheduled 10-round bout.
The 22-year-old Dela Torre, a former WBF International and Philippine Boxing Federtion su-per featherweight champion, said: “I am very happy and excited that my fight in the US will finally push through.”
Dela Torre was scheduled to face Wanzell “Venom” Ellison of New Jersey, USA last Oct. 23 at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, but the late release of his visa resulted in the cancellation of the fight. Ellison from New Jer-sey has a record of 11- 1-1 with 5 knockouts.
“We would like to thank Greg
Cohen and Adam Wilcock for giving him (Dela Torre) anoth-er chance to fight in the USA,” Mananquil said.
In his last fight on Nov. 14, 2015, Dela Torre won by a second-round TKO over Richard Betos in a scheduled eight-round bout af-ter beating veteran Eusebio Balu-arte by a fourth-round TKO in a scheduled 10-round bout on June 7, 2015.
The fight against Betos was a tune-up after Dela Torres’ planned bout in the US was called off.
Dela Torre has been training early for his US debut since early this year.
In fact, Manangquil hired Ernie Sanchez (15W-7L-1D) of High-land Stable as one of Dela Torre’s sparring partners at the Sanman Gym in General Santos City.
SULTAN Kudarat bets Car-lyn Bless Guarde and April Minette Bantillo shone at the recent Butuan leg of the na-tionwide Cebuana Lhuillier Age-Group Tennis Champi-onship Series, now on its first decade of producing young tennis champions from dif-ferent provinces all over the country.
Guarde, a bronze medalist in the last Palarong Pamban-sa, defeated Cagayan de Oro’s Mary Aubrey Calma, the top seed and the dominant player in both the 16- and 18-under girls’ categories, for her two titles.
She blanked Calma, 6-0, 6-0, for the 16-under crown and repeated, 6-4, 6-4, in the 18-under finals, while Bentillo faced off against different op-ponents in the finals but with the same results.
Bentillo had an easy victory over Casey Padilla, 6-2, 6-0, in the 12-under girls’ finals, while disposing of Ma. An-
gelica Novis, 6-4, 6-3, in the finals of the 14- under girls.
Padilla bowed to Lanao del Norte’s Heinz Asian Car-bonilla, 0-4, 0-4, in the finals of the 10-under unisex cat-egory in the tournament, but teamed up with Carbonilla to win the 10-under doubles’ title with a 4-0, 4-0 win over Allyson Carbonilla and Stefe Marithe Aludo in the tour-nament backed by Dunlop Sports as official ball.
“We are impressed with Guarde for her double vic-tory as she beat someone, who has been dominating those age-group categories. This shows the rapid devel-opment of provincial tennis talents. Bentillo, meanwhile, is showing a lot of promise,” said Jean Henri Lhuillier, President/CEO of the spon-soring Cebuana Lhuillier and who has been following the progress of this tennis developmental program he initiated 10 years ago.
Gonzales, Capadocia rule Toby’s tiltDEFENDING champion Cenon Gonzales Jr. and Charito Jade Capadocia bested their respective rivals in the 18-and-under age cat-egory recently to top the 15th Toby’s-Wilson Summer Ten-nis Festival at the Rizal Me-morial Tennis Center.
Gonzales Jr., the top seed in his category, whipped Emma-nuel Fuellas, 6-0, 6-2, to bag the boys’ 18-and-under sin-gles’ trophy, while Capadocia blanked Bettina Bautista, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4, to top the girls’ 18-under singles’ division.
Stefano Gurria beat RJ Virrey, 6-3, 6-3, to clinch the boy’s 16-and-under tro-phy of the tournament sup-ported by Toby’s Sports and
Wilson, in cooperation with the Philippine Tennis As-sociation, Equipe, AQ and Gatorade.
Top seed Aljohn Talatayod defeated Matthew Garcia, 6-4, 6-3, to win the boys’ 14-and-under title, while Luis Miguel Vicencio trounced Shant Nuguit, 6-2, 6-1, to get the boys’ 12-and-under trophy and top seed Brent So bashed Lukas Yupangco, 4-2, 4-2, for the 10-and-under unisex crown.
Joaquin De Leon won over Don Silvan Miguel, 8-5, to win the 12-and-un-der boys’ non-rank singles and Theodore Serrano beat Michael Jay Fuentes, 8-7, to win the boys’ 16-and-under
singles’ non rank.In other girls’ champion-
ship results, No. 1 Macie Carlos blasted Marriane Amelie Matta, 6-0, 6-1, to gain the girls’ 14-and-under crown, while second seed Adeline Abadia crushed Jus-tine Maneja, 6-4, 6-2, to take home the girls’ 12-and-under trophy.
Francesca Marie Cruz won over Macie Carlos via walk over to claim the girls’ 16-and-under trophy, while Felicia Araneta outplayed Be-atriz Cruz, 8-7, to take home the girls’ 12-and-under non rank crown and Cindy Nu-guit beat Eliza Marie Geluz, 8-1, to win the girls’ non-rank 16-and-under title.
The finalists of the 15th Toby’s Sports Wilson Summer Tennis Festival are shown with Toby’s Retail Channel head Lawrence Navarro (extreme left) and Tournament Director Chris Cuarto (extreme right) during the awarding and closing ceremony.
Harmolito Dela Torre wants to hammer Guillermo Sanchez when he makes his US debut.
Republic of the Philippines ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION
San Miguel Avenue, Pasig City
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION FOR APPROVAL OF CAPITAL PROJECTS WITH PRAYER, FOR PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY
Notice is hereby given that on 07 August 2015, Cabanatuan Electric Corporation (CELCOR) filed an application for approval of its capital projects, with prayer for provisional authority.
In the said application, CELCOR alleged, among others, the following:
1. CELCOR is a domestic corporation duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the Republic of the Philippines, with principal office address at Maharlika Highway, Barangay Bitas, Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija;
2. CELCOR is the authorized operator of the electric light and power service in the City of Cabanatuan, Province of Nueva Ecija;
COSTS OF THE PROPOSED CAPITAL PROJECTS
3. CELCOR plays a big part in Cabanatuan City’s economic development by providing a steady and reliable electric supply to its industrial, commercial and residential customers. It continuously improves its supply of electricity and increases the standard of living through the construction of adequate electric facilities to serve the city’s requirements;
4. Pursuant to the requirements of the Philippine Distribution and Grid Code (PGDC), the system must be designed, planned and upgraded so as to withstand a disturbance at any given time due to unexpected loss or failures, in a manner that will not degrade or affect the network operation;
5. CELCOR seeks authority from the Commission to install, construct, operate and maintain its major electrical and nonelectrical capital projects. The Commission defined “capital projects’ as follows:
“Those projects that are needed to serve forecasted future loads and to maintain good electric service to existing and future customers satisfying the utility’s technical criteria for capacity, reliability, quality and safety.”
6. Capital projects are intended to maintain a reliable electric service for the benefit of the existing and future customers of the distribution utilities (DUs). To achieve it, the DUs must not only rely on their existing distribution assets. They are mandated to make timely additions thereto and introduce improvements thereon to be responsive to the demands of their customers;
7. Section 23, Chapter II of Republic Act 9136 (R.A. 9136), otherwise known as the “Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001” or “EPIRA”, mandates a DU “to provide distribution services and connections to its system for any enduser within its franchise area consistent with the distribution code”;
8. Section 1.7.1 of the Distribution Services and Open Access Rules (DSOAR), promulgated by the Commission pursuant to the provisions of the EPIRA, provides that:
“The DU may increase, substitute or withdraw from service · its authorized equipment and machinery in accordance with the Rules for Approval of Regulated Entities’ Capital Expenditure Projects, RDWR, and other rules of the Commission. If such undertaking is not covered by the RDWR or other rules, authorization shall be secured from the Commission in accordance with the pertinent provision of the Rules for. Approval of Regulated Entities’ Capital Expenditure Projects.”
9. CELCOR filed the application seeking the approval of the Commission of the following capital projects:
a. Construction of new 69 kV Subtransmission Line (N1 Provision);
b. Relocation and rehabilitation of 69 kV and 13.8/ 0.23 kV lines and poles;
c. Installation of Cable Tray and Support (Primary line bridge attach); and
d. Restoration of its century old building into a new twostorey office building and construction of wing extension;
10. The total estimated cost of the project is One Hundred Fifteen Million Eight Hundred Seventy Thousand Eighty Four and 89/100 Pesos (PhP1l5,870,084.89), broken down as follows:
PROJECTS Estimated Cost (PhP)
Construction of new 69 kV Subtransmission Line (N1 Provision) Land Acquisition and Development (Right of Way)
40,689,711.3012,000,000.00
Subtotal 52,689,711.30Relocation and Rehabilitation of 69 kV and 13.8/0.23 kV Lines and Poles 9,283,456.00
Restoration of CELCOR’s century old building into a new two storey office building and construction of wing extension
25,831,605.16
TOTAL 115,870,084.89
11. The proposed projects will be funded through its Retained Earnings (Appropriate for Plant Expansion) amounting to One Hundred Million Pesos (PhP100,000,000.00) and the remaining amount shall be taken from its Cash Working Capital;
DESCRIPTION OF THE 2015 PROJECTS
A. Construction of New 69 kV Subtransmission Line (N1 Provisions)
The proposed project line will traverse an estimated length of 10.6 kms from Bitas Substation passing through Emilio Vergara Highway up to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) Nueva EcijaAurora Substation. The project provides CELCOR with N1 capability in case of system contingency.
PROJECT CODE : TL001PROJECT TYPE : ReliabilityPROJECT CODE : First PriorityPROJECT CATEGORY : Subtransmission DevelopmentPROJECT DURATION : 20152018PROJECT TYPE CLASSIFICATION : New AssetsPROJECT FINANCING PLAN : Retained Earning Appropriated for Plant Expansion/Cash Working Capital
PROJECT COST : PhP52,689,711.30
B. Relocation and Rehabilitation of 69 kV and 13.8/0.23 kV Lines and Poles
Based on the Memorandum of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the main road of Maharlika Highway (from Sta. RosaCabanatuan boundary up to Cabanatuan Talavera boundary), will be widened from 16 mts to 20 mts, while secondary road, CabanatuanPapaya Road, will be widened to a standard 15 mts, thus, affecting CELCOR’s existing poles located in the area. The improvement of drainage and installation of stone masonry along Nueva EcijaAurora road are alsoincluded. A total of 344 poles, specifically 67 subtransmission poles and 277 primary and secondary poles are affected by it.
PROJECT CODE Location Project ID
Maharlika Highway, existing 69 kV Subtransmission lines TL002 Mabini Extension to Mabini Homesite PL001 Mayapyap to Caalibangbangan PL002 Sangitan Este to Bitas PL003 Daan Sarile PL004 Valdefuente PL005 NEUST to Select PL006 Gen. Tinio Extension PL007 Circumferential RoadBarrera PL008 Circumferential RoadH. Concepcion PL009 Lourdes to Bangad PL010
PROJECT TYPE : Contingency PROJECT RANK : First Priority PROJECT CATEGORY : Subtransmission/ Primary Distribution Project PROJECT DURATION : 20152018 PROJECT TYPE CLASSIFICATION : New Assets PROJECT FINANCING PLAN : Retained Earning Appropriated for Plant Expansion/Cash Working Capital PROJECT COST : PhP28,065,312.43
C. Installation of Cable Tray and Support (Primary line bridge attach)
This project covers the laying of power cables at Cesar Vergara Bridge complementing the approved capital expenditure for RY 2014, extension of primary line from Gen. Tinio Avenue to Brgy. CincoCinco. The hot dipped galvanized cable tray will be constructed at the edge of the bridge that will connect lines from Gen. Tinio AvenueCesar Vergara Bridge to the entry point of the line extension going to Brgy. CincoCinco.
PROJECT CODE : TL003 PROJECT TYPE : Capacity PROJECT CODE : First Priority PROJECT CATEGORY : Primary, Distribution Project PROJECT DURATION : 20152016 PROJECT TYPE CLASSIFICATION : New Assets
PROJECT FINANCING PLAN : Retained Earning Appropriated for Plant expansion/Cash Working Capital PROJECT COST : PhP9,283,456.00
D. Restoration of centuryold building into a new twostorey office building and construction of wing extension
Presently, its employees are housed in a threedecade old building which was originally designed and used as a parking building of its service vehicles. It is currently being utilized to cater its valued clienteles.
PROJECT CATEGORY : Nonnetwork requirement PROJECT DURATION : 20152016 PROJECT TYPE CLASSIFICATION : New Assets PROJECT FINANCING PLAN : Retained Earning Appropriated for Plant expansion/ Cash Working Capital PROJECT COST : PhP25,831,605·16
JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED PROJECTS
The proposed capital projects of CELCOR aim to comply with the requirements under the existing ERC Rules and Procedure with respect to safety, reliability, capacity, quality and growth of the distribution system, as stated in CELCOR’s Distribution Development Plan (DDP), particularly: .
A. Construction of New 69 kV Subtransmission Line (N1 Provisions)
i. Project Purpose The new 69 kV Subtransmission Line will be utilized as a redundant
asset serving as a reserved lines in case the other lines along Maharlika Highway undergoes maintenance, subjected to fault or sustains damage due to fortuitous events and other causes. As an asset reserved for future useunder the lOyear development program, a new substation will be proposed in the area covering the eastern side of the city consisting several barangays from Bangad, Camp Tinio, Kalikid, Patalac up to adjacent barangays of Cabu and Macatbong.
The area has a spark growth for subdivisions and has ideal locations for livestock production such as poultry and piggery business. It is also being developed as a location for mediumsized industrial processing businesses such as concrete aggregate business and mediumsized stone crusher complex. Its proposed project will be utilized to serve the future expansion plan in the event that the expected growth in the said area will materialize.
ii. Impact if Project Not Implemented The existing 69 kV subtransmission line is being fed on a single bus
scheme. It is not flexible to provide continuous power in case of loss or failure. The only option is thru FCVC generating station connected through a step up transformer of 25 MVA capac’ity to the end of the 69 kV line at Bitas Substation. The normally open interconnections at 13.8 kV network level provide a partial N1 capability between substations. However, the power plant has insufficient capacity to fully supply CELCOR’s demand during contingency.
B. Relocation and Rehabilitation of 69 kV and 13.8/0.23 kV Lines and Poles
i. Project Purpose The project is being implemented based on the guidelines issued
by DPWH. CELCOR is thus constrained to undertake the relocation of its poles and lines to be affected by the road widening projects. However, simultaneously with its compliance with DPWH rules and regulations, the right of way clearances under existing laws, rules and regulations will be observed to minimize accidents as well as to ensure smooth flow of traffic in the area.
Based on the guidelines, a new design will be used since the area is now populated with commercial buildings. The design will address the clearance tolerance between structure and live lines, thus eliminating the exposure of live lines relative to the building structures.
Its 69 kV lines was constructed more than 18 years ago and consisted of creosoted wooden poles. The expected life service is estimated at 20 years based on the Valuation Hand book of the Commission. It could no longer use the old wooded creosoted poles for relocation and rehabilitation because it is already near the standard service life. By using the new steel and concrete poles will address the following: a) safety clearance between live lines and structure; and b) the safe and reliable steel and concrete poles will support its lines. ii. Impact if Project Not Implemented
The project should be undertaken simultaneously with the ongoing road widening projects of the DPWH since pole relocation causes interruption. If this will not be implemented, the future cost and reliability will be a factor. The correction of construction should comply with the required clearances between structures and power lines and has to be undertaken to ensure the safety and reliability.
C. Installation of Cable Tray and Support (Primary line bridge attach)
i. Project Purpose In ERC Case No. 2009043 RC dated March 8, 2010, the Commission
approved the installation of the power cable underneath the Cesar Vergara Bridge (Project code BB006 Extension of primary lines along Gen. Tinio Avenue to CincoCinco under cash flow program for 2014). However, the project did not materialize due to several factors that were observed during the implementation. The hole provision for power cable is small. Thus, the factor of undue stress during the pulling procedure was considered due to the tight space for the cable. As the length of the pulled wire increases, the weight of the cable becomes heavier. Pulling the wire under the condition without any provision for space will result to cable tightening. Thus, the problem of undue stress will be a concern. It will compromise the insulation capability of the cable to insulate the live wires from the outer diameter of the power cable and worst condition scenario will be the breakage of the power cable during the pulling process.
In order to ensure the safe operation of the said cable, it proposes the use of cable trays in order to support the cable along the bridge. The condition where the cable will experience undue stress during the pulling procedure will be eliminated. Inspection and management program can be performed regularly because it will be installed at the edge of the bridge where access to the cable can be made without compromising the safety of personnel.
ii. Impact if Project Not Implemented All possible options were considered for the project such as utilizing the
existing manhole (designed for utility line) which was taken into consideration
during the post construction period of the bridge, installation of overhead structure under the bridge which requires acquisition of land and much taller poles in a flood prone area or overhead structure at the bridge girder which all proved to be nonviable, the only plausible engineering solution is to install the primary line at the edge of the bridge using a cable tray to link the RY 201 approved capital project from which it will extend a primary line along a 8 km Felipe Vergara Highway.
D. Restoration of centuryold building into a new twostorey office building and construction of wing extension
i. Project Purpose CELCOR is confronted with aging office facilities that are
inadequate, even with significant renovation, to support its strategic plans and programs for the promotion of customer satisfaction. It proposes to restore its centuryold building into a new twostorey office building and construction of wing extension.
This project will benefit the following: the company The proposed modern building shall be the new face of the company, a reflection of innovative services and commitment to its customers; the employees the new building for employees will provide a convenient, stimulating and dynamic working environment that will definitely enhance their efficiency. It will also boost their morale and improve their productivity in the workplace. Also, the proposed office building will improve the workflow within the office considering that at present, the various departments are scattered in different areas and some are even do not have enough space to accommodate its staff; the valued customers/consumers the cuttingedge facilities of the building will create an impact to the consumers especially those who frequently visit the office. It shall give tbe clients a new customer service experience which promotes a much more guaranteed customer service satisfaction. The modern building will reduce safety risks to all concerned parties since the new structure will introduce modern safety features.
These valuable benefits to the whole company and its treasured customers are vital in enhancing its goodwill and improving its performance as a distribution utility.
12. Section 3.5 of the Commission’s Resolution No. 26, Series of 2009, which provides that there are expenditure projects that may occur at any given period which may be resulting from unexpected significant new load that will be connected to the Distribution System. A Regulated Utility shall file a formal application prior to the start of implementation of such project and shall be supported by documents similar to the usual requirements of network asset capital expenditures.
In support of the application and in compliance with the filing requirements of the Commission, CELCOR submitted, as Annex “B”, the following documents:
a. Options/ Alternatives considered in lieu ofthe proposed projects;
b. 5year forecast and historical planning data; c. Technical Analysis; d. Economic Analysis; e. Conceptual Engineering Design and Drawings; f. Project Cost Estimates; g. Project Financing Plan; h. Proposed Gantt Chart Schedule; i. Board Resolution approving the proposed CAPEX; and j. Sworn Statements executed by Engr. Rommel Hemal
attesting to the fact that CELCOR’s application is consistent with its (DDP). ,
13. Public interest and welfare demand the immediate approval of the application;
ALLEGATION IN SUPPORT OF THE PRAYER FOR PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY
14. CELCOR replead all the allegations in support of the prayer for the immediate issuance of provisional authority to implement its additional capital expenditures for 2014.
The following are the estimated duration of the proposed . capital projects:
PROJECT NAME DURATION OF THE PROJECT
Construction of New 69 kV subtransmission line 7 months
Relocation and Rehabilitation of 69 kV and 13.8/0.23 kV lines and poles 2 years and 7 months
Installation of Cable tray 5 months and 3 weeks
Restoration of CELCOR’s century old building into a new 2storey office building and construction of wing extension
1 year and 4 months
15. As of todate, CELCOR will need at least three and a half (3.5) years to complete the aforementioned capital projects. Thus, with the grant of a provisional authority, it would be able to immediately proceed with the project to meet its customer’s requirements;
COMPLIANCE WITH THE PRE-FILING REQUIREMENTS
16. CELCOR has furnished the local legislative body of the City of Cabanatuan with copy of its application and its annexes. The copy of the Certification issued by the aforementioned legislative body attesting to the fact of service and its annexes is attached to the application and marked as Annexes “D”;
17. CELCOR had also caused the publication of the application in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines. The copies of the Affidavit of Publication and the newspaper issue where the said application was published are attached to the application and marked as Annexes “E” and “F”, respectively; and
18. CELCOR prays that the Commission:
a) Issue, immediately upon filing of the application, a provisional authority for the approval of the implementation of its capital expenditure projects;
b) Approve, after notice and hearing, the application and render judgment making provisional approval permanent; and
c) Include in the next regulatory period rate calculations and/or rate case application the aforementioned projects as a deferred amount.
The Commission has set the application for jurisdictional hearing, expository presentation, pretrial conference and evidentiary hearing on June 3, 2016 (Friday) at ten o’clock in the morning (10:00 A.M.) at the campus of Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology (NEUST) located at Maharlika Highway, Brgy. Sumacab Este, Cabanatuan City.
All persons who have an interest in the subject matter of the proceeding may become a party by filing, at least five (5) days prior to the initial hearing and subject to the requirements in the ERC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, a verified petition with the Commission giving the docket number and title of the proceeding and stating: (1) the petitioner’s name and address; (2) the nature of petitioner’s interest in the subject matter of the proceeding, and the way and manner in which such interest is affected by the issues involved in the proceeding; and (3) a statement of the relief desired.
All other persons who may want their views known to the Commission with respect to the subject matter of the proceeding may file their opposition to the application or comment thereon at any stage of the proceeding before the applicant concludes the presentation of its evidence. No particular form of opposition or comment is required, but the document, letter or writing should contain the name and address of such person and a concise statement of the opposition or comment and the grounds relied upon.
All such persons who may wish to have a copy of the application may request the applicant that they be furnished with the same, prior to the date of the initial hearing. The applicant is hereby directed to furnish all those making such request with copies of the application and its attachments, subject to reimbursement of reasonable photocopying costs. Any such person may likewise examine the application and other pertinent records filed with the Commission during standard office hours.
WITNESS, the Honorable Chairman, JOSE VICENTE B. SALAZAR, and the Honorable Commissioners, ALFREDO J. NON, GLORIA VICTORIA C. YAP-TARDC, JOSEFINA PATRICIA A. MAGPALE-ASIRIT, and GERONIMO D. STA. ANA, Energy Regulatory Commission, this 7th day of Januar y, 2016 at Pas ig Ci t y.
ATTY. NATHAN J. MARASIGAN Chief of Staff Office of the Chairman and CEO
Petecio is PH’s brightestbet for Rio slot in slugfestBy Ronnie Nathanielsz
THE world’s top women boxers are once again getting ready to take to the ring in pursuit of World Championship gold this month, with the added incentive of 12 Rio 2016 quota places available in the three Olympic weight classes.
CLYDE Mondilla hopes to ride the crest of his recent playo� win over Jobim Car-los as he shoots for a second straight vic-tory in the ICTSI Calatagan Invitational, which starts Wednesday at the Calatagan Golf Club in Batangas.
Mondilla foiled Carlos at the ICTSI Manila Masters at Eastridge Golf Club two weeks ago, nipping the rookie pro on the first playoff hole to nail his fourth career victory. They are again tipped to lead the title chase in this week’s event serving as the sixth leg of this year’s Philippine Golf Tour spon-sored by International Container Ter-minal Services Inc.
� e country’s premier circuit is actu-ally making a return of sort to Calatagan a� er a two-year absence with the up-and-down, tree-lined layout expected to provide the elite � eld a di� erent kind of challenge through all four days of competition espe-cially in the presence of the wind.
Meanwhile, the leading pros test the layout one � nal time in today’s pro-am tournament where they will be paired with guests and o� cials of the event’s chief backers, including Custom Club-makers, adidas, KZG, Summit Mineral Water, Srixon, Pacsports, TaylorMade, Sharp and Champion.
Mhark Fernando beat Ru� no Bayron by � ve to reign in 2012 then Tony Las-cuna smothered Jhonnel Ababa by four in the 2013 edition en route to a second straight Order of Merit title.
But Fernando and Lascuna are com-ing o� mediocre � nishes at Eastridge and will be hard-pressed to churn out solid rounds to contend for the top P270,000 purse in the event organized by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc.
Lascuna struggled with a closing 76 and ended up 11th while Fernando skied to a 77 and wound up tied for 19th.
� e famous Barys Arena in the Kazakh-stan capital of Astana will host the nine-day tournament from May 19, which promises to be the strongest in its 15-year history.
“We are living in thrilling times for women’s boxing, and the 2016 AIBA World Championships will once again raise the pro� le of this incredible sport around the world. We are both fortunate and hugely proud to have iconic champions, young tal-ents and inspirational � gures taking part in Astana, and the city of Astana is ready to begin another sporting journey by which future tournaments can be measured. I am con� dent we will experience an amazing event in a country with a longstanding box-
ing tradition,” said the president of AIBA, the international boxing organization’s President Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu.
� e Philippines will send three female boxers to the event—Nesthy Petecio, Josie Gabuco and Irish Magno, with Petecio con-sidered the Philippines’ best hope to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games later this year.
AIBA noted that Ireland’s Katie Taylor and India’s Mary Kom both will be chasing a record sixth World Title in Astana, with American Claressa Shields, Britain’s Olym-pic champion Nicola Adams and Chinese rival Ren Cancan also among the favorites for gold.
Among the 73 nations and a record 326
NBA trainer shares knowledge in camp
Mondilla eyes2nd straight
ICTSI golf title
boxers, Jordan, Mozambique and Sierra Le-one will be represented for the � rst time in the competition’s history.
Petecio was the victim of a controversial loss to Mary Kom of India in the quar-ter� nals of the Asian-Oceania Olympic Quali� ers at the Tangshan Sports Centre in Qian’An, China and is determined to avenge that loss in Kazakhstan.
Bolat Abdrakhmanov Chairman of the Local Organising Committee said: “� e standard of boxing will be the strongest in the history of the Women’s World Champi-onships, and we are ready to re� ect that by putting on a world-class tournament here in Astana.”
He added: “Kazakhstan has hosted major boxing events, including the 2013 AIBA Men’s World Championships and of course our own Astana Arlans WSB team matches. We have built on those ex-periences and are ready to do boxing, and our country, proud by staging another memorable tournament to the pleasure of our truly passionate fans.”
By Peter Atencio
GREAT players in the National Basketball Association are pas-sionate about their cra� .
Renowned elite basketball trainer, motivational speaker and skills coach Ganon Baker made this observation as he began conducting a basketball camp for young Filipino players.
“� eir preparation for great-ness is unmatched. As soon as they get on the � oor, they’re in tune with their bodies,” said Bak-er, before his Ganon Baker Camp Monday at the Ronac Center in Ortigas Ave., San Juan.
Baker had the privilege of working closely with the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire, Chris Paul,
Deron Williams, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and Vince Carter.
Some players, like Paul, de-veloped their game with Baker, while he was in college and and eventually in the NBA. James and Stoudemire were already pros when they got in touch with Baker.
As for Blake Gri� n, Baker had seen his game blossom while the LA Clipper was still in high school.
“� ey know how long to warm up. How to cool down. � ey’re in touch with their coach. � ey’re always in the moment. � ey’re aware. � ey do a great job of lis-tening to the coach,” added Baker on his notes on the players he had worked with.
He had added the Stoudemire
was very inquisitive, asking him a lot of questions while he was on the court.
Bryant, on the other hand, would turn to him for advise when he’d miss crucial shots.
As for Paul, Baker noted that he always wanted to take his game to the next level.
� ese questions, and the answers he provided to NBA greats is something Baker will share during the camp.
“� at if you want to be great, you get to study the great ones. You want to have a cra� , you have to research it,” said Baker.
Baker said that great NBA players not only spend time with the mental part of im-proving their game, they also take on the physical challenge
Ganon Baker with local counterpart Eric Banes PETER ATENCIO
of training with what they learned.“� ese guys train so hard that
they don’t have a weakness. And if they do, they won’t expose it,” added Baker.
� is is the � rst time that he is
holding a camp in Manila, and his school, which is based in Florida is called Elev8. He organized it with local partner Eric Banes, who is cer-ti� ed skills coach, and strength and conditioning specialist.
Clyde Mondilla will shoot for his fifth career win as he banners the tough cast in the ICTSI Calatagan Invitational, which starts Wednesday at the Calatagan Golf Club in Batangas.the sixth leg of this year’s Philippine Golf Tour sponsored by International Container Terminal Services Inc.
LOS ANGELES—Kyle Lowry is relishing the prospect of taking on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers after leading the Toronto Raptors into the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in franchise history on Sunday.
Lowry scored 35 points as Toron-to completed a 116-89 win over the Miami Heat to seal a 4-3 series vic-tory—and set up a showdown with James and the Cavs on Tuesday.
Toronto will start against Cleve-land with the odds stacked against them, having battled through two marathon seven-game series to reach the conference finals.
Cleveland however head into Game One well rested after back-to-back 4-0 sweeps in the previous rounds.
Yet Lowry said he is looking forward to pitting his wits against the in-form James and the likes of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
“I’m looking forward to the op-portunity to playing against those guys,” Lowry said.
“LeBron is one of the best play-ers in the league, Kyrie (Irving) is always a tough matchup, Kevin Love is always a tough matchup. But we’re going to go out there and play our game, try and do our job and see what happens.”
Raptors coach Dwane Casey says the challenge posed by Cleve-land will be “another step for us” as his team chase the ultimate dream of an NBA Finals victory.
“I think we’ve done everything we set out to do, but again, we’re not done yet,” said Casey. “This group is hungry and never say never. I know one thing, our guys will compete.”
Lowry and teammate DeMar DeRozan stole the show as To-ronto powered their way to a convincing victory in front of a raucous home crowd at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.
Lowry had nine assists and seven rebounds while DeRozan finished with 28 points and eight rebounds as Toronto finally pulled away in the second half.
‘Nothing easy in postseason’Congolese center Bismack Biyom-
bo also had a big game for Toronto, scoring 17 points, snaffling 16 re-bounds and making two blocks.
Goran Dragic and Dwyane Wade led the scoring for the Heat with 16 points apiece.
The Raptors had led 25-24 after an even first quarter, with DeRo-zan scoring 11 points. Toronto built a 53-47 lead at half-time but the real damage was done in a dominant run in the third quarter.
The Raptors poured on the points in a 12-2 burst, stretching their lead to 75-58.
Miami rallied to get within six points as the seconds wound down in the third, but a two-pointer on the buzzer by DeRozan restored
Toronto to an eight-point lead heading into the final quarter.
With a first-ever place in the Eastern Conference finals beckon-ing, the Raptors turned the screw and quickly extended their lead with both Lowry and DeRozan outstanding.
Two Biyombo free throws pow-ered Toronto into a 106-86 lead with just under five minutes left, leaving no way back for Miami.
DeRozan said Toronto would be ready for the test posed by Cleveland.
“Once you get into the postsea-son you learn nothing is going to be easy,” DeRozan said. “It gets tougher every single game. It’s just about battling. Nothing is going to be pretty, nothing is going to do the way you want it to go.” AFP
OVER a thousand cyclists of all ages joined the 2016 edition of Alaska Cycle Asia Philippines held last week-end at the sprawling grounds of SM By The Bay within the SM Mall of Asia Complex.
Riders included young cyclists on three wheels, as young as two years old, to the more serious adult cy-clists looking to test them-selves on longer distances of 20 and 40 kilometers.
Alaska Milk President and CEO Fred Uytengsu said Alaska CycleAsia afforded participants of all ages and abilities the chance to ride safely on closed public roads.
“This is really about cre-ating a healthy lifestyle. We want to encourage people to get on bicycles and ride. Every year this event con-tinues to grow as more and more participants join,” said Uytengsu, who finished sec-ond to national champion triathlete August Benedicto in the 40 kilometer Chal-lenge Ride.
Alaska CycleAsia Philip-pines was launched in 2013 and has been consistent in gathering cyclists from all ages allowing them the pleas-ure of cycling outdoors in a safe ride. Ride categories for adults include the Challenge
Ride of 40 kilometers and the Community Ride of 20 kilo-meters. Children as young as two years old enjoyed the Tri-cycle Ride and the Kids Ride.
CycleAsia is part of Alas-ka’s “Nutrition. Action. Champion.” program of pro-moting a healthy and active lifestyle through participa-tion in sports and milk con-sumption. It allows Filipinos to be part of a community activity that will help them become physically fit and healthy, enabling them to be-come winners in life.
Alaska CycleAsia Philip-pines is organized by Cycle Asia in collaboration with
Alaska Milk Corporation and Sunrise Events Incorporated. The event is also sponsored by Ford, SM By the Bay, inside Mall of Asia Complex, Scott, Spyder, Sanicare, Garmin, F2P, Mc Donald’s, Regent, 2GO, Gatorade, Pioneer Insurance, and Cetaphil. Media partner is ABS-CBN Sports + Action.
For general information about Alaska Milk Corpora-tion visit www.alaskamilk.com. For more information about Alaska Milk Corpora-tion Sports Programs visit www.playph.com, Facebook: www.facebook.com/PlayPH; Twitter: @playph; Instagram: @alaskaplayph
Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors celebrates late in the second half of Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Miami Heat at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. AFP
Alaska Milk President and CEO Fred Uytengsu, Chris Robb of Spectrum Worldwide and triathlete August Benedicto.
Foreign exchange rateCurrency Unit US Dollar PesoUnited States Dollar 1.000000 46.6720
Japan Yen 0.009206 0.4297
UK Pound 1.435600 67.0023
Hong Kong Dollar 0.128818 6.0122
Switzerland Franc 1.026589 47.9130
Canada Dollar 0.772559 36.0569
Singapore Dollar 0.728067 33.9803
Australia Dollar 0.724700 33.8232
Bahrain Dinar 2.652520 123.7984
Saudi Arabia Rial 0.266645 12.4449
Brunei Dollar 0.725426 33.8571
Indonesia Rupiah 0.000075 0.0035
Thailand Baht 0.028225 1.3173
UAE Dirham 0.272264 12.7071
Euro Euro 1.131400 52.8047
Korea Won 0.000851 0.0397
China Yuan 0.153139 7.1473
India Rupee 0.014960 0.6982
Malaysia Ringgit 0.248324 11.5898
New Zealand Dollar 0.675600 31.5316
Taiwan Dollar 0.030611 1.4287 Source: PDS Bridge
7,511.7474.95
Closing May 16, 2016PSe comPoSite index
48.00
46.00
45.00
44.00
43.00
HIGH P46.360 LOW P46.660 AVERAGE P46.519
Closing May 16, 2016PeSo-dollar rate
VOLUME 743.400M
Bangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng PilipinasBangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
oilPriceS today
P426.00-P637.00LPG/11-kg tank
P35.40-P42.60Unleaded Gasoline
P23.49-P27.07Diesel
P34.55-P39.15Kerosene
todayP35.40-P42.60
P23.49-P27.07
P34.55-P39.15
PP426.00-P637.00
8300
7840
7380
6920
6460
6000
P46.460CLOSE
BSP shifts to interest rate corridor on June 3
By Alena Mae S. Flores
ABOITIZ Power Corp. is open to acquiring Chevron Corp.’s geothermal assets in the Phil-ippines to expand its own portfolio, executives said Monday.
By Julito G. Rada
BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday it is shi� ing to an interest rate corridor system starting June 3, with an overnight reverse repurchase rate of 3 percent to guide short-term market rates.
IRC is a system for guiding short-term market rates toward the BSP policy interest rate which is the overnight reverse repurchase or borrowing rate.
Tetangco said under the IRC, the interest rate for overnight lending facility would be 3.5 percent, a reduction from the current 6 percent while the rate for overnight borrowing facility would be reduced to 3 percent from 4 percent. � e special deposit account rate would be kept at 2.5 percent.
“� e expectation is that once we implement this, the interest rates for term deposit auction would be more or less between the policy rate and deposit rate. But we are not going to determine that, the market will determine that,” Tetangco said at the sidelines of the signing ceremony between Bangko Sentral and banks and trust entities.
“ We will have a weekly auction and the amount to be determined by the liquidity forecast.... the auction will be held every Wednesday,” Tetangco said.
Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said the bank would initially start with seven-day and 28-day tenors for the term deposit auction.
Guinigundo said the auctions would likely be small in the beginning in line with planned
gradual implementation of system’s related reforms. He said the volume would be scaled up to enable convergence of market interest rates to policy and target rates.
“� e tenor will depend on market conditions but we will start at seven to 28 days maturity... � e decision to go higher [in mopping up liquidity] maybe driven by actual monetary conditions..,” Guinigundo said.
He said the impact of term deposit facility on market rates would increase as volume of o� erings rose.
“Banks now need to program or manage their liquidity... we see more transactions in the market, pricing discovery will be enhanced, and we see a better prospect for a capital market development in the future,” Guinigundo said.
“We are always on the lookout for opportunities in the Philippines and Asia. We understand Chevron is thinking of selling these assets. When the time comes, when the process has started, we will be looking. We are waiting for the formal advice,” Aboitiz Power chief executive Erramon Aboitiz told reporters a� er the stockholders’ meeting.
Aboitiz Power owns the 692-megawatt Tiwi and Mak-Ban geothermal power plants. Chevron, meanwhile, has a
40-percent interest in Philippine Geothermal Production Co. Inc., which develops and produces steam energy for the Tiwi and Mak-Ban geothermal power plants.
Chevron also has an interest in the Kalinga geothermal prospect area in northern Luzon that could support 100 MW of capacity. Chevron plans to sell its Asean geothermal assets.
Aboitiz Power is also looking at geothermal opportunities in Indonesia where exploratory
drilling is ongoing.“We continue to be on the
lookout for growth opportunities that � t our investment and risk appetite parameters parameters and where we can add value based on our proven competencies and experiences,” Aboitiz said.
“We are eyeing geothermal and hydro power opportunities in Indonesia, as part of Aboitiz Power’s growth strategy in the Asean region,” Aboitiz said.
Aboitiz Power is spending P51.5 billion this year, up from P34.4 billion in 2015 as part of e� orts to increase generation capacity to 4,000 MW by 2020. � e company has a net sellable capacity of 3,350 MW to date.
“[� e amount] is for Pagbilao, Cebu and Manolo Fortich,” Aboitiz Power chief operating o� cer Antonio Moraza said.
� e company is presently constructing the 68-MW Manolo Fortich hydro plant in Bukidnon which is due for completion next year.
Aboitiz Power, through subsidiary � erma Visayas Inc., is also building the 340-MW coal plant in Cebu, which is set for completion next year.
� e company also has a stake in the ongoing Pagbilao Energy’s 420-MW coal plant in Quezon, which would likely be completed next year.
Moraza said RP Energy’s 600-MW baseload plant in Zambales was also expected to start construction late this year.
Aboitiz Power plans to build up 200 MW of additional hydro capacity which includes the 45-MW Kabayan, Benguet hydro prospect.
Biggest cruise ship. A photo taken on May 15, 2016 shows the Harmony of the Seas cruise ship as it sails from the STX Saint-Nazaire shipyard, western France, out to sea. The world’s biggest-ever cruise ship, the 120,000-ton Harmony of the Seas, a luxury home on the waves for 8,500 passengers and crew, was handed over by a French shipyard after a 40-month engineering feat. At 66 meters (217 feet), it is the widest cruise ship ever built, while its 362-meter length makes it 50 meters longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower. The fl oating town, which cost close to one billion euros, has 16 decks and will be able to carry 6,360 passengers and 2,100 crew members. AFP
THE Supreme Court dismissed the two joint petitions filed by the family of Jose Ricafort and affirmed the Calalang board as the rightful board of directors of Nationwide Development Corp.
The Nadecor board is composed of Roberto Romulo, Conrado Calalang, Alfredo . Ayala, John Engle, Juan Kevin Belmonte, Michael Regino, Marcelo Mendoza, Leocadio Nitorreda and Rebecca G. De Guzman.
The Ricafort family in a complaint filed with a regional trial court claimed that “they had no knowledge or prior notice of, and were thus unable to attend, participate in, and vote, at, the August 15, 2011 annual stockholders’ meeting.”
In ruling against the petitioners, the SC declared that the petitioners had no cause of action against the respondents, as their complaint involved an election contest and was subject to the 15 days prescription period.
The high court noted that the petitioners did participate in the August 15, 2011 annual stockholders’ meeting of Nadecor, as they were represented by Jose Ricafort, who had a valid irrevocable proxy and who signed in the meeting’s attendance sheet.
The Supreme Court also dismissed the claim of the Ricafort family that their right to vote their shares in the August 15, 2011 meeting was violated, saying it was a complete fabrication.
The SC decision removes the last significant hurdle for Nadecor to move forward. With an environment clearance certificate and other permits, the company expects to proceed with the development, construction and operation of the King-King Copper/Gold Project, at Compostela Valley province by the second half of the year.
Toronto-listed St. Augustine Gold & Copper Ltd. has a major stake in the project.
By Jenniffer B. Austria
THE listed holding companies of the Gotianun, Lopez and Lucio Co families reported double-digit first quarter earnings on healthy contributions from core businesses.
Filinvest Development Corp. of the Gotianun family said in a disclosure to the stock exchange first-quarter net income jumped 21 percent to P2.2 billion over the same period last year.
The group’s total revenues rose 11 percent to P14.2 billion,with the bulk of revenues coming from the real estate business, which accounted for 35 percent, and the banking group which contributed 40 percent.
The balance was contributed by the sugar, 12 percent; power, 11 percent; and hotels, 2 percent.
Lopez Holdings Inc., the listed holding company of the Lopez Group, reported a 24-percent increase in first quarter net income to P1.35 billion, driven by the steady performance of First Philippine Holdings Corp. and ABS-CBN Corp.
Lopez Holdings’s unaudited
consolidated revenues, however, fell 11 percent year-on-year to P22.721 billion from P25.252 billion, primarily due to decreases in the sale of electricity.
Cosco Capital Inc., the retail holding firm of Lucio Co, booked a record net income to equity holders of P1.08 billion in the first quarter of 2016, up 12 percent from P965 million in the same period of 2015.
“Our company is well positioned to capture the growth from the strong consumer demand and we believe that we can achieve another record year of profits in 2016,” Cosco president
Leonardo Dayao said.Cosco’s consolidated revenues
in the first quarter of 2016 amounted to P28.79 billion, up 12 percent versus P25.63 billion in the same period last year.
The group’s retail business segment from Puregold, the second largest grocery retailer in the Philippines, and S&R contributed 86 percent to the total revenues, followed by specialty retail from Liquigaz, the second largest LPG player in the Philippines, and Office Warehouse at nine percent. The liquor distribution and real estate leasing business units contributed the rest.
The conglomerate said the profit was led largely by the strong performance of its banking subsidiary EastWest Bank, which posted a record first-quarter net income of P787 million, up 31 percent year-on-year, and real estate unit Filinvest Land Inc., which booked a six percent net income growth to P1.3 billion.
THE stock market rallied Monday on healthy earnings report by major companies and positive US economic data.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index rose to a nine-month high of 7,511.74 points on a value turnover of P9.7 billion. Gainers beat losers, 127 to 73, with 47 issues unchanged.
JG Summit Holdings Inc. of industrialist John Gokongwei surged 4.3 percent to P95, while SM Prime Holdings Inc. of retail tycoon Henry Sy Sr. advanced 3.2 percent to P24.55.
Major property developer Megaworld Corp. climbed 2.6 percent to P4.36, while First Gen Corp. of the Lopez Group increased 2.6 percent to P21.90.
Asian markets also rallied Monday following last week’s sharp losses, with Tokyo boosted by a report that Japan’s prime minister plans to delay a planned sales tax increase.
Investors in Tokyo cheered a report Saturday in the respected Nikkei business daily that Shinzo Abe had told officials he wants to put off the consumption tax rise to avoid damaging the already tottering economy. It is not known how long he intends to postpone it.
The last rise in April 2014—the nation’s first in 17 years—was blamed for stalling a nascent recovery and pushing Japan into a recession from which it has hardly recovered.
While experts say Tokyo must raise tax revenue to deal with soaring debts and pay for the ballooning cost of welfare as the population ages, a delay is seen as crucial to support economic growth.
Attention now turns to the release Wednesday of economic growth figures for the first quarter of the year.
The Nikkei closed 0.3 percent
higher, with a weaker yen also providing support.
Speculation the Federal Reserve could raise borrowing costs sooner rather than later boosted the dollar after data Friday showed US consumer spending jumped far quicker than expected in April, reversing a worrisome stall in the first quarter of the year.
The greenback bought 108.78 yen in the afternoon, up from 108.63 yen in New York.
However, the prospect of another increase in interest rates hit New York traders. All three main indexes ended lower Friday.
Among other Asia markets Hong Kong ended up 0.8 percent in the afternoon and Sydney closed 0.6 percent higher while Seoul gained 0.1 percent.
Shanghai ended 0.8 percent higher. Central bank assurances that it would continue with policies to support growth overshadowed weekend figures
showing more weakness in the economy.
Industrial output, retail sales and fixed-asset investment all came in below expectations, the latest disappointing data out of Beijing following below-par trade figures the previous weekend.
While shares rose in Chinese markets, Stephen Innes, senior trader at OANDA Asia Pacific, said in a market commentary: “Clearly, the positive economic momentum in March has apparently turned soft in April, which will likely send negative reverberations across all asset classes.”
Shares in energy firms rose in line with oil prices as a slowdown in US drilling and an increase in Chinese crude refinery processing bolstered hopes a supply glut would ease sooner than expected.
West Texas Intermediate and Brent each put on 1.4 percent Monday. With AFP
Livelihood beneficiaries. Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz (third from left), along with Labor Department’s Camiguin personnel, visits the 15 family-beneficiaries of the agency’s livelihood grant at Barangay Tagdo, Mambajao, Camiguin. The department initially provided a livelihood grant of P300,000, which enabled the beneficiaries to acquire three motorized boats, fishnets, deep-sea bamboo fish traps and fishing accessories. Beneficiaries also underwent entrepreneurship training.
B4
Bangko Sentral welcomesDuterte’s economic policy
MNTC setto spend over P1b in SCTEx
Emperador signs agreement to distribute products to the US
Old Manila exhibit. Home Credit Philippines chief executive David Minol (left) shows Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Jaroslav Olša Jr. old photos of Manila from a private collection that are included in a photo exhibit dubbed Maynila, Kay Ganda (Manila, How Beautiful). According to Minol, who organized the exhibit along with the local Czech community, they aim to showcase the beauty of Manila, both past and present, to Filipinos and foreigners alike.
By Julito G. Rada
BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipi-nas Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said Monday the eight-point program unveiled by the camp of presumptive president Rodrigo Duterte will be good for the economy.
“We can only say that the initial announce-ment of the eight-point program promises a continuity of the [resilient] economic growth that we have seen. I think the program trans-lates into more growth, because it says there that macroeconomic policies will be continued and will impact on spending,” Guinigundo said.
He said Duterte’s program could also translate into more jobs as “the new admin-
istration is partial to attracting more foreign direct investment and enhancing the com-petitiveness.”
“So from monetary policy perspective, the general public can expect continued consis-tency of monetary policy with price stability, financial stability and of course balanced and sustainable economic growth,” Guinigundo said.
He said this would be supportive of the new administration’s emphasis on the need to achieve 7 percent to 8 percent economic growth for 2016 and beyond. He said it was a big challenge but “doable.”
Meanwhile, Bangko Sentral said money sent home by overseas Filipinos rose 1.5 percent in March to $2.42 billion from $2.39 billion a year ago, representing the slowest growth in six months.
Bangko Sentral said personal remittances, which included both cash remittances and non-cash items, increased 1.5 percent in March
to $2.7 billion from $2.6 billion a year earlier.Data showed that in the first quarter, cash
remittances grew 4.4 percent to $6.55 billion from $6.28 billion in the same period last year, on sustained demand for local skilled workers abroad.
Cash remittances from both land-based and sea-based workers grew 5.3 percent and 1.5 percent year-on-year, respectively.
More than three-fourths of cash remittances came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar and Ku-wait.
Personal remittances also increased 4.3 per-cent in the first quarter to $7.2 billion from $6.9 billion.
“The steady increase in personal remit-tances was driven by the continued remittance inflows from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more,” Bangko Sentral said in a statement.
By Darwin G. Amojelar
MANILA North Tollways Corp. said Monday it will spend more than P1 billion to upgrade and modernize the Subic-Clark-Tar-lac Expressway.
“After SCTEx has been turned over to us last year, we have slat-ed several modernization works all aimed at making the SCTEx at par with the NLEx [North Luzon Expressway],” MNTC president and chief executive Rodrigo Franco said.
Franco said the company would spend P1 billion for the pavement improvement of SC-TEx from 2016 to 2018.
The pavement repair includes a three-year asphalt overlay and road patching of the 94-kilome-ter expressway.
The project will also include the installation of modern traf-fic and telecommunications sys-tems worth P266 million.
Closed-circuit television cam-eras and emergency call boxes are currently being installed along the expressway to ensure the se-curity of motorists. The roadside emergency call boxes will aid dis-tressed motorists to directly and quickly connect to the SCTEx traffic control room.
CCTV cameras will enable re-al-time monitoring of the entire stretch of the expressway which, in turn, will allow MNTC teams to respond faster to motorists who may need assistance.
Variable message signs that provide motorists with useful and updated traffic informa-tion are being put up along the expressway. These signs will be located in Concepcion, Tarlac and in Porac and Floridablanca, Pampanga.
High-risk slopes along the ex-pressway are undergoing repair through slope restoration using gabions and geosynthetics rein-forcements and adding drainage lines for P22 million.
MNTC also allotted P47 million in capital expenditure for system and software, traffic devices and facility enhance-ments.
By Jenniffer B. Austria
EMPERADOR Inc., the liquor unit of tycoon Andrew Tan, signed a deal to bring its flagship brand to the United States as a part of a plan to make it a global name by 2020.
Emperador president Winston Co said during the annual stock-holders’ meeting the company signed the deal to bring Empera-dor brand to the US before the end the year.
Co said Emperador was also fi-nalizing agreements with 10 cen-
tral European countries.“By 2020, Emperador will be a
global brand alongside our other brands Fundador and Whyte and Mackay,” Co said.
Co said said the company would initially target US cities with high concentration of Fili-pinos.
Co said the company’s strategy was also to expand the markets for Whyte and Mackay, which was already very strong in Eu-rope and Fundador, which was known in Spain and the Philip-pines.
He said Emperador was also looking at Asia, particularly Chi-na as a huge market for Whyte and Mackay’s Scotch whisky brands including Jura and The Dalmore.
Dalmore posted a 12-percent volume growth in China in 2015.
Emperador’s international business accounted for 38 percent of the company’s revenues while domestic contributed 62 percent of the total last year.
Emperador, with the recent ac-quisition of Fundador, was aim-ing to further increase the share
of the international business over the next few years.
Meanwhile, Emperador re-mains bullish about the domestic liquor market as the local econ-omy continues to improve and the expect growth in the middle class.
“The ‘premiunization’ will happen in the next few years and when you look at liquor business only 2 percent in terms of volume are imported and 98 percent are domestic products. So we felt there is an opportunity to bridge the price gap,” Co said.
“Because for instance, a Fun-dador would cost more than P300 per bottle while for domes-tic brands, like Emperador which is considered a premium prod-uct, it sells at about P85 to P90 per bottle. So there is wide gap,” he said.
Emperador’s net income stood flat at P1.4 billion in the first quarter while sales rose to nearly P9 billion from P8.89 billion in the same quarter last year.
Share price of Emperador closed lower by P0.20 to P7.40 on Monday.
IN a snarky aside during his now-famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs observed that “Windows just copied the Mac,” drawing laughter from the some 5,000 fresh graduates.
This accusation, in fact, was the subject of a lawsuit that Apple filed against Microsoft in 1988, arguing that Windows had infringed on the copyrighted graphical user interface or GUI of the Macintosh.
While that complaint was still being heard, Xerox sued Apple for appropriating ideas from the Alto, its GUI-based computer that Jobs had seen during a tour of the Xerox PARC Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Xerox’s complaint was eventually dismissed, while Apple lost its four-year legal battle with Microsoft after the court ruled that the idea of a GUI could not be copyrighted, only a company’s precise expression of them.
So who copied whom? It seems like everyone was copying from someone else. For example, the Windows 7 task bar and Aero Peek were probably based on the Dock and Exposé on the Mac, while the Mac’s Finder sidebar and the Mac Path bar most likely found their inspiration from the Windows Navigation pane and the Windows Address bar.
On mobile phones, however, the copying has been more evidently one way, particularly in the way pinch-and-zoom—first demonstrated on the iPhone—and other features found their way into all Android phones, which have gone on to dominate the market (with an 80.7 percent share in the last quarter of 2015, as opposed to 17.07 percent for Apple’s iOS, according to Gartner).
Jobs made no secret of his hatred of Google’s Android.“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will
spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs told Walter Isaacson in 2010, after HTC introduced its Android phone. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
Jobs died the next year, and Apple never went thermonuclear on Google, but went after hardware manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung instead—presumably because they were easier marks.
In August 2012, Apple won a major victory in a patent infringement case against Samsung when a jury awarded it $1.05 billion in damages. But other suits—and counter suits—are still being resolved.
The company’s litigious bent has not stopped companies from imitating Apple. One recent case in point is Huawei’s P9, which the chief executive of the gadget repair website iFixit says copies the iPhone 6S “down to the last screw.”
Writing in Wired, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens observes that the P9 and the iPhone 6S share similar antenna bands, styling and finish. In fact, if you stack them one on top of the other, such similarities seem rather obvious. Huawei’s P9 even uses the same proprietary star-shaped security screw at the bottom of the phone, just like the iPhone.
But Wiens says there is a down side to this slavish copying.“[T]his screw, called a pentalobe, does more than make the
P9 look a bit more like an iPhone,” he writes. “It keeps you from opening your phone and impedes recycling it when you finally toss it. And it offers another reminder that where Apple goes, others follow, even if what’s good for Apple isn’t always good for the orchard.”
While Apple has a strong design team, Wiens says, they’ve made a number of choices that hurt consumers and recyclers—including the use of integrated batteries that owners cannot swap out. This means recyclers must painstakingly remove those batteries before sending devices to the shredder.
The best artists steal only the best ideas, he says.“Huawei copied a really stupid idea, and did so for a really
stupid reason: Because it looked right.”Wiens ends his piece in Wired with a challenge to phone makers
to go against the grain.“Here’s a radical thought for Huawei and everyone else: Stop
copying the locked-down iPhone and make something different,” he writes. “The world needs tech companies to innovate rather than chase Apple through its walled garden. It needs more repairable, recyclable products. But no one is smart enough, or brave enough, to do that.”
Column archives and blog at:http://www.chinwong.com
UnionBank supports scholars. UnionBank communications officer Liane Reyes and Center for Strategic Partnerships head Genaro Lapez attend the Young Minds Academy covenant signing headed by Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc.–Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center executive director Evelyn Nacario-Castro in Cebu City. UnionBank affirms its commitment to the YMA program which brings together future leaders and influencers aged 12 to 20 years old with the aim of developing a pool of leaders.
THE country’s top corporations, communication agencies, online publishers and schools vie for the top honors in the Philippine Quill Awards, the country’s most presti-gious and comprehensive awards in business communication.
The awarding ceremony will be held on May 17 at The Marriott Grand Ballroom in Pasay City.
The International Association of Business Communicators Philip-pines announced the final nominees for the top awards as well as the com-pany, agency and school of the year.
The nominees for the top award in the communication manage-ment are ABS-CBN Corp. (Pope Thank You sa Malasakit), British American Tobacco (Every Peso, Every Minute), Manila Water Com-pany (Lingap para sa Katutubo: Satisfying the Thirst for Clean Wa-
ter Supply in Boracay’s Ati Com-munity), Smart Communications Inc. (SWEEP Awards: Inspiring Innovations in Schools), and Uni-lever Philippines (Communities for Equality and Dignity: Domex and the One Million Clean Toilets Movement to End Unhealthy Sani-tation Habits).
Competing for top award in the communication skills division are ABS-CBN Corp. (e-Frequen-cy Relaunch), Ayala Corp. (Ayala Beats@180: Dedicated People Fuel Past, Present, Future Success), Jollibee Foods Corp. (We are Chickenjoy Na-tion), Mommy Mundo (#MomMani-festo: Journey to Mindful Mother-hood), and Shell Companies in the Philippines (Driving Innovation at Shell Eco-Marathon Asia 2015).
Aiming to be the first to bag the top award in communication re-
search are Eon The Stakeholder Relations Groups with two entries (Groundswell, social listening tool for PR practitioners; The 2014 Phil-ippine Trust Index), and the Manila Electric Company with three en-tries (Energy Efficiency as a Help; Meralco Biz Partners Thematic Campaign Pre-Ad Testing; and SPARK Communication Research).
Universities and colleges across the country are also competing in the Philippine Student Quill Awards. Nominees for the top award include two from Colegio de San Juan de Le-tran (Send a Child to School; Sukat), Holy Angel University (Paragala: The Central Luzon Media Awards), and two from University of Santo Tomas (Botomasino: A Special Coverage of the UST Student Council Elections; The Varsitarian: Papal Visit Info-graphics).
By Alena Mae S. Flores
First Gen Corp. said Monday net income attributed to equity holders of the parent increased 21 percent in the first quarter to $61 million from $50 million in the same period last year.
First Gen said in a disclosure to the stock exchange the 1,500-megawatt Santa Rita and San Lorenzo natural gas-fired plants in Batangas and affiliate Energy Development Corp. contributed to the higher earnings.
“The delivery of the 97-MW Avion and the 414-MW San Gabriel power plants are imminent. They have been commissioning since the early part of 2016 and have been able to serve the tightness in the market, especially during mid-merit to peaking hours,” First Gen president and chief operating
officer Francis Giles Puno said.“We remain committed to
provide clean, affordably-priced and lower carbon-sourced energy to the growing needs of the Filipino consumer,” Puno said.
First Gen said on a recurring basis, attributable net income in the first quarter improved to $51 million from $49 million a year ago, supported by the higher dispatch of natural gas plants and EDC’s lower costs.
“This was partially offset by the parent company’s higher interest expense as a result of the $200-million term loan it obtained in 2015 to fund the company’s
growth projects, as well as First Gen Hydro Power Corp.’s lower earnings contribution due to lower average spot market prices,” it said.
First Gen’s consolidated revenues from the sale of electricity decreased to $420 million in the first quarter from $500 million last year.
First Gas plants accounted for $229 million, or 54 percent of First Gen’s total consolidated revenues, or 26 percent lower than $308 million in the first quarter of 2015, as a result of lower fuel prices. This was partially offset by the higher combined dispatch of the gas plants at 84 percent versus 78 percent.
The earnings contribution of the natural gas-fired plants increased $4 million to $34 million in the first three months.
First Gen said aside from higher dispatch, lower operating, interest and tax expenses led to the higher income.
NBI arrests 6 suspects, seizes fake cigarettes in crackdownAGENTS of the National Bu-reau of Investigation with search warrants arrested six people and seized fake Mighty cigarettes in a series of crackdown over the weekend in Zamboanga City, Cebu and Nueva Ecija.
NBI-Western Mindanao Re-gional Office, under regional di-rector Manuel Almendras held three stall owners at the Zambo-anga Public Market for selling 3,400 fake packs of Mighty Men-thol and Full Flavor variants.
Agent Paul Andrew Soriano arrested the owners, Abdurahan Bantulan of stall D-79, Nuri-yah Julwadi of stall Q-10 and Susan Tan of stall D-01 based on a complaint filed by Mighty Corp., a Filipino-owned ciga-rette producer.
Meanwhile, NBI-Central Vi-sayas Regional Office, under re-gional director Justo Yap, ordered NBI special investigator Florante Gaoiran to hold two stall own-ers, Marvin F. Suico of Stall No.
189012 and Juvelyn M. Fernandez of stall No. 009 at the public mar-ket of Pinamungajan, Cebu, for selling five boxes of fake Mighty Full Flavor and Mighty Menthol variants.
NBI-Cabanatuan district office under Ricardo Diaz with agents Marvin De Jemil and Rolan Fer-nandez arrested Federico La-ranang of Barangay Malinao, Ga-baldon, Nueva Ecija, for selling 50 reams of fake Mighty Full Flavor soft pack.
The suspects were held for vio-lating Sections 155 (trademark infringement) and 168 (unfair competition) of Republic Act No. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code.
NBI executive director Virgilio Mendez reminded traders to deal only with authorized company representatives.
“I ask all traders that for any product you sell, you must only deal with authorized company representatives who are in prop-
er uniform with corresponding identification cards and company vehicles,” Mendez said as he cau-tioned other traders.
The NBI chief said aside from the Intellectual Property Code, those caught could also be held for violating R.A. 7394, or the Consumer Protection Act, and the National Internal Revenue Code, whose penalties range from one year to 12 years of imprison-ment and fines of up to P200,000, or both.
Record sales. Ford Philippines reports an all-time record month with retail sales in April soaring 93 percent year-over-year to 3,152 units, led by the strong demand for the Ranger pickup and all-new Everest, EcoSport and Explorer SUVs. The record April performance helped Ford to remain one of the fastest growing automotive brands in the Philippines this year. The company also provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Co.
ONE of the things that undoubt-edly attracted the 16 million Fili-pinos who voted for Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was the impression he conveyed of being an honest, simple-living, receive-no-gifts local government executive. Voters fed up with local officials who take full advantage of their positions chose to shave the ballot space next to Duterte’s name.
That image was shattered in the final weeks of the campaign when Vice Presi-dential candidate Antonio Trillanes IV made an expose to the nation about the financial dealings of the Davao City mayor, who at the time was the frontrun-ner in the opinion surveys. Duterte, Trillanes alleged, had deposits in the Julia Vargas Avenue branch of BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands) and that when they were opened in 2014 the accounts—joint accounts of Rodrigo and Sara Duterte—received funds totaling close to P221 million. The deposits, Senator Trillanes said, were not declared in the mayor’s 2014 and 2015 SALNs (State-ment of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth). What the Senator left unsaid was that the PDP-Laban standard bearer was liable for violations of the law govern-ing the filing of SALN and for perjury.
Without a doubt the political world was shaken, and the mayor and his camp were hit by a tsunami, barely two weeks before election day.
Under the circumstances, Duterte has no choice but to lie at once and to obfuscate later.
At first, the beleaguered mayor said outright that he had no deposits at BPI. Then he backtracked and said that, yes, he had deposits with BPI and that the balances of the accounts were only around P17,000 and P24,000. Subsequently, the mayor went much further. He said that in 2014 “certain rich friends” gifted him with funds totaling “a little less than P211 million” that he had frittered away—“Nag-happy happy ako”—by SALN-filing time.
In addition, the mayor denied at first that he had a dollar deposit account with BPI. But later he turned around and admitted that he had a dollar deposit as well when an enterprising person was able to deposit $10 to the mayor’s dol-lar deposit account.
What followed was the ‘war of waivers’ between Trillanes and Rodrigo Duterte’s lawyer. The Senator’s objective was to get BPI, protected by a waiver of the Deposit Secrecy Act, to reveal the histories of the Duterte accounts; the objective of the Duterte camp was to limit the BPI’s disclosure to the ending bal-ances. The significance of not revealing the histories of the deposit accounts was obvious to all, even to students of banking and finance 101. An ending balance is of little use if one does not see the transactions that produced the said balance.
Lies followed by denials followed by further lies followed by admissions: that was the situation that prevailed in the final weeks preceding Election Day, with regard to Secretary Trillanes’ allegations about the existence of undisclosed Duterte deposits.
At the center of it all, leading the charge with nostrils spewing fire was can-didate Trillanes, who obviously thought that he had in his hand the proverbial smoking gun. He characterized Duterte as a dishonest man, a liar, a fraud. He was a person unfit to be President of the Philippines.
After shocking the nation with his alleged BPI expose, Trillanes gave Filipinos a second shot. Interviewed on the day following May 9, when the vote counts showed that Rodrigo Duterte had won the election, the Senator did a 180-degree turn. He changed his tune completely. The statements that he made against the President-elect were “not personal,” Trillanes said, and he would not do anything to distract the President-elect from the things he wanted to do for the nation.
Not personal? You call a man a dishonest person, a liar and a fraud and you are being “not personal” toward him? The dictionary definition of “personal” must have undergone revision in the last two weeks.
Up until now Antonio Trillanes IV has enjoyed a high degree of credibility and trust among the people of this country. His leadership of the Magdalo up-rising in 2003 and his solid resistance to the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was rewarded by his countrymen’s support of his two suc-cessive Senate candidacies. More recently, he scored many popular points with his pursuit of the Makati City government’s shenanigans.
Now he risks losing his credibility with his apparently complete turnaround on his pre-election allegations against Rodrigo Duterte.
You have to see your allegations through, Senator. Your attempt to redefine the meaning of “personal” just will not wash with thinking Filipinos. You are risking loss of credibility—which you surely will not desire—if you now decide to go soft on the President-elect. Like virginity, credibility is lost only once
THE Bureau of Product Standards may face charges for issuing an alleged “provisional import clearance certificate” to a 5,000-metric-ton shipment of rein-forcing steel bars from China that lacks permits and proper documents.
The Philippine Iron and Steel Institute said it would also demand for a re-test of the shipment despite the conduct of a prior testing on April 25 and reports from the Bu-reau of Customs that the products were fully unloaded on April 28.
“We have been questioning this since the first time we complained about this shipment. We’ve writ-ten to the Customs, we’ve written to the Trade Department. There is no such thing as provisional ICC,” said PISI president Roberto Cola in a briefing Monday in Makati City.
PISI has asked the government and the Trade Department to seize the shipment that arrived in Zambales province due to unfair trade and questions on the prod-uct’s safety.
The organization is set to de-mand for the results of the quality test supposedly conducted by the
BPS on April 25 without any wit-nesses from Customs and the pri-vate sector as well as the one con-ducted from the country of origin.
Customs has set a hearing to today on the controversial steel bars.
“We will also ask the BPS on what grounds and by what law was they empowered to issue pro-visional ICC,” said Cola.
The shipment of 5,000 MT of steel rebar was estimated at P95 million. The taxes that should go with it cost about P11.4 million at a 12 percent value-added tax.
PISI said about 250,000 metric tons of steel products in 2014 were smuggled from China. The associa-tion has not come up with an esti-mate for 2015, pending the arrival of trade figures from China.
Chinese steel products are cheap because of the 9 percent
rebate from the Chinese govern-ment when they export, on top of the other subsidies companies en-joy for being state-owned.
China has a production surplus of about 250 million MT of steel products, or half of the global overcapacity estimate of 500 mil-lion tons.
With a production capacity of 20 percent, PISI said the Philip-pines was vulnerable to shortage.
China is the Philippines big-gest source of billets, the semi-processed steel used to produce other steel products such as hot and rolled steel, angle bars, rebar, flat and long steel bars.
The Philippines, with a per capita consumption of 80 kilos against the world average of 225 kilos, consumed about 8.8 mil-lion MT in 2015. Rebar comprise nearly half of the demand at 3.8 million MT.
The local steel industry expects demand to grow by 7 percent to 8 percent.
“There is pent-up demand in housing and infrastructure. After the property crisis in the late ‘90’s, construction has never really ex-panded until in the last five years starting 2010,” Cola said.
(TS MAY 17, 2016)
INVITATION TO BID FOR THE PROCUREMENT OF TWO (2) YEAR SERVICE CONTRACT FOR MANPOWER OUTSOURCING FOR COMPUTER MAINTENANCE
SERVICE UNDER ITB NO. PB16-044 The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is inviting all interested bidder in its forthcoming public bidding for the Procurement of Two Year Service Contract for Manpower Outsourcing for Computer Maintenance Service under ITB No. PB16-044.
Brief Description and Required Personnel:
Manpower Outsourcing for Computer Maintenance Services – Nine (9) IT Technicians for deployment to Metro Manila and Provincial Branches and Corporate Offices.
BRANCHNUMBER OF IT
TECHNICIANS TO BE DEPLOYED
ITD – Corporate 3*
Casino Filipino-Malate 1
Casino Filipino-Pavilion 1
Casino Filipino-Angeles/Mimosa/Olongapo 1
Casino Filipino-Cebu/Mactan 1
Casino Filipino-Bacolod 1
Casino Filipino-Davao 1
TOTAL 9 Note: *1 Team Leader, 2 Technicians
Approved Budget for the Contract (ABC):
Description ABC(VAT-Exclusive, Zero Rated Transaction)
[FOR ONE (1) YEAR)
ABC(VAT-Exclusive, Zero Rated Transaction)
[FOR TWO (2) YEARS)
Two (2) Year Service Contract
for Manpower Outsourcing for Computer Maintenance
Service
Three Million One Hundred Ninety-Three
Thousand Pesos (PhP3,193,000.00)
Six Million Three Hundred Eighty-Six
Thousand Pesos (PhP6,386,000.00)
Working Hours:
Shift
(incl
usiv
e of
one
(1
) hou
r bre
ak)
ITD
-Cor
pora
te
Cas
ino
Filip
ino-
Mal
ate
Cas
ino
Filip
ino-
Pavi
lion
Cas
ino
Filip
ino-
Ange
les/
Mim
osa/
Olo
ngap
o
Cas
ino
Filip
ino-
Ceb
u/M
acta
n
Cas
ino
Filip
ino-
Baco
lod
Cas
ino
Filip
ino-
Dav
ao
9am-6pm 3
10am-6pm 1 1 1 1 1 1
TOTAL 3 1 1 1 1 1 1
GRAND TOTAL 9
Information Technology Department (ITD) - Corporate Five (5) days a week; nine (9) hours a day inclusive of one (1) hour break
Casino Filipino BranchesSix (6) days a week; eight (8) hours a day inclusive of one (1) hour break
Contract Duration: Within a period of Two (2) Years commencing from the effectivity date specified in the Notice to Proceed.
Source of Fund: Internally Funded
Bidder should have completed, within the last three (3) years before the date of submission and receipt of bids, a contract similar to the Project. The description of an eligible bidder is contained in the Bidding Documents, particularly, in Section II Instructions to Bidder. Bidding will be conducted through open competitive bidding procedures using a non-discretionary “pass/fail” criterion as specified in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act (RA) 9184, otherwise known as the “Government Procurement Reform Act”.
Bidding is restricted to Filipino citizens/sole proprietorships, partnerships, or organizations with at least sixty percent (60%) interest or outstanding capital stock belonging to citizens of the Philippines, and to citizens or organizations of a country the laws or regulations of which grant similar rights or privileges to Filipino citizens, pursuant to RA 5183 and subject to Commonwealth Act 138.
All particulars relative to Pre-Bid Conference, Detailed Evaluation of Bids, Post-Qualification and Award of Contract shall be governed by the pertinent provisions of R.A. 9184 and it’s IRR.
The schedule of activities is listed, as follows:
Activities Schedule
1. Issuance of the Bidding Documents May 16, 2016 (Monday) to June 6, 2016 (Monday)
2. Pre-Bid Conference May 24, 2016 (Tuesday), 2:00 p.m.3. Deadline for the Submission and Receipt of Bids June 6, 2016 (Monday), 2:00 p.m.
4. Opening and Preliminary Examination of Bids June 6, 2016 (Monday), 2:00 p.m. onwards
Complete details of the project are indicated in the bidding documents which will be available to prospective bidder at the Bids and Awards Services Department (BASD), acting as the BAC Secretariat, upon payment of the non-refundable cost for the sale of bidding documents in the amount of Ten Thousand Pesos (PhP10,000.00).
Prospective bidder may also download the Bidding Documents free of charge from the following websites: www.pagcor.ph and www.philgeps.gov.ph and may be allowed to submit bids provided that bidder shall pay the non-refundable cost for the sale of bidding documents not later than the date of the submission of bids. The Pre-bid Conference is open to all prospective bidder. Prospective bidder should present to PAGCOR’s Cashier located at the Sixth (6th) Floor, PAGCOR Corporate Office, New World Manila Bay Hotel, 1588 M.H. del Pilar Street corner Pedro Gil Street, Malate, Manila either the Bidding Fee Slip which may be secured from BASD or a copy of this ITB in effecting payment for the Bidding Documents. All bids must be accompanied by a bid security in any of the acceptable forms and in the amount stated in ITB Clause 18.
PAGCOR assumes no responsibility whatsoever to compensate or indemnify bidder for any expenses incurred in the preparation of their bids.
In accordance with Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) Circular 06-2005 - Tie-Breaking Method, the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) 2 shall use a non-discretionary and non-discriminatory measure based on sheer luck or chance, which is “DRAW LOTS,” in the event that two or more bidder have been post-qualified and determined as the bidder having the Lowest Calculated Responsive Bid (LCRB) to determine the final bidder having the LCRB, based on the following procedures:
1. In alphabetical order, the bidder shall pick one rolled paper.2. The lucky bidder who would pick the paper with a “CONGRATULATIONS” remark shall be
declared as the final bidder having the LCRB and recommended for award of the contract.
PAGCOR reserves the right to accept or reject any Bid, and to annul the bidding process and reject all Bids at any time prior to contract award, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected bidder or bidder.
Please address all communications to the Bids and Awards Committee 2 thru BASD, Room 203, Second (2nd) Floor, PAGCOR House, 1330 Roxas Boulevard, Ermita, Manila, Tel No.: 524-3911, 521-1542 local 223 or 671.
(SGD) RODERICK R. CONSOLACIONChairpersonBids and Awards Committee (BAC) 2
A S u r e B e t f o r P r o g r e s s i n G a mi n g , E n t e r t a i n m e nt a n d N a t i on B u i l d i n g
(TS-DEC. 1, 2015)
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINESNATIONAL CAPITAL JUDICIAL REGION
REGIONAL TRIAL COURTBRANCH 209, MANDALUYONG CITY
IN THE MATTER OF THE ADOPTION OF MINOR ZYRELL FAITH CALUCIN GILTENDEZ
SPOUSES LASZLO KISS AND ANA MARIE CALUCIN KISS Petitioners.x------------------------------------------x
ORDERThis is a verified Petition for Adoption of minor ZYRELL FAITH CALUCIN GILTENDEZ praying that after
due notice, publication and hearing, judgment be rendered declaring the minor Zyrell Faith Calucin Giltendez as the legitimate child of herein petitioners, with all the rights and privileges of a legitimate child under the law and thereafter she shall be known as ZYRELL FAITH CALUCIN KISS.
Petitioner-husband is a citizen of Slovak Republic while petitioner-wife is a Filipino citizen and presently residing at No. 788 Hongxu Road, Bldg. 38 Room 201, Shanghai, 201103 P.R. China but while in the Philippines they stay at No. 161 Block 40 Barangay Addition Hills, Welfareville, Mandaluyong City. Petitioners were married on August 30, 2012 in the City Hall Marriage Registry, Hongkong. They have one child, Aladar David Calucin Kiss who was born in Shanghai, China on December 30, 2012. Petitioners desire to adopt Zyrell Faith Calucin Giltendez an illegitimate daughter of petitioner-wife with Ranilo Bulactin Giltendez whose present whereabouts are unknown. The adoptee has been under the custody of the petitioner-wife since birth and the petitioner-husband on the other hand, had taken the role of a father to the child, treating and giving her all the paternal care and support that she need since his marriage to the latter’s birth mother in 2012. Petitioners are in a position to continue supporting and caring for all the needs of the child herein sought to be adopted. Petitioners have attended the Pre-Adoption Counseling held at the Department of Social Welfare and Development National Capital Region. Petitioners are more than sixteen (16) years older that the adoptees, in full and civil capacity and legal rights, are of good moral character and have not been convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude. They are physically, emotionally and financially capable of caring for the child to be adopted and possess all the qualifications and none of the disqualifications to adopt as provided by the law.
WHEREFORE, finding the Petition to be sufficient in form and substance, notice is hereby given that the instant case shall be set for Preliminary Conference before the Branch Clerk of Court on 28 June 2016 at 1:30 o’clock in the afternoon at the Regional Trial Court, Branch 209, Hall of Justice, Maysilo Circle, Mandaluyong City, at which date, time and place mentioned, all interested persons who may be affected thereby are hereby directed to appear and show cause, if any as to why said Petition should not be granted.
Pre-trial is set on 15 August 2016 at 8:30 o’clock in the morning.
Let this Order be published in The Standard, a newspaper of general circulation chosen by raffle, once a week for three (3) consecutive weeks.
Copy furnished this Order the Office of the Solicitor General, the Civil Registrar General, Quezon City, and the Court Social Worker who is hereby ordered to conduct the necessary case study report and file with this Court her report at least three (3) days before the hearing.
07 March 2016, Mandaluyong City, Philippines. (Sgd.) MONIQUE A. QUISUMBING-IGNACIO Presiding JudgeCopy furnished:
Office of the City Prosecutor3/F Hall of Justice, Mandaluyong City
Office of the Clerk of CourtRegional Trial CourtMandaluyong City
Office of the City Civil Registrar GeneralNational Statistics Office, Quezon City
Atty. Elizabeth A. AndresCounsel for the Petitioners2nd& 3rd Floors, EAA Bldg.,No. 6, Road 3, Project 6, Quezon City
Office of the Court Social WorkerOCC-Regional Trial CourtMandaluyong City
Office of the Solicitor-General134 Amorsolo Street, Legaspi VillageMandaluyong City
SP. PROC. NO. MC16-9780
(TS-May 10,17 & 24, 2016)
NOTICE TO THE PUBLICThis is to inform the public that Paulo Renier A. Cruz is no longer connected with Cirrus Global, Inc. effective May 16, 2016. All transactions entered into by above-mentioned person for and on behalf of the Company after the said date shall no longer be honored by the Company.
Road glued for China visitHONG KONG—� e paving stones in central Hong Kong have been glued down to prevent protesters using them as missiles, as authorities roll out elaborate security measures ahead of a high-level Chinese visit that could stoke resentment over mainland rule.
The measures, which include barricades in central Hong Kong, come as Beijing tightens its grip on the semi-autonomous city where a fledgling independence movement in recent months has angered China.
Running battles with police in February, which included “local-ist” protesters in favor of more au-tonomy for Hong Kong, saw dem-onstrators dig up bricks from the street and throw them at o� cers.
Glue has been poured into the cracks between paving stones around the harbor front conven-tion center where Zhang Dejiang,
who heads China’s communist-controlled legislature, will speak at an economic conference on Wednesday.
Explaining the decision to glue the pavement, Hong Kong’s high-ways department said they might be “subject to vandalism”.
A Hong Kong man linked to the city’s pro-democracy oppo-sition was also arrested in Chi-na on Sunday over a suspected plot to use a drone to disrupt Zhang’s visit, according to Chi-nese state media.
Zhang is the most senior of-
SEOUL—South Korea, Japan and the United States will hold their � rst anti-missile drills together next month to guard against threats from nuclear-armed North Korea, a Seoul o� cial said Monday.
� e drill will be held in the waters near Hawaii on June 28, said an o� cial in Seoul’s defense ministry ahead of the US-led Rim of the Paci� c naval exercises.
“� e training will involve detecting and tracing an imaginary missile from North Korea, but will not in-clude missile interception,” the o� cial said.
� e US will launch an airplane as a mock-up mis-sile, which all three countries will monitor from ships equipped with an Aegis anti-missile system, Yonhap news agency reported.
� e coming exercise was proposed at a trilateral military meeting held a� er the North’s long-range rocket launch in February, the o� cial added.
� e rocket launch held a month a� er Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test and seen as a disguised ballis-tic missile test drew widespread condemnation and prompted the UN Security Council to slap its toughest sanctions ever on North Korea.
Existing UN resolutions forbid the North from us-ing any ballistic missile-related technology.
Pyongyang responded by launching a series of short-range missiles o� its east coast and trying al-though unsuccessfully to test-� re a powerful, new medium-range missile in April.
MIAMI—A woman in the US state of Florida was rushed to a hospital Sunday after being bitten by a shark�with the whole animal still clutching on to her right arm, local media reported.
� e small nurse shark, which was about two feet long, was killed by a beach goer soon a� er the attack, the Palm Beach Post reported.
� e victim was an unidenti� ed 23-year-old woman who was bitten while bathing at a beach in the coastal city of Boca Raton, city � re-rescue spokesman Bob Lemons told the newspaper.
Lemons said the woman was rushed to the city’s regional hospital with the shark still at-tached to her right forearm.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Ocean Rescue Captain Clint Tracy told the South Flor-ida Sun-Sentinel. “Never even heard of anything like this.”
Nurse sharks, which can grow to up to 10 feet in length, are common along Florida’s Atlantic coastline, and are normally peaceful creatures.
But one witness told the Sun-Sentinel that be-fore the attack he saw swimmers bothering the shark and holding it by the tail.
� e victim was initially calm when she ap-proached a lifeguard station at the Red Reef Park beach seeking help.
A male companion was holding the shark and there was little blood, Tracy said.
“It was barely breathing but it wasn’t letting go of her arm, like it was stuck to her or something,” witness Shlomo Jacob told the Sun-Sentinel.
As time went by and a crowd gathered, the woman became agitated and when paramedics arrived they gave her oxygen. AFP
� cial to visit Hong Kong in four years in a trip seen as an attempt to ease tensions and gauge the politi-cal temperature. He will meet with a group of pro-democracy legisla-tors during his visit.
But some activists have voiced fury over the ensuing security clampdown, with water-� lled plastic barricades and metal fenc-ing cordoning o� central roads and � yovers.
“Keeping protesters away is... ridiculous. It makes you feel like you are in North Korea,” said Sham Tsz-kit of Civil Human Rights Front, which organizes Hong Kong’s major annual July 1 political rally where residents air their grievances against the government.
“Zhang Dejiang is coming here to understand the situation in Hong Kong but now his eyesight will be completely blocked.” AFP
Screening. Chinese actress and singer Li Yuchun poses on May 14, 2016, as she arrives for the screening of the fi lm ‘The BFG’ at the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. AFP
WORLDRefugees work for one euro
From 6:30 to 8 pm, he is employed by the city of Berlin to dish out dinner to 152 other Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and Moldovan refugees in a sports hall, which had been turned into an emergency shelter for the newcomers.
Zaid is one of thousands of refugees who have taken on tasks ranging from repairing bicycles to pruning plants to cleaning sidewalks for pay of just over one euro ($1.1) an hour.
� e so-called “one-euro jobs” have been tout-ed as a springboard for the newcomers into Ger-many’s job market, but experts remain skeptical about their e� ectiveness.
At the sports gym, Zaid tries to explain to the skeptical faces crowded in front of him what went into the beef stew that he described as “so German”.
For the work that includes setting the table, cutting bread, serving food and then cleaning up, he is paid 1.05 euros an hour.
Restricted to working no more than 20 hours a week, Zaid gets a monthly income of 84 euros at best, a small extra on top of the 143 euros he receives as pocket money while he waits for the o� cial decision on his asylum application.
His monthly intake may be a tiny fraction of an average German wage, but Zaid takes on his job with a big smile.
“It allows me to have contact with the German volunteers who come here to distribute meals, and gives me a chance to speak the language,” said Zaid who � ed the city of Hilla, about 100 ki-lometers south of Baghdad, along with his father and sister six months ago.
“And I don’t have to stand around in the center not knowing what to do,” he said.
With the authorities o� en taking weeks, if not months, to process asylum applications, many refugees are bored out of their minds as they are not allowed to take on regular employment dur-ing that time.
To get around the problem, the authorities have decided to make use of the one-euro job solution.
Conceived a decade ago with the aim of nudg-ing the long-term unemployed back to work, it is now being used to help integrate a record in� ux of refugees, which topped 1.1 million last year.
� e city of Berlin currently employs 3,925 ref-ugees who are lodged in 75 centers, and wants to widen the o� er to associations that o� er public service such as charities helping the homeless or rehabilitative shelters for alcoholics. AFP
CANNES—� ere is a heart-stop-ping moment in a new documen-tary about the survivors of Chadian dictator Hissene Habre’s torture chambers, when one of the torturers kneels down in front of his victim and begs for forgiveness.
“I had to follow orders,” mumbles “Mahamat the Cameroonian” now a broken man himself living on the streets as an outcast.
“� en why did you have to beat me so badly?” his victim asks, hand-ing the former gendarme the rubber pipe he used to � ail his prisoner’s leg to a pulp.
“Your superiors told you to stop, but you went on and on,” adds the
man, who lost the leg.� e scene is typical of the muted
but un� inching encounters that � ll “Hissein Habre, A Chadian Trag-edy”, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s quietly digni� ed � lm about one of Africa’s least known mass killings, which premieres at the Cannes � lm festival Monday.
Some 40,000 people were mur-dered during Habre’s eight-year reign of terror, a Chadian com-mission concluded, while the West looked the other way, more worried about the Cold War and Moamer Kadha� in neighboring Libya.
Habre was their ally and Ameri-can and French money even paid
for the country’s political police, the feared DDS, to torture on an indus-trial scale, said Clement Abaifouta, who leads a survivors’ group in the capital N’Djamena.
� e group has spent 15 years try-ing to bring the former rebel leader who was deposed in 1990 to trial. Habre will � nally be judged later this month at a special tribunal in neighboring Senegal, where he had � ed into exile.
One of the victims featured in the film, Adimatcho Djamai, who was tortured so badly he spent more than two decades on the flat of his back in a corrugated iron shack, died the day he was due to testify at Habre’s trial. AFP
BERLIN—With a spoon and spatula in hand, Zaid, a 23-year-old Iraqi refugee, li� s the lid on a large pot � lled with goulash and potatoes as he begins his shi� .
MOSCOW—Moscow’s Aragvi restaurant, once the legendary haunt of KGB spies and cos-monauts, has reopened with its Soviet-era grandeur restored.
� e high-end eatery on the main Tverskaya street, which opened in 1938 at the height of Stalin’s purges, has relaunched under the same name a� er a $20-million (17-million-euro) restoration.
� e restaurant opened on the initiative of Stalin’s notorious security chief Lavrenty Beria for the use of o� cials from his NKVD agency, the Soviet secret service later renamed the KGB.
It grew popular with other of-� cials and later in the 1960s un-der Nikita Khrushchev, in the so-called “� aw” period when censorship and repression eased, lured a more bohemian crowd of artists and actors.
Aragvi was immortalized in Soviet literature and featured in � lms, although its sky-high prices made it accessible only to a tiny elite.
Diners had to pay a tenth of the average monthly wage for the privilege of eating alongside artists, cosmonauts, � lmmak-ers and chess champions.
“In the Soviet Union, dropping a mention of the famous Aragvi chicken which was grilled with nuts and garlic gained you en-try into the creme de la creme of society,” said one former diner, Nelli Maximova, an 83-year-old retired translator.
“And it was really delicious, their chicken.” AFP
Legendaryrestaurantreopens in Moscow
Collection. A model parades a creation from Australian label Aje during a showing of their new collection at Fashion Week Australia in Sydney. AFP
C1tuesday : may 17, 2016
LIFE
tatum aNCHetaE D I T O R
BING PaReLA S S O C I AT E E D I T O R
BeRNadet te LuNasW R I T E R
a Rts, Cu Lt uRe & t eCH
l i f e @ t h e s t a n d a r d . c o m . p h @ L I F e a t s t a n d a r d @ L I F @ L I F
PROfESSIOnAl PhOTOgRAPhy TAkES A nEW DImEnSIOn WITh
SAmSung gAlAxy S7 EDgEEvEnT PhOTOS by STAR SAbROSO
Can a smartphone replace a professional DSLR camera?
This was the ultimate question that tech giant Samsung answered
with a resounding “Yes!” When it mounted a one-night photo gallery dubbed “Dark Blue” at the Green Sun last May 13.
Samsung disproved the one-dimensional impression people have about smartphone cameras whose quality are usually judged according to high megapixel count, wherein the impression is that the higher the megapixel count, the better the quality. Such notions do not take into consideration other factors that make for a great camera, for instance, the aperture, shutter speed and fast auto-focus, just to name a few.
Unfortunately, almost all smartphone manufacturers think that seeing a real difference when comparing camera quality can be quite difficult. However, Samsung has raised the bar, coming out with a technological milestone as witnessed in the “Dark Blue” exhibit that showcased the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and featured the work of two of the country’s top fashion photographers with “it” girls Gerogina Wilson-Burnand and Solenn Heussaff as muses, confidently taking photos with just a smartphone.
The gallery was divided into two exhibits placed on opposite sides of the room. The first, called Own The Night, was a low-light, neon-themed shoot by BJ Pascual with Georgina. Taking its cue from the low-light feature it showcased, the exhibit was barely lit, making the high-fashion and colorful shots of Georgina really stand out. The second exhibit, Into The Blue, featured an ethereal underwater shoot by Mark Nicdao with the beautiful Solenn. The area was beautifully accented with a soft, blue light, creating a somewhat underwater feel.
BJ Pascual and Mark Nicdao pushed the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge to its limits by mounting the said photoshoots, one in low-light and one underwater.
Despite their excitement at the concept of mounting full shoots with just a phone, the photogs and their muses were naturally skeptical. Mark, for instance, admitted feeling both thrilled and hesitant about the project, coupled with the fact that he hasn’t done any underwater shoot. “I’ve never done a fashion shoot with just a smartphone. Combining the both was a real challenge,” he revealed.
Even Solenn, who is no stranger to underwater shoots and has been a long-time Samsung loyalist, expressed doubts.
“I’m a water baby and so I was super excited upon hearing the concept. I’ve done an underwater shoot before but with just a smartphone? I honestly thought people would just take behind the scenes (photos) with it. I did not expect the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge to be used as the main camera for campaign materials because you’d always need the specs to be really high for these things,” says Solenn.
While most professionals would balk at the idea of a mobile phone replacing DSLRs, BJ Pascual and Mark Nicdao dared to go beyond all the conventional notions prevailing in their field, breaking barriers in the process.
“There’s a lot you can do with a camera phone, given the right conditions, combined with a great eye, an understanding of the basics, and knowing how to frame an image,” asserts BJ, at the same time admitting that he was “really skeptical at first because I’ve never done a professional shoot before with just a smartphone and what added to my hesitation was that the setup had to be dark and photos can get really grainy. But I’m really happy I took on this project. It’s a source of pride for a first-time feat.”
Mark was similarly impressed, remarking on the unprecedented shift happening in
photography because of the accessibility of tools that have allowed people to find their voice. “If smartphone brands, such as Samsung, are able to help them find their passion and tap into their talent, it’s at least worth putting their claim to the test,” he said.
The results of the photo shoots using the Galaxy S7 edge dispelled the initial hesitation, turning skepticism into pure amazement and disbelief.
“I think it’s about time that we take smartphone cameras seriously,” says BJ as he and Mark pore over the quality and sharpness of the images.
“It’s a very different process since it was faster and simpler,” Georgina shares. “But more importantly, I think it gives skeptics, like some of our friends, a chance to see that Samsung knows what they’re talking about.”
“It’s not something you’d consider doing with a smartphone and so I’d consider this as revolutionary for Samsung, and I’m just proud to be part of it,” says Solenn.
For sure, the exhibit has proven that Samsung Galaxy S7 edge can deliver on its claim that it would make people rethink what a phone can do.
“Quality is important, but so is enthusiasm to explore new things. This was certainly a daring move and a new experience for us, but it just highlights how technology can really be a game changer. Capturing a great picture using a smartphone is no less rewarding than if you had taken it using a DSLR,” states Chad Sotelo, Corporate Marketing head of Samsung Electronics Philippines Corporation.
For sure, the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge can help users elevate the space for their photos from Instagram to exhibit walls.
From left: Samsung Philippines chief marketing officer Chad Sotelo, marketing manager for Flagship Smartphones Nico Gonzales, Mark Nicdao, Georgina Wilson, BJ Pascual, category head for Smartphones Ivan Pua and marketing head for IT and Mobile Nio Judalena graced the one-night photo gallery dubbed ‘Dark Blue’ at Green Sun on May 13
Own The Night is a low-light, neon-themed shoot by BJ Pascual with his model Georgina Wilson Mark Nicdao showcases ethereal underwater images featuring Solenn Heussaff in Into The Blue exhibit
Georgina poses behind her photo taken by Bj Pascual
C2 LIFE l i f e @ t h e s t a n d a r d . c o m . p h @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d
tuESday : may 17, 2016
Twenty artists, hailing from a loose group that chooses to traverse the city on bicycle, and some, on skateboard, come together in this group exhibition to map out their psychogeographies. Psychogeography refers to an approach to geography that emphasizes playfulness and “drifting” around urban environments.
It is said that cycling is an engagement with terrain that seemingly verges on psychogeographic. And it is through their favored media that Brisa Amir, Vic Balanon, Argie Bandoy, Gino Bueza, Zean Cabangos, Buboy Canafranca, Lena Cobangbang, Mike Crisostomo, Bembol Dela Cruz, Ranelle Dial, Erick Encinares, Rico Entico, Kurt Gloria, Jacob Lindo, Pow Martinez, Richard Tuason, Ferdz Valencia, The Weather Bureau, MM Yu and Vin Zafra will illustrate their different perspectives of the city in transit.
To know more about this exhibit, email [email protected] or visit www.vinylonvinylgallery.com.
Twelve art pieces made by artists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam will be exhibited in this seven-day show brought by Kohler’s arts program.
In 2012, Kohler brought its Arts/Industry program to Asia, first introducing it in China. Since then, different programs and projects to promote the arts in Asia have been organized by Kohler, and this year, it continues to put emphasis on its commitment to the arts and support of Asian artists through this exhibition.
Featured artists include Ahadiat Joedawinata from Indonesia, James Seet from Malaysia, Thomas Cheong from Singapore, Sudsiri Pui-Ock from Thailand, Nguyen Ngoc Lam from Vietnam, and Hadrian Mendoza from the Philippines. The six explore the theme “Asian Contemporary Art: Rooted in the Past; Looking into the Future” from their own cultural and personal point of view.
For more inquiries and more information on this show, visit www.blog.kohlerboldart.com/about.php.
Terratorial PissingsMain Gallery, Vinyl On Vinyl, Makati CityOngoing until June 4
Homage to the Masters and Recent WorksArtistSpace, Ayala Museum, Makati CityMay 18 to 31
PamamaalamEngineering Theater, University of the Philippines, DilimanMay 22, 6:00 p.m.
Black MariaLocal Affairs, Makati CityOngoing until May 28
ARTS AND CULTURE ROUNDUPWhat’s on in theaters and galleries this week
ExhibiTS
CONCERTS
In her first solo exhibition, visual artist Christine Torregosa Sioco mounts her recent works of mixed media and sculptures inspired by the Black Maria.
Black Maria is a slang for the police wagon used to transport prisoners. Sioco uses this metaphor to relate to the body as a vehicle that holds the soul as prisoner or transports it to different places. Through her artwork, she illustrates that our soul is infinite, unbroken, limitless and holds the universe within but is always limited and hindered by our flaws. The exhibit focuses on the human capacity to carry or contain his soul, because at the end of the day, we are all different prisoners inside our own Black Maria.
Visit Local Affairs on Facebook to know more about this ongoing exhibit.
In this collective exhibition brought by L’Arc en Ciel Atelier and ArtistSpace, four artists will pay tribute to their local and international influences by showcasing their latest series of contemporary paintings rendered in the techniques of the masters.
Alfred Galura, who’s known for his exquisite still life tableaux of porcelain, flowers and laces, will showcase landscapes featuring his home province of Pampanga and its environs. Stella Kim returns to Manila after further honing her skills in San Francisco, to present her oeuvre from her two-year stint in the Sadie Valeri Atelier. Meanwhile, Sky de Leon, who’s currently based in Florence, Italy, pays tribute to Fra Filippo Lippi with his interpretation of the Madonna. Finally, Connie Quirino paints three tributes to Vincent Van Gogh, one of her favorite impressionist masters.
Call gallery coordinator Lorraine Datuin at (02) 759-8288 or email
The award-winning UP Concert Chorus, the official choir of the University of the Philippines, is set to raise the Philippine flag once again to bring the concept of choreographed chorale, or “choreo’capella” which it pioneered in the Philippines, to the Americas.
But before the UPCC flies for its three-month tour, it will first stage a send-off concert that will showcase the tour repertoire before it graces the stages of the United States, Latin America and Canada. Leading the UPCC is its artistic director
and conductor, mezzo soprano Janet “Jai” Sabas-Aracama.
Included in the chorus’ theatrical performance are Ryan Cayabyab’s sacred work “Gloria,” and Vytautas Miskinis’ motet “Diffusa est gratia,” as well as upbeat numbers like the Donna Cruz hit “Kapag Tumibok ang Puso,” the iconic Mexican song “Besame Mucho,” and Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be.”
Visit www.upconcertchorus.net to know more about the choir – its history, its members and its past and upcoming performances.
C3LIFE l i f e @ t h e s t a n d a r d . c o m . p h @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d @ L I F E a t S t a n d a r d
tuESday : may 17, 2016
Six Filipino piano prodigies have been chosen to showcase their talent in the 3rd Philippine Steinway Youth Piano Competition on May
21 at the BDO Francisco Santiago Hall in Makati City.
The Philippine Steinway Youth Piano Competition is the country’s preliminary contest that will choose the country’s representative to the International Steinway Festival in Germany, which is a talent showcase for young pianists all over the world.
Joining this year’s Philippine Steinway Youth Piano Competition are Hansel Harel Ang, Irene Lee and Andrea Bernadette
Verzosa for Category 2 (ages 12 to 14). Participants for Category 3 (ages 15 to 17) are Jet Stephen Chong, Carlos Raphael Cornelio and Moriah Ongchoco.
After the evening’s performances, one will be selected by a panel of internationally acclaimed judges as the Philippine representative to the Steinway Regional Finals Asia Pacific. From there, the grand prize winner will further compete with the representatives of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam for a spot at the International Steinway Festival in Hamburg, Germany.
The International Steinway Festival was created in 1987 and is held every two years in Hamburg where Steinway & Sons pianos are built. The festival was envisioned as a non-competitive concert that celebrates musical excellence, the fostering of musical community, and the nurturing of young pianists in the formative stages of their careers.
True enough, for the 2014 Philippine Steinway Youth Piano Competition national winner Nathan John Torento, his experience gave him wonderful opportunities.
“The Steinway Youth Piano Competition was truly a life-changing and eye-opening experience for me; not only was I able to
join a real international competition for the first time, but I was also able to make a whole new set of friends,” shares Torento.
The 2016 Philippine Steinway Youth Piano Competition is brought to the Country by Steinway Boutique Manila, in partnership with BDO Private Bank. The evening of music will be held on May 21, 6:00 p.m., at the BDO Francisco Santiago Hall, BDO Corporate Center, South Tower, 7899 Makati Avenue, Makati City. Tickets are available at Steinway Boutique Manila, 6750 Ayala Avenue, Makati City.
When it comes to travel destinations, the Philippines is one of the most beautiful countries in Asia where one can explore exotic beaches, enjoy dive sites, marvel in its flora and fauna, delight in its gustatory offerings, and most of all, enjoy the hospitality of “the most giving people on the planet,” as mentioned by Anthony Bourdain in his TV show Parts Unknown.
Through the efforts of the Department of Tourism (DOT) and its successful “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” campaign, people all over the world are noticing the beautiful archipelago and its attractions, hopefully more than the endless parade of celebrities or political soap operas on social media.
“With the highest percentage of its population highly active on social media compared to any other country, the Philippines has been dubbed as the social media capital of the world,” says Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. “On many occasions, the DOT would leverage this strength by utilizing social media in most of our campaigns. Social media has, in fact, allowed us to be a game-changer in the tourism industry through our ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ campaign, whose central strategy is executed and propagated by millions of active, enthusiastic Filipinos themselves, who feel they have the power to persuade people to visit their country as tourists,” he adds.
The DOT’s latest effort is to bring to the country five of the biggest travel influencers on Instagram and Snapchat from Beautiful Destinations, an award-winning creative agency that has amassed a good amount of lifestyle and travel portfolio online. The group has more than 10 million followers in over 180 countries globally who are inspired by the agency’s online posts about travel, food, fashion and lifestyle.
The team is composed of its founder and CEO as well as travel social media expert Jeremy Jauncey; head of Brand Partnerships and celebrated travel drone pioneer Tom Jauncey; community manager and London’s top Instagram travel photographer and videographer Jacob Riglin; world-renowned iPhone-only photographer James Relf Dyer; and the videographer for American DJ duo, The
Chainsmokers, Sam Kolder. They are set to capture images and videos through their unique perspective and push the same online to drive interest from followers and inspire them to visit the Philippines.
The team will be traveling in Cebu, the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines and home to some of the country’s most iconic heritage spots. They will also visit the chocolate hills in Bohol, and experience close encounters with the world’s smallest primate, the Tarsier. The exotic Palawan is also part of the itinerary, as well as Pangasinan and the country’s capital, Manila. While visiting, the group will be capturing moments on all their social media accounts including Facebook as well as the DOT’s Instagram and Facebook accounts which will reach more than 10 million followers around the world. The coolest part will be the video showing outside the Philippine Center at 556 Fifth Avenue, New York, giving passersby a glimpse of the team’s daily adventures in Cebu, Bohol, Palawan, Pangasinan and Manila.
During the influencers’ visit to Manila, DOT will be hosting InstaMeet, a meet-and-greet event between the Beautiful Destinations team and local travel and lifestyle influencers from the Philippines. The venue aims to provide a creative platform for foreign and local influencers to exchange ideas on photography, travel and lifestyle,
with hopes to enhance the country’s tourism efforts. Cebuano furniture designer Vito Selma, Filipino backpackers, and photographers Jaypee Swing and Rod Ruales are slated to join the event.
“Advertising is evolving away from an art of interruption and towards an art of inclusion. We’re showcasing living, breathing, destinations stories in real time and are incredibly excited about partnering with the Philippine Department of Tourism to harness the power of Instagram and Snapchat,” says Jauncey. “Shooting what we call social-first content prioritizes unique perspectives shot by social media experts that captivate travelers in a much more genuine way than content typically shot for print and broadcast campaigns,” he adds.
“As the social media landscape continues to develop at a rapid pace, we have to adapt to changing times in order to stay ahead of the curve. Collaborating with Beautiful Destinations, which has already set the global standard for creating social content, is surely an effective way to make our country’s presence in the digital space more felt by travelers who are highly reliant on social media,” Secretary Jimenez ends.
For more information about the Department of Tourism, visit www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.com.
Pinoy pIano prodIgIES vIE For IntErnatIonaL StEInway FEStIvaL
tourism philippines teams up with world’s largest travel influencer on Instagram
Various shots of Philippine destinations by Jaypee Swing (@JaypeeSwing) and Rod Ruales (@ninjarod) that were also featured in @BeautifulDestinations
Steinway Regional Finals Asia Pacific 2014 Philippine representative Nathan John TorentoFinalists of the Philippine Steinway Youth Piano Competition 2016. (Standing, from left) Irene Lee, Jet Chong, Carlos Cornelio and Moriah Ongchoco; (seated, from left) Hansel Ang and Andrea Verzosa
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tuESday : may 17, 2016
For over 25 years, Montblanc, the German luxury maker of accessories and writing instruments, has been actively engaged in the promotion
of arts and culture globally through the recognition of modern day patrons of the arts with its prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. Coinciding with the annual award is the release of Montblanc limited edition writing instruments.
This year, Montblanc’s Patron of Art Edition 2016 pays homage to the most influential art collectors and exhibitors of 20th century art –the American art collector and socialite Peggy Guggenheim. Born from the wealthy family of the New York City Guggenheims, Peggy is the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of the founder of the eponymously named the Guggenheim Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim.
Peggy left America for Paris and became a supporter of the avant-garde art scene where she has helped the 20th century’s most successful artists including Kandinsky, Pollock and Ernst to showcase their works in Europe and America. She dedicated most of her life discovering new talents while building a collection of artworks that until today are still revered in the Venice museum that bears her name.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection art museum sits on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. Montblanc pays tribute to Peggy with a Patron of Art Edition pen that is designed with details that symbolize her life in Venice and the legacy that she left in the modern art world. Made with only 81 pieces to honor her age, the Montblanc
Patron of Art Peggy Guggenheim Limited Edition 81 is crafted from the finest materials made by highly skilled master craftsmen. The pen is available in three limited editions all inspired by her colorful life.
One of the limited edition pens carries the skeletonized structure of the barrel inspired by the dramatic entrance to her collection in Venice which is created by renowned sculptor Claire Falkenstein. The clip design carries a lion head, a symbol of Saint Mark which is the symbol of the city of Venice where she spent most of her life, while the patterns on the cap ring are reminiscent of the details on the front of Guggenheim’s Venetian palazzo-museum. The cap is designed with a champagne-gold skeleton zebra-like patterns as seen in the zebra designs at the “Palazzo Venier dei Leoni,” Peggy’s home for 30 years.
The other two designs, the Limited Edition 888 (red) and 4810 (black), have a geometric Art Deco-inspired pattern on both caps and barrels. The red stripes on the tip of each pen represent the mooring pillars for the gondolas lining the Venice canals. The pens have paws engraved on the Au750 solid gold nib to symbolize Peggy’s love for her 14 Lhasa Apso dogs. The cap carries Montblanc emblem on top in white marble, reminiscent of her palazzo’s marble façade.
Each Montblanc Peggy Guggenheim Limited Edition Pen comes in its very own Montblanc red lacquer box with a Montblanc plaque and an international two-year warranty. This collection is perfect for art lovers who have great admiration for Peggy and her contribution to the art scene, as well as collectors who have a penchant for luxury writing instruments.
Montblanc pays tribute to
Peggy Guggenheim with a limited
edition pen
Peggy Guggenheim holding a painting by her daughter Peegen Vail on the steps of the Greek pavilion where she exhibited her collection during the 24th Venice Biennale in 1948
Montblanc's patron of art Peggy Guggenheim 888 limited edition pen
thirty years ago, men (and even women) had very limited sartorial choices. If you were a guy, it was ei-ther jeans (or chino shorts) and a t-
shirt or corporate attire. There was nothing in-between, no smart casual or business ca-sual clothes that men could wear for, say, a first date or dinner and drinks with friends.
In 1986, thanks to Levi Strauss & Co., Dockers was born. The casual pants, spe-cifically in khaki, was Dockers’ first look and it became the brand’s signature—smart like chinos but were as durable and easy as jeans. Dockers pants were perfect for Casual Fridays at the office or a date at the movies.
Dockers, America’s favorite khaki, re-cently marked its 30th anniversary with a new campaign dubbed “Yes, They’re Dock-ers,” which puts the spotlight on how the brand has grown in the past three decades.
Dockers is known for the pleated khaki pants that make men look more dressed up. But Dockers also has slim fit pants and fab-rics other than khakis and a line of button ups, knits, outerwear and accessories.
“The ‘Yes, They’re Dockers’ campaign will reveal how the brand grew with its cus-tomers and connected with new ones by modernizing styles, slimming fits and in-novating fabrications,” said Kaths Laudit, Levi’s Philippines.
The new Docker’s campaign was shot by an American lifestyle, nightlife, and ac-tion photographer, Brian Kuhlmann, who came up with images that will remind of a cool friend’s Instagram feed. The images showcase the Docker’s look but somehow
goes beyond that illustrate how the brand is more than just about khakis and business casual clothes.
Dockers also released a 30th anni-versary collection executed exclusively in Dockers Khaki that has been syn-onymous with the brand. The collec-tion, which is available online, includes trousers and shirts, belts, shoes, sweat-ers, luggage and many others.
For the opening of New York Fashion Week, Dockers used the popular theme #tbt for its 30th-anniversary bash.
“Thirty years, that’s hard to believe,” said Lisa Collier, Dockers brand presi-dent. “We want to take a moment and celebrate what the brand has stood for and its path forward.”
Also present at the party were Dock-ers ambassadors New York Jets’ Eric Decker, New York Mets’ Matt Harvey and New York Giants’ Victor Cruz, model Tyson Beckford and influencer Dr. Mike Varshavski.
Men began to wear Dockers pants for fun just as much as they did for work start-ing in the 2000s. In 2001, Time Magazine named Dockers Mobile Pants one of the year’s best inventions because it helped guys discreetly carry cell phones and other mobile gadgets. Later on, Dockers also col-laborated with designers Steven Alan and Alexander Wang on limited edition and capsule collections.
For its 30th anniversary, Dockers is also introducing a brand new mantra on how men buy pants: You only need four different styles of pants to get you
DOckERs cElEbRaTEs 30 IcOnIc yEaRs
through any situation. The Jean Cut is your best-looking jeans while the slim fit The Broken has a more lived-in look. The Clean Khaki is the ultimate versatile pant
while The Best Pressed is for when you want to look your sharpest.
For more information about Dockers, please visit http://www.dockers.com.
The iconic male fashion brand celebrates three decades of fashion and style
An advertising material during the early days of Dockers
Dockers new collections, which are available online, include trousers and shirts, belts, shoes, sweaters, luggage and many others
Dockers has slim fit pants and fabrics other than khakis and a line of button ups, knits, outerwear and accessories
Dockers is introducing a brand new mantra on how men buy pants: You only need four different styles of pants to get you through any situation
Dockers has slim fit pants and fabrics other than khakis and a line of button ups, knits, outerwear and accessories
Dockers is also introducing a brand new mantra on how men buy pants: You only need four different styles of pants to get you through any situation
One of Dockers campaign materials for Father’s Day
C6 ISAH V. REDE D I T O R
i s a h r e d @ g m a i l . c o m
t uES DAy : m Ay 17, 2016
SHOWBITZ
ACROSS1 Obi-Wan’s foe6 Gauges
11 Dupe14 Slip past15 Not qualified16 Half a dangerous
fly17 Mead’s island18 Purr-fect
companions
(2 wds.) 20 Cabbie’s income 21 Eat “lite” 23 On the level 24 Gemini symbol 26 Porch furniture 28 Went along with 30 Issue from 31 Gave a broad hint 32 Hard rain? 33 Marshy area
36 Gosh darn! 37 Tied 38 Paddy crop 39 Cartoon shriek 40 Breakfast strip 41 — incognita 42 Warm jacket 43 Traffic mishap 44 Tacks on 47 I thought — never
Whitney 59 Be my —! 60 Gen. Powell 61 — Francisco 62 Returnable bottle 63 Green shadeDOWN 1 Unisex garment 2 Jai — 3 Gravel supplier (2
wds.) 4 Shoguns’ capital 5 Got set 6 Fists, slangily 7 No future — — 8 Rear, to Popeye 9 Found a perch 10 Salon employee
11 Phase 12 Buzzing about 13 Gnats and fleas 19 Yield 22 Wabash loc. 25 Half a fortnight 26 In leaf 27 More than misled 28 Joint problem 29 Tickled-pink
(2 wds.) 34 Neutral shade 35 Lowest high tide 37 Shortening 38 Be certain of 40 First-aid item 41 Man’s accessory
(2 wds.) 42 Late summer fruit 43 Letter before chi 44 Hearth debris 45 Zahn or Abdul 46 Flat expanse 47 Mouth-watering 49 Left, on a map 51 Indigo dye 52 Upscale 54 Magna — laude 55 Not square 57 Larry and Curly’s
partner
answer PreVIOUs PUZZLe
cROsswORD puzzlE TUESDAY,MAY 17, 2016
Amazon Web Services (AWS) recent-ly announced that Amazon Web Services Philippines (AWS Philip-pines) has opened an office in Ma-
nila to further support the rapidly growing customer base across the Philippines. The office is now open and operational and is supporting businesses of all sizes, from startups and small-and-medium sized businesses to large enterprises and public sector customers, as they make the transi-tion to the AWS Cloud.
“As AWS crosses the 10th year milestone of pioneering cloud computing, we contin-ue to focus on driving rapid innovation of our services and inventing on behalf of our customers,” said Shane Owenby, Amazon Web Services managing director of Asia Pacific. “We are pleased to increase the in-vestment and commitment in the Philip-pines with the AWS Philippines office in Manila and the hiring of local talent. We are excited to work with even more Phil-ippines-based startups and enterprises to help them save cost, drive innovation and extend their global reach quickly, while maintaining high levels of reliability and security.”
Organizations in the Philippines are al-ready using AWS’s pay-as-you-go suite of cloud infrastructure services to speed time to market without upfront capital invest-ment. Philippines-based customers are adopting AWS to run core enterprise ap-plications, perform data analytics, backup and disaster recovery operations, build e-commerce platforms, launch new business-es, host websites, live streaming of video, deliver social and mobile applications, and extend on-premises environments. Some of the customers include Globe Telecom, Voyager Innovations, Jollibee Foods Cor-poration, Seaoil, McDonald’s, Pinoy Trav-el, Coins.ph, Lenddo, Lifetrack Medical, GMA New Media, Xurpas, Cogito of In-noVantage, mClinica, Splitmedia Labs, In-ternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI), among many other businesses.
Globe Telecom is the leading mobile brand in the Philippines with 57 million subscribers. Since 2011, AWS has helped Globe reduce its total cost of ownership of IT infrastructure by up to 60 percent over a five-year period. The most important benefit for Globe is the business agility on AWS to experiment and test new ideas in
minutes, as compared to the 80-day buying cycle in the past. Additionally, Globe is us-ing AWS for data analytics on customer’s usage experience,which is instrumental in helping Globe to develop meaningful new features and product. “Globe Telecom has adopted Cloud-first strategy on AWS to drive innovation throughout the orga-nization,” said Ernest Cu, CEO of Globe Telecom. “With the new AWS Philippines office in Manila, we look forward to work-ing with the local team as we continue to expand our usage of AWS cloud services to speed innovation and drive even greater
shareholder value.”Voyager Innovations, Inc. (Voyager) is
the digital innovations unit of leading Philippine telecommunication provider PLDT and its wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart). Voyager Innovations develops platforms and prod-ucts enabling enterprises and consumers in emerging markets. Its current services span across next communications, digital adver-tising, e-commerce, and financial technol-ogy. “We adopted AWS from day one for its breadth and depth of innovative services and its flexibility. The ability to quickly pro-
vision AWS cloud infrastructure at a low cost, enabling us to experiment ideas and iterate fast, is a critical success factor to our internal innovation cycle. Additionally, the global footprint of AWS Regions helps ex-pand our service offerings beyond the Phil-ippines, knowing that our services on AWS can scale easily and reliably to millions of users worldwide,” said Alfred Lo, Head of Product Engineering. “We are excited that AWS Philippines now has a local office to provide even closer support as we deepen our usage of cloud services.”
Founded in 2014, Coins.ph is a Philip-pine-based fintech company that connects its customers to remittances, mobile pay-ments, and other financial services directly from their mobile phone. As a start-up, Coins.ph needed to get its service to mar-ket quickly with a highly secure, scalable low cost technology infrastructure and chose AWS from the beginning. “AWS has freed us from worrying about infrastruc-ture so that we can focus on innovating on our new ideas and continually enhancing our financial services for customers, which is critical to our business,” says Ron Hose, CEO of Coins.ph. “We look forward to an even closer engagement with the local team in the AWS Philippines office, as we expand the usage of AWS cloud services for our product development and provide an even better customer experience.”
Lifetrack Medical Systems is Philippines-based startup that provides professional radiology services as well as a cloud-based Radiology Information System, Picture Archiving and Communications System (RIS PACS) healthcare software solutions, patented in December 2015. With AWS, Lifetrack Medical Systems has avoided spending at least US$100,000 on the initial hardware costs and reduced the monthly operation cost by more than 300 percent. “Without AWS, Lifetrack Medical Systems’ business would not even exist today. Being able to access and manage our services any-time with the highest security standards, scale according to our needs, are some of the key benefits in using AWS,” said Dr. Eric Schulze, CEO of Lifetrack Medi-cal Systems. “We look forward to work-ing closely with the local staff at the AWS Philippines office to help Lifetrack Medi-cal team and the local startup community drive even more innovation.”
AmAzon WEb SERVIcES EStAblISHES offIcE In tHE PHIlIPPInES
Shane Owenby, Amazon Web Services Managing Director of Asia Pacific
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Fil-Australian Maryrose Salubre, a 40-year-old mother and native of Bunga, Leyte has earned the title of Mrs Universe South East Asia. The
Sydney-based founder of Miss Australasia Official beauty pageant was handpicked by pageant organizer Ovette Ricalde as the of-ficial representative of the whole Southeast Asian region for the Mrs. Universe Pageant to be held in Guangzhou, China from Aug. 29 to Sept. 6.
Maryrose, who runs the Salubre Mod-els International and the annual Miss/Mr/Mrs Australasia and Miss Teen Australasia, has been helping the typhoon ravaged-Yolanda victims in her hometown. In July 2015, she handed more than P30,000.00 from the Miss Australasia Official pag-eant’s Yolanda charity cash proceeds for
the rehabilitation of the Bunga National High School (BNH) and Bunga Elemen-tary School (BES) and feeding program to over 1,000 high school, elementary and kindergarten children in Baybay, Leyte. She plans to raise more funds to build the room this time for the BNH School-kindergarten education in Leyte.
“I am honored and so excited to repre-sent not only my country the Philippines but the entire South East Asia region,” said Maryrose who recalled her first pageant when she was sixteen year old winning the Miss Philippine Indepen-dent Church. Maryrose, who is a breast cancer survivor, has also supported can-cer patient recipients from cash proceeds of the Miss Australasia Official and has been helping spread a cancer awareness
campaign of the Australian government.Presently pursuing a Law degree in Aus-
tralia, Maryrose hopes to serve justice es-pecially to those who cannot pursue their case in court because of lack of money. She established the Miss Australasia Official as a multicultural beauty pageant to empower mature aged women from diverse back-grounds and encourage them to help raise funds and awareness of charities for those less fortunate.
Maryrose looks forward to the Mrs. Universe contest, to enjoy every moment of it and thought that she could handle it pretty well. The charming lady added that aside from the physical aspect, she would prepare for her platform presentation on women’s violence which is the pageant’s main concern. – Eton B. Concepcion
Puregold Price Club Inc. gathers an amazing line-up of the country’s brightest stars in the biggest and grandest installment of its Tindahan Ni Aling Puring (TNAP) national convention of sari-sari storeowners on May 18 to 22 at World Trade Center in Pasay City.
Dubbed as PINASipag, PINASswerte, PINASense: Isang Bayan Para Sa Panalong Tindahan, this is the 11th year of Puregold’s TNAP national convention. The convention aims to honor all member sof TNAP from all over the country as the convention shall recognize their hard work, perseverance, and love for the sari-sari store business, which is widely consid-
ered as the pambansang negosyo. The convention also wishes to inspire the future generation and future members of TNAP to dream and aspire to attain a good life through the sari-sari store or reselling business.
Puregold continues to support Filipino entrepreneurs for-ward by means of providing them added knowledge and in-formation which can be used in enriching their businesses. Only Puregold regularly offers sari-sari store and reseller packages and trainings to entrepinoys. It should be noted that sari-sari storeowners from Luzon, Visayas, and Min-danao are highly trusted because of their connection with Puregold and TNAP.
Members are all invited to attend the convention as they could also look forward to world-class performances from Pi-noy rock royalty Bamboo, pop star princess Sarah Geronimo, and multi-platinum pop-rock band Sponge Cola, among many other amazing performers. The event will also be graced by Eat Bulaga hosts Ruby Rodriguez, Jose Manalo, Wally Bayola, and box-office superstar Bossing Vic Sotto as well as other big celebrities such as Piolo Pascual, Julia Montes, Megan Young, Carla Abellana, Janella Salvador, Janine Gutierrez, Luis Manzano, Kim Chiu, Ryan Agoncillo, Daniel Matsunaga, Er-ich Gonzales, Ogie Alcasid, Kathryn Bernardo, Julia Barreto, Michael V., Zanjoe Marudo, Iza Calzado, Dimples Romana, Yassi Pressman, 4th Impact, and many others.
TNAP members may simply present their updated and new membership card for them to participate in the convention free of charge. And to make this gathering more exciting, members can learn valuable tips and methods from the free seminars to be con-ducted by business masters such as Francis Kong, Chinkee Tan, RJ Ledesma, Michaelangelo Lobrin, Dennis Sy, and Marvin Germo. Members can also participate in the event’s hourly games and win exciting raffle items such as Puregold gift certificates, gad-gets, appliances, and brand new vehicles.
For more information visit and like Puregold’s official page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/puregold.shopping, follow @Puregold_PH on Twitter, and @puregold_ph on Facebook.
Big stars in Puregold’s 2016 convention
FIl-AuStRAlIAn motHERto comPEtE At mRS. unIVERSE 2016
Fil-Aussie maryrose Salubre will compete in china for the annual mrs. universe pageant
While joining the parade of sagalas in a Flores de Mayo event last week, her five-inch-high heels was broken. This prompted Miss Earth-Air 2012 Stephany Stefanowitz to en-dure tiptoeing through the whole parade en route the streets of SM Mall of Asia so that she could balance with the weight of her very long gown designed by Vince Sityar.
Keeping professionalism alive, the beauty queen kept her poise continuously waving and smiling to the crowd and pretended nothing had happened. Not even the pain on her legs and feet affected her queenly performance.
Stephany’s patience paid off as she won the Gandang Filipina award. The award, also called Ms. Cream Silk, is given annu-ally to the sagala or muse who has the most beautiful long and silky hair.
“I admit I thought of backing out. I know you would agree with me when I say that it’s not easy tiptoeing all the way through the finish. My feet trembled already and my legs got numb because it was painful. But, you know, winners never quit. It’s like saving my best for last because I received an award,” said the New Placenta endorser, who was escorted by fellow endorser Mr. Puerto Rico International 2015 Fernando Alvarez.
The Flores de Mayo event started in 1979 in Manila Hotel, and for the last five years, it has been held at SM Mall of Asia. The event, which gathers designers and models, aims to propagate the devotion to Mama Mary and the Holy Child. – Rich M. Salibay
Broken heels make Stefanowitz
a winner
new Placenta endorser Stephany Stefanowitz (center) with escort Fernando Alvarez (right) of Puerto Rico
Alonzo muhlach shares mcDonald’s Kiddie crew fun to charity
Close to 50 children from Carmelite Missionaries Secular (CMS) Philippines had a fun-filled workshop as McDonald’s Kid-die Crew participants.
McDonald’s newest Kiddie Crew ambassador Alonzo Muhlachpersonally chose CMS beneficiaries to join him as they experi-enced how to be a real McDonald’s crew doing tasks at the front counter, lobby, and Drive-Thru; make their own cheeseburger; and groove to the Ronald Dance. Alonzo also joined in the games, gave away prizes and loot bags to the kids, and performed a song-and-dance number to entertain guests.
Alonzo and CMS beneficiaries are just among thousands of chil-dren who have learned and have had fun through Kiddie Crew, Mc-Donald’s flagship family program that has been running since 1992. It has been promoting children’s well being through fun and enriching activities that help them develop skills and make new friends.
You can still enroll your kids to McDonald’s Kiddie Crew until May 27. For more information, visit mcdonalds.com.ph. Share proud
Kiddie Crew moments by posting them on Facebook, facebook.com/McDo.ph or tagging @McDo_PH on Twitter or Instagram.
child star Alonzo muhlach with other kid participants in a fun-filled mcDonald’s Kiddie crew workshop
“Eat Bulaga” hosts Ruby Rodriguez and Jose manalo
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Fresh from the success of their first ever soap You’re My Home, rising tan-dem Jessy Mendiola and JC de Vera are giving more “kilig” vibes this time
in Wansapanataym Presents: Just Got Laki.JC and Jessy happily welcomed the
opportunity to work on something the young ones and the young-at-heart through the award-winning fantasy-drama anthology show.
“Siyempre different ‘yung pagiging light, siyempre may romantic side siya. Siyem-pre may ligawan and mga things na very different from You’re My Home kasi nga ‘yun heavy drama ito very light lang. May konting kilig and light romance,” JC said.
“It’s something different from what we usually do and siyempre given our personal life,” said Jessy.
JC points out that their newest project is a welcome deviation from their already es-tablished and accepted roles.
“Mas wider lang ‘yung range na makikita. Siyempre hindi lang sa isang angle na heavy drama and comedy like sa Banana Sundae. Very far from sexy very far from the different genres that we are used to,” he said.
JC takes the role of Macky, a young boy
who transformed into an adult overnight after munching on a magic candy. Jessy, meanwhile, will be taking on the role of Sophia, the gracious daughter of the candy store owner where Macky’s mother played by Angel Aquino happens to work.
The show’s romance angle will center on Macky’s longstanding admiration of So-phia, which transcended even though he transformed into an adult.
Instead of getting “too mechanical” with their acting, Jessy shared that their ap-proach was “not to prepare for” the show in order to make their performances and approach as natural as possible.
Meanwhile, still overwhelmed by the amount of support that they are getting from their followers, Jessy and JC are hoping for the best for their Wansapana-taym episode.
“Habang ginagawa namin ito parang si-nasabi namin ‘Sana ‘yung next natin light lang, light lang,” said Jessy.
The first of six episodes earned 26.8 rat-ings last Sunday. Watch more “kilig” epi-sodes of JC and Jessy in Wansapanataym Presents: Just Got Laki on Sundays directed by Jojo Saguin and Allan Chanliongco.
‘Barbarians Rising’ premieres June 7
History revealed the cast and contribu-tors for the global eight-part docu-drama Barbarians Rising. The cast portrays the legendary warriors as they’re engaged in one of mankind’s most timeless struggles – the fight for freedom.
The docu-drama features the true sto-ries of nine of history’s greatest warriors. The cast includes Nicholas Pinnock (Cap-tain America: The First Avenger; Fortitude) as Hannibal, who vowed a blood oath at the age of nine to destroy Rome; Ben Batt (The Edge of Love; Shameless (UK)) as Spartacus, the slave-turned-rebel who led a barbarian revolt; Kirsty Mitchell(The Royal Today; River City) as Boudica, the avenging Celtic warrior Queen; Tom Hopper (Black Sails; Merlin) as Arminius; Emil Hostina (Harry Potter and the Death-ly Hallows Parts I and II) as Attila, scourge of the east; Gavin Drea (What Richard Did; Love/Hate) as Alaric, the king of the Goths; Steven Waddington (The Imitation Game) as Fritigern, the warrior who took down an Emperor; Richard Brake (Bat-man Begins;Game of Thrones) as Geiseric, the last barbarian standing; and Jefferson Hall (Vikings; Game of Thrones) as Viria-thus, the shepherd-turned-rebel leader.
Barbarians Rising tells the story of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from the perspective of the barbarian rebel leaders. It is a visceral journey into the heart of a wave of rebellions against absolute power. The Roman Empire called them “barbar-ians” – tribes the Romans viewed beyond the fringe of civilization that lived a brutish and violent existence. However, these were also men and women who launched epic struggles that shaped the world to come.
The eight-part docu-drama reveals the true story of the 700-year battle to bring
down one of strongest empires the world has ever known.
Barbarians Rising is a global co-pro-duction for History in the US and inter-nationally. This limited event series is slated to premiere on June 7 and airs 9 p.m. Tuesdays.
History™ is available on SKYCable Ch 67; Cable Link Ch. 43; Dream Satellite Ch 30; Destiny Cable Ch 57; and Cignal Ch 125.
MORE kIlIg fROMJEssy MEnDIOla anD JC DE VERa
television’s newest pair Jessy mendiola and JC de Vera
Rising tandem Jessy mendiola and JC de Vera share the screen again in “Wansapanataym Presents: Just Got Laki”
